THE SUPERIOR EMPIRE

"No. No!" Swatting away one of Starline's reaching palms with one hand while shielding his eyes with the other, Kit willed his hydro tails to spear the ground between him and the platypus. With as much concentration as he could muster, the appendages flattened out, widening until they fused together, cocooning the fennec in a protective sphere of rapidly flowing water. "You—you're not... You're not getting me back under your control so easily. Not this time. Not again."

Starline only smiles as he deactivates the gear for now, simply watching Kit's desperate attempt to defend himself. Even with all of his bluster, it was obvious that it had affected him just as profoundly as it always had. Kit is still his.

"...It must be difficult for you, being away from Surge." Starline's tone is casual, if not sympathetic, as he locks his right hand behind his back. "No guidance, no purpose...I imagine you feel quite lost. Wouldn't it be easier to go back to the way things were? You don't have to live with this burden. You don't have to hold all of those painful memories. You don't have to be afraid anymore."

Starline takes a step forward, holding up his hand towards Kit in the bubble.

Curious, though, and an explanation of his motivation. Under what circumstances had this happened? Starline fully intends to find out, but he has to return to base for that.

Starline isn't above disparaging alternate timelines of himself--if he truly had died, then it must have been because he'd failed to consider a contingency plan. He could have easily died in the Eggperial City, for instance...had he failed to realize the discrepancy in Surge and Kit's behavior.

He kicked his feet up, leaning back in his chair. A satisfied sigh left him, before his mood and face shifted. Colder, more detached.

A deep breath.

"Platypus."

He shouldn't have risen to that, but when you've been hearing the same tired old line since grade school...

Starline turns away with a huff, though keeps himself on guard for potential retaliation.

Though, that last statement makes him smile.

A short laugh escapes the hedgehog. It’s cruel. Mocking. Full of pity and disbelief. It says more words than the actual sentence does.

Starline was a cunning, vindictive sort, one who hid his cruelty behind honeyed words and empty platitudes. His interest in Kit’s experiences was purely selfish, probing for information just to see what he knew.

Kitsunami clenched his fists, his posture that of a cornered animal, tense and ready to pounce. “You act like you have an interest in what we have to say. You act like you care. You act like you won’t just wipe our minds a minute later, just to plant ideas in our heads that were never ours to begin with.” He raises his chin up, meeting Starline’s faux smile with a defiant grin of his own. “Surge saw through it. She always did. Now so do I.”

He willed his hydro tails into being, the watery appendages snaking out from his pack and surrounding the two. An active threat to match Starline’s quiet one.

Starline glances around at the water, not threatened by the display but rather raising an eyebrow, a faint smile on his face. "Goodness, Kitsunami, your control has greatly improved since we last spoke. I'm impressed. And you're growing quite eloquent as well!" Kit had always done well with positive reinforcement, leaning harder into the 'father' act, while Surge needed to believe she was defying his authority or being challenged.

Starline moves to pat Kit's head with his right hand, while he raises his left towards Kit's face.

The glove is new, but the effect is the same, an endless spiral of pulsing orange light. Starline's voice is gentle, but commanding.

"Do me a solid and leave the Fennec alone. Poor boy's going through so much to find his idol. He shouldn't be traumatized any further than he is now."

Traumatized? I merely asked him a question!

I have not seen either of my children since the day we went out on a very dangerous mission. I barely escaped with my life, but found myself unable to locate them...I...had wondered if they had perished...

“I mean… with all due disrespect… what do you have? A bruised ego, a series of plans that, I’d hardly say were even foiled, just… straight-up backfired. And the crushed remains of adoration for someone who thought less of you than the rocks on the side of the road. I mean… what else you got? Certainly don’t have a nemesis to destroy. You think you occupy space in Sonic or Tails’ head when you’re not directly in front of them? Get real.”

...except for the slight twitch in his eyelid when the stranger mentions what Robotnik thought of him.

"You're correct!" Starline replies, holding out his hands to his sides. "I have lost many resources, and I'm fairly certain Sonic forgets anyone who isn't in his immediate line of sight. However...Do you honestly think I would be showing myself if I had nothing at all to my name? I'm still here, after all."

“I-I know what a multiverse is! T-there was this one not-a-hedgehog who looked liked Shadow… A-and also a talking pony…”

And it'll be obvious to Kit that he's made a mistake, in the way Starline tilts his head, a new glint in his eye. "Someone that ressembles Shadow, you say?"

He sighs, making a big show of pinching the bridge of his glasses rather than the bridge of his nonexistent nose.

"Fine, how do I get this across to a mind such as yours...We live in only one layer of a larger multiverse, and the layers 'beneath' or 'above' us, insomuch as they can be described with spatial direction, may reflect the events that happened in our layer in a different way. You saw me return and take Surge. I experienced no such thing. I know it may be a difficult concept, but you have the mind of a genius."

“Ooh, Doctor, Doctor… You know me. You may not have met me, but you do… in fact, know me. At least you should. What, with the whole… fanboy shtick you had going on. Though… I guess I didn’t make much of an impression back then.”

He approached the platypus. Prepared for his little trick. He knew that it could be resisted. On top of that, his own resistance to any kind of radiation or magnetic wave, or whatever… Infinite’s will had broken before his. And he’s had over a hundred millennia to temper it since. That parlor trick couldn’t possibly work on him.

Still facing away from him, Starline raises his hand, the back facing the stranger's face...before he curls his fingers in on the palm and laughs. No, he's not succumbing to bait.

"I'd rather not. I have better things to do than root around an empty skull." He turns back around to face the other directly. "But you have caught my interest."

No. He wasn’t going to repeat that. Ashura, or Surge, whichever name they wanted to take. Her and Kit deserved to handle him. He took that from them last time.

The polite mask slips to reveal Starline's contempt underneath, eyeing the other down his bill before he turns away. Not taking his eyes off him, of course.

"I don't honestly care all that much about Shadow Clone Number Seventeen or...whatever it is you are."

The only reason he's still bothering is because this man clearly knows another version of himself, and the fact that he knows that name piques his curiosity.

He claps his hands together, all polite and apologetic even as he continues to try and place the face to anyone but Shadow.