Chapter Text
“Sir?” Orbot anxiously-casually said. “Our unobtainium scanners have found an unusually large cave system underneath the island.”
“Hmm?” Eggman says, rolling in his bed to face his creation.
“There’s multiple caverns under the island capable of supporting life. We’re picking up unknown substances and radiation in the bottommost cave.”
“HMM?” Eggman says, wiping his eyes. Orbot sighs.
“I’ll just send the info to your EggWatch.”
•¥•
Hours later, Eggman and the Eggdrill/beebot combo are breaking through the top of a large cavern, dubbed henceforth as the Howling Cliffs, due to the wind that seems to come from no where. He flys it down carefully and it splits open like an egg to (gasp!) reveal the Egg Mobile. Metal Sonic floats along side, ready to obliterate any would-be resistance.
From the shadows a cloaked figure watches, 6 eyes of 8 hidden by a mask. A small grunt and a needle embedded in stone. The figure is gone, they’ve flung themself off into the crags.
30 minutes later, Eggman still hasn’t found any mammals, he has found, however, several unidentifiable species of bugs that are far larger than they should be. There are carcasses on the surprisingly well worn path that have been gutted methodically, suggesting sentient life is down here. The caves are very light for caves. Possibly glowing lichen grows here?
He comes across a large flat stone with writing on it, he stares at it for a second and feels words enter his head like an invasive sickness.
Higher Beings, these words are for you alone.
Your great strength marks you amongst us. Focus your soul and you shall achieve feats of which others can only dream.
“Huh.” Eggman remarks “this feels remarkably like a video game tutorial.” He shrugs, and continues on his way.
He later comes upon a separate tablet, he stares at it again and can feel what he assumes to be the meaning behind its scrawl enter his head.
Higher Beings, these words are for you alone.
Within our lands do not hide your true form. Let all bask in your glory, for only this kingdom could produce ones such as you.
The third tablet is in a very long hallway. In the back corner is a large cocoon that glows vibrant blue. It shakes occasionally, it’s insides seem to be constantly moving, never resting. Eggman can only wonder what lies inside.
Higher Beings, these words are for you alone.
Beyond this point you enter the land of King and Creator. Step across this threshold and obey our laws.
Bear witness to the last and only civilization, the eternal kingdom.
Hallownest
This tablet is directly followed by a completely destroyed stone door. Clearly someone didn’t want to obey the laws.
Eggman can’t help but chuckle to himself, it seems this ‘Eternal Kingdom’ was not so long-lived after all. Crushing metal sounds behind him, mechanical screams (he really should stop making his creations sentient) causing him to whip around. A red-cloaked figure stands in the middle of the wreckage. Their limbs obscured by some black material that glints in the low light like armor. They wear an almost helmet-like and emotionless mask, a pair of long horns curving in slightly. They carry an odd weapon, a cross between a spear and sword with a small loop on the hilt’s end.Protective fury emanates off them in waves.
“Halt, grave robber.” They warn. Eggman is unsure how someone can sound like a bug and a person and still have an accent, but there it is, clicks and warbles coming together in something resembling English. The weapon shoots forward, spearing Metal Sonic and pulling him forward in one fluid motion. The figure, a she based on her voice, kicks the robot’s lifeless chassis off her weapon. “This kingdom is nothing more than a rotting corpse and your automatons are dead. You will leave this place or answer to me.”
“… Hiiiiiii. I’m Dr. Eggman, very nice to meet you.” Eggman replies, somehow not scared for his life enough to run.
“Leave.” The bug responds. Eggman wisely decides to do so.
•¥•
Unfortunately for that bug, Eggman is nothing if not incredibly persistent. He has an Eggbase set up in the cliffs within the week, outfitted with unusually thick walls to resist outside damage. He does the same to his badniks, also giving them some hidden cameras to gather data on the caverns. The caves house other sentient life different from that particular bug, a lot of them are rather small, which would mark them as easy targets. Unfortunately, all the citizens of this dead kingdom are armed to the teeth.
Well, almost all of them.
This particular insect, a beetle probably, is very easy to aggravate, coming at his robots with a wooden sword. When his badnik overpowers it (a motobug! Overpowered by a bot the surface villagers actively dismantle on their own) a separate, much more powerful bug appears and kills the bot easily. It’s savior varies, almost always a separate beetle with blue coloring. All the bugs that help it constantly seem annoyed with it.
The red cloaked insect, who Eggman learned was called Hornet (she certainly doesn’t look like any bees he’s seen) stalks his bots from the shadows, quickly identifying their weak points and spearing them with her weapon.
A select few make their way past the crumbled stone door, reaching a small, lonely village at the bottom of a cliff. Every badnik that reaches the village doesn’t make it far before getting dismantled by the residents.
A pillbug with a great sword sometimes appears, carrying a large cloth with it. It’ll break the cocoon, releasing globs or blue stuff with legs and promptly snatching them up with their cloth. It doesn’t dismantle his bots, instead sometimes stopping to examine them. A fellow scientific mind, Eggman decides they are.
Occasionally, on the slow days, Eggman’s video and audio feed will glitch out, shadows growing bigger, mysterious floating figures with glowing eyes flitting between the rocks. Sometimes a separate glowing figure, wearing what seems to be a crown glitching in and out of existence, there’s divine screams of fury interrupting his audio feed. He could swear that one of the shadows grew eyes, eight piercing spotlights that stare into his soul. He’ll look out his window and see 3 figures watching him, surrounded by dreamcatcher patterns.
Ehh, probably just cabin fever.
•¥•
Shadow The Hedgehog was in hell, he decided. Spider hell, to be exact. Not hell for spiders, mind you. Hell with spiders. So many spiders. After a panic-teleport the hedgehog found himself in a cramped (have to get out where’s the escape pod RUN RUN RUN) cave filled to the brim with obstacles. While a good chunk of the would-be combatants were dead and rotting, stained in an unknown orange substance, the living threats far outnumbered them.
Something about the caves fucked with his abilities, limiting his teleportation to around 7 meters at most. The entire place is drenched in chaos energy, intensifying the deeper he goes. His internal clock told him that he had been down there for a week, but he couldn’t find it in him to trust it.
He was just a little bit ashamed to report that the white things that appear from under his feet taste like the basic protein supplements he was given in his youth. That is to say, bland, stringy, and slightly reminiscent of uncooked tofu.
He stakes past a gaggle of spiders shooting globs of web at him, making a mad dash for a glowing doorway. He exits into a comfortably warm room with (screaming?) faces carved into the rock and a hot spring of glowing water in the middle. A bench sits next to the welcome sight. The room reeks of chaos energy but Shadow is so far past caring.
He splashes into the water and sits down, aches quickly soothing and healing without the usual pain that it would come with. His energy reserves top off and for a second Shadow travels back in time, listening to his sister read a book aloud to him. He blinks, and the vision clears. He gets up and stumbles onto the bench, he just needs to rest his eyes for a bit.
A crutch lying on the floor.
Sirens blaring, everything is red.
Her blood on his hands.
HER FLESH IN HIS MOUTH.
It’s all his fault.
Something grabs his arm, he struggles, he won’t let go without a fight. The thing gives a strong tug and suddenly the scene shifts.
Shadow stands on a floating platform in an endless sky, trapped in a perpetual sunset. The clouds above him leak night-black liquid. Floating in front of him is ANOTHER SPIDER. A beast of a specimen, wearing a mask and cowl, covering a pair of gently curved horns.
“How did you enter the Deepnest?” they ask him, clicks and warbles and sounds that are Wrong forming words.
“I don’t have to tell you.” Shadow replies.
“Yes you do. I am the queen of this area and you will answer to me while in this area.” the queen, presumably a she, snaps at him.
“Teleport.” Shadow states, refusing to give any more context.
“ Mmm.”
Silence.
“Take the tram to the basin. There you will find one of the natives. Follow them to the surface.”
Shadow wakes up.
Was he asleep for a full day?
He stands up from the bench, shaken from his dream. One of the doorways is surrounded by glowing particles. He decides to follow them.
After a few well placed teleports, Shadow finds himself looking at a rickety metal trap.
It’s the best bet he has to get out of here.
He teleports inside, grimacing at the rotting corpses perched on seats. Radios sit at the corners playing distorted music.
He resists the urge to blow them up as the tram lurches forward to his destination.
The death trap Shadow somehow willingly entered comes to rest in a separate cave with vastly different light levels. The door creaks open and he exits almost too eagerly.
He promptly comes face to face with the largest insect he’s ever seen.
It has a hulking, hunched frame that does little to mask its size, humongous sword it uses as a crutch in it’s only visible arm. It’s mask is almost a helmet, serrated horns extending to at least 2 feet, a large crack on the left side, splintering out into various other hairline fractures. The mask’s eyes have no glint of eyes underneath, just an empty void.
“Do you know how to get to the surface?” Shadow asks it.
•¥•
Hedgehog village had been peaceful for the past month, which of course meant it was time for the villagers to cause problems on purpose. After a long day of dealing with Fastidious Beaver’s bullshit, Sonic settles down to sleep on his hammock.
A knock on his (newly installed!) door. Sonic groans, flopping onto the floor unceremoniously. He groans again and drags his body upright, skulking over to his door. He opens it, ready to cus out whoever decided he was being insensitive this time, and comes face-to-mid-torso with an official-looking human man.
“Have you seen this hedgehog?” The guy asks, flashing a photo of Shadow in his face. “We’re trying to… recruit him.”
Now Sonic does not have a good relationship with his rival, or know him very well. But he does know that the ebony hedgehog and the government go way back. And not in a good, childhood friends kind of way.
“Nope, sorry my guy. Can I go to sleep now?” Sonic was, of course, lying, but it wasn’t a full lie, as he hadn’t seen his rival for at least 2 weeks.
Shadow would always be present in some way, wether it be watching from the forest or scaring villagers away from various spots of the jungle, he was always there. And then Sticks started screaming louder than usual about the military that’s coming to visit. It’s like he disappeared. There were traces of his presence, scorch marks from his stakes and the occasional game snare, but then he really disappeared. Around the same time the soldiers arrived, too.
It was a week ago.
The soldier nods at him and leaves, speaking something into his radio about someone, likely Sonic, needing deeper investigation. He decides that he doesn’t care, the only thing that matters is getting some rest.
The ground is uneven, jagged material shifting under his weight and poking at his run down shoes. Everything is so dark, the light from his glowing bandana quickly getting eaten up by the voracious darkness.
His bandana is too tight around his neck, it feels like he’s choking. He fiddles with the knot at the back and it seems to close in tighter, restricting his breathing.
It gets tighter, he can feel his vertebrae popping. Since when was everything red? Since when was he drowning?
Suddenly, a release, his air returns to him. He gasps, scrambling greedily for breath. He’s keeled over on his knees, resting hands on shifting rocks.
Rocks that aren’t rocks.
They look and feel like skulls, like bone but they can’t be. The eyes to big, the material too thick. Splintered, cracked masks dig into the fabric of his gloves, one managing to poke his index finger.
The masks belong to children, millions of kids dead beneath his feet. He almost vomits, managing instead a weak dry heave.
On the upside, the red tint to everything is gone.
He pushes himself up to sit on his haunches, noticing a weak light.
A corpse glows lowly, a furred monstrosity with wings and an ivory spear jutting out the bottom like carved marble. It’s stained in a dark, tar like liquid. Some of it is on his gloves. Why is it on his gloves?
Orange motes of light float up from the body, getting corrupted by the darkness, losing color before eventually flickering out.
Why does he want to touch it? Why does he feel attached to this rotting body, take it in. Grow powerful his mind whispers to him. He takes a step forward.
Do not touch. Ancient Enemy designation: danger. Not as void as should be.
All the sound stops, mask shards still shift beneath his feet, but Sonic can’t hear any of it. He can’t hear his own breath. There is just silence. Silence and a music box. Something that’s not him speaks in his mind, it sounds like screams, like a mantra used by an old man to convince himself he’s still sane. He chokes out a response.
“What?” It echoes in this void, in this abyss.
Ancient Enemy defeated. Title stolen. But still alive. Shadelord designation: Dreams, God of Gods.
Sonic turns around, blankly registering that he now stands on a stone pier, looking out across a sea or black. Everything rumbles. Sonic can hear liquid getting displaces. Eight spotlights blink into existence, staring at him.
He feels small.
Blue beast has experience with male, researcher of spawn? Assistance required.
“You mean Dr. Eggman? Uh yeah I fight him every day.”
Satisfaction. Happy right feeling yes?
“I guess so?”
Happy. Find surface cavern. It will glow. Find Hallownest.
The entity sinks back into the void sea, Sonic trying to get its attention, to ask it more questions. The feeling of being watched, ever present, increases. Why can be hear that music box more clearly?
Siblings plaything? echoes like a whisper in the back of his mind.
Blue beast leaves dream soon. the entity responds to it.
Did he just have a conversation with a ghost?
Sonic wakes with a start, flailing off his hammock and lending on the floor in a heap. As if on cue, his communicator dings, a message from Tails reads ‘Dave tried to start shit but it’s dealt with. What do you want to do today?’
The hero’s finger throbs. He turns his glove around to examine it.
A small spot of blood sits in the middle of his finger pad. Sonic types a response.
‘How does everyone feel about a cave adventure?’