After eight long, difficult weeks of fighting, you've finally done it. You've put an end to Neo Metal Sonic's dreams of conquest and with it, you've saved not only this world, but all worlds. Perhaps not everything is wrapped up as neatly as some of you would like, but you've done what you set out to do, and now you can breathe a sigh of relief.
In the hours that follow the immediate aftermath of Neo Metal Sonic's defeat, Tails sets about figuring out how to control the Egg Fleet and recall them to where Neo Metal Sonic had them stationed. Sonic heads out into the city - and then even further beyond - to ensure that the people are starting to regain their senses without anyone to suppress their free will anymore. Knuckles escorts you back to the base, then takes a ring to hop into the Void to let Shadow and Infinite know what's going on.
As for you all? You aren't expected to do any work, because you've done so much today. Take a load off and take the time to rest - you deserve it.
For those of you who can't wait to get home, you're welcome to grab a ring from one of your colorful friends and head straight back, but for those of you willing to take the night off and regroup in the morning, you'll find that said colorful friends have put together a party for you - or, well, they tried their best. The decorations are store-bought (or not) and simple, Sonic seems to have thought confetti is the best way to throw a party and there is so much of it getting showered on all of you the moment you walk into the room, and someone obtained a sheet cake that did not have any sort of message on it, so an awkwardly scrawled message of "THANKS FOR HELP" is written in bright green icing that clashes with the cake's soft pink and red color scheme. An attempt was made.
You're welcome to hang out here - both in the new base and in this world as a whole - for as long as you'd like. Permanently, even, if you don't have any intention of going home. After all, you've more than earned it. Sonic and friends will gladly help you figure out a way to get settled here.
If you do choose to stay for any length of time and head out into the city, you'll find that people are indeed starting to return to their daily lives. They don't really understand - or remember - what happened, but they do recognize you as someone they have some innate fondness for, regardless of how startling your appearance may be to them. The city itself has seen better days thanks to the spread of Eggman's chroma, but thankfully the natural elements are recovering from that just fine. The buildings, streets, and the like will not naturally recover, so it seems Chicago's going to require some pretty intensive rebuilding...
But for the time being, everything is going smoothly, and you've done everything that was asked of you. You're free to return home. If you do, your shard may eventually come loose and simply fall off, ridding you of both the shard and its powers. Or maybe it won't, and you'll have that memory of your time in this world forever, along with the power innate to you and the ones you can activate from your fellow shardbearers whenever you're near each other.
Congratulations, shardbearers. You've done the impossible, and maybe even formed some new bonds along the way.
( Welcome to the final log of Shardbond! With this, you have successfully navigated your way through the Sonic friendship game and no one died! Hooray!!! For this final log, you may do whatever you'd like - if you want to use this to do an immediate aftermath top level, go for it! Party top level? Sure? Post-game top level? Have fun! You want to bring a castmate in and NPC them or have someone else play them? Also cool! Generally speaking, you are now free to do what you will with the setting as a whole - your fuzzy little friends will be hard at work making sure that you all are able to get home and/or get settled just fine, and they'll also be keeping an eye out for one (1) Neo Metal Sonic. And also Infinite, I guess, unless someone wants to take that stray jackal with them but like, no one needs that. )
[ This brings up a whole different question that's been lingering on More's mind for ages now. He never brought it up because he hadn't meant to impose, but hearing 'my own name' phrased like this now... Maybe it's finally time to actually ask Turo his feelings on this matter. ]
Speaking thereof... The name... Are you content to keep it?
[He'd really meant something more along the lines of having to fully steal the Professor's legal identity, if he wanted to publish, but...that's an excellent point, too.]
......I don't...know that I am. Not in the long term, at least. It will always be his name, in a way, and he did not even really give it to me - not like a parent might to their child. I have a filename, and it does include "AI Turo", but that's...it's a name for a project. There's a version number attached, that sort of thing. No one ever actually called me "Turo" until after he died.
[There were only two of them down there, so the truth of the matter is that Turo rarely called the AI by any name at all. He picked it up after the man was gone, and that mostly because he spent a lot of that time impersonating him.]
But I'm afraid I don't have any ideas for replacements.
Taking a father's name after their passing is not so unusual... for royalty, at least. But I would also not go by the regnal name I received from my father if I can at all help it, so I fully understand your sentiment.
[ The fifth Hythlodaeus, the latest in a long line of horror. ]
As far as our time together is concerned, I am quite content to keep calling you by terms of endearment until you settle on something that feels right.
[ But that might be a tad difficult if they want to introduce themselves to anybody in the new world they'll had to. ]
[Though, yes, he also thinks it probably isn't something he should linger over too long if he can help it. Not long enough that he's introducing himself to people he intends to see again as Turo, at least.]
Maybe I'll pick up one of those baby naming books? Or I could do something more...along the lines of what Neo did. [Neo: not an actual human name!]
Either works. I think we've seen enough variety in names here that you need not worry about holding yourself to the naming standards of any existing world.
[ Theoretically he could just smash letters together until he finds something that sounds pleasant... ]
I wish I could recall how my own name - a nickname, back then - came to be, but it's lost to the normal disappearance of childhood memories, for once.
That's a little strange for me to think about. I...can remember what it felt like for the Professor to forget things, but I've never done it myself. I remember his memories with far more clarity than he did. I would have to delete something deliberately for that to happen.
[More's original case of amnesia also fit a paradigm he understands; he could be damaged or experience some sort of data corruption. But just naturally forgetting? There's files he doesn't access regularly, but that's not the same.]
Oh, truly? It does make a certain sense now that I think about it - your internal memory must surely be like a library, which always holds far more information than singular person can hold onto at any given time, but...
[ It's still strange to imagine. ]
Do you retain even his childhood memories that he himself has lost access to, or is it only what he knew of himself at the time he made you?
Oh - oh, well, the way an organic brain stores memories is much more complicated than what I do. I'm not sure anyone fully understands it, not even him.
[What he did with his memories was also quite the monumental breakthrough. And like all the others, it almost certainly wouldn't work like that outside of the crater. Sometimes Turo thinks that what the Tera energy did was simply introduce an element of magic - something that made anything the Professor wanted to create possible, at least within the crater's walls.]
But evidence suggests that memories are never really gone, unless there's actual damage to the structure of the brain. Those neural pathways may just become impossible to access. So yes - I remember his childhood far more clearly than he did. At the same time, I do remember them as he did, to a degree. It's all...tinged with his feelings and perceptions.
I see... Yes, certainly. To continue my allegory... If I misplace my notes, which I admit I frequently do, then the actual information stored on the paper does not vanish. It is merely lost to me, placed at an unknown location in my study.
[ With how long he's been stuck in Akademeia, the study may as well be his actual heart and he himself merely a manifestation thereof - in a lot of ways that is even literally true, or was, before the rings brought him here. ]
So when his memories were inserted into you, your mind was capable of organizing all the notes and returning them to places where they can be easily accessed at will.
But of course, no memo written by a single individual will ever be objective.
I get something of an echo sometimes, if I think much about the more emotional ones. Sometimes I get this sort of...anger when I think about Sada, for example - his, not mine. It's a bit disconcerting.
[He has his own complaints about how Sada treated Arven, but he's certainly not as vitriolic about it as Turo was about the divorce.]
I think I can surmise what that might feel like. I remember all of my reign as Hythlodaeus V now, and I recall feeling the emotions that led him to do what he did... or rather to what he didn't, to that all-encompassing passivity.
But it's distant. Hazy, even as I recall it with clarity. It could swallow me up, but it isn't me. Not quite.
Yes...yes, it is quite like that. I can feel his feelings as if they were all happening to me right now, if I really focus on a memory. I don't do that often, though, and even if I did I know that it is not really mine.
[It's mostly just disconcerting.]
I could delete them, but I don't know if I want to. At least, not yet.
[ Not yet, huh... More has certainly felt that maybe he'd have been better off never remembering who he was. That the whole of his memories is unsteady ground threatening to break away under him any minute now.
But for Turo, all this stuff is... frame of reference, certainly, but it's not really him, is it? ]
What would need to happen for you to desire to do so?
I think...I need more time as myself, at the very least. More experiences. I'm afraid his memories still comprise a great deal of my...understanding of the world. There would probably be some very strange gaps if I simply threw them all out now.
[His own lifespan is only a fraction of his actual memories. They feel more real, and one day maybe he could abandon that original foundation, but for now...he just needs a little more to work with.]
Ah... The answer is so simple, and yet it was wholly beyond me. My long time of amnesia has led me to think of my personal memory and my common knowledge as wholly removed from each other, because such was the nature of the blockage put into my mind.
[ He could list notable landmarks just fine, but personal experiences that happened at them? No clue. ]
Of course, that is not how learning actually functions. I must have gained all this knowledge over the course of my life.
If you call forth knowledge, does the associated memory of learning come right along with it?
Not always, but it can. I could probably make up some of the difference with research, of course.
[But that's still time he doesn't need to take right now. It makes him feel...uneasy, to consider regressing himself in such a manner.]
Amnesia must be a rather different case. That happens sometimes, doesn't it? People losing their personal memories, one way or another, but retaining some general knowledge?
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no subject
[Turo's thoughtful for a moment.]
I...could probably manage it...if not under my own name. Though I'm not sure I'm interested in that.
no subject
Speaking thereof... The name... Are you content to keep it?
no subject
......I don't...know that I am. Not in the long term, at least. It will always be his name, in a way, and he did not even really give it to me - not like a parent might to their child. I have a filename, and it does include "AI Turo", but that's...it's a name for a project. There's a version number attached, that sort of thing. No one ever actually called me "Turo" until after he died.
[There were only two of them down there, so the truth of the matter is that Turo rarely called the AI by any name at all. He picked it up after the man was gone, and that mostly because he spent a lot of that time impersonating him.]
But I'm afraid I don't have any ideas for replacements.
no subject
[ The fifth Hythlodaeus, the latest in a long line of horror. ]
As far as our time together is concerned, I am quite content to keep calling you by terms of endearment until you settle on something that feels right.
[ But that might be a tad difficult if they want to introduce themselves to anybody in the new world they'll had to. ]
no subject
[Though, yes, he also thinks it probably isn't something he should linger over too long if he can help it. Not long enough that he's introducing himself to people he intends to see again as Turo, at least.]
Maybe I'll pick up one of those baby naming books? Or I could do something more...along the lines of what Neo did. [Neo: not an actual human name!]
no subject
[ Theoretically he could just smash letters together until he finds something that sounds pleasant... ]
I wish I could recall how my own name - a nickname, back then - came to be, but it's lost to the normal disappearance of childhood memories, for once.
no subject
That's a little strange for me to think about. I...can remember what it felt like for the Professor to forget things, but I've never done it myself. I remember his memories with far more clarity than he did. I would have to delete something deliberately for that to happen.
[More's original case of amnesia also fit a paradigm he understands; he could be damaged or experience some sort of data corruption. But just naturally forgetting? There's files he doesn't access regularly, but that's not the same.]
no subject
[ It's still strange to imagine. ]
Do you retain even his childhood memories that he himself has lost access to, or is it only what he knew of himself at the time he made you?
no subject
[What he did with his memories was also quite the monumental breakthrough. And like all the others, it almost certainly wouldn't work like that outside of the crater. Sometimes Turo thinks that what the Tera energy did was simply introduce an element of magic - something that made anything the Professor wanted to create possible, at least within the crater's walls.]
But evidence suggests that memories are never really gone, unless there's actual damage to the structure of the brain. Those neural pathways may just become impossible to access. So yes - I remember his childhood far more clearly than he did. At the same time, I do remember them as he did, to a degree. It's all...tinged with his feelings and perceptions.
no subject
[ With how long he's been stuck in Akademeia, the study may as well be his actual heart and he himself merely a manifestation thereof - in a lot of ways that is even literally true, or was, before the rings brought him here. ]
So when his memories were inserted into you, your mind was capable of organizing all the notes and returning them to places where they can be easily accessed at will.
But of course, no memo written by a single individual will ever be objective.
no subject
[He seems delighted by the spot-on metaphor!]
I get something of an echo sometimes, if I think much about the more emotional ones. Sometimes I get this sort of...anger when I think about Sada, for example - his, not mine. It's a bit disconcerting.
[He has his own complaints about how Sada treated Arven, but he's certainly not as vitriolic about it as Turo was about the divorce.]
no subject
I think I can surmise what that might feel like. I remember all of my reign as Hythlodaeus V now, and I recall feeling the emotions that led him to do what he did... or rather to what he didn't, to that all-encompassing passivity.
But it's distant. Hazy, even as I recall it with clarity. It could swallow me up, but it isn't me. Not quite.
no subject
Yes...yes, it is quite like that. I can feel his feelings as if they were all happening to me right now, if I really focus on a memory. I don't do that often, though, and even if I did I know that it is not really mine.
[It's mostly just disconcerting.]
I could delete them, but I don't know if I want to. At least, not yet.
no subject
But for Turo, all this stuff is... frame of reference, certainly, but it's not really him, is it? ]
What would need to happen for you to desire to do so?
no subject
I think...I need more time as myself, at the very least. More experiences. I'm afraid his memories still comprise a great deal of my...understanding of the world. There would probably be some very strange gaps if I simply threw them all out now.
[His own lifespan is only a fraction of his actual memories. They feel more real, and one day maybe he could abandon that original foundation, but for now...he just needs a little more to work with.]
no subject
[ He could list notable landmarks just fine, but personal experiences that happened at them? No clue. ]
Of course, that is not how learning actually functions. I must have gained all this knowledge over the course of my life.
If you call forth knowledge, does the associated memory of learning come right along with it?
no subject
[But that's still time he doesn't need to take right now. It makes him feel...uneasy, to consider regressing himself in such a manner.]
Amnesia must be a rather different case. That happens sometimes, doesn't it? People losing their personal memories, one way or another, but retaining some general knowledge?