A/N- Listen, I can explain why this one took so long.

...

Ragnarok came out, okay, I needed to take a bit to play it.


Recursion Error

Episode 96- The sand is made of pain


In the world's endless campaign of kicking Sorun around for no discernable reason it forced yet another torture upon him: wet socks.

It was a familiar unpleasantness, one no person, regardless of how cruel and depraved, should ever endure, and so Sorun decided he wouldn't be one to endure this particular torture. Not today. So to that end his socks and boots had been laid out on a nearby rock on the beach to dry in the sun. Along with his coat, shirt, and vest. All that remained on his person were his wet pants and underwear, which, while not as incomprehensibly uncomfortable as wearing wet socks, didn't feel all that good anyways. But the problem was Shadow was there with him and Sorun's pride wouldn't allow him to strip down to his underwear in front of him. So the pants stayed on. He'd endure the torment.

Shadow, the utter psychopath that he was, chose to keep his shoes and socks on. Sorun couldn't comprehend how as he watched the hedgehog set up a fire pit on the beach, though at the moment it was just a half-finished ring of rocks with a few sticks thrown in the middle. And as Shadow tossed in another handful of sticks Sorun couldn't help but comment on the fact that he was wearing wet socks.

"I know those shoes are still wet, Shadow, I'm telling you just put them on a rock or something. It ain't worth it," Sorun told him, standing nearby with his arms crossed.

The sticks were tossed into the growing fire pit. Shadow glanced over at Sorun, saying, "I'm not stripping naked in front of you. I'll put up with it."

"Naked, right, sure, yeah," Sorun drawled out, acutely aware of the fact that Shadow only had on the shoes and gloves and not a single other article of clothing, not unlike most Mobians. The Mobian Standard. After all this time he still didn't understand the logic behind it, even if the fur proved sufficient in covering things up. At that point claiming a pair of shoes and gloves was the line between decency and nakedness when literally nothing else was covered just seemed pedantic to him.

But it was whatever. If Shadow wanted to suffer under wet socks that was his business.

"You don't have a right to sound so disapproving when you're still wearing those damp pants," Shadow said back to him, fully turning to face Sorun.

"And you know why I refuse to take the pants off," Sorun argued. "Unlike everyone else back home."

Shadow faltered. "... What?"

"Yeah, I'm entirely convinced the average Mobian doesn't actually know what a human looks like naked," Sorun explained. "I mean I kind of get it but at the same time that's just a really awkward thing to explain, so... you know, I just don't. And I'll take looking annoyingly mysterious over having to deal with the alternative."

"... It's a fair point," Shadow decided, turning back to the fire pit. Scoffing and rolling his eyes in response, Sorun stepped closer so that he was standing right besides him.

"So is there an actual plan for how we're getting out of this mess?" Because he definitely didn't have one. Nor could Sorun even begin to formulate one, because his experiences with being stuck on deserted islands and different universes was fairly dismal to begin with. And he didn't have any magic rocks to bail him out this time around.

Shadow made a small hum, staring at the half-finished fire put, before responding. "We're going to wait until tomorrow to see if Metal Sonic turns up, or if possibly inhabitants of this world come here to investigate any disturbance we may have caused. In the event neither possibility happens..." He closed his eyes and paused for a few moments to think. "I'm fast enough to skate over the water's surface. If nothing happens by tomorrow I'll choose a direction and keep going forwards until I hit land. Assuming this world is actually populated I'll find a way to procure transport to come and rescue you off this island. We'll acquire temporary lodgings afterwards and proceed from there."

"And if there aren't people in this world?" Sorun asked.

"Then we'll rethink from there. Regardless, once we're off this island we'll need to pursue Metal Sonic, since that engine of its is our most direct route back to Mobius. It didn't use it to escape, which has me assuming I either damaged the machine sufficiently enough for it to malfunction or there was a limited amount of charge. In the event," he continued, making a short sigh, "that it gets the engine working and strands us by leaving this world, we'll have to hope this world has its own form of Chaos Emeralds. If I can get my hands on one then I can just simply teleport us back to Mobius."

A bit of surprise bloomed on Sorun's face. "You can just do that?"

"Of course I can do that," Shadow scoffed out. The tone he used made it sound like he was almost insulted Sorun thought any different.

"Oh. Huh. Here I thought I was special in that regard..."

Shadow's eyes snapped open. "Excuse me?" he said, giving Sorun a sharp glare. "You, too, are capable of this? The sword, I presume?"

"Yeah it's a bit wonky and finicky but-"

"You had the sword the entire time?"

Sorun shook his head. "No, uh... some stuff happened and I got the ability to use Chaos Emeralds without absorbing them. Doesn't hurt me that way," he explained. "It's how I kept myself afloat, actually. Got a delivery job."

"You used it to deliver packages..." A disgruntled sigh left Shadow, followed by him raising a hand to pinch at the space above his nose. He didn't sound so much as disappointed as he sounded annoyed. "I suppose you were that energy signature jumping all over the world that had those analysts in G.U.N. being driven mad. Or more specifically the Emerald."

"..." Sorun's eyebrows knit together. "They're tracking me?"

"Tracking the Emeralds," Shadow corrected, "ever since they scattered after the... Enerjak debacle. We have three currently, but the equipment is limited in some aspects. They actually were not too sure what you were since the energy signature of that sword is... radically different from a Chaos Emerald, I was told, and they couldn't figure out why it kept switching between the unique signature of the sword and the Emerald. The only thing stopping them from sending me to investigate was that it kept relocating itself to New Mobotropolis."

"Yeah, I sleep there." The way Sorun's brows were furrowed and the slightly suspicious look he was growing didn't waver as he gave Shadow a serious look. "Should I be concerned that G.U.N. is stockpiling Chaos Emeralds?"

"No, of course not." Shadow actually seemed surprised at the question. That was a new one - Sorun wasn't even aware he could make such a face. "Sorun, they're endeavored to the defense of the world. I'd much rather the Chaos Emeralds be located in a vault than in Dr. Eggman's possession to do with as he pleases."

"I don't disagree with that sentiment..." Sorun carefully stated, "it's just... Overlanders being Overlanders, you know there was the whole race war thing I just can't help but think-"

"That was a different time, back when there wasn't a unilateral threat the entire world needs to be united against. It's different now," Shadow said. "There's nothing as egregious as anti-Mobian sentiments within G.U.N. They would never have hired Rouge and I as agents otherwise."

"Okay, sure, but I can't help but notice that my Mobian employer has a real hard time garnering any business over in Overlander territory. She complains about it all the time," Sorun informed him.

Shadow scowled. "As someone who would know infinitely more than you by virtue of actually living in the environment in question, I am telling you, Sorun. G.U.N.'s interests lie with the wellbeing of the whole world, for Overlanders and Mobians. Where is all this coming from?"

"I'm from Earth, that's where it's coming from." A life of living on Earth and getting a general outline of human history taught enough to Sorun that absolutely no government would ever, ever put others' interests before their own. True for any nation that had ever existed on Earth. He didn't see it being any different here, especially from the mutant humans that started a race war with the Mobians before a mad scientist brought the whole world to heel. Even the idealistic part of him was staying silent in the face of that, and that voice always tried to have a say.

The scowl that had been on Shadow's face lessened somewhat, but only just. "I'm not going to pretend to know what the governments of your world got up to, Sorun, but whatever you're insinuating is nothing but paranoia with no foundation whatsoever. Every Emerald in our possession is potentially one less in the hands of that madman."

"... So you monitor Northamer too, huh?"

Shadow blinked. "What?"

"It's not just Overlander territory G.U.N.'s using its equipment to monitor for Chaos Emeralds? It's Northamer, too?" Sorun repeated. "You just said you were tracking me living there."

"It's a satellite network with global coverage, Sorun. They monitor any places of interest and it just so happens that one of the world's largest collective governments live there along with a number of persons of interest. Namely Eggman, who you know is based in Northamer," Shadow replied. "They have the same procedures for the continent Station Square rests on, for the lands bridging the western and eastern continents together, for every notable population center. There's even been collaboration between G.U.N. and the Republic of Acorn in the efforts of thwarting Eggman; G.U.N. has been very open with their capabilities in that regard."

Information he would probably know if he were actually still a Freedom Fighter. That did serve to lessen Sorun's paranoia over the matter a great deal. Not completely, but it did get him to ease his stature. "Answer me one question, then. If the Republic ever obtained an Emerald would G.U.N. ask them to surrender it?"

He didn't miss that Shadow was looking at Sorun like he'd just said something moronic. "No. Of course not. For the same reason they didn't ask for it in the past when the Republic possessed the gray Emerald before the Special Zone was destroyed and all the Chaos Emeralds scattered. For the same reason they didn't ask for it when you were there with it. It's an overtly hostile action that would dissolve peace between the two nations, and G.U.N. knows better than to assume it can claim ownership on all Chaos Emeralds. If anything it would be advantageous for multiple nations to possess the Emeralds if only to ensure they're not all grouped together. Even in that event G.U.N. keeps each Emerald sequestered at separate sites."

"... Yeah, alright." It was a hefty amount of solid points. Enough, in fact, that it made Sorun turn away from Shadow while rubbing at the back of his neck, almost sheepishly. "When you lay it all out like that, then... I'll take your word for it." Something that, even after all that, Sorun felt iffy on, but at the end of the day Shadow seemed to trust the Overlander government, and he was the straightest shooter Sorun knew in this whole world. And it did sound like things were relatively well since the governments were cooperating. He'd take a chance and believe Shadow words that G.U.N. was looking after the whole world.

All the same Sorun chose not to tell Shadow about that eighth Chaos Emerald he brought back from the future.

"Welp, this has been enlightening, Shadow, but I need to go get us some food," Sorun suddenly said, reaching up to interlock his fingers behind his head. "So I'ma go do that. Fortunately," he continued, glancing around, "it doesn't seem like there's any coconut trees on this island. Just normal trees."

"I hardly see how having less food sources is ideal."

"You're not missing much, trust me," Sorun said. "Worse comes to worse, though, we could probably just fish for... hey, what's stopping you from just tossing a Chaos Spear into the ocean? Just blow up a bunch of fish for us to collect that way?"

By now Shadow had knelt back down to continue setting up the fire pit. "You seemed like you needed something to do," he dryly stated, not even bothering to speak over his shoulder as he continued setting rocks and sticks down. Sorun's eyes narrowed at his back, and he resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at him before turning around to venture further into this island.


So the island wasn't that big, Sorun had found out after some wandering. Not so big in that he could walk from one end to the other in about three minutes. No indigenousness life either, he had noted, except for the trees and grass in the middle. But even those were sparse. Not even so much as a bird in the sky.

That probably wasn't a good sign, but then again Sorun wasn't an ornithologist so maybe it was normal. Migration patterns or whatever. Or maybe there weren't even birds in this zone, he didn't know. For all he knew this world was just 'Waterworld' and he and Shadow just happened to find the one patch of land on the whole planet. These were fears that were quickly dismissed because they seemed too far-fetched.

"Geez, can't believe I'm in this mess," Sorun mentally sighed out as he leaned against a tree. As far as he could tell there wasn't anything edible on the island, so they probably were going to have to resort to Shadow throwing explosive bolts in the ocean until some food floated up. Which wasn't a prospect Sorun was looking that forwards to, eating a fish cooked on a stick, but desperation was desperation. At the very least the hunger was helping keep his mind off everything else that was wrong with this situation.

In response to that thought, his stomach growled. He knew he should have snagged a slice of pizza off that pizza he'd been delivering before going to the HQ.

Sighing, Sorun slid down the tree to sit against it. It wasn't a hunger on the level of starving, but he could see it getting there relatively soon. It hadn't even been twenty-four hours since he ate anything, he did have a small bite to eat before leaving that hotel, but even then-

"Waaaaait a minute..." Sorun's head suddenly perked up when his left hand just happened to brush over something. Something with a shape his fingers vaguely recognized. He looked down to his left, eyes nearly shining when he saw what he suspected he had felt.

Mushrooms. A patch of them growing at the base of the tree he was sitting against. "Oh, sweet, mushrooms are a kind of food," Sorun thought to himself as he grabbed a few of them, yanking them out of the ground and bringing them up for a closer look.

As far as mushrooms went, they were about what one would expect. Same mushroom shape and everything. Coloring was a bit weird, the caps of the mushrooms were white while the stems were blue, but Sorun chalked that up to it being a species from a different zone.

"I think Antoine actually cooked with mushrooms that one time, didn't he? Those were halfway decent." With that in mind, and without a second thought, Sorun popped the mushrooms into his mouth. "... Yeah, no, these ain't those. They're pretty awful."

It was a raw, earthy kind of taste that had Sorun wrinkling his face with a hint of something at the end of that taste he just couldn't identify. And the texture, it nearly had him reeling. Not out of revulsion, but from how irregular it was. The texture between eating a carrot and eating a steak. The never before seen in-between texture.

He swallowed it anyways, but quickly came to the conclusion he just wasn't strong enough to handle any more mushrooms. "I guess my basic-ass palate just ain't up to snuff. Man," he thought, looking down at the remaining mushrooms, "maybe Shadow'll eat 'em, though. Huh, that's weird."

The mushrooms were swaying in the wind. Which was strange, as there was no wind. But the mushrooms swayed anyways, moving to and fro in a rhythmic pattern. It was almost like they were bobbing themselves to some unhearable song set to the beat in the back of reality, far enough in the recesses of the world that nobody could hear the melody. The mushrooms could, though, as was their nature. Sorun bobbed his head to the song he couldn't possibly hear. The reverberations thrummed through his soul.

One of the mushroom caps opened into a mouth.

"Soooorrrunn..." the mushroom spoke out. Sorun's head-bobbing ceased. "Where ya goin', Sorun?"

"Going? I don't know, mushroom man," Sorun answered. "Going nowhere, I guess. Nowhere to go. The island's, like... like the circumference, y'know? It's real small. Real small." He pinched his thumb and finger together for the mushroom to see. "Like I don't even remember what a circumference is but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with circles and a circle's basically a rectangle with infinite angles."

"Goin' straight to the grave, that's where you're goin', Sorun," the mushroom said.

"Haw? Nah, man, come on that ain't true."

The mushroom extended, stem lengthening so that the mouth could become closer to Sorun's face. "Come on, Sorun, you're seein' the same signs I am, pretty fuckin' obvious somethin' ain't kosher here. Humans ain't s'posed to be able to toss people through doors wit' one hand. Humans ain't s'posed to be growin' claws an' bleed so much for no reason. Oh, but hey, we seen some o' those signs 'fore, 'aven't we, Sorun?"

The song breached reality. It was there, just barely within the range of his hearing. Overbearing beats and slow, violent drums that didn't sound natural in any way possible. The mushrooms kept swaying to the beat of that noise, growing more and more violent in rhythm as the talking mushroom grew longer and longer to meet Sorun's face. It was so unnerving that Sorun just couldn't look away.

"You're talkin' crazy, man, people get nosebleeds all the time. It's dry season or somethin'."

Still swaying to the loudening beat, like the mushroom was disagreeing with Sorun, it said, "Dry season ain't it at all an' ya know it, been ignorin' the signs for weeks now 'thout sayin' a thing. Know wha' 'appen the las' time this happen, Sorun, and you're windin' right down the same road as las' time."

It was overbearing, the beat. Becoming louder, the tempo increasing at the same rate as the mushrooms were swaying. The mouth was widening, teeth growing and sharpening to points as the talking mushroom settled right in front of Sorun's face.

"There ain't no extra life this time 'round, Sorun, an' ya know that. Already on ya third life and you already fuckin' it up. Know what 'appens in games when ya run outta extra lives, don'tcha, Sorun?"

"So many words, man. You gotta stop worrying about stuff you can't save," Sorun said. And then he leaned forwards and bit the cap of the mushroom off the stem. The song blaring in his ears cut off instantly, just like that. Though the mushrooms were still swaying.

The mushroom was still trying to talk, even still inside of Sorun's mouth. His teeth crunched down on it, causing it to burst inside his mouth. Crimson fluid dripped between his teeth and past his lips, the cerulean fluid leaking out of his mouth and splashing down on the swaying mushrooms below to dye them yellow. The sun above shone off the new glossy, liquidy layer, making the mushrooms shine green as the purple fluid ran down them and soaked into the ground.

After swallowing the talking mushroom, Sorun asked the rest, "Hey, could you guys put that song from earlier on? It was kinda a banger."

The mushrooms swayed to the unheard beat. The mushrooms said nothing, for they were naught but mushrooms.

"Yeah, I guess mushrooms can't talk, huh?" His time here was done, Sorun had felt, so he'd risen back to his feet. The tree he'd been sitting against nodded at him as he did so, surely as a positive sign of reinforcement that Sorun had been making all the right choices. He was sure of it. There could be no other way.

He turned around.

Oh, sweet, his house was here. Just sitting there amidst the other island trees and grass. He walked up to it, thanking the door when it opened up for him before he made his way inside the home.

"Huh?" He looked around. This wasn't his house. But it was his house? He didn't know. This was certainly all the furniture his mom had picked out and placed haphazardly. Oh, there, on the rug - there was the ketchup stain on the rug from that one time because he didn't listen to his mom say not to eat food in the living room. Kinda weird, though, he was pretty sure this wasn't the rug he picked out with Nicole.

Humming, Sorun looked out the window. Rest of Detroit looked normal for the most part, lots of people walking in the streets and driving on the sidewalk. Business as normal, it seemed. He shrugged off any concerns that'd been growing in him and turned towards the kitchen. He was still pretty hungry.

The fridge. It was straight to the fridge, Sorun went, straight to the fridge for something to eat. He'd take anything at this point, even scarf down a block of cheese if that was all there was in there. He didn't know if mom went grocery shopping yet or not. Ooh, maybe she'd gotten a bag of those frozen shrimp she got sometimes, he really liked those.

There wasn't any bagged frozen shrimp when he opened the fridge. In fact, there wasn't any food in there at all. The only thing inside the fridge was a single carton of orange juice.

"Ugh, finally." Sustenance was sustenance, whatever, he'd take it. He grabbed the carton with one hand while closing the fridge with the other and then reached into the nearby cupboard for a glass. "Hey, uh, mom? You home yet? Mom?" Sorun turned his head away from the cabinet to call further into the house. "You... you wanna talk again like we always do? Mom?" His finger tapped nervously against the cabinet door. "So there's, um, there's this girl, right? Her name's Nicole, she's really great. Like a million times better than whatever I deserve, so, uh, can-can she come over? Like, not for dinner, 'cause... 'cause she doesn't do it, I can explain that part, but I'd still like it if you two could meet, you'd really love her. It'd be great. Mom?"

Nobody responded to him. The house was completely silent.

"That's... that's fine, I-I guess you're just not home yet. I'll just, er, wait, 'cause you're running late again and... I really just wanna talk, but, but it's fine, you'll be home later. We'll talk later."

He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet. After closing the cabinet door he relocated himself to the kitchen table, where he sat down while placing both the orange juice carton and the glass on the table's surface. He hesitated for a few moments after, breathing a small sigh before unscrewing the cap off the orange juice carton and tipping it over to pour the contents into the empty glass.

Nothing flowed out from the carton.

"... Eh?" Confused, Sorun pulled the carton away from the glass. He shook it a little bit, growing even more confused at feeling the heavy weight of the carton. He held the opening up to his eye to examine it further. "The hell, man, it feels full- agh!"

It apparently was full, just not with orange juice. Sand, of all things, flowed out from the carton and onto Sorun's face. He became startled enough that he tumbled out of his chair - only he didn't collapse onto the kitchen floor. There was more sand under him. Not floor. It was all sand.

Startled once again, Sorun sat up with a short shout, looking around wildly. The house was gone, walls gone, ceiling replaced by blue sky. And all around was sand. Nothing but sand and more sand as far as the eye could see.

Oh, and an ocean. He just noticed that after looking to the left. He calmed down immediately upon seeing it, standing up to take a look at it. The ocean - constantly undulating, moving as if it were alive. He could see every color imaginable glowing off its vibrating surface, sunlight glinting off its surface and stretching off into forever like a never ending white serpent.

Shuffle, shuffle.

Sorun jumped at the sound, body turning midair to face the sound of the skittering noise. He looked around at the beach to find what was making the noise, and at first found nothing. But then he looked down and found it: a splotch of red on the sandy ground.

There it was. A crab. Scuttling along in the sand, just outside of the range of the colorful waves washing over the beach's shore. It continued scuttling until it was directly in front of Sorun, where it stopped. The two stood there in complete stillness, man and crab, regarding each other in silent consideration.

But then, a sudden shift. The crab rose its claws up in a threatening manner, its eight legs spreading and body lowering slightly. Sorun made a small "ooh" sound, widening his own stance and flattening his hands while bringing them up to his face in his best imitation of a kung-fu stance. Neither opponent moved, each waiting for the other to make the opening attack.

The crab leapt.


Crab

The dweller of the abyssal deep


The power of the crab surprised even Sorun, as it managed a leap of strength so impressive it was on a direct collision course straight for Sorun's face. One of its claws extended outwards with the intent to pinch him, sunlight glistening off the claw's carapace and reflecting incandescent rays in every direction. Every aspect of the crab, from its movement to form, was the very definition of perfection. It was, by definition, the ultimate example of its species.

It was the first time in his life, upon observing this magnificent crab, that Sorun had ever felt such feelings of utter adoration and respect for a crustacean. He viewed the flying crab in reverence, silently thanking both it and the universe for providing such an opportunity to witness such beauty and perfection.

He uppercut the crab out of the air. It fell into the sand, dead.

"God I'm so fucking cool," Sorun thought to himself, blowing onto his fist and rubbing it on his chest for a job well done. He turned his back to the fallen crab, choosing to step forwards further down the beach, and then stopped after a few steps when Sorun realized he didn't actually know where he was going.

Click.

Sorun's head perked up. That sound... one of a peculiar nature. It was some weird combination of a clicking and popping sound. Like a chicken making a clucking sound but more... clicky? It was otherworldly, a kind of sound Sorun had never imagined possible. His curiosity got the better of him; he couldn't let what was possibly the discovery of the millennium, whatever made that sound, to go undiscovered. So he turned around to see what made that sound.

The crab was gone. In its place was... well, Sorun wasn't entirely sure.

He thought it was Knuckles at first. The colors were there, the features right, but the proportions were not. It looked like somebody had made some kind of caricature drawing of Knuckles and it'd jumped off the page and into real life. Like Doodlebob from that one episode of "Spongebob" but red and vaguely Knuckles-shaped. Except he was... squatter. Rounder. Limbs noodly-er. And his eyes! Those perfectly round, shining eyes that seemed to be popping out of his eye sockets looked as innocent as they did haunting.

The creature clicked at Sorun again. The way its mouth moved was abnormal. It didn't "move" open so much as it seemed there were only two positions for its mouth: open and closed. Two complete binaries with no intermediary. Maybe he really was a cartoon come to life.

"My brudda!" Well, he sure as shit didn't have Knuckles' voice. What accent even was that? Jamaican? No, too off. "I have found you at last!"

"Wow, man." Sorun squinted his eyes and leaned forwards to get a better look at Doodleknuckles. "Knuckles, you're... just wow. I can't believe it. You're less ugly, it's amazing."

"My brudda," he repeated, once more making that eldritch clicking sound. "Now dat I have found you I must ask. Do you know de way?"

For what seemed like such an innocent and simple question it carried a certain kind of gravity behind it that nearly swept Sorun off his feet. He couldn't understand why, just that it did. That there was power in that five word question, arcane and unknowable to a simple three-dimensional being such as Sorun. Even pondering its very meaning sent his brain throbbing, his mind recoiling at the sheer implication behind it, sent his organs recoiling in outrage. As if his body rebelled at the very idea of him even considering attempting to answer a question so far beyond his understanding.

He took a stab at it anyway.

"The way, huh?" Sorun blinked long and hard at the question, leaning backwards to look at the technicolor sky with his hands interlocked behind his head. "Who can say what way is even the right way? Pre-destined paths and destiny in general have certain connotations regarding a lack of autonomy and freedom that I'm not really a big fan of. 'Thout the freedom to do whatever we want what's the point? Where's the life? You're seriously gonna take my advice after hearing all that?" His head nodded back down to Doodleknuckles, wide grin on his face. "Fuck my way. Don't go down whatever way someone tells you to go down. Carve a path and find your own way, man."

"But de way, my brudda! Do you know de way?"

Instantly the smile dropped off of Sorun's face when the question was repeated at him. Thoughts of violence began swirling in his mind. "You fucking ingrate. I give you all that and that's what you have to say to me?"

"Because of de way, my brudda! I need you to tell me!"

The hands that had been interlocked behind Sorun's head fell down to his sides. They balled into fists as he glowered at Doodleknuckles. "You know, for as long as I've remembered I've always had the compulsion to do the exact opposite of what people tell me to do. Can't help it. I just like annoying people." He tilted his head backwards, eyes sliding down to look down at the caricature. "So you know what? I do know the way. But I'm not telling you."

The thing's mouth opened the exact same way as it always did when he spoke, and even thought there was no visual discernable difference, it still somehow managed to convey the sensation of being shocked. "But we are bruddas! Why would you betray me like dis!?"

"I'm still pissed over the Enerjak thing. Fucking fight me if you care that much."

Doodleknuckles' mouth closed. A pair of lines that seemed to be eyebrows materialized just above his bulging eyes, slanting in a way that conveyed anger. "Dis insult will not be forgiven, my brudda. Dis will mean war with de entire tribe."

There was a shift. On a dime the skies turned dark and red. The calm waters of infinite colors turned dark and murky, and began to violently crash against the now stark-white beach as the two stared each other down. And eclipse settled over the sun.

"That's the way, that's what I wanna see." Fists still balled, Sorun began stomping forwards towards Doodleknuckles. The probably-echidna moved in kind, his body not actually moving on its own, but sliding forwards while hopping up and down as if some giant, invisible hand was moving it forwards like a puppet. The detail was inconsequential to Sorun - he just needed to satiate this overwhelming urge to punch him. "Told ya that ya gotta carve your own path. Starts here with me."

The fight started when the two had neared each other, and Doodleknuckles had been the one to make the first move. He spit at Sorun.

Sorun blinked. The globule projectile was slow in its travel, and was easily dodged. Easily enough he'd simply turned his body to the side by a slight degree and watched the spit wad impact the ground next to him. He blinked once more, and turned back to Doodleknuckles, face set in an almost lost expression.

What did that even mean? Did he think so little of Sorun that he thought simply spitting at him would be enough to deter him? Or did he look down at him so much he didn't even consider him worth fighting? That he felt so insulted in his presence he needed to spit like that to establish their standing? No matter the reason it caused unadulterated rage to swell withing Sorun as a furious snarl grew on his face.

He lunged forwards, gripping Doodleknuckles by his stubby and near-nonexistent throat. His back landed against the sand, the caricature gagging out as Sorun straddled him from above, doing his best and succeeding at strangling him, his bulging eyes bulging out even more. One of Sorun's hands left his throat and balled into a fist, and then just as quick flew forwards and smashed right into Doodleknuckles' face.

It broke apart completely, like a ceramic vase full of muscle and white meat. It smelled like crab for some reason.

After that, breathing in a slightly heavy manner, Sorun dismounted the dead maybe-echidna. He continued to lightly pant, only regarding the dead body for a few seconds before looking up... only to pause when he noticed he was surrounded by more. Tens, maybe even dozens more of the Doodleknuckles. All staring at him with those vacant, bulging eyes. All facing him. With the way they were positioned there was no direction Sorun could run in to escape.

Not that he even wanted to. The primal, instinctive side of Sorun that had been whispering violence in his mind and had become excited when he killed the first Doodleknuckles was firing up again. The desire to run just wasn't there. The only desire he did have was to do that again. To all the echidna caricatures surrounding him.

So, when they all at once, simultaneously, screamed at the top of their lungs and began moving towards him in that strange, motionless motion of theirs, Sorun didn't run. Instead a toothy smile spread over his face and he burst forwards towards the nearest Doodleknuckles. He'd jumped on him before he could make the first move, fists flying down to cave in the thing's face as another Doodleknuckles jumped on his back. And then a second. And a third.

Eventually Sorun was dogpiled by the entire group of Doodleknuckles, forming a large, red pile. It didn't deter the human, though, as a pale fist shot out from the top of the pile and dislodged one of the maybe-echidna from the top. His torso burst out after.

Screaming, Sorun continued to wail on all the Doodleknuckles. But more kept coming. Bursting from beneath the surface of the sand and wading out from the crashing waves. Tens and hundreds of the things, all adding to the pile, burying and smothering him. More and more, no matter how many Sorun punched and killed, it wouldn't end. The weight from all the bodies being added becoming overbearing, what little light there was left fading as their bodies blocked out the light. But no matter how many were added he continued to fight and punch away, no matter how more and more ineffective it was becoming.

And then, a change. A sudden shift, like gravity had been reversed. The bodies underneath Sorun began falling away. And then he fell away, too. Past all the bodies. Past the beach. Past the world itself, into the deep dark black.

It was just him falling down here. The others, the Doodleknuckles, they weren't falling with him, didn't exist. Maybe never even existed. It was just him falling straight down, arms and legs extended out like some skydiver as he stared down at the infinite expanse below him. An what a view it was: swirling coronas of blues and purples, giant flares of orange and red in the far distance, green clouds of speckles light intermixed between the colorful sights and the infinite black filling the void between it all. Endless nebulas and cosmic dust clouds. Sorun was falling through it all. Falling through the forever - through the universe.

In retrospect, the novelty wore off after a few minutes and Sorun found himself yawning in boredom as he continued to fall. But then he'd heard that large caw in the distance, and the drowsiness left his eyes as he looked towards the source.

There, in the distance. Two figures highlighted in the backdrop of a nearby nebula. A normal fox, the animalistic kind he'd see on Earth. Normal except for the fact it had two tails. It was lying there in front of another animal that was standing over it. A large black falcon with fourteen eyes. It stared down at the fox lying below it, hatefully.

The falcon's head shot forwards, beak tearing into the fox's abdomen. The fox screamed in pain and anguish as the falcon pulled out its guts and pierced its organs. The fox tried to fight back; its claws slid harmlessly off its attacker's feathers. The black falcon continued digging into and killing the fox, strikes becoming more feverous and frenzied with time. In the process of mutilating the fox the falcon was screaming, too. Angered, furious screams that grew louder and louder each time the beak dug into the fox's body, growing more anguished over time before turning back into furious noises, the strikes becoming less and less precise and more messy and rage-driven as it abandoned pecking the fox apart and resorted to simply tearing at its body with its beak and talons. By the time half the fox's body was an unrecognizable mess of gore it was already dead.

As Sorun fell past the two, the black falcon rose its head up from the pile of carrion to look at him. Its fourteen eyes, five on either side of its head and four more on top, all blinked at Sorun at once, the falcon itself remaining silent as it stared. Seemingly dismissing Sorun, it went back to eating at the fox's corpse.

"Huh. Neat." Sorun looked away from the two and down towards where he was falling. There was a sun there. "Not neat."

It was a big sun. Big and red, and he was falling straight towards it, towards the mass of coronal ejections that twisted and turned around it like living tendrils reaching out towards Sorun. The sun blinked, and now there was black pupil in the center. One the size of a whole planet staring right at Sorun. And on Sorun's part there was no reaction. Nothing but quiet acceptance as he relaxed his body and fell right into the scorching red eye that stared at him with scorn.


A pair of crimson eyes stared down at him with exhaustion and mild confusion. Some disappointment may have been brewing within them as well.

There'd he'd found him. Lying on the beach. Surrounded by an innumerable amount of crab corpses of all things. Crabs which Sorun seemed to have punched to death, as if Shadow could even understand how that came to be. Nor why Sorun was now flat on his back and seemingly mumbling in his sleep about some indiscernible nonsense.

He wasn't in the mood to put up with it. Short of kicking him, which would be counterproductive given the current situation, he'd decided to go to the ocean, scoop up a handful of seawater, and bring it back to Sorun while continuing to scowl down at him.

"Awaken, fool," Shadow ordered, and then flung the seawater at Sorun's face.

Sorun's eyes shot open and he sat upwards with a startled gasp, panting heavily as he glanced around. He seemed confused at first, seeing the legion of dead crustaceans littering the sand around them, and then he'd looked up at Shadow with even greater confusion. "Wha-what happened, what's going on?"

"You tell me," Shadow said. "You were gone for half an hour and when I came to look for you I happened upon you fighting the entire island's population of crabs to the death. You lost. I had to step in and finish them off when you collapsed halfway through the fight so they wouldn't pick you apart."

There wasn't even embarrassment on Sorun's face. Just a profound look of disappointment and even a fair amount of loathing, which Shadow supposed was appropriate. "I lost? Against crabs? Not even Mobian crabs, but like... like just normal crabs?"

"Yes."

"H-how?"

"I couldn't even begin to tell you," Shadow replied in an honest tone. "It was a display of ineptitude so astonishing words would fail to accurately describe it. I've seen drunkards at the base who moved with more articulation than you demonstrated. What exactly overcame you?"

Sorun gestured in a vague direction towards the center of the island. "Some bad shrooms over... over there. Somewhere. I ate some. Don't eat 'em."

He'd scream if dignity allowed it. It did not. "You consumed unidentified fungal matter while stranded in an unknown world?" The amount of training, natural instinct and common sense Shadow possessed all told him such a thing was one of the worst possible ideas one could have. As a consequence those same conditions were making it so that he literally couldn't comprehend how such a decision had been made by Sorun.

"Yeah."

That wasn't a satisfying answer. "And what was your plan if you had been poisoned?" he nearly growled out through grit teeth.

With a sullen expression and defeated eyes, Sorun's arm fell back to his side. "... I'm not smart," was the only excuse he offered.

Objectively untrue, but at the same time it was hard for Shadow to refute this claim. Because Sorun was a walking paradox he evidently needed to watch like a child. He got himself killed the last time he didn't do that and he nearly did again. "Let's just count ourselves fortunate that they weren't toxic," he grumbled out, not willing to waste energy on the matter, and then bent down to pick up one of the crabs. "Even more fortunate is that we can eat these. I finished the fire pit."

Sorun blanched a bit. "We don't have anything else?"

"You're eating the crab," Shadow said, gaze snapping to Sorun.

He gulped in response. "I-I'll eat the crab."


Sorun ended up eating the crab. And a few more besides.

It wasn't bad, surprisingly. The opposite, actually: it was actually really good. Apparently Shadow thought so, too, because he was wolfing them down. A whole lot of them, actually. Probably three times as many as Sorun ate. He didn't know if the guy had just been hungry or if it was some alien DNA quirk thing he had going on, but he suspected any question regarding it would be ignored so Sorun remained silent.

And beyond that there was a certain campy feel to the whole thing. Sitting there in front of a fire, sun setting down from somewhere behind the island. A bunch of crabs impaled on sticks set over the fire. Crab leg in hand as Sorun continually glanced to the side at the growing pile of crab shell husks next to Shadow.

They'd been partaking in small talk for a lack of anything better to do. Swapping some stories: Sorun told a bit about Silver and what they'd been up to on the Cosmic Interstate. Shadow had shared a story. It got weird.

"... So you just, just yanked his hair out and..." Sorun's expression became lost. Like he was staring at an impossible puzzle as he looked at Shadow. "Why?"

Shadow bit into another crab before responding. "Because Snively was irritating and those few hairs on his head bothered me. Because it was aesthetically displeasing. Because he'd crossed me and needed to be warned never to do so again."

"No I get that, but... but why did you keep the hair?" Sorun asked. "Like you seriously just held onto them all the way to the Freedom HQ? W-why? Like what were you planning to do with it?"

Shadow paused halfway to bringing another crab up to his face. His mouth was set in a neutral expression but his eyes were the faintest bit wider than usual. Sorun didn't know what emotion expressed. It couldn't be embarrassment, could it? He doubted Shadow was capable of such a thing. "I'd... been preoccupied with more important things. I suppose I'd forgotten to relax my grip," he confessed. "It's hardly my fault. How was I to know that madman put tracking devices in his individual hairs?"

"Absolutely nothing could have ever prepared me for that sentence." Really. Nothing at all. It was impossible to react to such a revelation because there was no appropriate reaction to something so absurd, and yet Sorun somehow took it in stride because this was his life now. "What were you doing that you were in such a rush anyways?"

"It was a personal matter."

"Alright." An answer like that implied he wanted it left alone. Sorun respected the wish as he idly flung the crab leg about. "Could really go for some of that ketchup I stole from that guy in that one zone," Sorun mumbled out as he turned the crab leg over in his hand. He'd stopped being hungry a while ago but the urge to play with a pointy leg wouldn't leave him, so at the moment he was kind of just turning it over a bunch.

Shadow threw another empty shell in the pile. He glanced at Sorun, a bit curious. "You stole condiments? Why?"

"..." Sorun looked back at the fire. He'd been telling him a bit of what had happened to him to pass the time, mostly the traveling with Silver. He decided to go ahead and lay out what'd been on his mind for a while. "Don't tell Silver if you ever meet him but I robbed a lot of people while we were trying to get back to Mobius Prime," he admitted. "Every single world used a different currency so I had to just so I could feed him and afford hotel rooms."

"But why the ketchup?"

"It was good ketchup and I didn't like the guy who had it." Shadow didn't comment on that. "Lotta times I'd try to just steal food over people's money. Wasn't that hard with time stop. Every time Silver asked I just lied and said I was getting handouts from sympathetic people."

"You don't sound that regretful."

"It's not like I ever did anything permanent. Times were desperate." He looked back at Shadow. "You get it, right?"

He didn't answer at first, just stared at Sorun all contemplative-like. Then he looked back towards the fire, picked up one of the sticks and pulled a roasted crab off of it. "I can't fault survival," was his response as he pulled the crab in half. Sorun took it as acceptance. "I'm less interested in that and more in how you wound up in an 'alternate future,' as you said."

Sorun hesitated. He wasn't not fine with the topic, but he also wasn't too keen on seeing Shadow react to the whole King Shadow situation. For sure he was leaving out the part where Sorun decapitated him while he was helpless, but that didn't eliminate the broad topic, which was the main issue. And besides that there was a bigger topic that had Sorun wondering why Shadow wasn't asking about it.

"You really wanna ask about that?" Sorun asked him. "Not about the whole reason I had to stay on Mobius in the first place?"

Now it was Shadow who hesitated. He'd paused in his movements, eyes flicking from the crab to Sorun. There was a twinge in his facial expression, eyes tightening a bit. If he didn't know better Sorun would say he looked almost unsure of what to say to that.

"I assumed there was nothing to talk about," he said, awfully carefully. "The others had appraised me of... of the broad strokes, as it were. Of your home."

"... You're right. There ain't nothing to talk about over it." Silently, Sorun was thankful that he just didn't want to bring it up. It was the kind of wound he just didn't like talking about, and it seemed to make even Shadow uncomfortable of all people, as if such a thing was actually possible. He shifted back to the topic he asked about earlier. "So basically back in the day Sonic messed around with things he shouldn't have and it broke some other things. Big time anomaly, blah blah blah, I fixed it so it isn't a problem but apparently it would have been and Sonic had to go and fix his own mistake. Which ended up obliterating this timeline and supplanting it with another; I only got spared because the Master Emerald saved me." He shook his head, groaning out, "It was a pain and a half dealing with, let me tell you."

Shadow's response was a "hmph" noise as he bit into the crab. And then he asked, "What changed?"

"Just Sonic not being there. It messed the world up even more 'cause he wasn't there to do his hero thing so you had to step up and sort it all out. Spoiler alert you became a fascist dictator and took the world over."

Shadow almost dropped the crab he was holding. Almost. His self-discipline was either superb or the crab was just that good. "I... what?" He blinked his eyes a few times while considering the words, looking puzzled and just the slightest bit disturbed. "Truly?"

"Mhm. You even had a torture chamber and everything," Sorun informed him.

The information made Shadow flinch. "I didn't...?"

He knew what he was trying to ask. "Not to me, no." If he didn't know what to look for Sorun wouldn't have noticed that Shadow looked relieved. The way he ever-so-slightly went slack in posture. "Others? Yeah. There was a lot more blood than rust on all those shackles. And I saw the result of at least once case."

Shadow's eyes flickered downward. He suddenly didn't seem so hungry as he set the half-eaten crab down. "I'm unsure of what to say to that," he admitted. "There wasn't... just Sonic not existing? That was the only change?"

"To be fair think of all the times he saved the world, and now picture what the world would be like if he was never there," Sorun reminded him. "I don't know what the world looked like before dictator you took it over, but it was probably really bad. And you did... I hesitate to say the word 'fix', but you managed to bring the world back to some semblance of order. Probably really impressive considering what you had to work with. I wasn't considering it back then because I was only focused on trying to make everything normal, but with how screwed up and fractured the world was and him waking up in the middle of all that I can kind of see how he'd arrive at a bunch of the conclusions he came to."

"... Maybe," Shadow agreed. "The situation my world was in compared to his are so radically different I'd be shocked if there wasn't some major personality drift of the sort. It's just disconcerting to know I apparently could have slipped to such a position."

"I don't know if this is any comfort but he admitted it right to my face he ultimately just wanted to save as many lives as possible. In... some messed up way he succeeded. So there's that," Sorun offered. "Just leaned so hard into the whole supreme ruler thing, though, couldn't believe it. There was this, er..." Sorun paused momentarily and gesticulated randomly at the air, "this statue I saw. Like he forced this religion on everybody I think, saw people praying to and worshiping to this statue of, I think it was a human girl? Maybe an Overlander? Gave her angel wings and everything, it was really freaky."

When he heard that Shadow froze, which for Sorun was a weird sight. Because he'd never seen him taken so off his guard before, and until now Sorun didn't think for someone like Shadow it was something possible. But he didn't comment on what he heard Sorun say at first. Didn't even look at him. He just froze, what seemed to be out of pure shock if the widening eyes said anything, and then his head slowly dipped downwards so that he could stare at his shoes.

A minute passed. Then two. By then Sorun began to realize there was something up with what he said, about that statue, and he began to think he treaded on ground he shouldn't have. By minute three of him just silently sitting there it was growing worrying to the human. He wanted to speak out, but just didn't know what he was supposed to say.

Finally, thankfully, Shadow sighed out. It was a deep, weary sounded that made him sound a hundred years older than he was and Sorun didn't know how to take that, so he remained silent. "She was..." he began, more mumbling than anything else, "... it was very likely that was Maria."

Nervously, Sorun tapped at his knee. He wasn't used to hearing Shadow speak like this. It was uncomfortable to hear. "If this is something better left alone-"

"It's not exactly a secret," Shadow sighed out. "Just personal. And after everything you saw you deserve some explanation. More than others at least." It took another minute of him staring at his shoes to begin talking again. When he did, he didn't so much as look in Sorun's direction. "I already told you everything involving Space Colony ARK, my creation, and Dr. Gerald. Do you remember?"

"Hard to forget a thing like that."

"What I chose to leave out was the reason behind my creation in the first place," he continued. "Maria was Dr. Gerald's granddaughter. She was also afflicted with a disease that would eventually take her life. All of Dr. Gerald's research and even my inception was all in the effort of finding a cure to help her and anyone else with her affliction." He shuffled in the sand where he was sitting. "She was my first and only friend."

Slowly, Sorun breathed outwards. The conversation was veering in familiar territory and he didn't like it very much. "Think I can see where this is going. Been in a similar spot with a friend."

For the first time since the conversation started Shadow looked at him. "You have?"

Sorun nodded in affirmation. It wasn't a story he felt comfortable sharing but at this point he felt obligated, with everything Shadow said. "Back on Earth there was a girl around my age. Never met her in person, we were online buddies. She was good - real good. Pretty much on my level and I was world-class," Sorun said, small smile on his mouth. "No matter what game we played we always tied in everything, and she was pretty funny besides. I used to think she was just talented with games like I was, but, uh... then one day out of nowhere she spills it all." The smile dropped off her face. "She wasn't good like me 'cause she just was. She was as good as she was 'cause she had nothing else to do all day. She was a terminal patient withering away in a hospital bed. Kept going on and on like she couldn't stop once she got started, talking about all her medical issues and how she felt bad about how much money she was draining out of her parents for treatment, when she started crying I didn't know what to do, because what was I supposed to do? I was some guy on the other side of the country behind a screen, I couldn't say anything. I just sat there like a idiot for a whole hour without saying a single thing."

Shadow didn't respond, choosing to just continue to look at Sorun. Intently, with a sympathetic look on his face.

"And she tells me there's this surgery," Sorun continued, "she says the doctors told her it's her one chance. Her family can't afford it though 'cause her treatment up to that point hemorrhaged their funds and the surgery was a new, experimental thing their insurance wouldn't cover."

"Her life was in danger because nobody could afford treatment?" Shadow sounded particularly rankled at that. "Why does something like that even need to be afforded?"

"My country had issues, it was a whole thing, I don't wanna get into it," Sorun explained, though Shadow didn't look particularly satisfied at it. "The surgery's upwards of around fifty grand, and I got no idea how anyone's supposed to wrangle together that kinda scratch. 'Cept... there was a tournament coming up. For this game called 'Smash!'. Grand prize was fifty K. She couldn't make it because you had to physically be there to compete, and besides that she just didn't have the stamina to compete with players like that consecutively. But I did.

"Somehow I managed to convince my mom to sign a bunch of forms and drive me over to the tournament so I could compete. Spent weeks beforehand training for the event - god, Shadow, never worked harder in my entire life," Sorun groaned out, "but it was my friend and she was dying, so I had to. Tried to rope David into it but his family wouldn't go for it, so it was all me. And that tournament..."

He could picture it like it was yesterday. The strain his mind felt from the hyper-intense focus, synapses firing and brain feeling like it was overheating from how fast his thoughts were running all day. Fingers cramping from the twitch-reflexes and fast movements. Lungs burning from how hard he'd been breathing to give himself as much oxygen as possible. He'd nearly passed out by the time that damn tournament ended.

"Before coming to Mobius it was quite literally the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life. But-" Sorun breathed outwards, sounding tired just thinking of it, "-I did it. I won the tournament and got the grand prize. For a lot of people fifty thousand dollars was literally life changing money, and I gave it all to my friend's family so she could get the surgery. My mom, uh... after all was said and done she was she was real proud of me. She was a doctor, so, so I guess she understood."

"... And?" Shadow asked after a moment's consideration. "Was it enough to save her?"

"No, she died halfway through the surgery," Sorun bluntly replied. Shadow simply blinked - his approximation of shock. "Only found out about it later through an email her parents sent me. Pretty sure they hated my guts since she would've lived a few years otherwise." He rose a hand up and let it flop against his thigh. "Doesn't... doesn't matter, I guess, everyone ended up dying in the end anyways but... whatever. Doesn't matter."

"I'm... unsure of what to say," Shadow admitted after a moment of silence. "There had never been a time where Maria had been bedridden due to her illness. It was a progressive disease but she was young enough that it wasn't debilitating in any significant way yet. If there were some surgery that could fix it Dr. Gerald would have taken it in a heartbeat, but not if it was a risky, experimental surgery with a large chance of failure. She meant too much to him."

"Yeah. I can see it. After that whole thing, having to read a bunch of hate-filled words written to me by a pair of heartbroken parents I can get why somebody wouldn't wanna put a loved one through a risky surgery. They did, but... I dunno, guess they were that desperate. For hope, I guess." He limply gestured to Shadow. "He do it in the end? Fix her?"

The answer was delivered just as bluntly as Sorun had said it. "No. Dr. Gerald never found his cure."

Sorun's head solemnly turned back to the fire. "No time?"

"There might have been. G.U.N., who'd contracted him to create a weapon and provided the ARK and all its facilities, became aware his projects completion. My completion. And they never trusted Dr. Gerald on the best of days even though they'd been the ones to sponsor his creation of a bioweapon - perhaps wisely due to his secret pact with an alien. So they came to a decision. Without any warning the ARK was raided by soldiers. Research was seized. Assets and personnel liquidated. Maria was shot for helping me escape while Dr. Gerald was captured and later executed. Maria's sacrifice was meaningless as I was caught and put into cryo sleep regardless."

"..." Sorun's eyes flickered over to Shadow. "I get you have your reasons, but... why did you bother joining them if they're responsible for killing your friend? For something as shallow as that?"

"It was fifty years ago. It's different people leading the organization and between them and the Freedom Fighters I'm fine where I am," he answered. "It doesn't erase the mistakes of the past, but I didn't see the use in burning bridges without good reason. They're useful besides." He paused. "It was her last wish. For the world to be protected. It needed to be obligated one way or another so I chose G.U.N."

He didn't know how to take that. From a logical perspective it made complete sense, and in that way it somehow made sense to Sorun that Shadow made that choice. In a certain light it could even be seen as mature. Respectable. Sorun himself, he wasn't sure he would be able to make the same choice. In fact, he was pretty sure he wouldn't.

"Well, you're probably a better person than me in that case," Sorun admitted. "Don't think I'd be able to do the same thing. Join a government body that killed my best friend, even if it were fifty years later and the people running it were completely different."

"You wouldn't?" Shadow asked. He sounded surprised.

"Hard to say if I'd ever forgive a group for doing something like that regardless of who are and who aren't in it," he said. "That probably puts me in a bad light, I dunno, it..." Sorun cut himself off with a dry, humorless chuckle, "it's a weird thing. But then again you almost blew the world up over it 'fore you came to your senses so maybe I shouldn't talk you up on having the moral high ground."

"I changed my mind," he quickly dismissed. "... After some convincing," he'd quickly added.

"Pft. I'd say those two are up their laughing at us but I know for a fact she ain't there with Maria."

"A believer of the afterlife? You?"

"Nah, all perceptions of religion got blasted out of me the moment I landed on Mobius," Sorun told Shadow. "That being said higher powers with very punchable faces flat-out told me every living thing goes back to the Chaos Force when they die, and this is true for everything in every zone. But humans like me from our zone out in the middle of nowhere don't have Chaos Force links so we don't get an afterlife like everyone else. Found that out the hard way." The fire continued to crackle softly with Sorun staring at it while Shadow stared towards Sorun's face. "... I try not to think about it," Sorun admitted. "How when all my friends die they get to go to an afterlife but when I die I just get sent to oblivion."

Shadow hesitated before responding. "That's-"

"I mean I don't think it matters. Wouldn't be surprised if it's less an afterlife and more when someone dies and their soul goes to the Chaos Force it's one of those your-personality-is-disseminated-to-join-the-greater-whole deals. Or maybe it ain't, I dunno." Sorun dropped his crab leg and picked up a nearby stick to poke at the fire. "Maybe if I get the chance before I die I'll permanently absorb a Chaos Emerald for Yamato again so I can be a ghost and just cut my way into the Chaos Force to see for myself."

"... Isn't that somewhat long-term thinking?"

"Mh. Who knows." Sorun dropped the stick and turned back to Shadow, ignoring the odd look he was giving him. "Backpedaling a bit, you... really cared a lot about Maria, huh? To the point you became cool agent man to help protect the world just 'cause she liked it so much." He leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the sky. "I mean, I liked my friend, too, but I wouldn't have become a turbo dictator for her sake."

"Please stop referring to my deeply misguided alternate timeline persona. And refrain from ever uttering the title 'turbo dictator' ever again." Despite the tense tone he'd used Shadow mirrored Sorun's relaxed posture, leaning backwards to stare up at the sky. "But... yes. Her memory is as much a comfort as the pain of her loss for me."

"Gotcha." Sorun shifted a bit to settle in a more comfortable position. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Because neither of us are touchy-feely guys so I never pictured this happening in a million years," Sorun explained. "What's the deal?"

"I'd ask you the same thing."

"Well, you're the one that got the ball rolling. You answer."

"You asked about the statue."

"And you didn't have to be so detailed with the explanation. Spill."

Shadow deeply sighed. He'd paused long enough that Sorun assumed he just wasn't going to answer, but then he began speaking. "Partly out of guilt, for me inadvertently dragging you into this situation and for all the other misfortunes. Mostly because you're not insufferable like most people I know. And I'd thought you'd understand better with everything that's happened to you. And we've confided heavily in one another in the past," he explained. The next part made him wince a bit. "And a girl who lives at G.U.N. has been... encouraging me to undertake such measures. Her name's Hope. She reminds me much about Maria."

"That's, uh, Eggman's niece, isn't she? Er, the last one's?"

"Yes. She's gifted with machines and assists G.U.N.'s engineers. Outperforms most, truthfully. Thankfully she doesn't share the Doctor's more egregious proclivities." If it wasn't said with such a dry, bland voice Sorun would have assumed that was a joke. "She likes planes especially."

"Ah, yeah, I had a friend named Jamie on Earth who was a big plane nut. Would talk about planes all day, literally, guy loved planes. Always just planes, planes, planes with him." He made a small scoff and shook his head. "Yeah, Jamie was the plane guy, Billy was the soulless ginger-"

"Excuse me?"

"It was a stupid joke we liked to tease him with, really popular where I'm from. Anyway, Billy, he always talked about wanting to travel, liked seeing all the sights in the world. I glanced at his phone one time and he had, like, twenty tabs open that were just a bunch of image searches for random tourist sites all around the globe. Jarod, he was a big boxer fan. Saw his room once, nothing but Mike Tyson and Apollo Creed posters everywhere, man, it was nuts."

"Fighters from your world?"

"Eh, one, other was a fictional character, but there were a bunch of posters and other stuff. Even had a 'Megalo Box' poster, and he didn't even like anime all that much. Anyway, he wasn't as insane about it as Jamie was with his planes but he was into it nonetheless. Then there was a David, who was almost as big a gamer nerd as I was. Pfft," Sorun laughed out, raising his hand to wave around, "I can almost picture it, if he were sent here instead of me he would have made Cloud's big dumb Buster Sword instead of a cool sword like I got. He was a big 'Final Fantasy' nerd. The seventh one in particular was his favorite, which wasn't a surprise 'cause it was a lot of people's favorites, but man, when they were remaking that one he got so excited, wouldn't shut up about it. Talked about it for a literal month straight when the first part of that remake series came out." His arm flopped down to his side on the sand. "He never did get to see the rest of those remake games. I'll never see 'em, either, but at least I'm alive to miss 'em."

"... I see..."

Sorun glanced at Shadow from the corner of his eye. "You know, everybody has dead people; we ain't special in that regard. Most people eventually grow past it. You didn't need to come to me just because I'm the most tragic guy you know outside yourself."

"It's less that and more..." Shadow's face scrunched up in displeasure. "You know what the people you live with are like."

"Oh, yeah, I know. You share even a iota of this heavy stuff with 'em and they get all emotional, all smiles and hugs all around, loads of encouraging words, probably even some tears. Don't get me wrong, I love 'em all to death over it, but at the same time I just can't do that. Like I physically can't handle all that, so I keep all this stuff to myself. 'Cept with Nicole, I shared a bunch of stuff with here, but... well, that's different."

Shadow got the meaning and moved on without commenting on it. "Therein is the problem. You outlined why I could never go to them, and I'm not even that close with them besides, I doubt my own partner would take me seriously and even if she did I doubt we'll ever share a title beyond 'acquaintance', I'll take this to the grave before sharing so much with one of the G.U.N. personnel, and Hope is... much in the same boat as the Mobians we're acquainted with.

"And then there's you. The only person I know who could be sympathetic with me but also has enough standards to not so much as lay a hand on my shoulder or waste breath on encouraging words and who'll likely never bring any of this up ever again for both our sakes."

"You make us sound like sociopaths when you put it like that."

"We plotted a murder."

"A failed murder," Sorun reminded him, grinning a bit, "so it doesn't count. And it was for a righteous cause. With Eggman it's debatably self-defense."

Shadow made a "hmph" sound. "True enough. It's been going well against him?"

"Eh, from what I heard. The others keep pushing him back further and further while chipping away at his defenses and forces. They're wearing him down faster than he and all those psycho echidna he recruited can regroup. Gonna be over any day now from how everyone's talking," Sorun informed him. The earlier grin fell off. "It's great to hear. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact I couldn't end this that day because I was one second too slow in killing him before my heart stopped, so knowing they're gonna beat him without anyone getting killed or even hurt despite me failing is a load off my shoulders. Dunno if I coulda lived with myself otherwise."

"... Relieving to hear," Shadow decided.

A shooting star had passed by overhead. By now the sun had set far enough that the stars above were becoming visible. The fire they had started was beginning to die down - there hadn't been that many sticks on the island to begin with and they'd already burned through what little fuel they had cooking the crabs from the other end of the beach. Wasn't all that bad, all things considered. Would have been downright peaceful if the fact they weren't stranded here wasn't hanging overhead. Sorun found a bit of comfort in it nonetheless.

"My dad blew his face off with a shotgun in front of me on my fourth birthday."

There wasn't a reaction from Shadow at first. Then he flinched the smallest bit, as if startled by something, and then looked towards Sorun again. His face looked surprised; the look of someone who just got punched in the face and was wondering why more than anything else. He didn't even seem able to form words.

"Just, you know, walked into the room and he was sitting there on the bed. Shotgun in mouth. We made eye contact for, like, a single second and then blam." Sorun made a "psh" sound and made a finger gun, shooting up at the sky. "Gun fell onto the ground, body slumped on the bed, brain matter was everywhere, ceiling, walls, my face. I didn't even know what just happened, I just stood there, frozen. My mom freaked out like you wouldn't believe. Literally. Just freaked out. Can't really blame her I guess, 'cause... I mean, who even sees that coming? What do you do in that situation? I feel like my mom had a meltdown trying to figure that out while dealing with the fact her husband just killed himself in front of her kid."

Shadow's mouth opened, but words weren't coming out. The ridges of his eyes were knitted together in concentration, like he was trying to figure out what he was supposed to say to all this. "Why?" was the only thing he managed to say.

"I don't know, man. Truth be told I barely remember the guy, but during the time he was alive and I could actually remember stuff I thought things were fine. Mom would never talk about it. Ever. So I never asked her if things weren't alright after all." He made a small sigh. "So after the police come to take the body and everything my mom scrambles, trying to salvage something out of the situation. Try to do something to take her son's mind off of everything that just happened. So she rushes to the nearby store and buys a video game, any video game, and rushed back home and pretty much plants four-year-old me in front of a TV 'cause she's freaking out and needs to at least try and distract me with something because she needs to figure out what she's supposed to do now and I just... go along with it because four-year-old me didn't realize my old man blowing his head off meant I was never seeing him again."

The look on Shadow's face could be best described as "uncomfortable". The same kind of face somebody sitting in an otherwise terrible chair would make, or one walking around with a rock in their shoe. The kind of uncomfortable that made somebody want to turn away from what was causing this feeling, but alas he was obligated to keep looking towards Sorun to listen.

"You probably guessed it, but the game she bought me was the very first 'Devil May Cry' game. Not sure why she got that one of all games, like I said I think she just kind of scrambled to get something and saw cool red guy on the cover so she grabbed it. It was an old game, too, so it was probably grabbed out of a bargain bin out of somewhere. Never asked. So that's how I got started with that and it kinda... stuck, I guess. Mh." He shuffled. "I don't know what my mom did in the background, how the whole situation got resolved, any of it. I just played the game. Literally. That's all I remember doing is playing that game and nothing else. For a week I think. Could have been more. She kept trying to distract me so she got the second game." Sorun's face momentarily scrunched in displeasure. "And then the third one. And for like... a month all I did was play those games. It's probably what set me on the path of being so good at games, that and these hands of mine, but that's neither here nor there. Things went back to normal over time. She did, I did, and we kinda just... you know, carried on. Without ever talking about it. Kind of ruined birthdays for me, though." Sorun paused. "I turned seventeen a while ago."

The sudden turn in conversation was so abrupt Shadow found himself stunned for a second and had to shake his head. "What?"

"Yeah. I didn't tell anybody. I was never going to tell anyone my birthday to begin with 'cause I never celebrate it but then it turns out by sheer coincidence it's on the same day as Sally's birthday, and that just gave me more reason not to say anything. I didn't wanna steal the spotlight from her, and honestly she deserved it more than a loser like me," Sorun said. "I don't know what I'm supposed to tell Nicole, because the day'll come where she'll flat-out corner me and demand to know what day it is. And I'm hoping she'll take the Sally excuse so I don't gotta bring up my dad. I told her he died but I never said how he died. I think she assumed it was some crime-related thing. I told her a bit about Detroit and for some reason she's under the impression it was some gang-filled apocalypse town, got no idea why."

It was perturbed. That was the expression Shadow had on, after a long while of Sorun trying to figure out what that face was. Maybe he couldn't blame him. Not for how glib and carefree Sorun had been with telling the story, but compared to everything else he just couldn't bother to feel much towards it. There hadn't even been so much as a hint of sadness in the human's voice or expression. He doubted it did anything as severe as creep Shadow out; Sorun didn't have anything strong enough to do that. He was still giving him an odd look now, though.

"And why didn't you?" Shadow asked. Despite the perturbed look he was managing to keep his voice level.

"Because I'm not even sure the concept of suicide exists to them." Sorun felt squeamish even thinking about it. "I mean parents dying, sure, I learned just yesterday how Antoine's dad died and... yeah, stuff happened, but anyways, that? Dad blowing his head off in front of his kid?" Sorun shook his head. "Yeah, no, I'm never telling any of them that. They can't hear it. It's... I just don't feel like something belongs there. The idea of that happening. It goes in the box of stuff I can never tell anybody because it isn't for Mobian ears."

"They've been fighting Eggman and his horrors since they were children, Sorun," he reminded him. "I don't think you need to protect them like this."

He had a point, and admittedly it was a solid point. Them fighting for their lives since childhood probably did harden his friends' constitutions enough that they'd certainly be fazed, but not something as far as mentally scarred from the revelation. All the same... "Probably not, but... I just don't think this is something they need to know about, anyways. Just to be safe. Doesn't change anything." Sorun sighed out loudly and collapsed completely into the sand, flat on his back and staring up at the darkening sky. "Look, Shadow, it was a long time ago, and honestly I'm more upset at the guy for what he put my mom through doing that than the actual loss. And if he was the kind of guy to off himself in front of his kid I'm not even sure if he'd've been a good dad alive. We made it fine without him anyways." He paused. "... I did, at least. Guess she just ended up dying along with everyone else. Maybe it doesn't even matter. None of it did in the end."

He'd stopped looking at the past just so he could move forwards. Could see why now; introspection like this? Wasn't doing it for Sorun. There weren't any profound revelations about the inner self or some grand epiphany to some problem he didn't feel even existed that manifested out of nowhere just from talking about this. Though he did feel... admittedly lighter. Somehow. He wasn't sure why or how. He'd take it but walk away with the winnings.

"Listen, I only decided to say all this stuff 'cause you decided to," Sorun began. "'Cause I needed someone to get all this stuff out to and you're really the only guy I know who'd take it in stride without having a chance of a heart attack."

It took a few moments for Shadow to respond. He was laying down on the sand like Sorun was. "Hope said it would be good. Doing this."

"Probably."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Let's never do this again," Sorun suggested.

"Agreed."

Well, there it was. Decision was made. Never to be reversed by any force imaginable no matter how powerful. Sorun wouldn't have it any other way, and he felt Shadow shared the sentiment.

"I'm going to get us back to Mobius, Sorun," Shadow said to him. His voice was growing a bit muffled as Sorun's eyelids began to droop. "You're going home. I'll see it happen."

"I get bragging rights forever if you don't. I'll lord it over you for all time."

"You'll never receive the chance to exercise those rights. I can assure you of that."

There was an air of finality with those words. Like they were objective fact - that he would get them home no matter what. Immutable truth that couldn't be swayed by any force in the universe. And while Sorun didn't really find it true, the words were comforting. As weird and unnatural comforting words felt coming off that guy of all guys. It was welcome regardless.

"Gonna hold it to you, man..." Sorun mumbled out as he finally drifted off.


Nothing would ever take the couch in the HQ away from its top spot on the list of worst places to sleep. Nothing. That crown would forever be a part of its identity until the end of eternity.

Sand was a close second, though.

It wasn't... bad. Not like his back was scraped raw or anything from sleeping on sand. It didn't feel good, though. It felt like a rock had been rubbed all over him, which, technically, was the truth. He wasn't able to use his coat as a towel to lay on or something because it'd still been drying, so he'd been forced to go bare.

They were dry now, at least. The first thing he'd done after shaking all the sand off of him was put his clothes back on. His second skin - good ol' coat. And all the other stuff. Though he didn't like admitting it he felt vulnerable without the coat.

"He probably ain't gonna feel a damn thing when he wakes up," Sorun thought, eyes glowering down at Shadow. At his fur protecting the delicate skin from the course nightmare that was this beach. "He's got regeneration, too, so it probably wouldn't even matter anyway. Pfft. Some guys get all the lu- huh what?"

When Sorun turned a bit to the side he'd seen something. On the water, next to the beach. Whatever it was it was far enough down the beach that the island itself was obscuring whatever it was, but there was definitely something over there. A... large, blocky white thing. Bobbing up and down in the water. Seeing as Shadow was still sleeping despite it being morning Sorun decided to walk around the island to get a better look at what it was.

He'd done so. Took him a couple minutes of walking to get into a better position to get a good look. And he'd managed to get a good look at what it was.

The blocky thing he'd seen earlier had been the tail-end of a boat. A boat. There was a boat parked next to the island. What looked like a small yacht - about the size of a schooner. He was so surprised at seeing it Sorun was more focused on the fact there was a boat parked next to the island than the fact he even knew what a schooner was.

He blinked. While there was a boat, there were no people in sight. Looking to the left revealed nothing. To the right... still nothing. Nothing but silent sand and trees near-motionless from the mild wind. By all appearances the island was as empty as it was when Sorun and Shadow first washed up here. And yet there was a boat here that wasn't here yesterday.

"Well, uh... um. Huh." Sorun scratched at the side of his face. He didn't know what to think of this. Literally, this particular scenario had never once been considered in his mind and he was struggling what to make of this. "Do we just steal it? We can do that, right?" He cocked his head a bit to the side, considering. "Always kinda wanted to steal a boat, but, hmm... I dunno, this seems like one of those big kind of decisions. Should probably wake Shadow up. Get his take on it."

Yes, that was a good idea. Get another head to think on this so they could come to a rational and informed decision - and to also deflect responsibility onto Shadow in case something goes horribly wrong. It was a great plan.

He went back to the "camp" they'd set up on the beach, which was really just a small fire pit and a bunch of crab husks littered around in the sand. Shadow was still sleeping there. Sorun went to go wake him up, but then spotted the crab leg he'd been playing with last night next to his feet. At the same moment the memory of Shadow splashing water on his face hit him. Sorun bent down and picked th leg up, with a mischievous idea coming to him as he grinned down at Shadow. There was no thinking put into his next action. As if his body moved on its own, with the need to react to this instant impulse he felt.

And so Sorun whipped the crab leg as hard as he could directly in the center of Shadow's face. It bounced off with a meaty thwack! and fell back into the sand, leaving nary a mark on Shadow's face. To the credit of his discipline Shadow didn't so much as stir from his spot. His eyes, however, did instantly snap open, focusing instantly on Sorun. "Explain," he demanded.

Sorun paled a bit. He hadn't thought this far considering mild things like consequences. His mind scrambled for an answer. "There's a boat."

"... Explain further."

"What do you mean, explain further? There's a boat. Parked next to the island. Saw it and came here to wake you up," Sorun informed him. "That's the full extent of the situation."

A sound crossed between a sigh and a grumble left Shadow. He rolled right up to his feet, rolling his shoulders a couple of times as he looked at Sorun, who expected immediate reprisal for the crab leg. Instead, to his surprise, he asked, "The direction of the ship?"

The corner of Sorun's mouth quirked upwards. "Did he... did he just ask for an explanation for waking him up? Did he not even feel me throwing that crab leg?" he wondered. "I feel like he would have brought it up more if... whatever, I guess he was just annoyed at being woken up," he decided, feeling both relief and disappointment at the conclusion. He accepted the dodged bullet and moved on. "That way," he said in answer to Shadow's question, pointing down the beach.

Shadow turned around and scanned the area for a bit. He paused and then nodded, having seen the tail-end of the ship. "I see it," he announced. "Did you investigate the ship? See the pilot?"

"No to both. Saw it and immediately came to you."

"Hm," Shadow hummed out in understanding. He turned his head back halfway to look at Sorun. "I don't see it a likely coincidence somebody just happened to have arrived at this island in time with our arrival. There's no way anybody could have anticipated it. They likely saw the smoke from our fire last night and happened to be near enough to see it, or perhaps even managed to somehow detect our arrival and came to investigate."

"I guess that makes sense, yeah," Sorun said, yawning a bit as he stretched an arm over his head. "Hey, can we steal the boat?"

"..." Shadow's eye narrowed a bit at Sorun, almost in silent admonishment. But then the eye closed fully and he sighed, and the position was held for two seconds before the eye opened back up. "If the operator of the vessel is disagreeable to our needs then yes, Sorun, we may appropriate it."

"Cool." That basically meant they could steal the boat. He had approval now. "You think they have any water in there, man, 'cause-"

"'Ello, 'ello!"

Both Sorun and Shadow had different reactions to the third voice. Shadow's head snapped to the direction of the new voice, eyes narrowed and body tensed. Sorun froze on the spot without even turning around, eyebrows knitted in confusion as he tried to place that accent he just heard. He managed it and only grew more confused. "Why does... how is there an Australian accent here?"

Maybe that was a stupid question. One he realized when he remembered Southern accents survived the super alien apocalypse back in Mobius. Or how by some miracle everyone in the multiverse spoke English. These things just happened somehow. Better not to question it and just turn around so he could see who was speaking.

Aaaand then he had to look down because the person was short. He realized why upon seeing her - she was just a kid. Probably as young as Tails, if not younger. A Mobian, who, against belief, wore a green not-shirt top thing in addition to Mobian Standard. And black... shorts. Huh, pants. Rare. The only thing he couldn't place was what kind of Mobian she was, between the orange and white fur, the dark rings of fur around her eyes, and the bushy tail with the dark rings in it.

Some kind of rodent thing... a mink? Ferret? Some obscure animal he'd never heard of before? Couldn't be a possum with that tail. He couldn't put his finger on it. Sorun decided not to ask and just let her continue speaking, because she'd opened her mouth to continue.

"Oh, wowzers! Ain't you two lookin' right chipper?" She stepped closer to Shadow, looking him up and down with bright blue eyes. He took a step back with a look of slight disgust on his face, like he wanted to throw the thing invading his personal space as far away as possible. "Lookin' downright sinister with those stripes, ain'tcha? And you!" She looked at Sorun. He felt violated from her gaze. "You're pale enough to pass as a lovin' ghost from the briny deep! Wha' happen to all your fur, huh? Dinn't get washed away by the tide, did it?"

"Sorun, what is this?" Shadow asked. His tensed posture had relaxed slightly and he looked over at Sorun for help.

"I think it's a child," Sorun answered, completely straight-faced and yet sounding unsure as he looked at the rodent Mobian. She was looking back and forth between them, following the conversation. Still smiling like a toddler who'd just found a shiny marble.

Shadow frowned at Sorun. "I know she's a child, you fool, I'm asking what's she's saying. Translate."

Sorun looked at Shadow. "Huh? I don't know, man, I didn't understand half of that. I was hoping you were getting it."

Hearing that, Shadow flinched. And now he himself looked unsure as he looked back at the child. "What should we do with her?"

Sorun shrugged. "I don't know. You're not suggesting we take her with us, are you?" he asked him. "What if she gets hungry? I'm not giving her any of the crabs, Shadow. Those our my crabs."

"Our crabs. Of which there are none left."

"You seriously ate all the...?" Sorun cut himself off and shook his head to get back on track. "Whatever, listen, she might know more about the boat. Try conversing with her."

"I will try." Shadow didn't sound confident at the prospect, and looked even more unsure when he looked back down at her. She looked like she was holding in a laugh for some reason, though neither of the two could fathom why. "Child," Shadow began.

"Yeah, mate, what is it?" the child asked back.

"I don't imagine one of your stature piloted a vessel of that size to an island in the middle of nowhere," Shadow said. "Where is the captain of that vessel back there?"

"Imaginin' wrong then, mate. That there's my ship."

"You're the captain." Shadow didn't sound like he believed her. Sorun had a hard time believing himself - not without seeing a captain's hat.

The hatless girl just smiled and nodded her head in response. "Yup, yup!"

"Okay..." Shadow breathed out slightly, like he was trying to maintain his composure. "Since I'm skeptical anybody would let a child captain a ship into the ocean, I'll ask this: is there somebody else here besides you?"

She seemed exuberant in giving an explanation. Shadow looked anything but, and Sorun wasn't far behind him. "Oh, right, right, that'll be Blaze you'll be speakin' about, mate! See, me an' her were sailing 'round the bend, lookin' for some mystical some-such or another when we spotted your smokestack from way out by far! We docked the moment dawn broke out past the horizon, then she goes on flabbin' 'bout some nonsense, tellin' me to stay aboard 'cause there could be a scrap or some nonsense. I weren't gonna stand for such an insult an' went out anyways, found you two chums chattin' right here!"

This was the first time Sorun had ever seen Shadow so exhausted. Like he was devoting his all into trying to follow the conversation but just wasn't managing. It was made even worse that it was the middle of the morning and he'd just woken up. In a gesture of defeat he rose his hands up to rub at the ridges of his eyes, and though he looked like he wanted to, the hedgehog's pride refused him to emit a sigh.

There was one thing, though, that Sorun picked out. A single word the child said. "Blaze". He didn't know why but it felt like something twinged in the back of his brain hearing that word. Like it poked at a memory that didn't exist, because the significance was completely lost on Sorun.

"Sorun, the only information I gleaned from all that is that there's a second person somewhere," Shadow grumbled out. He sounded like he was in physical pain.

"Does this mean we're not stealing the boat?" They definitely could. Children weren't that tough. At least not to Shadow.

Shadow looked like he wanted to yell, but managed to refrain. "Stay. Stay here. With the child. I'm going to survey the island for the second one, and then we will discuss what to do."

"I don't believe that will be necessary."

Oh, another new voice. And one that sounded older and infinitely more coherent, to boot. That fact alone was probably the only reason Shadow laconically turned towards the new voice instead of being hyper-alert like he had been the first time. Sorun paused first - again, there was that tingle - but then he quickly wrote it off once more while he turned to look at the voice.

"Oh wow. Clothes." It was a sight beyond imagining. It was seldom... seldom... Sorun ever saw a Mobian that wore more than Mobian Standard. Even more rare he'd see a Mobian with pants, which was why he'd been so surprised with the girl. Seldom enough he could count the amount of Mobians he knew that wore more than just a pair of gloves and shoes on his hands.

This one had everything - and style to boot. Shoes. Form-fitting white pants - pants of all things, he could barely believe it - the white gloves, of course, and... what Sorun would admit was a fairly fly purple coat. The kind of coat the looked uncomfortably expensive, but not in a vain way. The weird tails on the sides of the coat and the white faux fur along the coat's cuffs looked regal in a way, but the otherwise minimalistic design and how tight-fitting the coat was suggested an air of practicality. This was both a coat that showed status and a coat that was meant for more than just show. A coat that was to be used.

Without a doubt. This was the most important person in this world. The coat said it all, and Sorun made it known.

"Shadow, this person is the most important person in the world," Sorun said, turning towards the hedgehog.

Glancing at Sorun, Shadow looked all but lost at that statement. Confused at how he'd arrived to such a conclusion. "What makes you say this?"

"Her coat," Sorun answered, because how much simpler an answer could he provide?

Confusion turned to hard skepticism. "What?" He sounded so done by now it was turning into something beyond annoyance.

"Her coat," Sorun repeated, pointing at the purple coat-wearer. Was it not obvious? How could he not see? "That's the coat of an important person who gets things done. A coat that demands respect of everyone who looks at it. Nobodies don't wear coats like that, Shadow." He thumbed at the shoulder of his own coat as proof of knowledge. "I'm a coat guy, Shadow. I know these things." And he'd also been spending too much time around Honey.

But he didn't even think it needed explaining it was so obvious. The logic was there. The evidence was standing right there in front of their eyes, and Sorun had assumed no further proof was needed. This was primarily the reason why, after Shadow responded, Sorun ended up freezing on the spot in disbelief.

"I'm ignoring you for the rest of this conversation," he announced, completely turning away from Sorun to face the newcomer - the one with the coat. Sorun was rendered speechless. Disbelief fell away into betrayal at his counsel not being taken. Betrayal morphed into anticipation for when this stranger finally revealed who she was. Revealed that she was, in fact, important, thereby proving Sorun was right. It was but an inevitability. All one needed was a single glance at that coat to be assured of this. He just needed patience.

Speaking of the coat-wearer, Sorun just now realized he didn't actually look at her face. He looked towards it, and... yep. Without a doubt. She was a cat Mobian. 'Bout as old as Sorun, looked like. The cat-like tail swishing behind her was a big enough tell, but the ears cinched it. The fact her fur was purple aside from the white fur around her mouth was another matter.

For a single moment Sorun's brows furrowed. He was believing Nicole less and less about her saying purple Mobian lynxes weren't a thing. This was two purple cats he'd found now.

She caught his staring, blinking a pair of amber eyes at his while turning to face Sorun directly. Her expression was neutral for the most part, the corners of her mouth downturned ever so slightly though her eyes were alit with a small bit of curiosity. There was something about the way she was standing, though. It seemed relaxed, but there was... something beneath it. A type of tenseness, one that, after a moment's deliberation, Sorun realized was the same kind of tenseness Shadow displayed when the child-thing first revealed herself. Much more subdued, though. Not nearly as aggressive.

This was a person ready to jump into a fight at a moment's notice while seeming to keep a cool head. Rummaging around in his memories he realized Sally often held that exact same demeanor, back when they'd worked together and had gone on a few missions. Was she an important person, then? Politically-speaking? Like her? It would explain the coat. And that red gem in her face. A little red, shining bead, right there between her eyes. Very regal-looking and more credence towards Sorun's accurate observation of her. That and the way her hair was tied upwards the way it was. Shadow must have noticed something, too, because he was giving the purple cat his full attention and not even so much as glancing as the little gremlin standing off to the side.

"Is something the matter?" the cat asked Sorun. "You seem to be staring."

Sorun froze; his voice choked in his throat. When she'd spoken to him, addressed him directly, there was... a violently unpleasant feeling. The entire left side of his body itched in an almost painful manner, though the sensation had disappeared nearly as soon as he'd noticed it. His right hand reflexively clenched, searching for a sword that wasn't there. Anxiety swelled in Sorun as something instinctual screamed out at him from within.

Evidently his distress must have been visible on his face, because the cat Mobian had taken a step back. A bit of concern leaked out onto her features. "Oh, my apologies. I had not meant to startle you." She quickly looked to Shadow. "Is he alright?"

"No. Who are you?" Shadow demanded, outright ignoring Sorun. The cat was entirely in his focus as he continued to speak. "We saw your vessel parked off the beach back there. I highly doubt you just happened upon us, so what is your purpose here?"

The feeling cut off as soon as it began. Sorun blinked in confusion, looking down at his right hand. "What was I doing just now?" he wondered, flexing his empty hand. Something to do about the cat? He looked up at her again...

"... Oh, right, the purple lynx thing." He wasn't sure. Maybe Nicole was right but it was only a rule that applied in Mobius Prime. They were in a different world, after all. Hard to say if such a thing was a universal constant.

The purple cat relaxed when she seemed to notice the change in Sorun's demeanor. The thoughtful yet-slightly-questioning look he had on as he sort of just stared off into space past her. She turned to address Shadow. "In answer to your previous question, my name is Blaze. This," she continued, gesturing to the nearby child, "is my friend, Marine."

The child looked up from the tower of crab husks she'd begun stacking up out of boredom. "Oi, get the full name out there! It's Captain Marine the Raccoon-"

"Goddammit I could have guessed raccoon."

"-to you all and don't you be forgettin' it!"

Blaze's response was cup her face with one hand in a vain attempt at shielding the secondhand embarrassment clearly on her face while cupping the elbow of that arm with her other hand. "Yes, she gets very enthusiastic, please excuse her," she quickly apologized. She glanced at Sorun. "And... your friend was quite accurate about his earlier assessment, as it happens. In regards to my position."

"We're not friends," Shadow swiftly rebuked. "And what is that supposed to mean? You're..." His eyes quickly scanned over her outfit. Sorun nearly scoffed; he'd obviously abandoned that truth a while ago if he hadn't taken stock in the coat. "A government official of some kind?"

Blaze's hand lowered from her face. She seemed a bit amused. "Of a certain sort, yes. I'm a princess, though the title is a bit of a misnomer, I'm afraid. I'm in fact the sovereign ruler."

"Ah-huh." Sorun nodded rapidly a few times while, at the same time, slowly turning towards Shadow. "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh..."

Shadow made a "tch" sound. "Be silent. Her being a ruler doesn't make her the most important person on the planet," he ground out, not even bothering to look at Sorun. "Ruler of what? A nation? A coalition of nations?"

"The planet."

There it was. Victory. Sweet, sweet victory. No words needed to be said by Sorun, though there was no wiping away the shit-eating grin he was flashing towards Shadow. Vindication. His body surged with the emotion as the epitome of smugness itself spread over his entire being.

For his part Shadow seemed to be doing his best to pretend Sorun didn't even exist at the moment. His mouth had clamped firmly shut and he was doing everything he could to maintain a level expression while staring at Blaze, who seemed to be smiling in amusement at the sight before her. There was no hiding the smaller signs, though. The twinge of his jaw. The hard expression in his eyes. That little vein on his forehead that was bulging, nearly invisible from the fur concealing it.

Sorun had won. There was no need to announce it and Shadow would never acknowledge it. But he'd won. And they both knew it. That's all Sorun needed.

"... Your purpose." Oh, Shadow was salty about the loss. That nearly came out as a growl. "What business do you have with us?"

Coming from somebody like Shadow that kind of tone would send most people cowering in fear, even people who didn't know who or what he was. He had that effect on people. It'd washed completely over Blaze, however. The smile she'd wore had fallen off completely as she seemed to turn into "all business" mode, but she didn't seem the least bit intimidated.

"Marine and I have been on the search for objects of extreme importance to both myself and every denizen of this world," she began. "Yesterday I had felt a disturbance of sorts and we had arrived here to investigate. We'd seen your campfire and decided to wait until morning to make contact. And now I'd very much like to know who you two are and what you're doing here." There was an air of disappointment in her voice. That they'd been found instead of whatever she'd been looking for. At the same time she seemed genuinely intrigued at the pair standing before her, and Sorun couldn't help but take every word she said as truth to heart. She practically radiated politeness.

"Trade you that story for a boat ride," Sorun offered before Shadow could speak. He'd looked like he was about to tell Sorun off, even seemed a bit annoyed, but after hearing the actual words he appeared mollified and went back to looking at Blaze. "We're super stuck here. 'Cast Away' style."

Blaze gave him an odd look, tilting her head the smallest bit and appearing unsure as to what to say to that. Marine seemed doubly confused. Shadow just sighed.

"Ignore him," he requested. "He's recovering from a bout of delirium brought on by consuming psychoactive flora. I'm not confident he's regained all his senses."

Oh, Sorun saw what he was doing. He wasn't discounting his win with such a cheap move like that. "I'm the most coherent person you'll ever meet, don't listen to this guy," Sorun denied. He looked at Shadow. "And that stuff didn't even last an hour, what are you talking about?"

"... Delirium?" Blaze interjected, drawing both their attention. "From what?"

"The mushrooms," Sorun answered. He glanced down at his feet in embarrassment. "I, uh... I was really hungry. I didn't know the local plants were bad."

"The only species of mushroom I'm aware of to flourish in this environment are the white-capped... do you mean the mushrooms with the blue stems?" Blaze asked. He didn't like how she sounded so puzzled.

"Y-yeah?" No. Not again. Please. He just rode so high from getting one over on Shadow please don't say that-

"Are you sure?" Blaze asked. "Many Maritimers credit that particular species to be an excellent ingredient in many culinary recipes. I myself have partaken in them. I've never met a single person in my entire life who have claimed to have suffered some sort of adverse side effect from them. They're supposed to be completely harmless."

Sorun didn't answer. He couldn't. Not while under assault from such a crushing amount of shame. It was bad enough he nearly sank to his knees, but, somehow, he managed to stand tall. If slightly slumped forwards.

Shadow apparently took pity on Sorun and tried to come to his rescue. In his own way. "His kind have a weak constitution. It's not his fault," he said to Blaze. She nodded in understanding. "But back to the previous matter, yes. We would greatly appreciate rescue and would be more than willing to apprise you of our situation in return."

"That sounds more than agreeable to me." Blaze smiled over at the both of them. Sorun nearly fell with relief, embarrassment all but forgotten, while Shadow simply nodded. "Well, then, shall we leave now?"


A/N- Listen. Just listen. I had to put him in at least once and the only way I could do it and make it believable was if it was in a drug sequence.

I have literally no experiencing writing an accent like Marine's. Part of me wants to have her get accidentally stabbed in the throat and make her mute so I don't have to bother, but that'd be the coward's way out. So I'll deal.