A/N: First off let me say for all those who are actually reading this (Yes, both of you) sorry for the delay. Had tonnes of work to do due to the beginning of a new school term, but this chapter is up now, and if you're lucky there'll be another one soon.

And thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!

Raine couldn't quite place the sensation. She almost felt as if she was blinking… A particularly long blink of course, but a blink nonetheless. In any case she knew here eyes were open. She could just tell. Besides, she could see the dark… If that was possible?

Suddenly she felt an enormous urge to really blink, and after struggling against it for a while she did so. There was a whirl of colour and light in front of her eyes, before everything was suddenly sucked into place. Trees, sky, Genis… Floor? Where was the floor?

There was a loud thud as she landed roughly on top of Lloyd.

"Oww," she groaned, realising after a few second where she was and leaping off of Lloyd, her face suddenly rather pink. "Sorry," she mumbled, turning away.

"Don't worry about it," Lloyd laughed, rubbing his head. A loud smacking sound came from behind them and they both spun round.

"Mmmmmm!!" Zelos cried, desperately trying to rub his face, which had a bright red hand-print on it.

"Right… Your head just happened to 'fall' there," Sheena groaned, crossing her arms and walking towards the ninja dressed in blue, who was waiting patiently a few metres away.

Collette frowned at Zelos who replied with an innocent look and screamed "MMM TMMM!!"

"Long time no see Orochi… How did you find us?" Sheena asked, smiling but still a little confused.

"Well… I'm not really supposed to tell you this but… There's sort of a… Tracking device in your clothes," he answered, grinning nervously.

"I should've guessed," she sighed.

"Well we can't lose the heir of Mizuho can we?" replied Orochi, his tone suddenly far more serious.

"I gue-"

"Hang on a minute! We-… I KNEW it! I always suspected!" Raine screamed, grabbing a hold of the nearest ninja and shaking him violently. "We teleported didn't we? I knew that smoke bomb thing was just for show! How do you do it? How!? I must know!!"

The ninja turned his head towards Orochi, looking like a Mouse who had just bumped into a hungry Lion. Orochi shook his head and the ninja desperately attempted to prise Raine's fingers from his shoulders, managing to cry "Sorry- Trade secret!" in between shakes of his entire body.

"In any case," Orochi started, turning back towards Sheena. "We've been keeping an eye on Grendel for a while now. His puppets have been showing up all over the place along with those green Exspheres, and quite a number of the population have been turned now. It seems they're just acting normally for now, but we're keeping tabs on all of them as they come."

"I see... Well he's obviously up to something. How come no-one decided to tell us about this before?" Sheena frowned.

"Well- To be honest we didn't think he was going to end up being much of a threat... Obviously we were wrong about that. Plus, err..." he leaned a little closer to her. "The chief kinda... He told us not to interrupt you two," he whispered, glancing over at Lloyd.

"Why? Wait- WHAT!?" screamed Sheena, spinning around to look at Lloyd, who had a rather puzzled expression on his face, before quickly turning back to Orochi. "I'm gonna kill him," she growled, clenching her fist so hard that her knuckles went white.

"Why? Do you not have feelings for him?" Orochi asked sincerely.

"I- Well I-" began Sheena, before turning back and realising he was grinning, even through his mask. His smile was so wide it practically left the sides of his face. "Oh shut up you," she mumbled and turned away again. She could hear his muffled laughs even with her back turned.

While Raine shook every ninja she could get her hands on and Sheena tried to avoid everyone's gaze, in the fear of instantly turning scarlet, Collette attempted to free Zelos from his rocky shackles. After hacking away at them for a few minutes with her chakrams, even her brutish strength only managed to chip away a few small blocks of the stuff.

"Mmrry Mmmeerm Mreeegmmm," he murmured.

"What?"

"MMRRY MMMEERM MREEEGMMM!!" he cried.

Collette sighed and dropped her chakrams to the floor. She stood up and looked around for a few moments. Suddenly she jumped slightly as if an amazing idea had found it's way into her head, snatched Zelos up from the floor with one arm and flew off in the direction she had been looking.

"Mmmerm gmmm?" he tried to ask.

"You'll see," she smiled.

She stopped next to a large rock jutting out of the ground, and turned Zelos so that she was holding him by his shoulders, his feet pointing upwards, like some kind of club.

Zelos took a few seconds to adjust to being upside-down. Floor… Rock… Am I- Upside-down? Why-

"MMMMMMMMMRR!!!" he screamed, as Collette swung his legs at the rock as hard as she could. The enormous boulder cracked in two, toppling over onto the grass and a cloud of dust surrounded them.

Lloyd and the others heard the loud crashing and dashed over to investigate. When they arrived and the dust had cleared all they saw was Collette holding Zelos' shoulders and his legs flailing around in mid-air. She turned him round to hold him by his legs and got ready to take another swing.

"No!" cried everyone present, including Sheena, though a little more casually, and Zelos, whose cries were still muffled by the bonds over his mouth.

"I was just kidding! I wouldn't really smash his head into that thing," she giggled.

"But you would smash his legs into it?" asked Lloyd.

"Well… At least he can stand up now," Collette smiled cheerily. Zelos tapped at his mouth with his rock-encased hands, and groaned something completely incomprehensible.

"You know I think I prefer him like this," added Sheena thoughtfully.

"Definitely," Raine offered. "I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before."

Collette tried tugging the gag on his mouth from both sides, but it refused to break no matter how hard she tried. "Sheena? Could you try asking Gnome?"

"Ugh. Do I have to?" she muttered.

"Pweeeeeeeaase?" Collette whined, making he eyes as huge and watery as possible.

"Aaauh fine! Just promise me you won't ever do that again."

"I promise!"

She uttered the necessary incantations before adding the final touch. "I call upon the servant of Mother Earth! Come, Gnome!"

The earth around Zelos instantly swallowed him. A hole was left in the ground for about a second before it slowly closed itself up. Everyone stared at Sheena, her expression one of absolute horror.

"Err… That wasn't supposed to happen, I swear!"

Before anyone could say another word another hole in the ground appeared from nowhere and Zelos was thrown up out of it to lie sprawled on the floor.

"Uuuaagh… You didn't have to be so rough," he groaned.

Sheena smiled to herself as she realised what had happened. "Thanks Gnome."

She heard a soft laugh carried by on the wind. Or on the earth? Carried by something… In any case, she heard it. Collette's squeals of glee at the sight of Zelos unharmed snapped her out of her musings, and she became aware that the sun was going down quite rapidly.

"Orochi, where exactly are we?"

"Well… We were aiming for Mizuho, but it looks to me like we're closer to Asgard. Someone must have done something wrong," he said, glaring at a randomly selected ninja, who stepped behind Regal to shield himself from view.

"Right… Well in that case, shall we get to an Inn and we can figure out what we're gonna do next from there?"

"Sounds like a great plan to me," shouted Lloyd. "Plus I'm hungry. Let's hurry!"

As they dismounted their Rheiards at Asgard's entrance it was already clear that the town was far more lively than it had once been. With the threat of both the Asgard ranch and the town's wind demon gone people seemed far happier to live here.

Orochi and the other ninjas had left them when they got on their Rheiards, waiting until Raine was a far enough distance away before disappearing in a puff of smoke.

They decided to treat themselves to one of the more extravagant Inns in Asgard, since they felt they could use a decent night's sleep after trudging through all those endless hallways. They paid for their rooms, ate a meal that tasted like heaven, and crowded into a single room to discuss what plans they could possibly come up with at a time like this.

"I think for a start we should go through everything we know so far," suggested Raine.

"Well I think so far we know Kratos and Presea are under mind-control, we have a bunch of psychotic angels that all appear to be stronger than us, and to top it off we have our insane emperor-of-the-universe wannabe who seems to be invincible," Sheena replied matter-of-factly. "Did I miss anything?"

"No, I think that about sums it up," Raine sighed.

"Oh, and he's gonna use weird Exspheres to take over the world," grumbled Sheena.

"Aaaaaw come on guys, look on the bright side! At least we're still alive," said Zelos cheerily.

"How long exactly do you think that's gonna last?" asked Sheena, adding "What? I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking!" at their shocked looks.

"I hate to agree with Zelos, but he's sort of right," replied Lloyd, prompting a little squeal from Zelos. "So we may not have a way of beating him right now, but we need to focus on what we can do. Come on, we've beaten loads of idiots like this guy!"

"O.k, so what exactly can we do?"

"Well… Err. I was sort of hoping someone else could help me there," he sighed.

"Well he said he was using modified Exspheres," Raine answered "So I'm guessing he's collecting them from around the world. All of the human ranches are destroyed now, so he has no way of making more. Perhaps it would be best if we continued to hunt down and destroy as many as possible."

"Well it's certainly better than sitting around here doing nothing, and it's about the only plan we have right now. Everyone agree?" Lloyd asked.

There was a resounding "Yep!" from Zelos, Collette and Genis.

Sheena hesitated for a moment, only briefly annoyed that everyone was joining in on her journey with Lloyd, before saying "Sure, sounds good." Or at least she told herself it was only briefly…

"Regal?" Lloyd said, noticing that Regal hadn't said a word since they had left the caves. He was sitting on a bed staring blankly at the floor. Suddenly he turned his head towards him.

"Oh- I- Sorry. Yes, of course," he mumbled, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Alright then. We'll leave first thing tomorrow morning, so everyone make sure you get a good night's sleep." Said Lloyd, turning and walking out the door to find his own room.

Once there he closed the door and was instantly hit by the realisation that he didn't feel remotely tired. He lay down his swords by the side of the bed and sat down on it, hoping to get some kind if inspiration to sleep, but nothing happened. After a couple minutes it was obvious that he wouldn't get to sleep, so he decided to take a walk around the town. Walking around at night always calmed him down it seemed.

Again, no sooner than he had closed the door he heard a scream.

"That was Sheena!" he cried in horror. He bolted down the corridor without even going back for his swords, but relaxed as soon as he turned the corner and saw Zelos being flung out of a doorway, straight into a wall.

"That wasn't funny!" Sheena screamed.

"It was hilarious! You should have seen the look on your face when you lifted up the covers!" he cried, laughing hysterically. She slammed the door in his face as he tried to walk back into the room, almost hitting him on the nose.

Zelos turned to Lloyd and said "She's all yours," motioning towards the door and winking, before turning away and walking away down the next corridor whistling.

Lloyd stood there for a few seconds thinking. … What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Sheena opened her eyes. There's no way I'm gonna get any sleep tonight…Especially not when the very thought that Zelos was in this bed makes me feel sick… She sighed. The cold fresh air of Asgard would calm her down… Definitely.

She had intended to go and sit by the old wind shrine but at the sight of a bright red speck on the other side she stopped suddenly. Oh come on this is ridiculous. You can't avoid him forever! She turned as if she was about to leave but after a few seconds she took a deep breath and hopped up onto the giant stone tablet.

Lloyd was sitting with his legs hanging over the edge on the opposite side. She approached him slowly and silently, a small grin creeping onto her face. She waited until she was right behind him, then quickly but calmly slipped an arm around his neck and placed a hand on his back.

"You're lucky there aren't Ninjas after you Lloyd Irving," she whispered, then leaned closer until her face was next to his. "Or we might have lost you."

"Sheena?"

"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist," she replied, loosening her arm around him.

"Don't worry about it," he said. He turned his head slightly and their cheeks touched, changing Sheena's face instantly red as she realised how close they were.

She coughed nervously and moved beside him, sitting down on the edge of the stone slab. "Mind if I sit here for a while?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. It seems we have similar tastes in after-dark activities," he smiled.

"If you call sitting here doing nothing an activity I guess," she laughed.

There was a strong gust of wind, and Sheena suddenly realised she was cold. She slid a little closer to Lloyd, and then there was silence again. Man we must really suck at conversations…

"… Lloyd…"

He turned towards her.

… Damn… I didn't actually have anything to say

"Err… I'm… Sorry about Kratos…"

What the hell was that!? What a stupid thing to say! She wanted to kick herself in the head.

He sighed. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't have mentioned it," she replied quickly.

"No, it's O.k… I know it's not him now and… That's more important to me now…" he said.

Sheena put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him and he smiled. She closed her eyes. All of a sudden her lips were against his. His soft, smooth heavenly lips, pursed against hers… She lingered there for a moment, her arm sliding slowly down his back, before pulling away.

Did I do that? Or… Did he kiss me? She wasn't sure… She couldn't remember the last 10 years of her life suddenly, nothing but that moment.

She looked at Lloyd's face. "I-" He looked stunned. Shit, I kissed him!

She stood up quickly. "Err… Sorry I- I'm… I'll go and get some sleep now!"

Lloyd's head followed her as she stood up and began to walk away. He tried to say something but his voice caught in his throat and he ended up coughing something that made no sense.

"Wait!" he finally managed to cry, but she carried on walking with her head down.

He sat there absolutely paralysed. Suddenly months and months of things people said and did made sense. Man… I really am kinda stupid…

He managed to tear his brain back to reality momentarily and realised that he was just sitting there and Sheena was already out of sight. "Damnit!" he screamed, jumped up and rushed across the giant shrine after her.