A/N- Finally managed to pass that 100-review threshold. Yay for that. Thanks to all those who helped the story get this far and everyone for reading, as always.
Recursion Error
Episode 37- One is a really lonely number
There were a lot of places that Sorun expected his journey of life, or whatever it could even be called at this point, would take him. Some places were expected. Random forested areas around the northern continent, the occasional Eggman factory, places like that. Then there were the wackier, out of this world locations Sorun's adventures in this world found him in. Like the digital world, or under the ocean.
And then there were cases that were sort of in the middle. Like being inside of a mountain. Or, in this case, at the peaks of snowcapped mountains. With him falling downwards and slicing his sword right through the middle of an Egg Hammer as it threatened to smash a group of Overlander soldiers with its hammer.
Oddly enough the journey to get here was more strange than the actual events currently transpiring...
6 hours prior
"Sorun, Sorun, Sorun...~" A musical hum left the golden-furred cat as she held up a torn, blue hoodie that was somehow scorched and drenched at the same time. "How in the world did this happen?" Honey asked, the sweet tone of her voice hiding the malice layered underneath as she looked up at the human standing across the counter from her.
Not even fazed by her voice, Sorun sent the cat a flat look. "You ever fight a robot frog with a flamethrower in its mouth, Honey?" Sorun asked her. "I did. I had to fight two. At the same time. It wasn't fun." It sucked, actually. He didn't know how something could be so scorching hot and wet at the same time. Eggman found a way, somehow. He was a master at building contradictions like that.
The ruined hoodie was slammed down onto the counter with enough force that it created enough wind to blow back both the teen's and cat's black hair. "I don't care what you're fighting out there!" she screeched at him. "How could you let something as egregious as this happen to my poor product!?"
"You know, I'd like to see how well your red dress would hold up while you're getting tag-teamed by fire-breathing murder frogs," Sorun said to her, voice bland and lacking all energy. "Look, this was my last hoodie. You think you can fix it?"
"What am I going to do with you...?" Turning her gold eyes down to the hoodie, she regarded it for a whole millisecond, and then looked back up at Sorun. "Nope. It's shot. Finished. Gone to the great beyond. I can't salvage this hot mess."
"Fantastic." Reaching a hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose, Sorun asked her, "Is there anything you can do for me? I ain't exactly opposed to running into battle in nothing but pants and a t-shirt, but, well..."
He gestured down to his body, causing Honey to lean over the counter to get a better look at him. The cat's face scrunched up into an expression of absolute disgust when she saw the multiple scuff marks, burns, rips and tears all through his shirt and pants. Surprisingly his black boots were almost as pristine as the day Honey first gave them to him. He didn't know how the hell that happened. She built 'em good, he guessed. Either that or whatever she made the leather out of to make the things was real tough.
He still didn't know where people in this world got leather from. And frankly, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know. He hoped it was some sort of artificial substitute, which would go to explain how it was they lasted so long, but he just didn't know, nor was he tempted to seek an answer out.
"I should slap you for going out in public looking like that. While wearing my brand, no less. Wait here." Grumbling under her breath, Honey stepped out from around the counter and made her way towards her back room. Sorun watched her depart, and then began to quietly hum under his breath as he leaned his back against the counter while waiting for her.
"It's always so fun coming here," he sarcastically thought. He never knew what to expect whenever he walked into this place, only that it surely wouldn't be a boring experience and there was a good chance of something horrible and mentally-scarring happening. Honey had that effect, and in a way, somehow, it had grown to be refreshing for Sorun. Maybe it was because it served as a break to Sorun and him having to deal with all the other Mobians he dealt with on a daily basis. That or Stockholm Syndrome. Considering he was basically an indentured clothes slave to her at this point it was probably the latter.
But despite all the craziness, Honey made quality goods. The fact his boots made of a leather of nebulous origins were still in one piece after all this time alone spoke volumes. He quite honestly didn't trust anybody else to make clothes for him other than her, and she had a way of fitting things so that they fit him just right. He'd never admit it to her face, but the woman was a genius when it came to clothes. And also insane. He'd admit that to her face.
Still, dealing with her eccentricities was worth it for her clothes. About the only reason he went so far to advertise her brand, really. That and because he couldn't afford not to exploit that discount she gave him.
"Alright, here it is. Your new ensemble." Sorun was stirred from his thoughts when he looked up at the sound of Honey's voice. She'd walked back into view, hefting a small box of clothes on the counter he leaned on before leaving yet again to go towards a nearby rack of clothes. "I've been mulling over that style of yours for a while now. I think I got something down."
"You did, huh...?" Humming, Sorun leaned over the box and began rifling through its contents. Overall, he wasn't all that impressed with what he saw. A bunch of pairs of pants similar to the pair he already wore, except dark blue in color. And a bunch of plain black long-sleeved shirts. "Wow, so instead of having me wear a blue shirt and black pants, you decided to make me wear blue pants and a black shirt." With a flat face Sorun looked back up at Honey. "Ingenious," he drawled out.
"The blue top blended in too well with your outer layer, and your bottoms need to contrast with your top," Honey said, her hands shuffling through a line of clothes held up on a bunch of hangers. She made a "ah-hah!" noise, and then pulled something off from the rack. "I decided that the punkish vibe you were making from the hoodie wasn't suiting you and sending the right message to what my brand is all about, and honestly, sleeveless on you was lacking class. We're ditching that altogether and going for something more refined."
Sorun scoffed. "Yeah, 'cause nothin' says refined like long sleeves instead of- mph." He was interrupted when a cloth something was thrown over his head, muffling the human's words. His hands automatically flung up to his face to remove the offending piece of clothing, and with a huff he tore whatever was on him off his head.
He almost threw it back at Honey when he saw her giving him a coy smile, but then he saw what it was he was holding in his hands and held off so he could actually look at it. On closer inspection, he saw that it was a long coat. A blue long coat, expertly stitched together from the coat tail all the way to the blue sleeves. Black interior, light yet sturdy from the feel of it, and he could just tell by looking it'd fit perfectly over him. Eyebrows raised in genuine surprise, Sorun looked back up to Honey. The eyebrows lowered back down when he saw her smug expression.
"Well...?" she asked, tail wagging mischievously behind her as she leaned in closer to Sorun to gauge his reaction. Sorun rolled his eyes in response to this, though he couldn't help but admit that there was something deeply appealing about the coat to him. She was right; it really did look refined. Stylish, almost.
"... Yeah, alright. I like it." He slung the coat over his shoulder, and with his hands sliding into his pocket Sorun re-leaned against the counter while still looking towards Honey. "So what do I owe you for it?" he asked.
"Hm? Oh, nothing. It's on the house."
Sorun almost tripped on his face when he heard that. Generous, Honey was not. In fact he'd known her long enough to know that she was a pretty ruthless businesswoman that didn't do things for "free". Tasks that offered no monetary gain for her but still ultimately benefited her in the long run, like making Sorun advertise for her, sure, she was all for that. Completely free, though? That was basically unheard of.
"What exactly did I do to earn all this for free?" Sorun asked, voice laced in suspicion as he sent the golden cat a raised eyebrow.
Honey hummed, rolling back forth on her feet with her hands clasped behind her back as she gave Sorun a wide, knowing grin. "Oh, nothing much. It's just for the past couple of months I've been getting a lot more business run through here. Even got a couple of Mobians traveling in from some of the outlying villages who said they came here just because some human Freedom Fighter told them about the place. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
Ah, he was caught. "Nah. Nothin'," Sorun said, shrugging as he feigned ignorance. "Musta been some other human you do business with. Can't believe you'd cheat on me like that."
"Ignoring that I'm not and you're the only human I've ever even met, do you know of any other humans in the Freedom Fighters situated in Knothole?"
"... Yeah, that guy. He goes around, does stuff here and there. Good old... Jjjjjjimmy."
"Jimmy."
"Yeah. Jimmy."
She rolled her eyes completely around, her irises falling back on Sorun. The grin on her face had only widened. "Well, Jimmy, I very much appreciate you having promoted my business so well. The clothes are a way of repaying that. And also showing off a bit more of my product."
"Ahhh, there it is." Altruism. It was somewhere down there in Honey's heart. Somewhere deep, deep down. And Sorun supposed he should have felt honored that he was someone Honey liked enough to show that side. But then he remembered how she acted, and he quickly realized he didn't feel this way. "Well, Honey, as always it's been an experience. I gotta go back to my unpaid job now."
His words caused Honey's ears to straighten upwards. "They don't pay you to be a Freedom Fighter?"
"Nah," Sorun said with a shake of his head, "I get paid in more more valuable, less materialistic things."
"The satisfaction of helping other people and admiration of those around you while ultimately working towards the goal of a free world?"
"Something like that I guess, yeah, sure. 'Least that's what I tell myself to get me up in the morning. One thing, anyways," Sorun said. "But every now and then Sally throws some cash my way since I'm pretty much the only person in all the Freedom Fighters without a source of income. Sally's a princess so she's basically bankrolled for life, Sonic and Tails still live with their parents, Antoine and Bunnie live together and apparently Antoine gets a pension since he has an official position as a commander of the kingdom's forces the lucky son of a gun, Amy... don't know what her deal is, Rotor... makes stuff I guess, I don't know, and the Chaotix are basically broke like me, too, but they get to mooch off all the food in the Freedom HQ since they're all bunking there." He was fairly certain that Shadow was broke as well due to losing his status as a G.U.N. agent as a result of Eggman's takeover. He'd assume Rouge would be in the same boat as him, but she always seemed well-off every time Sorun saw her.
She was a mysterious one, that bat.
Honey tittered in amusement. "What, Sonic's family doesn't feed you?"
"No, but even with that discount you gave me most of what I do get goes to you. And food for my pet Chao. Fruits and nuts and stuff like that." Left unsaid was all the stress aid items Sorun had wasted money on. Like that puzzle ring set he'd tried out and broke out of frustration, the scented candles that did absolutely nothing to help with his nerves, and that stress ball he'd squeezed so hard that it'd popped. In the end all getting that stuff did was make him more stressed for having wasted time and money on them. "Anyways- ooh," he suddenly said as he glanced at the clock, "yeah, hate to cut this short, but I gotta go."
"Resistance stuff?" Honey asked. When she saw Sorun nod his head as he made his way to the door, box of clothes and coat in hand, she then asked, "so what's on your docket for today?"
Already halfway out the door, Sorun paused and stuck his head back into the shop. "Oh, this one's a doozy. I get to go liberate a whole city from robot tyranny."
Honey blinked, and the amused grin she'd had on her face dropped right off. "Wait, really?"
"Yeah, we're going to Station Square," Sorun answered with a nod. "The time's finally come to go to that place, so... yeah."
"Ah, alright." Ears drooping back to their normal position, Honey moved back to the clothes rack besides her and began to dig through it. "Well, I gotta get ready for today. You be careful out there." She reached a hand out and pointed towards Sorun. "And don't you dare ruin that coat I just made you. I put a lot of effort into that."
"I'll put forth my best attempt." Sending her one last wave, Sorun exited the shop. Honey shook her head at the direction he left, and then focused her attention back on her clothes.
5 hours, 40 minutes prior
"You're late!"
"I know I know I know!" He'd only taken a single step out of the portal before he heard Sally yell at him. Slashing backwards to close said portal behind him, Sorun looked towards Sally with an apologetic look on his face. "I got wrapped up in something." And what a something it was. He'd yet to try the coat on, but these new pants and shirt? They fit spectacularly. And Honey was right- the sleeves did make him feel refined.
His apology seemed to mean very little, though, as the princess crossed her arms right in front of him. Behind her Sorun could see the open doors of the hangar the Freedom Fighters kept their aircraft in, and a few of the Freedom Fighters themselves scrambling around the FF Special as the giant ship's engines fired up. Somehow the sight of that and knowing where it was about to carry him was more nerve-wracking to Sorun than the princess standing in front of him.
"I'd like to think somebody who can make wormholes out of thin air could be a bit more punctual, especially considering what we're about to go to pull off, Sorun." She sounding chastising, but the small grin on Sally's face gave away how she truly felt. "Glad you made it."
"Yep." Sorun took another glance at the ship behind Sally. "So we're all good to go?"
"All the supplies are packed and everyone's ready and waiting, so yes," she said with a nod. "Rotor's up in the Special's cockpit preparing for liftoff. We'll be heading out any minute now."
"Ah, great." Sorun began to walk past Sally. "Well, guess all that's left to do is find a seat and-"
"Wait a sec, Sorun." Sally quickly stuck her arm out in front of Sorun to block his path. "There, um... there's a slight development we should probably address before leaving."
The human teen glanced down at the arm blocking his path, and then looked towards Sally herself. She had a slightly uncomfortable, awkward look on her face, and the look in her eyes almost seemed apologetic towards Sorun. "Okay? Can I ask what-?"
"Chao."
"Ah, I see." He understood the moment he heard that one sound be uttered to him. Sighing out, he turned around to the source of the voice, and wasn't at all surprised to see his Chao. Virgil was just floating there, his bladed arms crossed over his chest and his head adorned with silver crest-like horns staring straight at him. There was a large frown across the Chao's face, making him look like he was displeased with something, and Sorun, knowing precisely what the problem was, sent a blank look towards Sally. The chipmunk, in response, began to sheepishly rub at her arm.
"Your Chao has been very insistent in coming along with us," Sally explained to him. "He flew over here on his own and refuses to go back home."
"The fearsome princess Sally Acorn couldn't remove a single Chao...?" Sorun disbelievingly muttered out.
"Have you seen what he looks like?" she asked him, gesturing a hand towards Virgil. "For the life of me, I don't know what you did to make him evolve into such a scary form, Sorun." She shook her head and looked at Virgil. "Also we... can't."
Sorun rose an eyebrow. "What do you mean 'can't?"
"None of us can actually catch him," she said, making both of Sorun's eyes widen. "And Sonic doesn't want to try anymore because every time he grabs at Virgil he cuts his gloves." She looked back to Sorun. "Do you know why he's acting like this?"
"Yeah, yeah I do." Huffing out a breath, Sorun turned his eyes towards the Chao. "Virgil, Virgil..."
It'd been a problem ever since he'd first gotten the Chao. He didn't like to be separated from Sorun for too long. It was to the point that he practically had to force the Chao to stay at home whenever he went out on a mission, and even then he'd still sometimes fight Sorun. All because he... well, Sorun wasn't quite sure. Because he didn't like Sorun being in danger all the time and wanted to protect him since he was his caretaker, maybe? He'd seemed really eager to fight that wasp mech that one time.
But that was before he'd evolved; after was a different story. He was a lot less vocal, more cool and relaxed, his overall demeanor was just a lot less energetic and more relaxed, and as a whole he was just easier to deal with. But there was still a certain... discontent with him that Sorun could see whenever he left him at home to go on a mission somewhere. He could always tell the Chao was upset from the way he'd cross his arms and refuse to utter even a single sound, and this would persist while Sorun was gone to a whole day after he'd return home.
Sorun supposed that he should have known at one point Virgil would go and do something like this. That his patience would wear thin or he'd just decide enough was enough. He didn't know he'd go and be so aggressive with the matter, though.
"You wanna come with me, don't you, Virgil?" Sorun asked the floating Chao.
"Chao."
That was a yes. "Well, you can't. Go home."
"Chao-chao."
That was a no. And it caused Sorun to groan and rub at the bridge of his nose. "Why do you want to come with me?"
Virgil did three things. First he uncrossed his arms, and then pointed one of his appendages at the sheathed katana Sorun was holding in his left hand. And then he twisted his right arm, just enough that the sunlight gleamed off the black blade jutting out of his arm and curving up past his shoulder.
Sorun understood this immediately, and after glancing down at Yamato looked back up at the Chao. "I know you're all evolved and everything, Virgil, but it's still too dangerous for you to come with me."
"Chao, chao-chao." Virgil gestured towards Sorun, and his frown deepened.
A frown that matched Virgil's grew on Sorun's face. "Yeah, I know it's dangerous for me, too. It's dangerous for everybody. But I'm not putting you in danger just because you want to go."
"Chao?"
He recognized the inflection at the end as Virgil asking a question. "Because everybody else is experienced and used to this kind of thing, and I got powers. And you're just, well..."
"Chao..."
Sorun reared back a bit from how hostile that "chao" sounded. Even Sally seemed a bit off-put by it. And then when Sorun looked towards the Chao's blue eyes, at the way they were narrowed so threateningly towards him, he understood immediately.
He laughed. It was a small, quiet laugh, barely above a chuckle, and it was something that made Sally look at him oddly. But Sorun couldn't help it- he'd laughed because he understood exactly what the hostility radiating off of Virgil meant. Why he was being so aggressive and insistent on going on the mission with Sorun. How could he not, when he'd been feeling the same way himself whenever he looked at Sonic.
"Little guy doesn't like being called weak and wants to be useful. Figures. He's so much like me." It was almost amusing how much he'd imprinted off of Sorun. There had to be something Chaos energy-related about it. That book he read outright said they were natural conductors for the stuff, and there was no way he naturally just became this way. The fact he'd developed into that form alone said enough. "Well, Virgil, I understand where you're coming from. But if something happened to you I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
His mind made up, Sorun acted midway through a laugh. The smile on his face was wiped in the same instance he snapped his arm forwards in an attempt to grab the dark blue Chao floating right in front of him.
Except, he didn't manage to grab him. Virgil had dodged and dipped his entire body downwards, fast enough that Sorun's eyes barely managed to track his body. And the entire time the Chao's indignant eyes were still locked onto Sorun's.
"The hell...?" Eyes narrowing, Sorun slowly exhaled as his Bringer Claws manifested on his back. "You really gotta make it this hard for me?"
A major issue was beginning to present itself. The issue was that with his evolution came the regeneration of Virgil's lost wing and flight. And apparently that meant he was just a bit too agile for Sorun to grab, because, try as he might, he couldn't so much as lay a finger on Virgil. His human arms never came close to brushing against his flying body. The Bringer Claws came closer, but he still wasn't able to grab him. It was enough to make Sorun grin. Even with four arms, he couldn't catch the little guy.
When he felt a weight settle on his head, Sorun all but gave up. He didn't even need to look up to know that Virgil was up there, sitting on his head and more than likely still carrying that indignant frown of his. Sorun didn't doubt that any further efforts on grabbing the little guy were futile. So, with a weary sigh, Sorun shrugged and gave up.
"Alright, fine, you can come. But the instant it gets too dangerous I'm opening a portal and sending you back home. Deal?"
"Chao."
"Sorun!"
Flinching, Sorun glanced to the side at Sally. She didn't look nearly as agreeing as Sorun was. "What do you want me to do, Sally?" he asked her. "He's gonna follow me no matter what, and unless you wanna tell Sonic to stop being a baby and take his gloves off so he can carry him home, he's coming."
She looked a slight bit more convinced, but not completely. "Sorun, I don't-"
"Look, he's my responsibility, alright? Just let me worry about it."
Sally bit at her lower lip in thought. She looked hesitant at the idea, very hesitant, her eyes continually flicking from Sorun's face to the Chao sitting on top of his head. Finally, something akin to an agreeing groan left her, and as one hand rubbed at the space between her eyes the other hand waved Sorun off. "Fine, fine," she said, "he can go. But you're looking after him."
"Naturally." Sorun felt the weight lift off of his head, and then saw Virgil float next to his head from the corner of his eye. The Chao still had his perpetual scowl over his face, but at the same time he looked appeased. At least that's how it looked from the way his eyes were slightly more relaxed-looking. Taking note of the sight, Sorun looked back to Sally. "So we're good to go?" he asked.
Nodding, Sally said, "We should be. All that's left is for us to board and head off."
"Right." Sorun turned right around and began walking to the giant ship in the hangar, Virgil floating right besides him. Sally followed closely from behind. "Well, time to go save a city, I guess."
5 hours, 20 minutes prior
Apparently Sally had been a busy girl in the background.
Shadow had made mention of it, but the princess had been in contact with important people. Getting a connection with the president of Station Square, because that made sense to Sorun's ears, was easy enough as from what Sorun heard the Freedom Fighters had helped out a lot in Station Square in the past, so he and Sally were on good terms, and so, by extension, the Freedom Fighters were on good terms with Station Square. Even if Station Square's integration into technical UF Overlander territory caused communication between them to become a bit more sparse before Eggman's big takeover.
The other contact was only possible because of Rouge and Shadow's connections, which, pragmatically speaking, made sense as Sorun would be very worried if they wouldn't be able to get into contact with their boss. The Commander of G.U.N., Mr. President Man, and Sally had all been colluding this big move for a while now while everybody else had been going around dismantling Eggman's operations. The goal of this big move was simple: liberate Station Square from Eggman's control, and liberate G.U.N. HQ from Eggman's control. Simultaneously.
Something like this was only possible now due to greatly diminished numbers on Eggman's part. They all must have been doing something right, because across the board of the whole world the number of Eggman's robots had been falling at a dramatic rate. Sorun himself hadn't known that all those operations he and the rest of the Freedom Fighters had been doing had had that big of an effect, and even some of the others were a bit surprised at how effective all those sabotage operations of theirs were. But, the results spoke for themselves: Eggman's ground forces were a fraction of what they used to be. Not to say he still didn't have a massive force, it was still practically an army, but with all the heat he'd been getting as a result of all the pushback from them he'd decided to reorganize a bit and shuffled most of his forces back to his own city.
So what did that mean in essence? Basically, it meant that a majority of the Badnik forces were centralized in New Megaopolis. This meant that the place was even worse than a fortress from the sheer concentration of enemies and whatever else was in that city. Virtually impenetrable. An impossible target for them to attack due to the density of Badniks. And because Eggman's city was shored up so well with Badniks, that gave him free reign to use the factories there to manufacture more Badniks. That wasn't even accounting for the fact he still had a whole fleet of warships just sitting around. So that was still a major problem.
On the upside, it also meant that his forces were greatly spread thin pretty much everywhere else in the world. That included the forces that were occupying the territories he conquered, such as Station Square, G.U.N. headquarters, and all the UF territories and Overlander settlements.
With this in mind, the powers to be, meaning Sally, her brother, the president of Station Square, and the G.U.N. Commander, had all decided that the time to act was now before Eggman managed to replenish his ranks with more robots.
It was meant to be a two-pronged attack. Rouge and Shadow, already affiliated with G.U.N., were to go and help with the assault on their HQ in order to wrest it from Eggman's control. They'd already left a while ago, and from what little Sorun heard so far things over there were going well enough. Once they regained control the idea was to launch a campaign to take back all the Overlander territory from Eggman once settlement at a time, city by city, gathering more resources all the while to build their strength back up.
But that was all their problem. The Overlanders'. Station Square got saddled with the Freedom Fighters, half the reason due to geometric positioning. The UF territories were all congregated towards the eastern continent, mostly around where the European nations used to be. Station Square was in the west, down in what used to be South America near where Brazil had once been. It was easier for them to fly down and deal with it than G.U.N. to divide its resources and fly across the ocean just to help liberate them when they had all those occupied UF cities to free. The other half was because Station Square was already allies with the Kingdom of Acorn, and, with Station Square being allied with the Overlander territories, by extension, it helped the kingdom's relations with the Overlanders in the long run.
Complicated politics Sorun cared none for aside, it still made enough sense why they had to be the ones to go and liberate Station Square. And seeing as how it was going to be such a big operation, it was all hands on deck save for Team Dark, who were busy dealing with the situation at G.U.N. Sorun didn't mind it all that much. He figured it might be nice, seeing humans again after months of life among Mobians. Even if they weren't Earthlings like him.
"Alright, we're coming up on Station Square now." That was Rotor's voice, who sat at the helm of the FF special. Sally was standing right besides him, leaning forwards with one hand on his seat for support as she looked out the viewing window of the ship. Sorun was standing just behind them, making an interested hum every now and then as he examined the thin, black shirt slipped over his torso.
"It's been a while since I've worn anything with sleeves. Feels weird." It really was a refreshing look for him, especially as the hoodie had grown old on him. Brushing his hand over a sleeve and making a satisfied sound, Sorun stepped forwards right next to Sally so he could go and see just what they were dealing with.
From what he'd been told, Station Square was supposed to be a city inside of a mountain. Well, he saw the mountain- or what was left of it, anyways. Now it was less a mountain and more a giant crater, at the center of which was a city. And what a city it was- even from all the way here in the sky he could make out a huge, sprawling, metropolis the likes of which dragged some sense of nostalgia out from somewhere deep in Sorun. It definitely looked like a city built by humans.
"I thought Station Square was inside a mountain?" Sorun questioned as he turned his head to Sally.
She nodded. "It was." She glanced to the side at Sorun. "I told you the mountain was lost a while back, remember?" When the human teen just blankly stared back at her, she extrapolated with, "It's a long story."
"... Okay then." He exhaled deeply out of his nose and decided to just take that in stride. "So you want me to just drop right in the middle of the place?"
"We need to establish a safe landing zone so we can unload all the supplies we brought in from Knothole," she explained to him. "There's a rather large clearing near the edge of the city. The plan is for the resisting forces here to meet up with us, and we'll go from there."
"And those would be...?"
"The police and small military force that operated here before Eggman's takeover," she answered. "They were greatly diminished from the occupation, but over time they've been working up towards something in preparation for this. All we have to do-"
"Yeah-yeah-yeah, I'll leave the details to you." Sorun waved a hand over in Sally's direction, who rolled her eyes at the human. A sudden shudder beneath his feet signaled the ship stopping midair, prompting Sorun to look over at Rotor. "This the spot?" he asked.
"Yup," Rotor confirmed with a nod. "You, um... you sure you're able to make it down there alright?"
"Between the wings, teleportation, and portals?" He missed the exasperated gasp that came from the walrus as Sorun grabbed his new coat off a nearby chair. "I dunno, Rotor. I'll make something up on the way down." He opened the door leading out of the cockpit, called back "I'll call you when it's clear", and then closed the door behind him.
Walking through the length of the ship had been a short trip. Walking through the cargo hold had been a more interesting sight. The liberation of the city was also part of a relief effort, so Knothole had spared some essential supplies for the city. Basic things: food, water, medicine, miscellaneous clothing items. No weapons, though, considering Badniks were bulletproof and humans like Sorun didn't have the physical capability to defeat Badniks in any sort of close-combat. He had to wonder just what exactly the human resistance down below were planning.
Sitting around were all the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix. They'd given him encouraging nods as he passed, which Sorun returned in kind as he made his way to the back door. He winced slightly as he heard the door begin to open, wind rushing in and blowing past his face.
"Yo, Sorun!" The pale human turned around at his voice being called out. He saw Sonic zoom right behind him, same carefree grin over his face as always. "You headin' down?"
Sorun didn't have it in him to form a witty remark. "Yeah," he answered. "Just gonna go clear the landing zone real quick. Hey, you seen Vir- oh, hey." Another blue thing, significantly smaller in size, floated into his view. The Chao gave Sorun a quick nod, the teen blinking back in response and refocusing on Sonic. "Anyway, yeah, I'm goin'. Shouldn't take me more than five or so minutes."
"Sounds good. Seeya soon. Nice new threads, by the way." Sonic clicked his tongue and pointed at Sorun, and then turned around to walk back to the others. He'd passed Virgil along the way, the Chao giving him a single, scornful look that caused Sonic to flinch away from him. Sorun chuckled at the sight, but the amusement was soon wiped off his face when he turned back to the open hangar door.
"Chao?" Virgil floated right next to Sorun, and he, too, was staring at the opened hangar door. Sorun couldn't help but note the apprehension he saw in the Chao's eyes, which caused him to scoff and gesture to the open air in front of them.
"What are you complaining about? You have wings," Sorun pointed out, looking towards the Chao's two split wings. "Don't tell me you're afraid of heights."
"Chao-chao." Virgil vehemently shook his head as a negative response. It didn't remove the apprehension from his face. "C-chao."
Sorun sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Look, you're the one that wanted to come with me on this. Guess what, jumping from really high places is part of the job. For some weird reason."
"Chao-chao. Chao."
"Okay, look, Virgil, I get it. It's a new experience for you, and heights are scary. I totally understand." As Virgil continued staring towards the open doorway, Sorun's hand began to subtly creep up behind his floating form. "But listen, sometimes the mother bird needs to push her baby bird out of the nest. What I'm about to do isn't too dissimilar to that. In fact it's pretty much a one-to-one recreation." When his hand got close enough he managed to wrap his fingers around the previously distracted and now surprised Chao. "Don't worry, you get used to it!" Sorun finished as he began running to the open exit.
"Chao!" Virgil's protest had fall on deaf ears, as Sorun had already jumped out.
The familiar feeling of wind rushing against his body was the very first thing Sorun took note of as his body began falling towards the very far away but quickly approaching ground. The second thing was the struggling Chao in his grasp, which Sorun perceived as Virgil struggling against him.
Sorun reacted by throwing him.
"Little bird needs to learn!" Sorun yelled out as he reared his arm back, and then pushing it forwards to throw the Chao. Virgil's distressed chaoing were soon drowned out from both the wind and distance as he sailed away to parts unknown. Sorun sighed in relief, and then allowed himself to relax as he continued to fall. Then he started to panic a few seconds later when he realized he didn't have his coat draped over his shoulder.
"What the- where did- oh!" As he spun around in the air, he finally found sight of his coat. It was just behind him, falling at a slower rate due to its lighter mass and quickly growing further and further away from Sorun the closer he got to the ground. Sorun was quick in manifesting a Bringer Claw to reach up and grab the coat, and then had it reel it back all the way to him were he proceeded to grab it with his normal hands.
Putting on a coat while falling at terminal velocity towards the ground was evidently a difficult task. The cloth would keep whipping into his face and the sleeves and coattail would continually blow past him. There'd even been a couple of times where he had lost his grip on the coat and had to re-grab it. After a bit more effort, he finally managed to push both of his arms fully through the coat's sleeves.
And just in time, too, because Sorun could see ground fast approaching. In a large patch of green with a few trees and sidewalks scattered around. A park, of some sort. A park infested with a few Egg Pawns. And a gold one.
Mere meters before Sorun hit the ground, he Tricked and disappeared. The next instant found the blade of a katana bursting through the front of the golden Egg Pawn spotted earlier, only for the blade to then slice through the entire upper half of its body. Sorun then nonchalantly walked past the robot's corpse, not even paying attention to all of the other normal Egg Pawns that had set their sights on him. He instead reached his open hand up, where a small blue and black creature landed standing in his palm.
"See, told you it wasn't so bad," Sorun said, lowering his arm so that he was eye-level with Virgil. "I mean, come on, you can fly. Heights shouldn't mean anything to you."
"Chao..." Virgil turned his head away from Sorun so that he didn't have to look him in the eye. Snorting in amusement, Sorun looked forwards towards all the robots that began to surround them, lances in hand. Rolling his eyes, Sorun clicked his tongue twice to gain the Chao's attention, who then turned around on Sorun's hand to look at the robots.
"Well, Virg, you wanted to see what it's all about. Here it is." Sorun brought the hand the Chao was standing on closer to him, and then fully thrust it out towards the nearest robot. "Time to go to work!"
He hadn't been expecting much when he'd decided to bring his pet Chao to the field with him. He'd done it mainly so he'd stop complaining to Sorun, and Sorun had figured that once he fought a single robot and realized he was outmatched, Sorun would just take a second to open a portal back home, shove Virgil through, and carry on with the rest of the mission. A little reality check that would finally get the Chao off his back.
Under no circumstances did he expect to see Virgil fly directly towards one of the Egg Paws while pointing his bladed arms out to the side, and then start spinning around like a demented little spinning top. Sorun expected even less for Virgil to cut right through the Badnik's head.
"... Whoa." Sorun found himself blinking in surprise. The robot fell forwards at the loss of its head, with Virgil floating still in the air right behind it. The remaining Egg Pawns were looking back and forth between Sorun and the Chao, acting like they were confused on which one they should be targeting. Virgil hadn't even given them the time to deliberate on that, as he immediately got to work flying to the other robots and spinning through them. Sorun watched the sight for a bit, and then got bored enough to look down at his sleeves.
"Man, this coat is really comfy. You outdid yourself with this one, Honey." He flicked his eyes back up to Virgil, who'd already dispatched half of the Badniks surrounding them, and let out a quiet scoff. "Why wasn't I taking him out on missions sooner? Goddamn. He's like a little monster that can fit in my pocket. A... pocket monster of sorts." He blinked. "Oh, that's where that comes from..."
He hadn't even finished thinking his own thoughts before the last Badnik had fallen. Virgil floated victoriously among the mechanical bodies, staring towards Sorun with half-lidded, bored eyes and a lazy frown. Sorun gave him an approving scoff.
"Alright, fine. You proved me wrong. Nice job." He gave the Chao a thumbs-up, which caused just the barest of satisfied smiles to form on Virgil's mouth. Sorun couldn't help but roll his eyes as he rolled up the sleeve on his left arm to reveal the small watch-like device strapped to his wrist. He clicked his tongue as his right hand began to fiddle with the small dials on the device's face. "Man, this thing itches like crazy... Hey, you comin' in?" Sorun asked into the device as he took a glance around at the empty clearing. "Yeah, we should be all good..."
4 hours prior
There was something wrong with the humans that resided in Station Square.
Not something wrong in the sense that they were sick, or that there was something off with them mentally speaking. Sorun saw a few. Didn't talk to them personally, but hung around as they talked with Sally and the rest of the Freedom Fighters so they could organize things. They'd asked about him, though. Why a human was working with the Freedom Fighters, and where that human got powers from. Sorun had made a request to the others not to divulge these things, as he didn't really want the attention. He was too focused on these humans.
He thought he'd feel something when he first saw them. That he'd feel some insane rush of nostalgia, or that he'd just feel... something. Some relief, something to tell him that even though they weren't technically his kind, they were still humans and he was somewhat among his people here. That he'd feel a sense of being at home.
But there was something wrong with their faces.
Sorun couldn't place it. He just couldn't place it. Their proportions were right. Heights were... average for human heights. Which meant they were all taller than him. Which also caused some snickering from the Freedom Fighters behind his back that he pretended not to notice but in actuality really did notice and was sent fuming from it. Skin tones varied from light tones to tan tones to dark tones. Hairs wildly varied but were mainly just browns, blacks, and blondes, a few reds here and there. Eyes were also the normal range of colors. All that was good. They were human. They acted and sounded like humans.
But their faces were... off. Off in a way Sorun couldn't very well describe. It was like some proportions of their features, their jaws and cheekbones and noses, were either wildly pronounced or the exact opposite randomly on everyone. Not to a grotesque degree, but it wasn't normal, either. Hell, it was only to a point on some people that it was barely noticeable. But Sorun noticed it.
Currently he was sitting on a box inside of a building. A police station that was fortified into a kind of miniature command center for the human resistance here. He looked to his right at a window, where he could barely make out his own reflection in the glass. His face was normal. Pale, thin, symmetrical. Angular features. Eyes that were- Christ, were they always that sunken in?
"Fuck, that can't be healthy..."
Aside from the eyes, his face was normal. Good-looking if he said so himself. But then he'd look away at one of the humans sitting nearby, and Sorun would find himself almost recoiling when he saw their face. Not because they were hideous, they weren't, but because there was just something inherently different with their faces that didn't give Sorun the impression they were human despite the fact that they were human.
And that was the crux of the issue. He didn't feel a goddamn thing standing around them. They felt as much as total strangers as Mobians did. They were humans, but not his humans. Not Earthlings.
A heavy sigh left him as he looked down at the katana resting in his lap. He idly began playing with the dark blue ribbon tied around the scabbard as he thought back to recent events.
The humans here had given the Freedom Fighters an overwhelmingly positive warm welcome. Sorun had just thought it was because they were here to help free the place, but he'd been corrected and informed that Mobians were well accepted here. They'd been lead to this police station after supplies from the ship had been unloaded, and Sally had been in talks with some of the higher ups in charge here while everybody else waited around for orders. She'd come back, and after that the time to get to work to freeing the city had started. And during that time Sorun had gotten his answer as to what kind of resistance the humans here had been putting up to Eggman's Badniks.
Short answer: they couldn't do shit.
Long answer: the humans of Station Square weren't exactly equipped to handle a situation like this. Most of it stemmed from the fact that Station Square was an isolated, self-sustaining community that until relatively recently had been completely secluded from the rest of world. By all appearances before Eggman rolled in the city had been a pretty great place to live in, too, so it wasn't overly militant by any stretch of the word. So the police force was just that: a police force that at best just had sidearms using standard ballistic ammunition to arm their officers. And since they were so self-contained, their military force was less a military force and more an advanced SWAT group with higher-grade equipment and that numbered about the same as the police force.
So what did that give the humans of Station Square in terms of weapons to fight the Badniks? Not much. Sidearms and small-arms conventional rifles that did about zilch in terms of damage to even the weakest of Badniks. A few explosive weapons to be sparingly used. Some vehicles like armored APCs that were used more to move civilians around than anything else. That was about it.
Essentially the Freedom Fighters were the only chance these people had.
Fucking great.
Now, did that mean that liberating this city from the Badnik occupation would mean copious amounts of fighting on the Freedom Fighters' part? To go feet-first into the battlefield, fighting hordes of robots to retake the city one piece at a time? To put their lives on the line in such a dangerous task that it would require utmost focus and utilization of all their skills on their part?
Well, yes, but Sorun didn't get to partake in any of that. And that was part of what was vexing him so much at the moment.
See, what the humans here lacked in strength, they made up for in other ways. Specifically speaking, since they'd been under the robot occupation for so long, they knew a thing or two. They may have been trash fighters, but they were more than capable scouts. Enemy encampments, oil and power supply depots to fuel the robots forces, weapon caches, and pretty much every single location of interest that needed to be taken out in order to gain back control of the city was all neatly marked down on a map, right down to the exact coordinate. The problem wasn't locating them. The problem was getting there and effectively dismantling those locations while under heat from the numerous robot forces scattered about.
Fortunately the Yamato and its ability to create portals circumvented all of that.
The stupidly simple formula was thus: open a portal to an important location. Have a group of Freedom Fighters or Sonic or Knuckles and his team go through and clean house, all made easier from a sudden and unexpected appearance. Send a second group to another location to divide the Badnik forces. Have their own attacking forces come back to base after successfully dismantling their target and rotate them out for other teams of Freedom Fighters, and then have the returning group rest by delivering the supplies they'd brought to civilian camps located throughout the city in safe locations. Which, again, were made trivial due to Sorun and his portals. Rinse and repeat until they were done.
It was a plan thought up by Sally, who'd been the one to designate the teams and decide the rotation and locations they'd attack, as well as the one allocating all the supplies to the civilians at the advisement of the humans working with them. Had this plan been effective thus far?
Well, seeing as they'd already taken more than a quarter of the city back with zero casualties Sorun would say so.
That was the bright side to all of this. The liberation of Station Square was going swimmingly well. So well, in fact, that for a people that had been oppressed by a mad tyrant for months, spirits were pretty high. And above all it looked like they were all going to win this and go home safe and sound. The downside was that Sorun was relegated to portal duty and he was bored to tears.
Sighing, he slid himself off of the crate he'd been sitting on and, seeing nothing better to do, went and approached a pair of humans donned in police uniforms he'd seen talking down the way. Two average-looking men, one of them bald. Nothing special about them at all except for the fact they were people. Humans. And Sorun should have felt something when he saw them.
But when he approached them and they both looked down at him, he felt nothing. Nothing but irritation at their height and how he had to look up at him. He'd almost forgotten this feeling, what with living with animal people his height for so long.
"Er, hey... guys," Sorun awkwardly greeted the two officers. "How's the, uh, how's it- how's it going?"
They both blinked down at him, almost liked they were confused why a short teenager like him was standing in the middle of a police station converted into a command center in the middle of a battle. But then he saw their eyes drift towards the katana he was holding in his left hand, and a light of recognition flashed in their eyes.
"Oh, hey! You're the guy that came in with the Mobians everybody's been talking about!" one of the officers, the bald one, exclaimed.
"Yeah, that's... that's me," Sorun said with a nod. "You holding up okay?"
The second officer was the one to respond. "Yeah, we're doing good. Your, uh... people have really been helping out. That and the freaky, er, portal stuff you can do. No offense."
"Slightly taken." The two officers stiffened up at that. "You guys need anything?"
They relaxed a bit. "No, we're good," the first officer said, "but thanks anyways. If you don't mind us asking, though, why... why's someone so young like you running around with them?"
More irritation spiked in Sorun that he suppressed. "... I'm about as old as the rest of the Freedom Fighters." He was older than some, even. Tails was only eleven. And Amy... well, with how she'd artificially aged her body, he wasn't so sure how to classify her age.
"Fair point." The two officers flicked their eyes at each other, and then back to Sorun. "Don't, um, is your parents okay with you doing this?"
Sorun decided he didn't like talking with these two. "Listen, I got things to go do. But feel free to call for me if some robots come and attack the place again. Wouldn't want the station to wind up like a scene right out of 'Terminator'."
"Out of what?"
When he saw the confused looks in both of the officers' eyes, it caused a sense of frustration and sadness to build up in Sorun. He said nothing in response, instead waving the two off as he walked away.
Walking through the halls and rooms of the precinct hadn't been all that illuminating. Mostly he just saw other humans around, talking about current events or planning and preparing for an excursion out into the field or some such thing. He did note that he caught the eyes of a few, and he had to wonder if this height thing of his really was working against him. Did they think he was younger than he actually was? Was that it? He supposed he couldn't be all that surprised that they thought this, he had similar problems back on Earth often, but he still couldn't help but feel more than a bit insulted over it. He never had this problem in Knothole.
It was this in conjunction to the fact that there was just inherently something wrong with the way humans here looked that made Sorun not want to talk to any of them. So he distanced himself with them and tried to keep to himself as he made his way to the vehicle depot, which was where the Freedom Fighters had been holding up for the time being while not somewhere out there and where Sorun was sending them off in portals. He just wanted to go there and stay there until it was time to leave.
Of course he had to run into Sally as he crossed a corner on his way there.
"Oh! Sorry, I was- oh, Sorun!" Sally's demeanor relaxed at the sight of him, and she immediately went to straightening her vest out. "I've been looking for you."
"Ah, lemme guess." With a blank look Sorun held Yamato up and shook it. "More portals?"
"More portals," she confirmed with a nod. "Come on, we'll go to the depot."
Wordlessly, Sorun began following Sally as she lead him to the back of the station, where the vehicle depot was. Along the way Sorun continued to cast glances at any humans they passed, and, when they'd passed the section of the police station where the jail cells were present, he had to do a double take. The jail cells had been converted to makeshift shelters for any civilians they managed to hide away here, and among the human civilians he saw there, Sorun noticed that there were a few Mobians, too. Not any Freedom Fighters he knew, but normal, civilian-looking Mobians. Some dogs, cats, a bird he was pretty sure he saw.
Curious.
"Why are there Mobians here?" Sorun asked Sally as they continued walking side-by-side. "Thought this was a city of humans."
Sally took a look over to where Sorun was looking. "Station Square is a lot more accommodating to Mobians as opposed to any of the Overlander cities over in their territory. In fact Overlanders... actually don't accept Mobians living with them at all," she said, voice slightly quiet. "But Station Square does," she continued in her normal voice, turning to Sorun. "A lot of Mobians looking to make a life outside of Knothole or a village somewhere came here for work, and due to our past presence, the city generally welcomes them with open arms. But that was before the occupation."
"Right." Well, that was nice of them. The humans. He frowned at the thought. "Do I look different than them to you?" he asked her.
She looked confused at the question. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I... I don't know, I thought I'd probably feel at home when I got here, that it'd be like living back home, but I keep looking around at all these people and they're not..." He hesitated when he struggled to find the right words. "They just don't feel like how people back on Earth feel like," he decided. "I don't know. I think it's how they look."
"How they look?" Sally repeated.
"Yeah, they're... I, I don't know. There's just something different with their faces, I guess. I mean they're humans from a whole alternate dimension, so... so I guess it would make sense they wouldn't look exactly like Earthlings. Maybe it's the weird colors here. Or the lighting." He gave a half shrug. "What do you think? Do I look any different from them to you?"
She hummed, her blue eyes looking Sorun's form up and down, and then ending on his face. She stared for a bit, and then a small smirk crossed her features. "Well, you do seem awfully short compared-"
"Knock it off with the short thing, I'm serious," Sorun bit out. "I swear, I get cursed with short genes and you people never let me hear the end of it. It wasn't a problem until we came here since I'm as tall as you all are!"
"I'm joking, Sorun, calm down." Sally waved him down with that same mirthful grin still on her face, though there was still a contemplative look in her eyes. "Well, Sorun, you... well, you've always seemed a bit different than any of the humans I've ever met here."
That hadn't been the answer he'd been expecting. He didn't know how he was supposed to perceive that. "Different... how?" he asked her.
Sally shrugged. "Just something about you."
Well, that told him absolutely nothing. "Could you be more specific, please?"
He stopped walking when Sally stopped walking. She leaned a bit closer to him, eyes narrowed as she scrutinized his features closely. Finally she backed off and turned back around. "I can't really say for certain. You're... just you."
"I'm... me?" he repeated, voice unsure. "Of course I'm me, Sally, but what does- what does that even mean?"
"I don't know, Sorun. You asked and that was the best I had." She continued walking, with Sorun staring at her back for a bit before sighing and following closely behind her. "You're just a bit different. That's all. Everybody is, and the things that make them so different from everybody is what makes them unique. That's the beautiful thing about life."
Sorun found himself blowing a lock of hair out from his face, an unsatisfied feeling settling within him. That was the Mobian outlook on the matter. The completely unbiased and open-minded mentality they all possessed that made them look past the surface of those around them. A mentality born from living among so many different species of Mobian. Appearances just didn't matter that much to them. It was a factor, but to them, not a very important one. Something he was honestly a bit thankful for, as it made living among them that much easier, but in this instance he wasn't finding himself being too appreciative of the mindset and the vague answers it was making Sally say.
"I am from a whole different universe," Sorun eventually reasoned. "I imagine that probably contributes something."
"Maybe," Sally agreed, stopping when they came to a door. "Here we are."
The door was swiftly opened, the two walking right through into the large room on the other side. There wasn't much to say about the vehicle depot; it was little more than a giant garage that was currently stacked with boxes of various supplies. Off in the distance, towards the middle of the garage, Sorun could see a Mobian with a red shell carrying a large wooden crate twice as tall as he was with a single hand. Sally had whistled to gain his attention, causing Mighty to turn towards them and wave with his free hand.
"Hey guys!" Mighty greeted, still hefting the giant crate over his head even as the other two stopped in front of him. "Everything going well?"
"It's going great, Mighty," Sally said. "Are those the supplies for the camp set up in the school they were asking for?"
"Yep." Mighty turned his head to Sorun. "Uh, hey, you mind-?"
"School again, got it." Two slices later and a portal was made hovering in the air between them. Mighty nodded his thanks to Sorun, and then quickly made his way through the portal with his crate still in hand.
Sorun watched the armadillo disappear through the portal with a sigh, and as he closed it with Yamato he turned towards Sally. "You know, I can do more than just open portals," he said.
"Yes, I'm aware, but it's because you're opening these portals for us that the attack is going about as well as it possibly could." She turned towards Sorun, single hip on hand with a small smile on her face as she looked at him. "You're doing a very important job nobody else can do."
"Yeah, I get that, but I could be-"
"Everybody else is handling it, Sorun." When she saw that he didn't look too satisfied, her smile softened a bit and she stepped closer to him. "If, and only if, something comes up, though, I'll turn to you, alright?" she amended, going as far as to place a hand on his shoulder. "Until then it would really help out if you could keep teleporting everybody everywhere so we could finish this as soon as possible."
Sorun made a low sigh. It was hard to argue with her point. His powers were essentially a linchpin in what was shaping to be a winning strategy, and if he was in her shoes he didn't know if he'd want to go and jeopardize that. It didn't change that he still wanted to go and do something besides open portals all day. Not when everybody else was out there fighting.
But, he trusted her judgement more than his own. And she just had to go and hook him with that promise that maybe she'd let him go do something out there. A promise that entailed an opportunity he doubted would present itself, but it was more than nothing. And he really didn't think she'd settle for much more than that.
"Alright, fine," he relented, brushing her hand off of his shoulder. "Was there something else that needed transporting while we're here?"
Sally put on a thinking face for a few seconds, after which her ears straightened up. "Oh, yeah. Knuckles called back a bit ago and said he was done with attacking..."
3 hours prior
As it turned out an opportunity did arise, so Sorun supposed some miracles did exist.
It wasn't really something that overly dire. One of the teams being sent out was Bunnie and Antoine, as they were working as a pair. And when they'd called in and said they were having a little bit of trouble taking out a large group of Badniks they'd been sent to take out, they'd, of course, radioed in for assistance. And Sorun, being the only one available at the time, volunteered to go.
Sally had been hesitant, of course. Very hesitant. It'd taken some convincing on Sorun's part and using the logic of it wasn't that dangerous a task for him, but she'd caved eventually and let him go. So Sorun, elated that he finally got to go out there and do something, had practically jumped through the portal to the couple's location once it had been given to him.
Except when he'd arrived it hadn't exactly been the intense battle he'd been expecting. In fact when he'd arrived to a small street corner, all around him were the destroyed remains of Badniks. Antoine was off to one end stabbing an Egg Pawn to death with his saber. And at the other end Bunnie was standing there, enveloped in a translucent, pink shield emanating from her artificial arm as she was weathering fire from... something. And when Sorun turned to look at that something he couldn't help but groan in irritation.
A new Egg Pawn. A blue one, in fact, with the same blue eyes and wide smile reminiscent of Eggman. In fact the only difference this one seemed to have over all the other Egg Pawns he'd seen was that this one was blue. And that instead of a lance in its right hand there was was looked like a gun firing yellow lasers at a shielded Bunnie.
"Jesus, they have guns now?" Sorun thought to himself as he grasped Yamato. "Well, whatever. Judgement Cut."
The robot that was assaulting Bunnie with laser fire was soon engulfed in a bubble of warped space. Uncountable blue, ethereal slashes rent it to bits, after which the bubble disappeared and the remains of the Badnik scattered across the ground. Bunnie had lowered the energy shield to look at the pile of destroyed robot in front of her with astonished eyes, while Antoine had pulled his sword out of the dead robot underneath him to do the same.
"You know... when you guys called for help, I figured there'd actually be something for me to do." They both turned behind them to spy Sorun, who was holding the sheathed Yamato over his shoulders with both hands grasping it. "Then I come here and there's just, like, a single dude. What's up with that?"
"Oh! Bonjour, Sorun!" After sheathing his own sword and letting it hang off his side, Antoine began to approach Sorun while waving towards him. Bunnie was not far behind. "Er, oui, pardon moi but ze Badneeks were beginning to become a handfilled, so I-"
"Antoine, Sugah, didja seriously call fer backup jus' 'cause ya panicked seein' me pinned down?" Bunnie had outstretched her real arm and grasped Antoine's shoulder to stop him, and then spun him around so they were looking at each other eye-to-eye.
Antoine gave her a sheepish grin. "Bunnie, ma cherie, I did not paneek. We 'ave been fighting here for so long zat I begin to grow weary, zo when I saw you fighting all on your own I... may 'ave called for assistance, oui."
"It was one robot. Ah could've-"
"Alright alright alright, settle it somewhere else you two." A portal had already been opened behind Sorun, who was gesturing towards it with his sword.
They looked ready to keep arguing between themselves, stopped when Sorun cleared his throat and pointed to the portal again. They fortunately quieted down, and then walked through the portal alongside Sorun.
"Okay, so it's a good thing you guys are here now. 'Cause I need a small favor," Sorun said upon the three of them exiting the portal into the police station. The teen quickly cut the portal behind him, and then turned to the two Mobians giving him their attention. "I lost track of Virgil a little bit ago. He got bored and wandered off somewhere, I dunno. Could one of you go and look for him, 'cause I got more portals to make."
It wasn't the biggest issue, and if it were any other time he would have used looking around for the Chao as an excuse to not get bored. But Sally was having him pull overtime with these portals, and he only had a few minutes left before he was scheduled to go and make some more. And while he wasn't exactly explicitly worried about Virgil wandering around on his own, well, it still made him a bit antsy not knowing where he was. In unknown territory. Which was ironic given this was a police station full of friendly officers now that he really thought about it.
"Your, er... Chao, was eet?" Antoine asked, looking the slightest bit nervous. "Are you being sure eet iz safe for moi?"
"... Yeah?" Sorun rose an eyebrow at the coyote. "Why wouldn't it be safe?"
"I see ze way your Chao acts around Sonic," Antoine answered. "He iz not ze most friendliest of Chao."
"No, that's just Sonic, he doesn't like him. He's not gonna attack you, Antoine. Promise." He turned the Mobian around by his shoulders and began to push at his back despite the slight protesting movements he made. "Just don't, you know, grab at him. He only lets me and Nicole do that. Just lead him back to me."
"And if he does not follow moi?"
"Entice him with some nuts or something, I dunno. We're in a police station. There's gotta be a... nut-laced donut or something lying around." He lightly pushed Antoine away and began waving him off. "Thanks man I owe you seriously don't grab him!"
He waved the coyote off as he began walking down the rows of police desks they'd teleported near. Antoine turned back towards Sorun, slightly hesitant look on his face, though he still waved back at Sorun after the Earthling gave him an encouraging nod.
"Are ya 'sho yer little critter ain't gonna hurt Antoine?" Bunnie, who still stood besides Sorun, asked. When he turned to look at her he saw that the rabbit looked slightly concerned. "Ah've seen 'im around, and li'l Virgil can be a might bit... vicious, Sorun."
Sorun shook his head. "Nah, Antoine's actually one of the people Virgil likes. He won't bite."
That made her relax a bit, though she didn't look completely convinced. "An'... what about the way he acts 'round Sonic?"
"Oh, yeah, he tries to cut him all the time. It's really funny." He let out a single chuckle, though it was cut off halfway when he saw the disturbed look Bunnie was giving him. "What? It's not like he could actually hurt him. He's got that weird billion ring durability thing on him. Virgil can't even scratch him."
"And if he didn't have that?"
"Considering I saw Virgil cut through solid titanium earlier? Eh, probably best not to think about it." Sorun placed his free hand inside of his pocket, left still gripping his sword. "But yeah, nah, Antoine'll be fine. Don't worry about him."
It was a bit strange, but Virgil had an internal list of people he preferred. At the top, of course, was Sorun himself and, oddly, Nicole. Sorun was the only person the Chao let pick up and handle, and usually tried to stay near him and would be relaxed around. For some reason he gave Nicole the exact same privileges as he gave Sorun, which was doubly odd as he didn't do that with anybody else, and even odder he sometimes saw the Chao actually smile near Nicole whenever he let them close to one another. He didn't even do that with Sorun.
Below them were Sonic's parents, Antoine, Bunnie, Amy, and Sally. Sonic's parents, Sorun imagined, because they cared for the Chao whenever Sorun was out on a mission and couldn't do it himself. The other four, he wasn't too sure of. All he knew was that Virgil tolerated them enough that he'd freely hang around them when possible and would let them have very liberal amounts of physical contact with him, usually in the form of rubbing and petting. The Chao silently fumed every time though, something he rarely did with Sorun and never did with Nicole.
Shadow was unique in that Virgil seemed to act respectful towards him. It was in the way he would go a bit straighter and keep a wary eye on the dark hedgehog whenever they were near. Sorun wasn't really sure what the Chao saw in him. Shadow had added his two cents in as "the Chao knowing the pecking order of things and showing respect to those due respect". Maybe he was right. It could have also been the fact that Sorun caught Shadow sneaking the Chao an apple once when he thought no one was looking, which were Virgil's favorite food.
With the exception of Sonic, everybody else Virgil just generally ignored. He'd cast them dismissive looks here and there, sometimes let out breathy scoffs, but otherwise he was well-behaved. Cold, but behaved. He'd sometimes glare at Tails, though, when the fox wasn't looking.
Sonic he outright attacked at every available opportunity, which Sorun found hilarious.
Why the Chao acted this way? Sorun didn't have a clue. Maybe a lot more of himself had imprinted onto the Chao than he first realized, which, if that was the case, did go to explain a bit. Though, truly, Sorun didn't know for certain. And really he didn't care all that much to look too deep into it.
Turning his focus away from the Chao, Sorun turned his eyes back to Bunnie. "So what was up with you two back there, anyways?" he asked her.
"Oh, don't you worry none about it, Sorun," Bunnie said to him as she brushed her hand through her hair and readjusted her hat. "Sugah-Twan means well. A bit too well. He gets worried about me all the time, frettin' ovah every li'l thing. Ah love him tah death, but ah swear he can be downright suffocatin'."
"Ahhh, it's one of those things. Well in that case I got nothing for you."
The rabbit sent him a flat look. "Gee. Thanks."
"What do you want me to say? If you can't tell him that his fiancé is a cyborg capable of defending herself, probably more than he could, then I'm not gonna be able to do anything."
She exhaled and rolled her eyes in response to Sorun. After a moment, though, a thoughtful look came to her, but then she shook her head and gave Sorun a skeptical look. "Ya think ah should go an' tell him ah'm more capable of lookin' after me than he is?"
"... No, don't say that. He wouldn't like that," Sorun denied with a shake of his own head. "Bunnie, guys don't like it when you say someone is stronger than them. They especially don't like it when you say someone's better at protecting something they love because that someone is stronger than them, and for you, that'd be a double whammy. Really hurts the ol' pride center."
Bunnie snorted at that and crossed her arms. "Ah already figured me sayin' that to mah Antoine wouldn't do no good. Plus seein' him flounder all ovah me has its cute moments," she said, making Sorun tiredly breath out. "I didn't take ya fer the prideful type, though," she added.
"Mm, I try not to be. Some people just bring the worst of me out, though." Sorun turned from the cyborg and began walking away. "Alright, I gotta go make more portals. Good luck with literally everything going on around us."
"Alright, then. Stay safe," Bunnie called behind him. Sorun lifted up a hand and gave her a two-fingered salute from behind his back, and then kept moving forwards.
"'Prideful type'. Pfft. Everybody is at some level. Some people just let it go easier than others," Sorun thought to himself as he crossed an open doorway. "I usually like to think I'm in the audience of people that don't really care about stuff like that. But I guess I'd be wrong there, Bunnie. Because some people just go and make that really, really hard for me..."
2 hours prior
Silently, Sorun willed his Bringer Claws to set down the giant crate of supplies he'd been carrying. A crate that was so big that he was confident he wasn't strong enough to lift it on his own, but that's what he had the Bringer Claws for. And why whenever he had to lift something that looked even remotely heavy, he deferred to them.
Right now things were going a bit slow and they'd needed an extra pair of hands to get things moved around, so Sorun, with little else to do, had volunteered. He wasn't so sure he would have done such a thing if he knew beforehand how mind-numbing the task of moving boxes around was, but he was already in it, so there wasn't much to do there. That lead him to here: moving boxes out of a portal to the basement of one of the buildings the human resistance were using to house civilians amidst all the fighting.
And that would have been the end of it, too, if Sorun hadn't heard a pair of voices begin to be heard coming down the stairs that lead into the room he was in right now. Worse still, Sorun recognized those voices. And so, while silently cursing to himself, Sorun did the most reasonable thing he could think of in order to avoid contact with the owners of the two voices he was hearing right now: he hid behind the crate he'd just set down. And just in time, too, as he heard the voices and their owners make it to the bottom of the stairs and into the basement just as he hid.
"- I'm tellin' ya, Tails, it's going smoothly. I wouldn't be surprised if we made it back home in time for dinner." That was Sonic's voice, who sounded like he was walking besides Tails as they both entered the room. "We're takin' back whole pieces of the city by the minute, and with how few of Egghead's bots are runnin' around, it's practically a cinch. You don't have anything to worry about."
"Yeah. I guess," came the voice of the young fox. "I'm just worried it's one of those things where it's too good to be true, you know?"
"Trust me bud, I feel ya, but I really think we just caught a break this time." There was a small creaking sound as Sonic sat on something wooden. "Sally's managing us around, and since there's so many of us the bots can't even keep up. I haven't even broken a sweat since we got here it's been so easy."
"I think a lot of it is because of Sorun," Tails said. "You now, with his portals."
"Oh, yeah, for sure. This thing's going a million times faster 'cause of him." There was a pause. "He's real cool."
"Cool? Me?" Sorun felt himself furrowing his brows in confusion. "He still thinks that after all this time? How?"
In a statement that just furthered Sorun's confusion, Tails added, "Yeah, it's really great how much he's been helping out with his portals. I really wish he'd come to me for help when he was trying to figure those out, the concept behind them sounds really interesting."
"If by interesting you mean boring, then yeah, sure. Still can't figure out how he wrapped his head around all that science stuff," he heard Sonic mutter. "But," he continued in a cheery voice, "it's not even just that. It's all the other stuff he does whenever we're fighting robots together, you know? He's got this... style."
"Style?" Tails repeated, in confusion that didn't even come close to matching Sorun's.
"Yeah, style," Sonic confirmed. "He's all quiet and calm and collected, but not in the boring brooding way Shadow does it. His is... it's just cool, you know? The way he's all showy with his sword, and his- oh, oh! And he's got this one really cool move he showed me!" A light laugh left Sonic. "Oh man, Tails, you have to get him to show it to you sometime. It's way past cool. He does this thing were he pulls the sword out and back in really fast, and there's this really weird whooshing sound like hhhmmvvvshzzz and the Badnik he's aiming at just gets sliced to pieces out of nowhere! Even gave it a cool name, too. Calls it Judgement Cut. Ha-hah! It's the best!" A drawn-out, mirth-filled sigh was heard leaving him. "He's just really cool, you know? A lot of what he does reminds me of some kinda comic hero, but he manages to pull it off with that weird style of his.
"But honestly, Tails, I got a ton of respect for the guy. It's all the little things he does, you know? He never talks like he cares all that much, but he acts like he does. It's that and the way he's always improving himself, getting more powers and getting those stronger like with the portals... he's just so cool."
"..." Sorun himself, still eavesdropping on the entire conversation, couldn't even so much as formulate any thoughts on Sonic's words. He was so baffled by how highly the hedgehog was speaking of him, something he never anticipated, that he didn't even know what he was supposed to take away from it. He couldn't even begin to describe the pleasant sensation he was feeling in himself.
"Wow, Sonic." That was Tails' voice, which sounded a bit quieter than usual. "I didn't know you thought so much of him."
"Well, yeah. Of course I do." There was a small sigh from Sonic. "The guy could stand to be a bit more open with everybody and drop the cool guy act so he doesn't act like a weirdo all the time, but yeah."
There was a disagreeing hum from Tails. "He isn't that bad. He helps me out fixing the plane sometimes when he doesn't have anything else to do."
"... He does?" Sonic asked, sounding genuinely surprised. "With what?"
"Well, those arms of his can reach really far and lift heavy things, so it makes handling the plane's parts really easy."
There was something akin to a confused groan from Sonic. "See, this is what I mean. He never acts the same way he talks. He's always gotta be confusing like that."
A small sound, like something being lifted up, was heard before Tails began speaking again. "Who knows, Sonic? Sorun's always been weird like that. Maybe he does it just to mess with you."
"Hah, yeah, at this point I wouldn't even be surprised." There was a small tap sound as Sonic's feet hit the ground. "Alright," he said, pausing to pick something up from the sound of it, "let's get this stuff upstairs to all those people, alright?"
"Mh-hm!"
Sorun continued to sit motionless against the crate as he listened to the two Mobians depart back up the stairs. He waited until he'd heard their footsteps fade so much that he couldn't hear them anymore, and after that he didn't even bother looking past the crate to ensure that they were gone. He just quickly held his katana up, formed a portal as silently as possible, and tiptoed right through it to the other side, back to the police station. He dismissed the portal in nearly the same breath he'd summoned it in the first place, heaving a deep breath afterwards.
"Honestly... I really don't understand that guy."
1 hour prior
"You swapped out bees for a scorpion? Well, that ain't gonna help you here."
Sorun never imagined that the final charge during the liberation of a whole city wasn't something that happened mere hours after the initial attack. But, that said, the decommissioning of the Badnik presence in Station Square had been going no less than stellar due to Sally's leading, Sorun's portals, and the efforts of everybody else involved. It certainly helped that they had Sonic, Knuckles, and Mighty there, who had all pretty much torn through whatever target they'd been pointed at, as well as everybody else backing them up.
All in all? It'd been a very short, decisive battle so far that was going so well Sorun hardly believed it. And so, with little surprise, the time for the final push had come where everyone had gone out to attack specific targets to finally free the city. That even included Sorun, who Sally had let off the metaphorical leash to go and attack something due to his portals no longer being needed in this final phase. She'd even been nice enough to save him a satisfying target. A telecommunications tower near the center of the city that had been used to keep in contact with Eggman over in New Megaopolis. Sorun had been more than happy to go. He'd been less happy that Virgil kept bugging him to take him with, but in the end he'd relented and brought the Chao along.
Well, as it happened, Sorun's least favorite lackey in all of existence just happened to be there. Whether he was there to oversee the city and it was sheer coincidence he was present during their attack or he was there because of the attack was unclear to Sorun, and he hadn't cared enough to ponder on it. He really only cared about destroying the small tower located in the center of a city plaza, the surrounding Egg Pawns, and then beat Snively into unconsciousness. Because he really didn't like that guy.
Right now he'd Tricked onto the top of a nearby rundown bus, with Virgil hovering just over his left side. On the other side was what was once a telecommunications tower that had been about twenty meters in height and functioning before a Judgement Cut had torn it asunder. The same was said for the surrounding Badniks that had been protecting it.
And then there was the thing in front of him that Snively was riding around in. Another mech. A mech that was styled after a giant black scorpion, with Snively riding in a open cockpit inside the mech's head. Sorun recalled having burst out in short laughter when he saw it due to the sheer ridiculousness of how it looked, though he'd quickly regained his composure for the task at hand. Even then, though, he couldn't resist mocking the short Overlander piloting the thing.
"I think you'll find this Egg Scorpion is more than sufficient for the likes of you." A button somewhere on the console in front of Snively was pressed. The tail of the scorpion mech, the end of which was the barrel of some sort of weapon with a large blade bolted at the bottom of it, began to glow an intense yellow as light particles began to gather around its opening. Sorun, eyes half-lidded in boredom, yawned and reached to the side to lightly shove Virgil away, nodding his head over at the mech's left side. The Chao nodded to him, and then began to fly away as Sorun continued standing in place while staring right at the charging tail.
Right when the end of the tail brightened up, Sorun Tricked away somewhere. Not even a moment later a blinding yellow beam of energy streamed out of the end of the tail. The laser passed by where Sorun had been standing, melting the top of the bus under it, and then slammed into a nearby building that had just happened to be behind Sorun. A large, gaping hole was created in the building as a result of contact from the laser, and Sorun, who had Tricked a few meters away to watch the display, shook his head in disappointment at Snively.
"Look at that. You blew up some poor guy's building. I'm actually gonna feel really bad if someone lived there." Sorun clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Anyways, Snively, it's slappin' time." He twirled Yamato in his hand and rested it on his right shoulder. "Every word you say, I'm gonna slap you. So you either run now or, well, eh..."
"So you're to thrash me, is that it?" Snively asked, drumming his fingers along the mech's control console. A mocking grin spread along his face. "The same way Dr. Robotnik thrashed you around, perhaps?"
Sorun bristled at that, taking in a sharp inhale as he thrust Yamato out to his side with enough force that the sheath came flying off and clattered off the ground far away from him. "Oh baby. That's seventeen slaps."
He Tricked away again, causing Snively's eyes to go wide as he searched around the area looking for him. A short whistle drew his attention behind him, where he saw Sorun standing right on the back of the Egg Scorpion just behind the cockpit Snively sat in. Sorun was looking down at the scientist, mouth set in a neutral frown and eyes baleful as he glared at him.
"Hey, Snively, since I got ya already, mind answering something for me?" Sorun requested. "Do all Overlanders look weird like you, or are you just a special case of bein' this ugly li'l gremlin dude? 'Cause I'm doing a bit of a case study here, and seeing the humans in Station Square is raising some serious questions for me-"
"Perish, fool!"
"Nineteen!" Hearing the scorpion tail behind him shift, Sorun tilted his head straight upwards. He saw the laser tail with its bladed end hovering right over him, and right when it made the move to thrust downwards, Sorun Tricked. As a result, the bladed tail pierced right into the back of the mech.
Sorun had reappeared on the right side of the scorpion, right next to its large, clamp-like claw. From the other side he saw Virgil floating next to the other claw, and then gave the Chao a nod. While Snively feverishly tapped at the mech's controls to try and dislodge the tail stuck into its own back, Virgil began spinning while Sorun gripped both hands around Yamato's handle and prepared a swing. Virgil then flew forwards, his spinning form and bladed arms cutting right through the thin joint that connected the clamp-like claw to the rest of the mech's body. At the same time Sorun had made a single downward slash that separated the claw on his side from the mech. Both claws were heard simultaneously hitting the ground, at which point Sorun slashed outwards to cut away the eight mechanical legs on his side.
The damage done, the Egg Scorpion listed off to the side with the loss of half of its legs. Sorun then Tricked up into the air, his body held aloft by his newly-formed Bringer Claws as he made a third slash, this one severing the scorpion's tail in half in a shower of sparks.
"You ready to get slapped!?" The second the final word left Sorun he Tricked right in front of the cockpit on the scorpion's head, his right Bringer Claw reaching out and clamping around Snively's head before he could make a move to go anywhere. The long-nosed Overlander looked up at Sorun with fearful eyes, his entire body shaking and teeth chattering from fright, while Sorun just continued to calmly stare with an almost contemplative look. "Ah, you know what? We'll just call it at twenty. Nice even, round number."
When he stopped speaking, the Bringer Claw holding Snively's head slammed him face-first into the mech's control console hard enough that sparking sounds were heard. The spectral claw holding him in place, Sorun rose his right leg up and stomped down on the back of head twice, eliciting a muffled cry of pain each time. The blue hand lifted Snively face's back up, where Sorun's left Bringer Claw punched him in the stomach five times, and then in the face five times. After that, Sorun willed the hand to lift Snively up to his level just so that he could slap Snively across the face with his real hand five times. The claw then slammed Snively's face back down into console, where Sorun proceeded to stare down at him, let out a calming breath, and then quickly stomp the back of his head one more time.
Finished with his assault Sorun finally dispelled his Bringer Claws and watched as Snively's body went limp face-down against the console. Sorun blinked at the sight, and then crouched down in front of him. The catharsis he felt from the beatdown was quickly beginning to wear off.
"Uh, Snively? Snively...?" Humming, Sorun grabbed Snively by the individual hairs vertically aligning his scalp and lifted his head up. "I didn't accidentally kill ya, did I?"
The state of Snively's face when Sorun finally saw it wasn't a pretty sight, though it was one that made Sorun somewhat happy to see. Both of his eyes were blackened and swelled halfway shut, there were multiple bleeding welts along his face, and his bleeding nose was bent at a crooked angle. He did see him breathing, though, and he even heard a low pained moan leave the small man's mouth. Satisfied, Sorun released his grip on the hairs and let his body flop back on the console.
"If Eggman didn't have a whole fleet pointed at Knothole, I swear... Although..." Sorun's thoughts mused as the teen looked up in thought. "I wonder if I could teleport to the police station real quick and steal a gun from the armory. Freedom Fighters don't use guns, and I sure don't. Eggman would just assume one of the humans here did it if he found his nephew riddled with bullet holes and not sword holes, right? Knothole'd be in the clear."
It was an idea that the teen was seriously considering going through with, and even more found himself wanting to go through with it. Unfortunately, during his silent contemplation Snively, beaten, battered, and apparently still conscious, slowly extended a quavering finger and hit one of the buttons on the control console.
Sorun's thoughts were cut off when the head below him began to shudder. He looked down at Snively, eyes widening when he saw his finger compressing a button and then widening further when he saw the head of the scorpion mech begin to detach from the main body. He Tricked a short distance away on the ground, and watched as panels built into the head of the scorpion began to open up. Jets of fire burst out of the opened panels, propelling the head upwards and lifting it up into the sky. The jets built into the head increased in intensity, and all Sorun could do was watch with a blank expression as the robot head carrying Snively lifted off into the sky far enough that it disappeared from sight.
"... Well, that's tough." Sorun sighed, and then looked back down. He saw that Virgil had floated right next to him, and absentmindedly began to stroke him between his silver crest with one finger as he brought his other hand up to his mouth. "Hey, I'm all done over here," Sorun spoke into the device strapped onto the hand's wrist, his eyes looking towards the destroyed communication tower.
"Sorun?" Sally's voice sounded out from the wrist communicator's speakers. "You're done dismantling the telecommunication tower already? How did things go?"
"..." A loud rumbling sound interrupted Sorun from answering Sally. He turned towards the sound, and then blinked when he saw the building shot by Snively's laser from earlier collapse in on itself entirely. Both Sorun and Virgil glanced at each other, followed by Sorun raising his wrist back to his mouth and saying, "Yeah, it went pretty okay."
10 minutes prior
And just like that, they saved the city.
It was amazing how fast the general mood changed once the last Badnik had been dismantled and the city officially declared free. The streets had practically flooded with more humans who had been hunkering down and waiting for all the fighting to die down. Spirits were high as practically everybody was out celebrating.
For Sorun, it was a strange feeling. He'd honestly expected it to be much harder than this, but no, they'd done it. He knew that some of the other Freedom Fighters felt the same way as him, but in the end he decided that after everything else that had happened, maybe it was best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. So he decided to just be happy for the people they'd just helped liberate.
Though, he had a hard time with that. Not because he wasn't happy he'd helped free a city from Eggman's tyranny, that was always great, but he couldn't help but feel that large disconnect from all the happy people around him. He felt about the same seeing them all rejoice in their newfound freedom as he felt whenever they saved some random Mobian village from a robot attack. He couldn't help but think that, if they were his people, Earthlings, he would have been overjoyed along with them. But, try as he might, and admittedly he didn't try all that hard, he didn't. Still glad for them, but that was about it.
So he tried not to interact with anybody as he made his way back to the FF Special. He failed in this endeavor when he was ambushed by, of all things, a news crew. A lady with a microphone and some guy holding a camera in Sorun's face. Not even an hour into a free city and the news was already up. From what little he gleaned some of the officers back at the station had pointed him out, and he'd been subsequently hunted down for a statement.
"You seriously don't have anything better to do with your time?" Sorun grumbled, tone irate as he tried to dodge the lady attempting to shove a microphone in his face. "I'm gonna break that damn thing if she gets any closer with it."
"We're just collecting statements from all the Freedom Fighters that helped free the city from Dr. Robotnik," the newswoman explained to him, which made Sorun slightly relax. "We've already collected statements from most of the other Freedom Fighters, so we were just hoping to get yours as well."
Sorun scoffed. "I guarantee you'll get something way more inspirational out of whatever Sonic or Sally said to you. I got nothin' else to add."
"Just a single statement," she insisted, the woman who was uncomfortably taller than Sorun shoving the microphone close enough to his mouth to make his eyes narrow. "And... perhaps you'd be willing to answer a few questions about how you came about working with-?"
"Nope." Sorun pushed the microphone away and shook his head. "One statement and I dip out, a'ight?"
She frowned, but then nodded towards him while still pointing the microphone at him. Sorun glanced towards the camera afterwards, staring into the black lens and sighing when he realized he didn't have anything on hand to actually say. He wracked his brain for anything he could use, and then straightened up a bit when an idea came to him.
Clearing his throat, Sorun turned so that he was fully facing the camera. He inhaled a breath, exhaled it and shook his head when he realized what he was about to say, and then stared right into the lens as he began tugging at his blue coat. "Buy Honey. Located in Knothole."
No doubt his statement caused confusion between the cameraman and newswoman, but he didn't stick around to see what looks their faces made. He'd quickly formed Yamato and made a portal behind him, hopped through, and then closed it behind him all in the same breath. He heard himself sigh in relief when the familiar interior of the FF Special met his eyes, and without another thought he began walking to the front of the ship.
"I can't believe I just did that. Honey owes me so much for shilling out for her," Sorun thought to himself as he made it to the ship's cockpit. He opened the door leading to it, and felt his eyes widen a bit in surprise when he saw a large, purple form sitting in one of the chairs. "Rotor? What're you doing here?"
The walrus, who for the most part seemed to have been fiddling with some of the control, stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Oh, hey Sorun," he greeted before turning back to the controls. "Nothing much. City's free and I didn't really feel like hanging around, so I decided to come back to run some last-minute checks and diagnostics on the ship before we head back. Tails radioed ahead and said he was coming by in a bit." He didn't look up even as Sorun stepped besides him, the teen's eyes affixed to the windshield. "Why are you here?"
The teen reached up to scratch the side of his neck. "Ah, you know, from what I heard the president himself wanted to speak to the Freedom Fighters personally and congratulate them on their service to the city and all that, but I didn't really wanna go."
"Mm, why not?"
"You know, as much as I've always wanted to get a medal from a president, I didn't want a medal from a president," Sorun answered. "Plus I'm not really one to bask in the limelight. That's more Sonic's thing. Or Sally's, I guess, since she's pretty much the public face for us."
"True."
"Also I, uh, I, I don't, I-I don't really handle crowds that well," Sorun sheepishly said after a few moments.
Rotor sagely nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I can understand that. Not everybody can handle public relations like Sally can," he said. "Kinda like Amy. I remember the day she had her ceremony when she officially became a Freedom Fighter. She looked really excited and happy, but you could tell from her eyes she was really nervous to be standing up there in front of all those people."
"Well, I guess that- wait what there's a ceremony? Amy got a ceremony? What the heck I only ever got a handshake from Sally what is this why am I only hearing about this now?"
"Oh, yeah, it was because she was getting a medal for services provided by her to the kingdom. Amy got it through her own merit because of a lot of good work she did. Well, her and her hammer," Rotor added in with a small chuckle. "But yeah, Sally used the ceremony as an opportunity to ask her to officially join us, and she said yes. Not really surprising seeing as she always wanted to be a Freedom Fighter."
"There's a medal, what...?"
"Yeah, the Acorn Medal of Valor."
"I didn't even know that was a thing. Feels like I shoulda gotten like ten of those by now."
Rotor chuckled when he heard that. "Well, things were pretty hectic back then when you first met us. Never had the time. Maybe sometime down the line Sally'll give you that ceremony. You've more than earned it."
"Damn right." Forget the president and whatever medal he probably wasn't even offering them, he wanted that medal. And a ceremony if that was really a thing. A ceremony sounded nice. And it'd be another thing to look back on before he died.
Sighing, Sorun leaned over the dashboard of the ship as he continued to stare out the front window. Rotor continued messing with the ship's controls, Sorun periodically flicking his eyes over to the walrus. After around a minute of this, he turned his head over to Rotor again.
"You ever hear back from Shadow?" he asked. "He and Rouge are still helping G.U.N. out, right?"
Rotor shook his head. "No, haven't heard a thing."
Sorun hummed. "You think they're alright?"
"Shadow? Alright? Don't see why not," Rotor said. "They're better equipped over there to handle Badniks than Station Square here is. And Shadow and Rouge can take care of themselves. They're fine."
"I guess." Sorun's hands began to tap against the dashboard. "Out of curiosity where is G.U.N. HQ located again?"
Rotor stopped tapping against the control panel. His eyes glanced towards Sorun who was looking at him, and the walrus narrowed his eyes a bit at him in question. "Why are you asking?"
"Just curious," Sorun repeated with a shrug. "I know Tails went and flew them out there, and that all the Overlander UF stuff is across the ocean in Europ- Eurish, I mean. Just wanted to know where."
"... Okay..." Eyes still locked onto Sorun, Rotor reached down and tapped a few buttons. A small black screen with a green grid-like pattern on it, sitting in the dashboard between the two, lit up. Sorun leaned in closer as a green rendering of the world map came into view, and then zoomed in on the eastern portion of the world, around what was once Europe and now Eurish. The map settled on large piece of land just barely disconnected from the rest of Eurish, where Rotor proceeded to tap at the screen with one of his claws. "G.U.N. HQ is located on a mountain called Guardian Mountain. It's near Spagonia and right next to Central City, which are both Overlander cities."
"Ah, that's where it is." Sorun nodded and then extended his left hand. "Thanks, Rotor. I'm gonna head over there," he said as Yamato manifested in his grasp.
"What? You're doing what!?" When the pale teen walked away from the console towards the center of the cockpit, Rotor spun around in his seat to continue addressing Sorun. He seemed rather distressed by Sorun's claim. "Sorun, come on, you just now got done taking back a whole city from Eggman!"
"I've spent the last five-ish hours opening portals. I'm fine."
"Sorun-!"
"Look, Rotor, it'll be fine." Stepping back towards Rotor, Sorun fumbled with his wrist communicator, removed it from his wrist, and held it out for the walrus to take. "This thing doesn't really suit me, so here. Early birthday present."
The purple Mobian stared down at the device sitting in the middle of his palm, a flat look on his face. "Wow, a gift that I made for you. You're the most thoughtful person I've ever met," he droned out as he looked back up at Sorun. "You're just giving me this so Sally can't call you and order you to come back."
"Ehhhh you can't prove that." A vertical slash was made in the air with Sorun's katana. "I'm just going over to check and make sure everything's alright." A horizontal slash. "If I'm quick enough she won't even know I'm gone. It'll be out little secret."
"No, if she asks I'm telling her you went over to G.U.N. HQ."
The portal opened up. "... That's fair," Sorun conceded. "Welp, I'm off. Seeya," Sorun said as he began stepping towards the portal.
Rotor stared after him, looked down at the wrist communicator again, and with an irritated expression called out, "This isn't the kind of attitude that wins medals, you know!"
"'This isn't the kind of attitude that wins medals, you know'." Sorun mockingly repeated under his breath as he entered the portal. "Pfft, right, don't see you with a medal, pal."
It wasn't like he was worried about Shadow or anything; he knew he was capable of looking after himself. But Sorun needed an excuse to leave Station Square, or at least get away from it for a while. He didn't want to deal with the people there. They reminded him too much of home and yet at the same time reminded him that they weren't his people.
But there was another reason he wanted to go to G.U.N. HQ. Overlanders were there.
Functionally Sorun knew the line separating humans and Overlanders was a thin one. The humans in Station Square only existed because they'd lived in that city in what used to be a mountain for thousands of years, hadn't even been touched by the Xorda and their gene bombs. The Overlanders, the humans that had survived past the Xorda, the ones who had been exposed to those gene bombs... Sorun needed to know. What they looked like, how close to Earthlings they were. Humans in Station Square were close, but they weren't quite there. They just didn't look right. Too different. Too minutely different on such a maddeningly small scale it practically didn't make a difference. But it did to Sorun. It mattered to him.
The Overlanders, though... he needed to see for himself. He wanted to see Overlanders with his own eyes while the faces of all those humans in Station Square were fresh in his mind. So he'd go and help out Shadow with G.U.N. HQ under false pretenses of wanting to help just so he could go and look at some Overlanders.
Unfortunately, traveling such vast distances with portals was new for Sorun. He'd never travelled halfway across the world before, let alone up a mountain. As such, when he walked through and closed the portal behind him, he realized there was no ground beneath his feet.
"Sh-!"
Present
And that was that.
Looking at all the powers at his disposal, he wasn't too worried about the fact he'd accidentally teleported so high into the air and was falling down. It was something for him to keep in mind the next time he made a portal to somewhere so far away, though. The difference in elevation. Making a portal somewhere he'd never been to and only knew the location of was always a tricky affair for him. Seeing it on a map helped, and coordinates sometimes helped even more. Having been there in person in the past made it a trivial affair. But when he had to ballpark it on little more than an image on a map, it wasn't always so exact. Hence why he was falling through the air right now.
Ah, well. Something new for him to learn, and he'd be fine in the end. He was more concerned with what was going on down below.
Rotor had been right when he said G.U.N. HQ was in a mountain. All around him were tall, snowcapped mountains stretching out for as far as the eye could see, and right below him was a curious sight. A long, metal runway extending out the side of a mountain, like some kind of landing pad for aerial vehicles. A giant, metal door was installed into the mountain where the runway connected with said mountain, but otherwise, he didn't see any type of vehicle on that metal platform. What he did see was a barrier of sandbags placed halfway through, with a line of human-shaped soldiers in gray uniforms lined up against the sandbags with their backs to the door in the mountain. They were firing the automatic rifles they had in their hands at an Egg Hammer that was slowly lumbering towards them, giant hammer in hand and ready to smash down on all of them.
Interestingly, there was damage being dealt to the thing. Not enough damage to stop it, but even from here Sorun could see its metal chassis was pockmarked in damage from the G.U.N. soldiers' guns. It made a small hum leave his lips.
"They must be using really high caliber rounds if those guns can hurt Badniks. And that's an Egg Hammer, too. Hmm..." He readied his sword in his right grip. "Guess I'll help 'em out."
With a single Trick, Sorun teleported right above the Egg Hammer with his sword held above him. He dropped straight down the Badnik, his sword tracing a line through the center of its entire body. He landed in a semi-crouch, fanning his sword out to the side as the two halves of the massive Badnik fell away from each other and landed on either side of Sorun. He then breathed out, standing back up to his full height while twirling the sword around once.
"Okay, play it cool." Taking a deep breath, Sorun fully turned around to the line of soldiers that were standing behind the wall of sandbags. For the most part, they looked extremely confused. So confused that some of them had aimed their guns downwards, as if unsure what to do, while others were sending each other questioning looks. "Yo...~!" Sorun called out, waving the hand holding his scabbard at them. "I'm Sorun! You guys seen Shadow around? Or Rouge?"
Multiple loud, clanking sounds behind him interrupted Sorun. He clicked his tongue in irritation and turned around, letting out a small sigh when he saw Badniks begin to appear behind him. From green Egg Flappers flying in from somewhere to Egg Pawns of red, gold, and even blue colors climbing up from the side of the platform and unveiling their various weapons. And all of them were looking right at him.
Sorun let out a small sigh, and he was ready to Trick forwards to begin cutting all those robots down. He was stopped in his tracks when something zoomed in from the corner of his vision. A black and red blurry sphere that shot forwards and cut through the Badnik that was nearest to Sorun. The robot exploded in a shower of parts, sparks, and oil, and the figure that had been the one to destroy it backflipped backwards and landed feet-first while facing Sorun. The teen wasn't that surprised to see that scowl on Shadow's face directed right at him.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?" Shadow asked him.
"Ah, you know." Sorun Tricked away, and then reappeared behind Shadow with his sword going through a red Egg Pawn that had tried to sneak up on him. "Had some free time, figured you could use some help. So here I am."
After he finished speaking, Sorun formed a wall of crossed Summoned Swords to defend himself from the laser fire of one of the blue Egg Pawns. It was promptly destroyed when Shadow threw a Chaos Spear at it.
"I was lead to believe you and the Freedom Fighters were busy with Station Square," Shadow stated.
Sorun shrugged as his Summoned Swords turned midair and fired out, piercing and destroying multiple Badniks. "Would you believe me if I said we solved that problem way sooner than we thought? As it happens, portals cut down the time it takes to liberate a whole city really short. We just now finished up."
"Hmph." Shadow dodged to the side of a lance that attempted to skewer him, and then jumped up and kicked the offending Egg Pawn in the face. Its facial plate crumpled completely under the force of Shadow's kick, and it was sent flying back into a group of robots behind it. "I'm...perfectly capable... of handling this... on my own!" Shadow said in-between Spin Dashing through more robots.
"Oh, come on!" Two Bringer Claws reached upwards, grabbed two Egg Flappers, and slammed them together hard enough that both their forms flattened completely. "You're gonna say no to me helping out? I already came all the way out here and everything!"
He Tricked again, appearing between a red and golden Egg Pawn. He immediately slashed through the golden one, though before he could turn to the red one Shadow had slammed feet-first into it, kicking it away as he landed on the ground behind Sorun.
"Did the princess even sanction you coming here?" Shadow asked as he tossed another Chaos Spear at a robot. "I sincerely doubt she'd let you hop right into another combat scenario after the work you all did in Station Square."
Sorun moved his head out of the way to avoid being stabbed by a lance, and then cut the offending robot down. "Eh, she doesn't exactly know I'm here."
"You went on your own?" Shadow huffed and flip-kicked a Badnik away. "That's not the kind of work ethic you should adopt if you're going to be working here."
"You say it like I agreed to that," Sorun grunted as he cut through another robot. "You don't honestly think I'm still considering that offer?"
"I'm biding my time for you to come to your senses." After spinning through another blue Egg Pawn, Shadow crossed his arms while looking towards Sorun, who turned to face him right after using a spectral claw to slam another Egg Pawn to death on the ground. "Rouge and I, as well as the G.U.N. soldiers here, have already repelled the Badnik occupation here," Shadow informed him. "We're merely cleaning up the stragglers before resuming operations. If you're truly so insistent on helping, I suppose I can let you handle a few robots."
"How generous of you," Sorun drawled out. He twirled the scabbard he held in his left hand around as he began walking towards a nearby group of Egg Pawns, who themselves began to back up away from Sorun as he flicked his sword out. "But sure. I got time to kill."
30 minutes later
Shadow had been truthful when he said a majority of the Badnik forces had already been decimated by G.U.N. personnel by the time Sorun had gotten there. He'd arrived to little more than a cleanup operation, at a point where his assistance was completely unnecessary. It was fine enough for Sorun. The only reason he'd even come here was just to see Overlanders.
He'd stuck around with Shadow for the most part while they'd helped dispatch the remaining robots around the base. And it truly was around the base, as he'd never been lead inside the actual place. The closest he got was a giant multi-level hangar bay full of all sorts of jet and helicopters and other vehicles and formerly a bunch of killer robots before he and Shadow got to them. The entrance to that had been from the giant metal door he'd seen in the side of the mountain, and Shadow had insisted he stick close by to him as they went around destroying robots. So Sorun hadn't had the honor of seeing the base in its entirety.
That was then. Now Sorun was still walking throughout the hangar, long after they'd finally killed the last robot. Not feeling a sense of urgency, unlike everybody else around Sorun, he'd chosen to just meander around the place. Looking around at all the vehicles and the people. The G.U.N. soldiers and engineers running around doing their own tasks were ignoring him for the most part. Just them acting professional, Sorun supposed, though he did get a couple of looks here and there from some of them. Then again, maybe a short human like Sorun walking around the place wasn't the strangest sight these people saw, because for some reason there was an actual child here.
He saw her while he was looking around the place. A small Overlander girl who had to be a child due to the fact she was shorter than Sorun was. A blonde girl who, much to his bewilderment, was handling welding tools and working on a helicopter with other adult engineers nearby. Compared to that what was a pint-sized human like him in a blue coat carrying a katana around?
"... Okay, that's just weird," Sorun had thought to himself as he walked past the girl fixing a helicopter. "Why do they got a girl- holy shit they have ED-209s..."
Yep, there they were. Straight out of 'Robocop'. They didn't look exactly like the droids from the movie, it looked like the main body had a pilot seat for an Overlander to operate it, but it was still a seat attached to a pair of robot legs with guns for arms. All lined up in rows on the side of the hangar bay next to a bunch of helicopters. It was enough to make a small laugh leave Sorun when he saw them. But then he looked around at some of the Overlanders he saw and he felt that laugh die right out of his mouth.
Overlanders. The whole reason he'd come here in the first place. He saw them and at first he'd seen them as indistinguishable from humans. But then he'd gotten a closer look at some of them to better discern their facial features.
At first, he found himself to be a bit delighted. Their faces were more like his. Natural, smooth proportions. They didn't have that "off" feeling he felt whenever he looked at a Station Square human. He had been happy, but then he looked closer, and he realized that... something was off with them. A different kind of "off" he'd felt from the others. Their features, some of them were too smooth. Too angled. Like their faces were sculpted and not natural. And their hair and eye colors... they were all so wild. He saw normal browns and blacks here and there, but then he'd be surprised to find blues, greens, reds, and purples in both eyes and hair in some of them.
"They look like 'Final Fantasy' characters. Like they just walked right out of a friggin' anime..." Sorun realized. It was in those unrealistic proportions in their facial features. It wasn't present on everybody, some were normal like him, but it was there on most people. That wasn't even addressing the wide range of colors he was seeing. "And what the hell- some of them only have four fingers. Gah, they... what the hell..."
He'd felt his heart sink when he noticed these miniscule details. Part of him wondered if he would have been better off if they were all short, diminutive people like Snively was. At least then he would have been able to tell at a second's glance that Overlanders were nowhere close to being like Earthlings and he could just call it there. But no, they'd had to bait him first. He'd had to get all excited seeing that they were normal, only for him to look closer and realize, no, they weren't normal.
"Guess it kind of figures. Don't even know what I was expecting anyways." While walking he saw Shadow over near the end of the hangar talking to some Overlander in a gray uniform. He saw the half-Mobian glance towards his way and immediately begin to approach him, causing Sorun to internally cringe and turn away. "I think I just want to go back to Knothole-"
"Sorun, wait a second." He'd just started to twitch his right hand to Yamato's handle when he heard Shadow's voice call out to him. He bit back the curse that was beginning to form on his lips and turned around just as Shadow stopped behind him. "Your assistance here was unexpected, however we wanted to let you know your help was appreciated."
The "we" part caught Sorun off guard. "Is that G.U.N. talking or you talking?" Soru asked.
"Both," he instantly answered. "Additionally, there was somebody that wanted to talk to you."
"Huh?" Sorun sent the hedgehog a questioning glance, and then looked up. He saw that the Overlander Shadow was talking to earlier was approaching them. A very important Overlander if all those colorful stripes on his uniform said anyth- oh he knew where this was heading. "Ah no- listen, I actually just want to go back to Knothole," he told Shadow as he began backing up, "so thanks and all, but-"
"He just wanted a moment of your time," Shadow insisted.
"Well, I don't want to talk to him." Sorun attempted to leave, but he found himself stopped when something held firm on his right sleeve. He turned his head around, and then quietly exclaimed when he saw Shadow holding onto his coat sleeve. "You're being serious right now?"
The scowl on Shadow's face said enough. "He's the Commander of G.U.N."
"Good for him, let me go." Sorun tried tugging his sleeve away, but Shadow stubbornly held onto him.
"Sorun, I truly think you should-"
"You are pushing really hard for something that's not gonna happen!" Sorun hissed out, taking a step towards Shadow while pointing at him with the hand holding Yamato. "I told you I'm not comin' here."
Shadow finally let go of Sorun's sleeve, though he did it just to cross his arms. "I'm not attempting to force you into anything. And he was the one that wished to speak with you."
"Why? Because he wants to thank me for coming here to help with the robots?"
"Partly." Shadow glanced to the side at the Overlander as he grew closer to the pair, and then looked back to Sorun. "I... told him about you beforehand when I came back here."
Sorun's mouth dropped open a bit. "You did what? Egh, Shadow..." he groaned out in irritation, running his free hand through his hair. "Why'd you go and tell the G.U.N. overlords about me?"
"Sorun, I had to," he said. "It's my obligation as a G.U.N. agent. Your powers make you a person of interest, so they wanted a profile of you. They have files on all the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix."
A strangled sound left Sorun as he gestured towards Shadow. "Every single thing you've told me is a red flag."
Sighing, Shadow ran a hand over his face. "They're precautionary measures, Sorun. They even have files on me. They have files on everyone. It's to ensure the safety of the planet in a worst-case scenario, nothing more." He sent Sorun a sharp glare. "And do not go spouting off nonsense like calling them overlords in front of the Commander."
It was a rational and practical explanation, one that any other day Sorun probably would have accepted, but right now he wasn't in a mood to do so. "Ugh, for the..." His arms went limp to his side when he saw the Overlander was nearly at their position. "Fine, he's already here so I'll say hey." Shadow opened his mouth to speak, though Sorun held a hand up to silence him. "And only say hey. I'm not interested in anything outside that."
If Shadow had any complaints, they died in his throat when the Overlander came to a stop right in front of them. Sorun himself had to bite back a sigh at the taller, older male in front of him, and found his grip on Yamato tightening a bit as he looked up at the man's face.
Out of all the Overlanders he'd seen thus far, this man was about the most "normal", Earthling-looking one Sorun had seen. Aged face, strong, broad jaw, light features and white hair. Sorun himself probably would have mistaken him for an Earthling if it weren't for the fact he had a green eye and a brown eye. Heterochromia wasn't exactly unheard of where he was from, but in these circumstances, among Overlanders and what he'd seen, something like that was practically normal.
He had an air about him, too. An authoritative air that, given if what Shadow was said was true and he was the Commander of G.U.N., was to be expected. It went along with the stern look he had on his features. Even the way he was standing: posture completely straight, hands rigid and at his sides, feet straight. Mismatched eyes focused right on Sorun. Sorun wasn't too sure if he liked that piercing gaze of his.
"I assume you must be the one Agent Shadow told me about." A strong and no-nonsense type of voice. The kind of voice Sorun would expect out of somebody like this. The kind of voice that made him a bit uncomfortable, along with the height difference. "He's told me much."
"Yeah, maybe too much." Sorun's eyes flicked towards Shadow, who was standing silently off to the side while observing the two. Making no reaction, Sorun looked back up at the Overlander. "Only good things, right?"
His face didn't so much as twitch at the joke. "I am Commander Abraham Tower, the commander of G.U.N. as Shadow has likely informed you."
"Hey, I'm Sorun."
That made his face twitch, just a bit. That little bit of flippant attitude from Sorun. Shadow had twitched, too, and shot Sorun an unapproving look. Sorun didn't find himself caring, and continued speaking to Commander Tower.
"So. G.U.N." Slipping his free hand into his pocket, Sorun took a quick glance around the hangar. "You guys seem well off. Fight against Eggman going well on your end?"
"It's never 'well' against him," The Overlander crisply stated. "It's fighting to make sure he never rolls over on Overlander territory. An uphill fight at that."
"Mm." Eyes still looking to the side, Sorun looked towards a piece of a cut-apart Badnik lying on the ground. "I wanted to call him out on G.U.N. never helping out the Mobians with Eggman, but I guess I can't really say anything without knowing the situation on this side of the world. For all I know they've been having to deal with his shit for over a decade, too. The state of things here and what he says leans towards that." He sighed. "Tch. Yeah, that worked out real well for them."
Opinions aside, Sorun didn't feel it was his place to judge a military organization he had little information on. If anything he should have been leaning towards a positive side with the benefit of the doubt and the fact that Shadow was working with them and vouched for their credibility. From all appearances they seemed on the up-and-up.
But he couldn't find it in himself to care all that much. His mind was still too focused on Overlanders, and at the end of the day, G.U.N. had nothing to do with him other than his own association with Shadow and Rouge. He just wanted to get this over with and leave.
"Why are we talking?" Sorun asked the taller male, wanting to get right to the point.
"I'm made aware you played a part in clearing out Dr. Robotnik's machines from our headquarters," Tower said. "I wished to extend G.U.N.'s thanks for your assistance, and-"
"Appreciated, bye." His patience having run out, Sorun nodded to the Commander and turned around. He only made it a few steps before an irritated Shadow called his name out.
"Sorun-"
"I said I'd stick around to say hey. We said hey," Sorun said, stopping to glare towards Shadow. "That's it, we're done. I didn't come here to hear anything else."
"Then why did you come here?" This question came from Tower, who was still sternly looking towards the teen. And yet underneath that steely gaze there was a hint of curiosity Sorun chose to ignore.
Quietly exhaling from his nose, Sorun picked his eyes up to the Overlander's. "Came here looking for something, found it, didn't like it." He turned his head back forwards and away from them. "And now I'm leaving. So I repeat: bye."
He Tricked away before another word could be said.
Something possessed him to go back to the metal landing platform jutting out of the mountain he'd originally landed on. Maybe because he wanted some time to himself to think. Or that he was stalling for as long as he could before he went back to Knothole and Sally yelled at him. Possibly a combination of these two things.
And that took him here. At the edge of the metal platform, looking down the mountain range. All the way down towards ground level, far off the distance, he saw it. An Overlander city, Central City Rotor had said. It was hard to make out at this distance, but it reminded him a lot of Station Square, though a bit different in its constructed. And both of those reminded him of his home city back on Earth. Did, and at the same time didn't due to the differences between them. Just like the people that inhabited both.
He heard footsteps behind him. He already knew it was Shadow- the metal bottoms of his rocket shoes clanked loudly against the metal ground. He didn't react in the slightest when Shadow stepped right besides him, nor did he react when he felt crimson eyes rest on him. He just continued to stare out at the city below.
"You could have been a little more tactful with the commander," Shadow said, his tone chastising.
"It's amazing how little I care." Sorun's blue eyes flicked to Shadow, who sighed at Sorun's statement. "I want to ask you a question."
"A question," Shadow repeated. "What is it?"
"If you were to meet me for the first time, and you didn't know I was an Earthling from a different zone, would you think I was a human or a Overlander?"
It was a question that gave Shadow pause, and made him furrow his eye ridges at Sorun. The teen just silently and expectantly stared at him, however, and after a few moments of quiet contemplation Shadow decided on his answer.
"I've had precious contact with the humans in Station Square, Sorun, although I have seen them before. That said, I would have said you're an Overlander."
Sorun hadn't really known what he would have thought of either answer. He wasn't too surprised to not be satisfied with the one he got. "Why them?" he asked.
"Because I've never known a human to ever leave Station Square for any reason."
A low sigh left the teen. "Don't know what I was expecting there," he mumbled out. "You know, when I went to Station Square and saw all those humans I was expecting to feel, I don't know, some sense of familiarity with them. I knew they weren't my kind, not technically, but I knew they were still human and figured even with the cultural difference it'd be enough." He shook his head. "It wasn't. They don't... they look different, Shadow."
"Different?"
"The Overlanders look more like humans from my zone than the humans here. Except they don't, because I don't know a single human back home that was born with natural blue hair. I blame gene bombs on that, but... ugh." He shook his head. "I just don't feel any connection with them at all. I thought I would, but I don't. And I went in knowing I probably wouldn't, but I guess I just hoped I was wrong." He flipped his arm up and let it flop back to his side. "I don't know."
Shadow remained silent at hearing Sorun's words. He continued to look at him, blinked slowly, and then turned his head out to Central City down below. Sorun did the same, with the two of them continuing to look down at the city for what felt like minutes until Shadow spoke again.
"The age of the human race here is thousands of years ahead of your species in your world," the hedgehog said, breaking the silence. "The humans in Station Square alone were relegated to their own city for thousands of years when that plane crash trapped them in that mountain. Furthermore, this is an entirely different zone. You can't have expected them to look exactly like the humans of your zone with all these factors in play."
He had a point, Sorun would admit that. Whether it was due to evolution and time or just because it was a race of humans from a different zone, there was no feasible way for them to be the same as the humans from his zone. Any chance of the Overlanders being the same were wiped out with whatever meddling the gene bombs did to their DNA. And even ignoring all that, none of them could gain powers from Chaos Emeralds like he could. Because he was from an abnormal zone absent of Chaos energy. For all he knew that played a part in humans' development here, too. Quite plainly even looking past surface appearances there were too many differences among them for Sorun to call these people his people, culture aside.
"Yeah. I guess not," Sorun said in agreement after a long, contemplative moment. "I suppose that makes me the only member of my kind on this planet. I get to be all alone." He glanced back at Shadow. "Kinda like you, I guess."
"Hmph." All Shadow gave was a small, noncommittal grunt. "So what are you going to do?"
"Go back to Knothole. Help settle things with Eggman." Sorun reached up and scratched at his hair. "I feel more comfortable with them than here or in Station Square. The non-Earthling humans and Overlanders just keep reminding me of people back on Earth and how they're not them. I can't stand them. At least with Mobians I can look them in the eye and not think of home. Plus... I got people I care about there." He stopped scratching and lowered his hand back to his side. "Don't tell anybody I said that, though."
"I won't," Shadow promised him. "I don't think I can especially blame you. Not with my own issues integrating with Mobians. My own supposed kind, even if I'm not a full Mobian. So I understand where you're coming from in some sense." He looked back towards Sorun. "When this is all over, though, there's still a place here for you should you ever change your mind."
Sorun scoffed. "Don't count on it, Shadow."
"As you will." Shadow shrugged and looked back down to Central City, Sorun doing the same. A few more minutes of silence passed before Shadow broke it again. "I'm afraid you'll be returning to Knothole City alone. I'm staying here."
"Oh, yeah?" Sorun muttered, eyes still on the city.
"With G.U.N. free and back at operational capacity, Rouge and I are officially agents of theirs once more. The Commander wants me to stay and spearhead operations to take back Overlander territory from the Doctor. With how thin his forces are spread, and with how easy Station Square was reclaimed, I suspect this won't pose much of a challenge."
"But that means you'll be staying on this side of the world."
"For the time being. Yes." They turned back towards each other. "When the time comes, perhaps we'll be able to tackle the Doctor together and keep that promise we made. But neither of us know where the future will take us, so should that task fall solely to one of us-"
"He's dead, yeah. You don't gotta worry about that," Sorun assured him.
Shadow nodded, looking slightly relieved as his frown relaxed into a neutral expression. That was about as close to a genuine smile that Sorun assumed Shadow could form. "Then for now it appears this is goodbye." He extended his hand out to Sorun, which surprised the Earthling a bit as he looked down at the hand. "What is it you like to say? It's been an experience working with you?"
"Something like that. I'm not sure I'm the most quotable guy." Sorun reached his hand out and grasped Shadow's gloved hand. They shook, something that made Sorun feel a bit honored and glad for that Shadow had done such a thing with him. Then all he felt was pain when Shadow squeezed down a bit harder than he ought to have. "Alright, alright, ease up!"
A small huff left Shadow, and for a single second the ghost of a smirk formed on his lips. It disappeared when Sorun lifted his head back up to his face, though his eyes seemed just a bit brighter as Sorun stepped away from him and unsheathed his sword.
"So that's it?"
Shadow nodded. "That's it. You should know that Rouge will be going back to Knothole, as an official liaison from G.U.N. Just to keep an eye on things for the time being."
"Ah-huh. She need a ride?" Sorun asked as he cut open a portal.
"She has her own means of travel."
"If you say so." With the portal opened, Sorun turned back towards Shadow. "I'll be going now. Take care, Shadow. Adios."
He kept looking at Shadow even as he stepped into the portal. It could have been the way space around the edges of the portal warped, or it could have been a trick of the eye from all the sunlight reflecting off of the snow on the mountain. Whatever it was, Sorun could have sworn he saw the corners of Shadow's mouth upturn just the slightest amount as he finally walked through the portal.
It must have just been the warped space.
Pushing what was surely an illusion from his mind, Sorun stepped all the way through the portal and closed it behind him. Sighing out in exhaustion as he dispelled Yamato, he turned around flopped right onto the couch in Freedom HQ, closing his eyes in an effort to finally get some rest.
He was only able to close his eyes for about three seconds before he heard someone clear their throat.
"Mm?" Sorun cracked an eye open to look at who it was standing in front of him. He immediately caught Sally's visage, arms crossed and eyes glaring right down onto Sorun. She didn't look very happy. "Oh, you guys are already back, huh?"
"Yeah. We just came back a few minutes ago," she dryly stated. "Would you care to tell me where you went?"
Sorun's half-open eye maintained its contact with Sally for all of two seconds before it re-closed. "Shadow says hi."
And thus, the scolding began.
A/N- Having these back-to-back big chapters take a lot, and I didn't really intend for it to get this big. The Station Square chapter was another one of those chapters I wasn't really looking that forwards to like the Angel Island one that got scrapped, but hey, it's out of the way now. The next five-ish chapters are gonna be on the short side, that's what I plan, at least, and after that we get to the fun stuff I've been waiting to get to.
