Chapter 71: ALO: Adventurers Lost Outside (Time)
About an hour after Sigurd had arrived and told Pierce that they were in the year X791, most of the wizards of Phoenix's Eye had recovered from the after-effects of reinserting the Sempiternal Phoenix into space and time, and all of the awakened wizards were being watched by Sigurd and his squadron of soldiers.
The guard commander in question was currently holding an interview with Pierce in a quiet corner. Pierce had blond hair that hung around his face in an M-shaped frame, warm brown eyes and weathered features. In spite of being just shy of sixteen years old, he looked older, and wore a blue shirt with the Phoenix's Eye symbol, an avian eye encircled by two feathers, printed on the front, in addition to tan shorts and sandals.
"So, let me get this straight," Sigurd frowned, as Pierce had just finished regaling him with the tale of how they had come to be in the present situation.
"You're all part of a Wizarding Guild from Magnolia in Fiore, named Phoenix's Eye, with the exception of those dozen soldier guys from the Alvarez Empire, who you picked up along the way," Sigurd began.
"Right so far," Pierce confirmed.
"Six years ago, in January of the year X784, you were conducting your guild's annual S-Class Trials, in the ancestral home of the Phoenix's Eye guild, a ruined town called Diamauros, when you were attacked by Kairos End, one of the four powerful Dark Guilds that comprise the legendary Balam Alliance in Fiore," Sigurd dryly continued.
"That's correct," the Beast Tamer wizard nodded.
"This Dark Guild, led by a 'Master Eternity', was attacking you in an attempt to take possession of a relic called the 'Sempiternal Phoenix', a powerful artefact that allows someone to travel anywhere in all of space and time," the man continued, "and yet, you and your guildmates somehow defeated all seven of Kairos End's Ends of Days -"
"Actually, we only defeated six of them. One went missing, and we have no idea what happened to them," Pierce briefly corrected him.
The man regarded him with a skeptically raised eyebrow, and slowly nodded. "Uh-huh. Six of the seven Ends of Days, a process in which you lost your left shoe," Pierce cast a glance at his sole remaining sandal and nodded, "before eventually the majority of your guild ganged up together on Master Eternity himself, and were all defeated with contemptuous ease,"
"As much as it pains me to admit that part, yes," Pierce shrugged.
A smile tugged at Sigurd's lips. "Anyway. After that, Eternity grew tired of searching for this 'Sempiternal Phoenix', and used a spell to remotely activate it. However, he didn't realise that the entire town of Diamauros was actually the Sempiternal Phoenix, and, as a result, transported the entire town and everyone in it, including himself and his sole remaining lackey, as well as everyone in your guild who was present at the time -"
"Again, not quite," Pierce interjected. "Two of our guildmates, Sensho and Totomaru, took our airship, the Garuda, and went to get help. They weren't caught by the Sempiternal Phoenix, but didn't return in time to do anything. I hope they're alright," he muttered, concerned for his friends.
"Whatever," Sigurd snorted. "Transported all of you into a void outside of space and time. Once there, you met, a dragon,"
"Equivaton, the Earth Dragon. Nice guy, for a man-eating monster," Pierce hummed with a smile.
"Sure. And you made an alliance with both this dragon and the two remaining members of Kairos End, and you all worked together to get back into space and time. In the process, you got separated from the dragon -"
"Equivaton," Pierce corrected again. "He prefers it if you use his name. We learnt that the hard way,"
"I'll take your word for it. Anyway, you got separated from 'Equivaton', and Clockwork, the only surviving subordinate of Master Eternity's, decided to betray his master for no apparent reason -"
"I'm sure he had a reason. I just don't know what it is. Er, was," Pierce added.
"Uh-huh. And he sacrificed himself to throw both himself and his master into the time stream at a random location. Shortly afterwards, you and your guildmates, along with the town of Diamauros which is actually this Sempiternal Phoenix, which, I remind myself, is a time machine, also crashed in space and time here, in the year X791, having been separated from your dragon, who ended up somewhere in the future. You, your guild and the Sempiternal Phoenix crashed here,"
Pierce cast a brief glance at the massive, lopsided chunk of ground behind them, covered in half-century-old ruins on the flat part that was supposed to be the top but now hung at a thirty-degree angle, and nodded. "Yep, that's what happened,"
"And this is where me and my men -"
This time, Sigurd was interrupted by an irritated shout from one of his soldiers, who Pierce only needed a brief glance at to see was a woman. "Soldiers," Sigurd corrected himself with a long-suffering expression, "found you,"
"You left out the part where the random intersections of time and space with the Sempiternal Phoenix caused us to snatch up a platoon of soldiers from the Alvarez Empire of the year X784," Pierce added.
Sigurd cocked an eyebrow, and looked over to the group of a dozen or so men, led by a woman, dressed in Alvarez soldier regalia. "I suppose I did," he sniffed. "Alright. Even if the situation that I find all of you in here does match up with this nonsensical story, I still don't believe a word,"
"I am somehow not surprised by that," Pierce shrugged.
"Pierce?" The Beast Tamer wizard glanced over at Sarph, one of his guildmates, a tall, muscular man who wore a leather vest and pants that left his arms bare, along with an array of gold bands and straps to form a sort of stripped-down armour. Normally, the Angel Knight of Phoenix's Eye would have his golden broadsword, the Spell-Shattering Sigil - Solamion, strapped to his back. Unfortunately, the enchanted sword had been destroyed during the fight against Eternity, which - depending on how you looked at it, had been either a mere few hours or around six years ago. "Have you sorted things out with these guys yet?"
"I'm trying, but they won't believe me about the Sempiternal Phoenix," Pierce evenly replied.
"Does that really surprise you?" Sigurd deadpanned.
Meanwhile, one of Pierce's guildmates, Tyria Zechtian, was discussing the situation at hand with another, Alice Gehabich. Tyria was a dark-skinned (African) foreigner with an electric blue ponytail and matching eyes, who liked to wear grey tracksuit pants and a silver singlet. Alice, on the other hand, had long, curly orange hair, soft brown eyes, and wore a yellow dress with a green singlet underneath. "We can't be six years into the future! What about the war?" Tyria demanded, exasperated.
While she certainly considered herself a wizard of the Phoenix's Eye guild, Tyria was actually an agent of the war-torn nation of Electria. She had joined Phoenix's Eye to get by for the sake of her undercover mission in Fiore, which was to safeguard a collection of priceless Electrian artefacts, known as the Electrian Compendium, for the duration of the war between Electria and Alvarez. Time-travelling six years into the future was a bit of an issue - anything could have happened!
"Um . . well, maybe it's over now?" Alice shrugged. She was from Electria too - not natively, but she had citizenship. But . . Tyria was a lot more patriotic than she was.
"Well - we can go back, right? Get everyone back into the Sempiternal Phoenix and travel back to X785?" the Electrian desperately asked.
"Uh . . I'm afraid not," Alice shook her head. "Reentry did serious damage to the control network of the Sempiternal Phoenix. I don't think it's ever going to travel in space or time again,"
Tyria's lips parted in horror, and she was at a loss for words. "No," she mouthed in horror. "Six years . . ."
Sigurd raised an eyebrow. "Good acting, I'll give you that," he complimented them in a very uncomplimentary tone.
"Sir, another one of them's waking up!" one of Sigurd's guards shouted a moment late, and his commander cast the speaker an annoyed glare. "So? They've been doing that every five minutes for the last hour!"
Pierce raised his eyebrows. One of the side effects of returning to conventional space and time with the Sempiternal Phoenix had been what their Guild Master, Master Feng Chriona, had described as the Phoenixes' bodies needing to recover after the strain time travel had put on them, and they had all been knocked unconscious. Pierce had been one of the first to wake up, and because most of his guildmates saw him as a leader figure, he had been elected to take charge.
"Uh, sir, I think you're gonna want to see this?" the soldier continued, and the female warrior Pierce had noted before stepped over, peering at whichever one of his guild mates they were inspecting - and gasped. "Sir, you definitely want to see this!"
"Ugh, fine. You, wait here," Sigurd growled at Pierce, who shrugged and nodded as he strode over to where Pierce's guildmates were being guarded by his people. The Beast Tamer wizard watched, interested, as the man shoved aside the two guards aside - taking note of an irritated look from the woman in the process - and blinked as Sigurd gasped in shock, almost collapsing.
He was further confused when Hare picked herself up, glaring down at him with unusual vehemence.
Hare was another member of the Phoenix's Eye guild, with straight black hair that hung around her neck and harsh, angular features to highlight emerald green eyes. She wore a plain green kimono with yellow trim, and was a skilled martial artist, who fought using Speed Magic and a giant frying pan. She was also reputed for her impatience, antisocial tendencies, mildly sadistic nature, short temper, unhealthy obsessions, tendency to hold grudges . . . Pierce blinked as he thought all this over. Why was he so certain that Hare wasn't secretly evil, again?
Even so, the intensity of Hare's glare at Sigurd was shocking. Veins were bulging in her forehead, her lips were parted, revealing gritted teeth, and her fingers were twitching as though she was on the verge of strangling Sigurd. Pierce raised his eyebrows in amazement. He'd never seen Hare so angry before. Did she and Sigurd somehow have some kind of history together?
Pierce's suspicions were all but confirmed when Hare shrieked, "WHAT THE FLYING FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE, YOU ASSHOLE?!"
Sigurd, recovering from his moment of surprise, straightened up and smiled at Hare. He had loomed over Pierce, but Hare stood a foot taller than the Tamer and matched him with ease. "Well. I certainly am surprised to see you've returned home," Sigurd offered. "Does that mean you've reconsidered?"
"Like hell! And what are you going on about, no way I'd ever come back to . ." Hare trailed off, before wheeling on her heel and turning to Alice. "Oi, smarty pants. You said the Sempiternal Phoenix might end up anywhen or anywhere, right?"
"That's true," Alice slowly nodded. "But why . . ?"
Hare snarled, turning back to Sigurd. "I think I just figured out where," she snorted. "Care to narrow it down?"
"I see you're buying into this time travel crap," the man hummed in disapproval. "But certainly. We are currently in the Ancient Forest, a ways south of the Sylph side entrance to the Legrue Corridor. I am surprised that you don't know this,"
"Pierce, you did tell this jerk what's what, right?" Hare hollered, spotting the Tamer, and Pierce nodded, shrugging. "I tried, but he didn't believe a word,"
"Well, that figures," Hare snorted, eyeing Sigurd with distaste.
"Are you still mad about what happened ten years ago?" Sigurd asked with an almost sycophantic smile.
"Ten years -? It's been barely four!" Hare snapped, before suddenly realising something. "Wait. Alice?"
"We, ah, skipped forwards six years in time. It's currently X791," the Brawler shrugged helpless.
"Really?" the Speed Wizard cocked an eyebrow, and turned back to Sigurd with a scrutinising glare. "I suppose he does look a bit older. But I thought that was just his ugly nature coming to the surface,"
A vein twitched in the man's neck as he struggled to maintain his composure. "Ahem, lady Hare. I'd still quite like a proper explanation as to what's going -" Sigurd started, but Hare raised her arms and, with a flash of light, a giant dish with a long, leather-encrusted handle materialised in her arms. With a flourish, she leapt into the air and swung it like a golf club, smashing Sigurd in the chest and sending him flying into the air. Phoenixes and guards alike gasped as the commander was sent flying into the distance, and quickly vanished beneath the treeline of the forest surrounding the Sempiternal Phoenix.
"Alright. Who's his second-in-command?" Hare demanded, looking around at the green-clad guards, who all immediately stood to attention as her gaze passed over them.
"That would be me," the blonde woman standing nearby nodded to her, and Hare turned in her direction - and let out a small gasp. "Leafa? Is that you?"
"Y-yes, ma'am," the soldier nodded, a look of dawning amazement on her face.
And then Hare did something that Pierce had rarely, if ever, seen her do. She smiled. Not a contemptuous smirk, not an exasperated grimace, not even the soppy false expression she put on to impress Totomaru. She gave the blonde woman before her a genuine, amazed, smile.
"I can't believe it," Hare grinned, looking her up and down, taking in her flowing, green/white robes that covered her upper arms and hung around her legs, as well as the light white armour she wore underneath. "Someone's been moving up in the world,"
"You bet," Leafa grinned.
"Hold on!" Pierce shouted, an incredulous eyebrow raised as he pushed his way through he guards to the two green-clad women. "Hare!"
"Yes?" the wizard questioned, her face instantaneously shifting back to its customary disdainful expression.
"Is this lady your . ." Pierce was so shocked he could barely say the word. "Friend?"
"Yeah, she is. So?" his guildmate growled.
Leafa grinned and gently swatted the other woman's head. "Don't tell me you've been keeping me a secret," she teased.
"Okay, who are you and what did you do with Hare?" Pierce demanded.
"Very funny," Hare snorted, looking back at Leafa. "Alright. If we're doing this, we might as well head back to Swilvane. I'm sure Sigurd will catch up eventually, more's the pity," she grimaced, spitting the words. "Pierce, get everyone up and ready to go. Leafa, get these guards organised. If we're doing this, it won't be done by half-measures,"
"You got it," Leafa grinned, turning away.
"Okay, seriously, Hare. What's going on here? Where are we?" Pierce asked, throughly confused.
"We're in Sylph territory. In Alfheim. My home nation," the older woman explained, looking remarkably unhappy about this fact.
"Alfheim?" Sarph spoke up from the watching audience of Phoenix's Eye wizards. "That's the continent to the east of Vestal and Vestroia. It's literally on the other side of the world from Magnolia," he frowned.
"Well, duh. Why else would I go to Magnolia when I wanted to get as far away from this place as possible?" Hare snorted, looking none too happy about the fact that this was where she'd ended up. "Look, I'll explain everything on the way to Swilvane. But right now, we need to get moving. If memory serves, this forest is infested with monsters," she frowned.
Pierce blinked. Now that he understood. "Okay," he nodded, turning to his fellow Phoenixes. "Alright, everyone, we need to get moving. Apparently Hare's got a plan -"
"Really?" Boomer blinked. Boomer was a long-term friend of Pierce's, a stout, portly boy with a black cotton jacket over a white shirt and orange shorts, who had spiky black hair and thick, bushy eyebrows. As a Sound Wizard, he was rarely seen without his oversized boombox.
"I'll need to go fetch the Sonic Boom, then. It's still in the town square in Diamauros. I hope it made it out alright," he worried, turning and dashing back into the lopsided town of ruins. The Sonic Boom was Boomer's personal magic-mobile, a three-wheeled, triangular, white-and-orange vehicle bristling with speakers of varying sizes on every inch of its body. The general consensus amongst the wizards of Phoenix's Eye was that Boomer was a little too attached to his car.
"Alright. Is everyone else fine?" Pierce questioned.
"Eve's still asleep," Alice pointed out, gesturing to the brown-haired Celestial Wizard, whose blue dress was covered in dirt. Eve was known for being mousy and timid, though she had an inner fire. It just . . needed to be coaxed out sometimes. Still, she was capable of using both Celestial and Snow Magic, so Pierce knew there was a lot of talent hidden inside her.
"Not to mention Cubelios," Sarph added, hoisting the purple-haired teenage girl in his arms.
Pierce winced. Just an hour ago, - relative to the chronological order of events as the Phoenixes had experienced them - during their re-entry to time and space, Cubelios, a cursed giant serpent who he had rescued from the dark guild Oracion Och and had been taking care of by official mandate from the Magic Council, had been struck by the time-distorting phenomenon commonly referred to as Real Nightmare. As a result, every spell that had ever been placed on her, from the tortures inflicted by dark wizards to the effects of Pierce's own Beast Taming magic, had been simultaneously broken, returning Cubelios to her pre-curse state. Everyone had been somewhat surprised to discover that the giant serpent had actually originally been human.
"Well, we can't wake them up," Pierce frowned. "Sarph, you carry Cubelios. Lorus, take Eve," he commanded, gesturing to the slender illusionist wizard in his large, blue cloak that trailed to his feet with its black hems and long, hanging sleeves. His face was angular, with a pointed nose and chin, with narrow, close-set eyes set into a face crowned by cerulean hair styled upwards in four spikes. "Of course, the hero would be remiss in his duties if he failed to aid a damsel in distress," he beamed, showing dazzling teeth, and scooped up the unconscious Celestial Wizard.
"Alright. Someone figure out where Master and that Kairos girl went, and as soon as they and Boomer get back, we'll go," Pierce declared.
-[CoT]-
"So, I died," Donna mused, reflecting on the story Master Feng had told her.
"Yes. Fifty-six years ago, the original incarnation of you, Donna Bastion, was killed," the elderly Guild Master of Phoenix's Eye, resplendent in her red martial arts uniform and gaunt face, with piercing eyes and thin lips, crowned by a bush of grey hair, confirmed.
"But then . . how am I here? I don't feel dead," Donna frowned.
"Well, this is only a guess, but our old friend Lycurgus spent the last few decades dabbling in some very strange temporal magic. I think that he discovered a way to create an 'echo' of sorts of a dead person, and that is what he did to you,"
"So, does that make me a clone, of sorts, of the original Donna?" the girl, with her sky-blue hair and tiger skin leotard, questioned, confused.
"I suppose that's one way to put it," Master Feng admitted. "Though, since Real Nightmare restored your memories, I can only assume that the state of quantum flux Eternity placed you in has been undone. Congratulations, old friend, you've come back from the dead,"
"But I remember being 'Mordonna'," Donna murmured to herself. "That persona Eternity gave me after taking away my memories . . he convinced me that I was his daughter. Why would he do that?"
"I doubt it was intentional," Feng mused to herself. "If I had to guess, I would say that your memory loss was an unintended side effect of being reanimated. Lycurgus, of course, was too consumed by grief for the original version of you, so he allowed you to believe that you were his daughter rather than put himself through the pain of having to explain things to you,"
"I guess that makes sense . . wait, oh crap. The whole world knows me as a criminal! I'm gonna have to go into hiding . . live out my days as a hermit . . this is horrible!"
"Relax. There are laws in place for things like this. You can plead coercion and magically induced insanity, and you should be cleared," Master Feng reassured her.
"Oh. Okay, that's good," Donna nodded, taking a deep breath. "In the meantime," Once again, she looked at her tigerskin leotard in distaste. "I desperately need a change of clothes. Did the other version of me seriously like looking like a prostitute? I feel so dirty,"
"Ah, we might have bigger problems at present," Feng replied.
"I suppose you're right," Donna muttered. "We should go rejoin the rest of our guild. Hopefully they've sorted out what's going on,"
"Indeed," Master Feng replied, before pausing. "Wait. 'Our' guild?"
"What?" Donna cast her a playful smile. "Did you honestly think I didn't intend to rejoin Phoenix's Eye?"
-[CoT]-
Within half an hour, everyone had gathered together, and, with Leafa as guide, the large group of people were forging onwards through the forest, and Pierce was catching up Master Feng on what had happened while she was talking to Donna.
"Wait a second. Are you certain about this?" Master Feng questioned, incredulous. "Hare has a friend?"
"I can't believe it either, I assure you," Pierce responded.
Feeling she desperately needed a full explanation, the guild master quickened her pace until she was at the front of the group, where Hare and Leafa were walking together. The green-clad guards who apparently answered to Leafa in Sigurd's absence were marching in two long columns on either side of the ragtag group of Phoenixes as an honour guard, though Pierce wasn't sure whether they were there to prevent attacks or escapes.
"Alright, Hare, what exactly is going on here? How do you know these people?" The Guild Master questioned.
Hare immediately cut herself off mid-sentence, and frowned, looking at her. Leafa paused. "Is someone wrong?"
For a moment, the Speed wizard seemed to struggle with something within herself, but sighed. "Ugh, fine. Do you remember what happened when I first joined the guild?"
-[CoT]-
It was a normal day in the Phoenix's Eye guild hall; which in turn was actually a retrofitted and expanded wooden barn with a five-storey stone tower adorning the rear left corner. As it was the middle of winter, at the beginning of the year X781, Master Feng was outside, sweeping snow off the path that led up the hill to the guild hall.
She paused, hearing footsteps crunching in the snow further down the hill, and looked up, expecting it to be one of her brats returning from a job. Instead, though, it was an unfamiliar woman with black hair that looked like it had been crudely cut, possibly her own work, wearing a brown coat and a silver scarf over a green kimono with yellow trim. "Oi, you. This place is a guild, right?"
Master Feng raised her eyebrows. "Why yes, it is," she nodded confirmation.
"Thought so. You recruiting?"
"Always," The Phoenix was, admittedly, rather off-put by the newcomer's tone, but, taking a closer look at her face, she noticed that the woman's teeth were clenched, and pain was etched into the lines of her face.
"Good. You have a new member. Congratulations," she declared, walking past her and towards the guild hall.
"Hold on," This mysterious woman had obviously been through a lot, and Master could recognise that. She needed something, and hopefully Phoenix's Eye could provide. After all, she wouldn't be much of a guild master if she didn't take care of her guild. "If you're going to join, I need to know your name,"
"Hare," she flippantly responded.
Feng blinked. ". . Hare who?"
"Just Hare. I left everything else behind,"
-[CoT]-
"Of course," Master Feng replied. "You told me that you had left behind everything except your first name,"
"That was about a month after I left this place," Hare grudgingly explained.
Feng, Pierce, and everyone else waited with bated breath.
"That's it,"
There was a series of 'thunks' as everyone who had been listening fell to the ground.
Suddenly, Artorias leapt over Pierce and landed next to Hare. He was a slim boy, only a couple of years older than Pierce, with a shock of blood-red hair. His body was swarthed by a large cloak that was white at the shoulders and slowly faded into red as it reached his feet. Artorias was known with some renown as the strongest male wizard of the Phoenix's Eye guild, second only to Faraday (whose overwhelming power was without equal) and Master Feng herself, and also the youngest S-Class wizard in the guild, titles he held partly due to his practising the rare technique of Blood Magic. However, he was of mild temperament, soft-spoken, and rarely allowed himself to become unsettled.
"With all due respect," he softly told Hare, "That's bullshit,"
"Yeah. You might as well tell them the rest, Hare. They'll find out when we get to Swilvane anyway," Leafa folded her arms in impatience.
"Ugh, fine," the Speed Wizard snorted. "Remember that Sigurd guy?"
"Who could forget?" Pierce muttered.
"He's my ex-fiancé,"
Everyone stopped dead at this. "WHAT?"
"Wait, so all the time you spent running around after Totomaru, you had a husband?" Boomer questioned.
"Don't be stupid. I said we were engaged. I left him at the altar," Hare huffed.
"Wait. No way that Sigurd guy was younger than forty. Even with the time travel, that's one hell of an age difference," Pierce frowned.
"Don't remind me," the Speed wizard growled.
"Hold on. Exactly how old are you, Hare?" Boomer asked.
"Yeah. I don't think she's ever told us," Grace mused. Grace was Pierce's adoptive younger sister, a thirteen-year-old with straight, grass-green hair that hung around her shoulders and down her back, who usually wore a yellow dress with grey lace and sandals like her brother's. Earlier in life, she had been a test subject experimented on by a dark guild called Crypt's Spawn, working under orders of Brain of the Oracion Och. They had implanted several lacrimas inside her body, including an artificial dragon lacrima, which had been coded with a mixture of two kinds of Lost Magic; the Arc of Space and Dragon Slayer, which in turn had caused her to become the Reality Dragon Slayer. However, Pierce, along with Sarph and Hare, had rescued her during a job, and somehow Pierce had ended up taking custody of her. It hadn't taken long for Grace to think of Pierce as an older brother, and in return, he considered her his sister.
"I'm twenty-one," Hare reluctantly admitted.
Boomer, seeing this as a perfect opportunity to take some revenge for the horrors Hare enjoyed inflicting on him, mock gasped from within the cockpit of the Sonic Boom, which was trailing at the rear of the party. "So old!"
"Shut it, you little twerp!" the woman barked.
"And Sigurd is currently forty-two," Leafa weighed in, a scowl on her face.
"So, a fifteen-year gap at the time? And this was in X781 . . he was twice as old as you!" Pierce exclaimed. "Why would he want to marry someone so young?"
"Not important," Hare huffed. "Obviously, I didn't want to go through with it. So I left. I wanted to get as far away as possible, so I found the geographical other side of the world,"
"Magnolia," Artorias guessed.
"Actually, no. It was the middle of the ocean. But Magnolia was the closest place, so I went there. The rest is history," Hare snorted.
"That's still not the whole story, though, is it?" the Blood wizard folded his arms.
"Bite me," Hare hissed.
The conversation hit a lull, and Master Feng took the opportunity to give the guild a brief run-down of the situation with Donna.
"So, she's good," Alice asserted.
"Another reformed villain? How wondrous. We shall form an Axis of Rejecting Evil!" Lorus melodramatically declared.
"You . . do that," Eve, who had woken up, nodded.
-[CoT]-
A little while later, Pierce slowed his pace to keep up with Tyria, and regarded the Electrian with concern. "Hey," he softly murmured, reaching out and placing an arm on the girl's shoulder.
Tyria didn't shy away, but didn't lean in to the contact. Instead, she turned baleful blue eyes on the Tamer. "Six years," she muttered. No matter what she did, her thoughts kept returning to the time that they had lost six years. "Anything could have happened back home. Everyone could be dead," she muttered.
"I don't believe that," Pierce immediately rejected the idea. "Headmaster Atsphuria is one of the most powerful wizards I've ever met. He wouldn't get killed just because he's fighting a war,"
"Yeah. But he was getting old," Tyria sighed, clearly still worried. She paused, feeling Pierce's arm snake around her neck, to her other shoulder, as he pulled her closer to him. The Tamer didn't have anything he could say to make her feel better, so he held her close, promising with his embrace that he would support her.
The time jump was harder for her than him; most of the people he cared about had been brought with them. As long as the Phoenix's Eye guild hall still stood back in Magnolia, and his house had been left untouched, he would be content. But Tyria had an entire country full of people that she felt responsible for; whose fates were bound up in her guardianship of the Electrian Compendium. A duty she had failed at for six years.
"Everything's going to turn out alright," he murmured, and Tyria weakly nodded. She looked at him, hazel eyes meeting brown, and smiled. "Well," she raised her eyebrows, revealing teeth in her parted lips that Pierce had always considered to be dental divinity. "I know one thing will be," And with that she pushed herself up the inches of difference in height between them and gave Pierce a quick kiss on the cheek, before contentedly resting her head on his shoulder as they walked.
A faint flush crept across the boy's cheeks, and his smile widened.
-[CoT]-
"Oh, wow," Lync gasped, beholding the city of Swilvane.
It was incredible; a massive array of buildings scattered across a vast plain a few kilometres from the edge of the Ancient Forest, and five massive towers arranged in a cross dominated the skyline, with each of the four corners adorned by a second tower that was half the size. Each of the nine towers was connected by an assortment of bridges and walkways, and the entire city shone in the afternoon sunlight.
"It's beautiful," Tyria murmured as they continued to approach.
"And it looks like quite the commotion's going on at the gates," Sarph observed, covering his eyes with his hands and squinting at the border of the city, where it seemed a large crowd was gathered.
As they walked the last few kilometres leading to the city, the crowd's purpose became more apparent. The first telling factor was that it was around two-thirds comprised of mature men. The second was that several people were waving banners; mostly white or green with phrases such as 'LONG LIVE THE PRINCESS', 'WELCOME HOME PRINCESS', and there was even a 'I LOVE YOU PRINCESS'.
"They all seem very excited about some princess," Artorias offered.
"Indeed they do," Sarph hummed, eyeing Hare thoughtfully, who was clenching her fists and gritting her teeth.
By now, they were close enough to pick out individual faces. Most of them were plain and unremarkable, though there was an odd prevalence of hair coloured shades of green. However, one man at the head of the crowd was unmistakeable, and Hare, Pierce and Leafa alike frowned as they saw him.
"Welcome home, Princess Hare," Sigurd offered them all the most unpleasant smile as he uttered the damning words.
Hare looked thunderous.
-[CoT]-
"Welcome, to Doctor Kit's Documentaries on Phoenix's Eye!"
Kit, a small white fox with red markings running from his ears to his eyes and from his eyes to his snout, and a red tip to his white tail, grinned at the camera, standing in front of a blackboard.
"Hello, everybody! I'm Kit, the loveable, adorable -"
"Egotistical!" came a voice from off-screen.
Kit growled to himself, before continuing, "Yokai who is supposed to act as Pierce's partner. Unfortunately, I don't get anywhere near as much screentime as I rightfully should," he muttered irritably. "Honestly. First chapter of the new story and I'm not even in it!"
"Anyway. Doctor Kit's Documentaries, a Phoenix's Eye peripheral to Professor Happy's Class about Fairy Tail, is a segment that gets added to some chapters to provide exposition and explanation for things that would simply clog up the main chapters if the author tried to work it in as part of the story," Kit summarised, tapping the blackboard. "Today, we have two topics of discussion; recapping the purpose of the Documentaries, and explaining how Fenghuang0296 is working around one of the major plot holes surrounding the time-skip in Fairy Tail canon!"
"Everyone knows that the story of Fairy Tail prior to the Tenroe Island arc occurs in the year X784, right? However, based on the author's timelining, Lucy first joins the guild around May or June of X784. Edolas happened around Christmas, which can be inferred due to the fact that there was snow in Magnolia at the beginning of that arc. Which means that the S-Class Trials could only have happened at some point in January or February, in X785,"
"However, it's stated in-universe that Fairy Shield was active for seven years, and deposited the main characters in the year X791. I'm sure everyone can see the mistake in the maths there," Kit continued, tapping numbers on the board that counted from 785 to 791.
"Luckily, there's a simple solution. All we have to do is say that Fairy Shield only lasted six years," Kit grinned. "And, therefore, the time-travelling shenanigans involved in the Sempiternal Phoenix happen to coincide with the corrected Fairy Shield effect. And the heroes of both Fairy Tail and Phoenix's Eye have therefore travelled into the future and ended up in late January of the year X791. Make sense?"
"I sure hope it does, anyway, because that's all for now, on DK's Ds!"
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A/N
And there we have it! Chapter 71, the first chapter of the second Phoenix's Eye story!
The first story arc this time around is the 'Princess of Lies' arc, a character arc for Hare. And, if you're not familiar with the Sword Art Online franchise, I've invoked some heavy elements from that franchise this time around, officially marking the third occasion in which this Fairy Tail story has crossed over into another franchise. Of course, it won't be the last.
Also, the poll that I set up for the popularity of original characters introduced in "The Guild Next Door" has finished, and . . only nine people voted?
I really thought I had a bigger readership than that . . . :( Anyway, the most popular, by an overwhelming margin, was . . . Kit! And I assure you, that was one hell of a surprise. Second place was a two-way tie between Pierce and Grace, and third place went to Tyria!
Meanwhile, fourth was a three-way tie between . . Eishaj (whew, haven't thought about that guy in months.), Crystal (one of Pierce's beasts, if you need the refresher) and Pierce Kynigós. I'm sure the two people who voted for him will be happy when Apocrypha goes live, but more on that next chapter!
Getting back to the actual story, I do hope everyone's going to enjoy what I have planned. It's going to be spectacular. :) Peace!