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solalunar-eclipse · 3 years

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SYCS - 1 Year Anniversary

Chapter title: Set In Stone

Word count: about 4000 words

Author’s Note: On July 26, 2020, I posted the first chapter of Scars You Can’t See. One year later, I’ve written five stories of varying lengths and am currently working on a sixth (wow)! My writing’s come a long way since then, and a lot of my improvement is thanks to everyone who encourages me to continue said writing, whether it’s through likes, reblogs, or comments. Thank you all so much for your support so far! :)

This is a rewrite of the very first chapter of SYCS, since the original could use a little fixing. Some important notes: I’ve edited a few parts of the story to be more in character, Chapter 2 starts in a different place after this updated version, and I’ve also fixed up chapter 13 because apparently I forgot to finish the motif I started?? Somehow??? At least I remembered eventually...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the (revised) story!

Before, Shadow had always been able to just ignore what it meant to work for G.U.N.

He’d managed somehow to convince himself to brush aside the fact that the soldiers he worked with (had been coerced into working with) wore the same uniforms as those who killed Maria, his dear sister and first friend. To push away any idea that he couldn’t deal with serving the same organization that had once wanted him dead. (It was the only way to stay with his friends, of course he could deal.)

The same thing went for using guns during the Black Arms invasion- even though he’d had amnesia, he remembered enough that he’d needed to rely on adrenaline near constantly just to make it through those times. Despite this, he had still taken the better part of a month to recover afterwards.

His memories of that day were particularly fresh for a while.

Once the invasion had been successfully repelled, G.U.N. had hired him to work for them very rapidly, as a matter of fact. During the process, some of the people along the way strongly suggested that if the organization wasn’t able to keep an eye on him, then…well, then they’d be very displeased.

Shadow knew all too well that you did not want G.U.N. displeased with you.

The hybrid felt nothing but exhausted as these thoughts whirled through his head for the hundredth time. They’d only become a major problem recently, ever since the military organization had begun to require him to resume using guns on his missions. Every single time he touched one, the cold steel left his palms slick inside his gloves and made his head swim with flashes of memories too often repressed. Still, he had to use them- he’d be taken off missions entirely if he refused, and Shadow would never leave Rouge and Omega in the lurch like that.

However, his mental health had been growing ever worse these past few weeks as a result. He thought (hoped) he’d done a good job of hiding it from Rouge and Omega, but Shadow had been sparring with Sonic noticeably less. The hybrid had struggled with the idea of inflicting more violence on others in his spare time, and the hero had asked him about it several times, trying to figure out the reason for his sudden change in behavior.

Shadow shook his head, pushing his doubts and worries away just as he always had before. He couldn’t allow himself to become distracted by his thoughts- they might spill over into missions if he wasn’t careful. Forcing himself to focus on his schedule for the day and nothing else, he walked out of his room to take on whatever might come his way.

…

He was skating through the halls of an old, decrepit building (currently being used as a hideout by Eggman) on a mission. A robot stepped into his path.

Shadow hadn’t used his weapon yet on this assignment. He remembered the thinly veiled threat after his first refusal- we may have to remove you from missions if you cannot handle this responsibility- and felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck.

He shut his eyes, whipped out the firearm, and pulled the trigger. Flinching at the sound out of instinct, he refused to open his eyes until the gun was away, when he didn’t have to see it anymore. The robot lay on the ground, a smoking hole in its center. He tried to ignore the lingering sensation of the G.U.N. logo embossed on the handgrip in his palm.

Shadow felt the floor tilt for a moment under him before he regained his bearings.

He refused to look at the machine as he rushed by.

…

The exhausted hedgehog curled up in bed at night, unable to keep himself from hearing gunshots over and over and over. He fought against the memories of that day, refused to let them spill over into his thoughts.

Yet despite his best efforts, he knew he’d dream of it again tonight. He knew that he’d wake up screaming with her name in his mouth and the sight of blood still burned into his eyes. It had happened every night since he’d received the weapon.

Shadow swallowed down his fearful apprehension over what would come next. He forced himself to breathe deeply, to close his eyes, even though he wished to do the exact opposite. Dreams were not real. He could not let them hold power over him.

But still, he shivered as he tried to fall asleep.

…

He and Omega were standing in the center of a courtyard, broken badnik scrap lying all around them. This mission was supposed to be easy, just a simple in-and-out. Take out the bots, grab the intel, and go.

Rouge had asked them to cover for her as she searched for information in the abandoned computers alone. Shadow hadn’t liked the idea of leaving her alone but agreed grudgingly anyway.

He looked down at the firearm he held in his hands and tried his hardest not to cringe.

Flashes of memories threatened to surface again, of escape pods and gunshots and too much blood-

“Shadow.”

He jumped, not expecting Omega’s loud voice so suddenly.

“Yes, what is it?”

“You have been distracted for nearly ten minutes. Are you unwell?”

Shadow sighed, projecting a relaxed attitude. “Everything is fine. I was simply thinking.”

“About what?” Omega asked curiously.

“Nothing much.”

Silence descended upon the two again for a minute.

“Shadow.” the E-series robot repeated.

“What.” he snapped, sounding more irritated than he’d intended.

“Tell me what you were thinking about. You looked distressed.”

“I’m fine, alright?” Shadow insisted. “Just- forget it, Omega.”

Omega stepped closer. “Past experience has informed me that you tend to hide important thoughts from others. Therefore, I will assume that this is essential knowledge until proven otherwise.”

“It’s not important.”

The robot placed his hand on Shadow’s shoulder. The latter wouldn’t admit it, but the weight was comforting, in a way.

“This is not adequate proof. Do you not trust me, Shadow?”

He sighed. “I do trust you, Omega. You know that.”

“Then talk.” Omega’s processors whirred for a moment, before adding, “Please.”

The hybrid’s shoulders slumped- he knew his friend wouldn’t stop until he told the truth. “I was thinking, how weird is it, that I work for the same organization that ki-...caused my sister’s-” He paused on the word, fighting not to trip over his sentences. “-death and...attempted to cause mine. Among other things. And how now...I must use weapons like the ones that took her from me...to harm others.” He sighed, nearly worn out just from the effort of discussing that event’s existence.

Omega jerked away from him, startling Shadow. “G.U.N. is the organization that killed your sister?” he asked, sounding- if it were possible- shocked.

“And the one that locked me away in cryostasis for 50 years, yes.” Shadow said, feigning calm.

Omega made a staticky noise that sounded like a sharp exhale. “Shadow. Why did nobody tell me this before? And why in the name of Chaos do you still work here?”

Shadow looked away, hiding the bitterness in his expression. “Multiple reasons. One, the organization has somewhat cleaned up its act, as far as I can tell. Two, it wants to keep me under surveillance, since I am still ‘potentially dangerous’ to them...and consequences would be severe if I did not obey.”

He tapped his heel on the ground. “Also, it was one of the main avenues for us to become heroes. Unlike Sonic and his friends, we don’t have the luxury of fighting someone who wants us to know where they are. And you know we didn’t exactly have the best record with law enforcement beforehand.”

“Still.” Omega replied. “I am highly opposed to the concept of fighting in the name of such an organization. Have they at least apologized to you? Or admitted their wrongdoing?”

Shadow frowned, thinking. “No, actually, they never did.”

Why did he have to bring this up? There’s no point in talking about what’s past. Let’s just get over it and move on.

Omega looked down, his eyes dimming slightly. “Processing.”

He was still processing by the time Rouge arrived, and remained mostly silent for their exit, post-mission briefing and the entire ride home.

Once the three had gotten inside, Rouge faced the E-series robot. “Alright, what’s up with you? You’re never quiet, but you’ve barely said a word since I got back.”

“I am considering an important decision.” Omega said.

“Oh? And what might that be?” she asked, folding her arms.

“My potential resignation from the government organization known as G.U.N..”

“Wait, what?” Rouge gasped.

Shadow shouted out from the other room simultaneously. “Omega, what are you thinking?!”

“Current logic process is as follows: G.U.N. hurt one of the few decent people on this planet and my friend fifty years ago by murdering Maria Robotnik and many others aboard the ARK, as well as imprisoning him for said fifty years against his will. It has not apologized or shown remorse for those actions. Therefore, this organization clearly has no respect for Shadow, and therefore I refuse to aid them one moment longer.”

Shadow appeared at the robot’s side, placing a hand on his arm. “Thank you, Omega, but you don’t need to do that for me. I’m alright with this.”

(He was lying, of course.)

“Hold on a minute here, Omega’s got a point.” Rouge said pensively. “I started working here so I wouldn’t go to jail for stealing, but I’ve served my ‘sentence’ ages ago. Honestly, I kind of hate it there anyway? Like, nobody even respects us and it’s got way too much bureaucracy and too many outdated ideas. It’d be much better if it was just the three of us doing our own thing away from them, wouldn’t it?”

“Besides, hon, you’ve got to start standing up against those guys. I know you were going through a major existential crisis a while back when this all started, and that was the main thing you had to deal with. But now that you’ve started to figure everything out, it’s time to stop letting people treat you this way! We don’t have to give G.U.N. anything. They never helped you at all.”

“Agreed.” Omega said. “This organization does not deserve you- or any of us. They have wronged you, and though forgiveness is supposedly a ‘virtue’, it is likely so only when it is deserved.”

Shadow stared at the two of them. “That was...actually kind of philosophical for a minute. And convincing.” He huffed, frustrated, his hands curling into fists. “I just…how would I even go about dealing with my grievances with an entire military organization? I would need proof...and I don’t want to damage my standing with the government. G.U.N. can easily claim that I have gone rogue.”

He swallowed, trying to ignore the various insecurities at the corners of his mind. “I’m just...should I really be digging all of this up again? I’ve finally started to get over it…”

“Okay, so first of all, hon, you’d better not let G.U.N. walk all over you just because they can make up fake blackmail.” the bat insisted. “And second, you’re clearly not over it. Shadow...I can hear you when you wake up from your nightmares, you know. You deserve some kind of closure to help you, and if G.U.N. won’t give it to you, then you have to take it.

“Also, here’s another thing- how much worse would you feel if G.U.N. hurt someone else, and we had never said anything to warn anyone?”

Shadow stiffened, feeling ill again. The very idea was abhorrent. That another person’s Maria could be lost due to his silence...“That...that would be unimaginable….” he breathed.

“Exactly.” Rouge replied. “So, consider it.”

Shadow frowned. “I...I’ll keep it in mind. But we should at least see if they’ll do something first before we try to attack them. We might be able to convince them to make amends, after all. I mean, if we fight, we’ll be completely out of a job, and I don’t know if the funds from Club Rouge will be enough to keep us afloat- if we succeed. It’s too risky, at least for now.”

“If that’s what you want to do, then we can definitely stick with that to start.” the bat said. “I don’t know if I could’ve taken any of their apologies if it were me, but it’s not my life, it’s yours. So I’ll be right with you no matter what you decide to do, okay?”

“As will I.” Omega added, placing a hand on Shadow’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Rouge. Thanks, Omega.” the hybrid said, finally allowing relief to show on his face as he looked at his friends.

He couldn’t help but feel that with them by his side, everything would be alright.

…

They talked through most of the night about how to bring it up, what they would say, and even where they would sit to keep Shadow feeling as safe as he could. The hybrid had final veto power over anything the other two suggested, and he tried to keep the wording of the speech he’d give as controlled and polite as possible.

However, he tried not to bring up the “maybe G.U.N. still thinks I’m a weapon to be stored and used, not a person” topic during his proposal. Those insecurities could wait for another day.

They fell asleep late at night, all three in the same room- Shadow made a blanket nest on the floor, Omega plugged himself into the wall, and Rouge was on her bed.

Pleasantly enough, Shadow didn’t have any nightmares that night.

…

“You want us to do what?”

The head of the public relations department stood behind his desk, cutting a slightly dominating figure in front of the team in his room. Omega could easily detect an increased heart rate in Shadow. He was not betraying any nervousness externally, however, and the robot was impressed by his friend’s willpower.

The PR head sat down, and he gestured for Team Dark to do the same. However, since there were only two chairs in the room (as they had known), Omega remained standing. Among other things, it would allow him to more easily defend his friends should the talk go awry.

“I’m afraid we just can’t do that kind of thing...Shadow.” He said the last word like it was distasteful, like it didn’t belong in his mouth. (Or, perhaps, like he wanted to add a “Project” or “Experiment” to the front of it, but didn’t for fear of a missile to the face delivered by Omega.)

“Why not?” The hybrid asked. “Sir,” he forced himself to add politely. “Don’t you agree that it was wrong? That G.U.N.’s soldiers shouldn’t have done...what they did?”

“I am incredibly saddened that Miss Robotnik’s death occurred in the search for you, and that the head of G.U.N. at the time considered you unworthy of any basic living rights.” the PR leader said, sounding more than anything like he was reading a script off a teleprompter. “However, I am not going to make a public statement digging up something that happened fifty years ago.”

Rouge leaned forward in her chair furiously. “So you’re just going to pretend it never happened? What about the trauma Shadow experienced? What about the fact that this kind of thing could happen again?”

The leader looked at her coldly. “I can assure you that this is an isolated incident, and that such an occurrence has not happened before or since.”

“But you can't just-! Can’t we speak with the commander?” Rouge gasped, outraged.

“I can, and I will. And you know very well that the commander is taking a well-deserved vacation, and we are not to disturb him for any reason except an emergency. Now then. Did you have anything else you needed?” he said smugly.

Omega was so, so close to just arming the missile launcher anyway.

Shadow looked up at him carefully, clearly going over the words in his head. “Sir. May I respectfully ask why G.U.N. considered it necessary to arm me? I can apply lethal force if necessary in other manners.”

The PR head frowned. “Close quarters are not necessarily a safe space for you, Shadow. We need you alive, and if that means you’re farther back, then so be it.”

“But- me? Destroying with impunity? In such a cold, distant manner? That’s not what G.U.N. wants to see from me, I thought. And with my experiences, I really don’t think-”

The human folded his arms. “Don’t worry about thinking, just worry about completing your missions on time. And what’s past is past, right? Now then, I expect no more complaints from you three. This meeting is concluded.”

Shadow stood up stiffly. “Yes, sir.”

Rouge froze. “Wait, Shadow, you’re not just going to-”

“We’re leaving, Rouge. Now.” Shadow said firmly, but the two other members of Team Dark could hear the unsteadiness in his voice. Omega remained silent, but internally was playing a very nice simulation in which he repeatedly punched the head of the PR department.

Once they had exited the office and walked through the facility for a while, Shadow leaned heavily against a wall. “He’s not sorry at all.” he muttered. The robot didn’t need his sensors to tell that he was experiencing far too many negative feelings at once. It wasn’t healthy for organics to deal with all that all the time…

“Agreed.” Omega said. “I would not be surprised in the least if he was lying throughout all of it.”

Rouge sighed, before pulling an unresisting Shadow into a hug. “Honey, I’m...” She paused for a second. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. You shouldn’t have to cope with people like that, ever.”

Shadow closed his eyes quietly and stood like that for a long time. Eventually, though, he spoke up. “.....I know what we have to do. I...I know we need to fight, like you said last night. I don’t feel ready, but just…it has to happen.”

Omega looked down at them both. “You two go out to the car. I will go and get your sister’s files myself while you take a few minutes, Shadow. I am bulletproof and the most likely to make it out unscathed, and if I need help I can call.”

Rouge rolled her shoulders briefly, her wings flexing. “Alright. I’ll be ready to get out of here the second you get in. Sound good?”

“Alright.” Omega agreed. “Let’s go.”

The robot marched down the halls, on a mission. He stopped first to gather everything from their office- or at least all of their personal items. They might need them later, after all. He placed them into his empty chest compartment (he hadn’t refilled on weaponry in a while) and moved on.

The lower levels of the G.U.N. facility were darker and less well-maintained. This was most likely on purpose, to keep people from wanting to go down there. Omega, however, did not fear the dark. He had a flashlight, and a hulking five-foot robot was usually enough to scare most creatures.

Thankfully, the guards stationed throughout these levels knew him, and simply stepped aside to let Omega pass. Quite a few of them were honestly nervous down there themselves, and barely even noticed him.

He noticed a small door marked ‘Records Room- Classified’ and knew he was in the right place. The door did not give him access, but that was alright. Rouge had hacked the system a while back and given herself the highest clearance possible...and now Omega had her spare card.

Once he was inside, he scanned the cabinets methodically until he found the file marked ‘Maria Robotnik’. Inside were papers detailing her death and her life. Everything one could have wanted to know about her was inside.

The red stamp on the front reading ‘Terminated’ was pretty ominous, and Omega briefly wondered if he would be able to remove it. He considered the possibility that Shadow would not be quite so pained upon seeing it if the stamp were gone.

It was unlikely, and so he moved on.

Omega exited the room, hoping that the guards in the security monitor room were slacking off. They often were, so he calculated at least a 70% chance of exiting the facility without incident. He placed the file inside his compartment and continued on.

Being a robot meant that he could not act nervous. Therefore, nobody questioned him as he walked through the halls and outside, where he saw Rouge talking to Shadow inside their black-and-red car.

The hybrid appeared to be rather panicked about the whole plan, so as Omega slid into the backseat, he placed his hand on his friend’s head for a brief moment. “Everything is going to be alright, Shadow. I promise you that.”

Shadow sighed and slumped back against the seat. “Let’s get out of here before someone notices what we did.”

Rouge pulled out of the parking lot with a screech of the tires and didn’t let the speedometer dip below fifty until they got home.

“Right.” she said, once they were all inside. “We’ll probably have G.U.N. beating down our door by tomorrow morning, so let’s make sure they don’t catch us still here by then. Omega, refill your weapons and pack us some clothes and stuff. Shadow, you just try and chill. I’m going to look over this file.”

As Rouge flipped through the pages, Shadow decided that he needed to see these for himself and walked over to stand behind her. Before long, though, he recoiled in shock upon seeing that when G.U.N. discussed Maria’s death, they justified it. Made it seem like Shadow was the villain. A monster. A weapon.

“Shadow?” the bat asked.

“...yes?”

“You know we can’t use this by itself, right? We need more proof. Like, video proof.” she said, sounding resigned.

“I know.” he said quietly, disappointed that so little had changed despite the fact that half a century and some new management had taken place.

Omega cursed out G.U.N. from the other room in response and came over to them, his eyes in their ‘angry’ shape. “We need to stop them now. This revolting organization does not deserve to spend another minute active anywhere on the planet.”

“Let’s get them, then.” Rouge hissed, clearly furious as well.

Shadow felt terribly apprehensive, but despite that, he agreed as well. “Then they won’t be able to hurt anyone else in the future.” he said, sounding more determined than he had in a while.

“You ready, guys?” the bat asked, holding out her hand in the midst of their little group.

Omega allowed his giant metal hand to hover over hers. “Always.”

Rouge looked at the hybrid. “You sure you’re up for this, hon?”

“Not entirely…” Shadow admitted, but took a deep breath and held out his hand too, allowing Rouge to guide his hand to Omega’s, just like she had so long ago. “...but I need to do it, and so I will.”

“Then we’ll expose them, Shadow.” she said confidently. “And we’ve totally got this, because we’re doing it together.”

And as they all clasped hands for a moment, before breaking off to head to the garage, Shadow felt like they really had a chance to succeed.

#scars you can't see #sol's fanfiction #shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #i've actually had this saved for a while! i thought the anniversary would be a good time to post it :)#i went back and reread chapter 1 and was like '.......i could write this so much better now'#so here we are!#i especially didn't like how omega forced shadow's hand- i much prefer this one where it's a team agreement #shadow's still a little hesitant because of how it turned out the last time he went up against g.u.n.#but he knows he needs to do this for himself (and for others too)#i did still try and keep the general plot structure the same though- just improved it (hopefully)#either way i'm looking forward to another year of writing! it's been really cool so far :D #thanks as always for reading

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msrosey · 4 years

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shadamy: Easy Chill

Summary: Amy canonically hates the cold. Shadow canonically runs hot. You can see where this is going.

Links: AO3

Comic panel that inspired this. Tumblr ( @lonelysadblob) that inspired me.

Amy Rose prided herself on her adaptability, on being prepared for any scenario with the brightest of smiles, the most positive of attitudes, and, when all else wasn't enough, a quick hammer to the kneecaps.

There was, however, one blind spot in her nigh impenetrable shield of optimism, one Achilles heel to her adonis of good cheer. And she was currently hip deep and freezing in it.

“Stupid forest. Stupid snow,” Amy muttered, using her hammer to whack at the section before her. The snow was sent soaring to rather impressive heights only to be quickly replaced by a fresh wave from nearby drifts. Amy narrowed her eyes at the offending substance, pointing with a gloved finger. “I will destroy you.”

Omega chimed in from ahead, “I APPROVE OF THE FLUFFY PINK ONE’S NEW APPROACH. QUERY: MISSION CHANGE TO ELIMINATING GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE?”

“Not unless you wanna start an avalanche with us in it,” Rogue said, contently flapping in the air far above the perilous drifts. Amy shot her a look of pure envy. Wings were the biggest cheat. As if reading her mind, the bat smirked and added, “Plus, I’m pretty sure the fluffy pink one would demolish you if you added any more ice to this bunch.”

“Darn straight,” Amy grumbled, whacking away more snow off the path. Which had the unintended consequence of hitting the nearby tree and dumping a fresh pile. Right on top of her. Her headband was knocked off. Trickles of now melting slush were sliding to slide down the back of her dress. She couldn't feel her nose.

Above her, Rogue giggled with a pink gloved hand covering her mouth. “Aww, trouble, fluffy?”

That was it. Amy let out a cry and swung her her hammer in a flurry of movements that cleared several feet of snow around her, lobbed several patches of ice towards Rogue and Omega (the former ducking behind the latter with an agility that proved she’d not been completely ignorant of the effects of her teasing), and last, but not least, uprooted the offending tree and several of its brethren and sent them flying off until they were small, dark specks in the sky.

Amy panted with exertion as she looked over the results. A nearly clear patch of forest, with only the lightest trace of offending snow. Her feet on solid ground, er, permafrost. Finally. She let out a deep, long breath.

“You have this one handled, or do you think you might need some backup?” Rogue called out, a sly smile on her face as she rested on Omega’s shoulders, who looked almost impressed at the carnage.

His robotic features were certainly doing something. “IMPRESSIVE DESTRUCTIVE POWER. CASE FILE UPDATED TO REFLECT SO.”

“Well, of course,” Amy said, casually brushing the remaining ice from the spines in her hair. “I mean, a lady like me always has things handled.” She leaned on her hammer as she fixed the last few spines, hip cocked to the side. “And a couple flakes can’t bring down A—“

The only warning was the sound of several dozen trees swaying in a sudden heavy breeze. It was only her innate superb hedgehog tracking skills that had Amy turning, only in time to be hit in the face by several tons of snow.

Courtesy of her destined hero’s rather bumpy stop.

“You guys all right? Shadow spotted some trouble by here just now, do you need...“ Sonic's eyes went wide as he spotted the hedgehog shaped snow drift at his side. “Hey, is that—“

“AMY ROSE WITH THE SHORT TEMPER AND HIGH PROCLIVITY TO VIOLENCE?” Omega responded, something almost gleeful in his robotic tone. Atop his shoulder, Rogue was staring, slack jawed. “AFFIRMATIVE."

“Ooh,” Sonic winced. “Heh, heh, oops?” A low growl started to build from the pile and Sonic wisely took several steps back, looking towards Omega and Rogue for backup. The former of which looked to be eagerly awaiting the results of the interaction and the latter already flying ahead.

“We can…talk this out, right, Amy?” Sonic asked sheepishly, “It was an accident. I know you hate the cold but you hate Eggman more, right? Attack him first.”

His answer came in the form of a the sudden poof of the piko piko hammer, poking out from the side of the Amy-shaped snowman.

“Not a good sign,” the blue hedgehog muttered, “Might be time to—“

In a blur of black and red, Shadow slid to a stop across from him and coincidentally beside the snowhog of murderous intent. The rockets on his hover shoes flared at the sudden change in speed, causing the snow immediately around him to rapidly melt. The hedgehog shaped snow mound quickly became a dripping mess of pink spines and wet clothes.

Shadow opened his mouth to speak only to shut it at the look of genuine fear on his blue counterpart’s face. A note of true concern leaked into his voice as he said, “Was there an attack?”

“ABOUT TO BE,” Omega chimed in, robotic voice high with excitement.

Shadow turned in time to catch the determined look on Amy Rose’s face and the current soaked state of her clothes and froze. Her spines dripped steadily onto the surrounding permafrost earth, breath coming out heavy and cloudy in the cold air.

There was a moment where Sonic looked about to laugh...but then the single hedgehog army better known as Amy Rose moved.

Then Sonic actually did laugh, although less due to the situation and more due to the absolutely stricken look on the Ultimate Lifeform’s face as he was embraced by the smaller pink berserker.

Her arms were wrapped around his neck and looked to be supporting herself up, knees bent and boots high off the wet ground. Her head was tucked somewhere between the tuft of white fur on his chest and his neck, and she looked to be…nuzzling closer? Shadow’s eyes went between the top of her head to Sonic’s form, hunched over and cackling, then to Omega, who looked confused as to whether this was some new offensive strategy, and looped back around to the hedgehog currently holding onto him for dear life.

“I-Uh-“ stammering in a completely out of character way for an ultimate lifeform, Shadow held his hands in tense positions on either side of her, not entirely knowing what to do. “What?"

A small, muffled sound came from her. “—mfph-ded the snow.” A shift in position, one that sent a surprise shudder through the dark hedgehog, and the words became clear. “You can melt snow.”

Amy Rose looked up at her current savior with eyes full of hero worship. Her voice was syrupy with awe, “You. You can melt snow.” Her arms showed no sign of tiring as she tucked herself closer to the living weapon’s chest, sighing. “And you’re warm.”

“ANALYSIS COMPLETE: SUBJECT KNOWN AS ROSE HAS SUFFERED A COMPLETE MENTAL BREAK. RECOMMENDATION: TERMINATE IMMEDIATELY,” Omega offered to the side, perking up at this new potential of violence.

“Nah, nah,” Sonic cut in, still chuckling, “This is classic Amy. She hates the cold. Usually trades off with Tails on these kinds of missions, but he was busy with the Rogues. Must be your lucky day, huh, Shadow?”

Shadow looked less prone to chaos controlling himself back onto the ARK where things made sense, robotic lizard monster and all, but still had every spine on edge. His eyes flickered down to the still happily sighing hedgehog attached to his form. In a still not completely level tone, he told her curtly, “Off. Now.”

Amy ignored him in favor of tucking herself more securely over his shoulder, improbable muscles barely straining to carry her own weight even with his own arms still hanging loosely at his sides. It was obvious she do this for hours. Something in Shadow’s stomach twisted at the thought. Whether it was the fact the pang wasn’t quite unpleasant or his own dislike of Sonic’s increasing likelihood to pitch into another spurt of laughter, he found himself tugging at the hands around his neck. “You’ve faced down dimensional calamities. The cold is hardly a threat to you. Now, let go."

“No use,” Sonic said, grin now a thing that stretched so far across his face it was a wonder it didn’t reach his ears. “Last time it was Big, and she didn’t get off for hours. Or was it days?” A mischievous light was in his eyes as he pretended to think on it. “But it’s not like the Ultimate Weapon can’t handle one delicate lady, right?"

Shadow narrowed his eyes at the taunt, preparing to chaos control away just to spite the blue hedgehog of a target. The figure pressed against him made a sound of dislike at the first feeling of chaos energy being collected, turning her face upward to face his.

The full might of Amy Rose’s bright, pleading eyes were unleashed upon Shadow, a sight made particularly pitiful by the way her wet quills laid stuck against her still flushed cheeks. His resolve began to falter. No. No, he wasn’t going to give— Amy’s eyes went impossibly bigger, looking to reflect the whole of his being. Shadow’s thoughts spun. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, a Living Weapon—

Amy Rose stuck her her bottom lip, trembling.

—A glorified pack mule. Swearing to find some way to patch up his weak spot towards innocent looking girls in apparent distress, Shadow slumped his shoulders and moved to support the pink hedgehog fully. He pretended not to notice the pleased sound she let out or the way her tail was currently wagging at speeds closer Sonic’s own when chili dogs were involved.

A few feet away, Omega sulked. “ANOTHER SITUATION SOLVED BLOODLESSLY. I AM QUICKLY TIRING OF THIS PATTERN.”

“Don’t worry, big guy, I’m sure Eggman has something special for you,” Sonic said, still smiling. He looked over at Shadow. “That is, if someone isn’t too busy playing knight in shining armor. Or should we leave you two alone for a bit?”

Shadow humphed. He’d quickly moved through the stages of acclimatization and was now compartmentalizing the sensation of being in such extended close quarters. Even if the errant hum or brush of shoulders from Amy seemed to scramble those thoughts, he was still perfectly capable of dealing with the current issue.

Which was shutting Sonic up.

“What shining armor? I’m just taking a handicap,” Shadow scoffed, activating his hover boots. “We both know I’ll reach Eggman’s fortress easily in this terrain. I thought I’d at least give you a fighting chance.”

The words hit their mark and Sonic bristled. “Oh, yea? Well, eat powder!”

He launched off towards the coordinates Tails had sent them, with Shadow hot on his heels. He thought of overtaking the blue hedgehog then but passed on it. Plenty of chances in the future and he might as well give the faker a shot. Plus, the potential of harm to Amy in this current wooded area was too high.

But mostly the part about chances.

Blocking out the rest of the snowy world around her, Amy nestled closer to the radiator of warmth that was a certain soft-hearted Ultimate Lifeform. Sometimes the best ways of adapting was leaning on others. Literally.

Now to break it him this was gonna be a repeat thing…

#shadamy #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #shadow x amy rose #shadamy fic #mine #listen. listen. LISTEN.#..........#nvrmind i have no excuses feel free to tune me out #msrosey fics

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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261. Sonic the Hedgehog #192

Metal & Mettle (Part 2)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: J&A Ray

As Sonic and Scourge face off against their Metal counterparts, Sonic urges Scourge to once again reconsider a truce so they can take out the robots first. Scourge dodges the question by pointing out that Sonic still hasn't given him an answer about teaming up permanently to take over the multiverse, and Sonic similarly dodges that question by saying they should take care of their current situation first. Meanwhile in Eggman's base, Dimitri approaches Eggman, who is currently whooping as he watches the video feed from his robots like it's a sports match, and coldly observes that while Eggman has apparently been able to build his robot doppelgangers in a matter of hours, he's still not bothered to get on with creating a new robotic army to supplement the Dark Egg Legion. Eggman brushes him off to continue cheering on said doppelgangers, which only makes Dimitri angry.

Dimitri, considering you revealed just a couple issues ago that you understand just how evil Eggman is, you had to know something like this was coming. He'd hardly be giving the Legionnaires free upgrades out of the goodness of his heart and just expecting them to stay loyal out of gratitude. A deflated Dimitri leaves the room, Eggman once again content to ignore him and continue watching his robot-hedgehog boxing match. Back at Freedom HQ, Sonic and Scourge struggle to keep up with their respective dancing partners, but Scourge is unwilling to call in the Suppression Squad to help even when Sonic urges him to. The Suppression Squad therefore continues to watch from the sidelines, and Miles points out that despite Scourge's downright villainous personality, Sonic continues to look out for him every time Metal Scourge tries to take him down.

This is what you get for commanding your subordinates through fear instead of earned respect, Scourge. They don't actually want to help you, they just don't feel like they have any choice. In the "Eggdome," which is apparently Eggman's new base of operations for the Legion, Dimitri finds Lien-Da and pulls her aside for a chat despite her irritation at being interrupted. When he informs her of the bombs inside their cybernetics, she's furious.

Yeah, Lien-Da, don't even try to blame Dimitri for this one. His reputation and intentions may not be spotless, but yours are far worse. Sonic finally convinces Scourge to bring in the Suppression Squad when they end up backed into a corner, and he reluctantly does so, with the Squad dispatching both robots in a matter of seconds. Miles slyly points out that in the brief fight he and Sonic worked "surprisingly well" together - anyone getting the impression he's thinking about defecting? Now that they're out of the fight, Scourge once again pesters Sonic for an answer to his offer, to which Sonic finally reveals that the reason he hesitated before was because he was so disgusted by the thought that he couldn't even speak. Yeah, sounds about right. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to take on the whole occupying force at once, Sonic cheerfully "extends their lease" on Freedom HQ until he's rested up, and takes off back for New Mobotropolis. Once there, he has to face Elias, who scolds him for having run off against the orders of the council, though he admits he personally didn't have a problem with Sonic's decision.

Turns out, this new mission involves a new set of star posts that Rotor and Tails have whipped up in short order, which will take Sonic straight to Moebius. After all, since Scourge and his cronies have taken one of their bases, why not look into taking one of his? Sonic, of course, is pleased, though he then pulls a terrifying smile that barely even looks like it should come from the pencils of the otherwise-exemplary Tracy Yardley. Seriously, dude, normally your Mobian faces are so good, how did something like that happen?

Father and Son

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Jon Gray Colors: J&A Ray

Later that night, Scourge sneaks into the city himself and enters Sonic's house through an open window, looking to give him a surprise beating in bed. However, unfortunately for all the excited shippers whose hearts just jumped up a hundred beats a second, Jules is sitting in an armchair in the living room, and curtly informs Scourge of who he is. Scourge seems mostly amused to be meeting his alternate-universe father, and is even more amused when Jules says that he's not afraid of Scourge, and points out that he's sacrificed himself for his son before and won't hesitate to do it again. He's less amused, however, when Jules calls him a coward and chastises him for having thrown his own world into chaos over his selfish desires.

Is… is Scourge implying that he murdered his own father? Look, we've already seen before that Scourge isn't exactly averse to killing someone, even when they're unconscious and defenseless, but killing his father in cold blood, his own father who is presumably a good and pacifistic person from his own description, is on a whole 'nother level. Jules, refusing to be intimidated, stands up and mocks Scourge for apparently having to sneak up on Sonic at night to get an advantage despite being such a badass conqueror, before telling him that even if he isn't sad over his own father's death, Sonic will be, and he doesn't intend to go quietly if Scourge comes after him.

Struck a nerve there, I see. I'll note that it's never actually outright confirmed if Scourge killed his father or not, it's left deliberately ambiguous. Though his dialogue does seem to imply that he did, his reaction here makes me lean toward thinking he didn't. If I had to guess, I'd say that at some point his father died of other causes, or maybe even died in some kind of accident that Scourge caused, making him indirectly responsible. Remember, Scourge is an inverse of Sonic - he's not the total opposite, but rather a mirror image, driven by his most negative traits while Sonic is driven by the positive. Sonic himself has trouble processing his own emotions, especially those relating to grief and loss, so I can only imagine how much worse Scourge is about it. With that in mind, I could easily see Scourge trying to mask his grief over his father's death by not only pretending not to care, but going so far as to act like he hated his own father and is now glad he's gone. Hell, he doesn't even have to pretend - it's likely he's convinced himself of this entirely, and hasn't even thought about it in depth until this world's Jules called him out on his cowardice and hypocrisy. I can't really see another reason why his words would suddenly make Scourge deflate and start crying while walking away without even a proper retort. Scourge, under Ian's writership, has ended up becoming one of those fascinating characters who doesn't really deserve a redemption arc, but is interesting enough to a wide selection of readers that people want him to get one anyway. Certainly, even as an unrepentant villain, he's a fun one for sure.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 192 #writer: ian flynn #pencils: tracy yardley #pencils: jon gray #colors: joshua d ray #colors: aimee r ray

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another-sonic-blog · 5 years

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That Makes Us Two Chapter 1: Switched

Switched Bodies AU ShadAmy Boom!:

Shadow and Amy hate each other, but if they want to get their bodies back, they must first embark on a mission together.

Can love repair the circumstances that were broken by hate?

Life was completely normal for Amy Rose. As normal as it can get when you have to defeat evil every day.

Fighting robots, villains, mostly destroying Eggman's plan. Yes, everything was going as usual in Hedgehog Village.

"Can't we do something else?"

Amy sighed as she looked to her Meh Burger.

"What do you mean?" Tails asked as he took a bite of his burger. "Don't you guys ever wonder where the meat we eat comes from? I mean, we are animals after all-"

"I mean we just do the same thing over and over again! We wake up, fight some villains, come to Meh Burger, repeat" Amy interrupted Tails as she looked to her teammates.

"Well, Ames, that's what we do. We are heroes and Tails that's actually a pretty good question, where does the meat come-"

"So we are bound to do this forever?"

Amy looked at Sonic who was now concentrating on his burger, too focused to figure out the mysteries behind it.

Sticks took a sip of her juice as she looked at Amy and with a burp, she added, "That's what the government what's you to do."

"If you don't feel like being a hero, then why don't you take a vacation?", Knuckles said.

"Knuckles we know that you may not have the brightest mind, but you may just have made a breakthrough!"

"Um, thank you?"

Amy stood up from her seat with a victorious smile on her face.

"I'll take a vacation!"

And so she desired, and so that became. Everyone on team Sonic agreed that Amy deserved a vacation away from all the fighting. Now, Amy was headed to do one of the things she liked the most...Archeology. According to her research, there was a cave on the outskirts of the city that may have important information about the 'Ancients'. The old civilization was well known for its technological advances. However, one day the entire civilization disappeared without any clues.

and this cave might just have the answers to that.

Amy was well prepared, lanterns, proper clothing, and equipment around her waist. It seemed like the lanterns weren't going to come in handy as the cave contained some purple markings that lighted the entire cave properly.

As she made her way through, she found a larger purple rock. It was the size of her hand and to her surprise, it was pretty light. She continued to appreciate the beauty of the gem and as she did, she noticed there was something engraved on it.

It was written in the Ancient language but she had a pretty good knowledge of it to know the meaning of the words.

"If in front of me war unfolds, I'll curse both until love is found."

Amy gave it a thought. Just what could this mean? She was deep in thought and she didn't notice someone approaching her.

"What in the name of Chaos are you doing here?!"

Amy was startled by the voice behind her. She dropped the purple gem, and it broke into five different pieces.

She turns around to find no other than Shadow the Hedgehog, Team Sonic's number one enemy standing right in front of her.

And he didn't look happy at all.

"YOU BROKE THE GEM, YOU IDIOT!", Shadow yelled at her and like hell was Amy was gonna let him have his way.

"YOU APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE WITH YOUR GLOOMY FACE AND EXPECT ME NOT TO HAVE A REACTION?!" Amy yelled back at him, angry that Shadow had made her drop an important piece of her research.

"WELL, I EXPECT MY HOUSE TO BE FREE FROM PINK PESTS LIKE YOU!" Shadow walked closer to Amy and as the argument got more heated, they failed to realize that they were both stepping on the four remaining of the purple gem.

"YOUR HOUSE? WELL MR, I MUST SAY THAT YOU SENSE OF FASHION IS TOTALLY OUTDATED!"

"YOU LITTLE BRAT-"

Without knowing, the remaining of the purple gem began to glow at fast speed.

There was nothing the hedgehogs could do and the next second, they were both surrounded by the light coming from those four pieces of the purple gem.

It was just too bright...too blinding.

and then everything became black.

It must be around night time because Amy couldn't find any light source coming from outside the cave. Good to know that at least Shadow didn't murder her. Her body felt heavier than ever.

Also, she felt cold.

Around her chest area and her legs. Wait, what?

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG!?"

Amy screamed on top of her lungs, expecting the worse. She was terrified but she was more scared at the fact that her voice didn't sound like the usual.

She looked at her hands, which were more bigger now. Bandages, a lot of bandages around her hands, covering her black fur. She touched her chest expecting something round and soft; only to find a firm, sculpted, more mainly one. White chest fur covering it.

And oh god those horrible, outdated fashion shoes.

Oh, Chaos.

"I AM AN EMO!"

As if the first scream wasn't good enough to wake him up, now the second one certainly did.

He moved his head to where the screaming was coming from.

Not believing his eyes, he rubbed his eyes one, again and again just to confirm what his eyes were telling him.

He looked at himself really quick, pink and pin everywhere.

Boots, clothing, fur...

"I am an oaf!"

"Hey, I heard that!"

Shadow stood up from the ground as he approached Amy.

"Who's the fault is it that we are on this mess?", Shadow said with a hiss.

"Do you think I like this? Look at me! I am you!" Amy looked at Shadow's body once more showing a disgusted look.

"AND I AM YOU!"

"AND WHO'S FAULT IF THAT!?", Amy got closer to Shadow ready to get into hand-to-hand combat.

"If you hadn't broken that gem, we wouldn't be on this mess!"

"Well if you hadn't scared me then we wouldn't-"

Amy stopped midtrack as she realized that the five remaining pieces of the Purple Gem were gone. "The broken pieces of the gem...they are gone!"

Shadow turned to his previous spot to confirm her words and she was right indeed.

"Breaking the Gem must have caused us to switch bodies...maybe if we put the gem back together, we can undo this!" Amy said as touched the ground, making sure that there were no fragments of the purple gem hidden under it.

"HEY, DON'T DO THAT! THOSE GLOVES WERE HANDMADE!"

Amy frowned and game Shadow a 'really?' look. The look had triggered Shadow, didn't she know that her face was annoying enough?

Wait, no that's his own face.

"Seems like we are going to be hanging out for a while now," Amy said sarcastically.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't mop the floor with you."

"One, you don't have a floor, you live in this cave. Second, you NEED ME to be able to get your body back. Want to mop the floor with me? Fine, at the end of the day it's your body who you are harming."

"You have no idea how much I despise you right now" Shadow had to admit that this moment was uncomfortable. He was threatend his ownself while looking all...small and cute. This body of hers, it felt weird enough.

"The feeling is mutual, Shadow"

Shadow sighed, defeated. "Fine, we find the missing broken pieces of the Purple Gem, put them back together and we get our bodies back...after that, I never want to see your face ever again."

"and we shall never see each other again," Amy repeated, confirming what Shadow had said. She pulled out her hand expecting Shadow to shake it on agreement.

He pulled out his hand, ready to shake Amy's hand but as soon as he held it; an electric shock ran through both of their bodies. The electric shock made both their bodies jump to opposite sides of the cave.

Just what in Chaos had happened?

Shadow looked at his hand. He noticed that the bandages that were covering Amy's clothes were now gone due to electric shock. Her golden rings seemed a bit scratched but her glove was completely gone. He noticed that the shock had made a weird engraving on her hand that for sure would heal into a scar.

If Shadow didn't know better, he would think that the scar had a moon shape.

"Hey, Amy...", Shadow said now in a more serious tone.

"Yeah, I see it too...the engraving on my hand looks like a circle," Amy said lost in thought. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

"It's probably meant to symbolize a sun, mine looks like a moon." Shadow ignored her question. Actually, there was a story on how he found out her name, but he didn't feel like telling her that embarrassing story just yet.

Amy got close to Shadow and looked at Shadow's hand.

"It looks like a banana," Amy added.

"What kind of bananas do you eat?"

"Anyway, doesn't it hurt? My body has always been delicate when it comes to injuries." Amy added.

"Of course not, I am the ultimate life form, this is nothing to me-"

Oh, but he was wrong. He wasn't the ultimate life form no more. His body now belonged to Amy and he was trapped inside of her. He wanted to scream, yell but his pride got the better of him. But he couldn't hold it for too long. Now he felt it...a lot and a lot of...pain.

"SON OF A-"

Sonic couldn't go to sleep. After all, he hasn't heard anything from his girlfriend in three days and he was starting to get worried.

Did he say, girlfriend? He meant to say Amy, yes, Amy.

He wanted to give her her space but she promised to let him know if she was alright just so he could be at rest.

But she didn't do it.

Amy went for a vacation for a week on the last three days of her trip she hasn't communicated to him nor anyone on Team Sonic.

And so, Sonic decided to look for her.

He looked everywhere she could, the beach, museums, important historical places but nothing.

He checked everywhere but the cave he was about to go into.

"I am also hungry, I've never felt this way! I am...I am starving, I need food!"

Sonic could swear that the voice he heard was Amy. But damn, since when did Amy speak like that?

He walked a bit more, letting the purple engravings of the cave light his path.

"I have dried meat on my bag"

Hold on a second...was that Shadow's voice?

"Oh Chaos no, I am vegetarian! Do you have any idea where does the meat you eat comes from?" Shadow said to Amy with a disgusting look. Before this could turn into a fight, Shadow and Amy looked towards the end of the cave just to see the blue blur standing right in front of them.

"Sonic!"

Amy was so glad to see him she wanted to run and hug him but knew it was impossible as long as she was in Shadow's body.

"Amy, what's going on? Why is Shadow here with you?", Sonic questioned as he gave Amy a nasty look. Sonic walked close to Shadow unaware that it was him due that Shadow had switched bodies with Amy.

Sonic placed a hand on top of Shadow's head, he looked into the pink fur, making sure there were no injuries.

"Touch me again and I'll bite your hand off," Shadow said and Sonic was taken back by this, still not believing his ears. "What did you say, Amy?"

"We are here because I am a creep and I just wanted to scared this pretty little girl hahaha!", Amy had now broken the tension between the two. She thought that being trapped inside Shadow's body would make it easy to impersonate him, but it seems like she needs more practice than that.

"Well, get lost Shadow! I am here to protect Amy! And if you don't like that, I am gonna have to fight you." Sonic said he put Shadow behind him.

"Oh no, please! Have mercy! Please take this beautiful hedgehog away before I pass on my gloominess into her!"

Shadow was having none of this crap. Amy was using his body to play jokes on him. Well jokes on her, two can play the same game.

"Actually, Sonic, there's something I've been wanting to tell you.", Shadow said with a teasing voice.

"What is it, Ames?"

"Sorry I never told you this but...I am in love with Shadow"

"WHAT?!"

"WHAT?"

Both Amy and Sonic yelled in unison. Shadow walked up to Amy who had a priceless expression. Even if Amy's face was his own, he had to admit that it was pretty comical.

"Yes, he is just so strong and way cooler than you!"

"Wait, not Sonic, it's not true, he, I am she is lying!", Amy tried to explain but Sonic had that look that Amy knew very well. He had heard enough and he wasn't going to listen to reason.

"I see...then, I'll leave you two alone."

And so, Sonic began to walk away. It took Amy everything to not stop him and tell him the truth. But knowing Sonic, she knew that he was going to take the wrong way. After all, you don't switch bodies every day.

After Sonic left, Amy turns to see Shadow smirking. Oh, how she wanted to wipe off that stupid smile but she stopped herself as she didn't want to leave a mark on her on the face.

"You will pay for this Shadow the Hedgehog!", Amy threatened him.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure to pay all of it...every single one of them," Shadow said sarcastically.

"You are such a jerk! I am sure you can't even stand yourself!"

"You are right I can't stand myself and neither do you and according to math...that makes us two."

Next Chapter: https://another-sonic-blog.tumblr.com/post/186691087620/that-makes-us-two-chapter-2-duo

#Shadamy #shadowxamy #shadow and amy #shadow the hedgehog #Amy Rose #sonic boom #sonic the hedgehog #shadamy boom #amy boom #Shadow Boom #sonic fanfiction #sonic fanfic

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crusherthedoctor · 5 years

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Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 10: INFINITE

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series of mine in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be sharpening our blades and resisting the pain as we discuss what it takes to be the right-hand henchman of Sonic Forces: Infinite.

The Gist: Dr. Eggman was minding his evildoing business when one day, from thin air emerged a particularly strange jewel that seemed to be drawn to him. Realising this was no mere Chaos Emerald, due to both its peculiar shape and its bizarre reality-distorting effects, Eggman immediately contemplated how he could effectively utilise this new gemstone for his purposes.

Suddenly, jackals!

“Go forth, Red Shirts!”

Eggman's base was under attack by the imaginatively titled Jackal Squad, a group of thieving mercenaries who figured they could profit from the theft of the doctor's equipment. Unfortunately for them, Eggman had Main Character Immunity, so their efforts to kill him send him to the Shadow Realm fell flat. Despite nearly getting killed by them, Eggman knew an opportunity when he saw one, and he offered the role of apprenticeship to the squad's heterochromia-inflicted leader. His fellow jackals insisted not to take up the offer, because even they knew the risks, but the leader signed up immediately, because he's not all right in the head if you know what I'm saying.

In a cruel twist of fate, Eggman's first request for his new stooges was for them to take care of Shadow the Hedgehog. That Shadow the Hedgehog. Ultimate Lifeform Shadow the Hedgehog. Fast, immortal, capable of stopping time, drops his bracelets to grow even stronger Shadow the Hedgehog. They had to defeat that Shadow the Hedgehog.

They did not succeed.

BOOOONESAAAAAW’S READYYYYYYYY

After metaphorically and literally murdering the rest of the already forgotten squad, Shadow gave some parting words to their defeated leader, and those parting words were responsible for what happened next, and everything after. As someone who prided himself on being the ultimate mercenary, Mr. Jackal was bloody well peeved off about coming to terms with his physical shortcomings, and thus decided to give himself an upgrade in the form of sticking a gem on his chest, putting on a mask worthy of a heavy metal cover, and rechristening himself as... Infinite. Infinite power. Infinite possibilities. Infinite memes.

The upgrade paid off. With the aid of the gem, known to us as the Phantom Ruby, Eggman's latest minion was able to distort the environment, summon past foes, and do what no other villain not retconned out of existence had ever managed to achieve: defeat Sonic the Hedgehog.

Eggman was delighted. The past foes were delighted too, as evidenced by how they stood there to take it all in.

This is a very sentimental moment for them.

With Sonic out of the way, Eggman was able to take over 99% of the planet, because Sonic's friends were tragically all on holiday at the same time. During the subsequent six months of suffering and strife, Infinite relished in the doctor's conquest, but not as much as he relished in killing and terrorizing innocents. One incident in particular involved him leaving behind a scared youngster for the sake of letting them know fear. This would turn out to be a big mistake on his part, when - with the ever reliable power of friendship - said youngster would go on to oppose him as part of the Resistance. (This franchise isn't known for creative group names.)

“L’Oreal: Because I’m not weak.”

The formerly incapacitated Sonic also managed to eventually break free from his captivity, and proceeded to do what he does best alongside his new friend. Infinite was having none of this, and so he made absolutely certain to... leave him alive. Despite Eggman's insistence that a freed Sonic could cause as much trouble as a freed Sonic could in every other situation since 1991, Infinite remained confident that he couldn't be beaten. Three guesses for how that turned out. The first two don't count.

He was serious about crushing the Resistance though, and together with Eggman, not only did they summon a whole army of clones, they also summoned an artificial sun that, upon reaching the ground, would ensure the Resistance would meet a terrible fate. Good always triumphs however, and the clones were fought, the sun was vanquished, and Infinite himself was defeated once and for all.

It was at this point that Eggman decided to reveal that Infinite was a sham, a distraction, a red herring. For all his power, Infinite was little more than a glorified mook the whole time. Infinite was never the doctor's endgame. He was. Infinite didn't even have true mastery over the Phantom Ruby... but he did.

Death Chad Robot.

In just a few minutes, Eggman tapped into the power of the Ruby more than Infinite ever did, and overclocked it to turn his Doc Ock-looking mech into a beast. But through thick and thin (and a second Nega-Wisp Armor), Sonic and his ambiguously named friend teamed up to take the madman down, because we're Sonic Heroes.

The world was saved from further tyranny, and Eggman went on to either lose his memory or shrug it off to take part in racing spinoffs depending on the continuity. But Infinite - or rather, the jackal who called himself Infinite - remains absent. He could be alive. He could be dead. He could finally get a haircut. His fate is a mystery that we may never know the answer to. Maybe he's spending his retirement climbing the tallest of mountains.

The Design: Careful you don't cut yourself with all this edge.

You could have gotten yourself an eyepatch for half the price.

Demonic eyes, dark colours, anime hair... he's a villain alright. Infinite's design is unashamed of itself. It knows it's ridiculous, and it goes all out with it, which - let's be frank - matches the character in general pretty reasonably. Funnily enough, I don't have much else to say about it. It's not my favourite character design in the world, but I can credit them for pioneering loudspeaker ears. And at least he's not a hedgehog. Or an echidna.

If you listen carefully, you can hear Shadow sighing in relief under the knowledge that he's no longer the edgiest guy in the room.

The Personality: What's an easy way to make a villain a villain? By making them pointlessly sadistic, of course.

"You may call this the Sonic Chronicles soundtrack... in the brief moments that remain to your eardrums."

And I don't speak lightly when I say pointless. Infinite's penchant for sadism is actually treated as a character flaw, as it contributes heavily to his ultimate downfall. He wastes time by drawing out his kills, and his decision to leave his greatest foes alive because they're supposedly "not worth killing" bites him in the ass on more than one occasion. Even Eggman calls him out on his shitty decisions.

"Don't get cocky with me, son. This ain't the Adventure Era anymore.”

And this ties in with how he is in general. Infinite, for all his delusions of grandeur and nihilistic waxing, is a bit of a fuck up. Him and his squad combined couldn't even take on Eggman on his own (albeit with a Phantom Ruby in his possession), and when the mask comes on, it becomes clear that he only defeated Sonic through the element of unfamiliarity. Once Sonic starts to know about him and fights him for real, Infinite doesn't rely on the Phantom Ruby nearly as well as he could. He has a jewel that can do all sorts of distortions, and all he can think to do with it is use basic lasers and blasts for the most part. He's a thug at the end of the day. A powerful thug, but a thug all the same.

Despite this, though it's only hinted here and there, it seems that he has an Inferiority Superiority Complex. His passionate response to Shadow calling him pathetic (ironically, he never actually said he was weak) goes without saying, but then there's his dramatic speeches about having no hope, and how you can't count on anyone, and blah blah blah eat a Snickers already.

The Execution: Much like Erazor Djinn, you may have gathered that this character has a lot in common with everyone's favourite Ice Age antique, Mephiles the Dark. Like Erazor, Infinite is a better (albeit flawed) take on Mephiles' schtick, but whereas Erazor better emulates the success that Mephiles tried to go for, Infinite better represents the failure that Mephiles actually is... right down to showing how Silver would react if he had actual brain cells.

Above: Character development.

Hell, they both share the fate of getting swatted by Omega.

Not bitter at all.

Anyway, to explain this requires some elaboration. I'm aware that a lot of what I've said about Infinite sounds negative, and that's not entirely untrue, since I'll be the first to admit that he could have been handled a little better, and fleshed out a bit more, especially with all the pre-release hype and attention he was given. At the same time however, he's still leagues above the likes of Mephiles, for one simple reason that we discussed previously: his incompetence is intentional.

Maybe not fully - the pre-Infinite breakdown probably wasn't meant to be as comedic as it ended up being - but you can't tell me his setbacks weren't there on purpose. Eggman lost the war because Infinite left his enemies alive and free. Eggman lost the war because Infinite clumsily left a Phantom Ruby replica behind. Eggman lost the war because Infinite kept messing around when he had better things to do, didn't know what to do other than blindly attack when the chips were down, and got disposed of with little fanfare by the doctor after having failed him enough times. Compare all this to Eggman himself in the same game, who despite being known for his childishness and occasional shortsightedness, had a lot of genuine foresight to share around, and went from backup plan to backup plan like it was nothing.

In other words, Infinite could be seen as a well-needed deconstruction of villains like Mephiles, and why they're not as great as they look at first glance. And in that respect, he's kind of a genius concept.

“Ugh, MORE shitty friends...”

Infinite is a very divisive character, and I can see why. Alongside his far from perfect execution, many fans were expecting and hoping for a straight example of late 00's Sonic villains, in part because that's what the marketing and his infamous theme song set him up as and partly because '06 is now considered better than everything afterwards because Baldy McNosehair is literally oppressing all Sonic fans across the world. If you're like me on the other hand, and don't have the slightest unironic interest in those kind of villains, you can probably respect Infinite a little more for addressing the elephant in the room. And even though he is indeed flawed, I think most of that has to do with the wasted potential of the plot itself rather than anything inherently to do with Infinite's own character.

He's no Eggman, Erazor, Metal Sonic, or Hard-Boiled Heavies. But he's above Mephiles, Black Doom, Eggman Nega, and so many others who blend together after a while. Still, maybe someone should assist Shadow the next time he decides to insult somebody.

Crusher Gives Infinite a: Thumbs Sideways!

#Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite?#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog #Infinite #Sonic Forces

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infinite-insignia · 5 years

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Sonic Forces: Bad Ending

@a-wind-of-freedom

WARNING: VERY LENGTHY AND GRAPHIC. CONTAINS BLOOD/GORE, THEMES OF TORTURE, AND DEATH/MURDER. READER DISCRETION ADVISED.

Well, well, well. What did we have here? Starlight Sonic the Hedgehog--Mobius’ almighty hero--just begging for all this pain to end? Not very heroic of him, was it? No, no...in fact, it was...amusing.

The jackal would never have let themselves die in such a pathetic way...but seeing a hero give up so easily? To be able to control the hedgehog’s fate with one quick decision...it was like a rush of power. Similar to how they felt when the abilities of the all-powerful Phantom Ruby first fell into their hands.

An unlimited power...the ability to choose whether a hero lives or dies. Now, they’d spared people like him before, simply to see how it would play out. How much more pain they could cause after their initial encounter. But this time? They weren’t too sure.

I mean...he had been locked up in a cell on the Death Egg for quite some time now. How long had it been? A few months? Maybe more? Whatever the case, the living conditions were...less than ideal.

The hedgehog had been practically tortured, broken beyond belief--if the physical pain hadn’t gotten to him my now, the mental pain must have. Staring at the beaten-down hedgehog, they could feel the Phantom Ruby’s spirit threatening to take over their body and do the job for them.

But no. They were going to do this on their own. It’d be more...entertaining...this way. After all, they’d been contributing to the eventual destruction of the world. If this plan was going to work, there’d have to be as little resistance as possible. With Mobius’ hero dead...it wouldn’t be long before everyone else realized that hope for their pathetic planet was gone.

But, hey. If the hedgehog wanted to die so badly...the merciless brute that was Infinite wasn’t going to let him die easily. No, it was going to be slow and painful. To see how much pain the poor guy’s body could take before finally embracing death.

“You, of all people, wish to die by my hands? How curious--I never would have expected such a request from the ‘savior’ of this planet. However, if you insist...��

Activating the Phantom Ruby, the entire area turned a sick, glitchy red. There were dozens upon dozens of ways to kill someone. Now, which way to go about it? With reality under their control, anything was possible.

...Then again, they could always rely on their trusty sword. It had gotten them through tough mercenary missions in the past, and it had proved to be a deadly weapon during the war so far. Said blade quickly formed in their hand, as sharp and deadly as ever. But ending it in one swift slash wasn’t going to be entertaining.

“...I’ll gladly oblige. But be warned--your last few moments will be anything but painless.”

With a snap of their fingers, multiple copies of the blade appeared in the air around the hedgehog. Instead of being flung towards him all at once, each blade seemed to strike individually in ways that would be sure to make him suffer in agony while keeping him alive as long as possible.

One cut across the blue blur’s arm slowly, drawing blood--it even looked painful. At an agonizingly slow pace, sword after sword began to leave a variety of deep, bloodied gashes across his body. Some grazed his quills--others, his legs. He wouldn’t need them to run around once he had died.

After minutes of this, the onslaught of blades finally came to stop. It had felt like hours since the pain had begun, but it wasn’t over yet. There had to be time for the finishing blow. Teleporting into the confines of the cell, the original blade--the one in their hand--was pointed at him.

The deadly weapon looked even more terrifying up-close. The deep red color, the intimidating stare of the one wielding it, the blood that now coated over their mask and fur...what an unpleasant thing to see right before death. It’s as if the jackal had become the reaper, and their sword acted as that infamous scythe that was known to take lives all across the globe.

“I hope you’ve said your goodbyes to this planet and its inhabitants. As of now...” The tip of the sword inched dangerously close to the hedgehog’s chest, enough to poke him and draw a single drop of blood.

“...the Eggman Empire has won this war.”

And with that, the blade was plunged into his chest, instantly piercing his heart. A few seconds passed, and the lifeless body of Mobius’ former hero no longer even twitched. Removing the sword and reverting reality back to normal, Infinite looked at their handiwork.

A complete an utter mess. Deep red splotches littered the floor and walls. The smell was horrible--not to mention the countless wounds all across the dull, hollow husk that used to belong to the Empire’s worst enemy.

The Phantom Ruby’s spirit watched in deranged awe--not even having to interfere once with any of this, it was surprised to see they pulled off something this brutal. At a loss for words, it turned to look at the jackal, whose weapon had turned into a bunch of glitches and cubes before fading out of existence.

Turning their back to the cell, they gave the spirit an emotionless passing glance. They’d deal with its nonsense--as well as cleaning the blood off themselves--later. For now, they had a war to win. They left the Prison Hall, focused on one thing only--victory.

#The last one that's standing. {ic}#That's what it takes {v;forces}#Faster than a shooting star {Starlight}#a-wind-of-freedom #long post//#blood tw//#gore tw//#torture tw//#death tw//#murder tw//#I'M SCREAMING #I actually wrote all this holy shit #I'm shaking this is so wild #aaa??#rip starlight I guess!!#y'see this kind of stuff is why I wanna write forces verse more #well not just cause of the death #also for kin reasons #but still. talkin abt war and murder?#w i l d. and that's the kind of content I wanna write more of #but anyway wOO ok #that was. wow. gotta take a tiny bit of a writing break #like holy shit guys. wow.#913 words of literal murder I'm. actually shaking that was insane.#is it bad to say I like writing this shit #not that I approve of irl murder #it's just fun & interesting to write abt #I'll shut up now before I sound weirder

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nervouswreck-96 · 7 years

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Supernova - Chapter 1

Not really much I can say here, other than…welcome to Supernova!

What you’re reading is the result of over a year’s worth of throwing ideas at the wall, seeing what works and what doesn’t, and trying to fit it into a meaningful Sonic story. I’ve been teasing this for about a month, so I hope this first chapter is worth it for you.

PART 1 - SIEGE

From the bridge of the ESS-1, Dr. Eggman had a view of the world.

It was staring him in the face, coming to him through a live camera feed from a satellite orbiting the earth, now flickering and waving on a color monitor built into his console. Fondling his chin in contemplation, he couldn’t help but lose himself in the imposing presence of the planet, as blue as the most brilliant sapphire, as smooth as a pearl from the ocean floor, yet as rough as the fibers on his own moustache. And now it was so close he could almost reach out and touch it.

“Master…”

An Egg Flapper, one of the many robotic assistants aboard the ship, took on the dangerous task of approaching its master with a message while his attention was focused elsewhere. It received no response from the doctor, not even a grunt of acknowledgement.

“Look at it. It’ll all be mine. All of it,” said Dr. Eggman.

The vaguely jetpack-shaped robot pressed on. “Master…”

“All of this. All mine. All of it…”

One more time, this time with maximum loudness factor.

“Master!”

This time, of all times, Eggman noticed. As did Flapper, who was knocked backward when his master threw his arms into the air in shock.

“WHAT…do YOU…WANT?” he said, as soon as he regained enough of his equilibrium to talk.

“The Master Emerald has been fully harnessed, sir,” said Flapper.

Oh, yeah…that.

Without a second thought, Dr. Eggman engaged a series of levers and buttons on the command console in a specific order. In one grand crescendo, a symphony of lights and monitors switched on across the bridge, each one providing its own distinctive noise upon start-up. The doctor then pulled a public-address microphone out of the console unit and held the activation button firmly against his palm, ensuring his message would be transferred to every corner of the ship.

“Attention all units, all classes!” said Dr. Eggman. “Clear the deck and prepare for launch! T minus thirty seconds!”

A countdown began on every screen on the wall of monitors in the bridge. 30 seconds.

With the pull of a lever, a series of rocket boosters along the undercarriage of the ship blasted untold amounts of green Chaos Energy towards the ground – just enough to warm up the volatile motors, but not enough to actually achieve lift just yet.

20 seconds.

Dr. Eggman pulled a specially designed four-point harness over his head and fastened himself into his massive captain’s chair. He would be the only one restrained, as he had placed enough faith in his ultra-resistant armor to protect his robots against the wild gyrations and inevitable collisions caused by take-off. There was no need to go through a long and complicated checklist before launch; the ship’s sophisticated automation system took care of that for him. It was just as well, since the list of things that needed to be checked would have been almost as long as the body of the ship itself.

10 seconds.

This was the moment. With one button push, the restraining bolts clamping the ship down would be released, and the Chaos Energy motors would release one final blast of energy, enough for ESS-1 to punch a hole in the overcast night.

Emphasis on would.

Dr. Eggman’s nerves contracted with each tick of the clock. Five seconds. Four. Three.

There was no two.

There was only a senses-shattering jolt below the floor of the bridge, as if the earth itself exploded under Dr. Eggman’s feet. Before his mind could even process what happened, he had been shaken completely out of the captain’s chair.

Staggering to his knees, he managed to take a brief glimpse back at the tattered remains of his “specially-designed” four-point harness and mentally added the Thompson Seatbelt Manufacturing Company to his ever-growing enemies list. He then scanned the rest of the bridge for any signs of structural damage...all the while wondering why all the lights had suddenly turned red.

The soothing, yet frantic monotone of the female voice synthesizer module would reveal all.

“INTRUDER ALERT. LAUNCH ABORTED. COMMENCING EXTERNAL LOCKDOWN.”

Those words were enough to pull Dr. Eggman off of his feet and toward the captain’s seat. His first act was to pull up a map of the ESS-1 onto the screen directly in front of him. The map was impressive in scope, almost too detailed to fit on one screen, showing a perfectly-scaled-down layout of the ship from deck to deck.

Impressive as the map was, Dr. Eggman was pretty sure that the blinking red dot on Deck 5 wasn’t originally there when he drew it.

With each refresh of the screen – once every second or so – the red dot had advanced just a little bit further toward the very core of the ship. Even after the lockdown, the voice synthesizer’s warnings grew faster, louder, and more frequent.

“INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT.”

The doctor gulped at took place on his screen, hoping it would blow over. He wasn’t so lucky. Soon, another red dot appeared on the map, following a similar path to the first one. Moments later, a third dot appeared, this one ascending from the supposed entry point on Deck 5 to Deck 6.

Eggman pulled up live security camera feeds from the decks onto each of the monitors on his command console. Each screen carried a different camera; each camera captured a different angle and position; each position was far away from the other, leaving the entire ship covered.

Within seconds, out of the corner of his eye, Eggman noticed a break in the still, unmoving picture on camera one. A tiny blip, no larger than a few measly pixels across, had emerged on the screen for a split-second, only to disappear just as quickly.

A tiny, blue blip.

It…it can’t be…

“Computer! Rewind camera one!” said Eggman.

The footage from the first camera was rewound to a few seconds earlier, at such a speed that no blue blip was visible at all during the process.

“Zoom in and enhance!”

Moments later, the blue streak reappeared on a video screen to Eggman’s right, appearing and disappearing before his brain could even give the signal to his eyes to move in that direction.

“Master?” asked Flapper. As usual, Dr. Eggman ignored him completely, choosing to focus on the security footage.

“I SAID ZOOM!” repeated the doctor, pounding the control panel.

It would all become a moot point. Camera five – which occupied the largest screen on Eggman’s wall of monitors – would reveal the answer.

A figure…that’s all that could be made of it…had poked its head in from the right side of the picture. The security cameras were specially built by Eggman himself to ensure quality capture of the most detail and color, neither of which he was seeing on the screen. The mysterious form was so close to the lens that the camera’s auto-focus had difficulty coping with its subject. Eggman seethed as the picture seemed to come into focus, only to reverse itself time and time again.

“Grrrrrrr…FOOOCUUUUUSSS!!!” he said.

Eventually, through the hazy patchwork of pixels, a clear face finally began to emerge. A familiar face.

A mocking face.

“I…is he…?” said Eggman.

The figure on-screen was sticking his tongue out at the camera. Or more accurately, at the camera’s owner.

Soon after, Dr. Eggman watched as a white glove, possibly belonging to the intruder himself, reached over the very same unit that was broadcasting the images. Suddenly, the angle tilted sharply toward the ground, as if the camera was being pulled off its hinges. It was the last image camera five would ever transmit.

The unit did, however, survive just long enough to finally give Dr. Eggman a clear image of his tormentor. Flapper could practically feel the heat radiating off its master’s face as he made the match.

Of all times…that accursed hedgehog…

“Arm all missiles,” said Eggman, through clenched teeth.

It was a race against time. Not that Sonic the Hedgehog was fazed in the slightest bit. As far as he was concerned, he had this race in the bag.

A series of constantly-changing blurred lines formed his entire world. His movements followed an almost computer-like synchronicity as he flicked each leg in tune with the other, letting his arms drift behind him like the wings of a jet. His feet didn’t contact the ground so much as they skipped, bounced, lightly brushed against it, almost as if they never touched the floor at all. The only sounds were the syncopated pounding of his own feet and the rush of wind that formed a futile act of resistance against his legendary speed.

And the occasional roar of a heat-seeking missile, like the one passing by on Sonic’s right.

Of all the places on this entire barge he could’ve smashed through to get inside, it had to be the one where Dr. Eggman was storing ammunition. He couldn’t decide if he had the worst luck in the world…or the best.

As the missile ran parallel with Sonic, he didn’t shy away from the oncoming threat to his own life. He drifted toward the danger, feeling the adrenaline rush scythe through his veins, embracing the chance that every second could bring him closer to his own destruction.

The flash of a green light on the very front of the projectile indicated that its target was well in sight and the attack was ready. Even with milliseconds to spare, Sonic never diverted from his chosen path. He turned his head toward the right, gazing straight into the weapon of his attempted murder, flashing a friendly wink toward it as he would a passerby on the sidewalk.

Perhaps that gesture alone was what triggered the red light, the signal to finish the attack. Sonic watched closely as one massive blast of rocket fuel directed the explosive weapon straight for him.

Oh, think you’re so tough, eh? thought Sonic.

Even though it ventured so close to the hedgehog that he could clearly make out the serial number on the solid propellant rocket motor, he firmly stayed his course, holding back on altering his speed or direction to evade the missile’s path. After all, it just wouldn’t be fair to the missile, would it?

With absolutely no time to spare before becoming charred remains, the hedgehog revved up for a burst of extra speed. If all went right, there would be two booms sounding at roughly the exact same moment.

Bet you can’t keep up with this!

Finally, the heat-seeker struck the ground at its maximum velocity, deploying its explosive payload on the exact spot where Sonic…

…used to be.

Sonic was long gone, untouched. A sonic boom and a cauldron of flaming steel were all he left in his wake.

“Ha!” said the triumphant speedster. “Too easy!”

No sooner had he shaken off that first brush with death than he saw a bright, orange trail of light strike the ground directly in his path, ricocheting off the floor. Whatever it was, it created a harsh metallic ping that resonated off every surface. Sonic stepped off to the right, shifting lanes on the endless steel highway.

Soon, there was another. And another. And another that came from the other direction. Sonic’s lightning-quick situational awareness let him put two-and-two together.

First missiles, now bullets? Come on!

Even shifting positions did little to evade the oncoming barrage, as the two rounds of ammunition changed direction with him to converge on his new position. Undeterred, Sonic played along. With one graceful flick of his left leg, he glided across the steel corridor into the extreme left lane, floating mere inches over the hail of gunfire, and landed without sacrificing even a fraction of his previous heading and velocity.

One quick glance ahead told him the source of the gunfire. Small tanks were positioned at each side of the walkway, each tank outfitted with not just one, but three sub-machine gun barrels – all homing in on the hedgehog’s position. Even in the midst of the chaos that unfolded around him, Sonic stopped to ponder.

You really went to all this trouble for little ol’ me?

Without warning, Sonic shifted back to the middle of the walkway just as he crossed paths with the two tanks, and did something neither of them were prepared for.

He jumped.

At the point where Sonic was exactly perpendicular to both weapons, he had soared far above the point where they could see him, let alone reach him. Too slow to react to the change in position, the hails of gunfire stayed tilted toward the ground that Sonic had previously occupied, while panning forward as if he was still running along at his current speed.

The gun barrels had been pointed at each other.

The ammunition from each barrel tore through the other side’s tank like a hot knife through butter. One bullet to the heart of each unit was enough to create friction and ignite the combustible material within. The double explosion that resulted was inevitable.

Still soaring through the air, Sonic never got a chance to see the blast. He didn’t need to. The cushion of warm air that propelled him upward and forward was more than enough confirmation.

In a fleeting moment of whimsy, Sonic stretched his entire body parallel to the floor and spread out his arms and legs, like a superhero in flight. He had only just reached the apex of his jump, and he almost wondered if he would ever come back down…or if he ever wanted to. He looked down on the scene as it passed by below him like a blurred brushstroke. This was the scene he created, and its effects still echoed around him.

Explosions. Bullets ricocheting off the walls. And of course, the wind rustling his quills.

This was chaos. Chaos that he controlled. This is what he lived for.

But Sonic knew he would have to land sometime. Seeing a rare open patch of road, he seized his opportunity, and curled his body downward at just the right angle. By the time he hit the ground, he had transformed from supersonic hedgehog into the world’s deadliest bowling ball, rolling down the corridors in his very own Super Sonic Spin maneuver.

If he was going to have to land, then why not do it in style? After all, sometimes he felt like he had all the time in the world...

Just then, Sonic’s flight of fancy was shattered by a harsh, discordant crackle deep within his left ear. The noise gave way to the anxious voice of a young boy, someone who was not physically present at the scene.

“Sonic! Sonic, can you hear me?”

Sonic had almost forgotten about the miniature radio receiver he had placed in there to help coordinate the mission…the same mission he was supposed to be focusing on right now.

Heh. Tails. Always could count on ya to keep my head in the game.

“Read ya loud ‘n’ clear, buddy,” said Sonic, regaining his footing.

“What was all that racket down there?” Tails asked.

“Just some cleanin’ up I had to take care of. No biggie.”

Sonic wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear a sarcastic scoff on the other end of the line.

“Uhhh…say, do you mind tellin’ me where you ran off to?” Sonic asked.

“I’m on the next deck up. I’m not exactly 100%, but I’ve got a good feeling the server room isn’t too far away.”

“Good work, buddy! What’s the plan?”

“Well, we get inside, and we pull whatever data we can from the main computer.”

“Good, good…WHOA!” In the middle of his conversation, Sonic realized he was still racing at subsonic speed…toward a concrete wall.

As it turned out, he had reached a fork where the road split off into two paths. Luckily, his reflexes were enough so that he made the proper left and right turns to keep moving without losing a step.

“What was that?” Tails asked.

“Sorry. Got kinda distracted there,” said Sonic, adding a sheepish laugh at the end. “Anyway, what was the rest of the plan?”

“Uh...that’s about it. After that we just…kinda wing it.”

Sonic beamed. “Now this is my kind of plan!”

Nothing further was heard from Tails, other than a faint sigh that was barely picked up by his in-ear two-way radio unit. Finally, Sonic was free of distractions, free to focus on what lay ahead.

This jungle of chain-link walkways and intricate metal pipes was entirely foreign to him. It blended in with every other monochrome, dull, silver and grey interior that he had torn through in his battles, yet this one, like all the others, was unique in the way that the dullness was all arranged. There was no sun, no sky, no stars, no visual reference for north, south, east, or west. For all he knew, he may have taken a wrong turn somewhere, causing him to veer back toward the hole he had entered through to get inside the ship in the first place.

It didn’t matter. His heart told him this was the way to go. And so it followed.

The visual and auditory functions of Sonic’s brain sent him more signals in one second than anyone else could dare experience in an entire day. Naturally, the hedgehog had to be selective of which ones to follow at which time. The ever-changing, blurred lines in his field of vision always had some semblance of order and connection to them in some places more than others. On his left, right, and above him, were the most frequent changes in those lines – mere distractions that he had long since learned to ignore. All that mattered to Sonic was the road in front of him. The road was his visual guide, the one constant of supersonic travel that he could always rely on.

Except when he couldn’t.

Whoa! What happened to the road?!

Sonic had come across something he hadn’t found on his journey so far, something he wasn’t willing to accept existed to him: a dead end.

He had no way of knowing it, but he had reached what was supposed to be a maintenance bridge connecting both ends of Deck 5, accessible only to Eggman’s robotic assistants. Unfortunately, since Eggman himself had never gotten around to starting its construction, it was accessible to no one. Progress had only made it as far as painting black and orange stripes where the bridge was supposed to start.

On the other side, where the bridge would’ve ended, lay a conspicuous security door that led to nowhere.

Wow! Great design job there, Eggman!

A cursory glance indicated that deck 5 wasn’t the only one afflicted. As far upward as the eye could see, there existed security doors with no possible means of entry, with no floor or bridge for anyone walking through, all floating in a straight line that traveled all the way down the ship, all surrounded by a glossy concrete wall. It seemed as if their only purpose was to serve as memorials to construction projects that never started.

Sonic‘s options were few. No roads in front of him, no roads above him, no roads below him to break his fall. The hedgehog was careering into what was essentially a giant hole in the middle of a starship, and it was far too late for him to put on the brakes. There was only one option left: jump the gap.

At the speeds he was traveling, the door on the far side of Deck 5 could be reached with little more than a mere hurdle. So Sonic did the most logical thing possible.

He aimed for Deck 6.

He just couldn’t help himself.

By the time Sonic had come to his decision, there were only two steps left before he reached the painted stripes that separated life from death. Not that it mattered. One was all he ever needed.

With one mighty flick of his right leg, Sonic propelled himself skyward. There was no time to consider whether he had gotten the launch angle right, no time to ponder whether what he had just done was the stupidest decision he could have possibly made. He needed to attack, and he needed to attack now.

Nearing the midpoint of the jump, Sonic curled himself into a somersault, each revolution of his body exponentially growing in velocity and force. Within seconds, he had lost all semblance of his hedgehog form, transforming into a whirling, gyrating cannonball of death and destruction. From here on in, the hedgehog closed his eyes, taking everything in as seconds seemed to turn into minutes. From his unique perspective on the world, he would have no idea if he had reached his target or not until the impact.

All was calm. The wind buffeted him from all angles, whistling innocently against his ears, perhaps to distract him from what was to come. All was calm. All was calm—

CRASH!

The hedgehog felt every bone and muscle in his body shudder as the inevitable impact finally occurred. The natural daredevil had plenty of experience crashing into solid fixtures before, but this was different. His momentum was curtailed, but it wasn’t broken. Whatever he had crashed into, it had buckled. It had moved.

Yes! A direct hit!

Though the initial impact was made with his forehead, the sheer speed and power of his super-spin ensured that his entire body would make contact repeatedly. Whatever he crashed into, it felt like he had crossed paths with a truck. As his momentum continued to carry him, the motion of his super-spin began to carry the crumpled mass of steel around with him, shaping and forming the object around him into a cold, metallic cocoon.

Finally, Sonic’s momentum came to a halt. For the first time since he boarded the ESS-1, he had come to a full and complete stop.

It took a few seconds for the hedgehog to gather his bearings. After the directional sensors in his mind realigned themselves, he slowly willed himself back to his feet to dust himself off and wrench his crooked nose back into its proper position. Craning his neck around to take in his new surroundings, the first thing he noticed was the gaping door-shaped hole that a security door had filled not thirty seconds earlier.

That was all the sightseeing that he could handle. Time was running short. His legs were getting jumpy, having gone unused for an entire minute. And there was that…plan he had to keep tabs on…

“Yo, Tails! Can you read me?” Sonic asked, hoping his friend’s inner-ear two-way radio would pick up his voice.

Almost instantly, Tails’ voice came through. “Loud and clear! How far are you now?”

“Oh, I’d say pretty darned close.” For Tails’ sake, he omitted the part of the story where he nearly pancaked a concrete wall trying to get there in the first place. “Hey, you’re still on 6, right?”

“Yep! I’ve just been piecing together anything I can on now this ship works, and it’s really cool!”

“Tails…”

The fox could practically hear Sonic’s eyes rolling, even on the other end of the line. “Oh…right. ‘Don’t encourage him’,” said Tails, his face turning bright red. The two said no more about it, and shifted the conversation back to business.

“Listen, don’t wait up! Just keep up the good work, and I’ll catch up with you!” said Sonic.

“Okay! Over and out!”

With a new destination and a new purpose, and a straight and narrow corridor to guide him, the hedgehog threw back his arms and blasted off.

Sonic was racing against time. So far, he figured he was leading by a country mile.

Dr. Eggman had almost forgotten the halcyon days of ten minutes earlier when was ready to launch a starship into orbit. His current focus was on making sure it stayed intact for at least another ten minutes. However, before he knew it, a deadly cycle had started to develop. Just as soon as he dealt with an alert or a warning or some kind, two more appeared on Eggman’s dashboard.

EGG UNIT DESTROYED. EGG UNIT DESTROYED. UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY ATTEMPT SECTOR 5B. EGG UNIT DESTROYED.

Another seismic jolt to the ship brought Eggman to his knees. This one was accompanied by its own warning: DECK BREACH.

Each new alert triggered an alarm on the bridge, bathing every angle of the room in red light and a deafening sound ten times louder than the next one. Panic-stricken assistant robots ran – or flew – helter-skelter across the bridge. There was no plan programmed into their internal memory for this exact scenario. After the third intrusion, the warnings of the voice synthesizer began to overlap each other, combining with the alarms to create a cacophony of utter paranoia.

“INTRUDERALINTRUDERTALERTINTRUINTRUDERALERT--”

Finally, with the very real threat of losing his hearing on top of everything else, the captain took some action.

“SHUUUUT UUUUUUP!”

All alarms and vocal warnings on the ESS-1 obeyed their master and ceased. Out of sight, out of mind.

With his mind cleared…or at least as cleared as it could be…Dr. Eggman marched away from his command console. Every last one of his robotic assistants had been conditioned from years and gigabytes worth of stored memories to expect some kind of explosion of their master’s temper. Chairs thrown across the room, keys and buttons on the command console smashed into powder, self-destruct buttons “accidentally nudged”…all were known to happen on his better days.

And yet, today, nothing of the sort happened.

Instead, despite everything, ever so subtly on Dr. Eggman’s face was a roguish smile. Flapper’s built-in facial expression recognition system told it something was amiss.

“Come along,” the doctor said. “We’re not licked yet.”

Floating along with trepidation, Flapper asked, “But…master…the hedgehog?”

Eggman whirled his head in his assistant’s direction, shooting a glare icy enough to bring any CPU to a shuddering halt. For many of Flapper’s distant ancestors, that same glare was the last image they saw before they were forcibly scrapped to make the spare parts to build their descendants.

“Come now, Flapper! Have you already forgotten about my…secret weapon?”

If this story seems kinda slow at first, don’t worry, because things are gonna get somewhere real soon. It’ll just take a bit of time to develop.

If you read this chapter to the end and have any thoughts, don’t hesitate to leave a review! Even if you can’t think of anything to write, just write whatever comes into your head and leave that as your review. Trust me, I’ll take anything I can get!

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic fanfiction #sonic fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #x-post from fanfiction.net and ao3 #supernova #Miles Tails Prower

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rachelbethhines · 7 years

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The Antoine and Bunnie Retrospective - 133

“Chaos Emeralds are Forever” - Sink or Spin II - Sonic the Hedgehog #151

So we pick right back up where we left off last era. Sonic and Scourge have switched places and Sonic’s now trapped on Anti-Mobius with the Suppression Squad and, unbeknownst to him, the real Antoine.

We also finally, finally get to meet Anti-Bunnie, a.k.a. Buns.

We don’t get much insight into her character; only that she isn’t a cyborg because Robotnik’s not a villain who robotizes people in this world. Also she and Scrouge had a thing once and she’s now mad at him for cheating on her. Or mad at Sonic rather.

Ya see, the Squad here all think Sonic is Scourge and beat him up before he can do or say anything. Including our Antoine.

He actually organizes everyone together to get rid of “Scourge”. And if we go with the games’ characterization, drowning is probably the best way to kill any version of Sonic.

Which makes it all the more baffling that he survives with little explanation.

Yeah I’m calling bullshit on that one.

Anyways, Antoine decides to attack Sonic because he still thinks he is Scourge, and we get a bit of a inner monologue.

“No matter how much I wish to skewer le Pig - I mustn’t forget he’s my only means to return home!”

Then why were you trying to kill him just two minutes ago? Not to mention that Anti-Rotor built the dimensional jumping device and apparently has a spare lying around as is revealed later. You couldn’t trick him into helping you or just steal it from him?

(Also is that scar just make-up? Cause he is never shown with it after this)

Faulty logic aside, this scene does reveal a lot about Twan as a person and how being trapped here might have changed him.

For starters he is fully aware of the dangers Patch presents to those he loves. He may not know the full details of Patch’s plan or all the atrocities he is committing at this moment but he’s got the general idea. And being the over protective sweetheart that he is, he’s no doubt on edge right now.

There’s also the fact that being forced to pretend that he’s evil in the hopes of saving everyone he knows and loves possibly damaged his psyche as well. The comic never goes into it fully, but Antoine must have harmed or possibly even killed other people, innocent people, in order to remain undercover or to appease Scourge’s sick sense of humor. For someone with a strong moral code coupled with a lot of self deprecation issues, that can’t be good for his mental health. Like I would not be the least bit surprise if it turned out he had PTSD after his experience here.

But outside of the briefest of hints, the true damage from Twan’s trauma is left simmering under the surface. He’s more or less readjusted, but there’s a harder edge to the way he carries himself, he’s more serious, he less likely to jump at shadows, and he’s also much more fierce in battle.

Nowhere is that more evident than here, where not only is Antoine willing to kill, he even admits to himself he would enjoy doing it. This is an Antoine who would murder someone else if it meant protecting people. And despite his claims to the contrary later, this is an Antoine who doesn’t have any problems with revenge.

That really makes Antoine unique among Sonic heroes. With the exceptions of Shadow, who’s an anti-hero, and Silver/Blaze in 06 (who were duped) no other character really has been shown to consider death as a means to an end. The only reason Robotnik/Eggman has been a threat for as long as he has is because Sonic and company can’t or won’t kill. That’s not to say Antoine is unreasonable or will go out of his way to seek revenge. Heck, before his experiences in Anti-Mobuis he probably held similar views with the rest of the FFs. But now I fully believe that, if given the chance, Antoine would gladly slay the likes of Scourge, Patch, or Eggman in battle and would feel very little remorse doing so.

like the saying goes..

If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” ― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

However this character insight is cut short when Sonic knocks him out cold.

Afterwards Sonic takes out the other antis and strong arms anti-Rotor into sending him back home. Where upon he stops Scourge and Rouge from stealing the master emerald and is greeted by both Amy and Bunnie now flirting with him.

Guess that means we’re in for some more relationship drama next issue. Oh, boy.

Also to reiterate both Sonic and Antoine part ways without either of them ever figuring out who the other really was. So close and yet so far.

The second story this issue is “Stargazing”. It’s the story where Nicole builds herself a body for the first time and is perhaps the beginnings of the Salicole ship, if you’re into to that.

#sonic the hedgehog #Antoine D'Coolette #patch d'coolette #Scourge The Hedgehog #archie sonic #archie comics #sonic #buns

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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254. Sonic the Hedgehog #185

Mogul Rising (Part One: Needful Things)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Josh Ray

Mina is finally back from her world tour, having returned to New Mobotropolis rather than Knothole for obvious reasons. Sonic meets her at the airstrip to welcome her and Ash back, and she informs Sonic that she and Ash have discussed some important things while they were away. Ash reluctantly but sincerely apologizes to Sonic for his jealous behavior in the past, saying that it came from a place of truly caring for Mina and worrying about Sonic's influence in her life, and Sonic likewise apologizes for being an insensitive jerk at times. Back on good terms, Ash leaves to go check things out in the city, while Mina insists Sonic accompany her to the site of Knothole's ruins so she can see it with her own eyes.

Mina is happy, to see Freedom HQ still standing, though currently in the process of being rebuilt due to the damage Eggman's attack caused. Sonic reassures her that there's still a room for her and Ash to stay in if they want despite not being Freedom Fighters, and they enter, greeting Mighty and Tails, who are helping to fix up the roof of the main room. Sonic and Mina enter the lab to find Nicole on screen, calling Sonic back to New Mobotropolis, as apparently, Mammoth Mogul wants to meet with him in the prison. Sonic reluctantly heads back to speak with him, and Mogul wastes no time in arrogantly demanding that Sonic surrender to him, as he claims they find themselves in a "stalemate." Obviously, Sonic finds the idea laughable, as Mogul is currently contained within a cell that blocks all his magical and psychic powers.

I mean, Mogul, can you really blame him for not taking you seriously? The vast majority of people are not gonna find any threats very convincing when they're made from within a cell. That night, Nack irritably talks about how annoying he finds Sonic's attitude, and when Mogul says he's about to be vicariously vindicated then Nack reminds him that Sonic is right and none of them are really about to go anywhere. Mogul simply informs Nack that he's had the foresight to make plans for exactly a situation such as this years in advance, and "marked" several individuals so they can be contacted by his psychic powers even from behind his cell walls. I'm… not sure how that would really work given that the walls are supposed to block all psychic abilities, but sure, whatever! First, he calls out to Mina, reminding her of a memory he erased from her a year ago - that when she was running for her life in Eggman's retaking of Robotropolis, he had projected a vision of himself to give her her powers of speed before removing that part of her memory to create an effective sleeper agent. She "lost her way" when she only used her powers to try to grow closer to Sonic, but now he's finally ready to use her for his own purposes. Second, he calls out to Mighty. We already know a bit of his past, like being imprisoned in the slave labor camp when he was a child, but now we get a little more insight into his backstory and how he ended up alone without his family in the first place.

Well, how fascinating! Somewhere out there, it seems Mighty has a sister, as well as criminal parents locked up in a jail. This is important information, as it comes into play in some plotlines later on. Finally, we have none other than Tails, whom he of course marked when he was holding him prisoner as Turbo Tails while the sentient duplicate took his place. The three individuals wake up, brainwashed and with green diamonds on their foreheads to symbolize their mental enslavement, and simultaneously head for Sonic's room - hey, good thing for Mogul that his three marked subjects and his target are all sleeping in the same general area, right?

The three brainwashed friends tell Sonic as one, in Mogul's voice, that he was warned, leaving Sonic to face off against them and try to find a way to bring them all back without hurting them…

Misfit Badniks: The Salty, Soggy Sequel

Writer: Mike Gallagher Pencils: Dave Manak Colors: Aimee Ray

Welp, we've finally reached Michael Gallagher's final story in the comic! Obviously he hasn't been head writer for many years now, but unlike other former head writers, he's come back every once in a while to contribute a story here and there, presumably just for old times' sake. However, this is his final story - after this, we won't be seeing any more of him. While his silly style isn't much to my taste, and I've definitely had certain problems with his writing, overall he did guide the comic through its earliest years and was the driving influence behind how the preboot's story, world, and characters started out, and I think he deserves a fair bit of respect from that alone. So with that, let's read Michael's final story and say our goodbyes!

So if you'll remember from his penultimate story, the Island of Misfit Badniks has been deliberately sunk to the bottom of the sea so that the badniks and Pseudo-Sonic could continue their evil plans undisturbed. We find out that apparently, Pseudo-Sonic was equipped with a switch that would allow him to grow to an enormous size, so the other badniks flipped it and allowed him to grow outside their submerged island, before getting to work repairing him so he would be operational again. Personally, I think it would be a much better plan to repair him before making him bigger, so you would have to use far fewer materials in the repair process… Anyway, I'm sure you already have an inkling, given the setting, of who's about to come along to save the day. It's the Forty Fathoms Freedom Fighters, of course, ready to murder some more sentient beings, because that's what they do! Several of the badniks charge in to fight them, while the others retreat to speed along their repairs on Pseudo-Sonic so he can defeat the F.F.F.F. properly.

After a bit of fighting, all combatants find themselves being smacked aside by a giant metal-gloved hand, and the gigantic Pseudo-Sonic arrogantly claims that as the biggest thing on the planet, he declares war on all of Mobius! Unfortunately, he's forgotten that there's one last member of the F.F.F.F. that still has yet to show up…

Beautiful. Fluke orders his friends to sweep all the badniks into a pile while he rips the head off of Pseudo-Sonic's metallic corpse for no reason, because really, I cannot overstate enough how bizarrely bloodthirsty these guys are. He then uses his tail to compress Pseudo-Sonic, the badniks, and the artificial island into a single, small cube of metal that can be easily disposed of. With that, the F.F.F.F. make a few last water-related puns, and the story is over. Goodbye, Michael - we've had some good times, and we'll miss your silly style!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 185 #writer: ian flynn #writer: michael gallagher #pencils: tracy yardley #pencils: dave manak #colors: joshua d ray #colors: aimee r ray

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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225. Sonic the Hedgehog #157

(Unnamed Story)

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

"Unnamed Story? But Nala," I can hear you say, "surely there's been a mistake! They wouldn't have just neglected entirely to put the name of the story in! You must have missed it somewhere!" Well, I reply, I didn't miss a thing! Yes, for whatever reason, somehow this story ended up nameless. It's not a case of the story's title only appearing halfway through the issue - this initial bit is definitely a separate story from the one that comes after it, with a separate credits box and everything. I suppose it's nothing more than a minor error though, so we might as well get into it.

Shadow is still on the hunt for the meaning of life - ain't we all, buddy - and has tracked down his next location of interest, namely… Prison Island. Yeah - I'm just as surprised as you - it's not blown up at all, apparently still totally intact. Just another case of why they shouldn't have left out the adaption of Sonic Adventure 2 if you ask me - there're clearly so many differences between how it went down in the game vs. the comics, and yet none of it is ever properly addressed. Shadow makes his way into the complex, punching a giant hole through the wall to gain entry when he doesn't immediately find a nearby door (yeah, sounds about right), but is brought up short by the unexpected sound of voices ahead.

I mean… again, wouldn't you have already gone over all of this during the events of SA2? You know, the game where the final chapter is literally all about exactly this? *sigh* There are just so many details missing here, that Shadow's entire character arc ultimately fails to make any real sense. Half the stuff he should already know given his lack of amnesia, and important details are missing all over the place. Anyway, as you can see Metal Sonic is there apparently listening to the broadcast of Gerald's execution, and leaps forward to attack Shadow when he sees him. Shadow randomly finds a hand-cannon-type weapon nearby, and briefly considers using it to end the fight early before deciding that fighting hand to hand is more fun, tossing it aside and leaping into the fray. Metal Sonic explains that it's yet another new model, rebuilt after the last one was destroyed by Shadow - and it's been upgraded to be smarter too, something it demonstrates quite well by freezing Shadow's shoes in some convenient liquid nitrogen from a pipe nearby followed by blasting him with the very same hand cannon he discarded a moment ago. The resulting explosion is massive and knocks the both of them clean out. Great job, Shadow!

Well hello again, M! I'm sure you're not up to anything nefarious with your two new hedgehog ragdolls…

System Shutdown

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Poor Eggman just can't catch a break lately. The ordinary stress of being human has already been getting to him, and what's more, now he has to deal with being woken up abruptly by a blaring alarm sounding all throughout his base, causing him to groggily drag his feet through the hallways trying to tell it to stop. He finds himself waking up a bit more, however, when he reaches his main scheming room only to find a threat printed on the monitor, warning him that at exactly midnight tomorrow he'll be undergoing the title of this story! How suspicious… Eggman gets A.D.A.M. to silence the alarms and begins going over the possible suspects with his creation, trying to figure out who might be trying to kill him this time. Meanwhile, in Knothole, Sonic is engaged in a much softer and more contemplative activity.

Aww, poor Sonic. He and Sally have been so distant lately, and he's not the type to really show his emotions outwardly, at least not the negative ones. It's obvious he's been hurting a lot lately, and it seems that he's found some comfort in practicing his guitar skills alone at night. Eggman and A.D.A.M. continue to discuss their predicament through the night, but ultimately can't come to any conclusion about who the threat might be coming from, so Eggman decides to make a daring and bold move - namely, taking an egg pod straight to Knothole to show up in person! It's so shocking to everyone that when he emerges from the pod in plain view of the populace, no one even steps forward to confront him. Tails wants to, and argues that the fact that he's here is reason enough to attack, but Rotor warns him back, telling him that since Eggman hasn't made any threatening moves yet they'll treat him the same as any other guest for now, something Tails isn't at all on board with. And frankly, Rotor, I'm with Tails! Are you crazy? This is a global dictator, a terrorist, a mass murderer, someone who runs goddamn slave labor camps for those who oppose him! You'd think they'd jump at the chance to capture the very being who's caused them so much grief! Obviously, Sonic himself is ready to rumble, and tries to rush out the door of his house as soon as he sees the pod floating overhead, but his mother, unaware of the commotion, forces him to sit down to breakfast as he frantically tries to explain. He gives up on arguing and shoves pancakes down his throat at light speed, runs to the door… and finds Eggman staring straight down at him on the threshold. Naturally, he's not cool with this surprise at all, and immediately leaps in to attack. However, Eggman moves surprisingly quickly for someone his age, dodging Sonic's moves and even flinging him aside with ease. Sonic quickly realizes this can't be the real Eggman after all, but some kind of new toy that merely looks like him, and manages to smash something internally that breaks the illusion.

Sonic and his parents all basically give Eggman the "are you freaking kidding me" stare, and he explains that since he has no idea who's threatening him, and the only other consistent threat to his rule over the years has been Sonic, he's hoping to pit Sonic against his new enemy to save his own skin. Sonic is less than enthused about being used this way, but Eggman insinuates that he might be able to find a way to deroboticize Jules if Sonic agrees to help, and ultimately that's something Sonic can't ignore. And so, he and Rotor find themselves flying back to New Megaopolis in the egg pod, with Rotor's intentions mostly being to investigate this threat and see if it's something they need to be worried about. When they arrive, we finally get our first hint at who exactly might be behind this. Remember Anonymous? It was only mentioned the one time, when whoever it was mysteriously managed to reroboticize the Fearsome Foursome and others when even Eggman himself couldn't figure it out. Eggman tries to explain this to the others, but before he can even get the first few words out a loud stomping from down another corridor distracts them. Sonic and Rotor immediately assume they've been betrayed, but Eggman nervously swears up and down that he too has no idea what's happening. Suddenly the door smashes open to reveal M, who seems downright hostile to her "father," even slapping Rotor out of the way to get to him. Sonic tries to fight her, dodging her laser vision, but she knocks both him and Rotor out, leaving her to threaten Eggman in peace. It seems that somehow, her systems have been compromised, and now she's here to punish him for his "crimes against the Kingdom of Acorn…" with the help of an army of Metal Sonics!

How fascinating. After all, clearly the kingdom didn't send these after him… so where the hell is all this coming from? Who is Anonymous, anyway?

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 157 #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #colors: jason jensen

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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153. Sonic the Hedgehog #87

Heart of the Hedgehog (Part 2): Lava Story

Writer: Danny Fingeroth Pencils: Sam Maxwell and Jim Amash Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Things are getting dicier by the second, the lava within the volcano's mouth roiling and getting ready to erupt at any moment. With Tails still trapped mere feet above the lava pool, Sonic recovers from the blow delivered by Metal Sonic last issue and continues to push on at top speed to reach his friend. However, predictably, Metal Sonic has more traps set for his quarry along the path - including a net that entangles Sonic before he has time to stop.

Well well, the power gem gave Metal Sonic not only a personality and sentience, but also apparently a raging thirst for sadism! Metal Sonic cackles at Sonic's determination, reiterating that while he intends to give Sonic a fair chance to save Tails, "fair" is a highly relative term, as he can change the rules of his own game any time he wants. Sonic, uninterested in hearing his evil spiel, continues to run on, and Metal Sonic continues to show off how he's faster and stronger than Sonic, putting obstacles in his path at every opportunity.

Sonic is reminded of how powerful he himself was when transformed into Mecha Sonic, and decides that for the moment, instead of trying to outrace his doppelganger, he can perhaps put him out of commission until he's gotten Tails to safety. He grabs the remnants of the net he was trapped in and quickly uses it to wrap Metal Sonic up against a nearby tree, then races away, with Metal Sonic genuinely impressed at his ingenuity, as if it takes a special kind of genius to figure out that tying someone up when you want them out of your way is a good idea. With his main obstacle removed for now, Sonic makes it the rest of the way to the volcano unmolested and finds Tails, still hanging there above the lava.

With Tails freed, Sonic gets ready to race out of there before Metal Sonic shows back up, but of course, a net can only hold a superpowered robot for so long, and said robot chooses that moment to make his reappearance, mocking Sonic for thinking he stopped him.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Metal Sonic, this is a comic for kids and teens! Don't be inserting your kinky sadistic fantasies into this situation! Sonic tries to reason with Metal Sonic, calling back to when he was also a robot and how instead of going with his programming he fought it, and citing the joys of life and love as a reason not to be a murderous asshole, but Metal Sonic refuses to listen, saying having power and strength is more important. Sonic, realizing the futility of talking to him, tells Tails to fly away to safety while he holds off Metal Sonic, but Tails refuses to leave his side even if it means death. At that moment, the volcano begins to quake, and Sonic and Tails both get their feet caught in a crack in the ground, unable to escape the lava or fight back. Things look bad, until…

Metal Sonic uses, uh… a blast of air, or something, to hold the lava back, while saying that he now realizes Sonic was right and he can be more than his programming. Sonic and Tails try to argue with his sacrifice, but he convinces them this is the only way any of them will survive, and as they run away from the volcano to safety, Metal Sonic sadly says that it's better if he sacrifices himself, as he's just a cold unfeeling robot. That's… actually hella tragic, man. Someone tell that robot we love him after all, already. It's interesting to note as well that in many ways this actually mirrors the ending of the Sonic OVA (which was released in English only a couple of years before this issue came out), in which Metal Sonic is similarly consumed by rising lava while sacrificing himself to save Sonic's life after coming to gain his own emotions and feelings. As Sonic and Tails look back from a safe distance at the lava pouring from the volcano, Sonic tells Tails that it was his actions that turned Metal Sonic around in the end, as while Sonic's words were just that, words, to him, Tails' refusal to abandon his friend made those words real, and in a way helped Metal Sonic gain a soul. And on that bittersweet note, they turn and head back to their friends at the crashed shuttle, ready to finally head home.

Against the Haunted Past (Part 2)

Writer/Pencils: Frank Strom Colors: Frank Gagliardo

So, back to Monkey - uh, sorry, I mean Ken Khan's predicament. Somehow, he's been captured by Eggman, who's turned the Temple of the Golden Lotus in Kar Leung into a base of operations for the roboticization of the locals. However, he wouldn't do something as demeaning as roboticizing Ken outright, no… instead, he's going to implant him, awake and without any anesthesia, with control chips directly into his brain to ensure he can never rebel again!

This! Is! Horrific! Seriously, what's with all the messed up stuff in these past couple issues? Ken is of course entirely unwilling to sit around and let this happen to him, and uses his strength, enhanced by the power of his headband made out of the golden ring, to break free from his restraints, which shocks Eggman as he doesn't remember him being so strong before. He orders his swatbots and roboticized slaves to recapture Ken immediately, and Ken makes a break for it down the hallway, looking for a way to take the facility out of commission so that Eggman can't roboticize his entire village. He successfully finds the main power generator of the place, but while he's looking for a way to disable it, the swatbots burst in and fire wildly, hitting the generator and causing it to go critical.

…welp, we just witnessed the creation of a brand new tragic backstory! Seriously, though, Ken has been through a ton of horrific events in his life - being used as an experiment for cybernetics against his will, losing all his friends and family to the same experiments, being sealed away alone in a tiny pod for ten years, and now, just when he thought he could settle down in his ancestral home and protect the citizens of his village, he loses all of that as well. This is a strong setup for some serious future angst.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 87 #writer: danny fingeroth #writer: frank strom #pencils: sam maxwell #pencils: jim amash #pencils: frank strom #colors: frank gagliardo

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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170. Sonic the Hedgehog #102

Family Dysfunction

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Stephanie Vozzo

The Kingdom of Knothole is overcome by celebration. All across the town, children and relatives are reuniting with their parents and other roboticized family members. Mina is overjoyed to have her mother again, and Sonic watches the various reunions happily, grateful that Sally's leadership was able to get them all to this point. Sally, meanwhile, is in the middle of handing the Sword of Acorns over to Elias when the sword seems to speak to her, begging not to be let go in the same kind of strange swirly textbox that Sally spoke in a couple issues ago. She's surprised, but keeps her cool as Antoine and the other Freedom Fighters approach with Antoine's father in tow, hoping that a dose of magic from the sword can bring him back as well.

Oof, buddy. Sally's attempt works, and as General D'Coolette and Antoine joyfully embrace, Sally hands the sword back to the Secret Service for safekeeping and the royal family heads back to the castle while the celebrations continue. Meanwhile, Robotropolis is having a celebration of its own, though this one is in Eggman's honor. Snively is confused at the timing, but Eggman explains that it's all a distraction to make sure the Overlanders don't realize the true intentions of the Mobians who invaded. He decides that now is a great time to activate his sleeper agents, and Snively hits the button for him…

Meanwhile, in the castle, the king is scolding Elias for embarrassing the Royal Family in front of everyone, as well as getting after Sally for always jumping in with her own opinions like some kind of silly natural-born leader or something, when the Secret Service show up to request a formal leave of absence from their duties. This just sets Elias' emotions off further.

Oh dear… Further out from the castle, Sonic suddenly gets a bad feeling and zips over for a quick investigation, discovering the Royal Family being held hostage inside their own castle. He asks Rotor and Tails to whip something up to deactivate Heavy and Bomb while he infiltrates to hopefully defuse the situation (ha ha, get my hilarious joke? "Defuse"? I'm really kind of mad the comic itself didn't make that joke, actually). While the bombs continue to keep them cornered, the family continues their discussion about Elias' feelings, knowing this may be the last chance they get to speak to one another.

Queen Alicia embraces Sally in fear, amazed that Sally is fazed so little by the danger, and while Sally attempts to comfort her mother before their deaths, Sonic bursts in, distracting Heavy before he can attempt to kill everyone. Heavy boasts that he can easily create more Bombs for every one that Sonic manages to destroy, and Sonic innocently asks to clarify if this means that Heavy is the one responsible for producing all the Bombs in the room.

Classic. Sonic approaches Sally now that everyone is safe, but she's somewhat distant, still remembering his earlier kiss with Mina. The other members of the Secret Service are now more adamant than ever that they need to go on leave, because they realize that they're infected with nanobots that could cause more problems like this in the future, and wish to get treatment before returning to active duty. With the crisis averted, Sonic returns home to spend the rest of the day with his family and Tails (whose parents haven't turned up), looking at old pictures from their family album and taking a new picture to commemorate the day. However, within the castle, a decidedly less-happy family gathering is taking place… minus one member.

While it's sad to see Elias go, I don't blame him one bit. Despite being older than Sally, he had way too much placed on his shoulders all at once. He was expected to lead a kingdom when he'd never even led a small team, and the stress of it clearly got to him. I'm glad that before he left, though, he was able to express his frustration, and his belief that Sally is the rightful acting ruler instead of himself.

Life's Realities

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Ken Penders and Dawn Best Colors: Frank Gagliardo

With his previous plan to change the past having failed, Knuckles has traveled back to the second most promising point in time, which happens to be the day that Dimitri and Edmund presented their plans for the Chaos Syphon to the council (meaning that this story takes place before the first one in this issue, since we're still looking at time shifts and alternate futures). As the main councilor gives his verdict on the proposition, Knuckles psychically projects his own voice over his, accepting the proposal instead of rejecting it. With that, Edmund and Dimitri are free to enact their plan, and begin trying to lower the island into its old crater. However, some of their calculations were clearly off, and the island begins to drop…

Knuckles snaps back to our current reality once again, where Dimitri chides him for his stubbornness. Knuckles retorts that he just saw Dimitri's original plan fail, and Dimitri, though somewhat annoyed, ultimately does concede that he must have been off in his original calculations. He states that if the pattern he's seeing holds true, there's one more junction at which Knuckles has a chance at changing the past - the moment at which Edmund was murdered by the original Dark Legion, leaving Steppenwolf to take up the mantle of Guardian early. Knuckles is easily able to prevent Edmund's death, but this has its own set of unforeseen consequences…

Once again Knuckles is able to bring himself back to the present reality, and Dimitri explains that from what he can tell, saving Edmund basically removed the need for the Guardians as they exist in their current form, and thus the island was left vulnerable without their protection once Robotnik began his takeover of the world, causing the inhabitants of the entire island to be roboticized in that alternate reality. Knuckles becomes angry that even with all his newfound powers he's unable to change the past for the better, and Dimitri suggests that since he can't change the past, he should look to the future. The quantum beam brought back the Floating Island, but not its inhabitants, due to Tobor's violent interruption of the process, and Dimitri believes that Knuckles is the key to truly bringing everyone back…

And now, we've got our second character file to look at! This time, we're learning some new information about Julie-Su. Just like with Sally, most of the information we already know from past issues, but it's still interesting to take a look at some more technical information. To my surprise, she's actually only fifteen years old, one year younger than Knuckles, and her birthday is on October 4th. For her height and weight, I used the same conversion rates as before, from marks to cm/inches and stone to kg/lbs. She's 120 cm tall, or 3'11", which puts her at a whopping seventeen centimeters or six inches taller than her boyfriend, who shares his height in the comics with his counterpart from the games. Damn, girl! Well, now we know Knuckles likes tall women, huh? She also weighs 35.5 kg, or 78 lbs, which again seems reasonable considering her small (in comparison to humans at least) stature. The rest of the information just reiterates her backstory and her eventual friendship and relationship with Knuckles, so nothing else interesting there. There are actually quite a few more of these data files throughout the rest of this era, so get ready to learn some more information about our favorite characters!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 102 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #pencils: ken penders #pencils: dawn best #colors: stephanie vozzo #colors: frank gagliardo

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another-sonic-blog · 7 years

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First Impressions Pt.9

First Impressions Pt.9 Summary: After having a man to man talk with Sonic, Shadow denied his feelings for Amy. As they made their way-back to the village, Sonic took Amy to the forest in order to declare his feelings towards her, feelings that she accepted as she knew that Shadow would not correspond her feelings for him. However, after a mental battle with himself, Shadow discovered that he, indeed loves Amy. Sadly, Shadow let the idea die as he gave his word to Sonic that he wasn’t interested in her. The next day as Team Sonic was planning a way to defeat Lyric, Orbot appeared asking for help to rescue Cubot from Lyric’s mind control on Eggman’s basement. Sonic refused at first but Amy convinced him on going. However, when Sonic got back he had clearly changed and fought Shadow. As Shadow was slowly dying, he declared his love for Amy using three words that only her could hear. “I just can’t believe it....”-Tails was sitting on Amy’s sofa, while everyone else had taken their space. “Sonic must of been mind control...there’s no other explication”- Sticks as she was in the living room. “No, its my fault...If I had never convinced Sonic on going, Shadow would still be a live, and Sonic will be here with us....”- Amy was crying and she thought her pain would have no end. “Stop blaming yourself Amy, that’s not going to help”-Knuckles said as she got closer to her on the other side of the Sofa, opposite of Tails. “how can I not? Because of me, Shadow is death!” “...May be he is not?” Everyone turned around to look at Tails, as he stood up to face them all. “Shadow’s body was created to be perfect, so perfect that his body will continue to stay perfect and the same no longer how many years he goes through. His body is still working, what is not working any longer is his immortality that he used to possessed. But what if he give it back?”-Tails said. “What do you mean?”- Knuckles asked. “If we give back Shadow his immortality, then it will mean that he will come back to us as a full functional organism!” “And how do you think we are going to do that?”- Sticks asked as she also stood up from her seat. “Where’s Shadow body?” “In a small unoccupied house, outside the village”- Amy said, having a bit of hope in her voice. “I think I can create capsules that might create the same effect of that of Lyric’s when he took Shadow’s immortality, I would need the Chaos Emeralds and a vessel to connect both individuals’ energy”- Tails was already planning on his head. “Amy, would you accept again to become the vessel?” “Yes, of course!”- Amy said however, she instantly looked at the floor. “Whats wrong?”- Knuckles asked. “Shadow never really wanted his immortality...All of this time, he was looking for a reason to die... I know this sounds strange but...would Shadow reality want this?” “Amy, I didn’t know Shadow really well. But I think we all could see and agree that Shadow was deeply in love with you. Before he had no reason to keep on living, but then you appeared...you became his reason to keep on going. He would do anything just to see your smile again” “Knuckles...”- Amy was lost of words and hugged Knuckles, he could be a dumbass but he did have a nice heart and pure soul. “Then its settle...but we need to get Sonic back” “Leave that to me!”- Sticks said with a smirk and with that she left Amy’s house, ready to battle. --------- “Wake up!” “Uh?...” “I said wake up!” Sonic woke up suddenly, first he notice Sticks looking down at him, later he looked around to to find himself in the forest and by the looks of it, he was sleeping there. “What...happened?”- Sonic asked. Still not moving as he got more confused by the second. “So you don’t remember?”- Sticks asked still giving Sonic an unacceptable look. “I remember walking with Orbot, Eggman’s base...Where is he anyway?” “Look, I don’t like playing games so I’ll straight to the point... Lyric mind controlyou and you killed Shadow” “...You are joking, Sticks this is not time to be playing-” “DO YOU REALLY THINK I AM THE TYPE TO BE JOKING? IF YOU WOULD LIKE WE CAN GO SEE SHADOW’S BODY RIGHT NOW!”-After Sticks said that, Sonic was speechless, he never thought he would have the strength to murder anyone. Especially Shadow, even if they had their differences, he still admired Shadow and consider him a person dear to him. “......” “We can still bring him back...Tails has a plan”- Sticks said as she bent over near Sonic. “How can I face you all when I failed you, when I killed somebody that was important to us?”- Sonic was looking down on the floor, ashamed to look at Sticks in the eyes. “Its your decision on whether you want to comeback with us or not, but everyone needs you Sonic...you made a mistake but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the opportunity to redeem yourself...if you don’t worthy, then don’t do it for yourself, but do it for us, your team” “I don’t know if...if I can” “If you can’t...then you were never leader...neither will be” Once again, Sticks left Sonic alone in the forest. She felt disappointed as she notice that Sonic stood up and walked away into the forest, just to never be seen again. ________ The team was quiet after Sticks left Amy’s house, it has being one hour and nobody dare to say a word. All future plans would depend on whether Sticks could bring Sonic back or not. Suddenly the door flew open, and everyone could see the disappointment on Sticks’ face. “I am sorry guys...I couldn’t...bring him back”-Sticks said while looking down on the floor ashamed of herself. “What happened?”-Amy stood up from her seat ad get near Sticks, ready to comfort her. Sticks thought about the lie she would tell them as she made her way back. She didn’t want to tell them the truth about Sonic being a coward, but she knew it was also wrong to lie, especially at this time. “umm..truth is that...Sonic...he-” “Wait...I am sensing something...Chaos?”-Amy suddenly turn around to look at her door and that’s when she saw him. “Sonic!”- Amy rapidly hugged him and Sonic did the same. Sticks quietly wanted to cry out of happiness as she knew that Sonic was a true leader, her disappointment went away, she as the whole gang did went to join Amy and Sonic in a big hug. “I am so sorry everyone...because of me Shadow’s death, I was going to give up. But thanks to Sticks, she kicked some sense into me”- Sonic smiled at Sticks, smile that she returned. “Wait, Sonic you are hurt!”- Tails notice as he pointed at Sonic’s abdomen. “I got to admit, it was a tough battle, but I got away with these”- Sonic then, went outside of Amy’s house and quickly picked up a bag that was right outside the door. As he went inside the house again, he opened the bag to reveal all seven Chaos Emeralds. “I thought we may need this”- Sonic said with a smirk and everyone looked at him at awe. “How did you even do it?”- Knuckles asked “I am Sonic The Hedgehog, that’s how!” “Anyways, I have a plan...so listen to me carefully” After that Tails began explaining the plan, they didn’t have too much time as they knew that Lyric would come look for the Chaos Emeralds as soon as possible. With that in thought, the gang got ready to battle. ________ Team Sonic had made it just in time, they had evacuated the village and were re-located in a safe place. Everyone had worked very hard so everything could go as planned. The only thing left to do was to wait. The whole team was waiting on the village’s entrance, concentrating and ready to attack. Everything went quiet, way too quiet, the only thing that could be heard was the wind passing through the leaves of the palms. They suddenly felt the ground tremble, little by little the trembling became stronger and stronger. Until they Lyric showed himself in all of his glory, hundreds of robots came right behind him. “Before, I gave you once last chance to get out of my sight...you all were stupid enough not to take it...now give me the Chaos Emeralds back, or I’ll destroy each and everyone of you!”- Lyric commanded, and he desperate to get them back. “Long time no see!”- Sonic yelled. “You just saw him 30 minuted ago”- Knuckles had completely ruined the mood. “I am not in the time to play around, give me the Chaos Emeralds now!” “You want this?”- Sonic asked as he opened the bag he had the Chaos Emeralds and showed them to Lyric. Amy took Chaos Emeralds from the bag as to play with Lyric’s desperation. “You gotta catch us first!”- Amy and Sonic began to run and took separate directions. To that, half of the army of robots began to chase after Amy while Lyric chased Sonic. Tails, Sticks, and Knuckles began to fight the rest of the robot army.Sonic went straight into the woods, dodging all trees Sonic had him just as he wanted him. Lyric would get constantly hit by the tree branches, he then activated a trap which caused him to get mud on the surface of his clear casket, not being able to see, he then fell into the most dangerous trap for. Sonic had lead him into a capsule, exact same one as the ones Lyric put Amy and Shadow into, once you are in, you can’t get out. Shadow’s capsule was on the right from the middle, empty capsule, while Lyric’s was on the left. The three capsules were connected by metallic cords, that fused together into a single cord that leads to the box control, the box control had seven empty spots, that were shaped to fit the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic put the control box down and he quickly placed the emeralds into their perspective spot, he just needed Amy. He then heard a very tired Amy, they expected for robots to follow Amy, but not as much as half of them, Amy was of course faster that them, however they kept very close. “Come on! turn on the machine before the robots get here!”- Amy said as she gave Sonic the last two remaining emeralds. She went straight to the middle, empty capsule but Sonic stopped her mid track. “Wait Amy”- Sonic grabbed her by the arm, and she suddenly turn around. Sonic gave her a small kiss, their lips just touched for five seconds, and with that he run to the empty capsule and closed it behind him. “I WILL DESTROY YOU”- Lyric screamed as he tried to get out of the capsule, both hedgehogs ignore him. “What are you doing?!”- Amy yelled at him. “I am doing this for Shadow”- Sonic turn around and saw Shadow’s body, sat in a uncomfortable position as his lifeless body lay down on the capsule, he then notice a blue-ish gold ring, the one that Amy was previously wearing. “Come on hurry up, I can hear the robots already!” “LET ME OUT OF HERE1”- Lyric continued to yell, trying to break free. “This is going to hurt...” “Give me your best shot” After that said, Amy clicked the big red bottom from the box controller which activated the capsule. Amy heard Sonic’s screams and wanted to check up on him but sadly, her fortune was not with her today. The army of robots had arrived and were now surrounding Amy, she pull out her hammer ready to battle. Robots came after her one by one, sometimes more, she was getting more tired and worried as time passed. Tail’s capsule tried to be as convenient as possible, however it would take more time to transfer Lyric’s immortality to Shadow’s body. Amy hated to hear Sonic’s screaming in pain, she got to her limit and throw herself down and protected the box control with all the emeralds in it with her body. She will receive hit after hit, she began bleeding and could already feel like passing out. She then heard Sonic’s stopped screaming. Amy felt as if time had stopped. Everything was going in slow motion. She saw blue fur taking down the robots around her, punching and kicking. But her time came back to her world as she heard him yell: “CHAOS BLAST!” A/N: I FINALLY FINISHED THIS CHAPTERRRRR YEAHHHHH. Sorry for any mistakes I had made, I wanted to give you a chapter before I leave of to Japan for college. I’ll write Pt.10 (the last chapter) probably once I am ready over there. Thank you everyone for reading this far!

#Shadamy #shadow and amy #shadamy boom #shadamy fanfiction #shadow the hedgehog #shadamy fanf #ShadAmyWeek #shadowxamy #Shadow Boom #sonic boom #sonic the hedgehog #sonic forces #Amy Rose

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