A plasma screen flickered to life above the bar, displaying Maxx's latest propaganda broadcast. Jeffrey's smirk twisted into something decidedly carnivorous as the king pontificated about stability—those hypocritical syllables crumbling like wet paper when Sector 7's containment alarms wailed in the background. "Darling," he called to the lynx without turning, tracing the scar along his muzzle where Hershei's claws had last touched him, "be a gem and fetch me that Overlander contact if you don't mind."
"Mr. Kintobor Sir?"
"Yes, he is just the one."
The lynx hesitated—claws flexing against her data pad—before nodding with the stiff precision of a soldier conditioned to obey. Jeffrey watched her reflection in the bourbon bottle's curved glass, amused by how her ears twitched at every distant scream rattling the brothel's reinforced windows. He swirled his drink, ice clinking like bones in a shallow grave, and savored the way King Maxx Acorn's broadcast glitched mid-sentence when another explosion rocked the capital. *How poetic*, he mused, *that your empire crumbles during prime time.*
The Overlander's arrogance preceded him like the ozone stench of overloaded circuitry—Collin Kintobor's polished dress shoes clicked against the brothel's bloodstained tiles with the rhythmic certainty of a man who'd never questioned his dominance. His gaze skimmed over the lynx's bowed head with the same detached interest one might afford furniture, gloved fingers adjusting a cufflink engraved with the old Overlander Empire's insignia. "St. Croix," Collin's voice carried the crisp precision of a scalpel slicing flesh, "your message implied urgency, not this..."
His nostrils flared at the scent of spilled whiskey and Mobian musk in the air—a cocktail of sweat and submission that made his fingers twitch toward the sterilization gel in his coat pocket. The lynx's ears flattened instinctively under Collin's glacial stare, her fur bristling as he stepped past her without acknowledgment, the toe of his polished Uxford nudging a discarded shock collar under the booth.
"This establishment reeks of debachury and fur," Collin remarked, peeling off his gloves with surgical precision before accepting the drink Jeffrey slid across the table. His fingers lingered near the lynx's wrist—not touching, just close enough for her pulse to flutter visibly beneath tawny fur—as he inspected the glass for smudges. "Though I suppose one cannot expect dignity from creatures who still are comfortable without full clothing."
Jeffrey gave his signature tight smile that didn't reach his eyes, "Look Kintobor, you hate Mobians and I hate Overlanders, but we both have certain ambitions of power—and right now King Maxx Acorn is in the way of both of those ambitions." His claws tapped the rim of his bourbon glass in a slow, deliberate rhythm—click...click...click—each strike timed to punctuate his words. Collin's lip curled as the lynx dared to shift her weight behind them, her claws scraping against the tile like nails on a chalkboard.
"And yet you surround yourself with these..." Collin waved a dismissive hand at the lynx, "...filthy creatures while expecting me to trust you?" The air thickened with static as Jeffrey's smirk sharpened into something predatory—his bourbon swirling like blood in the dim light.
The lynx's tail lashed once before freezing—Jeffrey's fingers wrapped around her throat without breaking eye contact with Kintobor. "Oh Colin," he purred, tightening his grip just enough to make her claws dig into the booth's leather, "you mistake tools for treasures." His thumb stroked the lynx's frantic pulse point in mock tenderness before shoving her toward the exit, watching with genuine amusement as she scrambled away choking back sobs.
Collin's glove creaked around his glass—Overlander etiquette warring with visceral disgust—until Jeffrey's laughter cut through the tension like a plasma blade. "See that?" He gestured to the abandoned shock collar with his drink, ice clinking like teeth. "King Maxx Acorn's reign is already collapsing under its own hypocrisy and weight."
His fangs glinted as Sector 91's latest explosion illuminated the night, "One man such as him can not rule the entire world with the iron fist that he does."
"So what exactly do you propose skunk?"
"Simple, divide, conquer, divide. We divide House Acorn, we conquer Mobius, and then divide it in two, you and your family can rule the Overlander side, while I rule the Mobian side."
"You presume I wish to rule with my children by my side?"
Collin's voice carried the weight of a man who'd executed subordinates for lesser assumptions. His fingers tightened around his sterilized glass, the Overlander's knuckles bleaching white against the crystal. Jeffrey merely leaned back, tail flicking lazily over the booth's torn upholstery, watching as smoke from Sector 92's collapse painted the sky in streaks of vermilion and ash. "Oh, my apologies, I thought your relationship with your son and daughter was better than with your little brother."
"Please my son is a dwarf with a long beak-like nose, I ran seven DNA tests to make sure my wife didn't cheat on me with one of your kind. And then my daughter... she always tried to fight back when I tried to swaddle her, and her eyes..." He trailed of as he took another sip of his drink.
Jeffrey's claws drummed a lazy rhythm against the bourbon glass, watching Collin's face contort with barely concealed disgust. The skunk's smile widened—not polite, not friendly—just teeth. "Funny," he murmured, swirling his drink so the ice clinked like bones in a shallow grave, "your brother never had such... *delicate* sensibilities."
Collin's glove creaked around his glass, the sound echoing louder than Sector 9's distant collapse. His lips peeled back from bleached-white teeth—not a smile, but the baring of a scalpels edge. "Julian was *defective*," he spat, the word dripping with clinical finality. "His sentimentality toward those *animals* was a genetic aberration, and yet he was always mother's and father's favorite."
"Well then, how about a toast, to a new world order, or rather two of them?" Jeffrey raised his glass, sloshing bourbon over the rim—deliberate, wasteful, relishing how Collin's eye twitched at the spillage marring the polished table. The skunk's grin widened as distant explosions backlit his silhouette in flickering crimson, his tail curling around the lynx's abandoned shock collar like a conqueror claiming a trophy.
Collin's nostrils flared at the stench of Mobian sweat still clinging to the leather, his gloved fingers retreating into his sterilized coat pocket for a fresh handkerchief.
The Overlander's polished glove twitched—a barely suppressed recoil—as Jeffrey deliberately dragged his claws through the bourbon spill, smearing amber droplets across the propaganda broadcast's frozen image of King Maxx Acorn once more.
------------
*THWACKK*
He fell down.
The Echidna Warrior he was training under had bested him again.
Elijah Acorn rolled onto his back, chest heaving, mud streaking his warrior vest as the training ground's harsh floodlights carved shadows across his muzzle. The echidna's staff hovered inches from his throat—a silent *this could be lethal*—but his father's voice cut through the ringing in his ears first. "Again," King Maxx Acorn commanded from a speaker, fingers drumming against his throne no doubt on the other side of Mobius.
This was what his life had been ever since his sister had been born—fighting, bleeding, proving himself against warriors bred for combat since birth, while Sally got groomed in courtly manners and statecraft. Elijah spat blood into the mud and forced himself upright, ignoring the echidna's disapproving grunt. His claws dug into the practice staff's splintered wood, knuckles popping under the strain.
"Once more," he snarled—not to his trainer, not to his father's disembodied voice—but to his own reflection in the puddle between his boots, distorted by rain and exhaustion.
He didn't mind Atlantinopolis really, Demon Island was eerie a lot of the time but it's been his home for over half of his life at this point, and Lord Loch was a good ruler for the most part. But he hated being ordered around by his father still, being told when to move, when to speak, when to act like a prince, when to act like a soldier, when to act like a warrior, when to act like a pawn.
He stared at his reflection in the rainwater—distorted by ripples from it being and underwater island and all—and wondered when he'd stopped recognizing the Mobian staring back. The echidna's staff prodded his ribs again, impatient, but Elijah didn't move. Not yet. His claws curled tighter around the practice weapon, splinters biting into his palms. *Father wants a warrior?* The thought tasted like bile. *Fine. But not his kind.*
He looked up at his teacher: Lein-Da's ocean blue gaze burned with the same intensity as her plasma-edged spear—cold, calculating, and utterly devoid of mercy. Her grip shifted slightly—not to strike, but to emphasize the vulnerability his position exposed. "Your father's enemies won't care about your moral dilemmas, princeling," she said, voice low enough that the surveillance drones circling overhead wouldn't catch it.
The mud squelched under her armored boots as she leaned down, her next words a blade slipped between ribs: "But *I* do." Lein-Da's free hand gripped Elijah's chin, forcing him to meet eyes that had seen entire clans reduced to ash for survival. Her thumb wiped blood from his split lip with unexpected gentleness. "You want to embarrass your father?" Her whisper carried the weight of centuries-old grudges. "Then stop fighting like an Overlander's trained lapdog."
Elijah's ears flattened. He knew that look—the same one his father wore when cornering a rival ambassador—but Lein-Da's version simmered with something colder: the patience of glaciers carving mountains. Her fingers tightened imperceptibly on his jaw. "The echidnas," she continued, voice dropping lower, "remember when House Acorn *begged* for our spears at their borders. Your father's 'kingdom' is scaffolding built on borrowed time—and borrowed blades."
A surveillance drone buzzed closer. Lein-Da's smile showed teeth as she hauled him upright with a grunt, their movements perfectly choreographed for royal observers. Her lips brushed his ear as she adjusted his grip on the staff: "Meet me in the archives of the Dusk Legion after midnight. Come unarmed if you're serious about learning how kings *really* fall."
Elijah's claws bit into the staff. Lein-Da had trained his father's most personal guard—knew every secret passage in Atlantinopolis' shifting metal towers. He exhaled sharply through his nose, tasting blood and brine. A calculated risk—but wasn't treason better than being sent away simply because a younger heir was born when you were still a toddler?
Midnight came with the groan of ancient hydraulics as Elijah slipped through the archives' shadowed entrance. Lein-Da waited beside a flickering terminal, her silhouette carved from the glow of outdated war schematics. Without preamble, she seized his wrist and pressed his palm against a biometric scanner older than the monarchy itself. "Your ancestors," she murmured as the machine whirred, "built empires on stolen blood. Tonight, you repay that debt."
The terminal spat out a cracked datapad—its screen flickering with casualty reports from the First Echidna Purge. Lein-Da's claws traced the names scrolling past, her touch lingering on clan markings erased by the very first in the line of the House of Acorn—Alexander 'Alexis' Acorn, or Alexander the Decimater. "Your father's palace," she said, voice colder than the depths beneath Atlantinopolis, "is built atop echidna bones—*our* bones."
Her gaze didn't waver as the screen illuminated the scars crisscrossing her muzzle—honor marks for surviving what most hadn't. "You want leverage against your father?" Lein-Da thumbed the datapad's edge where clan sigils flickered erratically, a visual echo of suppressed history. "These records list every child taken from our villages to be 'civilized' in Acorn reeducation camps." Her claws flexed, not quite puncturing the screen. "Half of them died within a year. The rest?" A bitter chuckle. "They became the royal guard *training you*."
Elijah recoiled as if burned, the datapad's glow casting his horror in sickly green. His grip faltered—not from weakness, but the weight of comprehension. These weren't just names; they were ghosts wearing familiar faces. The armored instructors who'd broken his ribs during drills, the silent servants who'd stitched his wounds—all stolen kin nursing centuries-old vendettas. His breath hitched. "You're saying—"
"Your father's peace," Lein-Da interrupted, "was built on slaughterhouses disguised as orphanages." She seized his wrist again, this time pressing his palm against a holoprojector. The air shimmered with footage of echidna kits marched into steel barracks by Acorn soldiers—some barely taller than their rifles. "You inherit those sins, princeling. But unlike your sister, you aren't raised to polish bloodstains into pretty lies." Her voice dropped to a whisper like a blade being unsheathed. "*Use that.*"
The projector flickered out, plunging them into darkness save for the emergency exit's dim glow. Elijah's claws scraped against the cold floor as he knelt, not in submission, but to meet Lein-Da's eyes at her level. "Teach me," he demanded, voice roughened by suppressed fury. Not for himself—not entirely—but for the ache in her stance, the way her shoulders carried centuries of grief masked as discipline.
Lein-Da's nostrils flared. She reached into her chestplate's hidden compartment, withdrawing a dagger forged from echidna steel—its edge etched with names in the Old Tongue. "First lesson," she said, pressing the blade into his palm hard enough to draw blood. "Royalty is theft. Your father stole this land, your sister will soon steal loyalty with pretty speeches—" Her grip tightened, forcing the wound deeper. "*You* will steal his throne by becoming what he fears most: an Acorn who is a reminder of himself and his short comings."
Elijah's breath hitched as the dagger's hilt warmed against his skin—not from his blood, but some latent energy humming within the metal. Lein-Da's smile was a knife-cut in the gloom. "Second lesson: morality is a luxury kings can't afford." She jerked her chin toward the exit where distant alarms wailed. "Your father's bombing Sector 5 right now to 'restore order.' How many kits will that make orphans tonight?" Her claws scraped the ancient steel floor as she leaned in, breath hot with the scent of battlefield rations. "You want to embarrass Maxx? Become the monster he pretends not to be—the one who *finishes* what he starts."
The prince's fingers trembled around the dagger. He'd seen the reports—whole villages vanished overnight, dissenters erased from records like stains scrubbed from marble. But this... this was *personal*. Lein-Da's scars weren't just wounds; they were ledgers. His throat constricted. "You're asking me to—"
"—*win*," she interrupted, flicking the blade's tip under his chin. "By any means." Her laughter was the sound of bones breaking underfoot. "Your sister will rule with pretty words and purged archives. You? You'll have *this*." She slapped the cracked datapad against his chest hard enough to bruise. "Every Acorn secret, every massacre covered in velvet lies. Wield it like the blade it is."
Elijah's reflection warped in the dagger's polished surface—his father's muzzle, his mother's eyes, his own uncertainty staring back. The alarms grew louder. Somewhere, a child was screaming. His grip firmed. "Teach me *everything*." The words tasted like ash and adrenaline. Lein-Da's grin was all teeth. "Third lesson: blood makes the best ink." She dragged the dagger across her palm, smearing crimson over the datapad's screen. The names flickered—then *burned* brighter. "Let's rewrite history together, while I guide you to parity."
He bowed to her then, "Do I have strengths Master?"
"You have a talent to learn, we are not butchers Elijah, unlike past generations of echidna warriors," Lein-Da remarked, sliding a fresh whetstone across the table toward him. Her claws tapped the weapon rack behind her—spears polished to surgical precision, their edges whispering of executions carried out without wasted motion.
"We are architects of the future."
------------
Collin Kintobor Junior was a simple man—not good, not noble, just simple in the way a scalpel is simple—and he hated wasted effort almost as much as he hated Overlander hypocrisy. His fingers flexed around the sterilization gel dispenser as he strode through his father's home, each step calculated to avoid contact with surfaces his sister might've touched.
He paused at Julian's old lab door—still bearing the dents where his uncle had once thrown a wrench during one of their arguments about Mobian rights when he was still a child—and exhaled through his nose.
His uncle was the only one who never demeanded him for his looks—Kintobor and Robotnik family genes being what they were—he still missed him being here, even after all these years. Collin's glove creaked against the doorknob, resisting the childish impulse to turn it, to step inside and pretend Julian was still hunched over those damn equations with that insane Doctor Morgan , muttering equations to himself between sips of lukewarm coffee. Instead, he withdrew his hand as if burned, fingertips brushing the sterilization gel dispenser clipped to his belt.
Sentiment was weakness—Julian hadn't taught him that, just before vanishing into the bowels of Mobotropolis—but Collin had learned it anyway. He pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the lab door, exhaling a slow breath that fogged the steel. His uncle's ghost lingered here, in the scuff marks from worn-out shoes pacing equations into the floor, in the faint ozone tang of overclocked unsellable prototypes.
Collin's gloved hand curled into a fist halfway to knocking, then dropped limp at his side. The door's cold surface reflected his distorted face back at him—too-wide eyes, too-sharp teeth, all the wrong proportions of a Kintobor who'd never quite fit the family mold.
His uncle's voice echoed in his skull, six years gone but still sharper than his father's scalpel collection: *"You don't have to be what they say you are."* The memory tasted like antiseptic and stolen chocolate bars from Julian's secret stash.
A floorboard creaked behind him. Collin didn't turn—he knew that particular squeak by heart, just like he knew his father's breathing patterns when preparing to deliver another backhanded compliment. "Still haunting the help's quarters dear brother?" Hope Kintobor voice dripped with that special brand of inner unnerving ness that only demonic four year old siblings could perfect. Her polished heels clicked against the steel plating where Julian's old prototype sled had scorched the tiles during that final explosive argument.
Collin's glove tightened around the gel dispenser until the plastic groaned. "You're standing where Uncle Julian bled after Father fractured his orbital bone," he said flatly. The words tasted like rust and battery acid on his tongue. Behind him, Hope's breath hitched—just once—before she recovered with a too-loud laugh.
"The way you cling to that old freak's memory," she sneered, but her perfume betrayed her—jasmine with a hint of Julian's favorite bergamot, mixed too strong to mask the tremors in her hands. Collin finally turned, catching the way her fingers twitched toward the lab door's biometric scanner. His smile was all teeth. "His last prototype still scans for Kintobor DNA," he murmured, watching her pupils dilate. "Funny how Father's security overrides never worked on Uncle's toys."
The silence stretched like a garrote wire. Somewhere in the mansion's west wing, a surveillance drone short-circuited with a pop and fizzle—Julian's final gift still eating away at their father's systems one corrupted code string at a time. Collin pressed his palm against the scanner, its green light washing their faces in eerie glow as the door hissed open.
"After you, *sister*," he said softly, savoring the way her perfectly manicured claws dug into her own arms at the sight of Julian's preserved workspace—and the cracked photo frame on the desk showing a gangly teen Collin beaming beside his uncle, both wearing matching grease stains and genuine smiles.
In truth they were only half siblings—Hope being born from his father's second marriage—but Collin had long since stopped counting biological technicalities when tallying betrayals. She flinched as the lab's preservation field activated, freezing her perfect curls mid-sway—just like Julian had insisted on installing after their third "accidental" fire. Collin's glove hovered over the environmental controls, watching Hope's nostrils flare at the scent of ozone and old trauma.
"He taught me how to bypass Father's surveillance when I was six," Collin said, tapping the reinforced glass where Julian's fingerprints still lingered in the dust. "Right after you told your mother I'd stolen her pearls."
Hope's claws clicked against the prototype sled's dented hull—the same one Julian had used to shield Collin from flying shrapnel during that final argument, "I don't suppose with all this sentiment that you're leaving Snively?"
He hated that nickname his father gave him.
And so instead of dignifying it with a response, he just walked out.
He had finally figured out where his uncle had been all these years this morning after all.
He could finally see him again.
Yet he could still almost hear Hope smile behind him.