Thankyou for reading thusfar into this story. I am going to admit, this part of the saga will be ending soon. But Fear not, I will have the second installment up soon after this story finishes. I don't know what I should call it though...

Inri: "Maybe the readers could suggest something."

Pit: "Yeah, but they don't know much about the plot, heck, Valian doesn't know much about the-" Inri hit Pit int he head. "Oww.."

Inri: "You know he has the plot worked out several chapters ahead, you were the one who couldn't let go of the file containing it."

Pit: Pouts

Ok, well let just warn my readers that this chapter contains some rather graphic parts, please if you get squemish, read anyway, mwaaa hahahahahahahaaaaaa!!!!!! On with the Story!

"I do not own Tales of Symphonia!" – I.K.A. Valian

"Lord Yggdrasill, it appears that the boy lives. Our agent within the Chosen's group has heard tales of his survival from a fellow companion of the boy, also thought to have died." Yggdrasill stared evenly at the Angel Commander kneeling in front of him. "It appears that his reported death was false, and that he was in fact teleported to someplace else along with this companion, and then both were sent back to Sylvarant. His companion and a small human girl appeared in the Water Seal Chamber. The boy's companion claims that the boy has appeared in Sylvarant but that he appeared at another location. Our operatives are investigating weather the boy could have been in Tethe'alla during that time they were missing and a scout party lead by Lord Yuan himself is searching for the boy on Sylvarant."

"Very good," Yggdrasill said, his superior tone oozing over each syllable. "Continue your investigation and report the findings to me immediately. Otherwise, continue to prepare for the arrival of the Chosen and the Revival Ceremony. Please remind Lord Yuan that reviving the goddess takes higher priority over finding that boy. That is all."

"Yes, Milord." The white winged angel bowed even lower and phased out of existence, the whine and high pitched squeal of a teleportation field fading with the Angel Commander.

The computer terminal on the side of the room started beeping loudly and flashing a red light from the holographic emitter. Yggdrasill slowly stood up and floated to hover in front of the holographic emitter. Time crawled by and eventually the beeping stopped and the blinking red light turned to a solid blue. A dark, black cloud billowed into existence in the blue holographic haze. The cloud simmer in itself when suddenly a pair of eyes opened their large lids, clear blue eyes bored into Yggdrasill's face. The irises were cold, calculating, and menacing.

Yggdrasill bowed low on one knee while hovering an inch off of the floor and said reverently, "Master."

"Hahahaha!" bellowed the dark cloud. "You have served me well, Yggdrasill, and for that you will be greatly rewarded in the end. I shall give what you most desire." The base voice coming from the cloud reverberated off of the walls. Its malice stung the air.

"Yes, Master." Yggdrasill monotoned.

"I have a treat for you, I have cursed one who came to this world, and sent him back from whence he came. Back to Sylvarant." The eyes of the cloud squinted, amused.

"But…"

"Eh…" Yggdrasill winced slightly. "Was that a question, Yggdrasill?" The voice enticed the kneeling angel with its poison laced implications.

"Master, how could anyone from Sylvarant get to your world?"

"Eha hahaha," the voice boomed. "Why, he followed the Steward when he returned home. But both were returned, and now I command you to destroy them, both of them. The cursed one raised my ire and I wish him to feel my wrath. The Steward has long been my nemesis. Oh how I rue the day I let him slip through my fingers to safety."

"I do as you will, Master." Yggdrasill bowed lower and the holograph dissipated into nothingness, the computer terminal shutting down with a soft hum. Yggdrasill straightened up and floated back to his throne. "Hmm… so they didn't die after all… very interesting…"

He bowed his head. The others looked on and waited. The fire crackled and popped as the wood expanded under the heat of its own pyro-exfoliation. Noishe laid off in the distance, curled into a ball, his abdomen rising and falling slowly. Then, Genis gradually raise his head to look into the eyes of his audience. A small girl clung to Genis' arm, her long dirty hair blowing in the shallow breeze flying across the plains of grass that surrounded the Chosen's group. Tethe'alla's glow had been wiped from the face of Sylvarant as it went through its dark phase, throwing the plains into complete darkness, and bringing the brilliance of the stars to bear on Sylvarant.

Genis sighed and loosened his arm from the child's grip and then he said, "The best way to begin is to tell you the truth about Gaar. He is the reason for all of this, the Desians, the human ranches, all of it! You see, Gaar wasn't just some boy who lost his memory, or anything of the sort. He lied to us! He betrayed me! Gaar is a traitor…"

The wind was relentless as it howled and whined. Sand flew through the air beating down all that stood up, grinding it down into nothing. A figure slowly pushed his way into the wind as he blindly stumbled this way and that. His right hand covered his face, holding a simple cloth there while his left hand was thrust into the wind. When he stumbled into a rock that jutted out of the sandy dunes that slinked and crawled in the storm, he felt his way around it until he pushed off again into the ravaging winds. His footprints filled in the sand filled in even as he was pulling each foot out of the sand to take another step.

The figure tripped. He fell forward and slid down the steep incline of a tall sand dune and came to rest in the bottom of a small valley of sand. He slowly stood up, wiping his face and mouth on the way, and looked around. Sighting his objective, he reached out and pulled the half buried cloth out of the sand. He brushed it off as best he could and pressed it back against his face. He took four steps forward and fell over again, unconscious. Sparks of electricity coursed over his body and caused him to twitch profusely. Eventually, the sparks died off and left the body of a boy in the sand, slowly being buried by the raging storm overhead.

Four men appeared from the veritable walls of sands and stood over the boy. One of them pulled back the dark brown, sand blasted hood he wore and pulled up the goggles he wore and looked closer at the boy. Then he covered back up, turned, and looked at the others before he nodded. Each of the men grabbed a leg or an arm and as they lifted him from the ground, they started off into the storm.

The room was dark save for the light streaming in from the hallway outside, and every few seconds a small beep sounded. In the center of the room was a bed on which was a sleeping boy. To his right, sitting on a ledge built into the blue metal walls, was a glass of water, a half full Life Bottle, and a glowing red stone.

"Aaahh!" Gaar screamed as he bolted upright. He was breathing heavy and sweat formed on his forehead. He looked around and his breathing became calmer, his eyes roamed the room in confusion and curiosity.
"I see you're awake. Good." Gaar turned to look at the source of the voice, there in the doorway, stood a man. Gaar squinted, but the man was shrouded in shadows so he was unidentifiable. "My men found you wandering in the desert. My apologies for the method of capture, but they believed you were a Rogue looking for a way into the base." Gaar just sat in the bed and stared at the man as he walked slowly into the room. As he passed the end of Gaar's bed, the lights inside of the ceiling panels came to life, giving the room a soft white glow and an anti-septic atmosphere.

"Where am I?" The man stopped walking when he was standing next to Gaar's bed. "And I think I remember you… from the Asgard Ranch… Botta, wasn't it. Wait a minute… you, you're a Desian." Gaar's body stiffened. He stared at Botta as he maneuvered himself about in the bed. Botta stared evenly at Gaar when he suddenly shot out from under the thin bed sheet and attempted to run out the door, but he slammed face first into the ground when the bracelet around his left wrist turned a deep red and a buzzer sounded. Gaar reached up and rubbed his face. "Oww…" He slowly turned around and looked at Botta fearfully. Botta hadn't moved. Gaar gradually calmed down again, but glared at Botta the whole time.

Botta sighed, shook his head slowly, and said, "Yes, that's right, I was in the Asgard Ranch, though I'd prefer it if you didn't call me a Desian."

Gaar narrowed his eyes. "You mean you're not a Desian?"

Botta shook his head. "I am part of an organization that opposes the Desians and their masters, Cruxis. We call ourselves the Renegades."

Gaar's face first looked bewildered, then shocked, and then bewildered again. "Bu… but I thought…"

"Many people think that the Desians oppose the angelic beings of Cruxis, but they are all part of the same command structure, the Desians and then the angles, all below their deranged leader, Yggdrasill." Botta crossed his arms and frowned at Gaar, scrutinizing each and every crevice in his face. "I don't recall ever seeing you in Asgard. Do you mind telling me just who the heck you are, how you know where I've been, and also explain why you were carrying this," Botta picked up the red stone, now dull and lightless. "Our scientists have analyzed it and came up with nothing. They cannot figure out what it is or what it does, but it glows in resonance with your mana signature. Quite unnatural, especially since your mana signature is more or less that of an extremely… er… gifted half-elf at the end of his thousand year life span."

Gaar stared at the stone, the beeping from a bracelet on his wrist filling the silence for minutes on end. Finally, Gaar said, "I know you probably won't believe much of this-"

Botta snorted. "I highly doubt that."

Gaar nodded and continued, "I know who you are because I was traveling with Colette and the others."

"You were with the Chosen?"

"Yes, I was traveling with them, that is, before I… well me and Genis went to another planet."

Botta looked at Gaar, folded his arms and nodded, "Continue."

"I don't remember my name, so I took the name Gaar when I was in Iselia. Before the Desian's came and took me to their ranch in the forest." Gaar clenched his fist and narrowed his eyes. "I… don't like Desians…"

"A passion we share." Botta touched a button on the wall and a piece of the wall slid out. He sat down and stared at Gaar expectantly, sternly. "I am curious though, where were you before you ended up in Iselia?"

Gaar looked down at his splayed hands sitting in his lap. "I… I don't remember," he mumbled quietly. "I woke up as I was falling through the sky and I ended up crashing into the hillside near Iselia." Botta nodded his head, humming to himself.

At length, Botta said, "So you were the one that caused the disturbance. What happened when the Desians tried to teleport you? That part of the story never did make any sense."

"Well, I ended up being teleported in the middle of casting some kind of magic spell." Botta raised an eye brow, but said nothing. "According to the Desian working the controls, I was supposed to be sent to the Asgard Ranch for testing. The spell must have done something cause instead of ending up in that ranch I met you in, I fell into the fountain at Luin. It was in the middle of the Desian massacre, I tried to help, but…it didn't do any good. Anyway I ended up with the chosen's group and that is how I saw you, the first time we were at the ranch."

"The first time…?" Botta prompted.

"Yeah, we were cornered by Kvar and his men and I blacked out. I'm not sure how we got out, but everyone ended up back in Luin. Speaking of which, why were you there. If you stand against the Desians, what were you doing in their base?"

Botta jerked as he came out of a thoughtful pose. "Hmm?"

Gaar sighed and said, "Why were you in the Asgard Ranch?"

Botta paused and then hesitantly said, "We were in the ranch because we were looking for a way to find you."

"Me?" Gaar shouted. "What do you mean?"

Botta again hesitated before he said, "You were being experimented on by both Cruxis and the Desians. That is probably why you don't remember anything." Gaar's face went from shocked to horrified.

"Ex…experimented?" Gaar sounded out slowly.

"Yes. We learned of you and attempted to free you. But the mission went awry and your body had to be jettisoned to the planet below." Botta's eyes softened just a bit. "I am sorry."

"I… I don't know what to say." Gaar swayed back and forth and nearly fell backwards to crash into the floor.

"I know that this is shocking." Gaar turned his vacant gaze back to Botta. "But would you please tell me how you ended up in the Triet region, if you were traveling with the chosen's group, then you would be in the Hima region right now.

Gaar nodded slowly. "I'll… I'll try." Gaar swallowed and rubbed his face. "After we escaped from the ranch the first time, we needed a way to get back in, but the security had been beefed up. So we headed to Hima to get and some kind of back door key from the only guy who ever escaped from the place. It turns out he suffers from some kind of Exsphere poisoning, we promised to find a cure in exchange for the key. After that we back tracked, re-infiltrated Kvar's ranch, again, and then…"

"You actually managed to get back in?" The corner of Botta's mouth twitched.

"Yes, there was an escape tunnel hidden by a boulder. The only way to move the boulder was by using the key we got from the man in Hima. Once we were inside, we split into two groups, one to deactivate the guard system protecting Kvar and the other to go after Kvar himself. I was in the deactivation group. We made it to the basement before all hell broke loose. He had set a trap, he knew we were coming. Kvar has some kind of noise maker that… hurt, and that's where I blacked out again until me and Genis woke up in some kind of forest, but this forest wasn't anywhere on Sylvarant."

"Did you say not on Sylvarant?" Botta leaned forward, eyes wide.

"Yes, I found out later, it wasn't even the same planet, it was some place called… ahh I can't remember the name, it was some tongue twisting word, but I just ended up calling it Earth. The natives there all speak with weird accents and some don't even speak the same language. What I thought was even weirder, there were no half elves or elves, none, not a single being aside from spirits and humans. There was Genis of course, but he was it."

Botta nodded his head slowly. Gaar stood up and brushed his plain tan-colored pants off. Gaar looked back up at Botta, and then back down at his pants. "What happened to my clothes?"

"When we found you, your clothes had been nearly completely blasted away by the sand. You were also very near death." Gaar's eyes widened. "It is a good thing we found you when we did."

Gaar looked down at the floor. "Thank you."

"Please, don't mention it. Now, tell me what this Earth was like." Gaar looked back up at Botta and nodded.

"Earth was vastly different from Sylvarant, a lot of the people there live like barnyard animals do here, only a few even had houses, none of the food was clean, the only people who were clean were the ones who lived in castles, and those guys were all… jerks. I'm still of the opinion that there isn't a clean thing in the entire place." Botta grimaced at Gaar's description.

"The way you describe it, Earth sounds quite unpleasant." Gaar nodded profusely at Botta.

"Yeah, it's nothing like Sylvarant. Anyway, after about one week, I got sick, and eventually passed out. I remember having nightmares about some big fight, a whole bunch of screaming, it was horrible." Gaar hugged his bare chest and shivered. "I… I don't remember much about that time… but I think I did something horrible. Especially after…"

"How did you end up here, in the Triet region?" Botta held out the red glowing rock. "And what is this?"

Gaar stared at the rock again. "I'm not sure how to put this, but in my final dream, I was in some kind of tunnel, a tunnel full of lights rushing past us. In the distance was Sylvarant, we were rushing toward it faster and faster. Floating in front of us, that is me, Genis, and some strange girl, was that rock. The rock was glowing much brighter than it is now. The girl was clinging to Genis' leg like they were attached. I think Genis also looked different somehow, but not too much, I couldn't tell. When we looked at each other, we both knew that we had to get that stone. We both started to try to move, but it was as if we were floating, there wasn't any traction at all. That was when we figured out we could use magic to move. We both raced for that stone, and we both grabbed it at the same time. I couldn't understand why, but Genis was kicking me, trying to get me to let go. It grew ever brighter as we kicked and pushed each other. Then I looked at Genis, I mean really looked, and… he looked at me like I was… I… I can't describe it, but I feeling I got was like the one I had, have about Desians. It was almost as if I had killed someone close to him, the way he was looking at me. Then Genis let go of me and smiled, but it was a cruel smile, made my insides twist inside out. I think I can remember making a smile like that before I killed… He cast some kind of spell on me and then I fell out of the light tunnel. The next thing I knew, I was buried in sand. I dug my way out to find myself in a sand storm. I walked and walked, and… well you know the rest."

"I see. I believe you are telling the truth." Gaar looked up at Botta, hopeful. "Although the parts about some place other than Sylvarant do make some sense, the way you describe it does not." Gaar's face fell, disappointed. "Now I would like you to explain how a human can use magic."

"Sir!" A red clad Foot Soldier skidded to a halt in front of Gaar and saluted Botta. "Sir, the Final Seal is about to be broken, Kratos has just arrived with the chosen." Botta swiftly stood up and walked quickly out of the room. As he passed the Foot Soldier he whispered something into his ear and then continued out the door. The Foot Soldier turned to Gaar, who was glaring at the Desian look-a-like, and motioned for him to stand. "Come on kid, stand up." Gaar's bracelet beeped once and Gaar shot into the air.

"Ahh!" He rubbed his wrist and scowled. "This thing shocked me."

"And it will be doing worse if you don't do as you're told, now follow me." The Foot Soldier turned swiftly walked out of the room. Gaar jerked forward as his wrist followed the Renegade at an exact three feet. The Foot Soldier led Gaar through a dizzying array of hallways, through several doors, and ended up in a room with a large purple box in the center. "Argh… now how do I move this again? Man, Lord Botta sure makes these traps tough." Gaar watched the Renegade walk around and around the large purple box as he muttered to himself. He sighed and sat down against the wall next to the door they had just entered. Ahead of him was another door and to his left was a third. "Oh!" the Foot Soldier snapped his fingers. "I remember now, I got to shock those nodes," he pointed at the far wall with three dark blue orbs set a distance from the flooring, "to turn the lock mechanism. Now where did I put that Static Ring?" Gaar watched the guard search himself. Then he felt a tingling at the back of his head and then slumped forward.

Gaar suddenly found himself in a dark room, and then Lloyd appeared before him. He was bleeding, bruised, and broken in many, many places. He gasped once and then Gaar watched horrified as the light left Lloyd's eyes.

Then Colette appeared, quickly taking the place of Lloyd's dead body. She was smiling, staring straight into Gaar's eyes, and covered from head to toe in sticky, thick, gooey crimson blood. Her hair was slick and with the substance and her skin glistened with the shiny substance of life as it slowly dripped from her body and clothes. She brought her left hand to her mouth and stuck three fingers into her mouth. She sucked the blood off of them and giggled with Gaar retched.

"You lose," said a deep, demonic, vibrant, and all together evil voice. Gaar looked at Colette and saw her grinning, but it was the grin of the demon who spoke. "Hahahahaha!" the demon's laugh came from Colette's mouth and her body shook from the tremendous power in that voice. Gaar screamed.

Inri: "OMG! What happened to Lloyd!"

Pit: "It appeared to me like colette killed him and then bathed in his blood, but she only did that cause she was possessed by a demon..."

Yes, now I refuse to let my muses give away anymore of the plot.

Pit & Inri: Tied up and gagged. "Mmmmrrmmrrmrmrph!" (Please Review)