A Cat Named Hershey (a Broken SI fic set in Archie Sonic's Mobius)

[Tangent]

Chapter One​

---

Ugh… okay, when did my bed get so hard, and what the Hell am I wearing on my head?

Actually what the Hell am I wearing, period? And where am I? This isn't even my house, let alone my bedroom, and why do I feel so light?

WHY THE FUCK DO I HAVE A TAIL!?

I got up off the floor and onto my feet really damn quick.

Which I greatly appreciated as I had been able to get up at all. Whatever I was, I was a lot lighter and far more healthy than the man I used to be. I could get used to this - assuming that I figured out what "this" was.

I heard the sound of guns and explosions, then noticed that there was an open window with a grappling hook nearby. I still wasn't thinking too clearly, which is the only reason I can think of for why I poked my head out of the window like an idiot as I tried to figure out what was going on.

Okay, a short bald guy with a distinctive nose and a malicious expression was scrambling up the rope. The guy looked vaguely familiar, but I'm terrible with names. Also, given his expression and the feeling of unease I was getting, I had this feeling I was supposed to let him drop or something.

Screw that. I'm not a murderer, and the creepy guy was in danger right now even if I was pretty sure that he was a bad guy. If he was, I'd deal with it once he was up here. After all, I was feeling better by the minute and that guy would be tired from the climb.

I didn't see anything handy to tie the rope to in this room, and trying to grab a rope that was secured to a window frame only by a grappling hook would probably be incredibly dangerous to everyone involved. So I waited until the guy was almost to the window and then helped pull him inside.

"Thanks, Sonic," a feminine voice that most certainly did not match the man said in relief. And then something clicked for both of us. "Wait, you're not…"

"...not Sonic," I completed as I pulled off the weird helmet that I now knew to be part of a black ops disguise and handed it to Princess Sally Alicia Acorn. "Hershey the Cat. And before we do anything else, I want you to look at me through this helmet's visor and tell me what you see."

Sally did so cautiously, not actually putting the helmet on and instead simply angling it so that she could see me through the helmet anyway. As she did so, I started taking off the rest of this stupid disguise. I knew exactly where I was now, what was going on, who I was supposed to be, and what I had been set up to do.

And I was getting pissed off about the whole Goddamn situation. Of all the stupid, awkward, idiotic potential insertion points, why the fuck did I end up getting isekai'd in the middle of an assassination attempt against one of my favorite characters!?

Well, not a mere character anymore, as I'm here and she's real, and…

"Snively," Sally spoke, interrupting my inner rant. "Why do you look like Snively through the visor?"

"Because you looked like Snively to me while I was wearing it," I grumbled irritably. "I think my stupid, idiotic, soon-to-be-ex boyfriend, Drago, set me up to murder you and frame Sonic for treason. Gave me the stupid suit and everything. I was supposed to do whatever I could to eliminate Snively if he interfered with Sonic's mission. I think he got it from some guy named St. John, but I'm not sure. Something is really fucking with my head right now."

Sally looked me up and down for a moment, then apparently came to a decision. "Gather up the disguise and follow me back to the others. Sonic can handle the mission on his own - we need to preserve this evidence and bring it to my father."

I was fine with that, actually.

And I could use the time to try to sort out my memories, because I got slammed with fifty or so years of some guy from another Zone smooshing right into, through, and all around the memories I had as Hershey Coco…

Wait…

My last name was actually Coco!?

What the Goddamn serious fuck kind of inter-Zone coincidence is that!?

Spoiler: Not a chocolate bar...

Spoiler: Totally Sonic the Hedgehog for real!

Before anyone asks: Drago Wolf is definitely Hershey's ex-boyfriend-from-Hell at this point.

And Hershey St. John is not going to be a thing in this fic.

Click to shrink...

 

[MidsizePig]

Yay! Another random tangent from Tangent!

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Two​

---

I wasn't sure of everything that went on after Sally and I returned to the others and reported our finding. Well, we waited for the mission to end, of course. Sonic succeeded in at least driving Dr. Robotnik away from this facility, with Robotnik blowing up the top floor himself to prevent Sonic from following him into wherever his escape tunnel went. And both Drago and Geoffrey St. John were being held as persons of interest, as I got the Sonic costume and my orders from Drago, who supposedly got them from St. John.

Unfortunately, Dr. Quack had spotted that I was not really okay, so he had me taken to his clinic for a full panel of tests.

It was now two days later, and the news was not good.

Dr. Quack gently placed the light-board sleeve containing the brain scans against the illuminated panel on the wall of the room I was assigned to. The glowing cross-sections of my cranium lit up the room, punctuated by bright, patchy highlights around the temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex.

He turned around, resting his hands atop his cane, his expression heavy with clinical gravity and deep sympathy.

"Hershey, my dear... I need you to listen to me very carefully," Dr. Quack began, his voice soft and measured. "I've completed the full diagnostic battery. We ran a high-resolution Brain MRI alongside the serum mass-spectrometry from your blood panel."

I shifted uncomfortably in my hospital bed, clutching my elbows. "Doctor, please. I know what happened. Drago gave me that suit. He gave me the orders! He told me it was a distraction operation but to keep an eye out for Snively, who was suspected to also be in the area. And I'm pretty sure that Drago had gotten the suit from Commander St. John…"

"And that is precisely where the medical record becomes a wall, Hershey," Quack interrupted gently, stepping closer. "The MRI shows significant focal inflammation throughout your visual cortex and limbic system. When combined with the psychotropic drugs revealed by your bloodwork and augmented reality visor's optic emissions, it would have created a severe, continuous neural feedback loop."

He gestured to the tox screen printout he was holding.

"Furthermore, your blood panel confirmed trace levels of an aerosolized anticholinergic neurotoxin - likely introduced through the suit's internal ventilation. It didn't just alter your perception through the visor; it stripped away your executive inhibition and critical reasoning, inducing a state of acute, high suggestibility. It's actually a marvel that you stopped when you did. And a miracle that you survived what had stopped you, if you can call having your brain scrambled surviving."

I swallowed hard, the taste of stale hospital air lingering in the back of my throat. My fingers tightened around the thin fleece blanket covering my lap. "So... it proves I was poisoned," I managed, my voice sounding small, thin, and far away even to my own ears. "It proves Drago lied to me. He set me up! He knew what that helmet would do!"

Dr. Quack sighed, a solemn, weary look crossing his bill as he shook his head slowly.

"Medical science proves you were the victim of a sophisticated chemical and psychological attack, yes," Quack said softly. "It completely exonerates you of any malicious intent toward Princess Sally. If anyone tries to charge you with treason, this medical record is an impenetrable shield."

He paused, letting that sit for a beat before delivering the second half of the blow.

"But from a legal standpoint... for the Royal Council or the Acorn Guard's investigative tribunal... it most likely renders your testimony completely inadmissible. All that's proven is that someone had attempted to use you as a proxy to assassinate Princess Sally and frame Sonic for it in the process."

I froze. "What?"

"Because your brain was subjected to active neurotoxic suggestibility during the entire window of that assignment, any defense advocate or magistrate will throw your statements out," Quack explained, his tone laced with a doctor's profound frustration at legal bureaucracy. "They will argue that your memory of the entire briefing was corrupted by the toxin. Especially with the deep disruption of your memories. They'll likely claim that Drago never gave those orders, that he never handed you the suit, and that the poison made you manufacture or misremember the entire interaction to fit the hallucination."

A cold knot tied itself in my stomach. The room seemed to tilt slightly. And worst of all, I could see the logic he was presenting. It sucked, but any testimony I could give on this matter was legally compromised and thus useless.

"You know Drago handed you that helmet," Quack continued, stepping up to the side of my bed and placing a warm, steady hand over my trembling knuckles. "And you suspect Commander St. John was pulling his strings from the top. But on paper? The tox screen and MRI prove your cognitive state was compromised before you ever stepped foot near that window."

He looked right into my eyes, his expression a mixture of fierce protectiveness and deep sorrow.

"Whoever engineered this trap didn't just design it to make you attack Sally, Hershey. They designed it so that even if you failed - even if you survived - your word against Drago's wouldn't stand up for five seconds in a court of law."

Argh!

Worst.

Isekai.

Ever!

I want a refund!

Except how do I ask for a refund for being merged with someone in another world when neither of my component identities had asked for this and I don't think any payment had been involved anyway?

Ugh.

Fuck my life…

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Three​

---

Oddly enough, it turns out that they could prove that Drago and Geoffrey St. John had both not only been in close proximity to the Sonic costume, they had both handled it extensively. What caught them out at the end was the fact that Drago didn't wear gloves and Commander St. John tended to only wear just the one glove - the one with a wrist-mounted mini-crossbow attached to it. Meaning that their prints were all over the most damning pieces of the helmet: Commander St. John's on the augmented reality visor and Drago's all over the muzzle piece with the respirator still filled with drugs.

So, yeah, it turns out that I didn't even have to make an appearance at the trials.

Although I had mixed feeling about this, as I realized that it was a mistake of my own that even let anybody else find those prints in the first place, because that helmet was a sealed system with a respirator. I should have thoroughly wiped everything down before putting any part of it close to my face, which would have wiped away the very prints that the investigators had found.

Congratulations, Dumbass, the bad guys got caught due to laziness on everyone's part...

Anyway, trials plural because Drago Wolf wasn't a citizen of the Kingdom of Acorn. His sentencing fell to Lupe, who basically exiled and shunned him. Never again would he receive any help nor even the slightest kindness from any member of the Wolf Pack Nation. He could be dying of starvation at their feet and they would not feed him. He could be dying of thirst and not one member of the Pack would give him water. He was, for all intents and purposes, a walking ghost to them, condemned to remain forever alone at least as far as the Wolf Pack Nation was concerned.

Somehow, I could not bring myself to care about my now ex-boyfriend. As far as anyone could tell, he had been the one who had decided to drug me on top of just letting the misinformation and the augmented reality visor do their things. Due to that, the Wolf Pack Nation had apparently decided that I would be the one to inherit Drago's hut and all of his worldly possessions as my rightful compensation. But I did not want any of it and they understood. It held no more value in my heart than it did in theirs. Lupe ended up distributing what was actually needed appropriately, and the rest was just sold off with me receiving a portion of the proceeds anyway.

Geoffrey St. John though? He was a citizen of the Kingdom of Acorn. Even worse, he was a military commander caught in a plot to assassinate one of the royal heirs and frame a Knight of the Realm.

High Treason of the worst sort, and a crime with only one penalty. His trial lasted the longest because St. John had been a Hero of the Resistance and the son of another hero. They wanted to be absolutely sure that he was guilty before consigning him to death.

King Max had him executed before I was even out of the hospital. I don't think that the period of discovery was even over yet. Granted, I was pretty sure that Geoffrey was actually guilty, but that's just messed up!

---

I sighed as I looked over apartment listings for the increasingly more inaccurately named Village of Knothole. Inaccurate because Knothole had received enough refugees to have left the status of being a mere "village" a while ago.

The king was back, the kingdom restored, both heirs were reasonably safe, and everything was precariously balanced like a house of cards next door to a pogo stick contest. Because, yeah, King Max having a war hero executed before his trial was even over wasn't sitting well with some people. Not that they necessarily believed that Geoffrey had been innocent. It was more that King Max had bypassed part of the process just to get the result he wanted over with faster.

That's not a sign of a good or kind ruler.

Still, I was already here in Knothole anyway, and I had little reason to stay with the Wolf Pack Nation considering that I did not care to be known as the Ghost's Wife. I mean, Drago and I weren't even married, and I'm not sure that we ever would have gotten married. Drago had filled the respirator of that muzzle piece with enough drugs that Dr. Quack had insisted on having me held for observation until they were absolutely sure that I was clean.

I could have died.

According to Dr. Quack, I should have died. Either Drago had no idea how to moderate the aerosol mechanism to keep the dose levels reasonably safe, or I was conveniently supposed to die after killing "Snively" as "Sonic" and leaving the scene.

And for the life of me, I had no idea which one of those possibilities was worse. I mean, yeah, any feelings I had left for Drago were gone either way, but how many signs did I miss or choose to be blissfully ignorant of?

I…

I didn't know.

Because, yeah, having your memories scrambled apparently doesn't just fix itself on a schedule. Sure, I didn't actually forget everything - not in the conventional sense - this wasn't some bizarre form of amnesia. The memories were there. They were just… broken. Scrambled and mixed together in a fragmented and disorganized mess that left me functional but…

Adrift.

I was Hershey Coco, yes, but I was also some old human guy now living as Hershey Coco, and I was having trouble remembering much of either of my former lives. Congratulations, Hershey, two down and seven more to go if I went by the old nine lives legend.

Which enough cat-type Mobians actually had as a Chaos ability that I couldn't exactly discard that as a reason I had survived that overdose. Which had once been considered to be a huge advantage for Cat types if they knew that they had it, but 1 Up was better because you could accumulate extra lives if you had it. And no Mobian ever had both of those Chaos abilities together. If you had one, you couldn't get the other.

And how the hell did I even know that? Was it something I had learned as Hershey or as Tangent? Or did I just…

Oh…

I looked over at the book on the waiting room coffee table. Chaos and You, by Nate Morgan. I remembered reading that once as Hershey a few years back.

Okay, that's one mystery solved.

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Four​

---

There was some sort of commotion going on throughout Knothole as I headed back to the hospital for another checkup, but nobody I asked seemed to know for sure what was going on.

Sonic and Sally had apparently been sent off to investigate a potential Robotnik sighting at Casino Park, so of course there were now spurious reports of either Robotnik, Snively, or both being spotted right here in Knothole while they were gone. Which made no sense whatsoever.

We were winning! Robotnik's forces were depleted and/or rebelling, cutting him off from most of his resources. Also, even with our side's top strategist and her heroic side piece away on a mission, the bulk of our forces were here in Knothole. Why would Robotnik risk coming to Knothole?

Oh well, I was still technically on medical leave anyway and would remain so until Dr. Quack officially cleared me. Which is why I was returning to the hospital today to begin with.

"And they will, Doc..." I overheard an all too familiar voice say from around a hallway corner. "After you do us another favor! Up you go!"

I snuck around the corner and took cover behind a gurney with an unfortunate Mobian with an IV bag but fully covered with a blanket. Whoever it was must be really bad off, so I had no intention to put them at risk any longer than it took me to sneak up behind Snively and a roughed up Dr. Quack.

"If you refuse, you will ha..."

Whatever else Snively was intending to say was interrupted when I put him in a sleeper hold from behind, choking off his airway and holding him there, speechless, until his struggles eventually slowed and then stopped. Doc was far from inactive as I did this as he took the opportunity to try to grab something off of Snively, causing the villain to split his efforts in an attempt to both get loose and prevent Dr. Quack from taking whatever it was from him.

After an eternity of moments that seemed to drag on forever, Snively finally went fully limp in my arms.

"He has an elite Swatbot back in the office we just came out of," Dr. Quack said even as he checked to see if Snively was still alive. I didn't particularly care if he was or not, but just in case I slipped a bangle off of my left wrist and shoved it into his mouth, tying it in place with my ascot. Then I used my own vest to secure Snively's arms behind his back. If he was still alive, he'd be a prisoner and face trial. And if he wasn't, then no harm done and I could always replace what I had used to tie him up.

"My family is trapped in a hidden cell behind a sliding wall in that office," Dr. Quack explained in a pleading voice. "Do you think that you could…"

"Already on it, Doc," I said as I rushed into the room, swift and silent.

Sure, a swatbot was big and intimidating, and elite versions were stronger and had better armor, but this one was alone and even the elites had the same…

I leaped over the desk and grabbed the upside-down salad bowl-shaped head even as it tried to catch me, using my own weight and momentum to keep moving and twist the assemblage just so until something popped and the head came off. I hopped down, landing on my feet lightly as i set the head on the desk as the rest of the badnik hit the floor.

Anyway, swatbots all had the same design flaw in their joint assemblies that just could not handle applied torque in certain angles. It was a hard stunt to pull off, and you had to know how to do it. Or be a high-speed hedgehog with a spin-dash maneuver, but Sonic wasn't here and I was.

Dr. Quack did something with whatever it was he had taken from Snively, and the wall slid open revealing what had to be his family. Behind the bars of the hidden holding cell he had mentioned.

"Quentin!" the adult female duck called out.

"Elizabeth!" Doc replied. "Hold on, I'll get you and the kids out as soon as I figure out how to use this thing…"

I sighed and went through the drawers of the desk instead.

Paperclips. Not ideal, but I somehow knew I could use them in a pinch. Now, what else?

Ah! A tool kit! Why pick a lock when I can just remove a bar instead?

Gotta love a guy who brings his own field repair kit. If Snively's still alive, I'll have to send him a nice card or something once he's in jail.

---

"Okay, so you're telling me that Dr. Robotnik managed to replace King Max with a robot duplicate, somehow sneak enough elite swatbots into Acorn Hall to capture the Freedom Fighters, and we have no way to contact Sonic and Sally, who are probably rushing straight into a trap in Casino Park as we speak."

"Pretty much," the limping guard I had checked on while heading for Acorn Hall myself informed me.

This was bad.

I could handle one elite swatbot without support on my own. Enough elite swatbots to capture the Royal Guard and our top Freedom Fighter team in one go? Yeah, I was going to need help.

Wait - hadn't Sally trained a reserve team?

What were they called, the Secret Freedom Fighters? The Shirt Tails? The Zoo Crew? Why am I trying to remember that when I can just ask Skippy Squirrel here?

"Quick, who's on the reserve team?"

"Larry Lynx, Hamlin the Pig, Dylan the Porcupine, Penelope Platypus, and Arlo the Armadillo," Skippy replied after a moment's thought.

"Do you know where any of them live?"

"Yes."

"Then it's time for them to go active," I said decisively. "Let's do this!"

---

Okay, I had not thought that I'd find the reserve team in the middle of activating themselves and already in the middle of planning what to do next.

"You got room for two more in this Zoo Crew?" I asked as Skippy and I approached

The five reservists looked at me and then at each other.

"I like that name better," Hamlin told Larry Lynx bluntly. "Let's use Zoo Crew instead."

Larry just looked at his team for a moment, then slumped his shoulders. "Okay, fine. We're the Zoo Crew now. Happy?"

"Yes," Hamlin nodded.

Good God, what had their team's name been before that bad enough to change it during a crisis? The Legion of Substitute Superheroes?

"It's better than being known as the Substitute Freedom Fighters," Arlo commented.

Goddammit, why do I do this to myself?

---

Spoiler: Skippy Squirrel, Royal Guard

---

The twists and turns a story makes when one goes back to read the issues in question and discovers that certain very interesting details from this point in canon were forgotten. Such as the fact that the King Max who set up the mission had been an Auto Automaton that Dr. Robotnik had slipped in when Naugus had started pushing the crystallization effect on the real King Max so that it had started advancing again. So a lot of the more questionable and unstable decisions attributed to King Max during the time leading up to the death of the first Dr. Robotnik? Those may well have been due to the Bot King instead.

The point being, I suppose, is that the King Max who had Geoffrey St. John executed wasn't the real King Max. It was the Bot King eliminating a loose end and the chief minion of the rival whose plot he had hijacked all at once while also sowing discord throughout the Kingdom by railroading due process.

I'm mentioning this here because it's actually unlikely to come up in Hershey Coco's PoV chapters.

Click to shrink...

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Five​

---

"The first thing we need to do is retake Acorn Hall," Larry Lynx said as he used a stick to start drawing a map in the dirt. Except that the stick kept getting stuck on buried rocks, so the tactical map was a bit of a mess.

Eh, that wasn't too bad. We'd deal.

"Not only should this free up any royal guard being held there, it's the most likely place where Robotnik might have kept a local record of where he took the Freedom Fighters," Larry finished.

"Makes sense," I nodded. "Dr. Robotnik has a known tendency for taking over and repurposing existing governmental infrastructure."

"Exactly!" Larry agreed with a grin. "We wreck the swatbots, free the Royal Guard, get the information we need, and then we go to wherever the Freedom Fighters are being held.

"Don't forget that we're facing elite model swatbots," I reminded everyone. "They're a bit stronger and better armored than the standard model. Same weak spot in the joints, but they guard those better than the stock units do."

"Right…" Larry paused for a moment as he considered something. "Would you mind telling us what those weak points are?"

They didn't know?

Well, I guess as a reserve Freedom Fighter team, they had been trained to fight all sorts of badniks and not just swatbots. Must be hard keeping track of which bots have which vulnerable points to exploit.

"Okay," I began, "first off…"

---

"Ugh… How many freaking swatbot squads did he leave in here anyway?" I asked somewhat rhetorically. Liberating Acorn Hall was turning into a bit of a slog. We had to go room by room, and every single room so far had two to six elite model swatbots.

Every.

Single.

Room.

"Has anybody found any sign of where the Royal Guards might be held?" Dylan the Porcupine asked as he treated even more injuries that Skippy Squirrel had received. She had decided to stick close to Larry and guard him as he was the team lead, and she had taken more than a few hits because of that decision. Not all of it because of enemy action either.

So far, Skippy had taken hits because she had pushed Larry out of the way of two toppling bookshelves, one falling chandelier, and no less than sixteen falling potted plants. I mean, I appreciate indoor greenery as much as the next Mobian, but maybe the pots could have been secured a bit better? Just saying…

---

Oh. My. God…

Clearing Acorn Hall had been beyond a slog. It's a wonder that all of those swatbots had stayed in their respective rooms, but I almost wish that they had come out to swarm us. At least then we'd have been able to lure them to a single choke point or maybe retreat and come up with a better plan that didn't leave us exhausted and poor Skippy wrapped head-to-toe like a walking mummy.

"Not one guard or anyone else being held in any of the rooms!" Hamlin complained loudly as he punched a support beam.

"Okay, okay," Larry said as he did his best to keep our morale high. Well, higher than its current low point anyway. Poor Skippy…

"Anyway, it wasn't a complete waste of time," Larry continued. "With the swatbots cleared, we can now search for any records of where the prisoners were taken."

We all perked up at that. A nice, safe activity to do as a cooldown after hours of clearing a building.

And then we all heard a sharp crack from the pillar Hamlin had punched... Followed by the sound of groaning wood and stone as it shifted. And dust started falling from the ceiling.

"RUN!"

I don't know who yelled - it might have just been me; it might have been everyone. But we all scrambled to escape Acorn Hall, with the last of us making it out just before the whole building collapsed in on itself.

"Did anyone manage to grab any records at all?" Larry asked sheepishly as we all stared at him.

---

We had just gotten Skippy settled in at the hospital and had left again to try to figure out where else in knothole Dr. Robotnik might have kept records of where he had taken the Freedom Fighters. And the captured Royal Guard too for that matter, because the only ones we've seen so far were ones like Skippy who hadn't actually been stationed inside Acorn Hall today.

"Maybe they're being kept in the Royal Guard barracks?" Penelope offered.

"Or one of the secure caves?" Arlo added.

"We'll check the barracks first," Larry decided. "If it's being held by badniks, and remaining guards on the outside will be trying to get it back and we can help them. If it's not being held, then we've got six bunkers to check afterwards."

That seemed reasonable enough to the rest of us, so off we went towards the Royal Guard Barracks…

---

Well, that wasn't quite a bust. We did end up helping the royal guard take back their barracks from some weird alligator-tank badnik. And only lost about half of the building in the process with roughly three quarters of the remaining guard incapacitated to some degree.

And not one single record of where any prisoners that were removed from Knothole were taken.

We were tired, hungry, irritable, and some old, grey squirrel was trying to hit Larry over the head for getting her niece hurt.

The sky turning white around dinnertime and everyone finding out that the rest of Mobius seemed to be just plain gone was just a bit too much for everyone and we threw in the towel at that point and went to the community hall to have whatever they were serving for dinner…

---

The Village of Acorn (and everyone in it) have been displaced about three hours into the future, becoming a sort of pocket-Zone.

This is an actual canon event in Archie Sonic.

Click to shrink...

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Six​

---

It was the Robians that helped us through those first few hours when everyone thought that the rest of Mobius was gone. Well, mostly Jules and his wife, Bernadette, who were both confident, charismatic, and competent, organizing everyone who would listen, encouraging everyone that we could get through this - that we would get through this - if we just stuck together and didn't panic.

As exhausted as I was, as we were, the Zoo Crew stepped up. As had those in the Royal Guard who were still able bodied…

…and we were told to rest.

"You've done enough already," Jules told us. "The thought's appreciated, and it speaks well of each and every one of you, but you're no good to anyone exhausted. Get some rest. I don't want to see any of you on duty for at least the next twelve hours, and even then I want to see the leaders first so we don't get a situation where everyone is on duty at the same time again. You've all done so much. Let us help."

And with that, the Robians took on workloads that would have exhausted anyone but those with appropriate Chaos abilities. Working with tireless efficiency and purpose - not because anyone told them to, nor because of any rigid command program, but because they wanted to.

We were their people.

And they were ours.

And for perhaps the first time since the Robians had been liberated from Robotnik's yoke, everyone saw that we were one people. The sky was white, the great Forest and the Apple Mountains were gone, but we were all still here together.

We would carry on.

---

Oddly enough, there was still a day/night cycle, although watching the warm white sky turn dim and then…

Stars.

There were still stars!

We all gathered outside the community hall. And by that I meant that we had to gather outside because everyone who could show up did show up. Young or old, tired or wide away, able-bodied or…

Okay, some of us were going to be guiding the exhausted and the infirm back to where they should be resting after this, but I guess the point was that practically all of Knothole was here outside the Community Hall celebrating the first sign we had that we were not alone in the universe.

Granted, we may have been jumping the gun a bit, but at least it was something, right?

Sir Charles eventually walked up to the podium and waited. After a bit, people started to notice and the celebration calmed down and grew quiet in a slow ripple through the crowd. Only after he was sure that everyone would be able to hear him, did Sir Charles Hedgehog start speaking.

"Thank you," Sir Charles began. "I'm going to keep this brief and then let you all get back to the celebration. Because we have an actual reason to celebrate beyond just being able to see the stars and… well, what's left of the moon. We've been able to determine that the rest of Mobius is still there! It has not been destroyed!"

There was a mighty cheer, which took a while to settle down enough for Sir Charles to start speaking again.

"We're still there too. Just… displaced by some sort of Zone-like effect. We're just not sure how just yet. But once we figure that out, we'll be able to use Warp Rings to go back and forth between Knothole and Mobius. Right now, it's just an issue of Zone navigation to make sure that we connect to our Mobius and not some other Mobius."

If anything, the resulting cheer was even louder than before.

With access to Mobius - even with one other than our own - there would be no need for excessive rationing to make limited supplies stretch as far as they possibly could. Nobody had actually said anything yet, but we had all been aware of the possibility.

But with a destination, Warp Rings could be used to explore and return with supplies. With the correct destination, we'd be able to go back to Mobius and rescue our friends and families! Mind you, I wasn't sure how Warp Rings were collected or made, nor had I been aware that they somehow needed to be calibrated before just now. Nor why for that matter. Everything I remembered as either Hershey or Tangent suggested that you just tossed one into the air while thinking about your destination point, and...

Oh, wait, some of the random trivia I remembered implied that they could be mastered or even scrambled. So there had to be more involved somehow. Or could it be as simple as the ones in the village becoming scrambled by whatever caused us to be our own Pocket Zone?

As much as I felt like celebrating, I went back to the apartment I had been assigned to and got ready to go back to sleep. I wanted to be well rested for tomorrow.

They were going to need able bodies that weren't tied down to other duties and were willing to go forth and see what's out there when we couldn't tell how our Warp Rings were aligned yet.

To go forth. To step boldly into the Great Beyond to see what was out there. It spoke to something in me.

…

Goddammit, I was having a Kirk/Pike moment, wasn't I?

Ah, screw it. So what if part of me had been a Trekkie. I was going to be an explorer!

…

Oh, wait, this would be more like Stargate, wouldn't it?

Not important! I was going to be an explorer!

---

"What do you mean I'm the only one to volunteer so far?" I asked Jules and Sir Charles as I looked around and saw that absolutely nobody else had shown up. I wasn't that early, was I?

 

[Tangent]

Chapter Seven​

---

I was quickly kitted out with a sort of expeditionary outfit consisting of cargo boots, an abbreviated cargo vest, and gloves, all in neutral tan with no affiliation iconography. I swapped into it on the spot, placing my regular outfit in a box that was provided, including my wrist bangles, leaving me staring at the blue ascot in my hand. It went with my regular boots and complimented the red vest that I normally wore, but it didn't quite fit in as well with the new outfit's tan color.

"Tch - boys…" Bernadette huffed as she looked me over. Then she went over to a cabinet to retrieve something, and handed me a bright red ascot which I happily put on for a pop of color.

"Yes yes, because style is so important," Sir Charles commented drily as he handed me a protective visor. Which I checked for any unfamiliar tech before putting on.

Hey, I was already burned once by weird eyewear with augmented reality features! That were given to me by someone I trusted implicitly - just like now. So I felt that a little caution was in order.

"Says the hedgehog who has cultivated a mustache ever since he could grow one," Jules teased his brother.

"That's different," Sir Charles insisted as he set a box of gear on the desk and began pulling stuff out of it.

"All the Warp Rings in the village were scrambled by whatever caused us to become a Pocket Zone," Sir Charles explained as he handed me a ring pouch. "I've managed to recalibrate this set so that you'll at least be able to use any of them to return to Knothole. Here's a Zone signature scanner so you can record new Zones into the Warp Rings, a portable charger for the scanner… another portable charger for the Warp Rings (they can be charged five at a time)... Some mobiums… Oh, and I suppose that you'll need a utility belt to hold all that…"

"Um… yes," I nodded as I tried to hold onto everything Sir Charles had just handed to me.

"Thank you again for volunteering to explore the reachable Zones nearby to see if any of them are our Mobius," Jules said.

"I'm just surprised nobody else stepped up yet," I replied as I set everything on the desk so that I could actually put my new utility belt on.

"You're apparently the only one to go right back to sleep so that you'd be well rested this morning," Jules chuckled. "Everyone else stayed up late to celebrate. We have some Robian volunteers, but given how many other Zones have a Robotnik analogue, we thought it might not go over well with any locals that you come across."

"I guess I could see that," I sighed in frustration.

"Fortunately, you have a lot of solo operative experience, so as long as you're sure that you don't mind doing the first scouting mission alone, we're ready to allow it."

"Nah, I'm good," I waved the offer to wait off. "I want to see blue sky again. All that white is unnerving."

"Understandable," Jules nodded.

"Here's some sandwiches and a canteen to add to your kit," Bernadette said as I finished equipping myself.

I fished a Warp Ring out of the bag. "So I just try to think of a destination, toss one of these into the air, and it should take me there?"

"More or less," Sir Charles confirmed. "They work best if they actually have the Zone signature of the destination you want, otherwise they have a tendency to settle for 'close enough' or some random place. Star Posts are more reliable, but the only ones we had are in Freedom Fighter HQ…"

"Which was outside of the village," I acknowledged as I tossed the ring into the air. "Well, nothing for it then, but to go boldly where no Mobian has gone before!" And with that, I jumped into the widening portal!

"Where many Mobians have gone before!" Jules tried to correct me in mid leap. "Many Mobians!"

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off as the portal closed behind me…

---

* o O o O o * ​

---

"Captain, it appears that a felinoid has emerged from the large golden toroid that had briefly appeared," a familiar looking orangutan in a green jumpsuit said informatively.

I could guess who the felinoid he was talking about was, but rather than wasting time on the blatantly obvious I snatched the spent ring out of the air and tucked it into an empty pouch on my utility belt while dodging a…

Okay, that's the female monkey from the same show that the orangutan in green was from. And there was a big confused looking gorilla in armor, and…

"I can see that, Dr. Splitz," the chimp I was quickly remembering as Simon or Simian or something like that, acknowledged as I continued to bob, weave, and dodge the golden monkey lady who seemed to have taken offense to my sudden appearance.

It was all I could do to just stay out of her reach, and I have never been more grateful to have naturally cat-like reflexes than I was right now. I was trained, yes, but she was better and I could tell.

"Stand still!" she demanded.

"Why would I do something stupid like that?" I retorted as I shifted my weight so that her attempt to strike me missed by a whisker. "You're trying to hit me!"

You know, it is very stressful trying to avoid being hit while staying out of arms reach of everyone else who happened to have long arms and hands for feet! Now if i could only get a clear spot for even just a moment…

"Gotcha now, Kitty!" the orangutan, now inexplicably much messier in appearance, called out as he almost grabbed me! "Dang it! I missed! It's like tryin' to herd a cat!"

"I can only imagine," I commented absently as i ducked around the big gorilla guy whose name escaped me… Ooh, an open hatch!

"Gor-illa! Shut the hatch before she…!" Captain Simon ordered even as I ducked through it and down the hall, only to hear the hatch slam shut behind me.

---

I found a quiet space in one of the rooms - a storage room, I think - and used the scanner to record the Zone signature. May as well set an anchor point in this closet in case I ever want to return. These were the good guys if I was remembering that show correctly.

Still, not Mobians, not Mobius, and not even actually on a planet if my guess was correct.

It's what I get for screwing around, I guess.

May as well take a moment to place the spent ring in the charger and think more carefully about where to go next.

Mobius, definitely. Preferably near Sonic if I could manage it…

I heard the door start to open and decided that I was out of time. Fishing out a fresh ring, I tossed it into the air and hoped for the best as I took a leap of faith…

---

* o O o O o * ​

---

Spoiler: Hershey's Expeditionary Outfit

 

[Pinklestia]

I do remember that show.

A shame it got canceled but it just wasn't toyetic enough.

 

[MidsizePig]

I do not know the show in question

 

[Mr.Dr.Professor Patrick]

Huh, if saying a Star Trek phrase brought her to a Mobian flavored anologue, then saying something connected to Sonic might help?

Hershey: "Rollin' around at the speed of sound~!"