Hey guys!

Well, Volume 2 of RWBY came to an end last Thursday. I gotta say, what a ride it's been. So many fascinating facets of the world of Remnant added, and how about the characters that were added? Especially in the finale. I liked how they gave Team CFVY more of a role to play instead of just a cameo appearance in that episode with the introduction of Zwei.

Speaking of Team CFVY, definitely expect to see them have more of a role in the future chapters. Coco will definitely get a spotlight somewhere, for sure. And it looks like Raven, the mystery swordswoman in "No Brakes", seems like an interesting character. Unfortunately, I don't really see how I could add her in, given the facts we know: she has a multiple choice in swords, wears a freaky mask, and has some connection with Yang. Pretty much the same situation with Penny, in that I would like to know a little more information about her before adding her in. Of course, I may be finished with this story by the time Volume 3 comes around.

The inspiration of this chapter comes from TRON and TRON Legacy, so if you see any similarities with those movies, don't be too proud of yourselves. I did it on purpose.

I don't own RWBY or Sonic. Enjoy!

Digital Realm, 1:00 p.m.

(AN: I recommend playing some music from the Tron: Legacy soundtrack here, preferably "The Grid")

When the speedy trio had closed their eyes, they were in Beacon's computer core room. They felt a jolt, and when they opened them, they found themselves in a very different place. They were transported to the outskirts of what appeared to be a bustling city. However, it was lit up with all kinds of white lights, and the sky was black and starless.

Sonic whistled, impressed by the futuristic aura it gave off. "Wow. That looks fantastic."

"You think that looks cool, you should look at yourselves."

The three turned around and saw Aeromi and Chief. However, the two weren't small holograms, they were human sized. "Whoa. What did you guys eat to get so big?" asked Ruby.

"In this realm, all programs are about the same size, depending on the user and avatar," said Chief, explaining the growth spurt. He was the tallest of them now, even taller than Neptune. He knelt down and put a glove on the paved ground. A thin section rose up and became a mirror, and the trio finally saw themselves.

Sonic and Shadow were both wearing bodysuits that had lights trailing from their legs up to their arms, and while Sonic's lights were blue, Shadows were red. Their shoes were unchanged, which Sonic was thankful for.

Ruby's digital attire didn't change much physically, but there were lights all along her skirt, right down to her boots. Her hood had many lights on it, and it was a pretty good look, overall.

One thing that all three suits had in common was a disc on the back. They were all about the same size, but had different emblems in holographic form in a hole in the middle. Sonic's disc had his buzzsaw emblem, Shadow his Black Arms insignia, and Ruby had her flaming rose pattern on hers.

"Whoa. Didn't expect the symbols on the I.D. discs. You think that'll be a problem, Chief?" Aeromi asked. She and Chief also had discs on their backs, but they had no distinguishing features

The armored figure shook his head. "I doubt it. I think any other programs may be more concerned with the fact that two of them are hedgehogs. I have to admit, it is a nice touch, though."

"Is there anything else these suits have?" asked Shadow.

Aeromi took Sonic's right wrist and and gently pushed a section. A holographic wrist computer appeared. "This is your S-tool. It has everything you'll need while you're here, and a few extra functions. But the ones you'll need are the radio-" she pointed at the top right of the screen, then the bottom right part that looked like a radar screen- "and the map."

Sonic nodded. "Got it. And not to change the subject or anything, but it's really weird being able to, well, 'feel' you."

Aeromi grinned. "Hopefully you'll get used to it."

"So, how are we gonna get around? Sonic and Shadow can run, but I can't use my Semblance for an extended period of time without becoming exhausted," said Ruby.

Chief reached into his belt and pulled two identical rods with buttons on them. He gave one to Aeromi. "These are transportation software programs that Tails made us. It's a normal form of moving around in this realm, but the fox made some modifications to the code."

Shadow looked at the rod in Chief's hand dubiously. "How is that thing supposed to help us?"

In response, Chief ran away from the trio and leaped. While in midair, he pushed a button on the rod, which split. The sections suddenly extended, and before anyone could comment on it, they assembled themselves into a black motorcycle with lit up wheels and chassis. Chief circled the gang in his new ride before stopping. It was an understatement to say that the trio was awestruck.

"I don't think I've seen anything like that," gaped Shadow.

Aeromi repeated the action and did a wheelie, stopping in front of Ruby. "Hop on, Red. We've got some viruses to kill."

"Shouldn't we have helmets or something?" asked the redhead as she sat behind the A.I.

"Don't worry Ruby. After all, safety third!"

As soon as Ruby sat down, a helmet built itself around her head. While the inexplicably appearing helmet was jarring, it was actually quite comfortable, and it even had Ruby's emblem on it. Aeromi's head also had a helmet that appeared, but it was featureless.

"You ever been on a motorcycle before?" Sonic asked Ruby.

Her helmet faced Sonic as she answered. "Yup. My sister has a motorcycle that she rides around in. Yang lets me ride sometimes, so it's not my first time."

"Come on," said Chief impatiently. "The longer we waste time here means a longer period of complete confusion and chaos in Vale."

Aeromi revved the engines. "Then let's go!"

The gang left the relative safety of the outskirts and sped towards the center of the city. Chief's motorcycle was in front, with Aeromi and Ruby behind him. Sonic and Shadow kept pace behind them, taking in the sights of the data highway they were on. They saw many other humanoids walking the streets or driving lightcycles like they were, but Chief explained over the radio that those individuals were ordinary programs.

"Some of them seem to be running from something," Sonic observed. Sure enough, a few programs were running away from a dark section of the city. A female program was seen racing towards them, but a gunshot was heard, and she collapsed with a surprised expression on her face as she started to dissolve. The entity that caused this was-

"Oh, no. It's a Dark Pawn!" Ruby cried out.

"Better correct that to Dark Pawns, Ruby," said Aeromi. "He isn't alone."

Many of the Eggman-inspired robots were seen creating havoc and destroying the area. Programs were being cut down left and right, and it seemed that most of them were in a shootout with a group of ten programs that had the armor configuration of soldiers or police officers.

Chief revved the engines of his lightcycle and accelerated rapidly toward the fight, with the others right behind him. He pressed a button on the handlebars. This caused two gun barrels to assemble on the sides, and when Chief pressed a trigger, bullets flew towards the Dark Pawns that had pinned down the security programs, destroying them. Aeromi copied his actions while Sonic and Shadow revealed their weapons, with Ruby using Crescent Rose to eject herself into the fray.

It seemed that the trio's attire wasn't the only thing that changed when they entered cyberspace. The edges of Cobalt Shard were lit up with blue lights. Sonic actually liked that look, especially when he saw that it was purely a cosmetic change, judging by the the usual ease it took to stab a Dark Pawn. Crimson Dusk also had lights on the edge, but they were blood red, giving it a very menacing look to match Shadow's. As if following a trend, Crescent Rose also had lights, but they were a mix; the main body of the scythe had red lights, while the border of the blade had white lights.

The security programs were astonished at the rapidness of the situation. One millicycle, they were fighting for their lives, and the next, they found saviors in the forms of two riders on lightcycles, a young girl wielding a large scythe, and two bipedal animals, which caught them off guard.

Between the ferocity of the five beings, they made quick work of the Pawns, and the security programs dispelled their firewalls. The leader walked up to them, his firearm at the ready. "Identify yourselves, programs," he ordered.

"Seriously? We just saved them, and now they're pointing their guns at us? What gives?" asked Sonic indignantly.

"Think about it from their perspective," said Shadow. "They look like they've been fighting them off for a long time, and five beings come out of nowhere to help them? They're bound to be suspicious. I would be, too."

"You're always suspicious, Shadow," teased Ruby.

A program that had the appearance of a blonde woman stepped up. "Hey, while this interaction between yourselves is entertaining, could you possibly speed things along and answer the darn question?"

Chief's armored figure stepped forward. "I apologize for the behaviour of my comrades," he said. While his helmet's reflective visor hid whatever facial expression he might be donning, everyone could tell he was slightly annoyed. "I am Chief, the class five Artificial Intelligence program of the independent vessel Normandy."

"I'm Aeromi, the class four A.I. of the Tornado X!" the female A.I. said cheerily.

"Ruby, Ruby Rose."

"I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!" the blue blur introduced himself with enthusiasm.

"... Shadow," responded the black hedgehog with less enthusiasm than his blue counterpart.

"What are you doing here?" the leader demanded.

"I think it might be best to clarify a few things before we answer any more questions," said Chief.

"For one thing, three of us aren't even programs," interjected Aeromi. She pointed at the fastest beings on Remnant. "They are actually organic beings from the real world. You may know them by the name of 'users'."

"Users?" scoffed one of the security programs. "Yeah right, there's no way users could enter this world."

Shadow calmly walked up to the dubious program, grabbed his collar, and dragged his head down to Shadow's eye level. "When was the last time you saw a program that looked like a hedgehog?" he snarled. The program paled in fear.

The leader sighed. "Axis, let's hear them out before we judge." He put his gun away. "Besides, their I.D. discs should tell the truth."

Chief nodded and twisted Shadow's disc off of his back. This action startled the hedgehog enough to make him release the poor program. The A.I. of the Normandy pressed a few buttons on the disc, and Shadow's holographic emblem was replaced by a video playback of the minutes before he, Sonic, and Ruby were sent to the Digital Realm.

When the leader saw this, he was convinced. "Apologies for acting suspicious. It seems that when these strange viruses appeared, they took the place of my hospitality." Chief placed Shadow's disc back on his back.

"Hey, no harm, no foul," said Sonic. "Let me give you the short version of why we're here. There is a communications blackout in Vale, and we were sent here to find out what's wrong, and to fix it."

"Incredible," breathed the leader. He took off his helmet, and the first thing the noticed wasn't the short black hair or the skin of someone fighting for too long inside a helmet. No, the first thing they noticed was the eyes.

One was a startling golden color, while the other was glowing blue, an obvious prosthetic. The leader saw them staring. "Don't mind the fake ocular sensor, that came from a rather nasty virus many cycles ago. Anyways, the odd programs we were fighting have taken over the communications grid. I bet that's where the communications blackout that's affecting the real world is taking place." He pointed at a large tower that was different from the rest of the city. Whereas all the normal buildings had white lights, the tower was illuminated by orange lights.

"Before we get started, I think we'd better get your name," said Chief.

"Oh, right. My name's Sentinel. And just out of curiosity, what are those programs?" He pointed at the pieces of robots scattered across the data streets.

Shadow kicked open the chestplate of a nearby Dark Pawn, and revealed a slowly dissolving Deathstalker grub. "They're called Dark Pawns, and they were built by a madman known as Doctor Eggman. They're powered by the Creatures of Grimm, but more importantly, Eggman has found a way to send them to this realm and cause chaos in the real world."

Chief nodded at Shadow's summation. "Well, we had better hurry. Let's split up. Aeromi, you go with the half of the remaining programs and assist in defending everyone else. Ruby, hedgehogs, Sentinel, and the rest, you come with me to the center of the corrupted portion of the city so we can do some serious debugging. Sync?"

"Um, what?"

Aeromi looked at Ruby. "Oh, um, just say sync whenever he does. It's his way of asking 'Do you understand?'."

"Alright… Sync?"

Chief put a glove to his helmet in resignation. "This is gonna be a long day," he sighed.

I know that the real Master Chief doesn't talk as much as my A.I. that he's based on, but I'd like to think that being an Artificial Intelligence comes with having more intelligence to begin with, and Chief would need to communicate with the crew of the Normandy. He just doesn't do it as much as Aeromi, who's more quirky (obviously).

As for the Lightcycles, their appearance is the same in TRON Legacy. The animation used for the assembly of the cycle is roughly the same, too. Speaking of that movie, Jeff Bridges really got old between the release of TRON and TRON Legacy. Actually, that isn't too surprising, considering that it was nearly 30 years between the movies.

Well, that's enough out of me. As always, remember to review! :D