A/N- Lads and lassies, as of this chapter, we hit 69 reviews.

Yee-haw.


Recursion Error

Episode 29- Killer concert


It'd been pointed out to Sorun at one point that there was a library somewhere in Knothole. Usually this wouldn't be of much consequence to him as his time was usually spent on other things, but in a world where the internet was nonexistent sometimes you just had to dig your nose into the books to find out what you wanted to know. In this case, it was Chao. Specifically what he was supposed to be doing in order to actually take care of the one in his possession.

He'd asked around, but, much to his surprise, there wasn't all that much the Freedom Fighters knew about raising and caring for Chao. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles apparently had limited experience with them, but nothing outside of that. Everybody else knew even less. And so far, for as long as Sorun had kept Virgil, things had been okay. The little guy seemed happy, and he ate the fruit Sorun kept feeding him. And as far as Sorun could tell, he seemed healthy. So as it stood, by all appearances, he was doing well enough with caring for the Chao. But one could never be too careful, and with how backwards this world was for all he knew these were all actually warning signs, so he'd endeavored to seek out some source of information on the strange species just so he could have a better idea on what he was doing.

To that end, his search had lead him to the library.

The affair of going the library itself had been boring. Getting a library card was apparently a free and very easy process. The woman who ran the place, a light-furred dog Mobian, had been nice enough in helping Sorun out and had even directed him to a zoology section in the library when he'd asked for assistance. And in that section, he'd been lucky enough to happen upon a book about Chao. So he'd taken it, checked it out, and was now walking through the streets of Knothole with the book open and his eyes reading over the contents.

"'Everything you need to know about Chao', huh? It's pretty in-depth so far, actually. Huh..." He flipped through another few pages while humming to himself. "Chao are pretty weird. It says they're natural conductors for Chaos energy, though what that actually means is yet to be discovered. Diet... just nuts and fruit? Alright, so I'm good there. Evolution? What?" He flipped a few more pages. "'Chao, by nature, are impressionable creatures that pick up habits from any potential owners caring for them. Actions and even dispositions can often impact a Chao as it grows, and under certain conditions a Chao's evolution can be-' what the hell am I actually reading? They evolve?"

Flipping through the book some more didn't provide him many answers to what exactly evolution meant. There were a few pictures in the book printed of a few unique-looking Chao. Some Chao colored a white and blue color with halos and other Chao colored in black and purples with weird, sharp-toothed evil smirks. From what the book said, Chao went through periods of change and evolution in accordance with their naturally-short life cycles, and the condition of somebody caring for a Chao was often the catalyst for such a evolution. There wasn't much detail outside of that, though, as the book didn't go into specifics. He wasn't so overly concerned about it. He'd just gotten the book so he could know how to care for Virgil properly, though all this information on Chao development was interesting. Or at least as interesting as it was confusing.

"Chao can adopt the personalities of those caring for them as they mature? Geez, I hope this doesn't mean Virgil become a cynical bastard like I am down the line. I haven't noticed anything out of the normal from the way he acts." He closed the book, a frown marring his features as he stared down at the cover while continuing to walk forwards in the street. "I'm gonna have to find somebody to take care of Virgil after I die. Sonic'd probably do it for me. Hell, anybody probably would. I don't know, maybe Antoine and Bunnie will look after him. They're a couple. Couples like pets, right?"

"Look out, look out!"

So distracted was he by his readings that Sorun hadn't paid attention to anything in front of him. And when he looked up upon hearing a panicked voice call out to him, he saw someone speeding directly towards him from the opposite side of the street. Sorun had been too surprised to make a move, and whoever was speeding towards him was going too fast to make a proper stop.

Naturally the two collided right into each other as a result of this.

The resulting crash sent Sorun and the other person flat on their backs, both softly groaning from the impact. The sound of fluttering paper reached Sorun's ears, and when he cracked his eyes open the first thing he noted were dozens of sheets of paper fluttering around in the air above him and slowly falling to the ground.

"Oh no!" The panicked voice of who Sorun assumed was the other person he'd crashed into gained his attention, causing him to slowly sit up to looked towards them. The sight before him was a yellow-furred Mobian with long, purple hair jumping up and down in an effort to try and collect the pages that had been tossed up into the air, with an armful of the discarded papers already in her grasp.

"I accidentally made her drop all her stuff." With a groan, Sorun got up to his feet while rolling his sore shoulder. "Now I feel bad. Guess I'll help out."

Two spectral arms appeared behind Sorun and reached out towards the discarded papers. The yellow Mobian with the purple hair stepped back in shock at the sight, almost looking frightful, but she seemed to calm down when she saw the Bringer Claws rapidly snatching up the papers out from the air. Within seconds he'd successfully gathered all of the lost papers in a neat stack, after which the Bringer Claws disappeared.

"Sorry about that," Sorun said with an apologetic look on his face as he offered the Mobian the papers. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

The Mobian, still looking surprised, looked down at the papers held out to her. She only finally reacted when Sorun shook the papers out of impatience. "Oh, don't worry about it! Thank you so much!" The Mobian gleefully exclaimed as she accepted the papers from Sorun. The human grunted in response, and then stepped back to bend downwards. She watched him crouch down to pick up the book he'd dropped off the ground, and then tilted her head to the side. "Are you that human that joined the Freedom Fighters that everybody's been talking about?"

"People talk about me?" Sorun thought as he grasped at the book. "There ain't exactly any other humans living in Knothole," he said, standing back up to turn back towards the Mobian. "So yeah. I'm Sorun."

"Mm!" The purple-haired Mobian nodded her head at him. "I'm Mina. Mina Mongoose."

"Mongoose?" Sorun squinted his eyes a bit and leaned forwards to scrutinize her features. She just looked like a normal Mobian to him. Then again, he didn't even think he ever saw what a mongoose on Earth looked like before coming to Mobius, so he wouldn't even know what to look for. "... Sure." He looked down at her clothes, his eyes widening a bit. She had on an actual top and skirt in addition to the gloves and boots most Mobians wore, with all of her articles of clothing sporting various splashes of blacks, purples, and teals. She even had piercings in her ears. "Well she's dressed real funky. And more conservatively than half the people in this place."

From the corner of his eyes, Sorun noticed that there was a piece of paper he'd missed that had fallen on the ground. A briefly-formed Bringer Claw snatched it from the ground and deposited it in his hand, to which Sorun brought it up for him to read. To his mild surprise, it was a poster. The front half depicted a stage printed on it with an assortment of Mobians standing on it and playing various instruments. He could very clearly see Mina at the front of the group singing into a microphone.

Sorun lowered the poster a bit, looked up to Mina who was eyeing him nervously, looked back down at the poster, and finally looked back at Mina. "You're... in a band?" he asked, lightly shaking the poster in his grasp.

She gave him an affirmative nod at the question. "Yup!"

"Huh." He looked back down at the poster, and then gazed at the name at the top. "... The Knothole Knuts." He found himself deeply inhaling, and he could have sworn his brain began throbbing upon having to retain the memory of the name he just read. "Oy."

"Is something the matter?" Mina asked, a tinge of concern to her voice as she stepped closer.

"... Nah..." Lowering the poster so that he didn't have to see that name again, Sorun gave the mongoose a stiff nod. "I didn't know bands were a thing here. I'm just a bit surprised is all."

Mina made a small "oh" of understanding. "I guess that makes sense. Yeah, we started it up a while ago. Things in Knothole can just get a bit, well... sad, you know? With everything going on in the world because of Eggman." She shuddered a bit, a sad look overtaking her features. "People always look up to the Freedom Fighters for everything they do. They're a beacon of hope that keep people going. I saw the change they make in people, and I wanted to contribute to help out too."

"But you didn't want to fight?" Sorun guessed.

To his surprise, she shook her head. "No, I... tried helping them out, but it didn't really work out too good. But I always had a good signing voice, so... yeah. I started a band with a few others," she explained, her features brightening up. "We hold concerts when we can to sing to help raise the morale in Knothole. It always manages to brighten up the mood and make people happy so they can forget all the bad that's happening for a bit, you know?"

"No, yeah, I get it," Sorun assured her. "That's... really admirable of you. Nobody seems to appreciate the importance of a smile every now and then. I can respect it." He knew he would have mentally crumbled a long time ago if he didn't find something enjoyable to do whenever he had free time. Having something to relax to was just plain necessary in this life, and he supposed not much else brought widespread happiness to a whole city of people more than a band playing in a concert.

A wide smile spread across Mina's face at Sorun's words. "Exactly! I'm so glad you understand!" Mina clasped her hands together and stepped a bit closer towards Sorun. "We're holding another concert tonight. I actually came out here to post all these posters our manager printed up to get the word out. You should really come see it!"

Looking unsure, Sorun rubbed at the back of his head and looked to the side. "I dunno, concerts were never really my thing..."

"It'll be fun, I promise! And, well, seeing the Freedom Fighters attend the concert usually helps for the people's morale. I know the rest of the Freedom Fighters usually make time to come to the band's shows since they're really supportive over what we do."

"Hmm..." Sighing, Sorun took another look at the poster he had in his grasp, wincing slightly when when his eyes scanned past the band name. There was a paragraph of information at the bottom of the picture of the band, and his eyes locked on to a particular piece of information at the bottom. "Eight tonight, huh?" He hummed again in thought, and after a few more moments he looked back up at Mina. "I don't have anything else planned for tonight. Guess I'll go since everybody else is going." Who knows, it might be fun. And now that he thought on it, he hadn't actually heard any music at all since coming to Mobius. Maybe spending a night at a concert would be a good change of pace for him.

Oh, how he wished his phone and all the music he'd stored on it hadn't been lost to him. He really missed relaxing to Earth music.

"That's great!" Mina flashed Sorun a thankful nod, and then stepped to the side before walking past Sorun. "Thanks for coming, Sorun! Keep the poster! I've got more to give out!" Her feet began spinning up, and before Sorun could even blink she began speeding down the street. "See you at the concert!"

Sorun stared after the mongoose speeding away, heavily blinking at the disappearing blur. "Wow, she's fast," he commented. "Not Sonic-fast, but still... not bad." If there was anything more surprising than the cheerful personality that girl had, it was how fast she could run. A rock star with super speed. Strange combo.

But she seemed like a great person from the impression Sorun got from her. A great singer too, apparently, if her concerts really were so popular. And anybody who did things to help other people out of the kindness of their hearts was a good enough person in his books, which, on second thought, described almost all of the Mobians he'd ever met. Probably went to explain why he was growing so fond of them.

Well, he'd already made the promise to her, and now he was genuinely curious over how well the band was. For sure he would go.

"Guess I know what I'm doing tonight," Sorun muttered to himself. He looked at the poster, groaned, and then rolled it up and shoved it into his pocket. "Knothole Knuts, sheesh..."


"Okay, this time..."

"How many times have you said that by now?"

"This is the one, I feel it..."

Training was hit and miss for Sorun. Some things stuck, and some things just didn't. Things like learning practical skills were slow-going but easy enough for him to get a handle on. Fighting was something he was having to learn on his own through practical experience since nobody could really help him with his style. Training his body was... beginning to become a waste of time due to his endurance slowly diminishing with his withering body. He'd had to stop taking runs with Sonic to improve his stamina for fear that the hedgehog would notice his endurance wasn't up to snuff compared to what it used to be. Finding excuses to avoid those runs were starting to become a challenge.

Agility was still important for him, though, if only because it gave him more mobility options and made handling Yamato easier. Amy usually helped him with that, and most of the time this was done in the field of wooden posts. The occurrences where they could spend some time together to do anything was rare due to conflicting schedules from missions and whatever Amy did in her personal life, as was a similar case with everybody else, but every once in a while they found a little time together for them to do this.

Overall? Sorun wasn't really sure he ever saw any tangible results with her. He still tried, though, if only because the simple idea of benefiting from this was enough to keep him going. But all the hope in the world didn't change the fact he still couldn't hop from one post to another without falling down, even after all this time.

As was the case now, when he leapt from one post to another only for his foot to miss it entirely.

At the very least, he got the hang of not falling completely on his face. A Summoned Sword appeared right below Sorun's feet, with the teen waving his arms out wildly to balance himself once landing on the sword. He stood up straight once finding solid purchase on the sword, and then looked up towards Amy, who was standing on one of the other posts.

"That was the one, huh?" she asked, arms crossed with a teasing smirk on her face.

With a roll of his eyes, Sorun dismissed the Summoned Sword and landed softly on the ground. "You know what, I don't need your sass," he retorted as he sat down and leaned his back against the nearest post. "I'm done with this for the day."

"If you say so." With a shrug, the pink hedgehog hopped down from her own post and sat down against the post right next to Sorun. "So how are you feeling?"

Tired. "Ah, you know. Fine," he answered. "Kinda hurts I still can't make a single post jump, but hey. I can always cheat with the swords."

"I'm not so sure that's how you're supposed to do it, but if it works I guess..." Amy trailed off and tilted her head in Sorun's direction. "Are you sure you're okay? It's just, well, lately you've been getting kind of exhausted. Like, a lot more than usual."

"It's just all these missions," Sorun played off while locking his fingers behind his head. "I swear, we've been sent all over the place nonstop. I had to go with Sally to bust up that patrol of Egg Pawns seen around this one village, the day before that I had to go with Rotor because some weird Badnik disguised as a log of all things was trying to sabotage the hydroelectric water wheel you guys have set up in the river, and that took forever to sort out... agh, it's just been a lot."

"Yeah, it's been pretty busy lately," Amy admitted with a nod of her head. "It's a good thing Sally called it a day today for missions with everything going on later tonight. We could really use the break."

Sorun quirked his brows in interest, and then rolled his head over to Amy's direction. "So what do you know about this concert going on, anyways?" he asked.

Amy's green eyes brightened up immediately at the question. "Oh, it's Mina's band that's playing tonight! I always look forwards to her music, her band's the best!"

"So they're really that good?"

"Mh-hm!" Amy enthusiastically nodded her head. "Sally likes to encourage us to go since seeing us around helps improve Knothole's morale, and it gives us a bit of stress relief." Her head stopped bobbing and she gave Sorun a questioning look. "You're going tonight, right?"

"Yeah, I'm goin'," he confirmed with a nod, which caused Amy to brighten up again. "Don't really see a reason not to. Plus it's been forever since I've actually heard any good music, so I figured why not? That being said I don't really have any plans besides just show up." He removed his left hand from the back of his head and began scratching at his hair. "How 'bout you?"

For some reason Amy deflated at the question, causing some confusion to appear on Sorun. "Oh, I tried asking Sonic out, you know, just as a small get-together, but he turned me down and said he just wanted to hang out with everybody as a group."

At hearing that, Sorun's ears perked up in interest. "You tried asking him out on a date?"

"No! No, I... yeah..." When Amy noticed Sorun staring intently, she huffed and crossed her arms in indignation. "So what if I wanted to ask him on a date? I'm allowed to try and pursue a relationship, aren't I!?"

Chuckling nervously, Sorun held up his hands to try and calm Amy down while also unconsciously scooting back a few inches. "C'mon, that's not what I meant. I just really didn't see you going for him. You seriously like him?" He supposed he could see it. The guy was world famous. And now that he thought about it, he was surprised more girls didn't chase after him. And even if there were he doubted they could chase someone like him.

But, Sorun had always assumed that all these missions he kept going on kept Sonic too busy for things like that. Or maybe not, as there were other people in the Freedom Fighters in romantic relationships already. Maybe he just plain wasn't interested in Amy, because for as long as he'd known him he never even talked about anything romantic, nor had he even heard anybody mention such a thing before this.

"Like him!? I'm in love with him!" The sheer amount of bubbliness exuding out from Amy was enough to make Sorun scoot back another few inches. "What's not to love about him!? Sonic's the bestest person to have ever existed!" The hedgehog clasped her hands together as her eyes became half-lidded to form a dreamy expression on her face. "His looks, his personality, the way he races around to save everybody he cares about... what's not to love about him?"

"Uh... sure..." When he'd first heard of Amy's crush not even two minutes ago Sorun had been indifferent about it and had even planned on teasing her a bit over it. Now he was just beginning to grow uncomfortable and slightly concerned. "He's a great guy and all, but, uh, but love? Really? Liking him I get, but you haven't even dated-"

"That may be true, but the heart knows what it wants." The way she said this made Amy sound so sure of herself, but Sorun was just more off-put by her words. "I remember all the way back when we would write letters back and forth to each other. And then I got to be a Freedom Fighter alongside him! We're even both hedgehogs! What else could it be if not a match made in heaven?"

"What the hell, he even gets fan mail!?" Sorun thought to himself, long since having tuned out Amy's words. "Oh, but man, this is way weirder than I thought it was. She almost sounds obsessed with the guy." He paused, and then slowly drifted his eyes towards Amy. "Obsessed girl who has a giant hammer... oh, that dude's fucked. She's gonna give Sonic the 'Misery' treatment or some shit." He paused, and then shook his head as a small smirk formed. "Nah, nah she'd never do that. Amy ain't that crazy. It's just a really weird crush, even if she's... wait, how old is she? I know Sonic's sixteen like me, but what about her?"

"What're you smirking at?" The grin that had formed from his own thoughts seemed to have gone noticed by Amy, who began squinting at the human. Sorun coughed to the side and then began rapidly scratch at the back of his head in response.

"Nothin', nothin'. Hey, Amy, how old are you?" Sorun asked in a desperate attempt to deflect the conversation.

It seemed to work, fortunately enough, as the question caused Amy to tilt her head in thought. The question she asked in turn, though, gave Sorun pause. "Physically or mentally?"

"..." The pale teen blinked at the question. That sounded like something he would ask whenever he felt like being unnecessarily cryptic just to mess with somebody, not something he'd hear coming out of Amy of all people. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, well... physically I'm about as old as Sonic," Amy answered, "but I used to be a lot younger. Sally and Sonic wouldn't let me into the Freedom Fighters since I was so young, so there was a special Power Ring that granted wishes I used to... age myself up. Just a bit." She looked to the side with a pout on her face. "Nobody ever agreed with me and said I did the right thing, but I've gotten really mature since then so I don't see what the problem is."

And there it was. The one abnormal bit of information Sorun was expecting to make this completely normal-sounding story sound completely insane, i.e. normal by Mobius standards. It made him a bit relieved to hear that this strangely strong crush Amy had on Sonic came from a childhood crush. And helped to explain why Amy's current attitude. The bit with the wish-granting ring had him curious enough to ask, though. "There's a Power Ring that grants wishes?"

Amy nodded. "Yeah, the Ring of Acorns. It lost all its power when I made that wish, though."

"Damn." So much for all those ideas he'd begun to form. Ah well, easy come easy go. "Well, Amy, I'm not one to judge people for who they like, so follow your heart I guess. But I'm telling you right now, in all the time I've lived with Sonic nothing has made me want to live with the guy on a permanent basis."

For a bit there Amy had begun to look pleased, almost as if she was happy that Sorun sounded semi-supportive of her pursuit of Sonic. Her demeanor soured almost instantly when she heard him speak that last sentence. "What's so bad about living with Sonic, Sorun?"

Seeing the shift in her demeanor, Sorun quietly hissed through his teeth as he carefully thought over his response. "Well... nothing overly bad..." he slowly stated, growing a bit nervous under Amy's glare. "Just, y'know... the normal struggles of two guys living in the same room. Bad jokes all the time, guy leaves his clothes lying around... oh, and his energy." Sorun rubbed a hand over his face as an exhausted look overtook him. "I don't know where he gets it. He's just so energetic all the time and I just cannot keep up with him. Ugh, the way he practically drags me to breakfast all the time while talking my ear off, I swear..."

He just couldn't become tired. Sorun didn't know if that was even true or not, but if it wasn't, he had yet to see any evidence to the contrary. Because as long as he'd known him Sonic was this boundless source of energy that somehow made Sorun more exhausted just by being near him. And Sorun had to live under the same roof as him. In the same room.

Sometimes Sorun was amazed he even had the energy to get out of bed.

Amy nodded in understanding to Sorun's explanation, her facial features softening to a more easy expression. "Oh, I get it. Just guy stuff," she said. "That's understandable. A guy living with a guy can't be anything like two people in love living with each other."

Sorun decided to just nod along to her words so he could steer the conversation somewhere else. "Yeah, exactly. So did you have anything special planned for the concert tonight?"

It seemed that the attempted diversion had worked, as Amy nodded enthusiastically to the human as a smile came to her face. "Yeah, I went to Honey and bought a new dress just for the occasion." Sorun visibly flinched upon hearing the cat's name be mentioned, but he remained silent and allowed Amy to continue. "Actually, I bought a ton of outfits from her a while back, and I think I remember her saying that she managed to get all of them finished along with the dress I picked out for the concert." Suddenly, she groaned out loud and held a hand to her forehead. "Ugh, there's gonna be so many bags..." She froze, and her eyes opened wide while the irises drifted to Sorun's position. "Hey, Sorun..."

Sorun, seeing where Amy was going with this, immediately shook his head. "I'm not going to Honey's shop with you to carry a bunch of clothes back to your house," he said with a shake of his head. "And no way am I going near that hellcat for any longer than I have to."

"Oh, come on! Please?" Amy plead, turning her whole body towards Sorun while clasping her hands together again, this time in a pleading gesture. "You have your arms and your spooky blue arms! That's four extra sets of arms you have to help me with!"

"Yeah, and you're in the top ten for the physically strongest Freedom Fighter. You seriously need my help carrying a bunch of bags?"

Amy sheepishly grinned and turned away at the question. "I... I may have bought a lot..."

"Seriously, Amy...?" Sorun groaned into his palm, thinking over the request in his head. An idea came to him, making his hand slowly slide off his face as he turned to face Amy again. "I'll do it for a Power Ring," he offered.

One of Amy's eyes squinted in confusion. "A Power Ring? Why?"

"'Cause Sally found out I've been poaching the Lake of Rings for Power Rings and she ordered me not to do it anymore." An annoyed look settled on his face as he rose his hand up and began opening and closing it in imitation of a mouth. "'Everybody depends on those rings, Sorun. You can't just go and blow through a rare and precious resource playing video games with Nicole, blah blah blah...'" he complained in a mock falsetto. "I think Rouge ratted me out. She would."

"She's not wrong, you know," Amy pointed out.

Sorun sharply inhaled, and then lowered his hand to the ground. "Yeah, I can see where she's coming from, but it's still complete baloney." He crossed his arms and leaned further back into the post while staring towards Amy, face still disgruntled. "Anyways, because of Mrs. Fun Wrecker's order, I'm strapped for rings these days. So you want my help? I need a Power Ring."

"You can't just help out a friend and fellow Freedom Fighter with a little chore?" Amy asked him. She even went as far as to bat her eyelashes at him. Sorun rolled his eyes at the act.

"You're telling me I should look into my heart and help out a fellow soul in need for no compensation whatsoever for no other reason than she's a fellow comrade and that doing things out of the kindness of your heart is a good thing?" When Sorun saw Amy nod her head at the question, he shook his head much to her disappointment. "Yeah, I should, but I'm not gonna. I'm too desperate for that ring."

It was Amy's turn to roll her eyes. "You're just gonna use it on Nicole to play more games with her when you both have some free time."

"I'm insulted you would make such a valid and likely assumption over me," Sorun said, flaking his voice in sarcasm as he held a hand over his heart. "But as it happens, I have a different idea for that ring and Nicole."

"Oh, really? What's that?"

"It's a secret. You might see it later, though, assuming I get that ring," Sorun answered.

The pink hedgehog sighed out loud at the answer. "Why do you spend so many Power Rings on her, anyways?" she wondered.

"Aside from the fact she's the only fun person to play games with?" The teen flatly asked. "I don't know, Amy, I just don't like that she's cooped up in that computer all the time. She really likes it whenever I help her make her holo-body so she can interact with the world because, you know, she just likes being around and doing stuff like everybody else, so I just thought I'd, er..." He sighed, lowered his head and mumbled something under his breath, and then rose it again with his blue eyes pleading. "Look, I don't care what it takes. I just really need that Power Ring. I'll do anything."

After he'd finished, Amy continued to look at his face, as if she was trying to silently discern something from his features. It went on long enough that Sorun was about to ask what she was doing, but before he could her face suddenly alit with realization. It was a sudden enough change in her face that Sorun had actually jumped back a bit in surprise.

"Ohhhh...!" She started to slowly nod her head, and a wide smile began to form on her face. "Oh, okay. I get it."

"Get it?" Sorun repeated, genuine confusion in his voice. "Get what?"

The question, to Sorun's further confusion, only served to make Amy's smile bigger. "Oh, it's nothing. You're in luck: I happened to have a Power Ring stashed away for rainy days like this. I'll give it to you if you help me carry me all the clothes from Honey's shop back to my home."

"For real?" When Sorun saw Amy give him a confirmatory nod, he jumped up to his feet with a happy gleam in his eyes. "Yes, plan's in motion! Er, ahem." He cleared his throat and looked away when Amy, still grinning, looked towards him with raised eye ridges. "Er, yeah. Come on, we can go right now."


"Jesus Christ, Amy, what the hell..."

Sorun would freely admit he'd underestimated many things in the duration of his life. Today he would underestimate yet another thing: the sheer amount of clothes a girl was willing to buy and haul off. When Amy had described it to Sorun, he'd assumed that she had just been exaggerating and that it wouldn't be too much at all. It was supposed to be a simple job for easy money, or in this case easy ring.

And yet here he was. Bringer Claws out and laden down with he didn't even know how many bags full of clothes. It didn't even end there, as his normal arms as well were burdened with carrying so many bags that his arms were beginning to grow sore from all the bag straps slung over his limbs.

So there he was. Weighed down with probably enough clothes to cover a whole village, standing inside of Honey's shop as the owner and Amy chatted over by the register. A process that had been going on for around twenty minutes now. He didn't even know what they were talking out; he'd mentally tuned them out thirty seconds in. What he did know was that it was now twenty minutes of him standing in place while being slowly crushed by clothes as two girls nearby continued to chatter on and on about something. And his arms were getting too tired to tolerate this much longer.

He cleared his throat. Loudly, as to gain the attention of the two girls so they would stop talking and focus over to Sorun. "I don't mean to interrupt your conversation, but I would very much appreciate it if we could move it along at a slightly faster pace than zero," Sorun intoned, his voice barely above a hiss as he stared at the two. "Can we please hurry this up?"

Of the two girls, Amy was the first one to react by sheepishly grinning towards him. "Eh-heh, sorry, Sorun. I lost track of time. What were we doing?"

"Oh, don't mind him, Amy," Honey said, stepping past the counter while smirking towards Sorun. "No matter where I go boys just can't seem to appreciate the finer things."

Sorun scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I'm a boorish, uncultured individual who has no taste in whatever you two were talking about, now can we pick it up already!?"

All that seemed to do was make Honey's grin wider as her tail swished playfully behind her. "Sure thing. The clothes are already paid for."

His eyebrow twitching in irritation, Sorun slowly exhaled a breath while turning his head towards Amy. "Then what are we even doing here if the clothes are paid for...?"

"Oh, we were talking about the concert!" Amy happily replied, almost oblivious towards the suffering Sorun's arms were going through. "Honey said that she was going, too."

Sorun's arms felt like they were threatening to snap at this point, but he kept up appearances as he faced back towards Honey. "Oh, really now? I didn't know you were into music, Honey."

Honey shrugged. "It's too great an opportunity not to go. See, I signed on a deal with Mina's manager, Ash, to make a bunch of t-shirts with the band's logo on them. And seeing as the whole bunch of Mobians are gonna show up there, well, how could I not go and drum up some business?"

"Always about the money with you, huh, Honey...?" Sorun muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"Hey, I provide a service in the form of producing lovingly-crafted pieces of works for generous rates," Honey replied, turning back to Amy while leaning against the checkout counter. "So, Amy, you were saying about wanting bring somebody to the concert?"

Amy pouted at the question and crossed her arms. "I tried asking Sonic out, but he turned me down."

"Shame." Honey flashed her a sympathetic look that almost melted away instantly once she turned her head over to Sorun's direction. "What about you, Sorun? Got any big plans for the concert tonight?"

"That, is none of your concern," Sorun responded in a flat tone. "I just wanna get this stuff back to Amy's place so I can get that Power Ring she promised me."

"Riiight. Of course." The grin on Honey's face broadened as her tail continually swished in the air behind her. "Amy told me all about that. You seem awfully desperate for that Power Ring, huh?"

Annoyed, Sorun shot Amy a glare, the pink hedgehog responding with a small laugh while avoiding his gaze. Honey just glanced towards Amy, the two locking eyes briefly before bringing their hands up to their mouths to cover their high-pitched giggles.

"The hell is so funny?" Sorun internally wondered, though try as me might he couldn't glean any answers from looking at the girls' faces. All he saw were those knowing, smug looks in their eyes, though why they had those expressions to begin with he hadn't a clue. "Did I miss some piece of context when I stopped listening to them or what?"

Fortunately, Amy chose that time to end whatever it is they were doing and walk towards the front door. "Alright, well, I guess we should get going. Thanks again for everything, Honey!"

"Bye Amy, bye Sorun." She caught Sorun's eyes just as he was making to leave, and then gave him a wink. "Have fun at the concert."

"... I will?" All Sorun could manage was a confused blink, which, much to his frustration, sent Honey into another fit of light giggling. Sorun just helplessly stared on, and then gave up with a shake of his head as he turned towards the door. Amy was nice enough to hold it open for him, but much to his chagrin he saw she still had that knowing smirk on her face just like Honey did. "Girls..." he internally scoffed as he stomped out the door, spectral arms covered with bags trailing behind him.


"The things I'll do for a Power Ring..."

It hadn't been the worst thing he'd ever done, all things considered. Did he get a lot of looks from people while walking through the streets carrying an obscene amount of bags filled with women's clothing? Oddly enough, not as many as Sorun would have assumed he would have gotten. Sorun didn't really know how to take that, but he'd count it as a positive. And despite all his complaining, it'd felt nice helping a friend out, even if he wouldn't admit it to Amy aloud.

The most important thing though was the Power Ring. Amy had thanked him profusely once they gotten back to her home and unpacked all her clothing, and as promised, she'd given him the Power Ring. The one sole reason he allowed himself to be subjected to that ordeal.

With that Power Ring, he had a plan. More of an idea, really, that had begun brewing in the back of his mind during his conversation with Amy about the concert. A nice thing he wanted to do, and a perfect opportunity to pull it off. A desire to do something nice born more out of a sudden whim he'd had more than anything else, really, but one he wanted to enact anyways.

So with that in mind, he descended the steps into the Freedom HQ's main room while tossing the ring up and down. He quickly hid it behind his back once he made it to ground floor when he saw all of two people inhabiting it currently, sitting on the couch and talking. Sonic and Sally, though he was less interested in the former and more interested in the latter. Specifically, something that was in Sally's possession.

Sorun heard them talking about something as he approached, though the conversation died down as he began approaching them. Sonic was the first one to take notice of the human, smiling and waving over in his direction.

"Yo, Sorun!" the hedgehog greeted. "What's shakin'?"

"Nothin' too important," Sorun blandly answered as he made a stop by the couch. "Been hearin' a lotta buzz about this concert that's going on tonight."

Sonic's ears perked up. "Oh, you mean Mina's gig? Yeah, her and her band's always slammin' out some rockin' jams whenever they play. It's gonna be great."

"We usually make it a point to have all the Freedom Fighters attend the event as well to help take the edge off," Sally added. "Were you planning on going, Sorun?"

To the visible relief of both Mobians, Sorun nodded. "Yeah, it seems interesting. I'll drop by." The teen hopped up onto the couch's arm, and then looked down at Sally. "Hey, can I have Nicole real quick? I wanna ask her something."

"Hm? Oh, sure." Nodding at Sorun, Sally began reaching into the inside of her vest wile still maintaining eye contact with him. "What did you want to ask her?"

"Just a little something," Sorun evasively answered. "Nothing you gotta worry about."

There was a scoff from the other side of the couch as Sonic leaned back, lacing his hands behind his quills. "Oh, really? You sure it's just not to just ask her to spend some more time playing games with you?"

"Yeah, keep guessin'," Sorun mumbled in response, quickly but gingerly snatching up the small computer Sally offered to him. He looked down at the computer and opened his mouth to speak, but then paused and looked up when he noticed that the other two were still looking at him. "A little privacy?" he requested.

He didn't like the way Sonic was smirking at him like that. A knowing, teasing smirk that just got on Sorun's nerves instantly because he just knew the hedgehog was thinking of something Sorun didn't like. Sally's reaction was a lot more subdued than the other Mobian's, being mostly accepting of the request as she nodded and stepped up off the couch.

"Okay, sure. C'mon, Sonic," Sally said, gesturing towards the hedgehog.

"Alright." Shrugging, Sonic hopped off the couch, his face still grinning at Sorun. "Wanna go hit the kitchen? Somewhere close by where we can keep talking while-"

"No, I think we should continue this conversation somewhere outside," Sally retorted, sending Sonic an admonishing glare at his suggestion.

He didn't even look fazed by the look, his mouth still set in a smirk. "Just joshin' around with ya, Sal. I would never dream of listening in on Sorun and Nicole." He began stepping around Sally and towards the HQ's exit. "Betcha I can guess what you're gonna ask her, though. Pretty sure what I'm feeling you holding behind your back is a Pow-"

"Hey, Sonic, keep talking and you'll wake up gray one day. I'll use Yamato to separate your fur and quills from the color blue while you're sleeping," Sorun threatened.

Sonic completely froze after listening to Sorun, and then began nervously chuckling as he started backing up towards the stairs. "Eh-heh, heh, just kidding around, Sorun, come on. You know I wouldn't do anything like that." He nervously gulped. "Your sword can't actually do something like that, can it?"

"Who knows? I haven't tried it." A threatening grin began to form on his face. "Wanna help me test it out?"

"I'm good!" By now Sonic's feet had reached the stairs, and he quickly began ascending them. "I'll meet you outside, Sal! Seeya at the concert, Sorun!"

The remaining two watched the blue hedgehog disappear up the stairs, staring up after him a bit before they both broke out in quiet laughter. Sally began shaking her head as her laughter died down, whereas Sorun's expression slowly faded back to neutral.

With her final laugh coming out as a sigh, Sally turned back towards Sorun. "That was a bit cruel, wasn't it?" she asked, though the mirthful look on her face said enough as to what she thought of the threat.

"Eh, nah. Call it payback for having to listen to him yammer on and on during missions." Sorun groaned and began to tiredly rub at his face. "I already have a negative view on the word 'juice', so when I gotta hear him go 'gotta juice!' every other time he spins through a robot it feels like I'm having an aneurysm." He made a "tch" sound and looked towards the ceiling. "Besides. His color would come back when new fur and quills grows and replaces the ones I grayed out. Probably."

Sally shot him a sympathetic look. "I know he can be a handful, but please refrain from pulling a prank that drastic. You can't tell me he's pulled a joke on you that warrants something like that."

"No, but it'd be so easy..." Sorun let out a wistful sigh, and then turned his head down to face Sally again. "Anyways, thanks. I'll only be a few minutes, so-"

"It's fine, you can take your time," Sally said, raising her palms up and shaking them in Sorun's direction as she began following in Sonic's footsteps towards the stairs. "In fact, since you're going to the concert tonight anyways, why don't you just hold onto her until then?"

Surprised, Sorun blinked his eyes as his head moved backwards just slightly. "Really? You're sure?"

Sally nodded. "I trust you with her. You're actually more careful with her than I am sometimes." She turned around to climb up the stairs, reaching a hand behind her to wave goodbye at Sorun. "See you at the concert, Sorun!"

"Uh, yeah. You too." Sorun made the effort to make a half-wave at Sally's back using the hand holding the ring, but due to his surprise he was too slow in making the movement and didn't even get to make it before she disappeared out of sight. He blinked again, and then silently slid down onto the end of the couch.

If there was one thing he wasn't expecting, it was that. He didn't even think he'd get as far as to getting five minutes alone with Nicole,especially with how selective Sally was over who handled Nicole, never mind the rest of the day. He wasn't going to be able to play games with her- he had another use in mind for the ring-, but with a lack of anything further to do for the next few hours until the concert, talking would be nice. He couldn't even begin to fathom what they would talk about, though, as he was still reeling from what Sally said. That thing about trusting him.

It felt oddly nice hearing somebody say that about him.

He looked away from the stairs and towards Nicole's computer body he was holding, and then sighed. Thoughts for later. Important question and next step of the plan now. Assuming he could even muster up the nerve to get that far, because what Sally just said was making him weak. And he couldn't help but feel jittery as he began to realize what he was doing.

"Am I seriously about to go through with this?" he asked himself as he gently placed Nicole down on the couch cushion besides him. "I mean friends hang out and do stuff all the time, right? Yeah. Yeah, this is fine."

Rather hesitantly, Sorun cleared his throat and leaned back into the couch. His eyes flicked down to the computer resting next to him, the green screen lighting up when Sorun called out, "Hey, Nicole?"

"Yes, Sorun?" came the response from the small computer.

"I, uh..." Sorun unconsciously began scratching at his neck and looked off to the side. "I'm sorry I always gotta go through the whole rigmarole of having to ask for you and hand you off back and forth with Sally all the time. I get there's not much to be done about it since your body doesn't have any mobility to it, but it's... I just don't think it's very fair you have to go through that."

Nicole took a moment before responding. "I don't mind it too terribly. It's the consequence of being a computer, despite how... frustrating it can be at times. But you needn't worry about me." Another pause. "I deeply appreciate your concern, though."

"Um, yeah." The nervous scratching increased. "Of course."

"Now could you kindly tell me what is it you wanted to ask?"

Sorun mentally cursed. Of course she'd see him trying to dodge around the subject. "Could you hop out for a bit?" he asked. "I... feel a bit better talking face-to-face with you."

"Sorun, without a Power Ring I cannot maintain my hardlight body for a long stretch of-"

"I know, I know, this'll only take a minute. I promise."

Some seconds passed as Nicole seemed to contemplate the request. He was almost afraid that she'd deny him, and he found himself holding his breath when the computer's green screen lit up again. "Very well," she agreed, making Sorun slowly exhale the breath he'd been holding. "Please hold for a moment."

Right after speaking, Sorun saw the black and green pixels that were Nicole's body began to form and take shape. He leaned further back into the couch, looking up at the ceiling and humming quietly to himself as he waited for the process to finish. Seconds later he sat back forwards in a normal position while turning to look at Nicole.

And just as expected, there she was. The holo-lynx looked more curious than anything else, but otherwise seemed pleased to see him. Sorun, in response, crossed one leg over the other and rested his right arm on the couch's arm, clearing his throat as he searched for the words to say.

"So..." he began, pausing to nervously drum his fingers on the couch. He was starting to wonder if requesting to talk to her in person had been a mistake or not. "There's a concert tonight," he finally settled on.

"Yes, I'm aware," Nicole said with a nod. "Evidently Mina's music tends to draw in a large crowd. From how Sally tells it she's quite good." She looked to the side a bit, expression unchanging. "I've heard a bit, through the handheld's speakers. I've never been to one of her concerts in person, though. I was often busy accomplishing one task or another on the HQ's computer."

"But you're free tonight, right?" Sorun asked.

She gave him a confirmatory nod. "I did not plan on accomplishing anything tonight."

"Cool, cool..." With his left hand, Sorun held up the Power Ring Amy had given him and began spinning it around on his index finger. "I hustled this Power Ring off Amy," he explained upon seeing Nicole's surprised look.

One of Nicole's eyes twitched in confusion. "You... did what to Amy?"

"It was a completely consensual arrangement, don't worry about it," Sorun answered with a wave of his free hand. "Truth is I've never been to a concert myself, even in my previous life. You're always going on about how you'd like to experience life like other people more, and this concert's tonight, so I just thought, you know... we could make it a learning experience and go to the concert."

The long moment of silence that passed between them did nothing to sooth Sorun's nerves. He saw Nicole giving him a critical look, her eyes going back and forth between him and the power ring as mild shock overtook her features. Meanwhile Sorun was playing the words he just said over in his head over and over while wondering if he'd said the right thing. Finally, she asked, "You went through all the trouble of getting a Power Ring just so I could experience a concert in person?"

"I mean, it wasn't that much trouble." Oh, how he wished that was true. "I just thought we'd do something different for a change. Video games are nice and all, but there's more to life than just that. Variety being the spice of life and all that."

More silence passed, and Sorun anxiety built up. Nicole looked down in thought for a second, and then looked back up at Sorun's eyes. "Are you asking-?"

"For my best friend to accompany me to a public social event to experience life a little? Yeah, totally," Sorun quickly finished for her with a nod. "And Sonic, Sally, and everybody else is gonna be there, too, so we can all have a bit of fun. Maybe make it a big thing, you know? We don't really get a lot of time off like this so I figured we could just live it up a bit."

In response, Nicole closed her mouth at having her own thought finished with her. She didn't say anything, either. She only just continued to silently stare at Sorun with a strange, unreadable expression he couldn't place. A look that that was doing nothing to help ease his anxiety, as he truly had no idea why she was staring at him with that strange look.

And then she disappeared.

The sudden disappearance had been so sudden and without warning that Sorun had jumped in his seat in surprise at it. He almost began panicking, too, though held off when he saw the green display on Nicole's computer body light up. He breathed out in relief, and then leaned forwards.

"My apologies if I frightened you again. The power demand for maintaining that form became too great," Nicole said through the computer's speakers. "As to your invitation, Sorun... I would very much be delighted to try and 'live it up' as you put it. I think experiencing something new in my holo-body would be... rather nice. So yes. I'll go to the concert with you."

"O-oh." Well that had been easy. Far more easy than he'd expected it to be. It certainly took a weight off of his chest, and he felt himself begin to breath easier. He had a distinct feeling all that anxiety would return later tonight, but that was for Sorun in the future to worry about. Right now he just wanted to be ecstatic over the fact that Nicole had said yes. "Okay then!" Sighing, he shifted his form so that he was lying on the couch, carefully placing Nicole in a position so that he wouldn't accidentally knock her over.

All of that mental exertion had gone and made him tired. That and the physical exertion from having to deal with Amy's antics. Now that he had finally calmed down, he decided he wanted to sleep. And maybe if he was lucky he'd be able to sleep all the way to the concert so he and Nicole could just go immediately. Sounded like a great plan to him.

"Nicole? You don't mind if I take a nap, do you?" Sorun asked. "I'm just kind of tired from some stuff I did earlier today, so could you do me a favor and wake me up around seven if I don't wake up myself beforehand? I don't wanna oversleep and have us miss the concert."

"It's no problem at all, Sorun. Though I have to wonder what you were doing that made you so tired," Nicole said.

Yawning, Sorun leaned his head back and closed his eyes. "I'll, uh... I'll tell you later on the way to the concert. It had to do with Amy and the whole... eh, I'll tell you about it when I... mf..." He only managed to get that far before finally falling asleep.


It was decided by the ones organizing the concert that the event itself would take place in a large, open plaza at the edge of Knothole City, near towards the edge of the forest. Sorun didn't think there was ever a time he'd seen so many Mobians packed together in once place before; no matter where he went there were crowds of people wandering all over the place, all of them excitedly chattering about the going-ons and about the coming concert. Around two-hundred if he were to accurately estimate a number. A rather sizable portion of the city's whole population.

By now it was sunset, the sky being colored a dark orange mixed with dark blues as night threatened to settle in. Despite the approaching night, everybody around seemed to be more awake than ever. It was almost suffocating to Sorun, seeing all these happy and bustling people around him. It didn't help that he felt a bit out of place being the only human walking around, but fortunately, nobody paid him any mind. He'd actually gotten a few hellos from some strangers, which went far in improving his mood.

It felt nice, feeling included along with everybody else despite looking so different, despite his own personal grievances over the matter. And it felt great seeing all these people around being so happy as well. It helped Sorun to forget everything else happening in the world and Eggman, which he supposed was the whole point of this event. To give people a break from it all. It really was working, too. Sorun couldn't remember the last time he felt so good.

"Huh. So this is what a concert is like." Sorun felt a rustling on his left shoulder, and looked towards it to see a Chao sitting on his shoulder. Virgil looked about as excited as everybody else from the way his eyes and smile were so wide as he looked around at the crowds around them. "Even Virgil is all excited. Man."

"Sorun!" The sudden call of his voice snapped Sorun out from his thoughts and made him turn to his side. Instantly he saw Nicole enter into his view, wide smile on her face. "You were right! This is wonderful!"

"H-ha, yeah, I know, right?" Sorun weakly muttered in response, a forced smile on his own face. He wasn't used to seeing Nicole, or anybody, really, this happy. But the second he'd walked her along with Virgil over to the concert and inserted the Power Ring into her computer body so she could generate her Mobian body, her face had just lit up in the most purest form of wonder Sorun had ever seen from all the merriment going on around her. Sorun could barely even keep up, as she just kept walking around to try and experience as much as possible in the time she had.

In a way, he was happy for her and glad he was able to give her this opportunity. Seeing the smile on her face alone was making Sorun beam inside and struggle to keep it contained under a neutral expression. But then there was the voice in the back of his mind telling him that he was doing too much, that even for somebody he admitted to being friends with that this was probably going too far. That he was getting a bit too attached and would only make it worse for her when he died. He pushed those thoughts aside, though, as at the moment he didn't care too much. He rather liked seeing Nicole this happy, and he was having fun himself, so he was doing his best to ignore those voices.

"Sorun, come on!" Nicole had tried grabbing at Sorun's hand to try and drag him somewhere. Sorun avoided the attempt by quickly shoving his hands into his pockets while leaning back. The movement was subtle enough that Nicole didn't even seem to register it, and instead began waving at him to follow her. "I saw Sally and Sonic a bit further ahead!"

Wordlessly, the teen began following Nicole as she led him further up the plaza. "What the hell am I doing?" Sorun wondered to himself as he watched the brown and black lynx ahead of him. "Aren't I supposed to be avoiding doing stuff like this? Argh, but it's fine, though, right? It's just a bunch of friends going to a concert, and fuck me for wanting to have some fun before I die. At least Nicole's having a good time." He sighed and looked back at the horizon just as the sun almost finished setting completely. "Nah, it's fine. This is normal. Just me and some friends having some fun on our day off."

He would have figured he was allowed at least one break, and after everything else, he figured he might as well collect it now. For all he knew an opportunity like this wouldn't turn up again. And he felt that Nicole deserved the experience. So he'd just enjoy the night and then go back to the daily grind of fighting a mad tyrant tomorrow.

"Chao?" He felt one of Virgil's limbs press into Sorun cheek, which caused the teen to reach a hand up to rub at the Chao's forehead while continuing to face forwards.

It wasn't that difficult to keep track of where Nicole was going amongst the crowds. Her lynx body was distinct even compared to all the other Mobians around, and Sorun would be disappointed in himself if he couldn't find that purple dress she always wore. Eventually she stopped in front of a pair of Mobians, one who Sorun recognized immediately from the fact their body was blue. The human managed to stop just as Nicole began conversing with Sonic, Sally standing right besides the hedgehog.

"- I just have never experienced such an event myself, and thus far I've been enjoying it immensely," Nicole explained, Sorun only having caught the tail end of the discussion. "I have Sorun to thank for having brought me all the way here and giving me a Power Ring to maintain this body long enough."

Sally, for her part, was practically beaming. "I'm so happy you managed to make it!"

The two continued to converse among themselves while Sorun watched on. He took note of a blur passing by him along with a gust of wind that hit his face right after, and then took note of something jabbing into his side. Sorun looked towards the right to see Sonic jamming his ribs with his elbow, smug look on his face.

"I totally called you were gonna use the Power Ring to bring Nicole to the concert," he claimed, arms crossed and smug grin somehow growing even more smug.

Sorun, mouth turned downwards in a light frown, rolled his eyes. "You didn't call jack squat," he retorted. "And anyways I just wanted her to be here with the rest of us. Since she's part of the team."

"Yeah, Sorun, sure."

He didn't like the way Sonic said that, and in return he looked towards Nicole and Sally. "You came here with Sally, huh?" he noticed, eyes turning back to Sonic. "What a coinkydink that is."

The amount of satisfaction Sorun got from seeing Sonic turning flustered was immense. "That isn't- we aren't, well, we- it's complicated, Sorun,"

"Yeah, Sonic, sure," Sorun said, mirroring Sonic's earlier words. The hedgehog just pouted at that. "I just wanted to take my friend out to a concert to hang out with us. There seriously something wrong with that?"

"Come on, man, I wasn't being serious. I was just having some fun," Sonic promised, nodding his head in agreement to Sorun's question. "How come she gets to be a friend though and not me?"

"Because she doesn't suck at video games. And you do," Sorun flatly answered.

Sonic shook his head in denial. "No, I'm great at video games. You and Nicole are masters with them because she's an AI and you just happen to be as perfect with them as physically possible."

"You keep telling yourself that to make yourself feel better. You'll still never beat me at a video game."

"You're just happy to have one thing you're better at over me, huh, Sorun?" Sonic ground out, teeth grit in an otherwise competitive smile.

Sorun shrugged in response. "I'll take what I can get." He heard the rapid thumps of something hovering close by over the chatter of the nearby crowds, and turned towards the sound just in time to see a two-tailed fox land besides him and Sonic. "Oh, hey Tails."

"Hey, Sorun! Sonic!" The young Mobian waved to the pair and then stepped towards Sonic's side. "I didn't miss the concert yet, did I?"

"Nah, buddy, you're just in time," Sonic said as he reached forwards to rub Tails on top of his head. "C'mon, let's go find a good spot!"

Hanging back a bit, Sorun watched as Sonic with Tails in tow met back up with Sally, who had just finished her conversation with Nicole. They exchanged a few more words before they departed, leaving Nicole behind as she waved goodbye to them. Sorun continued watching the display for a bit, and then stepped up to Nicole.

"So," the human began, his word's drawing Nicole's attention as he stopped next to her, "how're you feeling about all this?"

"It's all so very stimulating," Nicole admitted to him, wringing her hands together while still holding that happy smile. "The sight and sound of all these people, walking around and interacting with all our friends in the open like this. It's... I've never experienced anything like this before. I can't even properly describe the sensations I'm experiencing at the moment."

"Chao-chao!" Sorun actually had to lean his head back with a grimace when he heard Virgil chirp so happily and loudly right next to his ear.

Nicole's smile widened at the sight, and she attempted to hide it with her hand when Sorun cast an annoyed glance at her as a result. "It seems Virgil is enjoying himself as well," Nicole noted.

"Well, I don't think he's ever experienced a concert, either. It's a new experience for all of us." As Sorun rubbed at his ear, he looked to the side past the crowds and caught sight of a body of red fur being lead by a lighter red body. Sorun almost laughed out loud when he saw that Knuckles looked almost as miserable as Sorun felt all the time, which was a high contrast to how much enjoyment Julie-Su looked to be having. "Yeah, a new experience for a lot more than us," he murmured.

"Yes, I can see," Nicole agreed with a nod. "Sorun-"

"Hey, you two!"

Having been cut off by the cheerful voice cutting Nicole off, the holo-lynx, human, and the Chao all turned towards the voice. Sorun and Nicole's eyes lit up in recognition when they saw Amy standing besides them, hands clasped behind her back while happily grinning towards the two.

"Hi, Amy," Sorun greeted with a wave. Virgil mimicked the action and did the same, gaining a giggle from the pink hedgehog. "Glad to see you made it. Seriously, thanks a million for the Power Ring."

"Oh, don't even worry about it. I'm happy to help out." Amy's gaze shifted from Sorun to Nicole. "I'm even more happy to see you put it to good use. It's great to see you out and about, Nicole!"

"Thank you, Amy. It's good to be here with the rest of you."

While listening in on the conversation, Sorun tilted his head downwards towards Amy's red and white dress. A dress that looked startlingly similar to the dress he always saw her in. Which was odd, as he could have sworn he heard her say she'd bought a new outfit just for the occasion. In fact, he'd carried such an outfit back to her home. And now that he looked closer, her outfit as a whole was largely the exact same with the exception of a fuzzy pair of pink earmuffs over her ears.

"Hey, uh, Amy?" Sorun asked, drawing the attention of her and Nicole. "Weren't you gonna wear something different for the concert?"

After hearing Sorun's question, Amy nodded her head. "Ah-huh. I did. This is my new outfit," she said, gesturing to her lower body with her hands.

"... It looks the same as what you usually wear," Sorun noted with a strained voice.

"Nu-uh, this outfit's from a completely different seasonal line," Amy denied with a shake of her head. "It's not about how the outfit looks. It's about keeping up with the current fashion trend while having just enough outfits to provide me with a bit of variety."

Sorun felt a vein on his forehead begin to throb. "Could you explain to me how having a bunch of outfits that look the same is variety...?"

Amy's response was just to scoff while turning her head away. "Just because they all look similar doesn't mean they're all the same, but I don't blame you for making that assumption. It's a common mistake."

Sorun had to breath in heavily just to calm himself, but even still a few blue, spectral feathers managed to appear behind his back and fall to the ground. He reached a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and then grumbled under his breath as he refocused on Amy. "So what's up with the earmuffs, then?"

"Hm? Oh, it's just a bit chilly out so I thought I'd wear it," she answered. "Hey, when's the concert supposed to start, anyways? Isn't it around eight?"

"I believe they're beginning right at this moment," Nicole informed them, pointing ahead towards the front of the plaza.

Where Nicole was pointing, with its back to the trees behind it, was a large, makeshift stage that had been set up just for the occasion. By now almost all of the Mobians who had attended had crowed up to be as close to the stage as possible. A few Mobians were up on stage holding various instruments, though any and all chatter in the crowd died down instantly when a certain Mobian among those on stage began walking towards the front where a microphone was.

Sorun, having settled into somewhere in the middle of the crowd alongside Nicole and Amy, couldn't help but to quietly whistle when he saw the hundreds of Mobians all around instantly quiet down when Mina walked up in front of the microphone. Not just because of how her mere presence made everybody quiet down, but from the way her entire demeanor changed from when he'd seen her earlier today. When he'd crashed into the yellow mongoose he got the impression of a shy and timid girl who he could hardly believe could go perform on stage.

This Mina, though, was completely different from the one he saw then. The clothing and face was the same, but the only emotion Sorun could think to describe how she looked was confident. Confidence mixed in with just a little bit of excitement as she took hold of the microphone. She tapped on it once, reeled her head back a bit when the feedback sounded out, and then cleared her throat as she leaned into the microphone.

She proceeded to shout right into the thing.

"Hello, Knothole!" Her voice reverberated right outside the giant sets of speakers stacked behind her and was amplified out to the crowd in front of her. The entire crowd cheered as a result, which only served to make Mina shout even louder into the microphone. "I hope you're ready, because... because we..."

Mina trailed off, her words going completely silent as she began to slowly rock on her feet. The band members behind her even began to become visibly drowsy, and before anybody could say anything, the entire band, Mina included, collapsed right there on stage.

Naturally Sorun assumed that panic would ensue due to the fact Knothole's favorite singer just collapsed onstage. He himself was starting to panic from the sight. That didn't happen. In fact, there was barely any reaction from anybody at all. Even more worryingly was that the Mobians all around started dropping to the ground in droves. Not even a minute had passed before seemingly every single Mobian in attendance to the concert fell motionless onto the ground right then and there.

There were only four exceptions to everybody dropping: Nicole and Amy, who were both glancing around at the fallen field of Mobians with terrified looks on their faces, Virgil, who just looked confused as he hung off Sorun's shoulders, and Sorun himself, who was so bewildered by what he was seeing that he didn't know what expression to make.

"... Huh? Egh..." Sorun winced and held a hand up to his head. There was a mild, dull throb in his head causing him mild discomfort, and beyond that he could faintly hear a sound. A low, buzzing sound that was so quiet that he could barely hear it. "What the... what is this?"

"W-what's going on...?" Amy stammered, taking a step back from the visage set in front of her. Nicole, by contrast, immediately crouched down to examine the nearest fallen Mobian. "Why... why are they all...?"

"They're fine," Nicole quickly informed her, fingers pressed against a fallen Mobian's wrist. "I'm detecting life signs. They were all... rendered unconscious?" she mumbled, face scrunched up in confusion.

Sorun, still standing nearby, felt some small relief at the words; he'd been fearing the worst the moment he saw people beginning to drop. But even the knowledge that they were all just asleep did little to put him at ease, as there was a still a couple hundred unconscious Mobians laying around them.

And there was still that incessant buzzing in his ear.

"Is anybody else hearing that sound?" Sorun asked, going as far as to dig a finger in his ear as if trying to root something out. "It's really... this noise is really bugging me."

"Sound? What-?" Nicole looked up from the body she was examining to affix Sorun with a questioning look, but then froze mid-way. Her ears perked up, and for some reason, she turned her head towards the stage. "Now that you've said it, I'm detecting an odd frequency, though I cannot determine exactly what it is." She pointed towards the stage. "But I can tell it's coming from there."

"The stage?" Sorun followed the direction Nicole was pointing to look at the band's stage. At first, nothing seemed to look out of the ordinary. On a second glance, when he looked closer, he saw that there was indeed something amiss. One of the large, black, rectangular speakers in the back was moving. The circular speaker part of the speaker was oscillating back and forth, as if it was playing sound.

Sorun found himself frowning. A mysterious sound he was hearing, a speaker that was seemingly outputting something, and a whole field of knocked-out Mobians. With how this world worked there was no way it was a coincidence.

"... You still have your computer body on you, right, Nicole?" Sorun asked, glancing towards the lynx while still keeping his body faced towards the speaker.

Nicole nodded. "Yes, of course."

"Mm." He turned his head a bit more to face both Nicole and Amy. "Alright, I'm gonna go check that speaker out. Might cut it if it turns out to be too weird. You two just hang back, alright?"

"Are you sure you don't want me to tag along?" Amy asked.

Sorun shook his head. "I think I can handle a single speaker. Just... just stay with Nicole and look out for anything weird, alright? I'll be back in a bit." He paused, and then reached up to remove the Chao from his shoulder. "Look after him for a bit, too," Sorun added as he handed Virgil off to Amy, who took him without complaint. Virgil seemed to squirm in her grasp and reach out towards Sorun, but this went ignored by the human as he faced forwards.

He took off without another word, not bothering to look back at the three as he stomped his way towards the stage. He wasn't too worried about leaving them behind, not with Amy among them, and at the moment his focus was more on finding out whatever this sound was and getting it to stop. And right now, he strongly suspected that the sound was coming from that speaker.

"We finally catch a break and this happens," Sorun bitterly lamented as he began climbing up the edge of the stage. "Pisses me the hell off. Everybody was looking forward to this- hell, I was looking forward to this. It was Nicole's first concert, too..."

Taking steps towards the back of the stage, he came upon the large, rectangular speaker that was a bit more than twice as tall as he was settled against the rightmost wall of the stage, still oscillating back and forth as if playing something. "Nicole said this thing is pumping out a sound frequency. Is this what knocked everybody out? But if that's true, then how come Amy, Virgil and I didn't get hit? Nicole probably got away with it for being an AI or something, but... ah, I don't know." He squinted and looked closer at it. "It just looks like an ordinary speaker to me. I should probably still cut it up anyways, just to be- hey, wait a sec..."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that there was something off on the upper right corner of the black speaker. There was a small, thumb-sized sticker of an acorn stuck to that spot, but the adhesive seemed worn out in the way the corner of the sticker was sagging off of the sticker. Intrigued, Sorun reached up towards the sticker, grabbed the loose end of it, and quickly pulled the sticker off from the speaker.

His eyes nearly bugged out from his head when he saw Eggman's red logo, seemingly grinning down at Sorun, under the sticker and etched right into the speaker's case.

"Red flag, red flag!" Sorun's left hand unconsciously gripped the sheathed katana that manifested in his grasp. Right before he could even so much as pull the sword out, however, something new with the speaker happened. At the top of the speaker, at the center, a metallic lens opened up. There was a bright, red flash, and in the next instance Sorun saw a solid red light bleeding out from the freshly-opened aperture that was seemingly staring down at the teen. "RED EYE!"

He would have cut the speaker in half right there with the Yamato. He made the motion to do so, too, but before he could the speaker blared out. The resulting soundwave hit Sorun before he could do anything, and as a result he was blasted right off of the stage.

The sensation of his back hitting ground barely registered in Sorun after a couple of seconds of flight, but at the moment he felt his senses were under assault. His ears were intensely ringing from being knocked back by a large blast of sound, and even his vision was blurred and spinning. He felt an intense wave of nausea, and very faintly, at the corner of his hearing past all the ringing, he could hear two voices call out his name.

That was about as far as he was able to get before falling unconscious.


Waking up from falling unconscious was always an unpleasant affair for Sorun. It wasn't a pleasant rising, like one would experience from falling asleep. There was a lot more grogginess involved, and as sensations began to return to him vague pains of soreness in his back and head began to rise as well. Through that all, he could still faintly hear two voices speaking to each other, and that was enough to prompt him to get up.

Groaning, Sorun sat upwards as began to rub at his forehead. The surroundings were dark, but there was just enough light for him to make out the wooden walls, shelves, and fixtures spread about. From a first glance, it seemed like he was sitting on the floor of a small shop. He was clueless as to why he had woken up here of all places, though, as the last thing he remembered was being knocked unconscious from a speaker.

"Chao! Chao!"

"Sorun!" Past the fading ringing in his ears, he heard somebody call out his name. He turned his head towards the voice, and then widened his eyes slightly when he saw two figures crouched near the door. Even in the dark he could instantly make out Amy's bright pink fur against the dark background, with Virgil's blue and yellow body resting on her head. Nicole, whom Sorun only now realized had been the one to call out his name, was a bit harder to see, though the purple dress and green eyes were clear enough for him to make out.

Silently, he watched as both of them made their way from the shop's door to just in front of him. Both had concerned looks on their faces, Virgil looking equally concerned, which at any other time he would have been touched by if the intense feelings of worry over everybody and the absolute rage flowing in him for having been knocked out by a speaker of all things wasn't flowing through him. But as it was, they were. And he was not happy about it.

"Sorun? Are you okay?" Amy was the first one to speak out in concern over his wellbeing, and then reached a hand out to grasp his shoulder. "Y-you got knocked back by that thing, and you wouldn't wake up so-"

"I'm fine," Sorun interrupted, brushing her hand off of his shoulder while rubbing at his forehead with the other hand. "How long was I out? And what happened?"

"You were only unconscious for just under ten minutes," Nicole supplied from besides Amy. The barest hint of worry had gone from her face along with Amy at hearing Sorun speak, though her overall expression was still set in a deep frown as she glanced back at the shop's door. "You were unresponsive after getting knocked off the stage from that sonic blast. We were forced to take cover when that arrived shortly after, so we carried you to the nearest structure we could find."

Sorun followed Nicole's gaze towards the door, and then slowly got up to his feet. He was still disoriented just enough that he stumbled the slightest amount upon getting up, but he managed to catch himself just fine and then walked towards the door. He crouched down near its side, and then peeked out through the glass window at the top to get a view of the situation.

He could see the plaza and stage right outside of the window, and indeed all the Mobians that had been gathered for the concert were still passed out and lying about. That damnable Eggman speaker was still up on stage, too, and even from here Sorun could see that singular, red, mechanical eye-like light near its top. He suddenly had a very great desire to destroy it right there and now.

What he didn't remember being there was a large, floating ship parked just to the side of the concert area. A black and red, angular ship that was about the size of a large bus that had Eggman's logo stenciled on its side. Right in front of it he could see around ten of the red-painted Egg Pawns moving in and out of the ship, carrying large, egg-shaped metal pods out from a ramp leading into the ship's interior.

And just outside of the ship, seemingly directing the Egg Pawns, was him. Not in person, of course- there was a small, egg-shaped white drone floating around and projecting a mere holographic image of him that was floating just above the drone, but it was him. Even from a distance where Sorun could just barely make him out, he could clearly see that it was Eggman. And the mere sight of even just his holographic image was setting Sorun off on new heights of anger he didn't even know existed.

"Of course. Of course this is his doing. It's always his doing," Sorun thought to himself, hand roughly pressing against the door's wooden frame as his fingers began to angrily drum across them. "His robots attacking people, his schemes ruining people's lives, his goddamn speaker ruining the freakin' concert-!"

"Sorun." The calming voice voice from just behind him served to snap Sorun out from his thoughts, causing him to glance behind him. Nicole was there, standing behind him and reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder to get him to focus on her. "I know this situation is distressing, but please calm down."

He wanted so badly to just ignore her and storm right outside the door to confront Eggman's hologram and his robots right now, but Nicole's calming presence helped put his mind in a better place and helped him realize that perhaps this wasn't a time to be making brash actions. So with a reluctant nod, he stepped away from the door and settled in a kneeling position right next to Amy with Nicole moving just besides him.

"Alright, alright. So I think it's pretty safe to infer Eggman did something to sabotage the concert, 'cause I saw a big ol' Eggman logo on that weird speaker," Sorun began as he stuck a thumb out towards the door. "Saving the question of 'why' for later, why don't we figure out what we're gonna do about this?"

"I took some time to analyze the odd frequency we encountered earlier while you were unconscious," Nicole said right after Sorun finished. "This is just an educated guess based on what little rudimentary data I managed to gather, but based on the composition of the frequency and from what evidence we've seen, it's possible that anybody exposed to that sound frequency were forced into a state of suspension, though I'm unsure as to how exactly Dr. Robotnik accomplished this. I believe we can conclude, however, the source of this frequency is coming from that speaker."

Amy rose a hand up to gain the attention of the two. "I'm not complaining that we weren't knocked out, but, uh... how come we weren't knocked out?"

"Well, Nicole's an AI with a computer body, so she doesn't have organic ears or a brain or whatever that signals can mess with like organics," Sorun reasoned as he glanced back at the door. "And I dunno, maybe whatever he did only works with Mobians. I'm pretty sure I still heard that thing, but I didn't drop to sleep like everybody else, so that would explain me and Virgil. And you, uh..." Sorun turned back to Amy, looked up at her head, and then gave her a shrug. "Maybe... your earmuffs?"

"Her earmuffs?" Nicole repeated while giving Sorun an unconvinced look. "I admit it's odd that Amy was unaffected in the same way we were unaffected, but I highly doubt-"

"Actually, I had Honey make me these earmuffs along with the rest of my new clothes," Amy interjected with a small grin, gaining both of the others' attention. "And, well, loud music can be really harsh on my ears, you know, so I asked her to put in some extra padding to help soundproof them so I could enjoy the concert better."

At hearing the explanation, Sorun shot Nicole a look along with a slightly smug smirk. Nicole seemed to have caught it and did her best to ignore it by continuing to face Amy, though Sorun still saw one of her ears flick in irritation. He huffed out an amused snort through his nose, and then looked back towards Amy. "Alright, mystery solved. Now what are-?"

"Snrrkrkrk..."

All three heads perked up in shock at hearing what could best be described as a snore. The trio of Freedom Fighters glanced at each other, and then slowly traced their heads towards the source of the noise: the counter behind them, where they could now clearly hear sounds of snoring coming out from behind it. They all shot questioning looks towards one another, ending with Sorun sighing and standing up so he could maneuver around to look behind the counter.

After stepping past Amy and Nicole, Sorun reached the end of the counter. His hands grabbed onto its edge, and slowly he tilted his head around the corner so he could see who it was that was back there and snoring. The very first thing he noticed when he looked around was the color green- a lot of green. And that the body hosting all of that green was abnormally large and covered in scales. Fortunately, though, Sorun recognized him at first glance, though it didn't stop him from palming his face.

"Oh, for the- it's Vector," Sorun announced as he moved behind the counter and began to move towards the sleeping crocodile.

"Vector?" he heard Amy repeat from the other side of the counter. "What's he doing here?"

Sorun didn't answer. Instead, he stopped right above the sleeping crocodile while curiously looking down at his face. He was unconscious like the rest of the Mobians outside, though he didn't remember seeing anybody so... animated while they were under. They'd all been relatively still for the most part, whereas Vector was snoring and even mumbling a bit in his sleep.

A thought came to him, and Sorun peeked his head over the counter. "Hey, Nicole. That signal that knocked everybody out. Are you picking it up in here?"

In response, Nicole closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them back up while shaking her head. "It's extremely faint, but I doubt it'd be enough to have the same effect on anybody as it does out there in direct proximity to that speaker."

"That so...?" Sorun crouched back down behind the counter and moved right next to Vector's side. "What are you doin' here, big guy? You just decide to take a nap back here?" He reached forwards and began shaking Vector's shoulder. "Hey, Vector. Vector, c'mon, wake up. Dude."

It seemed that Sorun's shaking did little in rousing the crocodile up from his sleep, though he did manage to elicit a incomprehensible murmur from Vector followed by him unconsciously swatting the human's hand away. This caused Sorun to frown.

"I ain't got time for this." Sorun's right Bringer Claw manifested over his shoulder. And then, without any fanfare, the spectral claw whipped forwards and smacked the green croc right across the face. A loud slap! resonated throughout the shop as a result, ending with Vector's eyes snapping wide open as a red, hand-shaped mark began forming on the side of his snout. "Wake up, you useless alligator."

"It's crocodile!" Vector growled in response, sitting upwards while rubbing at the red spot Sorun had just smacked. "What's the big idea, Sorun!? I was just takin' a nap!"

"Town's being attacked, idiot," Sorun flatly responded, causing Vector's mouth to snap shut. "Eggman used a speaker to knock everybody out during the concert."

The initial reaction that played over Vector's face was shock and disbelief, as was to be expected. He searched Sorun's features to ensure that the human was telling the truth, and then, bizarrely, he set his features in a straight expression and replied in a completely even voice, "Alright, go it."

"The fact you're taking this so easy- agh, whatever," Sorun mumbled with a shake of his head. "Dude, what are you doing sleeping in some random shop? Shouldn't you have been at that concert?"

"Eh, no disrespect to Mina, but her brand of hard rock music don't really speak to me, ya dig?" Vector explained with a shrug of his shoulders. "Never could get behind rock n' roll. Rap was always more my speed. So while everybody was out there I just, er, found a place to sneak away to when Espio and Charmy weren't looking. Thought I'd just catch some Zs in the meantime."

"... Dude, seriously?" Sorun's jaw dropped a slight amount as he gave Vector a disbelieving look. "You went through all that trouble to avoid a concert? You couldn't have just stayed in the HQ or something?"

"Those two knuckleheads were insistent I come!" Vector complained while shooting his hands up towards the ceiling. "They wouldn't let me catch a single break! 'Oh, Vector, it's nice to be supportive of the local talent and to help spread hope to all the people', well how is my mug showing up gonna cheer everyone up any more when the princess and Sonic and everybody else were gonna be there too!?"

"Is your aversion to rock so strong that you would have rather broke into some guy's place rather than sit through an hour of Mina's band playing?"

"It's barely breaking in when the door was already unlocked, and the guy said he was cool with me-"

"WE HAVE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO BE WORRYING ABOUT!" Amy screamed, causing both males to immediately go silent and look up. The pink hedgehog was leaning over the top of the counter, her face fuming as she stared down at the both of them. Virgil, still situated at the top of Amy's head, was positively shaking in fright from the girl's volume of voice.

Vector had shut up immediately, nodding his head fiercely while also standing upwards to move around to the other side of the counter. Sorun's reaction was much more controlled, the human staring impassively at Amy's face before slowly looking upwards. "You scared my Chao," he muttered in an annoyed voice as he reached up to take Virgil off of her head.

"Well sorry, Sorun, but we really need to get it in gear and do something before Eggman does whatever he's planning on doing to all our friends and the poor townspeople outside!" Amy yelled in a hurried voice, green eyes trailing Sorun as he stepped around the counter along with Vector, hand petting the top of Virgil's head in an attempt to sooth him.

"Normally I'd say you're not allowed to watch Virgil ever again after that, but I'll look over it considering the situation," the human muttered as he placed Virgil on the ground next to where he sat down. Nicole, not having moved from her spot, sat across from him while Vector had sat down nearby. "So an AI, a human with Chaos powers, A hedgehog with a hammer, a crocodile with a bad taste in music-" he chose to ignore the scoff Vector sent his way, "- and a Chao versus... all of that out there. What's the plan?"

Admittedly, Amy had a point. Everybody outside was vulnerable and in danger, and they had to do something about it. And as it happened, one of the smartest people in the Freedom Fighters was sitting right there across from him. Vector and Amy seemed to get the same idea, too, as they turned their heads in the same direction as him. Even Virgil seemed to be looking expectantly up at Nicole. The AI, of course, noticed all of these looks and, after a tense moment, looked out towards the door leading to the plaza.

"Ideally, we will need to find a way to interrupt the signal and wake everybody up," Nicole explained to them as she looked back to the group.

Sorun nodded in understanding. "Easy enough, I'll just stab it."

"Wasn't 'stab it' the plan you had before you got blasted off stage?" Amy asked, the pink hedgehog leaning against the counter while looking down at Sorun.

Sorun's blue eyes flicked up to Amy's green, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I won't let that happen again."

"I think Amy's correct, Sorun." His eyes widening in shock, Sorun turned his head back down to Nicole, who was shaking her head. "And besides, even as we speak Eggman is attempting to do something with the citizens outside. Their safety and wellbeing takes precedence over everything else first."

In response, Sorun groaned and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Then just have Amy deal with the robots while I deal with the speaker. She smashes them, I stab the speaker, everybody's saved and wakes up, all's good."

"We don't know the capabilities of that machine, Sorun."

The black-haired teen sent the lynx a flat look. "It's a speaker. It's a big rectangle."

"No. It's a Badnik," Nicole corrected, casting a sharp glare at Sorun who immediately withered under the look. "You know that nothing the Doctor creates is by any means conventional. You were already defeated once by it. I don't want any of us encountering such an unknown until the situation is better in hand. In fact I would prefer to get everybody up first so we can all properly deal with it."

Sorun breathed out in slight anger, crossing his arms while angrily tapping at his shoulders. "I was not defeated by a speaker." He glanced up towards Nicole, who was still sending that same glare his way. He breathed out again, and then looked to the side so he didn't have to see her stern face. "What do you suggest?" he begrudgingly muttered.

"Hey, that thing's makin' a sound that's puttin' everybody to sleep, right?" Vector asked, gaining the attention of everybody present. "Couldn't we, you know, play another sound? Something to drown the noise out?"

Nicole looked in Vector's direction, a thoughtful look crossing her face. "Theoretically speaking, a second, harmless frequency overpowering the one affecting everybody outside would disrupt the frequency and cancel out the effect. Do you have an idea, Vector?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." With a wide, tooth-filled smirk, Vector reached into the cuff of his glove and pulled out, much to Sorun's confusion, a disk. "This is my personal mix I carry around with me for good luck. I know the soundboard Mina and her pals use for their songs. Gimme a minute up there and I'll be playing some serious tunes that'll drown out all those sour notes no problem. Sorun and Amy can just deal with Eggman and his chrome cronies meanwhile."

"You're not gonna be able to get in ten feet of that thing without being knocked out," Sorun reminded him. An idea came to him, and he shifted his eyes towards Amy. "Hey, Amy, give him your earmuffs."

Right after Sorun finished speaking his sentence, Amy's hands defensively went up to the earmuffs protecting her ears. "Hey, come on! I don't want-"

"Amy, literally hundreds of lives are on the line here," Sorun impatiently ground out.

"Fine, okay, I get it." Conceding to Sorun's point, Amy removed the pink, fuzzy earmuffs from her head and gave them to Vector, who reluctantly accepted them from Amy. "Please be gentle with them, okay? They're brand new."

"Er, sure," Vector agreed with a nod as he hesitantly looked down at the earmuffs. "You sure I gotta wear these, 'cause pink ain't really-"

A barely-subdued growl sounded in the back of Sorun's throat, and at the same time a handful of blue, spectral feathers appeared falling down his shoulders. "Vector..."

Wordlessly, Vector gulped and immediately placed the earmuffs over his head. Sorun watched him intensely as he donned the earmuffs, and then sent an exasperated glare at the ceiling before calming down and looking back towards Nicole. The AI gave him a knowing look, and then focused back on Vector.

"Without any protection from the frequency, Amy will have to remain here until that situation is dealt with," Nicole continued, causing the crocodile to nod while causing Amy to frown. "That being said, I'm unsure to the amplitude that the Badnik speaker is outputting that frequency. Since it's of Robotnik's make, it's likely that the frequency it produces is of a higher magnitude than that of the normal speakers connected to the soundboard you plan on using."

"So? Any ideas?" Vector asked.

"Well... with a sufficiently high power source, you could temporarily boost-"

"Hey, you're not thinking of using the Power Ring, are you?" Sorun interrupted. "Nicole, come on, without that your body-"

"My body is right here," Nicole corrected him, reaching back to hold up the handheld computer before placing it down on the ground. "The safety of Knothole is more important than me maintaining this form."

Sorun stared down at the computer, and then looked back towards Nicole. "I know, but-"

"Sorun. I understand you have reservations about this. But it's okay." Sorun looked ready to argue the point, but stopped immediately when Nicole sent him a confident, reassuring smile. "There will be other opportunities for me to produce this body. There will be other concerts. But saving the lives of our friends is paramount to all else."

For a long moment, Sorun just continued staring into Nicole eyes, internally hoping that she would change her mind and suggest something else. As useless as it likely was at this point, he didn't want her to give up her lynx form prematurely. He wanted to suggest that maybe he could just go destroy the speaker, or do something else that didn't require taking the Power Ring out of her computer body.

But he knew she wouldn't go for it, and not only did he not want to argue the point with her, but he trusted any plan she made more than something he could think up. And he would concede that she had a point, and that this was more important than her holding her Mobian body any longer. So, after slowly breathing outwards, he shakily nodded.

"I really don't like this plan. But you're right." He reached forwards and hesitantly grabbed the handheld computer. He brought it close to him, and then looked back up to Nicole while his hand gripped the Power Ring. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." The holo-lynx gave him a nod, maintaining that reassuring smile of hers that greatly helped to put Sorun as ease. "It will all be fine, Sorun. There's no need to worry."

"... Right." And with that, he took in a deep breath and disconnected the Power Ring from the computer. Nicole's form briefly flickered, and then disappeared entirely in a shower of dark cubes. He stared at the spot where Nicole had been sitting, and then turned towards Vector. He extended his hand and offered the ring to the crocodile, though when he leaned forwards and grabbed it, Sorun snatched at the scaled Mobian's wrist with his now free hand. "Vector, so help me if you screw this up and I pulled her ring for nothing..."

"I'm not gonna mess it up, sheesh!" Vector grumbled as he pulled his wrist free from Sorun's grip. "You just worry about yourself and try not to get KO'd while you're out there."

"Yeah, I'll do that," Sorun muttered in a dry voice. He exhaled again, and stood up to his feet. "Alright, so the plan is I go out there and deal with the robots, Vector takes the Power Ring that he better not lose and deals with the signal, and Amy, you stay here with Nicole and Virgil until the signal's dealt with. Come out and help when you hear tasteless rap music blasting through the air, I guess."

From behind him, Vector opened his mouth to argue when he heard Sorun say the word "tasteless". He was stopped when Amy elbowed him in the side while shaking her head in a negatory fashion. From besides them Virgil began walking towards Sorun while reaching his small arms out towards Sorun.

The one-winged Chao stopped when Sorun, who had made it to the door to the shop, turned his head around to glare down at the Chao.

"You're staying here with Nicole and Amy." He tore the door open, his glare intense enough to stop the Chao from voicing any protest. "I'm not in the mood to argue this, Virgil. You can't fight. Stay here."

He waited for the Chao's reaction, eye's unblinking as he looked down at the Chao. Eventually, Virgil reluctantly nodded his teardrop-shaped head and turned around to trudge back towards Amy, who was looking down sadly at the Chao. Sorun took a moment to notice the yellow swirl symbol that had formed above the Chao's head, and tried his best to ignore the image as he exited the shop. He looked ahead, sighed, and began moving forwards.

On the outside he appeared as calm as could be. His face set in stone and his composure seemingly completely calm as he walked over to where that ship was parked, where the robots and Eggman's hologram was.

On the inside, Sorun was seething with rage.

He couldn't even count how many things were making him so upset he could barely see straight. All the unconscious bodies littered around him. Having to participate in foiling yet another insane scheme of Eggman's. Having to see even the visage of the man who was responsible for everything wrong with the world. The concert. Nicole having to give her body up prematurely.

The frustration was just too immeasurable for him. He didn't like that seemingly every single day he had to deal with this man. He didn't like that everybody else had to have been dealing with him for a lot longer than Sorun, and every day he was reminded again and again of how amazed he was at everybody's mental fortitude at remaining sane through it all. And right next to that was the image of that Power Ring that he was forced to pry out from Nicole's handheld body.

All that time spent getting that ring off Amy. Working up the nerve to even bring Nicole to the concert in the first place. All of that was gone now because of Eggman. She'd looked so happy during it, too. More joyful than Sorun had ever seen her, at least. And even he'd been enjoying himself.

But no. Eggman had to go and pull something. It was always Eggman. His plans and evil schemes. His evil machinations that brought the world to the edge of ruin and made a bunch of resistance fighters so desperate they had to follow the prophecy of same strange wooden tablet and abduct a teenager from an alternate universe just for a shred of hope at beating him. It was always his fault.

Sorun was so sick of looking at his face.


Near the edge of the plaza and to the side of the stage, where the Eggman-marked ship was parked, was a small stretch of land that was relatively clear of Mobian bodies compared to the rest of the place. It was here that the small squad of Egg Pawns were setting up large, egg-shape pods they were carrying in from the ship, having set them up in an orderly row. From the side was the small floating drone that displayed the hologram of Eggman, who, for the most part, looked extremely bored.

"Hurry it up, would you? I'd like to wrap this show up before sunup," the bald man grumbled, his form slumped and head resting against an open palm. "I know for a fact your motor servos can move faster than that. I'm the one that designed them. So shake a leg and get moving before I recall you lot back to the factory you were built in!"

The Doctor's threat actually did serve to make the robots move along at a faster rate, as they began moving nearly twice as fast. It was only a momentary change, though, since a giant, blue spectral fist shot in from out of nowhere and collided right into one of the Egg Pawns. The robot crumpled completely on contact with the fist, and was pushed forwards into one of the egg-shaped pods which met a similar fate as the Egg Pawn. The blue fist smashed right through the pod and went all the way to the ship, where it opened its clawed fingers, grabbed onto the front end of the ship, and then lifted it into the air only to crush the segment it had in its grasp while at the same time slamming it back into the ground. The spectral hand disappeared right after, leaving a twisted, sparking hunk of metal that had once been in a ship.

The surviving Egg Pawns looked on towards the ship in shock, while Eggman's image had turned towards the wreckage with a look of mild interest appearing across his features. From the corner of the hologram's vision, he saw dozens of blue swords appear in the air over all of the Egg Pawns and the egg-shaped pods. Within the next second, they all rained down and skewered robots and pods alike, rendering them all inactive and completely destroyed after the swords disappeared as well.

Eggman's entire reaction to the scene was to simply sigh, drum his fingers along his head, and have his hologram turn around to the other side. He sat up a little bit when he saw a pale human standing nearby, right hand tucked in his pocket while the left one held a sheathed katana resting over his shoulder, but otherwise he showed almost no reaction.

"Don't you just hate it?" Sorun asked, the searing anger in his blue eyes betraying his otherwise calm demeanor and even voice. "When a giant fist comes in outta nowhere and wrecks your robots?"

"An irritating inconvenience, to be sure," Eggman drawled out as his head turned towards the stage. "Confound it, I knew something slipped my mind while I was programming the amplitudes on that speaker. So the frequency I used to put all the Mobians here to sleep doesn't work on humans, eh?"

"Evidently not," Sorun remarked. "Don't tell me that body of yours is already goin' senile, Doctor. Forgettin' stuff's a bad sign."

"I think I should be the one concerned over your health." Eggman turned his hologram back towards Sorun's direction, and then moved his hand to readjust the round, blue glasses over his eyes. "Sorun, my dear boy! You look awful! Have you been getting enough sleep these days?"

The pale teen huffed a lock of black hair from his face to reveal the grimace that had settled over his features. "I got the crazy guy sending robots around to terrorize everybody to blame for that." Grabbing the handle of the sheathed katana, Sorun removed it from his shoulder and pointed its blunt tip at Eggman's hologram. "You know how many missions I've been running because of you? This was the first break I've had in I don't even know how long, and then you come along and screw it all up. You know how terrible your timing is!? You can't just get a hobby or something instead of messing with people's lives all the time!?"

"This is my hobby."

The completely blank, no-nonsense answer given by Eggman caused Sorun to angrily huff out of his nose and lower the sheathed sword. "Then get better hobbies," he grumbled under his breath. "Or at the very least pick a better time then during a concert."

Eggman widely grinned at that remark. "Oh, but Sorun, my timing couldn't have been better!" He spread his long arms out to the sides. "This was all by design, you utter fool!"

"... Huh?" Sorun mumbled out with a tilt of his head.

"Oh, come now. You don't think all those little, insignificant skirmishes you've been having with my forces all these past weeks actually had any meaning past this, did you? A robot patrol here to harass a village, a scout bot there? You seriously thought I wanted to sabotage Knothole's hydroelectric system using a single Badnik whose design I based on a daydream I had that one time?"

"It did all seem kinda petty, even for you," Sorun admitted. "So, what, this was all some elaborate 'lull them into a false sense of security' plan so you could get the Freedom Fighters and a bunch of people together in one place and knock 'em out in one move?" He clicked his tongue, looked back at all the unconscious Mobians, and then looked back at Eggman. "I'll give you props for the plan, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. You know there's easier, less convoluted ways of going about this, right?"

"Of course I do." Suddenly, Eggman's face became almost as weary as Sorun felt these days, and his hologram slumped forwards onto something out of picture from the hologram. Even his ginger mustache seemed to slightly droop. "This was all just because I found a shell-like artifact while raiding and destroying some lost, ancient civilization I found in a hidden valley in down the way in the lower continent. Inhabitants seemed like a cheerful bunch. I put them all in Egg Grapes and harvested their life energy for fuel before destroying their home and putting an oil refinery there."

Sorun inhaled sharply, and his grip on Yamato's handle tightened. At the same time, dark blue energy began to faintly roil down the length of the black sheath as Sorun continued to listen to the explanation.

"Anyways, this shell was a vaunted artifact or some such, yadda yadda yadda, I stopped paying attention when listening to all that screaming became too tiresome," Eggman continued, sounding almost bored at his own story. "It had some unique properties when introduced to certain sound frequencies, so I thought, why not, make a sonic weapon out of it. Was going for a whole ironic edge there: use sonic to beat Sonic." He sighed and flipped one of his palms up in the air. "But did I have to go out of my way to smuggle the speaker into Knothole and replace it with that singing harpy's equipment so it could be activated in a concert I'd been subtly guiding all you ruffians towards, only to then have a small detachment of Egg Pawns set up a bunch of Egg Teleporters to take all my new captives back to New Megaopolis?" He shrugged. "No. I could have constructed something with enough range that I could have just blasted all of Knothole from a distance, and then just use a teleportation beam to transport everybody here in five minutes. Would have been laughably easy, really."

"Oh, but you don't like easy, do ya?" Sorun asked, his voice a low hiss. His Bringer Claws had appeared folded over his shoulders, the spectral feathers on the wings almost bristling in rage as the talons resting on him kneaded angrily into his shoulders. "You're in it for the kicks and thrills, not a cheap victory, right? What's the point in conquering the whole world if you don't do it in style?"

Eggman, who had been tapping one of his fingers on whatever object he was leaning over, lifted his hand and pointed towards the teen. "You know what I like about you, Sorun? You pick things up quick and get to the point. And you're not a total bore to exchange jabs with, either. Not like that blue rodent," he grumbled as he looked away. "Always the same thing with him. The same childish nicknames and same jokes over and over. If it wasn't for the fact he always somehow manages to thwart my creations I would have lost interest ages ago. But at least you bring some fresh class to the table."

Sorun scoffed, and glanced his eyes back into the crowd where he knew Sonic's sleeping form was somewhere. "Yeah, well... tell you the truth, guy even irritates me sometimes." He glanced back at Eggman. "But don't hold it against him. It's probably hard thinking up new lines when you have to deal with all the stress he and the rest of the Freedom Fighters have been under practically their whole lives 'cause of you and the last Robotnik."

"Oh, that's no excuse. The second he and the rest of those furry miscreants start getting worn out and sloppy is the second I stop being amused and end all of this in an instant," Eggman threatened as he sat back up to his full height. His wide, manic grin returned, aimed right down at Sorun. "Oh, but you've been keeping things a bit interesting, haven't you, Sorun? Gotten a new power or two since the last time we spoke?" When the teen refused to answer, Eggman shook his head while making a light shrug. "Well, you've helped keep things mildly entertaining enough that I haven't ended the game just yet, I'll admit that much. You and the rest of those Freedom Fighters. And chances are you're going to foil this little scheme of mine, Sonic and his little friends will foil more schemes here and there, and then, soon enough, we're going to roll right back into same old, dull routine we were deadlocked in before you came around. But don't worry, Sorun. Rest assured I'll end my game with as much dramatic flair as possible so the end isn't quite as boring as the road getting there."

"Mm-hm, sure." Having tuned out Eggman's inane ramblings halfway through, Sorun turned his body towards the black speaker with the red eye resting on the stage. "I'm gonna go destroy your evil speaker now."

"Of course, by all means. Go for it," Eggman replied, almost agreeing with Sorun's intent. "One, ah, one second, though. Just gotta press this button here first."

Upon hearing the sound of a small click!, Sorun swiveled his head back towards Eggman with a raised eyebrow. He saw the Doctor's finger was extended and pressing a button on a small remote control he'd pulled out from somewhere, the grin on his round head still wide and manic. He was tempted to ask just what it was he'd done before he heard something else from behind him. The sound of metal plates shifting and parts turning.

When he looked back to the stage towards a speaker, what he saw had little resemblance of a speaker. What had once been little more than a black rectangle was in the process of transforming, its metal shell segmenting and shifting as its shape realigned itself. Mechanical parts resembling limbs extended out from the speaker's innards, only to be soon covered by the black plates. The speaker itself was folded inside of the shifting monstrosity's body as segments of metal resembling a maw formed over the circular part.

By the time it finished transforming, Sorun was no longer looking at a speaker. What he was looking at was a giant, mechanical beast in the shape of a quadruped wolf covered in black plates of metal. It scratched its long, metal claws along the wooden stage, its angular head pointed straight at Sorun with that same, single red eye still shining in the center of its forehead. And inside of its mouth, filled with rows of metal, dagger-like teeth, he could just faintly see the speaker at the back of its throat.

"... Okay, Nicole. I'll give you that one," Sorun thought to himself as he took a step back, eyes widened in shock at the sight of the Badnik. Eggman seemed amused at the sight, going as far as to bark off a single laugh at Sorun expense.

"What, you didn't think I'd only go as far as to make a simple speaker, did you?" Eggman rhetorically asked a stunned Sorun. At hearing no reaction from the teen, Eggman leaned back in his seat and tapped a few buttons on an unseen console. "Well, anyways, I'm going to send another detachment of Badniks to round up my new prisoners while you're being torn apart by that. In the meantime, I think I'm just going to sit back and watch-"

A Summoned Sword flew through the air and rammed right through the white drone, destroying it in an instant and causing Eggman's hologram to blink out of existence mid-sentence. Sorun watched the smoking drone fall dead to the ground, and then scoffed as he turned his head back to the giant, mechanical wolf.

"If you wanted a show, you shoulda showed up in person like everybody else," Sorun said, flipping the Yamato around so that his left hand was holding the sheath. From out of the corner of his eyes, near the other side of the plaza past the crowd of passed-out Mobians, he could faintly make out someone peeking their head over a stack of wooden crates. Vector's green head, adorned with Amy's pink earmuffs, was easily recognizable even from this distance, the crocodile seemingly biting his gloved nails as he looked up on the stage.

The black Badnik wolf didn't seem to take notice, however, as its large form jumped off from the stage and began to seemingly stalk sideways, its singular red eye still trained on Sorun. It suited the pale teen just fine- the more it focused on him the less Vector had to worry.

"Alright, pooch. I'll play with ya." Sorun's right hand gripped the sword's hilt and slowly slid it out of the sheath. "Either I stall you long enough that Vector disrupts the signal or I cut you to bits. It's your loss no matter what."

As willing as he was, though, he severely hoped that Vector would be fast enough to get rid of that signal so that he could get some help with this. He was confident enough with his powers by now, but the giant robot wolf staring down Sorun was not making him feel very good about the situation. The look alone was intimidating Sorun, nevermind the metal claws and teeth.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the Badnik wolf took him unsheathing his sword as a sign that he was ready to fight. The wolf dug its metallic claws into the ground, however, and instead of charging head-on reared its head backwards. Sorun, seeing what it was attempting to do, rose the katana's blade defensively over his form.

Right after Sorun rose his blade up, the wolf howled at him in a horrendous mockery of a wolf's howl masked in a mechanical flange. Waves of sound raced towards Sorun, distorting the air around it in a circular stream. In response, blue energy began coalescing around the katana's blade right as the sound hit.

Despite being hit dead-on by the soundwaves, Sorun remained rooted in place and relatively fine, his clothes and hair flapping uncontrollably from the force hitting him. By contrast, the soundwaves seemed to be broken apart upon making contact with the glowing katana, harmlessly fragmenting and dissipating away from the teen. The wolf seemed to take notice of how its howls were ineffective, stopping in its sonic assault soon after and tilting its head to the side in curiosity.

"You're gonna need better tricks than that! Yamato can just separate the soundwaves." Sorun lowered Yamato, and at the same time his right Bringer Claw lifted up from his shoulder and flew towards the mechanical wolf. The spectral claw grabbed right onto one of the dark wolf's haunches, and it was Sorun's intention to lift the robot right up into the air and flip it down onto its back.

That was the intention, at least. What Sorun didn't expect was for the wolf to snap its head down towards the Bringer Claw and clamp its metallic jaws down on the spectral hand's wrist. And he really didn't expect for its teeth to compress down hard enough that it went all the way through, causing the entire Bringer Claw to dissipate in a puff of blue energy.

"What the-!" That was the only thought Sorun managed to get out before the wolf lunged towards him, claws extended and metal teeth bared. The teen's eyes widened in panic, his remaining Bringer Claw beating down on the ground and pushing him away just as the Badnik swiped at the air when he'd been standing previously.

His boots skidding across the ground, Sorun spun towards the wolf with narrowed eyes. The black wolf respectively turned its head towards the human just as a barrage of Summoned Swords flew towards its face. Unfortunately, the robotic wolf howled again just as the swords neared, the soundwaves deflecting and blasting away all of the swords. One sword in particular flew dangerously past Sorun's head, and to the teen's shock he saw a few strands of black hair fall down away from his face, having been cut by the sword passing by him.

"Alright..." Trying for the Summoned Swords again, Sorun willed eight swords to begin spinning around in a circle around the wolf Badnik. This proved to be in vain, though, as the wolf simply swiped its claws around to shatter the Storm Swords surrounding it. During this, Sorun's left Bringer Claw had clamped onto the wolf's side, the spectral arm contracting and pulling Sorun towards it. As it did with the first one, the wolf chomped down and destroyed the Bringer Claw gripping on to it, though by that point Sorun's momentum was too great to stop. He flew right past the wolf, Yamato's edge dragging across its side and leaving a deep gash in its metal plates.

Sorun landed on the ground behind the wolf with a small grunt and, upon hearing the sound of machinery shift behind him, immediately sheathed the sword and held it out in front of him. This was done just in the nick of time, as the moment he'd turned around the wolf's clawed appendage lashed out towards him. The metal claws dragged along the katana's length, drawing white sparks and causing Sorun to be tossed back from the sheer force of the hit.

Flying back a good ten meters from the blocked hit, Sorun's body rolled over and over until coming to a full stop, the teen ending up on his back. He breathed out while looking up into the night sky, and then groaned as he began to sit upwards. "And as always, the super robot is kicking my ass," Sorun thought as he managed to rise into a sitting position. To his dismay, despite the sparking gash now present in its side, the Badnik wolf still looked as active as ever. "I wish Vector would hurry the hell up here..."


"Oh man of man oh man..."

Beyond his peripheral vision, Vector could see the fight transpiring between Sorun and a monster of a Badnik if he ever saw one. And unfortunately, it seemed to him that Sorun was losing. Bad. At least in a way that the human was dealing minimal damage while doing his best to just try and avoid getting hit by that thing.

Well, that was fine. Or it would be, at least. Because his job wasn't to fight the giant robot monster that looked like it was made of knives. Oh no. His job in this little mission was support. It was to get this Power Ring he was clutching in his hands up on stage and get the music flowing so Sorun wouldn't have to tackle that thing alone and get help from people whose job it was to deal with things like that.

This knowledge did nothing to subside the panic coursing through the crocodile, as he was so afraid that at some point that giant thing Sorun was fighting against would turn its head and notice him that he'd all but forgotten hiding and went for a dead sprint towards the stage.

On the upside, he didn't think the monster Badnik saw him. Right now it was too busy biting down on Sorun's katana and thrashing it and the teen holding it back and forth like a chew toy.

Still in a panic, Vector scrambled up the side of the stage and made his way right to the band's soundboard, which was still connected to the normal, non-evil speakers stacked up against the stage. He heard a startled yell out of the edge of his hearing, and looked up just in time to see Sorun tossed clear towards the other side of the plaza, the wolf Badnik right on his heels. Vector winced at the sight and went back to the soundboard.

"Hang in there, pal, just a few more seconds..." Vector hurriedly mumbled to himself as he began fiddling with the controls to the soundboard. "Okay, volume control, sound selection... yeah, now we're talkin'!"

While familiarizing himself with the controls he found a small disk tray sticking out of a music player connected to the soundboard. He quickly placed his personal disk inside and all but slammed the tray shut, taking some small satisfaction when he saw lights on the player light up. He eyed various knobs and sound adjustment switches, slowly turning them all up on max.

"Alright, check, check, that looks good, oh yeah..." Everything seemed to be working in his eyes. And so, with everything set up, all he had to worry about was actually powering this thing.

The crocodile's yellow eyes dipped downwards to a small cable that was leading from the soundboard towards the back of the stage. He quickly moved backwards, following the cable and moving past the stage's curtain to pass towards the back end of the stage. From there, he found what he was looking for: a small generator with multiple cords leading towards the soundboard and the speakers it was connected to.

Crouching down next to the generator, Vector examined the device and, grinning a wide-toothed grin at his success, pulled out a extendable jumper cable from an open panel near the back. Gulping, he reached behind him and held up the ring-like object he'd carried with him all this way. The Power Ring's golden light reflected harshly off the croc's face, but even through all that light he could see his nervous eyes through the reflection on the ring's surface.

"Well..." Vector gulped, compressing the jumper cable open and leading it towards the Power Ring, "no time like the present. Sure hope this works..."

And then, wincing slightly in apprehension, he clamped the jumper cable down on the ring.


Once more, Sorun found his body rolling against the ground as he was once again thrown back. Coughing from both the soreness coursing through his body and from the exertion he was being put through, Sorun stabbed Yamato into the ground and used it as a crutch to shakily get up to his feet, huffing out an exhausted breath as he looked up at the Badnik wolf.

So far, the damage he'd manage to inflict on the thing was minimal at best. He'd manage to create a few more gashes along its body, and while they seemed grievous, they certainly weren't affecting the robot's performance. Because it hadn't slowed down in the least since beginning the fight with Sorun.

As for Sorun himself, he wasn't holding up nearly as well as the Badnik was. Other from being battered due to being tossed around so much, he'd managed to avoid any serious damage, though there were multiple cuts and scratches along his clothes from where he'd narrowly avoided being slashed. But, unlike a machine, Sorun had limited stamina. And even worse his stamina pool was far from in top condition.

With the rate this was going, Sorun didn't see the fight going in his favor any time soon. And that was making him very worried for his own life and scared for the people's lives behind him.

He stopped dwelling on these thoughts when a curious sound pulsed through the air. The high-pitched, whining sound of audio feedback which made Sorun wince slightly. The robot wolf seemed to have an even stronger reaction, as its head actually stuttered almost in pain while causing it to look towards the stage. Sorun followed the wolf's lead and gazed towards the stage, where it was with no small amount of relief he saw Vector up there. The crocodile was standing behind a soundboard, one hand up and holding the pink earmuffs against his head while the other one was giving Sorun a thumbs-up. And then, promptly right after Sorun saw the gesture, Vector slammed his hand down to hit an unseen button.

What followed next was a cacophony of noise had blasted through the speakers on stage, filling the entire area with noise. A noise of random beats and deep bass that Sorun supposed could have been construed as music, but he'd be hard pressed to make that distinction easily. He wasn't even sure he could call what he was hearing rap, or even basic hip-hop. It was... it was something. Something new and unpleasant.

The wolf seemed to hate it, though, based on the way it was violently shaking, so that was probably a good sign.

"God, Vector, you call this music?" Sorun thought to himself, grimacing in annoyance. The grimace was wiped away immediately when he saw the wolf spin right towards Vector, an electronic growl escaping from the speaker embedded in its throat as it lowered its form.

In the next instant, it made an attempt to run towards the stage where Vector was in an attempt to get at him and the speakers. It only made it a few steps, though, as a spectral hand had reached out and grabbed one of its hind legs. With a grunt of exertion, Sorun willed the Bringer Claw to throw the black-plated Badnik backwards. The robot wolf rolled to an upright position on a dime, metallic claws digging into the ground as it slid to a stop while its eye was continually locked onto Sorun.

"You wanna get to him? Gotta get through me," Sorun announced, spinning the sword in his hand around once before sheathing it and holding it ready at his side. Whether the wolf even understood Sorun's provocation or not was unknown to the teen, but the fact it was lowering its form while scratching at the ground was not lost to him. "Great, now I get to be murdered to the sound of this trash playing in the background. Just what I wanted."

Without any further notice, the robot wolf charged forwards towards Sorun. The teen sighed out in exhaustion, and then hopped backwards as his two Bringer Claws shot forwards towards the wolf. The hope had been for the Badnik to only focus on one of the spectral arms while the other one got a hold on it, but to Sorun's frustration, the machine jumped from one side to another and managed to dodge both arms heading towards it.

Cursing under his breath, Sorun tried his best to dodge to the side when the wolf swiped at him with its claws. It was a sluggish dodge, and because of it a majority of the hood that hanged off the back of his sleeveless hoodie was ripped away. It swiped again, and while Sorun had tried blocking it with the Yamato, the force proved to be too great and the sword was batted completely out of his hand. The teen's eyes trailed the sword spinning through the air the instant it was knocked away, and because of that, he wasn't able to see the metal paw crashing down on him from the front.

He felt a heavy weight smash into his chest, and then cried out in pain when he was slammed right onto his back and onto the ground. Through eyes squinted in pain he saw the wolf's mechanical face and its one red eye almost leering down at him, its dagger-filled maw halfway opened as it got ready to bite him. Sorun looked from that to the metal paw pinning him down, flinging his Bringer Claws onto it in a panic to try and lift it off of him so he could move. This proved to be in vain, though, as the wolf immediately chomped down on the spectral arms and forced them to dissipate. The wisps of power that had made up the Bringer Claws didn't even have time to disappear fully before the wolf's maw chomped down towards Sorun's head.

It never made it close enough to bite Sorun in half. A large hammer had flown in from out of view and had smashed into the wolf's face hard enough that the entire thing's body was sent flying backwards. With the weight pinning him down suddenly lifted off his chest, Sorun sat up immediately and began gasping out heavy breaths of air, holding a hand up to his sore chest.

From the corner of his vision, he saw a gloved hand appear open and outstretched to him. He blinked down at the hand, and then looked up towards its owner. He couldn't hold in the sigh that left him when he saw a pink hedgehog in a red dress standing over him, smile on her face and large hammer slung over her shoulder with one hand while the other one was offered to Sorun.

"That speaker's really giving you some trouble tonight, huh, Sorun?" Amy asked, teasing grin playing across her features despite the severity of the situation. "Today just really isn't your day, is it?"

Scoffing in disbelief, Sorun shook his head and slapped his own hand down on the one being offered to him. "Would you drop it already?" he asked, clenching the hand he grasped. He was pulled up to his feet immediately by Amy, who patted him on the shoulder while giving him a nod.

"Mmm, maybe I will." A beat passed, and her expression instantly morphed into a serious frown as she turned into the direction of where she'd bashed the wolf to. "So that's the problem?"

Sorun followed her gaze, his own serious scowl forming. The Badnik had been knocked all the way to the other side of the plaza, and while there was a noticeable dent displayed on its face, its smooth movements suggested it was no worse for wear. It had quickly gotten back onto its feet and was staring down both the hedgehog and human with its singular red eye.

"Yeah. It's a tough one," Sorun said as Yamato reappeared in his left hand. "Nicole and Virgil?"

"Still in the shop," Amy answered. "I saw you having trouble out here, so when I heard the music start playing I left them behind and rushed out. They should be safe."

"Alright." The two started to separate, slowly walking in opposite directions with their eyes still trained on the wolf. "I guess the signal interference must be working if you're able to be this close to it. I was hoping that meant that everybody would automatically wake up, but it doesn't look like that's the case. So we're on our own here." He held up his right hand and snapped his fingers. "Here. Have some Spiral Swords as thanks for saving me."

In a flash of blue, eight Summoned Swords pointing outwards began spinning around Amy in a circle. She looked down at the swords surrounding her, tilting her head in curiosity before turning towards Sorun. "Thank you very much. Could you change their color, though? The blue kinda clashes too harshly with my dress."

"Isn't the guy you're chasing...?" One of Sorun's eyes twitched in irritation as he looked back towards Amy. When she saw the look, her gaze refocused on the robotic wolf, causing him to sigh and do the same. "You're so high maintenance, Amy, I swear..."

The conversation between the two was dropped right there. Their focus was solely focused on the enemy Badnik, who was in turn staring them down with that hateful red eye. The instrumental notes playing in the background had settled down to a low, steady beat as the two sides stared the other down, Sorun tightly clenching his katana while Amy hefted her hammer in front of her. The wolf, in response, began to slowly dig its metal claws across the ground. Vector, who had chosen to remain out of the fight, watched the display from behind the soundboard.

The beat of the music suddenly dropped, and it was when the tempo began to rapidly pick up did they begin their approach. Sorun ran along the right side, ripping the Yamato out of its sheath with his right hand and holding it out to his side as he sprinted towards the robot. Amy kept to the left side, hammer held down to her side as she made a similar approach to the machine with the eight blue swords still rotating around her. The wolf Badnik decided to keep a center approach, its claws tearing up the ground as it sprinted closer and closer.

Amy, being leagues faster and more agile than Sorun even in his prime, had of course reached the wolf Badnik before the human even got close. The wolf swiped its claws at her, though the metal blades at the end of its paws only managed to swipe at empty air as Amy had leapt far above the paw, the swords spinning around her briefly scraping across the robot's chassis. She swung her hammer in a wide arc, hitting the wolf right in the fact and causing it to stumble back slightly. It tried swiping at her again, but once more missed when Amy rolled forwards through the aie past the swipe and, using the momentum gathered by her roll, brought her hammer down straight on top of the wolf's head. It slammed right into the ground as a result, its four limbs splayed out to its sides and face dug into the ground.

With a mechanical growl, the wolf tore its face out of the ground, its red eye flashing as it noticed movement to the side. Sorun was still approaching with his katana held out to his side, and in anticipation, the wolf opened its mouth to try and howl at him. Right before it could, though, twenty Summoned Swords appeared over it and began raining down and impaling themselves into the robot's backside.

While this was happening, Sorun kept up his approach, noticing with some interest the wolf was jittering in place and struggling to open its mouth to try and howl at him as it was pelted with swords. "Huh." He aimed the tip of the katana forwards, and with a running start plunged the sword through the robot's body all the way up to the hilt.

It was right when the last sword fell onto the wolf's body that the katana was pierced right into it. An angered, electronic howl left the wolf as it shot up to its feet and began shaking its body in an attempt to dislodge Sorun from its side. It proved to be a success, as soon the sword was shaken free from its side and Sorun, Yamato in hand, was sent sailing backwards, though he managed to right himself in the air when his Bringer Claws appeared and flapped outwards to keep his body aloft.

The Badnik seemed to take this opportunity to try and howl at Sorun, as it had opened its mouth to do so. Right before it could, however, Amy had appeared at its underside with her hammer in hand, and with a mighty swung hammered its underside straight upwards. The force was sufficient enough that the robot wolf was sent careening right up into the air, where a spectral fist soon shot forwards and collided with the dented side of its head, causing it to crash back down towards the ground. Amy, waiting with her hammer held at the ready, reared back and swung just before the Badnik collided with the ground, causing the robot to mechanically cry out as it was sent flying forwards.

Despite the heavy amount of damage it had sustained thus far, showing from the way the Badnik's frame was severely deformed and cut in various places, the wolf was still going on strong from the way it deftly managed to catch itself on all four feet and slide against the ground. Not missing a beat, it opened its mouth and howled in Amy's direction the second its body came to a full halt. The pink hedgehog widened her eyes and held her hammer in front of her in a vain attempt at shielding herself from the oncoming soundwave, but to her surprise the eight swords swirling around her reformed and cross their blades in front of her, forming a shield. The shield of Summoned Swords took the brunt of the sonic attack, Amy being largely unaffected save for her short, pink quills being blown back from the force.

Up above, Sorun had flown right above the wolf and had begun to drop down when his Bringer Claws clasped their talons together into a singular fist. The Badnik, too busy ineffectively howling at Amy, could do nothing as the clasped-together spectral hands hammered its head right into the ground, interrupting its howl and causing it to flatten yet again. Sorun landed in a half-crouch and, not done just yet, willed one Bringer Claw to grab the wolf by its neck and hold it up while the other Bringer Claw curled into a fist and began to rapidly punch it in the face over and over. The dark wolf jerked its body every single time it was struck, its face plates denting further inwards with each hit. When Sorun was satisfied with the damage, he punched the black-plated wolf in the face one more time and then willed the Bringer Claw holding its neck to toss it towards the center of area, between himself and Amy.

By now the wolf's face was dented enough that it was practically unrecognizable, and the rest of its body was in a similar state. But even so, it still managed to rise up to its legs, even with the electrical sparks and oil pouring out from its wounds. And then, suddenly, its single red eye flared so brightly that both Sorun and Amy were momentarily blinded, and with that motion the wolf reared its head straight towards the broken moon hanging in the sky and howled.

This particular howl was more intense on an extreme scale compared to the previous howls. Despite the distance Sorun had from the wolf, and despite him guarding his body with Yamato's blade, he was still slid backwards from the force of the howl alone. Amy was more unfortunate, the Summoned Swords protecting her all finally breaking from the strain. She was sent straight onto her backside from the sonic assault, her hammer being flung right out of her grasp.

Hissing through clenched teeth, Sorun lowered the katana and looked out towards Amy and the wolf. Much to his panic, he saw the black wolf slowly stalking towards Amy. He expected the pink hedgehog to move or attack at any moment, but when he looked towards her, he nearly felt his irises shrink in fear when he saw her sitting up but seemingly dazed, her eyes spinning around in their sockets. She didn't even have her hammer in her grasp, the weapon having been knocked a fair distance away from her.

Rather expectantly, the wolf decided to capitalize on this opportunity and barreled right towards Amy. For a single moment Sorun continued watching the display, hoping that Amy would regain her senses and dive out of the way or do something to try and avoid the wolf. But even from here he could see it was no good. That sound attack from the wolf's howl had just rattled her too much.

Sorun, in turn, tried bolting forwards in an effort to try and intercept the Badnik before it reached Amy. He knew it was a useless move from the second he began moving his feet, though. Amy was around a good twenty meters away from his position. The wolf was already upon her, raising up its left foreleg in an effort to swipe its metal claws through her body. Not even his Summoned Swords or Bringer Claws would be able to reach the wolf in time to stop it from hurting Amy.

"Don't." Sorun's irises shrunk down to pinpricks, and a new wave of exhaustion hit his body. A single bead of blood began to run down his nose as blue energy began to coalesce around Yamato's edge. "You're not touching her!"

Having dropped the scabbard to grip onto the sword's handle with both hands, he slashed Yamato out in a single arc. It was an instinctual move he had barely even thought on. A thoughtless movement fueled purely by the urge to protect the pink hedgehog that was about to be butchered by the robotic wolf.

By all means, the katana shouldn't have hit anything, and indeed, it didn't. Sorun was still tens of meters away from the wolf, after all, so when he'd swung the Yamato, he'd swung at nothing but air. The slash had still been aimed at the wolf, however: specifically, at the mechanical foreleg risen up to be brought down on Amy. And in the exact same moment Sorun had slashed the sword in the air, a thin, blue line had appeared on the risen foreleg of the wolf.

And then, just like that, the leg cleanly flew off the wolf. It had flown off from the blue line, a seam created from the Yamato's power cutting through the Badnik's limb. The leg flew harmlessly away from Amy, while at the same time the wolf crashed down on its side from a sudden loss of balance.

Sorun, of course, had seen the entire thing. He looked at the sight in disbelief, and then slowly exhaled as he looked down at Yamato's silver blade. "Did I... that's how you do the long-distance...? Agh!" A sudden headache assaulted him, causing him to hold his head with his left hand as a spurt of blood gushed out from his nose. "I'm pushing myself too far here, but... yeah, no, that makes sense, you just separate the distance... alright, yeah..."

He removed his hand from his head, wiping off the blood on his face with the back of his hand as the sheath reappeared in his grasp. He knew from the games that long-distance cuts like that with the Yamato were possible, but he'd never quite sussed out how to tease that particular ability out of his Chaos-created Yamato. A lot of the sword's abilities still eluded him still, and while it was still a shock to him, he was overly happy at having at least discovered one new thing. It figured that it would take one of his friends almost dying for him to finally figure it out.

It wasn't a full-on Judgement Cut. But it was a step closer.

Breathing outwards, Sorun shook his head free of the grogginess that had formed and began walking forwards towards the fallen wolf. He saw from the corner of his vision Amy had managed to shake off being stunned from the earlier howl, though she was still sitting still and staring wide-eyed at the struggling Badnik. Her eyes flashed over to Sorun as he continued approaching the wolf, which prompted her to rise to her own feet, quickly run over to her hammer, and pick it up before following Sorun's approach.

Eventually, the two ended up standing next to each others' sides, weapons clenched in their hands as they looked down at the large robot. With its missing forelimb it was unable to rise back up to its feet, though its remaining limbs continued to pump back and forth, albeit at a slow rate. Even its mechanical growls were becoming garbled and distorted, and the red eye atop its head was noticeably dimmer than it had been before at the start of the fight.

Amy huffed out an exhausted breath, still looking down at the Badnik. Her eyes traveled from the wolf towards the katana gripped in Sorun's hand, and then up towards the human's face. "Did... did you do that?" she asked, gaining the other teen's attention. "How did you manage to cut it from all the way over there?"

Blinking at the question, Sorun rose the katana up for Amy to see. "The Yamato can do a lot," he simply answered, lowering it back down to his side as he returned to facing the wolf.

Seemingly accepting the short answer, Amy shrugged and turned back to the wolf. "Well, we did it. What now?"

"Hmmm..." After a few moments of contemplative humming, Sorun willed the Bringer Claws into existence. One of the spectral hands floated in front of Amy, holding its palm out towards her. "May I please have your hammer for one moment?" he respectfully requested.

She looked a bit startled at the request at first, looking up at Sorun's eyes and becoming even more surprised when she saw the serious look on his face. She looked back down at the spectral arm, and then began to savagely grin at the implication. "Why, of course. Since you asked so nicely," she said as she placed he red hammer into the Bringer Claw's grasp. "Just please be gentle with her."

"Oh, I would never dream of scratching your dear hammer, Amy." The Bringer Claw's talons curled around the hammer, with the second Bringer Claw grasping the hammer's handle right below the first. Slowly exhaling, Sorun willed the arms to bring the hammer upwards above both him and Amy, eyeing down the fallen Badnik wolf with complete contempt in his eyes.

And then, in a show of speed and power that surprised even Amy, the hammer was brought down right on the robot wolf. Metal pieces and electronics went flying, and the wolf cried out in a garbled, electronic howl as a whole chunk of its body was hammered right off of it. Sorun didn't even hesitate before bringing the hammer up and smashing it down on the robot again.

All of his frustration over how tonight had went. All of his anger over how everybody's plans, and his own plans, had been ruin. His complete fury at almost having seen Amy cut to shreds. All of the hatred he harbored over Eggman and the situation he found himself in. In those moments, all of those negative feelings seemed to fuel the Bringer Claws as they slammed the hammer down onto the wolf over and over again. It was enough that in those moments Sorun almost didn't even feel the exhaustion wracking his body, allowing him to not slow down even once as he pounded the Badnik over and over.

By the end of his relentless assault, what was left couldn't even be called a robot anymore. It was less machine and more a useless hunk of unrecognizable scrap metal and electronics, so horribly bent and twisted it didn't even have a definable shape. The wolf's head was about the only thing even remotely intact, though somewhere along Sorun's intense hammering the garbled whines had ceased completely and the red eye had completely dimmed.

Panting just the slightest amount through his nose, Sorun's Bringer Claws slowly offered the hammer back to Amy, who had watched the entire display with a continually flinching gaze. "Yeah, I don't know. I don't think hammers are really my thing. I'll just stick with swords," Sorun mumbled out. "Thanks, weapon buddy."

With an amused giggle, Amy took the hammer out from the offered claw, and in a puff of smoke it disappeared from her grasp. "You're welcome, weapon buddy. So is that it, then?"

"Almost." A Bringer Claw reached forwards past the still wolf's mouth, tearing past the speaker in its throat and reaching towards its innards. It grabbed onto something, and then yanked it out of the head and held it up for both Sorun and Amy to see.

The object that had been taken out from the wolf appeared to be a shell. A round, white thing covered in intricate carvings with multiple metal cables jammed and forced inside of it, with even more cables spilling out of the opening at the end. Sorun sighed sadly at the sight, the Bringer Claw's talons softly rubbing over its surface.

"Eggman said he destroyed some lost civilization for this thing. Mentioned grapes or something. It's what he used to make his sonic weapon," Sorun morosely intoned. "I don't really know what to feel knowing that the last legacy of a bunch of people I didn't even know existed until recently was used to almost wipe everybody here out." He tiredly sighed. "I'm just really angry and sad."

"I know. That sounds terrible," Amy agreed, softly nodded her head with a downcast look on her face. "What are you going to do with it?"

"... I kind of just want to save it since... since this is all that's left of whoever those people were. But I don't want another situation like this ever happening again." Regretfully, he willed the spectral hand's talons to curl around the shell. "I'm gonna break it."

It was a true shame, and he didn't want to do it, but at the same time he felt more strongly that it was too dangerous to be around considering all the damage Eggman had done with it this time around. He even waited to see if Amy would voice any objections, but when he glanced at her face, he saw that it was set in silent acceptance. That was all the confirmation he needed, so before he had the opportunity to change his mind, he willed the Bringer Claw to squeeze down.

The shell hadn't really broken in an overly showy affair. It had simply cracked and crumbled under the pressure the Bringer Claw exerted on it, the fragments spilling out in piles of shards, white dust, and electronic cables from between the hand's talons. The remainder of it dropped to the ground, prompting Sorun to finally dismiss the Bringer Claws with a short exhale.

"Well, that's that." Staring down at the white pile for a few more moments, Sorun glanced back towards the fallen crowd of Mobians behind them. To his relief he saw that a large amount of them were beginning to stir awake and move slightly. "Eggman said that he was sending more robots here," he continued, turning back to face Amy who had grown an alarmed look, "but it looks like everybody's starting to wake up. We should be fine once they're all up and moving."

"Oh. That's good," Amy said, breathing out in relief. "So that was... that was really crazy, huh?"

"Yeah, it was," Sorun agreed, sliding Yamato back into its sheath. "It's almost over, though. Which means someone can stop playing that terrible music!" Sorun screamed out towards the stage.

At his words, the musical beats spilling out from the speakers cut out. At the same time, a rather vexed-looking Vector peeked his head up from over the soundboard and shouted towards Sorun, "You got no taste, Sorun!"

"You're the one with no taste!" Sorun shouted back, shaking his head before turning back to Amy. "Anyways, yeah. Thanks for, uh... for bailing me out there. I wasn't really doing too good against that thing."

"Oh, no problem. That's what friends are for, right?"

Instead of responding immediately, Sorun continually stared at Amy. After a few moments, he mumbled something unintelligible under his breath and turned away from her, which caused the pink hedgehog to frown slightly. "Sure."

He became instantly startled and almost lost his balance when he felt a weight press against him. Breathing out in surprise, he snapped his head downwards and tightly gripped the sheathed katana still grasped in his left hand. He relaxed immediately when he saw it was just Amy, who for whatever reason had chosen to give him a light hug.

"Hey, thanks for saving me back there and helping to save everyone here," she told him, smiling widely while looking into his eyes. "I know it still must be a struggle for you, but you're doing really great. I just wanted you to know that."

Sorun almost went as far to open his mouth and refute her, but he had neither the physical nor mental energy to commit to the action, and he just plain didn't feel like denying her. After a few moments, though, he did go and gently brush her arms off of him. "Alright, alright. Get off," he mumbled, taking a few steps back from her. "I'm gonna go wake someone up." He turned around and took a few steps forwards, and then stopped and turned his head back to Amy. "... I appreciate the... ugh, never mind, you get it."

He didn't turn his head around fast enough to avoid the beaming smile Amy sent his way. Grumbling under his breath, Sorun began stomping forwards into the crowd, intent on getting as far away from her as possible and waking somebody up as quick as possible so they could begin the process of getting everybody up before the robot reinforcements arrived.

Fortunately, from the amount of stirring he saw from the people he was passing it wouldn't take much to wake them up. There were even a few individuals he could make out that were already steadily making their way up to their feet. He wasn't too concerned about that, which made him feel a bit more at ease. He felt even more at ease when he came across the sleeping form of a blue hedgehog, sprawled out on the ground right in front of him.

That was about as far as Sorun got before he fell down flat on his front, too tired from the earlier fight to move on much further. The Yamato had dropped from his grasp and immediately disappeared as well.

Sighing, Sorun turned his head against the ground to face Sonic. Much to his chagrin, it seemed like the hedgehog was still sleeping, and was even mumbling in his sleep a small amount. Rolling his eyes, Sorun managed to bring his index up to his face with a moderate amount of effort and, not hesitating in the slightest, popped the finger into his mouth. He held it there for a few moments, and then removed the wet digit from his mouth. He then positioned the moist finger right above one of Sonic's ears, and without missing beat plunged the finger straight into his ear.

The reaction was immediate. Sonic had woken straight up into a sitting position with a startled scream, his hand automatically going to his ear. Sorun managed a small chuckle at the sight.

"G-gah! What the heck was that for, Sorun!?" Sonic yelled, rubbing at his ear with an annoyed expression. That look on his face was immediately replaced with shock and wide eyes when he looked around at all the fallen Mobians surrounding him. "Wait, what the...? What happened to everybody?" He looked down at Sorun, his eyes widening even further when he saw the state the human's clothes was in. "What happened to you, Sorun!?"

"Sonic. So glad to see you finally woke up to join the rest of us," Sorun blandly replied, rolling onto his back so that his face was facing the night sky. "Eggman sabotaged the concert. Replaced one of Mina's speakers with a Badnik that put everybody to sleep. Nicole, Amy, and Vector took care of it. I helped out a little," he explained.

A few moments passed where Sonic absorbed all the new information offered to him. After this, his expression turned serious as he nodded down towards Sorun. "Alright, makes enough sense. So everybody's gonna be fine?"

"They should wake up, yeah," Sorun confirmed in a weary tone. "That being said Eggman's sending some extra robot since he thinks you all are still asleep, so you might wanna hustle and get everybody up before they get here."

"Alright, got it," Sonic said with a nod, rising up to his feet. "You helpin' out?"

In answer to Sonic's question, Sorun just barely managed to shake his head. "Naaah... I'm tappin' out," he murmured. "You go ahead and save everybody. I'm... I'm just gonna stay here forever."

Sonic rolled his eyes at the answer, though a playful smirk had still made its way onto his features. "I told you this would happen if you started skipping out on endurance training. It's fine, though. Hang tight here, we'll take care of the rest."

Sorun had already fallen asleep before Sonic even finished.


It'd been easy enough to wake everybody up who had gone to the concert and fallen down due to the Badnik speaker machine. With the multiplicative process of one person waking another up, turning to two waking two up, and with one of those people being a supersonic hedgehog who could wake up rows of people in a single breath, it had taken no time at all to rouse everybody back awake. In fact, in just under five minutes the two hundred Mobians who had been knocked out had all been successfully awakened.

The reinforcements of Badniks had arrived soon after. The number itself was laughably small: It was just a single small ship that at max could only fit around fifty Egg Pawns and an equal amount of the egg-shaped teleporter pods, and at the head of that ship was a small egg-shaped drone displaying a hologram of Dr. Eggman. The detachment force, of course, had been so small due to the Doctor having half-expected to arrive in a field of unconscious Mobians ready and waiting for processing.

What he got was a field of very-awake Mobians, the entirety of the Freedom Fighters included in the mix and a blue-furred hedgehog standing ahead of the crowd with his arms crossed.

"... So Sorun beat my latest creation, huh?" The hologram of Dr. Eggman floated down from the low-floating ship, stopping right in front of the irate-looking hedgehog who was tapping his foot rapidly at the man's sight. "A predictable outcome, but a small part of me still held out hope he wouldn't destroy that Badnik. It had some unique, one-of-a-kind parts in it. He's beginning to become as annoying as you are, rodent."

"Well, not sorry to be the one to tell you this, Egghead, but your plan of abducting a whole concert's a no-go."

A loud sigh escaped from Eggman, and his shoulders slumped. "You know what's never going to make Sorun more annoying than you? That." He leaned to the side and propped his head on his fist. "How long have we been fighting, rodent, only for you to resort to the same tiresome insults over and over? At least he puts some thought into the banter."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Save it for somebody who cares, Eggb-"

"Eggbreath, yes, you've used that one a hundred times already." His look completely unimpressed, Eggman began drumming his fingers across his head while gesturing to Sonic with the other. "See? This is what I'm talking about. It's all gotten old, hedgehog. You, your nicknames, and the rest of your paltry little resistance. I'm not surprised you had to resort to kidnapping people from whole other zones just to keeps things going."

At that, Sonic's foot instantly stopped tapping. His eyes narrowed just the slightest amount, and in the crowd in the background some of the Freedom Fighters bristled at the remark. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Is there really anything to understand past that? I'd argue the hypocrisy of you all calling yourselves Freedom Fighters after taking that boy's freedom from him, but I imagine you already got enough of that from him. I'm surprised he still chose to ingratiate himself with your lot, but fools will be fools, and he's kept things just a tad more interesting, so I won't complain. Much. He could really do to watch his language, you know. All that cursing he does cheapens the banter."

"Sorun doesn't swear," Sonic denied.

"Not around you, maybe," Eggman scoffed. "Suppose I can't really blame him. He has to live around a group of mangy animals that stole his life."

By the last word Sonic had become fed up with the Doctor's words. He uncrossed his arms, slowly stepping forwards with a disgruntled expression on his face. "Say whatever you want, Eggman. He's one of us and is helping to dismantle your empire one bot at a time." Behind him, some of the other Freedom Fighters smirked proudly at the claim. Eggman, meanwhile, rolled his eyes from behind his glasses.

"The empire you've made little to no progress in stopping after all this time? That one? Right, of course." Eggman's wide smile grew on his lips when he saw Sonic's frown deepen even further. "I'll be straight with you, Sonic. Coming all the way out here and having this whole scheme of mine fail was worth it just to see that look on your face. So congratulations! You bought yourselves a bit more time before I get bored." He waved his hand in the air. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go on, get to it. I got a whole platoon of Badniks back there programmed to destroy you. And while you're wasting time doing that, I've got dinner ready and waiting."

The hologram cut out. Sonic, in a fit of irritation, briefly spun through the air and cut right through the small drone that had been displaying his hologram. He landed on his feet, glaring up at the ship full of Badniks with the rest of the Freedom Fighters right behind him.

Suffice to say it had been a short and uneventful fight.


It had been the crack of dawn by the time Sorun had finally woken up. Nobody had bothered to move him from the ground, but somebody had at least put a blanket over him. That had been nice. Waking up to a bunch of dirt in his hair hadn't nearly been as nice, but he was beyond the point of caring by now. He'd just take a shower later on. And then purposely use all the hot water just to mess with Sonic.

He'd woken up to the sounds of loud celebration. When he'd sat up, he'd seen an Eggman ship burning to the ground in the background, with decimated robots scattered all around. Despite the dreary visage, everybody seemed really excited. All the Mobians who had come to the concert were all gathered around, and it was with some amusement he saw that they were holding Amy and Vector up into the air while cheering their names. Vector actually looked bashful at the attention, while Amy was practically basking in it. He saw that she was blowing kisses towards a blue figure in the crowd, too, and he couldn't help but chuckle when he saw the blue form disappear in a speed blur.

So, with little else to do, he'd walked all the way towards the concert stage, pulled himself up, and sat down on the edge while looking forwards at the proceedings. He felt a little upset that he wasn't included in the celebrations in the distance, but he didn't care all too much. He was happy enough seeing the dismantled heap of metal that had once been that wolf Badnik and the remains of all the other robots scattered around.

He couldn't get over the fact he'd almost died to that wolf out of his mind, though. The embarrassment from having to have been saved by Amy was trumped by his own self-loathing of his own weakness. Even after three Emeralds it still wasn't enough. He needed more Emeralds and more powers. The problem he was running into was that his health was starting to become negatively affected by these things, and the sunk cost fallacy of health over powers was already slowly catching up to him. Even so, he couldn't do anything to protect anybody with how he was right now.

"Power... I need more power..."

He'd just power through it if that really did become a problem. For now, though, it wasn't important. The important thing was that he was fine at the moment. Even more importantly, everybody was fine from the looks of it. That's what he cared about most over everything else.

"~They will see, we'll fight until eternity... come with me, we'll stand and fight together...~" He looked back towards the crowd of Mobians in the distance, still celebrating amidst the charred corpses of robots as a small wave of serenity hit him. "~Through our strength, we'll make a better day tomorrow... we, shall never surrender...~"

"Where's that from?"

Sorun's teeth made a loud clack! sound when his jaw snapped shut. Muttering curses under his breath, he turned his head to the side just enough to catch an eyeful of yellow fur wrapped in rocker's clothing, with another brown-furred form behind the first wearing blue boots and a vest. He grumbled some more when he saw Mina and Sally hop up on stage and sit next to him.

"Just a song. From where I'm from," he quietly muttered, slumping forwards and looking back ahead. "Sorry about your concert getting abruptly cancelled by a killer speaker. Rough luck."

From besides him, he heard Mina sigh. "It's not the end of the world. It's just so... frustrating this always has to happen to good people because of Eggman, but... but at least we have Freedom Fighters out there looking out for us. Freedom Fighters like you." He heard the slight rustle of clothes and felt Mina's eyes on him. "You don't have a half-bad singing voice, you know."

"Could you forget you heard that?" Sorun asked, cheeks slightly tinged in embarrassment. "What do you want?"

"I just heard we have you to thank for, well, helping all of us and I just wanted to see how you were doing," Mina answered. "How come you're not over there with all the others?"

"I'm content with just sitting here," Sorun answered in response. "Are you going to be fine now?"

He saw Mina nod from the corner of his vision. "Yes, we will, thank you. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, so once everybody's nerves are settled and some time has passed, maybe we could try this again."

That was good to hear. He breathed out at hearing the mongoose's words. "... Well... I still haven't heard you sing, so maybe I'll go to that concert. Maybe," Sorun answered after a long beat of silence passed. "It'd be nice if you could tell me beforehand if that ever happens. For planning purposes."

He heard Mina giggle from besides him and could practically feel the smile she gave him. "I promise you'll be the first one to know. It's the least I can do. And maybe you could share that song you were singing with me sometimes?"

A smirk formed along Sorun's mouth along with a scoff leaving his nose. "Mm, not a chance. I don't think you'd like the first half of that song. It's real violent."

"Oh. Well, alright." Mina slid off of the stage and waved goodbye to Sorun. "I gotta get back back to my friends, now. Seeya, Sorun!"

He watched the mongoose walk off after saying her farewell, Sorun giving his own two-fingered salute as a farewell in response. "Well, at least she's doing well. Seems like this whole thing didn't faze her too much, so that's good. Hearing her sing songs from those games, though... pfft, right, I'll give her the lyrics to 'Devils Never Cry' and see how well she reacts to it. Not." That would be a disaster in the making. A fun disaster, but he had enough things to deal with without having to add that on top of everything else.

At hearing a voice clear their throat, he looked to the side to see Sally still sitting in the same spot and staring expectantly at him. He sighed, almost having forgotten she was even there in the first place, and then looked back forwards.

"So did you guys just finish holding Eggman off?" he asked, gesturing to the destroyed robots in the background.

Sally looked towards where he was pointing, and then shook her head. "Oh, no. We beat all of them hours ago. A few people just decided to hold a celebration for our victory and to make up for the concert, and everybody decided to go along with it."

"And you all decided to just leave me sleeping on the cold, hard ground throughout all that. I'm touched."

Pouting her lips in slight indignation, Sally rolled her eyes in response to the other teen. "You seemed like you needed your sleep, and nobody wanted to move you. Amy went and got you a blanket all the way from her house, and Vector made sure nobody bugged you while you were sleeping."

"They did, huh...?" Sorun muttered, eyes going towards where the two Mobians were as a slightly warm feeling grew in his chest. "That was nice of them."

"Yeah, it was," Sally agreed with a nod. "It's still kind of frightening, how Eggman managed to incapacitate all of us so easily. Amy said you took care of that problem, though." She scooted closer to Sorun and leaned her head a bit forwards so she was forced into his view. "You did really good, you know. There were a lot of Mobians at this concert, us included."

"Nicole's the one that thought the plan up. Amy and Vector did all the work. All I did was get smacked around by a monster wolf until Amy came and saved me," Sorun mumbled, blowing a lock of hair out of his face. "I didn't really do all that much."

"Ah-huh, so saving Amy's life wasn't all that much?" Sorun's head perked up in surprise, and he turned towards Sally who was giving him a smug look with her arms crossed. "You're too modest for your own good, Sorun. A few of the others could stand to learn a bit of that from you."

"Is one of those others blue and really spiky?"

Sally laughed out loud at that, sighing out in mirth while slowly nodding her head. "Perhaps," she agreed. "But seriously. Nice job."

"... I'm just doing what you all would have done for me. It's not a big deal." That was where a majority of the modesty came from. That and not having to feel the embarrassment from all the praise he'd receive, despite how good it would feel. He just didn't think he had the mental fortitude to handle that.

That and it made the narrative he'd weaved for himself about not considering everybody around him his friend fall apart. The narrative that had basically crumbled completely at this point that everybody saw through. The one he wasn't even sure he was bothering to hold up anymore.

Giving him a knowing smile, Sally began reaching into the inner pockets of her vest. "Sure it isn't. Anyways, here." She took out two items and placed them onto the space between herself and Sorun. One was Nicole's handheld, which served to brighten Sorun's mood up immediately. The other, much to his shock, was a brightly-glowing Power Ring. "I figured you two deserved something after what you did," Sally answered when Sorun slowly glanced up at her with a baffled look. "Don't worry about your Chao. Amy's looking after him."

"B-but..." Sorun stammered, looking back down at the ring and computer.

"It's fine. Just be sure to get Nicole back to me at some point." And with that, Sally slid off of the stage and began walking towards the celebrating crowd in the distance. "Oh, and no missions for you two today, so feel free to relax and do whatever you want."

The human teen watched Sally's back as she left, mouth hanging agape in complete shock. It seemed too good to be true, and he had to blink multiple times to ensure he was really seeing the handheld computer and ring sitting next to him. And, indeed, they were sitting there.

Feelings of intense gratitude towards Sally washed over Sorun, and he wasted no time in grabbing the Power Ring and inserting it into Nicole's handheld. The AI didn't even need a verbal cue from Sorun to begin forming her body, as almost the same second he'd put the ring in he'd seen dark cubes begin swirling around in the effort of forming Nicole's body.

Sorun felt himself put at ease when he saw Nicole's body finally finish forming, an easy smile uncontrollably forming across his face as his entire form relaxed. Nicole blinked once, and then turned her head towards Sorun as a similar smile formed on her face.

The smile lowered a significant amount when she saw the state of Sorun's clothing.

"Oh, Sorun..." she quietly muttered, moving right next to Sorun's side while worryingly examining his form. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," he stuttered. He found himself torn between looking away in embarrassment and still looking towards Nicole, and chose to continue facing her as he tugged at the top portion of his blue hoodie. "I don't even want to know what Honey's gonna say to me when she sees this. She absolutely hates it when I get her clothes wrecked in the field. 'Sets a bad image for the quality of the material,' she says," Sorun informed Nicole, making air quotes with his fingers.

"Well, that sounds like a problem she will have to deal with on her own," Nicole said, actually looking a bit upset at Sorun's words. She reached forwards and brushed a hand over the spot on his abdomen where he'd been slashed at by the wolf Badnik's claws. "Are you completely sure you are unhurt?"

He felt his fingers involuntarily twitch at the contact, and felt the areas she was touching grow warm. Sorun, feeling uncomfortable at the contact, immediately moved back away from Nicole as a result, ignoring his battered body's protest as he resettled in his new position. "It's just a lot of bruises, I'm fine," he assured her, his voice cracking just the slightest amount. "Are you okay?"

Nicole moved her hand back to the side, giving Sorun a perplexed look with her eyes at the question. "Why would I be unwell?" she asked.

"Because of the concert," Sorun sighed out, his eyes slowly dipping downwards in shame. "I-I just wanted... we always do what I want, so I wanted to do something you would like for a change, and-and it was your first concert and everything but it got ruined and I- I just feel like an utter failure because the one time I try doing something for you I screw it up and-"

"Sorun. Look at me."

The utter inadequacy he felt over himself had caused Sorun to go off on a regret-filled tangent, though Nicole's words had brought him out of it. Despite the intense feelings of shame he felt, he managed to look up. He gasped out softly when he saw her staring right at him, a smile on her face. He couldn't fathom what she could possibly be smiling at right now.

"You had nothing to do with this. In fact, it is quite the opposite: you took active steps to ensure nobody was hurt." The smile lowered a bit when she looked at Sorun's clothes. "Almost nobody, at least. I wish you would be more careful with yourself and take less risks, but I accept you do so for the sake of others. And I deeply appreciate you having listened to me back in that shop. You looked ready to storm out there, sword in hand and ready to confront Eggman right then and there."

"I wasn't gonna... c'mon, give me a little credit here..." Sorun turned his head to the side, abashed smile covering his face that he desperately tried to hide by brushing his hair in front of his face. He heard Nicole laugh again at the sight, though even the happy feeling that gave him didn't stop the intense, apologetic urge still coursing through him. "I'm... I'm really sorry your night got ruined-"

"And I already told you that you have nothing to apologize for. Unless you've been colluding with the Doctor behind all of our backs, in which case I will be expecting a full written confession and terms of your surrender."

Sorun's head snapped back towards Nicole, though when he saw her still smiling towards him, his shook his head in amusement and began rubbing at his head. "Yeah, I'll be sure to get on it," he jokingly replied with a small chuckle.

Nicole reciprocated Sorun's chuckle, still gazing towards his face. "You do realize it was not just my night?"

"Well, yeah, sure, it was everybody's night, but it was special for you since this was your first-"

"Was this not your fist concert, too? By all means it was just as much your night as mine." The lynx's words made Sorun go speechless, and when he said nothing in response, Nicole continued. "And while it is unfortunate this happened, as I said, there will be other opportunities to experience such things. Beyond that, do not say we only ever do what you want to. I rather enjoy the time we spend together, regardless of what it is we are doing. And I happen to enjoy games just as much as you."

"Just as much as me? I can contest that," Sorun said.

"I'm sure you could," Nicole replied. "Nevertheless, no matter what it is we are doing, I greatly value our time together, and I am truly thankful you wanted to 'mix things up', as it were. The fact this attack happened in conjunction with that was little more than an unfortunate coincidence. So don't blame yourself for it going wrong, and just know I am still thankful for what you tried to do."

He didn't know how it was she was able to make him feel better with just words alone, but somehow, Nicole managed it. All the negative thoughts that had been assaulting him from earlier were all but gone at this point thanks to her, and he felt immensely better knowing she wasn't upset in the slightest at him. It helped make him feel lighter, and almost made him forget about his bruises.

Almost. His body was still screaming at him in soreness.

"Um, uh, that-that's..." Sorun sighed, and turned his body towards the edge of the stage. "Can we- can we just go? Go back to the HQ?"

"You do not wish to go celebrate with the others?" Nicole asked, though she mimicked Sorun's movements and slid off of the stage with him and onto the ground, making sure to grab her computer body along the way.

Sorun shook his head in a negative response. "We can do that later, and I'm not feeling up to it right now. I just want to relax." And he only had a limited amount of time before Nicole's new Power Ring would exhaust itself. They could wait. She couldn't.

Fortunately, Nicole seemed to accept his answer and gave him a nod. "Very well. I assume you want to play something, then?"

"Actually, can we... you think we can just talk?" Sorun shyly asked, turning his head away from her. "You know, about... I don't know, something. My old home or something else if you want. Can we just do that?"

When he heard Nicole pause, he began to grow slightly worried and looked over towards her direction fearing the worst. But when he looked back over at her, he just saw her eyeing him silently before once more giving him a nod, her lips upturning into a smile. "Of course we can, Sorun. I would be more than happy to."

"'Kay." Having been leaning against the stage, Sorun pushed off of it and attempted to walk forwards. He failed immediately, as another wave of soreness swept through his body and caused him to fall backwards. He gasped out in surprise and blindly reached out for something to grab onto before he fell down completely.

He ended up grabbing onto Nicole's shoulder, who had quickly stepped behind him to catch Sorun mid-fall. He felt that burning, nervous sensation return from the touch and tried scrambling to get away from her, but when he looked up and saw the frown on her face he stopped cold.

"You said your injuries were minor," she said, voice completely flat and eyes narrowed in an accusing manner.

"Eh-heh, minor is, er... subjective?" Sorun tried, doing his best to flash a grin. This only ended up causing another wave of pain to lance through his body, causing him to grimace.

She didn't look amused at all by his words, and after seeing him grimace, she shook her head in disapproval. "You're obviously too injured to be moving around on your own. I suppose I will have to carry you back myself."

What little color was in Sorun's face drained when he heard her say that. He didn't want that. "Aw, come on, Nicole, don't," he quietly plead, "that's too embarrassing. I'd rather you drag me than have everybody see that."

Nicole looked ready to argue the point, but stopped herself when she saw the pleading, nervous look on Sorun's face. She narrowed her eyes again at the look, and then closed them fully as a sign of conceding. "At the very least lean against me so I can help you reach our destination."

"Sure." Awkwardly, Sorun was repositioned so that his left arm was slung over Nicole's shoulder while his torso leaned its weight against hers. He still felt embarrassment over the actions, but he'd take this over having to be carried by her. He didn't think he'd survive something like that.

He was thankful she had offered to assist him in walking, as it was only when they began moving did he realize how battered he really was. Battered to the point he didn't even know if he would make it all the way back to the HQ even with Nicole's help. The fear of people seeing him being carried pushed him on, though, even if he wasn't confident that would be enough to carry him through. He at least wanted to get far enough to where nobody would see him if he did collapse.

"You know, ah, this... this reminds me a lot about that one time I went car surfing," Sorun murmured to Nicole as they inched their way along.

Nicole, keeping a firm hold on Sorun's arm in order to keep him on his feet, flashed Sorun with an a questioning yet amused look. "Car surfing? Dare I even ask what that is?"

"It's where you balance on top of a moving car and try to set records based on how long you stay on the car and how fast it goes. It was Dave's idea. Went about as well as you'd think," Sorun explained, letting out a pained chuckle halfway through. "There was this one junkyard we and a few others sometimes hung out in, and one day there was this junker of a car that was scheduled to be crushed but still worked, so Dave had this bright idea..."