Chapter 29 – A Moment of Solace

“Ghhhuuuhh…” Lexxi can’t help but groan as she lays on the ground, her whole body aching, like she’d been run over by a Donphan… Or an Iron Treads? She wasn’t sure which one would be more devastating at this point, this future stuff was messing with her head.

Her mind was still racing with everything she’d learned. She was from the future? Glyph was her partner? They were trying to stop Dusknoir? It… Didn’t seem true, but at the same time, there was some part of her, deep down, that knew it all made sense, somehow.

How?

She was so lost in her wandering thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the ambiance of the soundscape around her. The quiet silence, only broken by the sounds of waves washing up against a shoreline. A sound so familiar, but so distant at the same time.

“Oowwwww…” She hears Rickety groaning, turning her attention to face him, watching him slowly sit back up, holding his head as he scrunches his eyes shut. “Feel like I’ve been tossed around in a tornado for hours…” He slowly opens his eyes, turning to face Lexxi. “Bwuugh… Where…?”

Rickety and Lexxi slowly get back up on their feet, shaking off the ache and discomfort running through their bodies. Rickety’s eyes slowly sweep the area, taking everything in. “Sand… Rushing waves, blue sky,” His eyes slowly widen, a smile curling up on his lips. “It-It’s the beach! Lexxi, we made it back!”

“Oh, thank gosh…” Lexxi just smiles tiredly, slumping back down into the sand, letting the waves brush up against her body. “I think I’ve had enough time travel for a while, if you ask me.” She chuckles weakly, just relaxing in the sand. Too tired to celebrate, a bit too overwhelmed at the moment, too.

“Ooooooo-eeeeeee…” Pixie groans, Lexxi and Rickety turning to see her pushing herself up out of the sand, brushing herself off. “Time travelling is always so weird when you’re not the one doing it. It’s like someone just takes your hand and drags you forcefully.” She shakes her head, stretching her wings and her body. “Too rough, I’d rather it be more gentle.”

A faint whirring can be heard, Glyph’s body, still laying in the sand, reactivates as he pushes himself back up. He shakes his head, holding it with a hand as he turns to face Pixie, then turning to face Rickety and Lexxi. “Well. That went about as smoothly as it could’ve gone. I’m surprised we made it out of there in one piece, all things considered. But, where are we?”

“We’re at the place where I first met Lexxi!” Rickety says excitedly, his eyes drifting to the beach, beginning to search around. “Uhh, where was it? I think it might’ve been around…” He steps up to a few rocks embedded into the sand, a big one and a small one. “Here, I found her laying right here, out cold.”

“Interesting…” Glyph glances to Pixie. “I wound up in the Eastern Forest when I first traveled. Perhaps Lexxi getting sucked into one of the vortexes had something to do with where she ended up?”

Lexxi’s ears droop, trying to piece things together in her mind. “I got sucked into a vortex, somehow turned into a Pokemon, and then ended up in the past with no memory of who I was…” Her eyebrows furrow, scratching at her head. “That’s a few things explained, at least, but…”

“Hmmm… I might have a theory!” Pixie exclaims, before taking a glance around the beach. “Buuuuuuuut this isn’t really the place to talk. We’re kind of exposed here. Could you imagine what someone would think if they saw a Skitty, Riolu, a robot and a time traveler just chilling on the beach all willy nilly? They’d probably freak out! Or scream. Or freak out and scream.”

Lexxi stands back up, rubbing at her head, trying to think. “We could go back to Wigglytuff’s Guild. Rickety and I stayed there before Dusknoir pulled us into the future. maybe that’d be a good place to rest up and figure everything out.”

Glyph scoffs as he turns to face Lexxi. “You’re forgetting I’m a wanted outlaw here. If we show up at the guild and they see me, it’s a very likely chance they’re not gonna take it well. As far as they’re concerned, I’m still just a big, scary robot.”

“Outlaw…?” Pixie slowly arches an eyebrow as she turns to Glyph. “Glyphhyyyyyyyyyyyyy, did you do something naughty while you were here?”

_{“Stealing ancient relics tends to attract a lot of attention, Pixie.”}

Lexxi’s ears droop in embarrassment. “Oh… Yeah, probably not a good idea. They might try to catch you again.” She sighs, shaking her head. “What’re we gonna do?”

“I know a place.” Rickety speaks up with a smile. “It’s up there, over by Sharpedo Bluff.” He points over to the Sharpedo shaped cliff off in the distance. “It’s past Treasure Town, though, so we’re gonna have to try and lay low and sneak through, but it should do the job for a while.”

“Is that so?” Glyph tilts his head. “In that case, lead the way.”

---

The area up by Sharpedo Bluff was silent, save for the sounds of the roaring ocean off in the distance. There was plenty of plantlife, and while there was a campfire off to the side with some firewood beside it, it looked as though it hadn’t been used in years. The ocean stretched for miles and miles beyond the horizon, no further land to be found in sight.

“Seems like everything is just the way it was last time I was here.” Rickety says to himself, walking up to a nearby pile of leaves, examining it closely, eyebrows furrowed. “It should be right…” He reaches into the leaves, brushing them all away in large clumps, some of them falling down into the ocean below. “Here.”

A secret passageway is revealed, a stairway leading down underground, Rickety standing aside, gesturing for the others to head in. “I lived here before Lexxi and I joined the guild. Go ahead, make yourselves at home.”

The other three looking amongst each other, they begin to make their way down the steps, revealing a massive, hollowed chamber right in the mouth of the Sharpedo. There were dozens of books strewn about the floor, along with a big pile of them thrown in the corner. They all seemed to be related to ancient history, some regarding legendary Pokemon, others revolving landmarks located all throughout the region, along with the mysteries that surround them.

Pixie gasps in surprise, a smile curling up on her lips. “Oh my gosh there’s even a little spring here!” She flies on over towards a small, miniature waterfall-like structure sprouting from the ground in the back of the chamber, slowly easing herself into the water and letting herself slump back as the water envelops her body. She sighs contentedly, closing her eyes. “Thaaaaaaat’s the spot.~”

_{“Why am I not surprised that’s the first thing you go for?”} Glyph mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes as he stares out at the ocean through the chamber, the sun slowly beginning to set beyond the horizon.

Lexxi picks up a few of the books, looking them over, even briefly flipping through a couple of them. Some of the pages were marked. They all seemed to have a common theme, being places that all seemed to be around Treasure Town, and even near some of the locations they’d visited on their expeditions during their training.

She can’t help but smile, muffling a giggle to herself as she sets the books back down. ‘He really is that much of a dork, huh?’ She thinks to herself, turning to see Rickety heading down the steps, carrying a load of firewood in his hands.

He glances around the room, smiling softly as he sees everyone getting themselves comfortable in the hollowed chamber, setting the firewood down in the middle, after pushing some of his books out of the way, of course. “Seems like nobody’s disturbed the place. That’s… That’s good. Really shows how little attention this place attracts.”

He picks up some of his books, placing them back over in the corner with the rest. “We should stay here for the time being until we get everything figured out.”

“As long as I don’t have to get up from this spot for the next couple hours, that’s fine by me.~” Pixie says, letting herself lower a bit deeper into the water. _{“Comfy cozy.~”}

---

After a little bit of cleaning up, they’d gotten a fire going, lighting up the hollowed chamber as Lexxi, Rickety and Glyph all sat down on a few makeshift cushions, Pixie continuing to lay in the small spring in the back. They’d placed the fire closer, just so Pixie wouldn’t have to yell to talk with them.

“So… What’s going on?” Rickety says, looking over to Glyph and Pixie. “What’s going on with Dusknoir, who do you and Lexxi know each other, and why is everything…. Well, everything? You know.”

“Dusknoir is the leader of Saffron Robotics and Parts, a company that more or less holds a monopoly over The Veil.” Glyph begins, holographic eyes glowing faintly. “They create most of the robot Pokemon you see around the city, since most of the other companies and corporations have gone defunct over the years. Things were normal up until a little while ago.”

“Their models started becoming more… Outlandish, more lifelike. On top of that, they started showing shady activity, too, ordering parts that couldn’t possibly fit into the models they were creating. Lexxi and I knew something strange was going on, so we had decided to investigate.”

Pixie speaks up, continuing after Glyph as she sits up. “So! Back in my time, millions of years ago, we had a strange little incident, where our Pokemon seemed to just, disappear out of thin air! It continued for a while, and then it stopped. But then, years later, it started happening again, and it was becoming more frequent, to the point that it was starting to cause problems.”

“But that wasn’t all! After a while, I started feeling residual energy, I could tell where they were being taken to. Soooooo, I traveled there.” She smiles, gesturing to Lexxi and Glyph. “Which is when I traveled to the future and met up with you two!”

Glyph nods his head. “Together, we learned that Dusknoir had been using a time machine to pull Pokemon from the distant past, similar to how a certain professor was using one to pull Pokemon from the future before as well.”

Lexxi and Rickety share a glance with each other. “Professor Turo…” Rickety says, slowly turning his attention back to Glyph and Pixie. “But, why? What could he possibly want by pulling Pokemon from the past.”

“That’s where we had been confused for the longest time.” Glyph continues, scratching at his metallic head a bit. “Apparently, Dusknoir had convinced himself that by converting the Pokemon of the past into the Pokemon of the future, he could alter the timeline in a way that everything would become just as it is in the future, from the beginning of the timeline all the way to the end.”

“But here’s the thing, you see.” Pixie says, leaning out of the water. “That’s not what’s happening at all! What’s really happening is that big dummy is destroying the timeline. You can’t change the future like he’s trying to do, everything that’s already happened has happened, it’s all set in stone and it can’t be changed.”

“The problem, though, is that without certain Pokemon, it creates this sort of ‘error’ in the timeline, one that can’t be fixed. Because everything is on a straight path, it needs certain Pokemon to be there for certain events. If a Pokemon isn’t there, the timeline doesn’t know what to do. It doesn’t change, it doesn’t try to fix itself, but what it does create is what we call,” She places her hands together, smiling as she slowly spreads them back apart. “A really big problem.~”

Lexxi’s brows furrow as she rubs at her head, still trying to make sense of all this. “Okay, so we’ve got a motivation, an endgoal, but what I don’t get is what the Time Gears have to do with all this. Why were we after them in the first place? Why did we need to steal them? Dusknoir had told us that if Glyph stole the Time Gears, it would cause the Planet’s Paralysis, and-“

“The what?” Pixie asks, staring blankly at Lexxi and Rickety. “He told you that if Glyphy stole the Time Gears, he would cause the what?“

Lexxi and Rickety glance at each other, Rickety leaning forward. “The… Planet’s Paralysis. He said that if we didn’t stop Glyphy, time would stop everywhere on the planet and cause the whole world to become paralyzed, plunging it into darkness where time didn’t pass and life couldn’t sustain itself.”

“And you believed that?” Pixie stares, wide-eyed at the two, her jaw open in disbelief. “T-That’s-! That’s not how time works at all! I-It’s so wrong it’s almost insulting how wrong it is!”

“We didn’t know!” Rickety shouts back defensively. “H-He seemed trustworthy at the time! He made himself seem really nice and trustworthy, and Glyph’s a freaking robot that doesn’t look like any other Pokemon in the world! Of course we were gonna believe him! And time completely stopped in the areas where Glyph took the Time Gears! So-“

“Look, look at me, okay? You listening?” Pixie leans over the small spring, staring them in the eyes. “Time. Doesn’t. Stop. It might look like it stops, but it doesn’t stop for anything. What happens is that time in an area becomes suspended. The Time Gears aren’t responsible for time flowing in general, they’re responsible for time flowing seamlessly in a confined area. If you were to take a Time Gear and put it back, that area would catch up with itself. So it might look like time is going by super fast when you first put it back! But it’ll even itself out.”

Rickety and Lexxi stare back at Pixie, Lexxi looking down while Rickety rubs at his head, trying to think back. “Okay, Dusknoir said something about the Time Gears back in the lab, before we went back in time. Was he after the Time Gears too?”

Glyph nods his head. “He might be able to go back to this period of time, but he can’t go back further than that. It’s simply too far out of reach. The most he could do was pull Pokemon from the past. But now… He’s likely getting ready to invade the past at any moment, to try and convert it in his own image. But to change something on such a scale in a time period so pivotal and crucial…”

“Allow me to lay it out plainly.” Pixie says, letting herself sink back into the water. “The structure of the entire timeline is at risk. If- No, when that dummy tries to invade the past, and he manages to succeed, not only will time itself collapse, but the entire timeline will cease to exist.” She says in a serious, firm tone. “So, by letting him handle the Time Gears, you gave him just the right amount of time he needed to scan them and harvest their energy to go into the past any time he wants. You basically gave him the key to our front door, so, thanks for that.”

“The entire timeline will… Cease to exist?” Lexxi repeats.

“Mmhm.” Pixie nods, expression growing darker. “Past, present, future, everything, gone. It’ll be like time never existed in the first place.”

Rickety hugs his knees against his chest, just trying to keep himself together from the overwhelming information. _{“Okay, cool, if we don’t stop Dusknoir we all die. That’s cool uh-huh yeah that’s great that’s really great, really reassuring.”}

“There has to be some way to stop him, though!” Lexxi says, a worried expression on her face. “Isn’t there anything we can do to stop time from falling apart?”

“That’s what we were planning on.” Glyph says, turning to Lexxi. “Back in Pixie’s time, a place called Temporal Tower exists. Dialga governs it, watching over time, but because of Dusknoir’s actions, it’s begun to collapse. We needed to gather the Time Gears and head back to Pixie’s time, and take them to Temporal Tower to stabilize everything, to keep Temporal Tower from collapsing.”

Glyph glances over at Pixie. “So, with Pixie’s help, and the help of your Dimensional Scream ability, we searched beyond The Veil for places the Time Gears could’ve been. The Time Gears didn’t exist yet in Pixie’s time. Temporal Tower was created to eventually house them, which would then spread the Time Gears throughout the world in the present, until they would become one with the Earth in the future, to keep time eternally revolving.”

“So…” Lexxi pauses, tilting her head. “We need the Time Gears to get everything under control. Because Dusknoir is exclusively trying to influence the ancient past, it’ll create a ripple effect, causing everything after and including the past to be destroyed?”

“Bingo.” Glyph nods his head.

Lexxi blinks a few times, staring down. “I’m… Not entirely sure how that works, but… At least we know what to do.”

“Dusknoir had caught onto what we were trying to do, and he tried to get rid of us.” Glyph continues. “The night we were planning on heading back to the past, the timeline was starting to crumble drastically. Rifts were appearing, a negative space where time from all over seems to coalesce, strangely, even Pixie isn’t entirely sure how it works.”

“…I think I get it.” Rickety suddenly perks his head up. “W-We’ve been in those before but we’ve managed to escape each time. We only saw Pokemon in there, no humans. They don’t have faces, they just kinda wander, acting territorial. And from what we could tell, if you were killed by a Pokemon there, you’d become one of those faceless Pokemon yourself.”

Lexxi feels an uncomfortable knot forming in the pit of her stomach. “So what you’re saying is, I… I died? Or almost died? But I still have my face! Wouldn’t I have…”

“The process might work differently if a human is turned into a faceless instead of a Pokemon.” Pixie ponders. “Maybe you got gravely injured, but you didn’t die. I’d say it’s possible that you got to the stage of turning into a Pokemon, but you escaped just in time before the conversion could complete itself. You came out alive, but you came out as a Pokemon and lost your memory in the process.”

Lexxi stays silent, slowly turning away. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, with everything else they knew, that did seem like the most likely explanation. So, she was almost turned into one of those faceless? She… She’s lucky she’s even still alive. She’s lucky that she’s even still herself. She doesn’t even want to think about the odds of that happening.

“So, lemme get this straight.” Rickety says, rubbing at his head. “If I’m understanding this correctly, Dusknoir is the head of a company that makes robot Pokemon, but he’s been stealing Pokemon from the past to convert them into robots because he’s trying to change the past to be like the future, and you and Lexxi were trying to stop them, so you looked around the world in places where Time Gears would be using her Dimensional Scream.”

Glyph nods. “Because the Time Gears had become one with the Earth, we couldn’t collect them. We had to go to this point in time in order to find and gather them all. So, we relied on her ability to search for them, so that when we came back to the past, we would know all of the correct places to look. Pixie couldn’t come with us, she can only carry herself through time. She stayed behind, keeping things at the lab fully operational.”

“And I did a great job with it.~” Pixie giggles softly.

“The problem is, is that the Dimensional Scream has a drawback. It can’t be activated unless we’re in the presence of where a Time Gear used to be, and it required a trusted partner to work.” Glyph continues to explain. “That’s why we worked together in the first place.”

Rickety thinks on that for a second, looking over to Lexxi, who was laying down, silently, still trying to take everything in. “…But, wait-” He turns back to Glyph. “That doesn’t make any sense. Lexxi and I have run into multiple instances where the Dimensional Scream activated in places not even related to Time Gears. It even activated when she touched certain Pokemon and saw into the past or future too.”

“Your point being?” Glyph tilts his head, one of his eyes lowering and the other raising, mimicking an arched eyebrow. “Doesn’t that just go to show how quickly you two came to trust each other?”

“Uh-” Rickety stammers, his cheeks blushing a faint shade of red as he glances back at Lexxi, whose cheeks are also blushing an equally faint shade of red. “I-I mean, uh…” He rubs at the back of his head, shuffling awkwardly in place.

_{“It’s kind of embarrassing when you put it like that.”} Lexxi whispers, shaking her head.

“It makes sense, though!” Pixie perks up again. “Since Lexxi lost her memory, and Rickety was right there, she had someone to turn to!”

Lexxi pauses for a moment, ear flicking. “…Yeah. Rickety was the first Pokemon I met when I woke up. He was being bullied by another team not long after I woke up, too. And… I wanted to help him, I wanted to help get his treasure back, so he began to trust me, too.”

Rickety just blushes deeper, trying to hide his face beneath his hands.

“You said that the Dimensional Scream has been triggering in other places that weren’t related to Time Gears?”

Lexxi nods in response. “In the past, at least. In the future, it couldn’t activate at all, for one reason or another…”

“Oh, the perils of having a wondrous power that nobody seems to understand.” Pixie says dramatically, sinking deeper into the water. “Inconsistency!”

“It might be possible that the Dimensional Scream has different properties in the past and future… But I suppose that doesn’t really matter much.” Glyph shakes his head, turning back to face Lexxi. “Lexxi, I know you don’t remember any of this, but… You were the closest friend I’ve ever had. I was so worried about you when I saw you get torn away, I didn’t even know you’d made it out alive.” He chuckles softly, solemnly. “I can’t even begin to express how relieved I am that you’re okay.”

Lexxi slowly glances back at Glyph, listening to him, just taking in everything. “Your appearance might’ve changed, yes, and though you’ve lost your memory… You’re still you.” Glyph says, voice firm. “And none of this changes the fact that you’re still my friend.”

_{“…I’m still me, huh?”} Lexxi whispers quietly, laying back down on her cushion as her ears droop down against her head as she looks down at her body. She says nothing else, simply letting those words rattle around in her mind, dwelling on them, thinking about what they meant, to Glyph, to herself.

“So… What comes next?” Rickety asks. “What do we do now?”

“We’re going to have to go after the Time Gears again.” Glyph says. “Dusknoir could start invading the ancient past at any moment, so we’ll need to get them as soon as possible. Thankfully, he likely doesn’t have everything ready yet. Even if he did, a time machine would likely take a while to prepare.” He glances back at Pixie. “As we both know.” Pixie gives a playful shrug in response.

“But heading out now would be foolish. We’ve all been through a lot the past few days, we’re all exhausted from the running we’ve been doing, and we desperately need the rest. We’ll head out first thing in the morning.”

Lexxi slowly raises her head back up, glancing over to Glyph. “We’ll come with. It’s the least we can do to make it up to you.”

Glyph smiles faintly at Lexxi, giving an understanding nod. “Let’s rest up. We’ll need all the energy we can get.”

---

Glyph’s body slowly reboots, his eyes glowing once again as he sits up from his cushion. He glances out at the horizon through the chamber, still night time. Probably early hours of the morning. He lets out a mildly annoyed sigh. “Right, need to adjust my internal clock again.” He mutters to himself, idly going through his settings, but he notices that Rickety wasn’t in his spot.

Glyph tilts his head, turning to see Lexxi and Pixie still asleep, right where they had been when he went into sleep mode. Feeling a touch concerned, Glyph quietly steps out (as much as his body would allow, anyway) and heads back up the steps. He sees Rickety sitting at the edge of the cliff, staring out at the ocean.

“Can’t sleep?” Glyph asks, calling out to Rickety.

Rickety glances back at Glyph a bit. “Yeah.” He gives a single nod, turning back towards the ocean. “Too much on my mind. Thinking a lot.”

Glyph walks up to Rickety, setting himself down beside the Riolu. He does notice Rickety seems to scoot away just the slightest bit as Glyph approaches him, though not a lot to make it evident to anyone without an observant eye. “Anything in particular?”

“Everything.” Rickety says, staring down at the ocean below. “About you, about Lexxi, about Dusknoir, about Pixie, about how the world’s gonna, y’know, basically end if we don’t stop Dusknoir in time.” He chuckles tiredly, letting out an exhausted sigh. “It all feels like one giant, bad dream. Like at any moment, I’ll wake up back at the guild with Lexxi, none of this will have happened, and we’ll all be perfectly fine.”

“But I know I’m not dreaming. Everything we’ve gone through in the last few days, it’s all been too real. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, no matter how insane or ridiculous it is, it’s really all happening, isn’t it?” He looks back out at the horizon. “Lexxi is from the future, Dusknoir’s a bad guy, time travel is real…” He closes his eyes. “As comforting as it’d be to deny any of this is real, I just, need to accept that it’s all true.”

Glyph glances over at him, curiously. “It’s interesting, how differently a living Pokemon’s mind works. Irrational thoughts, the difficulty of grasping something so intangible. But I suppose it does make sense.” He scoffs softly. “Living creatures, Pokemon and humans alike, aren’t so different from us. Machines often have difficult times understanding even the most basic things that aren’t part of our programming or in our database. We just handle it differently.”

_{“Is that so?”} Rickety mutters to himself, glancing away from Glyph. He notices the sky shifting in tone, the deep blue slowly being overcome by a vibrant, gradient orange as the sun begins to peek up out in the distance. A smile returns to Rickety’s face, sigh escaping his lips. “Heheh… Never thought I’d be so happy to see the sky this shade of color again. The green sky in the future made it feel so… Unworldly. It felt like we weren’t even in the same place, let alone a different time period.”

Glyph turns his head to face out towards the ocean, taking in the morning sun with Rickety. “I’d only ever seen the sky like this in pictures and video before.” He pauses for a moment. “I remember thinking a few times to myself, what it would be like to feel that sunlight myself, to be there, watching the sky slowly change color as it rises and sets. When I saw it for the first time after arriving here… It was one of the most serene, peaceful moments I’d ever felt.”

Rickety glances briefly at Glyph, his brows furrowing, before turning away, shaking his head. He remains silent for a few moments, trying to think to himself, trying to keep himself composed. He can’t help but shiver in the presence of Glyph right next to him, saying these things. Eventually, he turns to face Glyph. “…What are you?”

Glyph turns to face Rickety, giving him a confused glance. “I beg your pardon?”

“What did Lexxi see in you when you became partners? I just- I don’t understand how you can talk about experiencing all these different feelings like they’re real.” Rickety sighs, turning back away again. “…In the future, Lexxi told me that even if a robot Pokemon’s feelings aren’t real in the same way as ours, it still feels real to them. How could you both form such a deep bond with each other when you’re both so different from each other?”

Glyph stays silent for a few moments, huffing as he turns back out to face the horizon. “You know where Lexxi first found me, Rickety?” He asks, to which Rickety stays silent, allowing for him to continue. “The scrapyard. I was decommissioned years ago. Fulfilled my purpose as nothing more than an office decoration, left to decay with the rest of the junk humans threw away.”

“By the time Lexxi had found me, and taken me in and got me working again, I had no idea how many years had passed. To go from a world full of humans, to a world where Lexxi was one of the few remaining humans left on Earth, it was a staggering change. But Lexxi… She saw me as more than just a tool. She saw me as a friend, a companion… An equal.”

Rickety blinks a few times, staring down at Glyph. “She… She repaired you?”

Glyph nods in response. “Lexxi, she… She told me that she believed that every Pokemon, living or synthetic, deserves to be treated equally. No matter flesh and bone, or circuitry and metal, she still saw us as equals. Not toys, not tools, just the same as you and me.” He pauses for another moment, staring out as the sun slowly continues to rise. “That everyone deserves a chance at a life where they can be happy.”

“That… That does sound like Lexxi, yeah.” Rickety chuckles softly, smiling a bit as he thinks back to the way she behaved in the future. To how understanding she was of every robot Pokemon they had met, how compassionate she was towards them, even when he himself was frightened of them.

“She’d upgraded me, gave me full control over who I was. To suddenly gain sentience and self awareness, to suddenly be my own person, rather than just another machine… It was staggering. Rather than telling me who I should be, she let me choose for myself, let me discover what it felt to have emotions on my own.” Glyph muffles a laugh. “Even now, while I still don’t understand what emotions are… They just feel natural. Like they’ve always been there. And from the way you talk about Lexxi, it seems like that same compassion she had back when she was a human is still there.”

Rickety nods, sitting himself back down next to Glyph again. “It’s still so… Surprising to me, how understanding she is.” He muffles a laugh as well, sniffling. “S-She listens to me, she lets me ramble on and on about whatever I want, she comforts me whenever I start freaking out, s-she thinks its cute that I’m into everything I’m into, she…”

“So, let me ask you a question too.” Glyph glances at Rickety. “You asked what she saw in me… What do you see in her?”

Rickety feels his heart skip a beat at that question, a bit caught off guard. He stares out at the sky, feeling the warmth of the sunlight spreading over the area. “…I see someone that inspires me to be a better version of myself with every single day. Someone who manages to see the good in people, even if they’re flawed, someone who I want to protect. Someone…”

Rickety’s cheeks blush a prominent red, turning his gaze in the other direction. “Someone that I… Want to be more than just friends with…”

“You care that deeply about her, huh?” Glyph asks, turning to Rickety.

Rickety gives a shaky nod of his head. “Y-Yeah… I haven’t worked up the courage to tell her how I really feel about her. I-I think she feels the same, but… I-I don’t know for sure. I can never tell if I’m overthinking things or not or if she really feels the same.”

“If you get the chance, tell her.” Glyph says. “I’m confident we’ll defeat Dusknoir, but in case things go south… You better let her know at some point or another. Pixie realized this, told me early on. Our relationship is… Unconventional, but we care deeply for each other too.”

“I could tell.” Rickety chuckles softly, glancing away for a moment, before turning back to Glyph. “Even if I don’t fully understand you, it seems like you don’t seem to fully understand yourself either, so…” Rickety smiles awkwardly, extending his hand out to Glyph. “We can come to an agreement on that, understanding that we basically don’t understand each other. I’d be happy with that.”

Glyph chuckles, extending his own hand out and shaking Rickety’s. “If that’s what you say, I’d be happy with that too.” He glances back out at the sky, the sun finally beginning to rise up, the sky a bright, vibrant blue now. “It’s morning. We should start getting ready to head out.”

“Mmhm.” Rickety smiles and nods. “Let’s go.”