A/N: Thanks so much for everyone's comments and views so far. I hope I'm doing all these great characters justice so far. So fair warning, this chapter answers a few questions I had with the game. It is by no means part of the regular story but rather my interpretation of the game so I hope you guys like it. Please review with comments or criticisms!
Disclaimer: I do not own Tales of Berseria, it's characters, content, or plot.
"They're back, they're back!", yelled an excited Phi pointing to Velvet and Rokurou as they walked through town up to the group. Magilou bent over and whispered to Phi, "And it looks like you finally have the mommy and daddy you always wanted, kid". Laphicet looked up, confused at Magilou and asked what she meant. She just laughed and winked, keeping her real meaning to herself.
Eizen and Eleanor did not hear Magilou, thanks to her whispering, and certainly did not pick up on whatever magic the witch used to see through the swordsman and the calamity lord. They greeted Rokurou and Velvet as the always would as Laphicet bounded over to Velvet. He first ran up to her with open arms as if to hug her but stopped a few feet short, putting his arms behind his back and saying "Hello Velvet" in the most composed voice he could. Rokurou smirked at Laphicet's futile attempts to seem older and more manly than he was to Velvet. Rokurou suddenly felt racked with guilt. He knew the kid had a crush on Velvet and he knew how hard Phi was trying to be seen as a man by her. Rokurou couldn't help but think it cute, though he knew Rokurou had crushed all his boyish dreams over the past few days, even if the boy didn't yet know it. It was probably best that he promised Velvet to hide their relationship from the group - he wasn't sure poor Phi could handle the heartbreak.
"Well isn't it nice of you two to grace us with your presence?", chimed in a smirking Magilou. Velvet waved her off. "Well, while you two were doing God knows what, we have found out some interesting information regarding the heavy daemon presence around here. Care to here it?" the bouncing witch continued. Eizen took over explaining from there. "It seems despite the unusually high presence of daemons in this area there seems to be a drop in daemon sightings on the other continents." "Well, that's interesting. Could the excess of daemons really just be a daemon migration?" Velvet asked as she quizzically put a hand up to her chin to think. "Maybe the daemons are planning a party? I hope so. I could use a good rager," Rokurou added. Velvet gave Rokurou a dirty look and a punch in the gut (which was thankfully fully healed by now). Rokurou laughed as Laphicet asked Eizen what a "rager" was and Eizen considered whether answering the child honestly would also get him beat on by Velvet. He decided on a "I'll tell you later" response. As the group considered the rumors, they decided to see if they were true for themselves and boarded up the Van Eltia to head for Yseult.
On board the Van Eltia, life was often dull and monotonous. However, for Rokurou and Velvet this time became some of the most exciting as the ship offered many small nooks to meet in secret. Velvet was now waiting for Rokurou in one of the ships storage closets. He had left a note in her coat pocket telling her where and when to meet him. She felt like Villager Velvet again, waiting nervously and with baited breath. Finally, the door opened and Rokurou rushed inside, closing the door behind him and plunging them into the darkness of the closet.
They couldn't really see each other but that didn't matter. Rokurou's mouth found hers like a magnet finds another magnet. His hands easily found every curve of her body. Rokurou was clearly hungry for her but to Velvet's surprise she too was hungry for him. She had been watching his lips longingly over the past few hours, recalling how they felt against her skin. She had been hyper-aware of even the slightest of touches in the last day or so and has even been jealous when Rokurou's touches go to someone else. Now as he was once again touching her and kissing her, a very satisfied Velvet realized with slight horror how much she had already fallen for Rokurou in the last few days. Every day her feelings grew stronger and more intense. In the back of her mind, she worried how this much love and the already intense hate she felt inside her could coexist without tearing her apart. But all thoughts melted away as Rokurou's skillful tongue danced in her mouth.
It was only with much dismay that she pulled away from Rokurou when she heard banging in the room outside their storage closet. Rokurou sighed and quietly whispered "Time's up" in Velvet's ear. The sensation made her shiver. He reached up and cupped her face, more lovingly than lustful, and rested his forehead against hers. "I love this," Rokurou whispered. Velvet smiled and although he couldn't see her face he could feel it. "This is a good way to pass time at sea," Velvet responded. She actually laughed in response - a reaction that seemed almost foreign to her it was so long since she last did so. Rokurou laughed softly with her before reluctantly turning to go. Velvet had to wait ten more minutes in the dark before leaving to prevent anyone from seeing them together in any way. Keeping this a secret was certainly a pain but it was also terribly exciting.
With a faint smile on her lips, Velvet walked to the ship's deck where she found Eizen at the Captain's wheel. "Almost there?" Velvet asked, once again the calm and cold Lord of Calamity. "Probably another half-a-day or so," Eizen replied. "Hey, have you seen Rokurou? That bastard was supposed to bring me a drink like a half hour ago! What the hell is the hold up?" Eizen grumbled from his lack of alcohol. Velvet shrugged coolly. "Haven't seen him. Knowing him, he probably got caught up playing with Laphicet or talking to Kuragane," Velvet said, feeling satisfied with her lie despite knowing that he was in fact caught up playing with her. Minutes later, a laughing Rokurou with a gleeful Laphicet riding on his back came running on deck, threw a bottle of booze at Eizen, and ran back below deck. Velvet felt even more satisfied with her lie as Eizen grumbled how she was right, of course.
Once in Yseult, it became apparent that the rumors were in fact true. Though the south never seemed as affected by the blight as the northern continents, it seemed now like there were no daemons left on this continent. Velvet's crew walked all the way to Palameides Temple and back to Yseult docks with only two daemon encounters - both of which were small fry. It was almost like the world had reverted back to its state 3 years ago. You could almost imagine it. Velvet found it greatly unsettling and reached for her daemon hand whenever the illusion felt too real.
It was back in Yseult that the group got their first whiff of what happened. In the lobby of the inn, Eizen overheard whispers of the "magic gas" used to lore daemons from close and far. The townsfolk seemed to know about a "test" that drew all the daemons away from Southgand but couldn't or wouldn't divulge where this test of the magic gas was or who was performing it. But one thing was clear - the people of the Southern continent counted this as a blessing and didn't much care about the repercussions for Midgand.
"I betcha it's some skeevy underground group that's behind this "magic gas" nonsense," Magilou commented as she sat on a bench, swinging her legs and sucking on her candy. "Yeah, like the skeevy underground group we're currently working for?", Rokurou said laughingly, while stretching his arms behind his head. Laphicet immediately jumped in to defend the Bloodwings. "Tabitha's group isn't skeevy! They help people, especially those who the Abbey refuses to help! Nothing they ever asked us to do was skeevy!", Laphicet yelled.
Velvet gave Phi a sisterly pat on the head that Rokurou could tell Phi resented. Phi just wanted to be a grownup, and have a real relationship, but he didn't realize that Rokurou was actually a bit jealous of Phi's childish love. Phi's love was pure and clean, while Rokurou's love for Velvet was clouded and dirty. It's not that he didn't sincerely love her - he very much did - but his love was infected with passion, desire, and lust. His love was corrupted so that every pure emotion was followed by a lusty thought. Watching Velvet smiling happily made him happy but it also made him want to attack her. He found in the short time they had been together, she had set him ablaze and no amount of water could cool this heat he felt. He wondered what it would be like to just love Velvet without aching for her this way, before deciding everything he had with Velvet was way better than any pure love could ever be. He smirked at the thought.
"Yes, Phi. The Bloodwings help people but never forget the have their own motives too. Helping people alone doesn't make you the good guy. Look how many people we've helped and I'm still known as the Lord of Calamity. There's no such thing as good and bad. It's all perspective. Magilou may be right that this is the work of an underground group. Rokurou is also right that they might not be much different than the Bloodwings. What's important is their perspective," Velvet mused.
"So let's say in their perspective, they are the good guys. What does that mean for their motives? What does that tell us?" Velvet asked to the misfit group circled around her. Eizen, unsurprisingly, was the one to answer. "It means that they're using the 'magic gas' to get rid of daemons in an area or to specifically draw them to an enemy. So it's likely either someone specifically targeting the Abbey by targeting its main hub or they are just trying to get the daemons to leave their land." Eizen rested a hand on his chin as he thought. "Well, the fact that everyone here seems to know about it and even support it makes me think that the goal is the latter," remarked a seemingly indifferent Magilou. "Miss Magilou might be right", added Bienfou.
"So the goal might be to clear out Southgand, assuming that is why all the residents here know about it. But if that is the case, how did they manage to use the gas to move the daemons, not kill them? Southgand is an ocean away from Midgand. The nagas could swim and the bats could fly but there is an excess of land-based daemons that moved to Midgand too. How did they cross an ocean unscathed?" Eleanor asked, tilting her head. "Well," Velvet replied, "That depends on what the 'magic gas' does? Is it a deterrent or does it attract the daemons somehow?" "Since there's still some small-fry here, let's assume it attracts them," Rokurou mused. "So if it is an attractant, how could they use it to get daemons to cross an ocean?", Eizen questioned. Laphicet finally spoke up, "What if they took a boat or ship just like we did?"
Phi's idea was immediately dismissed as too absurd to be true by almost all of the adults. It was Rokurou who gave his idea a real shot. "Whoa, hold up. What if the boy's right? An attractant could be used to gather large hoardes of daemons onto a boat where they could be trapped by taking off to sea. They won't attack each other in close quarters because most daemons are too dull for that," Rokurou imagined. "But if that's the case, who's driving the ship? Any human on that boat would be eaten before the boat leaves port!" Magilou added. "What if they steer themselves?", asked Phi.
"Phi, most daemons aren't like me and Rokurou. They're animals, like prickleboars, that act purely on instinct. They don't have will, ideas, dreams. They eat if foods there, sleep if the sun goes down, they do what instinct tells them to. They wouldn't be able to successfully cross the sea," Velvet explained. "Which means we have two options left. Either the one steering the daemon hoards is an exorcist or Malakhim that can handle themselves or the Captain of the boat is like us," Velvet looked at Rokurou as she came to her conclusion. The others didn't notice but Rokurou saw the change in Velvet's eyes. He knew she hated the idea of an intellectual daemon being part of this ploy. He didn't like the odds either.
Rokurou knew that intellectual daemons like himself and Velvet weren't that common. There was likely a higher than average percent of them at Titania, due to how hard they are to actually kill, and even then they were hard to find. From what Rokurou figured, they were only born from great will power or determination. Every intellectual daemon he knew was determined as all hell when they died, Velvet being a great example. It makes these daemons frightening opponents, as their will, logic, and incredible power are a force to be reckoned with. Some daemons could still talk or mimicked human actions but Rokurou guessed these formed a sort of muscle memory to human acts. A real intellectual daemon could plan, think, and act freely. It's what allowed Velvet to be so human despite her nature. It's what allowed me to fall in love with her. A group of intellectual daemons working to transport run-of-the-mill daemons around was a terrifying thought.
"Well, we've made a lot of assumptions but if we're right, there's only one place on Midgand that they would be able to dock unnoticed without riskily killing off large numbers of their daemon cargo. We should go there, set up a stakeout, and learn as much as we can about them," Eizen suggests. The group agrees and heads back to the Van Eltia for their stake out. Velvet and Rokurou trail behind the others, trying their hardest to talk without being noticed.
"This could go south," Velvet murmured. "It could be something else, y'know. As Eizen said, we made a lot of assumptions. Maybe we made a mistake," Rokurou said, trying to comfort her. He didn't really believe it but he did what he could to ease her worries. "If it's a group of daemons like us...that's a formidable force," Velvet replied. "Well then who better to take them on than the Lord of Calamity in the flesh," Rokurou turned his head and smiled. Velvet smirked, more confident know thanks to his support. "True. There's only room for one Lord of Calamity in this world and I'm not done with the title yet." "That's my girl," Rokurou whispered.