Linking Worlds: Yggdrasil

The world, characters and so on from Tales of Symphonia are owned by Namco. We only own our OCs.

This fanfic contains spoilers. Viewer discretion is advised.

The following is a fanfic collaboration between IluvAUs and Rhapsody Duskbane. This was born out of randomness, so bear with us. I (Rhapsody Duskbane) have never actually played the game before, HOWEVER, I know a large majority of the game's world and story. IluvAUs here, has beaten the game twelve times, so in the event I screw up when it's my turn to write a chapter, she'll be there to correct me before the chapter has been released. With that, on with the show!

Chapter 1

The airport in Finland was surprisingly not as busy as Evangelos thought it would be. It was rather quiet, with few people roaming around the dull gray indoor gate. Perhaps it was because it was back-to-school time in the Finnish education system; people would have already come home from their vacations and go back to work or school. Eva assumed it was just her lucky day. Who knew that going all the way to Helsinki, Finland just to see the upcoming Nightwish concert (which she had to beg her parents for days non stop for her parents to let her go until they had finally said yes) would be worth the trip? Then again, she thought, it was Nightwish; why wouldn't it be worth the trip? To Eva, going to see Nightwish was like her birthday and Christmas all wrapped up into one glorious day. After she walked down the halls up to the baggage claim and grabbed her suitcase, Eva accidentally bumped into a girl a year younger than her and ended up knocking their suitcase off of the cart they were using.

"Oh!" said a surprised Eva. "I am so sorry!"

"Oh no worries, it's fine." said the person Eva bumped into.

As the two were struggling to put the astonishingly heavy yellow suitcase back onto the cart, Eva realized something. The person she bumped into had a rather familiar voice. She sounded like a friend that she knew from Skype. She even looked the same as the said friend's profile picture. Eva shrugged it off though; such things were coincidences. But she took another glance at the second girl. Her brown eyes, her brunette hair, her voice... could it really be her, Eva wondered. The chances were awfully slim, but still. It may have been some other girl who happened to look and sound like her friend (that or a clone like in the video game Tales of the Abyss), but Evangelos wanted to be sure. She scrutinized the girl who in return blinked awkwardly.

"...What?" asked the girl. "What? Is there something on my face?"

"You look familiar," said Evangelos. "Have we met before?"

The girl tilted her head.

"No, I don't..."

The girl then looked surprised.

"Wait, I think I do know you! I recognize your voice! You wouldn't happen to be... Evangelos?"

"Amina?"

"Yeah!"

Evangelos' expression turned from suspicion to surprise.

"Oh my God, no way! What are you doing-"

It was at that moment, that Evangelos recognized a familiar logo on Amina's dark gray t-shirt. It bore vines on the left side and a logo that said "Nightwish" written on it. Eva wondered for a moment if Mina was going to the Nightwish concert that she herself was going to. She discarded the thought from her mind. Sure, Mina had an interest for Nightwish (though interest may be an understatement) but it would be too coincidental if she was really going to the same concert. Besides, just because someone is wearing a t-shirt of their favorite band, it doesn't always mean that you are going to their concert tonight. Sometimes, people wear their favorite band t-shirts just to express their love for them. In other words, it says: "I freaking love this band and I am proud!". But still, Eva had to ask.

"Say," she said. "You wouldn't happen to be going to the Nightwish concert, would you?"

"Of course!" replied Amina. "It took me so long to get my parents to say yes, but surprisingly, they did. Weird, huh?"

"You too?" asked Eva.

"Yeah!" nodded Mina pulling her concert ticket from her pocket.

Eva glanced back and forth at the ticket and Amina.

"This has got to be either fate or pure luck."

"No way! You mean-" asked Amina.

"Yeah."

"Man, this is so cool!"

After talking for a little bit, Evangelos and Amina went to their seperate hotels (which were actually close by) and met up in front of a cafe later that day. They walked around the city and visited the landmarks and museums that were available. While doing that, they talked about what they usually talked about on Skype: music, video games, fanfiction, music videos and so on. It was nice talking about it in person for once; neither of them believed that it would never happen. But it did. When the afternoon eventually arrived, they decided to head to the concert early. The concert was located in an outside ampitheater which was a thirty minute walk away from the city. They walked (seeing as they didn't have a ride) from the city, into the beautiful green fields outside of the city. On the way, they saw something unexpected.

"Whoa!" said a surprised Amina. "Check out that tree!"

Eva saw it too and looked on in wonder. The tree was nothing like they had ever seen before. It was giant; around ten or more stories high and wide as a school bus. Its emerald green leaves blocked out the sun, but let a little of its rays shine through. It was a beautiful and grand tree that seemed to radiate a mystical aura to it. They didn't really know or care about what it was doing in the middle of nowhere instead of being in a forest. They were tired from all that walking.

"Should we rest there for a bit?" asked Eva.

"Sure, we got time." replied Mina.

The two walked over to the tree and sat on its steep, winding, enormous roots.

"This is a really nice tree." commented Amina. "We should have bought lunch and ate here."

Eva nodded and stared up at the branches, deep in thought. The two sat there in silence for a while. They had already run out of things to talk about after they started walking away from the city. Amina sighed. She struggled to start up a conversation, but couldn't think of anything. She never really was good at starting conversations. She leaned back against the tree and sighed. What a day, she thought. She was tired from all of the excitement. But they had to get going. They didn't want to be stuck in line for hours on end just to get in to the amphitheater. She stood up for a moment and stretched.

"Okay, I'm rested up." said Mina. "Let's go and grab those seats while we still can."

Before Eva could reply, Mina accidentally slipped when she took a step and hit her head on another root. Eva, worried for her friend, stood up and rushed to her side.

"Are you okay?" asked Evangelos, with concern.

"Ow... yeah, I-I think I'm fine..." muttered Amina, clutching the back of her head.

When she removed her hand from her head, Mina realized that there was a small splatter of blood on her hands. She looked behind her and saw that the root she had hit also had a small trace of blood on it.

"Oh, man, you're bleeding!" gasped Eva. "We should get you to a hospi-"

"Who dares spill blood on this sacred tree?" boomed an unearthly, androgynous voice.

Evangelos and Amina looked at each other blankly.

"D-did you just hear that?" asked Eva, dumbstruck.

"Yeah..." nodded Mina. "Pretty weird, huh?"

"You, who have defiled the tree called Yggdrasil," the voice spoke again. "You, who would dare battle one another on its roots... you shall be punished tenfold."

"W-wait a minute!" cried Mina while she looked left and right for the owner of the voice. "This is all a misunderstanding! We weren't fighting! I just slipped and hit my head!"

"Yeah!" added Eva. "We-"

At that moment, Evagelos realized something. Yggdrasil... she had heard that name before. But she wasn't thinking of the Norse mythology legend. Instead, she thought of Yggdrasil - the World Tree from Tales of Symphonia. She didn't know why she would think of that, but she did, anyway. It was then that the sky darkened to pitch black and light illuminated the tree. The two girls started to panic. The spectacle was too mystical to be real, but it was too lucid to be a dream. Then, Mina looked to Eva and noticed something; she was covered in a white aura. Before she could say something, Mina then realized that she too, was covered in that same aura. As if someone or something was using magic, the two were lifted off of the tree's roots into the air and thrown directly at the tree. And then, the world became covered in darkness.

Authors' notes: There you are! The end of chapter one! Next will be IluvAUs who will write the second chapter. It will then be me, then AUs, then me again and so on.