Chapter 2: Initialization

While the royal family often had dinner together, it was less common to share lunch, owing to varied schedules. As a result, while it was quite rare for Melia to ask her father a question that she didn't want anyone else to hear, lunch was an optimal time if she needed to.

"I have a request, Father."

"By all means."

"I am beginning to feel suspicions when I am about in public that I am not the generic citizen I am supposed to be passing as. I believe my increased place in the public eye, caused by my sitting in on imperial business, has made it more difficult for me to remain anonymous." She paused for comment.

Sorean gave a small nod. "I cannot say I have seen this myself, but I understand your viewpoint. What do you propose?"

"I have two ideas, one of which I expect would be more freely given than the other, though of course both together would be even more effective. The first is acting lessons, to better teach me to conceal my true nature."

"And the second?"

Melia hesitated for a moment - it would be all too easy to phrase it wrong and lose the opportunity. "The second would be possession of a Truth Cloak gem, to disguise my most evident features from the public."

Sorean's brow furrowed. "You must understand, Melia, that part of the purpose of your public excursions is to be yourself amongst the people. To take on another's identity would do no good in that respect."

"I would not expect to do so for every excursion, but to merely reduce the frequency that my true face is shown to the public."

"I see." Sorean sat back and rubbed his chin.

Melia tried to guess what her father was thinking. She'd lied of course - the acting lessons were to make it easier to mirror her speech and actions seen in the game despite knowing future truths, and the Truth Cloak gem was primarily to sneak into the Ministry of Research and spy on Lorithia's activities enough to discover how to access the Telethia laboratory, with other covert operations possible. But hopefully the cover story was reasonably sound.

After a few moments, Sorean answered. "You shall have my answer later today."

"Thank you, Father." She'd done what she could do, and could only hope for the best now.

"Later today" turned out to be about three hours later, when Sorean summoned Melia to a small meeting room.

"I have considered your lunchtime requests, and I have decided that they are sufficiently reasonable."

He brought his hands out from behind his back, one holding a paper and the other holding a small wooden box. It was apparent from the letterhead on the paper what it was: an application to acting lessons. But the strong fiery energy emanating from the box was much more demanding a focus. Its lid was engraved with illegible ancient lettering, but it was evident from its aura that it contained a very strong fire gem.

Melia deduced that both requests had been granted, which was a pleasant surprise. She reached out to take the application so she could sign it. "Thank you, Father. I shall use these grants to better myself in the name of the empire."

Sorean smiled instead of responding. Once Melia finished with the application, he held out the box for her to take.

She opened it quickly but carefully, revealing the fire gem inside. It was clearly rank VII; the sparkle and ether it projected were unmistakable.

"This is known as the Visitor's Gem," Sorean said. "It is the only known Truth Cloak gem of rank VII. It has been used since time immemorial for emperors and empresses to wander incognito amongst Homs colonies when it comes time to search for a Second Consort."

Melia continued to stare at the gem, further awestruck now knowing that it was one-of-a-kind.

Sorean continued. "I am perhaps overstepping my bounds by allowing someone who does not hold the throne to borrow this unique artefact. But I believe there is no reason to worry. I have full trust that you will use it responsibly and return it intact."

She hadn't really asked for this. Given her high ether affinity, a Truth Cloak gem of rank III would have been sufficient for her to disguise her hairstyle and wing size, which in theory was all she should need to become unrecognisable; the only reason she'd asked for one rather than fetching one herself was that the gem type was tightly controlled by the government, and wanted the request to come from the top. A rank VII gem would...she didn't even know how much she could do.

"I...cannot thank you enough, Father. This is...far beyond my expectations."

After returning to her chambers, Melia posted herself in front of a mirror and started experimenting. It quickly became clear that the rank VII Truth Cloak gem in her hands was powerful beyond her expectations. She could change the colour and style of her clothes, make her wings and ears appear pure-blooded, draw a huge scar across her face, wrap her entire body in floor-length hair - she even tried disguising herself as Lorithia, and it felt incredibly unnerving to see the minister's reflection staring out at her.

"...well isn't that something." A combination of Lorithia's voice and Melia's pronunciations came out. It was very jarring.

It would be foolish to actually impersonate anyone in particular, since if she was caught the only person who would understand how she did it would be the one that gave her the means to do so. But she now had the freedom to be significantly more creative when it came to choice of disguise.

I wonder how far I can take this. She attempted ever more extreme manipulations of her appearance. Being a Homs was easy, it was almost effortless to hide her wings and change her hair colour. It took a moment or two to envision herself as a Machina, but it appeared close enough that she might be able to gather resources from the Fallen Arm without arousing suspicion if glanced at long range, and of course practice would only improve its realism. It took a bit more effort to create a Nopon shell, and a further five minutes to learn how to make it move convincingly, but that it worked at all would be further help if she wanted to remain innocuous anywhere on the Bionis. Finally, she tried becoming completely invisible - and after several minutes of mental exertion, her reflection vanished entirely. It took too much effort to be practical for most situations, but it would be an invaluable ability.

She wondered what other unique treasures with legendary powers that only the emperor was allowed to possess - surely this was not the only one. But she felt very lucky to get even this one; trying to angle any more would likely be futile.

This will make things a lot easier.

Melia glanced around nervously. Colony 6 was busier than normal today, so the odds of running into someone at the ether furnace and being forced to interact were higher. But she couldn't just leave and come back later; she had a schedule to adhere to.

She reached the ether furnace and started unloading her two handbags and backpack full of ether crystals and cylinders, sourced from many Bionis deposits and Mechonis gears. The furnace in Colony 9 always seemed to be attended to by the Gem Man, but this one in Colony 6 was usually free, so she could craft alone (which was trickier than crafting in a pair with someone else, but doable). It was better than trying to do so in Alcamoth, where access to an ether furnace was generally monopolised by the experts and certified apprentices of the art, and she didn't have the time to work herself through the waiting lists.

Crafting went smoothly today. Her main goal was simply to build experience so she could help make better gems once she joined Shulk and the party, with anything useful produced via practice as a bonus. Currently, she was making mostly rank III gems with the occasional IV, with a fair bit of inevitable mistakes along the way.

After using the first half of her supplies, Melia sensed someone was approaching, and took a glance.

It was Sharla and Juju. A few years younger than the people she "knew", but quite obviously them.

Melia panicked enough to ruin the current gem, sending up a strong flame that caused the furnace's contents to completely evaporate.

Juju appeared to notice that the person at the furnace messed up, and decided to point and laugh while looking up at Sharla.

Sharla angrily tapped him on the head. "Don't be rude to strangers, Juju." She turned her attention to Melia as she arrived to the furnace. "Looks like you have quite a load there. Mind if I squeeze in for one?"

Melia attempted to smile while nodding and backed off. Her Homs disguise might be visually perfect - she'd borrowed the look from an unimportant young woman in Colony 9 - but she wasn't sure of getting the local accent right and so hoped to not have to speak.

"Thanks." Sharla tipped the two cylinders she was carrying into the furnace and started work. "I haven't seen someone do that much crafting at once in a while, especially not on their own. You doing busywork for someone or what?"

Melia considered faking a sore throat to get out of saying a word, but knew Sharla would jump at trying to soothe or heal it. "It's...just for my own curiosity and experience."

Sharla carefully controlled the furnace's flames, but had no trouble making small talk at the same time. "Really? You seem pretty well-loaded to just be messing around. Actually now that I look at it, wow I don't think I've ever seen one person carry that many cylinders at once. There's no way anyone with that haul could take a step outside the colony without getting covered in monsters. Have we met? I'm Sharla and that's my brother Juju, what's your name?"

"I am Paula." She did have a fake identity prepared, though she'd hoped to not have to use it.

"Paula..." Sharla's brow furrowed. "...have I heard of you? Paula Brachenrich, the ether experimenter from Colony 9?"

"Indeed." Melia had taken the name from the recent obituaries of Colony 9's newspaper, so even if the two colonies wished to communicate random civilian deaths to each other, the news was unlikely to have arrived yet.

"Yeah I thought so. Only someone really into studying ether would be doing this much crafting for themselves." Finished, Sharla removed her new gems from the furnace and packed up. "I'd like to stay and chat but I'm in a bit of a time crunch. But you're sure you'll be okay? Going back to Colony 9 with all that?"

"I got here all right."

"True. Well, maybe see you later then."

Sharla turned away and directed Juju to follow, who seemed bored with sitting aside the conversation and was more than happy to oblige.

Melia released a huge sigh of relief and got back to her crafting practice. That was harrowing, and now I have extra difficulty for planning my next return here. Do I keep the same character and possibly necessitate additional backstory, or create a new one that will end up having oddly similar behaviour? Should I return at night to avoid random citizenry, but risk suspicious military patrols? Ugh.

Exhausted, Melia sat back in the Illustrious Alighting's pilot seat and started downing a carton of orange juice. Strength Up and Muscle Up gems could only do so much; she was still a small and frail individual not suited to carrying around loads of Andos armour.

Faras Cave was starting to look pretty crowded. Drone parts, ether pods, animal pelts, Mechon wreckage, and more were filling up the hidden cave. It was at least an order of magnitude larger than the amount of materials the game claimed were necessary to rebuild Colony 6 and fulfill some of the more challenging sidequests, but she'd applied a "realism multiplier" to her calculations - the was no way that only two Igna and two local turtles would provide enough materials to restart a commercial district from scratch.

It was surprisingly easy to find the perfect hidden base. Faras Cave was remarkable in its unremarkability; the small patch of land in the watery cavern was home to nothing but grass and a few bushes. A monitoring beacon she'd set up long ago told her that the only substantial creatures to enter the cave in the past year were a colony of turtles laying eggs on the shore, and with the area's complete lack of natural resources or tourist attractiveness, she had zero fear of anyone or anything stumbling upon what she was gathering.

Somewhat refreshed, Melia turned to her notebook and decided what she would be fetching next. It had been a long and arduous process so far - disguising as a wide variety of people and races in order to trade for resources amongst the Homs colonies, various Nopon around the Bionis, Alcamoth, and even the Machina. But it was also quite satisfying to see her progress stack up, knowing that every item had a definite purpose in the future. She couldn't build a stock of perishable items such as fruit and insects, but that was fine - it would help sell the idea that she didn't have absolutely everything planned out.

The hard part would be when it case time to use her loot. She planned to reveal her personal ship to the others after returning to Makna Forest after setting out from Alcamoth - she would pretend to be a reluctant novice pilot, allowing them to quickly travel backwards while not unnaturally speeding their advance forwards, just as skip travel was presented in the game. But that wouldn't explain why she had such tailor-made stores of items stacked in a secret cave. The current thinking was that she could set up a series of holoprojectors inside the cave, hiding most of the treasure while only revealing the ones soon to be relevant, and claiming to the others that she was organising deliveries of useful materials to the secret area.

Perhaps a Glacier Element. Melia couldn't guess which of the Replica Monados that Shulk would prefer, so she had to prepare for all of them. In theory it wouldn't be any more risky to store a nebula element in the cave than it was to keep any other ether-rich material.

Making a mark in her notes, she set out again.

Kallian sliced off a bit too much butter. "Melia, I'm worried about you," he continued with exasperation.

"What for?" Melia countered. "Is it not prudent for me to apply myself to the best of my ability?"

"That is hardly the point." He took a bite of his lunch. "On one hand, there is applying oneself to be the best they can be. But on the other is fanatical devotion to an aspect of their life that is ultimately peripheral."

"I hardly think that training my self-defence is peripheral. You saw how many of my skills I had to tap into in order to escape being kidnapped by the mafia."

"Your instructor refuses to train you any further. Do you not think that is a red flag?"

Melia scowled. "If I were told there would be an artificial limit on how strong I was allowed to become, I would not have been as interested in attaining it."

"What do you think Father will say when he learns that your ether lessons have come to an unnatural conclusion?"

"I would hope he would be proud that I have reached a combat level of 50 in such a short time."

Kallian shook his head and sighed. "Your opinions and hopes are yours. But please, at least stop travelling Eryth Sea looking for trouble. Surely you can't think you've been keeping that a secret. There is absolutely no need to risk yourself simply to push the envelope."

Melia decided not to respond. She could say yes, but that would only be to the letter of the request rather than its spirit, as she would simply go train in Sword Valley or similar. She could of course stop - it wasn't hard to pretend she was lower-levelled, and she didn't really need that much practice. But on the other hand, she had to at least keep sharp, and she already had a fairly complete plan of attack for training against various kinds of foes, which there was little sense in letting go to waste.

"Melia, I don't need to interrogate you to know something is not right, and I shouldn't need to do so in order to learn what. So tell me. Not as an interested prince, but as a concerned brother. What has driven you to strengthen yourself far past expectations in the last few years?"

"If there were a reason you deemed problematic, and I told you, would you tell Father?"

Kallian frowned and thought about it for a moment. "I would be forced to weigh your desire for privacy against our desire to keep you safe."

Melia turned her face down towards her own lunch. "If I cannot have that assurance, then nothing shall be said." She wasn't seriously considering saying a word in any case, it was just a convenient scapegoat. Kallian had to remain as blind to the future as everyone else.

"Then so be it." Finished eating, Kallian stood up. "I cannot ask Father to limit your privileges on nothing but suspicion and hearsay. But if we discover the slightest shred of evidence that you are intentionally putting yourself in danger, we shall be forced to take action." Without further word, he left the dining hall.

I'm not scared of your threats of punishment. All it will do is make me more vigilant in disguising my operations. This is too important to fail.

"An army of Homs is passing through Valak Mountain."

The report repeated itself in Melia's mind dozens of times as she approached Sword Valley. It wasn't far off from when she expected it to happen, so this had to be it - this was to be the Battle of Sword Valley, where Dunban would defeat the Mechon.

She engaged the Illustrious Alighting's cloaking device as individual Fortress units came into view. Technically it was the stealth parking feature, but she'd added enough of her crafted gems to its matrix that it was no longer limited to covering itself with holographic rocks or logs - it could disguise itself as the sky around it, making it effectively invisible.

As predicted, she saw Dunban rushing through the retreating Homs army, taking down Mechon all around him. After a short while, Dickson and Mumkhar joined him.

Melia's finger twitched. One press of the inactive trigger underneath it would fire her craft's weapons and vaporise the two traitors. Shulk and the others wouldn't have to suffer. Egil's and Zanza's forces would be crippled without their top men. Father and Brother would live.

No. There's no telling how things would change, and all my plans are based around it. If nothing else, Mumkhar must cause Shulk to begin his quest, and Dickson must guide him through Satorl Marsh. Things must stay the way they will be.

It was surreal to see the battle unfold from above after watching it from cinematic angles so many times. Eventually, Dunban made his final charge, and an explosion of energy wiped out most of the remaining Mechon.

Melia pulled up and started returning to Alcamoth. She had one year remaining to complete her preparations - potentially less, since it wasn't unlikely to say that only ten months was "a year ago". It was the home stretch now.

"Begin log: Composition Twenty-Six."

The computer beeped as it created the dictated logfile and began recording.

"C-26 contains a more refined resonance between the earth and dark ether ratios than C-25," Melia continued. "The goal is to fix the issue where the reverted form would not coalesce into solid matter. The ratios of all other ethers have been scaled to match." Pause. "Deploy specimen."

One of the pods in the Telethia laboratory opened, releasing a fully-grown bipedal Telethia. It looked around in confusion for a moment before discovering Melia and deciding to go after her.

Melia pulled the first pin out of the glass globe she was holding. Ten centimetres in diameter, its slushy contents started to glow green as the various ethers within began to mix.

The Telethia reacted to the new ether mix, pausing its approach for just a moment trying to figure out what it was.

Melia threw the globe at the Telethia. It followed it through the air and caught it in its mouth, trying to eat it.

She then pulled the string connected to the second pin, opening the inner container to mix with the outer ether.

A large explosion of fluid energy enveloped the Telethia, first an ethereal green but quickly changing to a bright and sickly magenta. The energy broiled and bubbled, slowly shrinking in size.

After about a minute, the ether started to fade, leaving behind an unconscious pure-blooded High Entia infant.

Melia couldn't stop a huge smile from breaking out over her face.

"Result: C-26 is a success. Specimen Telethia has transformed into a seemingly healthy High Entia infant. Once it is delivered to the orphanage, its mental state can be confirmed. Next step: investigate more scalable methods than a two-pin hand grenade, perhaps deployment via automated airstrike. If there is enough time, test what happens if reversion is initiated during an active transformation."

She began to clean up all evidence of her presence in the laboratory, transferring all files to her thumbdrive and using royal clearance to delete all the night's logs.

Lorithia won't know what hit her "pets".

Today is the day.

Melia mournfully gazed out the window at the clear sky. As told yesterday, in a few short hours, she was to be dispatched to Makna Forest to fight the Telethia there.

She was as ready as she could ever be. She'd watched and re-watched the cutscenes of upcoming events dozens of times to nail her part. She'd filled her expanded travel pouch with useful but not suspiciously strong gems, as well as enough personal supplies as she could squeeze in - toothbrush and toothpaste, nail file, sleeping bag, and so on. She'd gone over as much dialogue as she could cram into her schedule while still getting enough sleep, wanting to be prepared for any order of events.

This was the primary issue she expected to run into - the game could be played in any order aside from the main plot, so she didn't know exactly how everything would play out between the major events. And between the minor events she knew of, there would be mealtimes and other trivial incidents too unimportant to be presented. It would be a veritable minefield of keeping track of what had and hadn't happened yet.

There was a knock on the door. Melia quizzically turned towards it. It is far too soon to depart. What could this be about?

"You may enter."

Alvis walked into the room. "Good morning, Your Highness."

Melia wasn't sure why Alvis would be visiting her in her chambers, but she had her suspicions, and wasted no time in laying them out. "I assume you are here to remind me not to change the future."

The seer's expression was unchanging and unreadable. "That was indeed one of the things I was going to say. And in effect, it obviates the need for me to state the second - I do not need to inform you of my vision that tells you to look out for Shulk."

"Of course." Melia nodded slowly.

Alvis looked over at the desk, stacked high with papers, the game console itself hidden from his view. "I already know you are planning something. Something that you believe is inconsequential. May I remind you that nothing is inconsequential. All is connected, and the tiniest alteration can have the most critical of impacts."

Melia didn't bother to hide an irritated scowl. "I have been rehearsing for the past several years in order to avoid changing things that should not be changed. I have no interest in making it more difficult or less predictable for Shulk and the others."

Alvis turned to Melia and stared at her for a few seconds, presumably trying to decide if he believed her.

"You are no fool," he eventually said. Then he left.

Melia interpreted the sentence to mean "very well, don't disappoint me". She had no intention of doing so.