Clash of the Elements Part 4: Reuniting the Divided World

by mewmaster93

The next leg of Riku's journey finds him tackling a 4,000 year long cycle of mana transference between two halves of a divided world. The story of Lloyd Irving and the Chosen of Mana Colette Brunel has been told before, but with the arrival of a person no one expected to see perhaps the outcome of this particular tale will be different than before...

27. Chapter 26

Chapter 26: The Liberation of Iselia

Riku leaps down a hole leading into the main area of the Iselia Human Ranch, landing down atop the cold steel floors without his body flinching in the slightest. He then heads deeper into the ranch and finds the bodies of many Desians strewn across the ground with visible swords cuts buried into their flesh. "Lloyd and the others were definitely busy…" The teenage Overlord notes as he only shares a mere pitiful glance at the slaughtered half-elves.

Running on ahead through the otherwise empty metallic halls, Riku thinks to himself "I never actually thought about this, but I wonder if it's possible that some of the Desians are half-elves forced to work for this organization against their will…I never really encountered any of the foot soldiers, and by the looks of things I never will, so I guess that's all just theory now."

Riku eventually makes his way to the entrance of a hallway leading to the lone warp platform in this facility, where Lloyd, Zelos and Kratos can be seen ready to head towards it. However, with both swords in his hands and his guard at his highest, Lloyd hears Riku's footsteps and turns towards him while saying "Damn it, another Des-" Before he realizes that it was his ally.

Zelos merrily says to the teenage Overlord "Hey! Look who almost didn't make it to the party! You better have something good news for us after you flew off like that!" Riku shakes his head and comments "All I can tell you is that the Giant Kharlan Tree hasn't caused too much damage to Sylvarant. Palmacosta took the biggest hit, but I'm positive they evacuated most of the people."

Lloyd scowls at the news and proceeds to slam his right fist against the nearby wall while saying "Damn it! After all we did to save them from the Desians…" After a momentary pause, Lloyd glances over his shoulder at Kratos and says to him "I should have listened to you, Kratos."

Kratos nods his head and points out "True as that may be, there's no time for you to worry about this. If we don't stop the Giant Kharlan Tree, then every town will suffer the same fate as Palmacosta…But I'm glad to see that you are still recognizing your mistakes." His voice was calm, and almost fatherly in tone.

"Lloyd just got too excited about saving both worlds and didn't think to listen to your warning…Your betrayal probably didn't help, but whatcha gonna do?" Zelos nonchalantly points out while shrugging his shoulders. Riku glares at Zelos for a moment, then says to Lloyd quickly "Anyways, Raine and the others got everyone out of the ranch, so all that's left is to deal with the mana reactor, right?"

Lloyd nods his head and replies "Yeah. Thankfully, we haven't ran into Forcystus." And Riku comments afterwards "Which means he's guarding the mana reactor." Lloyd nods his head in agreement of the idea and says in turn "I hope so. It's finally time to make him pay for attacking Iselia!"

The four head towards the warp portal at the end of the hallway, with Kratos using his knowledge of the facility to activate it. One after the other the group head into the deepest recesses of the human ranch, which leads them into a secluded room where a large chasm filled with a glowing light-blue energy can be seen even from afar.

Standing in front of the chasm is a male half-elf with green-blue hair, a waist-low red and white vest in front of a protective set of thin golden plates attached above armored extensions beside his waist. On his left arm was a large, sealed up cannon of sorts, and in front of his right eye is a ruby jeweled eye patch. He looks at the group with a bitter scowl and says to them firmly "That's as far as you go."

"…So you are here, Forcystus!" Lloyd angrily swings his swords at the man, who proceeds to chuckle upon looking at Lloyd and says to him in turn "Well, well. So you remember me. It looks like it was a mistake to have let you live. I guess I'll have to take care of you personally."

Kratos steps forward and comments "So you're Forcystus. If death is what you seek, you shall have it." Forcystus grins at Kratos and says to him "You humans are always so arrogant in your words. No matter what you do, you're going to die, along with this tainted world!" The half-elf doesn't realize the hypocrisy in his own words.

Kratos calmly explains to Forcystus "…Even if the world is lost, you can escape to Derris-Kharlan…Is that what you believe? …How naïve." Forcystus had to take pause for a moment after this mere human mentioned the holy lands, and said once he thought about the matter a little more "…What did you say?"

"I have nothing to say to someone who hasn't realized just how expendable he is to Yggdrasill." Kratos states without so much as any change to his voice. Forcystus is outraged by these words and proceeds to swing his right arm out while exclaiming "Silence! Who are you to speak ill of Lord Yggdrasill?! We have Derris-Kharlan! It is a world of mana, the very source of life! The destruction of this tainted world is of no concern to us!"

"Psssh, just how blind can you be? This world is just as full of life as that Derris-Kharlan you keep preaching about." Zelos says in rebuttal, but Forcystus points out in turn "Hahaha! Mana is the source of life. And the very source of mana, Derris-Kharlan, will be our new world thanks to Lord Yggdrasill!"

It was at this point that Kratos realizes the reasoning behind Forcystus' insane rambling, and says to him "…Because Martel is fused with the Great Seed…Are you saying that fool would go this far just to protect her?!" His words came off as rather surprising to Lloyd, who didn't expect Kratos to speak out against Yggdrasill. But these same words had a different effect on Forcystus, who looked at Kratos in a puzzled manner and noted "You speak as if you know him. Just who are you?"

Zelos stops Kratos from getting involved by groaning and then saying "Your babbling is really driving me nuts! Lloyd, just forget about this idiot, we don't have time to be dealing with his silly victim complex!" Lloyd swings his swords out and glares at the half-elf, saying to Zelos in turn "I know that!"

Forcystus angrily raises his cannon arm and opens it up, widening his eyes while saying "You will not get past me!" He then uses his cannon to fire off a heavy gust of wind that kicks the group off their feet before they could brace themselves and sends them flying back against the nearby wall. Forcystus then seals his cannon arm up since it now needed to recharge, and with a snap of his right fingers he calls forth two bronze, floating devices that rotate some rather bone-like extensions around their form.

"Wind magic…You got to be joking me." Riku slowly rises to his feet and glares at Forcystus in defiance, with the half-elf grinning and saying "How can you hope to approach me when I can just blow you away? Just lie and your backs and accept your fates, inferior bein-g-GACK!"

Forcystus suddenly grasps the front of his neck as he feels air being pulled straight from his body. He lurched forward in pain, while Lloyd glances over at Riku and sees him pulling back with his right fingers to guide the air out of the half-elf's body. It was a rather gruesome technique, but as the teenage Overlord points out "I wouldn't normally do this, but we really don't have time to deal with you, Desian."

Once Riku felt he had dragged enough air out of Forcystus' body, he clenched his hand into a fist and lowered it while saying to Lloyd "You have a personal vendetta against him, right? He's all yours." With a gesture towards the weakened half-elf, Riku steps back and lets Lloyd get onto his feet and swing one sword in front of his face. "This is for Marble, you bastard!" With this furious proclamation, Lloyd runs straight at Forcystus and holds one of his swords back behind his head.

Forcystus desperately tries to catch his breath while saying "Ex-exbones, ki-" Before he can give out this command to his two machines, Lloyd cuts him straight down from his right shoulder to his left hip, causing a splurt of blood to emerge from his scar as he lets out a pained gasp from his mouth. Lloyd glares at him with all of his anger, but then subsides into a calm as he feels that Marble was safely avenged.

Forcystus stumbles back as he lays one hand against his scar and tries his hardest to prevent himself from bleeding out, but as the blood slowly leaks out he mutters out "This is…im…possible…" Without realizing it, the half-elf ended up at the edge of the chasm, and with his arm cannon raised to the sky he stumbles into the energy without making another sound. Lloyd swings his sword out to the side to throw the blood off of it, then spins it around before sheathing both his weapons and running straight for the console to the mana reactor.

"Now we can stop the mana reactor!" Lloyd slips straight into a tone of joy upon realizing how close they were to saving both worlds from the Giant Kharlan Tree, but he then squints at the confusing text and numbers that appear and comments "…I have no idea how any of this stuff works."

It was then that Kratos gently placed one hand on Lloyd's left shoulder and said "I'll handle this." Lloyd glances at him in a puzzled manner and steps aside, commenting as Kratos goes in front of the console "You sure are handy with everything…Swordsmanship, magic, even operating machinery. How do you do it, Kratos?"

"Well, I've lived a little longer than most humans." Kratos honestly replies as he begins to tap some inputs onto the console. Lloyd tilts his head and notes "Lived longer? So you're a half-elf too? …Then again, Forcystus called you a human, and I think he'd know-"

Kratos stops Lloyd's rather logical train of thought as he finishes shutting off the mana reactor and turns around "Focus on what's important. We must stop the Giant Tree." His firm reminder was coupled with the man folding his arms against his chest, and Lloyd nervously said in response "Y-Yeah…"

Now that their mission was over with and the glow within the mana reactor began to halt, the group made their way back to the entrance of the Iselia Human Ranch without any diversions, and once they climbed back outdoors they found the rescue team and the human prisoners standing around anticipating their return. Colette is the first to notice them due to her enhanced hearing, and with a brimming smile and her hands against her chest she merrily says "Lloyd! I'm so glad you're okay!"

Lloyd gives a thumbs-up to Colette and says "Yeah! All we need to do now is contact Sheena and…" But before he can finish, a voice that shouldn't be heard comes up from behind. "You…will do…no such thing!" The rescue group looks on in utter shock, forcing Lloyd to turn around and see that Forcystus was still "alive", for lack of a better term. His body was barely functional, with his skin filling up with mutations due to his heavy exposure to the mana reactor.

But what was functional was his arm cannon, which he opened up and aimed at Lloyd with the energy building up to it's greatest level thanks to the mana now infused within it. Before Lloyd can draw out his swords, Forcystus fires off a blast of energy that strikes Lloyd clean in the chest, which singes his clothes and knocks him onto his back, and it was only thanks to his Expshere that he wasn't killed by that attack.

Kratos quickly draws out his sword and tries his hardest to keep himself calm as he says "Does your stubbornness know no end?" Forcystus prepared to charge up another shot to finish Lloyd off while saying with what little breath he had "I am one of…The Five Grand Cardinals…I will never die to you inferior beings! No…You shall all die for your defiance!"

"…Is this truly how the great Desian hero wishes to meet his end? How disappointing." Kratos says, and Forcystus bursts into insane laughter before saying "I get it now…I wondered how a mere human could exude the smell of mana…You're Kratos Aurion!"

Kratos takes this revelation of the half-elf's with nonchalance as he notes "What of it?" Forcystus grins like a mad-dog while babbling out "Lord Yggdrasill trusted you…Yet in the end, you betray us! This is why humans cannot ever be trusted!"

Before Kratos can rush forward and cut him down, Forcystus fires off another energy beam at Lloyd, which distracts Kratos enough as he quietly blurts out "No!" But before he can run in the path of the beam Colette suddenly leaps from her location and takes the brunt of the shot against her left shoulder, which singes that part of her clothes right off and sends her flying against the ground as she cries out in pain.

Lloyd glances to the right as Colette lands with a visible expression of pain on her face, and though he was in pain from Forcystus' attack he quickly rises onto his feet and looks angrily at the half-elf. With both swords drawn, he yells out with all of his rage "YOU BASTAAAAARD!" The last word is drawn out as he charges at Forcystus, who raises his cannon one last time to try and shoot Lloyd down with another energy blast.

But Lloyd slashes the energy blast away with one sword while stabbing the other one directly through Forcystus' heart. His rage dies down into a tired pant, and the half-elf raises his head into the air and laughs with what little energy he had left before exclaiming "Lord Yggdrasill! Glory to the new Age of Half-Elves!" Lloyd rips his sword from the half-elf's body, and the man collapses right onto the front of his face. This time, he was truly dead.

Lloyd sheaths his sword and quickly turns around to check on Colette, who was slowly being picked up by Raine. "Colette, are you okay?!" He urgently points out, but as Colette is stood upright the entire group went into a state of shock as they saw something truly bizarre on her skin. The skin around her elbow was replaced with a type of boney flesh, and along her shoulder was a series of aquamarine scales.

In a move uncharacteristic of her, Colette shoved Raine away and clenched her arms together to try and hide the damage to her body behind her hair, but it was already too late as Lloyd said in a stunned tone of voice "What the…" Colette begs Lloyd to look away from her in a panicked tone of voice "Don't look! Don't look at me!"

Kratos helps Colette with that effort by setting up a miniature communication device on the ground and saying to Lloyd "Lloyd! Send the message, quickly!" Lloyd apparently had his priorities skewed by Colette's problems, and he tries to voice his concerns by mentioning "But Colette…"

Before he finishes though, Kratos firmly said to him "The Chosen won't die yet, but if you don't hurry, this world will! Now focus." Lloyd grits his teeth and hesitantly says "A…all right!" He then runs to the communication device and presses a single button on it to send a signal off to Sheena.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Sheena and the Renegade soldiers following her have just finished raising the ancient Mana Cannon from the depths of the sea. Once the weapon has been cleared of water from the top, Sheena hears the signal going off from one of the Renegades' gauntlets. Nodding her head, Sheena exclaims "That's the signal! Leave the rest to me!"

The Renegades bolt off, and Sheena turns to look at the imposing staircase wrapped around a heavy influx of yellow mana that's rising towards the ceiling. Though the thought of what she was doing intimidated her, Sheena placed her feet firmly against the ground and drew two seals from her clothes, one of blue ice and another of purple thunder. "Come forth, Disciple of Everlasting Ice and Hammer of Godly Thunder!"

The seals begin to disappear from the grasps of her hands, and both Celsius and Volt appear before Sheena's body in the air. Sheena then quickly pulls out two more seals, one brown and another black, and exclaims with all of her might "Servant of Mother Earth and Envoy from the Dark Abyss!" As those two seals vanish, Shadow and Gnome are summoned forth behind their two fellow Summon Spirits.

Leaving little time for the Summon Spirits to question what was going on, Sheena confidently pointed at the influx of mana and demanded of them "I command thee! Gatherest before me and unleash thine! Everyone is counting on you!" The Summon Spirits nod their heads, and then turn around to face the mana influx.

Holding their hands out, the Summon Spirits pour all of their energy into the Mana Cannon, and with Sheena raising her hand high into the air she proclaims with all of her might "Fire the Mana Cannon!" Hearing the command from the ninja, the Renegades down below activate the Mana Cannon.

Outside, all of the energy from the Summon Spirits combines with the mana influx and flies up into the top of the tower, gathering around and forming a glowing mass of light-blue energy as bright as a star, but this brightness disperses the dark clouds for only a brief moment before it fires off a gargantuan spiral of highly concentrated mana across the land of Sylvarant. The energy roars through the air as it flies straight towards the Giant Kharlan Tree.

All across the land, people spot the firing of this weapon, but feel salvation in it's existence instead of incapacitating fear once it strikes the monstrous tree and starts to slowly overwhelm it with it's purest of light. The tree cracks apart at the seams, the echoes of it's destruction spreading across the land. But before the tree is fully gone, a painful, feminine scream spreads across the entire land. In an unknown part of Sylvarant, Yuan turns towards the destroyed tree and closes his eyelids as he hears his former wife's painful scream.

This scream is powerful enough to reach even Tethe'alla, and back in Altessa's house an unconscious Mithos suddenly jolts awake on one of the beds and painfully sits upright even after Altessa begs of him "No! You mustn't get up!" Mithos grimaces in pain as he thinks to himself "Martel…That was…Martel's scream…" He then collapses back onto the bed and falls back unconscious not long afterwards.

Back in the outskirts of the Iselia Human Ranch, Lloyd and the others watch as the Giant Kharlan Tree is obliterated, with the Tower of Salvation untouched by the ensuing explosion. Genis lowers his eyelids in a disturbed manner and says "What was that cry?" Kratos explains quickly "Martel, I would assume. The out-of-control Great Seed is Martel herself."

"…I wonder…" Genis murmurs something to himself. Meanwhile, once Lloyd has stepped away from the device, Yuan calls Kratos and mentions to him "The Great Seed is once again bound in the Holy Ground of Kharlan. For that, I owe you my gratitude. Thank you. It seems that you have managed to save the Great Seed as well as this world."

Yuan's words were rather odd considering what just occurred, and Kratos is quick to kneel down in front of the device and mention "If the Great Seed is intact, then Martel must be as well, correct?" Yuan grumbled quietly in the background, but then mentions to Kratos "…I'm sure that's good news for you. I wish I could say the same for me."

Lloyd, on the other hand, didn't care at all about that conversation and turned to look at Colette, calmly saying to her as she continues to try and hide her mutated arm "…Colette, it looks like things have settled down." His attempt to avoid mentioning the mutation does little to stop Colette from turning around and saying with a solemn look in her eyes "It's gross, isn't it? …It's disgusting, it's it? It's…"

Lloyd handles the situation delicately by shaking his head and saying "It's not at all." He then tries to approach Colette to help her out, but she steps back and exclaims "Stay away! Don't look at me!" And without any warning, she suddenly collapses onto her back, causing Lloyd to say in a panicked tone of voice "Colette!"

Raine quickly runs over to Colette's fallen body and examines her, and upon feeling a pulse in her arm she comments "…It's okay. She just fainted. All we can do for now is take her back to the village." Genis is greatly puzzled by Raine's suggestion, as he reminds her "But Lloyd and I were banished!"

Raine calmly points out "Colette's home is in Iselia. Besides, we can't just leave behind people who were held at the ranch." Lloyd nods his head before glancing in a melancholy manner at Colette and saying "All right. Let's…go to Iselia." He felt hesitant about the idea considering how things ended last time, but he knew that there was no other choice if Colette were to get some peace and quiet.

Before shutting off the communication device, Yuan overhears everything and says "Then I'll notify Sheena to meet you at Iselia. Farewell for now." Once the device was shut down, Kratos picked it up and put it inside of his clothing for later use, and then helps the group out by picking Colette's body up and carrying her to Iselia.

Raine and the others help guide the refuges back to the village, which was thankfully a very short walk away from the now defunct human ranch. Along the way though, Riku brought up a rather good point to the group "So umm…How exactly are we going to explain Zelos, Sheena, Presea, Regal and myself to the villagers? No one knows about the two worlds besides us, and I can't exactly say 'Hey, I came from space!'"

"Then we will say nothing at all. The less panic we can cause after the Giant Kharlan Tree, the better." Regal calmly mentions, and Zelos says "I'm with Regal on this one, we have to handle everything delicately."

Zelos glances over at Lloyd, who doesn't say a word afterwards much to his surprise. With a smile on his face, Zelos says "Hey Lloyd, don't you want to say something like 'Coming from you, that says a lot!'?" Lloyd is too absorbed into his concerns for Colette to bother with jokes, which actually saddens Zelos deeply.

After a descent from the hillside, the group walks towards the small and humble village of Iselia. Immediately upon entering, the villagers are surprised to see Lloyd and Genis coming in, but their attention regarding them is diminished once they see familiar faces walking behind them. The prisoners from the human ranch spread out to meet up with their friends and family. Meanwhile, Kratos and the others head for the northeast part of the village where Colette's house is.

Upon entering the house, they are greeted by Colette's grandmother Phaidra, who is an elderly woman wearing the spiritual garb of the Church of Martel and blonde-hair tied out beside her ears. She looks at Lloyd in surprise, but Colette's fainted body more-so as she asks "Oh dear…What is going on here?"

Kratos calmly states "Phaidra, allow me to take Colette to her bed while Lloyd and his friends explain everything to you." The grandmother nods her head, even though she suspected something was amiss in Kratos' tone of voice. Once Kratos had gone up the stairs, Lloyd and Raine take turns for the next ten minutes updating Phaidra on everything that had happened since they left Iselia, since they figured she could be trusted enough to know all this.

Once they were done, Phaidra folded her arms atop her wooden table and said "I see…So the angels of Cruxis were really half-elves." She seemed perturbed by the news, but at the same time you could tell that she had some suspicions on her mind long before this information hit her ears. Lloyd kindly asks of the grandmother "Please don't tell anyone about this. We don't want to start a panic."

Phaidra nods her head and says "Indeed. Especially now that the Tower of Salvation is gone, I wouldn't dare tell people the truth." Genis blinks his eyes twice out of confusion and comments "The tower is…gone?"

Phaidra nods her head and says "After that frightening earthquake, the tower disappeared from the eastern skies, along with that monstrosity." Lloyd turns to Kratos, who had just came back down the stairs, and says to him "How could it just disappear?!"

Kratos is disturbed by this news as much as Lloyd, and he tried to explain "I don't know. The Chosen never completed the ritual of regeneration. The Cruxis core system, which controls the appearance of the tower, may have malfunctioned due to the Mana Cannon. But it is of little consequence."

Raine bluntly says to Kratos "No, it's not. It'll be a tremendous shock to the people of Sylvarant. After a giant tree sunders the land, the symbol of salvation vanishes. The Chosen will be held responsible." Zelos nonchalant points out afterwards "Why? Lots of other Chosen have failed up till now, too."

"The others have paid for their failure with their lives. But Colette is still alive…" Phaidra's words were filled with heavy concern for her granddaughter, and Regal doesn't make the situation any better by explaining "When people are suffering, they feel the need to place the blame on someone else."

Lloyd slams his fist against the wall and exclaim "Well that's not fair to Colette!" Everyone in the room goes silent afterwards, and that silence is then broken by the commotion of people being heard right outside the house. It sounded like all the villagers had gathered outside in an angry mob, and Lloyd comments "…I'm gonna see what's going on."

Genis backs his friend up by saying in turn "I'll go too." But before they make it out the door, Zelos walks up beside Lloyd and says "Hold on, we'll come with you. It sounds to me like it's a bit sketchy for you to be walking out there."

Lloyd nods his head in an appreciative tone at Zelos, and after Kratos notes that he'll be staying behind for the moment the group steps outside of the house one after the other. Waiting for them is a group of villagers angrily yelling at Lloyd and Genis, with a mustached man wearing an important looking set of clothes standing at the head of it all and exclaiming "This is an outrage! Those who were banished returning without permission…And the Chosen failed atrociously! It's the end of the world and it's all your fault!"

Genis rubs the front of his head and comments in a disappointed tone of voice "Well, he certainly hasn't changed…" He was rather calm about the whole thing before the mayor stated "And on top of all that, people we thought were elves are actually half-elves?! I bet you were the ones that led the Desians here to attack this village!"

This terrible accusation greatly angers Genis, who had to take a moment to make sure he heard that right before saying to the man "Wh…What did you say?!" The mayor's words quiet the crowd a bit, as one of the women point out "Mayor! He's only a child."

The mayor lets his anger get the best of him, and exclaims in response "Who cares if he's a child! He's a half-elf!" This makes Lloyd snap out in anger, and without so much as a second thought he responded bluntly with "I've heard enough from you! Now listen! It's true that the Professor and Genis are half-elves, but who gives a damn?! There are good half-elves just as there are bad humans!"

The mayor is flabbergasted by Lloyd's defiance, and bluntly points out to him "Humph! What does a kid know? You were raised by a dwarf. It's no wonder you caused the Chosen to fail her journey! And you even brought a bunch of dirty prisoners back here! It's intolerable how much pain you've caused the good humans of this village!"

Lloyd is about ready to run at the mayor and show him what-for, but Zelos pulls him back with his right hand grasped on his collar. The reason for this is that Zelos saw someone approaching the group from the back, and as the villagers went silent this person exclaiming "That's enough!" The villagers split apart so the mayor can turn and look at the one yelling at her. She was a girl about Lloyd and Colette's age with pony-tailed brown hair, humble shopkeeper clothing, and glaring blue eyes.

"You're just complaining about everything! Does any part of you besides your mouth even work?!" The girl gives the mayor a piece of her mind, which leaves Lloyd relatively stunned in shock as he murmurs out the girl's name "Chocolat…"

Zelos lets go of Lloyd and joins in on the defense by exclaiming "Yeah! You tell him! I've had all I can handle of this chump!" Presea in turn mentions calmly "You criticize and attack people for their birth and upbringing…Things they cannot control or change. It is you who are not human."

The mayor's face began to turn a slight shade of red, and he blurted out in response "What?! We have an arrangement with the Desians! I have a duty to protect this village. Isn't that right?" He swings his head around expecting to be defended by his fellow villagers, but all he gets are looks of disapproval from everyone else. "SAY SOMETHING!" He demands angrily of them.

One of the children speaks up, but not in the way the mayor wanted "Genis is the smartest person in this village. He even knows factorizations that you don't know." Another person then states "The Professor is scary when she's angry, but when I know the answer, she's happy, too…"

"Lloyd isn't any good at school, but he's the strongest in the village. He saved me when I was attacked by monsters." Colette, she's always falling down and stuff, but she never cries. She doesn't cry even when it hurts. Colette is really grown up." After those two remarks, the villagers began to erupt into a series of compliments towards their four fellow villagers, and everything that was being said led to Raine raising one hand towards her chest and finding herself barely able to contain her joyous tears.

"Everyone…" Lloyd says in disbelief of everyone's defense, and a moment later Raine runs right past him and weaves through the crowd as she heads to parts unknown. Genis blankly stares at her sister and says her name in empathy, but then breaks his focus and looks at the mayor as the man exclaims in disbelief "Sh…shut up! You children, go away!"

Chocolate exclaims "Those children understand the truth much better than you! Who do you think you are?! And it's not just you! Everyone shoved all the responsibility on the Chosen and Lloyd and the others! What have you done?! You haven't done anything!" This final remark makes the mayor take pause for a few seconds before he slowly explains "We are powerless…"

But as one of the villagers explain "…Yes. But even powerless, we can still aid the Chosen and her companions when they return exhausted to this village." Another villager looks at the mayor with scorn and says "Mayor…your words are so shallow that even a child can see through them."

Yet another one points out "You say that you are powerless and force everything onto the Chosen, but when the going gets tough you turn and pin the blame on her? That's just too much!" Chocolat then explains "Forcystus is dead. There are no more restrictions upon this village."

"We'll take in the Chosen and her companions along with the people from the ranch! And Mayor, we're not going to let you say a word about it!" The villagers cheer out a "Yeah!" And Lloyd is left dumbfounded by this all, and he points out to them "Are you sure?"

"Yeah…I mean…I'm a half-elf and…" Genis is about to bring up his heritage, but one of the villagers stops him by mentioning "Who cares?! You were raised in this village, just like Lloyd and the rest of us!" Genis, just like his sister, had a hard time fighting against his tears as he murmurs out "Thank you…everyone."

The mayor, having enough of this whole ordeal, stamps his foot and says "Fine! Do what you want!" He then storms off without anyone giving a shit, and the villagers split up to handle the human ranch refugees. Chocolat stays behind though, and looks up at Lloyd nervously and says "U-Umm…I must apologize, too."

Lloyd glances at her and says "What?" In surprise, and after a moment of taking a deep breath in Chocolat confidently says "You saved me, and yet I…I couldn't bring myself to accept it. I…heard at the ranch about how you were kind to Grandma…Thank you."

Genis calmly says to her "Thank you, Chocolat" and Lloyd nods his head while sincerely mentioning "I'll always remember Marble…for the rest of my life." This made Chocolat feel a lot better about her apology, and after a polite bow she walks off to do other things for now since there wasn't any easy for her to return to Palmacosta.

"…So, shouldn't we go check up on Raine?" Riku asks after quite a long period of silence. Lloyd agrees to the idea, and Genis suspects where she might have ended up. The group takes a quick walk through Iselia to the other side of the village, where they find Raine rubbing her tears away with one of her sleeves in front of a burned down house.

Lloyd empathetically remarks to Raine "Professor…Are you ok?" Raine turns around after her heart skips a beat and comments "No…It's nothing. Just…never mind." Lloyd raises an eyebrow at this comment, and Raine smiles and says "Perhaps this village has some hope left for it after all."

Zelos comments afterwards "I was really looking forward to you chewing out the mayor." Raine folds her arms against her chest and notes "I'm not stupid enough to waste my time lecturing pigs." The blunt tone in her voice made Zelos smile, and he jokingly notes "Well, well, my apologies…"

Now that the matter of being in the village was settled, the group decided to head back to Phaidra's house to check on Colette, but along the way they find her walking around with Kratos by her side. She had a new set of clothes on, and she seemed to be in better spirits than before. Lloyd runs up to her in surprise and says "Colette! Are you all right now?"

Colette nervously pokes her pointer fingers together and says "Yes…I think…I'm sorry for making everyone worry." Kratos looks at Lloyd and comments "I have accepted a request from Phaidra and Frank to escort the Chosen to your dad's house."

Lloyd is puzzled by this and swiftly asks "To Dad's house? Why?" Colette answers with "Grandmother said that dwarves know the most about Cruxis Crystals…" Lloyd thinks about that information a bit and then says "Yeah, they probably do. Then we'll go with you. I really should make sure Dad is ok after all this time."

Kratos nods his head happily and states "That is only fair. Once I have delivered the Chosen, I will return to Cruxis." As Presea points out though "But…what about Sheena?"

Kratos replies "I requested a message be sent. She should rejoin you soon." Lloyd is appreciative of that, and says to the group afterwards "Alright then, let's go back to Dad's place." Without any further delays, the group heads for the south side of Iselia and leaves the village for the time being to deal with Colette's problematic illness…

Next Time: Colette's Aftermath