Planeocracy

[NiGHTS has finally returned from the brink of sheer boredom, only to find Sonic... not quite himself. He hovered over and tried to figure out just what was going on. Was he practicing something new or something? It didn't really look like he was doing a good job, in any case.]

Who's "they"? Why are you complaining?

[His form makes him oblivious to gravity changes, so it wasn't too painfully obvious to him.]

From:

"N-NiGHTS? No, see, I can't control this! When it becomes night I--" *PHUFFH!* "ARGH, turn into this thing. 'S been going on for a while, but I was able to wait hours between transformations. Now with the glitch in daylight-- *PHUFFH!* "Nng! It can't make up its mind whether to be dark or light and apparantly neither can I!"

From:

[That... sounded bad. He'd ask for the details later, but for now, he had to get Sonic indoors. He grabbed Sonic by the hand- he couldn't dualize with him when he's constantly changing, but NiGHTS could get him indoors.]

From:

"Whoa!" Sonic is drug by the floating nightmaren. "What? Where're we going? Oh wait! Sorry buddy, I wish it WAS that easy! It's--

*PHUFF!*

"--ARGH, nighttime indoors too!"

Uh, NiGHTS? That hand you're pulling along? Is now heavily clawed. And a few yards away from Sonic's body on a stretched-out arm. The rest of him takes a few quick steps to catch up with it.

From:

[NiGHTS didn't notice the claws, but the fact that the stretchy hand slipped out made it all too noticeable.]

Well, they picked a fine time for the gates to close down...

[Don't worry, he'll think of something...]

From:

"This is all part of the same problem!" *PHUFF!* "Ungh... The computers control everything here! The gates, all of our equipment, food storage, plumbing, weather--" *PHUFF!* "I just hope they get a handle on the problem before things gets any worse!"

From:

"Why are we letting a computer control that. I think real people would do a much better job!"

From:

"You and everyone else in here right now, NiGHTS." *PHUFFH!* "--nng," He leans on the fountain's rim. "Actually I'd be willing to bust up the servers myself at this point... but I get the feeling that'd make things ten times worse. Who knows how deeply it controls everything?"

From:

"Oh, I'm sure everything would just fall apart around us then go into pitch blackness."

From:

"Yeah, see, that's sort of what I'm worried 'll happen." *PHUFFH!* "It'd be a whole different type of plane-crash! And I think I like existing. It's a really cool concept, and I'm going to roll with it for a while longer."

From:

"Suit yourself."

He was sarcastic of course, he didn't exactly find not-existing fun either.

From:

"Maybe there is a place around here I can hide from the effects." *PHUFFH!*

He recoils, shakes his head, pressing a palm to his temple. Is his hand shaking?

"Dunno where, though. I haven't had my PDA on that much lately." Mostly because the last time it was on it started playing the pac-man theme at humongous volume and just WOULDN'T STOP. "You know of anyone who has a place safe from the effects around here?"

From:

"You know, normally I'd mock for that, but that's just too much."

Sympathy? Clearly, Sonic must be hearing things.

"...I wonder if those incidents stop if we beat up that Melvin guy. Usually works back at home."

From:

The Werehog grins with a hint of nastiness in her direction.

"Yanno, shakin' him down doesn't sound like a bad ide--" *PHUFF!* Back to Sonic again. "Angh, man... what am I saying? Look, we can bug him but we can't beat him up! If we do then who'll fix it? Besides, he's just trying to help--" *PHUFF!* "Doesn't mean we can't give him the multiverse's worst wedgie afterwards for dragging his feet, though!"

From:

"Well, at home, people like that are usually beaten by the miko and things turn out fine. You sure it won't work that way here? He did seem to have that ally of his that saved the world a few times..."

From:

*PHUFFH!* "Yeah, I'm sure. This isn't Gensokyo, Tenshi! And he's not a really powerful Youkai or whatever! He's just a programmer!" Sonic, you know not what you speak!

*PHUFFH!* "Wait, what ally of his? What're you talking about?"

From:

"Yeah, but he can be a powerful programmer, with that elf dragon whatever person he has around."

What's a programmer again?

From:

Someone who writes programs. Like the games Kazumi told ya about? They sit on their butts for eight hours a day and make those--" *PHUFFH!* "Nnh. This is a different kind of program, but the same concept. Elf... dragon... wait--" *PHUFFH!* "ARE YOU SERIOUS? You're talking about his character in that stupid Demigorgon-Deva game! They aren't real! At least, I'm pretty sure they're not..."

In this place it IS hard to tell. They could be stumbling thru the routing gate even as we spoke, for all he knew.

From:

"...Not real!? But I thought...

...lets not fight him, then. Delusional people can't be too much fun."

From:

[Ness, at the very least, isn't walking upside-down anymore. But the ten-second night and day thing in the courtyard is starting to confuse the boy.

Wait. Wait a sec.

Is that...Sonic?!]

Are you okay?

From:

"...Ness?" He looks up at the boy. "Hey kid. Guess there was something about me I forgot to mention when we first met--" *PHUFF!* "ARGH! Awh man... The sun goes down and I change into this thing! Normally it's only twice a day, but with the screwy day and night patterns--hold on..." *PHUFF!* "Wgh! My body can't seem to make up it's mind either."

From:

[He's a little...surprised. Okay, talking bees and talking blue hedgehogs he could take with barely an eyebrow quirk, but this?

Oh, man. He's struggling to keep in all his questions because what's important now is that he has to get Sonic somewhere without a glitch in its...whatever it is that controls the weather patterns here, to say the least.]

Is our room affected by this kind of thing?

[He forgot to mention the little thing about, oh, the laws of physics, specifically those concerning gravity being thrown straight out the nearest window that kept happening on his way here.]

From:

"Yeah. It's night and day everywhere, right?"

He lets out a tired pant of a breath. He doesn't know yet, of the relative safe haven of the clinics.

"so I don't think I can get away from it--" *PHUFFH!* "Angh... I'm starting to not feel so good..."

From:

[He quickly grabs Sonic's hand. For what? Simple. He's going to either carry or drag the hedgehog to the clinics, wherever they are.]

From:

This has got to be a strange sight, to any onlooker; a thirteen-year-old boy in a red cap, leading a shaggy grey monster that's almost as tall as he is. Sonic is going to obediently trudge along with him, though he falters when he occasionally changes.

*PHUFFH!*

"W-we're headed for the clinics, aren't we?"

From:

Well, yeah, but...erm...

[He doesn't know where it is. But hey, at least they're going to get out of there, right?]

From:

"...okay. It's over in the next building, first floor, near the back--" *PHUFFH!*

Normally he'd avoid doctors if he could help it. Every sprain, strain, concussion and internal injury that landed him in a hospital (and there were more than people thought) inevitably turned to "We're going to run some extra metabolic tests while we're at it" and "you don't mind doing one last reflex test do you," and "a deep muscle tissue sample would really help," and finally "it's the most sensible decision you know, signing a release on your genome, there's no way it could ever be used for non-theraputic purposes--"

Yeah, right.

But this was a different situation. Georik probably doesn't know what a genome even IS. And Sonic was starting to feel heavier and heavier in ways that had nothing to do with the grav fluctuations.

"Thanks... Ness. Normally I'd make it there on my own but... Well, I owe you one."

From: