CHAPTER 1

So I wrote this three times. I wanted a good interaction between the characters without it seeming to childish. This is the version I settled on. Please read and review. I would love any and all feed back. Thank you for reading!

An alarm sounded, jolting Tails awake as he looked toward the wailing machine confused. He quickly got up, rubbing his tired eyes and stumbled over to see what caused the alarm. Tails started hitting buttons and typing vigorously as he looked at the read out scrolling down the machines screen.

"What?" He gasped. "An EMP just happened in the city?" Tails quickly typed in a command and the screen lit up with a map of Station Square, a blip resonating from the East District. He rushed over to a console and started entering in the data from the previous machines read out. He cross referenced the information with everything else he had on EMP activity.

He got a match with his information on Blaze and Silver's portal phenomena he gathered when they traveled here from their dimension. Feeling excited he rushed back to the machine to look at where the blip was exactly on the map, but it was gone, the portal had closed. Tails sighed and started walking back to his bed, debating on waiting till morning to let everyone know. A thought went through his head, and he muttered to himself.

"If I was able to detect the EMP, could someone else have gotten a reading from it as well?" He paused, his mind running to Eggman. He darted for his phone, knowing every second was vital.

Eggman analyzed the display in front of him as he stared at the part of the city where the blip had shown up.

"An alleyway?" He grumbled. "Strange place for a portal to appear." He stroked his mustache and glanced at his digital clock. It displayed the time 3:17am. "Ugh, and so early, could have the robots go and investigate, but I know Sonic and his team will be snooping around there too. That fox boy would certainly have detected an EMP that large." He continued to himself. "I'll just have to beat them too it, maybe something I could use came through it." He chuckled greedily, rubbing his hands together as he decided his plan and strode out of the room, heading for his hovercraft.

Zulu growled as he regained consciousness. He looked around for any sign of danger before assessing himself. Satisfied no hostiles were around and noting where he was, which seemed to be a small alleyway, he began to check his body. He moved his toes and fingers, checking for paralysis, and checked his neck with his fingers to see if it was broken. After confirming that he could move without further damaging himself he looked down at his chest where he had been hit.

His chest plate had a massive dent in the center. He slid his hand underneath only to feel intense pain. He gritted his teeth and endured it as he gently rubbed his chest with his hand. He assessed that his sternum was caved in and his ribs were all sorts of screwed up. Luckily, his lungs made it, as he could breathe without any pain from his lungs, his heart was intact, thanks to his augmentations, and the slug never made it through the armor to penetrate. Growling in pain, he carefully got up into a sitting position and checked his equipment. He still had his sidearm, a large handgun, strapped to his thigh and a combat knife sheathed on his belt. Breathing was hard, as his collapsed rib cage didn't give his lungs much room to expand. It was as he was struggling to his feet he heard a humming in the distance and it was approaching fast.

Sonic flew down the street toward where Tails said the EMP happened. Tails flew overhead in his plane with Amy, Blaze, Silver, and Knuckles, who couldn't keep up with him. Suddenly, in the distance, gunfire erupted.

"Woah!" Sonic exclaimed, and sped up. Tails gunned the plane in close pursuit, noticing Eggman's hovercraft in the distance.

Zulu ducked behind a dumpster, reloading his handgun. He ignored the strange fat mans frustrated ravings and focused on finding a way out of the alley. Moving as little as possible he peeked out and fired, causing the man to veer upwards. Seeing his chance, Zulu lunged forward, running underneath the weird machine and out of the alley. Darting left, he saw a strange plane in the air and what appeared to be a hedgehog running at him.

He slowed to a stop and raised his gun to fire when the fat man emerged from the alley and started talking.

"Well well, Sonic and his gang, arriving as expected I see." The weird man spoke, apparently to the new arrivals, as more disembarked from the plane. Zulu put his back to the wall, resting, but keeping both the group of animals and the fat man in his eyesight. His mind ran scenarios about how this would play out. Were they allies? Rival groups? As he thought about it two more animals showed up.

"Hey it's a party!" The new arrival spoke. Zulu noticed it was a bat, and it had spoken. He ignored his minds confusion, he had to remain vigilant.

"Hey Rogue, hey Shadow!" The hedgehog that had been running greeted them. "You here to join in on the Eggman butt kicking too?"

"Excuse me, I will be the one doing the butt kicking Sonic!" The fat man replied.

"Pff, we'd like to see you try Egghead!" A large echidna piped in. Zulu noted he had large fists with spikes, and tactically marked him as a close quarter's fighter.

"Bring it on you losers!" Taunted Eggman.

Zulu decided now was his time to move. He quickly raised his gun and fired at the fat man, distracting him. The animals attacked him in unison, taking full advantage of Zulu's attack. Zulu sprinted down the sidewalk behind Eggman, knowing to stay and fight so many would be suicide. However, as he ran a black shadow appeared in front of him and he stopped, seeing it was the hedgehog who arrived with the bat. Zulu raised his gun, but the hedgehog was quicker, kicking it out of his hands.

Zulu quickly looked over his opponent, seeing this hedgehog was highly trained. He could tell from the way the animal stood, its balance, subtle muscle movements, that he was going to have a rough fight. He couldn't underestimate the animal before him. In a blur Zulu lunged forward with a right jab, his superhuman speed and strength of the impact catching the hedgehog off guard and spinning him back. Zulu noticed how quickly the animal recovered though, too fast for him to follow up, and prepared for anything.

Shadow was impressed. He observed the human before him. He was very tall, probably as tall as Eggman, but his build was much different, for he was skinny, but Shadow could see the well trained muscles hidden along his arms, chest, and legs, making it easy to underestimate this human's strength. His punch was fast and extremely agile, with a quick recovery back to a guard stance. What impressed Shadow most though was he could see this human had suffered a fatal injury and was still fighting. He gave the human an approving nod, and in a blur not even Zulu could react too, kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious.

Zulu saw the nod of respect and knew that the hedgehog was going to put him out of his misery. He felt himself falling and everything went black. He wondered if he would see his team again.

"You guys said you found him fighting Eggman?" Vanilla asked the team incredulously. She and Cream were busy tending to the man on the table before them, who had somehow survived a crippling blow to the chest. They had been working on him since the team called them 5 hours ago, as Vanilla was a reputable nurse and was the go to for the team with any injuries. Vanilla couldn't believe the damage he had taken and how much pain he must have been in.

"Sure did!" Sonic chimed in.

"He even landed a punch on me before I knocked him out." Shadow added, and everyone turned to stare in awe at the man on the table.

"Well whatever he's done, there is something off about him, it's just not possible to endure that much." Vanilla stated. "I found some remnants of a blue liquid in his chest cavity, and his lungs weren't damaged at all, which doesn't make any sense considering the injury."

"Will he recover?" Amy asked.

"From my observations, yes. Which also disturbs me. His body is healing itself way faster than normal. I pricked his finger five minutes ago as a test and there is no sign of the cut now."

"What a man." Rogue almost purred.

"So is he like some super human?" Knuckles questioned.

"Seems like it to me, we just have to be patient until he recovers to ask questions." Vanilla finished.

Vanilla and Cream stood by Zulu's bedside checking his temperature and bandages as the group slowly left the room. Tails was analyzing the blue liquid Vanilla had found when Shadow joined him.

"Oh, hey Shadow, need something?" Tails asked as he examined the blue sample under a microscope.

"Maybe." Shadow replied. "I think I know what that is."

"What? Really?" Tails looked up at Shadow, confused. "But how, it's from that man's dimension."

"Trust me, I've seen it before, at GUN, at least if that is what I think it is, and if I'm right, there could be a big problem." Shadow growled, turning and leaving the room as Tails thought about what he said, slowly realizing what this could mean.

Zulu was surrounded by darkness. Faintly he could hear echoes. He heard gunfire and screaming. He snarled as a familiar cold wet feeling washed into his head. He wanted to fight it, but he was too weak, they were going to use him again.

"I will not be your tool." He growled, slowly regaining feeling in his arms and legs as his mind reacted to the threat and the screams and gunfire faded away. He heard a soft sound somewhere far off and the cold feeling went away.

"You can't use me anymore!" He yelled as the sounds slowly faded into mumbling voices. The darkness grew lighter and Zulu felt like he was freeing himself of their awful influence. Zulu had to break free and wake up, they couldn't keep him sedated. He would no longer be their slave, he struggled and thrashed, hearing the voices getting urgent and the feeling the cold return to take over his mind.

"Cream, go get the others! Hurry!" Vanilla ordered as she struggled to keep the big human down. Cream rushed out calling for the others. Vanilla wasn't sure what had happened, but something must have set him off. Cream returned with the others as Vanilla barely managed to keep the writhing, snarling man on the table. Quickly, Sonic and Knuckles leapt onto the table to restrain his arms and legs, only to be thrown off. Vanilla jumped back, dropping the cool, wet rag she had been wiping his forehead with, and immediately he stopped thrashing. Suddenly his eyes ripped open and he bolted upright. He sat there breathing hard and sweating profusely before slowly turning to face them.

Zulu stared at the animals. None of them moved save for a small bunny who hid behind the bigger one. He felt something around his chest and glanced down to find himself bandaged. He also noticed that he was still wearing his black jumpsuit leggings, but his knife wasn't in its sheath. He looked back over at the animals, recognizing most of them. His eyes quickly found the black one who he assumed brought him here. Zulu glanced around to find he was in room that looked like a thrown together medical area, spying his knife on a nearby table with his gun, which Shadow had recovered after knocking him out. He looked once more over at them intently, seeing none of them were armed. He relaxed slightly.

"Friend or foe?" He stated simply. He had never interacted with people outside of a military setting, and his mind was busy comprehending the vast amount of events that had happened recently. They looked a bit confused by his question but the blue hedgehog stepped forward to answer.

"Well I'd say we are a pretty friendly group." He said, chuckling. Zulu just stared blankly at him. He remembered them talking before when he first encountered them, but it was still unbelievable to him. Zulu gave the blue hedgehog a cautious nod.

"So, who are you?" Zulu asked.

"Well I'm Sonic the Hedgehog." The blue hog replied. One by one the rest stepped forward to introduce themselves.

"I'm Amy Rose." Chirped the pink hedgehog happily.

"Uh, I'm Knuckles." The big echidna stated matter-o-factly.

"I'm Vanilla." Greeted the taller rabbit politely. "And behind me is my daughter Cream. We patched you up and fixed your ribs."

"Hey handsome, I'm Rogue." A provocative bat purred. "Dark and broody over there is Shadow." She pointed back at the black hedgehog he had fought.

"I'm Silver, and this is Blaze." A silver hedgehog said, introducing the cat next to him as well. "We got here through a portal just like you did, so maybe we can help you out." The cat finished.

"And I'm Tails!" a short fox said excitedly, whom Zulu recognized as the one who flew the plane and now noticed had two tails.

Zulu looked the whole group over and nodded.

"My military designation is Zulu." He stated officially. They looked puzzled except for the one named Shadow, who eyed him curiously.

"Military designation?" Sonic asked.

"Yes." Zulu replied, hiding his pain as he continued. "My team and I had no names, just designations. I was the team captain."

"So your team has cool code names? Awesome! I want a code name!" Knuckles declared.

"In your dreams knuckie boy." The bat Rogue teased.

Zulu ignored their banter and stared blankly at the floor. The mention of his former teammates bringing back memories of their false mission. Anger began boiling up inside of him. He clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling a slight burn in his eyes. Shadow quietly observed Zulu, noticing his body language change as everyone joked about team code names.

"Zulu, what happened to your team?" Shadow asked. Everyone paused and turned to Zulu for his response, curious about where the rest of his team was. Zulu stared at Shadow, and Shadow could see the pain and anguish in his eyes as he answered.

"We were sent to investigate an EMP, but we were set up." Zulu mumbled, barely audible. "When we reached the source, we were ambushed." He continued, his pain evident to everyone in the room. "We were attacked by waves of men with specialized guns designed to take down my team." Zulu clenched his fists in anger, remembering when Lima was shredded by the large caliber slugs. "We were slaughtered. I was the only one left when I took a shot to the chest and was flung into the portal." Zulu finished. A single tear trailed down his cheek. The room was dead quiet. No one knew what to say. Rarely ever did they hear of such an awful event. Amy was crying onto Sonic's shoulder, Vanilla was comforting Cream, Knuckles was staring at the floor, Blaze and Silver looked grim, Tails looked devastated, and Rogue was exchanging a glance with Shadow, knowing he knew more than he was letting on.

Zulu stared down at his hands remembering the firefight. Flashbacks came to his mind of the moments when each of his teammates went down. He didn't notice Cream hop up beside him as he muttered their designations to himself. Only when he felt a warm soft touch did he notice Cream was hugging his arm. He gently patted her head and rubbed around her ears. Vanilla was the only one that saw his smile, for it was quickly replaced by a look of determination as Zulu got up, and turned to face Shadow as he approached.

"I have something I want to talk to you about." Shadow said quietly. Zulu only nodded.

"Tails, Zulu and I would like to discuss something with you. I'd like to discuss it in private until I'm absolutely sure." With that, Shadow lead Tails and Zulu to the room where the blue liquid was being tested.

"So Zulu, Vanilla found some remnants of this stuff in your body, I'd like you to tell me what it is." Shadow demanded. Zulu stared at him darkly before responding.

"They are combat drugs designed for the program I was a part of, but you already knew that didn't you." Zulu replied as Tails' eyes grew wide.

"Then my suspicions are confirmed." Declared Shadow, glancing at the liquid. "Somehow, the government you were a part of and GUN have been in touch, and these combat drugs seem to be the result of their collaboration, and the reason for some internal falling out."

"Let's go inform the others." Tails said excitedly.

As they went to share their findings, Shadow was deep in thought. He felt that history was repeating itself through Zulu and his team, for something similar had happened to Shadow a long time ago. If his team had been killed off for the same reason Shadow had been hunted, the situation could escalate quickly.