#their loss tho cause i dug it overall

[dare-g]

Went to a film tonight and I told the guy at the counter that I had bought my ticket online and he said "so you're the one ticket" and just told me to go in

[sally-mun]

ooooh could you please elaborate on the part where Finitevus realizes he has lots of regrets? :o

SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. I started answering this like 3 different times.

This didn’t really start bubbling up until the idea of marriage was on the table. Knux had always been very neutral on the idea, and since Julie-Su had made such a big fuss about not wanting to get married, Knuckles had no intention of bringing it up with Finitevus. He was content just to be living together.

Fini, on the other hand, HAD started thinking about it -- much to his own surprise. He’d been in a serious relationship before (in that instance with a woman), but they’d also never been married. I can’t say -exactly- what went on between them, as even when Knuckles has asked, he doesn’t say much. He gives kind of a minimum answer and then changes the subject. Anyway, Fini hadn’t ever really intended to get married; maybe something had happened with Ally-Sa that soured him to it, maybe they never got there... whatever. So he was really surprised when he found himself wanting it now with Knuckles.

Eventually Fini (very nervously) floated the idea to Knux, who was just as surprised to hear that it was something he was interested in. Luckily, it was a pleasant surprise, and Knux happily told him that he was in if Fini was in, and boom! They were engaged, just like that! Now it was time to plan the ceremony!

Aaaand that’s where the regrets really started hitting Fini. One of the primary elements of a ceremony is, of course, the guest list. It began hitting him that he... didn’t really have anyone to invite to what was going to be one of the most important events in his life, if not THE most important. He didn’t really have ‘friends’, and all of his relatives were dead -- some of which he himself had been responsible for killing during the destruction of Albion. The guest list began to haunt him the longer the planning went on. He wanted at least one person there that HE would invite, that would be there specifically for HIM, that wasn’t also a mutual friend of Knuckles. But the only people he was really on ‘friendly’ terms with were, for the most part, people his soon-to-be spouse was enemies with, such as Robotnik.

After a long period of hesitating, largely because he feared what he’d find out, Fini decided to look into the current state of Albion. He was at least relieved to find that it wasn’t completely wiped out, and in fact a lot of it had been rebuilt. There was still a population living there, albeit much smaller than before (cue guilt on putting a huge dent in his already endangered species), and it looked like it was a stable enough society again for him to be able to look someone up. Specifically, he wanted to look up his old lab assistant, Egon.

The good news was, he did in fact manage to find him! Fini was relieved that Egon hadn’t been killed during Albion’s fall.... buuut now he had to work up the nerve to approach him. For someone that was still considered a major super villain to most of the world, Fini was pretty terrified to ask Egon to speak with him. There was a real possibility that Egon would say no and never want to see him again, and Fini was so worried about that outcome that he very nearly did nothing because he thought he’d be better off not knowing. However, after a LOT of torturing himself over it, he finally pushed himself to pay Egon a visit.

Even just coming face-to-face with him was difficult, before Egon had even said a word. Egon was several years younger than Fini, but he seemed to have aged significantly since the last time they’d seen each other. Furthermore, it was obvious Egon had no escaped the fall unscathed; his left leg had become severely crippled, and he couldn’t stand or walk without a cane. At first Egon didn’t really say anything, and Fini stumbled around his words until finally asking if they could just talk a while. Egon still didn’t say anything right away, but did eventually consent to having a chat. So they decided to go for a walk -- which only dug the guilt knife in further for Fini, as it was something that clearly took a lot more effort for Egon.

They eventually ended up on the beach so they could just sit and have some relative privacy. Amidst their many uncomfortable silences, Fini learned just how difficult not only Egon’s life had become, but for Albion in general. Their economy had been teetering on the edge of ruin ever since Fini’s attack, not only because of the devastation of the fall itself (tho that was a serious part of it), but they were impacted by another problem: Their water had become contaminated, and it was causing serious nerve deterioration among the population. Those afflicted gradually began losing their small motor skills, leading to the loss of larger motor skills and eventually overall paralysis. This condition had colloquially come to be called Albion Syndrome. In addition, the contamination had caused addition strain on the already sinking economy, as it required that all foods and water be imported.

To say the least, Fini was devastated. He’d felt so right, so justified when he attacked Albion, but now... There was no getting around the fact that this wasn’t right. He’d been so blinded by his anger and bitterness that he’d painted everyone in a single stroke and called it a day. Egon of all people was someone he KNEW wasn’t the sort of person he’d been lashing back against, and now he had to take a good hard look at just how much he’d caused his former friend to suffer. His previously meek and youthful intern now looked so jaded, so tired, and so malnourished. Even his voice, which Fini had once found so pleasant and uplifting that he’d asked him to act as the alarm on his clock, sounded worn out.

It all kind of hit Fini at once, and before he could stop himself he started to break down and asked Egon for forgiveness. He didn’t completely lose control of himself (it was only weeping at worst), but for someone like Fini it was still a colossal loss of composure. Fini apologized for everything he had done and had caused to happen; I don’t think they even got around to the wedding list. Egon stayed quiet for a long time and sort just... let Fini sit there feeling guilty. Maybe it was his form of punishing him, who knows.

Anyway, Egon eventually told Fini he would give him a chance. I don’t think he outright forgave him, just gave him an opportunity to make proper amends and earn his friendship back. Fini was grateful just to be given that. He resolved to do whatever he could to not only restore Albion, but to make it better than it’d been before, and to help Egon in whatever way he could. It turned out to be a major, MAJOR developmental turning point for him as a character, and it’s a large part of what helped him shift from being a concrete villain to a more neutral I’ll-align-with-whomever-my-morals-agree-with sort of person.