CHAPTER 1: WILTED ROSE

The world that the hedgehog woke up to was ugly. It didn't take all that long for his eyes to snap open, and he found himself standing on a single hill - still clutching the emerald to his chest. The grass below his feet was washed out, practically grey - as was the cloudy sky above. He tightened his grip on the gemstone, regulating his shaky breath, trying to process the events of the afternoon - but his mind remained a frustratingly blank slate without a single thought being produced. He mindlessly turned his head around, as if physically searching for answers, until his eyes widened as he spotted a city below.

It was unlike any city he recognised, the abundance of grey among the buildings was sickly. The scent of smoke blowing over to the hill from the city had clogged his nose and the thick air almost made him want to choke. There was a metallic shine to everything down there - and with the mostly circular and tall size of the buildings - Sonic had to wonder if there were any houses at all, or if it were just a city of factories. As he examined the city closer for signs of life, his eyes narrowed as he spotted the abundance of flags and symbols scattered throughout.

The taunting, grinning face of the doctor stared back at him.

Usually the logo of Eggman's empire was a sight worth mocking, but now Sonic felt a heavy pit in his stomach as his memories began to flood back in. Was everything true? Had that madman truly succeeded? The evidence was plain in front of him, and yet the hedgehog would do anything to deny it. If everything was like Eggman had said… then…

This was a world in which Sonic had never existed.

This can't be right! He immediately thought to himself. The only change that had happened was that Sonic never existed, right? Was Sonic really the only reason that Eggman had never succeeded…? No! That wasn't true. His friends were heroes, they would step up and take care of the Empire - more than capable of doing so on their own. Not to mention there was G.U.N. - the military, there to keep everyone safe.

Then how did all this come to be? He scratched his head in confusion, there were so many questions and not enough answers. He did have to wonder though, if he was supposed to have never existed… how was he here now?

He could have sworn the emerald glowed slightly brighter, as if responding to that. He took a long, hard stare at the gem in his hands. Was this why Tails yelled at him about it before he-? He somewhat remembers the glowing yellow bubble that had surrounded him like a forcefield. Perhaps that was what had protected him?

Debating how he was here could come later, for now he would simply just have to accept that he was here now, and he had to figure out what his next move was going to be. Would the chaos emeralds help him revert everything back? Surely. They were capable of making even the wildest miracles come true, and besides - it gave him direction, a place to start.

Unfortunately, he couldn't just run around mindlessly until he stumbled upon them - he'd be here for way longer than he needed to be. He had friends that were way better emerald detectors - Knuckles could sense the emeralds, Shadow could too to an extent, and Tails was capable of building perfectly good emerald detectors. Rouge was also good at locating them seemingly inexplicably, she always said herself that it was just a treasure hunter's intuition.

So, those were the guys he needed to find. Easier said than done - where did he begin looking for them? Realistically speaking, Tails and Rouge could be anywhere. Shadow… had he ever even been released from stasis, or was he still on Prison Island? That was decidedly more up in the air. Knuckles on the other hand, it was safe to assume he was on Angel Island.

Unless he had come down to the surface to deal with Eggman, that is - but would he have left the island alone for that long? Could Sonic stop doubting himself for five minutes? He was getting tired of it.

Knuckles was the best option regardless. He was, in theory, the easiest to find. Instinctively, Sonic looked up at the sky and his heart sunk as he realised the significant absence of the floating island. That was because of all the clouds and smoke covering it up, right…? It was still floating. The hedgehog repeated that thought a few times in his head to make sure he believed it.

Either way, getting there wouldn't be a hassle with the power of teleportation. It had been some time since he'd used a single Chaos Emerald to chaos control - but he still remembered how. "Chaos control!" Sonic exclaimed, holding the emerald up.

It glowed brighter.

Sonic didn't necessarily want it to do that, he should be on the island by now.

He tapped his foot against the ground impatiently, inspecting the emerald closer by bringing it closer to his eyes - but soon regretted it as the light from it shone too bright. Sonic held it out far in front of him as he used his spare hand to cover his eyes.

It wouldn't stop there. The yellow light was now a sharp white that continued to build.

The emerald seemed to glow as harsh as the sun, the heat building up on the surface threatening to burn through his glove.

Finally, as it became blinding, the light vanished even quicker than it had appeared, and the emerald cooled down.

In fact, it was ice cold.

Sonic, now able to remove the hand from his eyes, blinked rapidly at the emerald. It was suddenly a murky, dark grey hue. The immediate word that came to the hedgehog's head was lifeless. It was though all the magic and soul had been ripped out of it, and all that was left was a husk of a gemstone.

Oh no.

What had just happened? What was he supposed to do with this? Was this a permanent thing? He prayed not, oh he prayed not! Knuckles or Tails could figure out what was going on. Yes, that's right.

"One step at a time." Suddenly, he recalled the voice of the gentle mother rabbit in his head. "One at a time."

Sure, Vanilla had said it to him when he had attempted to somehow complete several parts of a cake recipe simultaneously. Her scolding had been gentle but firm, and they did make the hedgehog slow down - the results had turned up well. There was a reason he was remembering it now, something about the advice was a bit philosophical - he supposed.

He could break everything down into small parts, tackle the problem in steps. He had the habit of trying to take things on all at once, but there was no time for that.

Step 1. Find a way to get to Angel Island

Instantly, things were looking a whole lot more manageable. Sonic knew there was nothing to gain by milling around on this hill - he needed to head to the factory city or whatever it was.

He set off faster than the human eye could blink.

The silence was defeating, everywhere he turned he hoped he'd just see a face - any face, but it became increasingly more obvious that he was alone. Perhaps he could have taken some comfort in it if the streets were dirty, or if the buildings were dusty - if it looked abandoned at all, it might have felt normal. Yet, everything was perfectly priesting - the streets, while dreary - were perfectly well kept, as were the buildings in perfect condition. The streets were practically begging to be lived in. Most were large places made of metal, they truly did look like factories, but on the odd occasion Sonic would stumble upon what appeared to be an apartment complex that didn't even look like they housed anybody. He could have also sworn that every window must have had black blinds, closing them off from the outside world.

"SCANNING."

Sonic quickly jumped around the corner of the nearest apartment building, taking a moment before daring to peer around the other side. It was an Egg Pawn, no different than the ones he's seen countless times before.

"PRESENCE OF ORGANIC..."

He held his breath.

"... UNDETECTED. TRANSFERRING DATA TO EGG BOSS ROSE."

Egg Boss... Rose? Eggman clearly hadn't gotten any better at naming. The robot was now marching away, and Sonic had some time to think about his situation. So he assumed that robot was at least somewhat aware of his presence - were there more robots around? He'd have to be careful when moving around now. Maybe this 'Egg Boss Rose' was some sort of leader bot - despite not sounding all that threatening.

He was now on a slow trek through the city, flitting his eyes side to side almost constantly for any signs of Eggman's machines. With what that Egg Pawn had said, it almost sounded as though no organic should even be here. But what use was a city without inhabitants? Was it a city for robots? Had the organics been removed?

Sonic shuddered at the thought.

Luckily he'd have something to distract him from that. Finally, he stumbled across a building no bigger than a bungalow, so its windows hung low. The blinds were only half pulled down, finally - allowing him a peak inside one of these places. His expectations weren't high to begin with, but they were immediately exceeded as he got on the tips of his toes and glared inside.

Humans and mobians alike were stationed in rows along conveyor belts. Broken pieces of what Sonic assumed were robots were placed on the belt, and the workers were sifting through the piles and recovering the pieces that seemed to be the most functional and in-tact, such as metal limbs, and placed them into boxes behind them. Constantly, Egg Pawns loomed behind them - watching their every move.

Pity flooded the hedgehog as soon as he saw the bags under the worker's eyes, and the rags hung over them barely doing their job at being clothes - since most had large holes and were fraying at the bottom. The look in their eyes was lifeless, as if every spark of hope or joy or even feeling in general had been snuffed out long ago, leaving them just as hollow as the robots around them.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. The hedgehog clenched his fists at his side as he decided he couldn't just stand and watch from the outside without doing anything. Rage burned under his skin as he stood back, a few paces from the door.

He jumped, tucking himself into a ball. The doors must have been reinforced with something, since it took two homing attacks to take it down.

The fight was easy, if you could even call it one. He bounced between all of the Egg Pawns effortlessly, scattering their broken pieces over the floor. Some of them attempted to fire off lasers in retaliation, but they didn't seem to realise just how slow those things were compared to the blue blur - he could run circles around them. He vaguely makes out the scared screams of the workers in all of the confusion, but all would be over soon.

Sonic finally untucked as he collided with the last Egg Pawn. Standing over it didn't make him all that satisfied, he wished there was some more way to deal damage to it - but it was already in pieces. Instead, he let go of a sigh and made his way to the workers, who had all gathered themselves in the far corner.

"Hey... it's okay-" Sonic assured them with a gentle smile. "They can't hurt you anymore, I just need to find a safe place I can take you guys to." It was setting back the original plan he had already decided upon, but these people needed his help now.

What feels like an entire minute passes before someone speaks up - a fragile human woman, ghostly pale. "There's... there's no safe place anywhere for us. The Egg Boss is going to come and take us all... away-" Her words were shaky, but mostly tired. Too tired to have emotion behind them.

"And I'll handle this 'Egg Boss' too!" He assured her and everyone else confidently. After all, no robot was a challenge for Sonic the-

"I WANT EVERYONE IN A LINE, FACING THE WALL, HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACKS!"

Everyone followed the order, all except for Sonic. He was frozen.

"A-am-" Sonic stopped himself, reminding himself of the facts. "I-"

He was staring at a familiar face. A pink furred hedgehog, green eyes with yet an unfamiliar, colder stare. The bobbed hairstyle was the same but different - just slightly shorter and neater. What stood out most on her was what she was wearing - it was practically an exact replica of the mad doctor's outfit - including the red coat. It was almost disturbing seeing that design on someone else.

Especially when that someone else was Amy Rose.

Similar to the workers, pronounced dark circles lingered under her eyes - but she was much more well kept with her hygiene. On one hand, he was grateful, very grateful to see his friend. On the other there was a harsh truth to accept. She was working for the doctor.

"Did you not hear me?" Amy's voice was like ice. "Against the wall. Now. I'm not going to repeat myself."

"Hey, look - can we not take a moment to talk this out-" He could already feel that the idea was stupid, that his attempts would be fruitless, but he had to try to reach out to her. "I know you don't want to be working for him-" But how was he supposed to explain himself? He couldn't just say that he knew her from an alternate timeline, right? What proof did he have to make that claim?

"Silence... There's nothing to talk about." Amy's voice was suddenly much quieter, that was bad news. Even from when he knew her before in the other timeline, when she lowered the volume of her voice - you knew that soon an angry outburst was sure to follow, it made the hedgehog instinctively flinch. She continued on. "You have destroyed Robotnik property and disrupted his workers. As the Egg Boss of Station Square, it is my duty to ensure you are put behind bars so that you never disrupt our peace again."

He remembered how those eyes used to look at him, full of love and admiration.

"Sonic!" Her voice called out excitedly as she ran towards him. Once in front of him, she almost tripped over herself.

"Oh... hey there, Ames-" Sonic had slowly turned around to see her, he had been hoping to avoid her on this day in particular. "What's goin' on?"

"I was wondering when I was going to find you!" She giggled. "You're so hard to find, you know that?"

Sonic awkwardly laughed it off. "So I've been told-"

"Since it's Valentine's day - I wanted to give this to you!" She held out a red box of chocolates in the shape of a heart, a card was attached to it underneath the wrapping ribbon. "Happy Valentine's day, Sonic!"

"Oh..." Sonic had let out quietly, staring down at the box with a haunted expression, dread lingering in his chest. "I uh- didn't realise that was today-" He dared to look up at her.

Her cheery face faltered, giving way to disheartened eyes and a slight frown, but they disappeared within a second. "Oh, haha!" Had that been forced, or was Sonic reading too much into it? "That's alright, I mean when you love each other - who really needs a dedicated day to show that affection? We should be giving gifts to each other all the time to show our love-"

Sonic's cheery laugh in response to that had definitely been forced. He fought the urge to grimace and hide away from the adoration and pining he felt in her gaze. He hoped she would look at him any other way.

He had gotten his wish in the worst way possible. Now, he meant nothing to her at all - he was just a problem that needed taking care of.

"You really don't remember me..." His words came out in barely more than a whisper, and she apparently chose to not even acknowledge that.

"Don't make this difficult!" She snapped, growing frustrated. "Or else I will fight you, detain you, and you will face execution for defying the orders of an Egg Boss!" Her signature hammer appeared in her hands but with one key difference - it was covered in large spikes.

Sonic's mouth set in a firm lime. "I don't want to fight you."

"Then surrender."

"You're not gonna win." Sonic warned her. While Amy was a tough fighter, Sonic knew their power levels, he knew Amy was someone he could easily beat in a fight, he could badly hurt her in the process. "So please, we can leave this all alone and we can talk somewhere else, I know you don't support this Empire- you're good at heart, you're being forced into it! We can work together to take it down!"

His desperation was met with her deepening her frown. "So you admit to planning treason as well...?" A sigh edged her words. "Then I must kill you myself."

"You're not listening to me!" Sonic raised his voice, would that get through to her now? "I don't want to hurt you. But I will if you give me no choice, his control needs to be brought to an end!" Sonic then let out a defeated sigh of his own.

"Please-"

"...Very well. You have sealed your fate." It was though she hadn't even heard him. She raised her hammer, ready to swing.

Sonic ran past her in a flash.

Keen to avoid a confrontation, he planned to keep running until he heard that hammer slam against the ground, and then felt the ground dislodge from underneath him - jutting out under his feet and sending him suddenly flying. He landed ungracefully, rolling on his side.

Amy was relentless, she was suddenly in the air above him before he even had the chance to stand, ready to bring down that hammer onto him and squish him like some sort of powerless bug. However, he managed to quickly roll to the side and jump back onto his feet.

She attempted to knock him back down with another swing, but he ducked underneath it and landed a punch to her stomach. She grunted, but raised her arm up to bring the hammer down onto the hedgehog's head.

"Gah-!" He let out in pain, before leaping back to put distance between them.

Amy continued to be on the offensive, once again smashing the ground and breaking apart the ground underneath him - not only did it unsteady him - it made it harder to run without tripping. She obviously thought she had the upper hand as she aimed her hammer towards his stomach for a strike.

Right she was, Sonic only just began to sidestep and thus one of the hammer's spikes managed to leave a deep gash on the hedgehog's side. He flinched, fighting the urge to yell.

This wasn't one of their once friendly spars, they were drawing blood. Sonic couldn't stand this anymore, he needed to end this quickly. He tucked himself into a ball and spin dashed into her legs - sending her through the air and landing with her back against the wall, leaving a dent in it as she screamed.

Sonic immediately untucked from his ball and ran up to her. "Sorry- I'm sorry-!" The words came out before he could stop them. Hearing her in anguish, knowing he had caused it, immediately stuck him with guilt. "I- I told you I didn't want to hurt you!"

Amy's teeth were clenched as she fought through the pain, opening her eyes and staring up at him. Sonic now loomed over her as she saw sat on the ground against the wall. He had cornered her, they could talk now.

"I know everything is awful right now, I haven't been here long and I already can feel it - I can only imagine what you've lived through... to make you work for them." Although he had faced several foes in the past that had eventually found the path of good, Sonic was rarely the one making the speech to convince them - he usually had some help. He remembered Amy herself and how she had managed to talk down Shadow when he had once been hellbent on the destruction of the world. "But trust me, we have the power to stop him. We can put an end to the Empire if we work together!"

Amy was panting, yet to say a word in response.

"I must sound like a crazy person..." Sonic admitted in an attempt to empathise with her position. "I understand- you think the safest option is to keep following that Egghead's orders, right? But trust me, if we can stick together - I'll keep you safe. I won't let anymore harm come to you."

Sonic bent down and held out his hand for her.

"I promise."

She looked between the hand and the hedgehog's face several times, then turned her gaze away with a mild grunt. She appeared to be pondering what he had said. He could understand it must be a lot to take in, but he hadn't presented her with anything too crazy. He could have told her she was from another timeline, but then he knew he would be labelled as a madman talking nonsense, and then he would get nowhere. All he could do was make an ally by offering her the chance to rise up. In reality he knew little of what the world in this timeline had been through, but whatever this end result was - the Amy he knew would have never wanted it to come to this.

She reached into the pocket of her coat and held a communicator to her ear. "A blue hedgehog is loose within Station Square... speaking of treason. Please send... reinforcements. Over."

His heart dropped, and his hope disintegrated. "On one hand... I understand." Sonic spoke quietly. "But I'll show you. I'll start taking down this Empire... and you're welcome to join me at any time."

Of course he sounded crazy, no matter what he would say. Amy, and everyone else, had no reason to believe that this Empire could be taken down. He must be sounding incredibly naïve or stupid, or both.

"You're crazy." Amy said, as if that needed affirmation. She finally found the strength to pull herself up and stand, not needing to take Sonic's hand. "Your life is coming to an end yet you speak so confidently... thinking you can take down our saviour." She glared.

"I know I can." He said. He had done it so many times. Bile rose up in his throat as he heard her refer to Eggman as their 'saviour'.

"It's a fool's endeavour." She yelled as she charged up towards him, bringing her hammer back to unleash a massive strike. Sonic was all too ready to dodge, but something else entirely happened that he wasn't expecting.

Something collided with the back of his head, and it wasn't a hammer. It knocked him right down to the ground, his vision blurring and becoming a messy haze.

"Sorry, Pinkie!" A voice called out. "This one's too valuable to let go to waste..."

Was he getting picked up in someone's arms? There was a deafening ringing in his ears, and he could have sworn the surrounding area was becoming pink. He couldn't see much of it, as the world began to dim to black, his eyes closing as he started to drift out of consciousness.

"Don't die on me, alright?" That voice...

Rouge?

Don't you just hate it when you wake up in a destroyed, distorted version of your world after your worst enemy resets the timeline on your birthday? Smh.

In this chapter, we get to see Sonic coming up with a plan, already face obstacles, and explore a little dash of unrequited love via flashback because Sonic and Amy's dynamic is interesting. Sonic didn't manage to stay stealthy for very long thanks to his hero complex, let's hope he can reign it in for the rest of the story. We have also encountered our first altered hero, Amy Rose - the Egg Boss of Station Square. The once sweet girl is now a high ranking official for the Empire in a new timeline and Sonic can't do anything about it. If Amy is working for the Empire, just how hard is it going to be to get his other friends on his side? How could he hope to save them all?

Egg Boss is a term in the Archie Comics used for some of the members of the Empire but Sonic is unfamiliar with the title here since well... this ain't the Archie-verse pfft.

TRIVIA OF THE DAY - FAVOURITE FOODS (in the story, not necessarily canon - because fuck canon):

Sonic: Chilidogs
Tails: Mint sweets
Knuckles: Grapes
Amy: Ice Cream
Rouge: Soufflé
Shadow: Tiramisu
Omega: N/A
Blaze: Sushi
Silver: Mozzarella Sticks
Vector: Donuts
Espio: Ramen
Charmy: Chicken Nuggets
Cream: Cake
Vanilla: Curry

Which song was I listening to this chapter?

Chapter 1: Wilted Rose

Song: Ramsey - Goodbye
watch?v=omgSWqwVTjY

It just gave fitting atmospheric vibes.

Thanks to all who have favorited/followed so far! I hope the update met expectations, and thank you to the lovely review! Reviews are always welcome and help me know how the story is going, if there are any critiques - do let me know! See ya next time :)