Recursion Error
Episode 19- A trip down cyber lane
So a day had passed since the incident with the train.
The first thing that had happened upon them landing back in Knothole, of course, was that Sorun had to go to the hospital. And he had to have been escorted there by Sonic, half because he didn't know where it was, and half because Sally had caught him trying to sneak away back to Sonic's house. It hadn't been that impressive on an affair; he hadn't even been checked out by the actual doctor that ran that hospital, just a nurse. The hospital itself had been impressive to Sorun. He'd went as far as to say it was more modern than hospitals back on Earth, mostly because he'd seen medical instruments there he'd never even seen before.
As for his injuries, like he'd said, they hadn't been anything to worry about. Just some scrapes and cuts, which itself was amazing considering everything that had happened. So a ton of bandages and an order to take it easy a few days it was.
Suited him just fine. He needed a rest after the small mental breakdown he had that hadn't gone away until he went to sleep last night.
But that was yesterday, and this was today. And today everybody was out salvaging the situation that was the mess that was yesterday. Organizing everything, saving what supplies they could, running and flying whatever they had to all the settlements that hadn't received the medicine- it was going to be a great effort from what Sorun had heard, and they were going to try and do as much as they could, so they'd needed everybody on board. There were four exceptions, though: Bunnie and Antoine, who were also benched for light injuries and recovering in their own home, and Sorun, hanging out in the HQ for lack of anywhere better to chill.
As for the fourth, that was Nicole. The only Freedom Fighter who chose to stay behind besides those that were injured. She'd claimed it was due to her wanting to work on file compression for some of her personal projects, but now that Sorun was in the lab and actually watching her work, he was starting to have serious doubts.
"What the heck did Eggman make this thing out of, anyways?" Sorun asked as he tossed the heavy, metal head up and down in his hands. He was currently sitting on a metal table in the HQ's lab, legs freely dangling off the edge as he caught the blue head in his hands. He rolled it around to look at the face, and cringed back slightly when he saw the dark, lifeless black eyes of Metal Sonic staring back. "I threw a million swords at this thing and it didn't even flinch."
He didn't know what possessed the others to keep the thing, but they had. Probably hoping to find something out from the robot's body, and he knew Tails wanted to get a look at it eventually. He still felt uncomfortable around it, though, seeing as the day prior it had almost cut his head off. In fact the only reason he could even stand to toss its head around so casually was because Metal was the one that ended up being decapitated. He really liked how that worked out.
In front of him, the monitors on the lab's computer and the small, miniaturized computer connected to it began to flicker. Digital, cube-like textures began to manifest and swirl around until an outline began to form, the digital cubes gathering and coalescing to give the body substance until a familiar brown and black lynx appeared.
"A million swords? Really now?" Nicole looked down and made a showing of dusting off the purple cloth wrapping around her torso. "I was unaware you were capable of producing such an amount."
Sorun rolled his eyes. "Okay, it was more like one-or-two-hundred-ish swords, but I was too busy trying to keep us all alive to count."
She grinned. "Merely a jest, Sorun. In answer to your question, I believe Dr. Eggman outfitted that particular model with a tungsten-carbide alloy specifically designed by him, though I am unsure of the alloy's actual physical limits."
"Yeah, didn't stop Sonic and Shadow from cutting through it," Sorun bitterly muttered. He heard footsteps approach, and looked up as Nicole walked in front of him. "I seriously don't think this is a good idea, Nicole," he said. "Just throwin' that out there."
"I am well aware of your concerns, but I am confident in my own abilities. You have nothing to fear." She held her hands out. "May I please have the head?"
After a moment's consideration, he gently handed her Metal's head. He almost immediately regretted it. "It's just, y'know, it took a lot for us to bring that thing down," Sorun began as Nicole walked the head over to a smaller table near the computer. "And now you wanna plug the thing's head into the computer so you can go rooting around in its brain case. Hard drive. Whatever the robot equivalent of a brain is."
"It's not as if I am completely reactivating Metal Sonic entirely. I am simply supplying it with enough power to enable its basic functions and connecting it into the HQ's computer to give me direct access to its systems." She set the head down on the table. "I would have connected my own body to it, but it's safer to use the computer as a stopgap between me and Metal Sonic as opposed to directly plugging in."
"Wai-wait, safer? Implying there's danger?" Sorun hopped off the table and began approaching Nicole. "Nicole, you said this was gonna be safe!"
"It is safe," the lynx assured him as she began attaching cables from the computer into the head. "As I said, I am not supplying it with enough power for anything beyond basic functions. Even if by some chance its defensive software becomes active, I am more than capable of isolating any harmful elements so that I may work in peace." She stopped working on the cables and turned her head towards Sorun. "I am starting to think you do not trust that my own abilities are superior to that of some Badnik AI."
Sorun stopped walking and raised his palms up. "Hold on, I wasn't saying that," he said. "I just... did you even clear this with Sally? You said you were just going to work on file compression for your projects!"
"Yes, I did. And I finished. So now I am working on this." She turned back to the head and began fiddling with the cables. "You didn't raise any objections when I asked you to bring the head back to the lab for me."
Groaning, mostly in annoyance at himself, the teen began running his hand through his dark hair. "That was before I knew you were plugging into the thing, man. I- you- I just- what am I supposed to do if you get hurt or something?" It'd be doubly bad for him seeing as he was the one that had delivered the head to her. He severely wished he'd just said no.
Nicole stopped adjusting the cables momentarily, her green eyes briefly flicking to the teen before going back to the head. "I really do appreciate the concern," she began, "but as I've said, it will be fine."
With a huff, Sorun leaned his back on the wall next the table while crossing his arms. He still wasn't convinced, and made it evident by the way his eyes were widened the slightest amount as he looked at Nicole. "It this really so important?" he asked her. "Important enough to risk you being hurt? Or something happening to the computer?"
"I am just planning on examining its memory and data storage banks so that I may copy any files I find for later analysis," she explained. "Metal Sonic is one of Dr. Eggman's more favored creations, so he kept him relatively close by at all times. It is not outside the realm of possibility that it may have overheard some of his plans, or even that it had missions files and objectives for any future attacks planned by the Doctor programmed in. Even if there isn't, I'm still curious as to what I will find inside." She glanced up at Sorun. "It is for the good of the Freedom Fighters. Sally won't mind."
"You say that now..." He still didn't agree with this at all. It just seemed so risky, plugging the murder robot in and giving it power. All to search around in its memory for information and data that might be there so they could gain intel on any future attacks that it might know about so they could all possibly prepare for an attack that may happen. He understood why Nicole would pursue something like that, but something about the way she was going about it was making his skin itch.
Then again, he wasn't the expert in these matters. Despite being a video game virtuoso, he wasn't exactly a technological guru. Building a PC, working around files and programs, and taking a single coding class in high school was about all the computer experience he had. And compared to Nicole, a literal AI genius, that difference may as well have been as wide as the distance from Mobius to the sun. So he supposed he had no choice but to trust her word when she said it was safe.
It didn't help the fact he was feeling extremely nervous over Nicole and the fact she was plugging into a murder bot's brain.
Sorun's head tilted back and softly hit the wall, and a long, drawn-out sigh left him. "Alright," he said, "I'll help."
His words caused Nicole to pause, and slowly she removed her hands from the head's electronic innards. "You will?" she asked, surprise lacing her voice.
The teen mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and then sharply tilted his head downwards to obscure his face with his hair. "I know, it's shocking me, too. But... I've come to realize that it feels... nice helping others," he quietly murmured. "I'm only doing this because it's you. If it was anybody else I wouldn't bother."
He didn't like how he saw that Nicole was remaining motionless from beyond the gaps in his hair. "And why would that be?" she asked him in a curious tone.
Biting his lower lip, Sorun dipped his head down even further. "'Cause... you're my gamer pal," he finally answered as he pushed off the wall. "I can't just leave my gamer pal hanging. That ain't cool. Common gamer etiquette says I gotta help my gamer pal out. It's the rules." He pointed at Nicole. "Speaking of which, you owe me so-oh-oh much time together with the game console for this. I'm talkin' hours here. Maybe all night if I can get enough of those Power Rings together."
Sorun brushed some of his hair out of his face to look at Nicole. Upon seeing the small, bright smile she was giving him, he softly groaned and brushed the hair back over his eyes and face.
"It would truly mean a lot to me if you helped with this," Nicole said, and Sorun had noted her tone took on a more happy note, "but would your injuries not-?"
"Injuries? Pffft, what injuries?" The human teen gestured down to his body. "It's all a bunch of surface stuff, nothin' serious. I'm fine, really."
"In that case, I suppose it would be-"
Nicole would have continued further, though she was cut off when her body began flickering before disappearing entirely mid-sentence.
Upon the lynx disappearing, Sorun sputtered an intelligible noise and took a step back. A second later one of the monitors on the computer flickered to a green screen. A small sprite of Nicole's face appeared in the lower left of the screen, causing the teen to tilt his head.
"My apologies, Sorun. There was not enough power for me to maintain that body." Her voice was coming in clearly through the computer's small speakers, though at the same time her words appeared as text on the computer monitor's green screen. "Could you be so kind as to finish the connections for me?"
The text on the green screen morphed into a white, wireframe diagram of Metal Sonic's head. A digital, 2-D layout of the cables connected to the computer that had yet to be attached to Metal followed this, and some small arrows indicating where the cables had to be plugged in appeared as well. Sorun studied the diagram for a few moments, and then gave a nod.
"Yeah, sure. Man, don't freak me out like that..." Sorun quietly muttered as he walked back to the table. "So what am I actually doing here to help you besides plugging a bunch of wires in?" he asked as he picked up the few cables left unconnected to the head, looking back at the diagram briefly before leaning in towards the head's opening. "You want me to just, like, sit at the computer and press a few buttons when you need me to or what?"
"I had assumed you were volunteering to venture into the digital world along with me," the computer behind him said.
The pale human hummed as he continued rummaging around inside of the robotic head. "Where's the stupid port... wait, what?" He stopped, and then turned his head around to look at the computer. "Digital world? What?"
"We possess a device capable of digitizing living beings so that they may be transported to and interact with the digital world," Nicole elaborated. "It was one of my side projects, actually. Tails helped me build it. I only need a few minutes to set up the proper calibrations and you can join me shortly."
"Uhhh..." The wires being held in Sorun's hand dropped when an overhead light near the back of the lab flipped on. Directly under that light was a large, rectangular server box that was almost as tall as Sorun was. On top of the box was a small satellite dish pointed forwards. Looking down he could see cables running from the device to the computer, and as he continued to observe all of the diodes and displays began flickering as the machine started to hum to life.
Sorun still needed a minute to process the fact that Nicole was offering to digitize him.
"Wait wait wait, slow down. That's a thing?" He incredulously asked as he pointed at the dish on top of the server box. "You can just- I mean it's not the most crazy thing I've heard here, but really?"
"Of course," Nicole answered him. "You... sound hesitant. If you are uncomfortable with-"
"Nah, nah, it's... it's fine," Sorun hesitantly answered as he turned back to his work on the head. "Always wanted to be jacked into the Matrix. Or ported to Tron. Or some other analogue for going to a digital world." He snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, Lyoko. That was a thing, too."
There was a pause from Nicole. "Sorun, I have no idea what any of these things you are referencing are."
"Ah, I'd rather not talk about it." With those words, the teen plugged the last wire into the severed head. "Okay, that's the last one. We good?"
"I believe so, yes." There was an electronic hum from the computer, and a second later a hand in a white glove appeared on a screen giving a thumbs-up. At the same time, the satellite dish on top of the server box swiveled towards Sorun. "I have prepared the proper calibrations. Please step in front of the dish so that I may transfer you."
So they were going through with it after all. The way she sounded so casual about performing such a miracle was stunning Sorun more than the actual prospect of being digitized, but that was yet another thing that was a norm here, he supposed.
Another zany day on Mobius like any other. It's not what he woke up in the morning expecting, or ever expected really, but he was starting to get used to such surprises. Steadily, at least.
Swallowing nervously, Sorun nodded to himself and began to slowly approaching the dish. Getting beamed into the digital world- he'd always fantasized about such a thing growing up, but now that it was about to happen he felt a great amount of trepidation towards the process for fear of something going wrong. But it had to be safe if Nicole was being so casual with it.
He really hoped it was safe.
"So, uh... is this gonna hurt?" Sorun asked as he stopped in front of the dish, wincing slightly when he saw yellow lines of electricity begin converging on its center. "'Cause I really don't-"
Flash!
Flash!
"- think this is healthy for- oh, hey, I'm here."
That had been quicker than he'd anticipated. A lot quicker, actually. All he'd managed to perceive was a yellow flash going off mid-sentence, and immediately after the flash ended he was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere really different than anywhere else he'd seen.
He thought that he was outside. Maybe. He couldn't see any walls and the ceiling was so high that it looked like a greenish void leading on forever with no sun, stars, or moon to light it, so he supposed it was likely outside. The ground was even more bizarre: completely flat and glowing in a neon green color, with white lines running in a checkered pattern throughout it all giving it a wireframe texture. There were large, box-like buildings all around too, some close by while others were far away, and all varying in size from a few stories to being so high they breached the dark green sky, and all with that same green, wireframe texture.
It certainly looked like what he assumed a virtual world would look like.
"Neato," Sorun murmured to himself as he looked around at the virtual landscape around him, a small amount of awe flowing through his mind. "Wow, this is really crazy. Going inside a virtual world. Heh heh. Man, the guys at home woulda flipped if- huh, what the- WHAT THE!?"
He saw his hand go past his vision, and then immediately brought his hand back to look at it as awe gave way to panic. It was definitely his hand. Probably. The color and shape was vaguely there, but his hand, and the rest of his body when he looked down, was formed at such a low resolution that his entire form looked like a blurry, misshapen mess. He wasn't even sure he could call the hand a hand when he looked at it a second time; it looked more like a sharpened appendage that had lines going through it to give the hand the appearance of having fingers.
"Why do I look like I came out of a video game from the nineties...?" He heard a small flash of light next to him, prompting Sorun to turn his pixelated head towards the source. He saw Nicole standing there with a perturbed expression on her face as she looked at Sorun. "Nicole, what is this?!" Sorun demanded as he waved his arms at her.
"I am unsure." She was still staring wide-eyed at him, though at the same time two blue rectangles with text flooding across their surfaces appeared in the air to either side of the lynx. "Please don't panic. I'm looking at the issue now."
"Don't panic? Nicole, my hand's a single polygon!"
"I am sure you are perfectly capable of moving with that hand regardless of your pixel count." A small hum left her as she focused her gaze down at the screens. "Ah, I see. The digitizer was calibrated towards a Mobian's physiology. It's a good thing you have a mammalian body and are relatively close to Mobian biology. I could have accidentally turned you inside-out."
Sorun made a small "eep" sound and backed up a step. "You couldn't have thought to check that beforehand?"
She stopped typing on the screens momentarily, and then looked up at Sorun. He didn't know what to think when he saw a small smirk appear on her face.
"It's just a little bit of humor, Sorun. I wouldn't have digitized you if there was a chance of something going horribly wrong like that." She continued typing. "Although that said, it does seem the digitizer needed to be recalibrated due to your biology. We had never digitized a human before, so I was unaware such an adjustment was needed. I'm making the proper changes now."
A winded breath left Sorun. "Kinda a morbid joke for you, isn't it?" he asked as rings of blue light began to surround him.
"Humor is still a new concept for me. Talking with you during our sessions has helped me further my knowledge of the concept." She frowned. "Did I not do it well?"
"N-nah, nah, it was fine. I just didn't see it coming." Sorun looked down as a pillar of blue light engulfed him, ending seconds later as the blue rings that had surrounded him vanished. "Oh, thanks," he said as he examined his hand. Just enough resolution to look like the real thing.
He didn't remember wearing something with sleeves, though.
Cocking his head to the side, Sorun looked down at himself. His clothes below the torso were the same as those in reality, though above his waist was a different story: the blue shirt was still there, but the sleeveless blue hoodie Honey had made for him was absent. In its place was a thin, blue coat with a long coattail cut into three segments that reached all the way to his ankles. An opened, blue coat with light blue, almost white patterns going down each side of the coat's breasts, the left ending at the collar and the right going all the way to the waist. Patterns that resembled a double helix made from thorny vines with a third, straight line piercing directly down helixes' centers.
Sorun knew what the coat was immediately. He was intimately familiar with the coat and those patterns, having controlled the video game character who'd worn it for such an obscene amount of time. He just couldn't understand why he was wearing it.
"Vergil's coat? Huh?" He looked down at the coat for a few more moments, and then looked up to Nicole with a questioning look on his face. "What happened with my clothes?" he asked her.
Nicole lowered her hands from the floating screens, causing them to disappear. She stepped closer to Sorun afterwards while giving the coat a scrutinizing look. "Part of the process of digitization is your mind being reformatted to interpret the digital world in a way you can comprehend. From your perspective, this would mean that the appearance of some things could be... fluid, depending on your state of mind. Your personal appearance can very possibly be affected by your subconscious, though for what reason it formed that coat is beyond me."
"Mm. I'm not too worried about it, then." More shenanigans from his subconscious. He should have expected it, but as long as it was just a coat, he wouldn't think twice about it. "Okay," Sorun continued, "so where are we going?"
The AI nodded to him, and then turned to the side while pointing off in the distance. "Currently we are located in the digital representation of the HQ computer's mainframe. Our objective is the software located inside of the internals of the Badnik's head we connected to the computer. We will have to make our way to those connections and traverse the cables in order to reach the head. It should be easy from there."
"Oookay..." It sounded simple enough to his ears. Get to the cables and ride through the cables to the head. "So where're the cables?"
"Where I'm pointing."
Sorun stopped glanced at Nicole, and then rolled his eyes as he peered out towards the green, digital horizon. He could vaguely make out large, black tunnels that he supposed may be giant cables. Or digital representations of cables, at the very least. But they looked miles and miles away.
"Ugh, man, those look super far away," Sorun complained as he looked back to Nicole. "We seriously gotta walk all the way over there?"
"That will not be necessary. I will be providing a vehicle for the both of us."
"Huh, what? Vehicle?" He turned back to Nicole, but she had already left his side. He turned around, and saw she had retreated a few steps and was holding her hand out towards the ground.
Some of the green, wireframe ground began to fragment into small, cubed pieces underneath Nicole's hand. They began to lift up and flow around, the sides of the cubes snapping and forming together into a vague, saucer-like shape. As soon as all of the cubes came together, the lines and seams of the connections began to fade while the sharp edges began to round out and morph along with the colors of the shape Nicole made.
Eventually, what had once been a conglomeration of green cubes turned into a small, floating metal saucer with two seats on its top. Nicole hopped up the saucer into the right seat, and then looked down expectantly at Sorun. The human blinked up at the saucer, and then sighed as he climbed up towards the seat next to her.
"Okay, I get it. AIs get to do cool AI stuff in the digital world," Sorun thought as he climbed to the top of the saucer. "Cool ride," he commented as he sat down in the seat next to her, leaning back into the seat while interlacing his fingers behind his head. "So how far to the cables?" he asked.
Nicole regarded Sorun for a second, and then reached forwards to grasp at a small steering wheel in front of her seat. She turned it, and by extension, the entire floating saucer turned towards the direction where she had pointed to prior. "At the speed this vehicle goes, approximately ten minutes and forty-six seconds," she informed him as she pressed forwards on the wheel. The saucer began flying forwards, fast enough that Sorun felt his body press slightly into the chair. "The time it will take to traverse the cables is another matter entirely, though we will reach that point soon enough."
"If you say so." Feeling his fingers going numb from being forcibly pressed into the seat, Sorun removed his fingers and, with some effort, sat back forwards. He then turned to the side, where he soon rested his arms at the edge of the saucer while leaning forwards into them to gaze out into the passing landscape.
He wanted to say it was a nice view, but quite honestly with how fast they were going combined with everything having that same green, wireframe texture, it was all beginning to blur together for him. Enough to the point that all the green whizzing past him was starting to make Sorun feel unwell, so after a couple of minutes of staring out into the digital world he pushed his body back into the saucer and leaned back into his seat. Afterwards he glanced at Nicole, who seemed half-focused on driving. Even so, he could tell from the way her eyes were half-lidded that she seemed as bored as he was. Wasn't hard to see why considering she was driving them in a straight line.
"I guess I should start a conversation. But man, I don't know what to lead in with," Sorun absentmindedly gazed upwards at the empty, green sky in thought. "Geez, what does she actually like? Every time we talk over video games it's always just over a bunch of random stuff on our minds. I don't actually know what she likes." He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, pursed his lips, and looked back forwards. "Damn, does it even matter? It's just talking. Start with something, anything." Impatiently, he began tapping at his knees. "I got nothin'."
"So," he heard the lynx from besides him begin, "what is your impression of the digital world?"
"Oh thank god, she started it," Sorun internally cheered before turning his head to give her his attention. "It's a lot more green than I thought it would be," he told her, and then immediately had to resist the urge to slap himself. "'A lot more green than-' man, what the fuck kinda answer is that?"
To his utter disbelief, the answer brought a small smile to Nicole's face. "I found myself saying the exact same thing when I first witnessed the real world with my own eyes," she said.
"Run with it, Sorun, run with it." Coughing lightly into his fist, the teen turned his whole body slightly to more face Nicole's. "What made you want to make that body, anyways?" he asked.
"You could say I had a... different perspective on things," she answered him. "I remember a time where all my experiences were nothing but raw data and information provided to me by the voices of everybody else, mainly Sally, who almost always carries my handheld body, as well as any digital data I had to sift through whenever I was plugged into something. Through my experiences with everybody, over time my computational matrix grew and learned and I evolved what you would perceive as a personality." The little smile she'd had on her face fell to a neutral expression. "But it... wasn't a full experience, as you would probably say. I never experienced what everybody else experienced in the real world. True sights, sounds, colors... among other things. But that had ended when there was an incident where me and Sally briefly switched bodies."
Sorun continued to silently listen to Nicole, though he tilted his head at that last statement. "Eh? How'd that happen?"
"Rotor was running an experiment with Chaos energy with me and Sally stepped on a loose wire," she quickly answered. It elicited a disbelieving scoff from Sorun. "Walking around in her body proved to be a... enlightening experience for me. At the time it had seemed like I had stepped into a completely different world which, I suppose, wasn't entirely inaccurate. The sheer amount of sensations was almost overwhelming. The sights, the sounds, the feeling of touch, the wind blowing on my face... I'd even felt true emotions for the first time," she quietly added. "It did not last long; Sally and I were placed back into our proper bodies shortly afterwards, though some things remained with me. The emotions I had experienced were imprinted into my computational matrix, and as a result I was able to form my own emotions. Learning to feel as others felt was wonderful on its own, but simply put, I wanted more. I wanted to experience the real world again. So I began developing my own body." She sighed, and picked one of her hands up from the wheel to look at it.
"For the most part, my efforts were a success," Nicole continued, "though the power requirements needed to maintain this body of mine in the real world are impractical. There was a time where my handheld body only had enough power to support it for a few minutes on a weekly basis. A few weeks before you arrived on Mobius, actually, I had created the blueprints for the modification to my body to utilize Power Rings and had Tails build and install it for me, and while it has assuredly been a marked improvement, I can't help but long for something more." She put her hand back on the wheel, and then fully turned to Sorun while smiling again. "But otherwise, I have been incredibly grateful for the experiences afforded to me thus far. I must especially thank you, Sorun. Nobody else has endeavored to spend as much time with my physical form as you, even if it is just to play games. I know gathering all of those Power Rings must be a hassle."
Sorun shook his head while giving a polite smile. "No, it's fine. To be honest you're the only fun one I can play games with. Not to demean everybody else, but they're all pretty terrible at games compared to us." He coughed into his hand again. "But yeah, don't worry about the rings. It's not a problem at all."
A total lie. Those rings were incredibly hard to come by, and sometimes when he asked Sally for some she outright refused because they didn't have any to spare. Apparently, though, Power Rings spawned out of a lake for some reason. He didn't know why, but after asking around he'd found the lake and managed to roughly nail down the times they rose up so he could snatch a ring if he was really hankering for a session with Nicole.
It was a pain in the ass getting those things, really, but it was more than worth it.
"Well, regardless, I appreciate all the time you have spent with me," Nicole finished.
Well. That had certainly been more than what he'd been expecting when he'd asked such a simple question. He'd meant something completely different when he asked, so she didn't really answer anything he asked, but that was still a lot of perspective she'd given him. And he found himself appreciating the story, oddly enough. Being moved by the simple fact she'd shared so much with him. It was oddly touching.
It still didn't answer his original question, though.
"Uh, Nicole..." Sorun began to nervously drum his fingers together. "When I asked what made you want to make that body, I meant, like... why you chose a lynx body," he elaborated.
"... Oh." Almost looking embarrassed, Nicole turned her head back forwards. "I apologize. I didn't mean to bore you with-"
"No no no! I wasn't bored at all!" Sorun denied, quickly leaning closer while shaking his head as panic shot through him. "Ah, jeez, that isn't what I meant at- look, I really enjoyed all that and I'm glad you shared it with- oh, man, please don't take what I said the wrong way."
Nicole looked back towards Sorun, and when she saw the incredibly flustered and desperate look he had on his face, she made an amused smile with a hint of relief mixed in. "Do not worry. I understand," she assured him. "It is alright."
"Ooooh, thank goodness." Sighing, Sorun collapsed back into his seat while covering his face with his hand. "So, lynx?" he asked again, voice muffled by his palm while he looked at the AI from between his fingers.
"I simply chose a form that was most pleasing to me," she answered. "Why do you ask? Do you find this form unappealing to look at?"
Crossing his arms, Sorun faced back forwards away from her. "I didn't say that," he said. "And I don't think that."
"Hm." Sorun's foot began to tap on the saucer's floor when she turned towards him more. "Do you know why your subconscious created that coat you are wearing?" she suddenly asked him.
Some of the tension released from Sorun's shoulders, and rather shyly he turned his head in the opposite direction of Nicole. "Don't laugh, but it's from a video game character I really like from back home," he answered.
She actually did laugh a single time at that, and when his head snapped back to shoot her a glare, she laughed a second time. "Forgive me. I did not realize it was such a sensitive subject for you," she said with a teasing smile while facing back forwards. "You must really have liked this character if your subconscious is basing your mental attire off of theirs."
"It's basing a lot more than clothes off Vergil," Sorun thought with an audible sigh. "Yeah, I guess." He held up one of his arms and tugged on the coat's sleeve with the other. "Hey, think this'll come back into the real world along with the rest of me?"
To his great disappointment, Nicole shook her head. "It is simply a digital representation of your mental image of yourself. Your real clothes will be returned along with the rest of you when you go back to the real world."
"Aw, man." Sorun made a pout. "That's a shame. I really like this coat."
In response to this, Nicole turned her green eyes towards the coat. She only studied it and the designs on the coat for a single second, after which she turned back forwards and at the same time began pulling the wheel back. "We've arrived," she announced.
The saucer began slowing down rapidly, and then halted entirely. The pair immediately stood up and hopped out of the saucer afterwards, with the vehicle disassembling back into green cubes which fell down and dissolved back into the ground. Sorun watched a small spectacle for a few moments, and then turned around and began following closely behind Nicole.
They'd stopped in front of, in essence, a large, black, tubular tunnel that lead right into the ground. The inside was completely dark, though occasionally Sorun could see arcs of blue electricity spark off in the interior, and in those brief flashes of light he could see a myriad of wires lining the tunnel's walls.
"So we gotta take this to reach Metal Sonic's head?" Sorun asked as he traced a finger along the tunnel's edge. He looked forwards, and saw that a short distance into the dark tunnel it curved downwards into a straight drop. "So, uh... how does this work?"
Nicole stepped besides him. "We simply drop in," she explained. "We'll be funneled into Metal's systems and we'll be able to work in from there."
"... Drop in... right..." Slowly putting one foot in front of the other, Sorun slowly began entering the tunnel while keeping one hand running along the wall. "There isn't a less, I don't know, extreme way of going in?" he asked her as he neared the edge of the tunnel's drop. "We seriously gotta drop in?"
"The only thing connecting the head to the computer is the cables we inserted, but this specific cable is the only hardline we can use to reach the head's system." Right as Sorun stopped at the edge of the drop, Nicole halted right at his backside. "I assure you it is completely safe, Sorun."
Gulping, Sorun peered down into the hole. The completely black, seemingly bottomless hole that had every instinct in him screaming that he shouldn't jump down it and that it would mean death. He was so afraid of jumping down into the bottomless hole that Nicole's words were lost on him.
Shaking his head, Sorun took a step back. "Y-yeah, you know, I think I'm good." He'd inadvertently backed into Nicole, who stopped him by pressing both of her palms against his back. "I mean, you said it was safe anyways, right? I'll just wait here for you to come back and-"
"Sorun, it's not dangerous. You'll be fine," Nicole stated in a flat tone. "From your perspective the fall won't even take a second. We're already here, so just go in."
"I-I would, you know, seriously, but-but I really don't think-"
He'd heard a small sigh from behind him, and he could of sworn he felt Nicole roll her eyes at him. Then she'd pushed him.
He didn't even have time to register the betrayal before he fell in.
"Uuuugh..."
Well, Nicole had been right about one thing: the fall had taken less than a second. He'd fell in, and then he hit solid ground relatively pain-free. The problem was that, during that half-second, he'd felt his body being propelled at a speed so fast that, despite how short it had been, he felt like his eyeballs were spinning, his stomach had been wrung out, and his brain had been shaken. The nausea he was experiencing wasn't helping, either.
With another groan he rolled onto his back, looking up to see a tall, dark wall with the hole of the other end of the cable sticking out from it. Nicole's body dropped out of the hole right after, though she didn't look nearly as worse for wear as he did.
"Ugh, why'd you shove me...?" he moaned out as he sat upwards. "Agh, jeez I feel like I just got squeezed through a drinking straw..."
Nicole grimaced, and then looked to the side to avoid eye contact with Sorun. "You were being difficult, and Sally often says that helping others only requires a shove in the right direction. As for the nausea, your mind did just travel at sub-light speeds through the cable into the head's systems. It should pass momentarily."
He actually was starting to feel better now that she mentioned it, but it was still with some difficulty that Sorun rose up to his feet. "So there's these things called idioms," Sorun muttered to her as she reached down to help him up. "Dunno if you've ever heard of them, Nicole, but they're not meant to be taken literally."
"I'm perfectly aware of what an idiom... I see." Expression turning sheepish, Nicole placed her hands behind her back after helping Sorun up and stepped back. "I apologize. It was not my intention to cause stress to-"
"It's fine, don't worry about it." Truthfully he was a little upset, but it was rapidly starting to fade from his mind as he began to take a look around at the surroundings. "More importantly, is this it?"
Nicole looked back at him, and then nodded. "Yes. This would be the digital representation of Metal Sonic's internal systems."
It was a lot more dreary than the inside of the HQ computer's mainframe, Sorun would say that much. The overall structure was the same- wireframe floors and structures everywhere, though the structures were much more shorter, numerous, and clumped together in some half-baked representation of a cityscape. And gray, too. The floors and structures were all a dark gray color while the sky was a deep, endless dark blue.
Even something as subtle as the general mood of the place felt different. Sorun hadn't felt anything inside the mainframe other than his own wonder at stepping into a virtual world, but here there was something else. A sinister undertone to the atmosphere that had Sorun on edge.
Such was the mind of a killer robot, he supposed.
"You're absolutely sure this place is safe?" Sorun asked once more as Nicole walked past him, prompting the human to fall closely behind. "I don't mean to second-guess you or anything, but something about this place..."
"It does seem rather off, doesn't it?" Nicole muttered in agreement as the two rounded the corner of a large, block-like structure. "I understand your concerns, but just as I said, there is nothing to fear. I'm not feeding enough power into Metal Sonic's head to even power its subroutines, never mind its primary drivers. It shouldn't even be conscious at the moment, so we don't need to fear any anti-software protection programs being activated." She pointed to the structure they'd just passed. "For example, the building back there is the primary driver for Metal's optical systems. They're currently inert due to lack of power."
Sorun looked behind him and at the building Nicole was gesturing to. It looked like just another wireframe, featureless block like everything else around. "I'll... take your word for it." He looked back to Nicole. "So we're just going after his memory centers, right?" he questioned. "Quick in and out?"
"It shouldn't take too long, yes." She looked back ahead. "Actually, I believe that is it over there."
The lynx's walking speed increased, forcing Sorun to speed up his own pace just to keep up with her. He looked ahead towards the structure in question, though there wasn't much he could say about it: a square, flat wireframe building pressed up against dozens of identical squares to form a rectangular, segmented building that was sitting in the open at the edge of a small plaza.
"Er... cool," Sorun commented as the pair slowed to a stop once approaching the structure. "So these are the memory banks?"
"Yes." Nicole rose her hands up to her sides, and the floating computer screens appeared once more. "All of the security countermeasures are offline as expected due to the low influx of power, though the files themselves seem to be locked behind a password," she mumbled as she began typing. "I imagine the files are encrypted, too, though I can get to work on that later. For now I just wish to make a copy of all the data I can and bring it back to the HQ for further analysis."
"Choice, choice." The human teen crossed his arms, nervously tapping his foot while looking around at the gray, maze-like structures surrounding them. The only sounds to break up the eerie environment was the tapping of his foot and the tapping sounds of Nicole typing, though even this was beginning to wear on him. "Is the password going to be a problem for-?"
"I've bypassed it."
The curt response caught Sorun off guard, who sputtered slightly and turned his back to Nicole fully to continue to observe the surrounding, bleak area. "Great," he said. "Don't wanna rush you or anything, Nicole, but I'm not gonna lie, this place is giving me the creeps."
"It should just be a few more moments... hm?" Nicole's typing paused as she focused in on the floating screen to her left. "What is... oh no-!"
The sky turned from blue to red.
Sorun, who was oblivious towards the reason for the change in color, gazed up at the sky with a simple, perturbed look on his face. Nicole looked much more panicked as she began to rapidly tap away at her screens, and when Sorun looked over to her direction, he began to grow more worried himself as a result of seeing Nicole's expression.
"Er, Nicole?" he called. "Everything ok-?"
"There was a trap in the files. A program that detects unauthorized- why would it only activate in conjunction with low power levels!?" The lynx's typing grew to furious speeds. "Don't tell me when Eggman programmed this thing he actually anticipated... he designed something that specific!?"
"Alright, everything's not okay, then." Sorun's worry began to increase tenfold when one of the blocky buildings on the other side of the plaza began to shift from a gray color to a blue color. "Hey, that building over there is lighting up." He backed up so that he was next to Nicole. "Nicole, what's the problem here?"
"There's a program that detects unauthorized access to Metal's memory banks, but it only triggers if it detects low levels of power within Metal Sonic's systems," Nicole rapidly explained as she continued typing. "It must be a failsafe countermeasure in the event we would try something like this, but I can't see what good that program will do unless-" Her fingers snapped to a halt for a quarter of a second, after which Nicole's eyes widened dramatically as her fingers began typing again. "It's to activate a backup power supply," she realized.
The blue building across the way began shifting to red. "So that's bad?" Sorun guessed.
"He put a backup power supply unit in Metal's head just in case somebody tried accessing the files while it was disconnected from its main power supply located in its body." She didn't even look towards Sorun as she explained, as the AI's green eyes were completely affixed to her screens. "The program I tripped is attempting to activate it in response to my intrusion. I'm trying to head it off, but it's so hardwired into the system-!"
Zap!
Both the AI's and the human's head perked up at the crackling, zapping sound of electricity. They slowly turned towards the center of the plaza where the source of the noise originated, though both had varying reactions. Nicole's irises had shrunken a small amount, while Sorun's face went even paler than normal.
Metal Sonic was standing there. Or something that looked like it at least, as all of its body including the metal bits were glowing a bright, neon blue color. The only exception to the blue coloring was the two red irises, both glowing so brightly they were practically flaming. And to Sorun's rapidly increasing fright they were locked onto him.
The first thing that came to Sorun's mind was to shoot a sword at it, so naturally Sorun formed a Summoned Sword at his side. He noticed from the corner of his eye there was something amiss with the sword's shape, and he did a double-take when he saw that the blue sword had taken on a blocky, pixelized texture. He shook his head at the virtual Summoned Sword, uncaring of its appearance, and willed it to fire at Metal Sonic.
Somehow, he wasn't surprised that the sword never hit. Metal Sonic's claws had reached up to snatch the sword out of the air right before it impacted. Once it grabbed the sword, it squeezed down and caused the sword to shatter into a cloud of disappearing pixels.
"Why do I even bother?" Sorun growled under his breath as he took a step back. "What am I looking at here, Nicole?"
"It's Metal Sonic's anti-intrusion software program," she responded in a low voice. "The backup power supply activated by the program I tripped turned it on. Sorun, stand back."
He didn't have any issues complying with that order, and began to rapidly backpedal right behind Nicole. As he did this, green pixels began to swirl around the lynx's hands, who then clapped the two appendages together as the digital Metal Sonic shot forwards.
A great, green wall completely made of transparent, green cubes formed right in front of the virtual robot, which it slammed against. The wall expanded and grew into a dome that soon encapsulated the entire plaza, trapping the program within. Nicole lowered her hands afterwards, face slightly exerted as she took a step backwards.
"I partitioned him away behind that wall," she explained to Sorun. "I don't know how long it's going to hold it, but it should be long enough for us to go back and remove the connections from the head."
Blinking cautiously, Sorun kept near to Nicole as he continued to examine the Metal Sonic program and the green dome it was trapped behind. The program was banging its claw against the green wall in a seemingly angry manner, but from what he saw the wall of green cubes wasn't sustaining any damage. "How long do you need to extract the files?" he slowly asked.
"Just a bit longer," the lynx muttered back as she refocused on her screens. "Why?"
Worryingly, the Metal Sonic program began glowing a brighter blue color. Sorun noticed this immediately, and began pointing towards it. "'Cause it's doing that."
Nicole looked up from the screens just in time to see the program resembling Metal Sonic's form distort and warble, and then watched as its body split in two. The two halves distorted even more for a brief moment, and then began to reshape themselves and become more clear. Soon enough, there were two Metal Sonics standing behind that dome, staring at the pair with angry, red eyes. And right afterwards they began to split apart to divide themselves again.
With a hint of frustration in her eyes, Nicole closed the two screens floating next to her. "It's attempting circumvent the partition barrier I made by running a recursion protocol to-"
"It's making copies of itself to get past the green thing, got it!" His patience thoroughly thinned, he stomped forwards while gently but firmly shaking Nicole's shoulder. "Look, we gotta get outta here pretty quick."
"I'm aware of this. I just now finished copying the files I found." Nicole glanced back towards the dome. By now there were dozens of glowing Metal Sonics inside of the green dome, pounding away at the walls. And they were making progress, too, as small cracks were beginning to form along the dome's wall. "Come on. We'll depart the same way we came in."
Sorun's face fell slightly. "Aw man, we gotta go back through that- alright!" His face picked back up when Nicole shot him a glare. "Alright, let's go!"
The pair wasted no further time, the both of them turning around and taking off. Or Nicole had taken off, at least- evidently being an AI in the digital world came with more perks than just being able to build stuff out of nothing and manipulate the environment by typing stuff. She could fly, too. Just float a few inches off of the ground and fly away. Sorun hadn't even been able to say anything in response before she grabbed his wrist and dragged him away along with her as she flew back towards the access cable they had used to travel into Metal's head.
At any other given time with anybody else Sorun would have raised a lot of objections to this, but with an army of killer robots at their back that he couldn't even touch, he couldn't find it in himself to raise any argument towards it. So he'd let Nicole take his wrist without any fuss so they could fly away.
But, right as they saw the cable-tunnel and began to approach it, something had stretched out in front of their path. A large, red, transparent wall made of cubes, not unlike the dome Nicole had used to trap the Metal Sonic programs. They touched down on the ground right in front of it, Nicole still tightly holding onto Sorun's wrist as she glared up at the red wall blocking their path.
The destructive sound of a wall shattering nearby behind them was not doing Sorun's nerves any favors.
"Metal Sonic's security systems input a firewall on our exit. It must have noticed the foreign intrusion." Nicole lifted up her free hand as a blue screen appeared in front of it. "I can get past it, but it will take some time."
Looking down at the digital pathway they had just flown down from, Sorun's eyes widened. "Nicole, we ain't got time."
"I just need-"
Crash!
The loud crashing sound had jarred Nicole's concentration, and forced her to look away from her screen towards the source of the noise. Her eyes widened when she saw a wall of digital Summoned Swords filling up the street behind them, with multiple clawed, robotic appendages reached out from the gaps between the swords and handles towards them. Sorun, standing there with his free hand outstretched towards the wall, looked back towards Nicole.
"That's only gonna hold them for a few seconds," he said, "so we gotta go now."
"Sorun-" A portion of the wall disintegrated in a flash of blue cubes, and when the AI saw multiple Metal Sonics beginning to squeeze through, she sighed while closing the computer screen. "Very well..."
She waved her hand in front of them right as the wall of swords collapsed entirely. Her own makeshift wall, green and made of cubes just like the red one in front of them, manifested and spread out to separate the dozens of Metal Sonics from the pair. Already, though, the dozens of copies were pounding away at the wall, making it crack. Nicole's grip on Sorun's wrist tightened, and the teen felt his body be pulled away as Nicole took flight away from the programs once more.
It had taken tens of minutes- though to Sorun it had felt like hours- but they'd finally evaded the mob of Metal Sonics hunting them down. Minutes upon minutes of Nicole flying them all over the virtual, cityscape-like design of the virtual world inside of Metal Sonic's programming, diving and weaving through the maze-like structures as either Sorun or Nicole occasionally constructed a wall behind them to momentarily slow down the horde chasing them.
It had been highly stressful, but somehow, through some combination of using the walls and Nicole's navigation, they seemed to have gotten away. He'd attribute a large part of it to the fact that she could fly fast while in the virtual world, too. Faster than those Metal Sonics had been going. Sorun chalked it up to her AI nature, but he was less about questioning that and more about being thankful that all the sharp turns she'd made hadn't given him whiplash and snapped his neck at some point.
But they'd gotten away. For the moment, at least. It was likely the software security programs were still searching around, but for now the two of them were in the clear, having taken cover in a narrow, alley-like alcove between the blocky structures underneath the approximation of a large street. Sorun was standing just outside the alley, hunched over with his hands resting on his knees as he gulped in large breathes of air. Or whatever the virtual equivalent of air was in the virtual world.
He had to wonder if he even needed to breath here, but his mind was on too many other things to care to find out.
"Whew, ah man... that was a wild ride." He straightened his back up and looked back into the alley. "So, what's next for... uh, Nicole?"
The pale human wasn't surprised in the least that Nicole didn't look winded at all; he'd expected that much. He didn't expect to find her sitting in the alley with her back against the wall, knees pulled up and held to her chest with her head dipped downwards. She didn't even seem responsive towards him, and didn't do much as stir when he called her name a second time.
"... Ah, geez. Gimme a break." Sorun continued staring for a few more moments, and then sighed as a ran a hand along his face. "Alright, let's figure out what's wrong."
He stepped into the alley, pressed his back against the same wall Nicole was sitting against, and then slowly slid down until he was sitting right besides her. He picked his left knee up, slung his left elbow over it, and then looked to his right at Nicole. "Hey." He lifted his right hand up and gently nudged her shoulder. "Hey, say words."
"... I have made a myriad of mistakes..." Nicole quietly murmured.
"..." Sorun nudged her again. "Say more words."
"I only endeavored to try and breach Metal Sonic's memory archives because I thought it would be completely safe. I took every single precaution necessary and made all the correct calculations, and even after all that I... I underestimated how meticulous Dr. Eggman was in his security programming," Nicole admitted. "Even if it was such a cleverly hidden failsafe, I failed to account for it. I failed to secure us a direct exit route because I did not account for how powerful Metal Sonic's defensive systems would be. I failed to bring this matter to Sally, who most likely would have denied such a mission knowing the risks." She glanced towards Sorun, her black hair brushing past her shoulders. "... I've failed to keep you safe after you volunteered to follow me here," she continued. "I likely will not be able to penetrate the firewall blocking our escape in time with all of those programs patrolling and searching around. I wouldn't doubt that the exit point is guarded, even. Being destroyed here would be the equivalent of being destroyed in reality, and I fear that... I'm worried," she finished as she faced back forwards into her knees.
"... Ah." Yeah, he could see why she'd be so down after all that. And he figured that a "die in the virtual world, die in reality" mechanic was in place, but hearing it out of Nicole's mouth was a bit more sobering to Sorun, and now he was really worried. But he was less focused on that and more on the sad lynx he was sitting right next to- mainly because he wanted to shake her out of this so they could put their heads together and figure out a solution so they could continue living. And a small part of him didn't like seeing her sad.
"Okay." The teen took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled. "I got nothing, so let's just wing it and say what's on my mind. That's more honest anyways, right? Ugh. Hope this works."
"Well, yeah, you're not wrong." Sorun paused, and then looked up at the bottom of the street above them. "You know, all this diving into the virtual world and computer stuff... it's really cool. In my zone this kind of stuff is science-fiction. The kind of things they base video games and movies off of. Actually sorta reminds me of this one old show back where I'm from, Earth. I only watched a few episodes, never saw the full thing and I didn't care much for it, but I got the gist of it. It was about a space crew that road around in a spaceship doing space things. They even had a AI crew member. Kinda like you." By now Nicole had decided to turn her entire head to give him her full attention. "I'm gonna impart something I heard from the show that I can tell you from personal experience is completely true." Sorun turned his head so that the pair's eyes would lock. "It's possible to do literally every single thing right, not make a single mistake, and still lose. That's not failure. That's life. It happens."
Nicole's ears, having practically been flattened against her head, picked up halfway but still appeared to be drooping. Her face didn't look all that convinced, either. "Sorun, that isn't... that doesn't make sense-"
"Nicole, this isn't math." Sorun stopped, and then took a quick look around. "Okay, in this instance this is kinda math, but even in math you don't get a perfect answer all the time. Life is just like that, but worse. Like, way worse. Things happen all the time because of all sorts of crazy variables. The important thing isn't that you failed, it's that you get up after failing and keep going." He was pulling all of the moral lessons he'd seen in a myriad of video games and comics at this point, but he felt himself going on a roll, so Sorun gestured to himself. "I mean, look at me," he said. "I've been a major screw-up since day one of being dragged on Mobius, and I'm still here. I was practically falling on my face and getting gut-punched by the universe every day in the beginning, and to be honest with you that's kinda still happening, but by some cosmic stroke of luck I've made it this far without having a mental shutdown. Did I want to stay down every time I got knocked down?" Sorun breathed out a listless laugh. "Yeah, I did. I really, really did. But self-preservation is a really amazing thing that's been keeping me going, along with..." he turned to the side and coughed, "along with a couple other things.
"Look, what... what I'm trying to say is that, yeah, we screwed up. You probably shouldn't have tried break into Metal Sonic's head, and I probably shouldn't have given you the head or at least tried talking you out of it. But people make mistakes, Nicole. And guess what, we're people."
Throughout the entire speech, Nicole's eyes had been steadily widening the more and more Sorun spoke. Her eyes fell near the end, though, and when it was her turn to speak she had a disbelieving tone in her voice. "People... you referred to both of us as people," she muttered. "You really see me as a person?"
Sorun just looked confuse at that. "Yeah, why wouldn't I? Doesn't everybody?"
"In the Freedom Fighters, yes," she confirmed with a nod, "but I've been resisting Eggman alongside them all for years. You've scarcely been here a month. I just... find it surprising that even after all the time we spent playing those games you-"
"You're really gonna make me go through with this?" Sorun interrupted with a roll of his eyes. "Of course you're a real person. Geez, you sound more real than some of the people I know on Earth. You look real, you talk real, you even emote like a real person. Lifeless machines don't sit down in alleys acting all sad like you're doing right now. You told me you learned how to have your own emotions. The fact you can even do that proves you're sapient," he said while lightly shoving Nicole.
It wasn't even him posturing to try and make her feel better at this point. It was how he genuinely felt, even if the excessive amount of games and movies he'd experienced whose plot dealt with this exact same issue was slightly biasing his way of thinking on the matter. And the amount of embarrassment flowing through him wanted to make him hide his face behind his dark hair again, but his gamer pal was being sad in an alley. He wasn't gonna have that, even at his own expense.
"That's... not incorrect," Nicole conceded as she looked down at her hands, "but I'm not sure the word 'real' is something I can-"
"Nicole, how much more real could you be? Literally, how much more real?" he asked her. "You're already a sapient being that can feel emotions. You went as far as to make a body for yourself to interact with reality, so you've got a real body, even if you can't maintain it for long. Your mind's real, your body's real, seriously, you couldn't be more real." He leaned back into the wall, threw his hand up, and let it fall into his lap. "Okay, sure, you're an AI, but artificial intelligence is still intelligence. I mean if you really think about there isn't really much difference between your mind and mine. It's all electrical impulses and signals at the end of the day. I'm just made of a lot more carbon and have hormones and stuff, and you're made of... whatever the body you make is made of. That stuff. And yeah, you think a lot faster than me and you have, like, two or three-hundred IQ points over me, but that doesn't change anything." He waved his arm over himself. "You even went and digitized me so I could walk around the virtual, not real world. Pretty sure going from being real to not real goes both ways if you get what I'm saying."
With his piece said, Sorun stood up to his feet and walked towards the entrance to the alley, Nicole staring after his back. "But all that's just what I think," he finished. "At the end of the day you're your own person, so you decide what you are and aren't. But the Nicole I know never got all mopey even when I beat her in a video game. She got better and beat me the next time around. And then I'd pull a gamer trick outta my sleeve and beat her again. Then we'd keep doing that until the Power Ring ran out." He looked back at her. "I'm pulling at straws at this point, so please feel better."
He finished the speech with a small breath. His brain felt exhausted just from saying that speech, but it was everything he had that he could pull. He just hoped that enough of it got through to Nicole that she would begin to understand what he was trying to say.
To his immense relief, it looked like a lot of what he had said had gotten through to Nicole after all. Her ears were practically standing up straight, her eyes seemed widened to the max, and though her mouth was closed he was pretty sure her jaw was slack. For the longest time she wasn't moving, either. She just continued to sit there while staring up at him wide-eyed with that deep, unreadable expression, and for a moment Sorun was worried he'd said something that broke her.
Eventually, though, her head lowered again, and any concern Sorun had washed away when he saw a small smile grow on her face. "I suppose you raise many valid points," she said at last. "And I also suppose that life as a real person would include all the bad in life as well as the good."
"Hey, look at that. I actually got through." Sorun walked over to her and held a hand out. She grasped it, and Sorun helped her up to her feet. "We tripped and fell down. So what? Everybody trips," he said. "Even genius AI people don't get to be exempt from falling over."
She smiled a little at that. "Yes, I see that now." She paused, and then looked down at the pale hand grasping hers. "But that's why we have friends to help us with all that falling, correct?" she asked as she looked back up at Sorun.
And then, for Sorun at least, the mood was instantly brought down a few notches.
"... Friends, huh?" In a move that caused Nicole some confusion, Sorun adopted a gloomy look on his face as he pulled his hand away from the lynx.
He turned his back to Nicole and bit his lower lip. He'd done it again. Accidentally closed in on people when he was supposed to be distancing himself away from all the people he was planning on abandoning. First it was saving lives, and now it was giving motivational speeches to sad AI. And she had to go and use the "friend" word. Is that what they were now? Friends? He so desperately wanted to deny it, but he also just didn't have the heart to do it. Because he actually did value all the time he spent with her, probably more than the others since those video game sessions with her was one of the only things keeping him together besides his desire to live.
What was even the point in trying anymore when things like this kept happening? He wasn't even bothering to fight it. He wasn't even sure fighting it would do any good for how far he'd gone for some people.
"... So we gotta find a way out of this mess," Sorun said, trying to get away from his own thoughts. "I got a theory I wanna test."
In a flash of blue, the Bringer Claws appeared hanging off of his shoulders. They had a digital texture to them like the Summoned Swords had, but the power itself seemed to remain the same. The right claw removed itself from Sorun's shoulder, curled into a fist, and punched forwards at the corner of one of the wireframe buildings they were standing next to. The small corner he'd punched crumbled apart from the Bringer Claw's fist, the pieces and pixels removed slowly disappearing into nothing. The hole made on the corner remained.
"Theory proven, I got an idea," Sorun announced as the Bringer Claw folded back onto his shoulder. "That one building that lit up before Metal appeared. What was that?" he asked as he turned back to Nicole.
Still regarding him with some confusion behind her eyes mixed with that wonder from earlier, Nicole held her hand out so that the blue computer screen appeared. "That building was a virtual representation of the coding to the core processing system to the anti-software security program inside Metal Sonic's coding," she answered. "It was activated in response to the backup supply unit I inadvertently triggered. Why do you ask?"
"Would the Metal Sonics go away if that building was destroyed?"
A thoughtful look crossed her face as she looked down at the blue screen. "As I said, that building is a virtual representation to a piece of Metal Sonic's programming. Destroying it would essentially be the same as deleting lines of code in his digital makeup, specifically the lines of code responsible for his security system. So... yes. It would." The screen disappeared, and she looked up at Sorun. "What is your plan, Sorun?"
"The plan is a simple one, Nicole." The right Bringer Claw removed itself from Sorun's shoulder, and once again clenched into a fist. "These things are strong enough to damage the environment. So my plan is I'm gonna punch the building. Really hard."
A beat passed between the two. They both continued to stare at each other silently for the longest of moments, though it was broken when Nicole began to slowly shake her head.
"... I should have expected something so simple from you," Nicole said as a grin spread over her face. "I doubt such a thing will be so easy with all of those security programs out hunting for us, and as your swords demonstrated, you are physically no match for a single one."
"Eh, well, I've never been good at strategy. That's why I got you," Sorun said as the Bringer Claw folded back onto his shoulder. "If I can get back to that place and destroy the building, the Metal Sonics disappear and you'll have all the time in the world to get rid of that firewall so we can leave." He sighed. "But, yeah, the murder programs runnin' around gunning for us is a pretty big problem. I'm open to suggestions here."
Nicole crossed her arms, and only had to think for a second before looking into Sorun's eyes. "The method Metal Sonic used to split itself up into all those iterations of itself was a recursion protocol. While it's true there are numerous amounts of those Metal Sonics running around, a majority of the limited processing power being provided to its system is being dispersed among those copies to coordinate them. It won't weaken them in any way, but it seems to have slowed them down at least. I'm don't think that we would have been able to successfully evade them otherwise. And those programs will have to remain split in order to avoid me simply partitioning them off again."
"Okay... where are you going with this?"
"... Do you remember that 'kiting' strategy you showed me once?" she asked him. "When we were playing that one game? You used a method in which you gained the attention of the game's enemy AI and continued to run around them until they'd all grouped together and you defeated them all at once with that special power-up you'd saved."
"You mean kiting? 'Course I remember." Learning enemy draw distance to manipulate their positions to suit a gamer's purpose was a staple strategy. It helped that the character he'd been playing as had a slightly higher movement speed than the enemy AIs'. "Why, what are- ohhhh, you wanna lead them all, huh?"
Nicole smiled at Sorun's understanding. "I have a great deal of control here in the virtual world, even if it is inside of Metal Sonic's systems. I can outpace the security programs, as we've already seen. I will draw the attention of all of the programs hunting us, and while they are all distracted chasing me you will go and destroy the security system's core processor. If all goes according to plan we should succeed with a relatively low risk of injury."
Sorun turned his head away, holding a hand to his chin in deep contemplation. It was definitely a better plan than his "just punch it" plan. He was glad "punch it" was still part of the plan, though, because it gave him something to do without feeling inadequate. And if he couldn't punch Metal Sonic, he could at least get the satisfaction of punching a piece of its brain away. Him and Nicole escaping with their lives was just the cherry on top.
"Alright. Sounds like a plan to me." He turned his back to Nicole once again and stepped further out of the alley. "Let's say I give you about five minutes to go around and kite all the Metal Sonics together. I'll go and hit the building right after." He turned his head back to Nicole. "That work for you?"
He saw when he looked back that Nicole had been looking at him with that wide-eyed look again, particularly focusing on the digital wings hanging off his back. She looked up to his eyes and gave him a really quick nod when she caught him looking, though. "Yes, that is acceptable." She began floating off of the ground. "I will do my best to draw them all away from you. Good luck, Sorun."
Watching the brown and black lynx fly off, Sorun couldn't help the loud sigh that left him. "This is what I get for playing 'NieR: Automata'. Making me sympathize with AI people. Ugh... but I really meant everything I said to her." He looked down at his right hand. "I still don't want to get along with anybody because of what they did to me. But it's... it's getting harder to do that. And now I want to make an exception for Nicole. She's really been a big help to me." He lowered his hand back to his side with a defeated sigh. "But how am I supposed to do that knowing I'm gonna abandon her along with everybody else just to save my own life?
"... Whatever." He turned to the left and began to slowly walk down the digital streets. "Let's just get through this first. I can deal with all that nonsense later."
The plan created by the pair was quickly enacted, and as it stood, so far it was coming together perfectly. Nicole's part had been easy enough: she'd appeared in front of one of the patrolling Metal Sonic programs, and had flown away with the program giving her chase. More and more programs would join in the chase, with the lynx making sure to draw as many Metal Sonic programs as possible while not flying too fast as to not lose any of them.
And so, by a few minutes in virtually all of the Metal Sonic programs were following Nicole around the digital landscape, weaving past and through all of the blocky buildings. They never caught her, of course, nor did they never even get close to her. But due to Nicole's efforts they'd never lost her, either.
None of this went by in the sight of Sorun, of course, with Nicole having deliberately kited all the Metal Sonic programs towards the other end of the digital space. Because of this he'd walked all the way back to the plaza they'd fled from originally, the teen slowly sauntering towards the sole, red building at the end of the empty, circular space with the wings of his digital Bringer Claws freely waving behind him.
"Best plan ever, Nicole," Sorun said to himself as he came to a stop in front of the glowing, wireframe building that only towered above Sorun by about a two stories. "Alright, so... just punch it?" The two digital claws let go of his shoulder and curled into fists. "I like it. Short, simple, to the point, and cathartic to boot. Seriously, Nicole, awesome plan."
He had a lot of frustration to vent towards Metal Sonic, too. His frustration over what that robot had done to the train and all that medicine. Almost having killed him and his comrades. Being all but immune to all of his abilities he was dying for. Not to mention what he and Nicole were dealing with at the moment. And while he would have loved nothing more than to punch that damn robot right in the face and dent it into an unrecognizable mess, he'd settle for deleting pieces of its mind as a substitute.
So when one of the Bringer Claws shot forwards and impacted the side of the building, it was done with just a bit more speed and gusto than Sorun was accustomed to the Bringer Claws releasing. They'd did their job, though, as that one single punch had destroyed a fist-sized chunk of the blocky building. True damage for sure, but not an overwhelming amount considering it was just a single punch.
Factor in the fact that the two Bringer Claws were pistoning back and forth at rapid speeds as they delivered a relentless assault of punches to the building, though? The small amount of damage was more than enough considering the speed it was being delivered at. So much so that even only after around twenty seconds of nonstop punching a whole quarter of the building had been smashed away from the punches. Eventually the damage became so severe that the red light of the structure began blinking on and off wildly, which only encouraged Sorun to will the Bringer Claws to punch the building even harder.
"Well, this is working fantastically." While the Bringer Claws continued to demolish the building, Sorun turned his body around to look out in the distance. "I hope Nicole's holding up okay."
It was when all the Metal Sonics suddenly froze that Nicole stopped flying away.
Without any warning whatsoever, all of the programs that had been chasing her had seized up. When she stopped flying and turned around to observe, she saw that all the Metal Sonic programs had gone from being frozen to convulsing and spasming wildly. Furthermore, their very forms were fluctuating between appearing transparent and solid, and one by one they all began to explode in a shower of blue pixels that quickly disappeared completely once the fragments dispersed.
A relieved smile grew across the lynx's face as she saw the programs in front of her be deleted one by one. Though the process itself was a bit more visceral than she'd anticipated, she wasn't at all surprised to see it happening. The coding responsible for maintaining the core processing unit of Metal Sonic's anti-intrusion software being deleted was the only thing that could cause a reaction, after all, and such a phenomenon was the goal of the plan she and Sorun had concocted.
And it seemed that the human had succeeded in his objective, as the very last Metal Sonic exploded right in front of Nicole. The mission complete, the very satisfied lynx began flying back towards her human companion.
With one last punch, the sole, single surviving piece of the blocky structure was crushed under the Bringer Claw's fist. The closed claw lifted up to reveal nothing but the gray, wireframe ground beneath it, after which Sorun let out a satisfied sigh as the two digital claws dusted themselves off against each other.
"Thaaaat should do it." Right as he finished speaking, he heard the soft sound of feet touching down on the ground behind him. Sorun turned around, and then softly sighed in relief when he saw Nicole standing right behind him, smiling at Sorun. "You're a genius, Nicole," he told her as he began to approach the lynx, the Bringer Claws on his back disappearing. "It worked, right? All the Metal Sonic things are gone?"
She nodded. "Yes, that is correct. With the core coding to the anti-intrusion software destroyed, Metal Sonic should not be able to impede us any further. I imagine the firewall that had blocked are way disappeared as well, so we should be free to leave at our earliest convenience."
"Oh, huh." Well that sounded great. A little too great, actually, but despite that Sorun didn't have a deep feeling of foreboding at the back of his mind telling him something was wrong. The kind of feeling one would expect to get when things were running just a bit too smoothly. He just felt at ease, and a bit mystified that he felt such a way. "Wow, this was... this was really easy," he noted as he glanced behind him at the now non-existent blocky structure. "Is this what it's like when a plan actually works flawlessly? 'Cause this feels great. Like, just this whole plan. It worked out really great." He turned his head back to Nicole and gave her an appreciative smile. "I mentioned you're a genius for thinking this plan up, right?"
"Yes, you did." She shifted her head to the side, looking a bit bashful from the praise. "It really was not that difficult of a strategy to devise. Your presence made it all the more simpler, and-"
Nicole suddenly stopped, her ears going up straight. Sorun opened his mouth to ask what the matter was, but he stopped himself when one of Nicole's blue digital screens appeared right next to her. The lynx looked down at the screen, reaching out to type a few buttons while frowning at the lines of code sprawled across the screen.
Sorun cleared his throat to gain her attention. "Something the matter?" he asked.
"Possibly." Nicole closed the window and looked back to Sorun. "It seems that by destroying the core processing system to Metal Sonic's security software, we inadvertently activated yet another failsafe within its systems. The power from the backup energy unit in its head is being rerouted to power another subroutine deep within its systems, though I am unsure to its function."
A concerned frown found its way onto the human teen's face. "Do we have to go find another piece of coding to smash?" he asked her.
She thought over the question for a single second, and then shook her head. "I would prefer it if we were to evacuate ourselves from Metal Sonic's systems as soon as possible now that the way is clear. Once we are back in the HQ computer's mainframe I will de-digitize you to send you back to the real world. We can figure out what to do once you've disconnected the head from the computer."
He couldn't fault that logic. He wanted the both of them to leave this head before they got stuck again. "Alright, go back and tear the cables out. Easy." He stepped forwards and held his hand out. "C'mon, let's go."
Nicole looked down at the hand being offered to her, blinking at the extended appendage. When Sorun shook the hand out of impatience, she immediately reached forwards and tightly wrapped her digits around his wrist. She took off right after, Sorun being dragged right behind her as the lynx flew the both of them towards the cable they'd used to enter Metal Sonic's head.
The trip to the cable, thankfully, had been short and uneventful. Nicole had wasted no time in flying directly into the cable once they'd finally arrived at it, Sorun only having had a few moments to prepare himself for the inevitable nausea soon to follow from going through the cable again. But they'd flown through and came out the other end quickly enough, even if it had ended with Sorun stumbling towards the end of the tunnel while holding his stomach.
He didn't think he'd ever get used to that feeling.
"I'm initiating the de-digitization sequence now, Sorun," he heard Nicole say from behind him. "Remember that once you return to reality-"
"Yeah, cables, I know. Urgh." He winced and nearly doubled over from another wave of nausea. "So how-"
Flash!
Flash!
"- long... man, she works fast," Sorun mumbled to himself as he took a look at the new surroundings. Metal walls and floor, miscellaneous pieces of science equipment scattered haphazardly all over the place, computer with a bunch of monitors in the back... it was reality, all right. Freedom HQ's lab, just as messy as they'd left it. And as a bonus he didn't even feel that nauseous anymore.
The teen tilted his head down to breath out in relief, but froze midway and made a displeased expression when he saw the coat his virtual self had worn had reverted back into the sleeveless hoodie Honey had made for him. He'd really liked that coat. It had been just like Vergil's- the cables.
"Son of a- head, right," Sorun quickly grumbled as he whirled around towards the table near the computer, and saw the severed head and the wires connecting it to the computer. He ran over to it immediately, bundled all of the cables in his fist, and violently tore them all out from the head. He slowly breathed out, and then dropped the cables onto the ground.
"I realize the urgency of the situation... but we still use those cables, you know." Sorun turned around just in time to see Nicole body finish constructing itself right behind him. She was looking down at the discarded cables, an admonishing yet teasing smile on her face. "I would have to ask you to please be more gentle with them the next time around."
"I'll be sure to work on that." The teen turned back towards the head. "So are we good? Because the head's flashing."
He wasn't sure the fact that the red irises in its black eyes were flashing was a good sign that the crisis was over. He half expected something absurd like lasers to shoot out of the eyes at Sorun, but when he saw Nicole move next to him to bend down to examine the head he felt a bit at ease. It had to be fine if she wasn't worried, after all.
"It's still receiving power from the backup unit implanted in it, but for what function, I do not know," Nicole admitted as her eyes looked over the head. "I did take note of what seemed to be a broadcast signal being emitted from somewhere within its internals shortly before you disconnected the head."
"A broadcast signal?" Sorun quietly repeated as he leaned down alongside Nicole to scrutinize the head. The flashing of its eyes drew Sorun's attention the most, and when he leaned in closer he saw that those red eyes weren't eyes at all. They were red, flashing words in place of where the irises should have been.
Words that read out "Recovery Mode".
"'Recovery Mode'...?" The teen turned his head to Nicole, who looked just as confused as he was. "What does-?"
Crash!
The sound of a door being flung from its hinges caused the pair to shoot straight up. Separate sets of black hair flying wildly, they both whipped their heads back towards the lab's door, which was now currently lying on the ground after having been pushed off its frame from the figure on the other side. The completely metallic, headless figure that had a turbine on its back firing up.
Without even thinking, A blue, spectral hand appeared over Sorun's shoulder before it reached out and pushed Nicole to the ground. He dived down right after her just as the headless Metal Sonic swooped in over their fallen bodies. Once reaching the table, its metallic claws fumbled forwards before the pointed digits finally landed on the head. It firmly grasped the pointed head once finding it, and then cradled said head to its chest before turning around. All Sorun and Nicole could do was watch as Metal Sonic's body sped off in a blur towards the HQ's stairs, and then it disappeared up them.
Moments passed, during which the two just stared blankly at the broken door and the quickly dissipating trail of smoke from Metal's back turbine. Eventually they both blinked in bewilderment, and Sorun made the first move by slowly getting up to his feet. He willed the summoned Bringer Claw to disappear, and then bent down to help Nicole up to her own feet.
"Well... that happened," Sorun breathed out, eyes still facing towards the opened entrance. "What in the world just happened?"
"A recovery beacon. The power unit was powering a recovery beacon inside of the head." The voice that reached Sorun's ears sounded unusually blank for Nicole, causing him to turn towards her. Her face was unusually still given what they had just endured, but there was no mistaking that defeated look he saw settle within her eyes. "It must have been a final failsafe Dr. Eggman installed in the event somebody tried to recover sensitive information inside its memory banks and managed to circumvent its security measures. That was what I detected before we left. A recovery beacon that would activate the reactor inside of its main body and allow it to automatically recover the head. It's probably making its way back to where its programming has dedicated a home base for repairs. Likely New Megaopolis." Her shoulders slumped. "To think he would account for something so specific and plan around us trying to access its head alone... to think he'd install a beacon with a strong enough signal to reach all the way to Knothole..."
Sorun clicked his tongue in understanding and disappointment. "So it's gone?"
"Yes, Sorun. It's gone."
The teen slowly nodded, and then turned his head to face Nicole. "You think Sally's gonna be mad that we lost it?" When Nicole elected to remain silent, Sorun grit his teeth from the awkward air hanging over them and tried to lightly shake her shoulder to rouse some life into the lynx. "Hey, we still got those files, right? The whole reason we even went in there?" he tried in an encouraging voice. "Yeah, we lost the body, but the files were important thing, right?"
"... I suppose so, yes." Nicole's head picked up, her mouth turning up into a half-smile as she placed her hand over the pale one on her shoulder. "I am thankful you pushed me out of the way. I would have been fine regardless, but... it still hurts when this body receives damage."
"Sure, don't worry about it." Quickly, Sorun pulled his hand back and began walking towards the broken entrance. "Why don't you get to work on those files? I'm gonna go survey the damage."
The lynx gave him a small nod, prompting Sorun to exhale in relief and turn towards the doorway- relief for some time to think to himself and relief he'd gotten Nicole to do something to maybe help cheer her up.
"Man, what a day," he thought as he stepped around the fallen door. "Mm, doesn't look that busted. Tails or Rotor can prolly fix it. Geez, how much stuff did it barrel through on its way here?"
He stepped into the HQ's living room, slowly swiveling his head from left to right to survey the damage. Everything looked fine for the most part. The couch was overturned, likely due to the headless Badnik having blindly rushed right towards the head being held in the lab, but otherwise he didn't see any damage.
"Oh, please don't tell me it broke the console... whew." Thankfully, when Sorun turned the couch right-side up with his Bringer Claws, he saw that the game console was untouched. "Thank goodness the couch didn't fall on it. That woulda been a disaster."
The teen stepped further towards the back of the HQ, near where the stairs were. A short trip up them and he made it all the way to the HQ's entrance, where the door was hanging off by a single hinge. He sighed at the sight.
"Geez, so what, that beacon in its head activated and its body picked the signal up and beelined it all the way here? Thought they were keeping its body in Sonic's uncle's workshop? But that thing is as fast as him, so... yeah, guess that wouldn't really matter then, huh?"
Well, other than some doors, it seemed like nothing important had been broken. All in all, he'd take a couple of broken doors over something much worse happening, and Sorun was more than willing to just leave it at that. And so, with his miniature inspection done, the teen began to slowly trek back towards the lab. He was starting to grow an urge to check on Nicole that he wanted to satisfy, and he was partly interested in seeing what was on those files he'd almost died over.
"Well, could have been worse," he silently reasoned with himself as he reached the bottom of the stairs and began walking back to the lab. "Sally's probably gonna be pissed at us for going behind her back like this and losing the robot. Maybe I can shift most of the blame onto me so Nicole doesn't feel too down about it. Lie and say it was my idea." He considered the idea for a second, and then shook his head. "Nah, that'd never work. She wouldn't buy it and I don't think Nicole would wanna lie to her. Eh... I guess I'm not too worried about it. It'll be fine."
Besides, from what he'd noticed Sally and Nicole were the best of friends. Had to be since Sally was the one carrying Nicole around all the time. There wasn't any way that she'd stay mad at Nicole for an unreasonable amount of time if she just explained. She'd be fine. Sorun wouldn't. He didn't wanna imagine how much he was gonna get yelled at by her, but if worse came to worse he'd just tune Sally out and ignore it while blindly nodding along.
Yeah, solid plan. Worked all the time with his own mother. And as long as most of the anger was directed at him and not Nicole he was fine with whatever happened. Didn't matter what happened to him since he was eventually leaving anyways.
"Hey, hey." Finally reaching the lab's entrance, Sorun leaned against the opened entrance and knocked on its side. "Good news, nothing but the doors got broke. How's the, uh... you doin' alright over there?"
Nicole had seated herself in a chair in front of the computer, likely working on those files she extracted. Though now she was just slumping forwards, elbows planted on the computer's keyboard with her face resting in her hands. The rather sullen atmosphere she was emitting caused Sorun, who blinked in puzzlement at the sight, to then begin approaching her.
"Uh, Nicole?" Sorun stopped right behind her, and then gently shook her shoulder. She didn't budge and kept her face pressed into her palms. "You doing okay? Something wrong with the files?"
"Look for yourself," came Nicole's muffled voice.
Seeing no reason not to, Sorun did so and leaned in towards the computer's main monitor. He really wished he hadn't.
The file that was pulled up on the monitor, quite bizarrely, was one of Eggman. And that was it. Just a picture of Eggman in some large, metal room smiling victoriously at the camera while pointing at it, almost as if he was laughing hysterically at whoever was on the other side of the screen.
He couldn't recall the last time he wanted to punch a computer monitor so badly.
"This is what the encrypted files encompassed." Nicole's hands slid down from her face, eyes glumly looking forwards at the computer monitor and the round man on the other side that seemed to be laughing at her. "It was nothing but approximately five-thousand, four-hundred and thirty-seven gigabytes of self portraits of Dr. Eggman."
"... What...?" Sorun blinked several times in disbelief. "B-but... that's like five terabytes... you're seriously telling me he took five terabytes worth of selfies?" He couldn't even comprehend such an absurd number; his mind was having a hard time trying to calculate how many selfies five terabytes implied. "Jesus, these pics must have the highest quality in the world if they take up that much storage. Where does he find the time to... how many... how is that even...!?" He trailed off when he turned to Nicole for an explanation, his disbelief withering to quiet worry when he saw just how glum she looked. "Uh... Nicole...?"
"Metal Sonic's true memory files were layered under these encrypted... fakes," Nicole tonelessly mumbled, eyes turned downwards and away from the monitor. "I'd noticed there was a sub-layer of files hidden under the direct ones, but by the time I'd noticed the security system was active and those programs were breaking past my partition and... I was too worried for your safety, so I copied whatever I found first so we could leave as soon as possible." Her head lowered far enough that it almost touched the keyboard. "These were little more than dummy files used to obscure the true data. Dr. Eggman didn't even just fill it with nonsense junk data. He just used these pictures of himself laughing to mock whoever wasted their time collecting these files."
There was only one word Sorun's mind could come up with to accurately portray the general mood: bummer. He didn't dare say it aloud, though, for fear of what reaction Nicole would have over it. But it well and truly was a bummer. A bummer that Sorun had almost died for a bunch of worthless selfies of Eggman. Bummer this whole unofficial mission they'd gone on had been a huge waste of time and a robot.
The one who looked the most bummed out was Nicole, though. He didn't think he'd ever seen anybody sulk as hard as Nicole was right now. He didn't have to think hard to see why- Eggman's borderline obsessive amount of precautionary coding tricked her. Pure and simple, they'd both lost and had nothing to show for it. And Sorun didn't really know what was bugging her more: that they'd both been put in danger over nothing, or that she'd allowed them to be put in danger to begin with. Sorun didn't even blame her, but he wasn't gonna pretend to know what was going on in her mind.
"... At least it was just a recovery beacon and not a self-destruct bomb, right?" He'd greatly hoped that silver lining, possibly the thinnest one possible in all of existence, would brighten her mood at least a little. It didn't. Nicole had lifted her head up a bit and turned to address Sorun, but that same defeated look was still on her face. "Er... you doing alright?" he quietly asked.
"... It is difficult to classify the emotions I am feeling right now," she slowly admitted. "I believe this is... frustration? Or anger? Properly conveying what it is I am feeling is proving to be difficult as I cannot figure out what it is I am experiencing."
"We call that feeling really bad," Sorun told her. "Which is, you know... justifiable. Since all of that just happened. It could have been worse, though. We're still alive at least."
That didn't improve Nicole's mood in the slightest. Her face didn't even twitch. "Our lives were put in peril for nothing but a joke. You were put in peril because you decided to come with me to help. And because I was fooled by all those elaborate tricks-"
"Nicole, listen, I ain't got another speech in me," Sorun interrupted, "but just listen. We're fine. Okay? We worked together and we got through it." By some miracle, and admittedly she had done most of the heavy lifting since all he'd done was punch a building and make a wall of swords, but this was left unsaid by Sorun. "We failed, yeah, but failure isn't the same as losing. Failing is just falling down, learning from the experience, and getting back up so that it doesn't happen again. Some old guy with a big hat or something probably said that back where I'm from, I dunno, but-"
"I know. People... make mistakes, no matter how hard we try to avoid them. And we're people. It's just another part of life. That's what you said, right?" Nicole's head and ears perked up just a slight amount, and a soft smile formed on her face. "I am still upset, but... this helps. I appreciate you sticking with me through this."
If it wouldn't have been overly embarrassing to do so, Sorun would have sighed so hard he'd double over from the pressure of a sad Nicole being lifted of his shoulders. He had standards, though, so he remained completely rigid while staring the lynx in the eyes. He couldn't hold back the small grin that made its way onto his face, though, much to his consternation.
"Alright. Glad to hear you're alright." Sorun turned towards the broken-down door to the lab, and rather sheepishly began rubbing the back of his head. "Seriously though, how mad is Sally gonna be? Just so I can mentally prepare myself for what's to come."
"Hard to say. I doubt she will have many pleasant things to say," Nicole informed him. "But seeing as we both managed to survive unscathed, I do not think she will be overly furious at us. And I may know what to say to her to get her to calm down so she isn't too harsh on us."
Sorun turned his head back to Nicole in surprise. She was wearing a grin to match his own now, with his own slowly stretching wider at the AI's words. "Well, hey. That works for me," he said. "So now that the crisis is over and there's nothing else to do- get this off the screen, it's creepin' me out." He reached down to the computer's mouse and clicked the selfie of Eggman away so that the monitor was blank. "Now that we got nothing else to do... wanna play some video games?"
The grin that had worked itself onto Nicole's face turned into a bemused smile. "Is that really the only thing on your mind after everything we've endured?"
"You know it." He began nudging her shoulder. "Hey. Hey, come on. I wanna play video games with you. Come on. We both need the break." It was more for her sake than his just so he could try taking her mind off of this catastrophe, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't want to unwind with video games after this experience as well. And the console was literally in the next room.
"Sorun, I don't-" Nicole's body flickered. "I don't have enough power to sustain this form for much longer."
"Nah, it's fine it's fine it's fine. I know Rotor keeps a stash of Power Rings around here somewhere for his experiments." Sorun stepped away from the computer and began walking towards one of the shelves hanging off the lab's ceiling. "That guy ain't slick, I know where he keeps them. I'll just borrow one. Or two. Some, I'll borrow some." Whether he would replace them later on depended if he remembered to bother doing so. Chances were he wouldn't.
Nicole continued to watch Sorun rifle through the shelves for a minute. She looked down briefly, pensive look on her face, and soon after looked back towards Sorun as he felt his hand around inside of a shelf. "Sorun?"
"Yeah?" he acknowledged as he began pulling something from the shelf.
"Thank you for today," he heard her say. "For helping get us through that situation. For teaching me a bit about what it means to be alive. I've learned a lot today thanks to everything you said." The teen briefly flicked his eyes over to the lynx, his stare becoming blank when he saw the smile she was giving him. "I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for everything you do for me. It feels nice to have a friend like you."
"... Mh-hm, sure." With a tired sigh, Sorun finally pulled a handful of golden rings out from the cabinet, and with a forced smile he held them up to Nicole. "So what game are we playing?"
"I just had a very interesting chat with Nicole." With an aggravated sigh, Sally began rubbing the sides of her head with her hands while the human in front of her leaned back onto the couch behind him. "Let me just get this straight. You both, without my permission, attempted to hack into Metal Sonic, one of Eggman's most dangerous and versatile Badniks, almost get killed when its security protocols activate, and in the process you both somehow managed to activate some kind of distress signal that put its body on autopilot so it could escape with its head. So in addition to you both recklessly putting your lives in danger you lost an important asset. And if I'm hearing Nicole right, you accomplished all of this... with nothing to show for it."
Yeah, she was mad. The kind of mad where it wasn't showing on her face, but the scalding anger could still be heard in her voice. Nicole had done Sorun the favor of taking Sally aside to talk with her once she'd entered the HQ at the end of the day from the mission she'd went on with the others, and based on the look on her face when she'd come back from the lab, she wasn't pleased in the slightest.
Well, it was to be expected, so Sorun had paused the game he and Nicole had been playing and chose to stand up and lean on the couch while bracing for the inevitable verbal lashing. His nerves had calmed down enough by now that he could take it, but even relaxing to hours of playing games with Nicole wasn't making this any easier.
And while Sorun couldn't blame her at all, he felt the need to correct her on one detail.
"No, it wasn't for nothing," he corrected her. "We got a lifetime supply of Eggman selfies out of it."
If looks could kill, the glare she sent him probably would have disintegrated him on the spot. Fortunately the only thing Sorun felt burning was his mental fortitude under her gaze, causing him to nervously laugh a bit.
"Just, uh... trying to inject some humor into the issue..." he muttered, though this only caused Sally's glare to intensify. Sorun sighed as a result, and then hung his shoulders while giving the chipmunk a serious look. "Okay, fine. Yeah, we screwed up big time. And lost the robot. And all that other stuff you said." His eyes drifted to the side to avoid eye contact with the princess. "Some other stuff happened too, but yeah, that's the gist of it. So, uh... yeah. Sorry. Won't happen again."
Maybe she deserved much more than the half-assed apology he'd just served her, but Sorun just didn't have the mental energy needed to think up anything better than that. It seemed Sally noticed the mental fatigue, too, as her stern features softened and, with a groan, she began rubbing the space between her eyes.
"I talked it over with Nicole. I'm not happy with what you two did, but... I'm glad you both are alright," she finally admitted. "And while it's admirable that you both tried to take a bit of initiative for the cause, just please, please do me the favor of asking me next time you decide to pull a stunt like this. Okay?"
"That's more than fair," Sorun readily agreed with a nod of his head. "So am I free to go, or-"
"Not at all, mister," she denied with a shake of her head. "You're helping Rotor fix all the doors Metal Sonic broke down tomorrow."
He saw that coming a mile away. "I will," he promised her. She seemed satisfied at that, and then turned around towards the exit stair to the HQ. "Hey, Sally. Wait up a moment," he called. She stopped mid-step, and turned her head to address Sorun. "Getting the meds to the rest of those settlements. It went okay, right?" he asked her.
Sally blinked at the question, though Sorun felt he already got his answer when her eyes turned downcast. "We salvaged what we could, but... I'm not sure what we managed to get out there will be enough for them all," she answered honestly.
"... I see. Okay." It wasn't the answer he'd wanted, but he'd expected it nonetheless. It didn't make him feel any better.
"Hey, it'll be alright, Sorun. It always get worse before it gets better." Sally turned around and continued walking towards the exit. "I just hope it starts getting better sooner rather than later..."
"... Right," Sorun muttered in response. He sighed out once she left his sight, after which he turned his eyes towards the opened lab. He saw Nicole standing there in the lab, smiling sheepishly at him while giving him an encouraging thumbs-up. Instead of giving a similar gesture, Sorun reached behind him on the couch cushion and held up the corded controller, waving it up in the air.
She got the message easily enough, and began walking out of the lab and towards the couch. "I told you that she wouldn't be as bad as you were thinking," she told him after stopping right in front of him. "Though I did have to talk her down a bit before she came to you. You're welcome."
Rolling his eyes, Sorun turned around and practically collapsed into a sitting position on the couch. "Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Nicole. You're a genius. You see fit to remind me every five minutes."
"I wouldn't go that far." Settling on the spot next to Sorun, Nicole picked up her own controller before facing the screen. "Are you ready to continue?"
"Sure am," Sorun confirmed as he unpaused the game. "So as I was saying, hyper armor is super important. I know it doesn't look smart at first to be eating hits while the character's attack animation winds up, but the hyper armor means they won't get knocked out of the move and the damage trade-off is more than worth it. You gotta watch out for command grabs, though, they'll get through that armor like no tomorrow. So essentially it's a real high risk, high reward play, but you can mitigate that risk by abusing hyper armor in the middle of the opponent's combo like so..."
They'd spent nearly the rest of the night playing video games after that point. Sorun was fairly sure he could see the sun peaking up over the horizon by the time he made it back to Sonic's home.
More than worth it.
