Note: There's no Tales of Eternia setion for some sad reason... and since the first ToE was called Tales of Destiny 2 for the Playstation, I figured it'd be okay here. Huzzah for loopholes! And endless thanks to my friend Schimmel, who helped me with a lot of the Tales-related problems I had... and will continue to have until this story comes to a close.
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"R...n..." A faint voice echoed in his mind, it was having a difficult time understanding it though. "An... ri...an..." It was familiar, was it calling his name? He tried to speak, but no words came. All he could do was listen and try to understand. "Rian..." The voice steadily got louder, clearer.
"RIAN! Wake the hell up!" It screamed.
Nemo jumped, falling off his chair and onto the ground. "Wh- what is it!?" he asked in a panic.
"Damn it! How many times am I going to have to yell at you for falling asleep in class!? You came to Mintche University to learn, didn't you!? If you wanted a place to sleep there's a perfectly good inn down the road!"
A man in a long white and gold robe was standing over him, a fierce expression on his face. "Oh... Professor Trivil." Nemo mumbled, getting up and yawning. "Class over already?"
"It is for you, out!" he yelled, pulling Nemo to the door and pushing him out of the classroom.
"Geez... what a grouch." Nemo muttered as the door slammed shut. He stretched and wandered down the nearby staircase, making his way to the exit.
The street was packed with other students, each wearing a robe similar to Professor Trivil's, but most of them were white and teal instead of gold. Nemo looked down at the one he was wearing, it was white and dark green, frayed slightly at the bottom. He wiped some of the dirt off it that probably came from the classroom floor and walked into the cafeteria building.
He glanced around at all the students here as well. There was no end to the uniforms, if it wasn't for the varying hairstyles there would be no way to tell one student from the other. After checking to see if any of the many heads of hair looked familiar, he got something to eat and walked to one of the tables where he knew at least one of them.
"Hey Tristan." Nemo said as he sat down.
A student with rather spiky brown hair looked over at me. "Nemo! How ya doing? You're out of class early again I see, Professor Donovan get annoyed by your snoring again?" he laughed.
"I don't blame him." A student with short, neatly combed light green hair said. "You should put more effort into your studies."
"Oh come on Charlie, you know as well as I do how boring Professor Donovan's classes are." A girl with a long red ponytail said.
"My name is Charles... not 'Charlie', Fae." he said crossly.
"Oh, excuse me, Charles." Fae imitated his rather snobby tone fairly well, but Charles clearly wasn't amused unlike Nemo and Tristan, who were too busy laughing to see his expression.
"Hmph..." Charles grumbled, getting up and leaving.
"What's with that guy? No sense of humor at all." Tristan mumbled.
"Or any other trace of a normal personality." Nemo added.
"Ignore him, that's the easiest thing to do." Fae said, picking up her glass of water and taking a drink.
"W...WHOA!" someone cried, followed shortly by a crash.
"You did it again, didn't you Nemo?" Tristan asked, glancing in the direction it came from.
"That's against the university rules you know..." Fae muttered.
"Like I care. Besides, if you guys cared you'd have reported me a long time ago." Nemo grinned.
"Well, it would be too dull around here otherwise." Tristan chuckled.
A tray dropped onto the table where Charles had been sitting, and the three of them looked over at the new arrival. A student with short, puffy blonde hair was standing there, bits of food splattered onto the front of his robe. "How are you supposed to walk in these things?!" he complained, sitting down next to Tristan.
"Good afternoon to you too Schimmel." Tristan chuckled.
"You really need to stop tripping like that, I gave you one of my spare robes so you could blend in here... all you're doing is attracting attention to yourself." Nemo mumbled.
"I can't help it... this thing is too long for me." Schimmel said.
"Not my fault you're short."
Schimmel opened his mouth to speak, but was quickly shushed by Fae. He glanced at her, then noticed what was wrong. Someone had approached their table, looking a bit nervous. A rather short boy with unkempt blonde hair was staring at us, he seemed to be trying to work up the courage to speak.
"What is it?" Tristan asked, not in the mood to wait.
"Ah... I... I was just wondering if I could sit here... everywhere else is too crowded." he stuttered.
The four of them looked at each other, as if they were discussing it silently. The boy took a step back nervously as they did. A moment later they turned back to him.
"Of course you can join us." Fae said brightly, elbowing Nemo in the ribs so he'd scoot down and give the boy some room.
"Uh... thanks..." He muttered, sitting down by Fae and looking nervously across the table at Tristan. "I'm James... I just joined the university... nice to meet you all."
"Don't look so scared, we're not that bad." Tristan laughed. "I'm Tristan Sykes, this is Schimmel, Nemo and the lovely lady is Fae."
"Flattery will get you nowhere Tristan." Fae grinned, then turned to James. "Now that I think about it... I remember seeing you at the ceremony held for new arrivals. For a second I thought you were this klutz." she gestured to Schimmel.
"Really? I don't remember seeing him at the ceremony..." Nemo said, leaning over to get a better look at James.
"That's because you slept through it like one of Donovan's classes." Tristan laughed.
"Donovan... you mean Professor Donovan Trivil?" James asked.
"Yeah, that's the guy."
"Is he... a bad teacher?"
"Not really, he just has one of those voices that'll put you to sleep easily." Nemo said.
"Now that you mention it... I always did seem to get tired faster when he came to visit..." James muttered.
"Visit?" Schimmel wondered.
"Professor Donovan is my uncle."
Nemo choked on what he was eating. "You can't be serious!" he coughed.
"You poor kid..." Tristan muttered, shaking his head.
"Would both of you shut up?" Fae said shortly. "Maybe he likes his uncle, did you even consider that?"
"I do like him, but they're right. He is pretty boring." James mumbled.
"So now we know two people from families with famous people in them. Donovan's pretty well known around here." Schimmel said, taking a bite of food.
"Three if you count that snob Charles' brother. He's a head researcher or something at Inferia City isn't he?" Tristan asked.
"He doesn't count." Nemo said.
"So... who's the other one?" James inquired.
"They're probably talking about me again." Fae sighed.
"Why-"
James was cut off as a female student with long pink hair ran up to the table, panting. "Ne... ba... Don..." she muttered breathlessly.
"Geez Carol... what's the rush?" Tristan asked.
"We overheard something we probably weren't supposed to." Another student said, walking up beside Carol. He was fairly tall, with short blue hair. "She came running to tell you, but it's obvious athletics isn't her strong point."
"Shut... up... Ray..." Carol panted.
"Tell who what?" Fae asked.
"Nemo... Donovan..."
"Carol, maybe I should tell him. You should sit down..." Ray said.
Carol nodded, bumping into Tristan as she sat down next to him.
"We heard Donovan talking to Porter and Ristow. He was talking about you, Nemo." Ray said seriously.
"He was complaining about my snoring again wasn't he?" Nemo chuckled, taking a drink.
"Well, yes... but after that he was talking to them about an idea he had. They seemed to like it, but after he left he grinned and muttered to himself. I couldn't tell what exactly, but it was clear he was happy and it involved getting rid of you."
"You must have heard wrong... Donovan may not like me, and the feeling is mutual, but I'm on good terms with Professors Porter and Ristow. Besides, other than my tendency to sleep through his class, I'm a decent student." Nemo said, not really thinking much of it.
"You can't be right... I can't believe Uncle Donovan would do anything mean..." James muttered.
"Hmm...? Who are you?" Ray asked, just noticing James. "And when you say 'uncle' do you mean..."
"That's James. He's okay, don't worry about it." Tristan interrupted.
Ray shrugged, "If you say so. I have a class to get to, come on Carol."
"Right..." Carol mumbled, getting up and walking off with Ray.
"So what do you think Donovan has planned?" Tristan wondered.
"Who cares... I doubt it's anything too bad." Nemo said, still not taking it seriously.
"How can you not be worried?" Fae asked.
"I'm just not. I don't see why you are."
"You're hopeless..."
After finishing lunch, the five of them made their way back to the main building. When they arrived, a large group of students were gathered around the entrance.
"What's all this about?" Tristan wondered aloud.
"There aren't any more classes today for some reason... everyone's trying to figure out why but they won't tell us." Ray grumbled, walking up to him.
"Is that unusual?" James asked.
"Very... they almost never do this." Fae said.
"Oh well, it means we get the day off." Nemo said, turning and walking off. "Up for a fight or two Schimmel?"
"Of course." Schimmel said, following Nemo. "You have your craymel cage?"
"Never go anywhere without it."
"Those two are barbaric..." Tristan commented.
"Hey, don't forget about me!" Fae yelled, running to catch up with them.
"Her too?" James asked.
Tristan sighed, looking down at James. "It's a long story... come on, I'll tell you all about it."