Disclaimer: Xenoblade Chronicles X is developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo. Nothing belongs to me, but my AU-ish and OCs.
Chapter updated on December 25, 2016
Chapter 2
Two months later.
The moons of the planet Mira shone from the starry sky, lighting up the path of many who were still awake. For one, a hungry four-legged insect was searching for his prey. On his lonesome, he began his way into the bushes as soon as he picked up a sound up ahead. Faint drops of rain were felt in this moment, which created a good sound concealment.
Hidden in the bush, his sharp eyes caught sight of strange creature with a white head. It was walking up the hill with its back facing the insect, strolling rather calmly. The distance was great, surely the puny creature would not be able to detect the insect from this far.
The insect quietly, yet impatiently, moved a step. But then the white-headed creature slightly turned around and the insect remained as still as possible. The eyes of the prey were green, almost directly staring into the insect's own eyes. Fortunately, the white-headed creature continued its way, as if there was nothing around. And then the insect pressed onwards.
The white-headed creature was actually not a native to this planet. An Earth alien, known as a human. A woman to be exact.
Her name is Elma.
Just like the indigen, the huge insect that was following behind, the woman was also by herself. On the other hand, she was not looking for a prey. Equipped with Storm Dual Guns and Iron Blades, she had been searching around for some time now. Rain poured and the aid of the moonlight was fading away. Taking out a flashlight, she walked on, heading up the hill.
As her legs carried her through a path leading between high rocks, the wind softly howled. It took only a minute to reach the top of the hill as she walked down the one-way path.
With eyes up front, her path would soon met water. A small lake. Beyond it, there were plenty of other indigens. The ones that appeared like rhinos had glanced up from his sleeping spot, but then laid his head back down. Elma felt it was safe to proceed as she has been doing so. None of the indigen appeared aggressive.
Just before her feet made contact with the lake, she stopped to reach for her com device. It turned on and a holographic map showed up, revealing her location in the area.
"Starfall Basin," she noted the area she entered. The info on this place was recently updated by a group of Curators as well as Pathfinders. The name "Starfall Basin" was chosen by the provisional government. If she recalled correctly, this region was not thoroughly searched. Scanning around one more time, while putting her com device and flashlight away, she then stepped into the water.
Swimming a short distance, her feet touched the ground and she pulled herself out of there. Without regarding what was behind her, she kept going forward with the flashlight back on. Going alone.
It took some time as she walked. Her eyes had a hint of despair when she saw something just up ahead. "Another lifepod that didn't survive the crash," she murmured as she headed toward it. Even so, she had to check it out and make sure.
But just as it was, the lifepod was in rumbles. Elma stopped by it and placed her hand on the lifepod. She smiled almost sadly and caressed it, as if she was comforting someone. And herself. Taking in a breath and not losing a single drop of hope, she continued her search to reclaim any part of the White Whale that may have fallen close by. If there was a destroyed lifepod here, there was bound to be other discovery. She was certain of it.
Through the darkness with the dim light from the sky, she soon noticed something was glowing faintly. Each step she took, the clearer it was and the brighter her eyes became. The despair she felt was slowly fading. It was a lifepod, one that was still unscathed. Or at least, that was what it seemed like from the outside. And Elma did not allow herself to have such high hope. She had to check if the person inside the lifepod was in good conditional or not. The landing must have done some sort of damage.
The moment she reached out to the lifepod with the help of the flashlight, she pressed on the top button. A holographic keyboard and screen appeared. Elma was relieved and said, "It's still working." She touched the screen to gain access to the lifepod. With a couple of soft sound effects, two blank spaces appeared. One for a login ID and one for a password. Straight-forward as it should be. Elma typed in her name and then her 16-digit password.
A bar showed below, indicating that it was loading. And then the ID and password went through and new words appeared on the screen.
MIM STASIS UNIT
OPERATING SYSTEM
(INITIALIZING)
It seriously was working. Elma stood where she was and slightly backed away as a machine voice started up. "Attention: external access confirmed. Disengaging stasis in 10 seconds..."
Griping on her flashlight during the countdown, Elma begun to wish with her heart that the person inside was safe and sound. Someone who was alive. Someone who would join her and the people of the White Whale to rebuild humankind.
Listening to the machine voice attentively, Elma heard no errors. Except for the slight clicking from the bushes in the background. Other than that, the lifepod was operating properly. Now, right before her eyes, the lifepod had opened upwards. Elma's eyes slightly brightened with her flashlight held up to the person inside. It was a young girl. She was holding up her hand from the blinding light that Elma was holding at her face.
Possibly in her late teens, this girl had a dark, rosy hair color. Uneven bangs reaching around her eyes, long hair down to her collarbone. Streaks of silver hair were on both sides of her head as well as a single lock of hair sticking out from the top of her head. Her tired eyelids folded open, revealing a pair of yellow eyes with a bright green small dot in the center of both pupils. One might have thought she appeared innocent, but the feel from her round eyes probably would scratch that off the list.
There were smaller details on her face too. A mole on under her right eye and three white stars under the other.
Nevertheless, while lowering her flashlight, Elma spoke gently, "Hey there. Looks like you're all in one piece." The sound of Elma's voice made the girl look directly at her for a moment. There was confusion expressed in her eyes now. Elma only patiently wait for her to respond.
Lightning flashed from the sky and the rain was still pouring. Elma set aside her flashlight and took note of the girl's fatigue face. Finally out of the lifepod, the girl leaned against the side of the door. Her legs were heavy. Then she slipped out and her head hung behind her while falling forward. The world turned upside down for a mere second.
"Careful..." Elma caught her. The two of them kneeled on the ground and the girl blinked as her vision was focusing in and out. She held Elma for support and Elma's voice close to her ear, "Just take it nice and slow, okay? Your senses'll need time to reactive."
Even though the girl could somewhat hear her, she could barely make out what was going on. There was rain running down her face and her bangs stuck to her face. Her eyes lifted up from the ground and she stared straight ahead. There were dirt, tall grasses, some trees, and rocks. It seemed her eyesight was normal. Now she needed her legs to work next.
Mentally telling herself to stand up, Elma backed away as she did so. The girl felt dizzy and wobbled from side to side, but gained her balance later. She then give her surroundings one more look.
Elma waited first before saying, "Your pod is the only one around that landed intact." The girl blinked to her, still puzzled of where they were. Her mind begun to come together at this point. "Good thing I found you. My name's Elma."
'Name,' was the girl's first thought.
"You wanna tell me yours?"
The girl widened her eyes and Elma blinked at her. She tried to recollect anything that had to do with her name. Forget about where she was, she looked a little freaked out. Elma slightly raised an eyebrow and the girl finally said out loud, "I don't have a name?!"
Unfazed by the girl's sudden outburst, Elma was more concerned. She asked, "You don't remember your own name?" The girl raised her hands to her head and tried to think very hard. Elma lowered her head and brought up her hand on her chin. "It must be the stasis hangover... That's not good," she said. The girl looked back to her and so did Elma. "Just try and focus, all right?"
Elma's calm voice settled her mind. "Okay," the girl said, her face looking more healthier. She stood very still, her eyes shifty to the right and left a little. Two letters formed in her head, as if reacting Elma's words. And then there were four letters in total. "...Na... Nana," she said, half wondering if it was her name at all.
Maybe that is her name. Because Elma smiled. "Good, there we go," Elma nodded to her. The girl smiled back and her muscles relaxed, despite the cold rain. But next came another question, "What else do you remember, Nana?"
There was nothing. Nana shook her head and stared at the raindrops in her hand. She wondered if Elma meant who Nana was or if she knew how rain was made or anything of the sort. But she was sure that Elma was asking who she was and how old she was. In her mind, she couldn't remember what kind of person she was like. She glanced back, wondering why she was inside of that so-called lifepod. She now recalled words that had appeared when she was inside too. It was written like something-something unit.
"It'll come," Elma said as if she knew what Nana was thinking about. Nana looked back at the woman she just met, wondering if her memories would truly come. "In the meantime," Elma smiled again. "I'll get you up to speed here as best I can."
Going at any speed might be overwhelming for Nana's current missing memories, however, she nodded with a upbeat smile to accept the challenge. "Okay," she nodded firmly. Perhaps she was the type who doesn't let things get her down.
Slightly, Elma tilted her head, "How are you limbs? Can you move?" Nana opened her palms, catching raindrops. Her legs did still feel heavy, so she shook her head no. "We'll take it easy while you shake the stasis out of your system. One step at a time, all right?"
Nana nodded, literally shaking her right leg up behind her. "Sounds good, Elma," she said.
The woman half smiled. "First things first—" Cut off by a sudden sound from her com device, Elma hurried to pull it out. Nana stepped forward rather curiously as if checking out a toy. "A distress signal," Elma narrowed her eyes. "It's coming from Yelv." The holographic map was showing a red dot just north of them, near the Biahno Lake. "Come, Nana," Elma said, turning around to walk off.
"Yes!" Nana followed closely.
Elma pressed on the name Yelv. A sound beeped and a guy's voice came on. "Ma'am, is that you?"
"What's wrong, Yelv?" Elma questioned with a serious tone.
"I found a lifepod over here," he replied. In the background, it sounded like he was fighting. "There are some aggressive indigens nearby and I'm luring them away!"
Another lifepod was found? Elma was glad. "Are you alone?"
"Well, yeah," he answered, grunting right after. "But don't worry, I got this—whoa, geez!" There was a loud, rough wolf-like cry and a lot of other noises from Elma's com device. "Just get to the damn lifepod, uh, ma'am!"
Elma furrowed her eyebrows, wanting to tell him something, but then the call was ended abruptly. She stopped in her tracks to put away her com device. Turning to the interested Nana, Elma told her, "I know this is too soon, but you'll be needing weapons."
"Eh?" Nana blinked.
"Just for safety measures," Elma reached behind her. She handed Nana a knife and a rifle, which she collected not too long ago before entering the Starfall Basin. Nana seemed a little out of it for a few seconds, staring at the weapons almost innocently. Before Elma could explain more, an obvious cricket sound went around them. Acting on instincts, Nana turned her view to the right and stood on guard. Elma faced the other way and reached for her two dual guns. "That thing out there has been following me for a while now."
Nana's sharp eyes too notice something moving in the dark and she gripped on the rifle. "What should we do?" she asked.
"We're going to need to defend ourselves," Elma pointed her guns out. Nana grinned while Elma was calm about the thing out there. "You up to the task, Nana?"
She nodded and was ready to pull the trigger. If Elma was not going to panic, there was no reason to worry at all. "What about that guy Yelv?"
"He will most likely be fine," Elma glanced to her, observing that Nana was holding the rifle with skill. This was a good chance to see what Nana could do and how she would fare in combat. "Feel free to experiment on the enemy. I'll back you up." A huge insect stepped out and ran towards them. "It's an Origin Blatta!" Elma noted.
Nana aimed whereas the insect used Chirp. Elma fired away as the Origin Blatta took some damage while dodging. Nana's body felt fatigue, probably due to the timing of the Chirp, but she charged forward even though she was pulling the trigger.
"Oh," Nana realized and walked a few steps backward. It might be better to shoot at a longer range.
Elma ran pass her, meeting face-to-face with the enemy as she switched to her iron blades. "Shadow Strike!" With bright waves from the blades, Elma spun in the air to slash out and the enemy took it head-on. One of his legs on the front were cut off during the process.
Also switching to the melee weapon to copy Elma, Nana joined her by dashing. Elma stepped back as the insect used Slash, which met the knife of Nana's. They pushed each other away, but then Nana pressed forward to overpower him. 'How did Elma do that strike?' Nana wondered at the same time.
While the enemy was busy with Nana, Elma had gone to the side and pulled out her dual guns. This was a perfect timing. With one more quick step, she hopped off the ground to slide on her back across the ground. "Sliding Slinger!" she fired multiple times at the side of the Origin Blatta that pushed him much further away. Blood spat out and Origin Blatta cried out."Appendage destroyed! Move in and strike!" Elma shouted, getting back up swiftly.
As close as Nana was, a skill seemed to pop up in her mind. It was called Assault Hammer. Settling on it, she took her rifle and swung the butt of the weapon outward. "Assault Hammer!" she felt like she was randomly saying it.
When the impact was dead-on, the Origin Blatta had toppled. Nana took this opportunity and took her knife into her right hand. As hard as she could, she rapidly cut the Origin Blatta's side face. Defenseless, the Origin Blatta couldn't get up right away. Nana used her knife to attack whatever she could. She easily took out one of his leg before he tried to attack with his other leg. The Origin Blatta barely hit her, luckily Nana was not too fatigued.
Although he was heavily weakened, the Origin Blatta got back up. From the distance, Elma fired bullets to keep him from getting too close to Nana. The enemy turned to Elma and disregarded Nana with a charge. It was then Nana shouted, "You're not going anywhere! Flame Grenade!"
A fiery blast was shot out from her rifle and hit the insect. Blaze was inflicted and the insect's body burned. Elma had already moved and did the final blow of a single strike from her blade.
"Oh," Nana had paused. The so-called Origin Blatta had fallen still and his eyes became dead. Just like that. "Wow, we sure showed him." When an enemy went back and forth like that, Nana found it too easy. However, the thought of having both melee and range weapons was convenient.
Approvingly, Elma smiled and set her weapons away. "You're not half-bad," she evaluated. It was a simple combat, but Nana had quick reflexes responding to the movement of the enemy as soon as she used an Art.
Putting her own weapons away, Nana fully faced her. "T-Thank you," Nana rubbed the back of her head. "That was over before I knew it."
Chuckling, Elma told her, "An Art takes time to cool down. It was excellent that we ended that fairly quickly. Otherwise you would have to fight without much Arts if they were all cooling down."
Nana nodded at that, somehow understanding what Elma meant. It seemed she only know two Arts at the moment. ...Was Nana a part of some kind of military before? Kinda cool. Nana must have been a really cool person.
"You know," Elma gestured with her hand. "There's plenty of work back in the city for someone who knows how to handle weapons." Nana stared at her, as if she was replaying what Elma just said. "We can talk more details later. Let's head where the lifepod Yelv discovered."
"Oh, right," Nana said with enthusiasm. "Let's find another me!"
The white haired woman smiled rather sweetly, taking a liking to Nana's spirit. Nana childishly skipped away, noticing the only way out of the area. Elma followed her lead casually and fixed her bangs from the rain. It does feel like it was going to let up soon. Perfect.
Nana could not wait to see what was beyond here. It was not long until she approached a lifepod that was in ruins. She walked to it slowly and her smiled faded away. "Oh..." Was someone in there? Were they dead?
"Most of the White Whale's lifepods didn't survive the crash like this one." Nana looked to her right and Elma stood next to her. With the two of them looking at it, Elma said, "You're one of the lucky few."
What if this had happened to Nana if her pod didn't survive? She dare not think about it. But she did question what happened before she got into the lifepod. Did she go in willingly? What was the purpose for it? Maybe it was for the good...? Her eyes softened and wondered out loud, "Do you think Yelv found a lifepod that's still intact too?"
"I'm certain that he did," Elma assured. "If it wasn't, he wouldn't have sent a signal."
Nana blinked, thinking that she was right about that. "What's the White Whale?" she curiously inquired as she brought her eyes up to Elma.
"Right—you don't even remember the White Whale, do you?" Elma reminded herself that Nana might have forgotten about many things. Who knows how much she had forgotten though? As Nana shook her head as a reply, Elma glanced away, "It's the ship we escaped Earth on. The L-002. You... remember Earth, right? Two years ago?"
Not familiar with it, Nana fixed her eyes at the ground in hopes of recalling it. But there was nothing. It was a total blackness at the back of her mind. "I don't remember," Nana took some time to say.
"Planet Earth. Your homeworld."
Nana slowly gazed up when she said home.
"Or rather, it used to be, anyway." Shocked, Nana then raised her head quickly this time. "Unfortunately, it was caught in a battle between two alien forces..." Elma looked at her in the eye first. Then she gazed to the dark sky. "...And destroyed." Elma would never forget how Earth was reduced to ashes in a blink of an eye. Millions of people back there were gone as well.
"It doesn't ring any bell..." Nana honestly murmured, grasping her hands together.
It must meant that this planet was not their home. Then, where are they? What about her family? Did she had any friends? ...How about a boyfriend? And just how was she familiar with these terms? Again, just how much did she forget, really? Nana can only name a down-turned smile when she tried to think back.
Elma felt an aura of confusion in the air. She felt sorry for Nana and said, "Don't feel bad. It's one memory I'd like to forget." A small smile returned to Nana's face and she made eye contact with Elma, who kindly nodded. "Come on," Elma took a step. "Let's go and check that other lifepod by the lake."
All pumped up, Nana smiled brightly with threw a fist into the air, "Yes, ma'am!" It might jog a memory if she took a more look around. Meeting someone in the lifepod might help too!
The dark, rosy-haired girl marched right ahead. Elma watched her back for a mere moment and smiled at her childlike character. For someone who could not remember who she was, her personality was taking shape already. Elma hoped that Nana will regain her memories while making new ones on planet Mira. And Elma was set on making that happen and will watch over her.
"Elma, about work..." Nana turned around, giving her a thumbs-up. "You know, in the city that you mentioned? I would love to lend a hand," Nana beamed cheerfully. At this, Elma was pleased to hear her say so.
"In that case," Elma made her way closer. Nana waited, holding her hands behind her. Smiling and expressing with care, Elma stated, "I might have just the job for you."
Nana giggled, "Yay!"
It was only natural since it was Elma who found and rescued Nana from being inside the lifepod. Nana felt indebted. But most importantly, she felt extremely thankful to be able to walk around like this, despite losing her identity. Whether or not the city needed more support, Nana simply knew that she wanted to do Elma a favor. From the moment Nana opened her eyes, it was like seeing a parent waiting for them to take the first peek into the world. A symbiotic relationship, perhaps. Whatever it was, Nana could not wait to see what would happen next.
For the time being, they needed to check the new lifepod near the Biahno Lake. As for Yelv, Elma didn't seem to mind about him by himself. Maybe he would be alright by himself?
End of Chapter 1
Extra note:
Nana is my older sister's Cross. But she never got to chapter 5 in the video game.
Thanks for reading!
