Spoiler warning from the beginning. I am making this fanfiction as accurate to canon as it can be, so please, let me know if there are any inconsistencies or mistakes that I did not catch. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy another perspective of Xenoblade Chronicles.
My eyes snap wide awake. My chest heaves, as if I'd just gotten sick.
I listen to the rhythm of my heart. It thumps as frantically as it did the last time I was awake. Some days I wonder if it has a personality of its own—every inconsistent hammer another attempt to press through life. But the more I listen to it, the more I realize that this heart has shaken off its funny quirk.
With an exhale, I lower myself back into my seat. The interior of the Faced Mechon hums and pulsates beneath me, every pump of my blood through her veins echoing like ghostly whispers. She's once again alive.
"Sung?" I jump at the muffled voice.
As I stretch in the space around me, the tubes connected across my body wildly bounce, then snap back into their hidey holes. I shiver. "Vanea?" I swallow hard and mutter something under my breath. My voice sounds terrible.
The hatch pulls open, revealing the slender Machina, who stares me down with those lonely red eyes of hers. I wince at the flood of light that has entered the cockpit. "Egil has a job for you…" She pauses. A somewhat-guilty look crosses her face as her irises dart across my frame. "Do you…feel alright? Are you fully conscious?" Her typical questions.
"I…" I brush some stray hairs to the side, then frown at how coarse it feels under my fingers. "…I'm fine, Vanea," I reply. My head hits the Face pilot seat. "Ugh. I feel like I've been asleep for years… Uh," Pulling myself up, I gaze down at her in curiosity. "why does he still want me? After last time…I assumed…" I look away, and my eyes catch my reflection on the walls of the Faced Mechon. Pursing my lips, I turn back toward the Machina, and my gaze is less curious and more curt.
"Well—," She hesitates, then extends out her hand to me. I take it and step down from the Face. The Machina pulls me close to her in a warm hug despite my animosity—or maybe that was purposeful on her part. Either way, it feels good. "I'll let Egil do the talking. Besides," she says with a smile, "we have new Core Units we want you to meet."
I freeze. "W-what?"
"They'll look a little different from you, but Egil is going to do some updating on your hardware."
I don't pay any attention.
As we rematerialize from the transporter and Vanea leads me up to the Meyneth Shrine, I stumble, then right myself and rub my legs. They're prosthetics save for my upper thighs, which burn like ether with a vengeance.
"Sung," Egil says. I hasten over to the group, standing together at the core of Agniratha, then glance around. Vanea takes her place behind me. There are three Homs males and the Machina, who towers above all of them. I remember many little impromptu meetings in this place—times when Egil needed to be brief. However, based on Egil's twisted expression as he glares at me, he isn't remembering them as fondly as I am.
His red stare flicks down to my chest before returning to look me in the eyes. "This is Xord, Mumkhar—" His bold voice rings in my ears. "—and Gadolt, our newest Core Unit. The others have no jobs of relative importance, so I'd prefer to keep this meeting among the strongest." I follow his hand as he gestures to the men. The larger of the two Face pilots, Xord, is a hulking, muscular Homs with copper armor and shoulders the width of Alcamoth. His eyes glint as if menacing, though his kind grin lights his expression in joy. The other, Mumkhar, has the name to go with the dark aura around him. He finally twitches his mouth into a smile that practically drips with slime. He keeps glancing at Xord, as if agitated over something.
"Finally, number one awakens!" Xord says with a dynamic laugh. "What emerged from Nemesis was…" He bangs his hands on his armor in a drumroll, but one look from Egil cuts him like a sword and stills him.
Mumkhar scowls by the man's side, but he seems more bothered than anything.
The "Gadolt" Homs only smiles, knitting his fingers behind his back. His jade armor gleams orange in the light. "I think Xord deserves to have some catharsis every one in a while," he says. "He can't exactly control it anymore." His tone has an accusatory sound to it, but he masks it with a stiff smile. He impresses me as a Homs who is cool under pressure—not at all like an…
I look down at my hands.
…old friend.
"We are not here to soothe the blacksmith, no matter his damage," Egil replies, annoyance in his voice. I glance back up as he replies. "With any experiment, there are mistakes." Gadolt exhales, eyebrows twitching down in anger as his hands clench together. Oh, well, I suppose he's not.
"We are here to discuss positions in my new plan." He clasps his hands together while Vanea only glances away. "Meet Sung, our first success."
"Albeit, accidentally," I mutter.
"Oh, goody!" Mumkhar remarks. "The favorite child!"
Vanea purses her lips in a hidden look of pride.
"He doesn't have much more use," Egil's coy reply, his eyes locked onto Vanea's, causes Mumkhar to erupt into a fit of laughter. I grimace at the Machina's words. "but he's got his purposes."
Surprisingly, it's Gadolt who speaks up, though he glares nonetheless at his comrade. "Purposes? What purposes besides being into storage for five years?"
F-five years?!
"He had a use at one point," Egil replies, casting a glare toward the Core Unit. "and while today he is obsolete—getting back to the task at hand—I do have roles for each of you, including Sung."
The other pilots fall silent as they look toward the dominant Machina. Xord's eyes, however, wander to me, and his face contorts as if thinking of something. Then his mouth gapes, and so does mine, though I'm not sure where I've seen him before.
Xord was…turned into a Mechon…? And Mumkhar too?! Well, he kinda had it coming.
"Xord!" He jumps, then cracks a sickened, insane grin. "Go down to the ether mines beneath Colony 6 and make sure our Mechon are doing what they should be doing."
Xord only groans in reply. "Awwww, really?" Then he sniggers and again looks toward me.
"Yes," Egil replies. "Gadolt, I need you to—"
"Egil," Vanea cuts in. He stops, looks up at her. "Perhaps we should see how these new ones function before deploying them all."
Gadolt nods slowly, his eyes not quite meeting Egil's.
"Fine. You'll meet Vanea once this meeting is over."
"What about me?" Mumkhar says with a scoff. "Will I be shoved aside like ol' Gadolt here, too?"
The Machina's response is distracted, to say the least. "You'll be in Tephra Cave, a cave system near Colony 9—I need you to remain sentinel there. Homs can easily traverse the caverns." Egil, as he says this, looks briefly at the large statue of Meyneth, dimmed grey. With a grunt, Mumkhar remains hatefully silent, a fury pounding in his eyes. He should be grateful for such a task. The ether mines is a simple location to be in, especially for a pilot who has been rendered obsolete and has failed the test of time.
A frown touches my lips.
"And Sung…" He stops, as if musing over what to say. Then: "Attack Colony 9."
—!
My head snaps upward, and a stammer buzzes in my throat. Gadolt throws me a terrified expression. "Y-you can't. You can't," is all I can force out of my mouth. "You said that I was—"
Egil scowls. "I said that you were obsolete; I didn't say your Face was. You are not needed for this mission, Face Nemesis is needed for this mission. Vanea's been updating her over the years while you've been out of commission."
"Oh," I reply in a small voice.
"So you've be able to control her after your extended shutdown, correct?" His silence, accusing me, burning into my chest and terrifying me deep inside, forces a nod out of me before I even realize what I just did. Vanea shoots me a muted look that screams, "I'll help you again."
Please do, I look back. My hands clench at my sides. Oh, please, please do.