The rumbling got louder and louder. Lloyd could only stutter in small bursts of pain as the control room started shaking louder and louder. Finally, Lloyd felt as if something had been pulled out from under him. He felt as if the floor was somehow pushing itself upon him, forcing him up.

Of course, Lloyd knew it was only an illusion. But why? Then, he got his answer when he looked out the window to the controls that Tiberius was standing at. He saw that the control room at the top of Tower Tiberia had somehow ejected itself from the tower and was now hovering over the battle field.

"Tiberius…" Lloyd choked, still clutching his side in pain. "What's going on?"

"Heh heh heh," Tiberius lightly laughed. "I'll bet you didn't think the tower could do this, did you?"

Lloyd couldn't say anything. He was in too much pain and agony from the wound Tiberius had given him.

"Well, now that I'm in the air, I can attack anything on the battlefield that I wish!" Tiberius exclaimed. "If you could stand up, I'd demonstrate it. But since you're too weak to even move, I'm afraid the best you'll do is hear it."

Tiberius hit the same button right in front of him, and the giant laser fired and blew away several Meltokio soldiers that were fighting in the crowd below. Despite being such a high distance in the air, Lloyd could have sworn he heard their screams of terror and suffering.

"Tiberius…you gotta stop this!" Lloyd insisted, finally getting the strength to move his hands a little.

"No, I think I'll keep it going until all your miserable soldiers are dead!" Tiberius yelled, still not looking at Lloyd, but rather keeping his focus on the controls in front of him.

Lloyd couldn't do anything. The pain was too staggering. It was hopeless. He had made it that far only to get a simple wound in the ribs and be too injured to keep going. Disgusted with himself, he put his head face-down onto the cold metal floor of the control room.

"Lloyd…"

Lloyd shot his head up. He could have sworn he just heard a voice call his name. A disturbingly familiar voice, at that. Lloyd looked up and at his sides, but there was no one around. It was still just him and Tiberius inside the control room.

"Lloyd…"

Lloyd heard the deep, commanding voice again. He perked up even more. He knew he wasn't hearing things, but who was talking to him? Finally, Lloyd looked up and was shocked at what he saw.

Hovering right above Lloyd was a ghostly image of Kratos. The image looked exactly like Kratos, except for the fact he was fairly transparent.

"Lloyd, you mustn't give up. The battle has not been lost yet."

"K…Kratos?"

"He's right, dear. You haven't lost."

Lloyd perked up even more when he heard this. The voice he just heard did not come from Kratos; the voice was too feminine and soft to come from him.

Then, right beside Kratos, another ghostly image appeared. The spirit looked like a woman with curly brown hair, and she appeared to be a bit short. But her smile was very welcoming and you could tell she was a very loving, caring person.

"M…mom!" Lloyd said loudly, his eyes wide in disbelief and on the verge of tears.

"We love you, Lloyd," said the spirit of Anna, Lloyd's long dead mother.

"You've made us proud, son," Kratos's spirit said, looking like he was smiling more than Lloyd could ever remember him smiling before. His tone also seemed to be getting more fatherly and caring instead of assertive and commanding.

"Please, Lloyd, don't give up!" Anna encouraged.

"You hold the fate of all of Aselia in your hand. If you lose this battle, then humans, elves, half-elves, summon spirits, and every other living creature will be no more." Kratos's spirit said.

"Please, Lloyd. We know you can do it."

Saying that, the images of Anna and Kratos slowly started disappearing right in front of Lloyd's eyes. He was breathing heavy, but now from rage and determination, not anguish. With a sudden burst of strength, he forced himself up, and somehow, his wound no longer hurt.

Lloyd was now back on two feet and was approaching Tiberius, who was still too obsessed with firing the laser to notice Lloyd was up. Lloyd slowly started unsheathing his material blades, but he put his flamberge in his stronger hand. Taking careful aim, he smashed the blade of the flamberge over Tiberius's head.

Tiberius screeched in pain as he fell onto the floor, a giant wound visible through his thick black hair.

"Time to finish you!" Lloyd yelled.

But at the last second, Tiberius pulled out his own sword and blocked Lloyd's flamberge just as he was about to use it.

"You're not going to win that easily!" Tiberius threatened.

After making that comment, Tiberius jumped into the air and landed firmly on the ground with his sword in position. And once again, the two were ready to fight.

Tiberius gave Lloyd a very cold stare before either one of them took a fast swing. The biggest fight of the entire journey was about to begin.

Everything had been leading up to this one fight. Lloyd realized that if he and Colette hadn't been on that boat in that exact same spot and encountered Skelter at just the right time, then he wouldn't be in this crucial battle now.

Lloyd jumped quickly in the air and had his material blades pointing right at Tiberius's chest as he started descending, almost like he was performing a falcon crest.

Tiberius, of course, jumped out of the way at the very last moment. Lloyd was expecting this, though, and retracted his material blades before they would have gone right into the ground.

Lloyd landed on his two feet and spun around as soon as he landed and started swinging at Tiberius again. He and Tiberius were soon dueling more violently than ever now. Nothing but the sounds of swords clashing could be heard as they bellowed off the walls of the flying control room.

Tiberius did a surprise attack and acted like he was going to take a swipe at Lloyd with his massive sword, but instead, he threw a punch.

Just as Tiberius had hoped, the punch knocked Lloyd off his guard long enough to get in another hit. He took the opportunity to get ready to stick his blade right through Lloyd, but Lloyd performed a quick jump at the last minute to dodge it.

Lloyd landed on the ground with a hard thud, and it sent a huge shockwave of pain right through him, but he had to ignore it. He had no other choice. As he got up, he saw Tiberius was staying a far distance away, but he still had his sword pointing right at him. Lloyd knew full well what he was going to do.

Lloyd predicted in his mind that Tiberius was going to start firing those bolts of electricity from his sword like last time, and his prediction proved correct.

Tiberius started firing a series of the bolts of electricity from his sword and aimed them carefully at Lloyd.

Lloyd had to jump, roll, and do any other physical maneuvering he possibly could in order to not be hit by the rays of electricity Tiberius was firing. The rays just kept barely missing Lloyd and hitting the wall behind him or the floor, leaving a large charred mark wherever it hit.

When Lloyd was running in front of the controls, he got an idea. Maybe if he could make Tiberius unintentionally hit the controls by firing the electricity, then maybe it would cause the controls to break. That would cause the entire control room to fall out of the sky, and Lloyd with it, but it was a risk he had to take to save his world, Aselia.

But Tiberius seemed to see into Lloyd's trail of thought and didn't fire at Lloyd's body which was right in front of the controls. Instead, he fired at Lloyd's head.

Lloyd was able to duck before the bolts of electricity would have hit him in the head, but as a result, the electricity soared right over him and instead smashed the window behind him.

The glass making up the window shattered and started clinking its way onto the controls and across the floor, making it very dangerous to fall on.

But that didn't stop Lloyd and Tiberius from fighting too much. Lloyd had enough of the dodging and instead decided to just attack Tiberius head on. He pulled out both of his swords and started charging at him like a bull.

Tiberius jumped out of the way, but Lloyd started drastically slowing down as he came closer. Lloyd then took the sword in the hand that was closer to Tiberius (that would be his Vorpal Sword) and tried thrusting it right into Tiberius.

It worked…a little. It managed to poke Tiberius in the side and hurt him a little, but he still had plenty left to go on.

Both fighters were getting very tired, but neither one of them could do anything about it. They had to fight well past their body's limits if they wanted to survive, and neither one of them planned on backing down.

After a long while, Tiberius started getting ready to perform a huge swing that would be fatal to just about any part of Lloyd's upper body if it.

Lloyd ducked out of the way just in time, but not before Tiberius took a second swing and hit Lloyd on the rebound with it.

Lloyd screamed in pain as he started slowly walking backwards. He dropped both of his material blades and looked like he could barely keep himself standing.

After a long while, Lloyd fell backwards and onto the controls right in front of the smashed window. Snickering, Tiberius went over to him and pulled out his sword, ready to stick it through Lloyd and win the battle.

"Good-bye, son of Kratos," Tiberius said in a heated way.

Thinking at the last minute, Lloyd reached up and grabbed Tiberius by the front of his shirt. He pulled Tiberius closer to him and tried holding him there with one hand. From there, he started using his free hand to start punching Tiberius in the face as hard as he could.

When Tiberius was dazed, Lloyd used the extra moment to slip out from on top of the controls and was now on his two feet again. Quicker than Tiberius could react, Lloyd kicked Tiberius from behind, pushing him forward.

Tiberius almost fell out the window, but he resisted and gave just enough strength to not fall out. But all it took was another kick from Lloyd to ruin that.

Lloyd kicked Tiberius once more, and Tiberius was pushed out of the shattered window and started plummeting to the ground. The fall ended when the leader of Tiberia landed flat on the hard ground, hundreds of feet below.

Lloyd looked over the side and instantly saw Tiberius lying motionless on the ground below. But to Lloyd's amazement, Tiberius started getting up.

Tiberius's nose was broken and there were streams of blood all over him, but somehow, he survived the fall. He slowly started standing up and looked up at Lloyd in the control room, barely able to make out Lloyd's image as he looked over the side and down at him.

"He's still alive?" Lloyd said in astonishment. "Man, that guy just doesn't give up!"

Thinking fast, Lloyd went over to the controls and looked for the best way to destroy them. If he destroyed the controls, then maybe he could destroy the weapon as well. But none of the controls looked familiar to Lloyd at all.

"Ugh…where's Raine when you need her?" Lloyd asked. He started pressing random buttons on the controls, and by sheer luck, one of the buttons brought up a screen that seemed to have an aiming program installed in it.

Lloyd realized he was looking at the screen that showed where the laser was targeted. He then saw a joystick right below the screen where he could change the position the laser was in.

Thinking fast, Lloyd took the joystick and clutched it in his hands. Just as he deduced, the laser started moving with the movements Lloyd was making. He could now aim it in several places.

Lloyd stopped when he saw that he had aimed the laser right on Tiberius, who was still too injured to even move very quickly. In fact, if he tried walked at all, he would slip and fall down.

Once Lloyd had Tiberius in the dead-center of the target, he looked below and saw the giant red button that Tiberius hit to fire the laser. It was Lloyd's best shot.

Tiberius saw the laser aiming right at him, and he knew what Lloyd was doing. There was nothing he could do but stand there and wait out his final moments.

"Goodbye…" Lloyd said in a very low, sorrowful voice. He was silent for over eight seconds before finishing his sentence. "…Tiberius."