A/N: On February 1st, at 4:34 PM, the world lost an incredible animator, an incredible thinker, an incredible inventor, and incredible creator. Monty Oum has passed away, and I pray for his soul in the afterlife.
My sadness can only be described inside, words unable to express their sorrow.
Yet my tears refuse to fall...
The sky was blue. The ground was flat. The grass sighed gently in the wind. The trees swayed quietly.
And on those fields of endless grass, a man known as Lie Ren awoke.
An oriental green overcoat with several designs of intertwining black and pink matched up with a pair of white pants and black shoes, his fuschia pink eyes glancing around in surprise at the emptiness of the surrounding areas.
As the wind whistled once more, his black hair with strands of pink waved, as he stood up from the ground and looked around, his eyes comprehending the area.
The scene cracked, almost like the static in a TV, as the faint outline of an asian man, with messy black hair and a black overcoat blurred into the shape of the man.
"Monty! How have you been?"
Ren's head began to turn, his mind itself hurting as he tried to register what was happening.
"I can't... I can't stay with them." Ren muttered, his words soft and murmured to himself, inflections of a different tone bleeding through.
Voices continued to play out in his head, memories of another world, another life playing out, of fantastical creations and so many other people.
A pair of mechanical wings...
A charred and broken desk...
A laptop with keys broken off...
Miles, Luna, Kerry, so many people flitted through his head, as Ren struggled to figure out who he was.
A picture of a woman, his wife Sheena popped up in his minds eye, as the ma blurred back for a moment, "Sheena..."
But the image of his best friend interrupted the scene, as the shape blurred back into Ren and solidified.
"No. My time in that world is up." Ren said, his voice set in steel as his mind banished their previous thoughts. His body fully materialized as Lie Ren even as the traces of his former self lingered in his mind, forever remaining there in the back of his mind. No longer dominant, nbut forever remaining were the memories.
A voice in his mind whispered something, and he repeated the phrase aloud.
"Keep moving forward."
And so it was, that the life of Monty Oum ended, as he entered the world of Remnant, his new life beginning...
"Ren! Ren, wake up already!"
A rambunctious teenager with ginger hair and baby blue eyes known as Nora Valkyrie glanced down at her childhood friend, as Ren muttered something.
Leaning closer, Nora asked, "Did you say something?"
Ren whispered quietly, "I was just dreaming, about another place. Someplace far away... But I don't know what it was. It was important though."
With a smile but a calculating look in her eyes, Nora exclaimed, "Well get up already sleepyhead! They're serving breakfast in the Beacon Cafeteria already, and I don't want to miss the pancakes!"
As Nora ran out the room with a skip in her step and a hum on her lips, Ren slowly got up, and with a stretch said a few words.
"Keep moving forward. That's what I told myself back then, and it's what I tell myself now. Though my memories of that place before remain, I have to keep living. I have to keep moving forward with life. For their sake. For my sake."
And with a smile, Lie Ren, formerly known as Monty Oum, walked out of Team JNPR's room, to meet the rest of his team, and continue on in the world of Remnant...