Chaos and Elements
It had been three months. Three months since that monster had broken free. Sonic was still shaken a bit by the entire experience, but he was getting over it, however slowly. Exe had messed with his mind in more ways than one, and there was no changing that. He paced around his small apartment, trying to shake off the nightmare once again. This time, it had been an entirely new one, where Exe had strapped him to a table in someone's basement, cutting him up, piece by piece.
"How does my mind come up with these insane scenarios?" He asked himself, shuddering. He wished Amy was here, but with her visiting family in Empire City, he had to talk himself down from this one. He looked at the clock on the wall. It read 11:40. At least this time he had gotten through the entire night without thrashing awake like he usually did. He jumped as his phone rang.
"Hello?" He said, picking it up.
"Hey, Sonic, You think you could come over and help me with an experiment?" It was Tails.
"It's not gonna be like last time, right? Because your teleportation machine didn't work so well. It took me weeks to get the mud out of my quills!"
"Ha ha haa." Tails replied dryly, "No, no teleportation. I think you'll really like this one. It's right up your alley."
"Okay, I'll be over this afternoon. And no experimental jets, either."
"No, no no no. That was a disaster. See ya later, Sonic."
"You too, bro."
Three hours later
Sonic sped through the Mystic Ruins at impossible speeds, loving the feeling of the wind in his quills. In fact, running was one of the few things that took his mind off of Exe. He slowed down as he recognized the surroundings, knowing he was getting close to Tails's house. He skidded to a stop right in front of the door, like he had so many times before, and knocked. Three times, followed by two. Just so nothing like what happened with Exe ever did again. Tails opened the door remotely from the lab downstairs, and told him "Just a minute!" over the radio. Sonic sighed. 'So like him.' he thought. He walked over to the couch and got comfortable, knowing it'd be a few minutes before his little brother actually got up to the living room, so he flipped on the TV. It was already on the cartoon channel, and Sonic scoffed at the girly, pink show that was on. He knew some people liked shows like that, and he held no resentment towards them for liking them, but the thing he couldn't figure out was why. As he blankly stared at the show while flipping through the guide, he noted that the animation was actually quite nice, better than some shows he knew of, even. Especially North Park. That show was freaking hilarious at times, but the animation was horrible. Like the characters were made out of construction paper. He sighed as he found nothing he wanted to watch on the guide, and groaned as one of the characters on the show started to burst into song. Two of the other characters even seemed to be annoyed at it. He got a small chuckle out of that, but elected to turn the TV off rather than watch it. Soon after, Tail walked ito the room, wiping his grease-caked hands on a towel.
"Nothing good on TV?" He asked.
"Nah, just one of those girly shows Knuckles loves to go on about." They both chuckled at the thought of Knuckles, of all people, liking one of those shows. Specifically, My Little Pony. Again, Sonic wondered why he liked it, but pushed the thought to the side for now. "So, Tails, what experiment do you want me to test this time?"
"Come with me and I'll explain it." As they walked through the kitchen and down the stair to the lab, Tail started up again, "Sonic, what would you say if I told you you could go into your favorite video game universe?"
"I'd ask exactly how you could do that." Sonic replied.
Tails gave him a glare and continued, "Well, my new invention does just that! It's a Virtual Reality machine!"
"A Virtu- what now?" Sonic replied, dumbfounded.
"Virtual Reality! You know, VR?"
"Ooooooh! You mean like the thing where you're there, only not really! The thing with the goggles and helmet and the thing where if you die you don't really die you're just... That thing?"
"Yes."
"My head hurts now."
"I'll bet. I even smell a little smoke."
It was Sonic's turn to give the glare as they walked into the actual 'Planning' part of the lab. There, in the middle, sat a large white ring. Next to it was a long L-shaped table with three computers sitting on it. They all had binary on their screens, and as such, Sonic had no clue what they said.
"In the ring, if you will?" Tails asked, taking a seat in the rolling chair and pulling up to one of the computers. Sonic obliged, and took position in the ring. Tails pushed a button and four cuffs locked his hands and feet in place.
"Tails, What the-"
"Oh, too tight?"
"Tails, what in god's name are you doing here?"
"Oh, nothing, just a little revenge prank."
"Revenge prank? When was the last time I-" He stopped.
"Ah, you're remembering my birthday party, I assume?" Tails had a comical slasher smile on his face.
"Oh, god."
"Yeah, that's it. The icing? That took me until two days ago to completely get out of my fur?"
"Tails, I am so sorry and-"
"Save the apology, I'm not gonna kill you or anything."
"I- what?"
"I just think you need to learn some kindness. A bit of generosity maybe?
No.
"Just a bit of loyalty, even."
Not this.
"Honesty's always good."
Virtual Reality. Tails was going to put him in his worst nightmare. Well, second worst, anyway. Worst comical, at the very least.
"Laughter..."
"You wouldn't."
"I would. You really need to learn how magic our Friendship is!" He said, laughing madly.
"No, Tails, I swear I'll do anything. Anything. Please no."
"No dice, Sonic!" He said, pulling out a very pink DVD case from one of the drawers from the cabinet next to the table. Tails held it up. The title alone made Sonic want to scream.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: Adventures in the Crystal Empire
"Tails!"
"Oh god, Sonic, stop being such a drama queen."
"Where did you even get that!"
"Bought it online. 2 bucks."
"Could be bootleg."
"Sonic, that would in no way affect the VR." He took the disc out of the case and put it in the closest computer's disc drive.
"Tails! Please!" He tried pleading one last time.
"Not gonna happen!" Tails replied as he clicked the button on another computer to start the program. "Have fun!"
"I hate you." Sonic said, as the helmet went over his head. He couldn't see anything, and expected to soon be greeted by magical, talking, pastel-painted ponies. Instead, a red ERROR warning flashed, before the machine began to overload, shocking the hedgehog. He felt funny, as if something were scanning him and divinding him up.
"What's going on?!" He heard Tails shout.
'Oh, fu-' Was all he got to think before another electric feeling shot through him. He blacked out.
Meanwhile, on Tails's side
"I hate you" Sonic said, as Tails looked at the screen that was playing the DVD. Soon, it would show him Sonic, as if he were the main character, instead of that Twilight... Twinkle? He couldn't remember her name, and frankly, he didn't care. He just wanted Sonic to suffer. In a comical sense, of course. A beeping noise on the other computer jerked his attention away, however, and what he saw made his blood run cold.
Unknown error. Unaccounted anomaly.
"Oh, fu-" was all he got to say before the machine began going haywire, sending sparks everywhere. "What's going on?!" He yelled, before he saw Sonic being digitized. Sonic disappeared.
Sonic woke up in a great flatland. He sat up and shook his head. He looked around.
'This doesn't look like Mobius.' He thought. Too... bright.
"Sonic?" A panicked Tails rang in his ear like a radio earpiece.
"Tails?" He asked, before everthing came back to him: The VR machine, the DVD, the Error.
"Tails, get me out of here, now!"
"I'm sorry, Sonic, but there's something wrong with the program!"
"WHAT?!" He screamed, cursing in six different languages.
"There's something wrong with the VR program!"
"Then fix it!"
"I can't fix it if I don't know what went wrong!"
"It's your fault I'm here in the first place!"
"I know, I know! This was supposed to be a harmless prank, but somehow you got digitized into the program!"
"I..." Sonic was at a loss for words.
"I'm so sorry, Sonic." He sounded on the verge of tears.
"It's okay, Tails. Just- Just get me back."
"Sonic... You had the Emeralds on you, didn't you?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because I'm reading several anomalies-
"Explain, fast, please."
` "Oh, right. I programmed the... err... program to track anomalies that exist differently from the thing I put in."
"English, Tails."
"Think of this show as a code. Everything that the characters do exists as a line of code."
"Like a command prompt on a computer."
"Right. Now, everything you or, in this case, the Emeralds do or interact with, et cetera, et cetera, is code as well. But I rigged the program to flag that code as 'anomaly' so I can keep up with everthing you do.
"And you're picking up the Emeralds as code."
"Right. But since none of the..." He paused, as if searching for the right words, "Not exactly 'main' characters, but 'focused' characters, including recurring background ones, have interacted with them, I can't track them."
"Well. That's just fine and dandy. FU-"
"Hey, who are you? And who are you talking to?"
Sonic let the rest of his last word come out as a heavy sigh. The person- or rather, pony in question was about as tall as him. She was cyan blue, with a rainbow-colored mane that had to have been dyed that way, and had wings outstretched behind her.
'Boy, this day just keeps getting better, huh?' He thought.