MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR SONIC FORCES so don't complain if you haven't played it yet. This is basically me griping like every other eternally unsatisfied Sonic The Hedgehog fan in the world right now. Scenes are in no particular order of events; also, expect lots of fourth wall breakage. Typical disclaimers apply.
Sonic watched as the other Shadow fizzled out and turned to his savior. "Two Shadows?" The aforementioned glanced at him.
"Yes. You really shouldn't sound so surprised. It's not like this hasn't been a common trope in almost every game I was a main character in or anything."
"But… but…" Sonic crossed his arms and pouted. "But I wanted to fight him! Couldn't you at least have waited till after the boss fight?"
Shadow's eyes flashed. "You can't always get what you want, faker."
"I think you're the fake hedgehog around here–!"
"That doesn't even make any–!"
And so a boss fight was almost had, until Amy started yelling at both of them through the comm link.
Tails watched as his older brother knocked down the offending robots, saving the group of civilians and smiling at him. "Is everyone okay?"
"Yeah, sure! Just fine, thank you very much!"
Sonic faltered. "Whoa, dude, what's up? I'm just trying to help."
"Why, you don't think I could have handled it?"
"I didn't say that, I just–"
"I defeated one of Eggman's mechs during the Chaos incident! I fought him on the ARK when we all thought you were dead! I took down the Battle Bird Armada! I think I can handle a few robots by now!"
"Easy Tails! Look, you've done some awesome stuff, but you've been holding back a lot these past few games and I just wanted to be sure–!"
"Well next time maybe ask first! My fanbase thinks I'm a wimp because of things like this! Have you seen the fanfiction?"
"Ohh no, we are not talking about the fanfiction again–"
"Well maybe we shouldn't be talking at all!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
It was around this time at Infinite attacked, and Tails spent the next six months regretting that the last conversation he had with his supposedly-dead (again) big brother was about fanfiction.
…Until a new one showed up.
"See?! See?! This is exactly what I'm talking about!"
Classic Sonic didn't know what Tails was talking about, or why he was gesturing wildly at the puddle of water on the ground, or why he was suddenly so much taller than him, or why the city was destroyed…
Actually, he had no idea what was going on at all. But he'd just spent the past week taking down the Death Egg, saving Angel Island, and dealing with some brand new gemstone that definitely wasn't a Chaos Emerald, among other things. At this point, he really didn't care anymore.
The Rookie stared up at the pair of walls in front of them. From behind they could hear the sound of the giant laser slowly sweeping its way across the stage. They pressed his communicator to their ear to make sure they hadn't misheard. "You want me to what now?!"
"Wall jump! It's easy, just jump between the two walls to reach the top!"
They could feel the heat of the illusion on the back of their neck – the fate of the entire planet currently rested on their shoulders. "What, you couldn't have taught me how to do this back when I first joined up? At the tutorial maybe?"
"Well, you haven't really needed it before, now just seemed like as a good a time as any…"
"Now?! Now?! You think a good time to learn a brand new skill that no ordinary person should be immediately capable of doing without loads of training is while I'm busy trying to FIGHT THE FREAKING SUN?!"
"Alright, now we're talking!" Sonic pumped a fist in the air and turned to Knuckles. "Thanks for the save, by the way. Now that I'm off the Death Egg, we can turn this fight around! Just give me the Emeralds and say the word!" His friend raised an eyebrow.
"The Emeralds? What are you talking about?"
The fist lowered. "Uh, you know, the sparkly gemstones we occasionally collect to save the world? Where are they?" The echidna shrugged.
"Who knows? We're pretty sure Eggman doesn't have them, but that's about it. Shadow might have one, but he's been MIA for a while now."
Sonic stared at him. Then he put his face in his hands.
"You mean to tell me that, over the past six months, no one thought to grab the Emeralds at some point? Like, nobody thought they'd be useful in the battle for the planet?"
"Well, you were kind of gone, so…"
"What about Silver? I know for a fact he can use them. Or Shadow? Hey, wait–" He glanced around at his friends. "Did anyone ever bother to figure out what Shadow's deal was? Why was he working for Eggman?"
"Huh? He's not working for Eggman."
"But he helped take me down when I was captured! Didn't Tails tell you?"
"Tails… has just lost it."
"…What does that even mean?"
"…So what's that kid's name anyway?"
"What kid?"
"You know, the one who saved me. The rookie."
"We never asked."
"…The hell?"
"…Also, why's the rookie covered in paint splatters?"
"We don't know, okay?!"
"Sh!"
Everyone looked at Sonic in confusion. He cocked his head, twitching his ears, listening for something. Everyone else listened too. Eventually Rouge broke the silence.
"What are we listening for?"
"Quiet! Do you guys hear that?"
Omega scanned the area. "My sensors are not detecting anything unusual."
"Exactly! This is a boss fight! Why is Eggman so quiet? Where are the quips and cheap threats?"
Everyone listened harder. The only sound was the distinctly NOT-Fist-Bump-remix that was the boss fight theme. Even the mech seemed silent.
Eventually Amy raised her hammer. "Who cares? Let's just take down that robot!" Several others agreed, and the battle began anew.
Modern Sonic stared at his past/alternate-dimension/other self and put his hands on his hips.
"So are you, like, essential to the plot or…?"
Classic Sonic shrugged.
"I'm pretty sure he's just here for the fanbase," Tails declared, glaring meaningfully at Sonic, and the tension in the room suddenly thickened by several orders of magnitude.
A/N Overall, I didn't think the game was bad; I just thought it could have been better. Classic Sonic felt shoehorned in, I actively breathed a sigh of relief when the Avatar didn't end up going Super (though I'm fairly certain the game devs came pretty close), the levels (while they didn't feel linear) didn't require much skill or felt challenging, just boring compared to Generations or Unleashed Day stages, the Boost didn't give me much of a rush, I fell off a lot (especially in Metropolis) without the Drift, and it felt really slow when there weren't enough Wisps around for either Sonic or the Avatar.
Apologies, I'm ranting. I was just… hoping for more. Oh well, 'tis the life of a Sonic fan I suppose *grinds teeth* Mania, was fun, anyway. Maybe I'll do a fanfic on that.
Sorry to the people who've been waiting on I Am The Night (I don't know if any of those readers are also into Sonic, or if any of you guys are into Harry Potter/Assassin's Creed (but if you are, go check that out!)). Mania came out, then Forces, and school's also been getting me down… I'm working on it.
Finally, if anyone else would like to try out this story's format of plotwise game-bashing (or whatever you want to call it), with either the same game or some other one, feel free to. Let me know if it's a fandom I'm into!
