Tales of Zestiria: The World Beyond

Chapter 23

The truth was...Vanessa was from a different timeline, a version of the world. A place where the four Phoenixes ruled over the four Empyreans long ago. She knew that she wasn't home since the day she met Sorey and the others. The fact no one knew about the phoenixes and there were no signs of her family when she went to the place they were in her timeline.

She didn't want them to know, she didn't know how they would react, so she kept it a secret. But since Laphicet knew about Ma'ano, it only meant there was something wrong. Like her time was bleeding into that time.

"It's okay," Sorey held her hand. "I don't care if you're from another time. Look at Velvet and Arthur, they're friends and they're from different times."

"Yes but..." Vanessa tried to hold back her cries as she spoke. "They're from this world, this timeline. I'm from a place where we don't know each other, where my family exists."

"Vanessa..."

"If you want to go back to your family," Magilou began, "we have to find out who's behind bringing you here."

"Let's wait on that for a moment." Arthur suggested, "Vanessa has enough pressure on her telling us this. We should take it slowly."

"Maybe if we know more about her time, that will lead us straight to the person who brought her here," Celica added.

"How does that make sense?" Edna spoke up.

"If we're to find who brought her here, we need to find out if they're from this world or that one." Laphicet tried to make sense of Celica's words. "If we can determine what their powers are, we can bring back order to both worlds."

"You've changed Phi," Velvet pointed out. "I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Velvet."

Since Vanessa wasn't in the best of moods to go out, she stayed along with some of the others to help comfort her. Arthur and Velvet took some time of their own to hang out and reevaluate what had happened in the past moments. Not only had they found out Laphicet was alive, but they also found out Vanessa was from a different timeline. Velvet felt like one more surprise and she'd drop dead.

Arthur smiled a bit, then it turned into worry, which Velvet didn't see. He wondered how long he could keep it a secret that he and Celica were from a different world. He had asked Laphicet to not tell anyone as he wanted to do it himself, so it was up to him and Celica to decide when the right time was. He looked back at Velvet who was staring into the sky and figured she didn't need one more problem on her shoulders, so remained silent.

Celica with Rose and Alisha walked around to see the sights. Rose climbed onto a rock and started shouting about the view and how pretty it was while Alisha warned her that it was dangerous. Celica laughed and just as Rose began to tumble from Alisha's telling, she caught Rose with a wind arte. Rose slapped her on the back almost too hard to thank her. Celica kept her smile as Alisha and Rose got distracted by a squirrel that ran by.

Inside, they talked about what to do next. Rokurou was unsure about the whole ordeal so took a break to think about it. It was hard on each of Velvet's friends who were taken from their time. They had no idea what to think nor knew what else to do. They were together again, but at what cost? Sorey's friends didn't have that problem, they had finished their first journey and weren't interrupted by an unnatural power.

They also weren't taken to the future, both Velvet and Eleanor were from a time when the world wasn't as developed and when Laphicet was just a young Malak who didn't know much another the world. It had to be a thousand-year difference between the two times which meant the world was completely different from how they remembered it. Velvet spent days trying to figure out where she was and Eleanor stuck herself in one town.

Once the night hit, it was time to regroup. They all sat by the fireplace of the inn to talk about what to do next. It wasn't going to be easy to find someone with the power to bring others into another world or time, not even Magilou could pull off a feat like that. The conversation was then interrupted by someone who entered the inn and opened the door so that it slammed into the wall. He was tall with a long black cloak covering his body.

He sat down at a table and ordered a drink. There was something about him that made Arthur curious, no one else in the inn had a strange energy to them; it was like Velvet's malevolence, but stronger and more frequent in its waves. Arthur approached him with the others watching from behind; up close, he heard the man counting down from a hundred.

"One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven, you're running out of time kids."

"Who are you?" Velvet said as she held her blade to his neck. She felt the same energy as Arthur did.

"You'll find out soon enough. But I think you should worry about what effect that other timeline is having on this one. Those phoenixes are powerful and could break the world if you're not careful."

"What does that mean?" Alisha asked.

"Tick tock, you have four hours until the earth pulses overflow with energy and blow to pieces."

"What do we do about it?" Arthur asked angrily.

"My guess is calm the phoenixes down. I'd hate to see this world blow to smithereens so soon." The man threw a feather to them. It was pure white with a glow to it that made it hard to look at.

"What do we do with this?" Sorey asked.

"Figure it out. Fifty-four, fifty-three."

"Stop counting!" Velvet nearly cut the man's throat if it wasn't for Arthur.

"Enough, he's not important right now." Arthur held her back and got her to calm down.

"You're right. Vanessa, you know the most about the phoenixes, you're the only one who can stop them."

"I'll do my best." Vanessa held onto her book tightly.

"I'll be off then." The man took the drink from the waitress and quickly dropped it so that it shattered on the floor. He waved goodbye and was gone in an instant.

Arthur helped the waitress clean up the mess and stared out the window to see the man had already gone out of sight. Whoever he was, he didn't have good energy to him. Velvet stood by Arthur's side as he looked out the window, she knew something was wrong with that man the second the inn door was slammed open. But it wasn't important, he warned them about the phoenixes of Vanessa's time entering that time.

According to Laphicet, he felt a strong wave of power coming from the earth's pulses. But nothing was like that man, there was no way he was native to the world, and judging of Vanessa's expression, she didn't know him either. It had to be Lucilius, the angel mentioned in the Requiem.

(Well that concludes this chapter. I have an idea for what's to come in the upcoming chapters, I'm mainly excited to finally introduce Lucilius as I have a ton planned for him. This arc shouldn't be too long, not like the Berseria arc. There are four phoenixes so four chapters should cover them, plus character development on Vanessa's side. Again, I'm not a romance writer but I'll do my best on developing the relationship between Vanessa and Sorey. Everything takes time, including writing these chapters.)