Recursion Error
Episode 2- Orange juice ruined my life
"You're out? What do you mean you're out?"
"We're, uh... we're out. I don't know what else to tell you." The man wasn't anybody overly special. He had on the same store uniform the rest of the employees did, and just like the rest of the employees he had that vapid look in his eyes as he addressed the teenager right in front of him who was currently and angrily gesturing towards an isle of juices. "Most days we have orange juice. This isn't one of those days. You know how it is."
The teenager, mouth open wide in disbelief, shook his head and fully turned to the refrigerated isle. "You're telling me you're carrying all this milk, all this lemonade and all this iced tea... but orange juice? Possibly one of the most common commodities to ever exist? You're out of that?" He turned back to the store employee, shoulders slumped and eyes full of desperation. "C'mon, man, I'll even take that gross extra-pulp stuff. I'm desperate here."
"Kid, I'm telling you, we're out." The aged store employee, who had a large, sweeping mop in his hand, scratched the side of his head as he looked around. "Look, what was your name again?"
"My name is Sorun," the teen answered. "It's for my mom, man. You can't at least check the back or something?"
The store employee's eyes narrowed in a scrutinizing manner as he stared down the teen in front of him. "Is it?"
Sorun fidgeted under the sweeping man's eyes, and after a few moments sighed and turned his head away. "Alright, no, it isn't. She's fine and doesn't touch the stuff. I just really want some orange juice." He nodded his head to the store shelves behind him. "But you're out."
"Ah." The employee nodded his head, and then glanced down at the watch on his wrist. "You came all the way to the store this late at night for orange juice?"
"I didn't have anything better to do," Sorun grumbled in an indignant tone. "You're seriously judging me for biking all the way here for orange juice?"
"... How old are you again, son?"
Sorun quirked an eyebrow at the older man, but decided to indulge him and answer. "Sixteen. Why?"
"You're sixteen and you're still using a pedal bike? Don't most kids your age have a car by now?"
At this, the teen threw his hands up in frustration. "Are you seri- are you gonna help me or not?" He pointed to the white, tiled flooring around them. "You really so bored sweeping the floor that you'd rather mess with me than do your job?"
"Eh. Pretty much," the employee answered with a shrug. "Spend five years in my shoes and you'd be doing the same." He placed the head of the wet mop on the floor and began to sweep away from Sorun. "Now I'd be glad to help you, but I don't want to. Because I have to get to these floors. Thank you and have a good night, sir."
Eyes wide in disbelief, it was all Sorun could do to not let his jaw drop as he waved the sweeping man away. "Yeah man, yeah, sure, thanks... dick," he whispered under his breath before turning back to the shelves.
It was a depressing sight, really. Seeing a shelf that spanned from one end of the store to the other, fully lit and refrigerated and stack from bottom to top in every single refrigerated store-bought drink one could ever want for. All except for orange juice, accentuated by the fact that there was a section in the middle of the shelves that was completely bare.
For Sorun, it defied belief. Doubly so considering it looked as if every single other item on the shelf was fully stocked to the point they were practically brimming off the shelves. He didn't even think there was ever a time he'd walked into a grocery store and they were out of anything, let alone orange juice.
"Maaaan," he moaned, "you gotta be kidding me." He went as far as to close his blue eyes, as if trying to will away a bad dream. But when he opened his eyes, the shelves were still empty. "Yeah, you're not kidding," he mumbled. "What time is it, anyways?"
He dug into his pocket, found his phone, and brought it up to his face so he could read the screen. He couldn't suppress his groan when he saw the time.
9:06 P.M.
Out so late and he didn't even have so much as a carton of orange juice to show for it.
It was at this moment that Sorun's phone decided to ring, and Sorun, who hadn't expected it, flinched from the phone vibrating and nearly dropped the rectangular device. He managed to catch it right after it slipped out of his fingers, and as he brought it up once more to read the caller ID he could feel his heart beating heavily in his chest. But after reading the screen and realizing that it wasn't his mother calling him, he breathed a sigh of relief and answered the call.
"Ugh, David?" he greeted as he held the phone to his ear. "Whaddya want, man?"
"Yo, Sorun," a male voice answered from the other end of the phone. "Dude, we doing Bloody Palace tonight or not?"
Sighing, Sorun rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "You seriously called just to ask me that?"
"I'm super bored," David explained. "C'mon, they finally fixed the LAN connection issues so the co-op mode actually runs smoothly now." The voice on the other end grew teasing. "I'll let you main Vergil. I know he's your favorite."
"David, I'm not even home right now, and I don't have my Switch on me," Sorun said. "Plus I deleted 'Devil May Cry 3' from the Switch."
"You did WHAT!?" the phone yelled, and the volume was so great that Sorun winced and held the phone away from his ear. "One of the best, nay, THE BEST game you can get on the Switch and you decide to delete it!? What were you thinking!?"
"I was thinking that DMC was taking up too much space on my Switch and I had other stuff I wanted to install," Sorun answered, bringing the phone back next to his ear. "Give me a break, man. We already cleared all the floors of co-op Bloody Palace. Twice. We played the damn game to death and back. You really trying to tell me you don't wanna play anything else?"
David's voice on the other side of the phone paused, and then gave a non-committal grunt that barely carried through over the speakers. "Not really," he said.
"Of course." Sorun rolled his eyes, but then froze when he heard something coming from the phone's speakers. A musical melody that he swore he could faintly recognize. "Wait, is that...?" He listened closer, and after a few seconds he finally managed to realize what he was listening to. And as a result, he rolled his eyes again. "What are you doing right now?" he asked David.
"Hm? Studyin'," he said. "We got that biology test tomorrow."
"Studying, huh?" Sorun dryly remarked. "I hear that opening song in the background, David. Watching 'Cells at Work' doesn't count as studying."
There was a scoff from the phone. "Says you," David replied. "It uses the same exact science we've been learning in biology class. I can either read a book on it or I can watch it in a beautifully animated format. What was I supposed to pick?"
"I'm not even surprised," Sorun muttered.
"I'd be disappointed if you were." There was a pause. "Wait, what are you doing if you're not at your house right now?"
"It was the weirdest thing, man." The teen turned back to the shelves that had given him so much ire, and couldn't help but glare at the empty space before returning his attention to the phone. "I just got a craving for orange juice and I went to the grocery store to buy some." He tilted his head up to the ceiling. "Except, guess what, they're out!" he shouted.
"... How does a grocery store run out of orange juice?"
"I know, it's outrageous." The teen found himself lowering to the ground until he was sitting down and pressing his back against the shelves. "Dunno what I'm gonna do," he admitted. "Any ideas? ... David?"
There was nothing from silence from the phone, and when Sorun called David's name again, there was no reply. He stared down at the phone in confusion, and was about to call his name a third time before he heard rustling from the other end followed by David's hushed voice.
"- Get off! Uh, sorry about that, dude. Cat jumped on my laptop. What were you saying?"
"I was saying how I don't know what I'm supposed to do," Sorun repeated.
"Ah. Hm... hey, isn't there that one organic store across the way? They'd have orange juice, right? Or at the very least some oranges. Just go there."
"You mean that one store clear across the other side of town?" Sorun asked in an incredulous tone. "Dude, c'mon, it's a school night and my mom's already gonna kill me for being out so late. I don't wanna bike all over town for orange juice."
The sound of air being blown into the phone's speakers sounded from the phone. "Then dude, I got nothin' for ya," David said. "Listen, I gotta go. Seeya tomorrow, shorty."
"Yeah, sure, see you- hey." He tore the phone away from his ear and stared angrily at the screen, and his eyes widened when he heard mocking laughter from the phone before the call disconnected. "... Three-and-a-half feet isn't even that short, asshole... eh, who am I kidding?" he muttered as he put the phone back in his pocket. "'Kay, what am I doing?"
He picked himself up off the ground and turned once again to the shelves. An annoyed whine escaped his throat when his eyes wandered to the empty space, but otherwise he managed to keep himself calm as he scratched at his cheek in thought.
"I really don't wanna go and spend practically half the night running around town. I got school tomorrow. On the other hand, I really want that orange juice. I'm seriously gonna go all that way just to get some juice, though?" He focused on the empty spot on the shelves one more time, and then sighed. "Alright, screw it," he thought, "I really want that orange juice."
It wasn't the wisest choice he had ever made, and he was sure that he was going to be paying for it later, one way or another. But that peculiar craving he'd all of a sudden gotten just wouldn't go away, and he honestly didn't know if he could bear to go through it a whole night. But his mother would understand.
He hoped, at least.
Shoom!
Sorun went straight upon hearing that sound. It was a strange sound- the high-pitched whirring of thrumming energy- and a sound that was completely foreign to Sorun's ears. He slowly turned around from the shelves to the space behind him, and he nearly lost his footing when he saw what was making the noise.
For lack of a better term, it was a hole. Between the shelves he stood next to and the back wall of the store, there was a large, green hole floating just off of the floor. The hole was constantly thrumming with energy, and the inside was a constant, swirling mass of green tendrils of energy that occasionally stretched out of the circular aperture of the hole.
A strange sight, to be sure, and one that left Sorun completely baffled.
"What the...?" he muttered. He tilted his head in confusion at the sight of the strange, green thing he was staring at, and blinked heavily a few times just to make sure he wasn't seeing things. But no matter what he tried, the green energy vortex remained hovering above the floor. "Uh... sweeper guy?" Sorun called as he turned his head to the side. "You, uh, you there? Guy? Anyone?"
He looked to the left and then right side of the area he was in, but there was nobody else around him. Not a single shopper or employee, and not even that man with the mop. An uneasy hum escaped his throat, and he took a cautious step towards the green, swirling hole while maintaining eye contact with it.
"The hell is this thing?" Sorun asked himself. Each slow, steady step was filled with more trepidation than the last, and it was only when he was a few inches away from the portal did he crouch down and waved his hand over it. "Some kind of weird... thing, or... wh-what is this?"
He decided not to touch, for fear of what would happen if he touched it. The little arcs of green electricity that would occasionally spark out from the vortex-like hole didn't look all too inviting, either, and when a particularly big electricity spark hit the ground near him he decided to back up a step. And by then he wanted to walk away entirely.
But then a voice came out of the hole.
"H-hello?" The voice that came out of the portal sounded broken and warbled, but even through the distortion Sorun could make out that it was a rather high voice. "Is anyone there? Hello?"
"... I really gonna do this?" Sorun thought to himself, but when he looked around once more and saw that nobody was still around, he sighed. "Yeah, guess I am," he decided and stepped next to the portal. "Umm... hey," he greeted, voice unsure.
"Oh, there's someone there!" the voice cried out, sounding much more excited. "You're the one, right? The person that the tablet was talking about?"
Sorun looked to the sides once again. Still nobody. "Uh... no?" he answered.
"Huh? Y... you're not?"
"I'm pretty sure? I don't- what's going on here?" Sorun asked, and then gestured to the area around him. "Is this, like, some kind of weird store promotion or something? Seriously, what is this?"
"... No, you have to be," the voice declared. "The coordinates pointed to... no, this has to be right! Please, I need you to come with me!"
Sorun frowned, and he pointed his index finger at the green hole. "You want me to go in there?"
"Yes! Please! I can't keep this open for much longer and, and we really need your help! Please!"
"Uh..." The voice certainly sounded sincere, or at least as sincere as a strange, distorted voice coming out of a random green vortex could sound. On the other hand, Sorun was so off-put by what was happening in front of him that he'd unconsciously taken a step backwards when the voice had asked him to go into the hole. And the more he thought on it, the more he realized that he didn't want to be there. "Yeah, no, I'm not gonna do that," he told the voice. "So... yeah. Gonna just... go away. Bye."
"W-wait, no, just hold on a second!"
"This is too weird. I'm not dealing with this," Sorun thought as he turned his back to the vortex and began to move away. "I don't know, I don't care. Just gonna leave, get my orange juice, go home-"
Any further thoughts were cut off when he felt something grab his left ankle and pull. He lost his balance and fell onto his back with a grunt, and as he leaned upwards he saw what had grabbed him: an arm. It was an incredibly thin arm, and for some reason it was yellow, but there was no mistaking the gloved hand attached at the end that was gripping his ankle.
And then he began to panic when the arm began to drag him towards the vortex.
"What the- hey!" he screamed. "Let me go!"
If the voice on the other side of the portal heard him, they didn't make any indication, and instead continued to drag Sorun towards the hole. Sorun, feeling the fear increase exponentially the closer he was brought to the vortex, was trying and failing to grab onto something to halt his progression. But all his hands could do was slip off the linoleum tiles that made up the floor, and he couldn't so much as gain enough traction to try and drag himself away. In a move of desperation, he went as far as to try and kick at the arm that was dragging him, but he only got as many as two kicks in before his feet were dragged into the hole.
Sorun's scream began shrill when his feet disappeared entirely in the green vortex, followed by his legs as he was dragged in further and further.
"Hey, come on, stop!" He'd been dragged all the way up to his torso, and by this point the teen was grabbing around wildly in an attempt to grab at something to try and drag himself out. "Stop!" he screamed out as his left arm vanished into the vortex. By the time it reached his shoulders, he'd turned onto his stomach and reached a hand out in a final attempt to save himself. "Stop, stop, STO-AAAAH!"
His fear-ridden screams cut out right as the last of his body was pulled through the vortex, upon which the green portal disappeared entirely to leave a clean, untouched floor in a quiet store. It was five minutes later that the store employee had walked by and had mopped the exact same spot on the floor the portal had been on.
"Oh... oh, man, what the hell..."
Everything was sore. Sorun didn't even know why; the last thing he remembered was being dragged through that green hole, and now he was here. Where "here" was he had no idea, because he was so nauseous that he couldn't even go as far as to open his eyes. And even if he wasn't he was so riddled with fear he couldn't even move.
What he did know was that he was lying flat on his back. Somewhere. And that there was an almost earthen smell going into his nose that he was barely able to register because his own thoughts were so sluggish and confused right now.
"There was... weird, green thing, then that hand..." The teen rolled his head to the side to side, and then froze again when a wave of nausea hit him. "Oh, I'm gonna throw up. I feel awful."
It was after he was lying down for what felt like minutes did he notice that there were sounds going into his ears. The more he tried to focus in on these sounds, the more he realized there was a loud ringing in his ears that was slowly beginning to fade away. So, without much else to do, he strained his ears as best he could to try and make out some of the sounds he was hearing. He grew even more still when he recognized them as voices.
"Sure... right... this one?"
"Looks... alright... you guys?"
"Isn't... a human...?"
He could only make out bits and pieces, and even then he couldn't make sense of what little bits and pieces of conversation he could pick up. On the upside, feeling started to come back to his limbs, along with the relief that, yes, he still had his limbs. He flexed his fingers, flexed his toes, and when he found a satisfying amount of articulation in his appendages, began to move.
"Oh, man. It all feels awful," he groaned as he slowly began to move, his eyes still screwed shut. "I need... I need a second here."
"Um... sir?" A voice he was actually fully able to understand reached his ears, and he felt a pair of hands grab onto his shoulder and back to help him sit up. "Sir, are you okay?"
"Ugh, man, uh... wait." Once he reached a seated position, the hands left his body, and Sorun froze as a spark of recognition went through his mind when he heard that voice. "Wait-wait-wait... that voice..." His eyes were still closed, but he turned his head towards where he heard the voice and did his best to create an accusing expression on his face. "You're that guy-slash-girl that pulled me through that weird green thing!"
"Er, I'm a guy," the voice corrected, "and I'm really sorry-"
The second Sorun registered the word "sorry" being said to him, a lance of anger shot through him and caused him to instinctively open his eyes at the voice. "If you're sorry then why did you-!?"
Any voice that was left in his throat died right there the second his brain registered the images his eyes were receiving. His vision was slightly blurred, and at least was gradually clearing, but he had just enough vision to be able to perceive the thing kneeling on a single knee right in front of him.
The problem was that he didn't know what he was looking at.
It was bipedal. He could tell that much at a first glance. It was also yellow and white, and, indeed, had the same kind of limbs as the one that had pulled him through the portal. But his greatest confusion came when he reached the head, and found a large, fur-covered head staring at him with large, blue eyes.
"... Eh?" It was the only response Sorun could think to make as he stared at the thing in front of him. He stared intently at its eyes, and then at the white gloves, and then the red shoes it wore, and then he looked back up to the eyes. "Is this like... some kind of hyper-realistic plush doll somebody left lying around?"
He could have sworn he felt his heart stop when the plush thing blinked and changed its facial structure to look offended. "Hey, I'm not-"
"JESUS, IT'S REAL!"
The panic was back. The same panic he felt when he was being pulled through that portal, magnified tenfold the second a little monster began talking in front of him. Any feelings of nausea instantly washed out of him as he scrambled back away from the yellow thing, screaming all the while. The yellow monster went as far as to try and reach out to Sorun, but all that did was make him scream louder, bolt up to his feet, and turn around to try and run away.
But there were more. A lot more monsters, right behind him, and all of them colored with so many colors that Sorun wasn't even able to so much as count them before physical pain assaulted his eyes from all the color. This caused the tenfold panic he was experiencing to transition into hundredfold panic, and the fact he was blinded from his eyes hurting only increased his terror.
So he turned away in a third direction, and was relieved to find when he opened his eyes that there weren't any other monsters. What he did see was a door. It was a door he could barely see since the fear coursing through him was blurring his vision, but at the very least he could make out the outline of a door. So he sprinted to the door, opened the door, and slammed it right behind him.
"Oh my god, oh my god what the hell...!" As soon as he'd closed the door Sorun had pressed his back up against it and spread his limbs out across the frame. "The hell were those things back there!? Where am I!?"
His heart was throbbing so hard in his chest that it was beginning to physically pain him, and the fear going through him was making him exhausted to the point that he was panting heavier than he ought to have, but the fear of the room full of things being on the other side of the door he was keeping closed was keeping him glued right to the frame. He shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind, or at the very least to try and calm himself down to think comprehensive thoughts, and after doing this and taking a few deep breaths his breathing began to even out and his vision began to straighten.
"Okay... okay, okay what are we doing?" he thought to himself as his eyes darted around the room he found himself in. "I'm... somewhere, dunno where. There's a bunch of monsters behind this door. Don't know how many, but they're really colorful." He shook his head. "Alright, focus! Gotta get out. Gotta get away from here. Where am I... wait, where even am I?"
After becoming collected enough for rational thought, Sorun took a look around the room to see that, to his surprise, he was in a bedroom. It was modestly furnished, but it was definitely a bedroom if the bed on the side said anything. There was a desk, too, and a closet that, for whatever reason, only had pairs of socks and gloves spilling out of it.
What the room didn't have, to Sorun's mounting horror, was a window. Or even another door that lead somewhere. Not even an air vent, now that he looked. There was no other exit aside from the door he was leaning on.
"Aw, shit, I boxed myself in."
And then someone knocked on the other side of the door he was pressed against, and Sorun went rigid as fear began to creep back into him.
"Hey, buddy?" It was a different voice from the yellow monster that dragged him into this nightmare. Deeper, but still boyish. Slightly nasally if Sorun really focused on it. "Er, that's just a bedroom, and we're underground, so... there's not really anywhere to go. Think you could come out so we can talk?"
"Just talk?" Sorun asked through the door. "We're just gonna talk? No biting or anything? Just words?"
"Yeah, totally! Nobody wants to hurt anybody here. Alright? But we really need to talk, so could you please come out?" When no response was given, the voice continued. "Look, I promise that nobody is gonna hurt you. We just wanna talk. Honest."
It sounded like a legitimate offer, but Sorun was sorely tempted to take it due to him not trusting the colorful creatures on the other side of the door. This was mostly based on the basis that he didn't trust anything they said. That, and he was too scared to actually open the door.
But then the rational side of his mind told him that he had to leave this room eventually, and they likely weren't going to go away before he did. And that there were so many of them out there they could probably force the door open if they wanted to. Or at the very least wait until he dropped from exhaustion and dragged him out.
"Ugh, man... I gotta," he realized. "Okay. Okay, I'm opening the door, and I'm coming out."
He backed up off the door and looked down at the doorknob. He didn't want to- he really, really didn't-, but there wasn't much choice all things considered. "Okay, play it cool," he thought as he reached for the door knob. "Just... open the door and find out what happened. And if they eat you, well, there wasn't a lot you could have done. If I'm screwed, I'm screwed." He gripped the door knob with sweaty palms and slowly began to turn it. "Oh man, please let them be honest when they said they aren't gonna hurt me..."
Slowly, the door swung open, and Sorun, with his eyes closed, stepped out. He took a few steps out, squared his shoulders, and took in a deep breath. And then, right after he slowly exhaled, he opened his eyes to look at the crowd in front of him.
He immediately groaned and had to close his eyes again.
"Agh, I'm seein' every color of the rainbow and then some," he groaned as he rubbed at his eyes. He still wasn't able to make out any details on any of the things there, or even how many there were. "Okay, could you all just, like, spread out a bit? I can't- there's too much color. I can't see."
"Oh!" the boyish voice realized. "Er, um, you wanna sit down? Help get your bearings?"
"Sit down? Uh, sure. Sure, yeah." He felt a tap on his arm, and he relaxed as a pair of hands grabbed at his arm and guided him away from where he was. Eventually he heard the sound of a chair scraping against the ground and was guided towards it, to which point Sorun sat down and felt a circular table in front of him. He leaned forwards on the table, rubbed at his head, and ventured to open his eyes once again to get his bearings.
After looking around a bit, he saw that he was, indeed, sat down at a circular table. Inside of what seemed like an open kitchen, outside of which seemed to, in fact, be a large room that looked like it was underground if the dirt walls said anything.
And standing right next to him and between the colorful crowd in the back was one of the monsters themselves. A blue one- a really blue one with the same lean limbs and beige coloring on his stomach, arms, and mouth. But the only thing Sorun was able to focus on was the blue spikes it had on the back of its head that he could swear were actually sharp enough to cut.
He was suddenly more nervous.
"Er... hi!" He smiled at Sorun and blinked his green eyes- eyes so large that they practically took up half his face now that Sorun looked- in a friendly manner. "So what's your name? I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."
"... Sorun," the teen mumbled as he looked Sonic up and down. "The Hedgehog?" he repeated. "I'm not seein' it."
"Huh?" Sonic tilted his head to the side, and Sorun could vaguely make out the two, triangular ears on top of his head twitch. "Whaddya mean? 'Course I'm a hedgehog."
"Nooo. The hedgehogs I know are, like, this big-" Sorun spread his hands a couple inches out from each other, "- aren't colored blue, and they sure don't talk. Where I come from, at least." He turned away and leaned on his arms which he rested on the table. "I got a feeling I'm not where I'm from, though. So yeah."
"Ah," he heard from the side. "So, do they not have Mobians where you come from, or-"
"No, man, they don't," Sorun snapped as he turned back to Sonic. "I don't even know what that is. The only thing that walked and talked where I came from were people like me, so you'll have to excuse me for panicking when I get pulled through your stupid green hole of mystery and end up in an underground grotto of animal people!"
The hedgehog flinched back from Sorun's wording, and then looked away as he rubbed at his arm. "Yeah, I guess it... kinda makes sense you'd freak out if you've never seen or heard of a Mobian, huh? You want to meet the others?"
Sorun groaned, brushed a few locks of black hair away from his face, and then pressed his face against his arms. "No. I don't. My eyes are still adjusting to the messed up colors here."
"Messed up colors? What do you mean?"
"I dunno, man." Sorun lifted his head up and looked around. "All the colors are all... sharper than I'm used to and- look, it's getting better, so don't worry about it." He turned his head to Sonic. "What am I doing here?"
Sonic's eyes continued to avert his gaze from Sorun. "Well... we brought you here."
"Yeah. I figured. I'm asking why you people decided to go pull me..." Sorun trailed off, and then shook his head when he remembered he had no idea where he was. "Where even am I?"
"Right. About that." A nervous chuckle left Sonic as he rubbed at the spines on the back of his head. "If I told you we opened a portal to a different universe, your universe, and pulled you from that world to this one, what would you say?"
"I'd ask when I wake up from the fever dream, but I'm not that lucky." The teen looked closer at the hedgehog's eyes, but his awkward smile seemed sincere and his eyes honest. This caused Sorun to groan out loud and plant his face back into his arms. "Jesus, you're serious," he realized. "Dude. Why?"
"Got time to let me explain?"
Sorun exhaled an exasperated breath. "Sure, go for it."
"Great!" He felt the table vibrate, and Sorun looked up to see Sonic sitting on the edge near him as he looked down at him with a big grin on his face. "So generally speaking, things on our planet Mobius are pretty awesome. All except for one guy who decided to go and ruin things for literally everybody on the planet by trying to take it over with an army of robots he built." He raised up a single finger. "Dr. Eggman."
"Jesus, you people got subjugated by an anthropomorphic egg?" Sorun gasped out. "You're an even bigger loser than I am."
"He's not an actual egg, Sorun. 'Eggman' is a nickname. His real name's Robotnik," Sonic explained in a flat tone. "He's a human. Like you. Sort of- long story- but... yeah, he's a pretty bad dude," he admitted. "We've always been fighting him for years, but no matter how many times we kick his butt and break his toys he comes up madder and better than before!"
"'Kay, yeah, sure, but what does this have to do with me?"
"I'm getting there," Sonic said. "Things usually go back and forth between Eggman and everybody that fights him, us included, but..." His expression saddened. "Things, got really bad a couple months back when he somehow got his hands on all seven of the Chaos Emeralds."
A beat passed as Sonic stared at Sorun in an expectant manner, to which Sorun blinked and tilted his head in confusion. "Sonic, I don't have any context on what Chaos Emeralds are."
"Really? You didn't have those in your world?" he asked in a surprised tone. "Okay, uh, wow. So Chaos Emeralds are, well, these gems. Seven in total. And each and every one has limitless energy inside of it. You following me so far?"
Sorun waved a hand to the side. "No, this is all complete nonsense to me, but keep going."
"Aw, great! So," he continued, "nobody really knows how he got all seven Emeralds, because we had one, and the other six were locked away in the Special Zone- er, 'zone' being another word for a universe," he clarified. "Somehow, Eggman managed to get all the Emeralds from the Special Zone while the one we had was stolen by somebody. And he used them to seriously juice up his forces and take over almost the whole world in weeks!" He balled up one of his hands and slammed it into his open palm. "But, after a ton of fighting from us, we managed to steal the Emeralds back from Eggman. But even after taking the Emeralds, we haven't been able to shake his hold." He turned his head and awkwardly coughed. "We decided we needed help. So we used the Emeralds and got you."
The human teen almost fell out of his chair entirely at that. It was such a shocking statement he sat up ramrod-straight in his seat, and looked Sonic dead in the eyes with disbelief written in his own. He even opened his mouth, but nothing but a gasping breath came out in lieu of words.
"Are you... completely serious?" he finally managed to ask after he cleared his throat to compose himself. "Lemme get this straight, lemme process this," Sorun muttered as he rubbed two fingers at each side of his head. "So, you get these seven rocks. Seven rocks of unlimited power, 'cause I guess that's a thing here. You get the Emeralds, and you decide that the best way to use the infinite energy gems is to summon... me. Me, a random teenager from Earth." A loud slap resounded across the room as Sorun smacked his own forehead. "What was actually going on in your head that gave you such a 'genius' plan?"
"Hey, we didn't mean to get you specifically," Sonic defended. "We just... so, there was this tablet we had. This wooden tablet. And it had a kind of prophecy thing etched in it-"
"Jesus, here we go..." Sorun sighed as he leaned back in his seat.
"- And this tablet, it's been in the Acorn family- oh, that's the, uh, royal family, basically. Sally over there is part of it. Sally, say hi to Sorun!"
Sonic pointed to the group behind Sorun, and he turned around in his chair towards the person he was pointing too. He was thankful that his eyes had finally adjusted to the colors, but he still found it difficult to look at the group of sixteen-odd animal people- Mobians Sorun had to remind himself- of various shapes and colors that all were staring at him. One in the group, a red-haired Mobian, awkwardly waved to Sorun. Wordlessly, Sorun ignored her and turned back to Sonic.
"So. Wood tablet," Sorun said.
"Yeah, wood tablet," Sonic confirmed. "It had some specific stuff written in it. Like, really specific stuff written in it that matched up with things that happened to us while we were gathering all the Emeralds while fighting Eggman. And there were these, er, numbers in there, too, that I didn't really understand but Tails managed to figure out. They pointed to your zone, and it was a zone so far away that we needed the power of all seven Emeralds just to open a portal there. It said that we'd be able to find someone that would help us and would have the power to finally help topple Robotnik's stranglehold on the world. So that's what we did. We used all the Emeralds to get you here on Mobius." The hedgehog clapped his hands together, and the sudden noise made Sorun jump up in his seat. "So! What do you say, Sorun?"
"I say you're a complete fool."
His statement caused the whole room to go quiet, which was only broken momentarily when someone in the crowd near the back coughed. Sonic, who was stunned by Sorun's words, blinked at him in confusion. Sorun, for his part, was staring up at Sonic with wide eyes as he began to run a tired hand down his face.
"Erm... what do you mean?" Sonic asked.
Sorun, who was mentally exhausted at Sonic's explanation, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Oh, man, Sonic, where do I even begin? You used seven all-powerful gems to summon some random dude from another world to help out with, with what, the robot occupation here? Are you serious!?"
"It seemed like a good bet!" he argued as he hopped off the table and stepped up to Sorun, who turned his chair to face the hedgehog. "Look, I know you're... justifiably a little mad at what we've done, but we seriously need help here, Sorun. We're not making any progress at the rate we're going!"
"And what do you want me to do about it? Look at me," Sorun said as he frantically gestured to himself. "I can't do anything. I-I-I'm a high school student, Sonic. I'm a normal dude!" he shouted, his voice beginning to become shrill. "I don't know how to fight! Jesus, Sonic, I've never even been in a fight! I don't have any special skills, or-or special powers or anything like that! I'm not even that strong! I'm below-average if anything!" Sonic opened his mouth to argue the point, but Sorun leaned forwards in his chair and held a finger out to stop him. "No, shut up and listen. I can't help you. There is not a thing I can do to help you and your friends, Sonic. I'm the kind of guy that'll die twenty seconds in if you throw me into a live combat situation! I'm useless!"
"Aw, don't say that." Sonic flashed the human teen a warm smile, reached over, and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "You're plenty special as you are right now! And just 'cause you're not super-strong doesn't make you a useless person. I'm sure there's something-"
"No, no-no-no, dude, you're not listening to me." Sorun brushed the hand off his shoulder, and then rose up off the chair so that he could grab Sonic's shoulders and shake him slightly. "I don't want to help you. I don't wanna do any of this nonsense you're asking me to do! I don't wanna go out there and put my life on the line for a world I've never even heard of until ten minutes ago! I don't want to go to literal war! I just want to go home! The home you literally stole me from!"
Sonic, who looked utterly shocked from Sorun's claims, opened his mouth to say something, but his jaw just hung open limply. A quiet breath escaped him after, and the shoulders Sorun was holding went slump and he looked down at the floor.
"We... w-we can't, Sorun. I'm sorry."
In response, the teen shook Sonic again. "'Can't' isn't a very positive word given the context to the current situation, Sonic," he hissed at the hedgehog.
"I'm serious, we can't!" Sonic pushed Sorun's arms off his shoulders, which caused the teen to angrily scoff and hop back into his chair. "We need all seven Chaos Emeralds in order to open the portal back to your zone up, and we don't have them. They got scattered all over the world after the portal we opened closed. It's what happens when you use them."
"Then go get them back!" Sorun shouted. "You got them once! What's stopping you from running around and getting them again!?"
"We got them the first time around when we took them all from Eggman while we were dismantling his operations!" Sonic said in a loud, heated tone. "We can't afford to go running around the whole planet looking for Chaos Emeralds while dealing with Eggman at the same time!" He paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened his green eyes again to look Sorun in his blue. "Look, I-I get it. You don't want to be here. I understand, but... ah." His foot began to nervously tap on the ground as he rubbed the back of his head. "Sorun, I really want you to join and help us. I know we're coming off as a bit selfish here-"
"OH, oh, you think!?"
"- I'm practically begging you here, Sorun, and that's not something I do for a lot of people. And it's not just for my sake. It's not just for my friends' sake. I'm talking about the sake of the whole world here." He took a step forwards, clasped his hands together, and sent Sorun a pleading look. "You can be helpful. I promise. I can help you. We can all help you. I'm just asking you to trust us and help us see this through." He gave the teen another smile and held a hand out to him. "Come on, Sorun. Join the Freedom Fighters."
It was amazing to Sorun just how much sincerity he saw in Sonic's face and his eyes. It was an offer given with such genuine warmness that he had paused while staring down at the offered hand, and he felt his breath stop as the hedgehog's words repeated in his head.
And then he roughly slapped the offered hand away, and the look of hurt became very apparent in Sonic's eyes.
"'The Freedom Fighters.' Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke?" Sorun demanded as he rose off his chair again. "You take me from my world- against my will, I might add- and drag me across the whole multiverse that apparently exists only to drop me in this nightmare-bizarro world, and then you tell me you're literally going to hold me hostage here unless I help you fight a guerrilla war against some megalomaniac robot dictator or whatever! And you want me to join a group called the Freedom Fighters? Are you for real? You want me to risk my life and fight for the freedom of some random planet when you're taking away my own freedom, you psychopath!?"
"We didn't know somebody like you would come through the portal!" Sonic shouted back. "We thought... the tablet made it sound like the one we brought through would be willing to help! We didn't mean to-"
"Oh, you and your mystical, magical, prophetic tablet!" Sorun yelled. "It's not happening, Sonic! I'm not joining your resistance group, I'm not joining anything, and I'm not gonna go out there and get killed fighting robots! It's not happening!"
An explosive sigh rang out from Sorun's throat, and once more he collapsed in the chair, turned around, and folded over the kitchen table. Sonic attempted to approach him once more, but when he got close Sorun turned around and gave him a glare that gave Sonic pause and caused him to step back. It was only after Sonic widened the distance between them did Sorun go back to burying his face in his arms, causing the hedgehog to turn away from him and towards the group of Mobians across the room. "I'll... leave you with your thoughts," he told Sorun. "We'll talk again in a bit, okay?"
Even as he began to walk away, Sorun didn't stir from his spot.
When he arrived at the group in the back, most everybody had split off to talk about the situation among themselves. One of the only ones left alone was a red-haired, chipmunk whose attention was divided between looking at the human sitting at a table across the way in concern and looking at the gloomy-faced hedgehog in front of her in concern.
"He's not very thrilled about all this," Sonic mumbled to her. "Actually, to be honest with you, Sal, the only other person I've ever seen blow a fuse that bad is Egghead. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that."
"Well, you heard him, Sonic. He thinks we've stolen him from his world," she responded to him. "And to be honest, he's not very far off the mark. I think we've made a mistake."
"But it seemed like such a sure thing!" The blue Mobian began to pace back and forth in front of her as his eyes focused in intense thought. "I mean, we studied that thing up, down, and sideways! The wording was the most clear thing in the world! The tablet really made it sound like some kind of hero would come through! Instead we got Sorun, and... well, you know." He stopped and glanced at the human. "He really doesn't wanna help," he said. "Which is bad, 'cause, well, we were really banking on this."
"This is precisely why I voted against wasting all of the Emeralds at the behest of a piece of wood."
Both Mobians paused and looked towards the space next to them, where a black-furred hedgehog was leaning his back the wall while crossing his arms over his chest. Sally held a hand to her mouth in a contemplative gesture while Sonic rolled his eyes.
"I don't wanna hear it from you, Shadow," Sonic said as he turned away.
"Yes, you didn't want to hear anything from me when we were deciding on what to do back then, either. Look where that got us."
"... You're not gonna let this go, are you?" the blue hedgehog sighed out.
"Of course I'm not," Shadow snapped. "We had the Emeralds, all seven of them. After all this time we finally had a definitive edge against Dr. Robotnik, and instead of choosing to use them for something practical you all madly decided to go along with the whimsical writings of an ancient piece of driftwood held in the Acorn family for generations." He cast an accusing glare at Sally. "A piece of driftwood you didn't even know existed until your father brought it to your attention a week ago." He sighed and looked away from them both. "I just can't help but question the wisdom in such a choice, especially considering that-" he nodded his head to Sorun, "- is the end result."
There was a hum from the sole female in the group as Sally rubbed at her forehead and glanced at Shadow. "Maybe, but even you have to admit the writings on the tablet were too specific to be marked off as coincidence," she pointed out. "There were literal illustrations of a battle we had last month of all things etched in the tablet. We couldn't just write such a thing off. And aside from you, everybody voted for using the Emeralds to make that portal." She lowered her hand to her side. "What's done is done. No point arguing about it now."
"That may be so," Shadow agreed, "but that still leaves us with a worthless human that can't even so much as attempt to put up a fight." His crimson eyes scrutinized the human sitting on the other side of the room, and he couldn't help but scoff and shake his head at him. "And based on my observations, he wasn't exaggerating when he said he'd die twenty seconds into a combat scenario." He turned to Sonic. "You'll end up killing him if you let him into the Freedom Fighters, hedgehog."
"Hey, you don't know that," Sonic argued. "He could be great and we just don't know it. Maybe it's a self-esteem issue or something. We're not gonna know if we don't try!" He gestured towards Sorun. "Even if he can't fight there's gotta be something he can do! I mean, the poor guy's stranded here away from his home, and I wanna help him, but with Eggman-"
"We wouldn't even have to deal with this issue if you hadn't wasted the Emeralds."
"We were almost all in agreement-!"
The argument would have continued if Sally hadn't intervened by stepping between the both of them, which quieted them both immediately. "Boys, quit it. Both of you," she said in a commanding tone. Sonic's response was to chuckle nervously and shut his mouth, whereas Shadow grumbled under his breath and turned his head away. "Whatever we're gonna do with Sorun, there's a slight problem we have to deal with. Where is he gonna sleep?"
Sonic's paused when the question reached his ears, and then he slapped his forehead when he thought it over in his head. "Oh, right, we totally didn't think of that, did we?" he asked himself. "Yeah, all the spare rooms in Freedom HQ here are kinda full up since Knuckles and his whole team, Shadow, and Rouge are bunking here, huh? Hm... hey, Shadow-"
"I will blast you through the ceiling if you even consider asking me to bunk with the human, Faker."
"Shadow's right, Sonic," Sally said, which caused Sonic to turn to her in surprise. "The rooms here are only big enough to accommodate a single person, and as it stands they're all spoken for at the moment. He can't stay here."
"Hm... yeah, guess that is kind of a problem," Sonic agreed. He began tapping his foot on the ground rapidly as he rubbed his chin, and as an idea came into being he let out a soft hum. "You know, I still have that spare bed in my room ever since Tails moved in with his parents," he realized. "Sorun could-"
"Oh, I don't even wanna talk to you!"
The sudden raised voice caused everybody in the vicinity to flinch, and all turned towards the source that was the table Sorun sat at. Sonic's eyes were immediately drawn to the human, but they were soon diverted when he noticed to the yellow form standing right in front of him. And then he began to grow concerned when he saw the fuming look of anger spread out over Sorun's face.
"Uh-oh. Tails..."
There were so many emotions going through Sorun at the moment that he couldn't sort through them all if he tried. So much information that he couldn't even begin to process it all, and though he had a basic understanding of the situation his mind was in such a muddled mess that he could barely even think straight, let alone process all the emotions running through him.
The disbelief that he was in a whole universe. The fear that had begun to subside when he discovered the Mobians weren't going to eat him, but then resurfaced when he discovered he was trapped here. The despair at knowing he was apparently in some war-torn world under siege by a madman who used robots. Worry at what would happen to his personal life at home if he was gone too long, and at those who would wonder where he disappeared to. The sheer confusion at the absurdity of the situation. The everything. It was all too much.
But then the yellow Mobian with the fox-like features approached him. And all those emotions and thoughts were, in that moment, overridden with anger. Anger at the unfairness of it all. Anger that he, out of the billions of people on Earth, had been dragged away. Anger at the Mobian in front of him who had personally done the deed and dragged him here.
He was honestly so mad he couldn't see straight, let alone think.
"Oh, I don't even wanna talk to you!" he yelled at the fox, which immediately made the smaller male step backwards. But, even after being yelled at, the fox took a deep breath and looked up at Sorun's eyes before he began speaking.
"I just wanted to apologize to you," the fox told him. "We really didn't-"
"I was walking away! I didn't want to get involved!" Sorun continued, interrupting the yellow fox's apology and causing him to freeze in place. "I try to leave, and what do you do!? You drag me! You physically drag me through the portal!"
"I... I'm really sorry, Sorun," he mumbled as the corner of his eyes began to grow wet. "It's just... the last month alone has been really horrible, so when the coordinates on the tablet-" he sniffed, "- when I decoded the coordinates and made the machine that produced the portal I just, I just really hoped that the words the tablet said were true and that somebody would come and help us, and everybody agreed and-"
But Sorun couldn't let him get any more words in, because the frustration had built up to a feverish level. "Kicking and screaming! I was literally kicking and screaming and trying to get away from you, but you wouldn't let go!" Sorun continued, and by now tears were beginning to freely fall from the fox's face. "What kind of person-!?"
There was a blur of blue, and before Sorun knew it Sonic was standing between him and the fox. And there was anger in Sonic's eyes, too- a certain anger that immediately made Sorun wary and had him step away from the hedgehog.
"Sorun. He gets it. You made your point." He turned towards the openly-crying fox, and his features softened instantly when the top of his head to get his attention. "Hey, li'l buddy. I'll finish up here, okay? I'll finish up here. Don't you worry about a thing."
The fox looked up at Sonic with a thankful look in his eyes, and after sniffling a few times he gave him a jerky nod, cast one more sorrowful look at Sorun, and then turned around to walk away from them. It was only once he was a fair distance away did Sonic turn back to Sorun with an expression of anger mixed with pity in his features.
"Hey. Don't do that to him again," he warned Sorun. "He feels awful enough as it is. I don't need you screaming at him and making things worse."
"Oh, yeah, you're right. What was I thinking? It's not like he stole me away from literally everything I've ever known and loved or anything," Sorun bitterly mumbled, which caused Sonic to breath out a sigh. "What do you want, man? I already told you I'm not joining your freedom clubhouse."
"We'll get to that later," Sonic said to him. "First we gotta talk about where you'll be sleeping."
"Sleeping? Oh." That was a problem now that he thought about it. His bed was a whole universe away from him. "So what were you thinking?"
"Well, that's the thing." Sonic rubbed at the back of his head while giving Sorun a side-gaze as he turned his side to him. "Space is kind of at a premium right now, so... it looks like you're going to have to stay with me."
It was already growing too awkward for Sorun's liking, and it made itself evident on his face when he blanched.
"That said," Sonic continued, "it's getting late, and I think we all need a breather. So how about this? We'll go to my house, you can see the sights, and we can talk more about the Freedom Fighter thing later, alright? The fresh air and time will do you good."
He wanted to object- mostly just to spite Sonic- but the problem was that he legitimately was tired. And hungry. And the nausea from earlier hadn't gone away entirely. And the more he thought on it, the more he just wanted to collapse somewhere, close his eyes, and just stop thinking for a few hours.
So it looked like he didn't have much of a choice.
"Alright, fine. Sure. Yeah. Fresh air sounds good." Sorun nodded at the hedgehog, and relief made its way onto the Mobian's features. "Let's go. I don't really wanna be down here any longer."
A/N- I didn't want to make Sorun so short, but at the same time I didn't want him to be this super-tall weirdo walking around with a bunch of short people. He was originally taller, too, but a day before I began writing I actually bothered to look up Sonic characters' heights and, wow, these things are literal munchkins. You don't see it in the comics and games since everything is to their scale but they're all super short.
