Shout-out to And26169 for their idea! :)

When we last left our heroes, Xord wittily tricked the lot of 'em with his ham and has snatched Juju away for the Mechonis. The Brat is officially gone — well, from the Arachno Queen's Gut Fluid — and will perhaps return. A Face name is up in the air. Voting is open. And breaking news: in perhaps the most shocking revelation to ever swarm around Alcamoth's beauty saloons, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is officially a thing.

Cue fangirling.

"Xenoblade 2?! Really?!" Shulk squeals. Fiora lets out a gasp and hastily stands, doing an excited dance to the tune of the 7-year-old song bursting from her throat.

Sharla pauses, Fiora-trademark sandwich halfway to her mouth, and only shrugs before taking a great bite. "Yeah, I guess. Colony 6's been making it for a long time, but then the mechon came and the final version is locked deep with Colony 6's gates." Her gaze silently, forlornly, drifts to the top of Spiral Valley, its shadow looming darkly above them.

With a frustrated shout, Reyn abruptly stands from the picnic blanket, positioned in a cozy spot of sunlight on the main level of Spiral Valley. "You telling me they purposely are playing it before us?!"

"Yeah."

"And you act so carefree about it!"

"After Gadolt's disappearance, Reyn, my heart has been a soulless void." The woman continues staring off into space. "Oh Gadolt…"

Meanwhile, in the walls of Colony 6…

Gadolt, his jade armor flashing with bright sunlight, swiftly dives to the side with a grunt, his shoulder hitting the leveled ground. "No!"

Three mechon beside him click angrily and begin poking at him, trying to grab something from his hands like a dessert to be shared…and Gadolt is eating all of it, how dare he!

"I will never give it to you! It is mine, see?! Go start your own save file!" he shouts. The mechanical creatures shamefully back away. With a slight grumble, Gadolt sits back up again and straightens, squaring his shoulders and gritting his teeth. "I'm making it to Elysium first, suckers. This is my colony, and my rules, got it?!"

They quickly reply and make another grab at the Nintendo Switch controller locked within Gadolt's tyrannical grip. "But it's my turn to try it now, that's not fair!" one whines.

"No fair, no fair!"

"Haha, too bad. I'm on orders by Egil to babysit you chumps, so I might as well do something useful besides standing around and wasting time. You two aren't exactly fond of shootin' the breeze."

The mechon complain of their programmed weaknesses — Egil isn't exactly too fond of shooting the breeze himself, it seems — then pout as they flop back down onto the rock, muttering something or another about loyalties.

Meanwhile, back in Spiral Valley and Sharla's Dead Heart…

Reyn lets out a scream. "Gah, this is so annoying, why can't we get it now?! I wanna play Xenoblade 2!"

"Relax, we just gotta break into Colony 6." Shulk replies, as if this was the simplest answer imaginable.

"What." The boy spits this out, his face twisted in pure flabbergast at the supposed scientist's immoral suggestion that came out so easily. "Dude! J-just, dude! You don't just break into another colony!"

With a snort, Fiora throws an arm around Shulk's rather underdeveloped shoulders and cracks a Reyn-esque grin. "Relax, we're experts in this sort of thing, we do this allllll the time."

A gasp escapes Reyn's gaping mouth. "Wha…what…"

"Just leave it to us!"

The Arachno Queen clicks eagerly. "Oh, I'm so gung-ho for this, let's do this thing, my homs spiderlings."

"Okay…" Sharla ponders over the landscape of the Bionis' Leg, her foot tapping impatiently.

"Well, do you know where to go?" Fiora asks, her body tensed up. "We need to go now. I'm starting to have to use the loo again."

"…No. Why else to you think I never left the refugee camp?"

"Oh, great." Shulk remarks sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"If you're gonna use the loo, there's a bush back there." the woman adds absentmindedly, continuing her pour-over of the landscape.

At that comment, Fiora only grunts as if that's the most indignant thing she's ever heard before in her life. "The bush."

Sharla suddenly lets out a little sound. "Oh. Right there, that's it, that's it!"

The Queen shrieks at her excited scream, then stands and huffs, annoyed at the jump-scare.

"It's to the left, over there!" The woman hastily points, and the group rushes over to her sides to see where she's gesturing to. "That area over there, that has to lead to our colony!"

Reyn chuckles dryly. "Hoh'boy."


"I'm starting to think we took a wrong turn somewhere…" Reyn says. He tensely looks around at the same surroundings they passed through about a thousand times before they even first got to Spiral Valley — the boy's pretty sure they're going the complete wrong way.

"What? Um, nope, nope. I just know the this is the right path, I just know it!" Sharla replies.

"I'm really feeling it!"

"Shut up." the redhead grunts.

"But we've passed Raguel Bridge so many times!" Fiora whines, dancing slightly where she stands. "W-Where's this bush you were telling me about, Sharla?"

She only lets out a coy cackle. "So sorry, we must have already passed that."

"What?!"

"Suck up the indecency, girl. I've had to do that for the past year."

The group, feeling rather exhausted, stops at a small spring. Fiora sighs in relief and dives behind a nearby outcropping of rock, and Shulk only moans and rolls his eyes — next time, it's be him. He had always hated being split into two, and the dread of the loo was beginning to creep up on him.

Reyn gasps as he finally tears his head up from the water, it dripping from his mouth. "That hit the jackpot! Let's refill our bottles here."

Sharla only stares at him. "Um, Reyn, this spring is a favorite spot of some of the local wildlife here. It's their watering hole, and I guess there's a Volff peeing over there, so it's their bathroom, too."

Water and spit combined spews from Reyn's mouth. "Then why didn't you stop me?!" Gasping, he backs away as the Volff, just a few meters ahead of him in the water, drops his leg and growls menacingly. "Two can play at that game, Volff!" Reyn spits, slamming his hands down on the sides of his trousers.

"Ugh, no! Not here, not here!" the Arachno Queen screams, immediately cowering. Sharla only groans in exasperation.

Fiora, with a slight hum, skips out from behind the bush. "Hey guys, sorry it took me so — oh my Dickson." Sharla's groans get louder as she allows the Arachno Queen to hide her, her hairy legs wrapping around Sharla and pulling in tight, as if she is a mother protecting her young. "Reyn, what did you do to yourself?!"

"Oh my Bionis, Reyn!" Shulk says.

Sharla's groans turn to a scream. This will be a long day.

An angry roar sounds behind the group, and everyone turns around but Reyn, too busy with trying to compete with the bathroom prowess of a Volff. A dark shadow casts over the boy, and he finally stops.

There, with a red name tag and a face to rival Dickson's, was the Territorial Rotbart!

"MYAH!"

The group screams and starts to run, only to be hastily grabbed by the Arachno Queen and forced to stay!

"You spiderlings ain't goin' nowhere, this is our battle. The Gogols have invaded on our territory for too long!"

"Are you nuts?! You're getting us all killed!" Shulk shouts.

"It's level 81!" Fiora sobs, grabbing at Shulk in panic. "Come on, come on, let's change back, let's change back, pleeeeease."

"No." he replies stubbornly. "Reyn, now's your chance, use the Monado!"

Reyn gasps and yanks it off his back.

"With your pants up!"

"Well," Reyn says with a sigh, tossing the Monado aside. "That's not happening."

The two moan and know that nothing they say will ever change that boy's mind.

"MYAH!"

With one swipe, it's the Bionis Slash X all over again.


Gasping, wheezing, dragging their sorry hides across the plains of the Bionis' Leg, the ragged group finally gets to Colony 6.

"Oh, ohhhhh, I'm so done, so, so, so done," Shulk rasps, shaking his head as he collapses at the front gates. "Oh Bionis, I can't move. Help. Heeeelp."

Fiora only grunts as she sits down by his side. "I…I ain't helpin' you."

"Ugh."

Sharla scratches at the gates like a lonely Bunniv wanting to play with the homs. "It's locked, oh Bionis, it's locked. All that way for absolutely nothing!" Breaking down into tears, she slides down the heavy doors and curls up in a fetal position. "I'm too tired to do a Heal Round."

The Arachno Queen, with Reyn limp in two of her legs, sits down placidly and makes a noise like another Juju hairball was about to come out. Reyn only grunts as drool hits his cheek.

"It's locked, we can't get in. Why…?" Sharla says weakly.

"Oh, it's locked? So we have to wait for an adult with keys to come and open it for us?" the redhead boy asks rather seriously.

"Yeah, yeah, I guess."

"Did you try it?"

"Yep." [Blatant lies]

Dunban and Dickson briskly stride over to the rag-tag group from the pathway leading to Colony 6. "Oh, hey, guys. What's up?"

"Shulk m'boy!" Dickson says. "How are you, kid? I thought you were dead." He gets a suspicious look on his face as he stares at the flopped teenager. "I mean, again. Heheheh."

"I'm…not Shulk…" he manages to pant out. "Just Alvis. Always Alvis, Dicky. So's Fiora."

"Oh. In that case, continue on."

"Thanks."

With a sigh, Dunban walks over and pushes the Colony 6 gate doors open. "It's not locked. What are you, a bunch of school kids?"

Everyone groans out an exhausted response. "Yes."

Juju is officially a non-canon Face, and we need a name for him! Juju-Face! Rainbow…Slug Face…? Please let me know of your ideas. Thank you.

Cormag Ravenstaff: Son of a Dickson, Nintendo, you're making everyone want your new Switch now! But WOW, I didn't expect that! It'll be interesting how they incorporate the post-Xenoblade-ending for this sequel…