QUEEN of PAIN

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

"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…

 

[Kadehex]

O they think Metal Sally is the one they remember from before the reboot that is going to cause problems for Metal Sally

 

[Tangent]

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

Spoiler: What sparks?

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…
Some dialogue from issue 256 of Archie Sonic has been used.


O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

"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!"

 

[Tangent]

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

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

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…

O o O o O​

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…

 

[Tangent]

Here's Motor the Doberman:

Spoiler: Rally's first actual employer!

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

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…

O o O o O​

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…

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

"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.

O o O o O​

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!"

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

"...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."

O o O o O​

"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.

 

[Tangent]

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

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.

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

"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!"

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

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!"

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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…

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

"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…

O o O o O​

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…

O o O o O​

"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."

 

[Tangent]

I thought that I'd share this bit of conversation from Sufficient Velocity with you:

---

Does Rally have muted body disphoria because 4 of her components are Robots/AI/wouldn't care either way?

Or does she not have body disphoria at all, or it she repressing it heavily?

Click to shrink...

Short answer: Yes.

Slightly longer answer: Still yes, but it's complicated. The Nicole, Orbot, and Cubot components of her new personality give Rally the anchor she needs to accept herself as she is. The Eggman and (ironically enough) Bunnie components give her the perspective to understand why actually reverting back into a Mobian may be detrimental, and the Sonic and Sally components are totally living their personal Hell (the Sonic bit mostly due to their loss of his level of speed more than the being a robot bit, but still...).

There is a reason that working through all of this into a more stable mental and emotional architecture has been an ongoing process running in the background.

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…


O o O o O​

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…

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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."

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

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…

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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.

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

"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.

O o O o O​

"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.

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

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…"

O o O o O​

"...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…

O o O o O​

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!?"

 

[Tangent]

QUEEN of PAIN
Yet another Amalgamated mind SI by Tangent!
Also once again using Metal Sally as the body of the SI. For reasons…

O o O o O​

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.

O o O o O​

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?

O o O o O​

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.