Wow, February has really been a sucky month for everyone, huh? Broken bones, major migraines, exams, etc. It’s no wonder everyone hates February.

I am SO sorry for how long this took to update but the words just wouldn’t flow properly for this chapter until recently, so I awarded your patience with a nice, extra long chapter. However, I do plan on putting up a brand, spanking new story sometime in the next month or two so you might wanna go check it out when it’s up. n.n

Note: If there are any sudden changes in POV during the fic, I apologize. I’m trying out a new way of writing. Bear with me.

Special thanks to;; Laur3 Sincl4ir;; Chocochip Haruka;; eragonfanatic92;; mandrakefunnyjuice;; Sychotic;; Hiei-Riku-RubedoFAN and Kanamay!

Disclaimer;; Right, I’ve said this many times but I’ll say it again for your benefit. Do not own.

Chapter Eight: Drugged

The woman waved Kelly off after she forced the archer to promise to come back the next day and work off her debt. Since it was such a small debt, the woman promised it’d only take an hour or two of her time, which was good because she still had to go and help out at the Academy cafeteria tomorrow afternoon.

“Ten o’clock sharp!” the woman reminded her. She’d introduced herself as Natasha. “We don’t actually open until ten thirty but you should get here at ten so you can help set everything out and check a few things here and there, okay? Thank you!”

As Kelly walked off, she could already hear the woman dragging another unsuspecting victim into her stall, confusing them with her cheerful rants as she hook, line and sank them into debt with her. It was a smart tactic, actually, but it would be more likely to backfire on her if anyone tried that on Earth.

It’d be funny to see how many worker bees Natasha manages to catch for tomorrow, though.

Hmm… Did they have alarm clocks here? If they didn’t, there was no way in hell she’d be able to wake up in time. Maybe she could get Kratos to wake her up or something… He always seemed to be awake before the rest of them. Probably his mercenary instincts or something.

Hmm… now that she had this entire brand spanking new archery equipment, what should she do?

Practice? But where? Frankly, there was no way for her shoot arrows inside the city and not expect to accidentally hit a civilian. But wait, they had a city militia, didn’t they? The soldiers had to have somewhere to train, right? Of course, there was always the notion that they were actually inexperienced and the whole armour thing was just a front but what were the chances of that?

Kelly looked around and hurried over to a person in armor, carrying a spear. He was wearing an aqua-colored jupon over the armour. The jupon had a decoration of waves on it, symbolizing the importance of the sea to Palmacosta. It looked pretty neat, actually.

“’Scuse me,” she muttered as she squeezed through a couple of people browsing the stalls in the marketplace.

Ah, dammit, he was starting to move away!

Screw this.

“Outta my way!” Kelly snapped as she pushed through a couple of teens that were just hanging out. Geez, didn’t they know that loitering was against the laws? But maybe they didn’t have the same laws here… Eh, whatever, still incredibly annoying. “Excuse me, sir!”

“Hmm?” the soldier turned around at her call. “Yes, ma’am?”

You know you’re older than someone when they call you ma’am instead of miss.

“Can you direct me to your training grounds?” Kelly asked, showing him her bow. He didn’t seem fazed by it. It probably wasn’t uncommon for travelers to carry weapons, seeing as what with all the monsters and the bandits going on. Although, probably half of Palmacosta already knew of the Chosen’s companions, which begged the question, where was Colette, anyways? I mean, the girl had been in the cafeteria, but where was she now?

But Lloyd and Kratos was with her, so it should be fine…

How could the civilians not know the Chosen was here, anyways? I mean, they paid a visit to the church, which meant all the people who were there at the time would notice them talking to the priest there. And to whom would a priest looked so awestruck by except the Chosen? Or maybe the Goddess herself. Or an angel. But, wait, Colette was an angel. Okay, she was thinking in circles now.

“There’s a clearing right outside of the city,” he explained, leaning slightly on his lance-like weapon. His voice was a bit muffled by the helm but it was still coherent. “It’s right by a river and there’re trees surrounding it. We, the city militia, train there all the time.”

“Are there monsters around there?” Kelly asked, absently fingering her bowstring.

“They’re scarce if at all,” the soldier nodded matter-of-factly.

Kelly thanked him before heading towards the entrance of the city, with the large arch. With some luck, maybe she’ll be able to learn how to use that Fire Arrow technique consistently, instead of only when she was in a panicked frenzy.

Maybe it had something to do with her exsphere?

But she’d used it once before she received her exsphere, didn’t she? Argh, it just didn’t make any sense at all!

Eh, she’ll ask Kratos about it tonight. He seemed the most knowledgeable about stuff like that, as he’d proven after the Fire Seal. Her mysterious water barrier, however, was still to be explained. Kelly was just itching to figure out how she’d done it! It’d certainly come in useful later, seeing as she can’t perform a Guardian for the life of her.

She just couldn’t figure out how to transfer the mana into a resistant shield around herself! Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was from Earth and Earth had no mana… Or if it did, no one could harness its power…

As she left the city borders, the ground was still paved for a few miles out. Kelly assumed that the little clearing was the little shelter of woods she could see off into the distance, next to the ocean. It was right where the paved part of the ground ended.

The woman picked up her pace to a brisk march, wanting to get some practice in before the sun went down. Or, technically, before it got dark because the sky was still full of gray storm clouds.

She did NOT want to stick around to find out what monsters did to people they come across during the night.

Heck, she didn’t want to find out what monsters did to people they found alone ANY time!

Y’know, it was no wonder that Kratos could kick their ass at any time. With this much danger wandering around, Kelly bet there were more than enough people willing to pay tons of Gald for a mercenary bodyguard or such. She could only imagine how much Frank and Phaidra had paid him to guard Colette on this journey. Maybe they hadn’t paid him much because Colette was the Chosen of Regeneration and everyone wanted the world to be regenerated much quicker.

Although if there weren’t any more monsters, there wouldn’t really be a need for mercenaries, would there? So Kratos would be out of a job if Colette completed the Journey of Regeneration. Would that be enough incentive for him to purposely try to slow her down? But that wasn’t right, if anything, the man was adamant on completing this job as quickly as possible. Not to mention he was quick on berating Lloyd and/or Genis for fooling around.

He should really take out that stick that’s wedged up his ass. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so insufferable.

Kelly scowled as she remembered how quick he’d been to scold her about ‘putting the Chosen’s life in danger’, as he’d put it so eloquently. They were probably just a bunch of thugs anyway! I mean, if you judged a group by its leader, they probably WERE a crackpot gang of idiots and nincompoops… Even Lloyd was more even-tempered than that brute! And the boy was pretty rash without any help.

“Hmm…” she nodded approvingly at the choice of location the city militia chose to practice. It was a nice little clearing, surrounded by trees on three sides with a small stream on the last side. If she set up a couple of targets, she could even practice her shooting here… She did need the practice… Some… sorely needed practice. She’d only managed to get a few lucky shots in any of the battles they’ve gotten into. And she couldn’t exactly afford wasting arrows.

Kelly let out a sigh that ended up in a pout.

“Might as well get started now,” she muttered as she set down her pouch for better balance. She paused for a moment. If she was going to be fighting, then she couldn’t exactly put down her pouch in the middle of a battle, right? But she could always just sharpen her aim and then get used to the pouch later… But when would she get another chance like this to practice her shooting?

This wasn’t like it was back home. She had to depend on her skill to survive, not to teach a bunch of kids who’d do it obediently for one summer and then the next summer, they’d forget all about what she taught them. Sometimes Kelly would wonder if doing that each year was even worth it, but, hey, the pay at least was good and it wouldn’t hurt to get some exercise and fresh air, as opposed to lying around the apartment all day, playing video games like someone that she will not mention the name of.

Ahem.

She grabbed one of her arrows and used the head to mark an X in the bark of the tree. It probably wasn’t exactly good for the arrow but, hey, had to make use of what she had, right?

Kelly took a few hopsteps back and grabbed her bow in her left hand, notching an arrow. She closed her left eye and tried to aim precisely for the middle of the X. As she let the arrow fly, the archer was disappointed to see that her arrow was going down a bit so it ended up being buried about a foot below from her original goal.

Was it because of her weaker strength? If she aimed a bit higher than her intended target, would that allow her to hit the said target?

Hey, couldn’t hurt to try.

Kelly plucked out another arrow before aiming for a foot above where she wanted her arrow to land and drew the bowstring back as far as she could go. She grunted a bit as she couldn’t hold onto the string anymore and let the arrow fly. Much to her annoyance, this time the arrow just dropped dead in the middle of the flight.

Argh! Why couldn’t things go right for once?!

Out of sheer annoyance, Kelly quickly took up another arrow and fired it, still angry from her last two failures. Her eye twitched when the arrow suddenly burst into flame right before it hit the tree. Ooooh, crap.

“Oh, my God!” she screamed, dropping her bow in shock.

“Take this! Aqua Edge!”

Three discs of water came zooming over, crashing into the tree, and effectively extinguishing the flames. Kelly let out a sigh of relief as she collapsed onto her knees, trying to still her frantically beating heart. For a second she thought she was toast!

“You need to learn to control your techniques,” Kratos frowned as he walked into the clearing with Lloyd. “If I had not been here, this entire area would have been engulfed by that fire.”

“Well, sorry,” Kelly scowled. What right did he have to criticize her anyways? It wasn’t like she’d done this before or had anyone to help train her, like he did with Lloyd. “And what wise advice do you have for me, o mighty one?”

“Reel in your anger,” he replied, ignoring her sarcasm. “Fire is fueled by anger as water is fueled by serenity. You must be calm and collected in order to administer the influence of water into your arrows.”

“I. Am. Calm.” Kelly bit out through gritted teeth. She took a deep breath before letting it out in a whoosh, forcing a smile onto her face. She pointed to it. “See? Completely calm.”

“I advise you to take this more seriously because you will have more accidental outbursts like that if you do not.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kelly muttered, going up to the scorched tree. That arrow was already incinerated but the other one looked like it was still in useable condition. She started to pull it out of the blackened bark, which wasn’t very hard, actually. She picked up the fallen one on her way back.

“Hey, can I put magic in my sword moves, too?!” Lloyd asked enthusiastically.

“Perhaps,” Kratos nodded slowly. “But not right now. You’re not ready for such an advancement yet.”

“Aw man…”

Kelly picked up her bow from the ground and took the arrow she pulled out from the tree, and put it on the bow. Now what?

Great, she’d have to ask Mr. Prickly Plant Up My Ass for help. That guy was a real jerk sometimes. But he was a knowledgeable jerk, so that meant he was above her, apparently. She let the bowstring relax before turning reluctantly to Kratos for help.

“So now what do I do?”

“Imagine what you want your attack to look like,” Kratos answered.

Kelly raised an eyebrow before doing as he said. She closed her eyes and imagined the arrow liquefying as she shot it before it hit the enemy, not unlike Aqua Edge. She couldn’t help but smile as she thought of how awesome it would look. Oh, geez, now she was starting to think like Lloyd.

“Why do you use two swords as opposed to one?” she heard Kratos ask Lloyd quietly.

‘Well… I figured that if one sword meant 100 percent, then two swords would mean 200 percent!” the teen answered confidently.

Kelly let out a cough to disguise her laugh. Trust Lloyd to come up with that kind of logic. She opened one eye to see Kratos shaking his head pityingly. Heh, at least it kept them all fairly entertained.

“W-what?” Lloyd looked like he was at a loss for words for once. “W-why are you looking at me with that pitying look?”

Kelly let out a choked strangle kind of sound, which was actually her bad attempt at trying to disguise an outburst of laughter. This was just too funny! Wait ‘til she told Raine about this two to one logic of Lloyd’s. That’d get a laugh and the professor would probably give him a lecture on how that didn’t make sense, which would be interesting to listen to.

“Concentrate,” Kratos warned her, before turning his attention back to Lloyd.

Okay, so she could imagine her arrow liquefying and then… maybe turning into a dragon or something! Then its mighty jaws would open and devour all that stood in its way! Muahahaha! Okay, that wasn’t quite as calm as Kelly would’ve liked.

She exhaled and, concentrating on her mental image of the water dragon, let go of her arrow. She was afraid to open her eyes, just in case she accidentally set the same tree on fire. Again. Instead of something crackling, Kelly heard a loud ‘whoosh’ and a loud yelp, and her eyes snapped open. She gaped at the soaked, incinerated mess that had once been a tree.

“That… was impressive,” Kratos turned to her with an annoyed look on his face. Whoops. “But kindly avoid drenching your allies in the process, but am I correct in assuming that was accidental?”

“T-that’s c-cold!” Lloyd shivered as he pulled off his red jacket, twisting the water out of it.

“Yeah… Heh heh…” Kelly rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “I didn’t mean for it to do that… exactly…”

“It may be because we are so near the water seal, where there is an abundance of water mana,” the mercenary explained. “I doubt you would have had the same outcome while we were in Triet.”

“That makes sense…”

“It does?” Lloyd looked confused.

Kelly tipped her head back in exasperation. “Lloyd, I’m going to explain this in words you understand, alright? We near water mana, water attacks stronger. We near fire mana, water attacks weaker.”

“I’m not that stupid…” the teen muttered with an insulted look on his face.

“So you admit that you’re stupid?” Kelly smirked triumphantly.

“Argh!” the teen threw up his arms in exasperation. “There’s no winning with you!”

“Of course not,” Kelly smiled widely. “If there was winning with me, then everybody would be winning, wouldn’t they? And that wouldn’t do because I have a reputation to keep, after all. Hehe.”

She was sufficiently satisfied when a twitch appeared under Lloyd’s left eye. Now that she thought about it, Kratos twitched when he was annoyed, too. Maybe it was just a substitute since the mercenary didn’t seem like the type that would express his annoyance. But it was a funny substitute. How did they make their eyes twitch like that anyways? Theo used to do that all the time…

“You look kinda sad, Kelly,” Lloyd commented, putting his hands behind his head. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah,” the archer plastered a smile onto her face. “I’m good.”

How long had it been? How long had it been since she’d come here? A month?

Kelly was stricken when she found that she couldn’t even picture her friends’ faces clearly anymore. The names were there but what happened to the mental images that came along with them? Now all she could dredge up were memories of Lloyd and the others. And why the hell couldn’t she get that image of that blue-haired Desian out of her mind? It was frustrating, to say the least.

“Hey, hey, Kratos!” Lloyd poked the mercenary in the side.

Kratos glared down at Lloyd. “What is it?”

“Can you spar with me?” the boy asked, poking his fingers together nervously. “I mean, I’ve never really sparred with anyone before and you’re a really good swordsman so I thought you could maybe give me some pointers or something…”

“Have you been reading the manual I gave you back in Iselia?” Kratos asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Uuuuuuuuummmm…”

“That’s a ‘no’,” Kelly laughed.

Typical Lloyd. She’d actually found the manual half-squished underneath a pair of wooden swords in the boy’s pack when she’d been looking for something to eat. She’d fished it out and started reading it herself. It was quite interesting, actually. The book depicted the proper stances for certain sword maneuvers, which seemed to help her aim very slightly when she incorporated it into her archery. And Lloyd still hadn’t noticed it was even missing. She’d probably have to put it back now, though. Darn.

“I read it!” the twin swordsman protested. “Once in a while…”

“I would not expect anything less,” Kratos nodded. It took a while for Lloyd to realize that he was being insulted. Then he started complaining about how he was so under appreciated by them all. He ended his monologue by giving them both the evil eye. His eyes looked almost garnet when he did that… Almost like Kratos’ scarlet gaze… Creepy.

“Are you guys gonna spar?” Kelly asked, fiddling with the string on her bow. She had this problem where she couldn’t stand to stay still for too long. She always had to have her hands busy doing something, whether it was pointless fiddling or whatnot. It had always annoyed the heck out of her parents.

Lloyd looked hopefully at Kratos, who nodded. A beam spread itself across the boy’s face.

“Can I watch?” Kelly asked with a grin.

“Why?” Lloyd questioned, raising an eyebrow with bewilderment. It looked surprisingly adorable when he did that. It shaved off seven years off his appearance. The same thing always happened with Matt. He looked so cute when he wore a tuxedo. And it wasn’t ‘I love you’ kind of cute, more like an ‘I want to hug you and squeeze you to death’ kind of cute. Hee. “You’ve seen us fight before.”

“Yeah, but you guys usually aim to kill, right?” the archer pointed out matter-of-factly. She waited for them to nod before continuing. “So I don’t really get to see much of your skills. Not to mention I’m busy trying not to hit you guys with my arrows,” she admitted sheepishly as she sat down a few feet away from them.

“You do appear to need work on your aim,” Kratos nodded, drawing his sword with a ring before pointing it in Lloyd’s general direction. Kelly pouted a bit at that but nodded in resigned agreement. “Draw your swords.”

“Ah… right!” Lloyd nodded before easing his swords out. One arm lay limply at his side while the other swished a couple of times through the air before finally stopping to point at Kratos. Without waiting, the boy charged at Kratos, only to be easily deflected and thrown onto his back. “Ow!”

“Your stance was wrong and you shouldn’t be rushing into battle recklessly, as you seem to favour,” the older man pointed out as he waited patiently for Lloyd to get back up. The boy rolled back before springing up, taking a moment to regain his composure, only to be knocked back again by Kratos’ sword. “You are taking too long to regain your bearings. When you’re knocked down, get up like a normal person. If I had been an enemy, I could have easily finished you off. There is no time to show off.”

“I’m not showing off!” Lloyd growled. “It’s habit!”

“Then break it,” Kratos replied as he finally initiated the spar. Lloyd was taken by surprise and barely had time to fling his swords up in a miserable parry before the mercenary dropped to the ground and swung his leg around in a semi-circle, bringing the boy to the ground hard. “Always know where your enemy is at. Do not lose track of them even once.”

It was oddly entrancing to see the two swordsmen spar against each other, Kratos stopping every now and then to give Lloyd a few pointers. With those pointers, Lloyd wasn’t so easily deflected anymore but he still couldn’t manage to land a hit on Kratos, which irked him greatly and only motivated him to practice more and even longer.

“Hyaaah!”

As Lloyd charged at the mercenary, the boy jumped up and dived down with both his swords. As Kratos held up the flat side of his blade to deflect them, Lloyd pulled one of his swords back and slashed underneath the merc’s sword while the other hit the steel solidly, leaving a ‘twang’ sound to resonate around the forest. Kratos quickly shifted his sword so it propelled Lloyd backwards, who immediately slammed into a tree.

“Oooh…” the boy slumped to the ground with a groan, both from the pain and from fatigue. He brightened when he saw Kratos give him an approved nod, healing the rather long cut that Lloyd made on his abdomen. It looked worse than it actually was, apparently, because it was fixed up with one simple healing spell.

“That was quick thinking on your part,” Kratos commented. “To pull back a sword at the very last minute.”

Lloyd grinned at the rare compliment as he started to jump up. He caught himself just in time and pushed himself off the ground with the side of his fist, gaining himself another approved nod. Wow, Kratos was in a really good mood today! He’d never gotten more than a satisfied grunt before and now he got a whole compliment!

Lloyd couldn’t help but wonder if the mercenary was feeling okay but shrugged it off. Everyone had to be nice once in a while, right?

He turned, beaming, to Kelly only to find that she’d fallen asleep. He stared at her for a second with an odd expression on his face. How could she fall asleep so quickly? More importantly, how could she fall asleep while they were fighting so noisily? She had to be some kind of scientific breakthrough or something. That’s what he heard Professor Raine say every time she saw something that was amazing (to her, at least).

“Maybe she’s tired from serving at that cafeteria,” he wondered as he poked her in the arm after sheathing his swords.

Unfortunately, he forgot about her instant reactions to being shaken awake. Her hand smacked into his face and knocked him onto his back, though it was more out of shock than actual pain. Hell, it’d better be after being tossed around like a ragdoll all evening. Ugh. Ouch.

Kelly rubbed her eyes and tried to blink the sleep out. What was that red blob groaning in pain in front of her?

…Oh, hell, it was Lloyd!

“Oh, my God…dess, are you okay?” she leaped up and plopped down next to him with an alarmed look on her face. There was a bright red mark on his left cheek and the boy looked a bit dazed. What had she done?! “Lloyd! Speak to me! Don’t die!”

“There’s no need to be so dramatic,” Kratos looked at her with amusement in his eyes as he sheathed his sword before crossing his arms.

Kelly flushed at his remark. Her friends had always commented on her being kind of a drama queen back home. Gotta work on that.

“You hit hard, Kelly!” Lloyd complained as he brought a hand to rub his sore cheek. He mentally reminded himself to never ever try to wake Kelly up again by poking her. Instant knockout. “I’m fine, I’m fine!” he added with a laugh when she started looking flustered again.

“Er, okay then,” the archer rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. Then she let out a yawn before looking for the sun. “What time is it anyways?”

“Late,” Kratos replied as he walked past her and Lloyd. “We should be getting back soon. The Chosen will be worried.”

“Oh, yeah!” Lloyd leapt to his feet. “And I have to see how Genis is doing!”

“Hey, wait up!” Kelly shouted as she grabbed her sheaf of arrows and her bow, running after the two guys. It had to be really late, like around ten or eleven already because she normally didn’t get even the tiniest bit tired until at least ten thirty. She had no idea how but their sparing must have lured her to sleep… Weird. Normally she was a light sleeper.

Already, they could see the lights of Palmacosta in the distance. Kelly frowned. If she learned anything from history classes, it was that during the Adolph Hitler era, all lights were turned off at night so attention wouldn’t be attracted. That Dorr must be really confident in his city militia to allow his civilians to let their lights blare out like that. All the lights vaguely reminded her of PNE back in Vancouver.

“It’s so bright…” Lloyd moaned, slapping his hands over his eyes.

“Which is kind of stupid considering that there’s a Desian ranch about a dozen kilometers away,” Kelly pointed out with a sigh. She put her hand over her eyes to shield them as well. They’d gotten used to the cover of darkness in the forest and the bright lights of the port city were too much to bear.

“Indeed,” nodded Kratos. Kelly glared at him when it appeared that the lights had no effect on his eyes at all.

“Oh, but wait, that Desian back in the gel shop said that their quota was reached this year,” Kelly frowned as she remembered that unpleasant struggle. “They probably figure they’re safe.”

“Desian in the gel shop?” Lloyd repeated, frowning. “What’re you talking about?”

“Oh, you remember when Raine asked me to get that medicine for Genis?” She waited for him to nod before continuing. “There was a young girl that was working there but she refused to sell any gels to the Desians because they took her grandma away. They threatened to take her away to the ranch but one of them said something about their quota being exceeded if he went any further.”

“Those damn Desians!” Lloyd growled, clenching his fists angrily. “They don’t give a damn about human lives!”

“Their leader’s name is Magnius,” Kelly said blankly. When Lloyd stopped short to stare at her in astonishment, she had to resist the urge to smile smugly. Being smug was a baby sin, after all. “That’s what one of the Desians said.”

“They’re loose with their information,” Kratos mused. “It may have been a trap if they saw you.”

“Please,” Kelly rolled her eyes. Man, didn’t they think she was good for anything other than firing random arrows in battle? “Give me some credit. I’m not stupid enough to go belting out that I’m part of the Chosen’s entourage. Kelly here, not Colette. Remember the Ossa Trail?”

“Oh, yeah…” Lloyd muttered glumly, stifling a yawn.

How could they forget the blonde Chosen practically handing herself into the clutches of her assassin? But that woman seemed reluctant at first about taking Colette’s life. And Sheena had seemed fairly normal when Kelly almost bumped into her back at the steamboat. With her features and choice of clothing, she looked almost Japanese, which was an oddity in itself because it seemed that in Sylvarant, the only races were elf, half-elf and human.

“Out awfully late,” one of the guards commented as they reached the gates of Palmacosta.

Honestly, what was the point of having guards when your enemies could see you from halfway across the world?

Kratos merely grunted as he passed by the guard while Lloyd gave the man a sheepish grin. Kelly shrugged before following the two men to the inn where Genis had been resting before. The lamps were out so they had to clamber up the stairs in the dark.

“Ow!” Lloyd hissed, grabbing his foot. “Kelly, you stepped on my foot!”

“Sorr- ah!”

“Kindly refrain from falling on me, Kelly.”

The three separated to go off to each separate room. Kelly was staying with Colette so Raine and Genis could have a room to themselves while Lloyd and Kratos boarded together. Frankly, no one really wanted to share with Lloyd because of his loud snoring but, oddly enough, the stoic man didn’t seem to mind since he always seemed like he got a full eight hours of sleep.

Lloyd beckoned goodnight to Kelly before following Kratos into their room. He immediately jumped into the closest bed and snuggled up under the covers.

“Lloyd…” he heard a warning tone in the mercenary’s voice. “Take off your boots and swords.”

“So tired…”

“Lloyd.”

“Fine…” the boy muttered as he pulled off his bright red boots and unbuckled his sword sheathes, dropping them unceremoniously onto the ground before snuggling up again. This time, he would not get out for anything! So tired, dammit…

-111-

He woke to the sound of a loud yelp, which startled him right out of the bed as he fell to the ground with a thud, still tangled up in the bedsheets. Lloyd moaned as he tried to untangle himself unsuccessfully. Finally, losing his patience, he just yanked the sheet off of him, not particularly caring if it ripped anymore.

Now he could hear harsh whispering in the hallway. It sounded like a guy and a woman arguing. The boy glanced at the bed opposite his to find that Kratos was gone. Maybe it was Kratos and Raine out there?

Lloyd rubbed some of the sleep out of his eyes and debated on whether he should go out and check or not. Whatever, it couldn’t hurt, right?

He picked himself up off the ground and shuffled towards the door, opening it and peered out. His eyes fully widened when it became apparent that it was, in fact, not Kratos and Raine, but rather, both assassins. One was that woman from the Ossa Trail, and the other was the one that tried to kill Colette the other night.

They stopped talking when the woman saw him and her eyes widened in shock. The other cloaked figure turned around and Lloyd saw a glimpse of aqua hair underneath the hood.

In all of this, one word flew through Lloyd’s brain and really got him kick started.

“Shit!”

He dove back in the room for his swords, sliding them out of the sheathes without even putting the belts back on as he waited for them to come in to probably finish him off or something. He was a bit surprised when no one came. But wait! They wanted to kill Colette so she couldn’t finish the Journey of Regeneration! And Colette was…

“Fucking hell!” Lloyd cursed as he bolted down the hall to Colette and Kelly’s room. He burst into the room in a panic, only to find the two inhabitants looking blearily at him.

“Lloyd…?” Kelly murmured, looking half-dead. “Why’re you here…”

Without another word, her head fell back limply onto the covers. It looked like she’d been knocked out or something because there was no way the woman could fall asleep so quickly.

“Colette, are you alright?” Lloyd asked quickly, going to the blonde Chosen’s side.

“Yes, I’m fine but what about Miss Kelly…?” the girl looked with concern at their possibly drugged friend.

“Colette, are you hurt?!” a new voice came calling, pushing Lloyd aside to take a look at the Chosen. Lloyd stood aside to let Professor Sage do her examination of Colette, wondering if he should point out Kelly’s little problem to her. Fortunately, she noticed herself. “How can Kelly still be asleep?!”

“Um…” Lloyd cleared his throat. “She woke up when I came in but then she just blacked out in the middle of talking. And she fell asleep in the middle of me and Kratos sparring.”

“Has she drunken or eaten any strange foods today?” Professor Sage frowned as she made her way over to the archer. She held her staff over Kelly’s body and started muttering something under her breath. Then there was a small green light flowing throughout Kelly’s body before it fizzled out. “There’s some kind of drug in her. It’s very strange… I’ve never seen it before. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to cure this.”

“Is she going to die?” Lloyd stared in shock at the Professor. How could this be? It was Professor Sage they were talking about! How could Professor Sage not know something? That had to mean this was really bad.

“I don’t believe this is lethal but-“ He must have had a confused look on his face because Professor Sage sighed. “Lethal means life-threatening. Anyways, Lloyd, why did you come barging into here in the first place?”

“Oh!” he remembered the urgency he’d come down here with. “When I woke up, I saw these two people in the hallway and one of them was that woman who tried to kill Colette at Ossa Trail and another one was a cloaked guy but he had some blue hair, I think, because I saw some from underneath his hood.”

Now that he came to think of it, that Desian from back in Triet had blue hair, too, didn’t he? Maybe it was him that kept trying to murder Colette in her sleep. How many people had blue hair, anyways? Oh, right, Neil had blue hair, too… And Lloyd was fairly sure that the governor’s assistant wasn’t their assassin. Besides, Neil had short hair.

“What happened?” came a quiet voice from the doorway.

Lloyd turned to see Kratos with a tight face. Where had he been? But quickly, he relayed his story back to the mercenary. It was probably just his imagination, but he could’ve sworn the man’s eyes widened a bit when he mentioned the blue hair.

“I have… heard of this drug before,” he frowned. At his words, Professor Sage looked up abruptly, surprise worn on her face. Why was she surprised? This was Kratos. He knew everything. But then again, the fact that Kratos knows something that Professor Sage doesn’t is a little surprising, he guessed.

“Do you know the antidote to it?” Professor Sage asked snappishly when he fell silent.

“No,” he shook his head. “There is no antidote. It should wear off in a couple of hours.”

“Then that’s plenty of time for the rest of us to get some more sleep,” Professor Sage decided. “We’ll have to see what we’re going to do in the morning, depending on Genis and Kelly’s conditions.”

-222-

“Kelly, you’re late!” Mandy looked at her with a reproachful expression before both of them burst out laughing.

They were both standing on the doorstep of Theo’s house, waiting for him to answer the door. They’d had this Super Smash Bros. Brawl date set up since the release date of the game had come out. They’d set the time for one thirty but Kelly lost track of time while surfing the web, so it was now one forty-five. Of course, Mandy was late, too.

“Both of you are late,” Theo grumbled as he opened the door to his house. Mandy and Kelly immediately stepped in, out of the cold rain. Honestly, only in Vancouver would it still be raining in March. “We’re still waiting on Max and Darren. They, at least, have a good excuse for being late, seeing as they live so far away and they have to walk here. You two, don’t!”

“We’re sorry, alright?” Kelly rolled her eyes as she hung her red jacket up on the coat hanger. Tryst Theo to get all mad at them for being fifteen minutes late. She swore, he was even more of a perfectionist than herself! “My dad was supposed to give me a ride but then he cancelled out at the last minute.”

“Whatever,” he sighed as he lead them to his new Wii and game. “We might as well start now.”

“I claim Sheik,” Kelly said quickly, grabbing one of the Gamecube controllers. She’d played Melee for several years and, frankly, playing a completely new game with a different type of controller altogether was not an appealing idea at this point. Especially when she had a week’s worth of homework riding on this tournament. Oh, yeah, did she forget to mention that they’d all bet something on the outcome of this tournament?

Theo bet the use of his Wii and game to the winner. Kelly would do the winner’s homework for a week. Mandy… Well, Mandy would do whatever the winner wanted (as long as it was within boundaries, of course). Max would admit his defeat to the winner (since he was a very proud guy normally) and Darren would be the winner’s slave for a week, which all got a good laugh out of them.

“Kelly!” Mandy pouted, also grabbing a Gamecube controller. Kelly stuck her tongue out at her friend before plopping down on the couch.

About half an hour later, Max and Darren arrived and they began the tournament. Kelly fared well in the first and second rounds, but was defeated by Max in the third round. With a cry of dismay, she let her controller drop to the ground as she groaned. Great. Homework. Yippee.

“Hah, you have to do my homework, Kelly!” Darren smirked when he beat Theo in the final round. He turned around and Kelly nearly fell off the couch to see Lloyd instead of Darren. What the hell?

“Darren?”

“Huh?” the guy blinked. “No, it’s Lloyd!”

Yes… Of course he was Lloyd… But she could’ve sworn it’d been Darren a few seconds ago…

“You okay, Kelly?” Mandy turned with concern, except it wasn’t Mandy; it was Colette’s concerned face looking at her. Kelly screwed up her face in confusion and agony. She couldn’t keep the mental list of her friends straight anymore… They were starting to blur into each other, melding together to form grotesque forms of-

-333-

Her eyes snapped open to the bright light, which was unfortunate, because her head immediately started spinning. Oh, God, she felt like she was going to throw up! Thankfully, someone had some brains here and managed to slide a bucket neatly under her as she started puking her guts out. She hadn’t had much to eat yesterday so there really wasn’t much to upend, so she started retching on air.

Someone, she couldn’t see who, quickly handed her a glass of water, which she downed in one large gulp, which lessened the pain and stopped her throwing up almost immediately.

She glanced up through slitted eyes to see the others looking at her with concerned expressions. What’d happened…? And why did it feel like there were numerous Mario hammers pounding around in her cranium?

“Kelly, are you alright?” Raine came over to put a hand on her forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever, which is good.”

“What…” Kelly managed to croak out through her pounding headache. She tried again. “What… happen?”

“You managed to get yourself drugged,” Kratos was the one who answered, instead of Raine. “Did you eat or drink anything strange yesterday?”

Kelly cleared her throat a few times before answering in a raspy voice, “Not that I can recall… I came back after the sparring session and quickly brushed my teeth before going to bed…”

“Wait, where did you brush your teeth?” Colette spoke up, staring at the archer oddly. “There was no toothbrush or anything when I came in.”

Kelly frowned. That couldn’t be right. The toothbrush had been sitting right on the counter of the tiny little bathroom, next to a small cup of… water… It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. Of course, Kelly was no genius, as she demonstrated by slapping her throbbing head.

“I am so stupid,” she hissed, more frustrated with herself than anything. “It must’ve been the water…!”

“What water?” Raine questioned, listening keenly as Kelly explained about the cup of water in the bathroom. “It must have been from our assassins.”

“Assassins?” she couldn’t comprehend what the woman said for a second before the memory of seeing that woman at the steamboat came back. “You mean that Sheena woman?”

“Is that her name?” the healer frowned thoughtfully. “Lloyd said that he saw her and someone else in the hallway last night. He said the stranger had blue hair.”

“Blue… hair…?” the archer frowned for a second. Something… Something important was nagging at her mind, but she couldn’t quite remember what. But she felt like it was something she should remember, something she’d thought about hundreds of times… Damn it! When Raine looked at her curiously, she shook her head. “Never mind.”

“At any rate, we will not be able to travel today,” Kratos said. “I doubt you can even walk with some traces of the drug still left in you.”

“Aw, man!” Lloyd moaned. “We’re stuck in Palmacosta for another day?”

“Lloyd!” Colette reprimanded gently, for that, Kelly was eternally grateful because she had a raging headache and Lloyd’s usually loud mouth was not helping in the least. “We can’t leave until Genis and Miss Kelly get better!”

“Unfortunately, Chosen One, it is likely that our assassins now know that we plan on staying in Palmacosta for a while,” Kratos replied grimly. “And it is more likely that they shall continue to ambush us each night, especially now that they know that two members of our group are currently incapacitated.”

“I’m not completely useless, you know,” Kelly scowled. “Just get me some more water and maybe some aspirins and I’ll be fine.”

“Aspirins are expensive,” Raine sighed. “And we can’t afford that kind of luxury.”

“Okay, get me some water and I’ll be perfectly fine,” Kelly declared as she stood up… only to plop back down on the bed. It was either that or have her knees give out underneath her and fall head first onto the ground. “You know what? I think I’m going stay here for a while. Anyone got any paper?”

“Um, I have some parchment if you like, Kelly,” Colette offered with a smile.

“Oh, sorry, Colette, but I’d rather not write on sheepskin,” Kelly shuddered very slightly. After all, that was what parchment was made out of. Sheepskin. It was really disturbing but then again, if you didn’t have paper, she supposed parchment was the only option. “Whatever, I’ll take it. Got a quill or a pencil?”

“What do you need all this for?” Raine asked curiously, handing her a sharpened pencil.

“I’m going to write down all the side effects of this drug, just in case we bump into it again sometime during the journey,” she replied, writing down ‘headache’ as the first side effect. Hopefully, she could piece all the side effects together and figure out what kind of drug it was. She didn’t take Chemistry in her first year of university for nothing.

“Good idea,” Raine nodded. “We’ll leave you to it, then. I need to go check on Genis again.”

“Let’s go see the rest of Palmacosta, Lloyd!” Colette turned to the boy with an excited smile, which was returned by him as they left after Raine.

Kelly raised an eyebrow when she realized that Kratos was still in the room and staring at her.

“Are you hoping to find an antidote for it?” he asked her quietly. Why did he care anyways?

“No… I’m just completely bored out of my mind,” Kelly sighed, rubbing her temples. “And trying to distract myself from this irritating headache. I swear to G- Martel, I will castrate the person who drugged me.”

“I see…” he looked the faintest of amused. Bastard. “I’ll leave you to your work, then.”

She turned her attention back to the parchment in her lap as the mercenary left, closing the door with a quiet ‘click’ behind him. Kelly picked up the pencil before tapping her temple with it irritably. Okay, so the first thing she did when she woke up was puke her guts out.

Nausea

Oh, yeah, and the drug was probably meant to induce sleep on someone, going by what Lloyd had said about her blacking out after half a sentence to him.

Sleep-inducing

Let’s see… What else…? Oh, yeah!

Partial amnesia

Because she knew that blue hair had something of significance in her mind, but she couldn’t separate the jumble that it was in right now. And that heinous nightmare… It was just creepy… Was she really starting to confuse her Earth friends with Lloyd and the others? Sure, Colette reminded her of Mandy at times with their spacey attitudes, and Lloyd and Darren were both fairly… for lack of a better word, dumb. Genis could almost be her younger brother, Ron. Both were annoying as hell sometimes.

She couldn’t really think of an Earth counterpart to Kratos, though. That man belonged in a category all his own.

Someday, she’d figure him out. But not now, because that headache was killing her. Damn it! Why did aspirin have to be so expensive in this world? And she couldn’t even go for a nice walk to clear her head because of the stupid lasting side effects.

Poor coordination

Kelly let out a sigh before letting herself fall back onto the blankets of the bed with a ‘plop’. This was going to be one long day.