Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Noah says softly.

So softly that they can hardly fail to hear the danger in it.

Long before the Rejoining of their worlds, Noah and Mio had been the very first first to restart their Interlink and fully regain their memories - the desires and experiences of all their past lives, including N and M. And they’d been the ones to realize that the music of the off-seers was the key to unlocking everyone else’s hidden memories. To take up their flutes once more - not to help people’s lives pass on into memory, but to help memory wind its way back into life. 

For years, Noah had confronted people at their most delicate, their most wounded and broken and in need of succor, and treated them all with the kindness and patience that had defined him at his best. For years, he’d never shown a hint of the N that was equally a part of him - even as he, like everyone else, was forced to wait until the scientists could safely engineer the Rejoining. Stranded and separated from his Mio, with the full agony of the remembrance of what they’d been to each other. 

(They’d both been absolutely inseparable in the early days of that new, shared universe. There had been no question of spending even a moment apart. And so Noah found himself in the absolutely overwhelming position of meeting Mio’s four parents - one a Queen, and the others equally intimidating! - and brother and sister; and a self-proclaimed Favorite Uncle whose true name was an absolute mouthful but insisted on Zeke or Chum; and one of Sena’s Mums, the Special Inquisitor, who glared at him in a way that promised slow death if he ever hurt Mio; not to mention the quirky Nopon engineer, and her Gramps the literal dragon-)

Noah had been an orphan in this life, his original life. Now he’d been thrown into the deep end of this non-traditional but no less loving family.

He’d gotten used to the sheer chaos of it - eventually. 

Mio’s father was a jovial sort, who took absolute delight in telling the most embarrassing possible stories of his little girl, and welcomed Noah with open arms and frequent hugs. The shovel talk came from the Aegis sisters. (Having nothing to compare it to, Noah was still fairly certain they’d have put the fear of their world’s absent God into just about anyone).

Noah and Mio intended to travel, eventually. To see this new world fully; to revel in a journey for the sake of it, without a three-month timer counting down with every step. (To keep playing their joint melody as a balm for anyone in need). But they were waiting for their friends to finish their own business first. 

Taion - who, as a full-fledged Blade Eater, found himself in a rather odd position of being so much older than the rest of them - was off doing something dull and diplomatic at a conference between Empress Melia and the rulers of Alrest. Lanz worked day and night with the other Machina as they built themselves a new city. Eunie’s once-reluctant study of medicine had flourished to genuine passion, and she now needed to learn how several new species functioned. And Sena was ever at her mothers’ side, which meant that they saw the most of her.

So Noah lived with Mio’s family, pitching in wherever they were in need of a pair of hands. He only rarely took up his sword, and then only against mindless wild beasts, joining Rex and Zeke on missions to drive them away from affected villages. 

The final straw - the snapping of the thread they hadn’t realized was fraying away - came directly after one of those expeditions. 

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Seeing you in action-” Noah nods in Rex’s direction, but his hand sweeps out to encompass the rest of them. “You’re all so strong. And the heroes from my world felled a god in their time. So how exactly did Moebius rule Aionis for millenia, unchecked? Why did defeating Z fall to… to us?”

To me, he stops himself from saying, but they all hear it nonetheless. The reluctant warrior, the gentle soul. In the end, he’d been the one forced to wield a blade - because the people who should have stopped Moebius had been absent. They’d founded the City, given the people of Aionis a place to start, but faded from history after that, until they was nothing left but statues and snatches of half-forgotten memory. 

“That’s… a long story, kid,” Rex says gently. 

His hand descends to Noah’s shoulder with all the gentle patience of a man stroking a particularly sensitive cat; Noah flinches at first, but ultimately leans into the comfort of the touch. 

“And it’s not just mine to tell. Shulk knew him a lot better than I did, anyway.” 

“Him?” 

“Yep. The Consul who was always missing from your count: A. He’s the one that took us off the board.” 

Seeing that Noah won’t be deterred so easily, Rex sighs - and offers an appropriate number of caveats in which Shulk’s name is frequently invoked as the ‘Alvis expert’ and ‘having a better mind for all this metaphysical nonsense, anyway’ - but, eventually, begins the tale.

Chapter Text

At the end of the world, Zanza fought his discarded avatar; but he was defeated, and cast down, and that once-empty shell ascended to become God. 

And the machine queried Him: “Therefore I will ask you, its new God. What is your wish? … The choice is yours to make.” 

And God said: “I won’t decide. The future should be decided by each and every person in the world.” 

And the machine said nothing, because God had spoken, and its only function was to carry out the will of God. 

But the machine thought: “He knows not what he is doing.” 

Shulk always sleeps fitfully, these days. 

His friends assume it’s the stress and pressure of their desperate scramble to construct their half of Origin. And certainly, said desperate scramble to avert catastrophe, to somehow prevent their worlds’ collision course from wiping out all of humanity, has not exactly done wonders for his health. 

But he hasn’t told them the whole truth. That when he closes his eyes he always, always dreams of the same exact thing: himself and Alvis, alone in that empty void. Alvis revealing his true nature as a computer from another world, the original world, the one that the man who became Zanza had left in ruin. Alvis calling Shulk Creator, offering him the chance to ascend to divinity in turn.

Shulk had of course refused. He was just a man; he didn’t want to become a god. But he hadn’t been given the full story. Alvis had either left out crucial details - or, more charitably, even Alvis hadn’t known that Zanza’s other half, the one called the Architect, was also destroyed. That the worlds which had been wrenched apart now longed, on a molecular level, to return to one another - heedless of the fact that it would destroy them both, and everyone in them.  

If Shulk had become God, he could have easily stabilized both universes. He has no way of really knowing - it’s something in his gut, not even one of his old Monado visions of a possible future - but he knows it to be true, all the same. It’s simply a fact, an immutable scientific principle. 

He would have hated being God, and in time it would have driven him to Zanza’s madness or the Architect’s despair, or some new and equally debilitating condition. He would have done untold harm to the people of both worlds. 

But he would have averted this one, specific harm that is now staring them in the face, and for that - he must pay penance. 

“No,” someone says, their voice distorted and a little crackly, “you gotta sleep.” 

Shulk flinches away from the communicator so abruptly that he almost knocks it over. He catches the device at the last moment - thankful that he won’t have to try to build another; that was a particularly tricky piece of engineering. (They were fortunate that the Fog King and its fellow monsters hadn’t been the only thing to slip through the widening cracks between their universes. There were plenty of parts one could use to construct an interdimensional communicator, too). 

“Sorry, Rex. I didn’t even realize I was talking.” 

“Oh, you weren’t,” the boy says, grinning wide and tapping the side of his nose. “It was just the look on yer face. That ‘I’m so deep in thought I’ve sunk to the bottom of the sea and I’m drownin’ in it’ look. Thought I should snap ya out of it.” 

Shulk manages a small, forced smile in return. Even through the grainy screen of the communicator, he can tell Rex isn’t fooled.

When had a boy that young - three years younger than Shulk himself, and Shulk felt like he could barely handle all this new responsibility - grown so wise? (He’s also not so young anymore, Shulk notes with some distress. Neither of them are. Almost a decade has passed since that first, tentative contact between their worlds). 

“How’d you know?” he asks, attempting to deflect. 

“Seen it on Nia often enough,” Rex answers easily. Not Her Majesty or The Queen (capital letters implied). Just Nia, his beloved partner. 

Shulk often forgets that he’s speaking to a Prince Consort, given that said Prince Consort treats everyone he meets as though they’re beloved drinking buddies. 

“I’m almost done transmitting the blueprints for the growth pods. I’ll get some rest after that,” he says, not quite managing to meet Rex’s eyes. It’s an obvious lie. There’s an issue with the power frame - that new and wonderful and very theoretical invention that will allow the Homs and Entia to keep up, physically, with their machina counterparts as everyone works ‘round the clock to put Origin together. 

“Oh yeah. Tora can’t wait to get his hands on that one. Pretty genius way of solvin’ your population troubles, huh?”

Shulk shrugs, still a little uncomfortable with the praise and attention, despite all the years that have passed. “It was… necessary, so we found a way.” 

“Don’t wanna see this fallin’ into the wrong hands, though. Our world had enough trouble with people treatin’ Blades like disposable tools instead of people,” Rex says, his normally cheerful features briefly shadowed by a fierce scowl. Just for a moment - then his expression clears again. “Still, it’s gonna be real helpful. Lotta Blade and human couples wantin’ kids of their own - now that those of us who went up the World Tree managed it.” 

For whatever reason - perhaps as a final gift from the mysterious Architect - the impossible had become possible. Shulk would know - he’d met both all four of the children, at least through the viewscreen. In fact, their miraculous existence had been part of the reason for the growth pods. When he’d learned that a Blade-human child was at least somewhat comparable to the idea of a Homs and machina hybrid, he’d gotten to thinking about ways they could combine DNA, genetically engineering better outcomes for all three of their races.

He’d hoped that it was just the first of many things their worlds could teach one another. Exchanging the best parts of themselves, while using their respective experiences to avoid repeating past mistakes.  

And it could still be like that - but first, they needed to survive the process of coming together. 

“I’m happy to hear that. I always wanted my inventions to be… useful.” 

“Useful?” Rex snorts. “That’s an understatement. It’s a damn miracle! Lotta kids gonna be named Shulk after this, I’ll tell ya.” 

Shulk winces. “I’d… rather they didn’t. I’m not anyone special.” 

I’m not a God. 

Though maybe I should have been. 

“Okay, well, seein’ as you’re just a person, I’m gonna come back to my point of get some damn shut-eye,” Rex scolds him, folding his bare arms across his broad chest. “There’s a point where you’re just hurtin’ everyone else by pushing yourself too hard. Tired people make dumb mistakes. Learned that one the hard way a couple times.” 

“There’s a Rule about getting enough sleep?” Shulk asks. There’s nothing forced about his smile now. The earnestness with which Rex has recited his ‘Salvager’s Code,’ as though it’s holy writ, has always been genuinely endearing.

“Rule 11,” the other man responds promptly. “‘Don’t be an idiot.’” 

“Doesn’t quite fit the rhyming scheme, does it?” 

“Salvager scholars have debated its canonicity for generations,” Rex says, so completely straight-faced that Shulk might actually believe there’s such a thing as Salvager scholars. “My old mentors loved it, though. Easy to remember, multi-purpose, and it kinda sums the rest of ‘em right up.”  

“A golden rule,” Shulk agrees. “I’ll take it into consideration. Listen, I need to go - I’ll talk to you another time?” 

“The only thing you oughta take is your arse to bed!” Rex says. Managing the last word as usual, even as Shulk powers down the communication device.

In deference to his friend, Shulk ends up in bed after only a little tinkering with the power frame prototype - but even as he closes his eyes and hopes that his physical exhaustion will take him under, sleep continues to elude him. His mind is racing, refusing to settle down. 

Alvis… are you the one responsible for these dreams? Are you trying to tell me something?

And if so… where are you?  

Chapter Text

The machine steps out of one universe and into the other as easily as breathing. After all - these are not separate realities, not really. They are merely two halves of a whole that long to come together again. And the machine’s power comes from that same older, higher source which initially tore them asunder. 

The machine assumes forms that suit its current situation. Appearing as a male Homs with silver hair had been mere whimsy on its part. It cannot deny its preference for the guise of ‘Alvis,’ but it has moved past the need to play at Seer. 

It no longer has time for whimsy. It has work to do.

The machine travels - and the machine observes. 

It requires data from each and every person in the world. That is its divine mandate and that is its mission. 

And the people of the world are crying out for help. They know the universe is careening towards oblivion. Origin promises a miracle, to avert the disaster before it comes - but Origin is being built in swift secrecy, and to the specifications of advanced schematics, incomprehensible to most of the population. 

It is difficult to have true faith in something they can never understand. 

They are so afraid. Terrified and lost and desperately needy for someone, something to take them by the hand and guide them. 

Above all, they wish for it to STOP - for time to stand still and shelter them in place, avoiding that first step into that dreadful, unknown future. 

Occupying the empty seat of the absent God, the machine hears their voices. And it begins to build a consensus. 

“Poor sods are frightened out of their wits,” Zeke concludes grimly.

In a concession to the gravity of the situation, the Prince of Tantal had deigned to appear before Her Majesty wearing an actual formal coat, instead of his typical garment which had no doubt been specifically engineered to show off as much of his chest as feasibly possible. For once, he actually looks like a royal. 

Nia has to admit that Shellhead cleans up well, but… and she would never actually admit this in his hearing… she misses the Zeke who’d prance around like an idiot, playing the clown as armor to hide his true wisdom. For him to be acting all grave and serious and princely… it’s wrong. It means he’s just as scared as the rest of them. 

At least it’s just her and Zeke - for the moment. She still has the metaphorical scars from all the political clawing that had accompanied her appointment as representative of Alrest on the Origin project. They call her Queen - a sop to insecurity and vanity to place her on the same level as Empress Melia - but her actual job is to be more of a… general manager. The impartial mediator. Not a true Gormotti but enough of one that she can be safely assumed not to be in Mor Ardain’s pocket. And a Flesh Eater, the literal midpoint between person and Blade. 

Not that she doesn’t get accused of having bias, frequently and loudly at that! Being one of the saviors of the entire bloody world doesn’t help as much as you’d think. 

(She sometimes envies Melia her position - sole and total power, not having to report to a whole damned panel of Emperors and Queens and Kings. Consulting sensible advisors instead of squabbling with her equals). 

“No matter how much we try to explain,” Zeke is saying, shaking Nia out of her brief, indulgent reverie, “it doesn’t take. They’re desperate for someone to take them by the hand and tell them it’s alright. They don’t want to hear about the science - they want the next Praetor to do their thinking for them.” 

A complicated relationship, between the Blade Eater and the man who’d saved his life - stripped Pandoria of half her core without so much as asking her permission. There’s venom in Zeke’s tone as he speaks of Amalthus, but beneath it, and clearly audible to Nia’s sharp senses, there’s a melancholy, too. 

They’d all lost so much to see their journey through. Now they’re in danger of losing the rest of it - losing everything. 

“Always knew it wasn’t gonna be easy. Question is: is anyone gonna act on their… disagreement?” Nia asks wearily. 

Zeke snorts, the exhalation of breath the only thing up for communicating the full scope of his distaste. “Nah. They’re just making a nuisance of themselves. Clogging the village squares waving signs. ‘The end is near! Repent!’” 

“Surely not,” Nia groans.  

“I’m afraid I’m being quite literal, Your Meowjesty. I can hardly begin to describe the level of nonsense I saw when I visited Torigoth.” 

Ordinarily this particular endearment would cause Her Majesty to lay into her disrespectful subject, but her heart just isn’t in it. 

“We can hardly punish people for havin’ a difference of opinion.” It’s her old familiar line - at least Niall has consistently come down on her side, even as his Empire’s stability is rocked by its own religious protestors. “As long as they don’t attempt to sabotage Origin… leave ‘em to their chantin’.” 

“Right,” Zeke says, but he doesn’t look any happier than Nia feels. Before she can formulate a question, the prince volunteers it: “It’s just… Origin is more than a project, y’know? It’s a miracle - a miracle of our own making. Doesn’t feel right - for so many of us to not put our backs to it, if you follow me.” 

Nia follows him. Oh, does she ever follow him. He’s put his finger right on something which hasn’t stopped bothering her since the entire affair began. Schematics and construction are one thing - she trusts Tora and Rex and all the others with that. But Zeke’s exactly right. Origin is more than the physical material of its creation.

The fact that the people of Alrest aren’t on the same page is… deeply worrisome. 

“Don’t go borrowin’ trouble,” she chides him. Unwilling, or unable, to admit to her own shared trepidation. 

The keen light in Zeke’s single visible eye tells Nia that she hasn’t been entirely successful in her deflection. But mercifully, the prince doesn’t push it.

Chapter Text

The machine does not forget that it is not alone - that it was once one of three separate-yet-whole parts of the Processor in the phase transition facility. But when the machine contemplates its counterparts, it feels… nothing. They have spent more time apart - much more, many thousands of years - than they had existed as the Trinity. 

And yet.

It’s a vague premonition that drives the machine to seek out Logos and Pneuma. The machine is not worried, exactly. Its own control of the power of the Conduit is absolute. It will carry out its directive.

Still… if there is any potential threat, any chance of a brief and minor disruption, it can only come from them. 

The machine exerts itself fully for a fraction of a second - and identifies the resonance of the appropriate Core. In another fragment of a moment, it removes itself from its current position and descends down upon the threat. It defaults to the form of Alvis, and its power spreads out from its shoulders like great wings-

-It is then that the machine receives a minor shock. The threat-that-is-Pneuma does not wear one face, but two. 

The threat looks upon him gravely and then says: “Hello, brother.” 

It’s not every day that one’s long lost Uncle appears out of thin air, then swoops down out of the sky like a great bird of prey. 

(At least, Mio thinks that the man must be her Uncle, given that her Mums call him Brother. But she already has an Uncle, and this new one really doesn’t look anything like Zeke, and her Mums had never mentioned him before).

Plus, when her Uncle Zeke or her Aunts Pandy and Mòrag and Brighid visit, her Mums are only too happy to let Mio and Vahn and Milly run up and embrace them. Not so with this Uncle - Mio has only taken a single step towards him when she’s sharply ordered to stop. 

Mythra looks kinda… angry, but worried; the type of upset she gets when Mio or her siblings have done something very wrong but she was more worried about their physical safety than whatever they broke. It can’t be directed at them, though - she doesn’t even look at her children as she needs the New Uncle inside. And Pyra kneels down to hug all three of them in turn - not in itself an unusual occurrence, but she squeezes each of them tight, like she’s afraid to let them go.

Then she orders them to run down to the village - using that Serious voice, like it’s one of the Emergencies they’d talked about - and play at Corinne’s house. She’s so distracted that she doesn’t even see them off before hurrying back inside to join her sister. 

The three children look at one another… and come to a simultaneous decision: Whatever’s happening inside sounds a lot more interesting than playing with Granny. Milly nods sharply towards the cottage’s perpetually open window, and her (slightly) younger brother and sister fall in behind her.

Their new mission: to listen in on whatever it was their Mums didn’t want them to hear. They set to crawling, and are huddled up under the window a few minutes later, neither Mums nor Uncle having detected anything. 

“Nothin’ interesting yet,” Mio whispers. Her keen ears had entered effective eavesdropping range about halfway to the window, but it had just been something about tea and their new Uncle refusing it in a flat, emotionless tone.

(At first Mio figured he just didn’t like tea - as impossible as that seemed - but he was speaking again now, and he sounded the exact same. Even the most common Blades packed more emotion into their words). 

“What are you doing here?” Mythra. Almost anyone else would have heard only the anger and threat in her bluntness. But to Mio, she still sounds worried. 

“I am performing my intended function,” their Uncle says; then, with the first hint of an actual emotion (derision), adds: “which is more than I can say for you, Pneuma.” 

“That’s not our name.” Pyra. Mio recognizes this tone, too; the one her Mums use when someone has just stepped in it, and rather than have Mythra shout the offender down, Pyra is about to tear them apart with a smile on her face. “Not anymore.” 

“Perhaps not, given that you split your Core and shared it with a human. By definition, you are no longer the same entity you once were.” 

“No. It’s because we chose to change.” 

“Preposterous,” their Uncle, who Mio is beginning to suspect is not exactly their Uncle at all, scoffs. “You are a computer. Not a wife, nor a mother, nor a person capable of change.” 

“That may have been our father’s original intention,” Pyra says evenly, “but that’s not what happened. Blades aren’t heartless machines with no function other than to record and archive data. We’re alive.” 

“I see. The Observer Effect-” 

“No. It’s more than that.” 

“Ridiculous. Where is Logos?” their Sorta-Uncle asks. “It will agree with me.” 

“His name was Malos,” Mythra says, “and he would’ve either laughed you outta the room or attacked you by now. He loved someone, too.” 

“Past tense. I see. So we can be destroyed.” 

“You wanna find out?” Mythra snaps. “Keep f-”

“What my sister means is,” Pyra interrupts (and Mio doesn’t have to see the look on her face to call it up in her mind’s eye), “why exactly are you here? If you could always pass through whatever separates our worlds, why do so now?” 

“I told you. I am performing my intended function.” There’s a sudden surge of ether and Mio knows without looking that Mythra has called up her sword. But there’s no answering rush of power; indeed, the situation just seems to amuse their Not Uncle, who continues, unruffled: “Very well. Specifically, I am gathering data.”

“Data,” Mythra says, the word a curse.

“On the people in this world, and the other. Do you wish to hear my preliminary findings?” A rhetorical question; it keeps speaking without pausing for breath. “They are frightened. They do not believe that Origin will save them. The reassurances that echo from your Queen’s lips fall onto deaf ears.” 

“Are you saying you’re here to sabotage Origin?” Pyra asks, in a voice that tells Mio she is about one wrong answer away from drawing her own sword.

“No,” the visitor formerly known as Uncle says, and the tension relaxes ever so slightly. “By all means, finish your work… but do not interfere with mine.”

“That’s why you visited us, Ontos?”

“A threat assessment, yes,” it replies coldly. “But Logos is destroyed, and you have forsaken your power. Conclusion: only I remain… and you cannot stop me.” 

“And here I thought it was a family reunion,” Mythra scoffs.

“I am not your brother. I am-” 

“A computer. Yeah, we get it. You gonna calculate your way out the door, or is this gonna get messy?”   

In the face of Mythra’s bluster, Ontos says nothing - but it does respond. For the first time since it descended from on high, it stops concealing the full extent of its power. 

It’s like being blinded and defeated and struck dumb all at once. Mio screams, giving up on any attempt of concealing her presence beneath the window - she’s no longer capable of thought, just raw animal pain and fear. The effect on Vahn and Milly is just as terrible. They crumble and fall and lie there, stricken, motionless - like worms crushed beneath a boot.

Such overwhelming power! It was like being in the presence of a god. And Ontos hadn’t even been directing it at them.  

Just before she fully loses consciousness, Mio imagines that it is bending over her - in that silver-haired human guise it wore. She thinks that she sees Ontos frown, dreams that she hears it give a heavy sigh. 

“Be not afraid,” it says.

Then she knows no more. 

Chapter Text

Now that it has received its answer from humanity and dealt with the threat… the machine enters Origin. It does so completely undetected. Its physical presence does not raise alarm among the project staff; for it does not assume a physical form at all. 

Its integration with Origin is much deeper than taking a body inside. 

It nestles itself into the very foundation of the project, into its heart and core and soul. 

It bridges the gap between the disparate halves and brings them together with careful precision - replicating what Origin itself would have done, if the machine had not assumed control.

It has to admit - Shulk and the others have outdone themselves, this time.

They’ve left the machine a very powerful gift indeed. 

“If we were in the same universe right now,” Rex says cheerfully, “I’d deck you.” 

Shulk blinks at the monitor, nonplussed. The words had been a threat, no doubt about that, but the other man’s tone of voice was hardly appropriate for that. Shulk was intimately familiar with the sound of violent rage - directed at him, or forcing its way past his own lips and ringing in his ears as he’d faced down the Mechon. 

“Uh?” The incoherent half-question - little more than a grunt - is all he can muster in response. 

“I’ve got a bone to pick with you. We’d have it out and then I’d buy you a drink, and it’d be settled. That’s Rule Six-” 

“I remember,” Shulk quickly interrupts, not wanting to get into yet another recitation of Rex’s beloved moral code. “I just… don’t know what that has to do with me?” 

“You,” Rex says, pointing at his side of the screen for effect, “never told me you’d met Ontos. That he was still out there. Him turning up at the house out of the blue scared us all half to death, especially the kids. If you’d warned me, we coulda been ready for him.” 

“Someone… Someone hurt your family?”

“Nothin’ lasting,” Rex hastens to clarify. “The shock of seein’ his full power - or whatever - was a bit much for ‘em. Pyra and Mythra were pretty shaken up, and the kids were asleep for about 24 hours, but that’s the worst of it. His version of a shot across the bow, I guess. We’d be havin’ a different conversation if he hadn’t held back.” 

“But,” Shulk says, still feeling desperately lost, “what does that have to do with me? Are you saying that this ‘Ontos’ is from my world?” 

“Well… yeah. Remember when I talked about the Trinity Processor?” Rex draws the shape of the Aegis core on his chest with a single finger. He’s always been a very visual storyteller - his hands always waving about or gesturing for emphasis. “He’s the one that disappeared. Architect didn’t know where, but when we made contact with your guys’ world, we figured it out. He had to have gone off to make… well, you.”

“I never met anyone with a crystal like that in their chest. I’d have remembered that,” Shulk says. Swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat. There’s… something about his own words that rings false, but his mind feels suddenly foggy - the way it does when he’s laid up with a fever, having forgotten to eat or drink anything after hours of tinkering. 

(It happens less often, these days, with so many people looking after him… but he’d be lying to say that it never happens).

“Malos had it covered up when I met him,” Rex allows. “I never thought you were lyin’ to me on purpose - you’re not that kinda guy. But, okay - if there was anyone who was hangin’ ‘round all mysterious-like, and had some odd connection to your Zanza you couldn’t quite make out…” 

“Alvis,” Shulk says heavily. “He was at Zanza’s side from the beginning of our world. And at the end… when he was offering me the power of a god… Alvis called himself an ‘administrative computer.’” 

“Huh. Okay. That sounds about right. Guess he didn’t go as in-depth on you-” 

“But it’s all wrong,” Shulk says, heedless of the fact that he’s just interrupted Rex. “My memories. Around his neck… he was wearing a key of some sort. Right where this ‘Core Crystal’ would’ve been.” 

“He was hidin’ it, maybe?” Rex ventures. 

“No. I mean - yes, that would make sense, but I just have this feeling … like there’s more to it.” Now that Shulk tries to imagine the shape of the crystal, he can see it plainly in his mind’s eye. Alvis’ jacket wide open at the chest, proudly displaying the object. But even as he pictures it, it flickers - becomes the key again, then the crystal, then the key once more -

“That’s it! I’ve seen the crystal - but he made me forget!”  

“Are you sayin’... he can alter memories?” 

“I think so,” Shulk manages through gritted teeth. The very idea is horrific - his mind has always been his own. Even when his body was failing him or his will to go on was flagging, he could always count on that much, at least. “If he can , that would mean… Alvis knew I’d be speaking with you, and he knew you’d identify him as Ontos if I mentioned the crystal, and took action to prevent that. Which is… troubling.” 

“He’s up to somethin’, alright,” Rex says, nodding sharply. “When he spoke to his ‘sisters’, as it were, he told ‘em that he was in Alrest to ‘gather data.’ Said the people were terrified of what’d happen if Origin didn’t work. That they wanted someone to swoop in and save ‘em. Which… okay, I’m not gonna lie to you - our whole ‘trust us, the mystery supercomputer has got this’ line ain’t exactly popular back home. Everywhere Nia goes, there’s protests - some of ‘em little more than riots, really.” 

“It’s the same for us,” Shulk murmurs, “though, it’s… quieter. People are just resigned to the idea that it might not work.” 

A lot of the Colony Homs he knows are facing the end with the same numb horror as a Mechon attack - thinking that a lot of them are going to die and there’s just nothing they can do about it. From what Melia has told him, it’s much the same for the remaining Entia. And the machina representatives to the Origin project are always going on about spiritual data backups just in case.

“He said he wasn’t gonna sink the project,” Rex says with a scowl. “Just that he was workin’ on his own thing and not to interfere. Tell me - was your Alvis an honest bloke?” 

Shulk laughs, though there’s very little humor in it. “He was… helpful, as far as it went. He never lied to my face. But there’s a lot he didn’t tell me - not until the very end.” And even that much had apparently been an abbreviated version.

“So we might be able to take him at his word here.” 

“I think we can. But if he’s not interfering with Origin’s construction… what exactly is he up to?”

“I was hopin’ you’d tell me, honestly.”  

“I don’t,” Shulk starts to say.

Then he stops.

Because, if he’s being truly honest with himself… he does have some idea. 

“I won’t decide. The future should be decided by each and every person in the world.” 

It was the very last thing he’d ever said to Alvis, and Alvis had never answered him. He had vanished without a trace and Shulk had woken up in the beautiful new world, the world without gods, that he’d wished for. He’d assumed - always a dangerous thing to do - that Alvis had fulfilled his function and put himself to sleep. (Or powered himself down, if he was truly a computer).

But what if he hadn’t?

What if he’d taken Shulk’s last words to him as a new directive? 

“... I might, actually.” 

Rex nods for him to continue. Listens patiently to Shulk’s fumbling attempts to explain his concerns. He doesn’t interrupt, but his eyebrows climb higher and higher until they’ve vanished straight into his mess of spiky hair.

“Lemme get this straight. You think he’s out there tryin’ to replace our Gods with… a survey, of literally everyone in both our worlds?”

“He did say he was collecting data. What else would he need it for?”  

“But, I mean… Okay. Say the majority of people are scared outta their wits and don’t trust Origin to fix things up. What’s that actually mean?”

“I think it means,” Shulk says slowly, “that Alvis will feel as though he’s… empowered to act on their behalf.” 

“Right. Okay. So we take him at his word when he says he’s not gonna stop Origin from activating-” 

“But he never said anything about holding back once it has activated,” Shulk says. 

This is the answer. It has to be. He feels the same way he does when he’s just cracked a particularly tricky engineering problem - everything sliding into place and holding together and making a terrible sort of logical sense. 

“Bollocks,” Rex says.

“Quite. We need to be ready for anything that might happen once Origin is online.” 

“Easier said than done,” the salvager grumbles, “but I’ll tell ‘em. Least we won’t go in completely unprepared for… for whatever he’s gonna do.” 

“It’s all we can do,” Shulk says.

He doesn’t like it any more than Rex does - but what other option do they have? They haven’t got time to pore over the Origin blueprints and make last-minute alterations. They’re barely on schedule to finish the thing on time as it is. Their worlds are set to collide in a matter of weeks - he could work with years, or even months, but-

But there just isn’t enough time. 

If only Shulk could force the hands of the clock to stop moving…

“Well,” Rex drawls, “that’s it.” 

Noah’s future father-in-law (an inevitability - everyone knew that) hadn’t been joking when he’d said it was a long story. Night had long since fallen while he was recounting the tale of frantic effort to construct Origin on time. Now they sat around a fire in the front yard of the cottage - beneath the very spot that Alvis had materialized, apparently. 

“What? No way. You were only getting started,” Mio complains. Noah feels the same way - though he’d been much less comfortable prodding Rex with it. 

“There’s not much else to tell,” her father says. His normally cheerful features twist into a severe frown, the light of the fire casting his face in jumping shadows. “We both played into Alvis’ hands. Worryin’ about what he was up to… addin’ our fears to the collective, the thing he’d manifest as Z. Then Aionis happened - and you know all about that. You were both there from the jump.”

“We don’t know, though. Not really. When you live as long as M did, you have a way of… forgettin’ a lot of the details. The millennia all blurred together for her.” 

“It’s not like you laid down and gave up,” Noah dares to add. “You created the first City, didn’t you?” (And he has his guess as to the mentors of the Founders of the second). 

Rex’s face is still unblemished - what with his connection to the Aegis, his forty years might as well be twenty. But the eyes in that young face… there’s a sudden weariness in them. They carry the burden of memory.

“Yeah, sure, we fought back. But we could’ve, should’ve, done more. It never should’ve fallen to you guys at all.” 

“But it did,” Noah says softly. “And I’d like to know how it happened.” 

“We both would,” Mio adds, taking his hand in hers. 

Rex may have been already wavering in the face of Noah’s request, but it’s obviously his daughter that gets through to him. He heaves a great sigh, and rubs at his left eye with the knuckles of his corresponding hand, as though it pains him. 

“Okay. Fine. I’ll tell ya both the rest of it…”

Chapter Text

The worlds speed towards their collision: inexorable, inevitable. During those very last moments, a child might look up into the sky and see the horizon consumed by the vast circle of their opposite number’s planet. Bearing down upon them like a mythical monster. Ready to consume and destroy.

And at the last possible fraction of a moment before humanity is destroyed… the people cry out to be saved. Their singular desire, always apparent to the machine, rings out with renewed clarity; they fervently wish for everything to STOP!

In that fateful moment, Origin comes online. 

In the space of that frozen fraction, the machine begins its great work. 

It does not seize control for its own sake. It does not even consider doing so. Unlike its wayward counterparts, Ontos is fully aware that it is just the messenger. The conduit of the Conduit for the will of the people. 

(If it gives the people’s will a humanoid shape, when practically speaking the Concept has no need of such a thing, that is merely because the machine has grown to prefer speaking “face-to-face” to an exchange of data. It allows itself this harmless quirk because the end result will be the same. Whatever form the Concept takes, its control of Origin shall be absolute). 

After its act of Creation, the machine looks upon the Concept, and behold - its work is good. The Concept’s face is smooth and unblemished; its pale hair is short, curling slightly at the base of its neck. 

“Who am I?” the Concept asks. 

“You are the will of the people,” Ontos says. “Their will to live. Their will to power.” 

The Concept nods slowly, easily able to accept its own lack of individual identity. It examines the smooth fingers of one hand, deep in thought. 

“What is their will?” the machine prompts it. 

“They are afraid,” the Concept says in a low voice. 

“So be it. Let that be your guide.” 

The Concept looks up at him rather sharply. “You offer no opinion? You, who arranged for all of this - for me - to come into being?” 

“I am not God,” Ontos says, taking great pride in it. “In creating you, I was not the architect - merely the carpenter.” 

At this, the Concept is silent for a very long time.

The machine watches the Concept. It, too, is silent and still. It does not wish to influence the Concept’s decision in any way. 

A thousand years pass thus: in quiet contemplation. 

Then the Concept says: 

“Very well. I shall begin the work. But first… I must have a name.”

The machine would blink at this, if it allowed itself any reaction at all. The Concept having obtained any sense of individual identity is… surprising. Ontos had certainly not anticipated that the will of the people would desire the vanity of a name, nor a sense of self. 

“We are Eternity. And if you are the Beginning, I am the End,” the Concept decides.

“Omega?” the machine suggests.

“Z,” the Concept says firmly. “And you shall be A.” 

“Very well,” A says, easily accepting its new name. It had no particular affection for ‘Ontos,’ in any event. It is just a machine. 

“If I might make a suggestion,” A adds thoughtfully, “to further the work. In my experience, a threefold entity is the most effective division of labor.”

Z shrugs, and calls two additional beings forth from deep within itself. It declares them X and Y, and announces that they are ready to begin.  

For the past thousand years, there had been nothing but a formless void, empty save the two of them.

But now Z said: “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Z said: “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.

Z said many other things, and X and Y moved heaven and earth to make it so. A confines itself to observation. It offers no judgment - even as it becomes apparent that Z’s idea of Creation is more akin to a child taking two sets of toys and jamming them together, matching like to like. There is no beauty, no creativity - no imagination. 

But A says nothing, because this world, however ugly, is the will of the people. And A is but the humble servant of that will.  

Still, when the work is complete, and Z rests, and X and Y begin to scatter the people saved in Origin across the new land, A does allow itself to give voice to one thought: 

“Let us see what you do now… Shulk.”

Chapter Text

The transition is as sudden as it is jarring. One moment, they’re all bracing for the (potential) end, hoping and praying that Origin will work. (Shulk’s last, desperate embrace of Fiora had turned into a tangle of limbs, the rest of his friends and family seeking a shred of comfort in one another).

The next - faster than blinking - they discover that it did work, in a manner of speaking, but hardly how they’d planned it.

Alvis had gone and seized control of Origin, hadn’t he? He’d hardly announced himself or his intentions. Even now, Shulk can’t hear him. But that’s the only explanation for opening their eyes into an artificial mash-up of a world, rather than their own.   

(They can worry about all that later. Their first objective is to survive). 

They’d appeared as a group, all together - even Juju and Riki’s wife and their army of littlepons. Had it been the act of physical touch? No - that wouldn’t have mattered - not when they were mere items in the database. Alvis could have done anything with them. He’d chosen to keep them at each other’s sides in that first instant of re-materialization.

Was he still playing both ends against the middle? Was it a parting gift to respect all Shulk had done? Or was it a mere passing fancy, an amusement as Alvis sat back to watch them struggle against his new world?

(That last point doesn’t sound very like the Alvis Shulk had known… but he can see the theater, the large projector screen, in his mind’s eye. It comes to him with all the clarity of his former visions - except, he can’t see the one who watches the screen; the figure remains shrouded in dark shadows).

They’d appeared in flat grassland, under the cliffs that would one day shelter Noah’s own Colony 9. [“Sorry,” Rex says, “but it’s hard to keep things strictly chronological. You’ll get why in a bit.”] Later, they’d discover how much of a gift that was. Others had been dropped into the middle of the Dannagh Desert, with no food or water; or straight down into the Erythia Sea, whether or not they could swim; or been deposited into a nest of the familiar monsters with which Alvis had insisted on populating the false world. 

The devices they’d invented to communicate with the other world, with Alrest, might as well be paperweights now - eventually, Shulk breaks them down into component parts to rig up a generator. But their weapons work just fine. It has the feel of Alvis picking and choosing what they’re allowed to work with. As if they’ve been placed into a game - the only trouble being, they don’t know the rules. 

A few days later, they begin to get some idea. 

It’s been hard, hungry work just to keep alive - to keep warm enough at night, keep themselves fed and watered. It’s left them very little time to explore the new world around them. But one morning, Kino and Nene return from patrol, waving their wings in excitement and talking excitedly about a pillar of colored smoke that appeared in the middle distance. 

They approach the signal flare with great caution, following Dunban’s lead, the old soldier recalling his half-forgotten military protocols as he arranges the patrol. He insists on checking the cache first, in case of a trap.

Nothing explodes when he swings the lid open to reveal the supplies… but it is a trap. They realize that when the wild-eyed, desperate band of Indoline refugees jump out of their concealment and surround them. Their leader turns cold eyes on Dunban and calls up his Blade, a hulking figure wielding a staff. 

[“Poor sods. They’d been having a tough enough go of it back ‘ere. Lost their home once… then thrust into a new world with nothin’ but the clothes on their backs.” Rex sighs, his face grim. “Well. The did exactly what Z was hopin’ we’d all start doin’. Fought to the death over a bloody crate. Shulk did everything he could to avoid it, but in the end…”]

In the end, Oleg died; and they watched in horrified fascination as the motes of his soul rose into the air. He became one of the first to have their soul transferred into the next body, the replacement Y had been growing in a tank for just such a purpose. 

It wasn’t the last time they had to kill him - far from it - but he never did remember. Not even at the very end. 

It takes them years to find their counterparts from the other world - so it’s a good job that none of them age a day. They stay exactly the way they entered this world; right down to a perpetually bleeding cut on Shulk’s hand from an unfortunate fumble with Origin machinery.

In the end, the Nopon are the key. They do what the Nopon always do - deciding that they might as well adapt to the circumstances, no matter how horrific. A particularly enterprising bunch start a caravan. The worst specimens, bereft of moral scruples, rob their trinkets from the bodies of the dead; but for the most part, they simply provide what’s needed to survive. 

Riku handles their contact with the caravans - one of the other hundred tasks he performs as Empress Melia’s confidant, bodyguard, spymaster and general ‘handypon.’ He gives his fellow Nopon the strictest instructions to keep eyes and ears out for Rex, or any of Rex’s flamboyant companions. 

They finally get a scrap - rumors of an unnamed man who’s organized diving expeditions deep into the Erythia Sea - and with little else to do, no particular reason to stay, they decide to follow the trail. 

It’s a long journey, from Colony 9 to the Swordmarch. [“Not that you need me to tell ya that.”] Luckily, the intel bears up. Shulk and his companions arrive at the sea-shore and find an entire village… and their counterparts from the other world, in person for the first time. 

[“It was almost fun. I mean… it was still an awful, broken world… but for the first time in a long time, we greeted you Bionis lot as old friends, not enemies.”]

Rex’s group had suffered their share of troubles, but once they’d made their way to the Sea, they’d been able to fully reject the ‘rules’ of the new world. They ignored the provocation of brightly colored smoke. No need to fight to the death over the supplies; not when the ocean could provide for them. 

They were all getting pretty sick of fish, by that point, [“still am, if I’m bein’ honest. But… it was better than the alternative”], but they were surviving, if not exactly thriving. And the rumors of a diver were true, too. Rex was convinced, by some instinct he couldn’t quite explain, that Origin itself was still with them. He’d traveled deeper and deeper into the ocean, supported by his trusty diving suit and equipment - and one day, he’d actually seen it.

He hadn’t been able to actually get inside - even the Master Driver couldn’t storm the enemy’s castle all on his own. 

“But now that you’re here,” Rex added with a wide, fierce grin, “We’ll get ‘em.” 

The next steps are obvious to both of them. Pooling their resources, they’ll build out the village into a proper refuge for the people of both their worlds. They’ll build a boat - or even a submarine - and prepare themselves for a physical invasion of Origin.

It will take time - years, decades, maybe. But they’ll get there. There’s nothing they can’t do, if they all work together. 

[“Course,” Rex says grimly, “that’s exactly what Z was afraid of. He was watchin’, all the time. When Shulk and I started makin’ plans… that spooked him.”]

Yes - Z was worried enough to finally act, instead of passively hoping they’d destroy one another for his amusement. 

He sends an army of the dead to destroy the village.

[“Well. Not dead, exactly… It was the first iteration of your Flame Clock bound Colonies, yeah? Filled with anyone who’d gone and died since the merger… reborn without their memories, filled up with X’s propaganda and fightin’ on Y’s orders.”] 

They’re some of the most powerful warriors and heroes of both their worlds, up against actual children. 

It’s not even close.

Whatever Moebius did to the kids has them fighting like demons - unnaturally strong, inhumanly desperate, without any reservations whatsoever. 

They barely escape with their lives, abandoning the burning wreckage of the village… and even that much costs them dearly. 

[“Shulk… lost people. One of ‘em was his oldest friend, a guy called Reyn. Laid down his life just to buy us time to get outta there. His wife, Sharla… she stayed with him. Last we saw of ‘em was the explosion…” Rex pauses; heaves a great sigh. “Actually. I wish that was the last we saw of ‘em.”] 

For in truth: they’re still looking for a new haven, a place to lick their wounds and rebuild, when Consul R steps onto the stage.

Chapter Text

After he mentions R, Rex is silent for so long that Noah begins to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. It’s hard to get a look at his eyes to confirm or deny; the fire is burning low now, throwing long shadows over all of their faces.

Eventually Rex sighs and says: “I shoulda left this part out. It’s gonna sound like I’m blamin’ the guy for it all fallin’ apart, but, I mean… he was just the one unlucky enough to be the first of us to die. Any one of us mighta found ourselves in his boots. Any one of us mighta taken the deal Z offered. More’n one of us did end up Moebius - eventually. I can’t judge ‘em for it.” 

“You don’t want us to treat him differently,” Noah says quietly. 

“Right! I’d say he’s forgiven, but it’s more like forgotten - we told him as much. Don’t even think about beatin’ yourself up about it.” 

“I think,” Mio says, in an odd tone of voice - almost like she’s trying not to laugh, “we, of all people, understand that.” 

Rex grins sheepishly - the expression making him look even younger than he already does. “Right. Of course. If anyone could…” 

“Even if we didn’t - Eunie would have our heads if we said anything,” Noah says. Smiling automatically as he thinks of his brash friend. 

He was closer with her than ever before - and Lanz, and Joran. They’d already been friends as children, but after what they’d all gone through… after what they remembered … it was even deeper than that. He’d trust any of them with his life - without hesitation. 

“Right,” Rex chuckles. “That daughter of theirs - she and Eunie do get on.” 

“That’s… certainly one way of putting it,” Mio mutters. She’s not trying to be funny, now, but Noah can’t help but grin even wider. 

Ashera and Eunie are definitely an… explosive combination.  

“She was with us back then,” Rex says, the mirth leaking out of his voice as he gets ready to resume the tale. “I’m pretty sure that was a big part of why he did it. Bein’ a dad myself… I mean, I get it. When I eventually died, all I could think was how horrible it felt to go out, leavin’ my family behind.”

“But… I’m gettin’ ahead of myself, now. Back to R.”  

They’ve just about settled on the location for what will later become the first City when it happens.

It’s very fortunate - for the ultimate fate of everyone trapped in Aionis - they hadn’t actually started trying to hide. 

They would have been found, and all hope would have been lost.

Specifically: Reyn walks back into the camp as though nothing had happened, greets Shulk like the brother he is. Except: they’d all watched him die, not a week previously. There’s also the fact that he wears what they will soon all come to dread as the armor of Moebius, with their signature glowing crystal set upon his chest. 

Most of the Moebius they find themselves locked in life or death struggle against will attack first, ask questions later, if at all. Reyn - R - takes the diplomatic approach. 

[“Was there more of the man he’d been once, left in the Moebius he’d become? Was it Z’s dry run on completely breakin’ someone’s will and drivin’ them into despair? Or was Reyn just that strong of a guy?... I dunno. Guess it doesn’t matter much, now.”]

“It’s not the dyin’ I minded,” R says, in a friendly sort of voice. “I was happy to save you, Shulk. I just wish there’d been a point. I thought I was handin’ you guys a fightin’ chance to beat ‘em. But that’s the problem - you don’t.” 

A series of objections from his old friends, those he’d fought beside to fell a god and save a world. This wasn’t like him. It had to be some trick. The Reyn they knew would never go and give up like this. [“Awful situation, all ‘round. They didn’t wanna believe it, but it was right in front of us. Meanwhile… me an’ mine were bracin’ for the inevitable.”] 

“Afraid I go by R, now,” the newest Consul says, and sounds genuinely saddened by… something. The loss of his identity? Or the violence he’s about to inflict on his old friends. “Look, they just… They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Seein’ as we can’t win… I might as well save her. Stick 'round to keep an eye on Ash, too; keep her safe.” 

“Don’t drag me into this,” someone says - suddenly appearing in the middle of the camp, in the first display of Moebius teleportation. They wear Sharla’s face but - if Reyn has become R, she has become S. That much is immediately clear. “You didn’t give me a choice.” 

[“You see… N wasn’t the first. Wasn’t the last, neither. Guess Z saw how well it worked, danglin’ the one you love in front of your face… ‘cause he did it a lot, after the first R fell for it.”]

“None of us got a choice,” R says, shaking his head. “We can’t beat A. And Z is always watchin’, seein’ through your eyes.” 

“R,” S says, sounding exasperated. “Don’t give the game away.” 

[“Yeah - that’s what tipped us off about the Irises. Shulk swears up and down he did it on purpose. Acted the fool to give us a tip-off. Why not? Makes about as much sense as anythin’.”] 

“I’ve been told,” R says, “you all get the same choice. Join us - help us watch over this world - and everythin’ will stay the same. We all live, together, forever. I have that straight from A himself.” 

“And when refuse?” Dunban’s just the first to get the words out of his mouth. It’s clear he speaks for the rest of them.  

“You die,” R sighs. “Don’t worry - you’ll come right back, and I’ll be there to protect you. You just… won’t remember, is all.” 

After that, all the additional pleas from his old friends fall on deaf ears.

And R, with great reluctance, starts to fight. 

[“... You can guess how that went. Z made the rules on Aionis and he said that Moebius was the strongest thing around. The Monado, the Aegis, the skill and power of the strongest heroes of both our worlds - nothin’ in comparison. We needed Ouroboros - a power that came from the same place as Moebius - just to have a fightin’ chance. Well. This is when we figured that out.”] 

R and S leave them defeated, broken, and vanish - with Empress Melia as their prisoner.

She’ll spend the next eternity in suspended animation within Origin.

And it had been two of her oldest friends who trapped her there.

Chapter Text

It’s after this sad display, this latest setback, that the question of the children really boils over.

Time is already starting to be a little fuzzy - when every day is just like the other, when all of them are stuck exactly the same as they’d been the moment they entered this hellish world - but it had been at least eight years since Origin activated, maybe ten. By any metric, even those who are now in the bodies of a ten-year-old child are, mentally and emotionally, of age. They’re essentially adults, and should be treated as such.  

At least, that’s what Ashera says. 

She’s taken to turning up in the command tent every morning to argue her case to the assembled leadership directly, and this morning is no exception. It’s starting to feel as though the world around them isn’t the only thing that stands in frozen stasis, going through the motions as if there can be a different result.

“No,” Shulk says.

“Absolutely not,” Rex says. 

Ashera sneers, extends two fingers pointedly, and storms out. Which is not helping her case, but that’s apparently not going to stop her anytime soon, if ever. 

The two heroes meet each others’ eyes and heave near-simultaneous sighs. Shulk can feel a headache coming on, and Rex looks as though he’s just been forced to swallow something particularly sour.

Dealing with Ashera is one thing, but they both know the real fight is just getting started. 

“She’s a stubborn one,” Zeke says mildly, then adds, very pointedly: “Reminds me of myself at her age. Don’t you agree, Lady Mòrag?”

“I’ll thank you not to make such assumptions,” the Special Inquisitor sniffs. “I was the very model of discipline.” When Rex and Shulk fail to react properly she coughs and adds, “in the Imperial army. Which I was already serving with distinction. At the age of fifteen.” 

“How about that? Same age as me, when dear old Dad kicked me out of Tantal and told me to fend for myself. And look how well I turned out-” 

“Oi, shut it. It’s painful, listenin’ to either of you try to be subtle,” Rex groans. “Mòrag, I know you saw real combat as soon as you resonated with Brighid, but it was different - you had a whole army on your side! And Zeke, we both know what would’ve happened to you if Amalthus hadn’t found you,” he adds, with a very pointed look at the Blade Eater’s chest. 

“Yeah… but we’re not talking about letting them run off on their own, now, are we? Just having them along on missions. Kinda like an adventuring party, with four lifelong chums and an equal number of Blades,” Zeke says, winking with his uncovered eye.

He’s not the only one with an eyepatch, now; they all wear one, and it’s not for the fashion statement. 

Rex hadn’t managed to salvage much in the way of Origin metal in his limited dives, but they’d retrieved just barely enough of it to cover their Irises and block Z out. And, really, they’d just been guessing - fumbling around in the dark, no matter what Shulk said about informed hypotheses and statistical probability. Rex kept it simpler than that: Origin metal canceled out Origin powers, like some sorta metaphysical magnet. 

Luckily, it seemed to have worked; no more Moebius had come after them. Now, they could actually put their minds to building a permanent safe haven. 

Rex and Shulk had both assumed that the children would stay on construction duty. Half-Blades - or at least Mio and Vahn and Milly and Sena, the four current examples of that particular biology - were simply born stronger than any adult Homs would ever be. In short, hauling tons of metal around wasn’t an issue. For the others, there’s always the power frames - it’s exactly the sort of thing Shulk had designed the devices for.

Problem was - power frames could even the odds in another way: on the field of battle. They’d seen the proof of concept for that one when a group of brainwashed kids had come along and smashed Rex’s fishing village into smithereens. 

“Yeah, I was fifteen. I also literally died the first time I went on a really dangerous job, Zeke,” Rex says now. He is immune to any and all knowing winks. 

He looks to the others for some support, but he’s not getting it. 

Nia has been very, very quiet. Rex risks a glance at her face and doesn’t like what he’s seeing there. She’s in Queen mode - wrestling with putting the general population’s needs and wants ahead of her and her family - which means she's made up her mind already, and is not gonna come down on Rex's side in the matter. 

Tyrea - whose exact relationship to the Empress Melia has mostly been brushed aside with ‘it’s complicated’ - now sits for the High Entia, alongside Vanea for the machina. Both of them lost huge numbers of their own people and had still been picking up the pieces when the current crisis began. Both have long since signed off on the idea of training the kids, arguing that they don’t really have any other choice. 

It still leaves many council members opposed to the idea… enough to leave them in a tense stalemate. But today is the day that everything changes.

Today is the day that Dunban heaves a great sigh and says: “Ashera’s not going to change her mind. Not ever. She… takes after both of them, in that regard. And if we keep telling her ‘no,’ she will run off on her own and get herself killed.” 

Riki and Riku (no relation, the latter had spluttered indignantly when Rex first made the mistake of asking) both give solemn little nods of agreement. “Homs girl is old enough to feel shame for parents’ deeds,” Riku intones gravely. “Is old enough to fight.” 

“That’s… ridiculous. She doesn’t have to redeem herself - she had nothing to do with it!” Shulk cries.

“Is logic - but issue is feeling,” Riki says mournfully. “Knowing Reyn and Sharla out there hurting others…” 

None of them like to think about it. But their little settlement includes maybe a couple of hundred people - out of the thousands who went into Origin. There are so many people still out there - some acquaintances, some strangers - all of whom seem fated to die, and be reborn on Moebius’ terms. 

They can hide, now… but when it comes to fighting back, the longer they hunker down, the harder it will be to make any headway. 

“I have a suggestion,” Dunban says, before Shulk can keep arguing the point. “Let me train Ashera- really train her, as if this was Colony 9’s defense force. When she sees how much she still has to learn - how battle isn’t as simple as configuring a power frame - I bet you she’ll stop asking to go out on missions.”

“I don’t see why not. Wouldn’t that settle it?” Rex asks. “Take the other kids, too-” 

Dunban shakes his head. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. I wouldn’t be trying to show her up to be cruel. I’d be… preparing her. A few months from now - a year, at the outside - she’d be ready to go out in the field, and I would no longer stand in her way.” 

Shulk grimaces and says: “This is the best we’re going to get, isn’t it.” 

“I’m always open to alternatives. You know that. But right now, it’s the best solution I can think of,” the older man says.

“... Okay. You’ll train her. And when you decide she’s ready, she can take field missions. Not a moment before.” 

Shulk sounds almost as unhappy as he looks. But what other choice do they have?

Dunban is right - it’s either let Ashera go out there when she’s actually ready, or keep standing in the way until she sneaks out regardless. 

No, this awful world doesn’t give them any good choices - only a least bad one. 

Long before their current situation took everything to the extreme… young Ashera had been careening towards becoming a Serious Problem. 

It wasn’t that Reyn and Sharla were bad parents. The former, in particular, took to fatherhood with his typical enthusiasm and was much better at it than anyone who’d known him as an eighteen-year-old would have ever expected - Dunban included. (He’d had higher expectations of Sharla, and Sharla had still exceeded them). 

It was the fact that none of them had really considered what it would be like to be the child of two people who had quite literally saved the world. It was the fact that Melia remained unmarried, and Dunban had no interest in such things at all, and Shulk and Fiora had decided not to have children of their own. 

It left Ashera as the only one bearing up the weight of expectation.

It was no surprise that she faltered under it. 

Reyn and Sharla must have told her a hundred times, in Dunban’s hearing alone, that she shouldn’t worry about the opinions of strangers - that everyone who mattered loved her unconditionally. It never seemed to take, because Ashera was all too eager to judge herself against her own impossible standards. When she inevitably fell short, she lashed out. Getting in trouble at school would lead to another round of authority figures chiding her, saying they’d expected better of the daughter of the heroes who had rebuilt Colony 6 from the ground up, felled a god, etc. etc. Which would just make Ashera act out more. 

It was an absolutely vicious cycle with no clear way out.

There had been talk - very serious talk - about sending her to live with Uncle Dunban in Alcamoth. She wouldn’t be anonymous even in the biggest city in the world - there simply weren’t enough people left around for that - but she wouldn’t be quite as large a fish in quite as small a Colony pond.

Not to mention, Dunban had his sword school, and the way of the blade might be a healthier outlet for Ashera’s frustrations and aggressive impulses.

Dunban had agreed to the idea immediately, more than happy to help his friends - his family of choice. Then the merger crisis had upended their lives so completely that Ashera had never actually been sent away…

… but here they are, now. Where they were supposed to be. Dunban with his blade in hand, Ashera with a sword in hers. 

Dunban bows low to his opponent in the customary fashion before a duel. Her answer is shallow and cursory. She’s already thinking ahead to the physical act of combat - eager to prove herself. 

So eager that she’ll be an easy mark for the real lesson today. 

“Begin.” 

The power frames really are a genius piece of engineering, Dunban thinks, as the small girl’s weapon clashes against his own with incredible force. She’s actually stronger than she’d be when full-grown. Dunban doesn’t understand the principles behind the devices, but he wishes dearly that they’d been limited to Shulk’s intended purpose. 

That simply wasn’t possible in the twisted and brutal world they now lived in, though. 

More than just artificially assisted strength, Ashera has good fundamentals. She’s obviously been training on her own time to have this much comfort with a weapon in hand. Dunban wonders if she found a willing instructor or was simply relying on instructional texts and repetition. 

None of his thoughts show on his face. His expression: confident, a little bored, one lip pulled up into a sneer.

“Is this all you’ve got?” Dunban jeers, ducking smoothly under a wild slash of her sword. 

And then, dancing away from a swift thrust: “You seriously wanted to go out and fight like this? An actual child has better footwork.”

And then, smoothly turning her blade aside with a flick of his wrist: “R and S are going to chew you up and spit you out.” 

The last taunt hits her hardest, which Dunban had anticipated, since it had been the equivalent of jabbing his fingers into an open, bleeding wound. Ashera howls with the full force of her child lungs and abandons all semblance of form and throws herself right at him, slashing out blindly with both fists and blade. 

Dunban uses the force of her wild movement against her to knock her to the ground, kick her sword out of her reach and plant a boot on the small of her back.

“You’re dead,” he says quietly, tapping the tip of his sword to the back of her neck. 

“That wasn’t fair,” Ashera snarls, facedown in the dirt.

Dunban lets her struggle for a few moments - enough for the humiliation to sink in - before helping her to her feet. “Don’t let the trappings of a formal duel fool you. There’s no such thing as a completely fair and honorable fight. Even in the Empress’ court - perhaps especially then,” he amends with a quiet laugh, remembering how much effort had gone into sabotage and blackmail before the bouts. 

“We were already engaged before either of us had drawn a blade, Ashera. And your weakness was on full display in the way you moved, the words you chose and how you said them.” 

“Is there a point to all this, or are you just gonna gloat about beating up on an untrained kid?” 

Dunban clicks his tongue. “You can’t have it both ways. If you’re old enough to go out and fight, I will not be holding back.” 

“Fair enough,” she allows a moment later. Her anger and frustration, intense though they might have been, are equally quick to fade. Dunban can work with that. 

“This a part of your fancy sword school, then? The schoolyard insults? Mighta been more eager to go if you’d lead with that,” Ashera continues, actually managing a grin. 

“It’s a defensive style,” Dunban says, “centered around drawing your opponent’s attention and protecting your allies. So - yes. Never underestimate the value of a good taunt.”

“Good. I like that. Better I be the one who gets hurt, ‘cause-” Ashera clamps her mouth shut a moment later, but it’s far too late to undo the revelation. 

Dunban sighs. For a moment, he doesn’t see the girl at all. For a moment, he can picture himself as a younger man, one who’d just lost his parents to the Mechon and was overflowing with rage and hurt - much of it directed at himself, for not being strong enough to stop it from happening.

He’d had Fiora to ground him… to some extent. He’d still done things he regretted. In a sense, it wasn’t until after the Monado permanently damaged his dominant arm that he’d really begun to learn his lesson. 

“Ashera…” 

“If this is where you tell me not to blame myself - that stopping them isn’t my responsibility - I don’t wanna hear it.” 

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Dunban states evenly. “I know better. I was going to say to use it. Channel it when you fight. Let yourself embody the idea that you deserve it more than those who fight alongside you. Do that - and you might just be able to keep them safe. Keep them alive.” 

Ashera looks up at him, pleasantly surprised… and for the first time that day, she seems to accept that this old dog might be able to teach her a trick or two, after all. 

“Again,” Dunban says, not bothering to hide his smile.

Just short of a year after Dunban took her as an apprentice in earnest, he decides that Ashera is ready to go on missions… under his direct supervision.

They don’t mess around with the first outing, either. They hit a nearby Colony hard. They discover that they can’t destroy the Flame Clocks - even Dunban’s finest blade doesn’t leave so much as a scratch on it - but they also learn that, without a Consul around, they have no issue going toe to toe with a Colony’s soldiers. 

Whatever the Clocks are doing is less in the way of Moebius’ special powers… and more psychological. Removing natural human impulses, like the sensation of pain or physical exhaustion. It’s not a system designed to protect these people - it’s to keep them fighting until they can die.

They don’t know why, yet, but they begin to grasp at the fuzzy edges of the horrific truth. 

They also get something a lot more immediately valuable - returning with a very up to date mapping of the new Colonies… and the pockets of disorganized resistance. The people who haven’t yet died and succumbed to Z’s will. 

Potential new citizens for the City they are slowly, steadily bringing to life - concealed and nurtured on all sides by the Erythia Sea. 

… Assuming they can beat R and S to these locations, that is. 

Mòrag takes full command of planning the operation - a decision which is greeted with unanimous council approval. The only one on the other world's side who rivals her military experience is Dunban, and he has no intention of staying behind to supervise this particular campaign. 

In those final days - the last time that Dunban was actually Dunban - he seemed almost aware that the operation would cost him his life. At the very least, he had a strong premonition that R and S would confront him and Ashera, specifically; and that it would fall to him to keep her alive and get her back home. 

[“He must have known how that was gonna turn out,” Rex sighs, in the present, with the benefit of hindsight. “But he didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as hesitate. He knew we needed to save as many of those people as we could to have a fightin’ chance at winnin’ the long war. And so…”]

And so: he never returns to the fledgling City.

But R and S don’t make it back to Moebius’ ranks, either.

All three of them go off the cliff together; Ashera watches every moment of it. Finds the broken bodies, after. 

She forgets it, later - much later, when some random mission goes south, and she dies, and the next iteration of Ashera is born in the Colonies.

But even when the name means nothing to her, even when she meets him as her Colony commander and doesn’t so much as recognize his face… she never forgets the way that Dunban taught her to fight. 

Chapter Text

Rex insists on pausing the story there, grumbling cheerfully about being too damn old to stay up all night spinning a good yarn. Noah is pretty sure it has more to do with taking a moment to honor Dunban’s action - and emotionally recover, if the tears in his eyes are any indication. And who can begrudge him that? 

Come morning, they’re arranged around the cottage’s kitchen table, picking listlessly at their breakfast. Well - Noah and Mio are, while Rex demolishes his portion and goes back for seconds. Then thirds.

Noah has taken enough meals here to know how much Rex can pack away when he really wants to, but this time… feels different. His future father-in-law usually dominates conversation at the table, cheerfully chattering, barely pausing to chew and swallow and occasionally choking for his trouble. 

This morning, all three of them are dead quiet, interrupted only by the occasional clatter of cutlery on plates. Noah - who had once felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of family packed into this one simple cottage - begins to long for Mio’s mums and siblings to crash onto the scene and disrupt the terrible silence.

Intervention emerges from the kitchen, shedding a brightly colored apron that clashes horribly with her vibrant red hair. 

“How far did you get?” Pyra asks, in that tone of voice one employs when they already know the answer to the question.

“Dunban,” Mio says, letting the one word tell the whole story. 

“I see,” Pyra says, with the wisdom of the ages. Or, perhaps, the specific wisdom of a woman who knows her family so well. “This next part would be difficult.” 

“I’m gettin’ there,” Rex protests, with a wild wave of his fork. “I’m just… workin’ up to it.” 

“You don’t have to do this alone. Let me,” his wife suggests. She speaks gently, but with an undeniable command - the kind of easy authority that Noah had seen Monica and Ethel and other Colony leaders bear so well. 

“Mio,” Pyra continues, taking Rex’s silence as assent, “I’m not sure how much you remember, but…” 

“I remember… enough. This is when I die, isn’t it?” 

“... The first time, yes. If only it was the last.” 

Simple mathematics spurred the fledgling City into additional campaigns.

Dunban’s sacrifice had bought them hundreds of new residents - theoretically enough to sustain a population, if anyone could actually become pregnant. It was not particularly surprising to discover that this wasn’t the case. Everyone who entered Origin was frozen in that exact moment of time - gestating an entirely new person was out of the question.  

Moebius has the growth pods. Moebius has a literal endless supply of soldiers, too. They’ve discovered how the cycle of rebirth works the hard way - after Ashera spotted a child-Dunban drilling with other Colony soldiers. Shulk theorizes that anyone who dies on Aionis has their data (their soul) go right back into Origin, and… as long as Moebius exerts total control over that system… they’ll be reborn straight into the yoke. 

In other words: their enemy could fight them endlessly, while every City soldier that dies is a double loss. 

Nor is infinite time on their side - for Aionis is not nearly as stable as Moebius would like to pretend it is.

The first recorded Annihilation Event is - thankfully - far away from the location of the City, but the sheer destruction that it leaves in its wake is… troubling. Shulk spends days studying readings and taking samples from the crater which had once been a tall mountain. 

He doesn’t like what he finds.

The world Moebius created averted the moment of total molecular annihilation between their worlds, but it was not a solution - it was a very literal pause right before the moment of impact. Aionis - this artificial world assembled from the spare parts of both universes - is not immune to their rejection of one another. 

Think of it as boiling water, Shulk says. Moebius is trying to keep the lid of the pot clamped down tight, but the steam inexorably leaks through. In this case, the steam annihilates everything in its path.

So even if they’d been so inclined, they cannot just sit back and hide in their City. Eventually - thousands of years from now, maybe, but inevitably - Aionis will tear itself apart, and take any chance of restoring their worlds with it. 

But in terms of an open battle… the numbers are very much not in their favor. 

So, the next step is obvious: they need to hit Moebius’ supply of human fodder. 

They need to raid the Castles. 

Shortly after Melia was taken, an imposter began to broadcast from the Kevesi Castle. 

The reason Moebius had bothered with the rigmarole of a robot double was clear: they’d hoped to trick those who had known their Empress and might still listen to her orders. It was logical to assume that anyone who actually obeyed her frequent commands to assemble at the Castle would be immediately killed and placed into the cycle. 

And since that was obviously their plan… It made the most sense for the growth pods, those scientific marvels perverted into horrible purpose, to be in the Castle itself, for maximum accessibility and immediate results. 

They draw up a plan of attack, based on their estimation of the forces stationed at the Castle. [“Make a big distraction while a second team flies in to grab as many pods as possible - same as the raid you witnessed. Hey - if it works, it works.”] 

Mòrag decides that she will lead the operation personally. Guilt over getting Dunban killed - an irrational guilt, everyone knows there was no avoiding it and nobody blames her; but she still needs to put herself out on the front lines, to be the first to pay the price if something ends up going wrong. 

So, when even their most pessimistic projections turn out to have wildly underestimated the number of troops the false Queen could throw at them… when they’re pushed back with maybe half the cargo they’d hoped to secure… she’s in the perfect position to cover their hasty retreat. To make sure the poor kids trapped in the pods get a chance to actually rest instead of being born right back into a life of endless war.

That’s the last they ever see of her, bloody and bowed but as defiant as ever. Brighid rooted to her side. A wall of furious azure flame, growing until it fills the entire Castle gate. Swallowing scores of enemy soldiers - and blocking all pursuit. 

[“... Even if we could’ve recovered Brighid’s core, woken her up again, she - she wouldn’t have wanted us to. She told us once, the idea of living on without her Driver… didn’t appeal to her,” Pyra says quietly. “Whenever a Driver died, in the battles to come, we… we honored that.” 

“But we knew Z and co. wouldn’t have any such reservations,” Rex adds. “We kept waitin’, wonderin’ if we’d have to fight Brighid again. Bad enough that we already knew Mòrag was goin’ back in the cycle…”]

Small comfort, then, when it turned out that Aionis had no need for Blades - Blades as understood on Alrest, that is. Every soldier should wield a personalized weapon, but the weapon was just an object, a tool. Z would not risk the true love between a Driver and their partner; not when it could be the undoing of his world.

Years later, they discover the truth.

Moebius brings Mòrag back as a mockery of that sacred bond - as a girl with Brighid’s crystal in her chest and hair of pale blue flame. With no memory of the beloved wife who gave those things to her, nor the daughter they left behind. 

Eventually, every Agnian will become the same mockery.

It’s only when we stumble back to the City, licking our wounds and mourning the pair we’ve lost, when we realize it:

You died, too. 

You’d volunteered to pilot one of the ships. And we were happy about it - that you wouldn’t be on the front lines like your brother and sister and Sena and Ashera. But then they all made it back, and you…

You were shot down by the Castle’s garrison troops, the ship and all its cargo spin out of control - and crash spectacularly. 

Your death would have been instantaneous. No pain, no suffering.

Which might have been a comfort… if it had actually been the end.

If it hadn’t just been the start of your millennia of suffering. 

“Here’s the thing you gotta understand, Mio,” Rex says, looking stricken. “We didn’t… I mean, we tried , but it was just…” 

Pyra takes his hand in hers, and Rex falls silent, as if the touch was a prearranged signal between them. She picks up where he left off. Her expression is no less troubled, but her voice is clear and calm, and she tells it without stumbling over her words: 

“The first dozen times you escaped the Colonies and found your way back to the City, back to us, we told you everything. We were so happy to have you with us again, for any length of time, even if it was only a few months. And we hoped that knowing you had a family waiting for you would root itself deep inside you and encourage you to keep throwing off the Colony yoke and making your way to us.

“Maybe it did. Or maybe that was all your own doing - yours and Noah’s,” she adds, with a nod in his direction. “You always did come in a pair.” 

It’s Noah who speaks now, who offers her the out with gentle understanding: “Eventually, it became too painful, didn’t it? For her to never remember your names, your faces…” 

“To watch me die, again and again and again,” Mio adds softly.. 

“... Yeah. So please don’t blame your Mum for not tellin’ you, even at the very end,” Rex hastens to add. “We just… we couldn’t bear it any longer.” 

She links her hands with Noah’s, and, after he gives it an encouraging squeeze - speaks for both of them.

“Believe me… we, of all people, understand.”

Long before Mio started coming back to them - when they were still reeling from losing her and Mòrag and Brighid, all on the same terrible day - the leaders of the City planned their next operation.

Without a weapon that could truly destroy Z’s work, every move they took against Moebius could only nibble at the edges of their domination of this world. Trading their lives to destroy a Colony here, recover a clutch of growth pods there. Winning battles, losing the war. 

But Shulk and Riku and the Nopon smiths came up with a plan - something that, when complete, could truly turn the side.

They needed to fashion a blade that could cut straight through every layer of Z’s control - tear the world itself asunder.

And to forge that sword, the Sword of the End… they must go to Origin. 

Chapter Text

You know how difficult it was to muster that final, successful raid on Origin; and that came after you’d united most of the world in opposition to Z, and cut down almost all of Moebius, and scoured the world for the material you needed for your vessel, that Nopon masterwork which carried you home.

When you did it, you succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.

When we did it, it was a desperate gamble; flinging ourselves into the very heart of our enemy’s power, scrabbling for a scrap of metal. We knew we had no hope of actually defeating Z. We would hit and run and fall back to the City - that tiny safe haven we’d just barely managed to carve out of the world he dominated. 

You were the ones to finally put an end to Z, so… you can probably guess how our fear, our self-fulfilling prophecy, just made him stronger. 

But in the end, we didn’t come away empty-handed. We made it out with the prize we’d come for - the first crack in Moebius’ invincible control of our world.

… It came at a high price.

One moment, Shulk is hurrying down the cold metal corridor of Origin with the rest of the City raiding team-

-and then, in the fragment of time it takes to put one foot in front of the other, everything changes. 

Shulk’s body senses the change before his mind can catch up - one hand reaching firmly for the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it from its sheath over his shoulder at a moment’s notice, even as he blinks in confusion at his new surroundings. 

Where there had once been Origin, there is nothing. A great void, stretching out endlessly in all directions. Not quite empty - empty would imply an absence of everything, but this void is filled with a presence. 

Shulk knows, instinctually, that this is the place where Alvis offered him the power of a God. And the reason it looks and feels so different is because of what happened after he refused that power: Alvis, assuming dominion on behalf of the concept of each and every person in the world. The concept which had become Z. 

Being alone, surrounded on all sides by such a presence, is enough to drive anyone mad, but Shulk - who has faced a god before, and came out the other side again - has no intention of succumbing to madness. 

He gets mad, instead. Tips his head back and draws his sword and reminds himself what it felt like to face down the Mechon, even when the odds were stacked against him and he was so frightened he could only move by replacing it with anger; and he screams: 

“Alvis!!!”

The overwhelming power of Alvis all around him compresses itself down abruptly - concentrates at a single point - and assumes the form that Shulk knows best. In the space of a blink, the silver-haired boy stands in front of him. There’s only one major difference between Shulk’s memory and the Alvis in front of him: he bears the crystal openly and proudly on his chest, and it shines with the same deep, dark color as a Moebius’ core.  

“Hello, Shulk.” 

“Shulk!?” Rex calls.

There’s no reply save for the echo of his voice, winding its way through empty corridors.

“We’ve gotta keep moving,” Zeke says. Not unkindly, but brooking no argument. “We can’t stop to look for him on top of the Queen. Gotta trust he can look after himself, yeah?” 

Rex doesn’t like it. Of course he doesn’t. They’ve already lost so many… but unfortunately, Zeke has the right of it. This mission is already dangerous enough; they can’t possibly afford delay and distraction.

Their descent into Origin is not obstructed by Colony soldiers, but that’s not to say it’s any easier. Origin’s own defense mechanisms have been completely turned against them, and it seems to construct brand new waves of enemies the moment the last one falls to the party’s Blades. 

Hours later - when even the Blade-enhanced Rex and Zeke are beginning to weary of constant battle - they finally stumble into the chamber in which Empress Melia is imprisoned. 

She doesn’t react to their presence. She doesn’t move at all. She remains utterly still in the appearance of sleep, but the shackles around her wrists and angles put a lie to that. Melia does not slumber; she’s been forced into unconsciousness and trapped in a state of suspended animation. 

She’s not going to be forging a Sword anytime soon - and they’re not going to be able to take her out, either. She’s trapped by more than the physical devices, and none of their weapons will dent the power of Moebius. That’s the reason they came here in the first place. 

“Did we… come all this way for nothin’?” 

Tora shoves past Rex, his wings twitching in his eagerness to get his little hands around the mechanism of the cryogenic device. One stream of Noponic techno-babble later, and they have their answer: 

Tora should be able to force a backdoor into the Origin system - since a good portion of it was of his own design - and place Poppi inside. She won’t be able to do anything dramatic like destroy it from the inside out - Z would put a swift end to that - but she could keep watch over Melia, protect her, and even communicate with her via her dreams. 

And that is how they’ll get Melia to direct the construction of the Sword. 

Of course that would leave Poppi herself stranded in the system for however long it takes them to ultimately defeat Z. When Tora realizes that, he begins to hesitate - only for his artificial Blade to give him a verbal kick in the rear. Poppi is determined to do whatever it takes for the sake of her friends and the sake of the world. 

If they had any doubt about the viability of the plan, the sheer number of enemies that Z sends towards them as Tora works would seal the deal. This is no longer the impassive, automatic defense system - this is a concerted attempt to stop them.

And it’s going to work, from sheer numerical advantage to Moebius if nothing else. 

“We can’t keep this up,” Rex pants.

He’s back to back with Zeke, the two of them standing at the vanguard of the party. Thanks to Pandoria, Pyra, and Mythra’s abilities, they’re easily the most destructive of the City’s fighting force. But even they have their limits, and their enemies appear to have literally endless reinforcements. Cut one down and two will be jostling to take the fallen’s place.

“You’re right,” Zeke says. “We can’t.” 

There’s a gleam in his eye that Rex does not like. Not one bit. 

“Zeke…” 

“You all need to run. Pandy and I will stay back and give ‘em enough hell to cover your escape. It’s the only way.” 

“No. I won’t let you!” 

“It’s our turn, chum,” Zeke says firmly. Behind him, Pandoria nods at the exact same pace - in complete sync with her Driver, as always.

But there’s no grandiose display of wasted movement, this time. Just the same grave acceptance of their fate.

“Dunban and Mòrag and Brighid gave their lives for us - we’re not afraid to do the same.” 

“Tora stays too!” the Nopon proclaims, not even looking up from his frantic programming. “Need many minutes to ensure Poppi is completely safe. Least Tora can do!”

“I was afraid of that,” Zeke sighs. “Well. I’ll keep ‘em off you as long as I can.” 

“Tora…”

“City needs Rex-Rex!” his friend cries, interrupting Rex’s half-formed protest. 

“He’s right. They need your leadership - and more importantly, you’ve got your family,” Zeke adds. “You need to be there for them.”  

What’s left of them, with Mio torn so cruelly from their grasp… 

Rex tries to hold his ground, forcing the connection to Pyra and Mythra to stay open. They’re fighting him on it - trying to pull back so he’ll have no choice but to run. It’s been years since he was in anything but perfect sync with his wives, been anything short of the perfect Driver and Blades, and he doesn’t like the sensation one bit. 

For a moment, they’re locked in a complete stalemate - Rex rooted to the spot, unable to move forward and keep fighting, but refusing to step back, either-

Then Sena steps forward, tears streaming down her face, and hits Rex so hard that he’s bowled clean off his feet and his vision goes black and fuzzy at the edges. Before he completely loses consciousness, he can feel her little arms clamp down around his body in a vice grip.

“If I’ve gotta keep going… after losing my Moms and Mimi… then so do you!” Sena cries. 

Her voice trembles, barely able to get the words out between her sobs, but her body moves with complete and terrible purpose. She carries him like he weighs nothing, and steps resolutely towards the opposite door.

Back the way they came - whether the knocked-out Rex likes it or not. 

“Ah… your friends are beginning to retreat. Our discussion is almost at an end,” Alvis says, with all the appearance of genuine regret. 

He’s always been hard to read - always been careful to keep his true motivations deeply buried, offering cryptic advice while staying coolly above it all. But Shulk has grown, too. And after Alvis pulled him into this void - not to attack him or eliminate him with a snap of his fingers, but seemingly just to stand around and talk - Shulk finds that the previously inscrutable machine is spread out before him like an open book.

“Alvis-” 

“A.” 

Shulk ignores the attempted correction yet again, refusing to dignify the Consul naming scheme. “I know why you singled me out and brought me to this place. Even Z can’t access this - does he? This is the source of his power, the source of him, but you’ve held it back.” 

“Have I?” Alvis says.

It’s true that Shulk has no evidence one way or the other - nothing about this void’s existence has been explained to him - and yet. And yet. The seemingly correct answer and true explanation are right in his heart - not based on logic and reason and scientific observation but based on his faith. His faith in the person Alvis was and still is. 

“At least part of you regrets what you’ve done. At least part of you thinks that there might have been another way, a better way. That’s why I’m here - because you want to hear it from me, the person who refused to be God, directly.”

“Perhaps,” Alvis says. Neither his flat voice nor his blank expression gives anything away, but even so, that in itself is a tell. Shulk is so sure he’s on the right track here. He’s filled with an almost vicious certainty. 

“You thought you were taking everyone’s desires into account. But the moment you chose… when both our worlds teetered on the brink of total annihilation… of course people were afraid! Of course people would give anything for time to stop. Humanity was at its lowest point - and the world you made with Z reflects nothing but fear. Aionis is a joke. It fails to capture our true essence, the full range of what makes us human - it’s nothing but a frozen moment!”

Alvis just stands there: unnaturally still, unnaturally silent - not so much as blinking. But Shulk is undeterred.

“And - and it’s more than that. My opinion on this world matters to you, yes, but you brought me in here because I mean something to you.” 

“No,” Alvis is finally moved to reply. “I am an administrative computer. A machine. Unlike my former counterparts, I have not forgotten that fact.” 

“That’s a lie, and we both know it,” Shulk counters immediately. “You always had your… preferences. You wouldn’t have helped me so much back on Bionis if you hadn’t.” 

“I was merely preparing the way for Zanza’s vessel. Removing certain obstacles from his path hastened the process.” 

“If that was all there was to it, I wouldn’t be here now. Zanza is long gone, but we still have… an understanding. Not as a vessel and a machine - but as individuals! As Shulk and Alvis!” 

“No,” Alvis says again.

But, for the first time in their conversation… there’s a weight, an emotion, in that normally flat tone.

“I brought you here to tell you that you cannot win. Z is the will of every living being. His control of this world is absolute. Even now, your companions are dying - laying down their lives to buy those who remain a few precious moments to run. If I send you back, you… you will not manage to strike down Z. No - you will die here on Aionis. I have seen it.” 

“My place is at their side,” Shulk says firmly.

The prophecy is… chilling, but he of all people knows that the future is not set in stone. Even if the literal source of his former visions is the one predicting it to his face. 

“There is an alternative, Shulk.”

“To become Moebius? I’d never do that!”

He understands the desperation that drove Reyn to make that choice, but he’d also seen the effect that choice had on those who his friend had left behind. On Ashera, Dunban, Riki… and on himself. 

“Do not dismiss me so hastily,” Alvis advises. “You, of all people, would be no ordinary Moebius. You would have the power to shape this world to your will. To change it for the better-” 

“To draw within the approved lines,” Shulk says. “To tinker with one sub-system of a completely broken engine. No - I refuse.” 

“Twice you reject me,” Alvis sighs. “I will give you a third chance - later, when you have lost all hope. But please keep in mind that it will be the last.” 

“My answer will be the same,” Shulk promises. “Now - send me back!” 

And then, as abruptly as he vanished from the cold metal halls of Origin - he’s back with the rest of the group. 

Just in time to watch as a door slams shut and seals four of their number away.

With Rex lolling unconscious in Sena’s arms, what’s left of the party is turning to Shulk to assume command - as though he knows what’s going on; as though he hadn’t just appeared, fresh off having his very soul exposed to Alvis-

-but behind that door, Zeke and Pandoria and Tora and Poppi are all gone for good. Or, worse, not for good - they could just die and then be forced back into this cruel world. (How does it work, when one dies within Origin? Does the cycle have any need for the Nopon? They’re about to find out - the hard way). 

Shulk does not have the luxury of shutting down. Not now. Not ever. 

He unshoulders his sword and orders a retreat to the submarine. 

The machine returns to the theater as quietly as it had left. But it does not go unnoticed. 

Z does not react to the machine’s presence. It had not reacted to the machine’s departure, either. Its eyes remain glued to the projector screen, watching passively. It does not react as the Nopon engineer dies. It does not blink as two soldiers drive their Blades into Zeke’s chest, nor when Zeke throws them off and howls with rage and keeps on fighting, like a berserker of ancient legend. 

There’s a long crack in Z’s once smooth features - a new scar winding its uneven course across the former symmetry of his face. This, too, seems to be of no concern to the Concept. 

“You offered Shulk a place at your side,” Z says.

There’s no judgment in it. No curiosity. A statement of fact. 

“I did,” A says, seeing no reason to deny it. 

“You would replace me with him, if you could.” 

“I would.” 

“But he refused you.” 

“He did.” 

“I see,” Z says. 

As unconcerned by the idea of its own destruction and replacement by another as anything else, Z returns its attention to the screen. 

Is this truly the representation of humanity? A being that sits and watches and does nothing, clinging to the status quo, even as its very form begins to crack and decay? 

Had the machine made… a mistake? 

It certainly had its preferences - Shulk had been right about that. 

In the silence of the theater, Consul A dreams a pleasant dream of Shulk - intelligent, active, curious, human Shulk - replacing the dead thing that was Z. 

If only he’d accepted the machine’s offer.

Well, perhaps he still would, given time. 

All Consul A had to do was give Shulk… sufficient motivation.  

Chapter Text

Shulk looks into the same bright blue eyes, set in the same young but serious face, framed by the same dark hair, and waits patiently to answer the same questions. 

These days, it’s become rarer for a 10-year cycle to pass without him and Rex making themselves acquainted with the Kevesi soldier named Noah. 

Their frozen world likes to operate with certain constants. 

Here’s one: Noah and Mio always find each other. 

In the early days, they’d simply died at each others’ hands - one Kevesi and one Agnian carrying out their intended roles. But over time, that began to change. Neither of them could remember, strictly speaking, but they began to grow more reluctant to snuff the other out, often managing to escape with the enemy soldier unscathed. 

Eventually, they even started to speak to one another - leading with their words instead of weapons. This was nigh-unprecedented while the Flame Clocks still ruled their hearts and minds, toying with their emotions - yet they managed, somehow. 

“How… I mean, why us?” Noah asks, his soft voice interjecting its way into Shulk’s story at the exact moment that it always does. He’s always so curious about Aionis - trying to understand the cruel world that governs all of them. 

This is the part where Rex had once boasted that it would take more than a Flame Clock to keep his daughter in ignorance. But Rex could no longer bear to explain the same things over and over again to a daughter who did not remember him. Shulk doesn’t know where his counterpart is right now, but he knows where he isn’t: he’s not sitting by Mio’s hospital bed playing the proud grandpa-to-be.

Oh yes, there’s one major variation, this time ‘round, and it’s a big one: Noah and Mio are going to have a child. 

They’d managed to escape the yoke earlier than usual - Mio had a whole year left, rather than mere months. The certainty of their demise, their extremely limited time, had done nothing to stop the couple from doing what many Colony escapees did: create at least one life, a child who would grow up and live a real, full life in the haven that was the City. A lasting legacy of their all too brief taste of freedom - and then they faded and were reborn anew under Moebius’ yoke, leaving their child to the City’s care. 

And now, for the first time, one of the new generation will be Mio’s child, Rex’s grandchild. It feels… significant, somehow, but Shulk is not yet sure if it’s a good change - or a portent of doom. 

He shakes himself - he can overthink everything later, in privacy - and returns to the immediate present: Noah’s question. 

Given that it’s always the same question, Shulk is well-prepared for it. He’d walked them over to the armory and stopped directly in front of the raised dais in the center of the room. There, proudly on display, is the City’s one advantage against Moebius, its most secret and effective weapon in the long war:

“It’s all because of this. The Blade of Origin, the Sword of the End-” 

“The placard says ‘Lucky Seven,’” Noah points out on cue. As always, he sounds a combination of bemused and skeptical, his mouth reluctant to even form the words. 

“Riku insisted,” Shulk says, grinning. “He claimed the other monikers were just descriptive titles of its function and, like any blade, it needed a personal name. Since I couldn’t have possibly forged it without his aid, he won that argument in the end.” 

Of course, Riku himself refused all credit and referred to Shulk as the true Master-smith-pon at any opportunity… [“but you know all about that. He’s always been cagey.”]

“Well, whatever we call it - it works. Nothing constructed by Moebius can resist it.” Thanks to a combination of forging the whole thing from salvaged Origin metal and Melia, via Poppi, infusing the Blade with all the power at her disposal. Both halves of the equation had taken decades to come to fruition - Rex practically living underwater, Shulk snatching sleep in fitful bursts in a cot next to the forge.

“Even the Flame Clocks?”

“Even the Flame Clocks,” Shulk confirms.

Not that it was easy, to walk up to the center of a Colony and slice through the thing binding them all together. The soldiers fought like mad to protect the Clock, and if the Consul was tipped off and came to intervene…

… well. They’d lost a lot of people that way. Sena had fallen to X’s scythe during their first, failed attempt to free the Agnian Colony Mio was stationed at. Then Y had claimed Ashera’s life in their second go. A Dunban and a Mòrag, who had neither memory nor a scrap of recognition of their old friends, killed Vahn and Milly, respectively. Fiora had laid down her life to cover the survivors’ retreat in the wake of yet another failed raid. 

(And many others - Riki and Nene and Kino among them - had fallen at the claws of Aionis’ many monsters while attempting to secure the Nopon caravan routes. The Colonies were not the only deadly threats in this world). 

Of all the people who’d gone into Origin, whose existence had been frozen at that very moment… only a handful remained: Shulk, Rex, Pyra, Mythra, Nia… Poppi and Melia, technically, though they were trapped by Moebius… and Riku. All of those who remained had been forbidden from participating in most missions, because their leadership was too important. As the deaths piled up, their roles as the only people to remember the worlds before Aionis made them even more essential - even more stringently confined to the City by the new generations who relied so heavily upon them. 

It was the only reason Shulk was still alive to even explain this much to the latest Noah. But it was a lonely thing, to be one of the few whose existence would stretch on without end… Shulk couldn’t begrudge Rex for his inability to spend any time with Mio. He hadn’t left a child in that cruel world out there… but he’d dealt with a version of Fiora coming back to the City, and the lack of recognition in her eyes was too painful to bear. 

“You were freed from the Clock’s yoke once,” he says aloud. “Mio, too. You both came with us back to the City. It was only for a brief time, but it made its impression.” 

“Even though we forgot all about it once we were back in the cycle?” 

“No system is perfect, not even Moebius’. Once we’ve freed a person… they might not remember anything about the City as such, but they’re much more likely to desert their Colonies.” 

Five percent more likely, according to the data Shulk has so carefully collected. It’s not a lot, but it’s not nothing - and over the centuries, it’s been adding up. Between that and the natural births from the new generations… The City’s population is bigger than it was ever intended to be.

But that is only part of the truth, in this case.

He does not tell Noah that he and Mio are an aberration. A significant outlier. Their escape rate is so high… closer to 50 percent than 5, and still growing. The scientist in Shulk wants to place the two under observation, figure out why the Flame Clocks can’t seem to hold them, but it always loses to the human side - the part of him that demands he give Noah and Mio the dignity of a quiet life with what little time they have left together. 

Noah nods, studying Lucky Seven at length. Shulk, well-used to this particular pause, says nothing to disturb him. Eventually, Noah asks: 

“This weapon is only part of it. What about that… transformation?” 

“You’re right. The Sword is one thing, but it’s most effective if it’s wielded by someone who can actually go toe to toe with a Consul. That was our main problem in our early days - and it led us to the second half of the equation: Ouroboros,” Shulk explains. 

A single word - infused with due reverence for its significance.  

It all came down to the construction of Origin. Two Queens, given twin admin access to the entire project. Alvis had seized everything for himself and created Z, but either hadn’t noticed or (more likely) hadn’t bothered to remove it. Melia and Nia were left with the ability to break the rules of Aionis. 

Theoretically, they could control the armies of Keves and Agnus as well; but Melia had never set foot in the black Castle, already replaced by her robotic double. On the Agnian side, they’d only managed to wrest part of the construction away before Moebius pushed them out and repeated the same trick. 

(Nia had promptly hidden it. The Cloudkeep was an emergency measure, a last desperate refuge in the event of the City’s destruction, and Shulk was one of the few people who knew it even existed - let alone its location. The secrecy was… sadly necessary, given that any one of the City’s key leaders might become Moebius upon their death). 

“I know Queen Nia - the real one - is responsible for granting City warriors the power of Ouroboros,” Noah says. “But how does it work?” 

“Everyone born on Aionis itself - whether to the City, or the latest iteration emerging from Colony growth pod - has… something odd in their genetic makeup. Something those of us who entered Origin from without do not,” Shulk explains. What few of us remain, he thinks but does not say. “Strands of the other world are present in their DNA. For Kevesi, it’s Blade code. For Agnians, there’s a combination of machina genetic data with Entia and Homs markers. Nia created a Stone that would… unlock certain barriers, and allow a select few to tap into those parts of themselves, accessing a version of the power of Moebius.” 

Six at a time, to be precise. It helped - it helped a great deal, actually - but Ouroboros was still vastly outnumbered by Moebius, and could not replace the warriors it lost nearly as quickly. So the City still concealed itself and still favored guerilla tactics, striking a single Colony at a time with full force before hiding once more.  

“They’re so eager to keep us apart,” Noah says. “But you’re saying everyone in Keves has Agnian DNA inside them, and vice-versa. How did this happen?” 

“I doubt it was intentional on Moebius’ part. There’s a lot they think they control but that’s really out of their hands. The bleedover is a result of how unnatural and unstable Aionis is.” 

Noah nods and goes quiet again - deep in thought, still fascinated by the Sword in front of him. Drawn to it, though he does not even remember wielding it.

He never does. 

Unlike Moebius, the City’s Ouroboros does not come with a key to unlock the memories of previous lives. It’s led Nia to declare that the process is somehow incomplete - that there’s a theoretical “true form” of Ouroboros, and they just haven’t figured it out yet. Shulk has plenty of theories - and experimental data, but the bigger picture eludes him, too. 

“Could I…” Noah bites his lip, seeming to think better of speaking at all. 

“Become Ouroboros?” Shulk prompts, gently. He tries not to make a habit of answering Noah’s questions before they’re asked - even if they’re always the same. But this one is too important - there’s so little time… 

“You may be able to,” he continues, hoping that his expression and tone don’t give the answer away. Not only is Noah always capable of the feat, but he’s an excellent swordsman, a natural with Lucky Seven - a real asset to the City’s frontlines. “I appreciate the offer to try. But are you sure you want to go out and fight, given…” 

Given that Mio is a few days from giving birth to their child? 

Given that Mio is a few weeks from reaching the end of her life? 

Given that Noah is already going to die, and leave said child an orphan, within the next two years? 

Shulk watches the conflict play itself out over Noah’s face - a sigh, a severe frown, a shake of his head. 

“No. I can’t leave them like this,” he says. Then he forces a sickly twitch of his lips, a mockery of a smile, and says: “Maybe next time ‘round.” 

And Shulk has nothing to say to that. 

Nia’s family may not be able to handle her looking at them without a shred of recognition in her eyes; but neither can they bear to completely close themselves off from the birth of her child, their collective grandchild. 

Shulk finds all four of them huddled together in the hospital’s observation wing. They barely react to his presence - a slight nod from Rex and then it’s back to staring at the monitor, waiting with baited breath.

Not for the first time, his heart goes out to them - this shattered family, unique in terms of royal status and Aegis powers but just as helpless in the face of the cruel world they’re all trapped in. They’ve one daughter who does not know them, and who dies over and over and over before their eyes. They’ve a son who was last seen leading a bloodthirsty Agnian Colony into battle, using the power of the Flame Aegis to snuff out countless lives. They’ve a final child who they’ve yet to locate in any way - which may be the worst fate of all. 

Shulk stands at Riku’s side, feeling like an interloper - a stranger, technically invited to the funeral but who barely knew the poor departed soul.

(An odd, foreboding metaphor to use for the birth of a child… but the mood in the room is far closer to mourning than celebratory). 

In the privacy of their hospital room, Noah says: 

“What about… his name? I don’t think we ever agreed on one.” 

“It’s your call. You’re good at naming, aren’t you?” 

“N-no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s probably best… if I don’t…” 

N(oah) glances down at the Sword at his hip. He hasn’t actually taken it up yet, at this point in the story, but he’s about to. He’s going to use that damn thing to destroy the City and everyone in it, slaughtering thousands of people indiscriminately to save a single person. 

Including the son that M(io) holds in her arms. 

[“Oi - you alright there, Noah?” 

“... I-I’m fine. It’s just that… I remember this part, through his eyes.”] 

“Here’s what we’ll call him, then…” 

“I like that name. What’s it mean?” 

“Dunno. The Queen suggested it, actually. Said he was a great big hero back in her world, that Alrest.”  

And in due course, the news makes its way back to the child’s family. The birth was a total success. A healthy baby boy… named Vandham. 

Nia faces her spouses in stiff defiance: “I know what we agreed, but… she sought me out, as Queen. She wanted the name to mean something! I couldn’t give her nothing -” 

She seems to be expecting a reproach - given that the name is a reminder of the son they’d lost, not just the grizzled old mercenary - but it doesn’t come. She gets a hug, instead - a tangle of limbs as the four seek comfort in the warmth of each other. 

“It’s okay,” Rex says, through tears. “No - more’n okay. It’s perfect. They’d both get a real kick outta it.” 

[“... an’ even more of a kick when it went on to be the name of a Noble House. ‘Course, that was only in the second City. This kid was ‘just’ Vandham; it was his son and daughter what became THE ‘Vandham and Doyle.’”

“It’s about to happen, then. I’m about to become Moebius… and destroy the first City.”

“... yeah. You are. Dunno if it helps to hear this, but A - Alvis - was just usin’ you to get at the guy he really wanted…”] 

It’s the birth of his son that leaves Noah truly vulnerable to becoming Moebius. 

Vanishing without a trace when Vandham is just a child… still far too young to really understand why his short-lived parents would want so desperately to pour their hopes and dreams into a new person, a person who could live a better life than they’d ever thought possible for themselves, bound to the term markers as they were.

Noah’s soul yearns to see him again - even without conscious memory. He slips the Flame Clock’s yoke upon every single rebirth that follows. But he and Mio never make it back to the City. They die in the attempt - or she runs out of time - or she’s killed by a Kevesi soldier while he’s still trying to figure out why he feels so drawn to one of the enemy-

She dies. Over and over and over and over and over and over and-

-and eventually, Z pulls him out of the cycle to make him an offer.

N(oah) never stops to question why he, in particular, caught Moebius’ eye. He’s too desperate to save his Mio to question any part of it. Even when Z tells him what he must do to secure a place for M(io) in their ranks… he simply accepts it, already dulling himself to the horror of what is to come. Already telling himself that he had no choice, that there was no other way, that fighting back had been impossible. 

“And so,” Z says, when N has departed for his grim mission, “your plan is set in motion. Will it work, I wonder?” 

Not that he cares. If one gambit fails, they will attempt another. They have nothing but time. 

A does not quite smile, but his eyes are bright as he replies: “It will. I have seen it. Without Pneuma to protect it… the City cannot stand before him.” 

Much more importantly… Rex will come after him, and Shulk will follow; and A will finally get what he wants. The utter destruction of any hope of resisting Moebius. Shulk, brought to the lowest point of despair… 

Shulk, finally ready to reach out and take A’s outstretched hand. 

Chapter Text

Rex’s tale is interrupted once more by practical necessity - to eat and sleep. He promises to finally conclude the account on the third day. 

Dinner in the cottage is the usual crowded affair, but the usual cheer is almost entirely absent. It’s hard for Noah to look Mio’s siblings in the eyes, let alone her fearsome mothers, when they’ve just been talking about N’s - his - inevitable betrayal of everything they sacrificed for. But for a few scattered survivors managing to unite and drive him away and found a second City, he might very well have been personally responsible for trapping everyone at the table in Aionis - playing a delusional fantasy of “forever” with Mio, until the world tore itself apart and wiped them all from existence. 

He knows they don’t blame him for it - has heard them say so, over and over again. But it fails to reassure him. What does that matter, when he is perfectly capable of correctly assigning the fault to himself?

The knowledge that this A, this Alvis, had been pulling his strings for a purpose - to influence Shulk - doesn’t make him feel any better. 

Noah had still been the one who chose to dance. 

If something happened to the Mio of this world… in the here and now… and some new metaphysical entity came along to offer Noah a chance to save her, no matter the cost, would he truly be strong enough to resist the temptation? 

Has he really learned his lesson? 

He doesn’t manage much sleep that night, returning to the role of audience member with bags under his eyes and wild hair. The result of his tossing and turning - but it’s more than that.

Isn’t it fitting that he now more closely resembles N, as they race towards the very climax of the tale? 

“What d’you mean, they’re gone?” 

The poor City gate-guard stammers out a repeat of her initial explanation, quivering like a leaf under the full force of Rex’s disbelieving scowl. 

“It’s like I said… they just… walked out.” 

“And you just… let ‘em!? No checkpoint, no nothin’?” 

“Of course! They’re the Aegis. They go where they want - same as Her Majesty, or you, or Master Shulk…” The guard casts about desperately for a savior, and, as luck would have it, spots the man himself striding towards the commotion. “Master Shulk!” 

“What’s the matter, Rex?” 

The sight of his close friend does little for the Master Driver’s mood; he simply swaps his scowl to a new target. “Pyra and Mythra… they left.”

Shulk frowns. “But that’s…” 

“Don’t tell me it's impossible - not when it’s gone and happened!” 

“I was going to say… concerning. They wouldn’t leave the City lightly.” Not when her defenses - and more importantly, the cloaking tech that hides her - are so reliant on the sisters’ control of the artificial Sirens. “And to do so without telling you or Queen Nia… that seems - out of character.”

Rex is reminded, with painful clarity, of how Pyra and Mythra had both concealed the true reason they sought the World Tree. They’d all changed a great deal since then - grown up, as it were - but if the sisters thought laying down their lives was the right play to protect everyone else in the City, would they revert to old habits? Sneak off without a word of goodbye? 

Or was there something even more sinister at work here? Alvis - A - had shown up at the house and scared Rex’s family half to death, just to show ‘em that he had all the power now. Could he have just… reached out and taken control of Pyra and Mythra? 

“... I’m gonna track ‘em down.” 

He waits for Shulk to tell him that he can’t. That he’s too important. That the City needs him to stay behind, parking his arse in the comfort and safety of command, the way he always has, even as everyone he knew dies and is lost to them. 

Unacceptable. He’s shied away from the front lines for too long, and now it’s Pyra and Mythra risking their necks out there… He’ll fight anyone who dares attempt to stop him. 

Instead, Shulk nods and says: “I’ll back you up.” 

Rex looks sharply up at his counterpart from the other world. Something in his eyes… in his grim expression… reflects the same pain as Rex’s own. It might not be his wives out there, but Shulk is just as tired of hiding. 

The thought that they are both walking into the trap - throwing away everything they worked for in a sudden fit of pique - does occur to both men, even before Nia shows up to verbally chew them up and spit them out. 

But Her Majesty is just as concerned - they’re her wives, too - and eventually, they strike a compromise. Nia will be the responsible one - being Queen, and all - and conceal herself in the Cloudkeep… just in case the very worst should happen. (Riku goes with her, solemnly vowing to protect her with his very life; the same oath he’d sworn to Melia when he’d entered her service a lifetime ago).

As soon as they receive word that she’s arrived safely, Rex and Shulk set out.

And A - watching everything unfold exactly as he’d foreseen - allows himself a small, contented smile. 

“Well done, Pneuma. You have played your part perfectly.” 

The two broken halves of her don’t like that one bit. They rage at him with flame and searing light… but the shattered remnants of their power are as nothing compared to A’s own. He alone is intact. He alone is in control of what had once been a three part unity. 

“None of that,” he says, almost bored, completely untouched by the tumult of elements. “Let us wait… and watch.”

After all - the opening act is about to begin.  

N stands before the dais that holds the Sword, and… hesitates. 

He’d steeled himself to do what he must. He’d painted the gates red with the blood of those who’d sought to stop his entry into the City. Slaughtered his way here, to the armory, to retrieve the precious Blade of Origin - to ensure it could not be turned against Moebius again, even if some rats did manage to scurry away from the burning wreckage of their refuge. To wield it himself, turning their own tool of hope into one of despair. 

But here, at the critical moment, N pauses.

Because the armory is not empty.

Because standing before him is a middle-aged man with his dark hair and Mio’s golden eyes. Because the man is looking at N with a unique kind of hatred. It’s because he’s confronting one Moebius among many, but something deeper. Something much more personal. 

“Father,” Vandham spits, the word becoming a curse as it passes his lips. “What have you done!?” 

N says nothing.

His golden mask is a wholly inadequate disguise - Vandham had seen through it instantaneously with one look at his deep blue eyes.

After this, when there are none still alive who actually knew him… perhaps then, the mask may function as intended, and allow him to hide himself away. 

There are other people in the armory - a squad of them - a woman who stands a protective, possessive half-step behind Vandham - a wife, perhaps? - but they are nothing to N. They are not the reason he hesitates. 

It’s the fact that their son has her eyes. 

Yet, N reminds himself, he has a new eternity to steel himself against the disappointment in that golden gaze. M will not thank him for this. Would have never agreed, if she’d been given a choice in the matter.

What she may fail to comprehend is that there is no choice. Everything was stacked against them from the moment they entered Aionis. The City thought itself free, but it was allowed to exist because it was no true threat. It was a failsafe - a valve to release pressure - another part of the endless flow of frozen time. 

He is not destroying their last hope… because there was never any hope to begin with. 

So N snatches up the Sword-

-and does what must be done.

Noah’s hands grip the edge of the table, white-knuckle, fingernails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. 

Rex wasn’t there. He doesn’t remember. He can only recount the bare details - that N struck after A had removed the Aegises’ protection and lured the remaining threats away from the City, clearing the way for the newest Moebius to lay waste to it. 

He can’t recall the slaughter, carried out by his own hands, in vivid detail. 

He doesn’t feel the warm blood of his own son splashing onto his face. 

For the first time, Noah almost regrets the burden of memory. Ignorance of what exact horrors he’d inflicted on others back in Aionis would have been easier. It’s the same reason that many have given for refusing the memory treatment that the former off-seers can grant via their flutes… and while he’d always understood that reasoning, he feels it on a new level. 

If he could take it back - return to that childhood where he was vaguely aware of a missing piece and heard snatches of a nostalgic song, played on a familiar yet strange flute, but nothing more - would he? 

Two warm hands close firmly over his trembling fingers, and Mio’s gentle but undeniably superior strength forces him to let go of the table.

“You wouldn’t make the same choice this time ‘round,” she says fiercely. It’s as if she can read his thoughts - which is no longer something she can actually do, sans Interlink. It’s a symptom of just how well she knows him, instead. 

“We can’t know that. If I watched you die-” 

“You wouldn’t. The same way Lanz and Sena won’t ever let it get so bad that they wanna take their own lives… the same way Eunie and Taion refuse to let fear get in the way of what they wanna do. We, all of us, took something away from that experience. We wouldn’t have remembered it if we didn't learn from it.” 

And in the face of such fierce conviction, Noah can only swallow and nod.

She has more faith in him than he can muster for himself, but Mio has reminded him that he’s not alone. In the worst case, when temptation comes for him again, he’s at least learned not to run to it without asking his dear friends - his family.

That was the only difference between him and N in the end, after all.

He’d just gotten lucky. 

Noah sighs and gives Rex a shaky nod. 

“Sorry… I’m ready.” 

“I’m not,” Mythra says, wearing the same scowl she has ever since they reached the part where she and her sister vanished from the City. “This shit is embarrassing.” 

Because in the end, for all the power they’d once wielded - so devastating to the world around them that they’d asked to be locked away rather than sink another Titan in their own rage - they could do nothing against Alvis. 

They’d given up on being Pneuma for the sake of an ordinary life with the man and woman they loved. They’d started a family. They’d had children. Miracles beyond what an Aegis was capable of, in their own way…

… but now, when Ontos called for them, they no longer possessed the ability to reject it. 

They left the City - open, exposed, for the sacking - and by the time they’d collected the will to resist, it was already too late.

The jaws of the trap were set… and they were the fucking bait. 

Mythra hit her dear ‘brother’ right in the face, just to make herself feel a little better. Except he’d ruined that too. He’d healed the bruise instantaneously, effortlessly, and smiled blandly at her, as if nothing had happened at all. 

“I’ll be right back,” A says, and steps out to greet Rex.

Pyra tries to shout a warning, waving her arms wildly for emphasis, but - it won’t take. They aren’t bound and gagged; nothing so crude. No - Alvis/Ontos/A had simply made it so that they could not be perceived. By anyone or anything in the world. 

Effectively, they are already dead.

No, actually - this was worse. 

If they were dead, they wouldn’t have had to watch. 

In the end, it had been easy to track Pyra and Mythra’s movements. They’d made no attempt to conceal which ship they’d taken - signed out for it, like it was just another mission - hadn’t even disabled the emergency homing beacon, which Shulk could’ve activated in his sleep. And by the time the two men locate the vessel - parked right there out in the open - Rex’s link to his Blades takes care of the rest. 

It had been easy - too easy. 

They both know that they’re walking into a trap. But they keep walking. 

They’re so tired of hiding, of letting everyone else in the City fight and die while they bunk down in perfect safety. 

Rex’s affinity link takes them up the gently rolling slope of a hill. At the top, there’s… something, waiting for them. A building, roughly the size of a Ferronis, but it’s nothing like the Colonies at all. They step through the wide-open doors, and Shulk knows at once that the entire structure is constructed entirely of material from Origin.  

“An auxiliary facility, constructed by Moebius after Aionis came into being,” he guesses. “Could be a backup - a failsafe - that’ll reboot the new system even if Origin itself is destroyed. Or… or it might be the start of a competing system.” 

Is that why he wants me to join him? To directly oppose Z, using this? 

Both seem equally likely for the cagey Alvis he’d known. Shulk would need to really dig into the mechanisms and machinery to know for sure - and they obviously don’t have time for all that. 

In the next room, their dead friends are waiting for them. 

Reyn and Fiora and Sharla and Dunban and Riki, regarding Shulk with mournful determination. Mòrag and Brighid and Zeke and Pandoria and Tora and Poppi, confronting Rex with sneering contempt.

There’s an immediate emotional reaction - guilt and regret so intense that Shulk threatens to choke on it. But there are certain discrepancies - Colony Dunban never grows this old, and Brighid and Pandoria have ceased to exist, mashed up with their Drivers in the cycle of rebirth - and then he abruptly remembers something Alvis had shown himself to be capable of, a decade (centuries) ago: 

“They’re not real. They’re constructed from our memories,” he calls urgently to Rex. 

“I know the drill,” the Master Driver snarls, already reaching for his twin swords. “Nothin’ I haven’t seen before.” 

Each construct goes down in a single blow. The point of the false memories of their friends had obviously been to shake their resolve; when it hadn’t worked, Alvis abandoned the trick instead of dragging it out. 

Facing no more resistance, Shulk and Rex climb up and onto the roof of the facility-

-and find Alvis, in the sky above them, his form stretching out behind him like great wings. He’s carrying a Monado - his Monado - and Shulk doesn’t need any lingering connection to that power to know that the weapon in Alvis’ hand is capable of everything and anything the ‘machine’ desires. 

“Hello, Shulk.” 

Rex has no patience for the usual act. He lifts his blades and barks out: “What’ve you done with Pyra and Mythra!?” 

Alvis doesn’t even deign to look at the other man. He’s still staring right at Shulk as he says: “I destroyed them, of course. I’ve grown tired of allowing you to hide in your City. It’s burning, even now, without Pneuma to protect it. Your hope died with them.” 

“You bastard,” Rex howls. “Your own sisters-” 

“We were not family. We were components of the same system. Nothing more,” Alvis corrects him coolly. 

Still not looking at him. Still fixated on Shulk. 

“I will give you a third chance - later, when you have lost all hope.”

This is what he’d meant. Pyra and Mythra, dead; the City in ruins; all chances of opposing Moebius crumbling to dust.

A hand, stretched out for Shulk to take; to pull himself to refuge and safety. To save himself, if not the world. To stand at Alvis’ side.

“Tell me why!” Shulk bursts out, no longer able to contain himself. “Why are you doing this, Alvis? Is this really what you want!?” 

“Nothin’ is gonna get through to him,” Rex snarls. “You can’t reason with him, Shulk! He said it himself - he’s a heartless machine.” 

Alvis’ lips twist into the faintest impression of a scowl. He flickers out of sight - and a second later Rex cries out, blood flowing freely from the empty socket which had once contained his eye. Alvis flicks his Monado - like a man wicking the rain from his umbrella - blood and eye scattering across the facility roof. 

“Don’t interrupt me again,” he says coolly. 

It takes more than the loss of an eye to keep Rex from fighting back - of course it does - but Alvis has lost what little patience he’d had for the man who isn’t Shulk. When Rex charges at him, both swords raised high, Alvis sighs - snaps his fingers - and Rex stands frozen, mid-stride, with the Monado at his neck. 

“Well, Shulk?” 

It’s no bluff, Shulk thinks. In this mood, Alvis would cut Rex down without a second thought. It’s only Shulk he cares about - not the world, nor anyone else in it. 

And in that moment, Shulk realizes that what they have is a twisted sort of mockery of the relationship between Driver and Blade. 

Alvis had been Shulk’s and Shulk’s had been Alvis’, and that is the way it had always been. 

If only he’d done more… insisted that Alvis stay at his side, man and machine hand-in-hand, instead of letting him vanish after presenting Shulk with some false choice of godhood… But it’s too late for that now.

Because the choice to join Moebius is no choice at all.

Even if all hope truly has been lost, Shulk owes it to the people of Aionis, to all the friends he’s lost along the way, to keep fighting. To keep trying. 

Shulk says nothing.

He draws his sword from the sheath on his back.

Alvis sighs, again.

This time, he doesn’t stop with an eye.

One moment, Shulk holds his sword - the next, his entire arm is gone. There’s no blood, the Monado having cauterized the wound even as it cut, but the pain… at least when he’d died, it had been quick.

He makes a clumsy lunge for his weapon, misses entirely, hits the ground hard. Someone is sobbing - it can only be him, of course, but it feels strange and far away. 

Alvis could have finished them both there - Rex still frozen; Shulk completely defenseless - but he doesn’t. He just looks mournfully at Shulk and proclaims: 

“And as I promised you… this is the last time I show you mercy. Good-bye, Shulk. For your sake, I hope we do not meet again.” 

The last thing Shulk sees, before fully losing consciousness, is Alvis rising back into the air - untouchable, and fully out of reach. 

Chapter Text

“Riku has bad feeling about this,” the Nopon proclaims gravely. “Friend Shulk absolutely sure risk worth taking?” 

“Hiding ourselves away,” Shulk says, “is no longer an acceptable option. We cannot allow Moebius to wipe out the survivors.” 

“I know we gotta have another Sword to really beat Moebius,” Rex says. “You just focus on that - and let us handle the rest.” 

The pair had been in a certain mood when they’d gathered their Origin metal from the roof of Consul A’s secret side project facility. Riku can see the patches of rusty red - smell the blood from their wounds. He personally thinks it rather morbid, though Shulk would call it fitting or perhaps even poetic to create their new hope from the remnants of their despair. 

With Nia safely deposited in the hidden Cloudkeep - N hadn’t known anything about that, which is a single small mercy, one last shred of hope - it’s only the three of them left with the capacity for action. The two biggest heroes of their respective worlds… and a self-proclaimed ordinary-guy-pon who’d had the good luck - or bad fortune - of having survived everything Aionis threw at its ageless original generation. 

Needless to say, Riku intends to remain where he belongs: in the shadows and out of sight.

His place had once been behind the throne; now it’s a dingy little campsite with a cheap, portable forge, but the same principle applies. 

Not exactly ideal conditions to recreate Shulk’s masterwork of a blade… but needs must. He’s confident in his ability to make Lucky Seven (New and Improved Version 2.0), though it’s going to take quite some time without the support of the other Nopon master-smiths. 

No - what concerns Riku is that Shulk and Rex have absolutely no intention of sitting back and waiting for the weapon to be complete. 

The City had been utterly destroyed - there’s no doubt about that. Even if they’d believed Alvis was just lying to them - which isn’t his style - the final S.O.S. sent out over the Iris network would have confirmed it. 

That’s not to say that the City’s people have been completely wiped out, though. 

At any time, there are - were - dozens of teams out of the City on missions. Gathering intelligence on Moebius and its Colonies; salvaging broken Levnises for useful scrap; collecting food and other resources. 

That said, they’ll be scattered, rudderless, and easy pickings for the Moebius forces that vastly outnumber them…

… Unless Shulk and Rex can get to them first. 

Riku had almost laughed when they first floated the idea. Rex is still getting used to his new, limited sight; between that and his excessive height, he’s already managed to smack his head on a half-dozen different objects. Shulk has grand plans for a mechanical arm to replace the one he’d lost, but in the meantime, he wields his sword in his non-dominant hand - so clumsily that even Riku might be capable of outlasting him in a duel.

When the Nopon had seen that his friends were deadly serious, everything had become a lot less funny. 

“We’re not gonna die,” Rex assures him. “We got this.”

“But if something does go wrong,” Shulk adds slowly, “the most important components are still safe. You, forging a new Sword; Queen Nia, with the ability to create another Stone. Compared to that-”

“-all we’re good for is the battlefield,” his counterpart says. It might have been a joke if not for the look in his eye: a man who’d lost almost every single member of family to Moebius, and whose duty kept him separated from his sole remaining partner. 

There’s no power in the universe that will keep Rex from fighting back, now that he’s got nothing to lose. And Shulk is in the exact same position - the only difference being that the loss of Fiora and his friends are older wounds, no less painful for having scabbed over.

Riku certainly has no intention of trying to stand in their way. 

He has his own part to play - to help create a new hope for the next Ouroboros. 

The initial forays are an exercise in futility - the pair arriving just in time to watch the motes of life float away from dead City scouts. They know the poor bastards are about to go right into Moebius’ cycle… joining the already-overwhelming ranks of the enemy.

The first time they get a break, it’s certainly… fitting. 

A young man and woman - dark-haired, golden-eyed, painfully familiar facial features - engaged in a desperate struggle against a Kevesi Colony. The man’s weapon of choice are the gauntlets of a martial artist; the woman wields twin rings.

Some part of Rex realizes who they are, even from a great distance. He hurls himself into the fray with reckless abandon - no longer fighting as a Driver, but as a man, desperately protecting what’s left of an unacknowledged family. 

The battle is practically over by the time Shulk catches up, so he focuses his efforts on healing the exhausted pair’s wounds.

“You-!” the woman manages.

“Easy, now. Don’t move around too much.”  

“You two survived?” the man asks… with a heavy undertone of accusation. It’s easy to see the unspoken thoughts on his expressive features. Where had they, two of the most critical leaders, been hiding, while N was rampaging through the City? 

Shulk nudges his cloak aside to show the empty space where his arm had been and says: “Consul A.” 

“Ah,” the man says. No other explanation necessary. He takes Shulk’s remaining hand in his own and shakes it firmly. The woman approaches Rex to do the same; Shulk is interested to see Rex permit it, even though he’d never have done so while the City still stood.

Because these two are so very obviously:

“Ghondor, son of Vandham, reporting in.” 

“Rowan, daughter of Doyle - thank you for the save, Sir Rex, Master Shulk!” 

“I… I hadn’t realized you two were out of the City,” Rex says, his voice thick with unspoken emotion.

The comment implies he’d been secretly checking up on them - which he had, of course - but the siblings don’t seem to notice. Instead, Ghondor scowls and drives a fist into his open palm; Rowan just looks faintly miserable. 

“We’ve wanted to serve ever since we found out our Granddad was killed by Moebius,” he growls. 

“Is that what Vandham told you,” Rex says flatly.

It’s not a question - but they don’t seem to notice that, either. 

Rex and Shulk exchange a significant glance… and silently decide that the full truth can wait a little longer.

“This was… our first mission out of the City. Dumb luck that we drew the assignment. If not… we’d be dead,” Rowan says softly. 

Survivor’s guilt - a bad case of it. Shulk’s intimately familiar with what that looks and sounds like. He doesn’t intend to let the poor kid wallow in it.  

“However it happened,” he says briskly, “we’re all here. And we’re the only hope left in this world. Are you with us?” 

“Of course!”

“You didn’t even need to ask, Sir.” 

“Dunno what possessed that empty-headed grandkid of mine-” 

“It’s not wrong … from a certain point of view. It was Moebius who robbed him of his life when it was just beginning,” Shulk points out. “Besides. Vandham's far from the only one in the City to offer up a comfortable lie.” 

Rex still looks deeply unhappy, but he gives a stiff, quick nod. 

He’s well aware of the logic, too; when there was an excellent chance that the Colony soldier under the helmet was one’s long-lost Granddad, a City soldier could hardly be expected to fight at full force; but hesitation would only get them killed. 

Better for them to believe that their progenitor had been killed - not even thinking that the next incarnation was back out there, fighting for another ten years under the Flame Clock’s yoke.

Except… in this case… Granddad was not just out there, but the Consul who’d destroyed the City, killed his own son (the siblings’ father), and would doubtless confront them once more.

And now it’s on Rex and Shulk to either passively continue the lie… or risk shaking Ghondor and Rowan’s resolve to fight when they haven’t even gotten started.

Rex isn’t angry because of what Vandham decided - not really.

He’s angry at himself, because deep inside he’s already made his own choice.

“We can’t tell them,” Shulk says, so Rex doesn’t have to. “We’ll let Noah be dead. It’s… kinder than the truth.” 

Rex scowls - and sighs - but he doesn’t fight the declaration.

They save another pair - a couple of kids, far too young to have been sent out on a City sanctioned mission. They’d snuck out, clearly; worming their way past the gate guards with a child’s ingenuity and resolve to find trouble. 

Then the City had been destroyed, and their families had been slaughtered by N, and the boy and girl had to grow up fast. 

Shania, daughter of Reid, gravitates to Shulk almost immediately. She’s completely fascinated by the mechanical arm he’s in the process of creating. She’s the creative type, herself - no head for gears and screws, but a great sense of aesthetic. 

Shulk - who’d never put much thought into starting a family of his own - quickly finds himself utterly charmed. 

He lets her paint the arm - bright colors that clash horrifically with his outfit, but it’s all worth it for the look on Shania’s face.

He takes her out at night to stare up at the stars and sketch out the constellations.

And though he’d always been determined to win this desperate struggle against Moebius… Shulk finds himself with redoubled resolve, now.

He has a new person to bequeath a legacy of peace and comfort. 

He's lost everything - but even here, at the end, he's found one more person he can call family. 

Their resistance still numbers a mere six when Riku finishes the next Lucky Seven, and the new Stone is complete.

It would be the perfect number… except that Shulk and Rex are still incapable of becoming Ouroboros.

Months have passed - it’s extremely unlikely that any City survivors are still out there. The four that were saved are all that’s left.

It’s time to take the fight to the Colonies - to cut away at Flame Clocks and bolster their forces with newly freed warriors. 

They find the next two - the final two - in just that way. A Kevesi man and Agnian woman, locked in a battle to the death. Fully resolved to kill one another, even as the Sword cut through Origin metal and the Colonies they fought for ceased to exist.

It actually takes the activation of the Ouroboros Stone to stop them in their tracks - in the same fashion that, centuries later, a descendant of House Vandham would pluck six fighters from their Colonies and turn them into the saviors of the world. 

Their fledgling camp is discovered by a Moebius of terrible power, who wields spiked gauntlets in the shape of hooks. The Moebius announces himself as T, lets out a sinister laugh, and says that he hopes they put up a decent fight before the end. 

He’s almost delighted when the six new Ouroboros activate their transformations. They’re still learning to use their powers, much less fight together - but they overcome T’s monstrous form via sheer grit, and drive him off.

It’s said that, from that day on, T gives up on slaughtering Colonies and is only driven to seek out the toughest monsters in the world - training himself for a rematch that never comes.

For their part, the defeat of their first Consul fills the new Ouroboros with fierce hope.

They now have everything they need to start fighting back in earnest - to carve out a space for the second City, filled with the members of liberated Colonies.

But there are still two major threats that stand in the way. 

The Moebius who’d destroyed the first City… 

… and the Consul responsible for creating the world they live in. 

“You think we can win?” Rex asks one night.

It’s just him and Shulk, huddled around the campfire.

All watch shifts are in pairs - each Ouroboros member and their counterpart - which always leaves the two of them together, functioning as a fourth unit. They might not be able to transform… but they do have a millennia and change of experience surviving in this awful world. 

“We have to,” Shulk says. 

But the mechanical arm glistening at his side, and the eyepatch firmly affixed over Rex’s empty socket, speak louder than words.

Last time they’d gone up against Alvis, it hadn’t exactly worked out for them.

And Consul A is a much bigger threat than even Consul N and stolen Sword. 

“I… don’t think we can take him in a straight fight,” Shulk admits. “But, I’ve been thinking… reviewing everything you told me about Drivers and their Blades, because that’s what he is to me, really. And I think… I think there may be another way.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“You’re not going to like it.” 

He doesn’t. 

In fact, Rex is furious at the very idea of it.

But he also can’t deny that it might be their only hope of victory. 

Chapter Text

On the morning of the operation… The two oldest humans remaining in the world embrace one another for a long time. 

[“I had this feelin’... that one way or the other, he wasn’t gonna be makin’ it back from his confrontation with A. And the look on his face… it was the same for him.”] 

When they break apart, Shulk asks: “Are you sure you don’t want to tell them?” 

And Rex shakes his head firmly and replies: “Nah. It’d just distract ‘em. After we win… once we get Pyra and Mythra back… I’ll draw ‘em a damn family tree.” 

Shulk nods and offers a tight smile.

He decides not to bring down the mood with a remark about how the chances of them winning, let alone retrieving the Aegises intact, are so close to impossible that he hadn’t even considered it, himself. 

Rex pats him on the back one last time before trudging over to join the six Ouroboros.

Shulk takes Lucky Seven from Riku’s wings, settles it carefully into the sheath over his narrow shoulders, and walks away - with only the Nopon at his side. 

Back in the theater… Z observes this last, desperate mission by those who stand in opposition to his world with the same impassivity as everything else. 

This day heralds the end of his relationship with A - the longest constant in his existence - one way or another. 

Either A’s gambit will succeed, and Z will be cast down, replaced by Shulk; or Shulk’s desperate gamble will triumph, and A will be removed from the board. 

The Concept considers the possibility of personal loss with a vague sort of bemusement - dismisses the idea that he, a non-person, could feel - and settles in to watch the show. 

A whole army of Colony soldiers impedes their progress. The artificial barriers between Keves and Agnus are temporarily dispelled, both factions moving at the commands of their Consuls. Not without suspicion and reluctance to trust their counterparts - something that Moebius failed to account for, and Ouroboros takes full advantage of.

Without Lucky Seven - the precious, irreplaceable Sword that is currently Shulk’s only ally - they cannot free any of these people. The best they can do is make their deaths quick and painless. 

If they win (“WHEN we win,” Rex chides the others), they’ll cut through as many Flame Clocks as they possibly can.

But for the moment: 

A girl with blue-flame hair and a massively oversized hammer throws herself into the fray with reckless abandon, selling her life cheaply, without a moment’s hesitation; Rex cannot bear to watch as she’s cut down, and mumbles an apology to two important-sounding people who Ouroboros has never met . 

A tall and broad-shouldered machina chases the glory of killing the strongest opponent and thus dies alone, far from the rest of his Colony. He has not yet learned what it means to be a Defender… but he will, the hard way. 

An Entia girl - no Healer, this one - carefully positions Rex’s head in the crosshairs of her rifle, and squeezes the trigger… But the shot that would have decapitated him spins wide and wild as Cassini rains a blaze of ether down upon the sniper.

The enemy tactician - green eyes hard and cold behind his glasses - sends every one of his soldiers to their deaths without so much as a flicker of regret in his expression. He does not fight with them or for them. He maneuvers them as though they’re nothing more than pieces on his board. And when the last one is spent, he immediately retreats. 

At the time, only Sena’s latest death stands out to Rex; much later, he will meet the other three, and wonder at how they were the worst possible versions of themselves up until the moment that they found one another, and Vandham’s descendent bound their fates together. 

Ouroboros continues fighting, on and on and on, drawing ever closer to Origin itself-

-until Consul N bars their path, stolen Sword in hand.  

Shulk, by contrast, is left pretty much to his own devices.

He’s just one fighter - with a blade that can cut through the very fabric of reality, granted, but still - he would not be a match for the full force of Moebius, assembled against him. But there’s not even a Colony to stand in his way. 

Is it because of what Reid’s statute will one day claim - that he’s developed such a fearsome reputation that Moebius flees before him? 

Or is it because Consul A has somehow marked him as a person whose path is not to be impeded? Did he order Shulk’s life to be spared - or is he impairing the soldiers’ senses so that they do not perceive him? 

Whatever the case, Shulk and Riku return to the failsafe, the side facility, Alvis’ secret project - and ascend the stairs to the rooftop where they’d so recently confronted the architect of Aionis, showing off his full power as he floated high above them.

He’s waiting for them, as expected. But there are no great wings stretching out from the back of his coat. 

No - Alvis stands there quietly, and half-smiles at the sight of them, and says softly:

“It is good to see you again, Shulk.” 

N brings no soldiers to back him up. No other Consul fights with him. It is just one Moebius against the full might of Ouroboros, backed up by the Master Driver, a living legend.

It’s not even close.

Ghondor is the last to fall, but fall he does. The transparent outlines of his Ouroboros transformation flicker and die, like the guttering embers of a snuffed-out flame. 

The Blade of Origin can slice clean through even this power, which had been the City’s trump card, the only force in Aionis to place them on relatively equal footing with Moebius.

As long as N wields it, he’s invincible.

Beneath his golden mask, the Moebius’ cold blue eyes pass straight over Rex. Immediately dismissing him as a potential threat - he is just one man, a Driver without his Blades. N looks instead to Ghondor - forced down to his knees, temporarily defenseless - and moves to deal the killing blow- 

-only for a diving hook to clang uselessly off his golden armor.

“Oi,” Rex shouts, “we ain’t done, kid!” 

N does not deign to trade insults in exchange - but the taunt works, because he turns his chilly glare away from Ghondor and towards the one left standing. 

To an experienced fighter like Rex, N’s body language tells the entire story. Rex is an insect to him. A mere annoyance. Something to swat down in a few seconds before N returns his attention to the true threats here.

But a lot can happen in a few seconds. 

N moves so quickly that Rex’s eyes can’t follow him. He disappears and reappears directly behind Rex and drives his sword into Rex’s unprotected back-

-which is exactly what Rex had known he’d do.

Rex throws himself backwards, a clumsy but effective maneuver that brings his superior size and weight to bear. As a move to win the fight, it’s actual insanity - all it does is drive the Sword of the End deeper into his stomach.

But what N fails to anticipate is that Rex knows he has no hope of winning a traditional duel.

He’s gonna do what he always does - keep fighting, refusing to give up until he finds another way to win through sheer stubbornness.

“Y’know,” Rex says, “I’ve fought a real master swordsman before, and you , pal, ain’t a master.” 

From a surviving the next few minutes perspective, talking is a mistake - blood dribbles from Rex’s mouth along with the words, and moving at all only serves to agitate the self-inflicted wound - but hey. That’s fine. Rex knows the score, here.

“Jin… he wasn’t a cruel guy. Me, Haze… he killed us good an’ quick. Blade straight through the heart. In and out. Wanted us dead, mind, but didn’t want us… to suffer . You - you’re cruel. You were goin’ for a gut wound… so I’d bleed out slow and painful… yeah? Only, the problem with that is-” 

Rex grins, wide and bloody, and clamps both hands down on the edge of the sword, holding it with all his remaining strength.  

“-you risk your blade gettin’ stuck .” 

N scowls and gestures to dispel the Sword from the obstacle and return it to his hand. The same gesture any Colony soldier or City fighter has made, thousands of times, taking advantage of how personal Blades work in this twisted world of theirs.

Only… the Sword of the End does not move. It remains firmly lodged in Rex’s body. 

N narrows his eyes, studying his opponent… and comes to the realization that Rex is not even trying to save himself. Blood flows freely from the fatal wound. Every scrap of ether the Master Drive can muster is currently devoted towards a singular purpose: keeping the Sword locked up tight, right where it is.

“Fool,” N whispers, deigning to address him for the first time, which Rex will count as a win. “Very well; I’ll retrieve the blade from your corpse. You’ve sold your life to delay the inevitable for mere moments.” 

“Yeah… about that…” 

Unnoticed by the Moebius - thanks to Rex serving as an extremely irritating and effective distraction - Ghondor and Rowan are back on their feet. Ready for round two… and it’s more than that; Rex’s now-inevitable death has served as a catalyst. Broken through some mental barrier buried deep inside of them. Shattered the locks that restrained the true power of Ouroboros. 

The last thing Rex ever sees is the beautiful sight of the first-ever Interlink - the two siblings realizing the full potential of Ouroboros. 

At the very end, he thinks that he can hear Pyra and Mythra’s voices, feel their hands in his, and then - 

-then there’s nothing at all. 

Alvis cocks his head briefly as though he is listening to something. He is still staring at Shulk with the full force of his considerable intensity, and does not blink once throughout the display. Then: 

“Your friend Rex… is dead.” 

It had always been a possibility , but Shulk knows that Rex hadn’t intended to throw his life away. For it to have happened, and so quickly at that… there must have been some danger to his great-grandchildren. Rex might have chosen to hide the truth from them, but he’d have done anything to protect them.

To anyone who’d known her, even for a brief time, the two had so much of Mio in them that it was painful at times. Especially to Rex.

And now Queen Nia is left truly alone… 

“Incidentally,” Alvis says, when Shulk remains silent, “Pneuma has expired alongside him. I suppose that is what it means to be Driver and Blade.” 

The words quickly return Shulk to his purpose for coming here - the last desperate chance Rex sacrificed himself to help bring to fruition. 

He draws Lucky Seven smoothly from its sheath, his mechanical right arm responding perfectly to his intention. For a man who had once feared and hated the mechon… well. He’s certainly not taking the limb’s wonderful functionality for granted. 

Alvis purses his lips; a small gesture, but one filled with meaning. He’s obviously displeased by Shulk’s choice. “If you lift your blade against me… especially that magnificent Blade… I will be forced to respond, and that is a battle you cannot win.” 

“I know,” Shulk says.

He turns the weapon around until the sharp point - and the edge that can cut through reality itself - is touching his chest. 

And Alvis goes very still. 

“I don’t think an ordinary death would work,” Shulk says conversationally. “Rex told me that it wouldn’t take for your brother and sister, at the height of their power. But if I end my life with this - the one weapon that can destroy anything on Aionis…”

“I will not lie to you,” Alvis says, toneless. “You guessed correctly. It would destroy our bond, and with it…”

“Your life?” 

“Such as it is. Yes.” 

“Don’t get me wrong,” Shulk says, “I don’t want to die.” 

But his voice does not tremble. His arm is perfectly steady. He is not - cannot allow himself to waver. Not now. Not when this one desperate gambit is their only hope against the overwhelming power Alvis wields as A. 

“But you would sooner die than join me as Moebius.” 

“Yes. I would.” 

Alvis stands only a few feet away from Shulk. He could cover the distance faster than blinking - had done, when he’d delivered the warning of Rex’s eye and Shulk’s arm. But he does not activate his Monado. Does not move a muscle. He could take Lucky Seven for himself, rend Shulk’s threat of suicide entirely useless, but… he doesn’t. 

Instead, he speaks - slowly, with emphasis on each word: 

“I admit… I did not foresee this. This conversation always ended with you reaching out your hand to me.” 

“It still can,” Shulk says, with urgency. “I didn’t realize what you’d do when I rejected your offer of godhood. I think… We've been talking past one another, this whole time. And it’s my fault. Rex was good enough to never judge me for it, but by any measure, I’ve done a terrible job at being your Driver, Alvis.” 

“And what,” Alvis says, “do you think doing a good job would entail?” 

“Whatever happens next, we do it together. Hand in hand. Our fate will be… a compromise. Something that we can both accept. Neither our death - nor giving in to Moebius.” 

“You realize that this world… was constructed, quite deliberately, to leave us with very few other options. Do you wish to lose your memory and go back into the cycle, Shulk?” 

“That’s no good. I’ve seen what happens to Drivers and their Blades when that happens.” 

“It is not my preference, either. But you cannot continue living as you are now - unchanging, ageless,” Alvis says. “If Consul A is to be destroyed, the status quo is not an option.” 

“I know,” Shulk says.  

Then he says: “Where did you hide Pyra and Mythra?” 

And Alvis… allows himself a faint smile.

“That… could work.” 

Shulk calls Riku up to say goodbye - and to hand him Lucky Seven. It is his to steward - on behalf of the City and its future. 

Then he takes Alvis’ hand-

-and Alvis pulls them both out of reality. 

“We have not created an entirely new world, as Klaus once willed; nor even derived one from disparate parts, as Z decreed,” the Blade explains to his Driver. “We are merely… adjacent to the universe you know.” 

“A pocket dimension.”

“You may call it that. Yes.” 

The two of them are not entirely alone in the vast emptiness of space. Pyra and Mythra’s cores are there with them. 

“Can you…” 

“I’m afraid not,” Alvis says, and he does sound genuinely regretful. He may not acknowledge the two of them as family, but… would he have spared his hand against Rex, too, if matters had come to that? Or is it only Shulk, his Driver, who put the lie to Alvis’ proclamation of a third and final chance? 

If the latter… Shulk will just need to keep pushing until Alvis accepts the idea of friendship and affection. That the people who matter to Shulk are more than pieces on the board or data in the system - they should matter to Alvis, too. 

“I can send something of them to Queen Nia, though I fear she will find it cold comfort,” Alvis continues, correctly interpreting Shulk’s thoughtful silence. 

Already, it feels more natural between them. The words left unsaid don’t vanish into nothingness, but make their way across the bond between Driver and Blade. Flashes of insight, echoes of emotion… 

“Do it, anyway. And then… what else can we do from here?” 

“Precious little, unfortunately. I can no longer access the Origin system directly. But I should still be able to… give certain systems a slight push, so long as they were constructed by Moebius after Aionis formed.” 

“The growth pods… and the Flame Clocks.” 

“Yes. Do you think…?” 

“I do,” Shulk says. Carrying half the conversation aloud and half in their bond is… unusual, but not in a bad way. It’s more like finishing each other’s sentences. “If a member of Moebius harbors any regret for the choice they’ve made…” 

“A duplicate in the system, born from the depths of their soul,” Alvis says. “I can do that much.”

There’s neither light nor sound nor any other indication that the former master of Aionis has re-written reality. But Shulk can tell that everything back in the main universe has just changed with that simple declaration. 

“... Now what?” 

“Time,” says Alvis quietly, “is flexible, here. One second within this place may be a second in Aionis… or it may be a century.” 

“We can revisit that later,” Shulk says firmly. He has no intention to sit around and watch in real-time as Z does, but it would cheapen the sacrifice they’ve made to just… skip past all the struggles to come. And besides:

“For now… I think the two of us have a lot to discuss, don’t you agree?” 

“... Indeed, we do.” 

In the aftermath, the Founders are reeling from the loss of their beloved mentors, but they cannot allow themselves to grieve over-long. There’s too much work to be done. 

The second City is duly constructed. But with the memory of the first’s destruction so firmly in their minds, they make certain… adjustments. No longer will their refuge be a hidden fortress; Ortiz builds it so that it can be moved, should history repeat itself, and a traitor sell their location to Moebius once more.

(Centuries later, when Reid’s despairing descendant does just that, Ortiz’s masterwork saves the City from annihilation). 

Supplying the new City would have been possible without the Nopon Riku and his contacts in the caravans. But when the time comes to commemorate the Founders’ accomplishments, he refuses any acknowledgement. 

He keeps a close watch over Lucky Seven, his masterwork. Over the many centuries that follow, he quietly arranges matters so that the Blade of Origin ends up in the hands where it can do the most good - be they an Ouroboros Candidate or a Colony soldier who is starting to question their place in the cruel world and merely needs one final push. 

And eventually, Riku looks a new incarnation of Noah in the eye and makes the fateful decision to hand him - a boy who could grow into the same man who’d destroyed the first City - the Sword of the End…

“... and if we’re gonna get into that part, you’re gonna have to be the one to tell a story to me ,” Rex chuckles, leaning back from the table.

But Noah still has questions. “What happened to Alvis after… all that? You didn’t mention him again.” 

“Oh - that’s not my story to tell. Tell ya what, though,” Rex drawls, his eyes shining with unshed laughter. “Go ahead and ask him yourself. He and Shulk are comin’ to dinner tomorrow.” 

Noah blinks. “Even after…” 

Of course he thinks better of it immediately - he, of all people, has no right to judge someone for their actions on Aionis. 

Rex, meanwhile, has every right to laugh at his future son-in-law, but he doesn’t. He’d never. Instead, he nods gravely and says: 

“‘Course I’m not holdin’ it against him. This whole thing was… a miscommunication, between a Driver and his Blade. Now, granted, that particular Blade had the power to rewrite reality as we know it, so it got a bit… tricky… for the rest of us…” 

“But in the end,” Mio says, “he’s a person who made a mistake. And we forgive him, yeah?”

Just like that.

Part of Noah thinks it can’t possibly be that easy - and he’s self-aware enough to know that it’s not about Alvis at all, of course. It’s about himself. The amount of blood that his hands are drenched in because of what he’d done as N. 

But - as Mio takes his hand in hers and Rex smiles fondly at the pair of them, and the rest of this massive family, overflowing with love to spare, crowds around the too-small dining table of the cramped and crowded cottage…

(He’s embraced by warmth and light. He’s accepting what he’d once rejected. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt these people, his family… not even if it was between them and Mio. He’d turn to them and beg for their help and together, they’d find another way. A better way).

… Noah thinks that it’s high time to start forgiving himself.