Chapter 11: The Iron Will

With the Rheairds in their possession, the group spent the next hour or so trying to find their lost pal Colette. They stuck close together, using their many eyes to scope out the grand land of Tethe'alla to the best of their capabilities. In the midst of looking over the land, a couple of the more impressionable members were fascinated by how beautiful Tethe'alla looked this high up in the sky.

"Wow…I never would have suspected that flying would be this much fun!" Genis proclaims in joy as they pass over Meltokio, which looks barely visible from this high up. Lloyd on the other hand was never focused on the ground, for he was instead trying to pay attention to the sky above as well as he could for any signs of the dragons that carried his friend away.

"…Hmm…" Letting out a melancholy sigh, Lloyd's emotions are picked up by Riku, who was flying by himself beside him with his body extended horizontally. The teenage Overlord turns to face Lloyd and asks "Thinking about Colette?"

"Yeah…I hope she isn't being hurt by that damn Rodyle." Lloyd states in response. "Knowing his involvement in the Angelus Project, he's probably just looking to take her Cruxis Crystal. Her body shouldn't be harmed if it's removed correctly, right?"

"…I don't know, Cruxis Crystals are different from Exspheres." Lloyd sounds rather depressed thanks to Riku bringing up that line of thought, and the teenage Overlord diverts these emotions by lifting his body upright and turning back towards the rest of the group and proclaiming "Hey! Does anyone here know anything about dragons?"

Regal replies to Riku's inquiry with "From what I recall, dragons in Tethe'alla have a tendency to live either in caves or aerial nests. Considering how Rodyle's dragons operated, looking for the nest would be our best bet."

"Do the nests move at all?" Lloyd asks, finding a little more hope in their otherwise fruitless search thanks to Regal's information. Regal shakes his head and replies "The nests stay still once they are built. Also, dragons tend to not build near populated civilizations, so looking near Meltokio will get us nowhere."

"I don't even know why we're near here anyways. Didn't Rodyle take Colette east from Ozette?" Genis reminds Lloyd of what he noticed from Colette's kidnapping, and the boy slaps the front of his head before looking forward and saying "You're right Genis!"

Performing a swift U-Turn, Lloyd is quickly followed by the rest of his friends towards the east half of Tethe'alla while he says happily "Thanks Regal, that's we need to find Colette!" Regal grins halfway and says "I'm glad to help…"

Zelos glances over at Regal suspiciously, once more the knowledge he shows clicking more gears together inside of his head. "Hmmm…I think I know who you are, Regal…" Zelos quietly comments to himself as he leans back in his Rheairds and folds his arms behind his head.

"Zelos, put your hands back on the handles before you go hurtling towards the ocean!" Sheena blurts out in sheer disbelief towards the Chosen's recklessness. The man glances over at the ninja and says nonchalantly "Don't worry about me my voluptuous darling, it'd take quite a lot to budge the great Ze-"

Suddenly, a hefty gust of wind blows pasts the right side of Zelos' body, causing him to nearly fall off the Rheaird before he collects himself and grabs back onto the handles while proclaiming in a prolonged manner "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!"

While his heart skips a couple beats, Riku floats up to the left of him while whistling quietly to himself. Zelos glances furiously at the boy and asks "You trying to kill me?!" The teenage Overlord replies to the man's declaration by staring at him slyly and whispering "Not at all…But you should be a little more careful with your life there Zelos."

"Heh, I don't need you telling me that." Zelos brushes off Riku's concerns and looks back on ahead, while the teenage simply sighs and says to himself "Why did I even bother…"

Focusing back on the current task, the group flies east, paying close attention to the skies for anything resembling a nest. It takes them fifteen minutes before they fly past the icy land mass and notice a large mass of fog circling around a large wooden spite connected to the bottom of a gigantic stony nest. "There it is!" Lloyd, with all the enthusiasm taking precedence in his voice, increases the speed of his Rheairds to zoom straight towards the nest. Everyone else follows suit one after the other, and they breech the fog to head for the top of the nest.

With the sky darkening due to the fog blocking most of the sunlight, Lloyd looks down at the center of the nest and notices a large crystallized orange cage glowing prominently. Colette stands in the center of it, her hands and feet bound together by mythical chains as her wings are forcibly kept out by the cage. Lloyd flies the Rheaird overhead before leaping straight off in a reckless manner, his feet landing and skidding along the ground as he kneels down out of recoil.

The wet ground almost slips him up as he ends his slide about ten feet from Colette, who hears Lloyd's descent and proclaims in a happy and shocked manner "Lloyd!" As everyone else takes the more sensible approach and lands their Rheiards close to the edge of the nest before getting off, Lloyd looks at Colette and proclaims "Colette, are you ok?!"

Lloyd pulls out one of his swords and looks ready to cut the cage down, but the girl blurts out in a panic "No! Lloyd, stay away! It's a trap!" Colette's reaction puzzles Lloyd, who blinks twice before saying "What? What're you talking about?"

Suddenly, Rodyle walks into view from the left side of Colette's cage, putting a worried expression on Colette's face with his mere presence. The Desian glances at the group and cracks an unusual smile, which does nothing more than set off Presea's murderous instincts. The girl immediately whips out her axe and proclaims "You will pay for using me! Let Colette go!" She leaps straight at the Desian without concern, bringing her axe down with all of her might atop the man's head.

But the second before he's struck down, his visage disappears from view, as though the man was not there at all. Presea is left dumbstruck in her anger as Raine comments in a surprised tone of voice "An illusion?" Rodyle's visage reappears off to the left of Lloyd, but though the boy's eyes were on him the man just glanced at the group without a care and started bursting into laughter at the futility of their presence before saying "Hahahaha! You can have that worthless Chosen! Now I understand why Lord Yggdrasill left her alone."

As Presea pulls her axe from the cracked ground, both her and Lloyd turn to face Rodyle, with the boy asking in puzzled disbelief "Worthless?!" Rodyle smirks without glancing at the boy, explaining to everyone involved "Absolutely. A sinful Chosen like that is completely useless for my Mana Cannon. She can't save the world. She can't merge with Martel. She even puts her friends in danger. Hmph, what a pathetic Chosen."

Rodyle's piercing insults make Colette shiver in sorrow while Lloyd's right fist tightens in anger. But surprisingly it is Presea who stands up for the Chosen of Sylvarant by saying in a blunt tone to the callous Desian "Stop blaming Colette for things she did not do!"

This is followed up by Regal walking past the group, standing before the visage of Rodyle and saying in the calmest of anger "Indeed. It is enough that I alone bear the weight of sin. How dare you call Colette such things when you and I stand here as the epitome of sin! I will take you down to hell with me!"

Rodyle glances at Regal, finding humor in the man's embittered words as he gestures at him and says in a delighted tone "Take me to hell? You inferior beings and your silly jokes." The Desian's careless remarks were starting to get on everyone else's nerves, and though he was but an illusion on this desolate nest they began to close-in on him. Colette, still fearing for her friend's safety, blurts out "Everyone, run, now!"

Rodyle, having had enough fun with the group, raises one hand towards his mouth and lets out a piercing whistle with the help of his fingers, yelling out in an excited tone "Now, my darling pets! Feed on the flesh of these wretched beings!"

Multiple streams of light then begin to rise out of Rodyle's body, causing his illusion to dispel from sight in mere seconds, much to the disdain of both Regal and Presea. His departure is followed up by the sound of powerful wings flapping in the distance, which grows louder with each passing second until the group collectively turns their heads to see a swarm of approximately eight winged dragons heading their way.

Colette looks at the dragons with a heavily worried expression, and begs of her friends soon after "Don't try to fight them! Run!" But as Presea explains as she stands beside the cage "Winged dragon, a subspecies of dragon. Carnivorous. Excels at the pursuit and capture of prey. The probability of successful evasion on this small platform is one percent."

"Give me a break! I'll pass on dying, thanks!" Zelos comments in a flustered tone, to which Riku ends up glaring at him for considering his earlier behavior. Lloyd draws out both of his swords and stares bravely up at the gathered dragons, saying in the utmost confident tone "Then all we have to do is defeat them before they can kill us!"

Regal nods his head in agreement and says "Indeed. I have no intention of becoming a part of the food chain without a fight." With everyone preparing for battle, Colette closes her eyelids and appears frightened by what was about to unfold, but Lloyd says to her in a reassuring voice "Colette…Don't lose hope. We will get you out of here alive!"

As he says those words, the first two dragons dive straight at the group. But before they can reach the ground of the nest Riku leaps into the air and summons forth whips of lightning from his palms that he uses to grab the dragons by the neck and jerk their bodies backwards against their will. The teenage Overlord pulls the dragons through the rest of the pack, forcing them all to split to avoid collision while he proclaims quickly "I'll take care of these two! Worry about the rest!"

As Riku descends straight off the side of the nest with the two dragons still in tow, the rest of the group collects themselves to battle against the remaining six beasts. Below the nest, the teenage Overlord pauses in place and throws the two dragons towards the water. But even with the wind taken out of their mouths from the neck choke they quickly recover and roar angrily at Riku's presence.

"Fighting dragons again…This brings back memories." Riku thinks nostalgic thoughts, which simultaneously makes him remember Takashi and Sodenko, whose voices he hadn't heard in what felt like an eternity. Igniting both of his fists with flames, Riku comments "I'll find out how to talk to you two again…Just you wait!"

Riku dives down at the two dragons as both open their jaws and fire out a stream of pure, slicing wind at the boy to try and cut him down rapidly. But with his manipulation of the air the teenage Overlord bends the element around his body harmlessly before reaching the dragon on the left, at which point he punches the beast square in the side of the face. The scales provide enough defense to prevent an attack on the flesh, but the head is still jerked to the left against with the bones cracking slightly in the neck.

Riku then stops flying and grabs the creature around the neck with his burned out left hand, turning his other arm towards the second beast and sending out all the built up flames out as a medium-sized orb that collides with the creature's eyes and creates a large cloud of smog from the impact to blind the eyes with a simultaneous burning sensation. The teenage Overlord then focuses his attention on the other dragon.

Using all of his strength, Riku flies towards the foundation of the nest and slams the dragon straight into it with a forward thrust of his left arm, sending the creature through ten feet of solid rock as he lets go. As the dragon lies in the shapeless indent, the rocks loosened from the impact slowly fall upon it's scaly body, leading to it being trapped a little longer than it wanted.

As Riku floated outside the indent, he looked at the dragon and felt something odd present in it's body. An electronic device of sorts was grafted into the creature's head and connected to the eyes, and even after being battered in the head twice it was still active. "…Rodyle's watching us…" As the teenage Overlord comments on this endeavor he raises his right hand and begins charging electricity in the palm to short-circuit the device.

But the other dragon has other plans, as with the boy distracted by his modified brother he swoops straight at him and slams his talons into his backside, giving Riku only a bare second to try and harden his skin with diamond only for the realization that he cannot do so to strike him just as the beast slams him into the wall beside the dent. The dragon uses it's talons to repeat this action twice more as it roars and flaps it's wings rapidly.

The dragon pulls it's talons away from Riku's back, allowing the teenage Overlord to peel away his body from the crumbling structure as it opens it's mouth to prepare another stream of slicing wind. The teenage Overlord turns around with his back bleeding out slightly and holds his right hand up, waiting for the wind to be unleashed upon him, which allows him to then use his powers to collapse the stream of wind into a sphere in front of his palm.

Once he's gathered all the wind, Riku thrusts his hand out, unleashing a gigantic whirlwind that consumes the dragon and rips apart the fog around eastern part of the nest. The beast, even though it was affiliated with the wind element, couldn't stand up to the furious slices within the whirlwind that consumed his body, which left it trapped in place with it's scales being ripped off rapidly until it was left as nothing more than unbound flesh.

Not even the wings of the beast were left intact, and the beast fell towards the water while letting out one last roar. Riku lowers his hand while staring coldly down at the falling dragon, but then his body grimaces against it's will and he looks a little more weakened then one would expect him to be. "…I…I can't believe that exhausted me…Kratos is right, I am weaker…"

As he limps there in an attempt to catch his breath, the dragon he pushed into the nest's structure finally pulls itself out and flies straight at the boy, bringing it's mouth open and trying to chomp down on the boy's flesh, but Riku swings around and summons his sword to slash at the creature's upper jaw with most of his remaining strength. The impact of the blade with the scales of the creature send him crashing back into the nest skull first. The creature limps inside of the stone structure, killed by severe head trauma.

The dragon is pulled out of the stones by it's own weight, but before it falls into the water Riku grabs it by the head with it's left hand and swiftly uses electricity to short-circuit the device Rodyle was using to observe him while at the same time dealing with any of the devices in the remainder of the dragons. He then lets the beast go and says "…I need to rest a bit…Good thing I know the others can handle the remaining dragons…" He then grabs onto his left arm and floats quietly in place, breathing in and out to regain his energy.

Atop the nest, the group has felled one dragon, but in doing so they ended up greatly split up across the arena. One of the dragons swoop down at Lloyd, forcing the boy to leap to the right and roll across the ground to avoid being picked up by it's lashing talons. The creature lashes it's talons against the ground before landing completely and swerving itself towards the boy as he gets back on his feet.

The dragon swipes it's tail against the ground and flaps it's wings to send a gust of wind at the ground, creating a swirling circle of air that begins to rise up in the form of a tornado around Lloyd. The boy leaps forward past the wind and goes for the dragon's vulnerable chest, slashing at it twice only for the creature to lower it's head and crashing it's horns against his prey's chest, sending him flying back in recoil into the tornado, where he's thrown around inside of it and cut up by the magical effect of it.

Lloyd is then thrown out of the tornado, his clothes torn up slightly as he lands on his back in front of Colette's cage. "Lloyd!" The girl proclaims in fright as her friend lets out a pained cry upon impact. She tries to budge forward, forgetting that she is bound in place, and feels pain in her wrists and ankles. Lloyd rises to his feet with the help of his swords as the dragon turns around to look at his prey and snarl.

Colette begs of Lloyd "Please Lloyd…Don't do this for me! Just save yourself…" Lloyd smirks and says gently "Dummy…I'm not going anywhere, you know that. Stop trying to sacrifice yourself already."

Lloyd then runs at the dragon in front of him, anticipating the creature's movements so he can lift his swords up and use an X-Cross slash to deflect the head charge of the dragon before holding both of his swords out and running towards the now exposed underside, where he then jumps up while swinging both swords upward in an arc, cutting through the flesh in two separate slits, thus making it so the downward slashes cut through the flesh and make blood spurt out of the wounds.

Most of the blood misses Lloyd as he lands on the ground and breaks into a run past the dragon's legs, and then the beast stumbles over a bit due to weakness caused by lost of blood. While the dragon was lowered, Lloyd turns around and leaps atop the creature's back, running along to the center and looking for a vulnerable part of his skin underneath the scales, where he then raises both of his swords up with points aimed at the back.

Letting out a battle cry, Lloyd stabs both swords diagonally into the creature's skin, puncturing through to the heart and after the dragon lets out a brief and painful roar the beast goes silent and collapses right onto it's gut with Lloyd holding on until it's done falling. The boy then pulls his swords out with blood dripping from the tips, and after shaking them off he looks at Colette with a bright smile and reassures her "We're getting you out of here, that's a promise, ok?"

Colette, touched by Lloyd's vows in spite of how foolish she has been throughout this journey, lets out a single tear from her right cheek while saying quietly "…Lloyd…thank you…" The boy then glances off to the left as another roar echoes his way. He jumps to the right and holds his swords up to block a stream of wind from the creature's mouth, but ends up being sent crashing into the ground feet first, the speed making the damage he takes increase a bit in his legs as his bones crunch down from the impact.

On another part of the nest, Sheena is busy confronting another dragon with the help of her Summon Spirits. In particular, she is working in conjunction with Efreet to tackle the mighty beast. The creature uses his wind bases abilities to blow away the Summon Spirits' flames when it tries to use them as projectiles, but it only allows Efreet to charge forth and throw a heavy punch to the dragon's gut.

Sheena then leaps into the air atop Efreet's back, running across it and then the arm to get close to the dragon's mouth, where she then throws a couple seals inside the throat as the creature lets out gasp of tired breath. In a couple seconds the seals explode, blowing the neck up entirely and launching the head through the air while the body crumbles onto the ground. Sheena then backflips off of Efreet and looks off to the right, noticing Lloyd having a bit of trouble with his second dragon, which leads to her drawing out a few more seals while proclaiming "Come Efreet, lets help Lloyd!"

As the ninja dashes off to help her friend, Presea and Regal can be seen still fighting one of their dragons. With how Presea fights, it's up to Regal to ground the creature with his hard-hitting method of combat. The man stamps his feet into the ground while holding his shackled arms up to block the creature's stream of wind, and after he was done bracing himself he stands up and leaps up while focusing all of his strength into his right foot to deliver a hefty blow to the exact center of the dragon's chest.

The creature's rib cage shatters slightly, with the broken bones poking into his lungs and taking the air out of his body for a moment and causing the creature to crash into the ground, which only furthers the depth the bone shards pierce into the lung. While the dragon was down, Presea leaps into the air and holds her axe high above her head, bringing it down upon the center of the creature's back to split through the scales and cleave the heart in half.

Presea pulls her axe out and flips it around to get rid of most of the blood, and after looking at Regal she says "That was…good. Thank you Regal." The man nods his head in an appreciative manner and replies "Your proficiency with the axe made it all possible."

After the two share a compliment, they are disrupted by another dragon crashing down to the right of them. The beast was completely lifeless, and the one responsible for it's demise was Zelos, who smoothly walks up to Presea and Regal while brushing his hands together and saying "I guess being a creepy lunatic is all that guy is good at." In a jovial tone of voice.

Presea and Regal glare at his attempt to be nonchalantly friendly towards them considering prior events, but the Chosen tilts his head in a puzzled manner and says "What? What'd I do?" Presea and Regal are distracted from this matter by the roar of another dragon, particularly the one Lloyd and Sheena are fighting. Zelos dashes towards it with Presea joining soon afterwards, but Regal steps away from the battle for a moment to look at the dragon Zelos dealt with.

With his keen eye, Regal notices that the creature was missing a large chunk of flesh from it's back, but the strange thing about this was that it was very cleanly removed without any sign of burns or blood. Regal arches his eyebrows suspiciously at this matter, and with his mind recalling Zelos' earlier departure in the Renegade Base the man knew he'd eventually have to confront the Chosen on his suspicions. But for now, Regal goes to join his other allies to finish off the remaining dragons.

Speaking of which, the only two members of the group were Raine and Genis, who were perfectly in sync with their spells as they fended off the dragon. The dragon could only takes the enhanced fireballs Genis threw at him from his kendama without moving closer to his prey. But while they were able to hold the beast off, they weren't making much progress in killing the creature. Thus, Genis says to his sister enthusiastically "Sis, lets try out our new spell!"

Raine calmly replies as she extends her staff out diagonally in front of her body "Keep your magic synchronized with my own, Genis. Remember what I taught you." Genis nods his head and holds his kendama at a cross with the center of Raine's staff, and with the two creating a large, sparkling glyphic circle around both of their bodies they channel their magical energies together in the form of a growing orb of light in-between both of their spell casting weapons.

"Prism Stars!" The two proclaim in unison, and with the magical orb bursting outward the dragon is suddenly bombarded with multiple strings of gliding pearl-colored stars. The beast is consumed by the swarm of stars for five seconds as Genis and Raine continue to sync their magical energies together, and upon being overwhelmed by the stars the dragon glows brightly and swiftly explodes before it can even roar. It was a clean explosion, thankfully.

Genis brushes one finger against his nose while saying confidently "Hehe, that was easy." Raine nods her head and says "You did a good job Genis, but next time try and lower your weapon a bit. You looked a little off." The half-elf boy sighs at the remark.

After this it was only a matter of time before the remaining dragons were dealt with, and with these heavy corpses lying around the battlefield Lloyd breathes in and out with his arms hanging low and his swords sheathed back in his hilts. "We…We did it…" He comments in a exhausted but happy tone.

Colette looks out of the cage, surprised to see that everyone has triumphed over the dragons, but as she tries to crack a smile the ground below her feet starts to tremble violently. The Chosen looks down and notices a heavy field of orange energy spreading out around her cage. Colette squints her eyes and blurts out in a melancholy tone "No…It's too late!"

As everyone turns towards Colette's cage and notices the energy spreading, Regal glances down and says in a puzzled tone "What is this ominous light that threatens to engulf us?!" He suddenly finds his body paralyzed along with the rest of the group. "Argh…I can't move!" Sheena exclaims as she tries her hardest to budge.

Genis observes both the light and the cage, commenting in a blunt tone "It's Colette! The mana from Colette's body is flowing out towards us!" Raine adds her own knowledge to the mix by stating "It's cause by that magic circle beneath her!"

Lloyd, failing to understand the gravity of the situation, begs of Colette "Colette, get out of there!" The Chosen continues to close her eyelids while whimpering out to Lloyd "I can't…I'm chain to it…I…I can't move." Feeling saddened for what she has done, the girl then starts to cry as she says to her friends "I'm sorry. I'm just a Chosen who couldn't even save her friends, much less the world…Maybe I'm just like Rodyle said, 'a pathetic Chosen'…"

"…No, Colette, don't delude yourself." Presea's voice breaks through Colette's self-doubt, and the Chosen lifts her head up to see the girl using all of her strength to trudge through the mana field one inch at a time towards the cage. Bit by bit Presea grows closer, and she starts to lift her axe up as the cage draws within range. The tremors start to worsen, but once the girl stands before the cage she grits her teeth and says "What's wrong is this system that demands the sacrifice of the Chosen!"

With all of her might, Presea raises her axe into the air and brings it down upon the side of the cage. The cage fights back against this attack, unleashing a heavy sensation of mana through Presea's body, causing her to yell out in excruciating pain as she grinds the blade of her axe against the cage. The struggle is worth it though, as to the shock and joy of all involved, the cage shatters apart along with the binds on Colette's arms and legs.

The mana field still exists due to Colette standing on the circle, but that was no one's concern at the moment as the exhausted Presea starts to collapse onto her knees. It was only thanks to her axe that she was able to remain mostly upright. Colette, now letting out tears of happiness instead of sorrow, looks at Presea and says to her gently "Presea…Thank you…"

But the celebration of Colette's release would have to wait, for as the group smiles joyfully the tremors begin to increase tremendously. Zelos wiggles about as he comments "Whoa, what's up with the ground now?!"

No one had an answer to what was happening, so Lloyd proclaimed in an urgent tone "We have to get out of here!" Colette looks at her friend, feeling like a complete idiot for not believing in his vows all this time as she says to him "Lloyd…I…"

But Lloyd doesn't care about that as he proclaims to her "Colette, you have to live!" The Chosen recognizes what a fool she has been as she cracks a smile, nods her head and says in response "…I know…"

As the tremors grow even worse, Riku flies up to the top of the nest to quickly proclaim to everyone "The nest is collapsing! We need to get out of here, now!" In response to this bit of news, Raine glances up at the teenage Overlord and asks "Riku, can you carry Presea to her Rheaird?"

The teenage Overlord nods his head and swoops down to pick the girl up while everyone else makes a run for the Rheairds. After calling Lloyd's back to the group, everyone gets on and rides off as the nest begins to crumble apart and fall towards the sea. Riku makes an effort to ride on Presea's Rheaird for now, keeping the girl resting on his lap with a little wind based support until they can get to safe land.

Everyone only glances back for a moment at the descending nest, watching as it explodes in a burst of light as it collides with the ocean's surface. Then they focus back on ahead, and quickly go for the closest forest below their view. Landing in the middle of it with the Rheairds, everyone gets off and decides to collect themselves after that battle.

Riku gently lowers Presea onto the ground so Raine can help her out with healing artes, while Lloyd looks at everyone and asks "Are we all okay?" Zelos enthusiastically proclaims "I'm still alive!"

Sheena, too exhausted to groan at Zelos' attempt to grab attention, says to Lloyd "It looks like everyone's all right." With that brief matter out of the way, Regal thought it necessary to bring to everyone's attention "But for what purpose did that Rodyle character kidnap Colette?"

Colette is the one who has to answer this question as she looks at the group and explains "He sia he needed a Cruxis Crystal in order to control the Mana Cannon. But apparently, mine didn't work…"

The name of the device Rodyle wished to use sounded both familiar and yet bizarre to Lloyd, so he glances at Colette and says for further explanation "Mana Cannon?"

But it is Raine who reminds Lloyd of the device as she explains "Pietro, the man we save in Hima, also spoke of this Mana Cannon." But this reminder only served to make Lloyd think even more, especially since no one here could explain what the device is.

Genis, who was focused only on Raine healing Presea, notices the girl twitch in an awakening manner and comments "Presea's waking up!" Weakly lifting her head up, Presea immediately focuses her eyes on Colette while grumbling out quietly "Colette…are you…okay?"

Colette responds enthusiastically with "Yes, thanks to you!" With the Chosen standing there with her hands held together and her brimming smile on her face, Presea can only murmur to herself before her expression changes to that of a glowing, rosy smile. Raine backs away from the girl as everyone looks at her in joyous relief.

"Presea smiled!" Lloyd commented, while Regal glances at Presea and whispers to himself as a sharp jolt of nostalgia goes through his heart "…She resembles her, just as I thought."

"…Heh, it's smiles like that that make these journeys of mine worth it." Riku adds in his own thoughts to the mix, which then leads to Zelos suavely saying to the group "Ok, now that my cute little Presea has smiled, it's a good time to start thinking about the next step."

"Yeah, we got Colette back, so what now?" Genis asks. Lloyd enthusiastically pumps one fist into the air and proclaims "What else? We're going to separate the two worlds!"

Zelos brushes his right hand against the air before resting it on the handle of his sword and saying "So we're gonna form pacts with the Summon Spirits of both worlds." Sheena points at herself and says afterwards "This is where I come in, right? Considering we can't head back to Sylvarant yet, how about we start with Gnome? He should be pretty close by considering where we landed."

Lloyd nods his head, but before making a full decision he turns towards the professor, who was staring closely at Colette, and asks her "Professor? Is that okay with you?" Raine glances back at Lloyd and blinks a couple times before saying "…Huh? Umm…Yes, sure. That's fine."

Even Lloyd notices something odd with the Professor's behavior and asks her "Hey, Professor? Is something wrong?" But Raine turns to Lloyd and says in a reassuring voice "It's nothing. Anyways, we should get going."

"Well…I think we should probably relax a bit. It's not like Cruxis is going to find us out here in this random forest." Riku points out, thinking specifically about Presea's condition as he mentions that.

"I'm…fine…" Presea picks up on what Riku was thinking of and starts to rise to her feet. "Raine healed me…I should be fine once we get to Gnome's temple."

"If you say so Presea. Any objections from anyone else?" Riku asks as he looks around at the rest of the group. "We should take care of the pacts as soon as possible before Cruxis tries to stop us." Lloyd states in response.

The teenage Overlord nods his head in agreement, and the group goes back onto their Rheairds without another word. But as they group up, Raine looks at Riku's back and notices holes in his shirt created by one of the dragons, but surprisingly no blood on his skin. The half-elf lets out a light groan that Riku picks up, and as he turns towards her he asks "Something the matter Raine?" He was unaware of the marks in his shirt by the way he spoke.

"…Never mind." Raine retracts her question for the time being, deciding that she wanted to figure out this matter all on her own. Riku shrugs his shoulders and turns back ahead, and he takes off along with the rest of the Rheairds mere seconds later. The half-elf glares back at Riku's backside and says to herself "Riku…Just how much are you hiding from us?" The Rheairds take off, leaving the half-elf professor with her concerns as they head-off to Gnome's domain…

Next Time: The Jolly Spirit