"Serena… Hey… Serena!"

Serena's eyes finally opened, slowly, fluttering awake—sending a thousand bolts of pain immediately up into her skull as soon as she caught a glimpse of the lights just in front of her. She winced, forcing her eyes shut again. Her head turned away, shrinking back from the massive lights that had been placed over her. As she did, she tried lifting an arm to cover her face from the light, but when she did she didn't feel it move at all.

Leaning her head down, trying to stand herself up or move her body away, Serena felt herself unable to do anything to move herself. As she finally wedged one of her eyes open, she looked down at herself—her wrists were shackled by thick, metal cuffs to the steel-plated table she laid on. She was dressed as normally as she ever was, wearing her knee-length pink dress and her red vest—she couldn't feel the familiar weight of the pink fedora on her head, her blonde wavy lengths of hair falling down in front of her face with nothing to stop their loose movements. She still wore her familiar brown boots and black stockings, but identical metal cuffs held her ankles down against the table. The table stood at an incline, resting her slightly upright like Frankenstein's monster would've been presented.

As her eyes adjusted to the intense light of the room, she looked to the ground and saw, standing on the filthy concrete floor, a pair of gleaming red and white, point-tipped sneakers. She knew who it was immediately, her eyes wandering up the pair of spindly blue legs to meet with the short-statured hedgehog.

It was Sonic—Sonic the Hedgehog.

"Serena, you feeling okay? That was some tumble..." said Sonic. Serena's searching, confused eyes met with his, seeing him as he looked on with deep concern.

It took Serena several seconds to register what Sonic had said—even longer to come up with the words to reply with. She had to clear her mind of all the obvious questions, especially when the only thing on her mind was the cold of the cuffs that bound her wrists and kept her legs stiff.

"Tumble…?" Serena asked, weakly.

As soon as Serena had said the words, she came to grips with the intense pain throbbing on her skull, almost flaring up like the instant she had received it—even if that memory was cloudy. It forced her eyes shut, the pain searing and terrible, making her wince audibly as her head rolled back involuntarily—carelessly slamming against the metal surface of the table she was bound to, feeling that pain shrink in comparison to the massive bruise on the front of her face.

Then, Serena remembered.

"Hyyaaah!"

Hearing Sonic's battle cry made her flinch, her eyes going wide with terror as she watched a blue blur fly in from the corners of her vision, coming in at full speed toward her outstretched hand. In her clenched fist was a Pokeball, her finger steadied on the release button like a trigger, and in moments it was tumbling out of her hand. Sonic's outstretched foot had collided with it, the full force of a flying kick slamming into her hand and throwing it out and away.

Sonic flew down towards the ground, his sneakers squealing on the concrete floors as he slid to a stop. The Pokeball he had kicked loose from Serena's hand scuttled away from the two of them, skidding towards the dark corners of the room and out of sight. Steadying himself with a hand, Sonic was already in a running position, ready to strike at the first inkling of trouble.

Serena's blank eyes blinked lethargically—her expression showing that she wasn't all that there in the moment but her body language seeming to move like it was under the control of someone else. She took a few slow, pacing steps away from where she had stood in the room. Her eyes remained affixed on Sonic, despite the pupil having shrunk away and leaving her eyes as a set of plain blue disks.

Then, from Serena's backside, she reached with a slow, steadied arm and produced something unseen from her backside. She wielded a knife, sharpened and readied for a single use.

"Serena… Come on, girl, get a hold of yourself…" Sonic said, looking past the knife and straight into her eyes. "It's the mind control! It's Dr. Eggman! This isn't what you want!"

The hilt of the knife was made of bright red and yellow-painted metal, obscuring the electronic components on the side—clearly an Eggman design. Serena's thumb slowly raised, then nimbly flicked over an actuator on it. The knife extended an inch, dual guards extending from the hilt and splaying out their sharpened blades. A pulse of blue light ran along the edge, crackling with hot plasma.

"Serena please..." Sonic said, pleadingly, still looking past the knife. His face glowed with the light of the blade, the heat of it felt on the front of his face. "I won't fight you… I won't hurt you… Don't make me..."

Serena then slowly turned the knife in her hand, the knife extended out of her curled fist in a stabbing form. She clenched the hilt with white-knuckling intensity, her arm shaking gently as it rose.

"You're… You're not..." Serena's voice was trembling. A tear pooled in the corner of her eye, her eyes visibly, slowly getting some semblance of control over her own faculties. She was clearly fighting it, trying not to give into the overwhelming, radical urges that overtook her body. "You're not the one getting… h-hurt..."

Serena then raised her arm, slowly, against her will, and turned the knife on herself, holding it above her neck.

Sonic's eyes went wide with terror. Even though he was quick, he could feel time slipping away rapidly, forcing him to act. He pushed off the ground, launching at full speed into the air towards Serena. He tucked in-air, rolling to gain speed and boost himself, his blue fur charged with his own energy as he flew towards her. As Serena's arm extended out and began to slash down towards her own neck, Sonic unfurled from his ball and extended out his foot again, watching as the sizzling hot plasma blade lowered dangerously close to his own leg and towards Serena's neck.

Sonic's kick then collided with Serena's head at full-force, the heel of his sneaker thudding hard against her skull. Serena tumbled back, relinquishing the grip on the plasma blade, sending it tumbling through the air and threatening to slide down through Serena's chest. The force of the kick sent Sonic ricocheting up through the air, turning on his side, missing the blade and looking down to see in time as the blade missed Serena.

The plasma blade stabbed into the hard concrete ground, slicing through easily and making concrete explode out in a powerful blast that rivaled a small missile. Chunks of old concrete flew in every direction, a cloud of old dust whooshing out as the plasma blade sank in and found its final mark.

Sonic landed down on his feet nimbly, skidding to another halt.

Serena wasn't so lucky, falling limp and unconscious.

The table Serena was bound to had been tipped back to lay her vertical. Sonic was by her side, leaning over her. An old medical bag was sitting beside her bound arm, open, a potion bottle standing up on the surface of the table open with a rag nearby.

Sonic had taken the potion bottle, wetting a clean rag and setting with the light blue substance that filled the bottle. It had seeped into the fabric surface, extended out by Sonic's fingers carefully placed beneath it. As he stepped back, he walked towards where Serena's forehead was, looking over it: a large purple ring had formed around the reddened impact point, just above her brow. Sonic brushed aside a length of her honey-colored hair, Sonic uncovered the full bruise, making Serena wince as his fingertips lightly brushed over it.

Serena's eyes looked up carefully, watching as Sonic took the rag he had just wetted with the mysterious substance in the potion bottle. She hadn't seen anything like it before—clearly coming from Sonic's own world. She looked up and saw Sonic looking back at her, half waiting for her to pay attention and half worrying if she really was okay.

"Relax, this is going to help with the pain. It'll feel… good," said Sonic, steadying his hand.

Serena could feel her toes curling in her boots. Her hands turned to fists when she involuntarily tested the metal shackles on her wrists—they still worked, and she couldn't move.

"Are… Are you sure about that?" Serena asked, looking up to him.

Sonic frowned. "Not really..."

Serena's vision darkened as Sonic's hand glided down over her forehead. She felt his fingertips pressing down over the bruise, instantly setting off the thousands of damaged nerve endings in the bruised skin and making her gasp. Her body shook and rattled the table for a moment, wracked with the intensity of the pain, blinding her for a split second as the pain overtook her. The substance didn't feel that much better than if she had put rubbing alcohol in the wound, a light stinging sensation spreading across every inch of skin that the cloth had touched.

Gritting her teeth, breathing in rapid spurts through her nose, Serena felt Sonic's hand lift, letting the rag disappear. When she peeked open an eye, looking at Sonic's darkened face in the light of the large light that hung over the two of them, she looked to Sonic and saw that he was completely distracted, staring in amazement at Serena's forehead.

The large, reddened and bruised section of muscle suddenly shrunk back, the purpling ring that had spread out suddenly crawling back towards the dead center where Sonic's sneaker had hit her, leaving the skin it had covered as perfectly pale and clean as every other inch of skin on her face. In seconds, there wasn't a single trace of a blemish that hadn't been there when Sonic saw her the night before.

Serena let herself breathe normally for a moment, feeling the skin no longer throbbing with the aching sensation of a bruise. She felt healed, restored, giving herself a moment to relax.

"Better?" Sonic asked.

"Better..." Serena replied.

Sonic tossed aside the used rag. He corked the bottle that sat on the edge of the table, slipping it back into his bag. He stuffed the bag under the table, then heading back towards where a large control console stood beside the table, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the confusing controls and old Eggman technology that covered it.

"Sonic..." Serena raised her voice sharply, catching Sonic's attention before he had totally left her side.

Sonic hesitated, turning himself to look back at Serena.

"It wasn't Eggman who hypnotized me..." Serena breathed. "It was someone else..."