Guess what?

I'm back already! Yup, here's the first Part of An Echo through Time! (If this is the first you're seeing of this story, go back to Re:A Ripple in the Abyss or be totally baffled.) But before I give you the chapter, I have some notes to make.

First off, I'm hoping to get back to weekly updates... these will now happen on Fridays rather than Wednesdays. (With the exception of these first three Parts, since 2 will go up on Monday and 3 will go up next Friday.)

Second, enjoy the picture of Myre while it lasts. It's a placeholder cover until I get the Re:AST cover done and can start on the AEtT cover.

Third, the Tales of Symphonia spin-off, A Dying Light, will be posted after I finish revising the first Chapter. It will update on Sundays, though probably won't be uploaded for a couple weeks yet.

That all said... All Tales of the Abyss characters, themes, and concepts are the property of Namco Bandai. However, all Original Characters, artes, themes, and concepts belong to me or (on occasion) to a friend of mine whom I have already received permission to borrow from. Please ask before borrowing. (Permission will generally be granted with request for credit given where credit is due.) This is the only time I'm going to put this disclaimer up, because it makes little sense to repeat it every single chapter.

As with the previous two stories, if you would like to see part of a chapter from another character's POV or if you would like to ask for a drawing if you're having trouble picturing something, feel free to ask. I can't promise they'll get done snappish, but they'll get done at some point. Probably before I finish the story completely. (At this rate, probably before I finish the Re:AST cover.)

Now that that's all done... Enjoy!

"I was wondering why you'd side with Undine and Gnome." –Shadow

Chapter 1.1 – The Return
Part 1

Myre's POV

The Soil Tree was dead. Long, long dead now. Had I been looking at it ten years ago, I would have thrown a fit. My grandfather had looked after it, just like my father would have done eventually, a task that would have been passed to my husband, and to either our son, or our daughter's husband.

But my family was dead. Even the man I'd hoped would become my husband.

Five years ago, he would have stood with me, looked at the tree, and wondered if maybe a new one could be planted once this war was over.

Five years ago, he'd led a group to find supplies in the Inista Marsh. The behemoth had attacked. Four of the group of twelve had escaped, two with heavy injuries. One of those had eventually died from his injuries.

The man I loved hadn't been among those to make it out. He'd died in the muck.

"Myre."

Which was where my name had come from. My new name. The girl I'd been before that was dead, had died the day Luke fon Fabre had walked up and told me my lover was never coming back.

I turned to look at the man walking up behind me. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought it was the redhead who'd told me my dreams were shattered.

Luke was dead, too. He died saving Amethyst Curtiss. Thys lost his father to that particular attack as well. Almost lost his mother.

Did lose his mother, a year later. The nine-year-old, a fonic genius like his father and a master of the Sigmund style like his mother, was already becoming one of our best front-line fighters. Seth, his only remaining family, had done his best to shelter the boy originally... The problem was, most of the group who'd saved Auldrant from Yulia's Score was now dead.

The redhead who stood beside me now wasn't Asch, either.

Asch had never made it past eighteen. He'd died before Thys was born, before they even found out Cantabile was pregnant. His body rested in the muddy, oily lake that surrounded the remains of Baticul.

"You're thinking rather hard."

I didn't reply for a while, eyes raking over the crumbling city before me. It was dangerous to be walking around in the open like this. Dangerous to be on the ground. Gnome ruled the ground. Sylph, who was neither ally nor enemy, did not begrudge us Eldrant, our flying haven. Rem did her best to heckle us, but she was the weakest of the sentiences, and her opposite and the eldest of her brothers, Shadow, was on our side.

As was the youngest of the seven.

"How much longer do we have, Lorelei?"

Indeed, the redhead beside me was Lorelei, whom we had given a replica body so that he may assist us. Shadow, too, walked about in a replica body, though it was born of an odd mixture of an adult Jade's replica data and Dark's, who was a replica to begin with.

The result had black hair, red eyes, and a bad habit of sneaking up on people.

I'd found it funny as a child.

It was a useful tool to my adult mind.

"I'm not sure. I do know that we'll need to leave for the Absorption Gate soon, though."

I sighed. That was about as much information as I ever got out of him anymore. He didn't like giving precise times, or even looking for them. Then again, given what had happened with Yulia and her Score, I didn't blame him.

A quiet rustling drew my attention, and I raised my mace.

The monsters jumped out from behind the ruined buildings, and I snarled as I ran forward, mace slamming into heads with a deadly accuracy I'd trained into myself over the years. There was no room for mistakes, not anymore, not when one slip-up could spell death for you and the rest of your unit.

There was no such thing as a civilian anymore. Nor a noncombatant, really. There were front-liners, scouts, artillery, medics, and children. The children contributed when they could with what they were capable of using, or looked after the infants too young to help.

The children never left Eldrant. And none of them remembered the world as it was under Yulia's Score. None of them remembered what Auldrant was like before this war started.

A war we humans were slowly losing, despite everything.

A third human jumped into the fight, rapier glinting as he helped us kill the monsters. With his help, it didn't take us long to defeat the last ones.

I turned to look at the newcomer and frowned. He was going on forty-five... and what was he doing all the way out here?

"Aslan? You're a few continents away from where I'm sure you're supposed to be."

He turned, sheathing his sword as he did so. "Kyrie and Jozette went with the unit I was originally assigned to... Her Highness made the exception this once."

I sighed. Her Highness... Not Natalia, oh no. She'd died holding off a horde of monsters with Dark. Dark hadn't survived that either. Nor did that title apply to Nephry, who had, for about a year, been married to Emperor Peony. She'd never recovered from the stress during childbirth, and had eventually succumbed to illness. He'd been left to raise their daughter on his own...

Aslan was speaking of Princess Anubia. Eight years old, but almost as intelligent as her cousin Amethyst. She held the highest position in Eldrant, with her father having died from being poisoned by a monster a few months back.

"Why?" I asked. Anubia was stubborn, and usually refused to break up the units she sent out.

"Because I promised your father I'd watch after you... And I've done a terrible job of it so far."

Lorelei looked concerned. "You do understand that I can only send one person back? You'll be stranded at the Absorption Gate, because I won't be able to re-form for a few weeks at the very least."

Aslan nodded. "I know. Shadow agreed to come get me once you'd left."

I crossed my arms. "Assuming our jump doesn't immediately erase this timeline."

Lorelei shook his head slowly. "No. This timeline will exist until you find some way to make certain this war ends. And I will warn you now, Myre... I know you, and understand your reasons. The me you are bound to meet in that time will have seen you, but will not know you. He will not aid you as I might."

I scowled. "None of them are going to want to help me."

Lorelei nodded. "Perhaps. But you never know... Kairi always showed a very interesting understanding of the world around her."

"A world that wasn't her own."

"No. The world she chose."

"She never came back," I pointed out. Aslan sighed. I didn't exactly blame him. This was a very common argument between us.

"Rem never gave her a chance."

Ah, yes. Rem's barrier. This was, supposedly, the reason why she was so weak. But I'd never had any proof of it. Only a desperate Asch, who had been trying to dreamwalk to her—or something like that, at least—had been able to feel it.

That I knew of. Perhaps the others had also tried. Either way, the result was the same: a world at war with the creatures that kept it alive, and no Kairi.

"And how do you suggest I get Kairi here before Rem erects her invisible barrier?"

Lorelei looked amused, this time. "The same way she was drawn to Auldrant in the first place. Ryndor knows what her mindscape feels like. He should be able to find her again... especially so soon, given when you'll be landing."

I nodded, and Aslan sighed. "What?"

"Nothing. Just... try not to mentally scar yourself, okay?"

It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Then I tilted my head to the side, faintly amused. "That would be difficult. I remember being rather difficult to mentally scar."

Aslan scowled. "And yet..."

"I'm not scarred," I said, knowing that expression far too well. "Just... as frozen as I used to dress. I've lost too many people to be anything else."

"It's time to go," Lorelei said. I nodded, and Aslan stepped forward so that the three of us stood in a triangle. I closed my eyes and focused. Lorelei needed to conserve his energy, so I'd be the one to take us to our destination.

My memory of the Absorption Gate was somewhat fuzzy, but one location was perfectly clear, kept so by stubborn will and regular visits.

I rarely actually got to see what this looked like. I knew Lorelei's ability—and Luke's, before his death—always surrounded him in a golden-orange glow before spreading to encompass everyone he'd be taking with him.

Mine supposedly looked like one of Kairi's Energy circles. Luke had claimed it looked exactly like the one that had teleported her and Asch to Aramis Spring, but I never put much stock in that. Luke hadn't actually seen it himself, and it had been almost two years before I'd discovered this ability. There was no possible way to be certain... Except to ask Kairi when Ryndor dragged her back to Auldrant.

She'd wanted to stay for her birthday, supposedly.

Too bad. The fate of my world was more important than her birthday.

The familiar drain of energy came as the glyph activated, teleporting me, Lorelei, and Aslan to the Absorption Gate.

Del and Apathy were waiting for us. Or, to be a bit more correct, two puppets. They'd ceased to be Del and Apathy a long time ago.

I frowned. "You're not going to try to stop us are you?" I asked.

Del stood up, and I felt a rather acute sense of déjà vu as he drew his claymore. Unnaturally pupil-less blue eyes almost seemed to bore into me, the evidence of Undine enslaving him. I looked over at Apathy, and saw similar red eyes.

Odd. Undine and Ifrit only worked together when they were desperate.

I glanced at Lorelei, and waved him back. Aslan was strong enough to survive this long, and Shadow was supposed to be coming. No reason for him to waste energy.

Not when we so desperately needed him to send me back.

Apathy ran straight toward me, and my battle-oriented mind ran over what it knew in the seconds before he was within striking range of my mace.

Martial artist. Preference for first and fifth fonons. Specializing in power attacks. Habit of slipping behind an enemy.

Undine and Ifrit had placed them here to stop us, but those two were spread far too thin to be able to really control them. Apathy's attack patterns would be the same as they'd always been. So would Del's, which meant he was all Aslan's to deal with for now.

I fell into a pattern easily. Swing, swing, Devastation, jump back, swing, and so on for a while. I waited patiently until I felt something snap into place.

Finally. I had the strength for a Mystic Arte. Now then...

I spent the next few minutes gathering up fonons and focusing them into a very specific point in my body, right below where my Energy Core would be. I waited for a while as I monitored the levels of fonons I'd drawn in.

I jumped back, spun on my heel, and let loose a shockwave—not of fonons, but what we'd come to call Æther. It wasn't fonons, or Energies... Really, Æther was to fonons what fonons were to Energies. It was something we'd learned to synthesize... the final step required releasing the fonons we'd captured in a short burst. The Æther would then swirl around us for a few minutes before dispersing back into the fonons that had made it up.

We'd had no choice but to evolve. Æther was our answer to the way the sentiences used fonons against us. I just hoped having this knowledge sooner would make stopping them easier.

"Countless heralds of ice, seek the end of your journey!" I chanted, the Æther I'd synthesized answering my silent commands with the same ease. "Comet Fall!"

At the last second, fire surrounded Apathy and Del both.

My Mystic Arte struck Del. Weakened as he was by Aslan's attacks and the swapping trick Ifrit had pulled, his replica body finally succumbed to its damages. Not even Undine could hold him together any longer, and I saw her control waver as Del fell to his knees.

Déjà vu threatened to overtake me again, but I brushed it aside.

Del looked up at me, then slumped to the ground, fonons splitting apart easily. I glanced over at Apathy.

Odd. He wasn't moving...

I turned to face him completely, and was greeted by a rather startling sight.

Apathy's right eye was still the unnatural, pupil-less red.

The left eye was blue.

"Path?" Aslan whispered. I didn't really believe what I was seeing, either.

"Yeah. Long time, no mess around, huh...?" He paused. "Was what I heard true? Have you really changed your name?"

Right. Apathy had been one of the first casualties. And given his previous fixation on names... Yes. Yes, I could believe this was the replica of Avarice Miles speaking to me.

"Yes. I go by Myre."

Apathy looked saddened. "Your birth name was so pretty..."

"Ifrit had a reason for giving you this much control, I'm sure," I said. He sighed and nodded, and I'd have sworn his right eye almost glowed for a moment.

"Ya know why Gnome and Undine are so upset, righ'?"

I nodded. Though, why Ifrit always spoke in such an odd manner, I didn't dare question.

"Ah neva cared. The humans saw the damage Gnome could do an' did what they thought was necessary ta keep it from happenin' again. Ah know ah'm dangerous, ah ain't gonna deny it." Ifrit paused, frowning and glancing to where Del had been. "Ah love causin' a little chaos here 'n' there. But this... Gnome, Undine... They've gone too far."

He looked up at me. "Ah'll take bein' sealed again, if that's what it takes. But ah don' wanna see the world keep spinnin' ta its doom like this."

"Because fire is chaos... and life." Ifrit, Lorelei, Aslan, and I all turned as Shadow walked over. He crossed his arms and gave his brother a look so reminiscent of Dark's 'you're an idiot' look that I almost cracked a smile. "I was wondering why you'd side with Undine and Gnome. Rem was obvious—she never liked humans anyway. You... You used to love humans."

Ifrit looked away. "Still do."

Shadow snorted and looked over at me. "Get going. Undine is beyond pissed right now."

I rolled my eyes. What else was new, with her?

Lorelei led the way down to where the Planet Storm seal had been once.

"It's time..." he murmured.

I nodded and stepped to the edge.

Fun Fact: Ifrit was hanging around in my head when I got into my Transformers fix. Ifrit decided he liked Jazz. Ifrit now has decided to mimic Jazz's chosen speech patterns. Curse you annoying characters! Especially you, Ifrit! You were supposed to have a Spanish accent! Not a Brooklyn accent! –dies- At least Gnome cooperated...