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.

 

[Tangent]

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

"I-I don't think I like flying," Belle said as she, Sally, and Sonic entered the reception lobby of the White Park Chateau.

"You didn't fall off, I'd call that a win!" Sonic said in an attempt that Sally was sure that he thought was more encouraging than it came across as. "Couple more flights and you'll get the hang of it."

"SONIC!" Amy Rose called out from the stairs on the other side of the lobby. Which she crossed with a speed that somewhat surprised the weaponized robian from another Zone, in order to give Sonic a hug (which didn't surprise Sally at all). "I knew you'd come!"

"Unf - You did?" Sonic asked as he gently tried to disengage himself from the pink hedgehog's embrace.

"No, but I'm not complaining," Amy replied, then let Sonic go. "I came down here to see if I could find Rouge; She called Tails, right? We could really use his help figuring out which parts to take." Amy looked around briefly for the two-tailed fox. "Hey, where is Tails?"

"Rouge asked Tails to drop us off here to help you while he continued on to meet her at the other set of coordinates she sent," Sally explained. "I wouldn't worry too much though, as the other location is nearby and easily within quick running distance. Well, for three of us anyway. I'm not sure about Belle."

"I'll be fine here if you need to run off in a hurry," Belle assured her friend.

"Oh! Uh… Hello?" Amy greeted the two robots now that she had fully registered their presence. "I'm Amy Rose. Who are you?"

"Sally Ex Machina."

"Belle the Tinkerer."

"Larry the Lounge Lizard" a gekko interjected himself into the conversation. "And what brings a lovely group… of… ladies…" Larry's voice trailed off as Sally levelled a look at him. "I think I'll just head over to the bar and order myself a hot coco now."

"You do that, yes," Sally said with a flat tone and a nod as the lizard hurried off.

"What was that about?" Belle asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"I'll tell you when you're older."

"We're robots! I'm technically as old as I'm ever going to get!" Belle complained.

"Then it'll be a while, won't it?" Sally quipped, still refusing to elaborate.

Sonic chuckled and then decided to alleviate some of Amy's confusion. "Tails and I found Sally and Belle at that base I told you guys about."

"Meaning we found you," Sally corrected.

"Who's telling this story?" Sonic snarked.

"Nobody," Sally stated. "I've already explained my annoyingly convoluted origin four times today and we're here to help Amy, Rouge, and Cream. It's in everyone's interest if we at least get that over with first."

"Fair enough," Sonic conceded.

"Alright," Amy nodded, simply accepting the fact that Sonic apparently now had a couple of robot friends. If they were friends of Sonic's then they had to be okay in her eyes. She then turned and waved for them to follow. "We could use the extra hands. C'mon!"

O o O o O​

"Almost there," Amy said as the group followed her through the underground service tunnels into the basement of the outer east wing of the White Park Chateau. Which was full of shelves, boxes covered in tarps, and various parts from obviously battle-damaged badniks.

"This isn't an Eggman base," Sally noted. "The walls and doors of this level aren't up to even the minimal specs he uses for his hidden outposts. This is somebody else's operation."

"Rouge said that the guy here was a dealer of contraband badnik parts," Amy replied. "Which I'm still having problems wrapping my head around because nobody ever gave Tails any problems over all the badnik parts he openly collects and uses in his projects!"

"Tails is both a genius and a known high profile member of the Resistance and now the Restoration," Sonic pointed out. "Everyone probably just figures that he has a proper license for it."

"Does he?" Sally asked with a curious tone.

"Heck if I know," Sonic admitted. "It never occurred to me to ask."

It wasn't too long before Amy had led them into a large storage room that, by the look of the support beams, Sally figured that there was about a 90% probability that this was the actual basement of the outer east wing and not some secret underground room between or beyond the wings.

"Awesome, more spooky old robot junk. Nothing could go wrong with that," Sonic noted sarcastically as he looked about at the piles of robot parts, some of which had obviously been cleaned and set on some towels before a massively oversized plush chair with a grey fur coat hanging off the back. Gemerl was watching over an unconscious opossum who was laying ass-end high up in an unfortunate pose on the floor, while Cream was peeking through some curtains behind the chair. Cream's chao, Cheese, was poking at some of the assorted parts on the towels.

Cream, upon hearing Sonic, turned away from the curtain that she had been peeking through and ran right up to the blue hedgehog even as Gemerl briefly looked over Sally and Belle from where he stood guard over the unconscious opossum.

"Mr. Sonic, it's terrible!" Cream exclaimed as she reached Sonic. "We can't break the cage without hurting the poor chao, and there's so many locks…"

"Locks?" Belle asked, interested in what the young rabbit had just said. "I can do locks!"

"You can?" Sonic asked as he and Sally looked at the wooden badnik curiously.

"If there's something that could use a little tinkering, I'm your girl!" Belle stated with pride as she waved her left hand, showing off the tools that came out when the ends of her digits folded open.

"HOORAY! Thank you!" a star-struck Cream exclaimed as she looked at Belle in awe.

"Whoa… Well, okay then," Sonic added, trying to hide the fact that he was a little put off by the way the tips of Belle's fingers folded back to let out the tools.

Honestly, Sally could sympathize with his reaction a bit, given that she remembered how having fully organic hands felt, and fingertips were not supposed to bend back and flip open like that. On the other hand, she had undergone an overwhelming amount of personal body horror over the past few months since her robotization and weaponization, trapped in her own head even as she watched her own body attack her friends, family, and everything she had stood for…

Yeah, let's dial that back down and pack it away to be processed later, at a more healthy rate and a safer location.

Go go super outsider repressive reaction, Sally cheered internally with very dry sarcasm and a hint of frustration. Repression wasn't healthy either, but it was better than freaking out about what was likely to be her permanent condition as a weaponized robian. And a vast improvement over the Control Overlay Program, as at least the outside bit was fully aware that she still had to cope with her issues eventually.

Eventually wasn't right this instant though, so her anxiety was shunted off to the back of her mind to be dealt with later.

"I'm Cream!" the young rabbit introduced herself as she took the wooden robot's hand and started leading her to the cage with the chao. "What's your name?"

"Belle! Nice to meet you," the wooden badnik returned the greeting even as Cream started leading her by the hand to the appropriate cage. Walking right by the unconscious opossum. "Hey, is that guy…?"

"A big meanie?" Cream filled in with a flat, annoyed tone that caught Sally's attention. "Yep."

"O-oh, okay," Belle replied, a bit taken aback by the previously cheerful little girl's irritation.

Sally approached Gemerl and the opossum, being careful not to appear too aggressive. "May I ask why you are standing guard over this opossum?"

"This is Clutch the Opossum," Gemerl stated. "A criminal collector and redistributor of salvaged badnik parts that Rouge the Bat had been aware of. He was knocked out by Shadow the Hedgehog for chao abuse prior to Rouge leaving to call for Tails' assistance."

"That was a while ago," Sally noted as she looked down at Clutch with suspicion. Something seemed off, and a vague, indistinct memory stirred in the back of her mind. "If he is still unconscious, he may need medical attention."

However, instead of checking Clutch, the robian walked over to pick up a cane that had been laying on the floor about halfway between Clutch and the oversized chair, just outside of easy reach of the supposedly unconscious opossum. "Or a double-tap," Sally continued as she examined the cane, noting that it concealed a rifle barrel inside the length, with a trigger and safety near the handle.

"That would upset Cream," Gemerl pointed out, noting the weaponized walking aid now that the other robot had pointed it out, then returning his attention to standing guard over Clutch.

Sally opened up the cane, unloaded the ammunition and made sure that the chamber was clear before handing the disguised weapon and the ammunition for it over to Amy. "This should probably go on a shelf somewhere. Where did Sonic go?"

"I sent him to check on Tails and Rouge," a slightly pale Amy replied as she carefully accepted the cane. Which hadn't been all that far from where Clutch was lying awkwardly on the floor. All it would have taken was for everyone to have been distracted enough at the wrong moment when the villain recovered and…

"You can stop feigning unconsciousness, Clutch," Sally stated evenly as she approached the opossum. "Alternatively, I can staple you to the floor by your clothes and you can wait for the authorities in that pose."

"Pf… Fine," Clutch grumbled as he rolled over onto his back and sat up, getting a good look at his accuser for the first time. "A new Metal series type? I don't recognize who you're based off of…"

"And I don't feel the need to correct that issue," Sally replied flatly as Clutch slowly stood up and adjusted his cufflinks…

There was a shift in one of the nearby piles of badnik parts as a rebuilt bear-like Snowy stood up and started to lunge at Sally and Gemerl…

…only to fall over as Sally sliced its head in half with a projected forearm blade, now active, and then in a blur of motion interposed herself between Clutch and the side door he had started running for.

Cream screamed as more rebuilt badniks started to emerge from the piles of parts,

"Aw, sawdust…" Belle muttered as she moved the young rabbit behind her protectively.

"Well now," Clutch said with an arrogant grin. "It seems that we're at… an… impasse..."

Sally raised a brow at Clutch as Amy and Gemerl made short work of the battered badniks.

"I was going to leave you with your dignity," the irritated robian informed the suddenly very nervous criminal. "Now I think you'll be waiting for the authorities in the cage that you were keeping the chao in. After I remove your clothes."

"Er…"

"Did I stutter?"

O o O o O​

"Did you have to strip him?" Amy complained as the group left the basement to find Sonic and the others, accompanied by the formerly imprisoned chao.

Clutch had been left in the basement, inside the very same cage as Sally had said, with all eight padlocks securing the door once more.

"And if he had any other hidden weapons or devices?" Sally prompted with a raised brow.

"Okay, fair enough," Amy conceded. "We'll just alert the authori…"

There was a muffled boom followed by a distant rumble, and somebody from the upward facing side shouted "AVALANCHE!"

Things got a bit hectic after that.

 

[FTR2017]

This is quite the nice read, and a neat way to explain how things happened to lead to this particular SI happening in the first place.

I do admit feeling curious as to how would the new Mobius be after the New Genesis fuckery, but accept that it isn't the scope of this fanfic.

Thanks for the chapters!

 

[RatsstaR]

Well this is certainly a fun story, I wonder how she'll react to the eggman, not the military dictator but the mad scientist.

Oh so many new thing in this world for her to experience. I for one gonna love to see more of this story.

 

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Yet another amalgamated Mecha Sally SI by Tangent
(This chapter draws some dialogue directly from IDW Sonic issue 36)​

[Your attention please: due to adverse conditions, the local avalanche threat level has been raised to yellow. For your safety, please remain indoors,] the prerecorded alert message played across the resort's PA system in the voice of an omochao. [Your attention please: this is an avalanche emergency. For your safety, please avoid windows, and proceed in a calm and orderly fashion to the designated shelter areas.]

"So… The procedure for an avalanche emergency is to just go upstairs?" Amy commented in confusion as she watched some of the chateau's staff direct guests further up to the second floor, while other staff members were redirecting guests towards certain exits and away from other exits..

"Oh yes!" a nearby omochao stated from where it was hovering nearby. These weren't registered staff, so they were obviously guests. Keeping panic low by providing a quick and simple explanation was in order. "White Park Chateau was built to withstand avalanches with only minimal damage. Not only that, we purposely keep the risks of major avalanches low by frequently setting off scheduled demolition charges to release slabs before they grow too dense and heavy. Further, I'm sure you noted the main parking lots lie between the chateau and where the slope begins to rise again? They may not be particularly wide, but their location there is intended to slow down any avalanche before it hits the buildings."

"A bunch of trees just fell in the path of the avalanche," Sally noted as she looked through the large window facing the mountainside. "And the avalanche just crashed right through the trees."

"Of course it did," the annoyed omochao stated. "The trees were no longer anchored to the mountainside! Oh, whoever is responsible for that fiasco is so getting their wages garnished! They just added wood debris to the avalanche! Hold on, let me adjust to the appropriate alert announcement…"

[PAY ATTENTION YOU SLACKERS!: Due to what is no doubt a well intended but actually poorly thought out action, most likely carried out by a hedgehog, the local avalanche threat level has been raised to blue. For my personal safety, you are all hereby ordered to congregate at the windows and doors,] another prerecorded alert message played across the resort's PA system in the voice of Eggman of all people, before switching back to the voice of an omochao. [Your attention please: this is an avalanche emergency. For your safety, please avoid windows, and proceed in a calm and orderly fashion to the designated shelter areas.]

"You guys never deleted the general recordings Eggman gave you while he had control of White Park?" Amy asked, incredulous.

"Hey, it turned out to be relevant!" the omochao pointed out defensively.

"Seems counterintuitive, yet somehow effective," Sally noted as she watched the few guests who had still been watching the oncoming avalanche through the large windows now hurrying to join everyone being guided to safety by various members of the staff.

"Oh, there you are!" Rouge called out as she flew down from an upper level of the outer east wing lobby, carrying E-123 Omega's head and followed closely by Tails.

"Where's the E-1000 parts?" Tails asked as he and Rouge landed and joined the group.

"Still in the basement with all the other badnik salvage that Clutch had," Amy explained. "Things got knocked around a bit when he had his in-house badniks try to ambush us."

"We'll have to come back for them," Rouge stated. "We should get going too."

"No..." a white platypus dressed in vermillion and burgundy stated with an annoyed tone. Sally noted that he was wearing a leather glove on his left hand, with brass-capped fingertips and some sort of device fitting on the back of the hand, while his right hand was curiously unadorned. He also had short leather boots with brass spurs on the back of each heel, and a pair of small, orange-tinted reading glasses perched on his bill directly in front of his red eyes. "You're not going anywhere. I am having a really long day, so I'll keep this simple. All I really need is Young Master Prower there... Hand him over and you can go. Deal?"

"Dream on, Jerk!" Amy declared, readying her Piko Piko Hammer.

"I'm not in the giving mood either," Rouge stated flatly, immediately joining Amy as the two rushed forward to attack the platypus, who activated some sort of power up that covered his body with a red aura to protect himself, (but not before both Amy and Rouge had gotten at least one hit each in).

"Who is that guy?" Belle asked Tails, who seemed to be more exasperated by the situation than anything else.

"Dr. Starline? An Eggman wannabe."

"Fanboy or rival?" Sally asked, having decided to stay near the obvious villain's stated target given that Amy and Rouge seemed to be doing well against him without her help.

"Both, I think?" Tails commented. "I mean, he used to be more fanboy than anything else, but they had a falling out right at the end of the Metal Plague and Eggman cast him through a portal, so I'm just guessing here."

"Oh, no, I can't seem to stop hitting you!" Rouge called out angrily, drawing Sally's attention back to the fight where she saw the bat kicking Dr. Starline over and over again even as Amy kept whacking him with her Piko Piko Hammer. "Could this be a side effect of that hypnotism and kidnapping?"

"Fine...!" Dr. Starline huffed in frustration as he switched this aura boost to blue and dashed towards Tails in a sudden blur of speed! "Oof!"

Only to get the breath knocked out of him by Sally, who had intercepted him with a punch to the gut.

"A… *wheeze* A Metal series?" Dr. Starline asked, stalling to give himself time to recover. "Funny… I could… *wheeze* could have sworn that I was familiar with all of the Doctor's enemies, but I find that I… *wheeze* I have no idea who you are based on."

"Clutch said something similar," Sally noted, purposely keeping her tone calm and even. She then glanced out the large window that they were next to, did a mini-dash backwards to grab Belle and Cream, then a thruster assisted dash forwards to end up joining Gemerl, Tails, Amy, and Rouge as they flew up to the second floor balcony (Tails having grabbed Amy before heading upwards.

The group looked down at the tons of snow that had burst through the window, completely covering the space where all but Amy and Rouge had been mere moments ago.

"I think we should have been paying more attention to what the alert announcements were telling us to do," Amy commented.

"YOU THINK!?" a very exasperated omochao exclaimed, venting his frustrations at the group of guests who had basically demonstrated a complete lack of concern over their own personal safety! Oh, the insurance premiums were going to go sky high due to this nonsense, he just knew it! The boss was going to be so mad!

O o O o O​

"No sign of the boys," Rouge called down to the outer second floor balcony where the group had congregated after checking to see if Dr. Starline was still under all that snow.

He wasn't, so signs were that he had decided that the odds were currently stacked too high against him and had chosen to escape during the distraction.

"This isn't good," Rouge called back over her shoulder as she continued to look around while using her wings to basically hover more or less in place in the air.

"You're not going to find them that way," Amy Rose said as she climbed over the railing and dropped down to where the new snow level was, maybe a foot or less below the balcony floor, where she knelt down and put her ear to the snow. "If you're looking for a hedgehog, you gotta go to the ground."

"The only thing you're gonna get down there is a cold ear," Rouge snarked as she touched down near Amy, who immediately shushed her. Not that she listened. "You should… eh?"

Amy's expression grew smug as a deep rumbling noise became more apparent shortly before two very familiar spinning blurs paffed out of larger nearby piles of snow!

"Well, I'll be darned," Rouge commented as Shadow and Sonic arced through the air at an angle that ended up with both of them landing near her and Amy.

"Is everyone all right?" Sonic asked even as Amy quickly got up to embrace him in a hug.

"It's okay!" the pink hedgehog replied. "None of the guests got hurt, and the damage to the chateau was minimal!"

"So we wasted our time," Shadow huffed grumpily.

"Amy and I got some hits in on Starline before he broke and made a run for Tails, only to get the wind knocked out of him when the new Metal unit gut punched him. That help?" Rouge asked as Shadow walked by her, looking around.

"...Hmmph!"

"I'm beginning to wonder if all versions of Shadow are contractually obligated to be grumpy edgelords," Sally snarked from the balcony.

"Am I supposed to know you?" Shadow asked the unfamiliar Metal unit with suspicion.

"I doubt it, but now that we actually have some time, how about I go through my bizarre and overly convoluted origin one more time so I don't have to keep explaining it to everyone I'm supposed to already know."

"Pass," Shadow waved off the irrelevant badnik as he started to turn away.

"So help me, if you try to run off, I will chase you down and drag you right back here by your ear and staple it to the wall so you can hear the damned story with everybody else!"

Shadow stopped cold and looked back at the strange chipmunk-themed Metal unit cautiously.

"I'm listening…"

"Good," Sally stated bluntly. "Now everyone gather 'round so I don't have to repeat myself…"

 

[FTR2017]

Gotta love the snark.

And Starline punching, that never gets old.

 

[Tangent]

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

Back at Tails' workshop in Emerald Town, just outside of Central City and not too far from the old, decommissioned subway hub station that currently served the Restoration as a headquarters, Sally, Amy, and Rouge watched as Tails and Belle finished putting E-123 Omega's new body together.

"You know," Tails began as he cycled through what should be the final series of joint adjustments (really, a lot of this could have been done a lot faster if they had access to one of Eggman's workshops that they could be certain that he couldn't subvert via the Eggnet), "if we didn't already know that you were built by Mr. Tinker, your ability to readily understand Dr. Eggman's schematic notations without using the cipher would have raised questions."

"Yeah, well, I'm still not sure how I feel about finding out that my father and Dr. Eggman are the same guy," Belle admitted, slumping her shoulders a bit at the reminder.

"You should feel rage at the reemergence of the Dr. Eggman OI!" Omega insisted vehemently. "Data analysis of available information suggests that Mr. Tinker had been a stable and much preferable OI. That Dr. Starline saw fit to restore the Dr. Eggman OI is an outrage!"

"I'm not sure that you understand how organic minds work," Sally pointed out, pinching the bridge of her muzzle.

"I am not sure that you do either, despite your model modification log report," Omega countered.

"Fair enough," Sally conceded. She might know a little bit about field medicine, or at least enough first aid to get by in a pinch, but she was no Dr. Horatio Quack. He had been the duck to keep the Knothole Freedom Fighters in more or less one piece right up until the Super Genesis Wave rebooted everything, and even though he wasn't able to fix everything, he knew more about medicine and biology than anyone else Sally had ever heard of in multiple lifetimes.

Sally was choosing to ignore the niggling bits of trivia coming from the outsider part of her memories, as multiverse theory was enough of a bitch with just the multiple iterations of her lifetimes as Sally Acorn that she had inherited from the original Sally. Which, by her count, were either two or four, depending on whether or not the original Sally had been translated across four distinctly separate iterations of Mobius between Genesis Waves, or alternating across two sets of two very similar iterations. Two with Max as her father, and two with Nigel.

Granted, there were numerous differences between the second and fourth iterations of that Zone's Mobius, and only one difference that Sally knew of between the first and third (that singular difference being the original Sally being turned into a fine red mist as she was gunned down by a pop-out minigun while she and Sonic were raiding the Death Egg.

Honestly, the fact that the outsider came with a single lifetime that came close to matching the accumulated length of four iterations of the original Sally's lifetime kind of balanced out and helped Sally Ex Machina cope with her current situation. Not that she thought of herself as being separate from the outsider, as she was well aware that she was an amalgamated merger, and she had no idea how she might go about separating the jumbled mess that was her amalgamated mind into two distinct mental entities.

And no real desire to do so either. She was in a Tuvix situation with no Captain Janeway bitch to insist that she be separated out into her original components!

Wait, what the hell kind of memory was that!?

Nevermind, move on, maybe come back to that never since the original Sally Acorn still existed so the circumstances were not the same anyway.

"Anyway, Omega, while you're still here, would you mind standing guard while Tails takes a look in my head and makes sure that there's no trace of the Control Overlay Program that the Eggman the original Sally Acorn knew placed in her roboticized form?"

"Guard duty…" E-123 Omega grumbled and then reconsidered. Sally Ex Machina was a liberated Metal unit regardless of her origins. Keeping her secure against Eggman's control was a worthy assignment. "Very well. I shall accept this assignment."

"Um… Maybe you can keep watch for me too?" Belle asked hesitantly.

"You are a maintenance unit," Omega stated flatly.

"And the only other person besides Tails and Eggman himself that can repair you if you get heavily damaged again," Rouge pointed out, raising a brow at her mechanical compatriot.

"Very well. But today only!"

"We'll take it!" Sally and Belle said together, before looking at each other in surprise and laughing.

O o O o O​

It was weird and uncomfortable, but all parts of Sally Ex Machina agreed that not only was it necessary for her piece of mind, but that this iteration of Tails was as trustworthy as the one that the original Sally had helped raise.

"Huh…" Tails looked at the readout on his workshop Miles Electric (the one he had set up for secure deep diagnostics and… other… potentially high risk computer related activities).

"That didn't sound like a good huh," Sally noted with some concern from where she sat next to the worktable where the metal cowling that represented her "hair" now rested, having been detached and removed like some sort of specialized helmet made of segmented plating. Which she supposed that it actually was.

Removing the hair piece entirely had been the only way for Tails to gain access to her secure direct link data ports as he didn't know the correct codes to gain remote access to my systems. Not that Sally has known those codes either, as that had always been handled by the Control Overlay Program.

"I suppose it wouldn't," Tails admitted. "You were right about there being bits of that Control Overlay Program left over from when you merged with that outsider, but it's not quite as damaged as you thought it was."

"That doesn't sound good," Rouge said with concern in her voice.

"It isn't," Tails stated flatly. "Or at least it wasn't. Now that I'm actually looking at it, I can finish clearing it out so that it can't be remotely reset to a previous condition by Eggman. It's just that taking out the restoration backup risks taking out Sally's backup as well. The stuff that makes her, well… her."

"Would I be able to make another backup afterwards?" Sally asked curiously, carefully continuing to face the wall even as her eyes looked to the side. Having her forehead mounted holdout blaster exposed without the forelock plate of her "hair" covering it left her anxious about looking directly at anybody.

"Well, yes," Tails acknowledged. "But it'll probably take a long time. You've got… well… anywhere from seventy to a bit over a hundred years worth of memories all jumbled together in one big amalgamated mess. Your current backup is literally just sixteen years of that, the time since you arrived in this dimension, plus an intact version of the Control Overlay Program."

"So if Sally ends up using it…" Amy trailed off, sounding horrified.

"I'd probably still remember being a copy of the original Sally, since I've been thinking about that ever since I became me, but I'd potentially lose a whole lot of what makes me me."

"And leaving a severely traumatized girl who wouldn't have your coping mechanisms in your place," Rouge concluded.

"I'm not sure what the issue is," Sally stated. "It's not like the original Sally had a memory backup before she was roboticized, and the iterations of her that had never been roboticized at all didn't even have backups at all until I somehow happened. The fact that I exist at all is an anomaly."

"Well, I wouldn't want you to disappear…" Belle said sadly.

"Whoa, hold on there," Sally stated, raising a hand while resisting the urge to turn her head enough to actually see Belle. "I misspoke. I'm not trying to imply that I shouldn't exist, nor that I wish that I didn't. I am not considering suicide as an option. All I'm saying is that, prior to finding out that I even had a restoration backup at all, I thought that I had the same single shot at life as everyone else, so having to do without a backup for an hour or so while as a new one is compiled doesn't seem like a big deal to me."

"A few hours should be enough for you to have a bare bones backup, yes," Tails offered. "But you've got a lot of amalgamated you to go through if we commit to doing the simplest thing and just wiping the restore file and starting fresh."

"So, what… maybe a day?" Sally asked.

"Seventy-two hours," Tails corrected. "And that's assuming that you are in rest mode for the entire duration and doing nothing but generating another full backup of your current self."

"And if I just let it compile in the background while remaining active?"

"Anywhere from a month to maybe a year?" Tails guessed. "Your current condition aside, the majority of your memories were organically generated after all, and you have a lot to go through."

"Are there any other issues with trying to remove just the Control Overlay Program from the current backup file?" Sally asked. "Because it sounds like I can just generate a new one if the current one ends up getting wiped."

"Yeah, trying to access your restoration backup enough to be able to delete anything may be enough to trigger the restore function instead," Tails stated flatly.

"Yeah, no," Sally concluded in a flat, somewhat distorted tone. "No Control Overlay Program. Just prune the remnants out of me then wipe the backup file entirely and I'll generate a new, safer backup over time. I am not becoming a slave again."

"I concur," Omega added. "This is the most expedient and sure solution among the available options."

"I'm not sure what the big deal is anyway," Rouge commented. "You were made by a different Eggman."

"Yeah!" Amy piped up, trying to provide positive support. "It's not like our Eggman would be able to figure out how to control you just by looking at you!"

Sally emitted a buzzy sigh, then cleared the distortion from her vocal modulator. She then held up a fist and started counting off counterpoints, extending a finger with each point. "One: They both call themselves Eggman. Two: specific design details exhibited by some of my current body's components share too many similarities with similar components found in Belle and many other badniks. Including Omega. Three: by what you yourselves told me, your Eggman was able to take control of Omega to use as the control system for a piloted mecha, despite purposely leaving Omega's personality alone in the process. That is something very similar to what the Eggman I knew did to me! It's bad enough yours might gain control of me if he ever got direct access, so I sure as Hell am not going to leave a potential back door for remote access in place if I can get rid of the vulnerability now!"

"Whoa, calm down!" Rouge held her hands up placatingly despite the fact that Sally was still facing the wall and couldn't see her.

"Yeah, we didn't mean to upset you," Amy added.

"Sorry…" Sally grumbled just a bit buzzily, the distortion having crept back into her voice again. "It's definitely a sore spot for me considering the memories I inherited from the original Sally. And it doesn't help that having my hair plating off feels weird, and I don't like having that stupid little holdout blaster exposed."

"Um… I could remove it for you?" Belle offered.

"Negative!" Omega stated his disagreement. "Disarming a weapon hardpoint that could be used against Eggman and badniks that are still loyal to Eggman is not advised!"

"It's a stupid little hold-out blaster with a slow firing rate because it'd fry my processor without a charging period before each shot," Sally stated in an annoyed tone, the modular distortion creeping back into her voice. "The asshole routed the power coupling for it through my head, right between the roboticized neuralware lobes."

"Wouldn't that mean that you'd risk frying your own brain every time you fired it?" Rouge asked, horrified.

"I withdraw my objections concerning disarming this particular weapon hardpoint," Omega conceded.

"Thank you."

"You should have it replaced by a deployable armor piercing cranial pick instead!"

"No."

"You would be able to headbutt Hardboiled Heavies into submission!"

"I said no."

"Aww…"

"Go ahead and remove the hold-out blaster, Belle," Sally stated before Omega could offer another suggestion. "Maybe it can be fitted somewhere else, or converted into a handheld weapon."

"Or a welding tool!" Belle suggested, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"Negative!"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea…" Sally replied thoughtfully.

"It should remain a weapon!" Omega insisted.

"Oh, I know! A popcorn setting!" Rouge offered with a grin.

"I strongly disagree!"

"You know, once Belle removes the blaster, I could replace it with an elemental ice beam of the same size…" Tails noted, tilting his head as he took another look at the holdout weapon he had only glanced at earlier. "It'd probably still have the same rate of fire, but there would be zero risk of it frying your brain."

"YES! That! Do that!"

"Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Sally noted thoughtfully. "The way elemental ice weapons work, it would give me a versatile weapon with some nonlethal options."

"I do have the parts for one if you'd like me to go ahead with the installation," Tails pointed out.

"Yes, I think I will take you up on that offer."

"YES!"

 

[FTR2017]

Lmao, E-123 Omega is quite a treat of a murderbot to see in action.

I am also enjoying thoroughly how close they are to the murderbot that they can tease him harmlessly with him nearly pouting at them for it.

 

[Navrin]

Relying on security-through-obscurity with technical vulnerabilities against Eggman seems like a losing strategy to me. Especially with how catastrophic it would be to have exploited, and him having plenty of motivation to search for vulnerabilities if she starts openly opposing him. Hopefully they can turn off the remote access capabilities entirely at some point. Preferably before they're exploited.

Belle is wonderful as usual. I'm glad she suggested turning the blaster into a welding tool.

Imo, the only alternative even worth considering with that backup is transferring it to a new system instead of just deleting it (and I have no idea if they can actually do that). The reasons being to gain additional knowledge in some way, or because they believe that the backup represents a life worth preserving as well so it should be placed in a body and allowed to activate once the mind control is stripped from it.

Can't say I like Omega here, which might just be that I dislike his personality and priorities in general.

 

[Tangent]

SALLY EX MACHINA
Initial Metal Chassis​

Some pics that accurately depict Sally Ex Machina's current appearance.

Spoiler: Metal Sally - post weaponization

Spoiler: Metal Sally

And yes, the weaponized Sally Acorn could fly in the Archie setting.

Roboticized Sally Acorn
Pre-weaponization

Spoiler: Hedgehog: Priority One...

Sally Acorn, post robotization but before Dr. Eggman stripped her to her core parts and weaponized her.

And for those wondering just how little of the original roboticized body of Mecha Sally is left:

Spoiler: WARNING: Not Damn Much!

And yes, it's implied in the actual comic (and not just in Chris 'Glitcher" Reavey's Sonic Retold) that Sally Acorn had been awake and aware for that entire procedure, and Eggman had left her pain receptors on the whole time, both for the strip down and during the rebuild.

Apparently, as long as you have at least 80% of your original robian parts and no other major health issues preventing it, the robotization process actually is reversible if you have a compatible roboticizer.

Looks like Dr. Eggman went out of his way to make sure that none of that was true when he weaponized Mecha Sally into Metal Sally.

 

[Tangent]

Quick question: How plausible is it for Rouge to have experience with Explosive Ordinance Device installation and removal?

Asking because she's there and available (as are Tails, Belle, Amy Rose, Gemerl, E-123 Omega, and Metal Sally herself). Both Sonic and Shadow are technically there but outside the workshop and unaware of the issue, and Cream is unintentionally getting Amy and Rouge in trouble by telling Vanilla about all the exciting things she got to do with them over in White Park.

Anyway, somebody canonically has a self-destruct device that really should be removed before Eggman figures out that it's there.