Hidden Truth (Sonic): The Hero Who Failed

It was the scent of smoke that woke him.

Sonic coughed as he struggled to arise from his position, his eyes blurred, which was made worse by the gray, toxic gas looming in the air.

What happened? he wondered.

The last thing he recalled was chasing after the Egg Carrier. Eggman had captured the Princess of Soleanna, Blaze, after an assault on the famous "City of Water." When he saw Blaze, beaten and unconscious, being taken away by Eggman's robots, Sonic rushed after his archenemy, hoping to bring his acts of terror on the peaceful city to an end. Chasing him all the way to Kingdom Valley, the blue blur found himself surrounded when Eggman dropped an army of Egg Gunners down from the Egg Carrier. The machines fired on the spot, their bullets grazing Sonic enough to force him to the ground.

Had it not been for Tails' latest invention, Sonic might've met his end then and there.

A recent gift his fox friend gave Sonic was a new pair of shoes known as Custom Shoes which, when equipped with Soleanna's mysterious crystal gems, allowed Sonic to utilize special abilities.

But Tails didn't stop there.

Through research and development of the emerald-cut gems, Tails was able to produce a new, special gem – the Rainbow Gem – infused with Chaos energy, allowing Sonic to temporarily access a limited version of his Super form, a form that otherwise would only be possible if Sonic possessed all seven of the Chaos Emeralds.

And so, when the Egg Gunners had him cornered and almost defeated, Sonic used the stone to turn into Super Sonic and defeat them all before heading up to rescue Blaze.

Until Mephiles showed up and stopped him in his tracks.

Shadow had warned Sonic about a strange hedgehog who bore a resemblance to him, and Sonic unfortunately came face-to-face with the faker's copycat. He put up a valiant fight, but the power Mephiles wielded was stronger than the limited Super form the Rainbow Gem could sustain, and Sonic fell in battle.

His mind was a total blank after that.

"Why…(cough)…didn't he finish me off?"Sonic asked himself.

When he was finally on his feet, Sonic stretched and shook his head, trying to remove the blurriness swamping his eyes. He was still a little weak from that battle, but it was nothing he couldn't walk off.

Where was he, anyway? It wasn't the field where he fought, nor did it remind him of any place he had traveled to before. Based on the smoke and the structure, he was at least able to identify it as some kind of building complex that was in bad shape, almost as if it had recently caught on fire.

Fire…

Sonic's eyes widened in realization and, a little wobbly, dashed out of the building complex and onto the roof.

"No…"

A warm inferno greeted him as he stood speechless, gazing into what once was Soleanna's New Town area. The air outside was less friendly than it was inside the building; Sonic rubbed his stinging eyes as they adjusted to the dark atmosphere. Below, orange streams illuminated the destroyed city.

Sonic fell to his knees. "Soleanna…" was all he could utter, yet his mind kept racing with dread. One by one, the faces of his friends came to mind.

Tails, Knuckles, Amy…

Blaze.

"Is this really the work of the Flames of Disaster? … Ah!"

A brief image of Eggman's smirking face sprang to Sonic's mind, and he knew without doubt this was Eggman's doing. "He must've had Mephiles under his command the whole time!" It made perfect sense. An enemy to Shadow who also stopped him from rescuing Blaze from Eggman – Mephiles was in league with Eggman.

Sonic grit his teeth. "So, Eggman, you finally got what you wanted."

It was a horrific future, one where Eggman was most likely in his Egg Carrier, staring down at the destruction in joy. Though merely a thought, Sonic could hear his familiar, evil laugh.

Sonic's fingers curled to a tight fist, shutting his now adjusted eyes.

Eggman had won.

At that's left now is to steal his victory away from him.

The idea of Eggman banging his fist against the ground, his temper reaching the limit, was enough to give Sonic a reason to smile. "Watch out, Eggman. I'm coming at you at top speed!"


Atop a nearby rooftop, now nothing more than a series of exposed pipes and concrete, a white hedgehog fixed his eyes upon the source of his world's ruin: a blue hedgehog in red and white sneakers.

"I finally found you… the Iblis Trigger."


"Hm? Woah!"

A weird luminating sound caught Sonic's ear, but when he turned to identify the sound's source, upon seeing an incoming spear of pure energy, he narrowly jumped out of the way. Once he cleared the blast radius of the attack, Sonic looked up and found the light spear's owner: a white hedgehog consumed in a cyan aura.

"Who's that?!" Sonic wondered aloud, but shook his head. Now was not the time for questions – the white hedgehog prepared another set of light spears.

He needed to run, now!

Turning on his heels, Sonic began racing across the rooftops, his mysterious assailant following close behind; with each step, Sonic kept an eye on his attacker. When the white hedgehog launched a light spear at him, Sonic quickly changed direction to avoid being hit.

Who is this guy? Sonic thought. Does he work for the Egghead?

The white hedgehog didn't look like a robot, so Sonic could at least cross out that possibility. Still, Eggman has used others to do his dirty work in the past – Shadow, Knuckles, and Chaos, to name a few; it was fairly possible this guy was no exception. Sonic kept this option in mind as he leapt off the rooftops onto a broken-down highway below, bouncing off of the road to break his fall.

The white hedgehog was not deterred as he flew down to Sonic's level; as he passed by burnt and rusted vehicles, he summoned them through his psychokinesis and hurled them at his target.

Sonic saw the hurricane of cars flying at him and dodged each one as they crashed into the road. When Silver threw his last car, Sonic evaded it and skidded across the asphalt before continuing his run.

Silver's eyes narrowed. He's no novice. He then engulfed himself in his power until he disappeared.

And reappeared hovering right in front of Sonic.

"What the…?!" Sonic was taken aback at Silver's sudden reappearance but kept racing forward, even as the white hedgehog assembled a series of cars and trailers above the blue blur. With his arms extended outwards, Silver motioned them downwards, making the large objects in his grasps fall down on top of Sonic.

Except Sonic noted the difference in timing of the vehicles' descent, allowing him to move towards one that wasn't falling as fast as the others, followed by him racing to the clear area as the other vehicles fell.

Silver gritted his teeth. He had hoped would have become crushed by now, but maybe hurling objects one at a time was the problem. A new idea came to mind, and Silver modeled a series of cars, signs and fallen street lights into a block held together by his powers, scrapping across the highway. He can't run past this!

But Sonic kept running forward even as the block moved towards him. When it was almost upon him, Sonic jumped atop the debris until he was moving across the top of the block. A surprised Silver felt disbelief and pain as Sonic closed the gap between them and homing attacked him, consequently making him lose focus and fall onto the pavement. As he gazed up, he saw the cocky grin plastered on the Iblis Trigger's face.

It fueled his rage.

Teleporting back in front of Sonic, he amassed every possible car, sign, light, pipe and concrete and formed a boulder large enough to knock over a building. Sonic watched anxiously as Silver sent it rolling towards their position. Sonic quickened his pace to stay ahead of the boulder, only to realize he had another attack to worry about. Silver prepared a wave of energy to knock Sonic back into the boulder, ending this battle. "This ends now, Iblis Trigger!"

As Silver released the wave of energy, Sonic effortlessly dodged it and increased his speed, passing under Silver.

"What!"

Silver had only a brief moment to look back to see Sonic kick him right into the boulder. The force of the impact made Silver lose his concentration again, which left him vulnerable as the sphere of debris fell apart and buried him. Fortunately, it didn't kill him, but the white hedgehog could do nothing more than watch from inside the debris as Sonic grinned victoriously and sped away.

Sonic briefly glanced back in Silver's direction, contemplating. "Iblis Trigger?" Sonic was beginning to believe Silver may not be in league with Eggman, but that didn't eliminate the possibility, nor Silver as a threat. Either way, one thing was for certain: Wherever Eggman is, Sonic would find him.

And take back this world. His world.


Mephiles observed the entire scenario from above, unbeknownst to the heroes that clashed below. Pitting the naïve Silver against Sonic proved not to be a waste.

"It appears Silver was no match for the blue savior after all… that may prove useful."

Turning in the direction of Iblis, Mephiles mused to himself.

It won't be much longer now. I'm getting closer.