Recursion Error
Episode 75- Suicide speedrun
It had been a few days into what Sorun had called, lacking any better way of labeling the situation, the Soul Apocalypse. A really dumb name he hoped to never verbally utter.
All that time had been consolidated in the underground shelter Nicole had built. Those golden thread things, the drones as Finitevus called them, stopped appearing in the city after the first day, likely having moved on, but the three of them had all elected to stay in the shelter regardless for safety's sake. Safety or not, though, the experience of living here was hell.
He hadn't been able to sleep much. Almost not at all. Between the knowledge of what was happening and his intense worry for everybody, how could he? It was the only thing he could think of. He couldn't get Cream's lifeless, ghoulish expression out of his mind and he couldn't help putting that same expression on all his friends knowing they were all the same way, and all it did was make Sorun feel worse. Helpless. Weak. Powerless.
The other two inhabitants with him weren't helping matters much. They'd all come together to fill each other in on details to try and pool all their information together and come up with an answer for fixing this, but the longer this went on the more Sorun thought it was all for naught. Nearly every single day he heard Nicole and Finitevus arguing about something or other; they were spitballing possible solutions and they couldn't agree on anything. Or come up with anything viable.
He could still here them arguing all the way from here. In that room with the weird green dias thing, some thing used for monitoring the city, Sorun couldn't retain the information when Nicole briefly explained what it was. And meanwhile all he could do was sit down in a chair in the next room while blankly staring down at the floor.
"Why did it turn out like this? I thought things would finally be different. I'd be done with the fighting. With the worrying. I just wanted to live in peace again." He slumped so far in the chair Sorun's body threatened to tumble right out of it. "I just wanted a peaceful life for me and everyone else. That's all I wanted. But something like this always happens. Why did I think things would finally be different? Just because it was all starting to finally work out for me?
"Why did I bother coming back to life when it was only going to go this way...?"
The nearby shouting ceased. He saw Finitevus stomp out of the room in a huff, leaving Nicole alone in there to continue monitoring an empty city. He stopped in front of Sorun, and when he glanced up at his face he saw he was looking about as bad as Sorun felt. Impressive, really, considering the last time Sorun felt this bad he was on the verge of dying.
"I'm going to the lab if you want to assist me further in my studies." That was all the albino echidna offered him before turning around and walking towards a nearby door. He'd opened the door and walked through it, not even bothering to close the door behind him. Sorun stared after the door for a bit, and then looked over at Nicole, still focusing on the green dias. He wanted to talk with her, but quite honestly he didn't have anything to say to her and didn't want to disturb her. So Sorun sighed, left the chair, and then walked over towards the door Finitevus had entered.
In what anybody else would see as a very questionable choice Sorun decided to let Finitevus run some experiments on him.
The Mobian had seemed surprised that Sorun even agreed to it when he'd brought it up. Nicole had been vehemently against it - she'd built Finitevus a small lab to help them fix the problem afflicting the world, not prod at Sorun - but, either not to incur her anger any further or maybe just to give Sorun a break since he was consensually agreeing to be experimented on, he promised to only perform non-invasive examinations and do some bloodwork. And, in fairness to him, he hadn't broken that promise. It creeped Sorun out how giddy he was over having the opportunity to examine him like a lab rat, but he kept his word and maintained the boundaries. A point to his integrity, Sorun supposed. Surprisingly there was some in there.
Sorun himself wasn't so sure why he'd agreed to let Finitevus run his experiments. He hadn't thought on it at all and just automatically agreed to it. Maybe to have something to do to pass the time and take his mind off things, because it wasn't like Sorun had anything better to do than think, or maybe he was curious about what the echidna would find regarding his unique biology by this world's standards. He didn't know. He just said yes. He knew Nicole wasn't at all comfortable with it, and he was all but certain she had a camera in that room somewhere monitoring them just in case, but since Finitevus kept to his word she didn't do anything to stop it. Then again, maybe he only kept his word because he knew there was no of getting out of it if he was caught lying. Not like he could afford to lose his only allies in the world.
Sorun didn't know. Sorun didn't care. He didn't care about much at the moment.
The echidna himself mystified Sorun to no end. He'd hated him at first- genuinely hated him. Hated him for everything he'd done and being responsible for Enerjak. Fantasized about sticking Yamato in his throat while he slept at night, almost did at one point. But spending some days in close proximity to Finitevus gave Sorun some perspective. They were in the same boat, essentially. And he had his own reasons, sure, but in a way he was trying to fix this terrible mistake he made. For better or worse the three of them were in this together whether they liked it or not, so Sorun tried looking past everything he disliked about Finitevus - admittedly a long list - and tried looking at the man himself.
He was... charming, in some way. Oddly very respectful and polite despite having a history of being a lying snake and a maniac. Sorun had noticed he'd become much more amicable towards the human when he volunteered to testing, so maybe that'd went towards getting on his good side. But they'd spent some time alone together, in silence mostly with some small talk here and there, but through all that Sorun came to the startling realization that Finitevus was actually pleasant to be around. Considering who he was it seemed bizarre, but in a strange turn Sorun found he didn't all that much mind the echidna's company.
That's what confused him so much. How somebody so tolerable could do so many terrible things. Why had he facilitated Albion's destruction? What was his fixation on Enerjak? Why did he desire world destruction so much? Now that Sorun had gotten to know him somewhat he couldn't see any of these qualities in him. So he couldn't figure out what would drive Finitevus to these lengths.
There had to be some good in there, somewhere. There couldn't not be. He only showed shreds of remorse for what he'd done, but shreds or not it was still remorse. Even if Finitevus tried hiding it.
"Why are you so fascinated with me, doctor?" This was the first question Sorun decided to ask to start his line of questioning. He was sitting on an examination table while Finitevus was sitting nearby in front of a microscope, looking at more of Sorun's blood. There must have been something interesting in his blood, because it almost seemed like he couldn't tear himself away from it.
With his back to him, Finitevus said, "You're interesting. The entire concept of your zone is interesting." He lifted his eyes away from the microscope and turned to Sorun. "You shouldn't exist. That whole zone shouldn't. And yet, somehow, it does. Chaos energy is the source of all life, of everything. Not just living creatures, but materials as well. Matter itself, energy, it all leads back to Chaos energy." He pointed at Sorun. "But you have none. No link, no inherent Chaos energy stores of your own. The fact you're able to manipulate the energies with such finesse is more a side-effect of this phenomenon than anything else, though I've yet to crack exactly why this is." He turned back to the microscope. "But, as you know, this comes at the caveat that your species' biology never adapted to Chaos energy due to your lack of exposure."
"Then I die, been there," Sorun muttered. Not really any grand revelations in that statement; he'd know this already. "No theories on why my zone exists? I've heard it isn't even connected to the... what did Tails call it, the-the something highway? I still don't know what that is." He shook his head. "He said it's not even connected to that. That it's... really far away from the rest of the multiverse."
"I'm not so surprised. You'd have to be separated from the rest of the multiverse to escape the Chaos Force's influence, but I still don't know how your zone came to be. The formations of zones in general is unknown, so it's anybody's guess. A far-flung piece of debris made at the beginning of creation that developed into its own universe, perhaps. An accident. With so little evidence all I could offer is conjecture." He fiddled with a knob on the microscope. "Your biology is rather unique, as well. I've seldom had a chance to examine Overlanders and the Station Square humans, but you're nothing like them."
"Really?" Sorun drawled out. "Wouldn't have figured. The Overlanders 'cause of the gene bomb's tampering, I could guess, but the Station Square guys? I figured it was because we were separated by thousands of years of evolution. And the fact I'm from another universe."
"Contributing factors, yes. That and they're all inbred."
Sorun paused. "Inbred?" he repeated. "What do you mean?"
Finitevus sighed. "Generally speaking you need a population size of around five-hundred subjects to maintain a diverse enough gene pool to maintain a species in perpetuity. That city was made when a human airship crashed into a mountain and the passengers decided to expand a city inside of said mountain using the plane's technology. How many humans do you think were in that plane at the time?" A dawning expression crossed Sorun's expression, while Finitevus continued looking in the microscope. "I'd wager there were two-hundred and fifty humans at the least to four-hundred at most," he continued. "Just enough that they've eked it out this far, but on a genetic level they're all damaged to varying degrees. Mingling with the Overlanders may fix that in time, but I'm not a geneticist. I don't know for sure."
"Figures. They did look... slightly off when I saw them," Sorun quietly admitted. "Thought it was just the evolution thing, but... man." He looked to the side. "I dunno, back then I figured I could connect to people of my own kind, but I never felt anything with the Station Square people. I felt even less with the Overlanders. The gene bombs made them evolve weirdly." He made a soured face. "The weird anime hair some of them had was one thing, but some of them only had four fingers."
"Devolution."
"Hm?" Making a curious sound, Sorun leaned a bit forwards on the table towards Finitevus. "What do you mean?"
"The gene bombs were meant to render all organic life on this planet down to their base components. This was true for everything except the lucky humans that escaped that fate but were still exposed to its effects. Because the Xorda's technology utilized Chaos energy life survived and gave birth to Mobians, but the fact remains those bombs aren't meant to evolve life. They devolve life." He made a scoff. "The genetic mutations and degradation that gave birth to Overlanders is arguably worse than the inbreeding of the Station Square inhabitants."
"A devolution of the human species, huh...?" Well, it was new information. Knowing they were what humans would look like if they evolved backwards made Sorun feel a bit of sympathy and sadness towards them. Maybe even a bit sideways given the mutations caused from the bombs. It just sounded unfortunate to him. "Is that why they always kept fighting Mobians?" he asked. "I haven't really interacted with many."
"Hard to say. They're certainly more aggressive than normal humans, at least from a purely statistical view. I've heard Station Square has been quite accommodating of Mobian culture, whereas relations between Mobians and Overlanders are still significantly strained. On the other hand, the mutations were certainly beneficial: from an objective standpoint my observations have proven Overlanders have a superior physical ability to humans, and rarer subjects greater intelligence. You only need to look at Dr. Robotnik for that. But there's many things that are affected by their damaged DNA and the mutations. Some benign, like the diverse hair pigmentations normal humans lack and their number of digits, more inhibiting factors like metabolism or height, things of that nature."
"Yeah, Snively always was pretty short. Shorter than me, even, which was... kinda weird, really," Sorun admitted. And empowering, in a way.
Finitevus hummed. "That's nothing to say of how they were mentally affected." He paused. "I'm not quite sure if it's a result of the gene bombs' meddling or just a natural progression of culture. Take Mobians. You've lived among them for some time. They're... caring." The echidna clenched his teeth and shook his head. "Nonviolent, generous, overly protective. Not incapable of violence, as you've clearly seen, but it's just not in their nature. Adaptability and survival instincts are the only reason violence even exists in the world of Mobians and how they managed to survive wars with the Overlanders." He turned a knob on the microscope again. "But with Overlanders, it's almost the complete opposite. Like the genetic tampering the gene bombs afflicted on them heightened the worst in humanity. Aggression and a desire for conflict. I haven't seen much, if any, pieces of human history in my travels, so perhaps you could enlighten me seeing as you're the only 'pure' human in this world? You're more an expert on human nature than I am, after all."
Sorun bit his lower lip in response. He turned away from the echidna, thinking long and hard about his words before he spoke. "Humanity's a mixed bag full of the best and worst. In my world we did amazing things, and we also did... well, unspeakable things," he said. "There are things in human history I've refrained from ever mentioning to everybody here because those concepts and ideas simply don't exist in this world. Or if they did the gene bombs wiped them out. I don't want to seed any ideas to anyone so I keep it all to myself. I know things that would probably give a Mobian a nervous breakdown by simply speaking it."
He'd be hard-pressed to be so knowledgeable of so many forms of fiction and media without having seen the worst in humanity. Or human history, for that matter. He'd be damned if he ever mentioned even a fraction of 'Berserk' to anybody here, art that it was besides. Real-world examples like the Holocaust, Unit 731 and third-world countries strapping explosives to children to throw at the enemy would be taken to his grave if he could help it. Countless horrible example he knew about just from sitting in a history classroom or browsing the internet.
Some things were just better left unsaid. In a world where these concepts didn't exist, he didn't need to say them and risk making a reality of them. More than that he didn't want to hurt anybody by mentioning these things. And for all the bad, there was an equal if not greater amount of good in humanity he could always say to keep curious questions satiated. Enough that he never even had to think about mentioning the bad.
They didn't need to know. None of that was for Mobian ears.
"But still, I don't want to believe Overlanders are automatically bad just because of a bunch of bad mutations," Sorun said. "It... does upset me, what happened to them. They're not humans anymore, simple as that. Nothing but offshoots. Even so you can't say a whole species is bad just because of, I don't even know, genetic mental disposition or whatever you want to call it. There's no way." He waved a hand. "Plus I've heard of good Overlanders that cooperated with Mobians. That, uh... what was his name, Nate Morgan. Yeah. I heard everyone liked him. And this one girl I heard about, Hope-something. Heard she lived in Knothole for a bit before going over to G.U.N. and everybody seemed to have a high opinion of her."
"That's a product of free will, Sorun. Sapient beings aren't so set in personality they rigidly conform to baser instincts and inclinations. Influenced, perhaps, but not forced," Finitevus argued. "You think every single Mobian is so frustratingly altruistic?"
"Considering echidna exist? Nah."
A low sigh from Finitevus. "Besides echidna," he muttered out. "History is rife with many abhorrent Mobians. I'm sure you've met a few yourself."
The image of a band of jackals, one specific one with mismatched eyes, came to Sorun's mind. "I've met a few, yeah," he admitted. "They're not all great. Most are, though."
"Most in the Republic. You've not travelled much outside of the continent," Finitevus reminded him. "But, these are all outliers. The fact is there's a noticeable pattern in Overlander and Mobian behavior. Whether it's a result of morphological changes induced by the gene bombs or simply the development of culture is a question that lacks enough concrete evidence to substantiate."
"I'm... just not so sure," Sorun hesitantly stated. He didn't like basing behavior off of raw data alone. Just sounded wrong to him. Then again... few exceptions aside, he couldn't deny most Mobians he met were so overly friendly, to an almost startling degree. And he didn't hear many good things about Overlanders. With all that he just didn't know what to think on the matter. "What about you, F? Why aren't you a goody-goody Mobian like everyone else?" he asked in an effort of shifting the conversation.
Finitevus didn't respond at first. He simply moved away from the microscope, and then spun his chair around to face Sorun. He looked at the human for a long few moments before speaking. "I used to be normal," he said. "And then Knuckles happened."
"Oh, come on," Sorun sighed out, "what did he do?"
"I studied him. Back when the Guardian had so much power he was compared to a living Chaos Emerald. I was a scientist in Albion, you see. The ruler there commissioned many of my experiments in response to Knuckles' presence when he briefly visited. She wouldn't admit it, but she feared him. What he was capable of. His potential." Black sparks of electricity flew around his fingers. "To make a long story short, there was an accident from one of my machines. I was changed into this pale form you see before you, and my mind had... opened, as it were. I was given a new perspective and found the way of things is wrong. I sought to correct it."
"By blowing up Albion? By trying to end the world?" Sorun scoffed out, expression incredulous. "Are you serious?"
Finitevus' features thinned. "I can hardly be held accountable for what happened to m-"
"No, uh-uh, we're not going there." Actual anger flared over Sorun's features, and his posture had gone rigid. "So your experiment blew up in your face - literally - and you became this. That's not an excuse. I refuse to believe you got the white fur and black lightning powers and automatically became evil like evil is some kind of tangible substance you can just inject into somebody."
"You wouldn't know," Finitevus denied with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "You weren't afflicted like I was."
"But really, man? Even so, you went this far? You didn't have a friend or family or anything like that on Albion?"
"... I've a tainted soul, Sorun." There wasn't any emotion in Finitevus' voice when he said this. He'd said it with the same attitude as if talking about the weather, making Sorun blink in surprise. "Call it what you want. I don't regret my actions. They were my choices to make, and I made them." He turned his head to the side. "Why does it matter?"
"Just tryin' to figure you out. We don't really have much else to talk about down here," Sorun said. "You wanna believe you got corrupted by evil black energy, then sure, go for it. Blame it for your mistakes." He turned the opposite direction Finitevus turned in. "Power doesn't harm people. Tempt people, bring out the worst in them, maybe, but what it brings out is something that was always there. You got a bit of power that let you do things you couldn't do before and ran with it."
A low, breathy noise left Finitevus. His darkened eyes darted to Sorun, after which he tsked and looked back away. He'd made an expression Sorun couldn't place. "Maybe so. Maybe all those echidna on Albion who labeled me a corrupted abomination were simply looking for an easy answer to what I was. Not that I was a visionary, but just another threat that needed to be removed. Like Knuckles was." He glanced back at Sorun. "You're rather insightful for one without a soul."
"..." Sorun gave Finitevus an odd look. He'd played it off as a weird joke at first, but when he saw Finitevus giving him a genuine stare, he realized he was being serious. Confusion and denial set into Sorun, and when he thought on that statement only more confusion settled in him. "What do you mean I don't have a soul?"
Finitevus didn't say anything. Instead, he stood up out of the chair and walked to Sorun. Black energy arced over his fingers as he held his hand just over Sorun's chest, his yellow irises looking down and scrutinizing some invisible thing Sorun couldn't see. After a few moments, the lightning ceased and he lowered his bandaged hand to his side.
"It's as I say. You've no soul," he said, looking back up at a shocked Sorun. "You're like that machine out there. Nicole. Just a machine made of meat."
"And just how do you figure that?" Sorun demanded. "How could I not have a soul? I walked around as a ghost once when I died. I had the whole out of body experience. Sounds pretty soulful to me." It didn't make any sense. Of course he had a soul. He had to if he'd been a ghost one time, right? Wasn't that how it worked?
A contemplative hum from Finitevus. "Well... saying you don't have a soul is a bit inaccurate," he amended. "You have something there. Some spark of life that drives you. But it's so tiny and insignificant it could hardly be called a soul." He looked down in thought, even going as far as to grab his chin. "It's honestly no surprise you don't have a Chaos Force link with such a weak thing. It couldn't possibly sustain a link. I doubt it could even survive outside your body, unlike anything else whose spirit would be kept intact through their Chaos Force link." He made another, more contemplative hum. Deeper and more drawn out. "Perhaps that's it. Your entire species must possess atrophied souls due to your lack of Chaos Force links to strengthen them. All that's left is this... small, flickering thing I see inside you."
"But that's..." Sorun's mind began whirling. Calmed down a bit knowing there was "something" in there and he wasn't completely empty, but still reeling a bit from the information. "I was still aware when I died. I was a ghost, I-!"
"Your body still possessed the Chaos Emeralds, did it not?" Finitevus interrupted, silencing Sorun. "Your spirit form even retained the abilities. Your kind can form artificial links to the Chaos Force by using an external supply of Chaos energy. It's not unreasonable to think that absorbing those seven Emeralds turned your spark of life into something resembling a true soul. A pseudo-soul in the same vein of thought as your pseudo-link. This same phenomenon is likely what allowed you to exist as a spirit tangentially connected to your Chaos-infused body post-mortem." He made a thoughtful hum. "It's not too dissimilar to what Enerjak has done to everyone, now that I think of it."
"But I wasn't... oh. The regeneration." Something clicked inside of Sorun as he realized an important detail. "One of my abilities back then granted me a regenerative body. Even after dying it kept me intact. I heard everybody was freaking out about my body not decaying."
"The regeneration must have preserved it," Finitevus agreed with a nod. A small, amused laugh left him. "You're... rather fortunate so many unlikely circumstances all happened at once to produce this result."
"Lucky. Right." Sorun's thoughts turned back to the void he'd wound up in after dying. He'd only been able to leave that place because of the Yamato. Because he'd still had his powers then. Would he have even wound up there if he didn't have any of the Emeralds when he died? "None of this makes any sense. How could any of this be possible?"
"Anything is possible with Chaos energy," Finitevus said in a serious tone. "Even the AI has a spark like you do. Whether it's from her very unique construction or constant contact with Chaos energy. A third factor I'm unaware of. A combination of factors. I'm unsure. I just know she has one."
"Good for her..." He wasn't sure how to take the fact he didn't have soul like everyone else. Or that he did have a soul, just not a "soul" soul. What the distinction even was outside of him not having a Chaos Force link, or if there were any other distinctions. "You know how many religions and philosophies humans spent centuries on Earth pondering that you're shattering right now?"
Dryly chuckling, Finitevus walked to the side a bit and hopped up on the examination table to sit besides Sorun. "Me and convention were never on friendly terms," he said. "So what will you do, now that you know?"
"I dunno. Does it even matter? Not like it changes anything." He made it this far just fine, after all. All of humanity did. "End of the day it's not much more than an interesting factoid for all it's worth."
"I'm glad you see it like that. Maybe you'll stop questioning why I make the decisions I do."
Sorun frowned a bit. "You're still on that? It was that upsetting?" He turned his head at Finitevus. "How does that even- I don't- you know what, fine."
He turned to his other side, and then looked down at the glowing object resting right next to him. He grabbed the blue Chaos Emerald, watching as it turned into the Yamato, and then smoothly drew the sword out from the sheath. He cut a cross into the air, after which a portal was opened in front of them. Finitevus didn't say a single word through the entire process, merely observing in fascination.
"Take a walk with me, Fimvim," Sorun said, sliding off the table and gesturing towards the portal.
Finitevus eyed the portal with some suspicion. "Why?" he questioned.
"Just wanna talk. That's all."
"We were talking just fine here. I don't see why we need to go somewhere else."
"Look, I've been cooped up in this bunker for days, I just wanted to get some air, alright?" Sorun snapped. "Nicole said she hasn't seen any of the drones for a while, and a few minutes outside ain't gonna kill our cover. Just come on."
"... A few minutes," he agreed with some reluctance. He hopped off the table and began walking towards the portal. "No more than that. We come back right after."
"Sure, sure." Eyes still on the echidna's back, Sorun followed Finitevus in through the portal he made. Not even a few steps in and the portal closed behind the pair, leaving the small lab they'd just left completely empty.
Close enough to the border of New Mobotropolis that the wall surrounding the city was easily within sight, a portal opened. From this portal, near a small pile of rocks in an area heavily-populated by trees, emerged an odd-colored echidna and a human in a blue coat carrying a sword, which he used to close the blue portal they'd just walked out of. The sword was slowly sheathed back into its scabbard as the black-haired human turned to look at the echida, who was giving him an inpatient stare.
"Why here of all places?" Finitevus asked him. "I would have thought you'd just take us above the bunker. Why outside the city?"
"Didn't want Nicole listening in on us."
The answer brought some surprise to Finitevus' face. "Truly?" he quietly remarked. "For what purpose?"
"We'll get there," Sorun promised him. Sword still clutched in his left hand, he leaned his back against the gathering of rocks and crossed his arms. "Before that, I need to know. I've been trying to get a read on you these past few days, and I can't figure you out. From everything I've seen you're a normal-enough guy. Maybe a bit more into the... grittier aspects of science than what's mentally healthy, but we all have our quirks." He looked straight into Finitevus' darkened eyes. "So I want to know. Why'd you do it? Why'd you bring back Enerjak? What do you have against the world so bad you want it gone?"
"I told you why. Back when we first met," Finitevus replied in a plain tone. "Do you not remember?"
Sorun looked down in thought. "You said the world was too corrupt. That it was so far gone it was better to just destroy it all and start over."
"They say the point of history is to learn from past mistakes so the future may not repeat it. Being a bit of a historian myself it's a saying I take to heart," Finitevus told him. "Do you know how many mistakes in the past have been repeated, time and time again? Even if I were to just narrow it down to my own people's history, do you realize how many examples exist?"
A loud scoff came from Sorun. "You couldn't pay me to try and understand your people's history it's so complicated."
"That's my point exactly. Generations of Guardians passing on the mantle to their children in some twisted dynasty to fight the Dark Legion and their twisted infatuation with technology and cybernetic enhancements. Conflicting ideals on how to lead the species forwards and how to treat the other Mobian races and other useless dreck. Over and over, with a history so convoluted and winding you couldn't track down where it all began and why it got so out of hand if you tried. The world's full of these examples, the humans, the Overlanders, the Mobians, everyone." Finitevus began pacing, and Sorun found himself blinking in surprise when he saw genuine frustration cross the echidna's face. "From Robotnik's coup to the Xorda irreversibly changing this world to the Ixis wizards of old to the Great War between the Mobians and Overlanders." He stopped and whipped his head harshly towards Sorun. "Do you want to know how that even began?"
Sorun shrugged. "Sure." Nobody'd ever told him, now that he thought about it. It'd be nice knowing what started a full-blown war between species.
"The first contact initiated between the two species was between the prince of the now-former Kingdom of Acorn and an Overlander boy who met by chance in a forest, many generations ago. The Overlander had a gun and the two idiots were playing around with it." Finitevus' features wrinkled in anger. "It was all fun and games until the Overlander boy tried shooting a bird Mobini, and that witless Mobian threw himself into the line of fire to save it."
"Oh, you're fucking kidding." Sorun slapped his own face in disbelief, barely repressing a loud sigh. "A race war happened because of a disregard for gun safety...?"
"Not directly. More a spark than anything," Finitevus said with a sigh. "It permanently strained relationships, to be sure. Generations of mistrust and small skirmishes lead to the Great War. It was an event so impactful the kingdom had made anti-gun laws to make sure there was never a repeat of the incident. Last I heard, however, was that it was dropped in favor of the conflict with Robotnik."
"Sally was always skittish around guns for some reason..." Sorun added. "I remember asking and she just said it was because the Overlanders used them so much. Guess that was technically the truth, but still... eh, then again, we hadn't known each other that long. Guess it kinda makes sense she wouldn't want to talk about an ancestor of hers getting blasted over something stupid like that." Blowing air past his lips, Sorun shook his head. He felt like kicking something over what he heard, and the worst part was he completely believed it. He'd heard of kids doing things even stupider than that. Kids playing with guns wasn't even that uncommon where he was from. Even still... "That's... that's just-"
"Moronic?" Finitevus finished, causing Sorun to nod. "It is, and almost nobody cares enough to remember the reason why the two races mistrust each other so greatly. They just remember they're supposed to because of all the conflicts, or because they're different, and time has done nothing to help matters. Should I even mention the bloodthirsty Mobians who held high positions in the kingdom who executed captured Overlander scouts to initiate the Great War? So much life was lost because some muscle-bound fool decided to kill off POWs." Finitevus shuffled over to Sorun's position and sat his back against the rock Sorun was leaning against. "The world's full of countless examples like this," he muttered. "Too many to count. Too much time between too many examples to recount. It all repeats, over and over, like a never-ending cycle that causes everyone nothing but misery and suffering." He looked ahead towards the city, and then up at the darkened sky. "I just wanted to put an end to it all. Bring it back to zero and make a fresh start without all the complexities."
"I see." Humming, Sorun looked up into the sky along with Finitevus. "You wanted to be Senator Armstrong."
"..." Finitevus blinked once. An expression of complete and utter confusion crossed his features, and after making an unsettled sound he looked down and at Sorun's face. "Excuse me? Who?"
"He was a character in a video game back home I really liked," Sorun elaborated, only furthering the echidna's confusion. "I'll tell you about him, if you like."
Looking back out to the city, Finitevus sighed, threw his hand up briefly, and looked back to Sorun. "You already have us out here. May as well."
"Alright, cool. Bear in mind this story comes from a world of fiction, but its messages for the most part are rooted in reality so don't worry about it." The human cleared his throat. "Our story takes place on the planet Earth. Home to lots and lots of countries with varying amounts of influential power. Imagine here, but all the land and territories were conquered by organized governments.
"As you can imagine, at one point all these countries had armies. Due to certain events that involved an Illuminati of rogue AIs and clones, it's not important to the story don't think too hard on it-" Finitevus made an awkward, puzzled noise while Sorun continued, "- countries didn't have much in the way of armies anymore. They'd all been outsourced to PMCs. Private military corporations."
"I'm... not familiar with the term," Finitevus admitted. He'd bowed his head a bit to concentrate on listening to the story, though had looked to Sorun in question at hearing the term.
Sorun made a clicking sound with his tongue. "Yeah, I guess the concept of corporations doesn't really exist in this world," he realized. "They were... businesses, essentially. Massive businesses with more capital and influence than some countries. They had their employees like all other businesses, only these employees were soldiers who fought and killed. But they had normal employees, too: marketers and PR people and R&D researchers and the such. It was still a business; they had advertisements and the like, sponsorship deals, anything you'd see in a normal business. Just, you know, with murder attached. Instead of using their own armies countries would simply hire these corporations to fight their wars for them. But, well... these wars weren't exactly 'wars', per se. Both the corporations and the countries that hired them all manipulated the flow of warfare, its intensity and frequency, so all the conflict could last indefinitely. The only people that really suffered were the soldiers, their families, and villagers who had their homes blown up in all the conflicts. For everybody else, from the people behind it all to the ordinary citizens just living their lives in the countries not ravaged by war, it was all about profiting off the war economy."
"I don't understand," Finitevus said. "How could war be profitable?"
"... Well, this part takes its roots in reality in my world. From what I've seen it's not a concept that exists here," Sorun began. "A movie I watched once summarized the concept to buying bandages and bullets. Imagine everything you need to fight a war: medical supplies, food, weapons, ammunition, vehicles, spare parts, every conceivable resource you need to outfit an army. In this case, PMC. The PMCs need to buy all these 'bandages and bullets' from somewhere. So they buy them in bulk from the industrial sector of whatever country they're based in. Those companies profit from the war due to the demand for the goods they supply being heightened by the war, and all those funds get funneled back into the general economy of that country. More jobs are created to meet the demand. More money's being made and spent on products and taxes. The economy grows and the country becomes stronger because the PMCs are fighting a war somewhere. And then those funds get poured right back into hiring more PMCs, which eventually generates even more money. The war economy," he explained. "On the other side of the coin is the technology. Technology develops fastest in times of war, and with all the countries in the world of this story depending on the global war economy new technology was always being developed to maintain having technological edges in the field. These same technologies get leaked to the public sector for various things, automobile industry, entertainment, medical, whatever, it's all more sources of revenue while improving quality of life. This went so far that the PMCs in this story had soldiers with full-blown cybernetic bodies, mechs, ID-locked guns, the works. They were all more advanced than any country's actual military forces."
"And people just went along with it? Joined these PMCs knowing they were fueling a war economy?"
"Well, it's not like they advertised all the fighting was nonsense, but even if they did nobody would have cared. The benefits were too great. Lost an arm or a leg and can't afford a cybernetic prosthetic? Sign up with us, we'll outfit you with cybernetic replacements way better than your meat limbs and after five years or x-amount of missions of service we'll let you keep your new limbs. Need money to move your family out of a war-torn country into a nice one not caught up in all the violence? Sign up with a PMC. There were always people desperate enough for one such thing or another, and considering PMC technology was more advanced than military technology it was actually considered safer joining up with a PMC than the army, and with more fringe benefits to boot. Not really any wonder militaries were so weakened when average people had more incentive to join PMCs since they provided what they needed in exchange for service. Patriotism falls short when you need to feed your daughter and can't work because you only have one arm or a terminal illness cybernetics could fix. The catch... is that the war economy and all this conflict and violence creates more desperate people eager to sign up for PMCs. So they always have more bodies to commit to more war to grow the war economy." Sorun glanced at Finitevus. "Like you said, it's a cycle.
"In walks the hero of our story, Senator Steven Armstrong, who sees his great country of America weakened by its dependence of the war economy. Apparently a permanent war economy isn't the most sustainable thing- good for short term, bad long term, and because of that it was causing a gridlock on the private economy. War's expensive, go figure. America was in a recession, a dead end, and meanwhile the war economy was still killing untold numbers of soldiers and civilians all for profiting a failing system. But they can't get off the war economy; it's hurting them at this point, but at the same time they're too dependent on the system to stop. So he sees the state of everything, the war economy, people blindly killing for a paycheck instead of killing for what they believed in, how the system supported this, how the individual citizen had no voice anymore and had become a part of a collective consciousness of thoughtless worker drones, and goes, 'This isn't okay. We shouldn't be doing this.' He endeavors to change the status quo by exploiting the war economy to become president of what was one of the most influential countries in the world, all so, once he amassed all that power, he could nuke the entire system from the inside-out and destroy the war economy itself to cease all dependence on it. His plan for accomplishing this was very reasonable in that he was going to harvest thousands of Mexican street orphans for their brains, put them in VR training to turn them into child soldiers, and then put their brains in cyborg bodies provided by the PMC he happened to be the head of so he had bodies ready to fight after inciting a war between America and another country called Pakistan so he could leech public support and votes off using the sudden boom in the war economy he artificially created."
Thus far Finitevus had been following Sorun's story with enough understanding. Slowly, though, his face was growing more and more exhausted and disbelieving the longer the story went on. "I'm convinced your brain is damaged."
"Hey, I didn't write the story," Sorun defended with an eye-roll. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that you're both the same. Armstrong saw a system that profited off what was essentially a human meat grinder by perpetuating forever-war, a system that lead the country into a recession, so he wanted to stop it. You saw a world stuck in a cycle of hatred and violence because this world's history is genuinely so confusing nobody can make sense of it so they can only look at the short-term past without learning anything, thereby repeating past mistakes. You wanted to change that." Sorun made a small sigh. "And you both were too extreme about it. Armstrong wanted to use orphans as child soldiers and create a completely anarchist society out of America using Darwinian ideals to purge the weak so the strong could have a future of freedom. You wanted to use an ancient echidna god to kill off most the world to 'wipe the slate clean and burn it all down.' I'm quoting Armstrong on that." He affixed Finitevus with a serious stare. "These are both very naughty things you shouldn't do."
"And why is that?" Finitevus snapped out. "Why does it matter how 'bad' something is if it ultimately creates good?"
"Because it undermines the whole fucking point!" Sorun yelled out. "You're gonna kill people to save people? Okay, sure, but why do the lives of the people that died matter less than the ones that live? Because there's more? Killing millions is alright if it saves billions? Why are those billions any better than the millions?" He made a loud scoff. "Lives are priceless. You can't value them, can't quantify them. I just don't see the point in killing so many people to save people."
"Maybe in the case of your insane senator. But I'm different," Finitevus claimed. "I wanted to make a future that would last for the whole planet. What's the current world population compared to a world that will last indefinitely?"
Annoyance and frustration flashed over Sorun's face. "Aright, let's humor it," he offered. "Let's pretend you did it. You won. Your plan with Enerjak went off without the hitch and you're the leader of a world wiped clean of history. You lead the surviving population into a utopia and die with a smile knowing all is right with the world now. BAM!" He loudly clapped Yamato's scabbard, startling Finitevus some. "Hundred years pass. Some guy in power screws it up. He gets too greedy and becomes corrupt, or he's some psychopath looking to wreck the system and is in a position to do so, or maybe it's just a guy trying to do his best but it's just not good enough so he makes some bad decisions. Something bad happens and things spiral out of control. These eventually generate circumstances that create more individuals that'll unsettle the world more and more, and eventually guess what, F, we're back at square one." Sorun tapped the side of his head. "It's the Chaos Effect, F. Doesn't matter how good a job you do making world peace, doesn't even matter if you pull it off. Hundred years from then, two-hundred, maybe more, maybe less, someone somewhere is gonna screw it up, and then more people screw it up. And then people bring it back, everything's fine, and then it's on and off over and over and over, and that convoluted history you're trying to erase? It'll come crawling right back." He sighed and shook his head. "Might as well call it Chaos Theory, too. It's why I can't be bothered doing things to help most of the time. I mean worldwide threats like Enerjak that threaten literally everyone? Yeah, that's one thing. Eggman? Sure, he's gotta go. Anything below that is just... I don't know. It all goes down to what you care about and what position you're in to do anything. I retired from Freedom Fighting for a lot of reasons, that among them." He glanced down at Yamato. "Well, tried to," he whispered.
Finitevus didn't respond to him. When Sorun glanced back over at him, he saw the echidna looking down. Seemingly deep in thought from the way his eye ridges were so creased, and Sorun could have swore he heard him muttering to himself. Looks of denial and reluctant realization flashed over his face too quick for Sorun to catch, like he was going through too many thoughts to keep up with. Eventually, he'd let out a long, drawn out sigh and hung his head so low his dreadlocks covered his face. Sorun was getting ready to ask if he was alright until he spoke again.
"And what do you think is going to happen to this world when it's already on a collision course? Hm, Sorun?" Finitevus mumbled out. "What happens then?"
"That's the nihilistic doomer in you talking," Sorun said, causing Finitevus to raise his head up a bit to look at him. "Yeah, when maniacs like you go around resurrecting evil gods or Eggman starts shit with his robots or some other wacko in the world does something it goes bad. But, eh... I dunno." He looked towards the city. "I've been around these guys for a while now, and they always seem to find a way to bring it back. Gives me, I don't know, hope?" He shrugged. "Honestly, when you look back on everything that's happened in this world and where they ended up before this Enerjak thing it's pretty amazing. I really do think they can make something of the world. And if not, well... nothing beautiful lasts. Wouldn't be beautiful otherwise."
A mirthless, bitter chuckle left Finitevus. "Makes no sense."
"Take it for whatever you want. 'S just my opinion. But just because things are bad doesn't mean you have to give up and wipe it all out to start over." Sorun looked at Finitevus. "That's what you did, isn't it? Give up on this world and try to make something new?" After a few seconds of silence, he continued. "I decided to give this world a chance. That means a lot seeing as I'm not even from here. For all the good, and the bad, and there's a lot of it on either side... I think it's worth giving it a chance. So stop trying to be a dumbass."
"As eloquent as ever," Finitevus snidely replied. He sat up to his full height and faced Sorun so their eyes met. "You really think I should stop and give this rotten world a chance? Because, what, it's pointless to do otherwise?"
"Well, if you want a pragmatic reason, people like me or the Freedom Fighters or whoever else will keep beating your ass in if you keep trying. But yeah. Basically."
Finitevus rolled his eyes, but otherwise said nothing. His lips thinned in concentration as more deep thought ran through his mind. Finally, he asked, "Can we get to the reason why you brought us out here?"
"Right to the point, huh?" He'd honestly hoped to put it off longer, but Sorun supposed there was no getting around it. So, with a sigh, he looked back up at the darkened sky. He'd tried to speak out, but the first time he tried his words got caught up in his throat, so he had to wait a full minute to gather up his nerves. Once he did, he finally spoke again. "I'm thinking about killing myself."
The echidna sitting next to him looked confused at first, like he assumed he'd heard wrong. He soon realized he hadn't, after which his black eyed widened a dramatic enough amount his yellow irises were barely seen in them. He seemed to silently stammer before he found his voice. "I-I... hadn't thought you'd seen the situation as so hopeless."
Sorun looked back down at Finitevus and gave him an annoyed glare. "Not in that way, dammit," he mumbled. "Look, I've been thinking about what you said. About me not being strong enough to take on Enerjak." He rose Yamato up. "This is the only thing we got that can stop him and free everyone. I'm the only one that can use it, but I don't have the power to get close. I can get that power through the Emeralds, but, well... my ability to 'borrow' their power without me absorbing them fully requires me to maintain contact with them. I can hold one as Yamato and I got enough room in my torso for one more- yeah, I surgically inserted one into myself once, deal with it," Sorun snapped at seeing the perturbed expression Finitevus grew.
"You're... not one to take half-measures, it seems," he commented in a blank voice.
"Clearly not," Sorun dryly remarked. "Anyways, that's a max of two I can carry in. Three if I one-hand Yamato and one-hand an Emerald. Even then I'm running the risk of dropping the Yamato or the gem, and then I lose that power. Doesn't help they barely fit in my hand and have a slippery, glossy surface." He shook his head. "Nah, just doesn't work. It's too risky, especially going up against that guy. I can't risk losing powers just 'cause I had an item taken away from me. I can't just divide my focus between fighting an omnipotent god and holding onto shit in the middle of the fight. So I need to absorb them," he said, his voice growing quieter. "So I've been doing risk assessment, you know, trying to gauge the minimum amount of powers I would need to feasibly pull this off while leaving me with as much life as possible. Ideally I'd just absorb Yamato and only lose twelve years, but the sword alone ain't gonna be enough. In another world where I never used Quicksilver against him and I could have just ended it with Yamato and a surprise timestop, maybe I could have gone at it with just two. But he's seen that trick before, so... yeah."
Slowly, Finitevus nodded. "Makes enough sense. So what conclusion did you come to?" he asked.
"Yeah, well, that's the thing. The more Emeralds I absorb, the greater the chance I have at winning but the less life I get left with. And, to make it worse, I got the whole world riding on all this. My friends, the whole town over there, rest of the world, everyone." Sorun's shoulders slumped a bit and he made a sigh. "I can't gamble with lives. Don't wanna. Not theirs. So I'm cashing out and going all in. With all seven I'd have the greatest possible shot at succeeding, but..."
"But you'd die right after," Finitevus finished, understanding forming on his face. "It's certainly the safest route possible. Are you sure you want to do it this way?"
"Hell no, I don't. But their lives are more important than mine. So I'm going in with everything," Sorun affirmed. "I can't tell Nicole this. She'll fight against me on this. Might even try and stop me. But I can't gather all seven Chaos Emeralds alone."
"So you need my help."
"I... need your help, Finite-bus. Yeah."
A stiff breeze blew in between the two. Finitevus looked owlishly at Sorun at the mispronunciation, and then slowly narrowed his eyes at him. "You're not saying my name wrong to annoy me, are you? You genuinely don't know how to pronounce it."
Sorun didn't even try hiding it and remained stone-faced. "In my defense I have literally never heard your name before and am fairly certain you made it up."
"I did not!" he hissed out in denial. "It's Finitevus! Fin-it-evus!"
"... You see, that sounds made up."
"Gah, why do I bother!?" Growling out in anger Finitevus shot up to his feet and walked a few steps away from the rocks they sat against. "I don't even know why I should bother helping some dullard who doesn't even have the decency to remember someone's name."
"... 'Cause the world's fucked if you don't?" Sorun tried as he stood up after Finitevus. "And hey, come on, dullard? I know I'm not the brightest guy and can't do math, but seriously?"
Finitevus crossed his bandaged arms and turned away in a huff. "Just because you're able to recite mind-boggling, insane stories from your world doesn't make you a genius. Mad, maybe. Suicidal most definitely with this plan of yours." He glanced over his shoulder at Sorun, his eye staring at him and half-lidded. "You're... admittedly rather thought-provoking with your words, however. I'm surprised you're so capable."
"Arguing video game stories and the philosophies behind them is, like, one of the only things in this world that I'm actually good at. Nobody ever wants to talk about that stuff with me, though. Well, 'cept Nicole. I told her about the factions in 'New Vegas' and we had a whole five-hour argument about which faction was the best one. I still can't believe she's a Mr. House supporter. The Independent route is obviously way better."
The microscopic amount of respect Finitevus held in his eye fell away along with his arms. After which, a frown formed on his mouth. "You had a lot of free time back on your world, didn't you?"
"Man, gimme a break." Sorun moved to stand besides Finitevus, with the both of them looking out towards the city. "As grim and macabre as it sounds, I really do need your help committing suicide here. So are you in or not?"
"To paraphrase you, the world is doomed if I don't," Finitevus admitted. "I have to say, though. Not many would be willing to throw their lives away like you."
"Well, it's not like I haven't been here before." Sorun placed his free hand inside his pocket while absentmindedly turning Yamato over and over with his left. "I never told anyone this 'cause I didn't want anyone to worry even more than they already were, but after I found out Earth was gone I didn't... really want to live anymore. Didn't care about anything, didn't see a point anymore. But, ah... those friends of mine are so stubborn. They managed to bring me back and, after a while, I really thought I could live a peaceful life here." He held Yamato up to look at it. "But things like this keep happening, so I guess that was nothing but a pipe dream. And I owe them all more than I could ever pay back anyways. May as well pay it back with my own life."
Finitevus hummed, but otherwise said nothing at first. The two continued looking at the city before the echidna spoke up with, "Do you perchance have any idea of how we're to gather the other six Emeralds?"
"Not really, no," Sorun said. "That's kind of bad seeing as the whole plan hinges on them, huh?"
There was a groan besides him. "You're hopeless without me," Finitevus said with a shake of his head. "If only there was someone you knew with a vastly superior intellect who may actually have a solution to our predicament."
Hearing the smugness in his voice, Sorun rolled his eyes and said, "Just spill."
"What do you know of A.D.A.M.?"
"Him?" Sorun looked down in thought for a moment as he searched through his memories. "Yeah, uhhh... evil AI guy Eggman created, went rogue. Was responsible for creating the nanite city to begin with if I recall. Don't know much more than that other than something happened and he died when Sonic stopped him." He pursed his lips. "I vaguely remember something about a turtle, but I don't remember."
"Irrelevant," Finitevus said with a hand wave. "He was responsible for fusing all of the universe's Chaos Emeralds together into the seven that now exist today."
"... Oh, yeah, I think I heard that," Sorun realized. "He used some kind of tower thing, didn't he?"
"Yes. I'm unsure of its exact construction, but he'd built a device that somehow managed to reach across every corner of the universe to gather hundreds of thousands of Chaos Emeralds, every single one in existence, to fuse them all." They both glanced at each other, with Sorun blinking at the small smirk growing on Finitevus' mouth. "Those designs are more than likely still within the city's database, seeing as it was constructed from nanites to begin with."
"What does that- oh, I getcha," Sorun realized with widening eyes. "You wanna build that tower again to... magnetize all the Emeralds in the world to one specific spot."
Finitevus nodded. "Essentially," he said. "Scouring the entire globe while dodging Enerjak just isn't feasible for us. This is simpler and will take far less time."
Sorun found himself agreeing with Finitevus. It'd surely take a hell of a lot longer looking for the things one at a time. If they had a way of bringing them all together at once, that'd save them a world's worth of time. Less risk, too, with Enerjak out there. Sorun certainly couldn't think of a better idea.
"The only problem," Finitevus continued, "is convincing that AI of yours to fork over the plans so we can build it." He gave Sorun a questioning look. "Do you think she will?"
Sorun winced. "If she finds out I'm trying to kill myself here? Probably not," he said. "But... she knows I can use them without absorbing them." He paused for a few seconds to think. "I'll spin something up," he decided. "Omit some truths, all that. I don't like it, but we need that tower and she's the only one that can give it to us."
He didn't like lying to Nicole. Not one bit. He'd told himself he was done with lying the first time around with the Emeralds. By now his only hope was that she'd forgive him down the line since this was for the entire world, but... well, he wasn't too sure if that would pan out.
Good thing by then he'd be too dead to find out.
"Well. It's a plan, then." Finitevus, looking pleased and even a bit surprised at Sorun, nodded at him and turned around. "Well, then. Let's be off back to the bunker. We've work to do."
"Mhm." While Finitevus had walked off, Sorun stayed put where he was, brows creased in thought. After a few moments of thought he turned around, calling out, "Hey, F."
Finitevus, who was holding an inactive Warp Ring, stopped just before he tossed it to look at Sorun. "Yes?"
"You know, I've put a lot of thought into it. I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't know if I'll be able to beat Enerjak even with all seven Emeralds." Slowly, Finitevus pocketed the small, golden ring and stared towards Sorun in silence, prompting the human to continue. "I mean, you said it yourself. Guy's omnipotent. He killed off the whole world with a single thought. After seeing that I'm just not confident the seven Emeralds alone are gonna cut it." He turned around to face the city once more. "I need more power."
The powers granted to him by the seven Chaos Emeralds were fantastic, there was no denying that. They weren't on the same level as a literal god, though. Not even close. Wasn't like he could even surprise him since Enerjak likely had all of Knuckles' memories, who knew of Sorun's powers. Wings that could punch people and a superior body fell short of a guy with enough power to disintegrate things by simply looking at them.
It wasn't enough. He needed more. Something to tip him over the edge to give him a good shot at taking Enerjak out once and for all.
"Hmm..." Making a contemplative hum, Finitevus asked, "I suppose I see the logic in that. Did you have something in mind?"
"... One thing, yeah. An idea. Rotor told me about something once and I wanna try it out," Sorun said. "First, let me ask you something. That vault you found the Chaos Emerald in... I know the Republic keeps an emergency stockpile Power Rings from the Lake of Rings there in case something ever happened to the power. Did you happen to see them?"
"As it happened, yes," Finitevus confirmed. "There were a number of them there. Why?"
"Some point down the line I need you to grab some for me."
"If you think it will help, then certainly. How many did you need exactly?"
"Oh... I think fifty will be enough to get the job done."
