Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Be careful, Sonic.” 

“For the love of god, don’t do another death fakeout.” 

“I can’t make any promises.” 

A loud clanging on thick glass made Sonic sit up in his awful, awful prison bed. There was sweat on his brow, having slept erratically through the night as a result of him being apprehended by police. 

“Rise and shine, hedgehog. Prisoner transfer is today.” A prison guard said on the other side of the cell’s glass wall. 

Sonic sighed, turning his legs over the side of the bed. The lights shining down from above dimly illuminated his room, allowing him to look over his orange jumpsuit once again. 

It only hit him, once his stylish clothes were being taken away, at how awful this plan was at his end. He was certain he wouldn’t be executed or anything incredibly drastic for the crimes he was framed for, but he would absolutely be incarcerated, and for who knows how long. 

Tower had mentioned the Devil’s Gulag. He remembers, back in the day, reading something about that in passing- it was Prison Island, an island dedicated to housing only the worst criminals in the eyes of the Guardian Units of Nations. 

Snively Robotnik, Julian’s nephew and Ivo’s bald cousin, was sent to the Devil’s Gulag for the awful crime of animal abuse. Allegedly, Julian framed the entirety of Project: Mobius on him. But it appears, from what Amy has told Sonic, that the criminals on Prison Island are essentially in a utensil drawer for GUN to take out and use whenever they find it convenient. 

The same thing will happen to him. He wondered if it was anything like in the movies- Sonic teaming up with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells to do good things for time off their prison sentence… He sure hoped it was the version made by the dude who directed that film with the talking dog that has treats named after him and not that awful one that came before it. 

In front of him, the glass wall slowly lowered down into the ground, the lights above still shining. It wasn’t actually lights- it also produced a radiation that physically weakened Sonic, making him much too tired to try and run. He was worried about the long-term effects, but knowing Tower, he probably didn’t care if Sonic had long-term issues. 

He was also worried about what it was doing to his emotional state. As two guards rushed in and proceeded to detain him all over again, he was just… numb. Whether his body was way too tired to feel anything, or what, he didn’t know. 

So much has happened in the last few weeks. He spent nearly four years building himself up as the savior of this world, using his powers to fight injustice and make the world a better place in honor of his mom. He saved the whole world from a rampaging god. 

Then, in a matter of days, a spiteful old commander and a mysterious doppelganger ruined it all. 

Sonic didn’t get the standard cuffs meant for prisoners like this. He got restraints that completely covered his hands, boots connected to each other with weights just heavy enough that Sonic could barely pick them up more than an inch off the ground, and- as a special request from Commander Tower- a bite mask restraint, to keep him from talking. 

Another bad part about being arrested was just how quiet it could be. The guards were all silent, the cell was quiet, and all Sonic could do was sleep. Even for the fastest thing alive, being alone with your thoughts was absolute torture, worse than anything this prison could do. Perhaps that was the point. 

Sat in a chair with wheels, Sonic was restrained with an X-shaped harness across his chest, and two more straps across his legs. Then, finally, they started leaving the area. 

Though he wasn’t sure exactly where he was, he had an idea: he was arrested in Golden Bay, so naturally he was being placed in Flynn’s Island, the supermax prison that was right off the coast of the city. 

Wheeled down the halls of this large facility, more GUN agents surrounded Sonic and the guards escorting him, clearly guarding just in case the blue hedgehog tried anything. But Sonic wouldn’t try anything. Not just because he wasn’t a violent criminal, but because he was just tired. 

There was a plane waiting for him outside of the facility. Sadly it wasn’t called “Con Air” like that one nineties movie would have you believe. All the other prisoners, the non-superpowered ones, were all restrained and placed in the rows of seats in the plane. Sonic got the pleasure of being placed in the very back, almost like a piece of luggage. 

Oh, how the mighty fall. 

Sonic wasn’t awake for the plane ride to this mysterious Devil’s Gulag, only waking up when they were descending. It was clear that it took a long, long plane ride to this Prison Island, one that Sonic was glad to get some sleep during. 

Unfortunately he was still groggy when he woke up. You win some, you lose some. 

The other prisoners were let off first before Sonic was wheeled out in his chair. He was taken by a group of GUN soldiers on a path separate from the ones the other prisoners were taking, headed instead to an elevator that became pretty crowded the moment all the GUN soldiers stuffed themselves inside it. 

He was headed down to the sub-basement of the island, wheeled down rows of cells with metal doors, taken all the way to the end. 

The door opened. Commander Tower was in there, along with a few scientists with GUN logos on the back of their coats. Sonic could see their weapon holsters under their jackets- they were meant to be his guards. 

The contraption Sonic was attached to was strange. It started horizontal, like a table. Sonic was taken out of his restraints but placed on the table, which immediately covered his hands and feet again. The spit guard was still on, and a similar cross harness was strapped over his chest. 

This surface was raised and tilted forwards, restraining Sonic in the air against this machine. The computer screens nearby lit up with readings of Sonic’s biometrics, his power level, and other things. 

As he was raised, Sonic could see Tower standing in front of him. There was another thick piece of glass that was covering the surface, almost making it like some kind of pod. Tower was staring at him blankly, as emotionless as ever, his eyes meeting the hedgehog’s. 

“Mobians.” Tower said, as if thinking aloud and not speaking to Sonic. “They should’ve dismantled and destroyed Professor Gerald’s experiments in the first place. Maybe then this entire situation wouldn’t be happening. Maybe… I wouldn’t be alone.” 

Sonic didn’t respond- couldn’t respond. He stared down at Tower. 

“I’m not the bad guy here, Sonic. Regardless of how you see me. I’m simply keeping my people safe.” The old commander continued. “Once we have your friends in custody… then I can finally rest easy.” 

“Commander Tower.” One of the guards said. “What should we do with the prisoner’s belongings? It was brought with him on the flight over.” 

“Place it in storage. We can study any of the technology that’s been added to it.” Tower replied, turning his head but still looking at Sonic. Once the guard was gone, he turned his head back to stare at Sonic directly. 

But there was nothing left to say. With one last glower to the hedgehog, Commander Tower slowly turned and walked away, leaving the scientists in the room to conduct their studies on the hedgehog. 

Still tired, still exhausted, Sonic’s eyes slowly closed. He felt his body relax, regardless of the restraints, as he got some more rest from his tiring incarceration. 

There was the unappetizing squelch of a sandwich being crushed as Amy was harshly thrown out of her psychic vision. She looked down at her hand- her cucumber sandwich was turned into an oddly shaped tube from her grip. Slowly, she dropped it back onto her plate. 

She used a napkin to wipe her head before wiping off her hand, tossing the used paper on her plate afterwards. Amy rested her head in her hands, calming herself down. 

A gentle tap told her someone placed a drink in front of her- a lemonade. 

Tekno sat across Amy in the breakfast nook she had in her apartment. With nowhere else to go, Amy and Tails called in a favor with Vanilla’s new assistant, the one they just met the other week. Luckily, Tekno liked Amy, so they were allowed to stay as long as needed. 

“Thanks.” Amy mumbled, bringing the drink up and drinking half of it in one go. 

“Egad.” Tekno commented, sipping her own lemonade. “Don’t drown yourself, Amy.” 

“Psychic visions can take a lot out of me.” 

“I don’t understand why you don’t just let me use my clairvoyance. I’ve touched Sonic, I can use my powers to see exactly where he is.”

“You’re already helping us enough.” Amy replied. “Besides… this is my burden to bear.” 

“It’s not a burden at all. It’s not supposed to be. You could really mess yourself up, Amy.” 

“I’ve had a psychic headache before, I can handle it.”

“Amy, for real.” Tekno said, putting her drink down. “My great-aunt pushed herself like this and it caused her to go into a psychic coma. Her spirit was lost forever in the astral plane, possibly hunted down and absorbed by… what did you guys call them?”

“Hyudoros.” 

“Yeah, them. You’re pushing yourself much more than a normal psychic should.” 

Amy sighed, rubbing her head with a hand. She wasn’t a normal psychic though, according to her mother. She needed inhibitor rings- which she currently had stashed in her hammer purse- in order to keep her powers in check. 

Part of her wanted to tell Tekno that, but… maybe she was right. 

“...where’s Tails?” She asked, sighing. 

“Still working away on that folding tablet he has. I gotta say, I’m pretty impressed by that thing.” The canary replied. “He hasn’t left the guest room all day.” 

A door down the hall opened up. 

“...nevermind.” 

Tekno’s statement was accompanied by Tails hovering down and over to the breakfast nook, holding his tablet in his hands. His eyes looked a bit tired, but his face looked like he chugged a bunch of energy drinks… he probably did, knowing Tails. 

“Hey, Tails.” Amy said. 

“Amy! Hey.” He replied. “Have you found anything on what they’re doing with Sonic yet?” 

“I just had a vision. A long one at that.” The pink hedgehog rubbed her eyes again. “They transported Sonic to Prison Island and put him in this big contraption… a big restraint. I think I saw how they got there, though.” 

“Good! I’m very close to tracking down Sonic’s GPS chip. It is with him, is it?”

“Yeah, they’re gonna take it apart to try and find any technology in it.” 

“What?! Seriously?” Tails groaned. “I hope this GPS is tracked in time… If they even take out the laces of those shoes…”

“You didn’t add laces to Sonic’s shoes.”

“Exactly.” 

Amy scoffed in amusement, shaking her head at her younger friend’s strange behavior. 

“Where’s the plane at?” 

“Vanilla’s letting us use one of the decommissioned hangars belonging to HEXAeco to hold it there.” Tails said to Tekno. “Speaking of letting us use stuff… Thanks for letting us stay here, Tekno. Seriously.”

“No, it’s fine, I love having surprised extended houseguests. Reminds me of my time in college.” 

“I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.” 

“A tad.” 

“Well… either way, it’s a lot to ask for someone we just met. I sure hope Vanilla will give you some kind of bonus for letting us stay here, if not, just contact me and…” 

Tails kept talking, but his voice slowly faded out in Amy’s head. She was still resting her cheek in her hand, watching the now muted conversation happen between Tails and Tekno, though not really questioning why it was happening at all. Some part of her was keeping up with the conversation. Her mouth was moving to give answers to questions that she couldn’t hear. 

“I worked hard on this powerpoint and you all are going to watch it!”

Amy turned her head to the right, hearing a voice coming from the wall that was right beside her. 

Suddenly, she was no longer in the little apartment rented out above a convenience store in Westopolis. She was somewhere… cold. Wherever she was didn’t seem to have insulation or heating. 

The walls and floors were metal, with no windows leading out to anywhere. She was in the middle of two rows of tables, standing behind two people seated at different tables, both looking ahead to the powerpoint being projected onto the far wall ahead. 

Ivo was standing in front of the projection, slightly illuminated by the light shining from the projector. He looked a bit different- same mustache, but growing out some hair on top of his head now. It appears he ditched the black jumpsuit he had for the Chaos Crisis and returned to his normal red one, with the accompanying blue shades. 

The people sitting at the desks were identifiable even from behind- to the left was the fake hedgehog, the one framing Sonic for everything. For a moment, when she first arrived, Amy really thought it was Sonic sitting at that left table, making her feel a ping of shock through her chest before realizing it was his doppelganger. 

To the left, however, was Rouge. Amy hadn’t heard from Rouge since the incident on Angel Island, so her working with Ivo was simultaneously a surprise and unsurprising. Her working with Ivo must have to do with her sudden 180 into being a bad guy again- that couldn’t be a coincidence. There must be more to the story. 

“Amy.” 

The pink hedgehog turned back to the breakfast nook, seeing Tails and Tekno in front of her. 

“Do you have everything you need for when we leave?” Tails asked. 

“Yeah. Hang on just a moment.” 

Amy turned her head again, returning to the room with the team of dark criminals inside of it, feeling the rush of cold over her body once more. 

“From the intel that Rouge has given us,” Ivo said, clicking through the powerpoint. “GUN appears to have two Chaos Emeralds locked in the vaults down below the Devil’s Gulag. Obviously, we need to collect these emeralds before Sonic and his friends get any ideas.” 

“The emeralds are being kept in a large containment room, full of multiple anti-theft measures.” Rouge added on. “Security androids, lasers. However… they focused so much on making the inside secure that the outside is wide open.” 

“Do explain.” 

“Well, the vaults need oxygen for the workers to properly access it. They didn’t think, way back when they created Prison Island, that they should probably just use air tanks and have the entire room just be devoid of air for an extra safety measure. Thanks to shotty eighties design choices, there just so happens to be a giant vent leading directly into the vault that exits on the side of the island. All GUN has done to deter anyone from breaking in is obscuring it from view and adding a few motion triggers.” 

“Do you know how to get past them?”

“Please, I can get past them with my eyes closed. But… believe what you want to believe.”

“Hmm! Very well, very well.” 

“GUN won’t be too happy when they realize we’ve infiltrated their base.” Shadow murmured. “They’re going to send everything after us.” 

“Not if we get rid of everything.” Ivo replied. “I will attack and disrupt their weapons bed, the top layer of their base with all of their aircrafts and mobile weaponry. Meanwhile you, Shadow, will infiltrate their armory for a special mission.” 

“And you’re sure your plan will get rid of their weaponry?”

“Most of it, yes. Prison Island has become a kind of fortress for GUN over the years. Because it’s so secure, they keep a substantial amount of weapons inside of it.” 

“Alright. That sounds…” 

Shadow paused. Ivo and Rouge both looked at Shadow expectantly, not understanding why he suddenly stopped talking. 

“Amy?” 

Suddenly, slowly, Shadow turned around in his seat and looked directly at Amy. As soon as that happened, Amy turned back around, returning to her spot in Tekno’s apartment. 

With her new info, Amy let out a breath, finally feeling calm as her psychic powers settled. She looked at Tails and Tekno with new resolve. 

“I’m listening.” She said. 

“Shadow! Just because you’re disinterested, doesn’t mean you get to turn away from me!”

The dark hedgehog continued to stare in that spot for another moment or two, even as Ivo was barking commands at him. Slowly, once he was sure there wasn’t anything there, Shadow turned back around to look at Ivo. 

He felt someone watching him. Shadow had felt the buzz of chaos energy in his ear, telling him that some kind of surge was happening right behind him. But, looking behind him, he found nothing. 

“Right…” Shadow mumbled, looking at the powerpoint again. 

“Good! You’re going to want to listen to this part.” Ivo continued. “Your special mission is to place an explosive device inside of the armory of Prison Island. In the time of the countdown, you need to attempt to reach the extraction point at the furthest side of the island, through the woods next to the facility.” 

“How long will the timer be?” Rouge asked. 

“We’re doing this at a moment of scheduled maintenance for their computer servers. That maintenance will last thirty minutes, and that’s how long that timer will be. By the time they’re able to get any technology back online, the entire top part of the island will be detonated.” 

“You’re going to kill them.” 

“No, they have special bunkers. By the time I’m finished with my diversion, they will have locked down their best assets to prevent anything from happening to them- with their new Swat-Bots, they don’t need to send any living person to try and apprehend us.” 

Shadow seemed satisfied with that answer. He crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. 

“You’re going to cause a diversion, the troublemaker will steal the emeralds, I’m going to the armory. Got it. Seems simple enough. Do you think we will encounter that blue hedgehog on the island?”

“We… might. I’m not sure when he’ll be transferred to the Devil’s Gulag, if he hasn't already.”

“You don’t know?” 

“I’ve been living in space for the last almost-a-year!” Ivo said defensively to Rouge. “I don’t remember how GUN operates things!” 

“Regardless, I look forward to possibly facing Sonic once again.” 

“Well, you’re in luck, because we’re shipping out in a few hours to execute this mission. I suggest you all get your affairs in order.” 

The powerpoint turned off after that. Shadow was up on his feet, walking out of the room. Whether it was because he just wanted to leave, or because he still felt a lingering presence somewhere around, was unsure to even him. He just needed to leave. 

He strolled down the hall, to his room, slowing to a stop as he got to his door. 

Shadow felt the hall slowly tilt, his vision skewing for a moment. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, leaning against the wall of the hallway. 

“Mister Needlemouse, please! We have to help them!”

ECLIPSE. 

“Hey, are you alright?” 

The total assault of the senses was interrupted by Rouge asking Shadow a question. He had felt he was being pulled into sleep, but that deep voice… it pulled him out of it. Rouge came just in time before he would have to face the voice’s wrath. 

Grooming his quills back with his hands, Shadow turned to face his companion. 

“I’m fine.” He said. 

“Uh huh.” Rouge replied, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. “You’re really trying to get a rematch with Sonic, eh? Are you sure that’s a good idea?” 

“I’m the Ultimate Lifeform.” Shadow answered simply. “Besides… I’ve yet to see that hedgehog’s real power. When we fought last time, I could feel him pulling his punches.” 

“So you want to piss him off into going full power?” 

“I want a fair fight.” 

“Shadow, this is serious. Sonic is a living chaos emerald. He doesn’t run out of power, he doesn’t take his energy from anything, he makes his own energy and doesn’t stop.” 

“Yet you said I had a chance of beating him.” 

“With how he currently is! Pulling punches and taking risks to be the bigger person! Not when he’s going on a rampage. I’ve never even seen him really angry before, and that should scare you.” 

“Hmph. I can handle him.” 

“Can you?” Rouge walked around to stand in front of him. “Look smiles, we’ve only known each other in a professional manner for a few weeks. But ever since what happened when you first fought Sonic, you’ve been… acting different.”

“I don’t need your pity.” 

Shadow tried passing Rouge, but was pushed back with a hand to his chest.

“And I don’t need a hedgehog who always needs saving.” She replied. “Something is happening to you, and you need to figure it out. Your mind is crippling you out there, and the thing is, neither of us know why.” 

The dark hedgehog looked away, letting out a long exhale from his nose. 

“Look, I’m not trying to sit here and pretend that I’ve gotten super better ever since I’ve confronted my past.” The bat continued. “But until I did, I never realized how much harm it was really doing me. I’m saying this as your teammate: you need to embrace your past and accept it.” 

“How?” 

“You seem to have a connection to this place. Look around.” 

Rouge was quiet for a moment before she walked around Shadow, leaving him where he stood. The hedgehog turned his head to watch her walk off. 

“I’m going to get my things. The doctor said he left you something on your bed. Something you’ll need for the mission. See you at the teleporter in a few hours.” 

Shadow didn’t reply to Rouge’s statement, simply watching her walk off to her own room. The hedgehog soon turned around, taking the extra few steps to his room. The door closed behind him, and with a tap of a screen on the wall, Shadow locked it. 

As promised, there was some kind of briefcase on the bed. Shadow walked over and opened it up, looking at something metallic and red inside. He gave it a glance over in his hands- they looked like the heels of his shoes, but larger. 

There was a note at the bottom of the case. He glanced the note over. 

Light Shoes… Sonic has the power to perform what he calls a “lightspeed dash,” which uses chaos energy to create a circuit of things for him to rush through. With these shoes, you have access to a small power bank of your own chaos energy at all times, allowing you to perform the dash as well. Use at your own discretion. - Ivo J. Robotnik

He put the note down, looking over the shoe upgrade. Shadow sat on the edge of the bed and crossed his legs, putting the upgrades on. They attached pretty easily, with a loud snapping noise telling him they were in place. 

The hedgehog got up on his feet, feeling how the upgrades to his jet boots felt. He could feel the chaos energy start to whir in his upgrades, absorbing energy from Shadow’s body to feel it. 

ECLIPSE. 

The sudden noise of his original name being called made Shadow stumble, a hand moving to the side of his head. His scarred eye twitched, his breathing quickening as he got a sudden feeling of dread across his body- a feeling of cold across his face and neck. 

WHY ARE YOU NOT FOCUSING ON THE MISSION AT HAND? 

“The… The mission was to assist Dr. Robotnik.” 

I AM TIRED OF WAITING, ECLIPSE. I AM TIRED OF WATCHING YOU BABBLE ABOUT PETTY RIVALRIES, OVER DRAMATIZE EMOTIONS WITH WHAT APPEARS TO BE A WEAKENED WILL, AND FORSAKE THE NAME I HAVE GIVEN YOU. 

“All of this is to work closer to the end goal we envisioned. Your plans are still in motion, it simply takes more than one person to make all the moving parts work smoothly.” 

ALL THE MOVING PARTS? DO YOU REFER TO YOURSELF? 

Shadow closed his eyes, still feeling his eye throbbing. 

YOUR DISGRACEFUL SHOW OF PROWESS AGAINST THAT BLUE HEDGEHOG BRINGS SHAME TO ALL LIKE YOU.... NO WONDER YOU CHANGED YOUR NAME AFTER. 

“I’m working on it.” Shadow replied. 

HOW REASSURING. YOU’RE LUCKY MY HUMILITY AND GRACE ALLOWS ME TO GIVE MORE THAN ONE CHANCE TO THOSE BENEATH ME… BUT BE WELL ASSURED, I WON’T ALLOW ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN… ECLIPSE. 

After a few moments, feeling the cold presence of the voice leave his body, Shadow let out a breath. He kept his eyes closed, centering himself and calming his body, which was screaming with adrenaline deep in every bone and muscle of his being. 

He gripped his face over his scarred eye, though only lightly, taking a deep breath before opening his eyes again. 

Rouge may be right about how powerful Sonic could be. But he had to know for himself. Regardless of that level, he had to destroy that blue hedgehog, even if it was the last thing he ever did. 

“There are Chaos Emeralds on Prison Island?” 

“From what Ivo said, there are.” Amy replied. “Rouge is going to break into the vault through some kind of external vent to get them. Ivo is set to cause a diversion by destroying the flight deck so that Rouge and that fake hedgehog can carry out the other parts of their plans.” 

Currently up in the sky at 35,000 feet, Tails was piloting the Cyclone towards the location designated from Sonic’s GPS chip. Along the way, after parting with Tekno, Amy had told Tails everything she had seen during that impromptu psychic vision. 

It was strange. Amy was able to listen and understand everything that was going on in the apartment, but at the same time she was doing the same in that mysterious base Ivo was in. It was like her body was in two places at once. 

“So the two of us, Sonic, the faker, Rouge, Ivo and two of the Chaos Emeralds are all going to be in the Devil’s Gulag at once. This should end well.” Tails said. “What’s the plan for us?” 

“We need to break Sonic out, that’s priority number one. Maybe he would be able to fight the faker. As for Ivo… we don’t know what he’s capable of nowadays, that vision was the first time I’ve seen him in months.” 

“I think I can handle him. With the upgrades I’ve made to the Cyclone, I should be able to take care of anything he wants to throw my way. What about Rouge?”

“The best we can do is probably find something to stop her in that vault. Neither of us are going to find a way inside in time… I’ll go after Sonic, and look for something to try and stop Rouge. If Ivo really is going to attack the flight deck, I’m going to need you to stop him.” 

“No problem.” Tails pressed some buttons on his console. “I’m cloaking the Cyclone to keep the island from detecting our arrival. Try to keep communication between us to a minimum until we reach it.” 

Amy leaned against the side of the plane, looking down at the world below. They were practically already over the island, but Tails needed to circle around once to get a feel of the area. It was dangerous, but he was certain they wouldn’t be seen. 

Down below, in the woods next to the prison facility- the White Forest- Ivo and his associates were oblivious to the circling blue and yellow plane flying up ahead. They were gathered in an area of thick foliage, keeping themselves obscured. 

Ivo was tinkering with something, sitting in his E-Mech, with Shadow and Rouge standing around closeby. 

“How much longer, doctor?” Shadow asked. 

“Just one… more… minute.” The doctor replied, still tinkering with that device in his hands. With one more click, and a beep from the device, he smiled. “Ah! There we are! All ready. Here you go, Shadow.”

The device was rectangular, made of metal with a glass screen on the front, almost like an alarm clock. It was the size of a brick, and Shadow held it in both hands after Ivo handed it over to him. 

“This is the explosive device?” The hedgehog asked, almost incredulously. 

“Trust me, we don’t need much. The explosions kept in the armory will cause a chain reaction that will take out the entire top half of the facility. You just need to make it to the armory in one piece… keep an eye out for the Swat-Bots that are along the way.” 

“Hmph.” Shadow tucked the explosive in his jacket, the same raggedy jacket he was still using to replicate Sonic. 

“Be sure to take a walkie talkie with you.” 

With that handed to him by Ivo as well, Shadow took the handheld transceiver and tucked it into the other side of his jacket, zipping it up afterwards. 

“I’ll wait for your signal to start looking for the emeralds in the vault.” Rouge said to Ivo. “Once you’ve destroyed the weapons bed, all eyes will be on the flight deck, and I’ll be able to take out the motion sensors before everything goes into lockdown.” 

“Excellent. We only have thirty minutes to pull this mission off, and we only get one try!” Ivo pulled his goggles down over his face, turning on the lens’ interface. “Okay, everyone ready? Shadow, Rouge, on with the show!”

The group split up- well, Rouge went in a different direction than Ivo and Shadow, but the latter two were headed towards the facility. Ivo’s mech couldn’t keep up with the speed of the dark hedgehog, but what he lacked in speed he made up for in firepower. 

Soon, the trees of the Green Forest broke to reveal the facility of the Devil’s Gulag. Ivo was on the other end of a barbed wire fence, looking in at the floating hangar and the actual prison nearly half a mile away. 

Readjusting his goggles so they fit comfortably on his face, Ivo took a deep breath. It’s been a while since he’d done anything outright illegal. 

Then, he pressed the button. The cannon on the mech’s shoulder blasted a burst of energy, melting the chain link fence in an instant. Ivo directed the E-Mech to step through the newly made hole, speeding it up to start running towards the hangar. 

Unlike the large Walker he used to fight against Tails during the Chaos scenario, Ivo’s new E-Mech (once called the Walker II) was much better to control being much smaller. Instead of the quadrupedal design, Ivo returned to bipedal, and with two powerful mech arms that have two-prong clinchers at the end. 

With the front console, Ivo was able to select any nearby object with the screen provided, before launching out small homing missiles to destroy them. The closest things nearby were fighter jets, which exploded when the missiles hit them. 

Ivo was a bit surprised there weren’t more agents outside. It seemed, as soon as Ivo started blowing things up, any living human immediately scattered and headed for shelter inside. 

GUN Beetles flew in and fired upon Ivo, but they were quickly dispatched by the doctor firing back at them, making most of them explode. As one failed in midair and started falling towards Ivo, he reached out the mech’s arm and grabbed the drone with its claw, swinging it around and throwing it into a small transport cart, setting that on fire with the exploding Beetle. 

Planes, other fighter jets, roared past above. Having been informed about the situation, they launched missiles down on Ivo that the doctor narrowly avoided in his mech. 

He had to reach the facility as fast as possible. They wouldn’t fire any more missiles down at him there. 

Directing the mech off of the edge of the floating hangar, Ivo used the thrusters installed on the back of the mech to float down to walkways below, continuing his run. The jets passed overhead again, in the opposite direction. 

The floating docks withstood the weight of the mech. That was all by design, though, as Ivo designed his mech to be made of lightweight materials. Though his hovercraft kind of undid that as it wasn’t made with that in mind. 

More Beetles began their descent to Ivo’s location, making him home in on them as well. This was getting too easy. Ivo was worried he’d actually made something that was a little too powerful for once. 

As the Beetle drones exploded, Ivo leapt up into the air again, getting over the water and only a short walk away from the actual facility. As he rose into the air, however, he was greeted with something over the edge of the platform- floating in the air was a drone not unlike the Beetles, but with two jet-thruster-like propulsors towards the bottom of its body, placed between a slot extending down. This slot had a cube-shaped object in it with a barrel pointing out- clearly a gun. 

As Ivo rose into the air, the cubic gun slid upwards in its slot, following Ivo’s height and firing at him. It shot rapidly, with three of the shots hitting the side of the E-Mech. The doctor landed on solid ground and moved out of the way of the shots, getting a break once the drone was starting to reload. 

The console’s screen beeped, telling Ivo he took heavy damage to his mech. He looked over at the gun drone and twisted the outside rim of his goggles, bringing up his scanner to get a record of what the robot was. Searching various databases, it got a name: a GUN Hawk. 

A click and the revving of some engine turned Ivo behind him, making him turn his mech. There was another drone behind him, one with a different design- it was blue, with some kind of yellow sensor on the front. It had five metal “arms,” three of which had some black and red disks attached to them. 

The disks detached, using hidden fans on the back to propel themselves towards Ivo, broad side facing him. When they were halfway there, his goggles gave him a name: GUN Hornet-3. 

Ivo pressed the screen on his console, selecting two of the flying disks before he had to move the mech away. The homing shots found their targets, but the remaining disk made contact with the back of the doctor’s machine, launching him forwards a bit. The console beeped again, telling him about the damage done to the back. It wasn’t pretty, but he’d live. 

He slid his mech’s viewing camera around and selected the bare Hornet-3. It seemed the center part of the drone couldn’t, or wouldn’t, move away from any danger. It was destroyed by the homing shot immediately. 

From the smoke of the destroyed Hornet, another took its place, hovering down from above. Before Ivo could fire a homing shot at it, he heard a cocking noise behind him- the GUN Hawk was finally reloaded. 

Ivo directed his E-Mech away from the Hornet, quickly ducking down to avoid the firing of the Hawk’s gun. The bullets hit the outer part of the mech, protecting the doctor but starting to really damage the front side. Ivo reached up and pressed the button he knew was for autopilot to keep it moving forwards. 

From where he was crouched, he peeked over and saw that the Hornet’s disks were flying in ever closer to the mech, following him on his path to the Hawk. Because the E-Mech was the target for both robots, neither the disks or the bullets were interacting with each other. Yet. 

Ivo saw he was only a few feet from the GUN Hawk. He had to move fast. The doctor pressed his hand to his ankle, his black boot turning gray once he did. Ivo rushed forwards, stepping his gray boot up on the seat of the mech and pushing off with that. As he did, the gray from his boots extended out in a nanite stilt, flinging him forwards and upwards. 

The E-Mech walked under the GUN Hawk, the inside riddled with bullets as the gun pointed downwards to hit it. The drone turned itself back up in time for all three of the disks from the Hornet to hit the GUN Hawk directly, exploding on impact. 

As he was in the air, Ivo pressed his two fists together. The nanites traveled from his foot up to his red jumpsuit, forming the armored arms and shoulders of the doctor’s Big Arms. He brought both arms back and swung forwards, his nanite arms whipping around to smash the diskless Hornet between his hands in an extended-arm clap. 

His nanites detached to gather around on the ground below him, creating an open hand for Ivo to land safely on. The nanites dissipated as he got to his feet, reattaching to his flight suit and blending in with the material. 

With heavy footsteps, the banged up E-Mech returned to Ivo’s side, turning its own autopilot off and waiting for its creator to hop back inside- which he did, grunting as he landed back in his seat. 

From the reports on his console, his mech was only a bit over 50% power. If he sustained too much damage, his mech would essentially become the missing part of an amusement park ride.

Remember when his biggest dream was becoming an amusement park owner? Now he was working with a talking hedgehog and a talking bat to obtain two jewels containing the divine power of a dormant water god. Oh, where did the time go? 

The screen on his console beeped loudly. “NEW CHAOS ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED IN AREA.” 

“What?” Ivo thought aloud. 

He held onto the sides of his mech as it turned itself around, turning Ivo’s attention to the entrance to the island’s prison facility as he spotted a pink hedgehog trying to get inside. Amy was at the door, hesitating to look at Ivo in his mech as she heard it turn around. 

She quickly slipped inside. Ivo grit his teeth and pulled up his walkie talkie. 

“We have company.” He said to Rouge and Shadow through the transceiver. “Sonic’s little friends are here. Or at least one of them. Keep an eye out.” 

Ivo directed the mech forwards, heading towards the entrance of the facility Amy just went into. These buildings housed vaults full of valuable things: objects, artifacts and information. If he wanted to stop anywhere before he had to reach the rendezvous point, it would be inside the facility. 

His path was interrupted with something coming down from the sky, landing right in front of him. It kicked up the dust and dirt from around the area, making Ivo cough a bit and wave his hand around to try and clear his vision. 

Some whirring and the gentle clicks of metal accompanied the arrival of the mech in front of him. Tails’ upgrades to the Cyclone included a fully realized mobile exosuit vehicle- the bottom half and the back half of the airplane were positioned towards the bottom of the central body, forming legs that the body was now walking on. The wings tucked down into the extra space behind Tails’ front seat, as nobody was sitting in the other two seats anyway. 

The fire whooshing from the bottom thruster ended abruptly before the dust cleared, revealing the fox sitting in his Cyclone’s mech form. 

“Nice haircut, Ivo!” He said. 

“Tails!” The doctor exclaimed. After a second, he touched his hair. “Are you making fun of me or are you being serious?”

“Honestly, I said it to try and make a joke, but… I do like the new hair.” 

“You know, I was worried a tapered haircut would look strange, but…” Ivo shook his head, making a sputtering noise of annoyance. “Stop that! Get out of my way!” 

“No way! You’re after the Chaos Emeralds in the vaults below the facility!”

“Why would you possibly think I’m after those?”

“Uh, duh, they’re jewels of ultimate power. Why wouldn’t you go after them?”

“Touche…” 

After that, the pair of mech-using geniuses stood there together, facing one another, staring the other down. Ivo glowered at Tails through his blue-shaded goggles. Tails slowly slipped down his orange-lens goggles over his face as well, blocking the brightness of the sun from his eyes. 

There was a beat of silence. 

“Abrupt punch attack!” 

Ivo pulled a lever next to his chair. The front bumper of his mech opened up, launching what appeared to be a weighted boxing glove forwards on a high-powered durable spring. It shot out with enough force to slam into Tails’ Cyclone, actually making it step back from the force of the hit. Tails scrambled to his controls to regain his mech’s stance. 

“Ugh! Was that a boxing glove?” 

“Yes it was!” The doctor retorted, retracting the punch into his mech again as he directed it away. He tried to get to the facility’s door, but was interrupted with a few shots into the back of the mech’s body. 

Tails had managed to fire a few energy balls into Ivo’s mech, causing it to stumble. The console beeped loudly- the right leg was starting to rapidly lose power. He wouldn’t make the run to the door if Tails kept firing at him. 

Ivo growled angrily and forced his mech to turn around, pressing his screen to fire a barrage of homing shots at the fox and his mech. Tails redirected his mech around to try and run away from it- the console had flipped over when he transformed, almost presenting the controls to an arcade cabinet across his lap. He used two joysticks: one to steer the mech, one to aim the gun above his head. 

This allowed him to fire at Ivo once more, pressing the button for the automatic rounds to fire at the doctor. Ivo had to run to dodge it, the mech limping on its weakened right leg as he did. 

Tails pressed his wristband, the one containing the nanites for his Vulcan Cannon. He pressed his wrist against the side of the mech, allowing the rust red nanites to create an extra gun on the side with a vertical slot for a barrel. The plane immediately assigned a button on the console for it, allowing the fox to get back to his work. 

With some space made between them, Ivo pressed a gaggle of buttons on his console, tapping his gloved finger against the screen where it identified Tails. The sides of the mech’s body flipped down, firing off a lot of mini-missiles towards the fox. They weren’t that explosive, the doctor wasn’t out to kill a teenager. They were more like fireworks… but still dangerous. 

As the round of minor explosives hurtled towards him, Tails fired his automatic weapon again, making most of the missiles explode with a barrage of rubber bullets. Some were close to Ivo, damaging his mech further- but some bullets missed, however, hitting Tails and damaging part of his own mech. 

The fox pressed the newly assigned button quickly, launching out a dummy ring from the differently colored cannon on the side of his mech. The dummy ring slammed into Ivo’s mech, right in the weakened leg, making the entire thing stumble. Ivo activated a nanite arm, extending it down into the ground and attaching it to the side of his mech almost like a stationary crutch. 

Another press of that button activated Tails’ ring tether, redirecting the control of the gun joystick to the red cannon, swinging the ring around like an overhand throw, sending it back and hitting the nanite crutch. Ivo directed one of his clawed arms to grab onto the ring, keeping it from returning to the teenager. 

“Hey, no fair! My mech doesn’t have arms!”

Ivo yanked the ring tether back, his mech’s other pincher arm spinning around in a rapid windmill. As he was pulled forwards, Tails slammed his palm into one of the bigger buttons on the console- the one for his bazooka. 

The missile fired practically tore Ivo’s mech open, but wasn’t enough to prevent his claw arm from slamming into the Cyclone, launching Tails backwards and sliding across the ground. As he tumbled, Tails activated the jet booster underneath his plane’s body, bringing himself up to his feet again. 

The E-Mech’s console was beeping in multiple places. He wouldn’t be able to salvage or save the mech on the fly- Ivo was pretty much screwed with Tails still coming at him. At this point, he’d need a miracle in order to make his escape. 

From above, the roaring of engines rumbled both machines. The fighter jets were back, and as Tails was on Sonic’s side, saw both mech-using geniuses as the enemy. They dropped missiles on the area between Tails and Ivo, causing a giant explosion that was enough to make both mechs withstand damage. 

Ivo’s mech fell down, making him spill out from the control seat. With the haze of the explosion, he was able to get out of there, reaching the facility’s front door and pausing for only a moment to look at Tails one last time before rushing inside. 

Though the fox tried moving towards the facility, the fighter jets had made their turn, now firing upon the fox with guns on their planes. Tails quickly directed the Cyclone away, leaping off the side of the harbor. The Cyclone flipped sideways, the legs rapidly folding back in alongside the back of the plane straightening out. The boosters activated just as Tails was rightside up, the wings quickly extending out at the same time. 

Tails touched one of the back of his teeth with his tongue, speaking directly into his Communication Crown as he flew the Cyclone away from the assaulting fighter jets. 

“Amy, Ivo’s in the building. I don’t know who else might be… be careful.” 

“I’ll see them coming, Tails. I always do. I’m getting Sonic out of here.” 

Amy replied quietly, murmuring to Tails as she snuck among the halls of the facility. She had managed to avoid any route to the wide-open cell blocks to make sure she couldn’t be seen. Part of her knew she may be seen on the cameras, but with everyone on lockdown she doubted that anyone was inside the security room anyways. 

Gripping her hammer with both hands, she crept into the stair access, opening the door but quickly stopping when it was only open a crack, seeing two Swat-Bots standing together on the platform between stairwells. She peeked into there, keeping hidden. 

“...this assault on our facility won’t stand.” Tower’s voice echoed through, coming through communicators on both of the robot’s chests. “You will find these little friends of Sonic the Hedgehog and detain them. Maybe I’ll have them join 32X like their foolish friend.” 

“32X. Sonic…” Amy whispered to herself. 

“All of you must be on high alert. If anything even resembles a Mobian, or that infernal Doctor Robotnik, you fire stun rounds. Apprehend them and detain them in a cell. Unlike Sonic, I don’t think they need heavy containment. All of you, inform me when the issue has been taken care of.” 

With a click, the communications shut off. That was Amy’s cue. 

She burst through the door, swinging her hammer down and letting the power of the hit fling her forwards. The hedgehog practically flew down the stairs, using the momentum of her fall to bring her hammer back down and into the head of the nearest Swat-Bot, smashing its head immediately. 

The other Swat-Bot raised its arm to fire at her, but was interrupted by the hedgehog swinging the hammer down and using it like a pole vault, kicking both feet into the robot’s chest. The round was fired upwards instead, knocking into the wall behind it from the force of the kick. 

Amy swung her hammer around and hit the robot at its side, knocking it down the stairs. It slammed and smashed into the stairs, the side rail and the sidewall as it tumbled to the floor below, landing with all its limbs and head detached. 

The pink hedgehog took a breather, putting the pole of her hammer across her shoulders to hang her hands on it. 

“Man, Snively Robotnik really sucks at making robots.” She commented. 

Her eyes trailed upwards to the sign next to the door. “HEAVY CONTAINMENT” read on one strip of the sign, with an arrow pointing upwards next to it. If what Tower said was anything to go by, Sonic would be there, apparently in room 32X. 

She pulled the hammer off her shoulders, swinging it around and holding it in both hands again. Amy walked down the steps, headed into the basement hallway. As she passed the sign, she had neglected to notice the other things she was headed towards- most noticeably, the armory. 

It was a straight hallway, with doors on either side. This place was a ghost town, with wide-open doors showing the empty rooms. Laboratories, offices. She even passed a big conference room, the blinds of the big windows making up its wall opened, revealing that people had evacuated halfway through a meeting. 

Her hands gripped the pole of the hammer tightly. As she reached the middle of the hallway, however, she paused. Amy winced a bit as she felt something… off. There was someone else here, but she couldn’t figure out who it was. 

One of the doors at the end opened. Amy’s eyes shot open, looking like a deer in headlights as she stood there, gripping her hammer, not moving. 

Shadow walked out of the laboratory he had stepped into. The dark hedgehog had found signs leading to the armory, but it appeared to not be on his level. He stepped out and looked at the back of the hall- back to Amy- as he peered towards the end wall. The end of the hallway split off in two. 

His head tilted, before he felt a familiar buzz on the quills at the back of his head. A certain energy signature he had sensed before, and not too long ago… back on the ARK. 

“You!”

Shadow turned, finally seeing Amy. That’s who it was. 

“You.” He echoed, finally putting a puzzle piece in the right spot. 

Amy let out a yell as she charged forwards, swinging her hammer to try and hit Shadow. The navy hedgehog strafed back from the attack with ease, ducking under a swing in the reverse direction. He put his hands up and grabbed the pole of the hammer when Amy tried hitting him with an overhead swing. 

Using all of her strength, Amy pressed down on the hammer pole to try and get it down. It wasn’t easy for Shadow, but it wasn’t really that hard for him to keep her strength at bay. His face hadn’t changed from stoic surprise, staring at the concentrated Amy Rose with one red eye and a scarred, milky one. 

“It was you.” He said softly. “You’re who I felt on the ARK. But how did you get there…?” 

The pink hedgehog wasn’t concerned with the statement. She kicked forwards when it seemed that she was getting nowhere with the hammer, knocking Shadow back. The dark hedgehog rolled backwards, sliding back on his hands and feet to come to a stop. 

He lunged forwards, getting up on his feet and swinging his hand around, letting it dazzle with golden energy. Shadow stuck his hand in front of him, sending an arc of this energy with a swing of his hand. 

“CHAOS SPEAR!” 

The golden projectile rocketed towards Amy. The psychic rushed forwards, holding her hammer above her head with both hands and spinning around to let the projectile fire past her. 

“CHAOS SPEAR!” 

Shadow had stuck out his other hand, taking another step forwards to fire another projectile at Amy. The pink hedgehog was still spinning, but heard the command from Shadow even as she did. Using her momentum, she swung her hammer around and hit the arc of energy with her hammer. 

Her strength was enough to repel the projectile- though there was a split second where everything was still from the matching outputs. She hit the Chaos Spear like a baseball, launching a straight bolt of the energy back towards Shadow. The dark hedgehog moved out of the way, though not soon enough for the energy to slice up the arm of his jacket, the same one to mimic Sonic, tearing it open and making it hang from the wrist and shoulder. The energy bolt fired through the wall behind them, creating a hole in it. 

Amy panted heavily, bringing her hammer up and looking at the front that hit the Chaos Spear- there was a black burn mark on the front, splintering out like shattered glass. 

“Hey!” She exclaimed, looking at Shadow. “My mom made me this!” 

The Ultimate Lifeform reached up to his torn sleeve, grabbing the hanging fabric and yanking the sleeve clear off, tossing it aside. His jacket now rocked the one-sleeve look, but he didn’t care, rushing forwards to fight against Amy head-on. 

As he tried reaching out to grab the hammer from Amy, she quickly pulled back, stumbling backwards to get away from him. She pushed her hand forwards, hitting his shoulder to shove him back. Though it worked, albeit only a little bit, Shadow grabbed onto Amy’s hand and pulled back. 

The white glove she had been wearing to offset her psychometry was pulled off as Amy got away. Shadow threw a punch with his sleeveless arm, and as Amy was holding the hammer with her other hand, she instinctively grabbed the sleeveless wrist, coming in contact with the hedgehog. 

She let in a sharp breath, time slowing down as she got a gaggle of visions all at once. 

Grass and flowers withered and turned black, the sky turning red as something massive eclipsed the sun. Entire buildings fell, people gathered in a giant crowd around the rubble with their hands raised up to the sky, bowing their heads low. 

“ALL HAIL SHADOW! ALL HAIL SHADOW!” 

From atop the rubble, Sonic tried stepping away from the top with shaking legs. He collapsed to a knee, but quickly fell up as he was unable to keep his limbs from giving out below him. Atop the rubble, with golden light shining behind his body, was the faker- he looked down at Sonic with a stoic face before looking directly forwards. 

He pounced forwards, a hand sticking out as his jet boots launched him directly to where Amy was in the vision. 

“MISTER NEEDLEMOUSE, NO!” 

Everything went black before Amy was snapped back to reality. She fell backwards, hands shaking and letting go of her hammer as she was down on the ground. 

A chill of cold came over her, like she was in the cold vacuum of space. A breath of vapor came from her mouth as the cold temperature made her shiver all over. She had felt something like this before with Julian Robotnik, but nothing to this degree. This wasn’t just the chill of evil… this was the freaking frostbite of it. 

Shadow stared down at her like he stared at Sonic in the vision, before bringing his hand around and pointing it directly at her with an open palm, the energy of his Chaos Spear starting up again. 

Amy had her arms around her, looking up at Shadow with wide eyes. 

“Mister Needlemouse?” She spoke. 

The energy from Shadow’s hand died off immediately after that, his eyebrows raising. His fingers started curling and uncurling slightly, as if he was lightly squeezing something. 

“What did you just say?” 

Shadow’s voice was no longer stoic, or even angry. His voice was small, soft, as if he was meekly asking Amy a question. The question went unanswered, however, as Amy was still shivering a bit on the floor in front of him. 

The hedgehog’s hand went to his head, pressing over his scarred eye as he felt himself reliving a memory he couldn’t recall. He squeezed his eyes shut, stumbling backwards as he was overcome with grief, with anger… with sadness. 

There was a clang somewhere in front of him. He looked ahead, over Amy, to the opened stair access room. More Swat-Bots were coming, and they were coming in droves. 

Shadow looked down at Amy for a second, but only a second, before turning tail and booking it away. He didn’t know why Amy said that, but… he was far too shaken right now to fight anyone. He wanted to get this job done and leave this awful place. 

As she came down from her sudden chilliness, Amy looked behind her and spotted the dozen Swat-Bots starting to head into the hallway. She scrambled up, grabbing the hammer and her missing glove before running down the hall. 

Shadow had headed right, having discovered another arrow pointing the armory down that way. Amy had witnessed it, but saw that heavy containment was to the left. She contemplated, for a moment, rushing to the faker again in order to get more information on what she saw… However, Sonic was still imprisoned. 

She only needed a second of thinking to make her choice. She headed down the left hall as the Swat-Bots began unleashing their barrage of rounds towards the end of the hallway, narrowly escaping them. The arrow leading to the heavy containment led to a single elevator that opened up when she was closeby. 

Amy pressed the button to the sub-basement. The doors closed as the Swat-Bots came down that hallway towards her. 

The private elevator stopped on the sub-basement floor. She was surprised any of them were working, before swiftly realizing there were no stairs leading to this level. 

That was a serious safety violation. Then again, GUN was government funded, so they would probably get away with literal war crimes if they just gave the army a few combat drones. 

The hall split in two directions, but a sign told her that the “X” rooms were to the left, and the “Y” rooms were to the right. Amy went to the left as soon as she heard the elevators close behind her. 

The different doors were marked with different numbers. Starting from “1X” at the right, and “2X” to the left. Focusing on the left, she ran down the hall until she got all the way at the end- the last door to the left was 32X. 

Amy leaned back and kicked open the door, knocking it off its hinges. She stepped in with both hands holding her hammer, seeing a single scientist inside and Sonic in his restraints. 

The scientist turned to Amy in shock, staring at her for a moment before sighing deeply. To the hedgehog’s surprise, he walked forwards, taking off his keycard and handing it to her. 

“They just left me here to guard him. Didn’t even take a vote. I’m not paid enough for this crap.”

Amy hesitantly took the keycard. The scientist walked out of the room and left the hallway, headed into the private elevator to his left. 

With that scientist gone, Amy rushed forwards and quickly inserted the keycard into a wall terminal, pressing to release Sonic from his restraints. 

“Have no fear… Amy Rose is here.” She murmured as she quickly tapped the release button. 

The front glass opened, the table leaning down so it was level with the ground. The arm and leg clasps opened up, with all of the sensors placed on Sonic detaching from his body.

As Sonic fell forwards, Amy caught him, letting her hammer fall to the floor. He was slowly getting up on his feet, with Amy helping him stay up. 

“Sonic! Sonic, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine… really thirsty. Those IVs don’t actually quench your thirst at all!” 

Amy scoffed a bit in amusement. She touched the Communication Crown with her tongue to turn it on. 

“Tails, I got Sonic. He’s okay.”

“Thank goodness. I’m getting heavy fire from GUN- I can meet you all somewhere when it’s safe to pick you up.” 

“Tails is here?” Sonic asked, regaining his strength quicker. 

“He’s flying the Cyclone, GUN’s after him. Sonic, listen- the faker’s on the island. He’s working with Ivo and Rouge to get the Chaos Emeralds out of the vaults below the prison.” 

“Oh you’ve… gotta be kidding me.” Sonic cracked his back as he stood on two feet. “I’ve got nearly twenty-four hours of potential energy I want to use.”

“Are you going after the faker?”

“…no. I can get the heat off of Tails if I rush through the island. They’ll focus on me, not him.”

“What if they catch you again?”

“They won’t. Fastest thing alive, remember?”

Sonic winked and shot a finger gun at Amy. He looked at his arm, then down at his body, looking over his prisoner jumpsuit. 

“Yuck. I gotta go change first. This shade of orange is hideous on me.”

Amy smiled in amusement, but her face dropped as she saw someone show up in the doorway. 

“Sonic, look out!”

The blue hedgehog turned his head, seeing a Swat-Bot at the opened door. It leveled its arm cannon at Sonic, ready to fire. 

He gave one last glance to Amy. 

“Catch you on the flip side.”

With that last remark to her, Sonic rushed away, grabbing the robot’s arm as it fired. The round went into the wall, and the robot went into the wall at the other side of the hallway, smashing it to pieces. 

Sonic stood in the middle of the hallway, looking at the dismantled android. More arm cannons powered on as the hedgehog found himself against four more of the Swat-Bots in the corridor. 

He wasn’t kidding when he said he had a lot of potential energy to run off. Finally free from the restraints, Sonic was ready to release the gathered up energy he’d been building all this time. 

Lightning cracked from his quills as he boosted forwards. The force of his boost was enough to propel the Swat-Bots backwards, smashing them against each other and the floor as he sped by. 

With his prisoner shoes obliterated, Sonic slid into the opened elevator- the same Amy was in before, and pressed the button to head to the ground floor. 

Just as he did, at the very same time across the prison, Shadow pressed the button to arm the explosive device in the armory. He had managed to pass a few of the remaining Swat-Bots, his brain swampy and fuzzy from what happened when he encountered Amy. 

He had to run this buzz off. Shadow pulled the walkie talkie he had in his jacket to speak into it. 

“Doctor, the bomb is set. You’re free to set the timer remotely when ready. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous spot.” 

“Copy that, Shadow. I have to make a little stop before I do.”

Ivo tucked his communicator back in his jumpsuit. He opened another filing cabinet, trying to find something specific… something different. 

The doctor had made that desired stop into the records room, which doubled as an evidence locker room. Here, files on just about every criminal incarcerated or investigated by GUN were stored physically. 

He had gone under “Robotnik” and the J’s, but hadn’t found anything. Now he resorted to finding something under the “M” section. 

Something bugged him to look under the Project: Mobius file. He had looked over what was stored about Project: Eclipse, but something about Snively showing up the other night made him suddenly nostalgic. 

Soon, he discovered the file marked with the appropriate project name. It wasn’t under “P,” but under “M.” This organization system was really weird. 

He pulled out the file and looked it over. All the information was there: Julian’s reports and studies, initial experimentation, the extracted Mobians taken in by GUN for study, and the arrest warrant for Snively Robotnik for animal abuse and treason- tipped off by Julian Robotnik himself. 

Ivo almost closed the file completely. However, there was one last paper in it- a debriefing. It just went over what the project was about, but there was an addendum.

“Further experimentation has occurred from Julian O. Robotnik. As this project has failed, we have agreed to not imprison him in exchange for this information. This information can be found under Project: M2.”

Project M2? Ivo was never told about that. The next project Julian did was Miles Per Hour… right? 

It became increasingly apparent to Ivo that the Miles Per Hour project was really the only project he was aware of. It was the first (and only) project he was the assistant for… when that one failed, they stopped Mobian projects altogether. 

What was Project: M2 though?

Ivo felt his mustache rustle as a loud whoosh came through the room. The doctor turned around, peeking out around a row of filing cabinets to see what just came in. 

Sonic was crouched down in front one of the shelves of the evidence lockers, moving through different boxes to try and find the one with his clothes in it. 

“C’mon, c‘mon… Hedgehog! Yes! Aw man, they just crumpled my clothes up and tossed them in! What a bunch of jerks.”

The doctor slowly leaned back into his row of filing cabinets to hide himself once again, sneaking back to his cabinet and looking through the M files. 

There was a rush of wind again that made Ivo hesitate, but he quickly continued to find this mysterious file. 

“Alright, all dressed up. Hmmm… While I'm here…” 

Another rush of wind before he heard more filing cabinets open nearby. Ivo quickly looked through the M’s, moving to the top as he realized the number would probably make it come before the MA’s.

He paged through the files until he found it- he almost passed over it, from the looks of it there were only two or three pieces of paper inside of it. The tab said “PROJECT: M2 - Surrendered Info” 

Ivo kept his head low as he rushed away from the filing cabinets, trying to head to the door. 

“Aha! I found it!” He heard Sonic said. “Now let’s try and—“

As Ivo left his row, Sonic was rushing by. The doctor and the hedgehog crashed into one another, their files flying through the air. Because of their fasteners, luckily the documents inside stayed in the folder. 

Both of them fell to the floor. Their eyes met as they tried picking themselves up, paused for a moment in a silent stare down. 

Sonic’s eyes went to the files. Ivo’s did a second after. It was dead silent in the room for a solid few seconds as one waited for the other to make the first move. 

Then, Ivo did. He rushed forwards, reaching out to grab the file, one of the files- he hoped that one would be the one he picked out. 

He was intercepted by a blitz by Sonic, who crashed into him and blew the files further away with the force of his speed. Ivo stumbled backwards, grunting from the rush against him. 

When Sonic kicked forwards to attack Ivo, the doctor’s nanites formed over his hand, grabbing the Soap shoe and catching the hit. His other arm became Big again too, before he shot his hand out and slammed his palm against Sonic’s chest. 

The hedgehog was flung backwards, the nanites from Ivo’s arms staying attached to him and covering his body. As Sonic was trapped under the nanites, Ivo rushed towards the file folders again, trying to decide which one to pick. 

Seeing the doctor getting close to them, Sonic rapidly vibrated his body, forcing the nanites to warp and deform. He broke free of his restraints and sped to Ivo, tackling him as he grabbed both of the files. 

Smacking Ivo rapidly to disorient him, Sonic soon pried one of the folders from his enemy right after, the force of him pulling the file from Ivo’s grip enough to make Sonic tumble off of the human man. 

Sonic got to his feet. Ivo did as well, holding his own file. He looked it over, realizing the tab didn’t say the right name. 

“…Project Eclipse?” He read aloud. “What do you need this for?”

“None of your business! Wait, then…” Sonic looked at his file’s name. “Project M2? What the heck is that?”

“That’s… none of your business!”

“…you don’t know, do you?”

“I’m not telling you anything!” Ivo huffed. After a moment, he took a deep breath. “Okay, look. My mech was just broken and I have a very long run to my extraction point from here. I’m sure you have other things to do, too.” 

Sonic hummed, tilting his head back and forth and looking upwards as if to hesitantly and silently agree. 

“Why don’t we just give each other the files we came for, walk away and pretend we never saw one another. Okay?”

The hedgehog narrowed his eyes at Ivo, but soon relaxed his body, shoulders dropping. He stood up straight. 

“Okay.” He said. 

The pair awkwardly shuffled towards one another. Once they were in arms length of each other, they both reached their respective files to one another cautiously, staring the other down. 

It was weird as they slowly reached out for their files, but eventually they both snatched their files away from one another, still staring each other down from arms length. 

There was silence for a moment as Sonic flipped through the papers in his file. Ivo didn’t open his- he wanted to do a full analysis once all this craziness died down a little. He didn’t expect much from the file anyways. 

“…nice hair, by the way.” Sonic said after closing the file. 

“Do you really think so? Tails said something similar but I thought he was just being facetious.” 

“No, no, it suits you. The tapered look is good. Much better than the bald headed stuff… that was Julian’s thing, not yours.”

Ivo hummed, his hand touching his hair again. They looked at one another now, this time more awkwardly than anything with hostility. 

“…bye.” Ivo said, quickly hustling out of the room. The nanites reformed on his arms to match with the material. As he left, he tucked the file in his jumpsuit. 

Sonic sighed, tucking his own file in his jacket. He cracked his neck before speeding off again, heading out of the facility and through the metal harbor. 

Rouge was glad the motion sensors were so easy to get off. She didn’t need any extra trouble getting through that vent… especially with how dusty it was. It was a bit of a tight fit, but Rouge could handle it no problem. 

As she dropped down from the ceiling, she landed on the metal floor of the vault area. The sound of her boots hitting the ground weren’t heard over the blaring alarms. The room was still illuminated, allowing her to see the giant center control area of the vault, completely under lockdown, the shutters on the windows closed. There were some lasers scattered around the room as well. 

“I’m in, doctor.” Rouge said into her communicator. 

“I’ve made it away from the facility.” Shadow added on a second later. 

“There’s been an unexpected delay on my end.” Ivo said. “There’s no more time to waste. I’m setting the timer for fifteen minutes- is that okay, Rouge?” 

Rouge was a bit conflicted, but grunted as she accepted her fate. It took her ten minutes to get into this place, therefore… 

“Five minutes should be plenty. Let’s get this over with.” She said into the walkie talkie before putting it back in her jumpsuit. Her treasure tracker flipped down, allowing her to see how close and far she was from different chaos energy signatures. 

The bat only had two to find- the purple and blue ones. This should be fairly easy… she hoped. 

As she rushed through the vault, she began to take note of everything around her. There were different cell blocks on her floor- A, B and C. However, from the looks of nearby signs, it seemed that there were different colored cell blocks, meaning she had even more vaults to look through. 

Her tracking eyepiece was scanning the area however, starting to lead her towards where the chaos energy signatures were coming from. There was one on the bottom floor, the level she was on, and one on the second floor. 

She rushed to the vault that the eyepiece was leading her to, looking it over. There was a valve on the bottom left part of the vault’s door, which she immediately began trying to turn. When her arms didn’t work, her legs came next- but to no avail. 

“Ugh, that usually works!” She said. Rouge huffed, tapping her tracker. “Find me the way to unlock these vault doors.” 

The eyepiece beeped, showing a loading bar on the lens as it tracked exactly how to do so, using the information given to it by the GUN database themselves. After a second, a wire in the wall was highlighted, and Rouge followed it up to the top of the control center. 

She barely had time to waste, and she wasn’t going to spend it making comments about her situation. Rouge reached the wall to the control room, looking up to the opening that led to the top of the structure- the wire turned off to the top, meaning the switch to unlock these vaults was up there. 

Knuckles usually did this with those claws he had on his… well, his knuckles. What did Rouge have to do the same? 

…her legs. 

Rouge quickly kicked her feet into the metal of the wall and climbed upwards, almost like a ladder without any top rungs. She scaled the side of the control room, even digging her steel boots into the shutters of the windows to climb up to the top. 

The ventilation fans were blowing upwards at the top of the structure, making the top pretty windy. Following the highlighted tracker marker, she ran around the left side of this part of the roof- there was a raised part that was even higher upwards. 

She passed by markers telling her that this was for the red cell block, not any of the other ones. Wind blew upwards, making her hair lift upwards as she ran towards the switch at the end of the fan-lined walkway. 

As she flipped the switch, there suddenly came an opposing wind coming down onto her. She covered her eyes and turned around, looking up at what was coming down. 

It was a large, flying mech. Though there was glass covering up what looked like a cockpit, it was driven remotely. The tracker identified the drone mech, though Rouge already knew what the thing was- the R/1-A Flying Dog, an automotive drone mech that was only sent when this vault was compromised. 

Looks like Rouge missed a motion sensor in that vent. 

She slowly pressed her finger to her tracker. 

“...where’s the switch for the other vault?” She asked. 

After a second of staying still, the eyepiece soon lit up a path to another switch- the one that was on the top part of the roof above her. 

She needed to be smart about this. Definitely needed to use everything to her advantage… if she tried to be stylish, she would surely be dead in an instant. 

With the wind still blowing below her, Rouge opened her wings and allowed the wind to catch her patagium, propelling her upwards. The Flying Dog finally processed her as a threat, opening up the missile launchers on its back and firing two after her. 

Rouge flew forwards, her tracker telling her that she had missiles coming after her. She reached into the pockets on her belt, like a similar bat-themed adventurer, before flipping her body over and throwing the two balls from her hands. The balls inflated, becoming the hovering bat bombs that acted as perfect diversions for the missiles to hit instead. 

Stepping off the wall in front of her, Rouge got to the higher area of the roof, stopping to take a look at the challenge ahead of her. 

There were a lot of lasers in front of her. It looked like a true spy movie- and if it were in any other situation, she’d be happy about it. 

She heard the rush of the Flying Dog’s thrusters behind her, making her run forwards and to one of the boxes of parts that were left up there. Rouge tried moving across the top, but was stopped by the Flying Dog hovering over and staying right in front of her, suspended over the nest of lasers below. 

Rouge looked at the drone, then the lasers below, and quickly leapt up into the air before it could fire a blast of energy into the robot parts she was just standing on. 

When she was a decent distance above the flying robot, Rouge grunted and focused all her strength in her legs, spinning around rapidly as she corkscrewed downwards into the robot’s “cockpit.” It smashed the glass, wrecking the drone controls inside, and Rouge was able to bounce off of it to clear the sea of lasers below. 

The force of her screw kick sent the Flying Dog into the lasers, which successfully cut off one of the thrusters and a decent chunk from the side of the drone. It flew to the side and crashed into the iron bars that made up the wall of this area. 

Rouge got to the switch and flicked it, the eyepiece immediately telling her where the Chaos Emeralds were at. She didn’t know how much time she had left, so she had to act really fast. 

The bat turned around and stepped up the wall, before kicking off it to fly over the lasers again. The Flying Dog noticed this, and launched one last missile at Rouge. 

Unfortunately, because it was at a lower angle, the missile fired forwards and hit a laser. It exploded, and the force of the explosion did successfully harm Rouge. The bat was flung forwards, through the air and off the top of the control tower, down into the vault. 

She regained herself soon, spreading her arms and using her patagium to glide down to her destination- where the second-level vault was that had one of the Chaos Emeralds. She hovered downwards, landing on her feet and reaching the door. She tried the valve, but discovered it still couldn’t move. 

Rouge looked up and saw that the GUN logo on the front wasn’t on a screen, but some kind of trap door. She climbed up and shoved her legs inside, slipping in and reaching the inside of the once-closed vault. 

The door soon opened, detecting something slipping inside. Rouge was revealed holding the blue Chaos Emerald, smiling as she finally had a victory. 

Suddenly, an energy round went into her shoulder. Rouge let out a yell of pain and looked up- the Flying Dog was still active. In fact, it was fluttering along with a sputtering remaining thruster, beginning to fire upon the bat with a barrage of energy balls. 

Using her patagium to cover her face and body, the bat crouched down to keep the emerald safe but could feel herself taking damage. Anger started growing in her stomach, through her chest and into her throat. 

She whipped her wing away, looking up at the Flying Dog and letting out a ballistic screech. The purple shockwaves of her scream hit the mech dead on, and started tearing it to bits as she kept the sonic scream going. 

Soon, the Flying Dog was reduced to bits. Rouge ended her scream, happy she was already kneeled so she could compose herself. The attacks and the sonic scream took a lot out of her, and she was getting really tired. 

She had to push herself though. She had to get that second emerald. 

Rouge dropped to the first floor, still holding the first emerald in hand. The second emerald was in the vault closest to where she dropped down, directly to the right of it. She climbed up the front of the vault door and slipped inside feet-first. 

The vault door opened, and the bat now had both of the emeralds in hand. She stepped out, taking a breath, but still hobbling from the damage she withstood. 

Rouge needed to get out, she didn’t know how much longer she had. She… didn’t know if she could, though. 

Exhausted beyond relief, Rouge rested against one of the vault doors, sliding to the floor.

GET IT TOGETHER. 

Shadow lifted his head, having hung it down as he rested against a tree for a moment. He had just made his way into the Green Forest, next to the facility, still headed towards the extraction point outside. 

After resting against the tree for a moment, he heard the deep voice inside his head. His eyes fluttered, his breathing heavy even though he typically didn’t get fatigued from skating. 

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” He asked, speaking aloud. 

YOU ARE ALLOWING YOUR FEELINGS TO OVERTAKE YOUR ACTIONS. WHAT THE PINK HEDGEHOG SAID TO YOU HAS NO CONSEQUENCE TO YOUR MISSION. 

“It has everything to do with it. That… that name. That’s what… That’s what she called me.”

WHO?

“I don’t… I don’t…” He said between breaths. 

MARIA!

“Maria.” He said, repeating the echoes in his mind. 

YOU DO NOT KNOW A “MARIA.”

“She’s in my memories. I saw us… watching television. On the ARK.” 

ENOUGH! 

Shadow was suddenly flung backwards, landing hard on his back. There wasn’t any outside force controlling him, he simply just… did it, all by himself. He groaned on the ground, suddenly feeling his muscles tense as he could no longer move.

YOUR FEELINGS TO THIS MARIA IS HINDERING YOUR PROGRESS. YOU WILL RETRIEVE THESE EMERALDS, YOU WILL DESTROY THAT INFERNAL HEDGEHOG, AND THEN I WILL CONSIDER TELLING YOU SOMETHING ABOUT HER, BUT ONLY THEN. IF YOU FAIL ME… YOU WILL NEVER LEARN A THING ABOUT THIS GIRL BEFORE YOUR QUICKLY DRAINING USEFULNESS ENDS, AS WILL YOUR LIFE. 

The dark hedgehog took a breath as he regained control of himself. He slowly sat up, feeling his body suddenly become well-rested, as if someone flicked a switch in his head to free him of his enervation from the sudden influx of memories. 

“The emeralds… Sonic the Hedgehog.” He murmured to himself. 

As he stood up to finally start moving again, he took a deep breath and cracked his neck, ready to set off. Suddenly, white noise started coming from his jacket- from the walkie talkie inside of his jacket. 

“This is Rouge. I’ve got a small problem…” The bat said through the communicator. From the sound of her voice, and how heavy her breath was, she was beaten. “I’m hurt real bad, and trapped in the vault alongside the Chaos Emeralds. There’s probably an ironic moral to go along with this. The treasure hunter, about to die alongside her treasure…” 

Shadow hadn’t moved yet, looking down at where the communicator was in his jacket. 

Though it’ll probably be ironic, if I end up dying in the place meant to cure me…

The dark hedgehog looked back and forth, hearing the words summoned to his mind, spoken by that girl… Maria. He couldn’t see the memory, but he could hear her voice so clearly. The line stuck to him, somehow, now brought along by Rouge. 

The Chaos Emeralds would and could survive an explosion, but Rouge… Not so much. That vault would flood with fire and destroy her. She was trapped there, stuck working a mission for Ivo and Shadow. She was there because of him. 

She was there because of him. 

He turned his head slightly, firmly zipping up his jacket to his neck. He growled a bit. 

“Troublemaker…” He grumbled under his breath. Shadow turned around and started skating in the opposite direction, headed towards where he knew Rouge’s vent access was located. 

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

“Getting the Chaos Emeralds.” 

THAT BAT—

“If this place explodes, GUN will be all over it, and easily have a grip over the emeralds left behind. I’m open to hearing your plan to get past all those GUN agents that will be around here after the area is clear?” 

No response for the voice. 

“Hm. As I thought.” 

Jet-skating down the trunk of a fallen massive tree, Shadow reached the uprooted part of the tree, finding a line of rings curving upwards. As he reached the line of rings, he felt his Light Shoe upgrade activate- chaos energy surrounded his body, and as he leapt forwards to the rings, he created a circuit that propelled him through the trail. 

Across the jungle, also passing through a trail of rings, was Sonic. He figured that, with all the use of Chaos Emeralds around the place, the island was ripe with chaos energy. With little people around, rings were able to form without the threat of being taken.

Tails had added an upgrade to Sonic’s shoes- besides the GPS chip, he was also given a “light chip,” which housed a small part of his energy to activate his lightspeed dash whenever he wanted, rather than having to focus his energy.  

Sonic flew out of the trail of rings, grabbing onto a hanging vine and using the speed to swing around a giant trunk in the forest. 

This was great. He was getting all the speed out of his system, and he was leading all the drones and robots away into the forest to find him. He was sure Tails was picking Amy up to get away from the island, and once he was on a clearer part of the island, he would find a way to get onto the Cyclone so they could get the heck out of there. 

He grinded on one of the larger tree branches in the forest, curving around and shooting off across the air. He landed on a raised platform in the swampy bottom parts of this jungle, running across it and leaping off to grab onto another vine. 

Sonic swung around a branch once, letting it swing around again so he dismounted on the second time around. He flung forwards, through the branches in a spin dash before unfurling to land on his feet on a fallen tree, grinding down that next. 

He soon leapt off of it, landing on a nearly perfectly square plateau of the forest. Sonic let out a sigh as he slowed down to a stop, dusting his hands off and looking around. 

“Ahhh…” He let out a breath. “So far, so good!” 

From somewhere nearby, a branch rustled, the leaves on the branch letting out a sound. With nobody else around, Sonic had to turn to find out who it was. He was greeted with Shadow, the fake hedgehog crouched on the branch, clearly ready to leap off again. 

“Hey, that’s…!”

“That blue hedgehog again of all places.” Shadow grumbled as he noticed Sonic. He started to walk across the branch to get to a better place to rocket off, still wanting to get to the vent access. 

“I found you, faker!” Sonic shouted, feeling anger bubble in his chest again. Here he was, the guy causing literally all of his problems. Well, Ivo and Rouge could get some of the blame, but this faker was the main perpetrator, dang it! 

Shadow stopped in his tracks. He was still focused on getting Rouge, but something about that struck him in his pride. He looked at Sonic from the corner of his good eye, his jaw locking as he threw caution to the wind- voice be damned, he was going to show this blasted hedgehog who’s boss. 

“Faker?” Shadow spat, turning to face him, pacing the branch. “I think you’re the fake hedgehog around here. You’re comparing yourself to me? HA! You’re not even good enough to be my fake!” 

Sonic’s hands shook as he balled them into fists, angrier than he felt the last time he fought this guy. He wanted to talk some smack, eh? 

“I’ll make you eat those words!”

“You won’t even get the chance!” 

The dark hedgehog dropped down from the branch and hit the ground, rushing forwards to meet Sonic, who boosted towards him. The two hedgehogs slammed into each other, creating a flash of white before they were propelled back to opposite sides of the plateau. 

Shadow glowered at Sonic before vanishing in a flash of blue, teleporting somewhere else. Before Sonic could concentrate to find out where that was, Shadow appeared next to him, stepping into a punch directly into Sonic’s face. 

The blue hedgehog stumbled back but let out a yell as he spin-dashed forwards, headed directly to Shadow. The Ultimate Lifeform reached out, his hand covered in golden energy as he literally caught the balled up hedgehog in his hand. White sparks flew from the golden energy as Sonic continued to spin into it, almost suspended in air against the powerful hedgehog’s hand. 

Shadow thrust his palm forwards, knocking Sonic backwards and ending his spin dash. He landed on his hands and knees, sliding backwards and needing no moment to regain himself. Sonic spun himself up again, propelling forwards towards Shadow a second time. 

As Shadow tried swiping forwards with a hand, Sonic boosted upwards, rocketing up above him. He boosted back down to slam down onto Shadow, forcing him down onto the ground. Sonic bounced upwards, but when he tried to boost downwards again, Shadow teleported out of the way so the spin dash slammed onto solid ground. Sonic unfurled immediately, getting up to his feet to see Shadow teleporting a few yards away. 

“You’re still holding back.” The fake hedgehog said. 

“You’re not worth the effort.” Sonic retorted. “Do you know how much this sucks for me, man? You’ve taken my entire life away from me, and for what? Why me? Why my friends? I used to be a hero, loved by all… I used to be cool.”

“Poor you.” Shadow replied, mockingly stoic. “It seems your self-worth is tied directly to how you’re perceived by those you care about… which includes your little town of Station Square.” 

“Whatever it is you’re planning, I will stop you. I don’t care how many people hate me. You’ve messed everything up the moment it felt I was finally getting my life together. The moment it felt I was finally able to move on from everything that happened.” 

“Oh, Sonny…” Shadow said slowly. “Your life will never be together.” 

“Says who? Mister caps lock ‘OW THE EDGEHOG’ over here?” 

“I am the Ultimate Lifeform. I am the Shadow of Doom. I am your superior being, in every single way. I’m the fastest, I’m the strongest… and I am the coolest.” 

Sonic let out a huff of annoyance before rushing forwards to charge at Shadow again. The coolest, in reply, rushed forwards as well. 

They crashed into one another, creating another flash of light. Shadow punched Sonic again, but the blue hedgehog quickly retaliated with a knee upwards into Shadow’s chin. 

Spin dashing in the air, Sonic grinded his quills against Shadow’s front side, tearing up the shirt and jacket even more and making him stumble backwards. 

“CHAOS SPEAR!” 

Shadow’s projectile didn’t have a lot of room, but it was still effective. It blasted against Sonic, sending him backwards and out of his spin dash. Sonic was able to land though, spinning in a ball again and burning out against the grass. 

As Sonic homed forwards, so did Shadow, letting out the best boost he could with his inhibitor bands. The two spin dashes whammed into each other, bouncing back before they sent a homing attack into each other again. 

One more spin dash into each other caused them to stay in place, rapidly spinning against each other like two chainsaws cutting into one another. That much chaos energy in that area seemed to break the laws of physics, as the two were stuck in hair to grind against one another, white sparks going everywhere. 

The dueling dashes seemed to reach a peak, as suddenly an explosion of white separated Sonic and Shadow, flinging them back and into the plateau with smoke coming off them. 

When both of them landed, the loud ringing of rings leaving both of their bodies- the rings they just collected- echoed through the area. Sonic landed with his head lodging into the dirt, upside down. Shadow landed on his back. 

Sonic felt across the ground, eventually pulling his head from the soil. He shook the dirt and grass blades from his quills. Shadow sat up, catching his breath. 

“Shoot…” Sonic said, panting. 

“Not bad, for an imposter…” 

Shadow’s remark finished just as he stood up again. Sonic got to his feet after, staring at one another from just a few yards away. They both got into battle stances again, ready to charge at one another for the next round. 

However, Shadow’s walkie talkie let out white noise as someone came over the comms. 

“Shadow, what are you doing?” Ivo’s voice said. “There’s only two minutes left on the timer! You need to get to the extraction point before the island blows up with you on it!”

Sonic’s fighting spirit was wiped away suddenly. 

“Blows up?!” He yelled. 

Shadow touched where the communicator was in his jacket, looking down at it almost in a face of betrayal before glancing back at Sonic. 

He remembered why he was even here. Shadow turned, his jet boots turning on as he launched out of there. 

Sonic turned, almost reaching out to try and give chase, but stopped himself. He turned back around and headed in the opposite direction, to a clear part of the island. 

“I gotta get out of here- and find Amy and Tails right away!” He said, mostly to himself. 

The blue hedgehog boosted through the trees and blasted out into the tree-less part of Prison Island. He ran along the beach, knowing he’d be found soon. 

Sure enough, he heard the roar of an engine next to him. He turned his head, seeing Tails and Amy keeping up with the high speed hedgehog in the Cyclone. 

“Long time no see!” Tails said, smiling at Sonic. 

“We need to get off the island! There’s a bomb!”

“What?” Amy yelled back to Sonic. 

“There’s a bomb on the—“

“What?”

“Bomb! Bomb! A b—“

“Get in the plane!” Amy shouted back, fed up with this horrible game of telephone. 

Sonic grunted. He sped to the plane, jumping towards it and grabbing onto the wing. Amy reached out with her hammer, letting him grab the pole and get pulled inside. He put on the headphones.

“THERE’S A BOMB ABOUT TO GO OFF ON THE ISLAND!”

“ What?!” Amy said. “Why didn’t you say so?!”

Sonic’s face fell to an emotionless glance at the ironic statement. He made sure the headphones were on tightly as they got further away from the island. 

On the island, however, Shadow had found the vent with barely a minute to spare. He blasted through with the power of his jet boots, headed straight downwards and into the vault of the Devil’s Gulag. 

He flipped forwards to land on his feet in the vault. He felt the energy signature of Rouge to his right, turning to see her. The bat slowly got up, leaning against a vault door. 

“Shadow!” She said. 

Shadow rushed forwards. He knew there was only a few seconds left. He launched himself towards Rouge, reaching out to grab the bat’s shoulder and touch the two Chaos Emeralds she was holding. 

With the power of one emerald, he was able to warp time around him to go faster. With the power of two? Space and time was truly at his command. 

He’d only tried it once before when he had a Chaos Emerald in his possession, and it didn’t work that well. But with two of them, he’d be able to bend space around him. It was like the landscape was a piece of paper, folding in half and becoming pierced with a pencil. With these emeralds, Shadow became that pencil. 

“CHAOS CONTROL!”

Shadow saw space bend in front of him, moving forwards and taking Rouge with him. He soon appeared on the nearest seaside beach of the United Federation with Rouge and the Chaos Emeralds in tow. 

The bomb went off, obliterating the top half of the prison as the Cylcone and Ivo’s aircraft narrowly escaped the blast. Though the living beings got away, the weaponry and information left behind were victim to the fiery explosion. 

Tower was sitting in his office, at his desk, staring down at the debriefing of what exactly happened at the Devil’s Gulag on his computer screen. 

Though not all of Prison Island had been blown to smithereens as a result of the explosion that occurred there, anything left for GUN to pick up was in the deep sub-basements and closed containers of the vault. All physical copies and reports dating back the last eight decades were completely obliterated, and millions of dollars in defensive machinery were turned to piles of molten metal. 

He was trying not to get too torn up about it. 

Commander Tower’s reading was interrupted with a request to video chat from a “No Caller ID” identifier. The number it was calling from was one he recognized, and it was a video chat he had set up the night after the assault on Prison Island occurred. 

He sat up straight, clicking to accept the call. 

“Madam President.” Tower greeted the caller. 

President Sky was clearly doing this chat in her limousine, the camera showing her sitting cross-legged at the far end of a limousine’s cabin. She was reading a manilla file, the recap of everything happening that has led to the destruction of the Devil’s Gulag. 

“Hello, Tower.” She replied. “We need to make this quick, I’m meeting Sara for lunch.”

“How is your daughter?”

“She’s fine.” Sky closed the file folder. “What happened on Prison Island?” 

“Well… yesterday morning, we were infiltrated by a variety of delinquents who stole the two Chaos Emeralds we had in storage since the incident with the being known as ‘Chaos.’ I’m led to believe all of these people have a direct connection to Sonic the Hedgehog… some, more than others.” 

“Direct connect, like how?” 

“I believe they are all working under Sonic the Hedgehog.” Tower said with confidence. “He orchestrated this escape and the stealing of the emeralds.” 

President Sky continued to flip through her file, looking for the pictures taken of security cameras in the back. She tapped one of the pictures. 

“I wanted to talk about that.” She said. “It seems you’ve identified the instance of some mysterious hedgehog as Sonic.”

“That is Sonic, ma’am.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Sonic has super-speed capabilities, ma’am. He’d be able to rapidly appear in two places at once.”

“Uh huh.” Sky didn’t sound convinced. “So he used that moment to put on a raggedy version of his jacket, paint a scar on his face and put on what can only be described as Mobian-sized colored contacts?”

“It’s likely.”

“I don’t think so.” The president replied quickly. “There’s an instance where this mystery hedgehog infiltrates the core prison facility when Sonic is still in your restraints. Am I to believe he decided to waste his time leaving his imprisonment to carry out a convoluted plan of replicating a doppelganger?” 

Tower didn’t have a reply to that, his jaw locking for a moment before speaking. 

“Ma’am, we have to accept all kinds of explanations.” 

“If you deduce the implausible, you’re only left with the truth, Tower. If Sonic the Hedgehog was able to leave his restraints, don’t you think he would just… you know… speed into the vault, take the emeralds, and leave? Not have five separate people fight each other and invade the entire place?” 

“President Sky…” 

“My daughter has studied this hedgehog for years, ever since he made himself public.” Sky interrupted him. “When he was taken out of restraints, he left the island. You were able to get me with the idea that he suddenly performed a heel-turn before, but it seems his story about there being a ‘faker’ is actually true.” 

“With all due respect, ma’am, it seems your daughter is making you biased.”

“No, Tower, it seems that you’re biased.” The president replied. “I don’t know what kind of stuff happened where you have this weird revenge plot against Sonic, or any hedgehog for that matter, but it ends right now. While Sonic has still resisted arrest, and committed other minor offenses, the theft of government property and various vandalism charges go to this doppelganger and him only. You’re going to make a public statement about it.” 

“I can set something up.” 

“Don’t bother, I’ll get my people on it.” Sky put the folder to the side. “I want it on the steps of your headquarters, in front of everyone. Your bizarre obsession with destroying Sonic ‘lawfully’ has cost the tax-payers billions and thrust the public’s perception of the Guardian Units of Nations into a frenzy. You’re lucky your reputation and long-standing with the Guardian Units of Nations precedes you- if you were anyone else, you would be stripped of your position and barred from even getting a crossing guard position. Do you understand me?” 

“Yes ma’am.” 

“Good. My people will be in touch for this upcoming press conference.” The president leaned back in her seat. “Goodbye, Commander.” 

The call ended a second after. 

Tower stared at the file of the debriefing on his screen after. He took a deep breath, eyes closing. There were a variety of words that could describe him: anger, fury. Probably just generally being upset. 

He never wanted to confirm there was a doppelganger because of the deep-seated fear he had, deep in his heart. It was easier to accept that this person was just Sonic instead of thinking that it was… him.

The commander had only heard about him from what he was told by the previous Commander of GUN. It was information he had requested, because it was so personal to Tower. The story of the Ultimate Lifeform had given him an array of emotions, from confused to angry, but he got over it after remembering that this beast had died after causing so much pain. 

Except… apparently, he didn’t. 

Tower raised his hand and smashed his nearby mug under his fist, spilling coffee all over his desk. He let out a deep breath, regaining his composure after the sudden burst of anger. The commander opened his notes file to begin his apology for the press conference. 

“Can somebody bring me a new coffee, please?” 

“Ma’am, have you seen this hedgehog?”

“No.” 

Tekno’s answer pretty much interrupted the last word the GUN agent said to her. Agent Mercury huffed in annoyance at the quick response. 

“I didn’t finish my question.”

“You’re holding up a picture and are saying ‘have you seen this’ I don’t think you really needed to finish the sentence after that.” 

“Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

“Yes I’m sure.”

“Maybe you saw him while you were out?”

“No.”

“You haven’t seen anything about this hedgehog at all.” 

“No. I wake up, have an extensive feather care routine, go to work for the entire day and return home for dinner and to sleep.”

“…wow.”

“Yeah, I don’t have a life. That’s why I’m so good at my job. Can I go now?”

“Hmph.” Agent Mercury put the picture of Sonic away. “You better not be lying. You’d be lying to the Guardian Units of Nations, and you don’t wanna mess with us.”

Tekno raised her eyebrow, but looked past her at something happening on the side of the street in front of the canary’s apartment. 

“Is that why your clearly marked truck is getting new decorations?”

“What?”

The agent turned around, seeing that someone was spray painting “LOSER” on the side of the GUN SUV in bright blue. 

“Hey! Stop that!”

The culprit, wearing the mascot costume for Meh Burger, quickly scattered away, leaving the spray paint behind. Ziya gave chase, running after the Burgerman mascot. 

At that moment, with the woman distracted, Tekno slipped into the stairway leading up to her apartment. She got to the door and knocked the secret knock: “shave and a haircut, two rings!” 

After a few locks were unlocked, Tekno slipped inside, kicking the door closed and letting the automatic locks she invented lock themselves back. 

She set the groceries down, before walking into her living room and into the sight of Team Sonic, who were all sitting on a couch together. Amy and Tails was watching TV, Sonic was staring at the closed file folder for Project: Eclipse. 

“Hey Tekno.” Amy said. 

“Hey girl.” The canary replied. “Sonic still hasn’t decided when he’s going to open the file yet?”

“He’s worried he won’t like what’s inside.” Tails piped up. 

“Right.” 

Tekno sat down in a nearby seat. She watched television with the others for a few minutes, the sitcom suddenly breaking to a news feed after a moment. 

Amy and Tails groaned at their show being interrupted. 

“This is J. Bailey with SXN.” The reporter onscreen said. “A sudden press release from the Guardian Units of Nations has occurred right on the steps of their Westopolis headquarters. Commander Abraham Tower seems to have an update about Sonic the Hedgehog.”

The view changed to a camera pointing at Tower giving the press conference in front of the headquarters, clearly wanting it to look flashy for some reason. He looked pretty dead inside… but that was his normal face, so it was hard to tell if he actually was dead inside. 

“The Guardian Units of Nations had put out a warrant for the figure known as Sonic the Hedgehog months ago.” He said into the mics. “However, due to… new evidence being brought to light… we must announce that the Mobian that had been caught on surveillance footage stealing from one of our headquarters was not Sonic, but instead was a doppelgänger impersonating him.”

Tower took a deep breath. 

“We will still be pursuing Sonic the Hedgehog for separate reasons. However, the manhunt for Sonic had started on a lie, and I want to apologize to those affected by this. That is all.”

The commander left the podium as the reporters started going into a frenzy to try and ask him a question. Tails turned off the TV soon after. 

“Ooof, that’s gotta hurt his pride.” Amy commented. “Guess he should’ve believed Sonic all along, eh?”

“Yeah. I don’t get what his problem is.” Tails shrugged. “Did you hear that, Sonic? They’re going after the faker!”

“What’d you say his name was, Shadow?”

“Mmhm.”

Sonic stared at the file still, not even looking at his friends as they talked to him. Tekno swiveled around to look at the blue hedgehog, watching him continue to stare at the folder. 

The canary soon had enough. 

“Okay, I’m looking through it.” She said, getting up to reach for the file. 

“Hey, hey! No! I want to look through it!” Sonic said, pulling the folder away and holding it out of Tekno’s grasp. 

“Then look at it! You’ve been contemplating for an entire day. Either you read it, or I do.” 

Sonic huffed a bit, frowning, but soon after got over it. Tekno was right, even if he didn’t want to admit it out loud. He had to read this file folder sometime. 

He took a deep breath, looking at his friends on either side of him before opening the folder up to look through it. 

“Project: Eclipse - The Search for the Ultimate Regenerative Lifeform.” He read aloud “Project lead, Professor Gerald Robotnik.”

“He’s the guy from my vision. Him and his granddaughter, Maria.” Amy piped up.

“Any relation to Ivo, you think?” 

“Oh no, I’m sure it’s a very common human name.” Tekno replied to Sonic. The hedgehog rolled his eyes at the comment, continuing to read. 

“This project is to synthesize the Ultimate Lifeform, the perfect being with blood that not only acts as a universal donor, but has the capability to cure all diseases and genetic disorders with its blood. First test is to, hopefully, cure Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, aka NIDS.”

“The disease Maria had.” Amy clarified. 

Sonic paged through the paper inside, looking through all of the documents created over the year this project had been in development. 

“Genetically modified lizard creatures… failure. It says here he was included on an expedition to… Angel Island!” Sonic said. “That’s the document Tails saw.”

He flipped the page. 

“Wait, hold on. Listen.” He continued. “Through commentary and study from the culture of this floating island, I was able to discover that there is a certain animal with the capability to absorb the godly energies of Chaos the most effectively, without any sign of energy decay- hedgehogs. Hedgehogs are the perfect creature needed to make chaos energy-enhanced blood for my testing.”

Sonic continued to look through the folder. 

“He… modified a hedgehog. That’s who Shadow is, a modified hedgehog pumped full of chaos energy, just like the rest of us.”

“Are we sure this is really Shadow though? This project was from over fifty years ago.”

“I dunno, Moss is immortal.” Amy replied to Tails. “Is it too far-fetched to believe the ‘Ultimate Lifeform’ has immortality as a power?”

“I suppose not.” 

“…huh.” Sonic said, stopping on another page. “I have made a startling discovery. Though the energy sustained through hedgehog DNA allows them to regenerate wounds, creating a serum from this blood breaks down too quickly. I need a regenerative property, one that can keep the serum together faster than the chaos energy could break it down. I’m not sure where I can find it, however.”

Sonic continued to look through. 

“There’s just a bunch more stuff about trying to find a regenerative property to splice into the Ultimate Lifeform.”

“Skip to the end.” Tekno suggested. “If he found it, he’ll probably talk all about it towards the end, when his project is getting better.” 

“Not a bad idea.”

The hedgehog flipped to the back of the folder, stopping at what he saw was the final project log in the folder. 

“The serum seems to be working well. Testing on human subjects will begin soon.” Sonic read. “I am so eternally grateful for… The Benefactor. GUN would frown upon me for this union, but sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. When I have the finished serum and cure any disease or disorder, they’ll act like nothing bad ever happened, and award me the highest of honors.” 

“The Benefactor?” Tails asked. 

Rapidly flipping through, Sonic read through all the pages at supersonic speeds. 

“Gerald mentions this Benefactor guy a dozen times, but never says what he provided… or why it’s a bad idea to get help from him.”

“Rival organization? Different country perhaps? The world was a different place in the eighties.”

“Could be, could be.” Sonic nodded at Amy’s suggestion. “There’s just one last thing I wanna take a look at… the debriefing.”

Sonic flipped to the very back, getting to the final page: the debriefing document. However, instead of a description, all Sonic saw was… black lines blacking out all the words. 

The trio were taken aback by that. 

“What? It’s all been redacted!” Tails said. 

“Why would they keep everything except the final document? That seems counterintuitive.”

“Unless something happened that they can’t talk about. What that would be, I dunno… but we gotta find out somehow.”

Sonic closed the file and stood up, his friends joining him. 

“What’re we gonna do now, Sonic?” Tails asked. 

“We need to find a way to track Ivo. If we can find out how he got to the Space Colony ARK, like Amy says he’s at, we can head up there the exact same way. Then, we confront them and stop whatever they’re doing with the Chaos Emeralds.”

“How are we gonna do that?”

“We gotta interrupt a direct  transmission of his. Find the source of it.” Tails said to Amy. “He’s not smart enough to use a VPN. I can track where his computer is, I just need to find a direct line to it.”

“Alright, so we have a plan. Find Ivo by finding a transmission from him… as for where we’re staying until then…”

Team Sonic all looked at Tekno, who sighed and rolled her eye. 

“Yeah, alright, you all can stay here until you find what you’re looking for. But if it’s longer than a month, you’re all paying rent.”

“Deal!” Sonic rubbed his hands together. “Now who wants chilidogs?” 

“Mister Needlemouse, what do you think it’s like on Earth?” 

The young Eclipse was standing in the observation deck with Maria when she asked him that question. It came out of nowhere, really, but… the thought had been bugging him intermittently throughout everything that had been happening on the ARK. 

“The Professor said that all his research was for the people down there… His purpose was to help them. If he chose to do all of this… then it must be amazing down there.” 

Maria chuckled a bit, leaning against the glass. 

“From the music videos I’ve seen, it’s beautiful.” She said, her blond hair falling over one shoulder as she looked at Eclipse with a tilted head. “Grandfather… he wants to open this satellite up to house anyone sick with disorders like mine. Find cures to what’s harming them.”

“Through me?” 

“Well, you or someone else. But from the looks of it… you’re the top contender, Needlemouse.”

The teen tapped Eclipse’s nose, making him go cross-eyed for a moment to look at the action. He tilted his head to mirror Maria, looking at her curiously. 

“Do you think… that’s my purpose? To be… their savior?”

There was a moment where Maria’s face turned… sad, almost. She looked out into space, down at the Earth, a bit solemnly. 

“You were made to help people. You were always made to help people.” She said, not looking at him. “Maybe not as their savior, but… as their friend.”

“Their friend?”

“Yeah, like how you and I are friends.” 

Eclipse smiled and perked up a bit at that. 

“And I’m helping you!”

“Yeah!” Maria grinned a toothy smile at the hedgehog. “You’re made to help others.”

“Do you think… After I help you, we can go down to Earth together?”

“Of course we can, Mister Needlemouse. We’ll go down and sit at a park and eat those roll-up fruit snacks from the commercials on those tapes Grandfather brings up.”

Eclipse smiled still, nodding at the statement. Maria sighed, looking down at the planet below them. 

“Grandfather says he made this ARK for me. That it’s supposed to make me better… somehow. I hope he’s right.” Maria said. “Though it’ll probably be ironic, if I end up dying in the place meant to cure me…”

“Ironic?”

“Yeah, you know. Something happening when it’s not supposed to. At least I think that’s the definition of irony. Anyway, it… doesn’t matter.”

She walked to Eclipse, offering a hand to him. 

“Come on. Grandfather’s probably looking for us.”

The hedgehog slowly took Maria’s hand, walking out with her, leaving the observation deck and heading out to the rest of the space colony. 

“Why so melancholy?” 

Shadow opened his eyes. He looked out of the corner of his good eye to see Rouge walking up to him, smiling at him. She had spent the last few days resting up, getting better after the fight she had with the Flying Dog. 

Even though she was shot at and was hit by a literal explosion, her jumpsuit was new and neat. She probably had back-ups for the jumpsuit somewhere in her room, so she could dispose of the ruined ones with ease. 

“Hm.” Shadow grunted in reply, turning back to the window of the observation room. He was still fully comprehending what he had seen in the sudden flashback, his brain swimming with emotion. 

“I gotta say, smiles, I’m surprised you came back to save me. Such a hero.” 

The hedgehog scoffed. 

“I didn’t come back for you. I came back for the Chaos Emeralds.”

“Mmhm. So stubborn…” 

Rouge stepped up to stand next to Shadow, looking down at the planet below them. 

“Did the doctor put the emeralds in?” 

“He did. Everything’s charging up now.” Rouge replied. “He’s cooped up in his room right now, though. He got some kind of project file from the facility, he’s contemplating opening it.” 

“Why does he hesitate?” 

“Well… he was just getting over his father, and everything Julian did to him. He’s scared the file will open up old wounds, and he doesn’t know if he can afford to go through that right now, seeing as this plan of yours is so important.” 

“Hm.” 

It was quiet as the pair stared at Earth together. 

Deep down inside of Shadow, he felt deja vu. It had been a while… a long time since he had something like this. Staring down at the blue planet, with the presence of someone right next to him. That memory, the one he recalled just a few minutes ago, he felt that it wasn’t the only time he had an experience like that. Like this. 

Something compelled the hedgehog to turn his head to look at Rouge. Sensing he turned his head, Rouge turned her head to look back at her companion, eyebrows raised expectantly. 

Shadow opened his mouth, then closed it. After a second, he finally opened it again. 

“Do they still have roll-up fruit snacks down there?”

Rouge was taken aback by the bizarre question, but chuckled a bit after a second. 

“Yeah, they do.” 

“I’ve never had them before. But… someone’s told me about them. I really want to try them.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. Maybe… once all of this is over.” 

“Maybe. Or… if we get the chance, how about we get some together? While we’re down on Earth.” 

“...that would be nice.” 

“And maybe some new clothes while you’re at it.” Rouge reached over and tugged at the sleeveless part of Shadow’s jacket’s shoulder. “I mean, c’mon, you’re not even trying to copy Sonic anymore, are you?”

“I suppose not.” 

“Alright then. When we get the chance… let’s do all that. You and I, together.” 

“Alright then.” Shadow echoed her. 

The bat smiled again, turning around completely to walk out of the observation deck. 

“Always a pleasure to talk to you, smiles. You know where to find me.” 

Rouge left the room, the door closing tightly behind her. Shadow stared at the closed door silently, thinking to himself. 

SUCH CHILDISH PLEASANTRIES. 

Shadow turned around to face the Earth as the voice rang in his ears again. 

“I’ve proven myself to you more than enough times. I don’t need your validation for all my interests.” 

AM I SUPPOSED TO BE INTIMIDATED? 

“No. You’re supposed to hold up your end of our deal.” Shadow replied. “I got the Chaos Emeralds. I fought against Sonic the Hedgehog. I did all you asked. Now tell me what you know about Maria.” 

ALL WILL BE REVEALED… SOON. 

Shadow took a deep breath, looking out to Earth again. He pressed his hand against the glass, feeling the coldness of space through the thick material. 

BUT RIGHT NOW… THE NEXT PHASE OF OUR PLAN IS FINALLY UNDERWAY. 

UP NEXT: Lost Impact!