Chapter 26: Starlight

"Coming through!" Reyn called past the mass of discarded Andos armour in his arms. "Budge up there! Clear a path!"

It didn't take long for his voice and size to gain a wide berth through the crowded Reconstruction HQ. Melia and Riki followed in his wake, carrying their own much smaller piles of armour.

Once Reyn reached the storage area at the back of the building, he offloaded all his bounty with a massive crash. "There you are, kid, the Sturdy Armour ya needed."

Juju had been cautiously eyeing a jar full of ladybirds about twenty paces away, but was immediately prompted to dash over and have a look. "Wow, Reyn, you're amazing! You destroyed that many robots today?!"

"Actually, we had a better idea." Melia gently added her own load to the pile. "We went to a drone reclamation facility in Alcamoth and acquired as much discarded Andos armour as we could carry."

"An' this is just the first trip, kid. Got three more loads like this in the truck. Well, not a truck but you know. Be right back." Reyn jogged back out.

"You're the best, Reyn!" Juju yelled after him. He then turned to Melia. "Melia, I don't think I thank you enough. Without that ship of yours we'd be...like, it would take us months to get to where we are now. But you've given us a way to bring in so many materials without needing to go through Defence Force approval for every trip, like borrowing one of the carriers would need." He glanced back out the door. "Don't tell Reyn, but you're the best. Well, along with Shulk, I mean he's the one who inspired me in the first place!"

Melia was used to hearing a similar refrain every time the Illustrious Alighting pulled into Colony 6 with a new load of supplies, but to her surprise the warm fuzzy feeling wasn't diminishing each time. "Thank you, Juju."

"Riki also best." The Nopon's load of armour was about equal to Melia's, which he haphazardly tipped onto the growing pile. "Heropon help friends get best deal on armour."

"You had to pay for these?" Juju looked a bit incredulous, given that the majority of the restoration supplies thus far were either donations or claimed from the wild.

"Naturally," Melia responded. "The drone reclamation facility was sympathetic to the cause, but they simply could not part with this much material for free."

"Then...then I'll pay you back." Juju fumbled a bit in extracting a notebook and pencil from his pockets. "How much was it?"

Melia shook her head. "That is not necessary. This is as much a donation as any other material. I do not require monetary compensation."

Juju stood agape for a moment. "Wow, you really are the best."

Reyn showed back up with another load of armour, which he unceremoniously dumped onto the pile with a huge clatter before going back off to get more.

While waiting for him to finish the delivery, Melia milled around the storage area. It looked almost completely different every day; once people realised what supplies were available, they quickly trotted them out to the colony for usage in construction.

She was slowly becoming used to the feeling of being in a crowd of Homs. Being surrounded by people with no wings at all was a bit unnerving for a while, especially since it took a bit for people to stop staring at her. Luckily, she had succeeded so far in not revealing to anyone that she was royalty, which was almost necessary now that a couple of High Entia were starting to show interest in relocation down to the rebuilding colony.

It was also becoming second nature to use the Illustrious Alighting to effectively teleport around the Bionis at will. Someone lost something a few days ago? Have it recovered and returned within an hour. A foolish child has gotten themselves into danger? Bring them back with incredible speed. Don't feel like taking up valuable room in Colony 6 for the night? Fly over to Dunban's house. It wasn't perfect, of course - it never responded to being summoned during a blizzard on Valak Mountain, forcing the group to sleep in the freezing Ose Tower for a night. But overall it made the adventuring experience much more bearable.

"That's the last of it." Reyn dropped off the last load. "Man, what a day. Gettin' a bit late. Where're the others at? Haven't seem 'em yet."

Riki pointed at a clock on the wall. "Friends still have...five minutes." He had learned how to tell analog time surprisingly quickly, given that most Nopon didn't normally keep accurate time.

Shulk, Dunban, and Sharla had been spending the previous few hours doing some shopping and trading at various places in the colony. The two groups had agreed to meet up back at the Reconstruction HQ once they were both done their tasks.

"Got a treat for you tonight, Melia." Reyn seemed to puff up. "It's my night for dinner, and I'm takin' us to Giorgio's. He's got the best menu in Colony 9. I bet you a hundred Gs we'll find something you like."

"I will not take that bet. I too look forward to seeing what is in store." Melia always complimented whatever the others fed her, but it was still crystal clear to everyone that she was underwhelmed by the quality of the Homs cuisine she'd experienced so far. "Besides, you will need that money to help cover whatever Riki eats."

"Oh crud, forgot about that feedbag. Ah well, I can suck it up. I've had worse - had to buy for all the guys in the unit once, now that was a pocket-burner. 'Course, that eventually evens out once everyone has a go."

Riki re-appeared from behind a large pile of wooden planks. "Reyn's pockets on fire?"

A commotion could be heard rising in the front room of the building. Juju was quick to stop counting the armour and leave the storage room to see what it was about, and almost just as quick to return with a half-worried half-panicked look on his face.

"Th-the ether planters! Something's attacking them!"

"What?" Reyn instantly went into combat mode. "Which ones? How do you know?"

"The maintenance room had a bunch of alarms go off. The Pod Depot cluster's output levels are going nuts."

"C'mon, let's go! We got no time to lose, them ether planters ain't cheap to replace!" Reyn hurried out of the room.

Riki seemed to read Melia's mind as he prepared to follow. "Juju will tell friends what happened if we late to return. Friends no have to worry."

"Well...all right then." Melia chased the other two out of the Reconstruction HQ to board the Illustrious Alighting. With minimal preparation time, she flew over the colony wall towards the Pod Depot. Even at minimum speed, it was many times faster than walking would have been.

Once the ether planters came into view, the source of the problem was obvious.

"Three Mechon." Reyn scowled. "Those M64 things, look like they've got some good armour on 'em."

"Riki throw Tantrum, make machines wobbly! Then Reyn knock down, and friends bangsmash! And Melly not even need to have knockdowns to bangsmash!"

"That may be true, but attracting their attention would be a very poor tactical decision on my part, as Reyn cannot distract them so trivially. We will need to topple them in order to deal with them safely."

Landing a safe distance away, the trio disembarked and carefully began advancing on the Mechon, which were currently busy attempting to completely uproot one of the dozens of ether-focusing instruments. They were working together too well to be able to lure any one of them away - they would have to be taken on all at once.

"Let's bash some heads!" With his Rage aura activated, Reyn charged forward and unleashed an Aura Burst, his only method of dealing ether damage, in hopes of attracting enough attention that they wouldn't change focus to anyone else before they could all be destroyed. The Mechon all recoiled rather severely, suggesting they were quite weak compared to the party in terms of combat ability, but they didn't hesitate to stop their sabotage and start fighting.

"Super Riki Tantrum!" Riki pounded the ground with his biter three times, destabilising all the machines' postures.

"Pick on this one!" Easily dodging attacks from the other two enemies, Reyn selected the left-most M64 and used Wild Down to knock it over, exposing its vulnerable areas.

"Now!" Melia unloaded a bolt into the downed Mechon, dealing high damage. The other two jumped in and began bashing the exposed weak points before it could get back up.

The party repeated the process - Riki staggered it, Reyn toppled it, and Melia blasted it with a flare. After three cycles, the first Mechon didn't get back up.

"Things are going to plan." Melia playfully bopped the next Mechon on the head with her staff to no effect as it continued to burn while failing to hit Reyn. There was no feeling more satisfying than a plan's successful execution.

Things got a bit more complicated when working on the second Mechon, however. While Riki and Reyn toppled it and began attacking it without issue, the third had enough of being on fire and decided to go after Melia. Unable to outrun it, she froze it in place with Shadow Stitch, but once the effect wore off, the chase continued. Dodging its attacks wasn't difficult, but it was a chore. She continued to throw elementals at the downed Mechon when convenient, but couldn't get this other one to go away.

A loud squeak emitted from the other half of the battle. Melia turned to see that Riki had been hit by a hard attack just after he staggered the Mechon, and had been sent over the edge of the cliff, down to the Freight Road below.

"Stinkin' trash heap!" Reyn toppled the Mechon and planted the final few damaging blows into it, but they now had a problem: their only source of break arts had been propelled out of the battle, and would take several minutes to rejoin the group. And they still had one more mostly-healthy Mechon to go.

Melia stumbled over a rock as she continued to back away from the final M64. It had finally managed to nick her in the arm, which was now smarting quite a bit, and Shadow Stitch was significantly less effective when used on the same target in quick succession. She tried to use Hypnotise to force it into sleep mode, but Mechon internals were different enough from those of High Entia drones that she didn't yet have a feel for how she was supposed to do so; she was already planning on asking the others to help her practice on low-threat specimens once they got to Sword Valley. She didn't want to throw any more attacks at it, which would only make it harder for Reyn to steal its attention.

"Oi, tinbrain!" Reyn threw the entire weight of his weapon into the Mechon's backside for no practical effect, falling over as a result. "Get back here, you...hang on. ENGAGE!"

The unignorable aura took a few seconds to work its way into whatever the Mechon had for a brain, but eventually it caved to the temptation and turned towards Reyn.

"That's better, but we still got problems." Reyn fired off another Aura Burst, but had nothing else he could do to improve the situation. "I can't take this thing down by myself, but if you do anything, it'll head straight back for you once this aura's run off. We can't hold it off long enough for fuzzball to get back, 'cuz it'll eventually hit me to its satisfaction and then probably go for you again. Any ideas?"

Melia leaned on her staff as she rested and thought. Without a means of breaking its stance, toppling it is out of the question. Allowing it to continue to chase me is folly; any single elemental will capture its attention too strongly for Reyn to divert without waiting on his Engage aura once more. Wait...perhaps we can fool it into chasing me off the edge of the cliff? That seems risky, but doable. I could pass by Reyn and have him pull me away by the staff as the Mechon continues forward, then if required use Spear Break or Sword Drive to give it any necessary last push. No Mechon of this size could survive that fall.

"AGH!" Out of nowhere, the M64 swung its arm in a low arc, knocking Reyn's feet out from under him. It then proceeded to pound him in the face mercilessly.

Without thinking, Melia shot a bolt at the Mechon. Reyn could normally take quite a bit of punishment, but not directly to the head in such quick succession. Of course, the Mechon proceeded to free itself from the lock-on and resume its pursuit of her.

I can't lead it off the cliff by myself without some form of acrobatics that I surely am incapable of. I must simply retreat until Reyn recovers. She began steadily backing away again, refusing to show her back to the enemy.

It didn't take long for her to stumble again, this time on a branch. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the M64 plowed straight into her, knocking her on her back. It then landed a shot to the gut before she could scramble away. The new injuries were significant enough that she had no hope of staying ahead of it now - she'd have to fight to keep it away.

Melia's new strategy was to make a short dash and turn to fire an elemental at the enemy, then repeat, throwing in a Shadow Stitch whenever possible. A summoned aqua helped her physical condition, but didn't relieve her of exhaustion; the Mechon was steadily getting closer and would certainly have a massive advantage at melee range. And Reyn was just now getting up, realising what was going on, and preparing to rejoin the fight.

Curse this automaton! Melia looked up into the sky as she hobbled along; stars were staring to peek through the sunset light as she weakly deflected an incoming swipe. She had absolutely no intention of meeting her father in the stars because of some insignificant Mechon.

"C'mon princess, don't you cop out on me!" An extremely upset Reyn had arrived on the scene, but his attempt at stealing the Mechon's attention failed; being recently knocked out meant his Engage aura couldn't reach the required intensity. It was enough to use Aura Burst again; not that it did any good either.

Out of desperation more than anything, Melia jabbed at the M64 with Spear Break, pushing it back slightly but not enough to appreciably keep it at bay. But something was different this time, something she had never seen before - the Mechon's affected leg gave off the slightest twitch, the tiniest twinge of uncertainty.

Melia stared at the leg for a moment, trying to process what had happened while still fumbling around to avoid taking any further hits. Did...did I do it? Did I get the break? No, no of course not, Reyn would have noticed immediately and toppled it. But then what-

Reyn lost his composure, slamming the broad side of his weapon against the Mechon, which didn't do much more than flinch. "DAMMIT MELIA, TELL ME YOU'VE GOT SOMETHING SCRUNCHED UP IN THAT TIGHT ARSE OF YOURS!"

The angry exclamation went completely unprocessed by Melia's brain. Something else had appeared in its place: a curious instinct that made absolutely no sense, but was pretty much the only shred of a hope remaining. Without wasting time thinking about it, she leapt forward and planted a flying kick into the same place she had speared.

To the surprise of everyone in the battle, the unexpected kick resulted in the Mechon losing its footing and tumbling to the ground.

"Wha-...ALL RIGHT!" Reyn proceeded to prolong the topple with his own such art before going beserk and laying into the M64 with unparalleled ferocity. Combined with the damage that Melia had worked into it earlier, it never had the chance to get back up.

The area went quiet for several minutes. The two remaining fighters simply laid in the grass, recovering from the difficult battle.

"So...uh..." Reyn broke the silence, sitting up and nervously scratching his neck.

Melia started wrenching her mind back into gear; it had been blissfully empty for the past little while. If this is about my tactical choices in that battle, then-

"I'm sorry, Melia. For...for calling you a tight-arse. Or...or for saying you had one. Or...uh, whatever it was. It don't matter. I'm sorry, that's the point. I didn't mean it, I was just really upset. You know how it is when things go wrong and...and people get hurt." He stared off into the distance. "I hate it when people get hurt. I can't stand it. No one deserves to be hurt. Not you, not Shulk, not anyone. I'm the one who's supposed to be taking the beating, so no one else has to."

Melia was constantly surprised by Reyn. Usually, it was due to his lame jokes, bottomless stomach, or short-sighted decisions. But every now and then, he would spout something deep and philosophical out of nowhere, which was always the most surprising of all.

She was about to respond when Reyn stood up and clapped the grass of himself. "Well, forget it, that's all in the past. So!" All smiles again, he grabbed onto Melia's unwilling arm and pulled her to her feet. "New art, eh? Some sort of toppling kick that skips the break part entirely? Awesome! How's about you get some practice in before fuzzball gets back?"

"Er..." The sudden shift in tone was jarring. She didn't really think of what happened as a new art, either - just a freak accident. She decided to act a bit slow to judge whether Reyn was just trying to cheer her up or something. "Beg pardon? New art? What do you mean?"

"Oh come on, don't tell me you've lost the inspiration already, you know how useful a surprise physical topple by an ether user would be." Reyn stood ready and patted himself on the shin. "Right, gimme that kick right 'ere. Knock me straight down. No mercy!"

"Is...is that not potentially-"

"Do you really think you can hurt me with a kick? Shulk could wail on me legs for hours an' I wouldn't feel a thing. C'mon. A new art's like a dream, you gotta capture the feeling straight away, or it'll be lost forever."

Melia supposed that Reyn knew more about self-made arts than her, given that at least two of his arts were of his own invention, and she had never attempted to do the same. "Very well. I shall try my best."

Trying to stand in the same manner as when she attacked the Mechon, she jumped at Reyn and placed a kick right where he had patted. She might as well have slapped him with a feather; she landed awkwardly on the ground with no toppling results.

"Okay, all right, that's fine, just try again." Reyn patted his leg again. "It rarely works on the first try once you realise what you're trying to do. Just try to recapture that original moment again."

Melia had heard similar advice before - way back when she was learning to control two elementals at once. The idea that the same principle could apply on two such vastly different techniques was both weird and sensible. She closed her eyes and tried to re-imagine what had happened not too long ago - a Mechon was attacking relentlessly, and toppling it was the only chance to stay alive. Staying in the thought for several moments, she only opened her eyes at the last instant to ensure that her kick was going to hit her target.

It still didn't do anything. Kicking a tree might have had more of an effect.

"Hm, now wait a tick." Reyn was trying to have an idea. "What'd you do before that? Like, art-wise."

"How do you mean?" How could it be relevant?

"Well, you know how Dunban's gotta use Gale Slash, or Electric Gutbuster don't work? Or how my Dive Sobat is a lot stronger and cooler if I do a Bone Upper first. That sort of thing. Maybe this new art of yours has to be part of a combo to get the right feeling going."

"I had previously used Spear Break." And a fat lot of good that...hang on. No, actually that makes perfect sense. Break art, then topple art. But if I did get a break, why didn't Reyn jump at the opportunity?

"Oh, so it's supposed to be a break art after all?" Reyn looked slightly disappointed. "Ah well, getting a topple without a break was a longshot anyways, no big deal." Pat pat pat. "Spear Break, then...uh, then whatever-you-wanna-call-it-kick. We'll figure out a name once you get it going."

Skeptical but distantly hopeful, Melia jabbed Reyn in the shin with her staff. At first, it seemed that it didn't do anything in the slightest, but upon looking closer, there it was again - a minute twitch.

"Yeah, that ain't a break, I'm still solid." His face scrunched up in thought as he continued to stand ready. "So then what-"

Ignoring whatever he was saying, Melia delivered her kick into the same place she had speared, effortlessly taking out Reyn's legs and causing him to tumble down into a heap.

"Woah!" Reyn untwisted himself and popped right back up. "Now we're talkin'! Do it again!"

Melia did so, using Spear Break and her new kick art in combination to knock down her target with surprising efficiency. Spurred by success and Reyn's coaching, they repeated the process until she had ten topples to her name.

"There ain't no Mechon ever stopping us now." Reyn massaged his leg a bit. "Shulk's got the Monado, me 'n' Sharla can break and topple, and Dunban, Riki, and now you can knock 'em down by yourselves."

Melia nodded, her rear still a bit sore from all the impromptu landings. "There are more convenient ways to deal with Mechon than for me to use physical attacks, but it will certainly be effective."

"Good to hear." Reyn looked towards the cliff. "That cheese blob's taking his time, he is. Oh yeah, the name. What're you calling this new super kick art of yours? It's gotta be good. How about...Royal Kick? Or maybe Tumble Strike? Aha, Heiress's Heel! Got the alliteration 'n' all."

"I shall name it as I see fit."

"Suit yourself, I'm just tossin' ideas out." Reyn sat down as he waited for Riki to return.

Melia also sat down, considering the current issue. Down Kick was the existing, traditional topple art taught to most High Entia fighters, but it didn't seem like this art was the same thing - it seemed like it depended solely on her Spear Break to function, and not the typical staggering that another break art could inflict. Therefore, it would need to have a different name.

She looked up into the sky again, with more and more stars becoming visible. The Revolutionary was the constellation overhead this month, with its six brightest stars already visible, forming the image of a determined freedom fighter. The formation's other half, the looming tyrant, was too faint to be visible yet. Two of the wanderers was clearly visible, the Kin Star and Wise Star, over in the Rhapsodist to the west. Beyond the fixed stars of the constellations, the subtly-changing field of background stars also remained invisible, said to be full of the souls that had yet to be born and those that were fated to be reborn.

At the same time, she slowly realised that kicking things as a combat maneuver wasn't actually anything new to her at all. She'd kicked open doors, kicked Bunnits in the head, kicked assassins in the gut, and even kicked training drones that then proceeded to fall down - which now made complete sense, as it was usually the frustrated aftermath of Spear Break training.

I was inspired by the stars to focus a previously-unrealised habit of mine into a new art: a variant of the traditional Down Kick that eschews team synergy for individual reliability. It shall be named appropriately.

But first, a question. "Reyn, I must ask you something."

"Oh? What?"

She hesitated for a moment, not entirely comfortable with the question, but too curious to pass on it. "What...what exactly does it mean to be, or have, a "tight arse"?"

There was an awkward silence as Reyn tried to figure out how he was supposed to answer that kind of question to a prim-and-proper person.

Melia tried to defuse things a bit. "It's...it's a phrase I have heard directed at me in the past, but I have never had its meaning explained. I...presume it is intended to be offensive in some way, given the...er, vulgar form of "buttocks" used."

Reyn continued to fidget like mad. "Uh, erm...well...it's like...well, okay I guess there's two things it could mean? So okay the first one is when, um, you've got someone who's...who's real...stingy. Yeah, stingy. Like, they've got scads of cash, but still only buy the cheapest stuff. Or they do everything the old way and never try the new stuff, like, they think tradition's better just because it's tradition and won't hear anything about it. So...so that's one. The second is more like...like...urhm, so...so there's a girl. A real looker. Specifically in...in th...the...the bum area. Yeah I'm done, I'm no good with this. Sorry."

"That is all right, I've heard enough to understand." Both of those meanings make sense in the context of disgruntled citizens attempting to insult me.

"FRIENDS!" Riki had finally appeared from below the cliff, flapping his wings like mad. "F-Friends! Heropon is back from surprise fall!"

"Oh there you are, you airbag." Reyn got to his feet; he couldn't stop himself from being upset at Riki, as it was his disappearance that started the whole problem. "For how much you stuff down that gullet you're still quite the lightweight."

"Riki no expect surprise attack! Riki sorry sorry!" He plopped himself down on the ground, worn out from the long flight back up from the Freight Road. "Riki let friends down during big fight. Riki wallow in sad."

Reyn grunted and started heading back towards the Illustrious Alighting. Melia watched him leave before kneeling down beside Riki.

"Come now Riki, how is wallowing going to accomplish anything?"

"Riki being punished for letting friends down. Next time, Riki use memory of wallowing for extra motivation, so it no happen again."

Melia couldn't help herself from shaking her head as she picked up the Nopon. "Nonsense. What happened happened, and couldn't have happened any other way. Being depressed about it does no one any good. Besides, while it was indeed a hardship, an unexpected benefit came out of your absence: I have discovered a new method of dispatching Mechon."

"Melly has a new art?" Riki's mood instantly reversed. "Melly has new special move for big bad Mechons? Tell Riki, tell tell tell!"

"It is called...Starlight Kick." Saying it out loud for the first time seemed to cement it further into her mind. "I can use it immediately after Spear Break to topple foes without need for a traditional break."

"Ooohhh. Melly has different art, close-range smackpow art. Big surprise to baddies, but no work with ether gems. Melly clever, but big risk involved."

"That is a fair assessment. It would be suboptimal at best for me to shoehorn such a combination into my battle strategy, but if the opportunity ever presents itself, or the situation is dire, it will be an invaluable tool."

"Hooray for new art!" Riki threw all four of his hands into the air. "Now friends return to Colony 6. Other friends be waiting!"

"Of course, Riki." Melia walked alongside him back to her ship. She couldn't wait to see the look on Shulk's face after revealing her new secret weapon.