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Originally, I wasn't particularly interested in writing AUs. Short what-ifs perhaps, but not long-form stories. I was mostly in the fanfiction game for missing scenes and canon-adjacent takes, for filling in gaps of worldbuilding and character motivations.

Then, in November 2016, I got an anon ask on my tumblr curious about me writing "mutual shulk x melia". I basically said that it wasn't planned, but was not opposed to the idea. Then, about two weeks later, I got an idea. And about six months after that, the first chapter of Alternate Goddess was released.

The concept of AG actually combines two independent fic ideas. The first was simply "mutual Shulk/Melia", as above. The second was more involved: find a way to kill off one of the main seven party members early, in a way that results in an interesting story, yet still winds up with much the same world-saving ending. In initially workshopping this second idea, I concluded that:

• Shulk has to stay. Things change too much without him.
• Reyn can't die early, or Shulk loses his himbo support, and he needs that. He can't die later either, because then it's Sharla being lost, and I don't think I could make that interesting.
• Dunban isn't particularly interesting to kill off. The party arguably needs him to kick their butts into gear in Alcamoth, and after that all he really does is fight Mumkhar.
• Sharla is kind of needed for Gadolt to stop being stupid, and after that she stops being relevant. Killing her doesn't help.
• Riki is too much of a side character for his death to change the plot at all.
• Melia is necessary to get through the Prison Island segment. It might be interesting to look into what Kallian and the High Entia choose to do after that if she's gone, but I'm of the opinion the plot still needs her to get through the heart, and there's nothing too interesting after that.
• This leaves Fiora.

Looking at it carefully, I reasoned that Fiora herself...just isn't needed after Galahad Fortress. Meyneth needs someone, and Shulk maybe needs someone, but that someone doesn't have to be Fiora specifically. And if that someone is Melia, that would enable telling a Shulk/Melia story.

So here we are.

Read elsewhere

• FanFiction.net
• Archive of Our Own

Read here

Alternate Aigís

Once it was determined that XC1 and XC2 are connected, the question arose in my mind: If a XC1 world is an AU, does that mean its paired XC2 world also is? There are naturally three answers to this.

1. Not necessarily; there may be, or there may not.
2. Yes, but there need not be any relation between the nature of the AUs.
3. Yes, and both AUs must be the same premise.

Option 3 amuses me the most, so I decided that's what's up here. I'm not interested in writing this fic, so I'll lay out the general framework.

"Alternate Aigís" is the XC2 world paired with the AU of Alternate Goddess. The spelling of "Aigís" is deliberate, to show an alternate meaning of the world is being used - specifically, "violent storm".

The base premise is that in the first part of the game, Rex meets Nia before he gets summoned by Bana. This causes their relationship to develop earlier and differently. Nothing significant changes about the plot of the game itself, aside from Rex feeling more evenly connected between her and Pyra/Mythra.

As a result, Rex is much less distraught at the end of the game when Pneuma goes away. Perhaps because of this, Pyra and Mythra do not reappear at the very end, or maybe they do but a couple months/years down the line.

So in the end, it's a Rex/Nia solo ship. It sounds dumb now that we have XC3, but thems the breaks.

(This may get updated if future events of AG require changes.)

Notes & Trivia

• In general, while this is an AU, some of the "missing scene"s that would take place within the in-game timeline would be 90% the same in the "real" canon. Similarly, any established lore is going to be the same as well, unless it's dependent on the one change and its fallout.
• Similarly, I skipped some scenes that were shown in Artistic Focus, if they played out the same or almost so.

Ch.02

• Shulk and Melia don't get attacked by Mechon like Shulk and Fiora do in the prime timeline, because those Mechon were specifically on the hunt for Fiora. Here, Egil is certain she's dead and cares not for recovering her.

Ch.05

• "The true enemy of [our world] is disorder." is a Symmetra (Overwatch) quote.
• The classic wisdom is that Vanea's weapon of choice would be a whip, because that's what she holds in concept art. I specifically chose to go in a different direction.
• Silver Face, Gold Face, and Black Face are all the original Japanese names for Face Nemesis, Yaldabaoth, and Metal Face. Bronze Face is less "real" in that it only comes from the SSB4 trophy, but it matches the pattern better than the raw Japanese "Brown Face".

Ch.06

• Qonaker the Machina engineer is a reference to Dell Conagher the TF2 Engineer. (Just in name though.)
• The game presents the timeline as if the party is advancing towards the plot arrow without rest. To break this up for sidequests and such, I have to skew the timeline of the allied force, so they don't actually go to attack Sword Valley until much later. This has no major repercussions so it's fine.

Ch.07

• Shulk tosses Melia an apple. It's a common myth that in ancient Greece, men would throw an apple at a woman as a marriage proposal, and catching it was acceptance. Appropriately, Melia was not ready and flubs it.

Ch.08

• I'm 50/50 on whether Budabi actually gives Riki a discount. It'd be funnier if he didn't.
• The original writers for the truths and dares are:
  • Shulk:
    "When did you forget something important?"
    "Ask the person across the table from you out on a date."
  • Reyn:
    "Who in this group would you hate to fight the most?"
    "Take off your shirt."
  • Dunban:
    "Reveal a childhood bad habit."
    "Do a headstand."
  • Sharla:
    "What did you fake being sick for?"
    "Sing the alphabet song very loudly."
  • Riki:
    "What's your favourite place on the Bionis?"
    "Peel a Cool Lemon and eat it whole."
  • Melia:
    "Tell of a time you were very afraid."
    "Hug Riki and tell him "You're the best Heropon that ever ponned!"."
• Alvis is a bro

Ch.09

• It was pretty fun to come up with the subtle ways that high tech could be used to augment a restaurant experience.
• Ko-Ko Kola is Coca-Cola, and Pep! is Pepsi. Somewhat obviously.
• It was not originally planned for this chapter to be as long as it is, but I felt like I had to keep adding dialogue until it was long enough to have a dinner around it.
• Whether Meyneth is capable of visions like Zanza is an interesting topic of debate. I choose to believe "yes, but she chooses not to, because she doesn't like the idea of a fixed future".

Ch.10

• If it weren't obvious, the year "6 B.Z." stands for "six years before Zanza". It would make sense for the Machina calendar to use that as an epoch.

Ch.11

• Gadolt's Cannon is an unused weapon in the game that, based on its design and stats, would have been received from Jade Face after either Gadolt's defeat or his death.

Ch.12

• Much like the A-Team, Dickson "love[s] it when a plan comes together".
• The Avengers quotes between Zanza and Melia were the first part of this chapter that was written.
• The premise of the Meyneth Monado's darkness attack comes from the Entangler of Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, while its fire attack is Fire Strike from Overwatch.
• The last bit of Egil-Vanea dialogue is copied from some Dunban-Fiora dialogue. The parallel amuses me.

Ch.13

• Dunban is not aware that he's repeating things he said from the beginning of the game.
• Originally, the joint was called "Micondo's". But I later decided that the pun of "McPonald's" was too good to pass up. Making the reference more obvious is a bonus.
• Alcamoth is described as having been "transformed from a fortress of sanctuary into a veritable Telethia hive", like the duality of the Sanctuary Fortress and Ing Hive in Metroid Prime 2 Echoes.

Ch.14

• Shulk gets woken up the same way Neo does at the end of The Matrix.

Ch.15

• Doctor Zest is equal to Dr. Pepper.
• Angry Melia claims that everything special about Shulk came out of the Monado, much like something Iron Man said to Captain America in The Avengers.
• In hindsight, it's not all that logical for an Armu (cow equivalent) to replace the Lion of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". But a Feris (closest lion equivalent) feels even wronger.

Ch.16

• The natural superiority of the square-head screw matches the real-life Robertson.

Ch.17

• Sure the door into the Bionis' heart is just a door in-game. But logically, and with the realism multiplier necessary for most in-game distances, it'd be more like a tunnel.
• The Terzo and Sesto Novae are based on the two unused enemies of this fight.
• Strictly speaking, it's the Telethia with natural physical defence, and killing the novae reduces it. But in-universe, the opposite makes more sense. (And that's what literally every walkthrough will tell you anyway.)
• Alvis is aware of what the correct timeline should be. He also doesn't really care, as long as the current one can still result in success.

Ch.18

• The premise of having to fight the superbosses to get to Zanza, in order to confirm that only those who will win can try, is mostly just to force them to be involved in the plot and give the party a reason to do high-level sidequests before the end of the game. But there's a higher-level narrative purpose that perhaps a future fic will investigate.
• Pastri-Pops are just Pop-Tarts. Shulk eats them cold.
• The spinning cube is a Pocket Cube (2x2x2 Rubik's Cube) (hence the person who inspired it being named Enro). Shulk is trying to make the 3x3x3 version. He hasn't hit upon the idea of making it a colour-matching puzzle yet, so it's just a spinny toy.

Ch.19

• Finding a narrative reason for the battlefield to reset in the middle of a multi-phase fight is one of the fun parts of writing fanfic for an RPG.
• Knowing that Shulk loves to jump for decisive blows is one of those things you can't stop seeing once you figure it out.

Ch.20

• If you look at the timeline, you can see that this chapter came out about a year before XC3. I'm not sure whether to be "swag" or "cringe" about absolutely nailing exactly what Z did to Noah, with what Zanza offered to Shulk here.
• The idea of being able to watch the math behind reality scroll by was partly inspired by Sephiroth's Supernova.
• It kind of looks like the fic's supposed to end here, doesn't it? But no, that was never the plan.

Ch.21

• In my "main" canon, Alvis has a house appear for Shulk in the new world. That doesn't happen here.
• Earl Brown tea is the equivament of Earl Grey, while Yorukushi is based on Yorkshire.

Ch.22

• This chapter is the mirror of Nested Silver Lining. It's because of Shulk taking the design lead, rather than Riki, that it's a two-floor house to begin with in this timeline.
• Riki's long think over Shulk's initial idea was him wondering if Shulk was already planning to move in with Melia. His decision was that it didn't matter, because that would be happening soon enough anyway. He can just tell.
• There is no real-world equivalent to Reyn Sauce. How could there be?

Ch.23

• The Ponspectors in-game are all named after whole numbers. I decided to call this the Abacus unit. Featuring in this chapter are the Print-Press unit (named after letters) and Pie-Slice unit (named after fractions).
• Lifestream (by Hiro Saka the 7th) is Final Fantasy VII.

Ch.25

• This chapter is the mirror of Rhapsodist's Shining Star.

Ch.26

• Lewie's being staffed by Ori is a Pikmin reference.

Ch.27

• The premise here is that if Gael'gar had not been found by Melia, he would've been aboard the ship as it left, which is how he would've gotten to the Shoulder.
• The change that XC1DE made to Alvis' necklace always bothered me. This is how I chose to explain it.

Ch.28

• Yes, Shulk is a Star Wars nerd. Why are you surprised?
• Yes, Melia's mother was a spaghetti western nerd. Only if you haven't read Shoft-Lived Diamond are you surprised.