#aron.

…

“So… Lately, I’ve… been havin’ trouble. With- y’know, fighting ‘n all that. Thought I wasn’t makin’ out to be any good of a soldier, which… if I’m tryin’ to help win this war, then I should be a good soldier. Should at least be able to take care of myself. Well, it’s… I thought I was startin’ to do alright, with savin’ that one guy, but… then some stuff happened. A lotta stuff. I almost got captured, or- well, I basically was, an’ then Kale swooped in an’ saved me. Not only that, but he knocked out Kid, an’ we took him with us. Had this- this really intense fight on the way back, someone tryin’ to save Kid I guess… but. We beat him. …Kale did- pretty… brutally.”

The sounds of someone shifting.

“So I talked some with Kid, once… everything got settled out. Turned out he’s got some protocol or somethin’ bc he’s a robot? An’… he can’t attack me. Or anyone in the Resistance. Would go against his programming now. So he’s… been tryin’ to train me, an’ we had our first ‘session’; I got a bit worn out after the first one an’ went to go visit Sy-” Here the voice cracked, and there was a shaky breath in, and a smoother one out. “I went to go visit Sytri, like I always did whenever I wanted to unwind an’ relax a bit. …Long story short, Kid followed me, an’ he recognized Sytri. From the Rivals. Turned out he’d been one of ‘em the whole time an’ never- he just- let me-” Another sigh. “…Kid ‘n I had a short lil argument thing, I’unno, an’… I ran off. Said I was done tryin’ to be somethin’ I wasn’t, an’ left a note, an’ ran off.”

“Guess what they say is true, with the past repeating itself.”

“Then I ended up actually gettin’ captured on the way to Willowdale. Like knocked out ‘n tied up ‘n everything. Kale came swooping in again. Brought Kid with him, too. But I was still- especially after that- having doubts about everything, so Kale took me home.”

“And… Sheila told me everything.”

“And then…” The voice sounds a little more upbeat now. “I had… the most interesting thing happen. Kale’s god showed up.” A small laugh. “Never gonna forget that, I don’t think. They talked to me for a minute, said I’d done a good job against that Rival. Even though it ended poorly for me. But then they asked if I wanted to be a Unit. Like- like Kid. An’ Kale. I-I thought that’d mean like… not bein’ able to think for myself an’ havin’ to follow protocols an’ programming ‘n all that, so I- freaked out a little, heh. But it wasn’t that it would’ve been like that, though, but… I still didn’t wanna do it. I wanted to learn to do this myself. An’ not by… by cheating. So I got a headband instead. Shows me all kinds’a neat stuff ‘bout most everything.”

“-Scratch that, it shows neat stuff about actually everything. Even them. Showed their… uh… their name, I think… and… somethin’ else, maybe?”

“A-anyways. But then I mentioned fixing Kale’s arms ‘n legs after that fight a while back, an’ they gave me blueprints- actual blueprints- to all of Kale’s mechanisms! I’ve been lookin’ over ‘em whenever I can, an’ I honestly don’t understand quite everything, but… I’ll figure it all out eventually.”

“Once I got back, Kid an’ Tab were there, too. Guess they couldn’t wait any longer for me, huh? Heh. Hadn’t seen Tab in a long while. It was… it was really nice to see her again. So now we’re rooming together again, an’ now she’s got this lil bird with her. Dunno where it came from, but it’s pretty cute. S-so anyway, that’s… I guess that’s really all I wanted to say. It was a lot, but… I’m back, and… an’ I’m determined, absolutely determined, that I’m gonna make it work this time.”

“I’ve got to.”