Chapter 10: Deus Ex Machina

More times than not, when a person is faced with a challenge beyond his or her scope, only they can save themselves. No one ever gets lucky enough to have some great being randomly pop in for tea and a skirmish without some huge act that the person themselves have preformed. Ultimately, this is what makes heros—they do not need someone to fight for them. They bandage their wounds, bite a bullet, and prepare for the worst. Of course, it’s ridiculous to say that a person can always be a hero, but more often than not, they’re going to try until they kick the bucket.

Or some ass. Give or take.

“Yeah! Did you see that?”, Genis cheered, watching as they zipped away from the sinking human ranch, “I mean, we’ve had some close calls, but still . . .”

Raine reprimanded her younger brother, “This isn’t the time to brag, Genis.” She turned around, hands still on the controls, “Lloyd, Sheena! Go back there and take care of our stow-away, would you?”

“It’s been a little too long since I heard the blabbering idiot,” Sheena smirked, preparing to go back to battle, “That’s not a good sign.”

Lloyd agreed, but tried to be a little more posative about it, “You’re kind of harsh on Zelos, Sheena. But, yeah! We’re not finished yet!” He was about to charge to the back hanger when he stopped tentatively, “Err . . .Professor? Are you and Genis coming?”

Genis rolled his eyes, somehow still surprised with Lloyd’s intellegence, “We’ve got to drive this thing, Lloyd! You know, so we don’t sink to the bottom and drown?”

“Oh, sure, likely story,” Lloyd harassed Genis, but didn’t take it any futher, “Okay, Sheena! Looks like it’s just up to us!”

Sheena sighed, not sure she was liking how this was going to go, “All right. Let’s get this over with!” It wasn’t like she was entirely alone in this fight, anyway. She had Lloyd for sure, and Zelos and Regal had to be nearby. Their foe had absorbed Presea a while back, and he probably had Colette too. Technically, there were six people available to fight. The only thing left to rely on was their health, but that could be fading fast.

The swordsman and the ninja quickly readed their weapons, opening the hatch from the cockpit of the sub and running down towards the large interior compartment in the back. They got their quickly enough, squeezing by engines alive with Volt’s power. The door to the back had been left open, bent off its hinges by a severe blow. Lloyd cringed, hoping that Rubber Soul had been worn down a little bit by all his friends’ distractions. They couldn’t let that thing escape and risk hurting anyone else!

“Oh, no. . .”, Lloyd trailed off in horror, “Guys!”

Both Zelos and Regal had taken a beating, still alive but hanging on the edge of consciousness. Rubbel Soul almost completely trashed the docking bay, large dents in the floors and walls. Electricity was sparkling, wires sputtering as they died out. There were smears of blood splattered around, almost like someone had been playing volleyball with a dying animal. It was overwhelmingly terrifying to see.

Zelos barely whimpered, crouching on his knees, “Good timing, Lloyd . . .as always.” His voice had completely gone out on him, the abusive torture on his throat sucking the strength from it. It was blindingly obvious to Sheena and Lloyd that he was about ready to give out, no longer his usual bombastic self.

“What’s this? Company?”, Rubber Soul laughed, cracking his knuckles, “The more the merrier, I suppose.” With two swift motions, he yanked the Chosen of Tethe’all and the convict off the ground with his tentacles. Zelos’s sword clanked on the ground as it fell, its owner cursing that he couldn’t hold onto it. The monstorous half-elf experiement taunted the ninja and the swordsman, “Well, come on! Do you want to save your friends or not?”

Sheena growled, her mind pounding with frustration. She ordered Lloyd, “Work on getting Zelos down first! He’s got fire attacks, and we need that!”

“For what?”, Lloyd asked, drawing both his swords, “I mean, I like that you’ve got a plan, but—”

The ninja explained briefly as both charged into the battlefield, “Colette and I hurt him when I attacked him and she cauterized the wound. If he can’t reattach his ligaments, he can’t heal!”

“Oh! Well, that makes sense,” Lloyd half-smiled, quickly going into his barbarian mode. He always seemed to tap into an inner rage during important battles, especially if his friends’ lives were on the line.

The duo didn’t make it too close to the project, bashed away by its free tentacles. They moved like little hands, much more advanced than their last encounter. Sheena saw a few bob up and down like if they were casting a spell. There was a bright glow of mana, and then the creature uttered something that sounded like a burp. Gigantic glowing rings of lights soared out around them, landing around them and attacking like holy shruikens. Lloyd gasped in surprise, “It knows Colette’s spells! This isn’t going to be pretty.”

Zelos struggled with the tendrils around him, kicking as hard as he could. Even Regal’s blows didn’t seem to phase the creature, more tentacles tying around his strong legs and holding him in place. Zelos cussed some more, regretting dropping his measly sword, and twisted within the creature’s grasp. There had to be a way to get loose—he couldn’t risk Sheena and Lloyd getting unnecessarily hurt for him. A small well of bravery suddenly flowed inside of Zelos’s soul, derived from all the times he had hidden like a coward.

“Lloyd! Toss me your sword!”, Zelos yelled, snapping one hand loose, “I’ll catch it!”

Lloyd was taken back, shaking his head, “Zelos, no! I could hurt you guys!”

“If we don’t get this thing taken care of quickly, we’re all going to be very dead. Okay? Just trust me!”, Zelos hollered, writhing to keep out of Rubber Soul’s control. He could be swallowed at any moment—and if the creature had figured out what nasty powers one Chosen had, then it would want the other one as soon as possible.

“Give me that!”, Sheena demanded, yanking one of Lloyd’s swords away. The young boy was still hesitant, “Sheena, wait a second!”

With surprising speed, Sheena’s stolen weapon flew through the air. It pierced straight through a few tentacles, landing sloppily on the floor and then being reabsorbed. Zelos waited for a few moments, watching as the blade came threateningly close to his chest. He held his hand in front of his ribcage, reflexively grabbing the hilt as it came towards him. It was unrealistic, like something out of a samurai legend.

Zelos smiled, “Thanks, babe. Tell Lloyd to get my other one! I’ll take care of this!” With a swift slash, he ripped through the tentacles below him, landing flat on the ground. Lloyd snatched Zelos’s sword off the floor, pacing carefully around the beast. The boy and the gigolo charged back at the beast, continuing to hack through hundreds of tentacles. They hadn’t even got to the monstrous arms or wings yet—this was going to take a while.

“Okay, new plan of attack,” Lloyd commanded, watching as the monster re-approached them, “Zelos and I are going on offense. Sheena, if there’s anyway you can think of recovering our friends, do it! Ready?”

Both the red-head and the ninja nodded, striding to Lloyd’s flanks. Sheena hated playing on defense, but she knew it was an important part of any battle plan. The two swordsmen took off quickly, zipping to the left and right and hacking through more appendages. There was Zelos’s successful cheer, “Ah, yeah! Hell pyre!” Flesh sizzled, quivering sporadically on the floor before reaching a state of death.

Sheena was doing her own offensive work, although Lloyd didn’t classify it as such. Luring some of the appendages away, she blasted them out of Rubber Soul’s back with a flurry of swipes. The small nicks and cuts from her weapons sliced some of the tentacles down, a couple permanently knocked loose from Zelos’s fiery play. A few even began to unwind from Regal, who looked a little bluer than usual. Sheena finally saw an opportunity to get him free, continuing to play cat-and-mouse. Inside a bald patch of severed appendages, there was a sore wound from their attacks. She slipped under the wave of attacks, smacking the injury and channeling energy through the fans like they were her cards, “Pyre Seal!”

Rubber Soul shrieked in agony, arms and everything else swatting Sheena away in revenge. Just as he was about to attack the ninja, there was an awful sound of flesh tearing. Regal had gotten both of his legs untangled enough to fight back, diving into the monster and repelling himself back with its force, “Eagle Rage!” His restraints snapped, some straight from their roots in a sickly pull of skin. He landed heavily on the floor, dazed from the impact.

“Geez, you okay?”, Zelos drew the monster’s attention away from the ninja and the convict, circling around its backside. With half of a thought, he launched another fire spell, “Fireball!” The injury seared shut, leaving the flesh still entwined around Regal’s body dead. He shook off the remainder as best as he could, then advised Zelos, “Continue with Lloyd’s plan. I will assist Sheena.”

Zelos normally wasn’t keen about taking commands from anyone—he was more partial to giving them out. Then again, he still had his hunnies’ lives on his hands. He faked a salute, muttered, “You’ve got it, Mr. President,” and cycled around Rubber Soul once more.

“WHOA!”, Lloyd yelped, rolling out of the way of two blade-shaped hands and a few functioning tentacles. It wasn’t fun fighting with someone who knew slashing techniques with both hands, not to mention the additional normal arms and all those damn appendages! Okay, so, there might be a little irony there involving his own style of fighting with both hands using swords. Lloyd didn’t really appreciate irony, or dramatic foil, or any sort of English terms Raine tried to teach him. He just didn’t want to get chopped into tiny little pieces.

Rubber Soul seemed to be very good at multitasking. A white mana circle surrounded the creature, even as he was fighting with the pesky swordsman. Regal and Sheena tried jarring it while Zelos worked on recovering their health, but they couldn’t make it lose focus. There was an unsettling flash of mana, and then an unearthly grumble. Pure light beams exploded out of nowhere, slamming into the four fighters and blasting them backwards.

Zelos was the first to recover, frustrated, “Don’t tell me that thing knows Judgment.”

It finally cackled coherently back at Zelos, “It’s amazing what you can learn from someone once you get into your head. Or, vice versa, should I say?”

Someone called up from the front of the ship, “Would you guys knock it off? You’re going to damage the submarine and kill us all!” It was just like Raine to be bossing them around as she was trying to save their lives.

“We’re trying not to!”, Lloyd called back, but he was unanswered. He figured the half-elves had tuned them out, still struggling to get to the surface of the ocean. How deep down were they?

Reassigning his priorities, Lloyd looked for another way to injury Rubber Soul. He wasn’t particularly happy with the sharp blade-like arms growing out of the monster’s body, so he decided it was finally time to do something about it. He ordered the group, “Okay, Sheena and Regal! Find a way to hold down his new arms. I’ll attack them, and then Zelos needs to cast Eruption. Got it?”

“All right,” Regal responded, the first to charge back at the creature. He narrowly avoided decapitation, rolling under the monster’s arms as they smashed down. Sheena gracefully side-stepped both of the attacks, pinning one down with a slam from her fist. Regal got up and jumped down on the other one, nearly breaking its elbow with his force. Lloyd lined himself up ninety degrees from Rubber Soul’s front, quickly launching into the air, “Psi Tempest!”

There was the sound of two slashes hitting flesh, and then the slickly sliding of dead flesh. Zelos took that as his cue, overcoming the urge to vomit, “Burn, baby! Eruption!” The spell crackled through the ground, fountains of lava burning the open wounds and injuring Rubber Soul. Lloyd cheered as he saw his plan finally work, smiling, “All right! We’re getting somewhere!”

“Troublesome humans,” Rubber Soul seemed pissed off, a slight pain in the back of his throat. But then, he cackled, “Okay, you want to play games? Let’s try something new.”

Sheena and Regal felt something quiver under their feet. The black masses of the dead arms melted into the ground, surrounding the entire floor in a puddle. It suddenly split down the middle, rotating swiftly around the ninja and the convict. They spiraled around in a perfect sphere, engulfing both within seconds. The spheres glowed with dark energy, and then flung foreword with invisible kinetic force. They ricocheted off the wall, striking Lloyd and Zelos in the back. The spheres exploded with the impact, goo sticking to everything and collecting back on the floor.

Sheena was the first to recover, shaking her head, “What the hell was that all about?”

Rubber Soul snickered back, “I like to mess with humans. They’re so . . .interesting. Much like lab rats, really.”

Zelos growled, thoroughly grossed out, “Okay, that’s enough of this crap. Lloyd, let’s focus!”

“Well, duh. I’m trying!”, Lloyd retorted, standing back up after the impact. He tried wiping the oily flesh off his body, but found it nearly impossible, “What is this? I can’t get it off!”

“It’s to slow the lab rats down, of course,” Rubber Soul laughed, watching the human struggle in vain, “Did you think I was going to let you die so easily?”

Zelos took the fastest offense, pelting the half-dismembered creature, “You wanna fight? Okay! Thunder Blade!” Lighting crackled through the structure of the sub, frying Rubber Soul out. The humans shuddered in pain too—the creature’s flesh surprisingly conducted electricity well. Sheena snapped at Zelos, “You idiot! Watch out for that next time!”

Lloyd circled back around the creature, carefully stepping around the sludgy mess and preparing to attack. He slashed through the creature’s defenses, starting off on one of his famed sword skills, “Sonic Thrust!” He split his attack, carefully striking below and above, “Tiger Blade!” Finally, he finished off with a quick bunch of flurry attacks, “Sword Rain: Alpha!” He landed neatly on the ground, watching with satisfaction as a good deal of the creature’s tar-like wings slushed apart.

“How was that? Pretty cool, huh?”, Lloyd cheered, meeting the approval of his teammates. They didn’t slow for long, preparing for another attack. Zelos and Sheena were swiped backwards, thrown to the side by a few spare appendages and the two remaining arms that Rubber Soul had. Lloyd lost track of Regal, the convict leaping above the attacks and continuing on his pursuit without as much as a wince of pain. His first kick connected straight with the monster’s jaw, swiftly becoming another aerial assault. It was strangely hypnotic to watch, black ooze swirling with the motions of the impacts.

Rubber Soul sneered, flinging Regal backwards with a swat of his hand, “Humans weren’t meant to fly, you know.” Sheena dodged his impact, side stepping just as he crashed awkwardly into the ground. She lost her concentration, looking back at the monster just in time to see it hurdling at her. With a heavy thud, it pounced on the ninja, pinning her down with just his left foot. The ninja was a little awed at how strong it could still be after losing so much of its own body.

“I was really hoping to torture you for a little while longer,” Rubber Soul snickered in her ear, losing any former sense of rational it had, “But, you know the rules. Ladies first, right?” Without turning to look at the swordsman charging at his back, he flicked Lloyd and Zelos away like they were gnats. He picked the ninja up by the scruff of her neck, drooling rivers of saliva, “I will enjoy finishing absorbing the extent of your powers!”

Sheena would have been terrified if she hadn’t seen something out of the corner of her eye. There was a transparent bulge in Rubber Soul’s side, poking out at an odd angle. She stared blankly at it for a moment, and then flailed to escape. Last time was bad enough being taken in by this thing—she wasn’t going to let it happen again! It seemed like too much to hope for, legs swinging wildly.

SskiderIT!

A giant axe blade tore through the chest of the monster. Sheena grabbed onto it, finally kicking the monster away and pulling at the same time. She yanked Presea out of the monster like she was a tiny sliver. The pink-haired girl was drenched in foul black ooze, coughing it up as she gasped for air. Sheena tried cleaning her face off, getting her out of the range of attacks as soon as possible. It was good to be up an ally.

“It’s all right. I’m okay,” Presea stressed to the summoner, standing back up, “I’m just a little wiped out.”

Zelos happily greeted his little ‘rosebud’, “It’s okay. Let big ol’ Zelos help you out!” He hugged the girl, casting a healing spell at the same time. She did feel better, but she was slightly uncomfortable with the way he was being so clingy.

“We need to focus on rescuing Colette,” Presea tried to get the Chosen to focus, “The monster is using up her powers faster than she can regenerate them.”

Lloyd, Sheena, and Regal had all redirected their forces back into the fight, struggling in vain to kill the creature off. Sheena was the first cast aside, a heavy smash from one of the two remaining arms blasting her away. Regal was next, grabbed by the other arm and pressed chokingly tight into the floor. Lloyd got through the offense, slashing madly away at Rubber Soul’s torso. With one slice, he critically struck the monster’s right leg, tearing it in two. He quickly got rid of the other leg, blowing it away, “Beast Sword Rain!” Rubber Soul toppled over, lower extremities melting into the ground. At least it couldn’t move now, but it was stubbornly keeping alive.

“Hold on! I’ve got this covered!”, Zelos hurriedly cast, “Eruption!” Dark flesh sizzled underneath it, bubbling into a soupy lava-like state. The dead parts of Rubber Soul melted into a thick pool on the ground, covering everything in a huge surge of inky ooze. Regal struggled to keep his head above it, still thrashing wildly on the ground. Everything was slick and black.

Presea analyzed the situation quickly, understanding Lloyd’s aforementioned plans, “All right. Sheena, we should work together on dissembling it. We will be better prepared as a group.” The ninja nodded, wiping blank goop off her arms. Presea launched herself at the monster first, cleaving its hand off, “Fiery Destruction!” Sheena quickly followed after her, plastering a weapon onto its entire arm and exploding it back with violent force, “Demon Seal!” It blew the monster back, nearly landing on Lloyd and Zelos.

“Insufferable curs!”, Rubber Soul lashed out, releasing its grip on Regal to strike out at the two girls. Small flecks of lights rained down at them, the user stealing another technique, “Stardust Cross!” Using its remaining hand like a propeller, it buzzed across Lloyd and Zelos, knocking them away, “Whirlwind Rush!” It stuck its injured stump of an arm back into the pool, sucking its own flesh back into itself. Instead of just restoring its old arm, it took half the pool away to create a gigantic arm to support itself on. It looked like a contorted balancing act.

Lloyd growled, “Zelos! You’re supposed to keep on top of that!”

“Sorry, Lloyd! I was only smacked around by a fleshy blender!”, Zelos muttered back, his voice crackling again. He had lost too much of his own health again, not able to keep up with the situation.

“We don’t have time to argue this!”, Regal cut their fighting short, “Look!” Rubber Soul was controlling his own biological properties to produce strange effects, his arms shifting in and out of different forms. Something like a giant bird claw raked Sheena backwards, snapping around to slash into Presea’s defense. Regal gave up waiting for the younger boys to quit arguing, charging back into battle. Lloyd double-took for a second, shouting, “What the—watch out!”

Rubber Soul flipped its balance, the larger arm mutating into a snapping draconic face. It writhed above their heads, barreling down to intercept the pests around it. Sheena barely tumbled out of its path while it flung Presea aside like gravel. The head swiveled around to attack Zelos and Lloyd, pummeling straight into them like an unstoppable current of dark energy. It circled back around them, coils squeezing around the boys and pinning their arms to their sides. With a sinister sneer, sharp fangs found its remaining victim, the second set of jaws plucking Regal from the floor like he was a dead rodent.

“UGH!”, Lloyd grunted, barely able to breathe, “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

Zelos was short on breath, struggling, “Yeah, well . . .yeah. No matter what, it’s going to keep reassembling itself. You could cut it into a million pieces . . .and I could burn it . . .” He whimpered, on the verge of passing out, “But it’ll keep reattaching.”

Sheena scolded both of them, trying vainly to pull them free of the monster’s strange mutating arms, “Would you two just shut up and try? We still need to save Colette!”

“She’s right,” Presea murmured, distracting Rubber Soul by slicing at its support, “We need to keep optimistic. We can look for drastic measures after we rescue Colette.” She managed to shatter through its other arm, but nobody could cauterize the attack for her. It sucked up some more goo from the bottom of the floor, creating a more stable support and laughing hideously.

Regal’s head went limp, the convict profusely apologizing, “I can’t keep this up. I’m sorry.” His wounds were becoming black, the monster’s ooze poisoning his body. Lloyd yelled in fear, startled at the sudden drop in his strength, “No! Gah—Raine! Genis! Somebody—we need help!”

“Lloyd, don’t get them into this,” Zelos felt hopeless, “They’ll be killed, too.”

Sheena slapped Zelos as she continued to try and blast the two boys free from Rubber Soul’s strangling grasp, “They’re going to be hurt if we all just sit here and get killed! Come on, fight!”

Lloyd tried struggling, Zelos blacking out from the lack of oxygen. He kicked sharply with his legs, begging, “Come on, Colette! If you’re in there, you’ve gotta fight! Don’t let us die like this!”

Somehow, through all the thick ooze and fear deep within Rubber Soul, Colette heard Lloyd. She painfully remembered all the times she was ready to give up, and how Lloyd had always protected her. All of her friends defended her, gambling with their own lives to protect her. A part of her soul shuddered, remembering nightmares with dragons and snakes and demons. Even with all her fear, Colette’s teammates still depended on her. A spark of power surged through the Chosen of Sylvarant, mana pooling around Rubber Soul as she fought to cast her own spell. She had to free herself if she wanted to save her friends.

White light exploded from inside Rubber Soul, bright beams shredding the monster to pieces. Lloyd, Zelos, and Regal all dropped to the ground, splattering ooze around them. As the monster began to reconstitute itself, a jet-black angel covered with gunk flew free from its body and out into the open with her friends. She landed gracefully next to Presea and Sheena, arms crossed and chakrams drawn, “I won’t let you die, Lloyd!”

The boy was surprised his cry had reached her, but above that, he rejoiced, “Colette! You’re okay!”

“Of course!”, she smiled, hovering around the towering pile of ooze that was growing back into Rubber Soul, “Lloyd, I’m sorry I can’t always protect you. But this time, I’m going to do it! I promise you!”

“That’s kind of backwards,” Zelos coughed as he came to, arms bracing himself up in a sitting position, “It’ll work.”

Sheena rolled her eyes, smacking Zelos on the back of his head, “You just have all the luck, don’t you?”

The group realigned itself for battle once more, one line unarranged by any sort of tactic. Lloyd and Colette were in the middle, Regal and Presea guarding their left flank and Sheen and Zelos their other side. Rubber Soul finally reformed, cackling at their display, “Good move, Chosen! Really, I do mean it—I didn’t think I could recover this time. It’s too bad you’re not coming back inside me to do that again. I try not to make the same mistake twice.”

Lloyd’s brain spun around, “Wait! That’s it!”

“You’ve got a plan?”, Sheena asked, still keeping her defensive stance, “We could really use one right now.”

Lloyd nodded, “Uh-huh. The best kind.” He pointed out the door, “Everybody, retreat!”

“What? Why?”, Zelos asked, shocked by the idea, “I mean, I like it, but that’s not going to stop it!”

“It’s okay!”, Lloyd laughed, a half-insane tick in his eye, “It’s a little suicidal, but it might work!”

Regal sighed, the first to act, “I was afraid you might say something like that.” He picked Presea up off the ground and ran, managing to keep his footing and slide through the door of the hanger before Rubber Soul could assault both of them. Sheena charged next, grabbing Zelos’s hand and yanking him across with her. Lloyd and Colette took off in different directions, both swerving out of Rubber Soul’s range of attack and slamming the door shut behind them. Lloyd jammed Zelos’s crummy sword under the door’s lock, yelling, “Okay. I don’t know how long this will hold him, so let’s move up to the cockpit.”

Less than sixty seconds later, all six managed to squish themselves up into the cockpit with Genis and Raine. The older sister greeted them skeptically, “Hello. Lloyd, did you kill Rubber Soul yet?”

“Uh, kind of,” the boy scratched the back of his head, “Does this thing have lasers? Bombs? Any kind of weapon?”

Genis didn’t like the sound of this, “Yeah. Lloyd, what are you—”

Lloyd hurriedly interrupted Genis, “How close are we to the surface of the ocean?”

“Twenty or thirty feet, give or take,” Raine answered, “Where are you going with this?”

Lloyd shrugged and suggested, “Well, Rubber Soul is hurt a lot by big explosions. Zelos and Genis can’t make a big enough spell, and Colette can’t focus her Judgment spell. Sheena’s not mad enough yet, either, so we can’t summon anything. I was thinking that maybe . . .we should blow the sub up.”

There was a tentative pause.

“WHAT?”, Raine yelled with anger, “You are crazy, Lloyd Irving! This is the only thing keeping us alive! I CAN’T SWIM! You’re not making us do this! You are going to kill us!”

Zelos smiled, still half-dazed from his earlier battle, “That’s okay, my lovely Professor. I can swim us to safety!” Sheena abruptly smacked him, leveling him to the ground.

BANG! Something heavy began throwing itself at the walls, bolts shuddering under the pressure. Regal and Presea braced themselves against the door, hoping it would hold. A deep angry voice belted outside, “Your lives will be mine! I am not to be so easily handled!”

Genis sighed, listening to the cacophony. He questioned Lloyd, “Are you sure this is the only thing that will kill him?”

Lloyd quickly nodded, going to reinforce the door with Presea and Regal. Colette helped him out, pressing it shut as hard as she could. The two half-elves looked at each other, subconsciously debating Lloyd’s plan. They didn’t have long to calculate the insanity of it.

“Go ahead,” Raine gave up, letting her brother take over missile control. Genis punched up a couple of buttons, managing the aim of the sub. He pointed the guns turrets back at the sub as best as he could, hoping it would do enough damage to destroy the ship at once. He crossed himself, muttered something like a prayer under his breath, and then told Lloyd, “If we make it, Lloyd . . .”

“Yeah?”, the swordsman grunted, still trying to hold Rubber Soul back.

Genis hollered, “I’m going to seriously hurt you for this!” With that, he slammed the firing buttons on the counsel and prepared for something awful to happen.

Then, everything went very noisy, dark, wet, cold . . .and then silent.

---

He was quite sure he had gone to heaven. There were all sorts of cute nuns fawning over him, patting his head and saying things like, “Poor man. He looks so fragile!” There was a pleasantly numb feeling for the first few seconds, and then it came to him that he wasn’t quite as dead as he thought he was. His stomach surged, his throat burned, and then he threw up seawater and kelp. Hacking, he heard another familiar voice that clearly broke the peacefulness of the scene, “Oh, it’s just him. Back off! You don’t want this one!”

Nope. This was definitely hell—or the closest mortal thing to it. It was actually the South-Eastern Abbey of Tethe’alla, which happened to be the home of Zelos’s only living relative. His little half-sister didn’t really like having him around, though. He was more of a burden than anything else. Most days, she liked pretending she didn’t share genes with him.

“Seles?”, Zelos asked weakly, sitting up, “Where am I?”

Seles growled, about ready to smack her stupid brother upside the head, “Where do you think? Atlantis?” She shooed off the rest of the nuns crooning around Zelos, forcing them back to their jobs along the abbey. He half-laughed, knowing how jealous Seles could actually get about him. She did love him, in a strange, abusive kind of way.

Wobbling up, Zelos noticed he had been lying in the surf. Of all the places for the ocean current to take him, it had to place him here. With a shudder in his heart, Zelos gasped, “Wait! Where’s—”

“Your idiot friends?”, Seles finished his sentence, “They’re here. They all washed up with you. I just made sure they were brought in first. I thought maybe some mermaid would kidnap you and take you away.”

Zelos shivered again, a flood of memories returning. After the whole enslavement to a crazed half-elf thing, he wasn’t willing to undergo any kinky bondage again. Seles continued picking on her big brother, while he followed her inside the abbey, “You wouldn’t be so cold if you had a shirt on, you know. Your man-boobs are going to freeze off.”

“They’re not called man-boobs, Seles,” Zelos argued, wringing his hair out, “They’re nipples, okay?”

Seles rolled her eyes, “Whatever, college boy.” She did worry a little bit about Zelos, so she silently muttered, “. . .what happened? Did you get caught in a typhoon or something?”

Zelos nodded, “Kind of. It’s—ah, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Seles shook her head arrogantly, leading him down to the chapel. A few more nuns were caring for his friends, all more or less alive. Lloyd was up and about, his arm wrapped up but otherwise okay. Colette was conscious too, her leg attended to and happily chatting with a few nuns. A larger nun was coddling Genis like he was her own child, the half-elf enduring the affection. Raine seemed okay, her head bandaged from a concussive blow. Sheena wasn’t feeling so well, leaning on one of the pews half-wake and half-asleep. Presea was still unconscious, but she didn’t look like she was in great pain. She was sleeping in Regal’s arms, the convict more or less dozing too.

“You idiots are pretty lucky,” Seles muttered, sitting down on a pew, “We heard there was a series of nasty storms a couple of miles outside of Altamira. You must have gotten caught in it, right?”

“Kind of,” Zelos answered, not detailing it any further. She really didn’t need to know the details about how they were facilitated by a gigantic underwater human ranch or anything like that. Instead, he asked, “How long ago was that?”

Seles gave him a strange look, “Three days ago, moron. Can’t you tell time?”

Three days? For all the hell they had suffered, from losing each other to falling into the hands of maladjusted half-elves to their narrow escape, it had only been three days? It blew him away to think about it. He slouched onto one of the pews, sitting down next to Sheena. The ninja didn’t swat him away, stomach still rolling from seasickness. He wasn’t adding to her misery, so she let him be.

“Seles? Thanks for helping us out,” Colette cheerily grinned, wrapped in a warm towel, “We’ve been through a lot lately.”

Seles wasn’t so rude to the Chosen, brushing her off lightly, “Ah, it’s nothing.” She went to leave the group alone, muttering a lame excuse, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m very busy. I have my studies to attend to. Make sure you find yourself some decent clothing, Zelos. I’d hate to have you freeze to death and have a good preacher lie at your funereal.”

She abruptly left before Zelos could thank her. The other nuns tailed after her, giving the group some peace and quiet. He hung his head, suddenly feeling about as awful as Sheena. It had been some time since he could fully admit how he was feeling to himself. He sighed, a soft exasperation that drew Lloyd’s attention.

“Hey, are you okay?”, Lloyd sat down next to Zelos, patting his back, “It’s okay to be a little overwhelmed right now.”

Zelos shook his head, nobly trying to defy his emotions, “Nah, I’m fine.” He paused, added, “Lloyd, I’m sorry about doubting you earlier. We still cool?”

Lloyd shrugged, chuckling, “Of course! Why not? Sometimes, I doubt you too.”

Genis interrupted, “I’d doubt you more than him, Lloyd.”

Glancing cock-eyed at the half-elf, Lloyd tried to ignore that comment. He and his sister sat down behind them, resting with Regal and Presea. The entire escape had been a drain, never the less their injuries. Colette was worried about her friends too, sitting with them for a little while. It felt good to be still for once.

Regal sleepily murmured, “I think we trust each other more than we know.”

“I guess. I don’t doubt you guys nearly enough,” Sheena perked up, putting her legs over the end of the pew and resting her head on Zelos’s shoulder, “Not nearly enough.”

Colette smiled, stating the simple truth, “It’s the only way we got out of there alive. I mean, if we didn’t trust Raine and Genis, and didn’t rely on Lloyd and Sheena breaking free, and didn’t think our friends would be strong enough to survive . . .we wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

Genis smirked, “Colette, that was pretty smart. I mean, if Lloyd would have said it—”

“Shut it, Genis,” Lloyd growled, but then lightened up, “Yeah. We’ll leave it at that, I guess. We all still friends?”

“Of course, Lloyd,” Raine calmed her student, “Now, quit blabbering. Just relax for a little while. We still have a long way to go before we save the worlds.”

She was right. And so was Colette, and Genis, and Regal, and Raine, and –well, everyone. They had each other. That alone had slain Cruxis. With their strengths, they could do whatever they wanted. No one was chained to the codes of society, heritage, or false groups. All they needed was each other.

All they needed was love.

---

Renegade Fortress: 21:43 hours

They had received the message at Rodyle’s cleaned-out human ranch. It was odd, transferred over an expired piece of technology. They would have never received it if one of the lackeys hadn’t left all of the machinery on during his shift. And now, looking at it, Yuan did not know what to think. It was so bizarre.

There was a purple-haired woman on screen, blabbing on and on about some humans they had caught. She wanted prices on them, to see if Rodyle wanted any more humans, asking for reports on how his Mana Cannon project was going. It was like she didn’t even know he was dead. There were no records of her in Cruxis’s database, nor in Rodyle’s old files. It was like if they had received a message from a ghost.

Never the less, Yuan did send out spy orbital robots shortly after the message was reported to him. It was intriguing that she mentioned Lloyd Irving and Sheena Fujibayashi in the message. He swore that he saw more half-elves behind her, and a symbol with the name ‘Dycroft’. There was a small record about a Dycroft accessory ranch that Rodyle had kept, but his notes made no further documentation about the place. The only way he was going to find anything out about this place was to trace the signal back to its source.

“Lord Yuan,” one of his lower henchmen greeted him, “We’ve got visual contact of the place. You might want to see this.”

Yuan flipped on his video screen without as much as a word of reply, studying the image in front of him. It was night, a starless sky reflecting emptily into the water. A huge mass of something was sticking up in the air, but he couldn’t tell what it was. He swiftly ordered, “Put on the bright lights.”

The robot flicked light around it, finally catching the gigantic mass. It was the tip of an island sticking up out of the water, maybe not much more than twenty feet. His spy robot blandly reported back, “THERE APPEARS TO BE A LAND MASS BELOW THIS. SCANNING INDICATES A LARGE COMPLEX. IT IS SINKING AT A SLOW RATE. ESTIMATED TIME OF FULL SUBMERSION: 4 HOURS 27 MINUTES.”

“Are there any survivors?”, Yuan asked, staring at the stump of land in the air.

His spy replied, “NEGATIVE. THERE ARE NO SIGNS OF LIFE. SCANNING INDICATES APPROXIMATELY 57 DEAD. LIFE FORM TYPE IS UNKNOWN.”

Yuan studied another screen for a moment, checking on Lloyd’s position. Zelos and Colette both possessed Cruxis-regulated crystals that could be traced via radar. Both appeared to be 153 miles southeast, on a small island. He finally addressed his half-elven lackey below, “Can we confirm the radar results on the Chosens?”

“It’s accurate, sir,” the officer remarked, “All eight are accounted for. We have rumors that Kratos Aurion is in the Heimdall area. There appears to be no fatalities from our priority one contacts.”

“Good,” Yuan half-smiled, turning his attention back to the screen. He jumped back, startled, “What is that?”

The robot reported, “THERE IS NOTHING PRESENT. I DO NOT DETECT A DISTURBANCE.”

Yuan’s eyes saw something else. There was a man standing there in a blue uniform, hat slightly tilted on his head. His eyes were empty, almost like staring into black holes. The half-elf scratched his moustache, studying the robot. He got extremely close to it, blank eyes outlined ever so slightly with red. That was when Yuan realized that the man had no eyes—there were just empty sockets.

This was irritating and terrifying to Yuan. Growling, he demanded, “Who are you? What are you doing?”

The man mouthed something, but there were no words coming out. He was dribbling spittle down the front of his shirt, mouth slightly foaming. Yuan stepped back in disgust, not sure what to think. He looked over to his lackey to confirm what he was seeing, but the half-elf had already run off in fear. It was too much for him to handle.

“Scan the area again. Readjust your volume, and make sure this isn’t a visual error,” Yuan firmly ordered the robot. It made no move, staying perfectly still like it had no internal programming.

The blue man whispered something into the eye of the robot, almost licking the lens, “Never see it any other way. Never see it any other way. Never see it any other way.” A worm crawled out of one of his eye sockets, writhing around the camera in a strange JU-JU pattern. Yuan jolted again, his hand over his mouth.

There was a sudden explosion of noise. It sounded like white static, grainy voices all scratching across his ears. The noise didn’t make any sense, all sorts of warbled sayings repeated over and over again. It grew intensely loud in his head, blasting his eardrums until he thought they would bleed. He covered them, his eyes clenched shut. Finally, he yelled, “Shut the hell up!”

And then there was silence.

Yuan opened his eyes. The man was still standing there, motionless and quiet. He simply smiled, somehow feeling like he had communicated his point to the half-elf. Quietly, he murmured, “Please don’t be long, or I may be asleep.”

And then there was no picture.

Yuan shuddered, noticing the signal light of the robot had gone dead. It was deactivated, most likely destroyed. He put on hand on his heart, leaning slightly on his computer counsel. That was something he didn’t like dealing with. He was never keen on the supernatural—that was always Martel’s fascination. Poor sweet dead Martel.

“Sir? Are you all right?”, the lackey had come back after his cowardice. He tried to console the leader, “We can get another robot out there, if you like.”

Yuan protested, “No. That’s fine. We’d better leave it alone.”

The lackey looked startled, “But sir! Certainly, if this place is hazardous, shouldn’t we eliminate it?”

“No. Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing there that will harm us, now,” Yuan simply stated. He felt kind of dehydrated—maybe he would go get something to drink.

His little cohort wouldn’t let up on him, “But, sir? How do you know? Was that a—”

Yuan stopped him, explaining, “Don’t worry about it. That man is dead. Just be afraid of the living that walk among us.”

“ . . .like who, sir?”, the lackey questioned.

“I’m not sure,” Yuan shook his head, coming up with only one answer, “Perhaps Elvis.”

—El Fine—

Author’s Final Notes:

So, there was my Sgt. Pepper’s of Tales of Symphonia. More or less. Let’s face it—this was a giant spoof of Lost and The Beatles. Several times when I was writing this story, I would accidentally predict events that would happen in Lost (like, the Dharma institutions? Yeah . . .) I’m sure I just dropped a large spoiler there.

There’s a good chance that if you are minutely educated with the Beatles, you’ve caught most of the jokes here. If nothing else, search “Paul Is Dead” on Wikipedia, and you’re bound to find out more about it. For some reason, the radical music fans like thinking McCartney’s dead and Presley’s alive.

Did I plan on such a long fight scene? . . .Never do. I like making checks so mostly everyone is balanced out in battle. I have my favorites (cough Tethe’alla cough), but I try not to overplay their parts more than necessary. Everyone likes somebody, so I try to right with a set of balance.

I’m sure I just made Kratos fans bored, though. Oh, well. There’s like . . . at least 217 other Kratos fanfics out there. So, I’m trying to make this a general story for all people. I think I actually did okay with Shelos/Sheloyd (although I do like Shelos more – I think it’s called dramatic foil?)

The Yuan scene? I just made that for fun. Because, as you might know, the Renegades have control of Rodyle’s base by now. So, I thought, hey! Wouldn’t he get this phantom message floating about? I hate to sound self-centered or something, but that part really creeped me out when I wrote it. I suppose having A Day In the Life in the background on didn’t help?

Anyway, once again—I hope you enjoyed this fanfic. Sorry to have over killed, but it’s better than too little detail. I’m going to be writing a more Sheena-centric fanfic next time, with ninjas. Many ninjas. And ninja legends! Mhwa ha hah!

So, party on, and I hope to read your own stuff soon!

August 12 – December 16, 2005 — Zelda’s Fox 38/DemonFox38

R.I.P. John – 25 years.
R.I.P. George – 4 years.
R.I.P. Stuart – 43 years.
Pete, Ringo, Paul – Alive as of 2005

(Note: Stuart and Pete were early members.)

If the main four die backwards from the way I killed them, call it whack.