Again, we're blaming homework and my sudden, undeniable urge to read for the lack of productivity as far as chapter has gone. For this, I profusely apologize; I'm going as fast as I can what with the semester wrapping up and my own personal projects floating around.

So, I was hoping to get this chapter on the road as quickly as possible but…Lloyd insisted on delaying us, and then he got in a fight and, well, let's just say nobody felt quite ready to leave Zelos' yet, therefore the chapter decided to move slowly.

…

"Yuan? It's Lloyd, are you there…?" Lloyd asked the communicator. He was back in his room, sitting on the bed with the small metal box held up to his lips.

It was a long few moments before Yuan replied with a sigh of static. "Yes, I'm here. Are you calling for an update?"

Lloyd hesitated. With everything that he had been told in the past few hours, his mind had been on an alternative future, and not on the war that was happening now. "Er…yeah, that and something else, but…why don't you tell me what's going on first…"

"We're holding out," Yuan said simply. "Kvar's men have made it into the city, but we have them contained within a few miles. The angels and Kratos are on the front lines, though Kratos has…retreated for the moment."

The tone in which Yuan said "retreated" made Lloyd's heart jump uncomfortably to his throat. "Yuan…is he alright?"

His breath was short as he waited for an answer. "He's alive, and it was nothing more than a few wounds, but apparently Kvar attacked him. Yggdrasill had to swoop in and save him, but he's more than alive."

All at once, the tension that had built up was released in a sigh and Lloyd silently thanked the higher powers that be that his father was still alive. At the same time, he tried to suppress the grisly images that Mithos' story had created. "I want you guys to get off of Derris-Kharlan," he said before he could think about how Yuan would really react. "Get down to Tethe'alla and let the angels hold Kvar's army off."

"We'll lose the city if we do that. Kvar has control of the Tower, we can't afford to lose Welgaia as well. Besides, where the hell would we go? What good would we be down in the worlds?" The Renegade was beyond skeptical, he was flat-out rejecting Lloyd's request. "We can't let our worries get in the way of winning this damn war."

It was the way Yuan said it, his inflections the same as when he would say Kharlan War, that made Lloyd realize the gravity of the war that he had helped start. This wasn't about possible futures, it wasn't about his own travels through time, or even Kvar's. It was about stopping a monster from wiping out the two worlds in a way that only he could.

"You're gonna want to be down here. Bring Dad and Yggdrasill and meet me at Altessa's house. You know, the dwarf? We can keep an eye on the situation from there, and I need to get him to make a key crest for Colette and Presea… and there's someone I want you to meet."

He had Yuan's attention now. "Who?"

"It's too much to explain over the phone like this, but I want you guys to meet us at Altessa's in…let's try for three days. If you're not there, I'm going to do something stupid like storm the Tower of Salvation or something."

Yuan chuckled, "Unfortunately, I wouldn't put that past you. Do you have any intention of warning the group that you've invited their enemies to meet you? I'd hate to get in the middle of something like this if you have no intention of telling them what they're getting into. And, for that matter, what am I to tell your father and Yggdrasill? Something tells me the latter will not be thrilled backing off, especially not to meet with you."

"At this point Yuan, don't tell them anything, or tell them a little bit or whatever. Just don't tell them everything… I've got plans…"

"You're going to tell them, then?"

"…yeah, actually. And I only wanna do it once, so I want to tell Yggdrasill and Dad when I tell the others, got it?"

"…" there was another rush of static as Yuan sighed again. "I'll have them there for you. I wouldn't miss this for the world, boy. Just be prepared to answer a lot of questions."

"Kay. I gotta go, Yuan, but I'll see you in a few days, bye."

The communication was cut and Lloyd breathed a sigh of relief. That was one less thing he had to do. Unfortunately, the next was going to be far more difficult. Convincing Yuan that he had to go to Altessa's was somehow much easier than convincing the group to leave the comfort of Meltokio and to somehow get to Altessa's house without answering too many questions was going to be nearly impossible as far as he was concerned. At least he had Mithos and Noishe, though he had a sneaking suspicion that they were going to be more of a hindrance than a help.

It was early morning when he wandered downstairs, completely unable to sleep for even a moment, despite the day's excess of exhaustion. The lower floors of Zelos' mansion smelled of the heaven that was breakfast. The scent of baking and the grilling of sausage filled the air and made even Lloyd's mouth water. The dining hall was already filled with food, most of which was being magically kept warm as it sat on the table and waited to be consumed.

Lloyd sat heavily in a chair and began loading a plate with bacon, waffle, and eggs. He already had a mouthful when Raine laughed and said quietly from across the table, "And good morning to you too, Lloyd."

He jumped, blushed, and swallowed painfully. "M-morning Raine…" Even with all the food, he was horrified that he had missed that she was in the room. "How'd you sleep?"

"Rather unwell, unfortunately," the Professor sighed. "I was up half the night worrying about our new… guests. I don't trust them Lloyd. I know you want to trust them, but realistically…"

Lloyd laughed, "You're kidding, right? Last night, I didn't trust them an inch, but I also knew that we had about as much chance arguing and fighting them last night as we would if they just stabbed us in our sleep! But…well, I'll be honest, I went and talked to them last night, and…well, things are a lot more complicated than we first realized… But I also had an epiphany last night!"

Raine's eyes widened, "Lloyd…did you just use epiphany…correctly? By the Gods, this journey must be doing something for you." It was proof of Raine's trust in Lloyd that she ignored his thoughts on Mithos and Noishe, however much she wanted to know, and waited for Lloyd to tell her willingly.

He sighed sarcastically, "Yeah, look, the point is…I think I figured out a way to help Colette." The Professor's eyes widened and she sobered, nodding for Lloyd to continue. "When we were in Sybak, well…we found out that Presea is being used in an experiment to create Cruxis Crystals…" Lloyd explained what he had been unable to the day before about what they had learned from Kate, and about the deal she had made with him. "I think that whatever she tells us…well, I bet it could help Colette too, you know? Maybe there was something I was overlooking when I made the new crest, or maybe they know a dwarf who's better at making crests than I am, you know?"

The teacher nodded slowly. "…it's not much, all things considered, but it's more than we had. And even if it doesn't lead us in the right direction, we have put Presea in danger enough times that we have to try to help her… but I wonder how we'll manage to get back to Sybak. I doubt the bridge will be let down for some days, and we don't have rheiards enough to carry the whole group…"

"Damn," Lloyd swore, suddenly realizing that he had not taken this into account when he'd told Yuan to meet them in three days. "Well crap, how're we going to manage this…?"

"Lloyd," Raine chuckled, "it isn't as though we couldn't just wait it out. Zelos' staff is loyal enough that we wouldn't be found here, and, frankly, we could all use a few days to recover." When Lloyd didn't immediately answer, the woman's shoulders slumped and she eyed Lloyd tiredly, "What are you telling me?"

Lie, Lloyd thought tiredly, it's time to lie again. "I just…" he hesitated, "…I'm not sure if we've got a few days. I don't want to leave Colette or Presea stuck like this! It's not fair! I'll take a few trips back and forth on the rheiards if that's what it takes, but I can't just sit around doing nothing while they're getting their souls sapped!"

Raine's eyes were not nearly so cold, but she was still suspicious. "…there's more to this, isn't there? Is it something Mithos said?" She was too perceptive. Always so damn perceptive!

"…a little bit," he admitted softly. "It's a lot of things that've been getting to me…but I just—Colette losing her soul was my fault, and I was the one who came up with the brilliant idea to get Presea in on our shit, and we're running around Tethe'alla while there's a war going on!" The fork in Lloyd's hand bent and snapped in two; he swore and dropped the mutilated instrument.

"Lloyd, none of this is your fault," Raine corrected gently. "We made decisions as a group and will accept the consequences as a group."

He could only shake his head as he grabbed for another fork and dug angrily into his breakfast. The food didn't taste nearly so good now.

Raine clearly wanted to ask him something and her lips parted, but Mithos walked in before she could get the words out and the Professor abruptly closed her mouth. Mithos, contrary to the night before, was clean, refreshed, and was now dressed in fitting clothes. Calm and collected, he appeared the exact opposite of Lloyd.

"Morning Mithos," Lloyd was almost glad of the interruption, he had admitted too much. "Sleep well?"

The angel shot Lloyd a slightly annoyed look, but otherwise shrugged. "Well enough I suppose. I expect Noishe will be down soon," he added as he delicately picked a piece of fruit out from the heaping offerings around them. "The smell of breakfast will drag him down here. He hasn't had a decent meal in awhile."

Both of Raine's eyebrows shot up at these words. "Where have you been that you haven't been able to get decent nutrition?" She eyed Mithos to see if he was too thin. For the first time, Lloyd realized he was. Months, or so he could only presume, of torture had taken healthy pounds of fat off of the child Mithos, creating terrifyingly gaunt cheeks and brittle-looking limbs.

Despite the fact that Lloyd knew Mithos was still terrifyingly strong, he couldn't help pushing a plate of pancakes toward the half-elf. "Eat something then. You look ready to—" Lloyd choked on his last word, which would have been die. "—pass out. Eat."

Mithos glared at him again, irritated at having to take orders. Despite this, he took a few fluffy cakes and put them on his plate, pouring syrup over them. "To answer your question, Ms. Sage," he said as he stabbed one of the pancakes with his fork and began cutting it to pieces, "as a half-elf in Tethe'alla, I haven't been permitted into any sort of decent eating establishment for some time. I suppose it is to be expected, but we could hardly be cooking homemade meals while wandering across continents."

"I take "we" to mean yourself and…Noishe?" Raine said the protozoan's name with hesitance, glancing at Lloyd as she did so. "Why were you so bent on travel? You must have a home…"

Lloyd held his breath as Mithos took an absent bite of his food, then tilted his head to the side, watching Raine while he chewed. After he swallowed he began again, "Home hasn't been an option for me for awhile. Again, half-elf. My parents died when I was a kid and my sister…is also dead…" His voice broke and to cover it up, Mithos downed a few more bites of pancake.

"Forgive me, but why would you come to Meltokio? It seems that there is no place more racist."

The former leader of Cruxis chuckled, "You haven't seen much of Tethe'alla yet, Ms. Sage. You will soon, I expect, but for now you can remain blissfully ignorant. There are far worse places in this world then Meltokio. I came here to find your group. That is my only purpose in coming this far."

"Us?" There was no attempt to mask the curiosity and suspicion in Raine's voice now. "Why us? How did you even know about us?"

Mithos waved her words aside, "Questions to be answered on a later date. I promise you, you will not be disappointed, right Lloyd?" He was pulling Lloyd into the conversation—and the blame.

"…yeah," he said softly, "won't disappoint."

…

"We're not going to travel with them, or even leave this house 'till we've heard it too!" Genis roared, his high voice straining to be commanding. The young half-elf was furious, and not alone. The group was insisting on hearing Mithos and Noishe's story. All of Lloyd's friends stood against him, refusing to budge.

But Lloyd refused to budge too.

"Why can't you trust me, Genis? You need to trust me!" If Mithos and Noishe told their story, Lloyd would be forced to tell his. He had no intention of creating more lies only to be proven a liar later. They would have to be patient. They had to be patient.

"Because you don't trust us!" Sheena snapped vehemently. Her eyes were narrowed furiously, making her scarring more pronounced. "You keep telling us to trust you, but you never trust us! We can't do this, Lloyd."

Genis' face was red as he began to yell, "What happened to you! You got on this stupid journey, you started hanging out with Kratos and you got all freakyand secretive! After what happened with Kratos, how do we know you're not going to betray us too!" A tear leaked out of his eye and streaked a wet trail down his cheek.

The adults stared at Genis, shocked by this accusation. For all his secrecy and lies, none of them had suspected him of working for Cruxis. The thought in and of itself had never occurred to Lloyd in his wildest dreams, yet his best friend had just proclaimed that he thought Lloyd could well be a traitor.

"We better damn hope he's not a traitor," Zelos chuckled, breaking the silence. "Or he'd be the most inept bastard I've ever met! Trust me, brat, if you want someone dead, you don't go saving their life on a regular basis. Don't get me wrong," he hedged as Genis opened his mouth to argue, "Bud's clearly keeping secrets, but you really think he wants you dead? You're an idiot if that's where you're going with it. I'm with you, Lloydie-boy, but we damn well better find out what's going on soon."

Lloyd hesitated a moment, then, slowly, his words began to spill out. "Soon, soon, soon, I promise. It's just…just…there are…others who need to hear this too, and I can't ask Mithos to tell the story two more times…he couldn't do it, he could barely get through when he told me last night. Please believe me when I say that I'm going to tell you everything, but not just yet…and I want Colette to hear too…"

Genis' hands were clenched, his pale cheeks colored scarlet, and his eyes tinged with betrayal and anger. He was the only one who still seemed to be set against Lloyd, however, as Raine, Zelos, and Sheena all seemed at least willing to give Lloyd a few more days.

"I…" Sheena looked between Genis and Lloyd. "…I don't like it. I don't want to wait, but…I want to trust you, Lloyd. A few more days, until we can figure out how to help Colette, I'll wait."

"See? Settled. Knew we'd figure something out!" Zelos grinned around at his friends.

Raine's crystal eyes met Lloyd's own red-brown and Lloyd saw all of her misgivings. She wanted to trust him as well, but her common sense was getting in the way. "…you have a week, Lloyd. If you haven't told us of your own free will in seven days, we'll find out for ourselves."

"Agreed." Lloyd nodded his consent, but his heart was pounding. How was he supposed to tell them? How could he make the words come out, even when it was time?

…

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Sheena asked uncertainly, "I've got some contacts in Meltokio that could probably set us up with a boat… It'd be a lot more subtle than taking two trips back and forth between Meltokio and Sybak…" They had four rheiards, nine people to fly back and forth, and most of the flyers were too weak to carry two people with them.

"…I think getting out of Meltokio with as little attention drawn to ourselves as possible is the best route," Raine said softly. "Rheiards are faster than boats anyway." And, of course, Raine hated water. Any other form of travel was preferable to her. "And we cannot afford to be in anyone's debt."

Zelos grunted in agreement. "How're we gonna do this? Who can actually fly these bitches? I've got a little practice, and I should be strong enough, Bud, you can too…"

"Wait a second, how the hell can you fly a rheiard?" Sheena demanded, rounding on the Chosen of Tethe'alla, her eyebrows raised skeptically.

He chuckled, "Being in the upper class has its advantages, Ms. Ninja. Anyway, who else is on back-and-forth duty? And who's staying behind?"

"Zelos, you and Sheena and Noishe get Raine, Genis, and Mithos over first," Lloyd slipped into a role of commandment easily. "And Colette, Presea, and I'll wait here until one of you comes back with another rheiard and take the rest of us over."

There was a general murmur of agreement and Lloyd watched his friends climb onto rheiards and disappear into the bright blue sky. Lloyd sat and twisted one of his swords so that it rested on his lap and he could easily pull it out to defend his friends. Presea and Colette were silent, and Lloyd was well aware that any sort of conversation would be entirely pointless. They sat for an hour before, on the horizon, Zelos appeared.

The Chosen was waving and grinning, his red hair flying as he moved toward them. "Everyone else's at the inn, awaiting your arrival." He hopped off the rheiard and offered a hand to Presea, "Shall we, milady?"

Lloyd pulled out his own rheiard and they took off, Colette's arms wrapped around Lloyd's middle.

"…Genis hates you right now, you know that, right?" Zelos called over the wind as the ascended above the clouds. As soon as they had reached an altitude where they wouldn't be easily seen by those below, they could hear each other more easily.

The men watched each other for a long moment before Lloyd finally spoke, "I'd figured he did, yeah… doesn't make it any easier, though…" He sighed and turned away from Zelos, looking out over the bright blue sky. "But we're all working for the same thing—to help Colette, and now Presea, and figure out how to save the worlds. That's all that matters…"

Zelos chuckled, "Bud, you better watch out when you say shit like that, he'll think you don't wanna be friends anymore. Not that I'd blame you for that, kid's a real brat." Lloyd knew Zelos was smirking. "…what I don't get is what you're doing keeping all these secrets. I get the little angel not telling you about how she was gonna die, though her reason's stupid, and I get your beautiful teacher and her bitchy brother keeping that they were half-elves from you, but you! You're about as squeaky clean as they come as far as I can tell. What do you want from all this?"

For the first time, Lloyd laughed, "Zelos, that's just a half-assed way of trying to get me to tell you the truth ahead of everybody else, and that's not happening. You'll find out later."

"You're so mean, Bud."

…

Sybak was quiet at midmorning, though the sun was already high in the sky as the group wandered their way through the streets, keeping to back alleys until they reached the manhole that lead to the basement of the Elemental Research Academy. It was on the far end of the city, down by the docks and Lloyd hurried his friends down into the sewers.

"Eww…" Zelos complained loudly, "Smells just as rancid down here as it did yesterday…"

There was a collective sigh as Sheena led them carefully along the side of the drain below until they had reached the simple wooden door that would lead to the underground room where Kate and her associates were. Sheena knocked quietly, none of them daring to open the door on the off chance that there was another human inside with the half-elves. After a few minutes, the door was opened by Kate herself, her eyes wide.

"You're…back!" She seemed genuinely shocked by their appearance. "I was sure you were dead…"

"Well, we survived, just barely though. You mind letting us in? We'll introduce you to our friends—the ones we were telling you about."

If possible, Kate's eyes grew even wider as she beckoned them inside and watched the procession file into the small room. "So you really did run to save half-elves…but…I thought you said there were only two. Who is this?"

"Mithos is a recent addition to our party, we met he and Noishe last night."

It seemed impossible to Lloyd that they had only met the two last night; so much had happened in less than a day, it felt more like a week had gone by. He was beginning to regret not having slept the night before, he was fine physically, but mentally his nerves were raw and his emotions steamed just below the surface of his calm demeanor. He let Zelos do the talking, listening silently as he was told things he already knew.

"So, you keeping up your side of the bargain or what?" Zelos crossed his arms and smirked almost threateningly at the woman. "Cause I wanna make sure that my little Rosebud doesn't get hurt 'cause of that bastard the Pope, you know?"

Kate's eyes flickered between Zelos, Presea, and Raine before she nodded. "I—…of course. Presea's exsphere is just like a regular exsphere, all one would have to do would be to craft the proper kind of key crest for it. Unfortunately, she requires a more advanced, complicated sort of crest. I will be difficult to find. The only one I know who can create such a crest is the dwarf Altessa; he lives just east of Ozette. Go to him and convince him to create the crest and you can help Presea."

Zelos nodded wisely and looked over his shoulder at the group, "What do ya' think, is she telling the truth?"

Raine sighed, "We've no reason to believe she is not. Besides, a dwarf is probably exactly what we need to help Colette." She nodded politely to Kate. "Thank you for your assistance; if not for your trust in my friends, my brother and I would be dead, so we thank you."

"Of course, half-elves must do all we can to help each other… I wish you luck on your Journey."

Lloyd was the first one to file back out into the sewers; something about that tiny underground laboratory made his skin crawl, and he preferred the putrid smell of the sewer to the heavy oppression that lived in the air of the Elemental Research Academy.

"So that's it then?" Zelos called ahead to Lloyd, "We're going to this Altessa guy's to try to get Rosebud and the Little Angel figured out?"

"That's the idea."

…

Everybody thank the Doctor Who Soundtrack for the chapter, or it would have taken sooo much longer. Lloyd may not have a box, but he's a time-traveling madman as far as I'm concerned.

R&R

~Yoshi