Not All Discoveries Are Fun Ones [Open]

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

Sonic had been running almost since the run with Shadow. He wanted to see everything the ship had, and he wanted to see if there were any other Mobians aboard. Shadow was cool, but he wasn'y anyone from Sonic's home, and that still left the hedgehog feeling extremely lonely. That feeling also left him feeling extremely guilty, because what kind of selfish 'hog did he have to be to be capable of wishing such a fate upon his family and loved ones?

So he started running through the hangar, dashing over, under and through the ships, vehicles and robots there. It was easy to do, really. He wasn't really interested in pushing himself. As he was running, however, he saw something familiar out of the corner of his eyes. He had to circle back around to it because of his speed. The familiarity of it took a moment to dawn upon him, mostly because he hadn't seen it used in quite some time.

"No," Sonic said, "no freaking way." The device appeared to be several consoles hooked up to and surrounding a very large central pad. A plastic-like tube hung over the platform, ready to come down and surround it.

With haste, he grabbed his omnicom and the communication ring he'd been given, practically yelling into the latter device.

<< Hey! If there's some kind of machine geeks on this ships, get your butts down to the hangar yesterday! >>

Comments

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

She was a machine geek, far from it, but she was still exploring, and so Alessa stumbled onto the hangar once she heard the alert from that device she was given almost a month ago. She was currently watching from a dark place, curious to see what kind of person had summoned the people who knew ways to operate technology that might be superior to the limited knowledge she had.

Of course, the last thing she expected was another hedgehog. She had already met Shadow, the hedgehog that seemed to have a mission of his own. This wasn't a bad thing in her opinion: goals were always interesting, and certainly most people were bound to underestimate him because he was an animal. That was the nature of humans sometimes: to disbelieve both in their eyes and what their minds might be capable of.

And Alessa took a moment to be directly in front of Sonic, although considering his speed, that was no easy feat.

"Hello."

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"Hey." Sonic wasn't quite focused on Alessa at the moment; he was far too busy circling around her and walking up to the device he'd found. Despite his decided lack of most mechanical knowledge, he did have experiencing maintaining and repairing his old bi-plane with Tails, and he had learned all he could about the roboticizer ever since he'd learned how Uncle Chuck had actually invented it.

Activating the console (which in itself disturbed the hedgehog), he began going through the readouts, trying to see if the machine was operational. It was. Sonic found himself so shocked by this development that he did something he almost never would do.

"****."

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Alessa was fine with not being the focus of attenton, but she was curious about the machine that the hedgehog was fiddling with.

"Speechless? This must be quite a shock for you then. What is this console's purpose?"

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"It's-- it's a roboticizer," Sonic said, backing away from the machine. He immediately regretted swearing in front of the girl, and he forced himself to calm down, glancing back her way.

"Hi. I'm, uh, I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog." He held out his hand, now grinning slightly at Alessa.

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

"A roboticizer," Alessa repeated. "Then I'm correct in assuming that its function is to make people into robots. How...exactly is that done?"

Not that she needed to do that for anny reason, or had any real desire. She was interested. As for the swear word, well, Alessa had heard far worse than that. Words like that meant little to her.

"I am Alessa," she said, and gave the hedgehod a thin lipped smile. She knew by now how scary it was when she actually gave her full blown smile, and she really only saved that for scaring or to let someone know she didn;t like them.

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"I dunno exactly how it works. My uncle invented it, not me." When she wouldn't shake his hand, he paused, stared at his own hand a moment, then let it drop.

"Riiight. Cool name. Just got here too, huh? I think I remember you from the caverns."

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

An odd contraption, but she supposed some people needed minions when they had none. Not that she necessarily wanted to have people made into robots. The process seemed so cruel and unnecessary when she had her own demon monsters.

Alessa was not one for human colloquialisms though. hand shaking was lost on her.

"Thank you, Sonic. Your name is...rather fascinating too. I was at the caverns. You were attacked by the demons too, were you not?"

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"The zombies? Sure, but they weren't much of a problem for me!"

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Did she actually call them DEMONS?! That was unforgiveable. She'd have to remember to stay in seclusion. It just wouldn't do to make a mistake like that again. Filth was filth, nothng more.

"How did you dispatch them?

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"I... I didn't, really," Sonic admitted. "I disabled them, let others take care of them before moving on, but I don't kill. At all. I thought I could once, against the biggest evil my world had ever seen, but even then I felt like it would tear me up inside to do it." He shrugged, still looking rather shamefaced.

"I get called impulsive, stubborn, sometimes even reckless and stuff. I may move fast, but letting my temper get the better of me has just gotten me in trouble in the past, and I can't imagine what it would feel like to actually want to kill something or someone."

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Alessa stared the hedgehog for a long time. There were no words, and it border lined on an uncomfortable silence before the girl finally spoke back, in a voice that made her position clear.

"If you knew what it took to make you able to kill, you would appreciate your resistance. There are those like you, who try and dabble in the act but cannot commit to it. To some, that might make you a coward. But I can tell you easily: the line between fighter and killer is very thin, and once that kill happens, you see it as a logical reason to take down those in your path. Before you know it, you are far gone."

There is no ounce of pain in her voice, no regret. It was simple recognition.

"Staying a hero is harder. Most likely something you would treasure."

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"Thanks, I think. I guess I just move too fast to worry about stuff like grudges or hatred that could hold me back." Sonic shrugged and sidestepped clumsily into another topic.

"How about you? How did you handle 'em?"

[demon-alessa.livejournal.com]

Running. Alessa knew that this sort of thing was the hedgehog's forte. t reminded her of how different this one was from the black one. He was fast, but he would not run. She knew that much.

"Me?" Alessa gave him an unpleasant smile. "Are you sure you want to know?"

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

Ask and ye shall receive! Allen comes thundering into the hangar.

"I came as soon as I heard 'machines.'" He may or may not be joking.

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"Thanks." Sonic nodded his head over toward the roboticizer. "Think you can get that thing torn into enough pieces that no one will ever be able to reassemble it or build a new one?"

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

"Yes."

Now that the easy questions are done with -

"But first, what's it do?"

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"It's a roboticizer. It turns living things into robots." Sonic uncrossed his arms and glanced nervously back at the machine before continuing.

"My Uncle Chuck invented it as a medical tool about twelve years or more ago. Doctor Robotnik sabotaged it, though, and instead of leaving the roboticized Mobians (Robians for short) in command of their own mind, it turned them into mindless shells, repressing their natural mind under a bunch of default settings and command codes so they'd obey him.

"Around a year ago, all the Robians on the planet except my dad were deroboticized by an alien race. My dad can't be deroboticized due to his injuries. If they did it, he'd die. Still, I know Uncle Chuck thought about using it to replace lost limbs and stuff, deroboticizing the prosthetic limb after it was made in order ot give a full living limb back to a wounded person.

"The bottom line is it's dangerous, way past dangerous. Robotnik used this device to enslave thousands, maybe millions on my planet before his defeat."

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

"Oh, well, yeah, fuck this piece of junk." Allen crosses his arms as he inspects it. "I'll get a team together on dismantling it. We can at least get some use out of the spare parts."

He smiles, thinking of his department. "If it wasn't for that, we're all pretty good at blowin' shit up."

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

Sonic nodded, finally thinking as Allen spoke more. After a moment, though, he brought up a hand.

"Wait."

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

"'Sup?"

. . . hey by the way, that's a blue hedgehog. Huh. Well.

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"My uncle built this machine with his own two hands. He made it to save lives and help people. It was twisted and perverted by someone he thought he could trust. Someone who ended up betraying the entire Kingdom of Acorn and conquering the planet. I don't want his legacy to end at that. He's a good man and deserves a lot better.

"Ever since that day, Uncle Chuck's blamed himself for what happened, and at times it almost seemed as if his guilt would eat him alive. I want to see his dream fulfilled. I want the roboticizer to help people, like he envisioned. Can you remove the Brain Burn-Thru on the roboticizer, and make sure its deroboticizer systems work?"

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

Allen considers the machine, looks at Sonic, strokes his sparse patch of goatee thoughtfully, looks at Sonic again.

"If it's that important to you," and he can tell by the hedgehog's body language and extrapolations he can make of his own projected feelings if somebody ever turned any of his creations to less than savory uses, it is. And even though all this tech-talk sounds like a whole lot of silliness - hey, this is why you don't voice every thought you have - he nods. "I'm going to have to put it on the list behind Paco's cyber-arm and this whole business with the Seer, but as soon as those matters are resolved this will take priority."

He thinks for a moment more before adding, "Sorry about your old man." Well, "man" being a loose term here.

"If you can get me the original schematics and reports on its intended use, that will make my team's work go along that much smoother."

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

Making the speeches? Usually Sally's place, but not too hard, the hedgehog found. Doing actual tech work? "I saw all sorts of tech stuff in the Media Library. I don't know enough about blueprints and schematics to recognize it all that well. Robotnik did make a user's manual, though, and it should be really easy to find, since it had his ugly mug on the cover."



As quickly as he'd reconsidered and gone all wordy, he was back to normal, and holding out one gloved hand to the tech geek. "Anyway, thanks for listenin', man. I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. What's your name, pal?"

[twelvevoltman.livejournal.com]

"Well, help me come up with a list of search terms and I can probably find it. If it's on board." Hopefully it is. He shrugs. "Man, other than blowin' shit up, what am I here for? Allen Gentry, the cyborg. I co-head Engineering."

[lightspeed-attk.livejournal.com]

"Cool, man. One of my best friends is a cyborg." Sonic paused a moment, then decided to ask anyway.

"What do you know about video games?"