Metempsychotic

Two Steps Back

Aile did not know where she was. Everything around her was white, and she found that she could not feel anything- not heat or cold, nor any kind of emotion that could spark some sense of urgency on where she was. Her memories were far too fuzzy to even remember how she got here. Faintly, she could recall something; some fight with a white and gold madman, a purple orb of pure electricity, and someone shouting her name...

"I'm dead." Aile said out loud to herself. "This is... I'm dead now..."

"Oh come on Aile, don't tell me you've given up already!" a voice from some boy said from behind her. Aile spun around to see a boy some years older than her, giving her a coy little wink with one of his emerald green eyes.

"Who...?"

The boy laughed at her, a sweet, playful laugh that Aile thought sounded similar to Vent's. "You can call me Sora." he offered. "Though just between you and me, we kinda share the same mom."

Aile's face changed from five different expressions as she thought about how that could have been possible. The boy, Sora, laughed at it. He then looked her over before saying, with a wide, joking smile,

"You know, technically you weren't part of the Guardians- you didn't take the test."

"That's not true!" Aile immediately debunked before taking a moment to pause. "I... I helped give that cat back..."

Sora raised a rather bemused eyebrow. "Is that what you tell yourself?" he snickered, sounding more playful than mean. "Alright then."

Aile opened her mouth to retort, but found that she had nothing to say. It wasn't long before the real question at hand occurred to her.

"Where am I?"

"Well," Sora mused, "I think it's called purgatory."

Aile raised an eyebrow. "You think?" she repeated, her voice just as filled with skepticism. Sora gave a diligent nod, making his coal black hair comically bounce a bit. Too bad Aile didn't feel like laughing.

"Yeah." he agreed. "You see, you and Vent are special. When you took the brunt of Serpent's surprise attack, the human part of you died- but the Reploid part of you is still ticking pretty well. You're dead, technically, except you're not... technically."

"It's really weird." Sora then went on, "In some universes, you weren't even needed to take down Serpent. It could've just been Vent. But here you just kinda... existed. Kinda like I am! Don't you think that's weird?"

"Are you saying that I don't matter in this world?" Aile questioned, growing confused and vaguely upset by her supposed half-brother's ramblings. In response, Sora gave an odd shrug that indicated that it was likely the case. Deep inside of her, Aile got a sense of bitterness and self hatred.

"You can't just give up though Aile." Sora then spoke up, as if he could sense Aile's inner existential crisis. "I haven't known you long, but I've got a good feeling that you don't give up. What if Mom had given up when I was declared stillborn? This world would probably be completely screwed over without you and Vent!"

"But you just said it yourself," the girl reminded her stillborn brother, "I didn't need to exist. I didn't need to be here. Or... or there..."

Sora gave her a playful side smirk. "You could come with me then." he offered her. "We can go see Mom. You've never met her formally, I think, but you two would really get along I bet."

"I can't do that to Vent." Aile declined with a shake of her head.

"But Vent's not here, sis." Sora pointed out, gesturing to the white air around them. "It's just the two of us, alone here in purgatory until you decide on where you're going."