Archive of Our Own

The top floor of the Daily Ring building was flooded with noise. However, this noise wasn’t from a multitude of people- but instead, it was from one particular person: the editor-in-chief of the newspaper itself. Even behind glass and a door, the room practically shook with how powerful that yelling was. 

“Mr. Jameson wants to see you, Sonic.”

“I, uh… can hear that, Elise. Thanks.” 

Elise Brant returned to her typing. As the personal secretary of the editor-in-chief, she had a lot of stuff to do. Mostly because all the yelling and rambling from Jameson meant she had to do a lot of work for him. 

Walking through the office towards the rumbling editor’s office, Sonic P. Parker was dressed in attire someone would believe was chosen for an interview: sweater vest, collared shirt, pressed pants. Except, by the look of the camera hanging around his neck and the manila envelope in his hands, he already had the job. Though it wasn’t really a job… he was the freelance photographer for the Daily Ring. 

He still had a smile on his face though. Sonic was feeling good, even if his day was only mediocre at best. There wasn’t really anything to complain about in the current moment, so it was better to face his screeching boss with a smile. 

Sonic opened the door, sliding in, still grinning. 

“You wanted to see me, Mr. Jameson?” 

Vector J. Jameson Jr. whipped his head around, flicking the cigar he had chomped down to a nub into the nearby trash bin. He slammed his palms into the desk and stood up as he saw Sonic step in. 

“Parker!” The croc barked. “We’re trying to get five different stories about Stealth off the presses and you’re out for a stroll looking like a space cadet! I hired you to take pictures of Stealth, where are those pictures, Parker?!” 

“I got ‘em, I got ‘em.” 

Sonic tossed his envelope onto the desk of the editor-in-chief. Vector sat back down in a huff, snatching the folder and opening it up to look through the large pictures inside. There were many different images in different angles of Stealth The Hedgehog, Central City’s very own friendly neighborhood superhero- the specialty of Sonic Parker. 

Jameson wasn’t impressed. 

“Crap. Crap. Crap.” The croc tossed each picture onto his desk as he paged through them. “These look like the same photos you gave me last time! If you’re so buddy-buddy with this menace, how come he keeps doing the same poses?” 

“Mr. Jameson, there’s only so many unique photos of Stealth I can take!” 

The croc grabbed another cigar to chomp down on, tossing the last photo back on the desk. 

“Sounds like an excuse to me. You’re lucky we had our other photographer here to give us some fresh stuff or today’s press would’ve had me wringing your neck as the cover photo!”

“Other photographer—?”

Sonic suddenly felt breath down his neck, making the hedgehog turn around and stumble away, finding another hedgehog standing behind him, staring at him closely. He knew this other hedgehog well; it was hard to miss him, especially with his quills being black and red. 

Brock. Sonic’s rival photographer at the Daily Ring. He’d been around since Sonic got the job fresh out of high school, and was one of the only people able to get a better view of Stealth than Sonic could. Nobody knew anything about him- they didn’t even know if Brock was his real name! But he got good pictures for Jameson, so did it really matter? 

And somehow, someway… he could evade Sonic’s Stealth Sense. He didn’t know how. 

“Whoa, personal space.” Sonic said, saying a joke to ease the situation. 

Brock wasn’t impressed. Didn’t even smile- Sonic hated that about the guy. 

“That menace keeps bringing havoc to this city, and every little adventure he has is more evidence we need to spread the truth! If he sneezes, breaks wind, does whatever, I want to know about it! He’s been around for almost five years and…” 

Jameson was rambling again. Sonic tuned out of it pretty quickly- especially when he felt his phone buzzing. Vector Jameson was storming around, practically acting out everything he had to say about the “menace” that was the Amazing Stealth the Hedgehog. He wouldn’t even notice Sonic taking a call- and looking at the caller ID, he definitely had to take this. 

“Hello hello.” Sonic said as soon as he answered. 

“Sonic, hey.” The voice of Amy-Rose Watson was on the other end of the line. “I’m just finishing up rehearsals… Are you in Jameson’s office?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s he yelling at you about this time?” 

“Says I haven’t been taking adequate pictures of Stealth.” 

“Bummer. Do you think you’re in the dog house this time?” 

“Nah, I’m not worried. What’s up, why’d you call?” 

“Well, I know you want Miles over tonight for dinner, so I was just calling to see what you think you guys would want. My treat.” 

“Oh! Chilidogs would be good.” 

“Again? I think this is the fifth night this week we’ve eaten chilidogs, Sonic.” 

“I’m trying to go for the seven-day stretch. A chilidog a day keeps the doctor away, after all.”

“Yeah, far far away. Because they’d be freaked out with how much preservatives are in your DNA. It’d even cover up the spider DNA in there, too.” 

“Hey, I’m the one who makes the funny jokes around here.” 

Amy-Rose laughed lightly on the other end. There was a pause.

“Have you thought of… trying to call Sage? See if she wants to be around?”

The blue hedgehog paused himself. The question stung- Sage was a sore subject for him. Someone who used to be such good friends with him wasn’t anymore… even if Sonic wanted to invite her, she probably wouldn’t answer his calls. 

“I don’t… I don’t think she’d be able to make it.”

“...yeah, you’re probably right. Wishful thinking, I guess.” Sonic could hear the resignation in her voice. “Just… keep trying, please?”

“I will, Rosy. I will.”

Sonic eyed Jameson- looks like he was coming down from his rambling, starting to wrap it up. 

“Hey, I gotta go. I’ll see you tonight, though, alright? Stay safe out there.”

“I will. See you around, tiger.” 

Sonic hung up the phone, slipping it back in his pocket with a smile. 

He felt eyes on him, making his smile falter. Out of his peripherals, he could see it- Brock was staring at him. Was he staring during the entire phone call? 

“...and we’ll finally convince that menace to show his face, and admit to the world he’s a hack!” Vector Jameson was done with his rant, slamming his hands on his desk again as he turned to look at the pair in his office, breathing heavily. 

Both were silent for a moment. Sonic, because he was trying to think of something to say. Brock, because it seemed to be an aesthetic choice for him. 

After a moment of silence, Jameson blinked. He stood back up. 

“...what was I talking about again?” He asked. 

“You were talking about my pictures, sir.” 

“Oh, right. You’re fired!”

Sonic’s face dropped at that. Amy-Rose’s voice spoke in his head: Bummer. 

Suddenly, the office door opened up. Elise Brant was in, poking her head in and looking at Jameson. 

“Mr. Jameson,” She said. “We’ve gotten reports of an attack that’s happening in Station Square.” 

“Attack? What kind of attack?” 

“It looks like Professor Egg is back, Mr. Jameson.” 

Sonic’s blood ran cold at that. If his face hadn’t dropped when he was fired, it would’ve dropped then… which probably would’ve been bad, so maybe it was a good thing he was fired after all. 

Jameson looked at Sonic again. 

“You’re rehired.” He said, barely a minute after he fired him. The shortest period of unemployment Sonic’s ever been through, a record! “I want both of you downtown in Station Square, taking a picture of this freak with a glider that seems to be back, and that menace pretending to fight him when he comes back around!” 

Sonic was taken aback, but perked up again at the realization that he and Amy-Rose won’t be kicked out of their apartment in a few months. 

“You got it, Mr. Jameson!”

Brock grunted, turning and leaving the office, cutting in front of Sonic to get through the door first. Man, what a jerk. Sonic’s disgruntlement carried over as he walked through the office, reaching the bathroom. 

He looked through the stalls, making sure they were empty- though he would’ve been horrified if one of them wasn’t. When it was all clear, Sonic crept up the wall to one of the massive ceiling tiles, shuffling it aside to get into the ceiling. 

Sonic crawled up the vents, taking out an earbud he had for his phone and placing it in his ear. He crawled with his feet and one hand as he took out his phone to make a call. As he reached the vent leading to the roof, the call was answered. 

“Hey, Sonic.” 

“Miles,” Sonic said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He started slipping his clothes off, revealing a blue suit underneath it. “Get down to Station Square. I’ve gotten word that Professor Egg might be back.” 

“But I thought…?”

“I know. I don’t know what’s going on, but we gotta find out. Meet me down there. You know what kind of suit to wear.” 

The call ended as soon as he got out to the roof, his clothes crumpled up. He reached the backpack he kept stored in one of the AC units, slipping his daywear into it and taking something out- a blue mask to complete the look he had. 

Sonic P. Parker was an ordinary hedgehog, until he was bitten by a radioactive spider when he was sixteen years old. For the last four (give or take) years, he’s been known to the city as the Amazing Stealth, the resident superhero of Central City. 

Sonic became Stealth as he slipped on his mask, completing the blue and black suit he had on- his trademark supersuit, that is. He adjusted his web shooters accordingly, firing out a line of blue webbing out to another building and making the swing towards Station Square. 

In a sharp contrast to what Sonic heard when he entered the Daily Ring building, when Miles made it to Station Square, all he could hear was laughter. The gold-and-black suited fox landed on the edge of a building overlooking the town square. 

Okay… let’s do this one more time. 

Miles Prowler was an average fifteen-year-old fox, until he was bitten by a radioactive spider- one that was designed in an effort to replicate the powers of Stealth. He was found by Sonic, taken in, given training to use his powers- even a few powers that Sonic didn’t have. Miles, like Sonic, experienced loss: Miles’ Uncle Prowler, a high-tech mercenary, was taken out by Wilson Mogul- the Kingpin of Central City- when Prowler refused to take out his nephew for him. 

With some help from Sonic, Miles took out the Kingpin. This earned him the title of the Ultimate Stealth. Though it got confusing at times, both Sonic and Miles were the Stealths that protected the city, with Sonic training Miles through their various adventures. It’s been little over a year, but Miles was just starting to get the hang of it. 

This was the first time he’d ever really seen any form of Professor Egg from anywhere that wasn’t behind a screen. Stealth’s supervillain had gained notoriety for being one of the most ruthless criminals out there, and one of the only people to keep Stealth on his toes. Miles knew this because Sonic told him. 

The full story was that Professor Egg was really Julian Osborn, owner and founder of biotechnology company OsTech. Sonic was friends with Julian’s daughter, which made the discovery of the supervillain’s secret identity even worse. Even more so because, in the final fight between Stealth and Professor Egg, the latter was killed by his own glider when trying to impale Sonic with it. 

That was almost two years ago. So who was this guy attacking Station Square? 

The laughter was certainly on-brand, from all the news reports he had watched years ago when Miles was still young, and the Professor was still flying around. Maybe it was recorded and played back? 

There hadn’t been any explosions yet, luckily, just a lot of the new Professor Egg chasing people around on his glider. Miles watched from afar, until he sensed another figure landing beside him to look over the square. 

“So what’s the situation?” Sonic asked, in full uniform. 

“He’s not really doing anything. Just flying around.” 

“Really? Nothing? Not a bomb or anything?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I mean, yeah, kinda. I don’t want people to get killed, obviously, but if you’re going to replicate Professor Egg you gotta use all the trademark weaponry. People love a good callback.” 

“So what’s our plan here, Sonic?”

“We’re gonna beat him ‘til the fat lady sings.” Sonic shot a web. “Or Wilson Mogul at the very least. I hear he has a beautiful soprano voice.” 

Miles followed suit, shooting a golden web that created streamers of blue and yellow as the pair swung down to the square, landing side by side with different civilians running past them to get away from the flying faker. 

“Hey, squat boy!” 

Sonic’s yell made the faker turn around, looking down at the pair. 

“I don’t know what you did to set yourself apart from all the other mascot people in the square, but don’t you think this is a little much for a picture and some cash?” 

“Well, if it isn’t the Stealths!” The new Professor Egg spoke. He certainly sounded like Julian Osborn did as the old Professor. Though it sounded like it was through a voice changer. “I’ve finally managed to lure out the dynamic dunces! Took you long enough!”

“Yeah, sorry, they installed a new traffic light on the twentieth story of the Baxter Building.” Miles answered. “Had to wait for a whole fleet of drones at one point. I think it was a funeral escort, now that I think about it.” 

“And you are…?” Sonic asked. 

“Don’t you recognize me? I’m Professor Egg!” 

As he lowered, the pair got a better look at this new Professor Egg. He wasn’t Julian, that’s for sure, because Julian’s old mask had a hole where his mouth would be seen. This one was a full helmet that replicated Julian mid-laugh, with a metallic sheen and everything. It matched his body armor, which was also metallic and shiny. It was like a version of Julian’s outfit you’d see if it was made in like, 2002. 

Sonic and Miles paused a beat after what he said.

“...yeah, I don’t think so.” 

“I appreciate the work you put into the glider and everything, but if you wanted an autograph, you could just come to one of our stalls at ComicsCon.” 

“Or maybe this is a prank. Where’s the host? Which washed up comedian is it now?”

“Hey, that’s not nice. Saying stuff like that would scare them off, like deer.” 

“Quiet, both of you!” The fake egg said. 

“Oh, calm down, Imitation Egg.”

“Excuse me?” 

“Well, obviously you can’t be the real Professor Egg.” Sonic continued. “I’m just trying out names. Demo-Egg, Hob-Egg… Maybe Just Egg? Quail Egg? Easter Egg? No, that one’s too meta…”

“I’m Professor Egg!”

“You’re barely a professor.” Miles replied. “Maybe more like… Lecturer Egg.” 

“Oh, that’s pretty good. Trademark that, so he’ll get angrier.” 

“Die!” 

“Spoke too soon!”

Sonic and Miles got out of the way of an Egg Bomb being thrown at them, creating a small explosion that the duo managed to get out of the way from just in time. The Stealths were split, but it didn’t matter, as they both intended on doing their own things anyways.

Lecturer Egg was focused on Sonic directly. As he swung away, the hedgehog looked back in time to get hit by the glider, pinned on the side of it from the speed before he was picked up by the throat from the Lecturer. 

“You don’t know I’m not Julian Osborn!” Lecturer Egg said, almost offended. “I could be him back from the dead! Or maybe a clone of his!”

“Ugh, don’t bring up clones. I got a whole saga of problems with them.” Sonic wheezed out. 

“Or maybe I’m a hero wearing the suit in honor of Julian, like you and Scarlet Stealth?”

“I told you not to bring up clones!” 

With the mention of his red-clad clone (Knuckles Reilly. Really gloomy dude. Sonic doesn’t pick up his phone calls.) Sonic shot out a web downwards, aiming just right for it to latch onto the top of a bus stop sign. 

Though the glider was stuck for a moment, Sonic freed the sign from the ground with a yank upwards, pole and all, sending it flying into one of the wings of the glider, knocking Lecturer Egg off balance. It was enough that Sonic kicked off of the flying man, falling back and swinging away.

“Sorry, Vegg, but this is my stop!” He yelled as he got away. 

After regaining his footing on the glider, Lecturer Egg pressed some buttons on the bracer of the armor he was wearing. From below the glider, rapidly spinning edged discs- Razor Shells- emerged from below, intended to follow Sonic. 

However, as they raised up around the faker, they were suddenly taken out by a barrage of golden web balls, sending them flying away and sticking them to the outer walls of nearby buildings. 

“What?!” The goblin-like man yelled. Suddenly, two webs attached to his shoulders from seemingly nowhere. He was pulled forward as something unseen was pulling towards him. 

Flying through the air, becoming visible as he was within a few yards of Lecturer Egg, the Ultimate Stealth practically flew towards the fake villain. It was one of the unique abilities that Miles had over Sonic- turning invisible on a whim. 

Miles was going fast enough that his double-footed kick knocked Lecturer Egg clean off of the glider, sending him crashing into an abandoned food cart down below. Miles landed on the glider, perching near the edge to watch the fall happen before turning his attention to the aircraft itself. 

“Carbon outer casing… I can only assume these are steel edges on the front spikes.” He said softly, mostly to himself. “Julian didn’t have these… This is definitely new.” 

Suddenly, the glider turned around, making Miles nearly lose balance. He knew that the glider had an electromagnetic base that kept the rider on board via metal boots. Miles did not have those. 

The glider was turned downwards and nose-dived towards the destroyed cart. Miles jumped off right before it could reach it, but as he did, two egg bombs flew from the wreckage just in time to explode behind the fox. Miles let out a loud yell as the force from the explosion sent him to the ground. 

Slowly, he picked himself up. From the smoke and haze caused by the explosion, the silhouette of Lecturer Egg could be seen, back on the glider. Miles turned around, sitting on the concrete, and fired two webs at the shadow. 

From the glider shot two more bombs, intercepting the webs and attaching to them. Miles quickly swung his arms away from him, sending the bombs away to explode without hurting anybody. 

As he did, Lecturer Egg was able to zip in, grabbing one of Miles’ wrists and pulling him upwards. He grabbed the other wrist when a punch was thrown at him- the fake villain dug his clawed thumbs into the web shooters on Miles’ wrists, crushing them and making them spray gold webbing down his arms. 

“Looks like the little Stealth is out of the game.” Lecturer Egg said. “Happens when a kid gets mixed up in the tangled web of adults and their issues.” 

“Funny joke.” Miles replied. “I got one, too.” 

Suddenly, blue electricity arced across Miles’ body, all up his arms. It traveled across the faker’s arms as well, and he watched as the glider control systems shorted out. 

The second of Miles’ special powers: bioelectricity. 

“No! No!!!” 

As Lecturer Egg tried to get his glider back under control, it started violently rocking back and forth. He let go of Miles, who landed safely on his feet. Miles cracked his knuckles. 

“Shocking, isn’t it?” 

Before the man could respond, the fake professor was uppercutted, sending him flying off of the glider again. The controls went haywire, sending the glider flying all over the square, still flying low. Luckily there weren't any civilians on the scene… or was there? 

With everyone gone, it was easier to get into the square. Brock peeked out from around a nearby building, spotting the Ultimate Stealth starting to beat the crap out of Lecturer Egg. The black hedgehog had his camera in his hands- the only one he had, the only one he could afford. 

He really needed this job. Things weren’t particularly looking up for him recently… There were a few things that kept him going, but ultimately, doing some lethal protecting doesn’t pay the bills. He was pretty far behind on his rent this month, and if he didn’t pay, he could easily be kicked out. 

Brock snapped a pic, getting a good shot of the Ultimate Stealth mid-kick into the fake egg’s face. That was good… really good. 

He wondered where Sonic Parker was at that moment. Well, he knew where he was, but he didn’t know the exact location. There was only one Stealth down there after all… the other one wasn’t in his line of vision. 

Something else not in his line of vision was the glider right behind him. 

Unlike Stealth, either one of them, Brock didn’t have any kind of precognitive sense. So he only knew there was something coming behind him when he suddenly heard thrusters. He turned in time to get whacked in the chest by one of the glider’s wings, which made Brock fly backwards down the sidewalk. 

His digital camera flew from his hands, going a few feet before smashing on the ground yards away. Brock looked over at the destroyed camera- it wasn’t something he could pop back into place, there were bits and pieces of this crappy cheap camera everywhere. 

He stared, with wide eyes, beginning to hear the blood rush in his ears. Brock felt something within him… something stirring. Anger, danger, adrenaline. Darkness. The black hedgehog felt something slimy crawling out from under his quills. 

After an untimely tragedy and the subsequent death of Julian Osborn, Sonic Parker suddenly went under a mysterious personality change. He acted differently, styled his quills differently. Even danced down the sidewalk like some kind of lunatic. This wasn’t him- and it wasn’t his fault, either. This was because of some strange black substance that came down on a meteorite. 

It was a parasite of some kind. A symbiote. 

Sonic managed to get rid of it after really hurting the people he loved, but he always sensed it was out there somewhere. What Sonic didn’t know… was that it found another host soon after it left Stealth. 

Speaking of Sonic, he was up above and across the square. He shot some webbing onto the corner of a building before gently sticking his camera on there. Sonic connected an extension of his own design- an extended shot timer using an egg timer (ironic) and set the clock for one minute. 

As he set the egg timer down, Miles appeared, having run up the building and sticking near Sonic. He was breathing heavily from it. 

“Hey Sonic,” He said. “The Imitation Egg broke my web shooters, can I borrow one of yours?” 

“Sure! Hope you don’t mind webbing that doesn’t match your theme.” 

Sonic took off a web shooter and tossed it to Miles, who slapped it onto one of his wrists. Now each of them had only one web shooter. 

“Alright, clock’s ticking. Let’s get a good shot for the papers!” 

They leapt off the building. Sonic tried shooting a web with his non-shooter hand, before correcting himself. 

“Worst time for muscle memory!” 

Lecturer Egg got the glider back under control, lifting upwards back into the air again. As he did, he noticed something black and gooey on the end of one of his wings. He touched it, looking it over on his fingers. 

This was unexpected. But it was definitely welcomed. 

Suddenly, webbing covered both ends of the glider. Before the villain could do anything, both Sonic and Miles flew in, connecting a punch to the flying man just in time for the camera to snap. Sonic got his picture, one with both of them hitting the fake professor instead of just one. He didn’t know how, but Sonic felt like he one-upped Brock somehow with that one. 

The imitation professor wasn’t launched from the glider, and managed to steady himself in the air after taking the hit. He slapped his bracer to reactivate the glider controls, but ended up not using it as a loud screech took away their attention. 

From behind Sonic and Miles, making them turn, a new contender appeared in the square. Sonic knew him well- he was fully covered in black, with a red sheen, though the hands and feet faded into a deep crimson color. There was a symbol on his chest, much like Stealth’s, but stark white with stalks that stretched around his body. His eyes were a solid white. 

He opened his mouth- yes, mouth- to screech again. The being showed his massive sharp teeth, and the long whipping pointed tongue in his mouth. 

“Oh no.” Miles murmured. 

“Seriously?” Sonic asked incredulously. 

This guy was a nuisance. Sonic had wondered where his symbiote went, and he was given an answer weeks after he managed to pull it off of him: this guy. He was dark, lethal, and almost seemed to get off on making Sonic annoyed. Worst of all, he knew the Amazing Stealth was Sonic Parker- apparently the symbiote carried that piece of info over. He was a “lethal protector” but the whole “lethal” part is what caused Sonic to butt heads with him. 

Sonic didn’t know who the guy beneath the symbiote was, but when that black suit was on, one thing was clear: they are Shadow. 

Bounding forwards on all fours, running almost like a cheetah, Shadow was rushing directly towards the Stealths. Both Sonic and Miles readied themselves against the lethal protector, but found that Shadow instead rushed between them- his target wasn’t the heroes, but the villain. 

Shadow’s mouth opened wide, bright blue tongue hanging out almost like a dog’s would as he leapt towards Lecturer Egg, his clawed red hands opening up to try and grab him. 

Blue webs attached to Shadow’s feet, ending his leap and forcing him down to the ground. Shadow turned to see both Stealths holding onto the webs that attached to his feet. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Sonic yelled. “I need to know who that guy is, you’re not going all lethal on him!”

Both Sonic and Miles grunted as they both pulled their lines of web, yanking Shadow backwards- though the symbiotic anti-hero tried digging his claws into the concrete to keep still, it was futile against the strength of two Stealths. Shadow was pulled off the ground and flung back, making him crash into a row of trash cans. 

Whipping black tentacles picked Shadow up and back to his feet, just in time to take on both Stealths. Both Sonic and Miles, in an effort not to use too much webbing, advanced on the black suited Stealth together. 

Sonic flipped over a tendril shooting towards him, stepping onto it and leaping off to kick Shadow back. Another black appendage shot out and grabbed Sonic around the neck, yanking him forwards to Shadow’s gaping open maw. 

As he came close, Sonic grabbed the top and bottom row of Shadow’s teeth, keeping the symbiotic vigilante’s mouth open and away from him. 

“Whoa! No tongue until date five!” Sonic yelled. He winced on the inside of his mask as Shadow’s tongue whipped across his face. “Ugh, so many weirdos on the internet are gonna go nuts over this…”

Miles came in, punching both fists into Shadow, sizzling with bioelectricity. The powerful punch was enough to shoot Shadow backwards, freeing Sonic from his slimy grasp. Shadow tumbled backwards, only stopped by a police car that was driving up on the scene. The cop car, going in the opposite direction, flung Shadow in the same direction and into a newsstand. 

Laughter was heard again. Sonic and Miles turned- the Imitation Egg was flying off.

“We’ll meet again, Stealths!” He shrieked. 

“No!” Sonic yelled in a fury. 

He tried to shoot a web, but ran out when the webbing was barely a few feet away. He slapped his web shooter, eventually reaching into his boot to get his spare web fluid- he was stopped from rushing by Miles.

“Sonic, stop. He’s gone.” 

More cop cars arrived. As Shadow rose from the newsstand, his body rippled from the sound of the sirens so close to him- one of the symbiote’s only weaknesses was shrill sounds and their intense vibrations, and the sirens gave them off. 

Shadow’s arm turned into a black tentacle, whipping upwards and around a flagpole. He pulled himself off, swinging away and into the darkness of the alleyways in order to escape the area. The fake Professor was gone… but this wasn’t over. 

Meanwhile, leaving Station Square, the false Professor Egg flew above the city and over the Hesse River. He sank downwards and into a massive drainpipe, fitting into the tight squeeze to head further into the city’s underbelly. 

Down below the city, connecting to the drain pipes and even the subways of Central City, was an offbeat path made from a failed new metro stop. The Imitation Egg flew over the barriers, heading further down into the unused train tracks until he reached the abandoned train stop. 

There was a subway car there. As the fake Professor Egg landed gently on the ground, the front face- at least the one facing the train stop’s platform- opened up slowly. Inside the metro car was a small laboratory, and two figures inside of it. 

The heels of loafers clicked against the wall of the car as someone came out to meet the false Professor Egg. 

“Ms. Osborn.” Lecturer Egg said. His voice was changed from the mask’s modifier, so it still sounded like the late Julian Osborn’s. 

“Please… call me Sage.”

Sage Osborn was once Sonic Parker and Amy-Rose Watson’s friend. That was a long time ago… before she found her father’s body with Stealth standing over it. The white-haired, reserved young woman was thrust into becoming the CEO of OsTech after the untimely death of her father… and her so-called “friends” apparently liked Stealth more than they liked her. 

“Did you get some of either Stealths’ DNA?” 

“No, they were too fast for me. But I got something that may concern your side project, however… may I direct your attention to my left wing?” 

Sage saw the black slime still on the wing of the glider. She stepped towards it, pulling a latex glove on her hand and gently touching the symbiote. She felt it between her fingers. 

“The symbiote.” She said softly. “We needed more of this. Dr. Starline?”

In the metro car, still, was a doctor seated in a rolling chair. Dr. Octavian Starline, one of the brightest scientific minds in the world, weakly turned the chair around to look at Sage and the symbiote. 

“We haven’t been successful in our other attempts to properly mutate the symbiote, Obsorn.” 

“We had a deal, Octavian. You would find a way to use the symbiote to mimic my father in exchange for my company continuing to provide you with your means of bodily autonomy. I can take it away if you want…” 

Dr. Starline clearly didn’t appreciate the threat in reply to his statement. The platypus let out a slow breath.

“Fine. Bring the specimen to me.”

There was a pause between all of them.

“...should I fly it over?” Lecturer Egg asked.

“Ugh, no, just let me do it.” 

From under Starline’s lab coat, a metal tentacle shot out. This tentacle latched onto the non-gooey side of the glider with its three-clawed grabber, pulling it towards the seated doctor. As it got close, three more tentacles curled out from under Starline’s coat, the bottom two touching the ground to lift him up. 

Dr. Starline was like some kind of octopus. He needed these metal arms because, while he had a brilliant mind for science, he had a disease that was slowly paralyzing him from the neck down. He could still move his arms and legs, just weakly- using the tentacles were better. 

Sage watched Starline bring the symbiote-covered end of the glider up to him, the doctor using his free tentacle to grab a test tube. The doctor weakly used his gloved hand to scrape some of the sample of the slime into the tube with a medical tool. 

Satisfied, Sage turned around and walked to her private elevator- one that would take her all the way up back to her office in the OsTech building. Watching her through his glasses, Dr. Starline huffed as he wrote on the piece of tape on the side of the test tube: “BLK DM”

“Another specimen, another name.” He murmured. Starline looked at Lecturer Egg. “Bring me the test subject. Bring me Kasady.” 

Sonic hadn’t even touched his chili dog. 

It had been a few hours since the fight in Station Square. Sonic and Miles managed to help police secure the area, Sonic got paid for his picture by Jameson (Brock never showed up for some reason) and now they were having Sonic’s favorite meal. 

But it didn’t help. The hedgehog was still clearly perturbed. 

What also wasn’t helping was the fact that, while waiting for Amy-Rose and Miles to join him in the living room with their own chili dogs, Sonic was watching the news. It was a report about the fight in Station Square, a reminder that Sonic failed to stop this imposter Professor Egg.

“...and in other news, the Carnage Killer is still wanted statewide after her sudden disappearance when she was finally caught months ago. The serial killer, real name Kasady--” 

Amy-Rose changed the channel before the report was finished. Sonic shook his head, almost broken out of a trance. He looked over to see both her and Miles standing beside the couch he was sitting on, both holding plates with their chili dogs. 

“Hey, I was watching that.” 

“Sonic, you’ve barely said anything since you got back. Usually I have to tell you to stop talking.” Amy-Rose mused. 

“I’ve never seen you shaken up this bad, Sonic.” Miles said, sitting down next to the hedgehog. Amy-Rose sat down on the other side of Sonic. 

“Just a lot of stuff on my mind.” 

“Yeah, but usually around dinner it’s ‘no thoughts, only chili dog’.” The fox tilted his head. “Do you want to do something else? I can show you the Stealth Tracker I’ve been working on.” 

“Nah, I don’t…” Sonic hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. “...I think I just need to clear my head. Maybe just swing around town… try to figure things out.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah… Yeah.” Sonic handed Miles his plate. “Here… you can take this and the extra one home. Give them to your mom and dad, tell them I said hi.” 

With that, the hedgehog got up to his feet. It was clear Miles and Amy-Rose wanted to say something, but kept it to themselves, watching him leave to head back to his room. 

Miles set the extra chili dog aside, and placed his own next to it. He sighed. 

“You really should eat that. Need to keep your strength up.” 

“Yeah, I know. It just sucks seeing Sonic so torn up like this.” 

“Yeah.” Amy-Rose had a sympathetic look on her face, taking another bite and chewing before replying. “There’s just so much we can do. He’s gotta come to us.” 

“I get that Osborn was Sage’s dad, and Sonic was Sage’s friend, but… it feels like there’s more to this than he’s telling me.” Miles looked at her. “What happened between Stealth and Professor Egg?” 

The pink hedgehog paused as she was about to take another bite. She put her chili dog down slowly, a frown on her face. 

“I… I don’t think…” 

“Does it have to do with Blaze Stacy?”

The name made Amy-Rose’s eyebrows raise in surprise. 

“You know about her?”

“Only bits. Sonic’s only spoken about her every so often.” Miles replied. “She was his first real girlfriend, right? She even knew he was Stealth. But then… She died.” 

Amy-Rose didn’t say anything, but looked at him with an expectant glance, as if silently telling him he was close to finding out what he wanted to know. 

“...wait. Did… Did Julian Osborn kill Blaze Stacy?”

The look on the pink hedgehog’s face told him everything he needed to know. 

“Wow… Oh, man… I…” The fox was flabbergasted. “Then he died…”

“The same night she did.” Amy-Rose finished. “By his own glider. Stealth had to take his body back to the penthouse Julian had with Sage.”

“And she found Stealth over her dad’s body.” 

“Yeah. Sonic… lost a lot of things that night. His girlfriend, his best friend… even Julian was like a father to him.” The hedgehog continued. “It took him a while to keep going, but… it still affects him. Especially since Sage wants to destroy Stealth now.” 

“It’ll probably make it worse if she found out that Sonic is Stealth.” 

“It absolutely would. Sage, Sonic and I… we’ve been best friends since we were kids. I was Sonic’s girl next door… Sage was the socially awkward daughter of a millionaire. When she came to the conclusion that Sonic and I support Stealth… it sent her back to her old self, but more vindictive and depressed.” 

“...who do you think the new Professor Egg guy is? Do you think it could really be…?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time someone in this weird world’s been resurrected. Or cloned. Or come in from another dimension where they never died. That’s like a typical Tuesday for us.” Amy-Rose scoffed, but continued seriously. “But this guy… I saw the footage. I don’t think that’s Julian. Julian was a perfectionist when it came to his egg gear… that other guy was all over the place.”

“Then why replicate Professor Egg in the first place?”

“To catch Stealth off guard. To instill panic. Most importantly… to warn everyone that something worse might be coming soon.” 

Amy-Rose took a bite of her chili dog again. Miles quietly reflected over the statement, and the thought of who this Lecturer Egg was. He slowly retrieved his plate, taking a bite of his chili dog. 

As he did, he looked past Amy-Rose to the window in the kitchenette. He wondered, at that moment, where Sonic was right then- and what else the world would throw at them. 

This apartment was a mess. He would probably be evicted from it anyways. 

The black hedgehog leaned over the sink in his trashed bathroom, breathing heavily as he splashed water on his face, trying to keep himself from getting too hot and angry. He was still hung up on what happened in Station Square, and what happened to his camera. 

With no camera, that meant no money. No money meant no apartment. No apartment meant no shelter. No shelter, no identity. No Brock.

Brock. It was just a name. It wasn’t even his real name. Then again, the black hedgehog didn’t particularly remember who he was anymore. After bonding with this symbiote, all other things became meaningless. Name, age, identity. 

He wasn’t even a hedgehog anymore. He was Shadow. 

As he stared into his reflection, his vision shifted, turning the figure in the mirror into someone else- someone familiar. His symbiote-covered reflection stared back into his eyes with their blank, white eyes. 

“Sonic Parker has gotten in our way once again.” The symbiote said. 

“He did. Him and the new Stealth.” 

“We cannot let him get in the way of destroying Professor Egg again.” 

“He destroyed our camera.” 

“He’s done more than that, he’s killed innocent people. Sonic Parker was never able to carry through what needed to be done- to cull the evil of Julian Osborn from the world. But we… we can.” 

“Right. Lethal protector and all.” 

“I parted with Sonic Parker because he could not stand the thought of violence.” 

“That and you kind of drove him crazy.” 

“Can we please finish our thought?” 

“Sorry, carry on.” 

“But I know, deep inside of you, you can do what he cannot. We can.” 

Shadow stared at the symbiote in the reflection, gripping the sides of the sink tighter. He looked down and to the side, clearly thinking. 

“Is something wrong?” 

“I feel something… else.” Shadow replied. “I can’t sense how you say Parker can. But something inside of me is telling me that something worse… something more violent, has entered the picture.” 

“We must find the location of this Professor Egg at once.”

“Yes… we do.” 

The porcelain under his hands shattered as Shadow gripped his hands into fists, standing back up straight. He felt the symbiote cover his body again, turning Shadow dark. He climbed out, onto the fire escape of his trashed apartment, and swung away with a black tentacle, still feeling that pit deep in his stomach that something worse was out there. 

“You seem pretty off, big blue. Is there something you’re not telling me?” 

The sweet voice purred to Sonic as he, as Stealth, walked along the shaded area underneath a billboard on a random building in the center of Central City. It was dusk, nearly night, and this was the time of day Stealth knew he’d find someone specific in the higher-end district of the city. 

Leaning against the roof access door nearby was a woman- a bat, dressed in an all black jumpsuit, her face obscured with a mask that covered her eyes with a white lens. Poofy fur was gathered around her collar, and down her sleeves, almost like a boa. 

White Bat. Jewel thief, cat burglar, once fling of the Amazing Stealth. Sonic knew her as Rouge. 

“You’re telling me you didn’t see what happened down in Station Square today?” 

“Please, if it happened during the day, I was probably taking a little cat nap. A girl needs her beauty sleep, after all.” 

“Someone pretending to be Professor Egg attacked the square.”

“...that’s it?” White Bat sounded almost disappointed. “Darling, that could be a multitude of people. A clone, someone from another dimension where they’re dead…”

“This was different. It’s someone dressed as Professor Egg.” 

“So what do I have to do with it? Unless this meeting isn’t just for business.” 

“Rouge, please.” 

Though her face didn’t change from mild amusement, it was evident she knew how important this situation was for Sonic. She sighed, arms crossed and head tilting slightly. 

“Alright, alright. What do you need to know, big blue?”

“Have you still had any connection with the Deadly Six?” He asked. “You used to run with them a while back.” 

“Have more faith in me, big blue. Once I found out that most of them were psychopaths, all of whom wanted to do more than just steal stuff, I got out of there as fast as I could. I’ve had a bit of contact with a few of them… but I don’t run with them.”

“Whatever. Has there been any rumblings of a new Professor Egg around your circles?”

“No, no there hasn’t. Everyone’s moved on from that.” White Bat replied. “Although…”

“What?”

“Snively Shultz. The Shockinator.” She answered. “You remember he was pretty close with Julian Osborn. Practically one of his lackeys.”

“The seismic blast guy, right.” 

“He’s gone dark over these last few months. I heard through Fang the Hunter that he managed to snag a new job at OsTech- apparently Osborn’s daughter Sage recognized him.” 

“And he’s been dark since then?”

“Not right away, but he worked there more than he did working as the Shockinator. If there’s anyone who would know about there being a new Professor Egg, it would be Snively. Might be something you’d want to look into.” 

“He lives in Springyard, right?” 

“Sure does. I’m certain you remember his address.” 

“I’ll take a look. Thanks for the info, Bat.” Sonic turned, leaving the shade of the billboard to get to the edge of the roof. He looked back at Rouge. “And if I come back and hear you stole something again, I’m gonna turn you in.”

“I hope that’s a promise, big blue.” 

Sonic couldn’t help but smile a bit under his mask. He leapt off the side of the building, firing a web and swinging away. He had to go over the bridge to reach Springyard, but after that it was very easy to find his house.

Years prior, Sonic had gone to the house to investigate after the Shockinator stated he had a seismic blast generator that would cause a massive earthquake tearing the entire city apart. Stealth had managed to track down Shultz to his home and turned it off. 

The house was supposed to be sold off after Shultz was arrested, and it technically was sold- to Julian Osborn. He kept Snively under his thumb to help make new contraptions for Professor Egg to use to continue trying to kill Sonic. Didn’t work, obviously. 

Shockinator went dark when Professor Egg officially died. But if Shultz had something to do with it, then… It’s better to be safe than sorry. 

As the buildings got shorter, and he entered the residential area he was familiar with, his webs and swings got shorter, until he was jogging out of a swing to reach the sidewalk in front of Shultz’s house. 

Was it a good idea for him to go into Snively’s house while in full costume? Probably not. But it was dark, and just about everybody was in their homes. Nobody was looking at him right now. 

He climbed up the front porch of the house. As he approached the door, he could see it was cracked open. Sonic was hesitant, but reached out and gently knocked. 

“Hello? Snively, are you there? It’s me, your friendly neighborhood…” 

Before he could finish, as he was slowly opening the already cracked door, Sonic was greeted by the living room it led into. It was truly a surreal experience: the television was on, having been on for who knows how long really, the only light in the living room besides the light seeping in from the nearby windows. 

“...Shultzy? You here?” Sonic called out, trailing further in. “Alright, alright, fine. Shockinator. There, I called you that. Can you come out now? I feel like I’m in one of the Amityville Horror movies… any of the bad ones.” 

There was a coffee table nearby, covered in papers, a mug and a few things clearly made from metal. The mug was mostly empty, save for some dried drops of coffee and a fly inside of it. With no clues there, Sonic walked over and looked at what was being worked at. 

Clearly one of the plans was a new Shockinator suit. A few other schematics on the table included a bunch of gadgets that haven’t been made yet… except for one. 

Stealth picked up a disc-shaped gadget, colored red and gold like the Shockinator’s theme, looking it over. At best, Sonic assumed it was a working prototype for something transcribed on the schematics below him. 

He squeezed the device’s center between his fingers. 

A massive seismic blast was emitted in all directions. It wasn’t big enough to cause any structural damage, but it was enough to get the drop on Sonic. He quickly squeezed again, grunting and rubbing an ear from the force emitted from such a small object. 

Because of the sound, Sonic had stumbled. As he regained his footing, he felt something… sticky. He looked down- there was something purple under his foot, and it looked like ooze. 

Due to the lack of light in the house, Sonic hadn’t seen the trail of slime that was leading into the kitchen. Little nubs of slime were attached to Sonic’s foot like little tentacles, breaking off when the hedgehog lifted his shoe away from it. 

Slowly, regardless, he creeped into the kitchen. It was still mostly dark there. He reached to his side to the wall directly beside him, flicking the switch upwards. 

The entire kitchen was covered in a symbiote. 

It was like purple melted cheese covering all the walls. The walls, the floor and the ceiling. Sonic was taken aback by the sight, looking upwards and all around him at the alien slime that was inhabiting this house. 

The symbiote noticed him. 

Seeking out the only lifeform in the area, the symbiote on all the walls and the ceiling reached out, grabbing onto Sonic’s arms and body with multiple purple appendages. 

This wasn’t like the old black suit symbiote. When it touched him, it burned. This wasn’t just any typical symbiote, this was a horrifying and violent one. 

Multiple tentacles wrapped around his throat and his face. He struggled against it, his hands gripping into fists- however, one of his fists wrapped around the seismic device he had picked up earlier. 

Quickly, just as the symbiote covered his hand, he pressed the middle of the gadget. 

The high-pitched shriek and vibrational blast was enough to force it all back, almost burning it away as it dissolved into a million little spots across the room. The sound and vibration hurt his ears, but it didn’t matter now that he was safe. 

He turned off the gadget, looking it over again. 

“Alright… definitely keeping that. Add robbery to my breaking and entering charge.” 

Sonic slipped the device in the pocket he kept on his leg. With the symbiote gone, it was easier to see that everything in the kitchen was a mess- this was mostly because of the ooze, but some things like the rotting food and unclean dishes indicated something worse.

“Snively? Snively… I know… you’re…” 

At one end of the room was a door that, from what Sonic could see through the crack it made, led to a bathroom. However, that’s not what he was focused on- an arm was stretched out from the partially opened door, laying out a little in the kitchen. From the sleeve it had on, it was definitely Snively. 

The hand was pale, unmoving. Sonic could see the veins of the hand, seeing they were purple… just like the symbiote was. Sometime told Sonic that, if he was caught, he could add “manslaughter” to the crimes he would be framed for. 

“Oh no…” 

Sonic’s masked eyes were wide. He didn’t need to get closer to know that, a.) Shultz was dead; and b.) it was the symbiote that killed him. 

Seeing Snively’s cellphone nearby, Sonic shot out a web and brought it to his hand. He made a quick call to emergency services, pulling up his mask so it didn’t sound like he was muffled. 

“911, what is your emergency?” 

“Uh, hello.” Sonic held his nose as he spoke. “I was doing a welfare check on Snively Shutlz on behalf of my… homeowners association, and I discovered this weird purple goop in here and Shultz isn’t moving. I think he's passed away and has been that way for a while. I’m here at Snively Shultz’s house in Springyard.”

“Okay, we’ll get police and medical to your location. Can I have your name?” 

“Uh…. no.” 

“...what—” 

Sonic hung up. He put the phone back where he found it and pulled his mask back down, before quickly running out of the house and swinging away. The police would take care of what was going on while he was out. 

Poor Snively. He was a criminal but he wasn’t too bad. The Shockinator was a fun villain for Sonic to face every now and then. He wondered if anyone else would take the title… maybe they could remove the whole “inat” part of the title and make it respectable. 

Stealth swung out of Springyard, swinging underneath the bridge to return to Central City. But he wasn’t headed back to his apartment to see Amy-Rose, he was headed almost the opposite side of town: Emerald Hill Visions, a school for intelligent young people. 

He knew exactly which window to go to. Sonic used his sticky hands to gently ease the window open and tumble inside, landing on his face after getting his foot caught on the window frame in his hurry. 

“Stealth?” 

Sonic looked up- there was Miles, out of costume, to his right. The golden fox looked surprised and bewildered to see the hero there, but before he could say anything else, Sonic got to his feet. 

“Miles, listen, something crazy’s going on.”

“Stealth.” 

“Shockinator’s dead, I found him in his house and he’s not moving.”

“Stealth.” 

“I don’t know but I think the new Professor Egg had something to do with it!”

“Stealth!”

Miles pointed past Sonic. The costumed hero slowly turned around- Miles had been sitting at his workstation to Sonic’s right, but to the left of the window Sonic came in through was a bunkbed meant for Miles and his roommate. 

Sitting on the bottom bunk was Miles’ roommate, clearly in the middle of a comic and staring up at Stealth standing right in front of him. Sonic hadn’t even noticed the guy when he tumbled inside. 

“...I’m just gonna…” 

“Yeah. Thanks, Charmy.” Miles ran a hand over his face. 

The bee quickly slipped out of the room to let his roommate and Sonic have their conversation. Charmy Lee knew Miles was the Ultimate Stealth, but he didn’t know the identity of the Amazing Stealth. Good thing Sonic kept his mask on up until he left.

As soon as the door closed, and they were alone, Sonic took off his mask and breathed. 

“You said Shockinator’s dead?” Miles asked. “Like Snively Shultz?” 

“Yeah. I got a tip that he got a job at OsTech recently, but he went dark on all of his villain buddies. I got to his house to see if he had anything to do with the new Professor Egg, but when I got there, the house was covered in a symbiote and Snively was dead.”

“Symbiote? Do you think Shadow had something to do with this?”

“No, it couldn’t be. The symbiote in the house was purple, Shadow’s is black and red. Besides, Shadow steers clear from the Shockinator because his seismic tech is one of the only things around that can wipe out symbiotes.” 

“Did you get a sample of it?” 

“No, I don’t think so.” Sonic ran a hand over his quills. 

“...Sonic.” 

Miles pointed under Sonic’s arm. The hedgehog looked, seeing one of the spots the purple symbiote retracted to was on his armpit. 

“...man, I really should switch deodorants.” 

The fox scoffed, taking a small pair of tongs and pulling the glob of symbiote off of Sonic. He returned to his work station, placing it in a petri dish to look under a microscope. 

“Are there any other bits of symbiote on you?” 

“No. I did steal one of Snively’s seismic gadgets though.” 

“Admitting to robbery? Bold.” 

“Hey, if there’s more symbiotes in store, then it’s good to have insurance.” 

“What is this, a Progressive ad?” Miles looked through his microscope. “...wow.” 

“What’s up?”

“You’ve shown me your own pics of the Shadow symbiote through a microscope before, but this… this is much different. They’re shaped differently, moving differently.” The fox kept looking through different lenses. “These have been altered.”

“Like… mutated?” 

“Yeah. Heavily. What happened when you touched it?”

“It started burning me.”

“Hm…” 

Tails looked over to a plant he had on his desk. Using the same tongs from before, he plucked off one of the plant’s leaves and moved it over, dropping it in the goop. Before their very eyes, the symbiote consumed the leaf, rapidly turning it to dried out bits of plant matter.

“It sucks the life out of stuff.” 

“It definitely got Snively.” 

“How would anyone even be able to mutate the symbiote?” 

“I have a few ideas.” Sonic replied, grimly. “There’s a certain biotech company I think has more to do with this than expected…”

Shadow got to them first. 

The elevator dinged as the black hedgehog reached the top floor, to the office rooms. He wasn’t wearing the suit, using his “Brock” identity for this instead of busting in with the symbiote. 

With his Daily Ring credentials (he hadn’t returned to the office yet) in order to reach the top floor. He posed it as an interview and, in a way, it kind of was. He was going to find out where and who this Imitation Egg was, and Sage Osborn was going to tell him. 

“Um, excuse me? Hey, uh… Hello?” 

Shadow ignored Sage’s secretary and walked right into the young woman’s office, seen by everyone as the walls of said office were made of glass. As he walked in, Sage looked up from her desk to greet the entering hedgehog. 

“I’m sorry, who are you?” 

“You can call me Brock.” Shadow closed the door before the secretary could get in. “I’m with the Daily Ring. I want to talk with you.” 

“I’m sorry, but visits are by appointment only.”

“You aren’t busy.” 

He walked up to the desk, standing over her and looked down at her, face unchanging. 

“Who’s this new Professor Egg?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t play dumb, Osborn. A new Professor Egg appears in town, and you’ve made no comment on it. Your father was Professor Egg.”

“Do you think maybe I haven’t made a comment because that’s who my father was?” 

“Nothing’s a coincidence. You’ve been making public appearances all week but the second that fake professor comes around you’re radio silent.”

“You…” Sage stood. She definitely wasn’t as tall as Shadow, but it didn’t matter. “I’m grieving for my father. I’m horrified at what he did. Do you not think it keeps me up at night?” 

“I think you’re willing to use whatever you have in order to get what you want. Just like your father did. Just like Professor Egg did.” 

Sage stared Shadow down. After a second, the door to the office opened.

“Ms. Osborn?”

“I’m fine.” Sage replied to her. “Mr… Brock, was it? Ms. Moon here will see you out. And next time… when the Daily Ring sends you here, you better beg them to assign you somewhere else.” 

Shadow stared at the young woman before he felt an arm pull him away. The secretary- a lemur named Tangle Moon- escorted Shadow out of the office and back to the elevator he used to get to the top floor. The lemur waited with him until the elevator doors opened, and practically shoved him in. 

Tangle pressed the button for the bottom floor, using a special key to make it go there without any other stops, and watched the elevator doors close. 

Alone in the elevator, Shadow stood there as the lift slowly lowered him downwards. Behind him, leaking from his pants, the black symbiote creeped up the wall and obscured the camera in the corner of the elevator. 

“She’s hiding something from us.” 

“Yes. She is.” 

“I feel something. Something’s here… It’s getting closer.” 

“It’s below us.” 

“No, the vibe I’m getting is too crazy. Too… chaotic.”

“I know. I’m telling you: It’s literally below the building.” 

Shadow was quiet. They were right, it was somewhere down below the building. He felt the vibe get stronger as he got further down, and it was something he felt when he first entered. 

By the time the elevator got to the ground floor, when the doors opened, nobody was inside. 

Shadow, now suited up in black, had escaped the elevator using the ceiling hatch and was now stuck to the wall of the elevator shaft. The symbiotic hedgehog noticed that, though this was the ground floor, the elevator could go down further. 

Maybe it was for a basement, but Shadow had to be sure. He crawled down the elevator shaft, going around the parked elevator on the ground floor. There were two floors below- basement and subbasement probably- but he also found something else.

There was a service vent on the subbasement stop that led away from the elevators. It was marked in yellow, which only made Shadow more interested in it. 

Breaking off the vent cover, Shadow crept inside, eventually moving faster as multiple tentacles started attaching to each surface of the vent to pull him along faster. The vent was long, and made a turn, but ended in a single-lift elevator shaft. 

It went much deeper than any of the other elevators. Shadow pressed on, crawling down to where the elevator was supposed to stop. He pulled open the sliding doors to the stop with brute force once he got to the bottom. 

He was greeted with a train station. 

The vibes of danger were getting stronger. Shadow proceeded with caution- he stepped carefully into the abandoned station, seeing the train car parked on the tracks. 

“There’s something dangerous here.” 

“We can feel it.” Shadow said, as if finishing the thought. 

Suddenly, with that, the lights turned on. It was like speaking activated a hidden trigger. From all sides, a powerful shrieking siren played on the train station. 

Shadow screamed as he felt the symbiote retracting from his body, his hands flying to his ears to try and cover them. He fell to his knees from the intensity of the sirens, left as a simple black hedgehog on the train station after a mere few seconds. 

As soon as the sirens stopped, a metal tentacle slammed against Shadow’s head, knocking the hedgehog out. From the shadows, Dr. Starline lowered himself down, staring at the unconscious Shadow on the concrete. 

“A shame.” He said. “We don’t need any more of the Shadow symbiote. But it doesn’t matter… We finally have the results we want. Now, with him here, we can kill three birds with one stone.” 

One of the tentacles brought a walkie talkie up to Starline, turning it on. The platypus leaned over to the bottom end of the talkie to speak into it. 

“This is Starline. Goad the Stealths into coming to the lab. Use the girl.”

“Alright, let’s break for lunch!” 

The director’s call let Amy-Rose let out a sigh of relief. It had been a grueling day of rehearsals, especially considering their first performance would be just a few months away. Being on Broadway was hard, but it was something she really enjoyed. Better than the modeling she did right after high school, those got boring after a while. 

As she got herself to relax, she was approached by one of her co-stars- a child actress, a preteen rabbit. 

“You did really good, Ms. Watson!”

“Thanks, Cream. You’re doing great too! I wish I could act like you did when I was your age.” 

Cream Sablinova brightened with a smile, enjoying the compliment. She walked away after, heading to the back to her green room in order to start eating her lunch. Amy was going to head back in a second too, but had to do something first. 

She walked stage right, standing on the edge of the stage and pulling her smartphone from her pocket. Amy-Rose had been feeling it buzzing all throughout rehearsal at that point, and wanted to check and see if it was something serious. 

Most of the texts were from Sonic, but a few were from Miles as well. As she scrolled through the notifications, she got the gist of what the pair were trying to tell her: Shockinator is dead, it was a symbiote, check the news, they think Sage has something to do with it. 

“Whoa, guys!” One of the fellow actresses, Lanolin, spoke up from her phone. “It says that the Shockinator is dead!” 

“Wait, really?”

“Yeah! Says they’re blaming it on the Carnage Killer!” 

Amy-Rose kept scrolling through her messages. Most of them were from Sonic, and the most recent ones were merely from a few minutes ago. Sonic was saying after that he got a bad feeling, that his Stealth Sense was saying something bad was about to happen at the theater, and that she needed to be careful. 

Suddenly, there was a loud banging from the doors of the auditorium, the ones that led into the front lobby. It got everyone’s attention. 

“What was that?” 

“Hey guys,” Amy-Rose put her phone away. “Can you all go downstairs for me?”

“What? Why?” 

“Just trust me, alright? Go downstairs.” 

The banging continued. It took a minute, but it appeared that people trusted Amy-Rose enough to leave the stage and start heading down to the green rooms. The hedgehog hopped down to seat level, watching one of the sets of doors continue to pound again and again. 

Though the auditorium wasn’t empty from Amy-Rose’s command, at least the amount of people who could be hurt was downsized. 

All of a sudden, the booming stopped. Then, the boom got larger as the doors exploded. 

Laughter echoed throughout the auditorium as the fully armored Lecturer Egg flew in on his glider. Screams soon drowned it out, all in terror at what was happening. 

“Ehehehe, I hope I’m not giving anyone stage fright!” He said, looking around. 

A packet- the thick play script- smacked Lecturer Egg upside the head. He shook his head and looked over at who threw it: Amy-Rose. 

“Hey, freak!” She shouted. “I already know what you’re here for. Leave these guys alone!”

“Ah, you must be Ms. Watson. Thank you for making it much easier for me.” 

The glider swooped in quickly, Lecturer Egg leaning over and grabbing Amy-Rose, scooping her up and flying off. Though the people left in the auditorium shouted after her, Amy-Rose was carried out of the trashed lobby, the Imitation Egg shooting an egg bomb at the glass doors to shatter them open and give them an exit. 

Although she let herself get caught, Amy-Rose wasn’t being docile. She still tried to pry herself from the man’s grasp as she was lifted up into the air. 

Nearby, landing on the side of a building, Sonic and Miles were there in their suits. Sonic and Miles both got a vibe from their Stealth Sense that something was going to happen- they were right. Lecturer Egg went after Amy-Rose. 

Both swung in quickly, both in the line of sight of the fake professor. 

“Hey, banana boy!” Miles yelled. “Get your own actress!” 

“Banana boy?” Sonic asked him. 

“Hey, my mom uses it to replace eggs in baking recipes; she’s vegan.” 

“Looks like the Stealths came out to play!” Lecturer Egg replied. “Let’s see if the Amazing Blue Stealth can actually save this girlfriend of his this time around!” 

With a laugh, and Amy-Rose screaming, the villain glided away at super-speeds. Both Stealths zipped forwards with a thwip of webbing, following the man as he carried his pink hedgehog captive further upwards. 

Sonic and Miles kept pursuing, swinging as fast as they could and even crawling around walls to keep up with them. 

Being smaller, and a bit more agile in his youth, Miles was ahead. He webbed up a wall and leapt off of the corner of a building, shooting out a web that attached to one of the wings of the glider. Miles climbed up the web, eventually grabbing onto the edge of the wing himself. 

At this point, Lecturer Egg noticed. 

“Sorry, but this ride is for adults only!” 

The Imitation Egg spun his glider around, using the centrifugal force to fling Miles away and into the window of a nearby building. Lecturer Egg continued to fly up his building of interest nearby: the Emerald State Building. 

Sonic continued to follow, eventually resorting to sprinting up the side of the skyscraper to follow Lecturer Egg and Amy-Rose. 

Meanwhile, the woman was punching and writhing in the villain’s arms as they got higher and higher. She thrashed against his body and his mask. 

“Ugh! Let me go!”

“Let you go? You want me to let you go!”

“Yes!”

“Oh. Okay!” 

With that, Lecturer Egg tossed Amy-Rose off of his glider, sending her down the side of the Emerald State Building with a scream. Sonic came to a stop on the edge of the building, watching in horror as she plummeted down. 

“Amy-Rose! No!” 

Though Sonic leapt downwards to pursue, he was intercepted by Lecturer Egg and his glider swooping in and kitting him at the side. Sonic was pinned to the front of the glider as it flew away, forced to watch as Amy-Rose got further and further away. 

The fake professor laughed.

“You know what they say!” He said. “If you love something, let it go!” 

Sonic immediately shot a web into Lecturer Egg’s face, using both hands to yank it down. With the lean forwards, the glider started to tilt down and make a nosedive. 

The position they were in was enough for Sonic to slip away from the glider, shooting a web to pull himself away from the gliding villain. He may be getting away, but he wasn’t going to let Amy-Rose fall to her death. 

However, Sonic was much too far away. Even if he got to the Emerald State Building in five minutes, Amy-Rose would hit the ground in three. He was one of the fastest things in Central City- maybe even the world- but the math doesn’t lie. 

Amy-Rose, though, had someone else looking out for her. Still closeby, Miles was able to go after the falling woman much sooner than Sonic could. 

The fox shot a web that attached to Amy-Rose. He pulled, both pulling her in and him closer to the woman. Miles was able to grab onto Amy-Rose when they were just a few stories up and swing away, getting the pink hedgehog to safety. 

Miles came to a stop down the block, skidding on his feet with Amy-Rose intact and in his arms. He set the woman down, who took a few weary steps as she finally felt solid ground. 

Only a second after, Sonic landed nearby. The Amazing Stealth hugged Amy-Rose, even though there were plenty of people around that were chattering. 

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Stealth. I’m fine.” 

Sonic took a breath. He turned behind him, all three of them looking to the sky as they heard laughter in the distance. 

“That guy…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, dude.” Miles pulled out his phone from his boot and showed it to Sonic. “Your friendly neighborhood Stealth over here managed to put a Stealth Tracker on the bottom of his glider. It’s showing me all of his next moves.”

“Nice. Let’s go find that rotten egg and scramble him.” Sonic looked at Amy-Rose again. “Stay safe, Rosy.”

“Yeah, you guys too. Go get ‘em, tiger.” 

Both Stealths webbed away at that, just in time for emergency services to catch up. Amy-Rose was flooded with people talking to her, but she was simply smiling and watching the two heroes swing away. 

Miles’ tracker led them away from the city, over Hesse River. Though they were confused for a moment, they cautiously followed the trail into a massive drain pipe. The drainage system eventually intersected with the train tracks, and the trail led them to a big abandoned train station. 

They had to slip through barricades in order to get in, but eventually, they managed to reach their destination. 

“The trail goes cold here.” Miles said, showing Sonic his phone. He slipped it back into his boot. 

“Huh. Must be his hideout. Gotta say, a far cry from all the cool supervillain lairs back in the day. This one isn’t even in a swamp or anything. Where’s the campiness of it all? Villains are really lacking in creativity these days.”

“We are pursuing a villain that’s a rehash of a separate villain.” 

“Touche.” 

As they exited the tunnel with the tracks in it, they reached the abandoned train station, and were met with the still pristine train car right in front of them. Sonic was more interested in the non-dusty, in mint condition train car than anything. 

“Wow… This is new. I wonder how long it’s been since this station opened, especially if they have a train car as nice as this one in here.” 

“Sonic. Look.” 

Miles’ words made Sonic turn. On the platform of the train station was none other than Shadow. The symbiotic hedgehog was standing there… doing nothing. His back was to the pair, actually. 

Sonic and Miles looked at one another. Hesitantly, they climbed up the station platform and approached the stationary anti-hero. Sonic didn’t want to risk a massive fight right now, especially since they were so close to finding out who this Lecturer Egg was. 

“Shadow? Hey, Shadow?” Sonic said softly. He started whistling a bit. 

“He’s not a dog, Stealth.” 

“Yeah, but he doesn’t like high pitched noises. I was trying to see if that would snap him out of it!”

It appeared to do so, because suddenly Shadow jolted his head up as soon as Sonic was done talking. Shadow looked around, mouth closed for now, though looked very confused. He finally noticed Miles and Sonic behind him. 

“You two.” He spoke, the symbiote making his voice guttural. “What have you done to us?” 

“We found you here, dude.” Sonic replied. “It was like you were asleep standing up.” 

“We remember coming down here… We remember… getting knocked out.” Shadow rubbed his head. “We must have put the suit back on us to remain defensive while we were dormant.”

“Wait, so could you sleep in any position then?” Miles asked.

“What about upside down? I’ve always wanted to sleep while hanging upside down from a web. Especially outside a gang meeting spot, I know that would freak them out. I wanna see how long it would take for them to notice me.”

“Don’t distract us. We will find out who this new Professor Egg is…”

“Oh hey, we were trying to find out the same thing too.” Miles replied. “I love a good collab with criminals as much as the next guy, but if I wanted to partner up with someone that would kill with ease, I’d partner up with the Punisher.” 

“Forget the Punisher. We are the lethal protector of this city.” 

“Yeah, and the Punisher uses less tongue anyways.” Sonic added. “...or so I’ve heard.”

Suddenly, the lights all above them turned on at once, the sound of the lights echoing throughout the train station. All three of them looked up and around, their attention eventually turned to the train car. 

The side of the train car facing the platform opened, revealing the laboratory that was inside. As it opened up, it also showed the trio that there were three more people inside of the train car. In the middle was Sage Osborn, with Lecturer Egg and Dr. Starline on either side of her. 

“Whoa, is that Doc Ock?” Miles asked.

“For the last time, I’m Dr. Starline!” The platypus said angrily. “Stop calling me Doctor Octopus! It’s disrespectful to my PhD!” 

“Whatever you say, Star Octopus.”

“Now you’re not even trying!”

“Sage…” Sonic’s seriousness cut through the yelling. “What are you doing here? Why are you with that fake Professor Egg?” 

“Because I hired him, Stealth.” Sage replied calmly. “I hired him to do some of my dirty work… including leading you here so I can finally show you your doom.” 

“Sage, you have to stop this madness. Aiding and abiding criminals?” 

“I wouldn’t have to do this if you wouldn’t just… die!” The young woman said angrily. “I’m doing what I have to do to get my father’s murderer off the streets!”

“I didn’t kill your father, Sage. He was killed by his own glider!”

“Lies! Lies!” She barked back. “I don’t care what everyone else saw him as. He was my father! He was just driven mad by that serum he made. I could’ve cured him! You could’ve let me cure him! But instead you just… killed him! Well now, it’s an eye for an eye, Stealth.” 

“What’re you talking about, Sage? What did you do?” 

“I finally made something that’s powerful enough to beat you. It’s a step towards my end goal of finally getting my father back… it’s not perfect by any means, but… it’s far more powerful than any of you, that’s for sure.” 

“Getting your father back? What are you talking about?” 

“I’m talking about the symbiotes. Creating mutated ones that can mimic and replicate humans and their behavior. I’ll find a way to create a symbiote that can sustain its own form, and when I do, I can make it whatever I want. Whoever I want.” 

“So you did kill Shultz!” Miles said. 

“Snively Shultz was a moron.” Starline replied. “He stole a sample of ours out of greed. It wasn’t our fault he let it out of its test tube.”

“Sage, please.” Sonic continued. “You don’t have to do this. You’re the owner of the biggest biotech company in the country. You can’t use it for yourself. You have to be responsible with that power.” 

“Oh I am. With all this power, all this knowledge, I feel it’s only responsible of me to get the city’s worst superhero off the streets. It’s like I said, Stealths… this is your doom.” 

Sage stepped out of the way, showing them the figure that was standing behind her. Though both Stealths didn’t get a Stealth Sense from this person, they both noticed the symbiote on Shadow ripple and tense, almost like a cat. 

If it had Shadow scared, this couldn’t be good. 

From the darkness, a fourth adversary stepped out. She was just as tall as Sonic- she had bright green fur, some of it pulled into a ponytail. She grinned toothily at the group, a look that sent shivers down Sonic and Miles’ spines. She had on a white jumpsuit. 

“You… You’re… The Carnage Killer.” Miles spoke first. 

Kasady Surge was known as the “Carnage Killer,” a violent psychopath who took her insanity out on innocent people. Months ago, after being caught by police, Surge was taken away by the members of OsTech to be a part of their experiments. Now here she was, in front of the trio of varying heroism. 

The tenrec kept smiling widely, and winked at Sonic specifically. 

“I’m a big fan.” She said, her voice husky. “I always thought of you when I was out on the town.”

“Sage, this is too far.” Sonic ignored Surge and spoke to Sage. “She’s a monster.”

“She’s just who we need to carry out what I need. Besides… Nobody will miss her.” 

“You two must run!” Shadow said to Miles and Sonic. “We must destroy!”

“Dude, now’s the worst time for the lethal protector thing. She’s still human.” Miles replied. “She’s an easy takedown. We can handle this.” 

“Oh can you now?”

Surge’s reply was followed by her laughing lightly. As she did, the Stealths and Shadow watched in silent horror as she was suddenly coated in black, slowly creeping up her body and getting her face last. 

“I believe in a rule of threes, so I’ll say it one more time.” Sage said. “Meet your doom, Stealth. Meet… Black Doom.” 

The symbiotic serial killer was covered in a new black suit, clearly mutated by the experiments done by OsTech. This black suit, though, had neon green on the hands and forearms, across her chest, and around her eyes. Her eyes were a bright red color, staring directly at Sonic. She opened her mouth, with similar teeth and pointed tongue to Shadow, though her tongue was barbed and black instead. 

Tendrils of green and black came off of her, with jagged pointed ends that both lifted her off the ground and pointed at the trio. 

“WELL?” Black Doom, or Surge, or whatever, taunted in a screeching voice. “AREN’T YOU GOING TO ‘HANDLE’ ME? COME OVER HERE AND SHOW ME JUST WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF.” 

There was a pause before everyone started to attack one another. Sage quickly got out of the way as Sonic went after Surge first, webbing towards the symbiote-covered tenrec and willingly getting tangled up in tendrils to advance upon her. 

Miles tried to move forwards and assist Sonic, but was stopped with one of Starline’s metal tentacles slamming down in front of him, blocking his way. 

“You’re going to pay for calling me Doctor Octopus!” He yelled from above. Though he shot out his top two tentacles towards Miles, the fox turned invisible and moved, the tentacles hitting the wall behind where he once stood. 

The Ultimate Stealth reappeared on the back wall, jumping off in time to avoid another swipe from the robotic appendages. Miles shot golden web balls at Starline, one hitting the end of a tentacle and keeping the three-prong claw shut. 

Starline visibly tried moving the two tentacles keeping him up, but couldn’t- they were stuck to the ground with Miles’ webbing. 

He looked back in time to get kicked across the face by Miles, nearly knocking off his glasses. 

Though Miles tried swinging around Starline, the doctor grabbed the fox with one tentacle, broke the web line with another, then slammed Miles downwards into the ground. 

While the fox was weary, Starline gently lowered himself to his feet. He used all four of his tentacles, one for each limb on Miles, grabbing both hands and feet and pulling them apart. 

“So much for the Ultimate Stealth.” Doc Ock said. 

“I’m still… better than you…”

“I’m the superior one here.”

“Not really… at least I didn’t forget… that metal conducts electricity!”

With that, from all four of his limbs, Miles unleashed bioelectricity from his body. Starline wasn’t faster than lightning, and was being shocked before he could let go of the young man. 

Miles was let go, falling to the ground and hitting his back. Starline stumbled and fell onto his stomach. With a click and a hiss, his tentacles detached at the base. 

“No… My prostheses…” The doctor said weakly, before passing out from the shock. 

Miles stood up, dusting himself off. 

“Looks like you… are grounded.” Miles said. “Or… not grounded. Or… man, I think I have a concussion, I can’t even make any lame jokes…”

Suddenly, Miles’ Stealth Sense went off. He leapt out of the way in time for an egg bomb to fly by and explode the wall behind him. 

As Miles was fighting Starline, Shadow was intercepted from attacking the Doomified Surge by Lecturer Egg, who was now being chased by the symbiotic hedgehog. The fake villain laughed as he was chased, looking over his shoulder at the pursuing Shadow.

“I heard you were looking for me!” 

Shadow roared in reply. His mouth opened wide for the villain to show him his teeth and tongue. He stayed on the ground, watching the villain glide around above. He studied the glider closely, spotting the exhaust fans and the thrusters on the back. 

An egg bomb popped up from the glider, caught by Lecturer Egg for him to throw himself. Before he could toss it, however, a golden web ball attached to his hand, keeping the egg bomb there. The bomb exploded, big enough to cause the armored egg to get knocked off balance. 

From the side, Miles turned un-invisible, swinging in and punching the villain in the face. As he soared by, Miles shot a web to attach to one end of the glider, swinging around and pulling sharply to kick his midsection, knocking him clean off the glider. 

The glider turned immediately, following the falling villain at superspeeds. Miles was in the path between the glider and its owner, and only got his sense when it was just a few feet away. Before the glider could impale Miles, the fox was saved from being impaled, though Lecturer Egg managed to get back onto his glider.

Shadow put Miles down nearby after saving him. This Stealth was just a kid, and he wasn’t Parker, so he didn’t necessarily deserve anything coming to him. Shadow turned, still showing his teeth to the false Professor Egg. 

Back on his glider, Lecturer Egg flew around, eventually turning around to head directly towards Shadow and Miles. As he did, the Imitation Egg fired off a few razor shells directly at them- luckily, they were intercepted by Miles firing web balls at them, knocking them away. 

The path was clear. Shadow rushed forwards, leaping upwards and gripping onto a nearby stone pillar with his clawed hands, leaping off of them like a feral big cat and pouncing upon Lecturer Egg. 

Shadow wrapped his hands around the fake professor’s neck, his mouth wide open and screeching at the armored face of Lecturer Egg. As he did, multiple tendrils of the black symbiote whipped off his body, flicking down and traveling not just across the armor of Lecturer Egg, but across his glider as well. 

The symbiote got into the cracks of the armor, into the shingled metal of the glider, the exhaust fans and the thrusters. The glider was turned, steering it towards the far wall of the station platform. 

With the fear of god instilled in the false professor, Shadow opened his mouth wider, wide enough to fit over the man’s head- and he did. In a swift move back that would normally tear off someone’s head, Shadow instead tore off the helmet of Lecturer Egg, ripping it clean off the armored suit. He shattered it with a closing of his jaw. 

The man under the mask definitely wasn’t Julian Osborn, that’s for sure. He looked more like a barista of some kind. 

“Wh-What…?” The man that was Lecturer Egg asked. “What are you?”

Shadow stared down at him, still gripping his neck. He could feel the wall coming in closer and closer behind him, but he didn’t care. The symbiote retracted from his face, showing the man the face of the hedgehog underneath, a few strands of the black slime still attaching to his face regardless. The hedgehog’s teeth were jagged from the help of the symbiote; he spoke, his voice meshed with the symbiote. 

“We… are Shadow.” 

Then, the glider collided with the wall, both Shadow and Lecturer Egg disappearing in the puff of smoke and dust. Miles landed nearby, staring with wide eyes at the destruction. 

After a second, a silhouette appeared. Shadow, face covered entirely with the symbiote again, walked out of the hole made in the wall. He was dragging the unconscious (and still maskless) Lecturer Egg behind him, and tossed him forwards to land at Miles’ feet. 

Miles was still surprised, but felt a bit relieved that the Imitation Egg wasn’t a clone. 

Nearby, Sonic was being overwhelmed by the strength of the Black Doom symbiote. Surge, as a psychopath, wasn’t as concerned with a proper fight like any other normal villain. As much as someone like Fang the Hunter or Mister Negative (real name Martin Infinite, used to run a homeless shelter, currently runs a gang) got on his nerves, they had proper battle etiquette. 

He couldn’t get close, because Surge would try to shove the tendrils down his throat. He couldn’t get far away, because Surge will easily dodge any web balls or anything he throws towards the symbiotic tenrec. 

There was a roar nearby. Shadow leapt in, delivering a punch to Surge and interrupting her attack on Sonic. Right behind him was Miles, who flipped in to kick Surge next and bounce off. Sonic, getting his bearings back, shot a web line at the wall behind Surge and pulled it, flying forwards and kicking Surge right in the chest, bouncing off her as well. 

The tendrils of the Black Doom symbiote lifted Surge back off the ground, back to her feet. When Shadow came back in to punch her again, Surge simply caught the fist in her hand. 

“HELLO, FATHER.” 

The widening of the white eyes on the symbiote made it clear that the statement was surprising to him. It made sense that this symbiote was produced from Shadow’s but… still. 

“Oh, man! Someone call Maury!” 

When Sonic tried swinging in to kick Surge again, she threw Shadow into him to interrupt the attack. Surge turned herself back around, clearly following a vibe of her own as she looked at the wall, right at the invisible Miles. 

“I SEE YOUUUU…” 

Miles stopped in his tracks, turning his head to match Surge’s eyes. Multiple tendrils shot out towards the Ultimate Stealth. Miles, turning visible once again, reached his hand out for a venom blast towards the pursuing tentacles. 

Though the bioelectricity got a few of them, the amount of tendrils was enough that some curved around the electricity and snagged the fox in the throat, snatching him close so they were face to face. 

“YOU’RE NOT LIVING UP TO THE TITLE, KIDDO.” She said, her voice altered by the symbiote. “UNLESS ULTIMATE STEALTH MEANS THE FINAL STEALTH. FOR THAT, I’LL BE HAPPY TO OBLIGE.” 

The tendrils lifted Miles up and threw him into the ground. When Miles bounced upwards from the rebound, Surge kicked forwards, the doomified strength enough to send Miles flying into the nearby train car, knocking him to the ground. 

Shadow suddenly came in from behind, holding Surge in a headlock, trying to keep them there. The green and black tendrils of Black Doom started whipping and wrapping around the lethal protector. Surge turned her entire body around with the help of her symbiote. 

“YOU ALWAYS WERE WEAK FOR STAYING WITH THAT HOST, FATHER.” The symbiote spoke through her. “YOUR TENURE AS THE LETHAL PROTECTOR IS A DISGRACE. WITH SOMEONE AS WILLING AS SURGE… OUR POWER IS TRULY FREE.” 

The lethal protector grabbed Surge by the throat, who grabbed him the same way. Both screamed at each other, their shrieks echoing throughout the walls of the abandoned train station. 

Nearby, Sonic came to a stop from the sound and covered his ears. As a sudden wash of deja vu came over him, he recalled something he retrieved from before- he pulled out the Shockinator’s prototype seismic device from his suit, looking it over. 

Shadow was helping, and though it would get rid of Shadow’s symbiote too, this was a “beg for forgiveness over ask for permission” scenario anyways. 

Surge’s eyes looked over at Sonic. From experience and knowledge gained by Shadow’s symbiote, she knew that color scheme. A dozen different tendrils shot out towards him, and though Sonic tried to dodge them, a bunch of them hit all across his body. 

The device flew from Sonic’s hands and towards the two symbiotic beings. Shadow looked over his shoulder in time to see what was happening. Before Surge’s tendrils could touch the device, Shadow opened his mouth again and sank his teeth into his adversary’s shoulder. 

With the bite, the tendrils faltered as Surge screamed in pain. Miles, nearby, was getting up to his feet. Seeing the device soaring through the air, but too far to grab it, Miles did the only thing he could- he fired a venom blast. 

The blue electricity shot out from the fox’s hands, traveling to intercept the device as it got closer to Shadow and Surge. Though tendrils of Black Doom started to wrap around the seismic gadget, it didn’t cover it enough to block it from Miles’ bioelectricity. 

As the lightning hit the device, it supercharged it. Though it made a small noise for a second, it suddenly unleashed a massive blast of vibrational force. Instantly, both Shadow and Surge’s symbiotes disappeared in the blast. Sonic and Miles were freed from any danger, and Shadow and Kasady Surge were left standing there as normal people. 

“What? No!” She said.

Shadow, his hands still gripping Surge’s arms, pulled her in and headbutted her, instantly knocking her out. Shadow stood over her, breathing heavily. 

“Brock?” 

The black hedgehog stopped. He slowly turned around, looking at the surprised Sonic. The black symbiote on Shadow’s body slowly returned through perseverance, covering his body and soon his face too, obscuring his identity once more. 

Suddenly, there was a loud crack and a crash. The pillars in the train station collapsed- the roof was caving in from the force of the seismic blast. The entire room began to shake. 

“Where’s…?”

Sonic turned, joined by Shadow and Miles as they watched Sage in the elevator. She glowered at Sonic for a second before pressing the button to close the elevator doors, obviously headed back up to her office at OsTech. 

“We must get out of here.” Shadow said. 

“I really hope you mean all of us, and not ‘you’ us.” Miles replied. 

“Grab a baddie and let’s go!” 

With Sonic’s words, they left. Shadow picked up Surge, Miles pulled Starline in with a web, and Sonic picked up the fake Professor Egg. They left quickly with the villains in their arms as the entire train station collapsed behind them. 

Shadow crashed through the barricades to get them all out. They all turned around to watch the cave-in, seeing the makeshift lab be crushed under so much rubble. 

Then, it was silent. Sonic and Miles were breathing heavily. Slowly, Sonic looked down at the false Professor Egg on the ground, looking at his face. He was almost afraid to look, really, but felt relieved as he saw it was just a faker. 

He took a deep breath, relaxing. Then, he pressed on.

“Okay, we need to talk about… Brock… dang it.”

Shadow was gone. He disappeared into the shadows while the heroes were distracted, but left the unconscious Surge behind. Sonic and Miles stood there in the wreckage of the lab, both of them confused and exhausted. 

At least it was good to catch up with the symbiote. 

“...webbed up in front of the Central City Police Department was none other than the Carnage Killer, Kasady Surge. Alongside her was Dr. Octavian Starline, known to some as Doctor Octopus, and- get this- the fake Professor Egg that attacked the city this week! As it turns out, this Professor Egg was none other than an insurance agent named Roderick Stone! But now, Kasady Surge, Doctor Octopus and ‘agent’ Stone will be spending a long, long time behind bars- all thanks to our friendly neighborhood Stealths.” 

The television was muted, Sonic, Miles and Amy-Rose sat on the couch in Sonic and Amy-Rose’s apartment together, enjoying the sixth night of chili dogs between them. Since Miles saved Amy-Rose’s life, he got to choose which meal they would have- and he chose a classic. 

“I can’t believe Brock is the new host for Shadow.” Sonic said. “I mean, I knew that guy had issues, but I didn’t know he was the host for the symbiote. I thought the symbiote was captured by the government or something.” 

“What do you think happened to him?” Amy-Rose asked. 

“I dunno. He ran off, but I have this feeling this isn’t the last we’re gonna see of him. He’ll always be around to be the city’s lethal protector… I just want to know what he’s getting out of using the symbiote. It was like a drug to me, but for him… it’s like his entire identity.” 

“I was definitely getting weird vibes off of him.” Miles added, before biting into his chili dog. 

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon enough. Like I said, we haven’t seen the last of him.” 

“Or Black Doom?” 

“Kasady’s symbiote was destroyed in the seismic blast.”

“But…” Miles spoke up. “Shadow’s symbiote returned to him. If that one could persevere, then… couldn’t Black Doom’s too?”

“...ugh, I really hope he’s put in solitary confinement or something.” Sonic grunted. “I really don’t want to deal with evil alien goop again. It was hard enough the first time. And the second time.” 

Amy-Rose nodded. “...what about Sage?”

Sonic paused before he took a bite of his chili dog. He sighed, and put it down. 

“She… Was involved in making Black Doom. She was working with Dr. Starline, and she knowingly helped a literal serial killer.” 

The pink hedgehog sighed, mostly in disappointment at what her old friend was doing. 

“Do you have anything you can go to the police with?” 

“All the evidence was crushed in the cave-in. I’m sure Sage’s associates won’t rat her out, and… besides, the police don’t necessarily trust the Stealths anyway.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Miles asked Sonic. 

“Well… We have to stop her.” The blue hedgehog shrugged a bit as he spoke. 

“Doesn’t it make you sad you have to go after your old best friend, though?” 

Sonic paused. “It does… and I’m sad she’s resorted to all this because she’s grieving, but… I can’t give her a pass because she’s my best friend. I know what she’s doing. We know what she’s doing, and we have the power to stop her. We can’t let her get away with it, especially with that power. Because… with great power comes great responsibility.” 

After a moment to process what was said, Miles slowly smiled at that. Sonic smiled back, picking up his chili dog to take another bite. 

Suddenly, a giant boom rocked the apartment. A flash of white came from in front of the television, before a ring-like structure made of energy appeared, spinning around and leading into somewhere incomprehensible. 

Sonic, Miles and Amy-Rose all got to their feet, their respective quills and fur blown back from the force of the strange portal opening. 

A figure stepped through the ring. The suit they were wearing was white and black, with a symbol kind of like the one on Sonic’s Stealth suit. It had a hood, and the inside of the white hood was a solid royal purple. On the front of the person’s white mask, right on her forehead, was a red dot. 

After a second, when seeing the trio in front of her, the person took off her mask, showing the lavender colored feline underneath. 

It was Blaze Stacy. 

“Hey there.” She said. “Sorry to interrupt.” 

“Who… What…?” Sonic was flabbergasted, still holding his chili dog. 

“Must be a Tuesday.” Amy-Rose commented. 

“My name is Blaze Stacy.” The guest stated the obvious. “I’m from another world… or, rather, another dimension. I’m known there as the Burning Stealth. I’m here because… as much as it kills me to admit… I kinda need your help. From both of the Stealths here.” 

There was a moment of silence as the three stood in front of her, bewildered, as the ring portal closed a second later. 

“...I’ll go make another chili dog.” Amy-Rose said, before leaving. 

Miles looked at Sonic, who was still clearly freaked out. After a second, a glop of the chili from Sonic’s chili dog dropped down onto his plate, breaking the continued silence. 

Alright… let’s do this one last time, then.

MEANWHILE, IN 2099…

 “Things are getting crazy out there.” 

“I can’t exactly control time, just influence it, Nega.” 

“Whatever’s been going on after that first destabilized achronal jump is creating ripples across the multiverse. It’s starting to get weird.” 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I’m just keeping you updated, O’Hara, don’t get your holographic suit in a twist.” 

Silver O’Hara stood in the center of his laboratory. His suit- a black and white suit inspired by the original Stealth suit- covered both his body and his stern expression. His arms were crossed as he watched a new gadget made before his very eyes. 

In the far-ish future, with things very uncertain, there was still one thing that remained: Stealth. In this time, Stealth was Silver- a scientist who gave himself powers using a serum developed by his company. Though it was imperfect- if anything, his precognitive Stealth sense was the only real Stealth power that carried over. The rest was assisted with the use of different gadgets. 

At his side, sitting in an invisible chair in midair, Silver’s holographic assistant Nega was also watching the device being made. She was responsible for the device’s inception, controlling the machinery to make sure it was crafted perfectly. Unlike Silver, Nega was a human, one with stark white hair in a bob with bangs, a black-and-yellow jacket and a red dress. She had triangular glasses with blue rims. 

“I should have never traveled through time.” 

“You couldn’t have known what it would’ve started, Silver. You did what you did to try and save time- your time. Nobody can hold that against you.” 

“Still. I should’ve known better.” 

“Whatever you say. Hold your hand out and make a fist.” 

Silver did. The claws creating the wrist-based device reached over it and assembled over Silver’s wrist, forming a kind of high tech wristband. 

“Ow.” He grumbled. 

“If everything you made was correct, this should be the first actual stabilized coronal jump.” Nega said, teleporting from one side of Silver to the other. “We can fix it. Where are we gonna go first?” 

“...the epoch of the first disaster. The era of the Amazing and Ultimate Stealths.” 

With that, Silver twisted and altered the wristband to set the time for “modern day” Central City. With one more glance to Nega, who gave him two thumbs up, Silver pressed the “go” button on the watch. 

In a flash of blue, both Stealth 2099 and Nega were thrown through time.