Severa's Tale: Act II

Section B

A Funeral of Flowers

Part XX

Author's note: I recommend listening to The Wretched Automatons from NieR when you see one * mark, Wretched Weaponry (Dynamic/Vocals) from NieR: Automata when you see two ** marks, and Wretched Weaponry (Medium/Vocals) from NieR: Automata when you see three *** marks.


Lucina wasn't sure how many days had passed since she had left that swamp. The surrounding, dreary environment of Valm all blended together in her head. She also wasn't sure if yesterday was the day she climbed over a barren mountain range only to be greeted with empty land, or if that was two days ago.

Thankfully, there always seemed to be just enough plantlife to provide her with a meal. She was also glad that her camping skills were being put to good use through the cold nights.

Throughout all her memories of her journey, however, she could remember the pipes. The large, cold markers that guided her south towards the Specter Express. She continued to walk along, following the pipes as she had done for days on end. But today felt different. The strange, brown markings on the pipes began to fade away as she continued to walk. And as she continued to walk, something that she initially praised yet grew to despise rose over the horizon.

Standing tall against the afternoon sky was a massive, square monolith that the pipes led into. It looked like a gigantic cube had been dumped on the land and taken root. Its walls were beige and blended right in with the scarred ground. The corners of the roof looked sharp enough to cut steel.

Only when she began to walk towards the humongous building did she see a figure approaching the building from the other direction. From the other direction as well was another set of pipes that funneled into the entrance of this large building. As Lucina continued towards the building, she began to make out some features on the approaching person. Long, white hair. Brown-ish armor. And a smile that she could recognize from any distance.

Both Lucina and Severa picked up their pace as they hurried towards each other. They eventually met in a hug right in front of the door to this building. The silence was broken when Severa spoke up, muffled through Lucina's shoulder.

"Thank gods you're okay…"

"I was worried sick about you," Lucina replied, unable to notice that Severa was blushing. The memories of the kiss they shared in that dream still burned in Severa's mind and was not something she wanted to bring up.

"Grima said you were in some place called Mother's Misery." Severa drew back and had to avert her eyes to hide her bright-red cheeks.

"Misery is an apt way to describe it. And you saw Grima? Where the hell were you? Cordelia said you were at Father's Pride."

Severa's mind hung on the image of Grima sobbing in a maze of crystals.

"...It's complicated. Father's Pride was nice. Nicer than this place." She looked around the barren countryside again. "Wait, my mom was with you?"

"Yeah uh…" Lucina tried to think of a way to summarize her adventures through the bowels of the Mila Tree but drew a blank. "It's complicated."

While Severa was thinking, she remembered the monitors underneath that one building, displaying a building titled 'The Chemical Refinery.' Was this that building? Is this where the sap from the Mila Tree was mixed with the lava from the Demon's Ingle? Judging by this being where the network of pipes met, Severa assumed this was indeed the place. "Where's the Specter Express?" Lucina asked.

As if it was mocking her, the distinctive sound of a train whistle sounded from behind Lucina. Both of them hurried to the corner of the building, peeking past it to find a long stretch of train tracks. They could see the front of the Specter Express approaching the building.

"If we hurry we can catch i-" Severa almost rushed past Lucina before she felt a hand clasp her shoulder and interrupt her.

"Look." Lucina took a few steps past the wall and pointed to where the train tracks met the building. A partitioned-off section of the wall that opened when the train approached, then closed after the train entered. Before jumping to a conclusion, Lucina waited for about a minute to hear the train whistle. The occasional rush of wind was all she heard. "The train stops inside there." Severa groaned and hung her head.

"Just when I thought it would be easy, too." She mumbled as she began walking towards the front entrance. Lucina followed behind.

They stepped inside the building, anticipating the door to be slammed behind them alongside some booming voice announcing that this was a trap. Some literal traps like a wall of blades would just be a formality at this point.

The door did indeed slam shut, but no death traps sprung out from the dark hallway. Instead, a wooden lamp flickered to life above, revealing that this hallway defied the metal exterior outside by being made of wood.

Severa rapped her knuckles on the wooden wall and felt a metallic clang over a wooden knock. Even the floors appeared to be made of wood yet felt as cold as metal.

"What kind of material is this?" Lucina asked, drawing her sword.

"I don't know, but it's kinda creepy…" Severa replied, drawing her blade in kind and slowly advancing. As they continued down the hall, the lights above flickered to life as they approached.

*After a while, their approach was halted when they heard a loud, clanging sound. To make sure it wasn't their footsteps, they stopped dead in their tracks. But the metallic clangs continued, occasionally undercut by what sounded like smaller objects dropping to the floor.

The duo continued after their brief pause, left with no answers and even more questions. But, like a ghostly reminder of days gone, a familiar voice rang out as the metal sounds stopped.

Olivia's voice.

Her words were barely coherent, not even classifiable as any language either of them had heard, but it was there. Lucina stopped dead in her tracks along with Severa.

"Do… do you hear that?" Her heart was beating out of her chest. Was this where they were keeping her mother? But how had they moved her out of the castle?

"Is that your mother? But she's-" Severa almost finished before Lucina butted in.

"She's alive. I had a vision of her, and she's somewhere in here." Her resolve tightened like her grip on her blade, hurrying down the halls in the direction of her mother's voice. Severa rushed after her, trying to process what she had just heard.

But without a second to breathe, Severa's gaze shifted to a nearby window shining light into the hallway. She looked out and found that the window was covered with a thick layer of steam. But beyond it, she could see a hellish orange light, large objects that seemed to be moving on their own, and humanoid figures moving around.

She could faintly hear singing from beyond the window. A different tune than the voice down the hallway, but it was the same voice.

"Lucina…" Severa looked down the hall only to see Lucina was sprinting through it. She had a bad feeling about this. A very, very bad feeling that only grew worse as she chased after Lucina.

Eventually, the hallway opened into a massive room that had actual lighting. In the center was a stage, with wooden rows lining up the floor above. They were on the floor that situated these rows, with no path down to the stage.

And on that stage was a woman with pink locks of long hair and white clothes. Singing the same song as before, but without the metallic beat backing her. She made no special dances. She simply stood in place as she sang, watching as Lucina leaned over the railing and desperately searched for a way to get down.

It wasn't until Lucina stopped and thought for a moment that she remembered more of her escapades in the Mila Tree. Specifically the clone of her mother made of goo. Was this really her? How could it? It could just be a fa-

"Uh…" Severa walked up beside Lucina and was not aware that said clones were possible. "What is she saying?"

Olivia replied with more nonsensical singing. It sounded almost like actual words, and every time it approached something recognizable, Lucina felt her heart flutter.

Behind Olivia was a set of red curtains, but Lucina focused on what she hadn't seen before. A very old man with grey hair sitting on a very ornate throne. He had a front-row seat to the stage as he sat at roughly the halfway point between Lucina and the curtains, staring at Olivia all the while. But he seemed disinterested in the events.

"Do you see a way to get down there?" Lucina continued to try and find any manner of a staircase or ladder, but was greeted with nothing. Her motions grew more panicked as time went on. If that was really her mother, then why was she down there with that old man?

The curtains in the back parted. Lucina and Severa both watched with wide eyes as a hulking behemoth of a man walked out. His armor was crimson and gold, minus his white cape and his black, horned visor. In the center of his chest was a blue crystal, like the ones on the Specter Express.

Lucina recognized him as the man from the desert factory who referred to her as 'Nemesis.' He even had the same lance and shield from that day, despite Severa having killed him there.

"Who is that guy?" Severa whispered to Lucina.

"You killed him at the factory in the desert." She replied.

"Oh. Right..." She tried to not think about that bloody day; her expression shifted to a dour look that matched Lucina's.

The armored man simply stood and watched Olivia as well; Lucina didn't like this one bit. "So if I killed him, how is he here now?" Severa asked.

"He mentioned that my father killed him, and he has one of those blue crystals on his chest. I think he might be a walking spirit like our friends on the train or Leraie."

"Which means that when we kicked his ass, he came back to where his body is… Do you know anyone your dad killed that's from here?" The wheels in Lucina's mind began to turn while Severa leaned over the railing, waiting for this armored man to make a move.

"My father slew many men in the Valm War," Lucina replied, still focusing on the man.

Their calm conversation was cut short when suddenly, the armored man began to approach Olivia. Lucina's grip on the handrails tightened and her heartbeat began to race. "How do we get down there how do we stop him from-!" Her breathing rate reached a breakneck speed; she almost flung herself over the balcony as the man loomed over Olivia.

Olivia finished her dance and turned around to face the man towering over her like an ogre over a farmhouse.

"Cheating scum." The man muttered in a booming voice as he grabbed Olivia by the neck. Lucina yelped as she watched her mother struggle against the man holding her by the throat. "Gaze now, father of war! Gaze as I enact my revenge upon the devil who cheated my honor!"

Severa could hardly watch as she noticed the lance in his other hand, positioned right at her chest. Her focus then turned to Lucina, whose entire body was shaking in some jumbled mix of rage, fear, and anticipation.

"With this lance, I shall reclaim my pride." His voice boomed as he drove his lance into Olivia's chest, the other end piercing through her back. "And with your fate sealed, I sentence you to damnation." Lucina and Severa screamed as he removed his lance from Olivia's corpse and tossed her aside like a sack of vegetables.

Barely giving the bloodied body a second look, the man stomped towards the old man and stomped over him. "How is the show, Alm?"

The old man said nothing as he locked eyes with the crimson giant. Severa and Lucina were still reeling from Olivia's death, trying to process it piece-by-piece, and the revealed identity of the old man didn't help.

Severa did notice that Lucina wasn't crying nearly as much as she thought she would, given that her mother just died. Instead, she just stood there, glaring. Severa, on the other hand, was sobbing uncontrollably.

"That wasn't my mother." Something inside Lucina's mind clicked as she stared at Alm. "These are the same lookalikes from the Mila Tree. That's what they must've been harvesting from it."

"What the hell do you mean?" Severa asked, her eyes still wet.

"There was this… goo, in the Mila Tree. It was a person too, but that doesn't mean they could've separated it from her. Look, over there." Lucina grabbed Severa by the shoulder and pointed to where Olivia's corpse should be, only now it was a pile of purple goo. "That sludge can transform itself into people and mimic them. It already tried to fool me into thinking I killed my parents, but now it gave up the disguise entirely after it died."

"That's… weird." Severa dried her eyes. "Maybe because it was separated from this person, it can't hold its shape for long. And there's no way Alm is still alive, meaning that old man down there is-" Their talk was interrupted by an old, raspy voice.

"Why have you brought me here, coward?" Alm finally spoke after his pause.

"Yes, it is quite a good sho-" The crimson man instead took a pause of his own. A smile crept along his face.

"Time and time again, you create me and that pink-haired maiden from the sludge. Then you kill her, boast about how strong you are, and kill me as if you're going to inherit my power through your lance. You even wear my father's armor, almost as if you have no identity of your own." Alm continued to glare at him.

"How humorous of you to gain independent thought only when your life flashes before your eyes. Let me tell you something, old man. I conquered your land, pillaged your name, and own your bloodline. Everything you and your ancestors have accomplished now belongs to me. You call me a coward? I stared death in the face and won back my soul with my honed resolve. And honed is my lance as I end your miserable life." No sooner did the crimson man finish his sentence than did he plunge his lance into Alm's chest.

Alm shuddered from the blow, groaned, and then looked at the hole in his chest as the crimson man removed his weapon from it. Purple ooze seeped from his wound, confirming Lucina's hypothesis. Alm stood up and indignantly stared at the crimson man, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"This... changes nothing… Walhart." His final breath escaped his lips as his eyes closed; Walhart tossed his corpse away in a similar fashion to how he disposed of the false Olivia.

Lucina gasped in shock at just the mention of his name. This elicited a response from Severa.

"You know him?" Severa vaguely remembered the name Walhart but wasn't sure where she first heard it.

"The emperor of Valm… and the man my mother killed by intervening when my father almost lost a duel with him." The more Lucina whispered, the more Severa grimaced.

"But it seems I have uninvited guests," Walhart shouted, breaking the silence. "Rats scurrying about the rafters above." His cold stare focused directly at Severa and Lucina, who felt their guts sink in response. He then thrusted his lance directly into the ground and rested his hands on the hilt.

A spotlight above flickered to life, shining directly on Lucina. "That hair… Those damnable cerulean locks that haunt my dreams… There is no doubt. You are my nemesis."

The ground beneath them shook. Suddenly, the very balcony they stood on sank lower and lower until it merged into the ground floor. Severa noticed that the material of the balcony changed for a brief moment, resembling a featureless, tiled pattern of white boxes with black outlines. But it barely held this shape before it changed to match the material of the stage. "And you." He lifted a hand off the hilt of his lance and pointed at Severa. "My employer's daughter. I remember you overpowered me back at the weapons factory. Not by your own skill, of course, but by trickery."

"Is that what people from Valm call it?" Severa drew her blade and a grin crept along her face. "From where I'm from, we call it 'kicking your ass.'"

"A crude metaphor, but I expect nothing less from the best of Ylisse. Not even their legendary armies could face mine." Walhart readied his free hand back on his lance.

"For someone so obsessed with the past, you seem to love creating your own version of events. My father's armies and yours met in a stalemate for countless years, and you sped up the process by offering a duel. A duel that you lost." Lucina spoke up, drawing her blade in kind.

"It seems what the scholars say about 'history being written by the victors' is true. Which makes it all the more asinine when that victory was won by subterfuge over actual prowess."

"You want a fair fight? We're standing right here." Severa outstretched her arms with a boast. Lucina grimaced.

"Normally, a duel against two opponents would hardly be honorable. But since you both come from such miserable lineages, I will consider your combined ability to be about as competent as a farm boy." Lucina's fingers tightened around her blade as she bent her knees and aimed it directly at Walhart.

"I'm going to enjoy silencing you." With her words muttered under her breath, she sprang forward like an arrow let loose from its nock. She dashed closer and closer to Walhart, who didn't even react as Lucina plunged her blade into his chest.

Or, she would've, if his armor didn't stop her blade completely and leave her standing in front of the motionless man. With shocking speed, he grabbed her sword by its blade and ripped it from her grasp. Terror flashed in her eyes as he stood over her and inspected her sword.

"Twice now, this tool of the gods has failed to kill me." As though he were throwing a pebble, Walhart tossed Falchion behind him and swung his fist towards Lucina. "Your trust in their abilities is misplaced." Lucina deftly dodged his swing, only to be rewarded with his armored knee colliding with her gut. The strike sent her flying backward and onto the ground, wheezing for air.

"I… thought you said no dirty tricks…" Her chest felt like it was about to collapse as she laid on the ground.

"You lost your entitlement to a fair fight when your mother cheated me out of a duel." He spoke while he assumed a squatting position. A burst of flame erupted from his back, propelling him forward like a wheelbarrow rushing down a hill. Lucina could barely feel her legs, let alone find the strength to dodge out of the way before she was crushed by a living suit of armor.

She laid her head on the ground, hearing only the rush of whatever infernal device was hurtling Walhart towards her. But suddenly, the rushing stopped. With a slow lean upwards, she raised her head off the ground and saw Severa standing between her and the immobile Walhart.

"You know, there was always one thing that I thought was odd about our little misadventure in that desert factory. Why was I put in a jail cell?" Lucina couldn't see it, but the smirk on Severa's face almost went from ear-to-ear. "It wasn't until you blabbed about how Grima is paying your bills that I put it together. You can't kill me." Walhart's grip on his lance tightened, and his own frown was concealed by his mask. "You're probably under direct orders to see to it that not a single hair on my head gets harmed."

"Correct," Walhart growled. The hairs on Severa's arms tingled, and not a second later did Walhart swing at where her head would be if she hadn't dodged. "But I can shut you up." He swung again, prompting Severa to dodge in turn. Lucina continued to watch from the floor, desperately trying to find the strength to get up.

Walhart's flurry of punches continued along with Severa's evasive maneuvers. It turns out it was much easier to dodge an opponent when you weren't focused on trying to get a few blows in.

"Hey, Lucina! I can't do this all day!" The cracks in Severa's voice betrayed her confidence; her stamina was fading. Her voice continued to ring in Lucina's ears as she slowly got to her feet and ran towards her discarded blade. Severa drew back from Walhart's last punch and to Lucina's side, catching her breath. "Next time… you get to be the distraction…" Walhart seemed no worse for wear as he watched them from afar.

"We might not get a next time," Lucina replied, noticing that her tone was familiar. This was the same tone she used to infuriate their enemies.

"No way. This chump can't even hit me!" The device on Walhart's back was humming. He put his shield in front of him and readied his lance.

"That must be why he lost to my mother," Lucina smirked, realizing why Severa did this stunt as often as she did. "He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn."

"Enough!" With a burst of flame propelling him, Walhart charged forward with his lance aimed directly at Lucina. He would've skewered her too, if she and Severa hadn't leapt out of the way in opposite directions. Walhart sailed past them, down the steps of the stage and crashing into the wall. As soon as he made contact with the wall, it began to flicker like a fading spell. The wooden exterior changed back to that tiled pattern from before, only now it held this form.

Severa and Lucina inspected the hole Walhart left in the wall and noticed that the entire stage disappeared, revealing they were standing in a room full of that tiled pattern. They also noticed a door to their left.

**Walhart's furious groans echoed out of the hole, growing louder and louder with each passing second.

"We need to get out of here," Lucina noted as she went for the door. Severa hurried behind, uneager to see what Walhart's continued wrath looked like. The doors opened, releasing a blast of hot air that made Lucina's hair flow behind her like a flag. The clanging sounds from before had returned, now complemented by a hellish landscape of orange haze covering an interior that resembled the desert factory. To their left and right was nothing but a yawning abyss, and not a single organic object was in sight; it was steel machinery as far as the eye could see. Glass tubes lined the walls, some filled with lava and some filled with orange sap

In the far distance, figures could be seen working on the machinery and glass tubes. Dozens upon dozens of these figures filled the massive, hazy room. And barely audible over the clanging of the machinery was a chorus of voices.

It was the same voice from the hallway: Olivia's. All of these figures had her voice, and the ones that were close enough to see had her features. This entire room was filled with clones of Lucina's mother.

They paused, taken aback by this haunting sight. Lucina especially stood perfectly still for a few moments. The singing of the Olivias continued all the while.

"What the…" Severa finally broke the silence, her jaw agape.

"A beautiful sight, is it not?" Walhart's booming voice from behind overtook the chorus. With a quick turn, Severa glared him down. "Bit by bit, these replicas of her tear apart the land she laid claim to when she murdered me. All for my employer."

"How can you even stomach working for him? I thought you hated gods." Severa replied. Lucina was still silent.

"But you see, he is no god. He was constructed by man. His followers worship him the same way mine strove for my ideals. And I am not one to look down on the second chance at revenge he gave me."

While Walhart spoke, Lucina noticed in the distance that these clones of her mother were working on a moving floor. Once they had finished pulling levers or hammering panes of steel, the floor underneath them shuffled them off the edge and into the abyss below. Then, more clones emerged from a door nearby, replacing the ones that had been discarded. "And to think, this was only possible because I asked for some follicles of hair from the real Olivia. Although I may not get the chance to crush the real one's throat, this sight does soothe my soul."

The chorus of voices was swelling, growing louder and louder in Lucina's ears. Shivers trickled down her spine, from both the clangs of metal and the sight of countless replicas of her mother being discarded. She fell to her knees, the pain in her chest growing to a roar.

"Lu… na, come on ge… p we can't…" Severa's voice could barely be heard over the noises both outside and inside her head.

Suddenly, Lucina got to her feet. But without giving so much as a glance to Severa with her tear-stricken eyes, she ran away into the orange haze ahead. Severa remained, dumbstruck and unaware that Walhart was standing behind her.

"Once again, your trust is misplaced."


***As more distance was put between Lucina and Walhart, the clanging of the machinery grew quieter. But the chorus of her mother's voice was just as prevalent as before. The orange haze from before was now tinted green, but more clones of her mother could be seen through it. Everywhere Lucina looked was filled with her mothers, toiling away at their infernal task. And not giving Lucina so much as a parting glance.

A wall and a door were at her left, breaking the yawning chasm that had stretched out for gods know how long. Unable to bear the haunting sight of these replicas, Lucina ducked into the doorway and heard the door slam behind her. Lights flickered to life above her while she slumped against the wall. But, as the room became illuminated, her hope of a reprieve from the replicas outside wasn't granted. More clones were in this room, simply shuffling about in this dreary room.

The pain in her chest returned as she doubled over on the floor. Her insides churned and her throat felt like it was clogged. Her eyes widened as she vomited on the floor, arms and legs trembling all the while. She pulled her head back, looking up to again be unnoticed by the Olivias ahead of her. As they walked out of and into various doorways, singing all the while, not a single one noticed their daughter, as she cried out in anguish.

Lucina picked herself off the ground and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. The pain in her chest was still present and pounding at her as she walked into the crowd of Olivias. She bowed her head as she shoved past these clones, her pace quickening with every push she made. Some were even knocked to the floor from Lucina's advance, still unaware of her presence.

Eventually she shut her eyes as she pressed onwards, unable to look at what she was doing. But as she stretched her arms to feel her surroundings, she was greeted with the feel of her mother's skin; a feeling she had been craving for more than a year. Desperate to get anywhere except the room she was in, she eventually felt the ridges of a doorway and hid inside, only opening her eyes when she was sure she didn't have to look at what she had just escaped.

Directly ahead of her was a dim light, past a turn in this drab, metallic hallway she found herself in. She turned the corner and found a large collection of screens that gave off the light from before, with a desk underneath them as they hung on the wall. Across all of the monitors was the same scene, of the opera stage Walhart stood on from before. But each screen showed a different angle of what looked to be the same scene: Olivia standing motionless and unaware of her impending doom behind her. Alm could be seen on some of these screens.

Lucina's gaze transfixed on these countless monitors, unable to look away as Walhart grabbed Olivia by the neck on each one in tandem, and impaled her through the chest with a haunting millisecond delay between each screen. The sights outside had slightly dulled her senses to this scene, but her gut still churned.

However, as she turned away with her head bowed, the sounds from one monitor caught her ear. It was her mother's voice.

"Where are my children?" The clone asked, her voice crackling through the filter of the screen. Lucina whipped her head around and tried to find which monitor this was coming from, eventually discovering it to be on the bottom row in the left corner.

"Hopefully alive so I can kill them with my bare hands," Walhart replied in the footage as he grabbed this Olivia by the neck. Lucina placed her hands on the desk and leaned forward, mind already racing.

"...You're a monster." The clone spat back as Walhart's grasp on her neck tightened, eventually ending with a loud snap. Walhart tossed the limp body away like a fox discarding a chicken.

"Note to self... See to it that all future replicas cannot speak coherently. If I wanted to have an argument with a corpse, I'd go back to those cowardly diplomats." Walhart mumbled to himself, barely audible over the filter of the monitor from before.

The screen blinked and turned black, leaving Lucina in a dark room with nothing but her thoughts. These clones were sentient, apparently. Enough to form coherent thoughts. At least until Walhart stamped that out.

"Their singing… Are they singing for me?" Lucina noted that their singing from when she first entered this building was different from their singing now. The only cause for that change must've been when the Olivias noted Lucina's presence. "They know that I'm here." Testing her theory, Lucina stepped back out into the room full of clones and grabbed one by the shoulder. She stared directly into its fearful, trembling eyes, the pain in her chest swelling to a fever pitch as she felt her grip tighten. The clone did everything in her power to avoid eye contact, deliberately looking away from where Lucina's gaze was.

And continuing to sing her somber song.

Lucina took a few steps back. Her feet ached but she could not care. These were not mindless clones; they were living, breathing and sentient replicas of her mother that could notice her if they weren't forced to avoid her.

As she placed her hands to her blade, her sword exploded in a bright and familiar flash of light. But normally, she was only able to trigger this light when her rage swelled to a boiling point. Now, however, there was no rage. No loud screaming in her opponent's face. Just a burning desire to make Walhart atone for his sins against her mother.

With the pain in her chest subsiding, Lucina stepped back out into the central hallway, heading towards the direction she previously ran from. As she raised her sword aloft, the green mist parted in its resplendent sheen, guiding her to the friend she had abandoned.