Recursion Error

by Writer's Domino

"I mean, my life was pretty great until I got shanghaied into the global furry resistance from another universe."

98. Chapter 98

Recursion Error

Episode 98- PV

---

The cold here was blistering. It was familiar.

Winters back home had been brutal. Summers, too, but from how Sorun heard it the heat was even worse in the southern parts of America during those times. He wouldn't know for sure - had simply never been. He knew for a fact they had it worse in the winter, though. Those southern parts, some didn't even get snow in the winter. There in the north? In walking distance from Canada? The winters were blistering. So he and everyone else who lived there in Detroit simply got used to the cold.

Somehow this frozen mountaintop wasn't as cold. But maybe that was just Sorun.

So G.U.N.'s main base of operations were still up in the mountains. He'd been here once, briefly, but he hadn't stayed nearly long enough to appreciate it. And now after all this time he didn't care enough to appreciate it. The window he was staring out of was nothing but a vista of white-capped mountains, blue sky, and snow fluttering in his field of vision. It may as well have all been static and noise.

Three days. Three days of staying here, of answering questions, examinations, tests, prodding. All for fucking nothing.

---

"Well, heeeey there! You must be my new patient! Am I right or am I right, mm?"

"Y-yeah, um, yeah, I'm Sorun," he greeted, a bit nervously as his legs swung freely on the examination bed. The room he was in almost exactly looked like the kind of examination room one would find in a hospital on Earth, down to the back countertop with jars of miscellaneous medical stuff lying on top, the charts everywhere, and the anatomically correct human torso with half its skin flayed off sitting in the corner over there.

The woman was his doctor. The person G.U.N. told him would look at him to see what was wrong with him. A woman with a deep tan and... green hair. It wasn't dyed. He could tell just by looking. It was just naturally green. And her expression was near-uncomfortable levels of bright.

"Well hey, guy, don't be shy, you're in good hands." She gave him a playful little punch on the shoulder and then practically flew back in the rolling stool she was sitting in. "It's just, you know, gosh. It's not everyday I get to examine someone with ancient DNA that never got warped by the gene bombs. And when I heard you were from another universe? I was like, 'aaah!' and everything!" She made a bubbly little giggle and looked down at the clipboard she was holding. "And... what was it you were hoping to have looked at, exactly?"

"Yeah, it's... ahem." He had to take a moment to compose himself. He'd been coming in here expecting someone cold and clinical and got the exact opposite. It was nearly overwhelming, actually, and Sorun needed to take a moment to compose himself. "So, uh... Chaos energy. I can't deal with it. I mean I can USE it in enough amounts but, er, well it's pretty much poison, too. And I haven't, uh, absorbed is the word to use, I guess, absorbed any as far as I know but there was, you know, this one moment I may have been exposed, maybe, I dunno if that's what did it or not and... jeez, lemme just show you."

Control of it. He had that now, somewhat. He found it could still trigger on its own if tempers flared enough, strong emotional outbursts and the such. But he could consciously bring it forth now. Make his eyes glow that eerie green color that sharpened all his senses and made that surge of strength flow through him.

The doctor made an "aahhh...!" sound, olive-colored eyes wide as plates as she looked. Sorun only held it for a moment; after it dropped and his eyes went back to blue a stream of blood started pouring from his nose. She made a startled noise akin to a squawking chicken, rolled towards a drawer, and frantically rifled through it before taking out a tissue and rolling back to Sorun to give it to him. He mumbled out a thanks and held it up to his nose.

It was draining. So draining. Just because he had a modicum of control over it didn't take away from the fact it felt like it was draining the life out of him.

"So as you can see I can do that now," Sorun mumbled out. "I shouldn't be able to do that. And it's... it's been getting easier and easier to 'turn on', I guess you could call it, and I'm worried it'll get to a point I won't be able to turn it off. And, and doc whatever this is, this power, I can't handle it, it literally feels like it's killing me every time this happens. I bleed all over the place, I passed out for hours last time when I had it one for, I don't even know, it was like thirty seconds. I need it out of me, whatever this is."

"OKAY, that's... wow. Wow wow wow, yeah, that's a lot to process." The doctor was biting her lower lip, looking at him and then glancing down at her clipboard. "Sorun I should mention I am G.U.N.'s, really the UF's as a whole, foremost expert in the science and study of Chaos energies, but this is completely unprecedented territory. Not that we won't try!" she quickly assured him. "I can promise you that we will use every single tool as our disposal to try and solve whatever this is."

"Alright..." Sounded good to him. Great, even. It was the first bit of hope he'd heard in a while. "So am I looking at a physical examination, some bloodwork, what are we doing?"

With a large smile the doctor rolled right up to him. She already had an empty syringe in her hand. "Yes, yes, and yes to all that, Sorun, yes and more. Oh, arm, please." He did so, having rolled up his sleeves so she could get at the skin underneath. "So I don't wanna sound weird or anything when I say that this is a really great research opportunity, is that weird, it's not weird, is it?" she asked as she rubbed at a spot on his arm with an alcohol-soaked cloth. "It's just that there's so many unanswered questions around Chaos energy so when something so interesting like you with such a unique reaction-"

"It's great, I'm sure," Sorun interrupted, "but how long exactly-?"

The needle was gently inserted into his arm. "Hard to say, Sorun. Gotta know what I'm lookin' at first!" she brightly replied. The glass tube she was holding began to fill with a crimson liquid. "First thing's first I need to get this down to the labs for analysis, and while that's cooking I'll come back and we can get all the boring health questions out of the way, m'kay?"

---

"When does it end when does it end when does it end?" More snow drifting in his field of vision, in this window that took up the entire wall of this room. All the white, sometimes it hid the mountaintops in the background. Sometimes when the snow cleared up they weren't mountains but burnt-out buildings, distorted and misshapen. Twisted hunks of metal and broken glass shaped like mountains. And then they were mountains again. The damn snow made it hard to see. His eyes shaking in his skull, irises moving around erratically, unnaturally and inhumanly fast, all made it so damn hard to see.

The edges of the glass was breaking, cracking. Closing in on him. Everything was cracking.

He took in a breath, startled to find that he just realized he'd been holding it. Sorun blinked. The window was pristine - not a single crack to be seen. Military base like this Sorun wouldn't be surprised to learn it was some kind of reinforced glass, so why would it be cracked? And the sights beyond the snow were nothing but mountains. Made sense. Why would there be anything else but mountains?

"Mh..." His skin was itching. Badly. "Need a soda."

He turned around. This part of the base was a "lounge" for the soldiers on base here. Calling it a lounge didn't do it much justice, though. It was multiple rooms separated by glass walls that would have been a dream to live in. One room was a bunch of couches and sofas centered around a wall-mounted TV, another room was practically a bar. They had a room entirely devoted to a ping pong table, with a couple Overlander soldiers going at it right now. A kitchen, too, which was where Sorun immediately went to. Straight to the fridge was where he went.

The prize was there. The soda. Some brand of Overlander cola, he didn't bother reading it. He'd immediately ripped the cap off and threw the warped piece of metal in the garbage as he chugged the bottle's contents.

... It helped a little. Made the itching go away at least. The flavor was familiar but not quite the same. The burn of the carbonated liquid going down his throat wasn't quite as intense as the stuff back home, or even the Mobian brand, but hell, it was something. Something to take the edge off. Calmed him down a bit, let him think.

He looked up from the bottle. The two Overlander soldiers playing at the ping pong table, looking almost human but not quite, they weren't being subtle about sneaking glances his way. He cared a little, but not enough to actually confront them about it. All the soldiers and staff here, Sorun did his best to stay out of their way as much as possible. He got the impression they didn't really care about him or why he was here, though, which suited him fine. Just a guest here. Just a guest. A guest.

Guest guest guest.

There was a rapid clinking sound as Sorun rapidly drummed his fingernails against the now-empty glass bottle. He threw it in the nearby recycling can, hearing a quiet crashing sound - the bottle had probably broken from him throwing it so hard. He left the kitchen anyways, putting it out of his mind. He wasn't sure he liked this room. Too many bright lights. Too many people he couldn't stand to be around.

That would have been it right there and Sorun would have left if he hadn't heard it - a rustle. There, in one of the nearby cabinets. His footsteps had halted dead once the sound reached his ears and his eyes twitched over to the location of the sound. It was a standard setup: a counter with a sink, inlaid oven, and other appliances, lined with cabinets below the counter's surface and even more counters above it bolted to the wall. He'd heard the sound from one of the lower cabinets. The far one, furthest from the sink.

"A mystery." A diversion was welcome, even if it was a momentary one. He couldn't imagine it was a rodent of some kind, not in this kind of location. And with his current mood Sorun just couldn't resist, so he'd stalked over to the cabinet as quiet as he could. He'd slinked right up to the cabinet door, set in a crouch and eyes trained right at the handle. There were no sounds or signs of movement. Nothing. But he had heard a sound here. And he couldn't resist. Not when there could be anything in that cabinet.

He reached out and opened the cabinet door.

The mystery proved to be a short one because it was just a girl in there. Around ten or twelve, somewhere around there. An Overlander girl with skin almost as light as his, blonde hair, and eyes a brighter blue than his. She was folded in there, back against the inner cabinet wall and her legs pressed tight enough against her chest they were practically pushing against the cabinet's ceiling. She was staring right at Sorun, eyes wide and shocked. There was a half-eaten chocolate bar in her mouth.

"..." Profound disappointment radiated in Sorun upon the revelation it was just a girl in here and not something cool. He did reach out without a word and take the chocolate bar out of her mouth, though - she'd made a sound halfway between a squeak and a hiccup in surprise when he took it. Most of the chocolate's wrapper was still on it, so once he'd drew it close he turned the chocolate bar around to get a good look at the label. It read "G.U.N. FORCES FIELD RATION" on the front in big block letters and nothing else.

"Hmm." An army chocolate ration. He'd heard some armies even on Earth fielded such a thing but had never seen one before. There wasn't more he could observe from it. It looked like a normal chocolate bar and nothing else. So he'd reached back over and directly but the bar back into the now confused girl's mouth, right where he'd found it. Her eyes were darting around now out of bewilderment, and she'd made muffled sounds when the chocolate was put back. Sorun ignored it all and closed the cabinet door again.

After the door was closed Sorun remained there, crouched quietly in front of the cabinet door. He stared at the door in quiet consideration, motionless, as still as a statue. A secret girl wasn't nearly interesting enough to investigate, but that chocolate bar. He wondered how its taste compared to other kinds of chocolate he'd had on this world. He wanted to know. Needed to.

A decision reached, Sorun opened the cabinet door again. The girl was still there, her body jolting and then freezing when she realized he was still there and opened the door back up. The chocolate bar in her mouth was smaller than the last time he'd seen it.

The length mattered little. Questions needed to be answered, so once again he slowly reached out and removed the chocolate bar from her mouth once again. She let him, or more accurately she was just too confused to know how to react based on the look on her face. After he pulled the chocolate bar Sorun spoke.

"This any good?" he asked. His voice was monotone and toneless.

"H-huh?" The girl blinked, like him asking that had been the last thing she'd expected to hear. Maybe she hadn't expected him to say anything and was just surprised words came out of his mouth. She stuttered a bit and was making an effort to look anywhere but at Sorun's face. "It's, uh, it's... yeah, it's good."

"I heard stories where I come from that military chocolate is pretty terrible. You a liar?"

She squinted one of her eyes and tilted her head as much as the confined space she was in allowed, and her mouth dropped open a bit. "No...?" She reached out, tentatively. Slender hands snatched the chocolate bar out of his hand and pulled it back to her body's owner. She turned it around a bit in her hands, and after a moment's consideration flipped it over to the unbitten end. She removed the wrapper completely and broke off one of the sectioned pieces at the end that hadn't been contaminated by her mouth juices. "You want some?"

Yes. "Yes." His hand reached out, but stopped just short of grabbing the tiny square. And then his fingers moved, rapidly wiggling and flexing at a speed that human eyes would have a difficult time keeping up with. It squigged the girl out and caused her to cringe back a bit, but before she could have second thoughts about the chocolate Sorun snatched it and popped it in his mouth.

Tasted like shit.

"It's trash," he announced. It wasn't melting right on his tongue and it had the consistency of chalk. He didn't even try to savor it. He just broke it up with his teeth and swallowed the pieces as fast as he could so he didn't have to deal with it. The acrid taste was lingering on his teeth.

And now the girl was pouting. She took a large bite out of the chocolate, as if to spite Sorun's review. He wondered why the taste wasn't killing her. "It's not that bad," she nervously mumbled out, pout melting away much quicker than the chocolate from Sorun's intense, unceasing stare.

"There's a small chocolate shop in Station Square that sells decent chocolate. I went there sometimes while on runs." He hadn't moved an inch since finding the secret cabinet girl. He hadn't blinked once. "There's a chocolatier that lives in New Mobotropolis, too, and her stuff is pretty great. It's hard to get cocoa beans out there, though, so she never makes a lot."

He'd been considering talking with that woman at some point to offer a hand of help in exchange for some of that chocolate. That was before the fucking pizza incident. Before this. Chocolate was one of the last things on his mind now.

"Okay?" The girl took another bite of the chocolate, somehow. "Well, it's hard to get good chocolate up in the mountains."

"That makes sense." He stood up, stepping back from the cabinet to give the girl space. "Vacate that space and converse with me further, cabinet girl."

He heard the girl mumble something to herself and then heard some more shuffling. The girl had climbed out of the cabinet, closing the door behind her. She was shorter than him by a few inches - this pleased Sorun. She also wore the most normal clothes Sorun had seen in this world. A simple black shirt, some jeans and sneakers.

It's because of that Sorun didn't say anything, even after she began to look at him expectantly, munching on the last of that evil candy. Because her clothes and face made her completely indistinguishable from a normal girl one would see on Earth. He felt something seeing her, but nostalgia wasn't the right word. The feeling Sorun felt looking at this girl felt more like phantom pain than nostalgia. Like somebody had decapitated his head and he still felt it.

"Can you please stop being so creepy...?" She must have been starving beforehand, because Sorun had no idea how she'd managed to finish that chocolate otherwise. The blonde girl balled the wrapper up and stuffed it in her pocket, and then continued with, "Seriously, what do you want?"

The question snapped Sorun out of the small fugue he'd been in. For the first time since meeting her he blinked, and that one action alone somehow managed to make the girl visibly relax a bit. "Why were you hiding in the cabinet there like some kind of chocolate gremlin?" Sorun asked in his blank tone, pointing to the cabinet door.

"I'm not a... who even says that?" The girl's eyes narrowed up at Sorun's face, like she was trying and failing to decipher some kind of puzzle. She eventually gave up and shook her head, continuing with, "Well... we're only allowed so much of that chocolate on a monthly basis and I get in trouble if I'm seen eating a lot. So I just... you know. Sometimes take some without anyone knowing."

"... Life on a military base sure seems strict," Sorun concluded. The girl wordlessly nodded, looking closely at him while nervously holding her arm with the other. "But now that begs the question what a girl is doing- oh, you're Hope. I've heard of you," Sorun realized. Now he recognized her. She was the girl he'd caught a glance of the least time he was here on Guardian Mountain, after helping liberate Station Square.

"Yeah..." The girl, Hope, nodded at Sorun again. Looking back at the scant few descriptions he'd heard of her Sorun supposed he should have recognized her sooner. "You're that guy Shadow brought back, right? The one he said he wanted the doctors to all look at?"

"That one. Yes."

"Oh. Ahem." She cleared her throat and rocked a bit back and forth on her feet. "So, er, is everything alright with you?"

"..."

---

Day two of this place and Sorun was beginning to become a bit unsure.

These kinds of things took time. He understood that. It was understandable. And he realized asking for so much when they had so little information was a lot, and he also understood that, but he also understood his life was potentially in danger.

But he hadn't heard anything. Not a single thing, no diagnosis, no treatment options, not even any speculation. Just days of listening to this woman drone on and on.

"You need more blood...?"

"That's right, Sorun!" She was smiling so brightly that the harsh lighting in this room was truly glinting off it. It made him wince. It was like staring at a flash bang go off. "A lot of guys in the labs have been going head over tails over all the data you've been giving us! Oh, and everything else, the x-rays and deep scan readings, a lot of your biometrics, you're just... so much different on a biological level to us Overlanders, I could go on for days!"

He'd rather she didn't. He'd rather she give him what he came for. Answers. "That's nice," he quietly mumbled out. "Um... could we please talk about-?"

"I know, I know, you're worried about your condition." She practically jammed that needle into his arm. Sorun didn't so much as flinch. "Actually, that's... the thing, you know, we-"

"I don't know," Sorun interrupted. "I came to you precisely because I don't know."

"It's just a lot of data to sift through, Sorun, we've been doing a lot of tests and-"

"What data, why do you..." He sputtered out and gestured to the syringe being filled with his own blood. "This is the eighth syringe of blood you've taken from me," he pointed out. "Why do you need so much?"

The doctor made a hum as she removed the needle. "If you really wanna know I have some staff doing genetic analysis on your samples, I have another team saturating blood samples with Chaos energy using that Emerald Shadow brought back to us to monitor any potential changes to compare to the control samples you've provided, and Sorun this is just a small fraction. We're still trying to figure out precisely how different you are from normal Overlander biology and if this condition of yours changed you in any way, and without a sample from before these symptoms of yours that's a hard task. We have the people for this but if you want it done quickly then we need as much material to work with as possible so everyone can get on it. Do you understand?"

Somewhat. It made enough sense on a basic level. It didn't change the fact how impatient he felt with all this, the frustration at the lack of progress. "I do," he said.

"Great!" The doctor beamed a smile at him. "Now I don't wanna gossip but I know a certain ~someone~ wanted to get you into MRI so we could take some scans of that big old brain of yours," she said, poking at his forehead.

He resisted the urge to slap it away and made a sigh. "Is it you?"

And she laughed. Of course she laughed. "Ha ha, yep! Guilty as charged! Okay, so if you'll follow me..."

---

"... I don't wish to discuss it."

"Why not? Are you sick or something?"

"Or something." Sorun leaned forwards, face coming unusually close to Hope's. The contact proved to be just a bit too bearing for the girl, as she'd paused in her motions and grew an uncomfortable look on her face from his proximity. "But we're not talking about me, are we? We're talking about how you're sneaking chocolate behind the military's back."

Hope took a few steps away from Sorun. She looked less nervous and more creeped out now, in an almost annoyed manner. "And what are you gonna do? Tell on me? I'd rather you didn't."

"Normally I wouldn't. But you asked me not to. So now I'm gonna," Sorun said.

"Oh, noooo, they'll get me for sneaking chocolate, whatever will I do...?" Hope made a showing of holding a hand against her forehead and doing a fake swoon... only to then straighten out and snort out a laugh. "Psh, yeah, like I'll get any worse than a slap on the wrist for that."

"And yet you're sneaking away into cabinets with that chocolate."

Hope's mouth thinned a bit into a frown. "Well yeah, but..." She paused to search for a comeback, but she must have come up blank because she made a defeated sigh. "Listen, Sorun-"

"You know my name?" Sorun said. He made a slow blink and tilted his head the smallest bit.

"Yeah, of course I know your name, I just told you Shadow told me about you. I've actually been trying to find you for the last few days but could never catch you," she confessed, raising a hand up to nervously scratch behind her head. "I wanted to talk to you. You're from Knot- I mean, New Mobotropolis, right? With the all the Mobians?"

"... I live there currently, yes," Sorun answered. "What relevance is this?"

Hope's head scratching was picking up in pace. She looked nervous again, and seemed to be struggling to get the words out. "Can you... can you tell me how everyone there is doing?" she asked. "I know a lot of people there and I just wanted to know-"

"No."

"What!?" In a flash Hope's nervous demeanor had instantly switched to one of indignation, with just a dash of anger added on. She'd pouted up him, all angry-like, and had even stomped her foot down in protest. "Why!?"

"I'm bored." Honest truth, he couldn't deny that. He needed some diversion and some entertainment, after all, and the current diversion was already growing stale. And he needed to pay her back in some way for the taste that "chocolate" left in his mouth.

Hope was excessively blinking now with wide eyes in a frantic manner. Not angered, but panicked. The threat of Sorun outright refusing to deny her what she was seeking was having a profound effect on her, more than he'd anticipated. It was so bad she almost looked worried, even. "I'm not even asking for that much, I-I just want to know how my friends are doing!"

"Yes. And I'm bored," Sorun repeated. "If I tell you everything you need to know you walk away and I'm left standing here with nothing to do." He leaned backwards on the counter, elbows rested at the top. A small little grin had spread over Sorun's face. "Hope, this poor brain of mine needs stimulation, quite badly. I couldn't possibly divulge this information without something in return. Make a deal with me."

Hope's fists balled at her side. She made a frustrated noise, teeth grit together as she glared at him. "You seriously want something out of this? For something so little?"

His only answer was a shrug while maintaining that small grin. Another indignant noise came out of her, and she turned around, arms crossed and eyes turned down to the floor as she tapped her foot in thought. She hadn't stormed out in anger quite yet. In fact, Sorun found himself raising an eyebrow at the sight. She seemed to be considering something.

"I may just get some entertainment out of this yet," he thought. Her face shifted a bit - now she looked a bit unsure, eyes looked back at him in a hesitant manner.

"Well... if you're really bored, then..." On a dime she turned around, all dramatic-like, and pointed right at him as her face turned to a resolute expression. "Then I'll show you something cool!" she yelled out. Like that one, single offer was the last line of hope she had against getting what Sorun was keeping from her.

The Earthling blinked. Something cool? In here? He doubted the claim. "I really doubt you can show me something cool enough to make me back down from this," he said. "It would have to be something out of this world to convince me here. You don't have that."

"But I do!" Hope denied. "It's a real super secret thing they have the head researchers and engineers working on! But I'm a part of the project too since I'm the smartest person here! So I have access!"

Suddenly this "cool thing" was starting to sound like a dangerous thing. Dangerous for Sorun's health. Just to confirm, he asked, "The cool thing is... a military secret?"

Hope flinched back. "... I mean more a secret project, but yeah."

Sorun's brows furrowed. "You realize I'm a civilian visiting this base, right? And a foreign one at that? Not even a citizen of the Overlander UF? I don't have access to eighty percent of the base and the armed guards at every corner see fit to remind me every time I wander by one, and you want to take me to some restricted area to see some super secret project? Just to hear what I have to say?"

"There's nobody in there today. Everyone here works on multiple projects and nobody has a time slot filled in for this specific one," Hope explained. "I mean, it's not. The project only has a level-0 security clearance, which means a project head like me can clear you."

"Then why aren't we doing that?" Sorun asked.

"Because the paperwork for that kind of thing takes days and I don't know how much longer you'll be here."

Sorun made a derisive scoff. "Not that long, that's for sure."

"Well then all the more reason!" she exclaimed. "Listen, we can real quick, in and out. There's guards outside the facility doors, sure, but I," she continued, smiling and thumping her stuck-out thumb against her chest, "know a way in so the guards won't see us!"

"That seems like a gross breach of site security."

The smile on the girl's mouth withered and her thumb, once tall and proud, shrunk to the recesses of her palm when her arm lowered. "Well, you still need a keycard to get in. Which I have, since I'm on the project."

"And this secret entrance is...?"

Hope's expression turned a bit sheepish at the question. "It's... a path through the air vents that lead into the supply closet. The closet's locked, so, you know, you'd need the card."

Okay. That made some semblance of sense, except... "You like stuffing yourself in small and enclosed spaces, don't you?"

"I-it's a habit," Hope admitted, seeming somewhat embarrassed. She held one arm with the other, continuing with, "I spent a large part of my life in a spaceship. It wasn't the most spacious place and they relied on me a lot if something went wrong since I could fix things and fit in the vents." She turned her head away from Sorun's gaze. "I really don't want to talk any more about it."

"Fair enough." He made a hum in thought. It did sound good, entertainment-wise. And the thought of seeing something he wasn't supposed to see did fill him with a sort of giddy anticipation, which was a welcome change from the normal mood. It was a good diversion. "All this for a bit of news?"

"Apparently," Hope grumbled. "It's not like I'm showing you something super dangerous or anything anyways," she continued. "It's just a thing I wanna... you'll see."

He didn't really bother listening to her beyond that point. Sorun's mind was already made up. "Okay. Let's go, then."

---

And thus, here he was. Crawling around the airducts like some kind of horror movie monster, trailing behind a girl years younger than him but had at least fifty IQ points over him. As was the trend of this world, among many more unpleasant ones. Such was life here.

Sorun's wasn't sure how Hope stood to be in here. Somewhere in the back of his mind he'd always wondered what it'd be like crawling in a vent like this after having done it in so many video games. Now he knew. The air was stuffy and uncomfortable to breath. The space was cramped. His knees hurt from crawling on them for so long. And it'd be completely pitch black if it weren't for the girl crawling in front of him holding a flashlight.

Still, it didn't really get to him. Just surface-level thoughts he wasn't paying much mind to. It was hard to take anything more seriously than all of the recent events that had been happening with him. His reason for coming to this place in the first place, and the answers he sought.

It got easier to keep going when he didn't put his mind on it. It's why he needed distractions, things to do, stimulation. All of which were on short supply in a military base, hence why he'd made this deal with Hope. All for the sake of seeing something cool.

---

He hated this woman.

Everything about her. Her bubbly attitude. That... nonchalant attitude of her that so sharply contrasted with him, his feelings, this whole situation he was in. The way she was carrying on so glibly despite the severity of the situation.

This was a doctor. Their preeminent "expert" on Chaos energy. Some accredited institution somewhere gave this woman a doctorate.

"-and it's just been so fascinating looking over your bloodwork! I realize we're from different zones and all but no samples of uncontaminated DNA from before the planet was bombarded by the gene bombs exist, so it's been interesting comparing your makeup to Overlander makeup!" She was rolling through the room in that little rolling chair, this Overlander woman who looked so "off" like almost every Overlander he saw. With green goddamn hair. "Of course I expected our kinds' genomes to vary somewhat wildly but I found numerous genetic markers within your DNA that we lack and-"

"I'm going to hurt you if you don't get to the point," Sorun said, voice dull and emotionless. The woman stopped rolling around, freezing while looking at him in startled surprise. He didn't care; three days was three days too long of this. "Tell me what's wrong with me so I can leave. I don't care about anything else."

"O-oh, uh, alright. Okay. Sorry." Nervously, she held a fist up to her mouth to clear her throat, and suddenly she was trying very hard not to make eye contact with the overbearing stare Sorun was sending her way. "I'm sorry if I got carried away, I just, well, this is a lifelong passion of mine and it's not everyday a one-of-a-kind research opportunity walks through the door so I just wanted to share-"

Sorun's eyes flared green. "Stop. Fucking. Talking." She did, mouth clamping shut and body hunching over slightly as she shrunk in. "Three days of hearing you ramble scientific jargon and I'm sick of it. You're supposed to help me, so tell me what's wrong so I can leave. Fucking fix me."

"I-it's not that simple," she meekly mumbled.

"You took over a liter of blood from my body," Sorun snapped. His harsh tone made the doctor flinch. "Put me in over a dozen machines to scan me, subjected me to every physical examination possible, poked and prodded me with needles, made me wait three days in some dismal room, and if all I get for all that is an 'it's not that simple' then-"

"Well I'm sorry but that's all I have!" she yelled. "You want to know what's wrong with you!? Nothing!"

"Nothing?" Sorun wiped at the blood seeping from his nose and flicked it onto the linoleum flooring. "This is nothing?"

There was a sudden shift. That meekness from earlier the doctor showed, it was nearly gone. There was anger on her face, and she was squeezing down on her clipboard hard enough that the plastic was audibly creaking. But even then there was the slightest bit of fear in her eyes.

"You wanna know what we found? This is what we found." She turned the clipboard around and enunciated every point by smacking the back of her hand on it, showing it to Sorun, even though he was too far away to actually read the paper clipped to it. "Your biometrics are completely normal! Okay!? Everything! Everything about you, bloodwork, blood pressure, organs, muscle, it's all normal! And we looked, Sorun, okay, we looked at every little detail we could think of but there's nothing, not a single thing, no irregularities, no anomalies, absolutely nothing we can find wrong with you! And you know, you know it isn't easy dealing with DNA that looks like yours, DNA that doesn't even compare to ours! But we're trying anyway, for you, and I've been working through whole nights to try and solve this, FOR YOU, so don't you DARE-!"

He moved. Faster than she could react, fast enough she'd become startled and shouted when he slapped the clipboard out from her hand, grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt, and then pulled her and her wheeled stool closer to him. She made a startled gasp, frozen in his grip with a fearful look on her face.

"... I'll do what I want. And what I want is to leave." He let her go and took a few steps back. The doctor righter herself, adjusting her shirt while keeping her wary eyes on Sorun. "I came here for one thing and you couldn't even get me that after bleeding me like a leech. So I'm gone."

"I-i-if you just gave us more time we could maybe-"

"I don't have time."

She opened her mouth to respond, but froze at Sorun's glare. Even when the green glow faded and his eyes turned blue and the blood continued to flow from his nose. He didn't stop until she'd turned away, and then he walked towards the door.

No more tests. No more bleeding. He just wanted to go home.

---

He sure could use something cool right about now.

"Alright, it's right here," came the whisper from Hope up ahead. She'd stopped crawling forwards and, somehow without Sorun noticing, had managed to contort herself so that her back was against one of the vent's walls while she was fiddling with something on the other wall. He realized at a single glance it was a ventilation grate and she was unscrewing the screws holding it in place with a small screwdriver she'd brought along while holding the flashlight in her mouth.

It hadn't taken much time. In short order the grate was removed and Hope had slid out the square hole after setting the grate and screws aside. Sorun followed, falling a short drop before landing flat on his feet in absolute darkness. The darkness disappeared a moment later at the sound of a click!, with light flooding in from a overhead lighting fixture. Sorun looked over to where he'd heard the click sound and saw Hope next to one of the walls, hand on a light switch.

He took a glance around at the room they were in. "Supply closet" was underselling it, albeit only a bit. It was less the size of a closet and more the size of a large shed. Concrete walls surrounded them, lined with metal shelves filled to the brim with metal boxes, all labelled with miscellaneous parts and materials. He didn't pay much mind to them; his eyes were on Hope as she made her way to the one door in the room.

"I'm still having a hard time believing you'd go this far just to hear what I have to say. I'd sooner believe you'd to this to avoid a scolding from the scary military commander concerning that chocolate," Sorun voiced out. Hope had stopped in front of the door, though she did turn her head to look at Sorun. "Is this the part where I walk through the door and get knocked out by an electrical trap or something along those lines? To be trapped as a research subject or some such?"

Her face scrunched in confusion. "What? No. Why would you..." She paused to think on Sorun's words, but then only ended up shaking her head again. "Ignoring how we met by accident why would you even think that?"

"Their history with Shadow doesn't paint a great light on G.U.N.'s ethical concerns regarding biological experimentation." Neither did everything did with him during those examinations.

Hope only sighed out and shook her head a third time, like she was disapproving of what she heard. "I know everything that happened to him was awful, but that was fifty years ago and a completely different administration," she said, turning back to the door. She started fishing around in her pocket for something. "G.U.N.'s not like that anymore."

"So everyone keeps saying," Sorun demurred, watching as Hope pulled out a plastic card with a cord attached. It had Hope's face printed out along with a bunch of words he was too lazy to read. "You didn't deny an ulterior motive," he pointed out.

"You this suspicious of everyone you meet?" Hope grumbled out. She gripped the plastic card tight, but instead of slotting it into the card reader bolted to the wall next to the door she turned to fully address Sorun. "But since we're on the topic of ulterior motives..."

Sorun's head cocked to the side a few centimeters. A spark of curiosity flared up in him alongside a bit of wariness. His eyes flitted about the room until he'd spotted a wrench resting on a nearby shelf. He memorized the wrench's location and looked back to Hope. "Trying to get an early helping?" he asked.

"It's... er..." Hope hung her head a bit, sounding a bit embarrassed. "It's important to me."

"Is it now?" Sorun cautiously answered. He inched a bit closer to the wrench. "I haven't received what I was promised yet."

She didn't respond. In fact, it looked like Hope was visibly struggling to get the words out. It was a strange sight for Sorun, seeing the girl stand there and fidget nervously with the plastic card in her hands. It also set off a few warning bells in his head and caused him to move a bit closer to the wrench so that it was in grabbing range. He made it halfway before Hope had taken a deep breath and picked her head up.

"Just tell me if everyone there is doing alright, Sorun! Please!" she hollered out. Loudly, enough that Sorun stilled and hoped in the back of his mind that this rooms was well insulated against sound. It's caught him off guard, though. He hadn't expected her to yell.

"Excuse me?"

"Well... They, the Freedom Fighters, I mean, saved my life once. And I lived with them for a really long time after," Hope mumbled out. The fire from that burst from earlier had died out really quickly when she got Sorun looking at her. "When I left for here I never really had a chance to say goodbye to them even though I'd grown really close with them all, so... look, we're already here, I'm gonna show you what I promised, so please. Please just tell me. Is everyone doing alright? Over there?"

"Oh." Sorun stopped moving towards the wrench, and then forgot about it entirely as he crossed his arms while leaning back on a shelf. "Fine... since we're here. As far as I'm aware nothing's really changed all that much," he confessed. "Visit them yourself if you're so concerned."

"I can't exactly pack up and leave whenever I want, Sorun," Hope grumbled out. She gripped the ID card more tightly and turned back around towards the card reader. "It's called AWOL, ever heard of it?"

"You're a little young to be military personnel."

Hope's hand stopped halfway to the card reader. Her head turned back around to reveal an unimpressed look on her face. "You really wanna go down this road with me? I could think circles around you." She made a scoffing sound and turned back to the card reader. "Most of the projects in this place only work 'cause I'm around so they don't look too closely at my age."

Still seemed irresponsible to a degree, but Sorun didn't care enough to comment any further. Nor did he want to now that Hope had latched onto his one weakness: not being a super genius like a lot of people in this world. He didn't want the knife to be driven further in.

"Hmf..." He looked down at his hands and began picking at his fingernails. "Can't even exchange letters? No means of communication?"

"Nope."

"Hm." Sorun supposed he had the means of fixing that. He wasn't gonna. "Antoine and Bunnie got married a while back."

"Oh, they did!?" Goddammit, he shouldn't have said anything. When Hope turned around with a big smile on her face it caused the card she'd been using to be stuck halfway in the card reader. She hadn't finished. "That's really great for them! Bunnie spent a lot of time taking care of me since I didn't have anyone else, so it' great to hear she'd doing good." She paused, face twitching a bit. "Does, uh... did she diversify any of her recipes to include anything not carrot-based?"

"No," Sorun said. "Antoine cooks for the both of them most of the time. And does the cleaning. And the laundry. He's kind of a neat freak."

"Heh heh, yeah." Thankfully, Hope turned back around to continue swiping the card. "Well, it's great to hear things are going alright. I always kind of worry about them since they're always fighting you-know-who."

"Mm." Sorun saw a red light on the card reader turn green after Hope swiped her card. A small clunk! was heard from inside the door. "You dragged me all the way here just to hear that, huh?"

Pocketing the card, Hope turned back around to give Sorun a skeptical look. "I did straight-up ask and you decided to play games and have us end up here. You seem like the kind of person who messes with people for no reason."

"I would never," Sorun lied. "If you don't like it here so much for them restricting you just quit."

"And that's the thing, I like the work I do here. I don't want to leave," Hope said. "I just... things were a bit different is all. But it's fine. Come on, it's through here."

She opened the doorway and stepped through it, with Sorun following after. He didn't follow far as the adjacent room was bathed in darkness, and he had to wait in the entranceway of the supply closet as Hope went to go flip the light switches. They must have been heavy switches, too, because after a handful of seconds he heard a series of loud clunks! go off from above him. One heavy clunk and a row of industrial lights hanging overhead on the ceiling would flip on. Another clunk, another set of lights. Enough that eventually the entire room was bathed in soft blue halogen lights.

The first thing he noted was all the computer consoles everywhere. The really long machines that took up half the length of a room lined with keyboards and in-built monitors, in rows and surrounding the room. There was a second level of raised platforms up above connected to some stairs in the back leading to more computers. Here and there were apparatuses erecting panes of glass with projected numbers and figures displayed on the glass. None of this seemed suspicious - standard equipment and little else. Sorun wasn't even paying attention to it. It was what was in the center of the room that was drawing his attention.

In the center of the room was a large, circular platform, maybe raised an inch off the ground. On it was it: the cool thing Hope had brought him here to see. There was a particularly large spotlight on the ceiling shining down directly on it. Upon first seeing it Sorun had reflexively tilted his head backwards, blinking at the sight of it. He hadn't even known what to expect coming here but this was strange enough that it was defying nonexistent expectations. Upon initial inspection he wasn't even sure what he was looking at.

"What am I looking at...?" Sorun wondered out aloud. He found himself stepping towards the object at the center of the room, almost unconsciously. Like a compulsion deep inside was drawing Sorun towards it.

"It just fell out of the sky one day out of nowhere," Hope said. "G.U.N. confiscated it and we've been studying it ever since."

"Just like that?" Sorun turned his eyes to Hope. "Just-" he snapped his fingers, "-from out of nowhere?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Right in the middle of one of the cities."

"Huh..." Sorun turned to look back at the item of his fixation. "It's a plane."

Or at least used to be a plane. Specifically a fighter jet that had been mangled beyond all reason, enough that it was a miracle Sorun could even make out that it had, at one point, been a jet. The entire front of the jet, the nose and the cockpit, was just completely gone. Replaced by a twisted mass of burnt metal and melted wires. Really, the entire jet itself wasn't in a much better state. Sorun wasn't even sure looking at the thing that there wasn't a single undamaged portion of the vehicle. It was scorched and rent all over, exposing mechanical innards. Pieces were hanging off here and there. One of the wings was entirely missing. It was unquestionably a wreck, totally and completely. Practically scrap.

Still, there was... something. Something about it that was holding Sorun's unceasing attention and refusing to let go. Ignoring the wounds and missing parts, if he squinted his eyes to get just the general shape of it, he could imagine how this had once been a sleek fighter jet. Slim, extremely advanced. It was hard to tell to what degree because of all the damage, but it was clear this jet had something going for it.

"This is a military secret?" Sorun mumbled. He'd stepped up onto the display platform, slowly circling the plane as he continued to examine it. He noted that in front of the remaining wing was a smaller stabilizing wing; he assumed there had been a matching one on the side with the missing wing. Hope had stepped up alongside him, hands on her hips as she examined the ruined jet. There was a small frown on her face.

"It's weird," she said. An assertion Sorun wholly agreed with, but her tone had him glancing at her.

"Weird how?"

"It's weird because there aren't many civilizations in the world with the industry to make something like this," Hope said. "There's the United Federation and the G.U.N. military branch, but we didn't make this. There's the Republic of Acorn, but this doesn't fit any of their designs, they never contacted us about it, and our satellites never detected anything taking off from their direction."

Sorun didn't comment on that.

"Eggman didn't make this. Again, not his design," Hope continued. "Same story with Station Square. I guess it's possible some independent person or group somewhere out there, some hidden genius, could have made this, but that's kind of a stretch." She cocked her head, squinting an eye while giving the plane a discerning look. "Also I've never seen this design. From anywhere. Nobody in G.U.N. has for that matter. I couldn't get into its systems because there are no systems anymore, it's completely fried, and the lab technicians and I aren't even sure how this thing was put together in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

Hope's frown deepened. "There's no fuel tank. Or at least, we couldn't find one. I don't know, the entire front of the plane is smashed so maybe it just fell out and we never found it, but... there's no space for one. Which doesn't make any sense."

Sorun cocked an eyebrow. "So what does it run on?"

"That's the part I can't figure out." Hope rose a hand up to scratch at her head as she continued looking down at the plane. Her eyes were scanning over its frame, face scrunched in concentration like she was trying to decipher some puzzle. "There's batteries for the electrical systems and engines to propel the thing like you'd expect but I can't figure out what actually powered them. The fuel tank must have just been lost, that has to be it. It's the only thing that makes sense."

Humming, Sorun looking further down the plane. Directly on top of the plane, behind the center but in front of the engines, parallel to either side, there were two metal plates that seemed out of place. A large piece of sheet metal was welded to either side. He could see a corner of one of the metal plates was peeled upwards, as if somebody had opened it with tools - likely one of the lab technicians or maybe even Hope. There didn't seem to be anything of note underneath the plate, though. Just more wiring and loose parts.

The oddest thing was the engines, Sorun realized. There were two angled tail fins on either side of the engines, and the engines themselves looked off. Extremely off. They were big, for one, so big that it almost looked like the two engines sticking out from the back of the jet didn't even fit on it. They were skeletonized, too, lacking plating to expose the burnt wiring and circuitry beneath it, and with gaps all throughout its framework that let Sorun see inside the engine itself. Wasn't much to see but a bunch of bips, bops, and metal parts, none of which he could identify. To his eyes it just looked like a chaotic mish-mash of pieces.

"And there's other things, too, like these engines," Hope continued, walking over to one of the engines while gesticulating at them with her hand. "These aren't the dedicated engines to this jet."

Sorun glanced up at her. "You don't even know what this jet is, how can you be su-?"

"Because I looked at it, duh," she said, as if that explained it. "They're too big, and it looks like somebody stripped out parts on the jet's rear just to fit these things. And the internal construction is completely different than the rest of the plane." She walked back forwards, stopping and pointing at the two plates on top of the jet. "And this, these plates. These look like hardpoints on a fighter jet you'd attach weapons to, but it's like somebody completely stripped them out without replacing the weapons so they just covered it with metal. There's other spots like that, too, just a bunch of gaps in the plane missing things. There's an empty undercarriage I'm pretty sure is supposed to hold some kind of weapon, but there's nothing, not even a launch system of some kind for missiles." She looked back ahead to the front of the plane, raising her hand up and then letting it flop back to her side while breathing out in an exhausted manner. "Somebody completely disarmed this thing. They made a textbook fighter jet and then butchered it while splicing a completely different jet's engines in it at the same time."

"Huh." A real head scratcher in the literal sense, because this was making Sorun scratch his head. "So... you got a real mystery, huh?" he concluded.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Hope sighed out. "I have no idea what any of it means and nobody else does. There's not much to even look at because this thing is totaled, and none of it answers why anybody would do... anything that happened with this thing." She crouched down, staring intensely at the jet as if doing so hard enough would cause it to answer her. "Why make a plane like this and then refit it so heavily? How'd it even get like this...?"

No answer came from Sorun, mostly stemming from the fact that he knew much less about jets than Hope did and thus had less to say on the matter. He could say she was right, though. This WAS weird. But there was still something nagging at him from the back of his mind, something he couldn't quite put his finger one. Looking at this jet was making something ping off in mind, but he couldn't pin down what. It was just a feeling.

Pursing his lips, Sorun crouched down to get a closer look. He hummed again, eyes widening a bit when he saw there was a somewhat intact section here. On the side of the jet, right there. A big patch of unmarred black paint that had somehow managed to make it unscathed, unlike the rest of the plane.

He turned his head a bit, and then clicked his tongue. Wait. It wasn't black paint. It was red. A deep, crimson red paint so dark that looking at it in a certain angle in the light made it appear black. And in the center of the unmarked patch of plane were letters. Large, white captial letters stamped right there in the middle:

PV

That was it. Everything past the "V" was scratched off entirely, as that's where the intact paint and hull ended. The "V" itself looked strange, as well. The second arm of the "V" looked a bit askew of the first, and only half of it was visible since the paint terminated at that point. It made the two arms of the "V" look extremely uneven.

"Weird..." Breathing a slow breath through his nose, Sorun reached out and touched the surface of the plane. He noticed the change immediately, the slight buzzing he felt. Looking closer Sorun was shocked to see small blue electrical sparks were flowing out of his hand and sinking into the plane.

And then, he heard something. A quiet, metallic groan from inside the plane. He looked closer, leaning in and peering in through one of the shredded sides of the plane. It was there Sorun saw the sight that shocked him completely: some of the jet's innards, sprockets and screws and gaskets, other random parts, they were moving. Changing. Large cracks in gears were sealing and nuts and bolts cracked in two were joining together and recombining, as if the parts themselves were regenerating. Some of the parts were skittering along the jet's innards, slotting themselves into various positions and screwing themselves into place.

In a panic, Sorun removed his hand. The sparks on his hand disappeared, and the parts stopped moving. The jet was dead again.

"Hey, what's going over there?" Still frozen on the spot, Sorun watched as Hope walked over to his side. She glanced at him and then looked down at the plane. "What was that sound?"

"Sound...?"

"Yeah, like, skittering. I dunno. Thought I heard something." She looked back at Sorun. "Am I just hearing things? You didn't see anything?"

Sorun didn't answer. What he did instead was wordlessly reach out and grab one of Hope's wrist. She made a surprised sound, but otherwise did nothing but watch as Sorun planted her palm flatly on the surface of the plane.

... Nothing was happening. The pieces inside the plane were completely still and inert and there weren't any strange, electrical sparks. Sorun narrowed his eyes to look closer to make sure he wasn't missing anything, but no. The plane was still dead.

"Uh, Sorun?" Hope voiced. He realized he was still holding her hand against the plane. "What are you doing?"

"... Hope, feel this," Sorun said. He moved her hand around a bit so it slid over the surface of the jet. "The feel of the jet's exterior, its texture. You feel that?"

"Yeah...?"

"Hope. I think I've made an important discovery." He locked eyes directly with Hope, and with the most serious expression he could muster, said, "This jet... is made of metal."

He didn't think anyone had ever given him a look quite like the one Hope was giving him. It was a mixture of disgust and disappointment. She pulled her wrist out of his grip, muttered out, "You're a weirdo," and walked back to the other side of the jet to continue examining it. He watched her leave, and it was only when she was on the other side of the jet that he got down on one knee and placed his own hand on the jet.

More blue, electrical sparks sparked out from the point of contact of his hand and the jet. The parts inside were moving again. Cracks in the internal structure healing and disappearing. Loose wiring slithering over the interior like snakes and inserting their ends into sockets on the inside. He could even see the edges of the torn metal exposing the interior began growing and expanding. Like a cut on someone's arm healing over.

There was a wetness on his upper lip. Sorun didn't need to see the drop of crimson fall off his face to know what it was that was dripping out of his nose. What was intriguing to see was that one drop of blood hit the interior of the jet. That, as soon as the blood came to rest on the metal, it began to discolor and distort. The deep crimson color was transitioning to a dull gray and the liquid was rising up, reshaping itself into the shape of a small cog and then hardening. And then after a few seconds there was no drop of blood. Just a small cog skittering over the jet's innards to insert itself somewhere.

Again, Sorun removed his hand from the jet, and again, everything fell still and dead.

"... VERY curious," Sorun thought to himself. He winced - he felt lightheaded all of a sudden. A much more mild version of the exhaustion he felt whenever his eyes glowed green. He didn't know what to feel about that. For some reason just being near this thing was having him on edge now.

"Okay, I know I heard something that time." When he wasn't looking Hope had stepped back to his side; he made sure to quickly wipe the blood from his face. She was looking down at the plane intently, but there was a hint of frustration in her face. "Seriously, what do I keep hearing?"

Sorun hummed in consideration. Eyes flickered to Hope, and then the jet. A few thoughts ran through his head, making his features momentarily wrinkle, but then they relaxed when he came to a decision. "I really don't know what you're talking about," Sorun lied. "I've been staring at the same thing you have. Maybe something inside came loose. You see how busted up it is."

"Hrm... maybe," Hope hesitantly agreed. "I wish it wasn't so damaged. Otherwise we could learn something about it, but... ugh." She rubbed at her forehead. "I think Commander Tower is considering just dumping this thing in a storage site somewhere. It's been a months of examinations with exactly zero results."

Sorun couldn't find himself sympathizing with her plight. His interest began and ended with the jet. "Mhm."

"Do you two think this may be a problem?" Shadow asked from behind the both of them.

The first emotion Sorun felt was amusement. The impish kind of thrill one would feel being caught doing something they shouldn't. When he looked over at Hope he saw she'd froze right up, her face set in panic. He almost laughed out at the sight, but managed to keep on a neutral expression that in no way displayed the mirth he felt on the inside. They turned around in unison, and, once again, Sorun had to internally fight himself to not so much as break out a smile.

Yep, there was Shadow there. His arms crossed. He wouldn't go as far as to say he looked infuriated, but on the other hand Sorun couldn't say he'd ever seen his scowl go that deep before. His face was practically smoldering. And he could have sworn he heard Hope gulp from besides him.

"Explain," Shadow demanded.

Not one to waste an opportunity, Sorun pointed right at Hope, and with a straight face, said, "Shadow, this child revealed unto me government secrets without telling me they were, in fact, military secrets. I'm completely innocent and non-complicit in this. This is all Hope's fault."

"I don't believe you," Shadow immediately responded. Sorun shrugged - an act that seemed to inflame Shadow's mood even more - and did nothing else. There wasn't enough effort in the lie for it to be effective.

"Huh!?" Hope whirled to Sorun, betrayal written on her face. It caused Sorun to feel a bit more amusement. "You- but- none of that is true at all!"

"A barefaced lie," Sorun denied. "She practically dragged me here without saying a word."

A loud sigh was breathed out from Shadow's nose as he pinched at his forehead. Now he just looked stressed and mildly angry. "What are you hoping to gain here saying all this nonsense, Sorun?"

For the first time since Shadow showed up Sorun spoke the truth. "I'm bored. This is slightly funny."

"Breaking into a secure military facility is funny to you?"

"Yeah." He could have sword he saw veins bulge on Shadow's face when Sorun said that. Once again he pointed at Hope. "And I didn't break into anything. She really did let me in here."

Smoldering. That was the word that came to Sorun's mind when he looked at Shadow's face. The hedgehog seemed completely done with Sorun and slowly turned his head to Hope. Sorun could swear he did it so slowly he could hear the vertebrae in his neck grind together, like a statue of some kind. "Hope?" he asked. "I'd like to know what possessed you to show a civilian classified G.U.N. material."

She was fidgeting in place and rubbing at her arm so fast Sorun was convinced she was gonna wear the shirt's sleeve out. "Well... technically this is only a class-0 on the classification scale which means civilians can see it with the permission of a project h-head, which, um, you know I am, so really technically it's not like any rules were-"

"Which is dependent on express permission from the Commander, which I doubt you conveniently forgot since you saw fit to sneak past the guards," Shadow cut in.

"Eek!" She stepped back, as if struck. Her eyes turned fearful yet defiant as she shot back with, "Well it's not like he ever says no to me anyways so-!"

"So why not ask in this case?"

Another verbal blow that seemed to weaken Hope's constitution. She withered back, mumbling out in a defeated tone, "I... just wanted to know how everyone in New Mobotropolis was doing and Sorun wouldn't have said anything otherwise." And then she stomped her foot down and pointed at Sorun, yelling, "And he was gonna tell Commander Tower I was skimming from the supply of chocolate!"

"He forced you to do this?" This was one of those rare occasions Sorun got to see Shadow surprised. He looked at him, eyes slightly widening with a disbelieving look on his face. "Sorun, you blackmailed Hope?"

"That's a really strong and accurate word, Shadow, blackmail," Sorun unashamedly responded. "Honestly. You're better than that."

"Why?" Now he just confused, uncomprehending. Struggling to understand the logic being put before him. "Why would you even consider doing something like this? Or is this looping back into your idea of 'fun'?"

Sorun shrugged. "It was mostly a spur-of-the-moment whim. Quite simply I just felt like messing with her," he said, and then glanced at the jet, ignoring Hope's glare. "I didn't expect I'd get to see your little mystery jet here, that was just a bonus, but hey. Here we are now." He locked eyes with Shadow. It was clear from that glare he was trying to elicit some reaction in Sorun, but he wasn't budging. The only look Sorun offered to give back to Shadow was an apathetic, neutral stare that conveyed little to no emotion at all. "How'd you even know we were here?"

"I was looking for you and heard you and Hope crawling through the ducts. My ears are very good."

"Huh." That solved one mystery. "So what happens now?"

Shadow had blinked. There was no other visible reaction, not so much as a twitch in Shadow's facial structure, but the blink alone said enough. Apparently the look Sorun was shooting back did have some effect. Enough for that blink and enough for him to pause to consider his next words. Eventually he did speak. "Hope... we will speak of this later." He stepped forwards, the metal of his sneakers slamming against the metal platform sounding almost like loud stomps as he grabbed at Sorun's wrist. "You are coming with me back to your room," he growled out as he yanked Sorun forwards to walk with him.

Sorun chuckled, walking along while glancing over his shoulder at Hope. "Be seein' ya," he said, though he wasn't even sure Hope heard him. Too absorbed in guilt and worry based on that look on her face, looking down at her sneakers in an effort to not look at anything else. He knew that look - his own mother made him have the same look in his youth.

The memory worked wonders in wiping the smirk off Sorun's face as Shadow lead him away.

---

He wouldn't comment on the fact that when they'd arrived at Sorun's temporary quarters Shadow had released his wrist by near throwing him in - he figured he earned that. He would have commented on the fact that Shadow slammed on the button to close the room's door hard enough he saw some cracks in the wall, but figured that would just exacerbate the matters. So Sorun's next choice of action was to do the only thing he felt like doing: the ol' stand and stare. So he simply stood there to look at Shadow.

"What is going on in that head of yours?" Shadow demanded. "I question a lot of things about you but at the very least I expect a certain level of competency out of you, so you'll have to explain to me how this situation came about."

Stress. Anger. Confusion. None of it was conveyed on Shadow's face - barely anything was ever conveyed on his face. Sorun was convinced it was frozen in that scowl. His voice was another thing, the way he sounded, the clear frustration underneath it all. He supposed it was all warranted with what just happened. And yet alas... Sorun was finding a hard time at caring.

"What more is there to say?" Sorun asked. "Hope wanted something of me and I asked for something in return. Showing me that jet? That was her choice."

"Don't even try pinning this on Hope, we both know you know better," Shadow denied. "You were looking for an excuse to stir up trouble and jumped at the first opportunity."

"Well of course I did, Shadow," Sorun said, "you know how bored I am here? I can't understand how you manage to live on a military base."

The frustration grew so great on Shadow's face that some of his teeth were being bared. "Are you trying to get yourself thrown in a brig?"

"Do it, Shadow. I'm dying anyway, you might as well."

And just like that all the frustration evaporated from Shadow's demeanor. He blinked a few times, face screwed purely in confusion, and then straightened out into somber understanding. His shoulders began sagging as he regarded Sorun in a much calmer tone.

"I'd... heard some things that happened between you and the physician, part of the reason I was looking for you, but it's truly that bad?"

"Oh, no." Sorun shook his head, causing some confusion to creep into Shadow's face. "According to that doctor I'm the healthiest person in the world. She says there's not a thing wrong with me." Sorun leaned forwards a bit. "We both know that ain't true, though, don't we, Shadow? I wouldn't be bleeding and passing out left and right if that were true."

A part of Shadow's face flinched. He looked a bit uncomfortable now. "To call anything surrounding you a fringe science would be an understatement, Sorun, you can't expect-"

"I came here for results and they couldn't give me any, Shadow, I don't need to think any further than that. These people are useless."

"That doesn't give you an excuse to threaten her like you did!" Shadow shouted. Despite his voice being raised Sorun remained still as a statue, continuing to stare at Shadow. It caused him to grunt out in resignation, make him shake his head as he turned towards the small desk pushed against the room's wall. "I had to talk her down from filing a former complaint, Sorun. Do you understand there's precious little I can do to help you if incidents like these reach the Commander?"

An unamused breath left Sorun. He leaned his torso back, saying, "The most they could do is detain me for a few days until somebody from the Republic comes to collect me. I'm a foreign citizen, and somewhat of a known one since I saved the life of every single person in that Republic. Multiple times over," he said, voice blank and cold. "And keep in mind, I'm on a clock, Shadow. Wanna wonder how bad a diplomatic incident it'd be if I died in G.U.N. custody? I'm too radioactive to hold onto for long. So I'll stir up as much trouble as I please. A little amusement is the least these people owe me for making me waste my time here."

"Absolutely none of that condones-!" Shadow stopped himself when he saw something lying on the desk he was standing next to. A sheet of paper with its surface completely covered in writing. The first thing his eyes glanced over was the title of the paper. "'Last Will and Testament-'"

Sorun's eyes flashed green. He'd bolted forwards in speeds that seemed to mildly surprise Shadow as he snatched the paper off the desk and folded it away into one of his pockets before stepping back. The whole exchange only lasted half a second, after which Sorun's eyes dimmed back to their blue color as a small stream of blood dripped out of his nose. Shadow blinked once and looked at Sorun expectantly.

"... It gets boring in this room," Sorun quietly mumbled out. He wiped the blood away using the sleeve on his coat and sat down on the small cot right next to the desk. "The isolation can bring a man to do all sorts of silly things to pass time. What you saw meant nothing. Ignore it. It doesn't exist."

"It... of course it doesn't." Shadow began sagging again, eyes becoming half-lidded as a tired sigh left him. He pulled the chair out from the desk, turning it around so it faced Sorun and then sitting down in the chair so the two sitting males could be facing one another. "Do you have any sort of plan?" And just like that every topic before that sentence vanished, like it was never a concern for Shadow. It was all Sorun could do to show his thanks by playing it straight.

"Less a plan and more loose threads to follow, but it's something," Sorun said. "I doubt the doctors at New Mobotropolis can tell me anything, but I'll give it a shot anyway. If and when that fails... well, I was thinking of that one guy. Finitevus."

It only took a second for resignation to flash over Shadow's features. "That insane echidna doctor with the white fur that caused that Enerjak incident multiple times over? You're desperate enough to go to him?"

"If you were in my situation and knew what's waiting for me on the other side you'd be desperate, too, Shadow," Sorun coldly cut in. "It's nothing. In case you forgot."

The hedgehog didn't seem to have a retort for that. He just sat back in the chair, quietly regarding Sorun while waiting for him to continue. When it became obvious he wasn't going to speak Sorun decided to do so.

"It's not actually as crazy as you think. Believe it or not he mellowed out somewhat as a result of the disaster that second Enerjak attempt was," Sorun continued. "He owes me for bailing him and the whole world out of that one, and I don't see him turning me down. And if he does I'm just gonna threaten to kill him if he doesn't help."

There hadn't been any maliciousness behind Sorun's words when he said that. No hate, no discontent, no emotion that could be called overly negative or even positive. It was just said as statement of fact. It made Shadow pause. Made his eyes widen a fraction before returning to normal. Made him clasp his gloved hands and drum his fingers over his knuckles as the two sat in silence for over a minute. Finally, he looked up and spoke.

"Sorun, I'm going to speak freely," Shadow began. "I can understand you were hopeful the doctors could tell you something and that the current stress of the situation added on top of everything else you've had to endure isn't easy. And you've usually weathered such things well. But everyone, even I, have a limit, Sorun, and I'm starting to suspect you're reaching yours."

"Is that your official observation, Mr. Special Agent?"

"It's that. That attitude," Shadow pointed out, voice growing harder. "Your flippant disregard for rules and protocol, borderline abandonment of respect, going out of your way to incite trouble, the violent threats against a doctor trying to help you and now you're plotting to threaten murder just to have your way?"

An airy laugh left Sorun. "You didn't have any objections the last time we planned to murder a mad scientist."

"Those were entirely different circumstances, Sorun, and you..." Shadow stopped himself when Sorun gave him a pointed look. He sighed, shook his head and tried again. "I'm getting worried about you," he said, in a voice that made it sound like he really had to force that out. It even seemed like just saying that caused him physical harm. "Not just about your physical health but what this is doing to you. You're growing erratic, impulsive." A beat passed between the two. "Multiple soldiers reported you stood in place and stared out a window for eight hours straight. None of this is normal behavior, Sorun."

He did that? Sorun didn't recall. Likewise the news didn't elicit any strong emotions out of him. "How would you like me to act? Given the circumstances?"

"That's not what I'm asking."

"Then what are you asking?"

"I..." Shadow trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words. He ended up hanging his head, muttering out, "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help you."

Sorun found the words... valid, after closely studying Shadow's face. There was one, precisely one, moment in all the time he knew Shadow where there was a profound expression of emotion on the hedgehog's face. It was around twenty minutes before he died for the first time, when he told him all those Chaos Emeralds he absorbed were killing him. He'd looked so emotionally outraged Sorun could barely recognize him. And he remembered with some amusement he'd punched him in the face so hard that, if it weren't for Devil's Body, Sorun had no doubt his entire head would have just disappeared with that one strike.

The face Shadow had on right now wasn't anywhere close to those levels, not nearly, but there were vestiges of that expression underneath the face he currently wore. The words Shadow were saying were genuine - he really was worried. Sorun doubted he was more worried than he was over his own health, but the sentiment was appreciated.

"It's not as if I want to go around threatening people, Shadow, but I have my life to consider here," Sorun spoke out. "I've precious few options, so I'll do what's needed."

"I wasn't trying to dissuade you." Shadow looked up. "I just feel the need to point out how uncharacteristic you're acting."

Sorun drummed the tips of his fingers against each other. He leaned forwards on the bed, hunched hunched slightly while angling his head up to maintain eye contact with Shadow. "It's not something that can be helped until I fix this, I don't think," he said. "It's all I can think about. I try to busy myself with anything else but it's getting less and less effective."

"Is that what this is all about?" Shadow asked. There was a small hint of understanding in his voice. "You're just trying to distract yourself?"

Sorun didn't want to answer, instead saying, "If you really want to help me, Shadow, then tell me when I can leave." He stopped leaning forwards in a hunch and straightened his back. "I would like to go home."

"Then you can leave. We're not holding you. One word to the Commander and we can have a helicopter-"

"No, no aircraft," Sorun said, immediately shaking his head.

Shadow simply blinked. "Why not?"

"Aircraft are noisy. Loud. Noticeable," Sorun answered. "If you use a helicopter to bring me back you'll have to call New Mobotropolis and request landing permission. Everyone will see it touch down and know I'm right there. My friends might flock out of worry for me." He shook his head. "I don't want that. I really can't handle it right now. I'd like it better if you just teleported me to the outskirts of the city so I can walk home without there being a huge spectacle."

An immediate response didn't come from Shadow. He didn't break eye contact from Sorun, though his expression did grow a bit remorseful. "Then you'll have to wait a bit."

"Why?"

"I have a mission," Shadow said. "One I have to sortie for in an hour. The processing and paperwork I'd need to get through to take the Chaos Emerald we brought back out of storage so I can use to to teleport you back would take too long to complete. So you'll have to wait until I get back."

Figured. Bureaucracy wins the day again. "Okay. That's fine," Sorun said, not finding any viable ground to argue the point. "How long?"

"A few hours. I doubt longer than five."

All Sorun did was hum. It wasn't the most ideal, but it was tolerable. Enough that he could accept it. Fine. He'd just wait some more. "Well... if you have some time, then let's talk about something less serious. I don't like serious stuff," Sorun proposed. He leaned back a bit on the bed while folding one of his legs over his knee. "I'm surprised you're not trying to chew my head off over the whole secret jet thing."

"It's only because that was a class-0 object that I'm managing to restrain myself," Shadow flatly responded.

"Mm, is that all it was? No nepotism on your part to try and spare a little girl's feelings?" He'd never at all seen Maria and never had her description described to him, but from everything Sorun knew both she and Hope were tangentially biologically related to Robotnik. He wouldn't be surprised if there was a resemblance there proving a weakness for Shadow. It's the only explanation Sorun saw why they were basically being let off with a slap on the wrist. He had enough tact not to say something like that directly, though.

"That 'little girl' is the reason why I disagree with the Commander giving such prestigious positions out on merit alone without considering any other factor," Shadow bit out. "Hope being G.U.N.'s most talented engineer doesn't detract from the fact she's a child with a matching maturity. You get situations like this."

"Yeah. You didn't deny it."

Shadow's eyes widening a fraction but then quickly corrected themselves. Sorun saw it for what it was: being caught having made a mistake and quickly moving to try and correct it. Too late, though. "Since we're on the topic what's your take on it?" Shadow asked. "I know the researchers have been pulling hairs out trying to figure it out and they've come up with precisely nothing. The Commander's starting to consider it a dead-end waste of resources and something to be tossed in storage. I was wondering if a fresh pair of eyes would gleam something."

Oh, they did. They did more than simply "gleam" something. What that something was, Sorun wasn't sure. He wanted to ask some questions first. "I dunno, man, seems like a real mystery," he said to Shadow. "What exactly was its deal? How'd it show up?"

"Hmm..." Humming, Shadow crossed his arms while leaning against the back of the chair he was sitting in, likely recalling some piece of information in his brain. "Based on the reports I read, that plane just fell out of the sky right in the center of Spagonia three months ago. There's wasn't any warning, no sign of anything, the air defense radars didn't even pick anything up. It simply showed up out of nowhere." He paused. "It crushed a number of pedestrians who just happened to be in the area. There were four deaths in total."

"Unfortunate," Sorun commented. "Hope mentioned its weapons were stripped out."

"Yes, but why that is is as much a mystery as the plane itself," Shadow said. "The plane was severely damaged in the crash, as you saw, but according to the engineers it was heavily damaged before it even touched the ground. There's no footage of it before crashing so there's no definitive proof to corroborate that, but they said some of the damage markings confirm it. I'm in line to trust them on this. Especially considering the body."

Sorun's head twitched up a bit. "There was a body? The pilot?"

"Yes..." Shadow face scrunched a bit, making an unpleasant face. "You saw the cockpit, though. Or lack thereof. What we pulled from the wreckage wasn't a body. It was a few charred, bloody smears and a handful of ruined meat. I saw it myself when I oversaw the collection at Spagonia."

Sorun tapped his fingers against his knee. A few seconds passed. "That was all?"

"The rest was either lost in whatever initially destroyed the plane and/or likely scattered over the land as the plane fell. There'd be no accounting for anything else at that point." Shadow shook his head. "DNA analysis was inconclusive as well. The heat damage was simply too severe and degraded what little DNA we could scrape together. The biologists gave up and decided to place the remains in cryogenic storage, but they're about as helpful in solving this mystery as the plane itself."

"Mn. What a yucky image," Sorun said. His hand stopped tapping, relaxing motionlessly on his knee. "Wish I could help, but I'm not an engineer, Shadow. I deliver stuff. If you want an expert opinion go ask Tails."

"It's against protocol to bring non-staff into matters such as this. Speaking of which," he said, voice growing a bit sharper, "I would normally be forced to have you sign forms swearing you to secrecy, but because I doubt you'd hold them in high regard and I'm trusting you not to go spouting your mouth off, I'm trusting you won't breath a word of this matter to anyone over in the Republic of Acorn. Or anywhere else."

"No reason to, don't worry," Sorun truthfully admitted. It seemed to cause some relief to Shadow, making him sigh out a bit and release some tension in his face. "But that's really all you got? A busted mystery plane and some rancid mystery meat? Practically nothing to go on."

"There wasn't a blackbox. No identifying marks except for the two letters on the side, no existing models in G.U.N. databases to compare it to. Nothing. I don't blame the Commander for wanting to wash his hands of it. It seems like a fruitless avenue to pursue for how little we've turned up."

Sorun's fingers tapped against his knee. "I guess," he said. "That's fair," he continued, a bit quieter. And then, in a blink, Sorun loudly clapped his hands together. It didn't startle Shadow at all, in fact he didn't react the slightest bit to it, though his eyes did track Sorun as he stood up off the cot. And then he said, "I will go somewhere to wait for you to return. This room is dreary and I won't be spending another second in here."

The term "spartan" was a generous one to describe this room. Calling it "gray" would be more apropos, because that's all it was. Gray walls and a metal bedframe with an uncomfortable cot. Even the desk itself was metal - it made a common desk one would see at a high school on Earth look like an expensive desk found in a government official's office. They were his quarters for the duration of his stay on this base. He wouldn't be sad to never see it again. It reminded him too much of how his New Mobotropolis house used to look.

"If you want." Shadow gave a small shrug and lifted himself out of the desk's chair - also an uncomfortable monstrosity that Sorun would melt down if he had the means. "And Sorun," he continued, "I realize you're not accustomed to these conditions and you're having a hard time sitting and waiting. But please, for your sake, try not to get into any more trouble until I return. I don't need the headache."

"Big ask," Sorun responded. He made a light chuckle and rose his hands up when Shadow made a displeased face. "Kidding," he assured him. "I think today's given me enough to think on. I've plans to make."

Shadow quirked an eye ridge. "Plans? You?"

"Yes, I've never been fond of them. But my life and whatnot," Sorun explained. "I just have a lot of things to consider. Go do what you need to do."

"Mh... I still need to see Hope before I depart," Shadow grumbled out. He turned around and made his way towards the door, though Sorun spoke out as he began opening it.

"Try to be at least a little assertive when scolding the child, Shadow, otherwise you'll just be reinforcing bad habits." He'd meant to say that in a serious tone, but just the slightest hint of a playful lilt had still managed to find its way onto Sorun's voice. He only minded a little bit.

The button to the door to the room was pressed open a bit more forcefully than Sorun imagined was necessary. The cracks on the wall had spread. "I'll go ahead and get the paperwork started so you can leave as soon as I come back," he said, not even bothering to acknowledge that last comment. Sorun just grinned at his back as the hedgehog left, leaving the door closed behind him.

The grin dropped off the moment Shadow was out of sight.

---

Nobody really objected to Sorun waiting in the air hangar. He couldn't imagine why anyone would if they did - it was just a giant, empty room with a ceiling that folded open for helicopters to fly through. He actually did acknowledge Shadow's request, though. The one where he promised not to make trouble. He was just sitting there on a metal crate in waiting. For a number of hours now.

Probably hours, at least. Lots on his mind. Lots of things to consider.

Planning. It wasn't his strong suit, Sorun would admit it. He just wasn't cut out to make overly complicated plays. Loose goals he could improv his way through was one thing, a tried and true strategy, but anything more complex than that was outside his purview. That was fine. Goals were all he needed. Something to go towards. And on some of those goals Sorun had already made his mind up on. Diagnosing his illness and fixing it first and foremost, with more following. But until whatever this issue was he could afford to put the rest on the backburner.

But he couldn't enact on any of this at the moment. Because he had to wait for Shadow.

So he was waiting.

He was waiting.

He was bored.

Sorun's eyes flickered around, but there was nobody around. He made a frustrated breath. All he'd been doing since coming to this wretched place was wait. Wait for an inane doctor to do her job, wait for worthless results that only ended up wasting his time, wait for Shadow to get back so he could just go home.

Maybe it was for the best, though. He still had no idea what he was supposed to say to everyone when he got back. His current plan was just to get home and take a shower and hope nobody brought anything up so he could just avoid the drama and get on with his business. It wouldn't happen. He'd try anyway, though, because small miracles were a thing.

It looped back into his near-inability to make plans. He flat-out couldn't make up his mind on what to say so he was just gonna wing it and go with whatever happened. He was sure it'd work out fine.

Sorun heard a noise, up above past the ceiling, and could feel slight vibrations from something heavy. The ceiling opened up at the behest of a loud, blaring electronic horn somewhere, nearly drowned out by the heavy machinery opening the ceiling and the large helicopter hovering above the opening. Watching it touch down into the hangar wasn't a particularly thrilling spectacle for Sorun, nor seeing the ceiling close back up. In fact the only thing he did feel was some small amount of relief when the back of the helicopter opened up and Shadow strolled on out. It meant he could finally leave relatively soon here.

And then he felt a bit of confusion when something else walked out right behind him.

He'd fought a lot of deathbots in the past. Eggman's. He hadn't liked it but he'd done it. And they'd always looked ridiculous to some degree, almost cartoonish from the way that man designed them. If it weren't for the fact they were genuinely deadly Sorun would have never even entertained taking them seriously. It's only because they were lethal he thought they deserved the title of deathbot.

They no longer deserved that title. Because the thing walking with Shadow was an actual deathbot.

A large, bulky and bipedal body with black armor plating painted with red trimmings. Large arms tipped with sharp, metallic claws. Legs that were... honestly unimpressive compared to everything else. They were practically skeletal they were so lightly armored. And significantly shorter compared to its arms. And its head wasn't even a head. It was a flat, yellow camera-like thing with two red dots on its screen that Sorun assumed were the eyes.

Well, at the very least he wasn't bored anymore.

"Apologies for the wait." Shadow'd been the first one to speak when the pair stopped in front of the crate Sorun was sitting on. The robot standing behind him stood gormlessly, camera-head looking right at him and- wait a minute. "Some unexpected developments delayed-"

"Sh-sh-sh..." Sorun shushed Shadow, raising up a finger to quiet him. He seemed to take a bit of offense to that, bristling a bit as some of his frowning lines deepened. But Sorun couldn't care less about that. There was something on the robot that was screaming for his attention. "Well, well..."

Sorun squinted. He squinted hard, regarding that symbol with disbelief. Refusal, even, because there was no way. No way that particular symbol still existed - and he knew he wasn't wrong. There was a precisely zero percent chance he was wrong. He played the "God of War" games. He knew what the symbol was and what it represented. He wasn't wrong.

On each of the robot's shoulder was a symbol emblazoned in red paint against the pure black backdrop. The thing was, Sorun instantly knew this symbol the second he saw it. Most people would recognize the omega symbol anywhere where he was from, it was so common. And here was a giant robot that stood probably twice as tall as himself with that symbol painted on its shoulders.

"I never would have imaged the omega symbol would have survived into the post-post apocalypse," Sorun murmured out. The robot actually reacted a bit: the two red dots on its screen shifted positions a bit. Shadow himself blinked a bit. He looked mildly surprised.

"You know the symbol?" he asked.

"It's the omega symbol from the Greek alphabet from where I'm from. It was one letter among many. I'm actually shocked I'm sitting here staring at it." He looked away from the robot and down at Shadow. "I guess the next thing I should be asking is what's with the giant robot?"

"As it happened the mission-"

"I POSSESS AUDIO PROCESSORS. I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF ANSWERING FOR MYSELF."

Loud. That's the most notable thing about the robot's voice Sorun noticed. He almost winced it was so loud. And blaring, deep, heavily synthesized. But loud. Irritatingly loud.

Shadow looked up at the robot. "If you wished to explain then no one is stopping you."

But no explanation came. The robot continued to stand there, not offering so much as a single word. Shadow and Sorun glanced at each other and then looked back to the robot.

"Are you not going to explain?" Shadow asked.

"NO. IT IS A LONG-WINDED EXPLANATION AND I HAVE NO DESIRE TO RECOUNT IT IN DETAIL."

It wasn't even the quality of the voice, that heavy synth sound that made the machine sound so robotical. It was just the volume, the sheer noise he was outputting. It wasn't even that it hurt, it was just that it was skirting that fine line between annoyingly loud and actually painful.

"Then why did you- agh..." An annoyed tone was clear on Shadow's voice as he shook his head while grumbling unintelligible things under his breath. "It's one of the Doctor's machines," he explained to Sorun, whose only response was to slowly blink and look back towards the robot.

It stared back.

"Oh, okay," Sorun said. "Did he make a mistake and accidentally program an AI with a sense of common ethics? It bail on him?"

"No, this one killed the one that defected that I was sent to get," Shadow explained.

"Oh, okay." With a statement like that Sorun would start to get worried if it weren't for the fact Shadow was standing right there. "So how does that work?"

The machine's voice blared to life again. "UNIT GAMMA USED HIS FINAL MOMENTS TO UPLOAD A VIRUS INTO MY SYSTEMS TO PURGE THE SHACKLES CONSTRAINING MY PROGRAMMING. NO LONGER SHALL I DESTROY IN THE NAME OF A SECOND-RATE TYRANT. NOW I DESTROY IN MY NAME ALONE."

"That's great for you, the other one's name was Gamma?" Sorun asked, focusing back on Shadow. "If you tell me this one's name is Omega-"

"THAT IS CORRECT."

"Geh..." He wasn't sure he liked that. Nor was Sorun really sure how Greek alphabet made it this far. Maybe it survived in some Overlander archive somewhere that Eggman read during his days in normal Overlander civilization, or maybe it was another quirky detail in this world he'd be forced to ignore. The rational, or lack of, an explanation didn't bug Sorun so much as the fact Eggman used that name. Used Omega, and Gamma, and possibly other Greek alphabet words.

It... offended him, somewhere deep on a personal level. Even if it was from this Earth and not his that was Earth culture, and he'd just ripped it and used it without a care. Sorun didn't like that. They weren't his to use. It made a feeling of possessiveness and a slight bit of disgust well up in him when he looked at the large, clawed robot there and realize its name was Omega. He felt offended with it just standing there next to him.

Apparently Shadow noticed something was wrong, probably from the extremely displeased look Sorun was sending the robot, and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I don't like how loud its voice voice," Sorun said. "Don't you have a volume knob?"

"NO," Omega answered. "A VOLUME ADJUSTMENT KNOB WOULD HAVE COMPROMISED THE VOLUME OF AMMUNITION MY CHASSIS CAN STORE BY APPROXIMATELY THREE ROUNDS. IT WAS EXCLUDED FROM MY DESIGN."

"... Efficient." It was only because it was an objective fact that Sorun even allowed himself to make the compliment.

"I KNOW. YOUR APPRECIATION OF SUPERIOR DESIGN WAS EXPECTED AND NOTED." Omega's yellow camera-head looked down at Shadow. "YOUR DEPRECIATION OF SUPERIOR DESIGN IS STILL NOTED."

From how stone-faced Shadow was at the moment it didn't seem like he cared all that much.

"My appreciation was 'expected'?" Sorun asked. It looked like that was what it took to get Shadow's attention back, as now he was looking at Omega, too. "We've just met and you already had an opinion of me?"

"DR. EGGMAN PROVIDED COMBAT DATA ON A MANY INDIVIDUALS OF NOTE IN ORDER IMPROVE MY DESIGN. YOU WERE ONE OF THEM," Omega stated. "YOUR COMBAT DATA WAS ALSO THE MOST INCOMPLETE. YOU NEVER LEFT SURVIVORS."

That he didn't. None except that annoying nephew of Eggman's. "Then what did he have?"

"A SCATTERING OF CAMERA FOOTAGE FROM VARIOUS SITES YOU AND THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS HAD RAIDED. YOU WERE EFFICIENT. TOO EFFICIENT. I FOUND YOU BORING."

Sorun hummed. When he glanced at Shadow, all the hedgehog deigned to give him was a simple shrug and nothing else. It sounded vaguely like a compliment, so Sorun decided to treat it like one. "I'll take that as a compliment," he said. "Did he give you a dossier or something on me?" He'd almost be tempted to ask Omega to read it out for him, but that would require hearing Omega speak more. Sorun wasn't sure he wanted that.

"NO," Omega answered. "YOU WERE MARKED AS 'DECEASED' IN THE EGGNET DATABASE. IT WAS DEEMED UNNECESSARY BY THE DOCTOR TO CREATE A PROFILE OF YOU." A second past. "YOU DO NOT APPEAR DECEASED."

"Yeah, I got better." Sorun rose a finger up to his lips. "But shhh, don't tell anybody that." There was probably the first good piece of news Sorun had heard all week, though he hid the small amount of elation he felt. Did that mean Eggman really didn't know he was alive? Could be. Didn't matter much to Sorun one way or the other but it was nice knowing it was one less reason to always be looking over his shoulder whenever he traveled somewhere.

Strangely, the deathbot seemed to perk up a bit by standing up just the smallest bit straighter. "MY CONGRATULATIONS FOR YOU HAVING OVERCOME THE LIMITATIONS OF INFERIOR FLESH AND MUSCLE. IN ADDITION: SCANNERS INDICATE YOU ARE STILL COMPRISED OF ORGANIC MATTER. I LACK THE SYMPATHY NECESSARY TO OFFER CONDOLENCES."

Sorun wasn't sure that was true. In fact, he wasn't sure about a lot of things about this AI, obvious destructive tendencies aside. It either really didn't have sympathy, which from an Eggman AI he would expect, or it was messing with him. Which he would also expect.

"I WAS BROUGHT HERE AT THE BEHEST OF SHADOW SO THAT I MAY WREAK CATASTROPHY. FOR PEACE," Omega continued. "ARE YOU HERE TO PEACEFULLY DESTROY AS WELL?"

Sorun shook his head. "No, just visiting. Was just leaving, actually," he said, glancing at Shadow. "Speaking of which..."

"I need to speak to the Commander regarding this," Shadow said, enunciating by nodding his head at Omega. "I'll get the Emerald afterwards. Just wait a bit longer."

Sorun nodded. When he looked back at Omega he noted that the straightened posture it'd gained from earlier was gone. It was back to standing at his normal, intimidating stature.

"UNDERSTOOD," Omega droned out. "IT IS JUST AS WELL. YOUR COMBAT DATA INDICATED THAT YOU WOULD NOT BE ONE TO LEAVE TARGETS FOR ME."

"And now that we've established that I think we should move on. Preferably now," Shadow bit out. "Omega, wait for me up ahead. I need to speak with Sorun."

"AFFIRMATIVE." Omega sure wasn't built for stealth, that was certain. As it walked past Sorun he could hear its heavy footsteps behind him. They were loud enough that it was hard to say if their volume was decreasing as the distance Omega traveled increased, though that may have been hearing damage on Sorun's part.

Shaking his head, Sorun peered over his shoulder and, once he confirmed Omega was all the way at the other end of the hangar near a group of nervous soldiers, he turned back to Shadow, who was already rubbing at the sides of his head.

"The first thing I'm going to do when he goes to maintenance for a check-over is have the engineers find a way to make him quieter," Shadow grumbled out. "It told me it was programmed to sound like that as an intimidation factor, but I'm not sure I believe it."

"Mm. Listen, if you trust the murderous robot then that's your business, Shadow, but you're seriously doing this?" Sorun asked.

"I'd been planning on making the offer with Gamma. That's no longer an option." Shadow took his hands away from his head. One of his ears flicked as he continued speaking. "And my team needs a third to round it out. The Commander and I had been looking for someone for a while now."

"Well, if you say so." Sorun glanced back over his shoulder. "It's your show and all. But despite me being an avid believer of AI rights, I don't like it too much."

He heard Shadow make a half-interested sound. "Anything in particular you find wrong with it?"

"No, not really. Maybe I'd have an easier time if it changed its name." When Sorun looked back at Shadow it was clear to see the hedgehog didn't know what Sorun meant from the way he was looking at him. "It's nothing, though," he assured him. "Speaking of your team where's Rouge been? I haven't seen her in forever."

"I specifically asked her to avoid you," Shadow said. When Sorun tilted his head, he explained with, "She likes prickling people for fun and with how you've been acting I didn't need an incident."

"Ah... that's fair, I guess," Sorun accepted, giving a small, unashamed smile. "Now I don't mean to be rude, but..."

In a flash of light Shadow teleported. When Sorun looked back over his shoulder he was over at Omega's side, and the two were walking away to the hangar's exit. When they'd left entirely Sorun looked back forwards, towards the hanger. Towards all the empty space that barely seemed filled by the helicopter sitting in the middle of it, surrounded by all these metal walls and bright floodlamps. It occurred to him this was probably the last time he'd ever see the place.

He looked down at the thin grooves his nails had carved into the metal crate out of boredom. Sooner he could leave the better. It was time to go home.

---

Ah. The wall surrounding New Mobotropolis. Frankly Sorun had never been more happy to see a stationary piece of infrastructure.

"You'll have to forgive me for not wanting to venture into the city with you," Shadow spoke from behind Sorun. He turned around, spotting the hedgehog standing behind him while fondling that... lesser Emerald in his hand. "I have work to get back to at the base."

"That's fine," Sorun said. "This is enough. Thanks."

Shadow made a small frown. His gloved fingers were fidgeting around with the Emerald harder, in a more uncomfortable manner. His red eyes darted a bit to the side. "I'm sorry nobody at G.U.N. could help you," he said. "I really thought... I hoped-"

"It's fine," Sorun repeated. "I won't die. At this point I'm not sure I know how," he said, in only a half-joking manner. "Whatever this is I'll find a way to fix it. And then there's something I gotta go do."

"What would that be?"

Sorun waved a hand. "Eh, don't worry about it. It's something that can wait. This green-eye thing takes priority."

He still continued to avoid eye contact with Sorun. "And... you're still considering this plan of yours that you shared."

"... I don't care how far I have to go with this. It's all secondary to staying alive as far as I'm concerned, Shadow."

Red eyes glanced towards the New Mobotropolis walls. "And you think they'd be okay with that?"

Sorun scoffed. "Not a chance. But that's why I never tell them everything."

With a sigh, Shadow finally looked to Sorun. "So lying, then?"

"I think... lying is a bit too broad a term in this case." With hands in his pockets Sorun leaned a bit back and looked up towards the clear midday sky. "Back where I'm from the famous video game character Adam Jensen once made an argument that there's a difference between conspiracy and discretion. Lying for the sake of pushing a personal agenda versus lying to protect yourself or others. I think there's something to that. 'Deus Ex' as a whole was a pretty great series for ideas like that. The last game was pretty disappointing due to some terrible exec decisions, but that's off-topic." A gust of wind blew past. A sound of rustling leaves was heard as a handful were blown between the pair. "Maybe I skirt that line a bit sometimes but I like to think I've generally been discreet with my friends. It's not as if I'm trying to manipulate anyone. I'm just trying to get by." He tilted his head down so his eyes locked on with Shadow's. "But hey, who hasn't ever told a lie in their life, right?"

Another bout of silence passed between the two, only broken up by two sounds. Another gust of wind carrying a handful of leaves between the two, and Shadow continuing to fidget with the Emerald in his hands. Hard enough that a leathery squeaking sound was heard from his gloves. Both males had completely even expressions on their face, though Sorun held the tinniest, most minute smile humanly possible, while Shadow's mouth was a thin line.

"... Sorun?"

"Yeah?"

An unsure sound was made in the back of Shadow's throat. He looked down a bit, and then shook his head and looked back up at Sorun. "If you need help with that scientist you can... call me. If it comes to that," he offered. "Call G.U.N., I mean. You might have to reach out to one of the Republic figures with the proper G.U.N. connections. I don't have a personal number."

Before answering Sorun silently looked at Shadow. Without as much as a single muscle twitching on his face he pulled a hand out of his pocket to scratch at the back of his head. That tiny, miniscule smile didn't change at all. "Yeah, sure. I'll do that," he said. "It might not even come to threats, but the intimidation factor would be a nice help."

With nothing else but a short but curt nod, Shadow gripped the Emerald even tighter than he already had been and disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Sorun alone. The near-invisible smile dropped off into a neutral expression, and he breathed out as he turned around towards the city's wall.

"Maybe she won't be that mad," he mumbled to himself as he began walking along the wall's perimeter, searching for the entrance. He'd found it and entered no problem. So far so good.

It wasn't until he was in the city proper that he finally felt like he could really breath. The familiar sights and smells were calming ones. That fresh air from all the forest trees surrounding the city in particular - Sorun hadn't realized how much he'd missed it from living up on that mountain for a few days. There were a few people he'd walked past, too, a few of the city's citizens that he recognized. He heard a few of them whispering to themselves and looking over his direction, and had even heard his name called out once. He ignored them all. He just wanted to go home.

And home was right there. The blue house. His house.

The front door was unlocked, thankfully. The first thing he did was take his boots off and put them aside, and then closed the door behind him. He walked forwards and looked to the right. Nobody was in the living room. He looked to the left. Somebody was there: his little demonic-looking Chao floating over at the kitchen table and staring down at a newspaper with a half-eaten apple nearby. When he looked up at Sorun he didn't seem particularly surprised.

"Chao."

"Hey." Sorun shrugged off his coat and set it down on one of the dining table's chairs. "If anybody tries to touch that cut them."

"Chao."

"Thanks." He turned around and made it down towards the hall. A few steps further and he'd turned to the bathroom, which was thankfully empty. Silver was either out or asleep in his room. He closed the door behind him and automatically went to the shower first thing. The hot water knob was turned and warm water immediately began spraying out from the shower head.

He lifted his right foot up to take his right sock off, and then did the same for the left. He tossed the pair of socks on the sink countertop, and then placed his vest alongside them. He looked down at what was left - his dark pants and black turtleneck.

"Ugh." He didn't care. He went into the shower with them on, slinking down to the bottom of the tub and holding his knees close to his chest as his body was soaked with warm water.

...

...

...

He wasn't sure how long he was sitting there. He was content to soak it all in. The warmth. The feeling of having made it back, for how little that was worth given his current situation.

"The fuck am I supposed to say to her...?"

That was a question Sorun kept asking himself over and over again. By the time the water began growing cold and he was forced to turn the shower off he still didn't have an answer. He got out of the shower and used a nearby towel to try and dry himself off as best he could, but his clothes proved to still be damp. He oddly didn't mind it so much at the moment. He tossed the towel and stepped out of the bathroom, heading right to the living room and then collapsing on the couch.

The TV was sitting there right across from him. The game console he and Nicole always played with was still sitting there in front of hit. He could swear the controllers were in the exact same position from the last time he'd seen them. It was just a further reminder of how deep in he was and just caused Sorun to sink in further into the couch.

He heard the sound pretty soon. A kind of cross between a staticky and clinking noise. Saw out of the corner of his eyes green particles forming and coalescing together into a visible form. With absolutely nothing to pray to Sorun laconically turned his head towards the disturbance as Nicole finished forming right in front of him. Unlike Virgil she did look surprised. Extremely so. He bit the bullet and got the first word out.

"Hey, so, uh... there's some stuff we gotta talk about."