See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer
Chapter 14: An Unknown Presence
It was a bright and sunny morning in Green Hill, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and all the little woodland critters were out and about, doing their usual foraging; a bright blue streak of light quickly shot past them, the resulting gust of wind nearly took the leaves off the nearby trees. When the blue streak stopped moving, it was revealed to be Sonic the Hedgehog, but not the one everybody was familar with; this was the smaller and more pudgy Sonic who couldn't speak that came from an alternate dimension.
As he stopped to smell the flowers, he couldn't help but think of his friends back in their home dimension; he hadn't seen them since he was pulled out out his dimension by the Phantom Ruby and helped them in their war against Dr. Eggman. Tiny Sonic, (lets just call him that to avoid any confusion), wondered how they were doing and what they were doing now; as he was about to continue his morning run, the ground beneath his feet started shaking, he lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Suddenly there was a loud thumping noise, as if giant feet were stomping into the ground, which caused it to shake. Just as Tiny Sonic was slowly getting back up onto his feet, a large shadow loomed over him; he looked up at what was making the shadow, trying his best to size it up, but knew he was too small to look intimidating to this giant shadowy figure. "Ah yes, you're exactly what I've been searching for. Minions, capture him at once!", a loud and commanding feminine voice blared out as if speaking through a megaphone.
In an instant, Tiny Sonic found himself surrounded on all sides by more shadowy figures, they weren't as large as the first one but he still felt puny compared to them. But that didn't deter him as he began to spin-dash into them, momentarily knocking them over like bowling pins before they quickly stood up. "Don't let that measly rodent overpower you! Use the serum now before he has the chance to escape!", shouted the female voice.
One of the figures nodded as it pulled out what looked to be a dart gun and aimed it at Tiny Sonic just as he was finished knocking down another of the figures; it pulled the trigger and fired at him, causing him to tense up as he felt a sudden stabbing pain in his backside. Tiny Sonic looked down to see a syringe containing a light purple fluid sticking out of his rear end, and before he could react, the plunger on the syringe lowered, injecting the fluid into his body.
He quickly yanked it out and tossed it aside to continue fighting the mysterious intruders, but before he took take one step, he vision began to blur and distort; Tiny Sonic held his head in his hands as he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness and nausea, and then his face was introduced to the ground as he fell over, landing face first, and his body having gone completely numb. His eyes slowly closed as he finally lost consciousness, "Excellent! You've all done well and will be most rewarded when we get back. For now, restrain him and bring him onboard, we must leave quickly before someone spots us", said the female voice.
The mysterious figures surrounded Tiny Sonic as they placed thick metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles, and placed a strange looking visor over his eyes, before tossing his into a glass containment device. They picked him up and carried him onto what was now revealed to be a large mobile battleship with six pairs of giant mechanical legs, which explains the loud stomping and the ground shaking earlier; a swirling vortex of yellow and green light appeared in front of the ship as it slowly walked through it, the ground shaking once again before the ship disappeared into the vortex and it soon vanished afterwards.
Meanwhile back in the home dimension of the Sonic we all know, Knuckles stood by the Master Emerald that morning, looking over at a particular tree; under the tree was Ruby-Emerald as she laid curled up beneath the shade of tree, not really looking at anything in particular, she was more so staring off into space with a saddened expression.
Knuckles knew she still felt bad about what happened yesterday, a bully of a mouse named Thomas insulted her and her family, and smashed the Chao egg she promised her Dad she'd protect; then her anger caused her to undergo a transformation almost similar to Sonic's dark form and she viciously attacked Thomas before being subdued by Finn.
But rather than being upset with the one who started the fight, Ruby was upset with herself for failing at being a guardian and for attacking someone; Knuckles tried to tell her it wasn't her fault and that these things happen, but Ruby was less than convinced. So he decided that spending time with a friend would help her out of her funk; Knuckles walked into their cabin and picked up the phone, dialing a number and waiting for it to pick up.
"Hello?", said a voice that sounded like Sonic when the phone picked up. "Hey Sonic, it's Knuckles. Listen, I was calling to ask if Ruby can come over and play with the twins. She's still upset about what happened yesterday and I figured a play date with friends would help cheer her up", said Knuckles. "Ooh, Knuckles you called at a really bad time! The twins can't be around anyone right now because they've begun the Quilling Process, you remember when I told you and Tails about that, right? It's when a hedgehog sheds their baby spines and new ones grow in, and...also how very painful and uncomfortable it is.
"So yeah because of that, the twins are super grouchy and cranky, and they're stuck in bed because the pain is too much for them to move. And I'm over here alternating between comforting them and picking up their shedded spines, and taking care of SJ. So Ruby can't come over, she'll have no one to play with and I really can't watch anyone else's kids right now, sorry man", said Sonic.
Knuckles let out a sigh, "No it's alright, I understand. After all, I was there when you started Quilling, you gave both Tails and I a hard time with all the moaning and griping you did so I won't bug you on that. I'll see if Infinite will let Finn come over", he said before hanging up. Knuckles then dialed Nyx's phone number and waited for her to answer, "Hello, Dr. Snowfall speaking, who may I say is calling?", she asked.
"Wow aren't you formal? Anyway it's me, Knuckles. I was wondering if you and Infinite were cool with me dropping off Ruby so she could play with Finn, she needs cheering up after what happened yesterday", said Knuckles. "I'm sorry Knuckles, but you see...Levi was finally discharged from the Rehabilitation Center today and to celebrate, Infinite decided to take him out to the beach with Tempest, Finn, Orbot, Cubot and Metal Sonic. The only reason I'm not there is because I had to work overtime today, I'm sorry for that", she said.
Knuckles sighed in defeat, "Its fine. I'll just call Silver and see if he'd let Maria come over or if I can bring Ruby over there, thanks anyway Nyx", he said. Before he could dial Shadow's home phone number, there was a flash of red light just outside his window; Knuckles went outside to see Maria standing there holding the red Chaos Emerald and wearing a black and pink knapsack on her back. "Maria? What are you doing here? How did you get here?", he asked.
Maria smiled, "Well one, my father has been teaching how to do Chaos Control and I finally did it right! I can't wait for him to teach me how to use Chaos Spear, oh and Uncle Sonic called Dad and told him about your issue with Ruby. Since I'm not doing anything today and it is Saturday, Dad gave me permission to come here and spend some time with Ruby", she explained.
Knuckles smiled as her walked over to the young hedgehog, "Well she's sitting by that tree over there. See if you can cheer her up, I hate seeing her so sad", he said. Maria walked over to Ruby and sat herself next to her, "Hey there, Kiddo. How you feeling today?", she asked in a rather cheerful voice. Ruby simply ignored her and continued to stare into space with a melancholy expression on her face.
Maria pouted and turned away, reaching into her knapsack and pulling out several toys and started playing with them; this caught Ruby's attention and she looked to see the toys. They were a bunch of toy fairies, each one with bright colorful hair and cute dresses with little symbols on the corner of them, "What are those, Maria?", she asked. Maria blushed in embarrassment as she turned to her friend, "Okay...this is kinda embarrassing but...I'm a big fan of the cartoon "My Tiny Fairy". Its a show about six fairy girls who go on adventures, fight monsters and teach the viewers lessons about friendship, I know it's for younger kids but I really love it", she said.
Ruby looked down at the dolls and picked one up, it was a white horse with a yellow mane, a horn on its head and wings on its back. "Who is this?", she asked. "That's Sunny Skies, the winged unicorn", said Maria as she held up a fairy doll with purple and blue hair and wearing a light purple dress with yellow stars on the corner of it, "This fairy, Twinkle Star, who is my favorite character by the way, found her as a foal abandoned and alone in the Dark Forest when she was a child. Twinkle's teacher, Princess Morning Glory, told her to keep the young foal and raise her, and they've been best friends since".
Ruby smiled, "Can you tell me more about it?", she asked. Maria smiled, knowing that she was slowly getting Ruby to lighten up and began telling her all about her favorite cartoon. From where he stood near the Master Emerald, Knuckles smiled as he watched his daughter's eyes light up with joy as Maria recounted her favorite episodes of her favorite cartoon; he sighed and leaned back, resuming his task of guarding the Master Emerald. What he didn't notice was a small bee landing on top of the Emerald, staring intently at him.
Meanwhile at Sonic's house, Sonic was in SJ's room with his youngest son lying on the changing table as he changed his diaper; he tossed the dirty diaper into a nearby trashcan and sprinkled some baby powder onto SJ's bottom before putting a clean diaper on him.
"Daddy!"
Sonic heard Turbo calling out to him from his and Speedy's room, he placed SJ into his bouncy swing chair and put on an episode of Cashew Avenue for the baby hedgehog before going to see what his other son needed; Sonic walked into the room and almost tripped on the shedded blue and pink quills that littered the floor. Sonic made a mental note to vacuum up the quills later, he couldn't do it now because his children were asleep.
Well, Speedy was asleep, curled up under her rocket ship printed quilt whimpering slightly due to the discomfort she felt because of the Quilling; Turbo looked up at his father with a pained expression, "What's wrong, son?", asked Sonic. "Dad...my back itches! Can you scratch it, please?", Turbo asked. Sonic smiled sadly at his son before walking over, taking the glove off his right hand and began to gently scrap his nails along his son's back; Turbo sighed in content before slowly drifting back to sleep.
Sonic tucked his son under his blanket and quietly walked out of the room, leaving the door partially open in case one them called out to him for something; he went back to the nursery and sat next to his infant son in order for him to take a break to relax and to keep the little kit company. It wasn't easy for him to be the stay-at-home parent when he had three children but he and Amy both knew he was the only one of the two of them who was fast enough to keep up with their twins.
SJ giggled as he saw his father sitting next to him before turning his attention back to the colorful puppets on the TV; the two were so distracted that they didn't notice the bee flying in through the window and landing on top of the toy chest, watching them silently.
At the beach, Infinite and his family were enjoying themselves in the sunshine; Tempest laid out on a picnic blanket under an umbrella while Finn and Metal Sonic were building a large sand castle, Orbot and Cubot were buried up to their necks in the sand, and Infinite and Levi were swimming in the ocean. Another bee flew around the group, but Tempest noticed it and swatted it with the rolled up magazine she was reading; the bee fell onto the ground and thrashed about before rolling back onto its thin legs and stared at the group.
And these weren't the only ones, there was a bee in Shadow and Silver's house staring at the ivory hedgehog as he watched his favorite foreign soap opera "Amor Peligroso", there were two inside of G.U.N headquarters watching Shadow and Rouge as they sat in the break room having lunch and talking; there was a bee in the hospital watching Nyx as she was performing a checkup on a young otter boy, and there was one inside Amy's office watching her as she was trying to design an advert for shampoo.
What none of them knew was that every single one of these bees were actually tiny robots and their eyes were small cameras observing our heroes, in a rather dark and unknown place, a tall mysterious figure sat in a throne like chair watched them on a large monitor that was spilt into several smaller screens; each of the small screens focused on a particular person like Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow and so on, the figure stared at them with great interest visible in their oval shaped red eyes.
"Hmmm, yes. They're perfect!", said the mysterious figure. A smaller figure with glowing blue eyes walked up to them, "Shall I lead a squadron to capture them, my queen?", it asked. "No...at least, not yet. I still have to make modifications to the machine, it's far from complete but our technology is quite limited. We need someone to help complete it if my plan is to reach its potential", the taller figure said.
She directed her attention to one of the monitors, one of her tiny bee robots was fluttering around the inside of a cell on Prison Island; inside the cell was Dr. Eggman lying on his bunk reading a book and looking quite complacent, as if he was now accepting of the fact that his last scheme of world domination had failed and, at this point, he's come to realize that nothing he comes up with will ever take down Sonic and his friends.
Hell, he even kept Sonic prisoner and tortured him for six months, and even that didn't stop the hedgehog from fighting back and defeating him. So now Eggman was completely fine with where he was as he had given up and decided to finally accept the consequences of his actions, which in this case was life imprisonment with no chance of parole.
The mysterious figure smiled wickedly as she watched Eggman, "Ah yes...he's made several attempts to defeat the hedgehog, he's even captured him once. And, for a hairless biped, he is quite intelligent and is capable of finishing the work on the machine. Send a squadron out to infiltrate the prison and bring him here to me, and...don't take 'no' for an answer when you tell him where he's going", she said.
The small figure saluted before running off to gather more of them, they boarded onto a small ship and opened a portal to fly through and enter the other dimension. Back on Prison Island, it was lights out for all the inmates; Eggman laid on his bunk sleeping when suddenly the wall of his cell exploded inward, sending debris flying everywhere and causing the security alarms to go off.
Eggman abruptly sat up to see who had busted into his cell: the small figures were then revealed to be small anthropomorphic wasps but unlike Charmy, they looked more menacing and closer to their normal insect counterparts; they were platinum armor and carried lances that had spheres on one end rather than spearheads, and the only thing that distinguished them from one another was their eye colors.
The leader, who was slightly taller and wore golden body armor, walked up to Eggman. "You, biped with great intelligence, have been summoned by our queen to come to our home dimension and, under her command, work to finish construction on a device she will use to achieve her goal of dimensional domination!", he said. Eggman shrugged him off and went back to lie down on his bed, "Yeah...no thanks. I've given up on that thing already, after trying that for years and failing miserably each and every time, it loses its appeal. Go find another genius", he said.
The leader smirked darkly before pointing his lance at Eggman, a beam of red light erupted from the sphere end and came in contact with his body, paralyzing him. "What...? What's going on? I can't move!", he said. The lead wasp let out a dry laugh, "Yes, the queen said you might refused but she also wanted us to make it clear that we don't take 'no' for an answer. Let me make this clear to you, biped: you have no choice in the matter! Serve our queen and you will survive, maybe even be well rewarded but disobey and you shall be swiftly and severely punished!", he said.
The lead wasp and his squadron marched back into their ship with the captured doctor in tow; they boarded and flew through another portal they opened up, by the time the prison guards arrived to Eggman's cell, Eggman and the insects had already disappeared without a trace.
Author's Note: That's it for Chapter 14, and I apologize for taking so long to update but again I don't always have the time to update my story. Anyway, a new threat has made itself known by spying on our heroes and kidnapping Eggman; who is this mysterious queen and her legion of insect minions? What is this machine she was talking about? What's her plan and how will this affect our heroes and their families? Find out next time in Chapter 15; until next time, this is SuperKirbyLand234 signing out!