Round three! Poor Jade. Poor Florian. I wrote him in here and then basically forgot about him... Thankfully, Ion remembered for me.

Also... Any complaints about Ion's action in the next few chapters, do remember Asch's favorite line of 'damn impressionable replicas'. He's not exactly being coddled in Re:Ripples like he is in the game.

And while I'm thinking about it... to Guest reviewer V-Girl: (If you ever read this...) In most of the Tales Games, yes, Photon is the base light arte. However, this is Tales of the Abyss, and it insists on being stubbornly inconsistent where the element of light is concerned (-points to a rather sad-looking Luna to make another point-). In Tales of the Abyss, Photon is the third-fonon FoF mutation of Energy Blast. So... yeah. That holds true for this story as well, though Kairi's going to have an amusing train of thought regarding Selenia and her arte set... around the end of Chapter 10.

So yeah... Okay, I'll let you read now.

*I'm sure Sync will be thrilled about that.* -Asch

*Stay in that library and flush the miasma,* Asch ordered. *Dark has all of his equipment back, I'm sending him to look for Jade. I'm taking Noelle to see if Dist left the Albiore where we landed. The Dark Wings are coming with us.*

I frowned. *Fine. But I'm going after Jade myself as soon as the miasma is gone.*

*That's fine. Contact Dark when you reach Headquarters... and try not to cause a scene.*

I laughed. *I'll try. Can't promise anything more than that.*

Asch sighed. *Alright. See you later.*

He cut the connection, but not before something else reached me. A couple of words he'd never meant to say that weren't words so much as feelings he wasn't yet sure of. I almost choked on those, before taking a deep breath and forcing myself to calm down.

"I'm going to take a short break to flush the miasma," I announced. "Then we're going to go get Jade."

Selenia, Ion, Seth, and Sorylle all looked at me like I was nuts.

"Isn't that what Asch and the Dark Wings are doing?" Selenia asked. I scowled.

"Dist separated Jade from Noelle and Dark. He's in a lot of pain, and he's even further under the cathedral than he was the last time we were here," I said. Ion's eyes widened.

"But wasn't he on the sixth level?! That means..."

"There really is a seventh level, it seems." I closed my eyes and slipped out of my body, turning to start flushing out the miasma while still listening to the conversation behind me.

"Seventh level?" Seth asked. Ion nodded.

"Yes. There have always been rumors about a seventh level to the prisons, but I'd thought they were just that—rumors. I never considered that they might be true," he admitted. "Still, if they are true, then I don't think I want to know the kind of condition we'll find Jade in."

Selenia was the next to speak. "If they're that secretive about it, how are we even going to get down there?"

It was silent a moment. "I don't know, but I don't think it's going to be pretty," Ion said. I finished up with the miasma about then and jumped back to my body, standing and drawing everyone's attention back to me.

"Let's go. We don't have the time to waste here," I said. They nodded, and we headed for the door, practically running up the stairs. I reached out, consciously feeling around the telepathic field. Asch, Noelle, and the Dark Wings were on the edge, and leaving it fast. Dark was somewhere below and behind us, which made sense, given where Oracle Knights Headquarters was. Jade, again, was on the edge.

*We're coming,* I told him.

*Don't!*

My step faltered, and I tripped over the last step, ending up sprawled out in the hallway just as a trio of Oracle Knights showed up, weapons drawn and ready to attack us. Two shots rang out, followed up with a Dragon's Flower.

Ion had shot to kill, and Seth's arte hadn't spared the third Oracle Knight the same fate.

I glanced back at Ion, and watched as his eyes widened in horror as the reality of what he had just done hit him. I closed my eyes. "Grieve later!" I yelled, already back on my feet and running. *And why the hell not?!* I asked Jade.

*It's... a trap... Flick...*

I rolled my eyes. *Oh, just her? This'll be easy then...*

Then Jade was out of my range, and the connection broke. I glanced back at Seth.

"Flick is on our side, right?" I asked.

Now it was Seth's turn to trip. Selenia helped him up, Ion following behind them in something of a daze. That didn't surprise me. He had just killed two of his own soldiers.

"Yeah... She's the first one who found out I'd defected, told me she'd left months ago. Promised to keep my secret as long as I kept hers. Why?!" Seth responded. I grinned.

"This is about to get interesting."

I'm sure I was getting baffled looks, but I ignored them, racing down the steps in the fonic glyph room and then through the door that didn't lead to the lobby. Down the hallway, Silver Clematis already flashing into my hand, turn the corner, and...

A blur of silver, blue, black, and orange was probably the last thing that soldier saw before he died, Silver Clematis killing him almost instantly before once again flashing out of existence. The door he'd been guarding was wrenched open, and I ran in, made a sharp turn, landed about halfway down the steps, and then busted through that door.

*Dark, where are you?!* I called telepathically. Dark's response was almost immediate.

*Right under you, make a little more noise why don't you?*

I rolled my eyes, checked the distance between our minds, ran for the railing, and jumped. Seth and Selenia were right behind me, though Ion jumped up on Sorylle before she could make the jump as well. Probably a good thing, since I don't think he'd have been able to stick the landing.

"Hi!"

Dark scowled. "You are way too chipper, given that we still don't know where Jade is."

I shrugged. "Oh, I know where he is. Come on, this way," I said, running for the prisons. Dark joined the rest of the group straggling along behind me.

"What exactly are we doing, again?" Dark asked. Ion sighed, still seated on Sorylle. Did he get tired or something?

"Jade's been locked up on the very bottom level of the cathedral, a level that's been mostly rumor up until now. And something about Flick. I'm not sure what," Ion explained.

Then Jade was back in range, and he managed to snag my field almost immediately.

*Get out of here, damn it!*

I shook my head. *Hell no! It's just Flick, right?*

*Yes, but—*

*She's not with the Council. She's not with Van, either, for that matter. Can you speak to her?*

It was silent for a moment, and then I heard Jade's voice. It was more a croak than anything else, but it was him. "Flick?"

"I'm not supposed to talk to you, you know," the familiar half-scathing reply came back.

*Tell her Aerith caught the two of them.*

"Aerith... caught you... two," Jade said. Flick didn't reply for a while.

"Are you talking to Kairi telepathically?" she asked. I got the impression that Jade nodded after a moment. "Can she connect to me, too?"

*No, still too far away.*

"Can she hear me through you?" I sensed Jade nodding. "Then ask her who the second person is."

*Seth.* Jade relayed my answer.

Another moment of silence. "Is Seth with her?"

*Yes.*

I heard, quite clearly, the relief in Flick's voice when she sighed. Alarm flashed through Jade's mind before it faded to shock. "Gig's up, then. But... you can't walk, can you?"

Jade grunted, the irritation telling us both quite plainly that no, he couldn't.

Then, as I made it to the bottom of the second set of stairs, I managed to brush against Flick's mind. I built up a connection.

*How many soldiers between second and seventh?* I asked. Flick sounded startled.

*What? Ah, eighteen. Why?*

I glanced over my shoulder. "Dark, Seth, Sorylle, with me. Ion, Selenia, find places to hide and stay up here. Don't let any more Oracle Knights down here," I ordered. Ion's eyes widened as he realized what I was implying, but he took a deep breath and nodded nonetheless, Sorylle slowing just enough for him to jump off without hurting himself before she took off full-speed to catch up to us.

Dark pulled one gun out and flicked a switch, before digging around in his bag and loading it with a bullet. "I've ten bullets, Ion's got another twenty," he said. I nodded.

"Save as many of yours as you can. Seth, how long can you store an arte?"

"Two minutes if I'm standing, forty-five seconds running."

"Right. We'll save those for corners," I decided. And Dark still had no idea what he was doing with chakrams. Which meant that we'd have to face at least some of the Oracle Knights head-on. I scowled, ready to summon up Silver Clematis at a moment's notice.

I kept a lookout for minds, and grinned when the closest one that didn't belong to a friend was practically right around a coming corner. "Seth!" I hissed.

"Right..." he mumbled. Fonons collected up, and I heard him muttering under his breath. We rounded the corner, and the Oracle Knight turned to look at us.

"Dragon's Flower!"

The Oracle Knight barely got a chance to yell before the flames struck him full-force. Sorylle unleashed an Ice Stream next, and as we ran past, I noted the way his Energy Core was dimming. Dead, then.

Down another set of stairs, and I jumped the last four, rebounded off the wall, and struck out with Silver Clematis.

"What the he—"

The second Oracle Knight was cut off by the same sword that had killed his fellow, and we kept moving. "There's two more about halfway to the next staircase. One minute," I warned the others. Seth and Sorylle grunted an acknowledgement.

This continued until the sixth floor. We'd taken out twelve Oracle Knights so far, but that still left six of them, and we had just figured out where the steps to the seventh floor were.

"Reaper's Toll! Phoenix Flare!"

A pained grunt followed it up, and Seth's eyes widened as the sounds of a fight continued. "Flick's down here?!"

I nodded, taking the steps two or three at a time and landing in a small but open space. Flick stood between four Oracle Knights and a duo of familiar figures. One was leaning heavily on the other, smaller figure.

"Need help?" I asked, already jumping in and slashing at soldiers. Flick rolled her eyes, mask gone, abandoned in a corner. Judging from the blood dripping down the side of her face, it hadn't been taken off willingly, either.

"That'd be peachy."

"Cut the sarcasm, please," Seth groaned. "Dragon's Flower!"

Flick smirked as she ran at the last Oracle Knight. "You're no fun. Phoenix Flare!" I blinked at the entirely unfamiliar strike arte, then shook it off and ran over to the two people behind her.

"Here, I've got him," I said, lifting Jade onto Sorylle's back. Florian looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.

"Okay."

"Whoa... How many replicas of Ion are there?" Seth asked. I shrugged.

"Well, Ion was the seventh. It doesn't surprise me that Mohs kept an extra," I said. I looked down at Florian and tilted my head to the side. "Do you have a name?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No."

I thought for a few moments. While I hated to take Anise's glory... "Well... What do you think of Florian?" He looked up at me, eyes going almost impossibly wide. For a moment I was worried he was going to cry, and then he started grinning. I giggled. "Okay, Florian it is then."

"Uh, hate to bust the happy scene, but we should really get out of here," Flick commented. I nodded, glancing one more time at Sorylle and then heading back up the stairs. I reached out, looking for Selenia and Ion. I didn't manage to reach them again until we'd made it up to the fifth floor.

*Congratulations, Ion. You just went from having one brother to two.*

*You found another replica?!* Ion sounded shocked, and elated.

*Yep. And he is still grinning like an idiot just because I gave him a name... poor kid...*

*What'd you name him?* Ion asked.

*Florian. I figured Mohs had kept him just in case you ever died and he needed another backup,* I said. Ion's emotions were coming through the bond clearly now, and I knew that bringing Florian along was the right idea. Having to kill Oracle Knights had hit Ion hard. Florian would be able to help him.

We made it up the last few floors without incident and met up with Ion and Selenia. Florian had been heaved up onto Sorylle's back behind Jade, while Seth and Flick had a rather circling conversation about Aerith's assault.

"How many?" I asked, noting that a nearby cell contained Oracle Knight bodies. Ion swallowed hard.

"Fourteen."

I put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up at me and forced a smile. Then we started running again. Dark came up front with me, the White Lotus chakrams held by the crossed bars in the center. I raised an eyebrow, and Dark sighed.

"What? I think I've got something of an idea how to use them at close range. And I gave Ion my ammo."

I nodded in concession to that, slowing at the top of the stairs and glancing out into headquarters. I heaved a small sigh of relief that there weren't many Oracle Knights there.

"I am suddenly really glad that Van took off with most of the soldiers. So much easier to sneak through here."

Dark chuckled. "No kidding."

We made a break for the exit, a few of the Oracle Knights running at us. Ion shot down two of them, while Dark and I killed another three. Then we were out of the cathedral, and since it was nearing dusk, the streets were a lot clearer. Sorylle charged down the steps, growling loudly at anyone foolish enough to get in her way, the rest of us following in her wake.

We were just outside Fourth Monument Hill when Asch finally came back within my range. I opened a connection immediately.

*Albiore?*

*The flightstone's gone, but Noelle says we can still move over water and land without it,* Asch replied. I rolled my eyes. *You already knew that.*

*Just wanted to make sure it was there. Especially given the condition Jade's in.*

*What happened to him?*

*I'm not sure, I haven't gotten a chance to look yet. Is Noelle ready to go?*

*Yeah. Want us to pick you up outside Fourth Monument Hill?* he asked. I slowed to a walk, the others following suit. Ion was breathing hard from the exertion, but Sorylle couldn't carry three people.

*Please do. Ion's exhausted, Jade's unconscious, and Florian's not used to walking, let alone running. I don't think we can get much further like this,* I said.

*Who the hell is Florian?*

*One of the other Ion replicas.*

I heard Asch sigh. *I'm sure Sync will be thrilled about that.*

*Just get over here,* I grumbled, cutting him off. I looked back at the others. "Come on, not much further now."

Florian slipped off of Sorylle and walked over to Ion. "What's your name?" he asked. Ion smiled, a real one, not forced.

"Ion. Kairi said you're Florian?"

Florian grinned. "Yes! Um..." He paused and looked at Sorylle. "You can ride if you want."

Ion just smiled.

Fun Fact: I never originally intended for Flick to defect from the Council. Then she revealed that she was roughly a year old, really didn't like her original, and had a crush on Seth. Oh, and apparently she likes Kairi and looks up to her as an older sister. So... I just couldn't force her to keep to the original outline. She defected... and then revealed more strangeness to me. Hng...