Author's Note: One step closer for the two Sonics to meet each other! Now we arrive in a certain forest of Mushrooms. Also, this chapter has a spoiler from "Sonic and the Werehog" story about a certain OC character, but I won't give out too much of a detail, so don't worry.
To gregorian 12: Um, actually, Scrouge is still a villain even here. But you'll see how this story will continue on and I already have an idea on how it will end. But I don't want to give out anymore spoilers, so, let's continue onward!
I do not own Sonic The Hedgehog. All rights belong to Sega. I only own the OCs.
Chapter 5: Mushrooms and Bamboo.
When Young Sonic emerged from the portal, he hadn't expected to be nowhere near the place where he'd followed Metal Sonic. Instead he found himself near another place, except this time it was unfamiliar; Like the previous places he visited to find the Chaos Emeralds, this place looked like a forest with mushrooms, and lots of things that were new to him. The eleven year old hedgehog blinked in confusion and glanced around his surroundings.
"Hey...Where'd the Casino City go?" The young blue hedgehog muttered, bewildered, before softly gasping in worry. "Uh-oh...I hope it hasn't just disappeared. Could Ro-butt-nik be behind it? Or was that tall green hedgehog?"
He could get his mind off of what that guy, Scourge, had said. Young Sonic had thought it was strange as it was to have another version of him, older and slightly different in appearance, around here. What concerned him the most was that the green hedgehog guy seemed to be working for Robotnik and knew where he was but wouldn't say anything. Not to mention that the young blue hedgehog felt discouraged right now with what his new enemy had said.
"And you call yourself a hero? You look more like a kid with the same but weaker abilities as mine who likes to play around pretending to be a hot-shot."
Even though Young Sonic had managed to save the world twice, if not many times that seemed numerous that he couldn't keep track, memories of the monster kidnapping him and Young Tails, separating the two from each other and turning both the latter and even Young Amy, who was also kidnapped, into statues and the only way to solve this is to find the Chaos Emeralds, lingered and made his heart sink.
"Maybe this whole thing is all my fault. What if that guy was Ro-butt-nik's fan and decided to join up to get revenge on me? But...where did that monster come from? I don't understand." The young blue hedgehog muttered, rubbing his arms as the burden of being the hero of Alternate-Mobius suddenly felt so heavy like he was being crushed by Robotnik's giant killer robots. Worse part is, he was still just a kid. For Chaos sake, Young Sonic is only eleven years old!
Then, realizing what he was thinking as memories his battles against the evil scientist flooded back; he remembered why he chose to go up against despite how young he was.
"No! I won't give up! I'm the only one fast enough to have stopped him, and if I hadn't, then Mobius would've been taken over by now. So what if I'm just a kid? Nobody else was willing to go up against him because of his robots, but I managed to beaten them mostly on my own. I've beaten that fat loser before, I can do it again." Young Sonic scolded and reminded himself.
He then glared up at the sky and shouted, "Ya' hear that, Ro-butt-nik!? You can throw whatever you've got at me, but that won't stop me from defeating you, or your green creep of a fan or even that giant monster you found!"
Too bad the young blue hedgehog's bravado was ruined and crushed when all of the sudden he heard rapid footsteps coming straight towards his direction. Gulping and hoping that it was his older, alternate self and not who he thought it was, he nervously looked towards the direction and sweat dropped in horror, flinching as he saw the very person he was afraid of.
"SONNNNNIIIIIIC!"
"Oh, no...!" Young Sonic muttered, his eyes wide in panic as Young Amy came straight towards him in unbelievable speed that was nowhere near as fast as his, but pretty fast enough. "I'm outta here!"
But before he could even do that, he found himself trapped within the young pink hedgehog's arms as she hugged him very tightly, and the young blue hedgehog struggled to free himself.
"I've been so worried, my sweet and brave Sonic the Hedgehog!" Young Amy cried, happily holding her 'boyfriend' far too tightly in his arms, while Young Tails arrived seconds later as the youngest of the trio looked on, feeling sorry for his adoptive older brother.
"H-hey! Let me go!" Young Sonic repeatedly tried to escape. "Amy, this is serious, here! We're in bigger trouble!"
"What's wrong?" Young Tails asked, curiously despite that he wanted to help out the young blue hedgehog out of this mess. Fortunately, the hero of Alternate-Mobius finally managed to push his self-proclaimed girlfriend off him and sighed in relief.
Young Sonic turned to his adoptive little brother and explained, "Well, after I've turned Metal Sonic into a pile of junk heap, a guy came up to me."
"Who is it?" Young Amy asked, and she was about to blurt out on asking if her 'boyfriend' had seen his older, alternate self yet, or even someone else her and Young Tails' older, alternate selves knew.
"A tall green hedgehog that looks kinda like me, but older. His name is Scourge, and he knows where Buttnik is. But that creep wouldn't tell me where, and I got a bad feeling about that guy." The young blue hedgehog explained, before sighing, scratching his head. "Though I have to admit, I'm not even sure if Ro-butt-nik is behind all of this now."
"Well, he's gotta be. Who else would be behind in all of those robots?" Young Tails pointed out.
Young Sonic folded his arms, shrugging. "Good point. Well, I guess the only way to find out is to keep going. I'm gonna go check out that place over there. Be right back. But if you see that green hedgehog guy, be careful."
"Um, actually, Sonic, there's something you really-" The young two-tailed fox began, but by that time the young blue hedgehog already dashed off towards his next destination. "-need to know..."
"Do you think he knows about there being another Sonic?" The eight year old hedgehog asked Young Tails, worriedly. "I'm so confused."
He just shrugged, "To tell the truth, I don't think even the other Sonic knows that there are two of three of us either. But I think I have a theory on what's going on. Gotta keep looking for more clues, though."
Just then, a cobalt blue blur just sped past the two young Alternate-Mobians who cried out in alarm, before they stared at it with wide eyes of disbelief. Almost immediately, Young Tails and Young Amy managed to get a small glimpse of what, or rather, who it was.
"...Sonic!?" They exclaimed simultaneously.
By the time Young Sonic reached his destination, he got a good look at the place and found that unlike Green Hill Zone, the Chemical Plant and even the Casino City, he didn't recognize it all. The forest was new to him, and above it was some kind of a floating island with some sort of ruins on it. Both were all white and lifeless.
"Well, this is new. A floating island? Pretty cool." The young blue hedgehog muttered, and while it was very unusual, the fact that there was indeed a floating island, which he didn't know that both the forest and the island were known as the Mushroom Hill Zone and Angel Island, was amazing to him and it made him very eager to see what it's like. "I can't wait to explore this place!"
Though before he made to enter, Young Sonic also noticed that there was another person frozen in white like a statue standing next to the path to the entrance. Yet he didn't recognize this Mobian, either. As he got a closer look, he had no idea that this was Knuckles the Echidna from Sonic's world, and...the way how he was posed made him raise an eyebrow.
"Who's this guy? Never seen him before." The eleven year old wondered, thinking deeply as he folded his arms. "Hmmm...He must be one of the other Sonic's friends Tikal talked about. But what kind of Mobian is he?"
Deciding that maybe there was something he could do in helping out this guy, Young Sonic then nodded to himself and dashed off right into the entrance to continue his search for the Chaos Emeralds.
Though seconds after the young blue hedgehog vanished, Sonic arrived and skid a stop when he got a good look at the place, gasping softly in shock and disbelief. He knew exactly what these places were and while it had been a long time since he went to the Mushroom Hill, he instantly recognized Angel Island.
"Oh man...Not Angel Island too!" The blue hedgehog softly exclaimed, before sighing as his guilt for what was happening continued to rise. "Gotta fix this up quick and then find Eggman. Knuckles is gonna kill me when he finds out how much I really messed up this time."
Speaking of his Echidna friend, when Sonic noticed a figure posing awkwardly at the corner of his eye, seeing that it was Knuckles himself also frozen like a statue. The way how the Guardian of the Master Emerald looked was utterly ridiculous; his right leg was up in the air along with his left arm, his right arm looked like he tried to grab something but failed, and his face...he looked like how he would react whenever he saw a ghost. Crossed wide-eyed, mouth open with a freaked out pose, as though he was screaming like a girl.
Despite himself, Sonic couldn't help it; he laughed.
"HA HA HA HA HA!" The blue hedgehog laughed hysterically, one hand one his stomach, the other on his forehead. "Oh, geez! I-I wish I h-had a camera! That'd be great to see his reaction in the scrapbook!"
If Knuckles hadn't been frozen like this, Sonic would've been a dead hedgehog on the spot. Or at least a slightly crippled one, if the red echidna ever managed to catch the fastest thing alive. After a few minutes, the cobalt hero forced himself to stop and wheezed, wiping away a tear of laughter to try and focus on his task.
"Don't worry, Knux. You'll be back to normal soon." Sonic promised, carefully patting his old time friend and rival on the shoulder a smile. He would've reeturned the echidna back to normal if he had the red Sol Emerald, but since he'd given it and the first one he found to Silver before he encountered Scourge, the blue hedgehog would have to find the one located in this place. He just hoped that he wouldn't have to run into the evil green hedgehog again anytime soon.
Still, the undeniable guilt of how this mess started still hanged heavily inside his chest and the sixteen year old hedgehog could only hope that everybody would forgive him. They had went through all the trouble of setting up his surprise birthday party which started out great, because it made him so happy, and then his reckless actions three months ago had allowed Eggman, Scourge and that monster to go and ruin it all.
"Gotta focus. I can't think about that right now." The blue hedgehog shook his head, chastising himself. His birthday will now have to wait. Everybody counted on him, and while the guilt inside him was worse than what he had fought against for two months during the whole Dark Gaia incident, because unlike back then, he was the cause for this to happen, he couldn't allow himself to be swallowed up by it.
He didn't want to go through the trouble of facing his inner conflicts again. Thinking about this made him gulp as memories of that mental struggle began to resurface, and the young hero looked around nervously in case he'd begin to hallucinate again. While he had gotten over his fears of the Werehog, Sonic didn't want a repeat of what happened three months ago.
"Okay, snap out of it." He scolded himself quickly, despite his heart hanging heavily. "This is nothing to do with what happened five months ago. I'm not gonna hallucinate. The Werehog's gone."
Once he composed himself, and nodded, determined to atone for his biggest mistake, Sonic dashed off into the portal of Mushroom Hill to find the Sol Emerald that ended up there or up in Angel Island.
"WHOA!" Young Sonic breathed as he ran through a beautiful green forest of Mushroom Hill, and the name certainly meant it, because there were tons of mushrooms, some were blue, some were huge, big enough for him to bounce onto. "Man, I wish Tails was here. This place is awesome!"
The young blue hedgehog dashed through his new surroundings when he came across more badniks, except these were different which made him skid to a stop; what he didn't know was that these were shaped like giant dragonflies, known as, well, a Dragonfly like normal real ones, two more that were smaller and looked butterflies, and were known as butterdriods, and one that looked like a giant hopping mushroom.
Seeing this charge at him made the eleven year old roll his eyes. "Ro-butt-nik never runs out of ideas for his toys, does he?" He asked himself, exasperated.
One of the Dragonflies flew straight towards him first, but being the fastest thing alive, Young Sonic smirked before he jumped high dodging it before Spin Dashing into it from above, and jumped onto it's wrecked form to force it onto the ground faster than it should as it exploded. He then Spin Jumped into the Butterdroids with a couple of hits each and bounced on top of the mushroom robot, the Mushmeanie, causing it's top to come out, revealing a badnik instead with a spring, so he quickly attacked it before it was out of commission.
"Ha! New ideas or not, they're all just junk heaps." Young Sonic chuckled, before racing off to continue his journey through this new place-at least to him-to find the Chaos Emerald.
He passed by more mushrooms until he came across a large on which seemed to be acting like a giant step towards a tall ledge, though it was far too short to reach to the very top. Wondering if he could use it to leap up, the young blue hedgehog jumped and hopped onto it, where it bounced him really high to the cliff. Cheering and whooping in excitement, the eleven year old landed safely on the ledge before racing quickly onward.
"Cool! All that giant fungy sure is bouncy!" The young blue hedgehog remarked jokingly, before cringing as he realized what a terrible pun that was. "Ugh. That was a lame joke."
Young Sonic made his way through more badnik robots and bounced onto one smaller giant mushroom to another to reach another ledge and continued on running, wishing that he could admire the scenery of the magnificent lush green forest and tons of mushrooms. Wondering where he was going, he followed his instincts as he always did in his previous adventures. Besides, it's always fun to explore new places anyway. Eventually leaping onto another giant mushroom without bouncing upward, the eleven year old stood there and scanned around to figure where to go next.
"Hmm...Okay, if I were a Chaos Emerald in an unfamiliar place, where would I be?" Young Sonic wondered aloud.
As he glanced around, something in the air ahead of him caught his attention. Gazing more closely, the young blue hedgehog's eyes widened at the sight of an extremely familiar hovercraft that some would think looked like a mini UFO, but a bit more egg-shaped. Sort of. But it was the occupant inside what he knew was the Egg Mobile was a familiar egg-shaped round fat man wearing a red jacket with a yellow collar, black leather pants, white gloves...and how could he not recognize the ugly mustache, purple sunglasses and bald head with a pair of goggles.
It was Dr. Ivo Robotnik, and he was heading further into the forest, seemingly unaware of the young hero's presence.
"Robotnik! I knew he was behind this! Must be after the Chaos Emerald in this place. Gotta stop him!" Young Sonic grunted angrily, and immediately jumped off the mushroom before giving chase to stop the evil scientist before he could get the Chaos Emerald first.
The eleven year old speedster quickly picked up the pace as fast as he could after his enemy, knowing that the evil man was behind this new situation and no matter how long it took, he was going to get to the bottom of this. The young hedgehog Spin Dashed into more of the scientist's robots and used more giant mushrooms to help him out with ledges that were far too high even for him to reach. He dodged the bushes and passed by trees when he found that he was already getting closer to Robotnik who was still oblivious of Young Sonic behind him.
But as he was about to reach him, there was a distortion all around him, with tale-signs of darkness all around in odd places and slithering around like tentacles, before it spread across the area and everything except for the young blue hedgehog and Robotnik who seemed to also notice. The young hero and the evil villain watched in shock and confusion, the area suddenly went through a strange transformation, from a Mushroom Hill within a lush green forest into a bamboo jungle that had towering trees and giant leaves with vines that looked like springs and seemed to do the same as the giant mushrooms.
"Huh!? What's goin' on!? What happened to the forest?" Young Sonic exclaimed, bewildered at the very unusual phenomenon, which made him distraced enough to accidentally smack into a tree branch that was so low that the young blue hedgehog was flung back slightly backwards, hitting the ground hard.
"Omph! Ow!" He cried out, wincing at the slight soreness on his chest before groaning. Glaring up at the branch, Young Sonic then saw Robotnik fly further away, and immediately leaped to his feet before racing off again, deciding to ignore what just happened and focus on stopping the mad doctor.
While the hero of Alternate-Mobius was chasing after him, Robotnik took his time to marvel the events that had just occurred before him, utterly amazed by the development to the point of chuckling himself evilly.
"It seems that green hedgehog is right. Everything is beginning to merge. I should be thanking him for giving me such an opportunity in learning of ways of getting rid of that little blue rodent." Robotnik said to himself.
Unknowingly to him, Young Sonic had heard everything that was said because he was close enough now to hear what he said, and it made his blood boil. So Scourge is working for the evil man, and it seems that the evil green hedgehog knows more than he said.
"So that creep Scourge is behind this too...! And if anybody's gonna be that dumb in trying out something that shouldn't be played with and getting this idea from him, it's Buttnik!" The young blue hedgehog whispered to himself, now furious and wanting more answers. While he had no idea what this 'merge' is about, he had a feeling that it's something to do with what's going on.
When Robotnik hovered higher towards a giant log covered in fern and moss, Young Sonic leaped from one giant leaf that catapulted him to another to catch up as he didn't think running on soft, slippery moss on a log that was leaned against a cliff to the higher parts of this Bamboo Jungle would be such a good idea, but both were unaware of a pair of yellow eyes gleaming from within the thickness of trees spying on them.
Once the eleven year old speedster leaped high in the air right behind his enemy, he Spin Dashed right into the back of the Egg Mobile, hitting the hovercraft and not only made a huge hole in it, but also causing it to be forced and flown forwards out of control.
"Wha-WAH!" The evil scientist cried out in alarm as he stumbled forward and face-planted into the glass window of the hatch, the vessel tumbling and crashing onto the ground before coming to a stop, surprisingly right way up. During the process Robotnik ended up being tumbled around and hitting both the hatch and the floor until he ended up upside down in his seat.
"Ow...WHO DID THAT!?" Robotnik demanded after recovering and readjusted himself into his seat, heaving a lovely bump on his head.
"Who do you think, Ro-butt-nik?"
Flinching at that horrid taunt of his name, the evil scientist looked over his shoulder and found the very young blue hedgehog he'd been thinking of, and who was now standing on the ground behind him in a few paces away, his arms folded to his chest with a smirk on his face.
"Only just one week and already you're up to your old tricks again. That's gotta be a new record for ya', fathead." Young Sonic sarcastically remarked.
"SONIC!?" Robotnik exclaimed in shock and disbelief, before growling angrily upon seeing his enemy who was out attempting to save the world again. "Not you again!"
"Aw, and I here I thought you were happy to see me." The young blue hedgehog mocked a pout. "I'm hurt, Buttnik."
"It's Robotnik, you irritating little hedgehog! R-O-B-O-T-N-I-K! Doesn't that compute in that feeble little mind of yours!?" The evil man growled, getting more and more irritated.
Young Sonic's smirk faded into an angry frown as he responded more seriously, ignoring the correcting. "At least I'm not stupid enough to go do things that shouldn't be done."
"You're a child! Normal children shouldn't be going after people like me!"
"Well, in case you forgot, I'm not normal! And what I'm doing is much better than what you try to do! You try to use the Chaos Emeralds to take over the entire planet, twice in a row, I might add, which includes how you tried to use Little Planet so that makes it three times! Now you've teamed with this Scourge guy and somehow found this giant monster that kidnapped me and my best friend into this white place! What's going on around here!?" The young blue hero argued.
"What did you hear, and when did you meet Scourge?" Robotnik questioned darkly.
"A little while ago, after I beaten Metal Sonic. He said that he was looking for another 'guest' but wouldn't tell me much of anything. To answer your first question, I heard what you said; something about him knowing what's happening. What's with this merging stuff, other than trying to get rid of me?" Young Sonic replied.
The evil doctor glared furiously at him, hissing. "You should know better than to mind other people's businesses, hedgehog."
"The fate of Mobius IS my business, and I won't let you or Scourge or that giant monster get away with it, Ro-butt-nik!"
"IT'S ROBOTNIK!" Robotnik screamed angrily. So loud that it echoed in most parts of the jungle through miles and miles.
An awkward moment of silence.
Young Sonic scratched his ear, just a little bit effected by the exclaim. "Man, ya' couldn't screech any louder? I think my ears are still ringing a little."
"You won't be defeating me this time, Sonic! Because you will not be going any further on your journey once I'm finished with you!" The evil scientist declared.
"*Yawn* Are you done talking to yourself yet?" The young blue hedgehog fake yawned. "I'm falling asleep here."
"Then let's see who gets the Chaos Emerald first! Assuming if you survive long enough." Robot challenged evilly, managing to reposition his Egg Mobile back into function as it began to hover once again with Young Sonic, glaring at him, determined to stop the evil doctor and get to the Chaos Emerald first.
However, there was a loud sound of something hissing right behind the young blue hedgehog who, almost freezing on the spot, looked over his shoulder while Robotnik, also confused, looked up to see what was making that noise. To their shock and no small amount of horror, was a giant Chameleon-like Dragon that was about 90 foot tall, with long whiskers, emerald green in colour that looked as though it could camouflage itself within the bamboo and trees, clawed like hands with scales sticking up on it's back trailing down to the tip of it's long tail, with sharp teeth.
From the looks of it, neither Young Sonic or Dr. Robotnik had ever seen this dragon before, or even think such a thing would even exist.
"AAAAAAHHHHH!" The hero and villain both screamed.
"A DRAGON!?" Robotnik screeched in disbelief, while thankful to be flying in his aircraft, before realization hit him and snickered evilly. This should work to his advantage.
"Whoa! I thought these things were fiction!" Young Sonic exclaimed, with a sweat drop as he felt his heart pound furiously while trying not to let fear get to him even though, as much as hated to admit it even to himself, he was terrified.
"Well, it looks like you have another problem in your hands, Sonic. While you're busy, I'm going to get that Chaos Emerald first! Oh ho ho ho ho ho! Farewell forever, hedgehog!" The evil scientist declared, quickly taking his leave.
"Wait! Robotnik!" The young blue hedgehog cried out as he saw this, and was about to go after him when the Dragon made it's first move, by simply and surprisingly quickly clasp him before slowly lifting him off the ground, making the young hero scream. "AAAHHHH!"
The Dragon began to draw it's captured prey towards it's face while Young Sonic tried to wriggle and pull himself free despite that the grip on him was too tight and too strong. He quickly began to panic and chastised himself for not running immediately.
"Let me go!" He shouted, then gasped in terror as he saw that the giant monster was directing him towards it's mouth which opened up wide, realizing that he was about to get eaten. Frightened as he knew right there and then he couldn't get out of this on his own, he pleaded while trying to reason with it. "W-wait, wait! You don't wanna eat me! I'm all skin and fur, and my quills are too sharp! I taste awful!"
Unfortunately, it fell into deaf ears as he was slowly but still too quickly for his liking towards the opened jaws. Young Sonic knew then and there that this was it; it was the end of him, and what made it worse was that Robotnik used this to his advantage and now the eleven year old will never be able to save Mobius this time, or ever again. He'll never see his friends again. Mobius was lost, and so was it's freedom. Still, despite that there was no one else around, he came to desperate measures.
That was to scream and hope that someone would come to his rescue.
"HELP ME!"
Meanwhile, Sonic was going through the same path unknowingly as his younger, alternate-self and easily Spin Dashed into a Dragonfly before Homing Attacked both two Butterdroids and three Mushmeanies before landing in style and raced onward to find the Sol Emerald. He jumped and bounced onto the giant mushrooms to each to higher places even though he could've easily used boost to help since he was capable of doing so if he wanted to.
"I can't believe I almost forgot about this place since it's been so long. But it feels like I'm going through the time when I first met Knuckles all over again." The cobalt hedgehog thought to himself, getting that same feeling as he felt in Green Hill, Chemical Plant and the Casino Night. He still had no idea what was going on and while it seemed like it was getting a bit closer to the truth, it still felt so far away.
As he did, Sonic couldn't stop thinking about the revelation of Eggman's survival, or how his enemy was supposed to have died and yet the blue hedgehog's actions in saving himself from suffering the same fate as the evil scientist has accidentally saved the man's life and sent him to where he found that monster, and met with Scourge. The young hero was going to be chastising himself for a very long time over this.
"So much for getting back to normal." Sonic sighed, thinking how it took him two months to get over the whole guilt trip of what happened to Mobius five months ago, and how it affected him badly. Now that felt like compared to what he was going through at the moment. Even if he did fix things up, the sixteen year old knew that he couldn't get over this quickly.
Lost in his musings, and unaware that he was nearing where his younger, alternate-self and Robotnik were, the blue hedgehog was quickly brought out of his thoughts as the same distortion as what happened back in Casino Night began happening again, this time transforming Mushroom Hill into another unfamiliar area; this time it was a Bamboo Jungle with giant leaves replacing the giant mushrooms as springs to get to higher places.
"Again? How is this happening?" The blue speedster exclaimed in disbelief as he ran, glancing all around him as he now raced through the unfamiliar territory. His hunch that, combined with Scourge using the Sol Emeralds for whatever reason, Eggman being found and rescued, and the giant monster, this was done by all three of them and something extremely dangerous was going on.
As he was searching for a way out of this place and back into Mushroom Hill or at least to Angel Island, Sonic was unaware of a pair of yellow eyes gleaming from his left within the bamboo, leering at him and despite the blue hedgehog being fast, the being within the thickness gave a soft, hungry growl.
Suddenly, while taking a slightly different path as he suddenly had a bad vibe run through his body and shook his quills, a faint sound of a loud yell made him startled and skid to a stop.
"IT'S ROBOTNIK!" The voice that sounded vaguely familiar yelled out, echoing the last word three times before finally fading. Sonic's eyes widened in shock and yet confusion. But from where he was, while it sounded familiar, it was still too far for him to register on who it was.
"Whoa. Whoever it was that screamed out Eggman's old man sure didn't sound very happy. But...does that mean that he's really here?" The blue hedgehog muttered, which only raised his guilt but also determination to fix this made he alone had caused even more. Narrowing his eyes, he knew what he had to do. "Only one way to find out."
Before he could move on, there was a loud stomping noise and something huge hissing right behind him, or pretty close to coming up being right behind him that made Sonic flinch, looking over his shoulder and yelped in fright with a sweat drop, as a towering giant dragon that was about at least 90 foot tall. It was ruby red in colour, with tiny wings on it's back, claw like hands, a slimy long tongue that made it seem hard on whether it was a dragon or a giant mutant lizard, and from the way it was gazing at him and it's mouth was watering, it was hungry for flesh and blood.
Which the only decent meal around here was Sonic the Hedgehog.
"Whuh-oh! Guess this big guy hasn't had lunch yet, huh?" He muttered to himself in fear. As much as he could fight against this thing, the blue hedgehog had no idea how far away Eggman was and if he gotten the Sol Emerald first, that wasn't good news as not only it was his only hope in restoring Knuckles...but Sonic would be stuck here for the rest of his life.
Which would be cut short if the dragon eats him, and then his sixteenth birthday would be his last. That thought made the teenager gulp in fear, so he did the one thing he was good at if he wanted to set things right; run.
"Sorry, big guy, but you won't be having this hedgehog for a snack. See ya!" Sonic quickly waved and then ran as quickly as he could, yet the dragon, seeing him run off in high speed, quickly gave chase to capture it's prey. The blue hedgehog ran and dodged many obstacles and sprung himself onto a leaf which catapulted him onto a higher ledge before speeding off again.
He was shocked when the Dragon/Lizard climbed it's way up, hissing before it stuck out it's tongue to capture him. Sonic ran faster and jumped a step ahead while he still ran, screaming when it nearly swiped at him before hurrying onward. He had to lose this thing fast or else he was reptile food. The cobalt hero looked for ways to get out of this mess when he saw the cliff wall in front of him. It was pretty high, but being skilled with athlete-like abilities, he can manage. So he glanced over his shoulder to the giant dragon-lizard thing and glared at it, before he went into full supersonic speed of sound even as the monster was pretty fast itself.
Sonic then ran up the wall even as it some how flew just a couple of inches off the ground to become faster in order to catch him. It opened it's mouth wide to engulf the blue hedgehog whole, it's tongue sticking out to catch him once more. His heart pounded in his chest and willed himself to go faster, beginning to really panic. Just when he thought for a split second that he was going to be eaten, the hero of Mobius narrowly avoided the giant tongue which struck and became stuck in the wall, and while he grabbed hold of a bamboo that was sticking out(how it was there, he had no idea) and pulled himself to safety, flipping high before somersaulting over and landed just ten feet safely away from the edge of the cliff and on top of the higher level.
The dragon/lizard on the other hand ended up crashing face first into the wall, and rock crumbled from the wall, hitting the giant beast on the head and knocked it out cold.
Panting from the close call, Sonic turned to what happened and, having heard the impact and while he felt a little bit sorry for the giant beast who was just hungry, he whistled, impressed and proud of himself for having escaped. "Yep. I still got it."
"HELP ME!"
Gasping in alarm as he heard a strangely very familiar voice call out for help, Sonic glanced to his right and his eyes widened when he saw another giant dragon, an emerald green one through the slight thickness of the trees, look down hungrily at it's prey and it hadn't taken the blue hedgehog long to figure out that that said prey was someone that somehow caught caught in this place and was now about to get eaten.
"Oh no! Somebody's in trouble! Gotta save them!" The blue hedgehog exclaimed worriedly, and without second thought or hesitation and forgetting about his own ordeal of almost being eaten himself, he dashed off into the direction to save whoever it was that needed his help.
"Help me! Help me! Somebody get me outta of this thing!" Young Sonic screamed out frantically, still trying to pull himself free as he was getting dangerously closer towards the dragon's mouth. "I'm about to get eaten by a giant dragon!"
Increasingly becoming more and more frightened, desperate and trying to get out of the clawed hand, the young blue hedgehog soon realized that help wasn't coming and he was doomed. He gasped in horror as he was almost at the giant horrifying mouth, being able to see the back of the gross throat.
"I'm done for!" The young blue hedgehog exclaimed, tears beginning to leak at the crushing defeat. Robotnik has won. It was all over for not just for young Sonic the Hedgehog, but Mobius was soon to be under the horrible man's rule. All of his friends, Tails, Amy, everyone...they would soon become the evil scientist's slaves. Unwilling to see his demise lay out before him, the eleven year old closed his eyes shut and braced himself as he began to cry.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" He screamed as he was just about to be gobbled up.
Completely unaware that his older, alternate self came to the seen and, still not getting the full look at the younger Sonic, older Sonic came through just in time to see what, from where he was, was about to happen, appeared to be a young hedgehog five years younger than him, crying and frightened, yet accepting his fate to be eaten by the monster that was about to plop the poor child into it's mouth. It made the cobalt hedgehog's blood boil.
"HEY! Let him go!" Sonic shouted, quickly Homing Attacked the dragon on it's side which seemed to be soft in the skin because shiny golden cloud of dust instead of blood spilled out the moment his sharpened quills made impact and quickly went deep into it.
The dragon roared in agony that it leaned back while inadvertently releasing it's prey and flung the younger Sonic into the air, a good ten feet away. The young blue hedgehog screamed before he, opening his eyes and realizing that he was still alive, quickly grabbed hold of a vine and swung before sliding down and safely landed on the ground. Panting at the close call, the hero of Alternate-Mobius looked to see who had come to his rescue at the last second; a blue blur ball continued his attack before landing bravely in front of the dragon, his back turned to the younger Mobian as his eyes widened in disbelief.
It was him; the older Sonic the Hedgehog. Who would've thought that Young Sonic's older, alternate self had saved his life?
Sonic, still unaware that his younger, alternate self was behind him and knew that he couldn't look until he found the kid again later to make sure that he was okay, quickly did what he knew would benefit the child's safety. "Don't worry, kid. Leave this thing to me! You get to safety, fast! Go!"
Despite that he wanted to help once he saw that the dragon was very weak, not only his older self's tone left no room for argument but he wanted to get to the Chaos Emerald before Robotnik did. Young Sonic nodded and hoped that Sonic would be alright even though they were both the same, before turning and ran off in high speed to catch up to the evil doctor.
But not before calling out quickly and unknowingly blurting out, "Thanks, Sonic!"
Once he was certain that the kid was alright despite that he was stunned that the younger hedgehog knew his name, Sonic focused his attention to the giant dragon what bled dust and it glared at him for having saved it's prey and decided that the cobalt hedgehog would be a nice, delicious replacement as well as eating him for revenge.
"Yo, Lizard Breath! It ain't cool to kidnap and try to eat little kids." The hero of Mobius grunted with a taunt, before adding with a smirk. "How 'bout you pick somebody that's more substantial and giving you a good exercise, like me?"
The Dragon was furious over the taunt, yet it was taking up the teenage hedgehog's offer in eating him. It roared and lunged forward with it's mouth open to engulf him. But the sixteen year old was faster and leaped out of the way, and it ended up chomping onto the ground and getting it's snout buried and stuck. Sonic used this to his advantage by Spin Dashing into it's face, hitting it's left eye. While he didn't like hurting other creatures, he didn't like the idea of being eaten or having anyone else get eaten by giant supposedly mythical creatures either.
'Heh, if Kaiser was still alive, I bet he'd have a field day seeing this dragon.' Sonic thought to himself, thinking about the Myth Hunter who tried to kill Sun the Hedgehog in the latter's Werehog form, continuously believing his friend was a Werewolf, and sell both him and Chip for money, which eventually lead to the evil Cheetah's untimely demise.
Roaring a screech of pain, the Dragon unconsciously pulled it's snout out of the ground and held a claw to it's now gone eye while the blue hedgehog landed safely, keeping his distance before jumping back when the Dragon, now rendered to one eye and utterly furious, turned it's attention to him and swiped at him with it's tail. The teenage hero ran and dodged with ease and even kicked and punched at the tail as hard as possible. The tail attempted to crush and pin him onto the ground, but Sonic easily avoided this and ran behind the beast who couldn't see due to not only being half blinded, but also that the blue blur was too fast for it.
Sonic then used a combination of boost before he Spin Dashed down onto the Dragon's back and careful not to impale himself with the spikes on it's back, but was shocked that it was hard that he barely made a dent in it. Being flown back as he cried out in alarm, the blue hedgehog attempted to reposition himself and managed to do so when the Dragon looked over it's shoulder with it's right eye and grinned, before turning around, stood on it's hind legs and made to grab him. Gasping in alarm, he thought quickly before Spin Dashing again, narrowly avoiding both hands and while he ended up missing it's head and chest, he did succeed in hitting it's stomach which seemed to be the weakest part because the dragon was quickly getting weaker.
The Dragon roared in pain again, stumbling and began to fall forward, while the blue speedster leaped away and glared hard.
However, there was something much more horrifying than what he just did.
As the Dragon placed it's hand over it's newly made wound onto the stomach the blue hedgehog then heard something, or rather, someone deep inside the stomach; someone, somebody young, maybe close to the same age as Tails, began to weakly cry out from within. It made the blue hedgehog shocked as he softly gasped.
"H-help me...Help m-me..." The young voice, sounding like a boy, weakly pleaded. It was faint, but still clear enough for the teenage hero to hear.
Sonic couldn't believe that someone who the Dragon had eaten could still be alive from inside the stomach, but seeing that whoever it was might not last much longer and only the beast's back was as hard that even he couldn't break through, another crazy idea formed in his mind and while he was still frightened of being eaten himself, he couldn't leave the survivor to die. Plus he can use his attacks to get himself and whoever else was inside back out.
As much as this scared him, he has done many crazy things in the past, and he knew that sooner or later he would have to overcome an old fear that never effected him as much until the Dark Gaia thing, and to forgive himself, he had overcome the fear of being eaten by a giant Werehog, which mentally he did. Now it was time to face that eerie feeling in reality. It wasn't the Werehog, but it was close enough. If he could handle Perfect Chaos, the blue hedgehog could handle this.
"Hope you're really hungry!" Sonic snarled, Spin Dashing straight up towards the Dragon who opened it's mouth at in surprise that it's meal was coming straight towards him. Believing that this was it's chance despite it's stomach being in the weakest state, the beast waited until the blue hedgehog was right inside before clamping it's mouth shut and swallowed him whole.
That was it's biggest mistake, because it then quickly began to twitch and fidget, then roared in agony. Finally, Sonic Homing Attacked from the inside, bursting himself straight out of the stomach, tearing through it with his speed and quills, while the Dragon, in it's utter defeat, gave a dying roar before collapsing onto the ground, fading away into golden and black dust. Sonic in the meantime landed safely in a crouch, with the survivor cradled in his arms.
"Sometimes...even I question my own sanity." The blue hedgehog panted, a bit traumatized for having done that, but utterly very relieved to have overcome such gruesome danger and survived, and he managed to rescue someone who hasn't died either. What he saw inside wasn't pretty; no one that were already eaten were digested, but to see the skeletons scattered all over the place hadn't been pretty. Then again, the inside of the stomach itself was a nightmare as well.
Shaking his head to rid those thoughts, Sonic turned his attention to the kid he saved in his arms; it was a red-ish brown hedgehog, about eight years old, with quills sticking up in a fringe similar to Amy's, each quill having a dark blue streak from head to the end of them, lightish brown tuff of fur on his chest like Shadow's, white gloves with red lines on the cuffs, and white and blue sneakers with black laces.
"Hey, kid. You okay?" Sonic called out, shaking the kid, quickly becoming worried and fearful that he was too late. To his relief, however, the younger hedgehog's chest rose and fell which told him that he was still alive and that was a miracle in and of itself. How he managed to survive for who knows how long inside that Dragon's stomach, he'll never know.
Just then, the entire area all around him began to become distorted once more. Alarmed, Sonic glanced around while wondering what was going on now. To his surprise and shock, the Bamboo Jungle vanished right before his eyes. In it's place was a familiar ruins of an ancient civilization, at least at the entrance. He instantly recognized this place.
"Angel Island? How'd I end up here?" The blue hedgehog blinked, bewildered. He kind of half expected to be somehow transported back to Mushroom Hill, not straight towards Knuckles' home. Then, remembering how the island was above the forest, he tried to put the pieces of the mysterious puzzle together only to come up short.
Sonic then thought about the other young hedgehog kid he saved and frowned in concern. "I hope the other kid made it out okay. Still...How did he know my name, and why did it...sound a lot like me?"
Deciding to worry about that later and despite that Eggman could be getting closer to the Sol Emerald, the teenager focused his attention on the unconscious new hedgeghog, approaching the safest part and laid him down onto the patch of grass to make him more comfortable. The blue hedgehog gently patted him on the head.
'Hang in there, kiddo. Everything's gonna be okay.' Sonic thought, knowing that this was just another mystery of what was happening.
'I can't believe the other Sonic just saved me! If he hadn't been, I woulda been dragon food by now.' Young Sonic thought to himself as he continued to run and searched around the jungle in search for Robotnik, repeatedly telling himself to calm down and the worst of that nightmare was over. But the very thought of being eaten by the monster still haunted him, and it made worse that if he hadn't been saved, then it was game over.
The young blue hedgehog never felt so humiliated, letting himself get caught off-guard and had come dangerously close in losing against the evil scientist which is one of his worst fears. To think that it had almost come true...If anybody found out, he'll never live it down. He never felt so helpless and terrified and it stung his pride as the hero of Alternate-Mobius.
Suddenly realizing that he was beginning to doubt himself again, the eleven year old shook his head and chastised himself. Okay, so he had a slip up, but it was pure luck that he was saved which gave him a chance to catch up and finish what he started. Young Sonic owed the world that, and he owed Sonic for saving his life.
"Just wish I had time to stay with him and help beat that dragon for trying to eat me. Wonder if we'll meet for real?" Young Sonic thought to himself as he raced through the jungle, only to notice that as he was reaching the exit between two giant Bamboo, reality all around him began to become distorted once more. To his surprise and shock, the Bamboo Jungle vanished right before his eyes. In it's place were what appeared to be ruins of an ancient civilization.
Broken pillars from here to there, clouds everywhere up close, and several places that was once again unfamiliar to him.
"What the? Where am I?" The young blue hedgehog exclaimed, glancing around in disbelief. The place itself looked pretty cool. Even from the distance, he could see sorts of floating platforms and fountains. He let out an impressed whistle. "Gotta say, this place might be old, but it's really cool, too. Bet Tails would love to explore it."
Unfortunately like many times before, Young Sonic had no time to admire the new scenery(new to him anyway) when he spotted a familiar hovercraft thankfully not too far off and he immediately recognized it.
"Robotnik! So he's been brought here too! Then means so is the Chaos Emerald. He won't be getting away from me this time!" The young blue hedgehog grunted, and quickly gave chase, this time not allowing himself anymore distractions.
With Robotnik, while he was shocked to find that the scenery changed again, he ignored this and focused on claiming his prize, cackling evilly to himself. "Oh ho ho ho! At last, I will reclaim the Chaos Emerald and rise my Death Egg now that Sonic is finally out of my mustache!"
"Think again, Ro-butt-nik!"
Flinching in shock at the horribly familiar voice of the aforementioned young blue hedgehog, and realizing that he spoke too soon, the evil scientist looked over his shoulder and much to his dismay and disbelief was the eleven year old hero who had quickly caught up with him, running up the rocky path and was now chasing after him once again.
"WHAT!? No, this is impossible! You're supposed to be dragon food!" Robotnik exclaimed in shock, unable to believe that his enemy had survived and was now attempting to foil his plans yet again.
"Yeah, well, let's just say that over-grown lizard and I didn't agree with each other. By the way, I can give you a shave and trim that mustache with my quills, if ya' want." Young Sonic teased with a smirk, not willing to mention anything about what else he knew, and wondered if Scourge told him about the other Sonic, but decided to not say it.
"You little...! Curse you, Sonic! I'M getting that Chaos Emerald first!" The evil scientist yelled angrily, pounding the dashboard and throwing a tantrum before fiddling with the controls to make himself go faster.
While the young blue hedgehog made himself run faster to keep up and even get ahead of Robotnik, he couldn't help but think about the ranting the evil man had displayed. "Guess he's really starting to get more and more childish if he's having a real tantrum now. Maybe it's because I irritate him so much."
Deciding to forget about that for now, Young Sonic sped up before leaping from one broken pillar to another and once he was at his enemy's level, he smirked before Spin Dashing into the air and straight onto the side of the Egg Mobile, once again catching Robotnik off guard and sending him spiraling out of control to the side and down a hill where he screamed before crashing onto the ground once more.
"See ya later, Buttnik!" The eleven year old hero laughed, giving the mad doctor a raspberry and then ran off to continue his journey across the place that was known as Sky Sanctuary and locate the third Chaos Emerald, leaving the slightly crippled villain to try and make another quick repair of his hovercraft, and now behind the young blue hedgehog.
"Grr! I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!" Robotnik yelled angrily as his faced turned almost as red as his jacket.
"So, you're having a bad mustache day..." A familiar voice cockily asked from the side, which alarmed the evil scientist to quickly glance over to his right from his slightly painful and awkward position, to see that the owner of the voice was Scourge, who was leaning against a rock casually with his arms crossed. "Pretty sad that you're easily beaten by an eleven year old."
"Scourge...! How dare you lecture me at a time like this!?" The evil man snarled at his new somewhat partner in crime, angered at the critisim he was receiving.
The green hedgehog rolled his eyes and waved it off, unfaze. "Chill out, dude. That brat just got lucky thanks to the guy I ended up losing to earlier." Though at the mention and referance of Sonic, Scrouge growled softly. "Though I'm still sore from that fight, so I get what you're going through."
"What does that even mean?" Robotnik demanded.
"Remember what I told you about there being two of the little blue, only the other guy is about the same age as me? The other Sonic? I fought him, and he beaten me by an inch of a quill. I'm willing to bet that he's the one responsible for the kid managing to escape, but little blue just won't admit it." Scourge explained with a shrug.
"The other Sonic...the one who has fought against my Alternate-Self even longer?" The scientist muttered in disbelief, adding both in anger and in a hint of worry. "Didn't you say that the other me is dead?"
"Yep." The evil green hedgehog nodded. "Since Time and Space is out of whack, it could only bring certain places and people in, and those who end up trapped in that boring white place-which needs a make over if you ask me-can enter places of either their past, their alternate-selves possible futures, that sort of thing. Of course, your other-self, he couldn't be here to team up with you and me, or our new big buddy."
"And yet Sonic's other self has saved his life somehow." Robotnik realized, growling furiously. "One Sonic is bad enough, now I have to cope with two!"
Scourge just chuckled darkly, reassuring. "Oh don't worry, the other blue guy is a wreck at the moment. Despite him being tough, he thinks your other self is still alive and has no idea that he just saved his smaller, alternate self. He even thinks that you're the other version of Ro-butt-nik."
"It's Robotnik! Robotnik! How many times do I have to correct you people!?" The evil man snarled angrily, feeling insulted. Then what he heard quickly registered into his evil brilliant mind and asked in surprise. "Wait. You mean to say that he doesn't know of the Alternate universe?"
"Not yet anyway. Unless they're both destroyed instantly, which I doubt since they're more stubborn than I thought, I got a feeling they will very soon. But even if they did, there's no way they can beat us." The green hedgehog answered.
Robotnik raised an eyebrow skeptically. "What do you suggest then, hedgehog?"
"Heh. If you're willing, I have an idea." The evil green hedgehog of Moebius smirked coldly.
He then began to tell the evil doctor of what he has in mind, with both Sonic, Young Sonic and all of their friends fully unaware of what was going on behind the scenes.
A/N: Sorry that this chapter was shorter than the previous ones. With any luck, we should be able to reach the meeting between Sonic and Young Sonic in the next chapter sometime after the Sky Sanctuary, or the following chapter after that. And as such, the reveal of the new OC hedgehog will be held next time as he has an important role.
I originally intended on adding Sally Acorn but decided against it since she'd be a hard character to write, especially since based on the good side of her from the comics and yet she would've lived in Moebius, and I can't remember much of the first two TV shows as much(especially since I found Robotnik's designs there to be just as creepy as his first and current designs).
See you later!
