Chapter 1: Recursion

A little bell rung as Melia stepped into the odds-and-ends shop. The place was crammed with the smell of dust and mounds of stacked boxes, many of them battered and bent. It wasn't really a place she belonged, but that was kind of the idea - to buy herself something strange and unusual for her otherwise-uncelebrated 83rd birthday.

The shopkeeper, a large middle-aged man, half-heartedly waved at her from behind the counter. She responded in kind, glad to not be bothered, and started searching.

Most of the secondhand stuff was unremarkable - scissors with loose joints, birdiebanks with minor cracks, electronics with stuck buttons, all sorts of things that the seller didn't care to fix but a buyer could appreciate paying less for. It was a weird collection for her to take in, given that as royalty she would rarely see items of any less than top quality.

After several minutes of looking around, Melia found something that caught her eye as weirdly unique. Stacked under various larger boxes of video game consoles was a white box displaying the grey text "Wii". This was extremely surprising because it was written in Common - to her knowledge, all of the major electronics companies exclusively used Erythscript in marketing.

She carefully extracted the box from the stack and opened it up. Loosely scattered around the inside were various pieces of the console: a large box with a disc slot, three differently-shaped white controllers, and power and image cords. It was evident from the emptiness that some major pieces were missing.

"Oh that thing." The shopkeeper cleared his throat. "I keep forgetting we have it, it's been here for so long."

"What do you know about it?" Melia replied.

"Just that it's weird in every way. Not made by any company I've ever heard of. Weird letters on the buttons. The eject doesn't work so the only disc you can use is the one stuck inside. Can't even use ether crystals to power the controller, it has a nonstandard hole for it, and ether cylinders are too big to fit. It'd be a real fixer-upper."

Melia checked under the console to find nothing hidden. Whatever problems the system might have, the weirdest thing was that it felt like it was calling to her, like it had something very important locked inside.

Well, she didn't come here to buy something normal. "How much?"

The shopkeeper seemed surprised and shrugged. "How 'bout a hundred? It'd be worth triple in working order but I'd be glad to be rid of it."

"Done." Melia closed the box and handed over the cash, determined to discover the secret of the strange item.

It turned out to be surprisingly easy for Melia to jury-rig the device into operation. The image cord had three coloured ends that didn't match the input ports of the computer monitor in her chambers, but some digging through various part storage rooms turned up a suitable string of converters. And while it had taken a while to find some of correct size and power, she eventually collected two electric gem fragments of close-enough size and shape from the refuse of failed crafting attempts and plugged them into the straight controller. Most people wouldn't have the resources to do both, so it wasn't a surprise that the console had gone unused for so long.

She plugged the console into the wall and turned it on. With the disc slot glowing blue, an image of twelve smaller monitors came up on the screen, the top-left one filled in with an image and the rest a blank white.

I presume the filled-in item represents the loaded disc.

With the straight controller's first blue light on and steady, she tried pressing various buttons to select the first item. None of them appeared to do anything. This was not a huge surprise, given the amount of empty ports on the console strongly suggested many necessary equipment was missing, but it didn't deter her. She next tried plugging the odd half-controller with a single joystick into the first one and fiddling with it, but it also did not respond.

The flat gamepad with two joysticks and many buttons was more successful. Connecting it to the straight controller caused a numbered cursor to appear on the screen, which moved with the left stick. She navigated the pointer to the coloured window and eventually found the correct button to access it.

..."Xenoblade Chronicles". Interesting. The enlarged scene wasn't actually too interesting: a red sword-like object stuck in the ground of a generic-looking landscape. But somehow the name and image struck a chord in her mind. There was something oddly familiar about it all, but she had no idea what it could be.

She pressed the "Start" button and allowed the game to load. All three save files were empty, so she created a new one and began it.

Melia's immediate reaction to the opening cutscene was that this game was Homs-made. The universal usage of Common text and speech, plus the typical plot of Homs with Monado versus Mechon, made it almost impossible that it was a High Entia creation. But she didn't think Homs had invented microchips yet, let alone video games. The only possibility that seemed likely was that it was the work of someone's Homs spouse, but even that wouldn't explain how one person could have sourced the various voices or completed all the modelling themselves - and the number of anyone that had been to Sword Valley was tiny, so to see it relatively accurately portrayed was even more unbelievably improbable.

She fumbled through the initial tutorial. She'd never played a video game before, so most of her time was spent learning how to hold a controller and where buttons were located. At least it appeared impossible to lose at this point, so she could take as much time as necessary.

The plot was basic so far. Midway through the subsequent cutscene, she expected the story to jump ahead to the next Mechon attack, and would bet money that the traitor Mumkhar was not dead and would reappear later. Dunban and Dickson she gave even odds to having further roles; they both seemed candidates to be dead inspirations or living mentors.

Then, one year later, she was introduced to Shulk and Reyn.

Melia stared at the image of Shulk's face. Something was intensely familiar about it, despite never having seen him before. Reyn was giving off a similar but dimmer feeling.

This Shulk is likely the protagonist. Why do I feel so much familiarity with him, as I did with the game in general before beginning to play?

She tried to shake it off and continued. Colony 9 looked quite realistic, despite the console's technical weaknesses, compared to the Colony 7 Melia had once visited on her father's orders to secretly evacuate from Mechon destruction. It was oddly satisfying to wander around a Homs colony in a peacetime state.

The odd familiarity peaked again when Fiora was introduced, and seeing Dunban with an injured arm somehow made him feel the same way, even though he hadn't seemed so earlier. It was like specific characters were walking pieces of déjà vu, and it was getting somewhat annoying at this point.

Then, there was a cutscene where Reyn goofed around with the Monado, and Shulk was about to put it back where it belonged when he started seeing strange, unexplained scenes from elsewhere.

Melia wasn't too invested in the scene to begin with; it looked like some sort of foreshadowing, intentionally going by a bit too fast to take in properly. But then she saw something that instantly demanded all her attention.

She fumbled the buttons to try and find one that would pause the cutscene, missing what came next as she did so, and by the time she found the correct one the only thing visible was a set of bloody claws.

...what in the name of Bionis is going on here.

She thought she had seen herself in the game.

She immediately jammed the console's reset button and reloaded her last save, hovering her thumb over the pause button ready for it to happen again. She didn't miss this time.

It wasn't even an approximation. The hair, the outfit, what little was visible of the staff - everything had been flawlessly recreated. Whoever had made this game had produced a perfect replication of her.

Melia sat staring at the motionless screen for several minutes. What were the odds of someone creating an original character that happened to match her exactly? Far too low to consider. Someone had seen her in public - during one of her excursions pretending to be a normal citizen - and decided to place that likeness into the game they were making. And even that seemed impossibly unlikely - hadn't the game been sitting in the shop since before her adulthood?

Having spent a while recovering from the shock, she unpaused the game only to be forced to pause it again seconds later. The very next cut even more prominently displayed her father's face, almost exactly as he appeared now. It was impossible to compare whether it was a bigger surprise, but it was certainly on the same level; including the likeness of a current or recent emperor in a work of fiction was quite rare in general, as many authors feared claims of libel.

Initially, Melia was only planning to experiment with the console until she discovered why it felt strangely familiar. But now that she had seen both her father and herself in the game, either of which was astronomically unlikely individually, she made a new plan: play the game to the end as quickly and completely as possible, and discover why and how these unbelievable coincidences came to pass.

Melia frowned and jotted a negative sign in her notes. She hadn't expected Reyn to dislike Poisonous Gourds. It was easy to fix of course, she just fed him another Spicy Cabbage instead. Sometimes there was no accounting for taste.

The desk was covered in papers. Some listed the patterns in what each of Shulk's party members liked to receive as gifts, while others recorded the materials various lesser characters were offering for trade, and even more kept track of enemy characteristics such as directional defences. She was confident that the janitors who cleaned her chambers wouldn't read the notes; she just had to be careful if any family members came to the room, as she wasn't about to reveal she'd spent most of her free time playing a video game for the past several days.

The plot was starting to become further unsettling. Metal Face being Mumkhar was a given at this point, though the game wasn't admitting it yet. More disquieting was a recent major story vision from Shulk, in which she saw herself and her father atop Prison Island with an imprisoned Giant, with the vision being followed by a Telethia appearing to inform Alvis of something. Alvis in general was rather disturbing; she recognised his voice quickly when he spoke to a dreaming Shulk much earlier, and seeing a third known person in the game was even more difficult to believe. She even thought she'd heard her own voice come out of her likeness, but it would take too much effort to replay the major battles necessary to see the cutscene again, so she would be patient for it to happen for real later.

After some further experimentation with recent collectibles, Melia directed the party of four Homs out of the top end of the Bionis' Interior. The cutscene on Mechonis that followed was rife with foreshadowing, introducing the names "Vanea" and "Meyneth" while further implying that a bipedal being was in control of the new Face Nemesis. Most fiction, Homs or otherwise, would never assign humanist traits to the Mechon - they were usually kept as faceless, merciless adversaries with few if any redeeming traits.

Then, a Telethia's distinctive roar echoed around Makna Forest.

Melia sat motionless as the scene unfolded, and remained so for a good few minutes afterward. The idea that she would be fighting a Telethia and have her cadre be wiped out around her was by far the most shocking thing the game had presented, and there was zero possibility whatsoever that this could simply be inspired or coincidental - the voices, mannerisms, and personalities were too perfect for anyone in living memory to have compiled.

There was no question about it now: this was not a work of fiction. Somehow, the game's events outlined what was to happen in the future. And in no uncertain terms, she was to be a major participant.

She shook out of her stupor and gripped the controller harder than ever.

"She will have a valid reason," Kallian stated.

"I wish I could share your confidence," Sorean replied. "Surely you have also noticed that Melia has been extremely reclusive over the past few weeks. Being late for dinner for the first time in many years can only be a continuation of a developing pattern."

Kallian frowned and looked to the side, twirling a fork in his hand. He couldn't deny any of that.

Yumea had already started eating. "There will be a suitable punishment, of course."

"Mother, Melia is an adult. She needs no carrot-and-stick routine to learn timeliness."

Kallian heard someone approaching the dining hall and turned to look, his parents doing the same a moment later.

Melia slowly shambled into the room with face down and arms limp. She could probably get herself to appear normal, but she just didn't have it in her right now.

Sorean was the first to respond. "What is wrong, Melia?"

Melia shuffled into her seat and stared at her food for a moment before looking up, eyes red and many tears streaked down her face. It was difficult to even recall what she had been planning to say for the whole walk.

"Have you ever...discovered a piece of fiction that...resonates so strongly, that mirrors your very soul so deeply, that it feels nothing in the reality you know can compare?"

Sorean took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and slowly nodded. "Yes, my child. I know all too well how a story can capture one's heart and leave a void of longing as it concludes." He started to eat his dinner, all worry completely gone.

Kallian didn't seem convinced that this would excuse being late for dinner, but he wasn't going to complain about Sorean dropping the issue. Yumea scowled but didn't appear to think it was worth trying to push her own opinion.

Melia sadly looked around the table at its other three occupants, knowing that in five years' time they would all be dead. She started eating, trying to finish quickly but not obviously so in order to return to her room as soon as possible. Having just defeated Lorithia, she expected a single major area before fighting Dickson and perhaps Zanza, and so hoped to see the conclusion of the story tonight - and perhaps also her own.

Alvis appeared somewhat surprised at his visitor, but sounded calm as ever. "Good afternoon, Lady Melia. I presume you have a reason for seeking me out."

"Indeed." Somewhat hastily, Melia let herself into the seer's suite and sat in a chair. The suite was buried deep in the palace, and she'd never been before, but there wasn't much interesting to look at - the furniture was relatively basic and decoration was scarce.

Alvis moved himself into an opposing chair and waited for Melia to continue.

"I am here to talk about the future."

"Of course you would have such desire," Alvis replied. "But as you know, I am limited in what I can envision, and can be only more limited in what I choose to disclose, lest revealing the future change it."

Melia had expected this and moved on to the next planned question. "Then how about the present? How do I access the Telethia laboratory within the tomb?"

The seer blinked once and seemed confused. "What sort of question is this? Even if such a thing existed, I would hardly be one with knowledge of it. Perhaps-"

"Then let us talk about the past. Exactly how many cycles of Zanza's have you allowed to pass before this final one?"

Alvis's face immediately lost all emotion and stared at Melia. "So...you are the one affected by the anomaly."

Melia assumed the "anomaly" was the presence of the prophetic game. "Correct."

"This is...most unfortunate." Alvis spoke in a near monotone. "You believe that your new understanding of the world and what is to come can shape a better future than the one you saw, that you can save your loved ones from dying while also maintaining the defeat of Zanza."

"Yes." Melia thought she heard what she wanted to hear - acknowledgement that she could change the future. However, her continued thoughts were pre-empted.

"You are incorrect. You must forget all that you know of this future, and allow it to pass exactly as has been foreseen. To do otherwise will ruin it."

She didn't expect an unconditional "no". Dubiousness yes, but not outright denial. "Perhaps you don't appreciate how much a second person-"

"It is you who do not understand," Alvis interrupted, calm but firm. "Your mind is incapable of comprehending how long I have been directing this world towards the only future that Zanza does not win. Who lives and who dies is immaterial, and thus any proposition you have for your own personal betterment is folly."

"But-"

"This topic of discussion is forever closed." Alvis stood up and directed Melia towards the door. "I am unable to purge the anomaly from you, and it leaves me unable to see how your knowledge of it will change the future, so all I can do is state your choice: Follow the path that I have prepared for you, or be the reason for the destruction of reality as we know it."

Melia was stunned for a moment, but concluded that it was final: Alvis wouldn't be giving her any help. She got up and started to leave.

At the door, she thought of one last question. "If you are leading Shulk to the only future you wish to see, what makes you any better than Zanza?"

Alvis did not answer, standing motionless waiting for her to leave. Eventually she did.

It looks like I'll be on my own then. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, I'm always on my own.

I already knew I wouldn't be able to save everyone. Father must die for Shulk to be properly motivated later. But surely I can do better than what Alvis believes.

So at what point can I begin to act freely without affecting our ability to confront Zanza? My first guess is when Zanza causes the Telethia event, and Egil puts a hole in the Bionis for Junks to access. Brother is still alive, if mutated, at that point...there must be something that can be done for him...

The game dated itself by giving Sorean as emperor for "twenty years", so she knew she had about five years to prepare. She was likely going to be limited by being assigned imperial duties within the next year, but she had a few resources: generational ether talent, a device that allowed her to travel through the vents of Alcamoth as if they were teleporters, her personal airship the Illustrious Alighting, and of course the game itself.

She began to make plans.