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."

100. Chapter 100

Recursion Error

Episode 100- Does it come with a cup holder?

---

So how was he to smooth things over with Nicole?

No, seriously, what was he supposed to do? Sorun didn't have a clue. He knew what he'd done. He'd fucked up. He'd fucked up because he was genuinely a terrible person for someone to date. And he knew this, he was fully cognizant of his shortcomings. He always believed he'd screw it up somewhere down the line. Nicole hadn't. The fool had faith Sorun wouldn't drop the ball, but he knew, he fuckin' knew going in he would. And he never told her going into the relationship, because he was too selfish to try and jeopardize his chances.

And now he needed to patch things up, not even for the relationship, that was probably a done deal, but because he was actually dead here if he didn't get her help. But he didn't have a plan. He didn't have any solid notion of what he was supposed to say here. Here's was Sorun had: a list of requests and that was it. Nothin' else. Not a thing.

So when he walked into that science center, marched his ass all the way up into the server room, saw her at the far end typing away at a bunch of holographic screens and completely focused on whatever she was doing, Sorun didn't know what else to do but lean his back against the wall next to her, arms crossed and face completely set in a neutral expression. She wasn't even looking towards him, probably pretending he wasn't there. He decided to just go in.

"I need two favors from you."

Nicole stopped typing. Actually she'd gone completely still, expression frozen as she continued to stare at the screens. That slowly changed as she turned her head towards him, face going through a number of expressions before settling on anger. It hadn't been the right thing to say, go figure.

"Excuse me?" Her voice came out harsh and disbelieving. "After everything you've done that's what you come to me with? Demands? Are you completely serious, Sorun?"

"In hindsight an apology would have been a more appropriate opener."

"Then by all means! Apologize!" she yelled. "Apologize for hiding the fact your life was in jeopardy again and lying to me about it AGAIN! Explain to me the exact series of events that lead you to break every single promise you ever made to me and how whatever is going on in your life justifies every single thing you've done!"

Sorun sighed, looked ahead, and tapped his elbows. Yeah, that was fair. "I don't see how it's my fault I got abducted and taken to an evil castle in some random-"

"I'm not upset about that." Oh, it wasn't even anger anymore. At this point Nicole's voice was smoldering. "I'm not going to hold events outside of your control against you." She whirled towards him, fists clenched at her sides and teeth bared. Wow. It really was that bad. "You said you were trying to get better, that you were done disregarding your life, and you'd promised to me that you were trying your best to get better and make the best of things, Sorun. And then I find out you're doing the exact opposite." She turned back to the screen and continued typing. "You didn't even have the courtesy to call and tell everyone you were safe somewhere. You could have saved everyone three days of grief but didn't because it simply slipped your mind."

They were all fair points. Coupled with soul-shattering words. A weaker Sorun would have crumbled at this point, but much like how a bone became stronger after being broken and healed, his spirit had been broken down so many times at this point it just caused him to continue to quietly stare ahead. He wasn't sure why it was like this. Maybe the earlier verbal beatdown was as bad as it could possibly get and this was it. Rock bottom. Nowhere lower to sink so he just had to weather it all, and by golly did he have experience in that.

It wasn't like he didn't want to salvage it, though, oh no, by all means in the best possible world he'd walk away from this meeting with everything he'd had prior. Sorun wasn't confident he'd manage that, but he'd try. So he decided to try and speak from the heart, no preparation, no pre-planned words, nothing like that.

"I thought I could fix this," Sorun began. Nicole didn't even look at him, just kept typing away at the screens, so he sighed and continued. "I didn't know how serious it was at first. I noticed some off things and thought it was nothing. And the worse and worse it got, the more I kept trying to deny it, pretend it didn't exist. Because I'd gotten it, you know? I'd gotten my life back, got a job, a house, a good group of support friends, a community, geez, I got you. And after everything that happened! After I had to fight in a war, and fight god, and all the other stuff I don't care to mention - and I'm still upset over the fact I had to fight god - and after all that I was, you know, home free. Good to live a normal life. And I wanted that. I wanted it for me, and I wanted it for you, too, because you deserved it even more than I did. Geez, I even wanted it for our pet."

Nicole looked down a bit. She still wasn't looking towards him, but her typing had slowed down significantly.

"So I noticed I was getting sick it just seemed too cruel, especially after everything else. So I ignored it, pretended it didn't exist, and... for a time it was like I'd leaned into that idea so hard I genuinely actually did forget about it. But then it got bad enough someone noticed and I had to confront the reality." A rose a hand up and ran it through his hair. "And I didn't call because... because I really thought I could just fix it, that I could save everyone the trouble of worrying about my health, that I could solve all my problems on my own, come back, and everything could go back to normal. Because I didn't wanna give you any more trouble. Because I knew, above all else, you just wanted a normal life and a normal relationship with a normal guy. And I can't give you that, I'm not normal, and I'm never gonna be because I'm not gonna change myself to fit a bunch of societal norms fixated in a culture I've only lived in for ten months, it's not happening. But I thought I could at least give you some peace of mind, come home and be alright. But I couldn't. 'Cause I'm a bumbling mess." He breathed in after the long-winded speech and let his arms flop down against the wall behind him. "And I'm trying to fix it. Half because I'm trying to save my own life and half because I'm still reaching out for that ideal. And... 'cause people would care if I die, I guess, so it's more a one-third, one-third, one-third thing, but... look, I got nothing to add. That's it. That's the whole thing. And if you wanna break up 'cause you decided to date the most caustic guy in the city, Nicole I'm not exaggerating you chose really poorly, then... pffft, I don't wanna think about, but I-"

"Sorun."

"-really need your help, legitimately, I can't do this without-"

"Sorun."

"-you. Like seriously. You're integral. Chip in at any moment here."

"I've been trying to chip in, Sorun, where is this even coming from!?" The screens were wholly abandoned at this point. She was facing him directly now, eyes wide, face rife with a number of emotions Sorun couldn't place. "I was never considering leaving you over this."

Holy shit, really? "For real?" Sorun asked. He didn't believe her - really, he didn't. What was that yelling otherwise? "But you sounded so mad-"

"Because you were shortsighted, because of your frank disregard to see things from the point of view of others, for... all around being so foolish." Despite this list doing a fairly good job at chipping away at Sorun's soul he felt he was doing a good job keeping a straight face. The shameful expression he wore and the way he was looking down was proof of that. He was holding it together. He was. "And though these aspects of yours frustrate me greatly," Nicole continued, "none of it was so egregious I'd consider that. You would know if I had such intentions."

He still didn't believe her when she said that. The earlier yelling was still too fresh in his mind. "I never meant to-"

"You never do. And I realize this. And I realize you have, in recent time, taken strides to better yourself. I'm freely acknowledging that," Nicole said. "I'm also acknowledging that some things haven't changed a bit. Such as the self-belittling." She stepped closer to him and made Sorun flinch when she cupped his chin. "I didn't choose poorly and you're not nearly as bad as you make yourself out to be. A... handful, yes. But not outright bad. But I never realized you were having issues acclimatizing."

The conversation was taking a different direction than he'd imagined it going. His response came out subdued and unsure. "I'm not... I'm just not used to the atmosphere here completely," Sorun admitted. "I still like it, it's just different."

"I would think the environment here would be an improvement to the previous one."

Sorun looked up at her. "There you go again. Why are you always talking like Detroit was some horrible place and you're glad I don't live there anymore?"

"Because every conversation we've had on that city involved you painting it as a place riddled with crime and corruption," Nicole said in a deadpan.

"But it wasn't! It was a really nice place to live!" Sorun argued. "You're cherry-picking all the bad stuff, that's what you're doing."

"How can I cherry-pick when all you tell me is the 'bad stuff'?"

"I only talk about the bad stuff because that's the only interesting stuff that happened! What, am I supposed to talk about how the weather was? The economy? That's boring."

"I don't wish to argue this when we have more important things to discuss." With a shake of her head Nicole removed her hand and took a few steps back away from Sorun. "Your health, for starters, and what you plan to do about it."

"Yeah, that... ties into those favors I need. Well, one." Sorun sucked some air through his teeth and glanced away, rubbing at the back of his head. The fact the relationship wasn't in jeopardy was certainly giving him a confidence boost but this next part was still causing him to somewhat waver. "And it's, uh, it's a biggie."

"I don't see how a simple favor could weigh any more than your health, Sorun."

"Boy you'd think, um... so you remember Dimitri?" Sorun asked, choosing to get right to the heart of the matter.

Oh, she did. Sorun could tell by the way Nicole's face instantly soured at the mere mention of the cyborg's name. "I remember. And I am also well aware where his current allegiances lie. What relevance is he to this conversation?"

He thought about dancing around the matter to work up to it, but ultimately decided against it. Nicole was mad enough; him wasting their time wouldn't help things. "He's the one that sent that message. We talked. I made a deal with the guy."

The soured look Nicole wore didn't go away. If anything it only deepened. "Forgoing the obvious for the moment, what could you possibly have that he wants?"

"A magic sword that can magic out the bombs that Eggman snuck in those echidna when they joined up with him. A few wanna defect and I'm their only hope." Nicole'd reacted in a fairly horrified manner upon learning this, going as far as to widen her eyes and hold her hands in front of her mouth. "I said I'd do that if he checked me out and saved me. And he needs a place to do this, specialized equipment. Stuff that... you'd be able to make on the fly with the nanites. And also that you'd... maybe, talk with Elias and the council and convince them not to arrest the guy once he comes within city limits."

"That's so... incorrigible." Sorun was confused by what Nicole meant by that, was even afraid she was about to rebuke the deal he'd made with Dimitri, but then she'd said, "He would truly to do something so vile to living people..."

Sorun made a relieved breath. She was still hung up on the bomb thing. "Mhm. I'd call 'em hostages, but, well... there's only six that want out. Kinda makes me think a lot of them don't even need the bombs to motivate them, but I don't really care one way or the other in the end."

Nicole shook her head. "That doesn't make this any better, Sorun."

"I didn't say it did, I- we're getting off track." Sorun slapped his palms together and pointed the fingers at Nicole. "I need Dimitri. Dimitri needs me. So I need him to come here and do his thing. That's the long and short of it."

"... I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about you leveraging lives for your own gain," Nicole confessed after a few quiet moments of contemplation. "I realize it's your life at stake, Sorun, but surely you see the... questionable nature of that decision?"

Sorun sighed. There it was. He'd been hoping she'd be so distracted by the bomb detail she wouldn't get into this. "It's kind of raw, I know," he admitted. "But I'm desperate and don't have much choice left." He uncrossed his arms and gestured to his sides. "I've been to doctors on two corners of the world and nobody could help me. This guy might be my only shot, Nicole. Cutting some bombs out of some people in exchange for my life's a pretty good bargain."

"I realize this. I..." Nicole paused, and then made a minute shake of her head. "I'd like... above all for you to walk out of this ordeal okay so things can go back to normal," she quietly said, eyes drifting off a bit to the side. "And I suppose nobody could begrudge you shifting the position to your favor. Especially with somebody of Dimitri's caliber of credibility."

"My words exactly," Sorun said, using one hand to push off the wall while using the other to point at Nicole. "It'll be simple and clean. No violence, no fighting, nothing. We fix each other's problems and everyone gets to move on with our lives." He took a few steps closer to Nicole, hands pocketed and eyes cast down on the floor. "I know I messed up in a lot of areas, no getting around that, I'll fully admit it, but I can still set everything right. I just... need some help. Which I should have asked for in the beginning. This is that. This is me asking for help."

Well, there it was. Him going the "honest" route. The heart had said everything it needed to and now it was up for whims of fate to guide him along while his brain caught up with everything that got said. It was catching up fast, too. Kind of panicking as well, especially since the silence between him and Nicole was going on for so long. It was generating intrusive thoughts now. Oh god, was he too callous talking about the people with bombs implanted in them? Did he make some kind of implication in there somewhere that painted him in a bad light? Was Nicole not serious and really was so mad at what he did that she'd never forgive him and-

Oh, probably not. She couldn't be overly furious if she'd walked over and hugged him the way she was doing right now. It made most of the paranoid, intrusive thoughts go away. Now all that was left were the regular intrusive thoughts that plagued Sorun every hour of every day.

"I'm still moderately upset at you. And I didn't appreciate you attempting to bribe your way into my good graces by healing Dr. Quack's eye," Nicole muttered to him.

"... Well I had to try-"

"Don't dig yourself deeper." She squeezed him a little tighter. Little too tight - it caused his breath to hitch in his throat. "But just like you I want things to return to normal, so we'll make this work. I'll talk to the others. We'll all come to some agreement so we can save you. And then we're going to have a very, very long discussion at home."

Sorun made an unsure hum. "The, um, lecturing kind of talk or the long, quiet talks we'd have at night when-"

Nicole pulled away from Sorun to show him the unamused expression she wore. "The lecturing kind," she flatly stated.

"Yeah, that's... alright." So much for walking away scot-free. He'd be lucky if he got away with just a three-hour scolding with the way she was talking. Which... well, it may not be the worse thing in the world since he knew he hadn't detonated the relationship this time around.

He must have grown some sort of tell on his face, because Nicole's eyes narrowed a small amount. "Why do you suddenly look so pleased with yourself?" she demanded to know.

"Ah, well... I might not terribly mind it." He made an awkward sort of chuckle while leaning his body back while still in Nicole arms. "I just really like your voice. I might just fall asleep listening to you regardless of what you have to say to me."

Nicole's response was to let Sorun go, making him stammer out and hop around a bit to avoid falling onto his back once his support left him. She crossed her arms, huffing out, "You're impossible." She waited until Sorun regained his balance and then asked, "You said you required two favors from me. What was the second one?"

Ah... that. The sudden reminder made a dour mood come over Sorun, causing his expression to lower a bit. "You helped Tails making that portal machine thing that originally brought me here and that you all tried to use to put me back on my world, right?"

"That's correct," Nicole confirmed, though she looked a bit confused at the question. "What does that matter?"

"... The coordinates. The ones to my home. The ones you guys programmed into the machine to open that portal," Sorun said, looking Nicole dead in the eyes. "I want them."

"Why?" Nicole demanded. Her posture had suddenly gone rigid, expression sharp, agitated even. "What could you possibly hope to-"

"Yamato could probably open the way," Sorun interrupted, voice completely even and straight. "Probably. I just-"

"We needed all seven Emeralds, Sorun, so I don't see how that sword-"

"It breaks a lot of rules," he said. "It's hard to explain, Nicole, the sword, it... I've been using it a lot and I figured some stuff out. It's hard to put into words." With his brows furrowed he lifted his hand out of his pocket and gestured at her. "What's got you so upset?"

"Because we've been down this road before and the last time we attempted this you turned catatonic and-!" Nicole cut herself off, eyes widening a bit. She brought her hands up to her chest after, started wringing her wrists while she said in a gentler voice, "I'm... just worried. It was a traumatic experience for you the first time and I just don't want a repeat. That's not even accounting for the radiation."

"Little radiation's nothing. I found out the white-hair thing I can do negates radiation."

"And where did you obtain that tidbit of information?" Nicole asked.

"Uh, story for another time. But listen, it's fine-"

"Fine?" Nicole repeated in a incredulous tone. "Sorun, what even brought this on? Why so suddenly?"

He didn't want to answer, not directly. A picture of a destroyed, blood-red plane flashed in his mind. "I just... need to check something," he said.

"Check something? Check what?"

"Nothing, it's probably nothing, I'm gonna be wrong anyway, I..." Sorun sighed out and rubbed a hand through his hair. "I just thought I'd go back to my old home. Maybe get some things to bring back, assuming anything survived Armageddon." He looked down. "Maybe... do something with my mother's body. Bury her somewhere. A-assuming I go home and she's not just a burnt-out skeleton in the living room that'll just fall apart if I try and pick it up..."

All the energy seemed to leave Nicole when she heard Sorun say that. Her ears folded completely against her head and grief crossed her face. "Sorun..."

"I just want a little closure. Nicole, I... I've just been thinking some and I need to know. What happened with mom, and Dave. And Billy and Jarod and Jamie. I'm not expecting to find more than corpses, if even that, but I just... I just gotta know."

She didn't look like she agreed. She looked incredibly sad and conflicted, going as far as to say, "Must you?" She took a few steps closer. "I understand the logic, Sorun, but..."

"I'm just gonna keep wondering forever if I don't, Nicole," he said. "It just feels like this thing that'll keep following me if I don't. And if I wanna make a life here, I just... feel I need to do this. So I need the coordinates."

"..." Instead of answering immediately Nicole lurched forwards and embraced him in another hug. I wasn't an unwelcome one, even if Sorun's arms felt too limp to reciprocate it at the moment. "Are you completely sure?" she asked, sounding a mixture of grief-stricken and resigned.

"Not really. I need to go anyway."

"You'll come back? Promise to stay safe?"

"Yeah, yeah, 'course. I'm not going immediately. I'm getting fixed first and having everything sorted before I decided on anything."

"You'll be alright?"

Probably not. "I've... had time to come to terms. Won't be like last time. Promise. I'll go there and come right back."

She squeezed him tighter. "I feel conflicted. I can't understand what you're going through, so I can only trust you when you say you need this. But this seems painful for you, Sorun, and... I just don't know." She tilted her head forwards to rest her chin on his shoulders. "I'll give you the coordinates, but I'd like to talk about this more at some point. Later. When this sickness business is behind us all and we can return to some sense of normalcy, Sorun. Can we do that?"

It didn't feel the greatest. Telling her of all people half-truths. Wasn't like it was an outright lie; he genuinely he had to know. What happened to them. And this was a convenient excuse to do that. To go home. To see what became of his old life. All of that was true.

But that plane. That fucking plane he'd seen. He couldn't keep it out of his mind. Ever since he'd seen the things Yamato could really do he'd been mulling over the idea of going back to Earth briefly, had always thought about it and put it off... but then he'd seen that plane. And Sorun wasn't sure what it was about the plane that was setting him off, but there was something about it, something that was itching his brain.

Thoughts for later, though. All of that was... later stuff. There were more important things to focus on at the moment. Like his health. And the person in front of him right now.

"Yeah, Nicole. That's fine. We can do that."

---

The boring stuff bored Sorun. The backroom discussions on what was gonna happen, the agreements, a whole lotta other words that were said to him that he mostly blanked out on except for the important stuff. There'd apparently been a council meeting. And a lot of arguing from what Sorun heard. He didn't know the specifics on account of the fact he didn't care enough to learn. He only cared about the end results. And the end results were that they'd all agreed on something. And then when the time came Sorun had to go get Dimitri and ferry him to the castle. There'd been more talks. Sorun still hadn't been part of the talks despite the fact it was his life they were talking about. Something about him having too much bias in the matter. He never cared enough to argue.

It was when Sorun was told that yes, Dimitri would be allowed to stay here until his examinations and treatment of Sorun were done, that he started to care. He didn't know the rest of what was hashed out.

Lotta boring details he couldn't care less for.

The one thing worse than boredom: the anxiety of having to sit in the same room with the floating head guy for hours a day. Being subject to a number of tests, have a bunch of samples drawn, get scanned with whatever machines he kept demanding Nicole make, who, consequentially, was watching them the entire time every day through that camera hanging off the ceiling in the corner of the room. Sorun'd like to say it was out of worry, but really it was more likely one of the stipulations for him being here was that he was monitored the entire time. Likely both, actually.

But he was anxious because Sorun didn't know for a fact that Dimitri would be able to actually do anything. All he could do was sit there and let him run whatever tests he needed and parse over all the intelligible data on the computer he kept using while Sorun did nothing but sit. Because in the back of his mind he knew if he pestered him with questions Dimitri didn't have the answers to this would just take longer to come. If they even did come. But there was a limit to this kind of patience, both because of boredom and because the anxiety was making Sorun sick. The limit was apparently four days.

A sigh left him as he drummed his finger on the examination table he was sitting on. This was arguably worse than sitting in a hospital room. It looked less like that and more like a lab with all the random machinery medical equipment scattered about. They'd been forced to set up shop in the science center since, undoubtably, nobody trusted Dimitri near the hospital. Sorun couldn't blame 'em. Just look at the guy: a floating head in a ball using robot tentacles to tap away at a keyboard as he stared so intently at that screen. Setting off Sorun's anxiety even more. It caused the dam holding back four days of anxiousness to burst, and his boredom needed to be relieved somehow.

"So what's your deal?" Sorun asked, out of the blue.

The echidna stopped typing momentarily. The ball rotated a bit so that one head's cybernetic eyes managed to see him. The purely red lens that didn't mirror the red eye with the black sclera on the other side of his head. "Pardon?" he asked.

"Your deal. What is it?" Sorun repeated. "What's up with you?"

"What's 'up with me' is that, per our arrangement, I'm attempting to cure you. Using facilities begrudgingly granted to me," he grumbled out as he turned to the computer. "You should count yourself fortunate you weren't there for the proceedings. Your obstinate councilors bickered for hours on whether they should let me work here unimpeded or throw me in your prison. The fox councilwoman and pig councilman were particularly vocal on the matter of locking me up," he added with a huff.

Sorun rose an eyebrow. "Whoa, one of our councilors is a pig man? Really?"

"One of... your councilors. Yes." Dimitri spun back to Sorun with a confused expression. "I would... hope you know that. Since he's part of the legislation that governs you."

"Do I really look like someone who pays attention to politics when I got so many more important things to do? Like sleep?" Sorun asked. "But I don't care about him, the fox, Mrs. Prower. How mad did she look when it was decided when you're done here you just get to go back to Eggman scot-free? How mad did she look?"

"Why do you care?"

"Ah, well... she doesn't like me. I don't like her 'cause she doesn't like me. So it puts a bit of a smile on my face when she gets upset at something. 'Tis the human way."

"Is it?" Dimitri's tone suggested that it was an honest question. There was an interested lilt in his voice and his face had grown more curious.

"Of course. When a human does something there's a good chance it's a decision motivated by pure spite and vitriol. It's as potent an emotional fuel source as all the other ones. Like self preservation or love or yadda yadda," Sorun said while spinning his wrist around. "Or Voidborn, I should say."

"... Voidborn?"

"Well I've been figuring that trying to differentiate between humans like me and the humans natural to this world that live over in Station Square is too confusing, so I've been workshopping into re-labeling my kind as 'Voidborn' to end the confusion. 'Cause I'm the last one alive and it's totally my right now."

"But why Voidborn?"

"'Cause our whole universe is out in the middle of complete void that's so far away from this multiverse that when the distance was conceptualized to me it made my brain hurt. And 'cause it sounds cool," the Voidborn explained. "I'm not kidding, either. You know what a googol is?"

"Yes."

"If you go to the edge of this multiverse and go in a straight line towards my dimension and travel a googol googols in lightyears you'll make it a googolth of the way there. That's how far it is. I swear I got an aneurism when my sword told me that."

Dimitri's expression fell flat. "I don't very much believe you. It sounds too absurd. And your sword told you?"

"I mean... it didn't give me a hard number or anything like that. Just kinda, y'know, put the idea of the distance in my head when I looked." Sorun poked the side of his head. "It might not actually be that far. Or it could be even further. I just know it's real far away."

"So you don't know how far," Dimitri deduced with a deadpan.

"I know it's far enough they needed seven sources of infinite energy to open a way there." Dimitri didn't argue that point like the rest. He just put on a thoughtful look. "And that sounds pretty far," Sorun finished.

"Yes. I suppose." Dimitri turned back to the computer he'd been working on. "As to your previous inquiry, yes, all the councilors had sour looks on their faces when they decided to let me work and leave in peace. They looked about as upset as the AI that runs this place whenever I ask her to construct me something."

Ah, well, there was one point leaning Sorun towards killing Dimitri when this was over. "She might be a bit less sour if you call her by her name," Sorun suggested.

"Oh, I didn't mean any disrespect. She's a wonder construct, truly. Whoever designed her personality matrix is an actual artisan," Dimitri said. He actually sounded apologetic, which really threw Sorun for a loop. "I just lament not being able to appreciate it more since she addressed me so coldly every time she speaks."

One... point towards not killing him? Huh. Sorun felt conflicted on hearing that. "... I think she's still upset about the last time you were here and you argued about the nanites," he quietly said, still thinking on the previous words he heard and how perplexed it made him feel.

"Oh? Ah... perhaps I'd been a bit heavy-handed, then. It was a stressful time."

"Could also be your Dark Legion pals keep trying to kill our friends."

"... Also a possibility," Dimitri admitted. And Sorun was once again struck at how shameful he sounded when he said that.

This wasn't the picture Sorun had been picturing. He didn't know a lot about Dimitri, the time they'd met notwithstanding, and while he hadn't expected mustache-twirling levels of villainy from the guy he'd expected... something from a guy that lead insane cybernetic psychopaths called the Dark Legion. Callousness, unscrupulous moral compass, general nastiness. A wayward insult here or there at the very least.

There wasn't any of that. What words they'd shared painted Dimitri as... well, as just being a normal person. Minus being a floating cyborg head. A really old and sad guy. Polite, even. Hell, the only reason he was doing all this was to save lives, and not even his own. But then Sorun kept going back to that Dark Legion thing and just grew confused. Because after spending so long with the man Sorun honestly couldn't peg him as a guy who would hang out with that crowd. The Eggman crowd. He wanted answers.

"Back when I asked about 'your deal' I meant your deal," Sorun tried again, hoping to get the point across.

Dimitri sighed. "Enunciating your words isn't going to make it any clearer for me, Sorun. Please explain if you've got something to say."

"You command a bunch of evil echidna but you're a completely normal dude. What's up with that?" Sorun asked, hoping the bluntness would make things clearer. "I wasn't expecting you to be a mad scientist but I also wasn't expecting... this," he said, gesturing towards Dimitri. "You. So I'll reiterate: what, Dimitri, is your deal?"

"The Dark Legion aren't a cabal of 'evil echidna'," Dimitri immediately rebuked. The one eye that wasn't just a solid red lens rolled around in the echidna's mechanical eye socket. The sockets around both eyes even conformed to make the shape of rolling his eyes.

"You literally call yourselves the Dark Legion. How am I supposed to take that? How am I even supposed to take that seriously? Cartoon villains don't sound that cartoonish," Sorun said.

"Didn't Knuckles tell you everything?"

"Ugh, maybe...?" Sorun made a pained grimace and rubbed at his shoulder, as if even trying to remember that conversation brought him physical pain. "I'll be real, pretty much ninety-five of that conversation was forgotten. Hearing echidna history was a wild trip and I'm like half-sure it's part of the reason Finitevus was driven into insanity. I don't even know what the Dark Legion's deal is other then the tech fetishism and you keep trying to kill my friends. I never needed to know more than that."

"But now you're interested."

"Sure, I guess. For lack of anything better to talk about," Sorun hesitantly agreed. "Gimme the broad strokes, though. No nitty-gritty details. I won't survive. So. The deal?"

Dimitri sighed. "I suppose these data inputs need time to cook..." he mumbled out, staring at the screen. His head-bubble bobbed up and down in a nod, and then he turned to Sorun. "Pull up a chair."

Instead of doing that, Sorun just rose an eyebrow in Dimitri's direction and gestured to the examination table he was sitting on. Dimitri made an embarrassed chuckle and grinned - actually grinned - before speaking. One of his metal tentacles had even moved its tip up and down near one of his eyes, like he was adjusting a non-existent pair of glasses.

"Ages past echidna society took a massive shift and wholeheartedly shunned the nature of technology. Our kind had been subjected to a number of catastrophes - some managed to paint technology in the light of some boogeyman and rose to power under this ideal," Dimitri explained. "A large number of echidna objected to the policies put in place by the leaders of that time, either through complacency gained through the convenience technology provided or through fundamental differences in ideals."

"Yeah, I guess I'd be mad, too, if a bunch of luddites got elected and tried to take my PC away," Sorun commented. "Why Dark Legion, though? What was the thought process behind that name?"

"... A number of the founding members were rather radical in their beliefs," was the only answer Dimitri could provide. All Sorun could do was scoff. "There was strife, skirmishes, assassinations, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction... civil war, to put it plainly. It was bad enough that the entirety of the Dark Legion was sealed away inside a pocket dimension. A shortsighted solution in hindsight since they'd used their prison as an opportunity to continue researching technology while marshalling their strength and growing their forces. It gets murky from their resurgence onwards. I'm aware Knuckles was involved in actions against them a vast majority of the time, you should ask him if you want to know more-"

"I'm never going to do that."

"Then... that's the bare essentials," Dimitri sighed out. "The ideals of the Dark Legion, frankly, were ones that changed with each new leader, the grand master, as well as trying to adapt to whatever the current situation at the time was. It's difficult to classify them when they've always been in such a fluid state. It was bad enough there was a division at one point and later on a reunification."

"Yeah, this is why I didn't want details," Sorun said. "And right now they're ideals are being crazy? Siding with Eggman?"

"A vast majority of the Dark Legion were transported to Albion when Enerjak removed their cybernetics. Some, those who'd been born into the life, were even happy for it. The ones who'd never even wanted their cybernetics in the first place," Dimitri explained. "The ones that have been fighting alongside Eggman, who allowed him to mutilate their bodies in their reach for technologically-aided perfection, were the most radical-minded of the group. The ones who follow Lien-Da's ideals."

Sorun hummed at that name. It sounded... weirdly familiar? Had he...? No, he'd never met her. He was pretty sure. He'd remember if he'd ever met someone with a ridiculous name like... had he? No, no way. The thought made the back of his hand itch for some reason, though. "What's her deal?" he asked.

"You and your deals." Dimitri's head bubble shook. "She's... ambitious. Power-hungry, crafty, shrewd. Has a high opinion of echidna kind and believes them superior to any other Mobian species - a frankly antiquated belief many echidna used to hold. I'm convinced she tried to arrange my assassination at one point in an attempt at a power grab."

"Ah-huh... and all the ones right now follow that one's ideas, huh?" Sorun scoffed again and made a whistle. "Cool, so... they're not just cyberpsychos. They're neo-nazi cyberpsychos. Banger group you got there, Dimitri."

Dimitri frowned. "What was it you said about sarcasm being the last bastion of the witless?"

"Hey, you were listening." He hated it a little bit, but the little reminder of those words Sorun had said and that Dimitri actually remembered made a small grin grow on his face. "But why are you mixed up with them?" he asked, grin dropping. "You don't seem like some echidna purist or a cyberpsycho."

"... You keep using that word," Dimitri pointed out. "'Cyberpsycho'. Where does that term come from?"

Sorun perked up. Someone was asking about video game lore. He loved explaining that. He started explaining with no hesitation. "Back where I'm from there was a tabletop game called 'Cyberpunk' that depicted a dystopian future setting where cybernetic implantation was commonplace in humans and where life in general was horrible because of corporate exploitation on human life and the devastation of the environment. They were making a video game adaptation but it didn't get released before I got here." The thought made Sorun grimace a bit before continuing. "Cyberpsychos were people that got so addicted to cybernetics and the surgeries that they'd just go crazy. Them living in a nightmare dystopian world probably didn't help with their sanity. A guy with bulletproof skin that can dodge bullets and has swords for arms getting PTSD attacks sounds like a recipe for disaster and this was a world so messed up you could buy guns out of a vending machine." He started spinning his wrists in circles in front of him. "I just can't help but draw a lot of parallels. Insanity, cybernetics, obsessive compulsion for self-improvement. Ticks a lot of the boxes."

"Ah, I see." The mechanical tentacles around around Dimitri's body became a bit more animated. His face was alight, too, like he was actually enjoying the conversation. Sorun couldn't imagine why. Guy's quality of life was probably extremely poor if this was stimulating him so much. "So the humans of your world shared much of the same problems the Dark Legion did? They must have for so many of our issues to be similar."

"Oh, no." Sorun laughed at the thought and shook his head. "Nah, the closest thing we had to cybernetics was a pacemaker. Our tech wasn't anywhere near what this place has. We still used explosions powered by dinosaur juice and boiled water to power everything."

The answer made Dimitri appear perplexed. The dinosaur part in particular seemed to disorient him, making his mouth silently move as he tried to puzzle out what that even meant, before asking, "Then how did all this come to light in a... game of all things?"

"I think the term for the phenomenon is 'Orwellian'?" Sorun scratched at the side of his head, and then shrugged. "Humans were really good at self-reflecting upon the flaws of our species as a whole and predicting disasters that would be wrought by man while highlighting these threats in pieces of literature and other media as a warning to future generations, who would then do absolutely nothing to stop it, therefore making those predictions accurate."

"You mean Voidborn?"

"Yeah, Voidborn. To be fair with how the Overlanders turned out I'm not sure the humans here were so much different than us. I saw a Statue of Liberty here."

"Statue of...?"

"Have you ever seen the ruined statue of the giant green woman in New Megaopolis?" Sorun asked. When Dimitri nodded, he said, "Yeah, we had the exact same statue in my world. That city used to be called New York."

"Ah, more parallels," Dimitri noted. There was a happiness to his voice now - he sounded genuinely invested in the conversation now. "It's interesting how, despite the vast distances of our worlds, they drew so many similarities towards one another."

"Eh, I stopped being surprised by anything a while ago," Sorun admitted. "Seen too much craziness."

"I can imagine. I can't help but ask 'why', though," Dimitri lamented. The bright tone he'd had from earlier had turned slightly dour as his tentacles lazily slithered against the floor. "Voidborn, humans, Overlanders, echidna... ignoring messages of old. Repeating the same mistakes over and over. Overlanders warring with Mobians when the planet was ruined by humans of old spurning an alien civilization. My species continually ruining itself. The problems your species evidently harbored. Why do our kinds keep repeating the same mistakes?"

Sorun breathed out and leaned back a bit, grabbing the examination table for support. "I dunno, man. Thousands of pieces of media and historians asked the same thing in my world. Nobody ever came up with an answer. Life is... cyclical, I guess. And people just aren't perfect. Never will be." He leaned back forwards and propped his fist against his head before continuing. "We're on a roll with mad scientists so here's what an evil scientist man from a cartoon said about perfection: it's nothing but a goal to strive for, not an actual state of being to be attained. Attaining 'perfection' is tantamount to stagnation. No more growth; no more improvement. What's the point? What's there to do?" He made a shrug. "What I think is that people are people 'cause of the flaws, 'cause otherwise they wouldn't be people. And yeah, it causes problems. Makes it so that tragedies happen in life. I can't change it, you can't, and for some reason whenever someone tries, between insane gods that wanna reshape the world or mad fascist kings or insane scientists, I gotta be the one to fight them, and every time I look at what their solutions are and they're just plain stupid. You wanna know what I think?" Sorun leaned even further, hands holding the examination table so that he wouldn't fall off. "Living in life sucks and I wouldn't change a thing about it."

Dimitri's mouth dropped open. "If you were trying to craft some pearl of wisdom, Sorun, I don't think you quite made it," he amusedly stated while making a sad sort of chuckle. "Why? What did life's pain give you to have so much faith in it?"

"It gave me a fat stack of video games, Dimitri, that's what it gave me," Sorun said. "I would never have had 'Metal Gear' without the wars that happened on Earth. The wars were terrible; I had it my way they wouldn't have happened. That was common thought for most people. But they happened. Would always happen and no amount of cultural or technological advancement would change that. And we got cool games and movies and comics out of it all. If Yoko Taro never saw his friend plummet to his death and watched his corpse grow an erection I never would have got to play 'NieR' and 'NieR: Automata' because he never would have been inspired to make them."

"What?"

"If all the raw, evil stuff that happened in the mediaeval ages never happened 'Berserk' would have never been inspired. Without 'Berserk' 'Dark Souls' wouldn't have been what it was. Jeez, a lot of things wouldn't have been. Without the Wild West I never would have played the 'Red Dead Redemption' games or watched any of the spaghetti western films. If Japan never got nuked kaiju movies wouldn't have been a thing. It goes on and on, great things spiraling from tragedy. If life were perfect and nothing bad ever happened I never would have had any of this. And a large majority of who I am is because of all that media I consumed. Media that wouldn't exist otherwise. I wouldn't be me. I like life because, for how much it sucks, we get cool stuff out of it."

With the way he was staring at him Dimitri very well might have considered Sorun insane in that moment. It was that wide-eyed, astonished look that looked almost horrified and yet conflicted at the same time. A confusing mix of emotions that couldn't really by reconciled to live in harmony for how different and opposing they were. He gave up - he must have, because Dimitri then used his tentacles as leverage to shake his bubble back in forth as he made a dry, humorless chuckle.

"I don't think people who led lives devoid of happiness and knew only suffering from birth to death would agree with you, Sorun," he said. "You're trying to use the existence of art to justify suffering."

"They don't have to agree with me. That's the world. That's what we live in, Dimitri. That's reality. I'm just trying to make the best of the hand we all got." He made a sigh, ran a hand through his hair, and sat back straight on the examination table. "To a more salient point, life's messed up, and we can't change it without warping it to the point it ain't life anymore. Enerjak tried it and his vision was a permanently stagnated, primitive society that would have done away with free thinking in lieu of just looking to him for answers. Went to an alternate future and the king there just stripped everyone of their freedoms for peace and that place was miserable. Finitevus wanted a clean slate and that would have just circled back to the original problem given enough time. Nobody's ideas ever work. We can always make things better and streamline the experience, always strive for that better day tomorrow, but absolute perfection's out of the question. So I focus on what's in front of me and nothing else. Not the whole world, not the greater picture, this." He pointed down. "This city, these people, my life. I wouldn't have a life if I tried focusing on more than that. I'll stab god in the face to save the world if I have to and literally nobody else can come up to bat, but I ain't ever gonna spend a lifetime trying to fix the world's problems. A world's just a place full of people and people can sort out their own issues. I have my own problems."

By now that indecipherable expression Dimitri had worn had somewhat subdued. He looked more understanding now, in a 'I'm too mentally exhausted to argue so I'll just agree 'cause you kinda make sense' sort of way. That was Sorun's interpretation of that expression, at least. The small, easygoing smile the cyborg head wore made it hard to tell what he was really thinking.

"All that just for asking what a cyberpsycho was," he lamented. The chuckle this time was more lighthearted.

"Yeah, I guess we got kind of sidetracked," Sorun added. He made a sheepish sort of grin and rubbed at the back of his neck. "You never answered. Why are you with the remnants of the Dark Legion if they're the most messed up ones?"

"Half because of circumstance and half because they're my people," Dimitri swiftly answered. "Sorun, I'd... tried, in the past, to eliminate all the dividing lines. No more Dark Legion, no echidna warring with echidna, searched for something, searched for anything, a way for everyone to put aside their differences we could all stand together. My efforts were time and time again curbed by ambitious fools. Now my species is a tenth of what it was and that small group of mad, technology-obsessed echidna make up a significant portion of our species." With a lack of shoulders Dimitri had to make do with his tentacles sagging on the floor. "I just don't want any more echidna to die."

"So you help them shoot other people? My friends? Seriously?"

"You just justified yourself for only caring about what's in front of you," Dimitri shot back, making Sorun fall silent. "You know the positions everyone's in. There's little choice. What would you do in my stead?"

Sorun didn't move for the first few seconds. Then he sighed, crossing his arms as he thought of an answer. He didn't have to think long. "If Voidborn other than me wound up here and started hurting people using power from Chaos Emeralds... I wouldn't have went out of my way to make sure they survived. Even if they were the last of my kind. If, for example, the Overlanders captured them after going on some insane spree and sentenced them to execution I wouldn't have said a word."

"It wouldn't get that far," was left unsaid by Sorun. There wouldn't have been a chance for capture, trials, executions. Not before he got to them. That would be his problem to solve and no one else's.

"But they'd be your kind," Dimitri argued. "Your people. People who share your culture, your history, your genetics. You'd willingly lose all that without a fight?"

"It'd suck, yeah. But sometimes you gotta take a step back and realize there's things more important than blood, Dimitri," Sorun said. "Extinction of a species is a terrible thing but lives are lives. If you think the lives of those echidna are more important than the lives of everyone they hurt, then that's your prerogative. I don't agree with it, though."

"Then... we will have to disagree on that point." He sounded sad when he said it, Which sounded odd to Sorun. "I've dedicated my life towards the advancement and betterment of my kind, and we're too few in number now. I won't let the remainder of the Dark Legion by wiped out by some madman's petty whims when there's still a chance they can be saved. For what's left of our kind to be whole."

"Even at the expense of others?"

"I'm focusing on what's in front of me. On our kind's problems," Dimitri said, parroting Sorun's earlier words. "But... I understand how that sounds. I know the grief and pain they've caused and I'm not wholly unsympathetic to it all. It's why I agreed to one of the concessions that were demanded of me by the Council of Acorn. When the time comes for the Freedom Fighters to make the final push into New Megaopolis and defeat Dr. Robotnik once and for all I'm to sabotage the defensive systems to give them an easier time."

Sorun's eyebrows rose up in surprise. He'd been mildly upset at Dimitri's stance, if a bit understanding, but admittedly this new bit of news made it easier to swallow. "You actually gonna follow through with that?"

"I'll make my best effort. I truly mean that, not in the least bit because there's a camera recording this conversation," Dimitri said in an affable tone, one of his tentacles pointing at the aforementioned camera. "If nothing else it'll decrease the level of violence and mitigate the chance of bloodshed on both sides. I can trust the Freedom Fighters not to take lives so it benefits me."

"And what are you gonna do after?" Sorun asked. "You all even have anywhere to go? You're planning on stabbing your last benefactor in the world in the back."

"You say that as if I'm the only one plotting behind Robotnik's back," Dimitri scoffed out. "Even his nephew sees the writing on the wall and has been making plans. He's been in contact with this Overlander woman. She's a technomancer based out in Yurashia, has managed to build the largest power base in the continent there. We've discussed it and concluded the Freedom Fighters' victory against Robotnik is all but guaranteed. We're all leaving with Snively to Yurashia to join forces while everyone is distracted with Robotnik's capture."

Sorun blinked and made a hum. "Technomancer? That's a thing?"

"It's an Overlander-specific phenomenon. In extremely raree cases an Overlander can be born with a Chaos Force link strong enough to grant them mental control over all types of technology. I knew of some who once thought Robotnik was one such technomancer, but no, he's just an extremely talented engineer with a nearly supernatural intelligence. This woman I mention is different. She has actual power over technology."

"Well, pfft, good for her I guess." Even the Overlanders over here got to have stuff over Sorun. Figured.

"Not especially, I don't think," Dimitri said. "Apparently their kind are heavily ostracized for their abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason she's in Yurashia in the first place is because Overlander society didn't accept her."

"Honestly, that tracks with human behavior. I'm not surprised," Sorun admitted with a sigh. Dimitri only hummed in response. "So you all are shacking up with her while leaving Eggman to hold the bag? Not the worst exit plan."

"Indeed. I need someone to remove those bombs from my people, and as I've said conventional means won't work. Robotnik was just too clever with the bombs' design. I'm hoping someone of her caliber will be able to help using her abilities," the echidna explained.

"Ah." Made sense. Sorun tried putting himself in Dimitri's figurative shoes and he couldn't really see of a better move to play. It honestly sounded like it'd work, too. With how absolutely hated Eggman was and how everyone was chomping at the bit to get him he doubted anyone would care about them all slipping away. They wanted him above all else.

"Yes. 'Ah'." Dimitri's tone there sounded a bit scathing when he said that, and that along with the narrowing of his eyes indicated he was displeased about something. The look he was giving only lasted a few seconds, though. He dropped it after and asked in a normal voice, "I wanted to ask, since I'm curious. I'm aware you were the one that solved the second Enerjak incident but was largely absent for it. What happened."

"Oh, I killed his soul with Yamato. He's gone forever," Sorun informed Dimitri while making a stabbing motion with his hand.

"... So he's truly gone, then? Forever? Just dead?"

"Deadady-dead-dead."

"Yes, Sorun, thank you, just the confirmation I was seeking," Dimitri sarcastically replied. His face turned a bit somber after. "I can't say I'll ever miss it for all the trouble it caused. Still... a large majority of my life was spent fused to that thing. Knowing it's gone... I don't know why, but it feels like a void in me."

"Yeah, I hear parasites can have that effect," Sorun supplied. "Don't think about it too much. It'll go away on its own."

Dimitri made a "hmph" sound. "Perhaps. Hopefully. Still, I wonder... to suffer complete obliteration like he did as you claimed. What's left for one who suffers that fate? Complete cessation of consciousness, of being and existence? How does one experience such an occurrence? Where do you even go?"

"I dunno. Doubt it was the same place I wound up in when I died. I obliterated the guy."

A perplexed hum left Dimitri. "And that would be...?"

Sorun made a dry chuckle. "From the void we Voidborn are born from, Dimitri. And it's to the void we will return. Unless I pull some tricks 'fore I die but that's an entirely different problem for a different day." His expression hardened, eyes suddenly locking onto Dimitri's who seemed startled by the sudden shift. "But don't ask about that place, Dimitri. I'm serious. You don't want to know."

Dimitri seemed perturbed by the warning. Indeed, the very words themselves seemed to cause an eerie sensation to saturate the room. Sorun could see it clear as day, how the sudden mood was causing Dimitri to look uncomfortable. It didn't last long - the nearby computer dinged. It caused the atmosphere in the room to instantly evaporate, and Dimitri was abnormally quick towards turning his attention back to it.

Tapping ensued as the tips of Dimitri's tentacles flew across the keyboard, striking the keys in a dizzying blur. Data readouts that were utter nonsense and gibberish to Sorun's eyes scrolled down the screen. It must have meant something to Dimitri, though. He kept humming and nodding, though at the same time he didn't look happy about something.

"Your biological makeup is utterly astounding. How a species managed to evolve without the use of Chaos energy..." he mumbled out, almost sounding in wonder. "You're absolutely the weakest physical specimen I've ever laid eyes on as a result but the tradeoff of being able to freely manipulate Chaotic energies the way you can..."

"... Not sure how to take that, but okay," Sorun muttered. "This was all known. What about this?" Sorun's eyes briefly flashed green. "Did the Master Emerald screw something up in me or what?"

"Right..." Dimitri made a rattling sigh and floated away from the computer, then turned to address Sorun. "I don't think it had anything to do with this," he began. "More accurately I don't think it helped any, but it's not the main cause."

"You're losin' me," Sorun said, not really understanding where this was going.

"Sorun, your entire species absorbs Chaos energy like a sponge," Dimitri breathlessly replied. "Normal organisms, from plants to animals to Mobians to everything living, we're all designed to in live in tandem with Chaos energy through our links to the Chaos Force. It's not enough to sustain us, not alone, but it is enough to empower us, even if it's only to do something as meager as simply move and think. There are, of course, abnormalities such as that Sonic fellow, but the general gist remains the same. But your kind evolved completely independent of Chaos energy. To metabolize energy from food at an efficient rate I've never seen in any other species and to utilize certain chemical and mechanical processes to compensate for the lack of Chaos energy. You're able to move around and live without using a single ounce. That isn't normal. You shouldn't be able to do that, but... it would seem life in your world found a way."

"And this is going where?" Sorun asked. "How is this relevant?"

"Sorun, do you realize it's not just the people, not just organisms, but the very world itself is suffused in Chaos energy?" Dimitri asked. And it was now he was starting to get the implications, because a sinking feeling was beginning to be felt in Sorun's gut. "It's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. Every time you eat food from this world, every breath of this air you take, simply existing here, causes you to passively absorb the ambient Chaos energy around us. Minute, negligent amounts, yes, but after nearly spending a year here it's added up. And you have no Chaos Force link to regulate your intake. I've been comparing samples taken today compared to three days ago and every day since and there is an extremely small but noticeable increase in your levels. The growth has been consistent."

"What? No, no hold up. That doesn't make sense," Sorun argued, shaking his head. "Wouldn't it just get used up? I-I tried, one time in my off time, using a Power Ring to make Yamato instead of a Chaos Emerald. You know what happened? I managed it but it didn't even last a second before disappearing. Same for all my other powers. The Emeralds don't burn out so that's one thing but if you're really telling me this-" his eyes flashed green again for emphasis, "-is because I've just been building this stuff up the entire time I've been here then why does it keep getting worse? Shouldn't it disappear the more I use it?"

"Because your kind doesn't just use Chaos energy. You convert it." Dimitri momentarily grimaced a bit, as if disturbed by something. "Two days ago when we used your Chaos Emerald to manifest some of your abilities, the readings I took... that is not Chaos energy you are using with your powers, Sorun. Frankly, with some of the things I saw in those readings... I'm not sure what I was looking at."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that when I looked at the energy wavelengths of your sword it had consistent peaks and valleys reminiscent of a heartrate and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that."

Sorun did. Demonic energy didn't follow conventional logic, even less than Chaos energy, and from the way Dimitri looked he must have seen a lot more than just the heartrate thing looking at his sword, or even the other powers he'd let him examine. He didn't want to outright tell him, though, for risk of an overreaction. And just wanting to keep it a secret in general. "I know what the energy is. It's... supposed to be weird like that, don't read too far into it," Sorun said. "How does this explain why my condition is getting worse and not better?"

"Maybe you could shed some insight," Dimitri suggested. "You more than anyone else know these powers. This condition - is it similar to anything? Anything at all that could give us some hint towards figuring this out?"

Some. Sorun had formed a pretty solid guess the moment he'd seen his nails growing into claws back at that castle but he'd never wanted to draw conclusions. "There'd always been a... certain ability," Sorun began, leaning forwards while clasping his hands together. "One I'd wanted above all else. I never got it, though. The Emeralds seemed to give me everything but that one specific power, and even when I gained the ability to control them I could still never manifest it. A lot of these symptoms I'm showing, they... resemble it. The power I wanted."

The change in eye color, the claws, the increase in physical ability, the track marks from all the syringes that had been used to draw blood from him healing over too quickly. Sorun didn't want to say it was some nascent, juvenile form of Devil Trigger, one so weak and incomplete it was barely recognizable, but the evidence was stacking by the day. How emotional bursts automatically triggered it. Him learning to switch it on and off. In a weird sort of way it added up.

"Why did you want it so badly?" Dimitri asked.

Because everyone had childish fantasies of something and Sorun's had always been to turn into a cool-looking demon monster since he was four. But Sorun was too embarrassed to say something like that. "It's just something I wanted," he said, not wanting to get too far into it. "The power itself was a transformation. Makes you really powerful. But I shouldn't even have it to begin with."

"Well... you know the spiel. Chaos energy being shaped by the will of the heart and all that. Voidborn such as you seem to take that saying more literally than its intention," Dimitri said. "It's possible you had this ability from the moment you took your first breath on Mobius. That you were never able to manifest it because you already possessed it. You'd just never accumulated enough power to actually utilize it until recently, and I wouldn't be surprised if your close proximity to the Master Emerald accelerated some process you'd already been undergoing during the duration of your stay in this world."

From minute one. He'd had it since minute one. "But this power isn't a good thing, is it," Sorun mumbled out, already suspecting he knew the answer.

The solemn look Dimitri gave Sorun all but confirmed it. "The power you've been steadily accumulating, that your body is converting in order to feed the progress of this... transformation. It's bad enough your kind's biology are negatively impacted by Chaos energy. It's already been doing a number on you. But the changes your body are undergoing to accommodate this ability is only exacerbating the present symptoms caused by that weakness. You simply can't handle it. Looking at all the tests I've run I'm confident in saying this transformation won't even be halfway complete before it outright kills you."

"Oh... halfway, huh? That'll look awful. Won't be symmetrical at all." Sorun made a dry sound. It was supposed to be a completely monotonous chuckle, but he couldn't even manage that as he laid his back down on the examination table, one leg swinging off freely while the other kept its foot down on the metal table. "No way to stop it?"

"... None," Dimitri confirmed. "You'd have to isolate yourself in an environment free of Chaos energy, and frankly speaking, no such place exists in this multiverse. Even if you found one you wouldn't find life free of Chaos energy to cultivate food. This process if completely irreversible."

"Huh..." He laid his hands underneath his head as he thought that over. "So it's either go back to my dead world and live there for a shorted life due to radiation poisoning or spend the rest of my rapidly shortening life here and die of Chaos energy poisoning. From the moment I arrived here this planet's been trying to kill me, Dimitri. I don't know what I did to tick it off so much," he mumbled out. "Thought when I finally got those Emeralds out of me that were irradiating me with so much Chaos energy they were shredding years off my life that everything would be fine, but it turns out I didn't even need the Emeralds to do that. The whole multiverse is out against me. I can't escape Chaos no matter where I go."

He wasn't even that surprised. That was the worst part. Maybe somewhere in the back of Sorun's mind he knew something along these lines were happening, that somewhere in his subconscious he'd managed to piece together most of the puzzle and was ready for it. Or maybe because he couldn't be surprised anymore it didn't come as all that shocking. He was so used to brushing against death all the time it just wasn't hitting like it should. Maybe it was just because he was so fucking tired of it all.

"How long?" Sorun asked. His voice came out hollow and emotionless.

"I can really only estimate. The progression of accumulated power is roughly linear but the damage to your body isn't. The more it's damaged by this the more susceptible to further damage it becomes." Dimitri's tentacles shuffled around on the ground in a sort of awkward gesture. "I'd estimate five years at the worst. Looking at it in a hopeful light maybe seven or eight years. You're already severely damaged from all the time you've spent here and any regeneration ability is going to be of no help because there isn't any physical damage to repair. It's... simply degrading you."

Not surprising either. This transformation was a part of him and it was killing him. It'd be like trying to heal a tumor. And regeneration hadn't helped him out the first time Chaos energy poisoning killed him. No matter where Sorun looked it he came to the same answer: he was sunk.

Man. He looked so pathetic right now, staring up into his reflection in the reflective ceiling. He thought for a few moments that the ceiling began cracking - that the reflection began breaking down and that at any moment it'd shatter completely and shower Sorun in debris. And then he'd blink and it'd be completely intact and whole.

"I could have something to offer you."

Sorun made a quiet scoff. He didn't dare hope. "Speak, then."

Dimitri hesitated. He looked towards Sorun's face, which was still staring up towards the ceiling with a forlorn expression, and had paused for a few moments before speaking. "Within complex organisms such as us blood is usually the main medium for which Chaos energy is distributed throughout the body. If this medium were to be... removed, so to speak, it would dramatically reduce the rate at which your body accumulates Chaos energy."

"So you wanna what? Rip out all my bone marrow and fill me up with artificial blood?"

"Your skeleton, actually. But essentially."

Sorun blinked. He blinked a few more times and then turned his head to look at Dimitri. He looked serious, which worried Sorun.

"I was joking," he said.

"The artificial blood is safer than you'd think. I use it; a majority of Dark Legion echidna with extensive cybernetic modification use it."

"Dimitri, I don't..." Sorun sighed and rubbed his face, then spun around on the metal bed to sit back up. "You seriously wanna tear my skeleton out?" he asked in a tired, incredulous voice.

"Everything but your spine and skull. Those areas are more... delicate than others, and it would leave you with some bone marrow left so you have some semblance of an immune system," Dimitri explained. "You'd have some small amount of organic blood, but the composition would largely be artificial. You'd have to undergo dialysis on a weekly basis to recycle the blood in your system - I can give the crafting specifications for that. And a mechanical skeleton would be useful in helping support a failing body for when your deterioration becomes extremely severe. Mechanized joints that can function independently of muscle attachment points in needy circumstances."

"Okay, this... you're throwing a lot at me." Sorun groaned out and rubbed at his eyes. Become a cyborg. That was his solution to Sorun's mortality issue. "Would it be a cure?"

"No. Replacing your blood would be the most effective means of slowing the progression of your deterioration, but your skin, muscles, organs... all those are still susceptible to the Chaos energy you're constantly bathing in," Dimitri explained. "You could replace those, but none of it would be as effective as swapping out your blood. You could replace your whole body, but at the end of the day you still have an organic brain, Sorun."

"Yeah, I wasn't thinking about full-body conversion." Sorun's hands dragged down his face. "This is seriously what you're offering me?"

"It's either this or you find some way of obtaining roboticization. But not even Eggman knows what that process would do to a Voidborn like you. It's never been done. You'd be tempting fate."

"I'm even less keen on that than this," Sorun mumbled. "Uh, how, uh, how much time would it buy me? Getting the cyberskeleton and swapping my blood out?"

"I could only hazard a guess. Twenty years, maybe thirty."

"That's it?"

"There's no miracle cure for you, Sorun. Your entire species is an unprecedented case," Dimitri informed him. "Maybe in couple decades' time medical technology will advance to the point a new solution can be offered to you. This, what we have right now at this moment, is what I can offer you. And even should this be untrue... a handful of decades of life is better than nothing, isn't-?"

"Quit talking for a moment." Sorun held a hand out to stop Dimitri. He did so, mouth clamping shut as he watched Sorun hang his head in thought.

It sounded good. That was the most messed up part about all this: it actually sounded good. Cybernetic implants were... something he was only partially uncomfortable with, and if it was just his skeleton it wasn't like it would be super noticeable. Might even get to the point he'd forget he had a fake skeleton, some hopeful part of his mind whispered. The dialysis would be a pain in the ass, but manageable. And twenty to thirty years at worse if no other solution ever presented itself was... something. More than he had any right to hope, maybe. That'd get him to what, his forties? Fifties? Wasn't ideal, but hell, people had died younger. And roboticization didn't sound appealing. Doubly so when nobody knew what would even happen.

"Dammit... this really is my only option, ain't it?" That was... yeah. Fuck. If it was the only way it was the only way. With laconic slowness he glanced up at the corner of the room, towards the camera watching the both of them. He knew Nicole was watching all of this and was receiving this information in real time. He couldn't help but wonder what she thought about all this. Probably horrified on how his lift was falling in a downturned spiral for like the millionth time. "Fucking fuck. Alright."

"If you need to take some time to decide, maybe talk with others-" Dimitri began.

"Nobody has any say in this but me," Sorun interrupted. Partially untrue, because if Nicole had an opinion he'd listen and maybe even defer to her. And he knew deep down she'd want him to get this surgery if it meant extending his dwindling life. "The transformation ability. Would I lose it?"

"Possibly. It could slow it down to the point its progress stops, it could eliminate it entirely," Dimitri provided. "I don't believe it'd take away your ability to warp Chaos Emeralds to your heart's content. You may find difficulty without a blood medium, but I don't think you'd outright lose them."

"Think. You think. You don't know," Sorun pointed out. "You don't know if I'll lose all my powers doing this."

"It's a non-zero chance, however unlikely I would pin it," Dimitri amended.

"Still wanna do this knowing there's a chance I'll never be able to manifest Yamato afterwards to take the bombs out of those echidna?"

The floating head sighed. "Honestly, no. I don't. But you'll never agree to saving them first before yourself, will you?" he asked, tone growing grim. "So it's a chance I'll just have to take. But I'm confident with the odds - both of our odds."

... Not super appealing. Death was even less so. The prospect of losing Yamato forever made Sorun feel extremely queasy. If Dimitri had faith it wouldn't be lost, though... "What would you need?"

"Time to create a surgical plan and create the designs needed for the cybernetics. The sourcing of the materials and production of those parts will have to be left to you, though I don't imagine with the aid of nanites production will be that much an issue. We'd need to wait for a window where'd I'd be able to be gone long enough not to be missed to actually perform the surgery and have you wake up to bring me back. Additionally I'll need to confer with your physician - we need to find an anesthetic strong enough to put you under but weak enough not to stop your heart. I'm worried you're more susceptible to suppressants of that nature from some of the tests I ran on your biology."

Sorun was too embarrassed to point out how right he was. "Yeah, you'll have to talk to Dr. Quack about that. He's the head surgeon and physician in the city," he mumbled. "You'll be performing the surgery?"

"I imagine they'll want this Dr. Quack in the operating room with me, if nothing else than to keep an eye on me and to ensure I'm actually holding to my end of the deal," Dimitri remarked. His voice sounded a bit amused. "Other assistants provided by the Republic would be appreciated and I've no doubt the A... Nicole will want to be present as well." There was a pause as Dimitri regarded Sorun. "Am I to take this questioning as you already having reached a decision? You don't want to take any time to think on it?"

"Nothing to think about. It's either this or die without ever seeing twenty-five." Sorun looked down at his right hand and flexed it. Silently, he lamented the fact that it was probably going to be the last time he'd ever flexed the bones in that hand ever again. "What's it going to be like?" he asked. "Having a cyberskeleton? It gonna hurt too badly?"

Dimitri made an understanding sound. "I can understand the hesitation, but we echidna have become rather proficient in cybernetic augmentation, Sorun. I will admit the recovery process will be a bit of an ordeal and we can talk more about that at length later, but I promise you that afterwards you'll never notice a difference aside from the surgical scars. You have my word you'll come out of this better than you were going in. For how little you seem to value my word," he added.

"... It may have a bit more credibility than I initially gave it." In a sudden motion Sorun slapped his hands on the examination table and jumped off, startling Dimitri slightly. His boots landed on the floor with a loud clack! as he stood up to his full height. "My kingdom for a shiny new skeleton... alright. Let's do it. Salvage whatever life I've got left in me and I'll save those echidna."

---

A/N- This chapter was nothing like how it looked in the conceptual phase. I planned something completely different. In the original rendition Sorun was a lot more hostile towards Dimitri and Dimitri was supposed to attempt to go behind Sorun's back to the Freedom Fighters to beg them to try and convince Sorun to save the echidna first. There was gonna be this big argument with Sally which would have ended with Sorun saying point blank to her face, "And what exactly are you going to do about it? I'm not one of your Freedom Fighters anymore. You can't order me around. I'll do what I want." Later on he would have directly implied he wasn't going to lift a finger to help the echidna if Dimitri couldn't help him and Sonic would have got in a screaming match with him over it. It was bad enough that Dimitri was going to refuse treatment unless he helps first, at which point Sorun shrugs, holds Yamato to his own throat, and the following would have played:

Sorun: "I'm dead anyways so here's what we're doing now since you wanted to be difficult: I'm gonna cut my throat open with this. I'll have anywhere from five to fifteen seconds before I lose consciousness and bleed out. You got that long to change your mind so I turn the regeneration on and heal the wound closed."

Dimitri: "You're bluffi-"

Sorun: -Cuts throat open-

Google gave me a suicide hotline number when I was researching how long it took to die from a cut throat so that was fun. It was gonna go places. And in hindsight I was gonna have Sonic in the room and 100% he would have just run over and taken the Emerald out of Sorun's hand and he wouldn't have been able to do a thing, maybe I could have written him out of the room at the time, I dunno, but I had a way different plan for this (I'm also kinda glad I ended up not doing it 'cause Nicole would have been there too and, uh, yeah I have no idea how I would have reconciled that).

But none of that happened. Here's what happened: I got Sorun and Dimitri talking and then that, that up there, that chapter, that just happened. It just flowed out. My fingers were flying over the keyboard and I was thinking to myself, "Man this isn't really what I had in mind" but I couldn't stop. And I looked back at it and ended up liking this better? Because on the one hand it's going against the message of "hey Sorun is genuinely growing more insane the longer this goes" that I had planned but on the other hand the conversation he had with Dimitri is probably the healthiest conversation he's had in, like, the last fifty chapters. And that's what happens with this story: flat-out I think the only interesting conversations Sorun ever has is with the villain characters in this setting. I don't know why. It just happened. Maybe because Sorun and the villains can kind of emphasize with each other whereas all the good Freedom Fighter characters don't have an ounce of gray to their morality, they're all white knights, so there's just not a lot to talk about. It kind of makes me pine for the early, early concepts for this story where Sorun actually did take Eggman's deal in the beginning of the story and immediately flipped to his side. I was gonna turn him into a cyborg zombie. And it's kind of an appealing idea now because it would have given him exposure to a way more interesting cast.

Then again I'm pretty sure at this point Sorun's already talked to all the interesting villains and everyone left are pretty one-dimensional and boring, so I dunno, maybe it evens out.

But anyways, yeah, this chapter happened. I don't know why I like it better. I look at what I wanted and realize that would have just been exhausting to write so I just wrote what I wanted instead of what I planned. That's the long and short of what happened. And it made me realize writing scenes where Sorun's losing his mind and going off on people is mentally exerting to me. Like the negativity actually blows back against me in reality and now, just now as I write this, have I realized that. And I really think if I tried going with my original idea for the chapter it would have taken me an extra two or three weeks to write.

That segways into my later point.

You know another thing I realized? Every time Shadow's not in a chapter I'm asking myself "Where's Shadow?" because I've realized the power of putting a crazy man next to the straight man. I kind of regret not putting him into more chapters because there's actually some good content potential there but they lead such different lives I gotta twist the plot just to get them in the same room. Because they juxtapose against each other so much so it's just fun writing scenarios with them together. The crazy man and straight man device works. It really does work.

That segways into my later point.

Now audience. Boys, girls. Children of all ages. Gather 'round. Pull up a chair, grab a snack. Listen to ol' papa Domino jaw a bit (could be mama, hey, you guys don't know, I'm a mystery person behind a screen. There's probably a couple people out there that can peg my gender from my writing style alone but don't listen to those guys 'cause they're probably wrong. And pay no attention to the fact my OCs are always male, that means nothing).

I'd like to face facts. I've slowed down a bit over time. Used to be at the beginning of this I was banging out a chapter a week, heck, I was shipping 'em out as fast as that Coeur guy over on the RWBY corner of the site ships his stuff out, but that's not the case anymore. And it's not for any major reason, no life-changing paradigm shifts, nothin' o' that nature.

It's, uh... alright, listen, chapter one with the big A/N at the beginning I made it clear I wasn't some diehard Sonic fan and that's still true. And I'm gonna finish this story, absolutely, before I hear the alarm bells 'cause I see you all reaching for them. It's gonna get finished. Unless I die, in which case I've left precisely zero redundancies in place to provide you all some closure in the event I'm physically incapable of ever finishing this, so have fun sleeping tonight with that knowledge. That said, we're a hundred in, guys. Over a million words of Sonic. There's gotta be some give somewhere. And maybe that's the problem, maybe that's why I've slowed down, 'cause I've been writing the same thing for years now. I need to spread my wings. I gotta branch out. I wanna chew.

Here's where this going: IRL I was thinking about all this when, one day about a month ago, I was browsing YouTube (and this how it always starts, I swear, YouTube recommends something to me and it spirals from there) and I see this video. I ignore it. But it pops back up in my feed. Over and over. It's not going away. And I see the views are going up explosively.

"Fine, I'll watch it," I say.

I didn't think looking at the thumbnail I'd like it. It was a thirty-minute animated short based off this webcomic I'd never heard of. I went in just to see what all the hubbub was. And then I binged the webcomic in two nights 'cause it turns out it's actually pretty good, and through the whole experience I get exposed to this one character. And this character. Guys this character. You thought Shadow was a straight man, this guy, he's a turbo straight man. Straight man ultima. I've never seen the straight man archetype portrayed so hard in any other media I've ever seen. And I'm looking at the crazy man/straight man relationship I got going on with Sorun and Shadow. And then I look at Mr. Straight Maxima over here. And it's like somebody uses a pickaxe to bore the inspiration straight into my head, the ideas just start pouring in as I think to myself, "What if I make a story where it's just this?" Like the universe just threw the answer to all my problems in my lap. And so since then I've been planning some and then I made a fresh new OC and he's rarin' to go, guys, he's pointing at the field and beggin' the coach to let him in.

Look what I'm trying to say is I wanna work on something else on the side.

That is not to say - NOT TO SAY - I'm losing focus on this story. This other thing, this side project, I wouldn't be dividing attention between the two. I'd only work on it, like, once a week. I just want something, anything, to break up the monotony of writing nothing but Sonic. If anything it might make chapters come out even faster, that's part of the reason, this is a big motivation experiment I wanna try. But I haven't made a final decision on if I really wanna do this 'cause it's a big commitment and I know it'll upset some people, so here's the deal:

Next chapter. The entire next chapter is entirely just a drug sequence since it takes place during Sorun's surgery, okay, so next chapter. I'm gonna workshop some stuff so you see what I'm talking about and also to see if I can actually pull this off. It'll be a learning experience for us all. Then I'll post a poll and you guys can decide if I go through with this madness or not. Even if you all say yes I still might not 'cause this is a hard whim I'm working off right now, but the last time I got that kind of burst of inspiration after YouTube recommended me something weird this story happened so hey, who knows.

That's all, go home.