Recursion Error

Episode 4- The world's most useless Freedom Fighter


"Goddammit, it wasn't a dream."

A large part of him- about ninety-nine percent if he were to portion his soul off- had hoped that it had all been a bad dream. That he'd went and ignored a wet floor sign in the supermarket or something and that he had just hit his head and imagined all this. That he was in a hospital room or his own room or wherever and that all of these terrible things happening to him were nothing but a figment of his imagination. That he would be able to wake up and go back to his normal, ordinary life without a care in the world.

Those hopes were dashed when he awoke to Sonic's ceiling.

After the depression came and went, Sorun dragged himself out of the bed, stomped out of Sonic's room, and hunted around the house for a solid five minutes before he finally found the bathroom. And the first thing he did when he locked the door behind him was head right to the sink, splash his face with cold water, and stare at his own wild face in the mirror.

"Alright, keep it together man. You're probably gonna not make it through this, but there's still a chance. It's abysmal, but it's there. It exists." A young, gaunt, pale face stared back at Sorun from the mirror he was staring at, and he had to brush back long locks of black hair to be able to see the blue eyes that were staring at him in terror. For a brief moment he eyed the bandage stuck above his left eye, and his grip on the sink tightened. "All you gotta do is fight robots with furry people and not die. Easy-peasy." His eyes dipped towards the sink as he heaved out a deep sigh. "God, I'm so screwed."

He was starting to forget was optimism felt like. He'd been in such down spirits that such things like that were becoming too difficult to even try and attempt to think on. Probably not a good sign, but there wasn't anything he could do about it, so that left him with little else to do than power through it. Even if he was rapidly losing willpower.

"I wonder if there's a clothes shop or something I can get some spare clothes at," Sorun muttered to himself as he examined his clothes. "I only got the one set on me, and that's not gonna last me very long. What do I got, anyways?

"Let's see..." He began to pat down parts of his body as he listed off his clothing. "Okay, so... black sneakers, check. Socks, check. Black sweats, check. Blue t-shirt, check. Underwear?" He pulled his pants back and stared down at his crotch. "Thank goodness, I remembered to wear underwear," he sighed out as he released his pants, and then dug into his pockets. "How about my phone? How's that doing?"

His hands rooted around in his pockets. Rather alarmingly, he couldn't find his phone.

"What the? Where's my... oh, I swear if it fell out of my pocket when Tails grabbed me in that store," he angrily muttered under his breath. He didn't want to believe it, but the more he searched the more realized his phone wasn't on him, as the only things that were in his pockets were pieces of pocket lint and a gum wrapper. "Damn, that's rough," he sighed out. "My poor phone's either in a lost-and-found bin back on Earth or it got lost to the friggin' multiverse ether when Tails pulled me in that portal. Either way, it's gone. And I think I lost my wallet, too." He hung his head backwards. "Those things were expensive."

Well, that was his last lifeline to his home universe gone forever. It also meant he literally had nothing but the clothes on his back. And a gum wrapper.

After taking care of everything he needed in the bathroom, Sorun found himself wandering around the house some more until he'd found his way into the kitchen. A high-speed blue object chose to bump into his side at that exact moment.

"Hey, Sorun!" He didn't even get a chance to think of a response before he felt Sonic pulling at his arm and dragging him to the kitchen table. "You know what today is, right?"

He quite simply didn't have the energy or drive for banter, but he didn't have the energy to be antagonistic towards the hedgehog, either. "No clue," he replied with a subdued yawn as he was seated at the kitchen table, with Sonic sitting right next to him. He could see the hedgehog's mother cooking something at the stove at the other end of the kitchen, and he could catch the scent of something sweet being cooked.

And, of course, right at the other end of the table was Sonic's robotic father. He had a newspaper in his metallic lap, but Sorun could swear the red sensors that were his eyes kept flashing briefly and moving in their black, eye-like screens from the newspaper to Sorun and back again. Like he was trying and failing to surreptitiously sneak glances at him.

The robot hedgehog must have realized he was doing a poor job, too, as he'd shifted in his seat, made a synthesized coughing noise, and rose up a mug filled with a black liquid that he poured down his mouth-grill.

"What the hell is he drinking? Oil?" Sorun thought as he stared at the mug. "The weirdness just keeps getting deeper every second. I swear, this Looney Tunes shit is gonna drive me insane..."

"I know somebody's hungry!" The teen was startled from his thoughts when plate stacked absurdly high with pancakes was set right in front of him. Sorun's surprised eyes slowly turned from the pancakes to the female hedgehog who was setting another plate in front of Sonic. "Something the matter?" she asked upon noticing Sorun's staring.

"... You made me breakfast?" Sorun asked, voice laced in confusion as he picked up a nearby fork to poke at the pancakes.

"Of course." She turned towards her robotic husband. "Jules, there's more oil in the fridge if you need it, dear."

Jules nodded. "Thank you kindly, Bernie."

While continuing to poke at the pancakes, Sorun glance at Sonic. "Bernie?" he questioned.

He nodded. "Yeah, short for Bernadette."

"Oh. That makes sense." The teen was still poking at the pancakes. "She made me breakfast?" he mumbled.

Concern began to creep into Bernadette's features as she noticed Sorun's continued assault on his food. "Oh, no. Don't tell me they're not to your liking? I can always-"

"No, it's fine." A tore a chunk of pancake out and brought it to his mouth. "I just didn't really expect you to... huh."

There were two things he realized the second that he at that first bit of pancake: one was that Sonic's mother was an excellent cook. The second was that he hadn't eaten a single thing since coming to Mobius, and was just now feeling the fact that he was starving.

Eating was a blur for him, literally and metaphorically. His hands were moving too fast for him to keep track of and his mind was so focused on eating the pancakes that he could even remember moving to eat them. He wasn't even able to keep track of the time, so by the time he finished he was looking down at an empty plate that, from his perspective, had been full just a few seconds prior.

To say Sorun was stunned by the fact he'd so voraciously eaten the pancakes was an understatement, to say nothing of the reactions all the hedgehogs around him were giving him. Even Jules looked surprise, which was really impressive to Sorun considering most of his face couldn't move.

"Uh... wow, Sorun," Sonic chuckled, "you really like pancakes, huh?"

"Your mom makes really great pancakes." He felt embarrassment begin to burn at him as he placed his utensils on the plate before carrying the plate to the sink in an attempt to wash it. He couldn't even get that far before he felt somebody gently pull the plate out of his hands.

"Oh no, dearie, I'll take care of the dishes." Even as Bernadette pulled the plate away from him, the embarrassment Sorun felt was still too great, so he was forced to turn his eyes away from her. "I appreciate the sentiment, though," he heard.

"O-of course. Thank you, ma'am."

He heard a pleased trill next to him. "Honestly, my own husband and son could learn a thing or two from your behavior."

The sound of distorted coughing rang out as Jules crumpled his newspaper and sat up straighter in his chair. "Sonic, didn't you and Sorun have something to do today?"

"You know it!" From the corner of his eye, Sorun was reminded of Sonic's speed when he wolfed down his own pancakes even faster than he had before dashing next to Sorun and handing his mother his empty plate. "Don't you remember? We gotta go talk to everybody at Freedom HQ."

"Yeah-I-know-cool-let's-go." They could barely be counted as words, but Sorun wanted to badly to go away right now to even bother to care. It was no sooner did he say that string of barely-passable words did he begin to speed-walk out of the kitchen, and right behind him he could hear Sonic bid his parents farewell before he heard rapid footfalls and felt the hedgehog's presence right besides him.

He didn't even need to look at him to know he had a smug grin on his face.

"Lookin' kinda red there, Sorun," he teased. "You doin' okay?"

Sorun didn't speak and resisted looking at him.

"But wow, you must REALLY like my mom's cooking. I actually had to try to keep up with how fast you ate, and that's saying a lot!" Sorun continued being silent, and Sonic's voice lowered as he stepped closer. "Hey, seriously, is something the matter?"

"No, I just... didn't really expect your mom to be so nice is all," he told him. "You and your family are being a lot more hospitable than I thought you would be. There's nothing wrong. I'm just surprised."

Sonic sent him a puzzled glance. "Why wouldn't we be nice?" he asked him. "Everybody here will be nice to you. They're all great people. I'm telling ya, you just gotta chill out and give them all a chance."

The pale teen's response was to point to the bandage on his forehead and mumble out, "Rock."

"The rock was a fluke." Sonic waved a hand. "I'm gonna talk to those kids later to make sure that doesn't happen again, alright? I know that you might still be a bit shaken by everything, but just give life here a try while you're here. You'll be surprised if my mom's cooking is what's stopping you in your tracks."

Sorun groaned, and then held his face in his hands. "Can we please stop talking about the pancakes?"

"Sorun, I'm never going to stop talking about the pancakes now."

The whole journey to the HQ had been spent with Sorun suffering in silence as Sonic unleashed jab after jab at him. By the time they had finally arrived he wasn't sure he had an ego anymore.


"I'm starting to regret a lot of my life choices right about now."

It was strange being back down there in Freedom HQ, the place where his life took a turn for the absolute worse. He felt all sorts of emotions the first time around when he was learning just what happened to him: disbelief. Doubt. Sadness along with crushing despair. Fear. Anger, lots of anger.

Admittedly he was still holding onto that anger, but over time it was slowly beginning to simmer into frustration.

The fear was still there, too, though when he reflected on it he figured that it was more nervousness and embarrassment than actual fear. He didn't have anything to fear- except for the killer robots, but that would come later. No, this was just him being nervous about talking in front of a group of people whose first impression of him had been seeing him at his lowest. Who were, by Sonic's account, these amazing people that put their lives on the line for other people with all sorts of powers and fighting skills. And then there was him, the human who tried his hardest to weasel out of fighting, who cost them seven infinite power gems, and who almost had a mental breakdown in front of them and screamed at a child.

It legitimately scared him thinking about how little they must have thought of him. And here he was about to tell them all he was going to join them despite having absolutely nothing positive to add to the team.

He felt like a bad joke.

Now that his eyes weren't killing him and he'd finally adjusted to whatever was up with the colors in this world, he was able to get a good look at all the Mobians that had gathered in front of him as he leaned on the kitchen table in the HQ's kitchen. Seventeen of them in total with Sonic and Tails among them, the former near the head of the group giving him an encouraging smile while the latter was hiding near the back.

Everybody else was as colorful as he remembered and were all watching him with mixed looks of curiosity. Try as Sorun might, he couldn't bother to try and classify what kinds of animals they were. A very select few were obvious: he was fairly certain the tall, green one that looked like a crocodile was a crocodile. Or an alligator. Something along those lines. The small, floating one that literally looked like an anthropomorphic bee was most likely a bee, and if Sorun learned he wasn't he'd jump off a cliff at the absurdity of it. The white one with the bat wings could have been a bat, but Sorun didn't want to make assumptions with her. Everybody else with the exception of two could have been anything else, and for all he knew they were all alternate-universe animal breeds that didn't even exist on Earth.

The two exceptions seemed to be other hedgehogs, like Sonic. One was a pink one with much flatter and shorter spines than Sonic's that looked female, who looked about as curious as everybody else who had divided their attention to him. Her, Sorun was curious about due to the fact she had significantly more clothing than Sonic or the other hedgehog, as she had a dress that fully covered her torso. And now that he looked closer, it seemed all the female members he saw had more clothing than the males.

The clothing thing still confused him as much as everything else in this world did.

It was the third hedgehog in the group that was really making him worried, because the way he was looking at Sorun was legitimately making him scared. A male, black-furred hedgehog with the same tan-furred mouth that Sonic possessed, with a white patch of fur on his chest. Interestingly, the spines on the back of his head were pointed upwards unlike Sonic's or the pink one's, and even more interestingly he had a red stripe on each of the spines, his limbs, and around his eyes. Red eyes that were constantly affixed at Sorun in a perpetual angry scowl.

"He just keeps glaring at me. Why does he keep glaring at me?" Sorun wondered. "Nobody else looks angry. It's just him. It's making me really nervous."

Sorun decided to just not look at the angry, black hedgehog, but even then he could almost feel him burning a hole into the side of his head with his stare.

But angry hedgehog or no, he had to get this started so he could get over with it as soon as possible. So he cleared his throat, lightly sighed as he thought over the words he planned on saying for the millionth time, and faced the crowd as he opened his mouth to speak.

"So... uh... yesterday kind of got heated, and I apologize for that," Sorun began. "I wasn't used to going to a whole new universe 'zone' place, so I was pretty shocked. I'm admittedly still trying to adapt to... well, literally everything, but Sonic's been helping me with that.

"I'm... aware you needed to use all seven of the Chaos Emeralds in order to bring me here. I'm sorry that you got somebody as useless as me instead of the super-cool, mega-awesome guy you were all hoping for, but here I am. And while I'd like nothing more than to just go home, I've also been made aware that you all can't afford to look for the Emeralds I'd need while fighting Eggman, and I completely understand. And after some considerable convincing from Sonic, I've decided to go ahead and join your group of Freedom Fighters.

"I will warn you right now. I have absolutely no combat experience whatsoever. I'm not particularly strong or smart. I don't have any special powers like Sonic or any of you might have. I have absolutely no tactical know-how or any knowledge of how war works."

Some of the Mobians began to look at one another with unsure, confused looks while others were grimacing in pity at Sorun's sake. Sonic was glancing around with a nervous smile while it looked like he was beginning to sweat. The black hedgehog was glaring at Sorun even harsher.

"I don't have any technical or mechanical knowledge. My medical knowledge is slim to none, especially considering I have no idea what Mobian biology is like. I can't track or survive in the wilderness to save my life. My cooking skills are nil. I have absolutely no practical skills that are of use to anybody. I don't even have a high school degree. What I'm trying to say is that I'm more of a liability than an asset to you all, and I seriously doubt that I can be of any help to any of you." He sighed deeply, looked down at the floor, and rubbed at the back of his neck. "But I'm already here and everything, so I guess I'll do what I can to help out," he finished.

It was possibly the worst speech he'd ever given in his entire life, but he honestly had nothing better to say in his defense. And at the very least, it was honest. Whatever good that did him.

Unfortunately, any confidence he had was quickly beginning to vanish when he looked back up at the group of Mobians in front of him. It almost physically hurt to see them all wincing at him and giving him pitying looks, and even Sonic looked downcast at Sorun's words. Even then he was trying to support him with a smile, but even Sorun could see how fake and forced it was.

The black hedgehog looked ready to bite his head off.

"Yep. This is even worse than I thought it would be." He desperately wanted any excuse just to leave right now just so he could escape this embarrassing hell he was in. "Should never have made that stupid bet with Sonic."

A full, solid minute of awkward silence was spent as they all stared at each other in equal parts embarrassment and pity, and Sorun was beginning to wonder when the pressure of the situation would actually knock him out before anything else happened when one of the Mobians stepped forwards in front of him. The red-haired one Sonic had pointed out from yesterday, who looked like a brown chipmunk now that Sorun got a better look at her.

"Um... Sonic said your name was Sally, right?" Sorun asked as he leaned harder into the table behind him. "Something about royalty or something? Does that make you the leader here?"

She shook her head. "Not officially, no. The Freedom Fighters don't really have so much a leader as people who coordinate it. I would be one of those."

"That's... the literal definition of a leader, Sally."

He saw one of her blue eyes twitch, and Sorun idly wondered if antagonizing the royal chipmunk was perhaps not the best move to make right now. Fortunately, she seemed to brush it off and stared him square in the eyes with a serious expression on her face. "Sorun, I understand your plight, and I appreciate you understanding that we can't divert any resources towards sending you back home at the moment. But do you seriously want to join the Freedom Fighters, even after everything you said? I don't think I need to tell you the dangers involved."

"Want? Want is, uh, want's a strong word. Strong word," Sorun mumbled. "It was more Sonic's idea than anything."

The long-drawn out sigh that came out of Sally followed by the look of sympathy she shot him made Sorun feel that maybe he wasn't alone at holding some contempt for Sonic. "I'm not going to lie to you," she started. "The Freedom Fighters are hurting right now and are accepting any help we can get."

"You're so desperate you'd take a loser like me?"

"... Unfortunately, yes," she said with a resigned nod. "So if you want to join, I'll let you join. And I promise that, regardless of what you say, if and when we ever come across all seven of the Chaos Emeralds again I will personally ensure that sending you straight to your home zone is a top priority. But Dr. Eggman and the safety of Mobius comes first above all else." She extended her right hand to Sorun. "We'd be happy to have you."

So much for scaring them off with how useless he was. That was his last strategy in the bag for getting out of this. Looking down at the hand being offered to him, Sorun wanted to go back on his word right there and tell her that he couldn't do it. That he wasn't cut out for being a Freedom Fighter and should just stay away. He wouldn't even be lying, because he knew for a fact he wasn't cut out for this.

Thoughts of his home were the only thing that kept him from doing such a thing. As it stood, they were his best bet going back. He had to.

"Mm. I feel like you won't be thinking that for long." He meant that with genuine sincerity. "Well, regardless, I'm in. For better or worse." He held his left hand up and grasped it with hers, trying his best to ignore the perplexing, alien feeling that he felt when grasping her hand. She was one of the few he saw that didn't wear gloves. "Until I find a way home," he added. "Then I'm out of here and we never see each other again."

"Of course." They shook on it, and Sorun felt like he just signed his life away. But it was a step forwards for getting him home. A small, minuscule step. Barely something that could be registered, really. But it was more progress than he'd made since coming to this world, and that alone was enough to make him feel some positivity.

Home was still so far away to him. But maybe he'd make it back now.

"Now, I'm sure you'd like to meet the people you'll be working with now that you're one of us," Sally said as the two of them pulled their arms back, "but before all that, there's something we need to take care of first."

"Hm? What's that?"

"I need to take you to Castle Acorn to meet my brother. The king," she clarified upon seeing Sorun's questioning face, to which the pale teen blanched. "My brother, Elias, is usually busy with his royal affairs, but he likes to take time to meet anybody new who chooses to settle in Knothole City. That goes double for any new Freedom Fighters, and that goes triple for you in particular since he was the one that green-lit the use of the tablet's coordinates as our request. He specifically told me he wanted to meet you, actually, so we should go see him sooner rather than later."

"Ah. I see." Sorun nodded in understanding. "Your brother is gonna be a very disappointed man, Sally. Sorry in advance."

The Mobian laughed a little, and it took Sorun a moment to realize that she must have thought he'd told a joke. He didn't have in it him to correct her. "You're not as bad as you say you are, you know," she told him. "Now come on. We're burning daylight."

"Yeah, sure, let's-" Sorun stopped himself when he saw Sonic hopping on his feet to gain his attention, and then looked back towards Sally. "Actually, gimme a sec. I'll catch up."

She'd followed his gaze to Sonic, and then nodded in understanding before turning to leave. Most of everybody else had dispersed to deal with their own business, while Sonic had dashed up in front of Sorun with a big grin on his face.

"Great job, Sorun!" He gave the human a thumbs-up. "I knew you had it in you! How d'ya feel?"

"Like the biggest idiot on the planet," Sorun answered. "I literally just told everybody I'm dead weight, and they all probably think I'm worthless now. And they'd be wrong. Because I'm way worse than worthless."

"Aw, don't be like that. What'd I say about self-confidence?" He stepped to Sorun's side and shook his shoulder in a playful manner. "We'll fix that in no time, buddy. We just gotta figure out what you're good at and work on that."

He made it sound so easy. And if Sorun didn't know any better, he would have believed him and felt relieved about the whole situation. But unfortunately he did know better. "I... thanks, Sonic." He gently pulled away and nodded his head to the stairs leading to the exit. "I gotta go meet the king. Oh, wait, quick, before I go, you got any advice for me? What's the king like?"

"Elias? He's a nice guy. Not that much older than us, actually." Sonic shrugged. "I wouldn't be too worried about it. Just be yourself."

"'Be yourself' he says. Most generic advice ever," Sorun muttered under his breath, but gave Sonic a nod of thanks regardless and turned to the exit. "Sure, I'll go for it. I might be gone a while, so I guess I'll see you back at the house." He waved a goodbye behind his back. "Later."

"I'll have mom save some pancakes just for you!"

A deep breath was needed to steady Sorun after he heard the jab, but to his own surprise, a breathy chuckle left him when he exhaled it. "You better," he called behind him as he ascended the stair. "Those pancakes are great."


A/N- Yeah, there's not really a set length for how long these chapters are gonna be. I've tried doing hard word limits in the past, and they really kill the flow for me. Some chapters could be 2k words long, they could be 20k words long, I dunno. They end when they end.