Chapter Text
This was it, the end.
Dark Gaia loomed above Sonic, the Gaia Colossus below him, crumbling into the magma of the planet's core. The golden glow of the Chaos Emeralds fading.
They failed
The planet crumbled as Dark Gaia roared triumphantly, swinging a clawed fist down towards what remained of Chip's stone mech. Sonic used what little energy he had left to block the blow, but it only barely slowed the attack.
Sonic was slammed into the remains of the temples, pure Chaos energy replaced by swirling Dark Gaia Force. His body shifting and contorting into the form of the Werehog.
When he looked up, all he could see was the Chaos Emeralds, drained once more, being dragged away into the swirling darkness.
He tried to drag himself back to his feet, make one last stand, but his vision swam, details blurred into smoke and shadows.
He could still do this, he wasn't dead yet, he could keep fighting, everyone was counting on him.
He just needed to get up.
He needed to..
He couldn't…
Every muscle ached, they were just filled with near limitless energy, now drained, weak, useless.
Sonic could feel the temperature rise as the colossus sunk deeper into the planet's core, only sped up by Dark Gaia clawing its way out of its planetary prison.
Huge chunks of earth fell into the magma, it wouldn't be long till there won't be any planet left to save.
But still
Sonic couldn't move
His spirit was far from gone, but his body didn't agree.
He could barely lift his head, let alone fight a god.
A soft green glow enveloped the Werehog, Chip appearing at his side. Even with his vision blurred, he could see Chip fading.
The little god fluttered down, and rested a paw on Sonic's head.
"You're the only one I can save now, I'm so glad I got to meet you, and do so many wonderful things," Sonic tried to call out to him, but the only sound that came was a small whine. "Thank you so much for being my friend Sonic, and I'm sorry," The glow grew brighter. "I hope you'll forgive me one day, but you must live, it's all that I can do."
Sonic could just barely reach out to Chip, before light flooded his vision, a soft green glow"goodbye Sonic" wrapped around him.
He couldn't hold on anymore
He closed his eyes and-
"Yo Tails!" A blue blur sped into a workshop, kicking up a whirlwind, and more amped up than usual. "What's happening that's got your tails in a twist?"
Sonic quickly sped around the room, gathering all the papers and small gadgets he just accidentally sent flying.
Tails was reading some kind of graph or radar or something on his computer, a large spike appearing on a few, a location on another. He typed away, looking quite frazzled at what he was putting together.
"There's a huge anomaly showing up on my sensors, like way too big to be anything not of concern…"
Sonic walked over, leaned against a workbench. "An anomaly huh? that doesn't sound great," Sonic tapped his foot. "You think it's Eggman up to something?"
The readings kept flashing across the display. Tails was looking more confused and concerned as the data kept coming in.
"Unless Eggman somehow got his hands on the Chaos Emeralds, Master Emerald, AND Sol Emeralds, highly unlikely," the spiking readings didn't even fit on the graph. "This is a crazy amount of energy localized to a singular point."
Tails leaned back in his chair, covering his face with his hands.
Sonic walked over and rested a hand on his shoulder, he glanced over the screen, one of the sensors displayed had longitude and latitude, and Sonic recognized exactly where it was.
"Well, it's just outside of Apotos, wouldn't take too long to pop over and check it out," he looked over at the Tornado, always flight ready, just in case. "What's the worst that can happen? We've dealt with some pretty serious threats, whatever it is, we can handle it."
Tails sighed, "I hope you're sure about that…" he grabbed his Miles Electric, and started towards the plane, making sure his devices were all synchronized.
Sonic took his usual perch on the wing, as Tails started the engine, the plane rumbling to life.
Within minutes, the duo was up in the air, cruising to whatever had enough energy to rival the Chaos, Master, and Sol Emeralds combined…
Waves crashed against the rocky cliffs of Apotos, seagulls just getting ready to start their day.
Sonic's eyes flew open, he sat up so fast it made him dizzy. He breathed hard, trying to get oriented, eyes darting around his surroundings.
He was on the surface, his internal gps let him know it was specifically Apotos, and even more specifically… It was where he met Chip.
And another thing of note…
The planet looked fine?
No raging god, no commotion or panic, just the buzz of a cicada or two.
The waves crashed like they always did, carrying the salty air up the steep cliffs, rustling the grass and turning the windmill above, causing it to creak.
There wasn't anything other than the mundane, calm noises of the world.
Sonic finally got himself on his feet, and got a proper look around. Familiar rocks, grass, etc looked back at him in the dark. And a small crater… most likely the result of yet another involuntary skydiving trip.
Something was definitely wrong. Maybe not disaster, end of the world wrong, but just… wrong.
The sky above the sea started to brighten, the clouds turning a warm orange.
Sonic crossed his arms, and tapped his foot, whatever was going on, he'd be able to run and get some answers in a minute or two.
All he had to do was wait for morning.
The sun started peaking over the horizon, bathing the earth in a warm glow.
Sonic closed his eyes and let the light wash over him…
But nothing felt different.
Panic overtook him, but as his eyes snapped open, he had to quickly raise a clawed hand to shield his eyes, that hadn't quite adjusted yet.
He blinked through the blinding sun, eyes just barely adjusted. Sonic just stared at his hand in disbelief, he should have turned back by now, this wasn't supposed to be permanent.
A familiar rumble broke him out of his spiral. The Tornado was just down the coastline, Tails would hopefully have some answers, or a solution to whatever was going on.
What he didn't expect was a dust cloud being kicked up just below the plane, an all too familiar blue hedgehog was leading it.
This wasn't his planet
He thought about just talking to them, finding answers, but if they were anything like him and his… Tails… Then they would want to help send him home. How could he tell them he had no home to return to, that he couldn't save it. That he failed an entire planet, that everyone he knew was gone, that there was no fixing this,
That he was the only one to live…
He could feel the panic raising in his chest, it was always harder being cool and confident when he couldn't run, when he wasn't him (he knew he was still the same person at least). He just felt so sluggish like this. He'd faced bigger and badder things, but that confidence was lost with his world.
He just couldn't do it, he couldn't reach out to another version of him, and another version of Tails… not now at least. Maybe someday.
But today was not that day.
He made up his mind, they were probably looking for something around where he showed up, so he went as fast as he could in the other direction, doing what he could to stay out of sight.
He would figure something out he almost always did.
Sonic and Tails were almost there, when the readings completely stopped. There was one last spike, and then… nothing.
Tails recalibrated the Miles Electric a few times before deducting that it wasn't equipment error, but that the anomaly was just gone. Every data source returned to baseline, like there wasn't anything there at all.
They had just flown by Apotos proper, still over the ocean, but only a few minutes out from their destination. So they continued on, best to still check it out after all.
Sonic could barely stand the wait, he wanted so bad to just sprint over, but a glance down at the ocean below squashed that idea.
Tails started logging the energy signatures, maybe it would be helpful later?
As soon as they were over land, Sonic jumped off the Tornado a few kilometers away from where the anomaly was, he wanted to race ahead, check it faster, but Tails warned him about how absurdly powerful it was, and would be better faced together. So a light jog over it was.
Tails went in for a landing just past the location, and Sonic was hit with a wave of nostalgia. This was where he met Chip, and had two impromptu skydiving sessions.
And on that train of thought, Sonic glanced at the ground, to see a small crater in that exact same spot.
But the weirdest thing, was it was new.
The grass that had been disturbed in the crater's creation hadn't even begun to wilt yet.
After landing, Tails walked over, scanning the area with the Miles Electric. But by the look on his face, Sonic guessed he wasn't seeing anything out of the ordinary.
Sonic pointed out the hole in the ground. "I think this is the only sign something happened here."
Tails still looked worried. "That amount of energy would have vaporized the coastline, there is no way that crater could have been caused by that," Tails paced around the clearing. "… but it could have brought something here that caused it."
Sonic sat down on the rock there while Tails furiously clicked away, checking and cross referencing other data.
It took a while for the mumbled calculations and very smart sounding science term to stop giving the hedgehog a headache. But as Tails finally reached a hypothesis, he was starting to get a little worried too.
"Whatca find Tails?"
"Part of the energy signature matches with a known signature. Chaos energy. But the rest isn't as clear. I picked up something close to Sol energy, but that's already pretty close to Chaos energy… possibly from another dimension?"
Tails turned to Sonic, his eyes narrowing.
"I also picked up trace readings of Dark Gaia Force."