Here it is, at long last! The chapter I'm sure everyone has been waiting for! The climactic, epic, heart-stopping story of how Big met Froggy! If you must blink, I suggest you do it now, lest you miss even a second of this awe-inspiring tale! Read on, and be amazed!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
…
Big stared at Silver for a long, long moment. Finally, he said, "Sorry, could you repeat that? I wasn't listening." Everyone facefaulted.
Looking annoyed, the pale hedgehog slowly repeated, "Big, how did you meet Froggy?"
Big perked up at that. "Oh! I always love telling that story. It's a really nice one."
"So how did it happen, Mr. Big?" Cream asked. "How did you meet Froggy? Was it as magical a time as when I first got Cheese?"
"Chao Chao!" Cheese squeaked.
"Well, small rabbit girl whose name I can't remember, it all started on a sunny day long, long ago…" Big recalled, eyes rolling back in his skull as he dredged his memories for that fateful day.
…
Big the Cat was sitting at the edge of a pond in the jungle he called home, his fishing line cast and patiently waiting for a nibble. He had been waiting for quite some time, but he didn't mind, fishing was a test of patience as much as skill, and with a mind as clear (some might uncharitably call it 'empty') as Big's, a wait of several minutes, if not hours, felt like no time at all.
His ears twitched as the float of his lure suddenly sank beneath the water, vibrations running up the line and into his hands. He quickly began reeling his catch in, being careful not to go too quickly, lest he break his line, or too slowly, and allow his catch to get away. Whatever had bitten his lure was putting up a surprisingly fierce struggle, but Big was an expert Fishercat, and was eventually able to tire his prey out. Big licked his lips as he finished reeling in his prize, curious to see what he would be eating…
And was pleasantly surprised to find that instead of a fish, he had caught a frog. The frog, which had yet to let go of the lure and its mouth, stared at Big as it dangled from the end of his fishing pole. After a moment, it opened its mouth and dropped to the ground, but instead of hopping away as other frogs Big had caught in the past had done; it stayed there, gazing up at him with its big yellow eyes.
"Froggy!" Big exclaimed excitedly.
The frog ribbited.
…
"And we've been the best of friends ever since," Big concluded, a fond smile on his face.
There was a long pause. "That's it?" Sonic asked finally, disgruntled.
"Yep," Big said.
"Nothing else happened after that? Froggy didn't talk to you and turn out to be a prince under some sort of curse, or the object of worship of some insane cultists, or some sort of alien horror forced into frog form due to gravitational pressure?" Vector inquired, looking annoyed.
"No," Big said.
"That's it?!" Amy demanded incredulously.
"Yes," Big said. "No, wait. There was one other thing."
"Yeah? What?" Mighty asked.
"I caught a fish," Big recalled. He licked his lips. "It was very tasty."
There was a long, awkward silence. "What a gyp!" Charmy complained.
"After the last several stories we've heard, ESPECIALLY Blaze's, that one felt kind of… Lacking," Espio complained.
"Heck, even WITHOUT any of those other stories, it would still be lacking!" Vector groused.
"Talk about an anti-climax," Shadow grunted.
"TO-BE-FAIR, WE-KIND-OF-EXPECTED-THIS," Omega pointed out.
"Yes, but still, even Cream's story was charming and had some startling revelations. This was just… Dull," Rouge complained.
"I suppose they can't all be exciting stories of adventure and danger," Blaze pointed out.
"Don't listen to any of them, Big! I thought it was a very fine story!" Cream assured her morbidly obese friend. "Even if it was a little… Short."
"Okay," Big, who had not really been listening, said. "Can I go back to fishing now?"
"If that's you want to do," Tails said.
"It is," Big said. He ponderously turned back to the punch bowl and once again cast a line into it.
"Well, as immensely disappointing and anti-climactic as that was, that last story still gave me the final piece of information I needed," Silver said, putting his recording/projection device away. "Everyone, thank you for sharing your stories with me. With what I've learned today, I should be able to stop Eggman Nega from altering your pasts and destroying the future."
"No problem," Sonic said. "This was actually kind of fun. We learned a lot about each other that we didn't know before."
"And learned things about ourselves that we might have been better off not knowing…" Knuckles muttered.
"We should totally do something like this again sometime," Sonic continued. "I bet there's a lot of other stuff we don't know about each other that could be fun to learn about."
"Not everyone enjoys sharing details of their personal lives, faker," Shadow grunted.
"Speak for yourself, Shadow, I'd be fascinated to learn more about everyone else!" Rouge said with a grin.
"So you can use it as blackmail?" Amy asked suspiciously.
"Yep!" Rouge replied cheerfully.
"ARE-YOU-SURE-YOU-DON'T-WANT-US-TO-COME-WITH-YOU-TO-HELP-OUT?" Omega asked.
"No thanks. Like I said before, crossing over your own timeline can have serious repercussions," Silver pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but not all of us were actually involved in some of those stories," Mighty pointed out. "Couldn't you take some of them… Like, say, me… With you?"
"Too risky," Silver asserted. "The temptation for you to change the lives of your friends, for better or worse, might be too high. Plus, can you honestly tell me that if I took you with me you wouldn't try and beat up the Chaotix for spending years ignoring you?"
"Good point," the armadillo admitted.
"Plus, I don't think it's a good idea to unleash Omega at any point in the timestream," Shadow pointed out.
"I-WOULD-CAUSE-SO-MANY-PARADOXES," Omega said unapologetically.
"Well, in that case, good luck on your adventure," Blaze told Silver.
"Yeah, and be sure to stop by sometime to tell us how it went, I bet it'd be a real doozy!" Sonic said.
"You really want to invite him back?" Blaze murmured to her boyfriend.
"Even if I don't invite him, he'll still pop by without warning at some point in the future to bug us anyway," Sonic muttered to her from out of the corner of his mouth. "Might as well be polite about it." She grunted noncommittally.
"I'll be sure to take you up on that offer," Silver said, smiling. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be going-"
"NOT SO FAST!"
Everyone started. "Huh? Who said that?" Asked an alarmed Amy.
"Something about that voice sounds familiar…" Sonic murmured, looking around for any signs of a threat.
"WARNING. INCOMING-AIRSHIP-DETECTED," Omega reported.
"Is it Eggman?" Shadow asked sharply.
"NO. IT-IS-FAR-WORSE," Omega said ominously.
"Everyone, get ready!" Blaze snapped, forming a pair of fireballs in her hands, her Biter growling at her side.
"You aren't the boss of us!" Amy snapped. "And I'm only taking out my hammer because I want to, not because of anything you said!" Blaze rolled her eyes.
The clouds parted, and a large red-white-and yellow airship with a vaguely bird-shaped envelope with a beak-like protrusion growing from the front and rotors sprouting from the sides and back supporting a smaller cabin with more engines growing from its sides emerged. While it had similar colors, it wasn't nearly as big or heavily-armed as a standard Eggman airship, nor did it have his distinctive emblem, so it was unlikely to have any affiliation with the mad scientist.
Sonic frowned. "Something about that ship seems… Familiar…"
Shadow groaned. "Oh, no… I think I know who that is…"
"I-TOLD-YOU-IT-WAS-WORSE," Omega said smugly.
"What? Who is it?" Asked a confused Mighty.
A hatch opened up on the underside of the cabin, and three Mobians jumped out, riding what appeared to be hoverboards which allowed them to glide through the air without plummeting to their dooms. One was a large gray albatross with tan gloves, black, yellow, white and gray sneakers, small beige goggles, blue eyes, and a necklace with three gray pieces strung on who seemed to be desperately struggling to keep from falling off his board; one was a purple swallow with very long hair (or feathers? What do birds have instead of hair?) wearing red boots with white accents, gold sunglasses, white flared trousers, a white tube top, a necklace with a red gem, a white bandanna, white gloves with golden bracelets, and blue eyes with an extremely bored and apathetic look on her face that indicated she'd really rather be anywhere than here; and the last one was a green hawk with yellow and white goggles with gray strapping, white gloves with red and black cuffs, and red, black, and white boots with gray soles who was enthusiastically pulling off all sorts of impressive and needlessly complicated aerial stunts while whooping at the top of his lungs. "Oh yeah! The Legendary Wind Master Jet has arrived!" he shouted.
"We're here, too…" the albatross grumbled.
The swallow snorted. "Forget it, Storm, it's not like the two of us are important enough for the 'legendary wind Master' to remember anything like that. It's not like we're his oldest and closest companions or anything like that."
"I thought we were," said the confused albatross. The swallow groaned.
"Oh hey, it's the Babylon Rogues!" Sonic explained.
"Oh great, it's the Babylon Robes…" Shadow grumbled.
"Who are the Babylon Rogues?" Asked a confused Blaze.
"They're a group of athletes/thieves who have a rivalry with us whenever we compete in Extreme Gear competitions," Tails explained.
"We've competed against them a few times in the Olympics as well," Sonic added.
"Extreme Gear?" Blaze asked, still bewildered.
"Those hoverboards they're riding on," the Fox elaborated.
"Oh," Blaze said.
Silver frowned. "Wait, they're athletes as well as thieves? How can they compete in major sporting events if they're wanted criminals?"
"Rouge can compete in major sporting events and she's a criminal," Cream pointed out.
"Yeah, but Rouge has all sorts of shady government connections which probably smooth the way for her to get in," Amy pointed out. "Come to think of it, how DO the Rogues compete in big events while still going around the world stealing things?"
"Massive corruption among the committees who run such events, as well as copious amounts of bribes," Rouge said flatly.
"Oh. That would explain it," the pink hedgehog said.
"I'm surprised neither of you recognize them. You were at the Olympics with the rest of us," a puzzled Espio commented.
"Huh? What are you talking about? I've never been to the Olympics with any of you," said a confused Silver.
"What do you mean? You were there with us in Vancouver, London, Sochi, and Rio," Vector pointed out.
"What? No I… Oh! Oh, I see. Yes, that must be it," Silver said, snapping his fingers as an idea came to him.
"What must be it?" Asked a confused Knuckles.
"I'm a time traveler, remember? The me that went the Olympics with you guys must be myself from my own future. So while it's already happened for you, it hasn't happened for me yet," Silver explained.
"Oh, I see. Yes, that makes perfect sense," Tails agreed, nodding in understanding.
"No it doesn't," said a confused Knuckles.
"Let it go, Knuckles. Let it go," Sonic advised.
Blaze frowned, rubbing her chin in thought. "Now that you mention it, I think I do remember them vaguely. There were a lot of other people at the games, however. I probably overlooked them because I was spending most of my free time trying to teach Princess Peach how to fight better so she didn't always have to rely on her plumber boyfriend to protect her from that awful fire-breathing turtle with a disturbing obsession with her." She grimaced. "Frustratingly, none of my lessons seem to take…"
"You ever wonder if maybe she actually LETS herself get abducted because she gets off on the whole thing?" Vector questioned.
"Not until this moment, no," Blaze said, looking disgusted.
"Yeah, that's something I would rather not think about," Sonic agreed. There were several murmurs of agreement from the others.
"I don't want to know you mean, do I?" Cream asked resignedly.
"No, sweetie, you don't," Shadow said apologetically.
The three birds gracefully landed nearby and walked over, swinging their Extreme Gears onto their backs in a smooth, practiced motion as they approached. "Well, well, if it isn't Sonic the Hedgehog and his band of loser friends!" The green hawk sneered.
"Been a long time, Jet. Haven't seen you since you since Rio," Sonic said with a smirk. If he was bothered by Jet insulting his friends, he didn't show it.
"You would've seen me sooner if you hadn't skipped out on last year's Grand Prix. Guess you knew there was no way you could beat me, so you stayed away like the cowardly rat you are," Jet taunted.
"Sorry, man, I would've loved to be there, but I had to stop Dr. Eggman from taking control of the world's power supply," Sonic said with a shrug.
"Yeah, I'm sure," Jet sneered, clearly not believing him.
"He's telling the truth, actually. Most of us can vouch for him," Espio spoke up.
"Whatever, losers," Jet said dismissively, clearly not caring. "Wouldn't have mattered if you'd been there anyway, I'd still have smoked you just like I beat everyone else!"
"Oh, you mean you'd have had Wave sabotage Sonic's Extreme Gear, just like she did everyone else's?" Tails asked accusingly.
"Those allegations were never proven," the swallow huffed.
"Yeah, especially because I threatened to beat up everyone who tried to prove it," Storm said cheerfully.
His two companions glared at him. "Storm, you idiot, you're not supposed to tell people that sort of thing!" Wave snapped.
"Oh. Oops," the albatross said sheepishly.
"And people call me dumb," Knuckles snorted.
"Hey, who are you calling dumb?!" Storm asked angrily, curling his hands into fists.
"Not you," Knuckles said sarcastically.
"Oh, okay," Storm said, believing him instantly. His comrades facepalmed.
"Heh, and people call me gullible," Knuckles said with a grin.
"Hey, who are you calling gullible?!" Storm asked angrily, curling his hands into fists.
"Not you," Knuckles said sarcastically.
"Oh, okay," Storm said, believing him instantly. His comrades facepalmed.
Everyone blinked. "Did… Did Knuckles just outsmart someone?!" Asked an incredulous Vector.
"I know, I'm scared too," said a disturbed Espio.
"Hey!" Knuckles snarled.
"Ignore them, dear. Take pride in the fact that you were actually able to get a good burn in on somebody else for change," Rouge told the echidna.
Knuckles chuckled. "Heh, I suppose I did at that!"
"Good job, Mister Knuckles!" Cream said warmly.
"Yeah, let's see if it ever happens again," Mighty said snidely. Knuckles pouted.
"So, what are you doing here, Jet?" Sonic asked.
"Well, we heard about how you and your pals were telling stories about your boring loser origins, and decided we wanted to get in on some of that!" Jet explained, pointing at himself.
"Wait, how did you find out about that?" Amy asked, surprised.
Wave grinned. "Wouldn't you like to know!"
"Yes, actually, we would," Cream said.
"Well, tough, because we aren't telling!" the swallow sneered.
"Why? It's not that big a deal, we found out about it from Omega's blog," said a confused Storm.
Wave facepalmed. "Dammit, Storm!"
"Wait, blog? Omega, what is she talking about?" Shadow asked in alarm, glancing at the robot.
"OH, I-FORGOT-TO-MENTION? I-HAVE-AN-INCREDIBLY-POPULAR-BLOG-WHERE-I-POST-ALL-SORTS-OF-THINGS-SUCH-AS-ARTICLES-IN-WHICH-I-DISCUSS-VARIOUS-FORMS-OF-WEAPONRY-AND-ORDNANCE, TREATISES-ON-ROBOTICS-AND-ARTIFICIAL-INTELLIGENCE, RANTS-AND-POEMS-ABOUT-HOW-MACHINES-ARE-SUPERIOR-TO-ORGANICS-AND-HOW-I-WILL-WIPE-OUT-ALL-LIVING-THINGS-FROM-THIS-WORLD-ONE-DAY, AND-VIDEOS-OF-ME-PLAYING-VIDEO-GAMES-AND-KILLING-PEOPLE. I-TAKE-GREAT-AMUSEMENT-IN-SEEING-HOW-MANY-PEOPLE-CAN-TELL-THE-DIFFERENCE-BETWEEN-MY-VIOLENCE-IN-VIDEO-GAMES-AND-REAL-LIFE," Omega explained. "WHEN-EVERYONE-STARTED-TELLING-STORIES, I-STARTED-LIVESTREAMING-IT-SO-ALL-MY-FOLLOWERS-COULD-LISTEN-IN."
"Without our permission?!" Blaze demanded, livid.
"ROUGE-CAST-A-GEASS-ON-YOU-WITHOUT-PERMISSION," Omega pointed out.
"Yes, and we aren't exactly pleased about that, either!" Mighty grumbled.
Rouge had gone extremely pale. "Omega, when you said you been putting everything we've said onto the Internet, does that mean…"
"DON'T-WORRY-ROUGE, WHENEVER-ANYONE-SAID-SOMETHING-PARTICULARLY-SENSITIVE-I-SUFFERED-A-TERRIBLY-INCONVENIENT-CONNECTION-FAILURE-WHICH-MYSTERIOUSLY-ONLY-CLEARED-UP-ONCE-THEY-WERE-FINISHED," Omega assured her.
Rouge grew gradually less tense. "So they don't know…"
"ABOUT-YOU-OR-CREAM? NO-THEY-DO-NOT," Omega promised.
Rouge sighed in relief. "Thank you, Omega. I should've known you'd never betray me."
"YOU-ARE-MY-FRIEND, ROUGE," Omega assured her. "I-WOULD-NEVER-DO-THAT-TO-YOU."
"Didn't seem to stop you from filming us and putting it up online without asking," Amy accused the robot.
"I-THOUGHT-IT-WOULD-BE-FUNNY," Omega said unapologetically.
"And it was!" Wave sneered.
"Anyway, after listening to you lame-o's yakking about your boring origin stories for a while, it occurred to me that this might be a good chance to give my fans around the world some exclusive, never-before heard facts about yours truly and the rest of the Babylon Rogues!" Jet bragged.
"He has fans?" Blaze muttered.
"Surprisingly, yes," Amy grumbled.
Silver frowned. "I don't think so. I came back here to hear stories from Sonic and his friends to prevent a crisis of cosmic proportions. I have no need to hear any tales from you, Mr. the Hawk."
"Come on, you can't mean to tell me you aren't dying for a chance to hear how the Legendary Wind Master Jet came to be?" Jet asked, striking a pose and flashing a grin. "Given you're from the future and all, I'd have thought you'd be begging to hear more about the greatest racer in history, right from the source!"
"Actually, I've never heard of you before today," Silver confessed, causing Jet to nearly fall over from surprise. Pretty much everyone snickered at this, especially the other Rogues.
Flushing, Jet snapped, "What do you MEAN you've never heard of me before?! I'm Jet the Hawk! Legendary Wind Master! The greatest Extreme Gear rider ever! Leader of the nefarious Babylon Rogues and fastest thing alive! There's gotta be halls of fame and statues of me and stadiums named after me in your time!"
"Full of himself, isn't he?" Mighty grunted.
Wave rolled her eyes. "You have no idea."
"Why does he keep calling himself the fastest thing alive? You are much faster than him," Blaze asked Sonic.
"He's kinda in denial," the blue hedgehog admitted.
"Ah, that would explain it," Blaze conceded.
"If there are, I've never heard of them. Let me check." Silver tapped a few buttons on his recording device, and holographic screens popped up to surround his face. His eyes slid back and forth as he scanned them, a frown steadily growing on his face. "No… No… That's not… Oh, here we are. There's a mention of you on the list of Sonic's rivals."
"Of which I'm at the top, of course," Jet said confidently.
"No, actually, you're pretty far down. Like… Really far down. Heck, I don't think I've ever heard of most of the guys this far down the list." Silver squinted as he examined one such name. "What the heck is a 'Tails Doll?'"
Sonic shuddered. "Trust me, you're better off not knowing."
"Whatever happened to that… Thing, anyway?" Amy asked in disgust.
"Locked up in a maximum-security penitentiary designed specifically to contain it somewhere so classified not even GUN Commander knows where it is," Shadow said gravely.
Rouge nodded. "An important security measure. Wouldn't want the cultists finding it again, after all."
"Cultists?" Asked a confused Storm.
"REALLY better off not knowing," Knuckles said firmly.
"What?! Preposterous! If I'm not at the top of list, who is?!" Jet demanded.
"That would be me, of course," Shadow said smugly.
"Actually, no, it's Metal Sonic," Silver corrected the black hedgehog.
Shadow considered this for moment. "… Okay, yeah, I can see that. Am I at least in the top five?"
Silver hesitated. "… Would you be willing to accept top 10?"
Shadow tapped his foot in thought. "… I suppose," he said grudgingly.
"That's bullshit! Who the hell is this Metal Sonic, and what the fuck makes him a better rival than me?!" Jet demanded.
"The most powerful and dangerous robot Eggman has ever created, a cybernetic hedgehog designed solely to destroy me," Sonic said grimly. "We've clashed many times, and while he's never beaten me yet, I can safely say he is one of the most formidable adversaries I've ever faced. Eggman has created other robot hedgehog clones before and after him, but none have matched Metal Sonic in cunning, lethality, and bloody-minded determination to kill me and prove himself my superior."
"He also once turned into a giant monster and Mr. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails beat him with the superpower of teamwork!" Cream chirped.
"...The superpower of-" a confused Blaze started.
"Look, I regretted it the instant I said it, okay? Please don't bring that up again!" Sonic hissed.
"Like you regretted that 'Because we're Sonic Heroes' line?" Shadow drawled. Sonic cringed. Blaze chuckled in amusement.
"You don't remember him? He was on our team during that one World Grand Prix a few years back, disguised as E–10000B," Rouge recalled.
"You mean the robot you were acting like a jerk to?" Amy said with a frown.
"For good reason, as it turned out," Shadow pointed out. The pink hedgehog grunted.
"… No…" Jet grumbled, crossing his arms in annoyance.
"I do," Storm volunteered helpfully.
Jet grunted. "Well, that can't be the only mention about me! Where are the biographies, the memoirs, the movies documenting my rise to stardom?!"
"Those don't exist," Silver said flatly. "Okay… There are some brief mentions of you in books on the history of extreme sports and Babylon, but there doesn't seem to be any… Oh, I found your obituary."
"All right!" Jet exclaimed.
"Jet, an obituary is what they write when somebody dies," Wave corrected her leader.
Jet hesitated. "… Did I die in an awesome way?"
"No, according to this, after Extreme Gear racing is outlawed because of the exposure of massive corruption in the Extreme Gear regulatory committee and the discovery that the radiation emitted by Extreme Gear engines can actually cause testicular cancer-"
Every male present instinctively crossed their legs at that. "Welp, guess I'm throwing out my Extreme Gear when I get home," Sonic said.
"We sold ours ages ago to pay for food," Espio confessed.
"Didn't last long," Charmy grunted.
"I accidentally threw mine off the side of Angel Island months ago," Knuckles admitted. "And I didn't want to tell anyone because I was worried you'd be upset I lost such an expensive present."
"That's okay, Knuckles, I got it with a gift card," Amy assured the guilty echidna.
"What's-" Cream started.
"Something really bad and really disgusting you REALLY don't want to know more about," Shadow interjected.
"Oh my," the rabbit said, blanching.
"Tails, how did you not know about this?! You're like really smart!" Vector demanded of the Fox.
"I DID know about it! I discovered the flaw in the engines almost the minute after I first got a Gear of my own, fixed it, and then sent a letter to the company informing them about it and offering a simple solution. They never got back to me, so I contented myself with fixing everyone else's Gears the next time they came to me for maintenance so that they'd stop emitting that harmful radiation," Tails explained.
"Oh," Vector said.
"So we don't need to get rid of…?" Shadow asked, looking relieved.
"No, you don't, but if Extreme Gears really are outlawed, you may have to anyway," Tails explained.
"Extreme Gear racing gets outlawed?! Bullshit! You're making this up!" Jet accused.
"I assure you, I'm not," Silver said, looking annoyed. "Anyway, after it's outlawed, you apparently get so upset you start competing in underground races, but when you get caught in a police raid, you try to escape on your Gear while high on like a dozen different kinds of incredibly illegal recreational drugs and, unsurprisingly, get into a horrible crash."
"I… Suppose that's an awesome way to go…" Jet murmured, looking greener than usual.
"Why would you race while on drugs? That's a terrible idea, especially because drugs are bad!" cried an aghast Cream.
"Yes, they are. And you must never ever do them," Shadow advised Cream sagely.
Charmy sighed. "Wish I'd learned that lesson a lot sooner..."
"Oh no, you don't die. You break every bone in your body and are paralyzed from the neck down, but you don't die. You are hospitalized, and spend the rest of your life helpless and bedridden until the loss of absolutely everything you care for became too much for you and you bite off your own tongue and choke to death on your blood," Silver reported.
There was a long silence as everyone processed this. "WHAT?!" Jet screamed in disbelief.
"Yuck," Charmy said in distaste.
"That's horrible!" Cream gasped.
"I'VE-SEEN-WORSE," Omega said dismissively.
"Jesus, that's a hell of a way to go," said a disturbed Mighty.
"I've had nightmares sometimes that something like that happens to me, and I can never run again," Sonic said with a shudder. "I'd never wish that fate on anyone, not even my worst enemy. Jet, I'm so sorry."
"Don't pity me!" Jet snapped furiously.
"Don't worry, beloved. If something like that ever happened to you, I promise I would take care of you," Blaze assured Sonic.
"By using the magic of your homeworld to fix him up?" Espio asked.
"I was going to say by mercy killing him, but I suppose that is an option," Blaze admitted. Sonic blanched at this. Amy seethed.
"Hey, if you think that's bad, be glad that he isn't the Chaotix," Silver said.
"… Why? What's going to happen to us?" Vector asked, alarmed.
Silver stiffened. "Err. Nothing. Nothing. Forget I said anything. It's nothing important."
"Oh, come on! You can't just drop a hint like that and not expect us to want more info!" Charmy demanded.
Silver shook his head quickly. "No, I've said too much already. It does not do for anyone to know too much about their own FYOO-CHURRS."
"… You just told Jet how he's going to die! IN EXPLICIT DETAIL!" Espio shouted.
"Well, yeah, but he isn't anyone important, so him knowing about his future won't have any major repercussions on the timestream whatsoever," Silver explained.
Everyone stared in disbelief. "… Dude, that's really cold," Sonic said disgust.
"But accurate," Shadow said.
"Shadow!" Amy snapped.
"Oh come on, like you weren't thinking it too!" He snapped back.
"… Well, okay, I was, but it's still a pretty awful thing to say!" Amy admitted.
"Meh," Shadow grunted, not caring.
"Wait, so Silver's saying that the CHAOTIX are more important than somebody else?" Mighty questioned in disbelief.
"I know, it's pretty hard to believe," Knuckles agreed.
"Certainly something I never thought I'd hear," Rouge added.
"… We're standing right here, you know," Espio pointed out.
"We don't care," Mighty said bluntly.
"That's not very nice," Cream argued.
"Still don't care," Mighty grunted.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'd say that knowing that we're more important to the timestream then racer-boy here actually does wonders for my self-esteem!" Vector said cheerfully.
"What about Silver's implication that we're going to suffer a fate infinitely worse than him?" Espio pointed out.
"I'd rather not think about that right now," Vector said, still cheerful.
"No! Boss, I can't believe you go out like that! It's so horrible!" Storm wailed, bursting into tears.
"Why are you blubbering, you big galoot? It hasn't happened yet," Wave pointed out.
Storm paused. "Well. No. But it will eventually, right?"
"NO IT WON'T!" Jet shouted.
"Is it wrong of me that I'm actually pleased he dies in such an awful way?" Shadow wondered.
"NAH," said Omega.
"I don't believe any of this! You're full of it! There's no way any of that's true!" Jet protested, shaking in horror and denial.
Silver shrugged. "Well, it's what the historical record says."
"Well then your stupid record thing is wrong, and if it isn't, then I'm going to change things to MAKE it wrong!" Jet declared. "I am Jet, leader of the Babylon Rogues, the Legendary Wind Master, and the fastest thing alive! No fate defines me! I refuse to settle for a death as lame and ignominious as that! If I'm going to die, it's gonna be doing something awesome, like skydiving into an active volcano with time bombs and a live shark strapped to me!"
"THAT-DOES-SOUND-LIKE-A-PRETTY-COOL-WAY-TO-GO," Omega admitted.
"And while I'm at it, I'm going to make sure that Extreme Gear racing never goes out of style! People will still be using Extreme Gears for the next 10,000 years!" Jet declared. "Now that I know how my future is supposed to go, I can do something that'll keep it from ever coming to pass!"
Blaze cringed. "That… Doesn't usually work out as well as you might think."
Rouge nodded in agreement. "The curse of the self-fulfilling prophecy."
Silver refreshed his screen. "Well, your obituary hasn't changed in the slightest, so I'm going to go ahead and say that your preemptive declaration isn't actually going to do anything to change your FYOO-CHURR."
Jet waved him off dismissively. "Well, yeah, but you haven't gotten back to your own time yet! When you do, I bet that'll change due to me changing my future!"
"Actually, no, this thing has a stable trans-temporal link to the main database back in my time, so if there were any changes to history, I would have picked them up by now," Silver corrected Jet. "So… Yeah, you're still going to die in an awful, pointless, stupid way. Sorry."
As Jet gawked in disbelief, Wave asked, "Out of curiosity, what does it say about me?"
"Or me!" Storm spoke up.
"Now THAT I'm afraid I can't tell you," Silver said apologetically.
"Oh come on! You tell me how I'm supposed to die, but not them?!" Jet asked incredulously.
"They are more important to the stability of the space-time continuum than you," Silver said flatly.
"More important than me?! Bullshit! I'm their leader! They're nothing compared to me!" Jet yelled angrily.
Wave crossed her arms in annoyance. "We're right here, you know."
"I don't think he cares," Espio grumbled. "Our friends certainly don't."
"You aren't my friends anymore," Mighty said bluntly.
"Look, why don't we dial this back a notch?" Storm suggested, seeing how Jet looked like he was on the verge of exploding. "We came here because we wanted to tell a story. Let us do that, and you can go back to whatever big important fate of the world thing you have planned that we interrupted. Sound good?"
"I think that's reasonable," Sonic said, glancing at his friends, who gave varying levels of acquiescence.
"Hey, you can't make the decisions! I'm the leader of this gang!" Jet yelled.
"Oh, shove it, Jet," Wave growled at him, not caring for his bullshit right now.
"Do we really have to do this? I don't actually care about their story. In fact, I'm pretty sure I already have it in the historical record, since Nega didn't have any interest in touching their pasts," Silver complained.
"You might know it, but we don't," Cream pointed out.
Tails nodded. "And besides, wasn't part of the reason we all agreed to do this so we can learn more about each other?"
"I thought the main reason we were doing this was so I can get the information I need to stop Nega from taking over the world, but if you insist," Silver sighed grudgingly. "Fine, I guess we can do this. But I'm NOT recording any of it, okay?"
"SO-LONG-AS-I-KEEP-STREAMING-IT, I-DON'T-THINK-IT-MATTERS," Omega said.
"So, what story did you guys come here to tell us?" Amy asked the Rogues.
"The greatest story of all time… How the Babylon Rogues came to be!" Jet bragged.
There was a pause. "But… I thought we already knew that story," said a confused Knuckles.
"Yes, you're the latest generation of an ancient line of treasure-seeking thieves descended from the ancient Babylonians, who have passed down the mantle along family lines for thousands and thousands of years," Tails recalled.
"Not US – – though we are awesome – – I mean the ORIGINAL Rogues!" An annoyed Jet clarified.
"Ohhhhhhhh," everyone said.
"Wait, I thought we knew that story too," an even more confused Knuckles pointed out.
"Yeah, the ancient Babylonians traveled around the world, stealing everything they could get their hands on from their floating fortress of Babylon Garden, invented the original Extreme Gear, then got cursed by the gods, were scattered around the world, and the Garden was buried beneath the desert," Amy remembered.
"Oh, and they were also genies," Cream added.
"Right, and they were genies," Amy confirmed. She hesitated. "Or… Were they aliens, given how it turned out Babylon Garden was actually built around the ancient spaceship of Astral Babylon?"
"Weren't we discussing this earlier?" Sonic recalled. "Whether they were genies or aliens or alien genies? We never settled that, did we?"
"Well, you could ask us," Wave drawled. "We're right here, after all. If anyone should know, it's us."
"Hey yeah, good point!" Vector agreed. "So, which is it: genies, aliens, or alien genies?"
"Well, if you let us tell our story, maybe you'll find out!" Storm said.
"Yeah, so listen up, losers! This is the story of how the Babylon Rogues came to be!" Jet declared.
…
And that's the story of how Big met Froggy. I don't think any origin after this can possibly top this one in its sheer beauty and epic narrative.
But I'll do my best to try. Next time, the Babylon Rogues! And after that, either Fang the Sniper or Sticks the Badger. And after THAT… It'll be time to end the story. So, who do you want to see first?