Chapter 7: Variables
White Void
Eggman had already been stuck here once, he wasn't going to get stuck again. The mad doctor had a few measures to ensure that he would be able to escape this time-dilated trap, involving a rope tied around his chest that led back into the lab. If there was any disruption with the energy output from the Time Stone, Sage would activate a rotor that would pull Eggman back. Not very well put together, but it was his best practical option given his lack of resources. Speaking of Sage, she was close by, monitoring the void around them for any significant sources of energy or landmasses. "Still no readings." She told her father. "This doesn't feel right. I don't think we should be here." She hovered closer to Eggman, seeking his protection, but the doctor was too busy scanning around himself to notice.
"You shouldn't worry. Even if our backup plan fails, I'm sure we can escape. If me and past me got out, we can too." He spoke confidently while keeping his focus on the void.
"How did you escape in the first place?"
"Turns out there was a door leading to the exit. We just had to look hard enough, I guess." Eggman was so focused on moving ahead that he neglected the ground below him. His toe stubs against something metallic, making him let out a howl in agony. Upon a closer look, Sage sees something almost invisible blending into the blank floor. A gear, whitened and piled into a mess of other bleached parts.
"Look at this!" Sage was fascinated at the sight. Finally, there was something to observe across this endless dimension. After Eggman's pain settles, he too is struck on by the discovery. "These look manmade, and yet they are completely alien in design. It's like someone reversed-engineered it."
"Any other striking qualities?"
"I'm estimating what the structural purpose of these cogs provided. They almost seem too… impractical." Something then caught Eggman's eye. The way the gears were designed, and how they were the only mechanical part of a much bigger machine. Its design screamed familiarity to him.
"Wait… I know this." Eggman stepped on the pile of cogs, much to Sage's disfavor. He shuffled through the top with his hands, like he was digging something out. As he moved more gears, his suspicion was confirmed as he saw the outline of one of his Egg Mobiles cleansed and barren of color. "This was the shell of The Time Eater."
Edge of the Universe
The smell of fabric and dust hit Sonic's nose, jolting his eyes open to the scenery of a musky apartment room. The walls and furniture were stained a cheap tan, and the only window led to a view of a crummy alley. Why was he here? How did he get here? Those questions plagued Sonic as he removed himself from the lousy bed. The last thing he remembered was that strange hallucination of time stopping and that clock person named Dial taking him away. That's what he believed because that all seemed too much to comprehend in a cluttered and poor place like this.
Sonic wanted answers now. He stomped toward the door and turned the knob to open it, but as he did, he was met with the endless abyss of space beyond the door frame. Sonic almost lost his balance and fell forward as he tried to step out, but he fell back on his butt once he shifted his weight. He crawled back over and peeked his head into the abyss, which wasn't totally empty. He saw the galaxy at the bottom, swirling in continuous motion. "It can be a bit jarring the first time, I'm sure." Sonic snapped his head back and saw the clock person sitting on the side of the bed. "But you'll eventually get sick of the sight."
"You are real…" Sonic's mouth gaped. He couldn't believe his eyes. "Dial, right?"
"I'm flattered that you remembered. You had quite an episode when we arrived." His pleasing voice soothed the tension almost instantly.
"Episode? What episode? Also, where are we?" Despite Dial's lulled expression, Sonic's mind and mouth were too frantic to be calmed.
"Come, let me show you everything." Dial twirls his finger, triggering the deconstruction of the apartment room, and disintegrates it into nothing. Sonic flails his limbs in the air, trying to stabilize himself, but the vacuum around him forbids his momentum. Dial amusingly aims his finger at Sonic, freezing everything but his eyes in place. Their speed increases all at once and they rapidly travel through the limits of space, cruising past galaxies and stars and so much more in mere seconds. At one point, Sonic thought his brain would fry from the amount of information he was processing.
Eventually, they both landed at a single point at the border of the universe. A dark void scaling far beyond the naked eye. That was until a vast line manifested in front of them. A line of numbers, variables, and mathematical symbols. It stretched across forever. "What is this?" Sonic asked in awe.
"This is everything." Dial answered. "This is the Equation to the Universe. Every law, every world, every life, it's all dictated here. It might seem endless, but I assure you it's not. The universe is not a box that holds all, but a stream of rules manipulated by chance. Each variable you see defines that rule. Rules that shouldn't be broken."
"This is all a lot to process."
"I'm sure it is. Even when I showed the fox, he had trouble understanding it." Sonic's eyes sparked with hope. That's right, he was here because this man had Tails and Knuckles in safekeeping.
"Tails was here? Where is he now?"
"Ah, I almost forgot. Your friends have been waiting for you. The echidna specifically told me to bring you along when I picked him up. Let's see them now, shall we?"
"Wait, does that mean- AAAHH!" Sonic screamed as they went back into lightspeed, traversing across the stars again at unparalleled speeds. It wasn't until Dial found a small pocket in the universe that he recognized that he stopped. This little pocket was like a separate dimension, like the apartment Sonic was in, instead, this one was much more akin to an infirmary. "Stop doing that, please!"
"You finally arrived." A tough voice caught the hedgehog off guard. Sonic bounced back on his feet as he saw Knuckles eyeing him down with his arms crossed. "So did you find anything enlightening in the city?" He grumbled. Seeing some of the bandaged injuries on Knuckles' arms and chest, he had a rough time fending off those Apostles. Joking now probably wouldn't help.
"Nothing concrete, but I might have a lead."
"Might?" Knuckles' eyebrow raised, making Sonic wince from his bad word choice. "With how much we both had to endure, I sure hope it is more than 'might'." Knuckles' angered voice softens as it turns to sorrow. He covers his face with his hand and turns away from Sonic. "You don't know what Tails had to go through to try and reach you, what almost costed his life." Knuckles hid his emotions away behind his hand, but his voice had a sliver of it leak.
Sonic's heart beats erratically. The thought of Tails suffering through that battle made him dread what he was about to see. He turned his head and looked down into the room, seeing one bed occupied. There he was, patched up with numerous bandages across his left eye and upper face, along with his arms and a part of his torso. He was sitting up but looked straight down into the bed. A look of numb grief clouded his face. Sonic ran to him in a heartbeat, looking closer at his injuries. They were worse than at first glance, especially the one located at his lower abdomen, which had to be expertly stitched and bandaged together but was still plainly noticeable.
"Tails! What happened? Are you ok?" He tried to reach out to him, but the fox remained silent. "I'm… how could they…" Sonic fought with himself about who to blame: Himself or The Apostles. If he was just there, he could've prevented all of this, but he felt that whatever he was doing in Soleanna was just as important as getting the emerald. But now, they've failed, and the emerald they had was no longer in their possession.
"Please don't move him too much or else you'll open his wounds. I don't want to stitch them back together again." Dial said. Sonic turned his attention away from Tails and stared down Dial. Confused and irked by this stranger who held all the power to the universe, but could only offer bandages and medicine to his dying friends.
"You… you're like some sort of timekeeper or time god, right?" Sonic impatiently asked.
"If that's what a mortal would call me, then sure."
"Then fix this." Sonic pointed at Tails while not unlocking his eyes from Dial. "Why don't you speed up time so his wounds heal faster? Or revert it so that he never had them at all. You can do that, can't you?"
"The Equation of the Universe can not be bent like rubber. Fail to conform with one restriction and you risk imbalance. I did what I am permitted to do with a mortal. I can do nothing more."
"Who cares about all the rules!?" Sonic lashed out. "Do you think I'm just gonna take it when someone more powerful than me says that they can't do anything to save my friend?"
"Sonic, he's right…" Tails spoke up. That one statement shook Sonic. He couldn't possibly imagine Tails being fine with this. "I looked at the equation, and while I didn't understand it, I knew what would happen if variables were removed or mishandled. Everything and everyone back home… it would devolve into chaos." Sonic tempered himself upon hearing his reasoning. If Tails said so, then there was no better truth.
"Please, take this moment to rest. You'll all need to recuperate before you head back out to your world. I'll explain more once-" Suddenly, Dial's right side clock started ringing, cutting him off. His demeanor changed to a more distraught manner, and he entered into a nervous breakdown. "No… What are they doing back there!" Dial snaps his fingers and a wooden door randomly appears in front of him. "Stay here while I clean up a mess. Meddlers are risking everything for who knows what." The door swings open, revealing a white void on the other side. Without a moment to lose, Dial quickly steps through and the doors shuts, dematerializing shortly after.
"What was that all about?" The bewildered Sonic asked.
White Void
Eggman kept hauling away from the top of the scrap pile, while Sage idly watched from behind. The doctor had little hope of finding it, but he knew that there might be a chance it was there. "I know I stored it here somewhere." He grunted as he lifted back fifty pounds of metal at a time.
"What do you hope to find in all of that?" Sage questioned
"A relic from an old experiment. I thought it was lost when that pesky hedgehog destroyed it, but there still might be a backup in the core."
"Will this help us stop Infinite?"
"It'll do more than that. I'll correct my mistakes this time, so even Sonic won't get in the way again!" A mad cackle and grin washes over Eggman. There he was again, scheming another double cross. Call it predictable, but he wasn't going to take over the world if he wasn't consistent. Although, Sage was one to protest.
"Are you sure that is our best intention? I've run the calculations, and severing our temporary cease-fire with Sonic prematurely might end in our loss. It would be best-"
"Never mind the calculations. They won't matter." Eggman continues to scavenge until he spots an ominous glow within the center of the heap. "Aha!" He digs his hand in and snatches whatever is down there. As he pulls it back up, he forcibly ignores any snags or interruptions that the object smacks along the way. After pulling all of it through, Sage gets a better look at what Eggman was searching for. It was a glass cylinder container with circuits and ports on opposite sides. While the container was whitened out, the thing inside illuminated a purple hue. It was like a gas, bouncing around inside like it had a life of its own. They were small, but Sage was able to make out a pair of white narrow eyes at the center of the gas.
"Is that-"
"The Time Eater. I made this core as a backup in case of its defeat. I never thought I'd get my hands on it again, but now that I do… I'll make sure no one else stands in my way." All of a sudden, Sage started blinking red like an alarm. Turns out, it was an alarm triggered in her to alert them of instability with The Time Stone. They both turned back and saw the gateway they had come through condensing slowly, like something was trying to close them in. Sage acted quickly, activating the rotor and dragging Eggman violently across the floor. The doctor yelped as he held onto The Time Eater for dear life.
Sage tried activating her backups at the base, but something about this dimension started to suppress her coding. She had no choice but to fly out herself. Eggman barely made it through in time, as his leg was almost caught by the gateway. However, Sage wasn't so lucky, as the portal closed on her, leaving her trapped. "No!" She reverted to her coding and tried to find a way to transfer herself back to any of the Eggnet's systems, but nothing appeared online, and that desperation was flooding into her. She looked around for another way out, but she was the only thing left in existence here. "Father, please get me out!" Her processors were going crazy, simulating the feeling of a rising heartbeat. She was scared and alone, with no one left to look after her. "Please come back…"
"What are you doing here?" A mysterious voice called out to her. She gasps as she turns her head in fear at Dial, entering from a door next to her. She floated back, afraid of who this person was. "Where is the other? Did he take anything?"
"He- he's not here. He left before the gateway closed." Sage told him. Dial growled and stomped over to the remains of The Time Eater's shell. He gives it a brief checkup before realizing the core containing The Time Eater was gone.
"Where is it…"
"What?"
"Where is the FRAGMENT!" Dial unloaded a booming yell, echoing across the void.
"The Time Eater? The doctor has it."
"No…" Dial mumbled, desperately trying to hold his rage. But he couldn't compose himself for long. "No!" Dial deals a swift kick to the pile of gear, which instantly evaporates them. "He actually did. He's going to doom everything." Dial snapped his head back to Sage. "You're coming with me. There is a lot to catch up on, and you will need to be made aware of the amount of trouble that man has made."
Edge of the Universe
Back in the infirmary, Sonic and Knuckles resided close by Tails, who was still upright in his bed. Sonic wanted to know more about what happened to him, but the fox kept shutting him out. Sonic knew he didn't mean to be curt, but he didn't understand why his little buddy stayed reserved. "You know it's okay to talk to me, right?" Sonic tried to reach him again. "Whatever happened, I'm sure I can get a grasp on what you feel."
"Can you?" Tails spoke coldly.
"Yeah! 100 percent I can." Tails tried to speak, but something crawled up his throat and dragged the words back down, deep in his gut. He wanted to let it all out and embrace the warmth of his friend's words, but he felt sick leaving it to that. Like an underlying problem wouldn't be solved with pity and charity.
"How can you? You're not ungifted like I am." He recluded back into the bed.
"Buddy, what are you talking about?"
"You were born with such… great feats and powers. You were a hero before you even knew it. Me? All I got was an extra appendage and a brain filled with nonsense that doesn't matter." Tails looked away from Sonic, mentally kicking himself further down with how much of a failure he thought himself to be.
"What makes you think that doesn't matter?" Sonic said in a stern tone. "That 'nonsense' has gotten us out of more situations than I can count. You're the smartest kid I know, and you'll only get smarter." Sonic tried to find the silver lining, but it wasn't enough for Tails.
"What good does that do if I'm always letting you down!? I can't always think my way out of a fight. As time keeps passing, our enemies are getting stronger and stronger, and I'm not changing at all!" Tails sighed and tried to keep himself together from not bursting into tears. He really wanted to help his best friend, but he knew that soon there would be nothing he could do to help. "I'm not like you. I'm not gifted. And that is never going to change." Tails falls back into the bed's pillow and throws the sheets over his head, blocking his friends away.
"Tails…" Sonic sorrowfully reaches his hand out to lift the covers, but Knuckles stops him with a hand on his shoulder. The echidna shakes his head and pulls him back.
"Give him some time. He needs it." Just then, the door Dial exited through reappeared on the other side of the room. The door once again swings open and a very angry Dial storms through, bringing along a guest with him. Sonic and Knuckles couldn't believe who they saw.
"Sage?" They said in unison. The announcement of the ghost girl even gets Tails' ears perking up from beneath the covers, but he still refuses to leave. "What are you- How did you get here?" Sonic asked.
"You can thank her and her meddling creator for that." Dial conceals the door behind him back into nothingness before resuming his rant. "They've tampered with something that I kept away. It was contained therewith means to force an indefinite stall between the being razing your world and its completion. Now that it has escaped its prison, it's only a matter of time before it returns to the rest of the fragments."
"What is he talking about?" Knuckles questioned Sage specifically.
"After you left to get the Chaos Emeralds, your friend Silver asked a favor from us. He wanted us to find a solution to the Time Stone and fix it." Sage briefly explained before Dial took back control of the conversation.
"The Time Stones stopped working because I intended them to stop working."
"What? You turned them off?" Sonic was even more confused now. This whole time they thought it was a paradox disabling them, but it was this Time Keeper's doing instead. "Why?"
"The Time Stones are directly linked with the void. A dimension where things that are not meant to exist remain forever. People, objects, and entire timelines stretched out across an infinite plane of nothingness. Once an ancient evil resurfaced to restore itself, I couldn't risk anyone accidentally entering the void, so I turned off the stones." Dial glares as Sage. "But it seems technology has become more invasive these past years. As for the fragment the void harbored, you might find the name… 'Time Eater', familiar."
Sonic and Knuckles' faces turned pale. Never would they have thought that thing survived that intense battle. "It's alive?!" Knuckles exclaimed. "How is that even possible? After going against two Super Sonics, I doubt any could."
"After its initial defeat, a small portion of The Time Eater was stored in a backup container, once again due to the hubris of the girl's creator." Sage started to get irritated by Dial's constant bad-mouthing towards her dad. If it wasn't for the others in the room, she might've spoken up to Dial. "Luckily, he wasn't anywhere near the remains of The Time Eater after the battle, so after I found him trapped with his younger self in the void, I let both of them go so they wouldn't keep nosing around for it. But eventually, he somehow got it back."
"Could've just kept him in there. Save us some trouble." Sonic snarkily remarked.
"If that happened, I would never have been created." Sage told him in a chilling manner. Sonic almost stumbled back and he began fumbling his words.
"Well- I- don't get me wrong here- I just-... That's not what I was trying to imply." Sage giggled, knowing that it was only a joke.
"The matter of the fact is that Eggman now possesses a vital piece for the end of everything. He must be stopped before he does something reckless."
Knuckles thought it was strange that this was an issue that Dial could solve himself. He appeared to him back on the planet before, why can't he do it now to stop Eggman? "Why can't you?" Knuckles finally brought up. "Why can't you just go and solve all of this?"
"The limitations of my manifestation are far more harrowing than you understand. The longer an entity that can't exist stays within the mortal plane, the more the timeline unravels. What I achieved with the three of you was a gamble in and of itself. If I had remained for even a minute longer… nothing would be left. Besides, if that restriction wasn't there, the fragments such as The Time Eater emit a warding effect that blocks off my interference." It all awfully sounded like Tails' Terminal Paradox theory. Beings that can't exist destroying the universe was exactly how he worded it. "Which is why you will be my avatars to destroy the fragments."
"You can make us that?" Sonic asked.
"Don't get the wrong idea. These are not instant power-ups, but abilities you must earn through training and self-enlightenment." Dial swishes his finger across his face and creates another door, opening up to a temple on the other side, filled with lush bushes and trees. "This is where you will discover the flow of the universe and unlock yourself. I will be there to guide you, but you must be your own teacher to find your true purpose." With all that said, Knuckles helped wheel Tails' bed through the doorway, not bothering to disturb him yet. Sage followed, albeit reluctantly. But Sonic stayed back, for he had one question left.
"One more thing, because I've been dying to get it off my mind. Who is Solaris?" The hands ticking on Dial's clocks freeze, and his manners shift into a troubled yet intrigued stance. "You know, don't you?"
"Come with me."
Later, back at the Equation of the Universe, Dial and Sonic quietly stare at the seemingly endless line. Its ever-changing hue through the vast numbers reminded Sonic of a flowing river, yet it felt restrictive and tight, unlike what he thought a river represented. "So you received the memories of an old life." Dial finally spoke. They had been standing here watching the equation for what felt like a half hour, but time here moved differently. "The headaches, the nausea, the battle between what was real or not. Everyone who encounters a paradox deals with them. But they've been more potent for you. Couple that with your ability to move within my suspended animation, I'd say there is something remarkably special in you brewing."
"So what is it? Solaris, I mean."
Dial sighed and sat down. He looked entranced by the equation, but bitter as he continued to stare. "He was the one who helped me create the equation. He helped build everything you know about. Both of us are what you would call 'Starweavers'. Not an easy title to achieve. But as we continued to expand upon the equation, the more corrupt he grew. He wanted to change everything to suit his vision, despite the changes entailing suffering for all living things. For that, I casted him out and ripped away his position. But he keeps trying to bend the timeline I nurtured for so long to cause imbalance and force me to restart everything, allowing him to rewrite the equation and change order."
Dial fidgets his hands and clamps them tightly together. Sonic gathered that it was a touchy matter to him. "I tried destroying him by allowing him to manifest into the timeline. It was actually you and a couple of other hedgehogs that ended up beating him. But as I cut the timeline to erase him and everything that involved you guys back in Soleanna, he fragmented and hid himself within your world. Now he's trying again, and I'm afraid we can't use the same miracle we tried before."
Sonic tried wrapping his head around all of that, but he thought he got the gist of it. "Don't sweat it. If we clobbered him before, we can do it again."
"It's not so simple. With each new manifestation he makes, he becomes stronger. I'm afraid that if he reached his true form, his power would have increased tenfold."
"Then we'll just have to go beyond what's set out for us." Sonic holds a fist close to his chest, pumping himself up. "We're making a big bet being here and not down on the planet. Who knows how many people Solaris and Infinite hurt while we just stand here and talk. But I have a friend that I need to prove that knowledge is not nonsense. And if I can use that knowledge to train myself to become stronger, then he can too. If we can reach our full potential, then I'm sure we'll make quick work of that mess of a god."
Confidence quickly returned to Dial. Perhaps this was the way to end this nightmare and save the equation. Dial chuckled to himself and stood back up. His faith was now set on Sonic and his friends. "Alright, let's get your training started right now then."
To be continued…
Next up: The Crusader!