The Isle of Feres begins! This is, I believe, a three-chapter deal, when we get down to it. And since the Isle of Feres has begun, you know what that means! The Sword Dancer makes another appearance! ...Next chapter. –smiles-

Lol. Nice try anyway, Selenia.

"Okay... No more casting that at the same time, methinks." –Kairi

"Okay, less talk, more fight... Devastation! ...Damn it!" –Selenia

Chapter 12.5 – Out of Time
Part 102

I smiled when the Albiore II's ramp lowered and Luke, Jade, and Flick were the first three to step out. Seth and Tear followed them.

"So... Why are we here if you're here?" Guy asked when he joined us. I shrugged.

"Oh, just a little something called... Backup."

They all stopped and gave me a wary look, and I sighed. "We've been doing some poking around, since we've been here for hours already. Sync, especially, since he can move around using his astral projection without having to worry about being attacked," I started. "This place is positively swarmed with replicas, monsters, and probably quite a few replica monsters."

Seth crossed his arms. "You know we'll attract more attention in a large group?"

Dark shook his head. "There are so many ligers, griffins, and sub-species of griffins that I don't want to know our chances of not getting caught. Ligers have their noses, griffins have their eyes, and the human replicas are all armed, albeit shoddily. Since there's basically zilch chance of getting through without being noticed, we'll have to rely on numbers."

Jade nodded. "He's right. With all the monsters, whoever's in charge here has an edge," he agreed. I smiled.

"I'm glad you brought Seth and Flick with you. That's an extra two people that can help, and... well, I wanted to talk to Flick anyway," I said. Flick grinned.

"Oh, is this about that thing I sent with my last letter?"

I nodded, and she bounced a couple of times and squealed happily. "Yay!"

Seth sighed. "She is all yours. Don't come whining to me when you get a headache."

I laughed. "Don't worry. I think I've got it covered. Now then... Shall we?"

They nodded, and I looked over at Twilight, Sorylle, and Sync. Those three were acting as our frontliners, since I was using my bow. Asch was sticking to fonic artes—which, admittedly, weren't as strong as mine, Selenia's, or Reighn's—and healing, while Dark did plenty of damage by himself with the White Lotus chakrams and his own repertoire of artes.

Luke and Guy joined the ligers and Sync up front, and Selenia hovered around between the rest of us and them before apparently making up her mind and switching her staff out for Gray Larkspur.

She then raced up to join the others. I noticed Jade's smile, and smirked at him. "Not the innocent, sweet little girl you thought she was, is she?"

He chuckled. "Innocent, mostly. Sweet, definitely. But she's also not afraid of fighting. She's certainly her mother's daughter..." His expression fell, and I shrugged.

"Well, it could be worse. She could be her father's daughter, and still have a grudge against you." He glared at me, and I sighed. "That came out wrong..."

"Yeah. Almost as bad as Jade's 'If Kairi wants us to go chase after a floating island, we'll go chase after a floating island'," Anise piped up. Jade groaned and hid his face behind a hand.

"I'm not going to live that down any time soon, am I?"

I laughed. "Even I have to agree that that kinda sounded strange, and given some of the illogical things that come out of my mouth, I guess that's saying something."

"Incoming!"

I nodded, thankful for Dark's warning, and settled into a casting stance. Jade did the same next to me. "O flames of hell..."

"...cremate mine enemies in a cage of fire..."

"Infernal Prison!" we chorused.

What quite literally blew up in the middle of the group of seven enemies was very much purple, and not much else, aside from destructive.

I bit my lip. "Okay... No more casting that at the same time, methinks."

Jade laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen an arte go off like that before..."

Luke sighed as he ran in with the others to finish off the ones that hadn't been killed by our purple explosion of doom. "I don't know... Sunset Faith kinda does the same thing."

"Funny, looks like fun from the outside," I said. Ion shot me the nastiest look I'd ever seen him wear before.

"It's not fun if you're the one casting," he said, tone icy and rather sharp. I nodded.

"Noted. Maelstrom!"

And... one last Reaper's Toll from Sync, and that was the end of the enemies. We continued on, with the ligers running ahead of the rest of us and then doubling back if we encountered enemies... And, as I'd suspected would happen, if we drew the attention of one enemy, a dozen more would follow him in attacking us.

We hadn't made it far before the first really big group caught up to us, and I handed my bow and quiver off to Flick, who, while not an expert, could at least hit a target when she needed to. Since we were definitely outnumbered...

"Healers in the center, fonists make a ring around them, short-range around them!" I yelled. For once, rather than it being Asch shouting orders and me obeying without really thinking about it, I was the one shouting the orders. Asch, Tear, Natalia, and Reighn, our four main healers, moved into the center, only for Reighn to then shift into the second ring, with the other fonists.

Then the battle started, and I had to focus on my enemies. A slash, stab, and twirl were followed up with a Guardian Field, and then a Havoc Strike.

Jade's most recent Infernal Prison—huh, he seemed to be favoring that arte today—landed right near me, so I used the field of fonons from that and unleashed a Burning Havoc. Another series of slashes and stabs followed that up.

"Kairi, left!"

I dropped and rolled to the left, and one of the White Lotus chakrams came whizzing through the air where I'd just been. I sighed.

"Be careful with those. You know they're poisonous."

"Yeah, Van knew too..." Dark muttered. "But sorry anyway."

"Okay, less talk, more fight," Selenia grumbled. "Devastation!" She then about fell over when it didn't quite work out right. "Damn it!"

I giggled a bit. "And now you know why I have a 'no testing unfamiliar artes on the battlefield' rule."

Selenia nodded. "Yeah. Right. DelQues!"

I tiled my head to the side. "What's your elemental affinity?" I asked, unleashing a Raging Blast.

"Um, earth. Why?"

"Jade, Ground Dasher!"

"Gravity Well!"

"Ignore me," I added. Then I pointed haphazardly to the FoF left behind by Seth's arte. "Selenia, see if you can't pull off a ZelDelQues with that."

She ran over and unleashed a DelQues. It very obviously didn't work. I huffed and used the next fire field of fonons to let loose my ZelDelQues.. pretty red thing, when it was like this. Oddly enough, it was usually green with I was just doing a DelQues.

...Huh. "Your secondary affinity is wind, right?"

"Yup! Stone Dragon Ascent!" Sync answered for his girlfriend, who was currently busy cursing a griffin.

"Thunder Blade?" Jade guessed. I nodded.

Asch frowned. "Wait, isn't your DelQues usually green?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yeah. ZelDelQues works with fire, but it's actually more cooperative with a water FoF, so I'm thinking that Selenia's might work in a wind FoF since that's most likely her secondary... at least, I'm guessing it has something to do with secondaries... Who knows, but for right now..." I spun around in another Guardian Field, then used the next earth FoF for a Guardian's Pain. I smirked when it was strong enough to kill all of the weakened enemies who'd gotten caught in it.

"Thunder Blade!"

"Whoo! ZelDelQues!"

Selenia's upgraded DelQues was orange. A very, very bright orange. Okay. So I'm guessing I'm probably right about the secondary elements. So...

"Flick, your affinity is fire, so try a water FoF."

She nodded, then let off a Phoenix Shot. A few minutes of fighting, numerous Guardian Fields, and a cursing Flick later, we finally got a bit of a reprieve from the enemies.

Asch crossed his arms and glared at me. "Um, what was that about a 'no testing artes on the battlefield' rule?"

I chuckled. "Well, really, it's a FoF mutation, and I'd already gotten it to work a few times, so I knew it could work, it's just finding the right field of fonons that's turning into a pain in the ass."

Flick scowled. "Yeah, water's not going to do it for me. Want me to try fire? I mean, the two fonons I use most are fire and shadow, so..."

I frowned. "Try earth next, since that's the other element that comes out of first fonon fields of fonons and we've already proven that water doesn't like you."

Tear and Selenia exchanged a glance. "If you want to test it right now, Tear and I have field of fonon invocation artes."

Flick looked over at them with wide eyes. "Please...?"

Tear smiled and cast the rather simple arte. Selenia did the same.

This time, Flick's acid-green ZelDelQues was unleashed easily. I nodded. "Okay. Mine's water, Selenia's is wind, Flick's is earth... I wonder if Dark might be fire, round out this little troupe..."

"You'll have to figure that out later—we've got company again!" Seth warned.

Lots of groans followed this, but, well... I'd known this would be a difficult mission to begin with.

Dark, especially, looked irritated, and he tossed both White Lotus chakrams into the mess. I couldn't help but stare when they both lit up on fire, leaving behind burns for anything that didn't get poisoned.

"Hey, Dark? Remember a comment I made once about you not being an assassin from a story I'd heard once?"

Dark caught the chakrams. "Um... No, not really. Remind me after this is over?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, well, I think you just negated what I said a year ago with that little stunt..." I paused to let loose a Guardian Field while I was still surrounded by allies. Then I ran off into the fight myself. Another round of the flaming chakrams, and then Dark cried out, that familiar 'Oh!' of someone remembering something.

"I remember, now! His name was Axel, wasn't it?"

I laughed. "Yep. That's the one. DelQues!" Pretty green and gold wings slammed into a replica soldier, knocking him back. Then I spun around in another Guardian Field, killing the replica and catching Sync on the edge. He shot me a grateful look, then—

"White Tempest!"

I raised an eyebrow. "That's new."

"Been working on it. Flick's suggestion."

I nodded. That happened pretty often, where Flick would suggest an arte and leave the person it was meant for to figure it out on their own. She was our strike-arte specialist (sort of), and Dark was the fonic-arte specialist.

Another battle finished, and we started moving, forgoing the talking in favor of trying to put some distance between us and what had been the battlefield twice now.

Two hours later found us hiding out inside one of the buildings, hoping for a short reprieve before we moved on to the next area. Selenia passed out sandwiches, and I noted with amusement that no one even looked surprised anymore.

"Damn, these guys don't give up..."

I sighed. "Oh, they're easy enough to defeat. The problem lies in the fact that there's just so many." I took a bite of my sandwich, swallowed, and tilted my head to the side. "Honestly, if I weren't so concerned about what may be waiting at the end of..." I trailed off as something twinged. Then I frowned and put my sandwich down. It had been almost a week since saving Florian, but...

It didn't take me very long at all to realize that I was right.

"The dividing line broke."

Asch suddenly looked like he did not want to eat his sandwich after all. It didn't take everyone else much longer to come to the same conclusion.

"Then the miasma's back," Selenia said softly. She may as well have shouted it. We all certainly heard it, with how silent everything was suddenly.

"The Tartarus probably broke apart then, huh?" Anise asked. I nodded.

"We're running out of time, and quickly now." I looked over at Asch and Luke, who were giving each other worried looks. "Let's finish up here and then get to that summit. The Albiore II group can go get King Ingobert while the Albiore III group gets Emperor Peony."

The others nodded, and we finished eating quickly, though I noticed Asch was forcing himself to eat. I sighed and pulled him to the side, giving us as much privacy as possible even though everyone knew we were standing there having a conversation.

*I'll be fine for a little while, Asch. So long as we take care of this quickly, there shouldn't be a problem,* I said. *Besides, unlike in the game, we don't have to guess if this will work.*

He nodded slowly. *Doesn't make me any more comfortable with it. Still... If you're sure...*

*I'll make sure to clear out my body every night... You, Jade, Luke, and Tear should be doing the same,* I said. *Jade knows how to step out of his body and do his own, so he should be able to make sure Luke and Tear stay clean.*

*I've been teaching Luke a little bit, so they'll really only have to worry about Tear,* he told me. I nodded.

*Alright... And Asch... Don't worry about me too much. I've been trying to re-sync my original body and my doppelganger body. Since the doppelganger is easier to alter, that means all the damage the miasma did? If I can get it to work, it should start reversing it. You guys won't have that option,* I added. Asch looked worried.

*Won't that do harm to your original body too?*

*I expect it to try eventually, and I'll stop if it does start to do so, but if I'm right, it'll still lessen the amount of damage greatly. Again, the rest of you can't do that. I want to still be the one with the most internal damage from miasma poisoning when this is over.*

Asch sighed, but nodded. *Alright. Just... be careful.*

I smiled. *Always.*

"If you two are gonna kiss, save it for later."

I rolled my eyes. "No privacy, I swear..."

Asch chuckled. "Comes with the territory, I'm afraid."

I groaned. "Translation: Get used to it."

He just kept laughing.

"It looks like we're all done eating, so we should probably get going. The sooner we find the main replica facility here on the island and shut it down, the sooner we can leave," Ion said. "Um, by the way... This probably isn't the best time to mention this, but..."

"Oh boy..." Dark muttered.

"I'm a bit worried about Noelle and Ginji. We've been doing a lot of fighting, and I'm not sure if the replicas have gone after the Albiores or not..."

I crossed my arms. "We left Noelle with orders to hover if the replicas attacked and we weren't there." I sighed. "Alright... Let's move."

Fun Fact: ZelDelQues doesn't normally turn the opposite color of the person's teriques, but apparently, it felt like doing so for this story, so I gave up and let it do its thing. Though it results in something rather interesting in the first few Parts of AEtT.