The Silence Was Strangling. Felt Like It Had A Vice Grip On His Throat, Threatening To Close Up His Windpipe.

of all the things sonic could have said, julius didn't expect to be invited. his eyes widened, lips parting briefly as though too stunned to process it. which he was. catches himself, and steels his expression, a frown etched into features. sonic's telling him no one would recognize him, there'll be so many there. five minutes.

"you know as well as i do that i would be 'recognized'. immediately." his height, his appearance, not to mention his eyes. "i've never eaten and would never eat a candied apple. i'm also not fond of inhaling food grease." he feels strange still kneeling, and hesitates a fraction before just sitting down in the grass. a sigh leaves him, and julius throws that rock, too hard, awkward angle. it sinks immediately.

sonic glanced over at julius then, not breaking his gaze, "and you should come to the festival." he sees the flit of, stunned shock and confusion that crosses julius' expression, although he tries to hide it. sonic keeps on, "there'll be hundreds of people in the streets you know, no one'd notice you. 5 minutes, you can pop in, get a candied apple or something, smell the gross greasy food air, pop out."

shouting while punching shadow noises, "you should listen to him maria! he makes very valid points!"

"both of you stop it! we're family. "

they hate me for finding romance in the violent & violence in the romantic. also for the killing

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

every single thing that stone said seemed to go in through one ear and directly out the other. that frown hadn't left julius' expression, a hand moving to rest on his hip and an eyebrow raised upward ⸻ "i don't care." was his immediate, blunt response to everything that stone had said. & frankly, he didn't. with a slight lean forward of his upper torso, "after all, i'm not your robotnik, right?" the words are sneered. seemed that those specific words had touched a nerve for julius. he moved a hand then, splaying it along stone's chest, "close your eyes and focus on whatever world you came from. once you do that, i can send you back."

he knew the man wasn't too pleased with him not returning the hug, and a small part of him feels a bit of regret at that fact. despite it though stone is quiet for a long moment before he smooths out his coat, fixing the gloves... ivo's gloves, on his hands while he listens to the man speak. his tone was harsh, almost irritated and finally he was reminded of his doctor. stone wanted to explain, so badly in fact that he completely ignores the second thing the man had said.

he had to explain, for as much as this encounter had been odd, this was still an alternate of the doctor.

"yes... I come from a timeline where my doctor sacrificed himself to save the wretched people of earth from certain destruction." he wouldn't dare say it was to save him from being eradicated as well, as the thought alone caused his stomach to churn.

"I had hoped there was a timeline where a robotnik was missing his stone, and would accept my company so we could continue our plans to conquer the world." why he was spinning this story he wasn't entirely sure. perhaps because he wasn't ready to return to his own timeline yet?

or perhaps it was because he quietly hoped the alternate robotnik might allow him to stay at his side...

⸻ he had nothing left, now. what little that truly mattered to him, naught but ash. not even a body he could hold. to mourn. to apologize. to possibly cradle. bootfalls rushing toward his location, rounding that corner and stopping once they saw the carnage and destruction. his chaos energy so out of control, rising and peaking and drenching the very air in this corridor that it caused the emergency lights themselves to short-circuit. washing julius in darkness, save for his red irises. his red irises were visible in that darkness, glowing brightly.

sound of a gunshot, muzzle flash as those G.U.N soldiers opened fire on him. the bullets impacted his skin, causing him to jerk slightly. felt them enter, blood pour, but then that healing and chaos energy made the bullets evaporate before they could exit through him. human weaponry couldn't truly harm him now. they fired at him more, their eyes terrified of how he wasn't going down to their weapons-

his eyes glowed brighter in that darkness.

silently, fueled by rage and hatred, he charged forward and blinked from existence before reappearing in front of one of the soldiers. using that momentum and rage to punch a hole through the man's face, yanking him forward to shield from those bullets, only to toss the corpse aside. glowing in his left hand now, a mini chaos plasma attack, like a knife. he slits the other man's throat with an adeptness that should startle him but doesn't. he's calm. blood sprays forward, coating him as that body slumps.

julius stands there, staring at the wall in front of him. no satisfaction at the sight, the knowledge. there was a slight tickling of that sensation, a barely there notion of enjoyment. numbed over from the reality of his situation at present. more footfalls nearby him, he glances over at the feeling of bullets piercing his shirt and entering his skin, only to heal and fizzle away again.

slaughters his way through the soldiers that between him and his end destination. a newly pristine living quarters, assigned to one james stone. julius stood there, staring down at that dark black jacket that james often wore. sounds of distant alarms from that open door, wash of red from the corridor. a slightly quaking hand reached out, hesitated before cradling that jacket. pulls it closer, hugging it, burying his face into it, inhaling. his scent. muffled, quiet, broken sobs wet that fabric. lowers onto his knees, clinging and pulling that empty jacket closer to himself.

inhaling, a small sniffle of a noise, julius pulled that jacket away from his face. stared down at it. he stood up then, discarding his old bullet ridden one, before pulling on james' old jacket. he has to pull the sleeves off as they're too short to fit his frame properly, but he can sew on new sleeves later on. his gaze lists, noting old sunglasses on the nearby table. walks over to them and lifts them up, a thumb roaming the frame, noting that purple tint. a shaking hollow smile, julius puts those sunglasses on. hoping, at least in some way, by keeping his clothes, by wearing these sunglasses, by holding himself in a way that james may have, that james stone may yet live on.

at the very least, in spirit.

jaw flexes minutely upon realizing who julius is face to face with. instantly, his crimson red irises began to glow, piercing through even the darker tint of his sunglasses. chaos energy licked along his fingers and arms in the form of a darker red electricity,

"COMMANDER," there's no affection to his tone. in fact, one could only call the words that spill from julius' mouth mocking, "how nice to see you again. i expect the cavalry will be arriving shortly to try and take me in. again."

@towerfcllen

jaw threatened to flex and twist in the irritation rising from being asked. shame and pride broiled in his chest. through it all julius keeps that smile up, because that's all he's ever known. smile through the agony, the negatives - your feelings and needs and wants don't matter.

"no. everything's fine." what good would telling roman do anyway? as if roman could fix things.

@blckfckinmsk [!!]

· 𓂃 ࣪˖🔪 ˖ ࣪𓂂 . "Why punish someone without reason?"

it was a terribly naive and oddly sentimental statement. one that julius could scarcely comprehend - let alone agree with. he has to bite back the scoff that catches behind teeth. instead, julius flashes a practiced & eased smile.

"if only the world agreed with you, roro. we might be in a better off place." as it stood - being fired from his job, pending acceptance into G.U.N - julius felt a tad, bitter. maybe that was why he had brought up the topic to begin with. of course roman knew none of this: julius saw no point in sharing such developments with roman.

im yearning about you and there is nothing you can do about it (threat)

weakling. that word ALONE is enough to cause his irises to explode in a brilliant glow of red, visible even beyond those obscuring sunglasses like headlights on a dark lonely forest road. weakling weakling weakling WEAK-

breathes through it. can feel his composure threatening to fray and snap, but he stubbornly snags those fraying strands and tightens them together. good he keeps that composure because if he hadn't, perhaps the spindash towards him may have taken him out⸻

as it is, julius deftly leaps backwards, but instead of landing on the ground, he's flying. zipped up above the ground that the echidna goes dashing below him. only for julius to aim where the echidna is going to be, and firing a chaos sphere from his right palm, which will no doubt explode upon impact. either injuring the echidna or causing him to veer off course.

regardless, julius is swiftly teleporting next to the echidna and following up with a kick towards him, intent on sending knuckles into the ground.

@drrobctnik xxx

It was not his idea nor desire to tolerate one with a known tendency for betrayal, but the unfortunate aligning of temporary goals had led to an alliance just as temporary. Such is a concept he has a much harder time adhering to than his companions. But they aren't exactly around at the moment to share in his conflicted shift as a guard at the home of bases. Although, considering the agenda of tonight's activities thus far, this was more of a boon than actually unfortunate. Scraps weren't 'kosher' to some.

He's never considered the man a warrior. That 'work smarter not harder' attitude he exudes at times is one the echidna sees as an admittance to weakness if anything. After all, why not work harder if it makes one stronger in the end? Then the next task would be less hard, and less hard, and lesser still. Until every obstacle that dug in became little more than the weight of a dandelion seed stuck between the quills. It's why he's in such a punchy mood when this belief is belittled. He might not have the sharpest grasp on earth customs or most snide remarks made on his behalf, but he understands when he's being dishonored enough to retaliate. They'll explain to the fox and the hedgehog that they're having a training session. Any dispute could be seen as so - especially the minor ones.

The quickest exchange of blows merely leads to the shock of chaos energy meeting as magnetic fields opposite of each other does, knocking him back a ways with just the skin of his needled fists to slow the blow back, though the floorboards are irreparably shredded in the process. A growl garnered by stumbling back up onto twos leads the echidna's self serving power-bumps as his joined fists spark up bolts of molten amaranth around the exterior of his gloves.

I want to see what you can do.

How those words lived as long as the echidna tribe's long-carried legacy in his mind. His own father had spoken them to him not long in the days before he would fall in battle. The tribe was all too aware of the last born to their people and how a terrible power had been bestowed upon him before he'd even emerged from his egg as prophecy would demand he would bring the ultimate power back to the home of the echidnas. Even as a child he would make a formidable opponent to any adult, and yet...

The man's remark is met with a scoff, quilled dreads tossed one way and then another as the same shade of the chaos crawling through his knuckles slowly staining each pixel of a narrowed gaze. "You think you can say that to me? Weakling!"

He hadn't wanted to harm his father. Had refused. Held back. Maybe if he hadn't, then his 'time' to honor the tribe would have been during the battle in which they all perished. Maybe then, he wouldn't be the last of the echidnas- whether they survived the assault, or he did not.

"Show. Me. Your-" Each word excites more shocks of rosy electricity before the final exclamation of "POWER!" has him bolting a few clunky steps forward before he's seamlessly snapping into a ball of nuclear charged quills and bowling towards the pins of the other's legs.