Chapter Text
We immediately set out towards the ranch, intending to make it there before sunset. Most of us didn't have a lot to say under the circumstances, though I noticed Scarlex sending inscrutable glances my way every so often.
Eventually some thoughts percolated and I drifted over to Raine to confirm them. "Say, Raine. How much of my notes have you decrypted?" I gave a significant glance in Scarlex's direction, which I was pretty sure she didn't notice.
"A fair amount." Raine's eyes discreetly shot towards Scarlex as well. More discreetly than I had managed. "Enough to determine that it was originally written by two people conversing with each other. And of the names mentioned, none of them are yours or hers, meaning..."
"She's the obvious candidate for the other writer," I finished. "That's what I was thinking too. I mean, it's either that or I'm plural, but I thought hello and didn't get an answer." Just to be sure I thought helloooooooooooo? again. ... yep, still nothing. Not even a vague impression of overwhelming anxiety or anything.
Raine tilted her head. "Plural...? As in, multiple personalities?"
"Basically, though that's not —" I stumbled on my words a bit as I realized. "I — don't think — that's how people like to refer to it, but I don't know where I got that idea! Gah, memories are such rot!" I smacked my fist against my hand in irritation. (Scarlex glanced at me, befuddled, but I waved her off.) "... Never mind. Point is, yes, between her obvious intent to be here, connection to me, and the fact that there clearly is a co-writer, it's probably her, barring some improbable secret third person. So we planned this out together, which implies..."
I trailed off, unable to think of what it did in fact imply. That we were friends before? I'd worked that out already; if anything, us being friends implied her being the other writer. "... some...thing." I concluded pathetically. "Definitely something. I guess we'll have to keep our eyes open and figure out what."
It was obvious when we got to the ranch that they'd heard about Palmacosta, because the security was amped up. We weren't gonna just sneak in the back this time.
"Could you use your portals?" Colette asked Scarlex.
"Not without line of sight or having been there a few times before," Scarlex said. "So I could get into the courtyard, but no further. Don't want to accidentally portal us into, like, the firing range or the meat grinder or something. Hypothetical," Scarlex clarified at the appalled look on Lloyd's face. "Probably," she added in an undertone that she clearly thought nobody heard, even though Colette definitely would've even if nobody else had.
I didn't have time to ask why the Desians might have a meat grinder large enough to accidentally teleport into before Raine interjected. "There's a solution available that doesn't rely on Scarlex's magic."
Lloyd grinned. "Right, of course — we'll disguise ourselves as Desians and sneak in!"
"Of course that gets you thinking quickly," Raine said, sounding affectionately exasperated.
I glanced over towards the human ranch. It looked like they patrolled the area reasonably often. "So we set an ambush and steal their uniforms?"
"That's what you'll be doing," Scarlex said, taking some gadget out of her bag and fiddling with it. "I, as you might recall, have a better option available."
"You might recall that I don't recall —" I started to retort, before Scarlex put the thing on the back of her neck, and her entire body suddenly started to shift.
In but a few moments, she looked exactly like a Desian spearwoman. Everything about her had changed, from her hair (color and style) to her skin (tone and complexion) to her clothes and gear (fancy high-tech scythe turned into a Desian spear).
"WHAT."
Scarlex glared at me. "It's magic, obviously." Even her voice had changed.
I faltered for a few moments, having no idea how to respond to that. "I guess?"
"Glad we're on the same page." I wasn't so sure we were, but she didn't give me time to ask about it before she used her newly-shifted spear to swipe open a portal. "I'm gonna pop in and assert myself into the next patrol." And with a whoosh, she and the portal were gone.
"... you're sure we can trust her, Leaf?" Raine asked as we hid ourselves in the forest.
I thought about it. "... I'm sure her weird fixation is on me, specifically. So she at least won't pull anything that doesn't advance... whatever it is she thinks she's doing." I sighed. "Which helps less than it ought to, seeing as I can't for the life of me follow what that is."
"It'll have to do for now," Raine muttered.
"I can keep an eye on her," Lloyd said. "At least while she's with us."
"Thanks, Lloyd." I didn't think he could help all that much if she did something, given her established power level, but I still felt marginally better knowing he'd try.
"The Desian patrol is approaching," Kratos said. "Get ready."
We waited a few moments to be sure, until the one at the back waggled her eyebrows at me and tugged on her hair tie. Scarlex hadn't prearranged a signal, but it seemed obvious that this was meant to be one.
I quickly channeled a technique I'd worked out a while ago — "Reinforce!" — let the mana pull me towards Scarlex —
"What the h— gkh!" a Desian tried to exclaim, before being interrupted by Scarlex's scythe to the throat.
— "Doom Spike!" and unleashed my tree-shredding attack on the rest of the group.
"Mana Guard!" One of them had the presence of mind to put up a shield, saving him from being blasted about like his comrades, but —
"Hunting Beast!" "Pow Pow Hammer!" "Fierce Demon Fang!" "Pyre Seal!" "Stalagmite!" "Photon!" ... we had the advantage of numbers here, by quite a lot. It didn't take long before the entire patrol was down.
We quickly relieved the patrol of their uniforms, stuffed the bodies in some foliage, and retreated back to Luin.
...
"Huh," I huh'd. "We might've overdone it." After all that, only one of the uniforms was still wearable — the rest were so badly battle-damaged that there was no way we could use them.
"So the rest of us will have to pose as prisoners," Raine said.
"It's a women's uniform," I observed before Lloyd could work himself into a frenzy trying to volunteer, "so that's Lloyd and Kratos out for sure — and Genis too," I hastily added when he looked like he wanted to get offended at the suggestion he was anything but the manliest twelve-year-old elf on the planet. "Colette seems too recognizable, putting her in a disguise might backfire. For that matter, I'm a wanted criminal, so the same is true of me..." I looked over the uniform again. "... plus that looks a few sizes too small anyway."
"Oh!" Colette exclaimed. "I just got it! Short of Kratos! Cause he's the only one you're shorter than."
My train of thought ground to a halt for a moment while I put together what she was talking about. "... Colette, that was days ago. ... and not even an intentional joke!"
Scarlex almost suppressed a laugh. I glanced at her — for the first time in my recollection, she didn't look enraged at existence itself. She looked almost personable like this.
"In any case," Raine said, frowning at Colette for interrupting, "Sheena and I are the only ones in consideration for wearing this disguise, since Scarlex has her own method of disguising herself."
"I have a Desian uniform too," Sheena said. "I got it before I met Scarlex."
"I was wondering about that," Scarlex said. "You didn't have any time to go get it once I met you."
"You already knew‽ How‽"
Scarlex waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. So we have a plan? And don't worry about anyone recognizing the 'returning impostor' from today; I can take on a slightly different Desian form."
"That's... not a thing I had worried about until just now, thanks," I muttered. "Um, in any case, that means it's settled — Raine, Sheena, and Scarlex will be the Desians, and the rest of us will be the captives."
Honestly, I was a bit incredulous that this worked. Sure, all three women looked like authentic Desians — aside from Sheena's round ears, but Kratos had explained that one — and Raine told a wildly exciting story about how her squad (now decimated, of course) had valiantly fought us until we were forced to surrender, but it still seemed to beggar belief. Then again, I already knew it was a lie. The Desians had to actually evaluate it.
Whatever I thought about it, the guards bought it and hurried us inside with instructions to register our ID numbers — new ones, or were we already in the system somehow? — with special attention to me, Lloyd, and Genis, since the three of us were wanted criminals. (So I guess they ended up trumping an excuse up for Lloyd after all.) But no outsize attention to Colette, for some reason. Maybe she wasn't as recognizable as I thought.
Once we were inside, we rushed deeper into the base, ostensibly to "register" the "prisoners", but of course what we actually wanted was to get out of sight of the real Desians. Eventually we did find an empty room, which looked like some sort of control facility overlooking some conveyor belts.
"This appears to be an Exsphere manufacturing plant," Raine said.
"That is a lot of Exspheres," I said, looking at the packages rushing down the belts and doing some math in my head. "... if it runs at this speed for an eight hour work day, it'd produce over twenty thousand per day. That's... so many more than they could possibly need. Right?"
"Perhaps it doesn't run all day, or every day," Raine postulated. "But we simply don't know."
"Guys, I hear voices nearby," Colette said.
I didn't hear anything but I knew Colette could hear more than me — "Which direction?"
"That way."
We didn't have time to wonder what to do about it before Botta burst out, flanked by two minions. He glared directly at us. "You‽"
"Uh-oh," Lloyd said, "it's those guys that attacked us at the temple!"
"Hmph," Botta hmph'd. "We'll retreat for now. It would be in both of our interests not to fight here."
"So you aren't Desians after all," I said.
Botta looked at me askance. "That's not your business."
"Fair enough, but — c'mon, man, it's obvious at this point."
Scarlex snorted. "No shit it's obvious."
This time it was my turn to look at Scarlex askance. "Yeah, but how do you know that? You weren't at Iselia."
"Seriously, Leaf? Can you quit being so damn anal about this?"
"... that is in no way a response I was expecting."
"Look out!" Colette cried, snapping us out of our spat. I quickly looked around, but Botta was already gone, so where was the threat - ?
A door opened, behind which was a group of Desian mages, already mid-cast.
"Link Shield!" "Link Guard!" In a blink, Scarlex and I were in front of the group, and the incoming fireballs splashed off our shields relatively harmlessly.
"Have we been exposed‽" I exclaimed.
Scarlex was too busy making some kind of hand sigils to answer — "Goka Mekkyaku!" — and she unleashed a massive fireball that blasted the Desians away. "No, they're here for Botta. The problem is —"
A door behind us opened, to reveal what was clearly a very high-ranking Desian. ("Christ, this is happening fast," Scarlex muttered.) "Well, well," he well'd. "And here I had assumed our intruder was the Renegade. Instead, I find a group of wanted inferior beings."
"Grand Cardinal Kvar," Scarlex said.
How in the world do you KNOW that‽ I wanted to scream at her, but held my tongue. I had a feeling she'd just yell at me again anyway. ... For the screaming, if nothing else.
"Ha, I see my fame precedes me," Kvar said, leering at Lloyd... 's hand? "It's just as Forcystus said — that Exsphere is undoubtedly from my Angelus Project!"
I froze suddenly. The reminder of armgun racist had brought up a few other details and they were starting to click together.
Angelus Project.
Host body.
Anna Irving.
Exsphere manufacturing plant.
What is the purpose of human ranches?
"No," I whispered.
"Leaf, run!" Colette grabbed my arm and pulled me towards an open door — the situation had clearly developed while I was lost in thought, and we were suddenly fleeing from Kvar and a squad of Desians. We ran deeper into the ranch, into the manufacturing center.
"Leaf, we've lost Scarlex!" Raine said, and indeed, the mysterious girl seemed to be missing. At that very moment, an alarm went off and we hit a dead end. The floor just kind of stopped, leaving us with nothing but a view of a conveyor belt full of human prisoners.
"N... no way," Lloyd said, in a tone that suggested he knew exactly what he was looking at.
"What are you doing to my facility‽" Kvar screeched. I didn't know what he meant, until I noticed — the conveyor belts that had been covered in boxes not long ago were now running empty. I looked back through the window at the belt full of prisoners and this time I saw it — a swirling smoky portal. Scarlex!
"What should've been done a long time ago," Scarlex said, dropping in from above. "Shutting it down. Descend, —" she began chanting a spell, but —
"No you don't!" With a gesture from Kvar, some floating robotic devices came out of nowhere and tackled Scarlex —
"AAAARRGH!" Electrified floating robotic devices, apparently. Scarlex lost the spell, and it looked like the devices would overwhelm her —
"Rescue!" I pulled her out of the pile-on and grabbed hold as her legs gave out. "Damn it..."
"How dare you steal my host bodies!" Kvar spat. "I put so much work into cultivating their Exspheres! I'm not letting you take them — and I'm not letting you take that Exsphere either, Lloyd Irving. That was intended as an offering to Lord Yggdrasill."
"You..." Lloyd seethed. "You killed my mother to make this, you bastard!"
"Don't be silly, child. I didn't kill Anna — your father did that. Removing her Exsphere turned her into a monster, and your father killed her. How pathetic."
"Do not speak ill of the dead," Kratos hissed.
"Are you arguing semantics, Kvar?" I interjected. "Anna died because of what your factory did to her! Her husband may have been the one to end her life, but it's you who's responsible!"
Kvar snorted. "They were a pair of worthless humans."
"Don't you talk about my parents like that!" Lloyd shouted, drawing his swords.
"Repulse!" Before Kvar could counterattack Lloyd too, I magically pushed the Desian away — off the edge of the platform.
"Nooooooo!" "Lord Kvar!"
"Now!" Sheena exclaimed, throwing down a paper seal, from which another guardian sprung. And in a burst of smoke, we were out of the ranch.
...
We quickly retreated before the Desians could follow us and made our way back towards Luin — though we took a slight detour and set up camp off the trail, instead of going all the way back. Wouldn't do to be predictable, after all.
After we were all set up, I sat by the campfire to process things, next to Scarlex, who was awake but still recuperating. I had been staring at my Exsphere for a few minutes before I looked up and realized everyone else was doing the same.
"This was Marble's life," Genis muttered. "... I mean, it kind of already was, but — it's really Marble's life."
And Lloyd's special Exsphere was his mother, and my Exsphere was... a prisoner from Iselia whose name I still didn't know. Possibly would never know. Oh, void, and I had dozens of them just casually stashed in my backpack —
"... Hang on," I realized. "If pulling the Exsphere off improperly is what turns prisoners into Exbelua, why did Marble and the other two still have theirs?"
"Uh?" Lloyd uh'd. "That's... unexpected."
Kratos looked thoughtful. "That is a good question. For another conversation."
"... Right." This probably wasn't a great time to poke at odd little inconsistencies.
There was a brief pause before Lloyd spoke up. "I... I'm not sure I can use this. This Exsphere exists as a result of taking my mother's life."
"Don't you have to, though?" Scarlex asked, sitting up. "I know I certainly couldn't take on this whole journey without one. After that cheap shot Kvar pulled, I'd be dead without an Exsphere, not just in agony."
I glanced down at my leg. It still twinged sometimes where Forcystus had shot it — and then I'd wrenched it falling down a mineshaft — but it was definitely functional, and I was fairly sure that, without an Exsphere, it wouldn't have recovered from either of those this quickly, much less both.
"I agree with Scarlex," Colette said. "I know I don't use an Exsphere myself —" (Scarlex snorted at that for some reason, and Colette paused to give her a questioning look, which Scar waved off with a mutter about having thought of something unrelated) "— but if we can't defeat the Desians, more people will lose their lives to these stones. I don't want this journey to have been meaningless."
"You can always get rid of your Exsphere later," I pointed out. "After we've won. But we have to win first."
"Until then," Kratos said, "we must carry the burdens of those who died in the human ranches, their hopes and dreams."
Lloyd stared at his Exsphere a bit. "... yeah. Yeah, you're right. I have to keep fighting. For Mom's sake, and everyone else's."
For a while, everyone remained silent, just sitting with that.
... but at some point someone was going to ask the obvious question. "What are we going to do next, though?" Genis asked. "There's no way we can try attacking the ranch again now." He glanced at Scarlex for confirmation.
"Yeah. The portal I opened is probably closed by now — I set it to close if anyone with non-human blood approached, so the Desians couldn't follow the prisoners." Scarlex frowned. "Which now that I say it, that sounds kinda racist...?" She seemed like she wanted to follow up on that but couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound stupid. "... And, uh, I can't open a new portal in after just that one rushed visit, it wasn't enough to get a feel of the layout. The Tower of Mana isn't an option either, though, cause the guy with the key still hasn't shown up. And I'm not sure why ... you don't think we missed him? God...dess, but that would be a pain."
"I assume that by 'the guy' you are referring to a pastor?" Raine interjected before anyone could respond to Scar's conspicuous word-swapping. (I didn't know why we used different expletives, but it was awfully convenient that mine didn't refer to a deity.) "If that's the case, I would expect him to be at a House of Salvation."
"They do always have a pastor or two around running things," I said, nodding. "There's one of those nearby, right? Of course there is, having one nearby is their whole thing. So even if this guy isn't there, whoever is should be able to point us in the right direction."
"That's... an option," Sheena said. "Or, instead, one of the escaped prisoners made it to Hima — we could talk to him and see if he knows anything helpful."
"He needs a Key Crest," Scarlex said. "He's sick because of his Exsphere. ... Unless Boltzman's technique would somehow lock that down? But I don't see how that would work."
"Boltzman?" Raine asked. "As in Heinz Boltzman, the healing master?"
"Maybe?" Scarlex said. "I don't know the guy's full name, I just know about his technique. I know about it," she reiterated before Raine could interrogate her on how it worked, "I don't actually know the steps or whatever. He put it in a book, and that book is in the Tower of Mana. And I'm unclear on what the technique does with an Exsphere's connection, but I do know it can reverse the damage. So we kinda have to go there regardless," she added, giving Sheena an apologetic look. (Sheena sighed resignedly.)
I wanted to ask Scarlex again how she knew this stuff, but I suspected she'd just get mad at me again. Maybe if I got her alone...? No, not with Colette's angelic hearing to concern herself about — and I had to imagine Scarlex knew about that, since it was mentioned in my notes. Our notes? Come to think of it, the notes suggested an explanation — clearly we'd had some source of info on this place, and a healing technique being in a specific library seemed constant enough that she could be confident I hadn't somehow derailed it.
"Then it's decided?" Raine asked for confirmation. "Our next stop is Hima, to speak with this Pietro."
"And checking out any Houses of Salvation that are conveniently on the way," I said, nodding. I glanced over at Scar —
"No," she said preemptively, "I can't portal us there. I haven't even been there yet. Also, even if I could..." She trailed off. "... okay, I'd help with this part, for Pietro's sake, but once he was cured I wouldn't have any reason to want to help with the 'regeneration' thing. In fact, I should really handle those prisoners I rescued off the execution belt. I don't know what kind of shape they're in."
With some difficulty, she stood up and made a portal. "It'll be a bit before I see you all again, probably, but —" she tilted her head toward me "— I'll know where to find you." And without explaining herself, she walked into the portal and vanished.
"Hey, hang on a sec —" I cried, standing up to follow after — but the portal dissipated as soon as I approached it. "Girl! What!" I stared for several seconds, just trying to process any of that. "... She's tracking me‽"
"And she seemed to think you already knew that," Raine said. She didn't say it, cause the others didn't know yet, but I knew what her next thought must've been — that Scarlex and I had planned this journey together, so perhaps this was just one more aspect of that.
... this whole scenario would make a lot more sense if I remembered any of it.
There was, in fact, a House of Salvation conveniently on the way, but the pastor there could only tell us that yes, the pastor in charge of the Tower of Mana had gone on a pilgrimage to Luin, but no, he didn't know where he was currently. Which at least excluded 'where he usually was' (another House of Salvation further west, past Hima) from consideration. That wasn't enough to track him down, but the pastor here promised to pass on our message if the other pastor stopped here, which was of course entirely plausible.
So we moved on towards Hima. Sheena looked increasingly perturbed as we traveled. I imagined she felt caught between wanting to heal Pietro and not wanting to contribute to the part of the journey where... whatever bad thing happens to Tethe'alla. Admittedly I wasn't eager to hurt her world either, but I had no idea what was going to happen so it was hard to account for.
A thought occurred to me on our second day of travel, but I waited til we set up camp for the night before I acted on it, since I didn't want to be interrupted by bandits or harpies or giant bugs.
...
"... Hey, Leaf, what are you doing?"
I opened my eyes and took the Exsphere away from my forehead. "Hey, Lloyd. I'm... you know how this Exsphere was a person. I thought... it's possible it's still that person, on some level. And if that's the case, they must be very lonely. So I'm seeing if I can communicate with them at all."
"I see." Lloyd looked down at his own Exsphere, shining blue in the moonlight. "I think you're right. Genis says the energy from his Exsphere always felt warm somehow, as if Marble was... "
"Hey, Lloyd. If your mother is in there, I'm sure she's very proud to be helping you save the world."
"You think so?"
I obviously didn't know Anna at all, but like — neither did Lloyd, right? I might as well assume the best of her, since there's nobody around to say anything else. Unless his bio dad turns up somehow, I guess. "Yeah, I think so."
...
We weren't that far from Hima at that point, so it was early midday when we arrived. "Pietro's staying at the inn," Sheena told us, which seemed kind of obvious but I supposed there could've been a secret mountain hospital or something.
We let her lead the way, though Kratos and Raine both watched her like hawks. We entered the inn and Sheena took a moment to look around until she spotted a specific woman working there — "Sophia!" She waved.
"Sheena." Sophia looked unhappy, for some reason.
"How's Pietro doing?"
Sophia looked away. "He... passed away."
Shocked noises all around. "Wh- when?" Sheena asked.
"... just this morning."
"That's... really unfortunate," I said. Kinda pathetically. "Scarlex had told us about this healing technique we could've used, but I guess we're too late for that now. Not that there's ever a good time to die of a wasting disease, but like we just started looking into this and I wonder if he could've held on a bit longer if he knew there was hope, like I can't fault him for not knowing but if there's an afterlife I bet he's really annoyed, stars I'm still talking why am I still talking somebody smack me —"
SMACK!
... Raine smacked me. "... thank you," I mumbled, face thoroughly on the floor.
Having cut off my uncontrollable babbling, Raine continued the conversation: "... did Pietro mention anything about how he escaped the human ranch?"
"I'm not sure," Sophia said. "He wasn't very coherent. I'm not even sure he really did escape from the ranch."
"Did he have any belongings?"
Sophia paused for a moment. "There was a strange orb... I'm sorry, I need to get back to work. I'll see if I can find a moment to give you the orb, though. ...We buried Pietro in the adventurers' graveyard up the mountain."
And without waiting for acknowledgement, she headed off.
"Well, that's... not what I expected to find." I sat up, figuring now would be a good enough time to get my face out of the floor. "Um... now what?"
"Let's... go pay our respects," Raine said, and for lack of any better ideas, that's what we ended up doing.
We made our way up the mountain to the graveyard and quickly found the recently-dug grave with Pietro's name on the marker. Colette started praying, and Raine and Sheena followed suit. After a moment, so did Genis, though Lloyd just sort of closed his eyes awkwardly, while Kratos just looked vaguely solemn. I ended up doing the same as Lloyd — it's not like I could pray, I only barely knew what I believed in. Though it seemed to involve the stars; I was instinctively saying "stars" the way people around here said "Martel". And I'd seen the night sky, so I knew I had some kind of personal affinity for the cosmos. So I just vaguely thought about the stars, and hoped that they would bring comfort to his soul. Assuming souls were a thing.
After a few moments of this, I heard someone shuffling up the path. I was starting to get restless, so I didn't even wait for anyone else, I just opened my eyes and looked.
The guy looked awful, like he'd been locked in a freezer or something and also hadn't eaten in a week. What business could he have that was so important as to go running around in that state?
"Uh, hey," I called out to him, "are you all right?"
"Chosen..." he mumbled. "... Mana... die..."
I tilted my head. "Another assassin...?" Not like he'd be doing any assassination like that.
"Pietro?" Sheena exclaimed.
"He's a zombie‽" Instantly my adrenaline spiked and I quickly cast — "First Aid!" The healing magic flowed over him, and... did nothing. He just paused, looking even more confused.
"Aren't zombies more rotten than that?" Lloyd asked.
"He only died this morning, he hasn't had time to rot!" I exclaimed, channeling mana again. "First Aid!"
"He's not a zombie," Raine said, grabbing my wrist to stop me from trying a third time. "The grave isn't disturbed. Clearly he was never buried to begin with, because he never died to begin with. Isn't that right, Sophia?"
The maid girl flinched from her hiding spot. "... Come on Pietro, let's get you back to bed."
"... Why, though?" I asked. "Even if he hadn't decided to wander up after us, there's no way that lie could've lasted longer than an hour."
Sophia glared at me. "I didn't need an hour, I just needed long enough for you all to leave. Pietro doesn't need all these people bothering him." Her glare softened. "But that was before you mentioned you were going to heal him. You are still going to heal him, right?"
"I don't see any reason for your bizarre lie to change that, no," I said. "At least not now that we know it's a lie, and that he's still alive to be healed. You even built a little fake grave for him, that's not a lie of an hour —"
"He's obviously going to die soon anyway!" Sophia exclaimed. "Maybe he'll hold on longer now that he knows there's hope, but... I didn't expect the grave to stay fake for long." That shut me right up. Sophia glared at me, almost challenging me to continue, but I just put my hands up for a second. "... look, here's the orb. Are you sure this is going to help cure him?"
"Probably, through some convoluted series of events," I said. "At the very least, it's the only path we've got at the moment."