A/N: Hi guys, I swear I still write fanfiction. I spent all summer writing this one and I am so glad it's over with, you have no idea. Hopefully we'll have a little more smooth sailin' 'round here for a while!

(seriously don't bother me about this chapter or I will maim you)

"Whatever you do from this point on, remember to be quiet."

The rest of us nodded silently at Kratos' hissed edict. We were all crouched amongst the bushes once more in the woods near the Asgard ranch, adorned with leaves and branches to avoid being seen. Except this time, we weren't waiting to ambush a Desian patrol to get into the ranch. No, this time, we were looking for a giant rock.

"Uuugh, Professor. Why are we getting up so early?"

"Because we have a long walk ahead of us, and we want to reach Luin by nightfall. Hurry and get ready, you two,"

"Do we even get breakfast?"

"We're going to eat on the run. Come on, everyone else is already up and ready to go."

"I bet you Emily's not up yet,"

"Sheena and Colette dragged her downstairs half an hour ago. Now get up,"

"Waugh-!"

"I seeee a boulder," I whispered softly, knowing the two angels of our group would hear me. Partially hidden by the overgrowth of vines and thunked quite firmly in front of the remains of what looked like a sewage grate, a large rock mocked us from across the clearing. From over on the side, Kratos' head tilted slightly, checking to see if there were any guards about.

"I think we are safe," he said in a voice so quiet I barely heard him. A few of the others seemed to give a sigh of relief from sitting still for a while in itchy plants.

"Maaaaaaan. This is so boring," Lloyd grumbled, stretching his arms out as he yawned, and then nearly got a fist stuffed in his mouth seconds later as Kratos reached over, grabbed him, and yoinked him over next to his side so fast all we saw was a purple blur and a muffled "eep!"

"I told you to be quiet. Now keep still," the mercenary grunted, giving Lloyd a tug to get him to stop squirming and flailing around. Lloyd eventually slumped with silent grumbles, a rather annoyed look on his face. After Kratos and Raine exchanged glances with each other, the redhead rose like a silent shadow and dragged Lloyd swiftly with him across the clearing towards the boulder.

Raine gestured to the rest of us with her staff, slinking out of the greenery and across the clearing with light, quiet steps. Shedding bits of bushes and leaves, the remaining four of us rose to follow her, rather like baby ducklings in a line. Genis was right after his sister, followed by Colette, then me, and then Sheena. We all had our weapons out in case of an emergency, though there was the general hope that no Desians would come streaming out the gates at us.

Kratos and Lloyd had worked to quickly chip away at the vines enshrouding the boulder, and most of the rock had come into view by the time all of us had assembled around it. What followed was then the general consensus of 'hurr how does we move rock?' It was a huge boulder, twice the height of Kratos and then some. Kratos was a pretty solid six feet, plus or minus an inch, so that should provide some idea about how big this damn rock was.

Obviously, we weren't just going to walk up and shove it out of the way.

"I think this is the biggest damn rock I've ever seen in my life," I mumbled, running my hands over the craggy gray stone and feeling the chips where Lloyd and Kratos had cut away the vines. Gradually, the total silence behind me began to register as unnatural, so I turned around to see everyone staring at me again. Holy crap, but this was staring to get old. "Uh, guys? Why are you looking at me like that,"

Lloyd exchanged glances with Genis, Colette, and Sheena. "We're waiting for you to move it?" He offered. This was backed up by Raine's eager face, and of course Kratos had no expression whatsoever. Except for maybe his default setting of impatience and irritation, he had that in spades.

I blinked at him. "You're kidding, right?" He had to be. The rock, it was massive. I was tiny, weak, and lacking in creativity at the moment. Seriously, all you had to do in the game was get the stupid Orb, walk up to the rock, select the rock, and it would move over. Here we were, all clustered around the boulder with the Orb in our possession, and it was staying rather firmly rooted in the ground. Also, everyone was still staring at me.

"Not… really? I mean, you always have all the plans and stuff." Lloyd rubbed the back of his head, looking to Genis for confirmation of this. The little sorcerer nodded in agreement. "Like how we should fight guardians, and where to go, and how we got in the ranch."

"You know how we can get in again, don't you?" Oh god, here came Colette with the puppydog eyes and the little fist-shaking thing she does when she's upset. "If we don't hurry, more people will die!"

I am completely aware of that, thank you. "I, uh, have to think for a second," I mumbled, turning away from everyone and back to the giant rock again. Looking at all those pleading and hopeful, expectant faces was not doing my brain any favors in thinking. I do not think well when the pressure is on. Friggin' Namco designers, couldn't they have elaborated on how this was supposed to work?

So my instinct took over. The first thing it said was that I needed the Orb. I had the Orb. Okay. The next logical course of action was that there had to be some keyhole somewhere that I could stick the Orb in, which would maybe activate some lever, which would maybe move this goddamn boulder. So I searched for a keyhole.

The others must have thought I was crazy, what with the way I was groping that rock and sticking my fingers into anywhere I could get them.

"Gotta be somethi – " I paused around near the back left of the rock, running my fingers up and down. It was a little dark back there with the shade from the trees and the boulder, so I couldn't see what I was feeling; but my fingers ran around the edge of a distinctly smooth, circular groove. "Hey, Genis. D'ya think I could get some light back here?" I asked, taking a step back from the rock while keeping my fingers pressed into place so I wouldn't lose the spot. "I think I mighta found something."

"Uuuh, sure." Genis separated from the crowd and came over, the end of his kendama tapping in a steady beat. It didn't take long for the top ball to burst into flames, casting a flickering light over the depression in the rock. I stared at it. So did Genis. "What is that?"

"What is it? I wanna see!" Lloyd, being tall and curious, managed to squish his way in there and look over our shoulders at our discovery. "Are you talking about that hole?"

"I don't think it's a hole," I muttered, running my fingers over it a last time to make a comparison. Worn perfectly smooth, spanning about the width of a softball. Sounded like a perfect fit for the Desian Orb. "I think we need to stick the Orb in here."

That was Raine's cue to come forward, her fingers clutching nervously at the outer edges of her bag as the rest of us stepped back to give her room. I noticed she seemed exceedingly wary when it came to retrieving the object in question, and she downright grimaced when she pulled it out and held it in her hand. "Professor, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she grumbled through gritted teeth. "Where do I need to put it?"

Genis pointed to the hole, since he was still standing close by and providing the light source. His sister brushed by him and practically shoved the Orb into the space, although she seemed rather dismayed to find that she actually had to hold it in place. The groove wasn't so deep as to let the Desian Orb just sit in it. Since I had done my part here and I had no idea what to do now, I just decided to relax, look natural, and let plot events unfold. Whatever happened after this would be as much of a mystery to me as it was to them.

What happened was nothing. For a minute, anyway. Then Raine squeaked, the Desian Orb glowed bright purple, the rock shuddered violently, and then it was repelled sideways to reveal a hidden sewer grate with broken bars.

My raised eyebrows were not a symbol of false surprise, even though I knew what was supposed to be behind there. "Oh snap."

Everyone gave me an odd look except Raine and Genis. Raine gave a shuddering gasp and dropped the Orb, which rolled sideways through the bars of the grate and doooown into the darkness. Nobody dived after it in a panic, which was just as well. We didn't need it anymore, and Genis was too busy fussing over his sister to notice. "Raine? Raine, what's wrong?"

"Oh, Professor! You should sit down," Colette fretted, taking hold of her arms and helping Genis sit Raine up against the boulder. "You don't look so well."

"I will secure the tunnel. Keep watch for Desians," Kratos announced quietly, before he vanished down into the sewer with a swirl of his cloak. Nobody really noticed him except for Lloyd, who looked torn between worry for his teacher and worry for that asshole. Somehow, seeing Raine surrounded by everybody else meant that worry for that asshole won out, and he ducked down into the sewer after Kratos.

I snorted quietly. Clearly, Lloyd's hero-worship of Kratos was beginning to show. This also meant that I was the only one who had paid attention to the 'watch for Desians' order. Even Sheena had gone to see what was wrong with Raine, who was still looking a bit pale. After a quick look around the clearing, I determined that whatever the Desians were doing, they didn't give two shits about us at the moment. That meant if Kratos found the tunnel nicely secure, then the ranch infiltration was a go.

So I too scuttled over to see what was wrong with Raine. Call me a sadist, but I was curious as to why the Orb seemed to cause her so much pain. The Professor was smart, she surely would know. At the very least, she had already given Genis some sort of instruction, because he was rummaging around in her bag. I settled in between Colette and Sheena and watched as Genis pulled out an orange gel that he practically shoved at his sister. "Here sis, will this help?"

"Yes Genis, I believe it will." Raine took the gel with a shaking hand and choked it down, before settling back against the boulder again and sighing. I noticed color beginning to return to her face after a minute, which meant something beneficial had just happened here. Orange gels restored… well, they didn't call it TP in real life. Mana? Magic? Mana, I think. Had the Desian Orb drained her mana?

"Are you feeling better now, Professor?" Colette asked, tilting her head sideways. "Your face looks clearer."

Raine took a deep breath and slowly sat up, looking from her hovering brother to our collection of clustered female faces. "Yes dear, I think so." She rubbed at her head before reaching for her staff, and using it as a lever to help her stand up. Genis was almost immediately attached to her other side, steadying her until she was fully upright. "Thank you, Genis."

"What happened?" I blurted out finally, unable to contain my mouth. Genis glared at me, but Raine didn't seem to mind too terribly much. Or if she did, she was still too out of it at the moment to reprimand me.

"That Orb… I – " Raine paused and looked down into the sewer, where it had rolled out of sight. "It felt like… such a greedy thing. It sucked the energy from whatever held it, and then to expel it…" She shuddered again and tightened her grip on her staff. "Where are Lloyd and Kratos?"

"They went ahead to secure the tunnel," Sheena said, pointing into the darkness. "I'm guessing it's safe, or else we would have heard some sort of struggle by now."

"Or Kratos dismembered them before they could blink," I mumbled. Colette looked at me strangely, but nobody else seemed to pay me any attention. Raine was already making attempts to hobble into the sewer, using her staff and Genis as crutches. Apparently it would take a little longer before the orange gel could restore her strength fully. Colette trotted after them, and left Sheena and me to cover the rear. I didn't like the thought of leaving the broken grate exposed in the open, but nothing weird ever happened in the game (like surprise Desian squads flanking you) so I just had to hope the same thing would happen here.

Also, did I mention that it was dark in the sewer? Mother of frig it was dark in this sewer. And cold. And damp. And there were rats. I couldn't see them, of course, because it was so damn dark; but I could hear their squeaking and splashing through the puddles, and occasionally one of them ran over my foot. Whenever this happened I had the tendency to let out a muffled shriek and jump at the nearest person, Scooby-Doo style. This person was usually, unfortunately for Sheena... Sheena.

But luckily for her and unluckily for me, I was forced to stop when she finally somehow almost shanked me with a guardian card under the excuse of "I thought you were a Desian!" I could have argued back with her about that until the cows came home, but I could feel Kratos' death glare boring into my skull from almost ten feet up ahead and decided that I at least wanted to try and make it to the Tower of Salvation in one piece. This meant I had to suffer the indignity of being run over by rats in silence, but I could tell I probably wasn't the only one suffering. Colette occasionally made weird squeaking noises, and even Genis jumped at his sister once when a particularly big hairy bastard tried to go up his leg.

I wasn't sure how far we walked up that tunnel in the darkness exactly. Each minute felt like an hour crammed full of paranoia, spawned from the worries of either A) Desians were going to jump us from behind, or B) somebody was somehow going to get a rat in their shorts and then the whole expedition would just go to hell. My brain was slipping into autopilot mode a bit when Kratos suddenly and quietly declared "We have reached an exit."

I promptly walked into Colette's back, because I'm just retarded like that and it was dark in here, damn. Luckily the Chosen caught me before I could end up with my butt in sewer water. "I'm so sorry!"

"Geez Colette, nothin' to be sorry for," I mumbled as I brushed myself and her off, since we were supposed to be being quiet here. "I wasn't watching where I was going. It was totally my fault."

"Oh." Colette's face was nothing more than a smudge to my (what I was discovering) apparently abominable night-vision. "I'm sorry."

The sound of Lloyd's facepalming up ahead barely echoed in the tunnel. "You dork, we don't have time for this right now."

"I'm sor - " I promptly clapped my hand over Colette's mouth and hustled her up the tunnel to where Lloyd was standing at the base of iron ladder rungs jutting out from the wall. Kratos was nowhere in sight, which lead me to believe he had already obviously scaled the ladder and was now proceeding to gut who or whatever was up above right now. This lead into the main control room, right? I thought so. As I handed Colette over to Lloyd so he could escort her up the ladder, my brain was rapidly beginning to remember something else I hated about this damn ranch. We have to split into teams. Oh crap.

Did I want to face Kvar? No. No I did not. That fight always sucked a huge wang and I had been electrocuted enough times in my life already to know that I never wanted it to happen to me again. Trying to take out those little Raybit shitters littering this ranch would probably be bad enough. So there's seven people, I thought to myself as I took my turn to carefully scale the slimy ladder into the square of light above. Assuming I am automatically on the deactivation team, and Lloyd is on the infiltration team, and they're prolly gonna want us to joint-split them, who would I put where...?

Lucky for my memory, we came out once more into the control room, just like last time. Except this time, I knew we weren't about to have a surprise meeting with either the Renegades or Kvar being a prick behind Door Number Two. Upon my exiting the ladder fully, I headed directly towards the middle of the space and did a quick scan of the whole thing to see if I could see any bloodstains on the floor or remains of bodies being hastily shoved behind some piece of equipment. I wouldn't put it past Kratos, after all. Kratos himself was hovering next to Raine, who was busily hacking into the ranch's main computer for a diagram of how to get the captives out and how best to shove a pointy piece of metal into Kvar. Lloyd was prowling the room like a caged tiger, mostly in the vicinity of Colette and Genis. If I had strolled over there and yelled BOO at him he probably would've stabbed me before he blinked.

Eventually Raine had all the information we needed to successfully own this ranch. "Alright. Everyone gather 'round," she instructed a little wearily. She did sound better than she had after dropping the Desian Orb, but still nowhere near her fiery self. "The captives are located here, in this section." Onscreen, a section of a diagram of the ranch lit up and flashed. "And Kvar is currently located here." Another section on the complete opposite end of the ranch lit up. "But I've determined that we cannot currently get to him because that section is protected by a guard program."

"Can't we just shut that off?" Lloyd asked, peering up at the diagram. Raine nodded a little and pressed another button, and another section of the ranch (on another completely opposite side, mind you) lit up to display a U-shaped section that was familiar to me.

"Yes. That part is located here. But to get from here, to the guard system, and then to rescue the captives, and then go after Kvar without being detected..." Raine looked a little helplessly at Lloyd. "It would normally be impossible."

Lloyd looked at her warily. "'Normally'? What's an, uh... un-normal way?"

"Abnormal," Raine corrected without missing a beat. "And I'm afraid the only way we could successfully pull this off is if we split into teams of two. One to rescue the captives and deactivate the system - "

"And the other to stop Kvar!" Lloyd pounded one fist into another triumphantly. "Okay, I get it now. But who goes where?"

Aaaaaand then everybody looked at me. I should have totally seen this coming.

I pondered opening my mouth to protest this plan of action, but I had the same feeling that it would turn out exactly the same as when I protested the plan of picking how we got into the Desian base. These guys would just make me do it anyway, so I would have to compromise somehow. My brain was already coming up with an idea. "Well... I honestly don't want to face Kvar," I confessed, "So I'd be happy to go with the deactivation group. And Lloyd, we obviously know you're gonna go with the infiltration group."

"You're damn right I am," the brunette grumbled, clenching the fist his exsphere was mounted on. "I need to avenge my mom."

"So I figure I'll take Raine with me, because she's still tired from the crap the Orb put her through," I gestured for the Professor to come to me, and she did with a very small but grateful smile. "Also I'll prolly need her brains to shut down the guard system. So Lloyd, you pick whoever you want to go with you and I'll just take whoever's left along."

"Hm. Alright." Lloyd turned and immediately began to survey the remaining pool of people he had to pick from. I felt a little bad robbing him of the best healer in the group when Kvar was about to turn him into jelly, but I really did need Raine's smarts to figure out this dang system and she really was still tired from the other crap. She probably wouldn't have been of much use in a big, fast-paced battle with lots of electricity flying around in the air. I barely even noticed Raine giving Genis a sisterly look for a moment before he came trotting over to stand next to his sister.

"I have to look after Raine," Genis said simply in response to Lloyd's questioning blink.

"Yeah, I getcha. Then Kratos, would you come with me?" The redhead strolled to Lloyd's side without a second of hesitation. It made sense to me that he would ask the strongest swordsman in the group to join him. And after that, there were just two. This could be interesting, I thought to myself as Lloyd looked between Colette and Sheena for a moment. Colette was trembling a little, like an eager terrier that can't wait for you to throw them a ball or take them on a walk. "And... Sheena, you too?"

Sheena looked somehow surprised and delighted at the same time. "Sure. I'll try not to let you down," she nodded, joining Kratos in what I was beginning to term the Purple Party. Colette looked thoroughly distressed as I collected her into the fold on my side.

"Sorry Colette," Lloyd apologized as he looked over the balance of the two groups. I nodded at him to show that I was satisfied with my lot. "Okay, I think we're all set here."

"Rad. We'll meetcha back in Kvar's room," I waved as Lloyd and his little group of purple people turned and darted a door on the left half of the room to begin their mission of infiltration. "Where are we headed, Professor?"

"Through this door," Raine gestured, beginning to make her way over to it with Genis supporting her. I was tempted to tell him to stuff another orange gel down his sister's throat, but surely Raine knew what she was doing in terms of self-medicating. That just left me and a somewhat-dejected Colette bringing up the rear. My inner fangirl was mentally cheering, even though I could understand Lloyd's decision from the logical standpoint that he (probably) had followed: We're going on a sneaky mission. Colette trips a lot. Sheena is a ninja. Sheena Colette.

I tried to cheer her up anyway, because sulky Chosens wouldn't make this any more fun than it already was. "Don't be upset, Colette," I soothed, gently patting her on the shoulder. "I'm sure Lloyd wanted you to come with us because once the captives see the face of the Chosen and realize you've come to rescue them, they'll all be so overjoyed."

Colette looked hopefully at me with those big blue eyes of hers. "You really think so?"

"Of course, Colette! You're the Chosen; the holy being that will save this land and end the Desians. Anybody would be thrilled to have you come rescue them."

The blonde angel smiled gratefully at me. "Thank you, Emily."

Right, so. Deactivation. I was looking forward to this even less than whenever I played the game, for one very simple reason: how many melee fighters do we have on this team? Me.

Good god I was going to get whipped and stabbed at and shot at by Raybits without mercy or Lloyd backing me up. The thought made me sweat profusely as we walked through the door and into an empty corridor. I recognized this space after a moment of looking around. We just had to pass through the door on the other side of it and we would be in a hallway that lead towards that ridiculous and... fuck, complicated U-shaped structure that housed the guard system. I silently wondered if it would be as simple as stepping on a panel, or if there would be some stupid computer system involved. If there was, hopefully Raine could handle it with her brains. That was what I grabbed her for, after all.

While I was stuck in my thoughts and Raine was checking which door we had to go through again, Genis let out a "Crap!" and Colette gasped. I came back to the present fast enough to realize that a Desian and his Raybit friends had magically appeared in the hallway and were rushing us. Oh damn. My hand flew for my dagger as I ran forward, trying to get inside his range before he could whip at me when a chakram came whistling in from behind me and promptly smashed right into the guy's face. It was in this moment that I realized that Colette was actually really, really good backup.

Needless to say, I wasn't wasting this opportunity. I only paused slightly in my charge to make sure the returning chakram wouldn't hit me before I got right up into the stunned Desian's face and slammed my fist into his (what appeared to be) already-broken nose. The horrible crunching sound that followed told me this guy would probably be drowning in his own blood for a while. With no time to properly ponder that, I yanked my hand back and tried to shake blood and bone fragments off while turning to face the Raybits. The two of them had backed Genis and Raine up against the wall; and though Colette was trying to stop them, the edges of her chakrams only dented the hard metal of their outsides. Genis was too busy trying to not be shot by lightning to cast anything at the moment, as well as shielding his sister.

I looked from my bloody hand to the one that clutched my hydra dagger, and wondered for the first time if it was possible for someone to sonic thrust down. A sickening 'thump' from the Heart on my chest told me there was nothing I could do but try. Colette certainly wasn't getting anywhere at this rate.

So I ran forwards towards the Raybits a few steps, crouched and leaped into the air. In a stunning display of athleticism I didn't even know I could possess, my body arched like a leaping cat before I came slamming down blade-first into the top of the first Raybit. The hydra dagger punched right through the outside metal shell like a knife into corkboard, and my weight brought the Raybit crashing into the ground along with me. As I struggled to wrench the blade out of the metal shell, the second Raybit shot me right in the chest.

And mother of all fuck, that was the worst pain I had ever felt. It didn't help that the damn thing had actually nailed me square in the Demon's Heart... which now felt like it was on fire. Everything else went out the window at this point for me because I was too busy writhing around on the floor yelping and trying to smother invisible flames.

Eventually someone grabbed my shoulders and pinned me down flat on the floor long enough for a soothing, healing light to spread across my chest. The pain died marginally, and I cracked my bleary eyes open to see Colette staring down at me with such a concentrated expression of concern I thought that maybe I had died. "What just happened?" I squeaked at her. For some reason, it was a bit hard to breathe.

"One of those machines shot you," the angel said, her eyes lingering on my chest for a moment. Craning my sore neck to follow her gaze, I was somehow not all that surprised when I saw that a large charred hole now adorned the front of my shirt in front of the Demon's Heart. Luckily, my skin did not look like my shirt; doubtless thanks to Raine's healing skills. "It was so awful. We thought you'd had a heart attack."

"Sure felt like I had one," I grumbled, gently pushing at Colette's hands to make her let go of my shoulders. The angel helped me sit up and I looked around, immediately spotting what remained of the last Raybit: speared on several points of earth. I don't know how the lad did it, but apparently Genis had just discovered the wonders of Stalagmite. Speaking of Genis, he was only a few feet away with Raine tending to some of the electrical burns he had accrued while defending from the Raybits. I caught a glimpse of one on his leg before Raine healed it up - a softball-sized circle of bright red, blistering flesh. Taking that visual into account, I stupidly looked down at my chest again, imagined it covered in burning blisters; finally realized the funny smell in the air around here was actually burnt flesh, and then I almost threw up.

But not quite. Even though I had my hands over my mouth and nose and my brain was screaming to upheave my stomach contents, I managed to hold it down for now. This was seriously not the time to start losing my cool when we needed to get out of here, fast, and shut down the guard system before the Desians realized that Lloyd, Kratos, and Sheena were all attempting to break into the main part of their stronghold. Colette was still giving me her concerned look when I finally took my hands away from my mouth and realized blue eyes were still boring into my chest. Rather selfconsciously, I raised a hand to shield what tiny bit of exposed cleavage I had (which wasn't much to begin with, but hey. I'm modest). "Colette, what's wrong? I'm fine now."

Colette frowned. "The stone on your chest is purple."

...well hello sunshine. The Demon's Heart was supposed to be black. It always was anytime I looked at it, anyway. I prodded curiously at the stone a few times, but aside from the usual throbbing it always did in my chest, I couldn't find or feel anything else wrong with it. "I'm sure it's fine, Colette. Anyway, we have to get out of here and shut down that freakin' system fast, before they realize there's a pile of scrap and a guy with a broken face out here." I managed to get up on my first try with Colette only giving me a minimum of help, and promptly headed over to the Raybit to retrieve my stuck dagger. Two good yanks got it free, and by then I was realizing those white things stuck in my hand were not scar tissue. Though it pained me to do it, I very carefully used the point of the hydra dagger to work out the remaining bone fragments that were stuck in my skin. Right before my eyes, the tiny cuts stopped bleeding and appeared to scab right over by themselves. I wasn't quite sure what to think of that.

"Are we all ready to go?" Raine asked quietly as she began to head down the hall towards another door at the far end. I wondered why the heck we weren't going through the one right in front of us, when I suddenly remembered. Oh right. We have to go outside for a while in this ranch. Flipping balls of joy. Colette and Genis were already hustling after Raine to our destination, so I definitely didn't want to be left behind. I sheathed my dagger onto my belt and, with some reluctance, drew an apple gel from my hip pouch. I didn't completely know what kind of properties these things had, aside from tasting like complete shit, but hopefully one of them was antibacterial. No way did I want to get some sort of weird blood infection because bits of half-elf bone were somehow still lodged inside my hand.

Swallowing it was just as horrible as all the other times I'd ever had to choke down a gel. Uuuugh.

So we ended up in what was effectively Kvar's backyard. Or maybe it was his front yard? I had no idea at this point, just supplying witty mental commentary as the plot demands. We crouched behind a stack of what looked like strange cement crates close nearby the door we had come out of as Raine consulted her trusty map, trying to figure out where we had to go in this yard of hell. Colette was looking particularly nervous, and I couldn't blame her. Waaaay over on the other side of the grass, there were some prisoners toiling away at useless work and a lot of angry Desian yelling. Her sensitive ears were probably bursting internally with angst.

Eventually Raine figured out that hey, we go this way; and so we slunk off through the maze of cement crates in the direction of this strange little door she had found. Maybe it went to the basement, I didn't really remember by that point. I was more concerned with getting a surprise whip to the back and maybe ending up inside one of the freaky cement crates. I'm sure we all did Sheena proud out there, creeping around like pretend ninjas and blending in reasonably well to the grey stone despite most of us wearing bright colors. I mean, c'mon. Everybody's wearing some form of white, Raine was predominantly orange, and Genis... yeah, you see where this is going. At least I was wearing a brown vest and dark pants. That had to count for something.

Still, I was never as happy as when we finally reached that little door hidden behind a bunch of boxes, Raine picked the lock, and we all scooted inside. Were we safer? Hell no. But there's just something more comforting about sneaking around when you know that there's four walls you can press your back against and a roof over your head.

After that, Colette and I took point and Genis brought up the rear, the three of us keeping Raine surrounded in a sort of protective mob. We passed through the door she had deemed safe and found ourselves in an empty hallway that lead straight down. There weren't any additional doors in the walls, which meant we only had to watch our front and our back.

And quite possibly the ceiling, but since when had anything ever jumped us from the ceiling? I didn't even see any grates up there.

"We're almost to the split," Raine noted, checking the little map she'd obtained of the ranch from the main room. I immediately set to thinking about what obstacles we would encounter once we reached the U-split. It didn't matter whether we went left or right, but immediately before that we would probably encounter a Desian patrol in the giant empty room located up ahead. Strategy would have to come into play here.

"Wait, you guys." I stopped, bringing our little caravan to a halt. The others gazed at me curiously, possibly thinking I was insane. I wouldn't blame them. "We shouldn't all go charging ahead into that room in front of us. It's big and there's no place for good cover, right Raine?" I asked, looking over at the Professor. She glanced down at her map and nodded.

"What are you suggesting? That we send someone to scout ahead?" Raine asked, giving me a strange look.

"Yeah. If there's something up there we have to fight, I'd rather lure them into this hallway first." I gestured to either side of the narrow space, which was about seven feet wide. "If Genis boxes them in, they'll have no place to go; and Raybits hopefully won't make a target out of you guys again."

Genis winced at the mention of it. I had a feeling he was down for my plan. Raine also nodded thoughtfully after a moment. "It is a good plan. I don't mind going through with it."

"You shouldn't go alone!" Colette protested, clinging to my arm for a moment. "What if something goes wrong?"

"Howabout you cover me from the hallway?" I suggested, gently extricating myself from the angel. "I'll be heading back this way anyway. If it looks like they're getting too close, spray some angel feathers at them or something."

Colette blinked, frowning for a moment before her pink wings materialized and fluttered into view. "Sorry, I forgot about these. I can do that."

"No apologizing," I told her, and immediately darted down the hallway towards the opening before she could spew more of them at me. At the end I slowed to a stop and crouched down next to the wall, drawing my dagger just in case. I could hear footsteps and something electrical humming, which meant there was probably at least one Raybit in this group. Just fucking brilliant. To confirm my hunch, I peered carefully around the corner and spotted two Desians chatting with each other while they strolled on either side of a Raybit.

Ah fuck. How do I do this without one guy running off and getting reinforcements? Well, I could always pray to the game mechanics and... hope the Desians were as dumb as they looked. With that said, these guys were wielding swords this time, so I would have to be careful if I got in close with them. It was times like these that made me wish I had a sword. Oh well.

"Hey losers!" I yelled lightly as I jumped out into the opening of the hallway and waved my hands in the air. Needed to give Colette and Genis some cues to get ready for a fight, after all. "Bet you can't get me!"

"Hey! Inferior being!" One Desian snapped. The Raybit promptly starting floating over and shot a ball of electricity at me. I slid to the side to avoid getting another part of my shirt burned to bits. Undaunted, the Raybit kept firing; so I kept dodging around in the entrance of the hallway. Sometimes it got a little awkward, but then again, I had always been really good at dodgeball when it came to the dodging department. Ha. Just like dancing.

"C'mon guys, where's your manly pride?" I called over to the Desians again. "This dinky little machine of yours is never gonna take me out!"

"Dammit!" And then they charged at me with their weapons drawn. That was my cue to skedaddle back into the hallway, where Colette was already deep in prayer and Genis had runes swirling about his feet. I skittered to a stop in front of them and took up a protective position, ready to cast Guardian so flying electric spheres wouldn't interrupt their casting.

A bit too late, Desian mooks 1 and 2 realized that hey, this was a trap. They realized this even further when giant rocks suddenly shot up from the floor and squished mook 2 right into the ceiling. I had a feeling he wasn't going to be making any babies anytime soon.

Mook 1 turned to run, but then Colette's angel feathers rushed down the hallway and caught him in his tracks; the feathery halos liberally slicing through his skin. I ran after them, skirting the Raybit to finish off mook 1 with a sonic thrust somewhere in the direction of where I thought his kidney would be. Hey, you can live with only one kidney.

And then I had to duck immediately afterwards because I'd learned my lesson the first time and goddess-damn fucking Raybits.

Colette's chakrams dinged off the top of the thing, distracting it for a moment. In that moment I did a sort of jump across the floor, lunged upwards and stabbed my dagger up into the thankfully less armored and more-vulnerable underside of the Raybit. It fizzled and spat until I proceeded to drag it down to the floor and stab it multiple times in a fit of red-haze-induced rage.

Then I kicked it for good measure. "I fucking hate you things!"

The Raybit corpse fizzled and I kicked it again. "If you're quite done," Raine said dryly from the next room, leaving me to realize that they had temporarily left me alone and I didn't want to be shanked by surprise Desians! so I hotfooted it after them to retake my place near the head of the group with Colette. It was in that moment that I taught her something new when I held my fist out to her and the angel stared at it.

"What are you doing?"

"Fistbump!" I told her cheerfully. "Make a fist and tap mine. It's a celebratory sort of thing."

"Oh. Okay!" Colette followed suit and gently tapped her knuckles to mine. "What are we celebrating?"

"Good teamwork!"

"Hey, I want in on the celebrating!" Genis complained from the back of the group.

Raine silently scowled at us all. "It's too early to be celebrating anything until we free the prisoners and defeat Kvar."

I pouted at her. "Don't be a downer, Raine. Positive spirits make things flow better." Turning back to look over her shoulder, I waved to Genis. "Pop up here real fast so we can brofist, man."

The mage came scooting up after glancing once over his shoulder to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us. "What's a brofist?" He asked. I held up my fist, and after a moment Genis bumped it with his own.

"Tada. That's a brofist," I told him. "It's technically only something two guys can do, so make sure you show Lloyd when we get back to him."

A big grin began to spread over Genis' face. "Yeah, definitely!" In the background, his sister groaned and shook her head a little. Doubtless the Professor thought the current situation was too serious to be chatting about the art of the brofist, but I thought it was a good time for this sort of thing. We were almost to the prisoners, and which would you prefer to be saved by? Rescuers who look tired, worried, and unsure of what they're doing; or rescuers who look confident and in control?

Yeah, I'd go with the latter option too.

With our spirits boosted, we slipped right into the first open door to begin the guard system shutdown process. It began in a tiny little room that had one of those darn panels on the floor, and a computer console on the wall nearby. The minute I saw that I mentally groaned and left it for Raine to hack mercilessly at. Clearly it would be needed to do something, because Genis was poking at the panel on the floor with his foot and it wasn't responding. Raine seemed to notice the same thing I did, because she immediately swept over to the computer.

This left Colette and I hanging by our lonesome. I gestured towards the open door and she nodded, getting the message. It was time to cover the Sage siblings until they solved this puzzle for us.

The air was quiet for a few minutes, except for the sound of Raine humming thoughtfully to herself and various clicks and beeps from the computer. After what seemed like an eternity, she turned around and gestured to Genis. "It's okay to step on the panel now. From what I can tell, doing so shouldn't result in any harm to us."

Genis gulped anyway. "If you say so, sis," he mumbled, taking a cautious step onto the panel. It flashed blue under his weight and Colette and I both jumped backwards with a 'meep!' as the door began to close right in front of us. Even though I knew this was supposed to happen, it still scared the crap out of me.

After a moment, I reached out and prodded at it to try and find an opening switch, even though I knew there wasn't one. "Clearly, this is a one-way road."

"We need to go this way," Raine said, already standing next to another door and poking at it. "The prisoner complex is right next to here."

"Really? That's great!" Colette stepped right up to Raine as the professor opened the door, and the angel gave off her most winning smile. "Can I go first? It'll give us better cover against guards."

Raine appeared to give this some thought as I stepped up next to Colette and took out my dagger. There would obviously be some guards around the complex that would require shanking, and I was silently hoping that there would be no Raybits. Just doing this ranch was already giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to what Welgaia would probably be like, with those... oh god, those Murder things. hnnnnngh did not want and whoops, Colette was going through the door. I had apparently missed the end of her conversation with Raine, being too preoccupied with waythefuckinthefuture impending doom. Since I was supposed to be Colette's point guard, I squeezed into the short tunnel before Raine and scrambled after the angel.

Naturally, we ended up the prison complex; and naturally, there were Desians in there. Two on the lower floor were taking a break from patrolling to harass the prisoners when Colette and I burst into the room. I heard a few "We're saved!" and "What's going on?" from the cells while I made myself into an immediate distraction and rushed the Desians. One had a whip and the other had a sword, and I had the feeling I would be in for some pain. This is what you get for sending ALL YOUR MELEE FIGHTERS AGAINST KVAR.

Made even more obvious and painful when the whip smacked into my arm as I tried to guard. I dunno what the hell was in the tip of it exactly, but it was hard and heavy as hell and I was willing to swear it'd just cracked my bone because the pain was ridiculous. Thankfully, that was not my dagger arm. That one was busy fencing with the sword-wielding Desian. Things were rapidly reaching the point that I was wondering where the hell is my backup? as the whip smacked me again, this time tagging my collarbone and clipping my jaw on the return trip. Something cracked: I didn't know whether it was my collarbone or my teeth.

Then came three of the best screams I had ever heard in my life.

"Angel Feathers!" On came the fluffy holy halos, and my Desian buddies backed the hell off as I began to scramble backwards while cradling my disabled arm.

"Spread!" Then they took a trip into the ceiling. Man, Genis really liked doing that. I watched impassively as my previous foes shot up on a geyser of water, slammed into the concrete ceiling, and then slammed back down into the concrete floor as the water made a return trip via gravity. Pity felt? Absolutely none. Those bastards had broken something of mine, damn it all.

"Nurse!" Best. Scream. Ever. Bless Raine's awesome half-elf heart; she learned how to do a stronger healing spell. A swirl of blue light that looked disturbingly human came skipping up to me and hugged me, which was weird in and of itself. Then it dissolved into me, and I became extremely freaked out for thirty seconds until I realized that anything that had been hurting previously had... stopped hurting. Okay. The healyblob basically raped me to make me better... But it's still cool!

I came back to the present when a giant pile of rocks shot up from the top of the nearby stairwell into the lower level, effectively blocking off the pair of Desians that had been trying to climb down it. That left the other stair on the other side of the room open, and I scrambled towards it with Colette flying behind me. As we ran, cheers of "It's the Chosen! The Chosen has come to save us!" and "An angel! An angel has descended from heaven!" began to erupt from the cells lining the walls as prisoners crowded forwards into the bars, stretching out their hands to try and catch the ethereal feathers shedding off Colette's wings.

"Get 'em from above!" I called to her as I charged up the steps. My thought process beyond this point was nothing more than OH GOD DON'T FALL UP THE STAIRS as I clenched my dagger tighter in my fist and somehow, felt strangely empowered. Is this what Lloyd feels before he pulls off one of those rippin' combos? Hunh, I wonder, and then I didn't have time to wonder anymore when there was a Desian trying to stab me in the face. I ducked to one side, letting his sword slip past me and fighting back a wince when I heard fabric rip and felt something hot trickle down my shoulder. Well, there went the rest of my shirt.

"Asshole! I liked this shirt!" Mad did not adequately describe my mental state. I was being fueled by adrenaline and a power rush and hey you just tried to KILL ME! so I hauled back and slammed the hilt of my hydra dagger up into the underside of his jaw. I must've hit harder than I thought, because I definitely felt some teeth breakage there before the Desian went staggering back into his compatriot as he tried to climb down the stairs too. Oh, I thank the gaming gods so hard that these guys are stupid.

Seconds later, more of Colette's angel feathers rained down from above; and shortly after that, rocks from Genis. I had to turn away at that point and trudge wearily down the stairs. Just hearing the sickening 'squish-crack-crunch' of stalagmites doing horrible things to flesh was bad enough without me seeing it, too. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I slumped down against the retaining wall lining the inside rim of the room and inspected the damage to my shoulder. It was a thin slice, about five inches long and almost an inch deep. In real life, it would have required stitches. Here with Raine setting about undoing all the locks and freeing the prisoners... it required an apple gel. Uuuugh.

I pulled another one out of my pack and glanced over my supplies. Three of the slimy little bastards left to use. Welp, bottoms up, I mentally sighed and tossed down the gel. It made me cringe and flail until my wound knitted together with a thin scab line and some dried blood left to show for it. I poked at it, satisfied it would hold until we got out of here and Raine could finish healing it later.

As I was getting back up to rejoin the rest of the group and resume shutting down the guard system, I had a sudden realization. I think I just used Beast holy flipping crap what. I looked from my dagger, to my hand, to the stairs (and turned back away real fast, OH GOD THE CARNAGE), and finally down to my chest. The Demon's Heart was doing its usual little thumpy thing that made me feel vaguely queasy to think about, and it was considerably less purple than before. So... how did I do that exactly. I feel like getting mad has something to do with it.

Aaaaand Raine was escorting the prisoners through a door in the front of the complex whoops. I shook myself out of my reverie and scrambled back over to join Colette and Genis in assisting with this process. Once Raine had pointed them where to go, we'd be able to go back to doin' our own thing. Lucky for us, the hallway in that direction should be clear this time. Unless... some magical respawn stuff had taken place. Then I would run in the other direction with the prisoners screaming about zombies.

"What happened to your shoulder?" Colette asked as we exited into the hallway and promptly headed back in the direction we'd just came from. I shrugged a little and instantly regretted it when THE PAIN hit.

"Desian, stairs, didn't duck fast enough, I'll be fine," I mumbled on the end because I technically would be and Raine was busy enough already with the whole guard system thing. "C'mon, let's just get this crap over with so we can meet up with Lloyd again."

The angel nodded in agreement. Thankfully, the hallway was still mostly empty. I mean, there was a giant pile of rocks with (URK) Desian-bits squished into the ceiling, another one on the floor and a dead Raybit; but other than that it was empty. We breezed past the corpses while trying not to think about them and headed for the other door on the other side of the big room.

Almost too late, I remembered. "Raybit!"

The whole party screeched to a halt, weapons flying into a ready position. "Where?" Raine asked. I pointed towards the room we were about to go into, and got a Look in return.

Right, we obviously couldn't fight in the room with important equipment. Who to send as bait...? The fast tiny one who hates Raybits. hnnnnngh Raine wrrrrrry. Mentally crying my emo tears, I pulled out my dagger and headed for the room.

Stuck my head in the door.

Hit the floor when an electric ball almost blasted my face off. "ARRRRGH I FUCKING HATE YOU THINGS."

The Raybit readjusted to account for a lower angle. I promptly rolled backwards and around the edge of the door as the electric burst splatted into the floor, leaving static to tingle and crawl around my skin. Adfsghsdf. It was painful waiting for the damn thing to come floating up and finally out of the doorway, looking around for targets. Thankfully Colette was a good shot and a dozen angel feathers slammed into the Raybit as soon as it cleared our 'target zone'. Knocked back from the impact, the robot tilted and revealed its vulnerable underside to me for just a moment. I lunged across the floor and slammed the hydra dagger up into its innards to forcibly rip out a chunk of the vital machinery.

The Raybit promptly exploded in my face afterwards. That was real nice.

I was cursing with my arms over my face when I felt the soothing touch of mana that signaled Raine was healing whatever burns I had sustained from being right next to the explosion. "Thanks Raine," I mumbled, sitting up after a moment and looking over my clothes to see if further damages had been acquired. Wouldn't you know, the backs of both my sleeves were a nice crispy brown color. At this rate I was going to walk out of the ranch without a shirt on. Why is this happening to meeee, I whined silently as we tromped into the room and let Raine hack away at the guard system while the rest of us waited. I'm one of the flattest members of this group. I can NOT be falling prey to the Clothing Damage/Fanservice trope!

Genis hopped onto the glowing panel when his sister gave him the signal. The whole thing beeped and the room flashed red for a moment, indicating a successful shutdown. I was still too busy fretting over my shirt. I'm going to have to patch this damn thing up and oh god I am so not good at sewing.

"The rest of the system is located on the other side of this complex," Raine indicated in the background as she gathered up her pack and her staff and began to head out the door. "Let's move quickly, before another patrol comes along to discover why part of the guard system isn't working." That declaration stuck in my brain, and I scrambled out the door with the others as we began our hustle down the long hallway and into the other half of the U-complex. I was nervous we would run into more guards, or hell, more Raybits; but nothing in particular jumped out at us during our run from one end to the other. I guessed we had already taken out the main guards in this section of the ranch, and as long as we worked quickly we wouldn't run into more of them.

As we ran, I mused on how we would get to the warp to join Lloyd and company in time for the Kvar fight. This was taking an awful lot of running. Not to mention we would have to retrace our steps back to the control room (a very risky prospect in itself, we'd have to cross the yard again) and follow the route Lloyd had taken from there to get up to the warp. Though I was pretty bad at calculating time, I gave it my best estimate anyway and concluded - the game bullshits you. There was no way we'd be able to get up there for the fight, especially considering how out-for-blood Lloyd and Kratos were. We'd be lucky if we got there in time to hear Kratos deliver his infamous line.

But hey wait. Ain't Colette supposed to get smacked in the back and Lloyd lets the cat outta the bag? ...aw horsefeathers. Maybe the universe was cheating me.

To my great relief, the rest of the deactivation went off almost without a hitch. We went in the first little room, hitch the switch, triggered the door, escaped through the prison complex; wound back around, hit the other door, and then there was the Raybit. I had had enough of this fucking Raybit shit.

The minute the door slid open, I charged in with a screech of "DIE!" and smashed the hydra dagger right into the barrel of the Raybit's electrical cannon. The whole thing exploded spectacularly again, but luckily not in my face this time. I had learned my lesson, left the dagger stuck in there, and run the hell away after stabbing it. The Raybit tried to shoot me and exploded. HOORAY FOR MECHANICAL STUPIDITY. As Raine went to go beat up the computer, I dragged my dagger out of the scrap and tried to clean some of the soot off of it on my burnt sleeve. It took me a moment to realize Colette and Genis were staring at me. "What?"

Genis soundlessly pointed at the Raybit and made some sort of weird flappy gesture with his hand. Colette was a tiny bit more vocal. "Are you... feeling okay?" She asked cautiously, as if I was a bomb that would go off at the slightest provocation.

I sheathed my dagger and glanced over at Raine, who was giving Genis her 'come hither and step on this thing' look. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just really, really don't like Raybits." And I think my adrenaline levels may be just the TINIEST bit off the charts right now. I really need to get out of this place before I crash back down to earth. Colette was still giving me a wary look, but we both put that aside to watch Genis stomp on the final switch. The room flashed red and BOOP'd, and then it was done. Guard system, your ass has officially been kicked.

"Now we need to hurry and meet up with the others," Raine said, brushing past us and back out into the hallway. She left the 'before the guards come' part unspoken this time, but that was pretty much a given. I did not want to have to fight my way all the way up to Kvar's room. If that was going to be our plan, I would probably be better off climbing over the front gates out in the yard and running with all the prisoners to wherever they were going to end up again. Asgard? Luin? You know, that always bothered me. How the fuck do they go from here to Asgard so damn fast with Colette half-dying or whatever? Damn you, plot devices! I could worry about that later, though. If I didn't keep my head in the present, it would probably end up skewered on some Desian's spear.

Falling into formation, the four of us left the room and swept through the hallways in our quest to meet up with Lloyd.

I was tired by the time we got to the warp room. Very, very tired, and honestly a little bit (okay a lot bit) grossed out at the same time. Have you ever had to run through a hallway that was covered in blood before? Go thank your lucky stars, because I sure did. Everything had smelled like copper to me since then and my boots made very disgusting, sticky squish noises against the floor as we ran. That coupled with the bodies of Desians and Raybits we were finding everywhere made me wonder just how much fun Lloyd and Kratos had had on the way up to see Kvar.

At least I wasn't the only one disgusted by the whole thing. Colette had both her hands over her nose in a futile effort to not smell anything, and Genis was occasionally casting small water spells in front of us to wash pools of blood out of our way.

So the warp came sort of like a huge blessing. We could leave these disgusting floors and head up onto another one that would... still smell like blood. "Please don't let this suck as much as I think it's going to suck," I mumbled under my breath before I stepped on the warp and had the most positively-hurl-inducing experience of my life. It was like being streeeeeched out to the point where all my atoms were in a line, then sucked through a tube and snapped back upon landing.

I stumbled out of the warp, dizzy and nauseated; smelled blood and burnt flesh, and promptly staggered over to go vomit behind a chair. The others didn't give too much of a damn about me at the moment because Raine was too busy flying over there to slap healing spells on Lloyd and Sheena; and the other two followed because OMG OUR FRIIIIIENDS ARE HURT! I don't mind the fact that they're very close and team-oriented and everything, but if there is one thing in this world that can reduce my mentality to that of a retarded crying three-year-old in a second, it's vomit. Crouched behind that chair shaking like a leaf with my eyes closed and a variety of positively horrendous smells assaulting me all at once, I just wanted someone to come and wipe my face and lead me away from all this into some fresh air.

'course, that didn't happen right away because there were important Plot Things going on over there. I know because I heard them.

Colette's yelp of "Lloyd, look out!" The sound of rendered flesh. Lloyd's successive yelp of outrage and "YOU BASTARD!" as he presumably grabbed Colette, since I didn't hear her hit the floor. There was another slicing sound. Musta been Lloyd, Kratos wasn't saying his line yet.

The minute I heard the next sword strike, I knew it was Kratos because the blow was so hard I could hear bones crunching all the way over here. "Feel the pain!" More crunching, oh god. "Of those inferior beings!" Now there was the sound of a body hitting the floor, presumably Kvar because there was some desperate male-sounding groaning going on over there. Kratos' sword clicked back home into its sheath. "As you burn in hell."

Welp, I have officially heard Kratos' famous line. HIDING BEHIND A CHAIR WITH MY OWN VOMIT, BUT I HEARD IT. ...why does this not make me feel better.

At this point I sort of made a desperate attempt to scoot backwards away from my stomach contents, still with my eyes closed because yeah. I didn't even hear the footsteps come up to me until I bumped into somebody's leg and froze, unsure of who it was. If it was Kratos, I was just going to die right there on the floor.

"Wow, you're kind of a mess hunh?" It was Sheena. Ohthankgod it was Sheena. She knelt down and wiped my face with what felt like a handkerchief while I whimpered miserably and cast aside all illusions of bravado at this point. After being shot and stabbed and exploded on, I really just wanted to get out of here. Eventually I rolled over onto my side so I didn't have to face that damn chair anymore, and wearily opened my eyes and attempted to smile up at Sheena. It turned out sort of forced after I saw that she was singed in several places and still had tiny electrical burns arching over her face.

"...thanks Sheena," I squeaked out, more glad than ever before I had not been present for this fight. If Sheena came out of it looking that bad, I probably would have died.

"No problem. I'm not a fan of that either," she wrinkled her nose in the direction behind me, and I knew what she was talking about. With the ninja's help, I levered myself up off the floor and the two of us staggered over in time to witness Raine applying serious healing magics onto Colette's wound as the angel protested that she was fine and Lloyd lost what was left of his shit. Sometime during this display, Genis came inching up to us and took shelter behind Sheena.

"Why is this happening?" He whined, looking to Colette. It took me a moment to see what he was talking about, but after staring at Colette for a second I saw what was wrong. Raine's magic was just flowing over the wound without closing it - it wasn't doing a damn thing. Blood continued to sluggishly leak out into the angel's white clothes and onto the floor. I very briefly thought about paying a second trip to my chair, but decided I'd done enough of that for one day.

"Professor, really - I'm fine, I swear! It... it doesn't hurt," Colette protested ineffectually as Raine poured more effort into her healing. At this rate, the Professor was going to drain her mana dry for nothing. "Please, stop - "

"Colette, I..." Lloyd was practically turning white at this point as he supported his injured friend. "I don't think I can hide it anymore - !"

"I don't know why you bothered in the first place," I grumbled as I left Sheena and Genis and slouched over to stand next to Raine. "Professor, just stop. I don't... don't think Colette has the ability to absorb magic anymore."

Raine almost dropped her staff as the healing light died and she stared up at me with wide eyes. "What?"

"Just like she can't eat, or sleep," I stared over at Lloyd, who was doing a very good goldfish impression as his mouth soundlessly opened and shut. "Or feel pain." Colette quietly buried her face further into Lloyd's jacket, one hand gripping at his arm. "Colette's losing her humanity."

Cue the shocked gasp from pretty much everyone except Raine and Kratos. Raine, I had always suspected, knew something about this from the start. As for Kratos... oh, we all know about Kratos and his opinions on this. Or we can speculate on his opinions about this. I rather imagine they amounted to 'let's blow this shit up and get out of here' at this point. But bugger Kratos, Lloyd looked like he wanted to punch me through a wall. "You knew about this?" He yelped, clutching Colette tighter.

I gave him a very thin, tight smile. "I unfortunately know everything, remember?"

"And you - you could have told us about this! We could have done something about it!" Over Lloyd's shouting and out of the corner of my eye, I was painfully aware of Kratos' hand drifting sideways towards the hilt of his sword. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, if I don't play this right he is gonna cut me down and call me a Desian spy shiiiiiiit,

I loved Lloyd, but I really just wanted to kick him in the teeth right now for this. "What should I have done, Lloyd? Stopped the regeneration journey? Doomed the world because Colette is willingly undertaking the trials she was born to do?" I glared hard at him, feeling like shit inside for talking about Colette like that but at the same time I really needed him to just shut up before Kratos decided to Kvar me. It seemed to work a bit, because Lloyd flinched back and gritted his teeth. "Besides, it wasn't my secret to tell people. It was Colette's." Kneeling down beside the angel, I took her hand and gave it a soft squeeze. "I'm sorry for giving it away now, Colette."

"It's... okay," the angel whispered, turning her face away from Lloyd's jacket so that I could see her saddened eyes. "Somehow... I always thought you knew. And I was glad, because I knew... you would understand."

"It's not something I like understanding," I admitted grimly. "You're too kind a person for this, Colette."

The angel smiled at me, chuckling a little before the sound died. Detecting something unnatural in that, both Lloyd and I peered more closely at her face in time to witness what was probably the most creepy thing ever. Most human eyes have a sort of light to them that lets you know they're alive. Colette's eyes... they were losing that. It didn't go away completely, but just enough to give you an impression that nobody was home in the building anymore. Lloyd promptly freaked out. "Colette!"

"I think she's losing too much blood." Raine took over at this point, pulling an apple gel and several rolls of bandages out of her bag. I stepped aside and dragged Lloyd with me by the arm so that he wouldn't get in the way by possibly attempting to shake Colette back to reality. He fought me, of course; but I was tired of this and I just wanted to get out of here before Kratos decided this was all taking too long and I was becoming more hindrance than help.

"Lloyd, calm down. Since she can't sleep anymore, she probably goes unconscious differently now," I tried to pacify the swordsman, who was still rightfully pissed at me. I eventually gave up and scuttled back over to the relative safety of Sheena in hopes that she could shield me from any assassination attempts. Lloyd continued to fume just out of the way of the Professor, who had her staff handy in case she had to give him a whack for some space. Luckily, Kratos came along and took care of all that.

"Lloyd." Plop, there went his hand down onto the brunette's shoulder. Lloyd flinched and whipped his head up to stare at Kratos, who had an expression similar to granite as he stared down at the younger man. "We must remove the Chosen from this place at once so that she may rest and recover."

"Er, yeah, I... Yeah, we should... yeah," and there went Lloyd attempting to regain some of his shit. "Where should we take her?"

"Asgard is closest, I believe," Raine mused from where she was tying off a bandage around Colette's midsection. "But I want to do something about this ranch before we go."

"Blow this sucker up," I piped up from around Sheena's shoulder as the ninja gave me a sideways look for invading her space.

"Isn't that a little... harsh?"

"C'mon Sheena, it's the Desians. Their middle name is practically 'harsh'."

The Professor gave us both a thoughtful look before she handed Colette off to Kratos. The mercenary held her in his arms with Lloyd hovering like a worried hen as Raine gathered her supplies and got up to begin hacking the nearby computer terminal. I took this opportunity to inch backwards several steps towards the warp, all the while making it a point to studiously avoid the vomit chair. If anything here deserved to go up in lots of flames, it was that thing. Yes. Besides, I wanted as much time as possible to run the hell out of here once Raine set the timer because I was sure I would have to run back through the bloody halls and that alone would make me gag plenty of times along the way. If only Sheena could just warp us out of here again or something, but I was pretty sure she was out of guardians.

While I fretted, the others watched the Professor at her work. Eventually she picked up her staff and rejoined the group. "I've managed to activate the self-destruct mechanism. We have ten minutes to leave before it goes off."

"Ten minutes? That's all?" Genis squeaked before he turned and scrambled towards the warp. I wasn't too far behind him, piling onto the glowing device just as soon as he was out of sight. The others would follow with all haste, I knew. Now we just had to haul our butts out of here and get a safe distance away before the place exploded. I foresaw a very long trip back to Asgard after this, but that didn't matter to me too much anymore.

We finally did it. We've beaten the Asgard ranch.