Character Select
Wind swept through the empty forest.
"ggurrh...wuz goin' on..." maundered the lethargic echidna, stirred by the sudden breeze, causing him to turn over, slip off of, immediately come to (with notable alarm), and latch on to with one hand the branch he had been sleeping on.
Knuckles sighed with relief, then looked down to see a twenty-foot drop below him.
"How the heck did I get up here?" he blurted out. Then it all came back to him...
The robots, the ARK, the black hole, but more importantly...
"SONIC!" Knuckles exclaimed, swinging himself away from the other branches in order to touch down on the earth. He then scanned his surroundings.
It was daytime, first off; the sun leaned to the side significantly, so it was either morning or the late afternoon - it felt like morning, so he went with that. As for his environment, the echidna was surrounded by countless bare trees, which he found odd. It was in fact autumn last time he checked, but one would at least expect to see piles of dead leaves at this point in the fall season. Upon closer inspection, he realized the truth...
"This forest was burned," he vocalized, feeling the charred bark. His expression gained a hint of sorrow; a part of him felt deeply sorry for all the animals that had to leave their homes during whatever disaster took place here - at least the ones lucky enough to make it out, that is. But Knuckles shook the images away, knowing there were more important things going on than some random forest fire as he started walking in any other direction: Eggman's got the ARK, whatever he wants with it. And if he himself is here, his friends couldn't be too far off; well, minus Sonic that is...
He recalled the picture as if it had been five minutes ago. He almost made it to the Typhoon; he was just a couple feet to the door when...when he showed up, that crazy mecha, it put its own "life" on the line just to get Sonic. He hoped the hedgehog was alright, wherever he is; but if Sonic was alright, it's probably in good shape too. Boy, couldn't he wait to get his hands on that Metal...
The echidna's vengeful thoughts soon dispersed as he felt the front of his shoe kick something over. He looked down to see a medium-sized sharp object, which his natural curiosity nudged him to pick up.
"What's this thing?" he wondered. It was some kind of bone weapon, painted blue all over, with animal hide stretched around one end of it, probably to enhance grip. The strange thing about the blade was the fact that it was bent almost ninety degrees, which caused the young guardian to inquire as to what kind of idiot would use a weapon like this in combat, seeing as how it pretty much hindered itself by shortening its own slashing range in half. He eventually flung the thing over his shoulder, resuming his walk. He had more important things to do than pace the area scavenging up random...
*thwack!*
Knuckles spun around, his fists up, to face his attacker; strangely, though, there was no one there. The echidna looked back down at an awfully eerie sight, picking up the very same object he could have sworn he had just thrown away.
"What the..." he mumbled, his face giving away his confusion. But shrugged it off, his natural echidna reasoning deducing that he may have just tossed it upwards or something. He then pulled back his arm, and made sure to hurl the weird-looking blade as far into the sky as he lazily could; he then assumed a position that suggested deep thought. He had no idea where he was, so it would be reasonable to look for higher ground in order to get a superior view of the...
*thwack!*
Knuckles stumbled to the side, rubbing the left of his cranium. He froze, slowly sweeping his pupils in the direction of the offender, only to see what forced the fightin' freak to back away in fear.
It was the thingy - the exact same thingy he knew he just threw out of sight mere seconds ago. Multiple thoughts and suggestions bolted all around the dumbfounded echidna's head. It could've been probable at that point that the Knuckles wasn't quite alone as he perceived earlier; that perhaps a mysterious assailant was sneakily retrieving the bone weapon behind the echidna's back, and "returning" it for the sole purpose of annoying him.
Such a hypothesis could be derived; but on the other glove, this barren forest was so quiet, that a single belch could probably be heard for miles. Only a ninja could be so discreet, which would be irrelevant as of now given the fact that ninjas are simply a government hoax. Besides that, he didn't believe Espio would mess with him like that.
In other words, there was literally no explanation pertaining to any form of physics or mathematics that served to illuminate the anomaly before him aside from the possibility that it was...magic...
That was it, wasn't it? It had to of been. Somewhere along the lines of whatever, some wizard had become sadistic enough as to cast a spell on an innocent piece of bone that caused it to turn around in mid-flight and strike whoever dared to throw it.
It seemed a wise action to simply leave the cursed artifact be and get on with his life, but the echidna couldn't help but think of all the people who will one day come across it as he did and throw it out of pure curiosity. And for that matter, who was to say he was the first?
"Better let Tails see this thing..." Knuckles vocalized, hesitantly picking back up, this time making sure not to drop it. The echidna then continued his journey through the dead forest, intent on getting some answers.
"All of you ungrateful humans..."
"Such bravado for a little hedgehog..."
"...will feel my loss and despair..."
"I gave you life, and yet you defy me?..."
"...took everything away from me..."
"What are you doing, you traitor?..."
"I designed its mind to be perfect; pure..."
"I shall put an end to your foolish attempts to defy me, and your miserable existence..."
"I will leave everything...to him."
"...Are you going to stare out that window all day?"
His eyes shot open, and were met with a clear firmament of blue. Shadow slowly arose to a sitting position, groaning all the way with his left hand on his forehead, his right stabilizing him.
"It's about time, Mr. Relentless," taunted a familiar feminine voice.
Shadow turned up at two o'clock to see Rouge reclining on a branch.
"Morning," she greeted in her usual droll tone, slipping off the branch and landing gracefully on the ground,"I was going to wake you up myself, but I know how cranky you get when there's another sentient organism within a range of ten feet from you..."
Shadow took this time to scan his environment. The black hedgehog had awoken in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by forestry. He sighed again, as apparently, he'd blacked out again. He cursed his amnesia; it was his only flaw, but it was a flaw nonetheless. Shadow wasn't supposed to have flaws; it was the very purpose of his creation - to be perfect, with all the assessment and precision of a supercomputer, and not weighed down by such handicaps as emotions...but he supposed that was his creator's doing as well, given his inevitable plunge into insanity, reprograming his greatest scientific achievement into despising his own species with passion, biting whole chunks out of the hedgehog's memory so that he remembered only what the doctor wanted him to. It left a permanent scar in his psyche, and he still has yet to uncover how the man did it. Sometimes, he would ponder exactly where the truth ends and the lies begin...especially when it came to Maria...
But, that was the past, and this was now.
"How long?" he finally spoke, referring to the duration of his comatose.
Rouge shrugged."About two days, at least since I woke up," the bat replied.
"Anything interesting happen?" he inquired, rubbing his head, his eyes shut.
"Not much," she began,"you came down for the weekend, one of the agents had a birthday party, we played a few rounds of Pin the Knife on the Terrorist, saw a couple movies...oh, and Eggman hijacked the ARK..."
The hedgehog's eyelids disappeared, his cerebrum soaking in all the events of the recent past.
Shadow then walked off, hunched over and growling like a neanderthal.
"And just where do you think you're going?" Rouge inquired.
"Breakfast," the dark hedgehog replied, dashing away towards a nearby mountain.
The former jewel thief rolled her eyes, flying after her disgruntled partner.
Shadow halted at the peak of the mountain, which was actually one-half of a mountain split down the middle, and scanned the vicinity.
How could he be so foolish? For the ultimate lifeform to actually of been intimidated by that blue idiot's cheap shot at his resilience that was almost as immature as he was; that he managed to coax him into leaving the ARK, his birthplace, and responsibility, on the grounds that the colony was useless in military terms without the Chaos Emeralds which, according to him, were nearly impossible to find. Well so much for that theory...
Rouge finally made it to him.
"Ya' know, rocketing all the way up here isn't going to solve anything," she landed just below Shadow," and it certainly isn't easing off the stress from forty-eight hours of looking for you; the least you could do is..."
"Where are we?" Shadow inquired impatiently.
The interrupted bat sighed."Well, judging from the giant vortex we were sucked into, and all those weird-looking animals I saw on the way here, I highly doubt we're in Kansas," she replied.
Faced with this latest revelation, the ebony hedgehog felt the need to clench his fist and release a bit of his anger in the form of a Chaos Spear into the other portion of the mountain. A subtle explosion echoed.
"I knew I shouldn't have left the ARK! But no, I had to give in to weakness..." he spat.
"Now hold on a second," now was Rouge's turn to interrupt, whipping in front of the hedgehog,"taking little time off after months of playing 'space-watchdog' isn't weakness, it's just natural..."
"For you, maybe, but for me, it's simply one more bit of evidence that I'm an incomplete experiment. In case you hadn't noticed, there's work to be done; so stay out of my way," Shadow finished, leaping over his partner and down the mountain split.
As the all-but perfect being plummeted, he noticed at the bottom of the division a large stone platform, accompanied by a tall set of stairs facing the lake. The stairs lead up to a thin bridge that went into a cave on either half of the mountain. Shadow landed at the top of the stairs. Once again, Rouge touches down behind him.
"You can hop around all you want; I'm not going to leave you alone just because you're a little miffed," the agent persisted.
Shadow counter-persisted to ignore her.
"Will you wake up, Shadow? I don't care how 'ultimate' you are, this isn't good for your health. Look at you, your voice is hoarse, the red trim on your shoes is all scraped up, and you're twitching - twitching, Shadow."
"I am not twitching," the hedgehog sternly replied, his left ear briefly fluttering a moment later.
"All I'm trying to do is look out for you, whether or not you think you need it. Because, unlike a certain high-ranking commander, you're a little more to me than a walking WM-" the bat's ears perked up,"...uh-oh..."
"What now?" the annoyed hedgehog inquired.
"I think I just figured out what this giant shrine is supposed to pay homage to..." Rouge speculated, turning around toward the cave entrance behind her.
A sound thud echoed within the caves, some dust and pebbles chipping off the ceiling of either one, directing Shadow's attention to the cave he was already facing. He slouched, his hands raised, ready for an ambush."Whatever is in there, it's making a big mistake," Shadow declared.
A louder and stronger thud occurred; the "whatever" was getting closer.
"I'm not so sure about that..." Rouge mumbled.
In an instant, two enormous serpent-like creatures shot out of either cave, immediately unraveling their wings, and swirling around the two in a dazzling display of red and blue, creating a typhoon around them with their momentum.
They stopped, and landed on either side of the altar, mirroring each other as they stared down their prey.
Shadow and Rouge were as stone statues, routing all their energy to prevent the slightest movement that would indefinitely be their last...
In another split-second, Shadow shoved Rouge off the altar in one spinning motion, propelling her down the steps before the beasts unleashed two massive blasts of fire, consuming the hedgehog.
The bat could only cover her mouth in horror, as the same spot her partner once stood was now occupied by a blazing tornado of terror.
A small arc of electricity quickly flickered into and out of reality.
Two more arcs followed.
Several currents bundled around an ever-expanding orb of energy until...
*FLASH*
Three screaming figures materialized out of nowhere a landed rather painfully onto the grassy moon-lite field - the largest one fell on his back, while the two others were on their faces; silence followed...
"...THAT WAS AWESOME!" Charmy exclaimed, jolting back to life, "First we got sucked into a black hole, and then Tails like 'aaaahhhh!', and then Knuckles was like 'noooooooo!', and then Shadow was like 'grrrr, I'm mad', and all the colors and battleships and..."
"Whatever happened to that older version of Charmy?" Espio inquired as the bee continued, his face still embedded into the ground.
"I dunno, he said somethin' about movin' on to real estate..." Vector replied, also remaining in his position.
"...and then the-ooh! what's that over there?" the energetic bug changed the subject, his paper-thin attention span forcing him to point to the very next thing his eyes laid upon.
The other two rose up to follow Charmy's finger, though Espio had a more difficult time, briefly struggling to remove his horn from the ground, making a noise simmilar to the uncorking of a wine bottle on succession.
"Wow, wouldya' look at that house..." Vector remarked.
"What manner of manor have we landed on?" Espio wondered aloud.
"Hey, who said that?" said a distant voice.
"It came from over there!" declared another.
Soon, two men clad in armored robes holding lanterns ran toward the source of the yelling.
"Who goes there? And how dare you set foot on the Bei Fo...Bei fe...Bei fufo...DRAGON!" the man on the right cried, throwing his finger forward.
Espio chuckled, folding his arms."I know, my intimidating appearance would lead most to assume so; but I assure you, I am but a humble chameleon," he responded smugly.
"I think he was talking about Vector..." Charmy commented.
The "humble" chameleon scoffed."Keh, believe what you wanna believe..."
"Thay can speak!" the other guard exclaimed,"they must be demons!"
"Now look, fellas, we're not evil spirits, we just wanna know where we are..." Vector began, taking a step forward.
The men went into a stance."Stay back, demon! Don't you move an inch closer!" the left one warned.
"Or else what? You're unarmed!" the super-strong croc responded quizzically.
In complete randomness, the two men thrust their cocked fists upward, causing a catapult of rock to fling Vector and Espio into the sky.
"Hah hah," was Charmy's immediate reaction.
The guards snorted at Charmy.
Noticing this, the bee darted away in the direction his friends were thrown.
The two detectives smacked into a pig pen, splashing mud in all directions.
They groggily hauled themselves up, spitting out of their mouths what they hoped was just wet dirt.
"Could somebody tell me how the heck we ended up in China?" Vector sputtered.
"I don't think..." Espio coughed,"...we're in China..."
"Well I'm pretty sure we're not in Australia..." the crocodile retorted, whipping himself off.
The chameleon copied his partner's action in a more thorough manner." Vector, if we were somewhere in the Far East, wouldn't those guards have spoken some Far Eastern language instead of perfect English?" he inquired.
"Easy, we're in China-Town," Vector deduced, his shorter partner rolling his eyes.
"Ooh, ooh! I know!" Charmy declared on arrival,"what if, we've somehow ended up...in another dimeeennsiooonnn?" he speculated, eerie sci-fi music playing in the background.
All attention was diverted towards the confused Vector."...Oh! Heh, sorry 'bout that..." the croc responded sheepishly, turning off his walkman.
"That doesn't seem all that improbable..." Espio continued, taking note of the sleeping pigs with bull horns,"we should search for the others, and maybe find some intel on where we actually are," the brains advised, crossing his arms again.
"Aww, why do we have to find them now? I wanna play with the pigs!" Charmy complained.
"Yeah, we better find a place to rest for the night first..." Vector contemplated, stretching his shoulder, soon after wrapping his large arm around the smaller two," and rest well, my colleagues! For tomorrow begins our next big case: The Mystery of the Caucasian Asians!" he announced, pointing nowhere significant cinematically.
"...Don't ever say that again..." Espio groaned.
All was quiet atop the cold, lonely mountain peak.
"Sonic!"
Its only friends the gray, gloomy clouds that hovered about; and the eerie winds that saturated the peak with its chill.
"Amy? Knuckles? Anyone?"
Neither foul nor beast dares ascend the desolate peak, regardless of seasonal migrations.
"Hello? I can't be the only one here. Sonic!"
And why would they? It wasn't as if they had a home to return to, not after what happened to this place - such has remained unchanged...for over a hundred years.
"Hello!" the fox called, receiving the fourth batch of echoes as he hovered throughout the abandoned temple.
Since he had woken up in this strange monastery, not but five minutes ago, Miles "Tails" Prower had been surveying the mountain for any signs of his friends, as logic would dictate that where ever the fox was, his friends had to be at least in the general area since they were all in the same ship when...well, he wasn't entirely sure of the occurrence of what felt like moments earlier, but his optimism was stable, to say the least, and the young tinkerer was certain that as long as he held a stiff upper lip that wherever the other Sonic Heroes were, he was bound to run into them, though there was still one more issue at hand:
"Sonic..." he mumbled, descending onto the edge of a nearby cliffside.
Before being atomized, the fox managed to catch sight of Knuckles sharing a brief dispute with someone apparently outside the Typhoon, and since Silver and Rouge were already strapped in their seats, there was only one other guess. Moments after, he heard Omega come back online long enough to announce that Metal Sonic was approaching. Knuckles then looked shocked as he fell back in the ship, and Amy demanded what happened to Sonic as she looked like she was about to cry.
Putting the evidence together, Tails concluded that Sonic had somehow climbed against the ship during the anomaly, but was intercepted by a reactivated Metal Sonic shortly after. This was definitely a bite at his optimism. What if he was still in limbo? What if he fell back out of the vortex? But that would mean falling back into space, and without the ARK's artificial atmosphere...no, no that could never happen. Sonic was the greatest; he couldn't just lose to Eggman like that, he just couldn't. Sonic always wins, always!
"Always?"
Tails' sad expression dropped; he quickly backed away in fear from the bony old man that was apparently sitting next to him.
"Who...who are you? And how did you know what I was thinking!" he timidly demanded, pointing his shaky finger.
The bushy-bearded elder raised his own finger upward." Well, you see, I was reading your inner monolo...well, anyway, I am Guru Pathic", he answered, his voice bearing a thick Indian accent.
The fox lowered his finger."...um...I'm Tails", he replied meekly.
The old man stroked his enormous beard, observing the anthro carefully." You seem troubled. You are not of this universe, are you?" he inquired casually, his smile never faltering.
Tails blinked twice; this conversation wasn't getting any less abnormal."...I don't think so..."
"Interesting, I had my own suspicions of such a thing for a time, but I learned to keep it to myself for fear of rejection from the monks..."
"Monks?" Tails repeated.
"Oh yes, I was a personal friend Monk Gyotso of the Southern Air Temple, which enabled me to learn the ways of his people; I was even granted the title of Honorary Air Nomad, despite me not being an airbender myself..."
"Wait, wait a second! I don't even know what you're talking about," Tails interrupted, waving his hands.
Now was the guru's turn to blink twice."...You do not know of the Air Nomads or of benders?"
Tails shook his head.
The elder caressed his chin." I see. So you must know nothing of this world..." he realized.
"Well, I am not of this universe..." the fox reminded
The Guru's smile returned."Good point. In that case, we have much to talk about..." he announced, placing his frail, harmless hand upon the fox's shoulder,"Let me start from the beginning..."
It felt as though the world spun around him. Heat and chill fluctuated throughout his body. There was no bottom, and gravity was constantly changing. It was like he was hovering between life and death. He strenuously pulled his eyes open, catching a squinted glimpse of several people in rags; they were all sideways to the left, as well as the horizon. His eyes closed...
...They opened again, This time seeing the evening sky. They closed again...
...They open a third time, seeing the same image as before, this time it was inverted, and the people and horizon were leaning perfectly to the right. A colder chill crawled up his spine: was the world really spinning around him?
"H-hey...Where am I?" rang a familiar small voice.
"Amy?" he said, his eyes opening completely. It was only now that Silver realized the truth: the world wasn't spinning - he was, on rotisserie spit over an open flame in fact. "WHERE THE HECK ARE WE?"
He was surrounded by a pack of brutish-looking humans in reddish-brown rags and various animal pelts. Some were walking around doing brute-oriented things, some were hanging freshly-made pelts to dry, and one ragged woman was chasing around a bizarre chicken/possum hybrid with a hatchet. Silver and Amy were both tied on opposite sides to a long stick resting above crackling flames; by this point, the situation was painfully obvious.
The man rotating the spit paused."Hey! Dinner can talk!" he blurted out in amazement.
"Heh, won't be talkin' for long..." retorted a husky, middle-aged woman a few steps away, sitting on a rock and sharpening the hook-shaped blade the was apparently hers against some kind of leather. On her left shoulder was what was left of the head of something between a hog and a monkey.
"Oh no, Silver, these people are trying to cook us! What're we going to do?" the pink hedgehog cried.
"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do..." the grey hedgehog replied. He then began glowing, and sent a shockwave that simultaneously broke them free, doused the fire, blew the rotating man away, and caught the attention of the entire camp.
The man stubbornly rose to his feet, taking out his knife."Who said you could break free!" He rushed at Silver with a battle cry, until he was blasted away even further through a couple of tents.
"Anybody else wanna' piece of this hedgehog!?" Silver challenged, his arm still raised.
Pretty much every tribesman in the camp surrounded them, their various weapons sparkling and their chops licked.
"That came out wrong..." the future hedgehog realized.
"You mean you still wanna eat us after you saw what Silver can do?" Amy inquired in astonishment.
"...hey", one of them had an epiphany,"maybe if we eat them, we'll have his power!" he proposed, the rest of the group yelling in agreement. They charged.
Huffing, Amy took her hammer out of...somewhere... and charged as well. The pink hedgehog battered three savages away one swing at a time; she brought the weapon down on some poor soul's foot, causing him to whale in agony before receiving an upward swing against his chin, sending him flying.
With his psychokinesis, Silver picked up two tribesmen and slapped them against each other. The grey hedgehog caught a man's dagger in mid-thrust, prompting the man to futily pull it out of the hedgehog's telekinetic grasp, which gave Silver more than enough time to blow him away, along with four others.
The chubby woman just sat there, mystified at how one-sided this fight was becoming."Oh, for the love of egg custard, do I have to kill all the dinner myself?" she complained, tossing aside her hooked blade and unsheathing her new one - an opaque, Fire Nation Jian broadsword. She charged.
Amy turned around just in time to block a swipe from said sword. The woman followed it up with several more."Gah! Silver, help me!"
Silver had two men suspended in the air as turned to see the dilemma."Don't worry, Amy, I'll...!...wow, that's a nice sword..."
"Silver, what are you doing?" Amy inquired as she continued to fend for herself, blocking the blows with her hammer.
"No, I'm serious, that's really nice sword, where did you find it?" the future hedgehog wondered.
"Found it in a forest somewhere..." the woman replied before executing a thrust that spun away, causing the two to switch positions.
"This isn't funny, Silver!" Amy cried.
"Oh come on, Amy, how many solid black swords do see lately? I don't know about you, but in the future, stuff like that is kind of rare. Is it obsidian? It's gotta be obsidian..." by this time, the two men Silver was holding fell to the ground unconscious.
"Well, I'm sure you could find out if you take it from her!" the hedgehogette reminded.
"Oh fine..." Silver mumbled.
The woman pulled back the sword for a nice head-chopping slice before being blasted away at such a speed that the blade briefly floated motionless in the air, all the way into a tree, effectively incapacitating the she-brute.
The sword gracefully floated into the grey hedgehog's hands."Wouldja' look at the craftsmanship on this thing..." Silver observed, fascinated by his new souvenir.
They turned to see the rest of the tribe, charging with their primitive weapons.
"We should probably leave now..." Silver noted, not seeing the point in beating up more helpless cavemen. He hastily ascended to the air, taking the yelping Amy up with him.
The tribesmen slowed down and watched as the two flew off into the sky.
"Aww...but what about dinner?" one asked.
"Hey, it's not my loss: I'm a vegetarian," another brute said with a rather sophisticated flare.
"Nobody cares about your stupid new-age diet, Kulark!"
Before the Meteor landed...
In mere moments, Space Colony ARK completed its inter-dimensional journey, gradually fazing into the reality of a new universe.
Seconds later, a small shock wave appeared next to it as a blue orb rocketed away and toward the new earth.
Sonic struggled defiantly, punching his metallic duplicate with all his might, actually making the mecha flinch as he had his huge fingers wrapped around blue hedgehog then kicked Metal Sonic hard in where a jaw would be, the merciless robot's grip finally broken. Though he quickly caught the hedgehog again, spinning around at helicopter propeller speeds. Metal Sonic let go, sling-shotting Sonic across the atmosphere.
Neo Metal Sonic's maniacal laughter echoed all around as the surrounding friction caused him to burst into a blue fireball, resembling a meteor as he continued his high-speed descent.
Sonic soared through the sky at ludicrous velocity. Knowing he was going to hit the ground soon, The azure hedgehog's only option was to curl into a ball and hope he was going to land somewhere soft, and he did land.
*SPLOOOOWSH*
"Whadja' 'spose it is, Tho?" Due inquired, resting his bony hands on his hips.
"I'm not sure, Due..." Tho replied, his arms crossed.
"It looks like one 'o them arctic rats..." the skinny tribesmen observed.
The chubby tribesmen looked at his cousin quizzically."Now how would you know what an arctic rat looks like?"
"Well, the rat's blue; the Water Tribes blue too, ain't it?"
"Now see whatcha' did?" Tho rebuked, pointing his finger,"Y'all can't make a call like that; the War's over. We gots ta' stop stereo-typin' frum now on..."
The cousins heard a groan; they tipped their heads down to see the "rat" slowly regain consciousness."What happened...?" he mumbled.
"Look, Tho! The rat can talk!" Due exclaimed.
"It ain't a arctic rat!"
"Hey! I'm not a rat!" Sonic cried, propping himself up.
"See? Even the rat says so!" Tho continued.
"Who are you guys?" Sonic took a whiff,"And why do you smell like you just walked out of a..." he stopped, as he realized what kind of environment he had woke up in,"...swamp..."
"Heh, well I don't what else a swamp-folk ought to smell like..." Tho retorted somewhat pridefully.
Perfect; not only did the blue hedgehog not know where he was, he knew that since he was sleeping on his back, so he also had plenty of swamp smushed into his quills. Lucky him..."Right, well, you guys wouldn't happen to know where the nearest civilization would be, would you?" he asked smiling, regardless of the circumstances.
"...Ci...vil... la..." Due struggled.
The shorter, stalkier waterbender slapped his taller, thinner cousin's shoulder."Dag-blastet, Due, he's talkin' about the city!"
Tho finally snapped his fingers."Oh! he must be talkin' about Omashu!" the tribesman realized. He then began to deliver directions."Now whatcha' wanna do is, ya gotta head up north a couple hunred' miles, then ya come around the Cave o' Two Lovers..."
"Now wait a minute, Due, the Cave o' Two Lovers's west o' Omashu!" Tho reminded.
"No it ain't; I remember havin' ta' go around the cave on account o' comin' back from the Fire Nation..." Due recalled.
"That's cause the Fire Nation's west o' the Cave 'o Two Lovers!"
"Oh; well, anyway, after that, ya head eastward till ya get to Misty Palms Oasis-"
"Good lard, Due! Now yer sendin' 'em straight to the desert!"
"I thank I know my way ta' Omashu, Tho..."
"Well I'm startin' ta' think you don't, Due..."
Sonic stared at the bickering cousins blankly; he could tell by now that he had delt with smarter Egg Pawns..."Look uh, I'm sure I'll find this Omashu if I get far enough..." Sonic explained, getting up,"I'm just wasting your time anyway," he turned around,"Oh, and thanks for not trying to eat me or something while I was asleep!" and with that, the blue hedgehog leaped onto the river and sped off.
"But wait! We was gonna eat you!" Due announced.
"Now, Due, why'd ya hafta' go tell 'em that fer? He mighta' turned around!" Tho complained.
As Sonic navigated through the vast wetland, pulling off all sorts of stunts and what-not, his thoughts started grouping up in order. According to what Metal Sonic had told him, (the jerk, Sonic hoped he landed in a volcano somewhere...) Eggman was sicker of getting beat by Sonic more than Sonic was of having to beat Eggman, so he tried to make a b-line out of his universe, in an attempt to take over another world. He probably figured any universe Sonic wasn't in was worth the risk. Sonic shook his head smirking: poor old Eggman didn't even know Sonic made it by the skin of his gloves; the hedgehog might actually pity the doctor a little more once he finds out...
His smirk faded when a shade of slightly darker blue blurred past him in mid-air, causing him to wobble around for a second before landing not so stylishly on a thick log of a vine. Sonic sighed with relief, only to look up to see something unexpected: it was Metal Sonic, in his regular form no-less.
Metal Sonic crossed his arms and signaled his organic other to bring it on before blasting behind along the long, ancient vine.
Must have been a side-effect of the crash, thought Sonic."Where's your lifeform data now, buckethog!" He exclaimed, dashing after him.
The vine wasn't perfectly straight, forcing Sonic to bob and weave and even jump a few times before finally reaching his oldest rival." I'm-gonna-get-cha!" he sang.
Metal Sonic responded by curling up and creating a dark, diamond-shaped force field around himself and slowing down, prompting Sonic to cart-wheel over him and run backward."You'd best be gettin' rid o' those stale moves if you're gonna show your chassy in my...Eggman?" he paused as he noticed what was behind Metal Sonic: it was Dr. Eggman, in an older variation of his EggMobile, projecting a yellow laser beam from the bottom straight down behind his metal doppelganger, laughing all the way.
Sonic could have sworn this picture looked familiar..."What so funny, EggHead? In case you haven't noticed, your plan failed again: I made it here! Shouldn't you be fuming like a baby? Or did you finally lose it when you found out?" he gloated, though the doctor kept on laughing.
Just then, Metal Sonic covered himself in a yellow force field, and gunned again for Sonic, who just jumped again and was in the same position as before."Why don't you just lie down somewhere, Eggman? There's nothing you could ever do that would throw me off guard, nothing!" he boasted, before turning his head to the right to what was right next to him: a smaller, chibi-er version of Sonic running alongside him. The little Sonic smiled, waved his finger, and winked in the same manner Sonic used to, the real Sonic's eyes literally wider than dinner plates."...who the..."
Suddenly, Sonic's foot caught a much younger vine, causing him to fly off of the big vine, bouncing off a few trees until touching down face-first into a puddle of swamp mud.
The dirty hedgehog pushed himself up strenuously; he was pretty sure he had enough swamp now..."Okay, that was kinda random, I'll give you that! But it's gonna take a lot more than some mini-me to take on...me!" he got up, and whipped off whatever dirt and debris he could remove with his hands...until of course he realized there was someone next to him.
Sonic quickly spun to his left to see the oddest sight of the day: it was a bald child floating about seven feet away from him. His body and everything on him were colorless, like a black and white film. He was wearing some kind ceremonial robes; there were glowing arrows on his hands, which he had carefully held close to his chest, and one on his bald head. His eyes were closed. He was covered in a strange, white mist. A wind kicked up, swirling around the two, though it did disturb the mist.
Sonic could only blink at the extra-natural being.
Suddenly, the boy's head gradually ascended to meet Sonic's eyes, slowly opening his own as even more light peered out of them, as if he didn't even have pupils. The light eventually grew too much for Sonic, forcing him to avert his own eyes, until...nothing.
Sonic turned back, there was no one there. He whipped around in all directions: he was all alone.
"What was that all about?" the blue hedgehog wondered aloud. It could have been that the boy was just an illusion; and if that were true, then the same could be said of his oldest "friends" from a mere minute ago. Sonic suppressed the thought long enough to hop upwards from branch to branch until he made it to the crown of a tree.
Whatever new world the azure hedgehog has landed on, it was definitely different from the one he just left; especially if those half-naked guys were any indication - he just hoped not everyone was like that. What he knew for sure was that he was going to have to find his friends and perhaps make some new ones before even considering going after Eggman, as he recalled the doctor snatching away the Chaos Emeralds at the last minute - that was kind of why he was here in the first place. Maybe he should check out this Omashu?
Despite the overwhelming conditions, Sonic The Hedgehog was off to the distance, and he had his game face on, as he knew the minor setback was the dawn of a new adventure like never before...