Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Part 4: Thus Boy Meets Girl - Behold the Driver of the Aegis!
8So that was it then... After having discovered that the Ancient Ship's greatest treasure was a girl known as the Aegis, Jin struck Rex from behind... and killed him.
But then... Rex wakes up in a grassy plain, and he saw that same girl, standing next to a lone tree. He approached the girl as she listened to those mournful bells.
Somehow, Rex found himself in Elysium, the homeland of The Architect. This Aegis introduces herself to Rex as a Fire Blade named Pyra, and she reminded Rex that he got here in Elysium because he was killed. This caused Rex to throw a fit, having literally been backstabbed by one of his own clients, but also panicking about Jin being a threat to his Guild family.
That's when Pyra offered a request to Rex... The Elysium they're in now is simply a dreamspace, an illusion of what once was. She requests to Rex to bring her to the REAL Elysium, her homeland.
Pyra can bring Rex back to life by offering half of her emerald Core Crystal to him in order to get this task done, and from there, he would become the Driver of the Aegis.
Rex accepts, and touches the Core Crystal on Pyra's chest as it vibrated with a heartbeat to commence the bond...
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Back in Rex's world, he was fully revived, and manifested the Aegis Blade in his hands.
Torna continued onwards to carry Pyra's sealed body towards their. Malos then mischievously commands Nia to kill the rest of their shipmates, but Nia refused to do so. Malos got irritated and planned to kill them all himself.
Pyra, having completed her bond with Rex, emerged from her capsule, and Rex sprung from deep within the ship to battle the men that killed him. Malos stepped in beyond Jin to attack Rex & Pyra with the help of his own Blade, Sever. Everyone else was forced to leave for their own safety.
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So now Rex is officially a Driver, and Pyra is his first Blade.
The blue light that Pyra tethers towards Rex represents their Affinity. It will glow brighter and brighter until Pyra makes it go gold, which will improve some of Rex's stats, such as his movement speed, and the speed of which his Driver Arts charge. To boost their Affinity, you must try and have Rex stay as close to Pyra as possible AND get in your hits on the opponent. If you have to have Rex move around, Pyra will try to follow him in order to stay close.
Using your Driver Arts now can now charge your Specials, and how much a Special's gauge is increased can depend on how you used a Driver Art to increase it. The biggest way to boost the Special is to use a Driver Art right after the 3rd hit of your Auto-Attack combo.
A Special can be charged up to three levels, or even a fourth level if you have max Affinity. When you use a Special itself, time your button prompts to increase its damage even further.
At this point, you can also access Blade Arts, but these are automatically used by the Blade themselves as the battle goes on to support the Driver and boost their own capabilities beyond raising their battle Affinity, and more of these will be applied as the Blade increases their Trust with their Driver.
Back on Specials, to build up a Blade Combo, you must strike the target with rising levels of three Specials in a row:
A Blade Combo would go like this:
Level 1 (or 2/3/4) to Level 2 (or 3/4) to Level 3 (or 4)
The end of a Blade Combo of specified combinations of elements will unleash an elemental orb of the final Special of that Blade Combo, which will seal off a debuff technique the target could've done on you.
I don't complete the Blade Combo, here, but I'll show that off at another time.
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It seemed that Rex & Pyra were in trouble against Malos, but Nia & Dromarch came in to lend their paws to help them out.
This allowed Pyra to reach her sword and fight against Malos on her own. It seemed that they actually knew each other... from 500 years ago... and that Pyra has taken on a different appearance from the last time Malos saw her...
That Maelstrom came back to blast everyone on the ship, and it seems like they wouldn't be able to handle that all, either, but then Azurda storms in from the skies to bail them out. It seems that he, Jin, and Malos all know each other...
Gramps grabs Rex, Pyra, Nia, & Dromarch, and they all attempt a great escape. Alas, the battleship was able to strike them all down with their ballistic missiles.
But yet, they were still too far away for Malos to finish the job with the ship's cannons. Jin decided to not let that bother them for now.
He was now leaving it to someone else, named Akhos, to hunt down the newly-reawakened Aegis, and the others that have just protected her...