Recursion Error

Episode 21- So I ran


So he'd done it. He'd ran away.

Bailed.

Gotten the fuck outta dodge.

It had to happen eventually, though if he could have he would have done it in a more quiet fashion. Gone out when nobody was looking, maybe leave behind a note so they didn't wonder why he just up and disappeared on them. He would have been nice enough to have left them with some closure.

Instead that happened. Him and Shadow blowing up at each other. Telling those five he was leaving. The actual act of leaving and throwing Tails in the process. He found it a miracle he'd managed to get away at all without being chased, but he'd gone so high into the clouds that he was practically invisible. He also decided never to fly that high that fast ever again, because his head absolutely did not agree with the rapid change in pressure.

But he'd successfully gotten away, and that's all that mattered. So where did that leave Sorun? Well, that was the thing. He didn't rightly know.

When he'd flown up into the sky, he didn't come down for a while. A long while. He hadn't even paid attention to which direction he decided to go in. He just picked a random direction and kept flying forwards, sheer adrenaline and panic from making his big move motivating him forwards. It all wore off eventually, though, which was when he dropped down through the clouds, headed for ground, and finally landed before he started walking.

The problem was that the whole eastern half of Northamer was nothing but forests and plains; any discernible landmarks of the old world were washed away by time and gene bombs, so he had no idea where he was. All he saw were trees. Trees and more trees all around, without even so much as a path to follow. So as far as he could tell, geographically speaking, he was somewhere between the most southern point of what was once America and the most northern point of what was once America. On the eastern half.

So he was lost then. Fantastic.

"Well, Sorun, what'd you think was gonna happen when you decided to bail on everything and run away? You didn't exactly plan on where you would bail to," The human teen mumbled to himself as he walked through the forest. "Ugh. Could be worse, at least. This forest isn't the worst place in the world to walk through."

Honestly, aside from areas around any of Eggman's structures, the environment around Mobius was always nice. Great temperature, great air, clear skies when there wasn't a storm. Even the forest itself was accommodating. The trees were high and numerous, but they weren't so overly dense that he had trouble navigating through them. There was actually plenty of room between all the trees for him to hike around.

Still lost, though, but at least he was lost in the nice part of the world.

"Alright, so where am I going?" Sorun asked himself as he kept walking forwards. "I gotta get out of Northamer, that much is certain. Kingdom of Acorn is situated here, so there's too big a chance of somebody finding me, even if it is small. Down to Soumerca? Nah, nothing but jungle down there from what I heard. Except Station Square is near where Brazil once... except it's occupied by Eggman like the rest of the world, damn," the teen cursed with a snap of his fingers.

"Okay, east, then? Towards where the human and Overlander territory is? What was that one place called, Spagonia? That or one of the other UF cities. Maybe go back to life among humans." That'd be nice. Maybe get some sense of normalcy back to his life by surrounding himself with faces similar to his. It wouldn't be Earth, not by a long shot, but it would be close. "No, wait, all the UF cities got occupied by Eggman along with G.U.N., too, didn't they? And he knows my face. Probably on a wanted list or something like that."

So... that left out any and all human and Overlander territory, then. And anywhere else Eggman had taken over, which was practically almost the whole world. Unfortunate, but nothing that he could do about it.

"Where does that leave me? Downunda?" He made a disgusted face and stuck his tongue out. "Oh, hell no. Not a chance. Yurashia? Go oriental? Eh... maybe, I dunno. Efrika? Not really a fan of the heat, and that's where Africa used to be. But then again maybe all the climate fuckery done by the gene bombs made it cooler. It sure feels nice here." He softly groaned and began to rub at his eyes. "Maybe I should have actually planned an actual exit strategy. I thought I had more time, though. Ugh..." His hands flopped down to his side. "What are you thinking, Sorun? All those places are on the other side of the world. I mean, maybe I could make it to Mercia, but that's still all the way past former Canada. And there's no way I can make a trip like that. I never packed any food."

A really shortsighted decision on his part, really. In fact the only food he was running on was a spoonful of cereal from this morning. He hadn't eaten anything else all day, and that was after having fought a bunch of robots after spelunking through a mountain and running for his life.

He was actually kind of hungry now that he thought about it.

"Shoulda at least prepared a bug-out bag or something," he scolded himself. "Damn. Alright, maybe I'm stuck in Northamer because my dumb ass didn't actually prepare to make a long trip of any kind."

Given more time and preparation, he might have been able to pull something together. With a bit more foresight he may have actually been able to prepare in advance. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, he supposed. Too bad he was probably gonna starve at the cost of learning that lesson. He couldn't even go back to Knothole if he wanted to since he was lost.

"Maybe I'll run into a village or something," he reasoned with himself as he ducked under a low-hanging branch. "They'd give me some food, right? Mobians are nice. I could just pretend to be a weird nomad guy or whatever, they set me up with some supplies, and then... then...

"... What the hell is my actual plan here...?"

After all this time, he only now just realized that he'd spent so much time thinking about leaving that he hadn't thought about what he was going to do once he left. The only thing on his mind had been getting away from Knothole. To get away from the Emeralds and fighting so he could survive. Well, that part was done with, now, so now what? Find a way home?

Except what was he going to do on that front? Find a way to extract the Emeralds? Using what? Gather the rest of the Emeralds? He didn't know how he'd do that, and even if by some miracle he did the final Emerald, and Tails, who was the only one who could use the machine to send him back, were all back in Knothole. Which meant that, if he really did go down that route, he'd inevitably come into contact with all the Freedom Fighters again, and that was not an ideal prospect for him. So what was he actually supposed to do now that he was gone?

"... Let's just focus on finding a village and work from there," Sorun murmured to himself, sighing as he looked towards a tree. He hummed, and looked down to its base, where he saw a patch of green moss growing. "Hm. 'Moss always points to civilization.' Heh heh... man, I miss Earth." He turned his head towards the direction the moss was growing in. "Is that thing about moss always pointing north actually true, though? If I just head in one direction I gotta hit something eventually. Or maybe I can use the sun? It goes from east to west, right?" He looked up towards the forest's canopy. "Or, wait, was it west to east? No, it was east to west. I think. Maybe. Wait, but what if it's different on this world? Shit." He looked down at the moss again, sighed, and pointed towards the direction the moss was growing in. "Screw it, I'll just trust in the moss. Maybe find a rock to drive like the pioneers of old." He started walking, a joyless chuckle leaving him. "Man, I really miss Earth."

Was deciding to travel in a direction for no other reason than because of moss the wisest decision for him to make? In all honesty, probably not. He didn't know. But it was better than wandering aimlessly until he possibly starved to death because he ended up going in circles due to being directionally challenged. And he had to run into some form of civilization if he just kept going in one direction, right? It made perfect logical sense.

Some thirty minutes later and he was still hiking through forest, occasionally looking towards a tree to check on the moss to ensure he was heading in the right direction. Still no sign of civilization, but it was progress forwards. At least that's what he was telling himself, and that singular belief was about the only thing keeping him going. He did, after continually walking forwards, hear something aside from the quiet sounds of the forest, which immediately drew the teen's attention. The sound of running water, like from a waterfall or a river. So, without any other locations to go towards, Sorun wandered towards the sound of water.

Following the sounds lead him past a barrier of bushes and right into, from appearances, a large grove. It was relatively clear of trees with an exception of a couple scattered around, the entire perimeter surrounded by more forest. The source of the sound of rushing water was revealed to be a small rock plateau nearby streaming water into a pond in the middle of the grove.

It would have been beautiful if it weren't for the fact the place was completely wrecked.

The few trees that were in the grove were cut down and burned. The grass carpeting the entire grove that Sorun was sure was once a luscious green was completely scorched. And littered around the destroyed groves were Eggman's robots. A dozen or so Egg Pawns that were completely destroyed, their parts strewn about the grove. Unfortunately it seemed that the oil from the inside of the machines had leaked into the ground and stream, coloring what was likely once a crystal-clear pond into a pond full of murky, dark water.

"... Jeez, the hell happened here...?" Sorun muttered to himself as he slowly walked into the destroyed grove. "Looks like somebody went to town here. What were a bunch of Badniks doing in some random-ass grove, though?" He glanced around at the line of forest trees surrounding the grove's perimeter. "The rest of the forest doesn't even look like it was touched," he continued to himself, "so what was the deal with this place?"

He glanced down at one of the destroyed Egg Pawns. Like the rest, it was cut completely to pieces. Cut... oddly cleanly, too. So cleanly and precisely that he had to wonder just what was able to cut apart a titanium-plated robot so perfectly. "What in the world managed to slice these robots up so neatly?"

Squish!

Sorun froze, and looked down at his foot. He lifted his boot, and then grimaced when he saw a bloodied... appendage of some sort that he'd accidentally stepped on. He wasn't really sure what it was. It had the appearance of a stubby, light blue arm with no hand or fingers with a yellow tip. The other end was was torn and bloodied red, likely having been torn off whatever was attached to it. It was small, too- just barely larger than his longest finger, and at least twice as thick. It was small enough at least that he wasn't surprised he hadn't seen it before stepping on it.

The more he looked around after seeing the strange limb, the more he realized there were more pieces of whatever this creature was scattered around. Lots of them, too, as there were dozens of mauled severed limbs and bodies scattered all about the burned grove, all lying amidst the destroyed Egg Pawns.

"Ooh, that's... man..." So that's what happened. For whatever reason these Egg Pawns had come here to wipe out... whatever these small creatures living in this grove were. He didn't know if they either fought back or something or someone else came around to destroy them, but it seemed like they succeeded nonetheless. And now Sorun couldn't help but acknowledge the bad feeling growing in his stomach when he looked around at all the carnage. "Fuckin' Eggman..."

"C-chao..."

Sorun's ears perked up upon hearing the high-pitched call of whatever made that noise, and he turned his head to follow the sound. Towards the source of the noise was fallen tree, burned into a black husk with its top half completely missing. When Sorun looked closer, his found his eyes widening when he saw a small something trapped underneath the burned tree and wiggling around in an effort to try and free itself.

A sad frown frown formed on the teen's face, and his right Bringer Claw manifested over his shoulder. It slowly reached out, grabbed the fallen tree, and gently lifted it off of the struggling creature before setting it back on the burned ground far away. The singular Bringer Claw returned and folded onto Sorun's shoulder afterwards as he stepped forwards to get a good look at the thing that had been pinned under the tree.

It... was small. That was the first thing he noticed. Around the size of a large plush doll. Its main body was roundish, with its two arms and legs lacking feet or hands much like the limb he stepped on earlier. Weirdly its head was a teardrop-shaped thing that lacked any features aside from a mouth and two wide, iris-less eyes with large dark blue pupils, with its entire body being blue with the exception for yellow tips on its arms, legs, the top of its head, and a strange yellow dot floating above the point of its head.

"... What even is this thing?" Sorun thought to himself as he watched the blue creature slowly stumble up to its feet. "It's like a... blue marshmallow... monster thingy."

The creature managed to rise up to its feet fully, and then blinked its owlish eyes up at Sorun, who stepped back in surprise when he saw the yellow dot floating above its head shift into the shape of a yellow question mark. It took a single step towards him, and then elicited a high-pitched yelp as it fell forwards onto its face.

Blinking, Sorun leaned forwards towards the fallen thing to look at its back. The only two things of note he saw were the blue, ball-like tail on its backside and a pink, heart-shaped, insect-like wing appendage on the left side of its back. He assumed there was supposed to be a wing on the right side, too, but in its place was an empty spot and a bloody gash on its back where the wing was likely supposed to be attached.

The blue creature managed to eventually stand up on its tiny, stubby legs, looking around for a little bit until its round eyes stopped on one of the few standing trees near the edge of the grove. Its surviving left wing began buzzing in an attempt to fly, and though it managed to lift on the ground and flew forwards a few inches, it crashed back onto the ground shortly after, Sorun wincing at the sight. It picked itself back up right after and began waddling towards the tree.

"This is just sad to watch," Sorun morosely thought as he watched the blue thing stop at the trunk of the tree. It looked up and reached out towards the branches, Sorun looking up along with it to see a bunch of red apples hanging off of the tree's branches. He looked back down to the blue thing, wincing again when he saw it try to fly towards the apples, not even making it halfway up the tree before falling down again. "It can't even get food anymore 'cause its wing- gah, I can't watch this."

Watching the little creature struggle just to try and feed itself caused something to wrench inside of Sorun's chest, so he endeavored to try and do something about it. He once more looked back up towards the apples, and willed the Bringer Claw resting on his shoulder to reach up towards the branches they were connected to. The spectral claw shot up, and then very gingerly plucked one of the apples off a branch with its talon. The blue thing watched the spectacle, its head slowing turning back to Sorun as the Bringer Claw brought the apple back to his right hand before disappearing.

"... Here," Sorun said, lightly tossing the apple so that it rolled onto the ground near the blue thing. It chirped happily, and then bounded towards the apple. It wrapped its small arms around the fruit once reaching it, and then began to ravenously chomp down on it as it ate the apple.

"Well, there's my good deed for the day." Satisfied, Sorun looked back up at the burned grove. "... I've had enough of this place," he said to himself, and then turned around to walk towards the nearest exit point.

"Chao?"

The pale teen stopped in his tracks, and then swiveled his head around behind him. The blue thing had already finished the apple, as it was now nothing but a apple core sitting on the ground. The creature itself was standing upright in front of the easten apple, staring straight up at Sorun. The yellow ball floating above its head had turned back into a question mark.

"..." Sorun stared back at it for a few seconds, and then turned back around to walk forwards again. He walked five steps, and then abruptly stopped and turned his head back to the thing.

It was the exact same distance away from him as it was before he started moving. Like it was following him.

"..." Still looking at the creature, Sorun took a single step forwards to confirm his suspicion. And just as he thought, it took a step forwards as well. "Oh, come on, no," he groaned in exasperation as he fully turned to face the creature. "Look, you can't come with me. Go home."

The question mark turned back into a dot as the creature's head turned around towards the grove, as if gesturing towards it. Sorun followed its gaze, his stern expression softening when he saw the devastated landscape it was looking at.

"Oh, I... guess this was your home, huh? And all those bodies and parts were your... pals, I guess..." Come to think of it, there weren't any other living ones around that he saw. Just the one-winged one. All the rest were just dead ones scattered around. "Don't tell you're the last one here left," he mumbled as Sorun and the creature faced back towards each other. It looked up to him with a saddened expression, the dot on top of its head forming into a swirling pattern.

"... Okay, listen, I get that... your whole community here just got obliterated," Sorun said, feeling awful at himself as the words came out of his mouth, "and you probably can't stay here since the whole grove looks wasted, but I can't take a pet along with me. Go somewhere else."

The saddened expression on the blue creature's face didn't leave. In fact, it looked pleading now.

"Hey, don't give me that face." Growing increasingly uncomfortable under its gaze, Sorun was forced to turn his head to the side as a low breath escaped him. "Dude, come on..." He squeezed his eyes shut in thought, and after a few seconds his shoulders slumped as a defeated sigh left him. "Ugh, for the love of..."


"Chao-chao!"

"Shut up."

Alright, so he'd decided to take it with him. It's not like he could have just left it in the wasteland that was once its home, amidst the body of all its former friends and family with a polluted pond. It couldn't even reach up towards trees for food anymore with its missing wing, so it would probably starve to death eventually if he left it alone.

It wasn't like he wanted to bring it along. He just felt responsible for it now since he saved it from that tree that trapped it and already fed it. So leaving it alone to die would just be irresponsible of Sorun, and that would leave a bad taste in his mouth. So the thing was his now, he guessed. On the upside he didn't feel so lonely anymore.

On the downside, they were still lost. He'd taken a bunch of apples from that tree and stuffed his pockets with them, so that was the food situation taken care of for the time being, but they were still technically lost. And his faith in moss had been all but lost by this point, so it was back to aimlessly wandering in a single direction they went.

"Chao!"

"Ugh..." Sorun's head fell, and then picked back up to look at his left shoulder. The blue thing couldn't fly anymore, and with those stubby legs there was no way it could keep up with his walking speed. So it elected to cling onto his left shoulder, its head and arms resting over the shoulder's top with the creature's face turned towards Sorun.

He didn't really mind, since the small weight on his shoulder was somewhat of a comforting reminder he had a companion now, but the thing would not stop making those happy noises and it was beginning to grow on his nerves.

"Would you just be quiet for five minutes, you little...!" Sorun stopped himself. What was he supposed to call this thing? "... Alright, look, if you're gonna be taggin' along with me, you're gonna need a name." He reached his right hand towards it, the little creature offering no resistance as he plucked it off his shoulder. The blue thing safely fit in the palm of his hand, with its body being just small enough to comfortably rest there as it stared back up at the human. "Okay, so what am I supposed to call you...?"

There had to be some name for its species, though he didn't have a clue as to what it was. So just calling it by that was out. A proper name, then. But what was he supposed to go with? The teen never had to name a pet before in his life, and he didn't know what other people based their pet names off of.

"Jeez, uh... name it after somebody I know? Don't really know if I want a little blue thing called "David" or "Dave" followin' me around. That just sounds lame. Mom's name? Nah, that's even lamer, and I'm pretty sure this thing is a guy. I think?" As far as he could see he couldn't see any identifying traits on it to tell if it was male or female. Maybe its species was monogendered. He didn't know. "I'll just go with it being a guy. Getting a guy vibe from it," he thought. "Uhhh... screw it, this world's already making me steal stuff from 'Devil May Cry', and that series had some pretty rocking names in it. Let's just take some names, too, while we're at it.

"But what to go with? Well... since he's kinda my pet now, uh... Nero?" He blinked in contemplation, and then tilted his head to the side. "How do you feel about Nero?" Sorun asked him. "You like that name? Nero?"

The blue thing tilted his head along to the side with him, blinking up at him with a blank expression.

"I don't think he likes it. Plus 'Nero' doesn't really go along with his color scheme," Sorun thought as he turned his head to the side. "Hm... Why not just go with Vergil? Cool name, but... nah, I'm not gonna disrespect Vergil by naming this thing after him. It really is a cool name, though, so maybe... I could do something similar? As a homage or something?" He hummed in thought. "Didn't he anagram his name in that one side book? Gilver? Nah. Sounds too much like Gilbert. Maybe... oh. Oh! What about that!?"

"How about Virgil?" Sorun asked as he turned his head back to the thing. "It's like Vergil, but spelled with an 'i' instead of an 'e'. Huh? Huh? Whatcha think?"

The creature's head straightened up, and the yellow dot shifted back into a question mark.

"Well, Virgil with an 'i' is the Latin spelling of Vergil," Sorun explained, "and since mom isn't here I gotta keep the tradition of naming things in Latin going, y'know?" He reached over with his free hand and poked the thing on the side of his face. "C'mon, Virgil's a cool name. It's named after one of my favorite people in all of fiction, and that guy was really cool. You wanna be cool, don't you?"

The reaction he got from the blue thing seemed to be positive, as his face lit up in a large smile. "Chao-chao! Chao-chao!" He began clapping his small arms together, and the yellow dot floating above his head shifted into a heart shape.

"I... guess that means you like it," Sorun decided. "Alright, then, Virgil," he said as he placed Virgil back on his shoulder, "let's go. And keep all the chaoing down, huh?"

"Chao." He would assume that was a confirmatory noise.

And with his new companion given a new name, they continued walking deeper into the forest. A small smile grew on the teen's face as a warm feeling grew through his chest, and absentmindedly he reached over to scratch the top of Virgil's head with a finger. "Well, so far this has gone pretty horribly," the teen thought, "but at least I made a new friend and got some food. That's gotta count for something, right?"


A/N- Finally managed a short chapter for once.

Originally I was gonna name the Chao Gilver, but Gilver sounded so close to Silver I decided against it and went with Virgil. It's more appropriate anyways.

And speaking of Chao, jeez. I wanted to give Sorun a little Chao companion but I knew next to nothing about them, so while looking up Chao for research purposes I came across this website called "Chao Island". I went in it and my brain was assaulted by a world's worth of Chao lore because apparently the two Sonic Adventure games went hella deep with the Chao mechanics. Felt like I needed a PhD just to understand half of it. I'm not gonna go anywhere near as deep into the Chao stuff as the games did, and I don't think the comics did, either, but there's still a little wiggle room there to do some cool stuff. So there's that.