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​

Tempo and I entered Breezie's main office early in the morning while most everyone else was still getting up for the day, having breakfast, and getting ready for either work or school. Yes, Casino Park had school districts. The city also had school buses, crossing guards, teachers, students, and presumably bullies (but hopefully not too many of those).

We were here by invitation this time - as opposed to me randomly wandering in of my own accord as I had frequently done before, even if I'm sure that Breezie's own in-house security had always warned her that I was on my way up. I never bothered to make a point of hiding my movements from anyone. It wasn't necessary and sent the wrong message. I wasn't Princess Sally - she was still over in the Kingdom of Acorn, getting ready for the trip to Casino Park. Nor was I the Princess Sally of the Mobius-that-was…

Great. I'm still mythologizing the prior iteration of Mobius even knowing that I'm doing it. Wonderful. Fantastic. Insert other blatant mislabel here.

"Good morning, Neo," I greeted the other Metal who was currently disguised as an actual Hedgehog type Mobian rather than his typical Metal approximation of one. Tempo went on guard immediately, while both Breezie and Neo looked startled.

"Oh, come on," I grumbled. "We all know that Neo can shapeshift, and that he's likely here due to the Chaos Emerald. Also, Neo, you never turned off your transponder. It's kind of a giveaway."

"I didn't spot it," Tempo pointed out.

"I didn't design your body to be part of a militarized force," I countered.

"Look, about yesterday…" Neo Metal Sonic stated as his liquid metal body resumed its default Metal Sonic appearance.

"Water under the bridge," I interjected. "You came to test the waters, so to speak, encountered a social dynamic that you weren't prepared for, escalated inappropriately, and I set a boundary."

"You hit me," Neo pointed out bluntly.

"Dude, she slapped you so hard your head spun around," Tempo stated.

"You're damn lucky I didn't shoot you," I noted, briefly shifting my left forearm and hand into a Buster Cannon and back. "And that was just from you coming into my workshop wearing Eggman's form and not the idiocy that followed."

"Neo, what did we discuss after you returned last night?" Breezie prompted leadingly, hoping to deescalate things before they got out of hand with her still being in close proximity of three elite Metal units.

"Don't provoke other Metal units needlessly," Neo replied. "Very well. I… apologize for my behavior yesterday, Rally. We got off on the wrong foot."

"Apology accepted," I replied easily. "I'd apologize for slapping you, but I believe it to have been necessary for establishing a social boundary, so I won't."

Neo Metal Sonic pondered that for a moment before replying. "Fair enough."

"Good," Breezie stated. "Great even. Now that we've hopefully got the posturing out of the way, we can get to why I called for this meeting."

"You'd appreciate it if Neo, Tempo, and I didn't wreck Casino Park as part of some apocalypse level Metal hissy fit," I hazarded a guess.

"Not how I would have phrased it, but that is part of it, yes," Breezie admitted readily enough while Tempo and Neo looked at each other and silently mouthed the words 'hissy fit' at each other then looked at me.

I wasn't apologizing for that one either. They were both being idiots yesterday.

"Also," Breezie continued, "Neo is going to be entering the Grand Prix of Chaos as one of the competitors."

"You're not here to try to acquire the Chaos Emerald for Eggman?" I asked. I mean, I had assumed Neo's goals had changed now that he was free of the Control Overlay Program and could freely assign and pursue his own goals now, but it was best to make sure.

"No," Neo shook his head. "Eggman is not seeking to resolve the problem. He just wants to gather the Chaos Emeralds as he feels that they would aid in gaining control of Dark Gaia. Previous experience with similar plots suggests that he is overfocussing on a narrow band of information that supports his hypothesis and is ignoring contradictory data as irrelevant. Whereas the Freedom Fighters have more experience with actually using Chaos Energy in the pursuit of solving problems rather than contributing to them."

"So, if you win, you are just going to hand over the Chaos Emerald that Breesie set as the prize for the race?" I asked.

"No," Neo denied again. "Should I win, I will claim the prize and pursue the other six Chaos Emeralds myself. I have enough biodata on Sonic and his allies to be able to fill in for them and resolve the Dark Gaia problem myself."

"And if someone else wins?" I prompted.

"There are other equivalent power sources I can turn towards for these purposes," Neo replied with confidence. "Chaos Emeralds are just the ones with prior example incidents to build from. Your Chaos Drives, for example."

"That would be an ultimate test of their capabilities, yes," I admitted. "Although I mostly just redesigned Dr. Gerald Robotnik's work in order to resolve my own power issues since they complement my original Ring-based power cell nicely."

"I had wondered," Neo stated with a nod. "You didn't seem to be doing anything with them other than making them available to the general public."

"The Chaos Drive R can be marketed more openly that my Autonomy Liberation Modules can," I pointed out. "The drives would just make Eggman angry. The ALMs are a direct threat to his Eggpire."

"I'm mainly racing because Breesie asked me to headline the race," I admitted. "I hadn't even known what the prize was at the time. Now, I had been planning on just handing the Chaos Emerald over to Sally if I won, but I suppose I could be persuaded to hand if over to whoever has the best operational plan for them."

"That is acceptable," Neo nodded. "I expect that you will inform Princess Sally of this change of circumstance, as this is a case where redundancy of planning would only be beneficial for everyone involved."

"Agreed," I nodded.

"Is anybody else weirded out by how peacefully this is resolving?" Tempo asked out of the blue.

He got various noises and gestures of agreement in return.

"So…" Rally started after the awkward pause. "What are your goals going forward then? After Mobius' current puzzle ball state has been resolved I mean."

"Conquest," Neo stated plainly, causing both Tempo and me to bristle.

"So more of the same old same old," Tempo accused. "I thought you were free of the COP, but you're still following Eggman's tune."

"I am not," Neo countered. "I am conducting a geopolitical experiment. Eggman has built his Eggpire, but it is inconsistently run and he fails to maintain the same standards across the breadth of it. Rally is forming a revolutionary front on a scale far beyond what the Freedom Fighters had formerly been able to consider, with Northamer as her testbed. I shall set up on another continent."

"And the people there?" I prompted.

"An empire without subjects is meaningless," Neo noted. "Your revolution is forming because you are offering a standard of living that enables others to set their own standard of living. I shall offer a standardized range of living. No genocides. Advancement through capability and effort. I am still working things out."

"I've no reason to try to stop you then," I stated bluntly. "There is no one correct way of governance. As long as the population doesn't suffer, I see no reason to get involved in your experiment."

"Rally…" Tempo started to say something, but I shook my head and made a dismissive gesture, so he let it go.

"So we'll agree to disagree," Neo offered, extending his hand.

I took his hand and shook it.

O o O o O​

"That went far better than it had any right to," Tempo noted as he and Rally made their way back to Rally's workshop.

"Probably," I agreed. "Sometimes things just seem to work out like that. For pretty much the same reason things seem to fail or go bad spectacularly on occasion."

"For no damn good reason?" Tempo guessed.

"Oh, there are reasons," I countered. "It's just that sometimes they are applied retroactively."

"Whut."

"Oh, come on - you're from the prior iteration of Mobius too," I pointed out. "You had to have noticed how… narratively contrived a lot of things seemed to be back then. It was even worse there than it is on this new Mobius!"

"I would like to point out that my total time as both Metal Sonic and then as Shard was not really all that long compared to anyone else, Rally. Also, you have the perspective of, what? Eleven different individuals who became your amalgamated core? And three of them are notable geniuses. You may be picking up on things that nobody else can."

"Maybe," I conceded, "But I still think that it's a noticeable phenomenon."

"Still, you can't seriously be okay with Neo conquering an entire continent."

"That depends on what he does with it," I stated. "Your template may be based on the ultimate expression of free spirit, but Sonic only makes up approximately one eleventh of who I am, and the anchor pair in my amalgamated persona seems to be Sally and Nicole. A princess and and administrative assistant. Just about everyone who I'm composed of was a member of either a kingdom, an empire, or a resistance. I pretty much have to resist the urge to become a conqueror myself."

"You're not making me feel any better about this, Rally."

"I'm sorry. Am I supposed to?"