Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eggman base
Dr Eggman watches as one of his enemies, whisper, as she rushes through. She breaks through badnik after badnik. Just then, the door behind him breaks open, and the mask wearing wolf stands before him

Whisper, quietly: eggman…

Eggman: ohohoho! If it isn't the wolf!

Whisper, quietly: no games

Eggman: oh please, you just had one bad day with me from being just like infinite!
After hearing something she feels uncomfortable hearing, whisper pauses, and gives a mad and confused look behind her ask

Whisper, quietly: …no…im…not…

Eggman: Oh really? Ever wonder why Infinite wore a mask? Why he hates shadow? Why he worked better when doing things alone?
Whisper could only look, what was this madman saying? And yet...why does it sound…familiar?
Eggman: You know what? I'm in a good mood today, take those tape on the desk, and you’ll get the answer to your question
And like that, eggman takes his leave, and just when whisper snaps back to reality. She clenches her fist, knowing that she just let him get away easily, wait, but the tapes…she picks them up, and brings them back with her

Later, abandoned diamond cutter base
Whisper stands in front of the cassette player alone, looking between it, and the two tapes that say “notes on zero” and “infinite’s logs”. She places in the first one

Tape one
A picture of infinite appears on the screen, but not wearing his mask
Infinite, on tape: hello, i am most known as infinite now, but my name was zero at birth. This single room where eggman doesn't have a single camera is the only place to feel safe taking my mask off. This is to me in the future, the more i've been doing this, the more guilt i feel for what i do, so in whenever this final battle is, i’ll try to escape this nightmare i've put myself into whenever there's an opening
The tape ends

Whisper doesn't notice anything wrong with it, just seemingly infinite wanting to just be left alone, and live his own life. But she still has another tape. She places it in, and watches

Tape 2
It starts with eggman in front of a shifting background of what infinite has done

Eggman: These are my notes on the jackal zero, better known as infinite, he says he used to name zero since it was his first name before he changed it, and it was a good cover up name. He first started to work for me only about a week after i had gotten the phantom ruby, he was the leader of the jackal squad as he called it, the group worked quite well together actually. But on one fateful day, shadow the hedgehog invaded the base, and made quick work of each, but infinite still stood out. By the end, he was just yelling that he wasn't weak, and that gave me a devious idea! I dealt with his squad, and left one to leave a message, then I acted as if shadow killed them on his way in, it worked perfectly, he was a raging jackal of phantom energy. Where did I get this idea you might ask? Simple, when I dealt with the wolf’s team!
The tape ends

Whisper is quieter than usual, as her face holds a horrified expression with her eyes held open for the longest time they had in years, and she is shaking a lot.

Whisper, quietly: like…me…
The wolf snaps herself out of it, but she now has a goal deep in mind: find infinite, help infinite, and show him kindness. Of course, she usually is part of the people who don't really want to take chances, but this was different, infinite also lost the people closest to him, he hides under a mask like her. it wasn't just mercy, it was knowing there was truly someone she could relate to

Deep in the forest
A quiet tree resides, filled with apples, untouched, and perfectly grown. Suddenly, a stone blade pierces straight through the tree like butter, dropping all of the apples. A very messy jackal with a cracked gem in his chest walks over, and eats one of the apples

Infinite: another day of just random fruit, it seems none of the animals even want to be near me…i guess i am the ultimate mercenary after all, i should be feared
Suddenly, the jackal hears footsteps, knowing it could be some resistance member who would arrest him on the spot, he quickly and silently climbs onto a tree branch to hide. He waits for the footsteps to quiet, but they abruptly stop, as if they’re alert for something. He uses some of the phantom ruby’s remaining energy to make himself go invisible. The silence is cut by something slamming against a nearby tree, followed by a quiet and loud voice talking, the quiet one asking how they followed them, and the loud one saying they just were too focused to notice them. All the jackal can do is wait, and hope neither of them see him. Suddenly, they passed under the tree, one was a lemur (who seemed to be the loud one), and a masked and cloaked wolf…where had he heard of a masked wolf before? He discards the question, and once the footsteps are gone, he gets back down to bring the apples back to his hut
Infinite: me? Hiding? Why am I just acting…weak…
Meanwhile
Whisper and tangle walk to the front of the same eggman base from when the mad doctor had taken over the world

Tangle: Are you sure this is the right place? I feel like you want to do something that is private
Whisper doesn't even respond, she just turns over to her best friend, and gives her a “why else do you think?” look. Tangle already feels kinda dumbfounded for not figuring that out. Whisper gestures for tangle to go in through the back entrance for any sign of suspicious activity

Tangle: you've got it BFF!

Meanwhile
Infinite sits over a campfire, roasting some berries that are edible once cooked. He takes the berry off the stick, and eats it. Nothing much ever happens because even the animals stay away from this part of the forest. The only company he has is a stone blade, the leather scarf to cover the phantom ruby (so even if somebody finds him, he could have a chance of being undetected if the enemy is stupid enough), and the occasional chao every once in a few weeks. Suddenly, he hears a rustle, when suddenly, an egg pawn walks out. It takes one look at infinites messed up hair, mud covered shoes, and the brown leather scarf, and walks in another direction.

Infinite: they are idiots
As Infinite sits back down to eat his food in peace, a large badnik steps on his fireplace. All he does is sigh, use his acrobatic skills to climb the robots back, and jab straight into its core, causing it to fall over. The jackal takes one good look at the direction they were going, and can instantly tell that they were heading to the final base during the war, and there's only one valuable thing in there he knew of, the original phantom ruby
Infinite: if the doctor wants ultimate power, he can face me. I am the only one who can stop this now
Little does he know, there are two people already there, one looking for evil people, and one looking for him

Abandoned egg base
Whisper searches around for any trace of the masked jackal, but there is almost no trace of him, except for the occasional recording that was a fragment of the two tapes she had (which still haunted her to hear), and…his mask? It was cracked, but still wearable

Whisper, quietly: not right
Suddenly, it's as if a giant earthquake had happened for a one second, as a rumble knocks the well footed wolf of her feet
Whisper, quietly: hm?
The masked hero looks out the hole in the wall, and sees that a set of badniks are walking in, while a giant badnik holds tangle (who is smashing her tail in its face). She knows she can't just stand here, so she quietly makes her way down to help her friend

Meanwhile
Infinite just reaches the eggman base, and finds that the badniks are already invading, and one big one is standing there as something smashes against its face, but he doesn't take time to notice, and starts his climb up the side of the base to take the quickest route (and by that, climbing up the base like a mountain). He jabs his blade into the side, and uses a sharp rock as a second tool to climb. As he climbs up, he sees the wolf again, shooting a pink wispon attack, cutting one hand, and setting the lemur also from before freed.

Infinite: not my problem
The mercenary continues his climb, making sure he is unnoticed, but pauses to look back at the two fight badniks. ‘Why does he keep looking back? He works alone. Or at least, ever since that fateful day…he would only lose more if he did’. He snaps back to reality, and he is at the top. He uses his stone blade to carve into a weak piece of the wall. He enters the top floor, searching everywhere for the original phantom ruby. And of course it was right where the doctor had left it, on his desk, ‘he really was sure enough to put ultimate power in the open”. The determined jackal picks it up, and places it in his pouch. Suddenly, an alert goes off
Infinite: son of a-
Suddenly, a blast from an arriving egg pawn just barely misses him. He looks outside, and there's a bunch of buzz bombers and other aerial badniks. All the jackal does is sigh, and pulls out his blade
Infinite: i don't have time for this, let's do this
Without thought, the jackal jumps out the window, and jabs right into a buzz bomber, but keeping it afloat to use it as a swing, and jumps onto another. He runs on a group of them as all of the badniks start shooting. Once the path ends, he jabs the end one, and smashes it into another one while falling, then lands on a flying egg pawn. He jabs his blade into the neck, and spins its head to cut it off, then takes out the power core from the robot, and uses it to short circuit a solid group of robots. Suddenly, a turquoise blur hits the flying egg pawn he's on, and makes him lose balance. What he doesn't notice while he regains his balance, is that the original phantom ruby fell out of the pouch, and fell into the nearby river. Infinite lands in the forest, and puts his blade away
Infinite: finally, out of there, but what was that?
Suddenly, a silvery blur catches the jackal off guard, and hits him into a tree. Infinite looks up, and sees what seems to be a chrome copy of…shadow…more and more show up, until there is at least 10. But infinite is still trying to get up from the last attack. Suddenly, his body starts spazzing in and out of existence
Infinite: you…want to dance…?
Just then, a red glow surrounds him, and his mask appears around his face
Infinite: well then…let us dance!

Meanwhile
Whisper and tangle have just finished beating the giant badnik down

Tangle: take that you hunk of metal!
Suddenly, whisper tenses up, and holds up he wispon
Whisper, quietly: somethings near
Suddenly, a massive explosion rises above the trees of the nearby forest the duo had just went to, alerting the pair of something

Tangle: Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!

Whisper, quietly: right
The duo rush off to the direction of the explosion, and make sure that there is no one nearby. Once at the center of where the explosion, they see a passed out and very drained jackal laying in front of a bunch of torn apart android shadows

Tangle: oh gosh, we’ve got to help this random guy!
Whisper instantly notices Tangle doesn't know who this is, but she does, the person she's been looking for, infinite.

Whisper, quietly: leave him to me
Tangle pauses, partially confused

Tangle: ummm, okay! I trust you, see ya!
The energetic lemur uses her tail to grab a tree, and catapults herself off. Once tangle is gone, whisper picks up the weakened jackal, and breathes in

Whisper, quietly: please, trust me…
And like that, the lone wolf walks home, infinite in hands, and hoping she can change him

Chapter Text

The next day
You couldn't save them
You couldn't help them
You didn't listen to them
You are terrible
You are evil
You are WEAK
Infinite’s eyes burst open in terror, just to find he's…in a small, well done house? He takes a second to look around, and sees the tanish wolf in the kitchen area. The wolf turns around, showing a mask covering half of her face, but it's not as especially designed as his was.

Whisper, quietly: your awake

Infinite: who are you?

Whisper, quietly: whisper
Without thought, infinite pulls his stone blade out, readying to fight

Infinite: whatever trickery you have, it isn't working on me.
Whisper, quietly: no tricks, just helping
The lone wolf places a bowl of soup in front of him, but he instantly pushes the bowl out of the way, and takes out a half bitten into apple from his pouch

Infinite: nice try, i'm not falling for that

Whisper, quietly, but a bit annoyed: it's not a trap
Instead of listening to her, he takes a bite of his apple, and looks away. Whisper starts to get annoyed, but holds her posture
Whisper, quietly: i'm hiding you
This makes Infinite a little suspicious of how she even knew he was alive, but forgets it. It's not like he needs an ally. Suddenly, and explosion happens not far from their location
Whisper, quietly: stay put
And like that, the quiet wolf darts out the door to investigate. Infinite on the other hand, searches for a secret escape route, and sees a vent on the wall

Infinite: perfect

...

Infinite kicks open the vent to outside, and exits the vent. He quietly sneaks away to escape back to the woods, wherever it was…

Infinite: now then, let's get out of here
Just as he takes a single step forwards, he is attacked by a giant badnik. All he does is sigh, pull out his sword, and readies to fight
Infinite: lets see how long you last against me
The jackal thinks fast, and tries to bait him into the trees so he can get a sneak up on him, but he trips on a vine
Infinite: darn you rusty skills!
The badnik gets ready to smash the jackal, but the wolf comes in at the last second, and hits the badnik with what seems to be a blue wisp hammer. Infinite regains his grounding, and throws his blade into its face. The wolf turns to infinite

Whisper, not as quiet: i said stay put

Infinite: as i said, i don't need friends, and i'm certainly not your ‘buddy’
Before the jackal can react, whisper grabs him by the hand, and goes back down the vent with him to get him back in the room

...

Whisper places some food by the jackal, and infinite pushes it away

Whisper, quietly: you have to eat it

Infinite: i still think you poisoned it
Whisper only sighs, places down her own bowl, and starts eating

Whisper, quietly: see?
All infinite does is sigh, and reluctantly eat the food.

Infinite, VERY annoyed: Are you happy now?
Whisper silently nods, and keeps eating
Infinite: well i'm not
All whisper does is smile, which annoys the jackal even more
Infinite: stop smiling

Whisper, quietly: no thanks

A month later (and many attempts of escape)
Infinite quietly sits down on the couch, vent welded shut, bathrooms escape proofed, and boarded up holes in the walls.

Infinite: this is torture…
Just then, whisper enters, newly bought box of crackers in hand, and places the crackers down on the table

Whisper, quietly: morning.
Infinite doesn't respond, and whisper sits beside him to eat. The annoyed jackal shoves his hand in the box for a cracker, but somethings in the way, which is whisper’s hand

Infinite: move your hand

Whisper, quietly: you

Infinite: i'm starving, you could have gotten bacon with your buddies instead

Whisper, quietly: I bought them
Infinite tries to use his hand to push the wolf’s, but she does the same thing. The two keep trying to move the others hand out, when the box blows up, sending crackers everywhere

Infinite: now look at what you did!

Whisper, quietly: it was you
Infinite starts to clench his fists, then in the blink of an eye, he lunges at the silent wolf, and sends her off the couch.whisper quickly gets up, and counters with a kick to the stomach.

Infinite, very mad: oh, you're gonna pay for that!
The two get into a fight, kicking and punching each other. Infinite just gets more angry, but whisper? She feels…happy, she doesn't ever get to fight like this, not even with tangle! So she feels a kind of joy only usually brought by tangle’s personality. Just then, tangle walks in with a broken teapot

Tangle: hey whisper? I accidentally broke Amy's antique stuff, got any idea how to-WHAT IS GOING ON!?
The surprised lemur looks at whisper pulling on the jackal from a month ago’s hair, and said jackal kicking whisper’s face
Tangle: ummm, is this a bad time? Or can I join?
Whisper thinks for a bit, then nods to say that tangle is allowed to join

Infinite: so you know just let another person into the fight? I see how it is

Tangle: let's do this!
The energetic lemur jumps in, and joins the fight. All of them attack each other with heavy hits (and infinite not holding back). After a bit, infinite gets tired, falls asleep on the spot, and lands on the back of the couch
Tangle: oh, well there he goes to bed. Also, i think this place needs some repairs
The duo look around, and find that the kitchen sink is leaking, the couch is ripped, and half of the chairs are smashed (after a certain lemur and jackal used them as weapons)

Whisper, quietly: its fine

Tangle: Okay, if you say so! Also, I'm probably in trouble with Amy at this point, wanna come with?

Whisper, quietly: sure
The duo leave the room, and close the door behind them, leaving infinite sleeping

...

Infinite opens his eyes, and looks around.whisper and the lemur are nowhere to be found, the room is a mess, and something is on from the TV

Infinite: Well, I don't think I'm in any shape to escape today, so I guess I can watch some TV.
The jackal picks up the somehow untouched remote, and turns on a random channel. What comes on is a pre show for a grand prix hosted by the restoration and a company called clean sweep Inc
Infinite: what luck, a good channel. Welp, i guess i need to make something myself, since i doubt that wolf has enough time to make food this time around
The tired jackal looks in the fridge, grabs out some hot dogs, and starts cooking them in the microwave. At the same time, he watches the grand prix begin
Infinite: welp, i don't know what to do now, but i hope it has to do with going back to the woods and have some real peace

___________________________________________________________

You may all know me by many names. Nack the weasel, snap the mongoose, frak the lemur. But one name has stuck with me, fang the hunter. You see, after the eighth chaos emerald hunt and the operation northstar islands alone fiasco. I was left with nothing, no fame, in hiding, not a single penny to my name! But there was one thing worse than all of it combined. For the first time ever, I missed my mooks, bean and bark. Bark was the only ounce of brawn I had, if it weren't for him, I'd probably be in jail. And bean? Sure, he's annoying, and sure he messed things up, but he made the time driving not be in silence. I've been hiding, and participating in a fight club by a different name just to see those two whack jobs again. If there is any sign, please, give me-

Suddenly, an ad comes on from the TV
Fang: huh? An ad?
The screen flashes on, and it shows a reddish gem with black markings on it

Ad announcer: here at flare lake, we have found the fabled phantom ruby! Come see this powerful gem today, at the timescale city museum!
Fang pauses, and looks at the TV with interest, then adjusts his hat
Fang: an almighty gem eh? Sounds like that could sell for a fortune! But I think I would need to get back in shape first.

Step 1: do some minor robberies (hot dog stands and such)
Step 2: get some new upgrades for my marvelous queen
Step 3: re-recruit my mooks for backup
Step 4: steal the ruby, and get back my fame!

Fang walks over to the untouched marvelous queen, and starts petting it as if it was some giant cat
Fang: ya hear that girl? We can finally go back to the high life!
and in a spark of hope for the hunter, he's gone

_________________________________________________________________
A group of badniks surround a young girl, trapping her in a corner

Girl: please! Help!
Suddenly, as if to answer her call, someone destroys the badniks in a blur not as fast as sonic and co, but still pretty fast. The girl looks up to see who her savior is.
Some armadillo spinning an egg pawn’s head like a disk

???: heh, while me and my buddy aren't as fast as sonic or as strong as knuckles, we sure do make teamwork make a dreamwork

Girl: Who…are you?
The armadillo looks over, just as a flying squirrel lands beside him

Mighty: the names mighty, mighty the armadillo, and this is my buddy ray

Ray: hi’lo!
The girl gives a quick thank, and runs off to go back to whatever path she was going. Mighty looks at his young basically brother, who gives him a quick punch on the wrist, which the powerful armadillo give back (with a lot more accidental force), making his little bro hit a tree

Mighty: oops, sorry there

Ray: don’t worry, its okay if you accidentally do something knuckles would do, you both have the strength after all
Both let out a good laugh, until the suddenly are met with more badniks, who instantly go on the attack

Mighty: well little bro, whaddya say we take these guys down?

Ray: Yeah, let's do it!
The two alike sonic and tails run into action, mighty taking down any spiked badnik with his shell, and ray defeating aerial enemies.
One attempts to sneak up on mighty, but gets an elbow from the observant armadillo

Mighty: just because i got the strength of knuckles, doesnt mean i got his observance as well
After a short battle, the duo finish off the last badnik, and land on the ground
Mighty: so, where to next?
The flying squirrel looks around, until he sees a town not far off

Ray: How about there?
Mighty looks at the village, and gives a thumbs up

Mighty: well i think it was destiny to get back here

Ray: back?
Mighty gives his younger brother a happy smile

Mighty: You see, that's spiral hill village, that's where I grew up. There were ice cream stands, barber shops, a very energetic lemur I would hang out with, you name it!

Ray: Sounds fun!
And like that, the armadillo and flying squirrel are off

Chapter Text

A week of trying to live on whisper’s rations later
Infinite lays on Whisper's torn couch, snacking on one of the hot pockets from the fridge, when he suddenly hears something very faintly. It sounds like what seems to be sonic the hedgehog yelling to evacuate. At first, infinite ignores it for a second, until a chunk of debris fall in front of the doorway

Infinite: Okay, maybe I do need to leave…
The jackal rushes to the vent, but it's still welded shut
Infinite: come on, open you stupid vent!
With all of his might, infinite pulls the vent. Still doesn't budge. He has one last chance, he focuses himself, and the cracked phantom ruby flickers. With the ruby’s energy, he bursts open the vent, and quickly gets in before heavily breathing

...

Infinite gets out the vent that he had first tried when he got here, and sees a giant ship not that far away on the verge of exploding. After a few seconds, it blows up in a blaze of glory.
Infinite: not my problem. Now, time to get home
Before the jackal can even get out of the vent, whisper comes over to him
Infinite: what? Did you expect me to stay in a crumbling building?
Without a word, whisper grabs infinite’s hand, and pulls him out

Whisper, quietly: come.

Infinite: and why would I do that?
Whisper points to the group of people, and infinite takes notice that he could be spotted
Infinite: (Sighs), fine…
Before anyone can notice, whisper grabs the jackal’s hand, and take him away

...

The boat docks at the original base of the diamond cutters, and infinite and whisper exit the boat. The jackal looks at the place, and is already suspicious

Infinite: what is this, a private prison?

Whisper, quietly: no, just showing your new home.

Infinite: this is worse than before

Whisper, not as quiet: you can come with me onto mainland, but you need new clothes.

Infinite: new clothes? My clothes are perfectly fine!

Whisper, quietly: they smell. Take these, i’ll get more
The wolf places some spare knee and shoulder caps, a more well stitched scarf, and a glove accessory in infinite’s hands

Infinite: I feel like you want my dignity.

...

Whisper sips on a cup of coffee, as she waits for infinite to come out of the room. Just then, the jackal himself exits the room, replaced pair of shoes (the same kind as his old ones, but a red color instead of black), a pair of whisper’s spare gloves (since it's hard to find gloves for his hand size), some of whisper’s spare knee and shoulder caps, a new scarf, and the hand accessory

Infinite: i look idiotic

Whisper, quietly: you look fine. Come on.

Infinite: at least i can go out without alerting G.U.N. to my location at least
____________________________________________________________

Honey the cat was always the person to strive for popularity.
Ever since she was just 7, she thought that she was the definition of fashion
Her mother always told her that she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t do something with her life
But of course, she didn’t listen
Observe here
The fashion obsessed cat walks down the street, looking for some celebrity

Honey: hmmmmmmmmm, i don’t see anyone yet, but once i do, they’ll fall to my charms and let me sell fashion for them!
If it isn’t clear, this cat is full of herself a bit too much just then, a person running in fear dashes by honey
Honey: ooooh, potential customer!
Quickly, the red skirted cat, oblivious to the army of badniks behind her, runs over to the person
Honey: hello there, i am the number-

Person: run for your lives!
Before she can even finish, the person runs off, leaving honey to start pouting and swinging her arms in circles

Honey: you were supposed to take my offer of new clothes!
Just then, a motobug sneaks up from behind to attack, but the very childish cat turns over
Honey: what are you looking at!?
And as if her heel was made of diamond, she kicks a hole through its face, scaring the other badniks (including an egg pawn taking a picture and saving it to the eggnet).

Honey: NYAAAAAAAAAAA!
The surprisingly powerful fashionista runs into the horde, and begins stamping heads off, kicking to walls, and stubbing toes. Soon, one egg pawn is left running, until honey throws her shoe like a mother with a slipper, and hits its head right off
Honey: that's what you get! Hmph!
The done with it fashion lover walks grabs her shoe, and walks away with childish anger in each step, leaving the civilians utterly confused
Little do they know, an android shadow lurks above, but not the normal chrome one. It looks nearly like a perfect copy of shadow, except with the minor detail of yellow accents instead of red.

???: scanning threat
Life form: honey “candy” the cat

age: 12
Strengths: agility, foot and throw strength, extremely attentive when angry
Weaknesses: impulsive, single minded, afraid of water and cucumbers, childish
Threat level: non-threat unless annoyed
Course of action: ignore

________________________________________________________

The inseparable duo of mighty and ray enter windmill village, and are instantly greeted with smiles, mainly at mighty

Mighty: it sure feels good to be home, lets see if tangle and jewel are at the hangout spot

Ray: Where's that?

Mighty: right ahead little buddy
The two keep walking until they reach a smaller building filled with all sorts of rare gems and such
Mighty: I see, so it's now a museum! Good to see jewel added a bit of herself to the place
The nostalgic armadillo opens the door, expecting to see his childhood friends, but instead finds a rabbit that looks no more than 6 years old sitting on the counter, and a black and yellow robot with 3 blue robotic eyes, one of which was on a 3 pointed crescent on its head that is sweeping the floor. Ray enters right behind his older bro. The rabbit notices them, and gives a welcome smile

cream: Hello there misters! The owner is currently off doing something, so me and gemerl are helping around. I'm cream by the way!
The robot looks at them, and speaks up

Gemerl: i am gemerl, i was originally built by eggman to destroy, but have been fixed to protect the rabbit family
Mighty gives off a kind smile

Mighty: well, nice to meet you gemerl and cream, im actually looking around for some childhood friends of mine, do you by any chance know a jewel or tangle?

Cream: yeah! jewel is the owner of this place, and was the leader of the restoration before it blew up sadly

Mighty: excuse me what
The confused armadillo knew she was a capable leader, but he's never seen her attempt such a task! Just then, ray, a little scared of gemerl’s stare, walks up to introduce him and his brother

Ray: Well, im ray, and this is my big bro mighty! Just to let you know who you are
Cream eyes suddenly light up in excitement

Cream: you mean mr sonic’s friends mighty and ray!?
Ray gives a nod, prompting gemerl to walk over (shaking the somewhat timid flying squirrel a little), and explain the reaction

Gemerl: cream is also a friend of sonic, she is quite brave for her age. But by my databases, you two are friends with our family friends, the chaotix. They have given us a few tales of you in specific mighty

Cream: you two always sounded super cool in the stories!
Mighty rubs the back of his shell

Mighty: well, good to see sonics still making more friends, but i still need to know where tangle is
The defective eggman robot searches what tangle said she was doing

Gemerl: she is currently with her friend, whisper the wolf, to meet up with the rest of the diamond cutters, jewel, belle, and silver the hedgehog. They were in a grand prix making sure everyone follows the rules

Mighty: well, good to see-

Gemerl: another late adventure she had described was fighting alongside sonic and co in eggperial city

Mighty: what!?
Suddenly, a crash is heard from outside. Leaving the protective armadillo to look over for the cause, and ray to stand beside him
Mighty: looks like we’ve got some trouble on our hands

Gemerl: i will stay in here in case it attempts to attack cream
Ray jumps at hearing gemerl speak again

Ray: O-okay robot sir!
The pair of heroes exit the museum, and see what seems to be a robot. It has a similar shape to sonic, but the quills were facing upwards, and the gloves and shoes were different. It is a chromish color, with the only distinctive colors being its red eyes and pink quill, glove, and shoe marks. The reasoning armadillo decides to walk over to the robot, and ray watches from behind

Mighty: okay, so who are you, and what's with the crash landing?
Instead of responding with words, the robot responds by jumping behind the armadillo, and kicks mighty with extreme force. This attack doesn’t affect the armadillo, because of his powerful shell.
Mighty: So that's gonna be how it is, huh?
The robot lands in front of mighty, only to get instantly uppercutted onto a building. Knowing the might of his opponent, the robot skates off quickly.
Mighty: and don’t come back!
Since cream was watching through a window, she quickly runs out the door to the pair

Cream: that was so amazing! You hit him so far!

Mighty: heh, guess it's all in the day's work, but if you excuse me, me and ray have gotta go. We aren’t much of the people to stay in one place too long

Ray, nodding: m-hm!

Cream: okay than mr mighty and mr ray, safe travels!

Ray: Have fun!
And like that, the pair of heroes run off to their next adventure

Chapter Text

Whisper is off doing some things, so infinite just walks around town. It felt weird to be around more than two people, especially when no one even knows him. One thing is for certain though, he really is craving something, but everything he sees doesn't look good.

Infinite: none of this looks good, it's not like I have money anyways. It's always chili dogs and Italian foods. Why can't they have something original, like a dang chimichanga? I remember those tasted good
You don't need food, you're better than that…
The jackal jumps at…whatever that voice was. No one else seemed to notice it, so he already knew it was just him who heard it.
This place, destroy it, use your power…
Destroy…
Destroy
DESTROY
The voice starts to get to infinite, so he runs off into in alley
Infinite: finally, peace…
The irritated jackal takes a seat, and rests for a second. He reflects what his life has come to, and what it would be if he hadn't ever planned his invasion. Why did he agree? He doesn't actually care if the world is bad or not, so was it an act of urgency? Fear? Weakness? No, he can't let himself down like this
Infinite: get…out…of…my…HEAD!
In an act of rage, he kicks the dumpster nearby, leaving a major dent
Infinite: why?...Why do you want me?...WHY CAN'T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!?
You don't even know the worst of it yet…

_____________________________________________

The determined weasel looks up at the biggest bank in the city, and cracks his knuckles. It would be easy to use the warp topaz (that hes has since escaping the heavy wing during the 8th chaos emerald fiasco) interrogated into the marvelous queen to teleport in, steal the riches, then teleport out, but he wants to gain that title, live it large. So on the brink of day, he transforms his upgraded popgun (now called the multigun) into a grappling hook, and latches onto the roof. He then transforms it into a detector to find the pinpoint location of the vault
Fang: perfect! Now it's time for the fun part!
Without thought, the master thief uses a laser to get through the ceiling, and lands in the vault. Looking around, he grabs as many gold bars and dollar bills as possible. Suddenly, a group of police burst into the vault, wispons readied

Fang: ah, the sucker cops are here. Wish i could stay long, but i have a legacy to fix
Without time, fang grapples back out of the hole, and whistles mid air. Before any of the cops can do anything, the marvelous queen suddenly appears under him as he lands
Fang: write my name in your history books, because the names fang. Fang the hunter!
The cocky treasure hunter presses a button on his prized possession, and teleports away

______________________________________________

Fang: and that's one point for the legendary fang the hunter, now out of hiding!
He turns around, and sees a jackal (which is infinite), just sitting down and barely showing any happiness. Infinite turns around, and looks at the weasel, who is just staring at him intently
Fang: Wait, a guy is also here? The heck you doing in a back alley?
Infinite turns around, and looks at the weasel, who is just staring at him intently
Fang: go on, i don't have all day. I just came out of hiding and i don't want to be found by brush face

infinite: well, i guess i just…am overwhelmed by…things
Overwhelmed…he knows that feeling all too well. That sungazer lizard, the hard boiled heavies, the doctor. He was losing his grip, and he knew eggman would punish him, so he went into hiding

Fang: You sound like you are thinking about what I call giving yourself a game over. What do I have to say? Just be who you really are, and try to help others. And that's coming from a criminal who now regrets not getting his mooks to stay nowadays. Now if ya excuse me, i've gotta go before the cops show up
And like that, fang teleports away, and Infinite reflects everything the thief had just said, and stands up

Infinite: you know what? thanks for the advice, treasure hunter. I'll use it well

__________________________________________________

And like that, fang teleports just a block away. But what he sees is a chrome robot hedgehog with red tints all over
Fang: hey, who the heck are you?
The robot notices fang, and dashes off
Fang: Hey! I aint done with ya!
Without thought, the angry weasel gives chase to this robot

...

Fang keeps pace with the strange hedgehog like android all the way to lost valley, not letting it out of his sight. The android slowly starts getting farther away, so fang clicks a button, teleports in front of the android, and shoots a missile right at it, directly hitting and exploding on it
Fang: take that you annoying robot!
Through the smoke, the android walks out, completely unscathed
Fang: you’ve gotta be kidding me
Before the android can attack again, a blur of green and bolts rams into it, sending both speedsters back. One in view, the electric green blur was…a tenrec?

Surge: hey robot! Im surge, and you're dead! Also, where are you kit!?
Just then, a blue fennec comes in using water tentacles

Kit: here ma’am

Fang: God, what else did I miss!?
The android does not deter, and lunges at the tenrec, who dodge, and lets out a mighty kick

Surge: take that you sucker!
The android doesn't even flinch, grabs surge by surprise, and smashes her in the sand. After that, it jumps back, and raises its hand
Surge: what, is that supposed to scare me?
The fennec watches in confusion, and fang isn't taking any chances, so he shoots his grappling hook, wraps it around it, and uses the force of the marvelous queen moving to swing it into the air, then smash it to the ground. Once it's half buried, he turns to the pair

Fang: before anything else, i usually give everyone i find will be a big thing around me a nickname, so who are you guys?

Surge: nicknames? I aint need no nickname!

Fang: well, i called sonic fleet feet, his friend double butt, the pink one fleet feet fangirl or pinky, the doctor brush face, etcetera etcetera

Surge: fine, im surge, and this is kit, but his nickname is already drippy. Now can you move? I want to smash that robot!

Fang: so drippy and…how does thundercracker sound to you?

Surge: oh, i thought you were bad at nicknaming, but that's pretty good! Still, move!

Fang: okay okay, jeez
The weasel moves the marvelous queen out of the way, and they see that the android only took a bit of minor damage
Fang: what. The heck. Is this thing made of.
The android jumps out of the ground, and more of the same android (but orange tints instead of red) teleport in. all fang does is sigh, clicks a button, and buzzsaws and rockets come out
Fang: come on you two, we have robots to kill

Surge: I call the red one!

Kit: yes ma’am

Fang: stop talking like some servant.

Surge: wait, how do you not even know us? We’re nearly everywhere at this point!

Fang: Let's just say, there was a problem years ago, and I've been hiding. But less about my past and more about the current situation in hand thundercracker
Surge bursts forward in a bolt of lightning, and breaks through some of the orange ones, and rams in to fight the red one. Kit joins in by trapping them with his tentacles so they short circuit. Fang looks at an in mind diagram of one of his missiles’ shots, waits a second, then presses a button to shoot a missile just as a huge group is in its range.
Fang: heh, double butt may be smart, but does that good for nothin to tailed goober and fleet feet have that kind of precision? Didn't think so!
Suddenly, surge is shot back into the sand right by fang

Surge: ow…
For a second, fang takes notice on how surge’s electric abilities seemingly can be supercharged

Fang: hey thundercracker, i have an idea, but your gonna need something

Surge: why do i need your help? That's just gonna make things worse!
Fang clicks a button, and cyan, semi transparent, hexagonal plates appear. They move over to surge, and start circling her

Fang: run in place for a sec will ya?

Surge: fine, lets see what this thing does.
The tenrec starts running in place, releasing sparks, making the plates generate electricity, and charge her

Fang: see now?

Surge: Oh yeah! This feels GREAT!
The plates disappear, and surge is sent flying at the red android, tearing through it like butter
Surge: that's one point for surge, zero for annoying robot!
Fang flies over, and takes a good look inside. He finds some kind of control with the text:
“android shadow red objective: steal phantom ruby”

Fang: hey you two, i don't think he is the only one…

Surge: what do you mean?

Fang: just…keep an eye out for anything like these, i don't know what they’re up to, but it's bad

Later, back in timescale city
Fang walks on foot to not bring any attention to himself, watching every movement around him

Fang: nothing of suspicion yet…just people, buildings, and….whatever gun that is
Walking the other way of him, a guard walks past with some type of drill shaped weapon
Fang: is that some new best weapon shape? Come to think if it, there have been others during my…(quiets down for a second to avoid attention)...bank heist
For a few seconds, fang hears some kind of voice
So, your the wielder of the other one, a washed up crook who doesn't even know what a wispon is
Fang: ah, so now i'm gonna have a disembodied critic follow me around
Oh, I'm not dead, but you're the only other person who has the power to use such a powerful gem without destabilizing it. I do say, im impressed
Fang: yeah, sure, whatever, now i've got places to be, and not enough time for an invisible lecture
Don't worry, I'm not going to explain everything to you, for now…
Fang keeps walking on to where he was going, until he reaches a burnt building with a robot that looks exactly like the android shadow robot he faced, but the red tints were replaced with green. Fang takes a second to look at the robot, then whistles. Just then, the marvelous queen teleports in. fang picks up the android, and places it on the back.
Fang: i may not be the best mechanic, i sure as heck do know a little something about it
and like that, fang heads off to his secret base

Chapter Text

fang’s secret hideout

Fang has the android shadow plugged into a computer, looking through its databases. He finds a file called “android missions”, which he clicks, and finds each colors mission
Red: steal the phantom ruby
green:cause destruction in timescale city
blue: find and retrieve the hard boiled heavies
yellow: protect leader
Purple: retrieve chaos emerald from fighters club
Pink: destroy shadow the hedgehog

Fang takes a look at each, and realizes if the purple one is going for the chaos emerald in the fighters club, he could use it as a good time to get bean and bark to rejoin him (even if it would be very hard), and get a chaos emerald at the same time. Before he can jump on the marvelous queen, a file suddenly pops up called “relic logs. -eggman”. He clicks on the strange file, and it pops up with pictures and descriptions of relics that eggman has found
The chaos emeralds (and master emerald)
The time stones
The black onyx
An odd rune depicting some kind of water monster on it
Some kind of rainbowy prism
Gems that look like the time stones, but are larger and neater
Some kind of sea themed scepter
The phantom ruby from that add
And….the warp topaz?
Fang: Wait, huh? How did he know about it, and yet never ask me for it? You know what? I’ll save this for later
He pulls out a USB from his pocket, and plugs it in the computer to get a deeper dive into these relics later. There might be something worth stealing later.

_________________________________

Everyone runs from the burning building, leaving only the overly fashion loving cat, honey

honey: heyyyyy! Don't leave! It's just some fire, it can be fixed!
Suddenly, a piece of burning wood falls in front of the cat with an unhealthy relationship with fashionable clothes
honey: Okay, maybe not, SOMEBODY HELP ME!
Just then, a mysterious jackal jumps in, grabs honey, and jumps out. He lands outside the building, places the cat down, and jumps off. Once at a distance the jackal looks back

Infinite: that was…nice.
Just then, the cat waves at the direction she saw him go, jumping like a madgal

honey: Oh my gosh! thank you mystery persooooooooooooooooon!

Infinite: i guess…it's not all that bad
Suddenly, it's like the air around him grows calmer, and the phantom ruby lets out a soft, cyan pulse from under his scarf for a second
This path, stay on it. Don't let others deter you
Infinite is surprised by what just happened. Was…was there another voice? The other was only trying to make him go back, this one is trying to push him forward. Just then, he sees an armadillo (mighty) and flying squirrel (ray) flying towards the building, the earlier holding a waterpark dunk bucket filled with water above him.

mighty: Let's see this fire take some water!

The armadillo chucks the giant bucket at the burning building like it's nothing. And like that, the fire is put out quickly, and the two responders hi five
mighty: way to go little bro!
Infinite watches the two, it was like an alternate version of sonic and tails’ bond, something he doesn't have. The jackal jumps down from the building he was on, making sure to land on the mattress. He looks over to the duo, and sees that the cat from earlier is ranting on about infinite saving her

honey: and then, and then the mystery person placed me down and saved me! I'm gonna find him and have him promote my brand!
This seemed all too familiar to the armadillo

mighty: Kid, you sound like Amy to sonic when she was younger.
While the group talks, infinite uses the time to sneak by, and try to leave, but the armadillo spots him, and shouts out to him
mighty: Hey, have you seen anyone come around here?
Since he was put on the spot, what has he seen around here? Not the mystery bike person, he just ran away from a heist, not arson, he doesn't see any sign of eggman, but there is one thing he sees, one of the robotic shadows from before, but with green marks instead of orange

Infinite: up there!
The robotic shadow lands in front of them, but the group jump out of the way just in time

mighty: thanks for the save there kid, by the way, im mighty, and this is my buddy ray!

Ray: hi’lo!

Honey: and I'm honey! world's number one fashionista and ranked number 5 in the fighters club!

Infinite: good to know, but what is that thing?

Mighty: me and ray fought one last week, they’re called android shadows
The android shadow stops wasting its time, and lunges at mighty. The powerful armadillo uses a powerful punch to send it back. As it stands up, ray chucks honey onto it, as she releases a quick blast of kicks from her heels

Honey: take that! And that! And that!
One of the kicks makes a crack into the android’s head, so it grabs her, and throws her off. When that was happening, infinite jabs his stone blade through the back of the android’s head

Infinite: take that you bad excuse for an enemy

Mighty: thanks for the help, what's your name anyway?

Infinite: my name is infinite-ER-i mean rael!

Ray: Wait, what!?
Though the duo never were actively a part of the eggman war, they had heard enough to know who infinite was.
honey on the other hand….wasn’t even listening to the conversation

Infinite: just let me explain
The jackal explains everything that has happened from the moment he woke up in whisper’s restoration room to just now
Infinite: do you get it now?

Mighty: yep, your secret is safe with us!

Ray: uh-huh!

Honey: I love secrets! Anyways, gotta go!
And like that, the fashion fanatic takes off in a rush, acting like she heard every word (she didn’t hear a single one)

Mighty: me and ray have to go as well. Hope to see you soon!

Ray: See you later!

Infinite: see you
The duo walk off, leaving infinite by himself, looking at the android shadow. He takes notice of something beeping and glowing red in the android, and puts his hand in. He pulls out the piece, and it seems to be some sort of wireless link cable inside it, acting as some sort of control. On the front of it:
“android shadow green orders: cause destruction in timescale city”
Infinite: this seems too coordinated for this to be eggman…who could be behind this?
Join him
Please, stop him
From those two voices…
infinite chooses to stop this threat…
no matter what…

_____________________________________

Honey (all the bored) decided after being attacked by a robotic android, to go back to the fighters club, where she could get all them anger issues out. She points out in a random direction

Honey: Okay, off to battell village! Wait, where is it again?
The confused cat quickly takes a look at her map, turns 80 degrees, and points again
Honey: now off to battell village!
And like that, the fashionista cat runs off

Chapter Text

battell village
Fang lands in a very abandoned village, wearing sunglasses, a longer pair of pants, a trenchcoat, and a different hat
Fang: okay, jet the jerboa mode, on
Quietly, Fang opens a door to an old barn, and enters the fighters club. The first person he sees is the chameleon that calls himself espio. Fang could clearly tell he was some kind of detective, but no one else could somehow (that might just be because he's met him before). The second was a random guy with an ice pack on his head, and finally, bean and bark talking to each other. Perfect, his best guess was that he could convince bark first, since bean is a lot less forgiving, in a non physical way, just doesn't like to forgive or forget people. Fang quietly walks over to the two, and the duck and bear look at him

Bean: oh, hey jerboa guy!

Fang: may i speak with your friend in private? I need a word with him

Bean: oh, sure!
Bark nods, and bean backflips off to give to two some space, fang has bark follow him to a corner, where he leans on a table. Bark feels uneasy about this odd place to talk.

Fang: listen scarf mook, i need your’s and bomb mook’s help
Bark is instantly shot back by hearing someone call him “scarf mook”, because there's only one person who knows him by that
Fang the hunter…
Fang: i know what your thinking, no, i'm not here to threaten or blackmail you, but i'm here with a problem
Bark pauses in his tracks, and listens
Fang: okay, so, i learned about an army of things called android shadows, and one of them are on their way here to take the chaos emerald, so we need to team up, and take it down, because i can't come in here with the marvelous queen and not expect me detective ninja over there instantly recognize me. So, what do you say big guy, just one attempt to redeem myself in your eyes?
Fang extends his arm for a handshake. Bark thinks for a second, then puts his arm out to shake fang’s. Suddenly, the barn door swings open, and two mechanical red eyes with some purple glows on them
Fang: looks like this is it

The android shadow takes a step in, fully revealing itself.right behind them, that weird cat honey walks in, hardly taking notice of the android

Honey: hello everyone of the fighters club! What are y'all lookin at?
Finally, she turns over to see the android shadow readying to attack her
Honey: oh, that makes sense
The android charges up a spindash, until a grappling hook grabs onto it, and pulls him into the ring in the middle of the barn. Standing in front of it is fang (still in the cloak), bark, and bean (who isn't really paying attention, and was just bouncing on the ropes)

Bean: Is that a challenger?
Bark nods, and fang twirls around his multigun

Fang: so, you guys ready to take this thing down?
It took all of fang’s courage to not say “lets get em boys!” very loudly. The android shadow attacks, and the trio dodge it

Bean: oooooh, this one is gonna be fun!
The android shadow tries to attack bean while he's midair, but fang grapples it mid jump, and smashes it against the ground

Fang: sorry, but we aint lettin ya win
The android instantly takes its sights off bean and bark, and attacks fang exclusively
Fang: what? mad me, thundercracker, and drippy took down your brother after HE attacked us first?
The android shadow doesn't speak, and just attacks with full force, leaving fang minimal time to dodge them all. Before it can actually land a heavy blow, bark punches it into a rope, then bean, always himself, throws a bunch of bombs at it

Bean: and a-one point for bean!
As the smoke clears, and the android walks out unscathed

Fang: you know what? I'm getting tired of you schick, let's see how you deal with this!
The disguised weasel makes a whistle, and the marvelous queen appears out of thin air, and fang jumps on. He presses a button, and an energy shield appears
Fang: I call this the energy roll!
The shield rolls nearly as rapid as sonic’s spindash, and rams at max speed into the android, sending it into a wall, then blowing up
Fang: take that you annoying robot! Wait, i feel like i'm forgetting someth-

Bean: ahem
Fang looks over to see bean with an annoyed look on his face

Fang: oh right, i forgot to explain to you

Bean: please, explain why you're here. Because i'm guessing your coming back to plead us to come back

Fang: okay look, i told scarf mook this, but just one chance, one single chance for you to accept my sorry. You can sing, you can ask me questions, just…one chance, okay?
Bean takes a second to think, until bark puts his hand on bean’s shoulder, and nods

Bean: okay, but if you ever do something selfish, like use us a protection, or something else stupid, we’re leaving

Fang: you have my word bomb mook

Espio: ahem
The trio looks over, and sees espio looking at them. After seeing this, fang places bean on the back of the marvelous queen, and bark hangs on the side

Fang: oh, would ya look at the time! Looks like we've gotta go!
Without warning, fang quickly smashes down the warp button, and teleports far off
Fang: whew, that was close.
Fang looks over to see that bean and bark very queasy from teleporting

Bean: give….us a warning next time…

Fang: you know what? How about to start things off, we have a little bank heist?
Bean instantly grows excited

Bean: boy, do we!?
unlike bean's enthusiasim, bark lets out an exasperated sigh. after all, the two are both too stubborn to admit they are grown off the same tree

...

The trio stare at the bank fang had robbed a while ago, while fang twirls his multigun

Fang: Okay, so, it seems they’ve upgraded security. I'm going to enter through the entrance, and you two will get to the vault and let me in. then we can steal as much cash as possible, and we can split it once we’re done

Bean: Who would have known? Fang not needing to be reminded to share
Instead of yelling like he usually would, fang just rolls his eyes, trying to keep calm.

Fang: okay, mission bank heist is a go

Soon
Fang walks in the building, keeping no attention to himself (he learned you look less suspicious if you don't tip your hat down), and looking around the area for any sort of sneaky way to the back. The first thing he sees is a security coded door.

Fang: perfect.
The quick thinking weasel silently takes out his multigun, and shoots a E.M.P. machine at both the light and door. Once the lights are out and everyone is trying to find their way around, fang walks exactly to the now disabled door (he has a great sense of picture memory for heists), and walks through it right before the lights come back on, and the door closes behind him.

Fang: now if i know anything, time to ready a sneak attack
He uses his tail to spring up to the ceiling, and grabs onto a metal pole. Just then, a couple people with the odd gun things run through, looking around for an intruder. Thinking on his feet, fang lands behind them, and kicks them out cold. He looks at their weapons, and takes the middle’s red one
Fang: might as well see what these things are all about
Quietly, fang makes his way to the vault, where already hears bean singing about bombs

Bean: bombs, bombs, the magical bombs! The more you bomb, the more you bomb!
Fang walks up to the vault, and knocks on it. Bean, knowing it's his time to shine, throws a bomb at the door. The blast makes the vault door fall over, and fang steps out of the way. After that, he walks in, and whistles for the marvelous queen to enter

Fang: Okay boys, let's fill this bag up!
The trio start filling a bag that is coming out of the bottom of the marvelous queen, when they hear a sudden alarm
Fang: so, do we escape without trouble, or have a bit of fun?

Bean: oh yeah! Let's have some fun!
Just then, an array of guards run up to the vault, weapons ready, but all fang does is smirk, and twirl his multigun around

Guard: stand down! You are outnumbered and our weapons are better!

Fang: I would be so sure. Bean, bomb. Bark, brawl. Me, bang.
Bean throws a ton of bombs, making the guards have to dodge. Without anyone noticing, bark sneak attacks one from behind, knocking them out. The remaining few charge their weapons, but a net from fang’s multigun traps them

Bean: We win!

Fang: sorry, but try a little harder next time, i want an actual fight.
The trio hop onto the marvelous queen, and teleport away.

...

The trio sit on top of a far off building

Fang: now then, it's time to split the cash
Bark gives an approving nod, and bean does a backflip of joy

Bean: This time, I’ll get money without bark needing to ask, and that's crazy cool!
this...this is what fang missed about these two the most, they were an unpredictable goof and a silent powerhouse
it made the group feel complete

_________________________

Honey just barely escaped from that battle, she was not ready for a second android shadow.
Buuuuuuuuut, since she ran all the way to sunset city, she should probably get someone to help her promote her style
And there someone was
SHADOW THE FREAKING HEDGEHOG
This was her moment! The delusional cat rushes over to the edgy hedgehog, and taps him on the shoulder.

Shadow: this better be worth my time

Honey: oh it is SO worth your time! I'm honey! And I'm the world's number one fashionista!
The not as “look at the positives” hedgehog takes one good look at the 12 year old cat, and gives the most disappointed face ever

Shadow: if your calling yourself the top person in fashion, you are delusional
Honey instantly is taken in shock

Honey: WHAAAAAAAT!?
Shadow points at the accessories

Shadow: you are clearly not over 12, so of course you don’t know anything about what fashion. If you want real fashion, ask Amy. But right now, you are more of an annoying flashy sign than a fashion model
And like that, the ultimate life form teleports off, leaving honey standing by herself.
First, there is a sniffle
Then, a sob
Finally a burst into crying on the floor

Honey: I WANNA LOOK GOOD!
The terribly sad cat swings her arms and legs as a puddle of tears forms on the ground
Lucky for this cat, her life is about to change dramatically, as a certain pink hedgehog notices her crying

Chapter Text

Timescale city docks
Infinite waits for the silent wolf to appear where she said they’d meet up once they were done.

Unlike last time he was here though, he's actually quite enthusiastic, and even takes a second to watch the fish swimming nearby.

One of the ‘fish’ catches his attention, a very large chomper, one of eggman’s surprisingly best capture weapons, having only missed target once from what the jackal has heard.

Infinite: welp, i guess this is a good way to pass the time, as well as make this thing have a fail count of 2

The gigantic capture badnik lunges at infinite to swallow him, but is met with an almost instant jab in the eye

All the confident jackal can do is smirk, and pulls his sword down, cutting straight down to the jaw

The oversized robo behemoth does not take this kindly, and splashes into the water to make a giant tidal wave big enough to tear down a small building.

The tidal wave breaks through the dock, sending the pieces of wood all into the endless ocean, but infinite narrowly dodged by using one of the poles to jump above it, and land on one of the boards

Of course, now he didn’t have anywhere safe to land though….

The mega chomper uses this time to jump at the open jackal, but is knocked back by a huge rock, covered in a cyan glow

The confused jackal turns over to see none other than whisper, the lemur, and the white psychic hedgehog himself…

…

“Wait, what was his name?” the jackal thinks, come to think of it, he had never really gotten to really know the lemur’s name either, even though he has met both of them

Ignoring that, infinite gives a smirk to whisper, which she doesn’’t notice

Infinite: took ya long enough

Unlike other conversations, the jackal sounded a bit more playful than before

Whisper, just barely under a normal voice: the problem took a bit longer than expected

The jackal is instantly shocked at the amount of wording put into that sentence, she usually would only say 1 to 3 words, but that was a full on sentence.

The surprise is short lived as the white hedgehog attempts to hold the behemoth badnik from attacking

???: great reunion and all, but can you guys help?

The jackal instantly pulls out his stone blade again, and spins it for a second before throwing it into the second eye of the beast, permanently blinding it (until eggman fixes it again)

Whisper: not bad…for an amateur

It was clear whisper was lightly teasing him, something was definitely up. She wouldn’t even crack a joke before

Infinite up was for some competition anyway, so he quickly jumps up to the flailing around mega chomper, and makes the same cut as last time, but then cuts the other way to the first cut, then kicks the face of the terror right off

Infinite: try something better than that, i dare you

The ‘silent’ wolf gives a smirk, and shoots straight at a fin, completely unbalancing it

The very damaged badnik lets out one last roar before the lemur kicks a giant boulder that silver lifted straight into the mouth of the beast, sinking it

The lemur and infinite jump off, and the latter finally asks his question

Infinite: hey, uh, what are your two names? I already met whisper

The more familiar white hedgehog attempts to speak first, but the lemur instantly (and accidentally) cuts him off

Tangle: im tangle! Only whisper’s BFF!

The wolf gives an approving nod, to which the white hedgehog finally gets to speak

Silver: and im silver the hedgehog, a psychic time traveler. I’ve mainly stayed here since it kinda feels more like home than my own home. Also, its only fair i ask your name

Unlike last time, infinite isn’t going to blurt out his name, but he thinks of that other name that he used, so he goes with it

Infinite: im…rael, yeah.

Tangle (none the wiser) is still completely oblivious that this is the same guy who caused an entire war

Tangle: wow! So you're the person whisper saved! How's it feel living with her?

Infinite: ummm…its okay

Silver is a bit more suspicious, but shrugs off the feeling

Whisper stops any furthermore conversation, and points to a boat at a further and untouched part of the otherwise torn to planks dock

Whisper: come on, lets go home

Tangle: aw yeah! Time to spend some quality time with my BFF and her new buddies!

“This is gonna be chaos…” the jackal thought

…
Old diamond cutters base

The group of whisper, tangle, silver, and infinite sit at the table, eating some food made by whisper (since she is the only one who can work an oven without setting everything on fire)

Said wolf was the first to speak

Whisper: so, what happened for you?

It was clear this was directed at infinite, he hid the fact of the existential crisis, and skipped to the next part

Infinite: Well, I saved a cat that was addicted to fashion from a burning building, along with meeting a duo named Mighty and Ray who put out the fire. Then some weird robot…shadow…thing appeared and attacked. We managed to beat it, and i found this in it

The jackal pulls out the device from earlier, showing the same directive:
“Android shadow green orders: cause destruction in timescale city”

Tangle gasps

Silver is confused, but knows its bad

But whisper gives a dead stare at the words “android shadow”, which the now concerned jackal takes notice of

Infinite: hey, you okay there?

Whisper: im fine

Tangle knows how sensitive that subject is to her, she decides to change it

Tangle: so, how did you end up in this situation rael? And what was your life like before?

Since it wouldn’t change her perspective (since no one really knows his past well), he decides to give a lot of truth

Infinite: well, i was the leader of a mercenary squad named “the jackal squad”

Silver is a little confused by the name

Silver: why jackal-

Infinite: it was only jackals, so it fit the hole. But other than me, there was our medic, ace. The powerhouse, max. The speedster, zane. And the youngest member and my younger brother actually, blane

Tangle was very interested, as she was leaning across the table

Tangle: That's so cool! Where are they right now!?

The jackals face instantly turns to a frown, since it was what caused his path into madness

Infinite: it's…personal…

The lemur that forgets personal space (and is directly in infinite’s face) slowly backs away

Tangle: heh, sorry for asking then rael

Suddenly, there is a loud bang on the front entrance

both tangle and silver look over to the door, while infinite and whisper’s much bigger ears twitch at the loudness of the bang

Tangle: hey, quick question, were any of you expecting other guests?

Whisper: no

Infinite: nuh uh

Silver: I didn't even know what way we used to get here

There are a few more bangs (causing both canines to fold their ears down with their hands), when the door suddenly is blown up

From the smoke, a chrome and torn foot steps out, revealing a set of a combo of green and red eyes, with hundreds of fully red pairs behind it

Infinite: wait, i thought i JUST wrecked him! Is he really so vengeful that he’d dodge death to kill me?

As if to answer the jackal’s question, the figure fully walks out of the fog
A very damaged green android shadow, including the piercing on its head, staring directly at him

Following it, are multiple orange ones, a lot less damaged though

Before the damaged android can raise a finger, a wisp hammer smashes through a couple identical androids

Of course, said wisp hammer came from whisper, mask on

Tangle jumps in to help her friend followed by infinite, then silver

Tangle: wow, you really did a number on the middle one rael!

Infinite: well it did also take a fashion loving cat, a flying squirrel, and one ridiculously strong armadillo

An android attempts to sneak up on the jackal, but is instantly stabbed in the face by infinite’s stone blade

The lemur is amazed at the minimal effort it took to beat it with a stone sword for him

Tangle: how did you beat it that easily!? Also by any chance, did the armadillo have a black body with tan marks and a red shell?

As the jackal cuts another android in half without looking over, he is surprised at how specifically correct that was

Infinite: uhhh, yeah actually. Now, I've got to teach a robot how to stay down!

Tangle: right!

The two turn over to see whisper being held to the wall by the green android

Tangle: HEY! LET GO OF MY BFF!

Unlike the lemur, time pauses (literally) for infinite

At the same time, an orb of clowning cyan energy appears in front of the jackal

You must use your blade, your true one.

Infinite: but-

I know you wish to never see it again, but it is the only way

The jackal pauses, takes a deep breath, and calms puts his hand where his real blade is
The crimson cutter

Time goes back to normal, so the jackal quickly takes out the crimson blade, and throws it at the worn android’s arm that's holding whisper, cutting it clean off, and whisper falls to the ground

Infinite: I will NOT let you hurt anyone, you stupid robot! I refuse to give up! And one more thing…

The green android rushes at the jackal with his only arm, only to get kicked in the visor, shattering its vision

Infinite jumps over the pathetic excuse for a replacement of the ultimate life form, grabs his blade, and jabs it straight through the android's chest.

The green android shadow sparks for a second, then falls to the ground, fully depowered this time

Infinite: you are extremely weak

It felt nice to steal the guy who ruined his life’s line.

The happy jackal places his blade back, and sighs in relief

Behind him, whisper gets up, and looks over at the sight of infinite giving a genuine smile

She can’t tell why, but her cheeks feel oddly warm after it. She shrugs it off as exhaustion, and gets back up

Tangle instantly rushes in to hug her best bud

Tangle: whisper! You're okay!

Whisper: yep, im okay

As she lets go, tangle notices her BFF looking at rael (AKA, infinite)

Before the lemur can even make go into though, silver walks in from the entrance, giving a childing self proud smile

Silver: dont worry, i beat the rest outside!

As if on queue, the wall falls over from the cracks it gathered from attacks, revealing a countless amount of broken androids, floating in the water

Silver: yeaahhhh, i’ll throw em away…

As the white hedgehog flies away with the destroyed androids, infinite walks over to the BFFs

Infinite: hey, i have a good training place in the forest west of sunset city. wanna come?

Tangle: boy do we!?

Whisper: yeah, that would be nice

Tangle once again looks over at her best buddy, but now she sees a bit of reddish pink slightly uncovered by the mask

From this, the lemur gets a wide grin, it's pretty obvious what she's doing, and who she's looking at (rael/infinite)

Infinite: well then, come one you two, lets go!

Chapter Text

Power levels: 100% from chaos energy

Species of threat: sungazer lizard

Threat’s current status: playing with animals

Note: do not be deceived by playful demeanor

Threat level: could be a high tier if off island

Current plan: ignore, but destroy if deciding to leave island

Likelihood of leaving island: 0.000001%

magic relics: though black onyx. Though holds a powerful monster, it is untamable

Preparing to leave island

Interruption, 3 new life forms detected

Life forms species: weasel\jeroba, duck, polar bear

Threat levels: duck and polar bear are no concern, weasel took down 2 android units

New plan: use one of the pathetic creator’s old elite badniks to destroy them

Sending coordinates to android unit blue

Android unit blue status: mission is complete, awaiting next mission

New Android shadow blue objective: destroy fang the hunter

Warnings: escape if the weasel gets a plan to beat you

Chapter Text

northstar sea

Team hooligan (fang, bean, and bark) are flying across the sea on the marvelous queen.

And back then and the same as now, a whole lot of noise from a duck

Bean: jingle bombs, jingle bombs, jingle all the bombs! Oh what fun, it is to bomb, on a one horse soaken bomb, hey!

As annoying as it was, fang felt….right from his mental disordered duck companion’s terrible singing

Interrupting the weasel’s train of thought, bark taps against fang’s shoulder

Most would not understand what that means, but fang knows by how his silent ally’s three taps it was about where they were going

Fang: Well, it's a place that I regret going to nowadays, but it has someone strong enough to take down our robo foes!

Bean stops singing to bump in on the conversation

Bean: oh, is this a friend that you met after we left?

Fang: very…VERY…far from friends. she hates me more than brush face hates fleet feet! And for…reasonable reasons…

Before the conversation can go any further, a set of islands appears into view. It is somewhat crescent moon shaped, along with 4 destroyed eggman buildings, one being a ferris wheel. There were mountains at the back of the island, along with a desert and some set of flying debris making a "miniature angel island”.

Fang: there it is, the northstar islands!

Bark looks surprised at the size of this island, and how no one had discovered it before…whatever happened for fang to get there

Unlike the duck’s buddy’s confusion, bean is amazed at how big the island is

Bean: I wanna explore and blow something up!

Fang: Well, how long we do that depends on where the person we need is, she can run pretty fast, enough to catch up to my marvelous queen!

Unlucky for Bean, as soon as the vehicle lands down, the group hears some female voice yell “hey!” at the top of their lungs

This instantly sets off all kinds of alarms in fang’s brain, and replaying flashbacks of what made him lose himself

______________________________________
Years ago

Fleet feet, double butt, knucklehead, and fleet feet fangirl had just beaten the legendary fang the hunter in golden capitol, making him lose the chaos emeralds

Fang: darn it! I have to get them before they do!

Quickly, the weasel that's having a bad day jumps off the marvelous queen to pick up the emeralds, when all of team fleet feet runs up in front of him

Fleet feet: end of the line nack, hand back the chaos emeralds before I have to super sonic speed your face!

Fang: never ya annoying blue pest!

Just then, that quiet little girl runs in

Quiet girl: h-here s-sir…

Fang: GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU USELESS PIECE OF ARMORED TRASH!

With all the rage in his heart, the mad treasure hunter kicks the quiet girl to the group

The entirety of team fleet feet looks shocked, especially fleet feet fangirl

Fleet feet fangirl: TRIP!

“Trip”, what an coincidental name…the quiet girl had a knack for tripping

Fang looks back at the quiet girl, and she stands up, hands shaking

Quiet girl: im DONE taking orders from you and your ungrateful face

Suddenly, the quiet girl throws off all the armor, showing she's some kind of spikey lizard.

Beside quiet/spike girl, the emeralds rise up like they would for sonic, and transform her into a dragon

Quickly, fang hops back into the marvelous queen, and enters a mech prototype he was working on, but it is blown the smithereens in a few seconds the spike girl, barely leaving time for retreat

Fang: i’ll be back you brats, JUST YOU WAIT!

…

It's the final battle, spike girl vs fang and his finalized version of the mech she once broke

Fang: WHY DONT YOU JUST GIVE UP AND DIE!?

Spike girl was no simple task, she could jump twice like fleet feet fangirl, climb on walls like knucklehead, could be as tactical as double butt at times, and nearly as fast as fleet feet himself

Spike girl: you threw me around like i was your puppet! And you think I'm going to roll over and lose so you can feel good about yourself? No way! You're the most selfish person ever!

Now spike girl was ticking him off big time

Fang: I! AM! NOT! SELFISH!

The fuming sharpshooter slams the head of the mech into the platform, only for spike girl to slam into it, and make a huge dent on the mech

Spike girl: oh really? And who's to say you haven't had other people work under you, and left because of your selfishness?

Bomb and scarf mook…

Fang: SHUT…UPPPPPPP!!!!

In his fit of rage, spike girl kicks the mech in the chest, causing a self destruct sequence

The enraged weasel flies out to escape the stolen eggbase, as spike girl jumps into an escape pod, and shoots back to her island

…

Fang sits back at the safety of his own sewer home, he never needed to change it, since he was just about never there

Unlike other times, where he would place treasures on the many shelves, he frantically paces around the room, clearly thinking about both of his defeats

Fang: stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I should have known that the S####Y lizard would go for the chest!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!?

He was clearly losing his touch, not even able to hold a steady relationship, whether it be friend or lackey. It all just swirls in his mind, how he is nothing, along with the most impactful words bean had ever said:
“You need US as backup more than we need YOU for inspiration.”

For once, the most annoying person he had ever known was right

And now…he misses both of them

The two people who actually wanted to be around him

The two that understanded him

The two…he misses dearly

______________________________

Fang wakes up, and finds himself alone in a cave

Outside, it was clearly nighttime now

In the cave, there is a fire, the marvelous queen, and his hat, neatly on top of a pile of twigs

Did he…pass out?

What happened for him to get-

???: helloooo? i said excuse me

The startled weasel jumps at the voice, and sees none other than trip, looking at him. No armor, no spear, just a stare

Behind her, were bean and bark, playing hot potato with a bomb (that bark ripped the fuse off of)

Not that fang was surprised to see bean and bark, but the person who he had CLEARLY mistreated so badly, and would guarantee want him dead? That's a different story

Before he can stare off into the void, the hand of the singer lizard that once beat him waves across his face

Trip: Hey, are you even listening?

Instead of answering, fang asks his own question

Fang: why are you here? And why have you not attacked me yet?

Trip only gives off a confused look

Trip: attack? You fell to the ground when i saw you, and your buddies helped me bring you to a cave nearby, so i dont know what your thinking

Fang: But I used you like a puppet! You said it yourself, I was just trying to beat you to feel good about myself! I wanted nothing more than to end you! Why aren't you even remotely mad!?

It kinda felt like irony that the teenager was going to have to explain to the adult about this

Trip: Well, it's something I learned from my friends, mainly Amy and knuckles. It's that though you have to be tough and think on your feet, which is from knuckles, you also need to not hold grudges, since it only makes things worse, which is from Amy. As you can see, it's gotten me far, hasn't it?

Wait, she DIDN’T hate his guts? But after everything he did, and his ways are basically no different

Just then, bean backflips over

Bean: hey fangly wangly mcganglysleep! You’re awake!

Bark walks over, and gives an approving nod

After some greetings are made, the unarmored sungazer finally walks between the two

Trip: anyways, WHY are you here? All i got from your buddies were that you needed my help, which im not surprised by how you were the eggman to me once, and sonic told me that the doctor constantly needs their help

Oh, he nearly forgot about that…

Fang: Well, there was this problem with these-

Suddenly, a giant crash comes from outside, prompting everyone to look over, and run out (or jump on the marvelous queen and fly out in fang’s case) to see the cause

The marvelous queen skirts over to the cause of the noise, and comes face to face with some familiar faces

A blue one of the hedgehog robots, and none other than the hard boiled heavies themselves

Fang: well, well, well, i see you guys finally got back from your sinking ship

Heavy king: your demise will be a pleasure to me. Along with taking back what is rightfully ours

{BOSSES:}
[ADVANCED EGG ROBOS: HARD BOILED HEAVIES]
[CHROME COPY: ANDROID SHADOW BLUE]

Chapter Text

Fang and heavy king stare each other down. Team hooligan and trip vs the hard boiled heavies and the robo hedgehog

Trip: who are they!? And why are they here!?

Fang: long story short, the council of robot brush faces are some people my and my boys had dealt with before, and the weird robo sonic like hedgehog thing is one of the guy tryin to destroy the world or something

Before any more words could be said, heavy shinobi (a fan of japanese stuff) dashes at fang with a regular katana, which does not surprise the treasure hunter at all as he jumps right over with his spring tail

Heavy shinobi: you are the last thing standing in the way of me and my frozen blade

Any treasure hunter would know the first rule of beating a strong enemy is getting on their nerves to lower their guard

Fang: oh, you mean this thing?

With a whistle from the thief, he jumps into the air, as the marvelous queen teleports right under him, letting him stick the landing. Once on, the marvelous queen opens a side compartment, where fang grabs the ice katana that was once the robotic ninja’s

Fang: don’t worry, i’ve taken good care of it

The tactical treasure hunter puts it back in the marvelous queen, and heavy shinobi instantly sees his foolproof plan

Heavy shinobi: you wouldn’t dare…

Fang: you blow up my bike, you blow up your katana. Whatcha gonna do ya haiku lovin goober?

Over with bean, things are going even better against heavy magician and heavy gunner. Due to the duck’s unpredictability and vast knowledge of bombology (the study of bombs, but it does not actually exist), heavy magician has no time to transform, and heavy gunner’s heat seeking missiles never make contact

Bean: So how have you guys been? Last i saw you two was…wait, i forgot

At the same time of thinking, dodging missiles, and throwing bombs, the multitasking duck is twirling heavy magician’s hat, the exact same one he took from their last encounter

Heavy gunner: are you stupid? YOU BLEW UP A GIANT BOMB IN BOTH OF OUR FACES!

Bean: hmmmm, don’t remember that

Just hearing that makes heavy magician go dramatic

Heavy magician: you had ruined me! Without my hat, I am just a magic egg robo!

Heavy gunner: your still just a magic egg robo with the hat, im basically just an egg robo with a missile launcher by that logic

Heavy magician: oh, but i, the only enemy of sonic the hedgehog that is a girl, this is a tragedy!

Heavy gunner: YOUR HEAVY MAGICIAN! NOT HEAVY DRAMA QUEEN! AND WE DONT KNOW IF THERES MORE EVIL GIRLS, SO SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

As the two heavies bicker on, Bean hears a rustle in the bushes. Said bomb duck decides to go over to the bush.

A rock in in the way of his progression, so he did what any normal bean the dynamite duck would do

Use an unhealthy amount of explosives, and this time, no fang to stop him

Before the cuckoo duck could blow up the rocks, a small and timid looking robot peaks out from behind the rock.

The robot was mainly a blueish gray color, with its face being a black screen and orange eyes. Its feet were pretty close in design to metal sonic’s, but the robot looked nothing like the hedgehog robot (that claims to be the original sonic).

The robot slowly moves out of its hiding place, as bean is confused

Bean: Hey there! I'm Bean! Want to be friends?

The robot tilts its head, when suddenly, something large grabs the robot from the shadows

Heavy king himself

Heavy king: ah, so you are the robot that once fought the hedgehog with such power, you will be a great addition to my armies

The much smaller robot tries to escape the grasp of the larger robot, but to no prevail

Bean does not recognize the severity of the situation (per usual), and decides to pull out a bomb instead

Bean: wanna play catch?

The oblivious duck tosses his lit bomb straight at heavy king and the robot, blowing up directly in the face of the regal robot, and releasing his grip on the small robot

The robot seemed a little ticked off by the talk of this other robot

And now it was time for the fight to really start

Over with bark and trip, their fight wasn’t as easy as the others. while heavy rider and his motobug named jimmy were out, as rider was fixing Jimmy's tire, the robot hedgehog was relentless and fast

Bark managed to land one punch, but it tanked it easily

Trip: darn it! What is this thing made of? Other than metal obviously

Just then, the robot hedgehog grabs both by the head, and slams them together

The timid guardian gets up, head throbbing, and completely stumped on how to beat this guy. At the same time, bark gets up, and cracks his knuckles, ready to actually start fighting

The robotic hedgehog readies another attack, when he is suddenly hit back with heavy king

From out of the bushes, comes bean…and the robot, whos foot is broken

Bean: Hey guys! I found this guy in the forest, so i brought him with me. he did hurt his foot trying to kick that big mean robot dude, so i just threw a big bomb at him

Trip is instantly so shocked, she falls over onto her back. It was clear this was one of the metal fighter bots that eggman had stolen, but weren’t they reprogramed to destroy her and team sonic on sight?

Never mind that, what matters now is that it was 3 against 2

Behind them, fang has tied up the rest of the heavies (and jimmy), since they were all being idiots

Heavy magician: alas, we have lost, and it's all of your faults!

All three other heavies: SHUT THE HECK UP!

Fang, being the treasure hunter he is, decides it's time to have a catchy one liner

Fang: well, looks like the hard boiled heavies just got-

???: WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE!?

Everyone pauses, and looks over. From what fang could tell, there was that weird cat honey again (how she got here is a mystery), holding the hand of an oddly familiar pink hedgehog, wearing a red dress, and looks mad

Trip: Amy! Thank goodness you're here! So fang and his two friends came here for some reason, then that robo hedgehog thing and those strong egg robos attacked us!

Wait, THAT'S Amy? Fang remembers a pink shirt and an orange skirt, along with her quills aimed the same way as sonic’s

This new and improved looking amy takes a glance at fang on the marvelous queen, standing in front of three of the heavies arguing with heavy magician, bean with his shoulder on one of the robots from cyber station that has a broken foot, and trip and bark standing in front of an android shadow and heavy king.

Amy: (sighs), i just was trying to have my monthly visit, along with helping this kid achieve her dreams, but now i have to deal with these robots for the first actual time

Without a second to spare, the pink hedgehog pulls out her now double the size hammer, and honey sits down

Honey: go amy miss!

Fang: wait, no, WHERE THE HECK DID YOU STORE THAT HAMMER!? I can get bean having unlimited bombs, he defies logic a lot, BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE

Ignoring that Amy now has some pocket dimension in her pocket, fang quickly rushes over to help his team, trip, and the robot with this robo hedgehog and a guy who most likely has the actual biggest vendetta against him

Heavy king: i can tell you will be much stronger than you used to be pink hedgehog, but that will not help you, even if you have defeated the rest of my heavies and their slowing driven insane minds

The hedgehog robot stares down Amy, recognizing her from the data of eggperial city’s downfall, she is one of few to fight an android shadow and win

While the robo hedgehog is distracted, fang delivers a powerful kick in the back to it, sending the robot stumbling down

Fang: how about you look where you're being attacked next time? Like this!

As if he saw 3 seconds into the future, fang jumps right over a swing of heavy king’s scepter, the shooting at the royal robo with a drill shaped bullet, piercing slightly through the chest of the towering machine

All things aside, fang was a lot more athletic than amy and trip thought, the most they’ve seen him do is a strong kick (for all the wrong reasons)

They look past the fact of how athletic a guy who is always sitting his but on a hover bike is, and jump in to help

The android shadow slowly rises, but is instantly hammered off the island by amy

Bark jumps in as well, punching heavy king in the iron stomach, which he did not think through, and hurts his hand from how ridiculously resilient the royal iron titan is

As everyone else fights, honey and bean play rock paper scissors, forgetting entirely about the fight behind them

Bean: rock i win!

Honey: but I picked paper, doesn't that mean I won?

Bean: no idea, i thought it was you say what you picked, and you won

Both are too busy to notice the robot bean had found was not in sight

Said robot is hiding behind a bush from all the chaos, when it suddenly sees something shaped like its foot, sticking out of the back of some kind of wheeled vehicle. It climbs in to grab the item, but falls fully in, trapping itself in the cloth type things, the sticks with cloth connected to them, and more random cloth attached tools and such.

Over with the rest of the group, heavy king is being heavily swarmed by hammer swings, drill bullets, punches to the arms, and spin dashes

Fang: man, i remember when you could take all of us and more at once, now your just rusty, in more ways than one as well

Before anyone can land another attack, a yellow and a green blur rush straight through them, knocking everyone over like bowling pins

The yellow blur stops first, revealing its a near identical replica of shadow, but with yellow markings instead of red, and an exposed bit of a chrome shell under its outer layer

It doesn’t speak, and just throws a chaos spear, emerald in hand, at the green blur

The green blur dodges all of them, then also stops. They looked like a fusion of sonic and surge with a ripped vest that had a fire design, scars on his stomach, and a punk set of shoes

???: what? Can’t handle the green king? Well thats too F%#$ing bad!

The mystery hedgehog with a potty mouth retaliates with his own chaos spears, but there were no chaos emeralds in sight

The shadow like one dodges, and quickly dashes out to the sea, as some drones carry the hard boiled heavies and the blue android shadow away

???: Hey! I'm not done with you S$^%bag!

The mystery hedgehog sparks with chaos energy, and quickly dashes after the robots, disappearing in a few seconds

After that…odd ending to the fight, everyone is speechless

CLEAR

Trip: wheel that sure was…some ending to the fight, also what were they doing?

After a short catch up on the entire android situation by fang, amy walks over to her car (not noticing the pair of robot legs sticking out the back) and shuts her trunk

Amy: so much for our beach day, looks like its time you got of this island for a bit

Trip: right! I just need to ask my elder first!

The clumsy lizard turns around, begins running to speed jungle, trips, gets back up, and continues running

Once honey gets back in the car with amy, the pink hedgehog turns to the hooligans

Amy: and YOU three, are coming with us, since you all could use some more life skills than just robbing and blow stuff up, bark is a good person though, even if he doesn't show it

The aforementioned polar bear puts his scarf over his face in embarrassment, just like the olden days when a still sonic obsessive amy would call him a big ol softy

Bean: I wasn't listening, but sure!

Fang takes a minute to think, then flicks his hat up

Fang: well then, i’ll kindly accept, you idiots couldn’t even find out what they’re planning without me anyways

Team hooligan jumps onto the marvelous queen (and sidecars) as Amy gives the biggest eye roll to fang.

Unknowing to them, they have stowaway, stunk in the trunk of amy’s car, and its very scared

Chapter Text

Moebius

Scourge is doing his own thing away from the destructix currently, and by that, he's destroying everything

The very few who actually attempt to fight back either instantly step down from intimidation, or get a few broken bones trying to fight the green menace

Scourge: lets see, 20 people injured, 6 buildings crumbled, and 58 valuables destroyed! I'm on a F$^%ing ROLL today! And keeping this up, I should be able to get back with 100 injuries!

Just as the previous king was about to snap somebodies legs, he hears some yelling in the distance

For most people, they would just start running for their lives

Unfortunately scourge isn't most people, and rushes to the screams

He skids to a stop, expecting for some idiot to be stealing all of the fun, but all he sees is a giant white void, erasing everything in its path, and its going fast

The green speedster quickly starts boosting away from the void, but it's still right behind him

Scourge: what the F#^$ is this thing!?

The white void slowly starts catching up, prompting scourge to hot the gas, and go as fast as sonic version-ly possible

The green glow surrounding the superspeed anti hedgehog becomes a bright orange

And in a flash of light, scourge warps away, as the white void slowly dissipates everything

…

There is a hill

Nothing on it, but a single tree. And atop the tree, lays a broken golden crown. The crown had a wing on one side, but only the remains of another on the opposite side. The front seems to resemble an eye, with a seemingly depowered gem serving as a pupil. A few unsharp and unsymetrical horns protrude out the top.

The tree itself had a golden vine wrapping around it, making one of two branches. And under the leaves, there seemed to be some set of red gems hidden under, and rocks slightly coming out the sides

Then, something scourge has said before starts repeating

“I wish every moebian that lives in that STUPID town and that STUPID castle would just disappear, leaving ME to rule!”

Then, vines slowly come out of the ground, and the leaves on the tree rise

The supergenesis wave has fulfilled your wish…

But all fools forget his words…

Careful what you wish for…

Suddenly, the gem on the grown glows a blue and green, as the tree now has a circle or reddish gems surrounding something, until the gem surrounded area suddenly opens, revealing a bloodshot red eye

YOU JUST MIGHT GET THE WORST

Suddenly, scourge wakes up on the hill from his dream, just without the tree and the crown that was atop the tree

Suddenly, scourge wakes up on the hill from his dream, just without the tree and the crown that was atop the tree

Scourge: owww…my head is spinning from…whatever that was

The confused green blur looks over to see a city, much more like the ones humans had

Usually, his first instinct would be to destroy something, but everything feels…off about the place, so he decides to search around first. It's not like anyone could stop him, he's taken on 7 different hedgehogs at once!

As the green hedgehog rushes into the town, the first thing that catches his eye is that no one even looks at him. Maybe this is a zone he hasn’t been to? Since everyone in this city is also mobian/moebian

The weirdest thing of all is someone talking about some extreme gear grand prix…didn’t only those bird brains have that kind of technology?

After looking at more oddities around the place, he decided to ask one of the low life residents on his location

Scourge: hey! What F$%^ing city is this?

Resident: uhhhh, metro city. Why do you ask?

Metro city? From all of his time on moebius and mobius, he's never heard a city with that name, or a counterpart with a close name

Without another word, scourge dashes out of the city, going to search for what the F$^% is happening

…

It's been HOURS

Hours of running, searching, and seeing if any of his crew somehow landed here

And it all led back to the SAME. F$^%ING. HILL

The very irritated hedgehog seats himself on the hill, staring at this “metro city”

Scourge: this F#$%ing sucks! The destructix, AKA the few people i actually cared about, arent even HERE! Worst of all, NO ONE KNOWS WHO I AM, NO ONE CARES WHO I AM, AND NO ONE IS EVEN LIGHTLY SCARED OF ME!

Suddenly, some yellow blur kicks scourge, sending him tumbling down the hill

The blur stops, revealing something similar the the edgy hedgehog he once faced, but with yellow marks instead of that usual red, and some tear on his leg

Scourge: So you're gonna start a fight with the real fastest thing alive!? THEN YOU HEAD WILL BE MINE!

Scourge instantly jumps back up, and homing attacks the robo edgy hedgy

The robot remains unphased, as it charges at the green blur

The two clash in glows of yellow and green, then burst off in streaks of their respective colors

And a battle is on!

Chapter Text

After getting everyone to her house and telling sonic and tails to go find as many allies they can, it's time for amy to get the biggest wildcard she has

The pink hedgehog stands in front of said wildcard’s house

The house in middle of a deep forest, with the only indication to where it was is from swapping between turning left and right at every 7th tree

The exterior was a hill with an oak wood door, a roof over the door, and two windows, as well as everything was clearly handmade

Where most would put a welcome mat was a bear trap, and a motobug crushed inside the bear trap

Ignoring every trap on the property, amy knocks on the door of the house

???: if that's a government spy, I'm not opening the door!

Amy: its amy, did you forget that im the only one who remembers the way to your house

???: prove that you're not just a mimicker!

Amy: the time you destroyed my microwave because you thought it was transmitting “alien mind control waves”

???: fair enough

The door opens, and a badger stands in front of the door

Her clothes are heavily tattered, along with ropes splitting her hair in 2 different directions. Most of her clothing was ripped fabric, leather, or metal scraps

???: so, what do you want? If this is about the robot apocalypse, you can find me in my bunker tomorrow

Amy knew her friend was not the most gullible (and more just paranoid), so it's better to just say the truth

Amy: sticks, there is a strange group of robot shadows that are trying to do something evil, and i need your help to stop them

Most people who ever saw sticks thought she was some crazy person who has lived in the woods their entire life, but believe or not, android shadows and shadow himself are what made her so paranoid. Since G.U.N. hid some powerful hedgehog with the DNA of aliens, and the aliens that have the same DNA appeared because of some 50 year long conspiracy, it made the poor badger lose any common sense and move to the woods

Sticks: those government freaks!?

Amy: they weren’t made by the-

Sticks: im gonna take them AND any evil aliens they have up their sleeve down!

The paranoid badger walks off, as amy just goes with it, and leads sticks to her home

_________________________________________________________________

Unlike half the people here, infinite is VERY confused on whats happening

Most meetups he's done were with his team in a secluded location, not some random group of people he knows in a pretty well known house

Tangle and whisper are talking to mighty and ray, since it seems the armadillo and lemur know each other.

That trio of a bee, alligator (not what he is), and chameleon were talking to the twin tailed fox 

well, at least the alligator and chameleon were, the bee, a green duck, and honey were all playing rock paper scissors, and trying to decide if rock beats hot dog

Over with sonic, he was taunting some purple weasel/jeroba with a western accent while a silent polar bear knits to pass the time

Finally, some type of lizard was looking at a microwave like she had never seen one before (she hasn’t)

Of course, he decides to take this time for a well deserved break, and sit on the couch, with uninterrupted-

???: Hello Mr Rael! What are you doing right now?

The confused jackal quickly opens his eyes, and sees a young rabbit, seemingly no older than the bee.

Infinite: ummmm, resting? What does it look like? Also who are you?

The young rabbit giggles for a second, but more in an act of kind playfulness

Cream: oh right! My name is Cream, nice to meet you mr rael!

Infinite can't help but give a small chuckle to cream, she was clearly more polite and mature than the fashion cat twice her age

Silence is brought for a few seconds between the two, until infinite breaks it

Infinite: so, what's with Amy's friend that's staring at a microwave like it's the industrial revolution?

Cream: oh, that's Ms Amy's friend, I've been able to visit her a few times. There's no modern technology where she comes from. I’ve asked if she wanted to see the world, but she said she can only leave if it's important.

As the two keep up their conversation, the much older jackal takes to liking the girl’s positive spirit. It was pretty infectious as well, allowing infinite to give off a smile

Just then, the door opens calmly, revealing Amy, and some sort of primal badger

Amy: Is everyone here still?

A few “yep”s and “uh-huh”s come from around the room

Amy: so first, everyone who has not looked over my house for me, this is sticks, she is a bit…mentally challenged

Before anyone can say anything, a beep from the lizard’s direction direction is heard, then another, then several more

Trip: Amy, what's this thing? It makes a beep noise when i press the numbers or words

Before amy can respond, sticks pulls out a staff from nowhere, as somewhere in the weasels direction is someone saying that it seems like more than one other person has an infinity pocket

Sticks: THAT THING SENDS ALIEN WAVES TO-

Amy quickly pushes sticks out of the way, not wanting to buy another microwave

Amy: That's a microwave, trip, it heats food up without the need of a fire

Trip: so cool…

Amy claps her hands together, as if to get back on track

Amy: Anyways! We have gotten info that there is a group of android shadows afoot. Fang, can you say which ones you have seen?

The purple weasel speaks up to the pink hedgehog’s question

Fang: Well fleet feet fangirl, from data I found in one of their systems, I learned that there are a total of 6 normal ones, and I've encountered 3 and that strange one that seemed much stronger.

Just then, mighty turns around

Mighty: well, me and ray have encountered 2 ourselves, the green and pink ones to be exact. The pink one got away, so that means 2, correct?

Fang: nope, wrong shellhead, the blue one was taken back along with the hard boiled heavies, so we have half of them AND super strong egg bots to be looking out for. But lucky for us, the solution is right in the USB i have!

The western weasel pulls out a USB plug, plugs it into Amy's TV, and a few objectives pop up: 

Red: offline, in need of repair

Green: offline, in need of repair

blue: destroy nack the weasel, then retrieve the marvelous queen

yellow: protect leader

Purple: offline, in need of repair

Pink: destroy shadow the hedgehog

Rider: steal the black onyx once trip the sungazer has left

Shinobi: get to the space colony ark, and find the hidden location of the paradox prism

Magician: begin stage one of project neo leader

Gunner: stop the progression of the heroes

King: use phantom ruby to collect the jeweled scepter from the sol dimension

This room is dead silent, even sonic and the kids were

Fang: it was NOT that long before, AND THEY’RE TRYING TO STEAL MY BIKE!? And i now also see what the extra file was for

Trip: OH NO! THEY’RE GONNA GET THE BLACK ONYX!

Sonic: So you're telling me…that shadow teleported the freaking PARADOX PRISM…all the way to the ARK, and now that samurai egg bot is going for it!?

The others were screaming out the major problems, but infinite could not stop looking at the one with the phantom ruby in the objective

He knows he lost it while escaping all of those badniks, but how did they end up getting it?

Amy: Okay, so it's clear we’re going to need groups for this. So let's split into teams. Chaotix, mighty, and ray, you guys are going to get team dark, and get to the space colony ARK, i know espio might want a ninja battle between him and heavy shinobi

Espio: you would be correct miss rose

Amy: sonic, tails, sticks, and trip, you’re going to search for the remaining three androids, and that 4th more shadow like one

Sonic: So like the northstar island adventure, but knuckles is replaced by a more feral person and you're replaced by your friend from said adventure?

Amy: whisper, tangle, rael, cream, i can trust you four can find blaze go to the sol dimension?

Cream: you can count on us ms amy!

Infinite gives a slight nod of approval

Amy: Finally, team hooligan, me, and honey will find heavy rider to stop him from releasing the black dragon again!

Fang: Sure, why not? It's not like my bike has only 2 sidecars

As infinite groups up with his team for this mission, he feels a sense of familiarness to when he would do the same with the jackal squad

Tangle: well then, looks like we’ve gotta find blaze first! Where is she by the way?

Cream: Ms Amy said that she was at Hope forest!

Ah yes…

The forest infinite lived in before

Of course it was that one

Tangle: Well, it's a better time than ever! Lets go

Whisper: first, we need to prepare, this is a different dimension

Tangle: oh, right, forgot about that part

Chapter Text

Hour 0

After falling in and getting stuck in the strange back compartment of the vehicle, the entrance had shut behind him, trapping it

It was pure darkness

The only source of illumination in the dark space were their own orange eyes, but just a small bit, only enough to see its own hands

There were so many strange things in the area, most had fabric or plastic on them, but some felt sharp

it was scared

Hour 1

they had been attempting to make things less scary, but nothing worked

their first idea was to think about its first waking moments, but they were shrouded by some man saying something about a failed test, and throwing them away, which only made them more scared

Everything seemed to get darker from each passing second

The only thing it could hear were a pair of voices speaking to each other about rocks, and two other words they had never heard of

And yet, it was still scared

Hour 5

The vehicle had stopped moving, and yet, it was still stuck

they had taken one of the large fabric rectangles to cover themself with, it made them feel slightly better, but not by much

The amount of silence there was had only made things worse

And the worst part? their battery was at only 9% now

If this went on for even another hour, they would run out of battery

Just then, they heard some voices

One of the voices started to walk over to the car, and said something about getting everything they needed, and that the others could go on without her

Just then, and blast of light came into their face, with some silhouette blocking some of the light

The figure gasped at the sight of them. And when the she was more visible, it was clear it was one of the people from before, specifically the pink one

???: Oh my! Were you stuck in the trunk this entire time? I'm so sorry!

The pink person picks up them like a kid, fabric rectangle still on, and wraps her arms around them in some comforting way.

they covers himself more in the fabric rectangle, trying to keep the comfort of it

The pink one’s only response is gentle head pats to their head

???: poor thing, you must have been so scared! I’ll take you inside, would that make you feel more safe

it nods, and the pink one takes them inside the structure beside the vehicle

The inside was neatly decorated, and everything seemed new to them, when they is suddenly placed on the soft cube, and the pink one swaps the fabric rectangle is swapped with one that has a flowery pattern

it turns over, and tilts his head, as if to ask what was the reason of changing it

???: that's a blanket, it's made for this stuff, you were using one of my beach towels, which are for drying yourself off. 

After explaining this ‘blanket’ thing, the pink one opens a panel on the back of his head, and places some cord in it

???: I've learned that eggman usually puts his robot’s charging plugs on the back of his robot’s heads in case their charging station is out, so lucky that!

they didn’t know what that meant, but their battery was seemingly going up

The pink one then leaves the room, humming some kind of tune, leaving them in the room by himself

The silent moment is stopped quickly, as the pink one returns with some box of accessories

The pink one places the box down, showing some of them, but they were all not things he was familiar with

???: I want you to stand out a bit, so choose whatever you like!

it looks in the box, but nothing seems to interest them. When it looks away, it notices his foot, still badly damaged

The pink one takes notice of the broken foot, and gets an idea

As they stare at their broken foot, the pink one runs to somewhere, and comes back with a single shoe

The shoe was half red and half white, with a white top part placed on

???: these were one of tails’ old shoes, but im sure he wont mind you wearing them!

The pink one places the shoe over the broken foot, and it perfectly fits

they wiggle its foot in the shoe, until their eyes glitch from orange to blue for just a second, then change back.

The pink one giggles a bit before standing up

Amy: I don't think we’ve really introduced ourselves yet, my name is Amy Rose, what's yours?

it tilts his head in confusion, they had never had a name before, nor did anyone they ever met say they needed one

Amy: oh, you don't have a name? Do you want one?

they did want one, so he nodded, which made amy go into what seemed to be thought

Just then, they saw a strange rectangular thing, with a red rhombus and A in the corners. it picks up the card, and takes a second to look at it

Amy notices them looking at the rectangle, and gets a name

Amy: acey! That's it!

they tilt their head in confusion, what did that name have to do with a rectangle

Once again, Amy could see its confusion, and decided to give an answer

Amy: that is a playing card, an ace of diamonds to be exact

The name did have a nice sound to it, so acey nods in approval

Amy: Then, it's settled, your name is acey! Now, I've gotta go catch up with my group. You wanna come with?

Acey once again nods, its battery is 58% now after all. So they attempt to get off the soft cube, but falls face first on the ground

Amy stands acey up, grabs its hand, and they walk out the door

After the short walk, they stop at the vehicle, where amy picks acey up, and places them on one of the comfy spots in it

The pink hedgehog places some kind of strap on acey, which confuses them

Amy: It's called a seatbelt, it makes it so you don’t fall out of your seat of the car

Just then, something comes on from the speaker thing on this ‘car’

???: yo ames, how's your mission going?

Amy quickly rushes over to the car to respond, while acey can only watch from their spot

Amy: I've let the other four get a head start, i was getting some supplies, but found an accidental stowaway in my trunk, but acey is fine now

???: whos ac-

Amy: Anyways sonic gotta go byeeeeeeee!!!!

Acey’s pink savior quickly turns off the the speaker thing, and starts the car

Suddenly, the car starts floating into the air, concerning acey

And in the matter of a second, the car starts flying towards a yellow spec in the distance

Even though it seemed scary for a short second, flying through the air started to feel…fun

And for a short second, their eyes glitched again, and changed blue, but unlike last time,

They stayed blue

Chapter Text

While sitting around was easy, it was hard when you have more than one child on board

Looking past the seating problem (which was solved by squeezing honey and bean together in the same sidecar), bean and honey really were idiots

For the past day, they have been trying to figure out how the children's game ‘rock paper scissors’ worked, emphasis on trying

Bark was at least silent, but he was the least violent for also being the burliest ironically

It would be times like this, where the somewhat mechanic wishes there was someone who could relate to his struggles

Not to call bean and bark idiots (which one of them is), but you know, it's hard to work in a hardly functioning team

While the others two still were helpful and felt nice to have around, it could have been better if bean was maybe a little older, and if bark would use a bit more violence on the enemy

Maybe, just maybe, someone could appear from nowhere and be the balance he needs

But soon, honey pointed out the flying car in the distance, which was amy’s

So at least things can be a little more under control

___________________________________________

Even though wave is smart, and can easily ride a hoverboard, dealing with her self proclaimed boss and her other teammate was a whole other problem always unfolding

Even if the babylon rouges were sly enough to walk around the street without anyone batting an eye, and even compete in mainstream tournaments, jet was cocky, and storm was stupid

Every single day of the week, jet would argue about racing for something, prompting wave to stop him from doing something stupid 

storm was at least nicer, he's just always just overtrusted jet’s skills and ideas

Sometimes, when her and jet get into a heated argument, the skilled mechanic wishes someone could relate to her

Not to call her teammates unbearable (even if jet is one dumb move away from that), but her life could definitely be better if her team was a bit more functional

While they were her only actual friends, she wished that jet wasn’t so focused on hoverboards, and storm would learn to think for himself

Though unlikely, it was a possibility that she could find who she had been searching for after years of clues to find them

Fortunately, she saw some speck of yellow, floating in the distance above the nearby city

Maybe it was the one she idolized when she was young

________________________________________

While bean was amazed at seeing that robot again, fang was just confused

Fang: So you're saying, you found this robot in your car trunk, and have basically adopted him?

The robot, whose name was “acey”, tilted its head for something that fang couldn't be fricked to figure out

Amy: Yep! And I was thinking, how about we split up to cover more ground? We are dealing with a big problem, and it i feel like i could take on one or two of these heavies, so how-

Before the pink hedgehog can finish, the already agreeing weasel plops honey into Amy's car

Fang: yep, take fashion kid and bye

And in the click of a button, fang, bean, bark, and the marvelous queen teleport away

Now that they were farther away, bean has a question

Bean: fang. Fang. fang. Fang. fang. Fang. f-

Keeping calm (and remembering why bean always gets his questions answered), the purple weasel responds

Fang: yes bean?

Bean: Who's that right ahead of us?

Low and behold, there is a trio of birds on some type of flying skateboards, flying directly in their direction.

Bark also takes a look, and from his perspective, it seems to be specifically an albatross, swallow, and hawk.

And that's when he realized, it was those three bird types, they were on extreme gear, and the green hawk was in the center, talking about something.

Of course, bark was the only one really caught up in modern times, so he was the only one to actually know about the babylon rouges and their unknown second ‘job’ of thieving

Over with the babylon rouges, jet was confused as heck

Jet: Who are they? And why are they ripping off MY thing!?

Storm: i dunno boss, they also seem confused though, except that bear

While the other two were trying to figure out who the three were, wave knew pinpoint exactly who the one in the middle was

The legendary Fang the hunter

As if to cut off the swallow’s thoughts, jet does his average move, which is yelling

Jet: HEY YOU COPYCATS! MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!

Storm: yeah! What the boss said!

Fang, hearing every word of that, does not take the words that came out of the hawk’s mouth kindly

Fang: who are you calling a copycat!? My marvelous queen is more original than some flying skateboards from back to the future!

Bean: Hey! The middle one looks like me! Cool! you must be a big me!

Jet: I AM IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM YOU! I AM MUST FASTER AND COOLER THAN YOU!

Bean: Hmmmm, the similarities are too close, so you have to be big me!

Jet: I’M NOT!!

Now that the two green birds are (somewhat) arguing, wave takes this time to fly over to the similar colored weasel

Wave: hello, by any chance, are you fang the hunter? Like, THE fang the hunter?

Like any sane person, fang is quite confused, if he remembered correctly, no one really knew him anymore since it had been years

Fang: uhhhhh, yeah? I mean, i’ve in hiding, so im surprised someone knows me at-

The grand hunter’s sentence was cut off by an excited squeal from the purple swallow

Wave: I'm a HUGE fan of you! I actually was inspired by the marvelous queen to make the extreme gear! I’ve been trying to meet you for so long! Where have you been?

Fang: as i just said, i went into hiding because of sanity issues

As wave asks fang more questions about his life and feats, bark and storm stand (or sit in barks case) beside each other

Storm:...you want a sandwich?

Bark silently nods, prompting the similar sized albatross to pull out a sandwich, and hand it to the polar bear

The silent mammal gives a silent nod, and hands over a bag of unopened crackers to the large bird

Storm: oh, these are my favorites! Thanks…um, what's your name?

Bark gives a quiet look, until finally speaking up

Bark:...its bark

Storm: Well, thanks bark!

The gray albatross flew away a solid bit, giving bark some space

It wasn’t everyday the bulky polar bear got to meet someone who understood personal space and manners, which made it all the more satisfying

Of course, the peace was drowned out by the constant bickering of his best friend and the wind ‘master’, he still wasn’t sure who dubbed him that

Bean: But we’re both green birds! You must be big me!

Jet: FOR THE 29TH TIME, JUST BECAUSE WE’RE BOTH GREEN BIRDS, DOESN’T MEAN WE’RE THE SAME!

Before the conversation can go any further, fang and wave both stand in front of their respective green bird teammate

Fang: Okay, lets just settle down, and get back to our mission bomb mook

Bean: Okay!

While fang is lucky bean will follow orders as long as they aren’t forced, wave doesn’t get the same amount of luck for jet

Jet: no way! I'M GOING TO PUNT THAT DUCK TO THE MOON IF I HAVE TO!

Wave: jet, you are not going to kick a 10 year old

Jet: YES I WILL AND YOU WON’T STOP ME!

You know…

Maybe there is ONE person who has the same struggles as fang

Just then, the attentive sharpshooter notices a missile flying at the pair of birds, and quickly flies in front with his shield activated

The shield completely negates the impact, giving fang the permission to smirk at the cocky bird

Fang: surprised that you didn’t even notice the missile, at least gears right there was hardly able to hear from you screaming.

Wave: he gave me a nickname…

Fang: tch, whatever, its not like thats gonna mean any-

Just then, many orange android shadows, warp in, followed by a certain rocket launcher holding egg robo flying down

Heavy gunner: hand over the bike, and I will use force!

There is a pause of confusion

Wave: don’t you mean ‘OR i will’-?

Heavy gunner: I KNOW WHAT I SAID!

Fang: man, two people with anger issues

{BOSS:}

[RANGED RAGER: HEAVY GUNNER]

Chapter Text

The battle starts of with a back and forth of gunner and fang shooting and dodging shots from each other’s ranged weapon of choice, bean, bark, and wave, taking care of some android shadows, and jet and storm sitting around doing nothing

Jet: Who is THIS bozo? Some kind of annoying policeman?

Heavy gunner: I HEARD THAT!

Fang, though fighting, is quick to answer the much more oblivious (and uncaring) green bird within 20 feet of him

Fang: mad microwave here is a guy we’ve fought once before, and i don’t think he likes bean much

Heavy gunner: I'M NOT A MICROWAVE! I'M THE BEST UNDER HEAVY KING! AND YOU AND YOUR TWO UGLY GREEN BUDDIES ARE GOING DOWN!

The observant gun wielder keeps a note of the second sentence in his head, might come in handy if he hears it from another

But of course, jet focused on on the last sentence

Jet: WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME!? THATS IT!

The green hawk rushes at heavy gunner faster than it takes to trick him because of his ego, and hits his insulter with a pair of Bashōsen (had to look that up, and i will use feather fans from now on)

Storm: wait for me boss!

The trusting albatross follows jet to fight heavy gunner, but both are quickly diverted away, as they brought melee weapons to a high tech gun fight, and nearly blown up by missiles

Over with the other three, things were not going so great

It was abundantly clear for bark that hundreds of thousands of shadow androids were much harder than a single strong one, especially when they are attempting to destroy his hovercar

Luckily for him, his good bomb crazy friends had his back

Bean: no hurting my buddy! And no making me forget when the last time I ate a sandwich was either!

While bean was throwing bombs, rocks, and hot dogs at the android army, one attempts to sneak up behind him, only to be hit by an abnormally sized wrench from wave

This wasn’t really an act of kindness, more so on the line of that they were a problem

Even then, bean wasn’t really looking, so its fine

As the punching, wrench smacks, and explosions went on, it seemed that the androids were slowly losing attention of the three, and diverting path into the cloud right above them

Wave: what are they doing? Something seems off…

Bean: huh? I thought they were going to get lunch

The confused swallow looks over to bark, who only shrugs, as bean keeps eating a sandwich

Over with fang, jet, and storm, the trio (mostly fang) are wiping the floor with heavy gunner

Jet: wow, you suck! I can’t believe you had the audacity to insult me when you’re this bad at fighting!

In a fit of rage, heavy gunner shoots off one last missile, and flies into the cloud that the androids had been

Storm: yay boss! We did it!

Jet: take that idiot! Who's the better one now!? Me! That's who!

While the other two celebrate, fang is a little more suspicious of this strategy

Wave also is having the same thought from this, but is a bit more suspicious about how they all went to the exact same cloud

both wave and fang: somethings just not right….

Quickly, fang presses a button on the marvelous queen to scan the cloud

Almost instantly, the scan says “WEAPONED MACHINE DETECTED, DANGER” in bold words

Before the warned weasel can say anything, a giant airship goes through the cloud, and for team hooligan, its very recognizable

The heavy wing, once again able to fly

After the rebuild aircraft descends for all to see, an all too familiar laugh rings out from its speakers

Eggman: Well, well, well, if it isn’t the idiot who thought he could use MY technology without MY permission and reuse MY plan, nack the weasel!

Fang: I've said this 3 times now brush face, IT'S FANG THE HUNTER!

Eggman: Anyways, I see you have also found out about my plans! Thats why i’ve sent heavy gunner after you

This confuses the sharpshooter very much

Fang: wasn’t it the entire thing they betrayed you?

Instead of starting a sentence like a normal person, all the doctor does another painfully loud laugh

Eggman: You see, I've added a software that I have in metal as well! It removes any form of rebelling, and makes them loyal to me! But as i was saying…heavy gunner, DESTROY THEM ALL!

Right on queue, a large hi-tech helicopter flies down from the heavy wing, and heavy gunner leaning out the side, along with an egg robo driving the vehicle

Heavy gunner: time for you to be blown up AGAIN!

Again, utter confusion

Wave: you never said that before, and we weren’t blown up

Heavy gunner: STOP CORRECTING ME!

With the click of a button, two missiles come out of the bottom, and shoot at fang

Thinking on his feet, fang quickly maneuvers his bike out of the way just in time, then gets an idea

Fang: hey mad microwave! I bet you can’t get me!

With a perfect plan on mind, fang rides down to the city rooftops, and begins flooring it

Heavy gunner: that idiot thinks he can beat me!? GET US DOWN THERE!

The egg robo in the driver seat starts descending to chase the purple strategist, followed by a few other egg robos, which is exactly what fang wanted

With the precision of a robot, fang shoots at a cluster of egg robos with an EMP blast, and knocks them out of the sky

Fang: keep it coming mecha brush faces!

_________________________

Over with everyone else, bean remembers something

Bean: Wait, didn’t we get something from someone from somewhere because of something? Like a red gun in the shape of a fire?

Oh no…

It takes bark a second to realize fang has a wispon from the bank

And there's probably still a wisp in there

That's a problem

__________________________

Back with fang, egg robos are falling left and right because of his transforming and upgraded weapon

Heavy gunner: can you just STOP DRIVING AND MOVING!?

Fang: let me think about it, hmmmmmm, nuh uh.

Heavy gunner: THAN BLOW UP!

The angry robot shoots 20 missiles out of rage, but fang just dodges all of them with the marvelous queen

fang: you wanna know why?

More missiles start to blast out of the bottom, but the calm sharpshooter just takes out the ice katana from a compartment, and freezes each missile, as the marvelous queen starts driving in autopilot, even though fang never installed that, but he doesn’t take notice

Fang: I don't live by the rules, and I've learned that also means your team doesn’t need rules either.

Another set of missiles from both heavy gunner and the helicopter shoot at fang once again, but are shot by another EMP blast, destroying them all

Fang: And you know what that makes me and anyone in my team? Free, able to do whatever they want

Heavy king: STOP WITH THE DUMB EMOTIONAL GAB!

The anger issued robot shoots every remaining missile from him and the helicopter, too much to destroy in time

But that won’t stop fang from trying, he clicks the trigger as fast as he can, and aims in all the best spots

Half of the missiles still remain, and they are nearly touching the precious bike fang stands on, and the buttons are too far to sit down and reach in time

Even though all hope seems lost…something happens

BURST!

In the blink of an eye the marvelous queen’s shield turns on, but is a fiery ball instead of pure energy, then the strangely self moving vehicle blasts upwards, and turns in the direction of the helicopter

Heavy gunner:...welp, your screwed driver

The metallic rocket wielder flies away, leaving the pilot egg robo alone in the helicopter

Fang hops back on the driver's seat, and gives a devious smirk, as the marvelous rams the fire shield right into the helicopter, slamming it into the roof of the building

{VICTORY!}

________________________________

As fang flies back up, everyone is in awe of what just happened

Fang: Okay, I'm just as confused as you are, what happened for the bike to gain sentience?

Bean: hmmmmmmmm, dunno, maybe you acting like it was your child was the reason?

Fang: if that was the case, this would have happened years ago

Bark is about to tap fang on the shoulders, when a red wisp pops out of the vehicle, causing fang to flinch

Fang: what…is that? A fire ghost

Jet: no you idiot, that's a wisp, but how did you get one? None of them ever come to me! Some idiots they are

The red wisp flies over, slaps jet with its small arms, and flies back to fang

Fang: I see, you heard my speech, and like my style enough to want to come with me, eh?

The red wisp nods with a fiery glint in its three eyes

Fang: Well then, I guess you're coming with us! And i going by your fiery personality, i’ll let you pick a name

Once again, the red wisp flies into the marvelous queen, and makes a name appear on the screen

“Hotshot”

Fang: heh, i like it, then your name is hotshot!

Bean: fang? Fangly wangly? Wangly yangly mchangly?

Fang: yeah bomb mook?

bean: who is that?

In front of them, some angry egg shaped man watches them from the eggmobile, hundred more android shadows and egg robos behind him

Eggman: grrrrrrr, YOU PESTS!

Fang: welp, time to go everyone!

And in a burst of wind, team hooligan and the babylon rouges are gone

Chapter Text

To be totally honest, mighty was pretty excited to go to space, ray as well

And to make matters even better, it was with his old crew! (except heavy and bomb sadly, maybe they were somewhere else)

Strangely enough, this ‘team dark’ group were a bit hard to get to come along, mainly the one that looks like the android shadows, so could be assumed to be just ‘shadow’

Though mighty knows the chaotix personally, ray never met a single one of them before

The youngest member named ‘charmy’ is a energetic bee who might have some kind of ADHD or something

The middle sized member named ‘espio’ was some ninja chameleon

And the leader of the trio named ‘vector’ was an alligator who was kinda loud

Currently, the trio stand in from of a large pyramid, eggman’s face etched onto the front

Mighty: so, a way to the ARK is in that pyramid?

Rouge: correct shelly, this place has a teleporter straight to the space colony ARK, and shadow did hide the prism after some fiasco that he seemingly had somewhere.

Shadow: i hid it on the ARK, thinking no one would think to check, but it seems i was wrong

Omega: IT WILL BE A PLEASURE TO DESTROY SUCH AN OLD EGGMAN ROBOT

Ignoring the large robot’s odd answer, the team of 8 enters the pyramid with a simple goal, as long as they stay together

The inside of the pyramid is pretty calm, just a hallway with torches the light up the place, normal pyramid stuff

Rouge: the last time i was here, there were a group of people were living in here when i scared those skunks, scruff and bumble out of the place, so we should probably go there

Mighty has definitely seen that pair of skunks before, but he's pretty sure their names are rough and tumble

After a bit of walking, the youngest member of the group lets out a bored sigh

Charmy: this is so BORING! Where's all of the fun?

Rouge: the people here know im trustworthy, so they probably deactivated all of the traps so we could come through

Charmy: But that's BORING! Why do you have to know them? We need some action!

As if to give the kid what he wants, and faint, disembodied laugh comes from behind them

Ray quickly hides behind his big bro, while the other kid in the room’s eyes sparkle with determination

Another few laughs are heard, prompting everyone BUT the two kids to get ready for a fight

Suddenly, some type of ghost that is unknown to nearly everyone here appears

Rouge: phew, just a boom boo. I wonder what it's doing here though…

Just then, another appears, and another, and another, and more keep coming until the way back is entirely blocked by them

Shadow: it doesn’t matter how many are here, they’re not much of a threat

Seemingly to prove shadow wrong, a gigantic one pushes its way through, letting out an angry roar, as the others whisper “the amulet” many times

Charmy: knuckles talked about that one! I think it's called the king boom boo? I think he also said something about can only be hurt when there is direct sunlight?

Vector: what charmy is trying to say is…we can’t hurt it, SO RUN!

Quickly, everyone runs as fast as they can to escape the king of ghosts

Multiple pieces of debris makes everyone spread out, along with making it hard to see where everyone else is going

The first group to get through are everyone from team dark and the chaotix except shadow and charmy, who go straight.

A pair of boom boos change the angle to upwards, making the next group of shadow and mighty go upwards

Finally, the boom boos change the path down, making the last group of charmy and ray go downwards

Once the bee and flying squirrel come to a stop, both notice something

Charmy: Wait, where is everyone?

Ray: Where's mighty!?

Though charmy is only half the age of his current teammate, he is ironically the braver of the pair

Charmy: aw yeah! Time to get lost in a pyramid, and try to find everyone else! This is the adventure I like!

Unlike a certain bee beside him, ray was losing his mind

Ray: I've never been without mighty! He's been there for me since I was 3! He's everything to me! I CANT DO ANYTHING WITHOUT HIM!

Suddenly, a roar booms in their direction, as they see the king boom boo peak it’s head out from the wall

Charmy: welp! No time like the present to have an intense chase!

With quick timing, charmy picks up his terrified friend, and quickly flies in the opposite direction of the large ghost

{pyramid depths}

[run from king boom boo!]

___________________________

The pair of red and black powerhouses skid to a stop, and take a look around

Mighty: wait, where's Ray and everyone else?

Shadow: these ghosts are tricky, there's no doubt they separated us

If the powerful armadillo knew anything about his little bro, it was that he really depended on him, meaning he would have to find ray before the boom boos do

Shadow: I can tell you care for your friend dearly, and I can also tell he is like the fox once was, he is dependent on you.

The words cause mighty to look over, and tilt his head in confusion

Shadow: what im saying is, your friend will be okay, and you don’t need to worry

Mighty: heh, thanks for the reminder shads!

Just then, something lands behind them with a metallic thud

Both mammals look over to see a very angry pink android shadow

Mighty: looks like you're up for a round two eh? Well we’ll give you that!

Shadow: so your the one sent to eliminate me, you’ll be nothing but a smoldering pile of dust when im done

The only thing the android responds with is a change in color to black, and mechanical wings, all too familiar looking to shadow, sprout out its back

{BOSS:}

[NEO MODE PROTOTYPE: DOOM ANDROID PINK]

___________________________________

Vector, espio, rouge, and omega took notice not everyone was here a while ago, but they decided to keep running, since espio sensed each path leads to the same place

Nothing really seemed off, other than a few boom boos taking more than a single hit and being black instead of white, but nothing much else

Vector: i hope charmy is okay, im worried for the kid

Espio: knowing him, he's probably already there, and is bored again

Rouge gives a light chuckle to the two reptiles talk about the youngest member of their found family, she couldn’t say that same when she was young

Omega: REPTILIAN DETECTIVES, YOUR BEE FRIEND IS QUITE ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT MY DESTRUCTION OF EGGMAN CREATIONS, SO I ASSURE YOU HE IS FINE. AND IF ANY GHOSTS DARE LAY FINGERS ON HIM, I WILL PERSONALLY BLOW THEM TO SMITHERINES

Rouge: always about the destruction, aren’t you omega?

Just then, a bat person, much smaller than rouge, runs through, panicked

Rouge: hm? What's going on?

Bat: the egg golem! It's been hijacked!

Rouge: That can’t be good, come on boys, lets get over there!

Quickly, the group enters the next room, to see an egg golem, destroying everything in sight

Omega: I SHALL DESTROY THE LARGE EGGMAN ROBOT

Rouge: Okay then, you three can fight it, and i’ll try to make sure nothing else gets in, capishe?

Vector: got it!

Espio: right.

{BOSS:}
[HAYWIRED STATUE: EGG GOLEM]

______________________________________

Back with charmy and ray, they have escaped the king boom boo in some old room with one circle platform with a pillar in it

Charmy: Now that's what I call ADVENTURE!

Ray: why aren't you the least bit scared!? We’re all alone in a creepy pyramid and no one is around to save us!

Charmy: huh? Oh, that's because I've been taught to be brave! It may be scary, but as long as you have courage, you can do anything! Unless its vector paying the bills on time

The young bee’s words stick in rays head for a bit, until he finally gets the courage to stand up

Ray: y-yeah, you're right! We can do this!

Just then, another loud roar is heard, as the king boom boo slowly rises from the ground

Charmy: ready as rain ray?

The flying squirrel shakes for a few seconds, before getting it together

Ray: y-yeah, ready!

Charmy: That's what I like to hear!

{BOSS:}

[KING OF GHOSTS: KING BOOM BOO]

Chapter Text

Unlike previous battles with androids, this battle was a total nightmare

The doom powered android was much faster and smarter than the previous, non doom powered androids

Right when shadow is about to land a powerful kick, it jumps above, and uses a doom blast to slam it’s organic counterpart to the wall

Though mighty has a score to settle against the robot he had punched so hard before, it had no interest in the armadillo, only doing what its objective wanted it to

After yet another missed punch from the shelled hero, the winged shadow copy slams shadow into a wall, holding him by the neck

Shadow: you need to go, he isn’t focused on you

The android pushes the organic hedgehog further into the wall

Mighty: no way! I'm helping you until the very end, no matter how much I'm hurt doing so!

With no time to waste, the strong hero quickly charges up a spindash, and rams into the android with full force, causing it to drop the black hedgehog

Shadow: hmph, thanks

Mighty: no time for pleasantries, we’ve got a robot to bust!

The red and black heroes quickly jump back to their feet, ready to fight this faker

________________________________

The pair of children are forced to run in circles around the platform as the titanic king boom boo chases them

Due to the darkness in the room, the younger of the pair constantly crashes face first into ray’s back

Charmy: no fair! Where's a bit of light to see when you need one!?

Just then, a boom boo appears on the platform, holding some kind of large hourglass

Ray: lets hope this works…please don’t be mad charmy

Charmy: mad? Mad at w-

Suddenly, the flying squirrel picks up the young bee, and throws him stinger first straight at the boom boo, making it disappear and drop the hourglass

Charmy, just being chucked at a ghost, pauses for a second, but quickly gets back up in an instant

Charmy: that didn’t make me mad, that was fun!

Ray: wow, you have an odd sense of fun

Sparing no time, both pick up the hourglass, and keep running from the king boom boo

Charmy, holding onto the top, sees a picture of a moon on the top face of the hourglass, while ray finds a picture of a sun on the bottom face

Ray: Wait, I think I've got it! We need to flip it over!

Charmy: whatever you say, ray!

With all of the small bee’s might, he pushes the hourglass back onto the ground, now the side with the sun facing up

Just then, a panel on the ceiling opens up, letting in an immense burst of sunlight

The king boom boo, now scared of the light, hides into the ground as a shadow

Unlucky for the hiding king, charmy the fearless jabs his stinger right into the shadow on the ground, dealing good damage to the ghost

Ray: that dealt some good damage, i think it should only take two more of those to beat him!

Right as charmy flies back up, a boom boo flips back over the hourglass, making the entire place shrouded in darkness once more

Now enraged, the ghoulish king emerges from the shadow with another agitated roar

But this time, ray isn’t backing down, and charmy is ready to find that hourglass

____________________________

While the battle with the doom android wasn’t as hard when there were two people fighting it, it was much harder when it’s hyperfocused on one person

Shadow (AKA, the target) narrowly dodges his superpowered counterpart’s doom spears, and retaliates with a barrage of chaos spears

Shadow: you think you can beat two just because you're stronger? Hmph, then your more short sighted than the blue hedgehog

From hearing it’s organic version’s comment on it’s own strength, the doom android quickly makes a dash to the enemy, only to be kicked by a blue blur, sending it straight into a pillar, and being crushed by the crumbling pillar

Said blur lands down, spinning a deactivated blue android head in his hand

Sonic: First of all, ouch, you called me short sighted when I was right by the door. Second, where's everybody else?

Mighty: answer to your question, we got split up by a gang of boom boos. My question, isn't your group searching for androids?

Sonic: answer to YOUR question: we beat the blue one, trip and sticks decided to find amy, fang and group are heading to the yellow bot, and you just happened to be fighting the last android.

Shadow: your wasting our time, both of you

Suddenly, a pair of burning red eyes glows from the rubble, before bursting out, now flying with artificial doom wings, and begins charging some kind of attack

Sonic: Well, I guess it's time to take down this robot, waddya say about a triple trouble spindash mights?

Mighty: thought you never ask, come on shady boy!

Shadow:...just what are you pla-

With a swift movement, mighty pulls shadow by them as if the emo hedgehog was a cat, and readies a spindash

Mighty: just spindash while I hold on to ya!

Not having times for questions, shadow quickly charges a spindash, followed by sonic, then mighty grabbing both, and charming a sideways spindash

Sonic: triple!

Mighty: trouble!

In a quick second, the three release, and roll up on the wall

Once at the top of the wall, mighty stops, both hedgehogs spindash in his hands, and throws both blurs at the endangered android, directly hitting him both wings directly

The doom android falls to the ground, as now both mechanical wings are destroyed, but it is quick to get up, still ready to fight

The trio quickly land, ready to battle as well

Sonic: looks like this bot still has some fight left in it! Lets give him what he-

As if to crush sonic’s hopes of bashing other bot, the wall breaks open, as an egg golem falls directly on the android, crushing it

Just then, a familiar voice rings out

Rouge: Hey boys! I see sonic is coming along as well now?

Omega: THIS ROBOT WAS NO MATCH FOR ME

{CLEARED!}

[RANK-A]

Mighty: guys! Is it Ray with you?

There is only a shake of heads from everyone in the room

Mighty: Well, hopefully he gets here safely…

_______________________________

The pair of kids has hit the king boom boo one more time, only making it angrier, and prompting it to use fire attacks on the poor children

Luckily, they were closing in on the hourglass once again

Ray: almost…got it…

Right before the flying squirrel can grab the hourglass, the agitated ghost slams its hand straight into the controller to its weakness, sending it into the dark pit below, followed by the sound of glass shattering

Ray: nnononononononononono! We needed that!

Just as all hope seems lost, charmy comes up with an idea

Charmy: Okay, so I'm going to need you to trust me, Ray. I need you to throw as far as you can to that panel, where I'll use a bomb I stole from rouge to blow it up!

Ray: Wait, how did you steal from the thief? Nevermind, okay!

Quickly, ray grabs charmy, glides up to spin in the air for a second, then release to shoot charmy upwards

Charmy is sent flying towards the panel, and uses his wings to steer until he inevitably needs to fly entirely

Once the young bee reaches the ceiling panel, he pulls out one of rouge’s bombs (its obvious by the heart symbol), and places it on the panel

Charmy: bomb, dont fail me now! I made friends with a bomb obsessed duck the other day for this!

Just as Charmy lands back down to keep running with ray, the bomb detonates, leaving only a giant hole. the room is now not only even brighter, but is also able to weaken the king of boom boos enough to make it unable to even leave its position

The older kid of the pair quickly runs up to the beast, and jumps up into the air, readying a kick

Ray: take this you piece of ectoplasm!

With a heavy kick to the face, the king of ghosts lets out one final roar before making a harmless explosion, leaving only a amulet, which charmy steps on and breaks

Charmy: you did it ray!

Ray: Yeah…i did it! I really did it!

???: well, i guess you two didn’t need my help for this

The pair of kids turn over, and see tails, in a new and improved cyclone

tails: knuckles told us about that thing you just beat, but he said there should be a way to the teleporter room is just up ahead, so come on you two

Charmy: Okay!

Ray: you got it tails!

_________________________

Vector: YOU TWO BEAT THAT MONSTER!?

Charmy: yep! Me and Ray!

Rouge: I'm impressed, not only that, you managed to steal one of my bombs without me noticing!

Espio: I believe you two are more than capable to become as great as sonic and the others when your older

While charmy was being praised by even omega, and mighty and ray have a reunion after a solid hour, shadow begins activating the teleporter to the ARK

Shadow: come on everyone, we’re going

And now, it's up to the space colony ARK, where heavy shinobi waits!

Chapter Text

Space colony ARK: pedestal room

The room where the master emerald had been quiet since the space colony incident 

The bio lizard had been freed from its pain after the powerful chaos control…seemingly

All that was in the room was a strange, colorful prism, lying atop the pedestal

It had 2 large cracks, seemingly from 2 different chaos controls to get it here and for the user to leave, which can be implied by the chaos energy radiating from it

All is quiet…until a metallic foot, similar to a certain blue hedgehog’s shoe, is set in the entrance

Metal sonic

The metallic copy eyes the paradox prism on the fake master emerald shrine, he was sent with shinobi to retrieve it, but his half of searching was to do alone

Since there was no one around, metal could take his precious time, and walk up to the area where the master emerald would have been placed

Step by step, the chrome blur could feel the power radiating from it…all for the doctor, him, and the doctor’s daughter (he had yet or care to learn her name)

At the top, he could see the odd prism clearly, and it was in his grasp as well…

All he needs to do now is-

Suddenly, he hears a familiar, confident step

Sonic: heh, looks like both of us thought of the same place when we were told it was ‘somewhere special’. you really do know me metalhead

It was his infuriating loathsome copy…

Sonic: so, still no voice chip yet, just means my head start in the game of roasts is farther!

Both get ready to battle their lookalike, one calm and ready for a race, the other wanting nothing more than that blue menace gone

But something happens with the prism behind the robot faker, as if it is reacting to the immense chaos energy signatures emitting from both of them

The interdimensional gem suddenly emits a blinding light, blocking sight for both blue blurs

but instead of what had happened last time (for sonic), nothing happened, until a single portal appears

Sonic: Well then, ready for a race through another part of time and space we’ll never forget metalhead?

If he could speak, metal would have instantly said ‘with pleasure, my loathsome copy…’

And both, without regrets, run directly into the portal

{RIVAL BATTLE: METAL SONIC}

[OBJECTIVE: GET BACK TO THE PRISM FIRST!]

As both hedgehogs  jump out of the portal they had just went through, they quickly find themselves on an island

The first thing the organic hedgehog notices how he has his no place mode gloves and shoes

Sonic: first up is a bit of an advantage for you chrome dome, no place!

The references ‘chrome dome’ leaves no response, bursting off in a blur of motion, sonic taking off with him

Both take notices of a green portal not far ahead, so that's the next stop

As if to give the race a little spice, a few types robots that the nostalgic hedgehog remembers begin attacking the blue blur

Sonic: never liked these droids. I guess they see you as one of those metalhead, maybe because you’ve been a bit of a badnik nowadays?

This comment infuriates the metal blur, prompting him to ram into the blur, hoping to make him sink into the deep ocean below

unlucky for metal, the new kicks his loathsome copy has keeps him above water, and allow him to keep running

And to add water to the exposed wiring, a few plasma blasts take down the robots that were slowing the rat down

In the direction of the blasts, a high tech ship, with what seems to be the rodent’s crew wearing pirate clothes standing on top

The blue blur instantly recognizes the group, unlike his robot faker

Sonic: sails! Batten! Catfish! Dread! Captain Black rose! Rusty rose!

sails: ahoy! it be sonic the hedgehog! We thought ye be back home!

Sonic: long story short, I ran into the paradox prism again, it opened a portal, and now me and MY egghead’s robot faker of me are racing back, can you hold him off for a bit?

Black rose: aye, everyone, man the cannons!

The pirate version of the rodent’s group all start shooting at the iron hedgehog, but none make contact because of metal’s super speed

The chrome blur’s pursuit does not falter at all, until something…or someONE catches his optics

A half robotic version of the pink hedgehog…clearly strong and determined

No…

He doesn’t care…

He can't FEEL that emotion…

So even with a quick pause, metal gets back to the race

As both blurs enter the portal, everyone gets off the plasma blasters

Rusty: odd, that robot sonic stopped to look at me for a second

Batten: aye…but it seems he reminded himself of somethin’...

Back with the dual blue blurs, sonic and metal land on a canopy atop a large, lush, jungle

Sonic: aw yeah, boscage maze! And it looks like my kicks are the boscage version as well. Ready to once again eat my dust metalhead?

With a glow of his optics, metal once again bursts off first, with sonic going down to the ground to keep pursuit

The metallic hedgehog notices a red glow in the trees, a sign of the next portal

But right under the iron faker, sonic also took notice of the glow, and went straight for it

Right before both hedgehogs could get to the glowing portal, their progress is stopped when a bunch of robots are flung right past them, followed by the sound of yelling

Sonic: hey, looks like you get a head start on the next area! Lucky you!

Finally, victory was in his favor…

As his loathsome copy runs off to help…whatever altered versions of his friends are in this stupidly overgrown jungle, metal flies into the portal

On the other side is something the metallic hedgehog knew he creator only could dream of, a dark city, clearly ruled by the mustachioed doctor

From data he has collected, the portals emit a strong signal of a mixture between chaos energy and the energy emitting from the prism, so that's what to follow

Quickly scanning the surrounding city, the robotic copy quickly finds the signal to the next portal, and blasts off in its direction

Said direction is right on the top of a giant egg shaped building in the city, where a large, glowing, purple portal resides

Even though metal’s priority for himself would be to get back to the prism first, his directives would say otherwise, as the killing machine sees a group of people fighting of these ‘droids’ which seem to be eggman tech

Of course, one of his directives were ‘crush any resistance to the eggman empire’, so it's in his circuits to take care of this

___________________________

Back at the portal, sonic quickly jumps out of it, and takes a look around for a second with instant recognition

Sonic: New yolk, ay? Well, let's see if all 5 eggheads recognize me!

And in a blur of blue, the hedgehog is dashing straight forward

It doesn’t even take a second for the fastest thing alive to notice the portal on top of the center building where the chaos council resides (and that's missing the top because of reasons), and metal sonic attacking a few of the new yolk resistance members (its now ironic because there was a resistance in his world now too)

Knowing what he must do, the blue blur quickly kicks his faker to the ground with a bang against the concrete

Sonic: don't forget about the race metalhead! Unless you want me to win

As much as he hates the blue rat, this help metal’s more prioritized directive of ‘defeat sonic the hedgehog’ kick in, and quickly get back on track

Soon, both reach the portal at the near exact time, and take a jump for it

Seeing time for an advantage, the mechanical hedgehog rams into the blue blur midair as they both hit the portal at the exact time

Both launch into the ground as the exit the portal (metal leaving a giant cloud of smoke), with sonic being first to stand up

Sonic: looks like our last stop is the grimm and–wait a minute, i had my prism shoes on before, where are they?

Just as sonic says, his shoes and gloves are back to normal, but his question will be quickly answered by the sparks of prism energy emitting from the dust cloud around the robotic copy

As the dust clears, metal sonic looks way different, as now the regulators his loathsome copy once wore are on the chrome speedster, along with his look now changed

The metal hedgehog now had multiple streaks of white in a similar fashion to mach 3.0’s yellow ones, along with the once yellow chest now being shifting grey and red with prism energy flowing through.

Those aren't the only differences though, as his eyes were now an electric blue, and his remaining color scheme matched more of sonic’s own paradox prism form

Even with all of this power against the blue blur, all sonic can do is give a confident smirk, only irritating his copy more

Sonic: Well then metalhead, this is it, me and you in the final stretch, where im winning this no doubt!

For metal, this is an exact replay of what his loathsome copy said on their first race on stardust speedway

Sonic: not even gonna reply with a stolen fingerwag for nostalgia? Shame on you for that one

All this talking…its time for metal to go

The two once again blast off in blurs of blue, racing around the huge castle to try and find the last portal, until they see a rainbowy portal much farther off in the distance than the last three

Sonic: Well, even though you may know everything I’M going to do, that's not going to help you because I know everything YOU'RE going to do! Strange, isn't it?

This only aggravates metal more, as now he's at the peak of wanting to beat this STUPID. LOATHSOME. COPY.

It was time to go into overclock mode and win after so long, even if it meant permanent damage…

So, in a glow of red, metal blasts ahead of sonic, and quickly entering the portal

He lands right back where he stood in the altar room, but was drained of nearly all energy, meaning he had to get that gem

Taking weak steps, the low powered robot slowly steps towards the paradox prism, and beat his loathsome copy once and for all…

Just as metal is about to touch it, sonic comes boosting through the portal, then kicks the faker to a wall, before ending by leaning back on the gem of interdimensional power

Sonic: And that's another win for the blue blur! Maybe next time metalhead

In his last seconds before he powers off and returned to an egg base, all metal can see in the shallow pool of orange water is his loathsome copy, standing atop to alter with a smirk

Why…why did he always lose?

Then, blackness

________________________

That was sonic

He was just racing against a robot of himself

Directly to that portal

This was his chance

He could finally see sonic again

It was time to leave the grimm, and see sonic again

After all, nine has been alone for so long, and he didn't care how long it takes to get to that portal

Chapter Text

Everyone had split into teams to cover more ground

Sonic ran off to the cannon’s core before teams were decided

Ray with his newfound courage, vector, and omega went to the docking bay to search for any ships

Shadow, rouge, and tails had decided to chase after sonic

And that leaves espio and mighty to make sure charmy doesn't run off from central control room, because this is space, a not safe place to let a flying 6 year old zip around in

Charmy: why cant i go!? I just beat king boom boo, a giant ghost monster!

Espio: because charmy, though you're stronger than quite a few adults, your still a kid, and this place is dangerous for someone your age

That's stupid…he's always found it stupid that the espio can do anything, including leaving the house by himself, but charmy needs permission to go to the bathroom still!

Charmy: But that's unfair! I wanna go have an awesome space adventure!

Espio: sometimes…life just isnt fair charmy

As the two current chaotix members in the room bicker, mighty is totally stumped on what to do about his situation

Mighty: hmmm…maybe a sparring session? No, my strength is way too much now…race? No, I'm too fast…i wanna have something to do while i catch up with tangle, but i cant figure out what…

Turning over to espio, mighty searches for advice, but finds he's already mid conversation with charmy

Mighty: some things never change i suppose…charmy is as adventurous as ever, while espio is as strict as an old teacher

The conversation between the two members of the chaotix goes on for a total of 5 minutes before charmy finally turns his back with an angry ‘hmph!’, and espio sighing in response

Just as things are about to calm down, espio notices something the others can't…

Footsteps…slowly making their way to this room

With reflexes that could match even metal sonic’s, the ninja chameleon blocks the swing of a katana with one of his kunais, letting both weapons fall to the floor, and the former being picked up by a robotic hand

Heavy shinobi: I must say espio kumarian…you have quite the reflexes, but they won't be good enough to beat me

Espio: I suspected you would know my last name heavy shinobi, you are a ninja after all, but i’ve been doing this much longer than you have

Charmy: espio’s last name was kumarian?

Mighty: dont look at me, i didnt know that either!

Looking back at the battle, both mighty and charmy find that the pair of ninjas have already begun racing to a proper battleground

by charmy’s intuition of espio’s preferred battlegrounds, the young bee decided that they were most likely going to the tower in the center of meteor herd for a climactic showdown

Luckily for said bee, mighty had been not paying attention when vector said he had to make sure charmy didn’t leave the control room, meaning he could easily leave to catch up and help

Mighty on the other hand, had decided to run off out of the opposite door charmy had to cover more ground

Mighty: hopefully tangle isn’t having that many problems…i know that shes survived a lot of things, but still

_________________________________

Back with charmy, he is already flying to meteor herd, directly towards the tower in the center, where he see a green and purple dot come into view

Unlucky for the young bee, many egg robos, artificial chaos, android shadows, and hacked G.U.N. robots block the way

{LEVEL: METEOR HERD}
[OBJECTIVE: HELP ESPIO DEFEAT HEAVY SHINOBI BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!]

Quickly flying across multiple platforms and dodging multiple meteors, charmy is forced to go for the low ground so he is less likely to get hit by a surprise meteor

The first to notice charmy are a bunch of egg robos, which begin shooting at their small target

Due to size and reflex, charmy quickly evades their attacks, and uses his stinger to blow them all up, causing one of their guns dropping to the ground

Charmy: take that ya mean eggman shaped bots!

Noticing the blightantly loud bee, every other machine is alerted of charmy’s location, including heavy shinobi and espio, atop one of the walkways of the tower

Espio: charmy!? What are you doing!? It's dangerous!

Charmy: relaxxxxxxx, i’ve got this totally under control!

In an attempt to save who he definitely doesn't see as a younger brother, espio tries to jump in and help, but is sent back by heavy shinobi

Heavy shinobi: our battle is not yet decided. Robots, once you have defeated the bee, bring him to me, i want this inferior ninja to see his young friend one last time before he dies

Right the organic ninja hops back on his feet, both notice that not even the android shadows are holding up well against this single bee

Espio:...i stand corrected…somehow

Jumping to another walkway, the metallic ninja puts his fingers up to a built in communicator on his head, and speaks to someone

Heavy shinobi: sage, bring out one of those ancient robots to retrieve the bee for me

Back to Charmy, nearly all of the enemy robots are defeated, with all being left of them consisting of two egg robo blasters, two pairs of android shadow hover shoes, and many scraps of G.U.N. robots

Charmy: Is that all you’ve got? I'm just getting started!

Suddenly, a red portal appears in front of the young bee, and out of the portal, a strange robot steps out

[MINIBOSS: NINJA]

_________________________

While mighty was running around the ship to find espio, he had found a strange test tube in a dim and well maintained room, filled with couches and random items from around the ARK

In the tube, was a blood sample, with a piece of tape reading ‘black doom’ on it

Mighty: Hmm, I wonder…what's the use of this stuff?

The strong bodied armadillo stores the odd tube in his shell in case of later use, never know when you might need something as they always say

Continuing to look around, mighty finds an odd device, mysteriously functioning and in perfect shape. Heck, I didn't look older than 3 years old!

Though it looked basically new, it looked like some kind of outdated and quite small computer, or a very bulky and old phone

Mighty: i should probably ask tails or someone about this later, better keep it anyways

Once mighty picks it up and once again places it in his shell, the powerful armadillo notices some metallic hand under a tarp

Deciding to investigate, mighty pulls up the tarp, revealing a heavily damaged sonic like robot

The robots color scheme is some combo of black with yellow stripes all around, and some kind of shattered gem on the center of his chest, supposedly serving as some sort of destroyed power source

Mighty: woah! I was just trying to find espio, and now i’ve found THREE things that i probably should get analyzed by tails?

Before the lucky (or unlucky depending how you look at it) mammal can search more, he is stopped by a group of android shadows, who all have located and are preparing to attack him

Mighty: ummm, there is NOT enough room to fight all of them without being crushed…

In an instant, one of the hundreds of androids at the door dash at the cornered armadillo, getting instantly destroyed though

Mighty: okay, just gotta hold up…

___________________________

Charmy quickly dodges another attack from the ninja robot, as well as picking up one of the pairs of hover shoes

Charmy: if you can rewire a big bad eggman robot into a mech and be charmy the interceptor with it, you can make super cool battle armor out of old eggman parts!

Back up on the tower, heavy shinobi and espio are at equal odds, neither able to get the upper hand

Heavy shinobi: i must admit, you are a quite impressive adversary, much stronger and more fair than that annoying weasel was

In the blink of an eye, the iron ninja rushes at espio, sword ready to cut through his enemy

Just as fast, espio quickly jumps out of the way, and retaliates with a barrage of kunai directly at his target

Without hesitation, heavy shinobi blocks every single one with extreme precision of his blade, and only letting out a robotic scoff

Heavy shinobi: now then, lets finish this

Espio: agreed

Both ninjas jump at each other, and block and attack each other with their katana and kunai respectively

As they both continue to try and best the other, charmy is rewiring the second egg robo blaster, the ninja robot right on his stinger

Charmy: almost…almost…there!

Flying by a pile of all the rewired parts, the young bee quickly flies in circles to grab each part and equip it

Right as charmy is about to put on the fourth android shadow hover shoe on his right wing, he is suddenly hit by the ninja robot, sending him directly into a bunch of crates labeled ‘red’ and ‘yellow’

The noise of cracking chaos drives and red and yellow smoke covers where the invertebrate detective had crashed, prompting espio to quickly kick his opponent away, and run to his companion

Espio: CHARMY! NO!

Before the purple ninja can reach his destination, he is kicked into one of the geodes nearby

Getting up, espio sees heavy shinobi walking to the smoke, katana in hand

Espio instinctively tries to stop the robotic ninja, but the now broken leg stops him from going faster than a limp

Heavy shinobi, now directly in front of the smoke, looks over to his new adversary with cold mechanical stare

Heavy shinobi: you tried so hard, and yet you lost to me, because of your want to protect your adoptive brother, idiotic

These words triggered something in espio’s brain, causing him to blurt out

Espio: charmy and vector have been my family since I was 10! And I'm not letting you hurt one of them to prove you're a better ninja you INSULT ON JAPANESE CULTURE!

With all the might remaining inside of him, espio rushes at his enemy, only to be slapped away by mechanical shinobi

Heavy shinobi: as i said, useless. Now, prepare to watch-

Out of the smoke, some orange energy blur rams directly into heavy shinobi, catching him off guard, and knocking him back

Once the glow subsides, charmy, now wearing what seems to be a high tech battle suit instead of a bunch of reused scrap, flies above the one who tried killing him, strange orange gem glowing in the center

Charmy: looks like this big meanie is gonna get beat by neo charmy!

________________________________

Mighty still has a lot of trouble coming his way

There are at least 90% of the androids left after a full 5 minutes, and they’re starting to get in the room a bit

Mighty: darn it! I’ve gotta find a way out of here as fast as i can!

Just then, one of the androids gets in enough to pin him to a wall, let the rest enter

Multiple others grab his other limbs, attempting to stop the shelled hero in his tracks

Just as mighty felt as if he was losing conscious, every single robot suddenly turned off, letting him go

Just then, something in his shell seemingly made an activating sound, followed by a voice

???: quickly! Grab that robot and run as fast as you can! I have no idea how long i can keep these things off for

Mighty: no time to question this, so okay!

Grabbing a string, mighty ties the robot to his shell, and runs out the door before the androids wake up again

The run goes a full 10 seconds of silence before mighty finally speaks up

Mighty: so…where are you?

???: im the device you picked up

The strong armed armadillo quickly pulls out the device he had picked up earlier from his shell, which was now on, and had some kind of lynx on the screen

Mighty: ah, I see. Who are you again?

Nicole: my name is Nicole, an advanced AI that can use nanites to create tangible structures, including a body for myself

Mighty: That's neat, can you show me?

Nicole: maybe once we’re safe from that horde of robots

As if the universe wanted to be funny, the previously deactivated army of android shadows come from behind a corner, and charge at the armadillo and AI

Nicole: I'll navigate you through to escape! Take a left in a few seconds.

Doing as told, mighty takes a left corridor after a few seconds of running, leading to another hallway

Nicole: now keep going straight, and break through the ground right in front of the end corridor

The process of running and Nicole's directions go pretty well, as they quickly get all the android shadow off their tails by the time they reach meteor herd

Mighty: for a second there, I thought I was android shadow toast! Now i’ve just gotta find-

As if the finished problem came to the shelled mammal, heavy shinobi suddenly is flung right past him into a wall

From the direction their enemy was sent into tasting metal wall from, was charmy in some high tech stuff, a very bruised espio, and a strange looking machine torn straight in half

Charmy: oh, hey mighty! Do you like my new super cool battle armor?

Looking at the armor, the colors of the helmet were red and white with a visor in front of Charmy's eyes.

The body, legs, and arms were a combo of blue and white. There are a few boosters on the back and on the bottom of the shoes, an orange gem on where charmy’s chest would be, and blasters on charmy’s arms

Mighty: charmy, you look sick as heck!

Charmy: thanks! I think that the annoying robot that I blew up over there somehow mixed its energy with chaos energy while I had a bunch of badnik parts on.

Looking at the Nicole's screen (and not worrying about comprehending how that combination works), the armadillo’s new AI friend looks at something in shock that's behind him

Very much confused, mighty is about to turn over, when he suddenly hears something crack behind him, and the feeling someone hit his shell with a weak stick

Mighty: hey! Don't hit people with sticks to annoy them!

Turning over, heavy shinobi lays on the ground in defeat, broken in half katana as well

Mighty: welp, i guess he forgot how strong my shell is. Better get him in the ship to lock him up before omega gets here and blows him to bits

Just then, sonic, shadow, rouge, and tails all run in from another entrance

The blue blur quickly takes notice of the defeated heavy shinobi, badly hurt espio, and charmy with a robot suit, and only smirks

Sonic: looks like i missed something, i guess this is my karma for running off and fighting metalhead in 5 different dimensions

_______________________________

Once on the ship (and hiding a tied up heavy shinobi in a closet so omega doesnt blow him up), everyone gets settled

The first thing mighty does is place down Nicole's device onto a desk, and takes a step back

Mighty: so, can you show me this physical form now?

Nicole: oh, forgot about that, one second

For a few seconds nothing happens except Nicole disappearing from the screen, until she suddenly digitizes right in front of everyone

Her design still has the same lynx face, but her feet have paws instead of the natural blobs everyone else has for feet, and she is wearing a purple cloak that covers most of her artificial body

After taking a second of looking at the holo lynx, mighty unties the sonic robot on his back, and places it beside the device

Mighty: Now, for the robot, what was he doing in there with you?

Nicole: im not saying how me and him ended up on the ARk, but i can tell you his name is shard, and i want to help him get fixed

Jumping over, sonic gives a confident smirk to their new friend

Sonic: Well then nic, you’ve got our help!

Nicole is confused by sonic saying ‘nic’ instead of ‘nicole’ though she just said her name, until tails speaks up

Tails: if sonic gives you a nickname, it means he trusts you

Nicole: oh, that makes sense

For a few seconds, tails swears he hears the AI lynx mumble something about another sonic, but he decides to not worry about it for now

After all, they have a mission to finish

__________________________________

Back in the pedestal room, the portal made by the paradox prism begins to open more, when a familiar 2 tailed + 7 mechanical tailed fox jumps out, followed by his repaired hedgehog robot

Nine: grim sonic, do you detect sonic’s presence or trail anywhere? While, your at it, give me the map of this place

Grim sonic begins scanning the area, and give the data to nine’s data band

Looking at the data on a holographic chart, it seems as if the blue blur left this place on a spaceship, since grim sonic detected this was in space

Nine: looks like I'm going to need to prepare before I embark on this journey. And like that, the emo fox goes back through the portal, needing to prepare for whatever happens

Chapter Text

All it takes is one bad day, and you’d be just like me

No, that's not it, Scourge. It's because all it would take is a bit of selflessness... a little bit of decency... and you'd be just like me

Scourge hates those words he exchanged with his counterpart, and it only makes him feel worse in his current situation

The green blur is trapped in a cold and damp cell, all of his anarchy beryl stolen, and some stupid inhibitor ring replicas disabling every ounce of power in his body

Scourge: this is F#^%ing zone jail all over again, but even F$^@ing worse…

When fighting the edgy hedgy lookalike, scourge was ambushed by not only robotnik, but i giant egg robo who used some red gem the doctor claimed to be ‘heavy king’

Their ambush had caught him off guard, as well as this heavy king guy and the edgy hedgy lookalike teaming up to wreck the once royal hedgehog, and drop his anarchy beryl

Now all the anti hedgehog can do is pace back and forth in his cell, swearing as he mumbles about how pathetic this is for him

The Inhibitor rings basically are just 4 zone collars, but there's no team destructix to help him break out of it

Scourge: a bit of selflessness and decency my A@#hole…

As scourge finally is about to take a break to sit down, an egg pawn with a key walks in,  and begins walking back and forth 

probably one of the doctor’s ways of annoying me by putting the key right in front of me, well ro-butt-nik is an idiot if he thinks that wont backfire

Right as the egg pawn walks in front of the cell door, scourge quickly steals the key without the egg pawn noticing (or robotnik programmed it to walk in circles forever after entering this room), and unlocks the cell

Much to the villain of Moebius' belief, the egg pawn keeps walking circles, showing that robotnik did not expect someone to attack an egg pawn

I guess i could probably find something to break these S@%#ty rings

Unfortunately, the only things outside the few cells are the egg pawn, a few scraps of paper, and a machine to call eggman from the prison

Scourge:..well F#%$

The only way out of the prison seems to be a highly unguarded door, since it seems robotnik forgets that he isn't the only one with a brain

Exiting to room, scourge is surprised to see that the place looks a lot more…colorful and creative than he remembers robotnik being

First of all, this room is definitely the storage room, considering the boxes with eggman logos and conveyor belts, but there's an abundance of red, green, blue, and even yellow around the room, when the robotnik scourge knows prefers grey and other emotionless colors

The much more lively eggman storage room is almost enough to make him forget about his mission of escaping, and asking robotnik why there's so much color

Continuing on anyways, scourge begins searching around the room for some kind of key or something to break these dang rings

Most of the boxes contain random badnik parts, while at least 10 of them are filled with regular things like video tapes, mustache groomers, winter clothes that are way too small for someone the doctors size, and a weird plushie of tails that has its own entire crate

Luckily, one of the boxes with badnik parts is filled with mecha-bu parts, which include buzzsaws

Scourge: FINALLY! Some helpful F#%$ing parts! And they’re sick A%$ buzzsaws too!

Without patience, the anti hedgehog quickly takes out one of the buzzsaws, and slams one of his arm rings on it, breaking the once circle ring off like a charm

Scourge quickly does that for his second arm, then rips the leg rings by hand. And with a sudden surge of energy flowing back into his body, scourge is back to full power

Scourge: I'd like to see that S$%#headed doctor fight me now!

Just as the full powered hedgehog is about to go to find another door, some purple starry fog suddenly floats in, and becomes some magician egg robo

Heavy magician: so you have made it out of your cell. But i, heavy magician, shall defeat you, reclaim my hat from the duck, and-

Not having time for this, scourge quickly chaos snaps in front of this weird heavy magician gal, and kicks her straight into a pile of boxes, sending hundreds of badnik parts tumbling onto her

Heavy magician:...ow….

Scourge: shut your trap miss yaps-a-lot, i've got a doctor to beat, and a world to take!

Heavy magician quickly breaks free from the pile of random badnik parts, and instantly gasps at an oil stained spot on their hand

Heavy magician: how DARE you get oil on my hand!? This is an outrage, and i am going to-

In the blink of an eye, the shadow lookalike from before appears, and kicks the annoying machine straight through the roof

After heavy magician can be heard landing on the deck with a thump, the shadow faker looks over to scourge, face emotionless as before

Scourge: so, are you some kind of anti shadow from my dimension, or are you a metal shadow made by ro-butt-nk?

The fake hedgehog doesn't respond, and quickly dashes at the anti sonic, who narrowly jumps out of the hole in the ceiling

Now on the deck, scourge has to find a way to escape this machine, since as much as he hates to admit, there's no way he's beating this robot in robotnik territory

Scourge: Well, I guess it's time to use a stronger move. CHAOS CONTROL!

In an instant, everything turns grey, as time pauses, with the fake shadow paused right as it was about go through the hole

Scourge quickly runs away from the hole, jumping behind a pile of scrap to hide

I hate this F%$#ing moment, i hate this F%$#ing zone world thing, and i hate this F#%$ing edgy hedgy faker!

Just then, time resumes, letting the mystery shadow lookalike fly out the hole, and find scourge is gone

It prepares to search, until a familiar booming voice calls out to it

Eggman: ULTIMATE ANDROID SHADOW! We must go! Let heavy magician handle that green brat!

Scourge remembers that the first robot that they faced was named heavy magician, but this ‘ultimate android shadow’ fellow kicked them away, so the hedgehog robot might not be the most loyal

As the android flies over to robotnik, scourge notices that beside the doctor are heavy king, another weird egg robo (this time, it has a police outfit and a missile launcher), and some kind of portal behind all of them

Heavy king: i have used the phantom ruby to set our course to the sol dimension, our travel will go smoothly no matter what

Eggman: EGG-CELENT! Let us enter, shall we?

Heavy king: first, we must keep these ‘anarchy beryl’, as the green hedgehog called them

The mechanical emperor hits his scepter on the ground, causing to red gem inside to make the  world around heavy king change color

Once the color is back to normal, the 20 anarchy beryl scourge has been holding on to before being captured lands right in the heavy king’s hands

That's my F&$^ing anarchy beryl…

Heavy king: now we are ready dr eggman

And like that, the quartet walks into the portal, with two other cube and orb shaped ones rushing in behind them.

Once all 6 are through, the portal closes, leaving only a small portal machine on the ground, and something that looks like the ultimate android shadow thing, but the black is pure chrome and the eyes are black with red irises. Its likely a regular android shadow

The android shadow locks eyes with scourge, followed by a very irritated heavy magician appearing behind it

Heavy magician: So you want to act like I'm the BORING ONE? Well I'll show you something interesting then with my new moves!

With the slight of hand, the female egg robo reveals a strange replica of the gem in heavy king’s scepter

Heavy magician: dr eggman had made copies of the phantom ruby, but they were all destroyed like my fearsomeness to sonic after he beat me once! But this time, he only made 4 of them, one for each of the heavies, and-

Scourge: blah, blah, blaby blah blah, get on with it!

Heavy magician: HOW RUDE! But fine

The magic machine places this replica gem on her chest, as she suddenly is surrounded by the same discolored area as heavy king was

This time, once the area goes back to normal, heavy magician stands there, entirely altered. As her once red eyes are now a mystical purple, legs have been replaced by the starry smog from before, as well as now having a red hat with black stars and yellow lines, and the most important detail is the many hands floating around her

In front of the now powered up heavy magician, the android shadow gets into a battle pose, right before its head is shot off by some energy blast

From the direction of the blast, a bike and three hoverboards land onto the ship, with four birds (three are on the hoverboards), a bear, and a weasel, who is driving the bike

It takes a second to realize, but these must be what the normal versions of the anti-hooligans and anti-babylons (moebius’ version of the hooligans and babylon rouges) look like

Heavy magician: the nerve of these hooligans!

Fang: thats TEAM hooligan and the babylon rouges to you magic smart fridge

Bean: oh, I remember now! I stole your hat!

Jet: you stole…their hat?

Fang: dont think to much about it alien bird

Heavy magician: SILENCE! You shall feel the true wrath…of ME!

{BOSS:}

[illusionary and ruby born machine: PHANTOM MAGICIAN 2.0]

Wait, who the F$%^ are they?

Just then, a red blob jumps out to bike of fang’s hover bike (which is just a normal bike for anti-fang), looking very determined

Phantom magician: So you annoyingful pestering fools that challenge my rules come at me together to overwhelm me? A weak attempt to subdue the great and almighty-

Suddenly, a giant wrench slams into the side of phantom magician head, as wave quickly lands back down on her hoverboard

Wave: shut your trap you drama filled AI assistant!

Fang: you took the words and move right out of my mouth gears

After saying that, the weasel is quick to shoot at the exact same spot where wave hit, then yelling himself

Fang: and stop yapping about your dumb hat ya mystic convertible!

Scourge, now having time to leave and blow up the ship, lets off one last rude gesture at heavy magician before jumping back in the hole

Scourge: F#&^ YOU UGLY RO-BUTT-NIK BOT!

{LEVEL: HEAVY WING}

[get to the engine and destroy it!]

_____________________________________

Fang watches as the green hedgehog leaves after a total minute of watching the battle, then leaving by flipping off heavy magician

that guy is just like fleet feet, but way ruder

Looking back over, phantom magician 2.0 has begun her attack, spinning her hands around, and making illusion badniks that she controls with strings connected to her hands

Heavy magician: yes! Feel the wrath of the greatest under the great and almighty heavy king, the mystical and illusionary heavy magician!

And like that, its two for two with one of the heavies claiming they’re the best under heavy king

Bean quickly jumps in to throw bombs at the mechanical party trick, but is suddenly grabbed by one of the many hands of heavy magician, who throws him to the ground

Both fang and bark quickly run over to their ally, hotshot following behind the weasel

Fang: kid, are you okay!?

in an instant, bean hops back up to his feet, looking as if he was not just chucked to the ground by a giant mystical annoyance

Bean: Don't worry, I had unknown substances from the casino for breakfast last week!

I'm just not gonna ask what the heck he's talking about, it matters that the kid's okay. Wow, I sound a lot more worried about bean than I used to though!

Suddenly, the moment is so rudely interrupted by the sound of heavy magician giving crappy monologues and jet giving an entire thesis statement worth of word to tell her to stop making him look bad

Fang: welp, I guess we should probably go help out with magic smart fridge over there, right boys?

Bark gives a agreeing nod, hotshot goes into fang’s multigun, and bean pulls out heavy magician’s hat

Bean: Yeah! And we can use this like you used the ice sword thing of shinobi!

Fang’s eyes widen significantly, since bean was playing rock paper scissors during that entire battle

Fang: you…paid attention to that?

Bean: yep! I thought of using the idea because i remembered i stole her hat on the heavy wing when i used the biggy bomby boom attack!

Heh, i guess i taught the kid pretty well for a guy who once made him and bark leave my side

After a brief moment, fang quickly nods, and whistles for the marvelous queen

Once the hover bike flies over, fang opens a compartment holding the ice katana, and another holding his warp topaz, then takes both out

Bean: huh? Why are you-

Without hesitation, the treasure hunter grabs bean, and plops him on the driver seat

Fang: I am trusting you to get up close with the marvelous queen, and taunt magic smart fridge with the hat, while everyone else takes it down. I’ll also let you throw bombs, you got that?

Bean lets out a big gasp, followed by happy squealing, then giving the biggest hug he can to fang

Bean: oh fang ol buddy ol chum ol pal, you really are the best boss i could ask for!

Fang: thanks kid, for this and giving me a chance. Now lets get out and blow this gabbing magic master to bits!

Bean gives an enthusiastic nod, then drives off to face the giant machine

Just as fang is about to join, he feels the leather of bark’s glove tap against his shoulder with calm presence to it

Looking over the his silent ally, bark gives a nod to fang, happy for how much he's grown as a person, and hotshot pops out of the multigun gun twirl around happily

Fang: I suppose…I'm no longer a greedy treasure hunter anymore, but a proud team leader. But we’re getting sidetracked, come on you two, let's do this!

And like that, fang runs at heavy magician to face the might of her magic, ice katana and multi gun in hand (and warp topaz on his belt), while hotshot goes back into the multigun, and bark following behind

Time to show that drama bot more than just triple trouble!

_____________________________________

After racing out of the storage room to a set of long, dangerous hallways and corridors, and scourge has to slow down tremendously to avoid running directly into electric bars and spike traps

To make the matters even worse, there's not a single badnik to destroy and release some stress on, as if robotnik had planned for a speedy hedgehog with a low tolerance for slow paced moments and no action to come through

Scourge: i am starving in F#^$ing boredom…

after at least 10 full minutes of just walking, the impatient hedgehog finally…FINALLY… makes it to the engine room, where a heavily unguarded engine lays

Scourge: OH COME F#^$ING ON! NOT A SINGLE BADNIK OR SOMETHING!?

The engine looks like its already been blown up once, and lazily repaired to be fully fixed another time

The only interesting thing is the glowing ball of energy floating in the center of the engine, making some kind of noise that resembles crying

Well, might as well see what that is…

Scourge unenthusiastically homing attacks the glass, shattering it, and letting the strange glowing energy orb out

Taking a closer look, the main color is a very bright cyan, while the outline surrounding it is a pure white, and its once crying noises had been swapped out with total silence

When the green blur attempts to grab the mystical orb, his hand goes straight through

Scourge: and it is not F$^%ing tangible, just my god F$&%ing D@*^ luck.

Suddenly, the glowing orb begins spinning around scourge, until it lets out a flash of light, blinding scourge temporarily

When the flash has disappeared, the entire scene has changed, as the once robotnik ship engine room is now the edge of some sort of white space station, much bigger than something like that space colony ARK thing

Just then, two beings come through, one fully liquidy and looks like a young version of chaos, and the other with more mobian like appearance, except their ears are about the size of shark fins, and her hands are liquidy and have multiple crystals poking out

The mobian like one speaks first, seemingly not seeing scourge as she runs by, and having a joyful tone to her voice

???: Come on brother, we don't want to be late for our training sessions like yesterday!

After that, the chaos like one speaks, as he is seemingly a bit tired and panicked in the ‘gonna be late for school’ type way

???: I'm running as fast as I can sapphire! Just slow down so I can catch up!

The other one now known as ‘sapphire’ only giggles childishly, and begins running faster

Sapphire: sorry crimson, but im not gonna be late because you wanted to be a slowpoke again!

Sapphire keeps running faster, and ‘crimson’ keeps falling farther behind

Crimson: wait up! You know I can't run that fast!

And like that, both leave out of sight, leaving scourge there by himself

Scourge: what…the F$%@ just happened?

Just then, another flash of light blinds scourge, and when he looks around him, the green hedgehog is once again in the engine room, and the magic cyan orb is gone

Scourge: im just not gonna ask, and do what i came to do

______________________ __________

The plan is working out perfectly. Bean swoops in on the marvelous queen, waving heavy magician’s old hat. She tries to grab it, only for fang to warp in front of the machine with a gadget he made to use the warp topaz in hand, and either stab/freeze, E.M.P., or burn one of the hands on the magical being, followed by everyone attacking

Bean: nya, nyanyaboo boo! You can't get me!

Heavy magician swings one of her 5 remaining arms at the bomb loving duck, in hopes of finally swatting him away

Just then, fang warps in, and decides to get a little stylish by hopping off the hand, changing to course to the field below, and shooting a fireball directly at the drama bot’s hat

The hat is quick to burn up, revealing the phantom ruby prototype she's been using on her head 

Heavy magician: my beautiful hat! How dare you annoying brats burn yet another one of my hats!? I shall now-

Out of nowhere, an explosion rings from the lower levels, followed by the sound of the alarms and multiple red lights flashing on the deck

While everyone is focused on that, magician uses all of her four remaining hands to finally slam bean and the marvelous queen off the side, and both falling different ways

Fang quickly notices, and dives past heavy magician to go after bean, followed closely by bark, then wave on her extreme gear

On the heavy wing, heavy magician has begun dancing

Heavy magician: HAHA! I have defeated that annoying duck, and now i shall-

Just then, jet quickly jumps from his extreme gear onto the ruby infused machine, shattering the phantom ruby copy in her head to a million pieces

Jet: shut your mouth you annoying robot! Yes, I know wave and that weasel already said that, BUT STILL!

Heavy magician quickly feels the top of her head, and where the phantom ruby copy once was, before exploding in a cloud of smoke, and being flung into the air in her normal form

{VICTORY!}

Back with fang, the treasure hunter is closing in on bean…and the ground, wave and bark right behind him

Fang: almost…gotcha kid…

Bean: ‘almost’ is not good enough right now!

With seconds remaining, fang grabs onto bean’s foot, and pulls him up to his height

Fang: I've gotcha!

Bean: Okay, but…arent we still falling?

Fang takes a second, and realizes yes, they are still falling

Fang: oh fiddlesticks

Just then, a pair of hands grab onto them, and looking up, the hands are wave and bark’s (the latter handing on the bottom of the former’s ride)

Before any pleasantries can be exchanged, a loud crash can be heard beside them (not the huge ship falling behind them), and fang instantly knows what it is before turning around

Fang: no…i know i made the right choice, but…

Looking over, as fang expected, it was the marvelous queen, heavily damaged and unrecognizable

Once the group of four land, fang walks over to his once greatest vehicle, and kneels down to get a good look at it

Hotshot pops out of the multigun to try and comfort him, but it's of no use. Even when bean and bark try and get his attention, he doesn't budge

Fang: all of the troubles…all of the times..all of the memories i’ve had with you…all gone in the blink of an eye, and it's all that stupid magician’s fault…

Just then, someone's hand once again taps against the sad treasure hunter’s shoulder, and when fang looks over to see who it is, its wave, looking pretty determined

Wave: look fang, i know that feeling of when your life’s work is sent down the drain by some annoying idiot. But I always know that it can be fixed, or even fully upgraded!

These words catch the attention of fang, who is listening with interest and curiosity

Fang: and, your saying gears…?

Wave: that i want to help fix your prized vehicle, and make it stronger than ever before! New weapons, more compatibility for your wisp, and even some of my own extreme gear tech! So what do you say?

Wave lets puts her hand out for a handshake, and without any hesitation, fang returns the hand, wiping a tear from his eye

Fang: thanks gears, i think that sounds perfect. Think of it as a payment for being so determined to find me

Bean: fang and wave, sitting in a tree. I-for-got-how-the-song-goes

Bark lets off a quiet snicker, and both mechanic thieves turn red with embarrassment

Both wave and fang: we are NOT!

Before the group can leave and upgrade the marvelous queen though, they’re gonna have to wait for jet and storm to realize where they are

________________________________

After blowing up the heavy wing and barely escaping fiery doom, scourge has a quick victory boast as the sun comes up on the crashed ship he just wrecked

Scourge: WOO-HOO! All hail the king baby! I destroyed ro-butt-nik’s ship like it was nothing!

As if to ruin the fun, something slams against the ground beside the green hedgehog as it was catapulted through space

What the F$%# was that?

Looking at the crater right beside him, a familiar yet different face is in there to behold

It's Sally acorn, but she looks different…and like she just was brutally defeated as a robot and deroboticized from warping through space and time

Wait, if anyone finds me near this, giant crater…or sally wakes up, im in big F#%$ing trouble

Scourge slowly takes a few steps backwards, until going off in a blur

He’ll deal with this crap later

Chapter Text

Compared to Amy, the orange person with the red dress, and the two other orangish people that joined a bit after, acey was a total scaredy cat

It has picked up on some talk about the spikey one with that they had been hiding from claims to have been very timid and clumsy before she was a skilled guardian

And now, they’re forced to search the darkest part of some abandoned building with a creepy face on the front to find a purple robot with a pet ladybug robot…and their company is the spikey one

Its blue eyes darted around the room, which is filled with all sorts of broken metal thingies and creepy smiles on lumps

After a few seconds, the spikey one notices their fear of the strange building, and stops to crouch down in front of them

Spikey one: Hey little guy, you okay?

Acey only looks at the spikey one’s eyes for a second before pointing at a pile of broken metal thingies

Spikey one: oh, the wrecked badniks are scaring you? I can cover your eyes if you want

Acey nods, now knowing the metal thingies are called badniks, and its followed by the spikey one’s going over their face, only letting slights bits of dimmed lights peek through

The next few minutes of the walk go in relative silence, only broken by random noises that acey can't tell what they are with its eyes covered, making it less scary

Oddly, when acey was on that island, it felt calmer when they couldn't see, since not seeing anything made them think it was something a lot less scary than a monster

Spikey one: so…why were you hiding from me on the Northstar islands? I wouldn't hurt you if you didn't hurt me

If acey could talk, their only response would be that they thought the spikey one was on the evil robot’s side, but now they can tell she has not intention of harming them

Spikey one: right, you can't talk. My names trip by the way

The spikey one (now known as trip) uses her other hand to pet acey on the head to comfort them, which it does feel calming compared to everything else surrounding them

The two continue forwards, and go until they’ve found a much better brighter and cleaner room, which is when trip finally takes her hand of acey’s eyes

The area has absolutely no of those creepy metal thingies that are called badniks, but instead has a big screen with the creepy face from the outside of the building in the center

There was one spot that looked a lot more like they would sit there, being a strange thing with wheels, some soft looking thing on two flat parts, and two places the look like someone’s arms could fit on

While trip looked around the room, acey grabs on to the bottom flat part on the soft wheel thing, and begins pulling themselves up onto the soft part, which makes the soft wheel thing move slightly

The movement felt…kinda interesting, some mix of standing in place and moving at the same time, so acey attempts moving it again by pushing on a nearby wall, sending them barely forwards

Wanting a bit more, acey once again pushes the wall with more force, sending the soft wheel thing flinging to the other wall while spinning like crazy, yet it still feels right

Just then, the soft wheel thing crashes into another wall, making acey fall onto the floor face first from the impact

Trip quickly runs over to them, and helps them onto their feet. It still feels weird that the person they were hiding from is treating them so kindly

Trip: off, lets hope eggman has insurance for his spinning chairs and computer keyboards

Acey looks at the spinning chair, which is now crashed into the flat thing by the screen known as a ‘keyboard’

Suddenly, the creepy face on the screen disappears, and scans acey’s face for a few seconds, before its replaced with the words ‘access granted’, as a secret door opens on their left

Trip: well…that worked, good job acey!

With the quick pat of the head, acey follows trip into the room that follows, which looks like it was completely untouched, yet worn down at the same time

The main things acey takes notice of are a bunch of barred off areas, the sound of two people talking, and a ladybug robot at the end of the hall, but it was different than the one on the island

Trip stands in front of acey, making them feel safer, and both begin to walk to the ladybug robot, which now notices them as well, and makes some noises to someone around the corner

???: What is it motobud? Is someone over there?

The small ladybug robot, ‘motobud’, uses his wheel to mimic a nod, which gives acey the feeling that hes not gonna hurt them

???: okay then, i’ll take a look

After a second, another orange person (this one made of wood) walks in from behind the corner, and looks in confusion at the sight of acey and trip

Trip: ummm, h-hello. My name is…uuhhh…

Trip suddenly grabs the brown thing she wears on her head, then turns away crouching with the brown head thing on, mumbling something about ‘goofing up social interactions again’

If acey remembers correctly, the orange one with the wooden stick said something how when they were searching for things called ‘android shadows’, trip was really bad at whatever a ‘social interaction’ was

Belle: well hey to you too i guess. My names belle, and this is my buddy motobud!

Motobud jumps for joy, his eyes changing to fit the emotion, while belle simply gives off a welcome smile

Acey, none the wiser on what to do, stands still, waiting for trip to get back up

After a few seconds, trip scrambles back up, puts her brown head thing away, and returns to her normal attitude

Trip: uhhh, anyways! Have you seen a purple robot in knight armor wielding a mace that rides a large motobug named jimmy?

Belle: ummmm…what? I just stopped by here, and met two robots a few hours ago. I haven't really explored other than that

Trip: Wait, how did you get in here then?

Belle: that computer over there scans if you're an eggman creation or not, and that's so badniks can get in without a password. It's an old base, so he had yet to have active rogue badniks..or me…

Come to think of it, acey did remember something about someone named eggman, but they couldn't put their finger on it

Just then, the sound of a metal fist knocking against a wall around the corner is heard, making both trip and acey jump

Belle: oh, thats one of the people i met a few hours ago, i can show you them both

Belle gestures for acey and trip to follow as she and motobud go around the corner, which trip does, making acey follow as well

Once around the corner, the first sight is another robot, this one is red and grey with one of its arms missing, while the other one has two metal claws (one is broken off though). The rest of his body is in a rusted, cracked, and battered state

???: took you long enough to finish talking to whoever those three are

Unlike the previous, much kinder voices, this ones is much more violent sounding and unwelcoming, causing acey to hide behind trip’s leg in fear

Belle: sorry metal knuckles, they were just looking for someone who apparently has a mace and rides a motobug that's abnormally big

Metal knuckles only stares at acey in response, his cold, emotionless stare scaring them more, until he finally looks away

Metal knuckles: well, MKI is in his cell if you want him

Belle: I think he prefers the term, ‘room’

Turning over to the cell, is a larger and rustier robot, it seems like he was meant to be chrome, but rust covers at least a third of his body. He has a single lifeless eye on his cracked visor, as well as a bandanna with broken blades on the back of his head that resemble quills. One of his hands was replaced with some kind of robotic bee stinger, and the opposite foot had a booster that seemed like it belonged to a giant mech. there was some floating thing behind him, seemingly some kind of booster with an invisible rope attached. Finally, there was a weird metal plate cover on where his chest would be

The hulking robot only stares in acey’s direction for half a second, before looking away, which gives off less of the scary vibe metal knuckles does

Belle: That's mecha sonic MKI, he prefers MKI though. He has no voice box, so don't expect any words

MKI stays seated on the piece of debris in the wrecked cell (room? Both metal knuckles and belle said different things), only occasionally looking at another part of the room

Trip: well…nice to meet you MKI! I hope we aren't much of a bother to you!

MKI does not respond, instead keeps staring around the room, only confusing acey more

Just then, metal knuckles walks in, receiving an annoyed glare from MKI, which seems to imply he knows something

Metal knuckles: also, about that robot you mentioned earlier, i believe i saw someone with that description on the next floor up.

Trip: oh, well…thanks for the tip!

Metal knuckles just shrugs, and points to a flight of stairs at the end of the hall with his single claw

Metal knuckles: that's the way up, so have fun trying to fight this robot, its not my problem

The way metal knuckles speaks…it scares acey, all the talk about ‘not caring’ and him sounding so sure about what's going on, it feels so creepy

Acey follows trip to the staircase, but before the make it to the stairs, a gloved hand taps on acey’s head, making them freeze up from surprise

Belle: I know this is a bit weird, but may me and motobud come with you?

Acey turns to see belle motobud behind them, with motobud looking quite hopeful, which seems to be making trip give in quickly

Trip: okay, but don't get hurt! I've seen how strong he is

Belle gives a thumbs up, while motobud moves in a nodding gesture, and the group of now four climb up the stairs

Once up, the first thing acey sees is the big purple knight robot and the much scarier ladybug robot, sleeping with a strange looking rock with some symbols on it resting their heads

Trip:...are they using the black onyx…as a PILLOW!?

Belle: ummm, are those two the guys you were talking about?

Trip: yep, i guess they got bored or something, because those two somehow fell asleep. I guess the ruby thing really DID give them personalities

Just then, the big purple one jumps awake, and quickly notices the group. His first thought process is to move the black onyx under the big ladybug robot’s head instead of grabbing a weapon though

Heavy rider: you thought you could sneak up on the best under heavy king, heavy rider, while he was sleeping?

Trip: no…we just came up while you were sleeping-

Heavy rider: well TOO BAD! Me and Jimmy are gonna thrash your butts! Right, Jimmy?

On queue, the big ladybug robot jimmy jumps onto its wheel, looking ready to fight, even if both of their imposing words and looks are not very scary compared to how the big king one sounded

It's clear the feeling is mutual, because trip looks very disappointed, belle looks confused, and motobud is waving at jimmy, not understanding hes the enemy yet

Belle: ummmmm…are you SURE this is the right guy?

Trip: positive, he's just…trying a bit too hard to me menacing i now see…

Heavy rider: hey, dont you call jimmy not menacing! Look at his menacing cute little face!

Ignoring the oxymoron, trip gets into a fighting stance, while acey hides behind her for protection (since both are still really dangerous)

Heavy rider: now, lets-

Just then, a ding is heard from the next room over

Heavy rider: oh, Jimmy’s food is done! stay right here, this will only take a minute!

Both heavy rider and Jimmy walk into the next room, leaving the black onyx on the ground, prompting tip to walk over and pick it up

Trip: well…i guess thats that, we did it!

Just then, acey takes notice of a pile of random things, including some red lump poking out, and a framed picture with a piece of paper taped on

As the other three talk, acey heads over to the pile, and stares at the picture, which seems to have multiple words beside a two tailed fox being thrown into the air.

Most of the words are small and pretty hard to read, but the biggest set of words say ‘local hero tails saves station square from eggman bomb!’, while the note on the picture says ‘feel free to take some of my old gadgets! -tails’

Finally, acey picks up the red lump, which seems to be some kind of blaster thingy that would fit on someone around 12’s hand

After a total of 5 seconds looking at it, the blaster suddenly disappears, leaving acey confused and their left arm feeling a bit different

They take a second to look around them to see where the blaster went, only for it to be no where

Acey is feeling disappointed that they lost something so quickly, so they look down…seeing their left arm is the exact blaster they are looking for

Acey jumps in surprise that their arm has been replaced, and quickly tries to shake the blaster off with no success

Trip takes notice of acey’s struggles, hands the black onyx to belle, and runs over to help attempt to pull off the blaster…yet nothing is happening

Trip: what in the black dragon's name is holding this thing on so well!?

After a few more seconds of attempting to pull the blaster off, trip loses her grip, making both fall onto the ground

Belle quickly runs over to help both acey and trip get up, with motobud pushing acey up from the back to balance them

Belle: I can try to help with that later, but we should probably get you out of here first

The black onyx is handed back to trip, just as the sound of metal footsteps slowly make their way up the stairs

Just then, a single orange eye appears in the darkness, as MKI steps onto the light, staring directly at the group

Trip: um…what are you doing here?

MKI looks away from the group after a few seconds, and walks to a concrete wall with bunches of rubble beside it

Suddenly, MKI crouches down, he transforms into a spinning ball, then slams directly into the wall, making a giant hole to another hallway

MKI returns back to normal, stands back up to look at the group, and points at the hole in the wall, as if to tell them to go

Acey is confused, since MKI was not that long ago sitting in the cell/room, not even looking like he's about to leave

Belle: MKI? Why do you want us to take another route? Whats wrong with the first route?

Metal knuckles: that would be my doing

Looking at the stairs again, metal knuckles is leaning against the wall, half covered by the shade, making mecha go into a fighting stance

Metal knuckles: ironic, is it? My organic imposter was so easy to trick, and here i am, tricking all of you

Suddenly, metal knuckles pulls out what seems to be a second black onyx, but with a menacing purple glow

Metal knuckles: the doctor had me stationed at this base to make sure mecha sonic MKI didn't escape, but he forgot about it, and i was left to rot

Acey was getting scared now, hiding behind both trip and belle, with motobud joining them seconds later

As for metal knuckles, he lightly taps the real black onyx against the wall, making a tiny crack, and letting out a small bit of energy that he directs towards himself

Metal knuckles: and now…im getting revenge by burning this world in black flames…

A sudden purple glow emanates from metal knuckles, making everyone in the room unable to see what is happening to metal knuckles

The glow subsides, as metal knuckles stands there, taller than everyone in the room, and not even just fully repaired…he looked stronger than ever with his new purple and red accents

Everyone stares in shock at metal knuckles’ new form, until heavy rider comes out of the door, petting jimmy as he does

Heavy rider: okay im back, now the fight can start!

Jimmy looks at metal knuckles, causing heavy rider to do so as well. After a few seconds, jimmy seats heavy rider on him, and both look at the group that they were supposed to fight

Heavy rider: welp, have fun, i’ll just report metal knuckles existing to eggman

And like that, heavy rider and jimmy drive out the window, and fall into their forest somehow without being damaged

Before acey can process what just happened, the arms of MKI grab him, trip, belle, and motobud, then quickly blasts off to the other hallway

Metal knuckles: run all you want, but i wont help in this situation…

Behind them, metal knuckles enters the hallway, and quickly begins chasing MKI

Quickly, trip jumps out of MKI’s arms to run herself, belle and motobud jump out next, with belle riding on motobud with speed, leaving acey being the only one in MKI’s arms

Just then, something in acey’s back starts up, sending them blasting forward and out of MKI’s arms in surprise…

…except they instantly crash into a wall, and trip picks them up to keep going

Trip: we need to find Amy, NOW!

{LEVEL: METAL KNUCKLES’ DOMAIN}
[find Amy and escape metal knuckles!]

Chapter Text

Two hours after honey’s interaction with shadow

Honey: then he called me more of a flashy sign than a model! He's so mean!

Amy, who is listening to the story honey is rambling out while crying at the top of her lungs, seems confused on multiple different levels

Amy: I've…never heard shadow insult a kid, meaning there are two possible answers…either mimic in disguise…or shadow has had a really bad day…

Honey had never felt so sad in her life, she had been insulted by one of the most popular people on the planet, and could clearly never recover

Just then, Amy looks over at her clock, and notices something in panic

Amy: I'm gonna be late for my monthly hangout with trip! Um-uh…you're coming too honey!

In an instant, honey’s extreme sobbing transforms into her normal self

Honey: Okay!

________________________________

To be completely honest, honey forgot what happened to make her cry in the first place. She assumes it wasn't very important them

On the other hand…this entire place was ugly as crap. There is old rusty badnik heads everywhere, the walls have holes in them, and some ugly man’s face is plastered everywhere

Honey: this place is creepy AND ugly! When are we gonna leave?

Amy heavily sighs, since this is about the 6th time the fashion cat has said that, while sticks…is sniffing the floor

Sticks: I know one of them is around here somewhere…

Amy: sticks…may i ask WHO you're looking for?

Sticks: you know the government, aliens, robots from some sky town with a terrible name, ms issacson

Amy: your third grade teacher is not evil sticks, she's just a little strict

Sticks: she's very evil! Do you remember when she said she was gonna steal my desk!?

Amy: That's because you stood on the desk to see how much of the sticky cafeteria macaroni you could put on the ceiling

As the two older mammals (one with ugly clothes) fight over some teacher, honey begins backtracking the path, since she wants to find the exit, not a dumb rock

On the way, a pair of egg pawns holding up a crate with the ugly face logo on it again see honey, and lets of some kind of noise that hurts the feline’s ears immensely

Honey: OW! Cats don't like loud sounds, you big ugly robots!

Walking over in annoyance, honey quickly kicks one of the egg pawns directly in the face, making the head come clean off, and making the box drop

The second egg pawn stops making the noise that was made on case of blaze attacking, drops the crate, runs behind the corner

Honey: that's better! Now I won't fall into a puddle and get my only fashionable clothes dirty!

To believe it, honey was not always the kid who walks from town to town to get someone to sponsor her. Heck, she used to only have uncomfortable patched clothes…

Thank goodness those random people dropped some string when they were running from some weird metallic people, talking about some virus, or else she would still be in that alley!

Looking at the crate, the fashion feline finds that the contents to be a bunch of normal rings, and a larger one at the top

Honey: oooooh! That looks really shiny! I'm gonna use it as a bracelet!

As she said, honey picks up the large ring, and places it around her arm, intending to keep it on forever

Just then, the same egg pawn from before runs back in, but this time, its followed by a hoard of badniks, ready to fight now

Honey: you wanna try to hurt me and mess up my clothes? Well guess what!? NYAAAAAAAAAA!

The extremely strong child rushes at the badnik hoard, and begins kicking and throwing everything in sight

One of the motobugs tries to run over the cat, but is grabbed by the head, and chucked at a mecha-bu, destroying both badniks

Slowly, the egg pawn from before backs out of the fight slowly, until a mechanical gloved had grabs them, and pushes them back into the fight

Said mechanical arm belongs to an egg robot, which seemingly repaired itself, and is in an eggmobile

???: don't you think about leaving the battle you bucket of bolts! I have been trying to return to great robotnik for so long, so destroy that fluffy meatbag!!

Honey: don't call me that!

The egg pawn quickly nods, and runs back to the badnik hoard, only for 4 robots and 1 lizard screech to a halt in front of them, the lizard looking tired

???: what the-!? Hey! Get out of here!

Honey: wait, you're the little robot guy and the person from that island! Look at this pretty bracelet I found!

The young fashionist begins waving around the arm with ring ring on it happily, as the egg robo’s mechanical eyelids fully open in surprise

Trip: no time to explain! We need to find amy and sticks!

Honey: huh? Oh, they went down the hall, i left because it was boring

???: HEY! THATS-

Suddenly, something dashes from the hall the group had, and grabs both the robot acey (whose arm is a blaster for some reason now) and honey.

The figure seems to be a robotic echidna, who has burning purple eyes of hate

Metal knuckles: its mine, give me the ring

Honey: no! It's mine now!

With all the force she can muster, honey slams her feet directly into metal knuckles…not even scratching him

Metal knuckles: so be it, hard way it is then

The robo echidna throws the kid to the wall, as she feels a sharp pain go through her arm, seemingly breaking it

The lizard trip quickly kicks acey out of metal knuckles grip (where the big bulky robot catches them), then everyone quickly runs over to see if honey is okay

Meanwhile, the egg robo only looks impressed at metal knuckles, then realizes all of his badniks have run away

???: well…it seems great robotnik left some-

Metal knuckles harshly slams into the egg robo’s eggmobile, sending the egg shaped machine flying out the nearby window

???: I HATE THAT TRAITORRRRRRRRRRRRRR-

Now that the egg robo is gone, metal knuckles simply turns to the group, coldly staring at them

Metal knuckles: i will say it again, hand over the ring and the robot…and i wont have to destroy you as well

Trip: never! Me, belle, motobud, and MKI will never give you anything or anyone related to our friends, especially not kids who have their whole life ahead of them!

Belle: Yeah! We’re never giving you anything!

Motobud jumps with determination, while MKI simply gets into battle stance

Simply annoyed, metal knuckles engulfs his hands in black flames, and tears a steel beam straight out of the wall to prove his power

Metal knuckles: you're playing something more dangerous than fire, and you still try? Annoying

The robo echidna is about to attack, until a familiar badger jumps out from the way honey had came, and proceeds to bite metal knuckles with force

Sticks: I KNEW there were evil robot copies in this building! Who's laughing now, Amy?!

Coming from the same way, amy runs in, and quickly knocks the robo echidna’s leg with her hammer, making him fall down

Amy: I never bet against that sticks!

Sticks: you were doubting it though!

Amy: You never even said anything about robot copies!

The four people around acey and honey quickly nod to each other, then enter the battle as well, amy looking surprised at seeing some of them

Amy: Belle? Motobud? And…who are you?

MKI only rolls his single eye, right before using ramming directly at metal knuckles in a ball form

Honey watches as the group of older people fight the robo echidna with such ease, while she is stuck sitting on the floor, her arm probably broken and dress is covered in dirt

I want to be big and strong! I want to be big and strong, so no one will act like I'm a kid!

Turning over, acey is shaking their normal and blaster arm in panic, seemingly while looking at the arm that honey put the ring on

Honey: is…something dirty on me? Because i dont wanna look ugly

Looking at directly where acey is, the aforementioned ring has started glowing so bright in fact, her entire is engulfed in the glow

Honey: AH! MY ARM! GETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFFGETITOFF-

Acey attempts to grabs the ring, but is failing to find it in the expanding glow that is now covering half of the fashion cat’s body and all of her right leg

As the glow expands, honey begins to hear something that isn't the battle, nor her own yelling, but something else…

…a strange, voice, coming from nowhere

A wish…a vital part of hope. It's rare for one to truly come from the heart, and that ring is able to make wishes reality. Allow me to show you something

Finally, the glow covers honey’s sight, until it disappears, and everything looks different.

The area seems to be some kind of training room, with three people in the room. Two watery, and the other with water hands

The tall watery one seemed to be an instructor, while the other two seemed to be training for something

Once the instructor one talked, it spoke in some weird language, but it translated in honey’s mind somehow

Instructor: well done sapphire and crimson, you continue to surprise us with your battle skills!

Sapphire: It's nothing, just wanting to protect people by learning dream energy better!

Crimson: and im working to get stronger by chaos energy and swordfighting

Crimson simply swings his giant blade around, then slices straight through one of the training dummies nearby, while sapphire takes a bit of a stretch

Sapphire: Anyways, we should probably get home now, see you later!

The strange girl quickly runs off, crimson following behind in a rush…yet not catching up

Crimson: h-hey! Wait for me!

The instructor watches them leave the room,, until someone comes through the door on the opposite side

The person has floating hands, and their entire body is covered by a dark blue cloak with gear patterns on it, the only thing visible being quite unsettling calm glowing yellow eyes. Not to mention he was floating off the ground

???: so, you're the one who worked with my brother to create that wishing machine. Come with me for a second

Before anything else can go on, a flash of light covers honey’s eyesight again, making the cat cover her eyes to block it

The light dissipates, and honey is back where she was before…but something felt off…

Wait, the arm I'm using to cover my face with the one that felt broken…now it looks really big!

Looking back at acey, they seem even shorter than before, looking up while the fashion feline is sitting down

Honey: i my butt hurts, i want to stand

And so, honey stands on her own two feet, realizing she also around the same height as everyone fighting metal knuckles currently

The unknowing feline turns over to a disabled TV screen, and sees her reflection

Her she is bigger, she is wearing a bigger version of her clothes, and she has claws, a rare trait for canines or felines to have

Honey:...this…is…AWESOME! I'm super big, I'm super strong, and I have cool claws! 

Acey is also in the reflection, which they are pointing to the battle happening right beside them both

Oh, right, nearly forgot about that

The now older cat quickly jumps into the fight, stabbing her shoe’s heel into metal knuckles’ head

Metal knuckles: what the-!?

Honey: that's for hurting me you ugly robot thing!

With immense force, honey kicks metal knuckles in the visor, sending some shadowy rock flying out, and making metal knuckles much smaller and more broken

Metal knuckles: ggrrrrrr…this isn't the last you’ve seen of me, I will destroy you all!

And like that, the robo echidna blasts off, as the fashion cat quickly blows raspberries at metal knuckles out of spite

Amy: ummmm…honey? When did you grow in age that much?

Honey: huh? Oh, I dunno, but I am bigger and beat that ugly robot guy! Also where's the exit? Its so boring here

Amy: It seems her maturity hasn't aged a day…

Sticks: just like how the reason trees don't look like they age because they’re actually cameras the government place in cities to make robot copies of everyone like the one we just faced

Amy: sticks, that was an eggman robot, i’ve encountered him before

Meanwhile, acey runs over to trip, who is holding the shadowy rock

Trip: Okay, NOW we got the black onyx! I’ll hold onto it until i get back to the northstar islands

Just then, acey tugs on the lizard’s leg with their one actual hand, doing their best attempt at puppy dog eyes (with their emotionless eyes) to try and get her to stay

Trip: sorry acey, as much as i would like to stay and explore, i have things i need to stay on my island for. But you can ask Amy to bring you with her sometime maybe!

Acey looks sad at the fact, since trip was so nice to them, when belle walks over with motobud beside her

Belle: In the meantime, how about I bring you to tails’ lab and get that blaster off of you? It seems you need some help

Acey happily nods, as belle takes their hand, as they wave trip goodbye and motobud follows

Back to Amy, the pink hedgehog walks over to MKI, who is staring off into space

Amy: hey there, thanks for-

MKI, not much of a talker, pushes amy out of the way, and walks out the building

Amy: aw man…he seemed pretty sweet too.

Sticks: I don't trust him one bit…

Amy: You say that about omega and gemerl, yet you don't see them attacking anyone.

As the two begin to bicker again, honey makes her way to the door, only to be grabbed by the ear

Amy: And where do you think YOUR going honey? Don't think just because your older means your independent and can work everything right

Honey: yes i can! Im big and strong now

Amy: uh-huh, you're coming back to my house for now missy!

And like that, the hammer wielder swaps from grabbing honey’s ear to her arm, and begins walking off to her own house (much to the feline’s complains of being ‘big and mature’), leaving sticks alone

Sticks:...welp, im gonna go back to my burrow

___________________________

After being so rudely shot into the sky by metal knuckles, EGG-001 gets up from his crashed eggmobile

EGG-001: stupid traitor against great robotnik…hes lucky he isnt the first one i’ve been attacked by!

For so long, EGG-001 has been attempting to rebuild himself on angel island ever since mecha sonic MKII had slammed into him with the intent of being the only machine who would get back

Well who's the one that escaped sky sanctuary before it crashed, huh!?

Looking around, the area is seemingly still recovering from some battle, with a nearby forest, and a supersized base with a familiar logo on it

EGG-001: my god…robotnik has made such an amazing base here! I must fix my eggmobile and find the doctor around here!

Just then, a purple egg robo riding on a large motobug comes in through the forest, and jumps off to pet the motobug

Confused, EGG-001 scans the egg robo to search the robotnik network for them, and gets an answer

[UNIT: HEAVY RIDER]

[CREATION NAME: EGG-999]

[BIO: is one of the faithful members of the hard boiled heavies, and is never seen without his trusty motobug, jimmy]

[CURRENTLY CONNECTED TO THE EGGNET]

EGG-001: eggnet?

[EGGNET IS THE CURRENT NETWORK THAT CONNECTS ALL EGGMAN ROBOTS, AND IS PERSONALLY MAINTENANCED BY SAGE]

EGG-001: Okay then, connect me to the eggnet then!

[CONNECTING]

[NOW CONNECTED TO EGGNET]

EGG-001: perfect! Now to talk to this fellow egg robo

Chapter Text

Things are going pretty okay for infinite right now

First of all, the entirety of team dark, team chaotix, mighty and ray, and sonic and tails had joined up with their group after they had found blaze, but the jackal didn’t like how shadow was looking at him (not that he liked shadow anyways)

In addition to all of the familiar faces, a new one named Nicole had tagged along, which he had learned uses something called ‘nanites’ to make physical structures (which infinite’s ruby copy was not strong enough to do that anymore)

Both groups have decided on meeting back up at Amy's house, where they begin yet another meeting

Infinite once again sits on the couch, as Amy quickly taps on the projected screen

Amy: Okay everyone, listen up! We have one more problem remaining, and it's going to be the biggest one yet!

The projected screen changes to a picture of a large machine with royal attire and a scepter standing atop a stage with the chaos emeralds, and a second one that shows eggman in a crashed eggmobile

Amy: Heavy king is a formidable foe, he has been able to overthrow Eggman on multiple occasions, and is stronger than even mighty, bark, and knuckles!

Amy points to eggman next

Amy: im pretty sure everyone here is familiar with eggman, so i dont need to go into detail

Infinite was well aware on eggman, but it seems whisper is tightening her grip on the wispon she's holding, even if her mask is covering any expression

The projected screen changes again, this time to show a hand drawn picture of blaze

Amy: if we’re going to stop them, we’re gonna need blaze to get us to the sol dimension, where we can battle the doctor and heavy king, and save the day!

Infinite sees that cream is quite enthusiastic about this by the determined look on her face, which makes the jackal smile a bit

On the contrary, shadow is still giving that annoying glare, as if he's waiting for something

The jackal pulls his scarf a bit down, just to be safe of no one seeing his chest

You still keep going on…its pathetic i must say

Suddenly, everything pauses except for infinite, the world covered in a red and purple tint

Infinite: who said that? What's going on?

I did, the one who has been watching your every move…the fear that you hide

Turning around, there is a figure, they are as red as the phantom ruby, and have a visor covering their eyes, sharp clawed hands, and feet that resemble chaos’. They seem to have hardly any features, not even a mouth, only what seems to be the original phantom ruby in their chest, and horns protruding out of their head

Infinite: what…are you?

That is none of you concern…

Suddenly, the entire world shifts, making the jackal fall into an all too familiar realm, now filled with endless amounts of obstacles floating around

If you want to escape, get to the end. No worries, no time will pass while im in control

[level: null space]

[objective: don't die]

___________________________

Whisper had fallen asleep suddenly after Amy had begun talking about the plan with blaze, which is unusual enough, but what is making it all the stranger is that there is only a dark abyss, nothing else

After a few seconds, the sound of someone singing some kind of song

Once…a land of light…

Torn…to fearing night…

I believe…in hope of the heroes…

Two lights…shattered from loss of those…

I believe…in hope…

To belive…in hope…

Just then, a glowing figure emerges from the darkness, they are a pure cyan, and have chaos’ hands, but everything else seems more person like, except for the abnormally large ears and white eyes on their detailless body. The last part is some kind of sapphire, made in the shape of a star embedded in their chest

Not putting full trust in this yet, whisper keeps her guard up, and cautiously approaches the figure

The diamond cutter taps on the being’s shoulder, causing them to jump in surprise

You weren't supposed to hear me singing! Now I'm emberassed…

The figure (whose voice is clearly feminine) looks away in embarrassment, giving whisper a big enough idea to see that she's trustable

Whisper: where…am I?

Oh, you're in a place I call ather space! I…haven't really gotten to making it though…

This only confuses the wolf more, maybe she can get an answer to what's happening in this conversation

____________________________

Infinite is not having a good time

He must keep on his toes and dodge every spike and pit trap in the simplest of areas, or difficult parkour with illusions of badniks and such attacking him along the way

As all of this is happening, the strange being makes it harder by using a giant blade he summons at will to cut rifts in reality to try and send infinite into the endless void of null space, and sometimes even break entire platforms in a single blow

Infinite: could you…you know…stop attacking for a few seconds?

Your attempts to quell me are pittiful…what did that wolf see in trying to redeem you anyways?

The mercenary is confused, since neither did he know why whisper had gone out of her way to give him a home and food, when he had only hurt others

Ignoring that, Infinite pulls out his blade, his real one, and quickly slashes through a few badnik illusions to keep going

In the distance is a large platform with only a way to get up to it, but not back

Infinite: just a bit farther!

_____________________________________

Whisper has learned a few things now

first, this beings name is sapphire, and she claims to be part ancient, but refuses to elaborate how

second, sapphire has spoken with infinite and honey, and showed a vision to the same feline and a hedgehog named scourge

Finally, there have been multiple universal anomalies, including Nicole, this scourge person, and something aboard the space station that she has yet to find out

I have to say, it is kind of nice having company here. But can I learn a few things about you whisper?

Whisper doesn't know what to tell her that's too personal, until she finally thinks of something

Whisper:...i use my mask to not make it look when im sleeping when i join for movie nights

Sorry, i only have seen a tiny bit of those ‘movies’ from watching people with strong dream energies

Whisper: dream energies?

Oh, right! Let me show you

With the movement of her hand, sapphire creates a magic hologram of two different yellow spheres. One constantly spikes, while the other lets out a brighter glow

Chaos energy is less controlled, but is very strong if harnessed correctly. Meanwhile dream energy is much more compact to specified parts of the universe, and can only be used by those who are hopeful and believe.

From the sounds of it, dream energy is chaos energy’s much tamer twin, which should be something to keep an eye on

Suddenly, a rift opens, showing what seems to be a large arena covered in inky black goo in running distance floating in a purple void filled with platforms

Oh, forgot about that…anyways, you need to go through there and help your friend, he’ll be there soon

And so, whisper gives a silent nod, then jumps in

_____________________________________________

After trekking through the nightmare of null space, infinite has made it to the top of the island, where he finds a single puddle of an ink like substance with the consistency of water

Infinite: is...that the portal?

Suddenly, the being appears behind the puddle, sword nowhere in sight

The puddle you see in front of you is not an exit…but a manifestation of chaos’ blind rage

Infinite is quick to pull out his blade for a fight, since he has been enduring this thing the entire time in null space

Infinite: I don't care if you want to fight, im getting out of here either way

Fight? Don't be ridiculous, I control this world, destroying you would be as simple as deleting everything. I have something more emotionally painful in store…

With a single snap, the puddle begins rising up, forming into a familiar monster, now inky black with red eyes instead of green

{BOSS:}

[manifestation of rage: D̶̡͔̦͇̬̪̜̲̘̦̤͌́̂̾͂͐̽̔̓̅̾͘͝Ả̵̧̦͉̌̓͆̅R̶̛̝̺̠͕͖̪͈̈́̒͑̈̾̃͛̀̓͂͒͝Ḵ̴̢̨̢̛̥̭̲̥̟͎̦͝ ̴̢̨͈̬͙̹̯͍̥̬͔̟́̕͜C̵̢̡̧̦̦̲̺͎̖̻̄̏̽̅̾͌̋̎̿́̆̔͘H̴̨̦͌̉̆̏̕͜À̶̢̨̜̰̘̘̟̫̟͉͉͍̈̐̔͌ͅO̶̞̣͙͎̪̥̓̅̎́̔̈̂͗͘͠͝ͅS̷̡̡̩͍̻͉̻̙̠͙̦͔͙͍̈́̈̉̽͋̕̕͠ͅ]

Without even a second of breath, dark chaos goes to the attack, rushing at infinite with extreme speed

The jackal attempts to sidestep the attack, but is grabbed by one of the angered beast’s arms, and thrown to the wall

Infinite gets back up, only to find dark chaos is gone

Infinite: where did it go!?

Dark chaos quickly jumps out from behind infinite, quickly stomping him to the ground

The harder the mercenary tries to push himself up, the harder dark chaos pushes his foot down, making every second hurt more

After a few more seconds of pure pain, the beast’s foot is removed, and the being grabs him

The so-called ‘ultimate mercenary’ can't even beat this beast. how useless…pittiful…WEAK

That word, ’weak’...it fills infinite with anger…

Infinite: i…am not…WEAK!

And yet you shake in fear at my power…

Low and behold, the mercenary’s hands are shaking, and tears fill his eyes

Infinite: I'M NOT WEAK! I'M ABLE TO BEAT YOU!

If you were so strong, you should have been able to save your team

Just to drag out the fight, the being drops infinite to the ground, as dark chaos walks up to the mercenary

You are permitted to kill him dark chaos, he’ll just come back until he escapes anyways

Dark chaos lifts a single hand up, aiming directly at the head, until a certain wolf slams her wispon into the beast, and knocking it back

After a few seconds, the diamond cutter looks over to the jackal, then lends her hand out

Whisper: need a hand?

Well…

…she was called guardian angel of the battlefield for a reason

And for that, infinite grabs the helping hand with a smile

Infinite: yeah, though i currently cant feel your hand because of how numb mine is

Dark chaos, who did not like that attack, rushes at the pair with that same extreme speed

Whisper attempts to sidestep it, but infinite quickly pulls her back in with his blade facing the beast

Whisper follows the position by pointing her currently empty wispon at dark chaos, making it ram directly into the weapons, and splitting it

Dark chaos is quick to reform, now angrier from its attack being stopped, so it begins to cover itself in a dark glow, only to be stopped by the being

This is a waste of time for now, the moment will come sooner or later, but we retreat for now

And like that, both disappear

{CLEARED!}

Whisper, who had not been attacked once that entire time, looks over to infinite, who has fallen over from the amount of pain he's in

Infinite: hopefully the pain goes away once everything is back to normal…

Suddenly, null space begins to be covered by the walls of Amy's house, still greyed out, and Infinite is back on the couch, feeling better as well

After a few seconds, time resumes, and everyone (except whisper and infinite, who look around in confusion) begins talking

After a bit of confused searching, the two canines finally look at each other, quickly exchange a silent conversation about what happened, then decide to talk about it later

Amy: so! Everyone got the plan?

The group burst into a cheer of ‘yes!’ and ‘yeah!’,clearly ready for whatever happens next

If theres one thing infinite does not regret…its not running away when he had the chance

Chapter Text

Sol dimension

Heavy king stands at the front deck of eggman’s new pirate ship, which he has yet to understand why the doctor needs to make it pirate themed

Speaking of the doctor, he is implanting one of the new phantom ruby copies onto his eggmobile, since he has already given heavy king these ‘anarchy beryl’, and a copy of the phantom ruby in case the original was taken

Eggman: I suspected to see that raccoon by now, she must have the location of the jeweled scepter!

Heavy gunner, who is shooting rockets at the water out of boredom, looks over to eggman with a tired look

Heavy gunner: haven't you found it before?

Eggman: well yes…but I forgot the cordinates…and they probably moved it!

Heavy gunner: well this is boringgggggggggg…

Heavy king: patience, gunner. Our time will come when we find them

Though this is true, there is one thing that the king of the hard boiled heavies finds…strange

That ultimate android shadow fellow, it keeps looking at his scepter, the same dull look in its real looking eyes the entire time

_____________________________

Marine: so, yer saying that a group called ‘the hard boiled heavies’ are with eggman to try to steal the jeweled scepter again? They ain't gonna be welcome ‘round these seas, y’got that right mate!

Infinite can already tell marine is not the quietest, but that didn't stop them from getting aboard this child’s pirate ship (which he is contemplating how she was allowed to get or drive this)

Just then, sonic walks over, his iconic grin plastered across his face

Sonic: so rael, how's your day been?

Oh right, everyone thinks his name is rael

Infinite: oh, well, pretty good i guess. Spent the entirety of yesterday searching for someone i dont know

Sonic: good to know, now what are your thoughts on our good friend eggy?

Odd…question

Infinite: well, he's evil, manipulative, and probably smells like old gym socks

He does, infinite would know

Sonic: Okay, okay. Last question, what's your favorite food?

…what? He thought this was leading to the blue blur revealing he knows who he is

Infinite: well, i guess i would have to say a chimichanga, they’re pretty good, you should try them sometime

Sonic: thanks for the tip, but i’ll stick to chili dogs for a while

And like that, sonic runs off, clearly oblivious as ever, letting infinite sigh in relief

To clear his mind, the once mercenary sits down in the lower deck, and begins throwing a spyglass up and down

Infinite: i wonder if anyone has a favorite place to go to for fun…other than the people who like blowing things up

_____________________________

ULTIMATE ANDROID SHADOW STATUS: FULLY FUNCTIONAL, NO SUSTAINED DAMAGE

MASTER: EGGMAN

OBJECTIVE: STEAL PHANTOM RUBY, BECOME STRONGER

ENEMIES: EVERYONE

REGRET OF ACTIONS: UNIT WAS NOT BUILT TO FEEL REGRET OR SYMPATHY

________________________

Everyone else is on the upper deck, while infinite is still sitting on the lower deck, the reason being he doesn't like most card games, especially ones that require good lying skills

After a few more seconds, cream comes down, holding 2 sandwiches

Cream: hello mr rael! Ms Amy made some lunch for us!

The young rabbit, hands a sandwich to the jackal, who accepts it pretty gladly

Infinite: thanks for bringing it down here kid, i know sonic would probably force me to play if i came up

Cream carefully split her sandwich into halves, the way she likes them. Meanwhile, infinite simply chomps down on the sandwich from a random spot, not showing any signs of manners

After a few more random bites, the jackal eats the rest whole, getting a giggle from cream

Cream: you remind me of someone at my home, you should meet him sometime!

Infinite: well, i guess i could try coming over sometime after we finish this adventure

The two begin conversation, which makes both not really notice mighty and ray coming down, the former’s sandwich crushed and his face covered in mayo

Mighty: you know? I'm starting to think I DO need to stop attempting to squish down burgers and sandwiches…

Ray: yeah, you could also ask me to do that instead of using super strength on a sandwich

The pair of adventurers look at infinite and cream, who are right in front of the towels

Mighty: hey infy, can you hand me the towel?

The name ‘infy’ confuses cream,but mighty realizes he just said the wrong nickname, which causes him, infinite, and ray begin to internally panic

Cream: infy? Who are you talking about?

Mighty: oh! Um! Heheh, just got rael mixed up with somebody else! Right, Ray?

Ray: Yep! Totally mixed rael up for someone else! Silly mighty!

Infinite, still partially panicking, quickly tosses the towel over to the pair, exchanging both a thumbs up

Infinite: no problem! It's not like I can't be mistaken for someone else!

Mighty: exactly!

Just then, tangle comes down, holding a bunch of throwing darts in her hands and tail

Tangle: we’re gonna play darts! You guys wanna join?

These words instantly make the jackal stand up, since he used to be a pro at darts, even if he only used pinecones and the targets were random trees

Infinite: only if you're ready to be dominated by me in it!

Mighty: funny, I was gonna say the exact same thing!

Ray: I'll cheer you on mighty!

Cream: have a fair game please!

_______________________________________________

Eggman turns on his communication screen, where orbot appears with a few papers in hand

Eggman: What is it you blundering bucket of bolts?

Orbot: good news, really good news, bad news, and really bad news from sage at the main egg base

The promise of good and really good news sounds amazing, but both bad newses seem to have made orbot look sadder than usual

Eggman:...good first, bad after

Orbot: well…good news is we’ve retrieved big-er, metal from the ARK. and really good news is an extremely intelligent badnik with the name EGG-001 has entered themselves into the eggnet, and has teamed up with both heavy rider and shinobi

If the doctor remembers correctly, units with EGG in their name were egg robos, and this is the first one that had been online after the angel island attack, then offline a few weeks after. This is such great news in fact, he forgot that he's speaking with his sarcastic lackey

Eggman: Okay, then what?

Orbot: I suppose it would be more important to bring up the worst news, being that after metal reactivated, he's simply…not responding to anything, not even sage!

Eggman: well…i’ll make sure hes okay once im back

Contrary to popular belief of everyone not in the eggman empire, eggman has treated metal like a son ever since the time eater incident, where both metals saved he and his past self

Orbot: finally…

Suddenly, a large explosion is heard from outside

Orbot: cubot forgot to instal the software to remove the ability for the ultimate android shadow to betray you

Eggman: WHAT!?

________________________________

Infinite is winning this game of darts by a landslide, getting a bullseye nearly every shot. His team (himself, whisper, sonic, and omega) as well has nearly double everyone else because everyone can be very precise

mighty: c'mon mighty, this is your chace to turn things around for your team…

The strong armed armadillo throws the dart, shooting too high and sending the dart into the ocean

Marine: darn, looks like we’re losing by a landslide mate!

Rouge: screw luck of draw, always puts me with the worst group

This is a dumb reason for her to be annoyed, because she hasn't been helping after she missed in the first round, and acting like playing for her team is the end of the world

Suddenly, a ship comes into view, as well as a black and yellow blur dashing past them

The blur stops, revealing the ultimate android shadow, phantom ruby in hand, followed by energy spheres being shot at them, but easily parried by doom spears

Everyone gets ready to fight, until a somewhat familiar (just familiar to sonic) vehicle rams at the android at full force, the a hand from the back attempting to grab the ruby

Sonic: ah, so egghead fixed his kleptomobile, and once again, he's being betrayed by his robots

At the same time, the other ship comes from the side, where both heavy gunner and heavy king hold phantom ruby copies

Heavy king: the badniks take care of the pests, we’ll help the doctor

Heavy gunner: you’ve got it boss!

Both place their ruby copies on them, as they both transform

Heavy king has become phantom king, the same look as he did before but a phantom ruby copy instead of the original. Heavy gunner on the other hand…he has gained 6 total arms, each with their own rocket launcher, as well as propellers coming out of the sides of his back, and a grabbing claw out his chest

Blaze and sonic are first to run over to android and doctor are, ready to fight them both they have to

Sonic: yo egghead! What's with your double faker?

Eggman: Well if you must ask hedgehog, the ultimate android shadow is a filthy backstabbing traitor! He's attempting to steal MY phantom ruby so he can use it for HIS own evil schemes! And that's disgusting, so I'm here to make sure the phantom ruby is in MY hands!

Sonic simply shrugs, as blaze summons the sol emeralds around her

Sonic: so, looks like we’ve gotta stop you two before you rip the world apart then!

Infinite looks at the pair and their confidence, and it's not that obvious he isn't the only one, because Nicole (the newest member here) quickly joins the pair

Nicole: Don't worry, I can get you up there sonic!

With the flick of her digital hands, a set of platforms for the hedgehog to run across appear from green particles

Infinite looks to whisper, who points to sonic, blaze, and nicole, telling infinite to jump up to them as well, as the wolf does the same

Infinite: mind a fourth and fifth member?

Sonic: not at all

Eggman finally is sent back a bit by the ultimate android shadow, just as heavy king flies in with heavy gunner

Eggman: so, looks like we have you two both! Well then-

The ultimate android shadow swiftly slams into eggman, until heavy king begins to fight it instead

Eggman: DON'T INTERRUPT MY MONOLOGUE YOU USELESS ANDROID! Ahem, anyways…

The mad doctor looks at infinite and whisper with a devious smile

Eggman: I knew you couldn't resist it wolf…and you fell right into my plan!

Everyone on the ship is confused, but whisper seems quite surprised, which concerns infinite

Whisper: you wouldnt…

Sonic: Hey, what's egghead rambling about now?

Eggman: not too long ago, the wolf had invaded my base, where i had narrowly gotten away because of me explaining shes single bad day from being someone i now your all familiar with

Sonic could infer he's talking about infinite, who he does not know is right beside him, while blaze and nicole are just confused

Eggman: I simply gave her some tapes, one on my logs, and another that my weapon had recorded

The term ‘weapon’ made infinite feel angry…he was not eggman’s weapon, and he even had the audacity to take his tapes, and-wait…whisper had seen them? And what does he mean by whisper is one bad day from being like he was?

Finally, eggman points to infinite, looking as confident as ever

Eggman: And you brought my weapon right back to me wolf! I’ll take control of his mind, and make him my ultimate weapon once again!

Everyone looks at infinite, except whisper, mighty, and ray, who have known about this for a while now. As well as shadow, who infinite supposed HE would have known already

Tangle: That's INFINITE!?

Omega: I FEEL HUMILATED FOR NOT SCANNING SIMILARITIES

Mighty: everyone, calm down, he's chill now!

Everyone who had not known about this begins talking among each other (except for Nicole, who is completely confused on what's happening), as the not so good doctor simply smiles

Eggman: Now, jackal…we can do this the easy way where you come silently, or the hard way where I take control of you after I've defeated you!

Everyone looks at infinite, some surprised, others scared…they never expected someone so driven with hate to be with them helping

All this…it makes him feel…weak…

The same way he felt when he had lost everything…lost to shadow…but one thing was different…

He was…accepting it? Every other time, he had attempted to convince himself he wasn't weak, yet he's seeing that he can't keep that as his primary thought

Just then, a hand grabs onto the jackals shoulder…sonic’s hand

Sonic: look infinite, I can tell you have anger that you wanted to bury, anger that blinded you, but you can't just act like you can forget about it.

The blue blur gives off an encouraging smile, adding a thumbs up and wink to the mix

Sonic: Sometimes, you’ve gotta let the past…be the past, and bring who you really are out! What do you think infinite

And to that, he just smiles back with his eyes closed

Zero: First, my name is zero, not infinite. Second, i think im ready to kick this ego driven egg into the pavement

The doctor is surprised by this, since he had not expected his nemesis to even be here in the first place

Eggman: WHY YOU INSUFFERABLE LITTLE RODENT! I HATE YOU!

Sonic: Hey, you can't say that yet, we haven't even begun fighting!

Not too far away, the ultimate android shadow is flung back, allowing heavy king to grasp the ruby

heavy king: doctor, i have once again retrieved the ruby, shall we return?

Eggman: NO! Not until we’ve eradicated that ANNOYING! BLUE! MENACE!

Sonic: man, i havent heard you this angry in a while egghead

While no one is looking, ultimate android shadow scans something on mighty, being what seems to be a black doom DNA sample

In the matter of a second, the traitor android kicks mighty’s chest, sending him flying into a wall, and the vile into its hands

Now done with the ship, it blasts back up to the scene, where sonic and zero stand on floating platforms made by nicole (who is floating), and blaze is is now burning blaze

On the other side of things, there's eggman in the kleptomobile, heavy king in his phantom form, and heavy gunner in his 2.0 phantom form

Now…now the battle really begins!

{BOSSES:}
[mad genius: DR EGGMAN]
[false lord: PHANTOM KING]
[multi-armed shooter: PHANTOM GUNNER 2.0]
[soulless faker: ULTIMATE ANDROID SHADOW]

{OBJECTIVE: GET THE PHANTOM RUBY!}