Chapter 7: Road Block

Just as a heads up, this is the last chapter I'm going to post for a while on this story. I'll be taking a break from writing since 3 is coming out and I want to play that fully. Instead, I've got some new story pilot ideas written out that I'll slowly be uploading so look forward to those.

Also, for fuck's sake. A bit late, but the XCI rom file of Xenoblade 3 has been leaked. There's full spoilers out there and the music's being uploaded to youtube with their spoilery titles and all. I've seen a few things, none too big thankfully. But come on, why would you post shit before the game comes out. It's such a dick move. I'm not going to write out what I've seen because I'm not an asshole. I will talk about a few hero things tho because there are a few things that are a bit odd to me but I'll leave out any real spoilers at the end of the chapter.

Temporal King: Don't want to give away some details but they're coming soon. I've been trying to hint at why they're not mentioned tho but if you didn't get it, I'll clarify now. There is no mention of the Aegis because they don't exist in this universe yet. The Aegis war never happened and has been replaced by the "Great War" which is their equivalent to WW1 (but obviously they just call it the Great War like how people used to before WW2 happened). Not going to go into details on Ophion here.

Honestly I didn't even consider Mio since in my mind, her and Noah together are a gimme (even tho I don't currently have plans to write Noah in). That'll go on the 'maybe' pile. I'll at least develop the characters so it's a possibility. Also yeah, I've got a discord. I'd be interested in joining as long as people don't discuss Xenoblade 3 spoilers outside of a spoiler chat.

Also I've always taken the "and all you guys" as Rex letting Nia down as best as he knew how in that moment. Not as denseness. Obviously he realizes how bad it was later on but he's at least aware of it.

Anonymous: Sure. I've never used ao3 before tho and it looks like it might take a little while to get an account up and running so I'm not sure when I can get it up. Also, what's the issue with this site? I've never had any real problems with it on the web. But if you're on the app, that I can understand since that is not well designed.

…

'That's a definite possibility," Brandon had responded on their linked scrolls, 'there's a real possibility that whoever's got the balls to steal from Torna probably want something much bigger than just money or small amounts of land and power. It's possible that they'd want the destabilization of all of Alrest to swoop in later. The festival would have both most of their old members as well as all their prospective candidates in one location. If that's the case, they'd wipe out Torna in a single attack. They'd have control over all of Alrest with no resistance from Torna if all their members were wiped out in one swoop.'

Shite. Nia suspected that it was a possibility but seeing Brandon write it out made it seem that much more likely in her head.

'Also, I'm okay, thanks for asking.'

Double shite.

'Sorry. I've been distracted.'

'Haha, no worries. Just messing with you. But seriously, you'd better keep Rex safe. Good luck.'

Nia sighed. What an arse.

Rex expressed a similar sentiment as Brandon in a hushed tone at breakfast. Mio had rushed through breakfast and went back to her room to get the message sent back to Torna.

They then started their search again, asking around the back alleyways if anyone had heard of the Saviorites. They had asked around for a few hours before finally getting a lead.

They followed the directions to a small warehouse tucked away in a back corner of the city. Mio scouted it out first, nimbly scaling up the side of the building and up to the windows near the top of the building. She peeked inside before darting in. Nia waited for a few tense minutes before Mio emerged from the building and parkoured down. To which Nia rolled her eyes. What a showoff.

"There aren't many people in there," she whispered, "seems like a skeleton crew at best. Not sure if there's even a higher rank among them. If this group even has higher ups."

"What else?"

"Collections of stuff. A lot of it stolen as far as I can tell. They've got some stuff that's disappeared from other noble's collections that they tried to commission Torna to find."

"Tried?" Rex asked.

"We don't do noble's dirty work," Mio said, "obviously we tried to track down the thieves and apprehend them without the incentive of gold, but it was relatively low in priority. Savin' lives is much more important than some noble's lost trinket."

"At any rate," Nia said, "is the Fetter in there?"

"Not as far as I can tell. But there are a lot of crates. It could be in any of them, or not at all."

"Shite. We can't just barge in there. If the Fetter isn't in there, then the other branches shut down or relocate and we'll be back to square one."

"So then what do we do?"

"We'd have to get back to Torna. Don't let the Saviorites know we're onto them. We track down the rest of their bases and hit them all simultaneously."

"Then we just let these guys go?" Rex looked almost offended by the idea.

"We don't have much other choice. Unless- shite!" She instantly drew a dagger and flicked it towards the side. A startled yelp came from the direction the dagger landed and Mio raced to the area.

"Augh!" The man Mio captured yelled in pain, his arm twisted behind his back.

"Shut up if you know what's good for you," Mio said, drawing her sword and pressing it to his throat. She tossed Nia her dagger she had retrieved from where it had stuck into the wall.

"Are you Saviorite?" Nia asked.

The man clammed up, "I won't tell you anything."

Nia sighed and shook her head. She nodded at Mio who slammed a fist into his head, instantly knocking him out.

"Was that really necessary?" Rex asked.

"Not strictly. But it's the easiest method. And Mio knows what she's doin', he won't be injured at all. Well, permanently injured at any rate."

"I still don't like it."

"You don't have to like it. But if he saw through our bluff and realized we weren't goin' to kill him, then he yells out for help and jeopardizes the mission."

"So then what do we do with him?"

"We'll have to drag him back to Torna for interrogation. If he's innocent, then we pay reparations and drop him back off here."

"It took us a week to get here. How do we get him to Torna?"

"We've got some tonics and stuff to keep him asleep. Perfectly safe and harmless." Nia reassured Rex before he could protest more. "Developed by the best Drivers and Blades in Torna."

"Okay…" Rex still seemed uneasy with the idea of effectively drugging up their captive. "So then after that, now what?"

"We do as planned. Even if these guys actually don't have the Fetter, they're still obviously a criminal organization that needs to be shut down. It's not like they're sellin' food or other necessities. It's all rare items and stolen goods. I'm assumin' the best and assumin' that they're only still around because the Tantalese government doesn't have the resources to shut them down."

"Alright. How do we drag him back?"

"We use the cart. Unless Mio wants to call in a favor to get us transport back."

"Can you do that?" Rex asked in wonder.

"Well… Torna's got some dragon stuff. Theoretically I could call for someone to pick us up."

"You could've done that this entire time?!"

"No. The other Drivers and Blades have stuff they need to do as well. I'd only be able to do this since we have something substantial to show."

"Yeah," Nia said, "do you really think I'd have trekked all the way out here like this if I could have taken a dragon here? No way in hell. You know what? Mio, do it. I refuse to walk back."

"Alright, lazy bones. It'll still take them a day or so of flight so we've got a day to burn while we wait. Well… technically less than a day since we'd probably want to head out early tomorrow to meet them outside of the city unless we want to advertise ourselves."

"Um, what do we do with him? We can't just drag him across the city."

"Well technically we could, but that would also mean revealin' ourselves as Torna." Nia hummed, "you have a point. We can't just leave him here. Hm. I suppose we drag him behind the building over there and wait for one of us to fetch the cart with a tarp we can cover him with." She glanced around. "Oh, don't make me do this. I'm not the one with super strength."

Mio punched her arm.

"Ow!" Nia glared at Mio, "what the hell was that for?"

"You know exactly what that was for. You get the cart."

Nia grumbled as she got moving. "You'd better put that request in for transport."

"Um, what was that about?" Rex asked as he watched Nia leave the alley. Mio knelt down to deal with the Saviorite member, doing whatever it is she needed to do to keep him asleep before dragging him away with Rex and Corvin to a further area.

"Oh uh, if you could forget that." Mio said, "it's nothin' you need to worry about." She nodded to Corvin, "oh right. Oi Corvin, go catch up to Nia and get that message sent. We'll wait for you here."

"Alrighty." He merrily walked off.

Rex scratched his head, "but-"

Mio shook her head, "look. It's not my story to tell. If you really want to know, ask Nia. I doubt you'll get an answer out of her either though so I'd just drop it."

"But why?"

"You know it's kind of rude to keep pushin'," Mio sighed, "but just so you stop. It's somethin' she doesn't like talkin' about. Troubled past and all that. Don't tell her I said this, but she's really brave for bein' able to make it this far. There are a lot of people in her position that have taken their own lives."

"Oh… I'm sorry, I didn't realize."

Mio waved a hand, "maybe it's fine, maybe it's not fine, but I'm not Nia so I couldn't say. Just… be more gentle around her. Despite how she tries to portray herself, she's not an iron wall. She forms attachments really easily once you get past the prickly exterior and she cares deeply for everyone she does get close to. I'm sure you noticed how weird it was that she latched onto her new boyfriend so quickly."

"Well actually, I didn't think it was that weird."

Mio rolled her eyes, "right. I forgot who I'm talkin' to. Well, it's a bit weird. Not how they got together necessarily but how much she's already devoted to him. That scroll for example. Technically, they're fairly common within Torna thanks to our Blades, and any other larger group with competent spellcasters. But I assume you've never heard of them before she pulled it out, yeah?"

She waited for Rex to nod in confirmation. "She said they were common though. I think she said something after that as well but I didn't catch it."

Mio sighed, "well, technically they are common, within the organizations that own them. Outside of these organizations, those scrolls are supposed to be rare gifts, given to only to the most important and trusted individuals. Not someone you've only known for a few days. That's probably the general idea of what she said there. Wouldn't be surprised if it was along the lines of: I shouldn't be doin' this."

"Hm," Rex hummed, "it didn't sound like that."

Mio shrugged, "maybe it's not, but again, it's just the general idea."

Rex shrugged, accepting her explanation. Though it did seem a bit weird, he was sure one of the words she said was Blade. Actually, what Mio had said had indirectly given him more information to work with. He had thought it was kind of weird when she said that her entire family were Drivers but she wasn't. Could it be that she actually did have the potential to have a Blade?

That felt like a slap in the face. Of course it was. It felt so obvious now. She must've been a Driver in the past but tragically lost her Blade. Which was why she was so intertwined with Torna and didn't travel with a Blade when the rest of her family did. It added up with what Mio had just told him as well. The stories of Drivers who lose their Blades was almost always a tragedy. Most Drivers suicided within a year or two of the loss, usually after falling into extreme depression and turned to drinking.

It also made sense why she, as Mio put it, latched on so quickly. If Brandon had been the first person to treat her like a normal person and not as a noble since her Blade… after she had lost someone she would have been a close companion with…

That made his respect for Nia skyrocket. He also instantly felt about a billion times more guilty. Wow, he felt like an insensitive butt, his face turning red at the realization.

"At any rate," Mio said, glancing at the expression on Rex's face, "I'm sure you got an idea of why you shouldn't push now?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Also, don't tell Brandon anythin' about this, yeah? If Nia wants to tell him, she'll do it herself. Nothin'. Includin' whatever half baked theories you probably have circulatin' in your mind."

"Got it."

Mio nodded, satisfied. "Besides, you should be more concerned about yourself?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"As in you should probably get yourself a girlfriend first before you start concernin' yourself with your brother's significant other."

Rex blushed, "well, she also happens to be my employer. I think it would be weirder if I wasn't at least partially concerned."

"You know, most people don't give a shite about their employers."

"Yeah, but I'm not working for a big faceless company like the Argentum Trade Guild. I know Nia."

"Eh, you're an exception then." Mio lifted a shoulder.

"Is that a bad thing?" Rex asked.

"No. It's not normally either good or bad, but in this case since it's my sister," she winked, "it's a good thing."

Rex grinned, "family bias huh."

"But of course. And now you're one of us." Mio wrapped an arm around his shoulders, "you had better treat me well, my junior."

Rex blushed, "y-yeah."

"Aw, you're so cute." She twisted Rex into a headlock and ran her knuckles through his hair.

"Hey!" Rex whined, "I thought I said no noogies."

"Sorry sorry," Mio laughed as she let him go, "I couldn't help it."

Rex pouted. "You're so mean."

Mio stuck her tongue out. "You're the younger one."

"Well, I don't actually know your age, so am I actually the younger one?"

"Hm," Mio poked Rex's forehead, "it's rude to ask a lady's age."

"Yeah I know that, but you're not much of a lady to be honest."

"Oi!" Mio said, smacking Rex's shoulder, "you arse. Fine. I'm seventeen. Been a Driver since I was fourteen."

"So you are older than me," Rex sighed, slightly disappointed. "Ugh. I don't turn sixteen for a few weeks."

"Wait, it's your birthday in a few weeks?!" Mio exclaimed, "why didn't you say anythin'?"

"Huh? Why would I say anything?"

"Well, to celebrate of course."

"Celebrate?"

"Like, a birthday party… wait. Oh come on, have you never had a birthday party?"

"No, I'm not that out of touch. I've had a few… just not for a while. I haven't had the money and Brandon doesn't do birthdays."

"Okay first off, what the hell. I should go give this Brandon a piece of my mind. Also, he'd better start doin' birthdays and related shite or Nia's not goin' to be happy. Second, we're givin' you the best birthday party you've ever had. When is it exactly?"

"Uh, I actually don't know. We've never really had a specific date, just that we decided that it was sometime in the first week of next month."

"Hm, around when the festival is huh."

"Yeah." Rex said sheepishly.

"Hm," Mio's ears flicked. "Well, here they come. I'll let them know about your birthday. How about we celebrate at the festival?" She gave him a wink, "you can even go and meet your favorite Blades and Drivers."

"Really?!" Rex exclaimed, suddenly perking up, "even Herald?"

Mio chuckled, "you like Herald? Of course you do, she's practically a superhero to most people. Well, you're in for a surprise. But yeah, you can meet her."

"Yes!"

"What're you shoutin' about?" Nia said as she arrived, dragging the cart behind her. Corvin right behind, linked scroll in hand.

"Apparently his birthday's around the day of the festival. Thought we'd show him a good time."

"What? And you didn't tell me?"

"No, I didn't think it was a big deal. Also, yes, it's partially because of Brandon so yes, you should probably warn him about yours in advance or he's not going to do anything. Also yes, you should ask him for his birthday in advance or he'll never bring it up. Yes I just had this conversation."

Nia snorted. "Seems like Mio ran you through the obstacle course. Does he really not care about birthdays? They're like, sacred."

"I know right?" Mio said.

"No," Rex shrugged, "apparently he just never really cared about it growing up. He doesn't put much emphasis on a lot of dates, saying that they're stupid and arbitrary. He says that if you really wanted to celebrate, you should do it after a big event in your life."

Nia sighed, "I don't necessarily disagree. But come on, life is already too short to find reasons to not celebrate."

"Life is short," Mio rolled her eyes, "yeah, sure. Kind of depressin' to think about it that way though."

"Well whatever," Nia said as she dragged the unconscious man up and into the cart, covering him and the rest of the cart with a tarp. "I'll be talkin' to Brandon in my room. The rest of you can go and do whatever you'd like until tomorrow."

"Yes ma'am," Mio said cheerily.

'Uh…' the response from Brandon came. 'I'll be sure to remember.'

'What about you?' Nia wrote back.

'Is it really that important?'

'YES!'

There was no response for a while, Brandon clearly thinking through his next words.

'It's December 20.' The response came finally.

'Okay. Expect something big.'

'Sure.'

Nia sighed. This was surprisingly difficult. She liked him because his way of thinking was so unorthodox, but it also made some things hard to communicate certain ideas and to relate to him.

Maybe she should have followed Mio, who had dragged Rex away to go exploring. Actually, this was Tantal. Strike that, that sounded incredibly boring.

'Don't forget about Rex's either.'

'I mean sure, but what am I supposed to do?'

'Take a break for that week. Come to Torna's festival with me. If it's money you're concerned about, I'll pay for everything.'

'I'll come. No need to pay for me.'

'Cool. So… what have u been up to?' Nia asked.

'Huh?' Brandon responded, 'oooh. Got it. Taking a break right now. Your order's nearly done by the way.'

Nia giggled. It was kind of cute watching someone familiarize themselves with shorthand text communication.

'Btw, we mostly use btw as by the way.'

'Huh. I'll have to remember that.'

'Anything else?'

'Yeah actually. I've been researching a few things. Seems like your Saviorites operate pretty much globally.'

'What? How have I never heard of them before?'

'They're hard to come by unless you know the right people… forget you read that.'

Nia rolled her eyes as she erased the message. Adding that last part made it seem way more suspicious than just the first part. What an idiot. 'Right. Do you know where else they are?'

'Well, I don't know much, but I do know where their main base of operations is though. They're operating out of the Praetorium.'

'What? How?'

'Not a clue. The Praetorium's quite a large city though. I'd imagine that they're holed up in some backstreet area.'

Nia nearly screamed in frustration. She calmly stood up and walked over to her bed, and slammed a fist into it. She sat back down at her desk. The Praetorium was one of the few areas they couldn't search because of their relationship and treaties with the institution. It was the perfect spot to hide from Torna. If they had that all planned out, it was genius. Why couldn't they have just been dealing with petty thieves? If that was the case, the Fetter wouldn't have been stolen in the first place.

'Are you still there?' Brandon's message was written out, staring back at Nia.

'Yeah. Just annoyed. Not sure if I can use that info, but thanks anyways.'

'Do you want me to look into it more?'

'No. I don't want you to put a target on your back in case they decide that you're pushing too hard.'

'Alright. When are you coming back btw?'

Nia smiled, 'a few weeks. Give or take.'

'Bring me back some food.'

'Will do.'

Rex's feet hurt. He probably should have expected as much when Mio had taken him to go exploring but didn't for some reason. He had expected a relatively calm outing, though when Corvin declined to go along, his suspicions were raised.

Then, as it turned out, Mio was incredibly energetic when she wasn't forced to slow down to stick to the group. At some point, when she spotted something she was interested in, she had sprinted away at an absurd speed. She had completely left him in the dust and returned only a few seconds later.

"Hey Mio, how fast can you run?" Rex had asked.

"Uhm. I don't remember the last time I measured it. I think it was about a hundred meters in seven seconds."

Rex felt his jaw drop. It was technically slower than the fastest Blades, but it was way faster than what any normal human could run. He thought of himself as pretty fast but his hundred meter sprint was way slower than that.

"Are all Drivers superhuman?" He wondered aloud.

"Yes. We're all granted something of enhanced physical traits. Corvin gave me more speed. Though of course all Blades are all physically better in every category compared to us humans."

"They are?"

"Oh yeah. Corvin's way faster and stronger than I am. Also, just to let you know, don't take him up on it if he challenges you to an arm wrestle. No knock on you, but you will lose."

"I'll have to remember that."

Mio raised an eyebrow, "you're the first person I think I've met who hasn't complained about that."

"Does it matter that much? Everyone's got stuff that they're good at. I don't think Corvin could pickpocket someone or forge a sword."

"Fair point. Really mature point of view."

Rex shrugged, "Brandon kind of drilled that into my head."

"I really can't tell if this Brandon is a good or bad older brother," Mio shook her head, "anyways. Let's keep goin'. I'm gettin' kind of hungry. You good for more spicy food?" She asked with a grin.

"Of course I am."

"Oh, up for the challenge huh? Well then, let's go."

The group awoke kind of late the next day. They kind of lazed around for a little bit since they had to wait a little into the day for their ride to arrive. Rex worried a bit but Mio told him that the incoming Blade would have set down to rest at night.

They had a light breakfast before heading out.

Nia's ears flicked as they walked out of the city gate. Something felt wrong. Nothing ever worked out this well for her.

They walked a ways away from the city, making sure to get out of any kind of vision of the people. They moved slowly through the piled up snow, their cart leaving behind tracks in the snow.

That actually concerned Nia a bit. Surely the Saviorite members must have noticed their missing colleague by now. Nia cursed, what if they followed them? She had gone back to the site later to leave behind traces of a fight, but she wasn't sure how convincing it was. She also couldn't do anything about the dagger mark in the wall which betrayed them a bit.

They eventually reached the rendezvous point, and with no one there yet they sat down to rest. Before long, a dot appeared in the sky above the horizon.

Mio stood up with a grin, "there she is! We're almost ho- AUGH!" She cried out in pain as an arrow slit her arm, coming from seemingly nowhere.

"Shite. I knew it," Nia said as she drew her daggers, "get ready to fight!"

…

Oh Rex, so close and yet so far. Such a good kid but so naive. Also, Brandon may find himself in the doghouse at this rate lol. A bit of a shorter chapter since I'm way too excited for Xenoblade 3 to focus too hard so I'm going to leave it at a bit of a cliffhanger, sorry.

Unfortunately we don't know any more month names in Xenoblade so I'm just going to use English month names. Brandon's birthday is just a random date. I'm probably going to forget this date and have a different date in my other stories, but it's not too important, just know that it's in the winter season.

So I'm going to talk about hero details here. If you want to be completely blind, stop reading. I won't mention characters but I will mention something about them at the very end so be warned.

The number of different heroes is weird. First off, there are 11 dps, 7 supports, and 5 tanks. It's such a weird distribution of heroes and given that they show 23 heroes in the menu from the start, I don't think any will join the roster outside of new game + and dlc.

First off, the number seems a little low. Compared to Xenoblade 2 which has 39 Rare Blades in the base game, 23 seems a little low. Yes, a lot of the weapons of each Blade are repeats, but they all have unique special animations as well as giving each Driver unique arts. Whereas heroes give the same arts no matter what with repeated animations.

The distribution is also really wonky. 2's Blades weren't the best distributed either, being 19 dps, 10 tanks, and 10 healers, but there was enough variety to not feel super restricted when it came to playing role specific Blades.

The nations of the support heroes are also really weird. Out of the 7, 5 are Agnus while only 2 are Keves. Meanwhile in dps and tank categories, Keves has 1 more character in each than Agnus (technically Manana and Riku are 2 people from different nations but they're classified as a single Keves dps in the menu). Idk, it's just weird to me that they're not more even. And the number of base heroes being an odd number as well is also weird. I would have thought that they'd want everything to have an even number from each nation.

The only thing that would fix that is that the hero list simply isn't the full hero list and some are excluded purely for spoiler reasons. But that doesn't make sense since they have chibi character silhouettes of very obvious characters that I'd consider to be mild spoilers. Like how the Blade album shows all the character silhouettes of Blades you have yet to unlock. So I don't think there'll be more than the 23 given classes outside of ng+ and dlc.

Potential Spoilers here: none of the heroes are returning characters. A bit disappointing but I suspected as much the moment I saw dlc revealed for the game since returning characters would all be dlc. There's a small chance that they're keeping returning character's silhouettes out of the hero menu until later in the story, but I highly doubt it and I think if you wait for that, you're on copium. That doesn't mean that there won't be other returning characters but honestly I wouldn't hold my breath for it. Just go in with the expectation that it's just Melia and Nia returning and you can only be surprised from there. I'm willing to bet money that if you go in expecting every non-human character to return, you're going to be burned.