Boomer's breath hitched as the baton's vibrations crawled up his arms. He glanced at Sonic—really looked—and was starting to admire what he saw.
This was who his father thought of himself as—someone with the attitude of a warrior: he lived by might and honor and abhorred those who do not share that code.
But unlike his father, Sonic did not regard those without brute strength cowards, he didn't follow the seemingly natural order of Mobius that was suppress or be suppresssed, he studied them and destroyed them when necessary. He saw their weaknesses, not as flaws, but as tools, and reshaped them with precision, until they were unrecognizable, even to themselves.
It was not cruelty, or kindness, but a calculated reshaping, because Sonic understood, the best way to mold a sword, was to first melt it down, and hammer it into something new, something sharper. His smile, as he held out a hand, was a promise, and a warning, his fingers curling. Not into a fist, but a beckoning. Like a predator offering prey a way out of their own skin, if only they'd surrender their weaknesses to him. Boomer hesitated, for only the briefest moment, his grip tightening, then loosening on the baton, because Sonic's gaze wasn't demanding, it was *patient*, and that was more terrifying than any threat.
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I helped Boomer up with a grip that could've shattered bones—but didn't. His pulse hammered against my palm like a trapped bird. "You're thinking too much," I said, watching his pupils constrict at the proximity. The infirmary lights buzzed overhead, casting our shadows tall and jagged across the wall—mine swallowing his whole.
"That hesitation?" My thumb pressed just above his wrist tendon where fear toxins pooled. "*That's* what gets you killed."
Boomer's breath stuttered—not from pain, at least not fully, but recognition. The scent of copper and antiseptic thickened when I leaned closer, letting my quills catch the light at angles that made the room seem to tilt toward me. "You wanna be more than collateral damage?" My whisper wasn't gentle; it was the sound of a blade being drawn slowly from its sheath. Boomer's throat bobbed.
Good.
"That was a good first try," I said gently as always, releasing Boomer's wrist with deliberate slowness—not dropping it, but letting gravity take over as if even his mercy required effort. His shuddering exhale fogged the steel floor between us.
"How are you like this Sonic, so smart, so wise, so... just, everything?"
I let out a small sigh, "That's the thing Boomer, I'm not that smart, I'm slightly above average at best. I'm not that wise, I'm just slightly more experienced than you are, and I'm certainly not everything," I leaned in close, "I'm just the one willing and able to do what others won't. I'm never going to pretend to be more than I really am," I paused, "But I do make sure that I'm never less than I ought to be."
Boomer swallowed hard, his grip tightening on the baton until his knuckles turned white. The scent of sweat and ozone clung to him like a second skin. His gaze flickered between my face and the infirmary door, calculating escape routes—or maybe just how fast I'd intercept him.
I chuckled, low and quiet, watching as the sound made his shoulders tense. "You're still thinking like prey," I murmured, tapping my temple. "Stop reacting *to* the situation and start shaping it." My boot scuffed against the floor as I stepped closer, deliberately crowding his space until he had to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. "You want to impress me? Show me you understand the difference between force and *leverage*."
His breath hitched when I gripped his wrist—not to restrain, but to guide his hand until the baton's tip pressed against my own throat. "See?" I grinned as his pupils dilated. "Now *you're* able to be the true threat."
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Doctor Julian Ivo Kintobor was a simple veterinarian in the middle of a complex surgery. If he removed too much of the faulty implants her limbs would be atrophied when she went through the Organicizier. If he removed too little and she went through the Organicizier, she would possible have a tumor (or multiple).
He was currently removing the old and faulty cybernetic implants from Buns' left leg—the one she'd been subtly favoring since she had arrived here. The surgical theater smelled of ozone and disinfectant, the overhead lights humming softly as Julian worked with meticulous precision. His gloves were already stained with hydraulic fluid and old blood, the scent metallic and sharp. He could feel her pulse through the femoral artery beneath his fingers—steady, controlled, despite the pain she must be feeling.
Buns was of course unconscious—it was easier that way—but Julian still murmured reassurances under his breath like she could hear him. His scalpel flicked out a hair-thin wire from her femoral nerve cluster, the metal glinting under the surgical lights before he dropped it into the disposal tray with a *clink*.
He was almost done with the first limb—his fingers ached from the precision work—when the infirmary door hissed open behind him. Sonic leaned against the frame, arms crossed, watching. Julian didn't turn; he knew that particular silence by heart. It wasn't impatience—it was an offer of assistance in this endeavor.
"You could've just asked," Sonic mused, examining the extracted cybernetics scattered across the tray. His voice was light, but Julian caught the undercurrent—the way Sonic's thumb tapped methodically against his bicep, counting seconds between Buns' pulse beeps. He was assessing Kintobor's exhaustion, just as Julian had assessed his injuries after Diamond Heights.
Julian exhaled through his nose. "Would you have let me?" The question hung between them, sharp as the scalpel in his hand. Behind him, Sonic's smirk was audible. "Depends." A gloved hand reached past Julian's shoulder to tap the monitor displaying Buns' vitals. "Nice steady hands, Doc. Guess some things don't change."
The overhead lights flickered—a power surge from Sector 17's complete collapse, no doubt—casting their shadows grotesque against the wall. "Still Sonic, if this fails I will carry that burden alone," Julian said, fingers never pausing as he teased another corroded wire from Buns' neural interface. The scent of burnt insulation clung to his gloves.
Sonic's muzzle twitched in something too sharp to be a smile. He leaned over Julian's shoulder, close enough for his quills to brush the doctor's cheek—not a threat, but a reminder. "Wrong," he murmured, tapping the organic stabilizer readout where Buns' vitals spiked. "*We* burn together." The word *we* landed like a scalpel between ribs.
Outside, emergency sirens wailed as another district fell. Sonic didn't turn toward the sound—his focus remained on Julian's trembling hands, on the sweat beading at his temples. When he spoke again, his voice was softer than a blade sliding home: "You taught me triage. Now let me return the favor."
Buns' remaining cybernetics hummed ominously as Julian hesitated—then surrendered the scalpel. Sonic's grip was steady, his cuts precise where fatigue had made Julian's falter. The last wire snapped free with a sound like a dying breath. Julian exhaled. Some debts, he realized, weren't meant to be repaid—just shared.
Sonic didn't use his speed, he hadn't had enough time to teach him that well, only enough to assist him in the surgery—but he didn't need speed for this. His fingers moved with methodical precision, extracting corroded neural links from Buns' spinal column like defusing bombs. The hum of failing city systems beyond the infirmary walls synced with the rhythmic *click* of each discarded implant hitting the tray. Julian watched Sonic's shadow stretch across the surgical table—not the blurred afterimage of a speedster, but something darker, more calculated.
Buns' vitals stabilized as Sonic and him worked, her pulse evening out under his gloves. He tilted his head toward Julian without breaking rhythm—his quills casting jagged shadows across the monitors like prison bars—before speaking low enough that only the doctor could hear: "You're shaking." Julian's grip tightened on the retractor, knuckles blanching. The scent of antiseptic and ozone couldn't mask the sweat beading at his temples.
Sonic's smirk didn't reach his eyes.
"I told you we'd burn together."
"Perhaps we will Sonic, perhaps we will," Julian mused, glancing at the deteriorating cityscape beyond the reinforced glass. His fingers flexed around the surgical laser—its beam flickering like a dying star—before adjusting the intensity with practiced ease. The scent of cauterized flesh mixed with Buns' quickened breaths as her organic tissue knitted beneath his steady hands. Sonic's shadow loomed over the operating table, not quite touching, but present—a silent partner in their macabre dance.
Buns stirred as Julian sealed the final incision, her eyelids fluttering against the harsh surgical lights. Sonic leaned in before she could fully wake, his voice dropping to a murmur that slithered between her fading anesthesia haze: "You'll walk without pain now." The promise landed somewhere between threat and benediction. Julian watched her fingers twitch toward hidden weapon compartments that no longer existed—old habits dying hard—before Sonic caught her wrist with deliberate gentleness. "But you still need to go through the Organicizier to be fully organic again, it's, you're choice in all of this."
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Buns looked at her still fresh incisions across her body—each one a testament to Sonic and Kintobor's precision—before locking eyes with Sonic. The overhead lights flickered again, painting his muzzle in jagged shadows. "Choice?" she rasped, flexing fingers that no longer whirred with machinery. Her laugh was hoarse, almost admiring. "You don't give choices. You give *outcomes*."
Sonic tilted his head, quills catching the light like blades. "Then prove me wrong," he challenged softly, tossing her the Organicizer activation chip. It landed between them with a *clink*—an invitation, or a trap.
Kintobor exhaled through his nose, peeling bloodied gloves off with surgical detachment—each finger freed with deliberate slowness that made the silence heavier. Sonic watched him from the shadows near the Organicizer, arms crossed gently.
Buns' fingers closed around the chip, her knuckles whitening. The scent of sterilization gel and scorched wiring clung to the air as she weighed the device—its surface still warm from Sonic's grip. Across the infirmary, Boomer's breath hitched audibly as he came in, his boots scuffing against the floor as he shifted his weight. Sonic didn't turn, but his ear twitched—acknowledgment without concession.
"Watching the show now?" he murmured, thumbing the Organicizer's activation panel with deliberate slowness. The machine hummed to life, its glow painting Buns' scars neon blue—exposing the latticework of old wiring still buried beneath her skin like roots. Sonic's reflection distorted in the polished steel beside her, his grin sharpening as her pulse spiked on the monitor. "Relax. Doc doesn't make mistakes." The reassurance landed like a scalpel between ribs—precise, intimate, lethal.
Kintobor's gloves hit the tray with a wet slap. He didn't look at Boomer cowering by the door or Buns' white-knuckled grip on the chip—just rolled his sleeves past old burn scars and began recalibrating the Organicizer's output levels. Sonic watched the doctor's hands move with clinical efficiency, recognizing the tells: the slight tremor when inputting coordinates, the way his jaw tightened before overriding safety protocols.
"I do indeed make mistakes Sonic. Buns, I can not say if you go through the process it will be without flaws," Julian stated flatly, adjusting the Organicizer's emitter array. His fingers hovered over the calibration panel—deliberately leaving the final settings incomplete. A surgeon's gamble. The machine's hum deepened, vibrating through the steel floor into Buns' bare feet like a challenge.
Sonic's quills twitched as he caught Julian's unspoken prompt. He stepped into the Organicizer's glow, letting the blue light carve shadows across his muzzle that made his grin look freshly sharpened. "But flaws can be weapons too," he mused, tapping the readout where Buns' old neural pathways still flickered. His claw traced the jagged line of a half-removed implant under her skin—not quite touching, but close enough to make her breath hitch. "It's your choice in the end Buns."
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Buns thought about a lot of things as she stepped into the Organicizier. She thought about the rusted bite of old hydraulics, the way her limbs had once screamed with every movement—now mercifully silent. She thought about the way Sonic watched her like she was both a weapon and a wounded animal. Most of all, she thought about how Kintobor's fingers hadn't trembled once during the surgery, even though the city burned outside. The Organicizier hissed shut behind her, sealing her in blue-white radiance that tasted like lightning and smelled like rebirth.
Honestly, a week ago she never would have thought that stepping into something called an 'Organicizier' would feel like diving headfirst into a storm. Yet here she was, the blue-white light searing her retinas like a plasma cutter—only this time, she wasn't the one holding it. Buns braced against the chamber walls as the machine groaned, its vibrations traveling up her spine like a predator's growl. Behind the reinforced glass, Sonic's silhouette remained motionless—his quills casting jagged shadows across the control panel.
Waiting.
Always waiting.
The dull pain came in waves—not the clean slice of a blade, but the slow, gnawing unraveling of flesh becoming something else. Buns pressed her palms flat against the Organicizer's walls as the light seared through her, not burning but rearranging. Fingers spasmed as tendons remembered being untouched by steel, her nervous system sparking with misfired signals like a stripped wire. In the observation chamber, Sonic's silhouette tilted its head—calculating, patient—while Julian's fingers danced over controls with the same precision that had removed her implants. The doctor's lips moved silently, counting down milliseconds before inputting another adjustment.
A warning klaxon blared as Sector 17's power grid finally failed—the Organicizer stuttered—and Sonic moved. His hand slammed down on the manual override before Julian could react, bypassing safety protocols with a crackle of bioelectricity. The chamber flared crimson, and Buns' scream merged with the machinery's shriek as her remaining cybernetics dissolved like sugar in acid. Sonic held the override lever down, quills bristling with static, until Julian wrenched his wrist away. The doctor's gloves smeared ozone across Sonic's fur where they touched—a fleeting mark, like blood on a battlefield.
Silence.
The Organicizer hissed open, releasing steam that coiled around Buns' crumpled form. She coughed—wet, organic—and stared at her hands: no implants, no hydraulics, just trembling fingers and ragged nails. Sonic crouched beside her, close enough for his breath to stir the sweat-damp fur at her temple. "Told you you'd walk without pain," he murmured, tapping her knee—a test. Her flinch was pure reflex, unenhanced by circuitry. Behind them, Julian exhaled sharply, his reflection fractured in the broken monitor glass.
Buns took the biggest leap of faith she had done since Uncle Beau died in the raid, she cried.
But, unlike last time, it wasn't of pain she already knew would never go away for as long as she lived—but of muscles rediscovering movement.
Of joy.
Buns flexed her fingers—real, trembling fingers—feeling tendons shift beneath skin for the first time in months. The absence of hydraulic whirring left a silence so profound it roared in her ears. Sonic watched her test each digit with the intensity of a surgeon assessing a successful graft, his grin sharpening when she instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn't there. "Still got the reflexes," he noted, tossing her a scalpel from Julian's tray. She caught it midair, the metal cool against her palm—no targeting systems, just muscle memory.
Julian wiped his brow with a stained sleeve, the motion betraying exhaustion his voice didn't. "Organic nervous systems compensate slower than cybernetics," he warned, but Buns was already pivoting on the balls of her feet—testing balance, weight distribution. The tile floor felt alien beneath her toes, textured and alive compared to the sterile grip of reinforced soles. Sonic's chuckle curled around her like smoke as she overcorrected, his hand snapping out to steady her elbow before she could stumble.
"Easy. You're not exactly half of a machine anymore."
She knew that, and she loved it so much.
The scalpel clattered to the floor as her hands grasped Sonic's wrist instead—not to attack, but to feel the pulse beneath his fur, rabbit-quick and real. Across the infirmary, Julian activated the sterilization cycle with a tired flick of his wrist, the machinery hissing like a pleased cat. Sonic didn't pull away from Buns' grip, letting her map the topography of his scars with trembling fingers—each ridge a battle she hadn't been fast enough to fight beside him. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he murmured, thumb brushing the fresh tear tracks on her cheeks with a gentleness that would've gotten him laughed out of the old mercenary bars.
Boomer finally dared to step forward from the doorway, his boots squeaking on blood-slick tiles. Julian intercepted him with an outstretched arm—not quite touching, but close enough to make the younger rabbit freeze. "Her nervous system's recalibrating," the doctor said, tone clinical but eyes lingering on the way Buns' pupils dilated unevenly in the flickering light.
"Well then Buns, how are you feeling?"Sonic asked the most gentle Buns had heard his voice ever be—like a knife wrapped in velvet. She flexed her toes against the cold tile, savoring the pins-and-needles sensation of blood rushing to extremities that no longer had pressure sensors.
"I... I feel..." What could she say, how could she put it into words—the pulse of blood through veins instead of coolant through tubes, the way her lungs burned with exertion rather than filtered oxygen tanks, the way Sonic's grip remained firm without crushing her fragile, newly organic bones?
"It's alright Miss Rabbot," Julian offered even more gently, "I imagine that words fail you at the moment."
Yeah, they did.
So she said the one thing she could, "T-thank you." Simple, raw—and Sonic's grin softened at the edges like worn leather. Julian exhaled through his nose, turning away to hide the way his glasses caught the light just wrong. The Organicizer's hum settled into a steady purr, its casing still radiating heat that made the air above it shimmer. Boomer hovered at the threshold, fingers twitching toward the baton he'd dropped hours ago—his reflection fractured in the spilled saline pooling near Buns' bare feet.
Sonic released Buns' wrist only to flick Boomer's ear with surgical precision. "Are you only going to stand there awkwardly or are you going to take a closer look?"
Boomer flinched when Buns reached for him, her movements jerky as uncalibrated muscles relearned their limits. His fur stood on end where her fingertips brushed his arm—real skin meeting real skin for the first time since Sector 19's collapse. Sonic watched them with half-lidded amusement, one knee propped against the Organicizer's still-warm casing. "Look at that," he mused, tapping the machine's flickering readout. "Doc's magic turned a walking arsenal into a blushing schoolyard crush." The taunt landed with deliberate lightness, but his claws left micro-fractures in the tempered glass.
Then there was a knock at the front door.
Sonic peered over at Buns and Boomer, "I don't suppose you were expecting backup?"
They both shook their head.
"I thought not."
And he ran towards the door, ready for anything at this point...