It is Nia they go to first, hoping her past with Torna will make her more welcoming towards the newest addition to Rex's ever-growing roster of Blades. Their hopes go unfounded when she throws herself upright away from her slumped position against Dromarch's side, hands edging towards her twin rings. Dromarch, too, lurches to his feet, stepping forward to place himself between Nia and the approaching group.

"Uh, hey Nia!" Rex says with an injected lightheartedness. "Funny story-"

"Rex, what the hell."

Plopping a defensive hand on Malos' arm - Mythra thinks he'd have gone for the shoulder if Malos didn't tower over him by quite so much - Rex says, "He's nice now!" After a brief pause, he adds, "I think."

"Eh," Malos shrugs, "I'll get back to you on that."

Nia crosses her arms, eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Yeah, that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, pal."

Mythra has to admit that the strength of Nia's reaction has both surprised and disappointed her. She cannot blame Nia for that, of course, but she'd truly hoped that Nia would still have a shred of positive feelings left for her former ally. Clearly, Mythra was wrong.

"He has a nice driver now," Pyra says in an attempt to soothe, moving away from Malos' side to get closer to Nia. "He doesn't have Amalthus' hatred and rage seeping into his subconscious anymore."

"Oh, mother of- Rex, don't tell me you're his driver!"

Rex laughs nervously and rubs the back of his head. "I don't know how to answer that."

Groaning, Nia throws her hands in the air in exasperation. "There are so many points I want to raise about this and I don't know where to start."

"Perhaps, my lady," Dromarch speaks up for the first time, relaxing his coiled stance as he does so (although Mythra notes he keeps himself firmly between Nia and Malos), "we should hear him out."

Nia lets Dromarch know what she thinks of that idea by turning her glare on him. He withers beneath it. "Perhaps not. As you wish, my lady."

All Mythra knows of Nia's time spent with Torna is that she cared most for Jin. She has no idea how often Nia interacted with the others, or how close she grew to them.

She has no idea how Nia and Malos felt about each other before Nia's betrayal.

All she has to go on is their brief interaction following Pyra's awakening back on that abandoned ship - a lot of yelling, arguing, and Malos attacking Nia - and her intense focus and lack of hesitation during their fights against him.

Mythra had also heard something about Nia utterly destroying Malos with her powers back when they were traversing the Cliffs of Morytha to rescue Pyra and Mythra, although she'd only got that story in hurried, undetailed bursts, and she was pretty sure Rex had embellished it somewhat. She was annoyed she'd missed it, though - it sounded badass.

So, maybe her belief that Nia still might care for Malos was completely unfounded. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. Oops.

"Nia," she says, finally joining the conversation, "we can trust him. I promise you."

"Oh, well that makes me feel so much better, thanks, Mythra!"

Nia's hands have moved away from her weapons. That's something, and Mythra doesn't have many somethings to cling to right now.

"Come on, Nia," Malos drawls, head tilted back in a cocky manner that really isn't helping. Mythra bores a hole into the back of his head to try and get that point across, but he doesn't seem to notice. "We had some fun, back before you ditched us for your new buddies."

"I walked in on you telling Jin that you didn't need any more attention-seeking, whiny brats on board," Nia responds, tone flat. "That you should just throw me overboard while I slept."

Oh wow had they misjudged this. It was becoming more and more clear that Nia was the last person they should have told about Malos.

Pyra shoots a glance at Malos, her eyes screaming seriously?! "I'm… sure he didn't mean that."

"Oh I did," Malos says immediately.

"He did," Nia deadpans.

"He definitely did," says Mythra, because why not, Malos really isn't making this any easier for them. "But he doesn't anymore!"

"I kinda do," Malos counters with a cocky grin - the bastard is enjoying this, Mythra realises with a surge of annoyance. "Just a bit."

Nia scowls, sends one final death glare in Malos' direction, and storms off with a yell of "I'll scream more about this later, I'm too angry for this right now, you bloody idiots!"

Watching his driver walk away, Dromarch mutters a quick apology and leaves to chase her down. The others stand in silence, following their retreat with mournful (and, in Malos' case, slightly gleeful) discouragement.

"That went well," Malos pipes up after a moment. "Hey, are we gonna have to do this with all of your friends, or can we just call it quits here?"

Mythra groans and lets her head fall into her hands. "I forgot about them. We have to watch you wreck your chances multiple times over; I don't think my sanity can handle it."

"I'm sure it won't go so badly next time," Rex says, his boundless optimism shining forth once more. "And Nia will come around… eventually."

"Wasn't she supposed to be the easiest to convince? Whose great idea was that?"

Ignoring Malos' question, Pyra steps in front of him, placing her hands authoritatively on her hips. "Malos, I know you want them to care, but you have to actually try to get results."

Crossing his arms, Malos replies, "Hey, I am trying! I'm just… not very good at it."

"That's an understatement for the ages," Mythra mumbles under her breath, frustration rising. She'd really wanted this to go well. Maybe she'd put too much faith in Nia- no, in Malos, it wasn't fair to blame Nia for this.

Maybe she was a fool for thinking this could work.

Watching as Pyra grabs Malos' arm, dragging him back the way they'd come from while saying something about some shops she'd seen back then, reaching with her other hand for Rex as she passed him, seeing the faint smile grace Malos' face as he let himself be manhandled with minimal complaint, Mythra scolded herself for the negative thoughts.

No matter how much Malos tried to convince them otherwise, his instinctive expressions and actions gave him away: he did want to change. He just needed Mythra and Pyra and Rex to keep believing he could.

Change doesn't come easy, after all. The years he'd spent tainted by Amalthus' influence wouldn't fade overnight. Malos needed time, and Mythra needed patience.

Patience had never been her forte, but she'd try. For him.

"Mythra, you coming?" Rex calls, reaching back for her. Malos and Pyra have also stopped, waiting for her with scarily-similar expressions

She smiles, answers in the affirmative, and runs up to join them.

They can make this work. Mythra is sure of it.

Pyra watches, later that night, as Malos sneaks away from the fire in the direction Nia disappeared in. Excusing herself with terrible reasoning that has even gullible Rex narrowing his eyes, she follows.

"It's rare to see you without your loyal guard dog," Malos is saying, positioning himself at a respectful distance just behind and to the side of his former companion. Unfortunately, his words are anything but respectful, and Pyra cringes from her hiding spot crouched behind a tree.

Already Nia is bristling, hands coiling into fists, and Pyra has to restrain herself from smacking her head into the bark of the tree. "He's a tiger! That's, like, the complete opposite of a dog!"

"Close enough," Malos says with a dismissive wave, ignoring the incensed sputtering that acts as Nia's response.

Any guilt Pyra feels for eavesdropping is overwhelmed by her curiosity - she wants Malos to be accepted, and she wants him to get along with her other friends. She wants, perhaps selfishly, to see it happen with her own eyes.

Besides, she thinks with no small amount of concern, there's a fairly high chance of Nia and Malos killing each other if left alone with no damage control. By watching them, Pyra is keeping them all safe. It's for the greater good, she convinces herself. For everyone's sake. Especially after Malos' incredibly insensitive opening because wow, does he want to earn her trust or not?

"You may not have much faith in me," Malos says, launching back into speech as Nia calms down, cutting off the doubtless-scathing remark that had been on the tip of her tongue, "and I can't pretend that's unfounded, but - and don't ask me why, because I can't explain it - I do want this to work."

Nia scoffs, trailing a finger over the blade of her weapon, and Pyra has to resist the urge to blow her cover and bat the hand away because that's a sharp edge, Nia, you could hurt yourself! "You ordered me to murder a boatload of innocents. When I refused, I was pretty sure you were going to kill me after you did the job yourself. You tried to manipulate me through my past treatment at the hands of humans." She laughs, bitter and cold, a fist curling over the fabric that conceals her twin-toned core crystal. "Experiences like that don't just go away."

Pyra had been barely conscious inside the glass casing that was her bed for five hundred years. She was just waking up, groggy and disconcerted, attempting to locate her new driver through their tenuous ether link, trying to figure out exactly what was happening around her. She remembered the tail end of the event Nia and Malos were discussing - Malos hissing I'll handle it myself and Pyra, recognising that tone, knowing her fellow Aegis well enough to spot the danger, thinking the singular, violent thought: no, and letting her flames roar to life.

What Pyra hadn't known, hadn't put together through the fog clouding her thoughts, was that Malos had initially wanted Nia to do the deed instead. It seemed obvious now, with the benefit of hindsight and Nia helpfully spelling it out for her.

It had soon become clear to Pyra that Nia was a good person - her defence of Rex proved that, if nothing else. She had withstood demands from one of the few people that had accepted her while knowing of her Flesh Eater status, while he used that same knowledge against her, all because she knew it was morally wrong.

Her opinion of Nia went up, just a little.

"Hey, I was a bit of a bastard," Malos says, "I'm not denying it. I'd like to attribute it all to Amalthus, but that's only mostly fair. I let him drag me down to his level."

Pyra would like to argue that - for all her and Mythra's attempts to hate themselves and the world, Addam and Rex had forced them to think the opposite no matter how hard they resisted.

She cannot help but think, if their positions were reversed, if she and Mythra had been bound to Amalthus' hatred and rage, they would have reacted just as catastrophically as Malos had.

And if Malos had resonated with Addam and Rex, he would have grown to love himself and the world in a way he was struggling to do now.

Whenever Pyra ponders this, she cannot see how she could ever have blamed Malos for actions that were never truly his.

The Aegises were all machines - 'artificial intelligence', their father had called them. Were any of their actions ever their own? Do they even have free will?

Yes, she wants to say, yes for all the experiences and choices she is sure are hers.

Yes for Torna, for what they committed despite Addam screaming at them to stop.

Sometimes, though, Pyra really isn't sure.

"I can't just forget what you've done," Nia says, resolutely looking anywhere but at Malos.

"I'm not asking you to," replies Malos. "I'm asking you to give me a chance to do better."

"Gotta admit, I never expected to hear that coming from you," Nia says with a rueful grin.

Malos leans his weight to one side a places a hand on his hip - an action Pyra has seen him do multiple times before, but where it always used to seem cocky, now it seems defensive. "I can't honestly say I expected it either, but here I am."

After a moment's pause, he adds, "Having a good Driver definitely helps. My head feels a lot more clear and calm now that Amalthus isn't in there fucking everything up."

Pyra cannot pretend to know what it's like to be burdened with the brutal desires of a man such as Amalthus, but she thinks she understands Malos' point a least a little. At some of Rex's lowest moments, the rare moments where he felt so useless and inadequate and weak that he'd nearly given up, Pyra's own nihilism had reared its ugly head and had strangled her in it's vicious grasp, and in those moments she had wanted nothing more than for it all to end.

She understands, in her own way. She knows Mythra would too, maybe moreso than Pyra does herself.

"Look," Nia sighs, finally turning to face Malos. She folds her arms and glares, although her tone is not as harsh as it was earlier. "I don't trust you, and I don't think I ever will, but I don't seem to have much say in this whole sorry affair. Pyra and Mythra are both on your side, and you've got Rex completely under your spell."

"Hey, it's not my fault the brat's a naïve idiot," Malos argues, and as much as she would rather not, Pyra is inclined to agree. Few people would have agreed to awaken Malos with as little persuasion as Rex took. Even so, Rex's willingness to trust and his faith in others is what makes him Rex, and Pyra would never want him to change. "I didn't ask for this, you know!"

Nia rolls her eyes. "Sure, whatever. Point is, you're in now, whether I like it or not. Hell, whether you like it or not. There's not much anyone can do to dissuade your little group of defenders."

Shaking his head, Malos mutters, "I hate that group." His tone holds no malice.

"Sure you do," Nia says, patting Malos on the arm as she moves past him. Pyra shrinks further behind her tree. "Trust me, given enough time that trio can work their way into the hearts of anyone."

Pyra thinks they may have already worked their way into Malos' heart, and the look of faint horror on his face shows that he thinks the same.

"Good luck," Nia calls into the cool night air, pausing to turn back to Malos. He, too, shifts to face her. "I hope this all works out for you. Me, though - I'd prefer it if you kept your distance."

A flash of disappointment writhes its way through Pyra, but she pushes it away. She can't blame Nia for that, not after everything she's dealt with because of Malos.

She's still sad, though.

Malos gives a mock salute. "Message received. Guess I'm doomed to a life stuck with the brat and my stupid sisters, if I'm not welcome with the rest of you."

"I guess you are," Nia laughs, the tension is only slightly diminished in her voice, and then she disappears into the night, the conversation over as quickly as it began.

Once she is gone Malos slumps, all the false posturing draining out of him at once. He turns away again, staring out into the depths of the trees.

"You can come out now, Pyra," he says suddenly, and Pyra jolts, briefly considers fleeing, before realising the futility and emerging sheepishly from behind her tree.

"Hi," she mumbles, waving weakly at Malos' turned back.

"I tried," he says sharply. "You saw. You happy now?"

Pyra frowns. "Is that why you didn't call me out - because you wanted me to see you try?" When Malos doesn't respond she continues, honestly, "I didn't really expect you to put much effort in past what we forced you into, so I was pleasantly surprised when I saw you following Nia."

"She didn't seem too happy about it," Malos laughs bitterly.

Pyra shrugs, despite knowing Malos isn't looking. "You made an effort. I think she recognises that, and the fact that you actually care."

"I don't care," is Malos' too-quick response. Neither she nor him are convinced.

"I do," she says, stepping forward to stand beside her brother. "And so do the others. She'll come around. It may take a while," and by a while, Pyra is thinking a couple of years, minimum, but she doesn't bother voicing that, "but one day she'll treat you like she treats us. I'm sure of it."

Malos drops his head and avoids her gaze. "How do you stay so endlessly positive?"

"I don't," Pyra answers truthfully. "I really don't. Rex, though - he helps. I just want the best for my friends, and that includes you."

She twists so she is facing him directly and offers her hand. "The others will be wondering where we are. Ready for some fun Driver-Blade Bonding?"

Malos rolls his eyes, scoffs, looks away, and takes her hand. "Fucking brats."

Pyra is pretty sure she can hear the faintest trace of fondness in his tone.