Two Days After the Fight with Eggman, Late Evening…
POV: Miles "Tails" Prower
The Sun had already set by the time Alt Sonic and I entered the Mystic Jungle. We'd spent the past two days working our way through the rural countryside here, dodging Eggbot patrols and scrounging for food.
Alt Sonic was dashing through the forest, following a path that would take us through the most obvious landmark inside the Jungle; the unfinished Casino Park that had been under construction until the war started. If Sonic - the Sonic from my world - was anywhere in the Mystic Jungle, he'd more than likely come through the Casino Park at least once. Hopefully, we'd make it in time to see him.
While Alt Sonic ran, I flew just above the treetops, occasionally dipping below them if they got too thick for me to see my speedy friend.
I still couldn't believe it. Sonic was alive! This whole time! I had been certain he'd died in Sunset Heights. That I'd watched it happen and done nothing to help. That I'd let him down.
But now I knew he was okay. I didn't know how he'd survived, but I didn't care. Him being alive was enough for me.
"According to what we overheard," Alt Sonic spoke, breaking me out of my thoughts, "Sonic should be here, somewhere."
"It feels weird asking you to look for Sonic," I admitted, "but if anyone can find the blue blur, it's another blue blur."
"Heh. I'll beat him in a race, if I have to." Alt Sonic joked.
"You know he'd take you up on that offer anytime." I replied with a smile.
"So would I." Alt Sonic laughed.
"We're passing into Casino Park." I reported, glancing upwards.
The trees were dwarfed by the glowing, neon lights of the various buildings in the unfinished Park. The dirt and twigs of the forest floor morphed into paved stone roads, just wide enough for Alt Sonic and myself to stand side-by-side, if we were so inclined. Many of the buildings had sections specifically designed for road paths to go above, around, or even through them. Obviously the intent was to make even moving from place to place fun for anyone who enjoyed running around.
Unfortunately, the months since construction had been halted by the war hadn't been kind to the zone. Moss and grass had started to grow onto the roads and some walls. The trees were starting to encroach upon the urban territory, and in a few years, I had no doubt they would be growing within the buildings, too.
Strangely, even without the maintenance one would expect a place like this to require, virtually everything still worked, and was even active. All the neon lights were glowing, spinning, flashing, or whatever else they were designed to do. I could hear generic but cheerful music on looped tracks spilling out of open doorways or windows of the nearby buildings.
Alt Sonic sprinted through the place as I flew above him. For me, any twists or turns in the road were negated by my ability to fly. For the smaller Sonic below me, they were just added fun to the whole adventure.
A loop-de-loop gave him an opportunity to show off, his speed giving him enough momentum to run along the entire ring, even going upside-down at the top of it. He ran all the way up the loop, and all the way back down the other side without ever actually falling. The whole sequence took less than a second.
Continuing onwards, Alt Sonic took me by surprise when he suddenly leapt to the side, clear off of the path. Before I could ask him what he was doing, he landed on a cargo bounce-pad I hadn't even noticed.
The subsequent upward force from the bouncepad launched him into the air, propelling him up high enough to land safely on the rooftop of the adjacent building.
Heh. Showoff. I chuckled quietly as Alt Sonic flashed me a grin and a thumbs-up. I could tell he was having a blast just running around the place.
Sprinting along the rooftop, Alt Sonic reached the end and leapt into the air, sailing across the gap between the building he'd been on and the next. Without missing a beat, he landed safely on the second structure and continued running, making his way further into the Park.
POV: Alternate Sonic
I ran atop the roofs, leaping across gaps and sliding underneath archways as I went for as long as I could. The idea was to just keep going along the Park until something happened.
Eventually, I had to transition back to the streets. We'd reached the far edge of the Park after only about ten minutes of running, and I'd run out of buildings close enough to jump to.
Back down on the streets, I glanced from side to side, taking in the aesthetic of the place. From this close up, I could see where erosion and overgrowth had started to break through the bricks and stones of the urban environment. The tiny cracks were easy to miss, but my eyes were trained to pick out details while going at supersonic speeds. At a speed that, for me, was more akin to a jog, spotting the little things like cracks in the streets or bits of moss hanging off of the rooftops was easy.
Passing an open-road slot machine, I playfully tapped the Spin! button on it. I contemplated stopping to see what I might get, but decided it wouldn't matter, anyways.
To my surprise, I heard the jingle of a jackpot spin. Glancing behind me, I couldn't help but laugh when I realized that the jackpot symbol was that of this world's Sonic's face.
"Ha! Maybe we're in luck!" Tails joked, watching the slot machine attempt to spit out coins from its empty internal compartment.
"I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!" I declared. "Luck is my middle name!"
I could almost hear the cheeky grin on the fox's face as he replied with "I thought your middle name was 'the?'"
"I'm a hedgehog of many names." I shot back, grinning at the playful banter.
The two of us laughed as we kept on moving throughout the Park.
POV: Miles "Tails" Prower
"There's still no sign of him." I groaned. We'd been searching the Casino Park for almost an hour, now.
I flew above Alternate Sonic, scanning the Park for any sign of activity. As fun as running - or in my case, flying - around Casino Park was, we weren't actually here to have fun.
Some unfamiliar motion caught my eye. "Huh?" I directed my gaze over to where I thought I'd seen something. Sure enough...
"Hey!" I exclaimed. "I see someone! On the waterslide to our right!"
Just far enough to be out of hearing range, a red hedgehog was traveling down the long waterslide that led somewhere outside the Park. I couldn't see much detail about him from this distance, but I could tell he was carrying what looked like a Wispon.
"Should we follow him?" Alt Sonic asked, giving me the power to decide our course of action.
"He might be able to help us find Sonic." I thought aloud. "I say we figure out where that waterslide ends."
"Okay. Give me a lift, I'll follow him down it." Alt Sonic suggested.
I was about to do so, but gasped when I realized the waterslide had a break in it. At some point, a past battle had blown up a large chunk of the waterslide, leaving open air and a precarious drop in its wake.
And the mysterious hedgehog was heading right for the gap. He had no way to avoid it, at this point. The last turn was over twenty yards behind him.
But as far away as I was, I wouldn't be able to do anything to prevent him from falling to his death. I just plain wouldn't reach him in time.
Strangely, even though I was fully aware of what I was probably about to witness, I still couldn't tear my eyes away from the poor stranger as he stared in panic at the drop he was rapidly approaching.
Before my eyes, he kicked off the edge of the waterslide just as he was about to fall, and launched himself into the air. The world narrowed until all I was aware of was the red hedgehog soaring through the air. I saw nothing else, and heard absolutely nothing.
A long five seconds later, the stranger slammed into the other end of the waterslide. I hadn't even seen it until he landed on it. I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding, and sighed in relief. Whoever that guy is, he's lucky that gap wasn't any bigger. My mind had subconsciously calculated the distance he'd fallen, and I realized that, if the far edge of the waterslide had been even three feet further away, he would have missed it completely.
As it was, the brief moments I could still see him before he disappeared from view told me the landing wasn't exactly pleasant for him. He'd lost all sense of balance and had ended up flipping onto his stomach, sliding headfirst down the waterslide.
I spotted a hiking path that seemed to indirectly follow the waterslide. "Hey, come on!" I called down to Alt Sonic. I flew down to him and picked him up. "Let's see where that trail leads."
A few moments later, my friend from another dimension touched down on the dirt path leading into the forest, and took off without another word. I followed from the sky, keeping an eye on both the waterslide and the trail Alt Sonic was on. If they split up, I'd need to figure something out, and quick.
Now following someone who was going faster than most people could even run, we had to really put out some speed. We weren't casually navigating the urban streets of Casino Park anymore. We were chasing a fast-moving individual who might be able to lead us to Sonic.
Said chase lasted only a brief minute. Alt Sonic's path took him all the way around a clearing before turning around to enter it. Said clearing was located out of view of, but adjacent to the pool area the waterslide finally ended in.
With a start, I realized that the pool container was cracked, and in some places even had large chunks blown out of the walls. The water had leaked out, draining into a nearby river. The little water that remained was more akin to a puddle than an actual pool, and wasn't nearly deep enough to cushion the rather large fall from the waterslide's edge.
And the red hedgehog had already leapt off said edge. I gasped, certain I was about to see the grisly sight of a poor Mobian slamming into hard concrete, but suddenly, the hedgehog's arm rose up, and I saw a thin line shoot out of something on his wrist. The line soared all the way to a pipeline archway in the blink of an eye, and the hedgehog swung underneath it, the chord that fired out of his wrist connecting him to the pipeline momentarily.
I realized he had a grappling hook of some sort, likely created out of the same tech as the Wispon was, considering the absence of any constraints that a normal grappling hook would have brought to the table.
I scanned the area, trying to figure out where the red hedgehog might be trying to go. That clearing Alt Sonic is heading to would be a good candidate, I decided.
The Mobian below me swiftly navigated the pipe arches, grappling and swinging from one to the next with practiced ease. Clearly, he'd had a vast amount of experience with using his grapple line in such a fashion.
The hedgehog reached the clearing a little under a minute before I did. He walked to a seemingly-random spot, and bent down to pick something up. Whatever it was, it was shiny; I could see the reflecting glint from nearly twenty feet in the air.
Alt Sonic dashed out of the Forest, having arrived from the path he'd been traveling on. The stranger heard him coming and whipped around, but upon realizing he wasn't in danger, relaxed a little.
Alt Sonic ran up to the stranger and grinned at him, happy to see a friendly face. The blue hedgehog glanced over to me and waved, as if to say we're over here!
I flew down to them, and came to a stop next to my friend. I landed on the ground and looked at the stranger for a moment. He wore a black and dark-green battle-dress uniform. A BDU. The primary black of the BDU covered his lower torso and the entirety of his arms, from the shoulders down to his wrists. The green on the outfit adorned his chest and his legs below the knees. I could see a few pouches containing who-knows-what tools or other useful items he likely took with him on missions.
A red-lined, orange-tinted visor adorned his face, but the lens was still completely transparent, and his bright green eyes gazed through it, his vision focused squarely on me and Alt Sonic.
His gloves were the same dark red as his fur, and covered the entirety of his hands, from his wrists down to the tips of his fingers. His shoes were bright red with a wide horizontal stripe of white going all the way from the left side of his foot to his right. The whole shoe was remarkably similar to Sonic's own. EIther Sonic.
The only visible skin on the stranger was lightly tanned, but still closer to white than yellow or bronze. There were no scars, but something told me he'd seen plenty of battle, already.
Maybe it was his stance; relaxed, but ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat. Maybe it was his Wispon, currently holstered at his side, but the scratched paint spoke of intense conflict and constant use. Or perhaps it was the once-over he'd - probably unconsciously - given both me and Alt Sonic, visually scanning us for weapons and, seeing none, deciding we weren't an immediate potential threat.
Such an analysis, especially when done on pure instinct, spoke of professional training, either military or police, and no small amount of experience and skill.
I stared at the red hedgehog's face. He seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place why… "Have we met before?" I asked hesitantly.
The stranger opened his mouth to reply, but stopped, as if listening to something for a brief moment. He tapped a button on his wrist, and I realized the gadge he was wearing not only contained his grappling hook, but also functioned as a radio speaker.
"Did you say Tails?" A familiar, male voice spoke from the device in disbelief.
"Huh?" I gasped, staring at the communicator on the red hedgehog's wrist. "Knuckles?"
"Tails!" A female voice exclaimed.
"Amy!" I exclaimed. "You're okay!"
"What-Yeah, I'm okay!" Amy replied. "What about you?"
"I'm alright!" I reassured her. "I've got Sonic, here!" I motioned to Alt Sonic, before dumbly realizing she couldn't see us. "Well, not Sonic, Sonic," I corrected myself, "but a different Sonic! The one who helped us with the Time Eater crisis?" I knew she'd remember who I was talking about if I mentioned that adventure. We'd both been there, after all.
The red hedgehog blinked and stared at me, then at Alt Sonic, then back at me, utterly confused. I hardly noticed, overcome with relief at hearing the voices of two of my closest friends. I hadn't even been sure they were still alive; I hadn't seen them since I'd - mistakenly - told them Sonic was dead.
"Time Eater-? Oh!" Amy gasped in realization. "Well, that's good to hear!" She said. "Knuckles," her voice grew quieter, as if she'd turned away from the microphone, "they must have been the life signs we detected!"
"I think you're right, Amy." Knuckles replied. "Rookie, mission accomplished!" He addressed the red hedgehog. "Get those two out of the Mystic Jungle, and escort them to HQ." He ordered.
"Ten-Four, Commander." The Rookie replied.
Ten-Four. That's a police code for 'affirmative.' He must be a policeman. I realized. Since when did the police force give Wispon training? Or grappling hook courses, for that matter? I mentally shrugged. It didn't really matter.
What mattered was that I was about to see some friendly faces that I hadn't seen since this war began. With any luck, they'd know where Sonic is.
He might even be there with them.
And thus, the flashback sequence ends, and the story continues on. Next up: old friends reunite, and a surprise attack leads to Sonic confronting someone he once trusted, and finding a lot more questions than he bargained for...