Earth - Frog Forest

A long, green field could be seen as far as the eye could see. It was quiet and pleasant to be able to see that greenish field...

But suddenly, a blue blur ran by at full speed, using all its strength to run even faster than it was already going. If we get closer, we appreciate that blue blur better: It seemed to be an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog, with red sneakers that had a flat strip in the middle and a gold button on the sides, white gloves that protected his hands, green eyes like emerald, and a smile that rarely appeared no matter the circumstances.

His name was known to everything and everyone on this planet: Sonic the Hedgehog.

What goes up must come down
Yet my feet don't touch the ground
Seein' the world spinnin' upside down
A mighty crash without a sound

Sonic wandered into a forest and began jumping over steep hills, ducking under tree trunks, and even using the trees to propel himself into the air for a moment and then curl into a ball, rolling on the ground at super sonic speed. Not for nothing is his name "Sonic."

I can feel your every rage
Step aside, I'll turn the page
Breaking through your crazy maze
Like a laser beam my eyes on you

Soon, however, Sonic was close to falling off a ravine, and he didn't know how to stop in time... However, before he fell, a pair of yellow arms caught him in the air. Sonic looked up and smiled when he saw his best friend. He was an anthropomorphic yellow fox with two tails, red and white shoes, white gloves tied with black ribbons since they were too big for him, and blue eyes like sapphires.

His real name is Miles Prower, but because he has two tails with which he can fly, everyone calls him Tails. That, and it's also the nickname Sonic gave him after they met. Tails launched Sonic into the air, and he landed safely on the ground to resume his path, with Tails now flying behind since he could keep up, at least to some extent.

Watch me rule the night away
Watch me save the day
Feel my storm is getting close
Headin' your way!

Soon, however, Sonic and Tails found themselves running/flying through a ravine, from which several stones suddenly began to fall that could crush them. Sonic quickly curled into a ball and performed a move called "Spin Dash", in which he charged enough speed at his spot to then shoot forward at high speed. Tails, for his part, was a great inventor, so he took from who knows where a small yellow gun that, when fired at some rocks, literally shattered them.

However, they couldn't stay like this forever, and they knew it. And just when a rock that none of them saw coming was going to crush them, it was suddenly destroyed with a punch by another of their friends. This was an anthropomorphic red echidna with large white boxing gloves, red and yellow shoes, green tights, pink eyes, and a serious expression that he loved to make when he broke things.

His name is Knuckles the Echidna, the last of his species, guardian of a powerful gem known as the Master Emerald, and friendly rival of Sonic. It's a miracle that they put up with each other in their day-to-day lives, but they always seem to be on good terms when it comes to breaking things.

Sonic Heroes! Sonic Heroes!
Bind you, confine you, defying your reign!

Knuckles continued breaking more and more rocks, which made the path easier for the three friends, but there was a huge rock that they didn't see coming and that was about to crush them from behind. This rock was so big that it literally covered the sun, which darkened the atmosphere a bit for the three of us. When they turned around and finally noticed the rock, everyone's eyes widened... Luckily, this wouldn't be the end of them.

Just when the rock was going to crush them, it was completely destroyed, and the tool that was used to achieve this was a hammer. The bearer of that hammer was Amy Rose, an anthropomorphic pink hedgehog with a red headband, gold bracelets around her white gloves, a red dress with a skirt, and red and white boots, just like her aforementioned Piko Piko Hammer.

Amy was very in love with Sonic, and although there was a time when she was very intense about those feelings and irritated Sonic, today she has calmed down and now shows her affection in a calmer and more civilized way so as not to make the one she loves with her heart uncomfortable.

Now that the entire group, known as Team Sonic, had gathered together, the four of them quickly moved towards the end of the ravine, then jumped and launched themselves even further down before landing and posing, facing in front of Doctor Eggman, who had a army of robots called badniks ready to attack in case they arrived.

Sonic Heroes! Sonic Heroes!
Setting the stage for a hero's parade!

Eggman growled angrily upon seeing his enemies, and then pointed a finger at them. "Badniks, crush them all!"

With the order given, the various Buzz Bombers, Crabmeats, Caterkillers, Balkiries, Moto Bugs, Nebulas, Snail Blasters, Spinners, and Egg Pawns marched against Team Sonic. They, for their part, simply smiled - although Knuckles continued to frown - and then launched themselves at the badniks.

I won't even hesitate
A second left to alter fate
You try to strike but a bit too late
I got you hooked by my own bait

Sonic jumped into the air and charged up his Spin Dash, destroying several Crabmeats, Moto Bugs, and Snail Blasters. Then, he jumped again and automatically launched himself against several Buzz Bombers and Spinners, thus performing a move called "Homing Attack". Likewise, he performed the Head Spin move from Breakdancing, which caused several badniks to be hit or directly destroyed by the blue hedgehog's kicks.

Watch me rule the night away
Watch me save the day

For his part, Tails also performed Spin Dashes, but at the same time used his own artifacts to fight. For example, and for some reason, he could throw several wrenches at the badniks, and given the speed at which he threw the object and how heavy it was, he always ended up destroying some robot. He also had a drill that he used to throw himself towards the ground to unbalance a few badniks, and also to destroy them because... Well, it's a drill, what did you expect?

Feel my storm is getting close
Headin' your way!

Later, we see that Knuckles mostly uses his fists, but sometimes they catch fire... literally. Also, we see them throw themselves with their fists towards several badniks, and suddenly, he moves as if he had literally transformed into a drill. There are also times where he slams his fist into the ground and causes spikes of earth to spawn to destroy badniks in the process.

Sonic Heroes! Sonic Heroes!
Bind you, confine you, defying your reign!

Finally, we see how Amy uses various movements of her hammer to destroy badniks, but especially the Caterkillers, which are the largest of the group. She also knew how to do Spin Dash and Homing Attack, but her hammer was her main weapon against those machines.

Sonic Heroes! Sonic Heroes!
Setting the stage for a hero's parade!

Next, we see the 4 teaming up to do combo attacks: Sonic and Tails jumped into the air and grabbed their right hands, then proceeded to do a double Spin Dash against the robots; Knuckles grabbed Amy by her legs and started spinning her around her, while Amy extended her hammer and smashed the badniks to pieces.

You can bet there ain't no doubt
As the words spill from the mouth
Of a hero

Then we see Tails standing on the ground while spinning his tails, throwing Knuckles against the walls in a constant loop since the echidna warrior is balled up, that is, he does a constant Spin Dash that resets every time he lands on the tails. from Tails, which throw it again. We also see that Amy plays baseball with Sonic in a ball, since she is also throwing Sonic that way, and every time he goes towards her, the hedgehog throws Sonic against the badniks again.

I can chase another day
Fight you all the way
Like a hero!

The last combo shows Sonic and Knuckles having their backs to each other, hitting any badnik who attacks them with their feet and fists, and then finishing off the combo with a double Spin Dash. For their part, Amy and Tails swap weapons from time to time when destroying Crabmeats, Buzz Bombers and Caterkillers, since they are the only badnik types left.

And together we stand strong no matter how
No one can bring us down
Hey!

Finally, Eggman loses patience when he sees that all his robots were destroyed by Team Sonic, so he rides his Egg Pulveriser, a big red robot with silver legs, Eggman's face on it and a couple of removable spike-like hands, and then proceeds to shoot his hands at his enemies.

This, however, only makes the group look at each other with knowing and determined smiles, then they nodded and looked back at Eggman. Next, Tails pointed the same gun he used before against the stones and shot both hands equally, destroying them completely and causing Eggman to panic.

Sonic Heroes! (heroes! heroes)

Sonic then curled up into a ball and charged his Homing Attack towards Tails, who was flying into the air. It, however, caught Sonic with its tails and spun several times before launching him towards Knuckles. The echidna punched his fists and then punched Sonic into the air. This, still in a ball, began to charge energy, and soon, Amy jumped spinning in the air with her hammer, and then looked at Eggman with a determined smile. She then swung the hammer and hit Sonic in the direction of what was left of the Egg Pulveriser.

Sonic Heroes! (heroes! heroes)
Give us a reason and we'll be on our way!

With that charged attack, Sonic passed through the machine and made it fall into pieces, forcing Eggman to be ejected from the robot in his Eggmobile, while he screamed in terror, but at the same time, he assured that he would get revenge for this.

For his part, Sonic stood up and wiped some of the dust off his body, just in time to enjoy how the silhouette of Eggman and his Eggmobile disappeared into the horizon. Not long after her, Amy came from behind and wrapped him in a hug, which Sonic didn't mind at all, and he even put an arm around her to pull her a little closer to him. For his part, when Tails and Knuckles arrived, he high-fived the former and fist-bumped the latter.

Once their short celebration over their victory against Eggman was over, Tails approached the now destroyed Egg Pulveriser and opened the "face", just to then enter and see if there's any remaining hardware or software he can save. Meanwhile, Knuckles was pilling up all the destroyed badniks, while Sonic looked back and forth between the badniks and the Egg Pulverizer, something Amy noticed as she approached him.

"Something bugging you, Sonic?" She asked, slightly concerned.

"...This is the first time in months since what happened in the Starfall Islands that Eggman shows up," Sonic pointed out. "Weirdly enough, he appeared without Sage, nor Orbot or Cubot."

"...Yeah... Now that you mention it: Is also the first time ever since our adventure in Northstar Islands that Eggman uses the Egg Pulveriser." Amy pointed out as well."

"Don't you think this is a bit strange, or at least suspicious?" Sonic questioned.

"Eggman's a solo game player," Knuckles pointed out as he approached the two hedgehogs after finishing with his task. "If he came alone, is probably because he wanted to. As for why the Egg Pulveriser out of all his machines? Again: Probably because he wanted to."

"I don't know, Knuckles... Sonic has a good point," Amy declared, crossing her arms and rubbing her chin. "Eggman can be an idiot sometimes, but he also knows when to trick us into anything. Maybe this is a distraction from something else Sage, Orbot and Cubot are doing?"

"Or maybe is just a trick and Sonic did what Eggman wanted him to... again..." Knuckles deadpanned.

"I don't really like to remember what happened with the Eggcrusher and the Paradox Prism," Sonic said with an eye roll. "Speaking of it, anyone here has any clue where Shadow took that thing? Because the last thing we need is Eggman finding it and shattering it. One Eggman is more than enough to deal with."

"Agree. We don't need that "Chaos Council" around to cause trouble," Amy nodded in agreement. "Nor to our world, nor to those "Shatterspaces". Seriously, why did you called it like that?"

"Don't blame me for the odd name, blame Nine," Sonic deadpanned, raising his hands in defense.

"I think is for the best that Shadow remains as the only guy in the planet that knows the Prism's current location," Knuckles pointed out, crossing his arms. "Besides, Shadow might have an ego, but even he knows that something as powerful and dangerous like that thing shouldn't be hidden anywhere."

"...You have a good point... For a Knucklehead," Sonic mocked up with a smirk.

Knuckles' eyes widened, then he frowned in rage. "Seriously?! You choose to "Knucklehead" me now of all times?! Is not a good time for that!"

"Beep, beep, beep, beep. Wrong!" Sonic exclaimed. "It's always a good time to "Knucklehead" you!"

Knuckles growled in anger at Sonic's smug and mocking smirk, but before anything could go from bad to worse, Amy interfered and stood between the two of them with a frown.

"Guys! Is not the time to act like kids! We have important stuff to actually take care of!" Amy pointed out with anger. "For starters: If this was a trap, like Knuckles suggests, shouldn't be had witnessed another big energy explosion like what happened with the Eggcrusher in that mountain?"

"There's no Speed Amplifier on here!" Tails replied from inside the destroyed Egg Pulverizer, then he popped his head out. "Besides, you really think Eggman would risk his own life putting another Speed Amplifier with him being inside the robot? I know he makes questionable decisions, but come on! He isn't that inept." He then went back inside the machine.

"There's a certain entity sleeping inside the planet that would disagree, but eh, whatever you say, bud." Sonic said with a smirk, then he turned back to the pile of badniks with a frown. "What I'll like to know is why bringing over so many badniks for nothing. I mean, what was Eggman doing here in the middle of nowhere, anyways?"

"Hmm... That is actually really suspicious," Knuckles confessed. "Perhaps you're right, hedgehog. Maybe this was a distraction. But for what?"

"It wasn't a distraction," Tails' voice suddenly called out, as he came out flying from the Egg Pulveriser, then landed in front of his friends while holding a wide yellow rectangle, with two cyan-glowing antennas on top, a touchscreen in the middle and some directional pads beside the screen, known as "Miles Electric", made by himself. "Rather, it was a farce!"

"A farce?" His friends replied, all confused.

"You're gonna have to be more specific, bud," Sonic pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"Explaining it won't be enough, unfortunately." Tails said, then smiled. "Let's go back to my lab! I'll explain and show it all once we're there."

Emerald Town

Tails' Lab, located in Emerald Town, is a yellow-orange, dome shaped area that takes the appearance of Tails' head. White windows can be seen in the places of where Tails' eyes would be and it has a gray door to go with it. Tails' Lab even features Tails' signature tufts of hair and ears as roof decorations.

Inside, Tails was loading all the data he extracted from Eggman's Egg Pulveriser into his computer, while Sonic, Knuckles and Amy patiently waited for him to be done... Well, Amy was the only patient one here. Sonic, who always gets bored quickly if he's doing nothing for more than 5 minutes, was starting to loose his mind, and Knuckles wanted to go back to Angel Island and make sure neither Rouge, Eggman nor anyone else have attempted to steal the Master Emerald.

"Can we wrap this quickly, Tails? I have a job to do." Knuckles said after a while, since he didn't wanted anything bad to happen to Angel Island.

"Just a second, Knux," Tails replied, typing over his monitor before he finally unplug his Miles Electric. "Done!"

"Oh, thank God!" Sonic exclaimed. "No offense, buddy, but that thing of yours is slow as hell!"

"Sonic, it just lasted 3 minutes." Amy deadpanned.

"That's like 3 hours to me!" Sonic deadpanned back, which made both Knuckles and Amy roll their eyes.

"If you guys are done fighting, allow me to explain what I meant back in Frog Forest when I said that Eggman wasn't distracting us, but rather fooling us!"

"The farce thing, yeah, what with that?" Knuckles asked.

"Eggman's been quiet for the past 8 months," Tails started to explain. "After each one of us separated for 6 months, we all thought we'll be fine on our own, and that we could deal with anything Eggman threw at us in that time."

"A little strategy that was never put into action," Amy pointed out. "Eggman never bothered any of us. Not even you, Sonic."

"Which makes it even more strange that his latest attacks for the past 2 months are so... random and meaningless," Sonic pointed out. "Isn't it weird that, even if it's been 2 months since he came back, we know nothing about what he's up to know?"

"Which exactly leads to my next point: Eggman's just playing with us!" Tails pointed out, then he showed on his monitor the image of the 6 destroyed machines that Eggman has used in the past 2 months. "The original Death Egg Robot, the Egg Dragoon, the Egg Emperor, the Eggrobo, the Egg Driller, and now the Egg Pulveriser. What do all these machines have in common?"

"All of them are machines that we trashed up years ago," Knuckles pointed out. "I'll say some are even ones we thought Eggman ditched."

"Exactly!" Tails said. "Eggman's making all these attacks not to keep us busy, nor to distract us... He's up to something and wants it to be so secret that he wants to fool us! He wants us to think he has nothing yet!"

"But how can you be so sure that's the case?" Amy asked confused.

Instead of replying, Tails pressed a few buttons on his keyboard, which made some images about information that Eggman's been gathering. Things like "dimensional traveling", "powerful sources of energy", and even an article that was labelled with "The art of magic" could be seen, among other things.

This made Amy gasp and cover her mouth, Knuckles frown and grind his teeth, and Sonic stood up, walked closer to the screen and kept reading the same lines over and over again to see if he could think on anything that could build up what's Eggman up to.

"Dimensional traveling?" Sonic muttered under his breath. "Is he trying to leave to a new reality?"

"Like that "Smash" world, or the Mushroom Kingdom? That kind of dimensional traveling?" Knuckles questioned.

"Maybe even beyond that!" Tails pointed out with concern. "And if all these information I've been gathering from each destroyed machine says something is that Eggman looks for some powerful source. More specifically––"

"Magic?" Amy asked, and Tails just nodded.

Sonic kept reading lines for a few seconds more, then growled and closed his hands into fists. "Seems like Eggman's planning to expand his control. Seems like our world is not enough anymore, so he's looking for other ones to go to!"

"I also thought that, but... It seems like that's not the case," Tails revealed. "When I entered Eggman's database from the Egg Pulveriser before his system took me out, I found archives about a recent experiment he made. Guys... He has the Chaos Emeralds. All of them."

Now that made Amy and Knuckles gasp, while Sonic turned to him with wide and shocked eyes.

"So all these time, he was distracting us! He was gathering the Emeralds for his own sake!" Knuckles said, smashing the table in anger.

"That, or Sage gathered them on her own," Sonic suggested. "I mean, she's the one that dragged them to the Starfall Islands in the first place. Maybe she did it again?"

"Whatever's the case, Eggman's not using the Emeralds as weapons, but rather conduits to send a message." Tails explained. "At least that's what the last report of the experiment said."

"Conduits?" Amy questioned. "What does that mean?"

"Uh... How do I put this in words that are not so complicated to understand?" Tails muttered under his breath. "Eggman wants to send a sign to a powerful source with magic. That sign is an "order" to transport the original source to whatever dimension that magic source is located. This experiment was Sage and him trying to do that, and while it didn't transported them away, Sage managed to connect with that magic source Eggman's looking for."

"Crap!" Sonic said with anger, clenching his hand on a fist again. "And what is that source, exactly?"

"The report describes it as three Crystals: One looks like a horn, the other one like a pair of open wings, and the last one is just a circle," Tails replied, then he frowned. "But despite the lame description, if Eggman's after it, then it's a really powerful source!"

"But if the contact almost worked, then what failed?" Amy asked.

"The Chaos Emeralds are not stable enough to make such a process without affecting Sage," Tails explained. "Eggman's after something that can hold the Emeralds' power on line and lets Sage send the order properly. In other words..." He then looked at Knuckles.

The echidna immediately understood what Tails meant, then he frowned, growled in rage and smashed the table again, but this time he literally split in on half. "That son of a gun is going after my Master Emerald!"

"Not if we can stop him!" Sonic declared with a confident smirk. "Tails. We got any specific date where Eggman will make a move?"

"The database said that they'll put their plan in action the day after the sixth attack," Tails replied.

"So Eggman's heading to Angel Island tomorrow," Amy said with a frown, getting up and bring out her Piko Piko Hammer, which se rested on the ground. "Seems like we have an ambush to prepare!"

"More than that, sweet Ames," Sonic said, making Amy blush slightly at the comment. "We have a rotten egg to crack!"

Author's Note

So, how's it going, people?

Since we're meeting new versions of these characters, let me establish this from now: No, none of them have electric powers like in the movies nor in the previous saga. They're full on the Game cast. That also means there's no previous connection to Equestria.

I want to leave it clear because I know someone's gonna ask. Anyways, I'll see you all next week. Bye!