The beeping of the alarm clock interrupted Sieg's peaceful rest in darkness in a bed as soft as a cloud after just several hours of sleep. The Mii Brawler moved the sheets off his body, rubbing his face until the slightly dark circles under his eyes faded away. He moved to the left of his bed and pressed the snooze button, shutting the alarm clock up. Sieg got up from the bed, yawning and stretching as he took a good glimpse outside the window facing him. It stretched across the entire wall, giving him a clear view of what appeared to be some sort of utopian futuristic city complete with tints of ancient alien culture and crystalline architecture, all glistening on smooth walls of titanium.
The Mii Brawler walked over to the small bathroom, brushing his teeth before rinsing with water and spitting in the sink. He walked over to a closet within the smooth walls, which was next to the bathroom he came out of. He pulled out the uniform he always wore, which was just washed and ironed a day ago and was left to hang alongside an assortment of peculiar outfits that identified with the trait of customization that identified the Mii Fighters so very well.
"Mii Brawler's Log: Day 187," Sieg spoke. As though the walls had ears, a small orb-shaped drone with a speaker merged to its spherical body flew towards the Mii Brawler from the corner-less sides of the room and started recording his voice as he undressed from his striped white-and-red long-sleeve pajamas.
"It's only been a few months after we had killed Galeem and Dharkon," Sieg continued, undressing himself until the only thing he wore was a pair of black boxers with red outlines. He had begun slipping on the undergarments for his uniform, going for the long pants first before slipping on a red tank top. "Ever since the rest of the Super Smash Brothers left, we have been staying around on the planet, trying to uncover the secrets lost in Arcus. It… mainly involves finding some artifacts and records of the dragons that lived here alongside our ancestors, but we're clearly not having any luck so far despite the major advancement in technology. Instead, we've been biding our time trying to reactivate the headset that Sonic and his group originally discovered on the Olympius. Really wish we could have kept it around more besides letting them save Mewtwo from becoming insane by the Shadow Synergy Stone." The Mii Brawler managed to slip on his gloves and pads, tightening the black ribbons around his waist and hiding them underneath his outfit.
"Hope today we can finally uncover the secrets held outside our universe, and the universes that our friends left off to," the Mii Brawler finished as he walked out of a sliding door which was supposedly the entrance to his apartment. "End log."
Sieg stepped out of the building he lived in, walking out onto the clear streets. They seemed to be smooth to the touch despite the ice and the chilly air of a morning winter. The Mii Fighters and Subspace Army were walking around peacefully, communicating with one another while helping each other out. The Mii Brawler walked forward, watching the futuristic vehicles zoom around in the air in straight lines crisscrossing above and below each other. He didn't know that he was losing his sense of direction until he bumped into a familiar face.
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" Sherry groaned. Sieg regained his train of thought when he realized he walked into her without knowing it.
"Oh, my goodness," the Mii Brawler gasped, holding her hand in apology. "I am so sorry. I didn't realize where I was going."
"No, no," the Mii Gunner answered. "It's my fault. Should have paid attention and focused my eyes on the road."
"What are you doing here?" Sieg asked, curious as to what she might be doing wandering around Civiltatula. "Normally, you would be up in the Legacy with the other fighters, trying to decipher that strange device we forgot we had in the Olympius."
"I came looking for Sonic," Sherry answered, pulling her left hand away from the Mii Brawler. "Any idea where he could be right now?"
"Probably back at his place," Sieg responded. "Other than that, he could probably be running laps around the planet. Why do you need him?"
"Because the contraption I made out of deciphering the device we regained from Byleth holds some… rather interesting results," the Mii Gunner answered. She pulled out a holographic of the device on her arm cannon, which began showing images of the dissected thing.
"According to what I discovered upon helping R.O.B. and Gilbert, this device cannot really transport anything on its own, no matter how hard we tried transferring its code into a bigger teleportation engine," Sherry continued, showing some sort of teleportation engine constructed out of the device through the blueprints on her hologram. "However, upon tracing Sonic's DNA through his shed quills, I've been able to uncover another source of transportation: rings." The Mii Gunner then pulled up a holographic depiction of a Mobian being throwing a ring like a disc until it grew multiple times its size in midair, to which the Mobian jumped through and disappeared without a trace.
"From those DNA trackings tracing all the way back to Sonic's home planet, I have figured out that these rings are extremely valuable in terms of warping any of their users to other planets of even the vaguest of thoughts," the Mii Gunner went on. "However, they're dangerous in the wrong hands, hence why only so few of the planet's beings could use them, but I believe those rings are what we need to get the device working as long as we have only one." Sherry ended the hologram on her arm cannon, turning off the hologram.
"But… how are we gonna get one?" the Mii Brawler asked. "I highly doubt Sonic has any considering why he never had them around before. Do you suppose we're gonna have to ask Sozo and Hakai for one of them?"
"Pretty much," Sherry answered. "So far, we can only teleport to different parts of the planet. Shouldn't be that hard to find the dragons." The Mii Gunner then pulled up a holographic screen on her arm cannon, teleporting herself and Sieg to another part of Arcus.
The two Miis managed to teleport to where they believed the generals were: the ancient pit Ginnungagap. It still held the cold, lifeless air it still held twenty years prior, with the fire bursts from the Muspelheim side of the pit and the ice geysers of the Niflheim side still permanently frozen in stone. However, due to the events that followed after the defeat of the Seraphim of Order and Chaos, life was taking root in this ancient land, with the gray sky becoming clearer and grass growing around the pit in the form of a small meadow. Some of the ancient ruins left behind near the circular edges of the pit were starting to become exposed from the early flora and fauna, which were digging up these pieces of culture with their roots from the hard stone, and Sozo and Hakai were standing on the edges. The two one-winged dragons simply stood there, looking over the empty gap that grew darker should they dive in.
The two Mii Fighters walked over to the generals, curious as to what they're doing there. They both looked down into the darkness of the pit just out of wondering what is it they were looking into. As though Sozo noticed the Ultimates Reborn, he began to talk to them.
"Legends say that if you gaze into the abyss… the abyss gazes back," Sozo said. "If you take the darkness as symbolism of fear and despair out of context, you can see that there is more that the darkness protects from the weakest of eyes. I suppose you have learned that lesson after you had regained your places as leaders of the Mii Fighter clan once more."
"We're… actually here for something else," Sherry noted. "Do you think you can generate a ring for us?"
"And not just any kind of ring," Sieg pointed out. "We're talking about an exact replica of the rings Sonic used in his universe." While Hakai kept staring at the abyss within Ginnungagap, his golden-eyed brother looked at the two Mii Fighters in confused interest to their question.
"Why… do you need a ring from Sonic's world?" the ex-Lord of Light asked.
"Because those rings of his are capable of traveling to other worlds," the Mii Brawler answered. "Isn't that right, Sherry?"
"I think so," the Mii Gunner responded. "Anyways, we believe that those rings provide the answers to the questions we have about the device Byleth unknowingly re-gave to us. It needs an energy source to power it, regardless of whichever transporter its code is transferred to. Since you two are the only beings we know that can create anything out of nothing with your newfound powers, we just need you to do… this one little job for us." Sozo began to wonder why would they need such a mysterious artifact, especially one that's capable of transporting anything and anyone to other planets in the universe they came from. If powered with a small device that has access to literally every universe in existence, the possibilities of omniversal teleportation are endless.
"Are you sure those rings from Sonic's universe are the answer to your question?" Sozo asked. "You do realize the last time we had seen Sonic use those rings it was when he was traveling around the multiverse in his Super form. I think when we transferred his conscious into a new body, we kept the rings he carried around in a secret location. We're still trying to get used to having the memories we had as dragons and the Hands at the same time, so… we'll take that idea into consideration. In the meantime, why don't you gather up all the fighters on the planet and call them near the device you have constructed?"
"No problem," Sherry responded, teleporting herself and the Mii Brawler away from the pit. Sozo looked back upon his brother, who still was looking into the abyss.
"I… guess I'll see you later," Sozo sighed, transforming into the Master Hand and teleporting away. The violet-eyed general continued keeping his gaze upon the abyss, looking deep into the darkness. He kept staring into the pit, wondering if there was anything that lived in it. It seemed as though whatever lived down there seemed to have been long dead by now, but what was that going to help? Normally, people would quit after this timespan, but the violet-eyed general decided to stay behind? How? Why? Simple. Because he was a master of the darkness. He was raised in the ways that people would normally fear. He thought that teaching Phoenix, his best student, those ways of the darkness on how it shelters those who are vulnerable in the light and helps them hunt to keep their sanity and satisfaction stable, hence the term "things that go bump in the night."
Guess how well that turned out.
Hakai, the more rebellious of the two generals that he is, knew that chaos was fun on its own, but what good is it if there was nothing to counter it? He kept staring deep into the void of the ancient pit Ginnungagap, waiting for an answer regardless of absence.
The two Ultimates Reborn managed to teleport to the front of the outside of a building somewhere else in Civiltatula, which was slightly taller than the building Sieg emerged from. There was muffled music blaring out in the higher stories of the buildings, which was still loud enough for the Miis to interpret the song as "No One Like You" from Scorpions.
"So… are you sure Sonic is in there?" Sieg asked.
"With music blaring THAT loud, it's highly positive," Sherry answered, walking into the building on her own.
Inside the building, Sonic was in his room singing along to the song up to maximum volume with a microphone, which was hooked up to a karaoke machine and was loud enough to drown out the muffled complainings of his neighbors.
There's no one like you
I can't wait for the nights with you
I imagine the things we do
I just wanna be loved by yoooooooouuu
No one like you!
"Sonic? Do you have a minute?" the Mii Gunner called out, opening up the door. Sonic, suddenly aware that he forgot to lock the door, turned towards the Gunner Ultimate Reborn.
"What?" Sonic asked as the song on the karaoke machine kept playing.
"I said do you have a minute?" Sherry asked again, this time in a louder and more commanding voice.
"I can't hear you!" Sonic answered again. In annoyance, the Mii Gunner walked towards the karaoke machine and quickly shut the loud music off despite the blue hedgehog's initial disappointment. As soon as the blaring song was shut off, the clamoring of the neighbors in surrounding apartments began to die down as well, but they were still mostly tired and negative responses.
"Hey! What gives?" Sonic asked the moment Sherry did such a thing.
"A… more quiet word of your study," the Mii Gunner replied, folding her arms across her chest. "About the device, I think I figured it out."
"Really?" the blue hedgehog wondered. "What's the sitch?"
"I need you to gather up the other fighters and get them to the Legacy," Sherry answered. "Tell them that Gilbert and Sozo have just built the contraption."
"The contraption?" The blue hedgehog pricked with severe interest. At this point, the machine they spent months trying to build to decipher the secrets of the multiverse are going to be answered right then and there. "I'll let them know right away. Can let them all know within a few seconds." Without being told twice, Sonic dashed out of the open room in the blink of an eye and returned just as fast as he left.
"Done and done," Sonic spoke with a satisfied tone in his voice as he popped the robotic knuckles hidden underneath his gloves. "They should be heading up to the Legacy any moment now." Even the Gunner Ultimate Reborn was still bewildered by the fact that he managed to tell every fighter on the planet so far about what was going on when it would normally take about twenty minutes albeit teleportation.
"Okay… I suppose we should head on over then," the Mii Gunner noted, touching her arm cannon once more to bring up a holographic screen. With a few presses in air, she covered herself and Sonic in a faint blue light before the two fighters disappeared from the apartment of the blue hedgehog.
The two fighters were instantly warped into a dark room, which was illuminated by the blue neon lights connecting where the walls met with the ceiling. There was a hexagon-shaped pad that stretched across a fraction of the floor, with individual holographic pods laid around in a certain pattern, with the machine in general holding up to twenty transporters. And in the center of the machine was the mysterious headset and heart pacemaker device that was still around all this time.
"Wow…" Sonic noted in awe. "This is what you guys were working on? This is some advanced sci-fi fantasy setting there!"
"Yep," the Mii Swordfighter's voice rang out from the other side of the room. The two fighters turned to face the voice coming from their right, and Gilbert walked in to greet them. "Preserved under perfect condition. And all we need are Sonic's rings to power the machine."
"My… rings?" Sonic asked. "Oh yeah! The rings I use to travel to different planets in my universe."
"We had recently uncovered that those rings have some sort of essence within them that, when harnessed well by technology powerful enough to link dimensions together, can provide an infinite power source to other worlds beyond our imagination. We're hoping upon linking it to the worlds of our other friends, we can stabilize connections with each other and reach out in a time of need." The Wii Fit Trainer, Ice Climbers, Mr. Game & Watch, R.O.B., and Duck Hunt arrived in the same room, supposedly introducing the fact that they told the crew on the Legacy to beam them up onto the ship.
"One ring, fresh from the Master Hand's sleeves, as promised," Sieg called out, making his way over to the Mii Gunner and handing her what she needed: a tiny golden ring that fit in the palm of her hand.
"Just a fair warning: who knows if this device works?" Sherry spoke to the other fighters in the room, opening up the container keeping the omniversal gadget inside and letting small robotic arms take care of the rest. "Once this teleportation machine powers on, there could be a few malfunctions. For one: it might drag in other people from different universes. Second: the world you guys might appear on might not register on our maps yet. Thirdly, if by chance our first test subject meets those criteria, you might have to wait a while until our services try to find out where you are and bring you back here." The container began to flicker on and off as the golden ring began to swirl around the device, generating enough energy to power on the transporter successfully.
"So… who would like to go first?" the Wii Fit Trainer asked nervously.
"Pick me," Sonic responded with a big of boastfulness in his cocky voice.
"Big surprise," Gilbert sighed, he and the others watching the blue hedgehog get up onto the transporter. "What could possibly go wrong?"
"Everything within that sentence," Sonic answered, feeling the rumbling of the machine underneath his feet as the light above and below him began to glow a little brighter. "Have you even studied Murphy's law?"
"Oh! One more thing, though it might be too late!" the Mii Gunner noted with sudden remembrance, pulling out what appeared to be a cellphone and tossed it to the blue hedgehog as the light around him grew brighter. "Use it to call us whenever you're in danger! Got that?" The blue devil winked in response, placing the cellphone tight within his quills and covering his eyes as the light completely enveloped him. As the light covered him, he began to think about the strange messages echoing through his mind. A world where photosynthesis and necromancy attack each other? What kind of world would that be?
Soon enough, the blue lights illuminating the room went black, and they slowly faded back to their normal color so the Smashers could process what happened. They had just completely noticed the blue hedgehog disappeared through the transporter, and a faint beeping was heard on the container keeping the device and the ring inside. A holographic map flashed on top of the container by a blue light, showcasing a faint dot in a blank space with the letters "SONIC" on top of it. Soon enough, four more dots appeared around said dot, with large letters labeled in red "ABDUCTED LIFEFORMS. UNKNOWN PLANET DETECTED. TAKE NECESSARY PRECAUTION."
"Oh no…" the Mii Gunner groaned in the guilt of what she helped out with. That device seemingly abducted four sentient beings from other universes for whatever reason, trapped in some unknown world with Sonic. She ran out of the room, heading on over to the control panel powering the device.
"What do you think you're doing?" Sieg asked, watching the Gunner Ultimate Reborn search through the buttons and switches frantically.
"Well, don't just stand there! Help me!" Sherry told the fighters by her side. "We need to pitch in and figure out where we sent him… and hopefully return those abducted souls back to their planets. Call him or something! Who knows where they've gone off to now?"
In a flash of white, Sonic the Hedgehog reappeared in a new world. The blue devil looked around the strange place, trying to figure out where he was dropped off at. The last thing he did think off was a world where photosynthesis and necromancy attack each other, right? The rings on his planet are powered through imagination.
Sonic stood in place, trying to take in the gloomy atmosphere around him. Twisted, gnarled buildings that almost resembled houses in your ordinary average neighborhood stood proudly on the sides of the street. Rusted cars were either demolished or rammed into the nearest fire hydrant or lamppost. Thunder rolled above the dark clouds in the sky, blocking out any signs of sunlight. He looked over to his left, taking notice of what appeared to be a large advertising banner that supposedly welcomed any tourists into the town, apparent by the fact that it showcased a happy family with the captions "Welcome to Suburbia!" However, it was gnarled and burned, with claw marks scratching off the faces of the happy family on the banner, and spray paint poorly covered up the word "Suburbia" to add a new word to the town that was supposedly taken over by some unknown threat.
"Zomburbia?" Sonic wondered as he read the letters spray-painted onto the banner. "Hm. Whatever they've got cooking in their stoves I better eat up." Just then, he heard his cellphone ring from within his quills, and he pulled it up and answered.
"Sonic!" Gilbert's voice rang through the phone. "Are you okay?"
"Never been better," Sonic answered, taking a look at the strange town he landed in.
"Quick! What was the last thing you thought of before you were transported?" the Mii Swordfighter asked.
"All I thought about was a world where photosynthesis and necromancy fight each other," Sonic answered. "Why?"
"Looks like the machine's powered by imagination like the rings from your world. Turns out there's a little bit of a malfunction in our transporter, which means at least four people have just been abducted. Until we fix this thing and see where you are, try to survive with whoever you're given with, okay?" Gilbert hung up, and Sonic closed his cellphone and put it back in his quills.
"So much for advice," Sonic sighed. "Wait… did he say four other people?" Just as soon as the blue hedgehog finished that sentence, four beams of light generated behind him. He then turned around to meet some familiar faces.
"Piranha Plant! Clementine! Terry! Samus!" Sonic gasped, noticing the four fighters that used to work alongside them suddenly get transported to another world. The blue hedgehog quickly dashed over to each one of them, hugging the Smashers tightly.
"I'm so happy to see you again!" Sonic spoke as he hugged the Inkling last.
"Hold on a minute," Samus objected, holding the Piranha Plant by his flower pot. "Who in the right mind gave you permission to abduct me from my ship while I was busy on my next bounty hunt?"
"Oh… right," Sonic reminded as he took a strained deep breath and stopped hugging Clementine. "Me and the boys were busy testing out some sort of contraption that… kinda malfunctioned as it brought me to this place and… probably picked you guys up along the way. But don't worry! They're fixing it as we speak."
"And until then?" Terry Bogard asked, shaking the dust from his iconic cap as he adjusted it back on his head.
"I… suppose we'll have to survive here," Sonic answered. "But… what kind of world are we in right now? I mean, I get the neighborhood we live in is called Zomburbia, but why? What happened here to begin with?" The armored bounty hunter looked around the place, her visor scanning for any signs of life. All she could find was grass on the lawns. Even then, they were starved to death of the sunlight they have been denied until they became nothing more than moss-eaten and sickly. The Piranha Plant in her arms squirmed out, landing on the stubby roots hidden underneath his flower pot.
"Whatever it looks like, it's clearly not a good sign if we're noticed by whatever creature crawls around in the dark," Samus Aran answered.
"So… not the good kind of world?" Terry asked, playing around with the chi energy in his fingers. "Just what I need for a little challenge." Samus's visors suddenly picked something up, and the beeping in her visor began to broadcast… peculiar readings. For one thing, the target she read was moving around in the dark open streets, but its pulse was somehow at zero, and all vital signs were showcasing that this exact same target was technically dead. But how does that make sense? Samus thought. How can a target that's dead by her readings somehow move freely?
"Uh… guys?" Sonic told the small team of fighters with him, feeling something cold and rotting touch the fur on his leg. The blue hedgehog, disgusted by the feeling, quickly backed away as he and his friends looked to see the target Samus had spotted. It looked like some sort of short, stout child, wearing some sort of futuristic orange jumpsuit, as well as some strange helmet and two blasters by his waist. Strangest of all was the fact that this little creature had big, dull eyes in sockets too small to support them, a lack of nose besides the nostrils, and a crooked mouth with rotting teeth on its pale green skin.
"Do you think we guys should take precaution?" Clementine chirped in her Inkling language. The other four fighters looked at her, confused. The Inkling annoyingly came to the conclusion on her own that no one without a translator could figure out what the hell she was saying.
"I suppose we'll have to be careful around this guy," Terry told his pals, watching as the strange imp silently giggled to himself in an erratic manner. "He… doesn't necessarily look friendly."
"You think?" Samus asked, loading her arm cannon. However, Sonic dashed right in front of the armored bounty hunter, blocking her line of shot.
"Wait! Don't hurt him!" the blue hedgehog objected. "This little guy could probably tell us where we are. Hey there, little… whatever you are." Sonic slowly walked towards the imp, keeping his guard up. The four fighters behind him slowly put their weapons to their sides, hoping they could reason with this strange creature in the hopes that this could be accomplished without the need of violence.
"It's okay," Sonic continued, standing in place as he knelt down and kept his eye on the creature that was much smaller than him. "We're not here for a fight. We just wanna know where we are and how we can get out of here." As though it was a natural reflex, the imp cackled as he quickly pulled out a remote with a singular red button and pushed it. Landing behind the little rotting cretin from high in the air above the darkened clouds appeared to be some sort of spherical, metallic egg spray-painted orange and white.
"Woah!" Sonic exclaimed. "Did the sky have a baby or something!?" The egg then began to pull itself apart, transforming into what appeared to be a headless, bulky robot with wires and cogs conjoining its limbs to its cockpit body. There was the letter "Z" underneath the glass, with the mech picking up the laughing creature and placing it in the cockpit. The imp began pushing buttons, which pulled up a bunch of turrets, guns, and laser cannons that aimed right at the fighters.
"So… should we get out of here?" Terry asked, he and the others watching the weapons lock and load automatically.
"Yeah, let's," Samus answered. The split second the weapons fired, the five fighters scattered around the street and hid in different parts of the area, with Sonic and Piranha Plant hiding behind houses, Samus taking cover behind a lawn gnome as she was rolled up into a ball, and Terry and the Inkling inside the broken cars. The imp in the mech cackled as it began pressing more buttons, summoning missiles that began targeting all five of the fighters. Samus rolled out from behind the gnome, shooting missiles of her own at the creature in the cockpit. Clementine squirmed out of one of the cars in squid form, pulling Terry out and tossing bombs at the mech once she turned back to normal. The ink splatter covered up the glass of the cockpit, obstructing the imp's view as it tried aiming with its laser cannon and guns. While the bullets were flying around the place, Sonic dashed forward and began slashing through the imp through wall-jumping and spin-dashing, all while coated in blue electricity and moving too fast for the mech to even react.
As soon as the blue devil landed on the ground, he didn't look behind as the mech instantly exploded by the span of one second, and the imp controlling the mech jumped out of the initial explosion. The creature pulled out a megaphone with speakers taped to its sides, yelling and growling as a means to alert more of its kind. The imp activated the jetpacks on its back and flew off into the sky, with an unnatural growling accompanying the unsettling atmosphere of the neighborhood.
Clementine shrieked like a hawk when she saw a rotting hand emerge from the ground right in front of her feet, and she backed away into Terry's arms. Samus, upon seeing more of those rotting hands emerge from the ground, began firing charged shots at the undead creatures that crawled out from the ground. The Piranha Plant spat poison in the face of one of the creatures that looked like it was wearing a foot soldier uniform as it ran towards the other fighters. It only took a few seconds for them to notice that the imp they encountered and all the humanoid corpses slowly walking towards them were, in fact, zombies.
"This is bad, isn't it?" Sonic asked, he and his friends slowly moving towards each other until their backs touched each other.
"Remind me again why your friends back at Arcus thought transporting us here was a good idea," Samus asked Sonic, firing missiles at a few of the zombies that were wearing traffic cones and metal buckets on their heads.
"I'm sorry, okay?" the blue hedgehog responded in guilt. "I clearly wasn't thinking about what would happen if I was brought to a world I was told to go to!" Soon enough, a zombie who was wearing sunglasses, a bandana complimenting his long hair, and an outfit that looked like he belonged in an 80's action movie stepped out the group of zombies and charged up a powerful shot on what appeared to be a large crossbow with speakers and radical markings that looked just as ridiculous as his attire.
"Eeh!" Clementine squealed in recognition. The Inkling had just noticed some sort of brownish-red object flying towards their direction, which landed in front of the stylish zombie with the large crossbow. The strange thing took on the appearance of a bean, with some sort of face that looked like it was holding in a fart and the long, stringy leaf on its head fizzing up like a bomb. The other fighters noticed this too, and they managed to spot a peculiar green gas coming out of the bean.
As though it was a reflex, Piranha Plant quickly pushed Sonic, Inkling, Terry, and Samus out of the radius of the upcoming blast, pushing away the zombies in the process. The bean exploded into a large mushroom cloud of nauseatingly green gas, stunning the weaker zombies in the group and instantly killing those that were the closest to the explosion. As the Smashers managed to get past the zombies, the smell they managed to pick up was an awful one, almost like the scent of a dead skunk that just ate leftover chili from the trash that was also laced with ghost peppers.
Hiding behind a turned-over car, the five fighters peaked out to see the chaos going on. Emerging from the smelling explosion were dandelion-like plants with heads that looked like cabbages. Each of those heads sported a pair of eyes and a mouth while also bearing four stamen-like antennae on their heads. Strangest of all was the fact that they walked around like insects with four zigzag leaves that were pretty much their legs, meeting below the stem with peculiar stalk-arms near the bottom. Some were wearing pumpkins on their heads, other with vases and terracotta flower pots. Some of those peculiar plants either had the heads of dandelions or wildflowers, and they all charged straight for the incoming zombies.
Also emerging from the explosion were what looked like some sort of mushroom that had a stubby body yet moved around and vanished like a ninja, a rose-like deity that floated around with limbs of thorny vines and a cape decorated with stars, and a carnivorous flower that looked like Piranha Plant except it had a purple head, green lips, purple mucus dripping out of his mouth, and thorns sticking out of his body all the way down to the leaves it walked around in. All of those plants began attacking the zombies, building up the chaos going on right now.
Limbs, eyes, and heads from the zombies scattered across the place, with one of the heads landing in Terry's hands. In disgust, the Hungry Wolf dropped the head on the ground and began wiping his hands on his vest. Meanwhile, Sonic watched the fight between plants and zombies occurring on the streets, with explosions and bullets flying left and right. The blue hedgehog then started seeing the similarities of what he thought of when he entered the transporter.
"A world of photosynthesis and necromancy… This is it!" Sonic remarked. He looked back at the other fighters, a look of excitement in his emerald eyes. "Guys! We found it!" However, that excitement was short-lived as the zombie that was wearing the 80's action attire rode in on a missile like a bull rider and curved right behind the fighters, charging straight for them. Terry quickly did the smart act of jumping into the air and used Burning Knuckle, his chi-powered fist cracking straight through the zombie's skull. As soon as the street fighter landed, the rider-less rocket spiraled down right where the plants were attacking the zombies and where the other fighters were hiding at the same time, creating a powerful flashbang explosion sandwiched between both locations. As a result, the remaining zombies were killed off, but more from around the town were alerted of the commotion going on. The blinded plants and fighters knew of only one thing to do: get the hell out of here.
Some sort of flying RV engine with jet-powered wings flew below the clouds, using some anti-gravity maneuver like in alien abduction sci-fi flics to pick up the walking weeds and the rose-like druidess. The mushroom ninja, trying to readjust her eyesight, began to feel another stem as she tried searching for her carnivorous buddy, taking the being attached to the stem without any second thoughts. While all that was going on, Sonic grabbed ahold of another large stem in the hopes that it was Piranha Plant and began pushing his other pals out of the conflict. None of the fighters or the plants looked back as they escaped from the town, with the small group of Smashers running through the wide-open gate as some of the zombies chased them down.
Eventually, the fighters got to a clearing in a nearby forest, where the dark clouds over the town of Zomburbia vanished and the bright sun shine through the wilted leaves on the trees. Sonic and the others began to catch their breath, glad that they managed to lose the zombies targeting them. Before the blue hedgehog could sit down and rest on the mossy ground, he looked over to the plant he was holding and quickly backed away.
"Uh… guys?" Sonic reminded with surprise in his voice. Inkling, Terry, and Samus all looked at the blue devil to see what was the commotion, only to find out that the plant they mistook as the Piranha Plant was in fact the lookalike with the drooling lips and thorny vines. The plant was still recovering from the flashbang, which blinded his other senses even though he had no eyes.
"Crap! We got the bait-and-switch!" Samus ejaculated, noticing this plant looked nothing like the Piranha Plant.
"B-Bait-and-switch?" the plant asked in a gruff voice, fully recovering his senses. "Night Cap, what's going on here-?" The plant suddenly noticed where he was right now: in a small group of people that shouldn't even be here.
"Who are you people!?" the plant interrogated.
"We should ask you the same question," Sonic answered. "We actually have a lot of questions to ask you considering you can somehow talk: who are you, where are we, what's going on, and what have you done with Piranha Plant?"
"What's a… Piranha Plant?" the plant asked before quickly changing the topic. "You people shouldn't even be here. This is dangerous territory you've stumbled in. Zomburbia does NOT welcome strangers."
"We can worry about where we are later," Samus noted. "Right now, we need to find out where your friends have taken our pal. Do you know where?" The plant took a good look at the fighters, shaking his head and licking his green lips.
"I'm Agent Chomper, or… a Chomper" the plant introduced. "I'm in fact one of many Chompers, and thankfully one of the more intelligent ones. I think they took your pal back to the Tree of Life."
"Tree of Life?" Terry asked.
"It's one of humanity's last stands in the endless war against the zombies," the Chomper responded, already running off in a certain direction of the woods. "Better follow me. This world is teeming with the undead. Better safe than having your brains eaten." The Chomper glanced back at the blue hedgehog with a sign of suspicion before he walked off, but the others didn't seem to notice due to the fact that he didn't even have any eyes.
"Let's go," the armored bounty hunter told the other fighters, following the Chomper through the woods. Clementine transformed into her squid form and slithered onto Terry's shoulders, reverting back to her humanoid self as the street fighter gave her a piggyback ride. Sonic was just about to take a step forward, but a loud sound began to ring in his ears. A tremor in the blue devil's body began to ring as he painfully clasped on both sides of his head, trying to calm the splitting headache. Time seemed to slow down around him, and it wasn't even his speed doing all the work. His eyes began to see binary code all around him, with the forest around him fading into the darkest dark.
As soon as the aching stopped and the ringing in his ears began to fade into silence, Sonic looked up to meet the cracked face and hands with holes from before. The stranger stared at the blue hedgehog in silence, giving the young fighter a sense of familiarity.
"It's you again," Sonic spoke, recognizing that stranger as the one he saw in his dream. "I thought you were just a figment of my imagination."
A few months ago, I had noticed that you and your friends had pulled through in defeating Galeem and Dharkon, the stranger began, communicating through his hands and the symbols behind him without moving his drooping mouth. And you have utilized the third ending I provided for you wisely. Excellent job.
"Wait… so all that wasn't a trippy dream?" Sonic asked. "Then how do you explain… what's happening now? I don't even know your actual name."
My name… is Gaster, the stranger answered. William Dexedrine Gaster. You are quite wise to make me tell you my identity. Do you recognize where you are now?
"Apparently, I'm in some sort of world where photosynthesis and necromancy attack each other, just like you said… only it's with plants and zombies," Sonic answered. "And thanks to the guidance you have given me one of our pals has gone missing on one side of the war. What does this world have to do with me anyway?"
You will understand soon enough, Gaster answered. For now, reunite with the Piranha Plant and take down the enemy before your friends back at Arcus fix the transporter you came from. I will act as your guardian to the truth in the meanwhile. Do not worry, though. The world around you is paused when you communicate with me, and I will be willing to drop you in on some hints. However, you will come to the conclusions on your own. The mysterious Eye of God restored the forest around Sonic, vanishing in the darkness as a result. Time began to move again, and the blue hedgehog could once again feel the ground underneath his red sneakers.
"Try to keep up!" Samus called out. The blue hedgehog dashed towards the voice of the bounty hunter, heading deep into the forest.
The flying RV flew in the clear blue sky, driving over to some sort of large tree that was growing over an abandoned part of the town next to Zomburbia. The grass had never been greener, and loads of greenhouses were surrounding a large tree that supposedly served as the base for all the plants that lived there, which was pretty much a military camp. Once the RV landed, the rose and mushroom plants emerged out of the vehicle with the Piranha Plant peeking out after the weeds scattered across the area in high-pitched grunts. He was rather curious to see the two plants talking about him.
"Night Cap, art thou sureth thou grabbed the right plant that wouldth in any way resemble the Chomper we went with?" the rose druidess asked in an enchanting, medieval accent from the days of early modern English.
"I was sure, Rose," the mushroom ninja the rose druidess referred to as Night Cap answered in a voice that was raspy and cautionary. "I swear I grabbed Chomper when we left the town! In all honesty!" The Piranha Plant walked out of the RV, slowly approaching the two feminine plants in caution. Rose and Night Cap watched as the carnivorous flower looked at them like a dog who just found its new owner, looking at them rather curiously.
"Well, he sure doesn't looketh like a Chomper to me," Rose noted. "Not even close to the spawnable types either. What are we gonna tell the other L.E.A.F. agents?"
"I don't know," Night Cap answered. "Just lie to them. Tell them that this is a rare, undiscovered breed of Chompers that just grew in Zomburbia."
"And how art they gonna believeth that?" Rose asked. "Plants can't grow without sunlight, and complete darkness haseth covered up the entire town."
"What is going on here?" a commanding voice called out. Both Rose and Night Cap quickly hid Piranha Plant behind them to hide what they assumed was their leader accompanied by a few other agents. The leader of the incoming plants seemed to be some sort of walking corn husk with corn cobs on his stalk-arms, with the agents by his side resembling that of a sunflower skipping with the legs supporting her stem and some sort of draconic plant with green skin, orange leaves, and yellow eyes accompanying him.
"Agent Kernel Corn! Sunflower! Snapdragon!" Rose nervously stammered, beads of sweat dripping down the petals on her face. "We didn't seeth thou coming this way! We had just returned from our mission to destabilize the Z-Mechs aroundth Zomburbia!"
"And you somehow had to retreat back to the Tree of Life," Kernel Corn noted. "Do you know how important this mission to defeat Dr. Zomboss is in terms of the L.E.A.F. agency?"
"We tried to fight back, but there were just too many," Night Cap noted, with the Piranha Plant peeking out behind the two plants that took him away from his pals. "It seems as though every day, these zombies constantly mutate and get stronger."
"We clearly cannot holdeth them back any longer," Rose noted. "We needeth something stronger to fight back before our base falls…" Kernel Corn suddenly noticed the Piranha Plant hiding behind the two plants.
"What are you and Night Cap hiding behind you?" Kernel Corn asked.
"It's nothing," Rose chuckled a fake laugh, suddenly noticing that the director of L.E.A.F. spotted the carnivorous flower.
"Where's Agent Chomper?" Kernel Corn asked.
"Uh… there are plenty more of his species," Night Cap reassured. "You can always send out more troops into the neighborhood."
"One of the rules in our code references that no plant is left behind. Rule #271, to be exact," Sunflower pointed out, speaking in a caring but commanding voice. "Those zombies could have captured Agent Chomper and tortured him to spit out our most important secrets unless he was dead, and you know he's still alive out there! Just tell us what you're hiding. No bailing out like all the times you did before, like that issue with the robot gnomes."
"We toldeth thou, it's nothing…" Rose tried to reason, but Snapdragon spread open his leaf-wings and flew behind the druidess and Night Cap. He latched onto the Piranha Plant's flower pot as the carnivorous flower tried to run away, exposing the fighter to the three L.E.A.F. agents.
"Look what they found!" Snapdragon called out, settling Piranha Plant's flower pot onto the grass. The other agents were surprised to see the carnivorous flower brought right before them.
"Rose… Night Cap… what is that plant you brought with you?" Kernel Corn asked in wonder. "If it's a Chomper, tell us what kind of breed it is. We've never seen that thing before."
"We just… foundeth this strange creature when we least expected it," Rose confessed. "We thought we broughteth Agent Chomper along with us when the Weeds and us crowded into Penny and fled Zomburbia."
"Basically, we kinda switched between Chomper and this peculiar lookalike by accident, but that was because of a flashbang explosion from an 80s Action Hero," Night Cap noted. "We don't even know where Chomper went. We can safely assume some of the zombies took him to Zomboss Mansion."
"Hm… and how exactly did this rare breed of Chomper appear in the town? If you could even call it that?" Kernel Corn asked, crouching to closely examine Piranha Plant with careful analysis. "Sunlight doesn't appear anywhere in Zomburbia. The clouds above the town blocked out the sky of any natural light resources."
"Well, hast thou the knowledge to figure out there's a very rare chance of sunlight breaking through?" Rose asked. "That's whateth thou told us when Agent Sunflower was born in the town after the zombies banished us and tooketh over. I think the same could haveth been established for this… very rare breed we've never foundeth anywhere. I doubt even Crazy Dave had the brains to invent such an… interesting plant. And it's not even a crossbreed too."
"Hm… wherever it came from, we might have to send it back there," Kernel Corn spoke. "Doesn't look like it can speak. Looks like he'll have to come with us once we raid Zomboss Mansion. Until we assemble our troops, this Chomper lookalike will have to get comfortable around here. Agent Cactus. Give our new guest a tour around the place." As though she heard Kernel Corn, some sort of cactus with red flowers and yellow stamen antennae jumped from a high place from above the lower branches of the Tree of Life, already reporting for duty. She waddled towards the Piranha Plant with stubby roots hidden underneath her body, pushing the fighter's flower pot away from the other agents.
"As for you two, I better expect to see full cooperation from you," Agent Kernel Corn told Rose and Night Cap. "You better not screw up on our mission to take back the town. This is a very serious objective." The lead agent walked away, with Sunflower and Snapdragon following behind him.
"Come with me," Cactus told Piranha Plant in a calm but dominant British accent. "I have much to tell you about the camp." As soon as the L.E.A.F. agent and the carnivorous flower walked away, Agents Rose and Night Cap looked at each other in worry.
"We need to get Agent Chomper back!" Night Cap told the medieval levitating plant. "We just have to go back where we entered the last fight and lost him in the first place."
"But how doth we doeth that?" Rose brought up, twirling her rose wand between the leaves that served as fingers on her stalk-arms. "We couldn't haveth just shown up for no reason. That Imp sent forth a signal far from our reach. That Chomper decided to attacketh because he thoughteth more plants were in danger."
"But does that mean the plant we dragged along… wasn't from this world?" Night Cap asked. "You've seen Little Shop of Horrors, haven't you? Probably not, considering you're a mage from the past. The premise is a plant from outer space feeds on blood instead of water, and they keep growing until they devour the world's population of humans." The two plants began to think of the guest they accidentally brought along before they thought of the best answer. Perhaps that plant they brought along was only acting dumber than the spawnable plants just so he can eat all the lifeforms on the planet when they least expected it.
"We are in serious trouble," Rose finished, starting to fear two things at once.
Deep in the woods, the four fighters that were transported to the mission began to notice the sky growing noticeably darker the longer they followed that Chomper around. From the decaying leaves on the trees and the moss covering the rotting bark, they could figure out the fact that they were nowhere near this supposed Tree of Life.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Terry asked. "Looks like we're still in the town's borders."
"Of course I'm sure," Chomper answered. "I know every nook and cranny of this town from the back of my big-mouthed head."
"Really?" Sonic responded in a patronizing tone with his arms folded across his chest. "Because it looks like we're going around in circles. Plus, we still need to get back to where we came from the same way we got here. Speaking of which…" The blue hedgehog quickly dashed behind the nearest tree, flipping open the cellphone in his quills. The phone automatically picked up the number back on the Legacy.
"Status update," Sonic whispered. "And asap."
"Still working out a few gimmicks," the Wii Fit Trainer answered on the phone. "Sozo's helping us figure it out, though. Where are you right now?"
"I'm with Terry, Samus, and Inkling," Sonic silently answered. "Piranha Plant was also with us, but we kinda split up in some sort of conflict involving plants and zombies. Now we're lost in the woods with one of the sentient plants in this world."
"…Look, we'll call back once we're fixed, okay?" the Wii Fit Trainer responded. "Just hold on for a little longer." She hung up the phone on the blue hedgehog, to which he quickly accepted it. He ran back to the fighters from behind the tree.
"Can I continue?" Chomper responded. "Anyway, at least it's not my fault I was dragged away from the others. Now they've got a thick-headed substitute."
"Hey! That 'substitute' is our friend, and we need to get him back from your team," Samus objected.
"But you just can't charge in without a plan," Chomper noted. "That's the first rule we made in L.E.A.F.'s code."
"L.E.A.F.?" Sonic asked.
"The League of Extraordinary Action Foliage," Chomper defined. "It's basically a resistance we came up for the remaining plants that lost the war against the rise in the zombie apocalypse. Humans thought that enhanced botany was the answer to this war. In all honesty, I don't know where we are, but what I DO know is that we're near Zomboss Mansion."
"Zomboss Mansion?" Terry questioned.
"Home to the most ruthless of the ruthless," Chomper responded, pushing away a few branches and bushes with his large head. "Remember all the zombies you encountered before? They all bow down to one cunning and deceitful leader: Dr. Edgar George Zomboss. He's able to build the most dangerous of contraptions, help boost zombies in their time of need, and quite the brain too. Literally. His cranium isn't large enough to conceal such a big brain of his size. He's also quite a mad genius too. Always spitting out insults, giving no regards to his own henchmen (because he's got so many of them), and enjoys bringing out destruction in his Zombots."
Sonic stopped dead in his footsteps upon hearing that word. He couldn't really quite place why. Why he was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Almost like it was a natural reflex. A feeling of trauma began to bubble up in the pit of his stomach, and none of his friends noticed. The only thing he remembered from that word was the horde of metallic zombies in his fever dream. But we're they related to that word or not? Perhaps the feeling in his stomach might go away when they break into the mansion and defeat the bad guy. Chomper noticed that look of confusion and familiarity in the blue hedgehog, one of which he recognized from no one else. It was as though he found what he was looking for.
"We're here," Chomper whispered, pushing away a bush and revealing what appeared to be a gothic, dark mansion with a large, neon "Z" above the front entrance. The four fighters peered through the open bush to spy on the security of the mansion. Turns out there were two gigantic zombies wielding telephone poles and wearing sunglasses to conceal their bloodshot eyes and carrying Imps that wore different clothing compared to the Imp they encountered before, and those brutes were guarding the front entrance. Parrots and superhero costume-wearing zombies soared through the air, keeping watch over the vents above the mansion, and on the roof was a chimney that pumped out the opaque clouds that swallowed Zomburbia in darkness. Since the mansion also had a drawbridge, there was a river surrounding the place, which had a toxic green sludge and snorkel-wearing zombies flowing through its soft currents.
"Looks like Zomboss amplified the security, outside of the Giga Gargantuars guarding the front entrance," Chomper told the four fighters. "Probably that Imp you let escape told him on your sudden appearance. We'll have to blend in."
"My bets are these zombies are dumb, but not THAT dumb?" Samus pointed out.
"They're quite braindead, to be honest," Chomper pointed out. "However, as long as we're not detected in our environment, we can find a way in. And it looks like there's one place they forgot to check: the sewage system. There's also a chance the rest of the plant troops will be ambushing the mansion in the belief I'm being held captive by the zombies, and that your… Piranha Plant will be with the agents."
"So, you're saying we'll have to sneak into the sewers?" Terry Bogard asked. "In this case, let's go. The sooner we take down your enemy, the sooner we reunite with Piranha Plant and escape this planet."
"Alright, if that's what you want," Chomper responded. "You head close to the river. Stay out of the Super Brainzes' and Parrot Pals' line of sight. If you're ever spotted, act like a zombie and growl anything about brains. They'll always fall for that, but not for long." Terry, Samus, and Clementine rolled down the hill and began hiding behind boulders, and Sonic was just about to join them. However, Agent Chomper bit down on the quills on the back of his head and pulled the blue hedgehog back before he even took a step forward.
"Hey, what gives?" Sonic asked. The other three fighters looked back on the two characters, wondering what was going on.
"Don't worry about him," Chomper responded with his teeth clenched in Sonic's quills. "He's got a top-secret mission that involves disabling the security for the plants." The three fighters easily took that as an order for the current mission, and they went on ahead without Sonic. Chomper then dragged the blue hedgehog behind the bush, much to Sonic's confusion.
"Woah woah woah," Sonic objected, squirming out of Chomper's bite once the plant took them both out of hearing range deep in the dark woods they came from. "What's the big idea? Those mood swings from you have occurred way too fast, even for my standards."
"You look rather familiar to me," Chomper confessed in a tone that would be classified as strict and serious. "Ever since I was just a sprout, I was taught the world we live in is a kill-or-be-killed one, especially against the zombies we face. But I learned the truth of the undead's sudden origins long ago. Through different points in history, even. From the Jurassic Era to the supposedly far future, a being that looked exactly like you began to raise the dead everywhere they trampled."
"A being like me?" Sonic asked. He began to grow rather confused about what was happening. Wasn't that plant an ally a while ago? This agent didn't attack them before and simply called off a truce. Why was he getting mean around the blue hedgehog all of a sudden?
"History textbooks have spoken of a being consumed by pure darkness who showed up out of nowhere and began raising the dead," Chomper answered. "They spoke in a language that was untranslatable by our current technology, but thankfully Penny had access to deciphering any language spoken, even the unknown ones. The being preached messages about how humanity will pay for its sins in countless universes and brought forth an army of… well, zombies. However, once a man named David Blazing, otherwise known by the common folk as Crazy Dave, manufactured plants that can attack major threats, this mysterious entity vanished without a trace, bringing forth a new era of zombies within the darkness they left behind. L.E.A.F. agents have spoken of the mysterious being as some sort of bipedal rodent, but any tracings seem to have vanished to avoid suspicion. Who else would it have been other than you to just… show up out of nowhere?"
"Stop!" Sonic hesitated, stepping back from Chomper until he pressed his back against an old, gnarled tree. "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't even remember being here in this world! What do you mean by that fact that the being said humanity will pay for their sins?"
"I know plenty," Chomper growled viciously, the purple slobber in his mouth bubbling between his lips and dripping down onto the forest floor. "I taught myself to hunt down an alien that looked like you, and countless generations have been unable to spot it and eventually forgot about the legacy you left behind… until I show them the truth. You sure as hell will make a fine bounty for our troops once we're finished with the countless terrorizations you have established throughout history."
"Whatever I did, I'm sorry!" Sonic stammered, feeling a spark of adrenaline coursing through his spines and slightly straightening his quills as a result of the goosebumps on his skin. "In all honesty, I completely forgot all I did here to make you mad at me!" However, the Chomper would not let him off the hook that easily. He spat some sort of large ball of dark vines and thorns, which straightened out of the ground below Sonic's feet. The grassy wad had red, pupil-less eyes that looked up at the blue hedgehog, and it lashed its vines at Sonic before he could even run. The vines wrapped around Sonic, restraining his neck and tying his gloved hands behind his back.
"This is a Spiky Spikeweed, designed to trap enemies in its vines for much longer than Spikeweed and Tangle Kelp combined," Chomper pointed out, chuckling as Sonic tried to pull himself out of the vines constricting his body. "The crimes you have committed definitely fit the punishment."
"But the other plants you say you work for!" Sonic groaned, trying to breathe as the tightening of the vines from the Spiky Spikeweed crushed his lungs harder. "They probably have some sort of code that says to protect all living creatures for the sake of humanity! Doesn't your biological kingdom follow that?" Chomper didn't take that response lightly and simply spat a violet goop on Sonic's lips. The goop hardened fast and kept the blue hedgehog's lips together, silencing him completely. The plant leaned his big green lips towards Sonic's ears, tingling them with a warm and odor-filled breath.
"You… are not worth protecting," Chomper growled quietly. "In this world, you are the enemy. In the end, you did this to yourself. You altered the logic of our universe beyond our understanding, and only I still remember that. For this, you know the consequences." Sonic struggled in his bondages, trying to reason with the plant that's keeping him here. However, he didn't know what to say even if that goop wasn't gagging him. He literally had no memory of this place. Why was he being treated like the bad guy all of a sudden? Agent Chomper literally said to his face that he was the enemy. That couldn't be right. That shouldn't be right.
"I'll come back for you once we destroy the mansion," Chomper finished as he walked back to where they first spotted the place where all those zombies gathered. "I've heard of a restaurant that serves the finest hedgehog meat, and they're willing to pay a lifetime of military supplies should we meet with the best of their demands." The plant walked off through the bushes to the mansion, leaving a tied-up hedgehog behind in the dark woods.
Terry Bogard, Clementine, and Samus Aran were sneaking around the mansion, hiding behind the dead bushes and sneaking around the edge of the river. The three fighters managed to spot the source of the toxic green goop flowing into the river below the drawbridge: a large sewer entrance barred with wood that pretty much melted from the glowing sludge pouring into the water, with poorly-spelled words telling any Intruders to keep out and surrender their brains if necessary. Agent Chomper arrived back to the three fighters by digging through the ground and popping back up between them.
"Your hedgehog friend should be distracting the zombies right about now," Chomper fibbed before jumping straight to the mission. "Better not touch that toxic substance pouring into the river." The plant quickly grabbed ahold of a mouse scurrying through the grass with his mouth and spat the tiny rodent into the river. Upon crawling out onto the pebble shore, the fighters noticed the glowing mouse began growing hundreds of eyeballs all over its body, tentacle tongues, and enlarged feet before letting the radiation take over its tiny body and fry it until it became a black mass of burned tar.
"Heh," Samus scoffed. "My Power Suit has been upgraded to protect me from the most hazardous of planets, so walking through a toxic river that makes you grow eyeballs and fry to a crisp? No problem." As soon as the bounty hunter stepped into the river, her Power Suit felt no signs of melting, and the woman within relaxed as she knew her outfit would protect her from the radiation. She safely made it to the entrance without a scar on her armor, and she tore down the wooden boards blocking the singular hole that was the sewage system.
"Hold on tight, okay?" Samus alerted the other three members of the team, pulling out a plasma grappling tether from her arm cannon. She grabbed ahold of Chomper's stem, pulling the plant into the sewer where a tiny stream of the toxic green sludge poured out. Both Samus and Chomper noticed the stream was so tiny, but they took care not to step in the stream.
Samus pulled out her plasma tether, pulling Terry Bogard over the river and then Clementine. The Inkling showed signs of panic as she and Terry quickly backed away from the stream in the sewer.
"We continue straight ahead and end up at Zomboss's lab," Chomper told the three fighters. "Shouldn't be long until the plants finally take back the planet." As the three fighters went on ahead, Chomper looked back upon the other side of the river, knowing that victory for the humans is close at hand. And there would be no one to stop them from saving the world.
The cold, dead air in the forest wasn't enough to sustain Sonic's need for oxygen, and the vines holding Sonic in place didn't seem to do much justice. The blue hedgehog twisted back and forth, trying not to scratch himself on the Spiky Spikeweed's vines. Sonic tried stepping on the plant binding him, but he was held high enough in the air to prevent him from accomplishing such a simple task. His muffled winces signified the fact that he cut his skin from the tight vines binding his robotic hands behind his back, with tiny drops of blood trickling down his arms.
That plant's gonna kill me! Sonic thought as he slowed down his struggling. I don't remember doing anything on that planet before I even got here. He's crazy! Sonic eventually gave up on trying to fight back against the Spiky Spikeweed holding him in place, bowing his head in defeat. He was at least glad he could breathe thanks to the goop clamping his mouth shut was thin enough for air to seep through. He was at a loss for what to do here.
Sonic wondered what he did to land him in the role of the villain in those Chomper's eyes. And that was just a figure of speech. He didn't really have eyes. What was that "ancient deity" the crazy plant went on about? He needed answers, and maybe that Dr. Zomboss guy might provide with the answers.
I have to get out of here or else I'll become food for some unknown restaurant, Sonic thought as he looked down upon his confined body. But how am I gonna get out of here? …Looks like there's only one plant I can turn toward to now. Gaster? W.D.? If you can hear my thoughts right now, I need help. So just give me the best you can come up with. Please. As though the mysterious being heard the blue devil's prayer, Sonic saw himself fade into the darkness again, with the restrictions confining him. And once again, he met with the face of Gaster.
"Hey, W.D.," Sonic chuckled with enthusiasm. "I'm in a bit of a situation. Can you get me out of it, please?"
Is it because of the Chomper you got friendly with, is it not? Gaster asked, with the symbols generating behind him. There are tons of different worlds that each have their own enemies, with some believing they are doing the right thing by destroying the villain.
"That's… kinda why I'm here," Sonic awkwardly laughed. "Do you think you can untie me or something so I can stop that crazy plant?"
I may have the power to alternate between timelines, but even my own abilities have limitations, Gaster answered. I am afraid I cannot help you escape from the Spiky Spikeweed.
"Figured you'd say that," Sonic sighed in expected disappointment. "But why does that Chomper wanna kill me after he and my pals take down that mansion full of zombies? What's his problem?"
I believe it is not something you possess, but rather what you had done ages ago, Gaster answered. He believes that for some reason YOU tampered with the world both plants and zombies live in.
"…But what does that have to do with anything?" Sonic responded, with far more questions than answers on his mind. "That plant doesn't give a crap about how I literally don't remember anything about this place, if at all!"
…I may not be able to give you all the advice you need for now, but I will tell you this: that Chomper was not lying when he said you tampered with this world. Gaster followed. Sonic grew rather curious as to what this strange being meant. Tampering with a planet? How in the right mind could he ever do that?
The reason you were able to alter this reality beforehand was because you, among those near the Almighty Father, had possessed the potential to modify the timeline, Gaster continued. Interesting. To think an ordinary protagonist in your world would end up as an antagonist here. It has certainly given you a bad reputation...
"An antagonist?" Sonic asked. "Look, pal. I had always been me. It's not like I have some world-altering powers that screwed over an entire world population. I mean… you would have to be a monster to… do… such a thing…" The blue hedgehog suddenly came to the thought that whatever he did, there are those who have heard the tales and we're taught to fear him. They see him as the villain that ruined their idea of a paradise, and that Chomper was supposedly one of the beings that was taught to fear him in some way. But there is such thing as redemption. He had to clear his name somehow.
Now do you understand? Gaster responded. I cannot help you, but I can drop upon you some advice that will prepare you for far worse times. For now, all you have to do is save the world from the zombie apocalypse. Now then. About your… current situation. I may not have the power to help you escape… but I know you can call on someone else to get you out of there. Until we meet again. The mysterious being vanished into the darkness, bringing Sonic the Hedgehog back to the world he was still in. He was just like how Agent Chomper left him: confined by a Spiky Spikeweed and gagged by hardened purple goop.
I need to get out of here, Sonic thought, fondling his bound hands through his back. He eventually pulled out one of his blue quills, which sparkled with the raw energy of speed they bore. He knew that the quill was too dull to cut through such thick vines, but he highly believed that all these plants could receive the strangest of signals through other plants closely related to electricity. The best he could do was lodge the sharp end of the quill into one of the vines constricting around his chest. The electrical current began sparking up with enough power to spiral around the Spiky Spikeweed, which gave the plant a little bit of voltage. Soon enough, the blue lightning began moving around through the ground, traveling fast and far away from the mansion through the roots of whatever nearby plants were still alive.
Piranha Plant, wherever you are, I hope you can help me now, Sonic thought, keeping his strong belief that the carnivorous flower was the only one who could answer his call for help.
Back at the Tree of Life, Agent Cactus was busy showing Piranha Plant around the camp, to which he became very interested in all the strange plants. They had nothing like that back at the Mushroom Kingdom, and even then, he was just one of many grown in one of Bowser's greenhouses and forced to live in pipes.
"Ever since the dawn of time, plants and zombies have been at each other's throats for generations," Cactus taught. "Countless years of neverending conflict had finally grinded to a halt once Dr. Edgar George Zomboss had uncovered powerful machines throughout different moments in history. He called them Zombots, though I guess it was rather fitting considering the nature of their origins. With those new machines, he kicked out all the plants out of town and forced them to retreat to the Tree of Life, with all the remaining humans of the world either captured and eaten or fled to the other side of the planet. Even to this day, we don't know where Crazy Dave, our creator, has gone, but we can safely hope he's not in the grimy hands of the undead." Just then, Piranha Plant turned around upon hearing a peculiar beeping noise. He caught sight of some sort of large red currant with a face glowing with blue lightning that beeped rapidly.
"Oh," Agent Cactus noted, watching the Piranha Plant run towards the currant in his flower pot. "I take it you're interested in one of our Electric Currants. We use them to protect our base like fences. That's… odd. I thought Agent Peashooter told us to take that one down because he burned out his electrical energy." As the Piranha Plant looked at the defective Electric Currant, he slowly started to figure out that the rapid beeping was, in fact, an emergency Morse code somehow sent out by Sonic.
"Looks like some sort of… Morse code?" Cactus noted, aware that she had spent most of her time dedicated to reading emergency messages. "Normally, other plants would communicate through other species in the Fila-Mint family, but it looks like someone of the animal kingdom has tapped into our feed by accident? They're saying they need you for the job deep in the woods near Zomboss Mansion?" The Piranha Plant looked straight ahead to the dark woods where the enemy was. He began to see a faint glow of blue light coming from within the forest, and he knew exactly where to go. He dashed ahead, leaving a confused Cactus behind.
"Wait!" Agent Cactus called out. "Where are you going!? Come back here this instant!" Agents Night Cap and Rose caught sight of the situation, and they ran over to Cactus in question.
"That rare Chomper had just left the camp!" Agent Cactus told the two feminine plants. "We need to go after him!" The Cactus waddled as fast as she could, running after the Piranha Plant that dashed off into the woods like a hungry wolf having just caught scent of fresh blood in its next meal.
"Well, we better go after the strange plant then!" Night Cap noted, already running off ahead after having disappeared from a cloud of dark purple spores. Rose floated behind the two plants, hoping to catch up with them.
The blue hedgehog was patiently waiting for someone to come to his rescue, and the Spiky Spikeweed didn't even notice that its prisoner was sending out the signal for help. Sonic eventually heard a noise coming from the hill next to him, and it just so happened to be his Piranha Plant pal. The carnivorous flower climbed over a decaying log covered in moss to spot the blue hedgehog bound in the Spiky Spikeweed and gagged by the purple goop covering his mouth. As Piranha Plant climbed over the log, Cactus, Rose, and Night Cap peaked over to see the carnivorous flower running to the confined blue hedgehog.
"A hedgehog?" Rose questioned. "That is whatever's maketh that signal?"
"That's not even the strangest thing. Look," Cactus told Agent Rose, pointing out the fact that he was caught in a way they would not expect. "That poor creature's snared by a Spiky Spikeweed and gagged by goop. This was only the work of a Chomper, no doubt." While the three plants were exchanging dialogue, Piranha Plant spat out a fireball that scorched the face of the Spiky Spikeweed, instantly killing it and making it slowly lose its tight grip on Sonic.
"A Chomper?" Night Cap objected. "No Chomper would ever in the right mind do such a thing, especially against a zombie, without our permission. Not even Agent Chomper."
While the three plants finished talking and made their way down the hill, Piranha Plant tugged on the vines still keeping their tight grip on Sonic, which helped the blue hedgehog gain enough air after for however long he was tied up. Sonic quickly squirmed out of the killed vines after feeling them loosen around his wrists, and he clawed off the hardened goop clamping his mouth shut.
"Piranha Plant!" Sonic cried in joy, hugging the carnivorous flower as he licked his face. "I knew you'd find me! What a good boy!"
"Piranha Plant?" Rose asked. "Is that what thou calleth this strange plant?" The blue hedgehog looked up at the three female plants in front of him, clearly showing signs of slight caution.
"Uh… I'm Night Cap, and this is Rose and Cactus," the ninja mushroom introduced herself. "We're agents of L.E.A.F., as you can tell."
"We're just ready to launch an assault mission to retrieve Agent Chomper from Zomboss Mansion," Cactus noted. "Do you think you can help us?"
"That friend of yours is crazy!" Sonic snapped, having just gone through an experience that left him confined by that plant.
"…Cometh again?" Rose asked, showing signs that she and her partners were just as confused.
"You heard me!" the blue hedgehog continued. "He just tied me up and left me here until he comes back from your mission to save the world and ship my flesh off to some foreign restaurant! He was gonna kill me!"
"Calm down, strange creature," Cactus reassured. "You're probably thinking about this the wrong way. The Chomper we know would never do such a thing."
"Oh, I know plenty," Sonic growled. "Now come on! We're gonna break into this mansion and desolate it before anyone notices we're here!" The blue hedgehog grabbed ahold of the Piranha Plant's flower pot and dashed on ahead towards the entrance to Zomboss Mansion.
"Wait! Stop!" Night Cap shouted, running straight after the two fighters. However, once Sonic got to the front entrance, he instantly stopped once the two Giga Gargantuars spotted him. The blue hedgehog, in a panic, skidded on the drawbridge and tried to run back to the plants to avoid a mighty slam from one of the Giga Gargantuars. By the time Sonic and the others hid behind a nearby rock, the telephone pole the Giga Gargantuar swung generated powerful bolts of electricity upon colliding with the drawbridge. The creature struck the rock until it crumbled into rubble.
"This place is too dangerous!" Cactus pointed out. "You're gonna get us killed!" Another bolt of electricity shot out from another Giga Gargantuar, forcing Sonic and the Piranha Plant to jump out from their spot. Rose quickly floated in front of the other two plants, waving her wand and casting a spherical barrier over them.
Sonic began dancing around the Giga Gargantuars all while holding Piranha Plant's flower pot in his gloved hands, avoiding the swinging of those large telephone poles as he and the carnivorous flower made their way to the entrance of the mansion. While Rose, Cactus, and Night Shade began firing needles and seeds at the Giga Gargantuars, Sonic placed Piranha Plant down the second he heard the cellphone still in his quills ring. The blue hedgehog quickly picked up the phone as a response.
"Hi, Sonic!" Sherry called. "Turns out it didn't take long to fix the teleportation device, and it looks like we've already located you and your friends."
"I'm in the middle of a fight right now!" Sonic spoke with frustration in his voice. "Can you pick us up later?"
"We'll try," the Mii Gunner answered before she hung up. One of the Giga Gargantuars had just targeted the two fighters at the main entrance, and it was ready to bash their skulls open with that telephone pole of its. It swung straight for the Piranha Plant, but Sonic quickly got in the way and push against the telephone pole's weight.
The electrical currents flowing from the pole to the blue hedgehog's arms should zap him until he was a burnt pile of ashes, but it somehow didn't affect him. Instead, a raw power spiraled through his quills and emerald eyes, amplifying his power by a thousand the longer he held onto the high voltage. Sonic gritted his teeth and pushed against the Giga Gargantuar's strength, beginning to feel a new kind of warmth that was just about to be released from his fingertips. With a painful yell, Sonic couldn't control himself as a blast of raw energy shot through his fingertips and began to fry the Giga Gargantuar completely. Bolts of blue lightning shot down from the dark clouds, which was bright enough for Agent Kernel Corn to notice as he was helping the Weeds and other plants board the RV Penny.
"What the devil…?" Kernel Corn asked himself as he watched all that lightning strike down upon the earth with enough brute strength for him to notice. He then knew that immediate action had to be taken.
"Agent Citron!" Kernel Corn yelled. A strange orange ball with yellow lines rolled in, and it quickly sprung up to reveal some sort of unpeeled orange with a green goatee and Mohawk, sunglasses, a photon laser cannon, and four citrus slices that served as legs.
"Round up the troops immediately," Kernel Corn ordered. "Gather up every plant belonging in all the Mint classes. We're going full assault upon the mansion."
"Can do, will do," Agent Citron responded as he rolled away, pushing a small band of acorn plants towards Penny.
When the lightning calmed down, an exhausted Sonic had just about enough strength to find out he had also managed to hit the Parrot Pals and Super Brainzes that were diving down towards the three plants and had just been caught in the crossfire. The blue hedgehog had suddenly noticed the Giga Gargantuar that attacked him was fading away into black ashes, with the Imp on its back landing on the drawbridge pretty much dead. The other Giga Gargantuar that somehow survived backed away from the group, not wanting to end up like that.
"I had no idea… I could do that!" Sonic whispered excitedly, marveled even by his own strength. As the alarm rang throughout the mansion, Piranha Plant dragged Sonic along as he, the blue hedgehog, and the three female plant agents squirmed through the open front door.
A loud alarm rang throughout the mansion, alerting all the zombies in the halls and battlegrounds. Some of the zombie swarms tried running towards the location where Sonic and his group broke in, not taking notice of the other three fighters climbing out of a vent in the wall. Terry, Samus, and Inkling all heard the commotion going on in the mansion the second they stood up on the floor.
"What's going on?" Terry asked.
"Sounds like the alarm's activated," Samus answered, holding onto her arm cannon. "But how? Wasn't Sonic supposed to disable it and let the plants in without the zombies taking notice?" Chomper squirmed out of the vent, starting to become worried about what just happened.
"Oh no… oh no… this wasn't supposed to happen!" Chomper growled, enraged that the blue hedgehog managed to escape. The other fighters took that sentence as a fact that Sonic failed to not trigger the security.
"Let's go!" Terry Bogard exclaimed, running off with Samus Aran and Clementine well behind his tail. However, Chomper hacked up a wad of green goop and trapped the Inkling's foot in it, much to her and her friends' surprise.
"It's too dangerous over there," Chomper warned, trying to think of whatever came to his head. "It's highly recommended you stick to the mission and defeat Dr. Zomboss unless you wanna end up like him."
"That's our friend you're talking about, and there's a chance the Piranha Plant's also with him!" the armored bounty hunter objected as she pulled Clementine's leg out of the sticky green goop. "They need us as much as we need them!"
"But you don't understand!" Chomper tried to reason without exposing his beliefs. "He is not who you think he is! And contrary to popular belief, that's saying something!"
"Fine then," Samus responded, not wanting to waste her time hearing a plant hold them back. "If you're not gonna help Sonic, we are." Shortly after, the three fighters ran off, leaving Chomper behind in the halls.
"So… you wouldn't make me talk, huh?" Chomper asked as the three Smashers were far away from hearing range. "I'll find a way to raise my voice and make you listen…"
Turrets with robot faces spawned in from the more intelligent zombies began firing bullets throughout the lab, trying to hit the fast-moving target that was Sonic to no avail. The blue hedgehog was speeding left to right, tearing apart the turrets while Cactus, Rose, and Night Cap were shooting projectiles of their own. Piranha Plant began grabbing ahold of some of the zombies spawning in and threw them around like ragdolls. Eventually, the five-man band got to a large steel door with "Z" marked on its metal after Agent Cactus deployed a wall of different-sized walnuts with faces bound together into a wall by vines, blocking out a wave of zombies trying to claw their way into the lab.
"Quick!" Rose shouted, pulling out a small, green tomato with eyes and a mouth. She fed the tomato some sort of glowing leaf with electrons spinning around it. "Use this Ultomato!" Sonic grabbed ahold of the glowing tomato that was thrown to him, which began to grow until it was fully-ripened and red. A burning energy began to glow inside the heavy tomato, which was about to explore any minute. Thinking fast, Sonic threw the Ultomato at the large steel door and ducked with the others behind the lab tables.
A powerful explosion occurred, melting down the steel door. Sonic, Piranha Plant, and the three agents ran through the door as soon as the smoke cleared. The blue hedgehog and the carnivorous flower looked ahead to see a dark room filled with security cameras that showcased the entirety of the mansion as well as the outskirts of Zomburbia, and right in front of them was a chair with its back turned, showing the letter "Z" imprinted on it.
"So… you'd finally arrived after so many failed attempts to break in," a strange, menacing voice spoke from behind the chair. "Bravo. Bravo indeed." The person behind the chair turned around to face the small group, and he was just a silhouette in the light of the security cams behind him. However, the appearance Sonic and Piranha Plant could piece together was that this hidden figure had a large brain pulsing through his cranium, and he was wearing a white lab coat and black rubber boots.
"Is that the guy you're after?" Sonic asked the three L.E.A.F. agents. "Dr. Zomboss?"
"The exact guy," Cactus answered.
"Agents of L.E.A.F., I had been expecting your sudden arrival," the hidden figure known as Dr. Zomboss addressed in his chilling and frightening voice. "You somehow had broken through my defenses all thanks to the aliens that arrived in Zomburbia. It took ages for the plants to break into my mansion and end a global war, but with your sudden appearance you tore through in the span of a few hours." That last sentence was addressed to Sonic and Piranha Plant.
"Now then… you'll all face a punishment worse than death," Dr. Zomboss continued, exposing dead, lifeless eyes glowing in the dark. Just then, a faint buzzing light brightened up the room, revealing the menacing figure in the chair to be nothing more than a surprised zombie in a lab coat and a large brain. The people in the room turned to the right to see a fat zombie wearing a torn engineer outfit, who just turned on a light switch and brought into the room a heated plate of circular toaster pastries with pink frosting.
"Boss…?" the zombie growled with enthusiasm, ready to offer his leader with a plate of the pastries.
"No, I don't want any Pop Smarts right now," Dr. Zomboss answered in annoyance and a voice that differed from the one he had before. "And you ruined my evil moment! Get out!" The zombie walked away in disappointment, leaving through another door near the light switch.
"On second thought, spare me the Einstein-flavored ones," Dr. Zomboss renounced to the zombie leaving the door.
"Alright… now, where was I?" Dr. Zomboss mumbled, rubbing his forehead with his decaying fingers. He eventually pointed his finger at Sonic and Piranha Plant, yelling in an overexaggerated tone. "Oh yes! Warriors from another planet! Prepare to meet a fate worse than you can imagine!"
"You… kinda ruined the moment with your minion back there," Sonic confessed. "I mean, I was kinda intimidated by you. I was expecting someone more menacing, really."
"Enough games, Dr. Zomboss!" Rose shouted, pointing her wand at the mad scientist in the chair. "We're here to end thy reign and saveth the planet for the good of humanity!"
"End my reign?" Dr. Zomboss asked. "After years of me sending out my Zombots to my past selves?" Sonic, upon hearing that word, began to feel a sense of familiarity and uncomfortableness from it. A strange burning began to heat up in his stomach, filling him with uneasiness. Zombots. That word began to ring in his ears, and he had no idea why he was reacting with such nervousness. A burst of electrical energy spiraled through a shocked hedgehog's quills, confusing both the beings around him and himself greatly.
"I don't know what's happening, but… you might not wanna say whatever you just said in front of the blue one," Night Cap warned the mad scientist.
"What?" Dr. Zomboss asked, keeping a watchful eye on the glowing blue hedgehog. "All I said was I sent out Zombots out to different periods in time and-" A powerful surge of electrical energy began sparking up through the blue hedgehog, generating bolts of lightning from his quills. The cellphone he still kept with him wasn't fried thanks to dumb luck, but that still didn't dismiss the excuse that he was starting to feel such negative emotions from a trigger word that he could not remember existing. The lights on both the security cameras and on the ceiling flickered off as all their drained energy was spiraling towards him.
"Uh… what's going on?" Cactus asked, she and the other two agents backing away.
"Zom… bots?" Sonic asked, his emerald eyes beginning to glow with blue lightning. He clenched his fists upon feeling the raw power just waiting to be released inside of him, ready to burst out like a watermelon squeezed of its juices.
"Uh… yes? You got a problem with that word?" Dr. Zomboss asked in confusion, unaware that the word he used was an unexpected trigger one until it was too late. A powerful surge of blue lightning blasted out through the walls and the ceiling, generating an electromagnetic pulse that knocked out all the lights in Zomboss Mansion. This was also noticed by the zombies as they ran around the place, arming themselves for a big fight.
The electrical surge got far more powerful the more those emotions triggered from the word "Zombots" began to echo in Sonic's head. It was like a sense of trauma, and yet he had no memory of this place. He placed his hands to his head, trying to take in this peculiar feeling of traumatizing nostalgia as his emotions somehow got out of control. Even Piranha Plant and the trio of L.E.A.F. agents backed out of the door in fear that they might get caught in the crossfire.
"Okay… you're scaring me, and I need to go now," Dr. Zomboss responded, now starting to get frightened by the blue hedgehog that was standing in front of him, glaring with glowing-blue eyes and quills that sparkled with electricity. As Dr. Zomboss pushed a button that activated a trapdoor below the chair he sat in. As he disappeared below the rumbling floor, the mad scientist soaked in the appearance Sonic took: a powerful entity that was ready to attack without a second thought. In a twist of anticlimactic events, the mansion began to crumble from the blue hedgehog's sudden temper fit.
A ball of blue lightning began ricocheting off the walls, shattering them and turning them into rubble, and Piranha Plant, Cactus, Rose, and Night Cap took notice. They followed after the enraged Sonic, who was enraged without any memory why. All he saw were glimpses of the metallic creatures he saw in the dream he had before the final battle against Galeem and Dharkon. Was that what those creatures were called? Zombots? Why would they be related to him in any way?
As Samus, Inkling, and Terry ran down the mansion, trying to avoid any rubble from falling on them, they felt a wave of electrical energy pass them by as they ran through the carpeted halls. They had quickly managed to catch eye of Piranha Plant and the L.E.A.F. agents running after him, much to their surprise.
"Piranha Plant!" Terry spoke, hugging the carnivorous flower by his stem. "I'm so happy to see you again! What's going on right now?"
"No time to explaineth!" Rose answered. "We need to escapeth this hovel of a mansion right away!" The fighters ran behind the plants of the group, chasing after flashes of blue throughout the mansion. Soon enough, they got to a large room of the mansion, mainly the main entrance, by which zombies left and right were crushed underneath piles of rubble. Sonic was so focused on hitting the pillars supporting the ceiling that he didn't even notice the same Chomper that captured him standing in the center of the room.
"No!" Agent Chomper spoke as he looked at the destruction in disbelief. "No one would destroy the home of their own creations! Not even Zomboss!"
"Home of their own creations?" Night Cap asked. Chomper turned around to suddenly notice the other agents he worked with by the side of the Smashers.
"What are you doing here with them!?" Chomper exclaimed. "This isn't right! They're working for the bad guy!"
"Why art thou talking of such rubbish?" Rose asked. "This isn't like thou!"
"You see what's going on!?" Chomper tried to explain. "This isn't right in this kind of logic or context! The villain is supposed to be aiding the zombies, not leaving them in the dust!"
"So that's why you tried to stall us?" Samus asked, pointing her arm cannon at the big-mouthed plant. "You thought Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing alive, is a villain in your eyes."
"Again!?" Cactus asked. "We told you before, Chomper: it's all in the past! The legends of the Dark One are all myths! You can't just admit someone's the bad guy just by saying they look like the one we used to fear! Just let it go!"
"I will not let those beliefs go!" Chomper objected, dodging a pile of rubble by his leaf-feet. "You know he's the one who started all this! You know he's the villain!" Clementine, Piranha Plant, Samus Aran, and Terry Bogard all looked at each other with confusion, wondering what they were even talking about. However, with all the chaos going on in the mansion, the safest thing to do is avoid all this talking and just flee the place.
"Come on," Terry told the other three fighters, grabbing ahold of the Inkling's hand and running out with her. Samus and Piranha Plant quickly followed out, leaving the four L.E.A.F. agents in the mansion with an out-of-control Sonic curled up into a ball of violent electrical power.
"Now's not the time to talk about this, Chomper!" Night Cap objected. "We need to leave. Now."
"Not until balance is restored to the world," Chomper snarled, turning towards the hedgehog bouncing around the walls. "And it all starts with ending his life… for the sake of humanity." Just then, the roof began to cave in, ready to fall upon the four plants. Sonic, upon the destruction he was causing, took time to notice what was about to happen unless he did something. There was a little bit of sanity within him as he bounced off a wall and dived straight for Night Cap, Rose, and Cactus, generating a pulse of electricity to shield them from the caving roof.
The Smashers ran out with the surviving zombies out of the collapsing mansion, successfully making it out past the drawbridge and toxic river surrounding the territory. Soon enough, an armada of plants began marching out of the woods, surrounding all parts of the mansion. The zombies, knowing they were completely overwhelmed, dropped their weapons and put their hands in the air, with a brown coat-wearing zombie holding a white flag as a means of surrender. Penny landed in front of the fighters, with the driver seat door opening to let the agents inside it out. A strange, pea-based plant with pods for hands and an hourglass mouth that made kazoo noises ran out of the flying RV, and he was holding the door open for the other agents.
"Thank you, Agent Peashooter," Kernel Corn addressed, glad that the agent preformed such a generous act. Agents Citron, Sunflower, Snapdragon, and the trio of acorns on top of a large stump of oak with a gruff face managed to make it out of Penny.
"Alright! What just happened here!?" Kernel Corn called out, looking at the disarray that happened on the zombie side of the warfare.
"Uh… we can explain," Terry tried to reason. Kernel Corn and the other agents of L.E.A.F. looked at the rubble of the mansion in awe, and they had no idea how to express their feelings.
"Oh my... Did you take down Dr. Zomboss's mansion… all by yourself?" Agent Sunflower asked.
"Well… mostly," Samus answered, making a hand gestures that was on more of a so-so level. As the dark clouds above Zomburbia began to clear, some of the rubble began to move around. The three acorn plants piloted the oak stump they were on, guiding him towards the rubble with the trapped survivors underneath. The oak began to move the rocks out of the way, finding a magical barrier cast by Agent Rose to protect the flower druidess, a non-glowing Sonic, Cactus, and Night Cap. The four fighters and the L.E.A.F. agents ran over to the survivors of the collapsed mansion, helping them out of the rubble once Rose's barrier went down.
"Are you okay?" Terry asked a coughing, dusty Sonic as the blue hedgehog was cradled up in his strong arms. The three acorn plants jumped off the oak's head, helping Night Cap, Cactus, and Rose up.
"Never been better," Sonic answered, quickly squirming out of Terry's arms once he regained enough energy to move around again. "What exactly happened around here? I was just so… lost in my emotions I didn't know what I was thinking. But… I guess your war against the undead is halted for now."
"But… what about Chomper?" Samus asked. "Is he…?" The plants and the five Smashers looked around at the desolated area around them, as well as the zombies that were leashed by vines. From what they saw from the ruined mansion crumbled into ruins, both sides came to the terrifying conclusion of Agent Chomper's absence on their own.
"He was a good comrade," Kernel Corn sighed. "The best out of all of us, though not the brightest. He will be missed. Thank you for helping us win this war, mysterious strangers." The plants in the forces sent to the mansion cheered, glad that the global-scale battle of the zombie apocalypse was finally over.
"Alright, cool," Samus responded, walking to a clearing in the grassy field. "Now can we head back? I'm ready to finish MY mission, and it's a hell of a bounty. When you give out the word to your pals, Sonic." Terry Bogard picked up Clementine by her waist, placing the Inkling on his shoulders as he walked over to the armored bounty hunter.
"Just a minute!" Sonic called out, looking back on Piranha Plant as he hugged Cactus, Rose, and Night Cap farewell. The carnivorous flower licked their faces, coughing away from the plants once he licked Cactus's face and pricked his tongue. Regardless, they laughed at that little gag before Sonic approached them. The blue hedgehog pulled up his cellphone, calling his pals back at the Legacy.
"Okay, we're ready to go," Sonic spoke.
"Alright!" Sherry spoke on the phone. "Just remember to make sure you're all together into one group since we'll be beaming you back shortly." The blue rodent looked back at the three L.E.A.F. agents, knowing they might not be back for quite some time. Sonic gave Rose his cellphone, knowing it was for the better.
"Just remember: no one must know about what happened when we encountered Chomper," Sonic told them. "Let me know what happened once I get back. That phone's hooked to only one number, so just press the button and it'll dial on my end of the reception. And hey: in the future, you might join us. Who knows?"
"Regardless of whatever terrible thing you did in the past to anger Chomper like that… we thank you for helping us win," Cactus spoke. Sonic nodded in understanding, picking up Piranha Plant's pot and dashing back to the three Smashers.
"So, are we ready to head back?" Terry asked.
"We probably are," Sonic answered, suddenly noticing he was starting to glow a faint white. Clementine jumped off Terry's shoulders to find out she was glowing too. Soon enough, all five fighters were teleported out of the world where plants and zombies fought.
Samus, Terry, Sonic, Inkling, and Piranha Plant were all transported back to the teleportation device that sent them away, appearing on the glowing pads of the machine.
"Woo! We did it!" Sieg cheered from the control panel at the other room with R.O.B., Mr. Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, Wii Fit Trainer, Duck Hunt, and the other two Ultimates Reborn.
"We were afraid you guys were gonna get fused together like some sort of monster," Gilbert resounded. "Glad to see you guys were okay!"
"Woah…" Samus pondered as she and the other three fighters looked around the futuristic place. "Are we on the Legacy? Sure's changed ever since we left…"
"We were kinda busy," Sonic answered as the other Smashers that stayed in Arcus walked over to the transporter. "If you'd like, we can take you back to where you came from."
"You know what?" Terry Bogard acknowledged. "I think I'd like to stay here for a while. Turns out this thing can transport you to other universes. Wanna see them all, y'know? See what secrets have been hidden from my world."
"Ditto," the armored bounty hunter answered as she walked out of the machine. "Besides, wanna reconnect my roots to this place. Do you guys think we can tell the others?"
"First, we might need to find a way on how to," Popo noted. "Perhaps some sort of omniversal service across all forms of communication from their worlds might suffice, whether though magic or this… 'internet' thing people are hooked onto nowadays."
"Perhaps that might work…" Sonic put into notice as he walked out of the room. "I'll be taking a million marathons around Arcus. Let me know once we get to work on such a service."
"Can do," the Mii Gunner answered a split second before the blue hedgehog sped out of the room.
When the pale light of the full moon ascended over the clear skies of Civiltatula, Sonic was chilling on his bed, which felt softer than anything he ever slept in before. However, sleep wasn't necessary for him as he laid awake at night, watching stars generated on the ceiling dance around as though millions of years passed by per second. Just then, a cellphone next to him rang on the desk by his bed, interrupting his moment of peace and tranquility. That cellphone was one he borrowed from Sherry should the plants he gave his phone to call him at any moment. The blue hedgehog snatched the cellphone and flipped it on, hearing an automated message from Night Cap.
"Heya… Sonic?" Night Cap's voice played back on the phone. "Is that how you say his name…? Anyway, it's me, Agent Night Cap. I'm just here to give you a little something on what happened ever since you guys warped off the face of the planet like aliens. If you've managed to pick this up, just know that life is going great for us… outside of the humans not being able to respond to our messages overseas and returning back to the town immediately and now Suburbia's overgrown with plants. But hey! At least we found a solution to global warming. Anyway, the zombies we managed to capture are locked up in quarantine, and we're researching on a way to reverse the effects of the undead. However, once we cleaned up the rubble in Zomboss Mansion, we found that… Agent Chomper's body was absent. And just in time too. We had already elected another Chomper to replace him, and we had just been told about the plant that tried to kill you, like you said. Wherever he is, the original Agent Chomper REALLY hates your guts and might not come back for quite some time. As for Dr. Zomboss… let's just say he's on the other side of the world now and is probably planning something for revenge. Aside from that, things are… surprisingly going okay over there. Hope you're having a good day wherever you guys are. We cannot thank you enough for saving the world in just one day." The message ended, leaving behind an automated message afterwards.
"Message ended," a generated voice spoke from the cellphone. "Please respond after the beep." A short beep played, by which Sonic sighed before giving out his message.
"Hey, Night Cap," Sonic said in a tired voice. "Things are going great back at the planet I'm living on. Got a lot of great friends, far more than I could even imagine. However, I'm still wondering about why would Dr. Zomboss call his creations… 'Zombots.' I haven't even seen them by the time I got here, but for whatever reason I'm… terrified by that word. Almost as if I remembered it before. Whatever happens on my journey throughout the multiverse, I can safely say that I hope I uncover the secrets of a forgotten past of mine. As for your end of the message, hope you guys take care of the zombies once and for all. Sonic out." The blue devil closed the cellphone, placing the device on his desk and relaxing on the bed. Just then, he heard a soft knock outside his room.
"It's Samus. The one in the Power Suit," a familiar voice spoke from the outside.
"Security: unlock," Sonic told the computer in his apartment. The door unlocked and slid open, granting the armored bounty hunter access to the blue hedgehog's place.
"Shouldn't you be back on your ship by now?" Sonic asked as Samus walked over to him.
"Figured I'd be staying here a while, try to find out what you guys did without us," Samus answered, sitting down on the bed. "You've got your own place and everything. I'm impressed. By the way, we're finishing up the service we came up with. We're calling it Smash World, a place where fighters can reconnect with one another, journey throughout different worlds in the multiverse, and keep the doors open to new recruits. Hopefully we find the remaining bearers of the Smash Balls one day."
"Oh great," Sonic sighed, looking out of the large window giving him a bird's-eye view of the city. A feeling of discomfort and sadness filled his stomach, and it was all thanks to the one word mentioned on the planet he was on: Zombots. Something about that word seemed to trigger a feeling that felt familiar to him… and yet didn't due to the fact that he couldn't remember where he got that same kind of feeling before.
"I know that look," Samus spoke, noticing the blue hedgehog looking away from her in a depressed manner. "That's the look of trauma. And the mental type too. I'm no stranger to that kind of thing, and it's the very reason why I don't get along with Ridley."
"Ridley's giving you trouble lately?" Sonic asked in an amusing manner, looking back on the armored bounty hunter which chuckled slightly at that remark.
"Heh heh… depending on whether you remember such a life-scarring moment or not, just know one thing: we're all here together as one happy family," Samus spoke, placing her left hand behind Sonic's ear and scratching it as gently as she could. "No matter what happens, no one can take the friendship we have away from us."
"Yeah… I guess you're right," Sonic responded. "After all, whatever happened long ago to piss off that Chomper all happened in the past. I guess I should stop worrying about the times that have been way behind me." Samus looked up at the ceiling, the lights of the dancing stars reflected in her glowing visor.
"Interesting show you got going on," Samus noted. "Can I stay at your place for a while?"
"Yeah, sure," Sonic answered, scooting over to the side closest to the large window and letting the armored bounty hunter sit down comfortably on the bed. Soon enough, the two fighters relaxed and looked up at the ceiling where a waltz of countless galaxies and star systems danced around the room.
