Chapter 9: Settling In

Hey I didn't take 5 months to write this chapter this time around. I really hope I can finish this story before 3 comes out but that may be a long shot unless I start doing weekly chapters or something. I've also been replaying through the games in preparation. I'm doing a permadeath run in 1 and a Nia only run in 2.

Nia figure's up for preorder also. I'm buying it, can't wait to get it. Damn is it expensive tho. Only reason why I'm getting it is because I've planned to buy it for almost a year.

Pokemon gen 9 huh. I didn't get Legends but I may go for this one if it plays similarly but actually tries for a story.

Also, no one here is going to care about this but congratulations to Serral for winning the world championship of Starcraft this year. 2 time world champion is insane and coming off of the best grand finals I've watched in a long time.

…

The group decided to move the short distance over to Gramps to camp until he woke up. They set up a few meters from his side, except for Rex who went to sleep on his bed, and everyone managed to get some sleep until Gramps woke up the next morning, and proceeded to nearly incinerate Morag and had to be stopped by a panicking Brandon who then gave him a quick rundown of the events of the past few days.

Gramps sighed, "you ally with the Flamebringer and yet you still end up with life threatening injuries. What happened to you being the smart one?"

"Why has everyone been making comments on my intelligence?" Brandon asked rhetorically, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"Maybe you should look at your injuries and ask that question again." Nia answered, her eyes sparkling as she looked on in amusement. She was currently chowing down on the ration food that Morag had packed, her back leaning against Dromarch and her hair sticking up in a curly mess. Well she was clearly stress free.

"Really helpful," Brandon snarked back, "anyways, we're not really sure what to do from here. Clearly we're going to be in danger no matter where we go thanks to that Blade's Ether tracking ability."

"Hm. Rex, Pyra, it is still your goal to reach Elysium correct?" Gramps asked.

"Yeah." Rex called from his bed inside his little shack.

"Then that should be our next step. I can ferry you all to the World Tree now that I've recovered my strength."

Brandon glanced at Morag who was clearly frowning, "uh, Morag might have something to say about that."

"Indeed," she cleared her throat, "I still have a duty to my people. I cannot leave for such an extended period of time. However, I also cannot let the Aegis roam unsupervised when there is such a threat surrounding her."

"Can't you just split up with Brighid if that's the case?"

"If only it were that simple," she shook her head, "we were already being drawn thin, split up. I was only able to come to Gormott because it was a routine check up on the Titan. This is already more time than I would have liked to have spent outside of the Capital city and the only reason why I am here is because of the danger of the Aegis."

"Then what would you ideally want?" Brandon asked, arms crossed.

"Ideally? The Aegis comes with me and is used as bait to draw in Torna to be captured or killed. However," she continued before anyone could comment, "I am not some heartless dictator, nor do I believe the Emperor would approve of such methods. I do have a moral code and even if I didn't, I simply don't have the jurisdiction to do so given that neither Rex or Pyra are criminals nor citizens of Mor Ardain."

Brandon glanced around, "I'm open to suggestions in that case because I've got nothing."

"If I may," Pyra chimed in from where she was sitting on Gramps' back, "Rex and I were able to fight Malos and his Blade on even terms. It may not be the best situation for us to fight Torna on our own but with Nia as well, I believe we should be fine."

"Agreed," Dromarch added, "my lady is hardly a pushover either."

"Even if what you say is true, Brandon here is a weak link." Morag said bluntly.

"Ouch."

"It is likely that he will be targeted first and will likely fall first unless defended, which nullifies any sort of tactical advantage he can bring with whatever weaponry he brings to the table." She gave Brandon a pointed look.

"I feel like I'm missing some subtext in that statement," Brandon said, fully understanding the subtext.

"I'm sure you are," Morag said, not blind either. "I suppose my curiosity will be left unsatiated for now."

Brandon started pacing back and forth. "Well, we still need to come to some kind of consensus." He thought through their options. As much as it was annoying to admit, he really was the weak link of the group as a non-driver. Maybe if he was still a soldier of the Saviorite Rebels with all the gear that entailed it would be fine. His armor was still loaded on Gramp's side but it was effectively non-functional at this point since it was completely out of power since he had no need of it until now and he didn't have a way to recharge it at the moment.

He did have his rifle as well but it was meant for use with the armor and would probably dislocate his shoulder from the recoil if he tried to use it as is. Maybe he could modify it? That would require a much better workshop though… Maybe…

"Uh actually," Brandon said as he clambered up Gramp's back, "Rex, help me out with this thing."

"Right," Rex stumbled out and quickly moved to help Brandon who was struggling with the large tarp covering his pod.

"And what is this exactly?" Morag asked.

"Well, it's uh, armor of a kind. If I could get it to a forge or workshop of some kind, I could get it and some of the rest of my equipment working so I'll at least be able to take damage without much risk to my actual body. I think what we can do from here is since Akhos' main objective is still the Aegis, I can go with Brighid to where she needs to go so I can work on this and she can do her job while Morag goes with Rex as their chaperone to the World Tree. Pyra gets whatever she's going to the World Tree for, we regroup, then draw out Torna to beat them."

"Um, we don't have to split up," Pyra said, "the World Tree isn't an urgent goal at the moment."

"Okay, an amendment to that plan then. I get my equipment functional again then we go to the World Tree then deal with Torna, sound good?"

"Good enough of a plan," Morag said, "we've not got much better options at the moment."

"I guess we should pack up to head back to Torigoth then."

Nia was bored, which surprised her since she hadn't felt bored in a long time. She had always been busy before, but it was also something more than that. For some reason, she felt more at home now with two military leaders who should want her behind bars and three strangers from Argentum than she ever did with Torna.

They had boarded Gramps and he had flown them back to Torigoth and was waiting at the docks. Brighid on her own was able to lift the pod that Brandon asked her to but Pyra decided to help out as well to make the process easier. They were escorted to the Ardanian Titan Battleship by Morag who had given them each accommodation on board then guided Brandon to whatever workspace he wanted.

She had fully expected to only ever be on board one of these ships as a prisoner so it still felt a bit strange that she was here as a guest. The room was definitely feeling a bit claustrophobic though, too similar to previous… accommodation.

She sighed and sat up from the bed.

"My lady?" Dromarch perked up inquisitively, "is something the matter?"

"No. I'm just… I just need some fresh air." She stretched and swung her feet onto the floor.

"Would you like me to accompany you? My lady?"

Nia nodded, "yeah, that would be nice. I'd like that." She slowly left the room and started meandering through the massive halls of the Titan Battleship. It was a lot quieter than she was expecting, though that wasn't too high of a bar. She was expecting a massive racket of machinery and marching soldiers but aside from the occasional slamming of heavy doors and the light whirring of some engine, it was mostly silent.

She definitely underestimated how large the ship was. "Dromarch, do you know where the exit is exactly?" She asked as she stopped at an intersection after they had been wandering for a while and had finally given up on navigating the maze-like ship.

"No, my lady. I do have a rough layout of the ship, however."

"Okay, get us out of this stuffy ship."

"Understood, my lady," he started down a different hallway, "If I recall, this is the direction towards the hangar."

Nia nodded and followed along. It wasn't long until the two found a staircase and headed down leading into the noisier barracks and mess hall. Passing Ardanian soldiers gave her a sideways look, not overtly obvious through their helmets but the slight turn of their heads gave them away. She shuddered. No. It wasn't that. They were just looking because she was a stranger.

A loud bang then a string of profanity knocked her out of her thoughts. She and Dromarch had reached the hangar to see Brandon rubbing his head while muttering under his breath and rummaging through a toolbox.

"Uh, hey Brandon. Nice… head lump."

He looked up to give her a glare before going back to the toolbox. "Eloquent."

"Indeed," Dromarch teased, "my lady possesses a tongue of silver."

"Oh shut it you." Nia flicked Dromarch's forehead.

"Apologies, my lady," Dromarch said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Brandon asked.

"No. I just needed some fresh air but I found you whackin' your head against this thing."

"Fresh air? Mind if I join you?"

"Oh, you don't have to-"

"No no, I need the break or I'm going to go insane. Plus I need to head into town to get some parts anyways." He winced.

"And maybe a helmet," Nia teased.

"Yeah, and maybe some ice. My head still hurts."

Nia sniggered into her hand seeing Brandon emerge from the shop with a bag of ice pressed to his head.

"Yeah. Laugh it up. This must be hilarious." He plonked a helmet onto his head over the ice pack, face completely serious. His lower lip eventually quivered which proved to be the breaking point for Nia who doubled over laughing, Brandon joined in a second later along with Dromarch's low chuckling.

"I can't believe you actually bought one."

"Well it's supposed to be standard to wear one when working with heavy machinery and equipment anyways."

"It is?"

"Uh, I don't know if it is for Mor Ardain but it seems like it's just the soldiers who do repairs and maintenance and I think they all have those weird helmets on so I don't think it matters too much. I also got these safety glasses." He held up a pair of clear plastic glasses and put them on over his normal pair.

"You're ridiculous."

Brandon shrugged, "better this than getting permanently injured. You know what? I was going to take these off while I go to buy parts but now I'm going to just keep them on."

"Snrk. I like your confidence." She wished she could have some.

"It's not really confidence. I know this doesn't work for most people but I just stopped caring about what people thought of me. Doesn't matter if it looks stupid if it lets you survive something you shouldn't."

"That's… a logical way of looking at it," Nia said. Almost too logical. Not many people could get over their emotional insecurities to that kind of degree. He almost felt separated from humanity in a way, though not in the way Torna did. He clearly still at least respected life, which was more than what she could say about Torna… and even herself.

"Eh, that's just how I see the world. If everyone acted on their emotions… then again, pure logic doesn't work either. I should know," he muttered the last part under his breath.

Nia decided not to comment. She didn't know what was appropriate when talking to Brandon about things in his past. He put it in words that he doesn't want to talk about it but kept on alluding to things she didn't understand. Some of the things he spoke about like massive armies being obliterated or weapons that could raze countries, whatever that was didn't happen in recent history. It sounded a lot more like the Aegis war Malos talked about occasionally. And the pod that he had the armor contained in, it looked like the pod Pyra was in aboard the ancient ship, maybe not in terms of design but definitely in terms of form.

There's also the weapons technology he used which was much more advanced than anything in Alrest at the moment, except for the Marsanes which was an ancient Tornan carrier. Could he be someone from a fallen nation five hundred years ago? Judicium seemed the likely candidate. He claimed to have no memories but she was calling full bullshit on that.

"What parts did you need anyways?" Nia asked.

"Uh, I'd have to go and check. Most of the parts probably aren't compatible without some tweaking anyway so I'll just grab what'll work best out of what they have available."

"Do you usually buy a lot of parts?" Nia asked, following Brandon as he started looking around for a mechanical parts shop.

"Sometimes. Rex can usually salvage most of what I need though and whatever I can build from them sells for a higher price than the individual parts. Haven't ever had to shop outside of Argentum's headquarters though so I have no idea what'll be available or not."

"Do you even know how much it'll all cost? Do you have the money?"

"I think the Argentum prices are fairly universal. I've got a fair amount. I'm not going to break the bank on a few parts." He snorted, "though I doubt I have as much as you do."

"And what makes you think that? Drivers aren't universally rich, you know. There are times when jobs dry up, and I'm speaking before Torna. We obviously didn't do any public jobs," Nia crossed her arms.

"Yeah, but your group spent a hundred grand on Rex alone. I seem to recall Rex whining about what you said to him," Brandon gave her a smirk, "I wouldn't wet myself at a measly hundred grand?"

Nia winced. "I was kind of being a jerk. I was just annoyed at the time."

"Ah yes, of course milady," Brandon rolled his eyes, "that gives you an excuse."

Her face flushed angrily, "I wasn't making an excuse you little-"

Brandon laughed, "whoa, no need to take me that seriously milady. I was just poking fun. I'm at least somewhat aware of what was going on. But, I also wouldn't say no to a monetary apology."

Nia elbowed him. Hard. "arse."

"Ow, watch your strength. Damn." Brandon clutched his stomach. "Stupid Driver brute strength."

"Ahem," Dromarch drew the pair's attention, "we've walked past a few parts shops already."

"Oh," Brandon glanced around, "so we have." He stepped up to a random stall to look through its wares. He picked up some metal thing, though Nia had no idea what it did. Brandon asked about the price and started haggling, something which Nia rolled her eyes at. Not that haggling was necessarily a bad thing but it always felt a bit icky to do it to local and small independent sellers.

"No fair!" Nia turned around to see a nopon, "Tora wanted that machine."

Brandon glanced back, "uh, do I know you?"

"No. Tora not know you. But Tora wanted that!"

"Ignore him," the shopkeeper said, "he's been coming here daily to windowshop. Hasn't bought anything in over a week."

"What exactly do you need a perfect range sensor for?" Brandon asked.

"Tora not going to just tell non-friend Tora's secrets!" The nopon, Tora Nia guessed, narrowed his eyes.

"Uh, okay then," Brandon shrugged, "I'm going to go search for some more things. You two want to continue or-"

"Wait wait!" The nopon exclaimed, "is Gormotti girl Driver?"

Nia felt her eye tic, "yeah. I am. The name's Nia. What's it to you?"

"Oh, why didn't friend say so? Come, follow Tora," the Nopon said and waddled off.

"...The hell?" Brandon shook his head, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Do we actually follow him?"

"I… don't know." Nia said, "do you have any weapons on you?"

"My vambraces are always on so yeah," Brandon held up an arm to show off the dull metal armband on his wrist. "And I just realized I forgot my anchor. Dammit. But why?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this but, let's just follow the nopon, see what happens. If it's a trap then we fight and get rid of a threat. If not, we lose an hour or two at most."

Brandon ran a hand over his mouth, "alrighty then. Follow the weird nopon.

"Behold!" The nopon pulled a cloth off of whatever his creation was, revealing a humanoid robot. "This is Poppi! World first artificial Blade!"

Brandon and Nia shared a glance.

"Pardon me, master nopon," Dromarch said, as ever the polite one, "but what exactly is an artificial Blade?"

"Tora glad you ask! Artificial Blade is mechanical being that can serve as Blade for person without aptitude."

"So you need this sensor to finish her?" Brandon guessed.

"That correct."

"And you don't have money to buy one yourself?"

"Correct again," Tora said, the cheerful tone of his voice a bit damper this time.

Brandon sighed, "okay. How about this. I'll give this to you, if she works I've got something I'd like your help with in exchange. If not, I take it back and leave. Deal?" He held up the sensor to Tora.

"Yes yes!" Tora exclaimed and took the part and immediately started tinkering with the robot. It took a few minutes, and while Nia was interested, she couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on, whereas a simple glance at Brandon's face revealed the deep fascination that was written all over it.

"Tora done! Now for moment of truth!" Tora exclaimed and hopped over to a console and slowly pulled down on a lever. The sound of strong electrical currents started to fill the air, causing Nia's hair to stand on end. A loud pop echoed through the nopon's house and all the lights winked out and the console started smoking.

"Did it work?" Brandon asked.

The robot opened its eyes and slowly lifted its head. "Greetings masterpon, my name Poppi. Poppi will try hard to make masterpon proud."

Brandon let out a low whistle seeing Poppi take a few steps forward and bow. "Okay, damn. You weren't kidding."

"Very impressive yes?" Tora puffed up his chest in pride.

"Most impressive," Dromarch commented.

"Very. Poppi?" Brandon said, "I've got a question for you."

"Yes?"

"So, you can function fully autonomously? Without any input from Tora?"

"Yes. Poppi is artificial Blade, can do everything normal Blade can do, and more."

"You're like a full AI?"

"Poppi not sure what AI is but Poppi is fully functional."

Meanwhile Tora seemed to have noticed something wrong and disconnected Poppi's arm to do whatever maintenance he needed.

"Huh," Nia heard Brandon mutter, "a non Core related artificial intelligence. How did he code something like that? What kind of computer in this world could handle the full processes of a brain?"

No memories huh. Nia glanced at Brandon who was clearly lost in thought. She didn't really understand what he was muttering about but hearing Core related immediately put her on edge. Did he know more about Blades and even the Aegis than he was letting on? What he was saying sounded a lot like what she overheard Malos and Jin discussing. Maybe she'll keep the fact that Gormotti can hear better than regular people to herself.

She eventually grew tired of his rambling when nothing more interesting popped up and nudged Brandon. "We should get back."

"Oh right. Well since she works, you've got your end of the bargain… once I go and buy myself some new parts."

"Yes yes," Tora said, almost smugly, "show me thing you need help on."

It was surprisingly entertaining for Nia to watch an increasingly frustrated Brandon and Tora working on whatever power armor thing Brandon had. Not because of them failing, even that got annoying to a spectator after a while. But the teasing potential she finally got was golden. Plus she got to relax cross legged on Dromarch's back while enjoying free food, courtesy of the Ardanian military.

"Dammit!" Brandon finally yelled and chucked the tool he was using at the armor which bounced off with a ping, only leaving a slight mark on the paint. Honestly Nia was impressed, it had taken all day for him to finally give in to the frustration.

"Givin' up already?" Nia teased.

"Ugh, you suck." Brandon weakly threw a random bolt at Nia who caught it with ease. She tossed it up and down a few times before tossing it back.

"Tora all out of steam. Tora has never been this puzzled before."

"Yeah, for the life of me I can't understand why this thing isn't working. It was fine for the most part when I got here, theoretically all it should need is power."

"And yet, not working," Tora finished.

"Aw, poor baby. Do you need a hug to feel better?"

"My lady, surely that's too-"

Brandon held up a hand to tell Dromarch it was fine. "Honestly at this point, I wouldn't say no," he smirked, "if it was offered by a prettier lady."

Nia laughed, "I don't know what kind of world you live in where I don't count as a pretty lady."

"A non-delusional one. I freely admit I'm not attractive, maybe you should too."

"Ooh, self burn, those are rare. And also, lie to the world? I don't think I will. Though at least you know how to be honest. That's a good trait to have. Though a shame since it's your only good trait."

"You think so? I like to think that I have a dazzling personality." He said, putting a hand under his chin in a check mark shape.

"Sure you do, if you count your massive ego as a personality. Perhaps you should have learned to be humble first."

"So says the queen of humble," Brandon gave an over exaggerated bow, "long may her ladyship reign."

"Are friends always like this?" Tora whispered to Dromarch.

"From what I've seen, yes, for better or worse," Dromarch sighed, "it is nice to see my lady to make a genuine friend but-"

Nia tapped Dromarch's head. "You know I can hear you right? Who's side are you on? Don't give the enemy fuel for comebacks."

"Genuine friends huh? Little princess never got any real friends?"

"See?" Nia hissed, "you can't give this man anything or he'll go a kilometer with it."

"What? Can't win if your opponent has more ammo?"

Nia blinked, "yeah, that's generally how battles work. I can't believe you gave that one to me."

"Uh, well I had to give you something-"

"And now you're blusterin'," Nia cackled, "I win this one."

"Damn it. You won't take another round." Brandon weakly shook his fist in the air. "Anyways, I'm going to grab some dinner. You coming?… Uh also, I actually don't know if Tora's technically allowed to be here. Sorry we weren't able to finish today Tora."

"Oh it no problem," Tora said, "Brandon help Tora out a lot so Tora want to help Brandon."

"Alright, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then. I'm assuming you know the way back?"

Tora nodded.

"Okay. Uh, I guess if anyone asks just say you're a mechanic helping out on a project."

"Understood. Tora leave now. Bye friends!" The nopon waved and scampered out of the Titan ship.

"That's one weird nopon," Nia commented.

"A technical genius though. We made a lot more progress today than I thought we would. His knowhow is different from mine but if he had access to what I had, he'd probably be making better tech than I do. That artificial Blade of his is already rivaling anything I could possibly do, and surpasses a lot of what I can do in some areas. That level of engineering to be able to create a slim, humanoid robot is insane. I mean, just to get a robot like that to have the balance of a human is stupidly difficult with the limited tools that he had access to."

"Yeah, I don't understand any of that stuff," Nia shrugged. It was kind of interesting, sure, but she didn't have any of the knowledge required to comment on anything. It was fun seeing someone so invested into something they were passionate about though. Now what would be interesting is if she could get him to cough up more information on Core Crystals he was clearly withholding. "What was it you were talking about earlier? That thing you were asking Poppi." She hopped off of Dromarch.

"Huh? Oh that." Brandon waved a hand dismissively as he retrieved the tool he hurled earlier and tossed it back into a box and clipped the lid onto it. The trio started walking to the mess hall, Dromarch padding along slowly slightly behind Nia. "Artificial intelligence is just a term that basically means what it sounds like. A computer that can replicate human-like intelligence, self awareness, and consciousness. Something like that should be near impossible to create without the proper tools and yet, Tora has one just sitting in his living room."

"What would be the proper tools?"

"Uh, I'm no expert on AI, the closest I've worked with is neural networks, but the basics would be some form of supercomputer with a massive power supply as well as cooling to keep the computer at sub zero temperatures."

Nia idly scratched her collarbone, right above the center of her chest. What if… No, surely not. Core Crystals were just… what were they actually?

"What's a neural network?" Nia probed, trying to find out how to direct the conversation in the direction she wanted.

"It's basically an algorithm meant to recognize patterns. You can use them to do things from something as simple as image recognition or something as complicated as perfectly mimicking a human voice."

"What would be the use of that?"

"Well it's more for convenience than anything. Could be for something as simple as making identifying a large cluster of objects faster to replicating an actor's face in a mov…" He cut himself off. "Uh, well, just making things easier."

Nia rolled her eyes. Seems like he had less control over his mouth than he liked to believe. Whatever he was about to say clearly was something he couldn't explain away as easily as what he's said before. Though he didn't do a fantastic job with those either. Obviously she didn't know everything about what kind of technology existed, clearly that was his realm, but she was sure a lot of what he was talking about simply didn't exist. He talked about robots and computers and all that as if they were commonplace. Even aboard the Marsanes she wasn't surrounded by the kind of technology he was alluding to.

"Uh huh. Sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo you don't need to me," she said dismissively. It was unfortunate that he seemed to have slipped up early, he'd probably be a lot more careful about what he's saying for the next little while. Best to just distract him. "Anyways, is there anything you're hungry for? They've got surprisingly good food here and I'm going to take full advantage."

Brandon laughed, "yeah? The food had better live up to the hype then, I'm starving."

Nia grinned, "let's go eat!"

…

Hm, I like writing the Nia pov but I'm not sure how well I'm doing with writing her properly. I'm really only used to doing Brandon pov writing so I feel like Nia's inner dialogue isn't in character. Similar to my RWBY story where I feel like I'm almost writing Ruby to be a lot edgier than she actually is. I probably already write my characters somewhat samey as it is. Let me know if you want to see the 2 povs swapped more often.

And suddenly Tora. Not sure how else I could have included him since he is the oddest inclusion to the party. He basically sees Drivers and Blades and immediately assumes that they're the greatest people on the planet. It's fully in character for Tora but makes him hard to include into the story without feeling a bit jarring.

I'm also trying to write Dromarch a bit better in this story. I think that he can have a lot of fun "butler and slightly sheltered rich girl" interactions with Nia that I just never did in the old version.

Some new Xenoblade 3 stuff. Since it seems like the official Nintendo socials are done posting new information I can now actually talk about official stuff without having to do incorrect speculation. Sorry if I repeat anything but I'm pretty much just typing what comes to my head and fixing a few mistakes I made in the first ramble. First off, I just want to say if either Nia or Melia are hurt in any way in 3, we riot. They've already been through enough already. Admittedly they both end off in pretty good places at the end of their games but damn, Takahashi needs to stop making them suffer. While this story is kind of meant to give Nia a "happy ending," I think her character arc is fantastic and wraps up really well, giving her a place to belong without fear. It's meant to be more of a cherry on top but that may all be rendered moot in 3.

I find it a bit odd though that Nia is a leader. It was speculation before since she could have easily been in a different position but the recent posts make it pretty clear that Melia leads the 1 nation and Nia leads the 2 nation. Melia makes sense, she takes the role at the end of Future Connected and has an extremely long lifespan. But Nia? After being hunted for half her life by the Praetorium? Feels like she'd despise anything even remotely close to the position of Praetor.

Also I think it's hilarious that they officially stated all of the characters' ages as 18, except for Mio who's 19 to make her the older sister type to Sena. Their character descriptions seem to be fairly by the book anime tropes but that's what they kind of were in 2 and were still fantastic characters so I'll wait until I play and finish the game to make a judgment on them. Their combat descriptions on the other hand though are really weird. It almost sounds like the people from Keves are stance changers. Meanwhile the Agnes people have their weapons completely swapped from their roles. The twin rings Mio is an evasion tank instead of a healer. The shield hammer Sena is a dps. And Taion's weapon is something never seen before but isn't a traditional healer to round out the rpg trio.

Also in terms of gameplay, we know that there's a boat at the very minimum. There's hope for pilotable mechs again. It would be awesome if the entire map was fully interconnected like in X and we could fly around the entire thing. Especially since we know those giant mechs that the party is fighting in the trailer are called colonies which house soldiers of each side. Again, a bit odd that the 2's mechs are called colonies as well. There seem to be a good number of things that are very specific to 1 or 2 that both nations share, either it's a jab by the devs at the toxic fanbase by saying that the games are more similar than elitists think or it implies that the 2 nations were at peace before something caused the war.

Also item orbs are back. I hope they're a combo of 1's item orbs and 2's collection where you can just walk through them like 1 but you can have passive skills that give you more items like 2 and indicators to show what you'll get like in Torna. Speaking of which, I think field skills are a fine mechanic… as long as they're optional or just to assist you. The main issue with them in 2 is that they were mandatory and were just clunky within the game, really slowing down your progression even if you had the proper blades. If they're just to make you move faster or acquire more items like shop deeds, I'm all for that. Also, please no gacha. I'm fine with the Blade system and I play a lot of gacha games, but I'd rather not have the characters I can play be acquired through rng in a non free to play game. Make them like X where you seek them out to join the party or just do sidequests to add them to your party like Praxis and Theory.

Last thing about gameplay, I hope we get more unique combat abilities. While the ones we got were really fun, there just weren't that many of them. Eye of Shining Justice, Pneuma, and Overdrive were really the only unique mechanics we got. I really want more abilities that completely change how certain characters play if it's active. Definitely late game stuff tho, I don't want something like the Eye of Shining Justice when I'm only halfway through the game since it makes combat stupid easy. I also really hope that we get temporary party members as permanent in new game +. Vandham at the minimum not being permanent feels like a missed opportunity in 2, especially since he has a hidden affinity chart. Maybe some other unique characters like solo Blade Nia or Melia at her peak power. Maybe even having party members who change forms be both playable in the party at the same time. Like if Blade Nia could be equipped by Rex at the same time as Driver Nia being in the party.

First story thing is that I'd like to fix a few mistakes I made. Aionios is just a Greek word that roughly means eternal or everlasting so no relation to Bionis or Aion. That probably ties into the whole clock thing as well as Melia's line being "Uroboros abhor this world." Uroboros being another symbol for an eternal cycle. Apparently Keves and Agnes both mean lamb/sheep as well in Hebrew and Latin I believe so with the combination of Noah being a very obvious reference to Noah's Ark, take that for what you will.

Next is the characters. I'm certain that we'll see more returning characters than just Melia and Nia. Though we'll see what relationships they have to the new characters. I feel like at the very minimum, Mio has to have some kind of relation to Nia even if everyone else has no relation to previous characters. They made her a short silver haired Gormotti with a Flesh Eater Core Crystal who wields twin rings weapons. You can't get more obvious than that. Also there's a section of the trailer where Noah's voice sounds like Rex's voice for some reason. It's probably just wonky voice direction since I think the Japanese voice is just Noah's but who knows. I do hope we see Rex at least in flashbacks, if not in some phantasm form like we see Addam in 2. Same with Shulk. Of course their ages being revealed obviously has some significance. The fact that a Homs, a High Entia, and a Machnia are all the same age and maturity and are all childhood friends means that some lifespan or time shenanigans are going on. Same thing with Blades and Flesh Eaters.

Side tangent at the end here since I made a lot of callbacks to 1 and 2, I really dislike the toxic fanbase around this franchise. I swear if I see 1 more social media post on why 1 or 2 is bad I'm going to explode. Both are fantastic games with flaws between them. I swear anytime I see anyone blindly hating on either game it feels like they just haven't played or understood the games. People act as if their subjective opinions are objective facts and decide that if someone disagrees with them, it gives them the right to be toxic.