Altered Reality

Dr. Eggman has altered the reality. In this new reality, Sonic's position in history has been taken by Shadow. Nobody knows him. Well, except Shadow, who himself doesn't like this change at all...

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog or any related characters.

[Last Edited: 2019-08-04]

"Why the long face, Egghead? You thought I wouldn't catch you?" Sonic asked with a grin as he blocked the doctor's escape path. Said scientist looked quite roughed up at this very moment as his flying vehicle had exploded on him just minutes prior. On the other hand, the certain blue-furred person that was the cause of said malfunction had only gotten a bit of dirt on his pristine blue coat as the result of this. To drive this point home, Sonic even flashed the doctor a cocky, victorious smirk. "Come on! You can't really think you can outrun the fastest thing alive, do you?"

Eggman's lips twisted into a scowl, the scientist clearly aware that outrunning the fastest thing alive was an impossible task for him—even without Sonic having to rub salt into the wound.

However, outsmarting the hero was not.

Dr. Eggman whipped out the gun that he had hidden under his coat as the plan B, pointing it at the surprised hedgehog's forehead without hesitation. A wide maniac smile spread across the doctor's features as he pulled the trigger. "Say cheese!"

With his super-fast reflexes, Sonic had no problem to twist out of the way of the bullet as it came for him. The corners of his lips began to lift into a triumphant smile but froze when the bullet suddenly exploded into a wave of blinding blue energy that was so blinding Sonic had to close his eyes.

However, he snapped them open just a moment later when the rumbling of heavy traffic hit his ears—of traffic that made no sense to be here as the road had been turned into nothing but rubble and dust.

With the blue brows furrowing in confusion, the hero slowly turned on his spot, staring in bewilderment at the suddenly busy street. Where had Eggman disappeared to? And all the collapsed buildings? Where had all these people come from and why were they acting as if there wasn't an attack from Eggman just a few minutes ago?

What on Mobius was going on...?

Sonic started to walk along the miraculously undamaged pavement, cautious in his steps. He examined the people and the street, all for some odd reason looking just like before the attack, without a single speck of evidence of there being any attack just moments prior.

No collapsing buildings or damaged property. No hurt civilians or army personnel. Literally nothing.

Suddenly, Sonic's eyes caught a glimpse of group of teens intently looking into a shop window that was filled with all kinds of TVs that were playing what appeared to be a live broadcast of the news. Quickly, he zipped across the street, receiving a few strange stares and some rude gestures from the drivers. However, Sonic ignored both of them as he was more interested in finding out what was happening.

And as his gaze fell on the TV and his ears caught the news-anchor's words, all Sonic could do was stare.

"—and that's how our beloved hero Shadow the Hedgehog has once again saved our city from the evil Doctor Robotnik."

Loved? Hero? And Shadow? All in one sentence? Sonic was so lost. What on Mobius—?!

However, the news-anchor continued on, "However, the big question, of course, still remains. What happened to Dr. Robotnik himself? Shadow's friends and fellow heroes, Miles Prower and Knuckles the Echidna—" Sonic's eyes were the size of sauce-pans right now. "—have confirmed that Doctor Robotnik was successfully arrested after the incident and is being taken to prison at this very moment—"

Sonic felt as if he was in some sort of haze. This all had to be some sort of misunderstanding. However, as he listened to the excited chatters of the teens surrounding him, he began to doubt this possibility.

"Shadow is amazing!"

"He's so cool!"

"Do you remember that time he destroyed the Death Egg? That was so rad!"

"Right! But that time when he repaired the planet when it had split that was so—!"

"Have you heard the rumor about that pink hedgehog that's always with him? I heard that she's his girlfriend!"

This can't be happening...This has to be a cruel joke...

The teens started to talk even louder and mentioned many more of his successes against Eggman—but which they claimed were Shadow's.

My life...isn't mine?

"Excuse me, miss..." Sonic patted one of the teens on her shoulder. She turned around and so did the rest of group when they noticed she'd stopped talking. She was the queen-bee of the group as it seemed.

The girl made a grimace the moment her gaze fell on him and she recoiled from his touch noticeably. Her brown eyes turned hard and unkind just a moment later. "Gods, I don't have any money to spent on your worthless kind! Get a job, you hobo!"

A hobo? What—?

The rest of the group laughed and all of them started to walk away, completely ignoring Sonic, who just stood there confused for a moment before looking himself over. Sure, he was a little dirty and ragged from all that fighting with Eggman's robots, but it was nothing that would cause them to not recognize him.

But still—they hadn't recognized him. They thought Shadow was him. Why would that happen...?

The memory of the blue light flashed through his mind. It was after that that everything stopped making sense. The light was somehow responsible even if he didn't know how yet.

His fists clenched. Well, Eggman had some explaining to do.

-O-

Dr. Robotnik was lying in his bed in the silence of his cell, completely bored out of his mind; he wasn't allowed to leave his cell at all as the higher-ups were scared that he could think up some sort of brilliant plan how to escape if they allowed him to wander anywhere else. Hell, he even had his own guards before his cell.

He was a mastermind and they acknowledged this fact. For once. They even removed the second bed so he wouldn't try to use some of its part for escape.

He was angry. His own was small for him so second bed would be nice and it was just a bed for Chaos's sake! What part of it he could use to make an escape plan? The mattress?

Well, now when he thought about it that actually wasn't such a bad idea. If it was a one with springs...

However, before the doctor could think any further about his hypothetical escape plan, the alarm sounded through the prison, interrupting his musings.

"Intruder in the sector 2-A! Stop him by all costs! I repeat! Intruder..."

The doctor raised a brow. This was supposed to be one of the best guarded prisons, how could have anyone gotten through?

He peeked out of his cell and looked into the corridor, brows furrowing over his eyes. Was that a cloud? What on—? Wait, was the cloud moving—?

"Eggman!" The cloud of dust stopped before his cell and a blue hedgehog stepped out of it, the stranger's features twisted in anger. The hedgehog pointed an accusatory finger at him. "What the heck did you do to me?!"

"Eggman? What kind of name is that?" Dr. Robotnik frowned in a mixture of confusion and offense. Was that supposed to be a jab at his stature? "I don't know who you think you are, you blue pincushion, but I'm Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the biggest genius who has ever lived, and I won't stand to being insulted!"

Sonic crossed his arms, rolling his eyes at the other's show of not knowing him. As if he was ever going to fall for it. "Really? A pincushion?" I thought we were over that one. "You ought to get more creative, Egghead. But first, tell me—what the heck did you do?"

Robotnik's frown deepened. Just who was this rude vermin? "I don't know what you're talking about. What was I supposed to do?"

"Don't pretend to be innocent, Egghead!" Sonic stepped closer to the bars separating them. "You know very well what you did—Why doesn't anybody remember me?!"

Dr. Robotnik frowned at the other's aggressive approach. Where were the guards when one needed them? "I don't remember you either, hedgehog."

Sonic gritted his teeth and in a blink of eye he was standing right before Eggman whose collar he immediately took hold of, dragging the man down to his eye-level, the hero tired of the other's 'pretending'. "Enough of this game, Eggman! I want answers! Now!"

As he looked into the raging green eyes of the hedgehog before him, Dr. Robotnik raised his hands defensively, at loss of what to do—he had no idea who the hedgehog before him was. "I can't have the answers you seek when I don't even know who you are!"

Green eyes looked at him, searching. For what, the doctor did not know. However, they clearly did not find it as something in them broke and the hedgehog let go of his collar. Robotnik immediately straightened his back, making even a few steps back to escape the other's reach in case the hedgehog decided to make grab for him again.

"You're not...lying," Sonic said, confused. He'd experienced Eggman lying so many times—this wasn't one of them. His gut twisted uncomfortably. "You don't know who I am."

"No, I've never seen you in my life before."

"Who's your biggest enemy?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just answer."

"Shadow the Hedgehog, of course."

"...I see."

Doctor blinked when he saw how the blue hedgehog started to slowly walk away. The guards were getting closer, he could hear them. "What was all of this about?"

"You've made everybody forget me—even yourself."

"And who are you?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog."

The doctor raised a questioning eyebrow. He was sure he'd remember a name like that. "Should I know you?" he asked.

"Everybody should know me." Sonic turned around, sadness written all over his face. "But nobody does."

And with that Sonic set off to find his last chance—his brother.

-O-

Tails had experienced many things in his life. Sure, so far it was objectively a quite short life—just ten years long—but after the numerous fights with Robotnik he would expect he'd know how to defend himself when the situation called for it.

However, when a crazy blue hedgehog that claimed to be his brother (in both meanings of the phrase) appeared in his workshop, he had literally no idea what to do.

"Please, Tails, listen to me!"

"No! Go away!" Said fox threw another tool at his pursuer. Unfortunately for him, the hedgehog dodged. Again. How did the other have such quick reflexes—?

"Eggman has messed up the reality! You don't remember me but I'm your brother! For some reason Shadow lives my life, but it's my life in reality!"

Tails threw a hammer this time. Miss again. "You're not my brother—Brother, please! Help!"

The blue hedgehog turned around and was met with no other than Shadow himself. Well, Knuckles was trailing right behind as well but that wasn't that important at the moment.

Sonic's attention immediately moved from his brother to his rival. "You!" He pointed an accusatory finger at the ebony hedgehog. "You stole my life!"

The dark hedgehog raised his brow. "Why would I do such thing? Having a bunch of friends and a stalker that follows me everywhere? Not something I'd appreciate. Feel free to take it all back, Sonic."

"You—Wait, what?" Sonic paused, staring at the other hedgehog before him. Did Shadow just call him by his name?

Shadow smirked. "Yeah, nice to see you too."

"You remember me!"

"Yes, I think I've made that quite obvious just now."

"What! You know this madman?!" Tails screamed, pointing at Sonic.

"Hey! I'm not a madman!"

"Ignore it, hedgehog. I tried to convince them I'm not you. They just won't listen."

"What the heck are you two talking about?" Knuckles cut in, obviously having enough of just standing around.

"Doctor Egg—I mean Robotnik somehow messed up the reality. Everybody thinks he's me," explained Sonic, pointing at Shadow.

Knuckles raised a brow. "And you are?"

Sonic frowned. "Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Never heard of you."

"You have," Shadow contradicted. "Everything he's saying is true. This whole reality is fake."

Tails raised a brow, looking from one hedgehog to the other. "What do you mean by that?"

"Everything you think I've done and the relationship you think we have, it was his work. I'm no hero and I'm not your brother."

"But..." Tails shifted somehow uncomfortably. "...who are you then?"

"A project gone wrong, an agent of GUN, an anti-hero. Pick whichever you want."

"That sounds like a bad guy to me," Knuckles remarked, giving him a distrustful side-eye.

"Yeah, that's why I find it ridiculous that I am supposed to be the hero here," Shadow explained, rolling his eyes at the absurdity of the situation. When no smart-ass quip of agreement followed as Shadow expected, the crimson eyes turned to stare somehow questioningly at Sonic, who right now seemed to be staring somewhere into space as if deep in thought. "What is it, hedgehog?"

"If you are me—how did the Eclipse cannon incident go down? You know, you working with Egghead and all that..."

Before the dark hedgehog could even start to talk, Tails already started to explain, "Shadow working with Robotnik? What a nonsense! That guy working with him was...ehm..."

Shadow turned to look at Sonic once more. "Well, as it seems I've filled your place in the history, but nobody has filled mine..."

"But how are we going to fix this mess?"

"How do you even know this is Doctor's work?"

"Well, I wanted to stop him from escaping. He tried to shot me with some strange gun. I dodged, but the bullet exploded into this weird blue light and then everything was wrong..."

"We will probably need his help then."

"I don't believe we can convince him..."

"Oh, believe me, I can be very convincing..."

-O-

"You didn't need to be so violent!" Sonic glared at his rival, obviously not approving his convincing 'methods'.

"He wouldn't help us if I wasn't," Shadow stated, not really giving a damn about what the other hedgehog thought of his methods. They were effective. Enough said.

Tails coughed, interrupting their little 'exchange' of opinions. Both hedgehogs turned from having a glaring contest to staring at the young fox. "I just wanted to inform you that we've found a way how to fix this. However, it'll take some time."

"Good. If at any point Doctor gives you any trouble, just tell me."

"No violence! You're ruining my image!"

"You can't order me."

"Yeah, nobody can order my Shadowie!"

The dark hedgehog froze at hearing the too familiar and too loud voice of the pink variety. "Oh, dammit."

"Hey, Shadowie! Missed me?" Amy bounced over to them, immediately hugging Shadow despite the agent suddenly looking like he wanted to kill somebody this very moment.

"Get. Off. Me," the agent hissed, the warning obvious in his tone.

Amy let go of him but Sonic doubted it was out of self-preservation as the girl patted Shadow's shoulder right after. "No need to be shy about showing affection towards your girlfriend, Shadowie!"

"You're not my girlfriend," Shadow hissed under his breath with a scowl. However, the expression turned into a smirk right after as an idea crossed his mind. "And I'll tell you why."

Amy looked at him, confusion written all over her face. Shadow placed his arms around her shoulders in a manner that was way too familiar and way too un-Shadow. Sonic smelled something fishy. "You see you can't be my girlfriend because..."

The pink hedgehog stared at him, her big jade eyes staring at him with a clear question in them.

"I'm gay."

You could practically hear Sonic's jaw hitting the ground.

"You're...gay?"

Shadow nodded and then looked her straight in the eye. "But I'd appreciate if you didn't tell anybody."

"You can count on me! I won't tell a soul!" Amy smiled widely, clapping her hands together and bringing them to her heart as if she were promising to keep the secret only to herself. Shadow doubted so. "Well, see you later! I'll go say 'hi' to Tails!"

Then she was gone.

"It'll be in every newspapers in the city by tomorrow."

"I know."

"You're just trying to ruin me, aren't you?"

"Maybe."

"I hate you."

"The feeling is mutual."

"Hey, guys, we've finished it!"

"That was fast."

Shadow snorted. It was to be expected from two biggest geniuses of the planet...

-O-

"What?! Why haven't it worked?!"

Sonic opened his eyes. Am I back?

His sight fell on the ragged-looking Doctor Eggman and all those collapsed buildings around them. "Yes! I'm back!"

"What?"

"Hey, Sonic! Are you alright? We saw strange light coming from here!" Suddenly, Tails and Knuckles appeared, both unconsciously making the hedgehog happy by just saying his name.

"If you remember me, then everything is a-okay, Tails!"

Tails blinked unsurely. "...Am I supposed to take it as a 'yes'?"

-O-

"So, they don't remember anything?" Shadow asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

"No," Sonic replied and, as well, took a sip of his drink. "But how come you remember it?"

"I don't have an idea. Ask your brother, he may know why we are the only two unaffected. Though I have a better question first—" The crimson eyes locked with his. "—What the hell am I doing here?"

The blue hedgehog looked down into his cup, laughing awkwardly. "You see, Amy was so happy that nothing happened to me that she hugged me and refused to let go of me..."

Shadow raised a brow. Why was that information important? "Go on..."

"So, I decided to try out the same trick you used..."

The dark hedgehog started to be curious.

"She asked me how I can be so sure. So I told her that I like somebody. Then she asked me who and I said the first name that came to my mind..."

"...We are on a date, aren't we?"

"I'm sorry! I didn't expected her to play a matchmaker!"

Shadow took his last sip and then placed the now empty cup on the table. "And you were worried about your reputation..."

Sonic kept silent.

"But that still haven't answered my question why I don't remember coming here..."

AN: Reviews appreciated.