Chapter 1: The Wrong Place

Rex's hand twitched once, twice.

Pain.

His awareness returned gradually, starting a dull, throbbing headache. Heat seeped into where his cheek lay, like a reflection of the sun. Breathing in deep he got a surprising whiff of salt, and-

He coughed as sand went up his nose.

Consciousness quickly returning now, he propped himself up on the sand with his hands, and looked up. He had to rub his eyes and make sure he was seeing this right. It wasn't the best idea because it got sand in his eyes.

"What in the…"

Arrayed in front of him was an ocean. Not a sea of clouds, but water, glistening in the sunlight off the deep blue water, lapping up onto the sand near him. Turning his eyes up farther, the water just seemed to go on endlessly. Despite himself, he gaped at it for a long time.

Coming to himself after the initial wow factor wore off, he turned his head, looking around at what seemed like a beach. His first instinct was that this could be part of the Leftherian Archipelago, but thought better of it. The sand was the wrong colour, more yellow than the whites of the archipelago for that. Maybe this was a Titan he wasn't familiar with? He turned to orient himself with the World Tree, looking behind him. Something caught his eye and he turned to look at-

His jaw dropped.

Two huge humanoid Titans, at least as large, no, larger than Mor Ardain, stood in the vast sea of water that stretched on endlessly. One looked rich with plant life, while the other looked more like some advanced machine. The machine one looked like it held something, bridging the gap in between them...was that a sword?

As his gaze roved over them, something about the scene unsettled him. For a long moment, he couldn't put his finger on it until it hit him.

They didn't move at all. And they didn't look like they were decaying either.

"Are they...dead? Hey, Gramps," he asked, "have you ever seen anything like this before?"

Silence met his answer.

"Gramps?" He turned back to look in his helmet hooked on to the back of his armour and found the space empty.

And then he remembered.

The Cliffs of Morytha, the battles with Jin and Malos. Ophion. Falling with-

Mythra.

Rex launched to his feet and wished he'd taken it slower as the dull headache he'd woken up with rushed into a throbbing headache. He gritted his teeth in pain, clutching his head as he stumbled around, eventually finding a huge piece of metal debris to lean against.

Part of him wondered why that was here, but it was convenient to lean on at the moment,

Slowly, the headache subsided enough for him to think straight enough, but there was a strange pressure that never fully went away. He blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision that had come with the ache, but it was like trying to clear a smudge in the inside of a full dive salvaging suit helmet. It didn't go away.

"Mythra?" His call seemed to be lost to the sound of the waves.

The pressure in his head stayed constant, reminding him of the pressure of the depths of the cloud sea when he went salvaging, even though it wasn't the same. Pressure in the cloud sea always got more intense the deeper you got.

But he tried the same trick he always used. He emptied his head. It didn't go away, the pressure, but the headache finally receded enough for him to get a good look around.

The beach was quite long, dotted with the occasional krabble and flamii, but what really stood out was that it was absolutely littered with metal debris similar to the one he was leaned against. Looking a little closer to the one he was right by, he realized that it wasn't just debris, but the parts of machines, almost like the artificial Blades from Mor Ardain's Factory, but there was a lot more variety.

His eyes went over again past the shoreline - intent on getting another look at the towering Titans - when something caught his eye. Something drifting onto the beach on the rise of the sea tide. He squinted and saw white mixed with blonde and emerald.

"Mythra!"

He ignored the aches and pains, and started dashing down the beach. He might have tripped a couple of times, but he didn't care. After a seeming eternity, he reached her.

Crouching down in the water, he pulled her out of the tide before it could draw her back out into the vast ocean, dragging her under the armpits to get her out of reach of the waves.

Carefully setting her down, he rested her head on his lap to elevate it. He felt like Nia had said to do something like that if someone was unconscious at some point, that it would help somehow.

He gently shook her. "Mythra, are you alright? Can you hear me?"

She didn't respond. His heart lurched when he realized it didn't look like she was breathing.

Titan's foot! His hand instinctively went down to where his pouch was, where his emergency air capsule would be kept. His hand grasped empty air and he realized that the new armour Mythra had given him didn't have that.

Now what? His heart thumped loudly and his cheeks flushed at the thought of it, but if it saved her life…

How did it go again? Pinch the nose, clear the airway? But that was for humans. Did it work the same on Blades?

Aw, screw it.

Just as he bent down to give her air, he saw her eyes slowly blink open. He stopped, very close to her face, realizing in an instant what it probably looked like.

"Uh…"

Her eyes seemed to focus in on him, before they widened.

He barely had enough time to think 'Titan's foot,' before he was rolling to a stop in the sand what felt like a titan ped away, his cheek stinging like he'd just gotten whacked by an Armu's tail.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

He picked himself up off the sand again and she was already right there, hands on her hips.

He waved his hands in front of himself in a placating gesture. "No, no, it's not what you think!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Uh-huh. And what was it?"

"It thought you weren't breathing, and then I thought I would need to give CPR, and it's been a while since I did the training and I was worried and um…" He trailed off awkwardly scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"O-oh." She straightened, crossed her arms and huffed, turning her face away from him, though it gave him a good view of the mirror image of the mark from the slap on her cheek too, a consequence of their bond. That had to hurt, but then, Mythra was good at concealing pain when she wanted to. "Well, just check to make sure I'm actually breathing next time."

"Sorry." He rubbed his cheek, rolling his jaw around to try and get the feeling back. "Nia's way better at this sort of thing than I am."

She let out a sigh before turning back to him. "Just don't do that again."

"What, try to save your life?" he muttered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" He cleared his throat. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

"Don't try to change the subject, mister."

"No, trust me. Look."

He simply pointed towards the two towering Titans, and after a moment of hesitation, she did. She quickly looked back, eyes narrowed.

"Explain."

The decrepit bridge cracked, falling away below, taking the Silver Faced Mechon with it. The limp pilot fell out of the machine in its descent, down, down, to where he couldn't see, followed by a horrible crash.

An eerie wind whistled through Shulk's blonde hair as the sky flashed and a peal of thunder rolled in behind it. The thick cloud cover seemed to offer no room for sunlight, but there was dim illumination, even if he couldn't tell where it was coming from.

But as he rounded past another decrepit building, he found himself uncaring of the surroundings, even though something deep inside him was filled with abject horror.

There!

Just as he'd seen it in vision, at the end of the cracked path was the Silver-Faced Mechon. His eyes zeroed in on the pilot, blonde hair, and all, leaning limply out of the broken cockpit.

"Fiora!"

He pushed himself harder. The Mechon was perched precariously in a position where it could fall at any moment, and as the vision had shown him, it would.

Unless he changed it.

As he ran, by instinct, he drew upon the Monado's power, with the intent of speed. To his surprise, it bent to his will. Whatever Egil had done to the Monado in Galahad Fortress didn't seem to affect it here.

Time seemed to stretch as he went faster than should be possible for a Homs to go, grabbed her, and struggled to drag her - wow, she was heavy - out of the cockpit and away from the edge. The road cracked and the piece holding up the Silver Faced Mechon fell away.

It was a long time before he heard a distant crash below. The same sound from his vision, just minus the pilot.

Fiora.

Still struggling with her weight, he awkwardly dragged her into one of the more sturdy looking decrepit buildings - not more than a few hundred metres - away from the whipping wind. As he stepped inside, an ether lamp flickered on automatically above, illuminating the mostly intact interior.

For a moment, he was taken aback by how advanced it all looked, even if it was...old. Looking at the decaying decorum around, it seemed like it could be the entryway to a house or living quarters of some kind. He hadn't really been paying attention to what type of building he was going into, but it seemed secure enough.

He shoved aside his curiosity. He needed to focus.

Stepping aside of some fallen debris from the walls and ceiling, Shulk delicately set Fiora down, leaning her against the wall, muscles aching from the strain of holding her. Quickly glancing around, he didn't see anything that seemed threatening, and he un-holstered the Monado. No more visions, so he should be safe.

Crouching down, he set the Monado aside, leaning it against the wall out of the way, and gently cradled her.

"Fiora."

His heart jumped as she seemed to stir for a moment, her head shifted.

"Fiora, wake up," he begged. "Please."

After a long moment, there wasn't any response.

Carefully setting her down, he looked over her closely. Besides her face and her shorter hair, it seemed like she really did have the body of a machine. Like a Mechon.

Like his enemy.

But, even if he didn't know how or even why the Mechon brought her back, she was here, she was right in front of him. And it made him feel torn.

Right here.

Her death at the hands of Metal Face – no, Mumkhar - at Colony 9 we was the whole reason he had set out for revenge. But now that she was here, even if she couldn't remember, what was the point? What was the reason for going on in that struggle against the Mechon?

Did he really want to?

He glanced back towards the unfamiliar landscape which he'd come in from.

Even if he wanted to, could he? Was he even near the Bionis and Mechonis anymore?

He whipped back to face Fiora as she let out a groan. That didn't matter right now. He needed to concentrate, focus on what he could do to help.

I thought I'd gotten better at not getting lost in my own thoughts.

He set his hand on his chin. It was still strange to think about, but Fiora was a machine. Engineer at heart though he was, something like what the Mechon had made Fiora into was beyond him. He mostly tinkered with weapons and basic machines, often with the intention of fighting the Mechon. So what on Bionis could he do, trying to work on one?

Maybe she just overheated?

Water.

He wasn't sure where the exasperated thought came from, but he clung to it. Shooting to his feet, he started searching. If this was once a living quarters like he thought it might be, surely there would be a water source, a faucet, stored water, something.

Even though he didn't want to leave her behind after such a long time trying to track her down originally, it would only be for a moment.

Led by a surprisingly almost innate knowledge of the building's general layout, the search took him throughout the building, or at least the first floor of it. He quickly found the stairs had long since crumbled. He had to take the Monado and slash through a couple of mechanical doors that didn't have any power to continue the search, but it was to no avail.

Agonizing minutes passed, but there was none to be found. Nothing stored, a faucet that didn't work, and the tank he found that might have once been filled with water was tipped over, poured out. Long since evaporated.

Walking back to her empty handed, his heart hung heavy. He flopped down to the unforgiving floor, leaning against the wall beside her.

"What am I supposed to do, Fiora?" He started talking to her, even though he knew he couldn't hear him. "I spent all this time, all this effort, looking for you, chasing after you after I knew you were alive. And now you're right here, and I can't do a thing."

He leaned back against the wall and gripped the Monado. "You're not any help either, are you?" He tossed it aside. It was a weapon for destroying Mechon in the end, after all. A tool to predict the flow of ether and use the same to change the future.

The Monado bends to your will.

Sure, it was a powerful tool, but it couldn't fix machines. It couldn't do anything for this.

The Monado will grow with you.

He was startled out of his thoughts as another groan came from Fiora. Looking over to her, he saw her green eyes open. They seemed unfocused, confused.

"Fiora!" He carefully picked her up, cradling her head. Her eyes locked on to him, confusion plain on her face. Right, she doesn't remember. "Um, I know you don't remember me, but my name is Shu-"

His eyes widened as she cut him off with a hug, which was broken before his mind could catch up with what had just happened.

She put her hands on his shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. Her lips turned upwards in a smile. "Of course I remember you, silly."

The tone, the timbre of her voice. "It is you."

And he hugged her again, wrapped his arms around her tight. It felt a little strange with all the metal, but he found he didn't care and hugged her tighter, closing his eyes. A few moments later he felt her arms around him. Colder, unyielding, but there.

There was a long moment where they were like that just holding each other. It...was the happiest he'd ever been since he thought she died.

"Shulk, maybe we should...?"

He opened his eyes and found them blurred with the start of tears. They let go of the embrace and he wiped his eyes.

A small smile crept on her face, "Don't tell me you turned into a cry-baby since last I saw you."

A small laugh, a real laugh, escaped him. It really was her. She laughed too, and for a long time they were just there, together.

Even though all the while, something deep inside him kept on screaming.

A/N: Because why not?

Funnily enough, both parties are approximately the same level at this point in their respective games.

Technically a crossover between Xenoblade 1 and 2, but no one would see it there.