sweetdevil | 42nd ♫ | a moment in time, a blink, not long at all.

Name: Shard | Champion Comeback
Age: It's Complicated | Species: Metal Sonic | Occupation: Jack of All Trades
Likes: Speed, winning, chili dogs, Nicole
Dislikes: Losing, Eggman, isolation, being buried alive
Traits: Brash, reckless, protective, solitary
Trivia: Shard has been destroyed at least three times.

[Why is he in an orange jumpsuit. That's the question that's most bothering him right now. Clothes are for organic types with something to hide. He's a robot, he doesn't give a heck about modesty. Even on missions with the Secret FF he's never needed a uniform, Uncle Chuck just kind of gave him the color scheme built in.]

[Plus there's a gap in his memory, he doesn't know how he got here. That should probably be kind of worrying. Maybe this is Eggman? Nah, he would've showed up to gloat on a big screen by now or something. And if he'd been captured he probably would've just been reprogrammed or taken apart for scrap, not dropped in a weird gulag or whatever.]

[So as deathtraps go this is pretty weak so far. He's built better deathtraps than this. At least one. Where's the style, the drama, the innocent mutant fox hanging over a lava pit?]

[Aaaaand that's totally a legionized Overlander girl up ahead there. So maybe this is his old boss after all.]

...Hey. So. Did the Doctor actually tell you what's up here, or is this one of those things where he's tossing enemies and minions together and just sitting back to watch how things shake out.

[So, the rules of the game are simple. Pick a stock phrase of flirtation out of a hat and see how it goes. Simple, right?]

Salutations! I- um.

[Yeah she's gonna take a second to squint down at the little piece of paper in her hand. She's positive this is wrong, but she's going to try it anyway. It's the rules.]

"I seem to have lost my scroll number. Could I have yours?" ...Well that's just ridiculous, that's not at all how personal numbers work.

[Well. This robot passes for human (when not transformed, anyway), but Labrys clearly does not. But that means Kanin can tell, at a glance, that this is a robot.

Which means she's going to just sort of ping the inside of Labrys' head. Her vision just gets a weird... Windows popup, of all things.

"KdlP would like to add you as a friend. Accept/Accept?"

... That's all you're getting, because Kanin is watching from nearby.]

[ When the window pops up, Labrys visibly starts and then squints her eyes, even though she knows it won't really help to do anything about the popup covering her vision. She's never seen anything like this before and she's not sure she even has anything like that installed in her core programming (the Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapons certainly didn't need friends, after all), but here it is.

And it... won't go away.

The crease of her brow grows even more pronounced. ]

What's this...? Some kinda error? Never seen one like this before...

[ She's sure as hell not accepting it right off the bat, either way. ]

Yer what number?

[ Okay, hold on, let her scoot in as well so she can take a look at the bit of paper Penny's holding. ]

Uh... well, that's what it says. What's what s'pposed ta mean, anyways?

[ this is going to be the blind leading the fucking blind ]

[ So... Labrys is pretty sure she isn't supposed to be here. There's a big fat blank in her memories of whatever took her from the limo with Aigis and the others and whatever ended her here, and that makes her worried. It makes her thing – did they scoop anything else out, while they were fumbling around in there?

How much?

She's not sure she wants to know the answer.

She's huddled up against the wall as he approaches, running diagnostic after diagnostic, but everything comes back clean. It's suspicious. She's so caught up in her fretting that she barely even notices Shard approach and it's only when he actually speaks up that her head snaps up and she looks at him. ]

... Huh?

[ Sorry. Give her a second to catch up. ]

Uh... do me a favour, rewind all that real quick. Who's this Doctor you're talkin' about? He got somethin' to do with all this?

[A second popup appears:

"Friendship isn't an error :("

You know, Kanin, maybe it would work better if you just asked, like a normal, sane person?]

The personal contact number for my scroll?

[She pulls out what's basically a slightly more futuristic smartphone to demonstrate. Contacts on display seem to be limited to 'Father', 'Friend Ruby', 'Mr. Ironwood', 'Ms. Winter's, and 'Partner Ciel'.]

The only way to really LOSE it would be to forget it and then lose the scroll itself, though, so just having someone else's wouldn't really help.

Hey, that ain't what I said at all!

[ She's getting so visibly flustered, it's kind of hilarious. She might be arguing with what amounts to an error window but friendship is important, okay!! ]

What I mean is – it's a little weird to ask someone if they wanna be friends with you and then not even give 'em a say in it! Makin' friends doesn't work like that!

Maybe the idea's t'confuse someone so much they just do whatever you say without thinkin' about it too hard.

[ But probably not. ]

You think any of this stuff even works?

[... Oh, no. She's so earnest about it that Kanin almost feels a bit mean about doing this to her. But, well. Might as well commit to the bit.

The previous popups disappear, and a new one pops up:

"But what's wrong with being weird? :("

kanin, have you considered that you have trouble making friends because you're like this.]

There's nothin' wrong with just bein' weird, but there's a whole lot wrong with messin' with somebody's head just to try forcin' 'em to be friends with you!

[ Okay now she's officially getting A Little Mad. This was weird enough before but know that someone's fiddling around with something, somewhere and it's getting inside her head is getting her all riled up. ]

Oh, that seems like a really rude way to approach romance.

[It's confusing enough on its own without trying to intentionally confuse and manipulate people with unclear requests.]

It must on some level, or people wouldn't do it, would they? Even if it's not very nice.

[She selects another slip of paper.]

"Feel my shirt, it's made of girlfriend material"? ....My clothes are not made of people, that's terrible.

[ You'd think this one would fly over her head too but Labrys squints at the paper for a moment then makes an utterly disgusted face.

Because it's a pun. And she learned to swim in the deep end when it comes to puns. ]

Ugh, I get this one. It's real bad, though. It's like... man, how do I explain it... "girlfriend material"'s kinda like a sayin'. Like, you're tryin' to say you'd make a good girlfriend for someone. It's dumb.

[Dot dot dot.]

O-o-h. I get it!

[And just. Gross laughing. Sorry Labrys.]

[Well that's kind of a weird reaction. Might still be a trap, but he's willing enough to wait and see. No point in wasting someone who might be an innocent victim, nevermind possibly rescuing someone from Eggman's influence.]

[As much as possible, anyway, if he's still planting explosives in Legionnaire's cybernetics.]

Big guy, shaped like an egotistical beachball, has a mustache that looks like a frightened cat glued to his face, probably did a lot of gloating while he was sticking on those cybernetics?

[ GROOOOAAAAN. ]

Aww, c'mon Penny-chan, not you too! I already gotta put up with a whole buncha punsters. I ain't gonna let you turn into one of 'em!

[ Labrys just looks at him as if he's in the process of growing three new heads. ]

I... have literally never met this guy in my life.

[ She assumes. She's pretty sure she'd remember a guy fitting that description. ]

Why? He got somethin' to do with me wakin' up here?

[TOO LATE]

[She is- not SNORTING with laughter, she's not quite biological enough for that, but she's lost in the sauce here.]

I'm sorry! Sorry. It's just- that's actually kind of clever!

That's one word for it, for sure.

[ she has done nothing wrong ever in her life and this is what she gets!!! ]

The rest of 'em ain't puns too, are they?

I'm not sure?

[Picking another one. FOR SCIENCE.]

"If I said you had a nice body, would you-" what?

[She thinks for a second.]

...I think that's kind of a pun but it's very rude.

Ah. Hm. Well, you'd definitely know if you met him, he tends to make sure of that.

[Look at me, I'm a genius, I took over the entire planet, hate that hedgehog, blur blur blur blur.]

[But if she really doesn't know the doctor-]

...You got any holes in your memory? Specifically vis a vis those snazzy metal add-ons and how you got them?

[ With great feeling: ] Yikes.

I'm startin' to think we're probably better off keepin' all these pickup lines to ourselves. If we start goin' around and droppin' these on people, who knows what kindsa trouble we'll get into.

Add-ons?

[ She parrots that back with her brow furrowed in confusion, pretty transparently absolutely baffled. It takes her a second to get exactly what he's implying but then her lips pinch together into a thin line and she shakes her head. ]

Uh– I don't have any add ons, exactly. All a' this– [ She gestures up and down to herself. ] It's all just me.

Hm. Maybe we should find a shredder or- I don't know, some place to burn them? Just to be safe. Would burning be too much?

[Would the potential pollution outweigh the potential figurative noise pollution from these things?]

Oh. Dang.

[He takes a moment to reassess essentially everything about this interaction up to this point.]

Yeah, probably not the doc, then. He usually goes pretty all-in one way or the other. He builds things to look totally organic until you start murdering people, or they're just honest about being all metal.

I figure we can just toss 'em in the recycling? If we can find some place with a recyclin' bin for paper and junk.

[ The environment is important!!! ]

He sounds like a real peach.

[ Labrys pinches the bridge of her nose in exasperation, like she's trying to ward off a headache that she almost definitely is not physically capable of getting. But if anything could give her one, it'd probably be a messed up situation like this. ]

S'it just the two of us stuck in here? Or have you seen any other folks around?

None yet. But I passed a few doors on the way that might've been other quarters.

[There might be IDs or PIPs or something in play that he's managed to ignore so far, to be fair.]

Plus, you don't see many prisons for just two people.

That would get rid of them, but someone might accidentally read one while they're being sorted or processed.

[And that would be terrible.]

Do you have any markers? We could black them all out first.

Depends on the people, doncha think?

[ She says it with a rather grim smile. ]

But you're probably right. Doesn't make a lot of sense to toss up a whole setup like this just for us.

Uh, I can see if I got one...

[ She pats herself down for a moment, then digs into the pocket of her skirt and emerges with a ballpoint pen. ]

S'not a marker, but we could probably get some good scribbles outta it.

Hm.

[She takes the offered pen and scribbles over the slip of paper in her hand for a moment, pausing to consider her work.]

What do you think, illegible enough?

Hm...

[ She squints at it for a moment. ]

Maybe try doin' that thing where you write over it with a whole buncha other stuff? Then you just see a whole jumble a' letters instead of any real words.

Okay, let me see.

[She writes over the already-scribbled text a few times. It might just be the names of everyone she knows repeated.]

How about now?

So that was pretty heavy right?

[A wave of pure white, burning light. Shard had felt his mind, his self- whatever he had instead of a soul, tearing itself apart. Then he was here. The In-Between, they called it, because it was. A world between other worlds, catching fragments of those destroyed and burned away by the light.]

[Everyone here was a survivor, carving out as much of an existence as they could, trying to find out what they could. What the light was, what was causing it, was there any way to stop this- and was there any way out.]

[So, everyone he'd known was at best dead, he was stuck in a world where everything by nature had to be scavenged, and for all anyone knew the light would eventually burn away this place too.]

[And since livable space was at such a premium, he had a roommate now. That was really the capper on all of this.]

Like it's not just me, right, this is objectively the worst.

[ So, Labrys has been... well, doing something kind of semi-adjacent to coping. She's been trying not to think too hard about the fact that all her friends are gone, her sister's gone and somehow she's the only one to make it here unscathed. She tries to tell herself that they'd be happy she survived and that they'd want her to keep fighting, but they're all flat platitudes that don't really mean anything, especially when Labrys is saying them to herself.

She's here. They're not. Whatever her friends would think about it, she has some responsibility to keep going, even if it's just to make sure none of this happens to anybody else.

Not that she can realistically do anything about it, but. Baby steps.

At least she's not stuck on her own while she mulls all this over. She doesn't need much in the way of supplies like the others do, but she at least needs somewhere to live and she knows she'll have a better time of things if she's with someone else.

She decides not to ask if rooming the two robots together was someone's idea of a goof, though. ]

Sure is one way of puttin' it. [ She gives him a smile that's a little forced. ] Folks keep sayin' "things could be worse" but that just feels like askin' for trouble.

42nd ♫ | a moment in time, a blink, not long at all.

So the RNG says first meetings in a murderprison

i told yo it'd be both of them bro, i warned you

flipped a coin and got jamjar

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remind me to do a murderprofile for her later

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oh my god they were roombas

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