#listen me personally if my terrible rebuilding team was about to play an agreed upon contender

[suggsnkisses]

He’s the only one on the team that dressed up and this is what he came as 😭

[mobius-prime]

255. Sonic the Hedgehog #186

Mogul Rising (Part Two: Devil's Due)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! and Matt Herms Colors: Josh Ray

Sonic struggles to fight against Mina, Mighty, and Tails at once, as Mogul speaks to him through them. He angrily tells Mogul to let them go, and when Mogul mocks him for not listening earlier that day Sonic rightfully points out that Mogul didn't even begin to explain his own position in any amount of detail, instead just basically saying "haha, surrender." Ash, alerted by the noise and the empty bed, appears in the doorway of Freedom HQ and seeing the chaos, leaps in to grab Mina, not realizing she's being controlled.

Abruptly, all three mind-controlled friends break off the fight and run away in opposite directions. Ash is upset and confused as to why Mina would act so strange, so Sonic explains what's going on and then offers to bring him along to interrogate Mogul, something which Ash immediately accepts if it will let him save Mina. Once they get back to New Mobotropolis Sonic furiously orders Mogul to tell him where his friends are, and Mogul happily obliges.

Both Ash and Sonic are horrified, especially with the knowledge that Sonic wouldn't be fast enough to save all of them in time, something Mogul gloats over before offering them a deal - he'll bring them all back unharmed, if Sonic brings him the Chaos Emerald currently being kept within the city. Sonic, seeing no other choice, grimly agrees, before rushing away with Ash to sneak into the castle, into the chamber where the emerald is. Nicole, realizing they're trying to steal the emerald but not knowing why, starts putting up barriers trying to stop them, but they dodge without breaking stride and nab the emerald, rushing it back to Mogul as a montage shows the three puppets coming closer and closer to their deaths…

Nicole hysterically asks Sonic why he would do such a thing, and Sonic and Ash explain why they didn't really have much choice. Mogul, tiring of their conversation, uses his magic to force Nicole's hologram to dissipate before knocking Ash aside and telekinetically grabbing Sonic. To Sonic's shock, Mogul immediately announces that he has no further need of his new Fearsome Foursome and "releases" him from his service. Why? Well, apparently, he's realized one key rule of this universe - Sonic always wins.

With that, Mogul teleports himself and the other prisoners away, and Sonic and Ash return to Freedom HQ, which the three formerly-enslaved individuals have returned to. Ash comforts Mina while Sonic talks to Tails and Mighty. They're both embarrassed at what happened, Mighty even admitting he now knows how Knuckles must feel, but Sonic reassures them both, saying that while the villain may have won this time, they're going to get their chance to strike back sooner or later.

Honor-Bound

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

Hey, speaking of Knuckles! He's having a pretty bad time of it as he flies over Albion in secret, watching the last of his people work to rebuild the city while blaming himself for everything. He's glad that at the very least Remington has been returned to normal, but can't bear to face his own family or anyone else, believing that for now they'll be better off without a Guardian looking after them. He uses a warp ring to leave, but Kneecaps notices him and babbles, and Lara-Le barely manages to catch a glimpse of him before the warp ring disappears. Man, poor Lara-Le. I miss when she was a much more major character, to be honest. She's so sweet, and doesn't deserve any of the terrible things that have happened to her. Knuckles warps himself to the oasis in the Sandopolis desert, where the entire dingo army has set up camp. With General Kage gone, General Helmut von Stryker, who has apparently been hanging out here all this time, has once again taken control of his people, and upon seeing Knuckles curtly informs him that his people are thriving here, and expect to make their way back into the heart of Angel Island before long.

Knuckles, I'm sorry, but what the hell are you thinking?! Look, I agree that the dingoes have been wronged by the echidnas over time, but have you forgotten that not long ago these guys turned into literal Nazis as soon as Eggman gave them a chance to? Did you completely miss the fact that they are the ones that ran the concentration camps that killed off ninety percent of your people?! I would think that that alone has completely robbed them of any chance at redemption. Like, Knuckles seriously seems to think here that Kage is the sole mastermind behind the echidna concentration camps, but meanwhile here in the real world we kind of all agreed that "I was just following orders" wasn't a good enough excuse for all of the grunts who served in the Nazi regime, and I would think the same should hold here. Do you really want to welcome an entire army of people back into the heart of the island who not two months ago were gleefully torturing and slaughtering your people? Again, we are talking about a literal Nazi allegory here, this isn't me projecting, these guys were literally modeled after the Nazis. I think forgiveness and "live and let live" is not the right choice here, especially if Knuckles is already feeling so guilty about hurting his people, because the dingo regime hurt his people far more than he ever did during his single day as Enerjak.

Jesus Christ. Anyway, Knuckles returns to the main part of Angel Island, hiding in the bushes near "Shrine Isle," which is apparently what we're calling the tiny floating island that houses the Master Emerald shrine. I guess everyone just decided that keeping it blatantly out in the open is the best plan now, so the Chaotix have worked together to build a bridge over to it for easy access. Ray had spotted Knuckles using a warp ring earlier but was unable to follow him, and Julie-Su says sadly that if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be. Knuckles, watching from within the bushes, hopes they'll go away now that the bridge is finished, but Rouge's voice from behind him interrupts his brooding, asking if he plans to just go back to being a hermit once again. He's irritated, not wanting to talk to her right now and insisting that everything bad that's happened on the island only happened because he left, but she presses on, reminding him that with Eggman's sheer power and Finitevus' unpredictability, the island likely would have been attacked and decimated anyway and it's not solely his fault. Knuckles gets angry at this, yelling that the Brotherhood's methods protected the island successfully for hundreds of years and he's the only one (besides Athair) who's really broken tradition.

Well, good on you, Rouge! Knuckles thinks on it for a moment, watching his friends play around next to the shrine, and then concedes the point, deciding that he should protect everyone he can after all. He walks out to greet everyone, who are overjoyed to see him… and then Rouge smirks from her hiding place, murmuring to herself about how gullible Knuckles is and how she can't wait to "wrap him around her little finger." Oh come on, Ian, really? Look, if there's one character I think Ian has not at all figured out yet, it's Rouge. He seems to see her as this scheming, callous, manipulative bitch who's only interested in treasure and breaking up relationships for fun. Hell, Penders wrote her better than Ian currently does, and that's saying something. In the games, yes, Rouge is manipulative and a bit shady, but she's not at all a bad person. After her experiences with Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2, she explicitly mentions how she's been influenced to become less materialistic and to search for "something better" in life, and by the time of '06, she's nothing but a positive influence on those around her. Sure, she's still not above using shady or illegal means to get her way - she is part of Team Dark, after all - but in general her morals always end up lining up with those of the heroes, and she's intensely loyal to those she considers her friends. There's hints here and there within the games that she may have a thing for Knuckles, but to be fair, there're just as many if not more hints that she's not into anybody and only flirts at all to get an edge over others. Adding in this little bit at the end where she's acting all scheme-y while watching Knuckles just makes her seem like this terrible and insincere person when that's not what her character is supposed to be like at all. To be fair, Ian does get better at writing her later on, particularly when she finally starts being paired up with Shadow as a team, but for now, I'm definitely pretty salty at how she's being treated here, considering she's one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters across all canons.