Yveltal

This is the one that everybody knows about already. It's worth stopping to acknowledge that Madame X seemingly didn't have her Yveltal during Chapter 12, nor any of her other pokemon. She relied entirely on her sword and natural strength as a human to survive the doomed timeline she was pulled into. Assuming she's a human. There are many possible reasons this could be.

Maybe she was leaving them to heal up in their pokeballs at the worst possible time. Maybe she doesn't actually contain them using pokeballs most of the time. Maybe she doesn't allow any of them near her while she's using the time diamond to look through time and monitor Melia and the interceptor. Maybe she isn't actually Yveltal's trainer, it could be a situation similar to Geara where the legendary helps her despite the fact that she didn't catch it.

I think I'll end this section by pointing out that the only character other than Madame X to use Yveltal is Melanie, an evil alternate timeline version of Melia. Literally just how Melia would end up if circumstances were different. Even more concerningly, there are hints to suggest that Madame X and Melia have a deep spiritual connection of some kind.

She says this to Melia. Also during Chapter 15's Diamond Route Melia gets some vision that enters her mind "like telepathy" while unbeknownst to her Madame X is hiding only a few metres away.

Zekrom

The Dark Stone is simply Zekrom in a dormant state. In Pokemon Black 2 it can be used to summon Zekrom at Dragonspiral Tower. It is incredibly likely that Madame X found a way to awaken it and catch Zekrom, this battle with Celine was years ago. Alexandra also says this was Madame X's first known appearance. It's likely that she believed she would not be strong enough to achieve her goals as leader of Team Xen without the extra power offered by legendary pokemon, most pokemon villains think like that. During this incident she fought Celine to a draw. Even though I'm listing 6 specific pokemon, she would have needed a full team before fighting Celine which means she could have access to much more strong pokemon than just the ones I'm listing.

Iron Boulder

Madame X can manipulate time. She has the Time Diamond, which was at the center of Chapter 12's Bad Future arc. You could make an argument for Madame X having Dialga on her team, but I think the Time Diamond could probably be obtained without catching Dialga. Also given Dialga's fundamental sway over time and reality, I think Madame X would have already won by now if the real Temporal Pokemon had taken her side. Honestly I think the Time Diamond could have already been used to win the story by now, except that it needs to recharge sometimes and also Rejuvenation's world is controlled by Karma and the fate it programs for all living beings. It's possible that the raw force of predestination is limiting how much she can change.

Back to Iron Boulder. I think if Professor Sada & Turo could use a time machine to warp pokemon from alternate timelines to their own then Madame X could use the Time Diamond to acquire a paradox legendary pokemon. But you might ask: why Iron Boulder specifically? The reason is simply because I think it suits her team composition and aesthetic. She uses a sword, Iron Boulder is a robotic sword of justice, and it offers powerful Rock type coverage with a 100% accurate 95 base power move that ignores protect. Also If she sets up Electric Terrain somehow then Iron Boulder's Quark Drive ability activates which gives it some synergy with Zekrom who also benefits from that terrain.

Lunala

Clear and Kieren both have ultra beasts on their team, at Eclysia Pyramid Clear joins in by jumping through an ultra wormhole. Lunala and Solgaleo are the pokemon who can open ultra wormholes and summon ultra beasts. It's possible that they're harnessing a Lunala's power to do all of this. I also acknowledge that because no Lunala is seen on screen while these ultra wormholes are in use, it could be that they're actually utilising advanced technology or an artefact like the Time Diamond but for wormholes instead of time travel.

There's no other information available that supports my prediction, Madame X's background is still shrouded in mystery and so all my predications after the first two have very little to go on, but why do I predict Lunala over Solgaleo? Well mainly because I think her team could use another special attacker, and having at least a single ghost type on your team can be very valuable.

Another interesting fact is that Pokemon Rejuvenation seems to favour moon related symbolism and iconography over those related to the sun. Crescent is the name of one of the most important characters. Celine is the name of the champion. Celine was already guarding Zekrom and Reshiram, maybe Lunala is another thing Madame X stole from her? Or at least from her people? It's impossible to know.

-

After this point my predictions will break down into explaining different theories I have about the game that are either too shaky or beyond the scope of this post.

For example I could suggest Dranna the Mewtwo as a candidate because in V13 Madelis said that the Mewtwo was being prepared as her gift to Madame X. Yet Dranna escaped Madelis and is with Crescent. Strangely Crescent didn't use Dranna during the battle against her at the start of .karmafiles yet it's likely that she still has access to Dranna. Madame X would need to take it from her, which isn't out of the question as something that may happen, but there's also no particular reason to expect it to happen.

Another example is that I could suggest Meloetta as a candidate. Madame X appears in the prologue while Maria is having a strange dream/vision, and Maria visualises her as the one who speaks the words Erin is actually speaking to her. I could make a whole separate post about it, but I'll just say that Madame X has a connection of some sort to the Theolias. Anathea states during a flashback in .karmafiles that Meloetta is tied to the Theolia family, there are even Meloetta statues all around the Theolia household that we can explore during Chapter 9. But again it really comes off as though I'm reaching here.

Zekrom and Yveltal are both definite picks for her team, they even match each other aesthetically with edgey black and red, but I can't confidently go any further than this.

Sylveon’s Reflect cracks against the force of a tyrant’s blade. Nancy has decided to die for her child, for the person she loves most in the world. But as Sylveon’s protection fails and her imminent death becomes a near certainty, her natural drive to live screams in protest. She realises that she doesn’t want to die for her child, she just wants her child to live, and she wants to live on with them.

She attempts a desperate escape, sprinting along the dark stone tiles of the pier. She wants to be with her child, she wants to be safe with them, she wants to finally be family with them in a way that feels real. Because it wasn’t meant to be real. This was only a role assigned to her, for some women motherhood is pushed on them by society, for Nancy it was supposed to have been literally programmed into her.

Melia instructs her Togekiss Hapi to fire a volley of Aura Spheres at Madame X, none of them meet their mark but they slow her down. Nancy half thinks that maybe a few extra seconds of fleeing can deliver her from the horrible, imposing castle that imprisoned her for months. But it can’t. The blade finds her back just as safety was within reach, blood erupts from her body and puddles around her, and Nancy knows she’s dead.

In the end, she understands the reason she did this. The love was real, it was meant to be just a function she fulfilled but it grew into something more. Blood relative or not, human or not, Nancy is their mother. Even though Nancy is gone she prays her child will find new friends. New opportunities, new love.

In canon Pokémon games the domestic sphere is of little importance. Mothers feature at the start of every game, but they don’t matter. In Gen 1 the protagonist’s mother never even leaves her house. In future games they would get to do a little bit more at the start of the story. They would be given some more individual personality and lore as the pokemon series developed, especially in the anime. But overall the mother is just a symbol that exists to prove the protagonist was raised with love and she invites the player to imagine that their character has lived a whole life in this world before the story began.

In almost every game the father is absent, there are exceptions such as Gym Leader Norman of Hoenn, but just as Pokémon’s mothers are rarely seen out of the home he is rarely seen within it. He’s there to immerse the player in their life of battles and adventure by showing that they have family ties to it. Canon Pokémon games are about friendship and adventure, but never about the family or home. But what if on your adventure you couldn’t escape the experience of both those things? This is Pokémon Rejuvenation.

In this story there are many named families. The Theolias, the Blakeorys, the Von Brandts, the Altairs, the Rhaelas, the Grevilleas and a number of less prominent names I’ll bring up when relevant. The first character we see in Rejuvenation is Maria, apparently the only daughter of the Theolia family. Almost every Pokémon story has a focus on children, but she’s clearly too young to start her journey. We meet her parents Anathea and Vitus, we have the option to look at their family portrait that hangs on the wall. In Rejuvenation a number of important moments are illustrated by lead artist Zumi, this painting is the earliest of Zumi’s illustrations you can see in a playthrough. This family is so important to Rejuvenation as a text that not only is it the first illustration, but it’s gone through multiple iterations to ensure it’s consistent with the artstyle and quality of the rest of the game. See the images below.

The current iteration of the Family Portrait taken from the Pokémon Rejuvenation Wiki. 

An older iteration of the Family Portrait from V13. This screenshot is from SoraBell's let’s play on YouTube.

During this prologue normalcy, continuity and the overall sense of this being a normal reality breaks down. Near the end a masked woman in black and red armour says to Maria “Please, no matter what happens. Don't you dare lose hope. Don't lose who you are, and don't you dare forget what's about to happen... Do you understand? Don't lose hope, Maria!” These are the exact words that Maria’s older sister Erin says to her before being banished to the Unknown Dimension. Maria was unconscious and on the floor next to Erin while this was happening, which implies that the prologue may have been a dream. Maria does not remember Erin or her two other siblings after this event as Vitus erases her memory. This is not the last instance of a child being erased by a family member. Even if “family” is held up as an extremely important concept in Rejuvenation that does not stop some characters from harming, exiling or even killing their family members when it suits them. Vitus, otherwise called Indriad, is possibly the most evil person in this story. He has been set up as one of the most powerful characters who has brought disaster to all parts of Aevium and he has consistently done so as a cruel family patriarch. The harm he caused other characters as an abusive husband or father gets more focus in the narrative than his grand scale fantastical acts of evil. The implication is that treating children as he does is the worst thing a person can do. None of his children call themselves Theolias. In Chapter 15 his eldest daughter Erin writes in her diary that she has no last name. Melia uses the last name “Jenner” and thinks of the Professor as her real father. Alice and Allen also seem to go without last names, although they haven’t stated that explicitly in game like Erin has. It seems then that the name ‘Theolia’ is a burden and curse to those that bear it.

The Theolias lived together in Aevium about 40 years before Chapter 1 of Rejuvenation begins during a time when the region was newly discovered and settlers were only starting to build its first cities. This was the perfect time for a budding entrepreneur to prove themself and potentially establish a monopoly. Thomas Blakeory Sr. was a man who seized this opportunity by usurping the Grand Dream City construction project by framing the one who originally started it. He even married a woman called Hazuki who was a hero protecting Aevium and the daughter of a lucrative mining business. Together these things consolidated his power as he became Aevium’s earliest oligarch. 

Decades later he had a granddaughter called Saki Blakeory who grew up privileged and sheltered thanks to her family’s position. She wasn’t a bad person by any means but she had poor social skills. Blakeory Sr. did everything possible to make her life easy. If she wanted the chance to catch strong Pokémon or have her own battle arena then she would have it, if she wanted to participate in her prestigious school’s invention competition then you better believe that he would blackmail the judges so as to rig it in Saki’s favour, whether Saki asked for this or not. 

The prize for this competition was funding for the winning invention. Funding which Saki realistically didn’t even need. 

The resentment of those who were cheated, the pain of those who were threatened and the overall culmination of decades of abusing his power finally blew up in Blakeory Sr. 's face. Saki learned that day that much of her life had been a lie, so much of what her family gave her was bought by the suffering of others. The whole story arc was a very necessary wake up call for Saki that shows how a family name can be used as a tool to secure resources and power through a line of succession. The real life practice of arranging marriages and pressuring couples to reproduce is designed specifically so that the wealthy can keep their wealth for life, in this context a ‘family’ is something built to satisfy material concerns. Therefore the Blakeory name is power and luxury that comes at a cost.

The Altairs are similar to the Blakeorys in that their family is burdened by intrigue and a focus on increasing their affluence. Narcissa Altair is the ghost type Gym Leader of Goldenleaf Town. After retiring from her career as a world famous actress she married a man called Sirius, who brought along his adoptive stepson Gregory, better known in the story as future Team Xen Admin Geara. Narcissa learns during Rejuv’s story that Sirius was only using her, his ulterior motive was to get her support as Leader of Goldenleaf Town so that he could build Wispy Tower and secretly use it to research Giratina and the Den of Souls. Further into the story the player can learn that ‘Sirius’ was just an alias for Vitus, their family of three was simply his means. As awful as it was for Narcissa to learn that her marriage meant nothing, this was not the last painful revelation she would experience. In the sidequest Narcissa’s Hauntings we learn that when Narcissa was a young child her sister Celesia died in an accident. Her family was more concerned with how the incident would impact their reputation rather than the dignity of the child they just lost. Narcissa’s Grandmother Loria said the following:

These screenshots were taken from ThumsRipa Gaming's let’s play of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

In this speech Loria marks three families as the most powerful in Pre-Calamity Aevium and espouses values that are held by all of them. The family name doesn’t only secure material wealth, it preserves reputation. If the name is known then any person who carries it can receive respect or at least recognition from others without proving themself individually. Loria is punished by the narrative immediately after this speech and senior members of the other two notable families are cast in antagonistic roles in this story, so the message in Rejuvenation is that using a family name in these ways is wrong. The Altairs, Blakeorys and Theolias are names that once meant power in Aevium. Their legacy and sins that define the current state of Aevium are the backdrop to Rejuvenation’s story, but by Chapter 15 even the Blakeorys’ regime had collapsed.

So what is left? In Rejuvenation what is the right way to be a family? To get a better understanding of Janichroma’s authorial intent I decided to ask him personally.

You can find the original Tumblr post here.

Due to the size this tumblr post had to be split into two screenshots. You can find the original Tumblr post here.

The main takeaways from these answers is that: 

1. Jan didn’t plan all of these themes, instead they occurred naturally.

2. Family dynamics are used to explore neglect, love and sacrifice through the important ties characters have to each other. 

In this story many characters yearn for close, loving bonds with others as though it’s a psychological need. ‘Family’ or ‘friends’ are the words used to name people who satisfy that need in a character’s life. In some important moments characters call each other family even when they aren’t related. In Chapter 6 Nimpossible Predicament there’s an extended scene where the player, Aelita, Saki, Valarie, Adam and Delpha all try to comfort Melia after she expresses how she feels overwhelmed by the scale of the threat they’re facing and how she’s inadequate to deal with it. This is when Melia says “I just want you guys to know that each and every one of you feels like family to me.” Again in Chapter 13 Conflicting Ren-union when Melia is about to participate in a tournament in Grand Dream Stadium she tells Erin about how she’s going to fight for “the family name”. She does not refer to the name ‘Jenner’ she’s referring to her found family of friends who don’t actually share a name. The search for a place where she feels she belongs, or a ‘family’ is a notable feature of Melia’s character arc. She didn’t know it when she was speaking to Erin in that scene, but Erin is actually her sister. One of the friends she called family actually was. Yet she doesn’t put Erin above her other friends, by .karmafiles the Xen Raid Squad might as well be her family. It consists of her three siblings, her closest friends and their allies Alexandra and Damien of the Aevium League. It is very likely that the protagonist, who likewise only had one now dead parent, feels the same way. The player character’s entire journey was driven by love and a desire for belonging in the world, for the entire first act they are fighting to rescue their mother. For every arc in Act 2 they are fighting for one or more friends. In many ways the player and Melia are two sides of the same coin, a subject that’s worth its own essay, but for now I’ll leave you with this:

The young Interceptor stood in the otherworldly plane of Zeight that simultaneously felt small and secure yet infinite and mysterious. They watched the memory of Crescent bringing her friend back from the dead, the friend who looked just like themself. They saw Crescent give Nancy her mandate. Be loving. Protect them. When the time comes, die for them. A part of them had refused to acknowledge the truth, so before showing them that vision Nancy had stated it plainly. “I thought you would think less of me if I did tell you. But I’m sure it’s painfully obvious that we are not related in any way.”

“...I know.” They had replied. It wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t they have childhood? Why couldn’t they remember a time in their life when it felt okay to be weak, okay to rely on their mother for protection? Even when they stared death in the face and defied that tyrant by pushing back their Legendary Pokémon, they still felt weak. They still felt weak because it wasn’t enough to stop their mother from being killed right afterwards. Their friend Melia had lost her parent too, but at least she still had memories of a childhood with him. To the young Interceptor the earliest time they spent with their mother was just a blur in their mind suddenly cut into painful clarity by that terrifying attack which tore her away from them. Melia and Erin got to learn that they were sisters all along and just didn’t know it. The young Interceptor gets to learn that their mother was just a black box that was forced to love them. 

No. They know that’s not true. Nancy is here, their mother loves them and it wasn’t fake or forced. They felt it. They lived with her and loved her, the experience being short didn’t make it any less precious. As they continued to watch the vision, as they continued to find themself gradually getting one step closer to learning the full truth of their own birth, they realise that they don’t care if it wasn’t real. They don’t even care if one day they learn that THEY aren’t real. No matter what, they are Nancy’s child, and she’s their mother.

Nancy told them to start a new life with friends, opportunities and love. Even as they feel the cruel eye of fate upon them, demanding pain, demanding sacrifice, the young Interceptor persists. They can persist because both the resolve of Nancy and the compassion of a kind Terajuma woman called Tesla has inspired them.

I’ll preface this analysis by saying that I’m not writing this to belittle anyone who self-ships with Melia or ships their interceptor oc with her, (Peggie if you’re reading this I think your polycule with Melia and Venam is adorable) I’m writing this to explain why I believe Melia x Interceptor ships can be somewhat common and why I think it would weaken the narrative of Pokemon Rejuvenation if it were canon.

“Willia” is the name of a ship for Melia and Will, an Aevis host interceptor oc who is the protagonist of Interceptor’s Wish by Masterdude21 on AO3. The fic is more than 950,000 words long and I don’t intend to read most of it, but from the extracts I’ve read and the fanart I’ve seen I understand that Will is characterised as strong, protective and kind to others. In the fic he also develops a romantic relationship with Melia. Other Rejuvenation fans I’ve discussed it with criticise the fic for restricting itself to the canon events of the game too much, having a boring generic protagonist, simplifying the interceptor’s relationship with Melia and only focusing on the surface level elements of their character dynamic to make them fit a heteronormative archetype.

In the canon story of Pokemon Rejuvenation the interceptor and Melia care for each other deeply, and if the player has high relationship points with Melia by certain points in the story then she will stop to thank the interceptor for being a good friend and explicitly express her care for them. Melia is a pretty looking girl who presents in a conventionally feminine manner and acts very kind and polite. She’s hunted by Team Xen for her Archetype power and the interceptor spends most of the game fighting to protect her from them. The interceptor always wins against Melia whenever they battle and while fate weighs heavily on her and restricts Melia the interceptor has the unique ability to change fate.

If you play as a male interceptor and read the story a certain way it’s very easy to twist their character dynamic into a typical dominant protective man with a demure attractive woman. This is not how Melia and the Interceptor actually are.

The main reason why I think shipping the interceptor with Melia weakens the narrative is because that would be in many ways a circumstantial and contrived relationship. He’s the main hero and she’s the main heroine. They went through everything together, he fights to protect her and she cares about him. So of course they get paired together, it just makes sense. This is a reductive, surface level reading of Melia and the Interceptor’s relationship. I think it’s also the only reason some players ever decided to ship Melia and the interceptor in the first place. They think “She’s pretty, she’s an important character. She should get with the hero.” Another problem is that this ship sidelines Venam and her nuanced relationship with Melia.

Unlike the player, who needs to travel with Melia to keep fighting Team Xen and progress their pokemon league gym challenge, there are no circumstances pushing Venam to continue this journey. Of all the main characters in pokemon rejuvenation fate seems to weigh on Venam the least, in earlier versions of Rejuvenation she wasn’t involved in the story long after her gym battle and in the current version some antagonists even call out that there’s no reason for her to be here. The actual reason Venam came along is her care for Melia, the two of them have much more clear romantic chemistry in the canon story than Melia and the interceptor do.

Another way that a heteronormative Melia x Interceptor ship weakens the story is through unfortunate irony. Melia is someone whose fate is determined for her by the Archetype she struggles to keep out of evil hands. The Archetype which has been slowly killing her for the entire story. Her assigned role is not one she’s happy with, and the only way she will survive the story is through breaking free of it. The interceptor is someone who is an outsider in Aevium, who isn’t fully human, who has a whole soul hotel worth of spirits stuck in their body and who exists to defy fate. Melia and the Interceptor must fight against the forces that try to push restrictions and preordained roles on them. They need to defeat the Space Hags who tried to train them into being utilitarian and callous in pursuit of the greater good. They need to defeat Karma, the false God who views saving lives only as a game to win and controls their fates.

So imagine if Melia and the Interceptor both fell into a comphet relationship dynamic in line with what society would expect from them. On some level that’s just submitting to fate.

I’m aware of course that there are many different people who ship Melia with the Interceptor in a variety of ways, imagining them as lesbians, a polycule or as other things. (And then there’s M2 x Interceptor ships, which is a whole different beast I might examine another day.) When I heard about the AO3 fic Interceptor’s Wish and looked at whatever the hell is happening in r/PokemonRejuvenation, I realised that there is a phenomenon of rejuv fans not engaging with the nuances of Melia’s character and in some cases flanderising the other women of Pokemon Rejuvenation. Some people even asked the developers of Pokemon Rejuvenation to add dating to the game which Jan has stated they will thankfully never do. 

One reason why I like Melia from Pokemon Rejuvenation so much is how she expresses how much she values her friendships in different ways, ways that aren’t always simple or even healthy. Sometimes she has felt responsible for putting her friends in the crossfire of conflicts with Team Xen, sometimes she feels she can’t tell them about the things weighing on her. Her kindness isn’t even something innate to her, she consciously works on being a good person and becomes demotivated when horrible things happen despite her best efforts and good intentions. Her diary in the Storm Chasers base reveals a very angry and spiteful Melia, and in the renegade route M2 puts Melia’s grudges and vices on full display.

I'm a little worried about the S.S. Oceana in Pokemon Rejuvenation. We know that when the interceptor's journey began it got attacked by Team Xen and all the people on it were kidnapped and brought to Blacksteeple Castle. I can't remember why specifically all the people on that boat needed to be kidnapped, maybe it wasn't said in game yet, but overall the impression we get of it at the start is that it's just some ship that happened to be the site of a few fateful events.

As the game went on we learned a few more things about that boat, especially in more recent chapters. The most concerning of these is what Crescent says in .karmafiles about how "there's such a thing as digging too deep" if I remember her exact wording properly. She was telling us not to look into the S.S. Oceana too much. I'm not sure what the extent of her knowledge is, but if there was something we truly needed to know about it I'm sure she would've shared that by now since she's actively on the interceptor's side by this point.

Another strange fact about the ship is what happens during Chapter 13's Shipwreck Recovery sidequest where the interceptor helps Adrienn recover the sunken S.S. Oceana by placing powerful floatation devices around the ship. The ship was not recovered. Instead we learn that the S.S. Ocean has PHYSICALLY MERGED WITH THE SEAFLOOR. We still have no idea why this has happened. It wasn't buried in a conventional manner, it's something more uncanny.

Now I know this sunken ship seems like the least of our concerns when we've got a Xen Raid and a possibly invincible city destroying rift pokemon to worry about, not to mention the activities of Clear & Kieren, Vitus/Indriad who is up to some shit, Flora who is still at large if you made the wrong story choices (and she might break out of jail in paragon) and of course Madame X herself who according to the Puppet Master "can't be stopped" for some reason. And then I shouldn't neglect to mention Melia who is suffering from Genesis syndrome, and Nim who is literally Storm-9 and currently unaccounted for.

Yes, we have many things to worry about. That stupid ship sitting at the bottom of the sea probably isn't what most of us are thinking of as we await the next version of Rejuv.

But that ship is part of our origins. It's part of how the interceptor came to be, and the fact of Crescent telling us not to dig too deep implies that there is something for us to find if we go digging at all. Something frightening, dangerous and/or upsetting. The uncomfortable truth I don't see many people in this fandom directly addressing is that we don't yet know the interceptor's true origins. We know about the A-gang and Crescent setting up the black box and then the deal made with Variya, we know what the interceptor is and why it exists. Those things were a very cool reveal that inspired many people to make their own "interceptor ocs" with their own origins of the soul Variya called forth to replace the A-gang member we play as.

But the fact of it is that we still don't know the extent of it, and there are signs that there's even more stuff to do with the interceptor's origins that have been forgotten.

Ahead are some screenshots from a pokemon rejuvenation let's play recorded by a youtuber called Fizzy.

Nim, who we know is connected to Nymiera, called out the interceptor's name the moment she was spawned into existence. She also mentions Hazuki and Anju, Nymiera's discipiles. We can infer based on this that either Nim is a reincarnation of Nymiera or she's linked to Nymiera's mind somehow. I'm not sure how that would fit in with her being the child of the storm, but it's undeniable. Before the game began the interceptor had some interaction with Nymiera.

Robo-Amanda's claim that the interceptor has been to Aevium before supports the idea that the interceptor also knew Nymiera somehow. Maybe before the game began they lived in Aevium with Nymiera and the other three protectors. If this is the case then that means before their soul was put inside the A-gang member, before becoming the soul hotel, the interceptor had some sort of existence of its own. Another fact worth remembering is that Robo-Amanda was most likely made by Clear & Kieren, since the real Amanda was found subdued in the labs underneath Axis High in a similar fashion to how Adam, Valerie and Saki were being subdued by them. This means that Clear & Kieren probably know about whatever existence the interceptor had before the start of the game.

There's a base on the fucking moon owned by some wild card faction we know nothing about. At this late point in the story when there's only three gym badges left, you would think that they wouldn't be introducing a whole new group. But they did, back in v13 actually. We haven't collectively discussed this much because other than the base on the moon there isn't much for us to go off of. This moon base is even more shrouded in mystery than the S.S. Oceana, but there's a chance that they're linked. Maybe we'll fight alien invaders in v15 or something.

During the section of .karmafiles when we visited terajuma we discovered some Team Xen members speaking Lorem Ipsum, one of which, a Xen Mage, had pokemon with names related to our allies. And we learned that Augustus is a black box person like Nancy and the interceptor.

From this horizontal view of the world she noticed some water drops suspended in mid air that had fallen from a gutter. Ever since planet death (or what some called planet paralysis) the whole physical world had been frozen in time. Time in general was a bit vague, there wasn’t any day or night cycle to keep track of. There weren’t any working clocks. M2 is pretty sure she’s been living like this for years, but it could’ve been centuries for all she knows. She didn’t need to eat or drink or shit, so she couldn’t track time through meals either. Everything was just stagnant forever. Except not even that’s true, not completely. Sometimes space would shift about and behave weirdly. And her diary was bizarre too. Like if she flicked through all the pages at once she’d get to the end in a moment, but if she counted the pages one at a time then it would never end. Space and time were broken in this shell of a world. 

Whatever. She was bored again. She’d spent a lot of time feeling bored and grumpy or sad or scared, at this point talking to the person she just about tolerates was the most fun thing she could think of doing.

“Hey Alain.” M2 looked at them. Alain glared back. 

“What do you want?”

“I just wanna talk. How do you feel?”

“Tired. Frustrated.” Alain buried their face in their knees and curled up tighter.

“Yeah me too. There’s some stuff I think I need to get off my chest if you’ll listen.” M2 said as she stood up briefly to find a more comfortable sitting position. Sitting in that way for so long gave her pins and needles so she couldn’t let her foot touch the ground anymore. And there was a spot next to her lip which was itchy.

“...Well go on.” Alain didn’t look up, but M2 would take it to mean they were listening.

“I really fucking hate Asopo.” M2 heard Alain sigh but she didn’t care. “He’s the worst person ever, and I’m thinking about some of his habits that I find really detestable in hindsight.”

“Like what?” Alain asked.

“The way he communicated with people. I don’t know how I managed to call him my friend for so long. He would just keep his mouth shut for so long. You’d think someone who always talks and never listens would be annoying, but I think I hate him more for being quiet. Especially now that I know why he was always so quiet.” A bit of life returned to M2’s voice now that she was talking about this.

“What’s so annoying about him being quiet? He talked sometimes.”

“Yeah he did, didn't he? When he was comfortable, when he felt safe, in control. The secret they don’t tell you about him is that he actually loves to talk, did you know that? He just loves to yap when you get him in the mood. He only stops talking when something is stressful for him, when something feels hard.” M2 was on a roll now. She could feel some heat in her face and some blood in her veins. “Silence has always been Asopo’s first line of defense. Whenever life is too hard for him, which is most of the time, he just shuts up. Looking back, I think that really exposes a fundamental truth about him, wouldn’t you say?” M2 looked at Alain with something vaguely resembling a savage grin on her face.

“It proves he’s weak.” Alain growled.

“IT PROVES THAT HE’S WEAK! Yes! That sad bastard we hate. I bet somehow that’s the reason he destroyed everything, actually now that I think it, Alain, do you know why he did it?”

Alain looked up. “It’s not like I could read his mind or anything, but from his subconscious I watched him run around in my body for a while. I have an idea.”

“Why’d he do it then huh? What’s your guess?”

“...I know he wasn’t very happy. Sad and scared all the time. He did some things that make me think he used to care about others, the fact that he stuck with you against Team Xen for so long says a lot.” Alain explained, sounding more clear now that they weren’t burying their face in their knees.

“So what are you trying to say? Deep down he really loves me??” M2 asked facetiously.

“NO.” Alain snapped. “I mean maybe he chose it because it was somehow the easier option. I’d know what it’s like to take the easy way out, if I didn’t then you’d never have needed to deal with him in the first place. Maybe to him deciding to destroy the world was less painful than trying to save it.”

“...Well that doesn’t make any fucking sense.” M2 crossed her arms, more so to warm herself up rather than actually express feeling cross or anything.

“Well then I don’t know.” 

At this point the conversation had run its course and it occurred to M2 that she didn’t feel so weak and tired anymore. A nice vent with Alain revitalised her. She extended an arm to them. “Get up. We should keep looking for a way out.”

I find it interesting that in v13.5 Erin's first major appearance is in her Darchlight Form, as a devil. This is different to how in V13 her first appearance featured her normal design. It could be that this form, the one said to be 'the true reflection of your soul' is how Jan wants us to see her. Erin declared herself the devil who defies Vitus, a man that sees himself as God. Conventional myth portrays the devil as a prison warden keeping sinners trapped and punished. The devil also normally hates God, despite only punishing people God wants him to. Erin is a much stronger character than the classic devil, rather than punishing those God considers evil or unworthy she accepts them. We see this when she encourages Kanon to embrace his individuality and to reject the idea that he's less than human and only exists to serve. Rather than punishing people Erin liberates them.

This aligns perfectly with how she behaves in Darchlight Caves. The first thing she does is help Florin, Flora and the Interceptor escape confinement witin the glass boxes. During the rest of this sequence of the game we see her wit and cunning as we learn more about Bladestar and decide what to do with this information. I remember in v13 I exposed Flora during that playthrough, but I didn't make the mistake of sharing information with Cassandra because Erin beforehand warns: "Analyse the information, then make a decision. Don't you ever do it the other way around." To my memory that's how it was worded.

Erin's backstory also parralels the devil. She at first obeyed Vitus and basically acted as a spy in the drama between him and Anathea. She was basically parentified and forced to help mediate an unhappy marriage between two adults who weren't mature enough to settle their differences the correct way. Vitus superficially apologised for this and said it was because she was the eldest daughter. This is somewhat similar to how the devil was once a beautiful angel that served God but later wanted to be greater than God and was cast into hell as punishment. Erin eventually reached her breaking point and defied Vitus. She fought him with her archetype powers and was eventually dragged to the basement. Vitus banished her to the unknown dimension and left her there to be forgotten, along with the twins Alice and Allen, which is fundamentally the same as how the devil was banished to hell.

I would also like to comment on how Vitus and Erin fighting with their magic powers until Erin got dragged into the basement is essentially a glorified version of a father beating his daughter, physically disciplining a child and abusing them. When you examine the incident from a grounded domestic angle, that's all it is. Really of all the atrocities Vitus commits as Indriad, his treatment of his children is really the only one I feel personally motivated to make him answer for. I was delighted when I saw his name on M2's (S)hit list.

In future versions of the game I look forward to seeing how she handles the confrontation with Vitus/Indriad, most likely taking place after the Xen raid. Although Erin is resolute and clever, Vitus is still her biological father and the memory of his abuse and power over her isn't so easily forgotten. Defying her creator won't be simple and it will definitely be frightening. The renegade route parralels the paragon route in some ways, like how both routes featured a battle against Talon on top of his tower but in two completely different contexts. I'm excited to see how the confrontation with Vitus plays out on both routes.

I'm expecting Erin to triumph in either scenario, but the overall meaning of the outcome could differ. I wonder if we'll get to see a karma beast design for her like how we saw one with Talon. Talon turned into a Flying/Poison type bird monster, I think it's rather obvious what Erin would turn into. Her personality is subtly befitting of a dark type already, and if we want to take the devil motifs to their logical extreme then she should be a Fire/Dark type that looks like it crawled out of Dante's Inferno. The Infernal Field would be perfect for this battle. It's message is:

"The souls of the damned burn on."

In a worst case scenario like a fight between Erin and the Renegade Interceptor I think this field effect would suit her karma beast transformation. Before Karma turned Talon into a monster we had a trainer battle against him in which he used a Tornados and other strong flying types. I think that Darkrai and the Dimensional Field effect would be powerful buffs that could turn a fight against Erin into an incredible ordeal for the player, even some of her current pokemon like Absol have abilities and moves that the field empowers.

Returning to my more narrative focused predictions, we must consider how Alice being possessed by Vitus will influence events on the Renegade Route. In Paragon her new "Queendom" rose and fell within a day, but that's only because her siblings quickly mobilised to deal with the situation. In the Renegade route we never saw that incident resolved and Melia was swapped with M2, distracting Erin with other challenges. She considers Kanon family and managed to free him, will she achieve the same with her sister Alice? Or will Erin fail to liberate her and instead embrace a darker interpretation of her role as the devil? Erin has a logical mind but her temper can inhibit it. Maybe on the Renegade Route despair at the devolving situation will drive her to fixate on punishing evil rather than helping the innocent.

No matter what she does in either route Erin will always be the cunning, quick witted, candid and beautiful tactician that massively improves Rejuvenation's narrative and cast of characters. If you actually read my whole essay here's some extra pictures as a thank you.

I wouldn't mind going to hell if she's the one running it.

I can't be the only one who looked at Flora's sprite in Darchlight Caves and saw her in a Jotaro Kujo outfit. The true reflection of Flora's soul is that she's like a jojo character I guess. Go on, punch Cassandra for ten pages. Scream ora ora.

Florin is literally such a good boy that his soul is that of an angel. His design was a bit simple but I enjoyed doing the toga he seems to be wearing.

My personal Interceptor oc Asopo. I want to give him as many variants as Melia has, which will take time but I'll get there. This is his darchlight form. I saw how many Darchlight forms turned people into fantasy creatures/characters from general media. I decided that making Asopo a merman would fit in with the other Darchlight forms while being a nice nod to his backstory. His hair in this form is meant to look like the black void of space with some white stars in it. He has a celtic bracelet on his arm and a badge on the cloth that looks like The Core. I gave him that yellow cloth because I didn't feel like drawing him shirtless with nipples.

In v13.5 Erin's first major appearance is in her Darchlight Form, as a devil. This is different to how in V13 her first appearance featured her chapter 10-14 design. The developers went out of their way to revise our first impression of her. It could be that this Darchlight form, the one said to be 'the true reflection of your soul' is the best way to understand Erin as a character.

In chapter 15 Erin declared herself the devil who defies Vitus, her father and a man that sees himself as God. "If Vitus himself proclaims to be God, then I proclaim myself to be the Devil. A monster that fights against God itself, I take upon that role." 

Conventional myth tells us the devil was once an angel that became too proud and tried to overthrow God. As punishment the devil was defeated and cast into hell forever. Erin was banished to the Unknown Dimension and lived there with Alice and Allen. It’s not exactly hell, it has more of a resemblance to Pokemon Gold and Silver for the Gameboy Colour, yet it’s another world she was sent to as punishment for defiance which makes the analogy work. Portraying God as evil and oppressive while the devil is portrayed as a victim of that oppression is far from a new idea in modern storytelling. This is largely thanks to the church losing political power and much of the public becoming disillusioned with Christianity and religious institutions as a whole. Religion has been used for control and people religious authorities want to destroy are branded as evil. Vitus/Indriad and Angie are both hyper-religious cult leaders, they claim to be carrying out the will of Arceus but they actually do horrible things.

In Pokemon Rejuvenation Erin is the devil, but what does that role mean for her story? Many Christian stories (or even modern media) portray devils as perpetrators of senseless evil, creatures that want us to become worse people so that our souls face eternal torment after death. This clearly isn’t who Erin is, she’s much more likely to lift someone up than to knock them down. 

In chapter 15 herself and Kanon fight Angie. Angie insists that because Kanon was created to be a servant then he’s less than human. We learn in the same chapter that Vitus and Nymiera were the ones to create him. Nymiera decided that Kanon should choose his own name which Vitus immediately protests against, yet before he can do anything the decision is made and Kanon names himself. At the first opportunity Vitus harshly disciplines Kanon, leaving long term trauma and conditioning him into accepting the servant role.

How Vitus hurt Kanon is similar to how he treats every other living thing in his power. He believes in a world of servants and masters. A world with Pokemon and servants like Kanon beneath humanity, and himself above everything. His preferred method of control is stamping out individuality, ensuring that the subjugated entity believes itself to be lesser. He does this through naming. The act of naming something shows power, ownership and an understanding of its nature. Vitus makes a point of naming all his servants and won’t tolerate any creation that tries to change its name. While Alice or Angie are possessed by him they refer to everyone by their given names. Venam is called Veronica, Erin is called Eriena and after modifying Maria’s memory he renames her to Marianette. Changing your own name shows agency that he doesn’t want anything to have.

Returning to the point about Erin lifting people up, she encourages Kanon to embrace his individuality and realise that he’s not beneath anyone. Erin taking up the devil role isn’t because she actually sees herself as evil, it’s an expression of defiance and agency. To her, being the devil means fighting his control and accepting those that Vitus would call unworthy, being the devil means liberating people rather than punishing them.

The idea of the devil acting as a liberator in Pokemon Rejuvenation is implied in the very first scene Erin appears in. When Florin, Flora and the Interceptor awaken in Darchlight Caves they find themselves confined within glass tubes created as part of a Bladestar base. In this scene she also makes a very bold claim that is easy to forget about in the long run but still very important to understanding her:

I can’t be trapped. I never have, never will, and never shall be “trapped”.

And in a way this is true. She escaped the unknown dimension, and she escapes Darchlight caves. Erin has been trapped, but never for too long. If the rest of the story is going to vindicate her then we can expect that Erin will keep escaping.

Erin’s role is to be the devil that fights God, that fights Vitus. To fully understand her role we need to understand what Vitus’s role means. I interpret Vitus’s role as God to be connected to the patriarchy. The patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are beneath them. This also involves forcing specific standards of what men and women should be onto people. Mainly that men need to be dominant and stoic while women need to be submissive and hardworking housekeepers. It also involves lots of homophobia and racism, generally patriarchies oppress all minorities. It’s fitting that a patriarch like Vitus would be religious considering that religion has long been a tool of the patriarchy. From the glimpse we have of Vitus and Anathea’s marriage we can see that their family dynamic is very patriarchal and ‘traditional’. They also had four children, these being Alice, Allen, Maria and Erin.

Although Erin didn’t remember her time in the Theolia household for most of the story, we can see why she developed a strong desire for freedom and individuality. During a conflict between Vitus and Anathea, Erin was used by both parents to spy on the other. First Anathea had Erin spy on Vitus, then when he caught her he demanded that Erin spy on Anathea back. It’s disappointing yet unsurprising that they should act this way, Anathea admitted in a scene during Chapter 15 that Vitus abuses her. Yet this is completely unfair on Erin. She was parentified and forced to help mediate an unhappy marriage between two adults who weren’t mature enough to settle their differences the correct way. 

Vitus superficially apologised for this and said it was her duty as the eldest daughter. Yet this is wrong because the eldest daughter is still just a child and shouldn’t have such pressure put on her, in a functional family it would be the parent resolving conflict between children, not the other way around. (Although to a patriarchy daughters are just mothers in training anyway.) Eventually the pressure breaks Erin and she throws a fit that awakens her latent archetype powers. After this Vitus activates his own powers and they fight. Erin loses. Badly. He brings Erin, Alice and Allen to an underground portal that sends them to the Unknown Dimension. If we remove the flashy powers from the scene, this is essentially Vitus beating his daughter and dragging her to the basement.

If there’s any takeaway from this story it’s that Vitus’s controlling behaviour and abuse of power throughout Pokemon Rejuvenation reflects the injustices of theocracies and patriarchies. Erin fights to have what those societal systems would deny her. The consistency of Vitus or villains controlled by him using dead names is such a simple yet visceral way to show they represent oppressive societal systems. Dead naming is a typical transphobic action that insults individual agency. The scene in chapter 7 where Angie reads out the truth of people from a book, listing their strengths and insecurities to their face is a powerful metaphor. It reflects how a patriarchy presumes to know everything about you. People who actually think that’s a healthy way to structure society will argue that men and women are naturally inclined towards their traditional roles, and that alternative ways of being are defects and perversions. They think that humans are so simple, that they can read the cold truth from your heart as if they know you better than you know yourself.