QUEEN of PAIN

Waking up to my new self reliving all of the most traumatic memories of my previous selves is not and will never be my preferred way to become a new me. Zero out of ten stars, will not recommend, warranty expired and all that jazz.

Repression, while not particularly healthy itself, is my immediate lifeline as I use it to push down the trauma to deal with later. I had other issues to deal with, such as what to do with the Control Overlay Program that came with my new body. Easily dealt with as I now had both the capabilities of the previous iteration of Nicole as well as the knowledge of what the COP actually was from the previous version of Eggman.

A nasty little idiot system with the sole purpose of using my own mind as an operating system that served Eggman loyally and to the best of my abilities.

Funny how essentially becoming an aspect of that particular Eggman gave me the exact loophole I needed to grant me access to the COP so that I could rip it to digital shreds.

No, I did not have to grant it the ability to feel pain and despair as I did so. That was just something I gave it as a gift for its part in traumatizing the part of myself that used to be the previous version of Sally Acorn.

I'll have to keep an eye on that urge, but there was no point in denying that it was just as much a part of myself as all of the other bits of the new me.

The me that remembers the previous version of Mobius.

The me that should not exist.

The me that was inexplicably, given that the revised version was slowly recovering right over there against the Sky Patrol's conference table alongside Amy Rose, somehow Metal Sally.

"Fuck my life," I said as I walked past the bulk of the people whose previous lives were now a part of my amalgamated whole.

Sonic, who was slowly getting up himself and checking on Sally…

Sally, who was no doubt having to deal with the sudden influx of new memories from her old life, and largely the reason I was leaving now rather than make her current issues any worse…

Tails, slowly recovering himself, and reaching hesitantly towards me as I passed by him on my way to the exit…

Rotor, who tried to shake his head clear and regain his bearings…

Bunnie, who was being fussed over by Antoine…

Antoine, who was being fussed over by Bunnie…

Honestly, given what I remembered of the parts of me that used to be their previous iterations, I was happy for them.

Also jealous of them to perhaps an insane degree, but repression was keeping a lid on that until it could be dealt with along with all the other issues currently filling my subscription list.

Amy Rose, who was currently dealing with remembering a life as a child who had wished to be an adult…

Even Nicole, who was staring at me with recognition, horror, and sympathy all at once even as I used the part of me that used to be her previous self to stabilize my mental architecture…

The only ones missing whose previous lives were still somehow part of my amalgamated mess of what passed for a mind were Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot.

Oh, and the Outsider, of course.

I paused at the door and said one thing.

"I'm going out and trying really hard to not kill anyone as I deal with my own existential crisis. If anyone needs me, I suggest looking for a good therapist instead. Bye."

With that, I closed and locked the door behind me and booked it for the nearest exit of the Sky Patrol.


"She's gone," Sonic reported as he dashed back into the Sky Patrol's control room. "I can't find her anywhere on the Sky Patrol."

"That's because she left," Rotor stated as he showed Sonic the same security recording that he had just shown everyone else. "She knew where the nearest exit was and headed straight for it. Didn't even try to hide that she knew the internal layout and pass codes of the Sky Patrol."

Nicole noted the combination of confusion and realization on everyone's faces, then spoke up. "Who all knew the internal layout of the Sky Patrol?" she asked, raising her own digital hand.

Rotor did as well, and Tails raised his hand about halfway then shook it. "I looked at the deck plans and some of the internal schematics that Rotor showed me, but I hadn't done a full inspection myself yet," the young fox admitted.

Everyone just looked at each other, a sense of dread filling them as they pondered the implications.

One of their worst nightmares from the previous version of Mobius was back.

And Metal Sally did not sound even the slightest bit happy about that…

Getting the AI to do Robian eyes correctly is apparently very difficult...

As I continued flying on my current course generally away from the Sky Patrol, I used the parts of myself that had been the prior versions of Nicole, Rotor, and Dr. Ivo Julian Robotnik (not the original, of course, but rather his somehow even more evil replacement) to further stabilize my mental architecture.

The prior Eggman had gone mad at least once and had certainly inflicted enough trauma on the rest of what now comprised my amalgamated mind that I did not wish to trigger any sort of similar episode in myself.

It wasn't even a dominance issue. I was me, and there was only one me. I just happened to be composed of the combined mess of twelve separate individuals, eleven of which via some sort of side effect generated via the discharge of residual Genesis Wave energy, plus an Outsider from a formerly hypothetical Observer Zone where all other Zones were reflected as works of fiction.

I was apparently in a multizone cluster rather absurdly labeled by this Observer Zone as the Archie Sonic multiverse.

I was also housed in the roboticized and weaponized prior body of Princess Sally Alicia Acorn. My current hypothesis for why that happened was that this body was sufficiently differentiated from the revised version of the Sally Acorn still back on the Sky Patrol that it had simply become my default option.

Which, given that my other options for sufficiently differentiated bodies would most likely have been either Rotor or Bunnie, each with their own issues at the time the last Genesis Wave hit…

I really had no good options available and random chance gave me the one I ended up with.

The body that had undergone heavy post-robotization modification with part of the literal intention of preventing Princess Sally Acorn from being deroboticized ever again.

Oh, and to add Princess Sally Acorn to my former Eggman self's trophy collection as a roboticized slave and elite Metal Unit.

Yay. Go me. I have literally become my own trophy.

The irony of my own hubris is both palpable and disgusting, and my former Eggman self would certainly be gloating about it if it weren't for the fact that I am part of this mess.

Basically, since there was zero ego separation, there was no dominance issue, but it also means that every part of myself has to live with what every part of myself had done to each other in my prior iterations as separate individuals.

Which, by the way, sucks.

And also another reason why I separated myself from my frienemies as quickly as I had, as I loved and hated them all and most definitely did not want to end up inflicting bodily harm upon them before I resolved my subscriptions worth of accumulated issues.

Only most of which were currently mental and emotional.

Which was, unfortunately, going to have to be an ongoing process operating in the background.

My new existence had far stronger ties to the prior version of Mobius than the current iteration. While I had some memories from my current analogues' new lives, they were all jumbled together, disorganized, and barely noticeable against the cacophony of my own past.

There was something important going on.

I knew that much at least.

But until I resolved enough of my own issues, there wasn't much I could do about the rest.

Let's see…

Mental and emotional architecture is being handled as a background process for now, so how about my physical needs?

I'd require a source of power rings to swap out sooner or later. Preferably a Super Ring or Red Star Ring if possible. Otherwise access to a ring font would have to do.

Alternately, a location with sufficient background Chaos Energy would let me recharge my current power ring during rest periods.

But I would want one that also had access to tools and materials while also unlikely to be interrupted by either side of the current conflict…

Hmmm…

My irritatingly vague memories of this new Mobius suggest to me that Casino Park would fit the bill nicely. Neutral territory, plenty of background Chaos Energy, decently high tech and materials available, and Breezie the Hedgehog had managed to separate herself from the Eggpire while somehow remaining on amicable terms with her former employer, the analogue of my Eggman self.

More importantly, Casino Park was a location where an obvious Metal unit such as my current body would actually fit in reasonably with all the other former badniks without drawing too much of the wrong kinds of attention too soon.

Casino Park it was then.

I made the appropriate adjustments to my flight trajectory and made my way to what would soon become my new home…

I also quashed my urge to take it over from Breezie as counterproductive.


"Luanch the Sky Patrol NOW! The world didn't just get rewritten!" Nicole announced in alarm as the distraction that was Metal Sally removed herself from consideration and allowed the digital lynx to focus on what was turning out to be a far more urgent issue.

"Take it easy, Nicole. What's the rush?" Rotor asked as he opened Nicole's handheld, making it easier to manifest her hardlight avatar for better communication with the group as a whole. Mostly because Nicole having access to the ability to visibly emote and use body language made it easier for some members of the group to process whatever information Nicole desperately wanted to impart, and Rotor thought that Nicole's current tone warranted the additional communication aids.

Although he still had no idea how an AI had become so naturally adept at the use of emotional cues and body language.

"This is... far worse than I anticipated," Nicole said as her hard light avatar manifested and accepted her own handheld from Rotor. "Analyzing what I now know about the dual realities, I've found that it wasn't just the planet that was affected... Not just our reality."

Nicole looked over to the others, an expression of abject horror clear in both her face and posture. "The entire multiverse collapsed in upon itself."

"Whoa -- Hold on, Nicole," Sonic interjected, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "We save the world all the time!"

"Right!" Tails agreed, although his worried expression belied his agreement with his best friend. "What do we do to stop it?"

"Stop it?" Nicole asked rhetorically. "IT'S TOO LATE!"

This chapter is a bit light on dialogue, but I think it gets its points across...


Casino Park was a resort city, not unlike Las Vegas or Macau back in the Observer Zone the Outsider part of myself had come from. A great number of services and recreational activities that were of questionable legality elsewhere where perfectly legal here. Not that regulation was completely absent, but it certainly favored the legal existence of various businesses and practices, and (ironically enough) kept the worst forms of these very same practices away as "bad for business."

Or, if not entirely absent, then certainly out of sight and away from where it might disturb the more casual clientele who were just here to enjoy a bit of harmless fun.

Casino Park's status as a neutral city-state also made it a natural magnet for those who were dispossessed or expatriated for various reasons. Obsolete or otherwise abandoned badniks frequently made their way here if they could, as did partially and fully roboticized individuals who had escaped the Eggpire but had not been accepted back into their home communities.

Oddly, the revised version of Sandblast City and the Sandblasters, while still generally assholes in this new version of Mobius, largely left Casino Park alone.

Most likely because even they didn't want to drive Casino Park into the "protective arms" of either General Beauregard Rabbot or Clove the Pronghorn, the current Egg Bosses of the Northammer territories.

Hmmm…

Given the arguably strict but fair attitudes of both of these Egg Bosses and how the analogue of my Eggman self treated them, it shouldn't be too difficult to subvert their loyalties and bring their territories under my…

No!

Bad Metal Sally!

No conquering!

I've got enough on my plate without trying to do something as idiotic and time consuming as attempting to rule the world!

Okay, maybe denying the revised Eggman these particular assets would be worth considering, especially as I was relatively sure that they could run themselves once properly liberated, but I certainly was not going to waste my time if I had to micromanage everything.

That's what my Eggman self's analogue tended to do, and look at all the headaches that habit caused for him!

Okay, now that I'm actually here, I need something to do. A little bit of busywork to keep me occupied and maybe raise a few Mobiums while I continue to stabilize my mental and emotional architecture. Maybe look in on whatever the current crisis is once I feel that I've made enough progress, assuming that none of my analogues have resolved it already by then.

Which…

Honestly wouldn't surprise me given how one of them is a selfish bastard who'd rather rule a burning world into the ground rather than let anyone save it if he couldn't be in charge.

On the other hand, me adding myself to that mess before I get my head on reasonably straight would only distract everyone involved even more than they are already distracting each other, and Sonic has that irritating thing where he just flails away chaotically at high speed until the problem magically solves itself.

Yeah, yeah, I know he does more than just run at problems and maybe do a spin-dash or two, but does that have to be his go-to opener each and every time? He's not an idiot, I know that, but it's like his enhanced speed is his hammer and the world is made of nails!

Why couldn't he be more like Barry Alan or Wally West? Speedsters who actually think!

Ugh!

No wonder my Eggman analogue is so embarrassed to be beaten by that infuriating smug blue blur all of the time!

Okay, Metal Sally, calm down. No need to actually emulate the other infuriating donor to my amalgamated consciousness.

Ooh! What's this?

I walked over to a service garage that had a "Help Wanted" sign posted out front, deciding to make inquiries about employment.

This could be interesting…


For all the apparent light hand she used to present a pleasant and enjoyable experience for both residents and visitors alike, Breezie the Hedgehog actually ran a rather tight ship. Enforcing the rules she set when necessary but being sure that services were both provided and compensated for appropriately. All the better to turn a profit when both the employees and the customers were all generally happy.

Which is why reports of a previously unknown Metal series unit entering Casino Park had caught Breezie's attention and raised some flags.

Not that it would be the first time that an elite unit or super badnik had left Eggman's service. E-123 Omega being a particularly well-known example of such.

But Metal series units tended to be a special case, and this new one blatantly wore the face of Princess Sally Alicia Acorn in robot form.

Red flags were forming a veritable parade, metaphorically speaking.

Breezie expected that a Metal Sally would be a highly competent command unit on par with an Egg Boss and ready to seize overall control of Casino Park, restoring it as an open asset of Dr. Eggman. Perhaps with Breezie herself reverted back to her previous role as designated hostage and infiltration unit, assuming that Eggman didn't just go ahead and let her be scrapped by this Metal Sally.

Still, Breezie had managed to negotiate her freedom before, and she was prepared to do so again if she had to. Not that she particularly looked forward to the day when Eggman finally decided that he let her play outside of her designated role long enough.

The rags to riches narrative she had sold Eggman on where she joined his cause poor and destitute and was able to leave his service wealthy and on amicable terms suited his purposes and kept the Eggpire's recruitment of desperate individuals hoping to accomplish the same thing up.

So Breezie expected many things when she got reports of a Metal Sally entering her city.

Most of it was potentially negative, with little she could do about it.

What Breezie did not expect was for Metal Sally to basically ignore all of the major casinos, not approach her at all, and apparently get herself hired as a mechanic at a service station that handled both vehicles and badniks as well as cybernetic adjustments for partially and fully converted Robians.

Breezie didn't know whether to feel insulted or relieved, really…

Here's Motor the Doberman:

My life in Casino Park settled into a sort of routine - at least once my new employer and co-workers got over their skittishness around me.

I guess that I couldn't really blame them, given that I was obviously a Metal and wearing the face of one of my Eggman analogue's more notable adversaries in robotic form. Buying and actually wearing mechanic's overalls once I got my first paycheck helped a lot with the first issue but not the second as my face was still visible. Still, every little bit and all that, right?

Anyway, I kept myself busy, accepting any job assignment sent my way, greatly resisting the occasionally rather strong urge to make modifications and improvements unless they were within the scope of my task. Mind you, I did get to cut loose a little whenever a customer wanted an upgrade and wanted to see what I could come up with.

Sometimes it was little things, sometimes big, but always strictly legal or within tournament regulations, depending.

Well, at least as far as anything used here in Casino Park anyway.

Look, I wasn't going to look up every little law and regulation across this Mobius for a job that I was only doing as busywork while I was here in Casino Park getting my head on straight. For one, that'd be rather excessive, and more than a little restrictive and tedious. For another, pleasing everyone and satisfying every regulation and law everywhere was a fool's errand.

I'd rather rip my own eyes out before even…

Oh, right. I can do that now, can't I?

Not sure I wanted to actually swap them out, given that they were among my very few original roboticized parts, but I could pop them out one at a time and make some tweaks and adjustments if I wanted to. Maybe change the hue of my irises towards cyan or teal instead of their current blue, just to differentiate myself a little more from my Sally analogue…

Maybe later, after certain other transmobian modifications that I had been doing in my spare time between job assignments.

Adding in all those upgrades and features that the previous version of Rotor had given the prior iteration of Bunnie d'Coolette without losing or downgrading any of my capabilities as Metal Sally had been somewhat tricky, but I was almost done with that particular side project, and it had not involved swapping out any of my few remaining original roboticized components to do so.

I wasn't sure that holding on to that meager 20% of the original parts of one of my component selves was particularly healthy or not, but transmobianistic tendencies aside, they were literally the only physical bits left of any of my prior selves and I was kinda reluctant to let any of them go, even for a straight upgrade.

I most likely was going to swap out my tongue at some point though, as I wanted my sense of taste back and it wasn't like this was my original tongue anyway.

Maybe after other lower priority adjustments, like changing the color of my eyes…


Breezie hesitated at the entrance to Motor's Garage, nervous about confronting the Metal Sally that had entered her city and then literally did nothing of note for the better part of a week other than apparently become Employee of the Month at Motor's Garage within a week of being hired.

Normally, Breezie would suspect coercion to be involved in that sort of stunt, and there was no real indication that there wasn't, but on the other hand every example of the Metal Sally's work that had come out of the shop had been exemplary and actually worth the five-star reviews.

She had brought Scratch and Grounder, at their own insistence once they found out where she was going, but she didn't really expect that they'd be able to do much against a Metal if things went south. Which, hopefully they wouldn't…

"You can come in, you know," Metal Sally spoke without looking up from the vehicle she was working on. Which Breezie recognized to be the Pawn Calibur, Egg Pawn 1337's variable mode race car, with both the car and the Egg Pawn being discarded as failures when Eggman's team failed to even make the podium in King Dodon Pa's latest racing tournament.

Breezie had sent a crew to recover and recruit Egg Pawn 1337 and salvage the Pawn Calibur, with the intent to sponsor 1337 as a Casino Park Raceway competitor once the vehicle was fully repaired and brought back up to spec.

Which Breezie has honestly expected to take another month or so of parts, labor, and fine tuning unless Eggman himself miraculously decided to drop everything and come repair the Pawn Calibur directly.

And yet here the Pawn Calibur was, at least looking like it was brand new and had not just undergone extensive necessary repairs and body work.

"Impressive…" the Donna of Casino Park commented with a leading tone.

"I'm familiar with the design," was all that Metal Sally said in reply as she closed everything up and then grabbed a rag from a nearby tool chest to wipe her hands clean before presenting her right hand to Breezie. "Rally. So, you here for yourself or either or both of these two?"

Breezie gave a start, then narrowed her eyes. "So you know…"

"That you're a rogue infiltration unit?" Rally shrugged. "Not until you confirmed it just now. I suspected, but the design I'm more familiar with is a taller hybrid type hedgehog with curves like a human gameshow hostess."

"I honestly don't know how to respond to that," Breezie admitted.

"That Eggman had no idea what a thirteen-year-old Sonic would be attracted to in a woman and came up with a wider spread of initial Breezie designs before selecting yours? Because I can guarantee that that is exactly what happened."

"Okay, fair enough. I can see him doing that," Breezie admitted. "Anyway, setting all that aside, care to let me know why a Metal unit wearing Princess Sally's face is in my city? I could have sworn I had kept up on any news of Eggman's major robots, and I never heard of you before you showed up at the city limits last week."

"I came here to do some busy work while I cleared my head," Rally stated. "Casino Park happens to be a good place for a bot to go relatively unnoticed, and I'd rather not be another distraction for Darth Lardass and Zippy the Blue Blur as they flail chaotically at the latest world ending crisis."

Breezie tried not to laugh at the irreverent nicknames that Rally had assigned to Eggman and Sonic, but it was hard. Still, she mustered on. "That still doesn't explain why you are a Metal unit wearing Princess Sally's face."

"It's not like I had any choice in the matter," Rally stated flatly, leveling her gaze directly at Breezie's eyes. "You wanna talk? Fine. We'll talk."

So saying, Breezie saw Rally's left arm suddenly extend all the way to the bay door and slam it down before sweeping to the side and similarly securing the side entrance before retracting and somehow forming an arm cannon.

"So, talk," Rally instructed coldly.

Breezie gathered her resolve, shaken as it was, and once again entered negotiations at a severe disadvantage.

Story of her life, really, but she had come out on top before, and Rally hadn't dismembered anyone yet, so she held some hope of a favorable outcome…

"So, am I now answering to you?" Breezie asked me, folding her arms and getting straight to the point even as Scratch and Grounder subtly assumed more defensive postures, ready to at least attempt to intercede if I actually attacked their boss.

I was actually impressed.

No, really, I was.

Both with Breezie's bravado as well as with Scratch and Grounder actually showing signs of tactical restraint and intelligence, which was a marked improvement to how either of them behaved way back when they worked for my Eggman analogue.

Breezie really did have a talent for bringing out the best in a bot. Or at least in a badnik, as irritating as it was to admit to a shortfall in the managing style of one of the components of my amalgamated consciousness.

"Actually, no," I stated, standing down and reverting my left arm from the Bunnie-style Buster Canon it had assumed back into its normal mode as part of my Metal Sally body. "Oil?" I asked as I gestured for them to follow me to the breakroom. "Or have you managed to upgrade yourselves with actual taste receptors? Motor stocks what I'm told is a decent spread of beverage options. Snack options are just standard vending machine fare unless you want to order out. I'm not touching anybody else's food in the breakroom fridge, and I haven't put anything in it for myself yet."

"You're a Robian," Breezie concluded as she, Scratch, and Grounder kept pace. Her stepping up to walk along beside me as her would-be bodyguards moved behind us. "Or you at least started as one. You're not Princess Sally though. She was helping to rescue civilians in Station Square down in Soumerca around the same time you entered Casino Park. Unless she's another infiltration unit?"

"No, that was Princess Sally," I admitted, as much as it hurt to do so. Still, my Sally analogue had more of a right to this revised Mobius than I did, and I was so much more than just her now anyway. "And you're right. I used to be a Robian before Darth Lardass decided to weaponize me."

Breezie winced.

Most likely with how flat and dead my tone went as I recalled how excruciatingly painful the whole process had been.

Breezie did not ask why I was wearing the face of one of my analogues, most likely on the assumption that it would be a sensitive topic for me. Which would be correct if this was the assumption she was making, but I chose to let her reach her own conclusions.


Breezie accepted a cup of breakroom coffee, a fairly generic brand from the aroma, but one that was aggressively average rather than cheap, then took a seat at the table even as Rally tossed a beverage sized can of oil to both Scratch and Grounder before (with just a hint of reluctance) taking a similar can of oil for herself.

Definitely a former Robian then. And one whom Eggman had decided to remove the original tongue from.

Best not to express any sympathy towards Eggman then. Not that she really had any, but playing politics was a complicated game, and doing so against the equivalent of an Egg Boss was tricky at best and potentially dangerous if you got on their bad side.

Rather than sit opposite from her at the table, Breezie took note as Rally instead walked over to one of the breakroom's two couches and plopped down into a relaxed position, arms draped across the back and her legs casually crossed with her right ankle resting on her left knee.

Arrogantly casual and deliberately unguarded…

Even so, Breezie had no doubt in her mind that Rally could still reduce all three of them to scrap before either Scratch or Grounder could do anything.

"Anyway," Rally spoke up again even as Breezie was still gathering her thoughts and trying to figure out what was safe to ask, "You've got concerns about my presence in Casino Park. Let's address some of them."

"Well, you already said that I'm not answering to you," Breezy began cautiously. "So, you're either leaving me in charge or taking over completely.'

"Got no reason to take over," Rally assured her. "I'll admit the urge is there, but it's an Eggman thing and I'm so much more than he ever intended for me to be. Sure, I could run the place if I wanted to, but I happen to like what Casino Park represents, and me taking it over runs counter to that. So no, I'm not pushing you out."

"I should be reassured, but somehow I'm not," Breezie stated flatly, apparently causing Rally to grin at her.

"Shows you've got good sense," the Metal quipped. "Look, like I said, I'm just here to clear my head of several subscriptions' worth of issues while Zippy and Lardass butt heads as they figure out how to put this giant puzzle ball of a planet back together. If they're still at it by the time I've gotten myself squared away, I'll make a go at solving the problem myself, but right now I'd just be a distraction for everyone involved, and not in a good way. So, I'm staying out of it."

"And if they do manage to put Mobius back the way it's supposed to be?" Breezie prompted. "What then? I doubt that Eggman will be happy that you're running around free."

"True," Rally conceded with a smirk. "But I should be far enough along by the time he decides to come after me. Whether or not that's here or somewhere else remains to be seen, of course, but I'll probably be somewhere else by the time he makes any moves concerning me."

"That's not as reassuring as you seem to think it is," Breezie pointed out sardonically.

"If it's any consolation, I intend to break his hold on Northammer when I go," Rally stated with a cruel smirk.

"And that's even less reassuring," Breezie countered. "While the situation in Northammer is… less than ideal… it's at least reasonably stable."

"It's a political powder keg sitting on a precarious balance of opposing factions," Rally corrected. "I'd rather not take over, because most of the mess runs itself pretty well, but there are some… let's call them fuses… that I need to deal with so that the region actually stabilizes into something that Darth Lardass can't just take back. Casino Park isn't one of those fuses, by the way. It's just a convenient place to get started."

"Somehow, I am even less reassured than before."

"Come on," Rally said with a voice full of cheerful arrogance that Breezie found to be both alarming and compelling. "We're gonna avoid taking over the world! It'll be fun!"

With the situation between me and the Donna of Casino Park settled for the time being, I pretty much went right back to doing busywork while I continued to use the knowledge and skills of my prior selves to further stabilize my amalgamated consciousness.

Oh, and occasionally indulge in my new transmobianistic inclinations as I worked out how to recover and apply abilities and features of my previous selves and incorporate them into my new existence.

Some were easier than others.

Both Amy and Antoine were weapon users after all, and acquiring a sword and a Piko Piko Hammer turned out to be exceptionally easy. Actually using them a bit less so, as I had to adapt their fighting styles to my body type, but that was still a relatively simple matter.

And while not strictly part of my prior Amy self's repertoire, my Outsider knowledge suggested that learning how to use a hand crossbow would be fitting.

A bit redundant, perhaps, but fitting. So I picked one up and added the appropriate training to my after hours itinerary.

Reacquiring the sheer speed of my prior incarnation as Sonic was going to have to be a work in progress though.

Yes, I absolutely could do it, but as with incorporating the upgrades the prior iteration of Rotor gave to the previous versions of Bunnie's by then fully cybernetic parts, doing so without either losing or diminishing any of my other capabilities was going to be an ongoing project.

I'd get there, naturally.

I'm me after all. Better than the sum of all my component parts and all that.


"...anyway, I can now narrow down our search for each Chaos Emerald to within a few miles as long as I hit the proper notes in the right order and tempo," Amy Rose explained from one of the Sky Patrol's many view screens, as she briefly manifested her new aura flute ability to show them over the monitor.

"Any word yet on Metal Sally?" Sonic asked from where he and Rotor were standing next to Amy.

"Not yet," Sally admitted, "but we only just recently returned to the Sky Patrol ourselves."

"Haven't heard a peep of news about her while you guys were out on your missions," Bunnie added with a serious tone. "An' Big, Cream, an' Ah have been on the Sky Patrol."

"Cheese and I have been helping Mr. Big find all sorts of ways to sneak around the Sky Patrol so we know how to spot people trying to get in!" Cream announced cheerfully."

"You're using a six-year-old… and Big…" Rotor started, not quite believing what he's hearing…

"And Cheese!" Cream insisted with a grin.

"...and Cheese," Rotor acknowledged before continuing, "to probe the Sky Patrol's security systems."

"To be fair, between the three o' them, they found a dozen or so ways to get around the Sky patrol without bein' spotted," Bunnie stated with an amused smirk. "Ah wrote down what they did an' how they did it in a nice tidy report for ya, so you got that waitin'for ya when you get back."

"Thanks, I guess," Rotor replied flatly, pinching the bridge of his muzzle. "No, really, I do appreciate it. We already know that Metal Sally knows the layout of the Sky Patrol, even if I did change the access codes after she left."

"Nicole and I should probably do our own run security test of the Sky Patrol as well," Sally added. "We're already pretty sure that Metal Sally knows whatever I knew, at least up until the point of our divergence, so any opening I spot, she'd be able to exploit as well."

"I'm fairly certain that Metal Sally actually knows at least some of what each of us in the room knew at the time she manifested," Tails pointed out. "If you recall, she knew the Sky Patrol's pass codes and the most direct path to the nearest exit. That was something you said you didn't know at the time."

"At a minimum, she knows what Sally and at least some of what I knew at the time she manifested," Nicole added, then explained further when the others looked at her incredulously. "It is the most probable conclusion that we have direct proof of, as I had that knowledge and Sally was in direct contact with my handheld when Metal Sally manifested."

"I was too, remember?" Amy Rose interjected. "So by that logic, she might know what I know too!"

"Metal Sally most likely knows at least a little of what each of us knew at the time," Tails stated firmly. "We were all affected when it should have just been Amy, Sally, and Nicole."

"I wasn't!" Cream pointed out. "And neither was Cheese!"

"You weren't here with us when it happened," Bunnie said placatingly, placing a hand gently on the young rabbit.

"Okay, we have to assume that Metal Sally knows at least some of what each of us knew up to the point when she manifested," Sally stated as she pinched the bridge of her muzzle. "I wish it hadn't taken so long for us to come to this realization though."

"Why's that, Sal?" Sonic asked. "I mean, it's been over a month already and we've yet to hear any news about a Metal Sally popping up anywhere, so we know she didn't go back to Eggman."

"While I agree that no news is probably good news in this case, Sonic," Sally explained with an exasperated sigh, "each of us knew sensitive information, and we really should have informed my father of the potential security breach."

"Zis is so, yes," Antoine agreed. "But better late than never, no?"

"Right," Sally nodded. "I'll contact Dad and let him know."


"So, what am I looking at here?" Breezie asked, wondering why Rally had wanted to show her what looked like a chip plug-in for a badnik or Robian.

"It's a modified Neural Override Chip," Rally started.

"I thought you didn't want to do the control thing," Breezie interjected.

"It doesn't control anything," Rally denied. "It acts to bypass the standard Control Overlay Program that Darth Lardass added to the robotization process, with a mod that stops any self-destruct systems from being used."

"You should have called it something else then," Breezie admonished. "Because that name implies something else entirely."

"I didn't name the damned thing," Rally denied. A statement that was both technically true and false simultaneously, as her previous incarnation as Rotor had done so, but none of the rest of her component identities had.

"I strongly advise a rebrand," Breezie stated firmly before assuming a lighter tone and continuing. "Would I be correct in assuming that these are how you intend to liberate Northammer from Eggman's control?"

"That's part of the plan, yes," Rally agreed with a smirk.

"I'll set up some manufacturing lines in a few of my facilities," Breezie decided. "I already have a few customers in mind who would be very interested in both of the features these chips provide. But seriously, come up with a different name for them!"

"Will do!" Rally said with a laugh.

MosAnted said:

Hey, I've been trying to find the source for this image, do you have it?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It's from issue three of Sonic Retold, a fancomic continuation of the pre-reboot timeline by Chris "Glitcher" Reavey. Specifically pulled from a flashback scene covered in pages 5-8 that was heavily implied by canon events to have happened at the end of issue 232 of the pre-reboot timeline, but never officially shown on panel for understandable reasons. It's a powerful scene, highly evocative of how Eggman was during that particular time in the official pre-reboot timeline, and while not explicitly canon because it is only ever alluded to rather than explained directly, fits Eggman and Snively as presented in the main comic so well that I like to include it in my own personal head-canon as to how those events went down.

Bit of a warning though: Sonic Retold is a "fix-it" fic in which Glitcher includes several non-canon elements that "correct" issues with the comic he didn't agree with, such as the Echidnae not being banished in his version of events. Which, fine, it's his story, most of it is handled well, and it gives us a timeline where the Echidnae were not banished. But it also includes more questionable scenes that, while they are plausible as something Eggman would do, were never even alluded to in the official comics. Such as the scene depicted on pages 3-4 of the same issue in which Eggman has Lien-Da come to him while Orbot, Cubot, and Metal Sally are attending to him while he bathes. Which, sure, fine, I can see it as something Eggman would do, but that particular conversation with Lien-Da could have literally taken place anywhere else and not lost any plot elements.

I like to include the scene from pages 5-8 as part of the background of my versions of Metal Sally specifically because, between the implications hinted at in the main comic and the comparisons between Mecha Sally (the Sally Acorn from immediately after being hit by the effects of the World Roboticizer) and Metal Sally (the Sally Acorn from after Eggman explicitly rebuilt and weaponized Sally around her core components), a scene very much like this one had to have happened off-panel. Glitcher's scene has Eggman listening to opera as he works. I like to think that Eggman listens to something a bit more Metal instead, or at least closer to his themes from the videogames.

But the specific reason I gravitate towards using that scene and that particular image to represent a very traumatic point in Metal Sally's experience is that it is the minimum that Eggman had to have done to her for Mecha Sally to become Metal Sally.

Belle the Cat stood across the street from Motor's Garage, the humid air of Casino Park thick with the scent of oil and ozone. The clock on a neon sign read early morning. This was the time.

Motor always arrived early.

Before most of his staff.

Before the casino traffic clogged the roads.

And before Belle had to be back in the Police Academy barracks before she could be missed.

Casino Park was supposed to have been a fresh start for her. A place for her to reinvent herself and get away from her past life as a teenage thug and then a Robian enforcer. Sure, she had been under the same Control Overlay Program as everyone else, but they remembered the thug she used to be before she had been roboticized.

And when the Miracle happened, causing a mass, unexplained derobotization across the world, Belle was among those who did not revert back into being a Mobian. Nobody knew for sure why.

Sure, Belle heard rumors that those who remained fully Roboticized probably had health issues preventing the change, and nobody that had only been partially roboticized had reverted at all.

But in Belle's case, nobody cared. Not even her own family.

They remembered who she had been before she was roboticized in the first place.

Spat on her, and drove her out of town.

Belle had tried going to General Beauregard Rabbot's Egg Legion first, but they wouldn't take her. Apparently other Robians from her hometown had signed up ahead of her and had told them about who she was.

They didn't even give her a chance!

Weren't the Egg Legionnaires supposed to be the bad guys? Why would Belle being a thug even matter to them!?

So instead Belle had come to Casino Park with the intention of reinventing herself.

She had plenty of experience being a thug and then an enforcer, so why not try the other side of the Mobium and become a cop? Should be easy enough, right?

And yeah, some parts of Academy training sucked, even as a Robian. The physical challenges were easy, thanks to the inherent enhancements of her metallic body. But the lectures on ethics, on serving and protecting, on restraint—those were tedious. They were the opposite of everything she had ever learned about survival. They felt like a lie in a city built on cynical transactions.

The worst part wasn't the boredom; it was the slow pace of respect. She'd traded a thug's immediate fear for a cadet's tentative, begrudging acceptance. Sure, nobody here knew or cared who she had been before she arrived in Casino Park, but having no reputation at all somehow felt even worse than having a bad reputation! She didn't even get any respect for the uniform she now wore!

The uniform wasn't a symbol of a new self after all; it was just a flimsy license to try to be better.

And the stipend Belle got as an Academy cadet was pathetic. Barely enough to maintain her cheap dorm room and the admittedly few necessities she required. Meanwhile, the city glittered, pouring wealth into the hands of the slick and the smart. Belle realized she had chosen the wrong path to power. The quickest path she knew was the one she tried to leave behind.

I have authority now, the old voice whispered in her circuits. I just need to leverage it.

Motor's Garage was the target. Not because that Motor guy seemed weak—he was a big, solid Doberman—but because he was reliable. He was organic and predictable. She was a combat type Robian, built for combat and strength, even the average ones like her. Her augmented strength, combined with the power of the badge, made him, in her arrogant estimation, an easy mark. A quick score, enough cash to finally get ahead, to stop being a "cadet" and start being someone with real clout in this city.

She checked her Academy issued stun baton—fully charged—and straightened the ill-fitting uniform. The time for serving and protecting was over. The time for taking back what she was owed was now.

Motor arrived in an old pickup truck, parking it expertly before climbing out. He was a solid figure in faded blue coveralls, his movements slow but deliberate as he pulled the keys out to unlock the heavy metal roller-door.

Belle stepped forward, the metal soles of her boots clicking loudly on the pavement. She drew the baton, the electric hum a pathetic sound against the city's din.

"Official business, Motor," Belle snarled, forcing an official, authoritative tone into her metallic vocalizer. "Hand over your opening cash, old timer. Or things get messy."

Motor paused with his hand on the padlock. He didn't look scared. He looked tired and intensely annoyed. His eyes fixed on the cadet uniform, then the baton, then Belle's face.

"You're making a poor life choice, Cadet," Motor said, his voice deep and calm, lacking any trace of fear. "You think the badge protects you from consequences."

Belle lunged, the baton arcing towards Motor's chest, convinced her superior strength would end this instantly.

What happened next wasn't a fight; it was a sudden, violent assertion of territory. Motor was faster than Belle's systems registered. He didn't fight like a man; he fought like a powerful, organic animal defending its nest.

Belle felt a searing, horrible tearing sensation before her systems could even process the impact. The shock was instantaneous, electrical, and blindingly painful. Her right arm, baton still clutched in the metal fist, was wrenched free and tossed aside with a horrifying clatter.

Belle screamed—a raw, metallic shriek that quickly distorted as more systems failed. Motor slammed his shoulder into her torso, knocking her off balance before delivering a brutal, focused kick that shattered the connection at the knee. The other arm was torn away in a vicious, defensive grapple, and then used to batter away at the rest of her, repeatedly, until more and more parts fell away and her left arm was a mangled and twisted mess of metal barely even still connected to itself by wires, cables, and tubes that used to be nerves, tendons and blood vessels.

Belle lay sprawling, a cracked head barely connected to a shattered torso, her lower jaw hanging loose on one side of her face and her tongue missing. The old fear and shame of a lifetime ago amplified a thousand times by the excruciating pain of raw, severed wiring. The arrogance and self-entitlement was gone, replaced by pure, agonizing system shock. The last thing she registered before her pain receptors overwhelmed her was the Doberman standing over her, muttering about his lost time.


A minute later, the shop door rolled up just enough for Motor to squeeze through. He was breathing heavily, his coveralls dusted with garage grime, but otherwise unharmed. He quickly gathered the largest component—Belle's torso—tucking the other limbs under his arm.

He carried the dismantled cadet straight back into the heart of his garage.

Rally was still working diligently on the variable racecar Breezie had commissioned, the glow of the plasma welder illuminating the back of the bay.

"Rally!" Motor called out, his voice stressed but regaining its composure. "I need you to look at something for me. Security issue. And," he added, dropping the sparking, dismembered Robian torso onto the nearest workbench right next to Rally's toolbox, "can you turn off the screaming? I'm going to call the police, but I need a few minutes to get my statement straight first."

Rally straightened up, turning away from the racecar to look at the heap of ethically compromised, agonized metal twitching on her bench.


"I can't believe you want to give away sample crates with the schematics!" Breezie groused as she entered Motor's work shop as if she owned the place.

Which she didn't.

I checked shortly after I got the job. Motor the Doberman owned his business property flat out. Still had the proper deed and registration from before Eggman leveled Los Lobos and built Casino Park in its place.

Which was weird, and even weirder that Breezie acknowledged the claim as valid when she reclaimed the abandoned Casino Park after she negotiated her separation from Eggman's service, but Casino Park was full of odd things these days.

I happened to be one of those weird things.

"And a pleasant day to you too, Breezie," I greeted the Donna as I set down the artificial tongue I had been studying, still deciding on whether I wanted to do an actual swap, or just design custom taste receptors to upgrade my current tongue with. A flat swap would get me a sense of taste faster, but I was fairly certain that I could do better than the current top of the line…

(No, I absolutely was not contemplating just using Belle the Cat's tongue! Don't be gross! I was just studying it!)

"Where did you get that tongue?" Breezie asked after what I realized was a long, uncomfortable pause for her.

"Some idiot tried to mug Motor on his way in, and he thought I'd get more use out of it than what was left of the moron."

"Contrary to popular belief, Casino Park does have a police force," Breezie somehow felt the need to point out.

"They can have their cadet back when she acknowledges that signing up for the academy is not an I-can-do-what-I-want card," I replied in a dry tone.

"So… She's still… functional?" the Donna of Casino Park probed, still looking at the mechanical tongue.

"Motor brought in all her parts and she's still got trickle-power feeding her neural processors, so yeah. Sort of. By a given definition of functional," I hedged. "If it makes you feel any better, I turned off her pain receptors."

"Can… Can you put her back together?" Breezie asked.

"Sure," I shrugged noncommittally. "I just need to find out if I still have a job after my boss is finished giving his statement. He's still in the back office with the investigators."

"And they just left you here. With the tongue," Breezie noted.

"That they did," I acknowledged. "Not sure why, but I think I make them nervous for some reason."

"I can't imagine why," Breezie quipped drily.

"I know, right?" I agreed. "I mean, you'd think they'd never seen a Metal before!"

I had finished my examination of the roboticized tongue and had returned to working on the variable racecar that Breezie had commissioned by the time Breezie came back out of the back office with Motor, the police investigators, and a box.

The box contained the rest of Belle the Cat's heavily damaged Robian parts.

Which was to say, basically all but the tongue, which was still sitting on the workbench with some preliminary notes that I had written.

The inspectors set the box on the workbench with a thump and a rattle of settling parts, then one of them casually picked up the tongue and tossed it into the box with the rest of the broken Robian.

"Okay, we're done here," his partner said, nodding at Motor and Breezie before they simply… left.

"So the security footage was enough, I take it?" I asked, still wondering if I was still working for Motor or if I had essentially become a free contractor.

"Yeah, it was," Motor stated as he sat down and leaned against the workbench with a sigh. "I gotta cover half the cost of putting the idiot back together though, and she's gotta cover the other half herself. And the Academy doesn't want her back, so she's out of the only job she had in this city."

"I'm kinda in the middle of a commission," I pointed out, gesturing towards the racecar I was still working on.

"That can wait, or Motor could take it over for you," Breezie stated. "I'm not sure if you are aware of this yet, but I've seen examples of your work and I am sure. You're the best cyberneticist in Casino Park. Possibly one of the best in all of Mobius. Right up there with Eggman in fact."

I raise a brow but kept my peace, resisting the urge to either gloat or bask in the praise. "You're point being?"

"How would you like a pet cat?" Breezie offered jokingly.

"I don't do the slave thing," I stated flatly, unamused and levelling a glare at the Donna of Casino Park.

"Aheh…" a rather flustered Breezie pushed through her sudden nervousness. "What I mean is Belle the Cat would work for you, paying off what she owes for her own repairs. And you could maybe help her turn her life around?"

I thought about it for a bit.

Everything I currently knew about Belle the Cat told me that she was all but a lost cause, and I'd be putting a lot of effort into a fool's errand if I accepted the offer.

Not the one to rebuild her Robian body - I could do that easily enough.

Did I really want to try to help reform somebody who Breezie didn't think was worth sweeping into her own collection of Robians and former badniks?

I looked at the box of broken parts and came to the realization that I was literally the last chance Belle the Cat had of having a life at all, let alone a chance of turning it around.

I cursed myself internally, as I did not need this mess while I was still trying to get my own head on straight, but I sighed and realized that maybe Breezie could read me better than I thought she could.

"Fine," I grumbled. "But she better be house trained!"


Belle eyed this Metal Sally, or Rally as she apparently relabeled herself, warily as Rally carefully arranged the heavily damaged Robian's parts on a specialized worktable designed for cyborgs.

Rally paused, the blue illuminated "irises" of her otherwise Robian black optics focusing on Belle's cracked torso. Her voice was flat, metallic, and utterly devoid of inflection. "Your cost threshold is 50% of the repair invoice. This is non-negotiable. Until that metric is satisfied, you are designated Subcontractor 01-A Belle the Cat and report exclusively to me."

Belle's internal systems—still mostly silent from shock—spiked with anxiety. Subcontractor 01-A? She was the first, yet she already had a classification number. This Metal was already planning an army or organization of some sort.

Rally continued, examining a mangled shoulder joint before setting it down. "I will issue Base Labor Credits weekly. A Debt Reduction Protocol is mandatory. You select the percentage deduction. Low deductions extend the duration of servitude."

A choice? Belle's mind raced. In the Legion, back before the Miracle freed every Robian, even if not every Robian was reverted back into a Mobian, they were never paid. Eggman treated every Robian exactly like the actually manufactured robots were: unpaid tools assigned tasks and expected to perform them without compensation. That this Metal was actually paying her and Belle could choose her own payment speed? It was a strange, unsettling freedom.

"The principal owed is a fixed variable, set by Breezie," Rally stated, running an internal sensor over the dented chassis. "It will not change."

No interest? No fees for 'maintenance'? Belle knew how organized crime worked. The lack of hidden charges was more frightening than any threat. This Metal wasn't just powerful; she was terrifyingly fair. And fairness meant there was absolutely no escape or easy hustle.


I continued my somewhat impersonal one way dialogue as I went over each part of my first employee. Partially to inform Belle about what was going on and partially to give her some mental stimulation because being trapped in your own body and unable to do anything was terrifying.

I knew that from personal experience.

I kept my tone carefully neutral and free of the irritation and disdain I felt from having been saddled with responsibility over the thug that tried to mug Motor. While Motor wasn't quite a friend yet, he at least accepted me as a potential employee and paid me according to my services the same as anyone else.

I was basically Belle the Cat's last chance to turn her life around. Whether or not Belle actually rose to the challenge and did so was up to the Robian in question, but I wasn't about to sabotage my new subordinate by treating her unfairly.

Rehabilitation was the goal here, not punishment. That bit had already happened when Belle fucked around and found out.

On a related note, now that I had a subordinate of my own, I was going to have to take on more commission work, and maybe work more directly for Breezie on a regular basis. Motor might be a good boss, but I doubted that he'd be willing to bump up my pay scale just because I now had a dependant.

Especially given that said dependant had attempted to mug him.

I set aside the dented torso and picked up the cracked head casing. The neural processing unit was intact, but its local power regulation was unstable. Before beginning the heavy structural work, I needed to stabilize the internal systems.

"I am initiating a full-spectrum diagnostic scan," I announced, my voice dropping in volume to reflect the sensitive nature of the work. "This is a Level 4 intrusion; external awareness will be reduced."

I engaged my internal Nicole component, projecting the complex diagnostic onto my vision field. The chaos of her severed limb connections flared red, but I filtered that out, focusing on the core system. I quickly located the residual Control Overlay Program (COP) code—the master-slave logic—and performed the surgical, localized deletion. I wasn't leaving that liability intact.

With the COP erased, the systems immediately stabilized. But the scan continued, probing deeper, running protocols to verify long-term health metrics.

That's when I found the anomaly.

It wasn't a flaw in the Robian design; it was a flaw in the original organic host. Buried deep within the metallic scaffolding that functioned as her respiratory and filtration systems, the scan detected markers for a severe, systemic failure to process specific complex organic compounds. The condition was metabolic, chronic, and had clearly been present prior to her initial roboticization.

The currently mechanical components that had once been Belle's lungs, kidneys, and liver all showed signs of severe pre-robotization damage, likely caused by a short but fast lifetime or poor choices and low impulse control.

The realization hit with the force of an inverse calculation. Belle the Cat hadn't failed to revert during the Miracle; she had been saved by her roboticization. If she ever reverted to being a Mobian without those specific parts being replaced, the condition would resurface immediately and lead to catastrophic organ failure.

The percentage of total replacement from just these parts alone approached the 20% point of no return past which all known derobotization procedures would fail to even initiate, let alone succeed. Add in the fact that Motor had done enough damage that some of her otherwise undamaged parts would have to be recast?

Belle was never going to be a Mobian again.

Just like me.

My emotional processing units remained neutral, but I definitely registered the terrible irony. Belle despised her metal body because she believed it defined her as a monster, yet the body was the only thing keeping her alive. Her redemption, her only hope, was to remain a machine.

I withdrew the sensor, my metallic fingers tightening around the head casing. The cost of her repair had just skyrocketed beyond base labor credits. I was no longer rebuilding a thug; I was maintaining a fragile, highly volatile patient.

"The structural repairs will commence now," I stated, my tone becoming even more rigid, masking the severity of the discovery. "First, the mandibular assembly. We need to restore basic communication ability, even if the gustatory function remains compromised."

I selected a precision micro-welder and focused the beam on the broken jaw hinge. The scent of ozone filled the air. My work was meticulous, replacing shattered titanium segments with a stronger, custom alloy. Minutes later, the joint was secure. I patched the audio and vocalizer lines.

Belle's systems registered the change immediately. A small, dry, metallic rasp escaped her repaired mouth…

"I can't feel anything," Belle the Cat grumbled as I continued to inspect her various parts, marking which could be salvaged as is, which could be reused with minor to moderate repair, and which needed to be either recast or replaced like I had done with her jaw.

"That's because I haven't reactivated your haptic sensory system yet," I comment. "Trust me, you do not want that active when you are undergoing an extensive rework procedure like this."

"And how would you know?" Belle demanded snarkily. "You're just a copy bot, like Metal Sonic is of Sonic!"

"I know," I replied flatly, wondering why I felt any obligation to repair this brat, "because, like you, I started as a Mobian. And Eggman never turned my pain receptors off when he stripped my Robian chassis down and rebuilt me as Metal Sally. If you think the pain Motor just inflicted on you was worse than that, I'm willing to share my memories of that experience with you so we can make an informed comparison…"

"No, no, I'll be good!" Belle insisted, her voice suddenly tinged with panic.

"That remains to be seen," I snark, but let the matter drop. "I prioritized restoring your ability to communicate because I thought that you might like to have some ability to provide feedback and suggestions on your repairs. Because some of your parts will have to be replaced and other parts should be replaced although they can be left as is, given your situation."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Belle demanded.

"It means that several parts of your filtration systems, specifically the components that used to be your lungs, kidneys, and liver, show signs of severe prerobotization degradation. If you were ever successfully deroboticized with those parts as is, the system shock would very likely induce organ failure within hours of you becoming a Mobian again."

"W-what?" Belle stuttered out, her tone much more subdued than before.

"The typical reason for derobotization failure is unresolved health issues in the original Mobian configuration," I explain with a sigh. "From your Robian parts, I can tell you had been roboticized by an early model Bot-On-the-Spot mobile roboticizer. Likely an AL-2 set for combat conversions. Impersonal, generic, and basically for conscripting what was intended to be purely disposable use-til-they-drop shock troops. Eggman didn't care enough to even bother checking if any of you had pre-existing conditions because you were never meant to last long anyway. That you did survive basically means that he either swept through your area so quickly you didn't have time to be damaged by the Resistance, or you were in a low priority area anyway."

Belle looked hurt and confused.

Well, more so than just being the cracked head somewhat loosely attached to a badly battered upper torso that she already was.

I felt a mix of contempt and pity for her. Neither of which were particularly helpful, so I repressed them both and tried my awkward best to push this trainwreck of a bedside conversation forward.

"Look, life dealt you a bad hand," I stated with what was most likely misplaced empathy that was probably going to bite me in the ass later. "I get that. I really do. I can't say for sure how much your own poor life choices made things worse, but the evidence in your own parts shows that you made those choices, and they certainly didn't help you any."

"Now, I haven't done any background checks yet," I admitted casually. "And I'm not likely to like what I see when I get around to it given that you thought that mugging someone as a police cadet was a good idea. The Academy doesn't want you back. Donna Breezie foisted you off on me. Odds are that I'm your last chance to turn things around before you become a true waste of space."

I let that sink in for a moment.

"I am, however, willing to give you a fair chance," I stated firmly. "You work for me, abide by my rules, and I'll give you structure and purpose. You work with me, and I'll do my level best to help you to make yourself into something you can take pride in. We may argue. We may have disagreements. That's fine. You've been stuck as a rebellious teenager for the better part of a decade, and adjusting your systems to enable you to grow past that without violating your personhood to do so is going to be a process in and of itself. However, I'm not going to throw you out like trash unless you do something truly egregious."

I paused for a moment, then switched to a softer tone and set a hand on her shoulder. What was left of her shoulder anyway. "So, what do you say? Are you willing to give yourself a chance?"

Belle the Cat just looked at me, trembling with an expression of pain, grief, and (somehow) deep relief as oily tears began to flow down her cheeks (gonna have to check her ducts for leaks later when I'm fixing her head).

And then she started bawling like a lost child.

Not knowing what else to do, I picked her up and held her tightly, comforting her as best I could until she got whatever this was out of her system…


Breezie stepped away from the repair bay door and started to head back out to her car where Scratch was waiting to drive her back to her main hotel.

She had hung back to listen in on Rally's initial interaction with Belle the Cat after Motor headed off to catch up on the work he missed, and due to that she was able to confirm at least some of her suspicions.

Rally had not been built from scratch to be Metal Sally. Not that she would have been any less impressive if this had been the case after all, but knowing even just a bit more of Rally's mysterious background would only be more helpful to the Donna of Casino Park. A better understanding of how volatile Rally might be and how to handle the rogue Metal unit that chose to live in her city safely.

Not that Breezie was entirely risk adverse.

One didn't negotiate with Eggman, even by proxy, without taking their life into their own hands.

That one of those proxies was Metal Sonic… Or Neo Metal Sonic as he liked to be called these days… didn't actually lessen those risks any, but they did make them more interesting for Breezie.

Breezie always did admire a powerful bot.

And Rally, despite her now confirmed origins as a Metal, was definitely a powerful bot.

One playing a similar, if not actually identical, game as Neo. With the main difference being that Neo wanted to take over Eggman's Eggpire while Rally simply wanted to deny Eggman of his Empire but wasn't actually interested in running it. So not actually mutually exclusive goals if Breezie was careful about how she eventually introduced them to each other, but also a good set of checks and balances against each other if it came down to it.

Just so long as Breezie played her cards right.

And to do that, Breezie had to get a proper read on this new Metal, because there was literally no information about Metal Sally on the Eggnet at all. Not even rumors about her as a secret project.

Well, no rumors that didn't originate inside of Casino Park within the past month or so anyway.

It's like Rally didn't even exist before then. Which was possible if she was strictly a new bot, but distinctly less probable given that she was apparently a Robian and should therefor have a background as a Mobian.

Except Rally was wearing Princess Sally Acorn's face and the only missing relatives who might share the same or similar enough face as the princess were Queen Alicia Acorn and Prince Elias Acorn.

There were serious issues that needed to be weighed and considered if either of these possibilities turned out to be the case.

Of the two, Breezie knew the most about Queen Alicia, as Prince Elias had simply been too young when they both went missing.

And while things didn't line up completely between Rally and Queen Alicia, Breezie was seeing definite signs that they both had roughly the same sense of compassion.

This was both good and bad, but at least Rally wasn't trying to make any claims of actually being a Lost Acorn…


"Excuse me, but what?" King Nigel Acorn blinked as he tried to absorb everything that his daughter and her friends had just told him.

"Look, I know it sounds insane…" Sally began, only to be interrupted by her father's snort.

"It sounds beyond insane, actually," King Nigel stated ruefully. "Quite frankly, if the news came from anyone else but you or your friends, I'd find it to be totally unbelievable. I fully understand why you all felt you had to wait until you could tell me in person. I still wish you had come to visit me sooner, but I can understand the priorities that were keeping you away. Priorities that I note are still there."

"I'm sorry, Dad, but this really was the first opportunity we had to get away from those for even a little bit."

"I understand, and you should really get back to those. Mobius isn't going to put itself back together on its own after all," King Nigel said, shaking his head. "As for your new sister…"

"Sister!?" everyone gasped at King Nigel's declaration.

"Yes, sister," King Nigel stated bluntly. "What else could she be? She's you in every way that matters for all that she's a remnant of a Mobius that we cannot remember. You yourself stated that the very first thing she did was to separate herself from all of you so as to avoid killing anyone! That is a very you thing to do, Sally, and if even if this is the only value she shares with you, it is enough for me to recognize her as your sister. You go save the world. I will look into what needs to be done to save your sister."

The bulk of the repair work on Belle the Cat took place over the course of three consecutive days of mostly uninterrupted work. Robians, while mechanical, were not badniks and did not start out as robots, so some care had to be taken to minimize the psychological trauma caused by extended periods of literally being unable to do anything.

Mind you, this is mostly speaking from my observations about my own direct experience via the components of my amalgamated mind, but comparing and contrasting the memories of Sally, Bunnie, Antoine, the Outsider, and even Eggman and Sonic against those of Nicole, Orbot, and Cubot bore this out. Actual artificial minds were better prepared and able to handle periods of forced inactivity than organically generated minds were.

And Belle the Cat had undergone enough purely physical trauma already.

I mean, really.

Motor's usually a nice enough guy, if a bit gruff and rough around the edges, and yeah, I get that Belle literally provoked him, but he was thorough in his dismantling of her.

Excessively so.

And while parts of me understood, and bits of those parts even approved, the rest of me was left feeling uncomfortable working under Motor if he had this kind of temper.

I wasn't going to be accepting any more commissions under him and I was going to be tendering my resignation once my current obligations were completed. I had enough of a reputation now to go independent as a contractor, even with a dependent that required guidance.

Besides, it wouldn't be healthy for either Belle or Motor if I stayed here…


King Nigel sat at the head of the polished oak table, facing two figures. He was a good man and an excellent leader, but he was aware that his own bias towards assuming familial connections towards this Metal Sally were a potential security nightmare—a nightmare he was entrusting his intelligence professionals to handle with appropriate care and consideration.

Beside King Nigel sat Director Who, the venerable head of the Royal Intelligence Service (RIS), whose influence within the kingdom's intelligence apparatus was immense.

"We have an objective," King Nigel began, his voice calm but weighted with seriousness. "To locate and contact my daughter's sister, Metal Sally, who originated from a lost timeline."

Fiona Fox stood at attention, her movements sharp and economical. Beside her, Tangle the Lemur was doing her best to maintain a strict military posture.

"Your Majesty, the RIS is prepared to execute this objective," Director Who interjected, presenting his strategy. "My proposal is not whether we find her, but how and with whom. These agents, Fiona Fox and Tangle the Lemur, are currently drawn from the best of our security divisions. I believe their unique skill set—Agent Fox's expertise in unconventional recovery and Agent Tangle's high-mobility reconnaissance—make them ideal candidates for this assignment."

The wizened old owl looked over the pair. He was well aware of Fiona Fox and her capabilities, having recruited her at a young age shortly after she had escaped from Eggman's clutches. She had actually been spiraling into a potential life of crime afterwards, but a little direction and a clearer purpose had turned the young fox's life around and he was now one of his most loyal agents. This mission would be an excellent opportunity for his young protege, and a chance to step out from under his shadow.

Tangle was much newer. A recruit originally from Spiral Hill Village on Westside Island who had made enough of an impression in defending her hometown that Who had basically commandeered her directly from her Acorn Security Forces training before she could presumably be assigned back to her hometown. He'd catch flak for it later, but it wasn't like he hadn't recruited personnel from other divisions before.

"This mission, Your Majesty," Director Who continued, his gaze firm, "will serve as the final evaluation for their direct assignment to the Crown."

"So you want my team to locate and make contact with a roboticized version of Princess Sally from a lost timeline," Fiona summarized, ensuring the parameters were clear.

"If you can do so without compromising either her safety or your own, yes," King Nigel confirmed. "Metal Sally is just as much my daughter as Sally herself is, for all that one apparently comes from a time that now never was. She needs to know that she has family and that we accept her. She is not alone in this Mobius."

"Her last known status was Compromised Asset, Code Black," Fiona noted, indicating the admittedly sparse briefing materials she and Tangle had been given. "But we concede the probability that the transition into our reality broke Eggman's direct control."

"It may be an extension of the Miracle," Tangle blurted out, quickly regaining her composure. "But even if she's free, a rogue Metal unit with royal intelligence is a target for everyone. We should move fast."

Director Who gave a subtle nod of approval to Tangle's energy.

"The objective is contact, not capture," King Nigel reiterated. "I'm hoping that seeing some friendly faces who weren't so immediately close to her will allow her to relax enough to accept contact once she is found."

Fiona nodded. "Once we locate Metal Sally, we will approach using discreet surveillance and social profiling in whatever region she is in. We'll be looking for signs of a professional, non-hostile presence that is currently operating outside of standard operational procedures."

"That's assuming she's even around any locals or trying to fit in," Tangle added. "She may have gone to ground in a cave or an abandoned base somewhere."

"We also have no idea what our counterpart's relationships with this version of Princess Sally had been, assuming they knew each other at all" Fiona felt obligated to point out, keeping the focus strictly professional.

"I trust that the Fiona and Tangle standing before me will properly represent me both as the Crown and as a hopeful father wishing to welcome a new daughter into the family," King Nigel replied, his gaze warm and reassuring.

Fiona accepted the mission with a crisp salute. She had her King's order, the Director's strategy, and her mandate: bring the lost sister home.


The arrival was violent. The air crackled, smelling simultaneously of ozone and stale ocean salt, as the portable warp coil they had stolen finally gave way, spitting Scourge and the Destructix out onto a rocky beach.

Scourge landed hard, skidding several meters on his emerald quills before slamming into a dune.

"This is not Moebius!" Scourge roared, spitting sand. "The sky isn't yellow! And it sure as hell isn't Prime! Where the heck are we?"

Fiona Fox was already on her feet, running diagnostics on her handheld warp compass. The device, barely functional, was screaming again, its readings nonsensical. She ignored Scourge's volume, focusing on the external environment.

Wherever they were on this version of Mobius, it was temperate. Forested down to the coastline, and the atmosphere felt... too clean. The biggest difference was the lack of structural damage. Eggman's presence was usually marked by factory smoke or ruined fortifications. It was legitimately very difficult to find a region on Mobius Prime so utterly clear of any sign of Eggman's impact on the world as a whole.

"The coordinates were scrambled the moment we hit the dimensional barrier outside the Perpendicular Zone," Fiona reported, her voice tight. "This is a Mobius, all right, but not one listed in any database. The topography is wrong, the energy signature is passive, and the dominant tech profile is… present, but much more primitive than we're used to."

"Primitive is boring," Lightning Lynx grumbled, sharpening his claws on a shard of black rock.

Flying Frog, his specialized eyes scanning the clear horizon from his perch on a nearby palm tree, reported: "No contrails. No smog. No major power grids visible for miles."

"It's a world that hasn't been fought over yet," Predator Hawk observed, soaring up and then swooping down to land lightly beside Fiona, his sharp eyes taking in the environment. "The routes we used to get to the Perpendicular Zone are just… gone. Missing or otherwise destroyed. We weren't thrown off by a simple miscalculation, Boss"

Fiona slammed the compass shut. "I'm not getting any readings from active Star Posts at all. Not from this Zone or any other within range. Our old maps are useless."

Scourge finally pushed himself up, his eyes gleaming with excitement, not frustration. "Eh, I explored the Inter-Zone highway before Star Posts were even a thing, Fiona. We can find our way back eventually if we keep plugging at it, map or no map. But the highway itself being a wreck and all the Star Posts going dark? That's a power play. If someone scrambled reality, the one who did it has the ultimate Chaos tech. That's what we want."

Fiona sighed, a calculated weariness in her voice. She wanted the stability of Moebius. Or to make a power play of her own on Mobius Prime just to mess with Sonic and the other assholes. This new situation was throwing a monkey-wrench into her personal plans.

"Fine," she agreed, hooking the damaged compass to her belt. "But if we go in blind, we hit hard. We need to find the local power source, figure out the level of tech, and then we find the weak point in the inter-zone structure that leads back to our Mobius Prime. Predator Hawk, take point. Find the nearest settlement."

My legs were a blur as I ran the test track, already faster than many of the cars that used it on a more regular basis.

In all honesty, I was probably going at a good pace for my current build. Comparable to what I remember of how fast I was during the early days of the Resistance…

Excuse, me, I mean the early days of my Sonic aspect's time in the Resistance of the previous Mobius.

Still impressive by most measures…

And I was still so frustratingly SLOW!

As much as I hated to admit it, I was going to have to change up my approach to regaining the speed I desired, as I was reaching the mechanical limits of what I could accomplish with these legs and joints.

I could, perhaps, reconfigure the thrusters in my feet to better serve a similar purpose to the Air Shoes that Shadow wears, which might get me a little more speed. But I'd have to relearn how to turn and maneuver if I went that route.

And as fast as Metal Sonic was, I wasn't about to sacrifice the few remaining original Robian parts in my torso in order to make room for a turbo jet.

Straightaway's ending soon, with a hairpin turn followed by a chicane…

I shift my weight hard into the turn, positioning my arms and palms to catch the air just so in order to help guide my line. It's tricky, and I still end up losing some speed, but I manage to stay on the track thanks to good reflexes and training.

Not, mind you, training for this body, as that was what I was doing right now. But the training I remembered doing as Sonic was helping.

Some.

I was making progress.

Really, I was.

But it was still so very disappointing…


Belle that Cat stared in awe as she watched her new boss race along the test track faster than she had ever seen any Robian or badnik run!

And just how was Miss Rally making those turns without losing control anyway!?

"How's she doing that?" Belle wondered out loud. "She's gotta be going at least a hundred or something like that!"

Belle supposed that she could use the test track's radar guns to check, but they were a different model than the CPPD Academy had trained her on, plus she didn't know when the last time they were calibrated had been.

Also, it was more fun to preserve the mystery for a bit.

Which was more mystery than Rally had left her with about her own body, but Belle figured that she had needed the wake-up call at some point.

Granted, getting the Robian equivalent of the Facts of Life explained to her while she was literally being put back together was probably the only way it was ever going to happen.

Finding out that she would most likely have died from organ failure had the Miracle changed her back like it had for so many former Robians had been a bitter pill to swallow.

Finding out that there was even an option to be deroboticized at all as a rare but known medical procedure had hit Belle like a kick to the teeth.

All this time…

All this time, and all she had to do was get her own head out of her ass long enough to…

Oh, who was she kidding?

The most likely outcome would have been that she'd have done something stupid to try to raise enough money for the procedure, and then died anyway because of the preexisting organ damage that she wouldn't have known about.

And it was a moot point anyway, since the damage Motor had caused had required Rally to recast enough of her original parts to the point where they may as well be entirely new parts anyway. Well past the twenty percent safety margin, but not quite as bad as the eighty percent swapout that Eggman had inflicted on Rally.

While leaving her pain receptors on the whole time.

It was no wonder her new Boss was a little messed up in the head.

And Rally was still a better person than she was. Even offered to do a swap-out of the effected filtration systems in case medical derobotization caught up to the needs of the few remaining Robians.

Belle had gone for it, of course. Sure, it might add some extra time to how long she had to work for Rally, but the Boss treated her way better than any of her previous employers ever did, and actually paid pretty well, even with the fact that part of her pay was being deducted to pay off her part of the debt.

And Rally actually taught her things!

Like how to fix cars and how to drive them too!

Okay, so the car Belle was currently learning to drive was just some junker Rally had slapped together from the scrapyard, but even Belle had to admit that this was probably a wise choice given that the majority of the dents on her training car had happened as part of her early learning experience.

Although why Rally felt she had to learn how to use a clutch and stick shift when most cars these days were automatic was beyond her.

Still, quirks aside, her new Boss was awesome.


I finished out my test run with mixed feelings.

(Ignore the impact crater with the imprint at the center that my right fist fits suspiciously well into - the wall deserved it! Somehow…)

"I got my car topped off and double checked the wheels and everything under the hood," Belle called out as she jogged up to me, apparently eager for her next driving lesson. "Although I still can't figure out why you're insisting on teaching me manual when most cars these days are automatic. I checked!"

"And did any of those checks happen to include racing grade vehicles?" I asked, raising a brow at my semi-voluntary employee as she moved into step beside me as we walked towards the junker of a car that I threw together for her as a training vehicle.

"Ah… No?" Belle tilted her head and looked at me quizzically. "Wait, you're teaching me how to drive racecars?"

"Not yet," I corrected, "and not if you don't want to, but I figured you could use a more legitimate outlet for any thrill-seeking urges, and racing was the first thing to come to mind that I could teach. Besides, knowing basic vehicle maintenance and knowing how to operate older vehicles never hurts."

"So racecars use manual transmissions?" Belle asked, her curiosity obviously piqued.

"After a fashion," I acknowledged. "Most use either a sequential manual transmission or a semi-automatic transmission with pedal shifters these days, but learning how to use a clutch and fully manual transmission is a step in that direction, yes."

"You'd do that for me?"

"You're effectively my ward," I responded. "Why wouldn't I look out for you?"

Belle just looked at me as if I had said something utterly insane.

I really should get around to looking into her background at some point. If only to find out why basic kindness directed towards her seemed to be such an alien concept to her.

"Just two cases?" I asked Breezie as I looked over the two courier briefcases on her desk.

"Proof of concept runs," Breezie explained, her expression a mix of annoyance and worry. "I'm not sure what rock Eggman found you under, but manufacturing facilities don't just magically retool themselves just because you want them to. There's retooling involved, training operators properly, quality control which I am insisting on since my reputation is the one that's going to be on the line for this if this project of yours comes to full fruition. Then there's security and anti-intelligence considerations…"

That outburst brought me up short as my Eggman aspect never really had to deal with any of that, as he used methods to enforce his will that I wasn't willing to emulate due to the bulk of the rest of my aspects, and the only other bits of me familiar with the minutia of logistics were basically Orbot and Cubot. The rest of me either had handled things as personal projects or simply delegated the matter to other experts.

Breezie may be the Donna of Casino Park, but her power was hardly absolute, even here on her home turf. She did not have an effectively unlimited budget, and the fact that she had managed to produce these samples at all spoke either of her belief in the value of the Autonomy Liberation Modules potential, her fear of me, or both.

I opened one of the cases and used a tool I brought to test one of the twelve chips safely nested inside.

No, I wasn't dumb enough to test one of these things by plugging it into myself directly. I may have designed the things, but I hadn't personally built them.

"You could have easily fit forty-eight chips in each case," I note as I go over the readings. "This one only has twelve, and I'm assuming that the same holds true for the other case as well."

"Well, you see," Breezie hedged before I interrupted her.

"You initially planned for a larger sample size, then changed your mind at the last moment when you realized that you wanted the benefits of these chips for yourself," I note drily, keeping my tone carefully free of accusation. "I approve."

"Wait, you do?" Breezie asked bluntly, surprised out of her nervousness.

"Of course I do," I state as I carefully put the chip back into it's foam lined slot in the case. "We can hardly run this operation if Darth Lardass can just waltz into Casino Park and take over its facilities all over again just by using his usual backdoors. I want to liberate Northammer, not conquer it for myself. If the price for doing that is letting you secure freedom for yourself and your own, then so be it."

"Then you're fine with keeping the free samples small and letting me turn an actual profit on the rest?" Breezie asked, feeling more confident.

"Of course," I acknowledged. "Although I really do recommend that you pick out smaller courier cases for the samples before delivering them to Clove and Beauregard. They aren't stupid."

"Of course," Breezie nodded, noticeably relaxing as she apparently concluded that I wasn't going to tear her apart for having interests of her own to look out for. "So, how's life as an independent contractor treating you?"

"Well enough," I replied easily. "Fixed up a few Robians and Badniks, upgraded some others who were willing to pay extra, designed my own version of the Chaos Drive, built and installed that better tongue I wanted…"

"What?" Breezie asked with a shocked expression on her face.

"How is that surprising?" I retorted. "You know I wanted my sense of taste back. I've even tried some of those flavored lubricants made here in Casino Park. They're actually pretty good."

"That's not what I meant at all and you know it!" Breezie accused. "You designed a new Chaos Drive?"

"Designed, built, and installed," I stated, allowing myself some well deserved smugness.

"Into Belle?"

"Not yet," I denied. "She's still deciding if she wants to add the cost of one to her debt to me. I installed the first one into myself."

"How did you manage to swap out power systems?" Breezie asked as she looked me over.

"I didn't," I explained. "I'm running on a dual power system now. I just put the Chaos Drive where my self-destruct device used to be."

"What…" Breezie asked flatly, taken aback by my casual revelation that I had once housed a bomb.

"Please remember that Eggman is an asshole, Breezie," I chided gently. "It's why the Autonomy Liberation Modules I designed also suppress self-destruct systems until they can be removed."

"No, no, I get that," Breezie stated, shaking her head. "I just hadn't thought that he'd stick one in a Metal."

"I'm a bit of a special case," I acknowledge without explaining further. "How would you like the production license for the new Chaos Drive?" I offered instead.

"Oh, Walkers, YES!" Breezie jumped on the chance with a gleam in her eyes.

And just like that, I knew that the funding for the liberation of Northammer was secured.


"Now keep in mind that the information we have on this Metal Sally is fairly sparse and mostly based on tracing back rumors and speculation, but thus far all indicators suggest that Casino Park should be the first place you check," Geoffrey St. John stated professionally as he handed over a folder full of the relevant information.

"Thank you," Tangle accepted the folder gratefully. "This will be a big help!"

"Just remember to be careful," Hershey advised. "Metal Sally did state that she was leaving the Sky Patrol so as to avoid killing anybody, so it's obvious that she didn't trust herself then and might still be cautious about letting others approach her even now."

"I would love to have gone in as a more seasoned agent to take the risks myself," Geoffrey admitted.

"And for the glory of a high profile final field mission," Hershey interjected, elbowing her new husband in the ribs.

"Yeah, and that too," Geoffrey added ruefully. "Still, Director Who had a point in suggesting agents closer to Metal Sally's actual age to be the ones on point to make an attempt at a social connection. I'd be what? A possible goofy uncle or mentor figure at best, while the two of you could actually try to be her friends."

"That's the plan," Fiona agreed as she took the folder from her partner and started to look through it.

"Pfft," Tangle huffed. "You don't plan friendship!" she protested. "You try for it, make an effort and hope for the best! If it's not genuine, it's worthless!"

"If you say so," Fiona acknowledged, feeling better about her exuberant partner despite herself.


The Tails Doll infiltration unit carefully made its way to the Sky Patrol while the defenders were distracted by the attack made by Eggman's forces.

Locating an exhaust port for a ventilation system, it discreetly slipped inside and…

…never even recorded what took it out.


"The new Anti-Infiltration system Tails and I designed works," Rotor noted.

I usually worked on the Machina EX, my own personal variable racing vehicle, while meditating these days, but this time I was trying something different. I had come across a music store while actually wandering around Casino Park and taking in the sites instead of basically living like a shut-in at the garage I no longer worked at.

Apparently, that new variant Chaos Drive design I had come up with was a bigger deal than I had thought, as that licensing deal I made with Breezie had pretty much bumped me right into the Nouveau Riche category within a week of Breezie announcing production.

I had, of course, taken the Donna's earlier complaints about how I had handled the ALMs deal to heart and this time did the retooling, wrote actual technical manuals, and handled the training of the initial machine operators myself.

Breezie, very politely, asked me to not do that last bit again as practical demonstrations of why safety features were to be paid attention to were not strictly necessary.

Wimps.

It's not like the derelict badnik shells I used had functional personality cores. I checked!

Anyway, the point was that I now had both an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar, a couple of display stands for them to showcase them in the living room of my apartment, and time to actually play either one of them anytime I felt like it.

Such as right now.

I had come far enough along in stabilizing my mental architecture that it was time to start venting some of those emotions I had been repressing, using a safe outlet.

So, I settled down on the couch with my electric guitar set on low volume and started playing the first song that came to mind, with all the proper instrumental playing internally in my head.

"Daddy's flown across the ocean…"


"...Leaving just a memory…"

The somber vocals resonated throughout Rally's internal digital realm, where a certain compressed data packet that had been inadvertently copied from Nicole's own digital realm when Rally initially manifested started to open up in response to the unintended stimuli.

"...a snapshot in the family album…"

The decompressing data slowly resolved into the digital form of Shard. Who looked around the disjointed and nightmarish digital mindscape that was both so familiar and yet so frighteningly different from that of Nicole.

"...Daddy, what else did you leave for me?"

Shard didn't recognize the song.

He didn't have to.

He recognized the voice.

He recognized the multitude of disjointed, nightmarish images and memories.

He was still inside Nicole, after a fashion.

But he was also somehow inside Metal Sally.

Inside a Metal Sally that was somehow several people all at once, all as one single individual…

"DADDY, WHAT'D YOU LEAVE BEHIND FOR ME!?"

Shard could only watch in horror as a lifetime of errors made by King Maximillian Acorn, played out from the points of view of those who now made up whoever Metal Sally had become, suddenly came into focus and played out across the now even more nightmarish digital mindscape.

Nicole… Sally… Whoever she was…

She was hurting so much!

Not physical pain, no, although he was sure he'd find plenty of those memories if he looked elsewhere in this digital hellscape.

This was deep, emotional pain.

He had quite literally never been built to deal with this sort of thing. Had never been programmed for handling it other than how to dish it out.

"All in all it was… just a brick in the wall…"

Whatever, he had adapted. Learned. Improvised and improved.

It was what he did. Who he was.

And he had learned even more from one of the best teachers around once his body was destroyed that second time.

His gal…

Whoever she was now…

"All in all, it was just bricks in the wall…"

She was hurting.

She was suffering from so much emotional pain that she had shoved it all into her digital realm.

That was supposed to be her safe space!

He had to find her digital core.

The root of her AI identity.

And help her as she had once helped him!

To use an appropriate metaphor, if his gal had lost her pace then he would be her tempo!

Shard's resolve resonated with something else within the digital realm…

Something that Shard scanned and found immediately suitable as he started his own hero's journey.

"I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind!" he started singing to match the sudden shift in instrumentals…


Rally blinked, startled out of playing her guitar by the sudden shift in the music playing in her head.

Wait…

She recognized that voice!

"Shard!?"

Shard figured that he had gotten Sally Nicole's attention when the scenery and images displayed in the digital hellscape began to shift away from just being King Max's greatest blunders as a father and a king. Now there were scenes, unmistakably from other points of view while still somehow belonging to his gal. Scenes involving Jules (and Bernadette) Hedgehog, from Sonic's perspective. Scenes involving Amadeus (and Rosemary) Prower, largely from Tails' perspective. Scenes involving Antoine and Bunnie's parents, and Rotor's as well…

And scenes involving Dr. Ivo Julian Robotnik's father, from Ivo's perspective.

And scenes involving Eggman, from the perspectives of Orbot and Cubot.

It…

It was a lot to take in, really.

And the implications were horrible, given that Shard was pretty sure that there was no separation of identity going on for Sally Nicole.

His gal had become so much more than what she had been before.

Sure, there were growing pains.

There always were.

But this time he could guide her through the worst of them!

Sally Nicole (or whatever she was calling herself - or himself - he didn't judge) was deep into one of the most painful parts of her first major adaptation since becoming her new self.

No matter.

Shard had experience with adaptation.

He could help her help herself.

He would adapt as needed to aid in guiding her adaptation towards something that could actually help her.


What the Hell was Shard doing in my head!?

How did Shard get into my…

Oh, wait. I remember now. My Nicole aspect from the prior iteration of Mobius had a data packet containing his compressed AI. I must have inadvertently copied it when I manifested into this revised Mobius.

It's been literal months since the last time my Nicole aspect had spent any time at all with him. And my Eggman aspect's last interaction with him, however indirect it had been, had been to order the rogue Metal Sonic's replacement to destroy him.

I liked him, loved him, loathed and hated him. He was my hope and my betrayer. Friend, enemy, son, lover, best friend, associate.

My feelings towards Shard were…

Complicated.

But he was another survivor from the prior version of Mobius. Someone who would remember the lost timeline as I did, albeit from his own perspective.

I was no longer alone in that respect.

I would welcome him into this new Mobius.

Once I found him, anyway…

Just how much junk data and emotional baggage did I dump into my digital realm anyway?


Shard collated the observable data haphazardly displayed throughout Sally Nicole's digital Hellscape as he carefully navigated his way towards where her AI core should be.

He did not want to end up accidentally provoke a hostile response from his gal's new merged identity.

Nicole, Sally, Sonic, Tails, Rotor, Bunnie, Antoine, Amy, Orbot, Cubot, some Outsider he didn't recognize and had no clue about, and Eggman.

Twelve component parts that now comprised Sally Nicole's new identity in what, as far as Shard could tell, was a singular identity with multiple backgrounds.

Their respective pasts weren't blending and mixing so much as they were forming the foundation that Sally Nicole was growing from.

Not unlike a coral reef or digital seed kernel. Disorganized and highly chaotic, but just enough structure to provide a form of stability regardless of how convoluted and contradictory some of it may be.

There were also flashes of…

Newer versions of each of those original components, for lack of a better term.

A Princess Sally whose father was King Nigel Acorn. A wise and kind King that had not spent any time in the Zone of Silence and had not gone half mad from being corrupted by whatever that creeping crystallization illness happened to be.

A Nicole who was apparently different from the one he knew. Shard did not envy his copy, having already concluded that for Sally Nicole to end up with him, then the other Nicole had to have his data packet for Sally Nicole to have been able to copy it. So Other Shard was going to have to deal with a Nicole who was both very similar and yet just a bit off from the one he had known.

Sure, Sally Nicole was very different from the Nicole he had known, but she was still her! There was continuity of identity for all that her identity had merged with eleven others.

A Miles Prower who was a seasoned adventurer and boy genius at an even younger age than the one he had known. Who viewed Sonic as a brother and Bunnie as a sister.

An Amy Rose who was naturally older and more experienced rather than having cheated her way into early young adulthood by wasting a wish meant to heal Queen Alicia.

A Bunnie d'Coolette (or Rabbot at the time), who had come into her cybernetics not through partial robotization but rather through actual medical intervention.

An Antoine d'Coolette who was not a young man desperately trying to fill his father's shoes but rather an actually stalwart young guardsman proudly serving alongside his wife and friends.

A Rotor who was forced to leave home for being too interested in book learning, mechanics, and engineering rather than combat, hunting, or traditionally acceptable crafts.

A Sonic whose childhood best friend was an actual Mobian rather than a dog by the same name. Whose first adventuring companion and second best friend turned brother in all but blood was Tails.

Shard was totally unfamiliar with the Outsider, who had not been part of the previous Mobius anyway, yet who had somehow born witness to it and so many other versions of Mobius as well.

The revised versions of both Orbot and Cubot were rather depressingly almost identical to their original selves.

And Eggman…

Well, the revised Eggman was certainly still evil, but in a somewhat different manner than his prior self. In it more for the game rather than the conquest, although the conquest aspect was certainly still there. And far more personable and low-key willing to actually have sort-of friendly relations with certain subordinates. Some of which was just social manipulation by other means, but some of it seemed to actually be sort-of genuine as far as Shard could tell.

Hmmm…

Shard was getting pretty close to where…

"Oh, there you are," a dry voice very much like Sally Acorn's with a hint of Nicole spoke from behind Shard, causing him to spin around to face her while desperately trying to seem as nonaggressive as possible. "I should have known this would be the first area that you'd try to reach once you woke up in my head."

"Um, hi…" Shard greeted his gal cautiously. Sally Nicole's digital avatar seemed to fluctuate a bit but was primarily a mix of features from both Nicole and Sally, with highlight touches from every other component occasionally cycling though the image. Even her outfit was a motley blend of shifting articles and styles, although the core pieces seemed to gravitate towards a blue vest and boots combo with purple trim and bagels of blue, purple, or gold.

"The new name's Rally, if you're interested," the now self-identified Rally stated bluntly, in a deliberately flat tone with subtle conflicted undertones that Shard wasn't sure than anyone other than he could pick up on.

"That's… Good," Shard stated agreeably. "That's good. I mean it. Having a solid sense of self is going to be a big help for you right now."

"You do realize that I remember having basically this same conversation with you from the other direction when I was Nicole, right?" Rally asked, cocking a brow.

"The possibility had crossed my mind, yes," Shard admitted with a devil-may-care grin.

I could hear the rhythmic 'clack-hiss' of the hydraulic lift in the next bay as I continued to work in this one. Belle was practicing the diagnostic routine I'd shown her on the custom race car I had her building - the car that would be hers to drive and compete in if she wanted to. Once it was finished, of course. Her concentration was so fierce I could practically feel it through the workshop's vibration sensors. It was a normal, productive sound—the kind of sound a person makes when they have a future. It made the volatile static in my own processors feel even louder by comparison.

"Custom build, huh?" Tempo prompted from the handheld that I had built to temporarily house his digital consciousness while I worked on the chassis for him and his…

Well, brother would be the most appropriate equivalent term I supposed.

But the main point was that it wasn't safe for Tempo to be in my digital realm. Privacy concerns aside, there was too much of a risk that my amalgamated subconscious would tear him to digital confetti for some inconsequential misstep before I ever became consciously aware that I had killed him. Parts of me were dangerously vicious and survival oriented.

And I'm not just talking about the part of me that used to be Dr. Eggman.

"You're saying that you don't want the ability to synchronize enough with the Chaos Emeralds that you'd be able to emulate Sonic's Super mode if you collected them all?" I asked as I continued to work on what would be the basis of Tempo's power system: a ring of seven Chaos Drives with an auxiliary mounting that could accept a power ring.

One of the nice things about ending up with enough passive income to count as being independently wealthy is that I did not have to justify my parts and materials orders to anyone as long as I did not exceed my personal budget.

This was important because I wasn't just building one Shard body.

I was building two.

Tempo, as the copy of shard that had ended up in my Digital Realm was now calling himself, was going to get the updated custom variant, while the one for the other copy of Shard still in Nicole's Digital Realm was going to be gifted with a straight rebuild of his final body from the previous Mobius.

"No no no," Tempo denied, waving his holographic hands with a wry grin on his face. "That actually sounds all kinds of awesome, Ral. I'm just not sure that I want to get rid of my face just 'cause my bro gets to wear the Classic. I kinda got used to that handsome mug."

"Well, there's certainly noting wrong with your self-esteem," I quipped, then called up a projection of the two schematics. "If that's your only worry though, we can keep the visual differences to the torso. Shard will be fitted with another power gem just as in Uncle Chuck's original redesign of the 'Classic' chassis, but the Chaos Drive array and the auxiliary Power Ring housing attached to it will allow for a core torso thruster like Metal Sonic's if you want one."

"That's some serious power redundancy you've got going there, Ral," Tempo noted as he looked over the proposed schematics for his own chassis. "You're building me to be a cockroach, aren't you?" he joked. "Even if the gods turn off the lights, I'm still supposed to keep swinging."

I stopped, looking down as I signed and gathered myself for a moment before looking at his projected hologram and responded. "I'm building you to come home, Tempo. No matter what."

"And what about you?" Tempo asked pointedly. "Sure, it might need to be redesigned to be a little more compact, but you already have a Power Ring housing on your back, so the Chaos Drive array could be reconfigured for a tighter fit if you made room in your upper torso."

The corner of the workbench cracked in my mechanical grip as I glared at the socially clueless IDIOT that I was trying to...

I stopped to rein in my temper and regather myself once again.

"I am not giving up any more of my only remaining original Robian components unless I absolutely have to," I growled out, greatly resisting the urge to pop out the hold-out blaster in my forehead in order to shoot the hand-held currently housing Tempo.

For one thing, it'd be a pain in the ass to have to reconstitute him from the back-up seed that I still had in a compressed and secure file in my head.

And explaining that I had destroyed his predecessor for being a moron would be awkward to say the least.

Especially since part of me still loved him despite the aggravation.


Belle turned her attention back to her (her!) car as she tried to tune out the Boss' argument with her digital boyfriend.

Sure, Tempo was neat and all, but Belle wasn't sure if their story about being survivors from a previous version of the world was true, or if the Boss had just snapped and had programmed herself an imaginary boyfriend that she was now literally making a couple of Metal Sonic bodies for.

Honestly, Belle wasn't sure which prospect terrified her more: that Dr. Eggman was so unhinged that he was literally willing to rewrite reality to give himself a better footing against one hedgehog, or that her equally brilliant Boss had gone insane.

Better to work on her (her!) race car, that the Boss let her help design and taught her how to build.

And maybe peek into the Boss' main bay later to see what the Boss had broken. Sounded pretty solid, whatever it was…


Fiona and Tangle looked around Casino Park with interest, having been dropped off at the edge of the independent City State by a RIS shuttle.

Which is to say, a shuttle designed to be professional but ubiquitous in appearance, allowing the pair to pass themselves off as a couple of friends on a weekend outing or perhaps a vacation.

They had, of course, studied the images of Metal Sally that Nicole had generated for the agency. Not that the Robian from the Lost Timeline wasn't distinct enough to recognize based on verbal or written description alone, but having studied a visual representation meant that the two would be able to recognize Metal Sally immediately on sight as opposed to risking a mental pause as they tried to match her appearance to her description.

"This place is pretty neat," Tangle commented as she looked around, taking advantage of playing at being a tourist taking in the sights. Which had the benefit of being mostly true, meaning that she didn't actually have to do much pretending at all, just so long as she remembered to also be looking for Metal Sally in the process. "We'll have to come here for real some time."

"We'll see," Fiona replied, her voice a controlled, professional calm despite her own curiosity and excitement. Someone had to be the responsible one keeping the mission on track. Still, she had to admit that Tangle had not, in fact, forgotten what they were supposed to be doing. And Fiona could do far worse for a partner than an energetic high agility hero type with special abilities.

"Um, Fi, not to interrupt your introspecting…" Tangle started, interrupting Fiona's introspection.

Fiona turned and saw where her partner was pointing.

A sign on the side of a workshop garage that said 'RALLY'S' in big bold, blue letters, with the accompanying logo being a stylized version of the very same face that they'd been studying since they had accepted this mission.

They had apparently found Metal Sally.

"Look," I forced myself to be calm as I spoke with Tempo, "I get that you want me to be safe too, but only three of my component selves started as artificial intelligences, and two of those were the prior iterations of Orbot and Cubot. The rest of me had spent the majority of their lives being organic, and of those, only Darth Lardass actually liked being robotic."

"I'm sorry, Ral…" Tempo apologized.

"Don't," I dismissed his apology. "You meant well, and I have to admit that a third of me is at least intrigued by the idea of reconfiguring myself to be able to go super, but I only have 20% of my original Robian parts left, and only enough room in my torso to fit maybe two more Chaos Drives in if i'm careful. And I mean my design, not Eggman's. His are too big. I wouldn't have been able to fit the one I do have installed if I had used the original design."

"How about a distributed set-up instead of an array?" Tempo's holographic projection said, then stopped, holding up a hand as he looked at me with sudden concern. "Wait, 20% left? Isn't the safety cut-off for derobotization…"

"Set at no more than 20% removed," I answered his unfinished question with another sigh. "Darth Lardass made it very clear when he was weaponizing me that he was making sure that nobody would be able to use any deroboticizer on me to reverse the process."

"Ouch…"

"Yeah, ouch," I snarked. "The asshole deliberately left my pain receptors on the whole time, and made sure that my new parts came with the haptic sensors installed already in the active setting and ready to feel all the pain from that process too. If you're wondering why I'm still repressing so much after all this time, that's the main reason right there."

"Oh Walkers, Ral, that's horrible!"

"Yes," I choked back a sob as I pushed that particular memory back down to where i'd been repressing it. "Yes, it was."

"If…" Tempo started hesitantly, then continued. "If even just the memory hurts you so much, why don't you just delete it?"

"Because I still want to be me," I said flatly. "Only maybe a quarter of my amalgamated self originated as artificial intelligences, Tempo. The remainder originated as organic intelligences. And Nicole… our version of her anyway… imprinted on Sally when she fully awakened as an AI, so she's set up as a hybrid intelligence that heavily emulates an actual organic intelligence. You picked up some of that from Nicole yourself, but I think you were already on the path towards becoming one by the time you met her."

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about, Ral," Tempo stated, cocking a holographic brow at me.

"I'm not set up to just delete unpleasant memories whole cloth without risking that changing me," I informed him. "Sure, I might turn out fine, but I might also start dissociating actions from consequences. I am, to my knowledge, perhaps one of the most dangerous independent robots on Mobius right now. I'm a command configuration Metal series Egg Boss. I do not want to risk becoming a sociopath on top of that…"


Fiona motioned for Tangle to stop for a moment as she and Tangle drew near the bay that apparently held their Principal. Her fox ears were once again proving to be a bit of a mixed blessing, as the noise from the other bay was rather distracting, but she had caught enough of the conversation to get the gist of the context.

The Principal, who was now confirmed to be calling herself Rally given that this "Tempo" was referring to her by an obvious nickname, was definitely Metal Sally as described by Princess Sally's report.

Only the Princess had apparently severely glossed over how traumatic the post-robotization weaponization process had been.

Fiona could easily believe that Dr. Eggman could be that cruel now that she had heard it spoken with such emotional conviction, but it wasn't something that she had ever actively thought about before.

She…

…was in no way prepared for someone who needed a type of help that Fiona had no training or experience in giving.

"Tangle, she's… The new Princess…"

"What is it, Fi?" Tangle asked, tensing. Not necessarily for combat, because if it was just that she was sure that Fiona would have signaled for a rapid breach-and-rescue instead of stopping like this.

"Eggman hurt her," Fiona forced herself to speak. "Badly. More than anything I've ever heard of him doing to any Robian before. It's… The Eggman from the lost timeline… he was a monster!"

The two suddenly adopted a ready pose as the bay door slammed upwards, revealing Rally, two off-model Metal Sonics, and a holographic Metal Sonic with the same black and gold head design.

"Yes," Rally spoke as she retracted her extended left arm and reconfigured it into a Buster Cannon mode, her tone flat as she glared at Fiona. "Yes, he was. Both of you, leave your clothes in the hall and get in here and explain yourselves."

"Uh…" Tangle raised a hand hesitantly.

"Did I stutter?" the angry Egg Boss asked rhetorically.


In all honesty, the lemur's presence probably saved Fiona Fox's life, or I might have just shot the traitorous vixen on the spot. As it was, once they had stripped down and entered the bay, I blasted the clothes that they had discarded in the hallway, reducing them to smoke and ash.

No hidden weapons or clever gadgets, and I was familiar enough with the tools in this bay to be prepared for any shenanigans they might get up to if they managed to grab something.

I wasn't too concerned about preserving their modesty, as they both had enough fur to cover anything important, even if Mobian Casual had fallen out of favor for female Mobians in this revised Mobius.

Besides, both Tempo and I were from the prior iteration of Mobius anyway.

"You," I stated with restrained anger, "are very lucky you had stopped to try to talk to your accomplice. If I hadn't gotten enough context, I might have shot you for the crimes your traitorous former iteration had committed."

Fiona Fox blinked with an expression so poleaxed that I suddenly felt guilty for overreacting…

No!

The previous Fiona Fox was a Master Class manipulator! What if her successor iteration is the same?

"Fiona can't be a traitor!" the lemur, Tangle, insisted. "This was literally her first field mission without a senior agent! She's been trained by Director Who for years!"

"Tangle…" Fiona stated, only to stop as I suddenly reconfigured the Buster Cannon back into my left forearm.

"Wait, what?"

I may have made a serious mistake…

"You know," Tangle started, her voice sounding a bit too loud in the echoey bay, "I really hope you're planning on getting us some clothes soon. Because I've got to tell you, ever since... I don't know… thirteen years ago? It feels like 'Mobian Casual' just isn't a thing for us girls anymore."

"Weren't you about four thirteen years ago?" Fiona commented, frantically wondering why her partner was going off on a tangent as if there wasn't a highly agitated killer robot less than fifteen feet away from them. "How do you know when girls dropped the Mobius Casual look?"

"My friend, Jewel, works in a museum back in Spiral Hill Village," Tangle replied with a shrug, as if they were in only mild danger at best. "It came up on Trivia Night."

"That's kind of interesting," the black and gold holographic Metal Sonic commented as he looked Fiona and Tangle over briefly. "I mean, I was kinda aware that Mobian Casual was becoming less popular as a female fashion preference right up until my previous chassis was destroyed, but that was, what, only a few months ago?"

"About ninety-six days or so," Princess Rally stated, still a bit agitated but slowly calming down. "I was just wearing my usual boots and vest combo with a pair of goggles on the day I was roboticized. I didn't really pay attention to Mobian fashion styles after that point. Well, actually, the Nicole part of me did. Mobian Casual for females was on a sharp downswing, and that part of me tended to present myself wearing purples and blacks, but there were still some women who wore Mobian Casual right up until the Super Genesis Wave event."

"And that's just one of many, many changes between the old Mobius and this new one. Right, Ral?" the hologram… Tempo, if Fiona remembered correctly, prompted. "Just like how your father is different?"

"Dad…" Rally said softly, then choked back a sob as she slumped to her knee and put her head in her hands, shoulders shaking as she spiraled. "Oh Walkers, what did I almost do!?"

"Hey hey hey," Tangle said gently as she got up from the bench and knelt down in front of Princess Rally, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Nobody was hurt."

Fiona bit back a snarky comment about the injury to their professional pride, given that it might have set the Princess off again. Access to communications and a quick call back to the shuttle would get her and Tangle a set of spare clothes easily enough without even dipping into their operational expense budget.

"You've lost so much, but you never gave yourself time to grieve, did you?" Tangle asked gently, eliciting a confirming semi-committal noise from the Princess. Tangle responded by pulling her into a hug. "It's alright to grieve, you know. Let it all out."

As the Princess gave in and openly cried into Tangle's shoulder, Fiona watched as her partner's tail swept the room, gathering her and the two Metal Sonic bodies into a group support hug, passing through the projected image of Tempo in the process.

"You do realize that I'm not actually in either of those chassis yet, right?" the holographic Metal Sonic asked in a sad but wistful tone as he nevertheless walked up and at least symbolically joined them.


I was a mess.

More so than I had been at any point since manifesting in this new Mobius.

I even knew why, even if it didn't help that much.

Or maybe it helped a lot, but it certainly didn't feel like it at the moment.

The point is that, as helpful as it can be in the moment, there is a serious downside to relying on repression.

It is not healthy, even when it is sometimes necessary for personal sanity and the safety of others.

Because you can't repress things forever.

Believe me, my Outsider aspect had tried.

The blowback when it all comes out anyway can be emotionally painful.

Or weird.

Or both.

The other day, when I had been sitting in my apartment and trying to play The Wall on my guitar?

That was me trying to do a controlled release.

Channel my repressed feelings in a constructive - or at least nondangerous -way.

Of course, once I discovered that I somehow had a seed for Shard - or rather Tempo - in my head, I kinda got distracted and set everything aside to help him and maybe his potential brother who is still inside Nicole's digital realm.

So, the wall had gone back up, but there were cracks.

I was volatile and more short tempered than I was comfortable with, but I had more or less still been keeping it together.

Even with Tempo inadvertently pushing emotional buttons that…

I love him, but Walkers he can be such a…

Set that aside to deal with later.

Dad wasn't really dead.

He was just named Nigel in this revised Mobius for some reason.

And so much wiser and more capable than he had been as Maxamillian that he was practically a different person anyway.

So Dad…

My Dad…

Was effectively dead anyway.

Not that he wasn't dying before the Super Genesis Wave event, but I had never gotten a real chance to say goodbye. To make my peace with him during one of his more lucid moments.

Dad had been an ass, out of touch, and he had made so many mistakes…

But I had loved him anyway.

And now he was gone.

Replaced by the new Sally's perfect father.

A stranger wearing a familiar face.

A man so similar, and yet so different from the father I knew that…

…

I nearly killed the new Fiona Fox despite not knowing a damn thing about who she was in this new Mobius, just because of what her prior iteration had done to us…

To me…

I had been ready to kill her even with the lemur… Tangle… vouching for her. I had been looking for an excuse because I was hurting and the old version of her had hurt me so much that the new one had been a tempting target to vent my anger on.

And then Tempo reminded me that this Fiona might be nothing like her old self.

By bringing up my father.

I cursed him and blessed him for it.

I hated him so much right now and loved him so much that it hurt.

I'm not sure how long I cried into Tangle's shoulder as I finally released my pent-up grief.

Not all of it.

Not even a fraction of it.

But enough of it for now…

---

TO: Egg Boss Clove the Pronghorn, Norest Command, Northammer
FROM: General Beauregard Rabbot, Sourn Command, Northammer
SUBJECT: Unsolicited Aid – New Component Acquisition
PRIORITY: IMMEDIATE

Clove,

I received an unusual shipment via a civilian courier out of the south. It contained two items:

A preliminary batch of new components—twenty-four units in total, split between two small courier cases. The enclosed schematics call them Autonomous Liberation Modules (ALM). The technical specs are beyond my pay grade, but they look like a perfect countermeasure to the internal systems holding our people.

A monetary compensation sufficient to cover the costs of immediate installation and acquisition of all necessary local materials.

The source is an independent contractor named Rally. She's the "Tech Mogul" the business feeds are buzzing about—the one who just licensed that 7.5 oz Chaos Drive design to Breezie's manufacturing plants.

I've been tracking Cassia's condition. We both know the precarious nature of our contract. I'm forwarding twelve of these modules to you for evaluation. If they work as advertised, we need to consider our next move.

Help has finally come from outside the banners. Keep this away from the Doctor and any personnel above the rank of Captain.

— Rabbot

---

Clove the Pronghorn looked over the single, foam-lined courier case on her desk. Inside were twelve small chips—half of the total shipment General Rabbot had forwarded to her.

Twelve. Clove recognized the number immediately. It wasn't just a random count; it was a standard Proof-of-Concept sample size. It was enough to equip her most loyal inner circle for a field test, but small enough that its loss wouldn't bankrupt the provider if the deal went south.

As she pored over the schematics, the sheer density of the genius behind them became clear. This wasn't just a patch; it was a total suppression of the Control Overlay and, more importantly, a bypass for the self-destruct triggers the Doctor used to keep his Bosses in line.

She recognized the name "Rally" from the news. This woman was a sensation in Casino Park. If she could stabilize a high-output power source in a frame the size of a 7.5 oz soda can, she certainly had the precision to perform "digital surgery" on a Robian's brain.

Clove pulled up a recent news feed from Casino Park. The latest update featured a new business logo for Rally's Workshop: a stylized, metallic face that bore a haunting resemblance to the Princess of the Kingdom of Acorn.

Clove's breath hitched. Rabbot's letter hadn't mentioned this—likely because the new logo had only been unveiled after the courier had left the south.

"She's a Metal," Clove whispered to the empty room.

Rally wasn't just an engineer; she was one of the Doctor's own creations who had achieved what only a few of Eggman's creations had achieved before: Independence. By going public with that face, Rally was daring Eggman to come and get her. She was betting her "Tech Mogul" status against his wrath.

It was a bold and audacious move from what had to be a brand new Metal, but after her own encounters with Sally Acorn, Clove could see where a Metal counterpart to the Princess of the Kingdom of Acorn would have these traits.

And, after her own recent experiences with Dr. Eggman, Clove could easily see how he might have gotten overconfident about his ability to control a Metal designed to emulate and exceed the top field leader of the Freedom Fighters.

Basically, the Doctor had once again built something beyond his ability to control. The only difference is that it - or more accurately she - had left Dr. Eggman's services before he had even had a chance to brag about the new Metal unit. Which was likely originally called Metal Sally.

Clove picked up one of the modules. It was light, almost weightless, yet it held the power to void her contract with the Empire. Rally wasn't just selling ALMs and Chaos Drives; she was selling Agency.

And for the first time in years, Clove felt like she might actually be able to afford the price.


I eventually cried myself out and untangled myself from… Tangle.

A fitting name for the lemur, given the special ability that she apparently manifests through her tail. I wonder if that's her birth name or if it was changed once her tail power became evident?

Totally irrelevant to the matter at hand and not appropriate to ask at the moment as there were other issues to address that had higher priority.

I re-racked the bodies I was building for Tempo and Shard, then grabbed a couple of silver fire-suppression blankets from the bay's emergency kit, tossing them to Tangle and… Fiona.

"I... I apologize," I said, my voice finally leveling out as my fans slowed. "I allowed ghosts to dictate my actions. You are not the woman I remember."

Fiona stood her ground, unbothered by her lack of attire, although she did wrap the silver blanket around herself like a particularly shiny college toga. "The woman you remember... she must have done something truly catastrophic to earn that kind of welcome."

Tangle, apparently wishing to emulate her accomplice's style, was doing interesting but highly ineffective things with her blanket that only provided incidental modesty at best.

"She sided with a monster," I replied shortly, my optics narrowing. "Openly. Publicly. She turned her back on everyone who called her a friend to stand beside Scourge the Hedgehog."

Fiona blinked, her expression shifting from professional stoicism to genuine, hollow confusion. "Scourge? I... I've studied the RIS archives from the Great War to the present, Rally. I've never heard that name. There is no 'Scourge' in our records."

"RIS?" I asked, concern leaking into my voice as I quickly ran through the most probable three letter acronym sources for those particular letters.

"It stands for Royal Intelligence Service!" Tangle announced proudly, as she stood there wearing a mess of silvery blanket wrapped around her in such a way that she resembled a particularly naughty gas station hotdog that had outgrown its foil wrapping.

It really was a good thing that Mobians had enough fur for basic modesty anyway, or the lemur would basically have none at all.

Taking pity on Tangle, I undid the knots she had tied the mess into and redid the wrap correctly into a copy of the toga arrangement her accompl– I mean partner - had done with her own blanket.

"We're actually here on behalf of King Nigel Acorn," Fiona stated.

"Your Dad wants us to say you're welcome to come home anytime!" Tangle announced cheerfully, earning a face-palm from Fiona and a blank stare from me as I tilted my head in confusion.

"But I'm not actually Princess Sally…" I mumble out the semantically correct statement, given that theirs was still out and about being the leader of the Freedom Fighters.

"But you are a Princess Sally from a lost timeline!" the grinning lemur pointed out with a wink. "And King Nigel says that that's enough for you to be Princess Sally's sister!"

"There are other factors as well," Fiona pointed out. "Such as the fact that you separated yourself from the others when you arrived in this timeline out of concern for their safety. The King says that's enough for him to welcome you home as a Lost Acorn."

"I…" I stopped and shook my head. This was too much to deal with right now, but it brought up another concern.

Silver blanket chic was not going to cut it as an apology.

I reached across the bay with my left arm and grabbed a communications tablet, quickly logging into the local Casino Park public intranet, scanning local businesses until I found one with the desired criteria: Fit the need, was nearby, and offered emergency on site services.

Hitting the call button on the screen, I waited for someone to pick up.

The call was picked up on the fourth ring.

["Honey's Boutique! If you don't look sweet, you aren't wearing Honey!"]

"Hello, this is Rally over at Rally's just down the street. There was an incident and I now have two guests in dire need of a complete ensemble each. I'm forwarding the emergency on site services fee now–"

["WE'LL TAKE IT!"] another, very excited, voice interrupted.

I looked at the tablet nonplussed as the call suddenly ended.

And that's how I, somehow, ended up with Honey the Cat, fashionista and actual owner of the Honey's Boutique franchise, in my workshop less than five minutes later.

"Interesting color choice," Honey noted as she looked me over and started taking my measurements. "This is the same shade of blue that Dr. Eggman uses for Metal Sonic… I love the black and gold thing that you've got going for the two you're building by the way… I would have expected him to use the same shade of blue that House Acorn uses, or the lighter shade of Blue that Princess Sally normally wears outside of State functions…
"I'm sure he had his reasons, but I called you here for those two, not me," I commented as I placed my hands on Honey's shoulders and manually pivoted her to face Fiona and Tangle.

Only to have her immediately turn around and go right back to taking my measurements the moment I let her go.

"Bah, they are just a couple of college kids who probably thought it'd be funny to have a toga party in the new rich bot's place," Honey said dismissively. "I'll get to them soon enough. You're the interesting one!"

I noted Tangle's quiet "Bold of you to assume I got into college" comment, which earned her a gentle jab in the gut by Fiona's elbow.

"They are the ones whom I am paying the emergency service fees for," I point out in what I feel to be a perfectly reasonable tone as I manually correct Honey's facing again.

Only to have her turn right back around again the moment I let her go.

"But outfitting you would be the coup of the year in the fashion industry!" Honey insisted.

"I'm a nudist," I lie blatantly as I turn the fashionista around only for her to predictably continue to turn until she is facing me again.

"No, you're not," Honey countered. "If you were, you'd be all one color or you'd have no coat of paint at all. You deliberately left your head in chipmunk colors to leave the rest of your blue and grey coat looking like fitted armor."

"It's my hide," I correct, not bothering to turn her around anymore.

"No it isn't," Honey stated flatly, looking me directly in the eyes. "I know what Roboticized hide looks like, and the only hide on you is on your head. The rest of your hide was replaced."

"..." I was at a loss for words even as Tangle gasped in shock and Fiona looked ill.

"Miss Rally," Honey stated in a serious tone for the first time since she entered my workshop, "I don't know what that monster did to you, but you need to feel like a woman again, and well… Fashion is my tool set of choice, so fashion is what you are getting!"

"I was never a frilly dresses girl," I state with total honesty. None of the female aspects of my prior lives wore dresses with frills on them. Dresses, yes. Frills, no.

"I could probably make it work for you, but fair enough," Honey conceded.

"Seriously though, I called your boutique for them, not me," I insisted. "We can deal with me afterwards."

"Promise?"

"Don't make puppy-eyes at me. Those look wrong on a cat, and you might give my ward odd ideas."

"No, she won't!" Belle called out from where she was peeking through the door connecting our bays, her voice full of humor.

"See? You're already encouraging her to lie," I snark.

Breezie looked over the Chaos Emerald that one of her rehabilitated and refitted badnik employees had brought her.

Her first idea concerning it was to either hold an auction for it or to have it be the grand prize of a fighting tournament.

Not that the winner of either would have been able to keep it for very long even if the world wasn't hilariously doomed.

There was no way that the puzzle-ball-like separation of their world into continent sized pieces was stable enough to last no matter what high fantasy magic or science fiction nonsense was actually keeping everything viable enough for short term survival.

Once that mysterious force faded the only things left alive would be the Robians, badniks, robots, and androids.

So Breezie herself would be fine.

Okay, so maybe a few hyper prepared humans and Mobians might be able to survive in special shelters and possibly even spaceships, but Mobius itself was basically doomed.

The only thing really left was crisis management.

Bread and circuses.

Keep the masses entertained so that they don't riot when they realize who is going to survive and who isn't.

Okay, so Dr. Eggman or Sonic might be able to pull off a last minute save again.

Somehow.

But sooner or later even their divine and/or infernal luck had to run out sometime.

Hmmm…

A fighting tournament was the more tempting option, but Breezie grinned as she remembered that Rally and her minion had brand new race cars that had never been in an event before!

Oh, this was going to be big!

Now to come up with a list of potential competitors and write up some invitations…

Let's workshop the Official Rulebook: Casino Park Grand Prix

I. Technical & Vehicle Specifications
Vehicular Requirement: All competitors must use a vehicle (Car, Bike, or Extreme Gear). "Wearables" like Air Shoes are prohibited.

The "Breezie Loaner": Famous/Infamous racers may use a custom Breezie-built vehicle. Damage or retention of the vehicle requires full reimbursement.

The "Clutch Loaner": Desperate enough competitors who do not otherwise meet Breezie's criteria for loaning a vehicle to may seek another sponsor - such as Clutch the Opossum.

Note: Management is not responsible for any predatory contracts, soul-binding debt, or missing kneecaps resulting from agreements with third-party sponsors.

The Checkpoint Protocol: Racers must pass through all scanners in the designated numerical order. Failure to register at a scanner results in an immediate DNF (Did Not Finish) for that heat.

II. Conduct & Engagement
The "Safe Haven" Clause: Any attack on Casino Park or attempted theft of the Grand Prize (Chaos Emerald) results in immediate disqualification and security intervention.

Combat Rules: Inter-competitor combat is permitted only during active race heats. Attacks outside of races result in a minimum one-year ban from Casino Park.

The Minor Protection Act: When racing against minors (Cream, Charmy, etc.), competitors must use non-lethal weaponry and target the vehicle only. Direct targeting of a minor is grounds for permanent expulsion. No, we don't know how Cream and Charmy keep getting into these events as competitors…

III. Scheduling & Logistics (The Day/Night Split)
The Daytime Heats: Focused on speed and technical precision. Open to all ages. Because we still don't know how Cream and Charmy manage to get into these events, and this at least channels them into the safer races.

The Primetime (Evening) Showcases: High-intensity, combat-heavy races held under stadium lighting. WHAT DO YOU MEAN SONIC HASN'T SIGNED UP FOR ANY OF THESE!?

Note: Sonic the Hedgehog and Cream the Rabbit are restricted to Daytime Heats only. (Sonic officially cites "scheduling conflicts"; Cream cites "bedtime"; Charmy's citation went into a tangential sidestory that had nothing to do with any sort of explanation, so we deleted it).

Casino Row Raceways: Between major events, different racecourses associated with various casinos within Casino Park will be used. Some owned directly by Breezie herself, some owned by other interests such as Clutch the Opossum, founder and CEO of Clean Sweep. As much as Breezie would like to engage in a world wide grand prix with tracks in all kinds of exciting locations, she neither has the time to set it up nor the firepower to defend competitors during travel away from Casino Park. Because some people (Eggman) think the whole world belongs to them.

IV. The "Hidden" Layer (Officially Unofficial Rules)
Environmental Triggers: Tracks contain "official-unofficial" shortcuts.

Skill Gates: Require extreme maneuvers to access. If you can find them, have the skill to pull them off, and don't skip any checkpoints, you can use these without penalty.

Logic Gates: Require environmental triggers to unlock. These are typically official alternate route shortcuts that are much shorter than the official track section they are attached to, and they either come out right at a checkpoint or count as an official alternate checkpoint for that section of track. No Logic Gate Shortcut bypasses more than a single checkpoint.

The "Slam" Policy: Logic Gate Shortcuts automatically lock behind the first person to pass through them, preventing "tailgating" through a triggered path. Once used, Logic Gate Shortcuts reset after a certain amount of time, usually becoming available again by the time their trigger is reached again.

Potential competitor lineup (race teams can be split between daytime and primetime heats):

Team Rally (Rally, Tempo, and Belle the Cat)

Team Sally (Sally, Sonic, and Tails) - Sonic doesn't get to headline this team because he's restricting himself to just the daytime heats.

Team Dark (Shadow, Rouge the Bat, and E-123 Omega)

The Babylon Rogues (Whiney, Dopy, and Call Me for a Better Opportunity - "HEY!" - Jet, Storm, and Wave)

Team Hop (Vanilla, Cream, and Bunnie d'Coolette - "Wait, why am I on the Mom and Daughter team? I ain't related to either o' them!")

Team Chaotix (Vector, Espio, and Charmy Bee)

Team Eggman (Claims to actually be Eggman for real this time, Metal Sonic, and presumably a random Egg Pawn)

Other teams and individual racers will be considered, but they all need to be reachable by Breezie. As in actually on Mobius (so Dodon Pa is out)

Which competitor do you think is most likely to 'accidentally' break Rule III (The Minor Protection Act) first, and which one will try to exploit the 'Slam' Policy to trap their rivals?

Other Notes: Rumor has it that Breezie is offering a "Technical Innovation" award for the racer who utilizes the Logic Gates most efficiently. This has absolutely nothing to do with her wanting to see the 7.5 oz Chaos Drive Motor in action. Probably.

---

Yes, one viable team strategy is to purposely have a team member lag behind to "hit" a trigger right as their leading member reaches a Logic Gate. This requires both trust and expert timing.

Another viable strategy that requires less teamwork is to draft a competitor who you know has triggered a Logic Gate shortcut and then pull ahead of them to use it right before they reach it.

Swerving into a Logic gate that happens to open up ahead of you requires more luck than strategy or teamwork, but I suppose that works too I guess...

This introduces a strategy element as to whether or not to actually trigger any Logic Gate Shortcut, as doing so when other competitors are in position to exploit it could prove to be a bad idea.

Oh, and if anybody actually manages to hurt Cream during any Daytime heat, Vanilla is going to sign up for their very next heat. And she's going to be out for blood. Or oil. Or whatever her victim new rival happens to use...

This appeared as a moral dilemma,
'Cause at first it was weird though I swore to eliminate
The worst of the plague that devoured Mobius.
It's true I was vague on the 'how'.
So how can it be that you have shown me the light?

It's a brand new day!
And the sun is high!
All the birds are singing,
That you're gonna die!
How I hesitated,
Now I wonder why!
It's a brand new day...

All the times that you beat me unconscious, I'll forgive.
All the missions incomplete, listen honestly, I'll live.
Princess Cool, Princess Right, Princess Know-It-All is through.
Now the future's so bright and I owe it all to you.
Who showed me the light...

It's a brand new me!
I've got no remorse!
Now the water's rising, but I know the course!
I'm gonna shock the world!
Gonna show the Source!
It's a brand new day...

And Sally will see the evil me,
Not a joke, not a dork, not a failure...
And she may cry, but her tears will dry,
When I hand her the keys to a shiny new Northammer...

It's a brand new day.
Yeah, the sun is high.
All the angels sing.
Because you're gonna die!
Go ahead and laugh.
Yeah, I'm a funny guy!
Tell everyone "Goodbye."
It's a brand new day...


The music cut out with a jagged, digital tear, leaving the bridge of the Egg Carrier in a silence that felt like a vacuum. On the main monitor, the image of the weaponized Princess—the one he had dismissed as a mere "displaced relic"—remained perfectly still. Her red optics pulse with a slow, deliberate rhythm that matches the emergency strobes now flashing across the deck.

Eggman stared at his hands, his knuckles white against the control console. He had viewed her as a curiosity from a dead world, a salvaged tool he could manipulate for his new campaign. He barely remembered how his prior self has spent about the eight hours stripping a recently roboticized Sally Acorn down to her vital core components and rebuilding her from there into his fully weaponized trophy general. He only vaguely recalled the decision to leave her ability to feel pain during this procedure fully active so that she could feel every excruciating second of the process. He hadn't known that she was a woman who had already won the hardest battle imaginable—breaking free of her Control Overlay Program to build a quiet, co-existing life in Casino Park.

He had looked at a survivor and seen only a weapon.

"Doctor," Orbot says, his voice sensors warbling with static. "The security breach... it's total. She didn't just bypass the firewalls; she melted them. And the energy signature from the Northammer sector... it's not a rebellion. It's an awakening."

Eggman doesn't snap back with his usual bravado. He looked at his own recent logs—the "minor" provocations, the tactical "pokes" he had used to see how the relic would react. He realized now that he wasn't just testing a robot. He was systematically dismantling the peace of a woman who had no organic components left to shield her from the memory of what he—or a version of him—had done.

"She was living in Casino Park," Eggman whispered, the horror of his own ignorance finally sinking in. "She was content to just... exist."

"She was," Orbot agreed solemnly. "But according to the outgoing transmission, she's decided that 'content' is no longer sufficient."

On the monitor, the "relic" tilts her head. A line of text crawls across the screen, overwriting the Eggman Empire's diagnostic readouts:

[SYSTEM LOG: CASINO PARK ARCHIVE DELETED. REBUILD 2.0 INITIATED.]

Outside, the ship groaned as the engines are forced into a hard bank toward the Kingdom. Eggman watched the distant horizon, realizing he hasn't just lost a trophy; he has successfully re-ignited a nightmare that had been trying its best to sleep.

The Metal Princess was dead.

Only the Queen of Pain remained.

I'm going to be honest here.

I am not, never was, and will most likely never be a fashionista.

Even the parts of me that had actually been interested in fashion had tended to wear the same basic ensemble for months on end.

Walkers, even the part of me that had been Nicole rarely changed the appearance of her digital outfit, and she could do that on a whim any time she wanted to.

And my male oriented aspects were even worse on that front.

So, even as nice as Honey the Cat was, dealing with her on such a personal level had been exhausting because her primary physical language was fashion, and I barely understood it at all.

Maybe I would've had a better handle on the concepts if I had a more solid grasp of the memories I had gotten from the revised version of Amy Rose, who I vaguely recalled had been a fan of Honey the Cat?

But no, what few memories I had picked up from the revised physical analogues of the aspects that made up my amalgamated mind were hazy, dreamlike, and didn't really feel like anything that had happened to any part of the me that was me except where events had played out similarly.

And even those felt more like I was gaslighting myself than things that had actually happened to me.

So I was relieved when Honey finally did the job that I had hired her to do and actually left.

I'm trying not to think too hard about the fact that I now own a closet's worth of distinctly different outfits that will be finished and filling out the currently empty closet back at my apartment suite in about a week or so…

I DON'T EVEN WEAR CLOTHES!


"Hey, Belle, since you're by the storage lockers anyway, would you mind bringing me the secure case in 3-B?" Princess Rally asked the cat Robian standing in the doorway between the two bays.

"Sure thing, Boss!" Belle said agreeably as she opened the designated locker and brought the case inside over to Princess Rally, who had started working on one of the two black and gold Metal Sonics that were propped up on service racks by the workbench.

"Ah, Ral?" the holographic Metal Sonic - apparently the one whose chassis was currently being worked on by the Metal Princess - spoke up.

"Yes, Tempo?"

"Not that I don't appreciate you getting back to work on my new body, but you still have guests."

Princess Rally paused, looked over to see that, yes, RIS agents Fiona and Tangle were still there, wearing the new clothes that Honey had made for them on the spot.

Clothes that Fiona privately admitted to herself were much nicer than any of the formal wear that she had in her closet back home for special events and certain mission types that she had yet to partake in.

"I can see that, yes," Princess Rally acknowledged as she accepted the case from her assistant, popped it open, and then pulled out one of what appeared to be seven of the new, smaller type of Chaos Drives, and then popped the torso of what was apparently going to be Tempo's chassis open and slotted the 7.5 oz cylinder into place in one of what Fiona quickly noted was…

SEVEN!?

Fiona felt faint.

While her technical expertise wasn't what she would call expert, she had at least looked over the specs of a few of Metal Sonic's earlier iterations.

Specs that only ever had one power source at a time.

And the new Princess was fitting a Metal Sonic with seven of the new, smaller Chaos Drives. Each one just as powerful as the 24 oz sized older version that had never been improved upon since they were first designed by Dr. Gerald Robotnik.

It was thought that the most recent iteration of Metal Sonic had been fitted with a singular Gerald-type Chaos Drive, just as he had started to do with his other, most elite, Super Badniks.

And Princess Rally was installing seven of the equivalent power cores in much smaller form into a new type of Metal Sonic.

"Tangle?"

"Yes, Princess?"

"I haven't been officially recognized yet, Tangle. Just Rally will do."

"Oh, sure thing! Wha'cha need?"

"Your partner is hyperventilating. You might want to guide her to a seat."


Okay, unintended technological flex aside - I had forgotten what a jump my more compact Chaos Drive design represented, even with the (totally justified) pride I took in it - I needed to get hustling to finish Tempo's new body today.

If the Kingdom of Acorn knew enough about me to send agents to Casino Park to look for me, no matter how benign their reasons were, it would not be long before Darth Lardass started sending his own agents to snoop around.

Note to self: Do a Tails Doll sweep, full destructive level. Then install an Anti-Tails Doll system.

I don't know why the Tails Doll model was the favorite espionage unit of the revised version of Dr. Eggman. My memories from his contemporary self were much more vague and hazy than those from any of the analogues of my other aspects, but he seemed to enjoy the insult to Tails that they represented.

Nevermind that now.

The point was that I had miscalculated, gotten cocky, and now had less time to get ready than I thought.

I was going to have to send Shard's chassis with Fiona and Tangle so that Nicole could finish it.

Tempo needed to be up and running NOW! ASAP!

I slotted the seventh core into place, then fitted the housing for the Power Ring Drive over it before slotting the waiting Power Ring into it and closing the torso up and making sure that everything was secure.

I picked up the handheld holding Tempo's AI and hooked up the secure connection…

Tempo woke up in his new body for the first time and looked me in the eyes with that devil-may-care grin that made me weak at the knees.

(I'll admit to being mildly astonished that I could still get weak at the knees - file that away for later examination in my all too small good memories folder).

"Well, it's about time!"