31"It's the inside of the Bionis." Shulk looked around at the strange growths surrounding them. Something felt different since they were last here - it wasn't as dark, for one.
"It looks quite different from when we entered via the marsh," Dunban said.
Sharla nodded. "The Bionis isn't hibernating anymore. It'll be a lot more active in here now."
Melia was distinctly uncomfortable. It was one thing to wander through the rocky caves that made up the Bionis' ancient skeleton, but it was quite another to be deep enough to feel surrounded by the ether of its living tissue and organs. It was such an alien background that it was difficult to pay attention to much else.
Reyn turned to Shulk. "Where d'you think Zanza will be?"
Shulk looked up and to the east. "I'll bet he's in the head or the heart. And the heart's closer, so we go there first."
The party started to move through the lung.
"Ick ick ick." Riki, much lower to the ground than the others, kept getting splashed by small puddles of unknown substance. "Riki hates this place already."
"That's probably just the small of it," said Sharla. "We don't belong in here, so any antibodies and such will be coming for us."
"Maybe we should be disguising ourselves as native cells." Dunban was half-joking; deception was a typical strategy for bacteria and viruses to evade detection, but a Homs in the Bionis was probably too unusual to fool anything.
Shulk had a question. "What do you think Sharla, what's the worst thing we might run into here? Biologically-speaking."
"White blood cells for sure," she answered. "Maybe we can deal with the antibodies so they can't "see" us, but there's still the NK cells that don't need them. That stands for "natural killer" by the way."
"Charming." Reyn poked one of the taller growths, which wobbled. "What do they look like?"
"Well in us they look like fuzzy balls, but who knows what the Bionis has in store."
Melia saw an opportunity to take some edge off the nasty surprise she knew was in store for the others. "Probably an etheral green, of diverse anatomy, and uniquely-suited to predicting the motions of their aggressors."
As if on cue, the first Telethia - a small bipedal one - became visible in the distance.
"Oh for..." Reyn punched the growth he had poked, which bent and no longer stood upright. "When you said there'd be Telethia in here, I thought you meant like just wandering around having a time, not acting as its defence force."
"We have the opportunity to avoid them," Dunban said. "We should do what we can to."
Sharla shook her head. "I disagree. Zanza's been sending Telethia out to fight us and Colony 6, right? So there won't be as many in here. This is our chance to take down his immune system and make him weaker before we even get there."
"I...don't think it works that way." Shulk scratched his chin. "He's not connected to the Bionis, he just controls it."
"Here Dinobeast comes." Riki prepared for battle as the distant Telethia suddenly turned towards the group and started making a series of long hops towards them.
Reyn growled. "Can't much avoid them if they see us from that far away."
"Or you could not grab their attention by damaging all the cells you touch, Reyn," Sharla half-teased.
"What d'you want me to do, hover above the ground?" It was a fairly good point - just by walking around, the party would be disturbing the Bionis by crushing things underfoot. It would be almost impossible to completely avoid attracting the police's ire.
It wasn't too difficult to dispose of the Telethia once it arrived; the team got some shots in before it was close enough to retaliate, and as a smaller specimen it had trouble keeping six opposing minds straight. All in all, it wasn't notably more a hassle than any other enemy.
"We just need to stay alert," Dunban said. "As long as they don't surprise us, and we don't fight more than one at a time, we'll get through this."
The group moved on.
"Wait a minute..." Sharla looked up and around. "Didn't we get in here through a hole on the Bionis' left side?"
"Sure did," said Reyn.
"Then how come we're in a right lung?"
"Uhhh..." Reyn looked down at his own chest and made a motion that vaguely resembled what the Mechonis could have done. "Maybe when Egil did his punch he went in diagonally like this? Man now I wish we got a clean look at it, that'd be some weird angle for the Bionis to be leaning, and Miqol wouldn't have took the long way for no reason."
It didn't take too long before finding a way towards the centre of the Bionis, the path opening up into a huge organic cavern not unlike the Central Factory in Mechonis.
"Is...that the Bionis' heart?" Sharla pointed at the large throbbing structure ahead of them in the distance, incredulous. "Look at all the blood vessels, it looks more like a dozen hearts fused together than a single pump. Who built this silly thing?!"
"I'd be more worried about the Bionis' chest being hollow," Dunban said. "I was expecting more of a network of tunnels. It'll be a chore to get over there."
Reyn looked around at all the crisscrossing pathways. "You're right about that one Dunban. What a maze this is, and not a railing in sight." He glanced at a snake-shaped Telethia idly floating in the distance. "Think we could grab one o' them big ones and save us some time? Dickson an' Alvis seemed to be fine riding them like a horse."
Shulk shook his head. "It's too risky. Outside maybe, but there's so little ground here, one mistake is all we don't need."
Melia felt a sense of guilt. If the party had used her own ship to get in here, they could simply fly across the vast chest cavity without having to deal with fighting Telethia across a network of thin platforms. But it would have been too rude to decline Miqol's offer to escort them, and Junks was able to simply use its bulk to clear minor obstacles from the messy wound without having to fire any weapons within the titan. They could use it if they had to leave and come back, but there was no way it would respond to a summons from so deep inside.
A distinctive laugh filled the air, coming from the heart but with no visible source.
"You look well, Your Highness."
Melia let out a slow sigh close to being a growl. Expecting the traitor's survival did nothing to soften her anger about it. "Lorithia! Show yourself!"
Lorithia continued speaking, not visible anywhere. "Look at that. The heart of the Bionis. The pulsating life of Lord Zanza!"
"Quit yer yapping and show yourself!" Reyn interrupted.
"I await Your Highness here. There is something I wish to show you. Your friends are welcome to join you. That is, if they survive."
"She's planning something." Melia stated the obvious just to ensure everyone knew it.
"Forget her for now," Shulk said. "We must push on to the heart."
"Yes."
"How does she do that though?" asked Reyn as they continued. "I mean, is she here but invisible, or over there with some sort of big megaphone?"
"I would expect the latter," Melia replied. "For her to be nearby yet invisible would risk us catching her or reaching the heart before her, whereas by simply projecting her voice across the distance, she can continue her plans as we approach."
"Whatever it is I appreciate it," Sharla grumbled. "She is so butt-ugly I can't stand it. Does she buy clothes and just immediately take the scissors to them?"
Melia thought this opinion a bit hypocritical coming from Sharla, but having spent too many meetings and dinners being forced to stare at the self-indulgent minister's indecent wardrobe, wholeheartedly agreed with it.
It was indeed a challenge to reach the Bionis' heart. Most of the suspended pathways were wider than they first appeared at a distance, but the threat of a lethal slip still loomed large for every Telethia that decided to attack the group. Larger cells and strange tentacles would defend themselves when approached, sometimes forcing less-than-ideal routes. Every now and then, Lorithia's voice would taunt them from a distance, mocking them for "taking so long" to reach her. But their progress never stopped, and eventually they found themselves on a direct approach to an aperture in the heart's side.
Reyn walked up to the organ's solid wall and poked it; it was about as solid as the ground. "I feel like I should be more creeped out by this. Bein' stood right next to a giant heart, that is. But nope. Just another day at the office fightin' monsters."
"I wish I could share your viewpoint," Dunban responded. "I myself can't shake an ominous feeling. There are so many ways we don't belong here, after all."
Melia wished she had only an ominous feeling. The torrents of raw ether coursing through the heart emitted a suffocating blanket of energy as if the sun had landed on earth, blinding her ethersense to everything else. It was quite a bit more than just a distraction now.
Shulk turned towards her. "Melia, if you have any last ideas about what Lorithia might be planning, now's the time."
"Only one." It was something that had occurred to her during the journey towards the heart, and there had been no reason to reveal it until now. "The Havres Telethia must have been a culmination of decades of work, her most favoured accomplishment. There is no chance that they were all destroyed by the explosion she survived."
Sharla frowned. "How many do you think?"
"I can only guess. I suppose it would be a function of two variables: how many she can control at once, and how overconfident she is."
"Let's hope there's a lot more of that second one." Reyn rolled his arm.
Shulk looked like he was trying to think of something to respond with, but after a moment he gave up and started to walk into the heart. The others quickly followed.
The walls were a bit thicker than expected, making the aperture more of a tunnel than a hole. But it was still only a short walk to exit into the interior of the heart. It looked fairly plain inside - not much more than a ridged dome with a platform in the middle and many pools of raw ether strewn around the edges.
Melia was momentarily thrown for a loop by a sensation like walking from a boiling desert into a cool garden. The inside of the heart was like a Faraday cage; all the ether swirling in every direction through its surrounding tissues cancelled itself out on the inside, forming a zone as neutral as the air outside the titan. It was a welcome relief - there would be no ambient, pressuring distraction in the upcoming fight.
A short refocus later, it became obvious that Lorithia was standing in the centre of the heart. There were no Telethia visible, but this was not evidence of anything; they could be hidden in arteries, veins, or even the ether pools.
She looks completely unaffected. Melia felt her jaw clench unconsciously. As pure-blooded as all the others, and targetted by the epicentre of a detonating Havres Telethia, yet she remains entirely unperturbed by the transformation gene. She must have given herself some sort of personal immunity that was not visible at a distance, perhaps a cancelling energy shield, or a direct injection of some sort of anti-ether compound. Or I suppose Zanza could have done a specific intervention, depending on how much he was involved.
Lorithia posed smugly as the group approached. "Welcome to my world. I must say, I am surprised. Zanza's vessel truly does have a will of its own. And looking quite spritely."
Shulk had never interacted with Lorithia before; he'd seen her at a distance a few times in Alcamoth, and had a rough idea of who she was secondhand, but since there was no reason to speak with a minister when you had royalty as a friend, that was it. As a result, he didn't really have any idea what to expect or how to respond.
"I'm still alive. I won't die. Not yet. And that's why we're here."
Melia found it extremely difficult to avoid smacking her face with both palms. That was atrocious. I wasn't sure whether to participate in the pre-battle jeering, but you've forced my hand.
"Minister Lorithia Nekudiora. In the absence of access to formal procedure, which I may note is strongly related to relevant actions of yours, as Empress of Alcamoth I hereby formally charge and convict you of high treason, of which the number of counts is irrelevant. Mere capital punishment would be a mercy upon you. Perhaps you may have a shred of decency and execute yourself first."
Lorithia crossed her arms and laughed. "So full of passion and vengeance. A pity that they are wasted on such lost souls."
A Havres Telethia became visible above, quickly dropping down to ground level.
There's one. Melia scanned the Telethia with her ethersense, hoping to find some sort of imperfection where the operators would have been stationed that could be exploited. Nothing of the sort was easily evident; it was like any other Telethia, with its sensation of being an uncivilized child. Impressive bioengineering to be sure, to create an entirely new subspecies. The holes in the wings cannot be anything but a weakness...or perhaps they are a bait, like the patterns on butterfly wings.
Dunban suddenly called out. "Kallian!"
"Brother?!" Melia blurted without looking. She refocused her attention on the front of the Telethia to find Kallian's upper body fused to it, completely inert and etherally indistinguishable from the mass around it. ...nnno, t-that's a facsimile, he saved us by detonating his mutilated body-
"There is no use in calling," Lorithia said with more than a hint of smugness. "It worked before, but now his transformation is complete. He is my adorable servant."
She then stepped forward to kiss Kallian on the lips.
Melia's immediate instinct was to throw her staff between the two; Kallian wouldn't mind his face getting a bit scratched if it meant opening a huge gash in a traitor's. But no, now was not the time for-
"Have you forgotten how your anger caught Mumkhar off guard at Valak Mountain?" "I care about how you got mad and took a stand," "It's not a weakness, it's a tool." Shulk's words from what felt like forever ago rolled across her mind.
She blinked once and stared at the space between the two faces, feeling the anger boil in her chest. At least Dickson's actions were all to satisfy his master. You only do this for your own petty amusement.
The Empress Staff glowed red as it was lifted into the air.
"You oily scrubber!"
A whipcrack pierced through the air as the staff appeared in the far wall of the heart, leaving a blazing line and spinning triangles of red behind it. Lorithia was knocked down with a mass of the red triangles swarming her face, mostly around the deep wounds that were delivered to her right cheek and eye. Kallian had a small scuff on his nose.
"A fraction of what you deserve." Melia exerted some effort to extract the staff from the distant wall and summon it back into her hands. She was surprised at how easy it was to use her rage to find Meyneth's power, and somewhat disturbed at how it had chosen to manifest.
Lorithia spat something onto the ground and turned to face the party, visibly angry for the first time. "If that's how you want to play it, you insolent little whelp, then I'll gladly oblige!"
With a wave of her hand, the front of the Telethia started glowing, and she was lifted into it. After a few blinding moments, the light faded to reveal she was now fused into the creature's body just as Kallian was, with an additional off-putting feature: the injuries Melia had just inflicted were painted over with greenish skin and a glowing eye, making her as two-faced on the outside as she was on the inside.
Reyn decided it was time to go, and yelled as he charged towards the single enemy. Dunban, Shulk, and Riki followed.
Melia raised her defensive elementals and immediately started retreating, waiting for the others to take the attention of the creature that was currently fixed on her. Given that it was probably fully under Lorithia's control, she expected it to be a while.
"Look how impatient this seagull is!" Reyn taunted. "Goin' for Melia right off the bat? Scared about one princess over a bunch of big beefy boys hungry for anotha slice of Telethia steak? What, you don't want to savour the moment? Not make her watch her friends get got instead?"
"You impudent meathead!" Lorithia fell for the taunt as easy as they come, turning towards the melee fighters. "I'll kill you all and make her suffer years over it!"
"Reyn, the truest wordsmith," quipped Dunban.
The first part of the battle went largely to plan. The Telethia's unique bulk granted it some notably dangerous attacks, but there was just one of them versus four attackers and two supporters. And presumably due to the mind controlling it being that of a half-unaltered High Entia that was not acclimated to the body, it didn't seem to possess the race's dangerous telepathic abilities. If nothing were to change, the fight would be a tough but fairly simple win for the party.
After about a minute, Lorithia came to this same conclusion.
"Primo, Secondo, Terzo, Quarto, Quinto, Sesto!"
A white light dropped from the Telethia's body down to the ground, quickly expanding into a wide disc from which six nebulae appeared.
"Oh you got minions then?" Reyn didn't need any advice to turn towards the new arrivals and attract their attention with an Aura Burst. Most of them, anyway - the earth and ice nebulae were hovering out of reach.
"You hold them off, Reyn!" Shulk called. "We'll stay on the big one!"
Melia whipped a flare around the ice nebula and blasted it from behind, forcing it back down towards Riki, who was in the middle of using Burninate. It didn't seem prepared to take so much fire damage so quickly, and quickly deconstituted. The earth nebula noticed and raised a stony shield around itself before escaping to an even greater height.
One down. She took a moment to focus on the rest of the nebulae. They're continually siphoning ether out of the space around them. Yet they don't appear to be collecting the ether within themselves, it's being fed over...to the one perched above the battle, which is converting it into its native earth energy, and then...fed down into the Telethia itself. "The nebulae are providing extra physical defences to the Telethia!"
"Do we change tactics?" asked Dunban.
"You keep where you are, Dunban!" Reyn yelled. "A bit o' muscle on big ugly don't compare to your sword just passing through these gas clouds!"
Melia felt that there was quite a bit more defensive energy than just a "bit of muscle", but judged that it was sufficiently important to keep the Telethia busy that they had no choice but to sacrifice some offense for a while. We just have to kill one nebula and the energy flow will be disrupted enough to make a substantial difference.
The mere presence of the nebulae swung the tide of the battle. It turned out that they weren't just siphoning ether from the space around them, but from anyone who attempted to attack them, leaving Reyn with a variety of problems that Sharla now had to shift her focus to resolve. With all the extra earth energy, the Telethia itself was taking very little damage from Shulk and Dunban's physical attacks. Riki was trying to split his attention between all the enemies, helping Reyn with the nebulae by using his ether attacks on them, while also trying to support the other two by doing the same to the Telethia.
Melia determined that if they wanted to make any progress against this group of physically-resistant foes, she would have to do a lot more attacking, which meant no more not being a target.
Which nebula is the safest for me to engage? Most likely the water one.
She targetted the blue cloud with a bolt. It seemed to consider the matter for a few seconds before it began to approach her, bringing its surrounding field of negative water energy with it.
Now stay right there. Melia used Shadow Stitch so she wouldn't have to continuously retreat. But the dark ether had no effect; it continued to approach as if nothing had happened. Drat, its natural negative energies must render it resistant or immune.
"Heropon come to save the day." Riki swiped his biter through the enemy and then fired a shot of Freezinate into it.
"Good pon," Melia said absently, focused more on walking in circles to try and keep the foe at a distance without straying too far from the others or stepping into one of the ether pools. "But at the moment, the others need your help more than I."
"Riki pass his help around to all friends!" He was off again, spreading Lurgy across the remaining three nebulae around Reyn.
Melia fired another bolt into the water nebula and kept backing off. The rate of attack she wanted was very difficult to decide. She wanted to kill it as soon as possible, but doing too much damage too quickly might prompt it to seek assistance. Conversely, since nebulae were known to explode in dire situations, she had to judge when it would decide to do so and pump it full of damage before it could. And of course she had to account for any attacks contributed by others.
One more. She put another elemental into the nebula. It was harder to judge how injured a nebula was compared to a creature or Mechon, but it could be done with some experience, and it felt like this one was approaching about half its vitality.
Of course, there was always a surprise. The nebula lunged at her to close the distance, before "punching" her and sitting on her head.
Melia instinctively tried to swat the gas away, but all it did was trigger its etheral siphoning, pulling some of her firmness away and making her feel softer. It wouldn't come off with some ducking and weaving, and it was foolish to try and shoot it with her head in the middle.
There was only one thing for it. Firing away her defensive elementals towards whatever seemed nearby to achieve her burst aura, she unleashed Burst End. It successfully knocked the water nebula away, allowing her to breathe normally again.
The blue cloud kept its distance and began to swirl around.
That's not the self-destruction pattern. What-
Shulk saw a bright light from the far side of the battle and turned to see what it was. One of the nebulae (probably the blue one, he didn't see it anywhere else) had converted its entire form into a beam attack centred on Melia. The instant it hit her, she crumpled to the ground.
"MELIA!" Shulk abandoned the fight and dashed towards her. The first thing that came to mind was how he abandoned her in Agniratha, and he wasn't going to do it again.
"Shulk, don't-" Dunban had no time to say anything else, as he was now the only one holding off the Telethia from the others, and would soon inevitably lose ground.
Shulk staggered to a stop beside Melia, who had still not moved. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whatdoIdo? HowdoItell what? The ground's moving by itself, I dunno if she's breathing or not because the ground's moving instead, I don wanna waste anything if I pick wrong, uhhhhhh In mild panic, he simply used Light Heal without really trying to ascertain what her status was.
"Get back to your post, Shulk!" Sharla screamed, busy healing Reyn. "She's fine!"
On one hand, Shulk knew that Sharla's medical opinion was a lot more valid than his. But on the other, it was completely lodged in his mind that Melia was not capable of standing up from the sort of attack that the now-vanished nebula had used at just a few steps from point-blank. As a result, he remained fixed in indecision for several seconds.
He got slapped in the face.
"Return to the fight!" Melia started getting up, trying to avoid touching the ground with her hands as she did so.
Shulk shook his head and blinked a few times. "Melia? Y-"
Melia angrily brandished the Empress Staff in his direction. "What was more likely, that I died despite this staff's defenses without you receiving a vision of it, or that I was merely asleep? Such a short-sighted assumption!"
"I'm trying to not make the same mistake twice!" Shulk shot back.
"Then cease compounding your new mistake and retake your position immediately!" She pointed towards the Telethia, which had knocked Dunban down.
"Fine!" He shuffled on back to help Dunban.
"Look at the two little lovebirds." It was not the first time Lorithia had mocked the party during the fight, but it was the first that Melia was unable to ignore. "How they openly fight when things become dire. How they show care for the other only when it suits them. Fiora would never."
"Liar!"
"You don't know anythin'!"
"What would you know about Fiora?"
"How dare you!"
Shulk, Reyn, Dunban, and Melia yelled all at once, creating a jumbled mess.
Lorithia laughed. "The dear seer told me everything. All the better to know your enemy. Tell me, did he ever tell you that she is supposed to still be alive? To be fighting alongside you even now?"
"As if we'd ever believe a word you say!" Reyn pinned the green nebula to the ground with his shield as it exploded, substantially dampening its effect. "You're just tryin' to get a rise out of us!"
"Of course I am. But why would I need to lie for it? Here, let me lay on some other unhappy truths." She paused as Riki was thrown at her face to knock him back down to the ground. "Did you Homs know that it is bad luck for a royal to fall for a commoner of the blue collar? Those who live on physical work and dirty hands have never been a fit for the upper class, of course. Is the princess prepared to live beside a manual labourer?"
Shulk shook his head dismissively and continued to attack the abberational Telethia. "We don't care about your superstitions. Right Melia?"
Melia fought hard to keep calm. It was partly true; heirs were often discouraged from marrying people of low social standing for both sensible and selfish reasons, most of which might create drama which would be perceived as "bad luck" in hindsight. But acknowledging the truth was not the right answer. Instead, she picked a different path. Starting with throwing a flare at the traitor's head.
"Why would you believe in luck if your master claims to control a deterministic future?"
Lorithia blocked the flare with her arm, charring it. "I don't need to know how Lord Zanza runs his world. Only that you no longer belong in it!"
Reyn yelled as he pinned the fire nebula and charged away from the battle, where it exploded. "Just one left!"
The defensive energy must be running thin now. Melia looked up at the earth nebula and its invisible connection with the remaining electric one. Wait...it's not just thin, it's under interference, it's suffering negative feedback from there being an imbalanced input. "Now is the time! Ignore the nebula, aim for the true foe!"
The team immediately took the advice; the yellow cloud was forgotten as they leaned into the Telethia, its physical defenses no longer bolstered but disrupted.
Lorithia growled as the damage piled up. "This would have been easier if you had just laid down and died! Why can't you learn your place?"
Sharla kept trying to find an angle that would let her shoot the enemy in the head in between keeping the rest of the team healthy. "Why can't you die and leave the world a bit less ugly?"
"Me? If there is any eyesore in this room, it is the princess!"
Melia barely even noticed the attempted insult; compared to all the half-blood jeers she'd ever heard, it was basically nothing. Shulk on the other hand flared up and cut an extra-long and extra-twisted slice into the creature's back.
"You take that back!" he yelled.
"Shulk, don't bother," Melia half-mumbled.
Lorithia grinned as she turned around to face Shulk. "Oh, have I found a nerve? Does the vessel only love the princess for her body? Or perhaps merely her position? Are there any other wrong reasons I'm forgetting?"
"Take...it...back!" Shulk punctuated each word with another stab.
"How about...you take it back?" The creature fired a blast of ether.
Shulk reopened his eyes after being hit and readied to counter, but the attack seemed to have messed with his vision, and all he could tell was that there was a bunch of coloured blobs around him. The biggest green one behind him was probably the right target, so he went for it.
...wait. Just as he took a step towards the green blob, it shifted into a smaller dark one. In fact, all the blobs had changed colours and sizes, there didn't seem to be a large green one anymore. What's going on? There was a ringing in his ears too, so he couldn't tell if someone was yelling at him.
I need to pick the thing with...the strongest ether, that'll be her. Shulk seemed to have a slightly better sense of where the ether was coming from than any sights or sounds, so it was all he had for the moment. He picked out the blob that ethered the strongest - one that had just changed from blue to orange - and ran towards it.
This whole thing is a trick, she messed up my senses to try and throw me off, but I think I've got it, ether's a lot harder to fool. I'll run up and just go for it, no second-guessing, that's what she wants.
Wait no. Melia might be the thing with the strongest ether, and that's the trick, to make me go for her instead. That goes with what she said. Uuuuugggh what do I do now?
Shulk felt like a water balloon hit him in the head. His senses quickly cleared up, revealing that he had been wandering off to the side towards the ether pools.
"Wake up silly!" called Sharla, having just fixed his confusion with Cure Bullet.
"Thanks!" Shulk dashed back into the fight and focused. Lorithia had become visibly worse off during his excursion, so he figured they must be close to finishing it.
Riki accidentally caused the last nebula to explode, launching him into the Telethia's side. He bounced off and rolled to a stop next to Melia. "Friends almost there! One last bit of bangsmash to do!"
Shulk went all in, thrusting his weapon forward to unleash the negative energies of Monado Eater. At about the same time, Melia used Mind Blast from the opposite side, blasting the foe between two cones of pain.
The abomination released a wave of energy and glowed blindingly for a moment, before beginning to turn back on itself and collapse.
"NOOOOO!" Lorithia's face was only somewhat visible against the bright background, but it was clearly enraged. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!"
Melia huffed. "You have done this to yourself, ex-minister. Go to hell, and take your disgusting physical form with you."
"I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IMMORTAL! AAAAAGGH!"
There was a strange sound as the abomination collapsed and vanished, leaving a fading green light.
Shulk replaced his weapon on his back and leaned his hands on his knees, worn out. Good riddance. What a terrible person. Melia didn't deserve a word of what she said. I bet half of it wasn't even true.
"Thank you, Brother. Your words will stay with me forever."
Shulk turned to see that Melia was staring intently at where the Telethia had imploded.
"His words?" He didn't any trace of Kallian, he was just as gone as the rest of the creature. Well, I guess it could be a spiritual thing, like-
"Riki heard." Everyone looked at the Nopon, speaking much more sedately than usual. "Riki heard Melly's brother. Kallian say "hope of Bird People". Where Melly's brother? Riki not see him, but Riki hear him."
Shulk tried to judge what Melia was feeling, but her face was turned away from him somewhat and he felt it would be kind of rude to move so he could see.
"Riki." Melia suddenly bent down to hug Riki. "You, too, heard his parting words. Thank you."
Shulk left it run for about twenty seconds before he got worried. "Uh, Melia? Are you feeling alright?"
"Yes." Melia blinked and stood up, having not realized how long she'd been hugging Riki for. "Let us continue."
"But where do we go next?" wondered Sharla.
The question was answered as a mass of dark energy appeared not too far away. Out stepped Dickson.
"Well, lookie here," he drawled with a smirk. "I didn't think that bird had it in her to beat you lot, and I love it when I'm right."
Dunban wordlessly drew his blade and readied it in Dickson's direction.
"Really now?" Dickson crossed his arms unconcernedly. "That's how you welcome me? Shouldn't have bothered comin' down here."
"You talk pretty tough for just an old coot," called Reyn, also readying his weapon.
"Tch. Guess I'm off then. I've picked out a lovely place to return you to the Bionis. C'mon and follow if you think you want a go."
Dickson walked back into the dark energy. As he vanished, the energy dimmed until it was barely visible.
The group hurried to the portal. Dunban was the first to stand in it, but he couldn't get it to do anything; the dark energy simply flickered.
"Well that's a cheap trick," grumbled Reyn. "Invited us to follow but doesn't give a way."
"Well, we..." Shulk stopped as a long vision passed in front of him.
"What'd'you see, Shulk?"
Shulk was still processing the vision. "It's...I saw us fighting a huge monster on Valak Mountain. We beat it, and it dropped something. Then I saw flashes of four others, all in different places. A beach, a swamp, and two more in the snow. I think...I think to open the portal there are five keys, held by these five monsters." He turned to Melia. "What do you think?"
Melia was studying the portal's ether energy. "Yes. I can sense gaps in the portal's workings, gaps that were pulled open as Dickson departed. Filling these gaps with physical objects does seem likely to restore its functionality."
"So..." Dunban considered for a moment. "We return to Junks and exit the Bionis, then hunt down these five monsters Shulk saw. Once we have their remains, we return here to open the portal, and face Dickson."
"Sounds like a plan." Shulk stretched his elbows. They cracked a lot. "And we won't have to bother Miqol to keep coming back in here, right Melia?"
"Correct. Now that Junks has cleared the way in, we can use my vessel to re-enter the heart."
"Good. Okay, let's head back."
Melia nodded as the others started to leave the heart. She allowed herself to turn and look back for one moment.
We will return, Brother. And then we can end our suffering.
Melia stared out the window at nothing in particular.
It was strange to be in Fiora's room alone. Sharla was bunked in Colony 6 tonight, having made a very strong argument that Melia should have a night to herself for once. Melia decided it was not worth debating and glady ferried her, knowing that Sharla probably actually just wanted to sleep in her home colony for a change. As a result, the bed was empty, and there was really no excuse to avoid it other than simple reluctance to change.
So of course she had still laid her sleeping bag out on the floor, and was currently procrastinating her choice of whether to sleep in it or the bed by gazing across the landscape.
It helped somewhat that Shulk was being a bit of a pest. She could feel his ether signature pacing around Dunban's room, slowly enough to not wake the other three, occasionally coming to a stop at the door but never for more than a moment. It was clear to her that he was considering coming to talk with her about something, but was just as indecisive about it as she was with where to sleep.
Melia looked up into the sky, most of which was blocked by the Bionis. It must be difficult for the Homs to stargaze. No matter where one stands below the Bionis' shoulders, a significant chunk of the sky is occluded. An astronomer would have to make the journey of a lifetime simply for one night of observation, and do it again to return their findings home. What a pity, unable to see the zenith to any reasonable degree, nor the souls around it.
I suppose that's my fate now as well. Many Telethia around Eryth Sea have been slain, but many more still roam. The open sky will be seen by no one but the foolhardy for many years.
Shulk suddenly turned out of Dunban's room. Moments later, there was a gentle tap on the door.
Melia considered whether she wanted to entertain him. She was fairly certain that he wanted to talk to her about his actions in the battle earlier, specifically the time he dropped everything to focus on her when the nebula put her to sleep, in order to explain himself and/or apologise. Neither was something she wanted to hear at the moment; it was a blip in history as far as she was concerned, a msitake in the moment that was already recognised as one and did not need to be further belaboured upon.
She could pretend she was asleep and just ignore it; he was knocking quietly enough for this to be believable. But curiosity won out, and she went to open the door.
"How come nothing got flung off the Bionis when it moved around?"
It took a few moments for Melia to register the question. "This is a strange time to ask, is it not?"
Shulk anxiously shuffled around a bit. "Yeah I guess. But I keep...I can't get what Lorithia said out of my head, and I know it was all just a lie or whatever, but it's still bugging me. So I want a distraction."
Melia couldn't really blame him. She'd had decades to learn how to tolerate the sort of jeers the ex-minister had dipped into, but Shulk only had a quarter of that time, and probably only of the "haha lab nerd" sort of insults rather than the "you're a disgrace to your species and empire and nobody loves you" sort. He might not have been the target of the rudeness, but it was clear even at the time that he was not okay with it.
"Very well, here are the basics. The Bionis' skeleton contains many toroidal structures of a mix of earth and dark ether, forming a local gravitational field around the bone in question. Normally, this field is polarized to match the global direction of gravity. But when the Bionis moves, the segments of local gravity move along with it, as if glued to its surface. Once the titan comes to rest again, the field slowly re-polarizes over a period of time, which can vary from months to years. As a result, returning to its original position will result in nothing more than a quake across the body, while otherwise the landscape will be perceived as slowly tilting afterward to match the new orientation."
Shulk had started to mouth something in silence about halfway through the explanation, and was now looking down as his arm and pointing across it. "...So...if the Bionis turns its hand over, everything has a few weeks to scramble to the other side? As if it's moving at lot slower than it actually did?"
"Correct. In the moment, people and creatures would only know the Bionis is moving from seeing the shifting of the sun and ocean. Only in the time afterward would they notice that their footing is slowly changing."
"...huh. That's cool." He looked to be about ready to leave, successfully distracted and ready to now think deeply about this new information, but then stopped and looked at her. "Wait, how do you know that in such detail? Has the Bionis moved before?"
Melia tilted her head. "Truth be told, it has only been a theory until recent events. But it was a fairly sound one, and small-scale experiments have shown similar results."
"Okay, makes sense." Shulk didn't contrinue, but he also didn't leave, instead seeming to look into the room.
Melia gave him a moment before looking back to try and find what he was looking it; seeing nothing unusual she turned back. "Is something further the matter?"
"Oh, uh, not really, it's just...well, I noticed you still put your sleeping bag out. Even though Sharla isn't here." His eyes darted back and forth a bit, as if he felt he wasn't supposed to notice. "Are you just...scared of other beds?"
She wondered whether he was trying to make a joke; it was difficult to tell. She decided to assume he was not. "It is...more that I do not wish to assume that sleeping in a bed will be more comfortable than the natural uncertainty of sleeping in an unfamiliar bed."
"Ah." Shulk nodded once. He then spent a few seconds looking like he wanted to say something else, but didn't know what it was. "Well, goodnight." Then he left, returning to Dunban's room.
Melia watched Shulk's ether meander around the room for a few more minutes before slowly lying down.
I was certain he was going to talk about his mistake in the battle, and glad I was wrong. But is it because he chose not to bring it up, or because he forgot about it? It seemed in the moment that he was motivated by the previous mistake of abandoning me in Agniratha, so I suspect he would not simply forget. Hopefully I can forget about it myself in the morning. It would do no good to remember.
Though I suppose that was the start of everything, wasn't it. Lorithia was not taunting all that much until the aftermath of his error. That may very well be it; he knows that his mistake caused the jeering to begin in earnest, and that's why he became so upset about it. He thinks he was the cause of us being insulted, and that's why he was so keen on a distraction.
She turned her attention back to the situation in the room. Saying it to Shulk had made it clear to her: she didn't want to deal with sleeping in a strange bed that she had no intention of getting used to. Now she could go to sleep.
