Everybody, the instant you finish reading this chapter, go read the stories From Silver to Baby Onyx by TheV3ng3ance and Knucklehead Nanny by Writing Nobody. The stories are based on Starvix's baby universe, and they are both AWESOME and YES I AM SO BIASED AND GO READ THEM AND DON'T YOU DARE EVEN THINK ABOUT FLAMES! *Stops and pants heavily.* What happened? I blacked out for a moment…

Disclaimer: Sing it with me! Everybody's got a Water Buffalo, yours is fast but mine is slow…


Sonic the Hedgehog woke up with a sore neck on a cold, hard linoleum floor that smelled like greasy turkey. He lay there a while, wondering why he wasn't on his warm, soft bed that smelled like old gym socks. Then he remembered the events of last night and sat up, bumping his head on the bottom of the coffee table that he hadn't remembered dragging in here last night.

"OW!" Sonic yelped, grabbing his head as little Chaos Emeralds flew in a little circle around his head. He blinked, clearing his vision, and looked around to better observe his surroundings.

Silver and Blaze were curled up on opposite sides of the couch, still sleeping. Silver's leg would periodically twitch uncontrollably.

Sonic stumbled to his feet and accidentally stomped on Zombie's midsection. Zombie squeaked like a little squeaky toy and opened his eyes, looking up at Sonic quizzically.

"Oops," Sonic mumbled, still half-asleep. He stretched and yawned, trying to get the painful little kinks out of his body, and looked around for his most precious possession, which was no longer there.

The Ultimate Banjo of Justice was gone!

Sonic suddenly found himself on high alert as he started looking around furniture for his beloved banjo. It was gone, however, a telltale trail of footprints leading out the doorway made him think that whoever had taken his precious musical(?) instrument might have taken it outside.

Sonic followed the footprints outside to his trash can, where, horror of horrors, his banjo lay, broken into a million unfixable pieces!

"Who could throw away a perfectly good banjo?" Sonic asked in disbelief. "Now I have to buy another one!"

The aforementioned neighbors who cheered when Mephiles broke the banjo now gasped in disbelief at Sonic's rather loud proclamation. The aforementioned lady who hugged Mephiles fell to her knees, sobbing.

"Oh, please, have mercy!" she begged.

Sonic looked at her with eyes full of pity and said, "I know how you feel; I miss the Ultimate Banjo of Justice, too." Then he turned and walked back into his house as the poor woman broke down in despair.

Once inside his house, Sonic rushed to Mephiles' room to get his help in order to track down the dastardly banjo killer, but was shocked to discover that Mephiles was not in his room! Even more shocking, was that an exact copy of the footprints that belonged to the guy who murdered Sonic's 'innocent' banjo were in this room, and Sonic suddenly realized that the shoes Mephiles wore had the same kind of tread! Following the trail he found himself taken to his own computer. Taking off the screensaver, Sonic gasped because there was a giant picture of Eggman on the screen, and someone had written the words 'Mephiles' Evil Plan For Destroying Sonic the Hedgehog' on Sonic's memo pad and had been writing out the evil scientist's last known location!

"Not the memo pad, too!" Sonic cried out in despair. This was his favorite pad!

While Sonic was no Sherlock Holmes, he surely had enough deductive abilities to put two and two together and discover that Mephiles had destroyed his banjo, written in his memo pad, and was endeavoring to find Dr. Eggman, and they probably weren't going to start a Girl Scout Troop together. Surely he could realize that Mephiles was an evil being who was totally going to try to destroy him!

"Zombie!" Sonic called to his friend. "Eggman broke into my house, broke my banjo, wrote in my memo pad, put his big, ugly mug on my computer, and kidnapped Manny—you know, my cousin? He even had the nerve to steal cuz's shoes!"

(Ok, so maybe I overestimated his deductive reasoning. Go figure.)

Zombie gave an overdramatic gasp, and pretended to faint from shock.

Sonic nodded gravely. "Zombie, bring me the phone. We need to call Amy so she can babysit, and we can rescue my cousin twice removed, Manfred."


Meanwhile, Manny—I mean, Manfred—I mean, Mephiles, really didn't wish to be rescued. If anything, he figured he needed rescuing from Sonic, not Eggman. Eggman was egotistical. Eggman was wily.

Eggman was a big, fat, cherry flavored sucker.

Mephiles thought it was pathetic that a man who supposedly had an IQ of 300 was easier to con than both Sonic and Amy, and that's saying something. Mephiles could have flat out told Eggman "Hi, I've come to make you do what I want and then double-cross you and then take all your hopes and dreams and grind them into powdery little dust, then rebuild them and call them my own." And Eggman would have totally done anything Mephiles asked!

Actually, Mephiles told the scientist that he had the power to give Eggman the world, and all Eggman had to do was find a way to remove the collar that was around his neck.

While the fool was thrilled the Mephiles had the power to give him the world, he never actually asked if Mephiles would give him the world, which was a big, fat no. For an evil villain, he was a little too trusting of other people.

Perhaps it was because he surrounded himself with robots, who did not double cross others or talk badly of him behind his back.

"You're the new guy, huh?" one of Eggman's loyal robots asked.

Mephiles nodded briefly. "Assuming he can meet my demands."

The robot snickered and looked around to make sure his Master wasn't looking, then leaned in close and whispered, "I'm Metal Knuckles. Take it from me: Fat Boy over there couldn't meet your demands if you demanded him to bend over and touch his toes." `

Hmm…well, that blew that theory right out of the water.

Two other robots walked over to them. Mephiles noticed with discomfort that they resembled Shadow and Sonic.

"My designation is Metal Sonic. This is my counterpart, Shadow Android," the Sonic robot said in a monotone. "You are the new Eggman lackey?"

"No, he wants something before he obeys Master's every command," Metal Knuckles said before Mephiles could answer.

Shadow Android cocked his head and seemed to study Mephiles intently. "Silly you," he said, sounding amused.

"Is there a problem?" Mephiles asked, wanting information that might be useful for double crossing Eggman later on.

"Only if you like to win," Metal Sonic admitted. "Let me explain the way things work around here: They don't. In fact, since he made me, the only thing he ever created that works right is that stupid plastic bubble thing, and he made that to escape when the other things he makes blows up in his face. Which is often. Look at Metal Knuckles; he has so many glitches in his operating system he's literally useless."

"Aw, you're just saying that because it's true," Metal Knuckles said, kicking at the ground with false modesty.

"One of those glitches in an inability to determine when he's being insulted," Shadow Android explained.

"All I want is for him to rip this collar off of my neck," Mephiles said, worried that Eggman might not be able to do even that right.

"Oh, if that's all, don't worry," Metal Sonic sounded relieved. "If there's anything Master can do right, it's tear stuff up."

"Speaking of ol' blubber bottom, my internal sensors indicate he will be approaching hearing distance in about one minute," Shadow Android warned.

Mephiles cocked his head. "Blubber bottom?" he questioned.

Metal Sonic leaned close and whispered, "Once, he jerked quickly and when he stopped moving his body didn't."

Mephiles turned away quickly and fought to keep that rather… amusing … image out of his head.

Eggman certainly was a gullible fool, if he couldn't even keep his own machine's respect. Since, you know, all you have to do to earn the respect of a machine is fix some wiring and make them respect you.

Dr. Ivo Robotnik, a.k.a. Eggman, was perfect for Mephiles' plan. A plan that would give him the world and destroy Sonic the Hedgehog all in one swift strike.


And I'm done with this chapter! Does anyone know what show the song in the disclaimer was from? Or who sang it? Or the name of the episode? The reviewer who answers all three correctly will both get bragging rights as well as solve a burning puzzle that has been making me lose sleep (OK, not really), because for the life of me I can't remember the answer to that third question…RR, please.