Sprawling Light

• 2 months after the attack -

Silver walks into Tails’ Workshop, a fair distance away from New Mobotropolis, and walks up to Tails, saying, “Hey Tails did you find that warp ring? I tried to Chronos Control back home this morning… again, but I didn’t have any luck.”

Tails types rapidly on his keyboard, “I did, it was in the middle of nowhere, it’s also mildly unstable, Sonic offered to check it out, you know he kind of needs the fresh air...” Tails stopped “Y’know, I hate funerals, I couldn’t attend any of the ones that were held for the victims of… you know… It wasn’t because they wouldn’t let me, but because I look, and sound, like the thing that killed entire families, orphaned kids… I didn’t want to cause more pain. Meanwhile, Sonic attended every single one of them. Without a frown, and without a smile, with nothing but professionalism, the likes of which I’ve barely ever seen from him. After the services, he sat in Sal’s room for a week straight, he would only go there to sleep, eat, drink, he wouldn’t talk to anyone, except to Sal’s ashes, and whenever he was done, he made sure to leave that room the exact way it was. The Guard let him sit in there. So, when he agreed to go check out the warp ring, it made me really happy, but I’m still worried he’s going to do something… stupid,” Tails tears up, he notices and quickly wipes it away, then he continues, “A-anyway, here are the coordinates. Thanks for being here Silver, it’s nice having you around.”

Tails hands him a calibrated GPS, Silver nods somberly and leaves, he shuts the door behind him, and he exhales deeply as he walks out of the room. “This place is so tense, I don’t blame anyone, but I really hope these guys can get through this.”

Silver walks forward two feet when he hears, a familiar gruff voice, “Are you taking to talking to yourself now, Silver?”

“Ah! Shadow? What are you doing?”

“I was listening to your conversation with Tails, Sonic went to find a warp ring. I’ve been wanting to see what he has been up to, as he has been… worryingly uncharacteristic lately,” Shadow sighs, “I don’t usually say this but, seeing Sonic in this way, makes me uneasy.”

Silver smirks, “Glad we’re all past hating each other.”

Shadow looks off into the middle distance, “I know loss. If he is going through that, I can’t find myself hating him as of right now.”

Silver scratches the back of his head, “Hey, could you warp me there? None of my warping abilities have been working.”

Shadow looks behind him a faint smirk, “If I can call in a favor later, then yes.”

Silver rolls his eyes, “Heh, sure Shadow.”

In a flash of light, Shadow uses Chaos Control and warps both of them to where Sonic is.

When they arrive, they see Sonic standing in front of a massive purple vortex, Silver, and Shadow stare at the vortex. Sonic then starts to speak, “Tails was a bit off when he said, ‘mildly unstable’, this thing is huge, a little bigger than most of the warp rings I’ve seen.”

Silver steps forward looking at it, “Sonic, I don’t think this is a warp ring,” Sonic looks over at Silver, Shadow following a few steps behind. “This portal doesn’t have the ‘ring’ around it, it’s just a random portal, in the middle of nowhere.”

Sonic then looks at Shadow, nods, then he looks at Silver and nods, “So, we going in?” Before Silver or Shadow can say no, he grabs their wrists and runs into the portal. It disappears when they jump through, but Silver accidentally drops the GPS behind him.

Shadow opens his eyes, and looks around, he is in a forest he has never seen before. “This could be a lot better of a situation,”

Sonic and Silver also both wake up. “Ugh, where are we?” Silver groggily stands up.

“Ask Sonic, he literally dragged us here, he must have had some resemblance of an idea.” Shadow Grumbles

Sonic smirks, dusting himself off, “Well, I don’t have a clue, but we can explore and find out.”

Shadow snarls and clenches his fists, “Damn it Sonic, why did you drag us here knowing anything?!”

Sonic walks past Shadow, his face twisted with aggression, “Get the stick out of your ass! Could you try to relax and have a good time!”

Shadow stiffens at the response. Sonic walks ahead. Letting Sonic lead the way, Silver looks at Shadow, his voice quiet, “Let’s just try to keep the guy happy, huh? This kind of thing is good for him.”

Shadow sighs in agreement, “…I guess you’re right…”

Shadow and Silver follow Sonic through the unknown woods. As they walk, they hear a twig crack in the woods, they all stop at the same time. Sonic turns to see a pack of wolves made of timber, as they try to ambush the trio. Silver smashes two of them together and throws the pile of sticks as far as he can, Shadow throws a Chaos Spear and destroys three at once.

Sonic peels out, spin dashing into the pack, and cuts one in half like a circular saw, then he continues through the rest of the pack, targeting large and small. When Sonic finishes, he stands on a pile of sticks, and the stragglers run away, Sonic almost gave chase, but stopped, deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. After the fight Silver and Shadow felt something off about Sonic but they chose to ignore it.

“Wolves made of wood, guess there’s a first time for everything- Wait, are they actually timberwolves, that’s funny,” Silver laughs lightly to himself as they exit the forest. As they reach the top of a short hill, the trio look around and see that they’ve exited into inhabited land with houses and barns in the distance.

Shadow crosses his arms as he scans the skyline, he sees thatch roofed houses and wagons, “Civilization? It seems rather primitive, let’s hope we haven’t gone too far back in time, if we are lucky, we could see if they have some rudimentary understanding of Chaos energy to send us home.” As the three continue on the dirt road walk to the closest house on the road: which is a small cottage with a tree growing out of it.

They walk up to the door, Sonic is the first to say, “Alright you two, be ready for anything, these primitive Mobians could be friendly or bloodthirsty.” Sonic knocks on the door. The door slowly creaks open, and a yellow face peaks her head out of the door, seems to be equine in nature.

Shadow sees the pony and has a sharp realization, “This isn’t time travel.”

Silver looks excitedly at her and Sonic maintains a calm smile.

The pony is taken aback but she isn’t scared away just yet, “H-Hello?”

Shadow sighs in relief, “It speaks English.”

Sonic starts to greet her, “Sorry if we’re bugging you, but my name’s Sonic, Sonic the hedge- “, then the pony opens the door all the way, bashing it into the wall on the other side, almost as if she had an epiphany.

“Don’t say another word, You poor, poor critters!” She hurries the three inside. Before they knew it, they were all inside the cottage, in blankets, on a couch and each given an empty cup for tea.

“Ma’am, I appreciate the hospitality but- “, Sonic gets hushed instantaneously.

“Shhh… don’t exhaust yourselves, you’re going to rest your little heads. My, you all look so very tired!”

Silver squints, looks at himself and whispers, “...little?”

Shadow looks at the pegasus pony and puts down the teacup he was given, “Since we’re now your guests I’d like to ask some questions.”

The pegasus pours the three hedgehogs teas, “I’d be okay answering some questions, my, you sure are talkative for a hedgehog.” She giggles but Shadow stays stone-faced.

“Who are you, what are you and where are we?”

“You three are in Ponyville, I am a pegasus pony and my name is Fluttershy. I normally only talk to animals, like you three, but lately I have been making friends with other ponies.”

Silver takes a sip of tea, “So your name is ‘Fluttershy’, and you are, in fact, shy?” Silver shakes his head as he laughs to himself, “This place, man.”

She smiles at Silver’s reaction, “Well, you all may be bigger than usual- wait how did you three grow so big?” Sonic raises his hand and was about to respond, “Oh no! Did Twilight preform some spell on you!?” Shadow nearly asks a question but is interrupted by a now livid Fluttershy. “I told her to stop testing her magic on the animals in the Everfree!” then she flies out of the door at top speed, leaving the front door wide open.

The trio get up, Sonic asks “Are we following her?” Silver drinks all of his tea then puts the empty cup on a nearby table. They all nod at each other and walk out and as they leave Silver politely shuts the door.

As they start going after her, Shadow and Sonic zoom to the city, leaving Silver in the dust, he sighs, and he rockets in the air with his psychic powers. They stop close to the town hall, and as they do, they get weird looks from all the ponies around them. Silver lands next to them, which garners more looks, Sonic snaps his finger, “Darn it! She outmaneuvered us.”

Then Shadow senses something, saying “Everyone, keep your eyes peeled, there’s something watching us.”

Sonic and Silver keep their eyes and ears open, then they hear a loud noise, and hear, “Incoming!” in a peppy voice, then the pink projectile is stopped mid-air by Silver’s telekinesis.

The pink pony notices she’s in the air, “Woah, so cool! I’m floating!”

Silver looks at the cannon in surprise, “Did- Did you just fire yourself out of a cannon… to hit us?”

“Pfft, obviously! How else was I going to greet the new visitors to Ponyville?”

Shadow crosses his arms, “In a way that wouldn’t be seen as an act of war in some countries...”

She laughs hysterically. “You’re hilarious, newbie!” Shadow’s eye twitches.

Suddenly a purple blast of energy flies past Silver’s head, he dodges and drops the pink pony, “The hell man, that could’ve killed me, Shadow!” Shadow turns spotting a purple unicorn with a smoking horn.

“It seems as if it wasn’t me,” he scowls, “interesting.” Fluttershy stands next to the purple unicorn and puts her ears down.

“Don’t you touch her, monster!” Yells the purple unicorn. Shadow takes a step forward, but Sonic walks further. Shadow looks at Sonic with a confused look, Sonic clenches his fists.

Shadow snarls, “Sonic, I can deal with this.”

Sonic looks back at Shadow, “Help Silver up.” Sonic’s voice sounds like he is holding back a fiery rage. Sonic pulls both of his gloves up and looks at the purple pony. “What’s your name?”

She looks at him, “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and you had better- “

Sonic yells, “That attack almost killed one of my closest friends.” Twilight stammers and Shadow looks onward in shock.

Silver gets up, then helps the pink pony he dropped, “Hey sorry about stopping you in the air, it was just instinct.”

She gleefully beams at Silver. “Oh, it’s fine, I’d do the same thing if I had magic powers, and something was flying at me. I’m Pinkie Pie by the way!”

Shadow intrudes “Silver, ‘Pinkie Pie’,” without looking at them, keeping his eyes forward, he slowly walks backwards. “We need to move.”

Silver dusts himself off and pulls his gloves, “Why’s that, Shadow?” then something explodes where Sonic is, and the dust is blasted away by pitch black energy.

Shadow wears a grim face, “Sonic has officially lost his mind.”

Twilight steps back slowly, beads of sweat forming on her face. “H-hey I didn’t mean to- “

Sonic blankly stares down, “Shut. up.” He holds up his palm and a ball of black energy manifests, but before he can obliterate Twilight, Fluttershy, and half of Ponyville. Everyone hears a boom and a rainbow-colored streak rockets itself into Sonic’s side, sending him through multiple buildings.

A pony matching the streak of color stands where Sonic used to be, she looked over at Twilight, “Twi! Are you okay? Don’t worry I’ll handle this creep!“

Before Rainbow Dash could utter another syllable, she catches a strong right hook to her jaw, bashing her into the ground, Sonic flattens his hand, it burns with sharpened black energy, and is about to go in for the kill. Then Sonic’s body stumbles as Silver holds out both hands, swings them down and pushes him toward the ground with his mind.

“Get a grip, Sonic!” Silver adjusts himself as Sonic struggles violently. Silver’s control almost breaks but Twilight also puts her own telekinesis into the hold, after a minute Sonic powers down and passes out.

Silver pants, and Shadow walks toward the unconscious Sonic, shakes his head, “What the hell happened to you?”

Twilight looks at Shadow, he face having a mix of curiosity and apprehension, “You say that as if you have no idea what happened, he’s your friend, isn’t he?”

Shadow grimaces, “Something like that, yeah.”

Then, in almost a minute the rainbow pony sits herself back up, bleeding from the nose and yells “Alright you overgrown porcupine, let’s go!” She directs this to Shadow, who more than used to being falsely recognized as Sonic, he then points to Sonic. the pony sheepishly scratches the back of her head, “Oh, heh, sorry.”

Suddenly, Pinkie jumps into the rainbow pony, “Dashie! You’re okay!” and they hug.

“Pinkie! I thought they hurt you.” Pinkie shakes her head furiously, “No, no, no! you’ve got it all wrong, Silver, that silver one over there,” Silver just waves at Rainbow Dash, “he only held me in the air,” she looks back at Silver, “because I launched myself out of a cannon at him and his friends.”

Twilight looks at the other ponies, “I think we should hold a meeting to see how we should go about helping these hedgehogs,” she looks at Shadow and Silver, “are you guys okay with coming over to my Library? I think we may need to have a conversation of some sort.”

Shadow responds, “That should be fine for the moment, me and Silver both need to figure out how to get back to Mobius.”

Fluttershy’s eyes open wide, “Wait... so you aren’t from the Everfree... and Twilight didn’t do anything to poor little animals,” she looks at Twilight, “I’m so sorry Twilight...” Fluttershy then gives Twilight a hug as they make up.

Silver and Shadow watches this exchange, then Silver leans over to Shadow, “Are we in like a fairy tale or something? Oh god, is this like that genie stuff Sonic went through?”

Shadow looks around at the broken houses, “I don’t think so Silver.”

When they get to Twilight’s home, the Golden Oak Library, two more ponies arrive on the scene, Applejack and Rarity. As Twilight begins the meeting, Sonic rests upstairs in Twilight’s bed, Silver and Shadow are in the circle of ponies in the middle of the room.

Applejack points a hoof between the two hedgehogs, “So, what in tarnation are y’all, I’ve seen plenty’a critters in my day, you three ain’t none of ‘em.” .

Shadow quickly scan the room, then looks at Applejack, “I am Shadow, this is Silver, and the person upstairs is Sonic. We are hedgehogs from the planet Mobius.”

They all open their eyes wide. Twilight stammers, “So y-you’re aliens,” her eyes then instantly light up “that’s so exciting!”

Shadow whispers under his breath, “Technically speaking, she isn’t wrong.”

Rainbow Dash then looks at Shadow, looks him up and down, “So, how does ‘Sonic’ have superpowers? How come he’s blue now instead of that, weird purply-black color?”

Shadow looks at her and sighs, “That’s a lot to explain, because I’d have to tell you about the Chaos force, the Chaos Emeralds, and how Sonic couldn’t keep his damn emotions in check.”

Shadow becomes visibly irritated. Silver takes over, “I’ll fill you in,” Silver looks at Shadow, “Hey man, get some air, don’t blow a gasket.” Shadow looks at Silver and lets out a breath, he nods, then Shadow walks out of the front door to stand around. While he stands there, he sees a small purple lizard, Shadow and the lizard look at each other for a moment wordlessly before the lizard walks into the tree house.

The little purple dragon looks around “So, who’s that outside?”

Twilight calmly greets him. “Oh hello, Spike, that was Shadow outside.”

Spike looks at Silver, Silver waves, Spike gives Silver a look of curiosity, “I’m not too sure I know what’s going on but color me interested!”

Silver then begins to teach the ponies about everything that’s happened. He explained Chaos, the Chaos Force and The Chaos Emeralds, then he told them about how they got there and why Sonic is the way he is, “...he’s a hero back home, he fought in a revolution against a mad scientist who was bent on domination, he was always the first guy to jump into a fight,” Silver looks down, “a few months ago, his home city was… attacked...”

Rainbow Dash gets pumped, “Lemme guess; Sonic kicked their butts and saved the day.”

Then a voice resonates from the top of the stairs, “No, I lost so much that day. More than I could ever hope to get back to feel normal.” He walks down the steps as the air in the room becomes tense, Sonic’s face wracked with guilt and grief. “My best gal and my closest friends… all of ‘em were butchered.” He nearly collapses on the steps clutching his chest, “I hear ‘em... begging for my help, I run as fast as my legs can take me but,” Sonic sits down on the steps as the ponies watch closely, they each look at each other in worry. Then Silver walks up to Sonic on the steps and sits next to him. Silver wraps an arm around him, then Sonic’s voice breaks, “But I just can’t get faster, I lose them every single... Goddamn time!”

He looks at Rainbow Dash, “I’m sorry for earlier,” he chuckles weakly, “I watched myself hurt you, I- “

She quickly interrupts him, “Hey! Don’t sweat it, no hard feelings.” Sonic smiles at her, then looks at Silver, who has a worried face.

“I’ll be okay, Silver.” Silver gets up and gives Sonic a hand, pulling him to his feet. Shadow hears Sonic’s voice and walks back in.

Shadow eyes Sonic, he sees the tears in his eyes, and he sighs, “As of now, we may be strangers and I’m not one for asking strangers for help, but… I’ll swallow a bit of pride. We need help.” Shadow looks at all the ponies.

Twilight smiles in understanding, “Well, you picked the right group of ponies! We’re always willing to help anyone in need.”

All of the ponies happily nod. Pinkie extends a hoof to Silver, “We’ll get you home, I Pinkie promise!”

Silver happily shakes Pinkie’s hoof.

Fluttershy looks down, not making eye contact but with a faint smile, “Well, if you three need a place to stay, my door’s always open.”

Pinkie then bounces up and down “Tomorrow we should definitely throw a party! To welcome Sonic, Shadow, and Silver to Ponyville!”

Sonic glances outside and sees that it’s dark out. “I was out for a while, huh?”

Silver, stands up, “How about we get some rest for the night, huh guys?” The trio follow Fluttershy home and take their spots on the floor in the living room, except for Silver who decided to take the guest bedroom.

In the middle of the night Sonic opens his eyes and realizes he can’t sleep, either because he was passed out for the entire evening or because he doesn’t want another nightmare.

Then he quickly and silently tip-toes out of the house, and speeds to a hill. The night sky is filled with bright stars, no light pollution to speak of, and the moon is a crescent. He lays on his back and blissfully looks at the sky. A voice calls out, “Hey. You like the view too, huh?”

Sonic turns his head and sees Rainbow Dash, Sonic’s face showing some surprise, “Didn’t know anyone would be up about now.”

She stands next to Sonic, “I can’t really sleep either, guess you must’ve clobbered me pretty good.”

Sonic continues to look up, his smirk turning to a small frown, “How are you guys so forgiving? I almost did something… really bad.”

Rainbow plops onto her back to look at the stars as well, “Thank Twilight for that stuff, I normally hold grudges, but after your friend Silver told us about what kind of hero you are, what you’ve done for your home… it kind of psyched me up… It’s the kind of thing I wanna do, y’know?”

“Sorry we met the way we did,” Sonic sits up and holds out his hand, with cheer, “Lets redo it! My names Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog!”

Rainbow reciprocates, smirking, “Nice to meet you Sonic, The name’s Rainbow Dash!” They shake hoof and hand.

Sonic looks up at the pegasus, “When you hit me earlier Rainbow Dash, you were moving pretty fast,” .

Rainbow Dash grows a cocky smirk, “Well yeah, I’m the fastest flyer in all of Equestria. Say you’re pretty fast too, we should race.”

Sonic’s faces mirrors hers, “Yeah! I need a good race.”

The pair spend a few hours staring at the sky, Sonic trying to find familiar constellations, and they both eventually split off and go back to their residences, temporary or otherwise, so they can both get some well-deserved rest. Though Sonic slept as well as he could, he was still haunted by the same nightmare he described earlier in the day.

Sonic wakes up still fairly detached but wearing his normal attitude to the best of his ability, Shadow woke up before him and was staring out the window, Silver came down the steps in fairly good mood.

Silver starts “So fellas, want to walk around the woods and find a way home?”

Then an explosion rattles Fluttershy’s cottage, Fluttershy rubs her eyes as she walks down the steps, “What’s with the noise?” Another rattle and Fluttershy almost trips on the steps, Silver holds her in the air and gently brings her to the ground floor. Shadow opens the door and sees a bunch of rubble in the field, animals scattering.

Then something pushes all the dust and debris away, and a mossy metal machine stands in the rubble. “S-S-S-S-Sonic detected! D-D-Destroy!” as it stares at Shadow, Shadow turns and yells for the others, “We have a hostile!” the hedgehogs walk onto Fluttershy’s front yard, “Is that Metal?” Asks Shadow,

Sonic smirks, “Older. That’s Silver Sonic.”

Silver looks over, and points to himself “Like me?” Sonic just squints at Silver, “Oh! You mean like the material! Got it.”

Then Silver Sonic finishes charging up and spin dashes at Sonic, Silver then stops and tosses it into the Everfree Forest. “How did one of Eggman’s old robots get here?” asks Sonic,

“I’d say the same way we did.” Silver answers.

Shadow prepares a Chaos Spear as Silver Sonic rushes from the forest, “Wouldn’t explain the moss, I think it’s been here for a year or two, but Badniks are built to last if they aren’t being trampled.” He then lobs the spear, and it pierces the robot’s chest, the robot sparks, then it powers down one last time. Fluttershy shakily walks outside, “Is it over?”

Shadow answers, “Should be, but you should probably get your friends, they may be able to help.

The ponies get there, and everyone looks at the robot. “What the heck is that?” Rainbow Dash asks.

Shadow clears up some moss on its broken body, “This is a Badnik, a type of automaton, it was clearly created by Doctor Robotnik.” Robotnik’s insignia is etched into the machine’s left shoulder,

Rarity looks at it, “Its design is simply dreadful, I mean its eyes are so garish, not to mention the color.”

Applejack rolls her eyes and touches the machine with her hoof then has a realization, “Wait! I recognize this doohickey! I thought it was a statue, this thing was deep in the Everfree, I think it popped up a few years ago, saw it once when an errand took me ways away from Sweet Apple Acres,” she looks at Sonic, “it came from the sky and landed smack-dab in front of a tree. I’d go to it every so often, and it’d make weird noises, didn’t think about it too much.”

Sonic proudly smirks, then boasts, “Didn’t know I beat this bot so bad; it had to run to another world!”

Then Sonic has a realization, he looks at Shadow and Silver, and asks, “How many of Eggman’s old toys could’ve landed here?”

Shadow then adds on “And how many of them have been activated because we arrived here?” Like clockwork, a fireball rises from Ponyville and the ground rumbles.

Twilight looks off at the tree-line, “We should get over there, and if what you guys said is true, someone should stay here and watch the Everfree.” .

Fluttershy looks down, “I-I’ll stay here and cheer you guys on...”

Silver holds up a finger, “I’ll also stay here, just in case something happens.”

Rarity then trots next to Silver, lays out a blanket and sits down, “No violence for me today, dear, I just got my hair to curl perfectly. I will keep an eye out and enjoy this beautiful weather while doing it.”

Applejack faces the direction of her orchard, “Me and Pinkie will head to Sweet Apple Acres. Either one of you boys want to go?”

Shadow steps forward but Sonic puts his hand on Shadow’s Shoulder, “Hey pal, I’ll go with those two, Rainbow and Twilight might need your firepower.”

Shadow shakes his head, “I appreciate the offer, but you have some aggression to work out. Go and take care of whatever is attacking Ponyville. I’m confident whatever is at this orchard won’t be very deadly to us.”

Sonic stares at Shadow then gives him a thumbs up, “Alright, suit yourself Shads,” Sonic and Rainbow Dash boom away as soon as the conversation is over. Twilight sighs and just teleports to town. Applejack’s squad rushes to Sweet Apple Acres, and Silver’s squad hunkers down around the body of Silver Sonic.