:O We're back! *falls over* And if you can find it, there is now a picture of Dark Gaia by me on deviantArt. ;) It's a spoiler though, so only look for it if you want to know spoilers about my version of Dark Gaia. ^_^ Also, I'm using Dr. Zachary in my story, and I'm changing his personality just a teensy bit. ;D

Dark Gaia: With that said, we want to see what I'm doing in this chapter! :D

You mean YOU are wanting to see what you're doing in this chapter. ;)

Iltinis arrived at Shadow's house quickly, despite its remote location, and knocked politely on the door first. When this didn't provide any response, he morphed his left arm into its hedgewolf size and knocked the door down like those characters do in movies, except they're usually kicking the door down. Iltinis cautiously walked inside and was about to start searching for the dark hedgehog when Dark Gaia's familiar sticky voice intruded. 'Iltinis, are you busy right now?'

'Yes, why?" responded Iltinis in his head as he looked in the living room.

'Are you busy with anything that's really important?'

'Yes, I am busy with something that's really important.'

'Darn, well call me when you aren't.' Dark Gaia's presence disappeared and Iltinis rolled his eyes. His father seemed to have forgotten that he couldn't do that, and that Dark Gaia was so far the only one able to initiate contact with his mind. He finished in the living room, making a mental note to ask Shadow if he could borrow Salt so he could watch it (when the children were asleep of course), and then went to the kitchen. As soon as he entered, he stopped and stared. Shadow lay on the floor, in what looked like a decidedly uncomfortable position. He'd probably fallen onto his knees then backwards, judging by the look of things.

Iltinis picked the moody anti-hero and slung him over one shoulder as he morphed halfway, keeping the hedgehog looks, but with hedgewolf proportions upper body-wise. He had just exited the house and managed to somehow lock the door when Sonic appeared. "What's up with Shads?" he asked, poking his dark doppelganger in the side of the head. Iltinis thought that if Sonic had tried that while Shadow was awake, he'd have lost his hand already.

"I have no idea, he was laying on the kitchen floor."

"Perhaps he passed out for some reason?"

"Gee, did you figure that out on your own, Sherlock?" asked Iltinis sarcastically before he bent his legs and shot off in the direction of Tails' workshop.

"Hey no fair! You were supposed to wait if you wanted to start a race!"

"This isn't a race you idiot!" yelled Iltinis, subconsciously speeding up and breaking the sound barrier.

"Oh yes it is," said Sonic, smirking as he followed suit.

MMM

Finitevus muttered something under his breath and repositioned the lollipop in his mouth before writing some more on his piece of parchment-like paper. He even had a quill in his hand. "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" he growled, having decided that his superior mind should be able to figure out the answer. He heard a distant sound that was remarkably like an adolescent echidna smashing highly valuable equipment. Maybe it sounded like that because it was an adolescent echidna smashing highly valuable equipment. The albino mad scientist sighed, aggravated. He heard yelling and then whacking noises and sighed again. That Dr. Zachary character from that alternate dimension he'd travelled to was a bit of a fruitcake in his opinion. Of course, they were a little similar in appearances, and they were both mad scientists... but Finitevus knew that while he wanted to destroy Mobius Prime and the dimension Iltinis was in, Zachary wanted to destroy all of them. A sudden shriek of 'give it back' accompanied by the sound of tearing wires made him abandon his problem solving by throwing his quill onto the desk and storming into the lab he'd set up in the tunnels beneath Albion. "Would someone explain what is going on, please?" he growled. Zachary looked up, then scowled at Knuckles, who was looking smug.

"He took my arm!" said Zachary, absolute fury on his face.

"And you're nothing without your stupid little cybernetics," said Knuckles. "That is why people like me will always be superior to you."

"In intelligence, it is the other way around," growled Zachary, gritting his teeth. Finitevus pinched the bridge of his nose and then used his warp rings to grab the mechanical arm from Knuckles and give it to Zachary.

"After I have fixed your arm, I expect you to finish fine-tuning the spells so that this time it will be impossible for anyone to bring him back out of the Enerjak state." Knuckles' look turned venomous.

"I'll get away before you can do it, Finitevus," he growled. "But before I'm gone, I swear I will tear you apart for what you did to my father."

"Oh do shut up about Locke, I really don't understand why you're so attached to him." Finitevus led Zachary into a smaller lab and started taking wires out of the other white echidna's shoulder and arm and adding new ones.

"Finitevus?"

"Yes, Zachary?"

"Would you mind telling me why exactly you feel that you have to replace this eye again?" he asked, pointing to the large bloodshot one.

"Trust me, you'll need it for where we're going."

"Well what would it have over this one?" he asked.

"Well you'd be able to see what Enerjak sees, you'll have x-ray vision, night vision, all that good stuff," said Finitevus, absently waving a wrench. "We need some minions," grumbled Finitevus as he realized that he'd have to go to another area of the room to get the piece that would allow him to reunite Zachary's shoulder with his arm.

"Why not make a deal with that alien?" asked Zachary. Finitevus frowned.

"I really don't trust him, and what sort of villain names himself after a tree?"

"A villain who's a plant under all his armor," said an amused voice as a tall hooded figure entered the room. It was around the size of a human, but you couldn't see its feet so it was probably floating. White gloved hands emerged from the sleeves. Neither echidna knew whether or not the being was a furry or an overlander.

"Ah, Puppet Master," said Finitevus, bowing. "How was your trip to our target dimension?"

"Fruitful," said the Puppet Master, reaching inside the robe and pulling out a small bunch of photos. "I got you new photos of Iltinis, as well as his family. He has three children, and is married to Amy now. They also have an interesting problem at the moment."

"Which is?" Finitevus gave Zachary a look. The Puppet Master could be unpredictable and get angry at the drop of a hat.

"They seem to be having problems with temporary zombies who like singing that feelings song that Knuckles enjoys. And their Knuckles is now married to Rouge, who ultimately chose him over Shadow." Finitevus chuckled.

"He must be depressed."

"He got over it, G.U.N. has been working on bringing his precious Maria back and she's practically all he really needs besides Omega and Rouge's friendship."

"True." The Puppet Master set the photos on a table and then watched Finitevus reattach Zachary's arm.

"How are you liking your association with Dr. Finitevus, Zachary?" Zachary shrugged, moving his mechanical arm around.

"He's a good colleague," was all he'd say.

"You're both a perfect pair," said the Puppet Master. "Now, has the spell been finished?" Zachary smirked slightly.

"I fixed a couple of errors and am fine tuning it now. It should be done in about twenty minutes if I'm uninterrupted."

"Then I will see to it that that is so," said the Puppet Master before exiting. When the two white echidnas followed him out, Knuckles was unconscious. "I shall go back to Iltinis's dimension and keep an eye on things. I will be back in a day, by which time I expect Knuckles to be Enerjak. Understood?" They both nodded. "Perfect." Despite the fact that Finitevus was supposed to be in charge, all involved knew that the Puppet Master was the real person guiding the project.

MMM

When Shadow woke up, it was with a vow to kill the driver of whatever truck knocked him over a cliff then later ran over him. Then he remembered that no such thing had happened, so he wouldn't get that satisfaction. He growled. "You're awake!" said Tails, relieved. "How are you feeling, Shadow?"

"Like I should like to murder someone," said the black hedgehog, ignoring the audible gulp that followed that statement.

"Why did you call me earlier?" asked Tails, somehow managing to keep his voice straight. Shadow reluctantly explained, and Tails got a thoughtful look on his face. Seeing as there was no sudden outburst of laughter, Shadow deduced that Sonic either wasn't in the building, or wasn't within earshot. "Could I have some of your fur? I'll conduct some tests." Shadow easily plucked a strand and handed it to the fox. "You can sit in the living room if you'd like, and there's some stuff in the fridge if you're hungry." The fox hurried out, and Shadow slowly followed. He checked the fridge, but found that the contents matched his suspicions. Only some junk food had survived long enough to still be edible, the rest was decidedly fuzzy when it had no right to be. Shadow closed the fridge and got himself some water before going to the living room and sitting down in one of the armchairs, turning on the TV. The only vaguely interesting thing on was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He greatly approved of Raphael whacking Michelangelo on the back of the head whenever he was stupid. Oh if only he could do that to Sonic all the time, seeing as the blue blur was idiotic twenty-four seven. With this lovely fantasy, he settled into the chair to watch.

MMM

Dark Gaia grinned excitedly. "It's working! IT'S WORKING!" he said to himself, mentally doing a weird little jig. The red echidna opened his eyes slowly, blinking. His eyes were black, and there were black ringlets on his dreads. He also had black eyebrows, and a white skull mark on the palm of his right hand.

"What in the-?"

"Welcome back, Satan," said Dark Gaia's voice. Satan looked around. "Though I do hope you'll consider changing your name this time around, seeing as the real Satan might get offended. If he actually exists that is." Satan cocked his head to the side.

"Dad? Is that you?"

"Yup."

"But I remember dying-"

"And luckily for you I managed to arrange events so that your spirit would be absorbed by a Chaos Emerald shaving," interrupted Dark Gaia. "Come on, you can't say you aren't happy to be alive again. And this time, you'll have siblings!"

"Uh..."

"Two of 'em are going a little rampant right now, so I gave you the ability to track your siblings down," said Dark Gaia cheerfully.

"Dad?"

"Yes?"

"Who is that unconscious echidna?"

"It's another project," said Dark Gaia. "But don't concern yourself with it at the moment, concern yourself with finding the two who're currently going around making zombies."

"Zombies?" asked Satan, his fur rising. "D-Dad, you know I don't like zombies!"

"They're not zombies, silly, they're just making them! They're vampires!" Satan promptly fainted. Dark Gaia was silent for a moment, then he asked if the reaction was because of something he'd said. Of course, no one was conscious so no one could answer.

MMM

Silver groaned, realizing that once again, he'd come to the wrong period of time. And even worse, he wouldn't be able to time travel again for another friggin' year! "Damn it," he muttered, looking around. It was pretty pleasant, much nicer than the future at any rate. He was going to start searching to see if anyone he had read about in the history books was nearby when he felt an odd leaching sensation. He turned, blinking. A black hedgehog was smiling at him and walking towards him.

"Sorry about this, but my sister needs something to feed off of." With that, the black hedgehog punched him in the chest. Very hard. Silver fell backwards, gasping. However, almost as soon as the pain appeared, it disappeared, along with the injury. A white hedgehog emerged from an alley, smiling at the black hedgehog.

"You don't have to hit him more, that was enough, surprisingly."

"Nice." They both turned to Silver.

"Sorry about that," said the white one. "We were both born recently and needed to feed so that we wouldn't die." Silver looked at them, dazed, as the black one helped him up.

"I'm Zuri," he said. "This is my sister Juodas."

"We're vampires," said Juodas in a conspirational manner.

"Then wouldn't you have been trying to suck my blood?" asked Silver, finding himself oddly calm over their declaration. They exchanged a look.

"Normal vampires would've yeah, but we're not normal vampires. Zuri feeds off emotions and stuff like that, and his appetite was a whole lot bigger so he made a couple zombies."

"Don't worry though, they aren't zombies anymore." Silver didn't know if he should be confused or relieved or just disbelieving.

"And I feed off of pain, which has the bonus of healing the person. Unfortunately they do feel a flash of it."

"So, do you live around here?" asked Zuri, as if this was a conversation about the weather.

"Uh..."

"We don't exactly live anywhere at the moment," said Juodas.

"I'm not from around here," said Silver faintly.

"Are you a tourist?" asked Juodas.

"You could say that."

"Don't tell your people bad things about this place, it's not this country's fault they've got two vampires on the loose," said Zuri. A red echidna appeared, and then he grinned.

"Found ya!" he said, before running up and collapsing onto the ground near them. "Whoo that was quite a run... satisfied, Dad?" The red echidna's pupils became slits and his voice turned sticky. "Absolutely satisfied. Thank you Satan." Satan looked at them. "So you are the ones who were formed from Shadow," he said, getting up and circling them. "Wow. I'm speaking through Satan right now, but I'm Dark Gaia, but you can just call me dad."

"Okay Dad," said Juodas cheerfully. Silver was so confused that he fainted. And then Sonic appeared and looked at them, his head cocked to the side.

"Uh, 'scuse me, but are you an echidna?" Satan's voice was speaking now, instead of Dark Gaia's.

"Yeah."

"Would you mind telling me where you live? I've got a friend who thinks he's the last of his kind and you'd be living proof that he isn't." Normally, someone asking if you'd tell them where you live is rather creepy, but Satan didn't think so.

"I don't live anywhere," he said cheerfully. "My Dad resurrected me a short while ago so I've got nowhere to stay at the moment."

"This guy's a tourist, so he can't keep us at his place," said Zuri, pointing to Silver. Sonic got the nagging feeling that he knew that hedgehog from somewhere, but he pushed it out of his mind.

"Cool, wanna come to Tails'?" Now, all three of them had absolutely no idea who Tails was, but they thought this seemed like a great idea, so of course they agreed.

MMM

Meanwhile, Iltinis was running himself ragged, trying to find whoever matched the description that lady had given him. "Accompanied by a white hedgehog..." he muttered. "How many white hedgehog's can there be?" Almost as if to show him, he came across a school that had a bunch of white hedgehogs leaving it. He blinked. "Er... okay then." He almost wished for the rather short time when it had just been him, Amy, and his cave. Even if it had only been one night, it was his favorite memory, and he wished things were that simple again. W hile he looked like a hedgehog, he was supposed to be civilized and not let out roars of frustration and randomly maul innocent walls. He didn't see how it was fair that he had to follow these rules while Shadow blatantly disregarded them.

He decided to stop by the Chaotix's and see what they had guessed about the whole zombie thing, and if they might have talked to anyone who had seen a white and black hedgehog together. When he arrived at the agency, Charmy was swinging on a lamp that looked like it was going to fall and smash any moment, Vector was desperately trying to catch the bee and the lamp, and Espio was pretending to not notice as he sorted through some files. "Hey Espio." The purple chameleon looked up and gave a brief wave before returning to his work.

"Hello Iltinis, what brings you here?" Iltinis quickly explained. Espio looked up and shut the filing cabinet before leading Iltinis into the office, away from Vector and Charmy who were now on the floor arguing as the lamp rolled off Vector and smashed anyway. "All the victims said that they saw a black and white hedgehog yes, and we talked to some people who came to the police station because they saw the transformation. They said that the white one was usually following and asking when it would be her turn to feed, and then the black one would say varying numbers. We're assuming he meant how many more victims he needed to hit." Iltinis nodded. "Who saw them last?"

"A barber, he said they went in the direction of the park." Iltinis thanked Espio and left, and was just in time to see Sonic zoom off with Silver over his shoulder, and Satan, Juodas and Zuri in tow. His jaw dropped when he realized Sonic was with the two hedgehogs who'd been turning people into zombies. He shot off after them, determined to warn Sonic of the danger (though he doubted the blue blur would pay attention).

MMM

"Vrrrrooom! Vrrrrroom! VRRROOOM!"

"Aaron please keep it quiet! I'm on the phone!" called Amy.

"Sorry Mom, we'll keep quiet!" called Noah.

"Thank you!" As Noah went back into the bedroom, Aaron gave him a look.

"Why'd you do that? We were just about to get to full speed!"

"Can't we get to full speed in a quieter way?" asked Iris. "And can the ride be less bumpy? I'm trying to have tea!" The young purple hedgehog sipped imaginary tea as she sat in the large cardboard box with her two brothers. Aaron stuck his tongue out at her.

"We're escaping from the cops! Of course the ride is going to be bumpy! And I haven't initiated stealth mode yet because we've gotta get around the bend." In his mind, they were on a highway in the middle of the desert, escaping from a nearby city with a trunk full of jewels. Rouge might or might not have had something to do with his obsession with gems. Of course, Amy didn't know of it yet, but if she did, she'd probably ban all visits with Rouge unless someone she could trust was there with them. Both boys had blue fur, just like their dad, and all of them had green eyes. Iris was as fast as Sonic, but the boys had their own versions of Amy's hammer (which were too big for them to lift at their present age of six, thank goodness).

The door burst open and suddenly Rouge herself came in. "Hey there kids! Your mother needs to go to Tails' workshop, so you get to stay with me and Knuckie at Angel Island!" Aaron immediately forgot the desert chase and jumped out of the box.

"HURRAY! Can we steal the Master Emerald from him?"

"Sure we can! Let's go!" Aaron rushed out of the room with her, and Noah and Iris dashed after them.

MMM

The Puppet Master frowned, he'd hoped to get his hands on the children while Amy rushed out. Unfortunately for him she had had the presence of mind to ask Rouge to look after them. He rubbed his nose and teleported.

Howzat? :D Zuri was formerly Senzace, and Juodas was formerly Sentimento. I like their new designs. ^_^ Satan shall be VERY like Dark Gaia, and so shall Juodas. Zuri will be a little more like Shadow with temper, but his personality shall be an amalgam of Dark Gaia and Shadow (I say that tentatively). So, who's the mystery echidna? Why has Dr. Zachary teamed up with Dr. Finitevus? Who is the Puppet Master? Will Amy find out about Aaron's Rouge-influenced ideas? Will the Mobius Prime Knuckles be turned into Enerjak or is something ELSE going to happen? And finally, will I get my hands off the keyboard and go get something to eat? All questions except the last one will be answered in this story, with quite a few of them being possibly answered next chapter. ;)

Disclaimer: Read and review. Zuri, Juodas, Satan, this version of Dark Gaia, Iris, Noah, Aaron, Iltinis, the story, me, and the mystery echidna belong to CrazyNutSquirrel. Mobius Prime Knuckles, Finitevus and Knuckles belong to Archie Comics. Dr. Zachary belongs to Fleetway I think, and everyone else belongs to SEGA. The Puppet Master belongs to- well that's a mystery now, isn't it? ;)

Good job, Disclaimer. *pats Disclaimer's head*

Dark Gaia: Can we please reveal what the mystery echidna is next chapter?

No, the chapter after that.

Dark Gaia: *heartbreak*

-.-