A/N: I was playing last night and stupidly poured a ton of money into the renewal of Luin before the tower… I was dead broke, out of supplies, and didn't realize it. Oblivious to the dire state of my characters went monster hunting at Mania (AKA leveling up the hard way) this is kinda what happened to me TOS/Shards style...

Being broke never helps…

Things were going badly in the battle. The monsters were winning, and the parties lack of funds (most of those given to Pedrio to pay off the rebuilding of Luin) were showing. The first monster's swipe took off the front of Lloyd's chain main armor, and the second slash was going to rip out the contents of Lloyd's chest cavity. Genis' frantically thrown spell saved Lloyd from a messy death, and from the other end of the battle field there was a cry of rage.

Raine looked up to see Kratos holding the hilt of his now broken blade, the man twitched then tossed the ruined weapon aside and went after the bear with his bare hands.

Stuborn, stupid… sometimes she swore Kratos was rasher than Lloyd…

The contest of strength between man and bear went its proper course- which was the fast way of saying that Kratos was slashed in a hundred places and the bear was squinting out of its now black eye.

"For the Love of Martel…" Raine grumbled, putting a hand over her face. Colette was reduced to throwing rocks now, their funds were so low that they couldn't afford to by the girl weapons… Colette got a luck throw, bopped the bear that was busy mauling Kratos. The creature looked up from its meager meal of mercenary and growled, lumbering towards them.

"I'm out of cards!" Sheena wailed. "I can't do anything without my weapon!"

"Summon something!" Lloyd screamed, running away from a harpy…

And the harpy was gaining, and the look in its eyes told the elder Sage that it wasn't hunger that was making it chase Lloyd so avidly.

Noishe, wisest of them all had high tailed it long long ago, if only he'd thought to take a few of them along.

"Resurrection!" Raine screamed, and low and behold the mercenary –covered in his own blood, and dazed looking- was alive once again.

Raine considered the situation, they were losing wounded, the wisest thing would be to do a fast healing and then bolt… but with everyone running around –dodging monsters and the like- there wasn't a prayer of snow in Triet that she'd be able to get off enough "First Aides" to save everyone.

"Maiden of the Mist… I summon you come Undine!"

The battle froze, even the monsters froze at the girl's stern tone, but when nothing appeared Sheena growled and the monsters went back to harassing the Regeneration group with renewed zeal.

"Why isn't it working? It worked the last time!"

"It's because you're not in overlimit!" Kratos roared, this time the man was proving to be a little smarter as he was running from the bear rather then punching it.

"Say what?"

"No clue." Genis said, then he chanted and lifted a hand to cast an "eruption" spell… and only a few meager sparks snapped from the end of his fingers. "Ack, I'm out of magic!" He turned to her, his eyes wide and pleading –she couldn't recall a time he'd pled for a gell but desperate times made for desperate measures she guessed-. "Raaaaine do we have an orange gell?"

"No!" Raine lifted her staff to keep the claws of a descending harpy away from her face. The weapon cracked alarmingly and she threw the fragments at the ancient artifact in at the retreating creatures back. "Just run, run and don't look back."

Outmatched, (outclassed, outleveled, outgunned, whatever you want to call it) the Regeneration group grabbed the tattered remains of their dignity and abandoned the field.