You hop through the ring portals, barely escaping Eggman's forces and making it through (mostly) unscathed. On the plus side, you're all here - in fact, you'll find Tails and Vakama nearby, with the fox having brought your pal here too.
But unfortunately, "here" is not exactly the best place to be.
"Back here again...? Sheesh, I really can't catch a break.
"What is this place, Sonic?"
"This is the space between worlds. The void, I guess you could call it."
Everywhere you look there's a whole lot of nothing. Gemstone-like shards litter this reality in all sorts of shapes and sizes, serving as obstacles or platforms; they're sturdy enough to walk and stand on, but this world's rules are a little different from what you're used to. For one, gravity doesn't really work properly - you may find yourself floating or walking upside-down on a shard you didn't mean to end up on, and it's going to take some getting used to.
There's not really much to do or see here either - at least, not for now. You're welcome to explore this strange place, but you won't find anything particularly interesting... with one notable exception as seen in the comment below.
No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you'll feel like you're being watched.
[ woflwood doesn't immediately say anything in response to that and simply takes in a long drag and his time exhaling after. he understands where oscar is going with what he's saying—to a point. wolfwood was never a solider (unless someone wanted to stretch the definition by a whole lot) but he's familiar with the feeling of knowing just how much you can take.
...and maybe even wanting to take it just a bit more than that. ]
I could say the same for me—before I got here. After I was brought here to help, I found myself a little bit humbled.
[ he'll casually raise up his (still) injured shoulder and broken arm in its sling for oscar to see. how the bandages and wrappings survived the battle that they just had, who fucking knows but it has. in theory, he's probably no worse off than anyone else but there is that stipulation that he has that no one else does. ]
My noodle cat guy and yerself—ya realize that if either of ya go down for good, it's bad news for the rest of us. 'nd not just because it leaves us more open but it's not exactly great for moral.
[ he hopes that he doesn't have to go into more detail than that. it should be obvious, right? forget the people back where they're from—the people here who would be besides themselves. upset. wolfwood takes another drag before he continues. ]
Half the reason why people were so desperate was because they wanted to get the mask back.
...I can make no promises. You both know that. [She can't predict what the enemies will swing with, and she's going to continue fighting. That's who she is and what she does, for better or for worse, and they need that of her.] But I...
[...]
I suppose if it stresses you so, I can make a better attempt at staying safe. To give you both less reason to be frustrated.
[But she offers that much. Because it is still her job to look out for them, to keep them alive, at least for the mission. Maybe if she's being entirely honest with herself, there's more of a reason to it, but Dorothy finds herself unwilling to consider what this could mean in the slightest.
But Raven's words startle her briefly, and she looks between the both of them, bewildered. She's certainly had more than her fair share of talks with Yeager about such things, but...]
Interesting. Differences, but there is certainly still a common core...
[A mad genius attempting to take over the world with his machines. Curious that the more successful one is the one who also has (or at least had) a dependable human ally. Did a parallel Stone not exist in the other universe? Or maybe one did and something happened in the past, something similar to what may have happened in this world now, and that is why the other Robotnik typically only trusts machines. Perhaps this timeline is only now reaching that event, and that conclusion?
Are the two universes even similar enough to make such hypotheses reasonable? Is the multiverse truly infinite, leading to all possibilities existing simultaneously, or is there some basic template that leads certain things to always be more or less the same? The latter makes it far more statistically probable for Infinite's world to be so similar, but that's not evidence; it's likely that the Doctor sought that out deliberately. Could you find a version of Dr. Ivo Robotnik who was - he doesn't know, a kindly toymaker or something?]
Are Sonic and the others his enemies there as well?
[Oscar looks at that sling, and the bullet hole in his own shoulder and the wound in his side where Mafuyu's ice struck home ache in sympathy. He's always pushed himself to his limits and beyond them, and it was that trait in particular that had drawn Claude to him like a moth to a flame.
He wonders, sometimes, how his life would have turned out had that never happened.]
It's always bad for morale to have people dyin' in battle. Doesn't matter if it's the commander or just a foot soldier... no one likes to feel that a victory was paid for in blood.
[It's almost disconcerting just how much the others here care, really. Back at home... Claude and Eric do, of course, and Tis has gotten quite attached (he worries sometimes, when angels aren't supposed to form attachments), and surely Sister and Mere and the barkeep and perhaps even Espada would be distressed, but... there's a reason he doesn't let people get close, why he tries to keep his relationships superficial.
So they won't be upset when he dies.]
Not surprised they were so desperate, though. Vakama's a good guy-- everyone likes him. You wanna talk about something that'd make morale take a hit, it'd be that.
[His tone is oddly light for the words. It's just natural, a matter of course-- Vakama is a good person, and so everyone cares about him.]
[Ah, Raven just comes right out and says it... Yeager's certainly made it clear how important it is to him (he thinks?) but he's never stated it so bluntly.]
I would appreciate that, at least.
[But he'll fall silent and allow Raven to continue; he's admittedly pretty curious about the answer as well.]
I had the ability to summon illusions from my work with my world's version of the Doctor. The nightmares were due to the shards I was gifted here.
[He folds his arms and continues:] And before you ask, no I cannot continue to make use of those powers.
[The Phantom Ruby that was on his chest is gone, and though he does still have one shard in the back of his hand, it isn't enough to access your dreams again.]
[Huh. That actually also sounds a little like this world might be farther back in some sort of parallel timeline than the other. Maybe Sonic and his friends just haven't met those allies yet?]
I wonder if knowledge from one could be used to draw broad conclusions about the other...?
[It's all different enough that he wouldn't feel certain about any idea reached that way, but a lack of perfect certainty is no reason to fully discount it.]
[ a victory paid in blood... yeah, wolfwood could make a comment about those sort of victories, if only because "victory" is no longer the word he would use for them. the voice of someone telling him that there is always a way to end conflict without having to kill anyone ever present in his mind. urging him to look for another way—that what wolfwood had been so used to before was the "cowards" way of handling things.
fortunately, he's spared having to dwell on that longer than he needs to (again) as oscar says something that wolfwood can't help but casually "protest" with a humorless chuckle. yeah, it would make sense for people to say that, wouldn't it? given everything... but there are a few assumptions that wolfwood would like to prevent people making about him. ]
Might wanna check that "everyone". [ wolfwood also keeps his tone light and makes sure not to take too long to continue as to not give oscar any wrong ideas. ] ...but I don't dislike him enough to think that he should be dead.
[ but does he think anyone here fondly enough to say the alternative? whose to say. what is important though— ]
I don't dislike anyone enough here to think that way, but even if someone bugs ya—not havin' them around makes things weird. Ya start to remember about the things that irritated ya whether it was their habits or somethin' else.
[In his mind, Oscar hears the familiar squabbles. The "Hey, that's mine!" and the "You can't just put on someone else's clothes! as they'd jostled each other in front of the cramped closet, and he thinks of how he'd give anything to have those same stupid fights again. A part of him wonders if that's why he needles Claude sometimes to get a similar sort of response out of him... if he's just looking to replace what he'd lost that day.
For all that he'd told Tis he liked finally having a room all to himself, sometimes it feels far too big, far too empty.]
We'd all end up missin' those discs flyin' at our heads out of nowhere, in other words. [Now it's his turn to laugh.] No thanks-- I think I'll pass on wantin' to remember that, so he'd better make sure to stay alive.
["There are a great many people who would miss you if you were gone. And I'm one of them, of course." He wonders if that's what Sister had meant by that. Would she miss having to scold him about his drinking? ... yeah, she probably would, wouldn't she.]
And we'd definitely all be hurtin' for his skills and knowledge, that much is for sure.
Same here! We're obviously not tellin' you ta dial it back all the way. Ya wouldn't be our powerhouse Dorothy otherwise!
[...Oh, now they're both looking at him and he immediately starts sweating internally. He was just playing along, he didn't intend for it to get deep.]
W-Well, y'know, 'cause I ended up gettin' ta know ya better and I found out ya weren't so bad. In fact, we've got way more in common than I ever woulda figured.
[He seems to find his stride somewhere along the way, because he doesn't sound like he's trying to come up with an answer out of thin air anymore.]
Not all of those things are happy things, but they've gone a long way fer us understandin' each other.
I'm not so good at talkin' about myself, but I'm not hatin' it so much anymore if it's with you. [He looks at Yeager.] Both of ya, really.
Honestly, that's a shame. My personal distaste for my own aside, most of the ones I saw were quite good. I don't know how much you personalized, but you have an eye for mortal terror.
[ girliepop this is not a normal thing to say ]
I could even say that I had fun, visiting most of the nightmares of others.
[ wolfwood might not be able to know what's going through oscar's mind right now but he can see that whatever he's thinking about (or remembering) is the kind of thing that he had hoped for. people like him need that reminder—as obvious it is for people like wolfwood. ]
Now ya got it! There's somethin' that we'd all be missin' if any one of us suddenly wasn't around anymore. It's more about how soon we'd be feelin' that loss.
[ as if wolfwood is blind to the knowledge of how his loss wouldn't be immediately felt the moment that someone takes a misstep and they fall into misfortune. an injury that hadn't been calculated or planned for. an injury that would take much too long to recover from... ]
Of course, I'll make sure that I don't get any more roughed up than I am now. [ especially since there isn't really anyone else who can put him back together should things get even worse than they are. however, wolfwood treats his injuries with a levity, as he bumps into oscar lightly with his shoulder, that's unearned but there's a limit of how much attention he wants to bring to himself.
whatever and everything he endures is fine as long as people like oscar—those of them who have proper offensive abilities—remain to keep things moving along. he'll gladly and willingly pay the necessary price to make sure that happens. ] Can't be much good to any of ya if I've got both feet in the grave.
[He takes that shoulder bump with a grin and a slight wince that he tries to hide. Ah, he's going to be feeling this for quite a while... it worries him, if they wind up in another battle as fierce as this one. But he'll cross that bridge when they come to it.]
If you end up with both feet in the grave, then I'd be six feet under.
[There's a certain dark humor in it given the topic, but also no small grain of truth. Oscar knows well that were it not for the efforts of Wolfwood and the others who shielded and healed him, he really would have ended up in the ground. The lingering pain from his injuries is more than enough to remind him of that much.]
Then poor Bas'd have to do all the work by himself, and he'd probably come hunt me down even in the afterlife.
[Is it an exaggeration? Maybe, but he also truly does believe that the other man would come for his soul.]
And then everyone else'd be short you, me, AND Bas, and I don't even wanna think about what sort of shape they'd be in like that.
[... that's kind of a frightening thought, to realize just how dependent the others really are on the three of them where combat is concerned.]
[ More has actually allowed Wolfwood to offscreen heal him because a laser slash across the back is painful enough that even self-hate couldn't stop him from seeking to relieve the pain. Now he's mostly looking ragged in terms of his clothes being torn, but physically he's healthier than he was after the last fight. Mentally? Not so much.
It's hard to know what to do with himself when his mind feels like it's going to dissolve itself in acid if he allows himself to dwell on his thoughts for even a second. He doesn't want to be alone right now. And so he finds himself seeking Turo. Because Turo is sitting by himself. Because he killed Turo's son. Because it doesn't really feel right to say nothing after all that.
.... and because Turo's back has a whole lot of exposed material, as he notices on approach. Well. That at least gives him an opener. ]
I believe I can heal you, if you'll let me.
[ Maybe not completely but it'll be better than nothing. ]
I am relieved they worked without incident. There was not time for any proper testing. When we get back, I will make whatever repairs are needed and see if they need any further fine-tuning.
[He looked over slowly, as if only just fully processing Wolfwood was there.]
We are alive enough to recover with time. Physically, at least.
[ha ha we're not unpacking the rest of that today]
...When we return, could I ask your help with something? I want to see if there are any improvements I can make to these. [gesturing to the hoverboard] I have only been working off estimation and theory, but maybe you have better insights.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Page 16 of 30