Sonic Curse Of Flesh: Rough And Tumble

"It should have been me, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!"  

Those words had become magic words spoken among many of the robians as their son/daughter, wife/husband, brother/sister, had been one of those made immune to roboticization by the well meaning Bem. Which meant they weren't cured of the curse of flesh, and were turned into monsters by the Old Ones. The Bem had gone from being beloved benefactors to hated pariahs.

Unit Tumble the Skunk had no idea what the Bem even looked like. But he still wanted to punch one.

Who was the lucky one, and who had been wrongfully screwed over by fate had been completely reversed. Tumble thought of his hatred for Tails for his mere EXISTENCE! He'd lost his tail, and this kitsune mutant freak got two? He hated the sheer unfairness of it all! Unit Tumble remembered their stares. Stupid jerks thought skunks were remembered only for their scent glands (if Tumble had a Mobium or rings, or whatever was used for money these days, for every 'stinky skunk' joke he'd heard in his entire life it would be... a lot, he was really sure, he'd lost count, and he wasn't even the brother who used his much). But their big fluffy beautiful tails was the source of vanity of any skunk! Some people didn't even realize he was a skunk at first, thinking he was just a Wolverine or Badger!

Sure, some jerks said it wasn't fair how he and his brother took stuff that wasn't theirs, but hey, they'd been heroes right? Tumble and his brother Rough had sent those badniks packing from that between just the two of them. They'd earned being waited on hand and foot right? Ingrates. 'We were their protectors after all, why shouldn't we be treated like kings?'

Stupid Hedgehog, 'liberating' the people Rough and Tumble had saved. He bet the Hedgehog was waited on hand and foot when he wasn't being a hero, he was just jealous! And suddenly they were villains and got arrested?! He'd smash that hedgehog! And that thieving two tailed fox too (what he had stolen exactly, Tumble didn't really think about, it was Rough who did the thinking, and that was fine with Tumble, he trusted his brother)!

So they worked for Robotnik for a while to pay the Hedgehog back, but they weren't REALLY working for him, it was just to payback the stupid hedgehog and that crocodile and his lackeys had gotten paid to work for Eggman once... So why were they called traitors?

Then they found out Eggman was gonna to roboticize the whole planet, not just the stupid people who didn't matter, but the smart people like Rough and him! Tumble knew they were gonna beat Eggman easy peasy. Tumble wanted to go in and beat'em up, right then and there. Pow! Who cared how many robots he had?

But Rough said, "Yeah, we can beat-up Eggman, Tumble, but... this time if we let the Hedgehog help us a little, they won't be able to complain when we want what's ours this time, right?" Rough said.

Rough was smart like that.

"Rough, I still get to smash the fox right?"

"Sure little brother, of course ya do! But... you need to hold off on that for now."

Tumble didn't like that at all! But Rough knew what he was doing, he always did.

-

The stupid hedgehog had a stupid attitude towards them. Sure he wanted to fight them, and that was fine by Tumble, might be a chance to smash the fox too!

"Sorry Sonic, but we need all the help we can get."

"We're helping the hedgehog?" Tumble asked.

"Let them keep thinking that," Rough said.

-

Rough and Tumble got to fight the stupid robots head on, and were even told they'd be the front line fighters to smash on through to let the weaklings in after them.

But something was wrong after they'd gotten through the main gate. They hadn't been told what to do after they broke through the main gate.

"Where's everybody else?" Tumble asked, wondering where the rest were to cheer them on.

"That's... a good question bro'. Yo, this is Rough, we've got the party started but where are all the guests?!" Rough said.

"You mean the main gate was lightly guarded?" Said the Walus' voice.

"Lightly nothing! We made scrap of a bajillion Egg-Pawns and other dumb bots!"

"I'm sorry, Rough, we can't send you any back-up, continue to try and get through the gate."

"We've already gotten through the main gate!"

"WHAT?! You two losers actually-" Sonic's voice began to say.

"T-that's good! Hold your position! And wait for further instructions!"

"But what about... Jerks! We're nothing but a distraction!" Rough said angrily smashing the radio.

This made Tumble angry too. "WHAT?! We're not... we're not the things you used to decoy ducks with! We're the heroes!"

"We'll show'em!"

The two made their way through the machines and cyborgs like nobody's business, it was like the dumb cyborgs knew less about when to run for it than the robots! Rough liked them being here though, he got the most mileage out of what they were and Eggman hadn't bothered giving his rank and file a sense of smell so it made things easier him. Tumble preferred smashing stuff the old fashion way.

Then the weird wall of colored lightning happened. The cyborgs and robots didn't change. But Tumble did. His fur and skin fused together into a metal chasing, and, well, he couldn't look inside himself to know what happened there, or see how his face had changed. But he could still feel his toes.

Tumble heard his brother swear, "Dang you Eggman! I'll 'em for what he's done to ya Tumble!" Rough swore.

But that was when Tumble spotted,

"My tail! Pretty tail! Nice tail!"

Tumble hugged his metal segmented tail, sitting down, lost in the moment of having his precious tail back. The tail he'd been without for so long. That he'd been missing a part of himself. Not the big hammer Robotnik had put on him but his tail!

"Huh?! Tumble, you're still you?!" Rough gasped.

"Uh, yeah, who else would I be?"

The robots and cyborgs didn't seem interested in fighting anymore. If anything, they looked kinda relieved.

Then something happened to Rough, something BAD. Tumble was honestly hard pressed to even describe it! Rough's fingers and toes turned into really big claws, ripping apart his gloves and shoes. His tail lost all its fur, and grew a big hole at the end. His mouth became a circle with lots of extra pointy teeth pointing inward, his nose fell off. His tongue got super long with lotta spikes on it.

Tumble still heard his brother speak, like he was gaging up blood as he spoke.

"Tumble, RUN!!!"

His torso and legs stretched, pulling at skin and fur. His muscles got bigger, like Tumble. Spikes grew out of his back. It didn't look like Rough could stand on two feet anymore. Then the horns pointing forward grew out of his head, while his eyes lost their pupils, becoming completely yellow, then two more opened on the out side of his head, his head not looking like it had an up or down anymore.

Tumble was scared and confused. Then the acid spewed out of the end of Rough's tail.

+++

Rough had said run, so Unit Tumble had run. And kept running. Even with a giant acid hole in his body, he'd kept running. So had the cyborgs. The robots... Tumble for some weird reason felt really ... sad for them... like it was Rough who got hurt or something. The acid hadn't hit his heart, he didn't think he had one anymore anyway, so why did it hurt?

+++

-Future-

"It should have been me. It was always Rough who thought of the plans, not This Unit," Unit Tumble said to himself, laying on the repair bed. He was laying next to several other robians.

"The next temple of Light Gaia is secure Sir..." said Unit GUN Trooper Herman. "Keeping this place is going to be a nightmare," said the roboticized human, his battle armor the only thing he was wearing, the GUN symbol engraved into his body (it was his function after all), clothing taboos for males and females for romans and robians had gone the way of the dinosaurs and become a matter of taste. Any additional armor needed could just be added on as an option or upgrade.  

"We don't HAVE TO keep it! Just hold it long enough for Unit Frances to gather all the relevant data in regards to awakening Light Gaia," said the holo image of the Unit GUN Commander from within Diablo. The Commander himself was currently outside the temple as a deterrent with E-Omega on the inside as insurance.

Outside, several Big Foot mecha lay with their legs torn off, while GUN Hunters, Giga Troops, lay in piles to be recovered and repaired, all having fought alongside the roboticized GUN troopers. This made the sight for the roboticized mobians and humans alike to be a lot more gruesome than being seen as mere scrap piles, it was like seeing mounds of dead war animals. There was a debate going on whether it was kinder or crueler to have their minds remain as limited as they were, or allow them more freedom of thought. There were logical arguments for both sides, but Tumble didn't care enough to remember them.

"This Unit will work as efficiency as possible sir!" The Gynoid slated.

"Understood."

Rough had been one of the monsters guarding the temple (since burying it, assimilating, or simply blowing it up seemed to be not an option for some reason). Tumble had tried to hug his brother, and had gotten blasted by Rough's acid AGAIN, then Rough had released a green mist that ate away metal but did nothing to organic matter... leaving his metal insides more exposed. He'd been saved by a hedgehog.

"We did it buddy," Jules Hedgehog, the last original Robian, on his bed, and petted the robot dog Muttski with his remaining arm, the other one having been sliced off by what were effectively his step sons, the Hedgehog Broodspawn, bred by the monster the Old Gods had turned his wife into.

Muttski, still a dog, even now a machine, licked Jules' palm.

Having to dodge bolder crushing strikes from the small but deceptively dangerous thing that had once been the toddler Kneecaps, (Knuckles' half-brother). Many Robians wanted to believe that somehow, some way, all children would have magically been among those cured of the curse without exception, after all, Alexis, and Rosie's three orphans had... Sure, Cream had been corrupted, but she'd actually managed to hold onto herself even with her flesh twisted into the shape the Old Ones willed. But this was anything but true, like with all things, roughly half of Mobius' children and toddlers had become monsters of fangs and tentacles. Many of Mobians who had been pregnant at some point in their lives had become Brood Mothers: while others had their unborn child permanently fused with them, and still possessing a separate brain and consciousness, never having to leave their mother's side, many leaping out of their Mother's split open belly, still connected by a reenforced umbilical cord, ripping apart their prey and springing back inside for safety. Queen Mecha Sally had been right to call it their 'most blessed event' of life being twisted into something truly horrid.

All robians had some basic auto repair functions, but something like a limb being torn off required outside work, and never mind if your primary, secondary, and tertiary consciousness centers were destroyed.

Tumble would've been here whether or not his brother had been guarding it...Queen Sally had returned his tail to him. It didn't nearly replace what the Old Ones had taken, but it was admittedly the kindest thing anyone had ever done to him. If nothing else, he had the gratitude to repay that. And with Sonic and many other 'heroes' now under the Old Ones' control, they needed all the power houses they could get. At least their opponents being organic meant his species' chief trait (still part of his mechanical make up, though very differently in ways the big mecha skunk didn't care about) was a blessing. He'd even had himself upgraded to use his brother's Stink Bomber attack...he'd hoped using it might jog his brother's memory. It hadn't.

Shadow teleported in, the GUN troopers barely reacted, that were used to his abrupt entrances by now. Over his shoulder was a black and yellow robotic armadillo with a red shell on his back that was covered in claw and bite marks and acid burns. Mighty's shell is as tough as reinforced titanium, which should have given a hint at how longer he'd been out there fighting.

"Humph, you're just lucky your shell is as tough as you think it is," Shadow said. "You're as stubborn as the blue hedgehog."

"Ray... I've gotta save him... It should have been me, it should have been me."

Shadow dumped Mighty on the repair table next to Tumble.

Fighting through the little Quasi-imp-like horrors that used to be Doctor Quack's sons... thanks to the Brood Mother, they now had many new brothers. All the time trying to reach one yellow furred terror of the skies.

There'd been brutal debate about explicitly targeting the the brood mothers for destruction before the robians were overwhelmed. The brood spawn were easier to make and more deadly than Eggpawns.

There had been debate, followed by tests capturing brood spawn and using them as Badnik batteries. But that carried the risk of escapes, and Sonic hadn't lost his touch for smashing Badniks. Mobile Badnik factories were in the testing phase. Sally had played to the doctor's ego and told him his creations could get 'killed by babies' to encourage him to make better monsters. Tumble knew the doctor well enough he wouldn't take that laying down.

Shadow was an eldritch abomination to the Old Ones' slaves, their uncanny valley, flesh, not not THEIR flesh... Marine and Blaze were much the same Mecha Eggman theorized... Sally was keeping the zone gates closed to keep these monsters from spreading to other universes! She wondered, were the Old Gods benign in Moebius' world of inverted morality? She wondered what sort of beautiful angelic beings Scourge and the others has ascended into then.

"Dammit Ray, it should have been me who got turned into one of those... things... "

Tumble frowned, "Hey, no fair," he called over to Mighty. "You don't get to say 'it should have been me' I get to say, 'it should have been me!' My big brother! Rough! He's what matters!"

"More than one person can say 'It should have been me'... but you know what? ... This Unit always hated bullies like you. Strength is for protecting! You think because you can take something, that makes you deserve to have it. You treat those weaker than you like they're beneath you. All those people whose lives you've ruined. And you just laugh it off! But when it's someone YOU care about, THEN you're sad?! What about everyone's else's brother!? Huh?!"

Nearby the cyborg Matilda Armadillo was moving carved stone block several times her size with one cyborg arm. The whole was like a giant puzzle (what with ancient temples and puzzles?), but that wasn't why Matilda sighed.

Her brother was in 'lecture the bad guy' mode. Her brother had never liked fighting in spite of being so good at it. But he also had in his head about which people were 'meant' to be redeemed or not. She'd known what kind of people her parents were... rotting in that orphanage because her parents had been thieves, then screaming inside her own body as Robotnik's slave. Then being treated like a potential enemy because she'd been a SLAVE. And she and others had come crawling to the same monster that had enslaved them, this time willingly becoming his little minions. Her brother knew her life has been torture, and didn't blame her in the least... never mind all of Robotnik's other minions out there who had sob stories of their own. She couldn't blame her brother, given all the things he'd seen happen in his life for thinking the way he did...that didn't mean all of those thoughts were rational.

Unless it was a lady of course... not because he thought they were pretty, but because girls so obviously couldn't be REALLY bad guys, right? Though Matilda was very sure he made an exception for the Iron Queen (he'd been mad when she'd been spared while Ray had been taken). Mighty practically buried his head in the sand whenever Matilda brought up the things she'd done in the Dark Egg Legion for Robotnik that were most definite not 'good'. Never mind DARING to bring up they'd come from a family of robbers. Mighty had, for a time, insisted they must have been false memories implanted in him by Mammoth Mogul... never mind little Matilda had remembered the exact same things. Mighty had patted her on the head saying she was too young to remember such things. Matilda had punched him in the face. During her time as Robotnik's puppet, all she COULD DO was remember. She understood why somewhat: they were the only family the other had, why would he want to alienate himself from her or vice versa?

She loved her brother, she truly did... But seeing her brother smash through Dark Egg Legionnaires who had their own reasons for serving a mad man of their own free will... she knew he had trouble with gray.

"You think you're so special, Shadow's had Rouge stolen from him! Omega's had Hope Kinbotor stolen from him! We've all had someone taken from us!"

+++

-PAST-

"Froggy! This Unit must save Froggy!"

Froggy was now the size of a bus, his eyes looking like cancerous growths, multiple tongues, many new limbs, and with insanity inducing patterned skin that secreted alien chemicals that could melt metal and not even harm flesh.

Unit Big had tried to plead with his friend, it had eaten him, Unit Big had smashed his way out of the monster's stomach, only to try and plead with him again, and the monster ate him again, and Big simply made a new exit hole as the first one had sealed up. That Big had been able to render himself invulnerable to flames, electricity, poisons, etc, for brief periods of time, even BEFORE his roboticization, helped. Finally Amy and Cream had had to force him to leave. Unit Big EXISTED, it was his FUNCTION, to protect his friends. Fishing was a hobby.  

+++

-FUTURE-

"Big brother, This Cyborg thinks the big guy gets the picture now," Matilda said, forgetting about the block puzzle for the moment. Matilda wasn't used to the touchy feeling stuff, spending a short lifetime as a silent puppet didn't help for emotional growth, but she could recognize her own.

"Your brother... he's was all you had wasn't he?" She asked looking down at the acid burned, damaged robian.

"... Yes."

"How did it happen?"

"Big brother was always the smart one, so This Unit was gonna be the strong one... and ... " Tumble optics flickered. "Accident. Tail crushed. Had to... remove it. 'Not a true skunk' they said. Rough... he didn't abandon me. He said... we were gonna be great together... Heroes deserve their reward, don't they?"

"You definition of reward is 'take what you want'."

Matilda gave her brother a silencing look.  "So you thought you were the good guys? ... This Cyborg can relate," Matilda wanted a place to belong, assimilating with the robians around her was unnerving, but her desire for belonging overrode that discomfort, the other Legionnaires thought her choice in speech weird, she didn't care.

Matilda said, "My brother got his super-strength from a deal with Mammoth Mogul! Was trying to break our family of jail. We were too young to realize they were robbers! I had to have it explained to me once I wound up in an orphanage. I got my super-strength from making a deal with Robotnik. AFTER he'd already turned me into a slave, and the Bem freed me! And what happened when things got tough? I came crawling right back to him like a good little slave, except this time I didn't have programming to blame!"

She appreciated her brother didn't break out into the 'false memories' conspiracy theory again. She was silently pleased her brother had passed her subtle test.

"Mighty made friends with Knuckles in spite of both of them having to explain words either of 'em had heard before, then they found out they'd lost their ... their parents. Turns out Knuckles' were still around but Knuckles' didn't even know it, but Mighty didn't think their friendship was bogus. Mighty was HAPPY for him! ... And, Mighty effectively adopted this flying squirrel named Ray... and I never thought he'd replaced me. Because I was happy he'd found family, AND! Ray couldn't even remember his parents he'd been orphaned for so long, so Mighty was giving HIM a family for the first time in his life! Mighty taught the kid practically everything he knew..."

Which made things awkward when Matilda and Mighty had found themselves fighting again, only to suddenly STOP fighting each other and fighting side by side again after so long when Ray was suddenly mutated.

Tumble turned back to look at Mighty, "He's like your little brother?"

"Yes! I couldn't save my parents from going to the dungeon, I couldn't save my sister from joining the Dark Egg Legion, and I couldn't save Ray from his own flesh!"

She gave her brother a stern looked. "I never asked to be 'saved' Mighty. I made my choice. It was a stupid one, but you weren't there to stop it. Unlike you, I don't believe in their fairy tales Merica is famous for." She didn't even really think of Merica as her home, if anything, she thought of the desert Dark Egg Legionnaires as her home... though she'd been overjoyed at the idea of being with her brother again, it was her fairy tale.

Matilda looked at Shadow. "Thanks for saving him."

"Just doing my job," Shadow responded matter of fact.

That was when THEIR Voices started. She heard them, faint, but somehow crystal clear no matter the noise level. Constantly. Unrelenting. Like tendrils that rooted through her brain, breaking apart into spiders that would lay their eggs and-AGH! Dammit! Not now! Matilda reached into her an arm compartment and took out her medication, (with a spare bottle still inside), undid the cap, and downed the pills on the spot, the horrid voices fading, not knowing what they were saying, but nightmarish all the same. Fading... and sweet silence with only her own thoughts for company in her head.

"Matilda I'm sorry."

"You can't do anything about it Mighty, save feeling sorry for stuff you've done."

"It's my sorriness, This Unit'll spend it how I want."

"Touche."

"Your brother..." Tumble asked. "You... you tried to hug him didn't you? You tried to tell him that you still believe in him? That he was better than some super old monsters? That he wasn't alone? That you knew the real him had to be in there somewhere? That you believe that he can still be cured? That we can get those stupid Bem to fix their mess and help us save the world?"

Mighty fell utterly silent. Looking at the robian skunk. Finally he said, "Yes... I did... I... You were scared too aren't you? That he's really gone forever. That there's nothing left of him in there. That what made him who he is just... gone. That even if he gets his head back... that we won't find a cure. That things will go wrong, that we won't be able to save him... that we'll fail again. That even if we end up enslaved too... we might as well be in separate universes... "

"Scary, isn't it?"

"Yeah... but our brothers wouldn't want to be scared... they'd want us to be brave... to not give up on them. Because they wouldn't want us to give up on ourselves."

"This Unit'll save my brother if you can save yours."

"Deal!"

Matilda smiled, she liked it when her big brother made a friend.

-End