My X Mind/Deleted Scenes

==Deleted Scenes==
"C-CROSS?" Teresa stammered. "H-how are you here?"
"The CrossTrix has been connected to your mind ever since Oberon OS tampered with it; that's what's been unleashing Nightmare when you dissociate." CROSS explained. "Anne figured out I might be able to take advantage of that to contact you."
"Anne..." Teresa mumbled. "...Look, CROSS, about Nightmare-"
"Don't worry, we'll figure out how to stop it from emerging eventually." CROSS said.
"That's not it." Teresa shook her head. "CROSS... I'm Nightmare."
"...What?" The CrossTrix dial displayed a blinking question mark.
"Nightmare isn't mindless." Teresa said. "It's violent and it operates on survival instinct, but that's not because it's some sort of berserk animal... it's because those are the parts of me I always try to suppress, and when I dissociate... I can't keep them under control anymore."
"Come to think of it, you have only turned into Nightmare during situations where you would've snapped anyways." CROSS hmmed. "Whatever Oberon OS did to the CrossTrix must be reacting to that."
"It's more than that." Teresa said. "Even when I've snapped before, I've had some control over myself, but Nightmare has NeOhm's DNA. It's completely unrestricted."
----
"You..." The red-eyed Teresa growled. "You've been so afraid of turning into Mom that you've just taken everything she's said about you as fact. You've been doing the abuse for her even when she isn't here! You were so afraid of becoming her that you turned into her, you asshole!"
"Th-that's not- that's not what I meant to-"
"Of course it's not what you meant to do!" The red-eyed Teresa snapped. "You're so afraid to think for yourself that you never mean to do anything! You just do! The only times you ever stand up for yourself are when NeOhm pretty much forces you to let me have a go at things!"
----
"...I've realized something." Nightmare said.
"Hm?"
"There are people who care about me." Nightmare looked up at him. "When I hurt myself or let myself get hurt, I'm not the only one who suffers. I've known that for a while, but it's never done anything to make me feel better. If anything, it just made me feel guilty on top of being in pain." She looked down at her hands. "That kind of vicious cycle doesn't help anyone. If I really want to help preserve people's happiness... I have to let myself pursue my own happiness too."
Nightmare's eye began flickering between red and blue.
"And... the idea of doing that is scary for me because I have no idea what my own happiness would even look like." She continued. "I've been stuck in despair for so long that I don't have any goals. No hopes, no dreams, no ambitions. I've always been afraid of being selfish, so I've never seriously thought about what would make me happy. I was worried pursuing my own happiness might make me unempathetic. I've been so afraid of becoming my mom that I never let myself become... me."
She looked up again, revealing that the color of her eye had finally settled on a vivid purple.
"So I'm not going to be holding myself back anymore." She began twisting the CrossTrix dial on her chest in a specific pattern. "I'll let myself discover who I really am."
Dream Card
"I'll keep defending people no matter what, but I won't keep needlessly sacrificing my own well-being to do it." Dream stated. "I'll be a shield for everyone... including myself!"
----
"It's stupid to hate yourself over what I did to you." Dana said. "If you're going to hate anyone, hate me."
"What are you trying to pull?" The red-eyed Teresa glared at her skeptically. "You wouldn't tell me not to hate myself. You'd never tell me that."
"Unfortunately, that's exactly what's gotten you into this mess." Dana clicked her tongue. "The thing is, if you aren't able to reconcile with yourself soon, you're going to die."
"Oh, shut up." The red-eyed Teresa scowled. "That's ridiculous. After everything you've done to me, what makes you think I'd believe a word you're saying?"
"...Nothing." Dana said. "I failed you as a mother. I'm sorry."
Both Teresas froze. This was the first time they'd ever heard a sincere apology from her.
"...Oh god, we really are going to die." The red-eyed Teresa muttered, staring off into space.
----
"You failed?!"
The mysterious armored man had returned to his point of origin: a bunker deep underground that served as the Triumvirate's laboratory facilities.
"I retreated to avoid unnecessary casualties." The man stated. "If you see that as a failure, I'm afraid this conversation isn't going to go anywhere."
"What, is that why you kept the restraint layer of your armor on too?" Terminal scoffed. "Honestly, were you even trying?"
"That is exactly why I kept the restraint layer equipped, yes." The man said. "I did what I could."
"Like hell you did!" Terminal hissed. "I used the Triumvirate's technology to revive you specifically so you could destroy this new Tech. Returning from trying to kill her without her being dead very much seems like a failure to me!"
"I agreed to go after the CrossTrix, not its wielder." The man pointed out. "My interests lie solely in combating the Anti-Life Entity. I am perfectly aware of what your goal was in reviving me, but I can't say I care to murder a random girl for the sake of indulging your pathetic nickname-based grudge."
"Why, you-" Terminal clenched his fists. "Why don't any of you humans know your place?!"
"My place?"
The armored man crossed his gauntlets together again, causing his armor to dissipate into wisps of shadow. He pulled down the hood of his cloak and took off his mask in order to look at Terminal face-to-face.
Osirimes Card
"In my time, I was regarded as not just a ruler, but a living god." Osirimes said. "If this inane hierarchy you incessantly call on truly existed, I would be far, far above someone such as you."
"You just don't get it, do you?" Terminal reverted to his original form in a red flash.
Puppet Master Card
"I am a Cerebrocrustacean, a being of remarkably high intelligence," he stated condescendingly. "You are a human, a being of remarkably low intelligence; therefore, I am above you. Is that explanation simple enough for your underdeveloped brain to understand, you worthless primate?"
"Cerebrocrustaceans as a whole may be intelligent, but you?" Osirimes's eyes narrowed. "You died from disintegrating yourself with your own mechanical giant's light cannon because you weren't paying attention to what was going on around you. I even warned you against firing the shot that killed you, but you ignored me. Your talent for engineering cannot be denied, but in terms of overall intelligence, you hardly rank any higher than a dog chasing its own tail."
----
"C-CROSS, what's the code for the M-Metamentian key?"
"101."
"Th-thanks." Teresa shakily spun the CrossTrix's wheel dials to match that code, causing a piece of the chassis to open up and reveal a CrossKey.
Dethrogue's limbs began to twitch, his suit's direct connection with the sun allowing it to recover thermal energy much faster than expected. Noticing this, Teresa immediately tried to slam the CrossKey into the CrossTrix dial and missed the hole a couple of times due to rushing it, but she got it in on the third try and immediately turned it before slamming down on the dial.
----
"What are you doing now?"
Emilia was currently hunched over Teresa's left arm and furiously typing away on her phone, which had been connected to the CrossTrix via USB cable. Dana's demand to know what she was doing seemingly took a few seconds to register, and the scientist abruptly popping her head up a few moments later than expected startled the already on-edge mother.
"Looked at the CrossTrix's onboard user diagnostics, seizures are burning out her neurons way faster than expected," Emilia hurriedly explained. "Had to come up with a matrix feedback look program that keeps "transforming" her into a human to replace the damaged cells but I threw it together from scratch and it's untested and unoptimized and it's draining power like crazy and the internal wiring was never meant to handle something like this and it keeps burning out so I have to redirect it through another part of the CrossTrix but then that burns out so I have to redirect it again and then that part burns out so I have to redirect it again and I am freaking out!"
"I'm doing my best to keep things running from in here, but I'm not going to sugarcoat it, we're in trouble." CROSS stated. "Unless someone barges in here in the next few minutes who can fix the CrossTrix-"
The door to Teresa's hospital room was suddenly slammed open, revealing the man in black armor.
"I am here to destroy the CrossTrix."
"Oh, like hell you are-" Dana marched over and threw a punch at the man, only for him to effortlessly knock her aside and send her tumbling to the ground.
"That was ill-advised." The man took a step into the room and looked down at Dana. "If I had allowed your blow to make contact, you would have broken your hand."
"Did you seriously just see that armor and decide to swing on it bare-handed?" Emilia questioned in disbelief. "I know this is probably a question with a lot of answers, but what is wrong with you?"
"Would both of you SHUT UP?!" Dana growled as she pulled herself to her feet before turning her focus entirely to the man in the armor. "I don't know what you want to destroy that thing for, and I don't care! Right now, it is the only thing keeping my daughter alive, so leave it alone and get the hell out of here!"
"I had heard that was a possibility, but I didn't expect the wielder's mother to be here." The man seemed to hesitate a bit. "I... know what it is like to lose a child. I would not wish that grief on anyone. However..." He began raising his hand into the air, facing his palm towards the CrossTrix. "...I have a duty to fulfill."
Right as he was about to fire, he suddenly paused and whirled around just in time to block a kick from Lucius, whose approach had gone entirely unnoticed by anyone else in the area.
"You actually heard me coming." Lucius's eyes narrowed. "I suppose that confirms you're no ordinary mortal."
"And what exactly are you, then?" The man demanded.
"If my assumptions regarding you are correct, it's something I doubt you're familiar with." Lucius grabbed the man's arm and threw him across his shoulder, reversing their positions.
"Wha- you again?!" Dana shouted. "What the hell is going on?!"
"What's Challice's status?" Lucius asked Emilia, ignoring Dana's outburst.
"Not good." Emilia's expression went from shock back to concern. "Her neurons are burning out so fast I had to rig the CrossTrix to keep genetically refreshing her on loop, but doing that is burning out the wiring. CROSS is doing his best to optimize the workload across the remaining hardware, but there's only so much of a device that can fail before it stops working."
"If you had access to replacement parts, would you be able to repair it?" Lucius fired several bullets that curved around to hit the armored man in the back of the knees as he was trying to stand up, doing little damage but hitting with enough force to buckle his legs out from under him.
"Replacement parts and a toolkit, sure, but there's no way I'd be able to get to my lab and back in time!"
"I see." Lucius snapped his fingers as if to gain someone's attention. "Svelte, assist Dr. Krauze. I have other business to attend to."
"Understood, sir." Svelte replied with a small bow, having suddenly appeared next to Emilia. "Best of luck."
Lucius nodded and grabbed the armored man, dragging him into the shadows where they both disappeared without a trace. Svelte turned to Emilia and gave her a slight bow as well.
"Replacement parts and a toolkit, correct?" He asked. "If you could be a bit more specific as to what you need, I'd be happy to retrieve them for you."
"Well, I keep all the tools I need to work on the CrossTrix in my home lab." Emilia glanced down at the CrossTrix worriedly. "But it's such a mess in there, I don't know if you'd even be able to find-"
"Here you are, ma'am." Svelte interjected, handing her a blue toolbox.
"How did you-" Emilia looked over at Dana. "What just happened?"
"I don't know!" Dana yelled with a frantic look in her eyes. "One second he's here, the next second he's not, and the next one after that he's back in the exact same spot except now he's holding a toolbox!"
"Y'know, randomly appearing and disappearing isn't too weird given who you work for, but I've got no idea how you were able to find this so quickly." Emilia noted as she opened up the toolbox. "You must be one hell of a butler."
"How?!" Dana demanded, her left eye starting to twitch. "How did you do that?!"
"Come now, ma'am, we live in an age where the existence of things such as aliens and magic are very much public knowledge." Svelte stated. "Surely what I've done just now can't be that shocking."
"I'm not dealing with things very well right now, okay?!"
----
The explosion of light faded to reveal the large body of Bombadier, whose blast-resistant shell had fully absorbed the beam's kinetic impact. She reverted to Teresa in a teal flash of light, revealing that the CrossTrix's chassis had changed significantly due to the amount of parts that had been replaced.
"Teresa!" Anne ran up to her and pulled her into a tight hug before pulling away to look at her with a worried expression. "Please tell me you're okay!"
"I'm alright." Teresa gave her a soft, reassuring grin. "But... after this, do you think we could talk?"
"I-" Anne blinked, caught a bit off-guard by the question. "I mean, yeah, of course."
"Thank you."
"So, you've reawakened." The man in the armor interjected, looking toward Teresa. "Can I take this to mean your life no longer depends on the continued operation of your Omnitrix?"
"I'm not going to die without it, but I'm not going to let you destroy it, either." Teresa turned to face him. "CROSS is my friend."
"Your "friend"'s continued existence may very well doom us all."
"Mine could've too, but... everyone kept fighting to save me anyway." Teresa said. "I'm not going to abandon him because of that."
"This is not a debate."
The man fired a beam of light at the CrossTrix, only for Teresa to swing up and block it by activating the device's hard-light chainsaw. Anne's eyes widened for a moment as she assumed this meant the CrossTrix was malfunctioning again, but she paused as she caught sight of Teresa's eyes still retaining their rich blue hue.
"If you insist on making this difficult, I will not refrain from killing you as well."
"I know." Teresa said. "That's why I'm not holding back either."
She quickly flicked the wheels on the back of the CrossTrix into a different combination and selected Lunaqua on the main dial, transforming into Lunaqua Titania. Lucius's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but he said nothing.
"Whoa, you're going Titania right off the bat?" CROSS asked. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"
"I'm pretty nervous about it, actually, but if this guy was able to beat Anne and Lucius, taking our chances with a normal alien is too risky." Lunaqua Titania replied.
"I mean, I agree, it's just a bit out-of-character for you."
"I know." Lunaqua Titania said. "I just... want to try believing in myself for once."
"Well, I'm all on-board for that!" The CrossTrix dial displayed a thumbs-up symbol. "Let's do this!"
Lunaqua Titania raised her arms in preparation to attack, but the armored man fired first, sending a beam of light towards her that ended up refracting throughout the water comprising her body and into the moon-like bubble on her back. She seemed unharmed at first glance, but a cloud of steam rising from her chest where the beam had hit indicated that the attack hadn't been entirely ineffective.
"That's... concerning." The CrossTrix beeped. "Good call going Titania; if that light's got enough energy behind it to boil off part of your body as-is, base Lunaqua probably would've taken enough damage to cancel the transformation."
"More importantly, if he can damage a Titania form with a single hit, he might have enough power to level the city." Lunaqua Titania's visor-like crescent eyes narrowed with concern.
"I have disintegrated cities like this with singular blows, that much is true," The man said. "But I can assure you that I am not foolish nor unskilled enough to cause unnecessary collateral damage."
"Wait, you've actually leveled cities?" CROSS asked. "For someone so worried about the Anti-Life Entity, that seems like a pretty anti-life thing to do."
"That is how the Entity works." The man said. "It corrupts the minds of those who discover the forbidden knowledge of its existence and turns them into unknowing servants of its cause."
He began walking towards Lunaqua Titania, who set up a wall of densely-packed water behind her to protect Anne and Lucius.
"Do you have any comprehension of what its resurrection would mean for this world?" The man's voice was quiet but firm. "Even if by some miracle it decided to not to destroy our universe itself, every sentient being aware of its existence, including you, would eventually become its unknowing thralls, slaughtering millions in the name of stopping it without even realizing that you have been doing exactly what it desires."
The man raised his arms as he approached Lunaqua Titania, but instead of launching another attack, he grabbed the swooping sides of her uniform's collar and pulled her head down to look at her face-to-face.
"I can never return the lives that I took when it turned me into a murderer," The man said. "But I will do everything in my power to ensure that it can never do so again."
"...I understand why you're worried," Lunaqua Titania responded. "And to be honest, fighting someone who just wants to protect the universe doesn't feel right. On any other day, I'd probably be hesitating."
All light suddenly disappeared from around them, as if the sun had somehow vanished. The armored man felt himself being pushed away and fired a beam of light in the direction he had been shoved from, only for it to immediately disappear into the darkness.
"But today, I'm trying to be better."
"And endangering the universe is your idea of being "better"?" The man said.
"No." Lunaqua Titania's voice echoed through the darkness. "Protecting the people close to me is."
"You're naïve."
The armored man placed his arms out in front of himself and crossed his gauntlets once more, creating an explosion of light too intense for even Lunaqua Titania's field of darkness to absorb, causing it to fade away as the bulk of his armor fell away to reveal a much slimmer golden suit of armor lying underneath. Two large wings on the back of the armor activated and flared open, adding to the underlying armor's grander appearance.
Dethrogue Card
"I will not allow our reality to be threatened by one child's inability to let go."
He raised one of his index fingers towards her, firing a thin beam of light from its tip powerful enough to instantaneously boil away most of her body, knocking her out of the transformation and creating a cloud of black smoke as it burned the asphalt around her. She quickly covered her mouth and nose and stumbled away from the smoke before allowing herself to take a breath.
"Okay, that cinches it." The CrossTrix suddenly detached from Teresa's arm and hovered in front of her, displaying a flashing exclamation mark on the dial. "Teresa, you need to run."
"Wh-what?" Teresa's eyes widened. "CROSS, what are you-"
"That man just evaporated Lunaqua Titania in a single shot." CROSS interrupted her. "We don't have time to get into the calculations here, I am not exaggerating when I say you would need the power of the sun itself to pull something like that off."
"An astute observation." Dethrogue noted, beginning to walk towards them. "The Great Sun armor, as the name suggests, channels energy directly from the sun. You would be wise to heed his advice."
"N-no!" Teresa shook her head in disbelief. "CROSS, there has to be something else we can do!"
"Teresa, our most powerful weapons are the Titania transformations." CROSS said. "We got those from the leftover power of Nightmare OS. We defeated Nightmare OS by throwing him into the sun. This man is wielding the power of the sun. Is there a chance we could beat him? Maybe. Is it a good enough chance that I'm willing to risk you getting disintegrated for it? Absolutely not. You just came back from the brink of death, Teresa; there's no way in hell I'm putting you back there again."
Dethrogue paused ever so briefly, seemingly hesitating for a moment, but quickly shook it off and continued walking forward.
"...So that's how that feels." Teresa hung her head.
"What?" The CrossTrix dial displayed a question mark. "How what feels?"
"Having someone try to sacrifice themselves for you." She looked back up at him. "It really sucks."
"What are you talking about? You try to sacrifice yourself all the time!"
"Yeah, I-I know." Teresa shifted uncomfortably. "I'm sorry." She looked over her shoulder at Anne, who was watching her with a concerned expression. "To you, especially."
"I've been gracious enough to grant you some time to say your goodbyes, but you're stretching my patience." Dethrogue interjected, now standing just a few meters away. "I would prefer to finish this sooner rather than later."
"You heard him, CROSS." Teresa stuck her arm out towards the CrossTrix. "Let's finish this. Together."
"But I-" CROSS stopped to think for a moment. "Teresa...are you absolutely sure about this?"
Teresa nodded.
"...Alright." The CrossTrix began hovering back to her arm. "Together."
"Absolutely not!" Dethrogue snapped.
He fired a beam of light at them, only for it to be blocked by a body of pitch-black smoke that apparated in front of Teresa. The smoke congealed into Lucius Raivent, whose sclera had gone pitch-black, his irises burning with the glow of hellfire.
"You seem a bit different, Challice." He turned his head to look at her, revealing glowing cracks forming in the skin around his eyes. "When you reawakened, was it truly you that returned?"
"It's me." Teresa nodded affirmatively. "All of me."
Dethrogue attempted to strike them with another beam of light, but a ring of hellfire abruptly sprang up beneath their feet, creating a wall of black smoke that consumed his attacks with ease.
"Are you not frightened?" Lucius asked.
"I'm terrified." Teresa looked at her hands, which were shaking uncontrollably. "My heart is pounding in my ears, a-and I can't stop shaking."
"Yet you're willing to fight?"
"Yeah." Teresa took a deep breath and clenched her fists. "I'm...I'm always scared, but...I'm angry too. I'm angry someone is trying to kill my friend and is willing to hurt anyone who gets in his way. I'm angry that he's attacking here of all places. I'm angry that I can sympathize with him but can't get him to listen to reason. I'm angry that this fight is even happening at all."
"And you're allowing yourself to give in to that anger?" Lucius raised an eyebrow.
"N-not give in to it." Teresa shook her head with a determined expression. "Feel it."
Lucius silently looked her over for a moment, his eyes flashing brighter for a brief second as he peered into her soul.
"It is you..." He muttered. "What exactly happened to you in that comatose state?"
"W-well, there was, like, one of me, th-then two of me, a-and then I punched myself, a-and- a-actually, wait, before there were two of me, th-there was this insanity demon who looked like Isaac in a top hat, a-and he had this crystal ball staff thing that he used to-"
"If the events are difficult to summarize, we can discuss them another time." Lucius interrupted her. "This barrier is proving difficult to maintain, and in the event that simply glancing at me does not make this obvious," the cracks in his skin had spread out significantly, covering most of his face and currently encroaching on his neck, "using these powers takes a toll on my body, so if you have a plan, I'd recommend deploying it at your earliest convenience."
Teresa nodded and raised up the CrossTrix, transforming in a purple flash. Dethrogue stopped shooting for a moment and Lucius's barrier fell, revealing Thermosnap Titania standing next to him.
Thermosnap Titania Card
"While I can admire your dedication to protecting your allies, staying to fight was a very poor decision." Dethrogue glowered at her.
"That..." Thermosnap Titania threw her arms forward, deploying her retractable blades. "Remains to be seen."
"Hollow words from an empty mind." Dethrogue took aim at her again. "Die a fool's death."
Thermosnap Titania raised her left arm in front of herself right before he fired, blocking the CrossTrix symbol on her chest with the shielded part of her forearm. The same solar radiation that had destroyed Lunaqua's Titania form so easily now dissipated harmlessly against the surface of her armor. Dethrogue's eyes narrowed and he fired again, hitting her with a more powerful beam this time, but once again, nothing seemed to happen. Frustrated, he shot a small beam of light towards the ground, easily evaporating a portion of the tarmac, but when he raised the same beam towards Thermosnap, it didn't seem to have any effect.
"What is this?" Dethrogue scowled. "Don't tell me you just so happen to have a transformation immune to the power of the sun."
"Nope, but I do have a transformation that can raise and lower temperatures." Thermosnap Titania snapped her fingers as she explained. "Take the heat out of the sunlight and suddenly it's harmless."
That wasn't really true, of course; thermal radiation may be the most obvious source of danger from the sun, but non-thermal radiation can still damage tissue and cause cells to self-destruct. Thanks to Earth's magnetic field, this is rarely a life-threatening issue with standard exposure to sunlight, but being on the receiving end of radioactive particles channeled directly from the sun itself was...more problematic, to say the least. Underneath her body's metallic plating, Thermosnap Titania was actually in a significant amount of pain as chunks of her organic tissue died off, but given everything else that had happened to her over the summer, this wasn't nearly enough to make her break her bluff.
"I see." Dethrogue tsked. "That is...unfortunate."
He suddenly lunged towards her, winding up for a punch. She put her arm blades up to block the blow, but the heavy radiation exposure had turned the metal hard and brittle, causing them to shatter immediately upon impact.
"Now I have no choice but to beat you to death."
As he went in for another punch, Thermosnap Titania flash-froze the air between them, creating a barrier of ice that slowed Dethrogue down long enough for her to slide out of the way.
"Teresa, if he was able to shatter your blades, he can probably make good on that threat." CROSS pointed out. "Did you have a backup plan for this?"
"K-kind of, but I need more time to figure out the details." Thermosnap Titania stammered a bit as even her alien mind was starting to panic. "I need to-"
She was interrupted as Dethrogue suddenly shot towards her faster than the eye could see and punched her directly below the chest. This didn't knock the wind out of her, seeing as the biology of Thermosnap's species simply didn't allow for that, but it did have the unfortunate effect of carving a hole directly through her torso that his forearm became stuck in.
Acting more on instinct than anything, she grabbed onto Dethrogue's upper arm and flash-froze his armor to absolute zero, buying her a moment to slide off his arm and revert to human as every molecule in his armor stopped moving.
"Teresa, are you okay?!" Anne called out worriedly.
"I-I was able to detransform before I could really process h-how much that hurt." Teresa shuddered a bit.
"If you're going to continue this fight, you should move it to an unpopulated area." Lucius advised. "If you're truly serious about not holding back, being surrounded by vulnerable civilians is not going to help you overcome that mental block."
----
Teresa and Anne sat together on a bench in Liberty Park, holding hands as they watched the sun slowly set beyond the mountains.
"Teresa..." Anne looked at her. "Is everything alright? You said you wanted to talk, but you haven't said a word since we got here."
"I-I'm fine, I just... I have a hard time talking about stuff like this." Teresa took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. "The thing is, when I was unconscious, I-I saw a lot of memories that I... try not to think about too often. Things I ignored, things I repressed. Some of them were things that happened between us when we were in school, and after remembering them, I... I think I understand why you were so surprised I was willing to forgive you."
Anne froze.
"You mean... you..." She started shaking. "You didn't know everything that happened?"
"I-I knew it, I just... repressed it." Teresa said. "The things that were too hard for me to handle. Like... like what happened behind the school."
The hand Anne had intertwined with Teresa's went limp. Her mind raced with the implications of this. If Teresa hadn't been able to remember the worst things Anne had done when she had forgiven her... when they became friends... when they started dating... was their relationship even valid? Had she been taking advantage of her this whole time?
"I... I'm sorry." Anne put her head into her hands as a massive pit formed in her stomach. "I'm so sorry. I should've known better. Of course all of this was too good to be true."
"Wh-what?"
"You wouldn't have forgiven me if you had remembered everything I did, right?" Anne turned to look at her wearing an expression of utter despair. "Is our entire relationship just built on the fact that you didn't know better?"
Teresa hadn't quite been prepared for this response, so it took her a minute to think of what to say before she responded.
"...I don't know if I would have forgiven you at the time." She admitted. "But after everything we've been through together... I don't think it changes anything between us now."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean... I've changed. You've changed." Teresa pointed out. "You went from trying to hurt me to putting your life on the line to protect me. I'm not bringing up what I remembered because I think it ruins our relationship, I'm bringing it up because I want to deal with those feelings directly. I want to heal from what happened so I can pour my entire heart into loving you."
"Are... are you sure?" Anne's face began changing from despair to a mix of relief, surprise, and confusion.
Teresa suddenly grabbed Anne and pulled her close, burying her head in her chest to try and hide the intense blush spreading across her face as she did so.
"I-I've never been sure of anything in my entire life," She tried speaking in the most confident tone she could muster (which didn't work particularly well because of how flustered she was from being forward like this, but it was a valiant effort). "But for once, I'm sure about this!"
"T-Teresa?!" Anne exclaimed, starting to blush equally heavily.
"All that stuff I told you when I was NeOhm didn't just come out of nowhere!" Teresa continued. "It's what I really feel! It's what I'd tell you all the time if I wasn't so scared of just... being myself! I-I want to be better than that! I want to be brave! And when- when I'm with you, I feel like I can be brave!"
Any verbal response Anne could have given to this was cut off by her choking up, so she settled for wordlessly returning Teresa's embrace. The two sat together in peaceful silence, simply holding each other close as the last rays of sunlight disappeared and street lamps buzzed to life to illuminate the city in their stead.
After some time of simply enjoying each other's company, the two of them perked up as they heard someone approaching. They turned towards the source of the noise, finding a plain-looking man in a plain-looking business suit with a rather plain expression on his face walking towards them at at a rather plain pace.
"Dad?" Anne blinked in surprise.
"Dad?" CROSS beeped.
"Oh, right, I guess I've never introduced you. Teresa, this is my dad, Steve. Well, stepdad, technically, but he's the only person I knew was married to my mom growing up, so...y'know." Anne turned her attention to Steve, who had stopped a few feet away from the bench. "What are you doing here?"
"Maria asked me to look for you." Steve replied in a rather plain voice. "You usually say you went to Liberty Park when she asks you about your day, so I thought you might be here."
"If mom wanted to know where I was so bad, she could've looked for me herself." Anne's expression turned a bit sour.
"She said you might not want to see her right now, so she sent me." Steve shrugged. "Don't know what's going on between you two, so don't shoot the messenger."
"Well, she's right about that, but..." Anne sighed. "I think I need to see her."
"A-are you sure?" Teresa asked. "Yesterday, you mentioned..."
"Yeah. I'm sure." Anne took a deep breath. "Don't know how it's going to turn out, but it has to happen eventually, and I'd rather it be on my own terms."
"...Okay." Teresa nodded. "Did you want a ride home on the Cross Bullet, or...?"
"Thanks for offering, but I'll head back with Steve." Anne gave her a small, reassuring grin. "All things considered, I think you've had to deal with enough of my family drama already."
"She has a point." CROSS noted. "Besides, Dana and Emilia got into a pretty heated argument while you were asleep, so there's a good chance you're gonna have your own drama to deal with when you get home."
"Is your friend's watch talking to her?" Steve asked Anne.
"It's not really a watch, it's...well, it's complicated." Anne shook her head. "And Teresa isn't just my friend. She's...well, she's my girlfriend."
It still made Teresa's heart skip a beat whenever she heard Anne say that.
"Oh." Steve didn't seem to have much of a reaction to this news. "Did I miss that conversation?"
"No, I haven't told mom yet." Anne said. "I was worried about how she'd react, but...at this point, there are bigger fish to fry."