Recursion Error
Episode 8- When I tried my best and didn't succeed
Today was the big day.
For a full week now he'd been on Mobius, and while the experience wasn't exactly miserable, per se, Sorun's mood was up there. One whole week away from his home zone, and he wasn't a single step closer to getting back. The Freedom Fighters had yet to even collect a single Chaos Emerald.
But in that week he'd been acclimated to his new surroundings and had formed... bonds with those around him. What those bonds were, he didn't rightly know. He wouldn't go as far as to say they were bonds of friendship. Even calling them the bonds of comrades felt like going too far. He wasn't too surprised; he was a newcomer. Someone who people had only been around a week when they'd been fighting together for years. And unless he had to Sorun usually went out of his way to avoid people, as the "they're the ones responsible for my misfortune" thought still plagued his mind. There were those few exceptions, Sonic chief among them, but otherwise he'd yet to even have a single conversation with over half of the Freedom Fighters.
In the meantime, he'd kept busy. Done more useless busywork to make it at least look like he was doing something with his time. Slept unusually long hours to pass as much time as possible, because there wasn't exactly anything to do that was fun when he avoided most people. It was a nice little routine that kept his mind off himself and kept people from paying attention to him.
That all came crumbling down on day seven, when all the Freedom Fighters had been summoned to Freedom HQ for what was apparently a very, very big mission. A mission Sorun recalled Sonic mentioning at one point, but had chosen to ignore in the hope that it would go away on its own as he didn't want to deal with it.
In hindsight, that probably hadn't been his best move.
So now, once again, everybody was gathered around in the main room of the underground Freedom HQ, with Sorun hanging back far enough so that he wasn't next to anyone but close enough to hear everything. But while he could hear everything, his focus was more on the small, silver cylinder he was grasping in his right hand. Tails had come through with his request and made him a collapsible baton. Whether it would actually do him any good or not remained to be seen, though Sorun still had his doubts over its effectiveness. Many doubts.
"It'll be a three-pronged attack, with each team heading an attack..." A small table had been set up in the main living room of the HQ, with a large map spread out across it with various circles drawn on it in red marker. Sally was at that table with Sonic and Rotor standing next to her as she explained their plan of attack and organized the mission in front of everybody. And out of everybody in the room, Sorun was the only one that wasn't paying rapt attention to every word she said.
A poor choice? Most definitely, but he just couldn't bring himself to listen. Not because he didn't care, but because he was too scared to listen. Because if everybody was here, that meant everybody was going out on the mission. And unfortunately, he was part of everybody. Which meant he had to fight. Which meant his life would almost assuredly be at risk. He'd been fondling his baton as much as possible to try and calm his nerves, but it just wasn't enough. It was a miracle that he was even able to keep a straight and even face as he continued to roll the baton on his hand while he listened out for his name to come up.
"What was that one quote that sergeant guy said a million times in that one movie? The one with the guy that kept dying and reviving?" Sorun wondered. "Oh, right. 'Battle is the Great Redeemer. The fiery crucible in which the only true heroes are forged. The one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind parasitic scum they were going in.' Eat your heart out, Farell."
An not-so-amusing quote considering who he was compared to all the heroes he was around. Who was he compared to them? A weakling. A nobody. Dead weight. A liability. Somebody that was so useless he'd slow them down and probably get somebody hurt or worse because of it. He wasn't an equal in their eyes, and going on a mission with them where he was almost certain to screw up in some way wasn't going to change that. He didn't even have as good a reason to fight as them. They fought because they chose to; Sorun was fighting because he arguably didn't have a choice, and they all knew he didn't want to.
He couldn't even understand how they could stand to be around him.
"- Last but not least is the Chaotix. As we discussed, you'll be attacking the factory directly. Team A will be running the distraction out front by directly attacking the Badnik forces stationed there while Team B will be taking advantage of the chaos and infiltrating the facility with the explosives." There was a pause from Sally. "Sorun?"
"Yeah?" he called out. His eyes were still down on the baton he was rolling in his hand.
"You'll be going along with Team A on this mission." He looked up from his baton in surprise at that. "Some of the heaviest hitters are going to be on that team," Sally explained, "but that being said, there's still only going to be two of them out there. I'd like you to go along with them to provide support and to... ease you into these types of missions."
"... That so?" And now he was wishing he'd paid more attention, but he had at least heard enough to play off his ignorance. "You're only sending two guys on the distraction run, not including me? That's kinda low, ain't it?"
There was some movement as a red figure pushed through the small crowd of people. Sorun's eyes lazily tracked Knuckles as he stopped in front of the human while crossing his arms.
"A couple of our guys got wounded in an earlier op. Light injuries, but they're out for this one," he explained. "You're ridin' with me and Mighty for this one, pal."
"Alright." Sorun looked back down at the baton. "Just tell me when and we'll go."
He didn't pay attention to the odd look Knuckles gave him as he shuffled out of sight, and the rest of the meeting was largely tuned out by Sorun's ears. Too many nerves getting the better of him. Too much anxiety creating white noise in his mind. So focused was he on the metal object in his hand he couldn't even correctly perceive time slipping past him.
"Why the hell did I let everybody talk me into this...?"
"I'm really worried about him."
By now most of everybody had made their way out of the HQ in preparation for their part in the upcoming mission. There were some exceptions, though, mainly the human who had yet to move from the spot he'd practically glued his back to as he stared at a metal tube in his hand and the blue hedgehog who was looking at him from across the room.
The one who had expressed concern over Sorun wasn't him, though. It was the chipmunk standing right next to him who was giving Sorun equally concerned eyes.
"Aw, who? Sorun?" Sonic waved a hand in the face of her concerns. "Yeah, sure he's a bit nervous, but so is everybody their first time around. You remember how Antoine was. It's just first mission jitters."
"I'm not so sure," Sally argued with a shake of her head. "He gets freaked out pretty easily. You didn't see how he was when I was explaining the planet's history to him." She shot Sonic an irritated look. "Something I would have thought you'd think to do considering we decided to leave him with you."
Sonic shrugged. "He had other things to worry about. It didn't seem important."
She did a double-take in disbelief. "Not impor- how could something like that not be important!?" She pointed her hand out to the human. "Sonic, he had a panic attack when I told him! I thought he was gonna pass out it was so bad, and when I tried to calm him down he wouldn't let me!"
He froze at hearing that. This was new information, and now he actually was beginning to get a bit worried. "I didn't know," he said, and then immediately shook his doubts off. "But c'mon, Sal, Sorun's a tough guy. He's gotten this far, and compared to how he was on the first day he's practically a different person! He'll be fine."
"I'm not saying he hasn't gotten better," she said in a cautious tone. "I'm just worried he's not, you know, cut out for this sort of thing, and this is a big leap compared to what he's been doing so far."
"Look, Knux and Mighty are gonna be there too, right? They're two of the strongest guys around, and the factory their team is hitting isn't even that big," Sonic reasoned. "If anything bad happens, they'll be there to make sure Sorun makes it out in one piece. They've fought bigger Badnik hordes than what we're expecting them to find, so it should be easy for them."
After making his point, Sonic stepped around the table with the marked-up map and began making his way towards Sorun. On his way he'd turned back to Sally, and gave her a reassuring smile while pointing both of his fingers at her.
"Seriously, don't worry about it," he said. "We've made tons more dicier plans than this. It'll all work out."
He turned around too quick to catch the doubtful look on her face.
"There's no hope for this private, nope, dunno what I was thinking..."
The silent panic was still going strong. He was squeezing the baton hard enough that the joints in his hand were going white.
That all ended when he felt somebody shake his arm.
"Hey, Sorun? You doing alright?" Hearing Sonic's voice ripped Sorun away from his mild panic and caused him to look up at the blue hedgehog, who was looking at him with a mildly concerned expression. "Your team for the mission is heading out. Aren't you going?"
"... Lost track'a time," Sorun mumbled out as he pocketed the baton. "Yeah, yeah I'm goin'."
He made the motion to move past the blue Mobian, but the grip on his arm remained firm. When Sorun stopped and turned around, Sonic still had that concerned expression on his face.
"You sure you're good?" he asked.
Not at all. "Mm. Sure I am." Sorun lightly shook his arm free of Sonic's grip. "What brought this up?"
"Oh, ah, nothin', nothin'," Sonic said with a light chuckle. "You're gonna be fine out there. You have two really strong guys backing you up, and hey, you got that cool new weapon, right? There's nothing to be worried about." He gave Sorun a thumbs-up. "And after it's over I'm sure mom'll have the biggest stack of pancakes you've ever seen back home. We can make it a celebration!"
While that sounded nice, Sorun had nothing but worries. Worries the baton was a waste of his time. Worried about dying some time within the next however many hours this operation was going to last. Worried he'd never see home again. He had so many worries that he felt like the stress of it all was going to kill him before a robot got the chance to.
And of course he wasn't going to tell Sonic or anybody else the innumerable fears and worries he had. Too much embarrassment on his part, too much baggage on their part when they had bigger things to worry about concerning the war. They didn't have to worry about him. He didn't want the attention. So he'd fake it for as long as he could.
"Mm. So where am I actually going?" Sorun asked Sonic. "Is there a- a car or something, or what?"
A devious smirk slowly spread across Sonic's face. He didn't like it one bit. "Oh, something way cooler than that. You'll love it. Trust me."
Sorun didn't trust him.
Sorun was right not to trust him when he saw what it was Sonic had been referring to.
"Plane? Y-you guys got a plan? Plane?"
Knothole City had a little clearing that had been converted into an airstrip near the kingdom's outskirts where the Freedom Fighters kept their aircraft. It was surprising to Sorun because he hadn't realized they had aircraft, let alone an airstrip. And not even a particularly good one at that- it was just a long dirt road with a large wooden hanger next to it. A hanger that was way too large for just the one little plane he was standing in front of, which made him question what else was in there.
The plane he was looking at, though? He wasn't sure what to make of it. A blue airplane with an extra seat behind the pilot's seat. What drew his eyes though was the fact that there was a logo on the top of each wing. A logo of a pair of yellow and white tails.
The same pair of tails attached to the fox that was sitting on one of the plane's wings and grinning down at Sorun.
"Of course we have a plane," Tails said in a tone that implied it was the most obvious thing in the world. "How else do you think we get around? I sure didn't build it just to look at it."
The teen's mind ran blank at that. "You built an airplane."
"Sure did!"
"Of course he did," Sorun mumbled under his breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I already knew he was a kid genius. You didn't need to show me evidence and emasculate me further, universe."
As if he needed more hits to his confidence. Again. Now of all times when this may have been the last day of his life.
"You're not afraid of flying, are you?" Tails asked him with a tilt of his head. "Are you?"
"What? Pfft, no, I'm not- no way, man." Sorun scratched the back of his head and turned away. "I've never flown in a plane before but I'm totally cool with heights so yeah, hah hah, I'm all set." A low whine sounded in the back of his throat. "Oh man, I gotta get in that...?" he hoarsely whispered to himself.
It had to be sturdy. Everybody seemingly trusted Tails to fly them. Tails, the same person that helped make a portal to another dimension. What was a plane compared to that? Practically nothing, really. There was no way it wasn't good even if it was a homemade plane. It even arguably looked better than planes he'd seen on Earth. There was no way it wasn't stable.
He so dearly hoped his logic was sound.
"You're not getting cold feet now, are you?" There was a pat on Sorun's back with so much force behind it that it had almost knocked him right off his feet. The startled teen stumbled, caught his balance, and then whirled around to see Knuckles standing behind him. "Not too late to turn back."
"That's arguably untrue," Sorun argued as another Mobian approached them. "You're Mighty, then?"
He definitely saw him around, but otherwise Sorun hadn't paid attention to him. A Mobian with black fur and the same kind of peach stomach and mouth that Sonic had. But what he had instead of spines was a shiny, red shell of some sorts on his back. Most surprising of all was the unusually friendly aura he had hanging around him, more so than most other Mobians Sorun had met thus far. He found it strange.
"Yeah, that's me. It's nice to meet you." Even his voice sounded friendlier than friendly. "You're coming with us on the mission, right?"
"For however much worth I am, yeah," Sorun answered. "So, Mighty. You're..." He clicked his tongue as his eyes briefly roamed to the shell and then back to Mighty's face. He was guessing at this point, but considering the shell, he felt solid about this guess. "... An armadillo. Right?"
It was a baseless guess on his part. He was fairly confident Armadillos didn't have fur, and he really did just look like a hedgehog but with a shell in place of quills. But thinking with that kind of logic hadn't gotten Sorun anywhere in trying to guess people's species with only a few exceptions, and he didn't have anything to lose. So he took a shot in the dark.
He looked unsure at the question. "Uh, yeah? Why?"
The shot in the dark paid off.
"Yes!" Sorun silently hissed as he turned his back to Mighty and held up a fist in victory. "I got one. I'm gettin' better at this." And here he'd thought he was hopeless at identifying Mobians, but he'd finally gotten one right. Maybe there was hope after all.
"Uh, Sorun?"
"O-oh, right." Sorun spun back around and cleared his throat. "So you're, like... a big defense guy?" he asked. "'Cause of the shell?"
"Hm? The shell?" He looked back at the red shell on his back. "It helps, I guess, but my main strength is, well... my strength." He lifted up his right bicep and flexed it. "I'm stronger than most Mobians. Like... really extra strong. Scary strong."
Sorun's face fell flat. "You mean super strength?"
"Yeah, that!"
"I see. The guy with super strength is named Mighty. The guy with super speed is named Sonic. Feels like the world is trying to tell me something." On that note, Sorun turned around and made his way towards the plane. "Welp, we got a mission to do, right? Better get to it."
Maybe it was a culture thing he was ignorant of, or maybe Mobians just weren't that creative with naming things. Or some other third thing he wasn't thinking of. They couldn't all be this blunt with names; Tails at the very least had a normal-sounding name with a nickname. Sally and Antoine had normal names.
"Mm, but wait, they ain't got powers from what I've seen. At least Antoine doesn't if he has to resort to a sword," Sorun thought as he climbed up the side of the plane and into the seat behind the pilot's seat where Tails was sitting. "Did Sonic's parents seriously name him Sonic out the womb? Or is Sonic just a nickname like Tails' name? Oh, what if he has a really embarrassing real name or something funny like that?"
"So my job is to deliver some of the teams to their respective positions. I'll drop you all off and swing by to pick you up later," Tails informed Sorun before turning to the plane's controls.
Sorun said nothing in response, instead choosing to hug his arms against himself as he sat back further into his seat. A thought occurred to him suddenly and he pressed back forwards to get Tails' attention. "Hey," he called out over the plane's spinning propeller, "where're the other two gonna sit!?"
He got his answer when Knuckles and Mighty casually walked up to the plane and jumped right up on the wings, with each Mobian standing on either side of the plane's wings. Sorun's jaw dropped the slightest amount when he realized they intended to just stand on the wings while in flight, but he quickly managed to shake off his disbelief and went back to shrinking into his seat.
"Why am I not even surprised?" the teen wondered to himself as the plane began to move down the dirt runway. "That's actually one of the less surprising things I've seen here. Says a lot."
Any further thoughts were muted by the sheer anxiety Sorun felt as the plane finally took off. It was an experience that lasted the entire flight.
Tails had dropped the three of them off in a forested area and had flown off soon after. After a small trek through some forest they came to the edge of a small hill under the cover of trees. Anything beyond that hill was practically a different world: unlike the forested area they had just come out of, there were absolutely no trees for as far as the eye could see below them. Nothing but flat land comprised of dried, hardened soil. The sky was orange and the clouds ominously dark. Even the smell was different, and somewhat reminded Sorun of his home city, but somehow even worse. More metallic.
And at the center of what was practically a wasteland? The factory they were sent here to destroy. A compound with a large building at its center that had two tower-like cones protruding out of the top billowing black smoke into the air, reminding Sorun of the nuclear power plants he'd seen pictures of on Earth. There were smaller buildings around the main one scattered throughout the compound, and even paved, concrete roads connecting them all together. Further out there were construction cranes and signs of half-finished buildings.
On the upside, there wasn't any type of fence or wall they had to bypass. On the downside, there were dozens of robots walking around the whole compound.
Now, Sorun had never seen a real-life robot before. Not surprising; the technological curve on Earth had made it so the closest thing he'd ever seen to an actual robot was a mindless vacuum that skirted around on the floor before it got caught on a chair or something. But he'd been an avid consumer of entertainment, and had seen his fair share of fictional robots across a wide variety of video games, movies, and anime. So he had a general idea of what to expect when he was told the force they were fighting was robots.
At least he thought he did until he actually saw the things.
If he remembered correctly, he'd heard the term "Egg Pawn" be thrown around at some point, and looking at them now, he could see where that name would come from. Robots painted various colors with round, almost spherical torsos. Thin limbs with large hands and feet. Squat, round heads with pointed, needle-like noses, blue, circular lights for eyes and a blue, eerie smile built beneath those eyes. They honestly looked like something out of a cartoon to Sorun's eyes, but there was nothing cartoonish about the lances, hammers, and what looked like hands that were laser canons if his fictional trivia-savvy mind was to be trusted.
"So those are the robots, huh?" Sorun mused. He was leaning against a tree behind his two Mobian comrades, who were crouching near the edge of the hill. "They look weirder than I woulda thought."
"Eggman modeled them after himself," Knuckles grunted under his breath. "Honestly, it's so... what's a word that work? Self-indulgent? No, wait, that's two..."
"Obsessive?" Mighty tried, but looked unsure of his answer.
"Narcissistic," Sorun supplied, and the two Mobians let out a small "oh" at the word. "So we're going down there to be the big distraction?"
Knuckles nodded. "Yeah, we draw their attention out here while Espio and Charmy sneak in with the bomb to detonate the factory. We fall back right after. They got their own ride back home." He looked up at the sky with a slight pained expression. "It won't help much with the pollution, but it's better than nothing."
Wordlessly, Sorun pushed off the tree and stepped besides the two Mobians while trying to ignore the fact he didn't know who Charmy and Espio were. "So we, uh-" he pointed to the factory, "- we're just gonna rush right in, huh?"
"That's the plan," Mighty said.
"Ah." He didn't like that plan. The plan sounded hazardous to his health. "You guys mind if I just, y'know, hang back a bit?" They both looked up at him with questioning looks. "You know, just... have me pick off the stragglers. Or something. They're all gonna be focused on you two anyways, so I don't really have much to do otherwise."
The two looked at each other, and the breath Sorun had been holding was slowly exhaled when they shrugged their shoulders and gave the human a nod.
"So we going in right now?" Mighty asked.
Sorun did a double-take. "Wait, now now? 'Cause I-"
"Yup." Knuckles already began shuffling his body over the hill's edge. "Let's hit it."
"This seems sudden-"
They were already sliding down the hill. Halfway through him trying to think of what to do next, he already could hear explosions and an alarm going off.
"Well Sorun, guess, uh... yeah, just go in there," he whispered to himself. His hands, clammy with nervous sweat, shakily reached into his pocket to pull out the baton which he promptly flicked so that it extended to its full length. "How hard can it be? They're just killer robots." He began to slowly slide down the hill. "Man, I'm so screwed..."
Every single footstep he took towards the factory felt like his shoes were full of lead, and when ground gave way to concrete his anxiety only increased. Littered all around him were the remains of destroyed robots that looked like they had been literally ripped apart by either Mighty or Knuckles, and Sorun had to wonder if he was even needed here. Only minutes in and those two were tearing their way through Badniks like it was nothing. Meanwhile he was slowly walking around with a clueless look on his face, glancing from his baton to anywhere around him.
"Why am I e-even so upset? It's good th-that they get all the robots, isn't it?" he wondered to himself. "I-I can't fight, so it's... it's fine? What am I even doing here? I can't- oh."
In his aimless wanderings, he'd come to the part of the larger factory area that was under construction. There was an open area right in front of him, near a half-finished building with a construction crane overhead and with steel beams littered around. And right in the middle, in a space that was relatively clear, was a robot. A red Egg Pawn with its back turned to Sorun, a metal shield in its left hand and a long lance in its right.
Sorun gulped. "Fuck. It's one of them." He struggled to get his breathing under control as he lowered into a crouch. "Okay. Okay, you got this. Just... do what they do in every movie and video game ever. Sneak up to the thing in a crouch-walk, then whack it with the baton. That's all you gotta do. You can do it."
His heart was hammering so hard in his chest he felt like it was going to explode any second now, and he was sure his heavy breathing wasn't doing it any favors, but he pressed on. He was actually thankful for the loud alarm blaring from the factory and the distant explosions, because otherwise the Egg Pawn would have for sure heard him slowly approach.
And what a slow approach it was. Sorun made sure to crouch-walk as slow as possible, half because he wanted to remain unseen, and half because he wanted to delay him actually hitting the robot at much as possible. But the paranoia of the robot suddenly spotting him and turning around spurred him forwards, and if not for that alone he probably would have remained rooted to the spot in fear.
Finally, however, he managed to get behind the robot. Even when he rose to his full height, the Egg Pawn towered over him by an inch or two, but despite its height it had yet to even notice him or turn around. A miracle, really, seeing as he was breathing so hard he was practically blowing on it.
"Damn, how the hell did Snake crouch-walk for so long? That's rough on the knees," Sorun internally complained as he held his baton up. Any soreness in his knees was overridden by the anxiousness of what he was about to do. "Alright. Alright, just... just hit it." He reared the baton backwards. "Give it everything you got and hit it!"
He grit his teeth, and with a grunt of exertion slammed the baton down on top of the Egg Pawn's head. There was a loud ting! sound as well as a few sparks when the baton landed before bouncing right off. A heavy vibration began rumbling in Sorun's arm from the impact, and he had to step back and hold his arm to nurse the shakes going through him.
Unfortunately, much to his dread, when he looked up he saw that his strike had done absolutely nothing. The robot's head was completely pristine and dent-free. The paint wasn't even scratched in the slightest.
Worse still, it turned around.
Sorun was so afraid in that one moment that he was completely frozen as the Egg Pawn stared at him with those large, blank lights for eyes. Its head tilted down slightly, and then it dropped the shield and lance it was holding on the ground. The Badnik reached its empty hands out and, almost gingery, took the baton from Sorun's shaking hands.
The creepy, perpetual grin it wore was almost mocking as it held the baton up to Sorun's eyes before it grabbed both ends with a hand and snapped it in half with about as much effort as it would take to snap a chopstick.
"... Uh..." So stunned was he from the act that he just saw that Sorun couldn't even think of words. All he could do was stare dumbly down at the fragments of the baton as the robot dropped them with wide eyes and a still, rigid body. "Um..."
The Badnik wasn't nearly as stunned as Sorun and casually reached down to pick up the dropped lance in a single motion. But when it bent back up straight to face the human, he was already gone.
"Oh no oh no oh-no-no-no..."
Run for cover. It'd been the one thing Sorun's fear-addled mind had managed to convey to his consciousness, so that was what he did. In the moment the Egg Pawn reached down to grab its lance, he'd bolted towards the first thing he saw that could place something between it and him. In this case, a sheet-metal wall that was nearby next to a small metal shack. Sorun was currently cowering behind that wall.
"The baton was a stupid idea what was I thinking oh god I'm gonna die..." In hindsight, no, banging a metal stick on a titanium-plated robot wasn't going to do anything to it. But it was something, and something was better than nothing. And Sorun had hoped that something would be enough, even if it was practically nothing.
But oh, was it not enough. It was not enough at all. And now there was a killer robot aware of his existence and currently trying to kill him.
"Okay. Alright, maybe if I run REALLY HARD I can find Knuckles or Mighty and they can take care of it. I'm gonna look like the lamest person ever and they'll lose all respect for me, but fuck it, I'd rather live with that than not live at all." They couldn't be that far, after all. The sound of robots exploding in the distance was fairly close, and Egg Pawns didn't look that fast. He could do something like that. "Good plan? Good plan. Just gotta-"
A red lance punched its way through the sheet metal inches from Sorun's face, and he screamed at the top of his lungs.
The lance pulled back through the hole as Sorun fell backwards onto his back. Right as he landed the lance tore through the metal again, right above him where'd he'd been standing before he fell. The teen immediately scrambled to his feet and began running away as the lance punched through the metal wall over and over while chasing him. Eventually Sorun had run past the entire wall, and turned his head briefly to see the red Egg Pawn on the other side of the wall with its lance. It turned its head towards him and began walking towards the human at an alarming rate.
He ran to the metal shack that was near the wall, but when Sorun tried for the door he found that it was locked. In his panic, he looked left and right, and then found a small wooden table nearby with an open toolbox sitting on top of it. Sorun, desperate for anything to help him at this point, reached for the toolbox, grabbed it, and then spun around to face the advancing robot.
And what did he choose to do with the box of tools he picked up? He reached inside to throw the contents at the robot. Hammers of various sizes and shapes, screwdrivers, metal rulers, if it was even remotely heavy he picked it up out of the box and chucked it as hard as he could at the robot. The effect was about to be expected: every single item he threw bounced harmlessly off of the robot's shell, and it was to the point that it wasn't even slowing down.
Eventually it came down to the last item in the box, which Sorun thoughtlessly grabbed and held behind him in preparation to throw. Right before he swung, he noticed that the shape he felt was familiar, and quickly looked back to confirm that, yes, he was holding a regular tape measure. "Goddammit, gimme a break," his exhausted mind thought as he yelled out and threw the tape at the robot.
The Egg Pawn actually took the effort to deflect the tape with its lance before thrusting the tip forwards towards Sorun.
He yelped in fear, and then instinctively held up the empty toolbox to his face to defend himself. By some miracle the lance pierced through the box with the tip stopping millimetres from Sorun's eye, but to his alarm the Egg Pawn began to use the lance to lift the box and Sorun upwards. Sorun, too afraid to let go of the toolbox, held on fast. But then the Egg Pawn swung the lance in an arc over its head, swinging the box and Sorun overhead with it. The momentum caused the toolbox to come loose from the lance, and at the same time Sorun lost his grip, causing the teen to fly backwards away from the Egg Pawn.
Landing on the ground, Sorun grunted out loudly as the momentum caused him to roll a brief distance before coming to a stop on his back. He only managed to get one terror-stricken breath out before a shadow fell over him, and a scream escaped him as a shape shot down towards him. He rolled away just as the tip of the Robot's lance went through the ground where his head was, though it was while he was mid-roll did the robot's free hand reach out and grab him by the throat.
Genuine fear along with obscene amounts of adrenaline flooded Sorun's systems when he felt cool, metallic fingers wrap around his windpipe. His terror-filled breathing became short as he felt his airway become constricted, and then felt a tight pain in his whole throat as he was lifted up in the air off his feet by the robot. He desperately kicked at the robot and tried to pry the fingers off of him, but the robot proved to be too strong, and he was rapidly losing strength due to the fact he couldn't breath.
It was quickly becoming hard to see, as the edges of his vision was becoming dark. He had enough sight left in him to see the Egg Pawn's fixed, glowing smile, and even more alarmingly he saw the lance in its other hand reared back and aimed right at Sorun's head.
"No. Stop it..." Sorun's movements were becoming more and more feeble, and between the adrenaline and oxygen deprivation he was beginning to lose all feeling. It wasn't enough to stop the cold dread seeping though him when he saw the lance and thought that, yes, he was about to die. "No no no please stop it I don't wanna die please-"
The lance never came. It would have, but a large, heavy object falling on top of the Egg Pawn and crushing it stopped any attempt by it.
Sorun was slammed right into the ground from the force of the fallen object dragging the robot's arm down along with the teen. He crashed right into the ground and immediately pried the lifeless fingers away from his throat, and then crawled a few inches backwards in fright. He held a hand up to his raw throat as wheezing gasps escaped him, and looked in confusion at what had befallen the Egg Pawn. It laid completely crushed under a mess of metal cross beams, buried to the point that the only parts visible was the arm that had held Sorun and half of its round, grinning head. The lights on its eyes and mouth were thankfully dimmed to a muted gray.
Panting heavily, Sorun tilted his head up just to see what had fallen to crush the robot. To his shock, he saw the culprit immediately in the form of a construction crane's arm suspended high in the air above him. It appeared that the tip of the crane's arm had somehow been cleanly cut off, the remains of which he assumed had been what fell down and crushed the Badnik.
"The hell...?" The confused teen thought as he looked at the destroyed Badnik and then back up to the crane. "It... that piece of the crane just... came off? What the- huh?"
He saw something, near the base of the crane's arm. What that something was, he didn't know. It was red in color, but he couldn't discern any visible shape as it moved too fast, and in the blink of an eye the red something was gone completely.
"Am I seeing things?" Sorun whispered. "The hell was-?"
The sound of loud, creaking metal made the teen cut himself off, and he looked up in fright at the crane arm. Fright turned into alarm when he saw that the rest of the crane's arm had been segmented, and was all falling towards him.
"Oh shit!" he shrieked, and looked around for the nearest anything that could shield him from the crushing debris quickly falling towards him. But there was nothing- nothing but wide open space and pieces of open construction around him. The shack may have worked, but even if the door was unlocked, it was too far for him to reach.
Panic racing through his mind made him think faster than he thought possible, and in a split second he noticed that there was a noticeable gap in the crushed, metal debris that was the piece of crane that had crushed the Egg Pawn. Debris that had a relatively covered top with all that metal. Without thinking, Sorun dived right towards the debris and squeezed his body inside as far as possible. Not a second was left to lose as he fitted his entire body inside before the next piece of debris crashed down on him. His ears rang with the sound of crashing metal and the shock sent vibrations throughout his whole body, but thankfully he didn't feel any part of him become seriously hurt.
But then the next piece fell after than, and he could feel the steel prison he'd wedged himself into begin to constrict all around him. The effect only increased further when the next piece dropped, and Sorun began to worry if he'd made the right choice after all.
One after another the pieces of the crane's arm crashed into that one spot. By the time the final piece touched down a large dust cloud had been kicked up from the large, concussive impacts, and whole minutes had to pass before the dust finally settled to reveal the massive, house-sized pile of red metal in the construction yard that Sorun was trapped in.
"So this is what that raider in Fallout felt when he tried to beat my player character in power armor to death with a wooden cue stick. Shame and humiliation," Sorun thought as he released a low, shallow breath. "'Nobody said you had to fight with your bare hands,' he said. Yeah, that went real well for me, Shadow. Real fuckin' well."
On the bright side, he'd survive a whole crane's arm falling on him. On the downside, his dumbass decision of diving headfirst into the debris instead of running away, while possibly having managed to save his life, also trapped him. The rest of the crane falling on him had crushed the metal he was hiding inside in to the point it was all pressing against his body. He couldn't move, and therefore was trapped.
At least he didn't feel injured, which, all things considered, may as well have been a miracle. The metal beams pressing against his chest made breathing a challenge, but he was alive. That had to count for something.
"How long has it been? Five, ten minutes? I can't even see in here. I wonder where the others are?" As if on cue from his thoughts, he felt the ground beneath him rumble as a loud, deafening explosion was heard in the distance, followed by a shock wave making the metal all around him rattle worryingly. "I guess that was the factory blowing up," he reasoned. "Knuckles said we were gonna fall back after it went off, but they wouldn't leave without me. Would they? Probably not. I don't know."
He honestly didn't, but he really hoped they would come looking for him. He'd be stuck here otherwise, and didn't want to think about what would happen if he were just left here. Dying of dehydration after being pinned in place for days came to mind. Being excavated by robots and being taken prisoner or worse scared him even more.
"Sorun? Hey, Sorun!"
That was Mighty's voice he heard, much to his relief. The armadillo was shouting his name and, based on the volume, was relatively close. Unfortunately Sorun couldn't get enough breath in him to shout back, but he did have a hand with enough freedom of movement for him to bang on something. So he made a fist and rotated his wrist so that his fist hit a piece of metal to make a loud clang! sound.
"Sorun!? That you!?" Mighty called out. Sorun hit the metal a few more times in an attempt to give an affirmative sound, and was thankful to hear rapid footfalls approach his position. Soon enough he heard the sound of heavy pieces of metal being lifted off of him, and breathed in a large breath when the constriction on his chest was relieved. Minutes passed with more and more sunlight hitting Sorun's body as more metal was cleared away until a particularly large piece was lifted off him, exposing him entirely.
Blinking at the harsh sunlight in his eyes, Sorun slowly turned his head to his savior. Mighty was standing right above him, holding up a piece of crane high above his head with a single hand in what was a ridiculous display of strength. His face was marred with worry as he looked down at Sorun, who coughed and blinked blearily at the armadillo.
"Hey," Sorun croaked out. "One of my legs is pinned. Help me out?"
"Y-yeah!" The metal debris Mighty was holding was tossed over his shoulder and crashed into the ground far behind him. "Just hold on, okay? I'll get you out of there in a second."
The human teen remained silent and let Mighty dig him out. To his credit, he seemed to be genuinely careful in his work, and even went as far as to look to Sorun whenever he lifted something to make sure he wasn't causing him any pain. But Sorun remained silent for the most part, due to both the shame he was feeling and the heavy exhaustion settling through him. Eventually the last piece of debris was lifted off him, and Mighty wasted no time in offering Sorun a hand to help him stand up. He accepted the hand, and then softly groaned as he was slowly picked up to his feet with Mighty pressing his second hand against Sorun's back to steady him.
"Sorun, man, what happened?" Mighty asked him. "We went looking for you after the factory blew, but we couldn't find you."
"What happened? What do you think happened? Crane fell on me," Sorun mumbled as he brushed Mighty off of him. "Which one of you flatfoots decided it be such a great idea to drop a crane on me?"
"Huh?" Mighty blinked and flicked one of his ears. "W-we didn't drop this on you!"
In response, Sorun gestured wildly to the bits of crane scattered around them. "Well, it didn't fall on its own! And I saw something red up there before it fell, so it was either you or Knuckles!"
"Sorun, really, we didn't!" There was still concern in Mighty's eyes as he looked up and down Sorun's body. "Are you sure you're ok-?"
"Yeah, fine, I'm fine," Sorun grunted as he rubbed at his head. "Agh, forget it. Let's- let's just go. I don't wanna be here anymore."
He stumbled past Mighty who held a hand out to try and help him, but Sorun refused and pulled his arm away before the Mobian could grab it. He heard Mighty let out a consigned sigh in response, but heard him follow closely behind Sorun. He didn't care too much, and he cared even less about what the deal with the crane was. He just wanted to leave.
There was a slight pain in Sorun's left ankle that caused him to limp, but otherwise he felt fine enough to keep going. As they made their way out of the construction area, Sorun had turned his head around to see the large, central building that had once been the factory. Half of it was rubble now, with the other half on fire and slowly crumbling away. Even some of the nearby buildings had been hit by the blast and had been heavily damaged if not outright flattened completely.
But more than that? There were destroyed robots everywhere. For as far as he could see past the cracked streets and wrecked buildings were dozens upon dozens of Badnik corpses ripped to pieces and completely dismantled. There were so many destroyed robots that Sorun didn't think there were even any left. Mighty and Knuckles had destroyed them all.
The fact alone sent Sorun's blue eyes shaking as a feeling of complete self-loathing overtook him. His body threatened to shudder, too, but he kept it in check for fear of Mighty noticing.
"They... managed to do all this..." He felt like a walking disgrace at what he saw. He'd called himself useless so many times, but now he genuinely felt like he was completely useless when he saw the devastation that just two Mobians were able to do, compared to him. Him, who wasn't even able to destroy just one robot. Who was still so shaken over the fact he almost died it was taking all his focus not to break down right there.
"I'm absolutely useless after all..."
He didn't speak a single time after the fact, as he was too worried his voice would crack from how bad he felt and that Mighty would notice. Even when Knuckles found them halfway back and joined the group he remained silent and even took steps not to meet any of their eyes so they couldn't see the devastation in them. It wasn't even when Tails met them at the rendezvous point with his plane did he choose to say anything. He merely climbed into the seat behind Tails while absolutely refusing to meet anybody's eyes or answer any questions.
Sorun couldn't even enjoy the view of the plane ride back. His head had been hung down in shame the entire time.
The plane's propeller hadn't even finished rotating before Sorun had jumped out of the plane and began skulking away. He thought he'd heard his name being called out to him, but this was largely ignored by Sorun who couldn't even hear anything outside of his own negative thoughts.
His limp was getting better, at least. Halfway back to Freedom HQ he was able to walk fully on his two feet. He sighed out when he finally saw the small, red flag on the pole mounted on the HQ's hill, and slipped through the door before gently shutting it behind him. A short trek through halls and stairs later, and he'd somehow found his way into the HQ's kitchen. He immediately went for the fridge and opened it, but to his dismay the only drink it was currently stocked with was water.
A listless sigh left him as he closed the door, and he endeavored to drag himself all the way to Sonic's home to just end the day already. He only made it as far as the kitchen table before he collapsed into the nearest chair and went limp.
"What did I actually think was gonna happen? I never had a chance. I knew that, everybody else knew that... why'd I even try? Just to say I did? Is that what I almost died out there for?" He still felt on edge from that fact. Even after getting on the plane and flying far away from that factory he still felt nervous. Still felt afraid for his life. Still felt terrible at his own weakness. "Damn it all. What am I doing?"
He would have went further, but he felt a sudden tap on his shoulder that caused him to jump up in his seat in surprise. He wildly looked around, but settled down when he saw it was just Tails standing in front of him. The young Mobian wasn't alone, either: Knuckles and Mighty were hanging back near the kitchen's entrance. Sonic and Sally were there, too, with each one giving Sorun looks of concern. Even Antoine was there, much to Sorun's exasperation.
"Sorry. Didn't see you there. Did you guys just come back from your mission?" Sorun asked, tone completely dull as he looked towards Sonic.
Sonic gave a slow nod. "Yeah, everybody's mission was a success. A couple of us were just chilling in the HQ when you just... kind of stumbled in the kitchen."
"Yeah, we chased you all the way from the airstrip, but you wouldn't listen to us," Tails added. "Sorun, what's wrong?"
"... You did?" Sorun mumbled. "I didn't notice. I was..." He sighed out, rubbed at his eyes, and sunk lower in his chair. "Alright, guys, look. I'mma be real here." His eyes gazed up at the Mobians watching him. "I tried, okay? I tried really hard. But I'm- I'm not cut out for this. For any of this."
There was an awkward pause, and everybody glanced at each other with questioning eyes before a majority looked to Knuckles and Mighty for clarification. Knuckles gave a half-shrug, and looked to Mighty for help. Mighty was biting at his lower lip before he let out a small sigh and stepped forwards.
"Look, Sorun, I know it didn't go so well for you-" he began, but stopped cold when Sorun gave him a wide-eyed stare.
"It went terribly, Mighty," he interrupted. "I couldn't do anything! You two were out there killing robots by the literal dozens while I couldn't even beat a single one! I lasted barely a minute against the thing when I tried!" Sorun, feeling heated from the discussion, kicked up out of his chair and began pacing back and forth in a little line. "I-I almost died! I was this close to getting a spear jammed through my face and out the back of my head before divine intervention or whatever that was decided to drop a crane on the Badnik- amazing I didn't get crushed to death!- and I woulda been stuck there if you didn't dig me out!" His hands flew up to his hand and rubbed at his hair in a frenzy. "I just- I don't- there isn't anything- I just can't- augh, I don't know..."
Any energy had had been building up suddenly felt like it was being drained out of him, and Sorun found himself collapsing back into the chair he'd shot out of. "Look, at the end of the day... I'm just not you guys," he said, voice and face both tired. "I'm not a Mobian. I can't handle the things you guys can do. I wasn't born with special powers. I don't have super strength, I can't run fast, I'm not some genius and I can't fly..." He lifted a hand to Antoine and sighed in defeat. "I don't know what he has, but whatever it is I ain't got it," he mumbled as the hand dropped. "I... I just can't do this. I would if I could, but I really can't. I tried."
After he finished talking, Sorun sluggishly rose up out of the chair and kept his head held down so he didn't have to see anybody's faces. He passed by Tails, and then stopped before digging into his pocket to bring out the two pieces of the broken baton. "It has some design flaws. Mainly that the guy operating it is physically incompetent." He handed the pieces to the fox, who accepted them with shaking hands. "I'm sorry for wasting your time with this, Tails."
He left right after without another word, thankful for the fact that nobody chased after him. His plan after this? Go back to his pseudo-home and wallow in self pity before falling asleep. And after that? He genuinely didn't have a clue what came after this, and right now he couldn't bother to care.
"... Did a crane seriously fall on him?"
The overall mood that hanging over the kitchen soon after Sorun left was dour. Frowns were seen on faces all around, though none more than Tails as he looked down at the broken baton in his hands in dismay. The one who had asked the question, however, was Sonic, who was looking towards Mighty hoping for an explanation.
"I don't know how it happened!" The armadillo raised his hands up in defense. "I just found him like that! Maybe a Badnik dropped it on him or something, I dunno!"
"But you guys were supposed to be keeping an eye on him," Sonic bemoaned as he rubbed a hand over his face. "We all promised him everything would be fine and a crane ended up dropping on him." He turned towards Knuckles. "What happened to keeping an eye on him?"
Knuckles turned his head away from Sonic and gave a half-shrug. "He... said he's hang back to deal with the stragglers," he explained. "It seemed like a safe enough play, but... he seriously couldn't even take out one robot?"
"Humans aren't that strong," Sonic mumbled out with a shake of his head. "I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was... oh, man..."
Taking strength for granted was something nobody present in the room had ever done. Overestimating someone's strength was a different matter entirely, though, and was evidently a lot easier to do than Sonic would have liked. He'd genuinely believed that Sorun would at the very least be able to fight one measly robot if nothing else, but apparently even something like that was beyond him. He didn't blame him in the slightest- everybody had their limits, and it wasn't Sorun's fault his were so low compared to theirs. But it did leave him wondering what was left for Sorun at this point.
Even more than that, he was getting worried over the human and how he was handling all of this. He could tell from the faces all around him that everybody was thinking the same.
"Sonic?" His green eyes turned towards Tails, who looked up from the pieces of the baton to the hedgehog. "What's gonna happen with Sorun now?"
"I dunno, buddy. He's..." He grunted in frustration and turned around. "I'm gonna go talk with him and-"
"Wait, Sonic." Right as the hedgehog lifted a foot up, he was stopped by the sound of Sally's voice. "I don't think going to him would be a good idea right now."
He whirled towards the chipmunk in surprise. "Why not?" he asked. "You saw how he is. I can't-"
"Sorun's... volatile under stress. You know that," Sally said. "I don't mean to demean him in any way, but you heard what happened. He's shaken because of how that mission went. He could lash out because his nerves are so high right now."
"He wouldn't... he's been getting better with that, Sal," Sonic argued as his shoulders went slack. "Sorun's a little freaked out, sure, I get that, but he's not like what he was a week ago when he first got here."
Sally nodded her head in understanding, but the saddened expression on her face didn't change. "I'm not saying don't talk to him. I'm just saying give him some time to cool down," she elaborated. "Let him sleep this off so he can get his thoughts in order, alright? It's been a long day for all of us, anyways."
"Easy for you to say. You don't share a room with him." Sonic's foot began to tap aggressively on the ground. "I don't like it, but... yeah. I'll get back with him tomorrow." It wouldn't be his first choice, but he could see the wisdom in it. Even if it did hurt him inside.
"I'm going for a run to clear my head," he announced as he turned away from them all. "Have a good night you guys."
His hope was that running would take his mind off of what he had just witnessed, and just maybe give him a chance to think over what he was going to say to the human tomorrow to make him feel better. But even after he left the HQ, and even after he began sprinting through the forests, he couldn't get it out of his head. Even as the trees he passed began to blur into unrecognizable shapes, all he could think of was that look Sorun had on his face. That utterly defeated face that looked like it was on the verge of breaking down.
Sonic didn't like that face at all, and wanted to do everything he could to fix Sorun's mood and maybe even make the human smile for once. A real smile that would tell Sonic that Sorun was alright so he didn't have to worry about him anymore. But no matter how hard he thought, he just couldn't think of what he was going to say.
"Sorun... what are we going to do with you?"
