"Aaaaalmost done." Tails said to himself as he put the final few screws into place on his handheld, sitting at his workbench.
After him and his friend's last scuffle with Dr. Eggman, the evil doctor had gotten a good hit in on him. Tails himself came out of it fine, he was a pretty tough young fox after all. However, the blow did a number on his multipurpose handheld device that he'd use in the field to translate alien language, make sense of certain energy readings, and even track the Chaos Emeralds.
That last part is what prompted Tails to fix it as soon as he possibly could. It stunk that it'd mean he'd end up being late to the gang's day out to the amusement park like they'd been planning for the past month, but in Tails' mind it was imperative that he get his device fixed on the double. No doubt later in the future they were going to need to get all the Chaos Emeralds together again, and he'd need to have the tracker in his device operational for when the time came. Besides, it wouldn't take him long for him to catch back up to his friends once he was finished.
"Now just need to put the new battery in, aaaaand-" Tails said as he installed his device's new battery and switched it on. Almost right away, the screen displayed its startup screen and Tails was overcome with relief that no permanent damage had been done. "She lives!" he exclaimed.
Wasting no time in making sure everything essential was operating as it should, Tails switched over to the device's Emerald tracker. Currently he had one of the Chaos Emeralds giving power to the Tornado parked in the hangar next to his workshop, so by all accounts that should be what he saw in the handheld's current range.
"Okay, good. It's picking up the Emerald in the Tornado so…Huh?" Tails stopped when something else popped into the device's range. In addition to the Emerald housed in the Tornado, the handheld was picking up the signal of seven additional Chaos Emeralds all brought together in the same place; not but a few hundred miles off from his workshop. This brought the total he was seeing to eight.
"But…that doesn't make sense," Tails said to himself as he briefly shook the handheld and lightly smacked the screen in frustration. "Don't tell me you're still broken,"
Indeed, it didn't make any sense. Not counting the Master Emerald, in all the times Tails and his friends had dealt with the Chaos Emeralds, there were only seven. No more, no less. And he had made very sure that everything on his device was exactly the way it used to be. Either he'd made some error during the rebuilding of his handheld causing it to malfunction…or-
Tails was ripped from his train of thought about this new development when he could see a ring of dim yellow light reflecting in his computer monitors in front of him. Taken completely by surprise, Tails spun his chair around much too quickly and fell over on his behind in shock. Behind him, a portal made of some kind of yellow energy spinning around and around in a clockwise motion had formed behind him. In his panicked state, he couldn't quite make out where the portal led, but he could definitely see the presence that emerged from it.
He could see the figure much clearer once it slowly stepped out of the portal and into his workshop's light. He was a panda bear, having a similar body build to one of Tails' friends, Big the Cat; to say, he was intimidatingly more than twice the young fox's height. Covering his huge hands (of which Tails was sure could close around his entire head) were a pair of white gloves that were not uncommon to be worn by many other animal civilians of their world. And tied around the panda's neck and draping down his back was a long, dark red cape that reached down to the panda's calves.
The panda, with a serious expression over his face, at first did not pay any mind to the now-panicked two-tailed fox on the floor in front of him and instead glanced around the workshop as if he was looking for something. Only when he was done did he set his eyes on Tails and began to speak in a deep and commanding tone of voice.
"Miles Prower?" the panda asked.
"I-It's…it's Tails," Tails specifying his preferred name to the panda, steeling himself to speak to the enormous mammal.
"Tails then," the panda corrected himself. "Where is Sonic the Hedgehog? To my understanding he would normally be here with you,"
Now Tails was more than worried. This huge guy breaks into his workshop out of nowhere, seems to know where Sonic should be, knew Tails' real name, and was now demanding to know where Sonic was. He knew a bit more than he should for somebody neither he nor Sonic have met before.
Tails once again steeled his nerves and stood up, looking up directly at the panda. "Now hang on a minute," Tails started. "I'm not just gonna tell a complete stranger that comes into my workshop unannounced and through some…weird portal thing where my best friend is! How do I know you're not here to hurt him?"
The panda, at the very least appearing to be earnest, closed his eyes and shook his head. "I assure you I am not here to do the hedgehog harm. If anything, I seek to help him,"
Tails, not entirely being convinced, just stared at the stoic panda, trying to get a better read on him. Then a thought came to mind. The Emerald Tracker.
Tails reached behind him, grabbing the handheld and showing the device to the panda, pointing at the seven additional emeralds that had shown up on its radar. "Did you have something to do with this? Just who ARE you anyway?" Tails asked.
For a moment the panda said nothing, before simply letting out a sigh. He knelt to Tails' eye level and moved the handheld out of the way so they could see each other. This time he sounded like he resolved to speak in a bit of a less intimidating tone of voice.
"My name is Guts. And Sonic, along with the rest of your friends, are in grave peril if we do not get to them soon,"
"Man, you're like the expert in ruining a hedgehog's day, egghead."
As much as Sonic loved to give Dr. Eggman the good old righteous beatdown, he did promise his friends a fun day free of deadly robots at the amusement park today. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the evil doctor decided now would be a good time to try and get the drop on them with his newest mechanical menace. And thus this has now led to Sonic, Amy, Knuckles and Cream to square off against a giant metal chicken in the middle of the now-wrecked amusement park.
"Proud to be as well you wretched little blue rat!" Eggman yelled, sitting up a bit in his cockpit while holding onto his console. "You know I was in a rather good mood, all ready to ambush until the pointless little detour I'd made on my way here. So congratulations, you get to see my bad side today!"
"Aww I'm honored." Sonic replied with a smirk as he dodged a quick swipe from the robotic poultry's claws before running up its side and landing a hit on the cockpit. It hadn't done much damage for the time being. Wasn't surprising to Sonic to see Eggman had reinforced that area as it was usually his creations' fatal weakness, but with repeated blows it would still be his best bet.
"Just what are you going on about now?" Knuckles asked with a tinge of annoyance as he traded blows with the various badniks that the chicken mech would eject from its behind like eggs.
"It just so happened my tracker came across the Chaos Emeralds on my way here, so naturally, I would veer off course just a smidge to take a look. Maybe make this little ambush of mine easier." Eggman started as he directed the mech's orders from the cockpit "But do you know what I find at their supposed location when I arrive?...ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF WORTH!" he yelled, frustratedly slamming his hands down on the console of his chicken mech.
"So your machine's on the fritz, you don't have to make it our problem!" Amy shot back as she went about trying to cripple the mech's legs with her hammer.
"Yeah, you nearly hurt my mamma really badly you big jerk!" Cream added. Thankfully Sonic and the others had already managed to get Vanilla to safety, along with the other park-goers, before things got really nasty.
"Chao chao chao CHAO!" Cheese chirped heroically as he flew so quickly through the air that he poked several holes through the mech's wings like a bullet.
"Consider smacking you little furballs around to be therapeutic for me!" Eggman directed the mech to create strong gusts of wind to keep them all at bay once Knuckles had depleted its supply of badniks. Sonic however, being as fast as he is, was able to power through the gusts and give Eggman's cockpit a strong kick.
"Really? Cause' judging from that look on your face, it ain't working." Sonic quipped, managing to make a crack in the cockpit glass and standing on top of it and looking down at Eggman with his usual air of sass.
"Will you just stand still and die you miserable little-" Eggman would not be able to finish that sentence as not but a moment into it, his entire machine was rocked by an intense crash followed by an explosion coming out of its front. "AAAAGH!" He screamed in surprise as the cockpit was thrown back and forth.
"W-Woah!" Sonic was sent tumbling off of the back and onto the ground, landing not far from his friends.
"Sonic!" Amy shouted in concern as they all ran to his side.
"Mr. Sonic, that was a bad fall, are you okay?" Cream asked, looking him over.
"Y-Yeah no sweat. Just wasn't expecting that is all." Sonic replied as he managed to get back to his feet with some struggle.
Knuckles on the other hand, stood there still in his fighting position, but just staring mouth agape at the state of Eggman's mech. "Sonic…what happened to that thing?"
"Whatever it was, it wasn't…me." Sonic trailed off as he saw just what had occurred.
Eggman's chicken mech was now smoking and crackling with stray electricity coming off of it, only just barely standing up. The most notable thing about the damage that it had take however, was the gigantic hole that went all the way through its chest, which was about as wide as the length of its body as well. Needless to say, the structural integrity of the mech was now non-existent, and it began to collapse under its own weight; or rather, what was left of it. It hit the ground with a loud crash, sending Eggman tumbling from the cockpit holding his head.
"Ooogh, what in the world…" he groaned.
"Um…did we…win?" Cream asked, now clutching Cheese tight in a state of worry.
As the mech had fallen, what had caused the explosion was revealed to them all. Floating in the sky above them was somebody they hoped they would never have to see again. Holding out a clawed, smoking hand was none other than the creature that had helped Eggman conquer the world and contributed to some of the worst pain and misery that their world had ever known.
"Nope…think Eggman might've been the least of our problems today." Sonic replied to Cream with a bit of dread to his voice.
He was correct. Because the being in front of them that had just so effortlessly leveled Eggman's mighty machine, was none other than Infinite.
Except he was…different from how they remembered.
All of the fur across his body had turned almost completely dark pink, the highlights in his dreadlocks and tails having been turned a dark purple, and the mask that he wore on his face looked like it had been bleached almost completely white. Even considering how striking this new visual appearance was from the last time they saw him, the thing that stood out the most to them was that the one visible eye that they used to be able to see…was no longer there. In its place was just nothing but cold, empty blackness with no signs of life in it at all.
Once Eggman had come back to his senses, he laid his eyes on Infinite and looked absolutely furious. "Infinite?! What is the meaning of this?!" He screamed.
Infinite took a break from glaring at Sonic and instead turned his head to Eggman. What the group found disturbing was that Infinite's movement was so jerky and stiff that they could have mistaken him for some kind of floating corpse being puppeteered by some unseen force.
And then he spoke. It was a voice that invoked such primal feelings of dread that it almost felt like they heard him through their bones instead of their ears.
"You were in my way."
With that same wooden movement, he turned his hand to Eggman and with zero hesitation, fired upon him with a dark purple laser of energy straight at him.
"Noooo!" Eggman, given no time to move, recoiled in horror and shut his eyes as he braced for the laser's impact. To his surprise, it did not come. Instead, all he felt was a quick gust of wind running past his mustache. When he opened his eyes again, he saw that Sonic had seen Infinite's attack coming and rushed to get Eggman out of the way. "Huh?"
"Yeah I'm not the type to just let people die if I can help it. You surprised?" Sonic stood in between Infinite and Eggman, looking back at the latter with a deadpanned expression.
"Mmmph…don't think this changes a thing hedgehog." Eggman growled, crossing his arms.
"Heh. Least we can agree on something." Sonic replied with a shake of his head.
Amy, furious at seeing the monster that had caused such terrible havoc on their world before, readied her hammer. "How are you back?! Sonic beat you!"
Seemingly unfazed by missing his mark on attacking Eggman, Infinite turned his head to Sonic's friends. "I have never met any of you in my life."
"What, you're gonna play dumb now? No way you forgot about us after the beatdown you got! Heck, we'll do it again!" Knuckles growled, smacking his fists together.
"Well, if my variant failed to defeat you, there is no doubt he was inferior. But you will find that I am quite a different beast." Infinite said as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, never taking his eyes off the group.
Sonic didn't quite understand what Infinite meant. 'Variants? The heck's this guy going on about now?' he thought.
Infinite, seemingly having caught on to their state of confusion, shook his head. "If I were to explain, your feeble little mortal minds could not even begin to comprehend it. It matters not. All you must know is that my arrival means that your reality's time is now at an end. There is only death in this universe's future and oblivion awaits for all of its entities. You will not be able to stop me, but…" Infinite held his arms out at his sides. "You are welcome to try,"
"Heh…big talk for somebody in spindashing range." Sonic said with a smirk as he curled into a ball and launched himself at Infinite. Though Infinite's much colder demeanor and all that stuff about the death of the universe shook him a little bit, he'd beaten Infinite before. He could do it again.
But to his surprise, Infinite did not even look at him, instead choosing to keep glaring at his friends when he caught the spinning hedgehog in his hand. Ordinarily Sonic would just pop out of his spindash and try another method of attack, but no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't do it. He just kept spinning and spinning over and over in midair against Infinite's hand as if Infinite had exerted some kind of power over him making him unable to stop.
"Overconfident and reckless, just like all the others. Your allies will feel the pain of this mistake." Infinite then turned his arm toward Sonic's friends, aiming his spinning form at them. He then released him from his grip, sending the hedgehog flying at breakneck speed at them.
"Guys, move!" Sonic warned them. As none of them were quite as fast as Sonic though, he ended up colliding with all three of them like a pinball before crashing into one of the amusement park's few unbroken pretzel carts. "O-Ooof…agh." Sonic groaned in pain upon uncurling.
Amy, Knuckles and Cream did not fair much better as all three of them had the wind knocked out of them from Infinite's underhanded assault on them and had a hard time standing. As Cream was the smallest of them, getting hit by such a powerful blow especially did a number on her as she struggled to get back up, whimpering in pain while Cheese desperately tried lifting her arm up to help.
"M-Mmph…" Amy groaned as she was the first to stand, using her hammer as a bit of leverage. "C-Cream, Knuckles, are you okay?"
"Can't…breathe…need…a minute. Just…get him." Cream managed to choke out.
Knuckles however, didn't even bother answering as with a little effort he managed to get back up on his feet, growling a bit from the pain he felt in his chest from the blow. "Rrgh…you're gonna pay for fighting dirty like that!" Knuckles then looked to Amy with a more determined look on his face.
"I'm way ahead of you." Amy said as she lifted her hammer over her shoulder. The two of them charged at Infinite as quickly as they could manage, Infinite not moving a single muscle. Just as they were in front of him though, both of them jumped over him and landed behind him, hoping to catch him off guard. Once they got into position, Amy swung her hammer toward his back and Knuckles threw a powerful punch toward the back of his head.
Just as quickly though, somehow Infinite had managed to turn his entire body around and caught both Amy's hammer and Knuckles' fist. Knuckles, seeing how he was now vulnerable, struggled against Infinite's iron grip to free himself while Amy fruitlessly tried doing the same with her weapon.
"Feeble." Infinite yanked Amy's hammer right out of her hand and smacked her out of the way with it. He then proceeded to do the same to Knuckles, letting go of it right when it collided with the echidna's cheek, sending both him and the hammer flying.
Having knocked all of his opponents on their backs, Infinite looked around at all of them, desperately struggling to stand up and shook his head.
"It would do you well to accept your deaths." Infinite held up his right hand, a small ball of red energy crackling with electricity emanating from it. The ball grew bigger and bigger with each passing second as he stood there waiting for it to charge. "If nothing else, you may at least take solace in the fact that you will all go together. You, and the rest of this meek little universe."
Eggman, furious at being able to do little but watch the massacre from the sidelines, turned his frustrations to the same place they usually went. At Sonic.
"Get up hedgehog! Did you not hear he plans to destroy EVERYTHING? I live in this universe, I can't have that!" he yelled.
'The…whole universe?' Sonic thought to himself. He had managed to roll his way off the wreckage Infinite had launched him into and managed to get to his knees. He looked around at his friends all in terrible pain and then up at Infinite's energy sphere of red death that was now the size of his head. 'No way…no way is he that strong…right?'
But seeing what they had dealt with so far, Sonic wasn't about to take the risk. Even though his body was now wracked in pain, he had to try and take Infinite down now. But just as he was about to launch himself at him, he saw that Cheese had made his move first.
"CHAO CHAO CHAO CHAO CHAO!" Cheese had zipped toward Infinite of his own volition and flew around his head, occasionally smacking him on several sides of his head. None of which caused Infinite to even flinch.
"You cannot be serious." Infinite said dryly as he just stood there tanking the Chao's punches.
Cream, still laying on the ground from having the breath knocked out of her, looked up at the scene in horror. "No…Cheese, no…" she squeaked out, not physically being able to scream.
Finally having had enough, Infinite caught the Chao by the face in his left hand and brought him down to his eye level.
"Chao chao chao!" Cheese, now thoroughly terrified, tried with all his might to wriggle his way out of Infinite's grasp, but to no avail.
"I cannot decide if you are an incredibly brave or an incredibly dull-witted little insect. But it matters not. I will reward your efforts by sparing you from bearing witness to the death of this reality," Infinite said, almost sounding a little annoyed as his hand slowly started to squeeze the Chao's head. Cheese squealed in pain as he still desperately tried to wriggle free as he continued to charge up his final attack.
"C-Cheese!" Cream managing to find it in herself to scream in fear of her friend's safety.
"Oh no way!" At that, Sonic wasted no time in making another attempt at a spindash on Infinite. Now that he had both of his hands full, he wouldn't be able to catch him this time after all. So with that thought in mind Sonic spindashed right into Infinite's body, finally managing to land a hit on him. Unfortunately, it did little to phase him, only slightly causing his feet to stumble.
Sonic spun into him several more times desperately trying to get Infinite to stop and release Cheese. But just when it looked like his efforts would be completely in vain, something else caught Infinite and the rest of the group's attention.
"INFINITE!" a deep and commanding voice yelled from across the battlefield.
"Hm?" The brief distraction was enough to throw Infinite off enough for Sonic's next spindash to be thrown back several feet. Cheese slipped out of his hand and his red energy sphere had vanished completely. The frantic Chao did not waste a second in flying back into the now-standing Cream's arms, both of them sobbing in relief.
"O-Oh Cheese thank goodness…" Cream stuttered through her tears.
"What the devil…" Eggman adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the source of this new voice, something that caught the entire group's attention now that they'd all managed to get back to their feet.
Behind them stood an enormous panda with a red cape that though none of them had seen before, Infinite appeared to have. Though he'd been thrown back, it did not take Infinite long to recover mid-air, and he glared at the panda with an intensity that he hadn't shown with the others as of yet.
"You…" he said, his voice laced with displeasure. "Still you pursue me, sorcerer?"
The panda's expression soured. "I promised you that you would not know a moment's peace as long as I am still living. A promise I intend to keep." The panda then raised his hands, which started to glow yellow. "And my name is Guts you monster."
Just then, Tails peeked his head out from behind Guts with a sheepish expression on his face. "Hey guys, sorry I'm late. I got a little bit…held up at home."
Sonic zoomed up next to Tails and Guts, the rest of the group sans Eggman (who still took cover behind the wreckage of his mech) joined them. "Good to see ya little buddy. Who's the big guy?"
"THAT is a heck of a story that we'll get into…after this." Tails replied, shooting a glare at Infinite.
"Your persistence is more than irritating, sorcerer." Infinite said, raising his right hand up into the air, lifting up much of the debris from the amusement park that was left after the battle with Eggman. "So if you insist on pestering me until the day you die, I had better make that as soon as possible."
Of the things Infinite levitated was a huge train of roller-coaster cars which he then proceeded to swing backward, preparing to crack it at the group as if it were a giant metal whip.
Knuckles squared up ready to block them if need be. "Please tell us that you can fight." He said to Guts.
"I can." Guts replied dryly. When the roller-coaster whip began to head their way, using whatever strange yellow energy Guts held in his hands he somehow formed some kind of magical-looking buzzsaw blade that he tossed at it. The whip was sliced in two, the other half landing harmlessly on the ground next to them, only excelling in kicking up dust than doing any actual harm.
"Woah! How'd you do that?" Amy asked, gawking at the display.
Guts didn't answer. Not wasting a moment's time, he took off his cape and threw it up into the air. To the shock of all present, the cape appeared to have a mind of its own as it homed in directly onto Infinite and wrapped around his face. This appeared to dull Infinite's senses as he struggled to pull the cape off of his face.
"You wretched little magic rag, release me!" Infinite yelled, raising his voice for the first time since he'd appeared.
Taking the opportunity now that Infinite was distracted, Guts charged at him. His fists were once again engulfed in the yellow energy he'd been using, and over them formed even bigger, transparent yellow fists. He then proceeded to pummel Infinite in the stomach and face several times using them, with gritted teeth and seemingly showing no restraint.
"This one is for Sonic!" Guts yelled punching him even harder in the stomach. He then raised his left energy fist and made it even bigger. "And this one is for Sally. Choke on it!" he said as hooked Infinite in the face, this time knocking him to the ground and rendering him motionless.
Several seconds passed with absolutely no activity and nothing but dead silence, by all accounts, he appeared more dead than he looked before. As still nothing happened, Cream looked out from behind Amy at Infinite's lifeless body.
"Is…is he?..." Cream stuttered.
Not even sure himself, Guts snapped his fingers and his cape flew off of Infinite's face and wrapped right back around his shoulders. Afterwards he cautiously began to approach his body, for a moment thinking that he might have done it. Infinite was gone.
Until just when he was a few feet from him, Infinite's head shot up to face him, causing Guts to flinch in surprise.
"Not today, sorcerer." Infinite droned with the emotion having left his voice once again. All of a sudden on the ground below him, a swirling purple portal opened up below Infinite, seemingly conjured up by none other than him. He then began to sink into it, and from the sheer look of pure terror on Guts' face, the group could tell this was very very bad.
"No!" Guts yelled out. He then proceeded to conjure a transparent yellow rope of energy from his hands that wrapped around Infinite's body. He pulled with all his might on it only for Infinite to continue sinking into the portal. Its gravity appeared to be much too strong. "I can't let him escape, help me!"
Quickly taking the hint, Sonic and his friends all ran over and pulled on the magical rope Guts had conjured, desperately trying to pull Infinite from it.
"R-Rrrgh. It's like trying to lift a mountain with a piece of string!" Knuckles groaned. If even Knuckles was having difficulty, then the pull of the portal had to be terrible.
"Cmoooon you." Sonic held the end of the magical rope, running in place to add to their own pull.
Unfortunately despite their efforts, Infinite closed the portal behind him, causing the rope to snap and for the group to be flung backwards from the recoil of the snap. Afterwards, the magical rope dissipated into thin air as Guts sat up staring at his hands helplessly as it did so.
"I…I had him. I had him right there. Of course he was playing dead…how did…how did I make such a rookie mistake?" Guts mumbled to himself, his teeth gritted in anger at his failure.
With a worried frown on her face, Cream stood by Guts' side and looked up at him. "Are...are you okay mister panda bear?" she asked.
Saying nothing for a moment, Guts sighed in shame and stood up. "I'm afraid not Cream. Frankly…this was the worst outcome this could have had, second only to your universe being destroyed."
Cream perked up a little bit at this. "You know my name? But…how?" She asked.
"Yeah, that…and purple-boy was talkin' like he knew ya preeeeetty well. So…" Sonic crossed his arms and tapped his foot a bit. "What's up with that, huh?"
Tails looked up at Guts, also frowning a little bit. "Mm…you wanna tell them or should I?" he asked.
"I've got it. Thank you, Tails." Guts said shutting his eyes and exhaling. "That creature…was not Infinite."
"Uuuuh looked a lot like em' to me…lot more pink, sure but still." Knuckles said scratching his head.
"Well, rather I should say…not the Infinite YOU faced." Guts continued. "From what Tails told me, your Infinite appeared to be consumed by the Phantom Ruby and promptly vanished. This one is from a whole other universe. Similar to your own but different in a few key areas, among an unending sea of many, MANY others. In this case, the one this Infinite hails from is one where he was still consumed by the Phantom Ruby but…in a much, much worse way."
"Oooh boy I do not like where this is going." Sonic winced.
"Yes. Instead, this Infinite's mind was taken by the ruby. See despite your Infinite's violent behavior, there had to have been something resembling a person still in there. An arrogant, power-hungry and violent one, certainly. But a person nonetheless." Guts then opened his eyes. "But not here. Essentially what you have in this case is the Phantom Ruby having overwritten his personality, creating…something else. When you hear him speak, you are not hearing Infinite. Infinite is long gone. Erased. What you are hearing is an avatar of the Phantom Ruby, with nothing else inside of it but a desire to extinguish all life across all of creation…speaking in the voice of a dead jackal. To differentiate him from all the other variants, I've taken to simply referring to him as Phantom Infinite."
For what felt like ages, everybody was completely stunned. Their universe just right out of nowhere was mere moments from destruction at the hand of this creature, this vicious amalgamation of Infinite and the Phantom Ruby. And they'd only just managed to push him back by the skin of their teeth.
Unsurprisingly, this new development horrified Cream as she clinged to Amy's dress for some form of comfort, whimpering slightly.
Guts looked down at the young bunny and frowned. "Mm…I'm sorry. I did not wish to scare you but…a softer way of putting it does not come to mind I'm afraid."
Amy patted Cream's head to comfort her some more. "So that's what he meant by that variant stuff he was talking about. He's from a different universe."
"Yeah that's all clear and everything but uh…still doesn't tell us who YOU are," Sonic added.
Guts appeared that he needed a moment to compose himself, as he shut his eyes once again and took another deep breath. It did little to help, as his voice still did come out a bit stammered at first.
"…P-…Phantom Infinite came to my home universe…and laid waste to it. And I am certain that mine was not the first." He started. "I was the only organic survivor of his massacre. I felt that I HAD to have lived for a purpose in all of this. It could not have just been for nothing. So, using a special aircraft made to harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds, I've been pursuing Phantom Infinite across the multiverse to keep him from doing the same to others as he has done to mine. Eventually, I have to stop him altogether or else he will…" Guts stopped when he looked back down at Cream and Cheese's frightened faces and decided to cut himself short. "Well…you can guess." Inwardly, Guts cursed himself for being too intense again.
"Man, that is just…dang…I don't even know what to say to that." Knuckles gawked, staring at the ground.
Cream, seeing the sadness present in Guts' face from recounting this, let go of Amy and hugged Guts instead. At first, Guts did not know how to react.
"What is this?" he asked, slightly confused.
"You just…really looked like you needed a hug. And I know we didn't stop that scary Phantom Infinite from getting away, but you helped Mr. Sonic save Cheese from him so…you still did good Mr. Guts!" she said, managing to put on a smile when she looked up at him.
"Mmm…I appreciate that…" Guts said, managing a small smile of his own, patting the young rabbit's head.
"Yeah, you can't be too hard on yourself. We'll get him!" Tails fist pumped a bit.
At that, Guts stopped smiling. "I'm sorry…did you say 'we'?" he asked.
"What, after hearing all of that do you expect us NOT to help stop Phantom Infinite? You said it yourself, the whole multiverse is in danger!" Amy exclaimed, shocked that he would even question this.
"Not that I don't appreciate you wanting to help but…after what I have seen on my travels…if something were to happen to any of you well…I do not need that on my conscience." Guts said drearily, slightly pulling Cream off of him and setting her back next to Amy.
"Guts, look here." Sonic said, looking up at the panda and snapping his fingers while pointing to himself. "How long have you been at going after that guy?"
Guts took a moment to ponder this before having a realization. "…To tell you the truth I've lost my sense of time on this front." He replied.
"Yeah, bad enough. And this whole time you've been at this by yourself?" Sonic continued.
Guts, getting slightly annoyed, crossed his arms. "With the exception of my ship's navigator yes, but what if you were to-"
"Stop" Sonic interrupted. "Ya ever think maybe the reason ya haven't caught em' yet is because you won't ask for help? Like c'mon, the stuff we've faced before's already pretty nuts. If we get a big enough team together, we'll be more than enough for ol' purple boy. Waddya say?"
"Yeah, if we get everyone else we know on board we can give that masked jerk what for!" Knuckles said as he punched his fists together.
Guts said nothing for a while, a conflicted look of uncertainty on his features. In his heart he had to know Sonic was right, but at the same time the risk was quite high.
"Please Mr. Guts? Please let us help?" Cream asked, her eyes widening a little bit with a very pleading expression as she looked up at Guts.
At that, Guts' face took on a much more frustrated form as he shut his eyes, covered his mouth with his gloved hand, and let out a muffled scream into it. Afterwards, he promptly returned to a more neutral expression and holding his hand out for Sonic to shake. "…Fine. Just…do not needlessly risk your life please."
"Heh, no promises." Sonic said as he shook Guts' hand.
Rolling his eyes, Guts rolled up the sleeve to his right glove, revealing some kind of silver communication device with a screen and several buttons on it. After holding one button down, Guts spoke into it. "NICOLE, bring the ship to my location. We are going to have guests" he said before releasing the button. "My navigator will be bringing my aircraft shortly. In the meantime, whoever you plan to recruit for this endeavor of ours, find them and bring them here so we may-"
"Ah, hold that thought a sec big guy" Sonic interrupted as he zoomed over to Eggman, who Sonic had noticed was trying to quietly slip away from the scene. "And where do you think you're goin' egghead?" he asked with an unamused expression and tapping his foot.
"O-Oh Sonic! Well it just seemed that you all will be more than capable of taking care of the whole Phantom Infinite business, so I figured I would just…return home, maybe put my feet up and-"
"Yeah, and take the whole planet over while we're gone right? No way, you're coming with us too." Sonic said with crossed arms.
Eggman growled. "Rrrrgh…you may be willing to foolishly crusade for universes that are not your own. I on the other hand, am not! From the way the panda here has described it, this entire mission is almost certain death to partake in."
Sonic did not appear deterred though. He knew Eggman well enough to know that if they left him behind the result would only be bad news.
"E-Erm…mister Guts, you seem like a reasonable mammal. You DID say you don't need any more potential deaths on your conscience, correct?" Eggman sheepishly looked behind him at the panda who had since made his way behind him.
"Yeah…no. I agree with Sonic on this one. If left to your own devices, you would do this world immeasurable harm. If Sonic and his friends are going with me, then so are you. Besides, despite your flaws you are a rather intelligent man, I will give you that. You may prove useful on our journey." Guts said, putting a hand on the doctor's shoulder, immediately making him even more uncomfortable as he glared at him. "This won't be a problem, will it doctor?"
"E-Erm…no." Eggman replied, thoroughly defeated.
"That is what I thought." Guts said with the fakest smile ever as he removed his hand from Eggman's shoulder.
Hi everyone checking this out, I've been kind of just lurking on this website for a long time and decided to finally publish something here. This is by no means my first rodeo at writing fanfiction in general, but is my first time doing so for Sonic the Hedgehog so I'm interested in hearing what everyone has to say. Especially where my OC Guts is concerned. This is still just the introduction to the story at large and he's going to have much more revealed about him as the story goes on, but I'd still like to think I'm better at making Sonic OCs than I was in middle school, lol.
Anyhow, thanks for reading!