And we're back! Don't need to say as much this time, since this chapter is mostly gonna be about Classic Sonic tearing through Ghost Town Zone. Expect lots of Badniks to blow up, haha. Well, that's enough from my slightly demented mind, onwards to the story!

"The radar shows that Eggman and his Chaos Emerald are just up ahead," Tails said through the comm link, before adding, "Enemies could be lying in wait, so watch your step. I get the feeling Eggman has some tricks up his sleeve!"

Classic Sonic nodded at Tails' words, before taking off. Running down an incline, Classic Sonic curled into a ball and allowed gravity to pull him forward, collecting a few rings in the process.

Using his forward momentum, he was able to soar over a small gap between the walkway. Continuing on his path, he came across a small downward slope that lead him to another gap that he leapt over, before coming to a steep incline. Uncurling, Classic Sonic ran up the incline before bouncing off a spring into the air, and onto a small floating platform.

"Boing!" Rita said.

"Hey, those look kinda fun!" Pyro admitted. "But, uh, why is that platform just floating like that?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Tails said, shrugging.

Ignoring the radio chatter, Classic Sonic jumped off of the platform and onto the nearest roof. Seeing a ramp, he curled into a ball and began revving up. He then Spin Dashed forward, flying off of the ramp and into the air, onto another spring that sent him back into a large pile of Rings.

Collecting a number of them as he fell, he ran into another spring that sent him back in his original direction, giving him a view of the city as he did so. Two fireballs flew into the nearby buildings, causing a series of explosions. Despite that, Classic Sonic was unfazed, effortlessly landing on the next platform, which lead him to a springboard.

Leaping off of it, Classic Sonic landed on a small downward slope. Using his forward momentum, he blazed down the slope and onto a sudden upwards ramp, which yet again lead him to a spring, albeit one that only sent him up a short distance, enough to lead him to a small floating platform.

Spin Jumping off of it, he landed on a walkway and took off running, using the slope to gain momentum in the process. He went through a Star Post and grabbed a few more Rings in the process. Beyond that was a pair of loop-de-loops, which he easily cleared by jumping into the air, revving up as he did so, before taking off.

"Hey, that looks like a new technique!" Tails said, surprised. "…Huh? The 'Drop Dash'? That's interesting. So, you're Spin Dashing as you jump in order to maintain your momentum? That's pretty clever!"

"It also breaks physics," Pyro added.

"Welcome to our world."

Without stopping, Classic Sonic nodded, before continuing onto another ramp that lead him into another small trail of Rings, with a Red Star Ring in the middle of them. Grabbing them all, Classic Sonic found that he was in what appeared to be the remains of the sewer system ("Ew!" Pyro scrunched her nose, to Tails' and Rita's amusement).

Jumping over a small platform, Classic Sonic saw a lone Egg Pawn in the space formed between the platform he had just jumped over and the next one. Without missing a beat, he angled himself so that he'd land on top of it, smashing it instantly and giving himself a small boost that allowed him to clear the next platform.

Noticing a pitfall between himself and the next few platforms, Classic Sonic jumped over it, as well as the next pitfall. The walkway led him to a dash panel that seemed to lead out of the sewers, which he gladly took. Hearing the sound of robots nearby, he Drop Dashed again, propelling him forward with massive speed, allowing him to dash across a corkscrew that allowed him to see the giant Death Egg Robot Sentinels that were devastating the city.

"Big!" Rita said in response. "And lots!"

"This is terrible… They've made a total mess of this place!" Tails noted sadly, before steeling himself. "We have to stop Eggman and end this war quick!"

"So, is this where you make some cheesy 'War is Hell' comment?" Pyro asked.

Classic Sonic rolled his eyes mid-spin as he dashed towards the end of the walkway, which lead through another Star Post, a few more Rings, and to another spring that he could use. Being propelled into the air, he saw another Egg Pawn, which quickly brought out its arm-mounted cannon.

Too little, too late.

In an instant, Classic Sonic rolled right through it, cleaving it clean in half as a fireball destroyed a building behind him. Past it was a small, red platform with two Rings on it. Thinking quickly, Classic Sonic jumped onto it, collecting the Rings, then leaped again, allowing the platform to crumble behind him.

"Huh? It just fell apart?" Pyro asked.

"Yeah, some platforms aren't really that stable," Tails explained. "It's kind of like our universe operates on platforming video game physics sometimes."

Classic Sonic leaped onto a set of springs that launched him up onto the next walkway, which in turn had a dash panel waiting for him. Blasting off from it, he quickly came across a pair of springs, which he quickly jumped onto. Seeing another pair of springs, he manoeuvred towards them, barely managing to launch himself to higher ground.

He was rewarded with another large pile of Rings, along with two Ring Containers, which he promptly smashed. Seeing a few spikes impeding his path, Classic Sonic jumped over them and onto a launch pad, which sent him flying into another trail of Rings that ended with a Red Star Ring.

Running down the next platform, and ignoring a few more explosions, Classic Sonic grabbed a few more Rings before coming across a pair of Buzz Bombers. A Spin Jump effortlessly disposed of them before they could get any shots off, however.

Drop Dashing again, Classic Sonic tore down the next slope, grabbing more Rings in the process, before mowing through a large line of Badniks, a loop-de-loop, another corkscrew, and then another loop-de-loop.

As he blasted down the following slope, Tails spoke up again.

"Be careful, Sonic! I'm detecting a lot of energies besides Eggman, too! Hm… A few of them are stronger than the others… What could they be?"

Classic Sonic gave a puzzled expression as he tore through the last corkscrew and dashed past the Goal Post that signified that he had reached the city limits.

"Huh… Wonder if those are more experiments, like us?" Pyro wondered. Rita's eyes lit up.

"Mommy?" She asked, sounding hopeful. Pyro shrugged.

"Well, if it is your mom, she'd probably be really happy to see you," Tails said, putting away his Miles Electric. 'Considering the state of the town, she's probably worried beyond belief, too…'

He held out his hands to the two experiments, who simply stared at him with a 'What are you doing?' look.

"Sonic's cleared the path, so it's safe for us to follow him. I'll fly us over there!"

Pyro looked at Rita and nodded, before taking the fox cub's gloved hand, with Rita following suit. Spinning his namesakes, Tails took off, carrying the two with him.

Unbeknownst to them, a lone figure was watching as they took off. The figure was another experiment, who looked rather like an older Rita, whom she was eying.

"That's… Rita!?" The experiment said, sounding surprised before narrowing her eyes. "And that's Pyro, too… Where is that thing taking them?"

As Tails began moving towards Classic Sonic, the experiment raised her eyebrow at how fast he seemed to be moving, before realizing that she would lose sight of him if she stayed where she was. She quickly sped after them in response, wondering where he was taking Pyro and Rita.

As Tails flew across the city with the two young experiments, he attracted the attention of yet another experiment. This one, who was orange and had a scorpion tail, was standing atop the broken remains of one of the Death Egg Robot Sentinels when she spotted him. Curious about who/what she saw, she flew after him, becoming a streak of color as she raced through the air.

Angel swore that, if she wanted to, she could cut the tension in the room with a knife.

It was to be expected, after all. Stitch and Slang were in the same room, and somehow, hadn't started trying to kill each other on sight. Granted, the murderous expressions they were exchanging (Well, the expression Stitch was wearing; Slang's was hidden by her hood save for her red eyes) were more than enough to show that there was no love lost between the two.

Besides glaring at each other with enough intensity that any lesser being would have probably imploded on the spot, they were also holding their weapons on full display; Stitch was fiddling about with his Burst Wispon, and Slang was holding her scythe.

'…Subtle,' Angel noted sarcastically.

Yes, if it wasn't obvious already, Stitch and Slang really didn't like each other very much.

Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that, outside of the direst of situations, they downright loathed each other. And every other experiment knew it. It wasn't uncommon for other experiments to hide behind something if the two of them were within sight of each other. While it was true that Slang and Fang's interactions tended to garner the same general response, occasionally, one might get a glimpse of some kind of affection for each other in between the bickering and insults.

This was obviously not the case here.

Angel silently wished the other Resistance members were in the room with them. At least then, they'd be more inclined to focus on something else.

As it happened, every other experiment felt the tension. Aurora nervously glanced in between the two, ready to jump in in case one of them actually did get violent. The black experiment, Shadow*, scooted closer to Slang, readying himself to try and hold her back in the event of a confrontation. Lady Kuroko fidgeted nervously, looking like she was seconds away from breaking down entirely. Hell, even Summer had decided it would be wise to scoot a little further away from the two ticking time bombs.

"So…" Shadow started. "You think that we're in an alternate universe of some kind?"

"More-or-less," Stitch said emotionlessly. Angel sighed. Seeing as Stitch wasn't interested in speaking, Aurora decided to continue in his stead.

"We think, well, Stitch thinks, rather, that the strange noise and flash of light we all saw served to relocate all of us to wherever this is," She expressed. "How many of us were caught in it, we can't say, but it's evident that whatever it was, it was likely caused by the one called Dr. Eggman."

That name. For a brief moment, Stitch and Slang's mutual death stares wavered in lieu of it before returning, and Shadow managed a slightly nervous chuckle.

"Dr. Eggman, huh?" He said. "I don't suppose his first name is 'Omelette' or something?"

Angel smiled slightly and briefly, before adopting a more serious expression. "One more thing, Stitch and I saw what we think is the direct cause of this mess."

Everyone, save Stitch and Slang of course, turned to face her in surprise.

"Y-Y-You saw…?" Kuroko stuttered. Angel nodded, closing her eyes as she remembered the scene.

"There were eight gemstones. Seven of them were diamond cut, and were identical to each other save for their color, but the eighth stone was a… What was the word?"

"Icosahedron," Stitch said without looking. "It was an icosahedron ruby."

Summer yawned, leaning back.

"Right… So, some rocks are the reason we're here. That's almost as stupid as their arguing," He said, lazily motioning towards Stitch and Slang. He was met by the room suddenly becoming much colder, leading him to suddenly decide that moving as far away from Slang as possible was a good idea.

Just as things seemed to be about to reach critical levels, relief came in the form of a light-gray furred hedgehog ("Really?" Shadow had asked. Angel insisted that, yes, that's what he was.) walking into the room.

"Alright, guys. Knuckles wanted you to know that we're gonna reach the Death Egg soon," Silver said, either oblivious to or ignoring the situation he'd just walked into.

"So, run this by me again," Summer said, sitting up. "You want us, a group of strangers, to help you save this one guy that you think will make all of your problems disappear?"

Silver rubbed the back of his head.

"…Pretty much, yeah," He admitted. Summer sighed and leaned back again. Silver quickly added, "But, and I'm serious about this, Sonic really IS our best bet at beating Eggman and whoever his new ally is."

"…And what can he do that we can't?" Slang finally spoke, the first time she'd done so since boarding the shuttle.

"Well…" Silver started, only for Amy to barge into the room.

"I'm glad you asked!" She beamed. Everyone sweatdropped.

Before the pink hedgehog could go off on a fangirl tirade, however, Silver intervened.

"I think I can explain, Amy. She just asked for a general idea."

"But…" Amy started, looking around the room. She sighed in defeat. "Fine… When you're done, come to the bridge. Knuckles wanted to go over what our plan is."

Almost inaudibly, but not unnoticed by the experiments' sensitive ears, she added, "…That I've been having to revise for the past thirty minutes…"

Summer groaned in an, 'Oh, great, our leader's an idiot,' sort of way. Everyone else just sweatdropped.

"S-Should we be w-w-worried...?" Kuroko asked, fidgeting. No one really had an answer for that.

Silver cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"As I was saying, Sonic, well, his name kind of gives it away. He's the fastest thing alive, basically," Silver started. Summer was about to speak, though Slang beat him to it.

"So, he moves quickly. Is that it?" She asked, sounding almost bored. Silver sweatdropped once more in response.

"Um, no… There's more to it than that," He said. "While he definitely runs fast, and by 'fast', I mean, 'considers breaking the sound barrier to be a light jog'…"

Everyone blinked.

"I-I'm sorry," Aurora started. "Did you say that he can break the sound barrier?"

"And casually at that?" Shadow asked.

"All hedgehogs can, technically," Silver said. "The 'reaching the sound barrier' part, I mean. Super speed is innate to our species. What makes Sonic unique is that he can move so much faster than the norm. No one really knows HOW fast he actually is, but he's been observed to be able to go high-hypersonic before."

"High-hypersonic…?" Angel stared.

"That's… Ten to twenty times the speed of sound," Stitch worked out. "How does someone even DO that?" 'That isn't a genetic experiment, anyway,' He silently added.

"Well, no one's really sure," Silver admitted. "He says he was just born with it, and some of us think that he can control 'speed' itself…"

Everyone blinked in confusion when Silver mentioned the idea that Sonic could control speed.

'W-Wow...' Lady Kuroko thought.

'Controlling speed?' Shadow thought. 'How does THAT work?'

'Is it like time magic?' Aurora wondered. Stitch's thoughts, however, were rather different than either of theirs.

'Technically, I suppose that would be called 'velocitakinesis',' He thought, musing on the word he'd just created. ''Velocitas' is Latin for 'velocity' or 'speed', and '-kinesis' derives from a word meaning 'movement' or 'manipulation'. Therefore, the 'manipulation of velocity.'

At the same time, however, he was thinking about what they were about to do. He had been this entire time, even while having his glaring match with Slang. They were going to break into a high-security space prison, free someone, and then break out, probably inflicting as much havoc on said prison as possible in the process. It reminded him of when he broke out of the federation ship that was to banish him to a deserted asteroid. That thing was an absolute mess when he was done with it.

'Ah, good times…'

He was brought out of both thought processes, however, as Amy walked into the room once more.

"Okay, guys. We're gonna arrive at the Death Egg soon, so let's head to the bridge so we can discuss our plans."

"…We're moving ahead of schedule! I caught wind that those Resistance pests were on their way to save the blue nuisance, so we'll jettison him out into space before they can!" Eggman declared. He was facing a large, glowing screen, which was displaying the red face of Zavok, the leader of the Zeti from the Lost Hex. Not too long ago, Sonic had foiled his original schemes for the Zeti and seemingly sent Zavok to his demise. However, if Eggman got his way, those days would be but a distant memory, to be washed away with the passing of time.

"Understood," Zavok said. "I will retrieve the blue pest from his cell and escort him to the airlock."

"Good. Now, get going!" Eggman ordered. Zavok nodded, before disappearing from the screen. Eggman sighed. Why wouldn't that annoying Resistance just give up already? It was irritating enough to subjugate the regular citizens as is!

He was broken from his thoughts, however, as a familiar pulsing noise entered the room, followed by a deep, distorted voice.

"Doctor, I have news."

"Huh?" He said, sounding confused as he turned to face the speaker. It was the masked figure who, not too long ago, had beaten Stitch, Angel, and Aurora to a pulp. "Ah, it's you. Returned from your little trip to the city, have you?"

"Yes," The figure said. "It may be within your interest to hear that I encountered three more weaklings from the parallel universe."

"Did you now?" Eggman asked, sounding amused. "I take it they were no match for you, then?"

"Of course. Just like the three before them, they were powerless before my might," The masked one boasted. Eggman smirked, before frowning.

"Yes, of course, but is that all? You destroy opposition every day, you know. This isn't exactly exciting news anymore," The rotund scientist pointed out. The masked figure merely chuckled in amusement and, if one were to listen closely, mild exasperation.

"Of course, doctor. I came not just to boast of my achievements, but also to bring you this," The masked figured pulled out a small device and placed it in Eggman's hand. Eggman looked at it.

"Hm?" He poked and prodded at the small device for a few seconds, before finding that he could flip it open. "Oh, a computer! Let's see here…"

Eggman struck a few keys. The screen lit up with a blue glow.

Database ready. Select experiment.

Eggman's moustached lit up with a maniacal grin.

"Fascinating," He declared. "I will have to examine this database to see if it contains anything of use. Perhaps it contains more information on that interesting energy that we were researching."

"Of course, doctor," The masked figure turned his back and flew off. Eggman turned his attention back to the small alien computer in his hands.

"Now, then… Let's see what we can learn from this," Eggman said, sitting down and beginning to strike a few keys.

…Well, that can't be good.

This chapter was a bit shorter than the usual, but don't worry, the next one should be a bit longer.

Anyway, guys, I hope you've enjoyed this one, and if you have, be sure to let me know! I'll see you guys in the next one, and until then, peace out!

*Yes, this experiment (He's 598, if you were wondering) has the same name as Shadow the Hedgehog. I'm already thinking of ways to make sure that there's no confusion between them.