The next morning, Speed and Leda walked around The Sky Sanctuary Zone. They were talking about names for the baby. Leda was only a month into her term, but thanks to their son's little trip through time, they already knew what to expect. Speed was concerned about whatever complications Leda would have when she gave birth, but in that timeline he wasn't there. He was here now. As they talked, Shadow walked up, "Brother!"

Speed smiled at his sworn brother, "Shadow! How you doing?"

"Fine! But I need to talk with you. In private!" Leda smiled and headed back toward Speed's hover car. When she was out of ear shot, Shadow and Speed started to walk up the trail, "I need you advice!"

"This is a first! What about?"

Shadow sighed, "Rouge!"

"Oh!"

"I want to try and have a relationship with her, but I have no idea where to start."

"No experience!"

"I was born fully grown and I was frozen for fifty years. Interaction with others didn't come up much."

Speed chuckled, "I can see why!" As the two talked, the failed to notice the black hedgehog with red eyes sneaking around behind them. Both hedgehogs stopped at a large stone balcony that overlooked the island. Speed crossed his arms, "Try a nice dinner, something simple! Smalltalk and a prayer wouldn't hurt."

"Thanks!"

They heard a rustling in the bushes behind them and turned toward it. A red echidna fell out and bowed before them, "Lord Speed and Lord Shadow!"

Speed laughed, "We're good, but not deserving of be called Lord!"

"Well, maybe not you!" Shadow smirked.

The echidna nodded, "Sorry! I have an important message for you two." He held out his hands. He jumped forward and touched Speed and Shadow's head. Before they could move, blue energy arched from the echidna's hands and into their bodies. Both hedgehogs collapsed onto the ground. The echidna stepped back and chuckled, "Fools!" He bent down on one knee, "You two are the most powerful warriors on the planet. Just ask yourselves one thing, why do you continue to fight for that wimp Sonic? You two are capable of greater things." The echidna stood up. His eyes flashed red and his skin morphed to that of the black hedgehog. He wore black sneakers and his fur and quills were jet black, "Sleep well and remember." He ran off.

The black hedgehog stood at the very top Sky Sanctuary and activated a small com unit, "Lord Robotnik!"

"Vega! How did your mission go?"

"I planted the suggestions into their minds. But whether or not they go with it, is other story." Vega looked around, "Do you have another target?"

"Not as of yet, my gift from the future. But hold tight, I will have a use for you soon!"

Vega nodded, "Understood!"

Robotnik sat back and smiled, "Little do those pathetic fools realize that all three sides got a visitor from the future."

Metal Sonic stood behind him, "It would be better if he could control his victims. Planting suggestions is shaky at best."

Snively nodded from his consol, "And what about Luxor? He has been quiet for sometime."

Robotnik drummed his fingers on his chair, "The wizard is no doubt scheming. He hasn't fully recovered from his last defeat and I doubt he is ready to try and attack." Robotnik activated his report screen, "We will deal with him soon enough!"

Sally, Sonia, and Sonic sat in a small restaurant in Echidnatropolis. Sonic and Sally had made small talk for a few, but Sonia had kept silent for the entire time. Sally tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped, "Sorry!"

Sonia took a few sips of water, "It is alright!"

Sonic sighed, "So what do you want to do?"

Sonia shrugged, "I'm not sure! The urge to hurt Sally is subsiding, but I am still little more than a clone."

Sally grabbed her hand, "Your my daughter. I don't care how you were created. I carried you, gave birth to you, and took care of you."

Sonic nodded, "Sally is right!"

Sonia nodded, "I'll try!"

Sally smiled, "That is all we ask! We will make this work!"

Sonic and Knuckles walked into Tails's new workshop after he called them in. The small fox was sitting at a computer with a concern look on his face, "You called bro?"

Tails nodded, "We have a problem!"

"What?"

Tails fingers danced across the keyboard and the image of a factory in the middle of a junkyard appeared, "Robotnik has created a new way to robotize many people at once."

Knuckles cracked his knuckles, "What else is new?"

"Some how he has made a breakthrough with nano technology. He has actually created a pool of living machines that are able to move across any terrain and robotize whatever they touch."

Before another question could be asked, Shadow and Speed walked in, "Sorry!"

"Where were you guys."

Shadow shrugged, "We were at Sky Sanctuary. What is it to you?"

Sonic backed off, "Sorry!"

Tails shook his head, "What are we going to do? The only way I even found out about this is because one of Uncle Chucks old probes was still active."

Sonic sat down and rubbed his eyes. His uncle had vanished along with everyone else at Knothole, "We need to stop it." He turned to Speed, "Can you get us there?"

"The Eclipse should be able to get us there undetected. But it is going to be guarded."

Sonic stood up, "We will tackle that when we get there."

Shadow stepped up, "And do what? We could use this to our advantage."

"How!"

Shadow tapped the computer, "Couldn't we reprogram these machines to do what we want? We could use them to build us robots of our own. Weapons to fight both Robotnik and Luxor!"

Knuckles nodded, "That is a good idea!"

Tails thought for a moment, "It could work! With the Eclipse's power core tech and the echidna weapon tech, we could use them to create some pretty big noise makers."

Speed slapped Shadow on the back, "Fight fire with fire!"

Sonic shrugged, "Sounds good! We'll see what we can do when we get there. But I like the way this sounds."

Three days later, Speed piloted The Eclipse toward the factory. The factory of about fifty miles south of Robotropolis, but not far enough away to make any of them feel better, "Ten blaster turrets and I can detect thirty Swatbots in the perimeter of the factory. Ten more a few meters away."

Shadow sat next to him readied the weapons, "Can't get any reading on the bots inside."

Sonic walked into the cockpit, "Any ideas?"

Shadow hit a few buttons, "We could do a flyby and have everyone jump. I can detect a Chaos Detection Net, so we can't use Chaos Control, but there is a break in their radar sweep. We will have a ten second window!"

Speed set the course, "I can load you and Knuckles up with some explosives."

Sonic nodded, "Good! Me and Knuckles will keep the bots busy while you and Shadow get Tails to the nanites."

Shadow stood up, "We will reprogram, take a sample, and destroy the rest."

Sonic smiled, "Good! Lets do this!"

The drop went without a hitch and Shadow and the others found it a little to easy to sneak into the building. The only bots they ran into were techbots. The ran into the main chamber. Computers covered the walls and a large vat was in the middle of the room. It was filled with a silver liquid. Tails dropped his backpack and ran to a computer, "This shouldn't take long!"

"Your right!" Robotnik's face appeared on all of the computer screens, "You have fallen in my trap. Thanks for being my new test subjects." The screens went blank.

A blast door started to shut over the only entrance. Shadow grabbed Tails and managed to throw him out of the room before it closed. The black hedgehog cursed, "We should have saw this coming."

Speed nodded, "We did!" Both smiled and ran to different consoles. Both inserted disks and tossed the elemental orbs Lazar had led them to into the vat, "Lets just hope this works."

"The Guardian said it would!"

"He said might!"

Shadow shrugged, "Either this works or we become robots."

Sonic and Knuckles were almost finished planting explosives, but stopped when all the Swatbots left the factory. "Where are they going?"

Knuckles looked up at the blaster turrets and saw they were unmanned, "I don't like this!"

"SONIC!" Tails ran up, "It was a trap!"

"Surprise!" Metal Sonic dropped out of the sky, "Your are too predictable."

Bojack appeared behind the trio, "I will enjoy making you apart of me once again."

The gray ooze began to bubble out of the vat as Speed and Shadow broke off the main connection lines. Speed glanced over to Shadow, "I can't break down the robotization protocols."

Shadow typed in a few more commands, "I'm having no luck with the program safeties either."

"So this is it!"

"Seems like it!" The vat exploded and the pair were engulfed by the nanites.

Tails was smacked away as Metal Sonic lifted Sonic up by his neck. Knuckles moved to attack, but Bojack intercepted and held him up like Metal did to Sonic. Metal smiled, "I will finally enjoy my victory over you. After so long and so many bodies, you are finally in my grasp."

Bojack tapped him on the shoulder, "Don't kill him!"

"Don't worry wizard! I will leave enough for you." Metal brought his fist back to deliver a punch, but the factory exploded. The shockwave knocked everyone over and freed Sonic and Knuckles. Tails's had triggered the explosives they had planted.

Sonic ran toward the burning factory, "Shadow! Speed!" A pair of figures appeared in the fire. Sonic smiled when they appeared to be hedgehogs, but frowned when they stepped clear of the fire. It was them alright, but they were machines. Twice as tall, both of their metal armor shined silver and the trim glowed black. Speed had a gold orb glowing in the center of his chest and Shadow had a blue one. Black talon like fingers formed their hands. Their faces were nothing more than grills and black visors. Their eyes glowed red. Sonic gulped and stepped back, "Guys?"

Metal Sonic laughed, "Forget it Sonic! I am receiving combat data from them. They are Robotnik's now."

To Be Continued in Tainted VOL.2: The Brothers of War!