Chapter Text
“It’s too late, hedgehog!” Eggman proclaimed triumphantly, despite everything around him going up in flames. “Your fate has already been decided!”
“I’m sorry, egghead, but the path I run through cannot be decided by you or anyone else!” Sonic replied as his legs kicked into high gear, kicking away at the ground and propelling him straight into Eggman’s latest invention.
The Egg Warlock, a mighty red and black mech powered by the Chaos Emeralds, resembling a giant, robed Egg Pawn ominously floating above the ground. It employed their power to function and control fate itself, controlling not the present but the future. The latest and greatest of his inventions, the one that was destined to defeat the hedgehog once and for all finally. An ingenious plan, a perfect plan, something that should be able to ensnare even the fastest thing alive.
And yet, it failed.
“Get a load of this!” Eggman declared confidently as he smashed at the Warlock’s command console. The screen flashed to life as it analyzed all potential outcomes, employing the power of the Chaos Emeralds to peer into the future and mold it to his will. He chuckled darkly as the portable supercomputer designed to achieve such a feat did its calculations and generated a solution, a future in which Sonic would stumble and be crushed under the Warlock’s mighty arms.
Eggman laughed as he dramatically raised his arm and prepared to press the big, red, menacing button bearing his visage. This would pre-determine his fate and guarantee victory. The doctor was filled with ecstasy at the power to curse him to death. The joy of having such an ability was so great that he completely forgot to press the button for a couple of seconds, as he felt a heavy thud on the outer shell of his mech as it was knocked backward.
“What did I just tell you?” Sonic replied, recovering from a homing attack and rubbing his nose. “You can’t keep up with me!”
“Why you…!” Eggman protested furiously before getting ready to angrily slam the button, only for him to be once again stopped at the last second as the console almost fried him, electric sparks jumping around as the control panel was electrified.
As Eggman looked around to find the source of the short-circuit, he saw an interesting yellow smudge at the corner of his vision, none other than the hedgehog’s little fox companion messing at the delicate cabling of the Warlock, waving at the doctor with a smile once he realized he had been caught, feigning innocence but with an obvious joking tone to it.
As his anger grew, Eggman quickly if carefully, maneuvered through the console that threatened to zap him at every second and rerouted the power, fixing the problem, if temporally, but enough for him to swing one of the Warlock’s arms at Tails, who quickly flew over the strike instinctively, but was right in the middle of the next one. However, before he could hit him directly in the face, the arm was knocked back by another of Sonic’s spin dashes, the hedgehog in question quickly rebounding and hitting the warlock straight in the chest.
“Darn it, sit still while I pulverize you, filthy rodent!” Eggman said, pounding his fist on the console.
“Make me,” Sonic replied in a cocky tone, leaning forward and placing his hands on his hips, though unfortunately for him, Eggman did have a plan to try and make him sit still, eventually, as a complimentary missile system installed on the shoulders of the mech sprung to life and fired on all directions, though with a clear focus on hitting the hedgehog and foxy friend, with both running away to avoid an explosive end, while Eggman was rooting for a lucky shot that would make him fall.
“Now, I’ve finally goD DAMN IT!” Eggman screamed in anger once again as he started to spin inside the cockpit due to the entirety of the Warlock being swung around by the arms, courtesy of the red Guardian of The Master Emerald, throwing the machine into the walls of his base and cracking the glass of the cockpit.
“Good swinging Knux! Came in to join in the fun?” Sonic said as noticed his presence.
“I came here to stop him before he did too much damage with the Emeralds,” the echidna replied, cracking his namesakes. “That being said, it is quite fun pounding him into the ground!”
Without any proper insults that could match the level of rage welling in his gut, Eggman simply sat up as well as he could and got ready to finally press the button, only for him to feel yet another thud, this time directly above him on the cracked glass.
“What in the…” He barely could finish his sentence before the glass was shattered by a hammer, reduced to little fine particles as the pink source of such destruction became clear.
“Now, give back the Emeralds and say sorry!” Amy declared, a fierce look in her eyes, as she pointed her hammer towards the doctor.
“How about I say…BANG!” Eggman quickly replied as he pulled out his last resort, a gun, and quickly fired it at Amy, who jumped off at the last second.
“Ames! You’re alright?!” Sonic said as he rushed towards her landing stop, not sure if she was hit or not.
“Yeah, it barely missed me,” she replied with a smile, trying to assure him he was fine.
“If that’s the case, I suppose it’s time to finish this once and for all!” Sonic said, with variations of ‘yeah!’ and ‘alright’ coming from the gang that had formed around him, as he ran straight towards the mech with everyone by his side, ready to deal the killing blow and foil yet another of Eggman’s plans.
“Wrong, it is you who is finished!" Eggman countered as he was finally able to press the damn button, a blue pulse being released from his mech.
Instead of performing one last devastating spin dash to end the battle, Sonic, rather clumsy, tripped on his way there, falling right to the ground, right under the mighty hand of the Warlock, curled into a fist and ready to turn him into a pancake.
However, once again he was stopped at the eleventh hour by another newcomer, another hedgehog kicking away the metallic fist before it could crash into the ground, Shadow the Hedgehog had arrived at the scene.
“How convenient!” Sonic said as found his footing. “What brings you here, Mr. Ultimate Life Form?”
“Same reason as the echidna, can’t let the doctor run around as he pleases with the Chaos Emeralds,” Shadow replied as he landed on the ground. “Though seeing you fall flat on the floor was good enough reason.”
“If I didn’t know better,” Tails said as Sonic rolled his eyes at Shadow’s comment, “I would say fate is against you doctor!”
“The likes of you will never triumph in this world Eggman!” Knuckles exclaimed. “Give up!”
“Well said!” Amy said with an approving wink. “How about we blast him into the next week and take the Emeralds?”
“Sounds good to me!” Sonic said as he stretched a bit, not wanting to do any more humiliating tripping, not when Shadow was doing his best to hide his sneering. “Let’s go together all at once, that should do the trick!”
“Curse you… CURSE YOU HEDGEHOG! ” Eggman angrily screamed as he tapped away at the console again, smashing the keys in with blind rage.
The Warlock started to release many sparks, the panels covering it busting open as puffs of black smoke started to appear from all over the mecha as it struggled to float above the ground, jerking erratically as it slowly started to descend to the metal floor, to the disappointing relief of the assorted anthropomorphic animals, wanting to get another set of hits in, but also a bit glad that he wouldn’t pull any more dangerous shenanigans.
“Seems that your ‘latest and greatest’ isn’t that great after all, egghead…” Sonic said after a disappointing sigh. “Thought this was all just getting started…”
Eggman snickered as Sonic fell right into his trap. The Fate Drive within the Egg Warlock powered by the Chaos Emeralds consumed a lot of energy and required precise calculations to employ them to control destiny. It wasn’t very efficient, nor did it provide the Warlock with a lot of firepower, at least in comparison to his other mechs of such caliber. This meant he had two options outside of surrendering and/or running away: divert the power from The Fate Drive into the robot to obliterate them the old-fashioned way or try to make a big enough opening to curse their futures decisively instead of a mere “stumble.”
Thanks to Tails’ little sabotage, feigning the imminent destruction of the Warlock was relatively easy, luring them all into a false sense of security. They realized something was wrong the moment he started to grin, but it was too late—way too late—and he had already smashed the big red button.
Sonic knew the red button was trouble, and he had seen what happened when Eggman tried to press it before. However, he wasn’t going to let that stop him. Everyone else rushed as fast as they could to try to stop whatever the doctor was up to.
However, it had already been too late. In contrast to his earlier pulse, what came after was a veritable explosion, a cacophony of colors and sounds sucking them all in, the Warlock being covered in a bright aura that eventually made it impossible to see.
No matter, the deed had already been done. Eggman had set up the machine with a singular purpose: to curse them, to curse their future, to bring about a terrible fate more horrible than what their world could muster: a world where they would suffer, and a world where he could win.
“Sensei, can you see that?”
“...Yes.”
It was weird; you weren’t supposed to be able to see the northern lights in Japan, yet there it was, a flashy display of lights expanding across the sky right above them both. Right after they had dealt with Sukuna’s vessel. Something was fishy about it.
“Do you think it’s a cursed technique?”
“No, it’s something else entirely, and I think I found a lead!” The sensei in question said as he pointed to what seemed to be a couple of shooting stars, three of them, hitting the ground with considerable force not that far from them both. “Hold on to him while I go check.”
“Wait-” He couldn’t even finish his sentence before the sensei dropped the unconscious kid-turned-vessel on his shoulder, almost making him fall to the ground before heading off. To say he was ticked off would be an understatement.
The sensei quickly moved across the treetops towards the crash site. Despite being blindfolded, there was a lot he could see even at a distance. Something was odd about the crash site, an immense source of power, yet not the faintest trace of Cursed Energy. It was suspicious, yet intriguing, and he wanted to know more, especially if it was related to the sudden appearance of Sukuna’s vessel or simply a source of trouble dealt with sooner rather than later.
It didn’t take him too long to reach the site, as he saw two… unique-looking fellows, some three-foot-tall creatures recovering from their crash landings. His first thought was that those might’ve been cursed spirits or perhaps cursed corpses. However, they didn’t have the faintest trace of Cursed Energy on them, despite their anatomy more or less checking out with either, his second thought was that perhaps they were aliens that crashed on the planet, but there was something familiar about them both he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
However, one thing that made them both stand out was the fact they could talk.
“Well, where the hell are we?” The blue one asked, looking around the trees while dusting himself off.
“Eggman probably sent us into a different place as a hail mary,” the black one replied. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Hey, I tried! Don’t go shifting the blame on me!” The blue one countered, replying in a defensive yet dismissive tone. “No need to cry over spilled milk, all we need to do now is find where we are and where everyone else is, then we just need to find our way back home! If there’s interdimensional nonsense, we need to get the Chaos Emeralds and Eggman to fix it!”
“Do you think Eggman would play along?”
“Well, he created the problem, he could also be the one to fix it! Maybe a glare from Knuckles would get him in line!”
The sensei was trying to hold back his laughter. He had seen his fair share of crazy stuff in his lifetime that was par for the course in his line of work and position, but genuine interdimensional bullshit involving the one and only Sonic the Hedgehog? That was on an entirely different level of insane! He questioned if he was going delirious, or perhaps being affected by a Cursed Technique, or that those two were a product of one, but his Six Eyes didn’t lie. Those two were flesh and blood, and not a single residual was to be found on their bodies. Those were, as far as he was concerned, the real deal!
And there was an even better way to test whether or not they were the real deal.
While the two of them and their crash site had not a single trace of Cursed Energy, there was a source becoming more and more clear. A cursed spirit, probably a grade 3 or 2, attracted there if not by the nearby unleashing of one of Sukuna’s fingers, but by the dazzling sight and the feel of potential prey. It should be enough to test their capabilities without putting them in too much danger, all he needed to do was jump in if things got rough.
“Shads, did you hear that?” Sonic asked, looking around his ears perking up at the noise of a crushed twig.
“Yes,” Shadow replied, raising his fists. “I don’t think we are alone.”
“Do you want…to go camping…?”
Both hedgehogs turned to the sudden voice behind them. It was a distorted voice speaking completely non-coherently, the distinctive voice of a Cursed Spirit, ready to do what its instincts command. It was a green, quadripedal creature with a large, human-like mouth extending to the sides and a collection of eyes dotting the top of its head. Slowly, it made its way towards Sonic and Shadow.
“Hard-pass dollface!” Sonic said in a joking tone, winking at the curse. “I’ve got places to be!”
With a negative response to its question (if it was even smart enough to comprehend it), the spirit lunged at the blue blur who effortlessly dodged it, jumping into a nearby tree, a grin plastered on his peachy muzzle. Shadow wasn’t so nonchalant, taking the chance to hit it dead center with a homing attack, sending it across a row of trees. A strike with a pretty hefty punch, yet it didn’t seem to be that effective, the curse standing up from the small crater it generated by falling on the ground.
“Seems quite resilient eh?” Sonic said as he dropped to the grassy soil. “Any idea what it is?”
“No, but it does seem to be quite durable,” Shadow replied. “That spin should’ve been enough to punch a hole in most enemies. Maybe there’s some trick to its defense…”
“Or perhaps you haven’t hit it hard enough!” Sonic said enthusiastically, interrupting him. “Let’s strike fast and hard together! Maybe that should be enough to break through its defense or perhaps reveal its weak spot.”
Shadow rolled his eyes but ultimately acquiesced, “I guess we can try that, just try to keep up!”
With a cheeky “hehe,” Sonic was off, and Shadow was not far behind, each striking the curse with a flurry of attacks, tossing the curse back and forth between them with punches, kicks, and spin dashes. The curse howled in pain as it was yanked back and forth helplessly. It was too weak and slow to defend itself, but it really did have a trick up its sleeve, one that was obvious to the sensei. It was a cursed spirit, and no matter how hard it was being hit, their attacks had no cursed energy behind them, meaning they were completely ineffective despite how powerful, and most importantly fast they were.
“My my,” he muttered to himself, “Those two could give that old man a run for his money!”
After a couple of rounds with the spirit, both Shadow and Sonic started to show the minimum signs that fatigue was getting to them, panting and huffing as the curse was still as healthy as when it first showed its ugly face.
“No dice huh?” Sonic said.
“It seems so,” Shadow replied.
“Do you want…to go camping…?” The cursed spirit blurted out, continuing to spew out its nonsense.
“It seems to be invulnerable to our attacks,” Shadow continued. “Perhaps we should get away and find a more permanent way to deal with it.”
“Maybe, but I don’t like the rancid vibe this thing gives,” Sonic replied. “I don’t think we should just leave it be.”
“So are you suggesting we hit it even harder?” Shadow said, clearly frustrated.
“Do you want-”
“I already said I don’t!” Sonic said, interrupting the curse, completely unfazed by its lumbering walk towards them.
“...To go camp-”
The curse was suddenly interrupted once again, and this time for good, as it suddenly turned into a small compressed sphere, as if it was a fruit being squeezed for its juice, only that the juice in question here was sickly purple blood. The spirit-turned-ball then proceeded to harmlessly fall to the ground and disintegrate, earning the surprise of both hedgehogs in the form of a synchronized “eh?”
“Did you do that?” Sonic questioned.
“What makes you think I can do that?” Shadow replied.
“Don’t worry, that was me!” A third voice said, coming right from above them, with both hedgehogs turning their heads to meet the mysterious third party.
A tall, lanky, white-haired man with a blindfold and fully black clothes, plus some stylish and expensive-looking shoes, slowly hovered down towards the ground with a smile on his face, making the already confused hedgehogs even more confused.
“I’m sure you both have a lot of questions, but let’s start with some introductions, shall we? I’m Satoru Gojo, the strongest sorcerer.”
“Well Satoru Gojo,” Sonic replied, walking towards Gojo completely unphased by his claim. “I’m Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing alive!”