This chapter proved itself to be a bitch. I hate it when I have to write multiple versions in order to get something passable. Generally, it's these big, pivotal chapters that do it, though. It doesn't help that I've spent the past week cleaning and cooking for Christmas. At least I can walk through my room again, that's always nice. It also doesn't help that I've picked up Pokemon Soul Silver and begun another college application. Life just doesn't ever slow down, does it?
Well, here goes nothing!
…
"We'll start at the beginning," Mithos said simply. "The very beginning, with the Kharlan War. Kratos, Yuan, Martel, and I were born in the very last decades of the war, and are the reason it ended and the world was not destroyed by it." Despite how young he looked, Mithos was skilled at calmly stating the shocking—but more importantly, at holding their attention. The boy in white closed his eyes, remembering a very distant century. "That was four thousand years ago. As the war was ending, my sister, Martel Yggdrasill, was assassinated by some mad member of the Tethe'allan aristocracy."
The boy paced before the wide eyes of the Chosen's group. Behind them, the Seraphim were completely emotionless as the second Mithos gave an abbreviated version of their past. Noishe was nodding along with his friend. "In my grief, I bound Martel's soul to the seed of the Giant Kharlan Tree, which still exists on Derris-Kharlan, and split the world in two using the Eternal Sword." He was good at telling the story, and Lloyd wondered if all his life, Mithos had wanted an audience like this; one to hold in awe and gasp at the right moments as he told his tale. "Over the following centuries, civilization was rebuilt in the war-ridden and decimated worlds, but when it was rebuilt, it held the key to my power: the Church of Martel.
"People needed a savior in the centuries following the world's split, and they found one in my sister. She was the Sleeping Goddess, and in order to awaken her, Chosen with the correct mana signature were sent to my Tower. There, I would remove their souls and try to replace them with my sister. Soon, we even began breeding for the best signature. The world with a Chosen that completed the Journey was rewarded with the mana flowing from the other world. Unfortunately, none of the sacrifices were able to revive my sister.
Colette looked utterly mournful, but Zelos' face had twisted with absolute loathing. "So you used people," the Chosen of Tethe'alla spat.
Mithos chuckled bitterly, "Oh, shut up, Wilder. We're all still alive because we've used others to get here. Don't deny it. The people who sit in this room are among the living because others have taken falls in our place. At the very least you could live up to it." The angel blinked a moment; remembering where he had left off. "Hmm… Oh yes, Kratos and Yuan. I'm led to believe that Yuan started the Renegades around…oh, around two thousand years ago. He was the first to realize that we had utterly destroyed ourselves in the pursuit to bring Martel back to life. He was also my sister's fiancé. I'm rather fond of this irony."
The leader of the Renegades had gone pale and tried to back away from Yggdrasill, who had rounded on his friend, glaring. "What is this, Yuan? You started that infernal army?"
Without further ado, Lloyd stepped between them. There was no longer any point in fearing Yggdrasill, and Lloyd was not about to see Yuan murdered. Not now. "That's done for the moment; Cruxis, the Renegades, the group, sides don't matter as long as Kvar's in control. Besides, we need Yuan." It was almost amusing, watching Yggdrasill back down, still glaring at one of his oldest friends.
"…I will never understand how she could love you," he whispered, sounding simultaneously furious and hurt.
"Perhaps," Yuan replied softly, "this is precisely the reason why."
Mithos snorted, "Or perhaps she felt sorry for you and you were good in bed. Whatever the reason, she's dead now so there's really no point in arguing!"
Suddenly, Lloyd was afraid: not of Yggdrasill, not of Mithos, but of what Kvar had done to convince Mithos that his sister was truly gone. Four thousand years, and even on his deathbed, Mithos had believed that his sister could still be saved. Now, that hope—the thing that had driven the man for four thousand years—was gone. He suspected that there were things Mithos had not told him, and would probably never tell anyone, about his time in Kvar's control.
"Kratos deserted around two decades ago; he ran off with dear Anna." Mithos' face was curiously blank as he sat heavily. "She was murdered by Kvar. Kratos had stolen her from his Ranch and the idiot swore revenge…"
Lloyd glanced at his father, who had hidden his face in his hands. "…you encouraged him," Lloyd said simply.
"My Seraph is Origin's seal, and my closest friend. I wanted him back. However…I regret to say that I did encourage Kvar to pursue them. It was easier than doing it myself."
Someone sighed and Lloyd turned to see Noishe shaking his head, "You handled that like shit, you know that, right? I'd say you owe them an apology, but you owe them way more."
Mithos' eyes glittered when he looked up at the protozoan, "I told him not to kill her! I told him to bring all four of you to me alive! It shouldn't surprise you that he did no such thing. I doubt it helped that you put up such a good fight, but… Kratos… I…" He couldn't say it. Even after all this time, Lloyd knew that the words would never come out of Mithos' mouth. "I am sorry that Anna died. It is not your fault that she died, it is mine."
Finally, Kratos looked up. He wasn't crying; he had rid himself of every tear one could shed over a dead woman years ago. Kratos Aurion was empty, and he shook his head. "Mithos…"
"Thank you." Lloyd said it so firmly that Kratos flinched. "But I think blaming Kvar for Mom's death is pretty fair." Everyone was thinking, and all fell silent.
"…Lloyd?" Colette said softly, breaking the soundlessness. "Does that mean…does that mean that Kratos is your father?"
Lloyd nodded. "Yeah." He grinned stupidly, "Been holding that one in for awhile… I found out in Asgard…well, sort of…knew it before that… Yuan tried to threaten me to get Kratos to release the seal… In my timeline anyway. We were here, actually, staying with Altessa and Tabatha. Then Mithos…"
Mithos smirked, "That's when I discovered that Yuan was the leader of the Renegades. And that Kratos had been helping the group the entire time. Bastards."
"Helping us?" Raine asked softly, "How so? Why would he—no, perhaps that is the wrong question… What was he doing to help us without breaking his open loyalty to Cruxis?"
Pulling off his glove, Lloyd held out his right hand where he still wore the Ring of the Pact. "He was getting the stuff for this. It's the Ring of the Pact, and the only way I could use the Eternal Sword and reunite the worlds. The sword can only be used by people with some elf blood unless they have the Ring. Dad was getting everything ready so that we would have the power to reunite the worlds after he'd released the seal."
"Not that we let that go as planned!" Noishe smirked, "Like we were about to let him go and kill himself! Yuan swooped in at the last second as saved your ass, Krattie! And then someone went and blew up the Tower of Salvation…" The protozoan scowled at Mithos. "Not your brightest move, dude."
"Why is it that every word that comes out of your mouth irritates me?
Raine cleared her throat loudly, "I think you've skipped over a few things, if you'd be willing to fill them in for us." She was trying very hard to be stern, but the exhaustion and misery in her face weakened the effect drastically.
"Yes… Well, after Anna's death, Lloyd was found by Dirk, etcetera, etcetera, you went on the Journey and my understanding is that with a few minor exceptions, everything went as it should have… I think Lloyd might have a different take, though, so perhaps we'll let him fill you in."
The room turned to Lloyd, and the angel felt his stomach churn. He was supposed to be the Regeneration Hero, the idealist, a famous speaker who could save the world with his silver tongue, but the truth was that Lloyd Irving-Aurion could only ever speak when the words invented themselves and spilled out between his lips. He could never explain anything or write speeches. They just happened. Now, everything hung in the balance, and Lloyd felt his tongue grow heavy.
He closed his eyes, his heart quickening, and every moment that had gone wrong flooded his mind. Watching Palmacosta burn, wandering through its streets, meeting Dorr, watching him die, Myrrh's appearance… and always, always, flashing back to Sheena. She had not been buried yet. They weren't sure how to; no one knew what was proper. They could have crafted her a casket and lain it in Mizuho, or they could try to construct a Mizuhoian funeral, but no one knew how. It seemed wrong to set her in the middle of her ruined village. Too forlorn. She could wait a few more days. They would make a decision soon, but not now.
"…Palmacosta," Lloyd croaked at last. "It wasn't—…it wasn't supposed to go like that…" He couldn't bear to say that it was destroyed another way. "And Myrrh…she died, and we destroyed the Ranch and saved the people…" He swallowed. Nothing was coming out right. His eyes stayed closed. "The Desians never teamed up like that… Kvar…he was supposed to be dead… And Sheena—" he choked on her name, "he never hurt her…"
Lloyd gasped as the tears returned, but he bit them back. "At the Tower of Salvation… the Renegades rescued us from Yggdrasill…not Kvar… This whole war thing…it wasn't supposed to happen." Angrily, Lloyd wiped the tears out of his eyes and finally blinked them open. "I was supposed to stop this. None of it was supposed to happen. That was the point."
No one would have any sympathy for him. He knew that. He had screwed everything up. He had hurt people and people had died because Lloyd hadn't known what he was doing. All his fault. Everything was his fault.
What he didn't expect was to see real tears in his friend's eyes. Colette was sobbing and hugging Presea, who had small pearly tears dripping down her own cheeks. Regal's face was carefully wiped, or it would have been were tears not squeezing their way out of his eyes as well. Raine had buried her face in her lap, but she was still rubbing Genis' back as angry tears poured down the child's cheeks. Tears dripped down Zelos' nose and into his lap, but the Chosen did not look up.
Lloyd didn't understand why Zelos and Presea and Regal were crying. They hadn't been there. They hadn't known the horror and the pain. They hadn't known the people.
When Kratos finally spoke, his voice quavered slightly also, but he showed little more response than that. "Continue, Lloyd."
"I…w-well… I thought everything was going n-normally in Tethe'alla… But it was because Kvar was busy on Derris-Kharlan trying to b-beat you guys… I didn't know how strong he was, I didn't know that he could take the planet while you were gone. I'm so sorry…"
Yuan alone still seemed in control of himself. "Lloyd, what you fail to realize is that Kvar has an army. He has always been disgustingly charismatic, and he swayed thousands of Desians to his cause. He appealed to reality: Mithos never intended to bring about the Age of Half-Elves; he was merely going to destroy the worlds and all those in them when he brought back his sister. For once, he was selling the truth. An angel is no match against an impassioned soldier.
"It also helped that Kvar had managed to sway Pronyma enough that she passed on some of her more important codes to him before he killed her. Yggdrasill remained in denial long enough that when he finally tried to use the emergency defense systems, Kvar could worm his way in. As it was, we were the last defense. Granted, I too doubted that a Desian's power could overcome a city of angels, but whatever he did worked, clearly."
"Meaning what?" Yggdrasill hissed softly. He was not crying, but his temper was long gone. "What do we do now? How do we stop him?"
Lloyd shook his head, "I don't know… My plan was always to stop him when we got to the Asgard Ranch, but things got…complicated, and everything started getting out of hand…"
They lapsed into silence. It was finally Regal who spoke. "I have been with this party for only a handful of days, and am still considered a prisoner as far as my understanding goes, but if I may, I would like to add my thoughts." When no one spoke out against Regal sharing his opinion, he carried on. "I have seen the way this group fights, and I am not blind to the power that you three gentlemen have. If there is some sort of war between the Desians and Cruxis, then it is only logical that you must form a battle plan and retaliate. I doubt there are many other options at this point."
"I agree," Yuan said simply. "I have Renegades that would be more than willing to fight. We would not have to go in unprepared."
His heart pounding, Lloyd slowly began to wonder if the answer to his prayers was coming. The world would never be the same without Mizuho, Sheena, and the thousands of others whom had died at Kvar's hands, but Lloyd would be damned if he didn't fight to the damned end. Already he could see that he had both of Mithos, Noishe, Kratos, Yuan, and probably an army of Renegades on his side. He could probably even convince a few of his friends, though he wasn't sure he was willing to walk them into danger.
"I don't feel as though I know enough yet," Raine said loudly. "Lloyd, please continue explaining."
Lloyd was glad that he had managed to regain his composure while Yuan was explaining. He had brushed the water out of his eyes and swallowed, focusing. "…I'm doing a bad job of explaining everything from the beginning. Um, I come from about two-ish years after the worlds are—were—will be…anyway, after the worlds were reunited. That's…I think about six to nine months from now, but I could be off a little bit. Um… I reunited the worlds with the Eternal Sword; we got the Great Seed to germinate and then there was a whole bunch of months where we had to get the world functioning now that Sylvarant and Tethe'alla could see each other again…
"Yuan takes over watching the Tree and the Renegades are downsized and everyone's working more independently. Raine's studying the ruins of the world, Genis is going to school in Palmacosta, working toward getting into one of the better colleges in Sybak. Colette and Zelos are trying to get the Church to stop being a giant bitch, Presea's rebuilding Ozette…which should have been destroyed in Mizuho's place… Sheena was supposed to become the chief, and Mizuho was getting ready to move into Sylvarant… Regal's the president of a huge corporation…" Lloyd knew there were a few conspicuous holes in his explanation, but he pushed on.
"Origin, the Summon Spirit, found Yuan and I and told us that a foreign object was using the time stream. That's really, really not good even in the best situations so we did some monitoring and sent Origin running around and figured out that it was Kvar. I thought it was Kvar come back from the dead, but Mithos thinks he just never died… Anyway, we had no idea what to do or the kind of threat he would present, so I decided that I'd go back in time and try to stop him."
He paused, out of breath. The memories of his time, his friends, and the future that wouldn't ever be were flooding back. He missed the sarcastic arguments with Yuan, most of which ended in Yuan outsmarting him and Lloyd calling him a whore before stomping off to bed. He missed late nights talking with Raine and swapping stories about their travels. He missed sneaking into the Palmacosta Academy and breaking Genis out for a few hours to swim in the ocean. He missed staying up into the earliest hours of the morning and sleeping in late to wake up to breakfast with Zelos. He missed his life.
"…Origin," he began again, "didn't want me to go back in time. He thought that I would just screw stuff up worse…and to be fair, I totally did. Still, I didn't have a whole lot of choice. Raine and Yuan helped me figure out how to get the Eternal Sword to do what I wanted it to, and how to get to the time I wanted and how to make it so there weren't two of me running around and all the technical stuff. The thing that everyone kept telling me over and over and over was that I had to get rid of Kvar but still keep time as close as it possibly could be otherwise it creates a paradox…whatever the hell that is."
Mithos' eyes lit. "A paradox? Really… Now that you mention it, it brings up a few interesting questions…"
Lloyd blinked. He had absolutely no idea what a paradox was, but from the way Mithos was muttering to himself, it was both important and not something he was going to elaborate on at the moment.
"That's…that's pretty much it…" Lloyd concluded lamely. Everything's gotten really complicated, especially since Mithos and Noishe got here and…I think it's their turn to explain…"
Lloyd sat back, letting Noishe and Mithos tell a shortened version of their story. The only time Lloyd interjected was when Mithos began to say what their fates had been. No one needed to hear how they would die. It was too cruel.
It was over. Lloyd had told his story, Mithos and Noishe had told theirs, and now the decision was in the group's hands. They were silent for several long moments, no one wanting to break away from their thoughts long enough to express them.
"…let's have some lunch," Colette said at last. "I can eat now and I'm really hungry…"
The first good news of the day seemed to inject some life into the group. They broke up, muttering softly to themselves and wandering over to Altessa's table, where Tabatha had set out more than enough food for the group. Lloyd just watched them go, knowing that he wasn't welcome at their table, and standing back, he saw Zelos break away from the group and walk outside.
Worried and curious, Lloyd followed the Chosen outside.
"Zelos? …you okay?" It was so peaceful, it almost seemed impossible that less than a day had passed since the tragedy.
The red-headed Chosen was standing with his back to Lloyd, looking out toward the ocean. "…yeah…not really." He had regained his spunk, and his voiced dripped with ironic sarcasm again, but Lloyd was sure that his periwinkle eyes would be just as empty as ever.
Lloyd sighed and shook his head, "I'm sorry, Zelos… If I hadn't been stupid enough to try to stick to the timeline, Sheena wouldn't have—"
"S'not your fault," the elder man interrupted.
"Yes it is! She died because I was too afraid to tell you what was really going on! I should have trusted you. If I had, she would have known better… Zelos…whatever you might think…it wasn't your fault."
Zelos chuckled bitterly, "Don't you think I know that? Sheena's death wasn't anybody's fault but Kvar's. That bastard is the one who cast the spell and the one who destroyed Mizuho. The only one who has any blame in all this shit is him."
"…no offence, but you're wrong. It really way my—"
"Shut the hell up, Bud. Yeah, sure, at first, I blamed myself, hell, I blamed you, but then I realized something. She was as good as dead the second Mizuho was gone. You, me, Raine, there's nothing we could have done. Hell, she might be better off dead. Everyone she grew up with, everyone she loved, her family, all dead. I know what it's like to be alone in the world, and she wasn't cut out to be lost like that. She'd have blamed herself."
It didn't matter that Zelos' words had the sting of truth behind them, something in Lloyd's blood was boiling. "…you can't seriously say that you think her dying like that was a good thing! She was our friend! She had just lost her village! Kvar destroyed her face, you really think that dying by his hand is what she would have wanted?"
"Did I say that? Lloyd, Sheena wasn't in her right mind, and honestly, I don't think she ever would have been again. Thwarting the bastard who destroyed her home and her face, saving one of her best friends, helping your resistance to continue: she would have thought that was a worthy way to go out. The honorable way to die."
"How can you talk like that? How the hell can you go on like she'd be proud? She should be here, fighting with us!"
Zelos snorted, "You really gonna scorn her sacrifice like that? I figured you of all people would understand this shit. You want to mourn her like she would have wanted? Don't let her death be pointless. Get out there and kick Kvar's pale ass and fix time! Isn't that what you're here to do? You let something like us dying stop you, then Kvar's already won." Finally, Zelos rounded on Lloyd, and his eyes weren't hollow, but bright and angry.
"B-but…Mizuho, Palmacosta, Sheena…none of them should have died like that… I should have been able to stop it!"
"You may be an angel, but you can't be everywhere at once saving everybody." Zelos snorted. "That's stupid even for you. You were doing what you thought would save the world, and there's nothing else anyone can ask you to do—and if they do, they're idiots."
A slap in the face. It wasn't his fault. He was still only one man; those people shouldn't have died, but it wasn't his actions that had caused it. He was fighting a madman: unpredictable, angry, vengeful, and beyond Lloyd's control.
"Zelos…" he said softly, his voice breaking. "I—…thank you…"
The Chosen snorted. "Don't thank me. I'm just stating the obvious."
"Then what's wrong? If it isn't Sheena…?"
He closed his eyes, his lips twitching upward. "You freak me the hell out, Lloydie-boy. That's what. Can't keep any secrets from you, can I? It'd freak anybody out. To be honest, it's a wonder that you still let me into your little group of misfits knowing that I was playing triple agent, trying to sell my sister out to Yggdrasill, trying to become an angel… Gods, I'm a bastard."
Lloyd laughed, "Because I know you make the right choices in the end."
Zelos snorted, "Didn't you just spend the last three hours blathering on about how much things have changed? What makes you think I'm the same person you're friends with in your time?"
"Oh, I think you'd be surprised… You picked us in the end, you know. Helped Dad get all the pieces for the Ring, saved us after we'd fallen into one of Cruxis' traps… You were possessed by Mithos to stop him from hurting me. Maybe my taste's not so shitty after all."
Pink and black fingers pushed the hair from Zelos' eyes as he watched Lloyd for a long moment. "…maybe…I guess we'll see."
…
Happy frigging 2012, bitches! Bring in the year with some bromance! I was getting sick of the depressing stuff, and writing angsty Lloyd isn't quite as fun as writing just good ol' Hero Lloyd.
R&R
~Yoshi