Recursion Error
Episode 97- We will not go back
What else was there to do but gab while out on the high seas? Nothing, that's what.
"-and it wasn't like 'Black Flag' was a bad game, it was just a bad 'Assassin's Creed' game, Shadow. Yeah, sure, they refined the ship combat from the last game and made a great pirate game but after they went and killed Desmond the overall plot of the games took a nosedive, because what did they expect would happen when they killed off the main character? After they spent five games building him up? We had one- god, man, we only had one cool moment with Desmond at the end of the fifth one when he raided the Abstergo tower and it would have made a great coming-of-age thing, but no, nah, we can't have our modern-day game and cap off the series, it's gotta be a annual release now and we gotta keep milking this thing for all it's worth. So they kept chugging them out and the games kept getting worse and worse in quality. And then 'Unity' came out, and you know what, once you got past the bugs, the forty-gig patch they had to ship out, and the middling story, there was actually a good parkour system there. Best in the series. I'd argue it was the most fun one to play, and I dared to hope, Shadow, that maybe Ubisoft finally learned something and we could get the series back on track.
"But nope, uh-uh, they didn't learn a thing. Just when they finally polished a good parkour system they threw it all away with 'Origins'. Idiots decided they needed to reinvent the wheel and fix what wasn't broken, to add a bunch of RPG elements nobody asked for and make it an absolute grindfest with-with microtransaction experience boosters. And they stuck with it. They decided this dreck was a winning formula and decided to stick with it going forwards with all the games after it. I couldn't even touch them. I'll never forgive the French for what they did to 'Assassin's Creed'."
At the very front of the ship that had rescued them from the island stood Sorun, who was leaning against a guardrail and looking out at the sea. Shadow was standing besides him in the exact same position. Looking down in the water with an exhausted expression while looking like he was contemplating jumping in.
A weary sigh left the hedgehog. "All I did was comment on the figurehead," he mumbled to himself, glancing up at the bird-shaped figurehead mounted at the front of the ship. He'd made a comment on it and Sorun had said how it reminded him of a ship from a video game. And then twenty minutes filled with words passed.
He was tired.
Sorun was anything but; fired up when he was reminded of what was stolen from humanity. What had once been great and how it had been perverted by corporate greed like most things on Earth. It riled him up something fierce just thinking about it.
"Why did you even have games where you played as assassins?" Shadow mumbled out.
"Dude, we had games about literally everything," Sorun answered. "It's escapism. Art in an interactive format. And, you know, some people just wanted to live a power fantasy of running around on rooftops and stabbing a hundred guys in a historical setting, it was super normal where I'm from."
Shadow lifted his head up and looked at Sorun like he'd just accrued major brain damage. "I find it horrifying you're the standard to judge your whole species since you're the only one left. I don't know if you were normal compared to the rest of your kind or if you're some extreme outlier."
"Heh, yeah." They both turned around to lean their backs against the railing. The raccoon child was over at the helm steering the ship through the waters. The purple cat girl, Blaze, was standing next to her. Both were staring at them.
"What's your impression of them?" Some life seemed to return back to Shadow's face as the topic shifted. It resulted in Sorun momentarily glancing at him and scoffing before he replied.
"Blaze seems like a straight shooter. Got a real honest vibe outta her," Sorun admitted. "Marie, I dunno, she seems like the kinda person that'll steal my socks when I'm not looking. Real wild card."
Shadow frowned. "I thought the raccoon's name was Mary?"
Sorun shrugged. It made Shadow puff out a small sigh and shake his head. "Well, regardless, I agree with your sentiment. Minus the sock bit. That's nonsense. But they seem trustworthy enough."
"Yeah. You think we should tell Blaze about the Metal Sonic thing?"
"I think we should tell the ruler of the planet there's a dangerous robot running around her domain, yes," Shadow blandly replied, voice utterly dry. "It will reflect poorly on us if we keep such information to ourselves and we owe her for the rescue."
That was a really good point, and Sorun nodded in agreement. He saw movement and noticed the two Mobians were making their way towards them. Blaze appeared to be completely relaxed, but the way her eyes were continually locked onto the both of them said enough. The raccoon girl was just smiling with an easy-going expression.
He really had to try and remember her name. It for sure started with an "M", he was certain of that.
Blaze was the first one to speak when the both of them stopped in front of Sorun and Shadow. "Well, we're headed off to the nearest island to make port. We should arrive within the next ten minutes."
"That would be acceptable, thank you," Shadow said. "Is there someone we could talk to in order to arrange transport to the mainland once we've arrived?" He blinked in confusion when Blaze let out a chuckle. Sorun did the same. "What is it?"
"There is no mainland in this world," Blaze informed them. "This world is entirely comprised of islands interspersed throughout the ocean covering it. Whatever you've come for, you'll find no better help anywhere else than you'll find in the Southern Island." She crossed her arms, attention entirely focusing in on Shadow. "And now that we're here I'd like you to tell me who the both of you are like we agreed."
Sorun and Shadow exchanged glances. To the Earthling the news this was a planet comprised of nothing but islands washed right off his back; he'd seen weirder by now. He wanted to make a "One Piece" reference, too, but he sensed that Shadow would grow annoyed at it so he kept his mouth shut. Would have felt rude since none of them would even know what he's talking about anyways. Shadow himself didn't look very surprised at the news, either. Either that or he simply just didn't care, which was more likely than anything else. He gave Sorun a nod - he wasn't even sure what that was supposed to mean - and turned back to Blaze to speak.
"Introductions, then. My name is Shadow the Hedgehog," he began. The raccoon girl seemed amused at the name, even went as far as to laugh a bit, making Shadow send her a sharp glare. It just made her laugh harder and made Blaze sigh a bit.
Sorun rose a hand up. "I'm Sorun the Human." He internally flinched. Saying that gave a weird taste in his mouth he didn't like. "Ooh, that sounds... yeah, I dunno, uh, can, can I do that? Is that a thing I can say or is that a Mobian-only thing?" He glanced at Shadow. "Is it okay to add the 'the Human' part, everyone else does it so I thought-"
"If you value my opinion at all I don't think you should," Shadow said. "I don't even like doing it. I was just told it was a social norm and would help put others at ease. It's ridiculous. Anybody with eyes and a functioning brain can tell what species someone is at a glance."
"... Mhm." Sorun quickly cleared his throat and turned back to the pair. "Yeah okay that's- alright, uh, Sorun, I'm just Sorun," he tried again. His stomach dropped a bit and he had to repress a groan - the raccoon child looked like she was silently laughing at him and even Blaze was hiding a smile behind her hand it looked like. A smile paired with a pitying, if not amused, set of eyes. The embarrassment served to be too much and he was forced to turn completely around to look back at the ocean.
Once again Shadow came to his rescue, because he heard him began talking with Blaze once again. That was good. He could handle all the serious talk and maybe they'd all forget what just happened. All Sorun had to do was stand here and lean against a guardrail as he stared out at the ocean.
He felt a bit of wetness drip out of his nose. He rose up his fingers to wipe it away, and when he pulled his fingers back he saw they were splotched with crimson. He somehow instinctively knew that it wasn't due to the sea air his nose was bleeding.
"Son of a bitch," he worriedly thought out, wiping the blood away on his pants. He wiped at his face again, and while it wasn't bringing him much relief at the moment, the bleeding appeared to stop. He turned his ear back to the conversation happening besides him, if only to try and help distract himself.
"-and so after aiding us Tails had built a ship-"
"With my help."
"With your help, yes, Marine, to take himself and Sonic back to their own world," Blaze had finished off. Sorun's interest piqued enough that he fully turned back around to address them.
"Those two found themselves in this world?" Sorun asked her. "How'd that happen?"
"We never did discover the true cause. Tails had chalked it up to a freak accident involving Chaotic energies," Blaze admitted. "A Chaos Emerald from their world had somehow wound up in ours. They'd left it to me when they departed back to their own zone."
Sorun's brows knitted together. "Huh? I must have missed that adventure, I don't..." He looked to Shadow for help. "Was this before they all got fused together into the main seven? 'Cause I wasn't there for that."
He shrugged in response. "I assume. I wasn't present for this either."
"Alright." Mini Chaos Emerald, then. He looked back at Blaze. "Why'd Sonic leave it to you?"
It was the first time since meeting her Sorun had seen Blaze frown. No, it was more than that: it was a strange mixture between annoyance and worry. "In truth he did it as a personal favor to me. You see, within this world are seven gems of extraordinary power, not unlike the Chaos Emeralds you spoke of. They're known as the Sol Emeralds." She looked to the side, face bitter. "They're somewhat lost at the moment. Sonic let me keep the Emerald that fell into our world to help locate them."
"This is, what, the third set of magical rocks now? Why is this such a thing?" Sorun silently wondered to himself. "The Sol Emeralds?" he repeated. "Like the sun? Sun Emeralds?"
Blaze looked back at him, eyes a bit widened. She looked pleasantly surprised for some weird reason. "Yes, precisely." She smiled at him. "I'm impressed. I'd thought the translations for that ancient language were lost to time. I'd only ever gleaned the word's true meaning from texts in my personal library."
"It's... a pretty common word from where I'm from," he said, a bit hesitant. "... Do they just not have solar panels here? It's a common word even on Mobius."
"From Mobius Prime?"
"Nah, uh, not from there. It's a long story," Sorun said. "So how important are these Sol Emeralds?"
The cat's face turned gravely serious near-instantly. "Extremely so. Those gems are intrinsically tied to the very stability of this world. If they remain separated for too long it will lead to apocalyptic results. The sky will fall, the seas will boil, the islands dotting the planet will crumble and be lost to the roiling see. Every single inhabitant on this planet will perish." Her faced scrunched up into a shameful look. It was strong enough it even made Sorun uncomfortable. "As the ruler of this world it's my responsibility to oversee their safekeeping. I've been devoting all my time into locating them ever since they were lost."
"Oh. Geez..." It was, admittedly, a much more serious-sounding situation than he'd anticipated. Sorun breathed outwards and rubbed at the back of his neck to try and relieve the sheer intimidation that description alone had given him. That sounded like an unfathomable amount of pressure to be put under. He could relate and didn't envy her in the slightest. "That's tough, Blaze."
She let out a humorless laugh. "Yes. I suppose it is."
"If these gems are so important how did you end up losing them all in the first place?" Shadow asked. If the explanation fazed him any amount he wasn't showing it in the slightest.
Blaze's expression changed again at hearing the question. It was a brief flash of anger. Not directed at Shadow, as it'd faded moments later, but as if reviewing a memory in her head caused her great distress. "I don't wish to discuss it." She calmed down seconds later, expression relaxing as she continued with, "At any rate, with the help of the Chaos Emerald Sonic left to me I've been able to locate a few of the Sol Emeralds, thankfully. It's with those I should be able to locate the remainder. With that in mind, once this Metal Sonic incident is taken care of and in the event you're unable to use this zone-traversing engine of its to travel back to your own home, I wouldn't be opposed to giving the Emerald to you two."
"Wow, really?" Sorun nearly jumped off the railing he'd been leaning against when he heard that. "You'll just give it to us for free? No strings? Nothin'? Just like that?"
"I was planning on it?" Blaze had taken a step backwards, seemingly off-put by Sorun's surprise. "You need it more than I do and I have no further use for it anyhow. I've no problem handing it to you in return for helping solve the issue with this rampaging machine. We've enough of those here as it is."
Sorun barely had the words. That was just... so nice of her. He guessed he shouldn't be so surprised by now, but still, it was a pleasant feeling. "Wow. Uh. Thank you." Sorun rubbed at the back of his neck. "That, uh, that's real nice, Blaze, thanks."
"Yes, we're in your debt," Shadow impatiently interrupted, "now is that the island we're supposed to be making port in?"
Sorun turned around. Right in front of them was, in fact, an island. There wasn't much to say about it other than the large lighthouse in front of it. The right side of the island was raised up into a large hill atop which a tower was sitting, and on the left side was a more flatter area filled with houses and the like. Looked nice enough. Except for the fact some of the houses were on fire.
He heard a sharp intake of breath besides him, and then heard a peculiar sound. Soft snapping and crackling sounds, like the kind heard at a campfire, but much quieter. He looked towards the noise and found the source to be Blaze's hands, tightly clenched. He'd thought for a second he'd just misheard and it was just the sound of her gloves clenching tightly, but then he'd seen the fiery sparks sputtering out from between her closed fingers. He understood instantly.
"Pyrokinetic, huh? That's a new one. Probably shoulda figured with that name." She seemed angry. Both in the way she was standing, her hands clenched like that, and her face. When he looked up he saw Blaze's yellow eyes locked onto the smokestacks rising up from the center of the island, and she looked absolutely livid at the moment. Eyes widened and teeth clenched in rage. He found himself unconsciously taking a few steps away from her, both from that look and the fact it suddenly felt a few degrees warmer.
"Yes. That would be the Southern Island." When Blaze spoke it sounded like she was forcing her voice out through clenched teeth. Like she was so angry that the muscles in her throat were strained with raw anger. Sorun took a few more steps back. "And no, it is not supposed to be on fire."
Shadow made an affirming grunt. "I'd figured. It appears Metal Sonic beat us here."
"That or the pirates I've been dealing with. It's ending now either way." Blaze's eyes snapped down to Marine. Even she'd began to look a bit nervous at how angry Blaze seemed to be right now. "Marine, please take us in through the gate. We're taking care of this right now."
"Roight." She gave her a brisk nod and scampered off towards the ship's steering wheel, earlier smiles all gone. Sorun watched her run off, and then turned towards a large pair of gates on the front of the island. They were slowly beginning to open already as they made their approach.
Sorun sighed tiredly as he leaned back against the guardrail. "I just wanted to deliver a pizza, man..."
They'd wasted no time once the moment the ship had been parked in the island's port. What that really meant was that Blaze wasted no time and the other three were forced to run alongside her as she bolted straight towards the screams of people in the distance, that angered, determined look permanently etched on her face. Even Shadow seemed mildly impressed with how quick she'd been booking it. Sorun was more or less focused on just keeping up with the group.
After the small marathon they'd ended up on the edge of a tall, grassy hill that crested over what looked like the village near the island's beach seen earlier; at the edge of the grassy hill was a sheer rock cliff that fell down for around a dozen or so meters before hitting the ground. The damage in the village, admittedly, didn't look so bad up close. Not many of the houses were damaged and the fires were mainly in the surroundings. Panting while holding his knees, Sorun noted there wasn't a sight of bodies lying in the street - that was a good sign.
The not-so-good sign was that Metal Sonic was standing smack-dab in the middle of the devastation, holding up what looked like a koala Mobian in overalls up by the throat. When Blaze had seen the sight he'd heard a quiet growl sound out from the back of her throat. And her hands were completely on fire now.
"This is utterly unacceptable...!" Those were the only words Blaze decided to speak before she'd rocketed off. Literally. Yellow-orange flames violently spewed from her hands and the force was seemingly sufficient enough to propel Blaze off the cliff. She was flying directly towards the robot and the koala it was choking out.
Sorun coughed a bit when he accidentally inhaled some of the hot air left over. He looked to the side and saw Shadow staring off at her, looking a bit surprised. He was holding a hand out in her general direction.
"... I was hoping to have a few words with her, first," he muttered out as he retracted his hand.
Sorun shook his head. "Yeah, I don't think she was gonna wait for- ohhhh!"
It was possibly one of the most magnificent things Sorun had ever seen in his whole goddamn life. There'd Blaze been, propelled by the jets of flames bursting out of her hands like some kind of purple cat rocket, straight on a collision course for Metal Sonic. He didn't know what she was gonna do: either go for a punch of some kind or try shooting fire. Something along those degrees.
He never would have expected in a million years that, right before impact, she'd flip around midair so that her now fire-coated feet were in line to kick the robot right in the face. A textbook dropkick Sorun had only ever had the pleasure of performing once in his life personally. But not to that degree. Not with all that fire, the presentation. He couldn't help but hold his head with both of his hands at the sheer splendor. It was the coolest implementation of that move he'd ever been witness to.
It would have been even cooler if the attack had actually landed. It didn't. Metal Sonic had evidently seen her coming and, in one fluid movement, had thrown away the koala it'd been holding up while turning its body and leaning slightly to the side to avoid Blaze's dropkick. After whiffing the kick she'd slid a short distance across the sand before coming to a standstill in front of Metal Sonic. The look she was giving it looked like she was trying to melt it with her smoldering gaze alone. For all Sorun knew she probably could if she tried hard enough.
"I'm so fucking sad that missed." The disappoint Sorun had felt in the followed moment was overwhelming, so much so his hands slid off his head. He could have cried right there if he weren't surrounded by others. Slowly, with the movements of a man who'd just had all the joy in life sucked out of him, Sorun turned towards Shadow, whose eyes were affixed on the brewing fight below. "What were you gonna tell her, anyways?" The words had come out empty, somewhat. As if robbed of life. It would take a bit of time to rediscover the meaning of his own life after being deprived such a glorious sight.
Shadow's eyes flickered to Sorun. "Tactical advice. A warning on not trying to talk with Metal."
"Nobody does a dropkick like that if they wanna talk, Shadow." He still couldn't believe it'd missed. "What makes you think something like that was even possible?"
"... I'd attempted it," Shadow muttered in admittance. "Before you'd been roped into the fight in that castle. Its AI is more sophisticated than most of the Doctor's Badniks and having worked under him in the past, I'd... I'd just thought maybe it'd see reason like I did." He looked back to the village. The two fighters were already going at it. "It's beyond reasoning. Content at being a weapon. It's better for everyone if it's decommissioned right here."
Sorun made a scoff. "I could've saved you the time and told you that. It's an evil robot."
The hedgehog glanced back at Sorun. "I'd have thought you of all people would be more considering of AI with-"
"Shadow that thing's tried to kill me three times by now."
"... Fair point."
Words, said, the two focused back on the fight, with Marine watching alongside them. Sorun bit back a worried groan when he saw it was going rather poorly for Blaze. She was giving it her all, there was no doubt about that. Practically half the beach was covered with fire now, with more streams of the stuff constantly pouring off her limbs. He could see what she was going for: she'd learned extremely quickly that Metal Sonic was flat-out faster than her and was trying to deny it area of movement. Laying down fire hazards everywhere to limit where it could go, maybe try and bait it into prime position so she could attack then.
But it wasn't working. In fact, Metal Sonic didn't seem to even acknowledge any of her flames because it was simply moving through them. The roaring hot flames weren't leaving so much as a singe mark as they kept lapping at the machine's chassis. The blue paint wasn't even being melted off. The fire simply wasn't doing anything.
Credit to Blaze, she saw how ineffectual the strategy was and changed it up. She'd tried throwing what were likely fireballs, but quite honestly they'd moved so fast through the air they looked more like bolts to Sorun's eyes more than anything else. The machine dodged them effortlessly and the flaming bolts violently exploded behind it, leaving wide craters. Ranged was completely out; she went in to melee range for physical attacks.
She was... extremely creative with the fire powers, that much was clear to Sorun. He'd only known her a short time but the display of talent was obvious. The way the punches and kicks flowed together seamlessly. The jets of fire blasting out of her limbs adding to her momentum, movement uninterrupted and leaving behind trails of flame as the cat ceaselessly and unrelenting just kept attacking without pause. It almost looked more like a dance than a string of fighting moves on fire flowing endlessly into each other, so quickly to Sorun's eyes it was practically a blur. It was almost beautiful.
It was also completely ineffectual. Fact of the matter was Metal Sonic was just that much faster and not a single hit Blaze was throwing out was landing. Whether it be from moving its body the bare minimum amount to dodge the hits or firing the engine on its torso up so that its entire body could zoom near-instantly behind Blaze to try and deliver a hit, only for it to be narrowly dodged, nothing was working. And while Blaze wasn't slowing down in the slightest, didn't even appeared to be tired, Sorun doubted she had the endless stamina a machine had.
"... This is a really bad matchup for Blaze," Sorun muttered out in observation. "Nicole told me once that thing is outfitted with a tungsten-carbide alloy chassis. It's completely fire-resistant and it's too fast for her to actually hit." He looked to Shadow. "I mean you had trouble fighting this thing and when I tried a long time ago I couldn't even scratch it."
"Yes, those were my thoughts as well," Shadow agreed. "She needs help."
"Alright, great!" Sorun reached over and smacked Shadow on the back of his shoulder. It wasn't done hard enough to make him even flinch, though he'd still thrown a questioning look over at Sorun's way as a result. "Good luck, man, I'll be rooting for you."
"You're not coming?"
The big grin Sorun had been wearing for a second was replaced by a flat look. "With what powers? I'll be killed in a second down there. This is all you."
The only response Shadow deigned to give him was a roll of his eyes before vanishing in a flash of light. After his next blink Sorun saw that he was already down there, fighting alongside Blaze. It was good enough for him; he was pretty much dead weight here and he was fine not getting in the middle of that.
Nope, there was just no way. None. He was content to sit right up here on this hill and watch the fight. Maybe see some sick sights, far away and safe from all that fire and those explosions and people moving faster than he could see. Sorun wasn't having any of that. He was sitting right here.
"Oi, what is this!?" Sorun flinched when he heard that high-pitched voice go off in his ear once he actually did sit down. He looked to its source and was reminded of the raccoon girl that was with them. The one currently crossing her arms and frowning at him. "What, you're just gonna sit up here on your haunches while e'ryone else does all the fightin'!?"
"Yes. Exactly," Sorun unashamedly said, nodding his head. "Look, Mar... M, Big M, listen, see that?" He pointed down towards the fight. Towards Shadow and Metal blitzing past each other doing who knows what because Sorun couldn't make it out. "You probably can but I sure can't. Know what that tells me? It tells me I'm gonna get cut in half if I get clipped by the smallest thing." He looked back at raccoon girl. "Like literally, I can't see them moving. It's just a bunch of blurs I can't make out."
Specifically a blue blur, a black and red blur, and in Blaze's case it was less a purple blur and more a vaguely cat-shaped rocket covered in fire flying around. She was the only one he could actually make out because she didn't have the sheer fuck-off speed the other two had. But that's essentially what this fight looked like to him. A bunch of colors flitting around one another, throwing up sand and whatever else was in their path as they moved. It was the kind of fight completely imperceptible to the human eye. And as far as Sorun concerned that meant he needed to stay the hell away.
Apparently raccoon-whose-name-began-with-an-M wasn't as convinced. "Yeah, well... fine, y'might have a point there, mate, but I ain't gonna be sittin' 'ere doin' nothing while Blaze's down there fightin' for out lives or my name ain't Marine!"
"Marine, her name's Marine, remember that your social standing with these people will never survive if they find out you forgot," Sorun intensely thought. "Hey if you think you can do something then go for it, Marine, I'm not stopping you," he continued, "I'm just telling you that I don't have any special powers like the other two down there so the most I'd do is get in the way and-"
He'd only seen it because the fight itself seemed to pause to address it; a momentary lull of calm. Blaze had attempted a hit on Metal and it'd whiffed like every other hit she'd thrown at it. Only this time when the machine had hit back, the hit actually landed. Specifically it was a hard punch right to her jaw. A punch that had been delivered hard enough she'd been tossed backwards while her feet traced lines through the sand. Shadow'd managed to move behind her and catch her before she took a spill and fortunately she still seemed to be conscious. But she looked dazed from the hit, and it appeared Shadow holding her up was the only thing keeping Blaze from falling down.
"Oh. That thing just punched my new friend." It was remarkable how quickly Sorun had become infuriated seeing that. He'd gone completely still as a result, staring down at the village with an expressionless face. He could feel it happening again: the blood rushing quickly through him, sights and sounds sharpening, that feeling of pure anger being accompanied by that strange sense of being energized, of being awake. He felt great. And he felt extremely calm all of a sudden in addition.
More than that... when Metal and Shadow started to fight and trade blows again, he could almost make them out. It wasn't clear, the blurs of colors had upgraded merely to shapes, but it was an improvement. Tracking them with eyesight had gone from impossible to extremely difficult and impractical. But it was something.
Blaze was moving too, it seemed, which relieved Sorun a bit, but she was noticeably slower. He didn't know if that was because of the hit or if that was just his own perception working with Sorun. It didn't matter. He suddenly felt like going down there and doing something.
"Er... uh, Sorun?" Marine's voice drew Sorun's attention to the Mobian's face. She looked a bit creeped out at the moment, and had taken a step back. "Your eyes supposed to be doin' that? Glowin' all green and spooky? And what's goin' on with your hand?"
Sorun looked down at his right hand. The nails had elongated and sharpened again like last time, and had turned black. "Don't worry about it," he answered Marine, though the words didn't seem to take based on her expression. "Tell you what, though," he continued, beginning to stand up, "you make a fair point about sitting around and doing nothing while all that's happening. Even if it's just being a sitting target for a couple seconds I can probably buy them some kind of opening-"
Sorun had taken a single step forwards.
A single step forwards was all Sorun managed before it all came crashing down. His senses dulled, sounds becoming muffled and his sight blurring. Mind turning sluggish as his head began to swim. More worryingly he'd uncontrollably coughed out and a spray of blood splashed onto the ground in front of him. Marine had shouted out in fright and jumped back, looking down at the blood and then looking at at Sorun in worry. Sorun just stared down blankly at the blood as he noticed the nails on his hand shortened and went back to their normal color.
"Ah. Whoops." The edges of his vision were rapidly becoming black. He could barely hear his own breathing and everything was starting to blur further. Fortunately he tipped over and was about to fall on his face, so the ground being so close made it that much clearer. "That ain't ideal... huh..."
It certainly wasn't. He fell unconscious the moment his face hit the grass.
Space was not a void.
Space, for all its emptiness, had volume. Space contained planetary objects, stars, temperature, gasses, energy, and dimensions in its infinite expanse. These elements comprised a fraction of a fraction of the whole of space, true, but as a shadow was a shadow only by definition of the light that cast it so, to, was space defined by what it contained. The same was true for the universe as a whole. The same was true for the multiverse. It was just a difference of scale.
This was void. The deep blackness within this place was as vast as it was empty. An absolute void of nothing, absent of any dimension, and completely and utterly incomprehensible to anything even aware of such things. It was a place of absolutely nothing.
This was the innermost reaches of the mind of a thing born outside a world infested with Chaos energies filling every crevice in the facets of the world it touched.
This was home.
Lying there on the metaphorical ground of nothingness was Sorun, appearing asleep. Another Sorun completely identical to the first one stood over him. He didn't have much of an expression other than looking slightly annoyed as he stared down at Sorun.
"Hey. Hey, wake up." Sorun kicked at the sleeping Sorun's side. "Sorun, it's me. Listen I've been workshopping some thoughts out in the back of your subconscious, you wanna listen?"
"Hrmph...?" With an otherwise undignified snort Sorun's eyes slowly opened up. He slowly stood up, bleary look on his face, and rose his hands up to rub at his eyes to clear his vision. He quickly made a long-suffered, exhausted sigh when he saw where they were. "So that's how it is," he mumbled out as he looked up at Sorun again. "We died again?"
"Nah. We just passed out," Sorun answered. That was enough for Sorun - he collapsed back into laying on his back as he stared up at the infinite expanse of of nothingness. "Sorun, seriously, I've been thinking and we gotta talk."
"I have no desire to speak. Begone."
Sorun's expression tightened. It was no longer annoyance but a pensive look upon his face. He was clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to say. "Look, I... get, a few weeks back when we first noticed something was wrong with us, why you decided to just try and ignore it and hope it would go away. And I understood that and looked the other way because I figured we had enough problems and this one could be put on the backburner." Sorun rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing downwards at his feet with an awkward expression. "But we're spitting blood and passing out in front of people now. There's no hiding from that. Like literally none. I'm good with helping you come up with bullshit on the fly but I can't lie our way outta this one, man. We're sunk."
"..." Sorun rolled over to his other side. Sleep wasn't coming from him. "And?"
"And it's getting worse, man!" Sorun shouted. "I mean it was just little things at first, a weird feat of strength here and there that we shouldn't have been able to do, but then the green-eye thing kept getting more frequent and now we're growing claws and shit. I don't know why but it's happening and we can't even maintain it without falling flat on our face," he said. "Shit, we shouldn't have even been able to maintain it that first time over in that fucking castle if it weren't for that hit of Mobian blood, and even then you felt like shit after! It kept us up and gave us a power boost but fuck I think it made things even worse, man!"
The Sorunn lying down huffed out a breath, and then, with painstaking slowness, sat up into a sitting position, though made effort not to look at the standing Sorun. He shuffled some of his dark hair to hide a majority of his face. "You're obviously working up to some kind of point. State it already."
Sorun breathed out and rubbed at his face. "We need help, man," he mumbled, letting his hands fall to his side. "Like actual, professional help. We can't do this on our own. A doctor or some kind of Chaos energy specialist or something. 'Cause we can't keep going on like this."
He stopped and waited for the sitting Sorun to saw something in response. He didn't - just kept sitting there with his hair in his face, looking away from himself. It made Sorun make a clicking sound with his mouth out of impatience. He stomped over to him.
"Hey, this is fuckin' serious," he said as he crouched down in front of himself. "Alright? There's something wrong with us and-"
Oh. He'd seen what the problem was when Sorun brushed the hair away from Sorun's face. He was less sitting and more curled in on himself, holding his knees against his chest while looking down and away in an effort to look anywhere but at his own face. Mouth tightened into a thin line and skin paler than it should be. His eyes shaking as hard as the rest of his body. He looked terrified.
"It's fine," he whispered out in a small voice. "Nothing's wrong. We're fine, this isn't anything. It isn't getting worse. We're fine. We are. It will go away..."
"..." It was too hard to watch, so he simply didn't. Sorun had to turn his head so he wouldn't have to look. "Listen, I ain't gonna let us die-"
"Don't say things like us dying." He pulled on his knees tighter, drawing more of himself in. "Please. Not again. I don't want to go through this again..."
"... We ain't gonna-" Sorun cut himself off, frowning. He didn't much believe himself, not completely, not after everything they'd seen. But he had to convince himself somehow here. "Listen, it ain't like we've been scarfing down those Chaos Emeralds like last time, and there's a whole world of people who know way more 'bout this stuff than us," he said to himself. "It's something we're gonna have to confront anyways. Marine saw it, so she's gonna tell Blaze, and she'll tell Shadow and he ain't gonna leave it alone, so... you know, that's it. It's done. And maybe that's for the best, because we need to do something about this."
The Sorun sitting in front of him stopped shaking. That was a good step, but he still wouldn't look up and he still wouldn't drop the terrified look. And Sorun understood it. Felt the desire to ignore it, to not talk about or even address what was happening. To acknowledge that the reality of the situation was in fact reality. He couldn't not feel these things when they were on one mind. But it was also his responsibility to snap him out of this shit.
"We'll find someone. Alright? Maybe Quack over in New Mobotropolis, maybe someone else, dunno who, but someone who can help us," Sorun said. He'd put a hand over on Sorun's shoulder in some attempt to put him at ease. "We'll even find Finitevus and pin him to the wall if we get desperate enough. That prick owes us one."
The proclamation elicited a small chuckle out of Sorun. Another good sign. "That's something, I suppose." He finally looked up at his own face. "We'll be alright. Won't we?"
He had to be honest with himself. "No. We broke months ago and I've been working my ass off holding it all together. And things were getting easier until that fucking Scourge guy happened." They grasped hands, and Sorun pulled Sorun up so that they were both standing and at eye-level. "But that ain't your problem, don't worry about it. Physically speaking? Yeah. We're gonna fix this."
A small, broken smile formed on Sorun's face. He didn't believe himself for a moment. "With such a 'concise' plan such as that I have a hard time believing you. But I still appreciate it. Fine. We'll... proceed with trying to do something." His smile turned a bit wry. "You will just yell at me anyways until I do something otherwise."
"Yeah, well, someone has to. And you worry too much. When have we ever actually made anything as substantial as a plan?" Sorun scoffed at the mere thought. "Alright, now... assuming the whole Metal Sonic thing got taken care of and we're not about to have our head stomped on in our sleep we should be good to go. Just start movin' and we'll improvise from there."
The first thing Sorun noticed when he woke up - he was groggy and felt awful. At this point that was probably a good thing. Pain meant things were working. Back in the day he'd stopped feeling anything because Chaos energy had been wreaking so much havoc on him that bodily functions had slowly been starting to cease. Things certainly didn't feel "fine", but bad was better than catastrophic. For now.
The second thing he noticed was that he was in a bed. He didn't recognize the ceiling when he woke up. It was off-white plaster and nothing else. Opening his eyes further and sitting up didn't help much either. The room itself was pretty sparse aside from a small closet and a desk, nothing of which he recognized. There was a noticeable whiff of brine in the air, though, and moonlight was filtering in from a nearby window. When he moved out of the bed, thankfully confirming he still had his clothes, and moved to it he saw the ocean and the village from earlier down below. Thankfully not on fire this time.
So they were still on the Southern Island in Blaze's world. That was good. That there weren't fires anymore and somebody had carried him into a bed meant Metal Sonic probably wasn't a problem anymore, so that was the main problem deal with. That just left... the other issue.
With a sigh, Sorun moved away from the window and looked down at his own hand. It looked normal, which was a good enough sign. Normal-sized pale nails and all. He looked good; he felt awful. Sick. A familiar kind of sick. His body wasn't shutting down, not yet, but this was a familiar sickness nonetheless.
He shook his head and moved towards the door to the room. It lead out into a hallway - white stone lined the walls and there were enough candleholders with lit candles bolted to the surfaces that it may as well have been illuminated by lightbulbs. It looked "clean" for how archaic it looked, which had its own charm in Sorun's eyes. He didn't take too long to admire it, though, as he'd began walking down the hallway. Walking turned to stumbling. Stumbling, after a loud fit of coughs, turned to him collapsing against a wall.
"H-hey!"
Oh, a new voice. Blaze's. Sorun got to listen it as his back slid down the wall until he was sitting down, coughing blood into his hand. He saw the purple cat quickly move into his view and take a knee in front of him, stretching out her hands to help him but then pausing when she realized she didn't know how to help him. Her face was set in alarm. It was a large contrast from the quiet confidence he'd began to associate her with, or all that righteous fury she'd displayed from about two minutes 'til he'd passed out.
"Ahck, ahck...! O-oh, hey, Blaze..." He pulled his hand away from his mouth. It was heavily flecked with blood. "I ain't doin' too good."
"Yes, I can see!" She sounded about as worried as she looked. Finally having decided a course of action, she'd grabbed at his shoulder and helped to keep him up so he didn't fall down any further. "Sorun, what is this? What's wrong?"
"The... natural progression of life, I s'pose," Sorun muttered out in answered. "The inevitable end for all us Voidborn."
Still holding his shoulder, Blaze had blinked in confusion. "I-I don't follow. Voidborn?"
"It's a title that makes me sound cooler than I actually am, Blaze, the word 'void' automatically makes anything cooler if you add it," Sorun continued to mutter, chuckling mildly with bloodstained teeth. "I was... born outside the stars, Blaze. In the deep, inky black of nothingness. And I think this whole multiverse kind of hates me for that because it tries really hard to kill me all the time. Like it's spiteful over my mere existence."
"Please stop this line of thinking, it isn't helping." The cat squeezed his shoulder and roughly shook him, as if she were attempting to keep him awake and coherent. It got a bit of his blood flowing, so he didn't know, maybe it did. "I don't see any wounds on you, is this... what is this, some sickness?"
"Yeah. The sickness of life."
"You are not helping."
She didn't like metaphors apparently. Fair enough. Sorun barely tolerated them, too. "Chaos energy is poisonous to me and this is what happens when I get too much," he explained. "But I... haven't taken in any. I don't think. I don't, I don't know why this is happening."
Blaze leaned a bit away from Sorun. She still looked worried over him but there was a hint of skepticism in her expression. Disbelief. Like she couldn't believe what he said. "That... makes absolutely no sense. No, that can't be right," she said. "The energies of Chaos are intrinsic to everything. To life itself. To suggest something is otherwise is impossible. You-"
Mid-sentence her hand had alit with fire. Gentle yellow-orange flames. Not at all like the raging orange and red fireballs she'd been tossing at the robot earlier. She held the lit hand to Sorun's chest who'd stilled at being touched by fire, but all he felt was mild warmth from the fire's contact. And then Blaze had frozen.
"... You've no fire," she mumbled in realization. As the truth of what Sorun said just hit her, causing her hand to limply fall away from Sorun's chest as the flames die out. "You tell the truth...?"
"I love explaining this to people. They get so baffled every time," Sorun chuckled out. He couldn't help it; the look on her face was funny. "So is it Chaos fire or-?" he asked, looking down at her hand.
"No. Sol energy is a... derivative, for lack of a better term. One unique to this zone. Same in nature but different in form. It's... perhaps complicated, for those outside this world who are uninitiated," Blaze explained. "I was born with these abilities so I have an easier time grasping the concept. It's a power that binds this world together, quite literally, and regulated proper through the use of the Sol Emeralds. It's why I was chosen to look after this world - I'm the only one who can manifest the abilities needed to control and stabilize the Sol Emeralds. Which is quite hard when most of them are missing." She shook her head, looking concerned again. "But none of this is your problem. To have absolutely no connection to the Chaos Force..." She trailed off. She almost looked troubled at the implication. "Whether it's natural denizens of this world connected to the power of Sol energy or denizens of others worlds connected to Chaos energy, it doesn't matter. I can see that power flickering in everyone I see like a lit flame. Like a burning wick inside a candle. But with you it's like the wick is unlit, and yet still burns anyway. A wick sitting in an endless void of nothing instead of a candle. It makes no sense."
"Nothing about me makes sense," Sorun said. "But, uh, is my wick in particular really short or-?"
"There is no wick. The wick is a metaphor," Blaze snapped. She apparently did have a flair for them. "I don't know what I'm looking at with you. It's like I'm looking at a corpse."
The only break in the ensuing silence was the near-silent sputtering of all the nearby candles lighting the hallway. It carried on for a long series of moments as Blaze's brain seemed to catch up to the words that left her mouth, at which point she grew to look very uncomfortable. Sorun was so amused he could have laughed. He didn't, and he was thankful he managed to keep a straight face, but he was having a lot of fun right now. He didn't even need to tease her; she was doing it for him.
"Not that... you are a corpse, Sorun. I promise you I hadn't meant to imply anything." If she was flustered at all she was doing a great job hiding it, but that wary tone said enough. "Despite your condition," she continued, coughing off to the side. Politely.
"No hard feelings," Sorun assured her. It went a long way, apparently, because Blaze's shoulders visibly relaxed when he said it. "But I get it."
"'Get it?'"
"Your whole Sol deal. Chaos energy turning into something else, another form of energy. Your fire. I think that's its hallmark: that it can turn into anything. Why it's called 'Chaos', I guess, though the only other time I've seen it is..."
With him. When he absorbed Chaos Emeralds and twisted their power into demonic energy with the powers he'd used to have. Things like the Yamato that'd always felt wrong to anybody he'd come near it with, especially those sensitive to Chaos energy. They always looked at it like it was a leper. Like they couldn't comprehend what that power was other that it felt wrong. Blaze was the same, except this fire seemed to be a natural facet of this world. A uniquity, as she'd said. Only difference was one of them had a link and could handle the power and one didn't and couldn't, and humanity drew the short end of that stick it seemed.
"... Look, don't think too hard about it, Blaze," Sorun told her. "It is what it is. Can't change it as much as you can't change having those powers. 'S just a part of us. 'Cept mine kills me."
"..." The ears on top of Blaze's head lowered halfway. A look of understanding and resignation formed. "Could you not just go back to wherever you come from? Surely there-"
"Can't. Not an option," Sorun immediately said. "I don't want to talk about it, Blaze, just don't ask."
"Very well. I won't." Blaze helped to pull Sorun up to his feet. He'd managed with her help. The sickness was starting to recede, at least for now. It seemed to come and go. "Is there anything I could possibly do to help you?"
"Nah. Not really," Sorun answered honestly. That answer only seemed to dishearten Blaze more. "There're doctors and specialists in the Prime Zone I can try going to. I'm not holding out hope, though. I'm not supposed to exist here. Total uncharted territory. Nobody really knows what to do with me."
"Then... we should perhaps be getting you home now." Blaze had grown a bit quieter by now. A look a bitter acceptance on her face that was quickly hidden when she turned around and began walking down the hall, long purple tail trailing behind her. "This way, please. Follow me."
Sorun did so. Quietly at first, hands casually tucked in his pocket as he stared after her back. He'd grown bored after a minute and began looking around, though in the hallway there wasn't much to glance until they'd crossed a window that gave another view of the island.
"So what happened with Metal Sonic?" Sorun asked as they passed the window. They'd come to a door; Blaze had opened it to reveal a spiral staircase that she began to take downwards, with Sorun following in tow. "I assume my head not getting crushed like a grape in my sleep means that you won."
"Graphic description aside, yes," Blaze replied, not even so much as flinching from Sorun's words as they climbed down the stairs. "We'd lured it in front of our ship and Marine destroyed it with one of the ship's cannons. That zone-traversing engine Shadow had mentioned was unfortunately destroyed with the rest of the machine, though as promised I'd given him the Chaos Emerald left to me by Sonic." She glanced up and over her shoulder at Sorun as they continued to descend. "He stayed behind to wait for you. He seemed worried."
"Mh." Sorun glanced off to the side. "I guess I have you to thank for putting me in a bed after passing out like a loser?"
"Yes. Though I'd prefer you not belittle yourself over a medical condition you can't control." She looked back forwards. "Marine told me you'd begun to display some sort of power and expressed a desire to help before you became overwhelmed and passed out. A bed was the least I owed you."
Sorun scoffed. "She tell you how I tried to cower out of the fight?"
"I can't blame you for not wanting to get involved with a foe that gave me of all people trouble, Sorun. It wasn't your place anyways. While I'm grateful for Shadow's and Marine's help, it was my people that thing was accosting and entirely my responsibility to deal with." They'd made it to the bottom of the staircase. There wasn't much there. Just a small, circular room and a doorway in front of them. "But," she continued, placing a hand on the door while looking back at Sorun, "I can appreciate you at least attempting something despite the obvious personal risk. So you have my thanks for that much at least."
The small smile she'd gave him was a genuinely honest one and it forced him to glance away from her again all bashful-like. He didn't manage to formulate a response as she opened the door. Fresh air and sea breeze instantly hit his face as the two stepped out. When they'd exited Sorun had looked up and behind him to see the small tower he'd first seen when they sailed to the Southern Island to begin with looming overhead. Looking ahead he saw the base of the tower was situated on a large hill. There was a guardrail circulating the perimeter of the tower a few meters out and a small footpath to the side that lead down into the small village below.
"So everything alright down there?" Sorun asked when he looked to the village. "It looked pretty bad before."
"All things considered the damages were fairly moderate and the people only suffered minor injuries," Blaze answered, sounding both relieved and exhausted at her own words. She'd leaned forwards against the guardrail circling the tower, folding her arms under her while looking out in the same direction Sorun was. "It shouldn't take too long for things here to return to normal order. The people here are no strangers to danger."
"Okay." He took a position right next to Blaze against the guardrail and adopted the exact same leaning position she was using. "Wow, so you have to take care of this whole planet, huh?" He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. "That's a whole lot of responsibility I don't even wanna try imagining. You don't even look that old."
"I'm seventeen years old for your information," she responded, almost sounding defensive. "It's plenty old."
"Yeah, I'm seventeen, too, and the most responsibility I have to worry about is my delivery job."
"There's no reason to be ashamed over that," Blaze said. "In this world couriers are highly sought after for their services. They're required to brave harsh storms, pirates, and other such dangers in order to transport packages from one island to the next. I hear the mental stress alone can be tolling, but they persevere regardless since everyone is dependent on what they deliver. It's one of the most respected professions one can have here."
"Uh... yeah, I usually don't have to deal with any of that," Sorun lamely responded. What else was he supposed to say? He just teleported everywhere. He was paid for a unique skill, not how labor-intensive his job was. Meanwhile apparently all the couriers here were fighting for their lives to deliver whatever. It made him not want to meet one; he wasn't sure he'd be able to look them in the eyes.
"Oh?" Blaze looked to him with a curious look. "The one time I'd ever gone to Mobius Prime it had been infested with machines terrorizing the populace. Is this not a pressing concern anymore?"
"It's getting better," Sorun admitted. "I don't really know the details, though. I just deliver stuff."
"Ah..." Blaze tapped at the guardrail a few times and looked down towards the village. She searched for something new to say and seemed to fail. "Shadow is waiting for you down below. You're both free to leave at your earliest convenience."
"Oh, alright. Cool."
She looked back at Sorun. The easygoing expression she'd grown fell back into looking a bit concerned again. "Are you certain you're going to be alright?" she asked. "If you're too unwell to be traveling I wouldn't object to you staying to recuperate-"
"Nah, I'll be fine," Sorun lied, "really. And you sound like you have a bunch of stuff going on so I'm gonna hit the road." He pushed off the guardrail and stuck his hands back in his pockets. "Good luck with the whole Sol Emerald thing. Hope it pans out alright. I hear losing a world can really mess a guy up."
He maneuvered around Blaze to make his way towards the nearby footpath. He turned his torso back to her to wave in goodbye, with Blaze reciprocating the wave with one of her own. There hadn't been a smile on her face. More a neutral expression now than anything else, though the ghost of some worry had still been present in her eyes. At least until Sorun had walked far enough away he couldn't really make her face out anymore. It was more or less just a blob of purple and white now.
At that point Sorun'd turned away and made his way into the village. Things were calmer now than the last time he'd laid eyes on it. He saw that koala from earlier, the one being held by the neck, at a carpenter's table nearby sawing a plank of wood near one of the more burned-out houses. And a... completely identical koala pass by carrying some building supplies. In fact the more Sorun looked around the more he realized it was only koalas here. There were at least a dozen or so of them around, doing their own thing. A few had glanced his way and waved and the most Sorun could do was wave back as he continued walking.
"Huh, alright." It was mildly interesting after having lived in a city populated by a such diverse spread of species for so long, but the interest had completely faded after a few seconds as his search for Shadow continued. It wasn't that hard a search - he was leaning his back against the outside of a small shop-looking place, looking at something palmed in his hand.
The hedgehog looked up when Sorun approached. On a first glance he looked irritated to Sorun's eyes. Extremely so. He was also fidgeting around with whatever he was holding in his hand, almost obsessively. Whatever it was output a soft green glow.
"Would you mind telling me why it seems like you're sick again?" That was the first thing Shadow asked when Sorun stopped in front of him. He was staring straight into his eyes. "No lies or vagaries. I'm in no mood."
Sorun gave him a nonchalant shrug. "I dunno. Maybe the world hates me. Maybe marinating in the Master Emerald for a couple decades didn't do wonders for my health. You act like I have concrete answers here."
The irritation in Shadow's eyes lessened greatly. He looked down into whatever he was holding, shuffling a bit against the wall. "... How long?"
"Noticed a few weeks ago. Small things. A few physical feats here and there that were weirdly easy. On and off bouts of weakness. The eye and hand thing Marine probably told you about's way more recent."
Shadow's hand squeezed down. He looked irritated again, but when he spoke out his voice didn't nearly sound as harsh as his face looked. "You didn't say a single thing. Why?" he demanded.
"... I just didn't." It was bad enough he wasn't able to meet Shadow's eyes when he looked up at him and had to look away, but he wasn't sure what else to say. It was the honest truth. Not something that could be elaborated on further.
But apparently Shadow did want further elaboration, because he didn't look satisfied with it at all. The irritation visible on his face deepened as his mouth creased into a thin line and his eyes narrowed. "You could have at least told someone-"
"Tell them what?" Sorun asked. He himself was growing irritated at the questions. "This? What are they supposed to say, what is anyone supposed to do about this, Shadow? About me?" Sorun asked, throwing a hand up in frustration. "Most people that know stuff about Chaos energy take one glance at me and call me a walking contradiction or whatever, my biology isn't a thing in this entire multiverse!" he shouted. "And you know it was, it was easier pretending nothing was wrong because at least then I could hope it would just go away, but it's not, it's getting worse and I can't do anything about it!"
He was panting when he finished yelling; Shadow was staring at him in surprise, even in a bit of worry. Sorun knew why: his eyes were probably green again. The heightened senses and feeling to renewed strength was a dead giveaway. The green light bouncing off his right hand when he held it up to his face was another large sign. So were the black fingernails on that hand.
And then the light cut off, and color started to bleed back into the nails. And then Sorun wobbled on his feet again as a surge of weakness shot through him, and he felt a bit of dampness on his upper lip as a line of blood dripped out of his nose. All sense of anger completely faded from Shadow's face, as he just looked alarmed now. Alarmed enough he'd even taken a few steps towards Sorun for fear he'd fall over, but stopped when he managed to stay on his feet.
Panting, Sorun took his right hand away from his face. It was shaking slightly; he wasn't sure why. He looked back at Shadow who could only stare. "You see what I mean? I-it's getting more frequent and you see what it does to me after," he muttered out. "What happens if it just starts turning on and off at random? What if it gets to a point where it's permanently on? How long until I die if that happens?"
"Do you..." Shadow hesitated, refusing to look away from Sorun. His mouth was silently moving like he was trying to figure out what to day. "Sorun, you can't leave this alone."
"I know I can't." Surprise showed in the hedgehog's face. "I'm not telling you all this to be fatalistic, Shadow, I... I'm genuinely asking you what I'm supposed to do here. 'Cause I don't know."
Shadow didn't have an answer, either. It was obvious. Sorun knew him long enough to know he was the kind of person that would have said something immediately if there were some sort of magic answer to all his problems. But all he did was stare without saying a word, which was enough for Sorun to know. He was just as lost as he was with what to do.
Eventually Shadow began rolling around whatever was in his palm again. This time Sorun had caught a quick glance of it. A green Chaos Emerald. Not the green one he was accustomed to. This one was smaller, its surface less lustrous and its shine more dim. And he could almost feel it was... lesser so than that actual Emerald he held in the past. One of the hundreds of thousands that'd been fused into one of the seven, now eight, Emeralds that had somehow wound up in Blaze's world before it'd been fused with the rest.
"... You could," Shadow began, and Sorun knew he must have been wracking his brain if it was taking him this long to say something, "come back with me. To G.U.N. There are... specialists under their employ who could potentially look at you. The same ones who have been studying the Chaos Emeralds we have."
The idea wasn't the most appealing one Sorun had heard of. "I'm not really sure-"
"By all means tell me what else you have in mind," Shadow interrupted, tone a bit snappish. "Because it's either try there or go back to the doctors in New Mobotropolis, and they were of little help to you the first time around. I'm not saying they'll have any answers for you, either, but you asked me for help and this is all I can offer."
"I don't know, Shadow, that's..." Hopeful. Something. Anything to grasp onto, and yet Sorun still wasn't so sure. "H-how long would I have to stay there?" he asked. "Would they even let me? Is that something you can even ask them to do?"
"I have some sway, but beyond that..." Shadow's eyes drifted away from Sorun. In a random direction, really, though they seemed to eventually focus onto the Emerald for nothing else than to have something to look at. "It could be floated that you were instrumental with my mission here retrieving this and that you requested these examinations as compensation. It's within my power as an agent to authorize such things. There wouldn't be any issues."
Sorun felt surprised hearing that. "You'd really just lie to them like that?"
"It's not a lie strictly speaking. You did fish me out of that ocean," Shadow said. "Technically there's nothing stopping you from making such a request at this moment and me approving it. It's not something I would normally do but these are extenuating circumstances and you evidently need the help."
"Okay." A hand found its way to Sorun's forehead. It was colder than he was used to, the hand or the forehead, he wasn't sure which. He was pretty sure he'd been sweating at some point but he didn't feel hot at all. "Okay, okay say I agree to this, you, what, you just teleport us back to the base and- seriously, how long?"
"A few days, I doubt it'd even take a week," he answered. "Sorun, I'm not saying this to give you some sense of false hope, I genuinely don't know if they can help you, but... well." He looked up from the Emerald and back at Sorun. He looked more reserved now, his default expression: a neutral look with slightly narrowed eyes. And yet, strangely, he wasn't staring as harshly as he normally did. "Isn't it worth at least trying? For your sake? Or if not that then at least for the sake of people that care about you?"
"... Just gimme a sec, would you?" Sorun mumbled. He didn't even stop to look if Shadow gave him some sort of affirmation, a nod or anything like that. If he said anything Sorun hadn't heard it. He'd just turned around on his feet, arms crossed and eyes at his feet as he thought.
It did sound good, admittedly. Not hopeful. He wasn't sure a bunch of Overlander scientists could tell him anything the Mobians over in New Mobotropolis hadn't told him in the past, which was quite literally nothing, but he'd been surprised before. A total shot in the dark was still a shot. An option to exhaust. A potential way forwards. If Shadow could take care of it all he stood to lose was some time.
The fact he'd have to spend time away, though, was what was causing him hesitation. He didn't want to spend a few days at some government facility. He just wanted to go home, crawl into his bed, and sleep this away. To be near the people that cared about him, people he felt like he needed right now. But then he had to acknowledge the main issue: that this wasn't going away and the option of ignoring it was long past. He didn't want to ignore it anymore. He wasn't sure why - he just felt the strong urge to do something about this.
"G.U.N., though, I dunno, I guess... I guess if everyone's cool with them and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong, it'd, it'd be fine. I think." He somewhat trusted Shadow, and he said they were trustworthy. None of the friends he trusted never actually said anything bad against them. It was hard to pit those opinions against his personal bias formed from opinions on Earth governments, but desperate times. "Sounds like a really low risk plan, and I need something here. And Nicole's gonna get super pissed at me for hiding this for so long so it gets me a few days to work out how I'm gonna deal with that. That alone's probably reason enough to go."
He glanced at his hand again. Everything looked normal. He looked from the hand and at Shadow. He was still staring, expectantly. "Fuck it. What've I got to lose?" Sorun decided. He'd sighed out loud while looking up at the nighttime sky. "I've gained lots since I lost it all. A new life. Home. Community. People that'd actually care if I died. And I don't want to lose that all again. And I have responsibilities aside." He flipped his hand over, palm pointing towards the sky as Sorun continued to speak. "After all I promised Silver I would take him back to the future when his whole thing is settled. And Honey'll complain forever if the guy she has transport her product everywhere kicks it. I can't do any of these things dead. So if you wanna have a bunch of G.U.N. scientists poke and prod me in the hope they can fix whatever's wrong with me then whatever, let's do it."
"It won't be that dramatic." Somehow when Shadow said that it sounded negatively reassuring, but perhaps that was just Sorun's nerves speaking on the matter. "But I think you're making the right choice."
"Great, glad we got that settled." Sorun began reaching for the miniature Emerald in Shadow's hand. "Just gimme that thing real quick and I can cut us a way to-"
"I," Shadow interrupted, holding the Emerald out from Sorun's grasp, "am going to use this to teleport us to the base, at which point I will hand it over to my superior and we can get on with trying to save you."
Sorun froze halfway to reaching for the Emerald. He pouted at it having been taken from him, then pulled his arm back while moodily stating, "Fine, we'll do it your way. The boring, official way. Pfft."
"It's not that I don't trust you. It's that this Chaos Emerald is G.U.N. property now and you being seen with it as opposed to me would not look well," Shadow said. "Just grab onto my shoulder and we'll be on our way."
He wasn't going to argue the point. It was very clear in his tone and Sorun didn't feel like trying to budge the matter, so he simply rolled his eyes and clamped a hand down on his shoulder. "You gonna shout your big lame 'Chaos Control!' thing?"
"I do it to help me focus." Green light began to condense around the Emerald. He glanced at Sorun. "You take objection to it?"
"I mean, it... like it was this whole trope on Earth, you know? People shouting their attacks or whatever in shows and whatnot."
Shadow blinked. Slowly. "Trope?"
"Yeah, and it became so popular that it became lame in the eyes of the masses. It basically became a huge joke in most circles," Sorun explained. "And it's just so extra, you know? And a big tell to whoever you're fighting. You never heard me shout something like 'Spiral Swords, go!' when I was running around back then. I just did it. But if you need the mental focus to pull this off don't let me stop you, man, it's cool."
"..." Shadow looked at the Chaos Emerald with considering eyes. He looked at Sorun. And then he looked at the Emerald again. "We'll be teleporting momentarily. Prepare yourself."
"Not gonna shout your thing?"
"I don't need to shout 'my thing', Sorun, verbal commands are unnecessary."
"Don't need the focus?"
Shadow's grip on the Chaos Emerald tightened as a look of intense concentration settled on his face. The gem's glow intensified. "I'm not some beginner who needs to rely on mental tricks to focus their abilities, and if you say one more word about it I will remind you of the time you were learning to teleport and kept slamming into trees."
The both of them vanished on the spot in a flash of green-yellow light before the smarmy retort could breeze past Sorun's lips.