The power of computers was their simplicity.

A mind was a complex, messy thing, designed for handling an infinitely variable range of experiences in a world of unknown parameters, uncertain goals, and inconsistent stimuli, all while handling the basic tasks of maintaining its own wetware and trying to make "best fit" choices based on simultaneously a lifetime of context for the general and frequently no context whatsoever for the specific.

A computer lacked this clutter. A computer had a specific goal, and a specific function based off its program. This clarity of purpose allowed it to direct all its power on a single point, calculating numbers, operating with split second timing and levels of accuracy far beyond an equivalent meat sack, because a computer did exactly, and only, what it was instructed to do.

Reason, thanks to having inhabited three completely different minds in her memories was uniquely positioned to appreciate both the analytical power of a brain substantially more powerful than most computers, and just how far a computer was punching above its weight compared to what it would be if it had to deal with all this meat stuff.

But there was a very good reason why Robotnik, a genius of many fields, had a habit of using critters to power the robotic AI of his Badnik armies.

Because computers were incredibly stupid.

Reason lay wrapped around her precious vial of miracle, a flickering fireshield blazing around her, the strange feeling of rings, something she'd experienced for only one solitary moment before in all her lives, a single magical moment where Miles defied all reality to save her life and then defied her own despair to give her a new life as Reason.

But even with Miles' genius at work, the program Prower Seven Zero operated on a very simple set of rules that his laboratory followed very well.

1: Use laser emitters to terminate any biohazards, robots, and non-mobians with extreme prejudice while carefully preserving the lab's furniture and any lifeforms within.

2: Use a rail mounted ceiling cannon to shoot a 1UP model ring container at any mobians within the lab hard enough to shatter the monitor and restore the wounded mobians to fighting fitness to oppose an invader.

3: Follow up the rings with a flameshield before removing any remaining biohazardous material with enough fire to leave the metal floor glowing somewhere between cherry red and blinding bright.

4: Deploy external defence turrets to ward off continued assaults until help arrived or the defence mode was manually overridden.

Reason knew this as much because it had just happened as because she had taken the time to browse lab functionality on the Miles Electric, and she knew with perfect confidence that it had been Amy Rose - clever, adaptable Amy Rose - and not the rigid intelligence of the computerised Doodle within her - because this was also a choice that Doodle could not possibly have made. Because, very unlike computers, this was exactly the wrong decision being made for very intelligent reasons on limited data.

Rouge, her carefully constructed cage sliced to pieces around her without even scratching her tainted flesh, her wounds - and overdose ridden brain - fully restored by the rings, and protected from the self-same fire that had engulfed her as a biohazard by the fireshield that had targeted her as a mobian.

And the eyeball covered monster wasted no time in executing programming of her own. Amy exploded sideways from a lightning kick to her head. The lopsided jaws of the bat clicking together in a dark semblance of speech as she pursued the surprised hedgehog, smashing through machinery without a care as she approached, batting Amy's hammer out of her hands with a flick of a tentacle. The weapon spun through the air smashing through Miles' main computer terminal in a shower of sparks.

The cannons outside ceased, lobotomised. Rouge struck again, smashing Amy into the wall. Rings tumbled from her body as Reason dove between cover, scrabbling among the remains of the desk for the lab's primary computer core and the precious golden ring portal among the splinters.

"Tails! You have to get away!" Amy dove under a kick into a flickering ring, sending her boot into the eye in the back of Rouge's knee hard enough to break the bat's fire shield. Using the force of the kick, Amy put herself between Reason and Rouge, arms outstretched. "Just run for the door and keep running. Don't look back."

Reason flinched. She had the portal and the computer core. She needed to get them away from Robotnik, she needed to get Miles his sample and tell him what she'd discovered.

Rouge didn't fall, despite the ooze pouring from her leg. A tentacle lashed out, crashing through the pink hedgehog's resistance with her lone ring tumbling away. All eyes but one focused on Reason as Rouge dragged the struggling hedgehog closer, terrible jaws opening to emit a long purple tongue.

… She needed to save Amy.

Reason charged, flaming shield raging around her as she barrelled into the monstrous bat.

"Tails! No!"

Rotten flesh momentarily sizzled from the heat as an almost hand lashed out, clamping down on her throat. Reason's shield failed as rings burst from the bat, a handful entering the mobians in her grip, only to tumble out themselves a moment later and back into Rouge as she tightened her grasp enough to wound. Pulling the smaller fox close her tongue snaked up towards Reason's face, holding her too far away for her hands to do more than pry at the inexorable grip on her throat, black spots flashing across her vision.

Her tails, on the other hand, were just long enough. One coiled around Rouge's tongue, yanking it forward and down as the second splashed the contents of the sample bottle into her open jaw.

Rouge screamed, stumbling backwards clutching her throat. Amy and Rouge fell to the ground heaving for breath. Reason pushed herself up first, grabbing the empty bottle from her tail as gunfire crashed against the wall behind her. Robotnik's robots, unmolested by the now disabled turrets, had successfully regrouped.

Reason crushed the bottle in her hand, squeezing until she drew blood before dropping the shattered remains into the portal. Her fingers numbed as she smeared blood over the lip of the ring before dropping it onto the bat's writhing body.

Then she turned around and punched Amy in the side of the head, sending the hedgehog spinning to the floor before leaping onto her back. She coiled her tails around her throat as she invaded the hedgehog's hammerspace, tearing a machine free and holding it aloft, the gasping hedgehog struggling feebly in her grip as consciousness faded.

And the robots, because they had brains, rather than computers, hesitated, trying to process the situation as Reason pushed herself back to her feet, dripping blood as she tore apart the machine in a spray of scalding liquid, plucking the glittering chaos emerald from within.

Reason smiled, wiping a bloodstained hand over her teastained face as she walked towards the closest machine, dragging Amy's limp body behind her, holding her prize aloft.

"Objective complete, grandfather. Please assign further orders."