The sun was setting over Colony 9. It felt like it had been ages since Shulk left his hometown with Reyn to set out for Colony 6. Somehow, he had ended up on a journey that led him all the way up to the Bionis' head. He had trekked across a wide variety of terrains, from the phosphorescent Satorl Marsh to snowy Valak Mountain, and met some incredible people along the way. Soon, he and his friends would make their way through the treacherous Sword Valley, which had been occupied by the Mechon—but first, Shulk decided to return to his hometown for old time's sake.

As he crossed the bridge to the commercial district, he was accosted by a young woman.

"Oh, Shulk, there you are!" she exclaimed. She—who Shulk remembered was named Désirée—spoke with a thick accent that Shulk swore he had heard somewhere else. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

Although she seemed genuinely happy to see him, something gave Shulk a sneaking suspicion that she wanted something from him. He feigned a laugh. "I'm sorry, I haven't been around."

Sure enough, Désirée said, "I've broken my watch. Look, it's in pieces!" She pulled several small items out of her pocket and held them out in her hands. "I'm terrible with machines. Even little ones like this." She asked, "Would you mind fixing it for me?"

"You don't have to be good with machines to be careful with them. You just have to be careful," Shulk scolded. "Wasn't your father good with machines? I'd have thought fixing things'd be the first thing he'd teach you."

Shulk had a faint recollection of Désirée's father. It had been a while since he had last seen him, though, even before Shulk left for Colony 6. Despite their mutual interest in machines, Désirée's father hadn't been much for conversation. He always seemed to be busy.

"Not just good, he was amazing! When I was little, I used to marvel at how he swung that hammer," Désirée said fondly. Her eyes shifted to the ground. "But he's gone now. And as hard as I try, I can't be like he was."

Shulk was taken aback. Putting up his hands, he stammered, "I'm… I'm sorry, Désirée. I didn't mean to be rude."

"Aww, it's so easy to make you go all timid!" Désirée said with a giggle.

Shulk frowned.

"Seriously, don't worry about it. It's been a year since then. I'm back on my feet." Désirée pressed, "Anyway, are you going to fix my watch or not?"

"Leave it to me."

Désirée passed the watch to Shulk. "Brilliant! I'll leave it in your capable hands."

"It's in pretty bad shape," Shulk said, wincing. It looked like it had been trampled by a herd of Armu. After giving it a close inspection, Shulk wasn't sure if it'd be possible to get it working again. He didn't want to admit that to Désirée, though. He could tell it was something she treasured. Perhaps it had been given to her by her late father. "I'll have to use the equipment in the lab, so it might take a while."

"That's fine! Take your time. I'll be waiting right here."

...

The repair went better than Shulk had expected. The watch was ticking.

He found Désirée waiting in the same location, leaning on the guardrail. "Désirée!" he called, holding out her watch.

"You fixed it? Thanks, Shulk! I'll take much better care of it from now on, I promise!" Flashing a mischievous smile, Désirée said, "Shulk… what would you say if I told you I broke it on purpose? So I had an excuse to talk to you?"

Shulk gave her a blank look. "Uh…"

"Kidding! Kidding! Come on, calm down. I was only joking. Anyway, thanks again. You're so reliable!"

"Not a problem."

"… If you don't mind listening, I'd like to get some things off my chest," Désirée said. "Do you remember my father at all?"

Shulk said, "Yeah." She seemed to have forgotten their previous conversation, but Shulk was patient with her.

"He used to swing a hammer above his head all day, every day," Désirée said, miming the motion. "He used to build and fix machines and was really good at it, too. He ran his own place. "Xord's Smithy", he called it. The best one in the entire colony. Everyone said it!"

Shulk's eyes were wide with horror. Under his breath, he repeated, "Xord's…"

He could hear the bronze-faced Mechon's boisterous voice echo in his mind: "I'm Xord, your host tonight."

Shulk's throat tightened. It was just a coincidence, he told himself. It had to be. And the hammer the Mechon had wielded—surely that was a coincidence as well. "Xord" was an unusual name, but Shulk didn't want to jump to conclusions.

Désirée didn't seem to take notice of his distress. "… But he died a year ago in that battle with the Mechon."

"Aah—"

Faced Mechon, Shulk had learned, were created from Homs. Metal Face, the Mechon who sparked his quest for vengeance, had once been an ally of Dunban's. He had been killed in the Battle of Sword Valley—allegedly.

One year had passed since that battle.

Désirée prattled on. "… And I couldn't even keep his shop open. I had to close it down. That's why it's vital that I at least find something to do with my life." She let out a sigh. "You know, talking about it made me feel a lot better. I'll think it all over some more."

"That's… good to hear, Désirée," Shulk said, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. "I'm glad I could help."

Désirée crossed her arms over her chest. "Is something upsetting you?"

"No. It's just, I should really be going now."

"Oh. Well, take care! I hope we run into each other again."

As Désirée waved him off, Shulk slunk away with his head down. He wouldn't be able to look her in the eye ever again. If Xord, the Faced Mechon, really had been her father, what… happened to him? He claimed to have eaten people—boasted about it, in fact. Shulk remembered him rambling about dinner and how oh-so hungry he was. Surely he'd only been trying to scare him and his friends.

… But then, where had all that blood come from?

Shulk didn't sleep well that night.

...

Xord made a smooth transition into death. His body had already been numb; it was as though he had simply closed his eyes and plugged his ears and nose. He had been killed instantly upon detonation, cutting him off from any knowledge of the aftermath. For all Xord knew, he had died from the impact alone.

Xord was done. He wanted to embrace true nothingness—to relinquish his soul and fade completely into nil—but once again, he was held back by his thoughts. Where were they coming from? How was he able to think without a brain? Was he a soul? Could souls think?—Those were the thoughts that bound him to his existence.

In spite of his ego, Xord was tired of listening to himself think. He needed a reprieve from that unremitting voice inside his head—but that voice was him, and now, it was all that he was. He was exhausted. Why couldn't he just fall asleep and never wake up? He'd even settle for a nap.

There were many things Xord didn't want to think about, and practically none that he did. He wanted to separate himself from the abominable thing he had been. Upon his death, his actions had become irrelevant. He was ready to forget about them and move on, but he had no destination. His train of thought was stuck in a roundabout, running over the same roadkill again and again. There was no escape from the blood on his hands.

Why did it bother him? It hadn't bothered him before—at least, not for a long while. The only thing that had changed was that he was no longer part of the machine. Did he think he was a different person when he was inside of it? That wearing a Mechon's clothes would allow him to get away with the unthinkable?

He couldn't help it. He'd just been hungry.

But Xord hadn't merely coped with that hunger. He embraced it. He let it consume him. He revelled in his voracity, putting him at the crossroads of lust and violence. When he killed and ate, he did so in excess. It was what he had lived for, and what he had died for as well.

Something had been done to Xord's brain and the way things made him feel. He was very sick, and very vulnerable. He had once been a gentle man who loved his daughter more than the world, but that person had been erased. What remained was nothing more than a continuation of his consciousness, a zombie mind that could never be laid to rest.

Xord had tried so many times to remember the person he used to be, but he was only able to chew over the same few scraps of memories: heat and a hammer, a girl and her name, and a body that was old and frail. Those memories didn't tell him anything about the person he was before. What would that person think about what he had become? Would he even be able to recognise that it was him? The voice narrating his thoughts that was impossible to silence—had it always sounded that way?

Those thoughts inevitably found their way back to Désirée: the daughter he couldn't remember, but cherished nonetheless. She was more than just a little girl—she was a representation of all the things Xord no longer had. He couldn't remember how it felt to be a father, but it was something he knew he wanted. He hadn't gotten a chance to see Désirée, though—and now, he never would.

Xord was used to being alone, but he wasn't used to feeling lonely. Companionship was something he had taken for granted. How many people had he killed who could have been his friends? To Xord, it felt more like a missed opportunity than anything else—something to which he would shrug and say, "Oh well." It was hard for him to wrap his head around the devastation he had caused. In his state of solipsism, he couldn't comprehend that, because of him, countless people had been consigned to the same emptiness he found himself in now.

But what about Egil's purpose?—the reason Xord had been programmed with his insatiable appetite for flesh. Did Xord truly believe in what he had been fighting for, or had he merely been using it to excuse his savagery? He had spent a lot of time thinking about the future as a Homs, but as a Mechon, he largely lived in the present. Typically, he only ever thought ahead when he was thinking about his next meal.

Yet he had met his end whilst trying to strike down Shulk, the wielder of the Monado. He had no other reason to be so dogged in his pursuit. Egil's dream of a better tomorrow was something Xord kept in the back of his mind, just like the faint memory of his daughter. Those were things he had been willing to die for, even if it meant he wouldn't get to see them himself.

He had failed, though. He had failed to secure the Monado, and he failed to protect Désirée as well. Ultimately, he had died for nothing—a fitting end to an unfulfilling life. Any happiness Xord had attained prior to becoming a Mechon had been long forgotten. The only life he remembered was one full of cruelty.

Thump.

Wait. Was that—

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

By the time his senses returned, Xord was already thrashing and screaming. His body—yet another reproduction of his original Face Unit—swung from a crane, straining the mechanism that attached it to the wall.

Vanea cried out, "Xord! P-please calm down! You'll hurt yourself!"

Xord let his body go limp. Panting, he said, "This… can't be happening. There's no way." Had he been alive the entire time? His consciousness had entered the same empty place he'd visited the last two times he had "died". Maybe Xord didn't know what it was like to be dead after all.

"An emergency signal was relayed to Galahad Fortress by way of an M33 Transmission Unit, and search and rescue units were deployed. Your Core Unit was recovered from the site of an explosion. It was found to be running on back-up power. I didn't think I'd be able to save it, especially considering the ether damage sustained by the lungs. But… you are here."

Xord grumbled, "The explosion… I did that to myself. Why didn't you let me die?"

"The M33 picked up multiple strings of SOS signals. Xord. You wanted to live."

"But I don't get it. There are lots of Mechon just like me. What makes me so special?"

"You are the prototype of the mass-produced line. Your brain underwent different modifications than the Faces that came later. The self-preservation system allowed for a higher degree of autonomy; the other Faces are programmed to carry out commands like unmanned Mechon," Vanea explained. "Speaking of which… After all that, you must be hungry."

"I—"

Xord observed the way his body felt. He didn't feel an emptiness tearing at him from inside and clawing its way into his mind, nor did he feel the satisfying weight of a full tank and the buzz that came with it. He didn't feel anything, really. It was pleasant.

"… I'm not hungry."

Vanea smiled. "Yes. I disabled your self-preservation system. It took a lot of care and precision to remove the metabolic processor components from your brain, but the surgery seems to have gone well. Your Face Unit can now process ether cylinders efficiently, although you will still need regular ether changes," said Vanea. "Like all of the Faces sharing your model, you still possess machinery for breaking down living tissue. However, it is not required that you use it."

The only thing holding back Xord's tears was the fact that he was physically unable to cry. He was able to laugh, though, and he did so heartily. It wasn't a cackle or a fit of hysterics; it was an earnest expression of joy. He was free.

"Thank you," Xord said. He wished he could hug her. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

"I couldn't sleep at night knowing what I had done, what Egil had asked me to do. It is over now. I hope you are able to make peace with yourself."

Xord was ready to put his past behind him. For a third time, he had awakened in a new body. He was a different Xord from the one he'd been before—that was what he told himself, anyway. Yet, his memories weren't bound to his Face Units. The faces of the people he'd killed had stayed with him in what he believed to be death, and they'd likely continue to haunt him for as long as his consciousness persisted. It was unlikely that he'd get another chance to start over completely.

For now, Xord was in too much of a good mood to let any of that bring him down.

As Vanea lowered him onto the floor, he asked, "Now what?" He added, "Where's Egil?"

"Egil is…" Vanea's voice trailed off and she shook her head. "He still seeks to obtain the Monado. It is consuming him. I fear that I am losing my brother." She paused. "Sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into this."

Xord blurted, "How long ago was I in the mine?" He felt like he had been gone for an eternity.

"Your Core Unit was on life support for a while. It has been about two weeks since it was retrieved."

"And Egil's still looking for the Monado…"

"That is correct."

Xord's heart sank. Egil was still very much invested in his cause, which meant he probably expected Xord to continue participating in his grisly campaign—but now that Xord's self-preservation system had been removed, he was no longer without a choice. He still wouldn't be able to run away, though. Vanea said he'd need to have his ether changed regularly, and Xord doubted it was something he'd be able to do himself. Maybe Vanea would be able to help him.

Xord felt a phantom lump form in his throat. "I don't… I don't want to hurt any more people," he choked. He said it because it was the right thing to say.

"I know you don't," said Vanea. "Egil does not keep track of individual Faces. It is no longer feasible with there being so many of them. If you would like, you can stay here in Galahad Fortress. I do not think Egil would notice." Vanea's face lit up as she lowered her fist into her palm. "Xord, would you have any interest in repairing Mechon? Repairs are largely handled by worker units, but they must first be given commands. A foreman with the ability to signal directly to the workers could significantly increase their productivity."

"You'll let me do that?"

Xord had retained much of his knowledge about Mechon, which appeared to have been intentional. He couldn't remember anything about repairing machines, but perhaps he simply needed to have his memory refreshed. Xord was still up to the task, even if he wouldn't be able to remember. He wanted to try. He was overjoyed by the idea of doing something other than idling or killing, and he didn't want to pass up the opportunity.

"You would still be contributing to Egil's efforts," Vanea warned him.

That wasn't important to Xord. In fact, he still wanted Egil to succeed. He just didn't want to get his hands dirtier than they already were.

"S'okay," said Xord. "When do I start?"

"There are not currently any Face Units in need of repairs, but I can show you to the main maintenance bay for now. Follow me."

...

To Xord's disappointment, he did not have a grand epiphany upon stepping into the maintenance bay. He did recover some memories from his days as a mechanic over time, and he learned a lot through observing the Mechon workers as well. He wished there was work he could do with his hands. His Face Unit's fingers weren't the least bit dextrous; they had been designed for gripping a giant weapon, not doing delicate work with tools. He came to realise that the Mechon workers were his tools, and after that, it didn't take long for him to feel competent as a foreman.

Occasionally, Xord found himself longing for a belly full of Homs. He swore he'd never eat so much as a crumb ever again, though. After continually glutting himself like a hog, he was more than happy to rest his stomach for a long, long time. Yet, even though he was no longer wired to gain pleasure from killing and eating, Xord sometimes felt like his work was the only thing keeping him from relapsing into his murderous ways. For far too long a time, that terrible hunger of his—which had evolved into gluttony—was the crux of his identity. Without that hunger, who was he?

A foreman, Xord told himself. A mechanic.

… A father?

Xord only did repairs on a Face once.

One of its forearms had come off and needed to be reattached. Its blood vessels and nerve wires would need to be reconnected as well. It hung from a crane, convulsing. Was there something else wrong with it? If it had a neurological problem, there wasn't much Xord could do. He was unsettled by how he was expected to work on it while its Core Unit was inside, even though it was supposed to have been immobilised. There was someone watching him.

Xord stood behind a trio of M64 Operative Units, one of which was struggling to hold the Face's severed forearm in place. The Face wouldn't stop shaking.

Xord muttered, "Stay still, would ya?"

It didn't stop.

Stay still.

The Face became stiff for a moment; then, it went back to convulsing. It opened and closed its mouth as if it was trying to say something, but it didn't have a voice.

Its eyes flashed.

?&S?^#?

Xord lurched backwards as his head was penetrated by a nonsense signal. It seemed as though something was obstructing the Face's output. Again, there wasn't anything Xord could do.

"I'm trying to help you," Xord told it, too frustrated to feel any pity for the person inside. Unmanned Mechon never gave him problems, nor did they transmit signals that hurt his brain.

With its jaw hanging open, the Face signalled, ?T&?%?O?#!?

Xord angrily lumbered over to the Face and yanked on its upper arm. As the M64 held its forearm in place, the other two began the delicate process of opening its blood vessels and fusing them together. If they didn't work diligently, the circuitry would "heal" by soldering itself shut… or something like that. Xord didn't fully understand the process, since it was almost like surgery. He was glad the M64 units had been engineered specifically for Face repair.

The Face jerked suddenly, knocking the M64 units back. Blood spurted from its open vein as the units scrambled to resume the operation.

"Damn it!" Xord cursed. "You little…"

#P!&—The machine in my head—^!%—Make it st—#!

Xord froze. "What?"

The Face's head turned sideways. Frantically, it blinked, &!—ake it stop! Make it stop! Ma—!#!

Xord let go of the Face's arm and staggered backwards, disrupting the M64 units' work. After taking a moment to compose himself, he said, "Sorry. I can't."

?#?%?!

With his jaw clenched, Xord came forward and grabbed the shuddering Face's arm again. The M64 units got back to work, forced to start over. The Face continued to batter Xord's head with signals—most of them nonsense—but he managed to hold it steady until the units were done.

Xord exited the Face maintenance bay and never went back.

...

Just when Xord was starting to get into the swing of things, Galahad Fortress was besieged by the allied force of Bionis—and that was only the beginning.

There had been a previous incident in the fortress's lower levels—an incident in which Egil himself had gotten involved—but Xord carried on none the wiser. It was impossible to plead ignorance of the allied force's attack, though. Sirens blared as the coalition of Homs, High Entia, and Nopon stormed Sword Valley, urging all the Mechon to abandon their stations and defend the fortress.

Xord was hesitant to leave. Shulk and his friends had proven he couldn't fight. He didn't even have his hammer anymore. Faces had begun wielding spears that dispensed the corrosive blood of the Bionis, and as such, Mechon hammers were no longer manufactured. However, there were still plenty of discarded weapons—all duplicates of Xord's original hammer—lying around the fortress. Xord reluctantly took one and made his way to the partially destroyed base level of the fortress: the only exit through which his body could fit.

He stood on the platform and gazed out into Sword Valley with his binocular vision. The sky was dotted with High Entia airships and Pterix cavalry units; below them, the Homs' Defence Force was surging forward alongside its mobile artilleries. The allied force was advancing at an alarming rate, using their combined power to wipe out Mechon with ease. Xord watched in horror as a squadron of Faces was taken out by a single airship, each of them exploding into a ball of blue fireworks.

It wasn't that long ago that Xord would have thought nothing about slaughtering a dozen Homs—yet watching a dozen Faces die made him feel ill. Any one of those Faces could have been him.

Xord needed to leave Sword Valley, and fast. He didn't want to flee to Mechonis out of fear of getting lost, but it would have been dangerous to cross the valley to get to Valak Mountain. His only other option was to go down, which was something he had done twice before to get to the Bionis' leg. Both times, Xord had felt nervous about taking the plunge off of the Mechonis' sword. He could have let himself free fall for a certain distance, but he opted to break up his descent with his jet engine.

Xord trudged up to the edge of the platform, heaved his shoulders, and fired up his tail. He couldn't bring himself to actually step off of the platform, so he first willed himself to rise. Once he had folded his body, he hovered past the edge and began his staggered flight down.

As Xord descended, he heard an earth-shattering noise from above. It sounded like the end of the world. Was the Mechonis moving? Egil had only ever spoken of the Bionis' awakening. What did it mean if the Mechonis came back to life?

The horn of Xord's shell prevented him from looking up, which might've been a good thing. He tried not to panic. He was alive. He was okay. He forced himself to focus on the gradation of his descent, and the consistency of his repeated weakening and strengthening of his engine.

Weak-strong, weak-strong. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

The apocalypse continued on. Debris rained down around Xord, along with Mechon and fallen soldiers. In front of him, a ruined Face Unit plummeted into the abyss. If Xord didn't get out from under the Mechonis' sword, something was bound to strike him down. He stopped descending and shot straight ahead, pushing his engine to its limits. Once he was out of harm's way, he circled around and approached the Bionis' leg.

On the way to his old stomping grounds at Colony 6, Xord enhanced his vision. What he saw nearly caused his engine to stop dead.

"N… no."

Telethia. There were dozens of them, all of different shapes and sizes. They were swarming like insects, flitting through the air and swooping in on the land below. Xord wanted to turn around, but where else did he have to go? Sword Valley wasn't safe, and if what Egil had said about the Telethia was true, there was probably no place to hide on Bionis.

Xord thought back to the first time he encountered a Telethia, and how it had stopped pursuing him after he entered the mine. Would it still be safe inside? He jetted toward the freight elevator, praying that he wouldn't catch the attention of any of the prowling Telethia.

The entrance had collapsed. Some of the rubble had been excavated—likely by the search and rescue units that had retrieved his Core Unit—but a Mechon his size couldn't possibly squeeze inside.

Xord wished he hadn't exploded.

With nothing to fall back on, he coasted over Colony 6. The last time he had seen it, it had been occupied by Mechon—since then, it had been taken over by the Telethia. On the outskirts of the colony, the Defence Force clashed with the beasts. They were aided by High Entia warriors channelling the same kind of ether energy as the Telethia. It was an all-out war: the exact doomsday scenario Egil had warned of. Only now was Xord able to grasp the gravity of the situation.

The Telethia were a scourge. As much as Xord wanted to fight back, he couldn't get over his first encounter. It dawned on him that he hadn't actually tried fighting that Telethia—he'd just run away. Maybe they weren't as scary as they looked.

As Xord neared the entrance to Colony 6, his eyes zoomed in on a boy lying face-down in the dirt. Looming over him was a three-headed Telethia. Xord was going to pass them by, until the boy rolled onto his back. Xord gasped.

It was Juju.

"Damn brat went and got himself in trouble again," Xord muttered to himself. Evidently, Juju still wasn't being looked after—and it seemed doubtful that Shulk would show up in the nick of time to save him yet again.

After all he'd put him through, stopping the Telethia was the least Xord could do.

Xord unfolded himself as he sped toward the Telethia. He curled his arm over his chest and swung, slugging the beast with the back of his fist. He grabbed its shoulders and touched down, dragging it across the ground as he spun into a halt. Then, he picked up the Telethia and flung it at the wall. While it was dazed, Xord charged his hammer and brought it crashing down. The Telethia burst into a cloud of ether.

He couldn't believe it. Had he really done that? It had been such a clean sequence of movements that he didn't even have time to think about what he was doing. All he'd needed to do was get in his first hit; the rest came naturally. It was no wonder he'd been so useless against Shulk.

Xord turned and took a step toward Juju. He thought of saying something, but had the foresight to know that nothing good could come out of it. Instead, he simply gazed down at him, his eyes flickering with a weak, unconscious signal: I am sorry.

As he looked into Juju's wide eyes, Xord was taken by how young and how scared the boy was. How had he been so cruel to a child? At the time, Xord had fully intended on killing and eating him once he was finished with Shulk.

How would he have felt if his own child had been kidnapped by a raving, bloodthirsty monster?

Xord folded himself back up and took off. He knew where he needed to go, and he was finally ready. With the world crumbling around him, this would be the last chance he'd ever have.

He was going to Colony 9.

Xord knew the way to the colony, as if by instinct. It was located on the Bionis' calf, which meant he wouldn't have to travel very far. Not once had Xord considered the charge of his ether cylinders; it was worryingly easy to forget about, since it wasn't something he could gauge at any time like his hunger. Mass-produced Faces were programmed to navigate to maintenance stations when they were low on charge. Xord had no such programming. When he needed his cylinders replaced, he began to feel sleepy—but if that happened on Bionis, it would be too late. His body would shut down, and once his Core Unit's backup power had been depleted, he'd be gone—maybe forever.

Xord still had a tank, though. Even if it didn't satisfy him, he could still fuel himself by eating. But Xord didn't want to think about that.

Colony 9, much to Xord's relief, had not been invaded by the Telethia—yet. It would only be a matter of time before they arrived on the Bionis' distal appendages. Xord needed to hurry. He needed to find Désirée and protect her. Once the Telethia made their appearance in Colony 9, he would fight with the same ferocity he had found within him while saving Juju.

Xord slowed down when the anti-air batteries came into view. Since the Telethia had yet to arrive, he couldn't expect to unite with the Homs over a common enemy. In this part of the world, Mechon remained the biggest threat on Bionis.

Making sure to steer clear of the anti-air batteries, Xord soared in a big circle around the colony. He had no recollection of where he had lived. He could only enhance his vision so much, so he couldn't scan the streets in hopes of finding something that would jog his memory. What could he do? Drop down in the middle of the colony and try to explain himself to anyone who happened to be nearby? Would people believe him if he said he used to be a Homs?

Xord guessed he'd just have to see for himself.

He assumed his standing position and glided to the ground with his arms outstretched, landing on the main street of the commercial district. Unsurprisingly, Xord didn't receive a very warm welcome. The street erupted into panic.

"Look—people—I'm not here to hurt anyone," Xord said, trying to raise his voice above the screams. He let his hammer clatter to the ground and put his hands in the air. "See? I don't want any trouble. I just want to—"

"Somebody call in the Defence Force!"

"There is no Defence Force! The colonel took his best men to Sword Valley, and all that's left is a bunch of layabouts!"

Xord sighed. He'd have to ignore them. He walked with a strong gait, his line of sight shifting from one building to the next like a searchlight. He didn't actually know what he was looking for. Surely he'd be able to remember his own home if he saw it.

He came to a halt in front of a two-story building with a large garage. Above the garage was a rusty sign with a notice taped over it.

XOR[PERMANENTLY CLOSED]THY

Xord attempted to dig his finger under the notice, only for the entire sign to come off and land face-down on the street. He muttered a curse. Even though he hadn't been able to read the sign fully, he felt like he recognised the building's brick walls. He decided that it had to be the place.

Xord, kneeling, lightly tapped the front door with his knuckle. "D-Désirée?" he called.

He waited.

The door opened a crack.

"Désirée!"

"That sounds like… Could he b-be…" The door opened the rest of the way, revealing a young woman wearing an apron caked in clay. "Aah—" She became frozen in the glow of Xord's beaming red eyes. A piece of pottery slipped from her grasp and shattered against the porch.

Xord grunted and backed up, giving her some space. "You're bigger than I remember."

Désirée brought a shaky hand toward the doorknob.

Xord stared at her, jaw clenched. He hadn't been anticipating that kind of reaction. He hadn't been anticipating any reaction. He'd just wanted to see her again, and for the longest time, it felt like it would never happen. It wasn't something he'd needed to think about. In Xord's mind, their reunion would be magical. Their familial bond would bring them together and they'd both be happy.

"Désirée," Xord said, trying to pull himself together. "Listen, listen. I-it's me, your old man! Remember? With… with the hammer n' all." He let out a nervous laugh. He hardly remembered himself. "I, uh… well…" Xord gestured frantically to compensate for his lack of words. "Xord! That's my name. See? I'm Xord. But you'd call me Dad… remember?"

Désirée's arm fell to her side. "It… really is you," she breathed. "What… are you?"

Xord continued to laugh uncomfortably. "It's a long story. I'll tell you 'bout it later."

He would have to omit most of the details.

"It's been so long. I…" His head jerked. He was struggling to communicate his feelings. His brain was no longer equipped to process such things.

"No," Désirée whispered, shaking her head. There were tears running down her cheeks. "This is wrong. I can't… I can't do this."

"What? It's just me." Over his chest, Xord made a heart with his thumbs and index fingers that only he could see. "It's me inside this thing."

"It's not just that," Désirée said with a sniffle. She wiped aside the strands of hair sticking to her teary face. "Something's different. Your voice… and the way you talk, and laugh. It's… it's not right. Everything's all wrong."

"Huh?"

Désirée continued shaking her head. She reached for the doorknob. "My father, he… he died in Sword Valley. That's what they told me."

"But… Désirée, I'm right here."

"My father is dead. I'm sorry."

She closed the door.

Xord knocked again. "Désirée! W-wait, come back! Please, I'm still me. Please…"

No response.

Xord made a whimpering noise and let his hand slide down the door, his fingertips scraping the grooves of its panels. He realised what he'd wanted to say to her. To the door, he croaked, "I… love you. I love you." He needed her to hear him. He needed to hear her say those words back. The lights in his eyes pulsed as he willed the door to open. But it didn't.

Xord fell forward, weeping. His mouth opened and closed in line with his sobs, but no emotion could be gleaned from his fixed expression. His armour clattered noisily against itself. He couldn't get himself to stand. His legs wouldn't work. Nothing would work, not even his brain.

Even without his self-preservation system, Xord was tenacious. He was a survivor. He had fought tooth and nail to save himself from the ether river, and even though his body was deteriorating, he still mustered the resolve to face Shulk one last time. He had kept fighting until his body gave out on him completely—but that was when he had something to fight for.

What did he have left? He was a broken man, falling apart just like Egil's plan. The Telethia had yet to attack Colony 9, but Xord knew Zanza had already won. He was tired. He remained in a heap on the ground; if it weren't for his instinctive breathing motions and dimly glowing eyes, he would've looked like the hollow corpse of a machine.

There was a small herd of juvenile Armus grazing by the pond several metres away—more than enough to fill Xord's tank to the brim—but Xord didn't want to eat, and he didn't want to risk catching a glimpse of the terrible face Désirée couldn't bear to look in the eye in the water. He didn't know what he wanted to do, so he did nothing. He was too tired.

Xord just wasn't hungry.