I really, really hate mass-editing... I may just start posting things as I get them edited, because this is driving me nuts...

Hm. Yup. Sounds like a good idea. These are going up now and I'll get to the last four Parts of this chapter later. Toodles.

Also, the quote should say everything.

*If it got the nickname 'Evil Fonist' in a video game, I'm really not sure I want to.* –Jade

Chapter 12.9 – Out of Time
Part 106

It was rather obvious, the moment Ion appeared out of the fonic glyph wearing his Order of Lorelei pendant over his usual travel clothes, that our plans to go straight to the Tower of Rem and negotiate with the replicas was about to be sidetracked.

"I realize this is rather unorthodox, but... Well... I'd like to go speak to Astor before we go to the Tower of Rem. King Ingobert, Emperor Peony, and I spoke a little about where the troops would meet up before the attack on Eldrant, and since Chesedonia is the closest city..." he trailed off. I nodded.

"Yes. Also, Chesedonia's been in the Qliphoth before. The citizens have been exposed to the miasma previously and it's quite possible some of them could be falling ill to it now that it's returned. A visit from the Fon Master should ease their minds, especially since we do have a plan," I said. The others nodded.

"Kairi's right. And, well... We'll need to leave the replicas, with the exception of Luke, somewhere that isn't the Tower of Rem, or they'll die along with the others," Jade added. "That means Dark, Seth, Ion, Sync, and Flick all need somewhere to stay while Asch and Luke neutralize the miasma."

Sync huffed. "Fine. Since Ion's the one that needs to talk to Astor, drop the five of us—"

Sorylle cut in with a sharp growl, and Sync huffed. "Six of us," he corrected, "in Chesedonia. We'll talk to Astor, and you guys can go on ahead to the Tower of Rem."

Twilight looked up at me and growled softly, and I nodded. "Yes. Go ahead."

He padded over next to Sorylle and sat down, making it rather obvious which group he would be going with.

"So, are we taking Noelle or Ginji with us to the Tower?" Asch asked, looking over at me. I shrugged.

"Doesn't much matter either way. Let them pick where they want to fly to, and we'll send the appropriate group with the right Albiore."

Jade chuckled. "Then we should probably be going. The sooner we can get rid of the miasma, the better off we'll all be."

I nodded, and then we set off. Since Ion had been the last one to join us, having to go change clothes after talking to the rulers for a while, we'd been waiting on him.

We met up with a bit of a pleasant surprise when we walked out of the cathedral, however.

"Ah, there you are."

I grinned. "Hey, Noir! Long time no see!"

Noir smirked back. "Yes, well, we had a few different things to do in Daath. Delivery service being the largest one, though the other ones paid a little better."

I tilted my head to the side. "Oh...?"

York nodded. "Are you all going to the same place? You look like you're in a hurry."

I frowned. "Most of us are going to the Tower of Rem. Dark, Ion, Sync, Seth, Flick, and the ligers are going to Chesedonia."

York looked over at Noir. "We'll just send the packages with the larger group. We took the ferry here from Chesedonia, so our coach and amicaydras are with Din."

"Okay. We still need to let the pilots decide which one's going with which group, so let's get going," I said. They nodded, and joined our rather large procession as we headed out of Daath. It didn't really take us long to reach the Albiores, and I told Noelle and Ginji to decide who wanted to go to Chesedonia and who wanted to come to the Tower of Rem. While they decided, Noir, York, and Urushi pulled out five rectangular boxes, then handed the wing pack—I recognized it as the one they used for deliveries only—over to me.

"I trust you to make sure that gets back to us," Noir said by way of explanation. "There's nothing else in it, aside from your packages, anyway."

I smiled. "Thanks, Noir."

She stepped onto the Albiore II after it was decided that Noelle would take the Chesedonia group, and I walked onto the Albiore III with the others. Once we'd been in the air for a few hours, I started pulling the packages out of the wing pack.

"Damn... I wonder who sent this stuff...?" Anise asked, noting that there was a package for each of us. And, to be honest, they were all the same size, too. Rectangular, about a foot wide, a foot and a half long, and four inches deep... or thereabouts. Huh...

I handed Jade's to him, and then started just naming off whoever the package I'd just grabbed was for. That made it go a little faster, at least, and once all of us were left with our own packages, I shrugged. "Well... We might as well open them instead of standing around like idiots," I said, pulling the top off of mine, since I was still sitting on the ground anyway.

Violet and silver fabric met my eyes, as well as a drawing.

It took me a moment to realize exactly what I was looking at.

"Oh, hell... Well, I suppose he has been a bit more stressed than usual lately..." Jade grumbled. I stood up and ran over, wanting to see if he'd actually gotten the outfit I was thinking he'd gotten.

Dark gray and red met my eyes, and I grinned. *Ha! You did!*

Jade gave me a wary look. *Did what...?*

*Got the Evil Fonist costume! I loved that outfit!* I then turned around and ran back over to my own new set of clothes, racing into the back to change. My black and blue uniform was kinda driving me nuts, to be honest, and this one looked... cool.

"Oh! It looks like..." Natalia started. Or rather, that's all I heard before I had to connect to Asch telepathically to hear anything else.

"Yeah. He's really outdone himself this time," Guy said. "But... damn, did he make everyone a new outfit?"

Jade sighed. "He works on these projects when he's stressed, usually. Some of them, I'm sure he's had half-finished for months, but the others? It's his way of forgetting about the world for a few hours at a shot, and... Well, he is rather good at it." He sighed here and put the lid back on his box, before sitting it down. I mentally poked him a bit more violently than I usually would.

*Go put it on!*

*If it got the nickname 'Evil Fonist' in a video game, I'm really not sure I want to.*

*Please?!*

*...Fine. Just for a little while. I will need to be in my uniform when we meet up with the soldiers again, you know,* he grumbled, picking up the box and leaving the cockpit. In the end, only Tear and Anise remained in there, both used to changing in a flash... Well, and changing in front of other soldiers.

I waited until I was back in the cockpit before I looked around at everyone's outfits. Jade's was, of course, his Evil Fonist ensemble, and Anise made her usual comment on it. Tear's was her Cool Chick, the white, black, and magenta one she gets from Emperor Peony in the game as well. Guy's was the same Blade Master outfit from there, too. Anise was the same, in that her Childish outfit had been given to her.

Natalia and Luke had different outfits, however. Natalia's hair was in its usual style, with a white headband rather than one of her usual blue ones. Her dress, however, made me smile slightly. It was, basically, a sky blue and sea green re-color of Estelle's from Tales of Vesperia, with a few exceptions. The dress underneath was sleeveless, and the white overcoat bared her shoulders. The details were the most different, I noted, though the overcoat kept the white and gold color scheme.

Luke, on the other hand, looked like an air nomad straight out of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Asch matched him... in that he was dressed up as a firebender. I glanced around, wondering where the earthbender and waterbender were, since I knew I'd told Peony about all four nations in that story.

The waterbender was an easy find—Reighn, standing next to Tear and chatting softly. The earthbender, I couldn't find. I guessed it was either Ion or Sync, though, since those two favored the color green.

"Damn, Kairi. Yours is pretty."

I turned to look at Selenia, the last one to join us, and grinned. "I think yours is prettier. I guess dressing up as a winter princess for that ball inspired him," I replied. Sure enough, Selenia's outfit was mostly white, with blue and gold accents. She giggled a bit and fiddled with one of her braids, and I noticed she had a few snowflake hair pins lining them, similar to Elsa's braid in Frozen. It looked really neat against her darker hair, honestly.

"Yours does look really good, too, you know," Guy said. I giggled a bit and twirled, the long ends of the silver 'scarf' flying out. The silver came off of two places. On the right, it sort of held up the long, loose silver detached sleeve. On the left, it connected to what was basically an armlet of the same silver cloth. A black, strapless top with a bit of purple piping under my chest bared the left side of my stomach, but hung low on the right side. A purple skirt hung to mid-thigh, black spandex shorts underneath.

Over the skirt was a thin silver belt that angled down from left to right. Crossed over that was a thicker black belt, but this had a piece of silver cloth hanging from about half of it that dangled to my mid-calf. Most of the cloth was behind me, but a little bit hugged around my left leg. Purple boots and a purple fingerless, elbow-length glove with black around the upper edge finished the ensemble off, and... Well. I'd let my hair down, for once.

And... one other thing...

I lifted the edge of the silver cuff on my left arm and basically flipped it inside out, revealing a clear crystal. "I let him take a look at my Energy stabilizer when we were talking after I got my blue and silver outfit from him. He must have copied the runes I'd inscribed, because they've been made on this one perfectly, and it's functioning just fine," I said.

Asch smiled. "That's good. You won't have to worry as much about losing control," he said. "Which means..."

"Blue Infernal Prisons," I agreed. "Personally, I like my blue Infernal Prisons. And Sapphire Riot. It's just not my Sapphire Riot if it's actually red, like it's supposed to be."

We all got a good laugh out of that.

"Hey, I think I can see our destination," Ginji called. I stepped up to where he was sitting and nodded once.

"Yeah, that's it. Land near the base. There's plenty of room up top, but that's where the replicas are gathering, and I don't think they'd move to let us land," I said.

He nodded and the Albiore shifted, angling down toward where I could see a bridge between the tower and the land around it. It looked like it was built in a crater, just like Baticul.

Ginji landed, and we all piled off and headed inside, only to find a very, very unpleasant surprise.

*Asch, Luke, go on ahead,* I ordered. *Let the rest of us deal with her.*

Asch's expression told me just how little he cared for that, but he and Luke moved away from us anyway.

"Humph. I don't get it."

I tilted my head to the side. "What's there to get? It's an elevator."

Star turned around, a scowl marring her otherwise pretty features. "Not that. That has nothing to do with this." She paused and looked around the group. "I'm noticing a distinct lack of Five and Seven... Did they wander off on you?"

I huffed. "No, and their names are Sync and Ion."

Star went from calm as could be to pissed almost faster than I could watch. "I'll let Sync by, but Seven isn't Ion!"

"Give him a couple days where he doesn't have to fight for his life or race off to save someone else, and I'm sure he'll come up with a new name for himself," I said. "In the meantime... What the hell is your problem?! I get that Valon was an opponent, but did you have to kill him like that?!"

Star laughed. "Oh, you don't get it, do you? Ion never actually authorized the creation of the replicas. He never agreed to it... And to be honest, one replica, I might not have minded so terribly. But Mohs couldn't even do it right. It took him seven replicas to find one that was acceptable. And then we find out that he was poisoning Ion all along!" She held her hands out and released two balls she'd pulled out of her pouch. They turned into her puppets.

"I've always hated the replicas... Especially the seventh! I might leave Sync alive for you. But Seven has to die... And so do most of you!"

Star raced forward, her puppets at her side, and she either didn't notice or didn't care that Asch and Luke had slipped onto the elevator while she wasn't looking. I drew my katana and braced myself, since she seemed to have upgraded since the last time I'd seen her. Rather than having a child-sized puppet carrying a sword (the one she'd sacrificed to my inferno on Mt. Roneal) and another half that size that could fly and carried two knives, she now had two of the 'fairies' and a human-sized puppet. This one, like the one she'd sacrificed to kill Valon, carried a sword.

This was the one that was charging straight at me, while the blue fairy heckled Jade and the white one made a beeline for Selenia.

Selenia didn't have a problem with summoning up Gray Larkspur and attacking it. Guy also managed to intercept the blue one, while I dueled with the swordsman. Reighn raced around the puppets in an attempt at facing off against Star.

"You'd attack me?!" Star screeched when she saw him coming. He swung his staff, still bladeless, and she jumped back, then scowled. "Fine!"

Her three puppets turned and ran back, and Reighn made it out just before he got impaled on five different blades, though one of the knives and the sword nicked him. He hissed, then ran back a ways. He and Star were both casting now.

"Set them free! Animation!" Star finished first, though, and I watched rather warily as her three puppets started moving on their own.

She then drew out a couple daggers of her own, and I sighed. This wasn't going to be an easy battle.

I braced myself, then ran in.

Fun Fact: You know... I'm not quite sure where Luke and Ion deciding they wanted to have costumes from Avatar:The Last Airbender came from, but oh well. Luke and Asch will be changing back out of them shortly, anyway. Also, if you're looking for a drawing of Kairi's outfit, it's on DeviantART as Kairi Balfour, War Witch. (Yes, for those of you who've looked before, I changed the title.)