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Chapter 35: A Different Reality

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The path to the highest point of Tronne Island was a deceptively easy climb even when Tron was a small child. In fact, it was so easy that she and Teisel often wondered why more people didn't hang around up there and watch the inhabitants of the city below them go about their lives. The two siblings sat by the edge of the lake and peered into the water.

"It's been way too long since we've done this," Tron admitted as they watched dragonflies land on the surface of the lake and create subtle ripples. "It's great you like to visit with that Max guy and his gang across the bay on Malt Island and all, but...I really miss spending my time up here with you, Teisel."

The Bright Bats lived on Malt now? That seemed unusually convenient. "Tron, you're the best little sister I could have ever asked for!" Teisel exclaimed as he slung his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. "You know you can always come along with me when I go over there, right?"

"Sure, you make it sound easy," Tron sighed. "But the truth is, I'm not good at making friends the way you are, Teisel," she explained. "You know that. It's why I work from the summer house all year instead of going to Guild Headquarters and using their equipment. I just don't get people. This probably sounds a little crazy and desperate, but you and Bon are the only real friends I've got that I haven't programmed myself. It isn't that I don't like Kimiko or Max! I'd like to be able to be close with them, too, but...they're just all so normal. Not that I think that I'm better than them or anything like that!" she added quickly as she tensed up and backed away from her brother. "See? That's exactly what I mean! I try to act like a normal person and everything, but I just always keep saying things like that to other people and they get it all wrong and think I'm insulting them! I don't even realize it's mean until after I've already said it and made them mad at me!"

Teisel mentally added this Kimiko character to his growing list of new information to investigate later. For the moment, though, it hurt him to see Tron so distraught about her lack of a social life. He never really considered the difficulties she might have had to deal with in a world where she was expected to work and get along with people outside of their family. "It doesn't matter to me what sort of things might accidentally come out of your mouth." Teisel sincerely asserted. "I would never leave you, Tron. Ever. I might get busy and have to run off to the studio every now and again, but you have a job too, so you know how that is...you know, you could have just told me about this when it started bugging you and saved yourself a lot of worry over nothing, right?"

Tron just stared up at Teisel, almost as if she didn't quite believe what she was hearing. "Really?" she asked. "You mean it?"

"Of course I mean it, Tron! That's what I've been trying to tell you for the past hour!" Teisel exclaimed. Before he could so much as blink, Tron scooted back over and pulled him into the tightest hug she'd ever given him. It was completely surreal. He'd spent so long hugging that book to his chest thinking it was his last lifeline to Tron, but there she was. There was no way a hug that tight could have been a dream. Still, he couldn't ignore his inability to remember anything other than the years he'd spent drifting around in vain trying to find a way to keep Bon alive, and that last year when the Bright Bats had finally taken him in. That unusual lapse of consciousness really worried him.

He shook it off. He finally had his family back. He couldn't let any weird inconsistencies get in the way of making up for lost ground, even if he seemed to be the only one who'd missed anything. He held his sister close, but opted to let her decide when to let go. "I'll always be there for you, Tron. No matter what."

"I'll remember that if you ever ditch me for those lowlifes again!" Tron scoffed as she pulled back and shot him a dubious glare. Teisel couldn't help but smile.

"So, do you still think the stories are true? Is there really a sub-gate under there?" Teisel asked, changing the subject and squinting to try and make out any kind of outline of a ruin entrance. Back when they'd been younger, they used to sit up at the dock for hours ruminating on that very notion and swap stories about what could possibly be hidden under the surface of the lake.

Tron pouted and replied, "Oh come on, Teisel! Quit fooling around!"

"What, are you too old for this sort of thing?"

"You really don't remember, do you?" Tron asked him after a long, awkward lull in the conversation. "There was a digger who came to the Quint Islands eleven years ago...that ring any bells? He drained the lake and got inside, and it took the mayor five more years to get the dam plugged back up again! You were so mad about not being allowed to come up here, too..."

"Oh, right, yeah." Teisel exclaimed a little too quickly for either of their liking. "Mega Man Volnutt, right?"

This time Tron looked a little more than just slightly confused. "Teisel, what happened to you?" she asked, point blank. "Mega Man Volnutt's been stuck on the moon for ten years. There's some girl down by Klickelan who's been trying to build rockets to get him back ever since...she pops up in tabloids every now and then. She's a total crackpot. But yeah, he's never been to the Quint Islands. The guy who drained the lake? I think his name was Tumble or something. He was a freak." Tron slowly scooted away from her brother and scrutinized him closely. "You're not sick or anything, are you? You should really know most of this stuff."

Teisel gulped. "I think I must've hit my head or something last night," he bluffed, but it didn't look like Tron was buying any of it.

"Teisel," Tron persisted, "Really, whatever's wrong, you can tell me about it. I want to help."

"Look, uh, Tron," Teisel stammered as he fidgeted with the end of his ponytail. "I don't know if it's something I can tell anyone. Mom thinks this is all coming from some alcohol-induced dream I had. She never realized I'd forgotten anything important."

"Just spit it out already!"

Teisel squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, which felt a little odd since he wasn't used to the eyes he was using at the moment, and mentally steeled himself for this adult version of Tron's inevitable reaction as he fumbled for the most succinct means of explaining the entire convoluted ordeal without completely losing his composure. After taking a moment to inhale, he began to rattle off the whole story very quickly. He barely even paused to breathe between his sentences. "I think I might have spent all of Bon's life living in some kind of an alternate universe where he was born with a heart defect and a lot of mental delays. You saved him by building him a life support robot suit, but Mom and Dad died when a group of pirates attempted to kidnap you and force you to work for them. The pirates never did catch you and Bon. I barely got out of that mess alive. We had to become pirates ourselves to cover our living expenses after that, which included, among other things, bionic eyes for me, a million-zenny warship, and forty Servbots. Then you and Bon died along the way and after that, I got rescued by Max and the gang and wound up running into a combat robot from an ancient civilization in the ruins on Klickelan Island. I tried to stop him from kidnapping me and destroying the world, but he shot me and I woke up here, where I'm suddenly a voice actor and I have my family back, but I still can't remember what really happened since the day Bon was born."

After that, Teisel took a moment to catch his breath as he let his sister digest all of that. He tried to think back and recall whether Tron had ever taken much interest in his anime marathons. "It's...it's like there was some kind of a timeline split that occurred back then, and I wound up accidentally switching timelines. I'm trying to figure everything out, but it's hard because I spent so much time thinking you and everybody else were dead. You have no idea how hard it is to keep myself from running up to everyone and hugging them for hours. As far as any of you guys are concerned right now, there's no good reason for me to do anything like that."

There, he thought to himself as he finished up the explanation. It was the first time he'd been able to tell that much of the story without breaking down, abridged and rushed as it might have been. The fact that Tron was right there helped take the edge off of it, but a milestone was a milestone. If he hadn't been so worried about his sister's reaction, he might have even taken some pride in the accomplishment.

Tron sighed. "As crazy as that sounds, it actually almost makes sense," she muttered. "Even if it didn't look like it at the time, I was really happy when you said you wanted to spend time with me. It's because you haven't done anything like that in years, Teisel. You're normally always running off with your friends or flying out to some studio, and Bon's not really much better. It figures that the first time you come up here with me after all this time, you've only done it because you've completely lost your mind."

"Do you think any of that stuff could have really happened, though?" Teisel asked.

"That doesn't matter." Tron replied. "You believe it, and whether it's true or not, you're upset about it and you don't know anything about what your own life is like. I'm kind of hurt that it'd take you thinking I've been dead for a long time to want to hang out with me, but I suppose I'll just have to take what I can get..."

"Tron," Teisel urged, "Please don't say things like that. I'm sorry for whatever the other me did, or didn't do, but I never want to lose you again."

He really looked like he was about to cry at any second. Tron wasn't the least bit sure of what to do about that, so she reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of binoculars. "I guess I'd better get you up to speed with the last decade's highlight reel so Dad doesn't figure out that you're missing thirteen years' worth of memories and admit you to an asylum, then." she declared as she handed the binoculars over. "He's been joking about it for a while because you play so many villains on TV, but you never really know with him."

"Mom said Dad took Bon to the golf course." Teisel explained. He stood up to get a better view of the area and scanned the golf course to the north for any sign of his father. He suddenly realized that his dad would be the only familiar face in the party. "Tell me about Bon," he added. "What's he like? The Bon I knew never mentally progressed beyond toddlerhood. Mom mentioned that he liked sports and had a lot of energy, which makes some sense considering how much he liked throwing things and blowing things up, but I couldn't exactly ask her about things like his personality or what he looks like. She probably expected me to know that already."

"He's taller than me now," Tron begrudgingly admitted. "He's got the same brown hair and green eyes as the rest of us. Dad's grooming him to take over the brokerage."

"And Bon's okay with working in finances?" Teisel asked. He strained to discern any sign of movement down on the green. "Bon...uh, my Bon, at least...one of his only goals in life was to get out of the suit and give me a hug after...when it was just the two of us. You sure he'd be comfortable working for a guy like Dad?"

"If he's got a problem with Bonne Chance, he sure hasn't mentioned it to the rest of us," Tron shrugged. "I think he'd be good at it. Bon's not creative at all. For all you know, he could have just been wondering what being held felt like, since he spent most of his life inside a mech suit. That's always why I liked spending time with you. We're both imaginative, in some shape or form. You always have great ideas, and I'm good at taking ideas and turning them into products like the Languste and the Servbots, but Bon? He's not like that. Out of the three of us, he's probably the most suited to follow in Dad's footsteps."

"HOLD THAT THOUGHT!" Teisel suddenly shouted. He adjusted the focus on the binoculars as a tall man, a teenaged boy, and a little girl with pigtails that, from his angle, looked downright white piled into a golf cart. The girl's golf bag positively dwarfed her. "Don't tell me Dad's hair STILL hasn't turned gray! THAT MAN IS ALMOST SEVENTY YEARS OLD AND HIS HAIR IS STILL THE SAME COLOR AS YOURS?! I HAD GRAY HAIR WHEN I WAS YOUNGER THAN YOU ARE NOW!"

"Teisel! Not so loud!" Tron groaned. "First of all, he's been using hair dye for at least twenty years, and second, with the way your voice carries, the entire city probably heard everything you just said!"

The little girl looked up at the top of the mountain from her spot in the passenger seat. Although he couldn't hear what she was saying, he could clearly see her bouncing in her seat, waving, and staring straight at them. Bon was hanging off the back of the golf cart in a yellow jersey, and looked to be egging their father on to drive faster. "Yep, they've spotted us," he sighed, shyly waving back. "What's with the kid anyway?"

Tron walked up next to Teisel and took the binoculars out of her brother's hands to see for herself. "Teisel..." she uttered once she got a good look at the passengers in the golf cart. "You don't know you have a wife and daughter, do you?"

Teisel snatched the binoculars back and re-adjusted the focus to zoom in on the trio in the golf cart. "That's MY kid?!" he sputtered. "No wonder I haven't been spending any time with you..."

"Her name's Ally," Tron informed him. "She turned four in December. She is probably the loudest and most hyperactive little girl I've ever met. Bon's the only one who can keep up with her, so he does a lot of the babysitting, and that makes you happy because now you get to spend more time with Kimiko. She's your wife. She's alright. I don't know why the two of us don't get along better, since she's got to be really smart to work for the Digger's Guild, writing guides on all the registered ruins in the region..."

"I don't know why the name Kimiko sounds so familiar to me." Teisel wondered out loud as he carefully studied his daughter and brother from afar. The golf cart had slowly ground to a halt at the tee box, and Ally was already scrambling to tug her golf bag out of the back. "I don't think I remember knowing any Kimikos before the timeline split, so I must have met her sometime over the last thirteen years, but...I definitely remember that name from somewhere."

"Are you really sure it's a timeline split?" Tron blinked. "You haven't already ruled out every other possibility, including more, uh, realistic ones, have you?"

"With the way my life's been going up until this point, you really can't rule out anything," Teisel reminded her. "Calling it a timeline split's just the fastest way of saying it that makes sense...well, that makes sense to me, at least. Or whatever passes for sense here." He lowered the binoculars after watching the trio attempt to play golf for about five minutes and turned to Tron. "Dad's not trying to rope Ally into becoming some kind of accountant, too, is he?"

Tron laughed. "He tried, but two days ago over dinner, you insisted that you were having her groomed to become a paladin by the age of seven and declared that it was simply out of the question. I think you embarrassed Kimiko with that one."

"Not a gamer, huh?"

"That's what you have Max for," Tron reminded him. "He isn't particularly bright or anything, but for some reason, you two are really good friends. I'm pretty sure it's related to anime or something. Then you've got Grill, who..."

"Now THOSE guys I remember," Teisel cut her off. "Max has a giant action figure collection, and he bought me a model kit in the other timeline. I like the kind you put together yourself and he likes the kind that come already assembled."

"You remember your friends, but not your own brother? How convenient," Tron snidely remarked. "Hey, want to go and meet Bon and Ally for yourself down on the links? You don't have to worry about being any good at golfing or anything. You never were."

"HEY!"

Tron grinned a nervous grin. "I really didn't mean for it to come out that way! If you got good at it while you were a pirate, it'll probably just make Dad happy that you're taking an interest in..."

"You have nothing to worry about there," he admitted. "I'm still just as bad a golfer as I ever was. Race you to the golf course?"

Teisel and Tron decided it was probably a good idea to stop racing when both of them reached the bottom of the mountain, completely out of breath, after tripping more than a few times along the way. They walked along the side of the road leading to the golf course together, and Tron took the time to help Teisel catch up on everything he'd missed since he'd been gone.

According to his sister's account, he'd met Kimiko sometime around when he was supposed to have been pillaging Kattelox Island. He'd run into her here on Tronne, of all places. She'd been called out to investigate the Quint Island ruins for the Guild not long after the weird digger drained the lake, and the Bonnes had been on vacation there at the time. Teisel apparently liked her right away, and the more Tron described her, the more obvious it was that they didn't get along because they were just too similar. Neither one of them was the type to open up to others quickly, so naturally, there was something about the way Teisel always wore his heart on his sleeve that genuinely impressed Kimiko. They'd had a two-year engagement, and Ally came along six years afterward with a personality bold enough to rival even her father's and a startling tendency to mispronounce the family name. Nobody in the family was sure whether she did it intentionally, or if it was only a cry for attention. So far, Teisel had been in seven popular cartoons, none of which his mom actually understood at all, despite what she'd tried to lead him to believe earlier in the day. If he picked up Azure Striker Gunvolt, then it would be his first foray into video game voiceover, and Tron couldn't wait to hear about what their mother would mistakenly think that game entailed.

Tron, meanwhile, had been recruited by the Digger's Guild at seventeen, where she went on to provide them with inventions like the Finkel, which allowed diggers to explore areas that were otherwise impossible to access on their own. She'd created the Languste to access ruins deep under the ocean's surface. Somehow, however, it had failed to occur to her to make more Servbots to assist her with its construction, and when Teisel brought the idea up she actually hugged him a second time and wondered why she didn't think of it sooner.

To any bystander, it was impossible to tell which of the two siblings had been the one to abandon the other. The sense of relief in the air was almost palpable as they swapped stories of machines that had never been built and family gatherings that had never occurred.I could easily live like this forever, he thought to himself, forsaking any thoughts of Trigger and his mass genocide plot as he caught up on fourteen missed years and vowed to never lose touch with his siblings again.

When they reached the golf course, they hijacked a golf cart, and Teisel got a chance to show off the driving skills he'd acquired from a lifetime of running from the law. "Okay, fine," Tron conceded as he sped down the paths leading from one hole to the next. "I have no idea how you're driving like this and haven't flipped this whole cart over. I hate to say it, Teisel, but your split timeline theory might actually be somewhat plausible."

"Hah!" Teisel exclaimed as he spotted Bon glancing over his shoulder and clinging to the back of his father's golf cart. The boy urged the old man to drive faster, and his shaggy brown hair blew around in the breeze. "We've almost caught up to them already!"

"Floor it, Teisel!" Tron exclaimed. "Dad'll never know what hit 'em!"

Over in the other vehicle, their father, whose dark hair was, as always, slicked back with so much product that Tron often wondered if he stole the grease from her garage to style it, snapped at Bon in a tone that cut straight through his golf cart's motor without even looking back at his son. "What on EARTH are you yapping about, boy?!"

"Teisel's got a cart, and he hasn't crashed it yet!" Bon exclaimed. "We've gotta race him to the next hole!"

"Out of the question!" Mr. Bonne quipped. "There are strict regulations regarding the..."

He was cut off by the sound of his eldest son's maniacal laughter as Teisel and Tron whizzed past their cart. Was it just him, or had Teisel managed to start sounding even more deranged than usual?

"Come on, Dad!" Bon insisted. "They're going to beat us! Right, Ally?"

"WE HAVE TO WIN!" Ally shrieked in her grandfather's ear.

Mr. Bonne's frown deepened. That competitive streak he'd been so proud to see in Bon and Ally actually had drawbacks. "Okay, hold on tight, kids. They won't beat us to the next hole on my watch!"

And with that, he floored the gas pedal and nearly caused Bon to lose his grip and tumble off the back. The athletic teen clutched the edge of the cart even harder and shouted, "Out of the way, Teisel! We're coming through!"

Teisel struggled to keep his focus, but his vision was starting to blur up from those annoying tears again. His little brother was trash-talking him in complete sentences! He'd spent so many years wondering what Bon's real voice might have sounded like that the context hardly even mattered. "Now you've done it, Teisel," Tron replied as their father pulled up alongside them with Ally bouncing up and down in the passenger seat like she'd just guzzled a few cans of soda. Was it just the shade from the trees, or did that kid's hair look gray to him now that she was up close? "Maybe we should just slow down..."

"Not on my watch!" Teisel roared. He floored the gas pedal and cut directly in front of the other cart. If he had any trouble crying and driving at the same time, he sure didn't show it.

Before either cart could get to their destination, however, a group of golf course attendants cut off their route in their own golf carts. One of them pulled out a megaphone and exclaimed, "Please bring your vehicles to a stop and step aside!"

Teisel thought about it, then made a sharp left and drove his golf cart straight into the nearest water hazard.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time!" Teisel insisted as he and Tron, both soaked through, followed their father, Bon, and Ally through the front door and back into the manor. "How was I supposed to know those things don't work on water? Motorhorses probably work on water!"

"It had wheels, Teisel." Tron flatly responded.

"I AM ALLY BONNIE! HEAR ME ROAR!!!!" Teisel's hyperactive daughter screeched at Bon as the two of them shoved past the three adults.

"The E is silent, Ally!" Bon groaned. He spun around on his heels to face his father and shrugged. "Kids. What can ya do?"

"Hold on right there," Mr. Bonne quipped, grabbing his youngest son by the arm before he could run off after his niece. "Who was it that spent a good portion of that cart ride yelling at me to drive faster? You're just as guilty of getting our golfing privileges suspended as your brother and sister, Bon Bonne. You stay right here while I tell your mother about this!"

"What're they going to do, ground me for the rest of the vacation?" Bon asked the second their dad was out of earshot. "I'd like to see him try and...hey! Teisel, what are you doing!? If you absolutely have to hug me, could you at least wait until your clothes are dry?"

Teisel let out a nervous laugh. "What, not into hugs?"

"Not really. Especially not when you've just been in the lake. I'll hug you later, okay?" Bon sighed. "Today's just been REALLY weird, you know? You keep staring at me like you're trying to memorize my face or something and it's kinda creeping me out. I don't think I've seen you spend this much time with Tron in a while, either. I think I know what's going on."

Both Tron and Teisel exchanged a nervous glance. "If he figures it out, I take back whatever I said about him not having an ounce of creativity in his entire body," Tron whispered.

"You're going to be in another show and you have to move!" he exclaimed. "Does that mean you'll pay me part of your salary to watch Ally for a month!?"

"Uh, a game, actually!" Teisel exclaimed. "Something about an Azure gun. Say, thanks for reminding me! I needed to call Tom back about...that..." he stopped as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his completely waterlogged smartphone. "This wasn't supposed to get wet, was it?"

"No, Teisel. It wasn't." Tron flatly replied. "And if you do figure out how to get in touch with your agent, you're using the money to buy me a new phone, too."

Teisel muttered an apology and shuffled his feet. He still wasn't used to thinking of everyone carrying a cell phone with them all the time. He hoped he had a copy of Tom's business card somewhere. Maybe the Servbots had been tasked with backing up that sort of information, since they didn't need to develop weapons or practice robbing banks now.

As the three of them stood around in the foyer waiting for their parents to return and wondering what they could possibly do to a pair of adults, especially after their mother had already closed down the liquor cabinet for Teisel, they heard the sound of the front door click open from behind them. "Uh-oh," Bon realized. "Kimiko's back and I let Ally run off by herself..."

A thin woman with long blue hair so dark that it was almost black, brown eyes, and a shirt featuring a fluffy animal mascot on it stepped into the room, took one look at the three siblings, and exclaimed, "Teisel, what happened?! You and Tron didn't do anything stupid and wind up falling in the lake, did you?"

Teisel didn't respond. He couldn't respond. From the moment he laid eyes on the woman he'd allegedly married and had a kid with, Teisel realized that yes, he did know Kimiko in that other life. The one he actually remembered.

Technically speaking, rather, he knew of Kimiko. In fact, he'd been obsessed with her when he was a teenager for far longer than he'd ever admit in public, but they'd never met personally, and the fact that they had met here raised a serious red flag that hit him in the gut so hard and fast it was like he'd just discovered Tron's body in the garage a second time. This world really was too good to be true. He felt himself start to grow a little faint as he stuttered and stammered, trying to make sense of it all. "You—I..." he glanced from Tron to Kimiko to Bon and back again before he shouted, "I couldn't have married you! You're a character from The Steel Prince! You're not even real!"

"Teisel, have you been drinking again?" Kimiko asked point-blank. This probably wasn't the first time she'd had that conversation with him.

Teisel shook his head and struggled to keep his balance as he gripped the dining room chair like a lifeline. "I...uh...no, not at all. Not this time. It's...something...came up. Uh, Kimiko, Bon, you two go find Ally and make sure she hasn't broken anything. Tron, you and I need to talk." He looked over and motioned for his sister to follow him. Then, with hardly any warning, he darted back into the foyer past Bon and Kimiko and up the stairs to his bedroom.

Once he and Tron were inside, he locked the door behind them and started frenetically pacing back and forth and talking it out to get his thoughts straight. "Alright, so if the last thing I remember is getting shot at, and I'm suddenly in a world where my family is back and I've married an anime character...I don't like the way this looks. I really don't." he mumbled. "This has got to be some kind of a diversion."

"Kimiko isn't an anime character!" Tron insisted. "With your line of work, you're more of an anime character than she is..."

"She's a character from my favorite show of all time! You know, the one that I used to watch back when we all lived together?" Teisel pointed out, "She's one out of an embarrassingly small handful of people I've had a crush on in my entire life, thanks to this crazy pileup of trauma I've had to deal with since the timeline split!"

Tron looked a little more than disturbed as she backed away from her older brother. "W-why are you telling me about your weird anime crushes?"

"Because I've got to tell someone, and you were the one who believed me when I told you about our pirating years back when we were sitting around by the lake staring at dragonflies and bonding for the first time in forever!" Teisel countered. He raised his hand to rub his forehead and accidentally squashed his glasses up against his face for what felt like the hundredth time that day. It was probably closer to the fourth or fifth time, but nonetheless, he yanked them off and pegged them at his bed in frustration. "Apparently the version of me you're used to can't drive and is willing to ditch you for other people. You've seen firsthand that I am definitely not that guy. I'm sorry you had to deal with him. The truth is, I love you and Bon and Mom and Dad, and I'd like to think that it's not just because I'm used to living in a world where you're all dead...but I just...this feels wrong. All of it. Especially the part about marrying an anime character and having a kid who seems to have inherited my gray hair!"

"Teisel..." Tron began, but she felt something catch in her throat before she could finish the thought. She settled for, "Why now?" It was all she could get out. And even though Teisel couldn't see the tears welling up in her eyes without his glasses, he did know all too well that she'd spent the better part of the last decade—her version of the last decade, at least—missing him just as much as he'd spent it missing her.

"Trigger's the one who's real," Teisel sighed. Despite how soaked his clothes still were, he plopped down on the edge of the bed and cradled his head in his hands. He could feel a migraine coming on. "That has to be what happened. He was trying to kidnap me and take me out into space because you and I have some weird genetic mutation. He wants to destroy everyone on the planet. He can't kill everyone unless I'm preoccupied, because there are still people down there that I care about. He must have used some kind of technology to read my mind and design a world I wouldn't want to leave or question. Your existence is just buying him more time."

He felt Tron's hand on his shoulder, and even though he knew it was more than likely just a trick of his mind, it was still convincing enough to entice him to look over at his sister...the illusion of his sister...and muster up a smile. He held his arms open and asked, "One more hug for the road?"

Tron nodded. The least she could do was say goodbye.

"Okay, Trigger, the jig is up!" he announced once he let go of Tron. He glanced around the eerily quiet room in search of any sign of the Purifier Model, or any piece of ancient technology in the summer house. "You almost had me there, but I've figured out what's going on and I'm done playing pretend! Come out from wherever it is you're hiding and GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

Before he could finish his sentence, everything around him suddenly froze. He turned on the spot to find Data sitting on the bed where his glasses had been, doing the same old dance. "Oh, so this is the monkey's doing?" He grumbled. "Can you get me back into the ruins?"

"You're a lot smarter than either of us were expecting!" Data exclaimed in a voice that was, to Teisel's surprise, perfectly understandable as he hopped up onto Tron's shoulder. The lack of any physical response from Tron was really off-putting. "Based on the information I was able to acquire from the preliminary memory scan, Trigger anticipated that you would be able to live out at least one of your weeks in the simulation before you even began to suspect anything unusual. Unfortunately for you, however, we are no longer in the Klickelan ruins. We have already broken through Terra's atmosphere and are headed to EDEN-10. I have been using this time to prepare you for your upcoming quest to disarm the Elders, and..."

"Forget the Elders!" Teisel shouted. "Stop messing with my brain and LET ME OUT OF THIS TRAP! Do I have to bash your thick skull in to get back to reality or something?!"

"Mega Man Trigger has instructed..."

"DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE?!" Teisel shouted. "I can't let your old buddy Trigger kill the Bright Bats or Russell or Art or Roll! Do you even REMEMBER Roll, Data!?"

Data stopped dancing as the harsh reality of his master's orders sunk in. "Trigger wants to kill Roll?" he asked. "That's not good!"

"Great! NOW you get it!" Teisel exclaimed. "So if you don't mind, I'd like for you to get me back to the normal world so I can figure out some way to stop him from giving me any more dead people to have to miss!"

"And what if the Carbons as a whole do become progressively weaker over time, as Trigger suggested?"

It took Teisel a moment to respond, but in the end, he just shrugged and replied, "We've been able to adapt alright so far. I'm sure we'll find a way to keep going somehow or another, especially now that we're aware of it."

"Very well, then." Data conceded. As he spoke, Tron and that crisp, clean bedroom Teisel had spent his childhood summers in all seemed to fade into darkness. "Mega Man Trigger was originally created in order to shut down any units that decided to fight the Master System. He has been optimized for combat situations. It was his intention to upload a set of comparable combat data into your genetic makeup to better enable you to help him take out the Elders and their machines. Unfortunately, there's still a bit left to go, but at this point in the upload, you shouldn't be as outclassed as you were before. Still, just as he was during his Carbon configuration, Trigger is somewhat lacking in tactical finesse. He may be stronger, but you've proven yourself to be smarter. Keep that in mind, okay? Good luck!"

The last thing Teisel hoped before he lost consciousness completely was that the little monkey wasn't about to pull a fast one on him and submerge him in a second illusion. Too much was at stake for him to go through that all over again. He had a planet to save!

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