(Prologue)

"You want me to whaaa?!"

"You desire relief from the title of Chosen, correct?"

"….yeeeeah?"

"And I equally want your little World Regeneration friends dead."

"…" the redhead hesitated. He put his hands on his hips and raised an eyebrow at the blonde before him, saying nothing.

"Well?" Mithos urged.

"I'll do it."

"Wonderful. In three days' time, simply slip this-" he held out a vile, "-into their dinner. They'll fall into heave slumber and an ambush will—"

"Hey, heyyy," Zelos interrupted, snatching the vile from the small boy, "I got it! I know what to do. Who d'you think you're talking to here?! I'm the Chosen."

It was still weird for that same Chosen of Tethe'alla to watch that 4-foot-tall, innocent-looking boy smirk like the devil himself. To know that Mithos, the hero of the past, was driven psychotic from greed, and the death of his sister. And more than anything: To imagine what might happen to Lloyd and the other if Zelos failed to make this work out how he planned.

"Of course," Mithos hissed, eyeing him skeptically, "The 'Chosen' that you yourself so hate to be called, you address yourself by…?"

"Bad habit only you can help me break," Zelos replied, grinning to fight off the Holy-Cruxis-I-almost-just-got-caught feeling churning in his stomach.

"If you insist…" the blonde turned his back to Zelos, "Just get it done. No one will hear of this."

And the Angel of Death disappeared before the blue eyes of a betrayer.