Recursion Error
Episode 9- I just wanna play video games
"You know, I've been thinking. Maybe- just maybe- what happened yesterday was a good thing."
Waking up the very next morning (which by Sorun's standards was the afternoon) Sorun had seen that Sonic was absent from the room. So with that and the fact he currently had no standing orders from the Freedom Fighters, combined with the thoughts from yesterday still plaguing his mind, he'd decided to wander around Knothole. To try and get his thoughts straight now that he was calmed down from a good night's sleep.
It was something he'd done often back on Earth whenever a problem arose that he needed to think on. Him aimlessly wandering down streets while deep in thought, though this eventually turned into David or one of his pals from school taking him to a local snack shack near their school. Sorun had found back then that food helped immensely with sorting his thoughts. And, as it happened, Sonic's uncle owned a small diner which the human incidentally walked into.
There wasn't much to say about it. Small and quaint, and as it was Sorun had apparently just missed the afternoon lunch rush, so the place was empty save for Sonic's uncle, Chuck. So what was Sorun to do other than sit down at the diner's counter and order some food? At the very least it was familiar territory, which put him somewhat at ease. Something like that had been sorely missing from his life for the past week.
"I... thought you didn't do too well in the mission?" the mustached hedgehog commented as he set a plate down in front of Sorun on the counter. "Sonic told us about it last night. You seem rather calm given the description he gave us."
Sorun looked down at the plate that was set in front of him. He felt his face scrunch up when he saw the lone chili dog on it. "You don't serve fries or anything like that?" he asked.
"Huh? No." Chuck shook his head. "These are a delicacy here in Knothole. Why would I serve anything else?"
There was something seriously wrong with the people here if that really was the case. "Eh, forget it," Sorun grunted as he reached for the chili dog and took a bite. "Anyways, yeah, Sonic wasn't wrong. I was pretty messed up. Almost dying for the first time in your life will do that, I guess."
"I see. Want to talk about it?"
"No way." Another bite. "But I slept it off, and then a thought came to me." Sorun pointed a thumb at himself. "I'm a total scrub. Common knowledge at this point, right? And- and Chuck? I tried. Everybody wanted me to give the Freedom Fighters a shot, and boy howdy did I give it the biggest shot I could. But at the end of the day? I'm just a random normal dude who's seriously under-powered compared to literally everybody else around me." He raised his index finger in the air. "But now that I've tried and failed? Given irrefutable proof I can't actually do anything? Nah, they ain't gonna let me on any more missions." He took a final bite out of the chili dog and leaned back in his chair. "I'm home free, baby. All I gotta do now is ride out the rest of this trip and I'm all set."
He didn't know why he hadn't thought of it sooner. It could have had something to do with the raw adrenaline high he'd been on, or the near-death experience shaking him so bad. But with the clarity of sleeping it off? It made Sorun realize that it may have been the best thing to happen yet. No more fighting equaled no more risking his life, which meant all he had to do was sit around and do nothing until the others gathered the Chaos Emeralds and opened the way home for him.
Unironically the greatest fumble of his life, really.
Chuck didn't look nearly as proud of this plan as Sorun was. In fact, he had a rather disapproving scowl on his face, and even his mustache became furled. "Isn't that a bit selfish of you?" he asked. "They did use all the Chaos Emeralds to bring you here. You don't think you're entitled to help out at least a little?"
Sorun's eyes snapped to Chuck's blue eyes, and he scowled. "Three points," he began before raising his index finger again. "Point one: I didn't ask for this. None of this. Not the 'abducted into the robot war in a different zone' bit, not the 'go fight said robots' bit, none of it." He held up two fingers. "Point dos," he continued, "it's not like I'm faking incompetence or anything to get out of fighting. I really am useless." Three fingers were held up. "The coup-de-grace to all that, though, Chuck? That's point three: I almost died out there. Died in a stupid war I have no right to be in, because I shouldn't even be here." He slowly inhaled as he lowered his hand, and then exhaled. "So no. I don't feel entitled to help them considering it's their fault I'm in this situation to begin with. It sucks they used all the Chaos Emeralds, sure, but that's on them, not me. I just want to go home, Chuck. Can you really blame me for thinking like this?"
Sure, maybe playing the "I'm a victim" card in this scenario was a low blow, but Sorun honestly couldn't care less. Just because it was low didn't mean it wasn't true, and as far as he was concerned that gave him a free pass to be as low as he wanted to be. He'd almost died, after all. Gruesomely at that. So he'd weasel out of everything as hard as he could if it meant getting back home risk-free.
And mentally speaking, he wasn't sure he could handle having another near-death encounter. He wasn't even sure how much more of this world's nonsense he could handle before he had a mental breakdown.
"So you're content to just sit on your haunches while the Freedom Fighters risk life and limb searching for the Chaos Emeralds to send you home?" Chuck questioned.
It sounded bad when he put it that way, but he wasn't wrong. Sorun didn't care. "Pretty much, yeah," he admitted with a shrug. "In my defense they're not even actively searching for the things. They said they'd just pick them up if they happen to run into them on missions."
Chuck sighed, and then reached for the empty plate in front of Sorun. "Are you sure this isn't you being too afraid after nearly losing your life?"
"You know, now that you mentioned it that was actually the most traumatic thing that's ever happened in my entire life." Sorun gave the hedgehog a flat look. "What do you think, man?"
"I think that I knew a lot of people like you back in the war, me included." The older male reached for a cloth and began cleaning the plate. "People who saw terrible things and didn't want to go back to the battlefield. More often than not they did, though, because the terrible things they saw, sonny? They'd rather fight it themselves than have all that awfulness reach their loved ones back home. So they fought, not because they want to, but because they have to."
"Mm. It's a good thing I don't have to, then, huh?"
The scrubbing of the dish became more vigorous. "At the end of the day, the choice is yours, Sorun. And I'll say that, at the very least, choosing not to fight is a choice nobody can blame you for. But you're not going to get very far with this attitude of yours." He gave Sorun a piercing look. "Going it alone just isn't something a person can do. Even my nephew Sonic, with all his power, knows this. Knows it better than anyone. They all do, which is why they stick together. Sometimes all you need is a helping hand, and if you have that, you can get through anything." He looked back down at the plate. "You might realize this and actually make a friend to help you through this if you stopped treating everybody like monsters that abducted you."
Sorun scoffed, and then hopped out of his chair. "If you ever find yourself in my shoes, old man, then you can talk. 'Til then, though? Stop pretending you know how I feel."
"If you say so, sonny," Chuck rumbled. "It's two mobiums for the chili dog, by the by."
"Oh. Yeah, man, I'm broke." Sorun turned his back to the wide-eyed hedgehog and began walking away. "Thanks for the food and talk, though. Seeya."
He walked off with that, ignoring the hole that the hedgehog's eyes were boring into his back. He couldn't care less about his thoughts, especially after everything that had happened yesterday.
"If he was trying to do his 'wise old man' bit to get through to me, it didn't work. What does he know about my problems? Nothin'," Sorun bitterly thought as he thrust his hands into his pockets. "I stopped treating everyone so negatively. I said sorry to Tails. That ain't enough? Go to hell. I just want to leave.
"Agh... but they're trying hard is the thing." He wasn't completely callous or blind. Sonic was completely transparent in his attempts to befriend him. Tails was more shy about it, but was arguably the same way. Sally was trying her best to help him, but Sorun didn't know if that was just courtesy on her part due to the guilt of helping bring him here or if it was a genuine attempt at friendship. Others like Antoine, Knuckles, and Mighty were friendly towards him. Even that king, Elias, had been way nicer than he'd expected. Even went as far as to say he wanted to see him again.
Shadow and Rotor were different stories, but those were outliers Sorun would rather just leave alone.
Honey... Sorun just didn't want to think about her for as long as he could help it.
"Fine, so maybe being this weird, antisocial guy that kind of just hangs around isn't doing me favors. But friends? With the guys that brought me here? That pressured me into endangering my life?" He just plain didn't feel like it. He'd been fine with letting bygones be bygones and leaving it at that. Taking it a step further and extending hands of friendship? A bit too much for him. "I don't think I could ever be friends with them. But maybe I should at least talk to them like Sally said. Team cohesiveness and all that. At the very least, it's something for me to do to pass the time, 'cause man oh man am I bored. I wonder if anybody's at the HQ?"
As it turns out, there wasn't. A rare occurrence, really, considering this was the one hangout spot the Freedom Fighters had to gather in. Hence why it was headquarters, Sorun presumed. But even as he wandered into the living room and looked around, there was nobody. The place was completely empty.
"Huh." The sight produced raised eyebrows from Sorun, who was thoroughly surprised enough that he was scratching at the freshly-healed wound on his forehead. It was fine, though. It freed him up to do something else. What that was, he didn't know, because there honestly wasn't that much for him to do in Knothole other than walk around and ponder on what was currently on his thoughts. It beat talking with one of the Freedom Fighters, though.
Unfortunately somebody chose that time to open the doors to one of the rooms near the back of the living room, and Sorun had to suppress a sigh at realizing there actually was somebody there.
When he looked over to the opening door, he saw Mighty stepping out of the room while yawning and stretching his arms over his head. It was after he lowered his arms and opened his eyes from the yawn did he see Sorun standing across the room, looking at him. The armadillo tensed and and briefly looked uncomfortable from the stare, but then made a small sigh as he made his way towards the human.
"Sorun. Hi. I... didn't see you there," Mighty awkwardly greeted as he stopped in front of Sorun, and then began to rub at his shoulder. "You doing okay?"
"I'm still alive," he answered. "That's always nice."
"H-heh, yeah..." Mighty looked down at his shoes. "About yesterday... I'm, sorry. About the crane thing. We were supposed to be keeping an eye on you, and... yeah. That happened."
Yet another prime example of these people being too nice for their own good. Sorun could barely keep from rolling his eyes. "Well, you're not the one that dropped it on me. So it's fine." He was still unclear on just what it was that dropped it on him, but he didn't care enough to pursue the answer. And he sure wasn't going all the way back there just to investigate it further. He wanted to put that crane as far behind him as possible.
Mighty didn't look too convinced at Sorun's forgiveness. To his credit, he wasn't too far off. "It's just that things like that don't happen... often." He looked really hesitant at saying often, which caused an eye-raise from Sorun. "Okay, when it comes to fighting Eggman nothing is really what you would call 'traditional'," he said with finger-quotes, "so a crane falling on you wasn't the most surprising thing in the world, and I get that it was your first time and this is all jarring for you, but I, well, y-you're doing fine, right?"
Sorun blinked. "You sound worse than I am, and I'm the one that had to brush off almost dying." A feat he was still coming to terms with, right alongside what he was seeing unfold right in front of him. "You're really that worried about me?"
"I don't want to see anybody get hurt, and it's messing me up a bit that you got crushed while under our watch," Mighty confessed. "And I really don't wanna see a friend get hurt."
There was a flinch from the black-haired teen when he heard that friend word. "You guys sure like to toss the word 'friend' around real casually," he commented.
"Well, yeah." The armadillo grew a confused expression. "Why wouldn't we be friends?"
"We just met yesterday," Sorun deadpanned.
"So what?"
Sorun had to hold his shaking right hand so it wouldn't slam into his own face. "I really don't understand these people," he thought, and then breathed out a slow breath. "So where is everybody?" he asked in a desperate attempt to change the subject. "Place is kinda empty."
"Oh, they're off doing their own thing," Mighty answered with a shrug. "I didn't have anything to do, so I'm here."
"Yeah. Same."
"Ah, cool." There was an awkward pause between the two as they both looked away briefly, and then once again locked eyes. "Wanna do something?" Mighty asked.
He didn't, but at the same time Sorun didn't have anything better to do. "Why not?" he mumbled. "You got anything in mind?"
Mighty hummed in thought for a few seconds, dipping his head down while rubbing at his cheek. "We could... play a video game?" he suggested.
Somewhere in Sorun's mind, there was a jolt. A spark of excitement so intense he couldn't even remember the last time he felt something similar. "You have video games here?" he asked.
"Uh, yeah." Mighty pointed towards the middle of the living room, where there was a couch with a TV in front of it. "We don't have many, but-"
Sorun raised a hand to stop him. "Yes. Yes I do," he quickly said as he nearly ran to the couch. "Where's the... oh, I see..."
The world practically froze around him when he saw the small, electronic box sitting in front of the TV and connected by cables. The two game controllers sitting in front of it only made it even more recognizable. It was a welcoming enough sight that a short, breathless laugh escaped him as he crouched down next to the device and ran his hands along it.
How long had it been since he'd played a video game? Too long. Most definitely it had been too long since he'd been deprived of his most favorite pastime on Earth. So much had happened that something as simple as video games hadn't even crossed his mind since coming to Mobius, but now that he had the opportunity to play something, he couldn't help the deep, longing feeling growing inside of him. The urge to sit down and take a damn break from it all. To just not think about anything as he played a game.
He needed this. This escape from everything, even if it was just for a bit.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. World has robots. Why wouldn't it have a game console?" It was a bit silly to assume they wouldn't have something like this, now that he thought of it. The TV looked older than he would have liked, but he easily managed to navigate towards the power button and flip it on. The console was another matter. "Looks like an old Sega Genesis, but... more streamlined," he observed as he looked at the small black and orange game console sitting on the ground. "There's a single slot on the side here with a cartridge plugged in... is that the game cartridge? This thing must be old even by this zone's standards if that's the case. Or maybe they never focused that hard on game development with everything else going on. Well, whatever. Game's a game. I can deal."
Questions for later, but they sure as hell could wait until later because he needed this now. The power button on the console was a bit harder to find, but he eventually found it on the front and pressed it. There was a small whir from the console, and the screen on the TV changed as Sorun grabbed one of the controllers- corded, much to his disgust- and hopped on the couch behind him. Mighty sat down on a spot next to him.
"Oh, you're playing this one, huh?" Mighty noted as the game's main menu loaded on the TV. "Good luck. Everybody in the Freedom Fighters has had a shot at this game. It's insanely tough."
A indistinguishable mumble left Sorun as he looked at the main menu. There was a little gameplay segment playing in the background of the menu, and he was able to tell enough from watching the small loops of gameplay. 2-D shooter from the looks of it with bullet hell mechanics. Player character was a small spaceship fighting alien spaceships that varied in size and complexity both in their design and projectile attacks. He'd seen enough of these on Earth to get the gist.
"Mm, just beat all the bosses at the end of the stages to win it, right?" Sorun quietly muttered as he navigated the menu. There weren't many menu's to go into- simple "play", "quit", "options", and "scores". Scores interested Sorun. "How does scoring in this game work?" he asked as he navigated to the score menu.
"I think by how many of the other ships you blow up?" The tone in Mighty's voice made it sound like he was unsure, which mildly irked Sorun. "There might be a time thing, too?"
"I'll figure it out," the human teen grunted as he opened the score menu. His eyes widened when a long list of names with scores next to them slid onto the screen. "Are these the top scores of all the Freedom Fighters?" he wondered.
Mighty nodded. "Yeah, I think so," he said.
Sorun hummed. Predictably, all of the names comprised of three letters. The scores all only had five digits, and were posted next to each three-letter name. He snorted at a majority of them; most were around ten-thousand in score, with a few above that. One that stood out was "ROT" with a score just above twenty-thousand, likely Rotor Sorun presumed, and another named "TAI" at thirty-five thousand. Tails, most likely.
But at the very top of the scoreboard were three names whose scores were so above the rest Sorun couldn't help but notice them.
SHA: 52800
SON: 52500
Sonic and Shadow, then. Abysmal scores in Sorun's opinion, but practically amazing compared to everybody else, and he almost laughed when he saw how close the numbers were. What really piqued his interest, though, was the name at the very top of the leaderboard.
NIC: 98100
A decent score indeed. Not great by his standards, but decent.
"Who's Nic?" Sorun asked.
"Hm? Oh, that's Nicole," Mighty answered. "You haven't seen her. She's a, uh, computer."
Sorun paused. "Computer" ran through his head some times, but he remained confused at the phrasing. "What do you mean by that?"
"She's, like... a fake person? A program, but really smart like a normal person," Mighty explained.
The pale teen blinked. "So... an AI?" he tried.
It was Mighty's turn to blink. "A-what?"
"Artificial Intelligence." When Mighty continued to stare blankly at him, he sighed. "Robot. She's a robot?"
The armadillo's eyes widened in realization. "Ohhh...! That's what that means!" He shook his head. "I mean, kinda? But not really. Her body's this little pocket computer Sally carries around with her, but sometimes Nicole will transfer herself into the computers in the Freedom HQ's lab." He turned around and pointed to a door near the back of the living room. "It's through there."
He decided to just go ahead and accept that, but the mention of a lab interested him. "There's a lab back there?"
"Yeah, it's where they do, you know, computer stuff. And things."
The teen nodded in understanding. He wouldn't have expected them to have something like that down in an underground place like this, but if they had a fully-functioning kitchen and the electricity to power everything down here, he could see them having something like that. And he could also see why they would need something like that. That map had to come from somewhere, after all.
Turning back to the TV, Sorun pointed to the screen. "So if Nicole's an AI, how'd she play the game to get that score?" he questioned.
"Oh, Nicole's little computer body can project a real body for her to use sometimes," Mighty answered. "I don't really know how it works; you'd have to ask her or Sally. But one time Nicole made herself a body and tried out all the video games when we were having that one slow week that one time." He lightly chuckled and rubbed the top of his head. "She's really good at video games. Nobody's ever been able to beat her scores. Perks of being a computer, huh?"
"Looks like it," Sorun agreed. "She smoked all of you and got an almost perfect score. Almost." He scoffed and exited out the score menu. "Pfft. I can beat that, easy."
As he navigated towards the play button, Mighty gave the teen a slightly startled look. "Huh? I dunno, man. This game's really hard." The first stage began to load. "I haven't even come close to beating Rotor's score. I don't even dream of beating Sonic's or Shadow's. But Nicole's score?" He shook his head. "I'm tellin' ya, she's too good."
"All I gotta do is get a perfect score," Sorun reasoned. "Simple."
"That's not simple at all!" Mighty began waving at the screen as the game loaded. "Sorun, you're not listening! Nicole's unbeatable at this game!"
Sorun's fingers instinctively pushed at the thumbsticks on the controller to move the spaceship on the screen, and a feeling of pure content flooded him as he sat back into the couch. This. This is what he needed. For the first time since landing on this planet, he felt completely content. Like he was in his element as his hands naturally conformed to his controller's shape and began to almost automatically press buttons.
And slowly, a small smile spread across his face, and he slightly turned his head towards Mighty to respond to his previous claim of Nicole's ability.
"Let's just see."
"Maybe he could... no, that wouldn't work..."
There wasn't many things in life that could so easily stump Sonic. Unfortunately, Sorun was one of those very few precious things. And try as me might, he couldn't find any answers to Sorun's problems. It was an issue that put an unending amount of duress on Sonic.
For once in his life, running to clear his mind hadn't helped him think of an answer. Pacing in circles, counsel from his parents and uncle, even the other Freedom Fighters... nobody had any idea what to do with Sorun. A large part of why he was choosing to walk down to the Freedom HQ. He hoped that he would be able to find something, anything, that could give him some idea on how to solve the Sorun problem. Or at the very least an idea had come to somebody else they could use. He was desperate for anything.
"But what can he do? He can't fight- he really can't, and we should've listened to him more when he said he couldn't." Human fragility was something that had slipped his mind entirely, much to his shame. It wasn't a mistake he was ever going to make again, he'd already promised himself that, but that still left him wondering what Sorun could do if not fight? "It'd be so easier if he just talked to us more, but it almost feels like he avoids us all the time. It'd be easier to put him somewhere he'd actually be helpful if we just knew more about him. It's not even that he's shy. He's just... so cold sometimes."
It was another problem, but this one was more easily fixed. Sorun just didn't socialize, and Sonic feared he actually went out of his way not to talk to people. On the bright side, it was better than what he was. He didn't seem angry anymore and didn't lash out. He was just distant. A great improvement, but Sonic knew he could do better.
"Would bringing people to him work? Get him to open up that way?" Sonic thought as he descended the stairs into Freedom HQ. "Feels kinda mean just ambushing him like that, but he can't keep going on like this. We can't help him if he won't let us."
Those were the thoughts running through the blue hedgehog's head as he entered the HQ's living room, at least. But then his ears perked up when he heard the telltale boops and beeps of a video game, and he turned his head towards the sound. He almost couldn't believe his eyes at what he saw: Sorun playing video games with Mighty sitting next to him. Almost like they were hanging out. Almost like... Sorun was voluntarily socializing with somebody.
A large smile grew on Sonic's face. This was exactly what he had been hoping for- a chance for Sorun to finally interact with somebody like a normal person. It came out of nowhere and was honestly shocking, but he'd take it. Because as far as Sonic was concerned, something as little as this was progress for Sorun.
"Hey, guys!" He zoomed right behind the couch in a blur and leaned over it so his head was between the two. "Sorun, Mighty, how's it going? Mighty?"
There was a certain look on Mighty's face that he couldn't place. The armadillo's eyes were glued to the TV screen where a video game was playing, and he had an expression of amazement on his face. He was so amazed, in fact, that he was completely shocked still and wasn't moving a single facial muscle. It was honestly a little creepy to Sonic.
When he looked to the other side at Sorun, though, Sonic became even more freaked out. Sorun's face looked more calm and at ease than he'd ever seen him. Serene, almost, with the exception of his eyes which were entirely focused on the TV screen he was facing. And his fingers- those fingers were flying over the controller he was holding at a speed that even had Sonic impressed.
"Neh, Sonic, hi there," Sorun mumbled. Even his voice sounded softer and more calm than what it usually was. "Mighty showed me this game, so I decided to give it a try."
"Which one is- oh, that one." He felt his own face wrinkle when he saw that particular video game Sorun was playing. One of the more difficult ones in their collection, and more importantly the one where Shadow had just a slightly higher score than him. He never lorded it over Sonic but there had been that one smirk and he just knew it was inflating the dark hedgehog's ego. "So how are you doing on it?"
"Well, we're about to see. Final boss is in his dying animation." True to Sorun's words, a large, alien ship was in the middle of falling apart and exploding into clouds of fiery pixels. With one last digital explosion the ship disappeared entirely and the text "FINISHED" began to flash on the screen. After some seconds of flashing, the text disappeared and Sorun's final score appeared on the screen.
Sonic's jaw almost dropped right onto the couch when he saw it. Mighty's practically did. Sorun looked completely impassive.
SOR: 99999
"Aaaand to the top of the leaderboard you go," Sorun whispered as his name settled neatly above Nicole's score and name in the score menu.
"Huh!?" Sonic's head began to rapidly turn from the TV to Sorun's face. "That's- how!? How did you get a score that high on your first try!?"
"Eh, wasn't that hard." The sheer flippancy in Sorun's voice was baffling to Sonic, and only served to make him even more surprised. "All the enemies and bosses have set bullet patterns, so you just anticipate what's gonna come at you when you see the models appear on screen and dodge between the projectiles. The tracking attacks were a bit tricky, but nothin' special. The final boss has this really cheaty pattern, but if you eat a hit at the very beginning you can use the i-frames you get to move into a sweet spot and dodge everything else. It's not the most viable strategy in the world, but I saved up a bunch of the laser special shots and since those things hit for frame-by-frame damage they just melt the boss's health bar since he stays in place. I still had some spare hit points left which gives you a score multiplier at the end." He tossed the controller on the couch. "Ya'll are trash at this game, by the way. Nicole's decent, but the rest of you are just awful."
The explanation had gone completely over Sonic's head, and based on the blank, unthinking expression on Mighty's face he assumed it had gone over his head, as well. Or maybe he was still paralyzed from the shock that Sorun had done so well at the video game.
Wait. He'd done well. He was good at something.
Sorun was good at something.
"Sorun, you're really good at video games," Sonic marveled. "Like, really, really good. Nicole got close, but even she couldn't get a perfect score, and she's a computer!" An idea began to race in his mind as he hopped over the couch to sit in the gap between him and Mighty. "Hey, maybe this is it!"
"What's it?" the human asked
"Your skill! Your special something!" Sonic claimed as he wildly gestured to the TV. "You got a perfect score on your first try! Literally nobody else in the Freedom Fighters could do something like that! You don't think a skill like that would be helpful when nobody else can do it?"
Sorun blinked, and then frowned at Sonic's words while shaking his head in denial. "Yeah, amazing. Video games. The one thing in the world I'm actually good at and it's completely useless when it comes to fighting robots. You're reaching, Sonic."
"Well... yeah..." He honestly had a good point there, and once more Sonic found himself struggling with finding something good to say. But after some thinking he could practically feel a light bulb go over his head, and he grinned widely. "You could be a pilot!"
There would have been complete silence between them all if the TV wasn't still silently playing beeping sounds from the video game and if Mighty wasn't still in his stupefied state. Sonic was trying to appear encouraging while the pale teen was apparently struggling to process what the hedgehog had just suggested.
"... Pilot," Sorun slowly repeated. "You think that, because I beat a video game, I could be a pilot."
Sonic nodded vigorously. Maybe a little too vigorously, as it rapid motion caused Sorun to lean away from him. "Totally! I know that playing as a little ship in a video game isn't the same thing as flying a real ship, but the fact you did so good there has to mean something! And yeah, almost everybody in the Freedom Fighters has some flying skills, sure, but the only real pilot we have is Tails. And Antoine, too, on certain occasions. But if we had another pilot that would free up positions and they could be doing something else! It'd be great!"
He thought it was great, at least. Beyond great, even. Not only would it finally give Sorun something to contribute, it would free up more people to help out in the actual fighting. Maybe even Tails would have more time for his inventions and projects if Sorun took over some of the piloting work. It was a plan that worked out for everyone!
But unfortunately, Sorun didn't seem all that enthusiastic about the plan. If anything, he looked extremely hesitant at the idea. "I don't know... I've never flown anything in my entire life, Sonic. And I really don't think video game experience equates to real-life piloting experience."
"So you can learn!" Sonic suggested. "Tails could show you. He'd be more than happy to!"
"But isn't he busy?"
"Well... okay, yeah, we're all busy most of the time with Eggman, but we could make time!" A thought popped into his head. "In fact, I think Tails was free tomorrow! I'll just go ahead and ask him later and we can find him tomorrow morning."
Now Sorun was starting to look distressed, but for the life of Sonic he couldn't figure out why. "Sonic, I didn't really do too well the last time I did a... fight thing," he said. "You really wanna put me behind a plane and try again? I don't want to crash into the ground and explode or something."
"It's fine! You wouldn't be doing any fighting at all- that's all on us. And it wouldn't be right away. We'll have Tails square you away first and then we can ease you into the whole thing." He hopped off the couch while flashing Sorun a smile. "I'm gonna go find him right now. Don't worry, Sorun. We're gonna figure this out. I got a great feeling about this one!"
This was the answer he'd been searching for. He wasn't completely sure of it, but he was confident enough in it that Sonic may as well have been sure. Sorun wasn't raising any complaints, either, electing to just sit back in the couch and give Sonic a reluctant nod. It was all he needed, and like that Sonic bolted right out of Freedom HQ in search of Tails.
"Yeah. Yeah, this is the one." Sonic felt lighter to the point that he could have sworn he was running faster than normal, which only caused the smile he was wearing to widen. "It's all gonna work out now."
Well. That happened.
A withering sigh left Sorun as his back sunk further into the couch. All he'd wanted to do was play video games. To engage in his favorite pastime and take a break from it all for just a little bit. Maybe show off a bit by getting the high score just so he could feel a little better about himself, because at this point he needed it.
And now Sonic wanted him to be a pilot. All because of a video game.
He just couldn't catch a break anymore.
"Ugh, I thought I finally got out of fighting and then he goes and dumps this on me," Sorun thought as he rubbed at his forehead. "I guess it's technically not fighting, but... maybe he's got a point? Flying way above the ground, away from everything... Could this actually work?"
It had merits, now that he thought about it. An Egg Pawn certainly couldn't stab him if he was hundreds of feet above it in an airplane. It'd get everybody off his back if he started doing something useful like that, even if nobody had said anything about his uselessness barring Shadow. He most definitely wouldn't be bored, either, for better or worse.
But above all that? If he made enough of a difference and actually helped by letting more people fight instead of fly? It would mean the process of collecting the Chaos Emeralds so he could go home would speed up.
Maybe Sonic was on to something after all.
"So what do you think?" Sorun nearly jumped out of the couch when he heard the voice next to him, and turned towards Mighty who was looking at him in an expectant manner. After all the piloting talk he'd nearly forgotten he'd been sitting there the whole time. "About learning to fly? Think you'd be up to it?"
"... I guess?" Sorun gave the armadillo a shrug. "It's something to do. I can't fight, so this would be the next best thing, right?" A startling thought suddenly occurred to him. "Wait, Eggman doesn't have flying robots or anything like that, right?"
To his dismay, Mighty nodded. "Oh, yeah, he's got lots of flying types. He has a whole armada of ships he made, actually."
And there was the clincher. He wouldn't be completely safe if he became a pilot, not if there were flying robots. Or worse yet, weapons designed to take flying vehicles out. Sorun wouldn't be surprised in the least if something like that was a reality given the armada revelation, and even if it wasn't, which he highly doubted, there was still the flying robots and armada problem.
Mighty must have seen the second thoughts going through Sorun's face, because he immediately leaned forwards and waved his hands to get Sorun's attention. "But I think Sonic has a really good point!" he said. "If you were a pilot it would make things a lot easier on Tails and Antoine, and everybody else! And it's not like you'd ever be alone, either. Somebody would have your back." He gave Sorun a small smile. "After all, it's not like we'd ever let you get shot out of the sky or something horrible like that. We all look out for each other, and I really think you should consider this piloting idea."
He really didn't want to now that Sorun knew there was an air of danger involved with this piloting idea. Saying that they'd watch his back didn't mean much to him after the crane incident, but he was willing to write that off as a fluke if he needed to. And as it was, he was helping wage a guerrilla war against an army of robots. Pretty much anything he did would be dangerous.
And, of course, the merits of it still existed. He'd be helping, which would speed things up, which would get him the Chaos Emeralds faster. Then he could finally go home and forget all of this.
"I'll... think about it." He was still torn between his personal safety over getting home faster, but as things stood now he wasn't in any condition to make a decision, especially right away. He needed time to mull it over.
It seemed to be a good enough answer for Mighty, who nodded happily in response to Sorun's answer. "That's great, Sorun. Seriously." He turned back to the TV and pointed at the game console. "So, uh, there's a racing game we could both play. You wanna take a go?"
If Sorun was being honest with himself? Yes. He could easily go for something like that, if only to take his mind off the piloting idea. "Sure. Load it up."
And that was how the rest of that day had gone, with Sorun wasting the hours away playing video games with Mighty. A few short conversations passed between the two, and Sorun decided that Mighty was a pretty decent guy. He was in no way a good video game partner, especially compared to his friend David, but he was a solid person regardless. Solid to the point that Sorun was almost upset when they had to say their goodbyes at the end of the day and go home, Sorun back to Sonic's home and Mighty to his room at the Freedom HQ.
Out of all the days he'd spent on Mobius, this one so far was Sorun's favorite.
A/N- Sorun would have crushed it if I made this one of those Gamer fics. Guy's a min-maxer.
