After the alternate universe " Queen Sally " had her dinner with Fiona and Scourge where she had asked them to start helping them in Freedom Fighting missions, Fiona was still stunned at how lucky she had been as most of the people left the kitchen with empty plates. She had been given that offer because Scourge and her taking down her version of Robotnik for good earned her respect, and the respect of most of her team with only the alternate detective version of Sonic complaining about it.

But even though she had done something to earn it, using a paralyzing electric ray gun on Robotnik to make him helpless against Scourge, so he could keep increasing the number, she was still confused and insecure that she was even considered an acceptable potential Freedom Fighter at all. All she could do was think back to how she treated Tails.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when Queen Sally said politely, " Fiona? " " Oh! What? " Fiona said. Like last time she saw her, she wore a long yellow dress with a golden belt and tiara with a red jewel in the center, and had long red hair tied in a ponytail at the end, hardly the tomboy that Sally looked like in comparison. The only thing tomboyish was the sword scabbard tied to the back of her dress, which had a golden hilted sword sticking out.

She told her, " I'd like to have a word with you for a bit, alone. Since you're going to start participating in our freedom fighting, I want to talk about the best way to approach this for you. Scourge, I'd like you to wait in the living room with the others while we talk. " Scourge left his chair in the kitchen saying, " Alright, " and left the room, as Sally was grateful that he obeyed her order at all and was proud of herself for thinking to say, " I'd like, " when telling him to do something.

Now that she was alone with Fiona, she said with her hands clasped together and a calm expression, " This is going to be awkward for you, I suppose, but I need you to tell me why you left your old teammates. " Fiona went from looking merely nervous to stunned and bewildered, and said, " What?! But, I, you want me to become a Freedom Fighter again, but you want me to go on a long rant about why I gave up the last time?! "

Queen Sally explained, " I know it seems strange, but if I want to keep that from happening again, it's better to get to the root of the problem and fix it and nip any potential problems in the bud. Maybe I can't solve every problem you had, but I can at least try to fix most of them, but I can't do that if you don't tell me what those problems were. "

Fiona groaned and said nervously, " You're gonna get mad at me for going on an angry rant about my old friends. And then I'll get in trouble. The minute I call them self-righteous hypocrites, you'll probably glare at me just like Sally did! This IS awkward. Do I have to? " Queen Sally replied calmly, " I can't blame you for ranting about it. You obviously must have had very good reasons to leave the Freedom Fighters when you took down my version of Robotnik earlier, and of course those reasons would involve you being under a lot of stress, so I'll try not to call you out on it. That wouldn't be very fair, and I want to encourage you to be honest with me. I want you to know that you don't have to be afraid of telling me things. No offense. "

Fiona sighed, and since she had wanted to talk about such a thing ever since she first became friends with Scourge, she admitted, " Like I was with my old team. There's so much that I had to keep to myself 'cause I didn't want to get in trouble. I was never a pure good, righteous hero like them! I was a criminal! I had to steal to survive. That's what happens when your parents move on without you, after you're put in a jewel mining slave camp as a KID. "

Queen Sally felt sorry for her as she started to resentfully rant, " I joined the Freedom Fighters so I could have a steady income from the king so I wouldn't have to steal my way through life anymore. And when the Freedom Fighters found out that I used to work for some people that just attacked their new base for Robotnik, Sally glared at me for even knowing them, even though that was right AFTER my knowledge of them from earlier helped them win the fight! I'll NEVER forget how she looked at me. Every time I think of her, that glare comes right back to haunt me! Not a single thank you, even though I got Bean to get off of Sonic's head, and got Bark to stand down which probably saved my friends a lot of bruises. ALL she did was ask how I knew those two! And when I tried to get some gratitude from her, she was just like, ' That's not the point. ' She was usually not LIKE that! So it really stuck out to me! All she ever did was glare at me after that, she didn't say a single word to me. "

She continued, " And sure, Sonic stood up for me. He said I was a welcome part of the team. But one, that acceptance and trust didn't last, and two, he was the ONLY one who even tried! Everyone else was completely SILENT, and barely said a word to me after that. I hated being the center of attention there. I hadn't worked with those losers Bean and Bark in over a YEAR and she still held it against me. All we did was take some jewels so I could get money to feed myself, it's not like we worked for Robotnik! "

Queen Sally, not being sure what exactly to say, simply said, " See, there you go, you're telling me your reasons already! She made a big mistake treating you like that. You'd think that basic common decency would tell someone that when their teammate does something to help them, the first thing they should be focusing on is THANKING them, NOT on finding a reason to hate and judge them after you JUST PROVED you could be trusted and relied on! Showing gratitude, that's not just being a good friend, that's being a good leader! I don't want to go on for too long about this, the point is, I promise you'll never have to go through that with me. I'm at least smart enough to realize that a leader should be POLITE to her teammates, especially when that leader is ROYALTY. That's how a proper princess would act. I hope you're right that she usually wasn't like that. "

Fiona sighed, and Queen Sally continued nervously, " Now, I can't guarantee you that my Sonic wouldn't judge you for your past – after all, he was complaining about you two all dinner. But at least most of his complaints will be focused on Scourge, and he's not exactly having his feelings hurt over it. He's taking it in stride and teasing him about it, which is a minor annoyance that's gonna be worth having two Sonics on the team. Most of my team is polite enough to not bother you about your past. You're going to be helping us and that's all we care about. So, we've gotten your biggest incentive for leaving out of the way, right? I mean, you did mention it first. So that's a good start. "

Fiona said unhappily, " Well, it is the thing I always think about when I look back on why I ever left. I mean, it's not like I didn't like freedom fighting! I loved getting to spite Robotnik at every chance I got, but it was hard to enjoy myself on missions when I didn't really get to DO anything that mattered! There were a lot of times after Sonic came back from space where I felt like I could've just STAYED HOME! And that's really discouraging! Before he got sent to space, when we all thought he had died, I spent most of my freedom fighting time on missions to leave bombs in robot factories and smash the various robots that threatened Knothole. But it became harder for me to do the latter when Rotor got it in his head that building weapons to HELP the Freedom Fighters was WRONG! Basically, he made a bunch of fire happen with this big mecha he was riding, and because of ONE mistake, he vowed to never make another weapon again. I couldn't tell anyone back there, but that REALLY pissed me off! I thought he was supposed to be SMART! "

Queen Sally replied, " I don't blame you, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! And don't worry, I won't get on your case for the occasional swear. I'm not that judgemental. My Rotor's always made weapons for us. Sonic doesn't need them, but everyone else needs all the help they can get, so we all have some kind of way to shoot lasers. Even Antoine's sword can do that. And of course, he makes our bombs too. You can't fight dictators without them! I can't see how your Freedom Fighters expected to fight Robotnik without any explosives to blow up his stuff. That's standard issue in every mission. How else are you supposed to carry out freedom fighting? "

Fiona, who was briefly embarrassed at her slip-up of casually swearing, continued, " Thanks for taking my side. My point is, while I WAS excited to start sticking it to Robotnik finally, it became pretty hard for me to feel like I was making a difference. Not only because Sonic came back, because there were tons of other Freedom Fighters besides him around that hogged all the glory and usefulness. The first mission since Sonic came back, Bunnie singlehandedly stopped Robotnik's plan to launch some missiles, which made me wonder why I even showed up after a while. She could've done the whole mission HERSELF. I went into this group and I immediately felt redundant and wondered why they accepted me into it at all! I spent my whole time there surrounded by Freedom Fighters who were not only a lot more experienced than I was at fighting Robotnik, but also had special powers or talents that I could never dream of having, that usually involved making fighting robots a snap, while me, with my regular powers and fists, couldn't even make a dent in their armor without a weapon. "

She ranted quickly, " And when I DID find a weapon, Rotor told me I wasn't allowed to have it because it was a gun! Even though I'd only be using it against ROBOTS! What, did he feel SORRY for the robots?! He said it wasn't their way. All that told me was that they cared more about their IMAGE than actually being as effective as they could at fighting Robotnik! I picked that rifle up and I was like, ' Now this is my idea of a robot-buster! ' But NO! That would be too cool apparently! "

Queen Sally reassured her, " I don't mind you using a rifle or something against robots. They're just robots. It's just that I expect robots to be bulletproof, and sometimes they're not, like the weaker badniks, but usually it's better to use lasers. I could always have Rotor make a ray gun for you that looks exactly like that rifle you wanted. I could call it the Robot-Buster. "

Fiona said hopefully, " Really? You'd do that for me?... " Then she sighed heavily, and said, " But Julie-Su already HAS a ray gun. Any time they wanted that, they just called her. I never had any chance of standing out. " Queen Sally told her, " Don't worry, on my planet Julie's always with Knuckles on Angel Island. But I see what you mean, since I just said most of my team has projectile weapons. "

Fiona explained, " When I first started hanging out with Scourge – nothing serious, we just watched movies on the couch together – he offered to power me up with the Master Emerald. He did it himself, after all. But I couldn't get Knuckles' dad to agree to it. He just lectured me about how power comes with responsibility and he didn't trust me not to go wild with it. But one of the reasons he used got to me because I knew it was right; I didn't know what I wanted. I still can't think of any power or talent I could have that would make me really useful to the team! Besides, even if I did power myself up, I was sure that everyone in my team would just be creeped out and lecture me about it, and Scourge said that if they were really gonna lecture me about becoming more useful to my team, then I deserve better! He said it was just another way they were acting like idiots. No wonder they needed Snively to get rid of Robotnik. And they just take the credit for it and talk as if Sonic beat him! "

Queen Sally found it intriguing. She thought, " She left because she wasn't being useful enough? Huh, rather than being sick of helping them, she was sick of not getting to help them enough. Did she think she wasn't good enough for them? Was that literal? " Fiona complained, " Sure, I loved getting to spite Robotnik. He deserved it for keeping me trapped in a cell for two years! He and Snively both needed to do something better with their lives! And I made sure to tell Snively that! But what's the point of me helping if I wasn't even making a difference? I was just a normal girl! The only time I felt like what I did mattered was when I defended Mina's concert from some Bombs, and I was hardly the only one doing that! Aside from getting Bean to stop attacking Sonic by distracting him with shiny keys, everything I did could be done by someone with nothing special about them at all, like ANTOINE, for example. The fact that they got on without me just fine until I joined was all the proof I needed from the start that they didn't need me! "

She said sadly, " The only reason they let me on the team was because they wanted all the help they could get. They were desperate, especially after Sonic got sent to space. Maybe I came there with the worst of timing. They already had the original members, like Bunnie, Antoine, Sally, Rotor, Nicole, Tails. Then after Angel Island got taken over, the Chaotix switched to being in Knothole full-time, so they had Espio, Knuckles, Mighty, Ray, Julie-Su, Vector! Sonic's uncle Chuck helped out with the engineering in the Brain Trust too. Later on Sonic added Tommy Turtle of all people to the team, and sure he was a nice guy but he was such a wimp, and he was yet another engineer on the team making me redundant. Occasionally we had Geoffrey and Hershey to help too. That's, HOW many members?! Maybe if I joined a lot earlier I would've felt better, but I didn't even know their team existed yet! "

Queen Sally reassured her, " Don't worry, we don't even have a ' Chaotix ' over here. Whatever that is. That's the weirdest word I've ever heard. " Fiona clarified, " I mean Espio, Mighty, Charmy, Ray, Vector and Julie-Su. " " They don't live anywhere near Mobotropolis and Knothole. They're not even friends with Knuckles here, and we only know about them because he mentioned them to us once after his trip to Carnival Island. Charmy's a prince in Goldenhive, Vector's from Downunda, Mighty and Ray are from Furville and Espio's on Angel Island. I've never heard of Hershey. Tommy's too scared of getting hurt to be a Freedom Fighter. And Geoffrey's always busy with his own freedom fighting group separate from us, the rebel underground, though with Robotnik gone, they'd have to change continents to keep it up. "

Queen Sally smiled confidently and said in determination, " Like we're going to. My team's not about to give up fighting for freedom just because OUR kingdom's been freed, especially not since Antoine's father is still the roboticized sub-boss in Mercia. So that's our next destination, and of course we've got the plane to get there, and with the addition of your teleporter, things will be even easier! " If Fiona had known how Sonic's team handled their time without a Robotnik, she would've said that was a more admirable and smart direction for her team to take that made more sense for a team of freedom fighting heroes. But instead she took it for granted that they would do that next and simply smiled, as Queen Sally finished saying, " My team's a lot smaller than yours was when you were with them. So I guess that means, if you ever wanna power up with an Emerald, you've got a much better chance of standing out properly, because here there's a lot less special powers that are already taken. There's just super speed, super strength, and flight. And ice powers, courtesy of the two-tailed fox you got back to our team. "

Fiona said on confusion, " Got back? We found him in the forest on an island. " Queen Sally explained nonchalantly, " He got sent to an island with amnesia by Robotnik earlier. The jerk was trying to hit Sonic with that ray, but Miles, I mean Frost, pushed him out of the way, and Sonic made sure that ray was shattered to pieces afterwards, along with all the hard-to-find materials he used to make it. Frost was with me and Rotor when I first asked Sonic to join my team. Sorry I didn't tell you earlier, I just assumed you knew. If you had talked to Sonic and gotten to see his conversation with him, you would've found out they already knew each other. "

Fiona looked sheepish and embarrassed for not knowing that Detective Sonic already knew a Tails, facepalmed, and said, " Now I feel silly. I was so shy and awkward about doing something good for an alternate Sonic that I completely missed out on that! I wish I paid more attention. I just assumed things would be the same in the alternate universe as it was with Scourge's planet, so I didn't think I needed to hear what they said. Well, don't tell Scourge that. He really was proud of getting him to have friends. It was like when he first met Miles all over again and he liked getting back to old times! "

She realized she was going off topic, and complained, " I guess I made my point. Maybe if the Freedom Fighters didn't have so many damn people on their side, like the Chaotix, but even THEN, I was just a normal girl, so no matter how small the team was, I wouldn't feel like they needed me. The only talent I had was already done better by every engineer on the team. Who cares that I can do some hacking? The last time I tried, I managed to activate a trap that got me and my friends electrocuted for a while! "

Queen Sally said, " Well, if you don't want to feel redundant, you're better off doing solo missions. " Fiona slightly perked up just from hearing that, thinking it was a brilliant idea, and wished that Sally had thought of that right away as she continued, " You could use some gadgets like bombs or a USB drive with a virus, and use those against factories. You could go on missions where you're the sole person being relied on for something, where everyone else is too busy with something else, so you'll KNOW that we needed you, that NOBODY ELSE could've been there to do what you did. I'll try my best to think of things for you to do, and you can tell me how much free time you want in a day. I know it's gonna be really tricky to fix this problem since you're right, you're not super special, but that's why I need to make sure you're doing a LOT for us to compensate. "

Fiona, who didn't want to get too excited over false hope, smiled nervously and said, " Thanks. Quantity over quality, I guess. That's still better than NOTHING. I just hope we can convince Scourge of that arrangement, 'cause the whole reason he encouraged me to leave so much was so he could spend most of every day with me. "

Queen Sally reassured Fiona, " Maybe he'll be so focused on freedom fighting missions that he won't even mind that you're somewhere else. He'll be having so much fun destroying robots and buildings that he might not even notice you're gone. " Fiona said sadly, " The biggest reason I liked hanging out with Scourge was that, well the biggest one was that he was actually friendly! I wouldn't have wanted to spend time with him if he was a jerk to me. But what he had over my friends was that I could tell him all about the thefts I did in the past and trust him not to make me feel bad about myself. And he was just as excited and curious about that as he was about my time as a Freedom Fighter! He's the only person I can really be myself around. So I couldn't form a real, close bond with ANY of the Freedom Fighters because I couldn't tell them all about me, and I didn't want them to think of me as just a bitter cynic. So they just thought I was a bland nice girl until the end. I never felt like they knew the real me, and even now, they just demonize me. I bet they wouldn't put ANYTHING past me. So they'll never really understand me. But I guess that's my fault for never telling them. "

She complained, " I doubt I could ever share my old memories with you guys. You'd just look awkward and judge me for it, when it wasn't even my fault! It's not like I COULD get a real job back then because I was barely a teenager and didn't get to go to high school, so even if I knew how to make a resume, who would've hired me? Sure, Knothole had a homeless shelter, but I didn't know that place existed back then until I stumbled into it! So I need to have Scourge with me so I can have someone to really talk to every once and a while. He'll stay with me no matter what I tell him! With you guys, I'm gonna have to be careful! I always felt like the Freedom Fighters were just using me as a spare Freedom Fighter. The only time we had a moment of friendship of any kind was when we all put our hands together once. "

Queen Sally reassured her, " You have nothing to worry about, Fiona, I know that you had to do that to survive. And we wouldn't want to get Scourge mad at us, and we wouldn't let you stay if we didn't want you around. We know that if we want Scourge helping us, we have to keep you around, too! You'll always have Scourge to talk to about your past if you're not comfortable talking about it with anyone else. I promise I won't get into the habit of judging you for your past. It doesn't matter anymore, and I think it's interesting at the very least. And if anyone else tries to insult you, I'll scold them for it. Sonic's an arrogant jerk who usually just cares about the mission, so don't take what he says to heart. Most of us aren't mad at you, just confused that you want to help. "

She briefly stroked her shoulder to comfort her as Fiona was looking worried and doubtful, and continued, " Frost still really respects you for saving him from that island Robotnik sent him to. It's gonna take some time for my team to warm up to you, but I know I can promise you this. I'll try to be your friend. I mean, if there's anything you want to talk about that you wouldn't want to talk about with Scourge, I'll always be here. I have a feeling I'm a lot more open-minded and pragmatic than the Sally you know. Otherwise, I wouldn't have let two convicted criminals on my team without even blinking! Some would just think that's foolhardy, and reckless, but there is no freedom fighting without risk, and I'd rather take the risk and reap the rewards! "

Fiona smiled at her in respect for her fun attitude at the last sentence, and Queen Sally reassured her, " And I know Miles likes you. So does Bunnie. She's pretty idealistic, so she's just happy you're here. Antoine's worried, but he's a coward so what else is new? Don't take it to heart. And Rotor's not the rude judgemental type either, so he'll be polite. He's just scared of Scourge. I think Scourge will get most of the brunt of it and only in the sense that they'll be afraid of him, but we'll get used to you both. It'll be way easier to get used to and trust his harmless-looking girlfriend who just wants us to like her. So is there anything else that bothered you? I know I need to have you on solo missions, and missions with just Scourge at most. "

She continued, " And as for the close bond part, I'll make SURE you're invited to any fun get-togethers we'll have. Like the next time we go out for ice cream sundaes, I'll call you up! Of course, I'll have to get Rotor to make you a cell phone that we could contact you with. Contacting you from other universes would be more tricky, though. Maybe you should make it a routine where we all meet up every breakfast at my castle. That's what the rest of the team does, we go to a meeting where I tell them the plan. And we can all go to the carnival when it opens up next month. "

Fiona said, " You really do think of everything. They do sound like good ideas. I don't think it'll take that long for your team to free the whole planet though when Scourge has a teleport device. Can't we just warp to every sub-boss and send them to wherever we want? Then we can take them down at our leisure. " " And then they'll have replacements in a week. We need to take down the overall structure built around them, the dictatorships, or it'll just cause a power vacuum and their subordinates will fill it up. And I've already got my hands full with Mobotropolis. "

" But doesn't your world consist of mostly just mindless robot slaves? Or have they all been deroboticized? " Fiona asked. " Most of the world's population are Robians, but we found out the hard way that just getting rid of a sub-boss doesn't fix everything. When Crocbot was taken down, we learned that a replacement for him had been sent in from one of the other sub-bosses, and when we knocked out a Robian to investigate their programming, it turned out that the Robians have programming in them where if it turns out something happened to their leader, their number one priority will change to getting a replacement, and obviously that means ' a replacement that's on Robotnik's side, ' so I didn't count. And in the event that none of the Robians could contact a sub-boss, like if we got rid of all of them and that's why, the Robians would still be robots, they'd still be programmed to try to attack and roboticize anyone organic in sight. Long story short, we need to solve the roboticization problem or we'll never get the world fixed up. "

She explained, " We appreciate you and Scourge taking down Robotnik, but he's not the only problem with Mobius. We need to get rid of the last of Robotnik's influence, and removing the sub-bosses won't fix that when most of the world only accepts robots as their leaders and would wanna replace them the minute one of them noticed their absence. That's why the biggest part of our cause is deroboticization; destroying roboticizers and stealing parts from them, and getting people deroboticized. Since we've been doing this for so long, we've already got a machine that can convert metal into organic equivalents for people, and Rotor knows how to reprogram Robians to get free will, but we can only do that on a one-by-one basis. So even with a deroboticizer, our progress is pretty slow with millions of people on the planet. But don't worry, there'll be tons of action for you and Scourge to have fun with. "

Fiona admitted, " I can't wait until this ' mindless robot drone ' problem is a thing of the past. I didn't like it either. The only people I could live around for most of my life were some of the very few cities that DIDN'T get roboticized, like I spent some time in the Dragon Kingdom which took forever to get threatened with that. You can't steal much to eat from a city with nothing but robots in it, especially not when they all want to go after you. And Scourge hates roboticization too. He said that Robotnik wanting everyone to be his mindless slaves just reminds him of his dad and he isn't comfortable with the idea of everyone being a creepy robot. So I'll help with the deroboticization efforts. You just have to tell me what to do. If it makes you feel any better, everyone got deroboticized back on my planet. I just don't know HOW. The only people I asked didn't know who did it for them, so I can't help you there. "

If Fiona had known that the Sword of Acorns was able to restore free will, she would've suggested using it to Queen Sally, who always walked around with it in a golden scabbard tied to her yellow dress, but unfortunately, she hadn't been around Knothole when Sally was doing that. And Queen Sally had no way of knowing the Sword of Acorns restored free will, as Ixis Naugus had never been released because her friends weren't stupid enough to send a rideable probe into the Void; and since the king had been made a roboticized sub-boss instead, they had no reason to bother with the Zone of Silence at all.

And because Fiona also wasn't aware of how most of her planet got deroboticized, she couldn't tell them about the Bem's deroboticization technology, not that she would know how to contact the Bem of this zone and convince them to help regardless since she didn't know where they lived. If she had known about Eggman using legionization, she would've warned Queen Sally that even roboticization being taken care of wouldn't save the world if people were still being given cybernetics with explosives in them that forced them to obey. Obviously, Fiona had missed out on a lot.

Queen Sally thought, " Now that I know that I have to get her attached to us so she won't WANT to leave… " and asked her, " What other problems did you have with them? You must have had a lot of things bothering you to make you stop fighting Robotnik. " Fiona replied, " Yeah, especially after the kind of grudge I have against him, though the Robotnik from my own zone got killed and replaced by another one, so the one they have to deal with now isn't the same one who locked me in a cell for two years. I still hate Robotniks on principle though. But it was hard to feel like I was making a difference when I was fighting him. Eventually I wondered, what's the point of destroying his Swatbots and robot factories when they get rebuilt every time? It's not like we can blow them all up at once because if we leave bombs in factories, eventually they'd get discovered on inspection before we could try to set off the detonator. "

" How do they keep getting rebuilt after everyone on your planet was deroboticized? " Queen Sally asked looking discouraged. " There will always be people willing to do what Robotnik says because they're scared of him. They don't have to be mindless robots to wanna protect themselves from him. Plus he's still got robots, just not Robians, " Fiona replied bitterly.

Queen Sally explained seriously, " So that's all the more reason we need get everyone deroboticized, or at least a majority of people. Even in a world with no Robians, even if we deroboticized a sub-boss in a position like that, if there's other sub-bosses out there, the people of the freed country would let the replacement dictator rise to power out of fear. After all, what are they supposed to do against a robot? Sub-bosses are made of a lot tougher stuff than a regular badnik, and what's worse is that all of them except Crocbot are roboticized people, so destroying them would mean destroying an innocent person. I hope I can keep Scourge from doing that when we have to deal with Robians. But something tells me all I'll have to do is offer to give him chili dogs later. "

Fiona thought, " I hope she's right. He has to know how much this means to me! He wouldn't do something that would keep him from getting to go on those missions again. " She nodded in agreement to reassure Sally. She had already started to relax from showing her bitterness with people to her and getting away with it without an idealistic lecture. She had assumed Queen Sally would insist that most normal people wouldn't let a sub-boss go back to ruling over them out of cowardice, but to her surprise, she had agreed with her. Feeling more safe about being honest about herself let her relax enough to give her more information.

Fiona went into a rant, " I'm glad you were smart enough to realize that most people WOULD feel powerless and let a sub-boss take over again, 'cause my old team were a bunch of overly idealistic idiots sometimes, especially the idiots part. There was this one time when Bean and Bark invaded the base, like I told you earlier. Well, you probably assumed that when they lost the fight to the Freedom Fighters, they got tied up and arrested, right? Nope. Somehow when they got distracted by a big robot, NONE of them ever thought to restrain Bean and Bark so they couldn't walk out of the base no problem! Not even Antoine stuck around to do that! You'd think one of them would, since none of them were doing anything to help in the fight, but instead of tying them up and calling the police, every single one of them just stood there and stared at Croctobot! Not even Bunnie did anything to help fight, even though she could've handled him no problem! To be fair, I was watching the robot too, but that was because I assumed that someone like Antoine already restrained them! I thought they were already in handcuffs or tied up! "

She complained, " It really annoyed me that they just ended up walking away and getting off scot-free! It just made them look really incompetent. And I could never call them out on screwing up like that without looking like the bad guy! Scourge said later that if they couldn't handle being called out on for their mistakes, that was their fault and they'd just keep getting dumber! Uh… sorry, I didn't mean to sound so unsympathetic. It's not like I hated them back then. They just made some stupid mistakes, like not letting me have a rifle. "

Queen Sally replied, " I can't blame you for being frustrated, that WAS stupid of them. But to be fair, if YOU assumed Bean and Bark were tied up by the team, don't you think it's possible that everyone else assumed the same thing? With so many different Freedom Fighters there, maybe it makes sense that they'd all assume at least ONE of them would've had them restrained properly. And with a giant robot in front of them, maybe some of them forgot about Bean and Bark. They'd be so much smaller than that, and be seen as the weaker threat at the moment. But seriously, don't worry, my team isn't that stupid. I make sure of that. I'm letting your boyfriend help, aren't I? With his super speed, I'd be an idiot to pass that up! "

Fiona explained sadly, " Part of the reason I left my team was because I knew they were gonna kick me out for even hanging OUT with Scourge. It's not like I was with them since they were kids, so I always felt like I was on the lowest rung to BEGIN with because I was really new. I never told them if I had an idea because who would listen to me? I guess I never felt respected, not compared to Sonic and Sally. And while it wasn't so bad when nobody knew about me and Scourge, when Tails found out, it just got even more stressful, because I knew that any day, he'd end up blabbing my secret to someone else. And he DID! He told Amy all about it and got her going after me with a hammer! At that point, why would I feel SAFE with them anymore? Granted, he told Amy HIS version of the story. He was under the impression that I was already dating him back then. Maybe I should've told him everything and elaborated on things. Maybe then he'd have known there was nothing to worry about and he didn't have to tell anyone. That was my fault for not going to talk to him afterwards. I really should've done that, logically, but I knew it'd be really awkward and difficult, and he'd never really understand. He'd just think I was being overly idealistic about Scourge and worry anyways! "

She sighed, and said sadly, " The truth was, I only started dating Scourge AFTER Sonic glared at me suspiciously and LIED to me that it was cool! Scourge and I were just friends back then, and since he taunted Sonic that I wasn't serious about him, he obviously started to have doubts about me. After all, how would Scourge know that if I wasn't already associated with him? He didn't know that we were just friends! I didn't want to cheat on Sonic when I wasn't even sure I preferred Scourge yet! I was at the point where I valued my ties to BOTH of them! When I started to worry that even Sonic was losing faith in me, when he was the ONLY PERSON on the team who was actively putting faith in me, well, it should be obvious why I went with Scourge. He was the only real friend I had left at that point! I had nothing over there! No friends, no respect, no status, no real, value to the team. And there was no point telling them I felt that way because they'd all just insist I was wrong! They'd never understand! "

She explained, " It's not like I really WANTED to take that drastic option. Leaving the team entirely was the most extreme of last resorts, it was basically throwing in the towel when I knew it was all hopeless. If they found out I was with Scourge and were cool with it, I would've had NO reason to stop going on their missions! I knew that the Freedom Fighters had too much of a grudge against Scourge to take my word for it that he wasn't that bad! They'd just insist he was lying and I was delusional, and I'd be furious at being treated like I'm just an idiot, though that's not so different from how they think of me NOW. It's not like you guys where you have no past experience with him at ALL! He had already had a history of fighting their Sonic, he had already made some mistakes. And he admitted to me that he wasn't exactly proud of them himself. Why would he, they all backfired on him. But I had no reason to think Sally would understand that. She's way too paranoid to put faith in Sonic's evil twin, especially not after Snively mysteriously disappeared from the Freedom Fighters, and everyone assumed he went back to Robotnik! Yeah, they took in Snively as a Freedom Fighter. I told you they were desperate. "

After Queen Sally looked shocked from the revelation at the end, she said, " Snively? So, did they have to deroboticize him? " Fiona shook her head in confusion, and explained with a sad and regretful expression and tone, " They would've been able to keep me around if they made a compromise with me and made Scourge a Freedom Fighter too, but I felt like any chances he had were ruined when Snively left Knothole, not that I'd have any faith to begin with. So I got to a point where it was either him or them; they'd find out eventually and kick me out anyways, and I did NOT wanna be abandoned AGAIN! It's bad enough my old partner Nicolette ditched me! Scourge made it clear that he was gonna keep visiting me for a movie night regardless. He just wanted to be with me full-time, and I couldn't do that AND stay with them when they would never give him a chance! "

As Queen Sally could clearly tell how unhappy Fiona felt, she continued while looking remorseful, " If I could do things over again, I would've taken the risk and forced myself to just explain EVERYTHING to them, just sit down with them in the base and tell them about my time with Scourge, and ask them to make him a Freedom Fighter. And if they still decided to be jerks to me after that, then I would've had no reason not to leave because I'd know for SURE that they weren't my real friends. "

She complained, " Real friends would want me to be HAPPY, and accept me for who I am, past and all! Not vilify me as a traitor! But apparently being considerate and giving a former enemy a chance is EVIL now. So they would've lost all trust in me the minute I'd have told them I started hanging out with him. What if they wouldn't have even given me a chance to explain?! I just hate that I don't know that for SURE! I've hated looking back on that day for months because I acted so hastily and BARELY explained my decision at ALL, and I just came off to Sonic like someone who got sick of being a hero and only stuck with it for him! I can't believe he bought that because I had been a Freedom Fighter long before I started dating him. But now they all just think of me as a monster! "

Queen Sally commented, " And it's a lot more complicated than that, obviously, " agreeing with her. Fiona complained, " I wish I just explained everything to them instead of waiting for Sonic to find out the HARD way at the very last minute because of Scourge! Because now I'm gonna spend the rest of my life not knowing if they would've been reasonable with me. Because if they would've, then, I had made a mistake… " She whispered the last sentence with her head hung low and tears came out of her eyes because she was so ashamed of admitting it. It wasn't easy for her to say that after all that time of insisting that going with him was what she wanted.

Queen Sally was open to both possibilities. She could see how both of them could be true, but since she wanted to make Fiona feel better first and foremost, she put her hand on her shoulder and reassured her, " Maybe you're right. They had nothing but bad experiences with Scourge. Maybe they were too biased against him by that point to even consider that he would make a good Freedom Fighter. You're much better off going with US because we don't have any past grudge against him, and we only ever knew you as his girlfriend. They're never gonna get used to it with you because they knew you before you started dating him. Now you're just being yourself, in fact I bet you're being more honest right now than you ever were! Things worked out for the best. If you had stayed with them, you would've never ended up with me, and I have a feeling you're going to like me a lot more than the judgemental and paranoid Sally you used to know. "

Fiona snarked with a nervous smile, " You're definitely better-dressed, " trying to loosen up around her because she knew she could get away with insulting her old friend to her that time. Queen Sally smiled at the compliment, and said, " Sure, it took a long time to get here, but it was all worth it in the end. You're better off now than when you started. Even if they would've humored you, I doubt they'd ever be happy about it, and you're better off in a team that DOESN'T resent you. Sure, most of us are just ambivalent to you, but that's gonna change when we warm up to you later. You can't expect people to like you right AWAY. And besides, if the way they think about you really bothers you, you could always, at least send them a LETTER. You wouldn't have to see their reactions and worry about them not believing you because you'd be in another dimension when they were reading it. "

Fiona was quiet, seeming to consider it, and said after a couple seconds, " I, I don't want them to miss me. " Queen Sally felt awful for her and said, " Being a bit too hard on yourself there, aren't you? You're not that awful! From what I've seen, you're a perfectly fine girl! " Fiona explained sadly, " If they knew I was feeling bad about how I acted when I left, if they DIDN'T think I was completely evil, they might start to miss me, or at least Tails would, 'cause he had one hell of a crush on me. If they thought I was having second thoughts about my decision, they might miss me, but thinking I'm just some traitor they're better off without is probably what's made my absence a lot EASIER on them! That's part of why I let them think what they think about me; they can't miss someone if they think there's nothing to miss. Though I think the only one who'd ever miss me at this point is Tails. Even the minute I was about to leave, he still had enough faith in me to try to talk me out of it, when the whole reason I was leaving them was because they DIDN'T have faith in me, that they just thought of me as a former criminal! Part of the reason I, uh, mistreated him when I left, was because I wanted to DISTANCE him from me so he'd stop wanting me around, so it wouldn't hurt that I left. "

She sighed heavily, and admitted, " I felt awkward about his crush when I found out about it. He was a kid, he couldn't date me! It was creepy! But I kept my annoyance with it to myself so I wouldn't look like a jerk, and eventually I guess that bottled up frustration with it exploded out of me, and I did something impulsive in the hopes that I'd snap him OUT of it finally, and I wish I had handled things differently! I should've just explained things to him properly and put him more at ease. But I knew that nothing I said would get him to stop trying to talk me out of it. He'd just say that the Freedom Fighters weren't that judgemental and they'd never kick me out of the team. He was too naïve to understand. "

Worried about how vague Fiona was being, Queen Sally asked, " You didn't injure Tails, did you? " " No, of course not! He's fine now! I'd never go that far! I just… well, it's not a ' just. ' He was really upset about it. I was trying way too hard to impress Scourge and it turned out I didn't even need to do it. I asked him a while ago how he would've reacted if I had just let him down GENTLY, and when he told me he wouldn't have gotten mad at me, I, I felt like an IDIOT. I, I… I don't wanna talk about it. Just know that I didn't injure him. I just, broke his heart. I told him he couldn't count on anyone, that's all I wanna say, and I was only referring to MY experiences in life there. I thought I could count on the Freedom Fighters to like and accept me for who I was, because even after all the times I'd stolen stuff to survive, they took me into their group anyways. But when they were confronted with my past, they just got awkward about it at best. They couldn't handle that it was ' affecting the now. ' So that's why I told him he couldn't count on anyone. Of course I knew that HE could count on people. He isn't ME. I'm not THAT delusional. "

She said sadly, " But when I met the ' evil ' version of Tails later on, I realized that I didn't want Tails to learn that lesson, because HE did, and he was the most paranoid, unhappy kid I'd ever met. I'm glad Tails wasn't like that. I said evil sarcastically though because it turned out he didn't even LIKE his life and he ended up joining the people I left! I got the impression he was too insecure about himself to really feel good about being a jerk. I got off topic here, didn't I? The point is, I'm not happy with the way I left them, but I think if I told them I wasn't the monster they think I am, and they believed me, it'd just be harder on them that I'm gone and never coming back. They have no reason to miss me right now and maybe it's better that way… Maybe if I ever think I'm gonna die tomorrow, I'll go talk to them. Even then, I'm not sure. I think my old friends are better off just being glad I'm gone. I'd say I owe that to them, at least… if we were ever close to begin with. Apologizing to them might not be worth it if it'd just cause them more grief. That'd be the opposite of making up for earlier. " She couldn't believe she finally said all of that.

Fiona started drying her eyes, embarrassed since it was happening right in front of her, and while not being sure what to say, Queen Sally reassured her by stroking her shoulder again, and said, " It's okay, Fi. I'm glad to hear all that. " Fiona revealed, " Another reason I chose Scourge was that he was way more dedicated to making sure I had fun. All Sonic ever did was walk around holding my hand. We never went on a real date, and he literally said that we were still young and there was no rush, but Scourge took me to every fun place he could think of; a rollercoaster, a carnival, a circus, a café with computers. He even made some people agree to let me play baseball for them and I was so happy he did that! He was so much fun to spend time with that honestly, I FORGOT that I already had a boyfriend. It was only at the tail end of all that, that I started giving him a chance and kissing him for the first time. Sonic never really tried with me. Eventually I realized what that meant; he was just using me to get over Sally. He never really wanted me to begin with, so I knew that leaving him wouldn't break his heart. All it did was annoy him. "

Queen Sally reassured her, " It's hard to blame you if he wasn't even trying. You can date Scourge with us as much as you want. It's just that I'd rather you not miss out on a mission, and I doubt you want to miss out on them either. And if they're solo missions, we'll need your help. But you'll still have some time for yourself. Maybe I can work out a schedule where you'll have some days-off. "

She continued, " Again, I'm not like your Sally. She'd probably be keeping a watchful eye on the both of you and be waiting for an excuse to prove her suspicion was RIGHT. But I'm PRETTY sure I can trust Scourge to destroy stuff for us, and that makes him a great Freedom Fighter to me! Sure, he might not be pure good, but it's the actions that really count. He'd have to be a complete idiot to do something like try to kill us or injure us because then he wouldn't get to go on missions for us anymore, at least not without being yelled at and that'd be no fun. Same goes for you. "

" And if he was really a complete monster, you wouldn't have ever trusted him enough to date him. You wouldn't have even started hanging out with him! You do have trust issues, after all. He has to have some kind of soft side if someone who has a hard time trusting people gave him a chance! So basically what I need to do for you is, put you on solo missions, write down your every accomplishment in a notebook for you and make sure you're invited to any fun get-togethers we'll have, and you can be with Scourge all you want. "