Anonymous Review Replies!
Randomanon: Thank you! :D Are you coming from the Pokémon or the Sonic fandom, originally? I'm always intrigued how people not originally interested in crossovers found them!
Jet The Hedgehog: No worries! Hope you still enjoyed :)
Kyzuon: Uh oh is right! Please enjoy :D
jj: Hrm, which episode was that?
Guest: read on to find out who comes out on top!
10 out of 10 lel: Trying my best! :)
SoMeguEsT: Well, I'd wager Tails ends up in his workshop, Amy in her apartment in Station Square and Knuckles probably on Angel Island, or at least, on the part of Angel Island with the Emerald altar :)
LoneGarurumon: Naw, no worries, I figure if SOME but not ALL readers figure stuff out ahead I'm doing everything right :) Glad you liked the choreography! (My personal guess is Gary cheated and got a load of Masterballs from some shady place on Cinnabar Island ;P)
Knucklesfan: Naw, as pointed out on my profile, I never abandon any story, but - well. Quality takes time, and by the age of my profile, you can probably guess I'm not in school any more. But also considering I've been uploading consistently for over 15 years, I'm not likely to stop any time soon, as long as there's comments.
ClawedIndecisive FanGirl: Heh, I do tend to enjoy my Shadow more on the grumpy side :P If you'd like to see a more mellow version, that gets along better with Sonic I can recommend my "Shadow the Hedgehog: First Class" where he gets to have a somewhat nicer life and a tad friendlier personality to go along with it, or, if you like Sonadow, "Once Upon A Time" :) As for Sonic and swearing - well, in my stories he doesn't swear as *much* as Shadow and he also tries really hard to not do it in front of younger kids like Ash or Tails.
Last Time, when we left our heroes, Shadow and Sonic had just met again in the arena of the Xeno Cup, Shadow as a captured 'Pokémon' of Gary, who he does NOT like. Our two hedgehogs have also just managed to fill each other in on what happened in their various circumstances, and were about to discuss what to actually DO now, when a very familar voice and a very familiar battle fortress shadow fell over them...
xxx
Chapter 24: Battle Royale
"What…?" Sonic craned his head back as the crowd gasped, and his eyes widened as he beheld the giant battle fortress emerging from one of the cloud banks, now hovering not a hundred feet above the stadium.
A very large, very red-and-yellow battle fortress, with a very grinning moustache emblem.
"No way," Sonic whispered.
"CITIZENS OF THIS PATHETIC WORLD!" A very familiar voice boomed, "Behold the majesty of the Egg Catcher – as it will be the last thing you see! OHOHOHOHOH!"
This was then also the approximate moment where suddenly a hot air balloon floated straight in front of the cockpit of the battle fortress, thereby also completely blocking Robotnik's face. It was in the shape of a cat's head and somehow accompanied by dramatic fanfare music and a lot of smoke.
"Prepare for trouble!"
"And make it double!"
Sonic stared. "What."
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
Next to him, Shadow was now also staring. "Okay, what the hell."
"Uh," Sonic ventured, mainly because this was also all he was able to explain about this. In the basket of the flying cat balloon were the strange man and woman couple he recognized vaguely from the museum heist, only now they were doing weird poses on the rim of it while reciting some sort of poetry duet. All while the dramatic music kept playing in the background.
"To denounce the evils of-!"
"WILL YOU STOP STEALING MY SHOW!"
"What?!" As Robotnik's voice boomed across the stadium, the two humans (Jessie and James, Knuckles had said?) all at once whirled around on the rim of their basket, now glaring at Robotnik in his cockpit hovering behind them. Jessie immediately rammed her fists into her hips.
"Excuse me?! You weird old man, this is our show!"
"Yeah!" James chimed in "You should go back to your retirement home, gramps! We're here to take the tournament prize for Team Rocket!"
Briefly, Robotnik looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. Sonic wondered whether he should be impressed.
"Ahem, anyway," James cleared his throat, "- to extend our reach to the stars ab-"
"SILENCE!"
"Is - is the Doctor speaking their language? They seem to understand him," Shadow said, standing next to Sonic in the middle of the battlefield, also staring up at the mismatched confrontation of Floating Death Fortress vs Hot Air Balloon With Cat Face above.
"Probably also built himself a translator," Sonic guessed, already scanning their surroundings if there was anything in the stadium he could race up to get him onto the Egg Catcher or if he would need to hitch a ride up with Tails, "We can't let him get the Chaos Emerald."
"Where is the Chaos Emerald?" Shadow asked.
"Good question, no idea."
"JESSIE!" the woman meanwhile yelled above.
"JAMES!" the man added.
"I will END you!" Robotnik contributed.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please keep calm, the tournament security officials are already en route-!" the announcer of the tournament was saying over the din of Robotnik now in a yelling match with the trio in the hot air balloon. The evil scientist had flipped open the windshield of his cockpit and was leaning out of it, shaking his fist at the Pokémon thieves as Sonic indeed could see various men and women in what looked like security team uniforms sprinting out onto the field, each of them of course armed with Pokéballs on their belts and already in their hands.
"GO! Alakazam Squad! Shield the people around you!"
"Mr Mime Squad! Shield the other side!"
"PIDGEOT Squadron! Prepare to deflect hostile ballistics!"
"Gyarados Team! Ready a Hyper Beam!"
"Ivysaur Team! Charge a Solar Beam, NOW!"
"RAICHU SQUAD REPRESENT!"
"Oh shoot," Sonic looked around him in rising agitation as dozens of large monsters were materializing everywhere on the battlefield, vaguely humanoid-looking creatures waving their hands in a way that let see-through shields appear above people in the stadium, an armada of giant birds spreading their wings and screeching, huge water dragons roaring as they materialized and opened their mouths pointed toward the aircrafts, what looked like massive dinosaur-turtles with flowers on their backs growling and somehow pointing their...flowers(?!) at the sky also, and orange, mouse-like creatures exploding into being like temple-dog guardians.
"Thunder-Thunderhog! Come back NOW!" the kid in the purple shirt was screaming somewhere on the other edge of the field, now half-concealed from view by the mass of monster bodies. Sonic grabbed Shadow's arm.
"Let's go. Get to the others before he can throw that ball."
Shadow didn't say anything, merely snatched his arm back and nodded as they rushed forward, dodging neatly around the Pokémon in their way.
"Uh-uh, T-team R-rocket, blasts off at the speed of light-!" Jessie was stammering above, apparently a bit challenged by recent proceedings.
"S-surrend- Jessie, I really think WE should surrender!" her partner commented, tugging on her arm with rising panic.
"Meowth, dat's right!"
"Sonic! There you are!" Ash called out as they came to a stop at his side, Sonic also looking up just in time to see the man, woman and cat in the balloon now all clutching at each other in terror, looking down at the mass of tournament official monsters aiming their attacks straight at them and Robotnik's battle fortress. As they watched, the orange, mouse-like Pokémon leapt on the backs of the large birds, electricity crackling on their cheeks as the squadron took off and went into formation around the Egg Catcher, "Is - is that guy up there also someone from your homeworld…?"
"Yeah. Unfortunately," Sonic replied, "But I also found Shadow now, so as soon as we take down Baldy McNosehair up there, we're all done."
"Attention Terrorists! This is Sabrina, Gym Leader of Saffron City speaking!" A black-haired young woman in a dark red dress had now appeared on the large view screens, her voice ringing out loud and clear. "You're currently in the focus of over three dozen highly trained Security Pokémon. Stand down or we will be forced to attack."
"Are they crazy?" Sonic hissed at Ash, the mass of people behind them already a chaotic frothing sea, some people scrambling for the exits with their children or pet Pokémon, others standing up with determined expressions, clutching Pokéballs of their own they were ready to hurl or already doing so. Seeing as the capacity of the stadium looked like tens of thousands of people, that meant there were already a lot of monsters on the ground, their cries a cacophony of resistance against Robotnik.
Somewhere in between the insane mess Sonic thought he could also see Tails, Amy, Knuckles and their other human friends scrambling to get down to them, trying to make their way through the stadium ranks. He turned back to Ash, "If they hit his battle fortress hard enough it could crash and kill everybody it falls on!"
"The - the psychic Pokémon would probably be able to hold it off together if that happened," Ash stammered, all of them staring at the faceoff of the assembled security Pokémon and the giant mounted cannons of the Egg Carrier, in between a hot air balloon whose inhabitants were now frantically trying to use handheld-fans and rather pitiful swimming motions in the air to move themselves out of the possible crossfire.
"We need to get up there," Sonic said, "Tails can take Amy, Ash, do you have any more Pokémon that can fly and-"
"Stand down? My dear, I think not," there was a fizzing noise and suddenly, Sabrina's face on the viewscreens had been replaced by an all-too-familiar moustachioed grinning visage, far too close to the camera as people gasped in surprise. "No, not without taking something very valuable I have been looking for."
"Sonic!" Tails was the first to reach them, appendages whirring as he was soaring over the mass of scrambling people, "Grab my hands, let's-"
"SECURITY POKÉMON! ATTACK!"
There was an ear-deafening roar as the mass of monsters in the arena, possibly over a hundred by now, unleashed their various prepared attacks simultaneously, impossibly bright rays of light shooting toward the fortress - and hitting an energy shield around it.
Well.
That and also a very unfortunate hot-air balloon in the way.
"Team Rocket blasting off agaaiiiin~!"
"How do they DO that?!" Knuckles, also arrived, commented as he stared at the trio now shooting off in an arc into the sky, disappearing with a slight "ping" as they vanished from sight.
"Don't know, don't care. Human. Do you or do you not have anything that can get us-?" Shadow was saying to Ash, voice tense as Robotnik's laughter rang out through the stadium again.
"AHAH! OHOH! YES! This is the energy I was looking for! A few more times and you might even break through my shields," he crowed, clapping his hands in mock applause next to this face before leaning back into the camera again, a sinister grin on his face. "Of course, you won't get the chance for that."
"SECURITY POKÉMON!" Sabrina's voice rang out through the megaphone again, more and more trainers in the audience now also releasing various monsters to join the throng already in the arena or simply taking up position on abandoned seats. "READY! ATTA-!"
Which was as far as she got, because instead of shooting, the Egg Catcher then opened the cargo doors in its underside and a mass of spheres started raining down - and opening up to catch the Pokémon in the middle of the stadium.
"What the-?!" Ash stared, as before their eyes, three security Pokémon were simultaneously suddenly engulfed by what looked like hands of white light closing around them like someone crushing them in a giant fist, right before they turned into red light, disappearing into the falling spheres. Around them, trainers were gasping and shrieking in shock when their companions vanished.
"Butterfree! NO!" One of the trainers was immediately on her knees, scrambling to get the strange Pokéball to open, but to no avail. Behind her, similar scenes were playing out, sometimes even Pokémon trying to snatch the balls their companions had ended up in, only to fall victim to another one themselves, all the while the aerial battle continued, Robotnik's laughter ringing out above it all.
"Ow! What-?" Amy yelped as one of the spheres fell onto her head, catching it and for a moment staring at the grinning yellow moustache emblem printed onto what otherwise looked like a normal Pokéball.
And then yelped again as the sphere opened in her hand and promptly shot a beam of red light outwards, dissolving Shadow, the same lighting hand briefly flashing around him, too.
"Shadow!" Amy gasped, at the same time as Misty shouted "SNAG BALLS! Everyone, take back your Pokémon, those are Snag Balls-!"
"Did she say...Snack balls?" Knuckles stared at the humans, now looking somewhat unsettled. "What do they do?"
"No. Snag balls. Basically thief balls," Professor Oak supplied tersely as Robotnik's laughter was ringing in everyone's ears, people running, Pokémon attacking the airship, trainers either releasing new Pokémon to join the assault on the shields or trying to retrieve theirs and flee, "Basically modified Pokéballs able to catch Pokémon already coded to another trainer," he swallowed, "Sonic, maybe you should go back into-"
"The hell I will," Sonic gritted his teeth. "Amy, don't lose Shadow. And protect the kids. Maybe see if you can crack that thing open again. Tails, gimme a ride up. You can avoid getting us hit by those, right? Knuckles, you with us?"
"First sensible thing you've said all week," Knuckles nodded, cracking his namesakes. "I said you were mad as a bat to let yourself get captured. Let's go."
"Alright!" Sonic closed a fist, "Let's show Egghead the real power of teamw-"
"Only if you don't finish that sentence," Knuckles warned, but then Tails had already lifted off into the air, pulling Sonic with him and the echidna dutifully grabbed hold of Sonic's ankle, the trio lifting into the sky much like during their fight against Neo Metal Sonic. Within moments, they were rising above the chaos on the ground, consisting of screaming humans, fighting and panicking Pokémon and enough 'Snag Balls' to become a neck-breaking hazard on the stairs all by themselves.
"Tails! See if you can get us on top of the fortress, then Knuckles can punch us a way in!" Sonic shouted as they rose, the mayhem below them complete. He could see Ash holding his weakened Pikachu protectively in his arms, crouching with his back turned to the sky and trying to shield it from the cascading Snag Balls snatching Pokémon left, right and center, while Amy had called her hammer and was standing like a guardian valkyrie in front of him, swinging her weapon wildly to fend off the thieving spheres.
"Gotcha!" Tails shouted back, swerving wildly to not only evade the last of the balls raining down but also the attacks from the security Pokémon, bravely continuing to assault Robotnik's vessel and it's ever-more flickering power shields, even while more and more of them ended up captured, rocking Snag Balls falling to the ground in their place. There were even a few times when a Snag Ball bounced off Tails' face before then turning in the air toward Sonic, about to open up-
"Knux! Do something!"
- right before the open palm of Knuckles slapped the thing so hard out of the sky it was batted straight out of the stadium.
"Phew. That was a close one," Sonic nodded to the echidna below who gave a thumbs-up. Sonic swallowed. At least the Snag Balls only seemed to go for Mobians who already had a Trainer ID now hardcoded into them, somehow (as if that wasn't creepy enough) but at least that meant the only ones at risk were him and Shadow - or well. Only him now.
"Almost there!" Tails then called out, the trio having almost reached the Egg Catcher above them, and Sonic prepared to launch himself onto it, when the speakers crackled into life again.
"You know," Robotnik's voice boomed across the stadium almost conversationally, "It's almost inspiring how you keep launching your little pets at me just to have them ensnared by my traps. I wonder...if you'll continue to be so brave once I do this." There was another click-sound of a button followed by metal moving overhead.
"Tails!" Sonic called out as he saw a second set of cargo doors open in the fortress above them, "Watch-!"
"OHOHOHOH-!"
It was like the first time the other doors had opened, even more Pokéballs with Eggman's weirdo logo falling out - except these, Sonic noticed with the lazer-focus of the possibly-soon-digitally-entrapped as one fell past him, were colour-reversed - white was the top half with the logo, red the lower one - and the other main difference became apparent when it fell down onto a human man below, opened up and dissolved him into light. The woman who had just stood next to him immediately started screaming.
"What the-?" was all Knuckles managed before a second ball bounced off Sonic's shoulder this time, and then opened up and dissolved the echidna whole.
"No! Knux!" Tails screamed, but the reverse Pokéball (Botnikball?) was already tumbling down to the ground, getting lost in the hundreds upon hundreds spheres looking exactly the same still pouring out of the cargo hold.
"Tails! If those things can be dangerous to you guys, too, we need to get out from underneath-!" Sonic yelled, but of course, it was too late. Before he had even finished his sentence, there was a flash, a gasp, and then Tails' terrified eyes dissolved right in front of him, a Robotnik ball closing right where his little brother's head been a second ago, leaving Sonic now in abrupt freefall.
"Tails!" Sonic gasped in shock, trying to scramble for the sphere that had entrapped his younger brother, but it was absolutely futile as he was already helplessly plummeting through a blinding storm of Pokémon attacks and hundreds of Snag Balls almost looking exactly the same. The stadium below him was now filled with even more chaos and mayhem as the Robotnik-branded spheres were raining down everywhere, opening up and dissolving screaming and running humans into red light to be absorbed into the ball like their Pokémon, hands of children slipping out of their parents' grip, Pokémon without their trainers' leadership abruptly panicking before also being snatched up.
And then the last thing Sonic saw was one of the Snag Balls, falling through the air beside him, turning as if it had sensed his presence, opening up and then there was only a single red flash before everything was dark.
xxx
"Ouuuh…" Sonic groaned. He was lying on damp earth somewhere and he felt like he had been dis- and then re-assembled by a team of incompetent movers and they had forgotten a few screws here and there. Then he snapped back into consciousness with a gasp as he realized that this was actually approximately what had just happened.
"Wha-!"
"Finally awake?"
"Wha…?" Sonic repeated intelligently, head turning towards the familiar voice of Shadow - and then becoming aware of the utter and complete chaos surrounding them.
"PIGEOT!"
"Magnamite! Magnamite!"
"BEEEdrill!"
"Uh. What the hell?" Sonic asked, blinking at their surroundings. There were hundreds of Pokémon, some unconscious and some wide awake, either sitting around in confusion like him or running around panicking, and Sonic understood them very well, because looking around at their current environment, he wanted to panic, too.
There was...everything. Sonic glanced up and saw that above him was a familiar palm tree and he was lying on comfortingly everyday checkered earth underneath a blue sky, but a meter from him, the gras abruptly turned into a metal floor, Shadow standing on the edge of what looked like a room on a space station, windows behind him showing darkness and faintly glowing stars.
"I recommend not moving around too much. It just makes everything worse," Shadow commented grimly, standing with his arms crossed and with a glance indicating some of the Pokémon running, flapping (and in some cases splashing) around them in agitation, their innumerable respective environments of deserts, nightly graveyards, forests, open sea and who knew what else moving with them, rendering, recombining and intersecting in eye-hurting ways.
"This is insane. What kind of Glitch City place is this," Sonic managed, trying hard not to let the ever-changing world around him affect his clenching stomach.
"Well. Obviously this is the same sort of virtual storage reality the regular…'Pokéballs'," Shadow pronounced the word Sonic had explained to him with obvious distaste, "will transport you into. Only the ones the Doctor used must have stored us on some private server of his all together, hence the resulting chaos," he said, gesturing at their surroundings. "I take it you were captured after me, then."
"Yeah," Sonic nodded, slowly getting to his feet, trying to get adjusted to at least seventeen different horizons currently in his view. "We were just trying to get up to Egghead's airship when it happened."
Shadow nodded. "The others? I haven't seen anyone arrive but you."
"The…" Sonic frowned. "Eggman's Pokéballs - Misty called them Snag Balls - didn't seem to catch the others the same as us, at first. Only then Robuttnik released a different kind, some sort of colour-reversed ones and those started capturing the humans - and Tails. That was the last thing I saw before one of the original ones got me."
Shadow frowned at him, now looking slightly alarmed. "Did you just say Snack Balls?"
"Yeah, no," Sonic corrected, again briefly suppressing the horror encapsulated in that word combination, "Snag balls, Oak said they were basically Pokéballs for Pokémon thieves-" he snapped his fingers at his realization "-and that is why they captured only us and not the others! Because both of us officially belong to a trainer!"
"I belong to NOBODY," Shadow snarled immediately, red eyes flashing and teeth bared.
"Yeah, yeah, don't get your quills in a twist," Sonic waved him off, gears turning in his head. Pointing out Gary's trainer ID likely on Shadow's wrist would probably not help, except decrease the kid's survival chances later. "Fact is," Sonic said instead, "Eggman did not plan for us two to end up here with the other Pokémon. We were meant to be captured with the others and the humans, probably."
"And is that supposed to help us in any way?" Shadow asked, back to his usual frown.
"Dunno yet," Sonic said, finger tapping against his lips, "But I'm sure there's something we can use to our advantage. Maybe-"
"Pika pika!"
"What-?" Shadow's eyes narrowed, Chaos Energy immediately crackling in his hand as his head snapped to the side where the cry had come from, but Sonic held up a hand.
"No wait! I know that one, hey!"
"Pikachuuu!"
"Ouf!" Sonic commented as Pikachu took a running leap to end up in his arms, clutching the little mouse to his chest out of reflex. "Hey there, li'l guy. Guess Eggman captured you too, huh?" he said sympathetically, patting the little Pokémon's head.
"Pikaaaa!" Pikachu wailed, looking up at him, round black eyes wide with distress.
"Yeah, we'll manage to get all of us out of here, no worries," Sonic tried to soothe it. "That's Shadow, by the way. Shadow, meet Pikachu."
"Another one of your master's pets?" Shadow asked with one eye ridge raised. "Pity it's not a bird, might've been able to fly us out of this 'glitch city' place."
Sonic scowled over Pikachu's head at him. "Told you, Ash is not my 'master'. And I doubt you can get out of here that easily."
"Well, whatever he is, that pet of his is making this mishmash rendering situation worse if you hold it that close," Shadow said, gesturing at the ground around Sonic still holding Pikachu, where checkered, grassy earth was fighting a flickering battle against forest floor, palm trees blinking out of existence to be replaced with more temperate zone trees and vice versa the next second. Sonic had to admit even looking at it was already giving him a headache, too.
"Oh. Yeah. Hey, Pikachu, maybe we should keep a bit of distance-" Sonic said, nodding his head at the dizzying flickering going on around them, preparing to open his arms to let Pikachu down again.
"Pika?" Pikachu asked, blinking, then also looked around at the area immediately surrounding them. "Pikapi."
"Took the words right outta my mouth," Sonic commented. "Now, how about you hop down and then pretend to be Knuckles, so no coming closer than six feet unless-"
"Pika!" Pikachu interrupted, and almost looked like it was rolling its eyes (though them being all black it was hard to tell), but then shifted a bit in Sonic's hold, for a moment intently studying the area behind him, palm trees and a piece of a loop-de-loop, before it nodded. "Pika-chu." Then it closed its eyes looking like it was concentrating hard.
"This is the worst game of charades I have ever been part of," Shadow commented, "What-?"
"Hey, look!" Sonic exclaimed, because soon after the Pokémon had closed its eyes, the flickering beneath his feet...had stopped. And then the checkered earth started expanding.
"Huh," Shadow commented as within a few more seconds, what had previously been Pikachu's forest area had now also become part of Sonic's Green Hill Zone, now twice as large.
"Pika! Pikapi?" Pikachu asked cheerfully as soon as it opened its eyes again, tilting its head and now looking quite pleased with itself.
"...right. Guess someone has some experience with Pokéball environments, huh?" Sonic said, eye ridges raised.
"Chuuu," Pikachu commented, very satisfied.
"So we can manipulate our surroundings," Shadow said, eyes narrowed. "At least, to the extent that we can choose one of the already existing backgrounds." He let his gaze rove over the Pokémon zoo around them. "I suppose none of those creatures live in a natural habitat of exit doors."
"No," Sonic agreed. "But I think I have an idea."
"This does not fill me with confidence."
"Hush." Sonic waved him off. "But this is exactly what I meant. Betcha Eggman didn't expect the two of us to end up in here. This was meant strictly for Pokémon and Pokémon backgrounds."
"Right. And why will that help us?"
"'cause I'm betting wherever the humans and the others went, they can't work with their surroundings like this. And I don't think the Pokémon are stupid, exactly, maybe, like...somewhere around Chao intelligence?" Sonic said, even while Pikachu in his arms took that as a cue to twitch and look at him kind of mutinously. "Although they seem to understand a lot of what you say," Sonic admitted. "But I have a feeling any meta..metathingamajiggy thinking is beyond them."
Shadow stared at him, also wearing the special kind of expression people rather often made when Sonic tried to convey a plan to them. "You mean…metaphysical?"
"Yeah. That one," Sonic said, snapping his fingers. "Guess that's what happens when you've got an entire world deprived of the Matrix movies, nobody's got any plan what to do in case of evil virtual environment." He shrugged. "So. Anyway, We're trapped in a computer world, so to get out we obviously need something like a control terminal."
"A control terminal," Shadow said. "Where are we supposed to find one of those in this chaos?"
"Well," Sonic replied, tone slowly gaining more confidence as he grinned, "That right behind you is the ARK, isn't it?"
"...yes," Shadow said, slowly, before eyes abruptly widened and he added, "No. You mean, we need to-"
"Oh yeah," With the hand that wasn't holding Pikachu, Sonic extended one pointy index finger triumphantly to the sky. "We need to find the computer room!"
For some reason, Shadow did not at all react to that idea with much enthusiasm.
To be continued...
Well well well, what a predicament our heroes find themselves in! I hope you enjoyed the chapter and as always, would love to hear all about your fav moments, lines or anything else, if you read, please review! :D