Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of Symphonia or any of the characters contained therein.
Kratos stood still in the middle of the street with Martel half-hidden behind him, as people flowed past them. The human stared ahead at the sight of Mithos and Yuan racing towards him with a whole legion of Sylvarant soldiers and law enforcement officials on their trail. His mind raced with disbelief; what could they have possibly done to warrant getting half the officials in the city chasing after them?
He quickly brought himself out of his stunned state and whirled about, staring around him and sizing up their situation. Mithos and Yuan were still a ways off, towards the piers, and the group chasing them was farther still. The inn they had rented was just one building farther ahead of him. People were running quickly and chaotically towards the inner city. Martel was standing right behind him, staring in shock. Looking back towards the two half-elves, Kratos noted that Yuan had happened to have had the foresight to buy hats to cover his and Mithos' ears. Quickly formulating a plan, he grabbed Martel's arm and pulled her forwards, pushing against the wave of people. He reached the inn, opened the door slightly and pushed her inside, warning her to stay there and not to leave or cause any commotion.
Then, the warrior rushed towards the incoming group of soldiers, doing his best to keep himself slightly concealed from their view by rushing down an alley and following a parallel road. Kratos timed himself and then rushed down another alley, arriving back into the street that the soldiers were in. He dashed across from one side to the other, passing directly in front of Yuan and Mithos, whispering a quick command to both to split up soon. As soon as he reached the other side of the street he rushed into another alleyway and found a street running parallel to the one where the chase was happening. He rushed down this pathway, scanning the buildings he passed. He saw what he had been looking for and rushed inside, breaking his way in by smashing the glass display of the clothing shop he had noticed. He grabbed a purple suit that looked to be about his size and dropped a significant amount of gald on the floor; he was paying for both, his purchase and the damaged display glass. He quickly moved into a changing room and got into his new outfit, then rushed back out. Heading out onto the street, he rushed a little farther down and then used another alley to switch back onto the main street leading to the wharf, coming out behind the legion of soldiers.
With great concentration, Kratos began to silently chant, a softly glowing red symbol appearing around his feet. He put his entire mind into pushing his magical bounds and expanding the spell to encompass a larger range than he'd ever attempted. Suddenly, a scream went up among the soldiers as they began to split into two groups, obviously caused by Mithos and Yuan heading down different streets. Kratos took this as his cue and released an enormous "Eruption" spell just behind the officials, then dropped to the floor and took on an extremely winded look.
A pool of lava appeared on the floor and sparks of flame leapt up from it. A dome of fire rose out of the flaming floor and burned everything within its incinerating center. The spell had its desired effect as the entire squadron stopped in its tracks and turned around. They saw Kratos and rushed at him, holding their swords ready to strike him down. As they arrived where he lay, the human rose slowly with his hand pointing down a dark alley behind him.
"That… that way," he stuttered out. "He ran that way!"
The guards stopped in front of him, looked stunned and skeptical. However, their faces changed to belief when one of their commanders appeared from behind them and nodded at them.
"No traces of Aonis," he announced, "and as you can clearly see, his ears are perfectly human." Then, turning to Kratos, he asked, "Can you give me a description of who ran in that direction?"
"Half-elf, I think," Kratos spoke out, hesitating slightly, "because his ears were slightly pointed and I think he cast a spell just now. Short boy, with straw-yellow hair flying everywhere – He was followed by a man with long, blue hair and another man with brown hair."
"Thank you, citizen," the commander spoke, not paying much attention to Kratos as he directed his troops to spread out and search in the general direction Kratos had mentioned. "You should go back to your home; this place has dangerous criminals loose."
"Y-yes, sir," Kratos attentively replied, appearing slightly frightened. He stood up shakily and ran past the commander, heading down the street towards the main city and then down an alley, entering the inn from an entrance in the back. He soon arrived at the main lobby where there was a large group of people standing around and gathering close to the windows, whispering among themselves about the occurrence they had witnessed. He scanned the room, and not seeing Martel, proceed down a hallway, coming to stop in front of the set of rooms he had rented. He knocked on the door and called out Martel's name.
The door opened a slight bit and Martel peeked out. Seeing his face, she opened the door a little more and stepped back, allowing him to enter, after which he closed the door behind him. She stared at him for a while, suppressing a question worrying her. When he turned away and showed that he wasn't going to answer it without her asking, she decided to do just that and queried him about the safety of her brother and Yuan. Kratos simply informed her that they were safe and would be arriving in a short amount of time.
Her worry having been satisfied, Martel's curiosity returned to her and she inquired about Kratos' change of attire, to which he simply stated that it had been a necessity. He turned and stared out a window into the vacated street. This new development would cause trouble. He knew that the Palmacosta government wouldn't find Yuan and Mithos after the trick he had used on them, but they wouldn't stop searching for half-elves. Security would be much tighter now. It would be near impossible to leave the city and even harder still to gain access to the underwater route to Thoda.
Kratos formulated plans in his mind and then discarded them based on the flaws they contained. He narrowed down possibilities as he worked through. The only path to the research facility was through the underwater passage since trying to sail there would only lead to them being caught by the guard towers on the island. Using rheaird flight was also impossible since only those connected to official business were allowed to use them. Besides, breaking in to the rheaird hanger wouldn't help either, since they would easily be tracked and chased after. The only choice left was to take the underwater tunnels, but that didn't seem too easy either. Even though Kratos had destroyed the computer terminal he had used, the government was probably alert to the fact that his searches had led to Thoda and that he would be attempting to go there, so security would be greatly tightened.
A harsh knock sounded on the door, yanking him out of his thoughts, followed by Yuan's voice softly calling to open up. Martel jumped up off the bed she was sitting on and rushed to the door, opening it and stepping back as two half-elves quietly stepped in. Mithos came in behind Yuan and closed the door. Both came forward and sat down on two different beds in the room. Martel moved and sat down next to her brother while Kratos left the window he had been standing at and came to sit down in a chair facing all three.
"Yuan, Mithos, what happened?" Kratos asked the two newcomers, a stern look on his face. "You know we're planning on stealing a summon spirit from the government; we don't need any more attention focused on us."
"Information collecting went…" Yuan paused, searching for the right word.
"…awry," Mithos finished for him.
Yuan shot Mithos an angry look, but then nodded and turned to Kratos, "Yes… awry."
"How so?" Kratos asked.
"We were going around with Mithos pretending to be interested in scientific research, particularly concerning water and the summon spirits," Yuan narrated. "I was acting as if I was his uncle and had brought him to the Palmacosta pier as a vacation. We were mainly ignored. However, we got lucky and ran into a researcher who had just returned from working wherever it is that Undine is kept.
"He wouldn't tell us the location, mentioning that it was a secret, but he encouraged Mithos to pursue his faked dreams telling him that it was amazing working with the extreme amount of energy that summon spirits exuded. I noticed that he was carrying a map in his pocket that peaked out. Mithos also noted it and decided that it would be a good thing to relieve the man of.
"However, things didn't go quite as well as we hoped and when Mithos pulled the map out, it hit the man's elbow, causing him to look down and note us. He screamed out that we were Tetheallan thieves causing everyone to stare at us and soldiers to come running. Mithos just froze there while I reached out and yanked him away as I took off towards the main city. That started up the chase and led up to the point where you arrived."
"And the map?" Kratos questioned.
Mithos grinned. "You didn't think I'd lose that too, did you?"
"You would have," Yuan retorted, "if I hadn't snatched it away from you before you lost your grip and dropped it." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bundle of paper rolled up into a pipe, handing it over to Kratos. "We haven't had a chance to look over it yet, but I'm pretty sure it's a map of the facility, and once we find out where the actual building is, it'll be useful in helping us make our way around."
"It's at Thoda," Martel broke in excitedly while Kratos stared at the papers he had separated and unrolled. "We found out while we were searching."
"It seems you handled this better then we did," Yuan commented, smiling at Martel.
"Obviously," Kratos cut in with scorn, "seeing that we shook off the people chasing us without allowing them a look at our faces and that this isn't a map of the facility as you had wrongly assumed."
"It's not?" Yuan looked surprised, while Mithos looked utterly lost.
"You mean I got into all that trouble for nothing?" the young half-elf asked incredulously.
"No, not quite," Kratos responded slowly, a rare smile forming on his face. "You got something even better."
"Explain, Kratos," Yuan asked, annoyed at not knowing what was going on.
The human held the maps up for them to see. "You may not have gotten the maps to the facility, but you managed to get your hands on the maps for the entire system of Sylvarant's underwater and underground causeway systems. It might not help us when actually infiltrating the Thoda research facility, but it solves our problem of how to get there, considering that there's a sewage tunnel leading to the main causeway right under this room!"
Wow! I actually managed to get a chapter done this fast. I'm rather surprised myself. I know it's a little short, but at least I managed to get it done this quick.
I'm not too sure if the first section of this chapter, from when Kratos leaves Martel at the inn to where he speaks with the commander, are really that clear. I tried to balance between the quick pace of the event and clarity, but I don't know if I really managed to portray it well. If you think I didn't do a very good job, just let me know and I'll try to fix it up and repost the chapter.
Anyway, chapter titles, once again, are requested. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and be sure to review!
Until next chapter.