Ah, finally. I've had Writer's Block, Zillions and the Unfinish Syndrome. But Amanda got me back on writing and blah. I don't own Tales of Symphonia, but I own your mom. Hooray.
Whine. Some kind of dog whining. Whine. Ignore it… wait. The last dog Caroline had… had been in her house seven years ago. Wet tongue on face. Ugh, that couldn't be Shadow. Caroline finally opened her eyes. Above her, was an all-too familiar canine-like face. Its ears were long and wide, but green. It whined again. She knew that protozoan all too well. Kratos's old companion and currently Lloyd's. Noishe. She sat up. Not wearing her pyjamas. Good. But where did these ToS style clothes come from? Noishe couldn't have done it. The said protozoan whined again. The words, 'Noishe tried to devour you.' held new meaning as he licked her face again.
Finally, it hit home. I'm in Tales of Symphonia. I am in the greatest game of all time. Caroline immediately jumped to her feet and looked around. Then hugged Noishe around the neck. He whined again in reply. Of course. She let go and turned around. Right there… the gate to Iselia. Perfect. Maybe she could actually see the Martel Temple or something. Without thinking, she began to walk right into Iselia, unaware of how odd she looked to the guards, especially if they had seen her hug Noishe. Needless to say, she was slightly surprised when one of the guards asked her to stop and tell them who she was and what her business was in Iselia.
"I'm here to see the Chosen," Caroline said the first thing that popped into her head. Should she tell them her real name? Did the name Caroline even exist here? Well, her name and Colette's name both came from French, so… make up a last name, though. Because your last name isn't going to make sense here. Garg, can't think of anything. "My name is Caroline, kupo." Stupid, calling a guard kupo like she was a moogle. But apparently, the guards seemed to think her last name was Kupo. Wow. Caroline Kupo. Get used to responding to that.
"Well, then… how old are you, really?" Looking her up and down, analyzing the white clothing with red circles all over it, as well as the large, bulky bag was strung around her shoulder. Some kind of dragon wing shaped boomerang things was sticking out of it a bit. "And what is that?"
"Ah, just a little thing my dad gave me to aid me in finding the Chosen," Caroline said. The second guard was about to ask again for her age. Gee, had this been over the Internet, this guy would be considered a stalker. "I'm thirteen."
For what reason or another, this alarmed the guards.
"You're rather… tall for your age," The first one said. Idiots? Most kids in her school were taller than her... Oh, wait. Remembering Colette's height… 5"2. And Colette was sixteen. No wonder; everyone in Tales of Symphonia is a midget. It was then that one of the guards looked up at the top of her head. He nearly yelled, but remained calm. Almost.
"What's on top of your head…?"
Common sense forbade Caroline from answering, 'Hair. I'm not bald like you.' That was when she realised she didn't have ears on the sides of her head anymore, like a normal human. Wolf-like ears sat atop her head, like Inuyasha. Minus one point for the attempt to be normal team.
"It's just a weird thing I have to deal with. Don't discriminate," This seemed to work. Being told off by a teenager wasn't something they'd expected.
"Alright, you can come in." The guards moved their spear aside and allowed her in. Caroline thanked him (Though the analyzing could have been a little less… stupid?) and went inside, half-expecting the words, 'THE VILLAGE OF ORACLES; ISELIA' to appear in front of her face, in huge font and such.
Caroline's mental laughter was interrupted by a loud voice calling everyone to move out of the way, which apparently, everyone was doing rather quickly. She turned around just in time to see a pointy-eared, spiky black haired guy accompanied by two shorter guys wearing helmets that covered their eyes, walking through Iselia like he owned the place. She recognised the freak immediately. Botta. And co.
"Out of my way," Botta said to her, just moving by. Only saying that to look superior, Botta? Heh. I've got a way to solve that. Taking out one of the boomerangs in her bag, she threw it at his legs, thus causing him to trip and having the said dragon wing-like weapon return.
"Wow, Desians are less klutzy than Renegades," Caroline called after him, giggling as Botta fell to the ground. The Renegade in question brushed himself off for a moment, then turned around with his escorts, walking back to the girl who, in his view, was being irritating.
"We're Desians. I don't know why you think we're 'Renegades'," Botta made false quotations using his fingers on each syllable of the word Renegades. "But we have important business to do."
"Yeah, I bet you don't even know where the Chosen is going to be in five or so minutes," Caroline snorted. Botta's eyes widened for a minute before his face regained the emotionless expression he almost always had.
"I suppose you don't know either," He hissed, getting a little pissed over the fact that he was being made a fool of in front of his men. And maybe even people who may be watching through the windows of their houses.
"Martel Temple, idiot," Then Caroline realised her mistake. Too late. It wasn't a game you could reset from your last saving point if you made a mistake or accidently chose the Zelos path instead of the Kratos path in Flanoir.
"Thank you," Botta and his men turned to head for the north gate, to the Martel Temple. It was one of those anime fall moments or 'slap your forehead until it turns red' moments.
What now? What to do now? Go to the schoolhouse. Yeah. Make acquaintances with Lloyd and Genis and Colette. And then end up meeting the sexy Kratos fangirls obsessed over online. Haha. Get his autograph, maybe. Take that, fangirls.
Deciding there was nothing better to do but go inside the schoolhouse, Caroline headed towards the door, only to keel over a second later due to a bright light, covering her eyes. She resisted the temptation to scream, "AHH! MY EYES! MY NAME IS XEMNAS AND I WAS REJECTED BY LIGHT!" As that would get her thrown out of Iselia for being a mad person. No one here would know about Kingdom Hearts.
"Uh, are you alright?" A male voice asked behind her. Caroline stood up and found herself face-to-face with Lloyd Irving. Behind him, Genis and Colette.
"Yeah, and your name is Lloyd," Seeing Lloyd's expression, Caroline added. "Right?" Lloyd nodded, still staring at her. "And uh, the midget is Genis-"
"Midget?" Genis scowled.
"Right! You know a lot about us," Colette said cheerfully, smiling broadly. "I guess we're famous now or something!"
Lloyd and Genis groaned. The said boy clad in red muttered something about stalkers. Caroline made a note to keep her tongue in line until they could understand that she came from another world. They hadn't screamed, 'OMGWTF U R FROM ANTH0R WRLD?!!?!?!?!one!!!!!!ZOMGZOMG N0W W3 MST KEEL U :D' when they heard about Tethe'alla from Sheena, after all. Raine would probably be fascinated by the thought that they were only pixels in her world, Zelos would want to know about all the hot girls there, Kratos would mutter something and go off to get Mithos a latte…
"Colette!" Another man's voice yelled. All heads turned to see a blonde man walking toward them. Of course she hadn't recongised Frank by voice; he had no voice actor in Tales of Symphonia.
"Father!" Colette called back.
"Frank?" Genis questioned.
"You can get lost, moron," Caroline muttered. "I can tell them about the 'Desians' that were here earlier." Lloyd looked at her for a moment, but had only heard inaudible things that meant nothing.
Caroline began looking around and ignoring everyone else as Frank said some crap about Desians coming and heading for the temple (FALSE) and Colette said something about having to accept the Oracle, which would lead to-
"Hey, what's your name, anyway?" Huh? Oh. Genis was talking to her.
"Caroline," She replied. "So, you're going to the Martel Temple? Can I come?"
Genis looked like he was about to say, 'No, it's going to be dangerous.' and Lloyd was still staring at Frank's disappearing figure wondering what everyone was talking about. But both never got a chance to say anything in the matter.
"Sure! We could use more help," Colette said in a happy voice. Something like that was going to annoy Caroline in the long run, but for now, it had admitted her into the Chosen and her travelling band of misfits. For now. She may end up like Kratos and ditch the party or be kicked out. Who knew? Look up a spoiler filled walkthrough and find out, maybe.
Here we skip boring details of fighting monsters on the way to the Martel Temple and Botta saying your life is mine to Colette. Insert sexy detail about kicking Desian butt here. The authoress is very lazy. Now Kratos comes in even though the quartet was doing well in the fight against the fat Desian who is a rip-off of an enemy in Link to the Past.
"Who are you…?" Lloyd asked the man he didn't know was his father.
"Your mom," Caroline said, getting up again and preparing to throw her boomerangs with more force than last time. With Kratos spamming First Aid, the battle was easily won, even though a mis-thrown chakram had hit Genis's kendama and knocked it out of his hands.
When the fight ended, Botta ran away and conversation between the new group of five and Phaidra began.
"Who are you, anyway?" Genis asked Kratos, glaring at Caroline not to say, 'your mom' again. It took Kratos a while to answer, since he was busy talking to Phaidra about his job as a mercenary and how he'd protect Colette.
"…My name is Kratos Aurion."
FINALLY. I know AtomicScribble is a happy Axel fangirl. Review or be cursed with malaria.