A/N: First of all, I'd like to apologize for the delay due to the Christmas season, mental block and some life issues. Second of all, I would like to thank my beta readers for their tips and seeing nothing wrong in this chapter besides grammar. (When I wrote this it kept losing sense for some reason...) Finally, I would like to thank all of you who are reading this fic even if you don't review.

Disclaimer: The 'Tales of' series belong to Namco.

Chapter 3: The Emerald Mage

"And here I thought I could surprise you by coming here with Tear..." said a girl whose black hair was tied into two pigtails. She clutched a rather grotesque looking doll as she sat beside Natalia.

"You did surprise us, Anise," said Natalia.

The girl named Anise replied, "But you surprised me more by bringing a girl from who-knows-where."

A man with short blond hair leaned back on the wall near the door. It has been about thirty minutes since his friends, Luke and Natalia, had arrived with the unexpected extra guest. The young girl in question had been put in one of the guest rooms of the Malkuth palace. The doctor who examined her didn't find any physical injuries but had stayed beside her bed to re-examine her upon her awakening, which was yet to happen. They were currently in the Emperor's private chambers, where Natalia and Luke had told them how they had found the girl.

"Let me see if I understood everything correctly..." said the blonde man. "On your way here, a strange whirlpool suddenly appeared on the road, right?"

Natalia nodded.

"Then the whirlpool flashed and disappeared, but this girl popped up in its place?"

"That's right, Guy," said Luke, who was sitting beside a young woman with long brown hair.

The blonde man named Guy faced a man with long chestnut hair standing at the adjacent corner. "What do you make of it, Jade?"

The man named Jade adjusted his glasses. "Well, my guess would be that whirlpool-like mass Luke and Natalia came across is related to a form of transportation or a teleportation arte."

"Teleportation arte?" asked the brown haired woman. "You mean like the Yulia Road?"

Jade nodded. "It is likely someone tried to study the principles of the Yulia Road and tried to create his own version of it. Our young guest here may be either that person's assistant or someone unfortunate enough to have gotten caught in the experiment when it went wrong, which would explain why she is unconscious."

"The poor thing..." said Natalia, her eyes downcast.

"If that's the case, where'd she come from?" said Luke. "I mean, I didn't hear anything about teleportation experiments back in the Baticul. Have you, Natalia?"

"No."

"Haven't heard anything from our end either," said a long haired blond man who sat on the only bed in the room.

"Looks like we'll just have to ask her when she wakes up," said Guy.

Luke made an exasperated sigh. The brown haired girl looked at him and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Before that incident with the girl, Tear, I was remembering the first time we met. Thinking about it now makes me feel like history is repeating itself. I'm just hoping we don't end up with another world threatening situation. It would be way too soon."

"Hey, don't talk like that, Luke. It might end up being prophetic," said the long haired blond.

"Emperor Peony…"

Not liking where the conversation was going, Guy decided to cut in. "Now, now. Why don't we just discuss what we've been doing while Luke was away? We didn't get to tell him everything and I'm sure he's pretty interested in what went on."

Anise seemed to find this a good idea because she immediately spoke of what she had to do in order to gain the title of Fon Master and what she had done as soon as she got it. Luke laughed at the way she told her story because she made some exaggerated movements at some points. The brown haired woman Tear became the next storyteller and told of her efforts to assist Anise and the Order of Lorelei in helping people adjusting to the new age without the Score. Luke commented on how she spoke like she was giving a report. This made her blush and apologize which made everyone laugh. Then it was Natalia's turn. Her story wasn't much different from Anise's or Tear's, basically helping the Kimlascans live without the Score, but there was also the joint effort of Kimlasca, Malkuth and the Order to give replicas – clones – a place to live in the world. Luke smiled at this, for he was a replica himself. Jade then had Guy explain what they have been doing in Malkuth. Guy sighed; Jade always had him explain things. "Well, it's not too different from what Natalia had said, but –"

"A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A!"

"What the –?" Luke stood up with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Running footsteps could already be heard from outside. Guy immediately opened the door to see a few guards running towards the stairs. He managed to halt one of them and asked, "What happened?"

"We're not sure yet, sir," replied the guard. "We just heard someone screaming from the second floor."

"Isn't that where the guest room we put that girl in is?" asked Natalia as she just came up behind Guy. Guy could see the worry in her green eyes as he looked back to nod.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go!" Luke was just about to go through the door when one of his escorts came up from the door.

"No, Master Luke! It might be dangerous!"

"You can't expect me to just sit here!"

"But –"

"If you're that worried, why don't you escort him up there?" said Jade as he came up behind Luke. "It's your duty, isn't it?"

"Yes, but –"

"Surely you realize we are more than capable of defending ourselves," Natalia stepped up in front of Luke. "Are we not the heroes that defeated Van Grants?"

"Well, yes –"

"Then we should be able to handle whatever threat that could be up there, right?" Anise walked beside Natalia, the doll she was hugging now hung at her back.

The Kimlascan soldier gave a defeated sigh. "Very well, let me escort you upstairs."

"Hey, I'm coming too," The long haired blonde man – Emperor Peony – came up behind Jade.

"Your Majesty?"

"Don't worry; I've got Jade as my escort."

Jade sighed. "Very well, your Majesty."

Half of the Kimlascan escorts went ahead, followed by the heroes and the emperor, who had the other half of the escorts following them. They went up the stairs to the second floor, and then went straight to the corridor that leads to the guest rooms. As soon as they got there, they could see a Malkuth soldier walking in their direction with two more not too far behind him. The soldier at the front seemed quite annoyed.

"What happened?" asked Emperor Peony.

The first soldier halted and looked at them, startled. He answered, "It's nothing, your Majesty. The girl was just startled."

"The girl? You mean the one we brought here?" asked Natalia.

"If you mean that stupid teenager in green, yeah," the soldier said in a very rude and annoyed tone.

"How dare you talk like that to Princess Natalia!" one of the Kimlascan escorts grabbed the hilt of his sword, but Luke put his hand over it. The escort took it as a sign to stand down and straightened up. At the same time, one of the two Malkuth soldiers following the first went up to their comrade saying, "What's the matter with you? You shouldn't talk like that in front of the Emperor! Besides, that's our guest, the Princess of Kimlasca!"

"Sorry…"

"I must apologize for his behavior," the third soldier stood beside the first two and bowed.

"Apology accepted," said Luke, "But could you please tell us exactly what happened?"

"Well apparently, the girl was startled by some of his Majesty's rappigs," said the second soldier.

"Come to think of it," said Emperor Peony, "I had the maids give them a bath earlier. They must have run off afterwards. I was wondering why it's taking so long…"

"How's the girl now?" asked Guy.

"When we came into the room, she was jumping from bed to bed trying to stay as far away from the rappigs as possible."

Anise blinked. "Sounds like she's afraid of rappigs..."

"After assessing the situation, we concluded that we weren't needed at the moment, so we left to return to our original posts." The third soldier finished.

"I see," said Jade, "However, one of you seems very disappointed that the situation was not more exciting..." he looked at the first soldier as he said this, causing him to hang his head in shame.

"We'll talk about your punishment later. For now, escort us to the guest rooms," said Peony.

All three soldiers bowed and turned around to lead them to the guest rooms. As they came closer to the room, panicked voices could be heard.

"Young lady, please! Don't do that!" a female voice – probably a maid's – shouted.

"But they're going to kill me!" a younger female voice shouted back.

"How could you think that? They're just rappigs!" shouted a male voice.

"Get the rappigs out of here!" said another male voice.

Guy decided to walk ahead of his friends first and check on the situation first. When he got into the room, what he saw was not exactly what he expected. Some soldiers were helping some maids get 3 rappigs out of the room as quickly as possible (Guy had to move out of their way). On top of the bed furthest from the door was the young girl Luke and Natalia had brought in. She was in the midst of casting a fonic arte and from the brightness of the fonic glyph beneath her; she was casting a pretty strong one. At least two maids and a soldier stood at the foot of the bed with the doctor. All of them were trying to calm the girl down.

Fearing that she would blow up the room, Guy immediately ran towards her while saying, "Hey! Calm down! Nobody's going to hurt you!"

The girl looked up, loosing concentration on her casting. Her red eyes zeroed in on Guy.

"Count Gardios?"

Surprised that the girl knew him by sight, he managed to say, "T-that's right. All the rappigs are gone now. No need to get overboard with artes."

The girl let out a sigh of relief and dropped herself into a sitting position on the bed. "Thank goodness! I thought I was going to die," she said.

Cautiously, Guy walked towards the girl. "Um, Miss..."

The girl looked at him with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. "Why are you calling me 'Miss'? Don't tell me you forgot my name!"

"Why would I know? I haven't met you before."

"What are you talking about? You've known me since the War of Fates!"

Guy stared at her, confused. "War... of... Fates? What the heck's that?"

The girl looked at him, bewildered. "Y-you don't remember? That's when your family almost got killed!"

Guy became upset. "My whole family did get killed! And it was during the Hod War!"

"The Hod War? What are you...?" the girl's eyes suddenly widened, as if something has just dawned upon her. "No, tell me about that later! Where are my siblings?"

"Your siblings?"

"Hey! What just happened in here?" Guy turned around to see his friends lead by Emperor Peony enter the room. Peony immediately stood beside Guy and addressed the girl. "I've just been told that you tried to use fonic artes on my rappigs. Now why the heck did you do that?"

The girl gave the Malkuth Emperor a disbelieving look. "What do you mean why? You know how terrified I am of rappigs!"

Peony looked at her blankly. "What am I, a fortune teller or something?"

The girl's eyes grew wider than it already was. "You... don't... know?" She looked around. "Where are my brother and sister?"

"You were the only one that came out of that whirlpool like thing," Luke replied as he walked up to Guy's other side.

"What whirlpool?"

Luke told the girl how he and Natalia had found her. When he had finished, the girl looked around slowly. Guy noted that she studied each person before moving on to the next. He also noted that she seemed to study Jade longer than the rest of them. When she had finished, she stared on the floor.

"Could it be... like the legends...?"

"Legends?"

"But... why... where...?" After she said this, she fainted.

"Hey, is she okay?" asked Anise.

"She'll be fine, Fon Master," said the doctor. "Her fear of rappigs and the confusion she just experienced likely exhausted her physically and mentally. Lets just let Miss Amber rest for now."

"Amber?" asked Guy.

"Before the incident with the rappigs, I managed to get her name. She's Amber Gelda, and her surname starts with C or K based on the sound."

"Amber Gelda, with C or K, huh?" Peony rubbed his chin. "Jade and I used to know someone with the name 'Gelda' but she's definitely not this girl."

"But she seemed to know you, your Majesty," said Tear.

Jade pushed his glasses up. "The Gelda that we knew wasn't afraid of rappigs and was much older. Plus her surname starts with N."

"Besides, this girl's got her history mixed up." Guy told them of what happened since he came in.

"The War of Fates? There was never a war by that name," said Tear.

"Do you think whatever happened to her messed up her brain?" asked Anise.

"Perhaps," said Jade. "Or..."

"What is it Jade?" asked Guy.

"I can't say for certain. I'll just question her myself later to test my theory. During that time, your Majesty, you better make sure all of your rappigs are in your room."

"Don't worry, I will. There's no way I'm gonna let that crazy girl blow up my rappigs."

A/N: Whew. This chapter ended being longer than I thought... Hopefully, I'll manage to get the next chapter nearly this long (as well as post it in less than 2 months). Well, I hope you liked it. Next chapter is in Terca Lumireis. Please R & R.