This chapter is in Lloyd's POV! Writing him was fun ^^ Although at the time it was very difficult, lol. When I RP with my partner a Zelloyd story I'm usually Lloyd, but ever since starting this fic I have had this huuuge Lloyd block. Thankfully after much struggle this was born xD I was pretty satisfied with it.

But enough ramblings! Hope you like this chapter. And no worries, Zelos will be back in the next one (: It's one of my favs, hehe. I'm looking forward to posting it already!

Chapter Three

Lloyd sighed. He tried to keep from dragging his feet as they made their way out of the forest, but his energy was waning. It was only the reminder that they ought to make as little noise as possible that kept him from kicking up the thick leaves piled up all over the ground ahead of them. But honestly, what was even the point of trying to stay so inconspicuous. With a group their size… What was it, eight now? It was kind of impossible not to attract attention, no matter how much effort they put into the task.

Thankfully, they were almost out of the forest. Lloyd was looking forward to visiting the hidden village of Mizuho, Sheena's home. He had always been fascinated by Sheena's fighting abilities and now, he had a firsthand chance to see where she had grown up and picked up those skills.

However, there was one thing that kept him from fully sinking into his excitement. Ever since the Papal Knights had shown up earlier, Lloyd had been persistently nagged by one thought only—

Zelos.

Lloyd just couldn't get a handle on that guy. At first, he had thought the redhead was just an obnoxiously carefree guy, but the more Zelos traveled with them, the more Lloyd wondered about him.

Although Zelos was almost always sporting a grin on his face and making light of almost every situation, something about him seemed… off. It seemed pretty obvious to Lloyd that there was more to him than what the redhead showed. Despite his flirtatious and lighthearted attitude, there were times where Zelos had this worried, pinched look on his face, but he never spoke up about what was on his mind.

His behavior reminded Lloyd very much of how Colette often acted. He wondered if it was just a Chosen thing.

Nobody else seemed to make much of a big deal about it however. Sheena was always getting irritated at him and the Professor usually ignored him. Genis never got along with him and Presea wasn't in a state to make judgments at the moment. It seemed that the only one that didn't seem to mind him was Colette… and Lloyd himself.

Lloyd thought Zelos was pretty fun to be around with actually... once you got past his endless sarcasm and constant flirting. He always seemed to lighten up everyone's mood, even if he didn't always have the best timing. Admittedly, Lloyd hadn't initially been paying that much attention to their new companion due to Colette's condition, but now that she was back to normal, Lloyd couldn't help but take notice of the Tethe'allan Chosen.

At first, Lloyd began to watch him out of wariness, still feeling the stinging pain of Kratos' betrayal. But now, he was just plain curious. Not to mention concerned.

"So the Pope's finally decided I'm too much trouble to let live, huh? Can't say I'm too surprised. I've known that since I was a kid."

Lloyd had been surprised at that unflinching, almost bitter, revelation. Zelos' sneering tone towards the knights had brought Lloyd more questions than answers. And he had a feeling Zelos wasn't going to be keen on giving him any answers.

He sighed. Sometimes he hated mysteries. Trying to figure them out always gave him a headache.

Upon hearing the heavy sigh, Genis, who had been trudging along at his side, perked up, hopping at the chance to talk. "Are you getting bored already, Lloyd? We're almost at the village, you know," he said teasingly.

Lloyd huffed. "I'm not getting bored! It's just… tiring. This forest is so huge and dark… It sucks," he complained.

Genis snickered quietly, not convinced. "Yeah, right. It's always like this with you, Lloyd."

Lloyd shot him a petulant glare, but as he opened his mouth to protest, Raine cut in.

"Genis, stop distracting Lloyd—and Lloyd, point the Sorcerer's ring forward! And see if you can spot another place to charge it up again. It's beginning to die out again," she said sternly.

They both knew better than to argue against that tone, so the two of them settled down again.

"Yes, Professor." Lloyd let out another sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Genis sticking out his tongue at him. This time, he rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out in return childishly.

"If you guys have time to play around, then you won't mind if I start quizzing you, right?" Raine proposed airly. The sharp look in her eyes was enough to have them both straightening up.

Zelos snorted as he watched this display from the rear. "You tell 'em, Professor~ "

He earned himself Genis' ire with that. The half-elf shot him an acidic glare, but Lloyd was quick to nudge his best friend with his elbow.

"W-We'll be quiet! Promise, Professor!" he said, rushing to assure Raine.

"…Movement speed reduction resulting from conversation in transit." Presea's monotone voice only made the blow of her words all the more ruthless.

Genis visibly deflated at them, which made Zelos snicker meanly.

"You heard the lady," he said.

Just as quickly, Genis' energy returned to him as Zelos' voice made him bristle.

"Shh, quiet!" Sheena suddenly interrupted them, drawing their eyes to Colette who had become tense.

Everyone froze in place then. Their hands reached for their weapons as they, too, strained their ears, trying to listen to what Colette was hearing.

"They're bringing more soldiers into the forest," Colette murmured softly, frowning as she shuffled the unconscious body she was carrying over her shoulder. Lloyd gave the blue-haired guy they had captured a brief glance to make sure he wasn't about to regain consciousness, but Sheena urged everyone's attention back to her as she beckoned them to hurry.

"Come on, this way. We're not far now," she said.

They hurried forward, not eager to get into another big battle again.

"This place is soooo cool!"

Lloyd was practically bouncing on his heels. They were supposed to be waiting outside the Chief's house as Sheena went in to explain the situation, but Lloyd just couldn't keep still, so he had decided to explore.

It was a small village, much like Iselia, so maybe that's why Lloyd liked it so much.

(That and the ninjas. Lloyd wondered if he could learn to be a ninja too… or at least learn how to do that teleportation trick Sheena liked to do sometimes.)

"Lloyd Irving! Get back here!" Raine hissed at him from a distance, to which Lloyd responded with an innocent grin and a wave.

"They're going to take a while, right? I'll be back in a minute or two!" he shouted at her from the distance before hurrying off until he could duck safely out of her line of sight.

It was nice to be out of the forest. Lloyd had been dead wrong yesterday in thinking that it would be like the Iselia Forest. It was nothing like that at all. Not only was it way creepier and darker, but Zelos' tale of the place had made the whole trip entirely unbearable.

Lloyd was so not looking forward to returning to it.

"Lloyd!"

Lloyd turned back to see Genis running after him. He smiled as he waited for him to catch up.

"Hey, I think there's an inn around here. Think we can grab a quick bite before the Professor comes after us?" Lloyd asked, looking down at his friend with a grin.

Genis shot him an exasperated look. "Are you nuts? Raine is furious enough as it is! She sent me after you to bring you back before you cause any trouble around here."

"What could I possibly do in five minutes?!" Lloyd protested.

Genis gave Lloyd another look before shaking his head hopelessly. "Wouldn't you rather wait for Sheena to show us around later?" he asked with a glance back to where the rest of the group was. A frown formed on his lips.

"We really should go back to Raine," he said. "She would have come to get you herself but she wanted to stay by the Chief's house just in case Sheena needed her. Not to mention, someone needed to keep an eye on that guy."

Lloyd frowned. He had wanted to at least check out the shops before heading back, but Genis had a point. "His name was… Regal, right?"

Genis bobbed his head as his lips twisted into a scowl. "We should have just left him in the forest." he muttered, not hiding his poor opinion about the man. "I don't trust him."

"Well, he did try to attack us twice," Lloyd admitted. "I wonder what he wanted with Presea though. I don't know... He kind of doesn't seem all that bad but…" Neither did Kratos was left unsaid. A dark shadow clouded Lloyd's expression.

Though he tried not to dwell on it often, Kratos' betrayal still felt too raw. It was a deep wound and as much as Lloyd had tried to bury those feelings away, he couldn't help but to keep on thinking back on it.

Although he knew that Kratos had been lying to everyone since the beginning, to Lloyd it felt a whole lot more personal. Out of everyone in the group, Lloyd had thought that he was the one that had gotten to know the mercenary best. They had spent so much time together, had trained together and… Lloyd had looked up to him.

But in the end, everything had just been an act. A lie. And knowing that made the betrayal feel a whole lot worse than anything Lloyd had ever experienced before.

"Lloyd?" Genis' worried voice made Lloyd notice he had been spacing out. He tried to muster up a smile, trying to reassure him, but Genis' unhappy and all-too-knowing expression told him that his efforts had been futile.

They made their way back to the rest of the group in silence.

"Wow, what happened to you guys? You've only been gone for a few minutes and you've come back looking as if someone's died," Zelos remarked as soon as they were in sight. The redhead was leaning up against one of the walls of the Chief's house, looking at them curiously.

Genis shot Zelos a glare but for once refused to rise to the bait. He quickly moved to stand by his sister and Presea, turning his animosity in the direction of their prisoner instead.

Lloyd merely shrugged, avoiding Zelos' look as much as Raine's. Her piercing gaze made him feel like an open book, but Lloyd pointedly did not look at her and moved to sit next to Colette, who was resting at the bridge by water, a couple of feet away from the rest of the group.

"Are you okay, Lloyd?" Colette asked him in a soft voice once he joined her.

"I'm fine," Lloyd said, the answer at first meant to placate her, but his reassuring smile turned into something more genuine as he noticed Colette playing with the water. It was nice to see her acting like normal once again…

"Doesn't this place remind you of Iselia?" Lloyd said to her after a little while. The quiet trickle of the running water reminded him of the days where he, Genis, and Colette had played around by the lake near Iselia.

Colette smiled, following his trail of thought.

"Heheh. You're right!"

Lloyd's grin widened. "You know, I'm actually kind of relieved that Tethe'alla has some places like this. Everything here is so… different." He rubbed the back of his head, sheepish by his admission. As fascinating as this world was, it was just so foreign and overwhelming compared to Sylvarant. And beyond that, there was still something weird and unsettling about the fact that they had stepped into another world altogether.

Colette nodded in agreement, pushing a strand of hair that fell forward with the movement back behind her ear.

"When we went back to Meltokio after I regained my senses, I was so surprised. It was kind of scary, but at the same time beautiful…" Colette's smile dimmed after a second. "It really is nothing like home though," she said softly, speaking down at her lap, radiating guilt.

"Lloyd… I'm sorry," she rushed to say, her fingers curling anxiously into the fabric of her dress.

The sudden, unexpected apology made Lloyd pause.

"Huh? What for?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"For… For everything." The wrinkles in her dress became more prominent as Colette dug her fingers into her thighs. "If it wasn't for me, you guys wouldn't have had to come to this world. And then, I put everyone in so much danger, and now we can't even go home anymore and we're stuck here, and you must miss your dad so much—" Now that she had gotten started, it all spilled out. Colette curled into herself miserably more and more with each word that left her lips. Lloyd could have smacked himself for not having noticed how much this had been weighing on her.

"Hey, hey," he said, gently cutting her off. "Colette, none of us think that, you dork. Have you really been worrying about this all this time?" When she opened her mouth to respond, Lloyd gave her arm a small nudge with his elbow and shook his head. "No wait, hear me out," he told her.

He gave her his most reassuring smile, hoping it would set her at ease.

"You don't have to apologize about all of this, you know. It's not your fault that the Renegades decided to betray us. It's not your fault that Cruxis ended up being some kind of crazy organization bent on controlling the world. Err, worlds," Lloyd corrected himself with a sheepish smile before continuing.

"But yeah, coming here wasn't so bad, you know? Sure, everything is different and maybe even a little scary, but if we had the choice to do it all over again, none of us would hesitate to do this again. You're our friend, Colette." Lloyd looked at her warmly, his eyes reflecting the sincerity behind his words.

"And… I think maybe we were meant to do this, you know?" Lloyd continued a little more seriously then. His expression turned thoughtful as he leaned back on his hands and looked up at the sky. It was a mirror image of the one he had always admired, day or night.

"None of us even knew that there was a whole other world out there. And now that we know the truth, doesn't it make you want to change this stupid Chosen system?" A familiar determination filled in his chest as he thought of all the suffering Colette and all the other Chosens before her had endured.

"I want to live in a world where everyone can have a normal life. One where no one has to become a sacrifice, or is discriminated against just because of their birth," he said. "I meant what I said back at the Fooji Mountains. I feel like we need to do this. It just wouldn't feel right if we went back home without doing anything about all of this."

Lloyd suddenly leaned forward again and rubbed at the back of his neck self-consciously. "At least that's what I think." He laughed a bit, trying not to feel too self-conscious about the heat gathering on his cheeks. He hadn't exactly meant to say all of that so suddenly, but it had felt right.

Colette stayed quiet for a moment, which made Lloyd glance sideways at her a bit nervously. The motion allowed him to catch a glimpse of Zelos as well, who was looking at them with a thoughtful frown on his face. Lloyd wondered if he had overheard what he had said, or if he was just thinking about something else.

"Do you think we really could?" Colette asked softly, snapping Lloyd's gaze back at her.

Lloyd shot his friend a self-assured grin. "Definitely!" he told her. He didn't know how yet, but something inside him told him that it was definitely possible. "We'll find a way somehow," he said, and Colette smiled back at him, reassured by his confidence.

"I hope so," she murmured softly before allowing her gaze to return to the water once more.

They didn't say anything else after that. They all just waited until Sheena finally came back out to speak to them.

"Hey, sorry for the long wait, guys. The Vice-Chief is ready to see you all."

The group perked up. The wait had been long and tedious and they were all eager to continue their journey. Raine raised a concern though.

"We should probably have someone keep an eye on our prisoner," she said, shooting their cuffed prisoner a distrustful glance.

Sheena gave a quick nod, agreeing. "Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on him. There's no way he could escape this village alive anyway," she added in a noticeably sharper tone.

"…I like to think that I'm smart enough not to start trouble when I do not understand the situation," Regal said, making no move to stand up from the tree he was leaning against.

Sheena raised one of her eyebrows, looking skeptical, but didn't pursue the matter. She turned her attention back to the rest of the group. "Shall we?" As she headed back inside the Vice-Chief's house, everyone else moved to follow, only leaving Regal behind.

However, just as Zelos shifted from the wall he had been leaning against, there was a loud click, and suddenly, the wall flipped from behind him and sent him sprawling into the floor of the house with a painful thud.

"What the hell?" he cried out as he recovered from the painful fall.

Lloyd, who had caught the whole thing on his way into the house, burst into a fit of laughter.

"Zelos is clumsy," Presea commented as she sidestepped the redheaded Chosen's body.

Genis snickered unkindly, whilst Raine looked quietly amused.

As for Sheena, she grinned widely and made no move to help up the Chosen who had landed by her feet. "Oh, this is priceless."

Zelos shot her a dark, petulant glare from the floor. "You guys suck," he muttered as he sat up and rubbed the back of his aching head.

"You have to admit that was funny," Sheena said, teasing the other mercilessly.

Zelos shot her a wounded glare, and he would have matched it up with a petulant whine had Colette not stepped in.

"Oh, Zelos! Are you okay?" she asked him with a slightly concerned frown. She moved to give him a helping hand up, which Zelos took gratefully. The redhead's expression swiftly switched from disgruntled to self-satisfied.

"I'll be alright, my sweet little angel. Thank you for asking. It's nice to know that at least some of us are nice enough not to laugh at other people's misfortune," he said pointedly before giving Colette a grateful smile.

"Well, you said that Chosen have to stick together, right?" Colette gave him a smile just as radiant in return, which would have gained her a hug from Zelos had Sheena not intervened in time.

"Hands off, buster!" Sheena gave Zelos a stern look as she pulled Colette out of his reach. "And don't encourage him, Colette. That idiot will get the wrong idea." She dragged the blonde deeper into the house, shaking her head without a glance back.

"Hey!" Zelos protested, scowling as he hurried on after them.

Not a moment later, Lloyd could hear the Tethe'alla Chosen getting slapped in the distance. Lloyd shook his head hopelessly, having expected that. Zelos was just too predictable.

His eyes turned in the direction of the trick wall, walking towards it with curiosity and excitement in his every step.

"How does this work?" Lloyd wondered as he began prodding at the wall, trying to make it flip again.

"Lloyd! Hurry up!" The Professor called back at him with a knowing voice. It seemed like Zelos wasn't the only one that was predictable.

"Coming!" Lloyd gave the wall a last longing glance before following after everyone. After the meeting he was going to have to ask Sheena how that worked. It looked so cool!