A/N 2017: so uh I was looking through more old stuff that I've written and found this. It used to a prologue to a fic I was writing crossing over main canon and Sonic Boom, but this and "Rainy Day, Anniversary" were the only things I wrote for it. Not sure if I'll ever pick it up again so I figured I might as well post this. Anyway enjoy!

Synergy

Synergy:

Noun.

1. Combined action or operation.

2. The increased effectiveness that results when multiple things work together.

Adventure:

1. Noun. An undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks.

2. Intransitive verb. To proceed despite risk.

Prologue: Freefall

Island in Mobius's Northern hemisphere

(former site of Eggmanland)

November 24th, 2013

Doctor Ivo Robotnik was not one to reflect too much on failure.

Certainly he would think on his mistakes—for, regrettably, there were many—but most of the time, he didn't dwell on them. Rather, he would just start anew, whether it had been in his twenty-five years as a "good" scientist trying to help the world, or his nearly just as many years being a "mad" one trying to conquer it. Soon enough, he'd have a new idea, and he would start up on it, working feverishly until it could be put forth into action.

But, of course, fate would have it that his adversary would follow this same philosophy, and every so often, the rotund scientist was forced to pause—not to scheme, but merely to reflect.

And, after all, it would be difficult not to do so when he was sitting in the remains of a five-year-old base on the anniversary of the day he started his scheme with the Death Egg.

Clank.

"Ow!" came a familiarly irritating voice. "Hey, Boss, whatcha doin' sitting in the dark?"

The Doctor's mustache bristled, but he only sighed and did not turn in his chair to face his cube-shaped lackey. "Thinking—something you clearly never do, imbecile."

"Well, couldn'tcha do it with the lights on?" Cubot pressed, unfazed. "It'd make it easier to see—OUCH!"

If robots could scowl, Orbot would have as he elbowed his partner. "Anyway, Boss, we're not here to lecture you on the state of the lighting—although it is rather dark in here—"

Note to self: let Sonic destroy those two and build lackeys without personality units. Robotnik pushed his pince-nez glasses further up his nose. "So spit it out, then. I'm a busy man."

"Well, I was going to tell you that the sensors have picked up a disturbance in the Chaos," Orbot continued. "We thought it might be a Chaos Emerald."

"Already?" The would-be world dictator now swiveled about in his chair, careful to mask his excitement. "How… curious. Bring it up."

With a soft click and a whir, Cubot obediently faced a blank wall, blue visual sensors glowing brighter as he brought up the requested energy scan.

Though it looked complicated to the inexperienced eye, the scan was fairly routine—it showed energy waves over the planet. Mostly it was used for Chaos Energy, though over time Robotnik had adapted it to also read others, such as those of the Time Stones or Gaia Energies. Naturally, the places where the energies were normally strongest—Angel Island, the Gaia temples—he'd already memorized and learned to ignore. Instead, his eyes swept over the map and quickly found said disturbance…

There was nothing there.

He'd known the Emeralds to appear in odd places—one had been swallowed by a frog, for goodness' sake—but here… It looked like it was the middle of the ocean, but he knew what the oceans' energies looked like on the map, and this was not it.

It almost looked like a time or space rift, but it couldn't be. He'd seen many of those two years ago, and suspected he had seen even more sometime around seven years ago, though his memory was fuzzy about that.

Rifts radiated enormous amounts of energy. But this… It did have energy radiating on the outside, but where there should have been even more energy on the inside it was blank, as if something was blotting out the natural energies there, something preventing his scanner from reading what lay beneath…

"This is no Chaos Emerald, Orbot…" he murmured, reaching out gloved fingers as if to touch the blank spot on the hologram.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cubot piped up, causing the projection to waver slightly, much to the evil genius's annoyance.

Robotnik's eyes flickered to the screen of the computer in front of his seat. In answer to Cubot's question, he hopped back into his chair. As his fingers flew over the keyboard, the computer brought up several different files he had been perusing before he fell into his pensive mood. Orbot floated up curiously to peer at the screen.

"It would seem that Knuckles's people weren't the only ones protecting powerful gems on a magic, secluded island…" Robotnik mused, stroking his mustache and looking between the computer files and Cubot's projection.

"Then how did we not find about them until now?"

"No one was able to find Angel Island for years until I did, and that's been floating in the sky for centuries," was the curt response. "Just shut up and prepare the Egg Mobile." Robotnik typed in a few commands, and a dialog box appeared as the computer began to copy the files to his Eggmobile's hard drive for later perusal. In the light of the computer screen, his pince-nez glasses gleamed as he swept out of the room.

"Wouldn't he look so cool with a cape?" Cubot proclaimed, a note of awe in his voice chip.

Orbot decided not to tell him that at one point, the Doctor had possessed a cape, because that story—and the accompanying one detailing why he didn't have one anymore—would likely result in their literal undoing.