Chapter 3: Execution

"You were lucky this time, Dunban! But next time I'll slice you in two!"

Metal Face took off from the Prison Island terrace, the other Mechon also following after Face Nemesis.

"Fiora! It's me - Shulk! Fiora!"

Melia heard the events as if from a great distance. It was one thing to watch an artificial image of herself holding an artificial image of her dying father, but to actually be in the position was quite another. There was very little need to fake any emotion.

"We were too late again." With the others also approaching, Shulk started verbally beating himself up. "I saw it. I knew it would happen."

"Shulk..." Sharla began.

"Why?" Reyn cut in almost at the same time. "Why did this have to happen?"

It was time for Melia to act - in both senses of the word. "Father..."

"Melia, the hope of our people, you must not cry."

"Don't say that! I don't care how improper it is. Let me cry."

"Melia..."

"W-Why does it have to be me, if all it takes is to be half Homs?" Oh no. A slight stutter, caused by already knowing the answer to the question. Even the tiniest deviation might misdirect the conversation.

"Is that what you think? You are very much mistaken."

Good, nothing changed. "But..."

"To become the hope of the High Entia is a fate that you choose for yourself. As long as you remember this, it is certain that you will be worthy of that name. But remember this also. It is not because you are the hope of the High Entia that I love you. It is because I love you that I wish for you to become that hope."

She'd heard it all before many times. But hearing it in reality as opposed to the game was something else.

Sorean turned to Shulk. "Heir to the Monado... I leave the sword in your hands. The sword that my forefathers sealed away. With it, you can succeed."

"Your Majesty." Shulk looked like he didn't really know how to respond.

Sorean looked back up. "Melia..."

Melia leaned as close as could be seen reasonable and whispered into his ear. "I know what is to come. I will save our people from extinction."

It was technically wrong, indisputably not what was supposed to happen. But she had to do it, to give her father some form of closure over the apocalypse he knew was coming. And if the future was going to change by telling a dying person a secret, that wasn't really the sort of mad world she'd want to live in anyway.

Sorean's open mouth trembled for a moment before he grabbed Melia's hand and squeezed it with as much force as he could muster for the last few seconds of his life.

After a few moments, Shulk continued as expected. "Melia, come with me."

"Shulk...I..."

"You'll have plenty of time to think about your empire and your people's hopes. If you need me, I will be at your side. But you are an individual. You are Melia Antiqua. And you can't let them get away with this!"

"You're right. My foremost concern...is making them pay." Drat, another incorrect pause. That's the end of what was presented though, it shouldn't matter much.

There would be silence if not for the rain.

Reyn slowly edged his way up to Melia, chin down. "Hey. Do you...d'you mind if I carry him back? Or do we oughta let someone who's supposed to do it?"

Melia usually felt conflicted for the first few minutes after the script left off, but in this case it flowed naturally. "When the emperor falls in battle, it is tradition for the most senior surviving and able general to return him home. Under the circumstances, I can think of no more appropriate person."

"Uh..." Reyn glanced over at Dunban as if he expected to be overruled as "senior", but he was looking out towards where the Mechon had left, and probably wan't all that "able" to carry someone else regardless. "Right then."

The party gathered themselves and began to leave Prison Island.

At the bottom of the first staircase, Shulk turned to Melia, clearly trying to start a conversation to take their minds off things. "You know, Melia, something's been bugging me. How are you so good at figuring things out quickly?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, I guess you live around here so you have an idea what the local animals are like, but you guessed all Metal Face's attack patterns even though you'd never seen him before, you didn't have any trouble figuring him out. And it's not just that. How do you know stuff like what kind of crystals to find in deposits? How do you already know who is looking for help and who isn't? And how do you always have so many good gems?"

Melia tried to chuckle while shaking her head; it went mostly okay. "I am well-educated and well-connected. There are a great many resources I have access to that few others would." And a healthy dose of unnatural research, of course.

Before the group could enter the first teleporter, Alvis came out of it.

"Alvis?" Melia didn't recall anything about Alvis coming to Prison Island. "What are you doing here?"

Alvis seemed calm and half-bowed. "Your Majesty. His Highness Kallian received a report that a strange new weapon had been launched at Prison Island, and has asked me to investigate."

...oh yes, there is the minor scene in which he speaks to Zanza as the giant's remains. "I see, very well." She allowed him to pass.

Sharla seemed confused. "Why him? Don't you have scientists for that kind of stuff?"

"Maybe he wants to poke it to try and get a vision?" Shulk suggested. "I mean, I get visions when we meet people or pick stuff up all the time, so maybe Kallian wants to see if this weapon's important enough to give Alvis one."

Melia turned back to look at the top of Prison Island, knowing that they would return before too long. My hardest part is over with, and the first act is complete with only minor deviations. I cannot fully relax, but it is almost time to fade into the background for most of act two.

"CURSE YOU, DUNBAN!"

Mumkhar was running out of things to say. He'd run through a large stream of profanities by now and was starting to scrape the barrel of angry shouts. Given how far below Sword Valley he'd fallen by now, this was not a surprise. He didn't know or care whether anyone could hear him - he just wanted to yell.

He found something else to shout, but was interrupted by spotting something speeding towards him from above. Most of the fragments from the structural collapse had already passed by, so it was noticeably unusual. As it approached, it turned out to be the shell of a small helipod Mechon, painted the same colours as Metal Face with a few weird-looking extra bits welded on.

"Get away from me, you bug!" Mumkhar waved his arms at the drone, which the armless Metal Face copied in vain.

The Mechon landed on Metal Face's chassis and stuck like a magnet, as close to Mumkhar's head as it could get. The extra bits were now resolvable as sound equipment: a microphone and a megaphone. A few seconds later, a voice came out.

"Hello, Mister Reorma."

"You," Mumkhar spat, his throat painfully sore from all the yelling. "You stuck-up princessy-"

"Since you already know who I am," Melia's voice continued, "I will get to the point. I am here to taunt you before you die."

"GET OUT!" Mumkhar wiggled around some more but it was no use; the helipod Mechon wasn't moving and anything of his that wasn't pinned was unresponsive.

"Before we begin, I shall inform you that this is a prerecorded message, and thus no taunting or mocking on your part will have any effect. In addition, if you interrupt me, the recording will repeat the previous five seconds to ensure you do not miss anything."

"SHUT UP!" Mumkhar coughed; it hurt to yell now.

True to its word, the recording waited for him to go silent and repeated the previous five seconds before continuing.

"Let us start with the obvious." Sound of page turning. "You are an utterly despicable person. In fact, to call you a "person" at the present time would be generous, as such would imply you have a shred of humanity worth acknowledging. Rather, you are a concentrated vessel of loathing and hate, nothing more than a jar of negative emotions filled to the brim with jealousy and selfishness. Indeed, were you of Alcamoth, your obituary would not be published, as there are no redeeming features of your life to highlight aside from the fact it has concluded. You would be unceremoniously thrown into the sea with all your possessions returned to the state, if they were worth anything."

"As it happens, similar is currently occurring. However, you will not fall into the ocean for a quick drowning. Instead, you are projected to land on the Fallen Arm. I assume that the interior of Metal Face is equipped with inertial dampeners to allow you to survive the sudden changes in acceleration I've seen you perform in flight, so you will not die on impact. You will then lay in the wreckage for several days, presumably with birds and insects pecking at you, before you eventually expire from thirst. It will be long, arduous, and hopefully very painful. Only a fraction of what you deserve, perhaps, but nothing's perfect."

"Now that the future has been established, let us talk of the past." Another page turned. "According to my research, you originally hail from Colony 7, destroyed fourteen years ago. I'm sure you remember that day? The Mechon were quite effective at ravaging the colony, and only forty-seven Homs were rescued by a mysterious group of benefactors. You were livid at being denied permission to join the group who decided to split off from retreating to the other colonies and search for the Monado, weren't you? You wanted to find the weapon and avenge your parents all by your underaged self, didn't you? Part of me wishes that you tried, that you fought your uncle's wishes harder and ran off on the chase. But no, you had not yet become who you are, so for you to fruitlessly die in Ose Tower with all the rest would have been undeserved."

"Then, before you had even fully settled into Colony 9, Dickson returned with the Monado. It is as if everyone who lived within a block of you over the years had some tale to tell of you trying to ingratiate, swindle, or connive your way into taking it for yourself. You wheedled your way into a friendship with Dickson and Dunban, simply to be closer to the legendary sword. Even as it became more and more clear that it would not allow any but Dunban to wield it, you focused your every effort to put yourself no further than second in line. And for what? For glory? For revenge? For acceptance amongst those who distrusted you from the beginning? Clearly not. No, it is evident that whatever reason you may had had to begin with, as you progressed through life with nothing but your obsession with the Monado, has been lost. Now, you simply wanted the Monado for its own sake, for to acknowledge you had no plan otherwise would be to admit your life is a right waste. You never truly wanted to replace Dunban as the "hero" - that was simply what you told yourself to rationalise why you wanted him dead."

"And here lies the rub. You were driven by vengeance, by a hatred for the Mechon that displaced you and killed your family. Yet in the end, you joined them without hint of regret. And for what? Did you think the Monado would be more accepting of your hand now that you've become one of its sworn enemies? Surely you did not believe that Egil would reward you for bringing it to him. It is true that Egil covets the Monado, but merely so he can destroy it. Were that to be done, the Faces such as you immediately become unnecessary - and you specifically have been quite a bit of trouble to keep around, haven't you? Such as your journeying out to Valak Mountain against orders to tail Face Nemesis? Egil has already decided you are a liability, and has no delusion you would be of any use if Shulk defeats you once more, which he just has. And in fact, he has already been planning memory-erasing procedures on all current and future Faces specifically due to your actions. Now wouldn't that have been ironic, for you to hold the Monado in victory for mere hours before forgetting that it ever existed?"

"Perhaps what actually happened was even better, for you to only hold it for a few minutes before it being taken once more, and be immediately routed by Dunban with minimal effort on our part. Dunban has not fought at full strength since the Battle of Sword Valley, and he may never truly do so again. And you possess a Mechon body that heightens your physical prowess beyond any Homs. So how come, amongst your posturing, taunting, and claims of utmost superiority, you still lost handily?"

There was a thump and clatter. Mumkhar hadn't been paying attention to the outside, but he now looked to see he had landed on some piece of ground.

"Accelerometers have sensed landing," Melia's prerecorded message skipped to. "I suppose I should stop here in case anyone comes to investigate, and so this is where it ends. Have fun in the hells of nadir for all eternity."

The helipod Mechon broke apart, its pieces scattering across and becoming indistinguishable with the black wreckage.

Mumkhar coughed. He was already parched and thirsty.

Will all lights off and engines at minimum, Melia slowly but silently manoeuvred the Illustrious Alighting into the hangar. Sure the cloaking device was active, but she wasn't taking any chances, and it didn't protect against noise anyway.

The hangar was pitch-black in the midnight, the only light coming from the stars through the closing bay doors. Once the doors were shut, not even the strongest Night Vision gems would be of any use. Normally there would be a skeleton crew of guards and other security about, but she had successfully influenced Kallian to believe that they were better off training with the rest of the night shift regiments, so all hands would be at optimal efficiency for the upcoming attack on Mechonis.

Melia parked in her vessel's designated space and began unloading her cargo: dozens of barrels of her C-26 anti-ether substance. She didn't need light to see; her ethersense was just as good in navigating the hangar full of ether-rich craft. The hard part was the physical labour of moving the barrels of fluid around without noise or tripping over unobtrusive cables sitting on the floor.

The plan, as tested several times back in the Telethia laboratory, was relatively simple. Over the course of a few nights, she was setting a barrel of C-26 behind the reactor cores of every Havres, securely attaching them with copious amounts of duct tape. In the event that a nosy engineer discovered one, they were labelled as "Important - Do Not Touch, Question At Own Risk" with Lorithia's forged signature. Underneath each barrel she had attached a spring-loaded piercing device that would trigger the composition's reaction by her activating a makeshift detonator carried in her travel pouch. The moment Lorithia initiated the Telethia event, she would press the button and ideally make a clever quip, followed by the anti-ether reaction producing enough disruption to the initial transformation process that it was unlikely to reach the critical mass of ether necessary to proceed.

If that wasn't enough, the contingency plan was to load a massive drum of C-26 aboard the Illustrious Alighting, as big as she could fit on the deck. She would then program it to dump the keg on Kallian's Havres and pierce it with its lance when summoned. This would only save a single vessel and she only had one shot, but it would be better than nothing. In the worst-case scenario, where the entire Telethia event proceeded unaltered, she still had a high chance of later attacking the Lorithia-Kallian hybrid with the composition.

From there, she could only guess what direction the future would take, but it was unfathomably hard to believe that it could be any worse than what the game presented. Colony 6 had sufficient resources to produce the anti-ether composition in large amounts, so they had a fair shot at liberating much of Alcamoth's transformed population, and it was a reasonable assumption that Zanza wouldn't be aware it was going on unless he came out to check. It was also not outside the realm of possibility that, with more than just her researching it, an anti-mutagenic gun-like weapon could be developed. Without being fused to Kallian's Telethia body, Lorithia would be easy prey, and while Dickson would still be quite troublesome her foreknowledge of his abilities would be a massive advantage. From there, Zanza himself would be no harder a foe.

The main issue would be how to explain what she'd done to the others. Telethia being transformed High Entia was supposed to be a secret known to the emperor alone, and since it wasn't revealed to her in the private section of her father's will, it had to be hidden somewhere within the ancient texts of the Tomb. And while some might believe a claim that she'd cracked the ancient script already, Kallian would have none of it, knowing she hadn't even tried yet. The only real avenue to explain how she'd developed a substance to revert a transformation years in advance of its first reveal was to admit foreknowledge. Perhaps she could wait for Alvis to join Dickson and then claim he'd told her without fear of contradiction, but Kallian probably wouldn't buy that either, as they were both quite aware that the seer wasn't really supposed to reveal visions to anyone but the emperor. Then again, Kallian might end up not particularly interested in the "how", but rather take it at face value and fight in the present until all the dust had settled. From there it seemed likely he would accept, or at least tolerate, the ends justifying the means.

Her current state of mind was that the best course of action was to stall until they had finished fighting off the Telethia attack on Colony 6, and then tell the party and Kallian (and make it very clear it was to be only them) that she had come upon a strange item several years ago that made unusually specific predictions about her life that started to be proven true - thus spurring her to act on the rest so they might not become reality. It was a fairly truthful angle, and as long as she could get them to not probe too deeply, it seemed like it would hold until after Zanza's defeat. Ideally, she wouldn't need to elaborate further and reveal that the source of the information was their quest in the form of a video game - it seemed like that would get very awkward, especially given that Homs and Nopon might not understand the concept.

It was arduous work, and took an hour or two, but Melia eventually completed the night's batch of sabotage. It was time to board her ship once more and jet back down to Colony 9, to sneak back into Dunban's house where the rest of the party was sleeping. As the lightest sleeper in the group, it was pretty easy to avoid detection by the others. The only real risk was if Fiora was sleepless and tried to interact with what would turn out to be a strategic arrangement of rolled-up blankets, but as Hypnotise was extremely effective and long-lasting on people who wanted to be asleep, it was of little concern. If only it were possible to use the art on herself, she wouldn't have to invent as many nightmares to explain her tiredness.

Of course, Melia was acutely aware that everything had gone very well so far, all things considered. As a result, she was starting to feel extra-anxious about whatever would inevitably go wrong. Continuously looking back over her research notes did well at belaying any fear that the anti-ether composition would fail to work as expected, so she was mostly concerned about someone discovering her sabotage before the fleet deployed for Mechonis. There was zero chance of it being traced back to her, but it would be very disappointing to have to resort to the contingency plan via early discovery rather than deployment failure.

"I don't know much about any curse." Shulk extended his hand towards Egil. "For now, all I can do is this, Egil. We can live in peace again."

Melia stoically looked ahead towards the defeated Yaldabaoth. She didn't bother pretending to look pleased like the others; no one could see her face because they were all looking at Shulk and Egil, so it wasn't worth the effort. Re-watching the cutscenes a few times last night could only do so much to prepare her mental state for the imminent overturning of the world.

Thinking about how her plans were about to manifest led her to once again consider the lives she had chosen not to save. She had been right about Father; there was no way the allied force would have been gathered as quickly as it had were Kallian not in the position of Melia's regent. There was no reasonable avenue to aid Gadolt without risking her ship in the Agniratha explosion, and even then it would be pretty obvious that she had interfered. Egil had to remain within the wreck of Yaldabaoth so the Mechonis could contest the Bionis long enough for the party to escape. It was likely impossible for her to protect Meyneth from Zanza's power.

"Again?" Egil answered. "I see. Yes, you're right." He started to get up.

Melia braced herself for the ear-splitting gunshot that was to come.

The world cut to black.