"What I'd do...?" Pop asked. "Well... Cola and I share the same spirit. We are two halves of a whole. Neither of us will be at our strongest unless the two parts become one again." He tilted his head, trying to look at them, but couldn't quite make it. Instead, he went on, speaking slowly and taking breaths now and then to regain his strength.
"If I, that is, Pop, died, my half of the spirit would have gone to him instantly. It is how I would preserve myself. But I had to keep most of my power with me in an effort to fend off Joule... long enough for him to be defeated. So, I had to make a compromise. I made a shell with only the basics and a fragment of my power to go to him... And, when I died, I would return, like a dream, to Cola... perhaps one that he would take very seriously. Or perhaps, one that he would ignore. The memories would be like his own, as we are one and the same, yet..." He shrugged. "Well. Sometimes, perhaps even subconsciously, I have a desire to begin anew. Perhaps Cola is that manifestation..."
"What do you mean?" Cal asked.
"You're here because Cola wanted you to ask, are you not?" Pop replied. "I can't see any other reason you'd ask such a specific question..."
"It's quite strange," S'more commented. "Is there not a way for you to coexist?"
"We are simply the same person," Pop said. "There's no way around that. Whether I fall or Cola falls, the memories will become one again. But the order and manner that it happens could determine how I am in the future."
"So like, if you die, you might, uh..." Cal tapped her claws together. "Your side of your memories might be weaker. But if Cola dies, it's barely anything, because he's only been around for a few weeks. So you really would just make him fade..."
Cola, during all this, was very quiet.
