"I do not own Tales of Symphonia!" – I.K.A. Valian
"Finally," Lloyd said, wiping sweat from his forehead. The group of four walked through the door that they had finally unlocked. "I thought we'd never figure that place out."
"Lloyd, you always get bore quickly," said Genis, deadpanning. Lloyd scowled at the silver-haired, teenage elf, who grinned back. Lloyd continued to scowl as he slowed his pace until he ultimately came to a complete stop. "Lloyd, what's wrong?" asked Genis.
Lloyd sighed. "Everything is wrong," he said. Raine and Sheena joined Genis and stared at Lloyd while he thought. They jolted when Lloyd suddenly shouted, "Dammit! What's so special about me? Those Renegades need to hurry up and make up their freaking minds about whether they're our enemies or not!"
Genis sighed and asked, "Lloyd, what are we going to do now?"
After a few more moments of silence, Lloyd said, "We've got to save Colette somehow. She's going to die if she's made into Martel's vessel."
"But what can we do?" Genis shouted, throwing his arms into the air for emphasis. Silence once again settled over the group. Every member wore expressions of deep thought or concentration.
"Sheena, where did you get your Exsphere?" Raine asked.
"Huh?" Sheena looked at Raine, confused. "Well that came out of nowhere." She looked down at the gem on the back of her hand. "I got this before I came here," she said. "They attached it to me at the Imperial Research Academy."
"Is it normal for people to equip Exspheres in Tethe'alla?" Raine asked.
"No, not at all," said Sheena, shaking her head. "The technology was originally brought over by the Renegades. Nowadays Exspheres are mainly attached to machines."
"Wait a second," Lloyd said, arms crossed, and obviously thinking. "So… Tethe'alla and the Renegades are on the same side?" he asked.
"I'm not sure if you could say that," explained Sheena. "But the Renegades were the ones that brought us information about the nature of the two worlds. And the plan to assassinate the Chosen was their idea. They talked the King and the Pope into it." Sheena started modulating her voice so that it was lower, which would have been amusing if her next sentence weren't so detrimental. "If you desire for Tethe'alla to prosper, kill the Chosen of Sylvarant." Lloyd was too deep in thought and Raine kept a straight face.
Genis though, was aghast. "That's horrible!" he shouted. The other three in the group immediately threw their hands over their ears, crying in pain.
"Genis!" Lloyd shouted. But Genis was in too much shock to be apologetic.
Raine finished rubbing her ears and said, "Lloyd, I suggest we got to Tethe'alla." Lloyd once again went into deep thought, becoming oblivious to the outside world.
Genis, now confused, asked, "Why Tethe'alla?"
"Don't you remember what Yuan said?" she asked. "Angels are half-elves that evolved using special Exspheres called Cruxis Crystals."
Lloyd pumped his right fist into his left palm, finally figuring it out. "Oh, I get it!" he exclaimed. "Colette's current condition is caused by the Cruxis Crystal."
"Exactly," Raine said, nodding. "Since Tethe'alla is studying Exspheres, they may know something about Cruxis Crystals as well."
"That's a good idea," Sheena said. "I'm pretty sure that they're studying the Cruxis Crystal that belongs to Tethe'alla's Chosen at the Imperial Research Academy."
"There's a Chosen in Tethe'alla, too?" Genis asked.
"Of course." Sheena said matter-of-factly. "The world regeneration ritual is carried out in Tethe'alla as well. The Church of Martel exists, too."
"But if they've been carrying out the regeneration that many times, why hasn't Martel's vessel been completed already?" Lloyd asked.
"I'm curious about that myself," said Raine. "Perhaps those corpses lined up in the Tower of Salvation were…" Raine trailed off and then grimaced and shook her head. "No," she said, "never mind."
"Yeah," agreed Lloyd. "There are too many things that we don't know. Cruxis' objectives, the Renegades, the method to save Colette… So let's just start with what we can do now."
"So we're going to Tethe'alla?" Sheena asked. Though she resigned herself to doing so, she still sighed in defeat. For fleet moments, worry graced her downtrodden complexion.
"Yeah," affirmed Lloyd. "That's the only lead we have right now. And this time, I'm going to fulfill my role. I'm not going to let Colette bear the burden all by herself anymore."
"Wait a minute," said Genis. He held his hand up by the side of his head, and everyone who was moving to leave stopped and turned to Genis. "That's great and all, but how exactly did we plan on getting to Tethe'alla?" he asked. Lloyd's determined expression faltered a little bit, but it quickly regained ground when he saw the look on Raine's face.
She turned to Sheena and said, "I'm sure Sheena knows how to get there." Everyone looked to Sheena. "Correct?" Raine asked.
Sheena nodded. "My understanding is that you can travel to Tethe'alla by passing through a distortion in space," she explained. "As far as I know, crafts called Rheairds are the only things that can do that."
"Where are we going to find a Ree-Yard?" asked Lloyd. Raine and Sheena sighed, slapping their foreheads. Genis groaned loudly and shook his head back and forth violently, his silver locks flying every which way, slapping both Lloyd and Raine in the shoulders.
"Okay," said Raine with a great sigh. She pointed at Genis and said, "One, Genis, you need a haircut." Genis grabbed a lock of his hair self-consciously. Raine shifted her aim until she pointed at Lloyd and said, "Two, it's Rheaird, not Ree-Yard, Lloyd." Lloyd put on a sour face and grumbled about being lectured. Raine let her arm fall to her side and turned to face Sheena. "And three," she said, "Sheena, where do the Renegades keep the Rheairds?"
Sheena smirked. Nodding, she said, "The Renegades should have a few on this base somewhere."
"But Professor," said Lloyd. "How did you know the Renegades have Rheairds?" She turned to Lloyd and held her left elbow with her right hand. With her left hand she massaged her forehead and shook her head slightly from side to side.
"Honestly Lloyd, if the Renegades are in both Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, how did they get there?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she turned and led the way toward a door on the other side of the room. Lloyd stood still for a moment before all the right cogs in his mind clicked, and he understood what Raine was saying. Then he looked up and noticed everyone waiting for him on the other side of the room.
Lloyd ran toward the others as they were about to venture into the prison sector. Unfortunately he tripped on the scattered remains of the Raybits all over the floor. He reached down and picked it up, examining the burn marks and the odd angle that this particular piece was bent at. Lloyd looked over his shoulder and noticed on the wall a large black burn mark.
When the others had come back out of the Prison Sector, Genis comparably paler than he was before he had gone in, Lloyd motioned for them to look at the burn marks on the wall, and the assortment of junked Raybits on the floor.
"It looks like a battle took place," Lloyd said. "A very intense battle," he added. "Gaar must have had to break out. He and the Renegades had a big battle over it."
"I hope Colette's ok," said Genis. He looked over his shoulder, toward the closing door of the Prison Sector, and turned a little green. "I really hope she's ok."
"Yeah, let's hurry up and find them, before we go looking for the Rheairds," said Lloyd. He lead the way out of the room. Going through the only remaining doorway led into the badly damaged hallway, though by now, the security program had kicked in and power in this hallway had been switched off.
"How can they find their way around in this place if they turn off all the lights," Lloyd complained. And then, he tripped over another obliterated Raybit. "Whoa!" he shouted. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Genis was able to grab onto his white ribbons before he went all the way down.
Once Lloyd was standing on his own two feet again, Genis let go of the ribbons. Lloyd was rubbing his neck, breathing irregularly. "Thanks, Genis… I think."
"No problem, Lloyd," said Genis.
Raine sighed and said, "We are going to have a lot of trouble moving through this place if it is entirely blacked out."
"Oh yeah," said Genis, "This should help." He held out his hand and fire, like a glowing viscous liquid forming in mid air, pooled in the palm of his hand until he held a not too bright to look at ball of fire. The flames never left the sphere, did not burn Genis' hand, and lit the immediate area they were standing in. Included in their newer range of vision were all the parts and pieces of the Raybits that were just earlier hidden by a veil of darkness.
"Wow," they all said at the same time. Raine looked up at the ceiling, noting the damage there, as well as some pieces of a Raybit stuck in the ceiling.
"I can't believe Gaar did all of this," said Lloyd, still looking around, "I mean this is… this…"
"Lloyd," said Genis, still breathlessly shocked. "This is Gaar we're talking about…"
Lloyd swallowed audibly. "Oh, yeah," he said.
"We should move cautiously," said Raine. "They probably turned the power off because how badly damaged this hallway is. There's no way of telling what is or isn't dangerous until we're upon it and it's too late." They all nodded and formed a line as they moved down the hallway. Lloyd took point, followed by Genis, holding his fireball high to light the way. Raine was right behind him and she was followed by Sheena. When they came to a T-junction in the hallway, Lloyd stopped.
"I think I see a light at the end of this hallway, come on." Lloyd took off down the hallway, leaving the relative safety of Genis' lighted area. Almost immediately, Lloyd tripped on something and flew through the air. "Whoa!" he shouted, but his shout was cut off by the crashing sound that followed.
"Lloyd," Genis bemoaned under his breath as he shook his head. But there was a light at the end of the hallway, and Lloyd's shadow was easily seen standing back up. "You okay Lloyd?" asked Genis.
"Yeah, I'm alright," he said, grunting. "Watch out for the pile of garbage over here," he shouted. "I'm going to check out the room up ahead."
"Be careful Lloyd," shouted Sheena.
"No worries, guys," Lloyd shouted back. A few moments later however, Lloyd was again making angry noises and another pile of junk tumbled to the floor. Once Lloyd had made it to the relative safety of the lit area just in front of the door, he started to pick up his pace.
Lloyd raced through the doorway and skidded to a halt, his shoes squeaking on the super reflective floor, as a body landed heavily in his pathway. He stared at the Renegade Foot Soldier for all of three seconds before he looked up in disbelief.
Colette stood alone in the middle of the room, her fists at her side. A paper clip that had been straightened out fell from her right hand. Raine and Genis caught up to Lloyd and peeked around his shoulders, and Sheena looked over Genis' shoulder. All four of their jaws dropped simultaneously.
"Oh, hey guys," said Gaar from the other side of the room. He sat on top of a computer console waving. Esileif sat next to him and after looking back and forth a few times, started waving too. Colette turned to look at the new comers and then stood straight, stiff as a board, serene, silent.
Lloyd, Genis, Raine, and Sheena slowly entered the room, surveying the bodies all over the place. At least, they seemed to be all over the place. Small strips of cloth were everywhere, blood and red cloth indistinguishably strewn here and there all over the floor.
"What happened?" asked Genis. Gaar pushed off of the consol and landed on the ground. Then he turned around and helped Esileif down. When Raine finally noticed the computer that they were previously sitting on she skipped and hopped to the consol and immediately started typing madly. A glint of manic glee flashed through her eyes.
"Uh… actually, Colette is what happened," said Gaar. "She is a full angel after all."
"Y-yeah, but, this… this is…" Genis stammered. Then he turned to Colette, standing still in the middle of the hazard zone, and noticed that there was a neat circle of clean, white flooring beneath her. "This is…" Genis said again.
"Yeah, how could Colette do this?" asked Lloyd. "I mean, she was never able to do this before."
"It could be the angel transformation," said Sheena. "Yuan did say that she was a lethal weapon whose only goal is self preservation."
"Yeah," said Genis, "I guess you're right." Lloyd walked over to Colette and looked into her crimson eyes. He took up her hands in his and whispered something to her, but she didn't respond in any way.
"Hahaa!" Everyone jumped when Raine shouted. "I've done it. This is the Rheaird hanger by," Raine shouted with glee. She went back to typing and after a few minutes, "There are six of them on standby and ready to go. I'll activate the craft transportation system and have them all here in a few minutes."
Everyone got into a circle around Raine and attempted to look over her shoulders, but nothing they saw on the screen made any sense. Raine continued to type away madly at the computer console until a screen popped up on the monitor. The image of the hallway outside filled the picture, and the lights were coming back on. The image switched again to the ante-room of the Prison Sector where twenty or so Renegades were waiting in front of the hallway door that led to the Rheaird Hanger.
"We've got company on the way," said Raine, pointing at the images on the screen. The Foot Soldiers started filing into the hallway, heading past all the wreckage with ease, moving inexorably toward the hanger. "I'm going to lock down the door, and hopefully buy us some time, but it won't hold them for long," Raine explained as she started typing again. "We should be able to get out of here before they get through."
Just then a circular hatch in the floor opened and the first Rheaird floated up through. Once the craft had cleared the floor, the hatch closed again. The Rheaird floated above the floor, moving to the side of the room, and came to a complete stop next to the wall. The floor hatch opened again, letting another Rheaird through.
"So these are Rheairds," said Lloyd. They all watched the crafts move into the room and line up. When the fifth craft started rising out of the floor hatch, a banging rang through the room. Someone was banging on the door. Lloyd turned from the door and urgently said, "Hurry Professor!"
"Lloyd, I'm going as fast as I can," Raine said through clenched teeth. She typed a few more things into the keyboard, and then stopped. "I've done all that I can do," she said as she walked toward one of the Rheairds floating not far away. As she climbed onto the floating craft she said, "I've disabled the console and attempted to power down the motors in the door. But they're already halfway through the countermeasures I've set up. The only thing to do now is get ready to fly out of here.
"F-f-fly!" shouted Lloyd. "These things fly?"
"And here I thought the wings were a dead giveaway," said Gaar. He sat on one of the Rheairds and was helping Esileif climb up behind him. Lloyd scowled and turned around when the door started to groan. He stood and watched as the white door ever so slowly opened, the motor groaning under the pressure.
"Lloyd!" shouted Sheena. "Hurry up!"
Lloyd turned around and looked for an open Rheaird, but they were all taken. He was about to hop up onto Genis' when he saw the floor hatch opening once more and another Rheaird floating upward. "I'll take this last one," Lloyd said. "You guys hurry up and get out of here. I'm right behind you."
The others nodded and started up their crafts. The wings, which had been folded against the body of the crafts, extended outward to a wingspan of eight feet. Behind each craft was a long tail, underneath which was the exhaust, which doubled as the propulsion. The exhaust ports on all the Rheairds started to glow brighter and brighter. The humming each machine gave off grew louder as the crafts came to full power.
Sheena took off and flew out of a hatch in the wall that Raine opened. Genis wasn't so lucky. He shot out the doorway, gunning the throttle of the flying contraption, and nearly falling off in the process. Colette watched Raine and copied her teacher in an unnervingly mechanical fashion. Gaar watched Raine as well, though he copied her in a more confused manner. Raine slowly lifted higher into the air and tentatively flew out the hatch, Colette right behind her. Gaar paused and looked over to see Lloyd on his own Rheaird, but he wasn't having any luck with the controls. Gaar moved his own craft next to Lloyds and noticed that he hadn't even turned it on.
"Lloyd, press that green switch, then turn the dial next to it all the way until it stops, then pull this lever back and hold ooon-" Gaar pulled the lever back, but just like Genis, he pulled it too suddenly and shot out the hatch. Lloyd watched this happen and then turned back to his own craft. Sweat trickled down his forehead as he waited for the Rheaird to power up.
The anticipation was turned into panic when the door behind him finally opened and the Renegade Foot Soldiers burst into the room. They immediately surrounded Lloyd and readied their weapons against him. Lloyd looked around at all the Renegades and then noticed that the wall hatch was starting to close. He swallowed and without waiting for the Rheaird to fully power up, he pulled the lever all the way back.
For a few moments nothing happened, the Renegades that saw what he tried to do, laughed. That is they laughed until they were blown away from the explosion Lloyd's Rheaird left behind when it shot out of the hanger like a bullet. The exit tunnel that the wall hatch led into was composed of a series of doors. These doors were closing in succession and Lloyd was just barely making it past the next door in the series before it closed behind him.
Lloyd shot out of the last hatch, and out of the Sylvarant Base into the air above the base and the Triet desert. Before he could do anything, the craft below him started to sputter and some of the lights were going haywire. The others were no where to be seen in the sky, that is until the air around him, the very fabric of reality rippled, turned purple, and then Lloyd flew straight into a rift in space.
Ahead of him he now saw all the others flying away from him. Pulled back on the throttle and gripped the handles harder as he sped up. After a few seconds he had to ease the throttle back down, which allowed him to slowly drift up to the back of the group.
"Hey guy's!" Lloyd shouted. The group suddenly spat out of the warped space they were flying through and now rocketed over the landscape of a completely different world. In fact, the air they had been in, bright, hot, and muggy now became dark, cold, and dry. After a few minutes of complete silence, Lloyd shouted, "This is aweso-"
But he was interrupted by the sputtering and slowing of the Rheaird below him. He looked down and noticed one of the gauges had shifted position, it was pointing toward 'F' and now the needle pointed to below the 'E'.
"Whoa!" Lloyd shouted. "Wh… what's happening?" Everyone's Rheairds were acting the same way, and the propulsion light coming from the exhaust below each of the flying crafts was becoming smaller and smaller.
"I don't know," shouted Genis, "it just suddenly-"
"Look!" yelled Raine. "The fuel gauge is empty!"
"So that's it!" Sheena shouted. "Since you've released the seals in Sylvarant, there's not enough mana in this world!"
"And that means?" Genis asked. His Rheaird gave a final sputter and then completely shut down. The rest followed suit.
"We're going to fall!!" Sheena shouted as the craft she was riding dropped out from beneath her.
"Aaaaah!" everyone screamed.
Everyone was screaming except for Colette, who had taken out her angel wings and was using them to guide the quickly descending craft.
"Gaar!" cried Esileif in her distinctive gutteral tone. Gaar turned put an arm protectively around the girl sitting in front of him. She then tried to stand up, but Gaar pushed her back down. She again tried to stand up, and again, Gaar pushed her back down. So she scowled and put her hands together. "Fold!" she shouted. "Mikill fjall! Kosta við fljóta járn fugl!"
Dark brown mana circled around Esileif's hands and after a few seconds, shot toward the mountain top. The Rheairds lazily spun in the air as they and their occupants fell to the Fooji Mountains at break neck speeds. The mountains were now so much closer that it took up almost all of the group's range of vision.
Well, there you have it. Chapter Twenty. That is the TWENTY chapter, the big two-zero. I didn't think I'd make it thus far, so I am pleased, yes yes.
Inri: Rolls her eyes. "I know you can speak proper English."
Pit: Grinning. "Speak proper English, we do!"
Yes, yes, speak we do, proper English!
Inri: Smacks her forehead in annoyance. "You're both impossible sometimes."
Review, readers should. Yes? In advance, thank you!