So, I'm Sally?

[Tangent]

CHAPTER ONE​

---

"Wh… where am I…?" I felt incredibly disoriented and my short-term memories were unhelpfully muddled and ambiguous.

I was in some sort of metal-plated laboratory with a busted-in window along one wall, a row of robotization tubes containing captured subjects along another wall, and my lord and his chief lackey were arguing with the intruder who had just deroboticized me.

"She's back to normal," the chief lackey - Snively - called out.

"I'll do it myself!" my lord insisted even as he shoved me aside. "Out of my way!"

Er… Dr. Robotnik is not and never was my lord. I was a princess, dammit! And even if the Kingdom of Acorn had fallen, I had never surrendered to Dr. Robotnik! Been captured? Yes - too many times for my liking, even if some of those were part of a ruse on my part…

Which had backfired in a big way this time.

Ugh… Coming down from a post-derobotization sucks!

Granted, being a Robian with no choice but to obey Dr. Robotnik also sucked.

Letting myself get caught so that I could be a sleeper spy against Robotnik was a wash all around.

"Oh no you won't!" the intruder - no, my friend Dulcey the Dragon - proclaimed just before breathing fire towards the control console, melting it immediately. And incidentally setting Dr. Robotnik's pants on fire.

As Dulcey drove off my masters… the villains, I moved to free the subjects… my friends… from the robotization tubes.

Something's wrong. Not only did the mission fail, it went seriously sideways in ways that literally made no sense!

I should have made sure that the Neuro-Overrider chip Rotor had given me was attached more securely behind my ear, where I'd hidden it. It had fallen off right as my robotization had started, meaning that I had immediately gone from being a spy on an infiltration mission to betraying my friends to our greatest enemy.

Yeah, in retrospect, so many things could have gone wrong with this mission that it's a wonder that only some of them had happened.

Anyway, I am once again Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, leader of the Freedom Fighters and nominal leader of the overall resistance movement.

Except that I am also some guy from another Zone where everything in this Zone is considered to be fiction. I am also something of a fan of said fiction, and a writer of fanfics.

Which is oddly much less horrifying than it sounds, because neither I nor my friends are fictional, so that part of me was obviously from some sort of recursive Zone.

But how did I end up becoming me? I mean, Sally?

"Are you feeling alright, Sally?" Hedgehog: Priority One… er… Sonic asked me.

What the figurative Hell was that!? I'd been deroboticized! I shouldn't have any trace of the control overlay program in my flesh and blood thinky-thinky bits! And, to be fair, I don't think it's actually still there. This just seems to be some weird after effect.

"Not really, no," I replied. "Coming back from being a slave… I mean robot… kind of hit me harder than we predicted."

"Let's get you back," Rotor suggested. "I'll check you over carefully and see if there was anything the portable deroboticizer missed when you became you again."

"Sounds good," I nodded. "I've been having lingering intrusive terminology issues. Some of it's minor, while other bits are kinda jarring. I'll be including a lot of the apparently random nonsense in my after action report so we can go over it later and see if anyone can figure it out."

I wasn't too worried about having apparently merged with some fanfic writer from some nameless Zone. I've had weirder experiences. I'd deal.

What was more of a concern was the terminology that didn't seem to come from the part of me that had been that guy. Being under the control overlay program had sucked. Not that it was particularly bright in and of itself - if it had been, the experience wouldn't have been so humiliating.

No, the issue was that it used my own mind as its operating system, so while the directives it had imposed were actually simplistic, that simple compulsion to serve and obey Dr. Robotnik to the best of my ability did quite a bit all by itself.

I mean, what can you do when the moment you figure out how to apply malicious compliance you automatically shelve the idea to do what you figure your lord actually wanted you to do?

And I was doing it again. Dr. Robotnik is not and never was my lord. If anything, he had - very briefly - been my owner. Being my lord would imply that I had actually made the choice to serve as his vassal, and I never had that choice.

---

During the trip back I took the time to reflect on the part of me that had been a fanfic writer. One who might not have qualified as whatever the Hell a 'super-fan' of our Zone and others like it was, but who had done deep archive dives into various comic books, not all of them by the same publisher, binge-watched several different…

Okay, what is a cartoon and how is it different from a movie?

Never mind - found the explanation, didn't like it, moving on…

The music was catchy, but why did they draw our heads so big compared to our bodies? We looked like animated dolls in some of those depictions! And don't get me started on how the art styles used by some of the comic book publishers were so all over the place you could sometimes see the switch in styles multiple times within the same issue!

Oh yeah, and I'm never telling Sonic that most of these shows and books were named after him. As much as I appreciate all he does for us, his ego is big enough already.

I sighed as I considered the jumbled, disorganized mess that represented Tangent's memories of the medium. There was actually quite a bit, really, but very little of it was actually related to our world and situation. I mean, yes Star Trek seemed to have been a legitimately interesting show, and I guess that show about candy-colored pony people was alright. And I apparently now had opinions on what order to watch something called Star Wars.

Approximately none of which was particularly useful or actionable in any meaningful way.

And the stuff that actually did seem to pertain to Mobius was even worse because it was so difficult to sort which people and supposed events happened in this Zone and which were more likely to be associated with entirely different Zones. Was some super-metal invented by a canary going to be a thing here? Was Sonic going to be forced to go into hiding in a traveling circus with whoever Porker Lewis and Johnny Lightfoot were? Was Eggman going to try to rewrite reality at some point?

Well, okay - it was kind of a given that he would if he could. Dr. Robotnik literally reveled in being evil. But was that actually going to be a thing I'd have to worry about?

I didn't know.

And if knowing was half the battle, I fear that I may actually be at a severe disadvantage here, what with a multitude of negative-value information.

And as much as all that was concerning, there was this whole Tuvix situation I had going on right now. I mean, sure, I mentally identified as being Sally Alicia Acorn, but that's mostly because that's the identity that actually goes with this body. And don't get me wrong - I am Sally Acorn.

It's just that I am also Tangent.

And not in the two minds in one body sense.

I was just… Me.

One single solitary individual.

Who, while opting to self-identify as being Sally for convenience's sake due to actually physically being Sally, was now facing the difficulties associated with the fact that the Tangent part of me had been nearly three times older than the body I currently have.

How am I supposed to filter out what I need to be me when part of me has so many memories that I have trouble remembering things that happened to me as the previous Sally?

 

[Tangent]

CHAPTER TWO​

---

"Okay, the good news is that there is zero trace of any remaining roboticized elements that may have been left behind," Rotor reported as he completed the scans he had been running me through. "The disorientation and mild persistence of the… you called it a control overlay program?"

"I did, yes," I nodded. "We already knew that Dr. Robotnik did something to the robotization process to enable him to actually control anyone who went through it. I'm just putting a name to it."

"Control overlay program…" Rotor said it again slowly with a thoughtful expression. "Yeah, I guess that works."

"Says the tech genius who thinks that neuro-overrider chip is a reassuring name for an anti-control device," I teased.

"It's what it does," Rotor defended his labeling decision. "Look, I had only just made the thing right before Bunnie even came up with the idea for the mission, so I didn't exactly have a lot of time to think of a better name.

"Autonomy liberation module comes to mind," I suggested, drawing it from the mess I had inherited from the part of me that had been Tangent.

"That's just the same thing put through PR branding," Rotor complained. "But I guess it's accurate enough. I'm going to have to put some serious work into the mark two version though. The one I gave you was not supposed to fall off like it had."

"And Snively found it and showed it to his uncle," I reminded Rotor. Not that he would have had time to read my after-action report, but I had gone over everything that had gone right and wrong with the mission during our trip back to Knothole. The after-action report I had written once we got back, while he was getting the testing equipment ready, was just the more detailed version. A record of everything I remembered experiencing which would hopefully help others later. "That means you're going to have to plan around the fact that Robotnik already knows that the device exists, whatever we end up calling it."

"Point," Rotor conceded. "I'm not only going to have to find a way for the… module… to be carried more securely, but for it to remain hidden and be harder to counter as well."

"Anyway, I better get going" I said. "I'm going to go grab a utility belt from storage. While it probably wouldn't have solved the issue with this mission, I now have this urge to make sure that I can actually carry my gear more securely than just in a pocket."

"Makes sense," Rotor Nodded. "In the meantime, I think I'll work out how best to secure the next model of nu… autonomy liberation module… to somebody. Maybe a hairclip?"

"Sounds good. Bye, Rotor."

"Bye, Sally…" Rotor replied already in deep contemplation.

---

There was a white utility belt with some matching pouches and a hip-pouch with a leg strap that were also white, so I tried them on and decided that they were good. I made sure to strike them from the common inventory manifest and note that I had been the one to claim them, then I transferred Nicole's handheld from my boot to the side pouch.

It was weird to just know that Nicole might somehow awaken as a fully sentient AI program one day. God only knows how, considering that the memories I had inherited from the part of me that had been Tangent weren't terribly clear about when, how, or even why. Nicole being a gift from Dr. Elidey seemed to line up with the memories I had as Sally, but one set of memories was so jumbled and the other memories were from over ten years ago, so i just couldn't be sure of anything.

Something to maybe look forward to if it happened, I guess. Right now, Nicole was still more of a sophisticated AI assistant that I sort of treated as an imaginary friend with real world feedback options. If she ever fully woke up as her own person? That was something to look forward to, but I didn't even know if it would happen in this Zone.

So, what could I prepare for?

For that matter, what should I prepare for?

I had no idea how much of what I had known as Tangent even applies to this particular Zone.

Johnny Lightfoot seemed to be a capable leader type. Enough so that I'd feel good about handing off the secondary team to him and letting them pick and choose their own missions. Solid guy, dependable, and apparently got along with - or would get along with - Sonic even when Sonic was being a jerk. Which was no small order. I might love Sonic, but he wasn't perfect and could be a bit much sometimes.

Both Porker Lewis and Tekno the Canary would be welcome additions to the fight against Eggman. Between them, Rotor, and the technical genius that Tails was apparently going to be someday, we'd have a solid tech support team of engineers, mechanics, scientists, and inventors. Which would be a huge equalizer against someone like Eggman.

The pink hedgehog, Amy Rose, was going to be a powerhouse between her strength, her Piko Piko Hammer, and how good a shot she was with that hand crossbow of hers. And by power house, I meant it! Maybe not as fast as Sonic, but easily as strong as Knuckles and more inclined to actually join the team.

Except that there's a possibility that the one for this Zone is still a child?

Argh! I hate this! I don't even know if any of these people even exist in this Zone or how old they might be if they do exist! What if they're all kids right now?

How can I prepare for any of them if the information I have on them is so unreliable!?

Okay, Sally, if planning for who might show up is off the board for now, how about planning to make use of the ones who are already here? More than six members might be a bit much to wrangle in a field cell, but we do have enough for two field teams, not just a field team and a backup cell. That is something I could work with.

Okay, now to gather everyone.

---

"I hope I'm not too late?" Larry the Lynx announced his presence as he joined us in the community hall.

"We'd only just started, Larry," I assured him. "It's good to see you finally out of the clinic, although you might not be happy with the results of this meeting. You've managed to miss every single training and preliminary mission I ran with the secondary cell."

"Oh…" Larry winced.

"Yeah, oh," I said flatly. Allowing Larry to gather enough volunteers to even form a backup cell with had been a favor to Sonic. And, to be fair, Larry's picks had all panned out and proven themselves as capable operatives. Unfortunately, Larry himself had, through no actual fault of his own, failed to actually attend or participate in any training or proving missions.

At all.

Larry the Lynx's bad luck made him his own worst enemy, and the ability to sometimes turn that aura of misfortune against his opponents wasn't going to make up for that if he couldn't be trained to counter his own liabilities.

I was going to have to bench him for now.

And, from Larry's expression, he was just waiting for the hammer to drop.

Of course his bad luck ensured that he'd actually make it to the group meeting where this would be the most humiliating for him. There went any hope I had of this meeting going smoothly…

Spoiler: So, this is Sally's new belt?

 

[Renko]

So you went from Robot Sally to just plain ole' regular Sally (SatAM)?

 

[ArsMagna1337]

Okay, so... the text is rather small. Had to zoom in a bit to make it readable. Nice to see that Sally shenanigans are back, except she isn't a robot this time around.

 

[Tangent]

So you went from Robot Sally to just plain ole' regular Sally (SatAM)?

Click to shrink...

One of my readers over on SpaceBattles complained that I made too many Sally SI stories.

So, I made another Sally SI story...

 

[Renko]

I made too many Sally SI stories

Click to shrink...

You mean that there are others!? There are more!!?

 

[Tangent]

You mean that there are others!? There are more!!?

Click to shrink...

They will all eventually be added to QQ, yes...

 

[Tangent]

CHAPTER THREE​

---

"Okay, Sonic's not here yet and I'm not sure he's even in the village, so let's get this meeting started." I decided to get the ball rolling despite my boyfriend's absence. He'd deal - he always does when I call these meetings at the spur of the moment instead of posting that one was coming up on the community board. "Antoine, Penelope, if you'll both take notes?"

"Qui" Antoine replied even as Penelope answered with "Yes."

"Excellent," I nodded, then continued. "As most of you know, Sonic requested that I allow Larry here to recruit another cell's worth of candidate Freedom Fighters. Which Larry actually did an exemplary job of - recruiting Arlo, Dylan, Hamlin, and Penelope. That brings us to a total roster of nine operatives. Enough for two or three teams according to the guidebook left behind by the original Freedom Fighters. Now, I was originally going to go with a field team and a backup cell, but our recent experience has left me with the feeling that we might be better off with two field teams instead, with both being able to run independent and parallel missions, act as each other's back up, cross-train, and even subdivide into smaller units as necessary."

I noticed Hamlin quietly counting on his fingers, so I took a moment to address that as I could guess what had occurred to him. "Hamlin, Did you have a concern?"

"Yeah, you said we had nine operatives," Hamlin pointed out. "Sonic might not be here, but he makes ten. What gives?"

Called it. And I really was hoping that I'd be able to get through the major part of the meeting before this particular derail happened. So much for breaking this to Larry gently or more discretely. He really does have the worst luck.

"I know why," Larry said softly before I could do anything to possibly soften the blow any. "I'm bad luck."

I sighed. "We could have worked with that, Larry. We knew about your bad luck aura. Sonic knew, and each new member you recruited knew. And we were willing to work with it. Willing to help you train to mitigate the blowback on yourself and your allies. It is honestly not the worst Chaos ability that a Mobian can have. And you wouldn't have been the first hero to have an aura of misfortune either. Blackjack had one. Trouble had one. Kat Astro-Fi had one. But do you know what else they did?"

"Um…" Larry hesitated.

"They all showed up for training Larry," I completed for him. "Maybe not every time, but enough times. Enough times to force their bad luck to work more for them than against them."

"I see…" Larry said as he started to get up.

"And do you know what else they did?" I asked before he could finish standing up.

"What?"

"They never gave up," I said gently. "Sure, they sometimes took a break, whether they wanted to or not. Sometimes their setbacks were really bad. But when push came to shove, each of them got back up, stared Fate in the eye, and said 'Try again, Bitch, I dare you.'"

Everyone stared at me.

"What? It's a direct quote!" I insisted. "It's in Heroes of Wreck and Ruin: A Biography of the Champions of Misfortune. There's literally twelve historical heroes known to have had an aura of bad luck - the three I mentioned are just the ones who had served the Kingdom of Acorn at some point. It's in our library."

Everyone just stared at me some more.

"Am I the only one here to check books out from our library?" I asked plaintively.

"Non," Antoine denied. "While I'll admit that I am not familiar with that particular biography, I have been studying our histories. I will make a point to check it out. After Larry has read it of course."

I nodded. Then I spoke again. "Sit down, Larry. At least finish the meeting. We may not be able to use you now, but later? When you're ready? The training schedule is always posted on the community board every Friday. Show up once. Then show up again, whenever you can. Try. That's all I ask."

Larry looked at me, then at the others. Not one of us was laughing at him. He sighed, nodded to himself, then sat back down in his chair.

One of the chair legs broke, sending him crashing to the floor, but bless him, he sat right back up on the floor and stayed put.

We had nine members now, but we had a spot for the tenth when he was ready.

---

"Okay, now that that's settled for now, let's discuss what this means for the Freedom Fighters as a whole," I began again. "Right now I'm thinking two core squads of four, each sharing Sonic as a floating member. I'll have to ask him when he gets back, of course, but he literally has the speed for it and I don't think that he'll object. This has the main advantage of each team being familiar with its own members and already knowing how to work together."

I let that sink in for a moment before continuing.

"Later on, we'll mix things up a bit. Trade team members during training exercises and a few minor missions, and keep doing so until everyone has had a chance to work with everyone else. This is to increase our flexibility. Everyone will have at least some idea of how best they might support anyone else or who they need to cover in certain situations. This will also give everyone a chance to gain practical familiarity with everyone else's areas of expertise. Maybe not enough to pick it up yourselves, but enough to give you an idea of what can be done. Enough to give you ideas you can build on and make a plan out of."

"Ah don't know, Sally," Bunnie sighed. "That last plan went south right quick, and it was my idea - not yours."

I had to nip that in the bud right now.

"It was actually a good plan, Bunnie," I stated bluntly. "A bit risky, yes, but we can't win against Dr. Robotnik without taking risks. You spotted an opportunity, and I agreed that we had to take it. Which brings up another point. You can have a plan and do everything right, and things can still go wrong. It happens. But what I told Larry applies to everyone: the important thing is that we get back up again."

Bunnie looked like she was struggling to accept not being at fault for the mission going as badly as it had. Which, given that while the idea for the infiltration as a Robian mission may have been hers, the actual planning and execution of the mission had been all on me. And the actual point of failure was that Rotor's chip had fallen off when Snively had shoved me into the robotization tube. He hadn't discovered it until after it had fallen off. The idea, the plan, and the execution had all almost worked.

"Speaking of which," Rotor started and I conceded the floor to him. "I'd like to outfit every one on both teams with at least one Neuro-Overrider Chip… Or Autonomy Liberation Module. We're still deciding what to call the things. It'll be a bit though, as I have to craft and program each one by hand until we gain the ability to mass produce them. And yeah, part of that wait is going to be a redesign of how to better conceal and secure them on whoever equips them. Rings or hairclips would be fastest, and are what I'll be doing first so let me know your preference. After everyone has at least one, I'll transition to individualized designs to be worked into your preferred outfits. Things that Robotnik and Snively are likely to overlook."

"We are also going to put a pause on any attempts to infiltrate Robotnik's facilities by allowing one or more of us to be captured and roboticized," I stated bluntly. "This was our second similar attempt within a two week period, so they'll be watching for infiltration via that vector for a while. But even without that in the works, I agree with Rotor that these new chips of his will be a vital piece of our kit going forward."

The rest of the meeting was fairly straightforward after that. Mostly involved in making sure that everyone on both teams had properly introduced themselves to each other and getting a feel for how well everyone would get along.

Now I just had to wait for Sonic to return so I could go over everything with him as well.

 

[Renko]

I decided to get the ball rolling despite my boyfriend's absence.

Click to shrink...

Is she calling Sonic her "boyfriend" in a figurative way or did the SI have accepted being in a relationship with some dude that they know was fictional until they got inserted and doesn't really know all that well due to them being not exactly the same as the person that they have been inserted in?

 

[Tangent]

Is she calling Sonic her "boyfriend" in a figurative way or did the SI have accepted being in a relationship with some dude that they know was fictional until they got inserted and doesn't really know all that well due to them being not exactly the same as the person that they have been inserted in?

Click to shrink...

Tuvix situation. There aren't two separate identities, just one single merged identity for which only one of the components had been in an active relationship.

 

[Renko]

Tuvix situation

Click to shrink...

I still don't get why they still continue the relationship if they are now there own completely new person.

Ah, whatever.

 

[Tangent]

I still don't get why they still continue the relationship if they are now there own completely new person.

Ah, whatever.

Click to shrink...

Because she isn't a completely new person. Part of her actually remembers being in that relationship, and the feelings involved are still genuine - and not competing with any other relationship. It's a merger, not a replacement nor a committee.

I'm not saying that the situation has left their relationship particularly stable, but Sonic is one of Sally's anchors, so she's at least going to try to hold onto that anchor.

For now, anyway.

 

[Renko]

For now, anyway.

Click to shrink...

I'm not against the relationship.

I'm just confused about the arrangement in regards to the whole "self-insert" thing.

 

[ArsMagna1337]

a committee

Click to shrink...

I can now imagine a Sally Acorn that is either an expy or reincarnation of Katarina Claes... who somehow manages to make Eggman the Ruler of the World. However, there's one problem. Eggman got the job not by conquering it thus he hates the job and has been trying to give the control back to her.

"Please, for the love of Chaos, hedgehog. Usurp my throne! I want to do some mad science rather than shambling bureaucratic nonsense!"
"And make Sally cry? Hell no. See, Tails. This is what happens when you conquer the world without planning ahead or your own downfall. You don't get a rest as everyone now gives you paperwork. That's the reason why I never did anything but run around. After all, if I was a king, I would've died from boredom."

 

[Tangent]

CHAPTER FOUR​

---

I caught the familiar scent of grilling hotdogs and chili in the air. Sonic must be back from wherever he had been yesterday, and I really hoped that he remembered that we need to plan raids to restock on any supplies he uses because sausaging hotdogs and making buns for them are both involved processes. We could do them, of course - Knothole wasn't that poorly off - but without certain preservatives, some foods spoiled or went stale faster than others.

Sure, canning, jarring, jams and preserves did quite a bit for us, as did drying, salting, and many other traditional techniques.

That nobody will let me help with because I'm a disaster in the kitchen. And the few cooking related memories I inherited from Tangent weren't much help because most of those involved kitchen appliances that we either don't have or have a version that he didn't know how to use.

Although I could do hamburger patties and grilled cheese sandwiches now.

Sort of.

SHUT UP! Some people like charred food!

Okay, maybe not that charred…

But I was finally improving, dammit! That had to count for something, right?

Okay, irrelevant thoughts aside, signs were pointing to Sonic being back, so I headed off towards the direction the scent of grilling hotdogs and cooking chili was coming from.

Ooh! I bet I could cook hotdogs now! I mean, how hard could they possibly be? Just slap them on a skillet or grill. Um… remember to actually rotate them from time to time... And not let them drop into the fire… or onto the floor… And flipping them with a spatula (again) is right out…

Eh, I'm sure I'll get it right this time!

---

My shoulders slumped as I finally got within direct line of sight of my current objective. Which was apparently one of the small picnic areas scattered around the village. A park table already heavily laden with enough chilidogs that I knew what everyone in the village was going to have for lunch, dinner, and possibly breakfast tomorrow.

Goddammit, Sonic, I know that we sometimes have to do this before various foods go bad, but we just got those hotdogs!

And of course he's still at the grill cooking up another…

No, wait, Sonic isn't the one cooking. He's speaking with the one cooking. Who is a Robian.

Specifically, said Robian happened to be Sonic's Uncle Chuck.

"I hope you have a supply of Power Rings on hand, Sonic," I stated flatly as I approached. I mean, seriously - I knew from Tangent that Power Ring Lake would start producing more powerful Power Rings that lasted longer eventually but eventually wasn't today.

"Nah, it's all good, Sal!" Sonic waved off my concern with a careless dismissiveness that I did not feel that the situation warranted. "Some lab accident ended up chucking Ro-butt-nik into some sort of pocket dimension and somehow ended up frying Uncle Chuck's Contraband Overload Thingy in the process!"

"Control Overlay Program," Chuck and I corrected simultaneously.

Okay, apparently Robotnik actually was calling the horrible little string of code by that name after all. And here I had thought I had come up with it myself. Granted, it might just be coincidence combined with a bit of familiarity about how he names his projects, but still…

"I'm pretty sure he isn't under Robotnik's control, Sally," Rotor shrugged.

"And how can you be certain?" I asked, raising a brow. Then thought for a moment. "Right. All those chilidogs. Robotnik's clever, but he's not patient enough to hold back once he's found what he's after."

"Oh, we're not likely to hear from Robotnik anytime soon," Uncle Chuck assured us. "Snively is refusing to retrieve him from that pocket dimension he got shunted into."

"Meaning Snively is currently in charge of the Robotnik Empire," I groaned, pinching the bridge of my muzzle.

"Relax, Sal!" Sonic piped up even as he picked up yet another chilidog. "It's Snively! He's like, Easy Mode!"

"Sonic, Snively is enough like his uncle to be a problem, and enough unlike him to be harder to predict," I pointed out in an aggravated tone.

"She's right, Sonic," Uncle Chuck sighed. Which was impressive enough in and of itself since i knew from personal experience that Robians did not actually need to breathe. "If anything, Dr. Robotnik has been a moderating influence on Snively."

"Come on, Unc! It's Snively!" Sonic protested. "He is not a great thinker! Sure, he knows enough to have been Robotnik's righthand man, but he's not an innovator. Robotnik might have stolen a lot of the technology he uses, but he also comes up with new things out of the blue sometimes. When has Snively ever done something totally new or completely over the top?"

"Well, given that he's currently running the Empire and has immediate access to a projectable dimensional portal…" I pointed out. "Hold on, I'm going to have Nicole run the numbers and see what kind of damage he might be able to do with that thing as well as his most likely next course of action…"

"I mean, really Sal, what's the worst that could happen?"

"Apparently the potential destruction of Mobius within the next twenty years and very probably sooner according to Nicole," I snarked as I activated Nicole's holographic projectors to show what I was seeing on her screen.

Everyone grew quiet as we watched chunk after chunk of Mobius disappear into the Aether during a timelapse display of the behavior Nicole had modelled based on Snively's past actions. Fast enough to be cataclysmic, but slow enough that Snively would never believe anyone that tried to warn him of the consequences.

Say what you will about Robotnik, but even he knows that he needs a world if he wants to rule a world…

 

[Renko]

"Come on, Unc! It's Snively!" Sonic protested.

Click to shrink...

Never underestimate an enemy that you cannot predict.

Just because he look less intimidating doesn't mean he won't be a problem.

 

[Tangent]

CHAPTER FIVE​

---

"Sonic, stay," I ordered bluntly, not wanting him to rush off just yet.

"What's the hold-up, Sal?" Sonic asked. "I go in, wreck the portal generator, the day is saved, and I come home in time for more chilidogs!" As charming as his grin is, it's kind of infuriating right now.

"Sure, that's one scenario," I acknowledged. "Here's another: You go in, run blindly around a corner straight into a projected dimensional gate, we lose you forever, and you get no more chilidogs ever."

"That's…" Sonic sighed and slumped his shoulders. "That wouldn't be good, Sal. So what's the plan?"

"Uncle Chuck, if Nicole projects a map of Robotropolis, could you point out which facility the portal generator is in?" I asked.

"Of course," Uncle Chuck replied.

"Nicole, project an interactive map of Robotropolis and help Uncle Chuck plot routes to the objective. Be sure to include the nearest landing pads to the objective in case Snively decides to mount the thing on an air vehicle. Sonic, you'll be working with Hamlin's team this time. Scout, run interference, and generally be ready to back them up. Us too in a pinch, but this time you're their outrider, got it?"

"You got it, Sal!" Sonic said as he gave Hamlin a fist bump.

"Hamlin, your team has the ground objective. Find the portal generator and wreck it. Wreck the lab it is in too if you have the time. However, if anyone on our side ends up on the other side of a portal, do your best to either bring them back and then destroy the portal, or secure the portal generator so that Rotor can work out how to rescue anyone who needs it. Got it?"

"You can count on us, Sally," Hamlin assured me.

"The other team is with me," I informed them, meaning our original team, minus Sonic. "We're going to steal a transport shuttle. Two if we can swing it. Remember to disable the remote self-destruct system first. Our job is going to be to shoot Snively down if he goes airborne, whether or not he has the portal generator. With Robotnik trapped in a pocket dimension, capturing or taking out Snively eliminates the clearest line of succession and the regional Egg Bosses will probably start infighting until they are either captured, eliminated, or a new leader is recognized."

I let that sink in for a moment.

"We have an opportunity to topple the Eggpire," I told everyone. "Let's take our best shot."

---

It turned out that there was really only one landing pad in Robotropolis that was reasonably close enough to the workshop that Uncle Chuck had marked as being where the portal generator was. There were currently three air transports parked there, all in a line, and the one closest to the facility's bay doors looked like it already had quick-equip mounting brackets set up just under the nose.

"Okay, change of plan," I said. "Rotor, Bunnie, you two work on sabotaging the transport closest to the bay doors. Nothing obvious - just enough to stop it from going very far without being immediately obvious as to why. Antoine, you're with me. We'll disable the self-destruct on the middle transport as planned and then you get ready to take off when you get the signal. The phrase will be 'sky high' if you are to take off immediately, 'thunder high' if you are to provide air support, or 'air bus' if you are to provide transport for anyone. Bunnie, Rotor, once you are done with the sabotage, split up as you see fit to join Antoine and me on the other two transports. Got it?"

I got a chorus of nods and agreements from Antoine, Bunny, and Rotor, and then the four of us headed in…

---

I left Antoine in the middle transport once I had finished disabling the self-destruct system there, and was just finishing up disabling the one aboard this transport when Bunnie joined me.

"First one won't get much further than just past the city walls according to Rotor," Bunnie reported. "Won't be a hard crash, 'cause Rotor got worried that one of our guys might try to use it if things get dicey, and half the point was hiding that we broke anything."

"Sounds reasonable," I agreed as I closed the panel and wiped my hands clean on my vest. I was going to have to wash it when we got back to Knothole.

I took the pilot seat and started the preflight checks to make sure that it was ready to take off in a moment's notice. Full fuel tanks because of course they were - Robotnik cares more about readiness than potential waste. Same deal with the weapons systems. Three storage lockers: one for weapons and having two rifles, two pistols, and sixteen energy cartridges that could be used for any of them; one for maintenance and first aid, so useful; and the last packed full of junk food and packaged Overlander style FPE's (Food Probably Edible) with a shelf-life that suggested that they'd expire sometime around four hundred years from now.

Yeah, emergency rations that I'd be inclined to use if there were no other more palatable options. We'll take them, of course. Maybe break open one or two to test if they were actually safe to eat. But other than that, they were going to go towards Knothole's Emergency Reserves Pantry.

---

"So, do you think another 'bot patrol will wander by before we hear anything?" Bunnie asked as she stood just inside the rear hatch.

"Dunno," I responded as I kept watch through the cockpit window. "It's hard to say when…"

I was interrupted by a blue blur that swept in and out of the rear hatch, depositing Penelope Platypus before rushing off again. Only to return a moment later with Hamlin the Pig.

"Go go go!" Sonic called out as he helped Bunnie secure the rear hatch.

"Where are the others?" I asked even as I started the transport's take off sequence.

"With Antoine and Rotor," Sonic answered quickly. Now go go go! This is way past bad!"

"Antoine! Sky High!" I called out over the radio even as we took off. I heard everyone quickly settling into seats and strapping themselves in. Even Sonic, which showed how worried he was as he had the least to worry about than any of us when it came to kinetic impacts.

As we flew over the city wall, I saw the sky turn white and then briefly rainbow hued before returning to its normal blue.

"Sonic, what was that?" I asked with a restrained calm that I most certainly did not feel.

"That was two Transdimensional Transporters feeding back into each other and overloading," Hamlin explained instead. "I, ah… kinda grabbed the smaller one while it was active and chucked it through the bigger one, and then Robotnik and Snively both started panicking so I told Sonic to get us out of there in a hurry."

"Good call," I noted, then activated the radio again. "Antoine, on me. We're swinging back to take an aerial look at the damage."

"Understood," Antoine called back.

Once we were turned around, I sucked my breath in.

Where the large egg-shaped facility had once been was a perfectly round crater two-and-a-half blocks wide with sections of the adjacent structures just…

…gone.

As if a perfect sphere had been scooped out of Robotropolis and had taken everything within its bounds with it when it went.