For a few moments, every creature in the vicinity, be it human or Mobian, stayed silent as they tried to process the scene.
On one hand, Hogwarts' students and teachers had just witnessed a small blue hedgehog fighting and winning against a giant... monster, right after a portal opened spewing more weird colorful creatures.
However, on the Mobian's side, suddenly appearing in an alien planet and falling from a few meters high forming quite the hog-pile didn't help much.
The silence presumed, until Harry uttered a deadpan.
"What?"
Then chaos ensued.
"Big bro!-"
"Sonic?! This is all your fault, hedgehog, I swear on the Master Emerald-!"
"Guys..."
"Why Knuckles, you're so cute when you're mad~"
"Guys..."
"Rouge?! What are you-!"
"Help..."
"Sonic~!"
"Don't worry Cheese, Mr Sonic's here!-"
"-Can't breathe..."
"Chao-chao!"
"Seriously..."
"Blaze?!"
"Silver?!"
"Vector! You're all right! I thought we were, like, total goners, like the ones you see in movies when they show some guy floating away like they did in Return of Chaos which was an awesome movie, how come we don't go-"
"Charmy! Oh, for crying out loud-!"
"All of you, SHUT UP AND GET OFF OF ME!"
Upon hearing the muffled, not-so-gentle voice of a particular black hedgehog coming from the bottom of the pile, the pile-structure created by the twelve Mobians broke apart, revealing a twitchy and disoriented Sonic along with his scowling black counterpart. Said counterpart was currently right next to the blue hedgehog, the latter's head being - once again - planted face first in the mud.
While the aforementioned events were taking place, Ron, uncharacteristically tactfully, gave a side-long glance and a nudge to his two life-companions who responded with a blank stare.
"So, does this mean we're back hooo-"
the pink hedgehog never finished her sentence as she noticed the huge crowd of teenage humans gawking at them.
"-uuaa, well, guess not."
After a small moment of the two groups staring at each other, dumbledore broke the silence, and said to the assembled students to return to the great hall, and continue the day normally. He then gathered some teachers and escorted the small group of mobians to an empty classroom.
"I assume that all of you are very confused," Dumbledore began, adressing them all, "But we have to talk later, because there is some business I need to attend to. We will meet again later this morning in my office, wait here." And with that, he left the room.
The moment the door shut, Shadow grabbed Sonic by his collar, and shoved him against a wall. The other mobians started shouting questions at Sonic, but Shadow quickly shut them up and turned to Sonic.
"Alright Faker, tell us what the hell is going on here!"
Sonic sighed before answering, "I don't know what is going on, but we are all stuck here until we find a portal to mobius, and as of yet, I still have to find one."
Knuckles spoke up. "But what is "here" exactly? What is this castle? Who are these people?"
Sonic grinned. "This? Ohoho. "This", is a magic school!"
A few mobians raised eyebrows and blinked rapidly, and Shadow still looked skeptical.
Sonic continued, "They are teaching how to use some form of Chaos to young teens, Chaos in this world is much more weaker and easier to control, I think some Chaos-sensitive humans noticed that, and used that to their advantage."
All mobians stared at Sonic, excluding vector (who was listening to music).
"Now, can you please put me down?" He addressed to his black-furred counterpart.
Shadow let Sonic go, although everyone looked mildly satisfied with the information, Silver had still a question.
"Hold on a second, do you mean there's Chaos energy here?"
Sonic nodded, "This castle is full of it, I'll not be surprised if it is the source of all Chaos in this world."
Silver nodded, but Sonic's last sentence made something click in Knuckles' head.
"Sonic, do you know where the chaos emerald are?"
Sonic's ears laid flat against his head, he had absolutely no idea where they are, nor know if they even traveled with them to this world, for all they could know, they would be back in Sonic's world, and then no one could use the energy to travel back.
"I... have no clue." He looked down and nervously scratched behind his neck.
Knuckles looked like was going to explode, but before he could direct any of it at Sonic, Amy looked sternly at Knuckles, and that silenced him. "We are all just back from that white zone, so we need to focus what is going on right now. Sonic, what are we going to do?"
Sonic thought for a minute and answered, "Well, the headmaster wanted us to wait until he picks us up and then talk to us in his office, but then, I don't know." He finished with his arms up and shoulders in a shrugging motion.
The mobians stood in silence, thinking about where they were and what they should do, until one sound broke the silence; Sonic's stomach growled.
"Oh, right, I haven't eaten anything this morning, wish I had sandwich now..."
As on queue, the door opened, and professor McGonagall walked in with a large plate of various foods, floating it in front of her with her wand.
"Breakfast just ended, the headmaster requested to bring some food to you all, he should have time for you within an hour, but right now he has some other... issues to deal with." McGonagall made it sound like those "issues" were bitter serious, Sonic noticed this, but decided not to mention it.
He thanked the professor nonetheless and immediately grabbed a bacon sandwich from the plate. The mobians sat and ate in silence, there were a few suprised shouts as the (quickly deplenished) pile of food replenished itself from thin air.
After having eaten enough, silver started a conversation about what happened at the white zone (which for them happened less than an hour ago), and discussed the fight between the two super-Sonic's and the time eater in great detail.
Kinda reminds me, where is my past self anyways? Sonic wondered a moment later, he was about to bring it up in the group, who were currently debating if they should wake up Charmy or not, but were interrupted by Snape and McGonagall entering the classroom. Snape was the first to speak.
"The headmaster requests your presence in his office." He snarled in a monotone voice, keeping his hands in front of him when he stared down at the group.
He led the group mobians out of the room in the right hallway. McGonagall picked up the plate and went into the opposite direction.
Snape walked through the halls in a fast pace, but the mobians had no trouble catching up with him.
"You are all to act civil and polite to the headmaster, no exceptions." He looked at Sonic at the last word, Sonic grinned and gave a shrug.
They arrived at the end of a particularly long hallway. Adjacent to them and embedded to the wall stood an intricately carved statue of a large winged Gargoyle.
McGonagall, having arrived just a moment ago, stepped forward and spoke the password. ("strawberry gumballs")
The two teachers stepped onto the first step of the spiralled staircase that moved upwards, but the mobians, still not used to this kind of usage of magic/Chaos energy, stared in awe at the staircase before stepping on it themselves.
They all grouped up in the magical office, and could not let their eyes wandering off every part of the office, from the magical paintings (who, in return, had taken a great interest in the mobians), the books and Felix, to the memory flasks, gryffindor's sword and the headmaster himself.
Snape whispered something into Dumbledore's ear, he nodded, and waved Snape off.
"Now, to the matters at hand, Mr Sonic," Sonic turn around to face Dumbledore, "I believe you and your friends could explain us what is going on lately involving you?"
Sonic was about to reply, but was cut off by Knuckles.
"Friends would be a bit of an overstatement. More like people that get dragged along in whatever hare-brained-" Cream gave the echidna a childish glare, "-activity Sonic got involved in."
"Geez Knux, since when did you became an ambassador?"
"Since you started dragging us into other worlds, that's when-"
"Quiet the both of you! Yes we are in an alien world, however! This doesn't mean we have to get all mean to eachother!" Cream tried to get between the two fighting teens.
"In that case, I believe an introduction is in order first." Dumbledore spoke in his usual kind tone as the other residents nodded their heads in agreement.
Just as Sonic opened his mouth to speak though, the black hedgehog -who had not spoken a single word so far- stood up from his place against the wall and covered the other hedgehog's mouth with his hand.
Sonic gave his lookalike a puzzled look as McGonagall shot a fleeting glance at the Headmaster in case he believed they should interfere, but the elder simply raised his eyebrows in slight confusion.
"Is there a problem?" he asked, his voice as gentle and grandpa-like as always.
"Not quite." The hedgehog's voice was smooth like a dagger and his red eyes –a characteristic that worried Dumbledore- were scanning the room suspiciously.
"What is it, then?" the elder inquired.
"I suppose actually introducing yourselves first would help, as we barely know enough about where we are or who you are."
"I believe I already told you so. You are in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and I am the school's Headmaster-"
"Which tells me nothing of importance. For all I know, you might as well be lying through your teeth."
"Is there a specific question you would like to ask?"
"Why should we trust you, would be a good place to start."
Dumbledore sighed, "I'm afraid I do not have a convincing answer. Though, I believe the fact that we have so far welcomed you all to this school rather than cause you or your friends any harm would be a good enough indicator of our motivations."
"...Fine." The black hedgehog persisted with his stare for a few more seconds before looking away and propping himself on the nearby wall. The Headmaster kindly smiled to him even if the gesture would've not been returned.
"Now then," the elder spoke up, clearing his throat, "where were we? Oh yes, Mr Sonic, I believe you and your friends wouldn't mind introducing themselves, right?"
"Sure thing." The blue hedgehog agreed. "Well, I guess you already know about me, so uh...how about you go Tails?" Sonic asked the little fox which was right next to him. Dumbledore noticed that the young fox also had two tails instead of one, but decided not to bring this up.
Shyly, the peach and white Mobian stood up, eyes also focused everywhere except on Dumbledore and McGonagall.
"My name's Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails. I'm Sonic's little brother." His voice seemed to match the one of a young human child below ten years old."
"And a genius to boot..." Sonic added from the side-lines, causing Tails to nervously scratch the back of his neck.
"Little brother?" asked McGonagall. She did not mean to come as rude, but it puzzled her how a fox and a hedgehog could come from the same parents.
"Not biological ones." Tails spoke up. "Sonic took me in when I was little and we grew up together. You could say he's my mom, dad and picket fence, alongside my brother."
At this, both humans couldn't help but smile at how adorable the little fox's last statement was.
"Knux, your turn." Sonic said as he gave a thumbs-up to Tails, while he was currently leaning against one of the pillars, legs crossed.
Knuckles groaned and stepped up, not forgetting to give Sonic a glare before he spoke.
"I am Knuckles the echidna, guardian of the master Emerald and of Angel Island."
Dumbledore frowned and McGonagall looked at Sonic with confusion, who then sighed and explained.
"The master Emerald is a giant green emerald that is able to control the other 7 chaos Emeralds, Angel Island is a floating island that is the emerald's home, and the emerald itself keeps it floating."
Knuckles nodded at that, "Me and Sonic met when he stole the emeralds from the original temple, I stole them back a while later, battling him because I thought he only used them for his own good, but I discovered later on that he was merely keeping them away from Sonic's arch-enemy, doctor Ivo Robotnik, or Eggman."
Dumbledore was looking at Sonic, about to ask who Eggman was, but came up with another question. "I've heard you talking about these 'chaos Emeralds' quite a lot, who or what are they?"
"Power sources" A voice spoke up from the back. Shadow stepped forward, convinced that dumbledore wasn't a big threat, for now.
"Chaos emeralds are sources or chaos energy, your world seems to contain a weaker version of chaos energy, easier to manipulate, but to me it feels like it is made that way, that certain energy is also known in your world as magic.
"Chaos emeralds are sources of a version of chaos our whole world is filled with, it is raw, untamed power, and only a select few are able to fully control and utilize it, including me.
"There are 7 chaos emeralds, one's power increases when he or she acquired more and more emeralds, I don't know how the use in machines exactly works, and the only one I've seen using that way is either Tails or doctor Robotnik, who are both scientists.
"I'm telling you this because this is critical information, information someone-" Shadow looked over and glared at Sonic. "-must have told you long ago."
The headmaster simply nodded, he now understood exactly why Sonic was so upset about him entering his mind, those emeralds are big power plays, if someone has one, then they got the upper hand.
But he still had one question.
"Then who is this Robotnik you speak of?"
Tails answered this question, "Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik is a bad human scientist with a high IQ and a desire to take over the world and make it his 'Egg-land', he is extremely manipulative, and the only reason why he has not succeeded yet is because of Sonic, who defeats him every time so far."
"Not every time..." mumbled Sonic, he remembered his light-and-dark gaia adventure too well, having happened before these time-travelling and dimension-hopping shenanigans.
Dumbledore nodded, he began to get a much more defined picture of Sonic's world, and his role in it.
Sonic broke the silence, by introducing shadow.
"Anyway, next one. How about you, Shades?"
"Don't call me that, Faker."
Shadow stepped up from the back wall and gave Sonic another glare before looking at Dumbledore.
"I am Shadow the hedgehog, the ultimate lifeform created by doctor Gerald Robotnik."
Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Another Robotnik? You mean Doctor Ivo Robotnik's-"
"Grandfather, yes, I was created by his grandfather and was trapped in a induced coma for 50 years before Eggman found me and used me to counter Sonic."
Sonic nodded. "We were not able to convince Shads that we were not evil, nut then eggy got so confident of his success that he dropped the act, shadow saw through it instantly, and from then he has been on our side."
McGonnagall looked at her pocketwatch and said something to the headmaster, he nodded and looked at Sonic. "I expect some very important guests in a few moments, and want this over quickly, I'm afraid. Sonic, could you introduce the rest of friends for you?"
"Sure thing, We have Amy rose here, I rescued her a while back from a little floating planet Eggman captured to conquer the world, but that was waaaay back then."
"It doesn't matter how far back it was, it's still the first time we met..." Amy said to Sonic dreamily, Sonic becoming a bit awkward at the look.
"Uh... moving on! We have Cream and cheese, Cream is a very polite and mannered kid who joined our group around the time Eggman started becoming real nasty, she has a chao who follows her everywhere and is her best friend."
Cream blushed "Thanks, mister Sonic."
Sonic walked over to the back of the group and pulled a white-and-grey humanoid bat forward, and side-hugged her, Rouge looked rather surprised by Sonic suddenly pulling her forward.
"And here we have Rouge, night creature, general gem-stealer and having a job of constantly stealing the master emerald, so knux over here doesn't sit on his lazy butt all day watching birds."
"Hey! Why you, little-!"
"Moving on! We have Silver the hedgehog, I met him in a very weird accident where he travelled to our time to defeat me because I was appearantly a trigger for a giant immortal fire-monster that destroyed the future. He finally came to his senses and helped me defeat the source of the monster. He has, just like shades, full control over chaos energy and plus, psychic powers. He's a good pal and has the strongest sense of justice I've ever seen, although it can be a little mislead sometimes."
"That was an accident!" Silver shouted while Sonic laughed.
"Like I completely knew he was an evil overlord..." Silver mumbled sarcastically.
"And she over there is Blaze the Cat, she has fire powers and helps silver out occasionally."
"Occasionally is an understatement, I had to fight for people's lives for more than five years with Silver." She said with crossed arms, looking serious.
Sonic then pulled a anxious Espio, a distracted Vector, and a sleepy Charmy forward.
"And last, we have team Chaotix, they mainly do detective work and help us in battles, especially Vector. Team Chaotix consists of Espio the chameleon," He gestured his hands at Espio, who gave a weak wave in return.
"Vector the crocodile," "S'up?" Vector asked before continuing to inspect griffondor's sword.
"And Charmy Bee." Charmy pulled one eye open and asked sleepy- "Wha? Did someone say my name?" -Before diving off to sleep again.
Dumbledore looked pleased at the group, he had no doubts or questions anymore, he was satisfied. Professor McGonagall was quite relaxed too, now knowing each of the mobians' names and backstories dissipated some of her fear of threats coming from these creatures.
"Well, we have that settled. Now, I want to try something out, and I need Sonic for that."
Sonic stopped leaning and looked confused at the headmaster. "What do ya mean? What do you need me for?"
Dumbledore gave the blue mobian a small smile and said, "Since more than one of you have said that magic in a same sense Chaos energy is, I want to know how well you are able to control it."
Sonic grinned and resumed leaning against the pillar. "Okay, what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to pick up that sword and let it float in front of you."
"Piece of cake."
He walked over to Vector and grabbed griffindor's case with the sword in it, Vector giving the sword one last glance before inspecting another item on the shelf.
Sonic sat on the ground, legs crossed, and began to push energy into the case.
The case started to float.
Sonic allowed himself to give a small smile to the group, everyone looked impressed, except silver and shadow.
Shadow was patiently looking at Sonic, eyes narrowed.
Silver was looking at Sonic like he suddenly grew two heads, after all, he thought he was the only one in the group that could perform telekenisis.
A few moments passed, and Sonic was about to say something to the headmaster when all hell broke loose, the case suddenly speeded off to one pillar, breaking the case and making the sword spin in mid-air, as by a invisible force, the sword started to float again, but circled around the room until it got stuck in a pillar and bounced a few times up and down due to the impact.
There were a few moments of silence, until, "That wasn't me."
Sonic was had still his arms out, frozen, when he tried to apologize to the headmaster.
"Of course it wasn't you." Dumbledore said. "There is a reason we use wands, wands give magic a reason, a operator, a will. When shadow first said he could use chaos energy at will, I was interested, but wasn't sure before I could test it."
"So you used me as a testing guinea pig?" Sonic asked. He was a little angry, but also interested, in Dubledore's explanation.
"Not really, you were merely testing if it was possible, and by the results, it is not possible for longer periods of time."
"We have a history of many wizards and witches who tried performing magic without a wand, or a similar conduit, but they all failed." McGonnagall added to Dumbledore, she then whispered to him,
"But albus, how are we going to do this, if this method does not work?"
"Magic has come a long way before here, and it had hit similar conditions." Seeing McGonnagall was about to reply, he quickly finished. "But has drawn conclusions and ultimately, solutions." McGonnagall did not look convinced, nor informed.
Dumbledore was about to continue, but was interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, he turned and saw Sonic standing there, a confused look on his face. "Say long-beard, why is Silver able to float the sword while I can't?"
Dumbledore looked over his shoulder and saw silver doing all sorts of tricks to the sword, making it spin just above the tip of his finger, making it rotate around his head, etc.
Dumbledore shot a small smile at Sonic, who became even more confused.
"Your friend Silver is using his psychic powers, he doesn't have to use any magic for that."
Sonic facepalmed and muttered, "Why didn't I think of that before..."
He walked back to the middle of the office, and Dumbledore could continue his conversation with McGonnagall.
"What solutions, albus? From whom?"
"The Ancient Greek." Dumbledore replies, as if it was an answer. McGonnagall raised her eyebrows and looked confused at the headmaster, until she remembered something.
"But albus, that spell hasn't been used in centuries, do you really think we need it for this?"
The elder wizard nodded. "It's the easiest and simplest way to get a wand, honestly I'm surprised why nowadays wizards don't use that spell."
McGonnagall's lips seemed the thin, but she didn't comment.
The headmaster called Sonic forward, causing him to lose an argument with silver and shadow about the differences of psychic and Chaos powers.
"Sonic, what I'm about to show you is a spell older than two millennia, it's extremely powerful and useful, but can even so be abused in the wrong hands, do you understand?"
Sonic shrugged, but replied with a serious expression nontheless. "Sure, what is it?"
Dumbledore pulled some old parchment from his drawer, held it with one hand and held the other out, palm facing upwards.
"Κλ τς υηόεε αχίς δνμι.
Γα ν ξπήε η δνμ πυ καά σο εωειό τυ μαο μυ.
Μ ατ τν σνεη, θ αανρσ τν αάκ μυ κι θ αανρσε ειη.
Ζτ τν πρυί εό ρβιύ."
Dumbledore barely finished the spell before a bright white light shone from his open palm.
When the light dimmed a little, a brightly glowing, white wand of pure light rested in the headmaster's hands.
He instantly used that wand to do different things, he summoned the sword back from a stunned sSilver ("accio!"), then repaired the glass case it was originally in ("repairio!") and finally floated the case with sword back on his bookcase. ("Wingardum laviosa!")
The mobians stared in shock at the headmaster who simply gave a smile in return, McGonnagall, too, looked extremely impressed, even with her knowledge of the wand and the spell's existance, she had never summoned nor saw the staff itself.
A big grin broke through Sonic's confused face, and instantly leaped for the scroll with the spell. Dumbledore simply let it disappear with a touch of his new wand.
"Gimme that, that looked so cool!"
The elder wizard simply smile. "First, you have to calm down, summoning Kerukeion Photos requires a state of mind nearly akin to meditation."
"Keru-what?"
"Kerukeion Photos, a method of making a wand out of pure energy, developed by the Ancient Greek."
"Ancient Greek?" Tails was the one to speak up this time, he looked at the energy-wand with interest. "How does it work?"
Dumbledore seemed rather pleased by the little fox, he always enjoyed explaining something complicated to someone who was just as able to understand it.
"Just as each wizard or witch is different, each wand is different too, Kerukeion Photos is a method that ignores that rule and creates the perfect wand for the person summoning it, where the wand chooses the wizard by his energy, Kerukeion Photos directly taps into that energy, and creates the wand from it."
Tails nodded, in the short time they had arrived, he had acquired a vague picture of how wands work, but he had to ask back later how they do work exactly.
"Can I please have the scroll now?"
Dumbledore looked at his right and saw an impatient pouting Sonic. The headmaster sighed and made the scroll appear, which sonic immidiatly grabbed.
A few minutes followed by Sonic trying to summon the wand, but failing every time, let it be his arm positioning, concentration, or word pronouncing.
The other Mobians eventually got bored and started to look around and found a old set of muggle chess, they started to play it in two groups (Tails, Amy and silver vs Shadow, Knuckles and Rouge) while the rest continued searching the magical office, all while McGonnagall helped Sonic with his pronouncion and arm position.
Dumbledore looked at Sonic in amusement when Minerva insisted Sonic on pulling off his gloves, as they were blocking the magic that came through it, while Sonic assured that everything was fine and refused to take his gloves off.
The elder witch finally won the debate and Sonic (grumpily) pulled his gloves off, and began performing the spell again.
Meanwhile, at the chess game, Tails and knuckles were in a heated argument of the game's rules.
"Knuckles, it is completely possible for a horse to jump over a few pieces, even if that piece is a queen."
"But that just doesn't make sense, why can't the horse just move one tile forward? Why can it go over everything else?"
Knuckles' team was currently checkmate, and he himself tried to make up their loss by battling the rules.
Tails was getting really tired of the edchina's stubbornness, and was about to retort, but he was blinded by a bright light, Sonic has finally succeeded summoning the staff.
When the light cleared, just above Sonic's ungloved hand, floated a long, sky-blue colored Kerukeion Photos.
A grin suddenly broke through Sonic's awed face, he grabbed the staff and started waving around, creating red-and-blue colored confetti.
Minerva and Dumbledore clapped, a smile on both faces, Dumbledore was impressed, when he was younger, he had tried summoning it for weeks, summoning Kerukeion Photos is extremely difficult, even for experienced wizards, so for him to summon it in mere minutes was extraordinary.
Sonic turned around to the headmaster, confusion clearly written on his face.
"Alright, you've show me how this staff-business goes, but why? Why should I know this?"
Dumbledore smiled mysteriously before replying. "That was the main reason I wanted to bring you all here, I'm thinking of electing Sonic and his friends next year. Here, at hogwarts."