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Ren kicks off his blanket.
He hasn’t exactly been sleeping well lately. The raid on Team Xen’s base, the constant looming threat of dying, the revelation that everything they’ve done is all according to some uncaring program– they’d begun taking their toll on him long ago.
Those aren’t really the reasons he’s wide awake long past midnight, though. He puts on his shoes, paces across the room, and finally decides that there’s no point in staying here if he won’t sleep anyway.
He walks out of the League Administration, past the walls of Sashila Village, into the desert. The Mandibuzz circle lazily overhead.
Once, he could’ve been soaring with them. It’s one of the first thoughts that pops into his head, as always. His robot body did have problems– the world was never as vibrant, but he can’t say he hasn’t missed flying.
None of that really matters. Having diminished senses isn’t why he’s finally decided to return to his real body. It’s really that–
He doesn’t ever want what happened in the Den of Souls to happen again. He doesn’t ever want to be frozen, trapped in a metal shell while someone else takes over his body again. He doesn’t ever want to be staring at himself from somewhere else again.
There is one thing that’s nice about having all of his senses back. They remind him that he’s still alive, that he somehow hasn’t died yet through everything he’s been through. Before leaving Goldenleaf, he would’ve never expected any of this to happen, at least not to him, but meeting Melia and everything that happened afterwards has definitely made his life a lot more– interesting. To say the least.
Then again, meeting Melia tended to have that effect on a lot of people.
Ren hates the way that he had to watch helplessly as Melia tried to fend off waves of angry souls, grimacing and gritting her teeth as they pressed toward them. He hates that the best he could do was try to put on a brave face in front of Melia and Venam as if he wasn’t terrified of becoming just another wisp in the void for Nim to feast on. He hates the fact that he isn’t good enough to protect his friends from danger, even though the whole point of being a robot in the first place was so he could do that.
But maybe it’s all silly. He should know better by now– no one can really do everything alone. He should stop acting like the kid with delusions of grandeur who’s never left his hometown.
Well. He should get back to his room in the Administration. There are probably sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet, and besides this place is plagued by sandstorms. Not to mention, who would’ve thought a desert could be so cold?
He’s about to start heading back when he hears the soft sound of sneakers on sand and turns to see Aelita trudging across the Zorrialyn Coast. As she approaches, he raises a hand in greeting.
“Hey,” he calls.
“Hi, Ren!” Aelita says. “You came out here too, huh?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Ren shoves his hands in his pockets. “You?”
“...Yeah. Me too.”
“Something on your mind?” Ren asks, then grimaces. Of course something is on her mind; this could easily be the last month of their lives.
Aelita nods, oblivious. “I’m just thinking about what Crescent said– the Interceptor effect. Do you really think that we can make a difference?”
Hmm. If anyone could do everything alone, it would be Crescent. He’s still not a fan of her, not with her tricking him to join Team Xen, but she’s scarily good at battling if nothing else.
Too good, actually. With her being an Interceptor and everyone else being just a pawn of fate, what’s the point of even doing anything if the only way to make a difference is through them?
“I don’t know. But… we have to try, right?” He doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince.
Aelita seems to consider it, looking skyward as she taps her foot on the ground. “Well, we did get the components,” she says. “So I guess that means we at least helped awaken Adrest.”
“Yeah,” Ren scoffs. “So much for that. We all nearly–”
Nearly died, he thinks. But he’s not sure that’s exactly true, because for a moment he was dead, or at least it felt like that. It’s not like he’s the only person to have died before; Venam and Crescent can both attest to that.
Still. It’s not exactly a pleasant experience.
Aelita chuckles, breaking the brief silence. “It was a pretty close call, huh? I thought I’d never wake up from the School of Nightmares.”
Ren sighs. “You heard about the Den of Souls, right?”
“In broad strokes, I’m not clear on all the details, though.”
“Well, we found out Melia’s dying, lost Nim, and didn’t even get the Pearl component, so all in all it was a total failure.”
“That’s not true! Knowing that Melia’s dying is a good thing. It means that we can try to help her. Plus, you guys captured Cassandra.”
“Fair enough,” Ren concedes. “We still didn’t get the Pearl component, and I don’t think I ever want to go back down there after getting chased out by a mob of angry souls.”
Aelita hums. “I get the feeling that there’s more to it than that.”
Ren frowns, folding his hands together. He stretches them out in front of him so Aelita doesn’t see him wringing them together. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean, you’ve faced down a lot worse in the past,” Aelita says. “Rifts, dimension-hopping murderous robots, whatever is going on with Madame X and Team Xen, and you seem relatively okay with taking those on again. So… what gives?”
“Is this some of that Earth Sense thing you’ve inherited?” Ren asks, eyebrow still raised.
“No, it’s me knowing how to be a friend.”
Ren laughs. “Well… fair enough. You know how I decided to ditch Robo-Ren, right?”
“Of course,” Aelita says. “Gotta say, the flying was pretty cool, though.”
“It was cool,” Ren agrees. “Plus, there was this one time when I found a Starmie in the fountain in Somniam Mall, and I wanted to dive in to see how deep it was– okay, forget that, I’m getting off topic. The point is, I got possessed by something in the Den of Souls because of how the robot body works, and I’m never doing that again.”
Aelita pauses. “You were possessed?”
“Yeah,” Ren says. “It was… uncomfortable.”
“I know,” Aelita says. “It felt like dying, right?”
Ren stops, looks at her, tries to think of– oh, yeah, that would make sense. “Was it like that when you turned into a Rift?”
“I wasn’t exactly myself to begin with, but more or less,” Aelita says. “The best thing I can say about it is that it was a novel experience, if nothing else.”
“How does that even happen? People turning into pokemon-adjacent creatures doesn’t feel like it makes a ton of sense.”
“I don’t know. Some Garufan magic or something. Souta would, but…”
“I hated it,” Ren says. “In the Den of Souls, I was basically a sitting duck, all because of the stupid robot body. The whole point of having it was to be more independent, but I ended up having to rely on Melia and Venam even more.”
Aelita looks at him, head cocked to the side. “You know you don’t have to be independent, right? We’re a team for a reason.”
Ren shakes his head. “Sure, but I’d like to be capable on my own. If growing up in Goldenleaf has taught me anything, it’s that I know I can’t always rely on others.”
Aelita narrows her eyes, scrutinizing him. “Part of the reason I became a Rift in the first place was because I didn’t trust Souta and Erin to help me. If not for them, I’d still be stuck as a Regirock. I’ll always be grateful to them.”
“Yeah, but–” Ren begins. How could Aelita really understand? Sheridan is so different from Goldenleaf that the two places can’t even begin to be compared. Maybe Goldenleaf emphasized community in its own, twisted way, but even there people didn’t help each other so much as turn outsiders away.
“No buts,” Aelita says, cutting him off. “Get used to needing help, okay? Or you’re a hypocrite for trying to do that yourself.”
“I never thought I’d be called a hypocrite for trying to be helpful,” Ren groans. “A lot of other things, sure. But a hypocrite?”
Aelita grins. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“You might have a point.” And he knows she’s right, really, but the kid who wants to take on the world all by himself is still part of him. Maybe that kid will always be a part of him.
“Come on.” Aelita beckons him. “We’re here already, why not take a walk?”
Ren shrugs. “Fine.”
Aelita somehow manages to look at home in the desert. She effortlessly climbs up sand dunes, leaps over rocks, scampers up the walls of Fort Rystrine to look at the Badlands below.
Ren wouldn’t have any problem keeping up if he could still fly. The problem is that he can’t. By the time they’ve looped around to make it back to Sashila Village, he’s breathless and worn out.
“Are you part Primeape or something?” he asks. Aelita doesn’t even seem winded.
“Part Regirock, actually,” Aelita fires back, not missing a beat, energetic as ever. “Hey, we could head to Zone Zero again! Parkouring there was really fun. You could even try talking backwards for old times’ sake.”
“Nope. Definitely not doing that. Though, if you wanted to teach me how to do some of the stuff you do, I wouldn’t be opposed.”
“Sure! If we make it to January, I’ll teach you everything I know about parkour.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yep! As long as you promise we’ll beat the Xenpurgis.”
“Deal,” Ren says, and part of him knows that he shouldn’t be talking about the future like this, especially when that future relies more on their Interceptors than anything he can do.
But maybe he’s okay with that. Maybe he’ll never be rid of the kid, furious at the world for being unfair and uncaring, but maybe that’s okay, too, as long as the people around him are there with him.