Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a beautiful day in the Mushroom Kingdom, just like any other. The sun was shining, Toads were going about their days in town, and… well, Bowser was up to, what else, his usual antics to attempt to kidnap Princess Peach. But, as per usual, the Mario Bros and a few of their other friends and allies were doing all they could to stop the Koopa King’s evil plan. Between the forces of his minions like Koopas, Goombas, Shy Guys, Bob-Ombs, and many others, all of them were busy enough with their hands full. Especially when Mario was fighting the head honcho himself.

In the main hall of Princess Peach’s castle, the red-clad plumber leapt upwards and avoided a claw swipe from the imposing Koopa, before landing a stomp directly to the top of his head, before backflipping off and landing on his feet. Bowser took a step backwards from the impact, managing to easily keep his footing, shaking his head as he did so with a scowl.

“What a joke! Put some muscle into it, Mario!” Bowser clamored brashly before charging towards the plumber once more, his every step causing the ground to tremble, and pulling back a fist, and then throwing it forward as a powerful punch. Just before being hit, Mario got into a defensive stance and managed to partially block the hit, although he was still sent sliding backwards. 

Up the stairs of the main hall, a few Toads were leading the princess in pink away from the commotion, followed by Luigi and Daisy, the latter of which had been here for a peaceful visit before Bowser decided to attack. Peach kept making concerned glances over her shoulder to glance towards Mario and Bowser’s battle, which Daisy noticed and commented on.

“Peach! Come on! Don’t worry about Mario, he can handle Ugly over there, right Luigi?” Daisy responded as she nudged for Peach to continue moving, before glancing towards the green-clad plumber as she finished her statement with a question towards him, to which he nodded in response.

“Right! Mario’s-a got this!” He said confidently with a thumbs-up as he followed the two princesses along with the few Toads leading them into another room, closing the door behind them. Bowser quickly noticed that the person he came here for was getting away, leaping high into the air in an attempt to get past Mario to continue chasing her, but the heroic plumber remained a step ahead by jumping off of the nearby wall and intercepting the king in mid-air, kicking him backwards and causing the Koopa to land on his shell.

“Gah!” Bowser exclaimed as he struggled briefly to get back up onto his feet, but Mario saw his opening and took the chance, grabbing King Koopa by his tail and beginning to spin him around, slowly gathering up momentum and eventually throwing and flinging him straight through the roof,  leaving a rather sizable hole, but that wasn’t Mario’s concern right now.

“So long-a, Bowser!” Mario said cheerfully as he glanced up towards the newly-made hole and waved his hat towards it. But just as he flipped the cap back onto his head, the castle’s front door was suddenly busted open as the King Koopa stomped back into the building. “Ha! You really think you can get rid of me that easily?” He asked mockingly as he stomped further into the castle hall.

“I mean… that usually-a works…” Mario muttered in response with a shrug before King Koopa quickly and angrily closed the distance and threw another punch, throwing the plumber directly into the stairs and smashing into them as a result.

—

Up on the higher floors of the castle, Princess Peach was still making her attempt to evade being kidnapped, flanked by several Toads along with Luigi and Daisy. Soon, they had made it to the balcony, but came to a stop as they noticed the several airships with Bowser's face plastered to the side.

“Drat… Bowser's got the land and air covered.” Daisy murmured under her breath as she glanced between the airships in the sky and the minions on the ground. But at that moment, a familiar green and white flying vehicle descended down to get to their level. The Koopa Clown Car, piloted by Bowser's son, Bowser Jr.

“ Hee hee hee hee! With Dad keeping Mario busy, you've got nowhere to run, Princess!” The prince of the Koopas exclaimed gleefully as he pointed a claw towards the trio. Several Parakoopas and Paragoombas flew in alongside Bowser Jr, ready to assist in capturing Peach.

Bowser Jr breathed a fast-moving fireball directly towards them, but Luigi leapt in front of the princesses and swung his fist, emitting an electrical blast with his Thunderhand to destroy the fireball in mid-air.

“Ugh! No-one asked for you to be here, Green ‘stache! Attack!” The young Koopa complained while stomping out of frustration before commanding and gesturing for his troops to attack. The Parakoopas and Paragoombas soared in for the attack, but the Toads intervened and began to fight back, along with Peach and Daisy.

“You can take Bowser Jr, sweetie! We'll handle these guys!” Daisy called out to Luigi, who nodded in response. Bowser Jr growled in annoyance before pressing a button on the Clown Car and causing its mouth to open, revealing a cannon before firing several times at Luigi.

The younger plumber pulled out his hammer and swung it multiple times with precise timing, sending all of the cannon shots flying off into the distance, before sending the final one flying back to sender, striking the Koopa Clown Car and bouncing it back. Junior briefly lost control of the vehicle before managing to restabilize it, growling again before briefly disappearing into it and popping back up to throw a Bob-Omb at Luigi, now holding his magic brush.

Playing the most dangerous game of tennis, Luigi and Junior used their respective weapons to send the Bob-Omb back and forth until it exploded, which unfortunately happened in Luigi's face, sending the plumber sliding backwards from the impact. The green plumber shook off the blow, while Junior attempted to follow up with another cannon shot, only for Daisy to intervene by throwing a Koopa Shell and hitting the cannonball just as it left the Clown Car, exploding immediately.

“Hey! Stay in your lane, stupid!” Junior shouted annoyedly before attempting to fire a cannonball at the orange-clad princess, only for Peach to repeat the process by throwing another Shell and causing another explosion in the Koopa Prince's face, before Luigi leapt towards him and swung his hammer at a downward angle, sending the clown car spiraling to the ground.

“Ha! Take that! Take in your lane, stupid!” Daisy shouted mockingly after Junior after defeating another handful of minions before giving Luigi a high-five. 

—

“Bwa-ha-ha-ha! What's the matter, Mario? You're looking tired!” Bowser yelled tauntingly as the red-clad plumber pulled himself back up to his feet from the crater that were once the stairs, panting and brushing dust off of himself. Bowser continued laughing before charging up to fire a stream of fire out towards the plumber, who reached into his pocket, rummaging around for something he kept for emergencies. Eventually, King Koopa fired the torrent of flame from his mouth directly at Mario, engulfing the plumber in the flames.

But once Bowser was confident that he’d made extra crispy plumber and once the flames dissipated, there stood the plumber, flashing a myriad of rainbow colors, having pulled out a Super Star and rendered himself invincible, standing there completely unharmed from the Koopa’s flames.

“Let’s-a go!” Mario exclaimed cheerfully before running towards Bowser at accelerated speeds, jumping off of the ground and planting a kick directly to the Koopa King’s face, sending him sliding backwards across the ground. He followed it up by landing a series of blows, eventually knocking his enemy out of the castle through the front door. Flipping over Bowser, Mario grabbed him by the tail once more and spun him around faster than before, to the point of moving as a blur. He eventually hurled Bowser into the air, colliding with Junior’s Clown Car as it fell to the ground from somewhere around the top of the castle. The collision created an explosion high in the air as Mario said the line again. “So long-a, Bowser!” He shouted once more, confident that this time, Bowser was actually gone.

But before he could even feel good about his victory or go to check up on Peach and his other friends, something more drastic got the hero’s attention first. Despite it being the middle of a cloudless, sunny day, the sky suddenly darkened, turning to a twisted dark purple color and becoming filled with even darker clouds. From these newly formed clouds, bright magenta lightning bolts fell from the sky and struck the ground with enough force to cause the ground to lightly tremble.

“Mama mia… That’s-a not normal…” Mario mumbled to himself as he walked forward, glancing around until eventually spotting something small amidst the clouds. A circular portal that glowed a bright fuschia color, before a figure emerged from it. It was hard to make them out from the clouds that surrounded them, but what could be clearly seen was their yellow glowing eyes, which surveyed the land below, hovering in mid-air without effort. Eventually, a booming voice echoed throughout the land, seemingly coming from the figure in the sky.

“Attention to all! I apologize for the process that is about to take place, but this world… It will be annexed! Don’t bother trying to fight back. There is no hope of such a possibility.” The booming voice shouted, before the figure in the sky raised both of their arms up as the portal closed behind them. All of a sudden, a giant, black sphere began to appear above them, before it suddenly began to absorb everything around it, ripping large chunks from the ground and pulling them in, along with many members of the Mushroom Kingdom and leftover minions from Bowser’s invasion.

Thinking quickly, Mario used what he had left of his Super Star to get to a high speed and jump off of the various pieces of the landscape to get closer to the figure. It took a few seconds, but he managed to close the distance between him and the figure in the sky with his power-up intact. Leaping towards the figure, he threw an overhand punch, but only ended up hitting some invisible surface. All of a sudden, Mario couldn’t move at all, be it his arms or legs, left suspended in mid-air. The figure turned towards him, allowing for the plumber to get a better look at him.

Their entire body was made up of some strange black-and-purple energy, forming a humanoid shape, with the exception of yellow glowing eyes, but no other visible facial features. They wore a set of dark robes and even a matching wizard hat. They crossed their arms and let out a chuckle, despite lacking the mouth to do that.

“Ah, Mario! I was wondering when you’d show up to try and stop me. It’s natural for you to try and save the day, hm? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you cannot harm me, even with your power-up. And while I may not be able to harm you either, all I need to do is–” Just as the figure uttered those words, the Super Star powering up Mario ran out, reverting him back to his base form. “–wait a few seconds.” They added, the cruel smirk practically being heard in their tone despite not being visible on their face.

With a downward wave of their hand, Mario was suddenly sent plunging down, all the way to the ground, at high speeds, slamming into the Earth and creating a rather sizable crater in the process. Mario wasn’t dead, but he was very much on the verge of unconsciousness. Just before that happened, the figure suddenly appeared out of thin air, standing above the plumber and gazing down towards him.

Suddenly, with another wave of their hand, Mario was sent flying back up towards the black orb floating in the sky, although he ended up losing consciousness and blacking out before he could actually make contact with it.

It was a beautiful day in the Green Hill Zone. The sun was shining, various small animals and other inhabitants were going about their day, and… well, Eggman was up to, what else, his usual attempts at stealing the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends. And as per usual, Sonic was doing his best to prevent that from happening. And while Eggman had many weaker Badniks to contend with, Sonic was stuck dealing with the strongest of them all, not that he’d want it any other way.

In the middle of Green Hill Zone, on one of its many grassy plains, Sonic stared down his robotic impersonator, simply known as Metal Sonic. The robot used its thruster to shoot towards the hedgehog like a bullet before the Blue Blur hopped up and performed a Homing Attack, striking the mechanical duplicate and sending him sliding backwards, digging his claws into the dirt in order to slow his momentum.

“Try as you might, faker, You can’t compete with the real deal!” Sonic said tauntingly, making a ‘come at me’ gesture to coax his robot rival into attacking again as he pulled himself back up to his feet, narrowing his glowing red irises upon hearing his organic counterpart’s mocking tone. But before the Badnik could blindly rush forward for another attack, a familiar artificial girl suddenly appeared by his side, glancing towards Sonic with a cold glare.

“I do not appreciate you attempting to harm my brother.” The AI resembling a little girl murmured with a frigid tone as she gestured a hand towards Metal. Sonic had to do a double-take as he tried to comprehend the fact that Metal Sonic and Sage were both standing side-by-side, two of Eggman’s creations that couldn’t be anymore different than each other, but he supposed that the peace he’d made with Sage was over now that the End was defeated.

“Heh. Can’t say I expected that . So, you’re an older brother now, huh, Metal? Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve congratulated you!” Sonic tried to say jokingly, but neither of Eggman’s creations bothered to reply to him. Suddenly, one of Tails’ Dummy Ring Bombs soared over Sonic’s hand, thrown from behind him, but Sage reacted quickly and grabbed it out of the air with telekinesis, before tossing it aside as it exploded. Tails and Knuckles ran in and joined Sonic as Dr. Eggman descended from the sky on the Egg Mobile, hovering above his two prized creations.

“We’ve got your back, Sonic!” Tails said enthusiastically as he prepared himself for the upcoming fight. Knuckles nodded in response as he crossed his arms, ready to attack. “Yeah, come on. Can’t let Eggman get his greedy mitts on any Emerald.” He murmured as he narrowed his eyes towards his foes. Although the three weren’t particularly interested in having Sage as an enemy, if she was aiding Eggman, they didn’t have much of a choice, did they?

“Attack!” Eggman commanded as he pointed towards his three adversaries before firing a missile from the Egg Mobile, prompting Metal to finally shoot towards Sonic, who met the attack with a Spin Dash, the two colliding with each other and bouncing back as a result. Sage floated up into the air and fired a laser at Tails, but the two-tailed fox managed to roll out of the way. In the meantime, Knuckles leapt up and glided towards Eggman, attempting to strike the Egg Mobile out of the air, but the doctor swerved out of the way and easily avoided the echidna’s attack.

But Sonic couldn’t focus on how the others were doing against their respective foes, especially when you have a murder machine that is fashioned in your visage attempting to kill you. Although the key word there was attempt . Metal rushed forward and swiped his clawed hands at his organic rival multiple times, but Sonic managed to step backwards and evade each attack by the skin of his quills.

Eventually, Sonic would attempt to flip over the Badnik and deliver a kick to the back of Metal’s head, but the robot summoned his Black Shield in order to block it, before dispelling it as Metal countered with a Homing Attack of his own, throwing Sonic further into the air, before shooting after him and snatching the Blue Blur out of the air, before flying up even further.

“I’LL CRUSH YOU.” The robotic duplicate of Sonic uttered out in his regularly robotic and methodic tone before tilting his entire body, along with Sonic himself, downwards and then propelling himself at top speeds back towards the ground. Reacting quickly before he was slammed hard against the dirt, Sonic struggled against the robot’s grip and succeeded just enough to throw a kick out to throw Metal away, before flipping and managing to land on his own two feet as Metal hit the ground hard and rolled through the grass, before stubbornly pulling himself back up despite being covered in dirt and a few dents from the impact.

“ELIMINATE FAKE HEDGEHOG,” Metal said in the same robotic voice before rushing forward and immediately balling a clawed fist, throwing it and striking Sonic right in the face, sending him several feet away from the sheer impact. As Sonic got back up, several more blows came raining in, each one hitting harder and harder than the last. Eventually, Metal would wrap his sharp claws around his organic counterpart’s neck and lift him off of the ground, staring at his pained expression, scanning over it with his red eyes. “EXTERMINATION IMMINENT.”

“That’s what you think,” Sonic muttered weakly after letting out a cough before suddenly planting a foot on Metal’s chest and then escaping the robot’s grasp by pressing off of it and backflipping several feet away. But then, the hedgehog floated off of the ground as the Chaos Emeralds suddenly appeared in the air around him, all of which crackled with energy. “Now I’ll show you!” Sonic yelled out as his smirk returned to his face, before transitioning to his Super form, all of his previous injuries immediately healing.

“Father, I suggest a retreat. We’re in no shape to fend off Sonic in his Super form.” Sonic overheard Sage suggest to her father after avoiding a tail swipe from Tails, which Eggman grumbled in response too, before firing a missile from the Egg Mobile to launch Knuckles away from him. “Fine. Sage, tell Metal to initiate a retreat.” Eggman ordered before the Egg Mobile and Sage both flew up into the air. Metal paused for a few seconds, before suddenly acting under new orders and activating his booster, making a quick u-turn and shooting after Eggman and Sage.

“You’re not getting away that easily!” Sonic yelled out before immediately flying forward at a much faster speed than before. He would’ve effortlessly caught up to Metal if not for sudden interference at the last moment. The sky suddenly darkened and became covered in dark purple clouds, which called forth a light pink lightning bolt and struck Super Sonic to the ground, allowing for his three adversaries to get further away. Tails and Knuckles ran over to Sonic as he got back up, too distracted by the sudden change in the sky to focus on the getaway villains.

Thunder rumbled and more lightning bolts struck random parts of the ground, lighting fires and slowly destroying the landscape. Sonic scoured his eyes through the clouds before spotting… something floating amidst the clouds. A dark purple shape with yellow glowing eyes floating amidst the clouds. Before he could even gather up his thoughts, a booming voice echoed out all around, seemingly from the figure in the clouds. “Attention to all! I’m afraid I’m going to take this world for myself ! Resistance is futile.” The voice said before a gigantic dark orb, the size of a small moon, appeared above the figure’s head, beginning to absorb large chunks of the ground along with a few unfortunate animals.

Without hesitation and against the protests of Tails, Sonic shot upwards into the air, directly towards the figure, before unexpectedly slamming into an invisible wall just a few feet from said figure and bouncing back off of it.

With a better look at this strange figure, Sonic could make out clothing that resembles that of a wizard’s robes and hat, along with the vaguely humanoid shape that the figure resembled. A chuckle escaped from the figure despite lacking a mouth to do so, glancing towards Sonic, who wasted no time and attempted to get past the invisible barrier that surrounded them, but nothing seemed to get by it.

“Ah, Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I wouldn’t waste your speed on attempting to defeat me. Even with your super form, you stand zero chance. And I know for a fact you cannot maintain this form forever.” The figure said before raising a hand and snapping the fingers of a hand that formed on the end of its dark purple arm, causing a wall of force to strike Sonic out of the air, which immediately caused his super form to cease, the Chaos Emeralds appearing around him, briefly falling back to the ground before suddenly being sucked up into the large black orb above them.

Just before Sonic began to plummet to the ground, his eyes slowly fluttering, the figure outstretched an arm and the hedgehog suddenly paused in the air as if being suspended by the figure. Another chuckle escaped from the figure, the smirk practicably audible despite not being visible on their face. Just as Sonic’s eyes closed and the hedgehog slipped into unconsciousness, Sonic was suddenly thrown up into the dark orb.

Chapter Text

After his eyes slowly fluttered open, Mario pulled himself up onto his feet and picked up his hat from off of the ground a few feet away from it, settling it back onto his head before peering around him, seeing where exactly he had been taken to. The landscape around him was both familiar and not familiar. It was a strange hodge-podge of several chunks of land, all mashed together to be something singular. Some pieces of land Mario recognized, but others looked familiar, but nothing he’d seen in the Mushroom Kingdom. But the sky was the same as it had been when that strange figure appeared and summoned that large black orb above itself, dark and filled with indigo-colored clouds.

But before he could ponder that further, the sound of something thudding against the ground rang out behind him, soon followed by a pained groan. He turned around to see someone lying face first on the ground, almost as if they had fallen straight out of the sky. He walked on over to get a closer look and inspect the fallen figure.

For a moment, he thought they looked familiar with that orange fur, fox ears, and two tails. It took him a few moments but Mario eventually recognized him. It was Miles Prower, better known as Tails, Sonic the Hedgehog’s sidekick! What was he doing here? The fox stirred and groaned again, lifting his head off of the ground, before noticing the red-clad plumber holding out a gloved hand for him and taking it, allowing Mario to help him up before expressing his surprise.

“Mario!? What are you doing here?” Tails asked out of pure shock, recoiling a bit as he blinked rapidly, his mind moving at a million miles a minute as he seemingly tried to make sense of whatever was going on, too focused on the plumber to notice his surroundings.

“...I don’t-a think either of us should-a be here, Tails.” Mario replied as calmly as he could, gesturing around them towards the strange mixture of a world they were in. The fox inventor finally took a look around as a horrified look appeared on his face, taking in the landscape formed and mashed together with multiple pieces. “...It’s like someone decided to combine both of our worlds together.” Tails murmured under his breath as he crossed his arms over his chest, his twin tails rotating idly as he thought. At the fox’s observation, Mario realized that he was right. Mario had never been to Sonic’s world personally, but the chunks of land he didn’t inherently recognize as being from the Mushroom Kingdom matched the description of Green Hill Zone that Sonic had once described to him.

“What happened… All I remember is that we were fighting Eggman… but then the sky became dark, a storm started, some weird figure appeared in the sky, Sonic attempted to fight them, and then everything went dark…” Tails mumbled to himself, resting his chin on his fist as he attempted to rack his memory, prompting Mario to glance towards him and chime in.

“That’s-a what happened with-a me. I was fighting-a Bowser in the Mushroom-a Kingdom and then the sky turned-a dark with those freaky-a purple clouds. A weird-a figure appeared and said that our world was-a going to be ‘annexed,’ before I-a tried to fight them. But I was beaten in no-a time and then everything went-a black. And now I’m-a here.” Mario explained as he jogged his memory as well, recalling how easily that figure made up of a strange dark purple energy had defeated him once his Super Star had run out.

“Hm, this strange figure was able to travel between our worlds, absorb them, and then create what looks like a mix of the two? What exactly are we dealing with?” Tails mused to himself as he idly tapped his foot against the ground, likely a trait picked up from Sonic. Mario gave a smile as he adjusted his hat before giving the fox a thumbs-up.

“Don’t-a worry, Tails! It’s nothing we-a haven’t dealt with before! Let’s-a go find our-a friends and figure out what’s going-a on!” Mario said enthusiastically before turning around and beginning to run off, quickly followed by the fox hovering into the air and following the plumber after quickly coming to the realization that Mario was a lot more like Sonic than he initially thought. 

Mario hopped across the moderately-sized crevices that split the pieces of land from each other as Tails followed him from above while the two continued on in the direction that the plumber had randomly decided to run towards. That is until Tails’ eye caught a glint of something reflecting the light of the moon that shone through the dark purple clouds. 

“Mario! Stop!” Tails shouted out to Mario before flying off to the side in the direction of the glinting, prompting the plumber to come skidding to a stop and follow him. Tails hovered to the ground and crouched down, digging through the dirt briefly and retrieving exactly what had caught his eye. “It’s… it’s one of the Chaos Emeralds?” Tails murmured to himself as he inspected the emerald in his hand, the green one to be exact. But before the fox could even show it to the plumber, something suddenly slammed into him and sent him sprawling across the ground, causing the emerald to fly up into the air to be caught by Mario.

Tails’ attacker came to a stop and became visible to Mario’s eyes, strangely enough being another one of Sonic’s friends, Knuckles the Echidna. Although… something was off about him. If Mario recalled correctly, Knuckles usually had amethyst-purple eyes, but he wasn’t sure if they were meant to be glowing and crackling with energy, giving them a more ominous look than usual. Along with the fact that Knuckles seemed a lot more aggressive than usual (which was saying something), Mario could tell something was wrong with the red echidna. This became much more evident as Knuckles suddenly darted towards the plumber and threw a punch, but Mario managed to just barely sidestep the attack from hitting him square in the face. He crouched down to avoid another one before leaping up into a backflip to create distance between him and the attacking echidna.

“Mario! I think Knuckles is being controlled by something! He’s likely after the emerald!” Tails shouted to the plumber after he’d gotten back up from being punched by Knuckles, right before the echidna leapt up and began digging through the ground. Upon seeing this, Tails hopped up and began flying up into the air, before reaching a hand down towards the red plumber. “Hey! Up here! Grab my hand!” The orange fox yelled down to Mario, who quickly understood and jumped up, grabbing onto Tails’ hand. The fox did need to adjust accordingly since Mario was a bit heavier than who he was used to carrying, Sonic, but he managed to keep the plumber airborne.

All of a sudden, Knuckles burst out of the ground from under the two of them, springing upwards for an uppercut, but Tails managed to swerve the two out of the way and then pulled the plumber back towards the airborne echidna, who was helpless to stomp Mario from using the momentum generated from Tails to leap forward and deliver a dropkick right onto Knuckles, throwing him backwards into the air and sending him falling back down to the ground with a thud. But it didn’t take long before he got back up just as Mario and Tails both returned back to the ground.

Knuckles delivered a punch straight down to the ground, which lifted up a large chunk of debris in the process before he punched it directly at the red plumber. But before either him or the twin-tailed fox could do anything to avoid it, something long, red, and thin intervened, attaching itself to the rock and spinning around before throwing it back towards the echidna, forcing him to strike it and smash it into several pieces. Landing next to Mario and Tails was a familiar friendly green dinosaur, Yoshi, specifically the one always aiding the plumber on his adventures.

“(Want some help?)” Yoshi asked curiously with a smile on his face as he turned towards the plumber and fox, who both nodded in response, before being forced to refocus on the out-of-control Knuckles suddenly charging towards them once again, leaping upwards and gliding towards them, and then coming back down, ready to deliver another punch. The three all split up and jumped away to avoid Knuckles’ attack, causing the ground to rumble from the sheer impact.

Knuckles began to move once more after pulling his spiked fist from the ground, charging back towards Mario, and thus the Chaos Emerald he held, only for Tails to intervene and rush in, striking the echidna with a swipe from both of his tails, throwing Knuckles to the side, just for Yoshi to flutter-jump upwards and swing his head hard enough to send Knuckles spiraling back down to the ground, smashing against it.

When the dust cleared, Knuckles laid on the ground and didn’t make an attempt to get back up. The three all carefully approached to check on him, only to see that the echidna was definitely knocked unconscious. Tails kneeled down and began shaking him in an attempt to wake him up. “Knuckles. Knuckles! Wake up!” The concerned fox said as he did so, eventually stirring a reaction from the echidna, his eyes fluttering open and letting out a pained groan.

“Ugh… I feel like I just got run over… by like… a dinosaur or somethin’...” Knuckles murmured as he struggled to get up with Tails’ assistance, which caused Mario and Yoshi to glance towards each other knowingly. Eventually, Tails completely helped Knuckles up to his feet as he managed to fully wipe away his exhaustion to see the red plumber and green dinosaur standing there. 

“Oh… I see… It’s gonna be one of those adventures, huh?” Knuckles mumbled to himself as he glanced between the three who stood around him, resting a hand on the back of his head while he rubbed it slightly to ease his headache.

-

The Blue Blur let out a groan as he slowly pulled himself up to his feet, rubbing his forehead as his vision slowly returned to normal from a loopy and warped state, eventually allowing the hedgehog to see the landscape around himself. It was familiar… but at the same time, it wasn’t. For Sonic, it hit the perfect combination of a familiar place and a familiar but unrecognized location.

It was like a giant floating island made up of multiple pieces of land pushed together with small crevices in between, differing dramatically in size with each one, which reminded Sonic of his adventures through and on the Lost Hex, the place where he’d briefly teamed up with Eggman against the Deadly Six, most notably Zavok.

“Man… I’m getting tired of ending up in strange places. First, the Lost Hex, then the Starfall Islands, and now… here? Wherever… here exactly is.” Sonic murmured to himself out-loud while scanning over his surroundings, scratching his chin and tapping his foot in thought. But just as he was about to take off running, the sound of shrieking rang in the hedgehog’s ear, sounding like someone he knew… although he couldn’t quite place it. But as he turned around, it hit him in the face… literally.

A very panicked someone had just ran directly into him while shrieking in fear, causing both the victim and the incidental perpetrator to bump backwards in surprise, with the former losing their footing as Sonic covered the front of his face from the force of the impact. “Ow! Jeez… what’s–” But Sonic’s snarky comment was cut off by more panicked shrieking, but now Sonic could look up to see a face he hadn’t seen in quite some time. The younger but taller brother to Mario himself, Luigi.

The green plumber was very clearly scared out of his mind, having been crying out for his older brother. Sonic already felt bad for Luigi at times, but this pushed his sympathy to all new levels. It reminded Sonic of when he first met Tails. “Hey, hey, dude, calm down! It’s me, Sonic!” The hedgehog said in the most reassuring manner possible, using his hands to emphasize his point. Eventually, the scrambling plumber managed to compose himself to speak somewhat normally.

“H-Huh…? S-Sonic? What’re you-a doing here?” Luigi asked eventually, still a bit shaken but now being more-so puzzled. The blue hedgehog chuckled in response as he rested a hand on his hip, a friendly smile sprawled over his face.

“I could ask you the same thing, provided you even know where ‘here’ is.” Sonic murmured as he gestured to the strange scenery that surrounded them, which caused Luigi to seemingly realize that he wasn’t still in the Mushroom Kingdom, but now in some strange blend of the Mushroom Kingdom and Green Hill Zone. Granted, Sonic had never been to the Mushroom Kingdom, and he hadn’t ever recalled bringing Mario or any of the plumber’s friends to his world either, but it was still recognizable to him immediately that it was like some sort of freaky combination of the two worlds. 

“Oh… M-Mama mia… What happened…? All I-a remember… we were-a fighting Bowser… the sky turned dark… and I was suddenly-a sucked up into this strange-a giant and black orb…” Luigi mused to himself, which prompted Sonic to glance back towards him with widened eyes. “A giant black orb? Something similar happened in my world. I was fighting Dr. Eggman with my friends and… then the sky turned all dark and mysterious before a strange figure appeared in the sky that summoned the dark orb,” Sonic murmured as he tapped his foot against the floor once more in thought, before glancing back up towards the plumber. “Did you ever see a floating figure in the sky? Purple skin, yellow eyes?”

Luigi shook his head. “I was-a too focused on the sky to see anyone-a amidst the clouds.” He answered as he idly ran a hand through the hairs of his mustache, straightening them out from the ruffled state they had been left in after the fall into this twisted place. But before Sonic could question the green plumber further, something landed from the sky in the distance, signalled by the golden glow it gave off as it soared to the ground, crashing and creating a miniscule tremor. Sonic and Luigi exchanged glances before heading towards it. Sonic did annoyingly have to move slower than he’d like for the plumber to keep up, but it wasn’t so slow that it was unbearable.

Once they reached the crater, they clambered up onto the edge of it and gazed into it. It was big enough to walk around it, but not big enough to the point where it was even engulfing the entire bit of land it was in. In the center of the crater, sticking out from the rubble, was what the two presumed was the object that crashed in from the sky. A large star-shaped object with a silver color, pulsing with energy, half-way stuck in the dirt.

“What is that?” Sonic asked in a low voice after surveying the crater from where he was standing, eventually glancing towards the star-shaped object. “It’s-a Crystal Star! My big bro collected those-a long time ago! They hold-a lot of power!” Luigi responded as he pointed towards the star-shaped before he hopped into the crater and began walking towards the star, soon followed by Sonic. Once they got within arms reach of it, Luigi reached out to grab the star, only for someone to land in front of him and suddenly deck the green plumber in the face, sending him flying backwards.

Sonic hopped backwards just in time to avoid an overhead swing with both arms from none other than Donkey Kong, whose eyes were changed from their usual brown to purple and crackling with energy. The ape turned around and began to reach for the Crystal Star, but Sonic ran at him and threw a roundhouse kick to the side of his head, throwing the Kong aside before the hedgehog grabbed the star and tugged it out from the ground and then zipping over back to Luigi, helping him back up.

“Huh. I don’t recall Donkey Kong being this aggressive.”

“He-a usually isn't. Unless Pauline-a gets involved.”

“Who?”

“I’ll-a tell you later.”

After a very quick conversation between the Blue Blur and the green plumber, they both had to split apart as Donkey Kong leapt up and smashed the ground once more, before the ape continued to chase after the blue hedgehog and the star he held in hand, smashing the ground as he did so with each strike as the hedgehog continued to back away from Donkey Kong. 

“Come on, king of second bananas! Step it up!” Sonic yelled out carelessly, but Donkey Kong didn’t show any sign of reaction, not even annoyance or anger, he just continued to pursue after Sonic while smashing the ground with his large hands with every moment, as if the ape suddenly lacked sentience, removing free will and making him act on command.

Naturally, Sonic wasn’t exactly a big fan when he noticed it. As smug and cocky as he may be, Sonic was a freedom fighter at heart, against the destruction of nature and those who lived inside of it. The next time that Donkey Kong threw a punch, Sonic ducked down and easily avoided it, before curling up and spin-dashing forward, striking him in the face, throwing the ape backwards, rolling across the ruined terrain of the crater.

Donkey Kong quickly got back up as Sonic prepared to attack once more, but the kong threw a punch much quicker than the hedgehog anticipated, throwing a punch directly at him and sending him flying back, eventually landing and sending him rolling through the dirt. Sonic attempted to spring back up to his feet, but Donkey Kong had delivered a thunderclap that sent him sprawling back to the ground.

From the shockwave, the Crystal Star ended up slipping from Sonic’s hands and clattering just out of reach, which immediately diverted Donkey Kong’s attention from the hedgehog to where it had landed, rushing over to it, until Luigi suddenly landed in from above and in front of Donkey Kong, crouching down quickly as his Thunderhand before delivering a powerful uppercut that threw the ape high up into the air.

After delivering the attack, Luigi took a brief moment to catch his breath before grabbing the Crystal Star, zipping over to Sonic, and then helping the Blue Blur back up onto his feet. “Sonic! Are you okay-a?” Luigi asked concernedly while brushing dirt and debris off of the hedgehog, who let out a cough before pointing upwards.

“We got– cough – bigger problems!” Sonic gasped out while pointing up towards where Donkey Kong had been thrown, having reached the apex of the momentum and beginning to fall back down at an alarming speed, raising both arms in preparation to slam into both of them. But right before the ape could make contact with the two of them, something suddenly intercepted him, stopping him in mid-air while being highlighted by a cyan aura, before Silver the Hedgehog suddenly floated in from above.

“Hey, you two, need some help with, uh… the cranky kong over here?”

“No, that’s-a Donkey Kong. Cranky Kong is-a someone else.”

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter right now. Good to see ya, Silver–” But before the three could continue speaking, their attention was suddenly taken by the sound of Donkey Kong pounding his fists against his chest before rushing towards them once more. “Uh oh. We can talk later, c’mon!”

Using his psychokinetic powers, Silver lifted up several bits of debris from the battlefield and hurled them directly at DK while Sonic and Luigi both ran forward to engage him after the latter threw the Crystal Star to Silver. Donkey Kong swung his massive arms to strike the thrown debris out of the air and tried to backhand Sonic out of the way, but he slid underneath the attack and delivered a kick into the ape’s chin that threw him off-balance, allowing for Luigi to come in and pull out his hammer, spinning around for a bit before swinging and striking, launching him directly upwards where Silver had teleported to, who summoned a Psychic Knife projectile and launched it at the kong, throwing him back down to the ground.

This time, Donkey Kong didn’t get back up, seemingly incredibly dazed as the purple glow slowly dissipated from his eyes and reverted back to his usual brown ones, eventually pulling himself back up to his feet while holding his head, letting out a quiet groan. Relieved that he was back to his senses, Sonic offered him a hand and helped him up to his feet.

“What’s up, DK? Feeling better?” Sonic asked casually to which Donkey Kong responded with a nod, offering a thumbs-up to the hedgehog before glancing around the area, expressing his confusion audibly as he scanned his new environments. “It’s complicated. We’ll tell you later, c’mon, let’s get out of this crater first.” The Blue Blur added on before gesturing for the three of them to follow him out of the crater.

-

“Things are going along smoothly,” the purple humanoid with yellow eyes and a wizard’s getup murmured atop the chair they sat upon inside of a large tower they had constructed for themselves, resting their chin against his hand, surveying the numerous projections that showed those who had been taken into their amalgamated world, although their interest was mostly taken by the world’s primary heroes - Mario and Sonic - quiet chuckling to himself occasionally. “Even despite their situation, they are adapting and bonding together, naturally.”

But before the figure could ramble on, they suddenly noticed something was off, certain individuals were not where they should be. They let out a sigh before rising up from their chair, waving their hand to form a forcefield around themselves as a barrage of gun fire came from behind themselves. Once it ceased, the figure dropped the shield to see Team Dark standing there.

“Ah, Shadow, Rouge, and E-123 Omega,” the figure drawled on unconcernedly. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” They said with a slight bow, before glancing down at their own outfit, as if displeased with it. “Mm, the wizard getup doesn’t suit me. I should stick with what I’m more comfortable with…” The figure murmured to themselves before snapping their fingers, changing their outfit from a wizard’s robe to a completely different outfit.

The wizard hat was substituted for a dark purple fedora, along with his robes being replaced with a purple jacket underneath a white dress shirt, a pair of blue pants, and brown shoes. The figure brushed off their new clothing while nodding with newfound satisfaction. “Much better.”

“Enough talk.” Shadow said harshly before darting forward towards the figure and jumped up, attempting to deliver a roundhouse kick directly to the side of the figure’s head, but was blocked by the figure simply raising one of its arms, as if he was merely attempting to block the sun from getting in his eyes. With one motion, Shadow was thrown across the room, slammed into the wall.

“Not quite yet,” the figure said with a quiet chuckle as they stepped around the throne made up of scrap metal and singular bricks. “I’ve been so terrible as a host, haven’t I? I haven’t even introduced myself. The name’s Chronal, a pleasure to meet you.” They added on with a nod while resting their hands behind their back.

Rouge took a step back. There were two reasons as to why she did. The first was her concern for Shadow, who seemed to be pretty dazed from the impact with the wall. And the second was something about this ‘Chronal’ figure was rather… unnerving to her. Something about the way they acted so nonchalantly even when met face-to-face with conflict.

Rouge soon flew over to where Shadow had landed while Omega stood his ground while Chronal stepped forward, the former raising an arm at him to launch his beam cannon at the latter, but the beam was blocked simply by Chronal raising their hand, causing the beam to split on contact as if they were a reflective surface. Suddenly, the figure dashed forward and threw a punch at the robot, sending him across the room, slamming him into the wall next to Rouge and Shadow as the former woke the latter up and helped him recover from his dazed state.

“Hm. Y’know, I was expecting you all to put up more of a fight. It’s… a bit disappointing, honestly.” Chronal murmured while resting a hand on their hip, tilting their head as they remained in the spot where they stood, carefully watching both Shadow and Rouge, seemingly waiting for them to make a move. 

“Chaos Control!” Shadow suddenly shouted before the figure could get another word in, skating forward and circling around to behind Chronal, hopping upwards to deliver a roundhouse kick to the back of the figure’s head, but they suddenly moved despite time being frozen, grabbing the hedgehog’s leg out of the air as time began to flow normally again. Chronal spun and threw Shadow directly at Rouge, who had tried to fly up into the air.

“So much for the Ultimate Lifeform, eh?” Chronal asked amusedly as they gazed upon the fallen Team Dark, raising a hand up to begin channeling a yellow energy in their hands, before suddenly being fired upon by energy blasts, causing them to teleport out of the way, before a new face entered the scene. The wooden puppet figure known as Geno landed in front of the defeated Team Dark, quickly aiming his arm cannon at the adversary, as Chronal teleported several feet backwards. 

“Ah, Geno. Nice to meet you. Serving a higher authority, I presume?”

“That’s… correct.” Geno murmured before wasting no time and firing an energy beam directly at Chronal, but the figure simply raised a hand up and seemingly absorbed all of the excess energy into their hand, before casually redirecting it and firing directly back towards Geno, immediately throwing him into the wall along with Team Dark.

“Hmph. Anti-climactic,” Chronal murmured disappointedly while brushing off their clothing before snapping their fingers, whisking Team Dark and Geno away. “Come back when you’re better prepared."