A/N- A little hard confirmation from the author here, but in case there were any lingering doubts the alternate timeline really is gone forever. As in it really was obliterated and we're never, ever going back to it. That is all.

Yeah, I know that aside from the mental toll Sorun accrued erasing all the consequences he committed in that zone goes against what I'm going for here in this story, but that section in particular was always more for showing off the changes in Sorun's character and a vehicle to get to this point more than anything else, among other things.


Recursion Error

Episode 85- Not-So-Lonesome Road


The nice thing about time traveling with Silver and his mystic nonsense rock was how easy it turned out to be. No falling flat on his face after going through to the other side. No tumbling through portals. Not the sheer insanity of falling through whatever the hell that space had been when Sorun traveled back through time using the Yamato.

Nope. None of that with the Time Stone, apparently. Just a quick flash of light, a small buzzing sensation, and both Sorun and Silver were left standing in the same position they had been, with Sorun only feeling the sensation of light movement. It was truly refreshing, and he had half a mind to breath in a deep sigh.

The feeling was torn away from him when he looked around at where they were.

"..." Sorun blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, but unfortunately the sight remaining the same even when he was done blinking. They were... he didn't even know where this was. An infinite, boundless space of soft blues, lavenders, and whites as far as the eye could see. No ground, no sky, no sun or stars, no anything. Not even any wind. Just an infinite space of these intermingling colors.

This was most certainly not Mobius.

"Hey, Silver." Sorun turned his head at the hedgehog, who was looking down at his palm. "Silver. Silver, hey. Hey. Hey, Silver." He began poking the Mobian with the tip of his sheathed sword. "Silver. Silver. Silver. This isn't Mobius. Silver what's going on. Silver. Hey. Silver."

Silver's other hand reached out and grabbed the covered blade before it could poke him again. "Please stop that," he requested, eyes still focused down on his open palm. The remains of the Time Stone were lying in his hand, orange glow completely faded and dull, the gem itself fragmented to pieces and its luster all but gone. He slowly turned his hand over to drop the fragments, and as they fell away they turned to dust and scattered away before they even reached his feet.

"Well, that's that," Silver said after a small sigh. "Time Stone's done."

"That's great and all, Silver, but there's the small matter of us being in the middle of what looks like nowhere-"

"Yeah, I know, Sorun, give me a minute." He let go of the sword, and Sorun, obliging the request, chose not to jab him again with it. A small, thoughtful frown overtook Silver's features as he examined their surroundings, and after a minute he made another sigh. "Yeah, I see what happened. This might be a bit of a problem."

A tinge of worry grew in Sorun. "How small's a bit?"

"It's... not too huge," Silver assured Sorun, though he still looked a bit worried. "I guess the Time Stone got a bit wonky since it was so damaged. I can tell you for a fact we did go back two hundred years, that's not the problem. It just... kind of screwed up on the location. Master warned me this might happen."

Sorun allowed himself to relax a bit. If it was just a matter of location then it wasn't nearly as bad as he'd hoped. Location they could do. Time was when it got tricky. "Okay, alright, so where are we?" the Earthling asked.

"Hmm..." Humming, Silver took another quick glance around. "Looks like we got sent to the world between worlds."

"The world between worlds," Sorun flatly repeated.

"Mhm. The world between worlds. The empty space in the multiverse where all the other zones reside," he explained. "Which means," he continued, looking down, "this... must be the Cosmic Interstate Highway! The highway that connects every single zone in the multiverse!"

"Wait, what?" Sorun looked down at his feet, and then nearly jumped in shock. The thing they were standing on was... it really was just a normal road one would see on a highway. Black paved asphalt with two yellow lines running through its center. When Sorun looked up the road seemed to go on for forever. Or at least as far as he could see.

Looking closer, he actually saw more of the road in the distance. For as far as his eyes allowed he saw the road winding everywhere, in a myriad of twists and turns and straights, branching off in seemingly infinite directions, so far away that, to Sorun's perception, it seemed impossibly thin.

"What in the... it's an actual, legitimate highway? I thought that name was just a metaphor," Sorun whispered in disbelief. "Who the hell built a highway that spans a whole multiverse? Where would you even get the resources to build...? Sheesh, and I thought a Dyson Sphere would be an impossible thing to build, but shit, nothing's ever gonna top this."

"Well, duh. Of course the Cosmic Interstate Highway is a highway," Silver said, looking at Sorun like he'd just said something incredibly stupid. "What else would it be?"

The shocked, awed look Sorun had held was swapped out with a blank look as he met Silver's eyes. "... You know what, Silver, I really don't know," Sorun said before turning forwards. "So we just got shunted out of our own zone and onto the, uh, the highway?"

"Yeah, looks like it," Silver said with a nod. "... It shouldn't be too difficult to find our way back," he said after a moment's hesitation. "We just gotta follow the road back."

"Yeah, follow the multiverse-spanning road with an infinite number of branching directions, piece of cake," Sorun agreed, flatly. They both turned to look at each other. Silver had a nervous grin on his face while Sorun's own expression remained blank. "Silver, we at least know what zone we're supposed to make our way towards, right?" a hopeful Sorun asked.

The relief he felt when Silver nodded was overflowing. "Yeah, of course. Master Mogul taught me all about this kind of stuff." He looked back out into the infinite expanse. "Our proper zone- er, well, my proper zone, your... anyway, the zone we're shooting for is the Prime Zone."

"Huh. Sounds important," Sorun noted.

"It should. Master Mogul says that our planet is called Mobius Prime, since it's in the Prime Zone, prime meaning it's the zone all other zones are based off of," Silver explained, making Sorun's eyebrows rise. "You could say it's the first universe to ever exist inside the multiverse in that respect. All other zones in the multiverse branch off of that universe. It's the original."

Sorun couldn't even find it in himself to be that surprised. "Yeah, of course that place is the literal center of the multiverse," he grumbled under his breath. Somehow it made all the insane things that happened there seem more sane when put in that light.

Weird to think, though, because that meant even his own zone and Earth was an offshoot possibility of Mobius Prime in the infinite expanse of worlds and possibilities they found themselves in. Probably should have figured; there was a Statue of Liberty there, after all, and the geography was roughly similar. Then again Sorun's zone was so special it didn't even have a connection to the Cosmic Interstate Highway and no connection with the Chaos Force, so... who even really knew what the deal with that was? A cosmic fluke like Finitevus had hypothesized?

Eh. Sorun didn't care enough to dwell on it.

"Alright, well, if the universe we're aiming for is the centermost universe, then all we gotta do is follow the road back to it, right?" Sorun asked. "Theoretically speaking all the roads should lead back to it since it's so important, shouldn't they?"

"I mean, maybe? Can't really say," Silver admitted with a shrug. "I guess we should just get walking and see where the Highway takes us. Maybe we'll find a sign or something along the way."

"A sign. Right," Sorun muttered out with a roll of his eyes. Nonetheless, he fell in and began walking behind Silver. "So how far away do you reckon the Prime Zone is, anyways?"

"I dunno. Could be the next zone we run into, or it could be a few billion lightyears away."

All the breath left Sorun in a loud, wheezy gasp, and he'd stumbled so much he nearly fell flat on his face.

"Welp, guess we better get moving!" Silver proclaimed loudly, sounding awful chipper as he continued walking down the road.

"..." With a defeated groan, Sorun began following Silver again. "Silvs, wait up."


Sorun never expected to grow a liking to Silver so quickly as the both of them traversed an infinite interdimensional highway. He didn't know what to expect, really - the guy seemed decent; Sorun would go as far as to say charming with that "naïve, clueless traveler" vibe he gave off, no doubt due to his lack of contact with modern civilization or people that didn't talk like a living thesaurus. The way he'd flounder here and there and get embarrassed over little things.

More than that he was nice enough to talk to. Pleasant beyond normal standards, really, though Sorun couldn't tell if he was naturally nice or if Mogul raising him to be polite had a hand in it. Nature versus nurture was an argument never really solved, though in the end it mattered little when the end result was Silver was a nice person to talk to. And hey, to Sorun it mattered even less, because the hedgehog really grew on him. Maybe their personalities just meshed that well. Maybe Sorun was glad to finally have a friend he could relate with, what with the whole dead world thing. Glad to talk to someone he could be happy to talk to.

Maybe it was because Silver didn't have that little label that said "this person is directly complicit in abducting me from my world" hanging over his head like most of his other friends.

Whatever the case, Sorun quickly grew to like him. More than he'd expected given the short time they'd known one another. And when the two of them found themselves traversing a road of infinite length to a destination of dubious length, which Sorun was going to colossal lengths trying to ignore, they had little else to do but talk.

"- Wow, so you couldn't talk about it at all?" Silver asked Sorun with widened eyes. "Like, not anything? Words, writing, nothing worked?"

"Yeah, it wasn't a fun time," Sorun said. He'd unconsciously rose a hand to his throat while regaling Silver with his own origin story since he got the gist of Silver's. Only seemed fair. "I tried so many ways of getting around it, man, but Aurora was really thorough with that curse. As such I was very thorough with the suplex I gave her later on. Among other things," he grumbled out.

"Wasn't that kind of mean, though? Beating them up?"

"Silver, I had a lot of stress at the moment."

"Sounds to me like being a Freedom Fighter in general was stressful."

"I retired for a very good reason," Sorun agreed with a nod. "Honestly, it still kind of freaks me out that I can put 'retired Freedom Fighter' on my resumé now."

Silver gave him a quizzical look. "How come?"

"The term 'freedom fighter' had a very different connotation back where I come from," Sorun answered. "Lot less, uh... campy than the experience I had." By a wide margin. Nothing he could ever tell the others, of course, because the details of that fell in the category of horrible shit from Earth Sorun would never speak about on Mobius.

"So your world was under siege by an insane tyrant, too?" Silver gasped out. "Wow, this must be more common than I thought."

Sorun almost laughed out, but then shook his head. "Nah, nothing like that. It's just humanity was all alone over there without any other sapient species, so we had to fight the only other thing there was to fight: ourselves."

"Huh?" Silver didn't seem to understand that. "I don't get it."

"Yeah, I don't really get it, either."

Silver accepted that answer, though he still looked a bit puzzled. "So what was life over there like, anyways?"

"..."


"Hey, Sorun, did you hear?"

Sorun looked up from the textbooks on his desk and at Dave, who was crouching besides his seat. "Hear what?"

"Y'know Marty?"

"That annoying fucking prick always going on and on about sports collectors cards? Had that giant binder full of them?"

"Yeah, him. Somebody robbed his house. He got stabbed and sent to the hospital."

"Oh." Certainly explained why he wasn't at school today. "Well, that sucks." A pause. "We still on for 'Ace Combat 7' multiplayer this weekend?"

Dave nodded. "Mhm, but we gotta invite Jamie to the lobby."

"Jesus fu- why- what the fuck, man, why'd you invite him?"

"What do you mean, why? We needed a third and I thought you liked playing with him?"

"I do 'cause he's a decent pilot in that game, but for fuck's sake, Dave, he's a plane nut. He goes on and on about technical specs for obscure plane shit I'm never gonna retain when all I wanna do is fly the planes I think look cool and have good performance."

"Hence why you fly a Berkut."

"Hence why I fly a Berkut," Sorun agreed. "You fuckin' F-22 main."

With a chuckle, Dave shook his head. "You're just hating because it's a better plane."

"It is not a better plane. I have a K/D ratio with the Berkut that says it is not a better plane."

"Okay, well, if we're basing which is better on that alone-"

"Dave it's too mainstream a plane and it doesn't even look that cool."

"What do you mean not cool? It's the most advanced-looking-"

"Not compared to the ADF-"

"I'm not talking about the fake sci-fi planes in the game, I'm talking about real-world-"

"F-22 doesn't have cool backwards wings, case closed."

"Listen here you little shit-"


A wistful smile had grown on Sorun's face as he contemplated Silver's question. "It was a pretty cool world," he said after a long moment of silence. "I mean, not everywhere, but my town was alright. Most of the time. Usually. If you ignored the bad parts."

"Um... so it wasn't so good?"

"It was home, Silver, and nothing's perfect."

"What you told me sounds significantly worse than a little less than perfect."

"I don't wanna hear this from the guy who until recently was living in the apocalypse."

"..."

"..."

"... Master Mogul told me Mobius' history, so technically speaking we're all living in a-"

"Post-post-apocalypse, big difference," Sorun argued. "Apocalypse would imply the complete collapse of civilization due to some major catastrophe. That's you and the future. Post-apocalypse implies the disaster passed and the survivors are picking up the pieces to restart civilization. Post-post-apocalypse is the complete reconstruction of civilization after the catastrophe that knocked out the world. That's the state Mobius was in before whatever happened destroyed the future, which we're trying to prevent," he explained. "So no, Silver, we are not living in the apocalypse. Assuming we ever find our way off of this road, how far to Mobius Prime, anyways?"

Silver, who had been paying rapt attention to Sorun's explanation, gave him a shrug. "I don't know. Maybe that sign ahead will help."

"Sign? What sign?" Following the direction Silver was pointing, Sorun saw what the hedgehog was referring to. He became bewildered at the sight. "What even...?"

There was, in fact, a sign at the end of an oncoming three way junction, the road stopping and going left and right. And posted at the head of the junction was a normal road sign in the form of two white arrows, each pointing down a different direction the road was going. And each sign had words printed on them in big, blocky letters, what Sorun assumed to be the destinations each road lead to. But the words themselves confused him immensely. They stopped in front of the sign, with Sorun reading the signs aloud.

"Rainbow Moon Paradise Zone..." Sorun read off the left arrow, eyes squinting as he moved on to the right arrow, "and... Mystery Noir Zone. What just came out of my mouth?"

"I think these are the names of nearby zones. Like how our zone is the Prime Zone," Silver supplied as he looked at the signs.

"Okay, but why are they named like this and not, I don't know, really long and complicated serial numbers or something?"

Silver shrugged. "I dunno. I guess you'd have to ask whoever's making these signs and roads."

"And who would that be?"

Again, Silver shrugged, eliciting an annoyed sigh from Sorun.

"Okay, you know what, whatever, doesn't matter." Sorun turned back to the sign. "So we got a road that leads into something that sounds like it came straight out of 'Sailor Moon', and another one that leads to something that come straight out of 'L.A. Noir'. I dunno about you, Silver, but one of these sounds really appealing and the other one doesn't."

Silver turned away from the sign to look at Sorun. "You wanna visit one of these zones?" he asked. "Why?"

"'Cause... you know, maybe they know the way back?"

A fair amount of doubt settled on Silver's face. "Sorun, the way Master talked about it, zones aren't really common knowledge. I really doubt we're gonna meet someone that actually knows the directions we need just by popping into random zones."

"Yeah, but come on, the alternative is we keep walking on this road potentially forever, and I'm gonna be real honest with you here, Silver, I don't know if I have that kind of patience." Not only that but Sorun was starving and they didn't pack any food. And he didn't know when the last time was that Silver ate. And slim as it may have been, there was an off chance somebody actually knew the way back.

Plus, well... the concept of traveling to different universes sounded cool. Just a bit. And they were already here and lost so it wasn't like it could hurt that much.

"I guess..." Silver hesitantly agreed. He bit down on his lower lip and turned back to the signs. "So we're going left?"

Sorun did a double-take on Silver. "What? No. I wanna go to the noir place."

"But... but you said one was appealing and one wasn't."

"Yeah, I was talking about- Silver, one sounds like it has crime and gritty mysteries and the other one is... is rainbows and moons. And we're guys." It should have been an obvious pick. He didn't see what the problem here was.

But evidently there was a problem, because it looked like Silver disagreed with Sorun. Heavily. Enough that, with a disgruntled look on his face, Silver looked down to kick at his feet all defeated-like. "I don't know why you want to go to a place that sounds like it's filled with crime, but fine. Not like I wanted to see the cool rainbow zone anyways."

Seeing the look of slight disappointment on Silver's face had brought on unwanted feelings in Sorun. Mostly feelings that made him feel bad and feel like a jerk. So after mentally cursing at himself and making a quick decision, he asked, "Would it make you feel better if I let you pick the next world? If there is a next one?"

Maybe swallowing his guilt was worth it to see the hedgehog's face brighten up. "Can I!?" he asked excitedly.

"Er, sure. Next time." Sorun turned down the road leading to the right. "Now come on. Daylight's burning." As he continued walking, Sorun looked up at the infinite expanse of swirling colors above them. "Or... whatever constitutes for light and time in this place, given the, uh, the lack of a sun. And sky. Atmosphere," he muttered. "The hell are we breathing?"

His excitement not diminishing in the slightest, Silver fell in besides Sorun, the wide smile never leaving his face. "This is really cool, Sorun! I've never been to a whole new zone before!" he nearly yelled out. "You think there'll be other people there!?"

Not nearly as excited as Silver, more contemplative as he continued looking up, Sorun gave a noncommittal hum. "Uh-huh, maybe."

"And things to see, and buildings that aren't in pieces like all those postcards I used to collect!?"

"Mmhm, mmhm."

"And maybe some food? 'Cause we've been out here a while and, well, I'm kind of hungry."

"We'll see when we get there."

"Okay, great, 'cause I was really starting to get worried about that. Hey, Sorun, you think when we get there..."


Hours later

Within the infinite expanse of this empty space, in addition to the infinitely vast, sprawling road that ran through it, were motes of light that ends of the branches of the road ran into. From a distance these lights seemed more like specks of white than anything else. Depending on one's position on the road most were so far away they were invisible. If one were to walk up close to one they'd be greeted by a great, shapeless barrier, seemingly with no definable end or shape. To those initiated these barriers of light were defined as the borders that separated and contained zones; impassable passageways that lead off to lands and worlds unknown.

Or at least as unknown as could be provided one decided not to read the signs on the Highway.

Upon one of these barriers walked two figures: a pale human in a blue coat and a white-furred Mobian, both laughing at something said between themselves as they came to a stop in front of the barrier. Silver was hunched over forwards, laughing while holding his stomach while Sorun was laughing in a much more subdued manner, shoulders shaking with a moderate smile on his face.

"Ah ha ha... ahh, man, that's a riot," Sorun sighed out as they came to a stop at the end of the road. "Now what's this all about?"

The end of the road was just that: an abrupt end of the street, cut off and hanging in the vast space they were located in. Leading right into a giant, white pulsating barrier that looked like it was made of light itself. Massive in scale, enough that looking up or to the sides Sorun couldn't see where it ended or began.

Said a lot for how big this place was that they hadn't even noticed this thing until they'd gotten close. He didn't know if it was due to some optical illusion, or if space here was a bit jank in some way.

"So what's the deal with the giant fog gate?" Sorun asked once both his and Silver's laughter had calmed down. "Is this the entranceway into this zone?"

"Heh... entranceway?" Silver repeated, confused. "What entranceway?"

"Like... into the zone," Sorun elaborated, turning to Silver. "Doorway, gateway, whatever."

"Oh, zones don't have entranceways or anything like that, Sorun," Silver explained. He seemed a bit surprised Sorun was even asking the question. "People aren't supposed to do what we're doing. You know, traveling outside of zones, breaching other zones. Like, at all. Zones weren't meant to be entered and exited like a normal room."

"Well, I don't see a rulebook anywhere." Sorun walked up close enough to the barrier his nose was nearly touching. He reached his right hand out and poked it. A ripple of energy ran along its surface from where he touched it, like disturbing water, but the barrier didn't so much as distend in the slightest no matter how hard he poked it. "We're gonna be inside a planet if we go in here, right? We're not just gonna end up floating in space?"

"Sorun, I don't know what's gonna happen if we go in there. I've never done this before," Silver said. "I'm not even sure we can do this. That barrier looks pretty solid."

In response, Sorun lifted Yamato up. "I got a pretty good key right here."

"Uh..." An unsure expression crossed Silver's face as Sorun unsheathed the katana. "Are you sure about this?"

"Nope." Sorun stabbed the blade into the barrier. It slipped in with no effort. "But I'm doing it anyways."

In Sorun's defense, if every zone had a barrier like this, then that meant the Prime Zone would have one as well. So they had to figure out right now if entering zones via Yamato cutting them a way in was even feasible. But Sorun didn't want to worry Silver by telling him all his fears about this going horribly wrong. Worry him that Sorun had no idea what he was doing and was mainly going off guesswork. Worry that they might end up walking into a sun or black hole or something, because he honestly had no idea what would happen by doing this.

No, Sorun wasn't sure about this at all. But he'd gone too far by now to be set back by things like being unsure.

The sword was sliced downwards, creating a large slit in the barrier big enough for the pair of them to enter. It'd only remained open for a short time, though. Around ten seconds later the slit made in the barrier closed in on itself and sealed back up. Sorun hummed at the sight, while Silver silently watched.

"Self-repairing, huh?" Sorun mused. "Alright, I guess we just have to jump in after I open it up."

The hedgehog made a quiet sound as he gazed at the fog gate. He was fidgeting slightly in place, glancing between the sword and the barrier with an uneasy look. "Sorun, I'm not sure-"

"Silver, odds are we're gonna have to do this to even get back to Mobius Prime when we finally find it." Once more, Sorun stabbed Yamato into the barrier. "Sometimes you just gotta take a leap of faith, you know? And also I don't have any better ideas. If you do then by all means."

Silver shook his head, making a defeated look as he stepped forwards towards the new entrance Sorun was making. "I guess I don't," he mumbled out. "You're coming in with me?"

"Of course I am," Sorun assured him as he pulled the sword out. He only managed to push it halfway back into the sheath before he noticed Silver holding his hand out to him. "Really, man?" Sorun asked. When the hand wasn't taken away, he made a loud sigh and grasped Silver's hand with his right one. He felt like making a snappy remark, but seeing Silver calmed down from the contact made Sorun hold off on telling him off.

After the two nodded at each other, they both leapt in through the hole in the barrier.


"Man, I'm on a roll with these portals," was Sorun's first thought as both his and Silver's feet touched down on what looked like a sidewalk. Traveling through that barrier hadn't even felt like going through a portal - there had just been a bright light that momentarily blinded him, some rushing wind, and suddenly they were here, standing on a side walk.

Relief was first. Relief they'd ended up standing on a planet, a civilized one at a momentary glance, and not somewhere in space or some barren wasteland. Sorun didn't know who to thank for that: his luck, the wonky rules these zones seemed to abide by, Yamato doing things with that portal to ensure they wouldn't be harmed entering it, something else perhaps. Whatever the case, he was just glad they managed to live long enough to appreciate it.

Immediately familiar sounds hit Sorun's ears. Sounds he hadn't heard in what seemed like forever that caused a bit of nostalgia to well up in him. Distant, unintelligible chatter, the sound of cars, honking horns and distant sirens. All around them were tall buildings. Fully intact buildings, too, not the hollowed husks from Silver's future, and Sorun could actually see people in some of them through the windows. They'd found themselves right in the midst of a city. Even the smell seemed familiar to Sorun. Brisk air mixed in with the unpleasant aroma of the nearby cars.

Smelled like home.

Would have looked like home, too, if it weren't for one crucial detail missing.

"Why is everything in black and white?" Sorun asked, somewhat dumbfounded by what he was seeing. It was like something had sucked the color out of the world: everything from the signs to the traffic lights, to even the sky, the cars, and nearby Mobian citizens and their clothes. Everything in the world was grayscale, with not a speck of color to be seen except for black, white, and varying shades of gray.

It was extremely jarring to Sorun, to say the least, who was having a hard time not being freaked out at the sight. Even his own skin and clothes were grayscale now. Silver, meanwhile, didn't seem as visually concerned as Sorun as he examined himself.

"I don't actually think I'm seeing a difference," Silver said as he examined his own arm. His arm that, for all intents and purposes, was still the exact same shade of white. A flat look from Sorun, followed by him clearing his throat, caused Silver to look up at him. His now-gray eyes widened at the sight of Sorun. "Oh, yeah, there it is, I see what... you... mean..."

He'd trailed off once Silver had gotten a good look around at where they were actually standing. His eyes had widened up to the size of saucers, and his head was whipping left and right so fast Sorun was worried he was going to accidentally twist his own neck. But he seemed to be fine if the slow gasp that was slowly leaving Silver's throat said anything.

"Oh my gosh, Sorun, look at all this!" Silver exclaimed. He wildly waved his arm at the nearest building, looking like he was going scream in joy at one of the most mundane sights Sorun had ever seen. "The buildings aren't in pieces! And look how clean everything is!"

Sorun's eyes trailed down to a particularly grimy part of a nearby corner, near the ground. "Um-"

"And all the cars aren't covered in rust and they're moving around! The streets and sidewalks aren't torn apart, and- and look at that guy!"

With vigor that put even Sorun off, Silver pointed out to a Mobian in a suit on the other side of the street from them. He had a briefcase in one hand and was giving both Silver and Sorun an odd look.

Awkwardly, Sorun waved at him. "Hello there," he awkwardly called out, and then turned to Silver after lightly jabbing him in the ribs. "Silver, cool it, I'm pretty sure we just appeared out of thin air in front of all these people."

"But-but-but everything here is so different, Sorun," Silver reiterated as he turned to him. "It's- there's noise everywhere, and this really weird smell-"

"Smell's normal, don't worry about it," Sorun assured him, "but look, I get it, it's really exciting and new for you but we can't really focus on that, alright?"

The awed look Silver had on was shocked out of him by the reminder given by Sorun. The boundless energy his eyes had held left as abruptly as it'd came; sadness flickered over his features, and then he thankfully returned to having a normal expression while giving Sorun a short nod. "Yeah, I get it. It's just-"

"There'll be plenty of time to sort through this kind of stuff when we're back home, alright?" Sorun assured him. "But really, there's more important things to worry about. Like why everything is in black and white." Sorun looked back down at his arms. "Seriously, do colors just work differently in every single zone, or what?"

"I dunno. But, um..." Silver fidgeted around for a bit again, taking one more quick glance at their surroundings before looking back at Sorun. "Weren't we here for directions?"

"Directions. Right." Sorun gave a quick nod and looked away from his arms and at Silver. "Idea?"

Looking left and upwards, Silver pointed up at something. "Well, maybe this place can help," he suggested as Sorun looked towards where he was pointing. "It says it's a detective's office. From all the old books I dug up in the future detectives are supposed to be these weird people that talk in long-winded sentences in the rain and solve mysteries while breathing on sticks they set on fire, right?"

"I'd say that's a stereotype, but I'm pretty sure we just literally walked into one," Sorun said. His eyes narrowed at the sign they were looking up at. "Oh, you gotta be... Sonic's Detective Agency?"

That's what the sign said, at least. Emblazoned on the front a small, two-story building they were in front of. There was a logo of an eyeball next to the sign, too, but because color apparently didn't exist in this universe Sorun couldn't tell what color it was. Probably green.

He didn't know how to feel at this. He should have probably guess there'd be a Sonic here, but what were the odds they'd appear this close to one? And of all the alternate versions of people he knew in Mobius Prime to become a detective in a detective-themed world if the name said anything why him?

"Motherfucker, I can't get rid of this guy no matter where I go," Sorun silently seethed as he looked up at the sign. "Guy gets to be a hero one place, king in another, now a cool detective?"

While Sorun stood there, silently glaring at the sign, Silver spoke up. "I mean it's a good idea, right?" he asked. "Asking a detective for directions? If anybody would know it'd be this world's Sonic, right?"

"... Mmmmaybe," Sorun breathed out, voice nearly a hiss. With how multiverse worked and how literally anything was possible there was no telling anything about this Sonic compared to the one he knew. If he was in the know about zones or not, if he was even as influential in world events as his- as Sonic Prime. Maybe he was a world-famous detective in this world or he was a no-name shamus. And either-or didn't tell Sorun if he knew about zones or not.

Well, no matter what the best way to find out was ask, and there weren't any better candidates standing around.

"Okay, uh... alright, here's what we'll do," Sorun began. A quick scan around revealed something about a block away that Sorun could see - a nearby petrol station with a convenience store. "Okay, Silver, I want you to go stay at that... it's called Schnell? Really? Is nothing sacred?"

"Sorun?"

"Okay that gas station over there, Silver. Need you to wait for me over there," Sorun instructed. "Just, um, just look around while I'm busy, pick out whatever food you want. Don't actually take anything, though, just look around and wait for me to get back and we'll grab some stuff for the road, alright?"

Right as Sorun finished speaking, Silver's stomach began rumbling. "I am getting kind of hungry," he noted as he placed a hand on his stomach. "Um, Sorun, what's past food like?" he asked. "Like, um... like what am I looking for? And what's... you know, the process for getting it? How does that work?"

"Don't worry about it."

"But don't we have to buy-?"

"Silver, don't worry about it." Sorun placed a hand on the hedgehog's shoulder and gave him an assuring look. "I'll be in and out, five minutes, ten max, come back to you and help out, alright? Just trust me on this."

"O... kay, I trust you." Nervously, Silver turned back towards the gas station. "Ten minutes max?"

"Maybe not even that." By now Sorun had already started climbing the steps up towards the detective agency's front door. He turned around at the doors to give Silver a small wave. "Look, it'll be fine, just take a look around in there. I won't be long."

Nodding, and it was a rather stiff nod mixed with an unsure expression, Silver turned back around and began to walk towards the gas station. He'd jumped when a car had driven past him on the street, and then seemed to give up on something and decided to just use his powers to float up and towards the store, garnering more than a few stares from onlookers. Sorun facepalmed himself as a result.

"Yeah, the flying hedgehog won't cause any questions, no siree. No questions at all, like how the hell I'm supposed to feed us when we're broke." Sorun's hand dropped away from his face. He stood there for a few seconds to think, and then made a heavy sigh. "I'll figure it out, I'll fucking figure it out. Detective first." He looked down at Yamato. "Sword might be a bit too conspicuous."

He transmuted the sword back into a Chaos Emerald. Due to where they were it'd lost its blue color and turned into a glowing, dark gray gem. It also didn't feel any less conspicuous than a katana seeing as it was a giant, glowing gem.

"... Fucking hell, fine, I just gotta be quick about this," Sorun thought to himself as he entered the building.


It wasn't that Sorun was paranoid. Paranoia would mean he was suspicious without good cause. And as Sorun walked his way through the short halls of the small building he was in, he was not filled with unfounded fears. Because the fear he was filled with was completely sensible and justified.

He was beginning to look at things in retrospective now, and already Sorun was questioning his own choices. He didn't know what conditions in this world were like, if powers were the norm and everybody would pass it off like in Mobius Prime or if here it would call down some government response because of Silver being so casual with his flying. Was there a government? They were in industrialized city, so maybe. Fears for if there were people here that could actually point them in the right direction or if this was a waste of time. If he was gonna walk outside and find the place surrounded b agents or something or if he'd go out to find Silver in some situation with someone.

This all took precedent in front of the fact Sorun was genuinely considering robbing somebody just so Silver didn't go hungry.

The fact remained there were too many unknowns. Literally, just too many unknowns because they were in a whole alternate universe they knew nothing about. Not the social customs, rules, history and behaviors to ignore, none of it. And with every second that ticked by Sorun was regretting his decision more and more.

"'Oh it'll be cool man, cool noir-themed world, it'll be neat to see we should really go check it out,' man what the hell is wrong with me?" he mentally berated himself. There was a door at the end of the hall. It was made of frosted glass and had Sonic's name on it. Office door, had to be. "No, we had to come here," Sorun reminded himself as he approached the door. "Needed directions and food, remember? Should've listened to Silver and went to the 'Sailor Moon' world. Would that have been better or worse than here? Goddammit."

He heard some muffled chatter as he approached the door. The door itself was unlocked, thankfully, though Sorun had only opened it halfway to peek into the room. It was immediately clear it was an office of sorts; he'd go as far as to say it was the most stereotypical detective's office he'd ever seen. Half-draped, open windows in the back, a cluttered desk, a ceiling fan that didn't seem to work, there was even a rack in the back full of trench coats and hats.

Of course there was also him. Even without the color to identify him Sorun could recognize that cocky look anywhere. Maybe it was universal. The trench coat and fedora was new. On him it seemed to magnify his smugness and the irritation Sorun felt just being near him. He was sitting behind that cluttered desk of his, the receiver of a rotary phone up to his head. He'd glanced up towards Sorun when he poked his head in, and then nodded to him before turning his attention back to the phone.

"Mm, yeah, that's real great. Say, listen, a client just walked into the office, and this one's lookin' a bit more off than normal. Just one of those things, you know how it is," the detective said into the phone as he waved Sorun in. "Yeah, I got it. Tell him I said hi."

The receiver went dead, and Sonic hung the phone up. He leaned back in his chair afterwards, steepling his fingers as he watched Sorun fully enter the room. "Sorry about that," he apologized. "Secretary's out at the moment. Family issues."

Well, there went half of Sorun's remarks he'd been planning. "'S alright, listen, I need help."

"Ha. You and half the city," Sonic said as he gestured to the empty chair opposite of him. "Someone walks into this office, though, and it's always more than a particularly peculiar problem they need help with."

"... Uh-huh." Sorun slowly sat down in the chair. "And I seem like one of those people, do I?"

"The look ya got on says it all. That doe-eyed look that's screaming at me you're lost and don't know what's going on, the nervous expression crying out for help, it's as easy to read as a book." Sonic clicked his tongue and, with his hands still clasped, pointed his index fingers at him. "The fact I don't even know what you are says a lot, too."

"Oh, humans not a thing here?" Sorun wondered aloud. "Whatever, doesn't matter, don't worry about that part. In all that nonsense word salad you just fed me you were right about one thing: I am lost."

"Aren't we all?" The chair Sonic was sitting in swiveled around so that he was facing the window. "It's not too uncommon a story I hear."

A sigh was growing in Sorun's throat as he pinched at his nose. "Please don't-"

"This is the kind of city where getting lost is more common than you'd think. Much more common." The detective rose up out of the chair and made his way to the window. Sorun made a sigh. "Whether it's loosing their way, or losing someone or something, everyone here gets lost one way or another. Seen it a million times in this line of work, like a bad show on the radio going on repeat." He dragged a gloved finger down the window's glass. "Just like the radio some stories end well, others not so well. Part of reality they managed to get right, I suppose. Trick I've found, though, isn't finding what you lost. It's about not losing yourself."

"It's fucking amazing how no matter what iteration of Sonic I meet I always wanna smack his teeth out." If he'd known he'd be walking into a cheesy noir detective monologue straight out of a trashy novel Sorun wouldn't have bothered coming in here. Even if he was desperate for those directions. It was getting less and less worth it by the second. "Wait, what the...?"

It was there. On the desk. A glass ashtray for cigarettes. Except instead of cigarettes and ash there was just a fucking chili dog sitting on it. Didn't even fit on the whole fucking ashtray.

"Alright, I might actually kill him," Sorun decided. "Oh, wait, what's this now...?"

Next to the abomination sitting on a glass pedestal it didn't even fit on was an open envelope. An envelope that had a notable stack of bills spilling out of it. Bills of the monetary type.

"Payment for a recent job? Something else? Maybe this wasn't a waste of time."

"- Sometimes I'd like to say there's nothing new under the sun with how long I've been on the job, but this city has a way of surprising you at every corner-"

"Christ, he's still going." A loud clearing of Sorun's throat thankfully halted whatever detective Sonic was going on about so he had a chance to speak. "Okay, dude, that's fascinating. I don't really care. I just need directions."

"Directions, is it?" He turned back to Sorun. "A strange-looking person walks in with the most expensive-looking beaut of a gem I've ever seen and asks the most renown detective in town just for directions? The case just gets curiouser and curiouser." He sat down in his seat and re-steepled his hands as he met Sorun's eyes. "So what's the story, huh? Alien, prince of a long-lost civilization with a mystical artifact, what am I dealing with here?"

"None of that, listen, can you just tell me how to get to a certain zone?"

Sonic leaned back in his chair. "Zone, huh?" he repeated. "Which zone? One of the internment zones, the demilitarized zones, radiation zones? Places like that are a world over, friend. Problems here are a lot more tame than the ones across the ocean. And as weird as you look you don't seem like a scavver digging around irradiated ruins for Yesterage artifacts to sell off," he said, taking a look at Sorun's coat. "Clothes are too fine."

"No, I- wow, there's a lot to unpack there," a stunned Sorun mumbled. "But no, not that kind of zone. I need to get to Mobius Prime."

Sorun's fear grew when Sonic's eyes grew confused. "Mobius Prime?"

"Yeah, Mobius Prime." Sorun waved his wrist around when the detective continued to give him a blank stare. "Uhhh, the central zone? Original zone? Prime Zone? None of this ringing any bells?"

Sonic shook his head. "'Fraid not, friend, 'fraid not."

"... You don't know what zones are," Sorun said with a defeated sigh. It was a long shot to begin with, he supposed. Silver himself warned Sorun zones weren't common knowledge and nobody probably had answers for him. And if this world's Sonic didn't know then nobody probably did.

So dead end, then. A waste of time. He couldn't point them the right way.

"Never quite seen someone so disparaged without even knowing what I said to put them off," Sonic said after noting Sorun's now-slumped figure.

"Yeah, uh... yeah, don't worry about it," the teen muttered out. He gripped the Emerald in his hand tighter. A few gray sparks danced over his hand. "Thanks for taking the time to hear me out, but there's nothing you can do for me."

"Huh? Are you sure?" Sonic asked. A gray phantom in Sorun's image appeared behind him. "Uh, okay, listen, I didn't mean to put you down so hard you'd try and drop the case altogether. Give me some time to ask around and-"

The Doppelganger reached out and pulled down the curtains on the window, disappearing in the same movement. The small ruffled, clattering sound they made caused Sonic to stiffen in his seat, and then turn around towards the window. The moment his back was turned Sorun reached out, grabbed a handful of the money sticking out of the envelope on the desk, and then quickly stuffed it into his pocket.

"Huh, darn curtain. Been meaning to replace that." Sonic turned back to Sorun, who was already halfway out of his seat. "Sorry about that. You sure you don't want to reconsider?"

"Super sure," Sorun assured him as he pushed the chair in. "If anything comes up though, I promise you I will not hesitate for even a moment to come back and see you. But that being said, my problems are a bit out of depth for a detective." He turned around towards the door. "It's out of depth for me, too, and I'm right in the middle of all it."


So the detective angle was a bust. Utterly and completely. Bad news for Sorun and Silver since it still meant they were hopelessly lost, but hey, at least now they wouldn't starve for the foreseeable future. However long that would last.

An admittedly large part of Sorun was intensely worried over the whole thing, but there wasn't much to be done about it. Right now he was just worried about the fact he was about to open the front doors to Sonic's building and the men in black would swarm him.

He'd been ready to fight the moment he'd opened the doors. He had a firm grip on the Emerald, ready to stop time at a moment's notice the instant he saw anything even slightly out of the ordinary once he opened the doors. The fears turned out to be unfounded, though: there weren't any black vans and Mobians in suits on the sidewalk outside or the streets. No cops except for a traffic cop in the distance, nothing.

"Too paranoid? No." He'd breathed a sigh of relief at the sight, but he couldn't shake the wary feeling he felt. He couldn't stop his arm from shaking, either, or even still his rapid heartbeat. The urge to leave this place wouldn't leave him.

He began moving. According to detective Sonic, humans weren't even a thing in this world, at least as far as he knew. He was going to attract unwanted attention the longer he lingered here, that was just a given. And he and Silver didn't have time to deal with nonsense in a world they weren't even staying at.

So he'd went to the convenience store he'd pointed Silver to earlier. To Sorun's relief he managed to see him through one of the windows on approach. He almost laughed at the sight when he entered the store itself: the white Mobian still had that wide-eyed look and was going around the store like a kid in a candy shop with that amazed look on his face. He himself barely got three steps in before Silver was upon him, holding a prepacked sandwich.

"Sorun! Sorun, look!" He excitedly held the sandwich out for Sorun to see. "They got this stuff here called sliced bread! We don't have that in the future."

Sorun made a small smile, and it didn't even feel forced. Seeing Silver excited over bread of all things helped relieve the tension he felt. "That's great, man," he said, patting Silver on the shoulder.

"Yeah, Master always tried making bread but it never really turned out- wait, what happened with Sonic?"

Sorun's face fell, as did Silver's when he saw. "Yeah, he didn't know what I was talking about when I asked about Mobius Prime," he answered.

"Oh..." Visibly deflating at the news, Silver asked, "So what now?"

"We keep going, I guess." Sorun dug into his pocket and drew out the money he stole from Sonic. "The guy was nice enough to give us some money for food for the road, though, so there's that at least."

"That's great!" Silver's wide smile returned. "So, what should we grab?"

"Hm." Sorun looked down to the hand holding the money. It only now dawned on him it was bills stamped with hundreds that he'd stolen out of Sonic's office. If the fact all the cars outside looked like they were from fifties Earth said anything that was probably more than he thought it was. Assuming inflation was the same.

Too bad.

"Whatever you want, Silver."


"... This shit's real?"

He always thought it had just been a gag in a cartoon, but no, here it was. Sitting on a shelf right in front of Sorun, in all its canned glory. If that word was even applicable to this thing.

"Canned bread," Sorun mumbled out as he examined the can. "Does... does it at least expire slower than normal bread?" He grabbed the can and turned it around to examine the labels on the back. "Two years? Holy shit, that's pretty good."

Should he get it? Probably should. Not telling how long Silver and him were gonna be on the road. Better not be years, but normal bread expired in a manner of days whereas this would hopefully last them the whole trip. Plus they could afford it.

Boy could they afford it.

"Hey, Sorun, what about this?" The teen looked up from the can as Silver approached him with another can. "It says this soup-"

Sorun grabbed the can out of Silver's hand and put it on the closest available open space on the nearest shelf.

"Sorun?"

"Soup is a cardinal sin, Silver. We don't partake in it."

"What?"

"I don't like soup."

"... Okay, but can I at least have it?"

"No."

Silver gave him an odd look. "Why not?"

"I don't like it being near me."

"Oh, come on!" The odd look turned into a disbelieving, frustrated one as Silver threw a hand up. "Is this a past thing? Is food so common in your era that everyone's this picky about it?"

It kind of was, even in New Mobotropolis, but he didn't want to admit it. "Look, we don't even need the soup." Sorun held his own can up to Silver's eyes. "See? Canned bread. No insane mixing of solids and liquids and calling it food. Pure solid."

Silver didn't seem very confident about the can. He shied away from it and took a step back. "But it's not the sliced bread I want to try."

"It's totally sliced. Just, you know, cylindrically," Sorun said. "And we can take this and the sandwiches, so what's your problem?"

Silver's eyes lowered down, towards the plastic basket with its handles looped around Sorun's left arm that was carrying the Chaos Emerald. He gave a very questionable look at the contents Sorun filled it with. "My problem is that the stuff you're picking out isn't, well, the healthiest looking?"

Sorun took visible affront to the accusation that his collection of chip bags, candies, other assorted junk foods and soda bottles wasn't conducive to long-term survival. It was the glass kind of soda bottles, too. Much too fancy to pass up.

"It's to balance out all the long-lasting healthy stuff you're picking," Sorun defended. "Besides, I lasted on stuff like this for a large part of my life and I turned out fine. Also it's been like seven or eight months since I've had stuff like this and the withdrawals started coming back when I saw them." The Chao Cola had helped stave that off and ween Sorun off of those cravings, but by god did he miss Mountain Dew. Fucking nukes.

Silver gave Sorun a concerned look. "That doesn't sound healthy."

"It isn't," he agreed. "I don't care. And a single road trip's worth of junk food isn't gonna kill me." He tossed the canned bread in the basket and started walking past Silver. "It'll be fine, don't worry about it."

"Uh... if you say so." Silver turned around and started following Sorun. "But I was counting that money this zone's Sonic gave us and compared it to the prices to all the stuff we're buying and we're gonna have a lot left over, so maybe after we buy this we can go to a real store? Maybe even get some bags or something to help carry all this?" They both stopped, with Sorun turning to face Silver. "I just don't want to be rude since I'm not very sure this currency'll be good in other zones," Silver continued, "and he gave us a lot and I don't want to send the wrong message by not making the most of it, you know what I mean?"

Sorun did, even if Silver was completely wrong. But he also did have a point. Even if Sorun didn't want to linger around any longer than he had to because he didn't know how long they had before Sonic called the cops. Or found them, which he very likely could since he was a detective. On second thought he wasn't very thrilled with this idea.

"Can't you just use your telekinesis to carry everything?" Sorun asked in a hopeful voice.

"No!" Silver shook his head. "You know how exhausting it'd be for me to lug all this stuff around for however long we're gonna be traipsing around the multiverse!?"

"I don't know, dude, I'm not a psychokinetic like you."

"Well, it's exhausting," Silver informed him. "I'm also kind of sure we can't keep these baskets since they're the store's, so we kind of have to do something about it."

Once again, Silver had a point. Sorun couldn't even find it in himself to be begrudging over it.


The backpack hung heavily on Sorun's shoulders. Mostly because Silver had loaded it down with water bottles they'd bought to stave off dehydration. Largely because since all the snacks Sorun bought were so light he got saddled with the water while Silver's backpack had all the actual food in it, and the emotional turmoil gained from the unfairness of it all still wore heavy on Sorun.

Thankfully the proper grocery store Silver had wanted to visit hadn't been too far away from the convenience store, so Sorun hadn't found himself protesting all that much during the trip. Exiting the large store where they'd procured the backpacks, as well as the food and water, Sorun couldn't help but keep glancing down all the nearby roads.

Plenty of busy people. No cops. No hedgehog in a trench coat. World was still black and white and it was really starting to get on Sorun's nerves.

"Well, Sorun, I think we're as prepared as we're gonna be," Silver said to him as he readjusted the straps on his shoulder. "That being said, we still have a few coins leftover from Sonic. You think we should head back to his office to give them back? I at least want to thank him for all the help he gave us."

"I think he's busy with detective stuff. We shouldn't bother him." Sorun turned his head at Silver. "Keep the coins as a souvenir or something."

"Sure, I guess that works." Shrugging, Silver put the coins inside the cuffs of his gloves. Sorun still wasn't sure how he kept putting stuff in there, if there were pockets inside his gloves or some kind of trick he was using. "So now it looks like our only problem left is getting back to the Cosmic Interstate Highway."

"I gotcha." The gem held in his left hand transformed into his familiar katana. "Just one sec here."

"And you're sure this is gonna work?" Silver asked as Sorun pulled the sword out.

"Gone to more impossible places." Quite literally, in Sorun's case. With all the trouble he had to go through to get back to the original timeline, slipping into the world between worlds was practically nothing.

All that was needed was that Sorun had physically been standing on the Highway, after all, and because of that he could remember how to make a portal to go back. Or maybe more accurately was that Yamato remembered how to go back if Sorun had been there; he honestly wasn't sure.

He had almost laughed out loud at the question, though. Could he get back to the Highway that was cut off from them due to universal boundaries? Things like that were nothing to the him and the Yamato.

"There we are." The portal was cut open and hovering in front of them. "Now can we please go back to the world of saturated colors?"

Silver nodded, and even grinned a bit at Sorun's words. He was a bit hesitant in entering it, though, but after poking a foot through the portal he'd taken the dive and stepped through it entirely. Sorun had taken one last glance over his shoulder at the black and white city, and then decided he couldn't get out of here fast enough and followed Silver through the portal.


There was no holding the sigh of relief Sorun felt when the familiar sight of the Cosmic Interstate Highway and the boundless space it inhabited and, most importantly, color flooded his vision. One for easing his worries for whether they could go to and from zones and the highway, and another for finally getting out of that zone. The zone that, as long as Sorun could help it, he would never, ever return to ever again.

Silver seemed to be in a similar state of amazement as Sorun, going as far as to look around with a wide smile, laughing a bit. He turned towards Sorun as he began hastily closing the portal, exclaiming, "Wow, you actually managed to do it!"

"What? You doubted me?" Sorun asked, mock hurt in his voice as the portal was closed off. "I told you I could do it."

"Heh, yeah. That sword of yours really is amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if it could..." Silver trailed off as his eyes turned down towards the sword. A thoughtful look crossed his face. "Hey, Sorun? Why can't you just use the sword to make us a portal back to Mobius Prime?"

"Oh, because I..." Sorun stopped mid-sentence. He blinked. "Huh." He held Yamato up. "Oh fuck, did I just rob somebody for no reason?"

Dammit, he hadn't seriously made such an oversight, had he? He hadn't really forgotten... yes, he realized with a sigh, he had. He had forgotten he could probably just make a portal back home with Yamato.

It was with a barely-suppressed grumble Sorun held the sword back up. On the bright side their hopeless situation just got a lot more hopeful, but with it came the growing guilt Sorun began to feel over the money he'd stolen from detective Sonic. He wouldn't have done it if they could just go straight back home; hell, he wouldn't have bothered with them invading that zone to begin with. Maybe he could go back and dump everything they'd bought off at his office, it was mostly food anyway, so provided he ate it all it wouldn't technically be a waste-

Sorun frowned when he stabbed the sword forwards. Nothing had happened. No metal blade disappearing in the space in front of him as he breached dimensional barriers, no blue light or energy sparks. It wasn't working.

"Er, Sorun?" Silver asked as Sorun tried stabbing forwards again. "What's the matter?"

Eyes furrowed in concentration, Sorun tried stabbing forwards a third time. No luck. "I can't find it," he grunted in effort as he tried a fourth time.

"Er... try harder?"

With a frustrated growl, Sorun tried a fifth time. Still nothing. He didn't know what he was doing wrong - he was doing the exact same thing he always did whenever he used Yamato to teleport somewhere. Funnel energy through the sword, project his will onto it and think of where he wanted to go, let the sword do the rest as it cut through space and time...

He could feel the destination, too. It was there. He knew it was there; he'd physically stood in that zone. It was like trying to grasp at some intangible shape in pitch darkness, but he knew the destination was there. But he couldn't lock on to it.

With a defeated sigh, Sorun sheathed the sword. "It ain't working," he informed Silver. "I don't know what's going on. It's just not working."

Silver grew visibly disheartened at hearing that. The hope that had grown on his face had immediately fallen away. "Aw, man... is the sword broken or something?"

With a shake of his head, Sorun said, "No, I think... maybe there's something different about traveling to zones compared to traveling to different locations inside a single zone. Cutting through multiple planes of space instead of a single one, I don't..." Still frustrated, Sorun glanced down at Yamato. "I can feel the zone, it's there. It's definitely there. I can't feel any other ones except that one and..." He paused and let power run through the sword again. "... Two others, I feel two others. One really close by, I think that's the zone we just left, the other one, it's..."

Sorun's face screwed in concentration as he felt out the third location. He caught a glimpse of how far it was.

He nearly dropped to his knees.

There wasn't a scale to describe just how distant this third location was. It was a distance so vast it was nearly incomprehensible, and he felt his head throb from just trying to conceptualize the distance. It was a place so far that Silver's earlier estimate for how Mobius Prime could be billions of lightyears away seemed like a joke; like it didn't matter. Because the location he was focusing on was such a sizeable distance away that the difference between lightyears and millimeters seemed negligible.

And more than that it felt disconnected. The pitch-black void he felt his mind feel around in, trying to connect to the Prime Zone and the Mystery Noir Zone, what Sorun assumed to be his power's and mind's best attempt at conceptualizing the multiversal space they all inhabited, it felt like this third place wasn't even inside that. That it was so far removed not even the multiverse itself housed it. A zone sitting in dead space, in endless void beyond the edge of nothingness.

"Is that where Earth is?"

He cut off the power flowing through Yamato. A few dull throbs still assaulted Sorun's head, though thankfully, it was quickly subsiding. He made a small groan while running his right hand through his hair, taking a shuddering breath all the while. He felt something grab onto his shoulder, and turned his eyes upwards to see Silver grabbing him while giving Sorun a worried expression.

"Sorun?" Silver quietly asked him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, fine," Sorun muttered out. It took a few seconds to Silver continuing to look to make sure before he released Sorun, after which the Earthling sighed out and shook his head. "I found out where my zone is. The one I was born in." He turned from Silver, covering his mouth while muttering, "Christ, Tails said it was far away, but man..."

"Your old zone?" Sorun ceased his muttering and turned to Silver. "What about it?" the hedgehog asked.

Sorun shook his head. "Silver, buddy, I don't think it's actually possible to go that far without using portals of some kind. Words... aren't sufficient in describing the gulf between here and there. Hurts to think about.

"But enough about that. The good news out of all this-" he turned back around and pointed in the distance, "- is that I know the way to the Prime Zone. Even the distance. Which..." His shoulders fell with a sigh, "which is kind of an issue."

An unsettled sound came from Silver. "How far?" was his simple question.

Sorun bit his lip. He didn't want to say, more because he didn't want to hear the truth with his ears more than anything else. But he'd felt it with Yamato - the distance from here to Mobius Prime if they took the road. He was almost certain he knew the answer. And the answer scared him almost as much as Silver sounded wary of the answer. But it was too important to ignore.

He told him the truth.

"Well, if you use your powers to fly us straight there the whole time, we might make it back in about a year or two."


A/N- Listen, in my defense I'm not even making up the noir world and the implied Sailor Moon world. Those are all completely canon to the comics. If you really think about it I could technically do anything and say it's canon because multiverse, but you actually see evidence of those two zones in the comics.

Anyways, I know it's a bit weird I ended up going this route instead of straight back to Mobius Prime, and it might even feel like filler, but it's not. I try to avoid filler, and you wouldn't believe how much filler I've cut out of this story only for it to still be this long. Originally when Sorun came back to life the Chaos Emeralds were supposed to scatter for real and I was gonna take seven chapters just to go after them with different characters in each chapter for this big extended goodbye arc, but I scrapped all that since it wouldn't have been a real goodbye to begin with since Sorun was staying anyways and it seemed like a bad idea to stretch it out that long for something that wasn't even gonna happen.

In this case I'm mainly doing it because it introduces details and bits of information that becomes relevant later and I need to introduce it to Sorun somehow. It's not too big a detour though - this chapter and two more after and we're back on Mobius Prime, promise.

I dunno, might not be so bad, but the next two chapters are pretty much centered around them visiting a single zone, and... yeah, I got no idea how people are gonna react to that one.