Recursion Error

Episode 15- Baby's first foiled evil scheme


The monotony was setting in.

A whole week following the "Pain Day", as Sorun liked to refer to it, absolutely nothing noteworthy happened. Were exciting things happening in the outside world? Probably: Sorun noticed a lot of the resistance fighters leaving and coming back every single day after that day. Was he involved in any of it? No, he wasn't. Which suited Sorun just fine, but damn was he bored.

Not that he hadn't been busy. Every now and then somebody would have some free time, and if they just felt like it they approached Sorun- and that was another thing starting to happen, the other Freedom Fighters approaching him of their own volition- and would ask if he wanted to brush up on the skills they were trying to teach him. He of course always said yes to avoid looking like a flake. Had he made any significant improvement during that time?

No, not really. It wasn't zero progress exactly, but it wasn't stellar progress, either. And that was just on the mental and skill side of things. Physically speaking that really was going nowhere. Except for the cardio- Sonic still had him on that hellish running regime. And Sorun would admit that maybe he was breathing just a little bit easier after each run, but it was still extremely slow progress.

But that was all then, and this was now. Chilling in the HQ's living room. Again. Because the only places in Knothole he was actually comfortable going to was here and Sonic's house, because he really doubted he was welcome at the castle and he REALLY didn't want to go back to that nightmarish boutique Honey owned. Anywhere else was completely new and foreign to him, and while going around and meeting the other people that lived in Knothole was an option, he didn't want to. That rock incident was still fresh in his memory alongside the abandonment plan.

So without anywhere else to go, he was here at the HQ once more. But these underground walls were growing dull. And almost everybody was out on missions.

"Hey, Sorun!"

"Mm, hey, Sonic," Sorun said with a wave as the hedgehog passed the couch. It wasn't as if he could do anything better with his time. Running was about the only physical exercise he could tolerate and he'd already done that for the day. He was pretty sure Tails was around, but he heard mention that he was gonna be busy doing maintenance things on something or another. Only other two people left were Sonic and Shadow. He didn't want to bother with either.

Jumping up off the couch and heading towards the kitchen, Sorun couldn't help but wonder about the sporadic pattern everybody was always deployed it. The decision of who went where to do what was usually decided by Sally, and when he asked her she had said something about rotating all the Freedom Fighters regularly because of this and that and other tactical reasons that had largely went over his head. Why-

"Hey, Sorun."

"Hey... Sonic?" Sorun mumbled as he looked away from the fridge and towards the end of the kitchen. Sonic was passing by the entrance and waved at him, and the human slowly waved back at him. "Didn't he just...? Weird." He shrugged and opened the fridge.

Why so many just happened to be gone today, though, was something he'd paid mild attention to when the matter had been brought up. Multiple attacks everywhere, low-level threats across the board, nothing anybody couldn't handle and so everybody but the three Mobians left behind went because it was their turns to get rotated out in Sally's management system that was borderline arcane in its complexity.

She took Nicole out with her, too, when Sally left with everybody else, so he didn't even have anybody decent to play games with.

"Ah, man, I dunno." He walked to the edge of the kitchen and sipped at the bottle of water he'd taken from the fridge. He idly looked towards the right when he saw some movement. "Eh? What's Sonic doing?"

The Mobian in question was walking through the door leading to the HQ's lab. Which in of itself was odd. Sorun had been in there multiple times. There wasn't anything interesting in there but all of Rotor's and Tails' science projects and the computer that the Freedom Fighters used. The thing was, for as little as Sorun actually cared to learn about Sonic, one thing he had noticed was that, while he knew how to use one, Sonic wasn't that big a computer person. And unless somebody was in there he wanted to talk to Sonic never entered that lab.

Maybe it was out of curiosity, or maybe it was out of sheer boredom, but whatever the case Sorun decided to follow the blue hedgehog into the lab.

So that's what he did. He set the water aside, walked to the lab door, opened the lab door, and walked through the lab door. His eyes immediately locked onto the back of the lab, towards where the computer was. Sonic, oddly enough, was standing there and looking around for something while clenching something in his right hand.

Strange.

"Uh, Sonic?" The hedgehog stiffened and whirled around towards Sorun, who stepped behind him with a puzzled expression on his face. "Whatcha doin', man?"

"Oh. Sorun." The human's dark blue eyes traveled down to the object he'd noticed Sonic holding prior. It was a flash drive- a black flash drive with a red something emblazoned on it, though Sorun couldn't see it fully since Sonic's gloved hand was covering it. "What are you doing here?"

Sorun continued looking at the drive, then looked back up at Sonic. "I just noticed you wander in here," he answered. "What are you doing here?"

"Hm, ah, you know. Stuff."

"Stuff, huh?" He looked back down to the drive. "What's with the flash drive?" he asked.

"... Sally asked me to copy some sensitive files we have off the computer," Sonic answered in a level tone.

"... Sally," Sorun repeated. "Sally, who left for a mission this morning."

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, she asked me before going. I'm just getting it to it now, 'cause ha, I'm so scatterbrained sometimes, you know?" He made a circling gesture with his finger near his head. "She just wants a backup of the files on this computer in case something ever happens so we don't lose everything."

That didn't sound not reasonable. Sorun couldn't imagine what kind of logistics the files on that computer held, but he knew that Sally and Nicole used it a lot. Seemed odd that she'd choose now of all times to make a backup of all those files- Sorun would have thought somebody as practical as her would have backed them up sooner. But maybe she backed them up regularly and this was just another scheduled backup. Sorun would assume it was something Nicole took care of, but then again she was out with Sally and Sonic was here. And everybody trusted Sonic.

Sounded legitimate to him.

"Alright," Sorun said with a shrug. "You need help with something? You look a little lost."

"Yeah, you know where the slot for the drive is on this thing is?" Sonic asked. "I can't find it anywhere."

"It's on the side of the keyboard there," Sorun said, and then pointed at the small, rectangular slot at the side of the keyboard installed onto the computer console.

Sonic smiled, and then held up the flash drive up as he turned around to slot it in. "Ha, great. Thanks. Been looking everywhere for this."

"Yeah, no prob-" Sorun's voice caught in his throat, and he narrowed his eyes considerably when he got a better look at the red etching put on the black flash drive.

He'd seen that symbol before. Back on that Egg Carrier when he, Sonic, and Tails had gotten that blue Emerald. It'd been stamped right on the side of the ship's hull. A red cartoon sketch of Eggman's face.

That didn't look right at all.

"Hey, Sonic, how come you're using the most evil-looking flash drive ever to get those files?" Sorun asked, the hands inside of his pockets suddenly clenching.

Sonic froze, and then slowly turned his head over his shoulder to look at Sorun. "It's just tech we salvage from the field," he said. "Lot more efficient to recycle parts already there than to make our own. Say what you will about Eggman, but his tech's top-notch."

Alright, that tore it for Sorun.

"Wow, that's probably the first time I've ever heard you compliment the man," Sorun commented. It really was, too. Sonic had a lot of things to say about the evil Doctor, and not once had Sorun ever heard any of those things be positive. A suspicion started growing in him. "I mean, last night alone when we were having those awful chili dogs you keep forcing on me for dinner you went on this whole tirade about how much you hate the guy."

"I can't hate a guy and compliment his stuff?"

Well, that was strike two and three right there. Two because they didn't have chili dogs for dinner the previous night and three because he didn't go on any sort of rant like that. Sorun was tempted to add a fourth strike just for the fact Sonic hadn't even reacted when he called chili dogs awful. He practically revered those things for some reason.

"Is this... not Sonic?" Sorun silently wondered. "Nah, that's... that's too crazy. Is it? This is Mobius." He blinked. "Ah, man, pretty much anything is fair game in this zone for how weird everything is."

But this was outlandish even by Mobian standards. Or was it, considering everything else? What was this compared to alien invasions and time-stopping talking hedgehogs? Was it actually him being paranoid or was he actually right here?

He didn't know. What he did know was that something wasn't right, but he couldn't well prove what. So he'd do the next best thing: be a bit active.

"You know, Sonic, you're not the greatest with computers," Sorun drawled as he moved his eyes from the flash drive to the computer. "You might screw something up. Why don't you just let me make those backups?"

The hand holding the flash drive protectively clenched around it. "Pretty sure Sally asked me to do it, Sorun," Sonic said with an icy edge to his tone.

Okay, second best thing, then: wait. "Theeeen... let's just wait for Sally," Sorun suggested. "She'll be back by, what, around nighttime? Maybe a bit sooner? What's gonna happen to that computer from now 'til then, really?"

Sonic rolled his eyes and turned to the computer. "Sorun, come on, I know what I'm doing," he claimed as he moved the drive towards the slot. "Don't you have anything better to do than come harass me about-"

The drive never made it to the slot, as a blue, spectral sword appeared right in front of the slot and blocked Sonic. The hedgehog sighed, and then turned around to Sorun.

"Just a few hours," he continued, eyes narrowed completely at Sonic. "What's the harm?"

"Sorun. Dispel it."

Sorun looked the the Summoned Sword, and then back to Sonic. "Nah, don't think I will," he said. "How about I just go get Tails?" he suggested. "Tails is better at computers than the both of us. He wouldn't even be bothered."

"No. Dispel the sword." He flashed the human a smile. "Come on. It's me. Don't you trust me?"

Making a "tsk" noise, the teen slowly shook his head. "Trust's a strong words. Bit stronger than what I would use." And that applied to the Freedom Fighters as a whole.

The two teens stared at each for what was possibly the longest possible minute, until eventually Sonic sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Alright, alright. I don't know what's got you so riled up, but we can wait. Fine." He raised his hands up in a surrender gesture, and in response the sword covering the slot shattered. "We'll wait for Sally. It's all good."

As he walked past Sorun, the human held a arm out to stop him. "Mind if I hold onto that drive?" he asked.

"A little, yeah," Sonic answered. When Sorun didn't lower the arm, he sighed and held the flash drive up. "But whatever, Sorun, fine. You can have it if you want it. I'll take it back later."

"Sure. Sure thing." Sorun snatched the drive out from Sonic's hand. The hedgehog didn't say anything more, and simply turned his back to Sorun and headed to the lab's door to leave. Sorun silently watched the hedgehog's spiked back as he left, humming and rolling the drive in his hand.

"Alright, where's Tails?"


Of course the first place Sorun went to look for the fox was in the most obvious place that first came to mind: on the airstrip, near the hangar working on his plane. He did find the plane, but there was no two-tailed fox in sight of it.

It seemed kind of odd to Sorun considering the young fox spent so much time around that plane.

"He's not here?" Sorun muttered under his breath. "Where else would he be? Ah, don't tell me he's at home. I don't know where his house is."

"Hey, Sorun."

The teen jumped, and then spun around. He let out a relaxed sigh when he saw it was just Tails who had seemingly inadvertently snuck up behind him.

"Ah, Tails. Scared me there," Sorun greeted.

"Heh. Sorry about that. So what's up?"

"Nothing much. You seen Sonic lately?" he asked.

Tails nodded. "About half an hour ago, yeah. Why?"

"He act, I dunno... kinda weird to you?" Sorun asked. "'Cause I just ran into him messing with the computer at HQ because Sally asked him to make some backups of the files on there."

"Yeah, she does that sometimes," Tails informed him. "Sonic didn't act so out of the way to me. He asked me for the computer's password, but that was it. I figured it was for something like that."

Sorun cocked his head to the side. "Wouldn't the password to the computer be something Sonic would already know?" He hoped Sonic would know the password. With something so important like that computer he would think that everybody in the Freedom Fighters would know the computer's password in case anybody needed to ever access it for whatever reason.

Then again, Sorun didn't know what the password was, so what did he know?

"Well, you know Sonic. Him and computers- egh. Doesn't really surprise me the password slipped his mind," Tails explained. "What did he do that was so weird?"

"He tried slotting this into the computer." Sorun held up the flash drive to Tails' eyes. "I saw the Eggman logo on the side and figured, you know, maybe we shouldn't slot something from the evil technology man into the computer. He said he was just using it because you all liked recycling tech, but-"

"That's not true at all!" Tails exclaimed, eyes widening in shock. "Sure, we'll scrap things for parts if we ever need them, but we never take anything intact past parts! You can't trust anything Eggman makes, brilliant pieces of work that they are aside."

Sorun rose an eyebrow at that last comment, but waved it off and instead handed the fox the small drive. "Well, could you take a look at it?" he requested. "I dunno, something about it seems off. Might be the fact Eggman's face is on the thing, but the way Sonic was acting with it just didn't seem right."

Because he didn't know if it really was Sonic, or some weird... Sonic impostor. Or Sonic being mind controlled by an evil flash drive or something. Hell, for all he knew the hedgehog was just having an off day and he was just being too paranoid. But something about the way he acted and the Eggman logo on that flash drive set off too many warning flags in Sorun's mind to ignore. And what was he supposed to expect from this wacky world? He needed a second opinion on this.

Tails blinked, and then blankly looked down at the flash drive that had been handed to him, almost as if he was in disbelief. He slowly closed his fist around it and let out a small chuckle before looking back to Sorun. "Sure thing! I'll go to the lab right now and go take a look. I'll get back to you when I'm done."

"Awesome, great." Sorun waved Tails away as the fox walked off towards the HQ. "That Tails. Such a dependable guy. It's almost enough to make me forget he's the one that grabbed me and pulled me through that portal." He wistfully sighed. "Almost."

He didn't know what the deal with that flash drive was, or what Sonic had to do with it or why he'd been acting so off, but maybe Tails could coax some answers out of it for him. He was good with technology after all. Way more than Sorun at least. He'd just break it if he tried. Tails, though? Kid was a genius.

"Well, now what to do?" Sorun thought as he interlocked his fingers behind his head. "Could try talking to Sonic about the lab thing. Nah, probably not the best idea. I'll wait for Sally to get her input on it. Yeah. That works. But what am I supposed to do until then?"

Skrrt!

The sound of something grinding to a halt right behind Sorun caused him to wince at the harsh sound, and he immediately turned around to see just what that noise was. But any annoyance he had was completely placated when he saw it was Shadow who stopped right behind him.

The angry scowl he had on his face was scaring Sorun.

"This is the last time I do a personal favor for you, Sorun," he said in an angry tone. "She didn't even have any clothes for me to deliver to you."

"... Huh? What favor?" He didn't remember asking Shadow a favor. He would have remembered digging up the courage to do such a thing. It would have been a memorable moment.

"You asked me to go to the owner of that clothing shop for your laundry." Shadow shuddered- actually shuddered- after saying that, and Sorun felt all his misgivings for Honey justified. "If I ever have to deal with that fiend again it'll be too soon. She tried measuring me."

"Yeah, she does that," Sorun attested, "but I never asked you to get my laundry."

Shadow paused, and a slow breath left his nose. "What?"

"Dude, I do my own laundry. And by that I mean Sonic's mom does my laundry," Sorun explained. "I only ever go to Honey when she sets up my next outfit because I made the mistake of making this weird sponsorship deal with her for clothes. Or sometimes she finds me. She does what she wants, really."

"Then why did you come to me half an hour ago and ask me to pick up your laundry from Honey because you were too busy doing something important with the Faker?" he demanded.

"Because I... didn't?" Sorun tried. "This is the first conversation I've had with you all day."

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "I thought all the injuries you sustained from last week healed. Don't tell me there was lasting brain damage affecting your memory."

Sorun opened his mouth to respond, closed it because that remark actually stung Sorun a bit, and then opened it again. "Hey, man, come on, I don't have brain damage."

"Hmph." In response, Shadow crossed his arms. "I'm finding that more and more difficult to believe." He glanced behind Sorun. "Let's just ask him what was so important you sent me on such a pointless errand."

"I don't know where you're going with this," Sorun said as he began turning around, "but I'm telling you, I didn't-"

Sonic was behind him. He seemed very puzzled and was flashing his eyes back and forth between Sorun and Shadow, but he was there. And for some reason Tails was next to him and was as equally confused as the hedgehog next to him.

That didn't seem right.

"Hey, what's going on?" Sonic asked before Sorun could get a chance to open his mouth. "Shadow, we saw you running over here. What was so important that you needed us?"

Now it was Shadow's turn to look confused, and he showed it when he regarded Sonic with furrowed features. "Excuse me?"

Tails stepped forwards. "You walked up to me about ten minutes ago while I was working on the plane and asked me to get Sonic. You said you needed to talk to us about something," he explained.

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, so what was so important you decided you needed to talk to us?"

"I never did such a thing," Shadow denied as he shook his head. "I wasn't even anywhere near Tails ten minutes ago. I was occupied dodging a deranged cat with a tape measure."

"I don't know if you noticed, Shadow, but there ain't a lot of other black hedgehogs with red stripes running around," Sonic said, "so unless you're saying Tails is colorblind or something-"

"Faker, I am telling you-!"

Any further words between the two was drowned out as the conversation devolved into a conversation unintelligible by the two bystanders idly watching them. Sorun was watching the display with a nervous look on his face while Tails looked almost bored at the heated interaction between the two hedgehogs.

"They always like this?" Sorun asked Tails.

With a sigh, Tails nodded. "They have a really competitive history," he informed him. "They never let it affect their work, but it really does feel like they spend all their time together trying to one-up each other."

"Ah." So it was one of those rivalries. Sorun supposed he could relate- he had a somewhat similar rivalry with David concerning video games. It rarely turned into yelling like this, though. "Hey, what happened with that flash drive?" Sorun asked as the thought suddenly hit him. "Did you already examine it? Because man, you work fast."

One of Tails' ears twitched in confusion. "What flash drive?"

"... 'What flash drive?'" Sorun repeated in his head. "What does... that wasn't even five minutes ago I gave him... wait, if Tails was with Sonic looking for Shadow," he thought as he looked towards the arguing pair, "and Shadow's saying he saw me when I know I didn't see- ohhhhhh I see what's going- oh, goddammit- OH SHIT THE DRIVE!"

Dammit, it all made sense. He'd seen it in so many cartoons and comics that he couldn't believe he didn't see it sooner. That weird interaction he had with Sonic twice this morning, the weird way Sonic was acting, the weird way Tails talked about Eggman and acted around the drive, the sheer confusion everybody was displaying... the only possible explanation that correlated with all these events was if something was going around pretending to be everybody.

A shapeshifter. Or something that could mimic people. A shapeshifter that was trying to access the HQ computer. Probably sent by Eggman if his logo being on the drive meant anything.

And Sorun had taken its flash drive away only to give it back twenty minutes later.

"Damn, I got played." An irritated sigh left him as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright, guys! Shut up, I know what the problem is!" The arguing between the two ceased, and the two hedgehog's snapped their heads towards him while Tails continued to stare at the human with a tilted head. "We... might have a shapeshifter problem."

"A shapeshifter?" Sonic repeated. "Ha!" He barked out a single laugh. "Sorun, come on, isn't that kind of... a stretch..." He slowed down as the realization hit. "Oh wait, yeah, that actually makes sense. Uh-oh."

The revelation came to Tails and Shadow at relatively the same time, with the former growing a worried expression while the latter's face tightened to nearly a vicious glower. "Sorun. Explain," he ordered as he turned towards the human, the other two doing the same.

"Okay, look, I saw Sonic this morning. Twice. Around twenty-five minutes ago." Sorun glanced to Sonic. "You said hi to me twice."

Sonic shook his head. "I said hi once. You were on the couch!" His jaw dropped. "Oh, man, I think it really is a shapeshifter."

"And then," Sorun continued, "I saw Sonic go into the lab. I followed him, and I saw him messing with the HQ's computer." He didn't like the pit that formed in his stomach when he saw all three Mobians stiffen. "I asked what he was doing, and he said that Sally asked him to backup all the files on the computer."

"No, that isn't right," Tails said. "Nicole always handles that side of things. She wouldn't have asked Sonic." He sheepishly glanced away from Sonic. "And honestly, that's probably for the best."

A beat passed, and Sonic glanced towards Tails. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

"Focus," Shadow snapped. "Sorun, what then?"

"I noticed that the flash drive he was trying to use had Eggman's logo on it. I got really suspicious afterwards when he said straight-up incorrect things," Sorun said. "I didn't let him put the drive in and took it away, convinced him to wait for Sally so we could straighten this out."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sonic slump his shoulders in relief. "Oh, that's good," he breathed. "You still have the drive, right?"

Sorun grimaced. "I... did until I gave it to Tails to examine..." he trailed off as he looked down at the very captivating dirt ground.

He heard Tails gasp besides him, and he could almost feel the rage roil off of Shadow. "You gave it back the flash drive!?" Shadow yelled.

"Hey, you can't say squat!" Sorun countered as he rose his head back up. "I'm the only one that even noticed there's a shapeshifter in the first place!"

The dark hedgehog didn't have a response to this, and if anything Sorun statement just made him angrier as he turned his own eyes down to the ground.

"That isn't good," he heard Tails mumble. "That computer has everything on it, guys. Our data files, notes, some of our plans and strategies, Rotor and I keep some our project files in there... if Eggman gets that-!"

"Bad, yeah, we get it," Sorun finished.

Really bad, actually. Cripplingly bad by the way everybody looked so grim. One of the things Sally kept drilling into him in those strategy lessons of hers was how the information war was just as important as the actual war, if not more so. He didn't know exactly how significant the files on that computer, but if it was so bad everybody was reacting like this, then it probably meant that Eggman getting them would be disastrous. Fatally so.

Game over if he got the files, then.

"That flash drive likely has a program Eggman wrote to steal all the files from the computer," the fox continued. "Could be a worm program, or... I dunno, I'd have to look at it, but we can't let that shapeshifting... whatever it is get those files back to him if it really is from Eggman!"

"Well isn't that computer encrypted or something?" Sorun questioned. "You can't tell me you guys have something so important without some means of defense."

"Yeah, Nicole triple-encrypts the computer constantly," Tails supplied, "but if that flash drive really does have a program written by Eggman, at best those encryptions will slow the drive down when it tries to access the computer. Unless..." Suddenly, the fox's face fell. "Oh, I was wondering why you wanted the computer's password so bad, Sorun..."

Ah, he never asked for such a thing! "Okay, we gotta get to the HQ," Sorun decided. "Faster the better, we might still have time-"

Before he could even finish Sonic and Shadow shot off towards the HQ in blurs of their respective colors. Sorun's mouth hung open as his eyes trailed after the blurs, and then he sighed and looked back to Tails.

"Hey Tails, can you carry me back? I-I'm not fast like them."


Tails couldn't fly nearly as fast as those hedgehogs could run, but even still the speed he could fly in was such a higher magnitude of speed compared to how fast Sorun could run at his best that it may as well have been the same difference between fire and water. It was fast enough that when they got to the HQ they just caught Sonic and Shadow heading in, which alone was a good enough indicator of how fast he could fly. And that was while carrying Sorun in his arms.

Sorun was pretty sure he had whiplash by the time the fox set him down on the ground. The panic of a shapeshifter breaking into the computer managed to keep his mind off it for the most part.

Surprisingly, they managed to reach the lab entrance just as Sonic and Shadowed entered. Everybody's eyes locked right onto the computer, and then widened when they saw the figure standing in front of it. Sorun's eyes probably widened the most, though, seeing as he was watching himself mess with the computer.

It was definitely him, too. Same height, same skin, same hair, and even though his back was turned to him Sorun could recognize he even had on the same clothes that Sorun did. The most alarming of all was that he was removing that Eggman flash drive from the computer.

"Thing jacked my face," Sorun angrily thought as four Summoned Swords appeared at his sides. He was halted from firing them, however, when he felt Shadow roughly shake his shoulder.

"Don't. You might miss and hit the computer," he whispered.

Sorun scoffed, but he relented and made the swords shatter. At the same time, the Sorun lookalike turned around as it made to make it out of the lab.

He, or it, froze when the he and-or it saw the four of them standing between whatever it was and the exit. The only sound that could be heard besides their own breathing was the low buzz of some of the machines around them, and the fake Sorun standing in front of them remained completely still as they all glared at him. And then he pointed an accusing finger at the true Sorun.

"... Wow, guys, you caught the impostor!" The real Sorun felt his own jaw drop when he heard the shapeshifter say that in his own voice. He was actually trying to fool them all again. "I noticed something was off with Sonic this morning when he-"

"Dude, you're not fooling anybody," Sorun interrupted. "Give us the drive."

Not-Sorun rolled his eyes. "What, so you can come back later and steal the files yourself with it? Fat chance of that." He looked towards the three Mobians around Sorun. "Guys, he's playing you all for fools. It's a mind game. He intentionally told you about himself to give himself credit so when you ran into me it makes it look like I'm the-"

With his tolerance for this nonsense reaching its absolute limit, Sorun re-summoned the Summoned Swords to his sides. "Hey, if you can make these, too, then we can play this game. How about that?"

Not-Sorun blinked in surprise. The other three Mobians continued to glare in hostility at him, and he shrugged. "Well, worth a try."

He then proceeded to melt.

It was a quick process. So quick and so unexpected that all four of them had reeled back in shock as the fake Sorun's skin and clothes dissolved almost instantly into a silvery, liquid substance that disappeared and receded into the body under all of it. And that body? A robot. A robot that was practically a stick-like skeleton with silvery limbs and a torso that was little more then a flexible tube, and a spherical head with two red lights for eyes and a circular speaker for a mouth. It rose up its flexible, needle-like fingers that was holding the flash drive, looked at the four, and then went and actually screeched at them in a horrible, metallic-sounding scream.

The scream had been loud enough that the three Mobians and sole human were forced to cover their ears, and in that one moment the machine looked up towards the leftmost wall, where there was a small grate near the ceiling. The shapeshifting robot jumped right towards the vent, clinging to the wall with its free hand while one of its legs reached up in a grotesque display of flexibility in order to rip the grate off with its foot. Shadow, who had been the first to recover from the stunning screech, shook his head clear and attempted to form a Chaos Spear, but by the time the weapon fully formed the robot had crawled out into the vent.

"It's gone," he growled as the Chaos Spear disappeared from his hand.

Groaning while rubbing a finger in his ear, Sorun stared out at the vent the robot had crawled through. "Yeah, we're not going after it through there," he said. The vent was too small for any of them to fit through. For an incredibly skinny robot like that monstrosity had been, though, apparently it was the perfect size. "Why do you guys even have ventilation down here?"

"It's to help cool all the electronic equipment off so it doesn't overheat," Tails groaned as he removed his hands from his ears. "Those vents lead outside. That's probably where that Badnik's going."

"Then we need to go right now." Without missing a beat, Shadow turned around and began stomping towards the exit. "If it makes it to Knothole, we'll never catch it."

Sorun twisted his head to Shadow. "What makes you think it's going there?"

"What would be easier for it? To try and hide in the woods where we would find it or to hide in the densely populated area full of people in can blend in with until it finds an opportunity to escape?"

"Oh, man, he's right." The other three didn't even hesitate before they began following the black and red hedgehog out. "How many people are in Knothole? We'll never be able to find that thing if it shapeshifts in the middle of all those people."

That was if it reached Knothole. And then who knows what would happen once it got away with the drive. Sorun could imagine the possibilities, but he didn't want to.

The four burst out of the HQ's door, looking around in the surrounding woods wildly for any sign of anybody. No such luck. They'd even gone as far as to follow Tails towards the vent that lead into the HQ's lab, but to their dismay when they arrived the grate was already removed. The robot was already headed towards Knothole.

"Alright, here's an idea," Sonic announced. "Me an' Shadow can go all the way to Knothole and work backwards. Sorun and Tails can work towards Knothole, and hopefully we'll manage to corner this thing somewhere along the way."

"Our enemy is a machine capable of shapeshifting into any one of us, and you wish to split us up," Shadow countered with a deadpan stare.

"Hey, we're all smart enough to tell who's who now that we know what the deal is," Sonic countered. "Besides, it can't copy abilities since it couldn't make Sorun's swords. We can figure it out easy if it tries tricking us."

"I, for one, agree with Sonic's plan and would like to quit arguing about it before it gets away!" Sorun angrily hissed at the two.

"Fine, fine!" The jets beneath Shadow's sneakers flared up. "Let's go already!"

Once more, the two hedgehogs took off in straight blurs towards Knothole. Sorun breathed out a sigh, and then looked towards a nervous Tails. "Alright, how do you wanna play this?" he asked.

"I'm thinking we both go towards Knothole, and that you should take the left side of the forest and I'll take the right," he said. "Should we make a code phrase or something so we know we are who we say we are in case we run into each other?"

"That is... a very smart and practical thing we probably should have thought of before Sonic and Shadow took off, yeah." Sorun would blame the high amount of stress the situation was putting on him for disrupting his thinking. "Okay, sure, we'll do... I dunno, apples to pineapples, there."

Tails opened his mouth, and then notched his head backwards in bewilderment at Sorun's suggestion. "Apples and pineapples? Seriously?"

"I couldn't think of- Tails, no time!" Sorun yelled, partly in embarrassment.

The fox quickly nodded, and then spun his tails up before lifting up into the air and taking off into the forest. Sorun ran three steps behind him, and then slowed to a halt when Tails' body quickly disappeared past all the brush.

"Yeah, I... still can't move that fast," the human mumbled to himself. He shook his head with a sigh, and then moved to a different part of the forest to search. "Run it off, Sorun, run it off..."


So obviously, forests were pretty large in terms of surface area to search. More than that, it was full of so many trees, bushes, rocks, and all sorts of other things to hide behind that it would take too long for Sorun to search behind every single nook and cranny.

If it was just him searching, it'd be next to impossible, especially at his speed. Tails searching on the other end of the forest improved those odds a decent bit, and with how fast Shadow and Sonic was, well, a decent chance turned into a chance high enough to be feasibly possible. It still wasn't a high enough chance that Sorun was comfortable with the odds, but they had so little time to even think of anything that Sorun wasn't complaining.

Besides, it was Sonic's plan, anyways, so if it did fail the blame could at least be shifted to him. But considering the plan failing meant their imminent doom if the files got out Sorun would still try his best to see this through. Even if he doubted his best was gonna cut it here.

"Ergh... this thing could be anywhere," Sorun thought to himself after checking behind a large rock, and then poking his head up to scan the trees all around him. "Don't even know if it's limited to turning into people or if it can turn into rocks or junk, too. Why'd Eggman even send a shapeshifting... no, the guy's insane. Sounds like something he'd do, actually. Guy uses robots, so why not send a robot to infiltrate us? Makes it easier since it's only the... four of us here and... everybody else is out because of the increase in Badniks. That he commands. Huh."

He didn't want to think that this was all some elaborate plan orchestrated by Eggman just to get the files on that computer, but it sounded crazy enough to be something he thought of, and if what he said that night meant anything, he was practically bored with the Freedom Fighters at this point. The more he thought about it the more it made sense he'd try something wacky like this just for the heck of it. Sorun could understand it; he'd done plenty of pointless things out of boredom in games he'd power leveled in until he was practically invincible.

Sorun reflexively scrunched his face when he realized he understood the madness behind what may have been a madman's evil scheme.

Well, whether this really was a convoluted scheme or not didn't really matter. What mattered was finding that damn shapeshifter.

He tensed up when he heard footsteps crunch down on some nearby leaves. Slowly flexing his hand to grab a Summoned Sword at a moment's notice, Sorun slowly moved around the rock towards the source of the noise. He took a deep breath, and then yelled out as he jumped out from the rock.

Tails, who had been the one behind the rock, jumped out and did the exact same thing. They both blinked owlishly at each other, and before anything else Tails pointed at him and yelled out, "Apples!"

Sighing, Sorun slumped his shoulders. He should have picked something better than the first thing that came to mind. "Man, are you serio- god, pineapples," he grumbled, and Tails' form relaxed. "So nothing at your end?" Sorun guessed.

"No," Tails admitted with a frustrated huff. "This thing is pretty crafty for a Badnik. I keep wondering how it's even able to shapeshift like that."

Sorun shrugged. "Eh, I've seen it before. It's a robotic endoskeleton covered in a polymimetic alloy or something similar that can change shape. The actual robot's probably so thin so the alloy can change into a lot of different builds for who it mimics."

A beat passed between the two of them, and Tails faced Sorun with an expression mixed between looking impressed and looking suspicious. "That's... an awfully specific thing for you to know, Sorun," he said with narrowed eyes. "Where'd you hear of something like that?"

"... Terminator Three?"

"..."

"I-it's a movie from where I'm from." Sorun rose his hands up when Tails continued staring. "Man, c'mon, I already said the code word! I got it from a movie, I swear!"

Tails scrutinized him for a few more seconds, and then softened his features while letting out a defeated sigh. "Sorry, Sorun, I'm just making sure," he apologized. "It will be really bad if that Badnik gets away with those files."

"Yeah, I know, but it's not gonna come to that." Probably not his best choice of words. Sorun didn't believe it himself, and from the withering look Tails gave him he didn't even sound all that convincing. "Look, maybe Sonic or Shadow-"

Boom!

Both of them reflexively ducked down when they heard the loud explosion in the distance, though Sorun's ears perked up at the peculiar sound of that explosion. That explosion with the slightly static-y sound effect following it and the strange warble the initial decibels of the explosion carried. It was the same sound Shadow's Chaos Spears made.

"That must be Shadow!" Tails had formed the same thought Sorun had, and before the human could even speak he lifted off with his tails, grabbing Sorun's arms in order to carry him off as well. A few seconds later and Tails had flown the both of them into a small clearing of forest, where they saw Shadow kneeling down on the ground.

Tails, upon seeing Shadow, immediately let Sorun go and let him fall to the ground while to fox hovered over to Shadow. Sorun landed with a small grunt, and walked over in the same direction while waving to get Shadow's attention.

"Shadow!" Tails touched down on the ground and bounded towards the hedgehog. "We heard that explosion! Are you okay?"

"Fine," he grunted, and then stood up. "That thing put up a hardier resistance than expected. It ran off before I could destroy it, but I don't know in which direction."

Tails groaned and rubbed at his forehead, while Sorun blinked blankly at Shadow. "Hey, Shadow, quick check make a Chaos Spear," he said.

Worryingly, Shadow paused, which caused Sorun to back up a step and for Tails to snap his eyes up at Shadow. The hedgehog looked between the human and the fox, and then backed up a step. "That last attack was more exhaustive than-"

Sorun narrowed his eyes. He knew for a fact Shadow didn't get tired after throwing a single spear. "It's the fake, get him!" he shouted.

Right as he said this, Shadow made a snarling face as his right arm shifted and dissolved into the same, silvery material they'd seen on the robot before. Tails was the first to react and leapt right at the shapeshifter, who hissed and waved his half-liquid arm in front of him. The arm made contact with Tails, who rolled down onto the ground from the strike.

"Ah, what the- ah!" Some of the silver material had scraped off from the arm when it made contact with Tails, and to Sorun's shock he saw the small amount of silver liquid flow around Tails' arms and legs and bind them together. "I can't move!" he cried out.

At hearing a metallic, distorted growl in front of him, Sorun looked up from the bound fox and to the Shadow lookalike, which was glaring at Sorun before it lashed its arm out again. Some of the silver fluid was flung off the limb and flew towards the teen, who yelped and held his arm up just as four Summoned Swords crossed their blades protectively in front of him. The silver fluid hit the swords, and after they shattered it fell harmlessly to the ground. Unfortunately, when Sorun looked up he saw that the shapeshifter had used the momentary distraction to flee further into the woods.

"Sorun, go after it!" Tails yelled as the young fox continued to struggle against the silver bindings.

The teen's eyes flashed towards Tails. "But you-!"

"I'll be fine, just go!"

For a single second he'd hesitated, but then he nodded at Tails before turning in the direction the shapeshifter had fled in and bolted right after it.

It was a great thing it couldn't copy abilities, because if it could go even close to Sonic's speed Sorun wouldn't have a chance at catching up with it. But, while it wasn't nearly fast enough that Sorun lost sight of it completely, it was still a rather nimble robot that couldn't become exhausted. And Sorun wasn't the best runner around. He wasn't losing the robot as he chased it past all the trees, but he wasn't gaining on it, either. And unlike it he would eventually tire out, though he didn't know if that would happen before it even reached Knothole. Then he really would lose it.

Fortunately, out of the corner of Sorun's eyes he saw a blue blur zipping past all the trees and heading straight for the half-formed Shadow. It ran right into the running robot as it neared a hill, where they began to roll down after Sonic had collided with it. Sorun cursed under his breath once the two rolled out of sight, and then ran straight for the hill. Shortly enough he'd made it to the top of the hill, looked down, and then lowered his body slightly as he carefully shuffled down the steep slope before finally making it to the bottom.

Huffing out a tired breath, Sorun looked forwards where his eyes caught a large amount of movement. There were two form wrestling with each other on the ground, and Sorun approached the two with the intent to help Sonic deal with the shapeshifter. However, his feet slid to a halt on the ground when his eyes fully registered the scene playing out before him.

"Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me..."

Sonic was grappling against Sonic. Two hedgehogs that were equally blue and whose features, shoes, and gloves were completely identical were grappling and pressing against one another as they tried to overthrow the other. They had both briefly glanced towards Sorun, though the struggle they were part of drew most of their attention as they attempted to overpower their opponent.

"Sorun, get him already!" the Sonic on the left grunted. "Hurry up before he tries something and gets away!"

"What the- Sorun, he's the fake one!" the rightmost Sonic yelled out in exertion. "He's tricking you!"

A single Summoned Sword appeared at Sorun's side, though its tip was continually aiming back and forth between the left and right Sonic as Sorun, his expression completely unsure, only mumbled out a low "Um..." as his eyes kept snapping from one Sonic to the other.

"Come on, Sorun, don't listen to him! He's just trying to psych you out!"

"I'm not trying to psych anybody out! Sorun, I'm telling you, he's not the real me!"

"Oh come on, which one is it!?" Sorun's mind raced as he tried his best to discern which one was real and which one wasn't, but their details were too similar to tell apart. Even their voices sounded too alike for him to tell. "Gah, if I don't hurry he's gonna trap Sonic with that silver gunk and then he'll get away! But what do I... wait, maybe?" An idea came to him. "Can Sonic- of course he can, it should be fine!"

As Sorun thought this, the two hedgehogs pushed away from each other by a few inches. This caused Sorun's eyes to widen, and he and his Summoned Sword faced the left Sonic who immediately caught his staring.

"Wait, Sorun," he pointed to the other Sonic, "he-!"

The Summoned Sword sailed forwards and pierced right through Sonic's forehead.

The rightmost Sonic flinched in surprise, and then gawked in surprise at Sorun. Sorun, breathing heavily, kept his eyes locked on to the Sonic whose head he just stabbed as the blue hedgehog remained completely still, his eyes slowly rolling upwards. The stabbed Sonic just continued standing still while the other Sonic kept staring on in shock, and when nothing began happening Sorun started to dread that he'd just made a horrible mistake.

When he saw blue, electric sparks begin to arc out of the wound, Sorun heaved out a large sigh of relief.

After he shattered the sword, a black, oil-like substance began to freely flow from the wound in the Sonic lookalike's forehead. At the same time, his skin, fur, shoes, and gloves began to lose color, liquidate, and quickly slough lifelessly off the robotic endoskeleton underneath as the machine tipped backwards and fell right onto its back. Both Sonic and Sorun cautiously approached the fallen machine, though the both of them exhaled the breath they had been holding when they saw its red eyes were completely dark, the wound from the Summoned Sword still in its true head.

"Oh, man. That was too intense," Sonic breathed as he swiped a hand over his forehead. He looked down at the ground after, and then made a hum when he saw something sticking out of the silver puddle surrounding the dead machine. He bent down to pick it up, and then let out a "ah-ha!" when he straightened up and held the flash drive in front of him. "Great. He didn't stash it somewhere." Smiling, he turned his head towards Sorun, who was looking down at the robot in disbelief. "That was smooth work, Sorun!"

"Huh?" The human shook his disbelief away and looked up towards Sonic. "Er, yeah. We got him. Go team."

"You know it!" Laughing lightly, Sonic held flattened his free hand and held it towards Sorun for a high-five. After some heavy internal debate, Sorun sighed and weakly slapped the hand with his own to reciprocate the high-five. "Seriously, though, I didn't think you'd be able to figure it out that quickly! I'm really impressed!"

"Yeeeaah..." Sorun looked back down at the dead shapeshifter. "There aren't any more of these things, right?" he asked. "It's only the one?"

"Eh... I know Eggman's style. If I were a betting hog, I'd say it's only the one," Sonic answered. "Doing more than one would be too easy for him."

"Okay, then."

There was some rustling in the bushes near them, causing both teens to look towards the sound. They both grew tense, but then relaxed at the body of yellow and white fur that jumped out of the bushes.

"Sonic, Sorun!" Tails quickly ran towards them, but then slowed to a stop when he saw the wrecked machine laying behind them. "Oh, you... you guys took it out!" he exclaimed with a happy smile. "Did you get the drive!?"

"Yep!" As Sonic held up the drive to show the fox, Sorun felt a gust of wind blow past him as something running at high speeds stopped near him. He glanced behind him, and saw that Shadow was standing behind him and looking at the shapeshifter's corpse. "I managed to stop the Badnik, but when Sorun caught up it tried looking like me to trick him," Sonic explained. "And Sorun, oh man, Sorun saw right through it and took him out!"

When he felt the astonished look from Tails fall on him along with the surprised look from Shadow, Sorun chose to shyly step away from the group and give them all a quiet nod of confirmation as he continued to stare down at the Badnik's body.

"Oh, thank goodness. That's that, then. Phew!" The fox's two tails began spinning as he rose up into the air. "I'm gonna go back to the HQ and change the password on the computer for safety's sake. Gonna have to talk to Nicole about better security later, too. Could you carry that thing and the flash drive back to the lab, Sonic?" he asked. "I wanna take a look at them later."

Sonic gave Tails a thumbs up and walked over to the shapeshifter's body. "Sure thing, pal!" He crouched down, bent forwards, and then picked up the mechanical body before slinging it over his shoulder and standing up. "Oh, Sorun."

The silent teen was taken out of his musing and looked towards Sonic. The large smile on his face was hard to miss, but instead of saying anything the teen merely gave him a blink of acknowledgment.

"Great work. Seriously. We'll celebrate later on, my treat," Sonic said.

Once more Sorun just gave Sonic a silent gesture in the form of a small nod. He'd taken that as his cue to leave, and quickly disappeared with the robot corpse over his shoulder as he sprinted off. Tails wasn't that far behind him as he flew off in the same direction, leaving Sorun and Shadow alone in the clearing, the former of which went back to staring silently at the silver puddle made by the deceased robot while the latter quizzically stared at the human.

"So you really managed to take it down?" Shadow asked after a long moment of silence.

"Yeah, Summoned Sword to the head. Went down real easy." Which was a relief in of itself, seeing as a fear Sorun had was that they wouldn't have enough power to pierce robots. That along with the fact he'd actually managed to shoot the robot to begin with was leaving him in a stupefied state. "Where were you?"

"It restricted my movement in that silver substance it covered itself with," Shadow answered. "I was in the process of removing it, but suddenly it had lost all resistance and fell right off me. I assume that was in response to you disabling the shapeshifter."

"Mm. Probably."

Some more silence passed, and Sorun kept staring at the silver pile even as Shadow stepped next to him. "Out of curiosity," he began, "how did you discern which was the real Sonic and which was the fake?"

"... Huh?"

"How did you tell who was who?"

"Oh." Sorun glanced up at Shadow. "I didn't."

"... You didn't," Shadow repeated, followed by a deep breath that entered in through the hedgehog's nose. "Are you trying to tell me that you just randomly chose a Sonic and guessed right?"

That wasn't entirely true, but Sorun had gotten lucky and nailed the right one on the first try. Part of why he was so shocked it ended so fast, really. "Well I figured, you know, since Sonic is so fast he'd just dodge the sword if I shot at the real one. So then I'd just shoot the other one." He shrugged. "I managed to hit the shapeshifter first."

Shadow sharply exhaled, closed his eyes, and rubbed at his eyelids. "That was your plan?" he mumbled. "What if he hadn't dodged?"

Sorun sent him a flat look. "Dude. It's Sonic. He woulda dodged." It wasn't even unsound logic, either. Shadow dodged his Summoned Swords like they were nothing, so for somebody as fast as Sonic it shouldn't have even been an issue.

It didn't seem that Shadow was sharing the same way of thinking from the way his eyes opened to give Sorun an irritated look.

"Okay, so what if the shapeshifter had sufficient enough reflexes to dodge your Summoned Sword?" he challenged. "What were you going to do then?"

He didn't have an answer for that. "Okay, so I didn't think that far ahead," Sorun admitted. "I'm not good with plans, alright? Why are we even talking about this?" He gestured to the puddle of silver liquid. "Robot's dead, crisis averted."

"We're talking about this because you decided that the best solution for this problem, instead of waiting to see if the shapeshifter gave away any tells or testing to see which Sonic couldn't display the real one's abilities, was to simply shoot at them until you found the real one. The only reason you only had to shoot one sword was because you got lucky."

Rolling his eyes, Sorun fully turned to face Shadow and gave him an equally irritated look. "Oh, excuse me for putting a little logical faith into the abilities of my comrade. Isn't that what this whole team thing is about? Trusting each other's capabilities to get the job done?" he asked. "You're being so critical right now over nothing. It's done. It's over."

In truth, maybe he hadn't completely thought the plan through, but it was the heat of the moment and he thought he did pretty good all things considered. The results certainly spoke for themselves, and yes, maybe Sonic wouldn't have taken kindly to getting shot at if Sorun chose wrong, but he'd bet his life that he would have been able to dodge it.

But Shadow had a point now that he thought on it- Sorun didn't know if the shapeshifter could dodge. Evidently it couldn't, seeing as he hit it so easily, but he tried not to think of the grim what-ifs. What-ifs like what was he going to do if it did dodge. Though that was probably Shadow's point in that he didn't have a plan for that grim what-if. And that the shapeshifter probably would have gotten away because of that.

Sorun must have had some look of understanding in his eyes that Shadow saw, because the hedgehog's expression softened the slightest amount as he looked down at the silver puddle. "I'm not saying you didn't do good. You did, but you need to have more than one plan before you act in case it doesn't work out," he said.

"Yeah, I hear ya," Sorun mumbled, and looked down at the puddle with Shadow. "You know, it... both times I talked with it, it kept complimenting Eggman's creations. It was probably talking itself up since it was a Eggman creation, but he programmed it with emotions, so maybe I could have, I dunno, talked trash about Eggman's work and made it mad enough to slip up," he said. Probably a weak idea in hindsight, but it was something. And for he knew it probably would have worked, too.

Shadow hummed. "Maybe. It's hard to say with his creations how they'll ever react." He glanced at Sorun from the corner of his eyes. "But the idea has some merit at the very least. You should have thought of it long before you took a shot at one of the Sonics if you knew for that long, though."

"Hey, it still worked out."

"I know," Shadow agreed. "And I suppose there is some logic in assuming Sonic would have just dodged your sword. I would be severely disappointed in him if he didn't. But even if by some miracle you did hit him, I doubt your Summoned Swords could even harm him."

"... Hm?" Sorun rose an eyebrow, though kept his face down at the silver puddle. "What do you mean?"

Shadow scowled. "That hedgehog is... durable, for lack of a better term. Unnaturally so," he said. "I'm unsure of the exact details, however. You would have to ask him if you're interested."

Well, he'd been on somewhat of a happy turn about his accomplishment of being able to stab a robot to death, deep inside. But now that Sorun heard that he just felt mixed on the subject. More than that, it brought him back to the thoughts he'd had on Summoned Swords a week prior. About them being insufficient.

Those thoughts were quickly shoved to the backside of his mind; things like that didn't matter right now. What mattered was that they had won against the evil robot, and for what it was worth, at the end of the day, Sorun felt pretty good about that. So he didn't want to deal with any more negative thoughts for the rest of the day.

"Well, since the day is saved and everything," Sorun said while looking up, "you want to-"

Shadow had already left before he even started speaking.

"... Oh." Slumping his shoulders, Sorun glanced around at the forest around him, and then made the realization that he didn't recognize any of the surrounding woods. "Wait, which way is it back to town again...?"


A/N- So I realize in one of the other Sonic comics there actually is a shapeshifer (shape-shifter? Shape shifter? Everybody always spells it differently) character, and I know it might be a little weird for me to say I'll add in characters from other Sonic medias and immediately do this, but I didn't want to add a whole new character for a one-off chapter like this. So I just made a throwaway robot.