The first thing that happened in this melee nearly stopped it before it began.
"Hold it!" Silver shouted, hands glowing with psychokinetic power. Surge, the kid, that fox (whatever her name was, Surge didn't care) and Scourge were all frozen in place with a cyan aura.
The two other hedgehogs had been reaching up for the medallions hanging around their necks, but froze in stupefaction as they saw Silver casually immobilise all of his enemies.
"I don't know what your deal is with Sonic, but we don't have time for this!" Silver cried. "The world is broken!"
"Yeah," Scourge snarled "and so is your face if you don't let go of me!"
Surge tuned out the two idiots arguing, trying to focus. The sensation of Starline's cold hand on her shoulder, and his rancid breath in her ear, was distraction enough.
"Pathetic." Starline hissed. "I built you to surpass everything about Sonic the Hedgehog – and you can't even do this."
"Shut up!" Surge hissed, grinding her teeth.
"S-surge?" The kid stammered as best he could through Silver's hold.
(He couldn't see the platypus on her back – nobody could. He wasn't really there, he was dead,he should act like it –!)
"Nothing, kid." Surge growled softly. She tried to clench a fist, but only succeeded in making sparks shoot between her fingers.
…
Surge's face slowly twisted into a demented smile.
"Oh?" Starline mocked from his new position sitting atop her head, his legs dangling down into her face. "Is that a hint of the monster I made, still in there somewhere?"
"Kid, get ready to drown the groupies." Surge spat, ignoring Starline. "I've got the real threats."
Silver, who had looked about ready to hurl Scourge over the horizon, turned to her at her words. "You, have me? I'm the one who has you!"
Surge smirked at him, sparks flying from her fingertips.
"It's no use." She said in a mocking, sing-song voice.
Silver fell back with a cry as a lightning bolt hit him between the eyes. Out of the corner of her eye Surge could see Scourge leap for the downed foe, ready to unleash his frustrations. Moron. Had he really forgotten that Shadow was right there?
Starline had prepared her to one day take out Sonic, but he'd known that had likely involved going through his 'friends' first, so he'd hammered their strengths and weaknesses into her head. She knew that if she charged Shadow, he would use Chaos Control to teleport into her blind spot and attack her from there.
So, as she rushed towards him, arms outstretched, she wasn't surprised at all to see Shadow huff and blink out of existence. She span around, laughing as she filled the area behind her with lightning…
…and hit absolutely nothing, as Shadow teleported behind Scourge and kicked him in the back of the head, sending him flying. As she gawked at his audacity in ignoring her, Shadow blinked out again, and this time she was unprepared as the hit sent her smashing into the ground.
"Pathetic." Shadow and Starline mocked her as one.
Surge grabbed the ground and screamed. The world around her went white as it was filled with lightning.
Scourge whistled as he saw the hot new chick explode in a bright ball of sparks. Silver, caught in the blast, was definitely down for the count now – but she'd missed Shadow. There was a trick to catching black and broody, and obviously she hadn't gotten it down yet.
Of course, most of that trick involved being fast, so maybe he wasn't being fair. It wasn't like there was anyone as fast as him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona and Surge's little sidekick – the one with the long pillars of water waving out behind him like great long tails – advance on Sonia and Manic with murder in their eyes. He hadn't seen anything special out of them when he'd been in their Zone, and their "great enemy" had been another pathetic version of Kintobor. Fiona would be able to handle them, easy.
…the fact that that "Robotnik" had been able to put him in jail didn't mean anything. That had been back when he was still calling himself "Anti-Sonic". He was his own man now, not just everything that someone else wasn't.
Seeing his chance, he jumped out, repaying Shadow's earlier attack in kind with a kick to his mid-section when he teleported in just a little too predictably. Shadow slid across the ground, carving a shallow furrow in the dirt.
"Sucks to be you that you forgot me, huh Shadow?" He smirked, adjusting his shades. "You get to learn why you don't mess with me all over again. Get it yet? I'm stronger that you, you so-called 'Ultimate' Lifeform."
He managed to take one step forwards before glitching set in, and he tried to hold in a scream, but it felt so much like that light, why was that light the last thing he could remember before –
At the fit finished, he gasped for breath. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Surge growl as she hurled herself to her feet, recovering first despite having been affected for just as long.
"…big words." Shadow got to his feet, his eyes… different, somehow. "From a man who confuses cruelty with strength. There's no Anarchy Beryl throne for you this time, Scourge."
Scourge scoffed. "Finally remember me, didja? Did those hits rattle some memories loose?"
Shadow made to respond, but before he could Surge jumped forwards, and swung around in a full-body kick, her leg wreathed in lightning. "Nobody wants to hear it, loser!" She roared.
Oh yeah, he was definitely adding Surge to his gang. Fiona wouldn't like it, but… well. If she made a fuss, that would be his cue to remind her who was in charge.
"What's the plan, sis?" Manic asked, as Fiona and Kit advanced.
(Sonia usually made the plans, even if Sonic had a bad habit of forgetting them halfway through and barrelling on with sheer Sonic-ness…)
"First, the water guy." Sonia decided. "Then the fox girl, then we go save those other two guys."
"S-surge is counting on me…" The water kid mumbled, his eyes creepy in how dead they looked. "I'm sorry…" he continued, not sounding sorry at all "but you have to die!"
The main reason that Sonia usually made the plans was that, unlike her brothers, she'd actually gone to school. Though, it hardly took knowing calculus to know that in a two on one, the two usually won.
Heh. She should work that in as a lyric sometime.
She reached up for her medallion… then lowered her hand. They'd already played a song earlier, trying to find Sonic, so they didn't have much charge in them at the moment. They'd have to use them sparingly.
(They'd thought they'd heard Sonic respond, but even at his worst, Sonic's guitar had never sounded like that…)
Kit's water-tails swept towards Sonia and Manic like an incoming tidal wave.
"That water had better be clean, jerk!" Sonia scowled, throwing herself into a Sonia Spin. Now looking more like a tornado than a person, she tore the pillars of water apart with the force of her spin. "You know how hard it is to get a decent bath out here?!"
Kit lifted himself up and back with a remaining water-tail, reforming his other tails behind Sonia and attempting to box her in.
Lifting his drumsticks up like they were batons (which, to him, they totally were), Manic made to go help his sister but found his way blocked by a furious vixen.
"'Then the fox'?" She scowled. "It's a mistake to ignore me, kid!"
Manic shrugged disarmingly, pocketing his drumsticks and deliberately striding well into Fiona's personal space. "I know, how rude of me." He shook her hands, using the distraction to swipe the blaster he'd seen her palm. "How could I ignore such a pretty lady as you?" He strode past, swiping the two grenades in her back pockets as she spun around to face him, her face red with fury.
"You little…!" Fiona lifted her hands to shoot him… then realised too late that her blaster was missing.
Manic smirked, then clocked the vixen in the side of the head with the butt of her own pistol. Dusting his hands off, he watched her collapse to the ground.
Manic turned around to help his sister… only to then have a pillar of water slam into place around him from above. Grabbing at his throat and blinking furiously, he spotted Sonia trapped in the pillar of water next to him, no longer spinning.
Manic struggled, but Sonia was way stronger than he was, and if she couldn't break through, he had no chance.
Using their last bubble of air, the two triplets let out the same cry:
Sonic…!
I… I have to help! Those guys… they really want to hurt us!
B-but… I'm not strong enough… if only… if only I was strong enough to help…!
A blue blur cut through the water-tails above Sonia and Manic's heads, severing Kit's control and forcing the water to drop down in a deluge. The two triplets gasped for breath, looking up just in time to see their saviour drop down in front of them, facing Kit.
"Sonic!" Sonia smiled, then frowned.
"Sonic!" Kit hissed dangerously.
"Sonic!" Manic cried. "Bro, what took you!" Then he noticed what his sister had, and blinked in surprise.
The figure before them… looked like Sonic. If you ignored the fact that he was like, ten years older at least. And the brown neckerchief. And the sports tape around his wrists and ankles.
"Bro!" 'Sonic' span around, pointing finger-guns at Manic.
Manic blinked. "Bro?"
"Bro!" 'Sonic' responded in turn.
"…bro?"
Sonia slapped her forehead. "Sonic, is that you?"
"Sure is!" Sonic flashed her a thumbs up and a smile. "The one and only Sonic the Hedgehog, accept no substitutes!"
"…why are your arms blue?" She asked the first question to come to mind.
Sonic sighed dramatically. "Please, don't ask about the arms…"
"Die!" Kit roared, actual hatred in his eyes now, his water-tails surging down on Sonic…
But Sonic moved, faster than Sonia or Manic had ever seen him move before, and suddenly he was next to Kit, kicking him in the back so hard the kid went flying down from his hill to smash into the ground below.
Sonic tsk'd. "If you can't play nice, kid, don't play at all. Where'd you get a backpack like that, anyway? Is that one of Eggman's? No, wait, I bet it's yet another Ancient weapon somebody dug up. Am I right?"
Kit made to get to his feet, growling with rage, but missed the fact that Sonia was just behind him, and she knocked him out with a well-placed blow to the head.
"Sonic, what… happened to you?" She asked, more confused than anything else.
Sonic ducked as a bolt of lightning surged over his head. "Hold that thought!" He said, holding up an index finger.
Surge ground her teeth. "Couldn't let me make it quick, could you?"
Sonic blinked down at Surge from his position up on the hill, finger still raised. "…who are you again?"
Surge's face went completely blank for a moment.
Then she started chuckling.
It was not a nice sound. It sounded like someone with a broken chest gasping for breath though fluid-filled lungs, like the very act was causing them immense pain.
"Everything." She gasped. "Everything you did to me, all that effort you put into trying to stop me – and you then you just forgetme?!"
"Uhhhh…" Sonic responded, looking around awkwardly. Looking down, he spotted what – or who, rather – Surge was standing on. "Shadow! Buddy! Finally, a familiar face!"
Sonia and Manic swapped looks of worry and confusion.
Shadow grunted, which made Sonic smile and roll his eyes. "Classic Shadow. Hey, uh, buddy, am I fighting with you right now, or fighting with you?"
"Shut. Up." Shadow growled at him around a mouthful of dirt.
"Ha!" Sonic dramatically swiped a finger through the air. "I… do not know why I bothered to ask." He drooped.
Because of this, he didn't see Scourge blur in from the side and kick him clear across two hilltops. As his arc peaked, the hills glitched again, a weather vane appearing in Sonic's path just long enough for a shoe to get caught on it, spin him around, and send him flying back to land at Scourge's feet.
Scourge grabbed Sonic by the shoulders and pulled him up. "You gonna tell me you forgot me as well, big blue?"
"Hmmm…" Sonic rubbed his chin, seemingly ignoring the threat Scourge posed to him. "Swifty the Shrew, right?"
"Nope!" Scourge smirked, spinning around and tossing Sonic down from the hilltop and watched him crash into the ground. "Looks like you'll be taking a remedial beating from both of us, you stupid –"
A flash of light made Scourge spin around, thinking that Shadow had teleported in behind him. Instead, he saw that Manic now had a drum set in front of him… somehow.
Manic flashed him a smile, and started a drum roll.
The ground shook under his feet, and Scourge found himself hopping from foot to foot to avoid falling over. What the heck?! Since when could that stupid kid do this?!
A strangled cry from Surge made him look over, finding his temporary partner in violence had been buried in a rock-slide.
"I may have grown up on the streets, dude, but that doesn't mean I don't know how to ground a circuit!" Manic smirked as he finished off his drum roll.
Scourge turned to lunge at him, and was promptly caught off-guard as Sonic spun his legs around and kicked Scourge's own legs out from under him.
Sonic leapt to his feet even as Scourge finished falling, mischief in his eyes. "So, what you're saying is… you beat her with the power of rock and roll? Eh? Eh?"
Scourge, Manic and Sonia all groaned at the terrible pun.
Then the rock-slide Surge had been buried in exploded as lighting shot between the cracks in the pile, the roar of electricity mixed with the roar of a furious tenrec.
Manic gulped, and his drum set turned back into the pendent around his neck.
Sonic patted him affectionately on the shoulder. "Good try, bro." He said, missing the impact his casual method of address had on Manic.
With a flash of light, Shadow teleported in behind the other hedgehogs, Silver's unconscious body unceremoniously dragged behind him by one hand. "Hmph." He snorted, unimpressed, even as he fought not to sway on his feet.
Kit seemed to come alive again at the sound of Surge's scream, water shooting out of his backpack to propel him to her side like fire from a rocket.
Scourge glanced down at Fiona. Lacking any kind of super durability, she remained out for the count.
"Alright." Sonic rolled his shoulders. "Round two, I guess?"
Despite himself, Scourge found himself giving a bloodthirsty grin back. "You really think you have a chance here? I'm literally you, but better."
Scourge had expected to hear some kind of blustering denials from Sonic. He had not expected a cold hand to grab his neck from behind and squeeze.
"Explain." Surge hissed into Scourges ear, her hand locked in a crushing vice.
"Easy, easy!" Scourge cried, trying unsuccessfully to wrench himself from her grip. "Look, I used to go around calling myself 'Evil Sonic', alright? But these days the king's his own person –!"
His protests were cut off as Surge tightened her grasp, the tenrec giving out the same wet chuckle as before. "'Evil' Sonic…? Seriously…?"
"What's it matter to you?" Scourge chocked out. "Ain't it Sonic you hate?!"
"I do hate Sonic." Surge snarled. "And I hate Sonic for making someone want to make me hate Sonic. Just him being him infuriates me! He ruined my life, just by existing! But you…"
Surge pulled Scourge in close, her teeth nearly biting into his ear as she spat:
"You'd have done it all on purpose, wouldn't you!?"
"What on Moebius are you talking about, you crazy –!" Scourge didn't get to finish his sentence, as Surge hurled him through the air, making him slam into Fiona's prone body.
"I, uh… think it's time we left." Sonia said slightly awkwardly, watching Scourge scramble to get up and pull Fiona and himself to safety, dodging lightning bolts and water-tails the whole time.
Shadow narrowed his eyes. "Where's Sonic?"
Sonia and Manic spun around, seeing for themselves that Sonic had in fact vanished. A groan from a nearby bush caused them to run over… but inside was just a little kid who only looked like their brother.
"Is it over?" Nicky mumbled, swaying unsteadily as he tried to stand up. A big lump could be seen forming on the side of his head.
Manic looked back at Shadow, who just scoffed and started walking away, still dragging Silver.
Sharing a look with Sonia, the two of them reached down and pulled Nicky to his feet, his arms around their shoulders.
"Hold up!" Sonia called to Shadow. "We have a van!"
Shadow tsk'd, giving Sonia and Manic a look that made them think he was seriously considering tossing Silver at them and walking away.
But eventually, even as he looked like he was sucking on a lemon, he gestured for them to take the lead.
