I don't own Sonic or Sega.

22. Back to the Past

"Alright, Mom and Dad. Welcome to Mars." said Kyren.

"Really? Thought it'd be more red." replied Ryko, a smile on his face.

"This is Ares' old base. He's dead, but that doesn't mean he can't build a ridiculously powerful hologram behind. Rio and I haven't gone past the third floor, so you can follow our lead until then. Also, don't ask me what happened because doing that would create a time paradox. Are we ready?"

"Yes, we are. What do we expect to find in here?"

"Robots. Plenty of robots."

Sadie grumbled.

"Well, let us go in!"

They went through the entrance and looked around. Not a lot of stuff, probably because Rio and Kyren already cleared it out. They went down to the dreaded fourth floor and found, how about that, Sadie, more robots.

Ryko took out a revolver he borrowed from Rio and started popping rounds at the bots. They literally exploded on impact, probably due to the sheer power of the weapon. When reinforcements came, Ryko played his trump card.

"GRENADE!" he shouted , pulling the pin and tossing the grenade at the group. They all jumped behind a wall.

BOOM!

"No more Mr. Roboto." said Ryko, smiling.

"Thanks. Where did you get that grenade?" asked Kyren.

"I stole it from you."

"What? How?" he asked, checking to make sure. Sure enough, it wasn't there.

"Slight of hand. Cool magic trick and deadly weapon."

"How did you learn that?" asked Kyren.

"HA! I can do something that you can't! It's amazing!"

"I can't see. You can." He lamely pointed out.

"Yea, whatever. We should go down to the next flo-"

An apparition flickered in front of them.

"What was that?" asked Sadie.

"That had to be Ares. Let's move down a floor. How many are there?"

"Many."

Suddenly, a robot jumped from the shadows. Kyren took a gun and, without looking, shot it. It clattered to the floor.

"Keep moving." They started walking when that hologram flickered in front of them again.

"The anticlimactic villain shows himself again."

"Yep. I have a feeling we're getting closer to a boss fight."

"Cool. Let's keep going."

They fought more and more…and more robots with the apparition appearing longer each time. When they got to the last floor, it appeared and didn't go away.

"Ryko. Sadie. Hello."

"Sup, Coward." The apparition… laughed?

" I'm dead. I'm not a coward anymore. See, Ryko, I can hurt you…"

He teleported behind them and hit Ryko with a punch. He whipped around and kicked… into nothing.

"But you can't hurt me."

"You're tethered to a mechanical device. If we can find it-" began Rio, but a gunshot cut her off. They looked at Kyren. He smiled.

"Found it."

Ares began to flicker.

"What the…"

"I can easily detect mechanical waves with my ears."

"No… no!"

"Yes… Yes! Yes!"

"You're still a Daniel Bryan mark?" asked Sadie.

"I don't know how to answer that question without annoying you." replied Ryko.

Ares disappeared.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the thing that brought you here." said Rio, inspecting a machine.

"Alright, let's go back to Rotor so he can send you off."

"We can't go right now?" asked Sadie.

"He needs to erase all of our memories. Then we can go back. If he didn't, blah blah blah time paradox blah blah blah death."

"Ah."

Julie-Su's House, 3:30 PM

Ryko and Sadie didn't know where they were. The last thing they remembered was watching T.V. Ryko sat up and felt a hard, cold object press his head.

"Dammit."

The person brought the gun down.

"Ryko? Sadie? Knuckles, get down here! It's them!" Ryko and Sadie turned around to see a very excited Julie-Su.

Knuckles came down the stairs.

"Ryko? Sadie? Where the Hell were you two? I was worried I wouldn't get an opponent tomorrow."

"Opponent tomorrow?"

"No Way Out. It's tomorrow."

"Really? Well, your goin down!"

"Remember what happened last time?"

"Yes, I do. But your still goin down."

"Whatever. Where were-"

"We can't remember. We couldn't tell you."

"We should get you back to Sal."

"Wouldn't mind."

"Ryko…" began Sadie.

"Come on!"

The Mobian Palace, 4:00 PM

"You don't remember." She said flatly.

"Nope."

"Well, nothing we can do about that. Speaking of people who can't remember anything, Shadow was looking for you, Ryko. He wanted to tell you something."

All the sudden, a flash of blue appeared and Shadow was standing on top of the table they were sitting at.

"You interfere in our match tomorrow…I'll show you why they call me the ultimate lifeform." He left.

"Well… we'll see."

"I wouldn't. Speaking of matches, are we gonna kick some ass tomorrow, Sadie?"

"Yes, we are. Lien and Fiona won't know what hit them!"

"You betcha! I need to get ready, by the way… hey, can you call Manic and Sonia, Ryko? We need Sonic underground to do a concert."

"Sure! They'll love it!"

"Oh course they will. Where's Sonic?"

"Probably eating a chili dog while watching a Shadow the Hedgehog parody." said Ryko. At that moment, Sonic opened the doors to the palace, a chili dog in hand.

"Guys, I just saw the most hilarious Shadow parody."

"Called it."

"Called what?"

"Nothing. Are you in a match?"

"The Stakes are tomorrow. Why would I be in a match?"

"Actually, you are. Laoch called."

"What? Against who?" asked Sonic.

"He said it may be the worst decision of his life, bringing the guy to the arena."

"He's doing it?" asked Ryko, stunned.

"WHO IS IT!" they all demanded at once.

"Oh No! I swore I wouldn't tell anybody!

"Come on, is he that dangerous?"

"Too dangerous to manage! I'm calling Laoch and telling him…" he flipped out his phone and started dialing number, walking away.

"Wonder who he got." thought Sally aloud.

"What, Enerjak? It can't be that bad." replied Sadie.

"No, I don't think so. Dimitri, Dr. Eggman? No, no, no… whatever. We'll find out. And if he's that bad, well, we can always all come out and kick his ass." said Sally.

"True. Well, better rest up. Big day."