Chapter 1: Operation

It was a completely cloudless night. The near-full moon was crossing into the airspace of the Pedagogue constellation, creating the illusion of a great lightbulb over its head as it lectured the thick band of stars underneath.

It was a very poor night for trying to walk around in secret. And yet this is exactly what one particular person had set herself up to do.

Melia was nervously pacing around the room, cursing herself for not being brave enough to go the previous night, which had been nice and overcast but exceptionally rainy. It would have been easier to avoid detection, but her dislike of getting wet had won the debate. The night before was about as clear as this one and was also ruled out, but there was no waiting for another chance this time - it had to be tonight or never.

Okay, probably not "never". Melia had been fighting with herself about this "mission" for the past month and couldn't see herself being able to let it go, even if the next opportunity would not be for another year. And a whole entire year of it continuing to weigh on her mind was not exactly ideal.

Still, thinking about it as a "last chance" was sure to help pull though it all. The continual pacing probably was not. She dropped herself into the chair at the table and ran her finger over the map yet again. It was a simple enough "get in, get out" plan, but having to do so without being spotted was the hard part.

After some more deliberation, Melia stood up - perhaps faster than necessary, as the chair was knocked into the wall - and made for the front door, striding out into the night. She had elected to wear the darkest purple dress she owned, to hopefully make her harder to see in the darkness. She finished buckling a pair of Quick Step gems into her boots and started moving towards the exit cave. With her main goal of remaining unseen, she could not risk using the transport pad that linked directly to Colony 9, as the transport centre was under constant supervision by the Defence Force - she would have to walk. It was not a great distance, but even with the Quick Step gems it would be around a 40-minute journey.

In the months following the recreation and reorganisation of the world, a series of transport pads had been set up that connected the five major settlements. Colony 9 was on the coast and was presently being considered the unofficial capital of the region. Colony 6 was more inland and had the most residents. Frontier Village remained mostly intact, though the forest around it was a little smaller. The Fallen Arm was no longer a mechanical formation but a rocky one, appearing like a giant stone hand reaching into the sea, and had been rechristened Meyneth Arm. Finally, New Alcamoth was being constructed out to sea near the corpse of the Bionis, with the wreckage of the old capitol on the ocean floor beneath.

The situation had not been friendly to Melia. It started out quite interesting - the process of laying New Alcamoth's social foundation was pleasantly exhausting. But now that plans were inked and construction was ongoing, and there was no hint of the imperial line aside from herself to be found, there was nothing for her to do with her life until the city was finished and flourishing. The week after realising this was quite depressing until two things happened.

First, the ever-observant Riki detected her mood, and invited her to come along on a map-making run. With an eager contingent of Ponspectors, they had taken it upon themselves to map out the space between and around the new settlements. On this map run, they had found a narrow cave that opened up into a large clearing surrounded on all sides by rock, complete with several trees and a pond. Riki made an offhand comment that "Melly could build nice house here", knowing that Melia had been spending her time being a professional houseguest, and despite her reticence he ran with it. Within three weeks, Melia was standing in a fully-furnished two-room bungalow and trying her hardest to not cry in front of dozens of volunteers.

The very next day, the second morale-boosting event occurred. Another map run had found a crashed High Entia transport that hadn't existed in the previous world and had no logical reason to exist in this one. Waiting inside was Alvis, as annoyingly secretive as ever, explaining that while he could not rescue Alcamoth as he did the other settlements, he could preserve at least some of their knowledge. The transport was then revealed to contain almost a library's worth of books. Even Melia had difficulty containing her glee as she stocked her pick of the tomes and directed the rest to the various colonies for the resident Alcamoth survivors to peruse.

With a house to herself and enough books to cover waiting for a city to rule, Melia's mood improved dramatically, spending most of her time absorbing all the information she had not previously been authorised to read. However, along with all her free time came a lot of thinking, and it was inevitable that her mind would return to the subject of Shulk. It didn't matter how many times she told herself that he was out of her picture, or that she had officially chose to give him up - as time passed his image kept floating to the forefront more and more.

And then Riki mentioned in passing that Shulk's birthday was in a month, and he and Dunban would be planning the biggest party that Colony 9 had ever seen.

With the walls of Colony 9 coming into sight, Melia slowed her jog down to a walk. The Night Vision gem in her headdress let her see that there were two Defence Force soldiers guarding the nearest entrance, and they both looked reasonably alert. Having a plan to get into the colony unseen was all well and good, but executing it was another matter. She decided that her best hope of success was to move quickly without thinking about it.

Melia came to rest behind a rock and brought out her infiltration tool: a grappling hook. It was not easy to acquire; there was a mountaineering shop in the colony, but it had lacked the proper kind of metal to fashion safe hooks for the longest time. Even then, it was an unpleasant experience to try and explain why a crown princess was buying extreme sports equipment. She hoped her practice with the rock faces surrounding her home would be enough to scale the colony walls.

She peeked out from behind the rock to watch the guards. Colony 9's guards were never known to be top-cheese, but this pair was at least sticking to their post and not making small talk. If Melia made a mistake, she was pretty sure they would notice it. She knew that Earth Cloak gems were less effective on those actively watching for threats, but she had chosen to take one as a brooch just in case. With no need to distract and so risk alerting the guards, Melia started moving to the left side of the entrance. The guards paid no attention to her - some part of her protection was effective - and she reached the wall with no problem.

Of course, that was the easy part. She started twirling the hook around, testing its weight more than preparing to throw. She considered herself lucky that the colony had expanded its borders across the bridge that used to be the main entrance, as otherwise this throw would not only need to cover four times the distance, but involve her standing on the seafloor. Finally she released the hook and watched it sail over the wall, making a dull impact on the soil inside.

Now was probably the riskiest part. Getting caught trying to scale the colony's walls in the dead of night would do no one any good. Melia started carefully pulling on the knotted rope. She could hear the hook scraping as it moved up the wall and could only hope that no one was in the park on the other side. After what seemed like an eternity, she felt the hook catch on something strong enough to support her weight. Exchanging the Quick Step gems in her boots for Good Footing ones, she started scaling the wall.

Compared to the rock faces she had practiced on, the colony wall had more foothold opportunities but was at a much more inconvenient 90-degree angle. It was overall not difficult, but she kept pausing to check if the guards were in sight, which made it a bit more tiresome. She reached the top sooner than expected to see the hook caught on the top rim of the wall.

Melia unhooked the grapple and looked over the colony. The park just below was poorly lit on purpose to preserve the plants' natural day-night instinct, and the path she had plotted swerved through all the dimmest streets. Even without cloud cover, there should be enough darkness to cover her movements. Of course, the first part of the path involved dropping down from her current perch - and even though the ground was soft, her Good Footing gems did nothing to protect her from being an absolute klutz at landings. Wiping the dirt off herself, Melia stood up and backed up against the wall, waiting to see if the guards had heard her ungraceful plummet. With no such evidence presented, she set off, moving carefully rather than quickly.

The colony seemed much emptier than it normally was at this hour, with only a half-dozen people around. It did not take long to reach the Weapon Development Lab. The lack of lights on told Melia that no one was there, so she slipped in. Unfortunately, the lab was too empty - the Monado stand was bare, with its corresponding weapon absent. The plan had required it not be.

"...oh no." The words managed to escape from Melia's mouth because she could suppress them. Looking around quickly in paranoia to affirm she was indeed alone, she sat in the chair at the desk and started thinking quickly.

The Monado is not here. I cannot guarantee Shulk will come here tomorrow if the Monado is not here now.

Shulk would never let the Monado out of his sight. It must be wherever he is.

Shulk has no reason to be outside the colony. Riki would see to it that Shulk not ruin the plans by being elsewhere.

...The Monado must be in Shulk's house.

The realisation of what had to be done next was instant and unpleasant. Melia sighed and quickly made for the exit. The less time she spent thinking about what she had to do, the better.

Improvisation was not Melia's strong suit. Twice she turned around upon coming to an intersection too brightly-lit for her liking, and jumped at the presence of a stray pet crossing her path. At the very least, the Residential District had even fewer people up and about to impede her. After what felt like an hour (but was more like ten minutes), she finally reached Dunban's house, with Shulk's house just alongside.

In the old world, Shulk didn't have a house of his own, taking turns between rooming with Dickson and sleeping at the lab. However, when Alvis created the new world, he made minor reorganisations to the buildings of the colony, one of which involved adding a new house next door to Dunban's. Eager to distance himself from the memory of Dickson, Shulk had moved in almost without a second thought.

While passing by Dunban's house, Melia heard snoring, which she took as a good indicator that both Dunban and Fiora were asleep; it seemed like Dunban had a rule for himself that he would never go to sleep before his sister. Melia then did a double-take - she'd never known Dunban to snore before. Then again, it would be kind of impossible to hear him over Reyn. Chuckling to herself a little, she walked on to Shulk's house and stopped dead.

Shulk's bedroom light was still on.

Melia was transfixed and began to panic somewhat. Her hastily-concocted Plan B did succeed at finding Shulk's whereabouts, but it relied on him being asleep and subsequently dead to the world. There was no way she could get into the house without him hearing and coming downstairs.

Unless...he fell asleep without turning the light out. That would be just like Shulk, studying some complex engineering problem without a care for the time and just falling asleep at his desk. Melia gathered her resolve - she had come this far, she had to go as far as possible to try and succeed. Slowly pushing the front door open (Shulk never locked it, since he was always scrambling back and forth to help people with their problems), she stepped inside the dark ground floor.

She had never been in Shulk's house before, but it was pretty easy to guess he lived here. The kitchen had as many book stacks as dish stacks, and said dish stacks were either an unwashed disheveled mess or a perfectly clean tower (probably Fiora's handiwork). The fridge was covered in magnets, each holding up various schematics and diagrams, though the most prominently-displayed one was a letter inviting him to a skills competition. Light flowed down the stairs. There was no hint that an intruder had been detected.

Carefully picking her spots to avoid setting off any squeaky floorboards, Melia tiptoed across the room and shimmied up the stairs, peeking only her head up to the second floor's level. It was just as messy as downstairs, except with more papers and less food. The bedroom door was ajar and the empty bed was visible.

Continuing to remain quiet, but growing confident that Shulk was asleep at the wheel, Melia clambered through the mess and sneaked into the bedroom. It was surprisingly tidy inside, with neat piles of documents as opposed to the slapdash ones seen previously. Shulk was indeed totally conked out, his face buried in an oddly large book that appeared quite new. The Monado was propped up against the desk.

Melia let out a great sigh of relief. She had finally reached the point where she could drop her payload, get back home, and stop worrying about this whole mess she set up for herself. Reaching into her cloak, she extracted a small square box about the length of half a pencil. It was wrapped in green and completely nondescript. She gently placed it on the desk next to the Monado's handle, ensuring that Shulk would see it the next morning. There was no way he could see a mysterious gift and not be driven to tear it open on the spot. Pleased with herself, she backed away from the desk.

Her sleeve caught the Monado's handle and caused it to fall onto the floor, making a great clattering noise.

Gasping, Melia took a great step backwards and cowered against the wall, expecting Shulk to wake up any moment despite knowing he could sleep through anything. He didn't budge.

Another massive sigh of relief filled the room.

After taking a few moments to compose herself, Melia crept towards the Monado so she could put it back where it was. Was it safe to pick up? The last time she witnessed someone who wasn't Shulk try to wield the Monado, it was Dunban. The group was in Mechonis Field and Shulk had been knocked out just after warning the group of a vicious attack that was to come. Dunban attempted to grab the Monado so he could use Monado Shield, but the sword had reacted violently, instead forcing Dunban to attack the target Mechon. The foreseen attack then came, and it was lucky that it only grazed Dunban, as not long afterwards he dropped the Monado and lost consciousness. It took several minutes of concentrated healing once the battle was over to get him back on his feet.

That said, this wasn't exactly the same Monado. Not only did it possess two previously-unseen symbols and the ability to harm Homs despite its appearance as its shackled form, but it was given to Shulk by Alvis before he first went to the invitational skills competition. With Zanza no longer in existence, there was no real reason for the sword to impose a foreign will on anyone.

Still, there was no reason to be careless. Melia carefully picked up the Monado with both hands on the blade and slowly moved it back where it belonged. She then stood up carefully and prepared to leave.

However, something caught her eye just as she was about to turn away: the book Shulk had been reading before he fell asleep. His head was resting on the right half of the book, but there was no mistaking the writing it was obscuring: it was in Erythscript. Even more oddly, the unobstructed left page was in standard Common writing. No book from the old world, aside from translation dictionaries, would ever have been written in both the High Entia and Homs alphabets.

Curiosity piqued, Melia carefully bent over to read the left page.

and so Regulus was sent to rot in the imperial prisons, with no trial or parole, never to be heard from again.

No sooner had the fate of Regulus been known than a new horrific act against the Imperial Family came to pass. Emperor Camberole, now two hundred years of age, and his two sons Glenth and Peroth, presently in a good-natured competition to earn the throne, all met their untimely demise at the hands of what was described as "a fiery blast that incinerated the dining chambers". The throne naturally passed to Camberole's younger brother Delus, who told the public that the Cratere Nebulae used in the kitchens had escaped and detonated, subsequently outlawing their usage for imperial functions. The public suspected this was not the truth, however, and the most common rumour was the correct one: that the Bionite Order had assassinated the half-blood Peroth, who was winning the competition, without care for the collateral damage. Delus, genuinely believing the false evidence the Order had planted for him, was forever dogged by the event.

It was several decades after the incident that Delus begat his first heir: Entirmina, daughter of First Consort Verila. However, he had an exceptional amount of difficulty procuring a Second Consort. The issue was twofold. The rumours of the Bionite Order systematically slaughtering Second Consorts and their heirs was becoming more prevalent even amongst the Homs of Colony 8, the settlement of Bright Shoulder Plateau where most such consorts were obtained. In addition, Colony 8 had become the target of several hard-hitting Mechon attacks, killing many of the remaining candidates. Bound in red tape and public apathy, Delus could do nothing to help. Within a few short years the colony had been evacuated by the last three dozen survivors, and was quickly completely destroyed.

Upon reaching the age of three hundred, Delus admitted defeat, and produced a second heir of the First Consort: Sorean. He then abdicated the throne to Entirmina in order to spend more time with his son, as the constant battering over his brother's death took its toll on his health. He died merely fifty years later, leaving Sorean to be raised by his elder sister. With the pure-blood Entirmina as Empress, and little success at finding another Homs colony that was both safe from Mechon and believing of the High Entia, the Bionite Order slunk back into the shadows.

Thirty years after the death of Delus, with Sorean old enough to look after himself, Entirmina married to Bellarius at a young age. She was eager to take on the challenge of locating a Second Consort - it was well-known that male Homs were easier to find for such purpose than females. However, her plans were almost immediately overturned by a terrible stroke of luck: she was found to be infertile. She could produce no heirs, and by the imperial texts, she could not re-abdicate the throne to Sorean without implicitly casting a call for dishonour upon her father's name. The news was debilitating to the entire royal family. Ancient texts were scrounged, entire libraries were overturned, in an attempt to locate a precedent for what to do with the situation. None were found.

The following twenty years were not pleasant. As the imperial bureaucracy fought against itself, Entirmina and Sorean worked together to find a way to continue the imperial line. Eventually it was determined that, while Entirmina could not give up the throne, Sorean would be allowed to produce heirs on her behalf. Of course, such a novel recourse was not well-received by the Bionite Order. They needed to plant an operative within the royal family itself in an attempt to stifle any further revolutions. They selected Yumea, and

Melia's eyes instinctively flicked up to the top of the next page, only to be blocked by Shulk's head. It was an uncomfortable drag back into reality. She tried reading some of the visible High Entia script, but it seemed to have exactly the same content as the Homs side - which was yet another layer of curiosity.

She had known most of this stream of history before - why Cratere Nebulae had been banned, why Second Consorts were hard to come by, why Aunt Entirmina had died twenty years ago at age 350 with no children. Still, it was an engrossing read, and the interspersed history of the Bionite Order was new to her - possibly to everyone, as not even the texts she had in her room made mention of their exploits since they were officially disbanded by Emperor Lumian millennia ago.

Melia chanced a peek at the book's title. Carefully lifting up the unobstructed left half, she glanced at the cover: History of the Bionite Order, Bilingual Edition. It also listed two authors: Shulk and Tyrea.

Suddenly, a whole lot of things made sense. Melia had seen Tyrea around several times since the new world's creation, but always at a great distance, and could never approach before she vanished - apparently she'd been writing a book about the Order and her experience in it. Shulk wasn't just cooped up studying High Entia technology - he was simultaneously learning their language, making him ideal for translation.

A whole flood of new feelings sloshed around Melia's mind. It was hard to believe she could feel any more fondness for Shulk, yet here he was, spending his free time helping document the history of her culture. She vaguely wondered whether he would be signing copies of the book upon its seemingly sooner-rather-than-later release.

Realising that she had been here for quite a while, she shook her head and moved towards the exit, glancing back at the gift on the desk. With what she had just learned, she was more sure than ever that she had done the right thing. Before leaving she decided to turn out the light and close the door, to hopefully stop a particular overexuberant Nopon from assuming it would be safe to barge in the next morning.