Now, Pico was still trying to process the fact that he was even alive as the events of what he really hoped was last night started to come back to him. He didn't want to deal with two kids right now, and he already was trying to unpack the fact that something happened to his voice. He began to sit up-
...And was stopped by his clothes, as his weight was holding them down and- wait, his clothes??
Pico froze. His clothes were too big. His voice was higher, as if he never started his smoking habit. As if he never grew older since that time. He carefully maneuvered his arm so he could look at his hand, as if it would explain why these things were true. In a way, it did.
His hand was the hand of a child.
In that moment, Pico’s mind exploded. Thoughts overflowed in his mind and most of them weren't coherent. A harsh multitude of voices invaded his ears, screaming nonsense as the world blurred around him. Everything was a blur, it was all so much, too much, it's way too much, make it stop-
Flower, gleam and glow
Let your power shine
Make the clock reverse
Bring back what once was mine
Heal what has been hurt
Change the Fates' design
Save what has been lost
Bring back what once was mine...
What once was mine
— Tangled
Peggy Brandt: BAH! What happened?! You're just a kid!
The Mask: Oh yeah? And you're ugly!
The Mask: Oh yeah? And you're ugly!
— The Mask, Little Big Mask
"Don't worry. I will not leave you in so sorry a predicament. You will be of more use to me in a much younger form. From one extreme to another..."
"Is this state more to your liking? You know, Runner, you appear to have been a pleasant enough child. A pity you grew into such a rotter. Maybe you'll turn out better this second time around."
—Thanos, The Thanos Quest:
"You are a very naughty girl, Amara. And since you insist on behaving like a child... then a child is what you shall become. You will remain regressed at this age - well before your mutant powers manifested themselves - until you learn your lesson and do as you're told."
—Template, The New Mutants Annual Vol 1 #2
The Handler: Feels like we met just yesterday. 'Course, you were a little bit older then. Congratulations on the age regression, by the way. Very clever. Threw us all off the scent.
Number Five: Ah, well, I wish I could take credit. I just miscalculated the time dilation projections, and... well, you know. Here I am.
—The Umbrella Academy (2019), "Number Five"
Tony Stark: Why the long face? Let me guess, they turned him into a baby.
Steve Rogers: Among other things.
Steve Rogers: Among other things.
April spared a split second for a survey of the bridge. No longer did it resemble the hub of one of the Federation's most storied, most efficient ships. Instead, it had taken on the appearance of an undisciplined interspecies nursery. Children, and in some cases, infants now babbled and struggled within the confines of baggy clothing grown monstrously large for their tiny forms: naturally, the inorganic materials had not shrunk along with the crew members. If anything, April noted with alarm, the rate of reverse was accelerated. Surely the first officer now fumbling confusedly at the navigation console was no older than seven. He was past following even simple commands.
He was retrogressing down the corridors of time, being drained of knowledge and experience as he swept back towards his childhood. But nothing was being lost; all he had ever been at every moment of his life was being transferred to safer keeping. Even as one David Bowman ceased to exist, another became immortal. Faster, faster he moved back into forgotten years, and into a simpler world. Faces he had once loved, and had thought lost beyond recall, smiled at him sweetly. He smiled back with fondness, and without pain.
Now at last, the headlong regression was slackening; the wells of memory were nearly dry. Time flowed more and more sluggishly, approaching a moment of stasis - as a swinging pendulum, at the start of its arc, seems frozen for one eternal instant, before the next cycle begins. The timeless instant passed; the pendulum reversed its swing.
In an empty room floating amidst the fires of a double star twenty thousand light years from Earth, a baby opened its eyes and began to cry.
"You know what they say: you’re only young... twice!"
—Veronica, Dragon Quest XI
