"Mom…and Dad, I'm home," Lloyd said sadly.

It had been several days since the final battle on Tiberia. Lloyd had been recovering his strength after his journey by sleeping at various inns across the world, but he had not seen any of his friends since the victory party.

Now, he was finally returning to his home with Dirk. As always, the first thing he did was walk over to the monument for his mom. But now that Kratos was gone, he had to visit the monument for him that was built right next to Anna's.

Lloyd walked over to the front of the monuments and kneeled down on one knee in front of them. He wasn't doing anything, but he stared at them for the longest time. In fact, he didn't even move until he heard someone from behind.

"I'm proud of ya, son," said a familiar Scottish voice from behind him.

Lloyd turned around, and Dirk was standing there watching him. He seemed real proud of Lloyd, all right, and knew that he was aware he was going through tough times.

"…Yeah," Lloyd said, slowly turning his head back to the two graves. He took turns looking at one of them. The images he saw of his two dead parents when he was about to be killed by Tiberius never left his head.

"Just remember," Dirk said, "whenever you're feeling lonely or lost, you can always come here."

"I know," Lloyd said, taking his eyes off the graves and looking at his foster-father. He looked like he was faintly starting to smile. "You know, the night before Colette's journey of regeneration began, I told her that she has two fathers and that she should consider herself lucky for having more than most people do."

Dirk seemed like he knew where Lloyd was going with this, but with Lloyd, he could never be too sure.

"Then after her journey ended, I found out I had two fathers of my own. But now, I guess I only got one. Just like Colette only had one the whole time," Lloyd finished.

Dirk really didn't see the point in what Lloyd was trying to say, but he just nodded his head to try to comfort his "son".

"All right, Lloyd," Dirk said. "You've had a long journey. Come inside and I'll fix yer up something to eat. And I won't make you recite the dwarven vows, but just this once, ya hear?"

"All right, dad," Lloyd said.

Dirk went into the house, but Lloyd didn't. He remained kneeling in front of the gravestone for his mom and dad.

Lloyd couldn't believe it, but he had once again gotten the best turnout he could have hoped for after the final battle. During the journey of Regeneration, he vowed to find a way to make sure Tethe'alla and Sylvarant didn't need to sacrifice one another to thrive, and he was able to pull it off.

And just like that, the same thing happened in his journey with Tiberia. He didn't want to go with Stromm's way of destroying Tiberia to insure Aselia's safety, nor did he want Tiberius to sacrifice Aselia for Tiberia's safety. Lloyd had once again found a way to save all the innocent people of both worlds.

Then, another voice cracked the still air around them.

"You miss your dad," said a masculine, but gentle voice from behind him. "Don't ya?

Lloyd turned around, and he was surprised with who it was.

"Zyn?" Lloyd asked, a huge smile spreading across his face.

Zyn was standing there all right, but he looked completely different now. His dark yellow military outfit was gone and was now replaced with exactly the kind of outfit Tiberius wore- silver pants, a silver military coat and dark shoes. That apparently was the outfit worn to indicate the leader's position.

"Yeah, I do," Lloyd said, answering Zyn's question. "Every day."

"I'm really sorry," Zyn said, sounding completely sincere in what he was saying. "I'm hoping to fix everything Tiberius ruined so those things don't happen again. Let's just hope I'm capable of it."

"You will be," Lloyd promised. "I've only known you for a few days, and already I can tell you that you would make a better leader than Tiberius ever would hope to."

"That means a lot to me, Lloyd," Zyn said.

"Yeah," Lloyd said. He finally stood up and started walking away. "Well, dad's making me something to eat. See ya."

"Wait, Lloyd!" Zyn called out.

Lloyd froze in his tracks. "Huh? What is it?"

"I have one last favor I want to ask of you."

"Really? What's that?"

"You still have your teleporter, don't you?" Zyn asked. "Can you take us to Tiberia with that?"

"Huh? Sure…" Lloyd said, not really knowing what business Zyn wanted there. He turned and looked back at the graves. "Bye, mom. Bye…Kratos."

Lloyd pulled out the black box that Yuan and Kratos had spent a long time working on and hit a button on it. The two of them were taken away by bright lights that slowly closed in on them. Just as the lights would have imploded, Lloyd and Zyn were gone. They soon found themselves on the battlefield of Tiberia where that final fight had taken place. Lloyd was shocked to see all the bodies were gone.

"Wait, where are all the soldiers who were killed?" Lloyd asked.

Zyn chuckled. "It's pretty hard finding people who are willing to pick up corpses, and it's even harder to find one who'll do it for decent pay."

"Oh," Lloyd said.

"But anyway, this is where Tower Tiberia stood," Zyn said, pointing to the tower. Despite the giant battle that took place there, the tower was still standing strong.

"What's the big deal?" Lloyd said.

"This tower is what symbolizes our world," Zyn said. "But I'm not sure I like its name. That's why I brought you here, Lloyd. I want you to pick out a new name for this tower, therefore, a new name for this world."

"What?" Lloyd asked. "Why?"

"Our world was named for a cruel tyrant and who always thought violence was the answer to everything," Zyn explained, a sad smile forming over his face. "I don't want it to be named after someone like that. This is my world now."

Lloyd couldn't believe that Zyn was giving him the opportunity to name his world for him. He had no idea what to call it.

"Tiberia has been a world that's been suffering for thousands of years," Zyn explained. "It never knew which side to choose when it came to loyalty. It was struggling for the longest time to decide what it should do. It ended up making several choices it would soon regret. The leaders of the past have made several horrible mistakes, and now it's time that we pay for those mistakes. But we can always look ahead to a brighter future. In the end, we're going to end up making the right decision, but we still need to pay for our mistakes."

Lloyd was surprised at everything Zyn had just told him, but he supposed that it made sense now. He carefully analyzed everything Zyn just told him. What would he name a world after hearing everything Zyn just said?

At long last, Lloyd finally snapped up and looked like he had made up his mind. Yes-he had made up his mind. There was no changing his thoughts on what to rename Tiberia now.

"So, this is what the new name of Tiberia will be, huh?" Lloyd asked. He stared at Zyn with a wide smile. "All right, I've got it! The world's new name is…"

FIN…

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(exhales) Wow, would you look at that. Ever since September 2005 I've been struggling to come up with a story for a Tales of Symphonia story. It was, and is still, my favorite game to date. Now, Tales of the Abyss, a game that's supposed to blow Symphonia out of the water, is hitting most shelves today, and I'm hoping to get it and start playing it tonight. You know, as a way to celebrate the end to this story.

So, it's on October 11, 2006 that I finally finish something I've been thinking about since September 2005. Never before has anything taken over a year of work to outline, plan, and complete. I remember starting this story the night before the last day of my previous school year, and who'd have thought it would take forty-three days into the school year for me to complete it?

I'm so happy that I've finally been able to finish this story. I've been scrambling my mind since late in November to try to come up with a story for this, so I think I'll give you a brief history on it.

My earliest thoughts had Lloyd having flashbacks about the journey of Regeneration and having the flashbacks mean much more. But that still didn't give me a concrete foundation for a plot. So, when I was watching something on the Travel Channel (I think), I saw a documentary about mysterious symbols that have popped up on the earth and no one can explain how they got there. I thought that using mysterious symbols in relation to Lloyd's flashback would give a solid idea.

However, after outlining about 22 chapters of that plot, I realized it was becoming very slow and very repetitive, and it wasn't something that I thought I could look back on and be proud of. So, I tossed the idea and started all over. Well, almost all over. There were a few ideas I kept, but most of them were names. In the rejected plotline, there was going to be a villain named Skelter and a traitor named Cesara. Kratos was also going to die in that one as well.

Yes, having Kratos die as a plot twist was something I've been planning for a long time now. The idea first came to me back in January and I thought about putting it in there ever since. (I also planned on his final words being "Don't die before I do, Lloyd-my son") I was given an idea by someone who was helping me out a little with outlining the story and they gave a suggestion on a way to bring Kratos back, but I rejected the idea.

Anyway, by the time I had finally got a solid idea for a story I thought would work for the plot, it wasn't until February. I was watching something on the History Channel (once again, that's only what channel I remember it being on) when I saw something about Atlantis on it, and I thought the idea of having an ancient civilization that held some mighty power capable of mass destruction would make for a good plot. Of course, there were no ancient civilizations in this story, but I continued working with ideas that eventually got turned into the idea of having a crystal with Mithos's powers hidden beneath the surface of an island.

In both this story and the one that I outlined 22 chapters off before scratching it, I had the idea of having something Mithos set up before he went corrupt so people could deal with one of his enemies even after he was gone.

But, you're probably not paying attention to any of this, because you're probably pretty upset with me for not finishing Lloyd's sentence. Well, before I started outlining the story, I decided I wanted it to end the same way the game ended. (by the way, Lloyd name the tree "Yggdrassil", I promise you. Play Tales of Phantasia and/or do research on Norse Mythology if you don't believe me) In order to do that, I had to have Lloyd be given the honor of naming something very important, which is when I got the idea for the leader to be corrupt and name the world after himself, which would give Lloyd the honor of renaming it after the leader was killed)

That's how I ended up naming the story, and it was one of the harder parts, actually. I tried to come up with a name that would work well for a world but also for a person. I tried making up several names, and I finally came up with Tiberius as the name for the villain and Tiberia for the name of the world.

I'll finish this part off with my view on the ending. Part of the reason I made the ending this way is for you to be open ended about what Lloyd would re-name Tiberia. However, I have a set name in my head for what Lloyd really named the world. (in other words, I know what he does name it, but since I didn't actually write and record it, and there's going to be no sequel, there's no right or wrong answer) I tried to put in some clues, though, in Lloyd's last conversation with Zyn over what Lloyd decided to re-name Tiberia. So if you want to re-read it and actually try and analyze what Zyn said that would convince Lloyd what to name Tiberia, please do and see if you can come up with what he named it.

I think I've ranted on about that. Now, for the mushy thanks and for the sad good-byes. (well, in a sense) I want to thank Leppers and Christoph for being my main reviewers throughout this story. Your reviews, as they always do, motivated me to keep going. (and Leppers, you're actually the reason this story happened in the first place-amazing what you can do just for saying "I'll review your story if and when you write it", isn't it? But thank you to you guys for reviewing and sticking by me.

Thanks to all my other reviews who decided to stop reviewing after a while. That's cool, though; I'm really not too angry about it.

Writing this has become something I've been either thinking about or trying to plan for the past thirteen months. I'm finishing this on the day I'll (hopefully) get Tales of the Abyss, but also on the milestone 20-month anniversary of when I played Tales of Symphonia for the first time. (February 11, 2005) Those two days lining up to be at the same time seemed like an opportune day for me to end this story.

Thank you again for reading this. After all these months, my Tales of Tiberia project has finally come to an end.

-Velkan the Impaler
3:16 p.m., EST