Rosemarie's ears flattened against her skull as I settled onto a too-plush cushion. Sally didn't blink. I wonder what happens to her and Agent Prower after Tails is born?
What about Sally, she wasn't in any of the games from what I can remember? Or is she? The sharp scent of ozone intensified as Sally slid a diamond-shaped block toward me—a deliberate challenge disguised as play. Her claws tapped the plastic surface. *Click-click*. Like stun-batons priming. "Father says foundations require precision," she stated, gaze fixed on my hands. Rosemarie flinched at the mention of Maxx, her pregnant belly brushing the tower blocks. A surveillance drone whirred lower, lens zooming on my quills. Sally's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Show me how you'd... reinforce the structure."
I selected a jagged shard from the rubble pile—discarded "damage" from earlier sessions. Its edges caught the sterile light. Rosemarie inhaled sharply. Sally's tail flicked once. Slowly, deliberately, I wedged the shard beneath the diamond block's corner. Lifted. The plastic groaned. The drone's hum pitched higher. Sally leaned forward, amber headband glinting. "Interesting technique." Her voice stayed level, but her knuckles whitened around a hidden blade in her sleeve. I could smell the oil on its hinge.
The tower trembled. Rosemarie shifted, guarding her belly with both paws. "Princess, perhaps—" Sally silenced her with a glance. I applied pressure. Precise. Controlled. The shard sank deeper into the foam foundation. Sally mirrored my movement, sliding another fragment under a central pillar. Her claws trembled—imperceptible to anyone not studying fracture points. Dust motes danced in the drone's spotlight. We weren't building. We were mapping fault lines. Her block shifted millimeters. Mine held. A bead of sweat traced Rosemarie's temple.
Sally's next move was swift: a polished amethyst "resource gem" slammed onto my destabilized corner. The tower lurched. Plastic groaned against jagged ceramic. I countered immediately—not upward reinforcement, but lateral collapse. My knuckle jabbed a rotten support beam disguised as decor. Sally's amber eyes widened a fraction. Half the structure sheered away toward Rosemarie. The fox scrambled back, paws shielding her swollen middle. Blocks shattered on impact. Sally froze, blade half drawn. The drone whined in alarm.
Silence pooled around the wreckage. Sally stared at the debris near Rosemarie's feet, then at my unmoved hand still resting on the shard. Her lips parted—not in protest, but reassessment. The scent of fractured plastic mixed with Rosemarie's sharp fear. Sally sheathed her blade slowly. "Foundations," she murmured, eyes locking onto mine, "are indeed... unstable." Outside, Maxx's parade sirens wailed, harmonizing with the drone's retreating buzz.
Rosemarie flinched as I gathered scattered tiny toys—foxes, rabbits, badgers—from the wreckage. Their painted eyes stared blankly. Sally watched my claws arrange them atop surviving blocks: pawns guarding hollowed-out fortresses. "Chess," I stated, placing a nut to represent Maxx Acorn on a cracked spire. Sally raised a brow. Rosemarie whispered, "Is this a Overtropolis game?" My silence answered her. I slid a jagged shard—a cracked nut—toward Maxx. "Queen. Confined." Sally's muzzle tightened as I placed Jules and Charles shards facedown beside the board. "King. Bishop. Of the board." Rosemarie gasped.
Sally picked up Charles's shard, thumb tracing its synthetic edge. "The Bishop," she echoed, voice tight as overwound wire. "But his equations quantified everything." She flipped Charles' piece—revealing rust-stained circuitry beneath. "Except entropy." Her gaze sliced toward the door where Maxx's knights stood guard. Rosemarie's paw drifted protectively over her belly as Sally slid Jules' shard next to Maxx's nut. "The King," Sally murmured. "Bound by legacy." She snapped Jules' piece clean in half. Plastic shards clattered like falling diamonds.
"And this?" Rosemarie whispered. Sally didn't blink. "Sacrificed queen. Removed far too early." She swept Bernadette's invisible piece off the board. The drone's lens whirred, capturing only empty space where her paw passed. Rosemarie trembled. Sally placed her own amber headband atop the central block—a crown on fractured plastic. "Play continues." I slid the cracked nut—Maxx Acorn—forward. "King remains." Sally's claws hovered over Jules' broken shard. "Dead king. Smothered by entropy." Rosemarie flinched as Sally crushed the plastic fragments under her palm. "And the bishop?" I gestured toward Charles' rust-stained shard.
Sally flicked it aside with disdain. "Dead bishop. Equations couldn't save him." The scent of ozone sharpened. She leaned across the wreckage, voice dropping to a razor's edge. "Now it's just pawns and queens on a poisoned board." I retrieved Bernadette's phantom piece—a fleck of iridescent glitter from Kintobor's gel vial, still clinging to my cuff. Placed it silently beside Sally's headband-crown. Rosemarie's breath hitched. Sally stared at the glitter-speck, then met my eyes. "A queen sacrificed too soon," she repeated, softer now. Outside, Maxx Acorn's parade sirens wailed—a funeral march for kings in the line of Acorn already fallen that he loved reminding others about.
Rosemarie clutched her belly. Sally's gaze lingered on the glitter-speck—Bernadette's ghost queen. "And you?" she asked, claws tapping the board's edge. *Click-click*. Like gunfire in the silence. I slid forward a polished obsidian shard—sharp, dark, reflecting the drone's lens. "It's not a pawn," Rosemarie breathed. Sally's muzzle tightened.
"No. It's the Horse, isn't it Sonic?" Sally's voice dropped low, eyes tracking the obsidian shard's gleam. "Galloping far off-board, hidden. That's what Father calls you." Rosemarie shivered, knuckles white against her swollen belly. I rotated the shard—its edge catching sterile light like a blade. "Unbound," I corrected softly. Beyond the playroom's padded walls, Maxx Acorn's parade roared—drums pounding like collapsing mines. Sally flipped the headband-crown upright. "And the Horse needs sacrifice to advance." She gestured to Rosemarie's trembling form. "A pawn?" Rosemarie flinched again. Why did she keep doing that? "No," Sally murmured, claws brushing the fox's arm. "A rook. Sturdy. Expendable." The drone whirred agreement.
Jules' diamond cufflinks shattered under Maxx Acorn's heel in the throne room footage playing silently on the playroom wall-screen—scattered shards catching emergency flares from the riots below. Bernadette's neural stabilizer flatlined three sectors away when Kintobor Tower's quarantine fields flickered during the Barony's EMP strike. Charles' last equation dissolved mid-calculation as rust consumed his Organicizer core, synth-caviar boiling over into acidic steam that ate through diamond-reinforced flooring. Three icons erased from Mobius' crumbling chessboard.
Rosemarie's gasp echoed hollowly. Sally didn't flinch. Her amber eyes stayed fixed on the obsidian shard—my piece—resting between Maxx's fractured nut and her own headband-crown. "Sacrifices accelerate entropy," she stated, claws tracing the board's warped edge. Outside, parade fireworks detonated like artillery, staining the plexiglass viewport sulfur-yellow. Rosemarie hunched lower, paws cradling her belly as a surveillance drone skimmed her quivering ear-tips. Sally's voice sharpened: "Rooks withstand pressure. Or break."
The drone's lens whirred, zooming on Rosemarie's tear-streaked muzzle. Sally flicked a plastic shard—Jules' remnant—toward the fox. "Your move." Rosemarie trembled, breath hitching. I watched her tremor resonate through the board. Weakness. Leverage. Her paw closed over the shard, knuckles blanching beneath fur. Above us, Maxx Acorn's laughter crackled through hidden speakers—a sound like grinding bones.
Sally rose abruptly, headband glinting cold fire. "The game evolves." She kicked the board, sending plastic kings and phantom queens skittering across sterile tiles. Rosemarie flinched as shards struck her ankles. "Prepare your rook, Horse," Sally hissed, crimson gaze slicing to the hallway where Maxx's knights waited. "Father's parade demands… entertainment." Her boot crushed Charles' rusted shard into toxic dust.
"Indeed it does Sally, indeed it does." Rosemarie's choked sob cut through the sterile air as Sally strode toward the exit, head held high beneath her amber crown. Behind us, the shattered chessboard lay strewn—plastic kings and phantom queens ground into diamond-patterned tiles. Maxx Acorn's laughter still echoed, a grating counterpoint to Rosemarie's muffled weeping. Her paws trembled over her swollen belly, Jules' plastic shard clutched tight enough to draw blood. The scent of ozone sharpened—Sally's parting gift lingering like a blade's edge. She paused at the threshold, crimson gaze flicking back. "The Horse rides at dusk." The doors hissed shut. Rosemarie crumpled.
"Are you alright Miss Rosemarie? Or would it be Mrs. Prower now?" My words cut through her sobs. Rosemarie stared at Jules' shard embedded in her palm, plastic edges weeping synthetic blood onto her dress. Outside, Maxx's parade cannons boomed, shaking dust from the playroom's reinforced ceiling. Her muzzle trembled—not from pain, but realization. Sally hadn't offered protection. She'd marked territory. Rosemarie's paw slid protectively over her belly, knuckles white around Jules' jagged legacy. "He's… gone?" she whispered. I peeled the shard from her grip. Crimson beads dotted the diamond-patterned tile. "Jules died screaming in a Diamond Heights elevator shaft yesterday," I stated flatly. "Charles dissolved in his Organicizer coolant leak hours later." Her breath hitched. "And Bernadette?"
"Bernadette flatlined during Kintobor's neural recalibration. Her biometrics spiked once—when Jules' obituary flashed on medical ward screens—then flatlined." Rosemarie's ears flattened against her skull. The drone's whir intensified, lens zooming on her tear-streaked muzzle. I pressed gauze onto her bleeding palm. Bernadette's neural death hadn't been peaceful. Kintobor's logs showed synaptic flares like supernovae—one final, furious pulse against Jules' exploitation before neurological silence claimed her. No funeral. Just incinerator logs. Rosemarie's gaze dropped to her swollen abdomen. "Sacrifices," she rasped.
Beyond the soundproofed walls, Maxx Acorn's victory speech crackled through hidden speakers. "—*Hedgehog instability eliminated!*" Rosemarie flinched at Jules' codename. Diamond propaganda omitted Bernadette entirely—erased as efficiently as Kintobor's med-bay sanitizers scrubbed her genetic traces. Charles? A footnote in toxicology reports: *Nutrient Synthesis Lead Engineer - Terminal Entropic Collapse*. Outside, hover-tanks fired confetti shells filled with pulverized JulesCo jewelry. Glittering debris rained on riot-suppression squads. Rosemarie's trembling fingers traced her belly. "They're… really gone?"
"Yes." The drone descended, scanning her cortisol spike. Jules' empire had long since layed in radioactive rubble. Charles' equations decayed in corrupted servers. Bernadette's neural echoes dissolved in Kintobor's old destroyed hospital incinerators. Rosemarie's claws dug into her dress fabric. "Sacrifices," she whispered again, voice raw. Outside, Maxx Acorn's hologram towered over Diamond City, declaring the Hedgehog "instability" purged. Rosemarie's muzzle lifted toward the soundproofed walls. "But entropy consumes kings too." Her paw brushed where Jules' shard had pierced her palm—now bandaged, throbbing. Synthetic blood stained gauze brown.
Rosemarie eased upright, movements stiff with pregnancy and fear. She gathered scattered plastic blocks—foxes, rabbits, badgers—cradling them against her swollen belly like fragmented innocence. "Sally called me expendable," she murmured, tracing a rabbit's chipped ear. The drone tracked her trembling fingers. I remained still. Dust motes danced in Maxx's victory hologram glare. Rosemarie arranged the toys into a tight circle: guardians facing outward. "But rooks," she breathed, knuckles whitening, "can become queens."
Beyond the playroom, Maxx's parade cannons boomed—rhythmic as a heartbeat. Rosemarie flinched with each impact. Her gaze locked onto mine, amber eyes reflecting Kintobor Tower's distant decaying bronze pulse. "The Horse rides at dusk," she stated, echoing Sally's blade-edged words. Dust trickled from the ceiling where Maxx's hologram fragmented into static. Rosemarie clutched her belly, Jules' plastic shard discarded at her feet—bleeding synthetic crimson onto diamond-patterned tiles. "Entropy doesn't pause for kings." Her claws dug into a foam rabbit's neck. "Or rooks."
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Maxx Acorn's throne room reeked of antiseptic and ozone, a sterile tomb for dead kings. Holographic feeds flickered above him—Diamond Heights' riots dissolving into grainy static, it was one of his favorite sites to watch. Kintobor's bronze shuttle materialized on the central display, its descent into Sanctuary Sector 7 smooth as a scalpel cut. Maxx's claws drummed obsidian. "Doctor Kintobor," he purred into the comm, voice colder than cryo-vault steel. "Your humanitarian *extraction* was… efficient." Outside, Barony enforcers clashed with starving kits below Maxx's own synth-grain silos. Distraction. Camouflage. Kintobor's weathered face filled the screen, Delta Radiation burns etching sorrow-lines deeper than grief. "King Acorn." His tone held no deference. Only exhaustion. "State your demands."
Maxx leaned forward, silk robe pooling like spilled blood. "Demands? Doctor, I offer *assistance*." He gestured languidly at the hologram replaying Sonic's compression scarred spine. "Your… protege exhibits fascinating instability. Jules' *legacy* bleeds radiation." Kintobor's gaze hardened—a flicker of protective fury beneath Delta scars. "The child requires specialized care, not political dissection."
"Sally?" Maxx's muzzle curved into a glacial smile. "My daughter has taken an admiration for your protege Kintobor. And the boy requires peers, does he not?" On screen, Kintobor's make shift clinic shifted—another Overlander's limb lost to Diamond Heights' radiation burns. "My daughter," Maxx continued, claws tapping obsidian, "is a *good and powerful* influence." The implication hung like poisoned honey: Sally inside Kintobor's sanctuary, a royal trojan horse. Kintobor's knuckles whitened around a med scanner. He knew Maxx's "gifts" carried barbs sharper than diamond shards.
Below Diamond Heights' polarized windows, Acorn enforcers herded shivering Northern Barony refugee kits toward quarantine pens—Maxx's latest bioweapon test subjects.
"I'm afraid I must end this call early dear Doctor, I have... certain occupancies to attend to," Maxx Acorn's silk-smooth voice cut through Kintobor's protestations. The comms channel dissolved into static before Kintobor could refuse. Overlanders. Northern Baronies. Two cancers festering at Maxx's perfect Mobius' core.
Maxx paced before the panoramic window overlooking Diamond Heights' irradiated ruins. "Parasites," he hissed, claws scraping obsidian tiles. "Overlanders with their malformed hands clutching our resources."
He had already long since started 'cleansing' the Kingdom of Acorn of such pests, of course. The Northern Barony kits choked on synth-dust in his quarantine pens, their spines plucked for nerve-cluster analysis while Overlander refugees bled out in alleys from his 'sanitation protocols.' Yet still they multiplied—filthy, desperate, clinging to life like mold on rotting fruit. Maxx's muzzle twisted as he watched a holographic replay of Kintobor's shuttle landing in Sector 7—Overlander medics swarming like maggots on irradiated meat. "Parasites," he spat, claws scoring deep grooves into the obsidian windowsill. "They breed in decay, thrive in entropy. Their very existence mocks perfection." Below, Diamond Heights' ruins smoldered, a testament to their contamination. He'd burn every last shanty to ash if it meant purging their stench.
Jules, that long gone fool was satisfied with simply having them out of his sight. Out of sight? Out of mind? Well... Maxx was not Jules, and Maxx was definitely not satisfied. Maxx's claws gouged fresh furrows in the obsidian window ledge. Diamond Heights' ruins smoldered far below—a festering wound spreading beneath Sanctuary Sector 7's bronze glow. Overlanders. Their gangly limbs, their hairless pink hides sweating beneath Kintobor's merciful med-lights. Filth clinging to Sanctuary's sterile walls, breathing air meant for Mobian nobility. They multiplied in the irradiated shadows, birthing whelps with grasping fingers already curled for thievery. Parasites. Sucking prestige from his kingdom's crumbling bones.
And then the Northern Baronies happened. Those inbred vermin crawling further into the light out of Diamond Heights' irradiated carcass, noses twitching for scraps like sewer rats. Maxx watched them on thermal scans—a pulsing, diseased tide clinging to Kintobor's bronze walls. Parasites. Born in radiation, weaned on decay. He paced, claws scoring black grooves into obsidian. "They breed in the shadows cast by Mobian architecture," he hissed to the empty throne room, silk robe swirling like congealed blood. "Overlanders defile our gravity with their gangly strides. Their children—oversized pink to brown skinned monstrosities—steal the very air refined for aristocracy."
He paused and then got an idea, "Jeffrey, Agent Prower, I need you both here at once." Maxx stared at Sector 7's thermal scans as he waited—Overlander heat signatures clustered near Kintobor's filtration vents like maggots on spoiled meat. Below his tower, more newly minted Acorn enforcers prodded refugee kits toward quarantine pens, their spines gleaming wetly under Diamond Heights' gamma lamps. Parasites upon parasites. Jeffrey materialized first, datapad clutched like a shield. Prower followed, muzzle ash-streaked from Sector 7, knuckles still crusted with squirrel kit blood—sacrifice offered unto order. "Observe," Maxx commanded, hologram shifting to Kintobor's shuttle landing footage...