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When they were gathered together again—inside Ochobot and not a restored Floating Island, the Power Spheras' old home with Klamkabot as they may have dreamed of if robots could dream—they were, at best, strangers. And at worst, enemies.
Under Retak'ka, they had been forced to watch, utterly helpless, as their powers were used to destroy the galaxy they had been created and sworn to protect. And Gamma, who had been used to plunder them from their original wielders, had taken the brunt of their resentment.
It faded eventually. They knew he couldn't be blamed; it wasn't as though he could defy his master. Besides, nobody had the energy to hope for anything beyond that their newest container—the ninth generation power sphere of suction—remained unbound. They could only dread what would happen if it were captured, and, consequently, what would happen if they were forced into new hands.
For the most part, they were content to ignore each other in the oblivion of forever, licking at their own wounds in isolation. In that endless void, they had split off into their own spaces where they could even forget a world outside existed, suspended in dreamless sleep should they choose it.
The truth was simple: Power Spheras were merely tools, slaves to their programming. They in particular, have never been people. No, they were forces of nature, concepts, artificial but no less real constructions of elemental power. They have lived for a very long time, have had many past wielders. Each and every one of them had left impressions on them, had taught and shaped them—irregardless of whether they had meant to. But when their wielders died, without exception, centuries could pass and memories would fade, habits disappeared, and all that remained was purpose. Survival, power, duty. Everything else washed away eventually.
Petir was the first to wake. He woke to a child, and he learnt, in the same breath, what unadulterated joy felt like. When he came to in said child's dreamscape—his new home, he realised immediately—he had nearly doubled over in shock, clutching at his chest, wondering what that was, if he was dying, if power spheras could die like this.
He remembered the pain of past wielders, the overarching dread as he laid in wait for the next, but in the face of a boy whose biggest problem was homework...
The next time he saw Kristal and Beliung, now similarly downgraded into Tanah and Angin, now wearing the face and heart of a human boy who felt too much, who cared about everything and everyone and loved desperately and endlessly without shame, who felt simple joy in every meal and holidays and sunsets and change found in pockets, who bled love like sunlight slipping through fingers and spilling into them, who carried humanity so carelessly that they learned it by accident, he could only laugh.
They introduced themselves like it was the first time, and called themselves brothers. They did not know the meaning of the word, before him.
"I like cleaning," Tanah told them one day, apropos of nothing. They were laying together in the picture of a field outside their Master’s home they tried to replicate the best they could in the mindscape, but the colours were always a little too bright and there was never enough grass.
They have never cleaned before. Or cooked. Or ate. Nobody had ever given them free rein the way Boboiboy did, they had always been tools to wield first and foremost, never given agency of their own—no one had ever even thought to—put aside the moment they stopped being needed. They never had the chance, the choice, to do anything but be the mindless swords and shields of kings and queens and warriors who knew no better.
"Terbaik!" Angin cheered, still a little confused by their wielder's language but trying his best anyway. "I like running!"
"You can fly."
"I can like both." Angin sniffed, he crossed his arms and turned his head away. A pause. Then, somberly, whispered almost, "I've never had a body before. It burns when I get tired...it makes me feel alive." He looked them in the eye then, in turn, "You get it, right? You feel the same way?"
Petir looked away.
"We aren't alive," he reminded. "Don't get your hopes up." It's how you get hurt.
Angin continued anyway, stubborn. "When I am him, I can almost forget what I am."
When Tanah quietly added on, "Me too.", Petir could only give up, because he understood them, because he felt the same way, and it was deeply unsettling.
Body takeover was not something any of their previous owners had ever allowed, none had ever been willing to give up control of themselves so easily, for good reason, but Boboiboy was young. Too young and far too kind.
Boboiboy saw them as more than weapons, and so more than that they became; it was simply their nature to bend to their master’s will.
And what they became, they absolutely adored.
Human emotions—especially those as vibrant as Boboiboy’s were, that they drew from—were a double-edged sword, a blessing and curse both, and they cherished every bit of it. This (his) life, they knew, was fleeting. Their time together was limited and only growing lesser and lesser. And so they were very, very greedy for all that their dearest master was willing to share with them, the good and bad: happiness and sadness, pride and jealousy, excitement and anger, love and hurt; they wanted all of life, all this life, all his life.
And, selfishly, they all wanted more of each other though they would never admit it so bluntly aloud; they never knew they could want more beyond service, beyond their owner, or that they could even desire to begin with. Servitude fit them like second skin, but devotion beyond that? Brotherhood? Family? They knew nothing of those things, and how exciting was that? Terrifying, certainly, but how blessed were they to be given the chance for more? To have gained enough to fear loss?
And Petir understood, fearfully—he knew fear now—that he did not think he could forget this one wielder, should he be lost.
"I'm glad we met like this. I'm glad we got him."
And Tanah leaned into his shoulder, and Angin leaned on Tanah's, and they stayed like that a bit more. Their master was asleep in bed, safe. They need not be summoned. That night was their own.
Their little family only kept expanding from there on. Api and Air came within days of each other, then Daun, then...
Solar looked afraid, was the first thing they all noticed. And guilty. They knew what it looked like, sitting on Boboiboy's face.
Maybe back then they wouldn't have, maybe back then when they had little clue about emotions and irrationality and nuance, they would have assumed the worst, but they knew now, and so-
"Hey," Tanah approached, voice soft—they were all hurt after Vargoba, but Solar especially, who had just been reborn and forced into the extreme immediately after—and that broke the ice.
There was nothing to say, this was a new life with a new wielder and a new world and a new family, what use was dwelling?
When Petir stepped forward, Solar flinched. He calmly held a hand out, a hand Solar took, eventually, under everyone's eager gazes. Solar was held as he dissolved into Cahaya, as the day's exhaustion finally set in. It was a novel experience.
"Hi." Tanah smiled. "You're going to like it here."
And Cahaya did.
"He's hurting," Solar says quietly, “can’t we do something?"
"He can't hear us." Gempa looks away. "He doesn't even know we exist."
Their master is curled up on the floor, back plastered to the wall, tear tracks still wet on his cheeks as he sleeps shallowly. A bad night. Bad thoughts. He's been having more of those lately.
Not for the first time, they wish they can touch him, just to hug him the way his friends do; he always seems happier after. But the way his watch works, that summoning requires possession, that he can never exist at the same time they do, makes it impossible.
They stay anyway, even if they can't do anything.
Blaze finds his way next to Boboiboy, sitting crosslegged beside him. Their shoulders would be touching, if Blaze weren't a spirit without a body. "He's cold," he claims defensively before anyone even got the chance to ask.
"He can't feel you, dumbass," Ais harrumphs, even as he makes his way to Boboiboy's other side, hugging his whale plush.
Eventually, they all do, surrounding Boboiboy as he sleeps, Blaze and Ais sandwiching him between them while the others fight and bargain for space by his socked feet, because that's all they are able to do. They can't bring him to bed, or drag a blanket over him, or wipe away his tears, or even close the window, but they can at least keep the world a little at bay. Taufan directs the cold winds away, and they try to will warmth into the physical world despite the futility of it all. It is the best they can do: try. They'll never let him be alone, even if he never knows it. He'd been the one who taught them that, every time he stayed to comfort his friends after a nightmare, every time he sat with a stranger having lunch alone, every time he made sure people were alright before himself.
"Goodnight, Master. Sweet dreams." Duri whispers, hugging a disgruntled Solar. The others quickly follow suit, resulting in a rather comical scene, a broken cacophony of awkward well-wishes for the unhearing.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers BY EMILY DICKINSON
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.