Before Rex and co go back to Gormott Rex tells Corrine the truth about why he is truly there. At first Corrine is disappointed in Rex for lying to her but she is just glad that Rex is now trying to save his blade. On the way to Gormott, Rex couldn't help but wonder what Tora is planning.
'What does he mean by a new stage of life?'
Rex suddenly realizes what Tora is doing. He's going to upgrade Poppi. He deduces this by the fact that form QT is a thing.
'But what will her third form be called?'
Rex thinks back to what Corrine said.
'You should try asking her out.'
Rex ponders it for a moment and decides to ask Nia on a date. Rex then searches for Nia on the boat and finds her looking out over the edge of the boat with Dromarch by her side. Rex slowly approaches from behind and pounces Nia.
"AAHH!!"
"AAAAAAGGGHHH!!"
Without thinking Nia claws Rex on the face.
"HEY! What was that for?!"
"You're the one tryn ta sneak up on me!"
"Hah you should've seen your face!"
"What'd ya want Rex?"
Nia is clearly unamused.
"I just got a question for you Nia."
"What would that be?"
"When we arrive in Gormott, wanna grab a bite to eat? It's on me."
"Sure, I could go for a free meal."
Rex internally thinks on how to turn this into a date. As he's thinking they pull into Torigoth. The first thing everyone does is go straight to Tora's house. Upon arriving the group comes to the pleasant surprise that Tatazo and Lila now live in Tora's house.
"Tora! It good to see you."
"It good to see you to Dadapon."
"What bring Tora back home, did Tora complete quest?"
"Not yet, Tora need Dadapon's help with big project."
"What Tora need help with?"
"Two things: First is less important, Tora need to build temporary weapon for Rex-Rex. Second is much more important: Tora need help building third form of Poppi: adult form!"
Everyone is shocked at the news, except Rex and Poppi.
"Tora already have blueprints but need Dadapon's help to build third form. Can Dadapon help?"
"Tora... Dadapon Tatazo so proud of you! Of course Tatazo help! And also I guess we can build something for Rex-Rex to use."
"Great, let get started immediately."
Tora, Tatazo, Lila, and Poppi all go to the other room to make Rex's blade. Everyone just waits. About thirty minutes later Tora and co return with a tarp over the new weapon.
"Everyone I like to introduce Rex's temporary weapon: The Ether Vanisher! Or you can just call it EV."
Tora lifts the tarp revealing a mechanical sword similar to Pyra's blade Except the Red is Metallic and the flames are jagged blue spikes.
"This blade able to suck in ether of surrounding area to strengthen arts. Still not as powerful as blade giving own ether however."
"It's fine Tora this will work amazingly, I just know it."
"Right, now on to the hard part: Building Poppi's third form. First thing we need are more materials for form. Could friends please go get this list of items for me?"
Tora hands Rex a list with about fifty different items on it which just hurts Rex's mind just looking at it but decides to say yes.
"Sure thing Tora, although this might take a while."
"It fine as long as you get all parts."
As Rex and co leave Rex assigns parts to everyone as to try and speed up this entire process. Nia, Zeke, and Morag all split up to look for their parts while Rex salveges in the hopes of finding his parts. After about three hours everyone returns to the same spot with their parts and they all head back to Tora's house.
"Ok Tora we got all the supplies you need."
"Thanks friends. Go talk to Lila, she has next instructions for you."
"Alright."
Rex and co go over to Lila.
"So we were told that we needed to ask you for our next set of instructions."
"Indeed, with Poppi's new form means new clothes. I need you to get these materials so Lila can sew new clothes for sister."
Rex gets the list and this ones not nearly as long but requires a lot of material per item.
"You can count on us."
Rex and co leave Torigoth and go to the plains of Gormott where they look high and low for the materials needed to make clothes. It takes them four hours but they finally have enough material and return to Lila with them.
"Here you go, this should be enough."
"Thank you Rex-Rex. The next thing we need is data to help Poppi learn, use this hard drive and store all the necessary information on it that an adult would need to know."
"Well alright."
After leaving Tora's house Rex speaks up.
"I think I'm gonna leave this one in both of your hands."
Rex gives the hard drive to Morag and Zeke.
"How come chum?"
"Because this is about adult information and to put it simply I'm not an adult."
"True, I know exactly where to go to collect this information."
"Where to Morag."
"We must go to the Ardainian garrison located here in Torigoth. There I'll extract the information from the main frames and put them on this hard drive."
"I better help with this to."
"And why would that be?"
"Because I don't want Poppers turning into a second you. That wouldn't be fun at all."
"And that's a bad thing?"
"Just know I'm contributing to this to."
"Alright let's go!"
Once the group arrives Morag makes sure that the garrison is aware that she is with the group. Morag gains complete control over all there resources which she immediately uses the computers in the ship to start putting information on. Unfortunately for Morag, Zeke gets in the way and puts some more information into the hard drive. Before Morag can protest Zeke is already running back towards Tora's house with the hard drive. Once they arrive Zeke hands the hard drive over to Lila.
"Here you are lass, hope you can make good use of it for the Poppers."
"Thank you shellhead. Lila implant in Poppi right away."
"Seriously? Even Lila calls me shellhead." Zeke lowers his head while he says this in a disappointed murmur.
Rex checks on Tora to check up on his progress with Poppi.
"Hey Tora how long will it be until Poppi is ready?"
"Should be another few hours, go do whatever Rex-Rex feel like just be back in time please."
"Alright, see ya."
Rex leaves Tora to his work and decides to go ask Nia to go to dinner.
"Hey Nia, wanna go get that bite to eat I promised?"
"Sure why not?"
"Aaaaayyy Rex chum I didn't know you had the hots for furry ears." Zeke nudges Rex and Rex elbows him hard in the gut making Zeke double over.
"I... didn't... hear a no." Zeke weakly replies back to Rex.
"Let's go it's already getting late."
"Right behind you Rex."
After a while they settle on a local restaurant and both order some fish.
"You know I use to come here when I was younger."
"Oooooh Nia's past."
"Hey now listen to me. When I was younger I used to love coming here with my sister and father, they always enjoyed this place so in turn I did to."
"That sounds great. I'm glad I was able to provoke an old memory of yours."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because usually you don't open up about your past so it's good to hear about it the few moments you do."
"Oh I'm not that secretive."
Nia then realizes that Rex still doesn't know her biggest secret. Internally Nia beats herself up over whether to tell him or not but is always to scared to lose the last precious thing to her because of what she is. Nia trys to think of a way to continue the conversation with Rex.
"So this has been one hell of a journey hasn't it?"
"You can say that again. I still can't believe that we've come as far as we have. Although Jin may be a very big obstacle to overcome I think once we find the third Aegis sword we should be able to beat him and continue our journey to Elysium."
"Good to see you back to your old self Rex."
"I know right."
Suddenly the food arrives and the two of them for the most part eat in silence. Once they are done they pay up and leave the restaurant. Unintentionally thinking Rex wraps his arm around Nia as they walk back to Toras house. Nia notices and leans in closer feeling Rex's warmth on her. By the time they make it back to Toras house the two of them are sent out of there trance by Zeke.
"Looks like you got the girl chum! I'm so proud of you!"
"Wh-what?! It's not like that!"
"Then what do you call that?" Morag points from her crossed arms at Nia all over Rex.
"Uuummm..."
"H-hey Tora you done yet with that new form?"
"As a matter of fact yes, yes Tora is. We now just have to wait for a storm to bring enough electricity to power up Poppi's new form."
"How long will that take?"
"About a week."
"A week?! We don't have that kind of time!"
"But how else are we suppose to get that much electricity?"
Everyone slowly turns towards Zeke.
"What are you looking at me for?!"
"Zeke we need you to pour as much electricity as you can into this machine!"
"We need you to do this we can't wait that long!"
"Zeke do it."
"Alright! Alright! Geez. Everyone step back things are about to get ugly."
Zeke begins channeling as much lightning as he can and begins pouring it into the machine.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"
"Come on Zeke, almost there! Now!"
Tora pulls the switch and the lights begin to flicker and the lights go out.
"Is that suppose to happen?"
"It fine we just need to wait a little bit."
A few minutes later the lights cut back on and Poppi is now a lot taller.
"Friends I introduce you to Poppis third form... Poppi QTπ!"
After a moment Poppi turns on.
"Systems updating... Update complete. Greetings friends it good to see you."
to be continued...