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The Crystal Rule	By : QueenDraggyofSwords Category: Final Fantasy Games > Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Views: 956 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy: chrystal Chronicles, any of its characters nor am I making any profit off of them.

Chapter List
- 34
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- 36
Chapter Thirty-Five

When Keiss had decided to announce that he was leaving the Selkie Guild for a life in Alfitaria, he knew there would be backlash. When he added to that, that he was going to work for and join the Lilty Army, he knew there would be naysayers and arguments. When he finished with the announcement that he was going to one day lead that army, he knew he was going to receive a punch to the face so hard it would knock him through a wall.
And he knew all of this was going to happen because he knew that such a statement was the last thing his father would ever want hear. Ever. Period. And he knew that hearing him say those things must had filled him an unimaginable shock and rage. One that he was certain he would never experience in his entire life. Because no one would ever be able to upset him with such a simple phrasing of words that would mean they were walking out of his life. No one. Never. Period.
Until right now.
Right now, somewhere in the back of Keiss head, buried within his subconscious was his father shouting at him that one day he'd know how it felt to have someone abandon him. That karma would pay him back what he was doing to his own flesh and blood. That someday despite his best intentions, it would be thrown in his face. He had laughed then.
He was enraged now.
"YOU CAN'T QUIT!" The Selkie banged his hand on the side of Layle's bedroom door as he watched the Clavat pack his things. "Are you FUCKING stupid! You must be! You must be the most idiotic! Foolish! Inbreed backwards Clavat HICK to roam the planet!"
Layle shook his head occasionally looking up at his ex-partner as he stuffed his clothes into a bag. "You keep yelling. I'm still going."
"Why!" Keiss walked into the room and grabbed the bag from Layle. He tossed it over to the closet and turned back to him still shouting. "Why are you leaving?"
"Keiss," Layle ran one hand through his hair and sighed, "The question you should ask is why am I staying? I'm not doing you any good-"
"So what! You're my partner! We're in this together!"
"No, Keiss, we were in this together…" Layle walked around him to grab his bag, "But now it's just you and I tag along. I can't do anything for you. I can't help you in anyway."
"So what! Are you that dumb!" The Selkie waved his hand about as he spoke, "I'm helping you now! That's what partners do! You need me!"
"..." Layle stood up and slung the bag over his shoulder, "I shouldn't need you. That's my point. You don't need me, but I need you. To the point that I almost got you killed."
"Almost got me—What? The Hydra! Are you leaving because of that?" Layle turned and started out of his bedroom door, Keiss followed him shaking his head, "It was one monster! One stupid monster! We've fought bigger! Remember the Antlion! What about the King Behemoth! You fucking saved us when the Acote crashed!" He grabbed the neck of his partner's jacket and spun him around. "Layle!"
"Yeah I did all of those things! And now what!" Layle pushed him back, "Now I can't even take care of a fucking over grown water snake! You're trying to get to the bottom of this Crystal Bearer purge the military is starting, and I'm becoming one of those Bearers they should get rid of!"
"Don't say that…" Keiss shook his head. "Just don't—Layle," The Selkie grabbed his shoulders. "Why are you leaving me? I thought this was going well! I thought we had this fixed! I thought that you and I- I dunno, trusted each other."
"…I do trust you, Keiss." The Clavat nodded, "I trust that, you can handle this solo. You'll find the answer and fix it." He slowly pushed the red heads shoulders away, "But I don't trust that I can get you there. I don't trust that I can get there."
"So then what? You're just going to leave? What about what the Military is doing, Layle? How are you going to avoid being caught? How are you going to make it?"
"I'll find away. I'll find something. But I can't stay here…"
Keiss opened his mouth to protest again, but nothing came out. The Clavat stared at him for a moment before turning around and making his way to the door again. Just as Layle was putting his hand on the door knob Keiss called after him, "Wait!" He ran up to the door and wedged himself between the exit and Layle. "Just wait…You can't just go and that be it!"
"But that is it, Keiss."
"No! You- I need you-"
"Need me?" Layle took a step back and looked at his partner. He was genuinely surprised. He had expected Keiss to argue a lot of reasons for him to stay, but not that. "You need me?"
The Selkie's jaw hung open a bit, did he really say that. "I-I need you—need you to stay in contact with me!" He nodded and gulped. "You have to. So I know you haven't been caught! I-I need that too…So I can keep you up to date. On how much I know of-of what's going on."
"Ah…" Layle shifted on his feet. Somehow he had expected that to go differently. He could almost swear from the startled way Keiss looked at him and then at the wall as he said it that the Selkie had expected something different as well.
"And I need you to promise!" Keiss looked back toward Layle, "That if you- if you start to get better you will come back."
"If I start to get better…" The Crystal Bearer nodded, though he was certain of it by now. He was never going to get better.
Keiss lingered in front of the door for a few minutes, like he was waiting for Layle to announce he had changed his mind. It wasn't until the Clavat cleared his throat that finally he moved to the side. Layle opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. He turned around to look back at Keiss, who suddenly looked very sick.
For the Selkie, he couldn't read his ex-partner's expression. It was like the first day all over again. Layle was just looking at him, indifference painted across his face. Like he wasn't thinking anything good or bad about him. Like he wasn't thinking about them being or not being together at all.
Keiss took a deep breath and opened his mouth like he was going to say something else. Just one more thing. Maybe in his mind he thought it was going to be the thing to make Layle stay. Maybe for a moment Layle thought that too. But nothing ever came out. Keiss just, closed his mouth and sighed.
Layle took a step back and turned his back to the door. He started down the hall, one hand in his pocket. Behind him he could hear the door to the apartment slowly close. And he sighed himself. Keiss leaned up against the door, his hand still squeezing the door knob, ready to open it incase Layle turned around.
'Now that I've gotten so used to you…What do I do without you?'

The afternoon light of the city was slowly making its way across the counter. The windows were open to let in the breeze and the sounds of the lower streets of Alfitaria. They were also left open to let the Mail Moogle in. For the past four days he had been coming by with 'urgent' letters and would not simply drop them through the mail slot. No they had to be signed for.
And honestly Chime was tired of having to stop cleaning to go open the door for the Moogle. So on the third day she started leaving the window open for him to fly right in to her. And just has he had the previous days, the Mail Moogle arrived in the midafternoon calling to her in his usual friendly voice.
The Selkie barmaid looked up from the glasses she was polishing and held out her hand. "Right on time. Thank you very much." She took the letter and signed for it. Even including a tip for the Moogle. Chime waited until he was out of her bar to look the letter over.
It was sealed in a blue envelope just like all the others.
She tore it open and started to read it. Slowly Chime turned around and walked to the other end of her bar counter; away from the windows, the light and the breeze and over to a stack of paper and few empty bottles. She finished the letter and folded it neatly before slamming her hand down on the counter to disturb the patron resting there with his head down.
"KEISS! WAKE UP!"
"AH!" Instantly the red head pulled back from the counter and nearly fell off his stool. He gripped the counter for balance and looked around terrified. "W-what! What! What is it!"
"You got another letter," the half Selkie leaned on the bar with her elbow and held out the paper. Keiss took it, but didn't look at it. He tossed it onto the pile and put his head back down. "…Really? You could at least pretend to read it."
"I'll read it after you fix me another Electro-Ink Mixer," He didn't bother to raise his head to talk to her.
"I am not fixing you anything." Chime reached over and took the letter from the stack. "How long are you going to mope here?"
"Until Layle writes me."
"When was the last time you got a letter from him?"
"….Never."
Chime sighed and took out a pen. She started filling out the contract for Keiss whether he wanted her too or not. The mercenary had been in and out of her bar on his own for a little over a week now. But for the past four days he stopped leaving. He sat up all night reading and drinking and spent half the day sleeping and drinking. Mail Moogles kept being messages from Lieutenant Spinosa, and Keiss had ignored every single one of them. "So you're just going to give up then? I thought you promised Layle you weren't."
"I did…I haven't…" Keiss still didn't raise his head. "From the day he left I kept working. I kept... trying to find answers, something I could show him…some sort of silver lining to make him come back to Alfitaria. Something to make him better again."
"And?" The barmaid looked up at him expectantly.
"All I've found is a jumbled mess. A disaster." Keiss sat up and sighed, "Since they started a week ago, they've changed that- that cure three times. Reports site 'resistance' to treatment as a reason. They take Bearers away and about a third of them never come back. No word, no info. Nothing. And then it changes again…And the King is signed off on this research. So has the High Commander… I don't think there is a way to stop it." He let his head drop again and Chime wince at the sound of his skull knocking the wooden counter. "…I've effectively helped the army find a way to kill off Bearers. That's all I have to tell him. Layle is never going to come back…"
The woman watched him for a moment before turning her attention back to the paper work in her hands. "What makes you think he won't?"
"He hasn't written me, like I asked him to. He doesn't trust me anymore. He won't let me help him. He doesn-"
"Wait. Wait. Wait." She pointed the pen at Keiss, "If he didn't trust you, then why did he leave and let you handle this? If Layle really didn't think you were trust worthy, don't you think he'd handle this on his own?"
"But he can't!" Keiss pulled his head up and got out of his seat. "He can't! Not with his powers as they are now! He needs me! He knows that he needs me! And he left!" He threw his hands up in the air, "The only reason now why I keep checking these god awful reports is to see if they've reported catching a Bearer that can control gravity!"
"And have they?"
"…No." Keiss lowered his arms and sighed, "But it's just a matter of time… He needs me. Why won't he tell me where he is?" The mercenary looked over at her, "Well, Chime. You pride yourself on being so insightful…Why did Layle leave me, when he knows that he needs me?"
The Selkie woman shook her head. "If you ask me, Keiss, you're the one that needs Layle. You're the one falling apart. I've never seen you so upset over a little break up-"
"It's not a break up!" Keiss walked over and snatched the contract from her, "We weren't anything other than partners! And he quit! He just quit! And left me! When he's the one who can't stand on his own two feet! He left me here! To worry myself sick over him!" Keiss started to tear the contract up in frustration. "He's been- He's been nothing but aggravating since day one! Cocky! Self confident Clavat bastard! He didn't believe me when I said that Lilty tried to kill me! He never likes the way I handle the military! Refused constantly to let Odies train his powers! Back taking! Back stabbing! Deserting! Enemy siding! Son of a Fenrir! Stupid! Backwater! Crystal Bearer!" He tossed the bits of paper into the air and sat back down.
"I hate him so much…Just taking off like that. Stupid…Selfish…bastard…" Keiss ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. "...He's never going to come back to me."
"…Keiss," Chime put her hands on the Selkie's shoulders and smiled at him, "I think, that Layle will come back to you…But you have to really know why you want him to come back. Yes, fixing this problem you helped create is a good reason…But its not good enough. It wasn't a good enough reason to make him stay when he was walking out, and it's not going to be good enough to bring him back. Do you understand?"
The mercenary looked at her and twisted his lips before shaking his head. "The only way I can think to make him come back is to have a solution to why his powers don't work."
"Crystal help me!" She pulled back and crossed her arms. "Are you doing that intentionally? Look, if it was his powers and your stupid partnership that kept him around, he would have left you day one when they stopped working! But you two stayed together! You tried to help him! He tried to even do as you said! Getting Layle's powers back is an insignificant reason to want him back!"
"Insignificant!" Keiss pointed at her, "It was Layle himself said his powers were him! They're everything!"
"Then you both have it wrong!" She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "And from this moment forward, you are not allowed in here until you have it right!"
"Wait? What?"
"You heard me! Keiss, you're banned from my bar!"
"You can't do that!"
"Yes, I can." She pointed to the door, "Now take your papers and go see the Lieutenant."
Keiss scoffed at her and remained in his seat. "I'm not going to go see him."
"Oh yes you are. I already wrote him yesterday and said you'd be in his office today."
"You did what! How? He knows my hand writing-" Chime smirked and picked up one of the papers on the table and held it up to him.
"Don't think I can't forge your handwriting." The Selkie took the paper from her and stared at it perplexed. "And don't worry about not having Layle with you. I included in your letter that he was away- His mother is terribly sick, and he needs to be there to care for her." Keiss lowered the paper to look at Chime's mocking smile. "You need to get back to work, not just for Layle, but for yourself, Keiss. You're never going to find out why you're so bothered by Layle's departure drinking your troubles away in my bar."
The mercenary shook his head and gave her a faint smile, "Thanks…I suppose. …But Chime, how do I know what I'm trying to find out? If you already know it, can't you just tell me?"
"You already know it too, idiot!" The woman reached across the bar and pat him on the shoulder, "You've just be denying it for a long long time."

"I've been denying it?" Keiss let his head rest against the side of the elevator as he waited for it to stop on the floor for Spinosa's office. "I haven't denied anything…" The Selkie snorted. I know what I need… I know what Layle and I have… She's thinking about it too hard and punishing me for it."
Chime had followed through with her rule that he was, hence forth, banned from her tavern. Or at least not to come back until he knew how to make Layle come back.
"Which is a stupid rule!" He pushed off the wall and banged his fist on the closed door. "I know what will make him come back! His powers fixed, or this cure stomped out…It's not safe for him in the city under these circumstances! It's not safe for him anywhere like this!"
As the elevator stopped and the doors opened up, Keiss walked out shaking his head and muttering to himself, "…But he doesn't trust me enough to let me help him." The Selkie walked past the reception desk and the Lilty woman that tried to get his attention. "After all we've been through… And all we had going... He just walked out," the Selkie mercenary put his hands on the office door and pushed it open. "Yet Chime says it's my fault!"
The red head stopped just over the threshold of the door. Lieutenant Spinosa's office was empty. Hadn't he been summoned here? Why was no one here? He took a few steps forward and groaned in frustration.
"An ex-partner that ditches me and a boss that doesn't keep appointments… What is my life coming to? How did it become so difficult?" He turned on his heels ready to go home. No not home, he was going to go looking for Layle. Screw trying to figure out what Chime meant, forget the Clavat's needless feelings of being a burden. He was going to find Layle and drag him back to Alfitaria even if they had to fist fight the entire way there.
"I'm not putting up with this!" He spoke angrily as he walked past the receptionist again, "He needs me! That stupid idiot! I was foolish to even think that it's me who needs him!" The Selkie hit the button for the elevator, by the time it had reached the floor again he already had a plan in his head of how he was going to find Layle, and how he was going to force him to stay by his side.
Because the Crystal Bearer needed him. At least that was what he had decided.
As soon as the doors to the elevator opened, Keiss' plan came to a halt. Inside was Lieutenant Spinosa, along with another person. The Selkie looked a bit surprised, not by the Lieutenant, but by his guest. Behind him stood a man wearing the long, drab, blue robe of a Clavat Pilgrim.
"Ah, Keiss, I'm sorry you had to wait," The Lilty stepped off the elevator, forcing Keiss to back up. "Please, follow me to my office and we will go over the contract."
"Ah, yes, about the contract, Lieutenant-" Keiss' eyes were fixed on Spinosa as he walked by, so much so that he didn't notice his guest following him off the elevator. The pilgrim practically shoved him to the side, cutting off Keiss' words. The red head glared at the back of the man's robes and followed them into the office. "I don't think I'm going to be able to take this contract." He watched as the Lilty took a seat looking up at him a bit surprised. The Pilgrim remained standing, like Keiss, on the other side of the man's desk. "You see, it's about my partner-"
"Yes, I received your letter that he was unavailable for the time being…However, I feel you are the best contractor I have available for this job. I simply cannot take no for an answer."
Keiss shook his head. He really didn't want to take any other missions. The longer he waited, the longer it was going to take to find Layle. "Yes, but-"
"You are familiar with the swamp, Conall Curach, are you not?"
"Ah-" Keiss nodded, "Of course. What Selkie isn't…But I'm sure you don't need me to-"
"You are the only Selkie contract available to the Military, Keiss, that has the experience. Not to mention my trust, for this recovery mission."
"Recovery?" He couldn't help but ask, he actually hadn't read the contract. The Lieutenant seemed to frown at his question and the Pilgrim chuckled. Keiss glared at the hooded figure, he could only see their mouth but they were smirking. "What I mean is, why not send your own troops in for this recovery."
"We have sent several. And the swamp has bested them every time. I have spoken with High Commander Jegran. He is tired of waiting. That experimental fighter plane is very important to the project his is presenting before the King next month. It needs to be recovered."
Keiss' eyes left the Pilgrim and turned toward the Lieutenant. 'An experimental plane? ...Perhaps a link to those airship plans? No! I need to find Layle.' He shook his head again, "Wasn't it the High Commander that insisted I have a partner if I was going to take on assignments from his desk." He smirked in that know it all fashion he so often did, "I think I should go recover my partner before taking on this mission."
"I am afraid there is no time for that, Keiss. Which is why the High Commander and I have appointed you a new partner."
"…A new…Partner?" The Selkie turned to the Clavat next to him and looked him over, truly studying him for the first time.
"Yes. He's already taken a few jobs for the High Commander… And while his powers are not like your pervious partner's, we feel that the two of you will be able to get the job done efficiently."
"Powers?" Keiss turned to look startled at the Lieutenant. They were pairing him up with a different Bearer? He looked back at the Clavat next him. He still had his hood up, but the Bearer reached up to pull it back. Immediately Keiss recoiled at the sight of his face. No wonder he kept it up. The Bearer smirked at him and his left eye narrowed as he began to size him up. Only his left eye, as his right eyes was a crystal. To be exact it was engulfed in a bright red crystal that covered his entire eye, and even seemed to slowly extend up and down his face into his forehead and down into his cheek. The image created, what looked like to Keiss, a painful fissure of crystal trying to break out of the Clavat's skull. He raised his hand to Keiss and snapped his fingers, creating a small flame in the palm of his hand.
"Keiss, I would like you to meet your new partner, Blaze."
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The Crystal Rule