Author's Notes: I'm not dead, yaaaaay. I've been snowed in so here's an update. I'll try and update again too, now that we have another piece in our plot to start moving. When the last chapter(which is in sight, I promise) is uploaded, I'll link to a fanmix I'm making alongside this for this story. Now, enjoy!

Trees shaded them in blotches from the mid-afternoon sun. An aerial view would show the dark silhouette of the tall, lean, avian-hybrid but it would show nothing of Zelos who had taken comfort in using nature as his crutch when he needed one. Slowly bringing into view the dark gaze of the teenager, it could be seen staring over at his heavily shaded emaciated friend.

Fang took a deep breath, stabbing the ground with his long blade and using it as a cane lazily. Zelos ignored the sign of any movement; his hands ran softly and slowly over his dagger as the birds chimed in the background—unaware of any sort of verbal attack that would soon come to pass in the coming moments.

"You're not well enough to be training me," Fang informed Zelos.

"You're not smart enough to take the training while you can. We can't leave this place, we might as well make good use of the time we have to waste here," Zelos returned the tone, his eyes cast down onto his sword while he leaned back against a tree.

They weren't leaving the remains of the abbey just yet. They couldn't. Zelos could barely walk twelve feet without becoming exhausted. So, Fang had proposed they used the time to prepare.

He regretted that proposal as soon as he had realized that Zelos considered the only kind of preparation to be that of the physical.

Fang planted his feet and leaned against his sword just a bit more, looking over at his friend with dark brown eyes that were hidden by shaggy black bangs. Flipping the hair out of his face, he pursed his lips and let one eyebrow arch at Zelos expectantly, "How exactly are we going to train while you stay glued to your tree?"

Zelos glanced up at him, not lifting his head, "Posture- technical things of that sort. We can work on that."

"We could just talk about the plans?"

Zelos's eyes went back to his dagger and he flipped it around his fingers, "No. We can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point—I never thought we'd get this far," Zelos admitted, leaning back further into the large oak trunk, letting his head lull slowly back and rest against the old bark. He lifted his aching foot up and let it take a moment without his body weight on it, pressing it against the bottom of the tree as he slowly adjusted so the pain wouldn't ricochet like a screaming rubber arrow of fire.

Fang let his wings stretch out, "Ignoring the fact we have to make a plan is just going to make the plan we decide on suck. We won't have had as much time to work on it—polish it and shit."

"I know, Fang," Zelos breathed, almost inaudibly.

"Maybe you should rest?" Fang suggested.

"No. Run through your stretches," Zelos waved a hand at him in dismissal.

"I already have."

"Well, then do them again," Zelos's head lifted up and he shot Fang a glare along with the authoritative bark.

"How many times should I run through them before you're feeling well enough to just watch me practice?" Fang patronized, "Because, gathering from this display of only five minutes on your feet, you're going to pass out, even with that tree as your crutch."

Zelos silently glared at him before letting his head recline back once more, like his neck could barely even handle the weight.

"There are more rebels out there, Zelos! More of them who can help us! They can rise up alongside us and help us win!" Fang exclaimed.

"What makes you so sure that there are rebels?" Zelos scoffed. "From your extensive conversations with the woodland creatures while I was, unsuccessfully I might add, hitch-hiking a ride to Death's doorstep? Did they help you set my wounds too? How very quaint-"

"Don't be a smartass," Fang snapped.

"Then stop being a dumbass," Zelos came back, just as harsh and twice as sharp, "You assume there are rebels out there because you're from a world of 'democracy', am I right? Because, out there somewhere, there have to be people like us. Like Whidmore, right?"

"Of course there are! Nobody takes dictatorship lying down for very long and this thing, whatever it is taking shape of your friend, is a dictator! People rise up against what they see is wrong and this dick is wrong! He's the embodiment of everything that's wrong, Zelos, and you know that I'm right! We just have to find the rebels. They're out there. They have to be, and they'll fight alongside us because they want to live in peace. This hasn't been going on extremely long, they have to be able to remember what society—what life—was like before!"

Zelos sheathed his fencer quickly, turning swiftly to look at Fang who stood about ten feet from him. "The fact that you know they remember should make it increasingly clear to you just how bad it is. That, even though they see what's wrong, they don't have the power or the means to change it to what's right."

"Then we give them that power and those means!" Fang pressed.

"We don't even have the power and the means, Fang!" the red-head yelled. "Look around you! We live in the ruins of an abbey! We barely have enough stones to sharpen our swords with. We live off the wild animals that are stupid enough to come near our camp because we aren't strong enough as a whole to leave this place. If they ever wise up, we'll starve because we're stuck here. We have no power."

"This is why I suggested that you rested and we made a verbal plan—at least make a fucking blue-print. Something other than fighting! Fighting can do a lot, but only if there's some sort of strategy, Zelos! It's why I even bring up the rebels. Whidmore was a blacksmith, he had a little bit of means that he gave to us and we had the strength to use what he gave us and make a difference. We killed the Jabberwocky, Zelos!" Fang leaned back slightly, "You act as if that's not a big deal, but it's a move in the right direction and we both know it."

"Whidmore is dead, Fang. You know that too," Zelos hissed, his hand reaching back to hold the tree for something to hold him steady.

"There have to be more out there," Fang insisted.

"So what do you suggest, huh?" the older man demanded, "We go around, passing out flyers, 'join our revolution! We have no plans, one of us is majorly fucked all to hell, and the other is pubescent but we try awfully hard!'" his tone took on an audible less-intelligent tone than his usual way of speaking before he switched back, "It won't work. Nobody will join that. If I wasn't already neck deep in this shit, I wouldn't stay for it either."

"Well, how do you think I feel? This isn't even my fucking world and I'm in your quicksand political bullshit war as one of the major players-"

"Don't flatter yourself," Zelos laughed, "You're not a major anything except a major pain in my ass."

"I'll try and remember that the next time you need saving," Fang's voice was stoic.

Silence and Zelos was letting the words sink inside. Fang's eyes were staring him down and Zelos leaned back completely against the tree.

"Do your stretches."

"Fuck you," Fang countered immediately. "Make a plan, and I'll think about it."

"If we start involving the rebels, we're upping the stakes considerably. There is no room for failure once we tell these people that we're fighting for them," Zelos breathed out.

"There was room before?"

"What are two freaks with nothing to lose in comparison to people with families—people who have things to lose?"

Fang looked down at his sword, leaning back against it as the conversation broke off. Zelos's breathing filling up the air even ten feet away from him.

"Zelos?" his voice was hopeful and so very young in comparison to his speech only moments before.

"What is it, Fang?" Zelos sighed.

"Whidmore… When we win this-"

"When?" Zelos laughed.

"When we win this," he continued anyway, "we should bury him. At least make a memorial to him."

"I'll add him to the list," the Tethe'allans voice was bitter and dry as he sunk down to the grass now, still pressed against his precious tree.

Fang pulled the sword out from the dirt and he flipped it easily around his fingers, nimble as he thought to himself. "I'm going to do my stretches now," he announced.

Zelos was asleep at the base of the tree, not catching the words in his slumber.