Sonic walked up to the Sega building feeling very proud of himself. Sure, he thought it weird that he got called to headquarters while they were in the middle of filming a new game, but he figured they were just going to pitch him a new idea, which they hadn't done in years. Looks like his popularity was back up enough for him to be in on the story boards again.
Inside the main lobby, he found it odd that almost everyone was there. The only people who seemed to be missing were Vector, Vanilla, and Eggman.
"What's up guys?" he asked as he walked up.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Tails responded.
"Oh good, you're all here," the secretary said as she looked up. "Follow me." She stood and walked ahead of the gang to the office in the back.
"Funny how the fastest hedgehog in the world was the last one to show up," Shadow sneered.
"Ah, there's my favorite bunch of video game cast," the CEO of Sega smiled at them creepily. "As you all know, we're filming a video game. Right? You all know."
"That's not very to the point," Knuckles frowned. "I have things I need to do."
"Right, right," the CEO stood up and walked around his desk to lean against the front. "Well, what you probably didn't know is that we're going to begin filming another game next week."
"That's ridiculous!" Amy interjected. "Do you really expect us to film both games at once?"
"I don't!" the CEO said happily. "Which is why you're all here!"
Cream shook her head, "I don't..."
"The video game you're all filming will be the last video game you're starring in."
Shadow, Sonic, and Knuckles all had the same reaction, "WHAT?!"
"We have contracts!" Espio yelled over them. Cream burst into tears as Charmy flew over to comfort her.
Amy and Rouge were furious. "How do you expect to sell games that aren't featuring us?" Rouge asked at the same time Amy yelled, "Why are we being fired?"
"Kids! Kids! Calm down!" The CEO tried to reign them in. "It'll be fine. Your contracts are up. They weren't lifetime contracts, you know." He walked over to a projector and turned it on. "As you can see," he said, taking out a laser pointer, "our studies show that the players of our games like to see their favorite characters refreshed and lively. Young."
"Exactly," Knuckles said, walking up to him. "Their favorite characters. Which is us."
"Oh! Don't you worry about that!" the CEO smiled, ignoring Sonic's scoff. "It'll still be you! Just... Not you."
"That doesn't make any sense!" Charmy argued.
"Why, we're replacing you, of course!" We've found look-a-likes to replace all out you! No one will know the difference! Not even Eggman and the others!"
"How do you expect look-a-likes to be able to take our place?" Rouge asked.
"Trust me, they're perfect. You just have to meet them, and then we'll have your blessing. And even if we don't have the blessing we still own the label and you have no contracts." He pushed a button on his phone. "Sharon? Send in the new kids."
"On their way."
"You're gonna love them. They're absolute dolls."
"Yo," a blue hedgehog walked in with the rest of the new "cast" behind him.
"His blue is all wrong!" Sonic complained.
"Does it really matter? No one will notice. People are all colorblind these days! I mean, if I were to put you and him in a room alone and then sent in Amy, she'd never be able to tell you two apart."
"Hey!"
"I challenge him to a race."
"Oh, no no no, you can't do that. He doesn't run like you."
Sonic missed a beat. "Excuse me?"
"He doesn't run fast and if you race him he might get hurt. So there's really no point. You'd only be hurting the company and yourself in the long run."
"How... How is he supposed to be me if he can't run?"
"No problem! We can do all of that with computer editing and green screens! The world today is quite advanced."
"This girl isn't a bat."
"Rouge, we can fix that with a slight costume change and a few wires."
"And you can add a tail on to this guy, too?" Tails asked, pointing at the fox across from him.
"Sure can."
Cream and Charmy stayed quiet. Their look-a-likes actually looked exactly like them.
Shadow growled, "I am the Ultimate Lifeform."
"And we can create one using computers. He'll be awesome."
Sonic shook his head and grabbed Knuckles's arm as he tried to pounce on his replacement.
"Don't you understand? They're going to give him the Master Emerald!"
"You'll be fine, Knuckles."
"Oh! Yes," the man nodded. "That reminds me. We own the rights to the names. All of you have to go back to your old names." He turned to Sonic and Shadow and lowered his voice. "We understand that you guys actually use your own names... But we would very much appreciate it if you changed your names... For company purposes. And if you don't want to, you signed your rights away to your names in the first contract and we assigned a new name for this very purpose."
"Excuse me?" Sonic blinked.
"Wait!" Espio jumped between Sonic and the CEO, all the color had drained from his face. "We... You told me when I got here that I could pick a new name and that I wouldn't have to use my real name anymore," he insisted.
"Well, now you're leaving and like I said, we own the rights to the name so... You get your old name back and the new guys get these names."
"I guess it's lucky that I kept my real name," Tails smiled.
"OH! That's right. I knew there was one more. Yes, well, you sold your rights to your name in your contract in the event that the first game became a huge success and we needed your name to continue on the..."
"Then what am I supposed to do for a name?"
"Hmm," he walked over to his desk and dug through his papers until he found Tails's contract. After flipping through the pages he found what he was looking for. "Ah! Yes! Eko! I dub you Eko. You know have a name."
"When do we lose the rights to our names completely?" Cream asked.
"Well, filming starts tomorrow... so... Now."
"You could've given us more of a warning!" Sal the hedgehog yelled.
"How am I supposed to be the Ultimate lifeform now?" Ikabod complained.
Sal didn't bother hiding his laughter. "Ikabod," he smiled, looking at the line above him.
"It's not my fault this writer has some weird since of humor," Ikabod frowned, crossing his arms.
"Yo," Sal turned to his chameleon friend, "What's your name?"
The chameleon's eyes widened.
Sal tilted his head and had an idea. "Fine I'll just call you Esp- Radcliffe!" The name burst from his mouth without a thought.
Radcliffe shook his head, "I was afraid of that."
Sal turned to look for the girls to find out their names but all three of them had mysteriously disappeared. "Um, where...?"
"Yeah, they left right after the name thing," the CEO said, not turning his attention to the new cast members. "You should finish filming within the next 24 hours, try to avoid saying each other's names. We don't want to have to edit all that out. We have enough computer work as it is, okay boys?" he waved them out of the office.
Sal, Eko, Ikabod, and Wilbur the bee all walked together out of the building. "What are the girls' names?" Wilbur asked.
"Agnus the rabbit, Bertha the hedgehog, and Sandra the bat," Radcliffe said.
"Well, what about Silver... And the others?"
"Their contracts last another year, then I expect the same will happen. Well, except Eggman... He actually has a lifetime contract."
"What about us?"
Sal looked at him for a few seconds and shook his head. "Who knows?"