Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Return of the Aegis

Chapter 9: History and Planning

"Thank Alrest, an elevator. Come on T-elos!" I say with a sigh of relief. We walked over and entered the elevator, which took us to the top floor in seconds. We get off and start to look around. We soon came across a giant bookcase filled with those tech books with different names on them. I look at the sign and it says:

"Blade and Driver must be present to access its history."

"Hmm, good thing we're both here then. I guess it's a security measure." I say aloud, mainly to myself. "Are you sure you want to do this T-elos, this is essentially our last chance to stop before looking."

"I'm sure. I want to know what I did in the past with previous drivers. I'm tired of hearing people refer to me as the 'Destruction Blade' and not know why. You can choose not to look if you want."

"You know I can't do that. We're a team now. We go through everything together from now on." All T-elos did was take a sigh of what seemed like a relief to me as we started to look for her book. "Let's see... Gorg, Finch, KOS-MOS...here." I picked up the book with T-elos's name on it. As soon as I did, a flash on the book's screen-like cover told me that both the driver and blade must touch the book at the same time to unlock it. We both do so and a hologram pops up with what seems like a table of contents.

Info

Past Drivers

Historical events

The info section consisted of general info about T-elos, such as her element and weapon. Essentially stuff we already knew. However, it also had that classification system that Tantal uses to categorize the strength of blades, with T-elos being Aegis-level. How does Tantal even know what compares to an Aegis? Maybe I'm just overthinking things at this point. I swipe to the next section, which contains T-elos's past drivers, well those that are recorded anyway.

"Let's see...Woah...." A lot of T-elos's past drivers were people who would be considered dangerous. Some were just petty criminals and others were mercenaries. I recognize some of their names from stories of the mercenaries told me when I was younger, but one stood out. One person, who was her driver a few centuries ago. He looked mean and devoid of life. I looked at T-elos and noticed that she had a serious look on her face. A face I only see when she's annoyed.

"Keep going." She said to me, I kept scrolling until I hit historical events. This seems to be the place where any events related to a certain blade will appear. It wasn't filled with much stuff, mostly minimal stuff that just happened to be recorded. She and KOS-MOS fought a few times in the past. That probably explains why T-elos finds her so annoying. I keep scrolling and....oh....oh no.

"Blade and driver involved in an explosion that destroyed a fourth of the city of Tantal"

Huh? A fourth of the city? Compared to the size of Tantal now...that spans a whole chunk of what would be Tantal's titan before Elysium was formed! Not to mention the number of casualties.... T-elos.... I have to make sure T-elos is alright-. I turned to my side and she was there staring directly at the news headline. Her lips were slightly parted as if she was left speechless. I decide to continue reading the article. It says here that the driver in question was known to be unhinged...they seem to have a picture...here. It's the picture of the driver that stood out to me earlier. Except here he's smiling as if he enjoyed what he did. It says here that he was soon executed for the crime of leaving the core crystal in the hands of the royal guard. Turns out the only reason she was allowed to resonate with someone else was that the king at the time had a sense that she would do better. However, every driver that came afterward was just the same violent or crappy person.

"Until you resonated with me," I said to myself. I close the book and put it back on the shelf. I then walked to the nearest chair and sat down. I honestly needed a minute to take in what I just read. T-elos's life just seemed horrible. It's no wonder why they dubbed her the Destruction Blade. T-elos walks over to me and sits next to me.