It was the middle of the day when Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel and their companions all decided to employ a daring and crazy plan to enter the Triet Ruins in search of the Summon Spirit Efreet.

A plan that one companion really did not want to take part of.

"I really don't want to..."

"Come on sis!" Genis cried as Raine somehow resisted all attempts from Sheena and Lloyd to get her into the water as Kyros and Kratos looked on while Colette waited with a smile, "It's only for a little while."

"You really don't need me-"

"If you stay here then the desians might catch you!" Lloyd countered with his arms around the elf's waist as Sheena tugged at her arm, "Then we'll all get caught!"

"Like I said, I'll carry you if you can't swim."

"How much longer until someone gives up?"

"Both parties are very stubborn." Kratos answered Kyros as a deflated Genis walked over to them and sat down on the sand, "Is she always like this around water?"

"Yeah...she is," Genis answered, "I don't get why though. She's a mage! Why doesn't she just create an air bubble around herself if she can't swim?"

"Looks like she's just scared of going into water." Kyros figured, "Did she almost drown when she was younger?"

"I don't know...I never knew our parents and Raine never talks about them." Genis replied, "Its been just me and Raine for as long as I can remember and she's always been scared of swimming."

"We really don't have time for this." Kratos muttered in exasperation as Colette suddenly screamed. Kratos turned towards her just as Lloyd released Raine and ran past the mercenary to where Colette was now shaken upon the ground, "Colette?"

"What's wrong Colette?" Lloyd asked his sweet who was now looking attentively at the lake, "Ah not you too! This is just like-"

"Something's in the water!" Colette screamed as she pointed towards a small ripple in the middle of the lake, "I thought I heard something and when I went over to look, I felt something grab me and knock me down."

"So I am not the only one who now sees how unsafe this idea is." A much calmer Raine stated, "So how about just storming the-" A thread of blue silk shot out of the lake and wrapped itself around Raine's legs before pulling her down and dragging her into the water.

"Raine! Wind Blade!" Genis swiped out with his spear as a thin blade of wind mana cut through the silk and freed Raine before she could be dragged under the water's surface. Raine immediately crawled onto the oasis beach and picked up her staff as she stood, "Okay sis...swimming wouldn't be a great idea after all."

"So they're still around..." Kyros noted as he backed away from the oasis with sword drawn and looked upon the sand, "No one make too sudden of a movement."

"You know what that thing was?"

"A string of mana silk...fired from the claw of an extinct creature. Anyone familiar with the Lambton Wyrm?"

"What's that?" Sheena leapt as Writhing serpentine, vermicular creature covered in mud and clear slime burst out of the ground and dove back into the sand before the party could attack it. With nothing but a pit of dark mud left of it's tracks, the party remained understandably on edge.

"That my friends...is a Lambton Wyrm." Kyros stated as the group huddled together into a circular formation, "And it's a big one. Pesky little bastard isn't he? I thought that my father hunted them all down."

"An Ancient and Extinct Creature...at least that was the common thought until now," Kratos stated, "It's a carnivorous worm that feeds on mana from any source that it can find. When it's born, it's only as big as a thumb, but with time and consumption of mana, it grows. Kyros...is it true that these Wyrms grew to the size of humans by the time they matured?"

"Yeah...that about sums it up." Kyros answered, "My father loved hunting these things. I was about twelve on his last hunt and there were two Wyrms...one was the size of two humans stacked on top of each other...really tough too."

"And the other?"

"Almost as large as this guy." Kyros answered the now concerned Colette, "And father had just murdered it's young so it wasn't happy."

"Did it kill your father?"

"It got close, but father managed to elude it long enough for help to arrive and help him finish it off."

"Now how do we stop it-" Suddenly something tied Sheena's legs together and dragged her into the now damp sand. The Wyrm emerged from the sand with Sheena caught in it's maw, several pincers crusted out of it's flesh that attacked and scattered the party. A string of mana tied itself around Raine's arm and threw her into the oasis just before the creature dove back into the sand.

"Sheena! Professor!"

"Lloyd! Stay focused!" Kratos chided to Lloyd who protectively hovered close by Colette while Kyros dove into the oasis after Raine, "Genis...be ready with a wind attack. Colette, listen for the worm."

"Okay..." Colette agreed and stood still as if trying to feel the creature's movements in the ground. Her bare foot shifted as she seemed to find the creature, "I feel it! It's going for the Professor!"

"Got it!" Lloyd ran for the oasis just as Kyros got Raine back to shore, "It's coming for you guys!"

"It's already here!" Raine stabbed her staff into the ground, creating a force field that forced open the emerging Wyrm's mouth as the creature tried to swallow her and Kyros, "Take it down now!"

"Alright!" Lloyd felt his exesphere's power awaken as he leapt at the exposed grey worm, "DOUBLE GUARDIAN THRUST!" Forming barriers around his blades, Lloyd stabbed his blades into the creature's flesh and caused it to recoil in unseen pain.

"We have to save Sheena and the Professor! ANGEL FEATHERS!" Colette's wings unfurled from her back and fired mana feathers that cut through the worm's flesh pincers.

"I feel loved today! IMPEL!" Raine and Kyros leapt from out of the creature's maw as the latter stabbed his sword into it's hide and slapped it with his other hand to cause a concussive burst that knocked the creature on it's side.

"Now's my chance! Wind Blade!" At Genis' command, the retracting pink mouth was slashed and cut by unseen blades of magical wind.

"Don't let up! BLAZING TEMPEST!" Enshrouded in fire, Lloyd somersaulted towards the worm and slashed the creature multiple times with his flaming swords before landing on the other side. But the wyrm suddenly regenerated it's mouth and a hard crust formed over it's skin as a thread of mana caught Lloyd by his arm and tossed him into the air.

"Lloyd!" Colette cried out as Lloyd was caught and swallowed in the wyrm's mouth, "GIVE ME BACK LLOYD YOU MEAN WORM! ANGEL WING!"

"Thunder Demon Fang!" Kratos slashed out at the creature's hide and created a crack for Colette's Feather Chakram to penetrate the vulnerable flesh underneath and charged in to focus upon a vulnerability, "Lightning Blade!"

"Kratos! Take my Photon!" Raine cried as an aura of light appeared around Kratos' lightning charged sword just before he struck the wyrm and a surge of lightning ran through the creature followed by the appearance of a shining glyph that glowed and exploded to knock off more crust from the wyrm's hide.

"It's weak to electric magic and fire magic makes it stronger..." Genis commented as the battle raged on and the young mage pondered his next move, "I've got it! Raine! I need your help! Come here!"

"Alright! Cover me!"

"Sure! That won't be hard." Kyros covered Raine's retreat as the wyrm knocked away Kratos and leapt up and down towards the mage, "Stop right there! Repel!" Visible mana flared out above Kyros and formed a triangular barrier that initially held up the worm. But the full weight of the creature caused the barrier to crack as Kyros focused to lower the barrier down to the sand and enlarged it to keep the wyrm from returning to the sand, "Don't how long I can hold it here!"

"We can manage with what we have!" Kratos leapt onto the wyrm and began to quickly hack away at it's hard shell to expose it to the coming spell that Genis and Raine were preparing together, "Colette! I could use some help!"

"Keep it right there!" Colette ran up to the beast and placed both hands and her cheek upon a part of it's exposed exterior to listen for something, "It's Lloyd and Sheena! They're still alive!"

"This won't hurt them will it?"

"They'll have a better chance with this than within that wyrm." Raine assured Genis just as they beginning to finish their combination spell and aimed it at the wyrm, "Whatever Lloyd is about to do, he had better do it fast!"

"I'm not waiting! Angelic Whirlwind!" Colette spun herself with her rings in each hand to cut into the creature's hide with angel-enhanced power and causing the creature to greatly writhe and throw Kratos from on top of it, "Can you hear me? Lloyd? Sheena!"

"Thanks Colette! Power Seal!" A burst of mana flared from within the wyrm and out of a gaping hole emerged Sheena in partially digested garb carrying a tired Lloyd on one shoulder, "That was a new sight that can be unseen."

"THUNDER BLADE!"

"Yeah...I guess..." Lloyd weakly laughed as Colette grabbed him and flew him and Sheena away from the wyrm just as a large mana sword of lightning fell from the sky and impaled itself upon the wyrm to create a fierce electric shock that temporarily blinded all sight of the area.

"Did we get it?" Genis asked when the shock faded away and revealed that the wyrm was nowhere to be seen, "It's gone?"

"Not quite...look." Thanks to his sister's further insight, Genis now saw a piece of burnt flesh that was partially submerged in the muddy floor, "It decided to retreat, but left behind it's compromised parts to allow it to escape. Much like a normal worm would."

"It's going to come back now!"

"I doubt it...these wyrms are typically bottom-feeders. When they're not absorbing wayward mana or carbon dioxide, they'll only go after prey that they think is easy to catch." Kyros assured the group, "Now that our mages have shoved a lightning sword through it's hide, it'll think twice about going after us."

"Curious," Kratos pondered out loud, "Evidently it had been lying beneath the oasis for sometime...why did it choose to reveal itself now?"

"It may have been absorbing Efreet's mana up until now," Raine conjectured, "And when we came here, it sensed us and decided to attack."

"Then why did it eat me first?"

"I guess...they are true!" Kyros laughed, "My father always said that they prefer to eat pretty women when they have a choice...I never thought that was true until now."

"His mistake." Sheena spat remembering her recent encounter with the wyrm's digestive system, "So how did these guys survive all this time?"

"A Wyrm must have laid an egg at the bottom of the desert and it survived long enough to hatch." Kyros guessed, "Through the cycles, the worms still had enough offspring to keep the species alive."

"And this one was fairly mature for it's age." Raine added, "I'm surprised considering Sylvarant's mana depletion."

"Maybe all of the worms are near the ruins? You know so that they could soak in Efreet's mana?" Lloyd's guess added a sense of tension to the group when they all figured just how right Lloyd may have been, "Can they swim?"

"You just saw them you idiot!" Sheena shouted and took another look at the lake, "Are you sure that we don't want to just kick in the front door, swords swinging and spells flying?"

"We should save that for our exit plan." Kratos suggested, "We do have one, correct?"

"Swords swinging and spells flying?"

"Why did I expect anything else?"

"I can't believe you people!" Raine moaned after another look at the now serene lake that would be the entryway back into the ruins, "After all of that, you still want to go into the water?"

"We're going into the water to get into the ruins. But you're free to stay here and take your chances with the wyrms." Lloyd offered to the aghast Raine, "You're choice."

"I hate you all..."

"What did I do!"

"Not you Genis...I just...fine!" Raine shouted with a growl, "But if I drown, I know exactly who I'm going to haunt!"

"Lloyd?"

"ALL OF YOU!"

Author's Notes:

I have my own phobias, but I'm pretty sure that an encounter with a giant carnivorous worm would be more than enough motivation for me to put it aside.

Anyone else? Just me?

I had plenty of fun writing this chapter and the next one should be just as much fun. Because in the next chapter, the party will finally have to deal with the burden of NUMERICAL DISADVANTAGE!

Other than that, thanks for reading and reviewing. Stay tuned for the next chapter.

Later.