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the-era-of-shadow · 2 months ago

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Mimicry of a Rivalry

Written by Landon F.

Cover Art by Aikshlin Rose

Chapter 10: Challenge Accepted

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS: Mentions of Violence

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Author's Note:

First TEoS chapter written completely by another alter besides Aik, I think,,, We hope you like

The meeting with Neo Metal Sonic had come and passed without much issue. Though, it's hard to have interruption when the whole thing was traveling into one ear and out the other for Mimic. He knew better than to say it to their face, and he had quite the robust poker face when in the right environment for it, but behind the performance mask of attentiveness that Mimic wore all throughout the meeting, the truth of the matter was that he just didn't care.

How could he? No, really, how could he? How could he possibly care about the ‘next step’ of a project that was dead on arrival due to complete impossibility by the laws of nature, and how could he possibly care for another project idea that was not only just as absurd, but an absurdity that clashed with Mimic's very own expertise?

Trying to create a ‘Metal Virus' was one thing, one very stupid thing, but the sheer audacity of claiming that the Robotnik Empire could possibly synthesize Hyper-Go-On energy was beyond absurdity!

In his conversation with Rough and Tumble leading out of the meeting room about the matter, Mimic often scoffed and rolled his eyes as he spoke.

“I joined the Robotnik Empire for the security of its rigid order!” He protested. “If the Doctor and the others wish to drown themselves in chaos, then I might as well give myself to whatever Shadow's scheme is right now!” He added, only mentally.

No one must ever know of Mimic’s past, and with that ignorance, they would never understand what Mimic understands.

But what Mimic did make known was his insistence that the Robotnik Empire has no need to concern themselves with trying to synthesize Hyper-Go-On energy, for he would without any doubt retrieve for them real Hyper-Go-On energy, from real wisps! Whisper’s wisps, that was.

“Do you even have a plan for doing that?” Rough questioned Mimic.

“You didn't have one earlier, and then we talked about it, and then we fought about it, and now we're here!” Tumble added.

“Of course I have a plan!” Mimic exclaimed, not having one.

He didn't need one. All he needed was to know what Whisper’s plan was, and work from there!

“Well in that case, would you at least let us give Doctor Starline the brief on the meeting?” Rough suggested.

“Absolutely not!” Mimic rejected the offer without hesitation. “Why would I trust you two with a job like that??”

“Because you're our boss…?” said Tumble, eyes wide and sparkling in a pleading beg for sympathy.

“You literally got into a fight with me earlier, don't look at me like an innocent puppy, Tumble,” Mimic scolded. “Plus, you're a grown man. Grown men don't do that.”

“It would give you more time to enact your plan to get back Whisper’s wisps if you gave the job to us, you know,” Rough pointed out.

He had a point. It would give Mimic more time, wouldn't it?

“Fine alright, here's the spark notes I was given. Go wild. Or whatever,” Mimic relented, handing the piece of paper that had been in his hands to Rough. Specifically Rough.

And as the two made their merry way off to Starline's lab, Mimic began to walk in completely the other direction. To be precise, he was heading to where he remembered having parked his car this morning. He was gonna hop into his car and drive over to Spiral Hill and question Whisper all over again, just as he had when all this had begun earlier in the week. That was his plan, the start to his plan at least.

That is, until he bumped into another Robotnik Empire employee on his way there. A surly older man by the name of Beau, who didn't like Mimic very much. Though, to be fair, Beau didn't like basically anyone in the Robotnik Empire. Why he still works here is anyone's guess, though by Mimic’s best guess, it's probably because his niece is a Freedom Fighter, and thus would likely never take him back if he left the Empire.

“Oh, right. Somebody left ya a letter,” Beau told Mimic as the two met begrudging glances.

“Is that so? Can I have it?” Mimic inquired.

“Sure, why not. It's the absolute most I can tolerate doin’ for ya,” Beau replied, handing Mimic the letter.

Okay, rude.

But whatever offense was caused by the remark was immediately thrown to the wind (completely artificial wind within the walls of the Robotnik Empire Northamer Base, produced by their state of the art airway systems), as Beau and Mimic parted ways.

Continuing to walk towards the exit to the parking lot, Mimic ripped open the envelope in one simple motion. Within the envelope, he did indeed find a letter, just as Beau had described.

Dear Mimic,

I guess it's about time I confess.

What you said was true. I do, in fact, have the wisps. And I know what you must be wondering – why lie? And why have I been letting the wisps tease you with their presence? It's very simple. I wish to make you an offer, Mimic. A deal, if you will.

I challenge you to a race, from the outer edge of Wild Woodlands to the start of Ebony Avenue in Starlight City. The first of us to make it to the finish line, which is where the street begins, will claim custody of the wisps from that moment forward.

May the odds ever be in your favor, old friend.

Whisper

The words filled Mimic with a sense of validation and utter excitement as they met his eyes and were processed by his mind. He never thought he'd see the day where Whisper would be so open with him once again, and with an offer for him to obtain the wisps, too?? All his internal monologuing on how he had never needed anyone else's help and how he would do just fine by following how Whisper went about this situation and only then planning to foil her own plans had finally paid off!

Though, since when did Whisper write so poetically?

Mimic quickly pushed the rogue thought aside, disregarding the detail as inconsequential. After all, it had been so long since he last had properly interacted with her. Things change. Right?

Right.

This was simply an opportunity that he could not afford to turn down! Hell, it was an opportunity that the Robotnik Empire as a whole would benefit greatly from taking on. The idea of creating synthetic Hyper-Go-On energy was a fickle one, so why not take the chance to get the real thing??

Mimic put the letter into his pocket and quickened his pace, now rushing towards his car.

As soon as he got in, he put in directions for the border between Wild Woodlands and the small town of Aqua Lake into his GPS – figuring that being what Whisper meant by ‘edge of Wild Woodlands’, as the border of Wild Woodlands and Starlight City would simply make the intended racing area far too short to be fair. Once that had been done, he began to drive out of the parking lot. But before he could make his way out of here, his car's screen displayed a notification that he was getting a phone call from Starline. Mimic slowed down and pressed the screen to pick up the call.

“Hello?” Mimic said as the call began.

“Mimic, I… I see that you're in your car and are… Currently driving away from base, and I, uh, must ask – where are you going, exactly?” Starline inquired.

“Wild Woodlands. I got a letter from Whisper admitting she had the wisps, and she challenged me to a race. To see who gets the wisps,” Mimic relayed to them. There was a considerable amount of seconds where the only sound Mimic could hear was the engine of his car. Starline was surely stunned by what he had been told, and the idea of such a thing only served to boost Mimic’s ego. “I know, you must be quite embarrassed! Here you thought that I was delusional for thinking that Whisper was lying about not having the wisps, and yet, I ended up being right!” He gloated.

“I guess,” Starline scoffed. “But since you’re taking what is obviously bait, I must ask you to at least get caught up on years of delay and kill that brat while you’re out there.”

“Of course,” Mimic replied, subsequently hanging up the call before Starline could get another word in.

‘Bait’... Since when was Starline such a pessimist?

Heh, oh well. That ain’t Mimic’s problem, and it never will be again. Not once he rightfully claims the Diamond Cutter wisps as his own.

#undescribed #teos #the era of shadow #sonic au #sonic oc #black arms #writing tag #sonic fanfiction #mod landon #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 2 months ago

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Mission: FOX FRENZY

Written by Aikshlin Rose

Cover Art by Aikshlin Rose

Chapter 10: An Unexpected Common Ally

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS: Swearing, Mention of Death

Start | Prev | Next (COMING SOON)

Author's Note:

... Been awhile, hasn't it? Admittedly, when we said that we were gonna have a hiatus, we hadn't imagined that it'd be as long as it was.

Hyperfixation's got hands. And so did college.

Posting this and MoaR chap 10 back to back :p Your reward for being patient with us while we were insane elsewhere

As Cosmo had approached the Sky Patrol, she heard what seemed to be the sounds of some sort of mayhem happening within grow louder and louder with every step she took towards the ship. Despite this, she still knocked at the front door, not wanting to give up on her goal of clearing things up with Tails.

During the first few seconds after she had knocked, there was not a single noise coming from the Sky Patrol in contrast to how things were prior - not even so much as a footstep. But just as soon as the silence had begun, it stopped again, the loud mix of noises from whatever was going on inside coming back with a vengeance.

“Is this a bad time?” Cosmo inquired, speaking at a volume that just bordered on shouting in the hopes of being heard over the ruckus.

“Cosmo?!” She heard Tails react from inside, a clear indication that she was indeed heard. “U-Uh- No! Not at all! Just uhhhhh one moment please!” They then more properly responded, their voice sounding oddly panicked, like they were in the middle of a conflict.

As Cosmo waited for Tails to be ready to greet her, she started to look around the area in order to keep herself from becoming bored. As she did, she started to notice the unmoving mechanical bodies of many robots spread around the sandy ground. Some of them looked to be of Tails’ design, while others were clearly made by Doctor Robotnik.

Could Tails be dealing with an ambush from the Robotnik Empire right now? Cosmo wondered to herself. The physical evidence seemed to back that idea up, but something just didn’t feel right about that hypothesis in Cosmo’s head. It was something else, she could almost sense it-

“Hey Cos…! What’s brought ya to Aerth…?” Tails said to her as the door to the Sky Patrol opened. As Cosmo turned her head to face Tails, she saw that they were leaning on the doorframe in such a way that it seemed like they were trying to hide something. They were caked in sweat and out of breath, but nevertheless had a tight grip on a green Chaos Emerald in their right hand. Despite their attempts to hide whatever was going on in the Sky Patrol, Cosmo also noticed that someone from behind Tails was attempting to grab the Chaos Emerald from them - a purple and red fox mobian that at first didn’t strike Cosmo as familiar, but then…

“Cosmo!! It’s nice to see ya in person! Mind, uh, helping me out here with gettin’ this Emerald?” The fox spoke to her, causing Cosmo to realize who they were. Garrick - the younger one of the two children of Black Doom. Cosmo had the feeling Tails might have been dealing with the Black Arms, but she didn’t want to assume. Or maybe she just didn't want to have that be the case, since the fact that they are here makes things… awkward, to say the least.

“Sorry Garrick, I’m not here to help anyone right now… I just wanna talk to Tails, if that’s alright,” Cosmo confessed.

“Hmm. Alright! The Dark Arms and I will be on our way outta here with the Emerald so you two can chat! I'll ask Shadow to catch you up on how we're gonna use it to help y'all at Green Gate later!” Garrick replied, attempting to casually grab the Emerald from Tails and walk off – but Tails didn't budge.

“Nuh-uh, absolutely not. I'm not gonna just let you have the Emerald like that,” Tails said sternly to Garrick.

“Well I'm not leaving here without that Emerald!” Garrick protested, tugging on the Emerald again.

Tails sighed in tired frustration and looked back up to Cosmo. “So, you've advanced to the point of taking the Emeralds now??” They exasperatedly questioned her. “I know you helped get that letter along to Amy like a month and a half ago but… It seems so… Unlike you to jump the gun so quickly like this,” They added, a tone of disappointment being very present in their voice as they spoke, which caused Cosmo to feel quite guilty.

“I didn't ask them to do this!” Cosmo insisted. She was telling the truth, she knew she was, but she still felt like she was lying.

“But you did say that you were willing to help us in any way possible in exchange for us helping you with restoring Green Gate!” Garrick very correctly pointed out, much to Cosmo’s chagrin.

“You what??” Tails yelled in shock. It was clear that they didn't want to sound mad at her, but it was also pretty clear that they were mad at her, at least a little.

The guilt grew in Cosmo more and more, causing her more and more stress as it did. Eventually, she just couldn't take it anymore.

“I KNOW! I KNOW I DID! BUT NOW I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING AND ALL I WANNA DO IS JUST TALK ABOUT IT FIRST FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!” Cosmo suddenly shouted in an outburst of all of the negative feelings that had been brewing inside of her. Anger, guilt, fear, sadness, regret, all of it congealed together into the words that had left her mouth.

Tails and Garrick both flinched, the two of them being taken aback by the volume of Cosmo's voice in the moment.

“Right. S-sorry,” Tails replied sheepishly.

“Well if we're going to have a discussion, why not have some tea to have over it?” Another fox suddenly popped their head out from behind Tails and Garrick. This one Cosmo did not quite recognize, even after hearing their voice.

“I'd appreciate it…! But… Have we met before?” Cosmo responded to the offer, trying to sound more polite compared to her earlier outburst.

The young fox stared up at Cosmo, who was probably a little under three times their size, seemingly to almost study her.

“I don't think we have, though I have heard your voice before - which is very pretty by the way!” The fox answered after about a minute of silent investigation. “My name is Rhygenta, and these other three are my siblings - Blurk, Cregal and Cyzer! I believe you talked to my Mama, Eclipse, while you were first contacting us for help!” She continued, giving Cosmo a formal introduction, complete with an outstretched hand ready to be shook. “It's a pleasure to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you too!” Cosmo exclaimed, accepting the offer for a handshake.

Once the handshake ended, Rhygenta immediately took off back into the Sky Patrol.

“Rhygenta, do be careful. I overheard that the coffee machine in this ship is terribly complex to use,” Blurk warned her, chasing after it.

“Oh, don't worry! I have my own supplies!” Rhygenta assured him, summoning a bag into existence that had within it a tea set, a small burner, and another, smaller bag that seemed to hold a variety of tea bags, from what Cosmo could see.

Garrick, Cyzer and Cregal quickly caught up to the other two, leaving Cosmo and Tails alone at the ship’s entrance.

“You… Talked to Eclipse?” Tails asked Cosmo. To Cosmo's surprise, they didn't seem incredibly upset or angry at her. Rather, they simply seemed surprised - maybe even… curious?

“A bit, yeah. But we didn't really say all that much to each other… I mainly talked to Shadow about the whole… Helping thing,” Cosmo hesitantly answered, fidgeting with her hands. Tails didn't say anything in response, just simply letting out a soft hum and then going inside. Cosmo, cautiously, followed them.

Some time later, Cosmo, Tails, Garrick and the Dark Arms were all seated at the roundtable in the central room of the Sky Patrol, sipping on cups of tea that had been prepared by Rhygenta. Most of them were silent, but Cosmo was most certainly not. While she stared down the rich dark liquid in her tea cup, Cosmo did exactly what she set out to do; to talk. About why she had made the choice to reach out to the Black Arms, why she was now second guessing herself, why she had felt hesitant to approach Tails until now - every last detail of what had led her to this moment. With every word she spoke, there were tears to be shed alongside them. By the end of it all, Cosmo suspected that about half of the tea left in her cup was taken up by tears of hers that had been collected.

“I just… Feel so confused and conflicted…” Cosmo confessed. “I don’t want to see anyone suffer… Not any of you…” Cosmo looked up from her mug and glanced towards Garrick and the Dark Arms, who were all looking right past her and glaring daggers into Tails. “Not… You either, Tails…” Cosmo turned to her beloved seated on the opposite side of her, who looked away from her, their guilt apparent in their eyes. “But especially not my people… And I just wanted to do what I thought would have been best for them… For us,” She at last concluded, following up the last of her words with a quick chugging of the rest of her tea, hoping that the taste would bring her some comfort.

“Cosmo,” Tails uttered in a very serious tone of voice. It made Cosmo’s spine shiver with fear, are they mad at her?? “I have to admit… For as much as I do love him… It does make me deeply uncomfortable whenever my father gloats about the role he played in Cherry Blossom’s execution,” They then confessed with a sigh, whisking away the fears Cosmo once had as she truly now understood that her beloved was indeed sympathetic to her plight after all.

“Oh Tailsy, I should've known that you'd care…!” Cosmo cried out in relief, gently holding Tails’ hands in her own.

“But I must also admit…” Tails began again, catching Cosmo's attention. “I do believe wholeheartedly that while executing Cherry Blossom was not the way to make it happen, clearly, as it has left Green Gate and its inhabitants aimless and hopeless, that you and the rest of the seedrians need to make an effort to become independent. You said it yourself, the Black Arms, while caring towards those who bend to their will such as Green Gate before Cherry’s death, they are cruel to everyone else, and you must detach yourself from that to truly prosper as a peaceful people.” Just as quickly as Tails had inspired hope in Cosmo that an understanding was had between the two of them, Tails had also killed that hope right in front of her. Immediately, feelings of hurt, anger and confusion shot through Cosmo's body. She so badly wanted to let such emotions take hold of her completely and shout at Tails that it wasn't as fucking easy as Tails made it out to be to just ‘detach’ themselves from the very people who created them and kept them sustained even after their original purpose had failed to come to fruition. But she didn't want to fight – especially not with Tails. So she swallowed down those nasty words and simply cried.

“Since you wanna be so high and mighty about how the seedrians conduct themselves and who they choose to align with, why don't you take up the role of leading them to recovery, hmm?” Garrick suddenly snided at Tails with a scowl.

“... Pardon?” Tails replied, taken aback.

“You heard me,” Garrick raised his voice. “Take charge and help Green Gate recover if you want to dictate what they do so badly,” He then reiterated with even more venom in their voice than the first time around. “That is, if you're willing to look past your own fears of resembling Shadow in any way possible,” He added.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Tails retorted very candidly.

“You were listening to Cosmo when she mentioned talking to Shadow about helping Green Gate, weren't you?” Garrick quizzed Tails.

“Miss Cosmo, you already told us the why for contacting us for assistance, but not the how. Perhaps having that knowledge would help us here?” Rhygenta suggested, interjecting into the conversation. Her soft and sweet demeanor was a breath of fresh air contrasted against the tension and vitriol of everyone else in the room.

“Sure… I could do that, yeah.” Cosmo responded, taking a deep breath as she did. “It all began… just the day before I had told Amy about that letter from Yuki…”

#undescribed #teos #the era of shadow #black arms #sonic oc #sonic au #writing tag #sonic fanfiction #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 2 months ago

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Good news asker - we found a beta reader earlier today and am setting up to post!

Hello HomeSweetHive. Been reading your latest fanfic “Mimicry of a Rivalry” and was loving how it was going. Is there going to be any new chapters being written? I would love to see this Sonic AU flourish!

Hello! Yes, it will be finished I promise! We've actually been sitting on a finished chapter 10 for a while now, unable to get it beta read for a lot of reasons ^^"

But now that this semester is finished I'm working on getting a reliable beta reader for the rest of MoAR going forward,,,

Alsoooo another reason for the lack of TEoS updates just in. General. Is cause we have had a VERY strong hyperfixation on another franchise all together these past few months! (Check our art main @home-sweet-hive to see it in action) I think it's gonna be something that sticks with us permanently and we'll now always love and wanna make stuff for like Sonic, but it's starting to die down a little and letting us work on other stuff now.

Thank you so much for your kind words! I hope to get this AU back in action soon!

- Mod Aik (🌹)

#teos thoughts #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 2 months ago

Note

Hello! Yes, it will be finished I promise! We've actually been sitting on a finished chapter 10 for a while now, unable to get it beta read for a lot of reasons ^^"

But now that this semester is finished I'm working on getting a reliable beta reader for the rest of MoAR going forward,,,

Thank you so much for your kind words! I hope to get this AU back in action soon!

- Mod Aik (🌹)

#the era of shadow #teos #sonic au #ask #teos thoughts #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 2 months ago

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Completed commissions for @naughtdeer , @borfungus , and @black-arms-hivemind !!!!

My queue is empty and my comms are still open! Check my pinned if you're interested :]

#undescribed #fanart tag #gear <33333 #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 4 months ago

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the april fools joke this year is celebrating trans day of visibility a day late 🎉

#the era of shadow #undescribed #teos #sonic au #sonic oc #art tag #black arms #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 5 months ago

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Mimicry of a Rivalry

Written by Aikshlin Rose & Landon F.

Cover Art by Aikshlin Rose

Chapter 9: Desperate Times and Desperate Measures, Made Just For You

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS: Swearing, Paranoia, Fear of Abandonment

Start | Prev | Next

Author's Note:

Okay there we go now you start to see me getting directly involved at the end of this chapter (as indicated by the writing credit). Hi. Yeah. Yeah I'm that one. Wait you don't know what I'm talking about? Oh. Sad. You should consider joining the 113k people who know of me <3

But uh anyway yes. Hiatus after this chapter we need time to catch up on the other chapters. And by we I mainly mean me (but Shadow will be helping me on occasion and also bless Aik for the outline he left behind for me 🙏)

Now excuse me I must return to my sacred duties of fawning over my computer husband

-Landon

Through the thick glass windows of the Northamer Robotnik Empire base, not a single sound from inside the building was able to penetrate. But none of the Diamond Sector Dark Arms needed to hear anything to know that Mimic’s mind was in a very fragile state at the current moment.

“I'm honestly surprised it was so easy!” Punk, the pink spike wisp of the Diamond Sector-

Okay yeah no that's really enough of that now. You get the jist by now! … Right?

The rest of this is probably gonna suck for you if you don't, so you better!

“Seems that the old man’s gone soft!” Cybeam added, mocking the five’s ex-caretaker.

“He's a desperate man, always has been…” Hue interjected. “If you ask me, I'm surprised it took this long!”

“It's probably ‘cause of how much he hates his past or whatever, something about avoiding the Black Arms at all costs because he views that part of him as what drags him down,” Punk surmised. “Which is pretty fuckin stupid if you ask me, considering just how much he's wantin’ us back.”

“Cherry-picking, I believe it's called,” Orrock stated.

“Hmm… Even if his view on the Black Arms is misinformed, I can't exactly blame his perspective. The Black Arms DNA present in them is what made the Octopus Tribe so isolated from the rest of mobian society, if I remember correctly…” Hue admitted.

“Indeed. They’re too alien for their fellow mobians, and yet too mobian for the Black Arms, it seems,” Orrock agreed with them, elaborating slightly upon their point.

“But tonight, that all changes!” Grover exclaimed.

“Whether ol’ Mimi likes it or not, he's ours!” Punk declared.

“And perhaps, that can be the start of something more…” Hue began to speculate.

“For the many others of the Octopus Tribe out there… for those slaving away for that traitorous Ivo…” Orrock added.

“Uh… yeah. So you guys wanna go back and tell the geezer ‘bout the results of this little stalker’s party of ours?” Cybeam interjected, breaking the rhythm of the rest of his teammates.

“Hold on, I wanna mess with the guy a little bit more~!” Punk replied. Right after doing so, she knocked on the glass as if it was a door.

This, of course, caught Mimic's attention.

Already having given up all integrity, Mimic did not hold back. He marched right to the window and opened it.

Punk could see that a few of her fellow Dark Arms, mainly Hue and Orrock, were somewhat nervous about this reaction. She figured that the two of them thought that he would try to catch the five right there and then, which would mess with their plans.

But Punk was certain he wouldn't go for it.

He had lots of opportunities to do so all throughout his walk through that winding hallway they had followed him through. Sure, not all of them had been there at once during that sequence, but he had been alone, there'd be no one to question or stop him. And for all he knew, Whisper was nowhere to be seen, either.

And yet, he resisted the temptation, despite how much it clearly pained him to do so.

There had to be a reason for that, Punk figured as much. Part of her did yearn to know what that reason was exactly, and she knew she wasn't the only one that did. But in the absence of direct access to such information, good ol’ fashioned intuition, Punk finds, will do in a pinch.

Just as Punk had predicted, Mimic made no attempts to nab the wisps. Instead, he just yelled incessantly at them about Whisper putting them up to this and that they should tell him where ‘that brat’ is.

“Stupid question to be askin’ when he doesn't have his mask on,” Cybeam pointed out.

Punk, agreeing with the sentiment, gestured towards her own face to ask Mimic non-verbally about his lack of translating apparel.

“Shit..! Where'd I leave that damn thing…!” Mimic swore to himself under his breath, but the wisps could very much still hear him, and laugh at him, too.

“What a dumbass,” Cybeam scoffed.

“You little shits-!” Mimic lashed out at them. “So what if I don't have my mask?? You know how to communicate non-verbally! It was a part of your damn training!” But despite his attempts to be intimidating, the wisps just laughed more in response. Orrock even rolled their eyes a bit, which both them and Punk could tell he really didn't like.

But before he got the chance to say anything more and embarrass himself further, Neo Metal stepped out from their office and ordered Mimic to join them. Clearly not having a choice in the matter, Mimic followed Neo back inside the office. But not without signalling to the wisps that he was watching them.

“Aww, how cute!” Hue giggled.

“And we're watching you, too!” Grover added.

“Alright, Mimic’s gone now. Can we go and brief with the geezer now?” Cybeam once again suggested.

“Yes, I do suppose it's about time we reunite with Ma,” Orrock agreed, though not without a snide look towards Cybeam. Punk could already tell what they were doing, and she wasn't a fan. But she decided to leave the two alone for now, figuring that the situation would quickly fizzle out on it's own.

“Why are you looking at me like that, exactly?” Cybeam questioned Orrock in annoyance.

“It would do you good to treat our new caretaker with some respect, you know,” Orrock pointed out to him.

“ ‘New caretaker’...” Cybeam echoed in a sarcastic scoff.

“What, do you not think they've deserved that title, even after everything they've done for us?” Orrock asked them.

“That's none of your business to know, wise guy!” Cybeam deflected.

Okay, clearly this wasn't in fact going to fizzle out like Punk had hoped.

“Can you two assholes stop arguin’ and get a damn move on?! Switching gears was your idea, after all!!” Punk shouted at them, getting their attention away from each other and onto her.

The two of them bother wordlessly obliged, though Punk noticed Orrock very clearly scoffing at the way she went about breaking the two up. She just knew that they were rolling their eyes at her vulgarity in their mind – and she didn't even need the hivemind for that!

Cybeam though, on the other hand, looked… oddly guilty as he began to fly off into the distance. It tugged on Punk’s heartstrings a bit. She decided she would try reaching out to him.

“Hey, Cy… Is there something bothering you, man?” She inquired as she caught up to them.

But Cybeam didn't say anything in response. Instead, they just glanced away from Punk and started floating faster.

Punk could tell from that alone though that he didn't want to talk about it anymore, and while she was perfectly able to understand and respect that, she did still wish that he would. Clearly something was bothering them – was it the mission, stained with the concern of whether or not Mimic deserved to be brought into the fold? Was it a worry that if they were to get close to Eclipse as they had in the past with Whisper and Mimic, that they would just be left abandoned again? Or was it something else entirely? Implications of all of these blipped in and out of the hivemind, but Cybeam himself seemed too deep in his own angst to truly know.

Perhaps… Punk would just have to put her worries away and let it pass, she thought.

That is, until Hue passed by her.

She remembered as she had gone out to see Queen Widow earlier that day seeing them talk to Cybeam for a while. Maybe they'd be able to give Punk some insight, at least.

“Hey, Hue! You mind if we chat for a bit?” Punk called out to them.

“Oh! No, not at all, I'd love to!” Hue replied cheerfully, slowing down and turning to Punk so that the two could be eye to eye with one another. Or perhaps, eye to eyes? Get it, cause Punk has one eye and Hue has three?

You totally laughed, don't lie!

“What'd you want to talk about?” Hue asked Punk.

“I'm pretty sure I saw you talking to Cy earlier, yeah?” Punk answered with a question of her own.

“Ah… yeah,” Hue answered, their previous chipper tone faltering. “They've been having a bit of a hard time moving on from the whole being abandoned by Whisper thing… But by the end of our talk, he seemed more cheerful…!” Hue then recollected. “Is he back in the dumps again?”

“Yeahh… Orrock kinda got on his ass about calling Eclipse ‘geezer’ and with what you said, I'm thinking that might've thrown them into a funk cause Ori’s kinda forcing Cy to move on at a faster pace than he's comfortable doing that at,” Punk responded, sprinkling in some speculation along the way.

“Well, as much as I doubt Orrock made Cy feel that way intentionally, I will talk to them after the mission…” Hue assured her. “I know that they have a tendency to be a bit bossy…”

“Thanks, I'm sure Cy would appreciate it,” Punk stated. “Though… Ugh, now this whole convo’s got anxiety killing my vibes really badly…” She then lamented.

“Oh no! Why's that?” Hue inquired with considerable concern.

“Well, I mean, like… Is this mission even a good idea if not all of us are over an abandonment incident?? What if it just wrecks the whole sector’s groove beyond repair??” Punk feared, stopping in her tracks completely.

“If you feel like this is a bad idea, I'll tell Ma as soon as we get back to them. But if this is you asking on Cy’s behalf, we already talked about that earlier, and he assured me that he wants this mission to go on,” Hue answered her in a comforting tone, going so far as to place a limb on Punk’s shoulder.

“Heh… how'd you guess…?” Punk replied sheepishly, her cheeks glowing a slight pink.

“You act as if I haven't known you for years now…!” Hue remarked. “I know you look up to Cy, and as such, you also care about him. A lot. But trust me, the rest of us care a whole lot about him too.”

“... Hue, can I ask you something?” Punk asked in a low voice, her face burning brighter as she started to, rather embarrassingly, cry.

“Yeah, of course! What's up?”

“... Is it bad that I feel kinda mad that Cy hasn't moved on from Whisper yet?” Punk confessed, her words thick with guilt.

“What do you mean by ‘mad’, if I may ask?” Hue queried.

“I just… I just get a bit frustrated that he's still hung up on someone that didn't care about him in the end instead of the people around him that do care. Like us… like me. But I know that's wrong! I know that if Cy left me like Whisper did, I would feel like I could never get over it! I-I know my thoughts are stupid but I can't make them stop!!” Punk explained, her anger and sadness and all the guilt she had towards both of them spilling out of her with the tears she shed.

Without another word, Hue pulled Punk into a tight embrace. “It's okay to feel that way, Punk, feelings aren't something you can control. What you can control is the way you act on those emotions, and I assure you that none of us have been made to feel uncomfortable or hurt by you. These… these things take time,” They said to her reassuringly. “But we'll make it work in the end. Together. Because we're forever united by our experiences and now by our Black Arms assimilation, and we're gonna make the whole world – no, this whole dimension – united within the loving tendrils of the Black Arms Hivemind!” They then elaborated, a dedication in their eyes that felt so incredibly reminiscent of that of long time brethren such as Eclipse or Widow or the original four Dark Arms. It was quite the surprise for Punk to see in Hue, who just a week ago was so terribly hesitant in everything that they did, still so scared of the unknown even when it had become known to them – or so everyone else had figured. But it seemed now that something had changed in such a way to make Hue finally get it. Punk wanted to ask about that, but for the sake of staying on task, she decided not to.

“Thanks… But don't you think we should get going now?” Punk pointed out.

“Oh, right!!” Hue reacted, quickly dashing off to join with the other Diamond Sector Dark Arms.

Punk quickly followed suit, with an amused grin that only existed in her mind, thanks to wisp anatomy.

–

A bit annoyingly, Eclipse's locale was rather far from the base, so it took a good while for the Diamond Sector Dark Arms to fly over there.

“Look on the bright side, Punk! Being this far out makes it really hard to get caught!” Hue remarked.

“Plus, this is probably gonna be the last time we haveta fly over here before we get into the climax of this mission!” Cybeam added with a mischievous grin. Punk chuckled at the comment, both because it was genuinely funny and because she was happy to see him in better spirits.

But soon enough, Eclipse came into their line of view. Kind of.

You see, they were now disguised as Whisper, just as they had planned. And damn was it convincing. If it hadn't been for her being able to pick up on Eclipse's presence through the hivemind, she very well could have been convinced by it!

But what caught Punk’s eye more than the disguise itself was the replica wispon that stood by the chair they were sitting in. The replica wispon she had made. It filled her with a sense of pride seeing it in action. Or at least in as much action as it was capable of being in.

“And so it seems that this first act has come to a close, hasn't it..?” Eclipse said to the Dark Arms, their voice uncannily close to Whisper’s.

“Heh…! I'd say so…!” Punk awkwardly quipped, having been thrown off her groove by just how convincing Eclipse's imitation of Whisper ended up being.

“Is something wrong, Punk..?” Eclipse wondered with concern.

“Oh! N-no!” Punk stammered in response. “I just… I wasn't expecting you to nail Whisper down so… perfectly???” She then confessed. “I mean, having the looks and the gear is one thing – but you even have her voice down to a tee??”

“Well you see, my dear… I am quite good at adapting to the needs of whatever situation I put myself in~” Eclipse remarked with a wink.

It took a moment for Punk to fully process what they had said, but once an understanding had been met, she let out a delighted chuckle.

“So, what you got there, Mama?” Grover asked Eclipse, pointing to a small-ish cardboard carton on the table that Punk previously hadn't noticed.

“Oh, this? Just some overly processed garbage food with unprecedented amounts of sodium,” Eclipse responded to Grover, showing the contents of the carton to him. Peering over his small circular body, Punk was able to see that what was inside the container was a sizable pile of french fries, smothered in molten cheese sauce and gravy, topped with bits of crushed up bacon. If Punk had a mouth in her wisp form, it would surely be watering. “Want some?”

“Uh?? YEAH???” Grover answered excitedly, his singular eye sparkling at the sight of the fries.

“Oh, I see! So it's fine for you to eat a bunch of unhealthy crap, but not us?” Cybeam teased, earning themself a hearty chuckle from Punk, and a couple somewhat amused giggles from everyone else.

Eclipse paused, probably knowing that Cy had a point there. “It was all I could get, really…!” They argued, rather unconvincingly. “Besides, the whole energy drink debacle is completely different!”

“Is it? I mean, you did say it was to keep us healthy, didn't you?” Punk questioned them, happily joining in on the teasing.

“... Dammit, I did say that, didn't I?” Eclipse conceded.

“Not to interrupt, but… how are we supposed to eat the fries when we don't have mouths in these forms?” Hue inquired.

“How did you guys eat things before being assimilated?” Eclipse replied, nudging Hue and the others to recall the answer on their own.

“Didn't we just absorb things and convert them to Hyper-Go-On energy?” Grover recollected. “Meaning that we didn't even need to eat?”

Eclipse paused their eating, looking at Grover with a surprised expression.

“Did… did you forget???” Punk blurted out with a cackle.

Eclipse simply let out a sheepish “Maybe…” and dug their head into their arms in shame. “Well, at least I know that the hivemind did in fact archive and restore your memories properly…” They added shortly afterwards, their voice muffled.

“Aw man, has the ol’ geezer started to develop dementia now??” Cybeam joked.

“They aren't that old, Cy,” Orrock retorted, unimpressed.

“How old are they, anyways?” Grover chimed in curiously. Fair question, one that Punk herself had honestly been floating around herself recently.

“I think they said at one point that they're 27,” Orrock answered. Reasonable answer! Though Punk silently huffed to herself about how that somewhat invalidated Cy’s whole ‘geezer’ joke, given how if that's true, they're a couple years younger than Mimic.

And then Hue came in with the steel chair.

“I swear I've heard Shadow say something about them being created in 2006 before though?” They commented, sending the rest of the Diamond Sector into an absolute frenzy.

“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT WE'RE ALL OLDER THAN THEM?? EVEN GROVER???” Cybeam hollered.

“Okay, okay… Both of you are right in certain contexts… Let me explain,” Eclipse said as they sat back up. “We Black Arms develop differently than the creatures of Aerth, and even from you wisps. Imagine the development cycle of a Black Arms like the life cycle of a butterfly – or moth, if you’d prefer. We start at the larval stage, a weird little lump of flesh with the mental capacity of a young child by Aerth standards. This stage lasts for about a year, after which the larva will enter the pupa stage. Those pods that store your biomechs, the accelerated assimilation chambers, they’re both quite similar to what this stage is. Within the chambers, the larva develops into a full grown Black Arms. Without going on too much of a biology lesson, when the Black Arms member leaves the pupa stage, it’s development has been completed, and they’re at the mental capacity of an adult,”

“So… were you a larva or an adult in 2006?” Grover asked.

“Well, about that. Because I was based on Shadow and the way that it was created by Lord Doom and Gerald Robotnik, I basically skipped the larva stage entirely. So to answer your question – adult,” Eclipse responded.

“And the 27 thing?” Punk interjected.

“For my disguise as Doctor Clysdale, I needed a birth date for papers and whatnot that better lines up with Aerth standards, so I kinda just… Stole Relic’s birth year and combined it with my actual “birthday”? She was fine with it,” Eclipse answered.

And so, the Diamond Sector finally understood Eclipse’s age situation.

Punk did have some other questions start to come to her mind: What’s with the Comet Sector Dark Arms, then? What’s with Garrick?

But before she could ask about either of those topics, Orrock stepped in to get the conversation back onto the topic of the mission. Man, she knows that the mission is important and all, but she really wanted to know more about this stuff. Oh well…

“Ask me after the mission, okay?” Eclipse quickly messaged Punk over the hivemind.

“Okay!” Punk happily replied. That was pretty nice of them to offer, made her feel seen.

“So, tell me what you’ve observed,” Eclipse then commanded everyone out loud.

The members of the Diamond Sector all took turns conveying the constant struggle it had been to fight against Mimic’s stubborn pursuit to ignore them. The struggle, that is, until the end, when Mimic very suddenly and frankly unexpectedly snapped. Just when they were starting to get worried that the plan was a bust.

Funny how that works, huh?

“Seems that despite his attempts to play hard to get, he’s at his wit’s end,” Eclipse remarked with a smirk. “How pathetic… So desperately clinging for control of things he simply doesn’t have.”

“What can we do with that, geezer?” Cybeam wondered, casually shapeshifting himself a mouth to shove fries into.

“Well, it seems pretty clear that he wants to have custody of us, yeah?” Punk stated, taking Cy’s idea for herself as she also grabbed some of the loaded fries.

“He wants our power all for himself!” Grover exclaimed.

“I’m inclined to agree with that thought…” Eclipse interjected, setting the carton of fries aside for the Dark Arms to gobble up. “That’s why I was thinking…” They then pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil.

“Why not give him what he wants?”

#undescribed #the era of shadow #teos #sonic oc #sonic au #black arms #writing tag #sonic fanfiction #mod ash #mod landon

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the-era-of-shadow · 5 months ago

Text

Mission: FOX FRENZY

Written by Aikshlin Rose

Cover Art by Aikshlin Rose

Chapter 9: The Haze of Deception Has Lifted

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS: Swearing, Mentions of Death, In-Universe Xenophobia, Violence

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Author's Note:

So after this chapter and chapter 9 of MoaR coming out Thursday, there's gonna be a hiatus in releases for a while. MoaR needs time to catch up in being completed and we're going through some stuff. Also, this chapter and MFF in general has been completed for a while, so it'll only really show on Thursday, but because of the stuff we're going through, Aik had to take a break from the front and won't be working on things for a bit. Other hivemates will continue things in his absence, but you may notice a bit of stylistic shift in both writing and art.

Tails did not know what the sound had been, nor its origin – but what they did know was that it was loud. Very loud. Beyond the point of just overwhelming, breaching into the territory of truly, horrifically painful. Even as it faded, the ringing in their ears that was left behind was just as agonizing.

It hurts.

The pain was the only thing that Tails could think about, and even then, it was barely even ‘thinking’ as one would normally define it, more of just an instinctual reaction, as if Tails’ mind had been devolved into that of a feral animal just like the one they had been trying to get research on just moments ago.

But slowly, surely, the ringing faded away as well, and in its place, Tails’ senses came back to them. When they did, they realized that they had gone from standing to kneeling on the hallway’s cold metal floor, their fuzzy vision revealing a small puddle of dribble that had fallen from their mouth. With the strength that was slowly coming back to them as well, they lifted their dominant arm slightly to wipe their mouth. Afterwards, they finally managed to get back up on their feet.

“Shhhhit… Theee foxxx… it’ssss gooone…” Tails slurred out, the realization that the feral fox that they had been holding before the sudden noise had rang out was no longer in their arms, nor were they in the hallway at all anymore.

Giving up on the mission to analyze the fox, Tails stumbled their way through the rest of the hallway leading into the central room, their stride becoming more and more steady as their mind’s functions returned to normal. Finally, as they began to truly feel back to normal, Tails stepped into the central room and looked over to where they had placed the supplies for the Air Charm replicants, but as they gazed upon the monitor desk, Tails very suddenly made a horrifying discovery.

The Chaos Emerald was gone too.

Tails immediately assumed the cause to be a break-in, most likely occurring while Tails had been incapacitated. But the glass container had not been broken. Rather, the proper door had been opened. But such a thing should have only been possible via a request to Nicole, which a non-Freedom Fighter would not have been able to do, as she would’ve refused. That left only a single possibility to Tails, the only way this could have happened.

Hacking.

“Nicole! Status report!” Tails demanded, perhaps a bit harsher than they had intended due to the stress of the situation. But regardless of Tails’ tone, she did not reply, which only further proved Tails’ fears correct.

In a frenzied rush to try to put a stop to whoever it was that had taken the Emerald, Tails raced out of the central room and made a mad dash towards the Sky Patrol’s exit. It was on this route that Tails saw the Chaos Emerald glimmer as it was held in the hands of a young – single tailed – fox mobian, wearing clothes that looked handmade, and that which were stained just the slightest bit with some sort of green substance. Now that Tails had their eyes on the thief in question, they slowed down quite a bit in hopes of catching up to them without alarming them to their presence. But they did still follow the young thief, and as they did, Tails started to notice that their fur’s hue was very similar to the fur of the feral mystic fox from earlier. Furthermore, and arguably more important, they quickly realized that they recognized this young mobian, by name, even.

Garrick Brevair, the son of Wilma Brevair – AKA The Queen of the Black Arms, Black Widow.

Gods fucking dammit, it was a trap all along!

But what the hell was Garrick doing out here all alone?? Tails knew that the Black Arms often resort to drastic measures to get what they want, but isn’t Garrick a bit young to be out on a mission by himself like this??

What if… What if Garrick isn’t alone?

Tails pushed all these questions in their head aside, they knew if they didn’t act now, they could run the very real risk of surrendering the Emerald to the Black Arms. So without any extra hesitation, Tails leaped forward towards Garrick and gave out a cry.

“Hey!! Give that back!!”

Much to Tails’ chagrin, their cry gave Garrick the time to dodge Tails’ attempt at grabbing the Emerald.

“Looks like this is gonna be a bit harder than planned, guys!” Garrick stated as he landed back on his feet.

“So you really aren’t alone after all!” Tails surmised from Garrick’s statement as they gear up to take another swing for the Emerald.

“Of course not! There’s strength in numbers, especially within the hivemind!” Garrick responded, his grasp around the Emerald tightening, clearly anticipating Tails’ next attempt to take it.

Despite Garrick being clearly prepared for it, Tails lunged towards the Emerald once again. “Why are you even doing this?? Aren’t you guys supposed to be, like, not on the offense during the colder months??” They question Garrick as they did.

“Oh hey! You’ve done your research! Seems you're just as studious as the hive remembers you being, fox!” Garrick remarked as he once again successfully swiped the Chaos Emerald out of Tails’ grasp.

“H-hey! You’re a fox too!” Was all that Tails could get out in response before Garrick very suddenly teleported away.

A sense of dread quickly pierced through Tails as they immediately assumed that he had left the Sky Patrol, but as Garrick’s voice rang out once more, Tails turned towards the central room and realized that they were now standing on the room’s roundtable.

“But you see, Prower, we’re in a bit of a troubling situation right now. We have many plans to work on to pass the winter by, yes, but that’s really hard to do when a certain stupid doctor and his robots keep storming our base in pursuit of Shadow!” As much as the way Garrick was speaking was uncannily reminiscent of both their older sibling’s and late father’s speech patterns, Tails couldn’t help but to have a bit of curiosity about the words themselves that were being spoken.

“Doctor Robotnik?” Tails inquired, still pursuing Garrick, but at a slower pace, hoping to get an answer out of him before they could run off again and turn this situation into a full blown chase.

“Who else?” Garrick answered bluntly. “Oh, by the way, we’re very aware of the fact that you’re the ones at fault for such! It’s one thing for Amy to not want to join us, but it’s something much more awful to then go tell that doctor that Shadow’s the sole reason why his husband’s cafe was destroyed, when you Freedom Fighters were the ones that started the battle in front of the clinic in the first place!!” He added, his voice having an unnervingly high amount of vitriol in it for a mere six year old.

Come to think of it, Garrick in general acted a bit more intelligent than would be typical for his age, though, admittedly, that’s going off of mobian standards. Is this actually typical of a young Black Arm?

“Hey, Prower! You seem to have something on your mind there!” Garrick pointed out, snapping Tails out of their thoughts. “I’ll let you come closer if you tell me what you’re thinkin’ about!~” He then offered, waving the Chaos Emerald around as if Tails were a dog, and the Emerald was a dog treat.

“You’re… very mature for your age, by mobian standards,” Tails told him, walking closer towards the central room, wanting to take full advantage of the offer Garrick gave. “But… is your behavior… really typical for a Black Arms your age?”

“Nope!” Garrick responded. Tails was unsure if the cheery tone of his reply was genuine or not, a part of them felt like it wasn’t. “I’m actually severely underdeveloped!” He then revealed, much to Tails’ shock. Still in that cheerful tone too.

“Huh??” Tails instinctually blurted out in response.

“We Black Arms aren’t supposed to be in this child-like state for this long, Prower. You should know this,” Garrick began to explain, his voice quieter now, but still strangely chipper, which paired with his still smiling face made for an aura that was becoming more and more uncanny by the second. “Our vessels come into being via larvae that come forth from the slime moss, which are child-like by nature, yes, but that stage is only meant to last for about a year, give or take,” They continued, neither tone nor facial expression changing as he hopped down from the table, seemingly approaching Tails in much the same way Tails was approaching him. “From there, we form into nice comfy cocoon pods and from within we mature into full grown Black Arms soldiers! But I never got to do that, Prower.”

“U-Uhm… W-why not?” Tails sheepishly asked, despite knowing it would only serve as a prompt to further Garrick’s monologuing.

“Well, you see, there was something that happened just a few days after I emerged from the mold….” Garrick replied, beginning to become close enough to Tails that they could start to see some malice from him behind their unyielding smile. “That something? Why, it was only the destruction of my home and the slaughter of most of my brethren, including my own father!” He disclosed, grabbing hold of Tails’ jacket to pull them towards him, and thus letting Tails see the flames of fury and hatred in his eyes that burned so brightly, despite all their other body and vocal cues giving off a false sense of nonchalance. “You Aerthlings are the reason why I’m like this! You’re the reason why I was forced to develop in the way of our ancestors!” He finally concluded, still holding Tails at eye level with him.

Just from under Garrick’s grasp of Tails, his other hand still held the Chaos Emerald, which caught Tails’ attention. Being so close to it, Tails decided that now would be the perfect time to try and get it away from Garrick. But as they reached for the Emerald, Garrick pushed Tails away from him and pulled the Emerald closer to him.

“Wow. Just… Wow,” Garrick muttered, the smile that had been on their face for several minutes at last disappearing as it was instead replaced with a look that was a 50/50 mix of looking shocked and looking offended. “Here I am, answering your question in complete earnest, pouring my guts out for you despite how much you don’t deserve such a sight… And you use that moment to try to take the fucking Emerald from me again??” He scolded Tails, his volume rising.

“H-Hey! Watch your-”

“You have no authority over how I express my pain, Prower.”

“Yes, I do. Because I, and the rest of the Mystic Fox Armada are going to burn whatever remains of you Black Arms to ashes!” Tails asserted, taking a step towards Garrick for the first time in quite a few minutes.

“Is that a threat?” Garrick inquired. “An invitation to a fight, even?”

“You’re damn right it is!” Tails affirmed. “Because I’m not gonna let you waltz out of here with that Chaos Emerald without a fight!” They then confidently declared.

“You don’t have to do this, Prower. It’s the Preparation Period season. We Black Arms don’t get into fights at a time like this unless it’s to defend ourselves from an attack,” Garrick warned them, but Tails was certain in their decree.

“Then allow me to throw the first punch!” Tails responded, taking their own words very literally as they punched Garrick in the cheek, sending him across the central room.

“You’re on,” Garrick said as he landed on his feet right in front of the monitor desk. “Give me your worst, Prower!”

“Gladly!” Tails replied, grabbing from one of their pockets a remote device to call the drones from outside to their location with just a press of a button. Just as intended, the drones came to Tails’ side in a matter of seconds. But something was… Off…

“That’s your worst, Prower?” Garrick taunted them. The comment confused Tails at first, but looking up and behind them, Tails noticed that the ‘army’ of drones that had formed was made of only ten members in total, a mere tenth of the amount of drones they very vividly remembered sending out to patrol the exterior of the Sky Patrol earlier that day. Out of a mix of confusion, frustration, and eventually desperation, Tails pressed the button several more times in rapid succession. But much to their dismay, no more drones ever appeared.

“It’s a terrible loss, isn’t it? If only you did your due diligence and upped the security around here after the last time I hacked into this stupid place…” An unfamiliar and rather strikingly monotone voice spoke mockingly from behind Tails.

Already in a panicked state of mind, Tails reflexively turned around to see who it was that had made the snide remark. What they saw was a young ‘mobian’ fox boy much like Garrick, though this one’s fur was gray and blue rather than Garrick’s purple and red fur, and while Tails couldn’t tell for certain, they swore that the ‘mobian’ that stood before them looked to also have a bit of cat in him, too. The boy’s appearance was not one that struck Tails as familiar, nor did his voice. Rather, it was the words themselves that he spoke that caused a wave of memories to wash over them.

They had not been directly involved in the security breach that had occurred on October 9th, but they had detected it shortly after the surrounding situation had died down and had gone to ask Sally about it. That’s when Sally told them about the Clysdale Clinic AMA and how she, Nicole and Amy had been roped into it. When Sally had told Tails about how Eclipse had blamed one of their wisp hybrids named Blurk for the hacking, she had said it with an air of suspicion towards the claim, thinking that it was just Eclipse attempting to keep up their appearance of innocence under the false identity of ‘Doctor Ezrieal Clysdale’. But Tails was never as skeptical about the claim. They had learned some things about the wisps in the process of building a translator for the wisp language into the Twin-Tail Electronic Communicators back when they had just started creating them, so Tails knew that wisps were at around the same intelligence levels as a mobian or a human. Tails also knew from their armada training and education that despite popular belief, all subspecies of Black Arms share the same amount of mental capacity and intelligence. After all, they were all equal and the same in the ‘eyes’ of the hivemind. So with Eclipse’s ‘Dark Arms’ as they called them being both wisp and Black Arms, Tails personally had no reason to doubt that Blurk really could have hacked into the Sky Patrol that day all on his own.

The mobian form though was throwing Tails for a bit of a loop-

Suddenly, Tails was kicked down to the ground by Garrick, snapping them out of their train of thought.

“Are you seriously hesitating so soon, Prower? You wanted this fight, remember?” Garrick scolded them in a cocky tone. Unfortunately, he had a point. But instead of responding verbally, Tails commanded the few drones of theirs that remained to start shooting at Garrick. “That’s more like it!” Garrick remarked as he began to evade the drones’ attacks, sounding almost excited to be doing so.

While Garrick was distracted, Tails went over to attack who they were pretty certain was Blurk on their own, an objective that didn’t quite go as planned, as every attack of theirs was blocked by a blocky blue shield that he had summoned in front of him. The resemblance of the shield to that of the blocks a regular blue wisp would allow a user to create cemented Tails’ theory, but that confirmation only served to fuel their curiosity further. Wisps are not known to be able to shapeshift, and while the Black Arms can shapeshift, the trait is one that must be trained in order to use it. So would a wisp/Black Arms hybrid even have the capacity to shapeshift?? It was a question that ate away at Tails’ mind as they continued to try and fail to place a hit on Blurk. How was he able to appear mobian?? Finally, Tails couldn’t take it anymore, and decided to feed into their yearn for knowledge.

“So you hacked into the Sky Patrol, huh?” Tails asked Blurk, making sure in the back of their head that the conversation they were starting would not distract them from the fight as they continued to throw punches and kicks as they spoke. “Twice, even?”

“Indeed I did. It was shockingly easy the first time,” Blurk responded bluntly, maintaining his shield. “And that was from afar, too. So I think you can imagine how much easier it would be to do it up close this time around.”

“That’s rather impressive for someone like you!” Tails remarked as they kicked at the shield.

“You speak as if there is something about me that would cause you to believe I would not be capable of such things. Is it because I am part wisp?” Blurk questioned them.

“Oh no, I believe that you’d be able to do such a thing! But something I’m a little more… Surprised by is your current form!” Tails marveled, flying up into the air a bit, both in the hopes of being able to leverage the height into a stronger kick, and also to create some distance between themself and Blurk to prevent any longer questions from getting interrupted by combat.

“Is that so? I could have sworn someone like you would be plenty familiar with the concept of mech suits,” Blurk replied, the monotone that Tails had grown used to shifting slightly to a more sarcastic tone of voice.

“Mech suits? What does that have to do with anything?” Tails replied, too bewildered by the comment to initiate an attack.

“Tsk tsk… Stupid Aerthlings need everything spelled out for them, don’t they?” Blurk snarked. “This body is a husk built for me to inhabit in much the same way I would inhabit someone utilizing my powers. But instead of just granting this body my powers, I grant this body everything I am, which essentially allows me to pilot it like a mech suit,” He then explained.

“Damn! If Sal and the others didn’t believe that you could hack, they’re certainly not gonna believe this!” Tails exclaimed as they finally stopped spinning their tails, letting gravity pull them down towards Blurk’s shield for an extra hard kick. But before their foot made contact with the shield, they were blown away by a familiarly ultra-loud blast.

The source of the blast had been yet another young fox ‘mobian’ that looked very similar to Blurk. The differences from him were that this fox was a girl with gray and pink fur, and she seemed to be part dog rather than part cat like Blurk’s mobian form.

“That would be terribly rude of them! I worked really hard on these suits, ya know!” Her voice cried out, being very sweet and soft, which was in drastic contrast from the near ear-bleeding soundwave that she had produced mere moments ago.

“It wouldn’t be out of character for them, though! All of these damn Aerthlings see wisps like us as tools of power and nothing else!” Another, more rough, voice spoke as another fox, this one with gray and teal fur, appeared. Though this one was honestly a little hard to call a fox, to be completely honest. They more resembled an opossum than anything else, there was maybe even a bit of hamster in there too along with the fox and opossum. But what Tails could see very clearly was that one of their arms was transformed into a laser cannon of sorts, and it was pointed right at Tails’ head. Tails quickly got back up onto their feet and ran out of the laser’s blast radius mere seconds before it went off.

It was at this moment that Tails realized that they had admittedly made a rather dumb decision in provoking Garrick and his crewmates into a fight, and that they had lost sight of what they were originally supposed to be doing in the first place – protecting the Chaos Emerald!

So Tails flew up away from the fight to look around and see where their drones had chased Garrick to. Much to their shock, they saw Garrick in the thin wedge between where the main wall of the Sky Patrol stopped and the Sky Patrol’s dome ceiling began. But even though it bewildered them as to how Garrick even ended up there, Tails prepared to charge towards them and grab the Emerald from him. That is, until they were once again knocked down by what they hoped to be the final of the faux foxes. This one resembled Eclipse’s own ‘Doctor Clysdale’ disguise a bit with their gray and red fur, but differed from Clysdale and the other ‘foxes’ in that she appeared to be part bat, which lent them a pair of wings of which they could use to catch up to Tails in the skies with.

“And just where do you think you’re going? You have not even atoned for your sins against us!” She scolded them, also sounding like Eclipse as well, with a bit of a stereotypical ‘evil queen’ type of voice mixed in for good measure.

“I’m done with this!” Tails blurted in rage, as they got back up on their feet. “I have a job to do, and that’s to protect that Emerald!” They declared, pointing at the Chaos Emerald that was still in Garrick’s hands.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that, Prower! If you want this Emerald, you’re gonna have to fight for it!” Garrick told them, leaping down to the floor below and running away from Tails with the Emerald. Another chase, so it would seem. Without hesitation, Tails went after him, and the others went after them too.

“This is ridiculous! You’re the one who stole the Emerald from us in the first place!” Tails complained after a bit of running around the Sky Patrol.

“Do you even have a purpose for having the Chaos Emerald, or are you just another hoarder?” The bat-fox, who Tails suspected was the Dark Arm known as ‘Cregal’, questioned as they swooped down to attack Tails from the sky.

“It’s none of your fucking business what we’re doing with the Emerald!” Tails snapped back in response, just barely dodging Cregal’s attack.

“Shame on you, using such foul language in front of such young, innocent ears!” The soft spoken fox-dog, ‘Rhygenta’ – Tails figured, scolded them in a way that they couldn’t fully parse out if it was sarcastic or not.

“Oh come on! Garrick said it too just a bit ago!” Tails argued, too focused on the absurdity of her complaint to notice that Rhygenta was pointing her cannon right at Tails until just seconds before the soundwave blast went off. Miraculously, Tails managed to dodge it despite that fact.

“We’ve earned it with all the shit you Aerthlings have put us through!” The fox-opossum-hamster thing, Cyzer for sure, retorted with entitlement.

“So I see that Eclipse is just as awful of an influence on you all as you accuse me of being!” Tails surmised. “Honestly, you all talk so much of us Aerthlings ‘taking advantage of wisps’ for utilizing their Hyper-Go-On energy, but don’t they do the exact same thing?? Hell, aren’t they even more guilty than we supposedly are, as they desire to give all of the Black Arms access to your Hyper-Go-On powers?! On top of the experimentation to make you guys part Black Arms, of course!” They then debated in a very accusatory way, which none of the Dark Arms seemed to like very much.

The most angered of the four of them was Cyzer, who immediately began to hurl attack after attack at Tails as they whined about Tails’ words.

“How dare you??” They hollered. “How dare you say such baseless things??” They repeated. “I’ll have you know that the four of us were not the only Dark Arms developed!! There were dozens of us! Hundreds, even!! But when we were forced to escape to this damn planet our ship suffered an awful crash that killed every one of our kin except for us and Mama! Mama could have written off the whole project as a failure and discarded us, but they didn’t!!”

“They kept us fed and safe even though they were not sure if we could fight…!” Rhygenta interjected.

“Even at their own expense,” Blurk added.

“We are more than our abilities to them! We are their family! We are as much Black Arms as they are! As any of the rest of our brethren are! And to suggest that they would ever feel otherwise is a disgusting display of arrogance and ignorance!” Cregal concluded.

In the four’s anger, they surrounded Tails on all corners, preparing to all attack them at once. Even when Tails would try to evade them and go after Garrick, the four would push them back into their line of attack.

Soon enough, Garrick too stopped running, and turned to face Tails.

“They serve us not because they have no other choice, or just because one of us saved them from some threat years ago. They serve us because we accept them as our own and give them a loving home that they find the will within themselves to defend. But I suppose the idea of wisps acting of their own accord is a foreign concept to you, isn’t it, Prower?” He said to them with a smirk. And just like that, Garrick took off once again, leaving Tails to surely be torn to shreds by the furious Dark Arms.

Or at least, that most likely would have been what would’ve happened to them, if it hadn’t been for…

The knock at the door.

#undescribed #teos #the era of shadow #black arms #sonic oc #sonic au #writing tag #sonic fanfiction #mod aik

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the-era-of-shadow · 5 months ago

Text

Mimicry of a Rivalry

Written by Aikshlin Rose

Cover Art by Aikshlin Rose

Chapter 8: The Window Into The Past Glimmers A Lot Like A Diamond

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS: Swearing, paranoia, abusive language, ableist language, knife violence (threat)

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The time that had passed since Rough and Tumble had begun their discussion of plans to capture Whisper’s wisps was unknown to Mimic. Admittedly, he had checked out of the conversation quite a while ago, now completely silent as he stared at the white wispon in his shaking hands.

His lack of involvement was not by choice. Out of any topic of conversation, it should be this one that would engage him most. And yet, much to his embarrassment, the anxiety that had been brewing in Mimic the past few days finally boiled over at this very moment, having been set off by that brief questioning of just in whose hands the Diamond Cutter wisps were in. But despite how he had tried to hype himself up and push those anxious thoughts down, they just kept creeping back up, now freezing him in place as they caused him to spiral once more.

The results of Starline’s experiment a couple of days ago, the words Whisper said to him during their last encounter, Tumble’s suggestion, and of course, the ever persistent echo of what Shadow had said to him all those months ago. They all created a boulder that weighed heavily on Mimic’s shoulders, threatening to break him under its weight if he didn’t fight to get it off of him.

He fought and fought, wordlessly, he fought his own thoughts that were clouding his mind, forcibly tearing down the red string lines his mind was forming, connecting events that he wished to not connect.

Its over, its over, its over – a mantra, a desperate cry, that Mimic continuously yelled to himself.

It had been over a decade since he abandoned the Octopus Tribe.

The Black Arms were dead and gone.

He didn’t need to be weighed down by them. Not ever again.

He had every right to leave that part of himself behind and continue to strive for success in the embrace of his mobian side and the Robotnik Empire.

He didn’t need them.

Even if they were still around, all that they would do is weigh him down. All they do now, at this very moment, is weigh him down in the form of distant memories.

But it’s not like they’re still around anyways, so why would he care? Why does he care? Why can’t he stop caring??

It’s all in the past.

So stop being so scared, you dumbass.

Suffice to say, that didn’t work.

And Mimic continued to just sit there, silently quivering.

How pathetic…

“Hey boss, you seem a bit… uppity. Is there something you’d like to add?” Rough inquired, the direct callout bringing Mimic back to his senses, much to his relief.

“O-oh, no, no… I’m good, thank you,” Mimic managed to utter out, much to his own pleasured surprise. “You two can keep talking, you’ve… You’ve got some good ideas there.”

“You’ve got it!” Rough replied.

“You sure? You don’t sound too good, boss!” Tumble interjected.

“Huh? Wh-what kind of question is that?? I’m doing just fine, thank you very much!” Mimic sputtered, desperate to get back on topic.

“You don’t really sound like it…” Tumble pointed out.

“You know, now that you mention it, Tumble… I gotta agree! Mimic, you don’t look too good!” Rough added.

“I’m fine! Knock it off, you two!” Mimic insisted, raising his voice. He hoped that he could possibly intimidate the two into shutting up and moving on.

“Did bringing up Doctor Clysdale earlier make you upset?” Rough, unaffected by Mimic’s volume, asked him.

“I wouldn’t even blame ya, boss! Back when we went to the Mean Bean cafe, Shadow had said something about working with them, right?” Tumble added. “And Shadow’s one scary hedgehog!”

“Oooh, good point, Tumble! Maybe it’s the connection between those two that’s got Mimic all riled up!” Rough surmised, both him and Tumble seemingly completely ignorant to Mimic’s growing frustration at the topic being brought up again, despite looking him right in the eyes.

And then, it happened. The final straw was broken, and Mimic could no longer contain the growing cyclone of thoughts swirling in his head.

“Of course that's why, you dumb fucks!!” He lashed out at them both. “Don't you dipshits know what you're even implying??? If Doctor Clysdale has the Diamond Cutter wisps, that means Shadow has them!! Do you even realize how disastrous that would be??” He continued, every word he uttered angrier than the last.

“O-of course we do, boss!” Rough stammered.

“Th-That’s why we brought it up! It's worth considering!” Tumble added, just as nervous as his companion.

“Worth considering??? Don't lie to me, all that bullshit does is spark unneeded fear that distracts us from our work!!” Mimic argued. “So just drop that stupid theory right now!”

Rough and Tumble were both silent for a moment following Mimic’s outburst. He hoped this meant that they would do as he told, but just as he was about to change the topic of conversation back to Whisper, Tumble spoke up again.

“Why? Because Shadow and Clysdale having the wisps doesn't fit your narrative??” He suddenly accused, taking Mimic, as well as Rough, aback.

“Narrative? The fuck are you on about now?” Mimic replied, not amused.

“It's always about you versus Whisper, even when the situation doesn't have anything to do with your rivalry with her! You lost, one time, years ago! Why does it matter so much to you?? Is your ego that fucking fragile that you can't just move on from her??” Tumble elaborated upon his accusation, which only pissed Mimic off that much more.

“Whisper is an enemy of the Empire, one that Robotnik’s wanted dead for years now,” Mimic sternly reminded him. “And yet here you are, acting as if she isn't a threat??”

“She's certainly less of a threat than Shadow is!” Tumble snapped back, ignoring Rough’s desperate and confused pleas for him to drop the subject like Mimic had asked of them. “But Shadow's not your rival, are they?”

“The fuck does that have to do with anything?” Mimic questioned.

“My point is that you care more about your years-long rivalry with Whisper than actually doing what the Empire needs!” Tumble answered. “And to think that just a few days ago I thought you could possibly stand a chance at taking Robotnik's place.”

Mimic tried his best not to show the two just how much Tumble’s words were digging into him. The loyalty he treasured was now slipping out of his hands, and he honestly had no idea why.

Maybe it's because they can tell that he's in denial of the truth?

No! Mimic wasn't in denial about anything! What could he possibly be in denial about? What would Clysdale even want with the wisps? Just because they're friends with Shadow, that doesn't then mean that they themselves are anything to be concerned of, right?

Right, of course not.

But that contradicts what he said earlier.

Whatever. He was wrong then. But he's right now.

Whisper has the wisps, Mimic was certain. Why else would she have acted so strange the other day?

She's just trying to scare him off.

But he won't be scared.

He won't be deterred.

He will have the wisps and have Whisper put into the grave.

He was certain of that.

But before he got the chance to make himself heard to Rough and Tumble, the door swung open, revealing Starline on the other side.

“Would you three care to explain why the fuck there's so much yelling coming from here??” He asked rather angrily.

Mimic prepared to explain the situation, but Tumble, much to his annoyance, beat him to the chase.

“Don't listen to him, he's-!” Mimic tried to cry out, but Starline interrupted him.

“Why wouldn't I? His claims seem pretty believable to me. All you really care about, ultimately, is your victory streak. No need to deny it,” He scoffed, smirking at Mimic in a mocking tone.

“And you KNOW why that is!!” Mimic snarled, riled up by what he viewed as yet another betrayal. “You know how much I hate the life I used to lead, never having a place to call my home, being looked down upon by everyone! You know all of that, and yet you still use that against me???” Mimic continued, increasing volume with every detail he gave. “You disgust me, Wesley,” He then concluded, his voice's volume lowering back down into a barely audible growl.

“As if pretending to be loyal to Doctor Robotnik to fuel your own ego is any better,” Starline remarked.

“YOU KNOW WHAT?? What if I just killed you! Right here, right now??” Mimic snapped, pulling a knife out from one of his pockets and holding it up to Starline’s neck.

“Oh please, I know you won't. You'd be out of a job if you did that! And you don't want that, do you?” Starline responded, nonchalantly pushing the knife away from his throat.

Despite their calm demeanor, Mimic could see him start to sweat a bit. They were nervous, even if he didn't show it.

Dear Chaos, he's so fake sometimes.

“See…! This is why I was trying to get you to shut up…!” Mimic overheard Rough whisper to Tumble.

“Lay off the coffee, Mimic. I can tell it's making you go crazy,” Starline suggested.

“Get. Out.” Mimic threatened him, no longer wanting to deal with him, or anyone, for that matter. Starline left without question, likely feeling the same way. “Dumbass…”

Now it was back to just Mimic, Rough and Tumble in the room. But tensions were high. Too high to plan anything, that was certain.

“I'm… I'm sorry about what Tumble said, he-” Rough tried to console Mimic, reaching for his shoulder. But Mimic pushed him away.

“Fuck off, don't talk to me,” Mimic ordered him.

He then left the room as well.

–

As Mimic stood out in the hallway, surrounded only by pristine white walls and a deafening silence, he looked down at the wispon still in his hands. The small little cube was nothing without a wisp inside of it. It had nothing, it was of no use.

Mimic cursed to himself mentally, regretting the outburst he had had in the break room. What was he to do now, huh? He had no plan of how to get the Diamond Cutter wisps back from Whisper, all he had was some useless cube.

But then his bitterness soon shifted back to Rough and Tumble, lamenting that he wouldn’t be in this position if the two of them had just listened to him and dropped the idea that the wisps could possibly be with anyone but Whisper.

Damn them, damn both of those useless mutts to the deepest pits of Dark Gaia’s resting place! They listen to him, not the other way around! They won’t get away with this act of insubordination, Mimic would make sure of that!

But first, he needed to get the wisps. Somehow. Without a plan. Without any help from those two twits.

It was then that a realization struck him. It had come to him so suddenly, it was almost like it had been injected into him.

“Heh, who am I kidding…?” Mimic muttered to himself. “I don’t need them…! I never did…!” He continued. “This is my rivalry, my score to settle…!

All I need is me!”

With a newfound determination, Mimic could feel the weight of his fear that had dragged him down finally fall off of him. Expressing his relief in an unrestrained cackle, he began to travel down the hallway, feeling ready to take claim to the Diamond Cutter wisps, his ‘ticket to victory’, as he saw them, no matter what it would take to do so.

And just his fucking luck, the moment he made a glance over to the window beside him, there they were, again.

Blue.

The first wisp he had ever come to consider his own.

The wisp that had taunted him in such a similar manner days earlier.

For a moment he wasn’t fully convinced that they were actually there, but after a few rapid blinks, they were still there.

Just like last time.

This was… all just like last time.

And Mimic refused to have that be the case.

Instead of trying to grab at Blue like last time, he turned away from them. He would have no part in whatever mind games Whisper was trying to play. He would have the wisps very soon, yes, but it would happen on his terms.

Thankfully for Mimic, ignoring Blue became a lot easier once his phone started to ring.

Picking the call up almost instantaneously, Mimic recognized the voice on the other end to be that of Breezie. She was calling to remind him about his meeting with Neo, which was to begin in just fifteen minutes.

“Oh, great…” Mimic groaned in his mind. “Yet another fuckin’ thing keeping me from nabbing the wisps!” He complained, despite the fact that he had known about this meeting for quite some time now.

Despite his frustration, Mimic obliged, and set off towards Neo’s office.

Along the walkway towards the office, there were quite a many windows for one to glance out of, and Mimic was certainly tempted to look as he went about his way by the sights that played out just beyond the glass veil.

Not just Blue, but now all of the other Diamond Cutter wisps as well came and went in intervals, all trying with everything they had to get Mimic’s attention. It was challenging… agonizing, even. But Mimic managed to stay firm on his personal pledge of forcing this mission to play out on his terms, and resisted them all.

But it became harder with each wisp appearance, let that be known very clearly. Mimic looked and felt like he was about to burst by the time that he had reached the area in which Neo’s office was.

Admittedly, he was holding on by a thread.

He wanted nothing more than to go back out to Whisper’s home and demand the truth from her – that is, before killing her outright and taking the wisps for himself. But he couldn’t. Not yet. No matter how much it ate at him.

He was almost there, almost in Neo’s office, where he could perhaps regain some of his composure to put to use in his response to all of this mind-fuckery.

But of course, ‘almost’ pretty much meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, as just when Mimic had begun to look for the office he was supposed to go to, the wisps, all of them, returned for one last hurrah.

Mimic had caught the five of them out of the corner of his eye, and turning towards them, he noticed just how friendly they all looked. They didn’t have the slightest bit of malice or anger or sadness in their eyes, they only saw him with beckoning, welcoming gazes.

It was too much, it was just too much.

Mimic couldn’t take it anymore, he needed answers, now.

And so, he let out a desperate cry.

“Just WHAT are you trying to achieve here, Whisper??”

So short, so succinct, and yet it was enough to bring all eyes towards his direction. His colleagues looked at him with confusion and mockery, finding his momentary snap to be a prime example of repulsive employee behavior, a breakdown that should by no means ever be replicated by anyone.

In the immense embarrassment that followed the scene Mimic had made, Neo Metal Sonic approached from behind him and plucked the white wispon from his grasp.

“Maybe I should just… take that wispon from you,” Neo remarked as they did so. “We can talk about the progress of the Metal Virus prototype in a bit, I’ll just be analyzing this little specimen while you pull yourself together, okay?” They added.

As if Mimic wasn’t in enough agony as is.

#undescribed #the era of shadow #teos #sonic au #black arms #writing tag #sonic fanfiction #mod aik

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