Tough. As. NAILS!

[Tangent]

Tough. As. NAILS!
Yet another SI fic by Tangent.
This time as Anti-Rouge!

O o O o O​

Waking up in a hospital is never fun. Drifting in and out of consciousness as pain and painkillers warred across your body even less so. But it allowed me to catalogue my body without actually having to move much, because I could periodically feel my everything.

Which…

Well, either wasn't my original body, or whatever happened to me had driven me insane, but as weird as my sense of humor was, I liked to think of myself as being reasonably questionable sanity.

Not that this explained why I felt like someone had grafted functional batwings just under my shoulder blades and then beat them like drumskins.

Just like the rest of me—an abused drum set of aches, including an impressive set of sore boobs. And… lacking something else much lower. Whatever I was now, I was apparently either a eunuch or female, because there was something that just wasn't there anymore.

I'd worry or complain about that, but I just couldn't bring myself to care.

Too sore all over.

Also exhausted.

I let myself drift off to sleep again…

O o O o O​

Anti-Fiona moved quietly through the ward, clipboard in hand. The faint smell of antiseptic made her nose wrinkle, but she forced herself to focus. She wasn't a trained nurse—just a volunteer—but she could at least read vitals, take notes, and notice when something was wrong. That had to be enough.

The bat on the bed looked like she had been through a blender. Wings awkwardly splayed, fur mussed, ribs rising and falling unevenly with shallow breaths. Anti-Fiona paused, swallowing a sigh. Whoever had done this had not held back.

Not that it was hard to guess who had wiped out Anti-Rouge's gang. That the bat herself had survived the beatdown was a miracle. Many of the initial examples made as King Scourge reasserted his dominance over the newly renamed Moebius had not.

She leaned slightly closer; pen poised above the clipboard. Heart rate, temperature, breathing… all within acceptable ranges. Nothing she needed to call a nurse for; she was here to record, observe, and keep track. That was all she could do.

Her mind drifted. The decree from Scourge kept nagging at her: no more Anti-names. Not Anti-Sonic, not Anti-Rouge, not her. She had tried to think of something appropriate, something that sounded like her but wasn't… wrong. Nothing stuck. Each option felt hollow, or silly, or too serious. She had given up—at least for the moment.

Glancing back at the bat, she murmured under her breath, mostly to herself, "Stable… for now." The unconscious bat didn't know the chaos outside the clinic. She didn't know how quickly danger would come looking for her.

Anti-Fiona jotted down a few more notes, eyes flicking between numbers and the patient, hands steady even as her mind raced. There was only so much she could do here. Whatever came next, she would have to face it—and she would have to do it soon.

O o O o O​

"You, Young Lady, are very lucky to be alive," a looming skinny bald guy with a wild mustache and round-lensed glasses spoke to me the next time I woke up. He kinda reminded me of Jim Carrey for some reason that escaped me at the moment.

"Lucky? Heh," I croaked, testing my ribs with a cautious twist. Pain shot up like tiny, angry lightning bolts. "Sure. If surviving feels like being flattened by the world's worst percussion section, I guess I'm lucky."

Kintobor's round glasses slid slightly down his nose as he gave me a faint smile. "You are the only one from your group to make it through the initial sweep."

I blinked. The words hit harder than my ribs. "The only… one?"

He nodded solemnly, pen hovering over his clipboard. "Yes. Everyone else… didn't make it. You survived when no one else did."

I tried to sit up straighter, ignoring the chorus of pain radiating through my wings and torso. That… sounded pretty horrible, really. People died. Possibly people very close to whoever I was now. I didn't know, because all I got were vague impressions, blurry forms, and a general sense of camaraderie that was suddenly cut short.

I felt bad that I couldn't remember whoever they had been.

"If it makes you feel any better, I don't think he actually meant to kill anybody. He just hasn't gotten used to his new power yet."

Say what now? "Who?"

"King Scourge," the tall, bald, skinny guy informed me. "Although, come to think of it, you probably haven't heard his new name yet—or if you had, the concussion dislodged it from your short-term memory. You probably knew him better as Anti-Sonic… and blue, instead of green."

What the fuck!?

O o O o O​

Moebius…

Even a week later, it still threw me.

I was on the antithesis version of Mobius Prime, formerly known as Anti-Mobius. Now renamed Moebius, to better suit the aesthetic sensibilities of the same ass who had once decided that calling our world Anti-Mobius and slapping "Anti-" onto everyone's name was edgy and cool.

Gotta hand it to Doc Kintobor though. Pacifist he may be, he never went along with the Anti-movement. Just kept on keeping on, providing what health care he could to everyone he could, whether or not anyone actually appreciated it.

I appreciated it though, even if I'm not sure that Anti-Rouge, whose life I had apparently taken over, would have. I'm not sure how much of her is still in here with me. My memories of my other life were far more clear than my memories of this one.

Doc just put it down as an unfortunate side effect of the severe concussion I had suffered along with all of my other injuries I had received from the spiny green edgelord. I remembered some things from this life, but most of it was hazy and indistinct. Some places, a few names, a bit of my former attitude.

I'd been a thug.

A gang enforcer for a gang I couldn't even remember beyond the ache of knowing they were all dead now.

Doc called it Trauma Blocking.

I called it wrong.

Sure, we may not have been great. We may have thrown our weight around a bit because we could. But nobody in our territory suffered because of us.

Nobody went hungry.

We were, according to Buns Rabbot, actually one of the nicer gangs out there.

Or we had been.

I was the only one left now, and I couldn't even remember what Mobian subtypes any of them were, let alone their names. I couldn't even honor them properly.

And now this new decree Edgy McEdgelord had announced over the news.

The reason Buns was now Buns and no longer Anti-Bunnie.

No more Anti-names.

Fine then.

Just call me Cyan the Bat.

 

[Tangent]

TOUGH. AS. NAILS!
Yet another SI fic by Tangent.
This time as Anti-Rouge!

O o O o O​

I was up and walking with a cane now. Mostly for stability rather than support, as my physiotherapy was going very well. Granted, part of that was just how resilient Mobian physiology tended to be, especially for anyone who had even a trace of special abilities.

Just like over in Prime, really, if anyone ever cared to think about it. Regular folk got hurt and took longer to recover, but if you had even a trace of special ability and you survived something? Odds were in favor of you pulling through and recovering faster.

It wasn't a guarantee, of course.

The crew I'd apparently been part of was dead after all, and gang or not, nobody who amounted to anything on Moebius rose above the apathy and ennui of our world without at least something special to push them past the lethargy of the system.

Which made the fact that I couldn't remember them as anything but hazy, nameless blobs all the more painful.

Oh, I had pictures and names, but those held no sense of recognition for me. No sense of connection.

Anti-Brass the Echidna (who looked enough like Knuckles to maybe be related, but not enough like him to be his Moebius analogue), had been the Boss. Burly, tough, lots of swagger, but with a soft spot for the kiddos. Apparently, it had been an open secret that he'd been working up the courage to woo Donna Vanilla.

Anti-Vickey Vulpine, a red fox who took Moebian casual to a whole new level by not wearing anything at all—not even shoes—had been Anti-Brass' lieutenant and the team's recon and infiltration specialist. My previous self's idea of B&E had apparently mostly involved smashing a Piko Piko Hammer into whatever got in the way, so having someone nimble and quiet was… actually useful.

Anti-Hammer the Bandicoot had been one of the other enforcers besides me. Big, burly, strong, came across as dim, but apparently did a lot of deep reading in his off time. According to witnesses, he died tanking a hit meant for Anti-Vickey—though somehow, both of them ended up dead despite his jumping in the way of Scourge's Spin-Dash of Death.

And Anti-Glitch the Ocelot, our communications and tech guy, who'd learned all he knew from some overlander foster brother named Anti-Heinz.

I'd have to find Anti-Heinz—or whatever he was calling himself now—to let him know his foster brother was dead. He was the only one besides Anti-Vickey whose family I had any clue about, and I had already let the Vulpines know.

Well, they already knew. Scourge hadn't exactly been quiet about his little grand reintroduction.

Asshole had her pelt delivered to them!

And her head, mouth wide open and stuffed with Anti-Hammer's…

Well, I suppose there was a reason no spin-off comic ever showed much of what Scourge actually did when he wasn't messing with the heroes on Prime.

The Vulpines moved away. Not that anyone blamed them. A few other families followed suit, but most just bunkered in place and withdrew a little more from the world.

O o O o O​

Buns sighed as she steered the Omega Care Unit into the cafeteria of the free clinic she had agreed to be stationed at. When she had first been placed into it for its superior life support capability that allowed it to manage her NIDS she had, very briefly, considered just taking it and using it to get back into the good graces of the Freedom Suppression Squad.

KA-SHUNK KA-SHUNK

It would have been easy too, given that Doc Kintobor had armed the thing to the teeth with the singular goal of keeping the patient inside utterly safe, even from any member of the FSS, Anti-Sonic included.

But Anti-Brass' Irregulars found her abandoned on the edge of their territory. And Anti-Rouge - now Cyan the Bat - had been the one to fly her all the way to the clinic. This clinic.

Anti-Rouge could have dropped her at the nearest border and been done with it, but she had flown her all the way to this clinic. No stops. No complaining. No casual threats about how easy it would have been to just drop her and say "oopsie" like a brat pushing his cousin down the stairs (Uncle Beau had tanned Bucky's backside for that one).

For all the swagger and bravado…

For all the showboating and grandstanding…

For all the supposed oppression they carried out by obeying the King's Law and taking whatever they could get away with…

The people in their territory were safe. They never had nights where they had to choose who got to eat. They never had to give up their hard won Anti-Mobiums (now officially renamed as Moebiums) just because their protectors wanted more than just the service fee.

They didn't even raise a fuss when Donna Vanilla moved back into the estate her late husband had owned.

Which was odd, given that Donna Vanilla's territory was at least a forty-five-minute drive away.

But here in Anti-Brass' Irregular's territory, Donna Vanilla let her child run around outside to play and meet other children. She didn't do that in her own territory.

O o O o O​

Buns guided the Omega Care Unit to the cafeteria table, its servos humming quietly as it settled into place, setting her meal tray down and popping open the hatch of her life support mech.

Cyan sat nearby, wings folded, tail flicking, while Fiora leaned against the counter, quietly watching.

The binders lay open on the table, bursting with photographs, notes, and sketches. Faces of the bat she knew she had once been stared back at her — Some her current age, others younger, wilder, reckless. Anti-Rouge.

Cyan flipped a page showing a bat swinging a Piko Piko Hammer over crates. The image looked familiar, somehow… yet distant. "I don't… I know that's me, but I don't remember any of this," she murmured.

Fiora looked concerned and gestured at a selection of even younger pics of the bat she was sitting next to. Younger still and before the fall of the old Kingdom as far as Buns could tell. Buns could see the bat in every photo, but she saw other kids as well. A fox, who she guessed to be the one going through the photos with Cyan. A flying squirrel with yellow fur. A red armadillo.

"These are from before the Anti-Name policy, when you were just Rouge. You were so happy back then."

"I know who some of these people are," Cyan admitted. "Mighty. Ray. You. But I don't remember any of this. It's like it all happened to someone else."

Cyan reopened the same binder of photos and notes she had been staring at during meals for the better part of several weeks now. Her gaze swept over the gang she had belonged to. The red fox crouched on a roof, bare feet and all. The big bandicoot charging through a doorway. The ocelot fiddling with tech. Each page filled in fragments she couldn't place in memory.

"And these… I know their names now. Their faces," Cyan said softly, staring at the photo of the fox with a sly grin. "But I still don't remember anything about them at all. Not directly. Only photos, records, and what others can tell me about them."

Buns winced. She once ran with the asshole responsible for this. Scourge had ruined Cyan's own life so thoroughly that the bat couldn't even remember her own past. Couldn't remember her own friends except the ones from before the fall. And she knew from other meals that the bat had no recollection at all about her own family.

The bat who had saved her life had her own stolen from her so thoroughly that Scourge may as well have killed her.

He almost had.

Would have, if Buns hadn't gotten there in time, using the firepower of the Omega Care Unit to drive the now green hedgehog into retreating.

Buns had gone out to try to save Anti-Brass' Irregulars and the bat she owed so much to.

And she failed.

Even the one she managed to bring back to the clinic was only a ghost of her former self.

 

[Draconic fan]

Interesting... also fuck scourge

 

[Tangent]

Tough. As. NAILS!
Yet another SI fic by Tangent.
This time as Anti-Rouge!

O o O o O​

"So, what's the verdict, Doc?" I asked. "Will I ever be able to play the piano again?"

"I wasn't aware that you could play the piano before," Dr. Ovi Kintobor replied mildly as he finished reviewing the last of the scans. "Could you?"

"No idea," I said cheerfully.

That earned a quiet snort from him.

Honestly, I still had trouble not staring at the guy sometimes. He looked way too much like Jim Carrey for comfort.

There was even a movie where he had a bald head, round glasses and a giant mustache...

I knew there was.

And yet here I was, a full month after waking up in this mess, still drawing a complete blank on the title.

It reminded me of the time I forgot my own sister's name while introducing her to a friend.

Literally right after using it.

Took her three years to let me live that one down.

Not my proudest moment.

Also not especially relevant to my current life… except for the part where my memory apparently still worked like a colander.

"Still having memory issues?" Kintobor asked gently.

"Yeah," I admitted. "The photos and records help, but nothing's actually connecting. It feels less like remembering my life and more like reading somebody else's biography."

Kintobor sighed quietly.

"I was afraid that might be the case. Physically speaking you are completely healed. The scans show no structural damage."

"Meaning the problem's upstairs."

"Most likely psychological, yes."

"Trauma blocking?"

"A reasonable hypothesis."

"And outside your specialty."

"Quite."

He rubbed thoughtfully at his mustache.

"Unfortunately, Moebius is… not particularly well supplied with mental health specialists."

"Unless you're hooked on Anarchy Beryls," I said.

That got a grim look out of him.

"Yes," he admitted. "Those clinics unfortunately exist in abundance."

The stupid purple rocks were one of the few things both sets of my fragmented memories agreed on.

Burst of power.

Short term.

Wildly unstable.

"And let me guess," I said. "First-timers think they've discovered the secret to being a god."

"For several minutes, yes," Kintobor confirmed dryly.

"And then the crash hits."

"Violently."

He ticked the symptoms off on his fingers.

"Nausea. Neurological backlash. Muscular failure. In severe cases, organ stress."

"Right," I muttered. "Borrow tomorrow's energy and then pay it back with interest."

"An apt analogy."

The really scary part was that the rush was apparently worth it to some people.

For those few moments?

You felt unstoppable.

Invincible.

Like you could take on the whole world and win.

Right up until the crash hit and you were puking hard enough to regret every meal you'd eaten that week.

"And yet people still use the things," I said.

"Addiction rarely concerns itself with long-term consequences," Kintobor replied.

The things weren't even safe to use as machine power sources. Too volatile.

But that didn't stop people.

It especially didn't stop people who wanted that feeling of invincibility again.

"Funny thing," I said after a moment. "One of the few legitimately good things King Scourge ever did was finish his father's project of getting rid of most of the Beryls."

Kintobor raised an eyebrow.

"You consider that a positive development?"

"Hey, credit where it's due. Those stupid rocks used to be everywhere."

I paused.

"…Granted, I'm also pretty sure he keeps a private stash of them stuffed into his throne back at Castle Acorn."

Kintobor stared at me.

"You are certain of that?"

"Nope," I said cheerfully. "But it sounds like exactly the kind of dumb contingency a paranoid tyrant would keep."

That got a reluctant huff of amusement out of him.

"At least he doesn't seem to use the stuff casually," I added. "More like an emergency 'break glass in case of rampage' option."

"Comforting," Kintobor said flatly.

"Right?"

I rubbed the back of my head.

Which reminded me…

"…Speaking of potential disasters, I should probably check on Rosie."

Kintobor blinked.

"Rosie the Rascal?"

"Yeah."

Another of those half-memories stirred uneasily in the back of my skull. Not a full scene. Just impressions.

Rosie pacing like an angry tiger.

Someone shouting.

Myself stepping between her and somebody she very much wanted to hurt.

Kintobor studied me carefully.

"You believe she may cause trouble."

"That's Rosie's default setting."

"True."

"The bigger problem," I continued, "is that the people who usually keep her from escalating are currently dead."

Kintobor's expression sharpened.

"You mean the Irregulars."

"Part of them, yeah."

I counted on my fingers.

"Anti-Vickey could usually calm her down. Anti-Hammer was good at redirecting her when she already had a target."

"And you?"

I shrugged.

"Apparently I was the one who could get her to stop long enough to think."

Kintobor leaned back slightly.

"…I see."

"Which means right now," I continued, "Rosie's running around in a region that just lost most of the people who could talk her down."

"And you believe you can," Kintobor said.

"Sometimes."

His eyebrow climbed higher.

"Rosie the Rascal is not generally known for her receptiveness to reason."

"True," I admitted. "But three of my Piko Piko Hammers used to be hers."

Kintobor blinked.

"You stole them from her?"

"Confiscated," I corrected. "Indefinitely."

I shrugged again.

"Sure, she's strong enough to use them, but I'm the one who actually trained. Makes all the difference when all other factors are equal and all you need to do is disarm somebody."

Kintobor studied me for a moment.

"…You are telling me that your preferred strategy for handling Rosie the Rascal is to take away her hammer."

"Doc," I said patiently, "that's basically step one."

"And step two?"

"Run like hell until she cools down. Or fly. It's not like Piko Piko Hammers are so heavy that I can't fly with two of them."

He adjusted his glasses.

"…I see."

A pause.

"That is somehow both reassuring and deeply alarming."

"Doc, this is Moebius," I said. "That's practically a best-case scenario."

 

[Tangent]

Tough. As. NAILS!
Yet another SI fic by Tangent.
This time as Anti-Rouge!

O o O o O​

Victor stomped down the district's main street, claws scraping cobblestones, eyes scanning for anyone who might resist. "Listen up, furballs!" he bellowed, shoving a terrified shopkeeper against a wall. "This alley, this street, this whole district… ours now! Pay up—or get flattened!"

Moxie buzzed overhead, wings thrumming as he swooped low to herd civilians into corners. His stinger flicked dangerously close to anyone trying to flee. He nodded in approval of Victor's statement. The crocodile was louder, so the initial declaration of intent was assigned to him. Still, some clarification was now in order. "That's right! This is the Misftiz' turf now! Whatever you were paying the other guys - that goes to us now! Put up or pay double! Resist and by boys start breaking things and you all pay double anyway!"

Cammo crouched along a rooftop, chameleon skin rippling to match the brickwork. Knife ready, tail flicking with impatience. "No one left to stop us. Let's finish this."

"Victor! Cammo! Keep these furballs contained!" Moxie laughed, cutting off an attempted escape.

"Got it, Moxie!" Victor kicked over a fruit cart. Apples scattered across the cobblestones as the cart itself blocked an alley.

Chaos spread down the street—until a massive CRUNCH split the air.

The Misfitz spun toward the sound, eyes wide. Smoke hissed from the transport van at the far end of the courtyard, metal folding like paper. And there she was: Cyan the Bat, standing casually in the middle of the rubble, hammer coming to a rest across her shoulders like it weighed nothing, grin manic and wide.

"Loose engine," she called. "Might want to see to that… before I see to you."

Silence hung for a moment.

Victor's claws scraped slowly against the pavement as he turned toward her fully.

Moxie dropped a little lower in the air.

Cammo shifted his stance on the rooftop, knife angled downward.

Because standing in front of them -

was one of the Irregulars.

Victor stepped forward first.

Slow. Measuring.

Cyan didn't move.

Her grin widened.

Victor lunged, forearm aiming to swipe - but Cyan pivoted, bringing her Piko Piko Hammer off of her shoulders with a wide swing that knocked his naturally armored forearm to the side even as she delivered a powerful kick straight into his now unprotected gut, driving the wind out of him. He stumbled, startled. He was no stranger to pain being part of fights, but damn both of those hurt!

Victor staggered back, coughing.

Moxie dove instantly.

His wings shrieked as he accelerated toward Cyan's back, stinger aimed to impale.

Cyan's ears twitched.

She didn't look up—but she heard the pitch of his wings change.

She jumped.

Her wings snapped open just enough to lift her out of the strike as Moxie blasted beneath her.

He pulled up sharply to avoid slamming into the pavement.

At the same instant—

Cammo dropped from the rooftop.

His knife slashed down toward where Cyan should have landed.

But Cyan twisted mid-descent, sonar mapping the motion around her in quick pulses. The blade cut empty air as she rolled away and landed lightly a few steps off.

"You boys might want a team huddle," she said cheerfully. "Or, you know… a new career. Or have you forgotten that I go toe to toe with Rosie the Rascal on the regular?"

Sure, it was a bit of an exaggeration - Cyan was mostly remembering scraps of Anti-Rouge's time with the Irregulars - but she had the muscle memory and combat instincts to back it up, so why not lean into the bravado?

Moxie climbed back into the air.

"Together," he growled.

Victor straightened slowly, one hand briefly pressing his gut.

Cammo melted into the brickwork again as his camouflage rippled across his body.

Victor advanced carefully, armored forearms raised.

Cyan watched all three of them.

Her ears flicked slightly.

Listening.

Moxie attacked first again.

He dropped into a shallow dive, angling across Cyan's line of sight to herd her toward Victor.

At the same time, Cammo executed a feint.

A loose brick clattered off the rooftop behind Cyan—just loud enough to pull attention.

Cyan's ears twitched.

She didn't turn.

Instead she side-stepped the opposite direction just as Cammo's knife flashed out of invisibility from the other side.

CLANG.

Her hammer intercepted the strike.

Cammo recoiled in surprise.

Victor charged immediately to capitalize.

Cyan sprang sideways - wings snapping open as she lifted briefly into the air - and her hammer vanished from her grip with a whispering shff.

Moxie overshot again beneath her.

Cammo slashed upward—

—and Cyan's hammer whispered back into existence as she twisted midair to intercept.

CLANG.

The impact knocked Cammo's arm wide.

Victor barreled in.

Cyan dropped to the pavement just in time to meet him.

Victor's armored forearms slammed against the hammer's haft as he blocked.

PIKO!!!

The impact rattled through his bones as he skidded backwards on his, barely remaining upright.

He grimaced.

Natural leathery armor or not, that hammer hit like a wrecking ball.

Moxie looped around for another pass.

Cammo scrambled back up the wall again.

Victor pressed forward with a series of heavy blows, trying to pin Cyan down while the others repositioned.

Cyan slipped between them like smoke - dodging, pivoting, letting Victor's momentum work against him while her ears tracked the pitch of Moxie's wings and the faint scrape of Cammo's claws on brick.

Then the ground trembled.

Moxie noticed first.

His wings faltered mid-hover.

"…uh…"

Victor paused.

Cammo's tail flicked.

"…you guys feel that?"

A heavy metallic KA-SHUNK echoed down the street.

Another.

Measured.

Deliberate.

The Omega Care Unit stepped around the corner- built on the same broad armored frame as E-123 Omega, only light blue where its Prime counterpart was bright red.

It walked forward with slow mechanical certainty.

Hydraulics hissed.

Servos whined.

The machine stopped a short distance behind Cyan.

Its head rotated.

Optics locking onto Team Misfitz.

The right arm lifted.

A weapon system extended with a sharp mechanical Ka-CHACK.

Victor slowly turned his head.

"…oh."

Cyan spun her hammer once and rested it back across her shoulders.

Her grin widened.

"And that, boys," she said brightly, "is why you always bring a friend bigger than your attitude."

The realization hit Team Misfitz all at once.

The Irregulars weren't gone.

Not all of them.

And they had just picked a fight in the middle of their territory.