Chapter 6: You Owe Us an Explanation!

A few minutes later, after some more explaining, everyone gathered around Oswald, as he chuckled quite hesitantly, glancing around nervously. "So, you guys don't know you're just cartoons? Heh… Well… I-I'm sorry. I thought you would've known… I mean, um, everyone should…"

"You mean… I'm not real?! No, this can't be true. Can it, Sonic? CAN IT?!" cried out an extremely distressed Knuckles. Oswald looked really confused at his reaction, as if he thought it should be normal for something like this to be known, so turned to Sonic, who simply shrugged.

"Don't worry about him. He'll get over it! Knuckles never lets anything worry him!" However, Knuckles was acting quite the contrary, walking around in circles repeatedly. Amy tried to sooth him, but to no avail. "Well, I suppose there's no point in saying this anymore, but, well, us and these birds are related! That's kinda what I was trying to say, before this whole teleporting thing. We're related to them because in the Real World, we bought you guys and you're part of our company! So–"

"Ok, excuse me? Hate to interrupt but, I don't think that automatically means we're related. That would be absurd. I'm a bird and you're a hedgehog. No link." Red finished, uncertain of even his own words, as he thought worrying thoughts. Who were these guys, and what was going on? And this nonsense about a "real world"... It couldn't be real. It just couldn't.

"Well, maybe not in this world, but what about the Real World? Anything that's real there usually is real here," explained Tails. Red just groaned at the thought of this. It just couldn't be.

"Well, I hate to make things even more complicated, but, what was that arm thingy?" asked a slightly bedazzled Amy. She was the only one out of them all who hadn't overreacted.

"Wait… You guys… But I… An arm?" The rabbit in the crowd struggled to remember what had happened, but grasped his memory, and thought. He thought for quite a while, as everyone continued their arguments and augmentations. He remembered a small memory of the Doctor and his heart. Instinctively, his hand flew up to his chest, as he understood. "Guys." He spoke softly, but his tone had that of worry. Stranded on this emptiest part of the beach, nobody except the crowd could hear, save for themselves.

"GUYS!" All conversations grinded to a halt. Oswald proceeded, "When Tails created that machine you mentioned, and that beam hit my arm, it brought me and you guys here. Me 'cos of my arm and you 'cos of the portal you made. The coordinates you put brought us here. You lot stranded us here," at this, the Sonic crew looked somewhat guilty aside from Shadow, "but you must know the way back! Since ya made the machine, you'll find a way back, right?"

Everyone looked doubtful. Red said, concerned, "Well, from what you've said, we've got a few inventors here. That two-tailed fox…"

"My name is Miles Prower, or just Tails."

"Silver…"

"Oh, she can do it, no question! My sister's the best inventor I know!" boasted an eager-to-please Chuck.

"Um… and you too, I suppose. If we work together, we might be able to send you back! And with nothing bad happening!" completed Red. He looked towards the crowd and they all cheered at his plan. But then it was followed by a painful groan from the dimensional visitors. The birds gasped as they saw something inexplicably awful.

Oswald, Sonic and his pals were glitching. It was like they were trying to move but were jammed in the area currently occupied by them. Small blue and pink highlights around their bodies became visible.

"Ok, this isn't good," said Chuck and Red together. They stopped and tried waving their hands in front of them. Red accidentally, whilst doing so, swatted Shadow in the face. That somehow woke the whole crew up from their glitchy slumber. They still seemed to be quite stuttery, so Red and Chuck got behind them and started pushing.

"We don't seem to have a lot of time on our hands. Come on. You need some expert help, guys." Red beckoned them to relax as he shoved them through the sand, Shadow grumbling to him, "Don't ever do that again. I am the ultimate life form. Have some respect." Red chose to ignore this remark, and moved on, literally and metaphorically. The destination was close now: A lab the speed demon's sibling had had built for her by Red and Chuck.

Silver was a genius prodigy. She could make absolutely anything out of absolutely anything. She was a greyish white, her eyes massive and green, and she had, curiously, pink eyebrows. In her pigtails she wore, you could see some of her latest invention's pieces: Super String. She usually got along with absolutely anyone, and everyone appreciated her innovative ideas for the island.

Her hut was massive, which seemed appropriate for her. Like most of the other houses on Bird Island, it was built out of bamboo, but she had reinforced it with some steel pipes. She had tons of space inside for her bedroom, her inventions, and for a small sofa. All in all, it was home to her.

Silver was busy working at that moment, typing on her computer as could be seen from the hut's open window. Hearing footsteps approaching, she looked up, and saw Chuck, Red, and some weird animals she didn't recognise. She waved to them.

"Hi, Chuck, what's going o–"

"Sorry, sis, can't talk (groan) we gotta bring these guys in. Can you open the door?"

"Sure, um, who are you guys?" She said, as they came in. Somehow, walking through the doorway seemed to loosen up their joints. The gang collided with one another and fell on the ground, and out from Shadow fell the pack of regulators. Silver picked one of them up. "Ooh, what are these? Hold on, let me guess… AHA! They're speed regulators, right? You can tell from the aerodynamic design and energy clip-ons!"

"Shadow, why did you bring these here? Oof, my head…" Sonic got up to his feet and stared at the regulators, rubbing his forehead. "Well, yes. They were made by one of my, well, let's just say friends, and they were meant to be regulators, but tuned into my energy frequency, and gave me these multidimensional powers!"

"Ok…" said Silver

"Was that necessary?" questioned an already-trying-to-grasp-being-a-company-mascot Knuckles.

"So, you're not from around here, right? I mean, you're like nothing I've ever researched on."

Red piped up, "Well, they're from, I think it's pretty obvious, but, another dimension." He waved his hands around in a somewhat sarcastic way, but then became serious and said,"And we need your help. Can you find a way to send them back?"

"Ok! No problem. But, well the multiverse is really confusing, so, I'm gonna scan you. Stay still," she finished, as a laser beam came out from the ceiling. It scanned the squad, and, after finishing, disappeared back into its designated slot. Silver turned to her monitors, of which 3 of the five were in use, and started typing. Tails walked up to her, and offered to help. Not seeing the harm, she allowed it, and Tails grabbed a chair and assisted.

A few minutes quicker than expected, the pair finished. "Wow, we make a great team!" exclaimed Tails, as he high fived. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen, and you?"

"I'm eight!" After a look of disbelief, he confirmed, "Yeah, I actually am eight. I suppose you could say I'm a quick learner!"

"Incredible! I wonder how… Right, one thing at a time. Now," she said, turning to the crew who were waiting, "I know what dimensions you're from. You guys are from the SEGA cluster, Universe 31X. However, you," SIlver pointed to the lone rabbit, "You're from the Disney cluster, but you're in Universe 0A. That doesn't really make sense, seeing your world, as a game, was formed in 2010."

"Well, I'm sure there must be a reasonable ex…" Oswald drifted off. A faraway look came into his eyes, alongside Shadow and Tails. They snapped out of it right when Sonic, Knuckles and Amy began glitching again.

"Oh no! We need to find some way to keep you from glitching. You won't survive with all this foreign interdimensional energy here… Hold on…"

Red looked into her eyes. A glint was dancing around inside of it. She had an idea. "If I were to re-engineer the regulators…"

Oswald understood her idea, and finished of her sentence with his knowledge, saying, "... maybe creating an invisible field of our own energy around us so we won't be exposed to your world's energy, but ALSO still allowing a small amount of it to come in and fine-tune with our regulators, we could survive in the multiverse, interact with it, plus have those powers that Sonic mentioned!" Everyone stared at Oswald as if he was standing under a spotlight. "What? I'm an engineer and programmer! There are tons of engineers where I come from!"

"That sounds perfect! Ok, come here, Oswald. That's your name right?" At his nod, she opened a drawer and held up a screwdriver. "We've got work to do."

A/N: Updated my profile! Look if you have the time! And we're nearly at the end of Spark 1...