Nothing.

That was everything Sonic could see right now. Absolutely nothing.

How did he get there? Where was there exactly? When? He could not remember, but he could still feel even if he could see nothing. And boy, the pain in his whole body was killing him. He wanted to scream, to cry, to shout at the top of his lungs until his voice couldn't speak anymore. He didn't have any broken bones, which was good, but he was sure he got new scars and even some bruises.

And then, in the middle of the silence in the darkness, he could hear something. He didn't know what, but he was glad that he could still listen, at least. Slowly, the sound became clearer and clearer until he could start to hear something like stomps. Yeah, they were stomps. But why? Who could be making such loud noises? Sonic didn't know, and despite the pain in his body, he started to grow nervous as he heard some scratches.

It's a weird word, but it was the best way to describe how it sounded. Now, what could it possibly be?

Lasers. Those were the only things that could make a skrrrahh sound. He felt his eyes opening at a slow pace, and that just made all the pain in his body multiply while the sound became clearer: it was both stomps and lasers. He finally managed to open his eyes but had a hard time adjusting his sight to the light. At first, he only saw something big and blurry, but as his sight adjusted, he felt his heart pumping quickly as his eyes widened.

Right in front, there was a giant robot with Eggman's face. But by giant, I mean 1700 feet taller, at least. It combined his distinctive red color with a bit of light blue and black. It also launched giant red lasers from its eyes, destroying everything on its way.

Sonic decided to stand up, and his whole body begged him to stop. However, he didn't yield and decided to keep moving anyway. If you're wondering how much it hurt, well, it was basically as if his skin was burning and his bones were cracked and destroyed into small pieces. Again, no bones were broken, but he could still feel the pain in his entire body.

Finally, he managed to stand completely up and check his surroundings: the environment was on fire, the ruble of the Brighthouse could be seen around, and the 7th Chaos Emerald was a few meters ahead of him. His mind was dizzy, and he still couldn't remember how he got into this situation or what was happening...

No, he did know what was going on: Eggman. He had done something bad, and now he was taking over Equestria.

"... I... need to..." Sonic said weakly as he took a step and then immediately fell to the ground in pain. "... g-get... that... Emerald..." he finished, standing up again and walking slowly towards the Chaos Emerald.

Then, the robot opened his head and grabbed something inside with his right hand. He threw it away as his head closed again and looked straight at Sonic.

The hedgehog didn't feel intimidated and kept walking towards the Emerald, limping. He held one arm in pain and groaned, but he never stopped watching the Emerald.

"Hey you! Yes, you are the one reading this. This is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog! And I'm pretty sure you have no idea what the actual fuck is going on, right? How do I end up like this? Where that giant robot with Egghead's face came from, why the Brighthouse seems destroyed, and how did we find the seventh Chaos Emerald..."

Sonic finally reached the Emerald and kneeled in defeat, then grabbed the powerful jewel carefully and looked at it with a little smile.

"Well, to answer all of your questions, I believe we should rewind to where everything began..."

The robot focused on Sonic and charged up the laser eyes, and then he shot them towards him.

3 Weeks ago...

In the skies of Equestria, Tails flew around at top speed, spinning his tails fast enough as the wind blew his fur, and he smiled excitedly.

Feel the passion ignite me
Feel it burning inside me
I won't let this life just pass me by

He then charged his electrical powers to give his shoes rockets. He then boosted through the sky, making loops in the air and twirling clouds around just for fun.

Gonna start a revolution
Go by the name hero
Take back control
Yeah, here I go

After that, Tails swooped down with a smirk, and then, seconds before touching the ground, he boosted flying back as he broke the speed of sound in the air and flew all around Equestria.

Today I've gotta make a change
Straight to the top, I'm on my way
And I was meant for so much more
And I found a dream worth fighting for

And nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me now
Can stop me now

He finally reached his destination: Maretime Bay, where he currently lived in since neither he nor his friends had found all the Chaos Emeralds yet. But it didn't bother him at all. He liked Equestria a lot, that is. He had peace very often and even started his own business to give his new powers good use. Electronic Tails was doing great, and now he had his workshop to make his work easier. It was near Hitch's station, actually, and it was a yellow building both on the outside and the inside.

Even Sonic and Knuckles said they loved this land and wanted to stay if they could, but...

No. Don't think about that.

He decided to focus on the path towards Electronic Tails instead. Once he reached the door, he scanned his hand on the scanner so it could recognize his print and let him enter exclusively. He decided to use the scanner as the lock instead of a normal one to avoid robbery, and thankfully, it had worked so far.

"Time to get to work, then!" Tails told himself with a smile.

He grabbed his goggles and put them on his forehead, changed the 'Closed' sign to 'Open,' and prepared everything quickly. He smiled with pride at the place, ready to receive clients, as the door opened and the first client entered.

"Welcome to Electronic Tails!" Tails smiled. "So, what can I do for you?" he asked. However, once he realized who had entered the place, his smile became bigger. "Morning, Sonic!" he greeted his big brother.

"'Sup, Tails!" Sonic greeted back with a smile. "I hope I'm not coming on a bad moment," he said.

"Oh no, don't worry. I just opened it!" Tails explained. "I'm guessing you're not here just for talking, are you?" he asked with a smirk.

"I am," Sonic said with a smile, slightly confusing Tails. "Hey, don't tell me I can't visit my little brother now," he joked, grabbing Tails and rubbing his head with his fist while Tails just giggled.

"Stop!" Tails said in laughs. "I'm not saying that you can't, but... well, usually you don't show up here. Not that it bothers me! I mean, with the missing Chaos Emerald and Eggman still out there, waiting to attack at any moment now... I understand," he said with a sad smile.

"Hey, cheer up, bud!" Sonic said with a smile. "Eggman may be planning something, and the last Emerald is still missing; that's true, but for that, we have a clue Discord gave us, remember?" he said. Besides, I'm the one who gave the place to you as a present, remember?" he added with a smirk.

Tails blushed a bit in embarrassment and scratched his head. "Yeah... I forgot about that..." he confessed with a sheepish smile.

Sonic shook his head with a smirk and a fist on his hip. "Classic ol' Tails, I guess," he said with a smirk.

That made the two brothers laugh, and then they chit-chat normally.

Unknown to them, they were being watched by Misty, hiding behind one of the stock doors, listening to their conversation and gulping nervously, afraid they might accidentally discover her hiding and spying on them.

Useless.

That was the perfect word to describe everything he has done so far with the glyphs Metal Pipp sent months ago before she got destroyed. Everything he did was useless, and the fact that he barely understood the ancient language of the ponies back in the day didn't help either.

"This is beyond everything I know," Eggman muttered with frustration as he walked back and forth in his lab. "Nothing has worked: the translator, the glyph codes, the reinvention... not even Opaline knows the meaning of any of this!"

He then rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb from his right hand as he tried to think about what to do and where to go from there. So far, persuading Sonic and his friends hasn't worked. It didn't work in the cave, it didn't work in Winter Wishday, and it won't work in general. He was trying to be as patient as possible, but he was reaching a point where no patience was left.

"It's not that I need to find out what those glyphs mean ASAP, but there was an image of Opaline and those 'Mane 5'..." Eggman muttered again. "Even the Crystals Opaline wants to steal were on it, so it must mean something..."

He looked back at the computer and frowned. He still couldn't find a way to restore the death of Chaos Emerald, and he knew that, for his plan to succeed, he needed to steal the ones Team Sonic had. However, knowing that Opaline, the Mane 5, and even the Unity Crystals were part of the glyphs made him wonder if he or Team Sonic were part of it as well.

"Gosh, the things one has to do to get what it wants..." Eggman muttered with concern, and then he sighed. "A very, very small part of me hates the idea of betraying Opaline and Misty as well in the process of fulfilling my master plan... but sometimes, we must make some sacrifices to change the world," he stated, a bit more confident now.

While the idea of betraying Opaline sounded very easy at first, as time passed by and he interacted more with her and Misty, every time he remembered he would have to betray Opaline, and therefore Misty, a part of him felt he needed to think things twice before doing it. But another part of him, always shouting louder, told him to keep going. He already got this far, why regret now when he was so close to victory?

"Maybe I should go to attack Sonic and his friends to distract myself..." Eggman suggested to himself. "But they're already more alert because of my previous attacks so that the fight wouldn't last at all..." he pointed out. "Gosh, this is getting harder than it needs to be..." he complained. "But one thing, it's for sure... It doesn't matter how long it takes; I will decipher the meaning behind these glyphs. One way or another..." he stated with confidence.

So, Eggman turned around and walked out of his lab because he had a pending talk with Opaline after threatening her months ago.

Both Amy and Rouge were almost dying from a cold when they unexpectedly arrived in the snowy parts of Equestria, and the worst part was that they arrived during a blizzard.

After opening the portal to arrive into this land, they wandered around for at least 2 or 3 hours before finally finding a cave to stay. Using his Chaos Control, Shadow managed to stop time long enough for Rouge to make a fire, with Amy gathering some wooden planks. However, that fire wasn't enough to warm them, so Shadow left to look for more, and Omega went with him since he was a robot and couldn't feel anything.

"H-He's never going to admit it... b-but I bet he's f-freezing as much as us..." Rouge commented after a very long moment of silence.

"Y-You mean Shadow?" Amy asked as she rubbed her head, trying to warm up herself.

"H-He likes to play hard to get, b-but I know him well enough t-to know he's also freezing to death," Rouge said with a wide smile. "H-He's just out there for us..." she added.

"I-I guess in that aspect, he r-resembles Sonic," Amy said with a little smile. "T-Thinks on others first before taking care of himself, I mean," she said.

"I thought we were past that stage of comparing myself to Sonic," Shadow's voice said suddenly.

The two girls turned to the cave entrance and found Shadow and Omega. The former wore a black winter coat and some female winter clothes, while the latter carried more wooden planks.

"W-What took you so long?" Rouge asked with a mocking smirk.

"We were out for 20 minutes," Shadow said with a bored expression.

"Correction: We were out for 23 minutes and 45 seconds," Omega said as he walked towards the fire and placed the wooden planks on it, making it more alive.

Shadow then extended the winter clothes to Amy and Rouge, who didn't hesitate to take them and put them on. In Amy's case, it was a pink coat and a light blue scarf, while Rouge had a white and black coat with a grey winter hat.

"Oh, this is so much better!" Amy exclaimed, happy to finally feel a bit warm.

"Agreed," Rouge said with a smirk. "Where did you get these?" she asked Shadow, who lay on a wall with his arms crossed.

"It seems like Omega was more prepared for any kind of situation than us," Shadow simply replied.

"The chance for a climate situation like the current one was 27.3,%" Omega explained. "I was prepared for the current situation despite the low chances," he added.

"You could have saved us before you guys left, but thanks anyway!" Amy smiled.

"That's what I told him," Shadow said. "Anyways. Moving to more important stuff... we should leave once the storm has passed," he suggested, sitting in front of the fire as well.

"Again, agreed," Rouge said.

"I hope it passes out quickly," Amy said with worry. "The quickest we find them, the better."

"I know you're worried about them, Amy, but knowing those three, they're probably fine," Rouge commented.

"I hate to admit it, but it's true," Shadow confessed. "The doctor can't take them down so easily, no matter how hard he tries. "Yet, I feel they could need our help," he added, still showing a cold expression.

"So you are worried about them, huh?" Rouge said in a mocking tone.

"I don't want any more deaths," Shadow replied. "Not even from the faker," he confessed.

"It's currently 10:45 in the night," Omega said suddenly. "Climate analysis: should be clear by sunrise. Recommendation: rest to recharge energies for the awaiting journey," he said.

After that, he immediately entered resting mode, shutting down for what was left of the day.

"Well, you heard the robot," Shadow said.

"Nap time, huh?" Amy said as she yawned and put herself comfortably.

"Well, I'll see you in the morning, I guess," Rouge said, putting comfortable as well.

Shadow stood awake, however. When he was sure the girls had fallen asleep, he removed some blankets from Omega and covered them. Then, he walked towards the cave entrance, and even though there was still a blizzard, he could see the stars in the sky.

He wasn't a big fan of Sonic, and his relationship with him was complicated. They didn't hate each other, but it wasn't like they were besties either. As for Tails and Knuckles, he's pretty neutral about them. In his eyes, they're just another Sonic, but one is way smarter and can fly, while the other has super strength but gets easily angry.

And yet, just like he said before, he didn't care how much it would take. He was done with deaths, and he was done losing people, even if they were not what he could consider his friends.

"Wherever you are, guys... we'll find you," Shadow muttered with a confident look. "Whatever it takes..." he added before returning to the cave.

Author's Note

Welcome, every reader, to Season 2 of Sonic x Make Your Mark!

As you can see, besides whatever the Mane 5 will be up to, we're going to see:

1- Misty still being a spy for Eggman and Opaline

2- Eggman having a struggle as he doubts if he should keep going with his plan.

3- Team Dark and Amy looking for Team Sonic

All of the above and more awaits in this brand new season! I hope you guys enjoy!

P.S: Thanks to JD1 for editing the prologue!