Recursion Error

Episode 45- With friends like these


Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

"God, this is the most annoying sound to wake up to..."

That was the first thought that came to Sorun when he woke up to a white-tiled ceiling right above him. Considering where he'd been for so long in his recent life, it looked completely different from anything else he'd seen on Mobius. Like a modern piece of architecture on Earth. It was enough to make him believe maybe this whole adventure actually was a fever dream and he just woke up from a coma.

And then he discovered his right eye was blind, recent memories caught up to him, and he realized that he was probably in a hospital Nicole had made in the nanite city. And that he survived. Somehow that latter fact was more surprising to him than the former.

"Holy shit, how did I actually pull through that?" From what he remembered he'd been in rough shape. Missing arm, missing eye, body torn by shrapnel, massive blood loss, internal injuries, he didn't even want to think about what kind of hell overusing his powers like that wreaked on his body, not even mentioning absorbing the sixth Chaos Emerald... he'd expected to die right then and there. But he was still here.

"Yeah, of fucking course it wouldn't be that easy. Gotta fulfill this big ol' role of mine, right, Aurora?" Sorun rolled his remaining left eye and moved his head to the right. He got a bit of a better view of the room he was in. It really did just look like a modern hospital room, from the clean smell to the bright lights and white-tiled walls. There was even a window letting in a large amount of bright sunlight, which, in conjunction with the brightness surrounding him, had made Sorun wince in displeasure.

His moved his head a bit further, this time downwards. His upper body was covered by a white sheet, but he could see his left arm over it. His right one was... simply missing. He saw white bandages tightly wrapped around the socket where his right shoulder used to be, but, as expected, everything below that was gone.

"I'm afraid it's been... nine years... pfft, if only," Sorun thought. "Sheesh... This is gonna be annoying as hell to get used to. Gimme the fake one."

His right Bringer Claw materialized, reshaped and resized to fit over the wound to mimic the lost right arm. He held the spectral, blue hand up to his face, flexed the clawed fingers, and, after nodded in satisfaction, looked down at the sheets. "It's no Devil Bringer, but it'll do. Alright, let's see the damage..."

Sorun's spectral limb tore the blanket off of his body. They'd left him with his pants, thankfully, but that was all they left him with. The rest of his pale body was bare, with multiple white bandages wrapped around his torso. Some were around his head, too, now that he felt around. Over where his lost eye was.

And tubes, too. Tubes sticking out of his nose, some stuck to his body and others taped on. Various sensors and nodes and other such implements connecting him to various machines off to the side; a heart monitor and an IV drip were the only pieces of equipment he recognized out of the bunch. An annoyed hum left him, and he proceeded to disconnect all of the tubes from his body, and then extended his spectral arm to unplug the heart monitor when it started to let out a singular, drawn-out beep.

"Alright." He sat up, spun around, and stepped barefoot onto the floor. "Let's- oh, oh whoa..."

Sorun had only been able to stand up on his feet for a few moments before he listed off to the side, and then was forced to hold onto the metal frame of the hospital bed for support. The problem wasn't physical pain- though he didn't doubt there was probably something wrong with him that should have been causing him pain if it weren't for the fact he couldn't feel it. He just felt weak. Physically weak and exhausted, to the point he couldn't stand on his own for long without needing support.

"That's gonna be even more annoying than the missing arm and eye," Sorun thought to himself. "Guess I'm not doing so well after all. Damn. Wonder if- the hell...?"

There was something at the end of his bed. A lot of something, actually. So much something that it was all practically spilling out onto the floor. Balloons with things like "Get Well Soon!" written on them and flowers and baskets full of all sorts of odds and ends. Cards and candies and things like that. So much that it almost encompassed all of Sorun's vision.

"W-wow... did... everybody seriously leave all this for- oh shit, is that chocolate? I haven't had that in forever."


"Huh. This one's from those kids that threw that rock at me way back... go figure."

So apparently people were a little grateful he'd saved all of Knothole from getting killed off and turned into fuel. It was to be expected, he supposed- he knew that Mobians were generally and overly nice, but the amount of effort they went towards getting him all this stuff seemed... excessive. It wasn't even an exaggeration to say he had quite literally hundreds of get-well cards that had been written for him, not to mention the gifts. Which were... mostly candies, baked goods, and flowers. Actually that's all it was, in addition to the balloons and the baskets holding it all. But it was still a lot.

It was... touching, to an extreme degree. Uncomfortably touching. He'd been in a shocked stupor for quite a while when he realized what all of this was. He was still somewhat shocked, even after having gone through some of the cards that had all been hand-written for him. Most of them were the same- bunches of heartfelt thank-yous and wishes of good health. He could tell a lot of them were written by children from the awful handwriting, bad grammar, and how they'd all described him looking "super cool" fighting Eggman.

He damn well better have looked super cool seeing as he lost a limb and an eye in that fight.

There were cards written by older people, though. Adults and teenagers. Some strangers, some he knew. Acquaintances of his like Honey, Mina, Sonic's parents and uncle. Elias. Even Elias' wife and mother.

Wasn't much to say about the cards themselves. More of the same when compared to the rest. The only one that stood out to him was Mina and how she said she was going to write a song in his honor. He supposed he should have felt flattered at the prospect, and admittedly it did sound neat. He hoped it'd sound good if she actually did go through with it. He doubted he'd be around long enough to hear it.

Some cards from all his friends, of course, though they were all oddly brief when compared to all the other cards. Sorun supposed that just meant they wanted to say their words personally. It was still nice of them.

And then the door had to go and open when Sorun was in the middle of biting down on a chocolate bar.

The person that walked through the door was, by all appearances, a duck. A yellow duck Mobian man with an eyepatch. Sorun somewhat recalled seeing him once, when he'd had to go to that infirmary in Knothole once. He was fairly certain he was a doctor, which would support the white scrubs and the weird circular dish thing doctors wore on their foreheads that he had on. He'd only made it a few steps into the room before he'd looked up from the chart he was looking at and froze when he saw Sorun. Sorun himself was completely frozen as well, still holding the chocolate bar.

"... Yo."

"Just what do you think you're doing of bed?"

"..." Sorun took another bite of the chocolate bar.

The duck responded by deeply sighing and rubbing at his forehead in a frustrated manner.

"Well, at least he doesn't sound like Donald and just sounds like a normal man. Was really worried about that." Sorun put down the rest of the chocolate before speaking out to the duck doctor. "Woke up, wanted to stretch my legs."

"You..." The duck squeezed down on the chart hard enough that Sorun was fairly certain he saw cracks appear. "This is why I hate treating people like you. What, exactly what, possessed you to get out of bed and disconnect everything I had connected to you?" he demanded. "Paint me the picture, tell me what on Mobius you think you're doing."

"Ah, c'mon, Donald, I feel fine," Sorun said, turning around and leaning against the metal bed frame.

"Quack."

"... Hm?"

"Quack. It's my name. I'm Dr. Quack. And you shouldn't be feeling alright after what you went through."

"... These fucking names." Sorun rolled his eye up at the ceiling and let it fall back on Quack. He almost would have preferred Donald over that name. "So I lost an arm and an eye, big whoop, I'm feeling fine now," Sorun claimed. "Feelin' a bit weak, but otherwise good."

"No, you're not good. I had you hooked up to all that stuff because you're not good!" Quack shouted out. "I was there along with everybody else, so I know exactly what you went through. And I'm telling you right now that you shouldn't be walking around like that." He deeply sighed and leaned a hand against a nearby counter. "I really don't see how you're even moving. You're seriously not in any pain?"

Sorun shrugged. "Always had a high pain tolerance."

"Yeah, Sonic said something similar. Guess it goes to explain how you managed to keep fighting through all that damage. You're freakishly tough for a Ov- ahem, human."

The Earthling huffed a breath through his nose and looked to the side. Wasn't the most eloquent explanation, but it'd have to do. "So," he said, focusing back on the Duck, "what's my damage?"

"Other than the obvious?" Quack looked towards his chart. "Multiple fractures, lacerations, external contusions, organ contusions, severe blood loss due to hemmorhage..." He sighed and glanced back up at Sorun. "You really shouldn't be out of bed and moving around, Sorun. It's bad enough you did that thing with the Chaos Emerald right after that fight... what were you even thinking, kid?"

"I was banking on getting a regeneration power." Sorun's eye flicked down to his spectral arm. "Didn't quite pan out." What he did end up getting was still nice and all, but he would have preferred having depth perception.

"Obviously," Quack drawled. "We almost lost you, you know. I kept it vague when the Freedom Fighters kept asking so they wouldn't worry so much, but you came really close to dying on us."

"..." Sorun looked back up at Quack. "How close?"

"Blood loss is almost what got you," he answered. "Nicole managed to use her nanites to make us all the medical equipment we needed along with the hospital, but she couldn't make human blood to transplant into you." He made a light chuckle and looked to the side. "Sonic... went as far as to run all the way down to Station Square. From what I heard he raided a blood bank and grabbed as many bags as he could before coming back here. Rumor has it Sally had to smooth things over with their president and explain it was an emergency, but that's all I know about it."

Sorun stiffened up a bit and made a low sigh. First at the mention of Nicole and how he wasn't looking forwards to her reaction to his state, and secondly to what Sonic did. "He went that far just for me?" he thought. "Station Square's on a whole other continent. If I was dying and he went back and forth just like that... just how fast was he running for my sake?"

"There were still some... complications," Quack continued. "We didn't know what your blood type was, so we had to take a bit to do a test to confirm that. You're O negative, by the way," he added. "Still, even with the right blood type your body didn't take too well to the donor blood."

A small hum came from Sorun. "Well... I'm not exactly local. Can't say I'm too surprised."

"That's the conclusion I came to as well. I did some bloodwork analysis comparing your blood with the Station Square blood Sonic brought back in case there was anything extra I needed to know while treating you. You're quite a bit different from them on the inside, interestingly enough."

Not surprising to Sorun. Different zone, different era of time with a separation of thousands of years, lack of a natural link to the Chaos Force, too many variables such as those to consider. He'd already figured out on his own he may as well have been a completely different species entirely compared to Station Square humans. Hearing it was hard-confirmed by science though hit a bit harder than Sorun thought it would have.

"So what ended up happening?" he finally asked.

"Well, without being able to transfuse any blood into you, we had to do the next best thing and perform an autologous blood transfusion to keep you stable."

Sorun nodded. "Oh, that's..." he paused and snapped his fingers while he thought, then perked his head up when he remembered what he was thinking of. "It's when you recycle loss blood back into a bleeding patient so they don't bleed out, right?"

"Yes, that's correct," Dr. Quack said, looking a bit impressed. "I'm honestly quite surprised you knew what that was."

"My mom was a doctor."

"Ah. That would explain it."

Sorun didn't say anything further. He was too focused on the fact he had come close to biting it after all. He felt he should have been shocked by this news, disheartened to some extent. He didn't really feel much of anything, though. If anything, the only thing he did feel was pleasantly surprised at knowing he'd made it after all.

"Guess finally committing to this whole thing with the Emeralds really shocked the idea of dying out of me," Sorun morosely thought. "Knew I was gonna die from the start anyways no matter how this turned out. Even now I got six out of seven Chaos Emeralds. One more and that's it, I'm done. How much more time am I even looking at here? Hell's the point of saving my life when I'm gonna die later on anyways? Just so I have another shot at killing Eggman when I get that last Emerald?"

"- would really appreciate it."

"Huh?" Blinking his eye, Sorun focused back on the doctor. "S-sorry, man, I spaced out a bit. What were you saying?"

"I was saying I would really appreciate it if you got back in bed, Sorun," Dr. Quack said. "I'm not too worried about you if you're able to move around on your own, but you're not fully healed yet and if you overdo it you're just gonna exacerbate your wounds and make your recovery period that much longer."

Solid reasoning. Sorun still didn't like the idea of sitting in a hospital for an extended period. He liked angry doctors even less, though. "Ugh... I'll sit down, happy?"

"I will be once you actually do it."

Sorun scoffed, but still followed the doctor's orders and ambled back to the bed. Even he would admit he was probably more jacked up on the inside than he looked on the outside, even if he couldn't feel it. Not feeling injuries didn't mean they weren't there, and not being able to feel pain wouldn't mean much if he injured his body to a point it couldn't move period. He had that much sense with his extremely limited knowledge of medicine. So, much to his chagrin, he sat down on the bed, though refrained from lying down.

"So," Sorun said, glancing to the side as Quack walked closer to Sorun, "doctor. Out of curiosity... you saw how I lost mine, so how'd you lose yours?" he asked, pointing to the bandge covering his empty eye socket.

"Got hit by a landmine while treating patients on the battlefield."

"Jesus..." Sorun cleared his throat and glanced away. "A-ah, I... didn't mean-"

"Hah! Don't sweat it, kid. Not like it's a secret or anything to how I lost the eye," he said. "Speaking of which, concerning your own lost eye. And limb."

"Yeah?"

"There were some talks of fitting you with some cybernetic prosthetics, and especially now that we have the tools-"

"Eh, yeah, 'bout that." Sorun held up his spectral right arm for the doctor to see, and then shook it slightly. "As much as I've always wanted a cool robot arm, I think I'm just gonna stick with the cool ghost arm. I'm already kinda used to it."

"And your eye?" the duck asked.

Sorun sighed a bit. It wasn't like he didn't want to fulfill one of his lifelong dreams of being a cyborg, but he also didn't want to waste anybody's time installing that stuff into him and having to waste time getting used to new, artificial pieces of his body when he was dying soon anyways. Waste of effort. Waste of resources. He just wanted to spend what little time he had left as he was without anything like that getting in the way.

"I'll learn to live with it. Just gimme an eyepatch or something," Sorun said. "Preferably one with a snake on it."

"... Excuse me?"

"Forget it, it's a stupid thing, just get me a regular eyepatch," Sorun said with a wave of his hand. "Other than that, how long do you expect me to stay in this bed?"

Dr. Quack made a hum. "You had some pretty bad muscle sprains and tearing in addition to everything else. That along with the fractures, well... you already told me you have a hard time standing up. Sounds to me like your body's still recovering, which is good, but it's not finished yet. I'd like to give it some more weeks at the least. I'd give it a month or two, but I know you Freedom Fighters can't stand to sit still that long, so we'll do what we can. Check up on you regularly and let you go when you seem good."

Not the news he wanted to hear. Wasn't much to do about it, he supposed. All the more reason he would have liked that regeneration ability, or some approximation of that.

"Alright..." Sorun looked to the side, away from the Mobian. "And... how is everyone else doing?"

The doctor tapped on the chart he was holding, humming again. "I don't really think I'm the best person to ask on how the general mood of the populace is doing. I'm a doctor, not a politician or something like that. Generally speaking?" He shrugged. "I think everybody was a bit shaken up by everything that happened, from losing Knothole to... everything else. Lasted for a couple days, but I think everybody's adjusting to living here."

"Couple days?" Sorun repeated. "How long have I been out?"

"About a week," Quack answered, causing Sorun to nod. "Lot of talk about you. You... well, I don't even know what to call that fight you had with Robotnik. I think you actually went and scared some folk."

Sorun rose an eyebrow. "Scared?"

"Maybe that's not the right word," he said with a shake of his head. "I don't know. Having your arm torn off and acting like it never happened, well... that's not exactly normal. In fact I'd go as far as to say that's actually a sign of some underlying problem. You're... absolutely sure there's no underlying problem or something along those lines I should be aware of?"

"What do want me to do? Lie and I say I was born with congenital analgesia or something like that?" Sorun asked. "I was focusing less on the fact I was missing an arm and more on the fact you all were gonna die if I didn't do anything. Mix that in with the pain tolerance and the adrenaline rush I was probably in during the time and, well, you get the idea."

The doctor's bill frown a bit. He tapped his clipboard once, and then made a small, accepting hum. "I didn't mean anything by it, Sorun. I was just asking. I'm sure you know us physicians like to do that." The Mobian doctor paused to think over his words. "I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say everybody was just surprised by what you did. Everybody already knew of you, of course, word of everything you'd been doing with the Freedom Fighters got around over the months, but... I'm not sure. Everybody was touched by what you did, I guess I could say." He adjusted the circular dish on his forehead. "Ah, but I can't really speak for everybody. And, well..." He nodded his head to all the baskets and balloons at the end of the bed. "I think all that says enough. Everybody's really grateful for what you did, me and my own family included. I know all your friends in particular came here to visit you every single day you were under." He glanced over at a wall clock. "Speaking of which, your AI friend is usually due to show up sometime this hour. She checks on you regularly."

"Oh. Nicole?" An uneasy hum left Sorun. "Doc, I'm not really mentally prepared to handle her right now. Can you do me a favor and tell anybody I'm still unconscious if they ask? Just for, like, a day?"

The doctor's answer was immediate. "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that."

"... Fair enough," Sorun sighed out. "Ugh, man... was there anything else?"

"Not as far as I can see." The duck Mobian stepped even closer to Sorun, and even went as far as to lay a feathered hand on his shoulder. Sorun glanced up at his face to see a smile stretching along his bill. "Chin up, kiddo. You saved the day and all your friends are there for you. Take it easy and relax."

"Yeah, I know," Sorun said, brushing the hand off his shoulder. "How much is this hospital stay gonna cost me, anyway? I'm kind of broke on account of all my worldly possessions got blown away along with Knothole." He was pretty sure he'd left that gum wrapper from Earth he'd inadvertently brought to Mobius back at Sonic's house, too. So it was likely burned to smithereens like everything else was. Another thing to hate Eggman for. That was his favorite good luck charm.

Dr. Quack blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"... Don't I owe you something for treating me?"

"Why... why would we charge for healthcare?"

"Wow, you guys are progressive," Sorun gasped out, and then proceeded to scoot further down the bed. "Gimme a second, you might need this bed more than I do once I tell you how bad the healthcare system back in my world was."


Ironically getting horribly crippled worked out pretty well for Sorun.

As far as the doctors were concerned his physical weakness was a result of the injuries he'd sustained fighting Eggman and his mech suit. And, admittedly, a large part of that probably were those injuries. But Sorun alone knew that him absorbing the sixth Chaos Emerald likely also contributed to his weakness.

It was something he'd been afraid of happening. Growing physically weak as a result of absorbing Emeralds. He technically could move around on his own, but it wasn't without great difficulty. Whether that would remain true or if he would get most of the mobility he used to have back when his injuries healed up was something Sorun didn't know, though he chose to be optimistic on the subject. On the other hand, he'd already been suffering some kind of nervous damage from the fifth one, along with the damage all the others wreaked on his body to shorten his lifespan more and more.

But... there wasn't anything to do about it. What was done was done, and Sorun already foresaw something like this happening anyways. So he'd continue to lie, make the doctors think his weakness was from the injuries and say he'd just toughed through the nonexistent pain during the fight. If anything, it gave him a good excuse to fall back on in case he ever started bleeding or showed other negative signs as a result of the damage the Emeralds were inflicting on him.

That was probably the only good news out of all this. That and he'd successfully saved everybody's lives and gave them a new home with Nicole's help. What he wasn't looking forwards to now was actually confronting everybody over it. And Nicole.

He didn't know what the hell he was going to do with her. He was still debating on pretending on still being unconscious despite Dr. Quack saying he wouldn't lie for him just so he could avoid her entirely.

"Why the hell did I say all that embarrassing stuff during the fight with Eggman...?" Sorun wondered to himself. He was still sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, staring out towards the window at the small city beyond it. "Christ, I even did the stupid Dante EX taunt with the heart and the- man, fuck." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Ugh, Sonic'll never let me live it down. Now what am I supposed to say to Nicole when she gets here?"

...

...

...

"... Yeah, I got nothing."

There was a knock on the door to his room.

"Aw, damn." Sorun's head snapped towards the closed door. He bit his lower lip out of anxiety and felt his mind began to race. "Maybe if I'm quick I can get back in bed and pretend I'm still aslee-"

The door handle began to turn.

"Aw, damn."

The door opened.

"Damn, damn, damn..."

It was Nicole on the other side.

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to say here."

In his defense, he'd tried on thinking up some game plan on how he was supposed to approach this conversation so he'd be able to work his way through it with relatively little emotional duress. He'd failed in every sense of the word in that Sorun had come up with nothing, but he'd tried.

The only thing he could think to do was look over at her for a couple of seconds and then look back towards the window without a single word.

She didn't say anything either. What she did do was cross over to the other side of the hospital room and sit down on the bed next to him, still completely silent. It felt like whole minutes passed with them just sitting there, with Sorun kicking his legs back and forth out of the angst of the situation, before he finally took in a big inhale and turned towards the lynx.

"So, I see you're walking around on your own," he said, sounding completely ordinary as if it was a normal conversation he was trying to start. "Is there some kind of new development I missed while I was out, orrrr is it somethin' else?"

Nicole didn't even look towards him. In fact her head was dipped downwards a bit so that her black hair was shielding her eyes.

"..." Sorun looked back towards the window. "It's nice weather out."

"Is that truly all you have to say?"

"I mean, pretty much. Yeah." Sorun turned back towards her, sighing a bit. "You okay?"

She finally decided to look at him. She had that upset look on her face again, and Sorun couldn't decide if it was the angry kind of upset or just general sadness upset. All he could figure was that whatever she was upset about it was directed right at him from the way she was looking at him. And it gave Sorun the urge to jump out of the window so he could avoid what was about to happen entirely.

"Am I okay?" she repeated in a disbelieving tone. "I come to greet you after you manage to rescue everybody from Dr. Robotnik only to see everybody standing around your mutilated body lying in a pool of blood on the ground, and I'm supposed to be okay? I'm told by the doctors that you came uncomfortably close to dying while they were trying their best to save you, and I'm supposed to be okay?" She sounded more intense with every word she spoke despite the fact her volume remained at a neutral level, causing Sorun to shrink back further and further. "I have to worry every day that my friend is going to die in the hospital and I'm supposed to be okay?"

"You don't sound very okay," is what Sorun wanted to say. He very wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Do you have any idea what that was like? To be so glad that I managed to refurbish the nanite city to give everybody a new home, to be so relieved seeing everyone was safe thanks to you, only to have to then see that horrible sight? I thought... I thought you had died, Sorun." Her head dropped even lowered. She went from looking upset at him to just looking plain sad, nearly devastated. "I didn't like that feeling. It happened in an instant, too fast for even me to calculate. I'd gone from being so happy to... to what I felt when I saw you. I cannot even describe what I felt when I saw you, Sorun. Only that I never want to feel it again."

Sorun slowly exhaled from his nose, thinking over his words carefully as he rubbed at the back of his head. Maybe acting so casual wasn't such a good idea. He hadn't realized he'd scared everybody that badly, but then again, seeing what shape he'd been in before going under, he probably should have seen it coming. And he himself was feeling brought down just having to listen to this. He was in part upset at himself knowing she had to go through that kind of grief, just at his expense.

No wonder she was acting like this.

"Yeah, it... didn't really go smoothly back there for me," he finally admitted after a long pause. "In my defense I lived."

She went back to looking upset as her head snapped up to him. "You always do this," she said. "You're always acting so reckless."

"Despite my best efforts to the contrary, it seems to happen a lot more than I'd like," Sorun agreed. "I'm not going to apologize for saving everybody."

"I know you're not. I don't expect you to. I..." Nicole stopped herself, pausing to think before speaking again. "I just... didn't think it would go so badly for you," she said. "I'm not upset at you. I'm upset at what happened. You... suffered so many wounds..."

"Yeah, but look, I got a cool ghost arm now." Sorun gave her a small smile and lifted up his spectral arm, waving it at Nicole. "I'm probably even gonna be even better at video games now since this thing is way faster than my normal arm."

"But you're still missing an eye," she argued, "and your body's scarred now, and I just keep thinking if we'd come up with a better plan this could have been avoided-"

"There was no better plan," Sorun interrupted, causing Nicole to focus back on him. "Said it yourself. We were working with practically nothing." He sighed and looked back out the window. "Let's be honest, Nicole, what we managed to pull off was a miracle. I'm honestly surprised I managed to get everybody out of there without losing a single person. An arm or an eye isn't anything compared to somebody's life," he said. "I mean, if anything it's my own fault for not being good enough to make it out in one piece. You did your part perfectly since you managed the whole city thing." He ran spectral claws over the bandages over his head. "And sure, yeah, losin' an eye's really irritating, not gonna lie, but hey. I'm still here, aren't I?" He turned back to her. "There's an adage back where I'm from that goes along the lines of 'you shouldn't curse back luck, because you never know if it saved you from even worse luck'. Got no idea where it comes from, completely forgot, but what I'm trying to say is don't worry about it." He interlocked his fingers behind his head in a casual manner. "You're here, I'm here, everybody's here, we got a shiny new city courtesy of you, and everything's good. Could it have gone better? Yeah, sure, but it could have went way worse, too. If anything, I... guess I should be saying I'm sorry for not being better and not getting hurt so bad so you wouldn't end up worrying so much."

"No, Sorun, you shouldn't be apologizing. You did nothing wrong. You..." She paused again. Mouth pressed firmly shut and eyes looking downwards, looking like she was in deep confliction. It eventually relaxed into a small look of acceptance as she locked eyes with him again. "Everything you say is true. I do wish you'd have taken better care of yourself, but... I cannot express just how glad I am that you managed to save all of our friends and the rest of the citizens of the kingdom. You have my thanks for that."

"So you're not mad at me?" Sorun asked in a hopeful tone.

She seemed to have to think on the question for a second, which made Sorun a bit concerned. He relaxed when she gave him a small smile. "I was, since your reckless nature ended up injuring you so... but you made valid points, and I cannot stay mad at you. So we'll say all is forgiven." She glanced at his spectral arm. "I just hope what you say about your skills not being inhibited by the arm are true."

"Oh yeah, totally. Thing's super fast," Sorun assured her. He kept looking towards her and noticed her smile had dropped off a bit as she continued to stare towards the arm, prompting him to ask, "You alright?"

"It... doesn't hurt too much, does it?" she asked. "I just... think back to what you must have gone through in that fight, and it hurts to know-"

"Hey hey hey, enough of that. I said I was okay." Sorun reached his spectral hand out and placed it on the top of Nicole's head. The action caused her face to morph into a surprised expression, as well as make her body and ears stiffen up straight. "See? I'm totally fine," he said, closing his eye and giving her a smile. "Now enough about me. Tell me about how you and the city have been."

He removed his hand after finishing speaking. Nicole remained sitting completely still with the same expression with the same face, almost frozen, until she seemed to notice Sorun staring at her oddly with his now-open eye. She blinked a couple of times and glanced towards the window, away from him.

"Yes, the city. Of course." She looked back to him. "For the most part my annexation of the nanite city went without issue. Integrating myself into the city's systems went smoothly, and I've currently relocated myself to the city's systems. Currently I am in full control of every single nanite within the city."

"Wow," Sorun commented with a raised eyebrow. "So what's that like?"

"I'm not sure how I could describe it in terms you would understand. It felt strange at first, being connected to so many machines at once, but I've adapted to the sensation. The programs I writ helped in the adjustment." She rose one of her hands up to look at it. "What you see before you is still my holographic projection. I'm able to be anywhere in the city I want now. It feels liberating, in a way, to not be limited to that handheld anymore. And since I'm able to draw upon the city's own power supply, as long as power isn't being diverted to the city's defenses, I'm able to remain this way as long as I want."

"Wait, really?" Sorun's eye embiggened. "That- that's huge! Hah... I'm really glad for you, Nicole." He truly meant it, too. He'd noticed that there'd been multiple times she'd seemed rather displeased with the limitations her handheld body provided her. Even Sorun himself often felt annoyed by the limitations and having to hunt around for Power Rings all the time so he could help her maintain her form.

If she could just make her body wherever she wanted for however long she wanted while hooked into the city, though, well... that eliminated all of those grievances of theirs.

"It's been an eye-opening experience for me," Nicole admitted to him. "I'd desired for so long to live among others and interact in the physical world in the same way they can, and now it truly feels like I have a chance at living life the same way as them." Her smile brightened a bit more as she glanced back at the window, towards the city outside. "Otherwise, the city itself is coming along well. There are no issues as far as I can see, and the Mobian populace have expressed their gratitude towards everything I've provided them. So far all is going perfectly well."

"That's great," Sorun said. "So no problems with Robotnik or anything like that?"

"Unfortunately so." Nicole turned back to Sorun. "I do not think he has been very appreciative of us stealing his nanite city. There have been skirmishes where he's sent some of his ships from his fleet to try and attack us." She smiled again. "The protective force field proves more than sufficient at deterring their attacks. They've been little more than a nuisance."

Well, he hadn't been holding out for him leaving them completely alone, but knowing that so far there was nothing he could actually do to them sounded like the next best thing. He didn't really know how Nicole managed to figure out force fields, but, well... Sorun had long since concluded technology in this world was a bit weird. The fact he was sitting in a hospital completely comprised of nanites said enough. Or the laser that turned him into a digital being from that one time.

But, he pushed those thoughts out from his mind. It seemed that everything was going fine. He was glad. Less things for him to worry about, and Nicole seemed to be doing great herself, so that was an added bonus.

"So what about everybody else?" he asked her. "How are they doing?"

"Well enough. Any Freedom Fighter operations are currently on hold to give everybody a chance to settle in." A beat passed. "And... the others have been visiting you frequently out of concern for your health. I think you should talk to them as soon as you can to ease some of their concerns."

"Ah, yeah, I was getting to it-"

"I'll take the liberty of informing them for you."

"Y-you really don't-"

"It's the least I can do to help assuage everybody's worries. I'm sure you're eager to put them to rest as well. I'm more than happy to help."

"... Yeah, of course," Sorun said, some of his facial muscles twitching as a response to Nicole's reasoning. He took a calming breath to quickly clear his head, and then said, "Guess it's gotta happen sooner or later. Send 'em over. Just..." He held a finger up to stop Nicole as she made to stand off the bed, "not all at once, yeah? Only so much of this I can handle, know what I mean?"

"I see. No need to worry, Sorun. I'll do what I can." She made to turn around after standing, but then stopped yet again to address Sorun one more time. "And Sorun... I'm really happy you're doing well. I'll come and visit when my duties of managing the city aren't preoccupying me."

"Alright. Seeya then." They both waved to each other, and before he knew it Nicole's form had disappeared entirely in a flurry of small cubes. He sighed, and then leaned back far enough that his back was resting against the hospital bed.

"Well, that didn't go terribly," he thought. "Feel bad about making her worry so much, but I guess there's no helping it." He made another sigh as he rose his spectral hand up. "But damn, she sounded like me almost dying on her really made her... actually scared. Which makes me wonder what's gonna happen to her and everyone else when I actually do die." He made a harsh click with his tongue as the arm flopped to the side, making him stare up at the ceiling. "Fuck. This is exactly why I didn't want to be friends with anybody. Nothing to do about it now, I guess."

Could have been worse. At least the situation concerning everybody else sounded relatively stable. To a point that once he and Eggman were gone Sorun could safely say he'd be leaving everybody in a good place. The whole goal of this whole thing, he supposed. At the very least, there was that. All he had to do was make it to the finish line.

Before that he had to get through this day, though, and somehow he felt like he'd rather get into another death match with a mech suit than go through everybody's reactions over him.


"Sorun!"

"No."

The yellow object that was flying through the air towards Sorun was quickly grabbed by Sorun's spectral arm and planted into the mattress right in front of him. The two Mobians by the doorway looked on in amusement, while Sorun stared at the two-tailed one being pressed onto the bed with an annoyed expression.

"Already told ya I don't do hugs, Tails," Sorun said. He released his arm's hold on the fox as he sat further back on the bed. "For cryin' out loud, man, I'm wounded here."

"Eh-heh, sorry, Sorun..." Tails gave him a sheepish chuckle as he slid off the bed, only to then approach at an uncomfortable distance while hopping up and down. "But are you okay!? You got really hurt and we were all worried so we wanted-"

"Space, man, space," Sorun mumbled out, using his blue arm to push Tails back a bit. "And yeah, I'm fine."

Tails finally got the hint and chose to step towards the end of the bed. Breathing out a bit in relief, Sorun then looked up at the other two guests, Sonic and Sally, as they entered the room. They both had extremely relieved, if not a bit apprehensive, looks on their faces. The apprehensiveness intrigued Sorun a bit, but seeing everything that had happened, he didn't find himself too surprised at seeing it.

"Hey, buddy." Sonic was the first one to speak, with the hedgehog stopping right next to Sorun while Sally chose to stand next to Tails at the foot of the bed. "How you doin'?"

Sorun shrugged. "Fine as can be. I'd be even better if the doctors would just let me out of bed already, but you know how they are."

"Heh, yeah, I hear ya," Sonic agreed with a nod. "Must totally bite, being chained down to a bed like this."

"I wouldn't call it chained exactly, but I get your meaning." Sorun nodded to the baskets at the end of the bed. "You all, uh... got me a lot of cards and stuff, huh?"

Sonic smiled and gave him a nod. "Well, yeah! 'Course we did! It wouldn't have felt right doing nothing after everything you did to save us all from those icky pods back in New Megaopolis! Did you read any of them yet?"

"Eh, I got through most of them. Read all you guys' cards," Sorun informed him. "Er, thanks, by the way. Was really touching. Y'know, even though you spelled my name wrong in your card, Sonic."

The smile on the hedgehog's face dropped off into a mortified expression. "Huh? What?"

"There's no 'a' in my name," 'Soarun' deadpanned. "It's S-o-r-u-n." To be fair it wasn't something he could hold solely against Sonic since a fair number of the townsfolk that wrote him cards made the same mistake. And in his defense the way his name sounded did make it sound like an 'a' was in there. But then again everybody else in the Freedom Fighters had gotten it right. So he felt he could tease him a bit over it.

"Uh-uh-uh- I didn't know!" Stuttering, Sonic turned to Sally in a panic. "How was I supposed to know!? He never told us how it's spelled! Why didn't any of you tell me before I wrote that card!?"

To the foot of Sorun's bed, Sally made a small groan and palmed at her face. "Sonic, how could make a mistake like that?"

"I didn't mean to- agh..." Sonic made a defeated sound and turned back to the bedridden human. "Sorun I'm so sorry. I'll make you a new card if-"

"It's fine, Sonic, really, I got enough cards as is," Sorun assured him, laughing lightly while raising a hand up. "There were actually a bunch of people that misspelled my name. Doesn't really bug me too much." Wasn't entirely true; it did disturb him the smallest bit at some level, but at the same time he didn't care enough to bother to correct anybody other than Sonic.

"Oh. Heh heh, that's a load off," Sonic sighed out.

"I'm sure." Sorun turned from looking at Sonic towards Sally. "So what brings you all here, anyways?"

"Nicole told us you woke up," she answered. "We all wanted to visit you to make sure, but she said you didn't want to see us all at once."

"Yeah, well..." Sorun took a quick look around the hospital room before focusing back on the princess. "I don't think the room could hold everybody."

Sally didn't say anything immediately. Instead, Sorun saw her looks downwards. Towards the missing arm being substituted by the spectral one. The whole room had gone silent, and Sorun didn't even need to look to see all eyes were on him. Him and the injuries.

It was gonna be a long day if he had to deal with this with everybody.

"Sorun..." Sally tentative began, "we... I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to say." She looked away from him. "We're all thankful for what you did, but... we never intended for-"

"Nah, don't worry about it. Happens."

"People don't just 'happen' to lose a limb," she argued as she turned back to him. "You never should have been hurt so badly-"

"Ugh, I'm not dealing with this." Sorun rose a hand up to stop her mid-sentence. "It's a raw deal, I get it. But what's done is done." He paused to look at his spectral hand. "Look, I'm touched that you all were so worried about me, really, I am. But I don't wanna dwell on it, and if I wanna move past it, I don't see why you all have to be so hung up on it. And I even managed to replace the arm." He looked back at Sally, who was looking at him in surprise. "I'm already over it, so can we just drop it?"

There were a few seconds where Sally just continued to stare towards him in surprise, completely silent. Eventually she sighed a bit and began to rub on one of her shoulders. "It's not so easy," she said. "We were all there and all we could do was watch as... as all that happened to you. It doesn't help that I feel partially responsible for you given you were, well... somewhat pushed into being a Freedom Fighter." She looked down a bit. "It's not like we've never lost people before, but... well, seeing somebody we care about hurt like that still doesn't sit well."

Sorun exhaled through his nose and drummed his fingers across his thigh. "I get it, Sally, but I'm still the idiot that decided to go fight the thing," he told her. "Maybe if I was a Mobian like you guys and was a bit more physically apt I could have avoided getting messed up so much, but nothing to do about it." He lifted his hand up and rubbed at his head as he turned away. "Still, I... really do appreciate you all looking out for me like that. But I'm fine and I can't exactly regret saving everybody and getting them to the city. So just call it good already. Can't handle this kind of attention."

When he looked back at the others, much to his relief, they were all glancing towards each other with light smiles on their faces. He supposed that mean he'd said something right, which would hopefully make them worry less about him. Win for him as long as it got them to drop the subject about his injuries.

"I... suppose you're right," Sally finally said with a nod. "We're just glad you're alright."

Sorun clicked his tongue. "... Yeah."

"Still, uh... Sorun? Can we talk about some things?" The human turned back to Sonic, whose smile had dropped off his face. He was looking straight at Sorun, an unreadable expression on his face. "So, before you got there, Eggman, he, uh... I'm just gonna come out and say it, how come you never told any of us he tried tricking you into going over to his side?"

Sorun started a bit at the question. He could feel Sally's and Tails' eyes on him, too, in addition to Sonic's... ocular organ that may or may not have been a pair, Sorun still wasn't sure on that. He slowly breathed out as a result, sat back against the bed, and decided to just give them the truth.

"Didn't seem relevant, so I never brought it up," he said. "He seriously told you guys that?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah. He... even said he offered to try and find you a way home."

"What do you want me to say, Sonic?" Sorun groaned out as he rubbed a hand over his face. "What, you woulda preferred I did switch sides?"

"No!" Sonic quickly exclaimed. He froze when Sorun turned his eye on him, causing him to sigh quietly and speak again in a calmer voice. "I was... just wondering what you were thinking is all."

"..." Sorun rolled his eye and brushed some of his dark hair out from his face. "The guy was an unpredictable, maniac scientist man and I didn't have a guarantee that he could actually get me something like that. And I make it a policy not to work with genocidal maniacs."

Sonic made an empty, dry chuckle. "What, is that a common policy back on Earth?"

"Eh, genocidal maniacs are more common there than you'd think, so yeah," Sorun truthfully stated, causing the three Mobians to stiffen up. "Look, I don't know, I... even though I was pretty against you guys back then I wasn't gonna do a total turn for a guy like that. You know I got higher standards'n that, man."

The answer seemed to just barely satisfy Sonic. He still held some air of discontent about him, though, from the way he looked so uneasy standing next to Sorun. "During that fight, you... you said a bunch. A lot of stuff I never really thought I'd hear you say. And you also said some stuff I... didn't like so much," Sonic said. "Sorun, why... why do you put yourself down so much? Calling yourself a loser and someone who's never made a right choice and all that stuff you said about yourself? I don't get it."

"Of all the things for him to pick up on..." Sorun thought with a sigh. He looked up towards the ceiling, away from Sonic, before answering. "I never really had all that much self-confidence. Woulda figured that'd be obvious by now," he said. "Geez, Sonic, look at me. I'm a terrible person. I run away from weddings and push people away from me. I ran away from everything that one time because I was so focused on my own problems I never even stopped to consider everyone else's problems." He reached up and ran a hand over his face. "Even back on Earth I was nothin' but some trash kid that never made any right choices. Just some loser that whittled his time away playin' video games while grindin' away at school with no real vision of the future. Someone with a loose group of friends and only one guy he could call an actual friend, no family but a single mom, but they're all on the other side of the multiverse so... ugh, I don't even know what I'm saying." Sorun looked back down at Sonic. "So yeah. I called myself a loser. 'S what I am, especially compared to all you guys. I only made it this far 'cause I lucked out with Earth biology and ate some magic rocks for super powers. Even then I'm nothin' without 'em. So what does that make me other than some random loser?"

"Nah."

It was an immediate response from Sonic, one which made Sorun blow out in exasperation. "'Nah' he says. I pour my heart out and all he says is 'nah'." Sorun affixed Sonic, still staring directly at him, with a tired look. "I'm not even surprised, that's the thing. But I gotta ask anyways. Why would you say that, Sonic?"

The blue hedgehog took a deep breath before speaking. "Sure, Sorun, you... I gotta be honest, I think you maybe make the wrong decision every now and again, but so does everybody else! No one's perfect, and I don't know anybody who can say every choice they made in their life was the right one. You just, well... make a couple more mistakes than the average person."

Sorun rolled his eye. "Failing to see your point here."

"Lemme finish," Sonic requested. "Yeah, you made some bad choices, but you always made up for 'em. You came back when you ran away, you apologized to people, you... you stopped looking for the Chaos Emeralds to come back to the wedding, didn't you?" he asked, making Sorun freeze a bit. "You made it sound like you wouldn't come back until you found them, but during that fight you only used the five powers, so..."

Sorun clicked his tongue and looked away. "Yeah, fine, I felt bad and came back to catch the back end of the wedding if I could. Some smarty-pants purple cat guy I found in the sticks fishing gave me a reality check and pointed out how dumb I was being. Had been beeing."

Sonic's eyes lit up in realization. "Oh, I think that's Big you're talking about. We know him."

"Yeah, Big! That was his name. Smart guy."

"Well, listen, Sorun... what's important is, you came back. And then you, you..." Sonic held a hand to his head after half-laughing in disbelief. "I mean, you went from the way you were when you left to dropping everything in an instant and pulling together some big plan with Nicole to rescue all us." Sonic reached over and tapped Sorun on his left shoulder. "And that fight! I didn't even know you could do half of the stuff you were doing there! What was- what was that big thing you did!? The thing with the circle and the- the weird lines everywhere!?"

"It's, uh... just a sword thing I can do," Sorun mumbled out in surprise at seeing the hedgehog's excitement. "Sonic, you-"

"And everything else you said to Eggman was really cool, too! Especially the heart thing you did!"

By now Sorun couldn't take it completely. He was forced to turn away from Sonic, face burning from embarrassment as he covered his face with his hand. "C'mon, man, forget the heart thing..."

"Nuh-uh! Never forgettin' that one!" Sonic said to him. He even went as far as to do the exact same pose while grinning at him widely- body leaning back and two thumbs pointing behind him. Embarrassing enough that Sorun couldn't help the small groan he made.

He wasn't sure why he decided to make the heart-shaped formation of Summoned Swords behind Sonic when he made the pose. A sudden, unexplainable urge to do a nice thing for him since he was going so far for him, perhaps. Or maybe it was just a knee-jerk reaction to make it once he saw Sonic made the pose. Whatever the reason, Sorun made the heart of blue swords behind the blue hedgehog. He also regretted doing it the second he'd done it, but there was no taking it back now.

Sonic had only noticed it either because Sally and Tails flinched a bit in surprise or he noticed some of the blue light reflecting off of the floor and walls. Either way he'd turned his head around just enough to see the heart. The regret Sorun had felt at making them made him dispel them almost as soon as Sonic saw them, but by then it was too late. He'd seen the heart.

Then he had to go and break out into mirthful laughter at it.

By now Sorun was practically burying his face in his hand. Sally and Tails had even joined in on the laughter. It was enough that eventually he tore his hand away from his face and whipped his head back towards Sonic.

"One. You get one. You get one of those and that was it," Sorun exclaimed, voice in a slightly high pitch from the embarrassment. "You get one and if anybody asks I never did it, do you hear me?"

"Ha ha ha! Ahhh, sure, Sorun." The laughter from all three Mobians had thankfully died down. Sonic had breathed out one last laugh and then leaned against the bed frame on Sorun's right side. "It's stuff like that and everything else you did during that fight, Sorun. All the cool stuff you did, the cool things you said, all of that. Like the way you insulted Eggman right in his face, your whole speech thing about what you thought true strength was, that was really cool..." The enjoyment on his face dimmed a great bit as his voice went quieter. "You kept... getting hurt, kept losing body parts. I felt like I was gonna lose it every time I saw you get hurt like that. I just felt so helpless, y'know, stuck in that pod watching the whole thing going down without being able to do anything. We all were. And I was... really scared we were gonna lose you there." A humorless laugh left him. "But you kept acting like it wasn't even happening. You were more focused on making cool speeches than a lost arm."

"Yeah, well..." Sorun mumbled out, "I always said I had a high pain tolerance."

"Don't I know it," Sonic said. "You're just... way past cool doesn't even begin to describe it. You went through all that just to save us. You're just one of the coolest guys ever, period. That's what I think. But even cool guys like you make mistakes, so... can you do me a favor and not worry about it?" He gave Sorun a hopeful smile. "It's not like any of us do."

"I..." Sorun hesitated, unable to find the words. Forgiveness was one thing, but from the way Sonic was going he was making it sound like a whole other thing entirely from sheer effort alone. It was more than Sorun ever thought anybody here would go out of their way to give him. And he couldn't deny it felt nice, nor could he deny any of Sonic's words.

He also aware that the Sorun Sonic describing, at some level, was a fictional Sorun. The Sorun Sonic was describing sounded like some cool, unshakable Freedom Fighter with all the coolest moves and who was super strong. Who ignored any and all danger no matter how severe the threat if it meant saving people. An ideal hero. That's all Sorun heard when Sonic talked about him.

The real Sorun wasn't anything like that. He cared for them all and genuinely wanted to save their lives, sure. That was most of the reason he was bothering with all this. But the real Sorun was also just somebody who stole all their powers from a video game. A liar. He wasn't brave. He just didn't care anymore since his life was practically forfeit anyways. He was able to ignore the lost body parts because he couldn't even feel it and because it didn't matter in the long run. It wasn't bravery. It was cold pragmatism and a lack of value on his own life.

Even so, there was some truth to what Sonic said. He did desire to correct his mistakes, and did want them all to live, even if he couldn't. So it was with a resigned sigh Sorun admitted, "Well... not like I was gonna leave you all hangin'. I care about you all too much."

"Say, branchin' offa that subject..." Sonic leaned in closer to Sorun, even going as far as to drape an arm over him as he gave the human a knowing grin. "You said something when Egghead showed up with his dumb suit. Pretty sure I heard a word startin' with an 'f'..."

"Musta misheard," Sorun immediately said. "Those pods looked pretty thick. Who knows how much the sound was distorted."

"I dunno, Sorun, sound was pretty clear to me. I'm almost positive I heard a word sounding like 'friend' tossed around..."

A deep sigh left Sorun. "You're seriously gonna make me say it, man?" He supposed there was no getting around it at this point, as much as he hated to admit it. So he took in a deep breath, and said it. "Fine, I admit it. I forgive you all. We're friends. Happy?"

Sonic's eyes brightened up to a uncomfortable degree. "You really mean it!?"

With a groan, Sorun shoved the hedgehog off of him. "Yeah, yeah, friends forever, now get off."

"Ha ha! Sure, buddy." Sonic thankfully obliged him and stepped back after Sorun pushed him away. He still had that blinding smile on his face, though. "I'm real happy you finally went and said it, Sorun."

"I'm gonna take it back if you don't drop it already," Sorun snapped at him.

"Nope, too late. No takin' that one back." Sonic hopped back towards the end of the bed with the other two Mobians, lightly laughing all the while. "You're stuck with us forever now."

"Yeah, for however long that lasts." Sorun scooted a bit forwards on the bed and turned his body so his feet was hanging off. He hopped off the bed afterwards, though he stumbled a bit after standing up on his feet and was forced to grab at the bed frame for support. His vision had begun swimming and he'd been hit with a strong sense of vertigo the moment he'd stood up.

He saw some movement from the corner of his eye, and turned his head to see the three Mobians directly. They'd all at once almost made to move towards him, though the three stopped when they saw he'd managed to steady himself. They still had worried expressions on their faces, though, and he felt a sense of annoyance begin to bubble up in him. Touched annoyance, but still annoyance.

"Sorun," Sally spoke up, "I'm not sure you should be moving around-"

"Ah, there's a lotta things I shouldn't do but still do," Sorun interrupted with a wave of his spectral hand. "So besides you guys is anybody else coming to visit?"

Sally, still looking a bit wary at how carefree Sorun acted, slowly nodded at him. "Knuckles and the rest of the Chaotix said they wanted to come by and check on you."

"Rotor wanted to come, but... he couldn't," Tails added, looking a bit downcast all of a sudden. "His back got hurt real bad during the fight in Knothole. The doctors say he's fine, but, well, he's not really moving around like he used to."

Sorun noticeably flinched a bit. He hadn't known somebody had been hurt that bad in the raid. Or somebody he knew, at that. The relief he felt at hearing he was doing generally well was overshadowed by the anger he felt. Another grievance to add to all the others.

"Yeah, he took a nasty hit. Doin' better, though," Sonic stated. "Besides that I know Rouge called Shadow and told him everything that happened. He said he's coming right over here the moment he gets some time off at G.U.N. to see you."

Sorun found himself blinking in surprise as he turned to Sonic. "Is that so?" he asked.

"Mhm," he confirmed with a nod. "Dunno how you got so buddy-buddy with that guy."

"I mean, he's really not that bad when you get to know him. You could try to get along with him, Sonic."

"Ha! It's not like he makes it easier for me. I'd put more effort into it if he'd just admit he's the faker already and not me."

"So it really does go both ways, huh...?"

A knock on the door cut Sorun off and drew his attention towards the door, as well as everyone else's attention. Nobody had even spoken a word before the door finally opened up and a head poked through.

"Errr, pardon moi? I was hearing voices beyond ze door and thinked-" The speaker, whom Sorun immediately identified as Antoine, stopped himself when he briefly scanned the room and saw Sorun standing there along with the other Mobians already in the room. "O-oh, Sorun," he stuttered out, "you... you are being awake."

"I'm 'being' a lot of things, Antoine." Sorun couldn't even find it in himself to look directly at the coyote; the guilt from having flaked his wedding was still too strong in him. So he'd turned his head away enough that he didn't have to look at the Mobian in the doorway and then spoke again. "Bunnie there with you?"

He didn't get a verbal answer. What he did get was the sound of the door opening up all the way, and Sorun only needed to take a quick glance up to confirm that the cyborg rabbit was, in fact, standing there behind him. He couldn't bite back the large sigh that left him from just being in their presence.

"I never even thought about how I'm supposed to apologize to them for what I did. I mean, fuck, the wedding got ruined anyway but..." But he'd still chosen to not go to their wedding when everybody else had. Sorun couldn't even say for certain if the results of that had been good or not; what he did resulted in saving everybody but him getting hurt. Maybe if he'd stayed things would have went differently. Possibly better. Or worse. Sorun tried not to dwell on what-ifs like that and instead focused on appreciating how well it'd gone at the end of the day, but to him, none of that erased what he'd done. He wanted to think that him changing his mind at the last second and trying to come back or him saving everyone the way he did made up for it, but he didn't know if they'd see it that way.

"... Eh, I'm already kinda going all-out here anyways." It was with a low whine in the back of Sorun's throat that he straightened up and rolled his head towards Antoine and Bunnie, who by now had both stepped into the room. "Screw it. I got it comin' anyways."

And so, with his mind made up, Sorun Tricked into a position so that he was sitting on his knees right in front of the married couple with his head bowed down. They'd both jumped a bit in surprise at what he did, and then proceeded to stare down at him with wide eyes as he began to speak.

"I'm super sorry, you guys," Sorun said in an apologetic tone. "I... screwed up and missed out on your wedding just because I thought I bunch of stupid mystical crystals were more important than seeing two of my friends get married. And granted, it... kind of worked out really well since it lead to, you know-" he briefly rose his spectral arm, "- this happening an' me savin' everyone, but I don't think that's a very good excuse. I know an apology doesn't really cut it considering what I did, but-"

"Oh, goodness' grief, cut it out and stand up, mon ami."

The words spoken by Antoine caused Sorun to freeze in confusion. He was even more confused when he felt a pair of arms grip him and lift him up to his feet. He was greeted to a sight of both Antoine and Bunnie looking at him with some strange expressions halfway between amused and bemused. Despite that, they were both grinning at him.

He didn't get it.

"You're... you're seriously not mad?" Sorun asked, voice quiet and disbelieving.

Bunnie sighed at the question, shaking her head while also brushing a blonde lock to the side. "Sorun, hon, we can't exactly hold any ill will towards the feller that put his life on the line tah save the whole city, now, can we?"

"B-but the wedding-"

"Non, non, we are not wanting to hear any more about ze wedding," Antoine interrupted with a shake of his head. "Eet iz bad enough zose two demented maniacs had to go and ruin it and our dear home. I do not weesh to have heard you being upsetted." He stopped to allow Sorun a chance to speak, though the human found that he didn't have the words to respond to anything Antoine had said. This caused the coyote to roll his eyes and place a hand on Sorun's shoulder. "I will not pretended to understand why you did not go, Sorun, but, well, I am... I really am being the doubting one when I think of you getting on your knees to apologize to moi and mi amor."

A quiet, dry chuckle left Sorun. "Well... it's for when I made a really bad mistake. And you just happen to be two of the only people in the world I'd go that far for," he admitted to them. "You're seriously just gonna forgive me? Just like that?"

"We ain't exactly the type to be holdin' grudges, now," Bunnie told him. "Ah think ya already made it up plenty with what ya pulled back in New Megaopolis. 'Sides..." She trailed off, looking down at Sorun's arm. "You, um... Ah think ya've lost enough without needin' tah lose a couple friends, too. An' I don't wanna be hearin' anymore about it, y'hear?"

"I could not 'ave said eet better myself," Antoine said.

Sorun was still driven speechless. Even after all this time, when he'd got to a point where he almost expected this saint-like benevolence from these people, it still shocked him to no end when they actually accepted an apology for the things he'd done. That they were so easy to just forgive and forget like that. He couldn't help but rub his face with his hand in a poor attempt to hide his grin. Especially when they kept smiling at him like that.

"Alright, fine. We'll call it good since you guys won't leave it alone otherwise." He was forced to look away from them when he realized the grin on his face wasn't going away. "Thanks, guys. You're all too good."

"Don't mention it none, Sorun." Bunnie looked down at Sorun's arm again and pointed at it with her cybernetic hand. "Say, since we're on the subject, what do you plan on doin' with, y'know..."

"Oh, this?" Sorun took a few steps back and lifted his spectral arm up. "Well, the doc offered to get me a neato cyber-arm, but I'm not gonna lie I kinda dig this one already so I don't think-"

"SORUN!"

There probably wasn't anything on the whole planet that could have prepared Sorun when a black and yellow missile crashed right into him hard enough that he was almost sent onto his back right there. How he managed to stay upright was a mystery even to Sorun. Not so much as a mystery was what slammed into him to begin with and was currently hanging off his neck with their arms wrapped around his neck. He only knew two bees, after all.

Just 'cause he knew him, though, didn't mean Sorun really appreciated being hung off of like this.

"Charmy...!" Sorun hissed out, reaching up to try and pry the bee Mobian off of him. Unfortunately, he held firm. "Charmy, c'mon-!"

"Why didn't you tell us you were awake, you big dummy!" Large, exaggerated tears were practically flying out from his eyes as he cried right onto Sorun's bare, bandage-wrapped chest. "You know how worried we all were when you wouldn't wake up!? You made us wait for days!"

"Man, come on, seriously!" Sorun's tugs became more frantic when he noticed five pairs of eyes fall on him. He couldn't recall the last time he felt so embarrassed when he registered the five amused smiles everyone was giving them. "I swear if you don't get off right now-!"

"Oh, come on, Sorun, give him a break." The human groaned out loud when he recognized the voice and looked up towards the doorway. He wasn't at all surprised to see Knuckles there. Or the rest of the Chaotix right behind him that were currently crowding into the room. The warm grins on all their faces weren't lost on him, either, and unfortunately, he'd reached his limit on warm grins for the day. "It's your fault for scaring us so much anyways."

"I will hit you if you do not get him to release me," Sorun growled out, still trying in vain to pry Charmy off of him. "Thought I told Nicole I didn't wanna deal with so many people at once...!"

"Yeah, lighten up!" A strong, green-scaled arm draped over his neck, locking Sorun in place. Sorun could have sworn he felt a grinding noise in his head as his eye slowly swiveled up to Vector. Bastard had a knowing look in his eyes along with the grin the crocodile wore. "Ya can't seriously say you're gonna try and worm your way outta here before we get a chance to catch up, are ya?"

Another arm from Sorun's other side draped over his neck, overlapping with Vector's. There was enough strength pressing down on him that Sorun couldn't even move if he wanted to. He knew from that alone it was Mighty's arm, and the voice alone was enough to confirm it definitively. "Gotta say I agree with him, Sorun," he said, and the mischievous tone in his voice was clear to Sorun's ear. "'Sides, you're still wounded, ain'tcha? Ya shouldn't go strain yourself on our behalf."

Gritting his teeth in indignation, Sorun turned his head forwards. He saw Espio there. Leaning against a wall and examining a shuriken in his hand, acting like he was ignoring the entire thing. He may have been stone-faced and lacked any and all amusement in his features, but Sorun knew he wasn't dense enough to not read the room.

But, when he sent the chameleon a pleading look, he'd just shook his head at Sorun.

"You know as well as I do any attempt to escape from them would be futile," he said. A small smirk played on his mouth. "And you'll have to think again if you think I'd let you leave here without us all thanking you for saving Charmy from what Robotnik tried to subject him to."

Biting back his growing insults, Sorun took another quick glance around. Knuckles was wearing the same grin as they were. So were Julie-Su, Ray, and Saffron. And everybody else, of course. Even with the ability to teleport he doubted he'd be able to get away, and even if he did Dr. Quack would probably just yell at him for being so active. So, with a deep sigh, he finally gave up and let his arms fall away from Charmy to hang limply down his sides.

"I think all my friends are a bit too good..."


A/N- RIP in pepperoni gum wrapper.