The ring deposits you all safely outside the base and seals up afterwards. Neo Metal Sonic doesn't chase after you, which is something of a mercy.
What's significantly less of a mercy is the sky - it's gone dark and ominously stormy, though the clouds spark not with lightning, but with that same green Chaos Energy you've been facing this entire fight. Worse still, there are now far, far too many robotic planes filling the sky - the Egg Fleet seems to go on endlessly, as far as you can see. Though perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the Neo Metal Sonic Fleet.
Sonic and friends arrive shortly, looking pretty banged up but otherwise still healthy enough to make it here, though they stare up at the sky with obvious concern.
"O...kay, this is definitely not what any of us were expecting."
"We will have to take the fight to them, it seems."
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid... I'm not sure how to pinpoint their leader's exact location to send you all with a ring..."
A jolt of green lightning flashes across the sky and Neo Metal Sonic's voice rings out.
"I expect to see you onboard my fleet in one week's time. That includes you, my loathsome copy."
It seems you don't really have much of a choice. For now, tend to your wounds and try to regroup; you've earned a break after today.
It never tends to, I've found. All it does is breed far more doubt in one's mind.
[She'd admittedly been focused on her own matters, but it was hard not to notice how much Void Archives was suffering once they were freed, and it's...
...
It's strangely cursed not seeing them be their usual smug self, Put It Back--]
Indeed, I have. Perceptive of you. [She's even got a glass filled up just for them, that she's gotten ready while they talked. Here you go.] It looked like you suffered quite a bit, even if it was not physical. I wanted to see how you were faring.
[ They're definitely having a time of it - which, on some levels feels earnestly frustrating to them. It's one thing to struggle with something in a nightmare or a mindscape.
But...something about stumbling with it in the real world feels like it shouldn't be - even if they know why they would. As such the extremely cursed evidence of their lack of smug self remains.
The perception comment gets something like a look that'd normally look more amused, though, well. That isn't the case - they take the glass and begin to take more than a sip. ]
I suppose it'd be foolish to say that it hadn't been a bother. I thought there was a decent chance that it may have gone unnoticed, however. The chaos that occurred on the minds of others at the last half of the battle did not involve just myself.
I won't deny that it did; I certainly dealt with plenty of it's affected, of course, but...well. It's hard not to notice sometimes, you know.
[This isn't like them. Even after some of their worst experiences, they've always managed to deal with it always with some kind of witty retort or the same self assured confidence as ever. This is...
Well. Dorothy should be happy about it, but she can't help but feel some kind of pit in her stomach as she pours her own glass of wine.]
...I take it that in all of your time alive, nobody has managed to get the better of you in such a manner.
[ They gulp down their glass, instead of the careful, mild sips they usually take and then fix her a sign of emotion; a crooked smile that echoes an unsettling light previewed in their eyes. ]
Hah...alive...I do wonder...
It's a complicated matter. It may surprise you to hear myself say this, but for most of my life, I wasn't in control.
For almost 50,000 years I was in complete isolation or simply being used by someone else, to explain it in simple terms, but yet is nothing less than the truth. The only difference this time is that I lost that freedom of mind I had only just recently gained. Even my own freedom of movement.
Can you imagine...the feeling of stepping into that light, glimpsing that freedom you desperately sought for so long, and experiencing it for so little time, only for it to be snatched from you in a single moment? That it can be undone with someone's mere thought?
[ It felt like their whole entire world shattered and something inside of them splintered so thoroughly that they are forced to pick up the pieces. They can convey these words with ease right now, but...
The pain they experienced of feeling trapped, when associating with Lucheni or even Otto, of subconsciously seeing no way out from that programming...it mirrors that bottomless void of despair they felt so long ago. ]
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no subject
[She'd admittedly been focused on her own matters, but it was hard not to notice how much Void Archives was suffering once they were freed, and it's...
...
It's strangely cursed not seeing them be their usual smug self, Put It Back--]
Indeed, I have. Perceptive of you. [She's even got a glass filled up just for them, that she's gotten ready while they talked. Here you go.] It looked like you suffered quite a bit, even if it was not physical. I wanted to see how you were faring.
no subject
[ They're definitely having a time of it - which, on some levels feels earnestly frustrating to them. It's one thing to struggle with something in a nightmare or a mindscape.
But...something about stumbling with it in the real world feels like it shouldn't be - even if they know why they would. As such the extremely cursed evidence of their lack of smug self remains.
The perception comment gets something like a look that'd normally look more amused, though, well. That isn't the case - they take the glass and begin to take more than a sip. ]
I suppose it'd be foolish to say that it hadn't been a bother. I thought there was a decent chance that it may have gone unnoticed, however. The chaos that occurred on the minds of others at the last half of the battle did not involve just myself.
no subject
[This isn't like them. Even after some of their worst experiences, they've always managed to deal with it always with some kind of witty retort or the same self assured confidence as ever. This is...
Well. Dorothy should be happy about it, but she can't help but feel some kind of pit in her stomach as she pours her own glass of wine.]
...I take it that in all of your time alive, nobody has managed to get the better of you in such a manner.
no subject
Hah...alive...I do wonder...
It's a complicated matter. It may surprise you to hear myself say this, but for most of my life, I wasn't in control.
For almost 50,000 years I was in complete isolation or simply being used by someone else, to explain it in simple terms, but yet is nothing less than the truth. The only difference this time is that I lost that freedom of mind I had only just recently gained. Even my own freedom of movement.
Can you imagine...the feeling of stepping into that light, glimpsing that freedom you desperately sought for so long, and experiencing it for so little time, only for it to be snatched from you in a single moment? That it can be undone with someone's mere thought?
[ It felt like their whole entire world shattered and something inside of them splintered so thoroughly that they are forced to pick up the pieces. They can convey these words with ease right now, but...
The pain they experienced of feeling trapped, when associating with Lucheni or even Otto, of subconsciously seeing no way out from that programming...it mirrors that bottomless void of despair they felt so long ago. ]