Hi everyone. Sorry it's been taking longer than usual to update, but I've been busy. For the past few nights I've had a lot of houseguests over and I've been working a lot. I've also been obsessively trying to beat Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (which I did last night!), so this is my first real opportunity to sit down with no one around for a while. Hopefully I'll get the updates in faster now.

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Lloyd was about to lead everyone down the freezing mountain path to where he thought they would find someone who would be able to help them knock the rock down in front of Stromm's hideout.

But just as they were leaving, Yuan pulled something out of his cloak and placed it on the snow that was almost cold enough to give someone frost bite just by touching it.

"What was that?" Lloyd asked when he saw Yuan put the object down.

"That was my teleporter," Yuan answered. "Now that we've located Stromm's base, we can transport to it at any time so we can make a quick strike, but only if a teleporter is present."

Basically, if the group were to use Kratos's teleporter, it could take them to Derris-Kharlan or where the other teleporter was, which was where Yuan was leaving his.

After that, the group began their treacherous voyage back down to the bottom of the mountain. Lloyd seemed surprisingly confident with where he was leading everybody. Just about everyone in the group was wondering how Lloyd could think of someone with the strength to destroy that rock but be willing to do it at the same time.

The walk down was almost harder than the walk upwards, in some respects. It was more slippery on the way down, and it was harder to keep a solid footing on the ground when walking. It was almost easier to slip walking down than it was when walking up.

The group finally made it to the bottom of the mountain, and they were all exhausted. But because of what they were doing, they didn't have any time to stop and rest. They had to keep following Lloyd, hoping that he knew what he was doing and where he was leading them.

After a long while, everyone was tired and about to give up.

"Lloyd!" Genis whined, "we've been walking for hours! Are we almost there?"

"Yeah," Lloyd said. "Just look in front of you."

Genis lifted his tired eyes up and tried to focus on what he saw in front of him. He saw what looked like a giant building overlooking a cliff with water at the bottom. Behind the building were amusement park rides and a long beach.

"Why'd you bring us here?" Yuan asked. His voice was still the same noise level, but it was full of irritation and anger. It was obvious just listening to it that he thought Lloyd made a bad decision and led them all on that long walk for nothing.

"You guys really don't know?" Lloyd asked. "Don't you recognize that place?"

"Of course!" Colette cheerfully said. "It's Altamira. But, who's in there that could help us destroy that rock…OH! I KNOW NOW!" Colette excitedly started clapping her hands together as if all the exhaustion from the walk was gone.

"Would someone mind explaining what's going on?" Yuan asked. But before he could finish his sentence, he saw that everyone had walked into Altamira without him. He grumbled angrily seeing everybody leave him out there. He quickly walked after them.

The beach resort looked just as lively as it did when they last left it. People were lying on the beach and relaxing, enjoying the sun or swimming in the ocean. The weather seemed a lot better inside Altamira for some reason than before they walked in. There wasn't a single person in the entire place who wasn't smiling or looking like they were having a good time.

But Lloyd and his companions ignored everything going on around them and instead walked over to the monorail driver who took people to the amusement park.

"Can I take you guys somewhere?" he asked politely when he met the group.

"Yeah. We'd like to go to the Lazareno Building," Lloyd said.

"Very well, then. Hop in."

Everyone hopped onto the small tram. The driver bolted the machine into action as it loudly made its way to the large building that was the office of the company.

"Here we are," the driver cheerfully said.

The group thanked him for the ride and then hopped off. They opened the gates and crammed themselves in, and then hit the button to go to the top floor. The elevator slowly started crawling up the building until it reached the top floor. They were soon standing on the top of the building in a place that looked like a small, peaceful cemetrary.

In the center was a tombstone with a large, bulky man standing in front of it. Even though they only saw his back, you could tell that he was full of sorrow. His long blue hair was blowing in the soft breezes that brushed the building.

"Regal!" Lloyd yelled excitedly as he waved his hand in the air, even though the man couldn't see it.

The giant man turned around and saw the group. His eyes opened wide with surprise and disbelief. Even though his face still looked as grouchy and as unemotional as it did before, it was easy to see emotions were sweltering inside of him.

"Lloyd?" he asked in his deep voice.

"Regal. Long time, no see."

Regal still kept his distance from the group. He wanted to walk over to them and catch up, but it was like some unknown force was preventing him from doing so.

There was a very awkward silence for a while before Lloyd finally spoke up. "Regal, we need your help."

"My help?"

"Yeah. You see, there's this guy named Stromm who we think wants to blow up a planet called Tiberia, but we think we know where his base is. The thing is…his base is covered by a rock that none of us can smash, and we thought you would be able to do it."

"So you wish for me to help you break into someone's base in order to save a world?"

"Yeah, that's about right."

"Hmph," Regal smirked, looking down at the ground. "You sure seem very desperate. Very well. I will assist you if it will mean saving the lives on innocent people."

"Thanks," Lloyd said, a small smile spreading on his face. "I knew I could count on you."

"Where is this base hidden?" Regal asked.

"It's up in the mountains of Flanoir," Raine answered. "But we have a means of teleporting ourselves there without subjecting ourselves to the dangers of climbing it again."

"Very well," Regal said. "I shall do my best to aid you."

Just as everyone was about to leave and teleport to the top of the mountains, a loud scream was heard coming from the beach. Everyone looked over the side of the railing and they saw everyone fleeing the beach and screaming in horror, and it was soon clear why.

Coming in and washing on the shore of the beach were giant wooden ships. Bulky and hairy-looking people started jumping off of the boats and started attacking anyone who was in their way.

Colette gasped when she saw the acts of violence and hostility, but she gasped even louder when she saw one of them. He was a man who looked like he tannish-yellow skin with dark, messy hair. His sleeves and the bottom half of his pants were ripped off.

"Lloyd!" Colette yelled. "Is that…is that…"

"Yeah. The pirate who attacked us and got us stuck on that island," Lloyd said as he recognized him and his band.

"What do you think they want?" Colette asked in a scared voice.

"I don't know, but I don't think we should just let them have it! Come on!"

Lloyd clenched his fist and sprouted his bright blue angelic wings. He flew off the top of the building and charged down at the group of pirates. He saw to his pleasant surprise Yuan was doing the same thing. Colette and Kratos were also jumping in to do their best to fight off the pirates.

As Lloyd touched the ground, he pulled out his material blades and started charging in at any enemies and showed them no mercy.

He looked around and he saw Yuan had pulled out a giant blade and was swinging it around as if it were made of Styrofoam and was slaughtering anyone who got close. Kratos was also dishing out a fair amount of punishment, and Colette…well, Colette was barely able to take on more than one at once due to the slow speed of her chakrams.

Lloyd continued fighting off pirate after pirate until he was struck from behind. He turned around, and the pirate's captain was standing there with a sword to Lloyd's throat.

"Why are you even here!" Lloyd yelled, acting as if he didn't care the pirate could end his life with one quick cut.

"I need money!" yelled the pirate. "I need money to fund an assigned voyage!"

"An assigned voyage?" Lloyd asked, not sure what was going on.

"Yes! And the president of the company here seems to have plenty of money! Take me to him, and I will spare your life."

"You bastard…" Lloyd muttered under his breath. He gave the pirate a sharp kick to the stomach and his sword came so close to cutting itself across Lloyd. As soon as the pirate was on the ground, Lloyd shot up and unsheathed his material blades once again and got ready to attack the pirate.

This time, the pirate rolled out of the way. He got up off the ground and he and Lloyd began to stare each other down. They glared at each other with a hostile look, but neither one of them actually swung their sword for a while.

Finally, the pirate just charged in savagely and tried to impale Lloyd with his sword. Lloyd ducked just in time and laid himself on his back. When the pirate was right in front of him, he kicked his legs and used them to flip the pirate over.

The pirate landed with a hard thud on the ground as Lloyd got up and prepared to stick his ice coffin right through him. But the pirate jumped up and gave Lloyd a hard punch to the face.

Lloyd groaned as he was walking backwards and temporarily knocked off guard. He looked up just in time to see the pirate about to fatally stab him, but then a voice was heard screaming "Fireball!"

Instantly, the pirate yelped in pain and ran around. Lloyd saw that the back of the pirate's pants were on fire, and it was actually pretty funny. The pirate had enough sense to run into the ocean to put the fire out, though.

It was then that Lloyd looked up and saw Kratos. Obviously, Kratos was the one who cast Fireball and possibly just saved Lloyd's life.

It looked like the pirate was going to come out of the water, but he stayed there for a while and started picking up any rocks he could find. He started chucking the rocks at Lloyd and Kratos as hard as he could, but it was easy for them to just dodge the rocks.

After the pirate had run out of rocks, he turned around and saw that Colette was lying on the ground and about to be killed by one of the less experienced pirates.

"You're dead, little girl!" the pirate said in a nasty voice. He was about to finish Colette, but Lloyd cast a quick demon fang and knocked the pirate to the side.

A huge look of relief filled Colette. "Thanks, Lloyd," she said almost like nothing had happened.

The two of them ran over to Kratos. He looked like he something to say.

"It would appear as though we've fought a lot of them off," he said. "Have either of you seen Yuan?"

"No," Lloyd said. "I hope he's alright."

"I'm fine."

The three of them turned to the side. Yuan was standing there in front of a large pile of dead pirates, all of whom the trio supposed Yuan had just killed in the fight. Yuan looked pretty cocky when he stared at them.

"I don't think they'll be of any more of a threat," Yuan remarked. "I think we got the last of them."

"So it would seem…" Kratos said as if something was concerning him.

Then Lloyd remembered something: what happened to the pirate captain? He was going to finish the captain, but he wound up trying save Colette from the pirates instead. Where did the captain go?