Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog nor Mass Effect.

Chapter 1: Brand New World

"Father, there has been an anomaly."

Braqis Raf'ki was once one of the most feared people on planet Anhur. He had no less that seventy slaves in his manor alone, ready to cater to his every need and whim whether they liked it or not. He had thousands more slaves under his ownership, and hundreds of credit-hungry mercenaries in his employee – Eclipse, mostly, for they were the easiest and cheapest to hire in these parts, and they were far more sophisticated than those brutes of the Blood Pack. After all, wielding the whip of authority required a certain kind of finesse in all manners. Though Eclipse was relatively cheaper to hire, given their bases on the neighboring planet of Bast, he still paid them handsomely for their services. He could afford to, as among his many properties was a significant number of mining operations that were vital in keeping this planet's scarce economy growing, His caste secured his place in the societal ladder, and his wealth ensured that nobody would ever dare to remove him from it. He was completely and perfectly secure in his position.

Until they came here. The "girl", Sage, and her so-called father, Dr. Eggman.

At first he along with everyone else had laughed at how ridiculous the alien's moniker was. They were not laughing for long.

Breqis Raf'ki thought he knew what madness looked like. He had seen it in the eyes of many slaves he had to discipline over time.

But this man… this Human… was different. Eccentricity and genius taken to extremes unthinkable anywhere on the known galaxy. He was an unholy combination of the most eccentric Asari billionaires on Illium and the craziest Salarian scientists hidden away at the labs of STG, then exaggerated into the form of an armada that could make the Turian Hierarchy jealous.

"Anomaly?" asked Dr. Eggman, looking up from his console.

"The approaching vessel has open line of communication with a currently unknown third party. The signal is highly encrypted, in a manner that differs from the Batarian Hegemony vessels we have detected so far. The possibility of an espionage party from an unknown source is high."

The short report was delivered in perfectly mechanical monotone, broken up only by the slightest of inflections, with a slightly mechanical tint to it. Her voice was enough to send shivers down Breqis's spine.

Ever since the two of them arrived, Breqis along with every other corporate tycoon and noble did everything in their laughably limited power to get to Eggman's good favour. Eggman had fast proven that he cared very little for species, castes, and origins, and cared even less for money. Anyone could be at his mercy if his mood struck him wrong that day. So they all gave the Human and his "daughter" access to slaves, resources, information, facilities, everything. After all, what else could you offer to a man who did not see the value of the credit?

Not that this was foolishness of his part – he literally had no expenses. His army of VI and AI-ran drones did everything for him. If he wanted a mine stripped bare if its content he could just send his drones to do it. If his drones broke, other drones could break them down and make new ones to his specifications. He had no need for organic combat troops because his drones did everything. Even the food he was eating could be grown and prepared by drones. It made Braqis glad the Geth rebelled against the Quarians because he did not want to imagine an entire species with this level of autonomy running amok in the galaxy.

When he first saw the offers, Dr. Eggman had called them a "refreshing change of pace". He probably came from yet another culture that did not support slavery. He seemed to be intrigued by the Batarian culture, which had some of the lords hoping for a new powerful ally. At first. He soon grew bored with them, and threw himself in his research.

Sage said something along the lines of "the inherent connection of forced labour-based institutions with the desire for personal comfort and authority leading people to react in easily calculated parameters". Which Breqis took to be her version of "you slaver scum are predictable".

But, the description of the ship she just gave… A non-Batarian espionage party… The STG? Had the Council found them? Would they help them, for once? He had no idea what Anhur looked like from the outside. Did they finally notice the mind-boggling increase in light pollution? Did they come looking for their grounded vessels? As much as he hated to admit it, the Council races had far more resources than the Hegemony. Perhaps they could make the difference. The STG would figure out what was going on here and the Council would come to crush him.

He must have made some noise, because Dr. Eggman's gaze was suddenly on him. Even with his eyes hidden, Breqis still felt like the mad scientist was staring right through him.

He turned to the girl.

"Crush it."

"Yes father."

Two sentences, and Breqis's hope was crushed along with the vessel. Of course this would not be any different. Of course. No system could escape Sage.

For all the young girl resembled a Human, a mere glance at her made it obvious that she was not one. Her floating was a dead giveaway, but do was the glitchy quality of her limbs, the unnatural stillness of her clothes and her dress, or her one visible glowing red eye. The monotony only broken by the slightest on inflections and the mechanical quality of her voice were the final nails in the coffin.

Sage was an AI, and if you asked anyone who knew her and was able of answering, she was the most advanced AI in existence.

Miles "Tails" Prower was used to unexpected visitors at random hours. It was the natural consequence of living a life as chaotic as his. Between him moving between his bases and warehouses all the time, Sonic popping up whenever he felt like to hang out and check up on him, the countless emergencies at the Restoration he had to take care of because he designed all the technology there, small-scale vigilantism, and many people coming for social visits, Tails just kept an eye on the door – and the cameras – at all times.

Shadow visiting was new.

His first thought was that Eggman was back.

He had been absent for quite a while…

WAY too long for comfort.

And here stood Shadow, without Rouge or Omega accompanying him, looking as serious as ever.

"Um, hey Shadow, what brings you here?"

"Are you still monitoring Starfall Islands?"

Tails stiffened.

When they all finally came back from Starfall Islands, and what an exhausting adventure that was, they told everyone what had happened. Of course they did, everything Eggman did was something to be shared, and information on the origins of the Chaos Emeralds was practically non-existent before.

The mere existence of Cyberspace was also alarming. Not that Eggman had not managed incredible feats in regards to the construction of artificial dimensions on his own – his Test Chambers came to mind – but Cyberspace was an entirely different monster. A library of knowledge taken directly from the brain of those that interfaced with it, and that was only the most basic of its functions. The barrier around Starfall Islands, the digitalization of physical matter and subsequently the teleportation between terminals, the coordination between natural phenomena such as the meteor showers to keep the network running, the systems that directly controlled the Chaos Emeralds as opposed to just using them as power sources – albeit, said control was limited given the very nature of the emeralds…

There was a lot to investigate regarding Cyberspace, and unfortunately, thanks to Sage Eggman had a head start.

"Well?"

"Oh, sorry. Yeah, we're still keeping it monitored. The Restoration is planning an environmental reconstruction program once they get a bit more free time." Specifically, they planned to relocate the various species of fauna that was once native to the islands back to them in order to restart and thus restore the local ecosystem. The evacuation of the fauna done by the Ancients back when the End first invaded was the main reason why even thousands of years later, the ecosystem was little more than grassland. At least on Kronos, Rhea, and Ouranos Islands. Tails was not sure what kind of ecosystem Chaos Island could support, given it was an extremely active volcano. And Ares was a desert environment, so that could take additional research…

Shadow frowned. "How closely."

This was not good. "Did GUN detect something?"

In reality Tails had a hard time imagining GUN in its current state being more effective than the Restoration; Eggman had almost completely wiped them out during the war, so now they were focused on rebuilding too, and the Metal Virus had done no favours to the rebuilding attempts. Of course the Restoration was also hit hard by the Virus, but even so GUN could not rebuild as fast as the Restoration – ever since it came out that Sonic was framed for Shadow's crimes back during the ARK incident (Sonic's actual crimes notwithstanding, much less what crimes they all did while at it), and their continuous failure to contain Eggman in any capacity, the public just did not have much faith in the military anymore.

"The ARK did."

Tails blanched. "The ARK!?"

Obviously the ARK had systems to monitor its external conditions. But why would- Half a second later Tails was already on his monitors. "Did something land from the ARK on Starfall Islands?" The space colony was not exactly in tip-top shape after over fifty years without any maintenance whatsoever. And there were an awful lot of asteroids and debris captured in its gravity last time Tails was up there…

Shadow followed him inside. "No, but something passed by." He handed something thin to Tails which he turned to look-

Oh Chaos, was that a floppy disk. It was a floppy disk.

"I, uh, I'll scan it…"

Good thing I made that scanner for hardware I can't directly connect to my systems! Seriously, everyone knew that Shadow had trouble with modern computers and the internet, but a floppy disk!? Sometimes the black hedgehog was really showing his age…

Uh, better not open that can of worms. And the ARK was really old so some things could be excused, right?

Yeah, no, that floppy disk made his fur stand on end.

Despite all the internal panic about severely outdated tech though, Tails had initiated his data hardware scanner and placed the floppy disk in the box. Severely outdated or not, at the end of the day most data storage had to rely on zeroes and ones, and the floppy disk was no different.

Seconds later, Tails had brought up the contents of the floppy disk on his monitor.

It was video footage, undoubtedly taken from the cameras outside the ARK. It was no 4K footage, but it did not need to be.

The metal construct appearing in a flash of pixels and rushing by the ARK at ludicrous speeds could hardly be mistaken for anything else.

"That's a spaceship."

"On crashing course with Earth" confirmed Shadow.

Immediately Tails had paused and copied the video on his terminal to work on it. "How do you know it's headed for Starfall Islands?"

"The ARK's collision and orbital analysis programs." Tails was not surprised to hear the ARK had those, the space colony had many functions. And such a thing would be absolutely essential for the long term survival of the colony.

"Do you recognize the ship?" asked Shadow.

"It looks nothing like Eggman's work… Actually I don't recognize it at all. It doesn't fit any style I've seen so far."

In fact, it looked like a bit of a patch job, a little bit of trying to look intimidating on purpose, kind of too plain, no branding to indicate a manufacturer or designer on it whatsoever…

Shadow seemed to catch on to his train of thought. "A disguise."

"Could be. Not sure. And with how fast it was going…"

Tails did not need exact numbers to know that there was no way the ship was still intact from the inevitable impact.

And the appearance of the portal… Those faint red hexagons… Does Cyberspace have something to do with this?

"You want me to inspect Starfall Islands for the wreckage." It was not hard to guess why. Tails was one of the four people who had been there before, Eggman notwithstanding.

"I doubt you'll find any survivors, but we still need to extract as much information about the vessel as possible."

Tails raised an eyebrow. "And if I do find survivors?"

Shadow twitched. He hid it, but Tails had been around him long enough to have a bit of a read on his moods. Nowhere as good as Rouge, Sonic, or Amy though. He had not thought of the possibility. A second later, he teleported out of the room.

Tails waited. The video looped. He noted the lack of audio. Actually, was there dust of some kind on the camera? There was a rudimentary atmosphere and a lot of debris around the arc so it was possible that the exterior could get dirty…

Shadow reappeared. "Here."

With a feeling of dread, Tails inspected the new items in his hands. He slouched in relief. They were Heal Units. "Thanks, Shadow!"

"Don't waste them. They're limited in capacity."

Tails figured as much. "I won't." He should probably keep on to one to study and reverse engineer it. That was probably why Shadow handed him two in the first place.

"Once you find it, you know how to contact me. I'll leave it on you."

Which meant that Shadow was offering to serve as transport if absolutely necessary but did not want to be bothered. Weird, considering he was the one who brought the matter to Tails.

"Should I tell the Restoration?"

Shadow shrugged. Of course.

Tails let out a sigh, and handed the floppy disk back to Shadow. The black hedgehog threw him a quizzical look. "I already copied everything."

With a sharp nod, Shadow took the disk and left as abruptly as he came.

Suddenly Tails felt extremely tired. Looks like a have a trip to plan…

He really hoped it was not a new threat.

It was said that Salarians processed emotions faster than other species did. It was a side effect of their faster brains, their faster metabolism, their little need for sleep compared to other species.

Right now this felt like a big lie, because several hours later, STG Captain Kelir Rogs was still in a state of shock.

Operation MIRAGE was one of those missions that sounded simple on paper and you only realized how utterly messed up they were after they blew up in your face in a spectacular fashion. In this case, the mission description was simple; inspect the space around Anhur.

A Batarian colony. Located within the Terminus Systems. Where there was wildly unregulated slave trading. And said colony had gone silent for so long that even the infamously silent Batarian Hegemony had started getting worried and sent discreet reconnaissance parties. Said parties either came back empty-handed or disappeared much like the colony had.

Captain Kelir was well aware that Operation MIRAGE had all the makings of a bad idea, but the STG had always been willing to take risks to obtain more information. Casualties were nothing new in STG operations. Every mission started with the understanding that it may be the last mission. The Salarian Union, and the galaxy at large would not be safe without the STG and other organizations choosing to put their lives on the line on a daily basis to ensure that problems did not spiral out of control before they could spread. Yes, casualties were expected in missions. Because they were not meaningless. The STG never sent its agents in dire situations to no avail, much less let them die in vain. Usually a casualty had a meaning, it provided answers, evidence, new lines to explore.

There were no answers in this.

It had happened in a flash. One moment the Letos was heading towards the calculated location of Anhur – the next there was a red flash. Audiovisual transmission was instantly scrambled, the only thing making through being frantic movements and cursing that could only be caused by panic and confusion, along with a slew of error messages and corrupted data, before being abruptly cut off. It was only paranoia and quick thinking that managed to save the data sent by the Letos – the techs and the VIs managed to record and transport the data to different servers fast enough not to have a complete loss of data from the forcibly interrupted transmission.

The techs set to restoring the corrupted data as soon as possible. This was not much comfort to Captain Kelir.

The Letos vanished into nothingness. Much like Anhur. And they had absolutely no answers. Not even theories.

For the first time in his career, Captain Kelir Rogs felt helpless. He could not see a way forward. Throwing ships there and hoping they find something obviously did not work, and scanning barely came up with anything beyond "heat signatures" of some kind. Which may not even be heat signatures in the first place.

No. He took a deep breath. The tech team was not done with its analysis. They may find significant information. He should never jump into conclusions early. That was how missions ended in failure before they even started.

Yet, as the minutes passed, the cold feeling of dread only grew.

He made himself some tea, sipped some off the hot surface out of habit, scalding his tongue. He held it in his grasp as it grew cold. The air conditioning was making the edge of his collarbone tingle. Hushed conversations came from the back. Someone sneezed, followed by the sound of something soft falling down before they wiped their nose. He took another sip from his tea. Lukewarm. He did not set it down.

Inside his mouth the taste was bitter and cloyingly sweet. He let the leaves sit in for too long. He drank a bit more regardless.

"Captain Kelir. The analysis in complete."

The technician who came to report this spoke in monotone. His body language however could not hide his hesitation. Feeling sluggish, Captain Kelir followed the technician to the analysis office.

Upon entering he saw that a single screen had taken over the entire wall. Unlike most, this one was not a hologram but a physical monitor – the holograms had a disadvantage in that they were by their nature see-through, and while most of the galaxy had long since abandoned such old screens, or did not ever develop them in a few cases, they had their advantages. The supreme level of colour and detail was one of them.

Right now it displayed a paused video, set at the start. What he assumed was the beginning of the transmission between himself and the Letos.

Sure enough, it was his own voice that played back to him.

"This is Communications Officer Padmin Vilmis, reporting."

"This is Captain Kelir Rogs. Report."

"We have arrived at the appointed location. There is no visual contact with the target. Initial scans detect no signals of the target's presence."

"…Are you certain?"

"…Affirmative."

They let the recording play out. They reached the part where he ordered the Letos to approach the approximate location of the planet.

Captain Kelir stiffened. It was the moment of truth.

The red flash came and it was not a flash at all.

It was not a weapon. It was not an emergency signal, though theirs were green. They were hexagons, forming a mesh, almost like a shield, right on which the Letos collided, before dark red and pink glitches took over the footage – yet they only appeared for just long enough to miss them, almost swallowed by the alarmed yelling of the crew.

Then, silence. The glitches stopped. The voices stopped. Captain Kelir almost thought the footage ended there.

In front of them was Anhur, half facing the system's sun, the other covered in the dark of the night.

Only that "dark" was no longer a concept. The planet was only recognizable by the shape of its continents, and little else. For even at the brightest corners, there were lights visible from space covering every single corner of the world's surface.

Towers were floating above, like deranged satellites. Something that looked like wires connected them to the ground below. Bright lines crisscrossed the oceans, almost wrapping the whole world in rope. A bizarre circular shape encompassed everything, impossible to fully make out.

And it was made of light. So, so, so much light. Light beyond control, beyond reason, and beyond all restraint, blinding, choking the world.

Just a glimpse, like a dream.

The glitches returned. The red flash. Someone yelled something about the Eezo core.

The footage was cut.

"That is all, Captain."

Captain Kelir mechanically acknowledged the voice with a nod, but did not respond. Nobody responded. Where to even move from here?

Part of him felt that cold dread intensify to something unbearable, wrapping around his heart. Part of him had a headache about the absolute diplomatic hell this would cause, that he fortunately would not have to directly deal with – a small, cold comfort.

And another part, the hysterical one, said to him well here's your fucking wizard.

The Tornado would not cut it. Tails was certain that it could drag along the wreckage of the spaceship easily, if it was not underwater, but passengers would be another thing. Tails was not certain how many survivors to expect, as he had no way of gauging crew capacity just from a glance. Going off by Eggman's and his own designs, the crew could be anywhere from one person to a hundred. At any rate, the Tornado was not big enough to take more than four passengers other than him – five would be stretching it if somebody sat on the tail. Likewise many of his other planes, like the Tornado 2, had similar issues with passengers – Tails only really took Sonic, and maybe Amy and Knuckles when he made or modified them. No, he needed to take something bigger.

He had to talk to Jewel.

All the larger aircraft and other vehicles he had ever made or repurposed from Eggman were currently in the Restoration's hands. It was only practical, since they needed to transfer a whole lot of people and supplies. However, that also meant that even though those vehicles were technically his, unlike the Tornado series he had to ask for permission or at least give a heads-up in order to use them.

Hence how an hour or so later Tails had come knocking at Jewel's office.

"…Come in…"

Hoo boy.

Tails obliged and the scene he saw was exactly what he expected. Stacks and stacks and stacks of paperwork. All of them taller than Jewel. Some of them taller than the average human, and that was saying something. The huge screen in the back of the room and the lamp on the desk – his own design, mimicking natural sunlight as much as possible with a small generator and self-repairing nanites – were the only sources of illumination in the enormous office room.

Jewel was slumped over her desk, pen held idly, her eyes drooping despite being on what appeared to be her fourth cup of coffee for the day. Even her normally brilliant exoskeleton and carapace somehow managed to be dull – probably a sign of either nutrient deficiency or a lack of hygiene. Her normally tidy blazer was rumpled up, and even her cravat was missing.

Suddenly Tails felt like crap for coming to bother her. Actually, no, he felt like crap for not offering to help with this mess. Where was Amy? Not that she lead the Restoration anymore but-

His eyes fell on the screen, which displayed the world map with everyone's location. Right. She was travelling. Like they all did.

"Hello, Jewel."

"Oh? Oh! Hello, Tails! What brings you here today?"

Tails decided to leave his request aside for the moment. "How long have you been in here?"

"Um, not sure… There is still so much work…" Tails winced. They were still rebuilding from the Metal Virus and Eggperial City – the loss of resources was beyond massive. It was a good thing that Eggman was missing, because they could not handle another disaster right now.

He ignored the nagging at the back of his head that said that something was terribly wrong with that absence.

"That's your fourth cup of coffee." It needed to be pointed out.

"Sixth… Motobud took the others..."

"Sixth!? Jewel, you need a break!"

She slumped. "I knoooooooooow…"

Oh Gaia, she was running on fumes, caffeine and anxiety.

"Um, I have something to tell you…"

"Yeah?"

Well, better rip the band aid quick. "An alien vessel crashed on Starfall Islands and Shadow asked me to pick it up along with any survivors. I can do it on my own but I'm going to need one of the rescue helis."

Jewel wailed in despair.

A few minutes of comforting Jewel later – "it's nothing, I can handle it", "this doesn't look like anything Eggman made don't worry", "no I don't think this is an alien invasion" yet he did not say, and "please take a break and maybe eat something and sleep an hour" or ten – Tails secured a permit to pick the aircraft of his choice, and to coax a zombie-like – bad choice of words, bad choice! – Jewel out of her office.

The shoppers outside stared as she headed to her place. "I thought she left yesterday?"

Yup, that was a bad sign.

After asking a few other people to make sure Jewel would head home even if they had to carry her, which prompted enthusiastic agreements and extracted a few unprompted solemn vows to check in the office more often just in case she is in there, Tails headed to the workshop.

Tails had designed the workshop and the hangar to be connected for the obvious reason that the aircraft and other vehicles needed repairs and maintenance all the time. As a result the regular civilian workshop was a relatively smaller nook always full of foot traffic to redirect them away from the aircraft hangar and the more sensitive equipment hidden there. From his position, the Chief – Tails really needed to learn his name one of these days – could see all incoming traffic. In theory. Tails still remembered the time Tangle and Belle stole an Extreme Gear Bike to go and crash Eggman's weather tower.

Ever since them, the Chief kept a more careful eye in case anyone got any funny ideas about stealing stuff for joyrides and threatened punishments for any rule breakers, though apparently that did not make the lesson sink in as the Chief was currently yelling at a human with crutches while a small crowd had gathered around them. Tails shook his head. The recklessness of some people…

Yes, he was fully aware of the hypocrisy of this statement, thank you very much.

Tails approached the crowd. A few people made way once they noticed him. "Hello, Chief!"

"NOT NOW, I STILL- Oh, hello Tails! Yeah, take out whatever you need. I have a rascal to deal with."

"Sure, you let the celebrity through without a glance, who's breaking the rules now Chief?"

Tails turned to the rascal in question, and the human looked ready to bolt ten minutes ago. Or do something even more reckless than whatever prompted the shouting. Considering the crutches, it ended badly.

Wait… nothing seemed to be broken… But his overall body stance… mobility aides?

Despite the snarky comment though, he had a point about the rules. That was why his first stop was Jewel's office. "I'm taking the Egg Carton to Starfall Islands. Not sure when I'll be back."

He handed the form to the Chief. Just like before, the Chief barely glanced at it. "Sure, go ahead!"

"Seriously!?" protested the human.

"I'm not done with you!"

"And what are you gonna do, yell at me 'till my poor little bones melt?"

"I could put you to do some REAL work-"

"But you can't! I'm so, so sorry."

Tails left. He already had a headache today and no time to spare, he did not need to sit for this.

The Egg Carton was exactly where Tails knew it would be. It was one of the many repurposed and modified Eggman vehicles confiscated by the Restoration. This particular one, as the name indicated, was a helicopter designed to transfer bots and heavy cargo. Tails had modified it to use Chaos Drives as a power source, while another of their techs had made some quality-of-life improvements in the interior. The exterior had been dyed to a blue with yellow accents, with the red star logo of the Resistance to the side with glow-in-the-dark paint. It was now a rescue vessel.

While the inner programming of Egg-tech was surprisingly finicky, and somewhat easy to hack, Tails with Belle's help did their best to remove backdoors and place safeguards in the programming of all of Eggman's tech. The helicopter was as safe from hacking as they could currently make it. Which was a necessary precaution because Eggman could try to hack them at any given time.

If he showed up.

I have a bad feeling about this. He's never gone for so long. Last time-

He really hoped the firewalls held up in Starfall Islands.

Tails sat in the cockpit and set the route, simultaneously running time conversions in his head. At the time the alien ship had passed by the ARK, it should be 5:30 in Starfall Islands. Tails had taken about half an hour to get from his place here in the cockpit, so 6:10. By the time he arrived…

He froze.

Tonight was Starfall night.

I have to get there fast!

If the sound of the Sonic Boosters prompted another round of yelling, this time towards him, Tails was not there to hear it.

The Egg Carton was not designed to achieve post-Mach speeds. It was repurposed as a relief support vessel, mostly meant to transport supplies, post-disaster rescue, and workforce personnel. Basically, it was not a combat vessel, and therefore it was not built with the "we need to get there now" mindset that the Tornado series was.

In other words, this flight was taking a long time. Too long. As the Egg Carton passed over the brilliant blue waves rapidly turning gold beneath the setting sun, the clammier Tails' hands became beneath his gloves.

He did not want to go to Starfall Islands.

Truth was, after the narrowly avoided disaster that was The End was over, he did not come back once. Oh, he had every reason to return. Cyberspace alone was a treasure trove of data, and even after thousands of years of decay, the Ancients' technology was leagues beyond anything he or Eggman had ever designed. A large part of him wanted to completely geek out and skip around the whole island chain like a little kid, explore every nook and crevice. He could spend years in those islands and he would probably discover new things every day.

The rest of him remembered his days in Cyberspace with terror.

It was an absolute nightmare; the numbness, the visions, the-

No. He shook his head. He could not dwell on bygone events now. He had a rescue mission to carry out. And besides, The End was gone, the remaining Koco were safe, the Titans were gone, and he could handle the Guardians and other robots just fine – especially now that he was solid. He would be fine. It was not himself he should be worried about.

It was already dark. The meteor shower that gave the islands their name was visible in the distance, decorating the sky with all the colours of the rainbow.

Tails' grip on the controls tightened. He was getting close.

He briefly debated activating the Egg Carton's scanners, but quickly decided against it. It did not have the best scanning range out there; combing the while island chain and the surrounding sea would take several hours, if not a day. No, the more efficient solution would be to link his Miles Electric to the Cyberspace's systems and let that handle the scanning.

The barrier appeared.

Tails froze. There was still a barrier here? He thought they deactivated it? What kept it activated? Did it activate in response to foreign bodies? What happened to the vessel that fell? Would they swallow him? Would he be digitized again? What would he do now? How would he escape? He should have seen this coming because nobody had come here on the islands after Sonic defeated The End so he had no way of knowing for sure if the barrier was still active or not he really should have checked scanned done something stupid stupid stupid

He blinked.

The Egg Carton was still flying steadily.

He still… felt.

His hands were normal.

There were no glitches.

He just… passed through.

The barrier was behind him.

Tails stayed frozen for a moment. He… was fine.

He collapsed on the controls. He really thought he would…

Does the system administration recognize us now?

It could be. He had no idea how intelligent the system really was and to what degree the Koco could interact with it. It was clearly adaptive – that was plain to see from each of their individual experiences while trapped in it, and the disparage in his, Knuckles, and Amy's different degrees of interaction with the physical plane while they were still in a digitized state. The most likely scenario was that the reappearance of the barrier was simply a standard scan.

His ears were buzzing. He could feel his heart throb in them.

With a shaking breath, Tails prepared to land on Kronos Island.

The robots and guardians were specifically placed on the island to deal with intruders. There was no telling what the system did to intruders it did not recognize.

Thanks to Tails' own hacking, Sonic, and surprisingly – or not so surprisingly in hindsight – his mental link with Mecha Sonic, Tails was able to retrieve the full detailed maps of the islands that the Ancients had downloaded in Sonic's head. Naturally, he held this data on his Miles Electric, and now he connected that to the Egg Carton's GPS data to secure a better landing. Fortunately, on top of the GPS data, there was also data on the locations of various enemies, like the Guardians.

Fortunately, there was plenty of room to land – for all that Tails was really, really tempted to use the Ancients' space shuttle landing pad. It was not worth getting into a fight with the SQUID.

Eventually Tails chose the spot on the small islet next to Kronos Island where Sonic first found himself in. Guardian NINJA was nearby, but it would not move from its spot.

Tails climbed down the thing crevice, and connected his Miles Electric to terminal KRONOS-1.

Many, many stars away, Sage felt something connect.

…and… There!

She reached for the connection, but the distance was far too great – just a second too slow, but it was enough.

He found the ship.

The signal disconnected. The connection was severed.

Tails was lucky. Really lucky. The alien vessel was right on the main Kronos Island, in the north part where there was no Guardian presence to boot. It was a bit far, but with the Egg Carton's flight capabilities on his side and no flying enemies around the area, it was a straight shot from here.

Finally, something good was happening! He just hoped there were survivors…

Well, the more time he wasted the less likely it would be to find any. Tails wasted no second jumping onto the Egg Carton again. Inputting the coordinates into the system, he quickly turned on the scanners for any activity – more specifically, life signs. As a rescue vessel, it was equipped to do that.

There was something… odd about being here. Tails had never been on Kronos Island – he had spent most of his time on Chaos Island, which looked nothing like this one; an ash-covered yet snowy volcano versus the near empty grassland of this place. It looked a lot like the Ouranos and Rhea Islands, making Tails wonder about the environmental conditions of the area. Chaos Island aside, why was the climate of Ares Island a desert? It did not fit the pattern – if Tails did not know any better, he would think those were different zones entirely.

But… there was more to it. Some bizarre sense of nostalgia, even though he had barely caught a few glimpses of the island on his way here. Barely one when they first arrived in search of the Chaos Emeralds, the moment drowned in panic as he recalled struggling to regain the controls of the Tornado and failing. The next was when they were leaving, his trusty Tornado somehow on Ouranos, delivered by the terminals apparently. He was so, so exhausted, but nowhere near as much as Sonic, who had been swaying on his feet for days now – he had no excuse to feel tired when he had no body to feel tired, he had no excuse for mental fatigue when it was nowhere near what Sonic had to go through.

So he kept his entire focus on piloting the biplane and keeping it stable, not to jostle Sonic too much because even though the cyber corruption was gone that did not mean that all the damage it caused had also disappeared.

He was almost startled when the Egg Carton came to a halt, but he was quick to snap back into focus.

There, right before him, illuminated by the light of the crystals falling from the sky, was the alien vessel.

While Eggman's designed mimicked organic lifeforms, it was always in an almost cartoony manner, resembling children's toys more than anything, fitting with his bizarre affinity for amusement parks and circuses. Bold in colour, with large eyes and odd proportions, like those puppets on old shows that could only be found online now, abandoned circuses and theme parks. It made him wonder, sometimes.

Tails was also fond of bold colour, and he had no shame in admitting he also slapped his insignia everywhere – if Eggman had taught him anything of value as a fellow inventor and scientist, it was to always sign his work, to have his brand so nobody could even think of copying his design. So yes, Tails was bold with his brand and his colour, but in shape he was not quite as inventive as Eggman was. He simply did not see the need of it, preferring aerodynamic function over everything else, comfort of use coming as a side effect almost, from a mindset that correlated ease with efficiency. Tails did not do sharp angles like Eggman did, shamelessly adding razors in places of claws, talons, fangs and mandibles, but his shapes were very, very clearly mechanical, an unnatural curvature that only had the concept of speed in mind.

He had never seen a vessel that looked so smooth before.

He was reminded of a slug. He was reminded of one of the sea-worn pebbles in the beach. It looked like something meant to be underwater in a way, even though Tails could tell at a glance that it could never hope to navigate the depths efficiently.

Yes, he could clearly tell that this vessel was designed with barely any atmospheric resistance in mind, just enough to get off a planet's orbit, probably using an anti-gravity system as opposed to pure propulsive forces. It was meant to build its speed outside atmospheric resistances,

The paint was equally unassuming, a dull silver meant to protect the exterior more than to signify anything, meant to obscure rather than advertize. The dull and dark green seemed to be added there mostly as an afterthought, but the wear on the paint was… off. Deliberately angular and ill-fitting against the curves of the ship, like the pattern was designed for a different vessel entirely.

Shadow's suspicions came back to his mind, that it was a disguise, meant to hide something. Not that he knew what. As if they wanted to make the ship cruder and more… vicious than it really was, to hide the truly exceptional craftsmanship that brought it to life.

The mechanic in Tails was crushed that the ship was snapped into pieces.

In Tails' mind, this moment took an eternity; to an outside observer, less than a few seconds. But each and every second counted, so Tails landed the Egg Carton and disembarked, his Miles Electric in hand searching for signs of life in the wreckage, the two Heal Units in his pouch.

A strange scent unlike anything before hit his nostrils first thing, and he was incapable of identifying it. He heard the squelch beneath his feet and took a look at the ground, then at his shoe, noticing the bizarre green liquid clinging on the grass and his soles. He followed to find its origin and-

Tails turned around and retched.

He was not ready for this. He was not ready for this.

He did not expect the passengers to make in unscathed. This was matter of fact, the odds against it were highly improbable. And he knew violence, he spent his whole life fighting…

But it was against robots.

Not this.

He was rarely part of rescue missions, only frontline. He knew a lot of the relief teams had seen things like this in places where they got too late, but he was never one of them. Tails was either technical support or a frontline fighter, nothing else.

He tried breathing through his mouth, and his Miles Electric beeped. It had detected something, and the analysis did not match any of the local fauna.

Someone was alive.

Tails swallowed trying to get some movement back into his throat, and turned around. They were like ragdolls…

A different part, the one that always thought in data and numbers, was cataloguing characteristics; the roughly human-like dimension, the amphibian traits, the unusual triple-digit hands, the highly prominent collarbones, the bizarre curvature of their legs. That part of his brain could ignore the bent shapes.

Tails tiptoed around them as the signal on his Miles Electric became louder like some demented version of hot and cold. And it was getting hotter.

He entered the wreckage of the ship, taking in the extremely advanced tech he saw all around him, a style that appeared to emply holographic displays in a far greater degree than they did, but at the same time had so many terminals everywhere, indicating a surprisingly small amount of automation that would explain the number of the crew. Tails tried not to count them.

Part of the light of the night sky made it through the bent windows. The sight they illuminated was bizarre – a small army of Kocos had flocked around someone, so only their feet where visible. The living alien.

"Mr. Tails! Mr. Tails!"

"What happened!? Are they alive?"

He could no longer understand the Koco's speech for himself, but it was no issue – installing a translator on his Miles Electric was easy.

"It's really bad! We don't know how to heal him!"

Him?

Tails swiftly approached the fallen alien, suddenly realizing what the Koco meant.

He was basically tied up with leaves, covering wounds, breaches in his armor, steadying bent limbs, anything they could manage. They even had a few star fragments glowing around his body – some means of providing extra energy? – and his mouth was wet, as if he had been given water.

But none of these thing was a cure.

"How long has he been unconscious?"

"We don't know, he hasn't woken up at all!"

It could be anything – internal blood loss the Koco were not able to stop, a failure in life support systems, the temperature being wrong, falling into a coma, anything. Tails did not know what the normal body temperature for their species was, but for Earth standards this was way too low. Beyond first aid Tails was no medic.

Good thing he did not need to be.

Tails brought out one of the Heal Units and let its green light wash over them.

Vilmis woke up to something green and warm. For a moment he thought he saw trails of rainbows falling from the sky. Something was glowing near him.

A light voice asked him something. High pitched chatter. He was barely able to grunt something. The darkness took his conscious again, this time far more warm.

"Father, I have successfully decoded the encryptions of the communications of the approaching anomalous vessel."

Eggman himself would not really bother with it, but Sage must have found something worthwhile into it. "Go on."

"The communications – and I believe the crew itself – was entirely Salarian. I believe they were part of the group identified as "Special Tasks Group" identified in Anhur databases."

He let a long-suffering groan as he slammed his first on his Egg Mobile. "Bah! The army always likes making a pest out of itself. They even make pests out of each other! As if the Hegemony's vessels weren't enough of an annoyance. But I doubt they retrieved anything of importance…"

"While survival of the vessel is highly improbable, the communication between the Salarian vessel and the recipient managed to last a few more seconds after breaching the Cyber Forcefield. There is a 42.2% probability that the recipient has received visual data of Anhur, though they are most certainly corrupted."

"Visual data, huh… This could be troublesome… Bring it up to the monitors then, Sage! I want to know what they've seen."

"Yes, father."

She brought up the few seconds long video of the Cyber Forcefield appearing before the brief overview on Anhur.

Eggman stood still for a moment. Then burst into laughter. "HAH! If that's all they know then we have no cause of concern! There is no intrusion that you can't deal with a mere swipe of hand, Sage! All resistance we've seen is feeble."

"This is why we should better prepare our external defenses" she countered. "Now that they are aware of the extreme changes in Anhur's infrastructure and their inability to receive data with conventional methods, it is highly probable that any group in knowledge of this information will resort in extreme measures to resolve the situation and uncover our presence."

Eggman's stance changed from boastful to thoughtful as he rubbed his chin in thought. "That's certainly true, they military is quite fond of extreme measures… Well, have you found the location of the recipients? Or who they were?"

"The recipient identified himself as "Captain Kelir Rogs". However, his location is currently unknown. I believe that the not even the crew was aware of his location as an additional layer of security."

"A healthy degree of paranoia! Impressive. Well then Sage, I will send some robots to improve our outer defenses. Some point defense cannons and a few extra Mass Effect fields will do… Keep up the good work!"

Sage was not able to feel temperature in the way an organic could, but the sheer pride in her father's voice made her… warm. She smiled. "Thank you, father."

"Well, onto work then! Genius cannot wait!"

Sage left the lab to return to the observation chambers – not that she needed to be physically there, but she understood the mindset that each room should be optimally designed for a dedicated purpose. Her presence in the observation room indicated to observing parties that she was currently focused on observation rather than internal affairs or system design.

There was one thing Sage did not mention to her father.

Sage's systems had detected an intrusion in Cyberspace. Correction: she had detected an external system connecting to the Cyberspace of Starfall Islands.

She still had a link to the Cyberspace around Starfall Islands, as she was specifically designed to interface with it, and she had still more data to recover from it. It was logical. This meant that she had limited access to Starfall Islands' surveillance systems.

She was admittedly surprised when she detected the vessel she had removed earlier today pierce through the Islands' barrier and crash on Kronos Island, but she ultimately dismissed it. She knew from data provided by her father and the Ancients that any device or system that utilized Chaos Energy was inherently prone to unpredictable behavior due to the very nature of the power sources. Each calculation including chaos energy worked mostly in percentages and ever increasing margins of error rather than absolutes. Therefore, outsider vessels being grounded in unexpected locations was far from the realm of probability.

Besides, based on her calculations of the spying vessel's speed and other known external factors, chances of survival were minimal at best. Even with the Mass Effect core acting as a dampener, her interference with it should have mostly disabled it. If they had not died on impact, they were at least gravely injured. She had visual records of the crash landing.

It had been 5 hours, 47 minutes and 3 seconds after the crash landing when she detected the second system connecting to the Starfall Islands' mainframe.

A system she was able to identify as the Miles Electric.

She did not detect Miles Prower arriving at Starfall Islands – the system must have granted him entry authorization. There was nothing she could do about that.

However, this was the first entry she detected in Starfall Islands since their departure. Did that mean that Miles Prower came to the islands in response to the crash landing?

It was the most possible scenario – a 92.7% probability. High enough to be a definite "yes". The time discrepancy accounted for detection and travel time needed.

He had most definitely uncovered the vessel.

This could be troublesome. As like every space-faring vessel in this "Citadel" network and associates, the STG ship used Element Zero-based engines. While on its own it did not have much value due to limited quantity, Miles Prower was able to successfully replicate Chaos Emeralds in the past – perhaps he would be able to replicate Element Zero or create a substance with similar properties as well. In those regards, as well as overall research, she and her father were several steps ahead, courtesy of additional time and access to resources. However, Miles Prower's intellect was not to be underestimated.

However, the probability of connecting the crash landing to her father…

No, it was far too low. She ensured she would leave no signatures behind, and likewise, any form of "witness report" should be non-existent. There was no need to mention this to her father yet.

However, as the saying went, she should follow her own advice.

She had to expect an invasion to come sooner or later. And not just from the Citadel Council.

Author notes: And here is the first chapter. Gotta say this, the process of writing it was unlike anything I experienced before. Having feedback on each segment separately when I was posting WIPs on SB was something else. Truly, the response was overwhelmimng - over 100 SB thread watchers in five days. Speaking of which, I noticed a number of familiar names on my favourites and following notifications. Hi!

This chapter is very much a collection of first reactions. The STG and Hegeomony are in the cosmic horror story, the ones trapped in Anhur are in an "alone with the psycho" story, and the Earth is in a "still cleaning this mess up" state.

Well, for short the world of Sonic here will take a number of cues from ME Earth, like Joker's little cameo here. The general map of this version of Earth looks a lot like our Earth here. The human and non-human populations are mixed, because I honestly don't like how Eggman has been the only human around for the longest time.

A word of warning here. If you are expecting a whole ass series of chapters about epic fleet battles between races and battle formations and badass captains and admirals making tough calls... This isn't your fic. This is NOT a First Contact War fic. This is not an army vs army fic. This is not even a politics fic, though they will be some elements of that.

This is an Out Of Context Problem fic. At least arc 1 will be. So if you want something different... welcome and I'll try my best.

Thank you for reading, and please do not hesitate to comment and provide constructive criticism or suggestions. I'm eager to read your thoughts.