Recursion Error
Episode 40- Love. It's crazy.
"Oh, he ain't even trying at this point."
It'd been a normal morning for Sorun. Wake up, fall back asleep, and then wake back up to begin his day. And that's what he'd been doing, right up until he'd gotten to the open doorway to Sonic's room. He stopped when he noticed there was something down there, near the bottom of the doorway. A small glint of light gleaming off a string that was tied down in a line near the floor. A tripwire.
"Another one of his pranks." Internally scoffing, Sorun carefully stepped over the barely-visible string and looked up to confirm his suspicions. He wasn't at all surprised to see that there was a bucket of what he assumed to be water resting on top of the door frame, propped up from the open door it was sitting under. "Not your most creative one, Sonic."
It was always small, harmless jokes that Sonic played on him, but usually they were leagues more creative than this. Like that time he'd hollowed out a bar of soap and but a bath bomb inside of it, and then waited for Sorun to take a shower with it. Somehow Sorun didn't feel that a tripwire quite compared to that.
He changed his mind when he stepped over the tripwire, only to feel something compress under his foot when he stepped around it.
"Huh- oh." He deeply frowned when he looked closer at where he stepped, and noticed there was a smaller, even more thin tripwire he hadn't seen beforehand behind the one he'd tried stepping around. "Sonic, you sly-"
The bucket flung forwards, and Sorun found himself drenched in water from the bucket. He sighed and let his arms limply fall against his side when he heard two things: the bucket clattering against the ground, and laughter. He made a deep sigh as he looked up, where he saw the source of the laughter.
He rarely ever saw a grin that smug on Sonic's face as he watched him step from around the corner. He knew the grin irritated him, but as much as he wanted to, Sorun couldn't be too mad at the hedgehog. He was more mad at himself for having fallen for such a prank. And in a way he could respect Sonic for getting him like that.
"You're that upset about the peanut butter I put in your gloves while you were sleeping?" Sorun asked, flicking his arms to try and throw off as much moisture as he could.
"Well, you don't wear gloves, so you don't know what it's like washing those things out," Sonic said back to him. "I thought I'd return the favor and save you a morning shower."
Sorun made a "tch" sound and rolled his eyes, while Sonic continued to silently snicker at him while holding his stomach in amusement. He began walking forwards, his wet, bare feet making a squishing sound against the floor as he moved.
"Fine, you got me. Good one," Sorun said. "Have fun cleaning this up before your parents find out you made the whole hallway wet."
"Ah-ha-ha... what?"
Clicking his tongue, Sorun clapped the now-frozen hedgehog on the shoulder and flashed him a small grin. "The price of victory is sometimes steep, Sonic."
"Oh, man..."
It was with a small, perturbed frown that Sorun looked at it. The seemingly harmless carton of orange juice that was just sitting there in the fridge. Innocent on the surface, and indeed, by all means harmless. But every time he looked at the drink he was reminded of the reason why he was on Mobius in the first place, and that him dying was partially the fault of the fact he'd had a craving for the stuff that night.
Nevertheless, he still liked the taste of the stuff, so he grabbed it, poured himself a glass, put the carton back, and closed the fridge.
"You seen Virgil anywhere?" Sorun asked, turning back towards the dinner table. Sonic was sitting at one end, arms crossed with an untouched bowl of cereal in front of him. Sorun had maneuvered to the other end of the table, where his own bowl of cereal was waiting for him. "He kinda wanders around sometimes."
Sonic shook his head as Sorun sat down in the opposite seat. "No, I haven't seen your little terror around anywhere," he said. "Sorun, why does your Chao hate me so much?"
"He doesn't hate you," Sorun denied after taking a sip of his juice. "He just has a specific way of showing affection."
"By trying to cut me?"
"What are you complaining about? Him trying to cut you is like somebody trying to cut a block of steel with safety scissors. You're super tough."
"Yeah, but it still hurts, man."
Sorun scoffed through his teeth, a small, almost nonexistent smirk on his face. "I don't know, Sonic. He likes and dislikes people." He sent the hedgehog an inquisitive look. "Can't you just ask him? You have that alien translator implant, don't you?"
Shaking his head, Sonic said, "It doesn't work on Chao."
"... The universal translator made by aliens that works on literally any species doesn't work on Chao," Sorun deadpanned.
"Look, I don't know how it works," Sonic told him. "Aliens, sure, dogs, apparently, but Chao?" He shrugged. "All I get whenever I try are just chao's. Chao are weird like that."
"That they are," Sorun agreed, some small amount of disappointment in his tone. He'd always been somewhat curious on what Virgil could say if he could talk, and he'd been hoping Sonic could provide him some answers with his translator. But Chao just had to be the special exception to that, for some reason or another. Chaos reasons, most likely.
Putting it out of his mind, Sorun reached towards his spoon, grabbed it, and frowned. It was something he'd been having to get used to, not being able to feel cold. The ability to feel temperature was lost with his ability to feel pain. It was somewhat convenient, he supposed, as he never got too hot or too cold anymore, but at the same time it was somewhat maddening as he couldn't feel the small things he was finding he'd taken for granted. Like wind brushing against his face. He still felt the wind, but he didn't feel the chilling touch that came with it anymore. Better than not feeling it at all, he supposed, which was probably the only reason he hadn't gone crazy from it.
Or the spoon he was holding for another instance. He still felt it, the object in his hand, the weight of it. The shape. Its smooth texture. He couldn't feel the cold from the metal, though.
If he didn't know he was dying pretty soon, he would have been more concerned over it. But knowing the end was near had a way of numbing it for him, so he'd adapted to it relatively well so far. It wasn't like the inability to feel pain wasn't that inconvenient in the first place. And as long as he read the dials on handles alright and watched himself he didn't think he'd be accidentally burning himself on hot water or something like that anytime soon. And if he did, well, it wasn't like it mattered all that much.
"I still don't see why you eat cereal dry," Sonic commented as he watched Sorun eat a spoonful of cereal. "What's wrong with milk in your cereal?"
"Only maniacs eat cereal with milk, or any solid mixed with liquid," Sorun said as he swallowed the cereal. "Same reason I hate soup and refuse to partake in it."
Sonic gave him a sideways look. "So... everybody's a maniac, then?"
"Feels like it sometimes," Sorun said as he ate another spoonful of cereal.
Sonic rolled his eyes at that. "Yeah, right," he remarked. "So what's your plan for today?"
"Tails is repairing some stuff on the Special. Asked me for help," he answered. "And by 'help' he means 'use your Bringer Claws to carry the big, heavy stuff so I can do it faster', but he worded it really nicely, so I said yes. I'm gonna go find Sally later to make sure she doesn't need me for anything, and after that I'm swinging by the hangar."
"You've been helping him out a lot recently, huh?"
Sorun shrugged. "He's a nice kid. Hard to say no to."
"Ah-huh." Sonic began tapping his finger against the table. A small grin was forming on his mouth. "Same kid that made the portal that brought you here. You seem really chummy with him now."
The spoon stopped halfway to the bowl. Sorun held it there, his body frozen, and as his eyes glanced up to meet Sonic's he sighed and dropped the spoon altogether. "You're bringing this up again?" Sorun asked him. When Sonic opened his mouth to talk back, Sorun beat him to the punch and said, "I will talk about any other topic than this one, Sonic. I'm not in the mood."
"Alright," Sonic agreed, sitting back in his seat to fully face Sorun. "You ever liked a girl before?"
Sorun was somewhat glad he chose that point to stop eating cereal, as he was fairly certain he would have choked on his food if he'd heard that while eating. "What...?" Sorun asked, his voice barely above a choked whisper.
"Y'know, a girl," Sonic repeated. "Like, was there anybody back in your zone you ever liked?"
"Oh." Sorun felt his shoulders sag a bit in relief. He'd tensed up pretty hard thinking Sonic had meant something else. "Nah, not really," he said, shaking his head.
Sonic looked a bit surprised at that. "Seriously? Nobody ever?"
"Nah, nobody wanted to date the short guy in class, Sonic."
"Ooh." Sonic winced at that and gave Sorun a sympathetic look. "Well, uh... there's nobody like that here," he added, and Sorun felt himself tensing back up. "You ever think about-?"
"How 'bout you, Sonic?" Sorun interrupted, pointing his spoon at the suddenly-flustered hedgehog. "Is there a girl you like?"
Sorun found himself taking great pleasure in how uncomfortable Sonic suddenly looked. "Hey, come on, I was asking you-!"
"And I said no. So no we're on to you," Sorun reasoned, giving Sonic an innocent smirk. "You're the one that changed the topic to this, and I already answered you. Now you have to answer me. It's only fair."
The blue Mobian looked like he wanted to fight the logic from the way his face scrunched up in concentration. He seemed to fail at finding an answer from the sudden look of defeat that grew on his face, though, and it was with a small groan he went a bit limp in his seat. Sorun celebrated the small victory with more cereal.
"Yeah, fine..." Sonic mumbled out, making Sorun raise his eyebrows in surprise. "There was... someone."
"Was it Amy?" Sorun asked between mouthfuls of cereal. "I know she has a thing for you."
Sonic looked about ready to gag when he heard that. "No, it's not her," he denied with a shake of his head. "I get she likes me, and she's a great friend, but I don't... really feel that way towards her, you know?"
He supposed he did. "Yeah, sure," he agreed with a nod. "So who is it?"
"Was," Sonic corrected, "and it was... it was Sally, alright?"
This time Sorun did choke on his cereal. He roughly coughed a few times to loosen the food particles stuck in his throat, and then affixed Sonic with a look of disbelief. He felt his eyes widen when he saw Sonic giving him a truthful, somewhat embarrassed look. "Wow, seriously? You went for the princess?" Sorun gasped out. "You really aim high, don'tcha?"
That was probably the last answer he'd been expecting. Granted he didn't know what to expect, and he supposed there was no reason it couldn't happen, but her? Sally had a sense of humor and was always up to lighthearted fun, he knew that, but compared to somebody like Sonic she may as well have been a no-nonsense commander. It was practically night and day.
Apparently opposites did attract.
"Would you not say it like that?" The amount of embarrassment Sonic was displaying would have Sorun rolling on the floor laughing if he wasn't so stupefied at the moment. "We've known each other since we were kids and have been Freedom Fighters together for that long. So, you know, over time it... just kinda happened."
Plausible enough, Sorun supposed. Years fighting a tyrannical dictator with a close group of friends had to develop some relationships. Antoine and Bunnie were living proof of that. "But you're not together anymore?" Sorun asked. When Sonic shook his head, he asked, "Why not?"
"It was after the whole space thing," Sonic muttered. "I get thrown halfway across the universe, and then take weeks to get back here only to find out I was gone for almost a whole year." He threw his hand up after saying that. "How does that even make sense? How can time move faster here than how it was moving out there?"
"Probably something with the Theory of Relativity." When Sonic gave him a questioning look, Sorun explained with, "It says light is equal to time or something like that, so the farther away you are, uh... you know what, I don't really know, ask Tails."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Some good reading that book did you, huh?"
"Gimme a break. I stopped reading after I figured portals out," Sorun mumbled. "So you get back from space. Then what happens?"
"Ah, it was during one of Mina's concert. There was this big celebration going on. Sally got... I don't even know what to call it, she just..." After struggling to find the words, Sonic sighed and shook his head. "Me being lost in space for so long did something to her. She didn't want to lose me again, so she flat-out said she didn't want me going out there fighting Eggman."
Sorun silently scoffed. He already knew what answer Sonic would have said. "And naturally you said no."
"Of course I did!" Sonic exclaimed, standing up. "It's not like there's any other super-fast hedgehogs out there to fight him! There's Shadow, but he's with G.U.N. doing his thing," he said. "I fight Eggman because I can do it and make it back okay, and because if I'm the one doing it then people who can't who'd come back way messed up or worse trying don't have to. I fight him to protect everybody." He sighed and flopped back in his seat. "But yeah, she didn't see it like that."
"How bad did it go?"
"She slapped me in front of everybody at the concert and ran off."
Sorun winced and hissed through his teeth. "Oooh, that's... yeah, that's bad." He felt like he'd been slapped himself just hearing that.
"You're tellin' me," Sonic mumbled in agreement. "She even called me selfish. Can you believe that?"
He couldn't, actually. Sonic, selfish? Sonic was the most selfless person Sorun knew. His reasons for fighting, the very reasons he'd just explained, was so selfless Sorun found a hard time seeing what part of it was selfish.
He almost heard whispers of Dante when he heard Sonic speak. About one fighting to protect what one loved.
"No, none of your reasoning is selfish. Sally's wrong." He almost felt a bit angry hearing what she did. Her saying that? He really wouldn't have believed it if it came from anybody other than Sonic. She seemed so level-headed that she was one of the last people Sorun would expect to do something like that. In front of a crowd of people, no less.
Love made people do strange things, apparently. He guessed he could see where she came from in doing that if he looked at it from that angle. Even then he could still scarcely believe it.
"Don't gotta lay it on that thick," Sonic said, scratching at one of his ears. "I... kinda get why Sally did what she did, I don't really blame her, but I just couldn't do something like that, you know? So we broke it off." He sighed, crossed his arms, and looked down. "We were kinda apart for a while after that, but we were still friends. Bunch of stuff happened afterwards, but otherwise everything was still good. Then Eggman and the Emeralds happened and, well... I guess it took our minds off the break up, because we kinda got back to normal after that. Too much going on, I guess."
"You still miss being with her?"
"... I don't know. We've both moved on, Sorun, and I don't really wanna go digging the past up like that, but... I just don't know."
"Mm." Sorun nodded at Sonic, and then took a last bite of cereal. He removed the spoon from his mouth, and then scowled a bit when he saw a bit of red straining the metal. "That's really rough, man," Sorun told him as he sat up from his seat, empty dishes in hand.
As Sorun stopped in front of the sink, Sonic nodded. "Yeah, tell me about it." He craned his head backwards just as Sorun finished rinsing his spoon off. "Would you have done the same thing if someone you really liked asked you to do that?" he asked.
Sorun, halfway through washing his bowl, paused in thought. He only needed a few seconds before resuming with washing the bowl. "I don't really think me sitting around with all my powers would be a good use of them," Sorun answered. He set aside the cleaned bowl and reached for the empty glass he brought over before continuing to speak. "Of course I don't want to fight, but I want to see people hurt even less. And like it or not I have the powers and know how to use them. If somebody asked me to stop just so I wouldn't get hurt..." He paused to let out a rueful chuckle. "Well, I guess I'd hope that they'd see my position and understand. And if they wanted to break up, that's as much their choice as it is my choice to continue to fight. A really big shame, but not much to do about it. That's the way it is, I guess."
"Yeah, I figured pretty much the same. That's why I never pushed it with Sally after we broke up," Sonic agreed. A single, small laugh escaped him. "It's really funny hearin' ya say all that, though. Kinda reminds me of that talk we had the first night you were here. You remember that?"
"I have no recollection of this night you speak of." Finished washing his dishes, and turning the faucet off a bit rougher than he ought to have, Sorun spun around to face Sonic while leaning against the sink. He roughly tapped on the kitchen counter when he saw that knowing smirk on Sonic's face. "I still think she made a wrong call," he said in an effort to steer back towards the previous topic, "but... I guess I can't really talk, never having been in the same position. That and all the princess stuff she has to deal with, leading the Freedom Fighters..." He shrugged and pushed off the sink. "Yeah, I don't know. She's got a lot of stuff to deal with. No telling what goes on in her head with all that."
Sonic gave him an agreeing nod. "Yeah, she's... she's real strong like that," he said. "Really amazes me sometimes."
Sorun said nothing in response to this. Instead, his eyes drifted over to a nearby clock, and then back to Sonic. "I gotta go," he said.
"Alright. Seeya," Sonic said, waving at Sorun as he made it to the front door. Sorun briefly waved back at Sonic, quickly slipped on the pair of black boots by the door, and then departed without another word.
Sorun was fairly certain that he was in the clear for any Freedom Fighter stuff for today. Most of the time he was told in advance if something he was needed for was coming up, and if he was needed immediately somebody was usually sent for him if he wasn't already at the HQ, which most days he was. But ever since Eggman's forces had been pushed all the way back to his city, freeing up everywhere else, his role as a Freedom Fighter had been... diminished, somewhat. Everybody's had, really, as there wasn't nearly as much fighting that needed to be done as there used to be.
A blessing for Sorun, he supposed, as it meant less opportunities to risk his neck, and the same went for everybody else. It was also a sign that they were actually winning this thing, and it made him feel a bit more at ease. Above that, though, it gave him more excuses to laze about, which he would have used this day to exploit to the fullest if it wasn't for the fact he made prior obligations to Tails. But that could come later. First was to find Sally and make sure he was actually free for the day.
Which brought him here, to Castle Acorn. He'd only ever been here three time, once when he'd been escorted by Sally, once when he'd been invited, and another time when he'd basically broken in. Ignoring that latter event, Sorun was never actually sure if he was allowed to just waltz into the place unannounced. With an escort, maybe, but on his own? He was pretty confident it was okay, being a Freedom Fighter had to have some perks and seeing as he was technically a foreigner he could make an argument for not being familiar with the customs involved in this, but he'd rather just avoid all that hassle entirely. Which usually meant he'd avoid the castle entirely, but he'd already teleported to Freedom HQ, and Sally hadn't been there. So if she wasn't here, that meant she was likely in the castle somewhere. The castle Sorun wasn't too sure he was allowed free entrance into.
The solution he came up with was that he was just going to sneak in. Usually this wouldn't be a feat he'd be able to accomplish; The surrounding area and the castle itself may have been big, but they also had plenty of guards keeping watch at all times to ensure nobody could sneak past them. And usually that remained true. But Sorun had the ability to Trick, so the plan was for him to just teleport to a nearby window and then search around until he found Sally.
Of course, that plan fell apart when he just happened to catch Sally on a nearby hill overlooking the castle. He counted himself lucky for the encounter that saved him having to snoop around the castle, and then a mischievous idea came to him. Nothing too harmful; he just wanted to give her a bit of a scare. So he Tricked right behind her, tapped her shoulder, and whispered, "Boo."
"Eek!" She immediately whirled around, hands reflexively forming into a defensive posture. She relaxed when she saw it was just Sorun, though her expression did turn a bit sour when she saw the Earthling snickering at her. "Ugh, Sorun!"
"In my defense it's really hard not to abuse that," Sorun said in defense of himself. "Anyways, hey. I just came to ask if there was anything I needed to do today, because I promised to help Tails with something later on so I was, y'know, just making sure."
She crossed her arms. "You came to make sure of that after promising to help him?"
"... Admittedly it probably wasn't my smartest move."
With a roll of her eyes, Sally said, "No, Sorun, I didn't have anything for you to do. Ever since Eggman got forced all the way to New Megaopolis, there... well, there hasn't really been much for the Freedom Fighters to do. All's been really quiet." She sighed quietly and turned around, back towards the direction of the castle. "I'd be concerned that all the quiet means he's preparing something big in retaliation for everything we've done, but without any safe way into New Megaopolis, there's not really anything we can do but prepare in the meantime."
Sorun hummed in agreement. She was right; there wasn't anything to do but wait for him to make a move. For him now it was just waiting to get the last of the Emeralds. He enjoyed the reprieve, but he couldn't help but also note the uneasiness that came with it. It seemed that Sally suffered from the same worries as him.
"So... what are you doing all the way up here, staring so forlornly out at the castle like that?" Sorun asked, attempting to steer the conversation away.
She shook her head. "I'm not forlorn." She looked to the side at a nearby rock, and then walked over to it. She then proceeded to sit down on the rock, her eyes still cast on the castle in the distance. "I'm just thinking. Now that Eggman isn't such an overbearing threat on us, I can focus my attention on other things."
"Oh, yeah? Like what?"
"Just the future, I guess," she airily answered. "You ever think about the future?"
"... I try not to," Sorun said as he sat down on the ground besides the rock Sally sat on.
"Really?" She turned her head to him and gave him an inquisitive look. "Why not?"
"Because what's there for me when this is all done with? The whole Freedom Fighter thing?" Nothing but oblivion, he supposed, but he asked in part to direct the conversation and in part to avoid delving into that subject matter. He scoffed and briefly flipped a hand up. "It's practically all I got goin' for me, Sally, but that can't last forever. So what's left for me after that?" He sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, so I try not to look too hard into it. I'll just deal with it when it gets here."
"That's a pragmatic way of looking at it, I suppose," Sally said. "But it's not like you won't have your life to look forwards to living once this war is over, right?"
Sorun had to resist making a withering sigh. "Ah-huh." He began tapping at the ground. "So you were saying about the future you were thinking of?"
Nodding, Sally turned back towards the direction of the castle. "Just what you would expect. The future of my family, friends, my kingdom and people... Mostly, though, I've been thinking about my future. What life for me will be like once the war is over. It's not like we haven't been able to balance living normal lives in-between being Freedom Fighters, so it won't be that big a shift, but... I just wonder about things." She sighed. "Hey, Sorun? Have you ever... liked somebody? Romantically speaking?"
"... Are we seriously doing this again?" Sorun sighed through his nose, just barely grinning as he shook his head in slight disbelief. "Not really, no," he answered. "What about you?"
"Well, you might find this hard to believe, but, well..." She began to nervously rub at her arm. "There was a time where Sonic and I were... together."
"Oh my god, we are doing this again." Sorun shook his head again. He could have just said he knew the story already from Sonic, but he refrained from doing so. He was too curious at hearing her side of the story, so he decided to just pretend he didn't know anything in the hopes he could figure out what made her act the way she did. "So what happened?" he asked, feigning ignorance.
"It was after when the Xorda invaded us, when they deployed this giant weapon. I told you about it once, right?"
"Sometime way back, sure."
"Right, well, Sonic sacrificed himself to save us all from it, because of course he would, but instead of dying he... somehow got lost in space," she said. "He says it only took him weeks to make his way back to Mobius, but for us here it was almost a whole year." Her voice suddenly grew quiet. "It... hurt for so long, thinking he was gone. Like there was a hole in my chest that just wouldn't heal itself, and until he just suddenly showed up completely fine one day it wouldn't stop hurting." A light smile found its way onto her face. "But then he did show up one day. He finally made it back, and I... I honestly thought I was looking at a ghost until I held him in my arms and he explained to me what happened.
"For a while after that everything was fine, but then... but then that night had to happen." Sally suddenly began scowling. "It was during one of Mina's concerts. We got into an argument." She made a frustrated sigh. "He actually wanted to go straight back to fighting Eggman, and I told him I didn't want him doing that. He wouldn't budge, so I gave him an ultimatum, right then and there: it was either staying with me or fighting Eggman."
"So what'd you do when he chose Eggman over you?"
Her eyes drifted down at Sorun, almost looking annoyed that he'd said that with so much certainty and had been right. She then turned back to the castle. "I slapped him and called him selfish in front of everybody."
"What a shocker." Sorun turned his head up at Sally. "Don't you think that was a bit much?" he asked her. "Slapping the guy?"
Sally looked back down at Sorun, her eyes locking with his. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that I think you were the selfish one for doing that," he said with a straight face.
There was a myriad of emotions that flickered across Sally's face in a short amount of time. So much that Sorun couldn't quite figure out what she was thinking when he said that until the very end, when she levelled at him with an unusually calm look. "Why do you think that?" she asked, and Sorun couldn't help but note how her voice lost a bit of its normal tone.
Slightly worried on the inside and remaining completely calm on the outside, Sorun turned his head towards the castle. "Sonic is the most selfless person I've ever met in my entire life. On an emotional level I can't comprehend the guy," Sorun admitted, making Sally's eyes widen slightly. "What I do understand is that he deeply loves everybody. Not just his friends and family, not even just his neighbors, but just people in general. It's... startling to me, how one person like him can care so much. So I'm not surprised at all that Sonic chose fighting Eggman over you."
Reaching down by his side, Sorun grabbed a small pebble and chucked it down the hill. "Sonic," Sorun continued, "fights him because he loves everybody. He can't stand the idea that there's somebody like Eggman out there hurting people at his whim, destroying families and whole villages. And he gets to be special in that he's one of the very few people in the world with the power to do something about it." He threw another stone. "He fights because he's one of the only people that actually can fight. He does it because, above all else, he wants to use his power to protect everybody he loves, which just happens to be everybody. You included."
He threw a third stone and waited for Sally to respond. It took her quite a few seconds, but eventually she quietly asked him, "Isn't that the same reason you came back here after you ran? Because you wanted to use your powers to protect?"
"... Something like that." A fourth stone. "The desire to protect isn't exactly unique; what makes him unique is that it's a desire to protect everyone. Sonic's just special in that he can make it a reality with his abilities. And your leadership. And with help from all his friends with their own skills. And very recently some idiot who eats Chaos Emeralds like he eats chili dogs." A fifth stone. "You... must have been somebody really special to him if he chose to give you that kind of love when he gives so much love to everybody else. That's why I think it was selfish of you for forcing that kind of choice on him. He wasn't going to choose his own love over everybody else, because he's just too selfless to do something like that. You may as well have just said you were breaking up with him and saved everybody the drama."
As he was tossing a sixth stone, he heard Sally sigh out loud. "I know," she said. "That stubbornly selfless nature of his is one of the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place. It's also why I just couldn't do it anymore," she mumbled out. "I was there mourning at his grave every single day while he was in space. My heart was in pieces, Sorun, and when he came back and suddenly everything was better but he wanted to go back to risking his life, I just..." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I couldn't go through with that again. That heartache. I don't know if I'd be able to bear it."
Sorun didn't say anything at first. He simply just rolled a seventh pebble in the palm of his hand, staring down at it as he silently thought. "I've never had my heart broken, so I can't sympathize. But I think I can understand why you did what you did." He threw the pebble. "You don't think abandoning the guy over a what-if was a bit hasty, though? Especially seeing as the war is going in our favor? That what-if won't even be a reality once Eggman is gone."
Sally opened her eyes back up and stared out at the castle. "Maybe," she hesitantly agreed, "but it's all in the past now. We've moved on, we're friends again, and I don't want to risk making things awkward by trying for romance again. It's not what I want."
"Then what do you want?"
"Well, number one I want you to stop throwing rocks before you hit somebody with one."
With the eighth stone in his hand, Sorun looked back towards Sally. She was looking at him from the side of her eyes with a small grin on her face, causing Sorun to make an amused scoff and drop the rock back onto the ground next to him.
"Alright, fine," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Was there anything else the princess wanted?"
"An end to the war and peace for the Kingdom of Acorn would be nice."
"We're working on it."
"Pfft." She held a hand to her mouth to stifle the laughter that threatened to escape. "Then in that case, I think that I'm good for now." She breathed out, smile growing a bit bigger. After that Sally turned her body around and slid off the rock she'd been sitting on. "You know what, Sorun? I really think I needed this," she said. "Thanks. For talking with me about this. It's really helped make things clear for me."
"I should be the one thanking you," Sorun said as he rose up to his feet. "You've taught me an important lesson."
"Oh, yeah?" she said, placing a hand on her hip as Sorun turned to face her. "And what's that?"
"Romance is too complicated, I'm never dealing with it to preserve my sanity."
She laughed out loud at that, trying and failing to stifle it yet again. Even Sorun managed to grin at the sight, the pale teen breathing out a chuckle while looking out to the side.
Inhaling from the laughter, Sally looked back at Sorun. "Oh, don't say that," she said with a smile. "I'm sure you'd be fine."
"I doubt it," he said.
"No, really, I am," Sally reaffirmed. "You can be really insightful and thoughtful when you want to. I know there's someone that appreciates that."
"You're givin' me too much credit." Sorun paused, and looked up at the sun. "You know what, I gotta go hit Tails up. Guy's probably already at the hangar wondering where I am." Yamato manifested in Sorun's grasp. He moved to pull it from the sheath, and then glanced back at Sally. "You want a portal to somewhere?"
She shook her head. "I actually like to walk around, unlike some people," she said, giving him a smirk.
Rolling his eyes, Sorun removed Yamato from the sheath. "I'm not ashamed of my laziness." He cut a portal in the space in front of them. "Have a nice day, Sally."
"Same to you." Sally waved to Sorun as he began stepping into the portal. The Earthling waved back at the Mobian chipmunk right before disappearing through the hole in space.
"Can you please hand me the socket wrench, Sorun?"
"Socket wrench. Right." From the stool he stood on, Sorun looked at the small workbench besides him and at the various tools scattered around. He found himself blanching at the seemingly dozens of wrench-looking devices that seemed to be staring back at him. Gulping, he turned back forwards, towards the fox Mobian laying his back on the floor and under the Freedom Fighter Special with his hands up inside of the large ship's electronic guts. "Which one was that again?" Sorun asked.
"The one with the circular head."
"That tells me nothing," Sorun thought as he looked back at the tools. Almost half of the wrenches he was looking at had circular heads. Biting his lower lip, he had his Bringer Claw choose one at random and extend out to the fox. Tails reached up, took the tool, and went back to work, making Sorun breath out in relief when he seemed to have chosen the right one. Then his breath hitched when Tails paused and held the tool back out.
"Sorun," he said, "this is a sprocket wrench."
"That's what you asked for."
"No, I need a socket wrench. This is a sprocket wrench."
"... There's a difference?"
"Ugh..." Tails pulled himself out from the underside of the giant ship, and then hovered up into the air. He flew towards the workbench Sorun sat next to, tossed the sprocket wrench into the nearby toolbox, and then picked up a different wrench that, to Sorun's eyes, may as well have been identical to the one he tried giving the fox. "This is a socket wrench," he said.
Sorun squinted at the wrench. "... I'm pretty sure that's the same wrench I gave you."
The flat look that Tails gave Sorun shattered all of the teen's confidence. "Why did I ask you to come and help me again?" Tails asked.
"Because you need me to carry stuff like that so you don't have to set up the chain-pulley thing." Sorun nodded his head to the left, towards the back end of the FF Special where one of its large thrusters was detached and lying on the ground besides it. A thruster that was bigger than ones Sorun had seen on commercial planes back on Earth.
Tails nodded. "Ohhh, right... Speaking of which, help me with that."
"Ah-huh." Blue, feathered arms appeared behind Sorun, and then extended forwards. They grabbed onto the thruster and rose it up towards the back end of the ship, where it had been connected previously before Tails had taken it off. Sorun pressed it up against the spot and asked, "Just hold it here, right?"
"Yeah, that's good!" After quickly grabbing an assortment of tools from the workbench, Tails flew up and towards the back section of the ship. Sorun had grabbed the stool he was sitting on meanwhile and followed him, and then after setting the stool down right under the thruster sat down and watched Tails work.
"So," Sorun began, "how have you been?"
"Pretty great, actually," Tails answered, his voice carrying over the clanking and whirring sounds of... whatever he was doing up there that Sorun couldn't quite make out. "Things have been really quiet now, so I've had a lot of time to myself to catch up on some things."
"Cool." Sorun took a glance around. "You know," he said, "this hangar is... kinda big, even with the ship and your plane. What's up with that?"
"Well, this place is technically an air base for the kingdom's aerial vehicles. We... kind of lost most of those after Eggman got the seven Emeralds," Tails answered. "My plane and the Special were pretty much the only things that survived during those days, and during a really bad attack the air base actually got hit. We used to have a proper runway, you know, and not the giant patch of dirt out there we have now." He made a loud sigh. "But, with everything that had been going on, I guess nobody had the time to repair the thing. Maybe now that everything's way quiet they'll have time now."
Sorun quietly nodded, not all that interested. "Neat. So otherwise you're all good?"
"I guess." Tails flew over to the other side of the turbine and began working again. "With all this extra time I've been thinking. 'Bout stuff and... other things that I haven't had time to think of for a while." He cut himself off when he began to loudly drill at something. "Hey, Sorun? Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Have you, um... have you ever had a crush on anybody?"
"What is up with today?" Sorun went as far as to slap his own palm against his face, the sound of which was drowned out when Tails continued to drill. He could hardly believe he was being asked this again, and by Tails of all people. If anything he would have thought somebody as young as him wouldn't even ask something like that. "No, not at all."
The drilling ceased. "Oh." Another short series of drillings. "I did, once."
The hand remained on Sorun's face, and he found himself sighing into it. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." When Sorun removed his hand and looked up, he saw Tails hovering next to the thruster and looking down at him. "You can let go, by the way. It's secured."
The Bringer Claws disappeared, and with them left Sorun's desire to remain here for much longer. But before he could even try and think up an excuse to leave, Tails had flown down, grabbed a second stool, and set it up next to Sorun before sitting down in it. Sorun, meanwhile, was visibly deflating in his own stool.
"It was something that happened a while ago, and now that we don't have to worry about Eggman all that much and I'm not worrying all the time I keep coming back to it," Tails continued while settling in his stool. "I don't know who else to go to for this. My parents would be too embarrassing, and everybody else, well..." He shook his head. "It's just too awkward."
"Can't you talk to Sonic about this?" Sorun asked. "Don't you look up to him?"
"Yeah. I do. He's... he's like a big brother to me." Tails hesitantly looked to the side. "But this isn't something I can talk to him about."
"But you can with me?"
"Well... you never met the person I'm talking about like everybody else did," he explained. "And you... don't treat me like a kid like some of the others do sometimes."
"Yeah, because I don't know a single kid that can do whatever you did to a ship turbine like that," Sorun said, gesturing towards the ship. "Jeez, I can't even do that. I can't even fly a plan like you, either."
"Ain't that the truth..." Tails muttered out, causing Sorun to give him a dirty glare. "Anyway," he continued, looking back at Sorun just as his expression turned back to normal, "her name was Fiona."
A low sigh left Sorun. He didn't want to do this. In reality there was nothing stopping him from just getting up and leaving right this instant, but Tails had already started getting into whatever he wanted to talk about. Leaving by now would be incredibly rude. So he resigned to his fate and slumped forwards in his stool a bit as he listened to the fox talk.
"She was a fox, like me. She... also had a really rough past and came at odds with the Freedom Fighters some times, but eventually she came around and started living in Knothole with us. Even helped us out a few times." A small smile began growing on his face. "We hung out a bunch, and I... really started to like her. A bunch. I liked her all the way back during the whole robot-double thing, but that's a whole different story," he said, making Sorun crease his eyebrows in confusion. "But then," Tails continued, and the small smile on his face faded, "Sonic came back from space."
The confusion lacing Sorun's features increased. "Isn't... that a good thing...?"
"Well, yeah, of course it was. We all thought he was gone forever, so when he came back it was really great. But then his breakup with Sally happened, and-" He cut himself off, eyes going widened. "Oh, wait, I don't know if I should tell you-"
"Sonic already told me."
"Oh. Phew." Tails relaxed a bit, and then continued speaking. "Well, yeah, they had their breakup, and after a while... Fiona began dating Sonic."
"... Wait, how old was she again?"
Tails shrugged. "Around Sonic and Sally's age."
Sorun blinked. "Uh-"
"And it's just stupid, you know!?" Tails suddenly exclaimed, throwing his hands out in frustration. "He knew I liked her but he still dated her! What kind of big brother does that!?"
"Did I wake up in some weird alternate universe or something?" At this point Sorun wouldn't even be surprised if that was what happened, because he wasn't recognizing any of the behavior anybody around him was displaying. Sonic being so abashed while telling his story, hearing about Sally's actions, the way he was seeing Tails act right now. It seemed so radically different than what he was used to seeing out of them.
Was it all really because of love? Lined up with stories he heard back on Earth, both real-life and in fiction. He wasn't exactly an expert on the subject, but it had to be true if it made people act weird like this. Love really did make people do strange things. Or in this case a childish crush, because the longer Tails went on the more Sorun suspected that what he was listening to was far from love.
"So did... did she die...?" Sorun hesitantly asked.
Tails shook his head. "No. She betrayed us and ran off with Scourge."
"..." Sorun rolled his hand at Tails. "I don't know who that is."
"He's a Sonic from a different zone," Tails explained. "It's like a mirror zone of this one. Moebius. He's... he's a real bad guy."
"... Huh?" He needed a few seconds to process the sentence Tails just said, after which he had to hold a hand to his suddenly-throbbing forehead. "There's an evil Sonic, what...?"
"Well I wouldn't call him..." Tails paused, and then shook his head. "No, I guess that... kinda describes him pretty good. Yeah."
And now had that in the back of his mind forever. That was great. "Kind of a weird thing to drop on me so casually, but whatever," Sorun muttered under his breath. He decided he wasn't going to look too far into that little nugget of knowledge. He already had an evil mad doctor to deal with. He didn't need a evil Sonic or whatever Scourge was on top of that. "So she ran off with Not-Sonic," Sorun said, "and then what?"
"Then nothing. We never saw her or Scourge again after that. Too busy with Eggman." Tails sighed out and rubbed at his forehead. "She even slapped me right before she disappeared with Scourge. I just wanted her to stay."
"What is it with these girls and slapping people?" Sorun loudly exhaled, leaned forwards, and steepled his hands together. This didn't sound at all like what happened between Sonic and Sally. this sounded like something way more worse, and Sorun didn't know what he was supposed to say to Tails. Because he didn't know how to deal with romance woes. Or to deal with what he strongly suspected to be a childish crush for somebody that likely didn't even care about Tails considering she was an older teenager and Tails was eleven.
He found himself wanting less and less to be involved with this the longer this went on. But, he was in it too far to back out now. So Sorun took a deep breath and tried his best with what he had.
"Tails, have you... have you ever considered that, just maybe, Fiona wasn't, you know... a good person?" he asked, hands still steepled together.
The fact that Tails looked like Sorun just punched him in the face didn't bode well for the Earthling. "Why would you say something like that?"
"Well, I mean... all you told me of her was that she was a bad person who was good for a bit, and then slapped you and ran off with a bad person," Sorun said. "That doesn't, like... it feels like you're leaving a lot of details out, and admittedly I don't know the whole picture, but the picture you did paint of her wasn't a very good one." When Tails maintained that hurt look on his face, Sorun sighed and tried again. "What I'm trying to say is... maybe she was, possibly, perhaps... taking advantage of you because you're-"
"Because I'm what?" Tails snapped. "A kid?" He scoffed and turned away from Sorun. "That's what Sonic said."
"He said that because he's right!" Sorun's mind screamed. He made a soft groan and tried rethinking his words. "Tails, in terms of intelligence an maturity-" Sorun internally winced, somewhat doubting that second aspect more and more, "- you're far above a child. But you're making it sound like you were just someone she hanged out with while her eyes were on Sonic. And then the other Sonic." He began breathing a bit easier when he saw Tails begin to relax a bit. "What I'm trying to say is... I don't see you as a child. But are you sure Fiona didn't see you as one?"
"... I don't know," Tails finally admitted after a long moment of silence. He sighed and slumped forwards, both his ears and his tails drooping. "You know what she said to me when she slapped me? That I should never trust anybody," he mumbled out.
"Well, that's just plain wrong."
"I know," he agreed, "but I... maybe you're right," he sighed out. "I mean, it's not like I've never considered what you're telling me as the truth, that... that Fiona was a bad person, or that she tried to be good but just couldn't do it. I don't know what she was thinking when she went with Scourge. Sometimes I wonder if we could have done things different and could have gotten her to stay here," he said. "I just... keep thinking back to Sonic. And how she chose him over me."
Clicking his tongue, Sorun looked ahead and gestured his hand out. "Listen, Tails. You're eleven. You got a whole life ahead of you," he said. "I mean, Sonic and Sally got over each other and moved on, right? There's no reason you can't do the same thing. Just keep living life until you find someone else. You got time." He clapped a hand on Tails' shoulder. "Believe me, you got time. Jeez, maybe even wait a few more years 'til you're older before you even start considering it. Get your own stuff in order first, know what I mean?"
"Huh. Maybe... that makes sense." Tails blinked at Sorun with wide eyes as he removed his hand, and then looked down at his two feet that he was slowly kicking in thought. "I guess... I guess waiting couldn't hurt. But with Fiona, I... I don't know. I'll have to think on it." He looked back up at Sorun as a wide smile grew on his face. "I'll save that for later. Thanks, Sorun. It felt nice talking this over with you."
"Yeah man sure don't mention it." By now Sorun was completely sagging in his stool, quietly sighing out as he wiped a hand over his forehead. "I don't know how I did it, but I think I did it. Whatever 'it' is. Man, this is exhausting..."
"Sorun? Can I ask you something?" When Sorun gave an affirmative grunt, Tails asked, "Is that what you're doing? Waiting until you have your life together before considering being with somebody?"
And now Sorun was sitting up completely straight, Tails' question having startled all sense of weariness out of him. He glanced to the side at Tails, and then breathed out while rubbing his neck and looking the other way. "Did somebody put you up to this?" he asked. "Is this why you brought this whole topic up to begin with? It was Sonic, wasn't it?"
Tails shook his head. "No, I'm just wondering," he said. "You never really talk about this kind of thing-"
"Because I'm never interested in it," Sorun quickly replied. "Tails, I'm a social outcast. What part of that screams 'I'm looking for romance' to you?"
"I mean... you're not really a social outcast," Tails denied. "Not anymore, at least. I see you out all the time now."
"Ugh, Tails..." Running a hand over his face, Sorun stood up out of the stool. "Why do you gotta go and say that?" Shaking his head, he turned back to the fox. "It's just not something I want, alright? So drop it."
"Alright, I will. Sheesh." Rolling his eyes, Tails jumped up off his own stool and stepped in front of Sorun. "Well, I really just needed help with the thruster," he said. "I can handle the rest on my own. Oh, wait, before I forget!"
Tails' tails suddenly began spinning up, causing his body to lift up into the air. Sorun watched as he flew towards the workbench. He hovered over it for a few moments, and then made a happy sound, grabbed something, and flew back to Sorun before touching back down at the ground. He then held something up to Sorun: one of the wrist communicators the other Freedom Fighters wore.
"Rotor finally finished making a wrist communicator with reinforced parts for Knuckles, so hopefully he won't break this one. Rotor said he'd slap Knuckles if he managed to bust it anyway," Tails said, a small, sheepish grin on his face. "I promised I'd give it to Knuckles later since Rotor was busy with something, but there's still a few more repairs I wanna make on the Freedom Fighter Special. Would you mind giving it to him for me?"
After regarding the wrist communicator for a few moments, Sorun shrugged and took it from Tails' hand. "Sure, I can do that real quick," he agreed. "You know where he is?"
"I'd think he'd be at the HQ. If not there then probably in one of the training zones like usual."
"Gotcha." Sorun pocketed the wrist communicator, and then manifested Yamato. "Alright, I'll go do that now. Seeya 'round."
"Bye!" Tails waved the Earthling off as he made a portal with his sword. Sorun waved back at him, and then exited through the portal.
After looking around for a bit Sorun had finally found Knuckles. Like Tails had said he'd been at one of the training grounds if not at the HQ, and in this case, it was the small field of wooden posts. Sorun had found him sitting on the ground against one of the posts, and interestingly enough Julie-Su was there with him. She was leaning against a post next to his, and the two seemed to be in deep conversation over something. Something happy, Sorun wagered, from the nice smiles they had on both of their faces.
Well, whatever it was, Sorun wasn't much interested in it. He just wanted to drop this wrist communicator off and then go do something else. Maybe go for a walk around Knothole or something. Clear his head of all this relationship stuff everybody kept feeding him.
"Yeah, and then- oh, hey. Sorun!" They both turned their heads towards the approaching Earthling, with Knuckles waving at him. "What's going on?"
"Nothing much. Rotor finally finished this reinforced wrist thing for you," Sorun said, digging into his pocket and taking the communicator out. "He said he'd slap you if you managed to break this one." Sorun craned his neck over his shoulder. "I'd take it seriously if I were you, been a lot of that going around."
"Hah! I'll be sure to." Knuckles caught the wrist communicator after Sorun tossed it to him, and then asked, "Is it only the one? Rotor said he'd make Mighty one, too."
Sorun shrugged. "Well, Tails gave it to me to give it to you, but he only had one, yeah."
"He probably still working on it, Knuckles. You know how swamped he is with his projects sometimes." Julie-Su pushed herself off of the post she leaned on and turned to Knuckles. "I'll go check up on him and see what's taking so long."
"Alright. See you later."
"See you." They both gave each other smiles, followed by Julie-Su turning around to walk away. She gave Sorun a brief nod, the teen nodding back to the other teen as she walked away.
Once out of sight, Sorun turned from the direction Julie-Su walked off back to Knuckles. He did a double-take when he saw the large smile that was still plastered on the echidna's face, his eyesl staring back to the direction Julie-Su had walked in. It was only when Sorun cleared his throat did he finally turn his attention to him.
"You, uh... doing okay there, man?" Sorun asked, quirking an eyebrow at the red Mobian.
"Oh, yeah. Totally. Just, uh... me an' Julie-Su were just talking about, y'know, stuff and..." He sighed, and then affixed his eyes upwards at Sorun's. "You ever seriously been into a girl, Sorun? Like, seriously been into one?"
"Oh, for the love of...!" Sorun had to resist slapping his own face again as an utterly exasperated feeling overtook him. "No, Knuckles. I haven't," Sorun snapped in a tone that made the echidna flinch. "So what's it gonna be, Knuckles? Huh? What's the story? What's the super-tragic love story you're gonna tell me that somehow involves Julie-Su that has you questioning everything you're doing, huh? What is it!?"
Sorun's rant had grown so heated that Knuckles had actually leaned a bit back into the post he sat against, violet eyes widened and an arm held out in front of him. It was only when Sorun finished with heavy breaths did Knuckles choose to finally lower his arm and speak. "Um... I don't know what's going on with you, but me and Julie-Su are going steady," he slowly said. "There's... not really any issues between us."
"... Oh." Sighing in frustration at his own outburst, Sorun walked over to the post Julie-Su had been leaning against previously. He less sat and more crashed into a sitting position on the ground, leaning against the post while Knuckles warily eyed him. "Sorry man, it's just- for some reason everybody's been giving me their relationship problems all day, and I'm sick of hearing it," he said. "Is there some kind of holiday or something I'm unaware of?"
Knuckles shook his head. "Not that I know of," he said. "So I guess you don't want to hear about me and Ju-"
"Noooo..." Sorun groaned out, causing Knuckles to smirk a bit. He groaned so much that he'd leaned forwards enough so that his face landed into his lap. "And it's 'Julie-Su and I', not the other way around," Sorun corrected, voice muffled by his lap.
At that, Knuckles rolled his eyes. "What are you, a grammar teacher?"
Sorun's head picked itself straight back up with enough speed that Knuckles started a bit from it. "If you're gonna speak the language, then speak it properly," he angrily grumbled out. "But," he said, expression relaxing, "I'd rather talk about anything else than anything relating to romance of any kind, Knuckles. I'm romanced out for the day. For the month. For the rest of my life."
"Rest of your life's kinda a long time to swear that off, ain't it?"
"Oh boy you'd think, anyway!" Sorun loudly clapped his hands, making Knuckles jump slightly. "You know what I want to hear about? Some echidna history," Sorun said. "I already got a bit of the lore from Espio, but he just told me the recent stuff. Not really any real echidna history, like why you guys live up on a floating island. Or why there's a floating island."
"The lore?" Knuckles repeated with a small grin. "Is that what you call it?"
"Yeah, man, the lore. You know, like... just the lore, man."
"The lore," Knuckles repeated, testing the word out. He made a small, satisfied "hmph" sound, nodding his head. "Sounds like a word dad would use," he mumbled out before turning back to Sorun. "I don't really know much, but I can tell you what I can if you really want. You sure you want to hear it, though? It's pretty complicated."
"Complicated?" Sorun had to laugh at that. "Let me tell you about complicated, Knuckles. Complicated is the position I find myself in every single day. Complicated is every single problem and adventure I hear the Freedom Fighters have or have had, but whenever somebody tells me it they play it off like completely normal because here, it is normal. I literally just learned from Tails that there's apparently an alternate universe full of evil versions of you guys and he played it off like it was nothing."
"Oh, Moebius? Yeah, they've been trouble a couple of times."
"See, see!? This is what I mean!" Sorun exclaimed, gesturing wildly out in front of him. "Every single complicated thing in this world is normalized to an everyday affair because everybody is desensitized to the sheer ridiculousness of it all, so when you, Knuckles, tells me that 'it's complicated', you really worry me."
There was a certain look on Knuckles face following his rant; one that Sorun couldn't quite place. Somber, perhaps. That was the closest word Sorun could think of. He supposed he understood why- if Espio was to be believed his kind was decimated, and a large majority of what was left were cyborg nuts fighting a civil war somewhere on Angel Island. He couldn't begin to imagine what sort of history would have lead to that happening, let alone why the echidna were living on a floating island in the first place.
But, he was curious. And desperate to get away from the topic of romance. Seeing as Knuckles himself was an echidna and a native to the island, it made sense to ask him.
"I'll try and keep it simple," Knuckles assured him. "You still up for it?"
"Yeah, man." Sorun nodded at the echidna. "Go for it."
"Alright, then." Knuckles took a deep, steadying breath, and then focused his eyes on Sorun. "Well, I guess to start with..."
What followed was a deluge of information that may as well have been incomprehensible nonsense to Sorun's ears. He'd tried to listen to and understand Knuckles, really, he had, but the only important details Sorun managed to glean out from the long-winded explanation was that he truly didn't know if the echidna species as a whole was alright in the head. Because he sincerely doubted it listening to Knuckles.
He hadn't even needed to get the full story to come to this conclusion. He'd gotten as far as their species having lifted the island up from Downunda to avoid a meteor sometime long in the past before he started losing Knuckles. Everything from the history afterwards to the major splits and schisms in their society to the weird hangup they had with technology, it was all... nonsense. Utter, complete nonsense. And Sorun wasn't having anymore of it.
"Look, Knuckles, echidna, Dark Legion, Guardians, weird alternate dimensions, it's- it's all very fascinating, I get it, but can I just ask you why your people's history is so convoluted?" With a ragged sigh Sorun ran a hand through his hair. "I mean, Jesus, I thought things down here were complicated, but you guys took it to a whole 'nother level up there on that island."
Knuckled breathed through his nose and flipped his hand up. "Couldn't tell ya, Sorun. My people've been through a lot."
"Apparently so," Sorun muttered out. "Did you come all the way down here just to escape this craziness, because I wouldn't blame you in the slightest."
"No, I came down here because there's this maniac called Eggman that's a bit of an existential threat to the entire world, and Angel Island happens to be a part of the world," Knuckles answered. "The Chaotix agreed and followed me. My dad... not so much."
"Ah, yeah, you're dad, who was part of this weird... contrived Guardian Illuminati thing," Sorun said. "You were seriously born into a line of weirdos bent on this whole secrecy-slash-protect-the-thing-making-the-island-float thing? Which is an Emerald by the way?"
"Master Emerald, it's a long story so don't ask, and no, you can not touch it, Sorun." Knuckles affixed Sorun with a serious look, one that made the pale teen freeze in place. "I saw your eyes light up when I told you the thing holding the island up in the air is a giant Chaos Emerald. Don't you even think about touching it."
"I wasn't gonna doom your entire island and make it fall back down to terra firma just for a power," Sorun said. He didn't tell Knuckles the part where he briefly considered it, but in the end decided against it. Destroying a whole island and its ecosystem, and everyone living on it, sounded counterintuitive to the whole reason he was doing this in the first place. And while the idea of absorbing a giant Chaos Emerald sounded nice, he was also afraid absorbing that much Chaos energy would kill him on the spot. So the Master Emerald sounded like a no-go.
Knuckle nodded at Sorun, satisfied with the answer he gave. "Well, good. Anyway, the Brotherhood weren't weirdos," Knuckles grumbled out. "They are, or were, since they're apparently all gone except my dad, just driven."
"Setting up a whole system where you make a fake wall of fire using holograms to make you think your dad walked into a wall of fire and died for a really stupid reason so he could spy on you through cameras like a weirdo to groom you to be a part of the echidna Illuminati sounds kind of weird," Sorun said. "I can say for certain I would have punched my dad if he did that to me. I would have punched him a lot. I would have knocked teeth out."
"They were very driven, alright!?"
"Yeah, you gotta be some kinda driven to fake your death in front of your kid," Sorun scoffed out. He crossed his arms, then asked, "So... dear old dad didn't approve of you comin' here?"
The question made Knuckles sigh out and shake his head. "No," he answered. "He thought that since I was a Guardian my duty was to remain on Angel Island to guard the Master Emerald, the one thing keeping the island floating. And he said I had even more reason to say since most of what's left of my people are living in a single little village after the whole Eggman thing. Not many of us left."
"And because you made the sensible decision to go deal with the root of the problem instead of continuing to treat the symptoms, you two cut contact."
"Pretty much, yeah."
"... Knuckles, I mean this with all due respect. Your dad sounds like a really terrible person."
"He's not," Knuckles denied with a shake of his head. "Geez, would you lay off him already!? You're focusing on all the bad qualities and none of the good!"
"All you're giving me are bad qualities!"
"He...!" Knuckles paused to take a calming breath. "Okay, maybe not everything he did was the best, but he only did what he thought was the best for the island and our kind. He did it for my sake, for everybody on the island's sake. We've had some disagreements, but I still love him." He made a low hum and brushed some of his dreadlocks behind his shoulder. "You sound like my mom. She separated from him and remarried to someone else because she never agreed with what he did to me."
"Sounds like a sensible woman," Sorun thought to himself. "So she's at that camp?"
Knuckles nodded. "Yeah. Her, and my step-dad... and my little half-brother," he quietly mumbled out.
Sorun's head perked up in interest. "Oh, you have one of those?" he asked. "What's his name?"
"You'll laugh if I tell you."
"Oh, come on, how bad can-"
"Kneecaps."
The name given out by Knuckles had been said so quickly that Sorun had barely caught it. Catch it he did, though, and he had to look towards Knuckles with widened eyes to confirm that what he heard was indeed correct. He didn't even know what to think when the echidna gave him a nod.
"... Kneecaps," Sorun slowly repeated in an unsure tone.
"It's a shortened version of the name, but basically, yeah. Kneecaps," Knuckles mumbled in confirmation. "Believe me, I didn't like the name, either, but mom did, so what am I gonna do?"
"..." Sorun had to take a deep breath to steady himself. "Kneecaps." He looked at one of Knuckles' hands and the twin spikes protruding from them. "Knuckles." He looked up an Knuckles' face. "Does your family in particular just have a weird thing with naming kids after body parts, or-?"
"No, no no no, that's a different thing entirely," Knuckles said with a shake of his head. "'Knuckles' was the name of some old echidna tribe my dad named me after. And echidna, well..." He rose his spiked fist up to his face. "Normal echidna don't have bone spikes sticking out of their hands like I do. They usually just wear gloves with spikes in 'em."
Sorun tilted his head to the side in confusion. "But you do? Because your connection to the Chaos Force is unusually strong?" he guessed.
"Pretty much. The only reason I even have powers is 'cause dad blasted me with some weird Chaos energy ray thing when I was an egg."
Sorun blinked once. "Your dad gave you the Bruce Banner treatment?" He blinked twice. "You were an egg!?"
It was Knuckles' turn to look confused. "Yeah, echidna females lay eggs," he slowly explained. "And... and the who treatment?"
"It's nothing, forget it." Sorun had to shake his mind clear after Knuckles' little revelation had him shuddering. He didn't know if he needed to know that particular piece of information. He regretted learning a lot of the information this conversation was providing if he was being honest with himself. "Okay, ignoring that, and ignoring everything having to do with your dad, Knuckles, I gotta say... I shoulda listened to you. Because your whole kind somehow made things up on that island more complicated than everything else going on in the rest of the world, and that, sir, is an accomplishment."
The statement hadn't gone very far towards improving Knuckles' mood. He'd waved a hand in Sorun's direction, looking displeased but at the same time understanding. Like he knew and understood that the information he was giving the Earthling was exhausting in its contents. "I warned you it'd be a lot," he stated. "Sorry if I kind of overloaded you there."
"You didn't do anything. It's fine," Sorun said in response. His eyes drifted away from Knuckles, staring forwards as he thought something over in his head. After a few minutes he slowly clicked his tongue and, with his head still pointed forwards, he looked at Knuckles from the corner of his eyes. "One last thing I was curious about," he said, voice going a bit lower. "Have you ever heard of an echidna named Aurora? Or Athair by any chance?"
He saw that the names elicited a surprised response out of Knuckles. Enough that he'd widened his eyes a bit at Sorun. "Aurora and Athair?" he asked. "Yeah, they're... they're these weird echidna that are really close to the Chaos Force, if that makes any sense. I actually met them once, but I don't really know much about them otherwise. I know that Tails did a couple of things with Athair, back when he was still alive. And Athair had his own whole thing. Was supposed to be a Guardian like me, but he went a different path."
"So they're, what, Chaos ghosts?"
"I don't know. All I know is that their connections to the Chaos Force were really strong, and that they had some weird relationship with these three ancient things, but they died," Knuckles explained. "They keep to themselves, mostly. Athair doesn't really talk with Tails anymore. Where'd you hear about them, anyways?"
Sorun shrugged. "Don't recall. Just heard their names be mentioned once, probably from Tails. I was just curious." He turned his head fully towards Knuckles. "But that's all you know?"
"'Fraid so. Sorry if that wasn't good enough for you."
"Ah, it's fine. Like I said, I was just curious about some names I heard. It's no skin off my back." It wasn't exactly a complete lie. He'd been hoping to glean some more information off of them from Knuckles, since he was an echidna and seemed to be "in the know", as it were, but it sounded like he didn't know much himself. But, even if he did have substantial information on them, Sorun wasn't too sure what he would have done with it. He wasn't exactly invested in learning their history or how they got to where they were now; just what they were in general. And most of what Knuckles said he already knew himself.
It sounded like Tails was a bit ingrained with them, though, if only by pure association. He personally knew an Neo-Walker, and his still-alive (for now) uncle was another one as well. An interesting lead, but not one Sorun was too interested in pursuing. He honestly doubted Tails would be much help, either, and even then it's not like Sorun had any plans with them or anything of the sort. The questions stemmed from pure curiosity.
Well, in the end, it didn't matter. He'd already made up his mind on what he was doing, and as far as he was concerned they were all inconsequential at this point. He had better things to worry about than some ghosts.
"Alright, I think I've heard about all I can." Without a sound, Sorun stood up to his legs, only idly noticing the lack of pins and needles in his legs from sitting for so long before turning back to Knuckles. "I'm gonna go on a walk. Clear my head. I'll see you later, alright?"
"Yeah, sure. See you later." Knuckles called out, settling back against his post as he looked up at the sky. Sorun nodded towards him, and then began walking out towards the direction of Knothole with his hands placed securely in his pockets.
"Kneecaps... There's something seriously wrong with the echidna up there on that island."
Sorun had made true on his desire to walk around Knothole and clear his head. For the most part it wasn't working, because he kept thinking back to every single conversation he'd had with people today. It was fading with time, though, and he found himself dwelling on all those words less and less the more he walked around to find more things to distract himself with. As far as clearing his head, it was a slow and steady process. Slow, but one that worked.
And then he just had to hear his voice.
"Oh, Sorun! Bonjour!" His feet practically made a grinding sound when they halted their movements. Sorun took a deep breath, and turned around to the voice he recognized as belonging to Antoine. As he suspected, the coyote was standing right behind him, and, for some reason, he was carrying two armloads of bags full of vegetables. "How nice to be seeing you here! I was just out getting ze groceries for ze very special dinner I 'ave been planning for ma cherie Bunnie zis evening." A large, dopey smile grew on his face. "Ahhh, Sorun. Love. Eet iz such a beautiful thing, non? Tell me, have you ever felt-"
Sorun Tricked away out of sight, leaving behind a very confused Antoine.
"Man, I am so done with today..."
Not even a second after Sorun said this, the teen had flopped face-first onto the HQ's couch. He barely had the energy to do much else than just lay there, completely exhausted. Mentally exhausted from having had to endure everything he'd listened to do, and physically exhausted for about the same reasons.
He always knew there was a reason he'd unconsciously avoided prying too far into people's love lives. This was apparently why- it was too complex for him to keep track of. He couldn't even blame himself for what happened today because by some cosmic coincidence almost everyone chose to air out some of their thoughts on the matter on him of all people, on the same day of all things. It told him a couple of things. One, he could never be a counselor even if he had the time to become one, and two, love... love did indeed do weird things to people.
The sound of a pair of footsteps approaching the couch had stirred him from his thoughts, and Sorun just barely resisted groaning into the cushion out of frustration. Knowing how his day was going it was going to be somebody else that wanted to talk about the troubles their love life had. He wasn't going to have it. He was done with that. He wasn't going to go through the mental hoops of trying to piece it all together when all the echidna stuff Knuckles had told him previously was already frying his brain. So when he heard the footsteps stop right besides him, Sorun pushed his face just high enough off the cushion so he could see the pair of feet in order to ascertain just who it was and formulate an appropriate response in order to escape them without seeming rude.
But then he stopped cold when he realized that whoever was standing next to the couch wasn't wearing shoes. He didn't even need to think on who it was, his mind instinctually recognizing the brown and black fur pattern, and his suspicions were only confirmed when he looked up at the purple cloth dress wrapped around the body's torso.
"Uh... hey." It was the only response Sorun could think to say when he saw Nicole looking down at him. She had a curious look on her face, her head just slightly tilted to the side as she looked down at him, and her hands held behind her back. "I've had a day."
She blinked in confusion. "I would imagine everybody would experience 'a day' every single day, Sorun."
"You're not wrong." Sorun shuffled up into a sitting position, all his earlier exhaustion having practically disappeared. He moved to the side and rested one arm on the sofa's armrest while the other arm hung at his side. He'd had an idea of venting all the frustration he'd accrued over the course of the entire day at Nicole, but as the seconds ticked by he found those frustrations beginning to disappear at a startlingly rapid rate. In fact, by the time he looked back up at her face, he found that his mind was completely sound. It was a such a pleasant change of a mindset that he'd accidentally gone and blankly stared towards Nicole's face, though he'd quickly caught himself and looked away at the side. "So what's going on with you?" he asked in a quiet voice.
"Rotor required an extra set of hands for assistance in an experiment he was conducting," she answered. "He provided me a Power Ring to help produce my body. The experiment was completed earlier than expected, and upon exiting the lab I found you here."
"Oh, okay." Sorun clicked his tongue. "So," he said, slowly looking back towards her, "how, uh, how much longer do you have on your ring?"
"Twenty minutes, by my estimation." Nicole moved her hands to the front side of her body. Sorun found himself looking down in surprise when he saw she was grasping a wired game controller in each hand. "I had actually been hoping to get some practice in before my time ran out," she said, the corners of her mouth upturned in a small smile. "But seeing as you're here-"
"You're seriously that upset at my winning streak?" Sorun asked. As Nicole moved to sit down next to him, he flicked his eyes over to the TV and saw that it and the console were already both turned on. He quietly scoffed at the sight. "You didn't even ask before turning all that on."
She handed him the second controller, which Sorun eagerly accepted. "I saw no need to knowing the frequency you accept my offers. Was I wrong to assume such a thing?"
Sorun shook his head. "No, not at all."
"I thought as much," she said, grasping her own controller. "And I would have you know winning three games in a row can hardly classify as a winning streak."
"Gonna be four in a minute here." Sorun glanced to the side at Nicole. Their eyes briefly met, and he felt a smile mirroring the one Nicole wore grow on his face. He turned back to the TV, muttering, "Thanks, Nicole."
"No thanks are necessary, Sorun." Her fingers began flying over the controller's buttons at the same time Sorun's fingers began to move, both of their eyes locked right onto the TV's screen. "Perhaps you can briefly tell me about your day while we're at it."
"Ain't much to tell, but yeah, sure. It all started when I took a single step outside the door..."
During their small session Nicole had managed to beat Sorun and take away his streak at some point. He didn't find himself minding that at all, too lost in the moment. The only thing that had made him upset was that they'd only had twenty minutes together before the Power Ring finally ran out. Twenty minutes that somehow made up for the entire day he'd experienced.
