"Hello Irving," Collin purred into the prototype phone, his fingers tapping against its cracked screen—a predator's rhythm. Blood dripped from his sleeve onto the pavement, each drop echoing louder than the static-laced silence on the other end. Irving Pavlov's sigh crackled through the receiver, equal parts exasperation and amusement.
"Let me guess—you need a new face, a clean identity, and you don't plan on bringing your bitch and little brat?"
"You truly know me too well my dear Irving," Collin murmured, his voice silk-wrapped steel as he flicked blood off his fingers—one droplet splattering across the phone screen like a Rorschach blot of violence. The distant wail of Sector 5's collapsing infrastructure back in Maxxopolis underscored his chuckle, a discordant harmony to Irving's staticky groan, "Any specific changes you want?"
Collin thought for a hard moment, and then he knew exactly what he wanted to say.
"I was thinking... something else in law enforcement when I get to Spagonia," Collin mused, loving the power it gave him to see Irving squirm on the other end—knowing the man couldn't refuse him, not with the secrets they'd buried together. The line hissed static like a dying man's breath before Irving finally spat out, "Fine. But you're going to at least work for me now."
"Fine..." Collin finally answered, dragging the word out like a knife pulled from flesh, "but I pick the department." The phone crackled with Irving's stifled laughter—equal parts relief and dread—as Collin's blood-smeared thumb hovered over the disconnect button. Somewhere in the ruins behind him, a child's whimper cut through the smoke; he didn't even humor the thought of turning around.
Soon he arrived to the Grand Forest, where Fort Knothole was.
You see, Fort Knothole was a hidden Overlander base in the Grand Forest, hidden away from dirty Mobian eyes, especially King Maxx Acorn's.
Safe to say any Mobians that entered the Grand Forest never left it. Collin's boots crushed a shattered communicator underfoot—likely from some poor fool who'd wandered too close to Fort Knothole's perimeter defenses. The scent of ozone clung to the air, mixed with something sharper—Overlander sterilization tech, humming just beyond the tree line. Collin got rid of the the stolen I.D. badge pinned to his chest, tossing it into the undergrowth with a flick of his wrist.
One of the guards aimed his beryl-riffle at him, "State your business," he barked. Collin grinned—slow, feral—and flipped open his stolen Overlander credentials with bloodstained claws. "I am Collin Kintobor Senior, I'm sure my second cousin Lord Pavlov just radioed in all about me..." The guard's grip faltered, his eyes darting between Collin's smirk and the credentials (courtesy of Irving's panicked connections) that were appearing on his tech.
"Okay then, all good here then Mr. Kintobor," the guard muttered, lowering his rifle with palpable reluctance—his fingers lingering near the trigger guard as Collin strode past like the Grand Forest's shadows belonged to him. The Overlander's breath hitched when Collin paused mid-step, half-turning to flash a smile that showed too many teeth. "Tell my dear Lord Irving I'll be *disappointed* if his hospitality's lacking," Collin purred, savoring how the guard's pulse jumped in his throat before the trees swallowed them both.
Inside Fort Knothole's steel-plated corridors, the air stank of sterilized fear and classic Overlander arrogance—Collin's claws twitched at the scent, his grin widening when he saw some G.U.N. agents subtly flinch at the dried blood still crusted under his nails. "Ah, home sweet war crime and regular crimes," he mused, flipping a security badge given to him between his fingers like a switchblade, already waiting for his transport to Spagonia and Irving Pavlov's domain. The guards' whispers slithered after him—"That's the guy who snapped King Maxx Acorn's second in command neck mid-laugh"—but Collin just hummed, savoring the way their voices cracked like brittle bones underfoot.
He went to one of the rooms and sat down, ready to relax—until the door hissed open without warning. There stood Nathaniel Morgan, Fort Knothole's resident mad scientist, and the former mentor of his brother Julian. His grin was all teeth and zero warmth, a scalpel twirling between his fingers like a deadly toy. "Ah, Collin," he drawled, stepping inside without invitation, "heard you broke that poor skunk's neck like a twig. Admirable work—if messy." Collin leaned back, letting his claws tap against the armrest in a slow, deliberate rhythm. "Messy keeps people guessing, Nate. Unlike your *spotless* reputation." Nathaniel's grin didn't falter, but his grip on the scalpel tightened.
"I. Have. One. Single. Rule. Don't call me Nate." Nathaniel's scalpel flashed—embedding itself in the wall centimeters from Collin's ear—but Collin just laughed, slow and dark, while plucking the blade free with blood-stained claws. "Apologies, *Doctor*," he crooned, flipping the scalpel back toward Nathaniel hilt-first, watching the scientist's eyes narrow at the deliberate show of restraint.
It was amazing how terrifying such a tiny Overlander could be...
Outside, the hum of Overlander tech was drowned out by the sudden screech of alarms—someone had breached the perimeter. Collin didn't bother standing; he just smirked as Nathaniel's eye twitched. "Guess your security's as reliable as your ethics," Collin mused, watching the scientist's composure crack like thin ice. The door burst open again, revealing a panting G.U.N. grunt.
"Sir—Mobian insurgents!" the grunt gasped, his helmet askew. Collin leaned forward, claws steepled—slow, deliberate—as Nathaniel's scalpel hit the floor with a metallic ping. The alarms wailed like dying beasts, their red glow painting Collin's grin in bloody hues. "Oh?" he murmured, savoring the way the grunt flinched at his voice alone. "And here I thought Overlanders *never* let vermin slip through."
Nathaniel's glare could've melted steel, but Collin just chuckled—low, dangerous—before rising with the grace of a predator who'd already won.
The door hissed shut behind the fleeing G.U.N. grunt, sealing Nathaniel and Collin in a silence thick with tension—until Nathaniel claw like nails scraped against the steel table, a sound like bones dragged across pavement. "Tell me two things, Kintobor," he purred, watching Nathaniel's pulse jump in his throat, "one: how many Mobians saw you?"
"And two: how is Julian doing?" Nathaniel's grin widened at Collin's sudden stillness—like prey realizing the trap's already sprung. The scalpel clattered to the floor again, its metallic ping lost beneath the distant gunfire echoing through Fort Knothole's halls.
"Sadly not dead yet," he spat. "Hopefully he's soon to be rotting in some ditch since the raid on Sector 7. My brother's legacy? Soon to be ash." Nathaniel's claw hands twitched, but his laugh was honey-coated arsenic. "Oh Kintobor," he sighed, shaking his head like a disappointed parent, "lying to *me*? After you just got here? Tsk." Collin's grin didn't waver, but his claws dug crescent moons into his palms—hidden beneath the table—as Nathaniel leaned in close enough for his breath to ghost across Collin's muzzle.
"Julian's still alive. And you *know* where he is." The air between them crackled like live wires, thick with decades-old grudges and fresh bloodshed. Outside, something banged—glass shattered, alarms screamed—but neither flinched.
Nathaniel's clawed hands shot forward, pinning Collin despite his small size, "You see Collin, When life gives you lemons, dissect them—after all, what exactly makes them scream? And have you ever peeled back reality? Spoiler: it *peels back too.* I should know... that silver shadow void..." Nathaniel trailed off, his grip tightening.
Collin scoffed—not from pain, but sheer audacity—as he dug his finger into Nathaniel's wrist. "You always were a dramatic and insane little bastard..."
Nathaniel just cackled, ""You just called it madness—I like to call it *repeatable results.* It's the perfect equation: one part hope, three parts screaming."
Collin let his nails dig deeper—slow, deliberate—and dragged them down Nathaniel's forearm just hard enough to draw blood without severing tendons. "And yet," he murmured, savoring the way the scientist's breath hitched, "*you're* the one bleeding." The alarms outside reached a fever pitch, gunfire punctuated by the wet crunch of bone—Mobian travelers making good use of Overlander incompetence.
Nathaniel's mad grin never wavered, even as Collin's nails carved crimson trails down his arm. "Bleeding's just data etched into me, and soon I will etch it into you..."
Shit.
He was so fucked...
------------
King Maxx Acorn was, simply put, pissed—his throne room's gilded walls trembled as he crushed the latest casualty report in his fist, the ink smearing like blood beneath his claws. His second in command: Jeffrey St. Croix, was missing—dead, likely—but King Maxx Acorn's fury wasn't for the loss of a (not likely) loyal dog. No, it was the *audacity* of the possible kill.
He already had Amadeus Prower looking into it—his personal intelligence operative—but King Maxx Acorn's patience was thinner than the veneer of civility he wore for court. The throne's armrests groaned under his grip as he imagined Jeffrey's murderer (if he wasn't drunk with some whores that is)—some upstart rebel, no doubt—writhing in the pits. His tail lashed, scattering scrolls like fallen enemies. "Find them," he growled, not bothering to turn as Amadeus melted from the shadows, his cybernetic (and very slowly rusting) leg whirring faintly. "Preferably before they start *thinking* they've won."
King Maxx Acorn's chuckle was the sound of a blade being unsheathed slowly—a threat wrapped in velvet. "And Amadeus? If they resist…" He flicked his claws toward the stained-glass window depicting his coronation, its colors fractured by recent cracks. "Make sure their screams harmonize with the ones already echoing in Sector 7." Amadeus' grin was a slit of sharpened teeth, his cybernetic iris contracting as he saluted with a mock flourish.
"Would you prefer the screams in *C-sharp* or *B-flat minor*, Your Majesty?" The king's laughter this time was genuine—a rarity—as he tossed a beryl-charged dagger toward Amadeus, who caught it by the hilt without blinking, "You already know it Prower,... but if you do find Jeffrey St. Croix's alive, well, and hung over...?" Amadeus smirked, spinning the blade between his fingers before vanishing into the flickering torchlight, leaving King Maxx Acorn to savor the silence—broken only by the distant wails of Sector 2's latest "volunteers."
If Jeffrey St. Croix was indeed still alive, he was going to be in such pain that Anarchy Below itself would seem like a mercy! He'd start with Jeffrey's own drunken habits—force-feed him liquor until his liver swelled like a rotting fruit, then carve it out while he sobbed for the whores he'd abandoned. Oh, but King Maxx wouldn't stop there—no, he'd graft Jeffrey some cybernetic enhancements on backward, wires sparking against exposed nerves, and make him crawl through Sector 7's slag pits until his knees were ground to bone. And just when Jeffrey thought death might be sweet, King Maxx would lean in, his breath reeking of iron and aristocracy, and whisper, "You *wanted* to be my right hand—now you'll *be* one," before severing his spine at the neck and mounting his twitching head on a rusted pike outside the palace gates.
Amadeus Prower's smirk widened as he adjusted his audio recorder—King Maxx Acorn's creative punishments always made for such *inspiring* motivational material. He'd play this particular monologue for the next batch of captured rebels in Sector 5; nothing like the promise of liquefied organs to loosen tongues. Still, he couldn't resist adding his own flourish—"Shall I save Jeffrey's vocal cords, Your Majesty? I've been meaning to upgrade my alarm system." King Maxx's laughter shook the chandeliers, sending crystal shards raining onto the marble—"Do it. Let his screams wake me every dawn."
And if Jeffrey St. Croix was dead?... He'd show whoever did it what it meant to damage what was his—even if it was just a drunken fool. King Maxx Acorn's claws scraped against the throne's armrests, imagining the culprit's face when he introduced them to his newest invention: a beryl-infused straitjacket lined with inward-facing needles, designed to tighten with every struggle until the wearer's ribs cracked under their own panicked breaths. "A fitting embrace," he mused aloud, savoring the way his advisors' fur bristled at the casual cruelty.
His eyes turned silver colored again and started hurting—*again*—the telltale sign of that *thing* leaking into his thoughts, whispering promises of dominion and decay. King Maxx Acorn exhaled sharply through his nose, claws flexing against the throne's armrests until the gilded wood splintered.
Then there was Sonic.
Sonic the fucking Hedgehog himself.
King Maxx Acorn's claws carved deeper into the throne's armrests, the wood groaning like a dying beast beneath his grip. Sonic's name alone sent a tremor through his silver-flecked vision—not fear, but something far more volatile: the jagged thrill of a predator catching the scent of worthy prey. The hedgehog wasn't just a revolutionary; he was a living paradox, a whirlwind of calculated chaos who'd turned King Maxx Acorn's own sterilization waves into a weapon that shattered Diamond Heights.
Sonic the Hedgehog was the reason King Maxx Acorn couldn't sleep at night sometimes—not the riots, not the collapsing sectors, not even Amadeus and Rosemarie's Prower's mad boot lickings of him. No, it was Sonic's laughter—recorded from a dozen security feeds—that echoed in King Maxx Acorn's skull like a virus.
That *mocking*, carefree yet controlled lilt, punctuated by the crackle of flames devouring another government outpost—Sonic's voice was the soundtrack to King Maxx Acorn's unraveling. The hedgehog's latest broadcast flickered across the throne room's shattered screens, his grin sharp as he leaned into the camera with a wink. "Hey Maxxie—miss me?" The feed cut to Diamond Heights' ruins, where beryl-infused wreckage shimmered like grotesque confetti.
Sonic's shadow stretched across the devastation in the recording from last night, his spines haloed by firelight as he kicked a fractured Acorn Trooper and Acorn Enforcer helmet aside with deliberate theatricality. "Oops—was this yours?" His grin widened, feral and knowing, as he crushed the visor underfoot—not with rage, but with the casual cruelty of a predator playing with its food, "Oh well, not anymore it's not. Also, I have *such* a *wonderful* gift for you, Maxxie~!"
The feed cut to Sector 7's smoldering ruins—where Sonic stood atop the wreckage of an Acorn Dropship, his silhouette haloed by the crimson glow of emergency flares. He tossed something small and metallic into the air—a G.U.N. lieutenant's insignia—before catching it between his teeth with a predatory snap. "Your troops keep dropping these like party favors," he mused, spitting the badge into his palm before flicking it toward the camera with a *ping*.
"But don't worry, Maxxie—I saved you the smoldering wreckage, minus anything that was useful that is," Sonic purred into the camera, tapping his foot against the dropship's charred hull with a hollow *thunk*. The feed flickered—static distorting his grin into something jagged—before cutting to a slow pan across Sector 7's corpse-strewn streets, where Acorn Troopers lay tangled in their own tripwires like grotesque marionettes.
Sonic's voice whispered over the carnage, velvet-wrapped and lethal: "See, Maxxie, revolutions are like hedgehogs—prickly, fast, and *real* hard to strangle." The camera panned up just in time to catch him flipping King Maxx Acorn's own dagger—plucked from a dead commander's spine—into the air before skewering a fleeing trooper's boot to the pavement.
The man's scream harmonized perfectly with Sonic's laughter—a melody King Maxx Acorn had come to dread more than rebellion itself. On screen, Sonic crouched beside the impaled trooper, his quills catching the firelight like blades as he tilted his head, mock-sympathetic. "Aw, does it hurt?" he cooed, before yanking the dagger free in one fluid motion—not to free the man, but to carve a jagged "X" into his chestplate.
"Good. Remember that feeling." He patted the trooper's cheek, leaving smears of beryl-energy tainted blood, then turned—boots crunching glass—toward the camera's lens. Sonic's grin sharpened, pupils contracting like a cat spotting prey. "Because *Maxxie?*" He kicked the whimpering trooper's helmet toward the camera. "Your turn's coming soon." The feed died mid-laugh—a sound like shattering ice—leaving King Maxx Acorn gripping his throne hard enough for gold filigree to crack.
One of these days, when he got seven of the Anarchy Beryls, he was going to destroy Sonic, and everything he had ever loved—and then, oh then, he was going to *laugh*—but for now, King Maxx Acorn exhaled through his nose, claws flexing against the throne's splintered armrests, and forced himself to focus. The hedgehog wasn't just a nuisance; he was a *variable*, an unpredictable storm of chaos wrapped in blue fur and a grin that promised ruin.
But storms could be weathered.
Storms could be *redirected*.
And with the Anarchy Beryls, anything would be possible—even tearing that smug grin off Sonic's face. King Maxx Acorn's claws twitched against his throne, imagining the moment: Sonic's spines shattering under the weight of his own arrogance, those emerald eyes widening in genuine shock for the first time. But first—first, he needed leverage. His gaze flicked to the encrypted communicator buzzing on the armrest, Rosemarie's latest report blinking ominously. The Prower woman was useful, if unstable—her obsession with Sonic's destruction almost rivaled his own.
Almost.
He'd let her play her games, for now.
It was strange how obsessed Sonic was with the Prower couples still unborn kit—not with parental tenderness, but the clinical fascination of a warlord assessing future artillery. He'd taken to sketching potential cybernetic enhancements in the margins of his war journals.
There had to be a reason why Sonic was invested in that unborn kit.
What was that single fucking unknown variable that was escaping him on the answer?
King Maxx Acorn's claws twitched against the armrest—*why* was Sonic so fixated on Rosemarie's unborn kit? The answer slithered just beyond his grasp, like oil slipping between his fingers.
Sonic did a lot of things...
But Sonic didn't do sentimentality, not unless it served a purpose to him somehow.
Lothe he was to admit it, but they were similar in that aspect.
They were both wise enough to know that sentimentality was a simple tool to be used.
A tool to harness other tools.
That unborn child wasn't just a future soldier—it was a *lever*, a fulcrum point Sonic intended to use to pry open something far more valuable. The realization hit King Maxx like a beryl-energy charged blast to the gut.
But he needed to find out what that lever did.
And when he did find that out, he would see if he could use it to his advantage.
But he had a phone call to make first...