SALLY EX MACHINA

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Yet another amalgamated Mecha Sally SI by Tangent
Inspired, in part, by The Infamous Man's Rediscovered Frontiers, although several concepts from that fic are not going to be used in Sally Ex Machina.​

[WARNING: POWER LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW!]

Nothing new there, Sally decided, wondering what had woken her up from her sleep mode this time. Not that she really had enough power to spare to actually investigate.

Walkers, she barely had enough dregs left to activate her optical and audial sensors. And, as much as she hated even thinking about her senses in such artificial terms, she didn't even have the energy to be particularly upset about that at the moment.

Whatever.

It wasn't like she was the real Sally Acorn anyway. She was just some sort of resonance echo of the real Sally that had accidentally merged with an outsider when their Zone had undergone yet another reset.

It would have been nice if the physical portion of said resonance echo had been as current as the mental portion. She had been free of being Metal Sally! Sure, there had been a brief time she had been emotionally traumatized by the memories of having been Mecha Sally and the nightmarish horror that Eggman had put her through when he had weaponized her into Metal Sally, but those memories had actually faded after a while!

The real Sally Acorn almost certainly didn't have them anymore. Not in whatever the latest version of the Prime Mobius Zone happened to be now.

Sally knew that the real Sally had continued on into the next version of Mobius while she had fissioned off and had barely existed in the chaotic whatever it was that existed between various Zones. She remembered feeling herself splitting off from the original and just knowing that the real Sally was being included in the new version of Mobius yet again.

To be honest, Sally was happy that the real Sally had got to move on without the trauma that she represented as Metal Sally.

She did feel kinda bad for the outsider she had merged with though, as he got to experience those memories instead.

[WARNING: POWER LEVELS CRITICALLY LOW!]

Oh yeah, that.

Sally contemplated her prolonged demise as she pondered the unfairness of having been dropped into a Zone without power rings.

Or at least none that she had been able to find during the all too brief window during which she actually had enough energy reserves to remain mobile.

Out of desperation, she had followed a badnik recovery signal to an abandoned base of Eggman's (because of course this new Zone somehow had a version of that villain). Unfortunately, whatever these weirdly nostalgic badniks ran on, she hadn't been able to figure it out before she had simply run out of power.

So here she lay, alone, in the middle of an abandoned Eggman base that had apparently been set up as a recovery point for damaged badniks, unable to really do anything but literally wait for the last dregs of her power to be spent, when she would presumably finally shut down for good…

"Oh my gears and starters!" a young female voice exclaimed as Sally felt herself being turned over and examined. "Everything looks good on the outside, but you're barely responsive… You must be really low on energy! I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to have to open you up to see what's compatible…"

No…

Please, no…

Not again…

Eggman never turned the pain sensors off…

Sally felt her chest panels being gently opened by competent hands. Far more gently than Eggman had ever bothered with.

"Hmmm… Nothing immediately useful on this side," the voice said as her front panels were closed and secured again. "Maybe in the back?"

Sally felt herself being carefully turned over as whoever this was proceeded to repeat the entire process with her back panels instead, just as gently as before.

Sally wasn't going to complain about the lack of pain.

Not that she could at the moment, as she barely had enough power to run her sensory systems in the first place, let alone speak.

"Well, that's not terribly enlightening either," the voice huffed as Sally felt her back being closed up again. "I mean, I think I can do something to fix your power issues, but it's going to involve completely replacing whatever that toroid-based one is that you are currently using. The parts that thing uses just don't seem to be available at this location."

Figures, Sally thought drily as she felt herself being turned over again.

This time Sally was able to get a decent look at the girl who was apparently attempting to salvage her.

The girl was apparently a wooden robot of some sort.

Sally felt a strange sense of familiarity. This was someone that the outsider part of her had either known or at least knew off.

"Anyway, I'm Belle the Tinkerer," the wooden robot said with a cheerful smile. "I'm hoping we can be friends once I've got you up and running properly again!"

 

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Yet another amalgamated Mecha Sally SI by Tangent​

"...Anyway, after I left Windmill Village, I decided to try to find this Eggman guy and find out if he really had… Had been Mr. Tinker after all, just like the villagers claimed…" Belle finished up her explanation even as she continued to expertly put together a new power system for me from the parts available in this particular base.

From the sound of it, given the timing implied by Belle's tale, I had arrived in this Zone right as something somehow cleared up some sort of widespread "Metal Virus" that had been turning everything organic into some sort of biotechnological version of themselves. The plants were dangerous enough, if not directly hostile, as the virus spread on contact, but the animals and people?

Belle had said that she had overheard the villagers referring to what they had become as being "Zombots" before The Miracle happened.

Zombots…

Robotization by any other name.

This Zone had recently went through a World Robotization Event and had only just recovered from it.

And Belle was caught in the middle of the aftermath, hoping against all odds that Mr. Tinker…

…her father…

…wasn't the man responsible for the horror that Eggman had inflicted on everyone.

Part of me really hoped she was right, but I was unfortunately familiar enough with Eggman's technology (from horrifically direct experience) to recognize Ivo Robotnik's handiwork when I saw it.

And Belle, for all the evidence that the man had been in a different, more healthy, mental state when he had built her, was riddled with signs of Eggman's handiwork. This didn't guarantee that Mr. Tinker and Eggman were the same man, but the possibility that they were was highly probable.

Sally really hoped that Belle was right and that Mr. Tinker and Dr. Eggman were separate people with a truly unfortunate resemblance to each other, but she could also tell that the wooden robot at least suspected that she was wrong.

Sally wanted to offer words of encouragement, or even a hug, but she wasn't able to as Belle had merely set her up on a nearby bench while she used the worktable to build the new power system she had mentioned.

At least Belle had given her the dignity of sitting up instead of just leaving there flopped in a sprawled position on the floor like a marionette with cut strings. Being able to actually participate in the conversation would have been even better, but Sally would take what she could get, and being able to listen to Belle as she worked was enough for now.

"Okay, I've got your new power system ready, so I just need to rig up a temporary battery to connect you too while I'm swapping your old one out for this one. I mean… Yeah, I know it'd probably be quicker to just shut you off and do the swap cold, but there has to be a reason that you've been maintaining a constant power trickle to your core processor for all this time and I think that you'd like to get a chance to meet me as, well, you and not whoever you might become if your personality core is energy dependent. Mine isn't, but some of the processors I've seen so far in these badniks are, and I thought that it'd be rude to take a peek at yours without asking since you were still technically operational when I found you…"

Okay, that was a lot for Sally to parse, but she got the general idea of what Belle was talking about. And really appreciated the concern, as Sally didn't actually know if she would die if she were completely cut off from any energy source for more than a few moments. She hadn't when her version of Eggman had convinced Monkey Kahn to give up the converted power ring that his crown had been made from in order to replace the ring that had been drained during their fight, but technically she still had trickle levels of power being fed into her from the drained ring and swapping rings was much faster than swapping an entire power system would be.

"So, let's make sure that you're propped up properly, so you don't fall over while I'm doing this…" Belle said as she repositioned Sally so that she was sitting on a bench much closer to the worktable and then leaning forward onto that same table. A much more stable position to perform the system swap.

Sally also noted that this would in no way restrict her movements once she had power, meaning that Belle was either deliberately being very considerate or possibly being very naive. Probably both, really, now that she thought about it.

"Okay, now to… gently… pop your back open again… connect the battery bypass…"

Sally could still feel everything Belle was doing, even on the internals, just as she had when Dr. Eggman had stripped her down as Mecha Sally and built her back up as Metal Sally. The only difference being that Belle was… somehow… doing the same thing without inflicting excruciating agony with every part stripped away or replaced. Nor any pain at all, really.

Which, given that Sally was sure that Belle had no idea how extensive Sally's haptic sensory system really was, meant that Eggman had to have been knowingly torturing her at the time.

Which…

Well, that actually tracked with Eggman's modus operandi, really. At least the one that Sally was more familiar with, as she could not imagine a scenario in which her version of the madman could have created someone like Belle.

"And there we go, got the battery bypass setup! How does that feel?"

"Awkward, mostly, as it isn't anchored in place and my back plate is still off."

"Oh good! You are still there! I've been talking more or less constantly since I found you. How much of what I've been saying have you been hearing?"

"Everything that you've said while in my presence and speaking at normal volumes," Sally reported. "Thank you, Belle."

"You're welcome!" the wooden badnik replied cheerfully as she proceeded to disconnect Sally's ring-based power system from its mounting points. "Do you have a name?"

This was it.

Decision time.

All told, it wasn't really all that hard of one. The real Sally Acorn still existed somewhere back in the Prime Mobius Zone, and the merger with the outside allowed her to dissociate with her former identity enough that letting it go wouldn't hurt nearly as much.

This was her body now, so she may as well own it.

She wasn't about to use either of Eggman's names for her though, so how about…

"I am Sally Ex Machina."

 

[Navrin]

Which form of defiance is Sally ex Machina more inclined toward: Using the weapon Eggman made her body into against him to thwart his plans, or spiting him by using her capabilities (or modifying her capabilities) for civilian purposes?

 

[Tangent]

Which form of defiance is Sally ex Machina more inclined toward: Using the weapon Eggman made her body into against him to thwart his plans, or spiting him by using her capabilities (or modifying her capabilities) for civilian purposes?

Click to shrink...

Well, let's see...

In a few chapters from now, Sally does use one of her projected forearm blades, once, against one target (a Snowy), so it's not that she won't use her weaponized options but more that she'll use them if the situation actually calls for it. She's not likely to use them to butter toast (besides being way too large and awkwardly positioned for that purpose, the butter would basically evaporate on the projected blade before she got to spread it), but she might use them for general crafting purposes if there is something large that needs to be cut, whether it be made of wood, plastic, stone, metal, or whatever. While they aren't quite lightsabers, they get the job done.

Now the hold-out laser hidden under the forelock of her metal coif? Sally's not likely to use that at all if she doesn't have to. But I suppose that it could be used for welding...

 

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Yet another amalgamated Mecha Sally SI by Tangent
(This chapter draws some dialogue directly from IDW Sonic issues 33 & 34)​

"So, how is everything holding up?" Belle asked as Sally finished running herself through a series of range of motion tests.

"No spurs or grit hampering movement, and the new power system seems to be integrating well," Sally reported. "We should probably get back to looking for clues to wherever Eggman might have gone. The sooner we find him, the more likely we'll find your father."

"Really? You'll help me look for Mr. Tinker?" the wooden badnik exclaimed excitedly.

"Of course," Sally nodded firmly. "But there's something you should know…"

"Yeah, I saw it too," Belle sighed as she slumped a little. "Your joint design… and a lot of your internals… look like mine… and like a lot of the broken badniks here."

"Yeah…" Sally nodded. "There's a strong possibility that Mr. Tinker and Dr. Eggman may be the same person. At least physically."

"What are the other possibilities?" Belle asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"Alternate Eggman from another Zone; robot body double; clone; evil twin…" Sally replied, tallying with her fingers. "There's more, but the other possibilities are much less likely to produce the similarities we noted."

"All of those sound like science fiction," Belle pointed out doubtfully.

"Says the wooden robot talking to the transdimensional echo copy of a metal robot who used to be a chipmunk from another Zone."

"Wait, what?"

So Sally Ex Machina explained her origins to Belle the Tinkerer as best as she was able.

O o O o O​

"I don't know what to think about all of that," Belle admitted after Sally finished her explanation.

"Crazy? Insane? Unhinged?" Sally prompted. "To be fair, we are both aberrations from the norm when compared to other badniks."

"Oh, that is so comforting," Belle lied blatantly, her voice dripping with bitter sarcasm.

"It's a lot to take in, I know," Sally conceded. "Anyway, we should probably find a computer terminal and see if we can access the Eggnet."

"Eggnet?"

"Well, it's what my version of the asshole called it, and if his local analogue is using the Eggman name and a lot of the same designs here…"

"Then he probably called the intranet he uses the same thing," Belle sighed in defeat. "Dad had just taken down the Eggman Land sign he had made right before he was kidnapped by those skunks."

"Yeah, signs are not looking good for Mr. Tinker and Dr. Eggman to actually be separate people unless one of them is from another Zone or happens to be either a clone or twin."

"I'm honestly not sure which of those would be-"

SLAM!

The noise had been loud but distant, and was very reminiscent of the sound of a heavy fire or security door slamming shut. Sally moved to position herself between the source of the noise and Belle.

"We should probably investigate that," Sally stated.

"Um… Maybe?"

"It's better to know who's in here with us than to be caught by surprise if they turn out to be hostile."

"Alright, but if we get dismantled I'm blaming you."

"Fair enough."

O o O o O​

"AHA! There's one!" Tails exclaimed as he crawled underneath the leg Sonic was using to brace against the other half of the sliding security door that the blue hedgehog was holding open for the two-tailed fox.

"Umph… One what?" Sonic asked as he struggled to keep the door open until his friend had made it all the way through. It had been a bitch to get open in the first place, with the closing force being giant springs based on how the resistance to opening it felt. A fire door then, designed to close without power. Not impossible to open in its unpowered state, but it took some effort and a bit of leverage.

"A computer terminal!" Tails explained as he got up and jogged over to said device even as Sonic jumped into the room himself, letting the fire door slam behind him loudly.

Not that Sonic was worried about alerting any remaining security badniks that might be in this base, as he had yet to see any intact robots anywhere so far. Nor even any damaged but functional robots either. Just broken badniks and empty hallways.

Boring.

"Once we get some backup power going, I should be able to access the Eggnet from here," Tails continued his explanation, clearly more excited than Sonic was feeling as the blue hedgehog took a moment to look around the room they were in.

"Yeesh," Sonic uttered as he looked over the piles of badnik parts and rows of dummy models of Tails, Knuckles, and him that were obviously meant to serve as practice targets. All of them smaller and younger than their real life counterparts currently were, indicating that this base probably hadn't been updated in years. "I take it back about the ghost badniks, this place is plenty creepy as-is."

"At least we'll have company," Tails joked as he started setting up.

O o O o O​

"This is the most likely door," Sally noted as she and Belle cautiously approached through the hallway. "It's both the right type and within the approximate distance for the acoustic signature we heard."

"Sawdust, that's going to be a bear to open," Belle stated flatly. She could probably do it. She was a maintenance bot after all and had handled heavy and awkward loads for several of Mr. Tinker's various projects back at Windmill Village (most notably the various ride structures for the yet to be properly renamed Eggman Land), but those weights hadn't really been fighting back like a heavy combination secure fire safety door would.

"I'll get it," Sally offered, placing her clawed metal hands on the emergency grips and prying the door open with an ease that Belle was mildly jealous of but over all quite grateful for, given that she felt much safer with her fellow robot along for company.

O o O o O​

"So it all comes down to this," Sonic said with a smirk. "You and me, mano-a-mano, no mercy. Two will enter, one will leave. Prepare to meet your maker, Oven Mitts!"

The Knuckles dummy said nothing as Sonic punched it in the jaw, then shook his hand in disgust as it came away with spiderwebs and dust.

"Eugh. Sooo… Tails! Nearly got that whole super hacker thing wrapped up, yeah?"

"Sorry, the system's adaptive firewall is really tricky," Tails replied as he continued to work at the computer terminal with frantic care. "It's taking most of my effort just to stay undetected."

"So you'd say… the Eggnet is hard to crack?" Sonic quipped, only to be met with silence from his friend who just kept working. "I said, the Eggnet is hard to crack? Y'know, 'cause eggs and cracking… Nevermind."

Bored, and somewhat frustrated, the blue hedgehog kicked a screw, which rebounded off of several loose badnik parts and a wall before landing in a pile of junk.

At about the same time the fire door next to the terminal that Tails was working on suddenly opened wide!

"BADNIK!" Sonic exclaimed as he turned to face the intruders, excited for action!

Tails had barely a moment to look over at the two bots that were basically already right next to him before Sonic spin-dashed the one with the more aggressive design back through the door, which slammed shut again.

Separating him from Sonic.

"Well, this is less than ideal…"

Shrugging and choosing to trust Sonic's ability to face down just two badniks, Tails continues to focus on defeating the old but surprisingly capable firewall that Eggman had left in this base's computer systems.

O o O o O​

Sally allowed herself to be pushed back by what was obviously Sonic's spin-dash technique, knowing that this would make it much easier for her to focus on not taking any damage from the attack. While this did end up forcing her out of the doorframe and causing the fire door to slam shut again, she had seen that it was only Tails on the other side, busy trying to hack his way into the base's computer system from the terminal that was right there.

Basically a non-issue, and potentially beneficial for Belle's own search criteria.

The bigger issue at the moment was…

"Trying to sneak attack us, eh?" the blue goofball quipped as he quickly looked over Sally and Belle. "Nice try! You're both new badnik types," Sonic noted as he tried to attack the one that looked like an armored chipmunk again. "What sort of goofy names did Eggman give you? Chopmunk and Puppetron? Chipknight and Waryonette? No, I got it! Venkilloquist and… I got nothin'..."

"Sally and Belle, if you must know," Sally stated as she continued to focus on dodging and parrying frantically. She knew how devastating Sonic's attacks could be when he got serious, and this local version of him would have no reason to even try holding back if he decided that she and Belle were actually dangerous.

Which is why it was a good thing that the fire door had been designed to safe closed, separating Tails from the immediate perceived threat. A Sonic that was relaxed and trying to have fun was actually much safer to deal with than if he thought one of his friends were in danger.

"You're… You're Sonic the Hedgehog!" Belle exclaimed, drawing the blue blur's attention.

"Got it in one!" Sonic stated cheerfully as he switched targets and took a swing at the badnik that appeared to be made of wood. Which dodged by ducking backward almost to the floor, before springing back upright after his fist had passed over where she had been. "Geesh, Eggy didn't skimp on the axle grease for you, huh?"

"Belle is a noncombat maintenance unit," Sally explained, hoping that this Sonic was enough like hers to take this as a reason to leave her new friend alone.

"Fine," Sonic said as he backed off from attacking Belle and sized Sally up. "What about you? You're not going to try to say that you're a noncombatant too, are you?"

"No. I was, unfortunately, fully weaponized shortly after being roboticized. I just do not wish to fight you."

"Huh…" Sonic relaxed a bit and took a nonaggressive stance. "This isn't how these things usually go. Is Eggy trying to be diplomatic for a change, or is he up to something else?"

"Belle was made by Mr. Tinker, who may or may not be the Eggman you are familiar with, albeit in a healthier state of mind. I was born in another Zone and roboticized then weaponized by a more evil version of Eggman there."

"Wait, what?"

 

[NitroNorm5688]

Be it ever so humble, there is no diplomacy like good dialog.

And it didn't take you very long to blue-screen the hedgehog, either.

Although, I do hope that this Hedgehog is a bit smarter and better at interactions than some. One of the things I liked about the old Saturday Morning Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon was that he was one of the smartest characters on the show, not just fast. It's what allowed him to trick Dr. Robotnik, Scratch, Grounder, and all the other villains so much. Not just punching people and things.

 

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Yet another amalgamated Mecha Sally SI by Tangent
(This chapter draws some dialogue directly from IDW Sonic issues 35)​

"...and that's my bizarre, convoluted, and possibly insane origin as a weaponized robian again," Sally concluded with a frustrated huff. "And I'm really glad that you two came here alone because explaining the same thing three times in a row has gotten old fast."

"Yeah, I can see that," Sonic admitted. "It's a good story, but listening to it twice basically back to back made the second telling a bit dull."

"My cold, hard, roboticized heart bleeds for you," Sally snarked with as much dry sarcasm as she could put in her voice as she glared at Sonic. Her feelings for her, or rather the original Sally Acorn's, original Sonic were still there, but they had not automatically transferred over to this version of the blue hedgehog. The original Sally had met too many of Sonic's alternate Zone analogues for Sally Ex Machina's feelings for that Sonic to apply to this one just because he was the one that was here.

Besides, for all she knew, this Sonic already had a girlfriend or wife.

"Fascinating," Tails commented as he finally completed disabling the adaptive firewall for this base's computer system and allowed himself to relax a bit before looking for Eggman's code cypher so that he could decipher 123 Omega's schematics and rebuild him properly. Honestly, he would have rathered Sonic had held off on convincing Sally Ex Machina from retelling her origin again until after he had broken the firewall instead of during it, because it had been distracting. "We've known about other dimensions for a while now, but other than those storybook pocket dimensions that Sonic told me about, I haven't heard of any that actually had close analogues of specific individuals such as Sonic or me."

"That can't be right," Sally noted, bringing a hand to her chin in thought. "Unless your Zone is right on the very edge of the multiversal cluster of Zones that have versions of you, Sonic, 123 Omega, and Eggman…"

"I'm still trying to parse the idea that resonant events between dimensions being an actual thing," Tails commented skeptically as he confirmed that he had found the code cypher he was looking for and copied it into his Miles Electric. "Okay, I got what Sonic and I were after. You said that the two of you were looking for any information on the location of either Mr. Tinker or, failing that, Eggman who may have temporarily been Mr. Tinker or who may know where he is?"

"The evidence we have so far is leaning heavily towards the two being the same man after all," Sally said gently, putting a comforting hand on Belle as the wooden badnik slumped in on herself a bit. "But if there's any chance that they are two separate people, or if Mr. Tinker is still somehow a part of this Eggman, we have to know."

"They are definitely the same person," Sonic stated with a grim expression. "Mr. Tinker came about when Eggman forgot who he was after being defeated at the end of the Phantom Ruby War. We were fine leaving him in Windmill Village to build his new life there, and he seemed happy to be there, but Dr. Starline had to have his evil icon back…"

"Dr. who?" Sally asked, tilting her head.

"Dr. Starline," Sonic repeated. "He's apparently a big Eggman fanboy who couldn't stand letting his idol be a good man like Mr. Tinker was…"

Sonic proceeded to explain the pertinent events as best as he could, with occasional input from Tails as the two-tailed fox attempted to look up Eggman's current location…

O o O o O​

"...and that's pretty much everything that happened since Mr. Tinker was kidnapped from Windmill Village," Sonic concluded.

"Ugh…" Sally pinched the bridge of her metallic muzzle. "Now I'm not sure which process is worse. Zombot conversion is apparently painless, but at least robians can still think. Although being trapped in your own mind as your body does whatever Eggman orders you to do is horrific."

"And you're sure that our Eggman can't control you the same way?" Tails asked.

"That's a valid concern, and also the only reason I'm willing to even consider letting anyone check to confirm that the Control Overlay Program was trashed when the outsider merged with me," Sally stated bluntly. "It'd have to be someone with the right skills that I also trust though, which right now is just… Well, you, really."

"Thank you?" Tails respond in an uncertain tone.

"I'm not sure that I want anyone poking around in my head, but I don't like the idea of this Eggman guy being able to control me even if he did turn out to be my father after all," Belle complained.

"I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have a Control Overlay Program anyway," Sally assured Belle. "Mr. Tinker was literally a whole different state of mind than Dr. Eggman. A healthier and more sociable one from the sound of it."

"Pretty sure isn't the same thing as certain though," Belle pointed out. "As the last remaining bit of my father's legacy as a good man, I'd rather not let this Dr. Eggman version of him ruin that by turning me evil or something."

"Yeah, I can get behind that," Sonic said with a nod.

"I've more or less lived that when my version of Eggman had control over me," Sally added flatly. "He sent me after my friends, family, and loved ones. And I was literally a prisoner in my own body, forced to watch as I was set against everything I had stood for. Forced to listen to my own voice mocking my friends for trying to save me from what I was being forced to do. Believe me, I understand where you are coming from there."

"Okay, according to the Eggnet, Eggman is currently set up in a new base he's calling Eggperial City," Tails announced. "There's not a lot of location data about it other than it being located here on Westside Island though, so it must be a relatively new base."

"At least that narrows down the search area a bit," Sonic said with a shrug as Tails carefully closed out his search program, wiped the metadata as best as he could to cover his tracks, and shut the computer terminal down. "Now we know that he hasn't left the island yet, so that should make him easier to find again."

"Relatively speaking, of course," Tails pointed out.

"So what do you want to do now?" Sally asked Belle as she pried open the fire door again so that everyone could leave the room.

"I don't know," Belle replied uncertainly. "I mostly hid here just because it was the first place I found after leaving Windmill Village, and then I saw all those robot parts that I shared design elements with and decided to see if I could find clues about what happened to my father. And then I found you, which was great, and then we came across the two of you, which was scary at first but also turned out all right… But I don't think that I want to stay here. Not if there's a chance that Eggman might come back. Or if this Dr. Starline guy might show up…"

"You can come with us!" Tails offered, earning a raised brow from Sonic. "I mean, if Sally wants me to check her to make sure that Control Overlay Program is truly disabled, she has to come with us anyway, and you're her friend, so why not?"

"I certainly don't mind," Sally said with a nod and a smile.

"Eh, I guess I'm fine with it," Sonic said with a shrug before giving a small smile of his own. "We can at least get the two of you to one of Tails' workshops so he can check you out. Where you go after that is up to you."

And, with that cleared up, the four headed out of the base…

O o O o O​

"Well, there's our ride," Sonic said proudly as the group left the underground bunker that served as one of Eggman's abandoned Eggbases. "The Tornado. We'll all be back in Central City in no time!"

Sally noted that the Tornado was apparently a biplane, and was parked no more than thirty feet from the hatch they just exited. The plane was very reminiscent of a similar biplane that the version of Tails from the post Super Genesis Wave iteration of the Prime Mobius Zone had owned. The Mobius where the father of the original Sally had been King Nigel instead of King Max. A Mobius in which her life had been much happier over all, even with Eggman conquering large swaths of the world. A Mobius in which she had never been Roboticized…

Sally wondered how her original self was holding up back…

Well, it wasn't exactly her home anymore, was it?

Sally Ex Machina knew she wasn't the original Sally. She had felt the split happen during the latest fiasco involving Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily teaming up again.

The original Sally Acorn got to move on to whatever the new version of the Prime Mobius Zone turned out to be. All Sally Ex Machina was was an amalgamation of resonance echos of that Sally's prior states merged with an outsider. An outsider who apparently had vague memories of this Zone if the DeJa'Vu she kept experiencing meant anything.

Maybe he had been from this Zone?

Nah… That didn't feel right. If he had been from here, why would his memories be so vague?

Ugh…

Spending all that time in sleep mode due power issues just after the merger and arrival in this Zone had not done Sally's mental integration any favors. Three lives worth of memories, two of which her own and the other almost half again as old as the combined age of the other two, but difficult to parse, as if it had been severely jumbled by whatever caused the merger in the first place, and she jacked the proper context that would allow everything to just fall into place properly.

While Sally Ex Machina was experiencing iteration 547 of existential crisis 2 variation B (unresolved, repeating), Tails pulled out his Miles Electric. "We should let the others know we're done and that we're heading back… Oh! There's a message from Rogue!"

Tails hit play on the message.

"Tails! We've got >KSSH< trouble on our end. I need you to meet me in White Park. I'll fill you in when you arrive… >KSSH< Sending the coordinates now. Drop Sonic off at the chateau to help Amy and the others. Rouge out."

"What was that all about?" Sonic asked.

"I dunno, but it sounds serious," Tails replied. 'We should probably get going."

"Okay, you two," Sonic addressed Sally and Belle, "Pick a wing and hold on tight."

"Okay…"Belle started, then stopped and looked at Sonic in alarm. "Wait, a wing!?"

"Take one of the lower ones, and hold onto a support strut for the upper wing," Sally advised. "Ride on the side towards the fuselage. I'll be on the wing above you, and Sonic will be on the other side."

"Do you have any idea how insane that sounds!?" Belle complained, although she did follow the directions nevertheless.

"Relax," Sally said placatingly. "I used to do this all the time with my version of Sonic and Tails."

"That's not actually as reassuring as you seem to think it is," Belle pointed out as she climbed onto the lower starboard wing on the inward facing side of the support struts, which she grabbed tightly even as Sally jumped onto the wing above her and Sonic took his place on the other side.

Tails, of course, got into the cockpit and went through his preflight checks.

In short order, the Tornado was in the air and heading towards White Park.