Antithesis

The smog in the air seemed thicker and heavier today, for some reason. Maybe it had rained while they were in the Special Zone, Sonic didn't know. All he knew was the blur of buildings moving past him, as well as SWATbots and robians whipping their heads around and watching him fly by, and Tails was keeping time with him exceptionally well. He got a bit more careful of his positioning the closer he got to the Grey Gardens, since being within even two miles of the old royal palace would raise alarms everywhere. He clicked his earpiece. "How's it hangin' back there, Tails?"

"I'm doing fine, Sonic," he answered.

They took a sharp left into an alley that used to lead straight to the northern city square. Back in the day, it was a lively, open place with a fountain built by the first king who founded Mobotropolis. Now, as he looked out of the alley after a couple minutes of walking, there were towering structures built up around the center, and Robotnik had even leveled the fountain. It had been replaced with a bronze statue of him stepping on a faceless mobain while he held up a torn flag of the old kingdom as a direct mockery of his enemies. Sonic could only smirk.

"Jeez, Buttnik, if you're gonna make a mocking statue, at least do it after you've killed us off for good." He rushed through the opening and spun his way into the statue, leaving a heavy dent in Robotnik's metal head. "Oh, wait," he said sarcastically as he turned to face Tails, "I forgot. Ya can't."

Tails chuckled, and Sonic laughed to himself and ducked into a nearby manhole, landing back in the toxic-as-all-hell sewers. He leaned himself up against the pipeline wall as Tails landed behind him, and a couple minutes before he heard footsteps coming from down the hall. Around the corner emerged Sally, Rotor, and Bunnie. They had all taken the sewers to avoid being seen, but Sonic, like with many things, preferred to go his own way. Just getting to this point via an underground sewer system would have been too easy, and definitely not as exciting.

"What took ya so long?" he joked, winking to them all.

Bunnie playfully put her hands on her hips and Rotor chuckled, shaking his head. Sally ignored his antics, as she had brought out Nicole and was busy pressing keys. After a moment, she put Nicole away and motioned for everyone else to follow her. "The fastest way to the main battery is this way, come on!"

"Let's go, l'il bro!" Sonic ran ahead of Tails, and Bunnie and Rotor followed them. They wound through the sewers, ducking through the vents of an underground facility as fast as they could to avoid being seen.

Sally walked a few more paces, then stopped in front of another ventilation grate. She looked down at Nicole once, then kicked the grate down. It fell over and clattered on a metal walkway inside a gigantic cylindrical shaft, the walls pockmarked by some sliding doors and more walkways that seemed to spiral up indefinitely. God only knows how many other SWATbots were patrolling those catwalks. She went left and instructed, "Come on. We've got to go deeper into the citadel."

They hadn't been this deep in enemy territory in a long time. Their first excursion had been to sabotage the same main battery they were searching for now. The plan had been to lock it down and keep it shut off for three days while they fought against Robotnik, but his digital anti-hack system had not only blocked the attack, but also nearly locked them in one place. The Freedom Fighters lost a lot of their numbers that day.

Tails shuddered as he looked down the gigantic hole in the middle of the citadel. "This place always gives me the creeps…"

"Then stay close, Tails," Sonic told him.

Sally had taken a few extra steps ahead of everyone else and looked into a corridor to the side. A soon as she poked her head around the corner, she immediately retracted and pressed herself up against the wall, as did everyone else when they realized what her actions implied. Two SWATbots came out and Sonic immediately spun right into them, and they were trashed before they could react. The group ducked into the door the two robots had just exited, and they ran down the hallway until they got to an elevator.

Sonic stood by the panel on the wall and asked, "Floor, please?" with a big grin.

"We need to go down eleven more floors," Sally instructed.

"Goin' down!" he said as he nudged the corresponding button with his elbow.

The doors closed and everyone felt the ground below them start dropping quickly. Robotnik had designed these elevators for efficiency and not comfort, since it went fast enough for everyone to feel their insides rising as the elevator fell. In due time, about a couple minutes at most, the elevator stopped, which did cause Sonic, Tails, and Rotor to stumble a bit from the jerky motions.

"Man...I'm gonna have to file a complaint about uncomfortable work conditions when this is all over," Sonic groaned.

As they all cautiously exited the elevator, Rotor muttered, "Wish I still remembered how to get around this place."

"Don't worry about it, Rotor," Sally said. "Sometimes, I want to forget we ever came down here before."

The floor they had landed on was covered in ventilation shafts and a few dozen security checkpoints. They were all locked and booby-trapped. This included the vents. The first obstacle the Freedom Fighters had to get by was the next stretch of the hallway, which was covered in sensor lasers.

"Those lasers will definitely raise the alarms," Sally whispered.

Sonic scoffed. "You'd think Buttnik would'a installed something I'd have trouble getting past by now." He jogged forward, then jumped up and over a few of the lasers. Hitting the ground, he rolled forward a couple feet, then pushed off again to somersault gracefully over more of them, then ran across the walls in a loop-de-loop and made it out the other side. He pivoted and bowed.

Sally shook her head and followed him by kicking off of one of the walls to get past the first few sensors. She landed and immediately swung her upper body down and around one of the lasers that was directly in front of her, then cartwheeled between a couple more and vaulted out of the hall. After doing a quick scan of the walls, she could see a control panel that almost definitely connected to the sensors, and she quickly pressed the "Deactivate" button on the panel.

Apparently, Robotnik was so blindly convinced that the traps down here were so hard to bypass, he didn't need to install the proper security measures around their controls. Sally knew that arrogance would be his undoing one day, but until then, it was all about the small victories.

The group continued on through a large chamber with numerous coolant tubes, no doubt meant to keep the central battery working. It was highly likely that Robotnik had more than enough tubes installed to keep it from overheating, but he must have wanted to be on the safe side. This tunnel, according to the schematics of the citadel, had multiple copies all around the floor the main battery was situated on.

They bypassed more traps, namely a room with pressure plates that caused spikes to shoot out of the floor. It took some deduction, but Tails found the safest path around it. Then there came a couple patrols of SWATbots; they snuck by one and trashed two more they crossed.

And then, finally, the big, stainless-steel door. Sally ran up to the far right side of it and took out Nicole, aiming one of her sensors at the wall. "Nicole, scan for any hidden door controls," she instructed.

"Got it." She went quiet for awhile as Rotor walked up to them and pulled out a laser drill. After a couple minutes, Nicole's main screen lit up. "Right here, Sally."

"Rotor?"

"Say no more." Sally shuffled over to let Rotor do his work. He positioned the drill, pulled the trigger, and the nozzle of the drill shot out a bright red laser. He moved it forward slightly, then traced a large circle out of the wall; behind it was a small panel.

Sally immediately went back to her previous position after Rotor stepped back and began fiddling with the wires around the panel.

After about a minute and nothing going on, Sonic coked his eyebrow. "Sal? Mind explaining what you're supposed to be doing to that door?"

She was about to tell him she was busy, but Tails came in to explain instead. "That panel hooks into a sensor over the door that reads everything in front of it for anything that denotes it serves Robotnik. In order to get the door to open, we've got to manually override it."

"How come this is taking so long then?" Sonic asked.

"Well," Tails continued, "If Sally pulls the wrong plug, the alarms will go off."

She sighed. "Kind of trying to concentrate over here, guys."

"Take yer time, Sally-girl."

It took a few more minutes on bated breath, but the door eventually slid open as an automated voice droned, "Access granted."

"We're in," Sally whispered. The Freedom Fighters made their way forward through more corridors that were only dimly lit by red lights that blinked rather infrequently. It seemed that after their failed sabotage, Robotnik had felt confident enough to lay out so many traps closer to the battery. It made her think they would have been safe for Trystan, Antoine, and Amy.

Of course, calling them now would be more of an inconvenience to both sides.

They all stopped at another large, stainless steel door. "Here it is," Rotor said.

"If we have to go through another hacking session, I might go stir crazy," Sonic mumbled. Tails, however, took a tentative step forward, and the door, in response, split apart and opened.

Behind it was a gigantic room, and judging by its placement and location, it was the very bottom of the cylindrical shaft they had left minutes ago. Inside it was a giant pointed structure made of more steel and rubber. It was a cylinder as well in order for it to fit inside the hole, though its dimensions were slightly smaller than the walls around it to allow for walkways that were most likely built for maintenance. The central structure itself seemed to have glass conductors attached to it that emitted sky-blue light.

They wandered into the room in full, and everyone was taken back with the sheer majesty of what lay in front of them, save for Sally. They had been driven back easily when they tried the direct approach, and never got to see what the main battery looked like. Tails flew up to one of the higher walkways to get a closer look at the tubes emitting the blue light. Sally, on the other hand, looked around and made her way over to a door that no doubt led to a control room lying beyond some one-way windows a few feet above them when she caught sight of it.

This control center only had a couple seats in it, and one was in the center of the room and was far larger than the others; definitely belonged to Robotnik. She made her way to the large control board set up against the windows and set Nicole down on it. "Nicole, can you get me into the system?"

"Give me a minute…" Nicole's main screen started flashing every now and then. It took so long that the other Freedom Fighters wandered in after they had sufficiently sated their curiosity. Sally did take notice of this and tentatively called Nicole's name. "Sorry, Sally. Robotnik set up a...surprisingly comprehensive firewall. Every metaphorical door I've opened just leads to two more closed ones," she explained.

"...That's not good," Tails whispered. "We might not be able to open up the battery to charge the Power Ring"

Sonic huffed and swung the backpack he had been carrying off his shoulder and checked inside it to make sure the Power Ring he had picked up was still there. He looked back out at the battery and left the room just to keep himself moving. He walked in front of the battery and began pacing.

After awhile, he felt his quills standing on end. Sonic perked up at this and looked over his shoulder at the towering generator. He scowled...then took a few steps back. He felt his quills slowly falling back into place. It took another second before a smile crept across his face. "Bingo."

Everyone was puzzling over how to get beyond Robotnik's firewall when Sonic raced back in, and everyone recoiled when he shouted, "Hey, guys, I got an idea!" Before anyone could even ask what he was planning, he added, "I'm gonna throw the Power Ring I got right at the battery and see if it works!" and he ran back outside.

"Sonic…!" Sally's voice was already out of earshot for him, so she instructed Tails, "Go stop him!"

Tails nodded and flew back out the door, along with the other Freedom Fighters. Sonic had vaulted up a few of the walkways to close to the top of the generator. Tails called out to stop him, which he did after turning around in surprise and shrugging after he yelled back, "Now what?"

"Simple," Sally called up from a catwalk below them. "If you touch that thing, it might set off the alarm. It's got built-in sensors that can tell who or what touches it!"

"Well, we're certainly not getting anywhere by hacking into this thing, are we?" Sonic's quills were, by now, standing almost perfectly straight. Tails and Bunnie were having the hardest time trying not to laugh, and Sonic either didn't notice or didn't care.

Sally sighed. He did have a point. The longer it took to get into the generator's systems, the more at risk they were when the eventual patrol/maintenance crew got in. "Sonic, wait for a minute." She went back to get Nicole and came back out, making her way up to where Sonic was, leaning against the rail and tapping his foot. "Okay, we can go through with this."

Sonic had to do a double take. "Really?" he asked with mild surprise.

"Yes, but only because I have our exit planned out if things get hairy," Sally told him. She then took a step back and motioned to the generator. "Go for it, Sonic."

The graphs and charts on the main screen were running nominally. No interference. No sudden alarms. Robotnik eased back into his throne and sighed. "Ah...Snively, I don't think I've ever felt this content since I first dethroned the old man."

Snively chortled to himself as he worked away on the computer. "Sir, isn't being content going against your own laws?" he questioned.

Robotnik retained his smile, but as he looked down on his nephew it seemed to grow more sinister. "Don't be wise with me, Snively," Robotnik warned. "You're already cleaning my antique collection. I don't believe you'd enjoy scrubbing my throne room down, too?" The sudden destruction of the Auto-Dusters had gotten him briefly upset after they exploded on launch, but considering the Freedom Fighters were basically dead without their most prolific members anyway, he marked it off as a minor setback.

Snively was about to grovel and beg not to be put to more work when the whooping of an alarm started going off. It was accompanied by the lights fizzling out and leaving everything in the citadel on backup power.

For a second, Robotnik felt a pang of fear, which was quickly replaced by livid anger.

"Snively...!"

He shrieked and dared not to turn around. "Y-y-y-yes, s-s-si-sir…?"

"What is happening to the main generator!?"

Snively brought up another screen on the wide monitor with a small, "L-looking right into it, Doctor Robotnik!"

The charts that appeared after Snively said that did not bode well. All of them pointed to the power in the battery being drained. It wasn't an overwhelming loss...but still significant enough to warrant looking into. "Snively, get the hidden cameras up and running!"

Snively did as he was commanded, and another screen appeared on the main monitor. Robotnik slowly got up off his throne and paced forward, eyes transfixed in disbelief. The Freedom Fighters were back in action, standing around the main battery, with Sonic and Sally still very much alive. He believed Sonic was holding a Power Ring against the battery and draining it that way.

"God...damn it, Snively!"

With a mighty heave and downward punch, he dented the metal of the control panel he was leaning on. "They were supposed to be dead! I saw it with my own two eyes! How!? How did they escape the Special Zone!?"

He collapsed over the dashboard, but before Snively could say anything, Robotnik straightened himself up and cleared his throat. "Well...I suppose this isn't a complete loss," he muttered.

Robotnik grabbed a detachable microphone from the control panel and pivoted, stretching out his arm with his hand vertical and palm facing inward. "Attention! The Freedom Fighters have cornered themselves in the main generator level! Send all available forces to subdue them, but bring me the princess and Sonic alive! I have plans for them now…"

The sound of the alarms was echoing down through the main shaft of the citadel, so it didn't take long for Sonic and the Freedom Fighters to converge on one spot to bolster their defenses. This spot was mainly around Sonic, who still had his hand pressed up against the battery, and the Power Ring by extension. "Tails…?" he called, "When's this freakin' thing gonna be done cookin'?"

Tails was looking at Nicole's screen, with Sally glancing over his shoulder, to gauge how fast the Ring was absorbing power. "I think it'll only be a couple more minutes, Sonic!"

"Alert. Alert. Resistance has been detected. All forces are to converge on the central generator of the citadel, and proceed to wipe any detractors encountered."

"I don't think we have a couple more minutes, Tails!" Sonic called, looking up the shaft of the building. There was only the alarms blaring for a moment before the doors on both sides of the battery opened up and SWATbots began spreading out through them to cover ground.

They took positions behind cover, whether it was the guard rails of the lower walkways or sticking close to the main battery, and then some of them began to climb the catwalks up to the Freedom Fighters. Both sides had a disadvantage: the Freedom Fighters had to stay in one place in order to charge the Ring, and the SWATbots couldn't use laser beams in case they hit the central battery too much and caused a meltdown.

Bunnie looked over the railing from where she was to catch a SWATbot running up to the catwalk stair below her. It looked up, stared, then jumped up and latched onto the rails. She screamed and punched it in the face with her metal arm, sending it clumsily back down to the ground level. "Sugah, y'all might wanna hurry it up ovah there!"

"Tails! Is this thing done yet!?"

Tails was still hunched over Nicole's screen, muttering to himself. "Four...three...two…"

A SWATbot emerged from around the corner. Sonic wanted to go kick it down, but he was the only one who could hold the Ring in place without a massive backlash of energy. Sally intervened instead, as she charged forward and kicked the robot off the catwalk. From around the bend, she could see a small battalion of SWATbots moving in.

"Tails…!"

Nicole's screen flashed green. "It's done, Sonic! Throw it!"

Sonic was about to ask, "Why?" when he saw Sally running back around the corner with a couple dozen SWATbots on her tail. Acting on instinct, Sonic chucked the Power Ring as hard as he could at the leading SWATbot.

Before the Ring even made contact, it exploded in a yellow flash of light. Sonic and the others could feel some sort of force push them back slightly, which must have been the reason the SWATbots near the Ring got thrown backward, and if not off the walkway entirely, they ended up on top of each other in a mess of parts. The Ring itself had nearly tripled in size, about large enough for a grown mobian to walk through, and had changed from yellow to hot white. Its center was host to a kind of pool of reflective glass.

It didn't take Sonic long to figure out that it was now some sort of a gateway. He grinned at Tails. "I don't know how you knew that'd work, but buddy, I'm glad you did!" Sonic grabbed him by the wrist, then grabbed Sally, and charged forward and into the Ring, disappearing into the pool of glass with a ripple.

Bunnie and Rotor looked at each other after he muttered, "I...didn't think it would work like that or even that well…" to himself, and then quickly ducked through the Ring's center as well before even more SWATbots could encroach on their position.

The Ring then quickly shrunk and disappeared in a small twinkle of white light as a few more SWATbots ran up and tried to snatch it unsuccessfully.

Robotnik had watched the whole thing unfold on the security cams, and punched the place he had dented before, this time his metal left arm going clean through the steel finish.

Snively recoiled and yelped, cowering down to stay out of the way of his uncle's wrath. Robotnik screamed to high heaven before slamming both his hands down on the control panel. There was a tangible silence hanging in the air before Robotnik picked his head back up, covering his eyes in his palm as he leaned over. "If this keeps up, Snively, I may die of a heart attack before I do the hedgehog in."

"In that case, death by heart attack is certain," he muttered. He looked back at Robotnik to see one red eye boring into his soul.

"You have three seconds to get out of my sight and go do something useful, Snively."

Snively didn't need to be told twice, and promptly bolted for the door.

The Ring had opened up into a small forest clearing, during what seemed to be dusk, clouds obscuring the sun. Everyone spilled out of the portal, and the Ring shrunk back to its normal size before falling to the ground.

Everyone took a breather; while Bunnie, Rotor, and Tails sat down, Sally, of course, walked around where they were to gauge where they had landed. She thought the trees around them looked very familiar, anyway. Sonic was waiting for her to finish scouting, and for the others to get their second wind. Eventually, he got too impatient, and walked over to Sally.

"...Are you sure about that, Nicole?"

"According to all my calculations," Nicole replied, "This is geographically where Knothole should be."

Sonic leaned over her shoulder. "There a problem, Sal?"

Sally sighed. "At this point, I really don't know."

"Thought I heard somethin' about Knothole," Sonic mentioned, pointing to Nicole.

In response, Nicole explained, "Yes, you did. Sally asked me to triangulate our position using a map of Mobius, and our current environment as reference. By those calculations, we should be standing right on top of Knothole."

Sonic looked up at the empty tree branches above him. "We sure are standin' on a whole lotta nothing."

"I can only figure we got thrown so far back in time that Knothole doesn't exist yet, or so far forward that it's been ground into dust," Sally muttered with a shiver.

Tails, after stretching his back and waiting for his heart to slow down, walked up to them both. "Actually, we're not lost in time," he articulated. "More like 'lost in space.' The Ring was powered up with so much energy, on top of the Chaos Quotient it already has, that once thrown, it was able to use the kinetic energy to kick-start a reaction that punched a hole in spacetime. Although," he said, looking around, "I think it needs even more energy to punch into the Special Zone."

"In that case...where are we, man?" Sonic asked.

"Wish I knew," Rotor called, standing back up. "But the Ring won't activate now unless we let it recharge, or we find a way to manually power it up again."

Sonic exhaled impatiently and jogged forward. "Well, no sense in stayin' here anymore! Let's move!"

So he led the way out. Scaling the limestone cliffs on the outskirts was much, much harder without any pre-installed measures to scale the cliff faces, but they made it through natural acrobatics, and some help from Tails when needed. The Great Forest itself, it really was that, was just like the one they remembered, if not thicker in some places. "It's like it hasn't even been touched..." Sally commented to herself. It took twenty minutes of on and off travel time, and eventually, the group caught sight of the edge of the forest. It was a welcome sight, until they saw what was lying in wait outside it.

They all climbed over a few fallen tree trunks and found a city set right in front of them. Its spires and towers rose hundreds of feet in the air, and all of them seemed to share the same kind of grey coloration, with neon lights dotted about on the sides of skyscrapers.

"It...looks like Mobotropolis in its heyday…" Sally whispered.

"I'll bet it ain't, though," Sonic deadpanned.

When they had made it into the city limits, they all noticed that there were few mobians (flesh and blood mobians, no less) on the streets, and the ones that were outside wore simple clothes. On top of that, when they saw the Freedom Fighters coming, they quickly turned around and ran in the opposite direction.

Sonic had gotten fed up with seeing two groups of mobians run away already, and had tried to catch a porcupine before he could shut himself in his house. It didn't work, and Sonic remained in the front of the apartment building he had ducked into, scratching his head. "God, and I thought I ran fast," he said upon meeting up with the others a few steps away.

Bunnie nudged Sally. "Sugah, wha' do ya suppose is goin' on here?"

"No idea. Our best bet is to get to the castle," she replied, trying to smother her anxiety. She added "If it's still even standing…" under her breath.

They wove around the city, almost got lost, and then made it to the city square. Sally was almost mortified to see the statue of her father with its head missing. It seemed to be made of silver instead of gold, for some reason, unlike the one she remembered from all those years ago. They continued south from the plaza, in between darkened alleys. Despite nothing attacking them, they all felt varying degrees of disturbance, heightened by the wind whistling down the streets. Even the sight of the royal castle was unnerving.

Sally fidgeted, raising her shoulders up as she took the castle in. The preliminary walls were taller, and the lack of bricks made it near impossible to climb, instead being made of metal painted to look like stone. All gates inside were closed, and she could see some of the windows had been replaced with different designs. What they were, she couldn't tell from here.

Sonic looked over his shoulder. "Tails…?"

"On it, Sonic." Tails jumped and flew up and over the walls, and everything was quiet for a moment before a gate to their left was cracked open. Tails was pushing against it as hard as he could, and Rotor pulled the door from the outside to pry it open far enough that everyone could scramble through. The castle gardens looked almost the same as they did before Robotnik's takeover, if not for a few slight rearrangements. But as Bunnie looked up at the castle windows and balconies, her eyes suddenly got wide and she suddenly grabbed Sonic's shoulder.

"Woah! What's caught your eye, Bun-"

She abruptly grabbed his head and tilted it up. Sonic exclaimed, but after a minute of looking at a dark window, he scrunched up his face. Bunnie must have been in shock or something, because she said, "Ah...Ah could'a sworn Ah saw somethin' in that window…" breathlessly.

"We'll keep our eyes open then," Sally reassured her. They marched forward, toward the entrance doors to the main antechamber.

High up in a dark window, a figure cloaked in shadow slunk between the walls.

The doors were made with the same chiseled marble and steel Mobotropolis had been known for. Rotor strode up to them and clutched one of the bars, and pulled with all the might of every fiber of his body. After struggling for two minutes, he leaned over on the doors and sucked in air. "They won't open," he muttered after he got his breathing in check.

"No prob. We'll get in through a window," Sonic half-joked. He was about to wander around the castle and act on his idea when the doors...just swung open by themselves.

Everyone took a few cautious steps back. "Wha' do y'all suppose that was?" Bunnie whispered.

"...I don't know, Bunnie," Sally whispered back. They remained still for what felt like hours, but Sonic and Sally eventually fell in stride together, with Tails directly behind them, and Bunnie and Rotor in back.

The foyer was very much the same, at least by everyone's memories of the castle. There weren't as many decorations, and the walls were missing the crest of the Acorn family, but other than that, everything seemed normal.

But Sonic was the first to notice something in the hall ahead, which was, coincidentally, the throne room. It was a long stretch of the building, separated into two floors with a high, arching ceiling. There were marble walkways to mark the second floor, and stained-glass windows lined each side of the room, with two wrought iron doors near the end of the hallway under the catwalks. In the back was the throne itself, situated under a massive, circular stained-glass window depicting a sword and a staff intersecting an acorn, surrounded by golden olive leaves.

In the throne sat a mobian dressed in a white and blue military uniform, almost like the ones footsoldiers were commissioned in the Great War. She slowly looked up at the party approaching her. When she stood up everyone froze.

Her auburn hair and facial markings made her look almost identical to Sally, if not for the fact her hair was more unkempt.

She sneered. "Hmph. Looks like I've got trespassers in my-"

When she got a good look at the group in front of her, she stopped cold, looking them up and down. She would have asked, "How the hell did you all change clothes that fast?" but the fact that she could see her spitting image with them debunked the notion her team had changed clothes.

So she asked the next best thing. "Who the hell are you?"

Sally took a step forward. "I could ask the same," she stated.

The woman shrugged after a pause. "If you kneel, it won't matter anyway."

Sonic took a couple steps forward and leaned on Sally's shoulder. "Gimme three good reasons why, missy."

Her attitude did a complete heel-turn in the span of two seconds. "'Missy!?'" she shrieked. "How dare you! I'll give you one good reason! I'm the queen of Mobotropolis, that's why!"

Bunnie put her hands on her hips and said, "Honey, y'all're actin' more of a brat than a queen."

The "queen's" pupils shrunk and she reached behind her back, pulling out an ebony whip and snapping it in the still air of the throne room in one swift move. It definitely got everyone's attention, but before she could crack it again, a sickly smooth voice spoke up from up on the right balcony.

"Woah there, sweetheart. Somethin' tells me these pikers don't know the skinny."

What jumped down was...Sonic. Sonic, in a tacky leather jacket and black jeans. The doppelganger took one look at the group, made a mildly surprised "ooh" exclamation, and strode up to the real Sonic.

He gave him a once-over and turned around. "'Ey, Alicia! I think this thing's a walkin' funhouse mirror!" He looked back at Sonic, whose face was a mixture of confusion and loathing. "'Cept this mirror just shows you what you're gonna look like when you get old and fucked up," he mused.

Sonic, despite being rubbed the wrong way at first glance, chortled a bit. He brought his hand up and plucked a quill from the doppelganger's head in a split-second and looked it over, his double yelling "Ow!"

"I dunno, pal. This thing looks pretty grey to me," he mockingly observed.

"Why you…! Who do you think you are!?"

Sonic rubbed his nose. "I think I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. The real question is, who are you?"

The doppelganger took a couple surprised steps back, but looked around at the mobian on the throne...then laughed.

"Well, I'll be damned!" he crowed. "Alicia! That's why they ain't heard of us! I guess all Miles' crackpot theories were right!" Everybody else was too stunned to ask what was going on, which gave the other hedgehog ample time to nod his head and continue, "Name's Scourge the Hedgehog. And this over here is my sweetheart, Alicia." She only cracked her neck in response.

Rotor leaned over and whispered to Tails, "So, is this like, the 'Reverse Dimension,' or something?"

"All signs point to 'yes,'" he whispered back.

Rotor exhaled deeply. "Should've just built a Ring matrix and a giant laser."

Sonic nudged Sally. "Hey," he muttered, "I don't think we got anything else to see here, do you?"

"No," she replied.

"Good." Sonic passed her the Warp Ring behind his back. "Tell me when it's charged. I'll buy us time, just in case."

Sally looked over at him, but activated her earpiece anyway. "How are you gonna do that?"

"Relax, Sal. If anyone knows me better than me, it's me." Sonic took a couple steps forward, a sly grin on his face. "'Scourge,' huh? That your nickname? Sounds pretty edgy."

Scourge's grin quickly deformed into an unamused frown. "For being just like me, you sure as hell ain't gettin' on my good side, I'll tell ya that much."

"Y'know, I don't get on many people's good side anyway. Maybe it's my attitude, but I know it ain't my looks," he shot back.

Scourge scowled and stomped up to his double. "Oh, you think you're hot shit, dont'cha? You may look like me...but I know you're not even half as great."

Hook, line, and sinker. "In that case, 'Scourge,' how 'bout a race?"

Scourge paused for a moment, then smiled. "Now you're speakin' my language." He took a couple steps backward, and made one last once-over of Sonic, noting the earpiece and his clothes. He nudged Alicia and winked at her. "How 'bout three laps around the castle? Winner gets bragging rights," he declared.

Sonic chuckled and cracked his knuckles. "Let's party."

Scourge didn't even wait to see Sonic start moving, immediately charging forward and through him and the other Freedom Fighters. He made his way out the front gate, and Sonic watched him rush by for a second before chasing after him. They got out and into the courtyard, Sonic lagging behind Scourge slightly. "Not one to play fair, huh?"

"Nah. It's not as fun!" Scourge taunted.

Sonic grinned. "Just gonna make it all the more satisfying to beat'cha." He picked up his pace and caught up to Scourge. They were neck-and-neck for a moment, but Sonic still got past him eventually.

He scoffed. "Thought you'd take a hint, bluey." He jumped up, curled into a ball, and homed in on Sonic, jumping on his head and throwing him off-balance. Scourge guffawed as he took a marginal lead. Sonic tripped, stumbled forward and almost faceplanted straight into the dirt, but managed to slow down and catch himself. He looked back up to see Scourge a meters ahead of him.

Scourge had run straight up the side of one of the outer walls of the castle and was now speeding along the top. Sonic gritted his teeth and raced toward the wall, going about halfway up on purpose once to see how difficult it would be. It was actually easier than he expected, so he wasted no time in picking up momentum to scale the wall completely, and charged full speed ahead after Scourge.

It took him several minutes to catch up and, by that time, they had passed the front entrance and were steadily going into lap two. It was about that time Sonic's earpiece vibrated and Sally called him through the receiver. "The Ring's charged, Sonic!"

He grinned. "Cool. Be there in two shakes!"

Sonic put as much pressure on himself to overtake Scourge, but as he was passing said hedgehog, who was only a couple feet in front of him, Scourge pulled a kind of Houdini, ace-in-the-hole move.

He laughed and made a sudden left, jumping and crashing through a window, calling back, "Catch ya later, loser!"

Sonic, although initially surprised, jumped on instinct after him. He just barely made out Scourge's silhouette going around a corner at the end of the hallway. "Aw, come on, now!" he called. "I thought you were better than this!" He raced forward and followed Scourge. He wound around the corner, down another dimly lit hallway, and Scourge, once again, ducked out of sight.

This dance kept up as they descended flights of stairs and crisscrossed hallways, Sonic constantly trying to cut his double off. Finally, they both reached the same stretch of hallway, on what Sonic guessed was the ground floor of the castle. He could see Scourge slam a door at the far end of the hall. It was big, ornate, and colored a slight green from oxidization; like one of the doors on either side of the throne.

Scourge had strung him along this far, and Sonic gritted his teeth once again as he threw the iron door open and ducked inside.

It was pitch black inside.

The Freedom Fighters hadn't done much while Sonic and Scourge had left except keep all their eyes on Alicia. She, in turn, kept a stone-cold grimace on her face and looked about ready to kill a man.

Then, they all heard a muffled crash from the door on the left, as if someone had knocked over a vase. It was followed by the sounds of a scuffle and a couple people yelling out some form of curse. Then, there rang out a loud, repeating *crack!* from behind the doors. Sounded like someone was getting their teeth kicked in but good.

It went on for a minute until there was silence again. The air stilled, but it didn't stop Tails and Sally from inching closer to the door. Tails looked over at, what he guessed, was Sally's double. She was eyeing them, but kept her rigid posture, and hadn't even turned her head to look at them directly.

But with a shout and clattering of some expensive looking furniture, Sonic came barrelling out of the room, his vest and shorts torn in some places, his face bruised and cut, and his earpiece almost busted. He yelled some long-winded curse as he stumbled over to Sally and without skipping a beat, he asked, "We got our exit goin' yet?"

"Sonic, what happened?" Sally exclaimed, more concerned about his health.

"I...d'ah…" He stuttered, trying to get his thoughts under control. "Ran into that room; got ambushed. Worry about it later, will ya? Gotta get outta here!"

"...Right." Sally brought out the Warp Ring, which Sonic snatched from her in a heartbeat. Oddly enough, he didn't throw it immediately, instead, looking it over.

"Just gotta chuck this thing as hard as I can, right?"

Sally looked at him with the old "are you serious?" look, but Sonic brushed it off almost instantly. "Must'a slipped my mind for a sec. That ambush came outta nowhere."

From the darkened doorway, a gaggle of twisted faces emerged. They looked almost exactly like Antoine, Bunnie, and Tails, except "Bunnie" was wearing biker leather and a black cowboy hat, "Tails" was sporting some frankly invasive looking cybernetics on his arms and the sclera of his left eye was black, and "Antoine" was wearing a green uniform and an eyepatch and was cowering behind Bunnie's twin.

"Leaving so soon?" asked "Tails."

Sonic in response, threw the Warp Ring as hard as he could and it exploded in yellow light, becoming a new doorway to a different plane. Sonic rushed forward and practically took a nosedive in, leaving Sally almost stunned for a minute that he didn't grab her or anyone else and drag them along. But then again, that ambush he must have suffered must have really thrown him for a loop...even though he didn't get shaken all that often.

Tails and Sally ran after Sonic, followed by Bunnie and Rotor. The Warp Ring shrunk and disappeared in another flash of white light, leaving the alternate Freedom Fighters to watch.

"I...can't actually believe that worked. Now we just need to wait and see if we can get over there, too."

"What Ah wanna know is, what's Scourge-boy thinkin' t'git away with?"

"Miles, Buns, go help Boomer," Alicia commanded.

Miles, Tails' double, bowed respectfully. "My apologies, Queen Alicia. We'll get right on that." He retreated into the room they had come out of, followed by Buns.

"Patch, quit bein' a l'il bitch an' do sum goddamn work 'round heah," she chided as she dragged Antoine's doppelganger along behind her. Patch was too busy shaking, not wanting to face whatever he had left in that room. Alicia followed them, and quickly closed the doors.