Recursion Error

Episode 16- It's just like my Japanese video games


"So you're telling me... you found another one." With a small grunt, Sorun hefted himself up onto the lab's table, slung a single arm over the one knee he'd propped up on the table, and regarded the chipmunk standing in front of him with a curious expression. "But we might not be able to get it."

Waking up and opening the front door to Sonic's house to find Sally standing on the other side mid-knock hadn't been one of the things he expected to wake up to, but considering everything else that had happened lately, it was a nice enough change of pace. What was so urgent that it required his attention, though, Sorun hadn't a clue. Sally had merely told him something important had come up and that he was needed at Freedom HQ.

So he followed Sally there, where he was lead into the lab and to the computer in the back. Some files and images were already pulled up on the screens, along with a host of other pieces of information Sorun had idly glanced over, and before Sorun could even ask what the deal was she'd explained the situation to him: they'd located another Chaos Emerald. A Chaos Emerald that was out of reach, in her words.

A great interest to him for more reasons than one, but he didn't like the part where she said it was out of reach.

"It's not that we can't get it," Sally reworded, "it's that acquiring it would be extremely difficult from our end."

Rubbing the still-present sleep from his eyes, Sorun stifled the yawn that threatened to come up and said, "Okay, Sally. Why don't you tell me what the problem is?"

A new voice spoke up. "The problem is that Eggman already got his grubby mitts on the beauty."

"Ah, yeah, I guess that would be a problem" Sorun admitted as he turned towards the third person in the room. He gave the white bat that sauntered next to the table a cursory glance before greeting her. "Hey, Rouge. You're the one that found it?"

"The Chaos sensors did, and I volunteered to go retrieve it," she said. "But by the time I got there, the Doctor's forces were swarming all over the place. No chance of stealing it out from under them. Guess he learned from the last time you and Sonic stole that one from him."

"Yeah, fun times." Sorun drummed his fingers over his knee. "So the Emerald?"

"Don't worry, I tracked it down. Wasn't that hard; I just snuck on one of his ships, though I had to bail out when I saw where they were taking that Emerald." She pointed to the monitors. "He took the Emerald there."

"'There' being one of Eggman's personal storage buildings," Sally finished off. "That's why getting in there and taking the Emerald would be risky."

Sorun looked towards the structure being displayed on the monitor. It didn't look like the kind of building he'd put things in if he were a mad tyrant. He'd spring for a warehouse, not what looked like a skyscraper from what the image was showing him.

"So why'd he stash the Emerald there of all places?" he asked. "Something special about the building?"

"Eggman's a man of very questionable taste," Rouge began. "The things he stores there aren't mundane objects like resources or spare parts. He has all the warehouses he could ever need in his fortified city for that. The things he keeps in that tower are personal."

Sorun rose an eyebrow at the bat. "Personal," he echoed.

"What can I say?" Rouge said with a shrug. "He's a man who takes gratuitous amounts of satisfaction from his conquers. The whole upper floor of that building is basically a trophy room dedicated to his most proudest moments by way of all sorts of memorabilia he's collected."

"It's storage for his junk," Sorun summarized. "Why in the world is he putting the Emerald in a trophy room? Wouldn't he want to actually use the thing? The shiny rock of literal infinite power?"

He heard a loud, annoyed sigh from Sally. "It's an ego thing with that maniac. Always is," she bemoaned. "If I were to guess, I'd say that he's so confident in his victory over us that he thinks that he doesn't even need the power of the Chaos Emeralds, so he's putting it somewhere where we can't get it while he can admire it."

"Well, he wouldn't be wrong, now, would he?" Sorun thought. And it made sense, in its own twisted logic. How many times in games had Sorun collected all the rarest things that game's world had to offer only to shove them inside of storage chests and never look at them again? Was it practical? No, not at all. But what mattered was that he had it and they were tucked away in a chest no game NPC would ever be able to go into. His and his alone to admire. From a distance, of course.

That's what that tower was in Sorun's eyes. A storage chest for rare loot Eggman would never use but wanted to own by virtue of having it.

"So what's so scary about this tower?" Sorun asked Rouge.

"I've been in there on a mission before, and even back then getting in and out was dicey. The topmost floor is clear, but literally every single floor below it? Nothing but traps and security layered on top of them with even more traps mixed in," Rouge answered. "And that's a hundred-floor tower we're talking about here. It's the most inefficient use of space in the world, too, but you know how extravagant Eggman can get."

Sorun hummed. "If you've already been in there, then what's stopping you from getting in again, getting the Emerald, and getting out?"

Rouge frowned. "That was months ago. Security's probably been beefed up tenfold since I was last there. For all I know he did some renovation and changed the layout, too." She sighed, and shook her head. "It's unknown territory, and that's dangerous."

"But we need that Emerald," Sorun said as he looked back at the monitors. "I need that Emerald."

The word "need" being subjective in this case. He'd only get use out of it if he could get the Emerald in side of his body extracted and go home after collecting all seven. He had absolutely no intention of touching this new Emerald for another power. But he was sure the Freedom Fighters could find some use for it in the meantime; at the very least more use than it just sitting in storage.

Getting it was better than doing nothing, he supposed.

"So what do you want to do?" Rouge asked him. "Go steal it?"

"... Sure, why not?"

His answered must have surprised both of the Mobians from the way they did a double-take on them. He merely shrugged at the action, and then added, "It's not gonna get any less dangerous the longer we wait, right? So what's stopping us from just going there and taking it now?"

He was even surprised at himself for being so proactive in this discussion, but he really needed that Emerald.

"You do realize that building is one of the most secure locations on the whole planet thanks to Eggman's defenses," Rouge reminded him.

"Oh, yeah?" Sorun turned towards the bat. "I thought you were this super-stealthy secret spy. Here I was thinking if anybody could break in there it'd be you, but hey, if you're saying it can't be done-"

"It can definitely be done." He could see a twinge of irritation appear in the bat's features, and she went as far as to cross her arms in indignation. "It just won't be easy. Question is how bad do we want that Emerald?"

Both Sorun and Sally gave her a deadpan expression. She sighed at the sight, closed her eyes, and shrugged.

"Alright, I guess I can't blame you. I want that gem just as bad as everybody else," she admitted, and then looked towards Sally. "Well? Am I going or not?"

A thoughtful look crossed Sally's face, and her eyes glanced to the side as she mulled over the question. "It's true that acquiring that Emerald would be beneficial for us, but I don't want to commit to a risky mission like that unless you're sure you could go in there and out with that Emerald."

"That's... a very tall order considering what we're talking about here," Rouge said. "If it were any, and I do mean any, other place on Mobius other than New Megaopolis itself, I'd say yeah, I could do it easy. You're talking to someone who could sneak up to Castle Acorn and steal the king's crown right off his head without noticing." The narrowed glare sent her way from the chipmunk wasn't lost on Rouge, who grinned. "But that place?" Her expression turned serious. "It's risky."

"Then you should bring a partner with you," Sally suggested.

"A partner?" A short laugh left Rouge as she shook her head. "I appreciate you're so worried about my health, really, I am, but who exactly among us in this ragtag little resistance is stealthy enough to keep up with me? Because unless you're suggesting I bring Espio in on this-"

"No, he's with some of the Chaotix out on a different mission," Sally interrupted. "Come to think of it, half of our forces are out right now and the other half are out of rotation at the moment." Her head tilted up as an idea came to her. "Unless... you'd be willing to bring me along?"

The bat blinked, and then cupped her chin in her hand in thought. "Well... I know you. I wouldn't be uncomfortable sneaking in there with you. And if you brought Nicole with you to deal with anything electronically challenging, then... yeah." She nodded her head. "We could make that work."

"I wanna go, too."

Well now they both were really looking at him in surprise. Like he'd suddenly grown a extra head and was addressing them both with each head. Their expressions weren't that much better, either. Sally looked unsure about Sorun's decision, whereas Rouge looked like she wanted to flat-out refuse Sorun.

"Sorun, no offense, but you're still pretty green when it comes to, well, anything," Rouge told him. "I don't know if this is the kind of thing you should be doing."

"Yeah, probably not." He wasn't gonna deny that logic. He could barely believe he was even suggesting such a thing, but that Emerald was too important to him in the event he could go home. "If this was for any other reason I'd agree with you and sit this out. But I'm not gonna sideline myself when there's a Chaos Emerald on the line here."

Placing her hands on her hips, the white bat frowned at the human. "We can handle this perfectly on our own, you know."

"I'm not saying you can't. I'm just saying bringing along some extra help wouldn't hurt you." Translation for he wanted to make sure they had the biggest chance of success possible in stealing the Emerald from Eggman.

"You'll slow us down."

A cough from Sally drew the two's attention. "Normally I'd agree with Rouge, Sorun, but... you did do well during that shapeshifter incident a few days back if what Sonic said is true. And I would assume you have been steadily getting better in sneaking with Espio's help."

That was highly debatable. He still couldn't hide from Espio for more than a couple minutes. He always managed to find him somehow. But Sally didn't have to know that.

"And Shadow did say he was confident in your ability to use those swords..."

If copying all his moves off of video game characters showed proficiency, then sure, he was a master with them.

"I suppose it wouldn't be the worst idea to bring you along for some extra protection," Sally finished off. "If you're really up to it?"

"I wouldn't say I'm up for it at all," Sorun told Sally, "but that Emerald's too important. So I'm going."

She nodded. "Alright then. I'll talk it over with some of the others, try and come up with some plan. We'll hit the place tonight."

"Tonight?" Sorun repeated. "Really? You don't want to take a day or two to plan this out?"

"We already have the location, and even if a lot has changed Rouge already has somewhat of an idea for what we'll encounter inside. We can't really get much better intel than that, and you weren't wrong when you said the sooner the better." Sally walked past the table Sorun sat on and made her way towards the lab's exit. "Do yourselves a favor and get some rest before we head out tonight. You're both gonna need it."

The door closed behind her, leaving the sole human and bat behind. They glanced at each other briefly before Rouge hummed and walked towards the same exit. "Hope you're ready for this, Sorun."

"Yeah," he murmured to himself as the spy left the lab, "I really hope so, too."


The actual target building itself was on the outskirts of New Megaopolis, a few miles out from the city's outermost limits. As planned, they'd been dropped off at the dead of night, right around midnight. From a hill cresting nearby the whole group was able to get a good look at just what they would be infiltrating.

Yeah, it was a tower.

Crouching down near the foot of the hill, Sorun was able to see just what the situation was. The building itself: giant, as to be expected from a hundred-floor tower. The compound surrounding it: equally large and full of constantly-patrolling robots with enough light fixtures set up everywhere that it may as well have been daytime down there. The outer perimeter: it was a giant, twenty-foot wall with large turrets at the top of each corner with giant searchlights constantly fanning the area in repeating patterns. And from what he could see, there was no actual entrance or gate past the wall. It was solid all the way around.

Yep, it was about as fortified as Rouge had warned them, if not more. Enough at least that Sorun was already having doubts over all this.

"Can't help but notice there isn't a way past the wall," Sorun noted. He craned his head behind him, where Rouge was standing nearby and examining the area with him. Sally was leaning on a nearby tree, and somewhere in one of her vest's pockets was Nicole.

"Everything that comes in and out of this place is airlifted," Rouge informed them. "There's a landing pad in the compound around the building near the front."

"How'd you even get in the first time around?"

She gave him a flat look, and the black, leathery wings on her back momentarily flitted. "I can fly."

"... I see." He looked back towards the tower. "Isn't this place kind of removed from his city?" he asked. "You'd expect that something like his own personal museum or whatever would be somewhere deep in the city. Or, you know, in the city at all to begin with."

"I think he likes flaunting the fact that all his private things are in a building out in the sticks and we still can't touch it," Rouge said. "Makes him feel powerful."

Sorun rolled his eyes. "Everything with this guy, I swear..."

"So how are we getting in?" Sally voiced from behind them. "I'm assuming the front door's out."

"Ha! That's one way to put it." Rouge stepped to Sorun's side at the edge of the hill and pointed towards the tower. "He's got so many Badniks patrolling the compound that finding blind spots to sneak through to the front door is practically impossible. Front door itself would have so much security that it'd be too much to bother with."

"Garage?" Sally suggested.

"Mm, last time I was here the garage doors were ID-locked to identity chips installed in Eggman vehicles specifically assigned to this location. We could go and steal one, but a vehicle deviating from its usual route would raise an alert. Even if we hitched a ride on one going to the garage, I got no idea what'd be in there. Too risky."

"Windows?"

"Alarmed with pressure sensors, all of them." She glanced down at Sorun. "You wanna take a guess?"

What would Sorun do if this was a stealth mission in a video game? The classic, tried-and-true method was already thrown out the window: he couldn't mark targets on a minimap and slowly but methodically stealth kill all the robots until the area was clear so they could sneak in. Rouge implied that the routine patrols here were too strict; so much as a single Badnik out of place was gonna raise alarms, and Sally had been very clear on the ride over here that any alarms before they even got into the building called for a retreat.

So they were ghosting it, then- completing the mission without touching a single combatant or letting a single combatant even release they were there. Any entrances with any guards weren't ideal. Windows were out. What would he do if this was a stealth game and all these factors were in place?

Probably sneak in through the back.

"There a backdoor or something?" Sorun guessed.

"As it happens, there is," Rouge said with a nod. "It's a maintenance access way for, shockingly enough, Badniks programmed to conduct maintenance on the building. Electronically locked twenty-four/seven, but I'm trusting Nicole can take care of that problem."

"And the wall?"

"We'll circle around towards the back where the door is and go over it. I'm flying. Sally over there brought a grappling gun. Don't know what your plan is."

Sorun froze, and then glanced back at Sally. "Hey, how come I didn't get a grappling gun?" he asked.

"Because we're in a spare parts deficit back at HQ," she answered, though she did cast a concerned look towards Sorun. "Do you have any way over the wall?"

He shrugged. "I'll just ladder my way up with Summoned Swords."

"Huh? Oh, no." Rouge crossed her arms in a "no way" gesture. "Those glowing things are too noticeable."

Blinking up at the bat, Sorun looked back towards the tower. "There any cameras on the wall?"

She shook her head. "No, but there are cameras monitoring the outside compound and interior of the tower."

"Any exterior patrols?"

"... No."

"Then we're good!" Sorun exclaimed while clapping his hands together silently. "It'll be fine, c'mon, let's go."

As difficult if not nigh-impossible as it was going to be sneaking around once they went over the wall, going around it from the outside proved to be almost laughably easy as literally all of the security was beyond the wall. The four of them had still been cautious, of course, and maintained a healthy distance while circling around the perimeter towards the back. It proved nerve-wracking for Sorun, though, who felt his own nervousness grow more and more the closer they approached towards the back. He idly wondered if Sally or Rouge felt the same tenseness he did, but whenever he glanced at their faces he saw nothing but stone-faced expressions with razor-focused eyes.

Girls were completely in the zone. Meanwhile he was doing his best not to drop down from all the pressure.

They finally reached the back, where Rouge pointed up towards a spot at the top of the wall near the center. She, of course, simply flew up. It was with passing interest that Sorun noticed that those wings of hers barely even flapped as she rose up in the air, and to him it looked more like she had just floated up and those wings were just for show. Sally, for her part, walked to the end of the wall with Sorun, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a gun-like object with a tri-pronged hook at the end. Classic grappling gun.

"You know, I could just carry you up. It'll support both our weight," Sally offered.

"Nah, it's fine." One loud bring! later and a ladder of blue, spectral swords appeared in front of them. "I got this."

"If you say so." She aimed the gun up, fired the hook at the top of the wall, and then tugged on the wire to ensure it was secure. And then she pressed a button on the grappling gun and was carried all the way to the top of the wall in seconds.

Sorun blinked up after her, and then sighed loudly as he began to slowly scale the sword ladder. "Why the hell didn't I just let her carry me?" he quietly grumbled to himself as he climbed.

Considering it took him two minutes to fully scale his way to the top of the wall, it wasn't nearly as an impressive climb as displayed by the other two, who took mere seconds to reach the top. He couldn't tell what their faces looked like since he did his best to avoid eye contact one he made it to the top while shattering the ladder behind him, though he did let out a low groan when he walked to the wall's edge and looked down at the twenty-foot drop.

He didn't want to climb the sword ladder again.

"Rouge," he said with slumped shoulders, "can you carry me down?"

"I dunno." The human teen could feel the smug grin being beamed at him from behind. "Usually I get a please for requests like that."

"Rouge, man, come on."

"Heh, kidding, kidding. Grab on."

Grumbling under his breath, Sorun hooked his arms around one of Rouge's arm as the bat lifted off again. She carried the black-haired human all the way to the bottom of the wall on the other side, while behind them Sally had rappelled down using the grappling gun. Once Sorun had removed himself from Rouge, the group of three plus one immediately took off towards a nearby metal crate with a large Eggman logo emblazoned on its side, where they crouched down for cover.

After the group crouched down, Rouge peaked her head over the side, with Sorun doing the same over the top of the crate. By some miracle, the building wasn't completely in the center of the square wall surrounding its perimeter. While the front was a giant compound of patrolling machines, the only thing separating the back of the building was a dirt road that stretched the entire rear side. And right dead ahead of them was the most average-looking metal door imaginable with an electronic lock bolted next to it.

A large, four-wheeled rover driven by an Egg Pawn passed by them. Rouge watched the rover drive off, counted to three, and then quickly nodded her head. "Okay, go," she whispered, and the three of them sprang out from behind the crate and ran towards the door.

The first to make a move was Sorun, who formed a Summoned Sword in his hand and used it to quickly pry off the outer casing of the electronic lock to expose the electronic internals. Next was Sally, who removed Nicole from her vest, pulled an extendable cord tipped with an electronic connector at the end from the computer, and plugged the connector in to an appropriate slot on the electronic box.

"Alright, Nicole. Think you can get it open?" Sally whispered down at the computer.

"It's a simple enough lock," the computer said back, "but I will need a moment. Please hold."

Tens of seconds passed with them standing motionlessly at the door, waiting for it to unlock. Sorun began to tap his foot anxiously on the ground while Rouge was keeping her eyes behind them and on the left side of the road.

"How long's this gonna take?" she quietly hissed. "They're gonna make another round any second now."

Click!

A small whirring sound followed by a small click drew everybody's attention. At the same time, Sorun reached over to the door and pressed down on its handle. It turned all the way without resistance, and the door swung wide open.

As this happened, however, another one of the rovers had rounded past the building's corner and was approaching them. Working quickly, Sally disconnected Nicole from the lock and stashed her back in her vest, while Sorun quickly propped the case back on the lock. Rouge held the door open for them, quickly waving at them to usher them in through the door. They quickly slipped past her, with the bat quickly but quietly closing the door right behind them.

Afterwards, the three of them had pressed their backs against the walls as they heard the rover approach them. The lights from its headlights briefly shown through the crack underneath the door, but it quickly faded once the rover drove past them. Sorun in particular let out a small breath once it left.

"Man, this is stressful," he thought as he looked forwards. The door hadn't lead them to anything special- just a narrow hallway. But in was in. "So this way?" he asked while pointing in towards the hallway.

Rouge began walking down the hall with a nod. "Yeah, this way leads to a small storage area that leads to another hallway that goes into the main lobby. We'll figure out what to do from there."

The walk through the corridor had been uneventful. The amount of light was so low that Sorun could barely see his hand in front of his face, so he had to trail behind right behind Sally just so he could follow the sounds of her footsteps. They reached another door, hacked this one open like the first, and slipped through to the door into the storage room Rouge had mentioned.

At the very least, this room had a light switch Sorun had managed to find after fumbling the wall for it. A series of light bulbs hanging on the ceiling lit up, causing Sorun to wince from the sudden influx of light. The room itself wasn't all that much. It looked more like a large broom closet full of pallets of various janitorial gear and spare electronic... things and some tools stacked everywhere. The good part was that the entrance way to the next hallway was right in front of them.

The bad part was that the entrance to the next hallway was littered with dozens of red lasers.

"Oh, that's not good," Rouge worryingly murmured as she stepped closer to examine the lasers. "Yeah, that's what I thought," she sighed before turning to the other two. "These are those special sensors Eggman loves to put all over his property. Anything organic that walks through them trips them. Works fine for robots of course, but, well..."

Sorun hummed, frowning at the lasers. He looked around the storage room in deep thought, but then something out of the corner of his vision caught his eye and he began to approach it.

"Can't we just plug Nicole in to deal with the lasers?" Sally asked as Sorun walked away from her. "Or just rewire the thing to turn them off?"

Rouge shook her head. "Circuitry's all behind the walls, and the lasers are embedded too deep in the architecture to get to them. No way to mess with them unless we somehow got to the central security center."

While they continued conversing, Sorun closed in on the object that had caught the human teen's attention. The object in question was cardboard box. It was full of spare rivets, bolts, and screws, but nonetheless it was a cardboard box. And that alone gave him an idea.

"Alright, then can we just slip past the sensors?"

"Princess, are you seeing how little space there is between those beams? Even you aren't that flexible."

"Well there's no other way-"

Sally was cut off when Sorun overturned the box of metal bits, causing them all to pour onto the floor in a chorus of metal clinks. The box thankfully emptied after a few seconds, with Sorun shaking it afterwards to dislodge any spare metal bits that hadn't fallen out. After the last bolt was freed from its cardboard confines, he looked back towards Rouge and Sally, who were staring over at him with perturbed expressions.

Undeterred by the looks they were sending him, he held the cardboard box up. "You two ready to see something stupidly simple?" he asked.

Upon their silent, blank looks, he rolled his eyes and carried the cardboard box over to the wall of lasers. Tentatively, he held out the box to the lasers, and though the box did interrupt the red lines, he didn't hear any alarms go off. He pulled the box back with a satisfied hum.

"Oh my- Sorun, do not tell me you're going to try and sneak past those inside of a cardboard box," he heard Rouge groan out from behind him.

"I won't say it, but I'm still gonna do it," Sorun said as he crouched down while holding the box over him. "Unless one of you two has a better idea of course."

"Sorun, maybe you should wait-" he heard Sally begin, but by then he'd already dropped the box over him.

The chipmunk's words died in her throat, and she stepped back with a sigh as she saw the box slowly slide forwards as Sorun pushed it from the inside. Rouge had a conflicted look on her face that was crossed between wanting to rush forwards and pull Sorun back and just running right now, perhaps in fear that he was about to trip the sensors, and Sally began to fidget as she feared the same.

But nothing happened as the box Sorun was crouching inside of passed the lasers. In fact, both of the Mobian's jaws dropped open entirely when Sorun's box made it all the way to the other side of the lasers. After crouch-walking a few steps past those lasers, Sorun stood back up to his feet while removing the box from him. He turned back to the two girls, a neutral but otherwise accomplished look on his face, and then set the cardboard box on the ground only to kick it past the lasers to the two.


"I still can't believe that dumb trick worked..."

"You shouldn't underestimate the power of the cardboard box, Rouge," Sorun admonished as the trio walked down the hallway following the laser trap. "The cardboard box is the ultimate tool for stealth infiltration. Light, compact, easy to hide inside. Nobody ever expects you to hide in a cardboard box. It's unassuming to the witless and at the same time too obvious to the witted. It's perfect."

He heard an exasperated sigh from the spy walking in front of him. "Sorun. It's a box. This isn't just coming from somebody both formally and informally trained in the art of stealth and espionage. This is coming from somebody coming with common sense, too. It's just a box."

"A box that got us past those lasers."

Rouge didn't bother to deign that with a response, but she didn't need to. Sorun knew he was right.

"Speaking of which, Sorun," he heard Sally from behind him begin to ask, "why are you still carrying it?"

Well, of course he wasn't just going to abandon the perfect stealth tool back in that supply room. Not with the stakes they were playing with right now. So Sorun was currently carrying the cardboard box in front of him with both of his hands. It may have been cumbersome, but in his eyes it was worth it.

"Because I'm not gonna abandon the cardboard box to that dingy storeroom," he told Sally while craning his neck back to look at her. "It's been too good to us. It doesn't deserve that kind of treatment."

He saw Sally squint her eyes in confusion. "I think you're putting too much stock into a normal box, Sorun."

"You wouldn't understand. You were only in that box for so long," Sorun huffed as he faced back forwards. "You should spend more time in the box, Sally. Then you'll understand the magic. The magic of the box."

"I... don't think I want to understand."

"Then forever remain ignorant of the box."

They continued walking forwards for around another minute until another female voice spoke out from inside of Sally's vest. "I thought that Sorun's idea of camouflaging your biological signatures with a cardboard box was rather intuitive," Nicole said.

"Ugh, finally. Thank you, Nicole." He knew that if anybody could appreciate the teachings of Solid Snake, it would be her. His one true gamer friend amidst the rest of these uncultured people. The only person that could think on his level and that could completely relate to him in matters such as these.

There were amused smirks and eye-rolls all around the group, but their expressions turned back to serious, focused looks once they reached the end of the hallway. One hacked doorway later, and they slipped through yet another door into what Rouge had described as the building's main lobby.

The lobby looked about as one would expect a lobby to look: large, open room with a reception desk in the center and with stairs leading up to a second level near the back. There were large, square, metal pillars lining each side of the room, too, all in front of doors under the floor of the upper level leading to more rooms. The human, two Mobians, and computer came out of one of those doors, and then immediately set to moving towards and taking cover by the nearest pillar.

Peaking his head out from behind the pillar, Sorun had to suppress a groan when he looked out into the lobby. Egg Pawns were roaming around the place. More than a dozen Egg Pawns painted a navy blue with large, almost comically oversized truncheons in their robotic hands patrolled the lobby, and that was just on the first floor. If he listened closely, he could hear the thud of even more robotic footsteps on the second level of the lobby above them.

"Well, here's our new problem," Rouge whispered to them as she peaked out from the other side of the pillar. "Pretty safe to say every single door in this building is going to be locked. Nicole can bypass them all for us, sure, but there's so many Egg Pawns patrolling down here that we're not gonna have a large enough window to stand next to a door without one seeing us."

"Taking them out still not an option?" Sally questioned.

"No, too risky. Might raise an alert if they don't check in or if something notices them off patrol," Rouge said with a shake of her head. She looked up towards the second level, and a small smile grew on her face. "You know, interesting thing about elevators. People almost never lock them. And it looks like when Eggman took over and retrofitted this building he never saw fit to. Look."

Both Sally and Sorun followed Rouge's gaze. Up on the second floor was a indentation in the wall that lead to a well-lit side room, with six elevator doors on each side of the wall in that room. Every so often an Egg Pawn would patrol past that room, but none would ever so much as step foot inside of it.

"You seriously want to take the elevators up?" Sorun incredulously asked as he turned to the white bat. "There isn't a less conspicuous way up? Like the stairs?"

"If you want to go up a hundred floors worth of stairs to the top-"

"So tell me about these elevators," Sorun quickly interrupted. "Why won't we get caught using them?"

"Think of it like your precious box," Rouge reasoned as she glanced her teal eyes at the box Sorun had set down next to him. "It's so obvious that nobody would ever think to use it. And the last time I was here Eggman didn't bother putting so much as a camera in those things. Elevators are completely clear."

Sorun raised his eyebrows. "But you don't know if he changed the elevator security."

Rouge sighed, and then looked back at the elevators. "Quick lesson on tactical espionage, Sorun. Sometimes you just don't have the intel you need, and sometimes you just don't have a better alternative but to take a chance. In this case both of those are true. So we take a chance on the elevators. A chance I feel very confident about because, trust me, they never think secure the elevators."

It wasn't the most faultless logic in the world, but he wasn't the master spy that could break into anything. And Nicole and Sally weren't giving them any better alternatives. Hell, it was a kind of logic Sorun had adopted playing stealth games, but he really didn't want to bring examples like that into this very real and life-threatening mission where he didn't have quicksave.

Alright, fine, elevators it was then.

"Any suggestions on how we're getting to those elevators?" Sally asked. "Those patrols are looking a little too dense for comfort."

"Well, there's no cameras," Rouge quietly noted as her eyes scanned the lobby. "We got that going for us. I can just wait for a break in the patrolling Badniks' sight and fly up to the ceiling, and then wait for an opportunity to get to the elevators."

Sally, for her part, looked up towards the lobby's ceiling. "There's a lot of scaffolding up there," she said. "I can grapple up there and just climb across, but I don't know if Sorun's agile enough to climb if I brought him with."

"Yeah, and there's no way you're gonna be able to use those swords. Too noticeable."

Valid points from both of them, as much as it hurt Sorun to silently admit. But while he may not have had something like wings or superhuman agility, he had the next best thing sitting right next to him: a cardboard box.

"You let me worry about that," he said as he patted the box next to him. "I'll just sneak over there in the box."

Rouge snapped her head back to the teen. "Sorun, no, that's stupid. Think of something else."

Affronted eyes turned towards Rouge. "Box'll work."

"It's not gonna-"

"Rouge, Jesus, they're robots, they're patrolling in set patterns. All I gotta do is look at the patterns, go forwards, wait when a robot gets near, and keep going when it leaves," Sorun argued.

"And if they look at the suspicious box that keeps moving around for some reason?"

"They're not gonna look at the box! It's a box!"

"That is exactly what I am saying-!"

"Would both of you quit it?" Sally harshly hissed, causing the both of them to quiet down. She looked to Sorun. "Do you really think you can do this?" she asked him, tone serious. "You know what happens if you get made?"

Sorun quietly gulped. Possibly overrun, taken prisoner. Or worse. Likely so much worse. Which was why he wouldn't be offering to do this if he wasn't confident. "I'm sure," he said with a nod.

She let a slow breath, and then turned to Rouge. "Let's trust him with this," Sally said. "Let him make it to the elevators first, then we'll go down and call one."

The look on Rouge's face made it seem like she had many reservations over the plan, but she finally gave the pair a stiff nod. "Alright, fine. Don't screw it up, Sorun."

Because that didn't add any pressure on him at all.

As they had planned, Rouge had examined the patrol routes and had flown up towards the ceiling when she saw a break in the sight lines. Sally, similarly, used her grappling gun to climb all the way to the scaffolding bolted to the ceiling, where she scampered across towards the end near the elevator in yet another example of agility far superior to Sorun. All that left was Sorun. Sorun and his cardboard box.

He took a deep breath. "Okay, man. You got this. You've done it a hundred times before in a hundred different stealth games. You're even going up against AI, too. AI way smarter than video game AI, maybe, but they're nothing like Nicole. They wouldn't be going back and forth in those patterns if they were. Just examine the patterns. Find the breaks. Move forwards slowly but methodically. And don't fuck it up because we're all done for if you do."

Pale hands reached out to grab the box next to him. He could do this.


"This is never gonna work," Rouge quietly groaned as she ran a hand along her face. The white bat, floating up near the ceiling, watched the human teen below in what amounted to a mixture of dread at the impending alarm and disbelief at the levels of foolishness happening down below her. "He's not gonna last a minute sneaking around in that."

"Just give him a chance," said Sally, perched at the end of the scaffolding next to the floating bat. She, too, was nervously looking down at the teen. "It's not the worst idea in the world, and Sorun sounded confident in the idea. You know how rarely he ever sounds confident in anything?"

It was rare enough that Rouge didn't even know it was a possible occurrence, but even so, she wouldn't relent on the idiocy of using that box. "He can't even see out of that thing," she argued.

"Sure he can. There's a little handle slot on the sides for him to peek out of," Sally reasoned. "And he has a point. Those are just Egg Pawns down there, and it's not like their AI is notorious for being overly intelligent and analytical. As long as he goes slow and knows what he's doing, it should be fine."

She had a point, as much as Rouge would begrudgingly admit. She was still making plans in the back of her mind on how to escape for when the alarms were inevitably sounded.

The teen below them began moving in his box. The box would stop and press down on the ground to conceal the feet beneath it when a security Egg Pawn would walk past, but as soon as it passed the box completely Sorun continued to move.

To Rouge's complete shock, the plan was working. He'd had to stop multiple times, but no matter how many Egg Pawns saw that box, or even walked near it, not so much as a single one even appeared to pay any mind to the box. He'd even made it up to the steps to the second level without so much as an issue, and he was moving slowly towards the elevators with the same ease he had making it to the stairs in the first place.

"I can't believe it." Years of experience told her that the box was such a bad idea that it shouldn't be entertained. Years of experience told her that using a cardboard box as a disguise was a surefire way to get discovered by the enemy. Her very common sense told her that under no circumstance was hiding as a box that would move around when nobody was looking a safe and reliable means of conducting stealth behind enemy lines.

And yet, somehow, Sorun had inched his way past all those robotic guards in nothing but a cardboard box.

"What was that you were saying about the box?" The speed at which Rouge turned towards Sally was downright lethargic, and she couldn't hold in the sigh when she saw the smug look being sent at her. "Because from what I'm seeing the box is looking pretty effective. Maybe Sorun's onto something here."

Rouge's wings slowed in their flapping as the bat lowered towards the elevators. "It only worked because they're robots," she muttered under her breath, gritting her teeth when she heard the mocking giggle above her.


If there had been a stealth game out there, he'd played it to perfection. Metal Gear, Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed, Hitman, Deus Ex, and every other stealth game under the sun. He got his hands on a game. He mastered the game. And over the years this proved to be easier and easier as he gained a deeper understanding to the mechanics and rules that were universal across stealth games and their AI.

Hiding against the Chaotix and training stealth with Espio had gone to show Sorun that these skills weren't at all that useful. The tricks he'd learned in those games simply didn't apply to real life and real people. Living people heard and noticed a lot more than those games gave people credit for, and were much more investigative and responsive towards anything out of place. Hiding in shadows didn't automatically make you invisible. Plainly speaking, stealth was much more difficult to pull off against people than what the video games he'd played showed.

But these weren't people. They were robots. Robots with AI that followed rudimentary functions that, while they may be advanced due to being made by Eggman, still had hard rules to follow concerning patrolling and keeping out for intruders. Hard rules that could be exploited for their faults if one with a trained eye looked hard enough.

And for once in his goddamned life since coming to Mobius Sorun was able to actually use that trained eye accrued from all those video games to make it to the elevators. Above all that, though, he had a cardboard box.

They never stood a chance, really.

The teen stepped out of the box, walked up to one of the elevators on the left side of the wall, and hit a button on the control panel. The elevator silently rumbled to life as it sent the elevator down, and while waiting Sorun pressed his back against the wall while crossing his arms. Right as he heard the elevator doors open he looked to the side and saw the teenage princess and spy walk right up to him, to which he pointed a thumb at the open elevator.

"Ladies first," he quipped, though he made extra sure to give Rouge a look full of as much vindication as he could muster. The bat, in response, merely rolled her eyes and stepped into the elevator with Sally. Sorun entered last, turning around and forlornly looking at the box sitting in the middle of the elevator room.

"What, you're leaving your almighty box behind?" he heard Rouge remark from behind him.

"Won't fit in the elevator," he answered back. "Give me a minute to say goodbye to it?"

Rouge regarded him for about a single second, and then reached past him to press the button for the top floor of the building. "No."

The doors closed as the elevator began to rise up, and Sorun gave the bat a dejected slump of his shoulders. "I'll never see that box again. You've forever deprived me of a heartfelt farewell with that box. That box is the only reason we've gotten so far. You..." His stone-serious face collapsed when a short laugh left him, causing Sorun to shake his head. "I'm just messin' around. 'S just a box."

Rouge made a scoff with an eye roll, but he saw the corners of her mouth pick up slightly. Sally was less subtle about her amusement with the smile she made. Sorun smirked as well, and then leaned on one of the metal bars on the elevator's side as it rose up.

Nothing was said between the group as they watched the digital number above the elevator doors slowly count upwards. At some point a slow jazz melody began to flood in from the speakers as they climbed up and up. Sally didn't show any reaction to the music. Sorun slightly cringed from the sound, and he saw that Rouge was tapping her foot to the music's beat.

The jazz cut out when the elevator stopped right on the fiftieth floor. The elevator itself stopped moving, too.

Everybody blinked their eyes in surprise, and then snapped their gazes towards the floor counter on top of the elevator doors. Before anybody could say anything, a high-pitched, electronic voice rang out from the speakers above.

"Hello!" it cheerily greeted. "You are currently on the -fiftieth floor-." Its tone grew monotonous when it said the floor number. "Please present proper identification in order to proceed to the -hundredth floor-. Thank you. Glory to the Eggman Empire."

It cut out right as a small slot just big enough for a card to fit in opened up on the elevator's button panel. While Rouge glowered down at the slot, Sorun sent her a withering glare.

"'They didn't put security on the elevators, guys, there's no way'," Sorun said in a mock tone of Rouge's voice. "'No way, no how. We're aces.'"

Rouge took a deep breath. "How about less mocking and more helping, huh, Sorun?"

Fair enough, he decided. "So there's no way to move without a card?"

"Doesn't look like it." Rouge moved closer to examine the button console, but when she hit a button, nothing happened. "Yeah, you need an ID to get to the higher floors. We're stuck here until security comes to check on us if we take too long." She hummed. "Dunno if Nicole could hack this, either. The panel in here just controls the cable winch for the elevator, and we're probably locked out. Actual door controls are on the outside."

"I could try prying the doors open with a Summoned Sword."

She shook her head. "No, doors are still powered. Even if you could get a good grip I doubt we could get them opened."

"Guys, what about this?"

The two turned towards Sally, who was pointing up at the ceiling. Their eyes traveled up from the finger to the roof of the elevator, where there was a small hatch. One thrown Summoned Sword later and the hatch was off completely, leaving a small, square hole.

A very small, square hole.

"I'm betting that there's a maintenance shaft or vent or something in the actual elevator shaft that leads to the other side," she told them. "One of us could take Nicole, get her to the other side, and have her open the door from there."

"It's a good a plan as any," Rouge admitted with a nod. "Don't think I'll be able to fit through that, though. My wings will just get caught."

Sorun gave off a contemplative hum. He was skinny enough to fit through easily, but he wasn't thrilled about the idea of climbing around an elevator shaft. And that was while holding onto Nicole. He'd rather not drop himself and/or Nicole to their respective deaths because of butter fingers.

"Looks like you're up, Sally," he said.

"Looks like it," she agreed. The chipmunk bent her knees slightly, and then jumped up towards the hole in the ceiling. She grabbed the edges with both of her hands, and then rolled her body forwards so that she flew through the hole legs-first. She landed on top of the elevator and called down to the other two, "I'll see if I can get to the other side to open the doors! Just hold on for a bit!"

So that was that. Sorun and Rouge were stuck in the elevator until Sally pulled through and freed the both of them. The remaining pair glanced at each other, and then wordlessly chose to sit down on the elevator floor as they waited.

Not one to let boredom set in, Sorun decided that he'd try talking with the bat. And not knowing where else to start, he decided to go with the elevator music as an opening.

"So... ya like jazz?"


At the topmost floor of the tower were a multitude of rooms that contained display cases and stands for various trophies and other pieces. One room was wider and more open than any of the other, but while there were multiple displays lining the room and other pedestals holding various objects littering the area, the center of this particular room was otherwise empty.

This remained true until a peculiar warbling sound of space tearing apart rang throughout the room, followed by loud footsteps as somebody carried a heavy object towards the center of the room.

"I'm never gonna understand what Shadow sees in this thing," the individual, a human covered in a red cloak, grunted as he set down the motorcycle he'd been carrying over his shoulder. Rubrum hummed, and then grabbed the motorcycle and moved it closer towards the middle of the room. "Eh, that should be close enough," he mumbled to himself. His hooded face looked down at the side of the motorcycle, and then he gasped. "Ah, shit, I forgot the sidecar. Sorun needs that."

He turned around and ran back in the direction he came from. The sound of space being torn apart rang through the room once again, and a minute later rang through a third time as Rubrum ran back to the motorcycle while holding a sidecar.

"Fuck fuck fuck, how do I put this thing on?" he heatedly muttered as he crouched down to inspect the side of the motorcycle and sidecar. "Okay, so there are four holes here at the end of the sidecar's bar, that lines up with these holes on the bike here... dammit, I'm not a mechanic." His head picked up. "Wait, there was that book on that workbench next to where I found the bike! That probably says what to do!"

Rubrum spun on his heels, and then once again ran back to where he came from.


"All I'm saying is that there's a lot of subtle intricacies to jazz that is severely underappreciated within the jazz enthusiast community."

"Huh." Sorun could safely say he knew more about jazz than he ever wanted to know. He was still internally debating with himself if he should have lead with that question or not.

Because there were all sorts of things that Sorun was interested in learning about Rouge. How she got into the spy gig, what working at G.U.N. had been like before the Eggman occupation, or even how she managed to fly when those wings she had were so small. Something to pass the time waiting for Sally to open the doors. But he had to ask about her taste in music.

Apparently she was very knowledgeable on the subject.

"Well, Rouge... that was certainly fascinating," Sorun drawled out as his head rolled in the direction of the elevator doors. "And somehow through all that Sally didn't get the doors open."

"She's doing fine. Just give her some time." He was glad Rouge could just wave away the issue like nothing, because he was getting nervous. "So. Sorun. I told you something about me. Tell me something about you."

His head rolled back to the bat. "What did you wanna know?"

"Mm, just something. How about your name? 'Sorun'. I've met a lot of humans over at G.U.N. and none of them ever had a name like that. Is it something common in your zone?"

Honestly, he was surprised this kind of question hadn't come up sooner. Everybody he met on Mobius had just gone along with his name. "Nah, it was a weird name back on Earth, too," he said with a shake of his head. "It's Latin. Latin being a dead language where I'm from," he elaborated when he saw Rouge's confused face.

"So... you're Latin?" she asked.

"Hah, no, not really. See, uh... where do I start with this?" he mumbled. "So, my mom's a doctor. And in the medical field they use Latin for a lot of the medical terminology since Latin's a dead language, meaning the words and their meanings never change so all the terminology can remain consistent. And I guess when she was learning all of this in med school it really stuck with her, 'cause for some reason whenever she names something she uses a Latin name. Including me," he said with a sigh. "I don't even know what it means other than it's Latin."

Rouge nodded in understanding. "Oh, I get it. Your mom seems like a really... interesting person."

"Yeah, she was. IS," Sorun quickly corrected. "She, she is. Really cool. I miss her a lot." His knees pressed against his chest as his head dipped downwards. "I miss everything over there."

"... Are you still worried about not being able to go back because of-?"

"I don't want to think about that right now, Rouge."

Thankfully, she got the message and tried a change of subject. "So what about your dad?"

And just like that, Sorun hopped right up to his feet. "What's taking Sally so long with those doors?"

As if the universe was just waiting for him to ask that question again, the doors opened right after Sorun complained about them yet again. As expected, Sally was on the other side and holding Nicole, who was plugged into the control panel on the other side.

"Sorry if I took a bit," Sally apologized as the other two climbed out of the elevator. "I had to climb up the elevator's cable until I found a vent, but then I got a bit turned around in the ductwork. We managed to work our way back to you, though." She turned towards Rouge. "So, let me guess. Stair time?"

For a few moments Rouge continued to eye Sorun, but eventually she shook her head and turned to address Sally. "Yeah, we're gonna have to since the elevators are out," she said. "We're gonna have to look around a bit to see if we can find a stairwell."

"You think it's through here? Past this door with the word 'stairwell' printed right above it?" The two girls turned their heads down to the end of the room full of elevator doors, where they saw Sorun standing and pointing at a door. As he said, "stairwell" was printed in block lettering above the door. "Seems out there, but what do I know?"

"Yes, Sorun, I would say that it's a safe bet that the stairs are past that door," Rouge remarked as she and Sally walked over to his position. "The door locked?"

He looked down and gripped the handle. To his surprise, it turned completely without any issue. "You guys won't believe this, but it's actually unlocked," he said with a small laugh as the door swung open. He took a step forwards, saying, "Jeez, I can't believe they leave the door-"

For some reason, gravity started to carry him downwards when he walked into the room. When he looked down, he immediately saw why: there was no floor.

Yelling out in shock and panic, Sorun flailed his limbs around wildly as he began falling forwards. Thankfully, he felt something grab onto his arm and halt him from falling right before his other foot left the ground. Panting heavily, he looked behind him to see Sally standing at the edge with him, her hands grasping at his wrist.

After being pulled back into the doorway, Sorun gave Sally a very rapid nod as he continued to gasp heavily. "Ah, ah thanks. Thanks a million, Sally."

"Anytime." She clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a playful smile. "Look down next time, huh?"

His only response was to give her a thumbs-up before he straightened back up and approached the door's edge again- making sure to grab the side of the door so that he wouldn't accidentally fall in. Sally and Rouge stepped next to him and peered down as well, with all three of them blanching when they saw the room in its entirety.

The room was so large that it looked like it encompassed nearly the entire fiftieth floor, to the point that Sorun could just barely see the left and right ends of the room. The missing floor revealed a chasm that looked like it went down five whole floors, but even with the poor lighting he could see the large, metal spikes pointing upwards that completely covered the ground all the way down there.

On the upside, they could see the door that actually lead to the stairs on the opposite wall. It was just hanging in the air since there was no flooring, but there was a window on that door that quite clearly showed part of a stairwell through it. But there was about a twenty-five foot gap between them and that door, with nothing but a bed of spike awaiting in the pit below.

"Who designs a building like this...?" Sorun muttered in wonder as he looked down at the spikes. "This is just... why?"

"One of Eggman's traps," Sally muttered besides him. "We're actually lucky that we managed to skip most of them with the elevator. He's infamous for putting all sorts of traps in all of his structures?"

"Sure, but a spike trap? A spike trap, man?"

With a sigh, Sally nodded. "This is actually pretty tame compared to most of the traps he makes. Usually it's things like lasers, pneumatic crushers, water traps, cages... spikes. Spike traps. Spiked pneumatic crushers. You get used to this kind of thing after a while."

Sorun was starting to wonder how close he actually was when he made that cartoon analogy back when he talked with Eggman. He'd only been half-serious at the time, but now he was really starting to wonder if he actually managed to hit the mark on the head. Because this was sheer lunacy.

"It looks like this is the only door on this floor, too," Rouge mentioned as she looked back into the elevator room. "Figures. Fiftieth floor is a stopgap for people without IDs. Even if they get out of the elevator they're still trapped unless they make it to the vents like Sally did." She looked into the spike trap room and at the door. "I wouldn't be surprised if he put the entrance to the stairwell over this spike pit just to taunt somebody."

He probably did, because Sorun felt it working on him. "Well, we need to get to those stairs," he said.

"Sure, but how?" Rouge asked. "I can just fly over there, but that's not a distance you or Sally can just jump over. Nowhere to grapple to, either."

Sorun nodded, and then flashed the spy a grin as an idea came to him. "I got it covered."


"Okay, found the manual," Rubrum mumbled to himself as he stepped back next to the bike. "Ah, man, this thing's like three-hundred pages," he said as he flipped through the book. "Okay, index... sidecar... where's the- oh, here."

He made an irritable hum, flipped through some more pages, and then stopped when he found the correct page. He looked over the words, and then slightly crumpled the whole book upon learning some distressing information.

"Dammit, I need some bolts!? Ugh, okay, there was more stuff on that workbench."

Once more, he ran back.


"Sorun, are you sure these things won't break?"

"Uh... yeah," Sorun assured Sally as he did his best not to look down. "Just don't stomp on them or anything."

"Sorun!"

"Sally, they're not fragile! Much. They can break, but they're not gonna break from you stepping on them!"

It was remarkable how many problems he'd been solving with his Summoned Swords without using them for their intended purpose, i.e. stab something. Take what he had done here for instance: making a rope bridge completely out of Summoned Swords to connect the doorway to the entrance to the stairwell.

Seeing as it was completely made of spectral swords, it wasn't pretty. The floor boards were swords, the guard rope was all swords horizontally stacked against each other, and it was all held up by even more Summoned Swords. Sorun was really glad these things could float, because otherwise this would have never worked.

Insert Sally and Sorun, who were slowly walking across the bridge of swords with Sally up in front with Sorun just behind her. Rouge was floating near the door leading to the stairwell, having gotten it open and was currently waiting for the pair. Sally had elected to grip any handles she saw on the guard rails made of swords, Sorun doing the same behind her, and slowly both of them were walking with one foot in the other as they crossed on planks made of spectral swords.

Sally had looked slightly nervous at the prospect when he pitched the idea, but her expression was slowly melting into easiness as she crossed further and further. Sorun's face was perpetually nerve-wracked, and Rouge was smiling in mild amusement at the both of them as they slowly inched their way closer to the door.

"Try not to look so worried there, Sorun," Rouge advised the human as she let out a small chuckle. "It would be a real shame if you lost your concentration and all those swords just suddenly went poof, you know?"

"Rouge, shut up," Sally snapped as her grip on one the of the sword's handles tightened.

"Oh, don't worry, Sally, if you fall I'll catch you. Can't say the same for Sorun, but he's got magic swords. He'd be fine."

Sorun found himself rolling his eyes. He technically would, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting it. "You're enjoying this, aren't you, Rouge?"

"Me?" She held her hands to her chest in mock hurt. "Why, I would never find any enjoyment in seeing you both treacherously trod through a shoddily-built bridge made of swords right over certain death. Perish the thought."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you make a bridge out of swords just by thinking about it," Sorun shot back. "This ain't easy."

"Oh, yeah? How hard is it, then?"

Admittedly, not much. All he had really done was just make a mental picture of a bridge made of Summoned Swords while thinking about his Summoned Swords. But he wasn't going to give her more ammo to work with against him. "Ah, you know. Hard. About as hard as it looks."

She didn't look convinced in the slightest. "Uh-huh. Just try and not think about how bad Sally will feel if she falls because your swords broke. Because then they might actually break."

Sally began to grow irate. "Rouge...!"

"Or falling. Don't think about that, either."

"Rouge!"

"Sal, relax, you're at the end," Rouge said as the chipmunk reached the end of the sword bridge. She practically leapt off of it and onto the stairwell right after she reached the end, and Sorun wasn't far from doing the same thing as he stepped off the bridge right behind her.

The bridge of swords shattered right after Rouge flew into the stairwell with them, closing the door behind her. Both Sorun and Sally took a deep breath from the ordeal, and then looked at each other and gave themselves a small nod before they looked up along with Rouge. As to be expected, there was nothing but stairs. Metal stairs that lead all the way up to the top.

And unfortunately for Sorun, he was good enough at math to know what plus fifty equaled a hundred- the floor they needed to go to. "We seriously gotta climb fifty flights of stairs?" he groaned with slumped shoulders.

"It's only fifty flights," Sally said, a tinge of confusion to her voice. "That's not many at all. We'll be fine."

"Well, I know I'll be fine," Rouge informed them. "Since I'm just flying up."

Slowly but loudly exhaling out of his mouth, Sorun hung his head as he walked towards the first step. He already knew how much of a disaster this was gonna be.


Crouching down next to the motorcycle, Rubrum looked towards the sidecar, and then to the manual he held in his left hand, before finally landing on the pile of bolts in front of him.

"Okay, so... insert bolt C into intersecting holes A through D as indicated in the picture..." he read out. "Bolt C? What the hell? The only bolts I found in that garage were B-bolts!"

Groaning loudly, he looked towards the entrance of the room, which was thankfully still empty. He looked back down at the bike.

"They're gonna get here any minute," he angrily whispered. "Screw it, I don't have time to solve a damn puzzle. I'm jamming them in." He picked up a bolt and began to forcibly insert it into the holes to connect the sidecar and bike with his bare hands. "It's gonna strip the holes, but if it works it works, so I don't care. It's not my bike anyways."


"Damn athletic chipmunk and flying bat..."

These were the times he hated the most. The times where the people around him were so physically superior to him because of simple body mechanics and gene bomb tomfoolery. Maybe Chaos energy, too? He didn't know. He didn't care. He was tired.

First fifteen floors had went fine. Sixteen to twenty was bit harder. Twenty-one to thirty had been a struggle. He had to stop at forty.

He'd dropped down to all fours due to having been so exhausted by the time he'd reached fortieth flight of stairs. The familiar feeling of pained lungs and the stress of heavy breathing was greeting him once again just like it always did during one of Sonic's training runs.

"You doing alright, Sorun?" He tried to squash down that small amount of shame that rose up in him when he saw Sally kneel down in front of his fallen form. It didn't work. "You don't look so good."

She looked fine. Extremely fine. Wasn't even so much as winded. He blamed her limbs that deceptively hid her well-developed muscles.

Mobians had it all, he swore.

"I'm... I'm good," Sorun gasped out as slowly got up to his knees. "Just... all these stairs."

Sally held a hand out to him, and Sorun took it so that she could help him up to his feet. "And here I was thinking all that running Sonic is having you do was helping with your stamina."

"Oh, it is," Sorun tiredly assured her. "If this was a week ago I would have collapsed two flights earlier."

She gave him a forced smile. "That's... an improvement? I think?"

"It's more than nothing." Sorun breathed out a large sigh. "You gotta give me break. I ran off a diet of mainly french fries back on Earth."

"That doesn't sound like a very nutritious diet at all."

"You're right, it wasn't. But it got me through the day." And damn if they didn't taste great. Until his endurance became a requisite for surviving in this world it seemed like a great idea to live off that french fry diet. Even now he was still debating with himself if it was worth it or not.

Sally rolled her eyes, and then gestured for Sorun to follow her as they continued climbing steps. "You're as bad as Sonic is with food," she claimed.

"Oh, no. You don't get to lump me in with him when he keeps shoving those hate crimes in a bun down his throat," Sorun panted as he climbed the stairs right behind Sally. "French fries are an art form. Those chili dogs are... they're... they're trash... slow down, I need another minute."

Apparently he hadn't recovered as much as he thought he had from the climb up to this point, so Sorun was forced to stop halfway up another set of stairs to lean over the stair railing. He heard Sally go back to approach him, but he was too embarrassed and exhausted to turn his head to look at her.

"Are you gonna make it the rest of the way?" she asked him.

"It's like eight more flights. I can do it." He said that, but he really didn't feel like he could make that distance. He must not have looked like he could, either, when he could feel the doubtful look Sally was casting on him.

"You know, if you want I can just carry you the rest of the way," she offered. "It'd probably be smart for you to conserve energy for the rest of the mission."

"No. No-no-no, I'm fine. I can do it." That wasn't happening. He felt like everybody already had low views of him, but what were they gonna say if it got out a princess had to carry him up stairs? A princess that was way more fit than him, but still. He'd never live something like that down.

Plus Nicole was right there in her pocket. He refused to look so pathetic in front of her. He'd make it up the rest of those stairs even if it killed him.

That was the plan, at least, until he finished climbing up the flight of stairs he stopped at before collapsing at the top. He didn't even have to say anything before Sally bent down to pick him up.


"Oh my, what's this?" he heard Rouge jeer as the pair of them finally made it to the top. "I miss something while waiting for you two up here?"

Sorun couldn't hold in the embarrassed groan that left him after hearing this. Of course the first thing Rouge would think to say once she saw Sally walk up the stairs carrying Sorun bridal style would be something like that.

Why did he have to be carried bridal style? It couldn't have been something at least a little more dignified? She couldn't have just slung him over her shoulder or something like that? He would have taken her just grabbing one of his limbs and dragging him up the rest of the way compared to this, even if this way was really comfortable. But that comfort wasn't worth the embarrassment.

Fortunately, Sally let go of him right there and slowly placed him on his feet. "Guys, please don't tell anybody back at Knothole about this," he asked them.

"What, you're asking us to keep this all to ourselves and miss out on what people would say?" the bat teased him.

Sorun opened his mouth to counter her, but when he came up with nothing, he indignantly shook his head and walked towards the door leading out of the stairwell. "Whatever, let's just go." He wasn't going to press the issue. She was likely just kidding around with him, anyways.

Hopefully she was.

The door leading out of the stairwell led to a small maintenance hallway, which in of itself was barren of any noticeable features besides another door nearby. Behind that door, though, was the interesting room. Being a maintenance door, it opened right in the middle of another, more larger, hallway. And at the far end of that hallway was two of Egg Pawns painted to look like security guards standing side-by-side to large, wooden double doors that were decorated with golden filigree.

Every single gamer sense Sorun had was telling him that the large, golden doors were important.

"And with that, I think we hit bingo," Rouge whispered as she peeked out to look in the direction Sorun was staring in. She seemed to have the same idea he had by the way her eyes lit up. "Only problem I'm seeing is the two guards next to the door and the cameras."

"Cameras?" At Sorun's question, Rouge pointed up to a spot near the ceiling. Indeed, right in the middle of the hallway wall where they were was a spherical camera installed on the ceiling slowly swiveling left and right, with another camera right across from it. He hadn't even seen those.

"Okay, it looks like we're right under one of the cameras, so we can avoid that one by staying in its blind spot easy enough," Rouge began. "Alright, yeah. Sorun, Sally, when the camera across from us turns all the way to the right, hug the wall and go left towards where those big doors are. I'd bet anything that the room we're looking for is past them."

"And what about you?" Sally asked.

"Gonna go take care of the guards before you get there." Her bat wings slowly began to flap. "Not really worried about check-ins when we're this close to the goal, so we should be good. And they're the only two up here anyways. I'm gonna fly up and deal with them now. Don't get caught by the cameras."

And like that, she slinked away from their position hiding behind the door and flew up towards the ceiling right as the camera across from them passed. His head still peaking out, Sorun tried looking up to the darkened ceiling to find any sign of where Rouge had flown to, but he couldn't even so much as see any movement.

The shearing sound of metal being cleaved apart took his attention away from the ceiling and drew it back towards the gilded doors. The Egg Pawn who had been patrolling on the left side of the door was crumpled onto the ground, its body completely cut in half to reveal sparking circuitry as it went offline. Standing above the defeated robot, to Sorun's amazement, was Rouge, one hand placed on her cocked-to-the-side hip as she looked across at the other Egg Pawn.

It was right when the robot began turning to investigate the noise of its companion being cut down did Rouge leap right at it. She'd kicked out with her right leg at a speed Sorun could barely perceive and, to his even further amazement, managed to cut through the other Egg Pawn completely. Rouge paid the robot barely any mind, and by the time its two halves fell all the way to the ground she had begun to work on the door.

"She managed to kick them in half. With just her leg." Sorun was momentarily taken out of his thoughts when Sally tapped on his shoulder and pointed up at the camera across from them that was turning right. He nodded, and they both slipped out from their hiding spot by the door and pressed their backs to the wall as they began moving towards the door. "I didn't even see her get over there. She stealthed her way to the door like it was nothing." And here he'd thought that his trick with the cardboard box had been good, but he wasn't sure he could ever match that level skill. He surely didn't think he'd ever get to a point he'd be able to kick robots in half.

He guessed she wasn't some government-type agent or whatever G.U.N. classified itself as for nothing if that was the kind of stuff she could do.

"Door was locked with a good old fashioned lock. I picked it open," Rouge told them as they finally reached her position.

"Aw, what, didn't want me to handle it?" Sorun half-joked as both he and Sally peeled themselves off the wall.

Rouge shrugged. "You were taking forever to get here. And you're only halfway decent at lockpicking."

"Tch, c'mon. I don't even break the picks anymore. Most of the time."

"On the basic locks, maybe." The white bat reached forwards and pushed the doors open. "Anyway, who cares? We're in."

He couldn't argue that point. He wasn't sure he could even if he wanted to, anyways, as his voice caught in his throat once they entered the room past the doors.

The atmosphere inside this room was completely different from how the rest of the building had felt. Where the lighting in everywhere else had been low-light and rather poor, the lights hanging off the ceiling in this room illuminated everything and was almost warm in their glow. Where the walls had been cold, solid metal, here it was bright linoleum tiles lining the floor and high-quality wallpaper covering all the walls to give it an appearance of wood.

It was big, too. So big there were thin walls without any doors separating the room into multiple sections, but Sorun was paying less attention to all that and more attention to all of the items the rooms were holding.

Lining the walls all around were displays, cases, and stands holding all sorts of important-looking things. Paintings, pieces of paper and scroll-esque items being displayed in glass cases. Statues and other artistic structures on stands. Artifacts that looked like they were made from a wide variety of cultures that looked like they belonged in a museum more than some madman's tower.

And Sorun would probably appreciate it all more if he actually recognized a single thing they walked past.

"Any of you know what any of this stuff is?" Sorun asked as he stopped by a glass case containing a large, golden mask displaying a depiction of... some kind of Mobian something or other. A cat or a tiger or some other feline. He couldn't really tell.

"Hard to say. There's stuff here from various settlements and tribes all around Mobius over here, and in that room over there I'm seeing some Overlander and human things," Rouge told him as they walked into another room. This one, of course, had even more artifacts that Sorun didn't recognize. "I think I recognize some pieces. A few of these are some old, outdated weapons used during the Great War. Others are cultural pieces Eggman took from settlements he conquered just because he wanted to fill this space up and stroke his ego."

"It's disgusting," Sally angrily stated. "They're nothing but trophies to him. And I wouldn't even be surprised if he stole some of these things from the UF cities his forces occupied."

Stopping to admire a banner depicting a symbol Sorun was clueless on, Sorun asked, "You guys think there's any, you know... old world stuff here? From my time?" he asked as he turned to the two. "Not my time specifically, different zone, but I mean from before aliens bombed the planet."

"I really doubt it," Rouge told him. "One of the UF cities or Station Square might have had something like that, but that was from so long ago that I honestly don't think anything like that would survive. And besides, I think they were more focused on surviving over preserving human culture."

Sorun felt his shoulders slump in disappointment at that. It felt bad knowing a world much like his was just gone and nothing but a faded memory to the new world that had been built right on top of its body. This very, very strange world. Hard to believe that a culture that was likely identical to the one he knew could just disappear like that, but he supposed aliens bombing the planet and thousands of years of the aftershocks of that would do it.

He felt a hand press down softly on his shoulder, causing him to look behind him at Sally who had a concerned look on her face. "You doing alright?" she asked.

"Are you?" he asked back, not wanting to answer. "It's not my culture that's being hung up all over the walls like this. My culture's a whole zone away."

She removed the hand and stepped back. "I'm not seeing anything relating to the Kingdom of Acorn here, but..." she narrowed her eyes and looked away at a nearby room. "I'm pretty sure he has a space lined up for that since he thinks he'll take us over one day."

There was, indeed, a small room off to the side full of empty display cases. The large acorn symbol over its entrance said enough.

"Still," Sally continued, "it hurts seeing what he's done to this planet and all its people. Always does," she mumbled under her breath.

"Eesh..." Sorun didn't know how to respond to that. He hoped Nicole, resting in her pocket, would offer some encouraging words in his wake, but evidently she was speechless too seeing as she remained quiet. This caused Sorun to internally sigh as he rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. "Well, hey, we're working on the problem, right?" he tried. "That's about the best anybody could do in this situation."

"I just keep wondering if we're enough," she morosely replied, but his words did get the barest of smiles out of her. "But thanks for that anyways."

He wasn't even sure an attempt of cheering her up as pathetic as that deserved thanks.

"Oh, what the...!?"

Both of their heads picked up at the sound of Rouge's voice, causing them to spin towards the entrance to another room and run towards it. They stopped upon entering, both looking towards Rouge and staring in confusion as they watched the bat gawk at the object sitting in the middle of the circular room.

Said object was a motorcycle.

Keeping an eyebrow quirked, Sorun slowly stepped closer to the motorcycle while Sally remained at her spot. It was, for all intents and purposes, a motorcycle. Two wheels, engine, everything, and it even had a little blue sidecar attached to it. Its color didn't match the bike itself, which was painted completely black with strange, red tribal swirls painted on its sides.

"Why in the world is Shadow's bike here?" Rouge murmured to herself as she stepped closer to inspect it.

That gave Sorun pause. "Shadow's bike?" he repeated. "Shadow owns a motorcycle?"

Rouge nodded. "Mm-hm, yeah."

Explained the paint job, at least, but that didn't explain why it existed. "Why does Shadow need a motorcycle?" he asked. "The guy can run faster than a motorcycle?"

"He says it's because of G.U.N. protocol saying the team needs a vehicle, but he put so much care into this thing in his off time I always wondered," she answered him as she ran a hand along the bike's exterior. "We had to abandon it in the garage at G.U.N. headquarters when Dr. Eggman overthrew them. Didn't have time to grab it. He wouldn't stop grumbling about it for a month straight." She shook her head in disbelief. "Can't believe Eggman went through the trouble of bringing it all the way here. Even left the keys in the ignition." Rouge tilted her head closer. "Fully charged, too? Huh. Convenient."

Sorun would have responded, but a glow off to the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned towards it, and then had to take a step back in shock when he recognized what he was staring at.

Aligned along the back of the room were seven small pedestals, three in the front and four slightly larger pedestals in a row behind them. They were all empty of anything, save for the middle one in the front which held a yellow, glowing gem that had an extremely familiar shape. The same shape as the blue gem he'd accidentally absorbed to gain his Summoned Swords.

The Chaos Emerald.

"Yellow, huh?" Sorun thought to himself as he slowly approached the Emerald. "These things really do come in all sorts of colors. Never was a fan of yellow, though. Hmm."

"You find what we were looking for, hon?" he heard Rouge call out from behind him.

"Yep," Sorun called back as he stopped right in front of the Emerald. He looked down at his hand, frowned, and then made a Summoned Sword. "How 'bout you hold onto it, Rouge," he said as he swung the blue sword to bat the Emerald off its pedestal.

The yellow Emerald sailed briefly through the air before it was caught by a surprised Rouge. "You really want me holding it?" she asked with barely-contained shock. Behind her, Sally was giving Sorun an equally puzzled look.

"I don't think touching that would be a good idea considering what happened last time. Don't really wanna fall unconscious in a place like this." He didn't want to touch it period just so he could save as much of his life as possible and maybe get home as well, but for now he'd go with a practical excuse and make up a bunch of other ones later if they asked.

The excuse seemed good enough for the two Mobians, Rouge in particular shrugging. "If you say so. Hey, while we're at it, there were a bunch of non-Chaos but equally shiny gems back thataway, so if we're not in a rush-"

There was a fake cough from Sally. "Rouge. Focus."

"I kid, I kid." Based on the soft sigh she made, Sorun had to wonder if she really was kidding. "Alright, so we got the Chaos Emerald. Now we need to think up a way of getting out of here."

"Can't we just go back the same way we came?" Sorun asked. "Sneak back to the elevator, work backwards, simple." Best of all was that he would be reunited with his box again.

Rouge glanced at him with half-lidded eyes. "The elevator that got locked down and is waiting for an ID card?" she questioned. "The other elevators that will probably lock down the same way once we call them to the fiftieth floor?"

Oh. That did present a problem. "Don't tell me we gotta take the stairs all the way down to the first floor," he groaned out. He knew for a fact he couldn't make a trip like that. That was a hundred floors worth of stairs. He'd didn't want to have Sally carry him again.

To his immense relief- and confusion- Rouge shook her head. "No. Stairs are an option, but..." she trailed off as she turned to the black and red bike. "I want to bring Shadow's bike back along with us."

It was Sally's turn to look confused. "What? Why?"

"I got an idea for getting out of this building real fast." The bat turned to the other side of the room opposite of the seven pedestals, where there were giant, plate glass windows in place of where the wall was. Windows that lead right outside. "Fact is for all we know we tripped a silent alarm by removing the Emerald," she explained as the bat looked out of a window. "Even if we didn't, I wouldn't put it past Eggman to put some kind of sensor system in place to detect Chaos energy readings if someone tries moving it through the building. And even if this is all paranoia on my part and we really are home free, there's no telling what's waiting for us once we get down to the bottom floor." She started running her finger along the glass. "I'm thinking we take a more... direct route out."

A bad feeling was beginning to grow in Sorun's gut, and he found himself gulping. "Uh... direct route?"

"Maybe. I got a plan, but that depends on you, Sorun." Rouge turned back to the very confused teen. "How fast could you use those swords to make something in a split-second's notice? Say, oh, I don't know... a ramp for instance?"

Oh, he really didn't like where this was going...


That bad feeling of Sorun's had proven to be completely accurate when, out of the top hundredth floor of the tower, a black and red motorcycle came crashing out from one of the floor's windows. Driving the motorcycle was Rouge, who had her eyes squinted in intense focus as gravity began to carry the bike down. Sitting behind her was Sally, who had her arms wrapped rightly around the bat's midsection as she held on for dear life.

And then there was Sorun. The teen was sitting in the side car and was holding its edges with both hands in a death grip, and was letting out a shrilly scream at the top of his lungs as the bike fell down.

In an act that Sorun was dead-certain defied gravity, the wheels of the bike touched down on the wall of the tower. Rouge, in turn, revved the bike's engine, and it was all Sorun could do to not pass out as the bat drove the motorcycle down the wall of the tower.

"Oh my god! Oh my god we're gonna die what the fuck were you thinking Rouge!?" Sorun's mind screamed as he watched the ground grow closer and closer at an extremely uncomfortable rate. "This doesn't even make any fucking sense how the hell is she driving like this!?"

Was driving at an impossible angle like this just something that Mobians could innately do on top of everything else? Could one actually drive down the side of a building with sufficient training? Sorun truly didn't know. There was probably some rule of gravity that said such a thing was impossible, but there were a lot of things he thought were impossible before coming here. So what did he know? Really, a white bat driving a motorcycle down the side of a tower was one of the less stranger things he'd seen.

It didn't help that Sorun was terrified out of his mind because that ground was getting real close-

"Sorun!" Rouge shouted over the engine of the bike, the wind rapidly rushing past them, and the human's screaming. "Now would be the time to do your thing!"

He didn't even bother trying to formulate a response as the teen, his hair whipping wildly passed his face, focused on the approaching ground. He didn't think he could say anything past all the screaming if he tried.

Down on the ground they were all heading towards, there was a loud bring! sound and a flash of light and blue particles as a ramp that curved downwards into the ground appeared from nowhere. The patrolling Egg Pawns, of course, became extremely confused upon seeing a bridge made completely from blue swords appear out of thin air, and when a motorcycle came screaming down from the tower's surface only to hit the ramp and curve smoothly onto flat ground, they became highly alert.

There wasn't much to be done, though, as the speed of the bike combined with the momentum picked up from riding downwards like that had given motorcycle enough speed that all Rouge had to do was drive forwards before they began to approach the wall. Like before, another blue ramp made of swords appeared in front of them, this one curving upwards.

The throttle on the bike was revved again, and the motorcycle roared up the blue ramp before making it to the top and jumping right over the wall.

It felt like the bike had maintained airtime for minutes. The moon was shining brightly down on them, and though they'd just cleared the wall Sorun was still screaming while holding onto the edges of the sidecar. Everybody save Nicole, still in Sally's pocket, grunted loudly when they were jostled upon the bike hitting the ground, though it remained in one piece as the bike drove away from Eggman's tower.

"Aaah! Oh no! Ah! AH! We're gonna die! We're- we- uh..." Sorun's screaming slowly tapered off when he didn't feel his bones and internal organs be torn apart by a sudden impact or explosion, and then slowly opened his eyes up. They snapped right open when he saw the bike driving on an old, cracked road with trees whipping past them, and then slowly looked to his left to see both Rouge and Sally giving him blank looks.

He couldn't care less about the looks they were sending him. He was too busy registering the fact that they'd even survived that crazy stunt. And once it did hit him, he began smiling widely as the euphoria hit.

"We made it!" he cheered as he threw his hands up. "Oh, jeez, I can't believe we just-!"

A yellow laser went past his head.

"Oh man we're gonna die!" he screamed as he ducked back down into the sidecar. He picked his head up to peek over the edge of the side car, and then visibly paled even further when he saw multiple saucer-like flying vehicles chasing after him, all of them piloted by Egg Pawns and all of them firing yellow lasers out of turrets at the front of those saucers.

"Ah, great!" Rouge shouted as she veered the bike to the side to dodge a laser shot. "Sally, how long 'til they come to pick us up!?"

"They should be homing in on our position, but it's gonna take a minute or two!" Sally shouted back.

More yellow lasers flew past them as Rouge continued driving forwards. "Sorun!" she yelled. "You think maybe you can use those swords of yours to do something about this!?"

Sorun's head rose up higher. Yeah, he supposed he should make sure they don't get shot.

He focused on the nearest saucer and focused a ring of Storm Swords on the Egg Pawn piloting it. A ring of eight swords appeared spinning around the robot, who looked up in confusion right before all eight swords stopped, and then shot forwards to impale the robot. It went offline immediately after eight impalements, and without a pilot the saucer crashed into the ground behind them and exploded.

This would be the routine Sorun had set up for himself. More saucers would close in uncomfortably close, and he'd shoot at their exposed pilots with Summoned Swords. The robots would die and the saucers would hit the ground and explode in a spectacular fashion. It was all well and good for making sure they weren't being shot at anymore, but there was seemingly no end to the amount of saucers chasing after them. It seemed like a new one would approach from the distance every time Sorun down one.

"They just keep coming and coming!" Sorun shouted over the roar of the motorcycle. "When's it getting here, Sally!?"

"I don't know! It should be- wait! There!"

Right as Rouge drove the bike around a curve, they'd hit a part of the road where the right side of the ground gave out to a large, steep cliff. And from that cliff rose up something that covered the moonlight and cast a shadow on the entire road Rouge was driving on. It was a long, silver ship that looked like a cross between a jet and a spaceship, though with its size Sorun had immediately mistaken it for a spaceship when he'd first seen it.

He'd had a lot of questions when he'd first seen that thing in Knothole's hangar.


"You guys seriously have a spaceship?" Sorun said in awe as he looked up at the large, sleek ship parked inside of the hangar. Tails' plane, which was parked right next to it, was practically dwarfed by the giant aircraft.

"Ah, well, it can achieve suborbital altitude, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it's a spaceship," Rotor said as he tapped away at a small tablet he had that was connected to the bottom of the ship via a few cables. "The Freedom Fighter Special sure is something, huh?"

"Cool, that's cool..." Sorun bounced on his feet. "Can I look inside it?"

Rotor lowered the diagnostics device and shot Sorun a smirk. "Oh, did I finally find something that excites you?"

"Man I don't- s-so what if I do? Space stuff is cool, okay?" Giddy and practically bursting with poorly-contained enthusiasm, Sorun ran towards the ramp so he could go explore inside of the ship. Rotor stared after the human, and then lightly chuckled as he brought his terminal back up to his face.


He thought spaceships and space things were cool. And the Freedom Fighter Special may not have been a spaceship, but it was close enough that he didn't care at all. It was big and it looked cool. That was more than enough for Sorun.

And to think he'd been riding around in Tails' dinky little biplane when they had this thing the whole time.

It'd been chosen for this mission on the grounds that it had been the only aircraft they had available at the time. It suited them all fine, as it was the only thing they had on hand that could fit a whole motorcycle inside of it. This was a function they desperately needed as these saucers chasing them were relentless.

The large ship flew alongside the motorcycle, and from the back a large hangar door began to open as a long ramp extended out from the interior of the ship. Lasers began flying past them all again, but Rouge paid them no mind as she focused in on the ramp extended out to them.

In a single move, she twisted the handlebars of the bike and caused it to veer right. It careened right off the road, and all the occupants experienced a couple more seconds of airtime as the bike flew towards the ramp. With a loud squeal wheels touched down on the metal platform, the bike having slid sideways from the momentum. Sorun's sidecar was unfortunately in a position that it had dangled off the edge of the ramp for a bit, making the human scream again, especially when a few bolts flew away and the sidecar began to jostle. Rouge was quick to orient the bike so that it pointed into the ship's hangar and gunned it forwards. Seconds later and the bike was safely if not a bit haphazardly driven into the hangar, with the ramp and door rapidly beginning to close behind them.

Finally, the door was sealed completely shut. There was the sound of laser shots pinging off the outer surface of the ship, but there was a sudden lurch as the Freedom Fighter Special sped off into the sky, and soon all that was heard was the sound of the motorcycle's engine and the heavy breathing of three of its occupants.

Everybody remained motionless for the longest minute until Rouge gingerly reached out to shut the bike off. It died instantly once she turned the ignition, and the white bat let out a loud sigh before slumping forwards.

Sally, who was still behind Rouge, slowly leaned back to look at the ceiling. Her hair was disheveled from the high-speed chase and here eyes were still wide open from all the excitement, but at the very least her breathing was beginning to level out. "Thanks for patching us into the Freedom Fighter Special's comms, Nicole," she quietly muttered.

"You are very welcome," the voice in her vest said in response.

Sorun's appearance was about in the same condition as Sally's. Hair that was disheveled and wild from the motorcycle ride, and skin that had an even lighter pallor than its usual light tone. He'd become so winded from the experience that he couldn't even speak, and had to settle for leaning over the side of the sidecar he was sitting in.

"Ah... so." Tiredly leaning against the bike's handlebars, Rouge turned her head towards Sorun. "That was a fun ride, huh?"

With a loud groan, Sorun's body slid completely out of the sidecar and collapsed onto the ship's floor.


"Well, everybody, it was a fun little adventure we all had, but I think we should call it a night here."

It was right as Sorun's hand touched the door leading into Freedom HQ that the bat's words reached his ears. With an rueful chuckle, he turned around to face the bat.

"Rouge, I worry for you if you consider anything we did there at that tower fun," he said in a flat tone. "That was the most stressful thing I've done in my entire life. I don't know how you manage to do that stuff for a living."

"Ah, come on. You need to loosen up, Sorun. We just snuck into one of the most highly secure buildings on the planet and managed get away with the loot. Did we get shot at?" Rouge shrugged. "Sure, but that kind of thing is normal at this point. Plus we had some laughs, didn't we?"

Sorun opened his mouth to respond, paused, laughed once, and turned back to the door. "Okay, yeah, maybe it was a little fun. A little."

The laughs they shared at the very least were fun. Everything else had been a nightmare. Getting shot at and driving down the side of a tower had been a nightmare. And he wasn't going to forget about what happened on those stairs anytime soon.

But, other than all that... it did have its good moments. It wasn't enough to make Sorun ever want to do something like that again, but at least he had those memories. For whatever those were worth, at least.

And just when he thought he could end the night on a high note, the door to the HQ flung right open and sent Sorun sprawling to the ground. With a groan, he sat up onto his rear and looked up to see a very livid black and red hedgehog standing right in front of Rouge.

"Where is it?" he demanded.

"Really, Shadow? You're gonna do this now?" Rouge asked him with an innocent smile on her face. "A girl comes back from such a stressful mission like that-"

"They radioed ahead and told me about my bike. Rouge, I swear if you ruined the suspensions by driving it down the side of a building...!"

Laughing lightly, Rouge held up her hands in a sign of surrender. "Shadow, relax. Your bike is fine. I left it in the hangar. We can go get it now if you want."

Shadow didn't even give do so much as her a response. All Shadow had done was angrily huff and stomp past her towards the direction where the hangar was. Rouge stared off after him, scoffed, and then gave a little shrug before looking back at Sorun.

"Well, I gotta go do some damage control now." She winked at the still-sitting human. "It was fun working with ya, See you again some other time."

"Ahem. Rouge?"

Smiling innocently, Rouge held up the yellow Emerald she had been holding on to. "What? I was gonna give it back," she claimed as she tossed the Emerald to Sally, who was standing nearby. "Seeya around, princess."

Sorun silently watched the bat walk off after the hedgehog, and then shook his head with a low sigh as he heard another set of footsteps approach him. "I want a vacation," he said as he looked up at Sally. "Freedom Fighters get some of those, right? Vacation days? I wanna cash a few in."

Chuckling in amusement, Sally shook her head. "We'll see what we can do." She bent down and helped him to his feet. "Come on. Let's get you back inside."

There weren't any arguments from Sorun, who gladly followed the princess back into the HQ. He didn't care what happened next as long as at least he got to relax for the rest of the night. And Nicole was right there. Maybe she'd be up to play something with him.

As great an idea as it was, though, Sorun saw the likelihood of that idea plummet when he descended the stairs into the HQ's living room with Sally and saw a red form and a blue form already on the couch playing something. He didn't know how likely they were going to give up a spot, but if the scores he saw said anything, Sonic had some skill. Maybe he'd get Knuckles to ragequit and let Sorun play with him. Then Sorun could crush him at whatever game they were playing and he could cap the night out on that high note he wanted so bad.

Yeah. That was a great plan.

"Aw, come on!" The plan was already coming together when Knuckles looked ready to throw his controller while Sonic quietly chortled right besides him. He almost did throw it, too, but when he turned around to chuck it he saw Sorun and Sally standing right him and staring. "Oh, hey. You two are back. How'd it go?" Knuckles asked as he set the controller down on the couch's arm.

In response to his question, Sorun hopped over the couch to sit down between Knuckles and Sonic. "You know how it is," he said. "We came, we saw, we plundered. Some other stuff happened, too, but we don't talk about that."

"You mean like how you were screaming the whole time while on the bike?" he heard Sally teasingly ask from behind the couch.

Without even looking back, Sorun lifted his arm up and pointed back at her. "Yeah, that. Among other things."

"Oh, you mean with the sta-"

"Zip it with the stairs!"

"Right, of course." With a large smirk on her face, Sally stepped besides the couch, and Sorun caught the yellow shine of the Chaos Emerald as she removed it from the inside of her vest and handed it off to Knuckles. "It wasn't easy, but we got what we went there for."

"Yeah, it was super perilous and everything, hey, Sonic," Sorun quickly said as he leaned back in the couch and looked to the right at Sonic, "what game're you two playing?"

Sonic blinked at the unexpected question. "Er, it's a racing-"

"Cool, great, room for one more?"

Wanting to get away from the stair topic was a factor, but more than anything else, his attempt at drawing attention towards the game was an effort to get everybody's mind off that Chaos Emerald. His own mind so he didn't have to think about it, and everybody else's minds so they didn't get any ideas. Ideas like what would happen if he touched it. It was a conversation that would come up eventually, but the hope was that he could stall them for tonight and wind down from the mission and then think of something tomorrow-

"Hey, Sorun," he heard Knuckles from besides him ask.

Oh no.

"... Yeah?" he hesitantly answered as he looked to the left. He felt his heartbeat increased when he saw the echidna fondle at the yellow Emerald, and then pass a thoughtful look at Sorun.

"The last time you touched a Chaos Emerald... you got those weird swords, right?" He held the Emerald up for the human to see. "You think that would happen again if you touched another one?"

No, no, no...

"Hey, that's a great idea!" To his utter dismay Sonic seemed completely onboard with the idea. "What do you think, Sorun? Wanna give it a try?"

He most certainly did not. "Okay, think fast," he quickly thought to himself. "Uh, y'know guys, I... I'm pretty sure that first time was a one-time deal," he said. "You know. One and done. That's the feeling I got, at least. Sounds like a waste of time trying to get more powers. Probably won't even work."

Nothing but absolute lies, but lies were all he had. But unfortunately, they weren't good lies. Looking around, he saw that absolutely nobody looked at all convinced by what he said. It wasn't hard for him to see why considering all they had to do to check was have him touch it. And he knew it would work, too. The problem was that he'd lose another twelve years of life.

He'd hoped that Sally would bring something up, but she was just watching on in interest. He silently cursed and tried to scooch away from Knuckles.

"You sure? Here, just come touch it." Almost as if he was voicing his fears, Knuckles leaned towards Sorun while holding the yellow Emerald out to him. "Worst case nothing happens. What've you got to lose?"

Twelve years of his life, for one. "Y-yeah, sure, but-but what if this one get stuck in me, too?" Sorun stuttered as he continued scooching back from Knuckles and the Emerald. "Getting home's already gonna be hard enough with-"

"Well, you already got one stuck inside of you, right?" Sorun had to hold back from snarling at him when Sonic pushed him further towards the Emerald. "Nothing's gonna change by you taking one more in. Just try it."

It would most certainly hurt, but that wasn't the problem. Desperately, Sorun tried worming his way out of Sonic's push without seeming too worried, but it wasn't working. "Can't we just do this in the morning?" he asked, voice slightly higher. "Guys, come on, this can wait for a bit-!"

Knuckles had tossed the Chaos Emerald in Sorun's lap. He hadn't meant to touch it, he really didn't, but in an unconscious response Sorun had reflexively tried to shove it off of him with his hands. His fear of the thing had just been too great, so he'd done it without any thought.

Because he'd used his hands to try and shove it, though, he'd made contact with both palms. And unlike the first time with the blue Emerald, much to his subdued horror, this second Emerald had adhered to him almost instantly upon making contact. And as he held the stuck Emerald up to his face, he could already see yellow sparks of power arc out of the gem and onto his arms, and he could already feel his muscles seizing up from the raw power coursing through them.

Taking in a large, slow breath, both to calm himself and brace him for the coming pain, Sorun sent Knuckles a searing glare. "Knuckles, you son of a-"

The overwhelming surge of energy that ran through him from the Emerald had cut Sorun off, and just as soon as the pain hit him he'd gone unconscious.