Chapter 2: Spill

Shulk groaned and rolled over, now lying on his back on the beach. His head and front side were pretty sore; he vaguely remembered his chest hitting the water first, but not anything after that.

Actually, he couldn't remember much at all of what had just happened. Sure, he could clearly recall one word of Fiora's voice bursting free of the Face Mechon before everything went wrong, and the terrible state she was in during the fall, but to be honest he couldn't figure out how much of it was memory and how much was delusion. He had some sort of dream after he hit the water too, but trying to think about it just jumbled up the other recent memories.

With much effort, he sat up. The wreck of the silver-faced Mechon was spread out in front of him, scattered across the beach like someone tripped down the stairs carrying a huge stack of extremely fragile plates. The largest chunk was partially in the water. He could also see Melia, lying faceup in the surf to the left. She wasn't moving, but she was breathing and appeared uninjured, so Shulk decided she was a lesser priority for now. He stumbled towards the central chunk, hoping to see that Fiora was still inside.

She was indeed. But his mental image of a giant shard of metal in her head was clearly a memory and not an illusion.

Shulk collapsed back down into the surf and cried. It was too much, to have Fiora ripped away just as she was about to come all the way back. And this time it wasn't even intentional - the kill was aimed at whoever had taken over her body, and she was simply collateral damage. It almost felt like all his effort in the past few weeks was for nothing.

After about ten minutes, Shulk stood back up, his emotions spent. Well, there's one tiny bit of good to come from this - we can finally put her to rest properly.

He started extracting as much of Fiora's body from the control cabin as he could. It was difficult to tell the difference between the Mechon and its pilot at times, with both of them reduced to twisted scrap. But after a bit of effort, he had the head, the torso, and at least half of every limb. From there, he fastened the bits together as best he could, before carrying the body out into the water as deep as possible and letting go.

It felt surprisingly easy. He expected to be a mental wreck the whole time, stuck in nostalgia and constantly crying from the irony of it all. But he realised that he'd rationalised the situation pretty quickly. Fiora died back in Colony 9, and her body was occupied by someone else and turned into a pilot for a Face Mechon. She was never alive when they met her on Prison Island, or Valak Mountain, or any time after that - it was just the person who had stolen her body. And now that her body was just as dead as her soul, Shulk found he was oddly at peace with the situation. He didn't get her back, but he did finally give her a more respectful send-off than having her corpse be annexed by the enemy. And while it didn't happen in the most satisfying way, he'd had his revenge on Metal Face for it. Now all that mattered was stopping Egil.

...hang on, am I forgetting something? Shulk looked around confused for a moment before he saw Melia sprawled out on the beach.

Oh, right.

He reluctantly stood up from his introspection and walked over to her. It was just like back in Makna Forest; she was peacefully breathing slowly and unmoving with no visible injuries. The major difference was the triangular plate on her chest, sitting in exactly the same position as it had on Fiora's body. However, it seemed to have a new feature: a small silver wire running out of the top into a thin golden choker around Melia's neck. It didn't look like it would impede motion, but having any sort of tight and unbroken metal ring around one's throat set off alarm bells in Shulk's head. He didn't want to mess with the assembly right now, but he wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. Just seeing that it had moved from one person to another made him irrationally angry; he had to take a few moments to compose himself.

Very slowly to avoid any sudden neck movements, Shulk took Melia out of the water and propped her up against a chunk of metal that had landed upright in the sand.

I'm pretty sure it's not ether deficiency this time, just knocked out. I should be able to wake her up myself. But...how? Well, it's impossible to sleep and eat at the same time. Maybe I can trigger her by feeding her something. Or maybe just some water, yeah that's as good a place as any to start.

Shulk filled a flask lid with clean water and attempted to tip it into Melia's closed mouth. There was no response to the foreign object on her lips.

If I can get her mouth open just a bit...I'm not sticking a finger in there, that's gross. Do I have a straw in my pockets somewhere? Uh...no, apparently not. I think the general idea's still good though. Get the mouth open and stick the water in, that'll force a reaction out of something. To get it open I'll need something that causes a natural reaction, an unconscious response...

A very strange idea popped into Shulk's head.

...kiss her? And use that mouth opening as the chance to deliver the water? What? Where'd that idea...well okay, it's a common thing in fairy tales to wake sleeping princesses. But...there's no way she'll be happy about that, she slapped me for touching her hand without permission. And honestly I'm not really a fan of the idea either. Does she even know how to kiss?

...well, I guess if I can't think of anything else, that'll be the fallback plan. So what else could there be...

Melia could tell she was once again standing in an unconscious dream sequence. The ground was a featureless metallic plane of infinite size, the sky above pitch black with a massive red sun. She felt pretty much fine, except for a stinging pain in the back of her neck.

"I'm sorry."

The voice had no discernible source, but it was immediately recognisable: the voice of Face Nemesis, the one Shulk and the others claimed did not belong to the body of its pilot.

Melia planned to ask who the voice was, but a different question sprung forth almost by accident. "Why are you sorry?"

"For what I had done to the Homs that your friends so desperately sought out, and for what I have done to you." The voice did indeed seem to speak the truth.

"To me?" Melia's hand immediately flew to the back of her neck where the constant pain was coming from, as if an intangible needle had been stuck inside. "What-"

"I cannot answer your questions now. I am weak, and I was not meant to inhabit the body of one from the Bionis. I must sink into your subconscious and rest, while I await the opportunity to aid your quest to stop Egil. But I do have a message from the Homs who gave her life to save yours."

Melia could feel the dream landscape growing colder as the red sun dimmed, countering the anger and indignation rising within her at realising that a stranger had muscled their way into her mind and was planning on staying a while. "Fine. What is it?"

"You're in good hands, Shulk-"

It didn't seem like the message was complete, but the world abruptly cut out.

Melia awoke to the sensation of someone pressing their lips against hers. A deluge of jumbled thoughts rushed through her adrenalised mind as her eyes shot open and clumsily began to focus.

Someone is kissing me?! Who in their right mind would have the audacity-OH MY WORD IT'S SHULK WHAT IS HE DOING WHAT HAS HAPPENED HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN OUT AM I STILL-

Her mouth was suddenly flooded with water, presumably mixed with saliva and whatever else had been in Shulk's mouth recently. Without even a microsecond of considering the options or circumstances, she spat out every last drop back into Shulk's face, with the splashback drenching her own face.

The two recoiled away from each other and spent a moment using their sleeves to dry themselves off.

Shulk was the first to speak. "I'm sorry Melia, but you weren't drinking anything on your own, and I couldn't figure out a better way to get it into you."

"...er, yes, I can accept that." Melia was a bit distracted. Aside from the cavalcade of mixed emotions that resulted from being kissed on the lips for the first time in her life, she was trying to ignore the frightening sensation of the metal plate on her chest, perfectly smooth yet definitively attached with no tangible affixation method, alongside the metal collar with a spike in the back that she could feel had drilled all the way through to her spinal cord.

"So you're okay?"

"On the whole, yes. Aside from this...thing."

"Yeah." Shulk circled around behind her to see nothing unusual about the back of the collar, though he guessed it was "plugged in" there. "How bad is it? You want to try getting it off?"

Melia ran a finger around the collar to discover that it was seamless. "I...do not believe that would be wise. There is..." She paused to consider how much should be said at the moment, before deciding that it would do no good to hide anything. "There is a consciousness within it, the same consciousness that controlled Face Nemesis. She spoke to me before I awoke. She claims to be of aid towards defeating Egil."

"That doesn't sound likely." Shulk sourly looked back towards the silver wreckage. "If it's the same person, I don't trust her at all. She took a corpse and brought it back to life just so she could live in it, not the original person. That's disgusting." He looked back with a much sterner face than he usually wore. "I want to get rid of her, and stop her from taking you over too. If we cut the wire, that should break the connection between you and the chestplate. We can figure out the rest later."

"No, Shulk. I do not share your point of view. This person is weak and hosts legitimate remorse for what she has done, seeing it as a necessary evil for a greater purpose." Melia was surprised at how forceful her argument was. She wondered if the other mind inside her was subconsciously guiding her opinion - maybe Shulk had a point.

Shulk's expression softened up a bit. "You're a better judge of people than I am. And it is on you, not me." He thought for a moment and eventually nodded. "Okay, if that's what you want."

"Thank you." Melia looked around. "Now I think it's time we searched for the others. Do you have any idea where they might be?"

"Not really. Maybe further inland. Do you think you could call your ship? That might help speed up the search."

"That seems too risky. We know nothing of the Fallen Arm; there may very well be a Mechon base in the centre prepared with anti-air defences. Only once we have sufficient evidence that there is no such thing would I consider summoning my craft."

"Then we're on foot then." Shulk grabbed the inert Monado and gave it a look-over. "Egil really messed me up though. If we get into a fight, it might be just you. Are you sure you're okay? I mean, with that thing and all?"

"We shall have to see if my performance in battle is affected, but so far there is no such evidence."

"Well, let's go then." Shulk took one last look back at the wreckage and slowly started walking away from the coastline.

Melia also gazed over the destroyed Face Mechon. It didn't seem like there was anything worth salvaging from it; all of the ether cylinders had been depleted or shattered, and nothing else looked to be both useful and easily carried. She moved to walk alongside Shulk.

The walk was mostly uneventful. It wasn't difficult to avoid the native Flamii and Antols, and the terrain was surprisingly natural for being on a piece of the Mechonis. Even as they headed further inland, between the massive metallic arches and cliffs, it didn't truly feel like they were aboard the opposite titan - the sand and plants simply made it feel like a forgotten beach.

After a bit, hunger set in. But conveniently enough, there was a fairly decent amount of fruit available on the trees. Melia was the first to reach for one, a small white plum.

Shulk eyed the fruit with hesitation. "Are you sure it's safe to eat the stuff growing around here, Melia?"

"We cannot say for sure until we have tested it." Melia peeled off a small bit of the plum, reluctantly removed one of her gloves, and rubbed the white pulp against the back of her hand. "I recall Dunban mentioning this concept of testing a mystery fruit's properties against outer skin before attempting to eat it."

"Oh yeah, I kinda remember something like that too." Shulk followed suit, doing his own rub test with another plum.

Melia looked at him quizzically. "You did not need to duplicate my efforts."

"We're not exactly the same species though, maybe it's fine for you but bad for me."

"...true." Melia sometimes forgot that she was the most different of the party, aside from Riki. "Though I personally have not heard of a plant that is safe for a High Entia to eat yet outright dangerous for a Homs, and it would be strange indeed to find something of that specific property in this foreign land."

Shulk shrugged. "Well, you never know."

After a few minutes with no negative effects, the two agreed the plum was safe to taste, carefully taking a tiny bite.

Melia instantly felt the delicious sourness flood forth, and had to resist immediately taking a second bite. "This pleases me."

"That's good." Shulk didn't appear to have an opinion; his face was overwhelmingly neutral. "So if we don't throw up in the next five minutes, we're good to eat the rest?"

"I would say so." Melia collected a few more of the White Plums, confident in their safety and excited to have more later.

Once fed, the two continued to travel inland, carefully moving through above-ground tunnels and metallic ruins. It was starting to look a bit eerier now, and encounters with the local creatures were getting harder to dodge. It didn't help that the sun was setting, and would probably render the whole indoor area pitch black.

Having reached a reasonable clearing against a large wall, Shulk stopped and looked around. "I think that's enough searching for today. We should get some rest."

Melia didn't feel tired until the word "rest" was uttered. "I concur." She reached back into the travel pouch hidden behind her collar and effortlessly extracted the sleeping bag contained within.

Shulk chuckled and shook his head at the absurdity of the scene. "High Entia technology is amazing. Is it just technique, or is there science to it as well? I mean, to make a full-size sleeping bag that you can roll up so small?"

"All of our fabrics are composed of advanced meta-materials, designed for comfort, protection, and function. The technique is important, but the science is more so."

"Man, I feel like we missed our chance when you offered to get some for us. It would've been so much warmer in Ose Tower that one night." He shook his head again. "But no, we made the right decision, let you have your toothbrush and other stuff from home so you don't feel as anxious."

Melia was surprised at Shulk's perceptiveness of what she had packed in the tiny pouch. "I am indeed grateful for that."

There wasn't much else to say as the two got ready for sleep. Shulk sat himself against the wall, while Melia settled herself down about three arm's lengths from him. She fell asleep almost instantly.

Melia woke up. It wasn't clear why; the overcast sky was still dark, a quick look around suggested no danger was present, and she didn't recall having a dream. A more careful look, however, revealed that Shulk was still awake, sitting up against the wall desperately trying to get the Monado working. He clearly thought he was succeeding at being quiet about it, but there were just enough exertion sounds to wake up his light-sleeping friend.

He saw her head turning. "Oh, sorry, I woke you up didn't I." He dejectedly tossed the Monado down onto the ground.

He's in a poor mental state. He needs emotional support. "A night's sleep is far less important than fixing our most critical weapon."

"Yeah, maybe." Shulk continued to stare straight ahead. "You guys did fine without me against Egil; your only problem was having...having the other Face to fight at the same time. Without the Monado I'm useless."

"Far from it. You seemed to remain able to receive visions."

"As if that did any good. We still lost, didn't we?"

We destroyed the fortress, yet he still considers the battle a loss. Probably due to Egil's escape and the destruction of Face Nemesis, and the loss of the person within who was the catalyst of his entire adventure. Melia decided she'd have to try something different.

"Shulk, tell me about Fiora."

Shulk was greatly surprised; his entire physical mood changed from sullen fuming to reclused fear. "Ab-about Fiora? Why?"

"Why would I not wish to know about the person your entire quest thus far has been about?"

"...uhm...well...er..." He looked all around almost twitchily for a few moments. "...well, I mean, I don't see how it matters now, but if you really want to know..." He continued to struggle for an answer for almost three minutes. "...Okay."

Melia pulled herself out of her sleeping bag to sit up against the wall beside Shulk as he began.

"I don't totally remember what you already know, so I'll just start from the beginning. Fiora was my best friend for almost as long as I can remember. I met her on the first day of school in Colony 9, a couple weeks after Dickson brought me there. She was the only one who stuck up to the other boys bullying me for being new and timid. As it turned out, she was bullied herself by the girls at the start of the year because she was too boy-like. But for the same reasons, the boys respected her a lot more, and she got them off me. It helped that even back then she had a mean punch, broke some kid's nose a week later because he kept pushing me around. I think that's when Reyn decided to be a friend too, he realised I was good at numbers and he wasn't, and probably wanted an excuse to hang around Fiora too. So we basically grew up together. Basically everyone in the colony knew we were a trio."

"I don't know why she stuck around me for more than a few days, to be honest. She was always complaining that I didn't understand her, that I was too clueless to see "obvious" things, that I had no social skills, that I was lazy and had boring hobbies, that I had no sense of taste. I mean, I would try to be better, but it felt like she was always one step beyond. Now that I think about it, it feels like her entire goal in life was to get me to stop being so introverted. Like some sort of mother/big sister combination, which felt out of place because she was three months younger than me. I mean, she'd go out of her way to help everyone everywhere, so I guess it wasn't that weird, but for her to keep hanging around me felt like...like she thought I needed more help than everyone else."

"She had a weird sort of duality about her. She'd always be the first to come up with the peaceful solution that compromises with everyone, but at the same time wasn't afraid to smack people around if they acted like jerks. It's kind of funny really, everyone expects Reyn to throw the first punch just because he's big and tough, but when dealing with people he actually doesn't like to mix it up because he's afraid of causing serious injury and getting in real big trouble. Fiora would whack you, call you some nasty names, and then either expect an apology or deliver her own depending on whether she feels she went overboard."

"She was an incredible cook. People from all over say they still miss the smell of her in the kitchen. We don't have any idea where she got it from, because Dunban never really knew a thing about cooking and their parents died before they could teach her, so I guess she taught herself. Oh that's something I didn't mention. Fiora's parents died when she was three. Her mother was killed in a Mechon attack, and her father went missing, they think he was killed too but never found him to be sure. So she's had Dunban as both brother and parent for basically all she remembers. So of course when Dunban joined the Defence Force, Fiora's on her own a lot, so...so then she gravitates back to me and Reyn I guess, her best friends."

"And then...then we have a few weeks ago. The Mechon attacked Colony 9 again, a year after we thought they were gone for good. We'd gotten separated, and were having trouble with Metal Face because the Monado didn't work on him. Fiora came upon one of the artillery units and started mowing down the smaller Mechon, I heard someone say she busted three or four dozen of them before she reached us, even though she'd never touched anything like that machine before. She got to us and unloaded everything it had into Metal Face, got a real good point-blank shot off into his ugly mug, but still no dice. And he...and he just..."

Shulk stopped for a moment. It was difficult to tell if he was crying again in the darkness. But after a moment, he continued without help.

"He stabbed her in the gut, then threw her into a crowd of Mechon behind him. And he just kept coming at us. And then he just left, basically undamaged, with a bunch of Homs to turn into more Faces with him, including her. And it wasn't even her that piloted that Face, it was whoever moved into her corpse." He paused again. "Her sacrifice didn't do anything, if you can even call it that."

Up until now, Melia simply listened. An image of Fiora had been forming in her mind - a young girl tagging behind Shulk and Reyn, assisting them with the battle against monsters they got themselves into, and afterwards feeding them restorative soup and tasty cookies. It was surprisingly vivid for a few minutes' description and one or two glimpses of a face; it seemed like her mind was generating a lot of artistic license to go with it, such as giving Fiora much longer hair than she'd seen in reality. But with Shulk's latest comment, she had to put her mental image on hold.

"Nonsense. If Fiora were still alongside you after the attack on your colony, would you have embarked on your journey across the Bionis? Would you have met Sharla and the others of Colony 6 to aid in their own struggle? Would you have rescued me from the forest and the tomb? Would we have survived this last battle against Egil?"

Shulk thought for a moment with a frown on his face. "...no, I guess not. There wouldn't be any reason for me to leave the colony, because the only reason I did was for revenge. A bit of a stupid reason really, but...yeah, I guess it wasn't a waste. It didn't do anything at the time, but it got all of this started, and we'd be in much worse shape if Colony 6 had to save themselves. Yeah." He sat up a bit straighter, a little more confident. "Fiora didn't die for nothing. She died to inspire me to get out there and...well, save the world. Just like she'd been doing the whole time, kind of."

With that, Shulk reached out to pick up the Monado once more with renewed determination on his face. After about thirty seconds of uninterrupted concentration, he finally managed to activate it, casting a blue light across the ground. Visibly straining to keep it alive, he hopped to his feet and swing it around a few times, testing its feel. After a bit, he turned it off and on again a few times to ensure its functionality, now with a tight-lipped frown on his face.

"It's not perfect." He carefully sat back down. "It worked, but...I feel worse than before. I've never had to put this much effort into it before...Kind of like lifting weights, but then suddenly they're twice as big."

Melia had a thought quickly come to mind. "I recall Egil saying something about releasing opposing waves. If he is having the Mechonis emit a cancellation field tuned to the Monado's frequencies, then-"

"-then I'll just have to up the power of my own waves to beat it out. Of course, basic wave theory." Shulk looked up towards the Mechonis. "The cancelling effect probably gets stronger as we move closer. Looks like I might need to do some actual training instead of just relying on natural ability." He chuckled for a bit. "Well, that's one good thing about being down here I guess. It's a longer walk up the whole Mechonis, giving me more time to learn to deal with these waves of his, compared to just starting from the height of Sword Valley."

"So...you will be all right?"

"We should probably fight a few things tomorrow morning to be sure, but it looks like I'm good now." He gave her the closest thing to eye contact as he had all night, looking just past the side of her face. "Thanks, Melia. I feel a lot better from talking to you."

Melia could sense that Shulk wasn't quite over the mountain, but he'd gotten past the hardest part and dwelling on it now wouldn't help anything. "That is good. We need you to be at your best in order to succeed."

"Yeah."

The two settled back down to go to sleep. It looked for a moment that a star was visible through a break in the clouds, but it was gone so fast it didn't seem likely.

Just as Melia thought sleep might be imminent, Shulk broke the silence again.

"Y'know, Melia, you kind of remind me of her."

Her attempt to doze off still pressing on her mind, Melia didn't quite grasp the context. "Of whom?"

"Of Fiora." Shulk was gazing off into the distance again. "The weird duality, being-two-people-at-once thing. You're all polite, reserved, formal, and all that stuff most of the time because that's what people expect. But then something happens and you're in there, with fierceness and emotion and...uh, and regret for violence afterward even if it was necessary." His face started pondering a little harder as his speech turned more quiet and inward, now speaking more to himself than anyone. "Maybe...maybe that's why it was easier to let go of her today than I expected."

Melia expected Shulk to continue elaborating, but he didn't, instead returning to trying to go to sleep. She wasn't sure what to make of the comparison. Most likely, he was seeing a connection that wasn't truly there as a means of lessening the pain somewhat, projecting some of Fiora's characteristics onto her for preservation.

The train of thought continued to move. When first told of Fiora, Melia assumed she was just another childhood friend of Shulk's. But as Shulk's actions in attempting to avenge and then rescue her continued to become more impulsive and less rational, it became hard to believe that it was nothing more than simple friendship. In fact, thinking about it now, it seemed obvious that love was the culprit - the kind of love that Shulk himself thought was just friendship until it was taken away.

With that realisation, a pit formed in Melia's stomach. Shulk was taken. He was driven to continue his adventure across the world out of nothing but love for someone else. True, Fiora was now dead for sure, but there was no way he'd be completely over her before bringing down Egil. And upon the journey's conclusion, there would no longer be any reason for Melia to hang around Shulk as opposed to returning to Alcamoth and beginning her duties as empress, secluded alone for a least a year decoding the ancient texts with little reasonable avenue for anything more than occasional visits from the others. In all likelihood, she wouldn't see him again until after he'd found another girl - of which there were sure to be many, flocking to the hero of the Homs.

Melia had no concept of what exactly her relationship with Shulk was. She had no real prior experience with friendship or romance, so she couldn't tell where one stopped and the other started. But whatever it was, it didn't feel symmetrical - she could sense that Shulk saw her as equal a friend as the rest of the group, yet she had to constantly fight against him drawing all her attention. And only now did she realise there was little if any hope of him feeling the same way about her.

Of course, not getting what she wanted wasn't exactly a new experience to her. For as long as she could remember, she had suffered through innumerable undesirable experiences that would never have happened if she had a measure of choice. It started off childish and trivial enough, with untasty food, no control over her wardrobe, and all the royal rules smothering most attempts at fun. But even before becoming old enough to overcome such things, the bigger and more life-changing events remained far out of her grasp - being forced outside the palace to see life as a citizen, being ordered to go after the Telethia, being named her father's successor. She was long used to the idea that all decisions in her life were made by other people, and this was just another entry in the list: the first person she could ever say she'd had a natural attraction to was unavailable.

It wasn't a very pleasing thought process. Melia fell asleep very slowly with a sourness in her mind.