A/N- So I goofed up and named named Jules Charles for some reason, which was pointed out to me. My brain had a critical error or something; I dunno how I screwed up that badly. Don't even know where I got the name "Charles" from. Anyways, I went back and stealth-patched it, so it's all good now.


Recursion Error

Episode 5- The post-apocalyptic furry wasteland is brutal


"As you might have imagined, my brother lives in Castle Acorn being the king and all. You might have seen it?"

"Yeah, giant castle in the middle of the city. Hard to miss."

"I thought so." Sally adjusted the short, blue jacket she wore, and then began walking towards the direction of Knothole City with Sorun closely in tow. "So how have you been finding everything so far?" she asked him. "I know it can't be easy, what with you being stranded here and all, but otherwise have you been getting by okay?"

Oh, how there were so many ways he wanted to say no. So many ways he wanted to display his bitter resentment towards this entire situation through a harsh choice of words so Sally could stop asking him about his feelings and they could spend the rest of the trip in silence. He wouldn't yell, but the remarks would be scathing enough to cut just deeply enough to get the message across.

"I'm telling ya, you just gotta chill out and give them all a chance."

But Sonic's words ringing in his head stayed his tongue. For as many negative thoughts as he had about the hedgehog- and quite a few at that- even Sorun would admit that the hedgehog was trying to help him through this, and at the very least everybody seemed to regret bringing him into the circumstances he found himself in. At the very least, Sorun appreciated that. And even he would admit that something about the blue Mobian's boundless optimism spoke to him in a good way, though he'd never admit it.

Was he still upset at them all for opening that portal and dragging him here against his will? Yes, he was. Did he blame them? Not anymore, no. Did he forgive them? That remained to be seen.

A lot of things remained to be seen.

"I'm getting by, yeah," Sorun answered. "Some kids chucked a rock at my face, but Sonic's mom took care of the cut. Otherwise things have been manageable."

Sally visibly winced as she peeked up at his forehead. "I was wondering about that," she said. "What happened with the kids?"

"Sonic said he'd deal with them."

She looked relieved at that answer. "That's probably for the best."

Sorun raised an eyebrow at the response, and then leaned forwards to nudge her in the shoulder. "What, don't trust me to handle a bunch of kids?" he asked. "I know we just met and I didn't give off a good impression when it comes to kids, but sheesh."

"You did scream at Tails." That shut Sorun right up. "And that's not what I meant. Sonic's a hero to those kids, to kids all over the world. I was just saying that they'd listen to him a lot easier than to, well, somebody like you. No offense."

"... Ah-huh." He actually did take some offense to that, but didn't say anything and chose to keep walking next to Sally.

Unfortunately, the chipmunk seemed to notice his silence, and then began to nervously rub at her arm as her eyes darted around awkwardly. "Are you still upset at us?" she asked him. "For bringing you here. It's just that, well, with the way you acted with Tails-"

"Geez, I get it, I shouldn't have yelled at him," Sorun interrupted with a harsh wave of his hand. "Gimme a break here. I already told Sonic I was going to apologize to him. I'm just looking for a good time is all." He swiveled his head away to avoid Sally's eyes. "I didn't even know he was a kid," he mumbled. "Didn't even know what a Mobian was until Sonic told me."

"... That's good," she said after a few moments of silence. "But please don't forget to talk to him. It's hitting him really hard."

"I doubt it's hitting him any harder than it is me," Sorun thought. The pair continued to walk in silence afterwards, with the human teen sneaking glances at Sally every so often as the wooden buildings of Knothole began to grow closer and closer. "I guess I should ask her something? Try to get to know her? Ask what, though? What it's like being in a royal family? Nah, she probably gets questions like that all the time. Hobbies? No, she'll probably say something like she's too busy with the Freedom Fighters and get pissed at me." He scratched the back of his head. "Dang, I don't know how to talk to people."

It was really hard to come up with anything to say, too, especially considering he didn't know what kind of person Sally was having just met her. The thought about asking her something Sorun was interested to know crossed his mind, but choosing a single question out of the millions floating around in his head proved to be a rather difficult task. "Maybe... I dunno, there's so many things I wanna ask. Maybe what the deal with humans here is? Better than nothing, I guess."

"So I noticed that there aren't any other humans that live in Knothole," Sorun voiced. "Also it looks like Mobians don't particularly like humans. Is there a reason?"

"There's a... general stigma towards them, yes," Sally admitted after a terse moment. "A large part is Eggman, but even before him our kinds never really mixed all that well. We've had wars and a lot of bloodshed between each other." She turned away to avoid Sorun's inquisitive stare. "And I don't mean to be rude, but... any confrontation between our kinds were more often than not initiated by the Overlanders. Mobians just wanted peace between everybody. We only ever fought to defend what was ours." She looked back to him. "So you'll have to forgive everybody for being a bit tense around you. Even if you are from another zone, you still look like one of them."

Well, that didn't paint a really big picture. Sorun felt like she was glossing over a lot of details, but when he thought about how much history she was trying to condense into a few sentences, he didn't blame her. But knowing that there were a sizable enough amount of humans on Mobius to be able to wage wars was an interesting tidbit. The fact they actually did wage wars wasn't as surprising, but it did give him some context for the general animosity he felt from any passing Mobians.

"That so? I'm not really surprised," Sorun said.

"Huh? Why not?"

"Dude, Sally, there's whole historical textbooks filled with human wars back from where I'm from," he told her. "Humans fight for a lot of reasons. It just happens."

She stuck her tongue out at that explanation. "That's barbaric," she said. "Why? Why does your kind think it's so okay to wage war?"

"Well, it's not like every single human goes 'aw yeah, war! Awesome!' all the time. I can't speak for the ones here, but most, and I mean, like, a large majority, back home on Earth don't. And why?" He hummed in thought, and then sighed as he rubbed the back of his head. "I dunno. I'm not really a big historical philosophy buff. Things happen. And I sure couldn't tell you why the people here fought your kind when I got no other information than 'they just did'."

He certainly had a few assumptions, land dominance and a general dislike for anything nonhuman being the greatest suspects in his mind. They sounded too stereotypical to be true, but on the other hand he didn't nearly have enough faith to not believe in the possibility. And he had to remind himself that this wasn't Earth; it was Mobius, with a different set of humans. And apparently one of them was an evil tyrant using robots to take over the world. For all he knew humans in this world were just walking evil stereotypes. It would fit in with all the other weird logic he'd been exposed to so far here.

Sorun really hoped that wasn't the case, because he really didn't know what he was supposed to do with that information if it was.

"Something you said's bothering me," Sorun continued. "Overlander. You called humans Overlanders. Is that, like, the Mobian nickname for humans or something?"

Sally shook her head. "No, there's a clear distinction between the two of them. Overlanders are humans that evolved from the gene bombs that formed Mobius as we know it today. Humans are simply descended from normal humans who were never mutated by the bombs."

"..." There was a lot of information in that statement that Sorun was drawing a blank on, and now he was just confused. "Uh... gene bombs?" he mumbled out. "Wh- what are you talking about?"

The chipmunk stopped in her tracks and whirled towards Sorun with surprise in her eyes. "Did Sonic not explain this to you?" she questioned.

Sorun shook his head. "Explain what?"

"Oh, for the love of..." She slapped a hand to her forehead, and Sorun could have sworn he heard faint murmurs spill out from her mouth as she tiredly shook her head. "Shouldn't have trusted Sonic with him. Should have left him with somebody more responsible. How could he not explain this to him?" Sorun had rose a hand to try to get her attention, but stopped himself when Sally slid her hand off her face, took in a deep breath, and looked Sorun straight up at the eyes.

He felt a bit wary at how serious she looked all of a sudden.

"Sorun, there's something important about Mobius you should know since you're, well, stuck here for now," she stated. "It'll help clear up your confusion and may answer a lot of your questions. I was hoping Sonic would have the common sense to tell you beforehand, but it looks like he didn't." She grumbled under her breath again and glanced the the side while crossing her arms. "How come I can trust him to save the day but nothing else?"

"Sally?"

"Oh, right." She cleared her throat and turned back to Sorun. "You said your home zone is called Earth, right? Is that the name of your planet?"

Quirking an eyebrow in confusion, Sorun slowly nodded at the Mobian. "Yeah...?"

"Well... this planet wasn't always called Mobius. Once upon a time, it was called Earth, too."

"Buh." There were so many implications with that sentence that he didn't even know where to begin. "Explain," he demanded. "Explain now."

"I will, I will," she assured him while raising her hands to calm him down, as the human teen began to breath heavier. He nodded and slowly slowed his breathing. "You said back when you first came here that there weren't any Mobians on your planet Earth. That it was dominated solely by humans and nothing else but what I assume were normal, non-sapient animals. Am I right so far?"

Sorun confirmed her question with a shaky nod of his head. "Mh-hm, mh-hm, yeah."

"Well," she began, "This planet was the same way once. It was called Earth, and the only sapient species that lived on it were humans, the same as yours. This all changed when an alien race named the Xorda visited the planet."

"Ah. Aliens. Of course." Why not? Sonic already told him about aliens. Everything else about this world was so crazy that it seemed normal by comparison. Why would this be any different? "What do aliens have to do with this?"

"You have to understand that a lot of what I'm about to tell you is relatively new information to us," she quickly explained to him. "It was a bit over a year ago when the Xorda came back and explained a lot of details to us before we had to repel their invasion. We cross-referenced a lot of historical data from the royal archives after and managed to piece together as consistent a timeline of the planet's history as well as we could."

Sorun rose a hand to stop her. "Sally, I don't want to know about the alien invasion that happened last year. I'm still trying to understand the whole 'Mobius is Earth bit', okay?" His head actually felt like it was going to explode, and much to his alarm he could hear his heartbeat thumping in his ears. "It's... you're dumping a lot on me right now. Can you please, please just stick to the important bits?"

"Okay, Sorun. Okay. I understand. Just calm down." She stepped forwards and but a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She needed to stay there for a few seconds, after which Sorun's breathing began to even out. He gave her a shaky nod, which she reciprocated with her own nod before stepping back. "As I was saying, the Xorda came and sent an ambassador to have peaceful talks with the humans," she continued. "The humans' response was to dissect the ambassador."

The pale teen's only response to this was to roll his eyes while muttering curses under his breath too quiet for Sally to hear.

"The Xorda saw this as a sign of war, and bombarded planet Earth with weapons called gene bombs," she explained. "There were a precious few amount of human settlements that managed to survive underground, but for the most part all life on the planet was completely annihilated by the gene bombs. The Xorda, thinking the planet had been completely destroyed, left afterwards." She paused, and looked out at the distance past all the trees and towards the plains past the castle they were walking towards, right at the horizon. "What happened afterwards is what history calls the Days of Fury," she said. "Practically all life that didn't escape the bombs were reduced to primordial sludge. The tectonic disturbances caused by the bombs' explosions were so great that they caused natural catastrophes on the planet's surface. Storms that tore the land up, volcanoes that scorched the skies and the earth, and earthquakes that reshaped the entire surface. Eventually the planet calmed down, but all that was left was a lifeless planet above ground." She stopped to take a breath and turned back to Sorun, who remained completely silent while paying rapt attention to Sally's story. "Thousands of years would pass before life would begin to evolve out from the primordial sludge left by the gene bombs," she continued. "Details on this point in time are... scarce, but from what little data we were able to gather along with... 'statements' from certain questionable people and sources, there were extinctions on the first species to evolve from the sludge, and it was during this time that the Chaos Emeralds came to exist on the planet, though back then they took on a different form. How they got to be in the state they're in today is another story entirely, and we can talk about it later if you want.

"Getting back on track, eventually species arose out of the sludge that didn't go extinct, and they evolved into what walks on the planet today. Mobians, and Overlanders. Technically speaking Overlanders are Mobians, too, but they would never admit to it since they're so attached to their human ancestry." She turned sideways and pointed towards Castle Acorn. "One of my ancestors was responsible for uniting the various Mobian tribes to make a single kingdom that stood for unification regardless of what subspecies of Mobian you were. He believed in strength of unity and friendship above all else, and everybody agreed with him. So the Kingdom of Acorn was born, and the line of royal succession has been handed down through a monarchy every since." She looked back to Sorun, and sympathy was cast over her face when she saw the lost look on his face. "Sorun, I know that's a lot to take in all at once on top of everything else you're going through, and I know you must have a lot of questions. If you want to know any finer details, feel free to ask me or anybody else. Otherwise, that's a basic, and I cannot stress the word 'basic' enough here, crash-course on the history of the planet."

"... Ah-huh." He was honestly surprised his brain hadn't melted and poured out of his ears yet. It certainly felt like that's what it should be doing right now, because he couldn't think properly right now. He had to keep rethinking the words of Sally's story over and over again in his head to make sense of it all, and though he gained a little bit more clarity each time, he also felt his sanity slip away in equal amounts.

Sally's face was marred with concern as she saw the conflict on Sorun's own face, and held up a hand to try and calm him. "Sorun?" she softly asked. "Are you alright?"

Very slowly, he nodded, though he had to maintain a hand on his forehead to try and soothe the pounding in his head. "Sure, probably," he moaned out as he tried to order his thoughts out. "So- so this... this zone. It's Earth? Earth, but in a... what, some kind of post-post-post alien apocalypse? That's why everything is so weird? That's why there's walking, talking animals everywhere and why the logic in this place is all screwy? It was aliens?" He moaned again as a headache assaulted him, and he had to begin to use two hands to try and rub the pain out of his head. "And you're sure that this is an alternate universe?" he clarified. "This is an alternate universe and not the future? This isn't my home, right? Oh my god, please tell me you're not mixing the two up, Sally, please..."

There was only so much he could handle, and Sorun had already crossed that threshold yesterday. This? This was too much, because if they were wrong and this was actually just the future, his future...

"It's another universe, right? It can't be the future. It's-it's-it's all just some screwed up alternate plane of existence. It's not my home. Everybody isn't dead. They're... nobody's dead, right? Everybody I know didn't die, r-right?"


Did she make a mistake?

She didn't want to think she did, and in her heart of hearts she believed she hadn't made a mistake. Sorun had asked her, and she'd told him the history of Mobius. It was supposed to be a harmless little history lesson used so they could get to know each other, something to do a little bonding over so Sorun would be a little easier around her and other Mobians so he wouldn't be so jumpy. She had just wanted to help her.

What she didn't want was for her explanation to turn Sorun into the shaking mess she was looking at, and for the life of her Sally didn't know what to do. Had she said something wrong? She didn't think so; everything she had told him was accurate. So why was-

"Oh my god, please tell me you're not mixing the two up, Sally, please..."

And then it dawned on her just why Sorun was freaking out, and she instantly became mortified behind the implication of his question.

"S-S-Sally, say somethin'," he mumbled. "Everybody I know isn't dead, right? Th- they're fine? I- I don't, this isn't, I-I-I..."

"Sorun? Sorun, look at me." The desperate urge to correct this misunderstanding was rapidly beginning to well up inside of her, and she ran right up to Sorun and began to gently shake his shoulders to try and gain his attention, but it just wasn't working. He was shaking so intensely that if, anything, merely touching him was shaking her more than him, and his eyes were so wide with terror that it unsettled her to a great degree.

So she tried to do the first thing that came to mind in order to give him any kind of comfort to snap him out of his episode and tried to give him a hug. Just a gentle, reassuring thing to let him know that everything was okay. But she didn't even get close before his entire body jerked and he pushed her away. She stumbled backwards and looked at him with a hurt expression, but it was wiped away when she saw his terror-stricken eyes and the raw contempt that was buried underneath all that fear that was being directed right at her.

"Right," she thought, and a pang of guilt began to tear through her. "He... still blames us for putting him here. He still doesn't trust us. He isn't ready for something like that." Her hands tightened at her sides. "I still need to snap him out of this, though. I can't just leave him like this."

"Sorun? Please calm down." She slowly moved her arms in a lowering gesture, and hope began to well up in her when the quiet, wheezing breaths Sorun was breathing began to die down at her words. "It's not a mix-up, okay? We know what we're talking about when it comes to zones. We're not in your world's future. This is a completely separate world. Your world and everybody you know are fine. They're just a bit similar, alright? Everything is fine."

"Separate? Separate. Yeah." She exhaled the breath she'd been holding when the shaking began to subside and Sorun's hands began to lower off his head. "Okay, yeah... just a different universe. Nobody I know died. They're all still alive. Everything back home is okay."

The guilt from earlier began to come back, and it was those words that made her realize just how much they had taken away from Sorun when they had dragged him through the portal to this world. "Just how much did he leave behind when we... why are you even asking that?" she berated herself. "He had a whole life. Friends, and family, and a whole lot of other things, probably. And we took it all from him when we brought him here. It wasn't supposed to be like this at all. We didn't think... we rushed into it too fast. Eggman made us too desperate, and we rushed right into that tablet and- it's too late for regrets." She shook her head roughly. "It's bad now, but we can fix it. Sorun's here, but we can send him back eventually. It'll all be fine."

There would never be a point she didn't regret pulling Sorun into their mess. She knew the rest of the Freedom Fighters felt the same, Tails especially, but she didn't know if they fully understood the weight of what they had done like she did right now. And they would make it right and send him back to his home zone when the opportunity was right. But she had to wonder if letting him into the Freedom Fighters was the right decision after all, because at the end of the day, he was right. He was a normal teenager who made it sound like the things they dealt with in this zone didn't even exist in his zone. And she was worried that if merely explaining Mobius's history shook him up so bad, that he would freeze up entirely the first time he saw a Badnik. And she didn't want to think about what would happen if he froze in front of a robot trying to kill him.

"Sorun... you know, if you're having any regrets about joining the Freedom Fighters..." She looked away from his disheveled face a scratched at the back of her head. "Nobody would blame you for quitting. We'd understand. It's not your fight, and-"

"I already said I would, didn't I? Drop the subject already." On the upside, his sentences weren't fragmented anymore and he sounded composed once more. But he also sounded extremely bitter, and his tone had a cold edge to it that made Sally do a double-take on Sorun. "Can we just go to the castle already?" he asked.

"U-um, sure." She watched as Sorun stomped past her towards the castle, and had to stifle the sigh that threatened to leave her as she followed him. "I wish I'd brought Nicole with me," she found herself thinking. "I could really use her advice right now, because I just don't know how to talk to him."


They'd finally arrived at the castle gates. Sorun noticed that were were a rather large amount of Mobians stationed around the castle perimeter- ones in green uniforms who were wielding swords and spears. He also noted the way they were eyeing him from his position, but a quick nod from Sally always put them at ease. He felt mildly ticked off at the treatment, and wanted to tell somebody, but he just couldn't find it in himself to do so. So he remained silent for the most part, even as they entered the castle.

He'd calmed down from Sally's story about Mobius, but a part of him was still shaken from the thoughts that had been running through him. Sally had assured him that, no, this wasn't his world's future, and he was relieved beyond words. Relived, but still shaken, because the scare had been bad. So bad he'd almost lost it.

"Hell, I practically did lose it back there," he thought as he lagged behind Sally, who had elected to lead him through the castle. "Shoved her and everything. Even after I told Sonic I'd try and get along, but it's... it's hard. It's all still too new."

Sorun really hoped that he hadn't offended her by pushing her away when she'd just been trying to comfort him, or at least apologize to her, but he wanted so desperately to forget the whole ordeal that he was too scared to bring it up again. So that left them at this awkward impasse where they would just pretend that didn't happen and they would just forget it.

That was what he was doing, at least. He didn't know how Sally was dealing with it, and he was too scared to ask.

Eventually these thoughts became too uncomfortable for him to think on, so he chose to distract himself by looking around the castle they were walking in. For all intents and purposes, it was about as large as it looked like and about as spacious as one would expect a castle. Big rooms, lots of stairs and hallways, and a layout so convoluted that he would be doubtlessly lost if it weren't for a fact he had a guide. A lot of guards, too. So many guards that Sorun had to wonder if it wasn't overkill.

"There sure are a lot of guards here," Sorun noted. "Don't you think it's a bit much?"

Sally spun her head around to look at Sorun, and he saw her blink her blue eyes in surprise, almost like she hadn't expected for him to talk to her again. "It was my father's idea," she said. "He was the previous king, before my brother. There aren't usually this many, but, well..." She stopped to take a deep breath. "Remember when Sonic said we had one of the Chaos Emeralds here?" she asked.

"... Vaguely?" It certainly sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite remember. He certainly didn't blame himself for forgetting such a small detail. Things had been so hectic that he was sure he'd forgotten all sorts of details. "Remind me," he requested.

She nodded. "The seven Chaos Emeralds were all locked away into a zone called the Special Zone, which was presided over by a being called Feist. Sonic at one point had ventured into the Special Zone to retrieve one of the Emeralds, the gray Emerald, to help my father who was deathly ill at the time."

"And he got the Emerald?"

"Yes, he did. Afterwards, we kept the gray Chaos Emerald safe in the castle, but... but then it was taken." She stopped, and her body shuddered as she squeezed her eyes closed. "We're not entirely sure what happened. Just that something came in here and stole the Emerald. Out of nowhere. Hershey, one of the agents to the kingdom's Secret Service, just happened to be on duty and nearby and was... we think she saw whatever was stealing the Emerald, because we found her dead." She opened her eyes and looked down at her feet with a forlorn expression. "It wasn't just her," she continued. "Over twenty guardsmen were found cut to pieces. There were cuts and slashes all along the walls and floors, like something was swinging around a giant sword or something."

"Oh... geez," Sorun mumbled, and he shot her a sympathetic look. "That sounds really bad."

"It was," she agreed. "We think that it was one of Dr. Eggman's robots, but we honestly don't know, because nobody who saw it lived. And right after Eggman somehow managed to acquire the other six Emeralds."

"But they were locked away in the Special Zone, right?"

Sally shook her head. "That's the thing, Sorun. We tried going to the Special Zone to ask Feist who had taken the Emeralds, but we couldn't find it. The Special Zone is just gone."

Those were certainly disturbing implications. He wanted to ask more, but he saw the pained expression her face was making, so he decided to hold his tongue and tried changing the subject. "So Elias?"

The chipmunk straightened up upon hearing her brother's name, and then pointed down the hall. "Right. This way."

Walking with silence between them once again, the pair continued to make their way through the castle's winding corridors until they stopped in front of a large set of double doors. Sally motioned for Sorun to stay where he was before she went to the doors, knocked on them, and then entered after waiting a few moments.

Sorun chose to obey and wait, and then idly began to rock back and forth on his feet. He heard and tried and discern the muffled voices from the other side of the door, but failed to make anything out. After some more waiting, the doors opened back up and Sally's head poked in through the opening.

"He said he's fine to talk to you right now," she said. "And try not to look so nervous. My brother really isn't scary at all."

"Nervous? Who's nervous? I ain't nervous." It was a complete lie, but she didn't know that. He hoped she didn't, at least, but the knowing look in her eyes didn't give him much hope in that regard. "Anyways, he's in here?" he asked as he pulled the door open further and slipped in past Sally.

It was, quite unsurprisingly, a throne room. A rather modest one compared to what he had expected, but still a rather large room considering. Wide open space, large pillars, giant, rectangular windows on the walls, and a big throne right at the end. Though, to Sorun's surprise, the sole other person in the room wasn't in it, and was in fact standing near the entrance to the room and looking at him in an expectant manner.

"Wow, this guy has more clothes on him than anybody else I've seen around," Sorun observed. Elias certainly looked the part of a king, too, with the blue and gold vestments he wore on his whole body. It was readily apparent that he was Sally's brother, too, as he had the same hair, hair, and fur color as her as well as even some of her facial structure. "Except his tail's way longer. What is he, a squirrel?" the teen wondered when he looked at the long, curled tail behind the king. "Huh, that's kinda... wait. Waaaaiit... squirrel, chipmunk, Kingdom of Acorn, oh my god it's called Acorn because they're a royal family of squirrels it's a damn pun oh my god that's so STUPID-!"

"Yo, what's up? I'm Sorun." The flippant greeting was the only one that Sorun could manage, as the rest of his focus was being diverted towards trying to not tear his hair out. He held up a 'v' with his fingers and tried to smile, but due to his inner turmoil it looked less like a smile and more like a rictus grin one might find on a corpse.

Overall, not his worst greeting.

The young king actually seemed a bit flustered by his greeting, so much so that the small, gold, acorn-shaped (Sorun had to resist gagging when he saw it) crown on his forehead slipped down, and he had to fumble to right it. "Oh! Greetings! Hi." He cleared his throat, clasped his hands behind his back, and then looked to his sister. "This is Sorun, then, sister?"

"Yes, brother. That's Sorun." She gave her brother an affirmative nod before turning to Sorun. "I'll be waiting outside. Just come find me when you're done, okay?"

"Uh, sure. I'll do-" The door was closed behind her before he even finished. "... That," he finished with a slump of his shoulders. "Hm. So!" he cried out while whirling to the king, and his sudden change in demeanor caused Elias to jump slightly. "Kingy. What'd you wanna see me for?"

"Well, everybody was making such a large buzz about that wooden slab and the... individual the Freedom Fighters planned on bringing on behalf of it." Elias's eyes flicked nervously towards the door Sally had closed, and then went back to Sorun. "I understand you've volunteered to help them after being guided here by-"

"Abducted. I- I was abducted," Sorun interrupted. "You can use the word abducted, Elias."

He gave the teen a stiff nod. "Nevertheless, I am glad to hear you've volunteered your services-"

"Coerced, really."

A large breath was quickly inhaled by the king when he was interrupted, but then he hung his head and slowly released the breath. "You really don't want to be here, do you?"

"What part of abducted didn't you understand?" Sorun asked him. "Abducted; verb: to take someone away illegally by force or deception. Example: I was minding my own business buying orange juice from a store when your Freedom Fighters dragged me through a magical portal. Chaos portal. Whatever portal."

He would have went further, but his words began to grow quieter when he saw Elias shrink back further and further away from Sorun the more he spoke while looking increasingly uncomfortable. And then he thought that, just maybe, he was being a bit overbearing again. So he paused to take a deep breath and calm his thoughts before speaking again.

"Maybe a I went a little far. Don't worry about it," he told Elias. "I mean, yeah, I don't want to be here. Like, I really don't want to be here. But I am, so, you know, I'm trying to make it work. I don't think I'm doing a very good job, but I'm trying."

He must have said something right, because Elias's body relaxed at his words and he stopped slowly backing away. He even nervously laughed a little as he shuffled closer to him while looking to the side. "You're not giving yourself enough credit. I... think I would be rather terrified if I were in your shoes. I'm honestly shocked you haven't tried running away."

"Oh, I did. I came back 'cause I realized the Freedom Fighters are the only realistic bet I have on getting home."

"... I see." He sighed out loud and turned his back to Sorun as he walked towards one of the large window panes that overlooked the city below. "Suppose I can't blame you," he admitted after stopping in front of the window. "I somewhat know what it feels like to be thrust into a world you're unfamiliar with, though I speak more of a metaphorical sense."

There was a strong, sarcastic rebuttal Sorun thought of, but he held in it for fear of making his first impression worse than what it already was. Instead he stepped besides Elias and stared out at all the wooden buildings below them. "Wild guess here, but it's the king thing?" he guessed. "How old are you, anyways?"

"Twenty-one," he answered. "And, yes, that is indeed what I refer to. My father, Maximillian, was the previous king, but while he's okay now he's not... physically fit for the position anymore. He's bound to a wheelchair these days, you see."

"Yeah, Sally said something about him being sick. So, what, you ran away?"

A pained expression flickered across Elias's face. "I thought I could handle the pressure that came with all the responsibility. I was woefully wrong," he admitted. "So yes. I ran. Tried to settle in a village, even took on a wife and her daughter after her husband disappeared due to one of Eggman's machinations. But to make a long story short, things here became dire, so I returned to take back the crown. But now... now I'm just not so sure, Sorun." He ran a hand over the glass. "Even after the Freedom Fighters took the Emeralds back from the Doctor, his hold on the world hasn't diminished in the slightest. I worry that I'm performing inadequately in service of the people I've sworn to lead, and the fact that we haven't so much as made a dent in his forces despite all the fighting only strengthens that notion within me."

"This is a lot of heavy stuff he's unloading on a guy he just met," Sorun thought as he listened to Elias. "Is it just because he sympathizes with me so much? Even then, we're still strangers. I get that these Mobians guys are a lot nicer than pretty much anybody else I've ever met, rock aside, but... seriously?"

It was niceties and trustfulness to an absurd degree, really. He's seen it in Sonic and his folks and in Sally. Tails had seemed sincere when he tried to tell Sorun he was sorry, and by all rights he was. People had been glaring at him, sure, but the only ones who had actually assaulted him were children which he chalked up to idiot kids being idiot kids stressed by the war. He sure couldn't judge.

"You're being really forthcoming considering I'm a total stranger," Sorun noted. "It's kind of weird."

"Is it?" The Mobian actually looked confused by Sorun's statement. "I was just trying to open up and get to know you. Did I do something wrong?"

"Nah, it's just a... culture thing," Sorun explained. "People are a lot more socially closed off where I'm from. By that I mean nobody likes telling each other their problems. That's why we have therapists nobody can afford or wants to go to."

That just seemed to make Elias even more confused. "I don't understand," he admitted. "Wouldn't it be easier talking to people?"

"Dude, nobody wants to because it's super embarrassing. I don't know how you're telling me all this stuff with a straight face." Shaking his head, Sorun ran a hand over his face as he turned from Elias to the window. "You people are the weird ones, being so open with your feelings," he added, and the urge to quickly divert the conversation to a different subject overtook him. "But if it makes you feel better, I don't think you're doing a bad job. Pretty sure a lot of kings where I'm from would've folded already, so hey, you got that goin' for ya."

"Oh, really?" Elias shot him an inquisitive look as he turned his head to the side. "How do the kings of your world fare?"

"Er, yeah, monarchies aren't really a thing anymore where I'm from," Sorun corrected. "There used to be kings and queens and all that, but they kind of got phased out for democracies and republics 'cause of, you know, all the wars. And revolutions. And the famines. And the fires. And the mass decapitations of the upper class." The squirrel standing next to him grew appalled. "I'm only talking about one country here. France had it rough. I'm not even gonna try to get into any of the other countries, because they all have really sordid origin stories, mine especially. But I mean it worked out for them all in the end. Mostly. Sort of." The human teen exhaled sharply. "Okay, fine, my world's a mess, but it's a mess that we make work for the most part." He cleared his throat. "But, uh, y- you look like you're making it work. I've only been here for a couple days, not even twenty-four hours really, but it, uh, it all looks like it's going pretty good. So yeah. Good job. You're doing a good job."

"I suppose?" Blinking at the teen in confusion, the king cleared his throat as he looked towards the afternoon sun. "Well, I think I've heard all I need to," he said to Sorun. "It's already midday, and I've yet to even begin any of today's work. But our conversation was very enlightening. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to continue these discussions further. At a later date, when we both have free time."

Sorun wanted to say no, but he couldn't think of a good reason to. He still could have said no, but the cautious side of him warned that saying no to a king may not pay off in the long run, and that maybe he could use this later. Or at the very least kill off an afternoon if he ever grew bored. So he squashed down his reservations and gave Elias a curt nod. "If I can." Short, noncommittal response. Perfect.

Elias looked very pleased by his answer, and he gave the teen a wide smile. "I very much enjoyed talking to you, Sorun. Thank you."

"Alright, man, alright. Geez." He almost regretted agreeing now that he had to see that. "All this positivity. It's suffocating," he thought as he backed up towards the door leading out of the throne room. "Seeya around, kingy."

He couldn't get out of there fast enough, and it was all he could do to not make it apparent as he had to fight to not slam the door behind him he'd closed it so quickly. He breathed out a heavy breath as he steadied himself, and composed himself as he turned away from the doors.

The fact that Sally was leaning on a wall nearby and saw all that shattered his self-confidence once again, but he tried not to let it show.

"Sorun? Did everything go okay with my brother?" she asked.

"Hm? What? Elias? Uh, yeah. Cool, uh, cool guy, your brother. He's kind of weird, but decent dude."

"Good. That's, good." Sally cleared her throat and turned down the hall. "Well, we should get going, then."

Sorun nodded, and trailed a few paces behind Sally. But the incident of her cutting him off by closing the door so quickly hung in his mind, and the black-haired teen just couldn't get his mind off it.

"'Wouldn't it be easier just talking to people?' No, Elias, it isn't. Maybe for you people it is, but for me it isn't. But man, that shove move I did really isn't gonna do me any favors... gah, man, I gotta at least say sorry."

It was uncomfortable just thinking about it, but it made him even more uncomfortable thinking about what Sally would assume about him if he just let what happened be without talking about it. He had to work with her now, what with him being a Freedom Fighter and all.

"So, uh..." He took a breath, and then braced himself for the coming apology. Sally slowed to a stop and turned to him as he began to speak. "About that... thing that happened..." He breathed out again, shoved his hands into his pocket, and avoided her gaze. "You said this is a different zone, but there are things like time zones, you know, and they sounded so similar 'cause of the 'zone' word and I don't know if the terminology here isn't different or not, so I just- I made some stupid assumptions."

She gave him an astonished look, and Sorun had to wonder if he was really that bad that him apologizing was so surprising. "Are you trying to say you're sorry?"

"Y-yeah. For the, you know. Shoving and... anyways!" He reached his limit on awkward conversation and briskly walked past her. "S-s-so, uh, you said something about me getting to know all the other Freedom Fighters. Which I guess is important, since we're all a team now."

He didn't hear an immediate answer, and slowed down just a tad so that the Mobian could catch up with him. He heard the sound of footsteps walking alongside his, and glanced to the side to see that the chipmunk was keeping up with his pace.

He also saw the appreciative smile on her face, and mumbled under his breath while turning his head away again so he didn't have to look at her.

"Well, first of all, only half of the people you saw at Freedom HQ were part of the Freedom Fighters here. The other half are part of Knuckles' team, and two of them are a separate team of their own called Team Dark."

Sorun nodded along to her explanation. "Okay. What's the deal with Knuckles and his team?"

"The Chaotix- oh come on, the name isn't that bad," she said in an admonishing tone when she saw Sorun raise his eyebrows. "They share our ideals, but always had their hands full with their own problems up on Angel Island to ever help out much with Dr. Eggman. But circumstances changed, and now they're down here helping us since things are so bad with him."

"Angel Island?" Sorun questioned.

"It's a floating island that moves around the planet."

An exasperated breath left the human teen. "Sure, why not? Not even the weirdest things I've heard all day," he muttered with a shake of his head. "And Team Dark?"

"That would be Rouge and Shadow. They're here due to extenuating circumstances as well regarding Eggman's forces."

"Shadow," Sorun repeated. "He wouldn't happen to be that black hedgehog with the red stripes that was staring at me the whole time I was making that speech, was he?"

Sally blinked in surprise when Sorun looked to her for confirmation. "He was staring at you?"

"It felt like the dude was trying to set me of fire with his eyeballs."

"Oh." She winced, but at the same time she didn't look at all that surprised at what Sorun said. "Shadow's a... complicated case. Try not to let it get to you, okay? I can't speak for him on what he's thinking, but if he says anything can you please be patient with him?"

There were a lot of questions that explanation raised, and while Sorun wanted to ask them, he couldn't help but notice the pleading look in the chipmunk's eyes, and he relented by giving her a small nod. The black hedgehog didn't like him for some reason. Considering he didn't like any of them, that was fair. All he had to do was avoid him and he'd never have to think about it again.

"With that all said," Sally continued, "I think it would be more beneficial if you just talked to them all and got to know them. To better improve team cohesiveness and to make you feel better at ease. Maybe you could even get Shadow off your back."

Dammit.

"Yeah, sure, sure," he mumbled. "I'll get right on that. And Sally?"

"Yes?"

"You said if I had any more questions about that planet that you'd help me out. You wouldn't happen to have a map of the world or something I can look at, would you?"


He could complain all he wanted that Freedom HQ was basically in an underground burrow, but at least the lighting down here was decent, the space was equally decent, and the way they got the kitchen section to look like an actual kitchen was nothing short of miraculous. He didn't even know how they managed to power the fridge or anything else down here, but he wasn't one to question it.

What he was questioning was if there was anything good in the fridge to drink, because he hadn't drank anything since coming to Mobius.

Sorun opened the HQ fridge, and then slung his arm over the door as he leaned in to look at the contents. "Cheese, fruits, vegetables, random-ass food brands I don't recognize... hell even is this?" he muttered as he grabbed a small, spiked purple thing that may or may not have been a fruit. "Weird," he mumbled as he set the thing back.

Something near the back caught his attention, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw a glass bottle with a familiar shape filled with an even more familiar, brown liquid. His hand shot towards the back of the fridge as he grabbed the bottle, and he immediately brought it to his face so he could read the label.

"'Chao-Cola'..." he read. "Nice to know some things never change no matter where in the multiverse you go. It's even got the same funky font as Coca-Cola. Actually, wait, that's way too coincidental. What are the odds somebody just found a bombed-out soda factory from the old world and just stole the logo?" He stared down at the bottle for a few more moments, and then shrugged as he shut the fridge. "Ah, well. Not my problem and I don't care as long as it tastes about the same."

The teen walked over to the kitchen's circular table, sat down at the nearest chair, and leaned back as he twisted the cap off of the bottle and took a sip of the soda. He was mildly surprised to find that the taste was virtually identical to the Earth-brand of cola, and this was immediately followed by a wave of nostalgia as the flavor drudged up all sorts of memories at the back of his mind.

"Yeah, this was probably a mistake," he muttered to himself before taking another sip. He was sad now, but he was also too thirsty to stop.

He knew it was only minutes, but it felt like he'd been there for hours as he leaned in that chair, taking periodical drinks of his soda as he relived the memories playing through his head. He was so engrossed that he didn't even notice when somebody walked into the kitchen, and even when they froze halfway to stare at Sorun staring blankly at the ceiling he still didn't notice.

"Uhhh, hey, new guy. You doin' okay?"

The voice was so startling that Sorun had nearly fallen out of his chair, and he spluttered out in surprise when he had to balance himself and save the soda he was holding. Bottle clutched tightly in his hand, Sorun slowly turned his head towards the person that addressed him.

A pair of violet eyes attached to a red body was staring back at him. For the life of him, Sorun couldn't discern exactly what he was. He thought the dreadlock-like appendage... things he had for hair may have given him some hint, but they only made Sorun even more confused the more he thought on it. The white crescent on his chest gave him no clues, either. So he gave up, shook his head, and waved the Mobian a greeting.

"Yeah, just thinkin'," he answered. "Nice to meet you, red... man."

The red Mobian gave him a deadpan stare. "My name is Knuckles."

Sorun nodded, and found his eyes traveling down to the Mobian's hands. He almost scoffed when he saw that each of his fists had two large, spike-like protrusions under his white gloves. "Probably could have guessed that," he quietly muttered before looking back up at his face. "Knuckles, right. And you're a, uh..."

"Echidna."

"IN WHAT UNIVERSE- nope, in this universe. Logic doesn't exist here. Guy says he's an echidna, I'll believe it." A shaky breath left Sorun's mouth, and he needed another drink of cola to steady himself. "Well, nice to meet you, Knuckles. I'm Sorun." He pointed his bottle at the Mobian. "You're the, uh, Chaotix guy, right? Sally told me."

"She did, huh?" He gave a shrug. "It's honestly more Vector's team than anything. I think he's just too lazy to lead it himself, so he lets me do it. I don't really care all that much as long as we get things done."

Sorun blinked. "Vector's...?"

"He's the crocodile you might have seen."

His mouth opened in an "ah" of understanding. "Big green guy, right." He nodded. "So Sally said you live up on a floating island? That sounds wild."

"Wild. Right." Knuckles turned his pointed, tan muzzle away from Sorun. "You could say it's something like that."

"Okay? This guy doesn't seem like much of a talker. Maybe he doesn't like me, either. Or it could be the whole, I dunno, war thing." He shook his head and turned back to his soda. "Well, I'm not opening that can of worms. I've had enough emotional distress for one day."

"What are you doing here, anyways?" Knuckles asked him.

Sorun glanced to the side, and set the bottle down on the table before leaning further back in his chair. "I asked Sally for a map of the world, and she said she'd get one for me. I figured, y'know, since I'm stuck here and all I might as well get a lay of the land. Or at the very least know what the planet looks like."

"Ohh, I gotcha." He pointed one of his hands forwards. "That her right there?"

Sorun turned his head to see Sally walking towards him with a large roll of paper in her hands. He stopped leaning back on the chair and sat up straight as she came to a stop to the table while setting the map down, and then gave Sorun a tired smile.

"Well, it took some doing, but I managed to get you a map," she said.

"Some doing?" Sorun repeated. "It really that hard to get a map?"

"Well, you wanted a global one, and I figured you'd want something as accurate as possible, so we, um..." She coughed into her hand. "We may-or-may-not have hacked into a Overlander satellite and stolen topography data. A while ago. We actually already had the map on file; I just needed to print it off."

Sorun's eyes widened in surprise, and a bemused chuckle left him as he grabbed at the map. "Ooookay, I'm just gonna go with it. Let's see what we got."

He rolled the map out on the table, and idly he could feel Knuckles lean over his shoulder in interest. Sorun chose to ignore this and looked down at the map. And then he stopped cold when he recognized very familiar geography.

"Well, that's... yeah." It was a 2-D map of all the worlds continents and oceans spread out before him, as well as labels for the continents, and the fact that it looked extremely similar to Earth's topography was the first thing that jumped up at him. Similar, but not the same. He'd even felt his heart rate spike, but he quickly calmed himself down. "Relax man, relax. Different world different world different world... Sally said so."

"So?" Sally asked, and to Sorun her voice sounded distant. "What do you think?"

"It's... yeah, if I squint it's pretty much the same as my zone," Sorun said. "Yup, that's Earth, but... shaped wrong."

He heard an interested hum from the echidna behind him. "So our world is shaped the same as yours?"

"Well, according to Sally they're exactly the same, except aliens never came and bombed my world," Sorun explained. "There might be a difference of thousands of years between them, too, but I dunno." He leaned closer to the map. "So, guess I'll go through this all one at a time here...

"So, the North and South Poles look about the same," he started. "Are they still frozen wastelands, or do Mobians live there?"

"The Tundra is home to some villages, yes," Sally supplied. "I think Rotor's family lives there, actually."

He didn't know who that was, but at least his question was answered. "Okay. Northamer- which sounds an awful lot like North America, which is what it was called in my zone. Actually it is just North America with missing spaces and letters," he commented. "Canada looks the same... except for the fact that the upper-right portion there is connect to the eastern continent. How'd that happen? They were completely separated by ocean in my zone."

"You must be talking about the Great Continental Bridge," Sally mumbled as she looked at the spot Sorun stared at. "The landscape being changed by the destruction of the gene bombs? Thousands of years of continental drift? Take your pick. Any number of things could have moved them closer together."

"I guess," Sorun agreed. "Moving down to America. Looks like some bits came off into islands on the sides there, but otherwise it's the same."

"This is where the Kingdom of Acorn is." Sally pointed at the area that was once America, and tapped at where a large river was cutting down the landmass and dividing it in half. "The eastern portion is completely forest and plains," she added, "and Knothole is right about here."

Sorun hummed as he followed her finger. "We're right above Florida, so... somewhere around Georgia or Alabama, I think. Could have fooled me with all the trees. It isn't even that hot. Guess thousands of years would change the climate." He pointed to the western portion of once-America. "How 'bout that half?"

Knuckles chose this moment to speak up. "The west half? Ain't that part just mostly desert?"

Sally nodded. "Yes, it is. There are some patches of green here and there, but for the most part the western portion of lower Northamer. It's where Sandblast City lies, too, a settlement of-"

"No-good jerks and bandits?" Knuckles angrily muttered.

"I was going to say vagabonds, but yes, Knuckles, that works too," the chipmunk sighed out.

The human teen hummed in understanding. "Yeah, that place was pretty desert-y in my zone, too, but it wasn't the whole western half. Mostly just around Nevada, where Vegas was. Man, I wonder if Vegas is still around?" he wondered, and then moved up. "Actually, let me see if I can find my home. I lived in a place called Detroit, and it should be pretty easy to find. The state it was in was this weird mitten-shaped landmass surrounded by lakes, so- where is it?"

He blinked, and then looked closer. Michigan wasn't on the map. Both the upper and lower Peninsula were completely gone, and the five Great Lakes that once surrounded the state had melded together in what looked like one large super lake that fed into the stream dividing America in two.

Detroit was completely gone.

"... Oh, it just doesn't exist anymore here," he mumbled. "Yeah, that figures."

Sally gave him a sympathetic look, and he could feel Knuckles shift uncomfortably behind him as he coughed nervously to the side. "You doing alright?" Sally asked.

Sorun nodded. "Yeah. It wasn't my Detroit, anyways. That one's still around. Just somewhere else." His eyes moved down the map. "Somehow the Caribbean got bigger. Dunno how that happened. Central America and Mexico are just gone, so North and South America are completely separated now. And South America got renamed to Soumerca. Jesus, that's even less effort than Northamer.

"And Soumerca is... wow, it's even more fragmented than Northamer is." The southernmost part of what was once South America looked to be broken, and pieces of landmass-turned-islands were spread out all around the tail-end of the continent.

Noting nothing else of interest, Sorun moved to the eastern portion. "Oh, Greenland and Iceland are completely gone, too," he noticed.

"Greenland and Iceland, huh?" Knuckles commented. "I bet Iceland was a pretty cold place and Greenland a pretty green place, right?"

Sorun shook his head. "No, it's backwards. Greenland was the frozen one. Iceland was the nice place everyone lived in."

Knuckles grinned and barked out a laugh. "Hah! Good one."

"I'm serious."

The grin slowly drained away, and the echidna shook his head in disbelief when he saw Sorun's blank expression. Sally stifled a giggle at the display. "Wait, for real? That doesn't make any sense! Why would they name it all backwards like that!?"

"Hey, I didn't name 'em," Sorun said with a shrug. "Okay, Eurish, formerly Europe. Looks like it's the United Kingdom, France, London, Italy, Spain, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, and the rest of Europe all rolled into one. And it looks like Italy and big chunks of Europe split off and formed a island right next to it, too."

"There were really that many countries before the Xorda came?" Sally asked, and there was a hint of amazement to her voice. "I... never even considered how diverse humanity was before the gene bombs came, and how close they were to one another, either. It's almost too much to believe."

"Oh, yeah. It was really neat," Sorun said. "It's hard to see now since it's all a single color without any borders, but there used to be so many countries here. All with their own cultures, languages, architecture, man, they all had different everything that they shared with the world... but, uh, I guess they don't anymore." He paused, and then tapped his finger on Eurish. "So what's up with this place?" he asked.

"The middle part here is a forested mainly home to the Kingdom of Mercia. They're a lesser-known Mobian body that mostly keep to themselves," Sally explained. "There's also a couple of cities that fall under the United Federation's jurisdiction." Sorun sent her an questioning look, and she nodded to let him know she'd explain. "They're, for lack of a better term, the Overlander government. The surviving human cities I told you about earlier were converted into Overlander settlements, and they are all part of it, though the cities maintain their own independence of one-another. That said, the United Federation is the main governing body over all of the Overlander settlements." She pointed at the large island next to Eurish. "This island here, for example, is all United Federation territory. And I think the name of one of the Overlander cities here was... Spagonia, was it?"

Sorun snorted at the name. "Never heard of it, but is sure sounds Italian. Weirdly enough." He rubbed a hand behind his head. "So United Federation is all Overlander stuff. Anything else?"

"Sadly, the United Federation doesn't really interact with Mobians all that much, especially after the Great War between our species. We don't really know that much at all," she told him. "Shadow and Rouge would, though. They're part of G.U.N."

"... G.U.N.?" Sorun repeated.

"The Guardian Units of the Nation," she clarified. "It's basically the United Federation's military. They were sacked completely pretty early on after Eggman got the seven Emeralds, and all United Federation cities were occupied by him afterwards. The only reason Team Dark is even here helping us is because G.U.N. isn't in a position to do anything in an official capacity anymore due to the occupation."

"Pfft. 'Course they would name their military G.U.N." Sorun shook his head. "And you don't know much outside of that?"

Sally hummed, and then moved her hand back to the western portion of the map. "Our only connection is through this place, here," she said as she tapped at Soumerca. "There's a human city called Station Square. It's unique in that, unlike all the other cities that were made to survive the Xorda, this one was made completely by accident and was never affected by the gene bombs. From what they told us, a plane had crashed into a mountain, and the humans inside decided to build an entire city-state in a massive hollow that was under the mountain. It was actually discovered by us during a mission some time ago, and the mountain itself was lost later on. Our understanding is that they joined up with the United Federation." She rubbed at her shoulder. "Actually, the only reason we even know about the United Federation is because of Station Square. They're the only UF-affiliated settlement that will talk to us since we helped them and maintained friendly contact."

"They seriously just decided to build a whole city under a mountain and live there for thousands of years?" Sorun sat back in his chair, and then began to tiredly rub at his eyes. "Okay, sure. Lines up with all the other wacky stuff." He looked back at the map. "So Station Square, huh? Looks like it's around where Brazil used to be. And the rest of the United Federation is mostly on the eastern side of the world?"

The chipmunk nodded. "Yes, but mostly in small pockets of city-countries."

"Gotcha." The human looked back to Eurish. "What about this?" he asked when he pointed to a smaller island near the top of Eurish, near Mercia's coast. "Actually, I might be wrong about Iceland. I think that's Iceland? Or it could be another piece of Europe that broke off. Can't tell. That UF, too?"

There was a grunt from behind him. "That's Albion," he stated. "And no, it isn't."

"Okay?" He'd turned back to look at the echidna, but all he was doing was glaring at the island on the map. Sorun shrugged it off and looked down below Eurish. "So Africa is Efrika now. It looks way smaller than I remember. Looks like Madagascar's gone, too. Or it might be one of those broken-off bits on the eastern side of the continent. I don't know.

"And, oh boy, Asia. Now Yurashia. I think that's the first one that had its name extended," he idly commented. "So this is all of Russia, China, the whole Middle East, and India, looks like. Any details?"

Sally looked closer at the map. "Mostly more wild lands and pockets of Mobian settlements and villages. If I remember correctly, they refer to it as the Dragon Kingdom."

Sorun threw his hands up. "What happened to the Kingdom of Acorn being the only official Mobian kingdom?"

"It is," she defended. "The only recognized one that can be officially called a government, at least. Places like the Dragon Kingdom and Mercia aren't nearly as organized as we are, and in matters concerning Mobians as a whole judgement is usually deferred to us. And like Mercia, the Dragon Kingdom mostly keeps to itself."

"Alright, fair enough. Moving on." Sorun moved the map further to the left as his eyes traveled east. "Well, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and any of the other island countries don't exist anymore. Geez, the whole archipelago got wiped out. And Australia-" His voice abruptly stopped, and his eyes widened when he saw Australia and the new name on the map. "Oh, come on. You're kidding me." He grew so weak that he slumped forwards and hit his face against the table. "Ugh, whyyyy..."

The two Mobians next to him looked at each other in confusion, and Knuckles reached over to shake Sorun's shoulder. "Er, Sorun? You okay?" he asked.

The human's response was to shoot straight up in his seat, a motion that was so sudden that Knuckles flinched away. "Downunda. They seriously called it Downunda?" His tone grew clipped and disbelieving as he looked to Sally. "Do the people there talk in this really weird and distinct accent?"

"Um... yes, they do," she confirmed, and Sorun's mind began screaming. "Did that accent exist in your zone?"

"Yes. It did. And somehow space aliens blew away all human culture and it still survived." A long, drawn-out sigh left his mouth along with a defeated chuckle. "Alright, cool, cool. Anyways, last but not least: Japan. It looks like it went from being the most eastern country to being at the dead-end of the west, but compared to everything else it looks the same for the most part."

Sally's eyes followed to where Sorun was pointing at the map, and a sound of understanding left her. "Oh, that's the Flicky Islands," she said.

"Ahh. I don't know what that is."

"It's a island completely unique in that it's entirely comprised of precious gems and other rare geodes," she explained, causing Sorun's eyes to widened. "It's inhabited by a species of bird Mobini- er, normal animals you could say- that eat and survive off of the gems."

Some seconds passed as the pale teen stared at her in complete silence, and then she shook his head with a bemused chuckle. "You know, considering this is Japan we're talking about, that's actually the least weirdest thing you've told me yet," he said.

"Huh?" Knuckles tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Why's that?"

Sorun affixed him with a deadpan stare. "Japan was weird, dude," he said. "They made some great stuff, but man, they were weird. Shame they got obliterated like everything else." He sighed, and then rested his head again his closed hand. "The Australian accent gets to survive, but Japan gets turned into a rock? That just ain't fair."

More sanity had been shaved off of him than he would have liked, but at the very least he got an overall idea of how good a shape the world was currently in. And overall, it was pretty bad. Yes, he could recognize it as Earth, but at the same time it looked so different that it was practically a different planet.

Well, it was a different planet, but the similarities were still there.

It was boggling how the borders in all the continents had been completely erased and all the countries he'd known were gone, too. Hell, there were even whole landmasses that just didn't exist anymore. But what did interest him were those precious few surviving human cities, the places the Overlanders lived, and just how much human culture had survived along with them. They seemed completely xenophobic towards anything that wasn't a human or Overlander, but fortunately he was a human. Could he go there?

"... Probably not. It's a whole continent away. Yeah, they're connected now, but I'd have to trek all the way up America and Canada just to get to get to the Continental Bridge, and after that'd I'd have to cut through Mercia and the rest of Europe. Eurish. Whatever. I'd have to get through all that just to get to a UF city. That'd take me months on foot, and that's assuming something doesn't kill me on the way. It ain't happenin'."

So much for satisfying his curiosity. Maybe they'd at least take him to Station Square someday, since they seemed friendly. It seemed better than nothing.

"Sorun, what's your problem with the accent people in Downunda have?" Sally asked him. "I've talked to people from there. Sure, it's a bit off-putting, but it's not something unpleasant."

"Eh, that accent was kind of a joke back where I'm from. Me and everybody would always make fun of it," Sorun answered as grabbed his bottle of cola. "I mean, that was kind of our thing, you know? Making fun of things that are different."

The reactions he got from both Mobians were not positive in the least. Sally looked taken back by the answer, and even Knuckles looked uncomfortable with what he said. It took Sorun a second of thought to realize why he'd gotten that reaction, and he grimaced once he realized the gravity of what he'd just said.

"Okay, yeah, maybe saying me and my friends made fun of things for being different to a species of animal people who had a race war with aggressive humans wasn't the greatest thing to say in hindsight. Think next time, dumbass." He took a nervous sip of his soda and cleared his throat. "But I mean, you know, Australians were- they were cool. Nothing wrong with having an accent." He tapped his fingernails against the glass. "I personally never had a problem with it. Not like I did with a French accent."

Sally froze. "F-French accent, huh?" She started to rapidly blink and nervously tap at the table. "What's wrong with that?"

"I don't know. I always thought it just sounded weird," Sorun said. "The weird pronunciations, the heavy emphasis on the letter z, you know, those things." He took another drink, and for some reason Sally was becoming more tense the more he talked. "But I mean, hey, Australian accent may have survived, but it looks like France got annihilated, so there's no way I'll ever hear-"

"Bonjour, mes amis! How is it zat we are doing today?"

The glass bottle held in Sorun's hand cracked when his grip tightened.

He could hear muffled laughter behind him from Knuckles covering his mouth with his gloves. Sally, who had chosen to wear a highly-forced smile, turned towards the source of the new voice in greeting. Sorun sat completely still in place, the cracked bottle thankfully still holding the liquid inside, but he paid it no mind as his face became completely blank and stared aimlessly forwards.

"I didn't hear that. Auditory hallucination or something. They put something in the soda that's making me sick. It's my immune system freaking out because I'm drinking alien liquids. That's all it is."

"Eh? Knuckles, what is ze matter? Did I miss the funny joke or something?"

The laughter behind him increased. "N-no, Antoine, you didn't miss anything. We were just talking with Sorun."

"He's talking to the hallucination, isn't he? Goddammit, it's real." The deepest breath Sorun had ever taken in his life entered and exited his lungs, and he gingerly set down the damaged bottle as he turned his head so slowly that he could feel the bones in his neck grinding against each other. And he could have sworn he heard it, too.

There was a third Mobian who had entered the kitchen and was standing on the other side of the table. And just like Knuckles, he couldn't tell what he was. Definitely-possibly-maybe a canine of some sort if the light shades of brown and the dog-like muzzle said anything. But for all he knew that didn't mean anything and it would turn out that he was a badger or something.

"He's more clothed than the rest," Sorun noted as he looked at the blue, military-esque jacket the newcomer worse. "A sword, too," he thought as he looked to the sheathed saber that hung off his side.

But absolutely none of that compared to the small mop of blonde hair that rested on top of his head, and for whatever reason Sorun had the urge to rip it off. He theorized that it was the stress of the situation giving him that urge.

"Sorun?" The new Mobian turned his head towards Sorun, who was currently chewing aggressively at his lips. "Ah, yes, ze newcomer to the Freedom Fighters! How is it that you are doing? It is very nice to be meeting you!"

"Somebody help," Sorun's thoughts cried out as he addressed swallowed the lump in his throat and gave a very stiff nod. "Yes. Hello. I am Sorun," he droned out. "Antoine, was it? You have an interesting accent." His head snapped to Sally. "His accent's really interesting, Sally," he said through grit teeth.

"His, uh... his family is from Mercia," she explained while looking away from Sorun. "Didn't you say that the part of Mercia your family is from mainly spoke French, Antoine?"

Sorun's eyes widened. "No, Sally, don't give him a reason to talk more-!"

"Ah, yes. My parents had been having the argument over which language for me to learn, so I ended up learning both from them. But apparently such a thing proved to not be easily as done as said, and the war made things difficult, and the two languages ended mixing together and being tossed around much like the salads that Bunnie keeps trying to force on me." So lost was he in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice Antoine slide over next to him and wrap an arm around his shoulder. "But such things are minutescule and not at all very important, non?"

His whole body was screaming at him to throw the French thing invading his personal space off, and as much as he wanted to, he wanted to build a good reputation with these people even more. So Sorun exerted as much control as he could muster and patted the Mobian on his back. "Yeah, man, what are language barrier between friends?" he mumbled, and then added, "Minuscule."

"Pardon?"

"It's minuscule, not minutescule," Sorun corrected. "Minuscule is the word you use when describing something small. Minutescule isn't a real word."

The Mobian standing right next to him blinked in surprise, and stood still at his words. For a moment, Sorun feared that he had said something wrong, but then light laughter began to leave to Mobian as he gave Sorun a friendly shake. "Look at zis one, already giving me grammar advice. And you all were so nervous over him. He isn't seeming like so bad a guy after all, especially for a human!"

Sorun slowly peeled himself out of the other's grasp and pushed his feet on the ground so that his chair would move away from him. "Yeah, you don't seem so bad either, for a... I wanna say wolf...?"

Antoine gave him a questioning glare, but then his eyes lit up with understanding along with his ears that stood up. "Oh, no, I am a coyote."

At that, Sorun's head impacted the table, and his arms flopped uselessly alongside it. "I give up," he muttered into the table. "Coyote, man? Seriously? How is that..." He turned his head so that a single eye could see Antoine. "... Actually, yeah, I can see it. Huh."

Maybe the problem was him after all in that he couldn't recognize what some of these people were species-wise. But then he was reminded about the echidna in the room, and thought to himself that, no, he wasn't at fault for not being able to tell who was what. It only made him feel marginally better.

"... Wait, what did he mean when he said you guys were nervous over me?" Sorun asked. He picked his head up and looked towards Sally. "What'd he mean?"

"Oh, you know, it's just you weren't the most, er, enthusiastic person when Sonic asked you to join us..." Her voice trailed off and she looked to the side. "By the way, I wanted to ask. What did Sonic say to you that changed your mind, anyways?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, come on!" He felt Knuckles pat him on the back, and he almost angrily hissed at him in response. "What could he have done that was so bad?"

They weren't going to drop it. He could glean that much from the looks they all had in their eyes, and Sorun knew that if he didn't say anything, Sonic would eventually tell them. What he had to wonder was which was worse? They would probably laugh if he told them. But if they heard it from Sonic they'd know he was too embarrassed to tell them, and that could be even worse.

But they wouldn't actually laugh at him, right? They seemed too nice to do something like that. To do something like bruise his already rapidly-disintegrating ego. What was the worse that could happen?

So, taking a deep breath, Sorun decided to tell them. "I made a bet with Sonic. He said I'd have to join if I lost. The bet..." He finished the sentence, but his voice had tapered off so much that the others weren't able to hear it.

"Huh?" Knuckles leaned in closer. "Could you say that again?"

Sorun crossed his arms. "... Foot... speed..." His mumbling was still too quiet to hear.

The other two Mobians leaned in closer, too, with Sally requesting, "Could you please speak a little louder?"

The pale teen sighed, and then hung his head. "Sonic challenged me to a foot race."

A beat passed. All three of them had stunned looks of disbelief on their faces. The hope was that any minute now they would be giving him pitying looks and words of encouragement to help him not feel so bad.

What actually happened was that they all burst out into uproarious laughter. To Sorun, it felt like his very spirit left him, and he visibly deflated into his chair while his head continued to hang down.

"S-S-Sorun, don't feel too bad about it," Sally laughed as she wiped a tear out of her eye. "We're laughing with you, not at you."

"You know, it really doesn't feel like it."

"Ah, but who can blame us? Pfft-hah-ha!" Antoine was so amused that he was doubled over on the table and holding his head in his hand. "Challenging Sonic to ze foot race! It's the most hilarious thing I have heard all month! Just wait until I get home to tell Bunnie about it!"

Knuckles couldn't even speak he was laughing so hard, and it seemed to spur the other two into another laughing fit.

Sorun, who was having none of it, rose up off his chair. "Okay, I'm done for the day," he announced as he began to step around the table. "I'm gone, I'm out, I'm going to Sonic's house. If anybody needs me I'll be there."

"Sorun, wait!" He stopped, and then looked back towards Sally who was still barely containing her laughter. "C-come back here tomorrow, alright? We- we got something for you to do."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be here." He waved them all off, turned around, and walked as fast as he could towards the stair leading out of the HQ. It wasn't until he left entirely and shut the door behind him did he finally stop hearing the laughter. Even then he heard it being played in his head, and he couldn't help it when he leaned against the HQ's door for support as he tried to compose himself.

It took him a whole half an hour to finally recover from the embarrassment, and another fifteen minutes to find the willpower necessary to push himself off the door and walk back to Sonic's home.


A/N- Thank goodness that Sonic encyclopedia on the comic exists, because I've been checking that thing over like a crazy person so I don't get details wrong.

So yeah, these first few chapters have been really slow, I get it. But I got a lot of things planned for the future, and I need to build up a lot of momentum up so I can have a big impact later on in the story. But it'll pick up relatively soon.

Anyways, I didn't say it before, and I'm never gonna say it again, but if you somehow actually like this story then I always take reviews. Not that I'm trying to pressure anybody into reviewing so I can feel self-gratification or anything shallow like that, it's purely out of interest for people's thoughts on the story as well as critique.

Heh.

That all said, hope you enjoyed and see you whenever I decide to upload next.