There was a slight mess-up in the last chapter. When the pirate captain appeared briefly, his name was supposed to be "?", just like an unknown character in the game. But the first time ? was typed in, it got deleted somehow, and the second time I guess I didn't hit the space button. Anyway, from now on, when you meet a character you don't know, their name will be ?

And Leppers, thank you for reviewing. You might be happy to know you gave me the motivation to try posting this entire thing.

And I forgot to mention this in the last chapter. The legal stuff. I don't know own Tales of Symphonia or any of the characters, names or anything else associated with it.

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Lloyd and Colette looked up at the menacing sky as dark clouds started to swirl in. In a matter of minutes, the blue sky was completely darkened and the sunlight no longer glittered on the water.

Colette was obviously very nervous about being lost in the middle of the ocean with a storm coming. She was quivering and letting out a few scared moans. Lloyd was scared about it as well, but he tried harder to hide it. And as far as fooling Colette went, he did a good job at it.

Suddenly, the boat started rocking harder than normal. Lloyd looked over the side and saw that the force of the waves had drastically increased, and it was causing him to slowly lose control of the boat.

Out of nowhere, a giant wave came up from behind the two and smashed into their boat, sending it spinning across the water. Trying to keep his cool, Lloyd threw his arms around Colette and embraced her, protecting her.

Suddenly, the wind became more and more violent and a forceful downpour started descending from the dark clouds. The rain soaked Lloyd and Colette and made them both very cold, but there was little they could do about it other than just cling onto each other hope for the best.

Lloyd and Colette had their eyes squeezed shut as they held on to each other. The violent storm had come out of nowhere, and the heavy and thick rain made it impossible to drive the boat. The waves were actually steering the boat for the two, but not necessarily in the direction they intended to go in. (the heavy wind also caused the boat to steer itself as well)

While Lloyd was still embracing Colette, he looked up and opened his eyes. He battled the thick rain as he tried to see what was in front of him. In the distance he saw what looked like a black mass in the almost-purple, raging sea. With no control of the boat, the wind and waves started forcing their small vessel towards that black mass in the middle of the sea.

Lloyd couldn't tell what the black mass was; all he knew was that the boat was coming right towards it and they were about to smash into it.

The time finally came when their boat did indeed smash into the black shadow in the water. A loud sound of their wooden boat smashing and crumpling to pieces was heard, and then everything went black. Lloyd remembered nothing more after that.

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The sun was out and there was a great feeling of peace all around. Lloyd slowly opened his eyes as he tried his best to adjust to the bright light of the sun. He coughed a little bit and spat up salty water into a small pile in front of him.

After making a few grunting sounds, he slowly sat up and tried to take in everything that just happened. His clothes were soaked and were covered in sand, and his hair was pretty wet, too.

Lloyd gasped when he turned to the side. Lying in the sand a few yards away from him was Colette, unconscious.

"Colette!" Lloyd shrieked. "Oh no. Colette!"

Lloyd jumped up and started running towards her. When he was standing right next to her, he bent down and turned her head so her face was looking at him. Her eyes were closed and she looked pretty pale.

Lloyd started lightly smacking the side of Colette's face, trying to wake her up. He screamed Colette's name numerous times as tapped her, as well as saying small phrases like, "come on, wake up!"

It finally worked when Colette's eyes opened. She looked a bit sad when she was awake, yet she looked very happy to see Lloyd.

"Colette, you're okay!" Lloyd said happily.

"Thank you, Lloyd…" Colette managed to squeak out. She slowly sat up after coughing a few more times.

Colette and Lloyd started looking around. There was nothing in front of them other than sparkling white sand and a crystal clear blue ocean. Behind them were a few trees that looked flourishing with some food growing on them.

"Where are we?" Colette asked.

"I don't know," Lloyd confessed. "But it looks like we're on an island."

"An island?"

"Yeah."

And indeed they were. Apparently, the giant black mass that Lloyd saw in the dark water during the storm was the island, and smashing into it got them shipwrecked there. The island they were on seemed to be a bit smaller than average one, but it certainly seemed inhabitable. There was food on it, and if there was food, there was probably water, too.

"Dammit!" Lloyd hissed under his breath.

"What is it, Lloyd?" Colette innocently asked.

"Look at our boat," Lloyd moaned. He pointed a few feet away from them. There, on the shoreline, were the remains of their boat. It had crumpled into a pile of chipped and snapped wood and was way beyond repair. It didn't look like there was a single piece of wood that made up the boat that didn't snap.

"So…are we stuck?" Colette asked with fear trembling in her voice.

"It looks like it," Lloyd said. But doing his best to make sure Colette didn't panic or get scared, he tried his best to stay optimistic and calm her. "But don't worry, we'll get off soon. I promise."

"Really?" Colette asked.

"Really," Lloyd said, breaking a small smile.

Lloyd put out his arm and helped pull Colette up off the ground. She grunted a little before being back on her two feet.

"So, what do we do now?" Colette asked.

"Well, I say we start trying to find a way to get off this place," Lloyd suggested.

Lloyd started pacing around, and for the first time in a long time, he started thinking about what it was that they would have to do to get themselves rescued. Somehow, something clicked in Lloyd's brain that caused him to light up.

"I've got it!" Lloyd yelled excited. "Why don't we just sprout our wings and fly away?"

"Wow, that's a great idea! You're so smart, Lloyd."

Lloyd gave a cocky smile and looked out at the ocean. He forced his wings to sprout, and then he made a great leap into the air and expected to soar away. Instead, he just fell forward and landed flat on the ground.

"What the?..." Lloyd asked as he got up.

"Lloyd, you forgot to sprout your wings!" Colette reported.

"I didn't 'forget' to sprout them," Lloyd insisted, walking over to Colette. "They wouldn't come out. Colette, why don't you try sprouting yours?"

"What? Oh…okay."

Colette closed her eyes and focused all her angelic powers on her wings. But nothing happened for her either.

"What's going on?" Lloyd demanded with an obvious amount of anger and frustrating rising. "Why can't we fly?"

This was indeed a big concern for the two. For some reason, their angel wings wouldn't sprout. Lloyd was sure his worked before. After all, he used them to fight off the pirates before they got shipwrecked. And it wouldn't make sense for Colette not to have hers.

"Maybe we should try again later," Lloyd said. "We've got bigger things to worry about right now. We need to find some food and water, and we should probably build some shelter, too."

"Okay," Colette said, trying to pleasantly go along with whatever Lloyd said.

"Well, I'm hungry," Lloyd said, rubbing his hands in circles over his stomach. "Why don't we look for something to eat?"

Once again, Colette just went along with whatever Lloyd said without having any type of disagreement or concern. The two of them started walking off the beach, away from their wrecked boat, and into a patch of jungle a short walk from the shoreline.

As they walked in, their footsteps soon got mixed with the sound of leaves rustling and any small creatures that were scampering away, terrified of the two new intruders.

After searching in the jungle for a few minutes, Colette blurted out, "What's that?"

"Hm?" Lloyd asked, turning to Colette to see what exactly she was talking about. Her eyes were wide and looked confused, yet entranced at something. "What are you looking at, Colette?"

"That!" Colette excitedly exclaimed.

Lloyd turned his head to where Colette was pointing, and he saw it, too. When he saw it, he was just as amazed and confused as Colette was.

"What is that?" he whispered to himself as he stared in awe. Slowly, the two teenagers started approaching the object of interest.

It appeared to be a giant pole that was made of polished dark wood. On it were several runes and engravings that looked like some ancient elven language, and on it seemed to be a symbol of a flame.

"What do you think it's for?" Colette asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it's a pole for some religion followed by the people who once lived here," Lloyd suggested.

After staring at the mysterious pole for a few seconds, Lloyd and Colette started walking away. They continued their search for more food until they thought they heard something rustling in the bushes. Both of them instantly stopped and started holding their breath, looking around for whatever was causing the rustling that they were hearing.

"Must be a bird…" Lloyd reasoned when they were walking through the thick plants.

Suddenly, out of the wild blue, a monster popped out from one of the plants. It stood on two legs and had piercing red eyes. Its dark brown fur made it look intimidating, as did the sharp claws on its hands and feet.

"What's that!" Colette shrieked, terrified.

"I don't know," Lloyd admitted, "but it doesn't look too friendly."

Lloyd pulled out both of his material blades and started taking a few swings at the monster. But the fun ended when the monster grabbed one of Lloyd's swords and lifted it up with Lloyd still holding onto it. The monster threw the sword as hard as it could, slamming Lloyd into the ground.

"Lloyd!" Colette yelled, worried that Lloyd was hurt.

The swordsman gradually got up, but he was shaking very violently and was in obvious pain. But now his determination grew even more to take the monster down. "I'm okay, Colette."

The monster took a quick swing at Lloyd with its barred claws, but Lloyd dodged it just in time by rolling onto the ground. When he got up, he saw the monster about to swing at him again. This time, Lloyd jumped upwards and grabbed onto a tree branch. With one hand clinging onto the branch and the other holding the sword, Lloyd started taking swipes at the monster.

The monster backed away when it saw it couldn't get close to Lloyd without getting a slash across the face by one of his blades. As it tried backing up, Colette threw one of her Chakrams and hit it in the chest.

The monster roared in pain as the Chakram went boomeranging back into Colette's hand. Lloyd jumped down from the branch and took a savage swing at the monster's arm. It tore the monster's arm open and blood started pouring from it.

Now screaming in rage and pain and in fear that it was overpowered, the monster retreated and ran deep into the woods at a very solid speed.

Now, Lloyd and Colette were just staring off as the monster ran into the jungle. They listened carefully as its loud footsteps quieted down as they got further away.

"What was that?" Lloyd asked himself quietly.