"Birds..." Sonic mumbled in his sleep, "that turn into fish... in the sea—s-su-huh?" He stammered as he awoke suddenly, stirred by a commotion coming from the kitchen. Quicker than the human eye, Sonic bolted out of his bed and looked to see what had transpired in the realm of foodmaking and silverware-storing—only to find a twin-tailed fox grilling frankfurters and simmering chili, totally safe from any harm. "Oh... phew..." Sonic exhaled, collecting himself before greeting the fox, "H-hey Tails! Whatcha up to?"
Turning to face the big-mouthed blue hedgehog, Tails replied, "What's it look like? Making chili dogs for us! What're you up to, besides barging in, out-of-breath?" The last part was added in mischievously by the teasing fox, who then proceeded to thoughtfully add a calculated amount of chili to the hot dogs once they were put in their respective buns.
Sighing with a tired smirk, Sonic answered, "Nothin'." He grabbed a hot chili dog and grabbed a bite of it. Immediately hit with the fantastic taste combined with the intoxicating aroma of it, he commented favorably, "mmff, this ish the besht—" he paused to swallow the mouthful of chili dog in his mouth, before starting once more, "ahh, this has to be the best chili dog I've ever had, pal! If I could marry a bunch of chili dogs, these'd be the ones!" His compliments were sincere, but Tails couldn't help but giggle at Sonic's trademark goofiness, while his heart did warm from his spiny friend's approval.
"Thanks, you dork," said the fox to the hedgehog, who then rolled his eyes at the 'dork' comment, "I figured it'd be nice to do something nice for you after you've been so off lately."
Momentarily choking on a bit of chili upon hearing the fox's remarks, Sonic promptly swallowed the rest of his chow and countered, "Hey, that was months ago! I haven't been acting weirdly since then, have I?" He waited for Tails to confirm his account of his behavior since the night that transpired a handful of months ago, but he never did. Sonic sighed, "Look, I don't want you to worry so much over nothi—whoa!" Sonic abruptly gasped as a tremor hit very briefly. "... Did you feel that?" Sonic asked Tails.
Blinking his blue eyes, Tails replied, "um, no, I—" before another tremor struck, this one enduring longer than the other, before settling down for another fleeting moment. "... Okay, that one I felt," admitted Tails. They both braced themselves for the next, waiting intently for another for several minutes. When it seemed that the tremors were over, they eased – only to be met with the worst of the tremors as a portal opened up in the ceiling of the dining room, with a bright red echidna falling out and onto the table like a ton of bricks, smashing it to pieces under his weight.
Sonic was preoccupied by the intrusion, meanwhile Tails's eyes twitched at the destruction
As the hulking echidna slowly attempted to pick himself up off of the table, Sonic chuckled and remarked, "Well gee, Tails, I know I can be really hungry sometimes but this is ridiculous!" Glancing over at the fox, he was met with a glare and an eye-roll, which, Sonic could admit, he had earned. Only then as the stranger blinked his purple eyes open did he reveal his striking resemblance to their friend, Knuckles, and yet... still seeming so wildly different, to the two. "Hey, uh... who're you? What're you doing here?" Sonic asked, as he went to help the echidna up—only to be swatted violently away.
"Don't touch me!" The stranger yelled, while the hedgehog was sent flying to the wall. Looking with his lavender eyes to inspect the hedgehog's form, then turning to look at the fox as well, his judgmental gaze softened. "Wait..." he realized, "you're not him..."
With a shake of his head, Sonic swallowed his outrage at being attacked like that for no reason and laughed, "Whaddya mean 'not him'?! I tried to help you and you knocked me off my block!" Sonic jumped back up on his feet and kept a safe, 'non-swattable' distance from the stranger. "Do ya mind explaining what exactly you're doing here? I figure you owe us one, wrecking our table and all..." Sonic mentioned, eyeing the ruined dining table of theirs while Tails nodded profusely.
Nodding, the stranger complied, answering the hedgehog, "Okay, just as long as you don't turn out to be an evil dictator who wants to hurt everyone, I'll tell you I'm Knuckles and I come from another universe—but if you are gonna become a bad guy, I..." the wheels in Knuckles's head began to turn as he realized, "... oh, right, I guess I just told you that anyway... you get what I meant!"
The two chuckled at the echidna's distrust, knowing all too well it wasn't the first time the echidna had the wrong idea about the hedgehog and brushing it aside. What's more, it was a relief to the two to know he was an ally of some sorts, as Tails smiled and added, "Well, it's good to know some things don't change between universes," he warmly offered his hand to the echidna, "it's nice to meet you 'Other Knuckles,' I'm Tails! The hedgehog you decked is my housemate, Sonic," said the twin-tailed fox, motioning to his hedge-housemate, who couldn't help but notice the huge portal that had torn open time, space, and their ceiling above them. "What brings you here to our world?" Tails asked.
Knuckles reluctantly accepted the fox's hand and shook it firmly, stating, "Well, uh... Tails, I'm here 'cause things have gotten really bad where I'm from since the boom – our island's been taken over and the resistance is losing." Sonic's eyes widened while Tails listened intently, both emboldened to Knuckles's dilemma and ready to help in whatever way they can already, "Our numbers are so low, we really don't have much choice but to ask for your help." They both nodded meaningfully, understanding their seeming importance to the cause, only for Knuckles to add, "Well, we would've taken any help, I just happened to find you two first and we don't exactly have a lot of time to find anyone more qualified, like an... alternate universe Knuckles & 'Knuckleena' of some sort."
"Right, thanks," Sonic spoke through gritted teeth while inwardly nursing his bruised ego, "I think we're ready to save another world—it's kinda what we do—but can you explain why the portal showed up on the ceiling? That'd be good to know, right, Tails?" Asked the blue blur, looking to his roommate and finding the fox disappearing into his own nerdy thoughts. "Uhh... Tails? Hello?"
Still paying more attention to his own thoughts than Sonic's calls, after another few moments, Tails finally inquired, "So, you live on an island, traveled through a portal not knowing where it would lead you, and just happened to end up right here in our house?" When the echidna nodded in affirmation, Tails slapped his forehead and exasperatedly exclaimed, "The likelihood of such a thing is astronomically-low! You should've ended up stuck inside of a wall before you ended up in our dining room!"
Without missing a beat, Knuckles raised his index finger and replied, "But if I didn't, we wouldn't have a story, right, reader?" He exchanged a knowing glance and a wave to his left... at nothing in particular.
Leaning to whisper into the fox's ear, Sonic asked, "Uh... so y'think that portal in the ceiling tore an actual hole in our ceiling? Are we really going with this guy? Can you tell me if portals work in ceiling-destructy ways?"
"He does seem a bit eccentric, but he seems genuine enough about why he's here, I think we can trust him," answered Tails, "and stop worrying about the ceiling!" He added firmly, before tapping the echidna's shoulder and grabbing his attention back to within the boundaries of the dented fourth wall, "So are you ready to take us back to your world now, Knuckles?"
Pausing to give a nod in affirmation, Knuckles wrapped an arm around both of them, bent his knees, and then jumped with all of his might... an entire six inches off of the ground.
A silence befell the three – broken only by the snarky hedgehog, who seemed all too happy to do so as he quipped with a smirk, "Skipped leg day, eh?" Other Knuckles stubbornly refused to give a response besides looking away embarrassedly, which provoked Sonic to add, "I mean, it's okay, Knuckles, we're just gonna have to work together to get through it! Now, let's jump on the count of three, 'kay?"
Briefly taking a moment to shake off the feeling of embarrassment, Knuckles bent his knees and locked arms with the others before starting, "... One."
"Two..." Tails added, with a twirl of his tails.
Looking at the both of them, Sonic smiled, seemingly ready for whatever was on the other side of the portal as he exclaimed, "Three!" At once, they all leapt off the ground and through the portal, launching face-first into the floor of the new world. "Ooagh!" Sonic grunted as his two 'teammates' landed on top of him. "Okay, aack... t-team... good effort, g-good team effort... ugh, now can you both get off my back?" Asked the aching hedgehog, provoking them both to pick themselves up off of him, Tails taking the time to help Sonic up as well. "Ah thanks buddy," Sonic said softly, in such a way that seemed as though he only wanted Tails to hear it.
Sporting a bright smile, Tails replied, "of course." It was then that the familiar sound of broken technology sparking in the corner of the room entered the perked-up ears of the geeky fox, who looked to find the source of the sounds only to find a smoking, projector-like device that their echidna ally had picked up and proceeded to try to hide discreetly. "Um, Knuckles?" The twin-tailed fox called to the echidna, stopping him in his tracks, "What's that?"
"Oh," Knuckles chuckled nervously, "this? Aha, this is a Put-It-In-The-Corner 4000, it was made like this by someone who definitely isn't you and it starts breaking when foxes from other universes ask questions about it—can we change the subject?"
Patiently, Tails approached the echidna and requested, "Lemme see that, please," but when he reached his hand out and Knuckles, in turn, kept further away, the fox saw something in his eyes. "Knuckles, don't worry," Tails assured, "I promise it's okay."
With that, the echidna seemed to grow less tense, helpfully handing the device to the fox for closer inspection. "Hmm... is this how you got to our universe?" Tails asked, receiving a nod from the echidna, "Then it's a good thing you found me – I can fix this, provided with the right materials. This is a prototype, right?" Another nod, this one a little less sure, "Okay, I'll fix this up into something that won't break. Then you won't even need our help," Tails boldly claimed.
Like a star, Knuckles's face lit up as he heard the fox's words, exclaiming, "That's great! We should go to Amy, she'll be so glad!" He then proceeded to duck through a small passageway and hurry off, leaving the two behind.
Just about ready to follow the echidna, Tails began to move in his direction, before turning back to see Sonic with a funny look on his face, stood still. "... Sonic? You're coming, right?"
Moments passed as Tails waited for a response, before Sonic finally spoke up, playfully-anxiously, in the smallest voice, "... Amy?" Tails rolled his eyes, Sonic chuckled and then proceeded to very reluctantly walk to where Knuckles left, before having his hand taken by the fox and led much quicker into it. "Aahh, heyyyy I was kidding!... This isn't about that thing you said where my sarcasm is a cry for help, is it...?" Sonic frowned, Tails grinned and continued to drag Sonic along until he gave up and caught up with the echidna willingly.
The three were more or less side by side when they went through one last passageway that led into the makeshift base of the resistance. It was dumpy, some people were working while others merely rested—looking as dead in their sound sleep as the toll of resisting had made them feel on the inside. Knuckles moved ahead of them, meeting with the pink and red figure with their back turned to them. "I guess that must be the leader," Sonic commented to the fox beside him, who nodded, as they both witnessed their echidna ally motion to them, drawing the figure's attention toward the two.
But when Sonic laid his eyes on the face of this supposed stranger, his heart sank. "Oh boy, that's..."
"Sonic...?" the pink hedgehog spoke, jaw agape, as though it was a question. Her eyes ever widening open, she began to take one step after another towards the familiar blue hedgehog.
Gulping nervously, Sonic stepped back. "U-uhhhh... H-hey Amy..." he chuckled, fully prepared to be tackled – and tackled he was, violently, to the ground... followed by a barrage of punches to his face. "Oh! Ohh geesh that hurts! Amy, what the heck is this?!"
"How dare you show your heartless face around here after what you did, a-after what you s-said to me!" Amy seethed, "You shouldn't have come here, but ohh am I glad you did..." she said, so full of rage she couldn't even form a smile at the thought of pummeling the hedgehog.
Not one other moment later, Knuckles restrained her from the hedgehog. He explained, as she struggled to free herself from his grip, "Amy! Amy! It's not him—I mean, it's him, but, he's not him!" This gave the pink hedgehog pause, for a moment, giving the echidna reason to let her loose. She took another look at the hedgehog, seeing that he was indeed different from who she knew, before socking him in the face once more and getting restrained again, "Amy!" Knuckles said once more, finally getting her to step off of the pulp of a hedgehog.
With a little help from the fox, Sonic was on his feet once more. "Guh, I... geesh, what the heck? That's the second time I've been clocked today, what's the matter with all of you?!" He vented aloud. Amy seemed to want very much to give him an answer, but then apparently decided to withhold the information from the hedgehog instead. "Oh come on..." Sonic groaned.
"Just let it go for now, Sonic," Tails quietly advised, giving the blue hedgehog's shoulder a quick squeeze, earning a frustrated but resigned shake of Sonic's head, before addressing Amy, "I'm Tails, I'm... from another world, I guess. I wanna help."
This intrigued the leader of the resistance, causing her to turn to Knuckles, who promptly added, "he can make the universe-portal thingie work good as new—then we won't even need their help and we can just get as many reinforcements as we need." Amy gave it one more moment of thought before nodding, returning to her station. Feeling a little excited, to his own surprise, Knuckles gave a thumbs-up and an enthusiastic nod to the fox, indicating they were part of the team.
Reciprocating the thumbs-up, Tails smiled and turned to the hedgehog, "See? They can trust us if we're patient," he assured his dejected friend, confidently, before going with Knuckles to meet with Amy.
In his thoughts, Sonic bitterly replied, "Sure, they can trust you, I guess..." Softly feeling the many bruises on his head from their supposed ally, he trailed behind the twin-tailed fox, catching what they were discussing.
"So, if we head over to this region of the island, we should be able to find the right materials. We'll have to split up so we cover more ground. Understood?" Amy authoritatively asked of the two others, impressing the two strangers with her levelheadedness and earning their affirmation of the plan.
Taking another step closer so he could be considered part of the group, Sonic added, "Yeah, let's do it to it! When do we start?" It was then that Amy gave Sonic the most irritated of looks, as though she didn't realize what he meant even though it had to have been obvious, Sonic thought. "I'm... I'm coming, right?" asked the hedgehog.
Glaring at the big-mouthed hero, Amy answered, "Just as long as you don't touch anything, don't get in our way, don't look for anything—don't even look at me, too. Then you can come." It sounded reasonable to both her and Knuckles.
For Sonic, this was the last straw. "Oh give me a break," Sonic complained, "I don't know what your problem is with me here but that is totally bogus! The way you put it, I'm not gonna get to do anything to help! I might as well not even be coming along!"
"And?" Amy coldly said in response to the blue one's frustrations. Sonic looked at her, eyes wide in shock at how little she truly cared about him. Without another thought, she moved on, addressing them all as a group, "So, as for the groups..." she glanced one more at the shocked hedgehog, "... not doing that," she commented briefly, before deciding, "Tails, you're with me. Knuckles, you're with... Sonic." Sonic had never heard someone utter a name with as much contempt as she did his.
His mouth twisting into a frown, Knuckles asked, "Awwh, why do I have to get Sonic?" Amy gave him a firm look, indicating there was no way she was budging on this. "Fine," the brawny echidna sighed, looking disappointedly at the hedgehog, who then sighed exasperatedly.
Seeing his friend's long face, Tails went to Sonic for a moment, who perked up soon after he saw the fox approaching. "Hey," Tails said to the hedgehog, taking his thumb and pushing a corner of Sonic's mouth upwards, making a very silly-looking crooked smile, which promptly made Sonic chuckle a little and form a bittersweet smile of his own. "C'mon, Sonic, it'll be okay. We're doing the right thing, here," Tails said, before giving the hedgehog a nice big hug, like the one he had tried to give to him, months before.
"Thanks buddy, I know we are..." Sonic replied, pulling away for a moment and looking the fox in his blue eyes. There was something so warm in those eyes, though they were of a very cool hue, he hadn't noticed before in all the time he had known him. Off the corner of his eye, Sonic could tell their two new allies were getting impatient, so he leaned in one last time to hug him again. "See you when we get back," he promised, eliciting a light giggle from the fox that he could only faintly hear from being so near him. If nothing else, Sonic thought to himself, he'd be able to keep an eye on Tails and make sure nothing happened to him.
Not wasting another moment, they parted ways, Sonic following Knuckles and Tails following Amy.
Hours into their journey, Knuckles was still complaining. "I bet if Tails was my partner, he would've found like ten more shiny metal thingies," he stated, while Sonic stood still, close by, keeping watch from afar at how Tails was doing.
"Maybe I could be helpful, if you would just let me do anything," Sonic replied, although he could tell Knuckles wasn't listening at all, just like he hadn't for the several hours they had been there. "Okay, fine, lemme just show you then," he stated, before finally letting loose and scouting the area at what must've been the speed of light – returning shortly after with twenty pieces of scrap and material they would need for the repair of the device. "What did I tell ya?" He smirked, winking confidently at the echidna, whose jaw was agape.
Blinking once or twice in awe before saying another word, Knuckles stammered, "W-well, you aren't supposed to do that, so don't." He proceeded to then put the materials found by Sonic in his own bag with the rest of the materials he had found, eliciting an eye-roll of epic proportions from the unappreciated speedster. "Now just... stay out of my way, would you?" requested the red echidna, rudely, before moving on to another area.
This time, for just one moment, Sonic thought he might not come along after all. "What's the use... I'm not wanted here..." Sonic sighed to himself, watching the echidna walk away, standing still without a purpose.
Without warning, he was then grabbed violently by two unknown hands and dragged roughly away to an unknown area. "H-hey! Hey! Let me go!" Sonic shouted, struggling with all his might to escape their grip, but it was no use – they had ambushed him, and he was powerless. "Kn-Knuckles!" Sonic called out to the echidna, who didn't so much as turn to look at the hedgehog crying out for him, "Knuckles, please, you have to help me!" he shouted. It was in vain, and a part of him knew so, but he couldn't give up. "Knuckles! You're my friend, Knuckles, you're supposed to help me! Help, Knuckles! Help!" he desperately screamed, only to be knocked out shortly thereafter, by a painful blow to the head coming from an unknown source. His entire body went limp as he was taken away.
Miles away, Tails and Amy were finishing their search, a little unsettled by the distant screams they had been hearing but not enough to be distracted from the other random outbursts of the inhabitants of the island. "Okay, if Sonic and Knuckles managed to find any more than what we've got, we should have more than enough to fix the universe-portal thingie," Tails stated, grabbing his teammate's attention.
"Great, then we can start heading back now," Amy replied, forming a smile at the fox, before holding her communicator to her lips, "Knuckles," she called to the echidna through the device, "we should be good to go, meet us back at the base as soon as possible." With that call made, she motioned for the fox to come along with her, back to their base.
Tails knew his way around the island a little better than when they had first arrived, so he went ahead and flew ahead of her, retracing their steps and, after a few short minutes, descending back down into the base. Patiently, he then awaited for the others' return, seeing Amy's pink form come into sight soon enough, along with Knuckles coming from the direction he had last seen him and Sonic leaving in.
Only thing was, Sonic was nowhere to be found. Not behind, in front of, or on either side of the echidna. Tails worried.
When the two arrived the base itself, Tails expected an explanation of sorts about where the hedgehog was, but there was none. Knuckles passed him by and they proceeded to begin sorting the materials they had gathered. "Um, hello?" Tails said, calling for their attention and causing the two to turn their heads toward him, "Where's Sonic?"
"... Right, he was here too, wasn't he," Amy shrugged nonchalantly, turning to the echidna and asked, without a care, "hey Knuckles, where'd Sonic go?"
For a moment or two, Tails could observe Knuckles deep in thought, which Tails could only assume was him trying to recall when he last saw him. "Hmm... I dunno, I kinda lost track of him near the end there. Oh well," he answered.
Satisfied with that answer, Amy said, "Okay, whatever, he probably ran off somewhere to be evil or something, because of course he did." With that, the two resumed to lay out the materials necessary for the repair of the dimension portal device—which they found they had more than enough of. "Hmm... I haven't seen one like this before, where'd you find thi—"
"How could you say that?!" Tails asked the two in anger, surprising the two with the fact that Tails could indeed raise his voice to that volume. "You lost my friend and that's just—'okay, whatever'?! How could you be so mean? What did Sonic ever do to deserve that?" The goodhearted fox's tone was forceful, frustrated, but still not nearly enough to make either of them care. Seeing their apathy, Tails angrily excused himself and stormed off to somewhere in the base away from the two.
There was a broken window, where Tails could see out into the hopeless world. Privately, Tails thought, "Sonic... where could you be? You said you'd see me when I got back... you said you'd see me when I got back... Where are you..."
When Sonic came to, he was somewhere dark, lit dimly by torches lined across the walls of what looked to be a hall he was being carried through. The lighting irritated his eyes, but the part where he was being dragged against his will wasn't exactly fulfilling every one of his dreams and making each of his wishes come true either. "Where are you taking me?" Sonic questioned his captors, to which they replied with not a word in response.
Before he knew it, the large creaky door was opened and he was thrown unceremoniously into the room he could only guess was going to be his jail cell. "So nice of you to drop by," an unknown, yet familiar voice quipped at the hedgehog.
"Well, it ain't solitary confinement, anyway," Sonic thought to himself, before shaking his head and looking up. It couldn't be a jail cell, he realized, as his vision began to refocus it came to resemble more of a throne room. And on the throne, he... "no... it can't be..." Sonic said aloud, shaking his head once more and looking again, only to meet the owner of that familiar voice that was behind everything. A green-eyed, blue hedgehog. "Y-you... you're..." stammered the hedgehog.
"Sinic's the name – you must be me," Sinic replied, with the cockiest smirk that Sonic had ever laid eyes on, "welcome to my lair, loser. I run things around here."
To Be Continued
