Okay, I think I'm going to work on this story today so I can get a little farther on it before going back to the Storm and Zelos one. Anyway, I hope that everyone is enjoying this so far. I also just put up a one-shot just now. It's called "The Rage Inside" so check it out. It is super angsty though. Okay, back to the story. Enjoy!


Chapter 3: The Plans

Storm and Yuan took a few of their soldiers the next morning as they made their way to the abandoned Palmacosta Human Ranch. It was a still left demolished just as Lloyd and the others had left it a few years ago. It didn't seem like anyone had been there, but they searched around to see if they could find anything that looked suspicious.

Storm walked through the rubble as she sifted through what was left behind from the explosion that had originally brought the whole place down. Suddenly, she heard someone's feet moving to her right. She looked over and saw that neither Yuan nor any of the other soldiers were searching in that area. She walked around slowly to where she heard the noises. She stopped short of where it was coming from and pretended to search the ground once again, all the while listening for more clues on the sound's origins.

She heard more scuffling of feet closer to her. She saw a large heap of junk not too far from her, and she knew someone was trying to hide from them. Someone didn't want to be found and was trying to sneak away. Just when she heard the movement stop, she jumped behind the pile, pulling out her sword as she came down.

When she landed she saw a young man whose eyes were wide with fear. He was apparently terrified and shocked that she had found him. He tried to scramble away, but when she saw that he had something in his grasp she caught him and placed her sword at his throat to keep in still. She noticed that his ear were pointed and she got the feeling that he was working as a Desian.

"Are you all right over there?" Yuan yelled at Storm who had disappeared from his sight. She had made a little bit of noise, but not an extreme amount.

"I'm fine, but I think I found someone who wants to talk to us," Storm said as she made the man walk with her back up to where Yuan and the soldiers could see her. When she was within sight Yuan was apparently very impressed with her catch as he walked up with a blown away look on his face.

"Nice job Storm," he said as he smiled at Storm who gave a grin back to him. Yuan thn turned his attention to the man. "Are you working for Magnius and the Desians by chance? I don't know why else you'd be hanging around a place like this," he asked him before pointing out the obvious, almost challenging him to try and lie his way out of the situation.

"I'm not working for anyone but myself. I came here because I needed some cash and I thought the old man on the mountains would want something that I could find in here," he told them angrily.

Storm glanced more carefully at what he was holding and then looked around on the ground for a little bit. "I have a hard time believing that story," she told him. He looked up at her nervously before giving her a glare. "I mean, you rummage through all this and pass up all these precious metals and all this technology. This could all really bring in a lot of money if more people were brave enough to come and look through this place. I guess it's a good thing that everyone's too scared to even go near here or all of this would be gone already," she pointed out. "It seems strange to me that you would go for some of these papers that are relatively old and torn," she said as she motioned for a soldier to pull them away from the man.

The soldier did as she motioned for him to do and showed the papers to her. Storm looked over them briefly before realizing what he had. "Instead of all that stuff, you decide to make off with papers that have the plans on the Angelus Project," she said. The man looked absolutely stunned that she knew what he had. He didn't know how she came to know what the Angelus Project was, but he did know that she had just figured him out.

"So, are you planning on telling us where he is, or do you want us to end it all here for you?" Yuan asked him as he waited for the man's answer.

The man tried to struggle out of Storm's grip, but she held onto him tightly, pulling her sword closer to his throat and keeping him from breathing. "Breathing is an option for you at this point, and so is living," she warned him before the man slowly nodded his head in submission. Storm let up a bit and the man coughed a bit as he caught his breath.

"Fine...yes, I was working for Magnius. He's trying to revive Cruxis and he's hiding out at Kvar's old base," he told them. Storm looked as if she believed the story as she looked to Yuan who seemed to agree with her on it.

"Why does he want the plans for the Angelus Project?" Yuan interrogated him.

"He wants to create a powerful Cruxis crystal for himself so he can defeat the ones who defeated Lord Yggdrasil and Pronyma," he told them. Yuan looked down at the plans, understanding the importance in the plans. They had brought so much pain to so many people. There was Presea, Kratos, Lloyd, Anna, and Storm. Everyone had been so affected by the plans. The one thing he couldn't understand was why the plans were not at Kvar's ranch where Anna was, and why they were at Magnius' ranch instead.

"I guess that's good enough for me now. Don't think that you're safe from us. I feel relatively kind today and I'll let you go, but if you cross my path again you won't be so lucky," she warned him as the man ran off empty-handed.

"I wonder why Magnius didn't get the plans at Kvar's ranch since he's there?" Yuan asked Storm.

"My guess is that when we destroyed the ranch the plans were ruined completely. I Kvar and Magnius must have been relatively good friends if they shared the plans. I guess he thought that the plans from his base could still be intact," Storm pointed out. Yuan stood there looking at her, amazed with how well she had things thought out. Where on Symphonia did Lloyd get his brains, or rather lack of them?

"What should we do with the plans?" he asked her. Storm obviously had a lot of pain built up inside that revolved around the Angelus Project as she turned away from the rest of the group.

"Destroy them," she said simply and softly before walking back in the direction of the camp. Yuan watched her leave, wishing that she would talk more about how she was feeling. He wanted to help her with it, but he couldn't if she wouldn't talk to him. He had to find a way for her to learn to trust him.

Once they got back to where their group was waiting, they decided to get them all moving so they could get to the Asgard ranch before Magnius was able to abandon it and disappear again. The plan was to hide out in Luin for at least a day while the field troops stayed out and watched to see how many people the cardinal had with him. There they would be able to come up with a plan to stop him. As the group walked along towards the city Storm and Yuan began to have another conversation to pass the time.

"Thank you for getting rid of those plans," Storm told Yuan as she smiled softly at him.

"I know about the pain that it caused you and your family," Yuan said.

"Yeah, it's something that I wish would have been stopped before Mom...," Storm trailed off. She didn't really remember her mother too much, but thinking about her made her begin to well up.

Yuan looked down at her sadly. He remembered how Kratos had reacted when Anna had been killed. It was a rough time, and poor Storm didn't even understand what was going on. Yuan had watched her a lot during that time. Kratos was always too upset to be around her. Every time her father would look at her he would get very angry and depressed, she reminded him of his loss. Storm never understood what was going on, but she always cried thinking her father was mad at her. Yuan always tried his best to comfort the toddler, but she only wanted her mother or father, neither of which he was able to provide for her.

"Storm...," Yuan whispered softly as he looked at the emotional teen. She looked up at him, a bit surprised by the tenderness to his voice.

"Hmm?" she questioned as she looked up at him in confusion.

"I can't help but feel horrible for all the pain you've been through in your life. I can't help, but hope that things start going much better for you and that your future is brighter," he told her.

Storm smiled as she looked at him. "Thank you Yuan," she said. She wondered just how much about her painful past he knew about, there was no way that it could be as much as she had revealed to Zelos. Maybe one day she would be brave enough to tell Yuan and her father about everything they had missed while they were in Cruxis. For now though, she would trust that he knew plenty to know that her life wasn't all that great. She didn't want him to feel too bad for her, that's all she needed was more sympathy.


Well, that's it for this chapter. There will be Magnius and a fight scene in either the next chapter or the one after it. I don't know. There will be some tension in Luin for sure. Wait until everyone finds out what over and Storm's reaction to it. Anyway, tell me what you think and please, please review. Thanks for reading.