Nia

Nia () is a playable character in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. She first appears as a member of , but escapes the Ancient Ship together with Rex and the others.
==Appearance and personality==
Nia is a Gormotti with neck-length silver hair styled into a bob cut and yellow eyes. She wears a poofy yellow jumpsuit with a white hood, gloves, and boots.
Nia is seen as rude and cynical. She has a cat-like mannerism, such as hissing when angered.
==Story arc==
===Xenoblade Chronicles 2===
Nia first appears as part of the elite salvaging crew hired by . She isn't happy about being given a child in Rex as a crewmate, and butts heads with him a couple times, but comes to understand him a bit better after asking him about what he believes about the World Tree and Elysium. This makes it upsetting when kills Rex because he touched the Aegis, the crew's target. Malos then demands she kill all the remaining salvagers so none would tell tales of the task, which she refuses to do. The revived Rex and the escaped Pyra then fight Malos, and Nia decides to side with them, along with her Dromarch. After rescuing each other, Azurda appears, and they escape. However, Azurda is shot down, and crashes onto Gormott.
After Nia is being found by Rex and Azurda turning into his larval form, she escorts them to the Gormotti town of Torigoth. At the town entrance, they find a humiliating wanted poster of her, as well as of Malos and Jin. She gets furious and rips hers into pieces. She tells Rex, Pyra and Azurda that she will part ways and go back to Torna after she leads them to an inn. However, they are attacked by a group of Ardainian soldiers lead by Captain Padraig. At first, they manage to fight them off, but soon after, Brighid, Blade to Special Inquisitor Mòrag of Mor Ardain, arrives as reinforcement. They manage to capture Nia and Dromarch, who tells Rex to flee. Nia is interrogated by Mòrag and accidentally mentions Rex's name. At the same time, Rex asks the people of Torigoth about information about Nia and he finds out that she is being held captive in the Ardainian battleship and that they plan to execute her within the next few days. With the help of Tora and his artificial Blade Poppi, they sneak into the battleship and free Dromarch and later Nia, who was surprised to find Rex saving her, and not Jin. She was also surprised when being told about her execution, and it became clear that the Ardainians spread rumours to lure Rex, and with him the Aegis, into the battleship. They are attacked by Dughall and then by Mòrag and Brighid, but this time manage to escape. After being far enough from Torigoth to be safe, Nia once again tells the others that she needs to part ways, but Rex convinces her to stay together with them and travel to the World Tree. They borrow a ship from Tora's uncle Umon and set sail for the World Tree, but are attacked by Ophion and then swallowed by the Urayan Titan.
They run into who takes them to Garfont Village. Eventually, Akhos and his Blade Obrona, members of Torna, attack the village to retrieve the Aegis. Obrona teases Nia by calling her a traitor and Akhos mentions that Jin ordered him to deal with Nia in any manner he sees fit. Nia is in disbelief that Jin would do that. After they drive them away, Nia wants to tell about her past as a member of Torna, but finds it difficult. After asking both Pyra and Rex for help, she nervously starts telling Vandham of her relationship with Akhos, but he interrupts her not long after and tells her that it only matters that he is with Rex's group now. On their way to Fonsa Myma, they encounter Zeke and his Blade Pandoria with whom she first fought verbally and then physically. Nia repatedly calls him an idiot and the party moves on to Fonsa Myma. They arrive and watch The Heroic Adventures of Addam in Mymoma Playhouse. Before they meet up with Cole, Nia tells Rex that he should talk to Pyra about the play, but cannot tell him how and that he should just figure it out himself. The next night, she notices that Pyra is gone, and after hearing some noises she and the rest of the party leave the inn and meet Cole again. He explains that Iona is gone and that Malos and Akhos used her to lure Pyra to Olethro Ruins. They indeed meet them there and after a battle, Akhos tells her she knows "better than anyone [...] what humans are really like" after telling the party that they plan to erase all of humankind. Vandham saves her, but when he was in a dire situation later, she holds back and is hesitant on helping him before he is eventually killed by Malos.
Before the party leaves Uraya, they bid farewell to Cole. He explains that he is, in fact, a Blade who used to be called Minoth. When asked why he looks so old, he explains that he is "one of the cursed ones - a Flesh Eater". Nia gasps, as if she already knows something about it. On their way to Mor Ardain she helps retirve Roc's Core Crystal from Rhys. When they finally arrive there, she, Poppi and Mythra take a bath at the Smùide Hot Spring. As Nia is about to head out and stands up, Mythra asks "Nia, are you...?". Nia confirms her guess and they agree to keep this quiet. They then move out to the Old Factory where they once again meet Zeke. He and Nia make fun of each other again, they fight, Zeke and Pandoria defeat themselves and the party moves on like nothing happened. They catch up with Bana in the factory, but Patroka, Mikhail, and their Blades Perdido and Cressidus arrive just in time to save him. Patroka orders them to kill Nia, the traitor, and to retrieve Pyra, the Aegis. With the help of Mòrag and Brighid, they work out a plan to defeat Perdido and Cressidus. Next, Fan La Norne arrives and drives the other two away.
During Fan la Norne's funeral, Nia teases Mythra about Rex before questioning why the Goddess of the Praetorium didn't return to her core like she should. The two then discuss the most likely reason for this irregularity: part of Fan's Core Crystal is missing. Mythra concludes their talk by wondering if the missing part of Fan la Norne's core was stolen.
After Emperor Niall fails to stop Bana from detonating Giga Rosa at the Mor Ardain-Uraya summit, dying in the process, Nia asks Dromarch to make a diversion and send the party away from the scene, by making them think more enemies had infiltrated the Ardainian Battleship. Nia uses the commotion to heal Niall, using what appears to be a water based power. Nia successfully revives the emperor before the party comes back from their chase, pretending to have simply administered "first aid" to Niall.
During the party's audience with King Eulogimenos, she tries to free Rex, who is being restrained by Tantalese soldiers after Pyra is hit by a lightning bolt and captured. However, her Blade weapon's ether energy is emptied, leading to the Tantalese soldiers easily parrying and repelling her attack before Dromarch is hit by the same bolt of lightning that had hit Pyra beforehand.
Much later in chapter 7, the party enters Spirit Crucible Elpys to search for the third Aegis Sword. Azurda explains that the strength of Blades is drained in this location. Nia assures Dromarch multiple times that she does not plan to turn back, explaining that she is 'putting herself to the test'. Rex asks if she is alright, and she replies that she is struggling to breathe and feels dizzy. Rex gives her advice on how to deal with it. 
As they go deeper, she struggles more and more. Mòrag notices her condition and proposes to take a break. Rex gives her emergency air and teaches her how to use it most effectively, and she quickly gets much better. Rex mentions that the other salvagers acted like his parents and Nia starts talking about her own family. Her father was a well-known lord in Gormott. She had to study how to behave like a proper lady, although she hated it. However, she adds that those were the happiest days of her life. She also mentions her sister, who was very frail. In order to help her sister, their father looked for a cure, hired doctors, spent all his money and lost his position as a lord. Nia's sister died shortly after that. 
When the party almost reaches the end of the Spirit Crucible, Nia hears a voice calling "Her life is tied to yours...". She gets flashbacks of her father standing next to her sister's dead body, explaining that Nia has a life within her now. He tells her to address him as "father" from now on. She then gets flashbacks of her father's passing. In these flashbacks, she takes Dromarch's Core Crystal, which used to be her father's, and reawakens him. The present-day Dromarch calls Nia and her flashbacks end here. Nia reassures the party that she is fine and finishes her story by adding that her father died not long after her sister. She started running from the Indoline Praetorium together with Dromarch. Another flashback plays, showing the two running from a group of Indoline calling her a "cannibal" and "flesh-eating Blade". It then shows Jin breaking her out of a prison cell, similar to what she dreamt when she was imprisoned in Gormott before being freed by Rex and Poppi. Nia tells Rex that Jin took him in and that she saw a way out in him.
The party arrives at the destination, but are challenged by Addam's Phantasms. Rex struggles to defeat them and gets hit by one of the Phantasms. Nia screams that she does not want to hide who she is any more and starts to transform into her true form: She was a Blade, a Flesh Eater. She approaches Rex and explains that it's thanks to him that she is burdened no longer, and confesses her love to him. Rex replies that he loves her too "and all you guys!" Together, they fend off the Phantasms and pass Addam's trial.
===Xenoblade Chronicles 3===
Nia reappears in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 as the Queen of Agnus.
For most of the game, a machine assumes her identity to keep the war against Keves. It is later revealed that the real Nia is in hibernation at the Cloudkeep.
Nia is seen in a flashback with M as she is considering suicide by jumping off a cliff, but as a Moebius she can't die. She then hands M the key to the Cloudkeep, revealing she is going into hibernation to avoid Z's power.
When the party reaches the Cloudkeep, as Nia was about to wake up, she is attacked by D, by impaling her with his stalactite-like projectiles, seemingly killing her. After D's death, the party despairs over the presumed dead Queen, but due to her nature as a Blade, Nia quickly recovers and wakes up, much to the party's surprise.
In a flashback, Nia is seen overlooking one half of Origin on Alrest, she is later seen conversing with her Kevesi counterpart, Melia during the Intersection.
After waking up, Nia explains that Aionios was originally one, and that one world was split into two worlds. Both worlds went their separate ways without knowing of each other. Eventually the worlds will collide once again and destroy each other. Via communicating with light, she manages to contact with her Kevesi counterpart for the first time and devised a plan to preserve the consciousness of both worlds into Origin and then reboot them when both worlds collide, unfortunately, the reboot process failed due to Z and Moebius. Nia reveals that Melia is taken captive by Moebius within Origin as a means of taking it over. Nia also reveals that by combining the key from Origin and her Core Crystal, she is able to create the Ouroboros Stones.
The party later returns to the Cloudkeep for the Origin Shard in the creation of the ship that she has, which she gladly relinquishes. Nia also gives a layout of Origin that was made by a Nopon engineer on the Agnian side of Origin.
Melia and Nia later joins the fight against Origin. During the battle, the Queens send the party's recruited Heroes to aid them. Melia and Nia later joins the fight against Z personally in which they succeed in defeating him. After Z's death as the worlds were about to split back into the world of the Bionis and Alrest, Nia and a recently freed Poppi observes a photo of the party of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
Nia's facial features are identical in her Driver form, but her silver hair is long and tied in two twin tails and her ears resembles a kitsune. Nia's Core Crystal is a diamond shaped with red stains on it. Nia wears a gold and white leotard with two tails which is wrapped in red rope with sleeves and stockings of the same color, and red boots.
Whenever Nia is in Blade form, she drops her feline mannerism and personality. Nia has the ability to heal wounds no matter how serious it is. Her abilities can even resuscitate the dead to some degree.
Nia wears a long white kimono-like dress with with gold and red accents, sandals with tabi socks. During the final battle, Nia wears an outfit which is an amalgamation of her Driver and Flesh Eater forms. In combat, she uses the Anima Sword with spectral decorations of Pyra and Mythra's Aegis Swords on her back.
Nia's personality is largely the same as in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, although she puts up a regal façade whenever she's in public.
==Lore==
* Nia's father was the lord of Echell, a town in Gormott.The Race to Find Nia
** Nia and her sister used to live in a mansion there, though it was razed at some point after their father lost his position as a lord.Dax
** Her father was part of one of Gormott's seven main clans, making Nia also a part of the same clan herself.Dward
** While her father spent all his money in search of a cure for her sister's illness, it is likely that he lost his position as a lord as a result of him embezzling the town's tax money for the same purpose.
* Between Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Nia would have a child, seemingly with Rex. It is heavily implied that Mio is this child of hers.
** This would make Houses Vandham and Doyle direct descendants of hers, their Founders Matthew and Na'el being descendants of Mio and Noah.
* Through her key to Origin and her Core Crystal, Nia is able to create the Ouroboros Stones.
* Nia dislikes the dress she wears as Queen, fearing that she'll trip on it and fall flat on her face.
==As a playable character==
Nia is a playable Driver in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. She first joins the party on the Ancient Ship together with and , but isn't playable until they reach Gormott. Her default Blade is .
Nia can be used as a Blade exclusively by after the battle against the Phantasms in the Spirit Crucible Elpys. She can be swapped between Driver and Blade form in the menu by pressing X while she is selected.
Nia is a post-game Hero who can be recruited by visiting her in the Cloudkeep after having beaten the game. Her is Lifesage.
==As an NPC==
Nia can first be found on the Indoline Titan Ship at the very beginning of . She can later be found at the norther edge of Fonsett Island, past a building to the north of Verde Carpentry Workshop, during the party's stay in Fonsett Village.
===Dialogue===
====Indoline Titan Ship====
====Fonsett Village====
Nia also appears as an NPC as the Queen of Agnus.
*Nia (boss)
==In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate==
Nia appears in as a . There also exists a based on her. She appears on the stage in the background alongside her Blade, Dromarch.
==Trivia==
* Nia's Blade form outfit (albeit with tights and shorter tails) can be unlocked for Mio in the 's Archsage's Gauntlet battles.
* During the Intersection, Nia is seen communicating with Melia with the same telegraph-like device that uses to call Pupunin and Dughall at the beginning of .
==In other languages==
==Notes==
==References==
==Gallery==
Nia (Blade, no weapon).png|Blade Nia, without her weapon.
Queen Nia.png|Nia as the Queen of Agnus.
Category:Characters (XC2)Category:Characters (XC3)Category:Drivers (XC2)
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