Sonic stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the ocean surrounding Angel Island, a salty sea breeze gently blowing through his quills.
He thought, "Why do his stories almost always start out like this?"
The sound of an engine in the distance caught his attention. He scanned the horizon and saw the Tornado-2, Tails's plane, approaching him. It landed in a clearing behind him, and Tails jumped out.
"Sonic!" he frantically said, "There's something going on back on the mainland, and I can't make any sense of it! We need your help!"
Sonic said, "Okay, I'll accept your call to adventure!"
They jumped into the plane and took off.
"So, what's going on?"
"I was working on an new kind of shield when I heard a noise outside. I went to check it out, and there was a portal right above my house!"
"Oh no! I hope it's not Eggman again!"
"I'm 90% sure it wasn't."
"What makes you say that?"
"It was what came out of the portal — or should I say WHO?"
Sonic was confused. "Who came out?"
"I — I don't know how to describe it. You'll have to see for yourself."
They then stayed silent for the next few minutes, until they landed outside Tails's house. Knuckles and Amy were outside, guarding the door.
Sonic approached them. "Knuckles? Amy? What's—?"
"Could you let us out?"
It was a very familiar voice, coming from inside the house.
Knuckles said, "Go right ahead."
The door opened, and Sonic found himself face to face with himself.
Well, he vaguely resembled him. He was a blue hedgehog, yes, but he was much taller than Sonic, with sports tape around his legs and arms, and a brown scarf.
They stared at each other for a moment.
"Are you… me?" They both asked.
Sonic said, "Gosh darn it, we were gonna do that joke, weren't we?"
Sonic 2 asked, "Who are you talking to?"
Sonic shook his head. "It's not important. What's more important is this — this impostor in front of me!"
"Impostor? I am Sonic B. Hedgehog! YOU are the impostor!"
Sonic was taken aback, then realized, "Oh! I see what's going on here! You must be me from some kind of alternate dimension or timeline or something, like that classic guy!"
Tails interrupted them. "Um, Sonic? He's not the only one…"
Sonic 2 said, "Oh yeah!" He turned to call into the house. "You can come out now!"
Sonic was then shocked to see different versions of Tails, Amy, and Knuckles walk out. Tails's body was the same, but he had aviator goggles and a knapsack. Knuckles was much taller and more muscular. Amy was taller, and had a different dress. All of them had excessive amounts of sports tape on their legs and arms.
Knuckles 2 walked over to Knuckles. "When did we get to the carnival?"
Sonic 2 said, "We're not at a carnival, Knuckles."
Knuckles 2 looked at Knuckles and asked, "Then why is there a fun-house mirror here?"
Knuckles shook his head. "Am I really that stupid?"
Amy and Amy 2 looked at each other.
"So, what's your gimmick?" Amy asked her.
"I don't understand. What do you mean by 'gimmick'?" She asked, almost monotonously.
"I mean, your Knuckles seems less intelligent than ours, and your Sonic seems a bit more testy. What's your deal?"
"Oh. Well, I'm a one-note character. There's almost nothing special about me. I have no scarring backstory, no amplified personality; I don't even have any secret crushes."
Amy gasped, horrified.
Sonic said, "That's nice and all, but how did this happen? What caused that portal to appear?"
Tails 2 said, "It was Lyric's doing!"
Tails said, "Lyric? Who's Lyric?"
"He's one of the worst villains we've ever faced. He nearly killed Sonic, and tried destroying all organic life using his robots!"
Knuckles said, "That sounds like our Eggman! Well, except he never wins."
Sonic chimed in, "What about that one time when we were racing?"
"That doesn't count; we could barely control those vehicles as it was."
"Oh yeah."
Tails 2 continued, "Anyways, we were just about to take him down when he ripped a hole in time and space, sucking us through. Next thing we knew, your Tails found us outside his house."
Sonic said, "Well, that would explain it…"
Amy 2 then asked, "But how are we supposed to get back?"
Tails piped in, "I could try and make a device to open a new portal!"
Tails 2 added, "And I could help! Two heads are better than one, right?"
"Right! Let's get working!" They ran into Tails's house to get to work.
Sonic 2 turned to Sonic. "So, what are we supposed to do while we wait?"
Suddenly, there was an explosion a few miles away, on Angel Island.
"Let's go see what that was!" Sonic replied.
"Way ahead of you!" Sonic 2 began slowly running towards it.
Sonic quickly caught up with him. "Why do you run so slowly?"
"What do you mean? I'm Sonic, I'm the fastest thing alive!"
"And yet the others are easily catching up to you…"
Sonic 2 looked behind him and saw he was right. "Oh…"
Sonic shrugged, then sped off towards the site of the explosion.
When they got to the shore, they saw none other than Dr. Eggman in one of his mechs, leaving Angel Island. There were several badniks surrounding him. Eggman's mech was also holding the Master Emerald in its claws.
"Oh no!" Knuckles exclaimed, "I forgot I'm supposed to be guarding that!"
Knuckles 2 chuckled. "Now who's the less smarter one?"
"Still you!"
Knuckles 2 sighed.
Dr. Eggman looked up at Sonic. "Ah, hello, Sonic!" He then noticed Sonic 2. "And… other Sonic?"
"What are you doing with that, Egghead?" Sonic shouted.
"Why, I'm simply borrowing it to power one of my devices! You always beat me to the Chaos Emeralds, and Knuckles wasn't guarding this, so I decided to just take it!"
"Well, you won't get away with—"
Sonic was interrupted by Sonic 2 running past him. "Leave it to us!"
"What are you doing?" Sonic shouted as Knuckles 2 and Amy 2 ran past.
"We're gonna take him down!"
Sonic 2 jumped towards Eggman, pulling out a blue whip-like chain. He used it to break some of the badniks. Knuckles 2 pounded others into the sand. Amy 2 took out her mallet and spun around, whacking even more. Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy then started attacking Eggman's mech, destroying it in a matter of seconds.
"No fair!" Eggman said as the mech exploded, sending him flying. The Master Emerald fell to Knuckles's feet.
"Thanks!" Sonic said as he brushed off debris from the mech.
"Happy to help!" Sonic 2 replied.
Knuckles tried to pick up the Emerald. "Could someone please help me bring this to Tails's house so we can return it later?"
Everyone helped him pick it up, and they carried it back to the house.
Sonic decided to check on Tails and Tails 2. When he went in, they were both working away at a large ring-like device.
"Is everything going good in here?" Sonic asked.
Tails 2 looked up. "Yep, it is. We've just finished making the frame, and now we're working on the temporal box."
"What does that do?"
"It's the part that rips the hole in the space-time fabric."
"That sounds somewhat dangerous…"
"That's why we made the frame first! It's lined with a special metal that controls where the rip is. If we had made the box first, it might've activated early and swallowed the entirety of the plains. Thankfully, the ring will prevent that, knock on wood."
"Oh…" Sonic was confused. "Well, good luck!"
He then walked outside, where he saw Sonic 2 showing his whip-chain off.
"You like my Enerbeam?" He asked Knuckles. "Tails made it from the chains Lyric used when he first captured us. The others used to have their own, but they broke a while ago."
Knuckles exclaimed, "That may look pretty cool, but what can it do?"
"I'm glad you asked." He lifted the Enerbeam and used it to knock over a can a few yards away. He then jumped onto Tails's roof, wrapped the Enerbeam around a clothesline, and used it to zip-line down.
"That may have been pretty cool," Knuckles 2 said, "but check this out!" He then jumped, froze in the air, jumped again, froze again, and repeated until he was twenty feet in the air. He then landed with a thud, leaving a dent in the ground.
"What about you, Amy?" Sonic asked.
"Well, I have a hammer…"
Silence.
"So, how are Tails and Tails doing in there?" Sonic 2 asked.
But before Sonic could answer, something crazy happened. The ground shook beneath them, the sky turned red, and the wind picked up.
Tails and Tails ran out. "I think it's happening again!"
"What's happening?" Sonic 2 shouted.
"Another portal is opening!" Tails pointed up, where they saw clouds swirling overhead. Lightning struck as a gap opened in the center. Out from the gap fell a large creature, landing twenty yards south of them. The creature was snake-like, with a metal suit.
"Oh no! It's Lyric!" The characters from the other dimension shouted.
Lyric looked up at them, his eyes glowing with hatred. He pulled a device out of a compartment in his suit and pressed a button on it. A few seconds later, a swarm of robots came out of the portal.
Sonic was getting ready to do what he does best, when the four others charged towards
him. They tried to attack, but the robots had surrounded Lyric, and they were knocked back.
"His robots are too strong! We'll never be able to penetrate his line of defense!"
"Unless..." Sonic chimed in.
"Of course! With the extra strength of you four, we'll be sure to break through!"
They began fighting back robots that were heading towards them.
"So, what exactly is the plan?" Knuckles asked between punches.
"You see that remote in his hand? That's his Portal-Linking Omniversal Transmitter Device! It's what got us here in the first place, and it's also what he's using to summon more robots!"
"So what, do we just need to smash it?"
Tails 2 chimed in, "That would be a bad idea; since we have no idea how it works, it could potentially destroy the universe if broken."
Tails added, "So our best plan of action is to get it from him! But how do we do that?"
Sonic assessed the situation and formulated a plan. "With teamwork!"
Tails seemed to understand almost immediately; Knuckles and Amy took a few moments to realize; and the others had no idea what he was talking about.
Sonic told everyone to work their way into position, then gave the signal when they did so. Knuckles punched him into the air, shooting him straight up at Tails. Tails grabbed Sonic and spun him around, throwing him towards Amy. Amy jumped and, as Sonic went into a Spinball, whacked him with her hammer straight at Lyric. Sonic hit Lyric with a *crash!*, knocking him unconscious. He grabbed the remote and used it to stop the robots and send them back through the portal, with three carrying Lyric.
"Wow... And he didn't even get to say anything..." Sonic 2 remarked.
An hour later, after they had cleaned the plains of robot parts and the Tails's finished making their portal, they had to say goodbye to the other dimension-ers.
"You know," said Amy to Amy 2, "You may not have had much of a personality, but you're still okay in my book!" They then exchanged high fives.
Knuckles gave Knuckles 2 a gift he'd (very poorly) wrapped. "Here you go... A little something to help you."
Knuckles 2 opened the gift, and was shocked. "A VHS tape called 'How Not To Be a Stale Stereotype'? You shouldn't have!"
Knuckles grinned. "Well, it wasn't much —"
"No really, you shouldn't have. I don't have a VHS player..."
Knuckles face-palmed.
Tails was giving Tails 2 some blueprints he'd sketched up. "Here's some blueprints, in case you run out of ideas on things to build."
Tails took those blueprints, as well as the portal they'd constructed. "Are you sure this is a good idea," Sonic asked Tails, "Taking a portal device with them?"
"Yeah! I've put a DNA scanner on it so that only Tails and Sonic can activate it. Now, they can visit whenever they want, and with the device from Lyric, we'll be able to visit them, too!"
"Alright, if you say so..."
Sonic turned to Sonic 2. "Well, it's been a real pleasure meeting you."
"It feels like this all went by so fast!"
"Yeah, well that's what happens when you rush the writing process so you can get it out as quickly as possible."
"Seriously, why do you keep talking like that?"
"Well, you did it earlier!"
"I did?"
"Wait a second, do you know what high-level humor is?"
"No, what is it?"
"Ugh... I'll explain it to you later, but right now, you've got to go. Tails says we can't reliably hold this portal open much longer."
"Well, alright. I'll see you later!"
They then walked back through the portal, and Tails closed it after them.
"I'm really gonna miss that guy..." Sonic sighed.
Tails asked, "Why? You barely had any time to interact, and you —"
"Oh, shut up, Tails."
The End — For Now
