The quickster arrives…
Cocolia stilled as the Stellaron spoke to her, words dying in her throat. Bronya stopped talking when she noticed, her eyes filled with concern as the Supreme Guardian stared into space.
"...Mother?" The young woman asked worriedly. "Is everything alright?"
Cocolia stood still for a few moments, before realizing how she must have looked. She coughed into her fist and recollected herself. "Yes… I-I'm fine. I just remembered something that requires my attention." Bronya blinked, unsure of how to respond. Yet still she remained inside the Supreme Guardian's office. "Immediately."
"...I understand," Bronya said. She bowed quickly and walked to the exit, the wooden doors creaking as she pushed them aside. Just as she was about to close them, Bronya paused and looked back, a hopeful look in her eyes. "Will you be home in time for dinner?" She asked.
Cocolia's throat turned dry. She nodded and gave Bronya a plastic smile. "I'll try," She fibbed. Again. Bronya returned the smile and closed the door, leaving the Supreme Guardian alone with her thoughts, and the voice of the Stellaron.
"What quickster?" Cocolia muttered, leaning forward as she placed a hand on her forehead. Instead of answering, the Stellaron gave her vision of another world. She witnesses a golden light flying towards an aquatic beast, a God of Destruction. A small, glittering gnat flying next to a massive stone colossus, the two fighting to dispel a dark god of pure evil and malice. A hedgehog bathed in the powers of chaos and the memories of a forgotten people as he fought against the the personification of Death itself. And won.
A quickster, that if left alive, could foil her plans with ease.
"I'll notify the guards," Cocolia spoke, but Stellaron hushed her.
The quickster is a being of pure Chaos. The Stellaron informed her. But even Chaos can be corrupted. Manipulated. Another vision appeared in Cocolia's mind. This time, the golden hedgehog was a pale, sickly shade of blue, with black, digital splotches covering its body. It stood still, unmoving, trapped between realities.
"I see…" Cocolia muttered. "I will show this… quickster… our vision. And should he resist…" Cocolia's grip tightened on her pen, until it snapped.
Sonic tapped his foot against the snowy floor, overlooking a large cliffside that he managed to find about a half-hour into his run. Below, he could see a large ocean almost completely covered by snow, with large warships trapped inside the thick sheet of ice the water had become. Some of the ships had been tilted, looking as though they had been in the middle of sinking before they were frozen in place.
Sonic paced around the cliff side, looking for a good place to land. As he did, a few trees in the corner of his vision caught his attention, and the hedgehog smiled. A few broken trees and second later, Sonic jumped off the cliff with a haphazardly put-together board made of frozen bark, letting out a yell of excitement as he slid down the cliff.
"Woohoo!" Sonic yelled. He kicked the ground to speed, using enough force to break the sound barrier three times over as she shot forward. The sound waves rocked the cliff sides and reverberated against the snow, causing the already unstable snow collapse. Sonic's ear twitched as he heard the snow rushing towards, but when he looked back, he smiled.
Sonic dragged his foot against the ground, slowing himself down so that the incoming mass of snow was only a few feet away from him. "Is there any way to take selfies?" Sonic asked the suit. The antenna thing on the side extended a few extra meters, and the end started flickering. Sonic put up a peace sign as the antenna let out one large flash. A picture showed up in the corner of his visor, the one he just took. Sonic smiled and kicked the ground again, shooting forward.
Eventually, the board gave out and shattered, causing Sonic to tumble on the ground. He instinctively rolled up to protect his head, causing snow to bundle up and surround him. The giant snowball flew off a ramp-like curve and plummeted down, crashing into the frozen sea with enough force to crack the ice. Sonic burst from the snowball with his limbs outstretched and cleats appearing on the soles of his shoes.
Sonic rolled against the ground and uncurled, snow flying everywhere as he quickly corrected his balance as began to run across the frozen ocean. While the cleats were able to maintain some level of traction, he still had to slow down to keep himself from sliding uncontrollably.
The blue hedgehog approached the first warship, a half-sunken vessel that was an ugly shade of purple. There was a large one on the side of the ship, almost like a massive laser had barreled through. Sonic raised an eyelid as he came close and noticed that the vessel looked more like a spaceship.
"I wonder if the defense systems are still on?" Sonic asked. He jumped up and buzz sawed through the reinforced iron walls, sparks flying out as he cut through like butter.
Sonic burst into a wide hallway. He skids across the floor and immediately dashed through the left hallway, looking around excitedly as Sonic sped up and looked around the room. The hallways were wide, but the corners were a bit too tight for him to turn without slowing down.
As he was running, an alert popped up on the side of his visor. Turns out the air outside is perfectly breathable. "Nice! That means I can take off this stuffy mess!" He exclaimed, reaching for the helmet. But just as the air from in rushed through the small gap, Sonic immediately sealed it shut. "Maybe when I get back home," He grumbled, teeth shattering from the brief yet intense cold he endured.
Sonic made another sharp turn, but his eyes went wide when saw that a large chunk of the floor had been taken out. He jumped up, curling up as he bounced off the holes and through the giant hole in the ceiling. Sonic uncurled at the apex of his height and spread out his arms to slow down his descent.
The frozen ocean stretched out for miles. It was practically a graveyard for multiple ships like the one he just ran through, in addition to multiple other spaceships just like it and multiple other warships. These ones had the emblem of two circles connected by a U-shape. "Looks like a big battle took place here. I wonder who won," Sonic muttered. He looked down at the ship he came from, looking for a ramp to roll off of.
He maneuvered himself to the right and curled, sliding against a particularly ragged piece of bent metal. It wasn't as smooth as he would've preferred it to be, but it got the job done. Sonic was flung into the air again, flying towards the nearest warship.
Sonic bounced on the front deck of the ship, and onto a large defunct rail cannon. Sonic kicked the chase as heard he could to make it swivel to the other side. Sonic jumped and homing attacked the controls of the weapon. The weapon fired, shooting a thin, electrical laser that caused the surrounding snow to steam and evaporate instantly. Sonic, seeing no problem with doing what he was about to do, jumped on the laser and started rail grinding on top of it. He's grinded on electricity before. Granted, it was magic lightning from a cave filled with magic crystals inside a book of Arthurian legends, but he still did it before.
The makeshift grind rail traveled over the ice-covered ocean. Sonic looked down as he balanced himself on top of the laser, seeing all of the capsized and defunct ships that littered the ocean. The concentration of broken-down ships only got larger the farther the laser traveled. A large majority of the ships were concentrated around a large tower like structure. As with the purple warships, this seemed to be made for space travel before it was shot down.
The electric laser struck the hull of the tower, sparks and steam from the point of impact. Also, the structure began to glow.
Sonic's eyes widened as the tower was seemingly brought back to life. Small ports opened on the side of the tower, turrets primed and ready to fire. The hedgehog smiled as he bent his knees and jumped when the turrets began to fire rapidly. Sonic touched the side of the tower, his cleats digging smooth purple metal just enough for him to get some traction. He ran to the top of the tower with ease, dodging incoming lasers as they were fired from their guns.
Once Sonic reached the top, he jumped as high as he could and looked down, watching as the top of the tower fizzled away. Multiple gray and silver orbs flew out from the new opening. Sonic smirked as he dropped like a rock, bouncing off each of them, and shattering them like rocks as he entered the tower.
Sonic slid down a spiraling staircase, uncurling briefly to examine his surroundings. Around him, lights flickered on, and hard-light bridges formed before his very eyes. And most exciting of all, robotic-humanoid creatures were reactivated. Thin layers of frost melted as the machines came back to life, bodies twitching from centuries of disuse. A pair of red eyes lit up at the very bottom of the tower, followed by the sound of hiss.
Green eyes brightened as Sonic ducked underneath the glowing blade of purple. He quickly grabbed the robot by the neck and tossed to the closest enemy he could find, another humanoid wielding a giant cannon. Others of its kind fired their weapons, but Sonic easily jumped over the attacks and landed their heads, caving in and sawing through bodies as easily as cutting through butter.
As Sonic shattered through another wave of enemies, a loud roar came from the bottom of the tower. He looked down, and jumped away as a massive snake-like robot gobbled up a piece of the floor he was just standing on. Sonic whistled at the size of the snake machine, though it was a tad bit smaller than the biggest machine's Eggman had built.
The snake lunged again, and Sonic turned to the side to evade. He reached out and grabbed onto one of the purple snake's segments, holding on tight as broke free from the tower and started coiling around it. Multiple hatches opened up on the sides of the segments, revealing turrets that were beginning to power up. Sonic smirked as they fired, dodging and twirling with ease as bullets and energy blasts whizzed past him. Sonic homing attacked the turrets and ran across the length of the snake robot, smiling to himself as they went higher and higher.
As the snake slithered past the highest point of the tower, it shook its body, sending Sonic flying into the air. "Uh-oh," he muttered, as the snake lunged from behind and swallowed him whole. Its victory was short lived, however, as it started to convulse and writhe as something struck from inside. That something was, of course, Sonic, bouncing around rapidly inside the machine's artificial stomach. The snake jerked around erratically as dents formed inside its armor.
Eventually, Sonic burst out of the snake's back, metal shrieking and sparks flying as he flew out and soared into the sky. The hedgehog took a deep breath and admired the view of the frozen wasteland.
"Oh yeah," Sonic muttered to himself.
He curled up into a tight ball and dropped like a rock. The snake looked up, but all it could see for the last few seconds of its life was a blue rodent smirking at it. The machine folded in on itself as Sonic barreled through the machinery, his sheer speed causing enough friction to ignite the wires inside. But Sonic didn't stop there; he continued to make his way through the snake, and eventually started to break through the armor of the tower.
Before he even reached the bottom, the tower completely crumpled under the force of his stomp, triggering a large-scale explosion the likes that this frozen world hadn't seen in centuries. The massive fireballs engulfed the surrounding ships, causing them to ignite and explode as well.
Sonic flew out of the cloud smoke, laughing loudly to himself as fell to the ground. "That was tight!" he exclaimed as he slid on his head. "I gotta do that again sometime!"
Sonic stiffened when she heard the sound of ice cracking. He moved into a sitting position, and watched as the cracks began to appear on the floor.
"Oh, right. Frozen Ocean…" Sonic muttered as the ice began to collapse into the freezing water. He tried to scramble to his feet, his green eyes going wide with fear as more ice began to break and shatter. "No, no, no, no!" Sonic hissed, his hands and slipping against the floor as he tried to push himself up. By the time he got to his feet, the ice around him broke apart, and water splashed on his back. Even through his suit, Sonic freezed, both from the intense cold and his fear of water.
Just as half of Sonic's body was submerged in ice cold water, his form began to digitize, and his memory turned into code and information. Sonic disappeared in a green glow just the entire ocean broke free from its icy prison and the ships sunk into the bottom of the sea.
"Woah…" The blonde girl muttered. She was hiding from the elements inside her tent, a defunct heater and thick wall of snow being the only things that kept her warm. "This must be a new species of bacteria…" She continued, scribbling down on her research papers as she looked through her microscope.
The girl suddenly yelped, and something got her attention. She looked unsteady, but quickly regained her balance. After putting on her hood, she walked outside and looked east, her eyes widening from what she saw, a massive fireball in the distance. "What is that? Volcanic activity…?" The girl muttered questioningly. She retreated back into her tent, and soon came out with a backpack filled with hiking gear.
Once the girl had disappeared into the snowy fog, Orbot turned around and tapped Eggman on the shoulder. "Boss? The girl left her tent."
"Good. Move inside and see what sort of papers she has," Eggman ordered, turning away from the monitor he was and looking at Orbot's. The spherical model nodded and began maneuvering the Spinner scout inside the explorer girl's tent, carefully to not let its blades tear through the fabric.
Once inside, the bottom of the machine opened up, and multiple arms popped out and began to rummage through the papers, making a mess of the place. The Spinner's eyes flashed, taking multiple pictures of the important files and reports. As this happened, Sage placed her hand on the console, analyzing every single photo that was taken in mere seconds. Not even a minute passed when Sage's eyes flashed bright blue.
"Father, I have the coordinates of the only civilization still inhabiting this planet," Sage revealed. Eggman smiled at her, letting a few chuckles as he typed in a few commands.
"Good girl, Sage. Input the numbers into the Egg Mobile. You're coming with me." The AI girl nodded and disappeared in a cloud of red mist. "Metal, you're coming as well," The doctor ordered. The metallic doppelganger beeped in response and floated next to Eggman's floating vehicle. Metal Sonic snapped his fingers, and a small group of Badniks formed around the Mobile, ranging from Egg Pawns with spears and guns, some Egg Flappers, and two large Egg Hammers.
As the bots prepared themselves, Orbot and Cubot typed on the console, numbers and equations appearing on the screen as the video footage from the spinner cut off.
As Eggman hopped into his Egg Mobile, Sage reappeared next to him. "Father, I've inputted the coordinates a few miles away from the city, which is named Belobog." Eggman grunted in affirmation as he placed his hands on the controls. The mad doctor pushed a button on his console, opening a portal to the other world.
"Metal, you and the other Badniks set up a perimeter around the city. I want you to let me know the moment Sonic shows his face in this dimension!" Eggman ordered. Metal Sonic nodded, and he and the other robots marched inside the portal.
"What will we do, doctor?" Sage asked as she floated next to him. Eggman only smiled as the glass dome slid in place.
"You will search for the power source that's keeping the portal open," He explained. After pausing, a gleeful smile appeared on his face.
"I'll handle the Supreme Guardian!"