View source for The Greatest Gift for Staren (Staren)

{{Cutscene Header
|Date of Scene=2012/12/25
|Location=Staren's Home
|Synopsis=Staren reflects on his past and a Christmas gift greater than any he could have asked for.
|Thanks=Psyber, Himei, Kimiko
|Cast of Characters=42
|Tinyplot=
}}
The first moments of Staren's Christmas weren't spent at home. He had traveled to Aincrad, and helped fight a mockery of Santa Claus in the form of a boss -- helped, even, by the real Santa Claus. The heroes won, and an item was obtained that might save one of the thousands of lives at risk in Aincrad one day.

Arriving home, Staren doesn't go through the hangar, but the front door -- removing his armor and letting drones take the pieces back to the lab as he stands there in the darkness, illuminated only by the little colored lights of the Christmas tree, and the distant leylinelight shining through the windows. His parents are in bed -- the only sounds are the ticking of clocks, and water running through the heating pipes, and that one Christmas ornament with the tiny train going around in a circle inside.

Of course, there is plenty more sound inside his head. People on the radio discussing Christmas and presents. Santa's making his rounds and people are finding wonderful surprises. Staren reflects on this as he walks down the hall and into his room, and lays in bed. He had thought, before, of writing to Santa... but what would he ask for? Santa can't end the war, nor change people to understand Staren better. Nor _should_ he. The things he could ask for... aren't the wishes of sorts that Santa grants, right? Besides... he got some wonderful things this year. Another best friend. Someone who likes him enough, likes spending time with him enough, that they would even consider themselves his girlfriend -- He'd have thought that impossible, or at least certainly not going to happen any time soon. Immortality. He'd been given a way to cheat death and ensure that, in some form, he could survive for as long as the Multiverse was mostly intact. But those things, he could at least have imagined asking for, imagined writing -- 'Dear Santa, for Christmas this year I'd like a girlfriend and to live forever' -- even if only as a joke, with no expectation that they would actually be granted.

But then there was the thing he could never have even imagined asking. Not even Santa could change the Multiverse, after all.

For almost as long as he could remember being in the Union, Staren had never seen eye to eye with them. There was the issue of death, yes. If lives could be saved with acceptable consequences, why give up just because someone had died? What made that one final, ultimate ailment an exception to those acceptable for curing? They never understood.

Again and again. Some comment he made, some out loud thought, got him yelled at, accused of planning terrible things. People convinced that if he had his way, he'd study an unstoppable parasite or deadly computer code and unleash an apocalypse across the multiverse. Wanting to help a friend who had made enemies while trying to help and do good. Yes, even wanting to revive the dead. But even making plans for _himself_ and not bothering anyone else was a subject of great controversy. And merely trying to understand the strange concept of souls -- an understanding that should have seemed important, even to them, with how fired up its mere mention made them... Again and again, he was derided as a dangerous madman.

He had always remembered, with crystal clarity, the nightmare he'd had when his commander was thought dead. That he had gone to his one true friend, Morg, and together they defied orders and made plans to save a good man. They'd done nothing immoral -- only made plans to _talk_ to a spirit, ask if Julian wanted life and flesh again, fully informing him of the risks of the methods available to them. But of course, people wouldn't _listen_ -- the people of the Union, eager to have something to be indignant about, had twisted that, become convinced the two would drag the pilot's soul against his will and force him into an undead corpse with a demon for company. The Union declared them criminals, and threw them into the crushing gravitational field of Jupiter from which there was no escape. And then, to add insult to slander and injury, after condemning them for trying to talk to the dead, the Union was elated when they thought the very same spirit was trying to talk to _them_...

It had been only a dream, but the events rung true. From that day forward Staren could never see his allies the same way, for he could see how one big misunderstanding, one step out of line, was all it would take for his so-called allies to turn on him, to hunt him down like a monster. And he would never see it coming until it was too late. Whenever he forgot just where he stood with the Union, all it took was some random comment to set them off and they were all too keen to remind him how crazy and dangerous he was. Later he would even see how they condemned a soul that only wanted to help people, who had made the ultimate sacrifice to save a friend, but had made some mistakes in their own quest to do good. And for those mistakes, the Union would not save them, even from becoming a monster that massacred countless innocent people before it could be put down.

Despite the inevitable doom hanging over his head, Staren had stayed with the Union in hopes that it would give him the opportunity to do good, and maybe even show them that he wasn't really so bad.

That was the world Staren lived in, day after day, month after month, year after year. To wish for it to be otherwise... even Staren wouldn't think of demanding or forcing that. Death was one thing, a cruelty of uncaring reality. But people... changing them by force was something only monsters did, and whatever they thought of him, Staren refused to be a monster.

In time, though, it wore on him. He distanced himself from the Union more and more, talked to them less, seeking a place he might be accepted. Perhaps it would be better to plan for retirement -- find a corner of the Multiverse to settle down in and defend it, and hope that he could live out eternity escaping notice, without ever inviting the hammer of misguided righteousness to come down on his head. Although events began to drag him away, again and again, to fight evil rearing its ugly head. He could not simply retire -- there were things more important than his own safety.

But then, mere days ago, things had changed. Sort of. Psyber, Himei, and Kimiko came forth and talked to him, said they didn't see him that way. That the Union didn't see him that way.

If they spoke the truth, then of course, it was only his perceptions that _actually_ changed. But to him it was as if the world had changed, as if the entire multiverse had changed -- from one where true allies numbered less than the fingers on his hand, while the rest watched him for the chance to call him monster and hunt him down, to one where... where...

...Well, where it _wasn't_ like that. Where people _could_ see the good he sought to do, and that he was just like the rest of them at heart even if he sometimes had funny ideas. Sure, there were a few particularly loud people who saw him exactly as he feared -- but who can accomplish much without making a few enemies?

He almost doubted it was real, didn't trust it, but the evidence of the conversation was in his radio logs.

It would take time to adjust. To let go of fears held for years and see the world as it really was, but...

His entire world had changed. A wish so impossible that the boy who aspired to challenge even the laws of reality itself to help others, could never even conceive of asking for it.

It was a far better Christmas present than Santa could ever give.

As the catboy drifts off to sleep, he wonders what the next year, in a new world, will bring.