Aftermath

<div id="i4c-draggable-container" style="position: fixed; z-index: 1499; width: 0px; height: 0px;"><div data-reactroot="" class="resolved" style="all: initial;"></div></div>A couple hours later, we were cleaning up Angel Island from the resulting debris of the battle.

"So..." The lemur, Tangle, began to say as she used her tail to help me, Gemerl and Charmy lift one of the halves of the tarantula that fell on a hole made by a railshot. Somehow, her tail could get much longer than it actually was, and stronger to boot. Chalk it up to some ability of hers. "You'll end up creating an interstellar empire without vices or sin, or whatever? Because that sounds pretty weird to me."

"Yeah, me too!" Charmy agreed said.

"It seems so. I mean, holograms can't lie unless tempered, and Silver doesn't strike me as someone that would do that even with reasons. Or being able at all."

"Well, that's nice, but don't let him hear you."

"Girl, even if he heard me he wouldn't do anything aside from admit I'm mostly right."

"'Mostly'?"

"He decided it was a dystopian future the moment he saw an statue of me, and promptly came back to our time instead of getting to know what would happen."

"Oh. Well, when you put it like that..." Tangle muttered.

"What will happen with Metal Sonic?" Gemerl asked.

"What I told the others: we'll leave him alone until he does anything that warrants us doing something, otherwise nothing."

"You sure he'll really do nothing?" Tangle pointed out. "I mean, sure, he didn't attack us before leaving, but he's still, well, Metal Sonic."

"I saw it in his eyes, monkey girl. He wasn't just defeated, what I told him about losing and changing got to him, at least to a point. He's probably asking himself what to do next."

"And what about Starline?"

Ah, Starline, or as I decided to call him Perry the Fucktypus. For him... we did nothing except hijack (or rather, re-hijacked, since they already were there before Metal Sonic appeared) several satellites belonging to the Empire and put notices and bounties of and for him so that not only the Resistance was after him. I mean, what could we really do? The guy could teleport as long as he had that magic stone of his with him. Yes, Sonic could just take it away from him the moment he saw him, but first he would have to see him, and as we already know, he's neither the sharpest tool in the box, nor the guy with the best attention span.

"Wait for him to show his ugly face. If he really is a fan of my former self, then he'll probably do something stupidly stupid."

"'Stupidly stupid'?"

"Something that is stupid, but so much that normal stupid things seem sensible and rational by comparison."

As for the others...

Sonic, Silver and Shadow were cleaning other parts of the island, having recovered the other half of the tarantula.

Knuckles, rather than helping, grumbled and glared at anyone that approached him and his precious. Granted, that was probably because me throwing the Master Emerald at him broke his legs.

Rouge, Tails and Whisper were ramshacking through the base in search of information or, in case of the bat, whatever was shiny and valuable enough, and also a bit freaked out since Knuckles actually snarled at her (yes, you read that right, he snarled) after she got too close to him.

As for the rabbits and the robots...

"Eggman!" I heard Vanilla say from behind. "It's dinner time!"

"We'd be done now!" I said before turning to the others. "Now pull!" Sure, I could have pulled it out entirely by myself, but I didn't want them to feel useless.

"Yeah, but don't rip my tail off!"

"One... two... three!" Then, we pulled the tarantula out of the hole and onto the grassy ground. "All right, that'd be enough for today."

Where was I? Ah, right, the robots.

Finally, Orbot was helping Amy back at the base with the paperwork and the many, many calls they received, while Cubot was with the rabbits and their Chao. You know, I think it's time I told you about those two fellas. As for what were the calls of and for, read further.

Orbot was not that bad of a guy. Sure, he was a natural snarker and his respect for me got lower after he realized I wouldn't throttle him just by pointing out things, but otherwise pleasant to be around as long as you didn't to something stupid that prompted him to talk.

Cubot... Let's put it this way, the guy's a good boy, in the sense that Sid, Pumbaa and (on his best days) Patrick are good boys, only dumber and clumsier, clumsy enough to fall off Angel Island.

At least he was good enough with kids, and somehow turned into a magnet for injury-inducing accidents, which was why I made him look after Cream and Vanilla after Silver got him back up.

For those wondering, no, he didn't fall on the ocean, but on a perfectly placed rocky islet that apparently wasn't there the day before. Yeah, sometimes I get reminded that Mobius also works on slapstick.

"Mr. Eggman, we made some food for you!"

"Yeah, they're pretty good, ate one of them myself!"

"Cubot, you don't have a mouth."

"I tasted it's taste just by looking at them!"

"Okay, I may be an plucky and hyperactive girl, but even I don't believe that you can taste something just by looking at it." Tangle said as she stuffed her mouth. "You CAN imagine the taste, though."

While Cubot and Tangle were going at it, Cream and Charmy played while Gemerl watched from afar, and Vanilla approached me with a smile.

"He's fun to have around, even though he's... clumsy." She said as she offered me a sandvich.

(Yeah, sandvich. The 'TF2 Engineer' gimmick was getting to me, but I'm pretty sure you guys knew that already)

"Yeah, I think I made him precisely to be an idiotic moron that falls the moment he touches something. I mean, he IS a cube, after all."

We both laughed at that.

"You know, Eggman" Said Vanilla. ", many people saw you when Starline did, well, his thing."

"Yeah, I know, the cameras were there for a reason, and he said it himself, all of Mobius would watch my return or something like that."

We stood like that for a few seconds, looking at the dawning sun in the horizon...

And then a fucking robot comes out of nowhere and shoots me point-blank in the chest!

"I WILL KILL EGGMAN AND RECOVER MY GUN!!!"

Yeah, the robot the rifle belonged to? E-123 Omega, A.K.A the guy who just like Shadow wanted to kill me, and unlike him he couldn't be persuaded.

At least not without some 'convincing'.

And by convincing I mean ripping his head off because the fuck shot at me!

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