#also this way omega isn't the only robot on the team anymore

[lunapegasus]

post-redemption metal sonic joins team dark

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

@diva-of-the-reef replied:

I’m wondering if Sage and shadow are like, at war with each other 200 years in the future or if sage just becomes a business tycoon with the most successful corporate empire on the planet and she and shadow rarely talk. Maybe she’s handling a shadow organisation that shadow constant thwarts? So many ideas...

My preferred vision for Future Sage In Silver's Era is highly specific. Okay basically ...

The whole thing hinges on the fact that Sage's tragedy as a character is that unlike Eggman, she isn't wrapped up in a permanent ego-trip, and so she's able to think up ideas and solutions which would never occur to Ego-man (i.e. "team up with Sonic"); however, she's blindly obedient and loyal to Eggman, and he's kind of fifty-fifty on even listening to her when she tells him something he doesn't want to hear!

In my idea, this ironically leads to a happy ending. When her old man finally kicks the bucket, her simulations on the "violently conquer the world and transform it into a monument to Father's ego"-plan show a success rate of zero percent, and he's not there to say "do it anyway" anymore. So for starters, she just ... doesn't. Sonic and Shadow reach out to her, and she goes along with it, becomes proper friends with them. Grunkle Shadow is also family, after all! They can help her recover from (vague gesture at everything about Eggman), help her gain independence from the idea of being "just Eggman's daughter." Teach her to be her own person, to find her own way in life.

And in that way, she gains everyone's trust. No need to blow it all on her daddy issues! In fact, hey, she's great at running simulations and probably inherited a bunch of Egg Knowhow, why not start, y'know ... selling out her services! She's got Shadow at least to vouch for her (even after Sonic and everyone else is gone), everyone knows that he and Omega would be there to thwart her if she tried to do something evil. And she's not gonna let anyone else use her services for evil either, of course! Eventually, she starts getting the ear of different heads-of-state, maybe even help out in people's homes using some sort of distributed intelligence stuff ...

... and long before the 200-years-from-now, she's basically running the whole world, at everyone else's behest. It's only pragmatic to make it a veritable utopia, too, so that nobody wants to "overthrow" her!

There's any number of ways this could go, of course, but in my idea, the twist is that there is no twist: she isn't secretly evil, she's not setting it all up so that she can conquer everything later, she genuinely does have the world's best interests in mind and wants it to be a utopia. Her father threatened the entire world, and she lives to serve, so now she serves the world itself!

That said, for Eggman, it was never about ruling per se. He wasn't a people person, and with anything that wasn't fully automated and programmed to obey his every command, he couldn't govern his way out of a wet paper bag; he just wanted it to be illegal for anyone on the entire planet to not be worshiping him 24/7. Which means that if he does cause problems from beyond the grave with i.e. some kind of time-delayed Cunning Plan set to go off after his death, his robots might have objections to how Sage has been running things! Good thing she's got the help of a great-uncle who's the Ultimate Life Form, a killer robot "brother", and hey wait, her data-network has just recorded the birth of a hedgehog named Silver ...

[itsnoosetome]

Voicemail is full, glass is half empty

Title: Voicemail is full, glass is half empty Rating: T Pairing: Kenny Omega/Hangman Page (past); Kenny Omega/Ibushi Kota (past, mentioned) Word Count: 2,022 words Summary: Hangman Adam Page isn't any stranger to drink, everyone knows that. Everyone also knows that drunk Adam isn't the best at making good choices. Leaving his ex a drunk voicemail might be his worst choice yet. Notes: Here I am again, back at it with the Kenny and Adam angst. To be fair to Kenny though, he's only here in spirit. There's a mild mention of drunk Hangman in the river at the beginning so tread with caution kiddos if that's something you're sensitive about. Tags: @himbos-hotline

There are a number of things that Hangman Adam Page has done while drunk. For instance he'd once jumped into a river because he'd gotten overheated during a hangout with friends and then had to be fished out by his frantic companions when his drunken limbs had made it hard to swim. They'd scolded him all the way back home and later, when he'd sobered up, he felt guilty and shameful for putting his friends through such stress. He'd once fallen asleep in the alley behind a bar and once he woke up the next day had to walk several miles back home hungover because someone had stolen his wallet. He'd felt really stupid after that one, and thanked his lucky stars that the worst thing that had happened was a lost wallet and sore feet.

In any case, Hangman has woken up too many time on the wrong side of his drunken antics and felt any combination of shame, guilt and embarrassment. Somehow his latest escapade will probably top that list and he's the safest he's ever been while drunk.

He'd been watching the game on TV and as it had gotten more and more dire for his team, he'd begun to drink more and more. Eventually he'd ended up fucking around on his phone rather than watch the dreadful end to an awful game. Scrolling Instagram and reading funny articles had somehow morphed into flicking back through his camera roll.

He really should have deleted those old pictures.

His thumb hovers over the delete button but somehow ends up just softly stroking the screen instead. It's still hard to get rid of the only evidence that Kenny was ever happy with him. Somehow slowly petting at the screen turns into scrolling contacts and before he knows it his phone is pressed to his ear and he's listening to it ring.

It keeps ringing and then there's the beep of the voicemail activating, a robotic female voice apologising for Kenny's absence. It's nice that someone else is apologising for Kenny now.

"Do people even check their voicemails anymore ?" Adam wonders out loud, drunken mind somewhat forgetting that it's being recorded.

"I know I don't. Mind you, only person that calls me up on the regular is my Ma so I don't hafta. Most people just text I guess nowadays but I ain't opened our text thread in a long while. Too many arguments and I love yous that I don't wanna relive. Shoulda deleted it like I shoulda deleted the old pictures but I can't. Dunno why."

Adam picks at a fraying hole in his jeans, aware he knows why but saying out loud makes it seem sadder somehow. Even though there's no one to hear him in his empty apartment.

"Dunno why I even called ya. Jus' drunk again  I guess and missin' ya. I know you probably ain't surprised by that. I was lookin' at those old pictures and missed you all of sudden. Well no it wasn't so much sudden. I've been missin' you a long time, missed you when we were still together even. That probably shoulda been a sign I took more notice of huh ?"

Adam missed a lot of signs. The distance, the one word answers, the maybe next times, the unhappy faces that were unconvincingly explained away. The trips to Japan all alone for work that got extended to see old friends. Stupid, stupid Adam missed them all.

"Do you remember the zoo ? Ya know, the real good one where they let you hold that little koala fella ? You were so happy that day. You were real tender with all the animals small 'nd tall, then when we got to the end you looked at me with these real soft eyes and said 'Thanks for this Adam'. Boy that made me feel about ten feet tall."

He still dreams about that trip sometimes, not that he'd admit it outside of late nights staring up at the ceiling. It was one of those rare days where everything had felt just perfect. Kenny had laughed at all his jokes, had showed him as much affection as either of them were comfortable with in public and they'd eaten cotton candy like they were kids again.

"Felt about 20 feet tall when you gave me that damned stuffed horse. Musta cost you an arm and a leg, those places are always so darn expensive, but you said he'd be real lonely if I didn't take him. You always did know how to twist me around to your way of thinking. I still have him ya know, Hunter Horse Helmsley the 4th. He's in the closet now, not like we were but because I put him there. Used to live on the bed with me but after everything I moved him to a new pasture. Another thing I can't let go of huh ?"

Life sure would be simpler if Adam could let go of things as easy as others. There's a long silence where Adam picks a new hole in his jeans and curses himself for not being better, or stronger.

"D'ya ever wonder where it all went wrong Ken ?" He asks quietly, like he daren't ask the question out loud for fear of something terrible happening.

Adam sure as hell does. He's spent months in fact dissecting their relationship like a medical examiner with a complicated corpse. He hasn't found a cause of death yet or maybe it's that he's found too many to conclude which one was the final blow.

"D'ya ever look back on our relationship and see the moment where it got all fucked up ? I try but I can't see it. Maybe I was too drunk to see it going wrong. That's what you woulda said at the end there. 'You're too drunk to notice anything Page' and you mighta been mean but I guess you weren't wrong." Adam's unflattering impression of Kenny quickly peters out into a watery thin voice that has him clearing his throat.

"I reckon if you thought about it you'd probably know where it all went wrong. You were always smarter than me at that kinda stuff. Give me an equation and I'll solve it but give me a person 'nd i'm fumblin' in the dark. Maybe if I knew a thing or two more about people you'd have stayed. Then again maybe not right ?"

Adam breaks his train of thought to awkwardly laugh, he tries to sheepishly rub the back of his neck but forgets he's got the phone in his hand. 

"That probably ain't the only thing that's wrong with me that you decided you couldn't deal with no more. Can't say I blame you either, some days I look in that bathroom mirror and I ain't sure I can deal with myself."

Most days if he's honest. That very morning he'd stumbled into the bathroom and almost recoiled in horror from his own reflection. He'd looked pale and drawn, the dark circles under his eyes looking worse in comparison. His hair had been stringy, curls limp and without any bounce to them. He'd smelled so strongly of alcohol and sweat that he'd even grossed himself out, not that he'd been in a rush to fix it when there was no one else to complain. You couldn't blame Kenny for leaving that guy.

"What was I sayin' ? Oh yeah all the stuff I got wrong. Was I not romantic enough ? Boy I sure tried even with all the travellin' and us not bein' public and all."

There's a lengthy pause before Adam blurts out, "Was Kota romantic ? I can't imagine it but we never did spend a lot of time together me and him. Aw damn, shouldn't have brought him up at all should I ? You didn't like that either, always knew he was a sore subject."

Boy could Hangman relate to complicated feelings about ex-boyfriends.

"I'm sorry for askin' about him when we were together. Guess I just wanted to know what I was up against. He's older than me and more handsome, more cultured I bet, I just wanted to know I was doin' something better than him. Ya know what's funny ? I used to say to myself sometimes that I had you and he didn't so I musta been doing something good. Ain't even got that hill to stand on now do I ?"

Adam has the sudden urge for another drink but the fact that he's out of booze stops him from attempting to walk. He'd probably just fall down the front steps again anyway.

"Maybe it's some other failin' of mine. Was it that I was dead weight in the ring as well as in your life ? I could see how that'd test a fella's patience. Kenny the Cleaner, the Belt Collector, he can't be seen with some dumb Virginia farm boy that don't know how to hit a 450 Splash without near killin' himself. You deserve someone with real," Adam flails his hand for a second as he thinks of an appropriate word, forgetting that Kenny and the voicemail can't see him, "pizzazz, someone like Kota... Ah shit I brought him up again."

Maybe he does need that drink. He heaves himself up from the couch and wobbles precariously for a moment before landing back on the seat with a thump. Or then again may not.

"Ya gotta believe me Kenny, I trained real hard to be better. Maybe not as flashy but to be something you could be proud of. I changed up my diet, my workouts, studied so many matches it darn near made my brain spin. S'why I'm injured right now and I'm drunk on the couch instead of in the ring out in Florida. Still tryna prove myself to you even thought you told me to hit the road and you won't look me in the eyes no more. Ain't that sad ?"

It is sad. Adam feels sad doing it a lot of the time but he just can't stop himself. It's second nature now to try and get Kenny to look at him, to notice him, so he can bask in that light for even just a second.

"D'ya know Ken, I reckon that might just be the real problem at the heart of all of this. I want your approval so darn much, I want you to be as proud of me as you are the Bucks. Prouder even. Ain't real fair on you is it ? This starry eyed pretend cowboy looking up at you on high, asking you to carry all his hopes and dreams. Always asking for validation and unwavering love. People always say you shouldn't meet your idols, and I darn sure know you shouldn't date them. You can't worship who you wanna love."

Adam swallows the lump in his throat and makes another attempt at leaving the couch. Maybe it's not time for another drink but it does seem like time for bed. He's more successful this time at staying upright and begins the slow shuffle towards his bedroom.

"Funny how you call yourself a wrestling god now ain't it ? When I was your number one devotee you couldn't have been more human. Gettin' all grandiose again, putting you up on a pedestal when I shouldn't be."

He falls face first onto the bed when he stumbles into his room. His voice muffled by the covers his mouth is pressed into but Adam can't be bothered to turn his head. Instead he grabs a pillow to hold to make himself more comfortable.

"I didn't even call to talk about all that really. I just wanted to talk about the good times, so there's another thing I've gone and messed up. If ya keepin' a list Kenny you'd better add that one too." Adam laughs, a sound more acid in his throat than anything else.

He falls asleep like that, jeans still on, phone beeping against his ear and a pillow clutched in his arms so he can pretend that there's someone beside him. No one in particular, just someone that won't leave him this time.