Another week, another chapter as promised. Thank you all for your support of this story and sorry if things have been slow since I left off on a downtime in the game.

Now, onward to the story


Chapter 41: Asgard Ranch


Lloyd lay awake in bed as he stared blankly at the ceiling.

Tomorrow, they would be making their way back to the Ranch to confront Kvar one last time. This time, they would free the people of Luin and put an end to the Desians' hold in this region.

However, Lloyd felt uneasy. It wasn't the same anxiety he felt before going to the Palmacosta's Ranch. No, this was real fear that he was feeling.

Unlike Magnius, he was terrified of Kvar. It was strange since he had only met Kvar once for a couple of minutes, but that man frightened him to his core. His cold aura and cruelty unnerved him more than Magnius' passion and anger.

There was also something very familiar about Kvar. He was certain the man knew him more than he let on, but he didn't know how. It was like a memory locked deep within his own mind. Could those memories be related to the nightmares that he has suffered from for most of his life?

"You should rest," Kratos voice said, breaking through his thoughts. "We have a long day tomorrow."

Lloyd rolled over to face the older man. "Can't sleep."

There was a slight paused. "It is about Kvar."

"Yeah," Lloyd answered softly.

"You should not let him get to you," Kratos warned. "That is exactly that he desires."

"I know that, but I can't get him out of my mind," Lloyd groaned. "As hard as I try, he's continues to haunt me. Like...like we have some history."

"His actions did lead to your mother's death," Kratos said.

Lloyd slammed his fist into his bed. "But there's more to it. My dreams...although I can't remember them that well….I'm certain that he's the man that I've been dreaming of all this time."

Kratos chose to say nothing.

"To see something that has only been a nightmare come to life...I can't describe it," Lloyd said as he calmed down.

"So your dreams, it was about your mother's final moments," Kratos surmised.

Lloyd didn't speak right away. "I wasn't sure at first. But now…I am almost certain I know that's what my nightmares has been about. In my dreams...I'm remembering my mom's death." That simple thought disgusted him beyond words.

"That is a heavy burden to carry. Still, you cannot let it get to you," Kratos said. "Kvar is a master of manipulation and he will feel that weakness within you if you fight him in your current state. No matter how hard it is you have to bury those feelings."

"Will...will it go away?" Lloyd asked slowly. "When Kvar's dead….will the pain and nightmares go away?"

Kratos did not speak for a moment. "The life or death of one individual should not be a determining factor in ones' happiness. By doing so, you give that person power over you regardless if they live or die."

Lloyd gave a long drawn out sighed as he turned his back on Kratos. After another hour of tossing and turning, he eventually settled down for the night.

All too soon, however, Lloyd found himself being shaking awake by Kratos. Like always, he was dragged into morning practice before breakfast. By the time late morning came, the group was on the road again.

Colette, being her ever cheery self, spent most of the day talking to Sheena. She asked her about her home, her hobbies, her friends, and anything else that popped into her hand.

Sheena answers the questions the best she could without revealing too much about herself or her home.

"Oh don't be so stingy, Sheena," Genis complained as he rode Noishe. "You could at least tell us the name of your village."

Sheena shook her head. "I can't."

"Why, is your village that secretive that you're not even allowed to give the name?" Genis asked.

"Well, something like that," Sheena said as she turned her eyes away. "There are many things I may want to tell you, but I can't. You have to remember that we were enemies not even a week ago."

"But those days are behind us," Colette said cheerfully. "You're our friend now."

"Can a person who attempted to murder you really become friends so quickly?" Raine mused to herself. Colette really did have too kind of a heart.

"So, what kind of beast is that anyway?" Sheena asked as she turned towards Noishe. She wanted to change the subject a way from herself.

"He's not a beast, he's a dog," Lloyd said in annoyance.

Sheena blinked several times. "A dog?"

"Yeah," Lloyd replied. "Why do people find that so hard to believe?"

"Well...I've never seen anything like him before," Sheena said. "What breed is he?"

Lloyd shrugged. "Beats me. I just know he has been by side since I was a kid."

"Wait, so that creature...I mean dog is older than you?" Sheena asked in shock.

"Yeah, is there a problem?" Lloyd asked in confusion.

"Well, it's just that dogs usually don't live that long," Sheena said. "If I recall, the average dog lives no more than ten to fifteen years and Noishe still seems quite young and healthy."

Lloyd rubbed his hair. "I've never thought about it before, but I guess that is a little strange. Maybe Noishe is just a long-lived type of dog."

"Does such a breed even exist?" Genis asked dryly.

"There are many things about Noishe that I find fascinating," Raine said. "I have wanted to study him for awhile, but Lloyd refused to cooperate." She sighed in disappointment.

"He has every right to disagree," Corrine suddenly spoke up. He startled a few in the group since he hadn't talked since earlier that morning. "Testing is cruel and inhuman."

"Nonsense, it's for science," Raine insisted.

"It's torture," Corrine shot back as he cringed.

Genis turned towards the fox-like creature. "It sounds like you speak from experience.

Corrine turned his head, refusing to say anymore on the subject.

"What kind of creature is Corrine?" Lloyd asked. "He looks like a fox, but he has too many tails."

"Oh, maybe he's a type of doggy like Noishe," Colette said cheerfully.

"Actually, his body structure is very similar to a Kitsune," Raine noted.

Sheena was surprise to hear this. "You know what Kitsune is?"

Lloyd looked at both of them in confusion. "What's a Kitsune?"

"It is an ancient fox spirit that possess magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. They also have the power to assume human form," Raine explained. "Some folklores speak of Kitsune employing their ability to trick people while others portrayed them as faithful guardians, friends, and even lovers and wives."

"Wow, Kitsunes sound really cool," Lloyd said in awe.

"I've never even heard of such legends," Genis said, equally transfixed.

Sheena was unnerved by how much Raine's description of a Kitsune sounded like the Mizuho's folklore. It was even the same name used in her culture. How could she know such information?

Colette stared at Corrine. "So Corrine's a Kitsune?"

"Well, not quite," Sheena said slowly. "Although, I guess you could call Corrine a close cousin of the Kitsune."

"You mean a Kumiho or maybe a Huli jing?" Raine questioned, startling Sheena even more.

How did she know about these ancient stories? Only a few people in Mizuho even knew what a Kumiho was. Was Raine even from this world?

"In either case, I must study him," Raine said with stars in her eyes.

Corrine squeaked in fear and hid himself behind Sheena.

"I can't let you touch Corrine," Sheena said firmly as she gently petted her friend.

"But..." Raine started.

"Forget it, professor. No one is going to allow you to cut open their pets," Lloyd said, earning a grateful look from Sheena.

Raine gave a deep sigh. "None of you have any scientific curiosity."

The rest of the day passed peacefully and the group settled down for the night. Unlike last night, Lloyd slept relatively peacefully. However, someone else was haunted by nightmares.

Sheena began to toss and turn in her sleep as sweat ran down her forehead. "Chief..."

Her moans caught Colette's attention and she began to gently walk towards the older girl. "Sheena..."

"Chief! Everyone! Run!" Sheena screamed in her sleep as her fists balled up.

"Sheena, you're having a nightmare," Colette said as she firmly shook Sheena.

Sheena shot out of her sleeping bag was breathing heavily as she attempted to catch her breath. She was drenched in sweat.

Colette frowned as she looked over Sheena's dishevel form. She was just liked Lloyd when he had one of his night terrors. "Are you okay? Do you need to talk about it?"

Sheena's breathing slowly began to calm down and she wiped the sweat from her head. "It's….it's nothing."

"But you were screaming," Colette said worriedly as she put her hands together. "I maybe able to help."

"I said, it's nothing," Sheena replied more forcefully than she meant to. She immediately regretted her harsh words when she saw the hurt expression that crossed Colette's face.

"I see….I'm sorry," Colette whispered as she turned to leave.

Sheena wanted to call her back to apologize, but couldn't find her voice. She didn't want the Chosen to see her like this. So weak, and haunted by the past.

"That dream again...of that time..." Sheena mumbled to herself.

Even now, she remembered that day so clearly. By the spirits, she hated feeling this way. When would that day stop haunted her?

"Sheena, are you okay?" Corrine asked softly.

Sheena nodded and gave a force smile. "I'm fine. It's just a dream."

Corrine already knew what the dream was, but Sheena never liked to talk about it. "Okay, good night Sheena." He cuddled against her chest and fall back to sleep.

Sheena smiled and began to gently pet Corrine. She settled down and managed to fall into a restless sleep.

The next day and the day after that seemed to pass quickly. The training that Kratos was giving Lloyd became more intense and for once, Lloyd really didn't mind. He knew that he needed all the training he could get before he could confront Kvar again. He needed to be in top form if he wanted to avenge his mother.

"Kratos, there's something I've been meaning to ask you," Lloyd said once they were cooling down from practice.

Kratos was steadily cleaning his sword. "What is it?"

Lloyd hesitated for several seconds. "You and Kvar seem to know each other. And...he knew about your family."

Kratos stopped cleaning his sword.

"Kratos….was Kvar the one who murdered them?" Lloyd asked.

Kratos said nothing for almost a minute. Lloyd started to believe that he wasn't going to answer. "Yes…..it was Kvar who killed my wife and son."

"I knew it! That's why you been acting so strange lately," Lloyd exclaimed before looking at the older man. "Then...then you have just as much right to kill him as I do."

"I lost my heart to kill that man a long time ago," Kratos spoke in a dead tone. "Even if Kvar dies, it will not bring my family back."

"But you must want to avenge them," Lloyd insisted. "If for no other reason, so they can at least rest in peace. As hollow as that word is, you must want some sort of justice."

Kratos had to keep himself from snorting.

In many ways, what happened to him was justice. How many families have suffered and died while he stood back and did nothing? He took countless families away by his inaction, so why should he be allowed to keep his?

"We should reach the Ranch in another couple of hours," Kratos said instead. "Be ready for anything." With that, he walked away to join the group for breakfast.

It was early in the afternoon before Kvar's Ranch came within sight. Carefully, the group searched for the boulder Pietro's spoke of. Kratos knew exactly where the entrance was, but he stood back and allowed Lloyd's group to find it on their own.

"This boulder seems out of place," Raine observed as she looked over the giant rock that was place near what looked like a metal vent. "The colors don't match the other rocks in this area."

"This must be it then," Lloyd said as he went to pushed the boulder out of the way. Despite all his strength, he couldn't make the boulder move an inch. "Dammit, it won't budge."

"Then let's try using the orb we found at Pietro's grave," Raine said as she looked at Sheena.

Sheena reached into her traveling pack and took out the red orb. She walked up to the boulder and the orb immediately reacted. The boulder began to move on its own out of the way, revealing an underground tunnel.

Lloyd's mouth fall opened in shock. "But when I pushed it, it didn't even budge..."

"It looks like some kind of maintenance tunnel," Genis noted.

"In either case, let's move," Kratos ordered as he led the group on.

Unknown to them, however, they activated a silent alarm when the boulder moved.


Kvar sat at his desk looking over some of his research papers when a beep on his computer caught his attention.

"Hmm, it seems some insects has access the maintenance tunnel again," Kvar mused before he activated the security cameras in that area. Within seconds, he was staring at Kratos as he led his group inside his Ranch. "Clever maggots, they must have found the Desian Orb that was stolen from those escape prisoners."

It really didn't matter. Those fools had walked right into his trap yet again. This time, the Angelus was not going to escape.

Kvar pressed another button on his computer. "Captain Jun, our guests have returned."

"Do you want us to head them off, sir?" Jun asked.

"No need," Kvar answered. "They will have to split into two groups soon and it's best to take care of them while they are divided."

"Then, I assume you will handle the Angelus' team," Jun surmised.

Kvar chuckled. "That foolish boy will undoubtedly want to fight me over his mother's death and I'm certain Kratos will be with him. You and the other ECHOES unit will take care of the other bugs."

"Yes sir," Jun said as he signed off.

Just as he did that, Kvar got another call on the line. He groaned when he saw who it was. That stupid Pronyma was calling him.


Kratos once again led them to the main control room with little incident. He was surprised that Kvar did not increase the security after their first break-in. It must mean that Kvar had other things planned, which was never a good thing.

Raine immediately accessed the computer data and began to scan over the map of the Ranch.

"Professor, you're fantastic!" Lloyd exclaimed when he saw how fast she was able to break through all the security codes.

Sheena looked equally impressed. "So there are people on this side who can operate machines too."

"On this side?" Genis asked in confusion.

Sheena quickly realized that she put her foot in her mouth again. "Ah, um, nothing. Just talking to myself."

"This is where we are now," Raine said before Genis could question Sheena further. She pressed a couple more buttons. "And this is where Kvar should be."

The dot showed that Kvar was at the highest point of the Ranch.

Raine frowned as she looked through the map. "It appears that in order to get to the floor that Kvar is on we'll have to deactivate the guard system."

Colette blinked in confusion. "Guard…system?"

"Here," Raine said as she zoomed up on a place on the map. "If we don't deactivate this guard system, we can't get to Kvar."

Kratos nodded in understand. So Kvar did upgrade his security in the last couple of years.

Lloyd gave a loud sigh. "What are we supposed to do then?"

"There should be a switch somewhere to deactivate the system," Kratos said calmly.

Raine activated one of the cameras in that area to show them where the switches were located. "See the two switches at the ends of this left-right passageway? Those are the deactivation switches."

Lloyd slammed one of his fists into his hand. "Okay, then, let's go deactivate it."

"Wait a minute," Raine suddenly said as she read through some data. She brought up the route leading to Kvar's room and frowned at what she saw. "It looks like the conveyor belt prevents passage through there. In order to stop that, we'll need to stop the conveyor belt control mechanism, but..." She paused as she collected her thoughts. "…it seems it's constructed in such a way that you can't get close to the control mechanism while containers are on the conveyor. Let's see, in order to adjust the container dispatch control system…"

Suddenly, an alarm went off throughout the Ranch and the computer shut down on Raine.

"Dammit, they've detected my access of the main computer," Raine cussed.

"What are we going to do?" Genis asked in a near panic. "The Desians know that we're here."

"Dammit," Lloyd muttered.

Raine rubbed her forehead in frustration. "It looks like we don't have any choice. Let's split into two teams to deactivate the system and to infiltrate Kvar's room."

"What, we're going to split up!?" Genis exclaimed in horror.

"There seems to be no other way," Kratos said in a tight voice, not liking the arrangement either. "I would like to be in the group that goes after Kvar…..if the Chosen permits."

Raine glanced at Kratos in surprise. This was the first time he had ever insisted he goes somewhere without Colette. She understood, however, that his issues with Kvar were personal. Without him even saying anything, she could see it in his face.

"I want to go after Kvar too," Sheena insisted as she grabbed her midsection. "I owe him for sending me into the lake."

Raine looked towards Colette. "It is your call as the Chosen."

Colette looked at everyone as she tapped her fingers together. She was terrible at these kinds of things. "Ah, um, well, then..." She turned towards Lloyd. "I'll leave it to Lloyd."

Lloyd was surprise to hear this. "What, me!?"

"I know you'll do a good job of splitting us up," Colette said with a wide smile. Her voice was filled with confident in him.

Genis also looked pleased by the decision. "He lives only by intuition and instinct."

Lloyd looked annoyed at his friend. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Raine already knew that Colette would pass on her decision to Lloyd. He did have the mantle of a good leader when pushed came to shove and Colette was too indecisive since she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.

"Either way, I'm going after Kvar," Lloyd said with fire in his eyes. "I'm going to pay that bastard back for what he did to my mom."

"Then who will go with you?" Kratos asked as he folded his arms. He was curious to see how Lloyd planned to divide the group.

Lloyd looked over each of them in thought as he put his head down. "….Colette."

Colette put her hands together. "Yes, Lloyd."

"You'll lead the deactivation team along with the professor," Lloyd said.

Colette was sad to hear this since she wanted to stay by Lloyd, but she respected his decision. "I'll do my best."

Raine nodded. "I understand."

Lloyd then looked between Kratos and Sheena. He needed one of them to look with Colette and Raine as a front line fighter.

Kratos was, naturally, an ideal choice to go with the deactivation team since he was hired to be Colette's bodyguard and he knew that they would be safe with him.

At the same time, he wasn't too confident that Genis, Sheena, and him could handle a Grand Cardinal without Kratos' power and experience. If Kvar was anything like Magnius in battle, they may all die despite how much stronger they all became. Nonetheless, Colette's safety came before his.

Kratos caught Lloyd's eyes and for a moment he thought Kratos was almost pleading with him. Despite what Kratos told him earlier about not caring about revenge, he obviously wanted to get back at Kvar for taking his family. Who was he to take the right of vengeance away from the man?

"Sheena….." Lloyd spoke slowly, "you'll go with Colette and Raine."

Sheena was disappointed that she wouldn't get a second shot at Kvar, but she accepted Lloyd's choice.

Lloyd looked directly at Sheena. "I entrusting the professor and Colette's safety to you. Please look after them."

Sheena was taken back.

His words were not threatening, as they should've been since she did try to kill the Chosen twice, but supportive and even pleading. He actually trusted her to protect his friends in his steed. With such confidence and blind trust placed onto her, how could she possibly let him down?

"Leave it to me," Sheena said as her eyes narrowed in determination. "Under my watch, no harm will befall either of them. I give you my world."

"The rest will come with me to fight Kvar," Lloyd said as he looked at Kratos and Genis.

Genis gave a wolfish smile. "That's what I wanted to hear! I'll reduce Kvar to cinders with my magic."

Kratos attempted to remain impassive, but Lloyd could see the grateful expression in his eyes. "...Thank you," he whispered to his son.

Lloyd nodded in satisfaction. "Let's meet in Kvar's control room."

"We should move before they ambush us," Kratos advised.

"Good luck, Lloyd," Colette said as she followed her team out the other door.

Lloyd did the same as he led his team towards Kvar's room.


The final raid on Kvar has began, but Kvar is more than ready for them. Things will pick up next chapter. Also want to add, this story is now over 200,000 words and I still haven't dealt with Kvar. Sheesh.

Until then, have a good rest of the week.