Fiora

Fiora (, Fiorung) is a playable character in Xenoblade Chronicles. She is an old friend of Shulk and also Dunban's younger sister.

Appearance and personality
Fiora is a Homs with shoulder-length blonde hair, green eyes, and a somewhat small stature. Her main appearance comprises a white tube top, white disconnected sleeves, a brown skirt, brown legging, white boots, and several brown straps everywhere.

Fiora is an outgoing, cheerful person who is good at reading people. She can see others' emotions easily and tries to get them to be more open about them, while almost never hiding her own. This is taken to an extreme with Shulk, for whom her soft spot is evident (to everyone except him), as she constantly cooks food for him and tries to get him to be less of a lab shut-in. While she generally hates violence and will always try to solve situations peacefully, she will do anything to protect her friends and family - both from others and from themselves - even though she does so recklessly without regard for the consequences.

Story arc
Fiora lives in with her older brother Dunban. She sees Shulk as a best friend and subtle boyfriend project, and Reyn as a good friend with some trust and attitude issues. When Dunban is injured in the Battle of Sword Valley, she spends the next year tending to him. She distrusts the Monado, which caused Dunban's injury, and greatly dislikes any of his talk that he wants to be ready to use it again if need be.

After an incident with Reyn and the Monado, Fiora hears that he and Shulk are off to Tephra Cave to collect ether cylinders for the mobile artillery. Having realized they forgot to take any carrying cases with them, she demands to tag along. Once the job is complete, Colony 9 is attacked by Mechon. After rushing back, Fiora cannot find Dunban, and the trio goes to get the Monado. But the way is blocked, and the only way through is to blast apart the rubble with the mobile artillery. The group become separated by the Mechon, with Fiora ending up successfully getting to the artillery.

It takes some time for Fiora to load the artillery with the ether cylinders and figure out how to control it. Once she does, she next sees Shulk and Reyn with Dunban in the Residential District, facing down a huge Mechon later known as Metal Face. She tries to destroy the Mechon, but it seems to be immune to bullets and ether salvos, only becoming a bit scuffed from a point-blank main cannon to the face. Out of resources and out of nerve, Fiora gets slammed into a building and brutally stabbed by Metal Face, who lazily tosses her body over to a bunch of scavenger Mechon and shows off his kill to Shulk.

The Mechon soon abandon the colony and take many Homs back to Mechonis, her among them. Fiora's body is operated on to act as a Core Unit for a new Face Mechon, called Face Nemesis. Once construction is complete, the next task set by Egil, leader of Mechonis, is to attack the regions above the Bionis' head - specifically, the city of Alcamoth and the mysterious Prison Island. In contrast to Metal Face's bloodlust, Face Nemesis joins the battle with cool precision.

The Faces land upon Prison Island, just after Metal Face has launched an anti-ether spear to kill the Giant within, whose power was being used to counter-attack the Mechon. Also present are Shulk, Reyn, Dunban, and some unknown people of varied species. Face Nemesis attempts to talk with the Giant, Zanza, but Shulk only sees anger and the opportunity for revenge. The Monado has been strengthened, and whilte trying to attack Metal Face he accidentally cuts open the cockpit of Face Nemesis, revealing to him and the others that Fiora is not dead. However, she appears to have lost her memory, and the voice she speaks is of someone else. Before any questions can be answered, the Mechon all leave, and Shulk screams after them.

The occupant of Fiora's body is concerned about the people she saw, specifically Shulk, and once repairs to Face Nemesis are complete decides to try and meet with him. They meet at Valak Mountain, where Shulk tries to find a hint of Fiora's memory. But Metal Face arrives, having now recognized Fiora as Dunban's sister, and threatens to kill her if Shulk doesn't give him the Monado. After a fight, Egil swoops in to break it up, and the Mechon get away for free once more.

Face Nemesis is next seen deep within Galahad Fortress. She does not want to fight Shulk, but Egil is forcing it, and taunts Shulk over killing or being killed by his old friend. When Shulk's group begins to lose the battle, a breaking point is reached, and Face Nemesis breaks free of Egil's control to attack him. In the ensuring scuffle the fortress is destroyed, and both sides save for Egil fall towards the Fallen Arm.

After Shulk awakens on a beach, he finds the wreackge of Face Nemesis, and extracts Fiora's body from it. When she wakes up, this time Fiora herself answers. She has been awake and aware the entire time, allowing the unknown person sharing her body to do what she felt was important to do, and it pained her to be unable to let any of the others know that she was alright underneath. Shulk is not entirely pleased about this but goes along with it. Fiora fights alongside Shulk while they search for the others, but once they take a rest she breaks down a little, saying it's okay for Shulk to leave her behind on Mechonis because of her Mechonid body. Shulk refuses, saying that she was the entire point of the whole quest, and fights to protect her against attacking Mechon. Reyn and Sharla arrive midfight to help out, and afterward Fiora shows a renewed trust in Reyn for having protected Shulk the whole adventure.

The four then come upon the Hidden Machina Village, where the Machina of Mechonis live. Not long after, the rest of the party of Dunban, Melia, and Riki arrive, and Dunban tries not to cry as he hugs Fiora. The Machine doctor Linada has a look at Fiora and determines that she needs a Mechon component to survive outside her Face unit for much longer, so the group fetch it for her. Fiora knows that she might not have much longer to live, but she wants to fight with Shulk and to try and help the other person inside her, so she joins them as they begin to climb the Mechonis towards Egil.

Halfway up the Mechonis, the group come across Jade Face, piloted by the brainwashed Gadolt. He fires a powerful blast at them that is only blocked by a sudden power from Fiora's chestpiece. Egil's sister Vanea appears and explains that the other voice in Fiora is Meyneth. As the group continues to climb, Vanea slowly elaborates that Meyneth is the goddess of the Mechonis, and defended it from the Bionis' attack led by Zanza. Meymeth was forced to slumber after the battle and now requires a host to try and stop the conflict between titans, having picked Fiora because she is close to Shulk, the wielder of Zanza's Monado.

In Agniratha, the Mechonis capitial, Jade Face faces the party once more. Fiora gains the ability to focus some of Meyneth's power, firing a blast of energy that defeats Gadolt and restores the memories that Egil had erased. Then the group reaches Egil, who wants to destroy all life on Bionis so it cannot reawaken, and fail to defeat him. When Fiora shows Meyneth's power, Egil is upset that the goddess he believes he has been working for all this time has turned against him, so he leaves to Mechonis Core and takes control of the titan himself. The party escapes and is rescued by a combination of Meyneth's power and Junks the Machina ship.

The group then tracks down Egil in the Core, and this time they prevail. However, Dickson begins a series of events that causes Zanza to be freed from Shulk's body, taking control of the Monado and the Bionis. Meyneth draws her own Monado, and Fiora helps fight Zanza with it, but they only stalemate. Once Zanza attempts to wipe out the party, Meyneth sacrifices herself to protect everyone. Zanza takes Meyneth's Monado for himself and leaves; everyone escapes Mechonis before he destroys it.

Junks lands in Colony 6, with Shulk alive but unresponsive. Fiora knows that without Meyneth, she will eventually run out of power and die. She accepts this, deciding that she was already dead anyway since the Battle of Colony 9, and wants to go out fighting alongside Shulk. She does not tell anyone this except for Melia, whom she wants to take care of Shulk afterward. The colony is then attacked by Telethia, Zanza's underlings. The party has some trouble without Shulk, but he eventually wakes to join them, and the enemy is fought off.

Fiora continues to fight beside Shulk as the group enters the Bionis to take down Zanza's disciples. Dickson in particular is a challenge; Fiora and Shulk have to help each other fight on before they manage to take him down with the residual power of the Monados. Once meeting Zanza, Fiora acts as Meyneth's mouthpiece, opposing Zanza's selfish goals with individualistic ideals. Eventually the battle is won, and Shulk reshapes the world as Meyneth wished without gods - and Fiora's Homs body is restored.

Fiora is briefly seen at the end of Future Connected.

As a party member
As a Homs, Fiora is only really present to teach the player about s and ; her gameplay as a glass cannon akin to Shulk is minimal, with only four arts, no artbooks, one weapon model, and an inability to wear most equipment.

Upon returning to the party, Fiora becomes a full-fledged party member that can fit a variety of different roles based on the equipment she wears. In all roles she is about damage; the question is whether her goal is physical damage, ether damage, or drawing aggro as an armour tank. Most notably, her talent art also changes based on her equipment.

Gallery
Fiora