[Tales of Symphonia] A Pawn in Exile - 2/?
A Pawn in Exile - 2/?
Author: Myaru
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Rating: really doesn't need one
Notes: Divergent Timeline, no beta, fewer fucks to give than usual
More notes: I do have a plan. It’s just a, uh, very general plan, and I’m basically flying by the seat of my pants when writing most chapters. That’s what I’ve always done, but now I feel slightly guilty every time I do it.
05.10.19: I'm eventually going to delete this, as it doesn't fit well with my rewritten timeline. My... very general rewritten timeline.
*
All half-elves become Desians in the end.
Raine’s grandfather was the first to say it to her. Others didn’t have the temerity, but they said it behind her back, believed it, and negotiated her life away to the slavers of Tethe’alla, as they had done to countless other nine year olds over the long years since the Kharlan War. Only as an adult had she begun to ask herself if it might be true.
We’re not like them, she assured Genis once, years ago. Three? More like four. Maybe even five. Time and circumstances were going to make a liar of her.
The Desians as an entity no longer existed, of course; after she arranged for the destruction of their bases during Colette’s journey, not many were left, and now--now all signs of Desians, of Cruxis, of the evil of half-elves, had disappeared just as the teachings of the Church promised would happen after the regeneration of the world. The tower shined like a silver beacon on the horizon. Angels walked the earth in Sylvarant, at least according to Yuan’s operatives, who watched on the other side of the divide.
We’re not like them.
Raine admitted the Renegades weren’t demonstrably different from the enemy. It was in the name: whatever Cruxis was, they refused to be. Only--that was a fallacy. The more they tried to be different, the more identical they became. Raine decided she would live with it. Better to compromise her scruples than allow that her brother might become one of them wholeheartedly.
He was only twelve when he disappeared. A child. Smart, but still just a child--still vulnerable,still angry, still afraid. Still unaware that he was arrogant in his precociousness and liable to think himself into trouble. The system in place to welcome so-called refugees to the Cruxis fold churned the acid in her stomach with its seeming simplicity and, Yuan believed, the sincerity behind it.
“They believe in ‘Lord Yggdrasil’ like people down here believe in Martel,” he’d said, leaning on the arm of his chair, chin in his hand. He shrugged. “Swallowed the promise for equality hook, line, and sinker. In the beginning, I’m pretty sure even Mithos believed it. When people believe…”
When someone wanted, badly, to believe…
“Genis is smarter than that,” Raine had said, her voice surprising her with its harshness.
“Down here, maybe.” Yuan didn’t look her in the eye. He’d not yet explained how exactly he was leader of the Renegades and also Seraphim of Cruxis, or why she should take his word for everything. But it was his system, at least partly. He knew it well. He said, “Down here, with your friend Lloyd to reassure him that not all humans will reject him, I’m sure your brother would hold steady.”
Raine clenched her hands into the hem of her coat. Hard. They trembled. She waited.
“How long has he been up there, now? Two months, three? Even people trained to resist indoctrination would be dead right now if they resisted that long. Your brother has none of that. How will he resist? Upstairs, surrounded by people who share his experiences, who accept him without question, who welcome him home? Where he may do anything, learn anything, say anything without fear--at least at first--”
Raine squeezed her eyes shut as tight as her hands around the coat. She wasn’t about to cry, not in front of this man. Her teeth clenched over what she wanted to say, although she didn’t know what that might be. You’re wrong, this is silly, don’t be a fool, he knows better--
Genis had known their days in Iselia were numbered. That acceptance, that happy place, would turn on them eventually, if they were ever found out. She didn’t hide it from him. They had to be prepared to run at any moment--to hide, or at utmost desperation, take refuge at that awful place in the forest, though she would risk anything short of death to avoid seeking aid from Desians.
Yuan didn’t let up. “Where showing his ears won’t be a death sentence--”
“Enough!” Raine snapped. She wasn’t stupid; when she allowed herself to think about it, about what might have awaited her brother up there, if it wasn’t death--of course that occurred to her. Of course what Cruxis had to offer them was appealing, of course her brother would feel the pull. Even she did, if she dwelled on it too long--that secret longing for peace, for surety, for an end to hiding, for freedom. And she’d protected them from that lure for so long. Why did this have to happen? How had it come to this?
“Your brother is dead to us,” Yuan said, merciless. “Will you fight his murderers or not?”
*
The path to the Renegades was a long one, though not as long as Raine would have liked it to be.
It began with the destruction of the Renegade base near Flanoir. Far away across Tethe’alla, still limned in red in her memory the way enemy territory would be on a map, it had not yet occurred to her to travel there. All Raine saw at first was the light - a distant, silvery finger of light brighter than the sun. The arctic was past the natural curve of the planet, invisible from Altessa’s sanctuary, but they saw the spidersilk-thin beam trace down the sky, and saw the sky bleed orange. The sunset that night was red.
The Light of Judgment, her mind whispered.
Less than a day since Genis disappeared. Her mind was still fogged, Altessa still struggling to breathe in the other room.
There was only one way, said Zelos, that they could have done it so quickly.
“They might be pressuring him for information,” Raine said, reluctant to use more precise vocabulary.
“Or maybe they don’t have to.” Zelos looked away when she glared, but his voice betrayed defensiveness. “Look, he’s been hanging out with Mithos all this time, and then conveniently disappears with him a few weeks before the big light from the sky obliterates half the arctic? Come on. It’s a valid possibility.”
“We aren’t like them,” Raine said, throat tight, but her eyes dry. For now. “We have never wanted to be like them.”.
“You aren’t. You never wanted to. But we all heard the same conversation in the Tower, unless you went temporarily deaf and missed the way Genis became super interested in Yggdrasil’s ideas.”
“But they do sound good--on the surface,” Lloyd said. “He would never go over to their side. I’m positive.”
“Genis is young,” Regal said, quiet, coming to her rescue. “To a young half-elf, they no doubt sounded quite reasonable. I also recall that he retracted his interest after some thought.”
After a dose of Lloyd optimism, Zelos said under his breath. He wasn’t wrong, and because Raine knew it, her next reply came out sharp: “Then, given a more mature perspective, Chosen, what convinced you to deviate to the enemy?”
He didn’t have a reply to that. He knew better--Zelos would whine his defensiveness to Sheena when she’d listen, but Raine hadn’t the patience for it. This was his fault. His doing. His drug in the food that left them vulnerable to the Renegades when they attacked, his continuous betrayals that led to Collette’s recapture again and again. For all she knew, he wasn’t just a mole for the Renegades, but a spy for Cruxis as well. Play both teams, choose the one most likely to win. Why not? He stood to gain everything if Cruxis won, and would lose nothing if Lloyd did--would, in fact, seem a hero.
The better part of Raine’s conscience told her that was unfair. Later she’d grant that it was probably right. And--even if Zelos did spy for Cruxis, that did not mean he knew what happened to Genis.
They had to go. They had to see for themselves where the light touched down, or all they’d be doing is guessing in the dark. Besides, it was always possible the Renegade scouts had seized her brother during their approach; Raine hadn’t seen any evidence of his return; just a pair of tracks, smallish footsteps walking out to the horizon, until the trail disappeared into the grass.
*
The slate-blue sea greeted them at the coordinates saved in her reihard’s dashboard. Their transfer point, a rift between dimensions sustained by reactors deep within the base, was gone. Snow flitted down, swirled around Raine’s face, melted in the discharge of the engine. Jagged edges of rock, what might have been the remnant of a crater before the water went rushing in, poked out of the water, made frothy whitecaps at wide intervals. Over the intercom, someone expressed what she was thinking, in terms she might’ve even used, just this once:
“Well, shit,” Zelos said.
Raine had never been good with hope. She’d fooled herself into it, into the belief that surely, they’d be greeted here with hostility first, then a hostage demand. That hope died quietly. Back to square one: Cruxis, whom she had no idea how to contact or fight.
“So…” Sheena paused, cleared her throat. Static distorted her voice into a tinny, computerized sound. “How do we get to Sylvarant now?”
“Why would we want--” Lloyd began.
“The other base,” Regal said.
“Wouldn’t Yggdrasil have gotten that too?”
That depended on where or how Cruxis had gotten their information. Raine knew one of them, at least, was thinking it.
“We should land,” she said firmly. Coldly. Her hands were beginning to freeze through the gloves. Ice chapped her lips. “I see lights. Flanoir is still here.”
Wind whistled past her ears, mimicking the sound of her pounding blood. They were pushed off course twice, and by the time they reached the plain outside the city, snow fell so thickly the sunset was only a haze through the fog of it. They stumbled into the common room of the largest inn on the main street, the sudden warmth slapping into her like a wet, heavy blanket, and for a moment the glare of electric lights, unobstructed by snow or haze, rendered Raine blind for an instant. She blinked rapidly to focus.
The tables were empty. Off season, she remembered, squeezing her eyes closed and then prying them open again. Ice crinkled on her lashes, or was that just her imagination?
Regal approached the desk to arrange rooms. Sheena disappeared to ‘rustle up some kitchen staff,’ and the rest of them trooped into the dining room. Two tables pushed together made enough room for them to crowd around. Above, simple iron chandeliers hung on chains, and the lights were enclosed in old jam jars painted with glaze, so they threw down triangles of light in different colors that patterned over Raine’s hands in red and blue. The table was worn smooth by both polish and generations of hands, elbows, palates.
Two waitresses came out behind Sheena, one holding a tray with steaming cups of tea, and the other with a platter of cold ham sliced thin, three kinds of cheese, bread, and cold, shredded chicken. After depositing small plates in front of everybody at the table, the two girls disappeared through the kitchen doors.
“So…” Now it was Collette who drew out her vowels, hands fidgeting together. She looked around the table. “How do we rescue Genis?”
Raine stared at the food. Everything looked freshly sliced--no dry or brittle edges. No cracks.
“It would help to know where he is,” Presea finally said, when no one else spoke.
“Tower of Salvation,” Zelos said, at the same time Sheena asked, “Renegades…?”
Regal served himself a slice of ham, one of bread, another of cheese, but did not eat. “They do not seem the type of organization to hide a hostage when they have one. Not from us. If they took Genis, they want something. If--”
If the group survived. Nobody mentioned the empty water where the base had been built into a huge iceberg, now gone--but they were thinking about it, from their expressions. They’d heard nothing from the Renegades. Which could have something to do with the base being blown out of the water, but if Yuan was smart--and he had reason to avoid Lloyd and everyone after that stunt at Altessa’s, not just Cruxis--then he’d have chosen another destination, or at least realized the danger to his bases. Mithos had, after all, been traveling with them for quite some time--
Raine’s head snapped up. Yes, there was that--
“Uh, professor…?”
Raine refocused on the young faces around the table. “How long would you say Mithos traveled with us?”
Lloyd looked at Sheena. “When did we--it was Ozette, right?”
“Bout six months,” Sheena said. “More or less. I mean, he was at Altessa’s a lot of that time... supposedly.”
Yes, supposedly. Tabatha had been looking after him. Quite difficult to keep track of, she’d said when Raine asked her about Mithos; he liked to take long walks, sometimes to look at the ruins o the town, and was not always back by curfew. She’d not suspected a thing, of course; nobody had. Nobody except Genis, her mind insisted on suggesting, and they took quite a few of those long walks together, didn’t they? Raine shut that thought up immediately.
“We never took him to any of those bases,” Zelos said, catching on.
“But we spoke of them often in his presence,” Raine said.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his temples . “Yeah, I do remember thinking we should’ve kept our mouths shut…”
“How could we have known?” Sheena said. “He was a--he looked like a kid. A stray.”
Raine made herself put a sandwich together and eat. Nothing looked appetizing, but she’d skipped breakfast, and lunch passed while they were airborne. Her body was still cramped from the long, cold hours of travel, and before that, from hunching in her chair at Altessa’s table, going over the previous night again and again: what Genis had said, how he looked and sounded saying it, what Mithos looked like, what he said. Innocent, all of it. It’s too hot in here, Genis had complained. You’ll be able to see us from the windows, I promise. Please, Raine?
She should have said no. He’d looked pale, pinched. She should have said no.
“Cruxis is still more likely,” Zelos said. “They do take hostages, and they don’t always make it known.”
“And how,” Sheena said, glancing at him sidelong, “would you know that?”
“History,” Zelos said. His smile was more teeth than mirth, and looked a bit sickly. “The last Chosen of Regeneration--but I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that, obviously.”
Sheena’s expression froze. Colette, however, perked up. “I’d like to hear about that someday,” she said. And then, glancing around quickly, “Not right now, of course, just… someday. We need to help Genis.”
“Well if it’s Cruxis,” Lloyd said around a bite of ham and cheese, “we know where they are, at least. We can find out soon as this storm blows over.”
The last Chosen from Tethe’alla--something about that tickled Raine’s memory, but she couldn’t pick up on the thread. Anything about the Chosen was basic history in children's’ learning courses, so she would have been taught, but nothing--nothing except Genis’s last words came clearly to her mind. Don’t worry so much, Raine. We’ll be back soon, promise.
*
The Tower of Salvation was their next logical stop. It didn’t sit well with Raine, though she understood why everyone, even Collette, had voted for it. They’d gotten in before, went the reasoning, so why not now? If you think about it, Lloyd even said, it’s a huge security breach, just the kind of thing Kratos would’ve hated. And, Sheena added after--Yggdrasil wanted them dead or neutralized, so with the tower being the only way in or out of that creepy angel city, it made sense to expect them to visit. Obviously there’d be a trap waiting.
And that was the problem. Collette didn’t have enough of an instinct for survival; she approached the idea of a trap without fear. Or maybe it was faith; even if she got captured, Lloyd had saved her before, and would surely do so again. Right?
Raine had a problem keeping hold of hope. She’d trusted Genis to the same luck they had with Collette, and look where that got them.
She should have gone with them. She should have done something other than watch her brother disappear through that door and into the night, never to be seen again.
Nothing came out of the Tower to meet them. Raine brought up the rear, but aside from the harsh reflection of the sun from the facade and the contrasting darkness of the ditch on either side of the first set of stairs, she saw nothing. Lloyd and Regal led the way slowly, watching for traps. From the middle, Collette and Presea scanned the sky and the nearby hills and mountain slopes to spot any angelic guards before they could close distance. Nothing.
A lot of nothing. Until--
“Uh,” Lloyd said.
The group stopped at the landing. Raine almost ran into Zelos, but Sheena’s hand steadied her.
“What happened to the door?” Lloyd asked.
Zelos shoved his way to the front, and Raine followed, but there was enough room for all of them to spread out on the top landing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Zelos said.
Smooth, silvery metal met them where the doors should have been--doors they all remembered, that they’d kicked open twice on missions to save Collette. Those doors were gone. In their place stretched the three wings of the Cruxis emblem, carved into the unbroken surface of metal, and it showed signs of wear--bits of rust, moss--at the most intricate corners of the cutting, almost as if it had been there forever.
“A hologram?” Raine suggested. “An illusion? There are artes--”
Lloyd banged on the surface with his fist, demanding entry. Nothing. It sounded solid, no sign of a room or hallway on the other side that her ears could pick up. He felt around, perhaps for some kind of switch or trigger. “Can the tower rotate or something--?”
Perhaps it could. Even with knowledge gleaned as they traveled, the technology at play had advanced past what Raine could understand, except in fits and bursts. The alien resources available to their enemy was one of the primary tactical problems facing their small group, and Raine knew the tower itself was well beyond her capability to understand without more time, resources, and study.
And so, it seemed, was Genis.
Author: Myaru
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Rating: really doesn't need one
Notes: Divergent Timeline, no beta, fewer fucks to give than usual
More notes: I do have a plan. It’s just a, uh, very general plan, and I’m basically flying by the seat of my pants when writing most chapters. That’s what I’ve always done, but now I feel slightly guilty every time I do it.
05.10.19: I'm eventually going to delete this, as it doesn't fit well with my rewritten timeline. My... very general rewritten timeline.
*
All half-elves become Desians in the end.
Raine’s grandfather was the first to say it to her. Others didn’t have the temerity, but they said it behind her back, believed it, and negotiated her life away to the slavers of Tethe’alla, as they had done to countless other nine year olds over the long years since the Kharlan War. Only as an adult had she begun to ask herself if it might be true.
We’re not like them, she assured Genis once, years ago. Three? More like four. Maybe even five. Time and circumstances were going to make a liar of her.
The Desians as an entity no longer existed, of course; after she arranged for the destruction of their bases during Colette’s journey, not many were left, and now--now all signs of Desians, of Cruxis, of the evil of half-elves, had disappeared just as the teachings of the Church promised would happen after the regeneration of the world. The tower shined like a silver beacon on the horizon. Angels walked the earth in Sylvarant, at least according to Yuan’s operatives, who watched on the other side of the divide.
We’re not like them.
Raine admitted the Renegades weren’t demonstrably different from the enemy. It was in the name: whatever Cruxis was, they refused to be. Only--that was a fallacy. The more they tried to be different, the more identical they became. Raine decided she would live with it. Better to compromise her scruples than allow that her brother might become one of them wholeheartedly.
He was only twelve when he disappeared. A child. Smart, but still just a child--still vulnerable,still angry, still afraid. Still unaware that he was arrogant in his precociousness and liable to think himself into trouble. The system in place to welcome so-called refugees to the Cruxis fold churned the acid in her stomach with its seeming simplicity and, Yuan believed, the sincerity behind it.
“They believe in ‘Lord Yggdrasil’ like people down here believe in Martel,” he’d said, leaning on the arm of his chair, chin in his hand. He shrugged. “Swallowed the promise for equality hook, line, and sinker. In the beginning, I’m pretty sure even Mithos believed it. When people believe…”
When someone wanted, badly, to believe…
“Genis is smarter than that,” Raine had said, her voice surprising her with its harshness.
“Down here, maybe.” Yuan didn’t look her in the eye. He’d not yet explained how exactly he was leader of the Renegades and also Seraphim of Cruxis, or why she should take his word for everything. But it was his system, at least partly. He knew it well. He said, “Down here, with your friend Lloyd to reassure him that not all humans will reject him, I’m sure your brother would hold steady.”
Raine clenched her hands into the hem of her coat. Hard. They trembled. She waited.
“How long has he been up there, now? Two months, three? Even people trained to resist indoctrination would be dead right now if they resisted that long. Your brother has none of that. How will he resist? Upstairs, surrounded by people who share his experiences, who accept him without question, who welcome him home? Where he may do anything, learn anything, say anything without fear--at least at first--”
Raine squeezed her eyes shut as tight as her hands around the coat. She wasn’t about to cry, not in front of this man. Her teeth clenched over what she wanted to say, although she didn’t know what that might be. You’re wrong, this is silly, don’t be a fool, he knows better--
Genis had known their days in Iselia were numbered. That acceptance, that happy place, would turn on them eventually, if they were ever found out. She didn’t hide it from him. They had to be prepared to run at any moment--to hide, or at utmost desperation, take refuge at that awful place in the forest, though she would risk anything short of death to avoid seeking aid from Desians.
Yuan didn’t let up. “Where showing his ears won’t be a death sentence--”
“Enough!” Raine snapped. She wasn’t stupid; when she allowed herself to think about it, about what might have awaited her brother up there, if it wasn’t death--of course that occurred to her. Of course what Cruxis had to offer them was appealing, of course her brother would feel the pull. Even she did, if she dwelled on it too long--that secret longing for peace, for surety, for an end to hiding, for freedom. And she’d protected them from that lure for so long. Why did this have to happen? How had it come to this?
“Your brother is dead to us,” Yuan said, merciless. “Will you fight his murderers or not?”
*
The path to the Renegades was a long one, though not as long as Raine would have liked it to be.
It began with the destruction of the Renegade base near Flanoir. Far away across Tethe’alla, still limned in red in her memory the way enemy territory would be on a map, it had not yet occurred to her to travel there. All Raine saw at first was the light - a distant, silvery finger of light brighter than the sun. The arctic was past the natural curve of the planet, invisible from Altessa’s sanctuary, but they saw the spidersilk-thin beam trace down the sky, and saw the sky bleed orange. The sunset that night was red.
The Light of Judgment, her mind whispered.
Less than a day since Genis disappeared. Her mind was still fogged, Altessa still struggling to breathe in the other room.
There was only one way, said Zelos, that they could have done it so quickly.
“They might be pressuring him for information,” Raine said, reluctant to use more precise vocabulary.
“Or maybe they don’t have to.” Zelos looked away when she glared, but his voice betrayed defensiveness. “Look, he’s been hanging out with Mithos all this time, and then conveniently disappears with him a few weeks before the big light from the sky obliterates half the arctic? Come on. It’s a valid possibility.”
“We aren’t like them,” Raine said, throat tight, but her eyes dry. For now. “We have never wanted to be like them.”.
“You aren’t. You never wanted to. But we all heard the same conversation in the Tower, unless you went temporarily deaf and missed the way Genis became super interested in Yggdrasil’s ideas.”
“But they do sound good--on the surface,” Lloyd said. “He would never go over to their side. I’m positive.”
“Genis is young,” Regal said, quiet, coming to her rescue. “To a young half-elf, they no doubt sounded quite reasonable. I also recall that he retracted his interest after some thought.”
After a dose of Lloyd optimism, Zelos said under his breath. He wasn’t wrong, and because Raine knew it, her next reply came out sharp: “Then, given a more mature perspective, Chosen, what convinced you to deviate to the enemy?”
He didn’t have a reply to that. He knew better--Zelos would whine his defensiveness to Sheena when she’d listen, but Raine hadn’t the patience for it. This was his fault. His doing. His drug in the food that left them vulnerable to the Renegades when they attacked, his continuous betrayals that led to Collette’s recapture again and again. For all she knew, he wasn’t just a mole for the Renegades, but a spy for Cruxis as well. Play both teams, choose the one most likely to win. Why not? He stood to gain everything if Cruxis won, and would lose nothing if Lloyd did--would, in fact, seem a hero.
The better part of Raine’s conscience told her that was unfair. Later she’d grant that it was probably right. And--even if Zelos did spy for Cruxis, that did not mean he knew what happened to Genis.
They had to go. They had to see for themselves where the light touched down, or all they’d be doing is guessing in the dark. Besides, it was always possible the Renegade scouts had seized her brother during their approach; Raine hadn’t seen any evidence of his return; just a pair of tracks, smallish footsteps walking out to the horizon, until the trail disappeared into the grass.
*
The slate-blue sea greeted them at the coordinates saved in her reihard’s dashboard. Their transfer point, a rift between dimensions sustained by reactors deep within the base, was gone. Snow flitted down, swirled around Raine’s face, melted in the discharge of the engine. Jagged edges of rock, what might have been the remnant of a crater before the water went rushing in, poked out of the water, made frothy whitecaps at wide intervals. Over the intercom, someone expressed what she was thinking, in terms she might’ve even used, just this once:
“Well, shit,” Zelos said.
Raine had never been good with hope. She’d fooled herself into it, into the belief that surely, they’d be greeted here with hostility first, then a hostage demand. That hope died quietly. Back to square one: Cruxis, whom she had no idea how to contact or fight.
“So…” Sheena paused, cleared her throat. Static distorted her voice into a tinny, computerized sound. “How do we get to Sylvarant now?”
“Why would we want--” Lloyd began.
“The other base,” Regal said.
“Wouldn’t Yggdrasil have gotten that too?”
That depended on where or how Cruxis had gotten their information. Raine knew one of them, at least, was thinking it.
“We should land,” she said firmly. Coldly. Her hands were beginning to freeze through the gloves. Ice chapped her lips. “I see lights. Flanoir is still here.”
Wind whistled past her ears, mimicking the sound of her pounding blood. They were pushed off course twice, and by the time they reached the plain outside the city, snow fell so thickly the sunset was only a haze through the fog of it. They stumbled into the common room of the largest inn on the main street, the sudden warmth slapping into her like a wet, heavy blanket, and for a moment the glare of electric lights, unobstructed by snow or haze, rendered Raine blind for an instant. She blinked rapidly to focus.
The tables were empty. Off season, she remembered, squeezing her eyes closed and then prying them open again. Ice crinkled on her lashes, or was that just her imagination?
Regal approached the desk to arrange rooms. Sheena disappeared to ‘rustle up some kitchen staff,’ and the rest of them trooped into the dining room. Two tables pushed together made enough room for them to crowd around. Above, simple iron chandeliers hung on chains, and the lights were enclosed in old jam jars painted with glaze, so they threw down triangles of light in different colors that patterned over Raine’s hands in red and blue. The table was worn smooth by both polish and generations of hands, elbows, palates.
Two waitresses came out behind Sheena, one holding a tray with steaming cups of tea, and the other with a platter of cold ham sliced thin, three kinds of cheese, bread, and cold, shredded chicken. After depositing small plates in front of everybody at the table, the two girls disappeared through the kitchen doors.
“So…” Now it was Collette who drew out her vowels, hands fidgeting together. She looked around the table. “How do we rescue Genis?”
Raine stared at the food. Everything looked freshly sliced--no dry or brittle edges. No cracks.
“It would help to know where he is,” Presea finally said, when no one else spoke.
“Tower of Salvation,” Zelos said, at the same time Sheena asked, “Renegades…?”
Regal served himself a slice of ham, one of bread, another of cheese, but did not eat. “They do not seem the type of organization to hide a hostage when they have one. Not from us. If they took Genis, they want something. If--”
If the group survived. Nobody mentioned the empty water where the base had been built into a huge iceberg, now gone--but they were thinking about it, from their expressions. They’d heard nothing from the Renegades. Which could have something to do with the base being blown out of the water, but if Yuan was smart--and he had reason to avoid Lloyd and everyone after that stunt at Altessa’s, not just Cruxis--then he’d have chosen another destination, or at least realized the danger to his bases. Mithos had, after all, been traveling with them for quite some time--
Raine’s head snapped up. Yes, there was that--
“Uh, professor…?”
Raine refocused on the young faces around the table. “How long would you say Mithos traveled with us?”
Lloyd looked at Sheena. “When did we--it was Ozette, right?”
“Bout six months,” Sheena said. “More or less. I mean, he was at Altessa’s a lot of that time... supposedly.”
Yes, supposedly. Tabatha had been looking after him. Quite difficult to keep track of, she’d said when Raine asked her about Mithos; he liked to take long walks, sometimes to look at the ruins o the town, and was not always back by curfew. She’d not suspected a thing, of course; nobody had. Nobody except Genis, her mind insisted on suggesting, and they took quite a few of those long walks together, didn’t they? Raine shut that thought up immediately.
“We never took him to any of those bases,” Zelos said, catching on.
“But we spoke of them often in his presence,” Raine said.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his temples . “Yeah, I do remember thinking we should’ve kept our mouths shut…”
“How could we have known?” Sheena said. “He was a--he looked like a kid. A stray.”
Raine made herself put a sandwich together and eat. Nothing looked appetizing, but she’d skipped breakfast, and lunch passed while they were airborne. Her body was still cramped from the long, cold hours of travel, and before that, from hunching in her chair at Altessa’s table, going over the previous night again and again: what Genis had said, how he looked and sounded saying it, what Mithos looked like, what he said. Innocent, all of it. It’s too hot in here, Genis had complained. You’ll be able to see us from the windows, I promise. Please, Raine?
She should have said no. He’d looked pale, pinched. She should have said no.
“Cruxis is still more likely,” Zelos said. “They do take hostages, and they don’t always make it known.”
“And how,” Sheena said, glancing at him sidelong, “would you know that?”
“History,” Zelos said. His smile was more teeth than mirth, and looked a bit sickly. “The last Chosen of Regeneration--but I wouldn’t expect you to know anything about that, obviously.”
Sheena’s expression froze. Colette, however, perked up. “I’d like to hear about that someday,” she said. And then, glancing around quickly, “Not right now, of course, just… someday. We need to help Genis.”
“Well if it’s Cruxis,” Lloyd said around a bite of ham and cheese, “we know where they are, at least. We can find out soon as this storm blows over.”
The last Chosen from Tethe’alla--something about that tickled Raine’s memory, but she couldn’t pick up on the thread. Anything about the Chosen was basic history in children's’ learning courses, so she would have been taught, but nothing--nothing except Genis’s last words came clearly to her mind. Don’t worry so much, Raine. We’ll be back soon, promise.
*
The Tower of Salvation was their next logical stop. It didn’t sit well with Raine, though she understood why everyone, even Collette, had voted for it. They’d gotten in before, went the reasoning, so why not now? If you think about it, Lloyd even said, it’s a huge security breach, just the kind of thing Kratos would’ve hated. And, Sheena added after--Yggdrasil wanted them dead or neutralized, so with the tower being the only way in or out of that creepy angel city, it made sense to expect them to visit. Obviously there’d be a trap waiting.
And that was the problem. Collette didn’t have enough of an instinct for survival; she approached the idea of a trap without fear. Or maybe it was faith; even if she got captured, Lloyd had saved her before, and would surely do so again. Right?
Raine had a problem keeping hold of hope. She’d trusted Genis to the same luck they had with Collette, and look where that got them.
She should have gone with them. She should have done something other than watch her brother disappear through that door and into the night, never to be seen again.
Nothing came out of the Tower to meet them. Raine brought up the rear, but aside from the harsh reflection of the sun from the facade and the contrasting darkness of the ditch on either side of the first set of stairs, she saw nothing. Lloyd and Regal led the way slowly, watching for traps. From the middle, Collette and Presea scanned the sky and the nearby hills and mountain slopes to spot any angelic guards before they could close distance. Nothing.
A lot of nothing. Until--
“Uh,” Lloyd said.
The group stopped at the landing. Raine almost ran into Zelos, but Sheena’s hand steadied her.
“What happened to the door?” Lloyd asked.
Zelos shoved his way to the front, and Raine followed, but there was enough room for all of them to spread out on the top landing.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Zelos said.
Smooth, silvery metal met them where the doors should have been--doors they all remembered, that they’d kicked open twice on missions to save Collette. Those doors were gone. In their place stretched the three wings of the Cruxis emblem, carved into the unbroken surface of metal, and it showed signs of wear--bits of rust, moss--at the most intricate corners of the cutting, almost as if it had been there forever.
“A hologram?” Raine suggested. “An illusion? There are artes--”
Lloyd banged on the surface with his fist, demanding entry. Nothing. It sounded solid, no sign of a room or hallway on the other side that her ears could pick up. He felt around, perhaps for some kind of switch or trigger. “Can the tower rotate or something--?”
Perhaps it could. Even with knowledge gleaned as they traveled, the technology at play had advanced past what Raine could understand, except in fits and bursts. The alien resources available to their enemy was one of the primary tactical problems facing their small group, and Raine knew the tower itself was well beyond her capability to understand without more time, resources, and study.
And so, it seemed, was Genis.