(I do not own Sonic X etc. Note: This may be an adaptation of Sonic Shuffle; but the plot will differ a lot from the actual game.)

S.O.N.I.C GO!

S.O.N.I.C GO!

GO, GO, GO, GO LET'S GO!

Sonic Shuffle Saga

Episode 4: Void's game

Last time on Sonic X:

Tikal looked back briefly, meeting its own gaze from its emerald green eyes. Without a single word they parted, the female Echidna heading in one direction and Chaos in the other, their own chaotic nature radiating outwards, searching for traces of the Ultimate life-form.

Finally after probing at the fabric of existence in this world; they discovered Shadow's trail; but found it had been purposely disturbed by something. Whatever that something was, it had the power to bend Chaos Energy and far more efficiently than they could. Shadow was in this dimension all right, but as for where precisely; remained to be seen.

There were only two beings in this dimension with the power to bend dimensional fabric. And only one of them had the motive. Tikal narrowed her eyes in frustration.

"Void…"

Breaking the circle of the atmosphere and heading upwards into the depths of Space, The Egg Carrier 3 soured higher and higher on it's direct course for the orbiting Space Station; Space Colony ARK. The giant battleship, Eggman's personal vessel once it had cleared the atmospheric friction let it's wings spread out converting from battle mode to jet mode; which would far easier to traverse space in.

"We'll be arriving at ARK within the hour sir." Metal Knuckles began as Eggman walked along one of the metallic catwalks that stretched over the Egg Carrier's main hold. The giant chamber was nearly filled to the brim with large metal crates, all of which had been labelled with the Eggman Empire symbol. Inside they contained something Eggman himself considered extremely valuable. Once he had a chance to study it all, he was sure it would ensure him total victory over Earth. After Amy had driven the sharp end of her hammer through his head, Metal Knuckles had spent several hours down in engineering, "Our scouts report the station completely deserted as predicted. Badnik troops have moved in to take possession." The scientist rubbed his hands together.

 Metal Knuckles began as Eggman walked along one of the metallic catwalks that stretched over the Egg Carrier's main hold. The giant chamber was nearly filled to the brim with large metal crates, all of which had been labelled with the Eggman Empire symbol. Inside they contained something Eggman himself considered extremely valuable. Once he had a chance to study it all, he was sure it would ensure him total victory over Earth. After Amy had driven the sharp end of her hammer through his head, Metal Knuckles had spent several hours down in engineering, ." The scientist rubbed his hands together.

"Excellent, keep me informed of our progress." Metal Knuckles saluted with his large arm and retreated away to give Eggman his personal space. "Decoe." The scientist called down to one of his Hence-bots who was down on the floor of the hold with a clip board in his hand, busy categorizing the hundreds of creates individually; which was taking an extremely long time. "Is everything ready for assimilation upon arrival?" He asked once the robots glanced upwards.

"Almost sir. Another half an hour and I'll have it all organized." Was the distant reply.

"Hurry up. I need this all completed before we arrive." Eggman shouted back.

Travelling from one dimension to another was not altogether difficult; it did however require quite a sufficient degree of power. The energy released from Radiant Emerald's implosion was enough to shatter Void's prison and send him flying across the dimensional barrier.

Returning to this world, Void began setting up his final strike against Queen Illumina. His own rallied forces were beating her armies back and within days he wound have Maginaryworld right in the palm of his hand.

However, Illumina could remain safe inside her temple forever if she chose. If Void planned to end her plans for the universe he would have to lure her out into the open. And there was only way to do that. Bait.

A buzzing field protecting his body from the vacuum of space, Void watched the construction of his new weapon get underway. Built right into the side of an Asteroid, one of the pieces of moon debris from the Eclipse Cannon blast, it was shaped like a gigantic needle pointing away from the planet below and up towards the stars. Standing on the side of his creation, he could see his workers were already nearing the completion. Soon he would be ready to finish this war once and for all.

Illumina was not sentimental, so holding someone hostage would not work. What he needed to do was force her to travel here and the only way to do that was to threaten her plans directly.

A small twinge of guilt passed over him. Despite his steadfast determination he still felt regret at the events transpiring around his life. If things could be different, he would ensure they would be; but since he was now stuck in this situation he would have to make the best of it. If all went as planned then he and Lumina…maybe some day soon. He shook his head.

He letting himself getting distracted. He had to focus, concentrate. His plans were nearing their most crucial stage and his margin for error was very slight. It would not take her long to find out what he was up to in this dimension and he had to be ready for her.

Something caught his direct attention and he looked up, the planet now in his line of sight. Leaving the atmosphere was a giant battleship, two sets of wings spread out from it's main bulk as it left the planets orbit and made it's way slowly towards the stars. Welded directly onto it's side was the smiling face like symbol of the Eggman Empire.

"Ah…" Void began, folding his arms. "I have competition."

"Amy, I'm still trying to figure out why this is necessary." Sonic asked as Amy tied a blindfold around his eyes. Standing alone in the middle of a large field some distance from any G.U.N base so they wouldn't be interrupted, the pink hedgehog had brought him here to do some desperately needed training. It was very early in the morning and a faint mist clung to the ground. A large group of black clouds in the distance were the ominous promise of rain later in the day.

"You've been getting soft for sixth months." Was her reply once she'd finished. "I saw your sloppy performance against those robots so you are in need of some serious training." Sonic disliked the near sadistic twist her voice took at the end of that sentence. "Now, I'm going to try and hit you with my hammer." She added and Sonic took a few steps back involuntarily. "All you have to do is avoid it."

"Just how am I supposed to see it coming with this thing on?" Sonic asked bluntly, nearly stumbling over his own feet.

"You're not." Amy replied, before giggling. "And don't even think of removing it!"

"You know, you've changed over the last few years." Sonic stated lifting one side of the blindfold just enough to see her testing the weight of her blunt weapon. "What happened to the bubbly Amy who spent her time chasing me?" Amy paused, rolling her eyes in thought.

"Oh I'm still her." Was the pink hedgehog's eventual reply. " I haven't really changed that much, this is me as I really am. It's just you've been standing still long enough to notice." Sonic hesitated, considering the poetic irony of her words. When he'd first met Amy, he could instantly see that she had fallen in love with him. But he was never stayed around long enough to actually see what she was like. He'd just raced off to another bout with Eggman or some other bad guy and Amy was left in his dust. Lately however she'd been with him on more and more adventures and slowly but surely he'd gained insight into her character. In fact, he liked Amy. In more ways then he was prepared to admit. Before she could catch him staring at her now near –Rouge- like body, he put his blindfold back on.

"Alright then." He stated. "Ready when you are."

"You might as well close your eyes and rely on you others senses." She told him, before approaching as quietly as she could, her hammer as the ready. Sighing, her followed her advice and closed his eyes. For a moment his own thoughts blared loudly in his ears, before he managed to catch the sound of the wind high above and he focused on that, trying to concentrate. His head hurt concentrating so much. He hadn't had much need to do it too often.

Once he'd managed to silence all the nagging thoughts massing through his mind; he found to his surprise that he could near a lot more than he usually could. Even the whistle of the wind through the trees on the other side of the field. He managed to get it right just in time, as a sharp intake of air alerted him to Amy's presence to his ring and swiftly he spun around and somersaulted backwards; narrowly avoiding the hammer as it slammed hard into the ground, sinking into the soft mound.

Amy looked up with an impressed smile on her lips. "Living up to your reputation I see." Sonic just shrugged and backed off to a safer distance.

"Ok, try again." Amy looked down to see a small stone half embedded in the ground next to her. Quickly she picked it up and began to approach again, seeing Sonic's ears twitch nervously trying to pick up any sound apart from the wind. Once she was within a few feet, he tossed the stone in the ground on his left and his attention was diverted that way. This left him wide open to an attack, an attack from the blunt of her hammer, striking him hard on the back; knocking him to the ground. "Ow!" He exclaimed, pushing himself up, rubbing his back. Amy took once look at his face and quills, covered completely in mud and she found herself laughing at him. "Ah man, I'd just got these perfect too." He exclaimed, after removing his blindfold. He wiped what he could off with his hands, but was still left with a large amount pulling down his quills. "Amy, you cheated!"

"You think Eggman cares about playing by the rules?" Sonic hesitated. "No? Good, so keep in mind I'm trying to think like one of his robots; trying to destroy you by any means necessary."

"How thoughtful." He replied bluntly, before placing the blindfold back on. The followed hour was spent improving Sonic's reflexes and overall speed. Over this time Amy managed to land several good hits, leaving Sonic with more bruises than he counted on.

By the time Sonic had managed to reflect one of Amy's attacks before grabbing her hammer and tossing it across the field, the sun was high in the sky signalling noon.

"I think you've done enough for today." She said with a smile, walking over to retrieve her weapon

"For today?" Sonic repeated, looking distraught as he removed his blindfold. With a loud rumbling sound, a dark shadow began falling over the field. Looking up, Amy saw the X-Tornado cut past the sun, hover for a moment in the air before descending to a slow landing nearby.

"Hey guys." Tails called over, leaning out of the cockpit. "I finally got the X-Tornado back up and running." As if in joyous agreement, a thick pillar of steam lanced out of the exhaust from the engine. Tails had also given the plane a new paint job. Instead of white and black he's painted it blue like his old Cyclone, along with two golden lightning bolts down the side.

"Nice." Sonic stated, shaking what was left of the mud out of his quills. "You musta' spent hours polishin' this." He added, tapping the side of the machine, leaving a large muddy hand print on it. Tails' best plane had suffered near horrendous damage when it went head to head with the Egg Fleet and then again when the Egg Carrier 3 came after it. Tails had had to put the plane through near constant updates to keep up with Eggman's own creations and now it seemed like he'd managed to put the X Tornado ahead.

The second pod pushed itself open and Cream's eager face appeared, with her gold and black robot Emerl sitting in the back.

"CHAO!" Turel exclaimed as Cheese came flying out of the X tornado's cockpit. Cream watched the two Chao fly high above the busy collection of people on the outside of the base, crisscrossing their paths in some form of dance unfamiliar to her. Amy's Chao had far larger wings than Cream and to impress its friend was doing loop the loops. Tricks that Cheese were poorly imitating.

"Hey Sonic!" The she-rabbit declared, sliding down over the side of the plane with Emerl following closely behind. "How's the training going?" Sonic winced, suddenly feeling the large bruise on his shoulder.

"Does your mother know you're out here?" Amy asked suspiciously. Cream suddenly tried to look as innocent as possible, but the puppy dog eyes expression did not seem to impress anyone.

"So anything on the Eggman front?" Sonic asked Tails as Amy began to tell Cream exactly how un-kind it was was to wander away from Vanilla without telling her where she'd be.

"Kinda quiet actually." The fox replied from the cockpit. "Not a single robot has left England since you trashed his -bots in France. Those G.U.N guys have been trying to get in, but it seems Eggman can fire those shells in any direction at any time." His eyes widened in realisation. "Hey! You can outrun those things can't you Sonic?"

"Sure can." The blue hedgehog stated with no false modesty. "I can out run anything Eggman can come up with. Only one thing though…"

"Oh?"

"England is an Island and I don't do water!" His tone was so sharp Tails let it go at that.

"Oh, before I left Okida said he wanted to see you." Tails added before sitting back at the controls. Sonic blinked once in surprise. He though he'd made it clear to Major Okida the first time while he and his friends and G.U.N were on the same side; they were not on their pay roll. That didn't upset Okida himself too much, but his political superiors shuddered at the thought of something that didn't do what they told it to.

"What's he want?" He asked, hoping up to one of the wings to look over Tails' shoulder.

"Not sure, wouldn't say." Was the reply as the fox checked over the controls in the cockpit. "All he was he wanted to see you, me and Amy in the next few hours."

"Where is he?"

"At the new G.U.N headquarters in Europe." There was a brief flash of green light and Sonic was gone.

"Ok, what's the big emergency?" The blue hedgehog arrived at the base almost momentarily. It appeared Okida had been expecting this kind of theatrical entrance. This was Sonic after all. He was standing outside near his Yahger Mech which were undergoing a new paint job, changing it from a desert gold to a blood red, the G.U.N symbol standing out on each leg. Sonics voice was betraying his own sense of boredom. A hint Okida picked up, narrowing an eye at him.

"Don't you ever make a normal entrance?"

"Don't believe in 'em. What's the big deal?"

"Eggman, what else?" He asked rhetorically. "A few hours ago, one of our last remaining surveillance satieties picked up a large object leaving the atmosphere." He pulled out several pictures taken from the satellite. They showed a very large object heading away from the planet. "We've been able to determine it as the Egg Carrier." Sonic just laughed.

"See, I've got him on the run already. Running back to his base at the mere sight of me." Okida shook his head.

"He isn't heading for the Egg Moon."

"He's not?"

"No, we've calculated his course and concluded that his ultimate destination is…" he pulled out another picture, an orbiting space station around the Earth. A space station Sonic was all too familiar with.

"ARK?" Sonic stated. "What's he going there for?" His eyes widened in a sudden shock. "The Eclipse Cannon?" Okida shook his head.

"Not likely. After that whole falling colony thing G.U.N had the weapon dismantled. There's nothing there for him to fire anymore." Within the next couple of minutes Tails arrived back with the X tornado a few minutes later with Amy and the others. Upon their arrival Okida showed them into the base interior, down through several security lifts to an underground silo.

"Basically all we want you to do is to go up into space after him, find out what he's doing there and stop him." The major stated.

"Look, we are not on the Government pay roll."

"Good, because I wasn't planning on paying you." Sliding a key card through a slot, Okida stepped aside as the final door slid aside and a large chamber was revealed beyond.

"Woah…" Tails began as they started up at the large bulk of an experimental space ship, a large G.U.N symbol painted on the side. Triangular in shape, the ship was balanced on a metallic runway angled up towards the ceiling. This thing dwarfed the Mech carrier planes outside, far exceeding their size. Although most of it was steal grey, along it's underside and directly at the front were large white armour plating. Two large rocket boasters were attached to a pair of wings, final checks being made over by a good number of technicians. A good dealer of familiar faces were there as well, including Rouge; perched on the end of a metal rafter. Chris and Chuck were down below in one of the pits below the craft, helping to finish all the final checks. Most of the Freelance Division was there as well, including the recently drafted Hare. The English rabbit who had not counted on becoming a part of G.U.N now went around with a scowl set nearly permanently it seemed into his face.

"Ah good to see you." Chuck called up as a small lift elevated up to their level from one of the tech pits below, his grandson beside him. "So Tails, what do think of the enhancement we've made to the Icarus?"

"This is the Icarus?" Tails asked. Only a few days ago, the Icarus, Chuck's pride and joy had been a ship designed to deploy troops to trouble spots very fast. It seemed in the last few hours, Chuck had made some extreme design alterations.

"The Icarus is now a space ship prototype." Okida began. "I wasn't around for it, but the techs first began work on a space capable crate when the Egg-Moon was first built."

"And since then, they've only built one?" Sonic asked curiously, giving the supposed space ship a sceptical glance over. Some of the techs were finishes adding the final touches, including an impressive over a few places on the armour plating; which Sonic seemed to like the best. It was visually impressive, but Sonic was a ground creature. He did best when he had his feet on solid ground. "Taking a massive short cut by building it on a plane that already existed."

"You want to try building space rocket that can match the Eggman Empire's on any short of time scale?"

"So what'ya say Sonic. Wanna do this little errand for us?" Rouge asked, gliding down to the banister at the side of the catwalk that lead towards the ship. Sonic sighed out load, folding his arms.

"Oh alright." He said, trying to sound reluctant but his voice managed to slip away some of his eagerness. The prospect of any sort of new adventure exhilarated him. "Only for this I think we're going to need a little more muscle power." He put a fore finger and thumb to his chin. "And I know just the Echidna." Everyone looked his way with a surprised look on their faces.

"Shame I won't be able to go." Chris began, looking incredibly disappointed. He had tried to gain permission to go on board with them; but his mother had flatly refused to give him any lee way when it came to that.

"Don't worry Chris, you won't be missing out on any adventure." Chuck stated confidentially with a wide grin.

"How can you say that?"

"Because you and I are going to Italy on a little adventure of our own." Chirs narrowed an eye sceptically.

"Ok then, Freelance Division; listen up." Okida continued. "While Sonic and the others go up after Eggman himself; our mission will be a two pronged assaulted against his forces in England." He lead them all apart from Rouge out of the hanger and into the outside corridor. "Intelligence reports that that artillery cannon that fired on us at our first try is located here in the middle of the Thames River. Our primary concern is disconnecting that weapon so our liberation force can attack." After flying over England a few times, their scouts had reported a far lot more than just that. Most of the entire country had been converted into a giant factory. From their birds eyes view, they reported imperial Dreadnaughts forcing the captured citizenry to cut down the forests at an alarming rate, using the wood to fuel their production lines. Most of England was quickly being blanketed with a thick black smog. "Secondly. The Major added. "We'll also be going in to acquire information about the badnik technology. According to both Tails and our techs; these robots are far too advanced to be Eggman's original design. We'll be going in there to find out just where the hell he got them."

"At the same time?" Hare asked sceptically folding his arms. "Look, I agreed to help you; not undertake suicide missions."

"Oh what's the matter, little rabbit turned chicken?" Bean laughed over his shoulder, until a large fist swung back, knocking him to the ground. Bark groaned, shaking his head.

"And how do you propose to get Knuckles to come with us? Last time I checked, he was planning to stay put on Angel Island for some time." Amy asked as they stood marvelling the ship. Sonic paused, an impish smile spreading over his face before he cast a glare back at Rouge.

"What?" She asked when she suddenly noticed them all staring at her.

Flip card 1:

Name: Icarus

Age: Designed a few months ago

Description: One of Chuck's masterpieces. Originally a plane designed to deliver troops at lightning fast speed, it has now been updated for space travel.