The dark purple void of the Special Zone was, just for a moment, filled with the sound of rock striking metal.
"Careful with that!" Julie-Su hissed. "That was my arm you just hit!"
Lara-Le paused in her kneeling position, the rock in her right hand still lifted high in the air. "You can feel pain in your metal arm?"
"No," Julie-Su grumbled, sitting down with her arms laid out behind her "but I get about a million damage report popups, and – gah! Dismiss! Dismiss! Dismiss dismiss dismiss!" She focused on something in front of her that only she seemed to be able to see.
"Can you really not break such a small chain?" Alucion drawled, also sitting down, her head resting on a hand with its elbow in turn resting on her knee.
"Yes, well, I'm afraid Knuckles didn't get his strength from me." Lara-Le grimaced, swinging the rock down again on the chain linking Julie-Su's handcuffs together.
"Shouldn't you be working on making us a Warp Ring out of here, princess?" Julie-Su interrupted.
Alucion rolled her eyes. "I told you already, only if you beat the challenges! Otherwise the only place I can take us is right back where we were!"
"What challenges?" Julie-Su demanded, flinching slightly as Lara-Le swung the rock down again.
"Good question!" Alucion stood up, turned around and thrust both hands skyward. "And the answer is the challenges that should be right here!"
The motley group of echidnas were stranded on a grey sphere about the size of a hot-air balloon. Black lines divided the sphere into a grid pattern, and despite its tiny size it somehow had the same gravity as a full-size planet.
Floating around them were other grey spheres, yellow slides, green blocks, and other assorted abstract shapes. Here and there were scattered red bombs floating in place, but they were vastly outnumbered by the scorch marks marking where one used to be.
"The Special Zone is a greedy little thing." Alucion scowled. "It loves sucking up Chaos Emeralds and anything like them. When that happens, the influx of energy resets the challenges. Some scoundrel must have broken in here and taken everything out without my permission!"
Behind Alucion's back, Julie-Su rolled her eyes. "How dare they."
"Exactly!" Alucion nodded, missing Julie-Su's sarcasm completely.
There was a faint crackle of static that appeared to come from just beside Julie-Su's left ear – her cybernetic dreadlock was picking up a transmission.
"So in other words, you have no choice but to return to the Twilight Cage." Shade's voice stated coldly.
Julie-Su scowled as Lara-Le swung the rock again. "We'll figure something out!" She hissed.
Lara-Le blinked, leaning back a little. "Dear?" She asked. She was naturally confused by Julie-Su's sudden outburst, given that only Julie-Su could hear Shade's broadcast.
Julie-Su opened her mouth to explain –
flicker
– but instead let out a grunt of suppressed surprise and extreme discomfort as her body became fuzzy and transparent for a long, protracted moment.
"What was that?!" Lara-Le gasped.
"Your destabilisation process has already begun." Shade observed. "The longer you spend in normal time, the closer you'll come to the maw of oblivion."
Julie-Su grunted, staring out at the void of the Special Zone. "It's nothing." She answered Lara-Le's question. "Don't worry about it."
"That very much was not nothing, dear!"
Shade's cold voice continued speaking. "My Warp Belt projects a bubble of Twilight Cage around me, so I'll last considerably longer than you will. If you open a portal back into the Cage, I can guarantee your safety. Stay here, and all you'll accomplish is a long, painful –"
Julie-Su missed the end of that sentence, because she violently slammed her shoulder upwards, squashing her metallic dreadlock between it and her head and forcibly pressing the 'end call' button.
"Sorry about that." Julie-Su apologised to Lara-Le with a grimace. "Looks like Shade still wants us to return to the Twilight Zone."
"Cage!" Alucion corrected snobbishly.
Julie-Su shut her eyes and grit her teeth, trying to let her frustration go.
"Oh." Lara-Le sounded rather uncertain. "She's still nearby, then?"
"Given her highness over there is her best bet at getting back into the Twilight, I'd take that bet." Julie-Su said, with just the slightest hint of scorn on 'highness'. "I'm guessing that fancy belt of hers isn't set up for inter-Zone transport – or at least not from the Special Zone."
Lara-Le nervously looked around her. "You mean… she could be right here, watching us, invisible?"
Julie-Su took a moment to think about how to word her answer in the most reassuring way. "My implant can detect when she gets close." She said with forced cheer.
Lara-Le wasn't buying it. "How close?"
"Close enough." Julie-Su lied, biting back the honest answer of 'too close for comfort'.
Even though she was facing away from Lara-Le, Julie-Su could feel the pained wince Lara-Le gave.
Kneecaps let out a gurgle from his position by Alucion's feet, causing said princess to pick him up and look at him dubiously. "What's it want now?"
"My son," Lara-Le said, somewhat testily "is probably bored. Try bouncing him up and down."
Alucion gave Kneecaps a dubious look, then roughly shook him several times.
Kneecaps gurgled angrily, and with his pudgy little hands he grabbed onto Alucion's arm and shook her right back.
Boing boing boing boing boing boing boing
Alucion's body bounced up and down so rapidly that the only feature of hers that could be made out was her wide open eyes, blurred into striped lines of panic.
Kneecaps gurgled with happiness and released Alucion, who stumbled away with her hands trying to hold her head steady; her eyes spinning with dizziness.
"Wait," Lara-Le said, not paying attention to the shenanigans behind her "if she's here, why not just attack us? If she took one of us hostage, she could force us to go back."
Julie-Su grunted as the rock was swung down again. "I wouldn't buy it. She doesn't want to hurt us. Not really."
Lara-Le made a confused noise. "You seem rather confident in the personality of a woman you've only just met."
Julie-Su didn't respond for a moment, thinking back to what she'd seen in Shade's eyes.
"Lara-Le?"
"Yes, dear?"
Julie-Su grimaced. "The Dark Legion curriculum… didn't exactly cover the soultouch."
"The what?" Alucion asked dizzily.
"I didn't even know it existed until I experienced it with Knuckles." Julie-Su continued, ignoring Alucion. "Has it… ever been wrong?"
Lara-Le didn't respond immediately, instead swinging down the rock again.
"If you're asking about what happened between Locke and I –" She eventually said.
Julie-Su's eyes went wide. "Um, no, actually I meant –"
"– the answer to your question is 'No it isn't… at the time'." Lara-Le finished. "That last bit of nuance often escapes young lovebirds."
Julie-Su blushed. "I…" Dangit, now I am curious.
"I know this will be hard to believe, Julie, but Locke and I really did love each other once." Lara-Le sighed. "The soultouch didn't lie – our souls fit together perfectly. We were very happy."
Julie-Su turned her head enough that she could start to see Lara-Le in her peripheral vision. "What changed?" She asked, her curiosity getting the better of her despite the situation.
"We did." Lara-Le answered simply. "Both of us. People change, Julie, and their souls change with them. I became more confident, more assertive. Locke started spending more time with the other guardians, and less with me. He became more controlling, listening to me less and less. Things we used to agree on without fuss suddenly became dreadful arguments. What he did to Knuckles, to our baby boy…!" Lara-Le took a deep breath. "…well, that was the last straw."
Lara-Le swung the rock down again, and if Julie-Su wasn't mistaken, considerably harder than she had before. "The soultouch is a head start, dear, but it isn't the end of the journey." The older echidna advised. "Real, genuine love takes effort. And if either person doesn't put in that effort…" she trailed off, swinging the rock down again.
This time, the sound of rock-on-metal was accompanied by a cracking noise, and Julie-Su pulled her hands forward – finding to her delight that the chain binding her cuffs together hand been broken.
"Yes!" She cheered, and started to stand up. "Now, let's look for a way out of here."
"Alright…" Lara-Le followed Julie-Su to her feet, turning to pick up Kneecaps. "I'd still like to know why you think Shade won't attack us, though."
"Well," Julie-Su answered, scanning the various abstract shapes floating around them "it's been less than an hour, so I doubt she could have become that different from me so quickly."
"Huh?" Lara-Le blinked, totally lost.
Alucion stumbled to her feet, brushing herself off. "It sounds to me like somebody's fed you two a great big helping of baloney." She grumbled.
Sudden movement in the corner of her eye made Julie-Su spin around, just in time to catch a white blur dash down from above and snatch Alucion's crown right off her head.
"Hey!" Alucion screeched, jumping up after the thief who hovered just out of reach. "That's my crown! Give it back!"
The uniform lighting of the Special Zone seemed to somehow glint off of the Chaos Emerald embedded in the crown as the white-furred bat woman rubbed it against her face. "Aw, but isn't that how this works? Come to the Special Zone, get a Chaos Emerald?"
Julie-Su growled, her hands clenched into fists, and Lara-Le hurriedly moved out of her way.
The bat looked down smugly at the three echidna women and baby. "Knuckles is going to be so surprised, you know. He's absolutely convinced that you were all dead. Have you really just been hanging out in the Special Zone all this time?"
Julie-Su spat on the ground next to her. "Why do you care," she snarled "Rouge?"
Rouge the Bat tilted her head to the side, curiously. "Hmm? That's interesting…"
"What is?" Julie-Su grit her teeth, wishing she still had her blaster.
"How do you know my name?" Rouge asked, her tone for once completely serious.
Julie-Su's whirling thoughts ground to a screeching halt. "How do I… what?"
"Gimme back my crown!"
Rouge let out a little shriek as Alucion unexpectedly bounced up far higher than she had been expecting, landing on her back and furiously grabbing hold. With her wings held down by Alucion's wrestling, Rouge's flight quickly destabilised and the pair fell screaming out of the air.
Julie-Su blinked in surprise, then dashed over to the other side of the sphere where the pair had fallen.
The two didn't seem at all phased by their collision with the ground – the pair were wrestling with each other, each trying to wrench the crown out of the other's grip. Julie-Su reached the both of them, then grabbed onto the crown and shoved Rouge away with all the force her metal arm could generate.
"What do you mean, how do I know your name?!" She scowled down at Rouge, who casually did a back-flip to move out of Julie-Su's reach. "You're acting like this is the first time we've met!"
Rouge tilted her head, her mouth assuming her usual grin. "Sorry, hon." She flashed a smug smile. "You must have me confused with some other bat. Knuckles always insisted that he was the last echidna, and what kind of lady would I be if I didn't take his word for it?"
"You're the furthest thing from a lady." Julie-Su shot back automatically, but inside her thoughts were whirling. Had Rouge lost her memories? …no, what was she saying, Knuckles had met her long before he met Rouge, he would never have told Rouge he was the last echidna. Or was this not the Rouge she knew, like how Scourge was an alternate version of Sonic? But even then, wouldn't an alternate Rouge know the alternate version of her?
Rouge's outline flickered like static in a transmission, clearing up as fast as it came. The overly smug bat woman shrugged, not outwardly reacting to her own temporary insubstantial state. Bizarrely, her white bodysuit with its stupid love-heart chest-plate had been mysteriously replaced by a purple bodysuit with no chest-plate. "You don't hold back your words at all, do you? You're definitely Knuckles's people alright. I bet Pachacamac would be really proud."
Julie-Su blinked, thrown for a loop by Rouge's words and sudden appearance change both. Pachacamac… Pachacamac…? Was that a name she knew? She felt like somebody might have mentioned it to her in passing, but she couldn't really remember…
"To Tartarus with what Pachacamac would have thought!" Alucion fumed, snatching her crown from Julie-Su's grip, pressing it onto her head and then standing up with her hands angrily resting on her hips. "That war-hungry moron nearly got my whole clan wiped out with his stupidity!"
Huffing and puffing, Lara-Le caught up to the others, Kneecaps held tightly in her arms.
"Hmm…" Rouge mused, looking between Alucion and Julie-Su. She rested her still-smirking face on one hand and the corresponding elbow on a knee, leaning back like she was sitting on an invisible chair; held aloft by her gently flapping wings. "Well, at least one of you knows the basics…"
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Julie-Su demanded. She took a step forwards, fully ready to shake the truth out of Rouge, when to her surprise Lara-Le took one arm off of Kneecaps to block her way.
"Not -huff- now, Julie-Su." Lara-Le panted, still having not caught her breath.
"Julie-Su, is it?" Rouge noted. "What a very… peculiar name for an echidna."
"I have a perfectly normal name, you –!" Julie-Su growled.
"I'm Lara-Le." Lara-Le interrupted forcefully. "This is Kneecaps."
Kneecaps gurgled happily at his name.
"Princess Alucion!" Huffed Alucion, tapping a foot impatiently.
"Rouge the Bat." Rouge finished, letting herself drop back down on the ground. "A Chaos Emerald as the jewel of your crown? Hmm. I commend you on your good taste, at least."
"She means she's going to steal it the second you so much as blink." Julie-Su spat to Alucion.
"I had figured as much myself!" Alucion scowled back at Julie-Su, seemingly annoyed at the implication that she would have missed that implication.
"Rouge, do you know how to get out of here?" Lara-Le pressed.
"Out of the Special Zone?" Rouge shrugged. "Don't you just need to fail the challenges to do that?"
"No, that just sends you back where you were!" Alucion stamped a foot, annoyed. "And besides, the challenges are all used up!"
"I say we leave her behind." Julie-Su scowled.
Rouge put a finger to her chin, seemingly still pondering Lara-Le's question. She didn't look the least bit concerned with Julie-Su's simmering anger. "Well… I did see a bee hive not too far from here. Maybe they know how to get out of –" her body's outline briefly glitched again, restoring her black bodysuit and chest-plate "– wherever we are."
Lara-Le sighed. "Well, we don't have any better ideas. Do we, dear?"
Julie-Su fumed, but didn't say anything.
"Does she not realise her clothes are changing?" Alucion asked Julie-Su.
Rouge's smirk returned full force. "Well then… grab on!" She held out both of her hands, her wings stretching out behind her.
Julie-Su ignored her, walking up to Alucion instead. "You think you can take me?" She asked.
Alucion grinned, taking Julie-Su's hand. "Ha! Before that hedgehog got in here, who do you think held the high score on all the challenges?!"
"Thank you, dear." Lara-Le said quietly, holding a gurgling Kneecaps tightly with one arm and reaching out to take Rouge's offered hand in the other.
Rouge raised an eyebrow at Julie-Su. "Is anyone ever going to tell me what I did to get pinky over there so mad at me?"
"She's Knuckles's girlfriend." Lara-Le explained in a short, clipped tone.
Rouge stared at Lara-Le for a moment, before bending over at the waist and cracking up laughing.
"Hey!" Julie-Su shouted, insulted. "Why's that funny, huh?!"
"He he he he! His… his girlfriend?" Rouge chortled. "That numbskull doesn't have a romantic bone in his body! W-what? Does he bring the Master Emerald on dates with you?"
Julie-Su's jaw worked furiously side-to-side, but no words came out of her mouth.
A mischievous sparkle entered Rouge's eyes. "You have been on dates… right?"
"W-we've been dancing!" At his birthday party… "We've kissed!"
Rouge tsk'd. "I knew he was bad at romance, but I didn't think he was that bad…"
"I'm getting rather tired of being the only adult here, so can we please just go already?" Lara-Le asked in a tired tone of voice.
Rouge continued to cackle, even as her wings flapped and she lifted Lara-Le and Kneecaps up off the surface of the grey sphere and into the empty space between the challenges of the Special Zone.
Alucion balanced on one leg, twisting her waist around in a way that looked like it should have been quite painful. "The Whoop-de-Dooper-Loop-de-Looper-Alley-Ooper bounce." She muttered to herself, winding up. "The more you try, the more you fly, and that's what really counts!"
Suddenly uncurling like a giant spring with the force of her sudden shout, Alucion leap up after Rouge, startling a yelp out of Julie-Su as she was pulled along.
Leaving the grey sphere seemingly empty of people.
…
A muffled curse was heard emanating from nowhere, and a muted flash of light heralded the last echidna on the sphere leaving as well.
Rouge flew casually between the slides, spheres and bombs, paying no attention to the fields of gravity some of the challenges put out. Lara-Le, dangling from her grip, had her eyes shut tight and was letting out a squeal of fear as she swung from side to side.
Kneecaps let out little giggles of laughter, thoroughly enjoying himself with both hands high in the air and drool smearing itself all over his face.
Julie-Su on the other hand was regretting her decision to go with Alucion. Lacking the power of flight, Alucion was forced to bounce off of every slide, sphere, and floating rock on the way in order to keep up her momentum. Julie-Su could feel bile rising in the back of her throat, but it was being held back by –
Boing
Thwack
"Ow!" Julie-Su yelped. Alucion had bounced off a rock, and she had swung around and been unintentionally bashed into that same rock. "Watch it!"
"Huh…" Alucion rubbed her chin, looking pensive. "Maybe this is why people don't usually ask me for rides?"
Boing
Boing
Thwack
Boing
"Gah! Just – ow – watch where – ow – you're going!" Julie-Su cried, trying to shield her face with her metal arm.
"Oh, toughen up!" Alucion dismissed haughtily, nose in the air. "You're an echidna, aren't you?! Show some pride!"
Julie-Su had had more than enough of people telling her to be proud of being an echidna back in the Dark Legion. After everything she'd seen of her people – both there and in Echidnaopolis – it didn't feel at all like something to be proud of. "Not all of – ow – us are made of – ow – rubber, you know!"
Boing
Boing
"We're here!" Rouge called.
Suddenly Julie-Su had the breath knocked out of her as she was swung into a thin spire of rock, Alucion swinging around and landing on the other side of the spire, balancing on the tips of her feet like a ballerina.
"Perfect landing!" Alucion smirked, posing with her hands above her head.
Julie-Su couldn't contest this, mostly because she was too busy trying desperately to gulp down precious air.
Rouge landed with considerably more care, slowing her flight down to a gentle hover and then carefully dropping Lara-Le and Kneecaps down on the spire.
"One bee hive, as promised!" Rouge called, her feet daintily making contact with the 'ground'. She pointed off along the spire, where it joined with several others to form something like a rock formation one might see in a tableland, except this one was floating in space. Crowds of worker bees in hard-hats were busily flying out of openings in wider, shorter spires closer to the centre of the structure.
Julie-Su stared. "Wow… you really wasn't lying. What's a bee hive doing in the Special Zone?"
When she didn't immediately hear a response, Julie-Su glanced over at Alucion. The self-proclaimed 'princess' was staring at something behind Julie-Su, mouth open wide enough to catch flies.
Julie-Su glanced behind herself, not seeing anything. "What?"
Alucion blinked, all bravado gone. "Did… did you see the giant panda ghost?"
…
…
"The what?" Julie-Su's mouth fell open as her face assumed an expression of disgusted befuddlement, one eyelid half-closed.
"The giant panda ghost!" Alucion pointed behind Julie-Su. "He was right there, screaming like he was trying to lift something heavy, and he was doing that fuzzy thing you did, and then…!"
Julie-Su stared at Alucion.
She glanced behind herself, seeing nothing but the shifting colours of the void around them.
She stared at Alucion again.
"I think we'd better get inside." She eventually managed, patting Alucion on the shoulder as she started climbing down the spire.
"Did nobody else see that?!" Alucion demanded.
Some kind of flying rectangular contraption, fire belching from its underbelly, soared over their heads. "Quickly!" A man's voice called excitedly. "The beast is expending all its strength in its attempts to persist itself! If we catch it, we can claim its remaining energy as our own!"
"Yes, Lord Sidewinder!" Cried a series of other voices in rough unison.
Alucion watched the transport fly away in the direction she had seen the panda in, then clutched her spines with her hands and pulled hard.
"What kinds of weird miscreants have been moving into the Special Zone?!" She cried in frustration, stamping her feet.
"Hey, 'princess', are you coming or what?" Rouge called flippantly from below.
Alucion grumbled something, pouting, but jumped down to rejoin the group.
As the group climbed down towards the nearest entrance, six pairs of eyes tracked them as they went.
As they approached the entrance, they were naturally spotted. "Oi!" Called out a worker bee, carrying a wheelbarrow full of some kind of rock through the air. "Who are you lot?! You can't just waltz in here! This is a hard-hat only area, can't you read the blasted signs?!"
The annoyed bee pointed to a health and safety board pegged up on the side of the tunnel, which along with mandating protective wear also required visitors to stay behind the yellow line.
"What's this commotion?" A soldier bee flew in from further down the tunnel, before giving a start at the assorted strangers in the opening to his hive.
"Sorry to intrude," Lara-Le began, "but I'm afraid that –"
"Oh, it's you lot!" The soldier suddenly slouched down, leaning on the large spear then were carrying as they settled onto the ground. "Come on then. The princess is expecting you!"
"Oh, my my." Rouge tittered. "You certainly keep some high company, Julie. You're friends with an echidna princess and a bee princess?"
"No!" Julie-Su denied, grinding her teeth at Rouge's faux-sweet nickname, before suddenly blinking. "Wait… unless they mean –!"
"Oi!" The same worker bee from before yelled again, at the soldier bee this time. "Are you blind as well, mate?! Behind the line, unless you've got qualifications!"
The soldier bee glanced at the worker, then at the line a little to the left of where their feet had come to rest on the tunnel floor. They rolled their eyes. "This is not the time for such trivialities!"
The worker bee had a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes now. "Should I tell me union rep that 'er majesty's soldiers have no regards for health 'n safety regulations, then?"
"Err…" The soldier bee floundered, before quickly stepping over the yellow line and clearing their throat. They tried to behave as though nothing had happened, but they were betrayed by their flushed cheeks and the cackling worker bee behind them. "Regardless! Onwards!"
Julie-Su folded her arms and raised an eyebrow at Lara-Le, who could only wince and gesture somewhat sheepishly to follow the soldier bee. Rouge didn't seem to have an opinion on the idea, busy looking curiously at what the worker bees were doing, and Alucion was already strutting off in her slightly arrogant way, nose high in the air.
As they walked through the rocky tunnels of the bee hive, they passed many hard-hatted worker bees busy feeding various kinds of rocks into crushers and smelters and other bits of industrial machinery. Despite the powerful extraction fans in the ceiling there was a strong smell of chemicals in the air, and the lights overhead were somewhat overpowered by the glow of molten rock as it was transported between machines.
Despite herself, Julie-Su stared as they walked past. "What are they…?"
"Gold."
"Excuse me?" Julie-Su whirled around at Rouge, who just smiled and rapped the back of her hand on the wall.
"These walls." Rouge pointed out, her easy smile taking on a keenly interested edge. "They're inlaid with gold."
Julie-Su blinked, then looked properly at the walls around them. True enough, there were long patterns of shining gold set into the walls. Just how rich was the queen bee of this hive?!
"You better not be thinking of stealing this!" Julie-Su hissed to Rouge, glancing at the soldier bee to make sure he wasn't listening.
Rouge gave a faux-offended huff, holding a hand in front of her chest. "Moi? My dear, I'm a beautiful, shining thief; who only steals beautiful, shining things!" She quietly bragged back to Julie-Su.
Julie-Su gave Rouge an unimpressed look. "Like gold."
"Like easily portable gold." Rouge corrected but did not deny. "Preferably, with jewels in it."
Julie-Su grunted – once with exasperation, then again with pain as another glitching fit overcame her. Even as she winced, she saw around her that Lara-Le, Alucion, and Rouge were all bent over, glitching with her… but none of the bees were?
"Julie!"
A new voice greeted Julie-Su just as the glitching fit ended, and a blond-headed bee tackled Julie-Su in the chest, arms clamping on in a bone-crushing hug.
"What are you doing here," Julie-Su choked out "Saffron?"
"Ah," rumbled yet another new voice, "so these are your friends, Saffron?"
The queen bee of this hive was a female bee wearing a large crown with a massive inlaid gemstone. It seemed to be as much mask as crown, because it covered the top half of her face. She also seemed to be very pregnant, with her large belly covered by long, flowing robes that draped down past her toes. If it wasn't for the fact that she was seated on a throne, Julie-Su imagined she would constantly be tripping over her own clothes.
(Saffron, in contrast, was wearing the same bomber jacket and pink dress that Julie-Su had last seen her in.)
The queen bee cast a judging eye over the echidnas (and bat) assembled before her, her gaze settling on Julie-Su.
"Why is that one not wearing pants?" She demanded.
Julie-Su blinked at the unexpected question. "Eh?"
"Actually, yes, I have been meaning to ask." Alucion turned and frowned at Julie-Su, arms folded. "Why aren't you wearing pants?"
"What's wrong with me not wearing pants?!" Julie-Su burst out indignantly.
Rouge bent over at the waist with laughter, which did absolutely nothing to help Julie-Su's rising blood pressure.
With a huff, Alucion turned back to the queen bee. "Ignore her." She said, waving a hand dismissively at Julie-Su. "My apologies, I haven't had time to bring her quite in line yet. Alucion, princess of the Knuckles Tribe."
Julie-Su, a vein throbbing in her forehead, pulled up one sleeve and got as far as stepping in Alucion's direction before Lara-Le managed to grab the back of her shirt and pull her back.
"How did you get here?!" Saffron demanded in a whisper, dragging Julie-Su's attention back to the unexpected presence of her friend.
"Warp Ring." Julie-Su responded in another whisper, catching on that Saffron wanted to discuss something while the queen was distracted by Alucion's royal greetings, or… whatever it was that she was yammering on about. "But we can't leave that way – long story. What are you doing here?! I thought Thrash banished us to the same place!"
Saffron wasn't an echidna, but she and Julie-Su had been guarding the Master Emerald together while Knuckles was away, so Thrash had attacked them together and banished them both despite having no real beef with Saffron.
"I thought so too!" Saffron whispered, her eyes wet. "But then I couldn't find you anywhere, and I ran into some of the worker bees of this hive, and, well…!"
"Okay," Julie-Su accepted for now, not really knowing how Warp Rings worked either "but why are they calling you princess?"
Saffron winced. "Well, um… well, Charmy came up in conversation, and I mentioned that he… that I…"
Right… marrying a prince made you a princess, right? …well, Saffron wasn't actually married to Charmy yet, but they had been engaged at one point, and Julie-Su was pretty sure they still were… did that count? Royal inheritance rules weren't exactly included in a Dark Legion education, but that sounded about right to Julie-Su. "Okay…?"
"No, it's not okay!" Saffron hissed, quietly. "Julie… the queen bee thinks that she's Charmy's mom!"
"Uh…" Julie-Su blinked, not sure at all on how to respond to that.
"Princess Saffron!" The queen bee suddenly barked. "What are you talking about over there?"
Saffron shot up, nervously hovering up and a bit back from Julie-Su. "Just catching up, m-mother!" She stuttered. Julie-Su couldn't help but notice the way the word 'mother' seemed to get stuck in Saffron's throat on the way out.
The queen bee gave Saffron a suspicious look, but turned to face the echidnas with a stern look. "So. You want to know how to get back to Mobius?"
"Yes please!" Lara-Le nodded frantically.
"'Mobius'? Just what kind of place is that, hmm?" Rouge asked Julie-Su with an arched eyebrow, which didn't at all help with Julie-Su's confusion.
The queen bee scowled. "Well unfortunately for you, I can't help with that." She said, seemingly ignoring Rouge's comment. "This hive is firmly entrenched in the Special Zone, and we have no need to ever leave. If you want to get back to Mobius, you would be better off seeking the assistance of the Chaotix."
Julie-Su's thoughts came to a complete, screeching halt. "What?!" She cried, eliciting a hissed "Julie!" of warning from Lara-Le.
But the queen bee didn't seem to take offence, if anything agreeing with Julie-Su's surprise. "Yes, I'm very reluctant to recommend the group, but Charmy always insisted that they were far more capable than they appeared… and they did have the Omni-Viewer with them, the last time I heard."
Julie-Su was an active member of the Chaotix (as was Saffron), and had no earthly idea what this queen bee was talking about. If Vector had been hiding some kind of not-Warp-Ring from her, she and he were going to have the mother of all shouting matches when she got back.
There was a loud crash crash from the hallway behind them, and shouting voices suddenly started echoing into the throne room.
"My queen!" Shouted a breathless soldier bee, charging suddenly into the room. "We're under attack! The hive is being invaded!"
Julie-Su whirled around, reaching for a proton gun that wasn't there. Behind her, the queen bee growled with frustration. "Again?! Is this going to happen every time I entertain guests?! Let me guess – Vesper again?"
"No, your highness!" The soldier bee shook his head frantically, running to a mechanism by the door and hurriedly activating it, causing thick steel doors to slam shut over the opening. "The invaders – ack!"
Another crash sounded out – loud enough to be heard through the sealed door – and shook the floor hard enough that the soldier bee lost their balance.
The queen bee glanced at Saffron, which was hovering anxiously above Julie-Su's shoulder. "Hmph! You can stop fretting, my dear. We had those doors installed after the last wasp attack. We were assured they were unbreachable!"
Another crash shook the floor, louder and harder than the one before it.
Then came another one.
And another.
The queen bee frowned. "And we will be very cross if we must ask for our money back!"
With an enormous thung, a dent the size of Julie-Su's chest appeared in the centre of the doorway, where the two halves met. Claws burst through the seam, gripping onto the door halves and wrenching them apart. The force of the movement shattered the mechanism holding the doors shut and sending the soldier bee operating them flying into the wall.
Lara-Lee moved back towards the throne, behind the line being formed by Julie-Su, Rouge and Alucion. Saffron continued to hover, waiting with dread to see what fresh disaster awaited them.
Into the throne room walked… just six. Julie-Su had grown up in the Twilight Zone, and was used to weird and alien creatures like the rocky Kron, crystaline Zoah, slug-like N'rrgal and the manta-like Voxai. Mostly because those four races tended to attack her on sight, neither knowing nor caring that she wasn't really a member of the Nocturnus Clan that they hated so much.
These six, while still alien, were at least vaguely of the same body type as most residents of Mobius. Black from the waist down, assorted bright colours from the waist up. Prominent striped horns on each of the figures and sharp claws on each of their fingertips. The only clothing each one was wearing were spiked bracelets around each of their wrists (wait, unless that was a robe the old one was wearing?). Each varied greatly in size and build, with the smallest figure about the size of the largest figure's head.
The pink figure strode into the room ahead of the rest of the group, a struggling soldier bee still held fast in his grip. "He he he he!" The figure cackled. "What a joke! This place was easier to crack than those eggs Zomom had for lunch!"
"Eggs?" The yellowish figure (apparently Zomom) said, dumbly, his eyes alight. "Where?"
The pink figure facepalmed. "Not here, stupid, you already ate them!"
"Oh." Zomom said, sounding profoundly disappointed. He looked down at the figure struggling in the pink figure's grip, pointed, and said "You gonna eat that, Zazz?"
The soldier bee went pale; and very, very still.
"For her majesty!" Another soldier bee swooped down from above, a spear thrust out as though to impale Zomom. Without looking, Zomom swung a fist back and punched the soldier bee so hard he flew right back out of the room he'd just charged into with a sickening crunch noise that, at best, meant a broken nose.
"Ugh, what a joke." The green – and seemingly only female – figure scoffed with disgust. "This is supposed to be a throne room? I, like, had better decorations that I threw in the trash."
"What is this?!" The queen bee demanded angrily. "Who and what are you?!"
Julie-Su thought that they would to wait for the figures to speak for that question to be answered, when out of the corner of her eye she saw Rouge shiver a little as another glitching fit ran though her. It quickly passed, and Rouge suddenly straightened up, the purple bodysuit back, her eyes lighting up with sudden recognition.
"Well, well, well." She said, purring in a way that Julie-Su knew was supposed to come off as mocking. "And here I hoped we'd be free of you guys after that mess you made with the Metal Virus. What are you doing in the Special Zone, Zavok?"
The largest of the six – Zavok, apparently – squinted down at Rouge. "Who are you, and how do you know my name?" He demanded.
A couple of the others in his group gave Zavok odd looks, but ultimately didn't say anything.
Rouge blinked, tilting her head to one side. "Whoa." She said, seemingly to nobody in particular. "Talk about deja vu."
Zavok glanced at the other members of his race(?), and without a word they started to spread throughout the room, forming a semi-circle that blocked any chance they had of rushing towards the exit.
"I will peel my answers from you later, bat. Layer by layer." Zavok rumbled threateningly. "For now, just know that this hive now belongs to the Deadly Six."
'Deadly Six'? And here Julie-Su had thought she'd never again hear a group name as stupid as 'Fearsome Foursome'.
"Do not worry," Zavok's eyes flashed with malice "your suffering will be short-lived."
Julie-Su grit her teeth, wishing for the millionth time that day that she still had her proton gun. Lara-Le and Saffron were both shrinking back behind the others, and Alucion looked like she was building up a head full of steam, already rolling one shoulder.
Rouge, in comparison, seemed perfectly relaxed. "Oh, how very generous of you." She shrugged. "Still, I have places to be, gems to steal, you know how busy a girl's schedule can be."
"Ugh, tell me about it." Came an odd moment of agreement from the female member of the Deadly Six, eliciting a very annoyed look from Zavok.
Rouge smirked. "Six Zeti at once is a bit much, even for me… how about we split this up?"
"No." Zavok rumbled, looming large over Rouge.
Rouge's outline flickered, putting back her stupid love-heart chest-piece. "Wasn't asking you, dear." She smiled.
A sound not unlike that of a train whistle erupted out of Alucion as she shot forwards like a bullet, bodily barrelling into Zomom with enough force to send both of them tumbling head over heels out of the wrecked doorway.
Zavok turned, just for a second, to glace back at the door, and Rouge took her chance. "Screw Kick!" She cried, lunging forwards into a spinning jump kick that made her outstretched boot tip look like the tip of a drill. But Zavok wasn't her target – it was the smaller female Zeti next to him. The force was enough to send the female Zeti staggering back, and Rouge used the opening to open her wings wide and dash out the opened doors after Alucion.
Julie-Su suddenly saw the plan. It was a stupid plan, and she hated it, but she didn't have any better ideas. "This way, you idiots!" She charged forwards, swinging her cybernetic arm back and then landing the strongest haymaker she could manage directly into the face of the blue-haired, white-bodied Zeti. The force of her blow sent the smaller Zeti rocketing backwards into the wall of the throne room where his head crashed so hard it cracked the stonework.
Julie-Su didn't have a chance to make sure he was down – she was already sprinting forwards towards the opening in the door, screaming at the remaining Zeti in an attempt to provoke them into following – but she thought she heard the Zeti she hit moan as he slumped forwards.
And not with pain either, the freak.
But even as she ran down the hallway as fast as she could manage, her blood roaring in her ears, she could hear Zavok roar: "Get them!"
Julie-Su saw Alucion wrestling with Zomom, but she couldn't afford to stop running. The sounds of the lanky pink Zeti scuttering after her on all fours weren't getting any further away.
"Hey hey hey!" Zazz laughed. "Weren't you the one who started this fight? Why are you running?!"
Julie-Su thought that the sight of dozens of downed soldier bees lying scattered on the ground was a pretty good answer to that!
Spotting a narrower side-passage, Julie-Su skidded to a halt and dived, hearing the sounds of claws tearing through the air where she had just been.
Julie-Su risked a glance behind her while Zazz was turning around. This passage was a dead end – so there'd be nobody sneaking up on her from behind. Good.
"Hah hah hah hah!" Zazz cackled, straightening up as he strutted into the side-passage. "You finally stopped running! Ready to get messed up, then?! Heh, I wonder if Zavok will let me keep your pelt – y'know, as a memento!"
"Shut up!" Julie-Su hissed.
Zazz halted in his advance, his face puzzled. His tongue dangled stupidly from his mouth.
"I have no idea who you are." Julie-Su growled, clenching her metal fist. "And I don't care. I'm not some minor speed-bump for you to step over!"
Julie-Su thumped her chest. "I've got people waiting for me back home! I'm not going to let some arrogant punk beat me here!"
She stepped forwards, swinging her metal fist back in perpetration for another blow…
And then suddenly she was seeing stars. Stumbling backwards, trying to retain her balance.
"Funny." Zazz said, rubbing his chin. He glitched, but didn't seem to notice. "Other than that mushy bit about people waiting, I was about to say all of that to you."
Julie-Su looked down. There was blood on her glove.
Her left glove. The one that covered her cybernetic knuckles.
Which were already swinging back, ready to punch her in the face a second time.
Alucion wriggled and writhed, but she was stuck fast in Zomom's grip – both of her hands held fast in one of his, and her feet in his other hand.
"Huh huh huh." The dullard chuckled, pulling his arms apart and delighting in how Alucion's body stretched out. "You're like taffy!"
The contortions on Alucion's feet, however, caused their shape to change, and Zomom to lose his grip. The unleashed tension caused her feet to snap back up into their normal position, kicking Zomom's face in the process with a sharp crack.
"Oww!" Zomom cried, letting go of Alucion to rub at the struck part of his face. "Taffy isn't supposed to hurt!"
The tribal princess didn't respond, instead screaming a wordless battlecry as she jumped up onto his shoulders and started beating on his thick skull with her comparatively tiny fists.
"Ow!" Zomom repeated, his big meaty fists waving above his head in an attempt to dislodge his unwanted passenger. "Quit that!"
Zomom stumbled around, half blind, then tripped over his own feet and clumsily fell backwards with a great big oof!
Zazz rubbed his chin. "What is it that they say these days?"
thwack
"Oh yeah." Zazz cackled, his jaw open wide enough to swallow a grapefruit whole. "Stop hitting yourself."
thwack
"Stop hitting yourself!"
thwack
"Stop hitting yourself!"
"Arg!" Desperately, Julie-Su grabbed her metal left arm with her organic right one. Hydraulics and muscle strained against each other, adrenaline surging, but the inevitable outcome was made obvious as her grasping cybernetic fingers came closer and closer to her face…
Unexpectedly, her cybernetic dreadlock unfolded into a satellite dish.
Zazz continued to laugh, clearly enjoying Julie-Su's suffering. "Oh, man, this is great! You're beating yourself up – and not emotionally, either! Ha ha ha ha!"
With a snap, Julie-Su's hijacked fingers suddenly slammed shut just in front of her nose.
"Too bad I got other guys I gotta go smash, this has been really fun!" Zazz made finger-guns, pointing both at Julie-Su. "See ya around, pinkie!"
Then he paused, looking very confused.
And looked down, to see the pink energy blade sticking out of his chest.
"Hey," he whined, colour quickly draining from his face "that's no fair. I didn't even get a chance to fight back…"
So saying, the hypocrite fell forwards bonelessly, revealing Shade to be standing directly behind him, the last traces of her cloaking field quickly fading.
"It appears," Shade said, as though she was commenting on the weather "that these Zeti can control electronic devices." She glanced at Julie-Su. "Combat cybernetics are a poor weapon to face them with."
With a quick motion of her arm, the intangible Leech Blade retracted back into her arm, and she stepped over Zazz's body – which lay unconscious on the floor, his energy drained by the Leech Blade.
"They aren't for combat." Julie-Su rebutted, staring suspiciously at her left arm. With her right, she grabbed her face and – crunch – realigned her broken nose. "Argh!"
Shade raised an eyebrow. "Really? The arm I can understand, but I can't think of any reason to get a prosthetic dreadlock."
Truthfully, Julie-Su had no idea why she had cybernetics either. She didn't even know if she'd even consented to have them put in – her evil half-sister, Lien-Da, had erased all of her childhood memories.
Twice.
Her guess was that it was probably some kind of political statement – a rejection of Echidnaopolis's proposed ban on advanced technology. "You can't take our tech if we are our tech!"… or something like that. Having actually useful cybernetics was, she suspected, of secondary concern at best.
Of course, Echidnaopolis had never actually banned tech, making the driving cause of the terrorist movement that had dictated most of her life entirely pointless…
"Get up." Shade ordered sharply, grabbing Julie-Su roughly by her shoulder and hauling her to her feet. "I will rescue those Knuckles Clan friends of yours, and we will return to the Twilight Zone at once."
"No!" Julie-Su made to break out of Shade's grip, but a bad glitching fit came over her and caused her to instead clutch her own middle in pain. Her bruised face throbbed along as her outline wavered dangerously towards transparency…
"You are in no position to resist." Shade told her coldly. "I told you already. Stay here and all you will get for your struggles is a one-way ticket to oblivion. The Twilight Cage is the only way you'll survive."
"You don't know that." Julie-Su gasped, trying to steady herself. "You can't know that. And I'm not about to subject myself to the 'mercy' of a monster like Ix!"
Shade's eye twitched. "Monster?! Imperator Ix wishes only for the Nocturnus Clan to return from the home we were unjustly banished from – once it is safe to do so, of course."
Julie-Su stared at Shade. Was… was I ever this bad?! Her thoughts spun in disarray. If so, I might actually owe Vector an apology for once!
Did Shade really not understand what the Nocturnus Clan had done to the other races in the Twilight Zone?! Or had she just rationalised that away as 'necessary for survival'?!
"Is this conversation only for you girls, or can anybody join in?"
With a startled curse and a flash of light, Shade vanished. With a feeling a dread in her stomach, Julie-Su grabbed her metal arm with her other hand and held it tight.
The old man of the Zeti was approaching with menace.
Hmm. So pinkie had understood the plan after all. Already, she was doing better than Knuckles would have. That idiot's ability to understand subtlety was about on par with his ability to have fun – it just wasn't there.
This green lady – what was her name again? She would have sworn she knew it just a moment ago – seemed to take her Screw Kick personally. "Get back here!" She shouted. "I'm totally, like, gonna get you for messing up my hair!"
"My condolences for your hair, dear!" Rouge called back. It was difficult to tell if she was joking or not.
The pair had quickly swerved away from the main corridor leading to the throne room, and back to the furnaces and smelters Rouge and the others had passed on the way in. With her wings stretched wide, Rouge was spinning and swerving between pots of molten rock and metal as she flew. Down below, her Zeti opponent was forced to run and jump over the scattered machinery to chase after her. With cries of panic, worker bees fled from the room, their wings all buzzing in unison.
Abruptly, Rouge swooped down. "Screw K–!"
The lime-green Zeti girl was ready for her, however, and quickly extended a hand out. A green tether of energy shot out from her fingertips and latched onto one of the bubbling pots of molten material overhead. With a swift yank, the Zeti girl tipped the pot on its swinging cradle, spilling its contents down onto where Rouge… would have been, if she hadn't dashed out of the way with an eep!
"Suddenly, I don't feel so well about my chances…!" Rouge sweated, flicker'ing back to her purple bodysuit. She took a look around at the room they were in, lit as it were with the glow of all the molten material inside it, and decided discretion was the better part of valour. Turning around, she made to fly away.
"Oh no you do-on't!" The Zeti girl – Zeena, that was her name! – growled. "I've already, like, done my cardio for the day!"
Rouge's flight was abruptly terminated as another energy tether latched onto her foot and yanked her back, hard.
Scrambling, Rouge grabbed onto whatever she could to prevent being dragged down… but what she grabbed was another pot of molten rock. With Zeena pulling, the pot rocked, and threatened to spill its deadly contents all over Rouge, so in a panic she let go.
Zeena grinned savagely, pulling hard on her tether… only for Rouge's boot to be planted directly into her face.
"Ack!" Zeena cried in pain, her tether disappearing as she rubbed at her face. "If this bruises, I'm gonna make my next handbag out of those wings of yours!" She cursed.
Rouge took the opportunity to fly back up and out of immediate reach. Keenly aware of Zeena's tether ability now, she dashed behind a bank of machinery, out of sight.
The shrivelled old Zeti stroked his ridiculously long moustache. "Hmm. It would seem my opponent likes to disappear."
"Not you, dear." He added, almost as an afterthought, as Julie-Su braced herself. "Someone who incorporated technology into themselves… for a Zeti, defeating such an opponent would be a waste of effort."
Julie-Su clenched her teeth, but somehow found it within herself to not rise to the bait.
The aged Zeti seemed to dismiss Julie-Su as a threat altogether after that, instead looking down at the unconscious form of Zazz. "Impudent boy…" He scolded. "After this, you can expect training difficult enough to make you wish you were never born! The folly of youth can only excuse so much!"
The satellite dish on Julie-Su's dreadlock twitched to the right.
The ancient Zeti let out a "Hmph." and suddenly swung his staff out to his left. He didn't hit anything, but Julie-Su thought she could hear a muffled curse and the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps.
The ancient Zeti smirked. "I'm afraid you'll need to do better than that to defeat I, Master Zik! I didn't reach the age of a thousand by neglecting my senses, after all!"
This guy was a thousand years old?! Even Dimitri, that shrivelled head in a jar, was less than four hundred!
Master Zik closed his eyes. "The disturbances in the air as you move… the vibrations in the ground… and, of course, the sound of your footsteps… I have all I need to find you."
Eyes still shut, Zik suddenly thrust his staff directly behind him, causing Shade to shimmer into visibility for just a moment, breath forced from her lungs by the blow, before she vanished in another flash of light.
"Now then." Zik rested his staff on the ground next to him like nothing had happened. "I believe those flashy gimmicks of yours are electronic devices… are they not?"
He leapt up as a pair of pink Leech Blades stabbed into where he had just been. While Shade's cloak was shimmering away, he violently thrust out an empty palm. Something sparked on Shade's belt, and she cursed loudly, even as she rolled away, already shimmering back into invisibility.
A shimmer of Zik's own heralded a glitching fit, which he ignored as he stroked his chin. "You may be in a much better position than your unfortunate friend, but you can't fight me directly either. Unfortunately, for you this fight is a game of cat and mouse. And you, little sapling, are not the cat."
Julie-Su was fighting back a growl of anger at this point. She had a little better control of her temper than Knuckles, but that wasn't exactly saying much.
But, even as her boiling blood sang at her to beat this prune of a man senseless, the throbbing pain on her face reminded her of why she couldn't. As long as Zik could control her metal arm –
…
Face blank, Julie-Su slid her right hand up her left arm to where her metal shoulder was, and flicked up a latch. With a short, sharp twist, she both felt and heard the solid clunk of her cybernetic arm disconnecting from her shoulder.
Zik's eyes flew open at the unexpected noise, and he spun around in time to catch Julie-Su throwing her own arm at him.
He easily blocked, of course, but he raised his staff to do so, and that gave Shade the chance she needed. Even as he spun around to face the new threat, she was already shimmering back into visibility, diving under his guard, both of her Leech Blades extended. The intangible weapons sank into his shrunken chest and emerged out of his back, even as his staff hit Shade's armour hard enough to make it crack. Shade was sent skidding backwards… but Zik swayed on his feet, and was forced to his knees by the sudden exhaustion.
"Ugh…" He croaked. "How unfortunate. I must endure the humiliation of defeat… once more."
With that overly dramatic proclamation, the shrilled little prune of a Zeti fell onto his back, snoring before he even hit the ground.
With an angry growl, Zeena lowered her hands and clenched them into fists. "I am, like, so sick of dealing with you already!"
Rouge was out of sight of Zeena, so when her outline flickered and distorted, she could only tell that something had changed by the suddenly relaxed tone of her voice.
"Hmm… is that so?" Rouge called out, her voice echoing slightly around the cavernous room. "Well then, how about we call it quits here?"
"What?" Zeena tilted her head, her eyes squinting in suspicion. "I thought you were one of those goody two-shoes people who love ruining people's fun?"
Rouge's laugh, like her voice, echoed around the smelting machinery. "Oh no dear, far from it! Honestly, what you do here isn't really any of my business, now is it…?" There was a short pause, and Rouge's shadow appeared across one wall "…no matter what happens to anyone else here…"
Zeena narrowed her eyes. "…not even, like… your friends?"
"Friends? Julie-Su?" Rouge's laugh was darker now, more sinister. "She's not a friend, she's competition. Even better, everyone already thinks she's gone. All I have to do is not tell Knuckles that I saw her, and nobody will ever know."
"Heh." Zeena grinned. "Did anyone ever tell you that you'd make agreatZeti?"
Rouge stepped back into view again, a cruel smirk playing over her lips. "Can't say they have, dear. But I'll take that compliment anyway."
Zeena deftly jumped up on top of the smelting machinery, standing face-to-face with Rouge. "Deal, then?"
Zeena offered her manicured hand out for Rouge to shake.
"Deal." Rouge reached forwards and grabbed Zeena's hand.
flicker
…but suddenly, the look in Rouge's eyes changed.
"Wha –" was all Zeena got out before Rouge suddenly spun around and slammed the larger Zeti woman into the wall behind her.
"He might be a complete numbskull…" Zeena heard Rouge's voice over the ringing in her ears "but there's no way that even I could lie to him about something like this, you know?"
No… Zeena thought, in somewhat of a daze. That's wrong. I could see it in your eyes…
When you offered to sell out, you were serious.
Then Rouge's boot was swung up and into her field of view, and Zeena stopped thinking for a while.
"Julie!"
Julie-Su staggered backward slightly as Saffron crash-tackled her, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle.
"Didn't we just do this?" She tried to joke, but still patted Saffron reassuringly on the back. "Didn't realise you were such a hugger…"
"But I was so worried!" Saffron protested. "When all those guys chased after you, I thought –" She stiffened up. "Julie… who's that?"
Behind Julie-Su's back, Shade was examining something on the waist of her armoured suit. She jiggled it up and down, causing sparks to fly out of it for a second, and cursed.
"That's Shade." Julie-Su said in as best as a reassuring voice as she could manage right now. "She's the one who took out those two guys on the floor."
And while her cloaking device had been key to those two defeats, Julie-Su couldn't exactly bring herself to feel sorry that it seemed to be broken at the moment. As far as she was concerned, Shade could stay stuck in the visible spectrum for a good while yet.
Somewhat reluctantly, Saffron let go of Julie-Su, which the echidna took as a chance to pick up her arm from the floor and reattach it. The clunk of it reattaching was duller than it was supposed to be, and…
"Gah!" Julie-Su waved both arms in front of her face, her mechanical arm noticeably sluggish, trying to bat away an endless sea of damage notification popups.
It seemed that Shade was not the only one who would be needing their gear repaired.
"Huh… ugh…" Panting, Alucion dragged herself into view. Behind her was dragged the slack form of Zomom, mouth clamped firmly around her foot. Even though the Zeti seemed unconscious, his jaw would not release her.
She also appeared to be covered in slobber.
As everyone else present stared, Alucion twisted around onto her back, planted her other foot onto Zomom's forehead, and pushed with all her might. After several seconds of grunting, she finally came free with a plop that sent her rolling head-over-heels to collapse head-first and face-down in front of the others.
Julie-Su blinked. "Uh…"
Alucion raised her head. "I wanna go home." She whined unashamedly, then her head pitched forwards in a dead faint, her face meeting floor with a splat.
Shade pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a frustrated sigh.
"Is that everything wrapped up then?" Rouge's voice proceeded her as she swooped down from above, landing daintily on the ground with the others; giving Shade a raised eyebrow.
"No," the queen bee's voice broke in "it certainly well is not."
Apparently enough of the soldier bees were still up after the Deadly Six's violent entrance to escort their queen, even though a good dozen of them were doing nothing but flapping their wings to carry her and her throne through the air. Several of their armour or helmets bore large dents, but they still formed up around their queen in a rigid formation.
Saffron tensed up, turning around reluctantly to face the queen.
"Princess Saffron!" Saffron flinched at the queen's bellow. "What on Meridian were you thinking, leaving before the all-clear was given!"
"But m-mother…!"
"No buts!" The queen cut off sharply. "As princess of this hive, you have duties which cannot be put aside! Do you understand?!"
"Hmph." Rouge snorted.
The queen's gaze snapped sharply to Rouge. "Do you have something to say, bat?!" She snapped.
Rouge glitched into another one of her chest-piece versions, but didn't seem to lose her train of thought because she just leaned forwards, one hand on her hip and the other under her chin. She seemed completely unafraid of the queen. "Just that, for a woman who thinks herself Charmy's mother –"
"I am his mother." The queen growled.
Rouge waved her interruption off. "– the two of you could not be more different. He, a carefree little kid finding wonder in the world all around him –"
Saffron's breath hitched painfully in her throat. Julie-Su stared, struck dumb at the unexpected help; wondering when Rouge had been replaced with surely had to be Anti-Rouge.
"– and you, overbearing to the extreme." Rouge started rubbing her chin. "I wonder if that's why he never talks about you?"
The queen's eyes flashed with anger. "You dare –!"
She didn't get to finish her angry cry, because a big red fist swept through where the assembled bees were, slamming the entire lot of them into the wall in a cacophony of clattering metal and cries of pain.
Rouge blinked, glitching back into her purple bodysuit, then started counting on her fingers. "That's Zomom, Zazz and Zik down there… I got Zeena, and pinkie got Zor back in the throne room…" She looked up, face looking faintly surprised. "Whoops. We missed one."
Zavok was distinctly larger than he had been the last time they'd seen him – about twice as tall as your average human, and much bulkier – though that wasn't new. Despite his hulking figure, his eyes were focused and alert.
"Most aggravating." He rumbled, glancing down at the unconscious forms of his teammates.
Shade raised her arms in a combat stance, but scowled as her cloaking device and Warp Belt both sparked without activating.
Rouge jumped high into the air, smiling down at Zavok from outside of grabbing range. "Well, they wouldn't have gone down so easily if you had helped them."
"Zeti do not 'help' each other." Zavok's gaze rose to meet Rouge's taunting expression calmly. "At best, we work towards common goals. If they could defeat you, there was no need for me to intervene. If they could not… then I needed to know why not. What strengths you possessed, what weaknesses could be exploited."
Zavok then paused, and bent over to grab Alucion's limp body. "Of course, possessing this rather simplifies things."
His fingers closed around the Chaos Emerald in Alucion's crown.
Rouge's eyes went wide, and she dived down to stop him, but it was already too late. As his fingers closed around the emerald and pulled it free, he was already beginning to grow even larger.
"Scatter!" Shade cried out.
Saffron squeaked and shrunk down to the size of an Earth bee, diving into the dubious safety of Julie-Su's dreadlocks. Julie-Su and Shade turned and sprinted away as Zavok's growing bulk swelled behind them.
With a roar, Zavok put both hands on the walls and ceiling and pushed, his car-sized biceps cracking the stone apart like an eggshell. The two echidna girls still standing were forced to dodge as debris rained down around them.
"Shade, I don't suppose those blades of yours could…?" Julie-Su asked, her voice somewhere between hope and desperation.
"While he's empowered by a Chaos Emerald?" Shade responded flatly, as though she was asking a rhetorical question.
And, well, maybe she was.
"Fall." Zavok rumbled, bent over, and spat a fireball at the pair.
"Arck!" "Gah!"
The pair were blown clear through the air by the explosion, suit and skin smoking from the heat. The grasp of a hand in theirs saved them from falling back to the ground though, as Rouge swooped down to the rescue and back up again out of the newly opened ceiling.
"We have to get that emerald off him!" Rouge cried.
Shade cursed. "If my equipment still worked…!"
Zavok opened his mouth again, this time vomiting a laser out. The deadly beam chased the trio across the void of the Special Zone as Rouge flew evasively, the laser contrasting harshly with the background glow.
"We'll only have one shot." Rouge clicked her tongue.
"Whatever, just do it!" Julie-Su screamed up at her.
Rouge swung back the two echidna girls. "Alright then. Thunder Sh –!"
A glitching fit swept through all three girls, worse than usual. All three cried out at the sudden pseudo-pain, their team manoeuvre aborted as Rouge lost her concentration.
The giant backhand from Zavok did not improve things.
Somehow, though the pain, Rouge's hand managed to find Shade's again; but when she looked around she saw that the force of the blow had flung Julie-Su into the void of the Special Zone, and she was getting more distant by the second.
"Pinkie!" Rouge cried out, and Julie-Su was astonished to see actual worry appear on her face. "Hang on, I'll…!"
Julie-Su's eyes went wide. Behind Rouge, Zavok was winding up for a blow that would hit with the force of a car crash.
"Disappear." Zavok rumbled, and swung –!
And then suddenly a pirate ship slammed into the back of his massive head.
For a moment, absolute silence rang out throughout the Special Zone.
A raccoon stuck her head over the ship's railing. "Crikey! We've run aground!"
"Where are we? How did we get – You!" A lavender cat in royal finery hissed, looking down from the railing alongside her friend. "I know you! You were Eggman's lackey, during that racing tournament!"
Zavok's eyes snapped open. Being reminded of that incident seemed to reignite a fury deep within him.
"I am not," he roared, turning around and swinging his fist back for a haymaker "Eggman's lackey –!"
A hand clamped itself over Julie-Su's. She looked up to see Rouge, having caught up to her. The jewel thief was grinning savagely, and despite herself Julie-Su found herself returning a grin in kind, her energy infectious.
"Ready?" Rouge smirked, flying back around towards Zavok.
"Go!" Julie-Su roared.
Shade rolled her eyes.
"Thunder Shoot!" Rouge shouted, sending the two echidna girls forwards with a mighty kick each.
Shade hit first, Leech Blades 'stabbing' into Zavok's wrist. But it was the force of her impact, rather than the slight numbness of the energy drain, that made Zavok start to open his fist. And it was Julie-Su, metal fist hitting with the force of a meteor, that finished the deal; Chaos Emerald flying out into the void.
"Got it!" Saffron cried, jumping out of Julie-Su's dreadlocks and expanding back out to full size. She grabbed the Chaos Emerald; causing Rouge to tsk at the missed opportunity.
"No!" Zavok cried in his rage, but he was already starting to shrink back down again. He growled with rage… then made a disgusted sound and broke eye contact.
Rather than continue the battle he shook Shade off, knelt down, scooped up the other Zeti in his still-giant-albeit-shrinking fists, and jumped out of the remains of the bee hive; off into the empty void of the Special Zone.
With the last of her momentum, Julie-Su drifted through the void and into the side of the flying pirate ship, grabbing hold for lack of a better idea. "Thanks. …who are you, by the way?"
The cat cocked her head back. "I am Blaze, princess of the Sol Empire. I am on my way to – Rouge!" Her gaze snapped to said bat. "Glad to see – how dare you show your face to me again!"
Shade (climbing up from the bee hive ruins where she'd been tossed), Julie-Su and Rouge all shared exhausted and confused looks.
Blaze slapped a hand over her face. "Ugh… please forgive me, my memories are still… are you the Rouge who helped us fight Metal Overlord or the Rouge who tried to steal one of the Sol Emeralds?"
Rouge glitched. "There are Sol Emeralds now?" She cried excitedly, her eyes shining.
"…you are neither, apparently." Blaze sighed. "I suppose I can tolerate you… for now."
Julie-Su looked the magical teleporting pirate ship up and down.
"Can this thing take us to the Prime Zone?" She asked, a note of desperate hope in her voice.
Blaze pinched the bridge of her nose. "If by that you mean Sonic's world, then… yes, I can get us there, one way or another. Is it just you three we are taking?"
"And me!" The shouting voice of Lara-Le could be heard from somewhere still inside the hive. "Don't forget me or Alucion!"
Julie-Su grimaced. "Uh… there's seven of us. Let's… just get out of here before the bees wake up."
"Yes please!" Saffron squeaked.
AN: Julie-Su, Lara-Le, Kneecaps and Saffron are from pre-SGW Archie. Alucion is from Sonic Adventures (the French comics), the Special Zone bees are from Fleetway and Shade is from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (which would just be part of the games continuity if it hadn't been declared non-canon).
The Deadly Six have counterparts in post-SGW Archie, but their only story arc got erased by time travel, so those versions have no idea who any of the other cast are. Their versions from the games/IDW do, however, and the two versions are pretty much identical other than that.
Rouge has four versions: games/IDW/Prime (who is wearing her Prime outfit as that's when this fic is set in that continuity), both versions of Archie, and Sonic X (who have her iconic outfit instead). They're mostly the same character, but the Archie writers made assumptions about where her characterisation would go after SA2 that turned out not to be correct. (They also guessed wrong on where Shadow would go, but in the opposite direction). Her characterisation was one of many things the SGW put back in line with the games.
The Special Zone itself appears in the games (though there it's usually called the 'Special Stages' instead), the manga, pre and post SGW Archie, Sonic Adventures, Fleetway and AoStH (once, briefly) – so not everybody knows what it is.
The Queen Bee isn't actually a bad mom as far as we can tell in canon, but she was very determined for Charmy to come home and stay homeand that's just sort of spilled over into Saffron here.
Yes, Saffron can shrink to the size of an actual bee. In pre-SGW Archie, all of the bees could – it's just that we only saw it happen, like, three times; and only in the early Knuckles comics.
…yikes, these chapters just keep getting bigger and bigger, don't they?