Archive of Our Own ^beta

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A/N:  OTLR11: Ok, I should probably give a heads-up for how this story will work. But before that, if you want to start reading, go to the [*] to start reading the Prologue.

LimiteR_RinG: Yeah, that's right, don't bore the readers.

OTLR11: (...) Ok, so, to begin with, this story will not be updated as frequently as my last story on FF. I was under a lot of self-pressure to get the story out, and I don't think that doing it twice a week like I did for my other story was in any way good for both me and my work. So, with that in mind, I have a few new ideas for how I'll be handling things.

OTLR11: Firstly of all, this should be updated once a month on average. It won't be exactly one month, and sometimes it might take 2 months, so that's just a little warning.

LimiteR_RinG: BUT, that's not to say we can't do it earlier, so keep an eye out for when the next chapter releases! Also, I don't think people really expect an author to be perfect, so we're hoping you'll be ok with this rough estimate.

OTLR11: Second thing: I want to say that after the reception and feedback I have received from my last story, I learnt A LOT.

LimiteR_RinG: It was NOT perfect.

OTLR11: Yeah, ok, we get it. But he's right; there is a lot I could have done to improve it. So with that in mind, this story will be Openly Edited, meaning that at any time, I can come back here and edit a few chapters or even major plot points, unlike my last story.

OTLR11: Oh, and 'Encrypted Destiny' is not set in stone yet either. The plot is probably 3/4 of the way to completion, but we're only-

LimiteR_RinG: NO, NO SPOILERS! We're at an unknown, that's all you should know. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how this story looks so far, and how you think it can be improved in any way at all, so we can OE whenever we need to. And every so often, we will reply to a few of your reviews in the following chapters. Inclusivity.

OTLR11: Yeah, inclusivity is important. Another note. I've learnt from a few of my mistakes, and with the power of two, we've managed to (hopefully) fix some of them. Here's what should be improved for 'Encrypted Destiny':

1. My Descriptiveness - Descriptions were not my strongest point, so thank goodness I have somebody else to help me with this. It should be easier to imagine in your mind now.
2. Dialogue - Ok, the dialogue in my last story wasn't exactly great. It shined at times, but on the flip side, might not have been as true to the character as I would have liked. That will DEFINITELY be improved on, especially thanks to a certain Sonic fan working with me ;)
3. Length - Usually, longer stories seem to be the more attractive ones, so I tried that last time. I managed to get out 1,500 words on average/chapter last time, which was... ok? I'm gonna try for higher this time around. Hopefully without sacrificing on quality, which LimiteR will assist in.

LimiteR_RinG: You can't just rely on me the whole time!

OTLR11: Who said that was my plan? One more thing. LimiteR?

LimiteR_RinG: For this story, we rewatched the whole of Wreck-It Ralph, looked at the wiki, and played/watched the Sonic game/s that will be involved. We tried to make it feel as canon as possible (even though it never will be, sorry) for you guys.

LimiteR_RinG: I will maybe reference or even include a few other things from Sonic (and other unrelated but fun franchises that OTLR11 and I want), be they obvious or hidden. Don't worry, I know pretty much all the Sonic lore there is to know, so you can expect this to be a fandom treat! At the end of each chapter, where possible, I will mention the small nods to different franchises. Oh, and we'll probably talk a little bit about our thoughts and experiences writing.

OTLR11: Sure, fine... (I didn't exactly agree to the referencing beforehand, but suuure...) Anyways, without further ado...

[*] OTLR11 and LimiteR_RinG: Welcome to 'Encrypted Destiny'!

Prologue:

Ok, so… Everyone knows the story of Wreck-It Ralph, right? (We may have jumped the gun a bit there, but stay with us.) The bad-guy of a videogame who was judged by his role for a lot of his digital life.

For 30 years, his job was to smash a building. It sounds hard, but as in any game, he had a skill: large, bulbous fists that, to everyone, looked like rough, overgrown jacket potatoes. But they could smash anything easily. The people inside this building, the 'Nicelanders', were your typical citizens-in-distress. And in the game, they'd cry out for help, running around the inside of their building, trying to avoid being hit by Ralph's approaching hands.

And the protagonist? The main name and face of this 8-bit arcade game?

Why, Fix-It Felix Jr., of course. How fair it seemed for him to have alliteration in his name, and for Ralph's just to sound like it. Predictably, his job was to fix the building with his trusty, magical golden hammer. Every 'dink' noise that sounded was him at work, fixing Ralph's chaos.

But this wasn't exactly awful. Yeah, sure, being the bad guy was… bad. Being the one everyone had to fight against to save the day, yeah, that was admittedly bad too. Even being thrown off the roof was bad enough.

The worst part, however? This life stretched beyond closing hours.

Yes. Games had lives outside the screen.

All the most popular games - Litwak, the owner of the arcade - had, were plugged into the extension from the socket. It was an ancient white, scarred from the odd soda break the teens brought with them. Adorned with scratches, lying on a carpeted red floor, it barely held the plugs together. Inside this unassuming extension plug, however, all characters lived together, getting to know one another. They could always rely on their friends outside of games to understand each other, know their worries and support each other.

But this led to heroes, or protagonists, of the majority of games grouping together, which naturally emitted signals of threat to the villains, or antagonists. They too bonded together, and long ago, something happened that meant that unpluggings of multiple games nearly happened at once.

For a little context, here's what an unplugging is: Imagine you're in a world where players of all ages have unlocked achievements, made progress, and explored every world, bonus level, secret minigame, and the like. You've been quite content with your life, as the main character. Even as a side character. Say that was what happened, or something quite similar. And then one day, you wake up in your game, that game, to hear an alert sound originating from what appears to be a mini train station.

'Warning. Game unplugging.'

Either because of a drop in popularity, or a small, buggy glitch, your game could be unplugged. Those inside would lose all their memories, resetting into the base game characters they began as before being plugged in. If you escaped, you would be gameless, have no home to go to, but still be able to survive. But if, let's say, you were the glitch in there, you would be wiped out from the game, and cease to exist. Even if the game was reactivated, it'd be like you were never there to start with.

That doesn't sound bad… Ok, it does sound bad. But let's go back to Ralph's story again.

30 years it had been since the game had been first plugged in, and it was the oldest standing cabinet in the arcade. On the day of their 30th anniversary, that was when Ralph had decided to go to Bad-Anon, the one safe place for many antagonists (not all, but many) to talk about their feelings and relate to each other.

Bad-Anon was probably the one safe place for villains of all games to come together and relax. Be themselves. Enjoy their lives. Or at least, the lives they could only have in secret.

He hadn't attended before, even though the wrecker had received invitations every week since it had begun. Reluctant to go, but desperate to have some time to think, he travelled over to the PAC-MAN game to have a look at what was going on, and talk a bit. It went… well enough. But after hearing all their troubles and worries, Ralph decided to express his one thought he had kept with him for decades: that he didn't want to be the bad guy anymore.

Understandably, he wanted a taste of the good life. He didn't want to be seen as the antagonist he wasn't.

And so, he set off on a quest to prove himself to the world. And quite the journey it was.

He went to a nearby game, added only last week, called 'Hero's Duty'. Medals were available to earn there, and that was all the proof he needed; the proof the Nicelander named 'Gene' had requested. Fast forward a few flashy scenes of terror later, and he had 'piloted' a ship, with a dangerous creature onboard, into a game called 'Sugar Rush'.

I won't spoil what happened in there for those who may not have seen this movie, but it ended in a way nobody and everybody expected. (Cryptic, right? I know, you can thank me later.) Ralph had managed to earn the respect of the good and the bad guys. And so, they lived happily ever after…

Well, at least until the arrival of Wi-Fi. (But let's not go there yet.)

Ok, ok. No doubt you're wondering why I'm typing up this very-easy-to-sue recap, if that's all I'm going to tell you. No, there was another story going on, simultaneously, that nearly destroyed the arcade as we know it. And it was one that had long been expected.

This was a story that was destined to happen, just as Ralph was destined to change the views of Game Central. This was a pivotal moment in Litwak's little arcade, that changed the fate of the games themselves. But enough talking. What better way to tell it than as a story? And like any good story, it all began…

…on a dark, stormy night…

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OTLR11: Hope you're intrigued by the story! A quick notice that I cannot do commissions, and would appreciate it if reviews regarding them are NOT left in the story.

LimiteR_RinG: If you like it, please review so we know how you're feeling about it. Anyways, let's begin!

WKHVH

Chapter 1:

Sonic yawned, and stretched his arms, lying down on his cosy big blue bean bag. It was midnight, and at last, Sonic was finally ready to wind down and dream all night long. Which, for him, was only about 6 hours, give or take.

His bedroom was pretty normal. Filled with lots of photographs of his friends, a whole gap under the drawers dedicated to the love mail Amy would send him, perfectly intact, albeit squished, and a few keepsakes from all of his adventures that he'd had. The wallpaper… wasn't blue, but black. Of course it was. Sonic only came here to leave – to Dreamland, that is. And the floor… well. You couldn't really see it over the "keepsakes", but if someone had to render a guess from the abstract colours among the plastic terrain, black too. All that, a beanbag, some merch, Tails' inventions, and some bits and bobs.

However, Sonic's game wasn't like any other game in this arcade. Yes, sure, it ran the 16-bit classic, Sonic the Hedgehog, but this little console wasn't just one game. Long ago, SEGA had decided to make only 5 units that were specially adaptable to play every game that they would release about Sonic and his friends.

It worked pretty well for the first 5 years or so, but when the next line of consoles was released, SEGA had to send special engineers to manually, painstakingly upgrade every console they'd released. Inside the game consoles themselves, the updates added would be visible for a few seconds before fading into nothing but memory packs, which each of their friends would read and absorb, thus knowing what game had been added and what their role was in them. The rest of the game update would be absorbed by the arcade machine, directly into the code.

Knowing their roles in the games made things so much easier than just running around, and hoping they would figure out what was going on. Obviously, trying to understand how the system worked was a very confusing topic, but it was one many of the Sonic crew had unanimously agreed on not discussing it.

After all, the "magic" of the system was what kept them popular, and breaking it down was particularly unnecessary.

The money made from the consoles was worth it to keep going, but eventually, two were broken by coffee spills and irresponsible repairs. And one was lost to a particularly anonymous collector known only by his alias, "Anonymous", although they did pay a rather grand sum of money.

Only two more still existed in the wide world: One somewhere in the United Kingdom, and one being Litwak's pride and joy.

Despite the arcade cabinet not being updated to include the new games on its sides (the repairs people stopped changing it after a while), everyone who had ever played it knew that it was more than the cover screen showed. And, sure, you only got to play for 15 minutes at a time, with only three save slots. But it was certainly enough to keep kids rushing out of their cars or buses to visit, bringing smiles to his face. Even the adults would come from time to time, with teenagers who would actually look up from their phones once a day, and they all enjoyed playing Sonic's games.

That's not to brag about it being the most popular. PAC-MAN and Super Mario were still a firm favourite. Just Dance was also good for those embarrassing selfie moments and impossible challenges with friends and family. Q*Bert and Space Invaders had originally been doing okay, but they were now unplugged games. A new game called Hero's Duty had just joined the rally, but hadn't been turned on yet. And there were countless others that brought families flocking like Angry Birds Trilogy, their only collective rival.

And Sonic had to run faster and faster as a result, trying to keep up with the demand for his game. It was a gig that he couldn't afford to lose. The price was heavy. But the sheer joy of running through the storylines his company had made for him – and even exclusives for his friends that he would cameo in – always seemed to reassure him that he would never be removed.

Besides, he was the undoubted star of Litwak's Arcade. That old 'Mamma-Mia!' plumber had nothing on him and his friends.

His friends also had their own significance. At the parallel centre was Shadow, the edgy ultimate life form you'd wish you hadn't messed with. The most overpowered of all of them (so much so he had to limit it), and a match for Sonic's speed, he proved vital to any quest, be he present or absent.

Then there was Tails, Sonic's best friend, a young fox with a big brain and a bigger heart. His inventions always saved the team in one way or another, and his spinning tails had flown Sonic over many a "Game Over". Since they had met that one fateful day when he was being bullied, Sonic had encouraged him to become more than they had made him feel like: a freak.

Knuckles, the last of the Echidna Warriors, and the Guardian of the Master Emerald, was immensely strong, and could beat up most with just a bat of his fist. He was sworn to protect the Emerald from the many people who wanted it for their own selfish needs, and even from his own friends – at times. He had steely focus, and a rough exterior.

Amy Rose… Well, she was caring. Actually, that was an understatement; she was absolutely obsessed with Sonic, and would even give up her life for his sake. She was also a great warrior, wielding the Piko-Piko hammer, a large weapon she had mastered to a point where she could smash many of the strongest foes they knew to bits.

And lastly, Silver, the third third of the great trio, Team 06.

Ok, so SEGA got a bit of a windrush on that game, cropping up and swirling in a few details, but they tried, and the reality is that it was their most unforgettable saga – even if ironically, the game was supposed to make everyone forget everything due to a time anomaly. Together, him, Sonic and Shadow had faced many fears, gone on epic quests, carved legends into their little box of arcade magic. While he wasn't naturally powerful, and unable to spindash, his ESP more than filled that gap.

But today had been a relatively normal day for all the Sonic characters. Just a few plays on their latest, and perhaps greatest, game yet: Sonic Generations.

And as the hedgehog relived the moments of the day in his mind, drool trickling out of the corner of his mouth, dreaming up chili dogs and challenges. Outside, simulated thunder cracked like a whip, as digital rain splattered loudly and messily at the window pane.

– - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - —

Elsewhere, in a secluded room with dull, grey walls, a meeting was being held away from the public eye. Everyone knew it was happening, but nobody focused on the specifics. And to many of the attendees, it was better that way.

Inside the dot-munching arcade game PAC-MAN, Clyde was taking a small register of all the villains attending today. He called out in a bored voice;

"Zombie?"

"Heeere." came the slurred reply, as he raised his rotten green arm that reminded everyone of a failed amputation.

"1011001?"

"Zzz." it called out with its buzzsaw, lifting the yellow piped arm with ease, surveying the room with glaring red camera-eyes.

"M. Bison?"

"That's Master Bison to all of you, and don't you forget it again," he reminded everyone for the umpteenth time. The group just groaned, some louder than others. Clyde obviously didn't care any of the times before, and it was clear as day that it wasn't changing anytime soon.

"Bowser?"

"Here, once again," he grumbled. He ran a hand through his fiery red hair, and sank a little deeper in his chair.

"King Pig?"

"Finally, someone remembers!" he shouted ecstatically, jumping out of the small seat he was cramped in. He was about to go on a rant, but Clyde cut him off.

"Zangief?"

"I am here." he simply replied.

Clyde coughed and concluded, "Ok, so, I think that's everyone here. Not including the few absentees we have today. They went over to Tap–"

"Ahem." came a lone voice from the doorway, making everybody turn around. "Am I late to this… inexplicably awkward-looking meeting?" asked Dr. Eggman, a hint of mocking in his voice.

Clyde gave a practically invisible smile. "Well, after 20 years and 2 weeks of invitations, looks like you finally decided to show your face around here." Eggman felt the impulse to punch the ghost's face, but resisted; partially not to make a scene, and partially to not look stupid punching a ghost.

The floating figure turned around to the rest of the group, and said, "Sorry, everyone, I know we were going to get out the rage blocks today, but since we have a new guest, you know the drill."

Everyone seemed considerably cheerier and shuffled their chairs closer to one another, leaving an open spot in front of the doctor for him to take a seat in.

He very reluctantly strolled over to the opposite side of the room, grabbed one of the chairs, and popped it open, taking his seat. They honestly look like a bunch of morons, he thought to himself.

"So what's the deal with these meetings? Collaborating on 'game plans'? Breaking down the heroes' very cores? Plotting to take over Game Central Station?" he asked expectantly, a glint in his glasses.

"Actually, this is meant to be a safe space for bad guys alike to talk with one another, and do activities that wouldn't be judged or disapproved of by others. It allows us to express the sides of us that wouldn't make sense to good guys. And for our own sakes, everything that happens in here, stays in here."

"And seeing as you're the new guy, tradition states that you introduce yourself." Clyde floated down in a straight line, hovering directly above his chair. "We're all listening, so when you feel comfortable, you can begin."

Eggman groaned. "So this is what, a support group?" he muttered. I thought it was something bigger, like a full-scale destruction of the world… or something close to that. He looked around at all the other faces, hoping that they were just kidding around.

"This group is a support group, and it's meant to help villains like you feel safe. Here, you don't have to be the bad guy. For those who've accepted it, we offer a place for them to escape from being like that, and for those who want to be something else, well, we try to bring them back down to earth. Make them come to terms with their lives, you know?"

Zangief spoke up, and said, "It is hard for some of them, yes. But it is good do sooner than later, and it is good to believe in you, for you, is it not?"

"Believe in your– What kind of evildoers ARE YOU?! You all should be ashamed of yourselves. We are the bad guys! We're meant to be ruthless, unstoppable rogues–"

"And yet, we're beaten by the heroes every time. The game's aim, in one way or another, is to defeat the bad guy." Bowser interjected. Eggman shot him a look that would kill, if he wasn't wearing goggles.

Zangief spoke up again. "I have addition for your statement. We are more than bad guy. Good guys are more than just defeating bad guy. In many games, we are friends with each other, and can see eye-to-eye on so many things. Or in man-egg case, eye to belly." The joke was received with an appraising laugh, but Eggman mentally gritted his teeth, feeling expectedly annoyed. Backing away from this meeting wasn’t a good choice anymore; that would just reveal weakness, and the Eggman Empire was anything but weak.

Eggman growled. "Fine. I'll do this dumb meeting. But respect me, you hear? Or this 'man-egg' will incinerate you all."

References: We added a few things here and there to make the story feel a little new. Here are the references if you cared (don't expect this to appear in every chapter, but it's handy at times. We may remove it soon though):

• Angry Birds
• PAC-MAN
• Super Mario
  
• Sonic '06
• Street Fighters

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OTLR11: Welp, this was quicker than we expected.

LimiteR_RinG: Yeah... Like it's a bad thing (!)

OTLR11: Apologies if not all the characters are accurate, but I really tried. I hope it's good enough.

19-20-18-9-14-7-19-0

Chapter 2:

And so, Eggman began to wistfully narrate his tale from when he first entered the arcade all those years ago.

First, he began with the customary greeting. “Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Eggman, as I have literally said.” Everyone ignored this, replying as politely as they could muster. 

“I am possib- no, definitely - the most intellectually accomplished individual of the present times. But really, my story began around when I was first plugged in. I was just a normal, crazed doctor, looking to take over the world. At the beginning, I was interested in turning anything living into a piece in my grand scheme, whether they were willing to submit or not. But then during my first attacks on the few small islands that wouldn’t attract unwanted attention, I caught wind of a much more efficient way to conquer the world; by harnessing the power of an Electric Quill, an unlimited energy resource. Guess where that lay? In another life form: my to-be nemesis, Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“I had first detected it on an island the rodent called ‘home’. Naturally, I set up many of my badnik traps to capture him, and any other animals there to power my machines. But unlike all the other animals residing on the island, he was… of an ever-so-slightly higher intelligence. Anyway, it took me more effort to capture him, and somehow he wouldn’t submit. Running around me in circles, taunting me with the nicknames ‘Egghead’ and ‘Baldy McNose Hair’... I guess that was when he became the biggest pain in my backside that I could ever imagine.”

“And thus it became my mission to destroy him at all costs. It was obvious the blue rodent would never submit. If he ever had any use, there was nothing left for me to chase. Metaphorically, of course; but I did need to get him out of my way to even attempt taking over the world. With a new look on my end goal in mind, I advanced my technology. I didn’t need anything more from the pest. I had learnt of far greater powers, such as the Chaos Emeralds, which coul–”

Bowser raised his hand up eagerly in a manner that surprised Eggman and brought his attention back to the room. “Uh, yes, Bowser?” he asked warily.

The Koopa King asked, with some surprising intrigue, “Are those like the Power Stars? Filled with the power to make you completely invulnerable and all-powerful?” 

“NO! Absolutely not!” Eggman was filled with a sudden defensive rage. “They are NOTHING like what you might have seen on your little playdates. They have unlimited power, wield abilities beyond definition through their Chaos Energy, and when all seven are together, they can render you a force unstoppable, immovable. They can turn any of your feeble thoughts into power unlike anything you’ve ever seen before!” A few people gasped at this, but the rest were relatively neutral.

“Not impressed, are we? They can blast any enemy away within a mile’s radius, shoot deadly spears that target and destroy, and take the helm of spacetime itself! Can your little twinkle-twinkle stars do that?”

Bowser growled, and was about to say something more, perhaps more aggressively as smoke puffed from his nose, when Clyde jumped in. “Now, now, Bowser, remember our mantra for these situations. Breathe.”

“Grr… Ok, ok, I’m breathing…”

“‘They are not there.’”

“They are not there.”

“‘You have already burnt their villages down. You have destroyed everything they own and there is nothing left to do. You have Peach with you and she will bake you all the cakes you could ever want. You. Are. Better.’”

“I. Am. Better.” Bowser smiled at this, and seemingly forgot Eggman was even in the room. 

Clyde gestured to Eggman with his head (which was basically his whole “body”) , as everyone glared in his direction. “Do you have anything else you would like to add?”

Eggman felt that this was the time for a small icebreaker, sensing that the atmosphere had tensed a bit. “What, apart from my thoughts on your ineffective meditation? Honestly, this couldn’t calm Pi down if you stuck it in the oven for exactly 3.142 seconds.” Unfortunately, the joke had the opposite effect, as it was coming from Dr. Eggman.

“He meant about your story, man-egg,” Zangief clarified, an unusual hint of menace present.

Master Bison growled. “Hurry this along, for Pete’s sake. We’ve got games to get back to, if you were aware of that.”

If the doctor couldn’t win against this crowd, he couldn’t be bothered to try. So he finally concluded, “Well, this has certainly been a blast. I think I’ve had enough of this meeting for one night. If you really wish to hear my epic saga, we’ll talk another day. But next time, when you have something good to call me for, then reach out to me. Otherwise, don’t bother!”

After being silent for a while, Zombie called out, as a last ditch attempt to reach him. “You don’t neeed be baaad outside game. Be yooou.”

What is up with these people?! his oversized brain cried, as he sharply retorted, “Shut up.”

“He’s right, you know,” the orange ghost affirmed. “The game might make you a villain, but this space is for you to show the sides of you that nobody else will see. Particularly the heroes. We’d never try to reach out to them. And I think it’s better if you don’t either.” Eggman turned around, and stood up. He was ready to leave this waste of time, before Clyde called out, “Listen to me, Eggman.” 

Eggman hesitated. He had just about had enough of this ridiculous meeting. But… he could humor them one more time. “Give me one good reason why I should,” came the snarky, snappy reply, his back still facing them all.

“I’m not going to ban you from the club. Villains like you have this trouble coming to terms with what they can be outside of their game-goals, especially those who don’t dare to be anything else. Who believe that that’s all they can be. It’s probably never going to change, because of the, er, tense environment outside.” He stuttered for once, which was a bit of a shock to everyone, disincluding Eggman.

“What’s your point?” he asked in a deadpan tone, itching to stomp his way closer to the door.

“I’m still going to invite you to the next meeting, which I’ll hold earlier so we can all talk about your progress. But I’m going to send you home with this.” He signalled to a package beside his chair. For obvious reasons, he couldn’t grab it, and kindly requested, “1011001, would you mind?” 

As the robot carefully handed the package over, Eggman grumbled something incoherently, but then spoke forcefully. “That’s very kind of you, I’ll be sure to look at it, blah blah blah. Can I be excused.” He said that last sentence as more of a statement than a question.

“By all means. Now, everyone, let's close out…” The sound of the PAC-MAN ghost drifted away as Eggman took heavy footsteps into the blue corridor. He stomped his way through to the exit into a more open space, with a lonely pixelated train, covered in yellow dots and blue lines. At the bonnet was a picture of pixel PAC-MAN, with the ghosts on either side of the vehicle. Sighing angrily, he slowly sat down on the front seat, as the automated voice announced, “Now leaving: PAC-MAN.”

Eggman slowly took clumped footsteps towards the doorway above his game, reflecting on the ‘words of advice’ that Clyde had left him with. 

‘Be you.’ ‘Are those like Power Stars?’ ‘All I believe I can be is a villain.’ “Pah!” A few residents who were still outside late rushed away, scared to be in the way of his rant. A small little red man ran off, while a few kids from another game he couldn’t name stumbled and fumbled and bumbled away towards their home.

“What do they know about me? Honestly, you’d think they weren’t villains! Just a group of weaklings who’ve forg–” Just as he reached the entrance to the Super Sonic Collection, he had a moment. 

“Forgotten their roles. Ohoho.” With a new, even more menacing chuckle than usual, and that same crazy smile, he stepped into his game, ignoring the Surge Inspector appearing, and grinned. “I think I’m going to teach them all a lesson about villains. One they won’t forget for the rest of their digital lives.

Late at night, Tails was up and about, working in his lab, configuring the latest data on his transatlantonatomic recatastrocombobulator (what that meant, no-one but Tails and perhaps Eggman could decode), whilst Sonic slept in another room sealed off by a yellow and black door, the yellow being the top half, and the black, the bottom. A circle painted in a dark blue outline with an inner green was present, at the point where both halves of the metal met.

His whole lab was made with that colour scheme in mind. The floor, the windows… and even his bed. Fortunately, he wasn’t obsessed with it, so there was still lots of other bright colours inside the lab. It was filled with, surprisingly, only a few inventions. Since he mostly made technology for him and his friends during adventures, and had a small side-job of giving some to the fellow arcade residents to improve their lives, he nearly never had time to make things for himself.

But that was ok. He loved helping others more than himself.

Feeling weary after a long day of working, trying to help Knuckles establish some form of communication - namely technology - up on Angel Island, he was ready to turn in for the night. His CAR (Compulsive Assistant Robot) had finished cleaning up the plates, stained with chilli dog sauce, and it was around about 10p.m. in the arcade.

Treading carefully on the creaky, yet varnished wooden floor, he made his way over to a small bookcase. Well, ‘small’ was an understatement. It was a wall of knowledge, filled with books of red, green and blue and ordered so neatly, you’d have thought Tails had bought it like that. 

This was one of the few parts of his house that wasn’t filled with or made of technology, and also one of the many parts of it Tails had made by himself. It was his own little retreat away from life in Game Central Station.

He scanned the bookshelf, eager to find another good read to pass the time by. “Hmm… when was the last time I read this? ’An Enigma to Remember’...” Tails started pulling the book out by the spine, hoping to immerse himself, before hearing a loud bang. 

The room shook with a sudden, breath-stealing violence Tails felt to be indescribable, and he was sure that the building would crumble to the floor. But just as suddenly as it had begun, the rumbling below him stopped. He was lucky that he hadn’t screamed and woken up Sonic; but he was shaking in fear. 

“What was that…?” he murmured, before taking the book out quickly. For a few seconds, nothing more happened, and Tails sighed in relief. He sat down on the plump, cushioned armchair, and made to reveal the sweet literary nectar enclosed. But then, the shaking happened again.

And this time, Tails nearly freaked out at what happened next. His body started to… pixelate, almost… almost like it was about 20 years ago, and he felt like his stomach was being taken on a rollercoaster ride. The lab shook, and walls around him glitched in and out of existence. Then, gravity flipped.

Desperate not to have to respawn for the fifth time today - one giving blame to a certain secret sauce in Knuckles’ knockoff chilli dogs - the fox feebly tried clinging onto a loose floorboard. What happened next finally made him scream (or maybe whimper… he couldn’t seem to recall). 

His hand passed straight through the floorboard.

He felt dizzy. His throat was tight. Everything inside of him felt like it had been turned inside-out multiple times, and his heart didn’t even seem to be beating. The poor fox couldn’t handle much more of this… and as everything flying around finally started to fall back onto the floor, and as the quaking reached a standstill, Tails’ head was hit by the floating books and machinery, knocking him out cold. His last thought, Sonic? Knuckles? Amy? Anyone…?

References:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)
  
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020 film) [the Electric Quill in the movie seems similar enough to what Game Eggman would probably have liked to utilise, albeit earlier]
  
• Super Mario

Chapter Text

Chapter 3:

RI

Earlier on Angel Island…

“So, uh… How’s this thing turned on again?” asked the red echidna, scraping his pointed knuckles against a peculiar device, prompting Amy to facepalm with an exhausted groan.scr

“For the last time, Knuckles, you don’t need to touch it!” she cried out loud in exasperation, raising her hands to the sky. “It’s voice-activated ! Tails made sure you wouldn’t have to brea- err,  touch it.”

Knuckles gave her a suspicious look. “I ain’t stupid, Amy. What’d you just say?” His fists seemed to be clenched, making the pink hedgehog feel slightly more nervous.

“Look, it doesn’t matter. Just remember, Tails is coming by to help you program your voice into it tomorrow. And since he made me come over here to watch you, it seems like I won't be getting a lot of sleep tonight. ” She murmured the last part, hoping that Knuckles wouldn’t catch the insult she had unintentionally spoken.

“Hey, I resent that!” he shouted.

Amy was about to retort, before taking a deep breath, and closing her eyes. “Ok, ok… Look, it’s been a long day for us both. Should we just turn in for now?” 

Knuckles agreed hastily. Another day had gone by successfully. Rouge hadn’t attempted to sneak the Master Emerald away from him (perhaps because he’d wrecked the new mailbox Sonic had gifted him). Eggman hadn’t had any schemes that involved it, or at least, nobody had selected a game that required the doctor to steal it. And he’d actually had a bit of fun protecting the Emerald while playing a few games to pass the time. 

All in all, today hadn’t actually been that bad. He’d done his duty without any interference, and that just made this one of the few best days he’d ever had.

To be truthful, even if the Master Emerald was stolen, there was a bit of adrenaline rushing for him to recapture it from whoever had taken it… but protecting it was always his top priority.

Actually, that was something that he was quite conflicted on. He was a game character, and he knew it, so did that mean protecting the Emerald was useless if anybody would just select a game where somebody would steal it right from under his nose? Just acting for the game made him doubt his duties. But if this was all pointless… What was his real priority? His real purpose? Who was he?

Knuckles shook his head, clearing his mind. This was never going to make him feel any better. It was better if he just ignored the problem instead of trying to find an impossible, probably non-existent solution. For now, he was content with what he was.

“So, Knuckles…” Amy’s voice broke his train of thought, and the echidna turned his head around. “...where are we going to sleep?” His companion looked around, hoping to see a hut, or shack, or anything that would allow her to get comfortable and fall asleep. A gust of wind started gently blowing, making Amy shiver.

“Well, I usually sleep outside.” He gestured to the wild landscape, where there was a thick, knobbly old tree, its branches gently swaying in the wind. The grass danced near the thick roots of the old oak, and a few daisies and sunflowers flew in the breeze. Right next to it was the podium where the Master Emerald sat, gleaming in the calm light of the moon. 

“Uh, I can’t sleep out in the open! I’ll catch a cold, or get hypothermia, or… or…”

Knuckles tried his hardest to keep a straight face at the hedgehog’s panic. He pretended to groan, and said, “Hey, hey, calm down! Look, if you want, there is a cave over there.” He pointed to a wall, with a small crack in it. Amy raised an eyebrow. “It’s there, alright? Just… run your hand along the wall until you feel a gap.”

Amy replied warily, “Ok… but this had better not be a trick. Have a good night!” she said, running off in the direction Knuckles had pointed her in.

The echidna held back a snigger. “It’ll take her forever to find it. Or she might not even. Who knows?” He sighed, and lay back, taking in a breath of fresh air. A few fireflies flew towards Knuckles. Two landed on his right fist, making him chuckle, before shaking them off. “Go on. Goodnight guys! Better get some rest for tomorrow!”

At that point, the echidna was starting to feel the blanket of sleep wrap around him as he leaned on the tree, by the Master Emerald. But just before he could finally drift off, a sound similar to that of an explosion reached his ears. If his eardrums could have, they would have exploded as well, but it did make him jump upright.

“What in Chaos’ name was that?! ” he shouted. Quickly, he peered over the edge of the island to see what was going on. If it was Tails’ experiments that were disturbing him, outside of his lab…

Surprisingly, he didn’t see the young fox anywhere. “Something’s going on here…” he muttered to himself. He took a few steps back, and prepared himself to glide off his guardpost and investigate, when all of a sudden, Angel Island started shaking.

Knuckles was broken out of his state of mind, and almost fell off into the endless, cloudless sky, were it not for his glove accidentally hitting the floating chunk of land. Dangling off the side of the island, he could feel tremors coming from… the floating rock itself? Quickly, he climbed back up, and looked around desperately. Like lightning, a thought flashed inside his head. “Wait– No. No, no, no, no, no!”

He rushed to the Master Emerald, inspecting it. No. This can’t be. The Emerald isn’t a fake, that’s for sure. And Rouge wouldn’t dare try anything at night, especially regarding the Emerald. I mean, she couldn’t. Could she?

Before he could panic further, the island shook even more violently, and everything attached to its surface started drifting away. The echidna was flying up, and fast. A flailing root from a nearby tree was calling to the warrior, offering him help. And so, trying his hardest to glide against the invisible force pushing him away, he strained his arm, trying to reach the last thing attached to the ground. Even the Master Emerald had floated up, though Knuckles didn’t realise it.

Only once he finally reached the root - and tightly gripped it - did he realise how much his arms actually hurt. And he felt odd too. It was as if he’d eaten something really rotten, and was ready to puke. 

And then he glitched.

His fist was turning into a pixelated mess, and he couldn’t feel his face anymore. Is the game broken? Why is this happening to me?! All of a sudden, his hand finally stopped glitching, but Knuckles recoiled in shock, meaning he floated upwards with no control over himself.

For a second, he saw words flash overhead. Blocky text high up in the sky, ɄⱤɎɄ Ɽ₱'₱Đ ₦V₲₭ ₥₮, ₱V ₣V₦₭ØĐ, flickered momentarily, before disappearing just as quickly, without a trace. 

And just as it had started, everything came to a stop almost instantaneously. Knuckles crashed onto the ground, smashing his face in dry mud. As the gem he was guarding magically floated down back into its designated spot, he was out for the count, unable to feel anything more. 

Elsewhere, some time later…

Silver firmly closed the gate to the city behind him, and ran, trying to catch up to the shadowy figure in front of him. “Hey Shadow, wait up!” he called. The figure did not stop walking.

“Shadow… I said wait up. Didn’t you hear me?” he asked, trying not to pant in exhaustion. He raised a hand to say something more, albeit unable to speak, but then clutched his chest in pain. Argh, why’s it still hurting? I thought I’d taken care of it yesterday.

Shadow the Hedgehog glanced back at the buffoon he was forced to work with, groaning. If he had his way, this would have been done all by himself. But Silver had insisted. That, and their memories of Crisis City were still fuzzy. 

“We don’t have all night, Silver. For your own sake, try and keep up,” he said, before skating ahead. Silver struggled, but eventually started flying, using his psychokinesis to move himself. It wasn’t optimal, but he was very skilled at whatever he put his mind to… although that might have been more literal in this situation.

“Wa… What’s… What’s wrong in here anyway?” he asked, still dealing with the pain in his stomach. He hovered next to Shadow, a thin blue ESP catchpoint around him. 

“There have been… complaints in this part of the game. A bug has been causing the player to skip over certain parts of the level. Did you bring the device?”

“You mean Tails’ CodeTwister 500? Right here, ready to fix some glitches!” he announced, bringing out what appeared to be a mixture of the Miles Electric and a USB stick. “I do have a question, though.”

Shadow didn’t respond, or turn to face him. Feeling slightly intimidated, Silver hesitated, before his curiosity got the better of him. “Uh, you said earlier that the level needed to be investigated thoroughly to find the bug, but you’re also saying that we’ll only take around… an hour? I think. So, how ar-” He was cut off by the latter elbowing Silver in his ribs.

“OUCH! What was that fo-?” Again, he was interrupted by Shadow, as he slammed a gloved hand over the grey hedgehog’s mouth. The pair scanned the scene like searchlights in a prison.

Silence.

Then a rustling noise. 

Shadow jumped into a battle stance. “Whoever’s out there, show yourself, while I have mercy for you.” Nothing happened. The dark-quilled hedgehog repeated, “Final warning.”

More silence, before a figure jumped out from behind a flaming car. He was dressed almost fully in black, but he had an eye mask cut-out for him to see. Aside from that, the only other part of him that was clear enough to see was his curled purple tail and instantly recognisable shape. His three-pointed head made it easy to tell who he was.

“Espio?...That disguise of yours needs work. You’re too easy to recognise,” Silver commented. “More importantly though, what are you doing in Crisis City?”

Ignoring Silver’s remark, Shadow asked the chameleon, “Did you gather the required intel?” To answer that, he produced a device in the form of source code.

“The entire level code as of current. We can track the glitch down 4.5 times more efficiently; whatever it is stands no chance of hiding. We should course through the level backwards. Our source has observed the glitch to be most prominent post-climax of the level.”

Continuing to ignore Silver’s confused expressions, Shadow half-remarked, “How many hours does Vector watch the players per day, exactly?”

Espio gave a cold, quick sigh. “Shadow, this is all we’ve got to go on. The surge inspector will run a full arcade diagnostic in 2 hours, and if they see a glitch, we’ll be locked out of Game Central Station. You know how that ends.”

Silver watched the pair talking, wondering why he was always the third wheel, when something unlike anything they had experienced before happened. A sudden shudder caused them all to stop talking and look up. Surprisingly, the buildings weren’t actually shaking; it felt like the world around them was shivering, making the trio feel cautious. Something else was going on, something… unnatural.

And then, Espio flickered out of existence for a second. He was replaced by the sight of… 

A flash of yellow, shaped like a star, strung together by black, humanoid metal. For only a second, this happened. A crackling filled the air, as pixel by pixel, letters messily took form, reading out the incomprehensive message ₭ĐQ₲VØ₥₦Ø ₮QɄɆ ₭₵ QɎĐ₮ ฿Ɏ ₴₥Ɇ₳. The letters began fizzling more and more, sparks of red and green flying out of it, before vanishing. Subsequently, the chameleon reappeared, looking almost queasy.

“What was that…? Emerl…? No…” Shadow wasted no time trying to fill any more gaps. He wasn’t going to concern himself with this for now.

“What now? This night is just getting a bit too crazy for me…” Silver looked dizzy, and was starting to regret coming here. He clutched his stomach again, as if trying to hold something in, earning a worried glance from Espio and a remorseful sigh from the Ultimate Life-Form.

“Whatever just happened, we can’t stop and ponder. It appears the glitch is escalating, and you know what that could mean…” Espio seemed full of dread.

They all spoke together, “An unplugging.”

Shadow then decided to take control over the matter. “We don’t have time for this. Espio, you and I will hunt down this glitch. Silver… Whatever we saw tonight, you tell nobody of. At least, not until we get answers. For now, try and defend us with your ESP as we make our way towards the source.”

“Actually, I, er, was thinking about heading back home…?” he asked carefully. Shadow crossed his arms and sighed, putting his hand to his head. 

“Ok. Go. But meet us back here in two days’ time. Whatever just happened was worse than a glitch. And I intend to find out the truth.”

References:

• Sonic 06
• Sonic Battle

Chapter Text

3-15-4-5

Chapter 4: Humble Start-Up

Stan Litwak stared at the pile of bricks in front of him. It was old, rundown, dusty and falling apart at the seams. He smiled. It was perfect.

“Here you go, sir,” said the old manager. He handed him a rusty old keyring. Clipped on it was a silver key and a chain that was once connected to something else, but had been broken long ago. Litwak smiled again, and dug his hand into the pocket of his blue waistcoat. Carefully, he took out the small keyring, and attached it on.

In an 8-bit pixel design, it spelled out ‘L’.

“Thanks again for letting me have the place,” said the young man in his thirties. He sized up the place again, imagining all the potential that he could find. This was the biggest success he’d had in years, even if the place needed a little elbow grease.

The manager, glum as ever, replied, “Don’t thank me. You know you’ve got a lot of work to do to fix the place up, right? I’d call it quits if I were you. Get a nice little place for myself, just off the shore, maybe have a family.” He gave a glance at the old building before turning back to him.

Litwak just couldn’t stop grinning as he gladly said, “It’s no problem I can’t handle, sir! This has been my dream for years! To find a good spot, renovate it, and make it into the place of my dreams. Of people’s dreams.” He finally turned around to face the old manager, but by then, he was walking back to his rundown Volkswagen.

The man quickly ran over to the car, and tapped on the window of the car. The old man hesitated, but rolled down the window. “You sure you don’t want your money back? I’m still willing to offer you everything you paid back for free. This place ain’t worth all the hassle, y’know.”

To the man’s shock - which he didn’t express - he just chuckled. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Thanks a million for the opportunity, sir!” The old man sighed, and pulled up the glass barrier between them, as he carefully reversed his car. 

Good luck, kiddo. You’re gonna need it.

Years later, after that withered old manager had pulled his vehicle out of the loneliest building in the state, Litwak had decided to call in some help. After first opening the doors, he’d encountered quite a few problems.

First of all, the dust. Like mould, it was everywhere. On the walls, circling the pillars, around the musty boxes and crawling on the stained carpet. For the majority of the shop, there was nothing a bit of ventilation couldn’t fix up, but some of the places required a bit more… encouragement. In the shape of a vacuum cleaner. Then came the rest of the shop. Yes, the carpet being replaced was a task he couldn’t handle. And the chipped pillars and dented walls all needed patching up. But by far, the worst problem had to be the rotten floorboards, which hoarded an array of insects, rodents and creatures. Litwak was convinced he could hear a cat meowing whenever he got close to the floor.

Fortunately, he’d saved up quite a bit of money, and had planned everything out. Ever since he was a child, which wasn’t that long ago, he knew that he had wanted to make a place where kids of all ages could play games. Sure, he wasn’t the first to make an arcade. But he could try and make his one different, by including every machine he could get his hands on and providing service with a smile. 

After years of working as a janitor and a librarian, and also as a coder for a few companies, he was finally ready to start his dream. And in his heyday too. He was a young man, with gleaming black hair, blue eyes that were sparkling like water, and a small mustache under his pale nose. Wearing a black-and-white striped shirt, a blue waistcoat, and some yellow trousers for attire, he was ready to turn this place on its head, no matter the cost.

And so, after 5 long years of repairs, with electrical tests being taken, and new panels replacing the gross wooden floorboards, and even finding the cat that Litwak had imagined trapped in a basement (which he did not know was part of the building), the building was finally… not ready.

It was cleaned up, and definitely looked better, but it wasn’t ready.  

Well, not yet. 

The manager knew this all too well, and was busy handling all the details of the arcade itself. For any profits to be made, he needed the core principle of an arcade: an arcade machine.

But which one should he buy? He hadn't played many games since a young age, and the most popular ones were definitely PAC-MAN and Space Invaders. Centipede and Donkey Kong were also quite a hit…

But to be honest, Litwak wanted to start off the arcade with something new. Something different. Albeit unheard of, but something unique.

The day arrived. It was 5:00 a.m., on the thirteenth of a summer month. Two days later, the arcade would finally open, and he could bring the joy of arcade games to everyone. But for now, he was waiting outside the shop, the glass windows behind him trying to figure out what he was looking for.

HONK! A large van started pulling into the parking lot, double the length of any normal car, and probably triple the height. Stan Litwak made his way towards the vehicle as it parked carefully.

“Heya, Stan! How’s the place comin’ along?” came the jolly warm voice from the driver’s seat at the front. The man looked to be no older than him, perhaps maybe even younger, with blonde hair, a warm smile, and friendly brown eyes. 

“Oh, it’s been a project, that’s for sure,” came the equally jaunty reply. “Hey, do you have the package I ordered?” 

Jumping out of the side, he made his way to the rear of the van, and informed him, “Yeah, yeah, it’s all in ‘ere. See?” Turning the handle, he pulled open the doors, revealing three crates, each the same size as another. “All yer games are ready ta go! Just need ya to sign over here. Standard procedure,” he concluded, producing a clipboard with a ballpoint pen attached by chain. Quickly, he scribbled a signature onto the paper, before turning it around for the driver to see.

Squinting at the mess of ink, he sighed. “Well, it’s valid alright. Just man up your handwritin’ Stan. It ain’t that hard.” Chuckling, he grabbed a box, and with barely any effort, managed to lift it up, carrying it inside. As the two chatted together whilst dragging in boxes - having a little break for tea - Stan unboxed each of the arcade machines. Each of them stood in the sunlight, basking in the light of the sun. They looked glorious.

PAC-MAN was there. As was his last minute decision, Asteroids. But there was one game that he had spent so much time looking for - well, now it was the one he was the most proud of.

“Welcome to your new home, Fix-It Felix.”

OTLR11: Hello, everyone! Presenting my first time ever writing something completely non-canon - depending on how you interpret this - and from the past, through another perspective

LimiteR_RinG: Hey! I helped...

OTLR11: Ok, ok, I'll give him that much. Anyways, I'm going to take a break for a couple of days to review what I've written and start openly editing. I'll do it in short Sprints, and when I'm done, I'll post the updated chapters for the people who are reading this. P lease leave some kudos and let us know what you think in the comments!

LimiteR_RinG: Also, we might have to go on hiatus soon... but not for now I hope. And by the way, if you want to help us decide what to do next, (Oswald's thinking along the lines of a Q&A...) do tell us!

Chapter Text

Chapter 5:

WKDW

Digital UV rays shone through the window, waking up a certain hedgehog. Stretching his arms, he looped around the walls of his house, doing all the things anyone would do on a regular morning: brushing his teeth, showering for a hot second, changing his attire to a more adventure-ready style, and, of course, a trip to the little hedgehog’s room.

He groggily called out, “Hey Tails, you awake?” He brushed his teeth as he waited for Tails to respond.

Unfortunately for Sonic, he didn’t hear anything. But this didn’t panic him; there had been many a time where his best friend had fallen asleep whilst working on something awesome. So he continued cleaning his teeth, before speeding out of the bathroom and calling out again.

“Tails! Time to wake up, buddy!” Rise and SHINE!”

Still no reply.

Sonic dashed around the lab, checking all the various places he could be; the bathroom, the porch, maybe the Tornado, even Amy’s house, the bathroom again, the porch again, no, no, no, there was every possibility he’d just disappeared into another room. He couldn’t be missing.

He must have just gone to GCS. Yes, that was it. He must have been doing some work out there, safe and sound, in Game Central Station. It wasn’t a big deal…

The blue blur dashed out of his home, running across the grassy landscape of Green Hill. Jumping on springs and Homing Attacking enemies, he called out, “Tails? Where are you?” Even going through the loop-de-loop, he was feeling slightly worried. His buddy had never left him this suddenly. Was everything alright?

Finally reaching the train to leave his game, sonic didn’t even bother jumping on, and just ran along the tracks. He always did this when he was bored; to stimulate his mind and to keep him focused. Electricity crackled under his shoes, sending sparks of blue flying with each footstep. 

Just outside of his game, and in the centre of the arcade, was the two-tailed fox. Sonic grinned, and internally gave a sigh of relief. If something bad had happened to his buddy… he could never forgive himself.

Slowing down to a jog, he walked up to Tails, who was busy talking to the Surge Protector. A few people were walking here and there, but it was pretty quiet, seeing as it was an early morning. “Hey, Tails. What’s going on?” he said, walking up to the pair.

“Oh, hi Sonic. I thought you were sleeping…” Tails looked a little nervous.

The Surge Protector gave him a bored look. “Nothing’s wrong here, Mr. Hedgehog. You can go back to your game, rest assured, nothing’s going on. Just a little code trouble from what I’ve gathered.” The top of his mostly bald blue head crackled with electricity, as he peered through his glasses at his clipboard.

“Code WHAT?!” Sonic turned to Tails, confused. “What’s he talking about, buddy? Did I miss something?”

“Maybe…?” Tails tried. Sonic gave him a bewildered look, before the fox pressed, “Last night, didn’t you realise something weird happened? Anything off?”

“Uh… I don’t think the fastest thing alive can miss anything,” he quipped, giving a goofy look, before being serious again, “but I honestly think everything was fine last night.” A small silence ran amongst the group, before he asked, “So what happened?”

Tails opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a new voice from far away, shouting, “Guys! Guys! You-you’ll never guess what happened last night.” Knuckles ran up to the group, holding a fist up for them to wait.

Tails was almost bored of this. “Oh, I dunno, let me guess… This is totally out of the blue, and I have no idea what really happened, and it definitely didn’t affect me, but maybe, just maybe, the whole world started glitching, and gravity got dizzy, and stuff was happening so suddenly you wondered if it was real or not, and you were scared and sick and worried, and then it all stopped… or something like that.” He smirked at the end, and Sonic couldn't help but grin.

“ Wha- whaa-  What? How?” Knuckles managed to breathe out, as he stopped in front of the group. The inspector adjusted his glasses, narrowing his eyes.

“Because it happened to him, Knuckles,” the blue blur added, catching on quickly. The hedgehog resisted the urge to facepalm.

Knuckles sighed. “ ‘Course it wasn’t normal.” Usually, nothing exciting happened to him. Day after day he would guard the Master Emerald, and as much as he tried to enjoy it, in the end, it was quite boring. And now the one time his life had been spiced up, it wasn’t just him.

“Knuckles, this could actually be serious. I know it’s not always fun up on your floating rock, but whatever happened sounds dangerous, not exhilarating. What I really don’t get is how I didn’t know about any of this…”

The Surge Protector butted in, with a suspicious look on his face, saying, “Oh, but, if anything does happen, you tell me . Got it? It could be dangerous, and I don’t want to see characters deal with any viruses. Not today.”

The group nodded simultaneously, slightly creeping the blue inspector out. For a few moments, they all just stood there awkwardly, waiting for something to happen, before the Surge Protector suddenly shouted, “Don’t you have a game to get to?” The three jumped out of their trance, and quickly ran off, leaving him alone.

Tutting and shaking his head very judgingly, he muttered, “Honestly. Games these days…” before taking a step away and turning into a blue bolt of electricity, zipping out of sight.

To say that the rest of the day ran like Sonic on a racetrack, would be pretty wrong. Sonic was fine. His friends were fine. The game was fine. Everything was going great, in all honesty.

Ok, so that was maybe Sonic’s perspective. But to everyone else, including the players later on in the day, the game seemed to be acting up a bit. For starters, Tails’s lab was behaving oddly. Whenever Tails went near it, the game would freeze for just a second before letting him in, and the same went for whenever he was leaving. 

But Sonic could enter it perfectly fine.

Then, during parts in City Escape in Sonic Adventure 2, the truck would get closer and closer much quicker, leading to Sonic dying multiple times. It was more thrilling, but honestly, respawning thirteen times in a day was bad enough without including the omen.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Wisps in Sonic Colors were acting strangely. When Sonic touched one, it would either work if he was lucky, disappear or give him the wrong colour power. After almost going deaf listening to the announcer shout ‘CUBE!’ every time he wanted to just drill to the Finish ring, he handed the Wisp to Tails when the arcade closed. The yellow Wisp gladly shared his power with Tails, and by then, it was all working just fine…

Even Shadow could see a deeper issue was uncovering. In his part of Sonic Adventure 2, Radical Highway was looking… different. As if someone had been warping reality to resemble the memorable level, but not quite hitting the nail on the head. And every time the player took him off the edge, some kind of cutscene played where he fell through an extra-warped part of the place. It was… unsettling, to say the least, though he did appreciate the “musical advancements” in this version… until it reminded him of Black Doom.

And Knuckles and Silver had had similar experiences, with their respective areas acting quite freeze-y. That was all, though, so there wasn’t a massive call to panic... to most of Sonic's friends.

High above, on Egg Planet Park, Sonic angrily kicked a rock, managing to hit a Badnik right on the face. It glared at Sonic, but did nothing, as he continued pacing around, annoyed. "Tails, something weird is going on."

Tails, who was on his Miles Electric, looked up, and gave his best friend a knowing look. "I know, Sonic. This isn't the first time you've said it." Sonic glanced at him, and chuckled awkwardly. The two tailed fox walked up to him, treading on the painted star in the centre of Tropical Resort. The light from the stars and rides shone all around them, soft and glittering. It was peaceful; you could even see the Earth from here and bask in its glory. Nearby, a Ferris Wheel idly turned, the blue, yellow and pink lights on the edges twinkling. Tails held Sonic's wrist, and his footsteps stopped momentarily. 

Sonic stopped, and looked at Tails. Tails said nothing back though, and just looked ahead. turning his head, the hedgehog slowly relaxed, as he took in the sights. The soft rolling of the amusement rides, the rustling of the palm trees, the sparkling of the stars and the brightness of the resort all dug its way through the tensity Sonic had built up. Slowly, he took in and released a few breaths (Slowly being as slow as the fastest thing alive could afford to go, of course).

The tablet in the fox's hand was still whirring softly, as lines of code flashed every second. He quickly glanced down at it, and nudged the blue blur. "Sonic. You don't need to worry about the game, ok? We're all gonna try to stop this. And we'll figure this out before it gets any further than here, 'kay?"

For a second, Sonic had nothing to say, He thought quietly, as a Cyan and Red Wisp fluttered by. Tails smiled softly, as the Cyan Wisp decided to land on his shoulder, and glanced back to his best friend. A gust of wind brushed his face and arms, and Sonic rose out of his pit of thoughts, looking back at Tails.

He grinned, and ruffled the fox's head. "Alright, buddy. You'll figure something out; I know you will." He gestured to the space corridor, and put on a mock-posh accent, pushing his worry away. "Should we leave, your Royal Fluffiness?"

Tails grinned, and replied in the same tone, "Whenever you're ready, Lord Slowpoke!"

Sonic gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder, and laughed. "Oh yeah? How about we race back down to Earth my way?"

The wisp fluttered off Tails' shoulder, waving bye, as Tails chuckled. Even if he was going to have to jump off the planet and try to land back on Earth - while seeing who could get there first, and breaking as many asteroids as possible, making this a real challenge - it had brought Sonic back from his mind. But inside Tails' mind, the worry was still bouncing around, causing him a headache. The virus was completely unexpected, and impossibly powerful. Breaking into the levels like this was like it was taunting them. Trying to mess with his mind by dealing a blow that he'd never expected was possible. Every level that had been made for each of their games had massive amounts of data and assets stored in them. Cutscenes, objects, commands... etcetera. But what bore a hole through the fox's mid was that they were made to be impossible for players to break into and hack. SEGA had gone all out making their cabinet; it could handle all the common viruses and even the bugs in its own code. What kind of power could possibly be doing this to the game? 

As the pair jumped off the planet, Sonic curled up into his spin-dash form, and started bouncing off the nearby cluster of rocks. He could have sworn he'd seen a string of letters flash past him, spelling YQNVT ZI DLF, YZRYB IO FXKNE, MIINE UHYN ROOX BUK JGOOBARJ XPY, but it made no sense, so he quickly dismissed it. Tails followed behind closely, dodging the cracked pieces of rock that flew his way, keeping an eye out for anything peculiar. He could've sworn he'd seen something else flash by too, but the fox was sure it was a hallucination. As the blue hedgehog sped down faster and faster, his trail of blue becoming more distant, the fox started smashing the asteroids in an attempt to try to keep up. The rocks provided him with a short, but sweet speed boost, and after at least ten more, he was on par with Sonic. Both were starting to, but not quite, burning up. 

Hurtling closer to the Earth, Sonic and Tails spun through more debris, both equally enjoying the competition. But the silence between them said it all; whirring through space, both minds wandered back to thoughts of the game, and worry about what would happen next...

Despite their niggling worries about the state of the Super Sonic Collection, the players didn’t complain about it, some thinking this twist was just Litwak’s personal touch, whilst others just thought it would be fixed in a patch update. Though the arcade didn’t “have” internet and Litwak himself wasn't a programmer at all, so both options didn't hold well on their own.

Still, the day eventually concluded. Lights went out, Litwak locked up, and loads of characters threw themselves into the cosiest corner they could find, to get some well deserved rest, while some of the games went to Tapper’s for a soda or two. 

However, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were holding a small meeting amongst themselves to figure out what was going on. 

“Ok guys. Shadow and Silver are back on Glitch Duty, and today, boy oh boy, have they got their hands full. So to help, I want to know anything and everything you guys have seen.”

Knuckles raised a hand. Sonic sighed. He was hoping to hear from Tails, but maybe Knuckles had something useful to say…

“Yes, Knuckles?”

“Does this, er, meeting come with any snacks? I genuinely haven’t eaten all day. You see, Rouge sent me a letter, and I didn’t read it, but I know it meant she was gonna do something, so I was on double focus guarding the Emerald, but she didn’t-”

“Knuckles, I’m very sorry for you, really, but firstly, there are no snack breaks since I don't have food on me, and secondly, it’s midnight anyway.”

“Oh. O-ok. I’ll just, er, wait till morning…”

Tails, seeing Knuckles' frustrated face, piped up.  “You know, Knuckles isn’t being irrelevant. Rouge was going to stage something, but some kind of glitch meant that she couldn’t enter Angel-”

“HA! I knew it! You see everyone? I’m not paranoid! I repeat, not paranoid!” claimed the echidna, throwing his hands into the air in relief.

Sonic looked at the echidna exasperatedly, tempted to grumble. “Yes, okay, thank you Knuckles. Anything… useful to report? Anyone?”

Tails spoke again. “Well, you remember the Wisps, right? As bad as it was-”

“Not just bad. Painful.” Sonic said through gritted teeth.

“Right, well, something similar is happening in Jam and Fighters. Half the things there either work wrong or don’t work at all.” Tails hesitated, before continuing, “I think this might be some kind of side effect after what happened last night. You know, with all the gravit–”

“Gravity flips? I mean, it could be… though we don’t know how dangerous it really is . Side effects wear off, right? Tomorrow, everything will be right as rain!”

Knuckles said, darkly, “You’d better be right.”

Sonic and Tails just stared at the echidna, who glared back. Eventually, the latter broke, and the young fox said, “ Ok… That concludes our meeting. I suppose… I’ll patch these occurrences over to Silver and the Surge Protector. We should go to bed now. Get some rest. Goodnight, guys.” Sighing glumly, everyone headed off to get a well deserved break from the glitches in their game ( well, Knuckles used a portal Tails made to get back to Angel Island ), hoping that this was all as Sonic said: a side effect.

What Tails worried about, as he tossed and turned in his bed that night, was what it was a side effect of.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6:

2-9-14-4

Deep beneath the surface of the game, in a room locked away from curious eyes, an unknown, unnatural creature ravaged through the endless space of code. The life-force of the arcade machine. 

In the blue, floating void, where stands of blue blocks linked up to other packages of black and green, the creature felt at home. But not because of the calming sound of silence, or the cute floating pixels that resembled birds fluttering around, or even the small artificial sunset that was visible at the seemingly endless back of this room; no, the files and codes and endless amounts of data were all it needed. It was sustenance. Food to power the creature, make it grow, make it stronger, smarter and better.

Food that made the creature’s eyes glimmer, as it opened its jaw, drooling at the large blocks.

–  - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - —

Unfortunately for the crew, their luck must have been really bad ( perhaps because of the bad omen in City Escape, which Tails refused to acknowledge ), and the game was barely any better than the previous day. The majority of the glitches were still present. The Wisps were still betraying Sonic unintentionally, the worlds kept developing freeze areas, but most of the red, flickering patches of land had been dealt with. Despite this, more annoying bugs kept creeping behind or jumping at the Sonic crew. Every world was adopting a bug of its own, but few places like Tails’ lab was still easier to access than others.

It wasn’t perfect, but at least he and Sonic were able to go home at the end of the day, right?

Well, in a cruel twist of fate, Angel Island started to crash multiple games. When the player would start bouncing through in ‘Sonic 3 & Knuckles’ (kindly compiled into one game by the arcade cabinet), the game would unexpectedly black-out, earning groans from each player who had received the fortune of being able to slip coins into the cabinet.

One child, who was only 7 years old, was the one to finally have enough. Running up to Mr. Litwak, who was busy inspecting Space Invaders after a few complaints had come about it the day before, he tugged his sleeve desperately. The teenager at Space Invaders watched as Stan tapped on the screen for the umpteenth time, before the spacecraft flickered to life, flying again through. “...I think that should– Yep! Working smooth as butter again.” He smiled at Stan for a second, before turning back to the cabinet, frowning again. Stan chuckled, before turning to the little child. He gently asked, “Hey, kiddo. What’s wrong?”

Sounding like he was crying - which he was not - he wailed at him , lisping, “Mr Witwak, the game’s not wowking.” He pointed at the Sonic the Fighters arcade machine, which had a sign taped on it, meant to inform customers there was more than one game in the machine. Stan Litwak ended up nicknaming it the ‘Super Sonic Collection’. However, the sign was now missing a few letters. He really needed to get around to fixing that.

Walking over to the machine, he peered closely through his glasses, wondering why the game was becoming a blank screen. Peculiarly, the lives and rings were still in the top right hand corner. “Hmm, seems like a small glitch. I don't think I need to call the repairman..." Stan thought, watching the blank screen intently. It stared back at him for at least a minute, before the flicker of green grass, blue water and checkered soil. It disappeared as quickly as it reappeared, but Stan had a small idea. "Wait, kiddoo. Let me try something.”

He gave it two sharp, small slaps on the right side, and all of a sudden, the level smoothed out, showing Knuckles laughing at Sonic and his buddy. “There we go! Should be working fine now.” The little child thanked Mr. Litwak profusely, and jumped back in the seat, playing through the game again with renewed enthusiasm.

However, internally, Stan Litwak was worried. He wasn’t sure about what to do with the game. Heck, he wasn't even sure that hitting the machine would've worked. Yes, it was far too rare and expensive to just pull the plug on. But the amount of complaints that he was getting wasn’t normal... no, it almost never happened. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and held back a groan. One more chance. He’d let the game run for a couple of days more. If it was still glitching, he’d try a factory reset, and if it was broken after that… Well, he certainly couldn’t afford SEGA to check on it twice in a year, so… he’d have to…

No. Think positive thoughts, Stan. It won’t go bust. It won’t.

–  - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - — - – - —

Shadow and Silver were up once again after hours. The Ultimate Life-Form was so, so furious with the game’s constant glitches, that he’d had to call Silver back yesterday, to help him track down the source. But obviously, he chickened out again after receiving the update from Tails, so this time, he was bringing Espio with him. Fortunately, that had convinced Silver to join him this time around. But if the worst came to be, at least he knew Espio wouldn’t abandon him. 

From outside Radical Highway, Silver walked in tenatively, looking nervous. His eyes darted everywhere, observing the damage done to the level. Red and black textures flicked to blue and green; the sky couldn't seem to decide between day or night, choosing to compromise by keeping the sun AND moon up; the rails and ground beneath them flickered, unsure of whether being here was a good idea; and the buildings in front of them were pixelated, not looking the slightest bit real. Letters flickered in the air, spelling out the nonsensical words, ฿₲₳Ⱬ₥ ฿Ӿ₮₭ł₮ɄӾ₩฿ ⱫĐĐɄ ₴Ø₵ł  ₣ØⱧⱧ ⱠQɎ ɆĐ₵Ɇł₱ ₴Ɽ Ⱬ฿₥₣₱₥ ӾĐ₩Ӿ J₮VɆ.

“So, this place was affected?” he asked Shadow, standing by his side, but staring at the level.

There was an awkward quiet, before the hedgehog answered, “Yes, it is, and it's been getting steadily worse. Don’t tell me you’re going to back away from this.”

The grey hedgehog chuckled, trying to shake off the bad-feeling sense in his body. He said lightly, “I was, uh, just busy… with other things. Besides, don’t tell me you’re not worried about all these strange occurrences. You've been working on tracking this thing down for days, and haven't even taking a nap!”

Shadow brushed it off by saying, “Well, you’ve certainly been a help with that, haven't you?” Silver fell silent at his serious tone, tinged with disdain, and continued to stare. He was tempted to back away, but the moment he thought that, Shadow interrupted his internal debate.

“Espio, what did you find?” he asked. Silver was confused for a minute. It took the hedgehog from the future a few moments to see Espio in the distance, stood atop a bridge. He was holding two fingers to the side of his ear. A noise similar to a crackle came through on Shadow’s head piece, and he replied, “Drat. Continue the search. We’ll be there if you need the backup.”

“What’s wrong, Shadow?”

“The glitch seems to have disappeared. Whatever we’re dealing with is cleverer than we think, and is sensing our presence.” He skated through the bridge, with Silver following him close behind. Just as they reached a bend in the road, Shadow turned around and put a hand up.

“Shadow? Why are you…?”

“I’ll continue the search myself. I know this place better than all of you.” He extracted a small, silver button with a metallic mesh visible on one side, and ta smooth opposite side. Tossing it over to him, Shadow watched the grey hedgehog turn it over in his hand. He gruffly spoke. “It’s a headpiece that’ll allow you to communicate with us. Stay here, and wait. Espio will call if he needs you.”

Shadow started skating off again, smashing through each stationary robot that stood in his way. The hedgehog looked up too late, calling out to the black and red hedgehog, “Wait, where are you going?”

But he got no answer. Bored, he returned to the start position of Radical Highway, and sat down, waiting for something interesting to happen. Watching the world warp and glitch around him, the hedgehog found a surprisingly good opportunity to think and relax. The moment he was in - in the past, to be precise, but it was starting to feel like the present to him… it was confusing stuff, but time travel was never designed to be easy - was quiet and calm, and actually somewhat beautiful. It made him feel quite remorseful about his future. Compared to the glitchy highway, his world was always so fiery, and burnt… no life, no plants or animals… only when he fixed the past would the future ever turn back to something similar. Something better. But even then, it just wouldn’t last long and change back to something else. Even if it wasn’t as fiery, it was guaranteed to be dystopian in some way. T he past was always in need of his help, for some weird reason. It could have been anyone, literally anyone else’s job, but he was the only one who could do it. Or was brave enough to, anyway.

Sometimes, he just wished he could live in the past. Here, he was helping to fix the future. Everyone around him was trying their hardest to protect what was in front of them, destroying literal gods just for their home to live on. It was impossible to permanently fix the future, yet easier to fix the past. But… in the end, the future was his home. He couldn't really belong here.

Besides, there were always the weird things that happened with time travel that made barely any sense to him, or Sonic, or Shadow. Like why any of them couldn’t remember the very first time they met. Before their very first meeting, there was another one. Silver was sure of it. It had escaped his mind completely, as if something had forcefully pushed it out of his mind. 

He did remember one word though: Iblis. Why that was linked to his memory of meeting the blue and black blurs, he couldn’t quite put a finger on. Why he still remembered that something was missing, that was even more confusing. All he knew was that they were friends, they’d faced foes, and time was a tricky thing that he didn’t want to unpick. Looking up at the sky, he could feel his consciousness getting lost in a wild daydream about the future, past and present… almost too lost. All of which was abruptly broken by a crackling noise in his ear.

His attention immediately returning to the mission at hand, Silver listened to the noise in his ear, his fingers jumping to the earpiece. “*crackle, fizz* Hello, anybody there? *zzt*” It was Espio.

Suddenly jumping up, Silver replied, worried, “Yes, coming in loud and… well, not very clear, but still! What’s going on?”

“Shadow’s found *crackle* nothing and I think the glitch is gone from my end. What’s your position?”

“Uh, at the start of the level?” Before Espio could say anthing about his progress, he swiftly continued, “Shadow stationed me here. I don’t know why - or when, really - but I’ve been here for a looong time.”

Espio made a noise similar to a groan, before saying, “Well, there's no point waiting here anymore. The glitch has long gone now. We’ll have to try again tomorrow, and hope we can catch it this time.” Silver shuddered, wondering what more could possibly become broken. “Go back home while me and Shadow try clearing up whatever's broken.”

“I’m always the kid here, huh…?” he muttered.

Suddenly, Shadow chimed in. "Silver, this is not up for debate. Leave your earpiece where you are, and go."

Silver rolled his eyes, and reluctantly tossed the tech to the floor, his eyes lingering on it for a few seconds. He blinked, and took one last look at the city before dashing off. All he could do now was hope that his friends had all this chaos under control.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: The Road (And What Happens On It)

XV

Back up where the grass was greener, dawn landed a hard blow on a blue blur. Sonic had barely gotten any sleep, after his latest nightmare of… well, he shuddered just trying to think about it. An… unplugging. His home - gone. His memories - gone. His life - gone. He couldn’t bear the thought. The best moments of his life were lived here, in and outside of the game. But he desperately needed something to distract his mind.

As he did his daily lap around Green Hill, grinding his quills against the grass, he thought about anything he could do today that could probably help him put the excess energy inside him to good use. Knuckles was most likely helping out around the arcade with Amy and Tails today. Silver and Blaze were probably in their own places, doing their... duties. What that consisted of, Sonic didn't bother trying to understand. Jet and the Babylon Rogues were almost definitely racing in a skatepark, grinding their Extreme Gears and putting them to the test ahead of their scheduled race next Sunday -- Sonic needed to remember to put the hawk back in his place then.

Bouncing up on some springs, he drove his body into some Buzz Bombers flying just above, smashing them to pieces, and freeing the Flickies inside of them. Mr. Litwak had called off sick today, so the arcade was closed today. Heck, if he really wanted to, he could try speed-running every game in Game Central Station. He was pretty confident he could get through every game past the Whack-A-Mole, including Sugar Rush; the place was pretty much a slightly cheaper version of Sweet Mountain, but with racing karts and lots of candy themed kids. The last time Sonic had been there, he'd nearly been blown up by a cherry.

A CHERRY, of all things. The hedgehog had only just managed to return it back to Candlehead, the kid who'd lit it up in the first place, and claim his number one spot. 

However, the Surge Inspector was now wary whenever he got close to the Whack-A-Mole. So that wasn't a choice anymore.

Eventually, Sonic screeched to a halt in front of Tails' workshop. Stood outside was a mini noticeboard the pair had made together. "Where are they...?" Sonic murmured to himself, trying to find Shadow and Espio's name on the list. He moved his finger across the paper, until eventually, it landed on Shadow's name.

"Shadow & Silver: Glitch Eradication (Mon - Fri: After Hours)"

Welp, Sonic knew what he was doing now.

“Do we have to-?”

“Yes, and no. You don’t have to. I could chuck you into the City Escape truck. I could let you be devoured by the Time Eater. You don’t have to, but I do. If you're going to do this job, then play it to the end, or leave while nothing has happened yet.” Shadow was patient with Silver, but he wasn’t going to let the blue nuisance slow his task down. He was currently skating away from a rather intimidating GUN truck, Silver flying down on his left, and Sonic on his right. Traditionally, Shadow worked this job alone. Since he was born into the code, it was the one constant in his life he ensured he did successfully. When Silver was added, he joined after a few months too, and despite his multiple hints, the grey hedgehog didn't understand what he was hinting at.

And so he'd ended up joining him. After the first few mess-ups, he was slightly more... tolerable with each hunt. As much as a part of him wanted to be doing it as alone as possible, the rest of him quietly enjoyed his company. Despite his clear attempts to help, he often ended up causing more problems, which was infuriating to a degree... but the pair of them were able to communicate well.

But his flashy blue counterpart was a different case. As they all sped through the dash pads, turning sharply at the end of each road, he called out, "Hey, Shads! What's the glitch here? Seems to be running perfectly fine!" Silver glanced at Sonic, tempted to laugh, but unsure about whether that was a pun or not. 

The dark-quilled hedgehog grunted. "Try not get caught up in the moment, hedgehog. You don't want to be here, trust me."

Well, Shadow, you know if everyone got what they wanted, we wouldn’t be in this mess people call “life”, Sonic thought to himself, his cocky smile replaced with a brittle grimace. Deal with it.

Pretty soon, the problem stuck its foot in Sonic's way. As the level reached the halfway point, a pile of the broken code was standing right in front of them: a sore red and black spot in the middle of the track, flickering menacingly amongst the grey cemented road. Shadow and Silver had managed to derive a solution to the problem that had worked sufficiently on all the tracks they'd repaired: channel some Chaos Energy right in front of the glitch, shoot it and the chances were good enough for it to shut down, turning back into grey road. So what was the problem?

Every time they would get within range, with the GUN truck close behind them, and the glitch in front of them, being so, so close to shooting their energy… the level would hit restart.

And once they ran all the way back to that point, it would restart again.

Even trying to fire their energy early, or slow the GUN truck behind them, didn't work.

And just when they thought it would work... the trio would restart at the very top of City Escape. Hours had passed by them, and once they reached the very point where all hope would reach a crescendo, virtually as close as possible… yup, another restart. They’d been going so fast for so long they were practically maintaining lightspeed and still they couldn’t reach it in time. Silver was the only one out of the three who was stating to show signs of tiring; he was unable to use his mind to levitate just over the ground, so resorted to running like the others. 

Sonic glanced at the two hedgehogs beside him and called out, "Guys! This isn't working." 

Shadow didn't respond for half a minute, before groaning. He turned to Silver as he skated down the road. “I hate to admit it, but Sonic is right. This isn’t working. We need a new tactic.”

“Maybe… you could use Chaos Control?” Sonic offered, just as he grabbed a line of rings.

“That fluxes time, not space. I’ll still reach halfway and reboot.” Shadow replied very matter-of-factly.

“Well, maybe… oh, I’ve got it!” Silver cried, snapping his fingers. The other two looked towards him expectantly. “I have an idea, but, er, you’re going to have to get really mad, Shadow…”

The trio were on their final run. Silently, they'd agreed if this didn’t work, nothing would. Past the first few blocks of houses, then the GUN truck burst through… They were fast approaching the scaffolding part, passing the skateboarding zone…

Here they were. The glitch was about a kilometre away. A few kilometres past that was the scaffolding, and past that was the goal. They slowed down a little, as the hedgehog from the future nodded. “Ok Sonic, you know what to do. Come on, man, you’re like, the world leading expert on this…!”

“‘Kay, Silver. Hey FAKER!” Sonic pulled possibly the goofiest face Shadow had ever seen.

“What did you just call me-?”

“Have a chilli dog.” WHAM! Sonic flung a chilli dog he'd been saving up at Shadow's face. This had better work, or he'd wasted a perfectly good snack for nothing.

“Why, you-”

“Hey, hey, Shadow- ‘GOTTA GO FAAAST’!” Sonic said this in the most taunting way possible, sticking his tongue out and putting his thumb on his nose, wiggling his fingers. But he didn’t think it was enough. Shadow was grimacing, but he still needed that final push.

“SOOONII-”

“No wait, Shadow- You're the ULTIMATE LIFE-FAKER!!” Sonic was actually laughing now - pretty lost in the moment, he was enjoying this.

“HOW DARE YOU, INSOLENT FOOL!! CHAOS… BLAST!!!”

And just as they were in a metre’s range of the glitch, a red wave of obliteration shot out across almost the entire level. The shockwave disappeared, smashing through everything in sight... including the glitch. It shimmered, and with a pop, vanished so swiftly, it was like it was never there to begin with. Shadow panted heavily as Sonic and Silver stopped beside him. The red-hot anger in his eyes slowly faded after taking a few breaths.

“The glitch is gone. My ability to expel chaos energy at a rapid rate across long distances to affect the glitch did work after all." He nodded approvingly, before glancing around. "Wait a second... what happened…?”

Unfortunately, Silver and Sonic were practically burning up right now, after Sonic’s verbal lunges at Shadow. He pinched a quill, putting out the flame that had ignited. Slightly bblackened, the two of them were beginning to look like Shadow. In fact, the whole City Escape level had been heavily affected; it was starting to look a lot more like Crisis City right about now. Att the letters on the signs around them had been scrambled heavily, spelling out random words like, BGAZM BXTKITUXWB ZDDU SOCI FOHH LQY EDCEIP SR ZBMFPM XDWX JTVE. 

“Ok…” Sonic managed to breathe out heavily, crouching slightly. “We should probably let the level reset and definitely get the heck outta here, huh?”

Skipping ahead to the next day, since nothing note-worthy happened after their face-off with the glitch, Silver - who had decided to crash at Angel Island for the night, being too exhausted to travel back to the future - woke up to the sound of commotion. Well, actually, he’d woken up, wandered around the island observing nature for a while, before ending up back where he started, and… falling asleep again; then he'd woken up again, and heard the sound of voices.

A long, droning sound of commotion, actually. It wafted through the various pine and palm trees on the island, drifting across the limestone that had been tread by many echidna before. One echidna in particular, was treading on it with his face as he dozed off good and proper for the first time since the glitching began. Silver had only managed to stay at Angel Island because, quite frankly, Amy, Tails and Sonic were worried about Knuckles. He’d had huge dark circles under his eyes, and lines running across his forehead that were visible even through his quills. He kept complaining about things he wouldn’t have been, like lunch breaks just after lunch, why the sun was shining so brightly and his head being uncomfortable while he was running. He was even running wonky.

So Silver was relieved to see that the echidna was still asleep. But then… What was that noise he had heard?

He quickly flew over to the other side of the echidna, where his prized emerald was. He peered around it and saw… well, he wasn’t 100% sure of what he was seeing. “Uh… who exactly are you people?” he asked, curiosity getting the best of him as he strode out from behind the Master Emerald.

The first person looked quite like a floating human girl, but that wasn’t what was strange about her. She possessed glowing red eyes, with one being covered up by her hair, and a red energy structure on the left side of her face, similar to the colour of the glitches the team had been encountering. The child also had short white hair, with a swirl in it on her forehead and a single red energy highlight inside that swirl. The rest of her body however, especially her arms and legs, were completely black and seemed to have parts of red computer code around them, creating a hazy, crackling aura. She wore a black cloak-like dress and black shoes, and seemed to look… empty. Almost emotionless.

The other figure looked more like a wolf, except… it was harder to tell what it really was. On its face was a mask with two lightning bolts on either side; however, a bolt-shaped crack was on the left side of his face, exposing a sinister red glow and yellow eye. The rest of his body was black and white, as if stuck in an old detective film, and he had white hair that flew in the wind. However, embedded in his chest was a ruby red gem, reminiscent of a Chaos Emerald…

But none of these figures seemed to be aware of Silver’s clear presence. They were too caught up in an argument of their own.

“Leave. Immediately.” ordered the child, with a strange voice that sounded so commanding and powerful, and yet so young… Unnatural and plain would fit the bill.

“No. I demand to know where I am!” came the retort from the wolf. He sounded like he had a robotic echo,  seeming to amplify his aura of power, though a part of him wanted to laugh at the figure for some reason.

“I cannot share any data with the enemy. I will not ask again. Leave.”

“Do you at least know where we are?!”

“...Error,” she simply replied, aggravating the wolf. “I do not know the whereabouts of this island. Execute logging protocol.” 

“Do not speak to me in riddles! Answer my questions, and I may spare you. I have yet to see how you are a threat, but for now, you appear to be a pain in the neck.” Beneath the mask, the wolf was tempted to laugh at his minor joke.

Silver was frozen in fear. Who were these people? They had never appeared in the game before - the girl didn't even look like a part of this game, let alone the animal - and they didn't seem to know anything about where they were. But some part of the hedgehog told him they were dangerous. Not wanting to be spotted anymore, he slowly, ever so slowly, took a small step back. That was all it took to alert the girl about the hedgehog’s presence. Turning on him almost instantaneously, she said, a blank expression on her face, “State your name and purpose, stranger.”
 
Hiding his anxiety, Silver waved and cheerily said, “Uh, hi?”

The wolf gave a grin. He could tell that this person was native to wherever he had ended up. Without warning, he slide-tackled the grey hedgehog down to the floor, pinning his throat down and holding a sharp hand to his chin. Silver started sweating, struggling to free himself from his grasp and pry his hand off. 

“I can smell the fear coming off you. I’ll give you one chance, and one chance only. Tell me what you did. How you brought us here. And if you flee screaming, terrified… I may spare you yet.”

Struggling under his hand, Silver desperately tried to pry it off, to no avail. Weakly, he groaned. “I… I don’t (cough) know what you are. But I have… no idea… how… you got here.” And as a warning, he said, “If you… try to kill me… you’ll regret it.”

Infinite simply chuckled, making him all the mor nervous. Sweat started dripping off the sides of his head. “Too bad. And to think, I was beginning to like you. Actually… no. I wasn’t.” His claw started glowing red, computed code and what appeared to be binary appearing. From the grinding and whirring sounds coming from the glove, the grey hedgehog could tell it wasn’t just floating around there for effect.

“No… (cough) Don't do this. Really! You’ll disrupt… the space time continuum. I’m from the - I mean... You... can't do this...! (cough) Don't you... care--”

“Just SHUT UP!” cried the wolf, before regaining his composure. Silver, overtook by momentary annoyance, gave him a glare. He returned it, twice as deadly.

And that was the last thing Silver saw before blacking out.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Fighting All Fears

1-12-12

Chapter 8: Fighting All Fears

Sonic was running around, as usual, with Cream. Ok, it wasn’t usually him running around with Cream, per se. Today was a slightly less peculiar day, and for the sake of having some sort of normality, the hedgehog had decided to take the young rabbit home after she'd visited the Chao Garden. He was now running at his usual pace, every footstep planted in confidence as Cream shouted in delight atop his back. She'd gotten tired of trying to keep up with him a while back, so he'd offered to carry her. Obviously, not a word of this could ever reach anyone else's ears, otherwise he'd never live it down.

“Alright, then, Cream, how much farther?" Sonic asked, as he sprinted through the trees, sidestepping the bushes and rocks as they eventually reached a clearing. "Not that I’m complaining. I mean, I could do this run for two days, but you need to get home,” he quipped. Cream laughed politely, as the pair rapidly dashed across the grassy plains. Taking a sharp left, Cream nearly lost her grip on Sonic's quills, but just about managed to grab back on. Slowly, a small village started coming into view... alongside a few patches of red ground, fizzling ominously. 

The blue blur groaned internally, before ramping up the speed. He drifted left of the glitches, and managed to use a close-by loop-de-loop to rocket across the remaining distance. In seconds, the duo were outside Cream's small and cosy house, as Sonic stopped abruptly. A cloud of dust flew up, causing them both to cough for a few seconds. “Chao, chao!” cried her companion, trying to get rid of the dust with his little blue and yellow-tipped arms. 

Sonic laughed a little at the display, before looking around. Vanilla didn't seem to be outside - nobody really was, choosing to stay inside so the glitches wouldn't reach them. While the majority of NPCs had thought this was the safest option, Sonic could barely resist the urge to tell them all that the glitch could very easily jump inside their houses and take them all while they slept. The only reason he was able to resist spilling the beans was because chaos in the streets was the last thing anyone needed. 

“Is something wrong, Mr. Sonic?” the tan rabbit asked, walking up to the blue blur, who was currently staring up at the sky. It was as if he was sensing something… A strange feeling of danger was tingling in his head. He couldn't quite place what was going on, but he knew something bad was going on overhead. 

Turning around to face Cream, Sonic could feel the worrisome expression etched on his face. She was always ready to help; an admirable quality that Sonic thought would come in handy for her big time one day. But now was not one of those times. Bending down to head-level, he told Cream, “Look, Cream. I’m sorry I have to cut this short, but something’s wrong. I have to go and find out what it is. You can get inside the house yourself, right?” He jerked a thumb towards the door in question.

Cream, despite feeling concerned for Sonic, nodded. “I'll be fine - Mother gave me a key in case of emergencies! Thank you so much, Mr. Sonic. I’ll give Mother your regards!” She turned around, and knocked on the door, waiting for her mother to hopefully answer. Sonic wanted to stick around to make sure everything was fine, but then another surge of worry and danger hit him, urging him to hurry. Glancing back at the rabbit one last time, he called out, “Have a nice day, Cream!” . She quickly turned around and returned the farewell, before the door opened.

Unable to stick around any longer, he dashed off, winding through the grassy woods as he slowly came up on a familiar area. “Man, that kid’s manners are impeccable,” he said to himself, before boosting, leaving a trail of blue light behind him.

Tails and Amy flew over to Angel Island in the Tornado, slicing through the plain white clouds. Carefully, they manoeuvred their way though the idle Badniks and shot down the aggressive ones. Amy swatted some away with her hammer as they approached Angel Island. Sonic was platforming his way up to the island, and managed to jump high enough to . Landing safely on the ground, he saw his friends rushing over to greet him. Giving them both a quick high-five (to Amy's slight disdain), he looked around the island.

Nothing really looked off from where they'd landed. “Tails, Amy! Did you get that feeling–?”

“Sonic! You’re ok!” yelled the pink hedgehog at the top of her lungs, making a move towards her blue opposite. Before she could touch him, Sonic lunged in the other direction, falling to the floor. “Are you alright? You don't need to do that, you know.”

“I dunno… I also don’t wanna die in a death hug.” Sonic said pointedly. Tails giggled at his best friend’s reply, but one look from the pink lady made him stiffen. Cautiously, he walked over to his best friend, and offered him a hand, which the blue hedgehog took immediately.  

While Sonic brushed himself off and Tails double-checked that the Tornado was parked, Amy looked around the island. They were at the back of Knuckles' island, behind where the Master Emerald was usually located. “We did get a strange feeling before we felt compelled to come to this island…” Tails explained, tails twitching in anxiety. Sonic stood there, thinking over what Tails had said.

There was a moment of silence. Tails looked slightly disturbed, and Sonic felt the same way. If all three of them were feeling worried and had been drawn here to Angel Island... the only time that a sense of danger had overtaken him and made him come here was is the Master Emerald was in some sort of danger. It, alongside the Chaos Emeralds, were the key components of many games, and if some external danger had presented itself outside their games, they would automatically be drawn here.

But the jewel was fine; Sonic was positive it was. This was another danger he was sensing. He glanced over at Tails, and tried to hide the hint of worry in his tone. "Buddy, do you think you can run a scan on the island?"

Tails nodded, and pulled out his Miles Electric, as he began to walk around the half of the island they were on. Tails was feeling antsy too. He could tell Sonic was actually feeling worried about everything that had been happening to their game. And while it was normal for him, Amy or literally anyone else to get worried, Sonic always kept his cool. How could something like this be throwing him into panic? His best friend needed a break. They all did, honestly, but Sonic absolutely needed it; he was tiring himself out by hiding his worry.

As the fox scoured the island for traces of glitched, Amy was peering from behind a couple of trees at the Master Emerald's stand. She wasn't sure what she was seeing but whatever they were... they were tingling all her danger senses. She turned back and ran as quietly as possible to where Sonic was standing, tapping his foot while waiting for Tails.

“Err… Sonic?” She tried, careful not to disturb or worry either of them further. “I kinda think I know why we’re here…”

“What is it, Amy?” Sonic said, suddenly facing Amy. She could see the slight frown on his face, but chose to ignore it for now.

“I-I'm fairly sure I just saw two glitches right now," she hissed quietly, glancing back at the trees. Sonic paled slightly as she continued, "One of them looked dark and pointy, and the other looked soft and reddish-blackish. ”

“What...? I don't understand... are they people or glitches?” Sonic was running out of expendable brainpower by the second.

The young fox finally stopped walking, as a small beeping sound emerged from his handheld. Sonic and Amy stopped talking and turned back to Tails, watching. His expression went from excitement, to worry, to something unreadable, as he approached his other friends. Amy tried to signal him to keep the volume down, but Tails ignored her, and chose to look at the blue blur. Unlike usual, when he tapped his foot cockily or to tease everyone else about how they couldn't keep up with him, this time, it was out of genuine worry - worry that he couldn't mask.

“I think I found something. There are some glitches close by but… they aren’t just normal errors in the code. I’m willing to bet they’re some kind of... organic digitalisation?” Tails said nervously, unsure of his own words.

“I’m sorry, what?” Sonic said, frowning heavily. The amount of times he'd thought he heard random words was an incalculable number.

“He means glitchy characters.” Amy translated, also worried.

“...Oh. Oh. Ok, this could be either really good, really bad, or a mix of both. I have to check this out.” Sonic started to walk towards the forest.

The fox suddenly appeared in front of Sonic, arms out. “You mean we.” Tails stared harshly at Sonic. Amy also folded her arms.

Sonic suddenly turned dead serious. He knew his friends wanted to stay with him, to make sure he was fully backed up and wouldn't get hurt risking himself. But, after much hesitation, he knew he had to convince them. “No, I mean I- I’ve heard of glitches like this before, and the end results aren’t pleasant. This isn’t like a regular enemy because this is a different kind of real. Not our kind of real or the arcade’s kind of real. And I can’t risk all of you…” He nervously scratched his head, hoping they'd get the message.

The fox sighed. "Sonic, we're a team! We stick together!"

"And besides," Amy added, "you're not our boss."

"Yeah, but Turb-" Sonic bit his tongue at the last second and winced. 

“Sonic… What do you mean by 'tur'?” Amy was giving Sonic a menacing look, holding her hammer slightly higher.

The blue blur grimaced. He shouldn't have said that. "It's not important." He started running into the forest, hoping that the two would take the hint and stay put near the Tornado.

...unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be, as they relentlessly followed him. Grumbling under his breath, the hedgehog said nothing and let them follow for a while, before he finally stopped at the edge of the forest. Through the branches and leaves, he could just about see a grey shape standing in front of two other black and red figures, both slightly different. He narrowed his eyes, as words floated toward him. He was too far away to make out what they were talking about, but it didn't seem to be in any way friendly. He sighed and turned back to his two friends, who were - as expected - looking at him disappointedly.

Tails, feeling desperate, faced Sonic with a mix of pleading and anger. “Sonic. You’ve never left us out before. Don’t start now."

After a while at staring at their faces, he finally started feeling the guilt of holding back. Looking at them both sadly, he sighed. "Ok, fine. I'll tell you what I was about to say earlier. But then please stay hidden here, where it's safe, ok?" He looked at their expressions, and repeated - more desperately than he expected, "Please."

The pink hedgehog and the fox looked at each other for barely a second before sighing and relenting. They nodded, and Sonic started speaking. “Ok, so a while back, I kinda went down to Tapper’s… And I saw these old racer guys looking real nostalgic… So being me, I asked them what was up, and they gave me the full story, as if they just wanted to get it off their chests. Let me tell you, it’s not a pretty one…”

And so Sonic told them all about Turbo, the protagonist of the once-popular racing game Turbo Time. "Turbo was apparently a beloved hero when Litwak’s Arcade was fresh off the press. For a while he was one of the most popular games in the arcade. But when a new, flashier racing game called RoadBlasters arrived in the arcade, Turbo's ego couldn't handle being overshadowed. He became jealous and obsessed with regaining the spotlight. At least, that's what the racers said."

"Driven by his vanity, Turbo abandoned his own game and infiltrated the new one, attempting to take over. He started “glitching” into the game, as the players saw it, and people believed he was wiped from his old one. He was disturbing the kids out there by popping in the middle of the road whenever anyone played the new racing game, and not being there for his own. And his selfish act ended up gettin' both Turbo Time and RoadBlasters unplugged, effectively killing off all the characters within them. Turbo was declared dead sometime after when we arrived, and his story's apparently always used to convince other characters to stick to their roles. To stop us being greedy and whatnot."

“Those two racers were the only ones who managed to escape from RoadBlasters." Sonic paused, before continuing, "If something like this is happening to us, if someone's game-jumping or if these characters are glitches, we could be facing an unplugging. So here’s the plan. I’ll confront, disarm and disable them, and you two wait here. Try to track down their origins or code. Shouldn’t be too hard to track, since the code for our cabinet is different to anyone else's."

"If they're other characters, we'll get them out of here immediately. If they're glitches... The safest thing to do is to reprogram them a one-way ticket out of existence.”

Amy was shocked. “But doesn't that-? wouldn't that mean-?”

“Yes, I know. They will die. But this is the safest thing to do. Now are you guys on Team Hero or not?” he said, trying for a quip.

“Ok... if this is the only way,” the two-tailed fox said, nodding slowly. Sonic turned to Amy, waiting for her answer.

“Actually, no...” the pink hedgehog looked like she was on a slow boil.

“Uh... What was that, Amy?” Sonic raised an “eyebrow” (to be fair, he didn’t actually have any - he’d just raised the part above his eyelid), praying Amy wasn't about to disagree.

“No! I’m actually not on Team Hero, if you remember! And I’m not letting you delete possibly innocent characters just because of your weird paranoia after hearing a dumb story. We have to know who they are first!” Amy insisted desperately. Trust her to have a big heart, no matter what.

“Look, then what do you suggest we–?” he hissed.

“Talk to them! Ask them why they’re here!” she hissed back.

“But Amy–!”

"Well, Sonic-!"

Suddenly the gang heard a semi-robotic voice growling, “ You. End. Now…” If that wasn’t enough to scare the trio, the sound of a metallic swipe at something practically made them jump out of their skin. 

Sonic almost went white. Tails was cowering in fear, hands over his head. Amy covered her mouth in horror at the sound, and hastily, they all peered around the trees to try and see the figures. Tails and Sonic exchanged a look, before the former hurriedly muttered, “Ok, I hate to say it, but we kinda have to go with Amy’s plan for now… I'm going to investigate. Stay here.” Curling up into a ball, Sonic didn't wait for a responce this time. He drop-dashed towards a nearby rock, and stopped. Crouching behind it for a few seconds, he put on his confident face, before jumping up above the rock and striking a dramatic pose.

Facing the two figures’ backs, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Hey, you freaks! Leave ‘em alone, and take it up with the manager: ME!”

Chapter Text

Chapter 9: Rapid Redemption

At Tappers, there was quite the morning rush. For some reason, Thursday seemed to be the most popular day for everyone to swarm the doors, so the little man needed all the help he could possibly muster. Usually, he'd have posters up for volunteers from all games, but they'd all mysteriously disappeared. Not that Tapper really noticed. In the swarm of avatars and characters and NPCs alike, he was under a lot of stress, trying to getting orders done as quickly as possible. Sure, there were tons in his game already, and this was something he did daily. But these were for people from other games that had sentience. 

Were it not for the experience he had doing this gig for over a decade - and the fact that he was programmed to do this and endure it - he would probably have collapsed out of exhaustion, and never gotten back up. Rushing around to each table and sliding food to each customer on each seat, if the man could sweat, he would have made a river full of the stuff.

Which is why, when a certain echidna decided to get his usual fresh grapes, he was unwittingly roped into helping out. 

Sure, Tapper wasn’t tired, and this could keep going for the whole night without any... major, breaks or rests. Did that necessarily mean he would keep doing this like a character who had barely any choices or ‘free will’? Well, no.

As for Knuckles... He'd been reluctant at first, only really there to have a snack. And also trying to distract his mind from the worries of the Super Sonic Collection. With everything that was going on right now…  He was surprised the Master Emerald was still intact after it all… But for how much longer could everything stay fixed? That was the silent concern flowing through the air, worrying everyone back in his game. Heck, even Sonic was worried, and he usually kept a pretty cool and collected demeanour.

But the echidna grumbled, and shook his head, focus returning to the customers sat in front of him. He had a job to do. Even if he wasn't really given much of a choice about it.

“Heads up, frog person!”

After sliding a bowl of sprout stew (the echidna was horrified that was even on the menu to begin with) over to him, he ran back to the front and handed over a few napkins to the table at the front. The alien... things took them gratefully, and spoke something to him that he couldn't understand. 

Not that he was in the mood to talk.

After a spin-dash back into the kitchen, he slid a silly straw into a mysterious drink filled with a gloopy, purple substance, and popped it onto the table at the back.

“Here you are, triangle… thing… With a silly straw, as requested!”

The triangle didn’t appear to have a mouth, but that didn’t stop him. He took a great big sip through his eyelids and sighed, before looking back at him.

“Name’s Bill Cipher. This drink is fantabuloso-LICIOUS!”

For some reason, that voice of his filled Knuckles with a sense of dread and fear that was just as worrying as everything else playing on his mind. The triangle thing kept staring at him - or was he imagining it? He took a step back, as he swore he saw blue flames circling the triangle figure. He quickly walked away, and shaking his head, Knuckles continued the serving to the remaining swarms of customers.

Slowly, he could feel the tension pile onto him. Bowl after bowl was slid across table after table, miraculously not spilling at all, as customer upon customer gobbled up the sweet nectar or savoury delights gratefully. His legs were certainly feeling the workout, and his arms were also appreciating the amount of work he was doing to help Tapper. But here, in the dimly lit tavern where there were endless calls for food... was he starting to feel tired?

No. He was just letting the nerves get to him. He needed to control himself. Quickly passing over a few plates of burgers to the Super Mario brothers , he tried his best not to make any conversation with them, as they were always trying to rub it in their faces about how good their game and they were. Honestly, one of these day, the makers of their arcade cabinet would finally make something more consumer-friendly than them, and then he'd rub it in their smug little faces. With his very painful knuckles.

Pushing those dangerous thoughts away, he turned back to the crowd. For the next few minutes, he travelled across the room so quickly, he was memorising the layout of the room more than he wanted to. Minutes pushed into hours, and the layout began to feel like home.

The rush reached an all-time high 1 hour later. Tapper was still trying to wiggle his way through the crowd and get his job done, now with the sole aim of getting everyone to leave and give him peace. Feeling desperate, the echidna was forced to climb the walls and start gliding across the room, chucking plates around like a discus-thrower in the Olympics. Dangerously close to breaking a sweat, the echidna was ready to call it quits, despite only being halfway through the wave of hungry characters.

Gliding from the back of the room, he made it back to the front of house where Tapper was, dashing around at a speed close to Sonic’s. Knuckles panted, standing on top of a wooden chair that was creaking - inaudible over the chatter of the characters that seemed to have come from everywhere. Heck, some of them didn't even seem to be from games.

Knuckles grimaced at the sight. Was doing all this just to stop worrying about the Sonic Collection really worth it?

To be fair, Knuckles thought, Tapper could really use the help. The man was redder than red with exhaustion, and couldn’t even stop to chat with his customers like a regular bartender - despite being able to only half an hour ago.

As he took in massive amounts of digital air, Knuckles looked around at the room, realising only now how crowded it was. Man, this place is packed. Looks like I’ve got a busy night ahead of me. A person in the far right shouted, “Hey, I’d like a refill please!” amongst the shouting and chattering of all the other folks. Sighing, a reluctant echidna prepared to grab the lemonade jug,  when he felt a tingling in his head. 

He frowned.

That only happened when…

Sonic grinned as the figures swivelled around to face him. The girl showed no hint of emotion as she gazed at him, but the wolf cackled, in a gleeful tone, “Ha ha! At last, we meet again, Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“Don’t know who the heck you guys are… Should I be concerned?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, you should! For I am your inevitable destruction!”

“Man, if I had a ring for every time I heard that,” Sonic cut in. The wolf gave him a look of pure evil, infuriated by his all-too-familiar cocky attitude. “Y’know, the only reason you must know me is if I kicked your butt. But I kick butt all the time! So whatever long-winded revenge plan you’ve got, I don’t care - I'll stop ya here and now.”

He turned to the floating girl figure, and spoke ever so slightly harsher, “But you… You look like the glitches me and my pals have had to keep smoothening out every single day. So unless you’re here to surrender or explain yourself…”

“We have no correlation with your predicament. But I recall your data, Sonic the Hedgehog. Explain your situation.” replied the girl, her aura of code flickering.

“Actually, d’you mind running past me what you two are doin’ to– SILVER!!” Sonic’s eyes widened in shock as he remembered what he was doing. He sped over to the figure, who was lying on the ground unconsciously. He knelt down beside him, and put a hand on his chest. He still had an extra life before his ‘Game Over’ trigger was pulled. But he had been beaten up brutally, even more so than during game time. “What. Did. You. Do?” the hedgehog growled, through gritted teeth.

The night-black wolf sighed, inspecting his claw. “What needed to be done. Besides, he wasn’t giving us a straight answer.” Looking up, he turned his face to Sage. She was motionless for a few seconds, before lightly nodding. “Against my better judjement... We need your hel-” began Infinite.

“You think… you can come here, hurt my friends, and then ask for help?!” Sonic chuckled at the stupidness of that sentence, before getting back on his feet and turning around. “Whatever you wanna say, Scaredy-Mask, you can say to my fist!

Leaping up into the air, he went for Infinite’s shoulders, eyes watching for impact, but landed on the cobbled floor with an almighty thud. Infinite had already flown above, arms stretched out. “If you will not listen to reason, then listen to power! Witness the Phantom Ruby as you have done before. Except now, I have mastered it.” He raised his metal claws, and a volley of glitching cubes shimmered into existence.

Sonic groaned but got back up on his feet. “I don't know any Phantom doo-hickey, but I do know a villain when I see one." He sighed, dodging the cubes with ease. "Where’s Shadow when you need him…?”

“No! Do not utter that name in my presence." He hissed, flinging more cubes at Sonic. Instead of side-stepping, this time, he smashed through them with ease, infuriating him further. "He shamed my old self! But I became better... sided with the right people, and took over the world!" 

“What, a generic Egg Pawn? You’re clearly loyal to that omelette,” Sonic smirked. Infinite roared, raising himself higher to prepare a lethal attack. While he was distracted by this remark, however, Sonic had already started homing-attacking the multiple cubes, floating around that had been crafted from his unconsciousness.

As Infinite flew higher and higher up, almost at the top of the island, Sonic started jumping from each cube to the next, until he smashed the final red block. When he was level as the wolf, Sonic homing attacked the striped ruby at his core, causing him to groan in pain, as the pair fell back down to the island. Infinite barely managing to regain control and craft one last cube beneath himself to cover his fall.

Infinite winced. “No. My ruby! My precious RUBY! How dare you attempt to manipulate me, reduce me to my former self! I am supreme!”

Sage quickly interrupted with her two digital cents. “Actually, according to my database, the true Supreme is the fourth Titan-”

Infinite punched at her, his claw obviously falling through. “Stay out of it, phantom girl! I will incinerate you both if you make one more wrong move… So don’t try anything!”

Sonic got back onto his feet, and despite the pain he was in, gave a confident smile once again. “Heh. You two really don’t get along, do ya?” Behind the two figures, he saw Tails peer over from his hiding place. “You can’t defeat the fastest thing alive, y’know, so give up now!” he said, smirk flickering for a brief second as he brushed himself off.

“I did not take you for being scared. However, the odds are clearly in our favour. It is two-on-one, and the calculations I have made point to your inevitable failure,” the code-girl said monotonously, her eye flickering red and black angrily.

“You sure about that?” he asked. Sage flickered and was about to look behind her, when a sudden force made her visibly flinch and flicker briefly blue and white. Infinite groaned, as the Phantom Ruby within him started trembling. And all the while, Sonic’s smile became a full grin. Jumping out from behind the rock, Tails and Amy rushed to Sonic’s side, both ecstatic. Holding a machine that seemed to be emitting some sort of signal from its antenna, Tails high-fived Sonic, who cheerfully thanked him. “Nice work, buddy!” Sonic said.

...right before the machine suddenly died, glitching red and black. The figures turned back to the hedgehog, now with his pals on either side of him.

“Alright, let’s try this one more time. Surrender, and talk, and we won’t hurt you. Or, y’know, we can just do it the hard way.” Personally, I wouldn’t mind having it easy for once, thought Sonic, although he already knew the answer.

“Never!” exclaimed the wolf, as his claws fizzled red. Readying his stance, Sonic just said, “Game on.”

A volley of cubes flew at them all. Tails simply sliced them with his namesakes, while the blue and pink blurs spin-dashed and smashed everything that came at them. Infinite resisted a facepalm at the obviousness of his attack. “Why won’t you petty animals submit to the Eggman Empire?! We are superior!” 

Sage started firing a digital beam of light and code, scorching the grass and closing in on Amy. Were it not for her hammer - which managed to reflect the laser back at Sage, at the cost of turning faintly black - she would have been hit and temporarily frozen. However, now immobilised, Sonic started throwing a good few punches and kicks at Sage. Tails kept the wolf distracted by flying around him teasingly, whilst Amy prepared to swing her hammer at the artificial girl. But as she swung the hit, Sage flickered out of existence, making her nearly hit Sonic.

“ARGH!” she shouted, as the girl tried to steady herself, accidentally letting go of her hammer. It flew through the air and far into the forest. Infinite, seeing the opportunity, disappeared, before reappearing behind her. Speaking with a deadly calm voice, he whispered into her ear, “Boo.”

“Argh, hey, stop it!” Amy shouted, swinging her arms left and right, but to no avail, as Infinite dodged each throw with ease. Quietly, Tails crept towards him, and just as the pink hedgehog swung again, the wolf flew close enough for Tails to spin-attack him, causing him to fall down onto the ground. Amy, using her fists and summoning all her strength, smashed the wolf's chest, causing an almighty tremble to ripple throughout Angel Island. Groaning, the Wolf barely managed to tilt his head up, before dropping it in defeat.

Pieces of a gemstone fell out, shattered beyond repair.

Sage, however, had reappeared moments ago, and didn't intend on letting Sonic win. Not this time. Multiple patches of ground flickered, as Sonic ran left and right, dashing across the island to catch up to her, flying just out of reach. “You will not win this time. I have learnt from our previous encounters.”

“‘Previous encounters’? Lady, I have no idea what you’re going on abou– whoa!” Sonic stumbled, dropping a few rings after hitting the red patch of code, but continued running. As they turned a corner, it became clear to Sonic that they were reaching the front of the island very fast… Passing through the treed in the forest, he glanced sideways, and held in a smile, as he started taking control of the situation. Instead of trying to just chase her, he started pushing her - going faster and faster, he made quicker turns, making her try to stay ahead, aand go in the direction that he wanted her to.

And as they reached the clearing...

BAM! Sage was hit by Amy and Tails at the same time from behind, and before she could vanish into thin air, Sonic spin-dashed into her, knocking her down right next to Infinite. The patches of land returned to their normal green and brown hues, as the trio high-fived.

Elsewhere, a certain echidna’s headache subdued, making him sigh in relief, as he passed a hot plate of spaghetti over to a couple of other humans. Someone was at least taking care of the island for him. And whatever threat was there had been subdued.

He could relax a little again.

Going back to the front, he called out, “All outta spaghetti! No more spaghetti!” A collective sigh came from a considerably large group of people, as they turned around and left. The rush was still going, but at least it was dying down now.

Sonic smirked at the figures that were now collapsed on the floor. Quietly, Infinite charged his fist as the hedgehog said, “We’ll never bend to that poached protege and his half-baked empire. Now we might spare you… If you can help us.”

“Hmm, let me think…” the jackal mercenary made some thinking noises, before shouting, “Never!” and pointing his hand at Sonic. A flurry of cubes would have shot out, but instead, his hand fizzled with the faintest of red hues, before disappearing. Groaning, both he and Sage sat up. Sage stared at Sonic, before her hands went up in silent surrender. “Traitor!” he said, pointing at the artificial figure.

“There is no point in resisting. It is clear the code restricts our abilities outside of a game. Seeing as we currently have none, it affects us even more so.” Looking at the hedgehog again, with an almost admiring look, she said, “Once again, you have won... but not on fair terms,” she finished, her look nearly becoming blank again.

Tails was taken aback by what the girl had said. It was true, many of the villains abilities were game-locked, only working during the play time. But what did she mean by ‘currently having none’? Surely they were only glitches…?

Amy offered a hand to Infinite, who muttered something under his breath, before reluctantly taking it, and standing on his feet.

“Very well,” He finally said. “Seeing as I have none of my powers… I shall spare you this once. But only to solve your problem.”

“Hey, we’re the ones spa-!” Sonic started, before Tails shot him a look that could freeze blood, prompting him to stop. “You know what? Never mind. Ok. First order of business - we fix what you did to Silver.”

“And how do you propose to do that?” Infinite smirked, remembering the gleeful terror that Silver had given him. 

“I also wish to know, assuming I am part of this treaty.” Sage replied, efficient as ever. 

Sonic winced. “We do it like this." Quitely, he murmured, "Oh, I’m sorry, Silver… I really didn’t want to have to do this…” Groaning, and apologising in his head multiple times, he eventually brought himself to do the unthinkable and necessary. Nodding to Amy, she quickly went back to the forest. Seconds later, the pink hedgehog returned with her hammer in hand. Glaring at Infinite for a second, she proceeded to launch the blue blur up into the air with a sharp hit from her hammer, allowing him to leap at a nearby column, wall-jump off, and spin attack Silver’s chest for a moment that seemed never to stop. His quills grinding against Silver, they both groaned, until at last-

“Respawn!” the unknown, invisible announcer called. He never takes a hiatus, does he? Sonic landed on the paved ground feet first with a whumph in the spot where Silver was. Behind him, a grey figure materialised from thin air. 

“Whoa… What happened? Why is my chest burning? Do I have heartburn now? WHY DO I HAVE HEARTBURN?!” he began, paranoid as usual.

“Relax, Silver. You don’t have heartburn. To be honest, though, you might have a quill burnt.”

Silver gasped, brows furrowed. “You didn’t-”

“I did. I had to. You were basically dead.”

Sage entered the conversation. “The hedgehog’s logic computes. You were in an incurable state. I ran 14,197,883,065 simulations. Only 34 were successful - one being the trigger of in-game revival code.” 

Silver stared, mouth open, trying to remember what had happened.

Realising that he probably still had no clue who she was, Sonic began talking. “What was your name, creepy glitch girl?”

“My name is Sage. I was made by Dr. Eggman, my father–”

“Father? Ha! The guy can barely take care of his badniks!” Sonic said jokingly, before he muttered, “Well, at least, in the game…”

Sage stared at the hedgehog, slightly angry. “Do not insult my father! Without him, you would never have defeated The End.”

“End? End of what? Look, kid, I don’t know what your deal is. You claim both of you have met me before, you pretend I’ve worked with you, and now you’re saying me and ol’ Eggy worked together to defeat another creature? This all seems like a sick prank to me. Who sent you into our game?”

The girl stuttered, a rare occasion. “B-but these are all facts. Dr. Eggman is my creator. His watermarks are all present in my code,” she said, before bringing up a screen of code, which stumped Sonic.

Tails however, sped through the code quickly, before nodding to Sonic in shock. "It's true... she's a high tech artificial intelligence! And created by Dr. Eggman!" 

“Never mind her,” Silver hissed, as he faced the masked jackal. “You. You tried to kill me. You seem like a threat to the future. I bet if I went back now, it would be in shambles. I’m gonna wreck you before you wreck anything else.”

He lunged for Infinite. The jackal retracted instantly, allowing Sonic to sidestep in between. “WAIT!”

“Sonic? You’re defending this psycho? What happened to you?” Silver reeled back in shock.

“Hold your horses, Silver. This guy surrendered. He’s with us for now.”

“For now,” Infinite added darkly.

"Sonic... are you sure you know what you're doing?" He replied, brow furrowing.

Sonic glanced back at the figures, then at Amy and Tails, and spoke quietly, "No. But... just trust me."