Out on Patrol
A different version of Ren/Jared would’ve answered with more flavor like “As I’ll ever be” or “Let’s rock and roll” besides the simple “Yes” they actually gave.
“Alright. Let’s roll.” Maria twirled for the door, leaving Ren feeling like they could’ve said more.
Maybe this realm’s having an effect on me. No fun being a stick in the mud. The pair headed out to Maria’s car to begin patrol. Ren would burn the time reading a book like they usually did. This week’s subject was the Digimon bubble, a speculation burst that hit the stock market after the creatures began to spawn. Ren/Jared had never been into finance, but it was a bit of recent history worth learning about seeing how it was totally foreign to them and the realm they had come from. Maria had seen them reading it and asked if they planned on investing in a Digimon related stock. Ren said no, to which Maria gave a firm “Good.”
Ren was back in deep with the book less than a minute into the patrol. The first trip around the city had been spent with their snout to the window, watching with wonder as all the magically designed digital monsters floated and flitted past the window. Now they were old news, nothing more spectacular than Ren themself. There was more excitement in how a bunch of venture capitalists managed to spark a mini-recession by pouring too much money into cute creatures and artificially inflating their worth.
Ren slipped through the book page by page. A text heavy, technical narrative like this would’ve had any other version of Jared pausing every so often to reread what a paragraph had said or looking up a word on his phone, but here they could breeze through with full understanding of what everything said and meant. Their mind was sharp in this realm. Absorbing information was automatic, performed and edited with seamless continuity. Is this what being a genius is like? Or is this body just super locked in? They could ponder such questions while reading the book, each lobe perfectly independent and yet also synchronized. I gotta figure out what else this body can do, they thought as they flipped another page. I have forever to find-
“SHIT!”
Maria’s scream jerked Ren’s head up from their book. The road was in front of them, across a shelf of dashboard which jerked into a blur the instant the car was hit. A deafening crunch from the car’s left blew a tidal wave of G-forces that whipped Ren in their seat and tore the book from their hands. In a cyclone of shattered glass and spilling items they were tossed up and down, side to side, the world gone twirling with the city around them, the asphalt wrapping its way around the cabin and smashing every window. The car finished its roll on its left side, Maria with her shoulder on the asphalt and the hundreds of glass bits that were peppered about it. Ren was sagged down towards her in their seat, held there only by the seatbelt, bent at the torso with their ears and tail sagging in that direction. Their ears rang and a great pressure tugged at the neck from whiplash. Beyond the hissing engine Ren could hear panicked screaming and the rush of passing cars.
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 02 January 2026
