A/N: Happy new year! Thanks for the reviews, folks! Happy to have helped you all with this story. I'm in a better place and I'm very excited to keep chugging at this one. Trust me, BIG things happen this chapter. Special thanks to jjb0420, inukaiser, and DiamondShines for following and favoriting. Now onto reviews…

Shian1998: Thanks!

Marvelous Manic: Thanks for the compliment!

Fleetlord Avatar: Thanks! Things are about to get a lot more intense.

Aragorn II Elessar: Quite right, but you never know…

Inukaiser: Thank you. Knuckles already was in some earlier chapters and will return shortly. Rouge…maybe…

Now, back to the story!

Chapter Seven

Egg-Celent!

Eggman's mustache twitched as his gazed at his captives. "My, what a sight the two of you are! At least my hypothesis that Sonic couldn't be the only speedster is now proven true!"

"What?" chuckled Sonic. "Since when?"

"Since you destroyed every one of my schemes, you blue rat!" His face vented a surprising amount of cartoonish anger, to which he eventually relaxed.

Reminds me of Tokamak, Barry observed reminiscently. If he was an evil genius not given radioactive powers…

"But I lost track, apparently." The villain strolled to the edge of the railing with his hands mischievously interlocked. "Now… What do I call you?"

"It's the Flash," Barry proudly declared.

"Mmmmh…" the evil genius mused. "Catchy name, befitting your suit. Funny how I've never heard of you…"

Barry gulped, looking to Sonic. Normally, he'd prefer to blab about how he came from another dimension and that there was a greater multiverse. But in this situation, he felt spilling the beans to this Eggman would create more problems. Was it really wise to tell an obvious evil genius about other worlds?

The blue hedgehog seemed to catch his drift and coughed. "Yeah. Funny how that happens." Desperate to change the topic, he then remembered Metal's presence. "And speaking of that, I saw you got Metal ready for our next race."

"Your next race? Bah!" Eggman gaffed. "He – I mean, my creation beat you this time! Your pathetic speed was no match for his improved circuits!"

"He does this much?" asked a growingly bored Flash.

Sonic's eyebrows lowered in confirmation. "Yep."

"Do not ignore me!" Eggman yelled at them. "I have you miscreants now, and there's nothing you can do to stop what I have planned!"

"World domination?" Sonic asked mockingly.

"Better." He pressed a small button on the railing that caused it to slowly lower towards them. The action started giving Barry the feeling that something was amiss. What a true thought, as Eggman's hands came together in a teasing manner. "You wouldn't believe what happened when, oh, I don't know, FOUND THIS." He reached behind himself and pulled out –

The Chaos Emerald.

Sonic froze. It was the same one that he had been missing.

"Makes quite the difference, does it now?" teased Eggman. He was just enjoying the emotional distress permeating out of Sonic. "This appeared in my laboratory just a few hours ago, bathed in some kind of energy. Almost as if it was…out of this world. More precisely, this universe."

"Oh no…" Barry mouthed. That means Tails doesn't have it anymore!

"Oh yes," Eggman responded in a gleeful mood. "Before, I was only concerned with conquering the world as it was. But now? There are other worlds out there, and I would just love to find them!"

"So that's how you amped Metal," realized Sonic. "Gave him some of that emerald's juice, didn't you?"

"Precisely," Eggman replied.

Barry marched to the edge of the force field determinedly. "You think you can hold us? Fine. Be like that. But we will get out of here! And you're not going to get away with something this horrible!"

"Oh, my dear Flash…" he clicked a finger onto his left wrist. Suddenly, a slight hole opened up in the floor and started enveloping them. "You think that you are in control of this situation? Not so. But don't count yourself out quite yet, for there is something about your power that fascinates me."

They scowled, but captive as they were in the force field, they could only grimace as their bubble was swallowed into darkness.

"Who. Are. You?"

Cisco's whole body was frozen. He couldn't decide whether it was being in a new dimension that was making him wet his emotional pants, or if it was the talking black hedgehog with a gun locked on his face. Both choices bordered on the edge of weird. This type of weird was enough to make the term meaningless.

"…Cisco Ramon?"

Ralph snorted from a couple inches away. "Dude, what happened to revealing our secret identities?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cisco yelled to him while turning, "are you the one with a gun on you? Half the people in Central City know who the Flash is, Ralph!"

Gypsy groaned. "I don't think your squabbling is helping."

"You don't say!" Cisco fired back, then looked right back to the gun. "Hi…what do I call you?"

The hedgehog's eyes locked in silence at him. "Shadow." His fist tightened into what Cisco swore was a temporarily green-lit hand.

"Okay…uh, we just kind of woke up from a really long nap?"

Shadow looked back to the destruction. "I don't believe you. You're all too oddly dressed to be sleeping out in broad daylight."

"Then maybe you shouldn't point a gun at us!" Ralph rattled off. "What?" he asked when Cisco gave him daggered eyes.

The hedgehog shook his head, annoyed. "I'm taking you in for questioning."

Gypsy started to get up, her hands on the verge of glowing with breach energy. "I happen to be a fellow law enforcement agent, but last time I checked, we had a thing called due process."

"Not for when Eggman is involved." The gun in his hand clicked and twirled.

"Wait!"

The group looked back to the entrance of the space, confused by the intrusion of a pink hedgehog with a hammer in her left palm. Cisco's eyebrows scrunched as she got closer. How many more colorful animals were there on this earth?

"Rose?" Shadow demanded. "What are you doing here?"

"Shadow!" She came to a stop and caught her breath, her hand paused. "There was…big scuffle…Metal Sonic…captured them…"

"Captured who?" Shadow's brows perked.

"…Sonic…and some red guy…" Then she fell to her knees.

Intrigued, Cisco got up. "Some red guy? Did he have a mask on? Yellow lightning on his costume?"

Amy nodded. "Yep! You know him?"

"That sounds like the Flash," Frost pointed out obviously.

"Who wouldn't think it'd be him?" Ralph interjected. He looked to Shadow. "No offense, but we're looking for our bud, and pinkie here seems to have seen him. So…"

"Hold it!" Cisco yelled, grabbing everybody's attention. He pointed to his cellphone, a red dot blinking in and off on the pixelated screen. "I got something!"

"Grraaagghhhhh!"

Once again, Barry was pummeled back by the cyan light of the force field. Sonic lay on his back and gave him an empathetic glance. "Not working?"

"No, it's not!" Barry blasted off, collecting himself. "Phasing's not working, running in a circle isn't doing a dent…we're trapped!"

"Obvious, huh?"

Barry whirled around frantically. "How can you be just laying there? We have to get out of here!"

Sonic's eyes closed, and then…he laughed. The other speedster was a bit taken aback at the action. "Flash…you're too riled up by this. I've been held captive by Eggman plenty of times, and rushing and thrashing didn't do much for me." He looked in his direction. "You want to know what helped?"

"What?"

"Lying down and...just thinking. Here, take a seat." Sonic patted the ground with his gloved hand. No better options present, Barry inclined to do so and begrudgingly laid back close to his friend.

"Now what? Is this supposed to scare Eggman?" He asked.

Sonic snorted. "Nope. But…it does give some perspective."

"On what?"

"Think. We're in a bubble. Eggman thinks he has us. What can you do that he doesn't know about?" Sonic's head twisted to give Barry a hard stare. "What can YOU do that'll help us?"

So Barry thought. He fell back into the collective synapses of the last few years and everything he learned as the Flash. Friends made, people lost, enemies that rose and fell across masses of weeks. Once or twice he happened upon a memory of "Wells" or "Jay," but brushed those aside because-

Wait, he thought. Last time I saw Jay, I- oh. That's it!

"That's it."

Sonic looked up hopefully. "You figured it out?"

"I did," Barry exclaimed. He got up and extended an arm. "Eggman doesn't know about Flashtime, and I'm pretty sure I can use that to our advantage." He noticed Sonic's confused look and sighed. "It's when I vibrate so fast that time slows around me."

Sonic was taken aback. "You can do that?"

"You bet," said Barry coyly. "And, I can make it so others can do that as well."

Gleeful, the hedgehog took his hand. "Consider me up for it. Whatever you've got going for us."

Barry blinked, put his hood on again, and let the speed flow into his blood. The pressure went into his head but then exploded around him, and after opening his eyes, found the force field to have frozen into a single cyan sheet of color. He looked to Sonic, who seems remarkably the same despite the crimson and yellow wisps circulating around them.

"Are we-" Sonic began to ask.

"In Flashtime, yes. Don't let go, okay?" Barry walked closer to the barrier, tightening his arm and aiming it at the currents. "I don't know what's going to happen when I try this, but…just hold tight." With the hedgehog's trusting eyes locked on him, he let his hand vibrate and then thrust it into the force field.

The next thing either of them saw was an overload of cyan and the feeling that time was speeding to catch up with them.

"I brought this meta tracker on my phone," Cisco explained hurriedly. "And considering the spike of tachyon particles I just found on the GPS, Barry's definitely nearby."

"Then what are we waiting for?" demanded Frost. Her hands froze over in excitement.

"Hold on," Amy said. "I'm coming with you!"

Gypsy looked confused. "Why, exactly?"

"Because your friend and Sonic got kidnapped by Eggman!" she exclaimed profoundly. "Sonic needs my help, so I want to pitch in."

"Right," Ralph thought out loud. "You and your hammer…Also, who exactly is this Sonic?"

Amy chuckled, gripping her piko piko hammer in her other hand as she did so. "He's a hedgehog that's fast…real fast."

So just like Barry, Cisco mentally noted. Got ya.

"Count me in as well," added Shadow in a dark statement. "I still have a warrant for Eggman's arrest."

Cisco lowered his eyebrows. "Uh, weren't you trying to arrest us like a minute ago?"

"That was when I assumed you worked for the maniac," Shadow replied. He flipped his gun into his side holder and then tightened his fists. "I have a tip as to where Eggman's current base might be. Any better idea beyond rescuing the faker?"

"Works for me," Gypsy said. She looked to the other Earth-1 heroes, finding a sense of general agreement, then turned back to him. "What's your plan?"

Wincing, Shadow gripped into his quills and pulled out a crystalline object. Another chaos emerald appeared there, this one ruby red. Before the awe-stricken Team Flash could question how he'd gotten his hands on one, his eyes inflamed with power as he uttered two words.

"Chaos Control!"

Green spirals of energy swerved around the team and encircled their space, hummed, and then entrapped them. They had teleported, all thanks to a chaos emerald.