//------------------------------//
// Banished God 
// Story: Xenoblade: Another World 
// by IAmNotSmartest 
//------------------------------//

Zanza lay on the sand of the beach, his lower half soaking in the relative calm of the lake. His divine form's chest rose and fell slowly, the gold-trimmed white plating moved fluidly with the body it encased. His white-blond hair splayed around his head much like a halo, befitting of one of his stature. He was not sure how long he'd laid there, nor how he'd been in the void between universes. In the moment, he was awakening from the half-slumber that had befallen him upon his defeat, in his own realm, his own universe. The immeasurable time in which he was comatose had left him nothing but the repetition of his final moments as his universe's god. As he finally faded in entirety from his realm for the umpteenth time, his ice-steel eyes snapped open and he sat up in a shock.

The first thing he had noticed was that he had lost the incalculably powerful body which he had undertaken for his battle with the stubborn mortals, instead residing in the form taken from Shulk. Immediately after, he noticed a massive drain in his power, not unlike the time which he spent as the life force of the body of the Homs that had ultimately slain him. He felt vulnerable. Weak. 

Almost... mortal.

He was without either Monado. Without the full extent of his divine abilities. Alone, in a world not his own, without the powers he so rightfully deserved as a god!

Without influence and knowledge of fate. Without a Monado, he could not view the future, nor could he change it with that knowledge. He would not know what is to come. What may become of him.

Zanza felt a pang of fear. Would his body hold? Surely, as it was created to last a millennium. With the full force of a god as it's life-force, it certainly would.

His intimidation was quickly overridden by arrogant confidence, soon determination. 'I am still a god! I need not the Monados in the moment. One of my power can most certainly hold their own in this world.'

The Soul of Bionis rose from the water. He quickly noticed another flaw in his appearance; he was without the divine, golden wings and halo that graced his form in the past. The skies would not be blessed with his presence, not today. He would slowly regain power, but could not reattain his full glory without at least his own Monado. 'Stuck in this form, is it? So be it. I was forced to sustain the form of that upstart for far longer than it will take me to find them.'

He looked about. Trees all around to his left and back. To the front, a modestly sized lake rippled quietly. He noticed the sand trailed up a small hill to his right, growing rockier as it grew farther from the lakeside.

He knew what this meant. Such deliberate and crude formation of the land could only be the work of that which he so loathed now. 'Mortals. Those worthless excuses for intelligence. So dull in their senses, so limited in their vision.'

He could certainly deal with them now - He most definitely had the power to do so - but without the Monados, he could not see the future to ensure the passage of fate, to find the weapons of destruction and rebirth. The mortals, however undesirable, could be of some meager, minute assistance in discerning one or both of their locations. He would... interact with them only to the extent necessary to find his Monado. Then? He may be able to reconstruct a new Bionis, a new Titan, perhaps even here, in the place he had awoken.

So the Soul of the Bionis set down the sand-to-gravel path toward what he hoped was mortal civilization.





Zanza hiked up over what seemed to him the thousandth hill, growing weary of this exercise. Normally, he would fly, or reappear in the place he wished to be; however, both options were unavailable to him as of that moment. He would certainly obliterate these hills for their ether when he was capable of it - materials for his new Bionis.

The deity stood atop the hill, looking down over the sharply-right-curving path to his new discovery: a large cluster of thatch-roof buildings, not used or seen in his world since long before he waged war on Mechonis. To the rear left, a large, crystalline protrusion towered over the town's largest building, it's shadow cast out over yet more hills. To either side was dense forest, the one farther from the gemstone fortress seeming more wild and shadier. 

'Primitive,' Zanza thought with a smirk. 'But acceptable. If they have not advanced, it is because the realm lacks those with power. They will fall to me like Meyneth, the Mechonis, and her Machina before me.'

Zanza then noticed a number of colorful, quadrupedal, winged creature moving the clouds in the sky about. 'How amusing! They domesticated them to preform duties in weather alteration. Perhaps in my new world I will grant the same skill to my new creations.'

Observation taken, the deity strode down to the village itself. He had not even reached the first building when he realized something he considered rather strange. More of the quadrupeds, most without wings, were entering and exiting the buildings, standing at stalls, buying and selling, and, though it now seemed small potatoes, conversing. Of course, in his ears, they all spoke the same as his kind, though to any other from his universe it would be complete gibberish. It was not long before he was spotted. Even less time before a panic rose.

"Monster!" screamed one.

"It's gonna eat us!" the one next to her shouted.

"Run for your lives!" a pink one called from a doorway.

Immediately they all began running around, seemingly in random directions. Zanza was sure he saw one run directly into a street lamp. Eventually, they did all manage to clear the market street, giving him a direct path to the crystal structure, the lower third of which resembled an enormous prismatic tree with an overlarge door. He'd seen the pink one as well as several others run in there and slam the door shut behind them.

Zanza chuckled. 'Ah, if only the peoples of the Bionis had been this fearful. It would've been much simpler.'

He stepped up to the door, crossing his arms and looking it up and down. Not nearly the shine or luster of his Ether crystals, not even of those of the lowest quality. It couldn't compare to the gates of Prison Island, not in intricacy or size. The rest of the structure was of no more impressiveness, rather gaudy, and yet still it lacked good design, to him. It bored him. He would certainly tear it down when-

Whhhm-CRCK