29 - Perks of A Gemini

Whistling during a war wasn't that big of a deal, right?

It was kinda fun watching people beat the living snot out of each other until they end up unconscious or dead. It wasn't really fair though, because no one was really dying yet. Not even his own guys were dead yet. What a bore. It's not like he actually needed them, he just wanted to weaken No Zone's military force as much as he could, with a little bit of fun. Sure he could have destroyed the whole zone if he wanted to, but that wouldn't be fun. That'd just be boring. After running away from Stripes, just because he could and teasing him was so fun and he loved it so much, Scourge just stood literally in the middle of the entire fight. Not caring if anyone bumped into him or even hit him. He didn't move, only watched while humming Claire De Lune in his head. See, he would have brought his music player, but it'd just get destroyed.

He was looking around for Sonic every few minutes, but he didn't see any blue streaks. Sadly, he got away from him again. He could feel Fleetway whispering in his ears, telling him that Sonic and Shadow were recovering their powers without even knowing it. Soon, they would be able to use that power to transform and prove to be a bit of a problem. However, Scourge already calculated this, like he did with nearly everything. He purposely waited until now to start the war because he knew this would only end in two ways: Scourge would live, Sonic would be captured, and No Zone will have lost a great war with a large number of casualties. Or, Sonic would pull something out of his ass and some how defeat Scourge which would lead to his arrest for the fourth...third...Fifth? No, fourth time. Maybe. Anyway, no matter who won in this battle, it didn't matter to him.

Sonic wouldn't kill him, that's the point. Scourge would still be alive.

Even if he was beaten and his entire crew was killed or apprehended, they'd show mercy on him. He couldn't die, at least not by their hands, so he'd be able to do what he wanted even then. After the war, there was one last phase that was set in motion for his entire plan to work. All he needed, was to bait Sonic one more time and end it. If he had started the war earlier this week, Sonic and Shadow would be too weak to try and fight him in the grand finale. Yes, that's right, he wanted a proper fight. He didn't want to just obliterate them then and there, he wanted a challenge. And then he wanted to see them suffer, and then absorb their powers and eradicate them for good.

So Scourge personally didn't really give a shit about anything that was happening right now, because he still had his plan perfectly in motion.

Maybe he should just stay here and, maybe watch the clods move for a bit. Huh, that's funny. The sun wasn't really out right now, but it was still light. How ominous. Maybe that was just another taste of foreshadowing?

Well if it was, he was all for it.

Soldiers were falling, but they refused to stand down.

They always got back up again, just to strike back even harder. As corny as that sounded, that was the literal truth. Sonic lost count as to how many times he saw someone fall, get back, clench their teeth and throw a punch or a kick. They were all taught a decent amount of physical training, that much was obvious. With Scourge's men, it was a little evident that they lacked some physical capabilities. In other words, they didn't seem as skilled as Zonic's grade A officers. He also noted that those chaotic force fields Scourge placed on them didn't seem to work against physical attacked if they were shot with one of those cool lasers. That must must have canceled his power out. Actually, he saw more of them on the ground than zone cops.

Dare he say it, they were winning.

After the zone cop lady pointed Scourge in his direction, he couldn't waste this chance. He knew he had to do this now while the idiot was wide open, but first he needed to consult with someone. Seeing five upcoming enemies turn their attention from some unconscious soldiers on the grass, they glared at the hedgehog and began sprinting for him. Damn it, he didn't have time for this right now. He clicked his ear piece with his thumb and called Zonic. "Commander," Sonic addressed quickly. "Scourge is here and-" His eyes widened as he easily dodged any blow or attack his gang was attempting. He could see from afar that Scourge was charging something red in his hand. People who were anywhere near him was backing away in fear, even his own men. "He's about to do something bad...!" He scowled. "I'm going over there."

"Excuse you? No way! You could get hurt!"

"You know just as well as I do that I'm willing to sacrifice myself for you."

"...Chaos, why do you have to take it there? This wasn't part of the plan. You're not even staying in character!"

"Heh," 'Sonic' speedily and stealthily disappeared from their sights. "Everyone will see for themselves our little game of deception, 'commander'." He soon knocked them all out by grabbing different parts of their bodies and draining their energies, or just giving them a good sock to the face to put them to sleep for a few hours. Then, he saw a streak of red and black get closer to Scourge's distance. That was Shadow. He'd get beaten by Scourge, even with the small upgrades. He couldn't let them fight, not yet. "Shadow's getting close, I can't let them engage. I need to protect the both of you." He said as he moved his legs as quick as possible, initiating a sonic boom that blew others away behind him. "Have your powers fully returned yet?"

"No, it's too early. I didn't expect for this to fail so soon, ya know."

"Now you're the one who's completely out of character."

On the other side, 'Zonic' grew impatient and agitated with concern. "This isn't funny! I don't want you fighting him either!"

"I'm not going to." 'Sonic' stated calmly. "Just please, trust me. I will be okay." Was all he said before inching closer and closer, feet after feet, yard to yard. He ended up pummeling any asshole in black the whole way, just as a little bonus before colliding with Scourge. From the corner of his eye, Shadow was just a little behind, but was almost as close to Scourge as he was. He realized that Sonic was going to attack, and yelled for him to stop.

"Sonic..!"

This caught Scourge's attention, he turned to his side to see Shadow slowing down. He said Sonic's name, and was looking behind him. With a frown, the green hedgehog was about to turn back around, until something yanked the back of his head to help him do that for him. His blue eyes shrunk and he hollered with both shock and immediate pain. His body, by his head, was yanked backwards forcing him to fall to this knees. He grabbed at the back of his neck, trying to feel for what the hell was pulling at his quills like this. He pulled at the restraint, and it forced him to try and turn to the side to catch a glimpse of his assaulter.

Holy shit, it was Blue. And he was using one of those control gauntlet thingy-majigs. Why the hell was he using that of all things? Couldn't he have just used a chaos-Oh fucking shit, this was hurting! The damn laser that was shot at him was being used like a rope, yanking his spines like a bull's horn. They normally couldn't do that, and he was sure they didn't engineer that into their new upgraded toys. By taking a few glances at the energy of the power depleting laser, it was being corrupted by his own chaos energy from Fleetway. It created a negative effect to it, so the laser's energy mass ended up becoming hooked into his body and driving his pain nerves insane. He gripped the light beam of the rope-like energy, trying to yank it out of himself. Damn it, why the hell did Fleetway's power have to react with nearly everything?

Sonic was gripping his own wrist with his other hand, using it as leverage to help pull the laser's beam towards himself so he could yank Scourge over here. He wouldn't let that bastard get away that easily! He shoved his foot into the ground and roughly retracted his arm backwards. Scourge made a choking sound and lost balance.

Okay, okay okay okay, now he was getting super pissed.

Super, fucking, pissed.

He was gonna explode, he was gonna get really mad, and everyone would fucking die if his temper didn't die down. With an angry snarl, Scourge use his strength to stand up and hurl himself forward, as if he was performing a headbutt. Red faded from the laser's beam and it ultimately vanished as if he snapped the rope. From that last big pull, Sonic lost the game of tug of war and was yanked several feet closer to the green hedgehog. Smoke puffed from his control gauntlet, signifying that it was destroyed. Great.

While panting and huffing, Scourge slowly turned around to face Sonic with a face that looked far from amused.

Sonic didn't look very cocky or happy either.

They both looked equally furious.

Striking fists shot up and were caught in each other's hands. How funny, isn't this how Sonic and Shadow fought that one time? Ironic, Scourge thought. He could feel that Blue was actually putting up a good fight as they tried shoving each other down in a test of physical strength and endurance. It was probably thanks to those little gloves Zonic gave him. They were making him stronger, but not stronger than him. Nor smarter. Scourge smirked and used his leg to kick the blue hedgehog in the knee. He instantly let go of Scourge's hands and was forced to kneel. The green twin waited for him to get back up to exchange more blows but, he was taking a little too long to recover. He narrowed his eyes at the ground below him, and saw moisture on some of the blades of grass. The hell, was he crying?

"Hmph," He reached down and gripped the top of Sonic's head by his fur, forcing him to look up at his anti-self. Scourge blinked, Sonic wasn't crying, at least not out of both eyes. He was clenching one of them shut while the other just glared at him. Okay, that was weird, but whatever.

"Let him go!" He heard Shadow holler at him. Oh God, not this asshole again for the second time...

No, he'd just ignore him for now, and go back to what he was already doing before he was rudely interrupted. Sonic tried to move, but stopped once he felt that one of his hands was bound. He looked down to see a scarlet red shackle attached to a chain, made entirely of chaos connected to one of Scourge's wrist. The bastard chained himself to him so he couldn't get away. Dark scarlet energy formed in Scourge's palm as he leered. "Listen ya'll," He announced loudly so anyone close enough could hear over the voices and battle cries of warriors and soldiers. "This war is boring as shit, yo! I ain't feelin' it right now, ya dig? So I'm gonna do this..!" He held the hand upwards in the skies, snickering as his power released and flew in all different directions. "Anyone who has a stupid ass Metroid helmet on their head, well," He snapped his fingers. "Say goodbye!"

One by one, every No zone Soldier with their helmets, were deteriorated by dark red chaos energy. It turned every single one of them into ash, and it drifted in the air along with the red mist Scourge's gang shot out earlier. Piece by piece, parts of No Zone property fell to the grass before crumbling into red dust. This was bad, this meant that everyone was now vulnerable to his power. Scourge laughed as he saw their panic stricken faces. That's right, they were no longer safe from his control. Now he-

...Wait a minute, his power was surrounding Sonic's head too.

He didn't tell it to do that. Why was it doing it to him? He specifically wanted it to only target people with no zone helmets, so why was he being effected too? "The fuck? I only told it to effect the No zone Assholes, why it is messing with you?" He asked aloud while eyeing Sonic quizzically. Sonic suddenly opened his other tear leaking eye, revealing a darker green eye color. Hey, that wasn't right, It wasn't lime green like the other one.

"That's because..." 'Sonic' whispered.

"Huh? You gotta speak up blue, I can't hear you."

"That's because," 'Sonic' seized Scourge's arm and flipped his palm off of his cranium. "I'm the commander of those No Zone assholes!" He cried before holding back his own arm and swinging it right into Scourge's jaw. His knuckles pressed themselves far into his face, grazing his teeth and bone structure from the outside. The punch was so strong, Scourge fell off of his feet once again and hit the ground by the side of his face. Blood pooled from his teeth that he was now grinding angrily. He saw from his current position from the ground, that the moisture on the grass he saw from earlier wasn't a tear drop, it was a lime green contact lens. As someone who wore them for his poor eye sight, he knew it was that for sure.

Those motherfuckers-

-They tricked him.

The hedgehog everyone thought was the Hero of Mobius prime, digitized his body with a familiar black military uniform. His gold medals placed on his chest, his strict and intimidating expression with cold dark green eyes. He rose his hand to his face and poked his other eye gently with his finger, before flicking the now useless eye contact onto Scourge's body. He wiped his face of unintentional tears and crossed his arms. "Weren't you already told, Ogilvie?" The commander asked while politely bending down to face him closely. "You're playing on my field now, and I will not let you win this time." After he hissed that into his ear, he stood back up and placed his hands behind his back while glancing at his soldiers shocked and surprised faces. Some of them were amused to see their boss get the upper hand against an enemy, just like he always did.

Shadow too was taken by surprise. The entire time, even right before the battle started, it was never Sonic who was by his side, it was Zonic. He couldn't tell the difference because one, they wore contacts to hide their different eye colors, two, they sounded and looked exactly the same, and three, they have the same chaotic wavelengths. At first they were different because Sonic was a virgin before, but he lost his virginity just last night, so now they were exactly identical twins. This meant that Zonic, who was over at the other side of the green field with that medic, was actually his lover who disguised himself in Zonic's uniform. It was an exact copy.

The true commander sucked his teeth and looked to the side. "Though it is quite a shame that I'm now shackled to you, it was a necessary sacrifice. I'd rather be captured by you than to let you kidnap my champion for a second time." He gave him another death glare. "I will never let you touch him, not even if you kill me." He spat as Scourge groaned, struggling to stand back up after a heavy hit like that. "You see, Sonic prime came up with the brilliant idea to play a prank on you. A similar prank you pulled on him twice by taking advantage of your uncanny appearances. Sonic prime knows that you were the sole cause of depleting his power, so he was trying to time it during the battle, hoping that it would recharge by the end of it so he could stop you. But that couldn't happen if you'd constantly be after him." He looked at his own wrist and began to take off his broken control gauntlet. "He knew there'd be a high risk of him being caught by you, so he proposed disguising as each other in order to trick not just you, but everyone else just in case someone would give you red flags. You're very smart, you'd catch on easily if anyone leaked the slightest amount of suspicion."

He watched as Scourge rose back up on his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm of dark blood. He looked pretty livid, but Zonic couldn't care less. Probably because he couldn't believe someone as intelligent and coy as him would be so easily tricked.

"Sadly," Zonic continued as he tossed the useless equipment away. "Our plan failed rather early since I was caught, but I personally made a back up plan for such a scenario." He pointed to Scourge's mouth while he crossed his other arm over his torso. "Besides hitting you with a rather painful right hook, I also did something you might not take a liking to," He crossed both arms and cocked an eyebrow. "I halted your regeneration ability, which is why you're still bleeding from that garbage fire you call a mouth."

Scourge continued not to say a word, only staring with his icy eyes with an even icier dark expression on his face.

"I can pretty much figure out what you truly plan to do here. You obviously don't care about this fight, as you only instigated it for another purpose. I know you want my life to end today, specifically." He made a small shrug. "You may try, and who knows? You may even succeed, but you won't get very far in your plans with Sonic and Shadow prime in your way."

"Hehehehahahahaaa.." Scourge suddenly cackled. "Honestly Zonic, I don't know what's funnier," He said as he took a few steps to get in front of him. "The fact that you think your dull-ass attitude can intimidate me, or the fact that you think this dampers my plans." He pulled at his own chain of red chaos with an evil smirk. "I will get my hands on Sonic. And I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want to him. And no one is gonna fuckin' stop me. Not you, not Stripes, and especially not him."

The mean bruise Zonic placed onto his face wasn't healing, but he still smirked either way.

The Mobians cheered on for their friends back in No Zone with exuberance. They yelled can pumped their fists, they screamed into the screen for the soldiers to fight on. When Zonic said they would see the battle through their 'eyes', he meant their helmets. Live footage was being recorded and shown from every No Zone officer's helmets, and the group even had access to watch from any helmet they chose. So from the laptop of the back of the anti-Omega, they could see the battle from start to finish. They saw Sonic, and they saw Shadow. They saw that evil bastard Scourge, and they saw his entourage of evil doers. The No Zone cops were pretty tough, almost as tough as their hero.

They were so happy and excited to see them fight, kicking ass for their zone and their people. The commander was so smart, and he was a just leader. Or at least, that's what they thought until they saw a contact lens fall from Sonic's face. Right after that happened, something red blocked the screen, and the video was offline. Something must have malfunctioned on their side, but what did they just witness before that?

"What the heck?! What happened?" Tails exclaimed at the robot.

"It appears that all of the helmets used to record the war have been destroyed. Their uniforms have also been tampered with by the energy of anti-Sonic's chaotic powers." The droid looked down at the fox and his Mobian friends. "I am sorry, but the feed is gone. You can no longer watch their progress."

"Son of a bitch..!" Knuckles punched the wall beside him, making a hole and a few cracks form. Amy clenched her teeth and grabbed at her hair, while Rouge scowled. Tails paced around the robot, putting a hand on his head as he tried to think. What could they do, what could they do? That was their only form of communication, what if that Zonic guy needed his help? They all were angry and distraught that they could no longer see the battle, but they were even more puzzled as to why their hero was wearing contacts.

Tails struggled to try and put the universal network back into action, but it was no use. With a growl, Tails just huffed sat back with a scowl. Of course this would happen now. Just freaking great. He tapped his fingers on his knee irritably, mentally trying to figure out a way to find another method of surveying the war.

The white bat groaned in annoyance along with everyone else and looked at each other with the begging question, what should they do now? As Knuckles stared at the laptop screen that was currently displaying static, he remembered seeing Scourge's face right before Sonic got close to him with that weird device on his wrist. It made him wonder something, and the thing he worried about only became more relevant to him when he glanced over at Rouge. Since they didn't have anything to do anyway, he figured he could ask her what was on his mind. "Rouge?"

She looked over beside her at the echidna. "Hm?"

"What exactly happened after Scourge turned green? I know you tried stealing my emerald with him, but something went wrong, right?" What happened?" She was bewildered as to how he even knew about that considering she only told Tails, Sonic, Shadow and Amy...Oh, see that last one might have been why he knows. Damn pinkie was a whistle blower. She sighed and turned away. She was surprised he wasn't that angry. Then again, they were now surviving in a world of apocalypse. There was no room for petty anger for past mistakes here.

"I," She began with a pause. "We had gotten into a dispute. About who would take the entire emerald for themselves. I was under the impression the kid just wanted to help me because he wanted to have sex with me-Oh." She forgot there was a child in the room. A few children actually. Tails was listening, but he was still pretty focused. Amy was close since she was huddled with the group in trying to watch the fight previously. They didn't seem bothered by the sudden mention of that, to which the bat was glad for. They were mature kids. "Um," Rouge tried to continue. "Anyway, turns out I was wrong. He didn't want me, he just wanted to use me to have the master emerald for himself. He planned on using it to achieve a super form like Sonic and Shadow, and even kicked me down before running for it. He placed his hand on it and.." She discontinued.

Vanilla could see this was a difficult subject for her, for some reason, so she placed her hand on her shoulder softly. "Take your time, dear."

Oddly enough, Rouge actually felt a genuine sense of serenity when the woman placed her hand on her. What a beautiful aura she had. Maybe being a mother does that to you. She relaxed herself and tried to speak again. "It rejected him. He instantly got, electrocuted or something with that power. He screamed so loud, and he sounded like he was in excruciating pain. I almost felt bad for him, because I knew he regretted it." She could tell Amy and Tails were giving their attention to her completely at this point. She even saw Fiona raise her head a little from the back of the room. "His body was actually fried, and he fainted and fell down. I could see smoke blowing from his fur. For at least ten minutes, he wouldn't wake up. I thought he had died from the shock. So I nudged him with the tip of my heel, and that's when he started coughing. Once he managed to get up and dust himself off, we both realized he had became mutated. But," She bit her lip.

"What?" Amy asked.

"...Look," Rouge looked into Knuckles' purple eyes. "I'm not one to believe in ghosts, spirits or paranormal crap, despite witnessing a number of crazy occurrences happening to us constantly, but I saw something that kind of stuck with me for a really long time." She grabbed Knuckles' fist tightly. "Just, listen to me. All of you, cause I'm not making this up. Not at a time like this." She said with a grounded voice. He could tell with the look in her eyes that she was very sincere. "Right when Scourge got rejected by the emerald, I could see someone else right behind him. They looked just as in pain as he did, maybe even worse. It looked just like him, that person. Once the failed transformation was done, they just...disappeared. Then when Scourge started waking up, I saw that same person again, standing right over his body."

Tails turned to look over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. "Was it a ghost?"

The bat shook her head. "I don't even know. All I know is that it looked just like him, when he was blue. But their eyes, were empty and white. Like they were dead. And, I could kinda see through them if I'm remembering correctly."

"Wait a minute," They all turned their heads towards the back of the room where Fiona sat. She seemed a little put off by something. "Scourge used to say he saw someone like that all the time in Moebius, and he only saw it after he turned green. I never saw it though. Besides," She looked away. "He's insane, so he might have been hallucinating. Maybe that's what happened to you since you were near the accident. Chaos power can do some fucked up things."

Rouge twisted her mouth into a frown. She didn't like that answer. She knew for sure she saw that, she couldn't have been imagining it. "..."

"But," Fiona added. "Every time I walked around with him in the castle, I always had the feeling that, something was off. Like something didn't feel right." She closed her eyes as she could clearly remember her nights in that cursed castle. She never liked it there, she hated it there. She only went there if Scourge requested her time, and she never volunteered to visit him. But now that she thought about it, maybe she should have. Maybe Scourge was hallucinating that because he was lonely with all that power coursing through him? "Whenever I slept in that damn place, I always felt something cold stand by me. Even when it was blazing hot outside. I always felt like something was watching me. That besides Scourge, something or someone else was there. I could never actually see what was wrong, though. Just Scourge rambling on about seeing some spirit following him around. The castle's a pretty cruddy place to live in so, I just though it was drafts coming through cracks in the walls or something."

Tails poked his finger at his chin. "Sonic once told me he saw ghosts during the whole werehog thing. He never actually fibs about his adventures, even though that whole King Arthur scenario was hard to believe. Aaand there was that one time when I was little in Sandopolis...Sonic and I saw these weird floating things, I had nightmares for weeks." The fox looked back up at his friends with a shrug. "Regardless, maybe it was a ghost." He said this particular at Rouge.

Knuckles just exhaled slowly. "Ghosts. So that's another thing we have to worry about now?"

"Uuughh," Amy scratched both of her hands in her hair. "There's way too much wrong with this guy."

"You don't know the half of it." Fiona mumbled to herself.

Feeling a little more than curious, the orange kitsune decided to try something. "Hey anti-Omega?" He lightly knocked his knuckles on the machine's upper back to get it's attention. "Do you know if the castle in anti-Mobius is haunted or not?" Not that the machine would probably know, but it seemed to have knowledge for a lot of things that it probably shouldn't know.

Then, the machine replied with a response that caught everyone off guard. "Affirmative."

...Ha, okay.

Now this was getting weird. Why did this thing know so much? How did it even know that? Why did it know that? Who the hell was this robot? Rather, who was inside? Tails knew there was something inside of that thing! This thing knew stuff that it shouldn't! They had to be related to Scourge in some way shape or form, and damn it, he was gonna figure out who, even if it killed him! "...Just how much do you know about Moebius?" Tails asked with obvious suspicion.

"More than anyone you've met so far." It responded.

"Attention officers of No Zone, this is your real commander speaking. Unfortunately, I've been apprehended. As ordered before, do not engage directly with anti-Sonic, leave that to Sonic and Shadow prime. Please do not fear for my safety, I will be fine. Keep fighting until there's no one left standing." This was a message to anyone with a working transmitter somewhere on their person.

Sonic bit his lip as he heard the transmission. He could barely see in the distance that Scourge and some of his guys were putting Zonic in one of their trucks that came pummeling through the grass. Zone cops tried to take their leader back, but Zonic either commanded them to stop and keep fighting, or to just leave them all be for now and assured them that he'd be safe. Scourge was tempted to kill them all, which was why he ordered them to go away and to just keep fighting. While biting their tongues and gritting their teeth, they angrily had to watch as their leader became captive of that green bastard.

Sonic realized the little act they were playing was over, and there was no sense in keeping up this disguise any longer. Some Zone Cops were attending Zespio's body in one of the hidden bases in the greenfield. The greenfield had taller and longer grass growing away from the coast lines, so that's where they planted some of their bases to hide. They were staring at him with a long silence. Sonic held up his finger towards the black helmet of the fake uniform, and allowed it to digitize off of his body. He made an awkward smile and shrugged while taking a few steps back. "Heh, sorry about that. Keep up the good work, and make sure you aren't caught!"

As he sped off away from the secret base, the No Zone cops glanced at each other with dropped jaws.

He needed to find Shadow, and fast. They couldn't let Scourge keep Zonic, who knew what he'd do to him? Gah, he was gonna be so pissed for tricking him like that, but it had to be done. Well, that's what he would say if the plan had actually worked. On the bright side, Zonic did them a solid and stole that regeneration ability away from their enemy. So at least their attacks would actually matter. The more he ran, the more he could see fallen No Zone soldiers, or people in black passed out on ground. He hated war, he hated war so much. He prayed no one was dead yet, but he couldn't tell. He would try to use them to help him, but he could feel that they weren't connecting with his energy yet. It still wasn't time, and his super form wasn't ready either. And it's not like he could use that, it'd just overwhelm him with their influence.

Damn it, he didn't know what to do!

No, no, don't panic. Panicking wasn't a thing that he did, rather, a thing he refused to let himself do. Now on the battle ground once again, he calmly took a deep breath and quickly ran to stand behind a now ruined black trucks. He saw that while the zone cops' military vehicles were being untouched or destroyed, he also noticed that Scourge's trucks were relatively in good shape. All of them. Hey, didn't Shadow once teach him how to manipulate objects with chaos control? If Scourge could hack random vehicles and air crafts while using their power, why couldn't he? Sonic frowned as he formed blue energy around his hands and arms. He quietly got down on the floor, firmly planting both palms of his hands on the ground.

Blue aura surrounded every single black truck that was parked in the area. This was using up quite a bit of energy, but he could gain it back in no time. Damn, this was kind of hard. He could feel his power infiltrating their mechanical bodies, but he couldn't figure out how to activate them. After all, this wasn't like telekinesis, and he wasn't Silver. Come on, he thought to himself. Sonic was someone who needed to see something once at a quick glance in order to learn it instantly. He's done it plenty of times before, so he should be able to do this!

With sweat developing on his forehead, he clenched his eyes shut as he felt a surge of power erupt through his veins.

A light bulb popped in his head. Ah, he knew what this was! This was their power! The hacking, the corruption, it was all their language! Sonic didn't know it very well, but he understood enough to be able to use it! Now with a confident smile along with a devious idea in the works, Sonic shoved one of his hands against the side of the truck he was hiding behind. Blue energy took the physical form of something similar to electricity, pulsating throughout all of the mobile machines. A headache was starting to form, but he pushed passed it and allowed his power to activate them.

One by one, engines inside of them roared. They made purrs and rumbles of ignition, headlights flickering on and off. Good thing they lived in a world where nearly everything ran on electricity, including cars. Horns honked, with no one inside of them. Sonic almost laughed in joy, it actually worked! Now all he had to do was charge up a little more. He got on one knee, leaning himself forward with a track runner position while his blue energy was still surrounding his limbs. He was going to do this all at once.

Shadow, who ruefully had to watch Zonic, whom he thought was Sonic, get in that damn truck with Scourge who was now driving away to the coast. He was so flabbergasted and confused and pissed off, he did the only thing he thought would be best: beat the living shit out of anyone wearing stupid black leather clothes.

He was getting a pretty good round up too. He knocked out a few dozen, and he only hoped he didn't accidentally kill someone while curve stomping their damn heads in. Any zone cop who tripped or was beaten down was helped by yours truly, but not before giving them a death glare. Now was not the time to let these assholes get the upper hand. That arrogance shown by that female cop earlier was a result of failure on their part. These morons underestimated their enemy despite the commander's warnings, and that's why some of them were getting their asses handed to them. On top of that, and the fact that Sonic had somehow tricked him the entire time since this war started, Shadow's temper was close to breaking. In fact, he barely even laid his hands or feet on anyone, because he felt that chaos blasting people was just so much more effective.

Just as he tossed away the body of some other poor soul who dared to confront him, he sensed something strange. It wasn't Scourge, because it didn't feel corrupted or evil. It felt pure, and very large.

A sonic boom erupted.

It was no normal phenomenon, however.

The boom was so large, so powerful, that blades of grass for yards shredded into the air. Wind blew with roughness, able to shove anyone down with one forceful breeze. Any object or vehicle that wasn't being controlled was blowing or even flying away. People, both zone cops and gang members were losing their footing. With blinking eyes, Shadow stood still and turned to look behind him. Anyone else who was near him, looked the same way as he did. Some of them dropped their weapons. Some of them dropped their jaws. Some turned to run, because a stampede was coming.

A stampede of black trucks surrounded with blue chaos energy, was charging forth with great speed.

Because of how many there were, they formed one large chaotic force. It was as if they formed one large energy beam, shooting straight at anyone in the battlefield. People yelled or screamed to get away or hide, as Shadow just continued to stand there and watched as the barricade of trucks rushed forward. They were going at supersonic speed, which was impossible for any vehicle unless they were invented by Sonic's little brother or Eggman, which led to one conclusion. The cars flew passed him, just nearly missing him with his fur grazing the side window of one of them. He narrowly fit, right between two of them, that thankfully didn't touch him as they zipped away. In that one second, in slow motion, he could see Sonic riding in the back seat of one of them smiling and waving at Shadow when they zoomed off.

After all the trucks drove away and dived deeper into the field, they ran over Scourge's men. Those trucks were insanely fast, and the zone cops were better equipped when it came to equipment, so they were able to just barely get away or even fly away with their modified shoes. Scourge's army wasn't so lucky, as some of them unfortunately were either hit, or trampled by thick tires. After a while, Sonic hopped out of the back seat while it was still moving and landed on the ground, watching as the trucks he previously took over simply stopped in their tracks. Some even exploded from being hacked with chaos energy.

If Shadow counted correctly, there were more able-bodied zone cops still on their feet than their adversary. This was good, they were getting ahead. A little more and this would be over.

Shadow turned around and began walking, stepping over bodies and dodging any projectiles or weapons that just so happened to aim in his direction.

He needed to have a talk with that blue hedgehog.

Scourge could see from the camera he hacked from Zonic's airship, that Blue was making quite a mess out there.

Scourge and few of his lackeys were inside one of his black trucks, driving toward the coast and away from the greenfield. Zonic said he ordered for his navy to leave the oceans and to get onto land before any vessels would explode. Funny thing was, Scourge planted the bombs with random time limits, so even he had no idea when they'd go off. Zonic was in the back seat along with him, his hands bound with red aura shaped like handcuffs ironically. His lackeys were up in the front seats, driving for them as Scourge watched from his laptop while chewing a piece of gum. Zonic was surprised he could chew at all with that bruise on his cheek, but he knew very well that the hedgehog probably had a high pain tolerance.

As Scourge watched the fight while leaning back in his seat, one of his men asked a question. Their voice was low and a little quiet, almost as if they were scared to speak.

"..Why aren't you attracted to commander Zonic? I don't get it. He and Sonic look exactly the same, so why not take him instead?" The Moebian asked while looking to the side.

Scourge blew a bubble with boredom, popping it and closing his laptop. "Becaaaauuuuse," He sarcastically began. "Zonic is the 'foreman' I was talkin' about. Once we get rid of him, they won't be able to operate correctly without their Overseer monitoring their hosts." As he said this, the blue No Zone twin narrowed his eyes. So that's what this was about. He knew Scourge only wanted to kill him, but he didn't realize that was the reason why. "He has to be killed. Besides," He glanced over at Zonic who continued to look uninterested just as much as he did. "Step daddy's a real meanie. I mean, that's why I call him that, cause he's so cold. He's not sweet and innocent like my Big Blue." He sneered while chuckling. "Then again with all that anger, he'd probably be great in bed. How 'bout it chief?" He asked. "Think you could take a few rounds with me?"

Oh God, Zonic didn't have time for this nonsense. His mundane tone was begging to be used for sarcasm. After minutes with absolutely no words from the lieutenant general, he finally decided to speak. "...Ogilvie," He knew using his real name put a bad taste in the other's mouth, so he didn't plan on stopping. "I find that very humorous. You could barely handle me as a private in No Zone Prison, and now you think you can handle me in a bedroom. Hysterical." He said as he looked off to the side to look out the tinted windows.

Scourge grinned and began to laugh. "Ooooooh! Well ain't we sassy?" He made a fake gasp. "Oh oh! I got somethin' funny too! Check me out," He stood up out of his seat and stood in front of the commander while leaning forward to get closer to his face. "Look at me! I'm Zonic the Overseer! I'm a walking talking Napoleon complex, because all of my fellow soldiers seem to be several feet taller than me! I like giving people mean looks and act all hard boiled because I used to be, and still am, a loser, who had to sleep with my superior just to get a higher rank in the military! And because I'm such a loser, I like to scowl and grill anybody who dares to even look at me because I'm just so untouchable! So allow me to watch a few more hours of GI Joe so I can jot down some ideas for my mellow dramatic war speeches, and whine about how much I miss my comatose boyfriend who isn't going to wake up anytime soon." The smile on his face was wiped off automatically once he was done, giving him a stare that looked quite serious and anything but comical. "Did I miss anything chief?" He whispered.

Zonic turned and lifted his head to look at Scourge in the eyes. "Would it make you feel better if I said 'no'?"

Scourge's hand shot to his neck, squeezing his palm against his throat. As he began to strangle the high ranking officer, he started to growl. "You know," He hissed. "I've never seen you this sassy before, and I kinda think it's hot," He said as he pressed his thumb on his windpipe. However, Zonic refused to budge, or give him any kind of pained reaction. "But I also kinda don't, cause it's really making me wanna knock your teeth in. And we wouldn't wanna break those beautiful," Scourge took his other hand to gently caress the side of his muzzle, draping his finger across his lips. "...Porcelain cap teeth, now do we?"

"Do whatever you want to me Olgivie." Zonic coughed out.

"Oh like kill you?" He asked as a matter of fact. "'Cause I can definitely fuckin' do that." He asked he squeezed even tighter.

"A-Ah," Zonic was panting at this point. "Y-You...You didn't let me finish," He managed to croak. "You can do whatever you want to me, because I will endure it...I won't die by the hands of you. My allies, wouldn't allow it. I made a promise to Sonic...Prime, and I will see it through. What will you do to me...in the meantime?" He gasped throughout that sentence, still giving him that determined glower.

Suddenly, Scourge let go of his neck, and sat uncomfortably close to the blue hedgehog. As Zonic coughed and heaved for breath, the Moebian crossed his legs and leaned back. "Oh I'm not gonna do a thing to you, chief." He held up his finger and pointed to the closed laptop that was nearby. "What I am going to do, is make you suffer," He moved to grab the laptop, and sat it down on his lap to open it. "By making you watch your men kill each other."

Zonic hacked and tried to steady his breathing before speaking again. "Ugh..We've no casualties. What are you on about?"

"You will soon enough." Scourge cocked a brow and smirked. "Cause I'm about to put a little spell on your soldiers since they don't have their helmets anymore." He winked at him.

With widening eyes, Zonic slowly stared at the screen as red began to drift in the air.

END - 29

In the last chapter 'Sonic' told a female No Zone solider that females were supposed to be wearing special binds or wraps to help keep their breasts from flopping all over the place during combat. But Zonic is the only person who knows the ins and outs about details of soldier uniform protocols, the real Sonic never knew about this at all.

Anyway, yeah. They tricked everyone into looking like each other, even faking their personalities to get by.

There's a lot of italicized and bold words in this chapter, hinting to a lot of hidden stuff. Read between the lines to try and figure it out.

Also, be prepared. Things are gonna get a bit crazy from here on out.

(And sorry for taking so long to update. Thank you for the constant support, you all are amazing people.)