#lanolin in response: ??? how???

[lemurballing]

MOOOONKIEE KIIIDD! Familiar tails, new adventures - what, it’s supposed to say ‘tales’?

lmk!tangle :] i think she would get along so well with MK and his friends… her tail and his staff having stretchy competitions, and tangle losing one for the first time ever…

i actually did some older sketches of her design more closely following the typical lmk monkey model, but since lemurs have their snouts i had to give tangle hers… (more sketches under cut)

irl-lego head build sketches (these fur shapes could also be adapted to a proper sonic-style lego head, instead of lmk style...)

plus the original lmk!tangle sketches

[molinaskies]

Lanolin: Designed to be Dislikable.

Hi friends. I’ve had a number of people in my digital face over the last few months trying to “show me the light of Lanolin,” but I’ve kept these interactions private because there’s no need to put them on blast. Of course, they're mostly respectful and I’m often reminded that I have a right to my opinion, but there is always an undercurrent that I might have just missed this one small tidbit that could blow the case wide open because how could I possibly not like her? How could I not understand her character and be empathetic to her plight?

But I’ve watched the videos. I’ve read the think pieces. I’ve seen it all. But my opinion hasn’t changed and that does not mean I’m wrong… nor does it mean I’m right! We have two different opinions that should be allowed to co-exist.

I’m being a touch cross here, I recognize. Please forgive me for that, this once. But frankly, I am frustrated—not because people like Lanolin, but because many seem incredulous to the fact that I dislike her. And I can only assume that means I simply have not made myself clear.

Consider this my final take on Lanolin the Sheep until there is some significant development for this character.

I am allowed to dislike Lanolin because she is a fictional character whom I’ve done the research on and have come to that conclusion. Done. That’s all she wrote. Go home.

That aside entirely for the sake of argument, I am allowed to dislike Lanolin because she is supposed to be unlikeable as per her role in this story. I dislike Lanolin because I dislike assholes, but I also like Lanolin because she is doing her job very fucking well! lol

Lanolin is not supposed to be in the right. She is a character who is making major mistakes due to her lack of experience combined with her arrogant dismissal of others, and she will eventually be punished by Mimic’s betrayal to teach the audience some sort of lesson. If half of this comic’s runtime has been about punishing Sonic—the titular character—for his mistakes, then Lanolin can get punished once. I would bet real world money that this will happen.

So many characters are sus of Duo by now and have tried to do something about it but Lanolin gets in the way because she can’t listen to reason. The only reason Silver and Whisper “go rogue” is because Lanolin wouldn’t listen to reason—and her response was still disproportionate because when Whisper tried again to explain herself, Lanolin made her hit the deck.

Lanolin is Sonic with some pieces missing. We know this because Lanolin directly cites Sonic as her inspiration for getting involved in the restoration. However, Lanolin looks at Sonic, sees his behaviour, and emulates it without any understanding or regard for how he has earned the right to do what he does. Sonic is insolent, not arrogant, because he only denies authority when it isn’t earned. Sonic is defiant, not self-righteous, because he believes there are multiple ways to solve a problem. Sonic is empathetic, not sympathetic, because he takes the time to learn and experience what it means to live on the other side. Lanolin has modelled herself off of Sonic because Sonic is a hero, but she’s missed the bigger picture of what that actually means.

Lanolin is cold, unkind, and unwilling to be wrong because she thinks she knows everything she needs to be in this game. That is inherently unlikable to some people and therefore justified.

But there’s more to this, isn’t there?

A huge defence of Lanolin as a character is that “she has baggage that makes her rough around the edges,” and you know what? Fair! You would not believe how empathetic I am to that, trust me. Imma get into it. But the reality of the case is that Lanolin is her own keeper, and if Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, the Chaotix, Tangle, Whisper, Silver, Blaze, Jewel, Belle, and many others can carry their baggage around and still treat others with respect and without verbal and physical abuse, then there’s no excuse. Yes, it takes time to get there, and the whole point of Lanolin as a character is that she hasn’t learned the “everyone is useful just the way they are” and “a leader is nothing without her team” lessons, yet.

But allowing Lanolin to lash out at the world only to let her hide behind her trauma is a deeply reductive portrayal of trauma survivors that I find aggressively problematic. Further, it is a failure to Lanolin as a character because, again, that is not the fucking point of her.

This is the one time I will ever ask anyone here to just “take my word” for something. I’m not comfortable airing out too much of my personal issues on the internet. But below is what I can share.

I come from a very, very broken home that instilled a lot of unproductive defence mechanisms within me. In short, I used to be very mean because I was neglected, and acting out against my peers and showing off my skills gave me attention.

The big ticket, though, is I thought I was good. I thought I was Great. Awesome. Outstanding. AMAZING. I was a natural-born leader with a drive for justice who was good at a couple things. I thought I was doing everything right because teachers liked me and I was getting opportunities. What I never saw—never could have possibly seen until it was spit right in my face—was how I was treating everyone around me as beneath me because I thought I had it in the bag.

It wasn’t until I learned about a very public smear campaign against me that I got a wake up call. When I saw what people were saying, it shattered my entire paradigm not because of just how heinous it was, but because of how much of it was true—and that broke my heart. All I have ever wanted to do was help people. Fight for people. Protect people. Elevate people. Support people. For me to learn I was doing the exact opposite of what I set out to do absolutely destroyed me.

After that, I immediately switched up my game. I pulled out all the stops and really focused on being kinder, empathetic, and encouraging. I started to become more self-aware and mindful of how my emotions and behaviour impacted others, but it still took years to even start to comprehend that I was traumatized, let alone the ways my trauma impacted my relationships and behaviour.

I used to be Lanolin. I was a mean girl getting progressively meaner from ages 11-17, and I am still in active recovery. I still make mistakes. I still fall from grace occasionally, but I am working on it. I’m almost 24 now.

Remember when this used to be about a cartoon sheep? Back on track LOL.

I promise you that while Lanolin has some moments of clarity, she is not largely aware of what she’s doing. She’s not evil. She is not unworthy of love. She just needs time for the story to let her learn.

I am not saying Lanolin does not deserve a redemption. What I am saying is that down her current path and with her current behaviour, she has not yet earned one. And here’s the thing: even though what I’m about to say probably will not happen because this is a kids comic directed at 12 year olds, just because Lanolin might eventually get her punishment, see the light, and apologize for her wrongs while acting on solutions, no one she hurt owes her forgiveness. Whisper can still tell her to fuck off. Silver can send her to outer space, Sonic 06-style. Tangle can yeet her back to kingdom-wherever the fuck she-come from (hush, I know it’s Riverside). 

Why? Because the reality is that even if you are a changed person and have learned and grown from your past discretions, you still hurt people. Even if they do forgive you, they may never trust, and they will never forget. That is the reality I and many others like me live in daily, and to be frank: I think it’s entirely fair. I made mistakes, and I gotta pay the consequences. I deserve grace and patience, but that can only go so far. The people around me are human the exact same way I am.

I personally believe that I have never misunderstood Lanolin as a character. She’s snarky and inexperienced and abrasive entirely by design. She is meant to showcase the “wrong” ways to be a hero and will be corrected. But just because she is a rough-and-tumble person who had a bad day at work does not mean she can come home and treat the world as her personal shitter. No one has that right.

And if you disagree with me, good! Welcome to MolinaSkies.

[randomthefox]

I'm sincerely and genuinely confused as to what you think Mimic has to do with Lanolin being a loathsome cunt of a character? She was despicable and warranted hating literally from her first issue, before Mimic even showed up

Y'all ain't even reading this comic, are you?

Seriously who the fuck does she think she is talking to/about them like that? Tangle took part in the battle for Angel Island, sacrificed herself during the Metal Virus, and helped take down Mimic. Tangle has more combat experience than Lanolin has ever or will ever have.

And Sonic is

Fucking Sonic

And yet she's BOSSING THEM AROUND as if she knows what the fuck she's talking about? "How do you handle her?" HOW DO YOU HANDLE YOURSELF, WHERE DO YOU GET OFF BACK SASSING TANGLE LIKE THAT?

Bossy cunt. And none of them call her out? Bad writing

A character who is INTRODUCED as being a bossy complaining bitch who tugs the leash and criticizes the ESTABLISHED AND BELOVED longstanding characters of the comic INCLUDING THE TITLE CHARACTER is not a good first impression.

On her introductory issue the widespread response to her character was "who the FUCK is this bitch??" And it only degraded from there. Mimic has absolutely nothing to do with it.

The only people who liked Lanolin are people who specifically liked her BECAUSE she was such a cunt

She is and deserves to be hated REGARDLESS of Mimic.

Of course the fact that when Mimic showed up Lanolin proceeded to BEAT WHISPER IN PUBLIC didn't help in the "hating her" department. But I again struggle to understand how Mimic has anything to do with readers feelings towards her due to her actions here.

[thankskenpenders]

Unsure if you’ve answered this anywhere before (sorry if you have!) but! what are your thoughts on Lanolin if you’ve been keeping up with IDW?

Lanolin's been kind of a fascinating addition to the cast to me, now that she's been promoted to the main cast. I kind of love that Lanolin is unambiguously one of the heroes, but she's also, like... not very nice? But she's also not an antihero like Shadow. She's just a different type of hero than most of Sonic's friends. It would have been so easy to just make her the cute friendly sheep girl, but I think she's led to some really interesting internal and external conflicts by having such a different mindset from everyone else.

Sonic is a very Power Of Friendship type series, and most of the recurring heroes are friends with each other. IDW's heroes have slotted right into that. Tangle wants to be everyone's friend. Whisper is extremely introverted due to her past, but the point is to show her making new friends. Belle's in a similar boat. And Jewel got roped into the series because she was already Tangle's best friend.

And then you've got Lanolin, who's not really here to make friends. She's here to work. She wants to do good in the world, which is why she joined the Restoration... and then the Metal Virus Saga happened. Now she's tired and kind of jaded about all of it. She's a cog in the machine whose power is limited, having neither crazy superpowers like Sonic's friends nor any real structural power within the Restoration. So where Tangle wants to go on fun adventures and Whisper's (understandably) weighed down by her personal vendetta with Mimic, Lanolin is this third wheel who doesn't particularly care about any of that and just wants to keep the team focused on doing their job.

I can kind of understand why some might be put off by this new dynamic if they were fans of the way Tangle and Whisper operated before. But personally, I think it shakes things up in a really interesting way. I could easily see a world where Mimic's return felt like a retread of the Tangle & Whisper miniseries, but Lanolin has helped push things in a new direction. She feels like our representative of the rank and file grunts of the Restoration, and the embodiment of the responsibilities that being part of the Restoration entail. Tangle and Whisper can't just go off and do their own thing all the time anymore. For Tangle especially, it feels like the formation of the new Diamond Cutters is forcing her to grow up a little. The Restoration can't always just be this fun secret club where she gets to go on adventures with her girlfriend. It's a job.

But Lanolin's not infallible, of course. She's frequently wrong, and that leads to conflict. But I understand where she's coming from and why she is the way she is, and that makes her an interesting contrast to everyone else. She's also clearly still growing as a character, and learning how to work as a team without just seeing Tangle and Whisper as people to boss around. I'm sure that whenever she learns that Whisper really was right about Duo being Mimic in disguise, that's going to be a BIG moment for Lanolin, and I'm excited to see how that informs her continued evolution as a character.

[beevean]

I can't be the only person who finds it so funny that Sheep-Tits McGee is being forcibly shown how hard she fumbled the ball when she was still trying to insert herself into a leadership role she did nothing to earn, and even funnier still was that in the Eggperial City arc, it was shown time after time that things resolve themselves when people don't follow her orders.

"No, I never get sick of this panel. Why do you ask?"

The ideal conclusion would be that this know-nothing know-it-all finally realizes that she's been a shitty leader (and an even shittier friend), and simply either A) step down or B) quit the Restoration altogether because she's clearly not cut out for this.

Additionally, she'd have to actually apologize to just about everybody she's wronged - Silver included - only for him to refuse her pleads offer to rejoin the Diamond Cutters, and never truly forgiving her for the decimation of Restoration HQ on her watch... all the while, the Babylon Rogues rub this "little incident" in her face at every opportunity.

I know people - including me - would want Silver to have the last laugh at her, but let's be honest, Jet would absolutely NOT pass up the chance to be "that guy." Dude finally gets the chance to get his rematch with Sonic in lord-knows-how-long, and he gets robbed of it because of Sheep-Tits McGee over here just can't stop being the fun police? You fucking better believe he'd rub it in.

But, this is the IDWverse where we can never have nice things, so it's plainly obvious that the story is going to end with Sheep-Tits McGee giving the most rehearsed and disingenuous YouTuber Apology™ ever, and every single fuck-up she's made up to that point will simply be swept under the rug like it's a bad movie on Lifetime TV.

Like, I have a very hard time believing that this exchange will ever get addressed later on.

Apologies for the tangent, I'm just genuinely baffled that poor writing like this has its ardent fans on such high alert that discussion often gets one-sided so quickly.

That panel of Lanolin realizing that he has been a piece of shit for nothing and Whisper was right and she beat her up for no good reason cheers me up in the morning <3 even if nothing will come out of it. at least it is slightly cathartic to see. Yes, you should feel bad about yourself, asshole.

The most we know about #76 is this:

Sonic and his friends are forced to deal with the aftermath of Clutch's grand scheme! While some set out to seek justice, some stay behind to pick up the pieces. What unlikely pairs will join forces? Which bonds will be broken? Who can be trusted?

And you can see a dejected Lanolin in the alt cover:

But I'm not holding my breath. We have seen time and time again the asinine ways plotlines got "resolved" or dismissed in this comic. We have seen how the "drama" of Tangle stealing the name of Whisper's dead comrades has been dealt. Lanolin is going to feel bad for trusting Duo (not for being physically violent or for being angrier at Sonic going behind her back than at Clutch for attempting to kill everyone) and eventually Tangle will be all "it's okay bestie you meant well 🥺". I'd be surprised if Silver will ever see Lanolin again (he kind of vanished in the Riders arc lol), let alone Jet who's only used as comic relief anyway.

In a good story, Lanolin will accept that she's not cut out to be a leader, that her objectives (in theory) are noble but she simply cannot handle responsibility or have good judgment, and has caused nothing but harm. But if she leaves, then we won't have a cool team anymore :)

[askror]

kit:

"...Huh? I don't get it." Kit frowned

"I get it, and it's REALLY friggin' rude," Surge snarled, waving her finger at the screen like the device itself was responsible for this absolutely reprehensible meme. "Do you ever actually think about the stuff you say to people? They can't help what they look like! Going after someone because of their appearance is-"

"Okay, hold on." Lanolin snapped her fingers a few times to silence the ranting tenrec. "First of all, you make fun of how people look all the time. You call like 90% of your friends nicknames based on that."

"....Y...Y-Yeeeeeah, but... Uh... Um... Well, I'm not saying it to Drippy!" Surge shook her fist meaninglessly.

"Second of all, it's just a harmless meme. It's not offensive at all. It-"

"Now that's where you're wrong, poofball. I'm not gonna sit here and them say that about my brother. He is NOT a rabbit!"

"..." Lanolin blinked incredulously. "Surge, that's not the joke. It's making fun of his big ears. Like, how they can hear everything?" Surge quirked an eyebrow, looking between Lanolin, the screen, and then Kit... And then snorted. "Oh. I guess they are pretty goddamn big. That IS funny, hehe. Hey, Drippy! I got something to say, are you all ears? HAH!"

"In summary, this wasn't a question," Kit said in monotone, eyes glowing, "But thank you for putting it in our mailbox. I'm going to trace where this came from so I can put a pipe bomb in yours."

[skaruresonic]

https://www.tumblr.com/skaruresonic/766227191005577216/so-clean-sweep-has-just-been-exposed?source=share

"How do they think this is going to reflect on them?"

Something like that would require to the writers to think about what they wrote beyond vibes and vague understanding of tropes. So I wouldn't count on it ever being brought up.

If they do bring up the topic they'll somehow spin it so that Sonic's the one responsible for every bad thing to ever happen. This comic only brings up the negative implications of things when the writers want to make a game character look incompetent or scummy.

Lanolin's hot head tyrant personality almost got people killed during the race. Sonic saved those people but he's still definitely the worst person ever because we say so. That's how this comic is.

They won't talk about how bad this makes the restoration look. They're gonna warp the narrative to make Sonic and his friends look like idiotic villains even if that conclusion is completely illogical.

Yeah I didn't mention it too much in my reactions, but there was an odd emphasis on public perception throughout this arc. Tails and Amy are suddenly worried about "ruining" the race by breaching the Restoration shuttle. It's one of the reasons they chose not to take the infinitely simpler option of flying up there on the Tornado.

Sonic being revealed to be the Phantom Rider in front of his friends is treated like a hard-hitting moment of betrayal (to the point where Tangle, standing frozen in shock, would have been crushed under a falling rock if Whisper hadn't pulled her away. and no, I am not making that up)... but it kind of doesn't mean anything if he doesn't ultimately care.

Surge suddenly grows to care about the public's adoration where before she didn't care about the world. Because praise kink is enough to override her brainwashing, apparently.

Clutch is instantly exposed in 4K HD through a public broadcast.

Given this emphasis on PR, logically people should have questions about how Clean Sweep managed to fool the Restoration. Not only did Clean Sweep poison water, land, and air to a seemingly Eggman-esque extent that it's tainted crops, they're said to have "falsified records" and "violently silenced" whistleblowers. How they failed to notice any of this, especially given everyone's sensitivity to the environment following Forces and the metal virus, is beyond me.

You mean Jewel, whose existence revolves around doing paperwork, was fooled by forged documents?

You mean Lanolin, who has a huge stick up her ass about keeping her people in line, was so remiss at vetting a company that wanted to work with her organization that she didn't notice folks were being tied up and stuffed into closets?

You mean the organization dedicated to making the world a better place, at best, failed to notice the MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF POLLUTION their sponsor was getting up to?

In a more coherent narrative, there's no way people wouldn't connect the dots. All of this combined would imply a massive failure on the Restoration's part and possibly damage their reputation.

[redpenship]

What's your opinion on multiple important Restoration members wearing the Resistance symbol, despite former leader Amy Rose and current leader Jewel insisting that the Restoration is not a paramilitary organization? Is this part of a conflict within the Restoration or is all the "we're not the Resistance anymore" stuff just PR talk?

I haven't read the past few issues of IDW, so this is pretty interesting to see! Thanks for the images.

We've seen Jewel and Lanolin admit that they want the Restoration to have a more proactive presence on the islands. In that case, the Neo-Diamond Cutters have formed something of a strike force (or paramilitary wing) within the body of the Restoration. I don't think this is a result of internal conflict, since from what I can tell, no one is really advocating for the Restoration to remain 100% peaceful. The transition from an NGO-like recovery group into a more effective, semi-militarized organization was inevitable when you consider the conditions under which they operate.

The Resistance transitioned into the Restoration when their largest security threat (Eggman Empire) collapsed entirely. Since Eggman was missing, and especially for the period wherein they thought Mr. Tinker would stick around, there was no need for the Restoration to be anything but a non-violent organization. This makes sense--since there was no one left to fight, the best course of action was to use their resources to help the islands recover after the war.

During the events of the IDW series, the Restoration has faced numerous security challenges. They had to deal with the Metal Virus, the Zeti attacking their HQ, Surge's bullshit as a result of Starline's attempts to control the Empire, and the Urban Warfare arc in which Eggman attempted to consolidate territory and resources again. The Restoration has multiple security concerns. Establishing a paramilitary wing in response to legitimate threats is a natural course of action!

So, I would say it's less-so that the Restoration is lying, but more-so that their security environment has changed enough since their formation that they can no longer be fully peaceful. Wearing Resistance armbands reflects a shift in how they operate, not necessarily in their purpose, which is to provide support to the victims of Eggman's antics.

ty for the ask!! i hope this is a good answer for you :)

[crusherthedoctor]

💛 💚

💛: What is a popular ship you just can’t get behind, and why?

Sonamy, predictably. Three decades worth of official material, fanfics, fanart, a month dedicated to it on this site, and I still feel nothing towards it, and in fact have been actively turned off by it for multiple reasons. Including: little consistency among fans over how it would function and thus making it hard to imagine the "true" dynamic, fans often neglecting Sonic's needs and seeing him as little more than a trophy that Amy has earned, official teasing in stuff like Boom and Prime requiring dodgy characterization in order to back it up...

Outside of Sonamy, as hinted at earlier, with me tending to be more interested in rarer Sonic ships, you could say that very few popular examples do it for me, with Sonaze being the only mainstream exception that comes to mind. Sonadow? Meh. Shadamy? Meh. Silvaze? Meh. Is it an oversaturation response? Is it because a lot of the time, they tend to use their pre-established popularity as a shortcut for not having to put effort into their actual chemistry together? Who knows.

Whispangle is particularly tragic, because in an alternate timeline, I think I could have enjoyed it. With what Tangle and Whisper were apparently set up to be as individuals, I think it could have been cute and perhaps even comforting in the right hands. But of course, like Starline's self-destructive simping for Eggman, the comic had other ideas, and so we're left with rampant flanderization and conjoined twins who ended up being more toxic together than the writers probably realised, not helped by them also having Lanolin the Sally alongside them.

Shame.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favourite character?

I've already explained why Eggman being less evil than other Sonic villains is James Somerton levels of delusional, but it goes beyond that.

"Eggman is a family man" Nope, robots he built don't count. Excluding temporary allies and certain simps, he is very much a lone wolf compared to someone like Bowser, with even his thoughts on the late Gerald largely stemming from a selfish lens of the latter's genius making himself look good by association. Given his ego, he also probably wouldn't be interested in having a heir to his throne, because it's HIS empire, and ONLY his: he would just find a means to immortality instead.

"Eggman can't plan" If that were true, 95% of the game plots would never have happened. Using this to handwave shitty writing in a comic whose premise leaped off of Forces, a game where Eggman is constantly planning, is Mr. Fantastic levels of reaching. The intro cutscene for Unleashed, a moment that I'm pretty sure fans fondly reminisce over to this day, had a setup that specifically relied on the idea that Eggman can plan. If you're going to claim he can't plan because he makes some mistakes and ultimately loses to his nemesis, then you might as well claim that all video game villains can't plan... including other villains in this very franchise.

"Eggman is cowardly" My man is so hands-on that he's the sole boss of half the games. He also made a beeline towards the Time Eater mere seconds after it appeared in front of him without warning.

"Eggman is physically inept" He punched a wall of ice.

[eddiesheep]

I feel like I'm soo out of date. I've been reading the IDW Sonic comics only recently, but I really gotta put these thoughts SOMEWHERE, or else I might explode.

Basically.

I hate this girl.

Yes. I know she's trying her best.

Yes. I know that being a leader is not easy.

Yes. I know she's still learning.

Does not change the fact that Lanolin is a failure as a leader. Any leader worth a damn would NEVER blindly trust some kid, with a sob story, that they've never met in their lives, over two teammates that have worked with you before and that you know mean well. Lanolin did not have to villainize Silver the way she did.

Look at her face in that last panel. Ugh.

Had she simply kept Duo at arms length, maybe things would've gone smoothly. Maybe then, Silver would've never felt the need to go this far in the first place.

If she knew Silver was untrusting of Duo, couldn't she have pulled him aside and simply, I dunno, listened to his concerns and tried problem solving to accommodate for that? Something that a LEADER would've done?

And even if she didn't trust Silver at all anyway, why ignore Whisper's comments of concern as well?

She's literally vouching for some kid she met yesterday, basically. Couldn't she have done some kind of background check on Duo? Couldn't she have kept him away from important business?

As far as she knows, he is just a newbe who has no experience aside from computers. Why put so much heavy trust on him so easily, so early? Just because he said he wants adventure? Please.

I know the reason, I'm not blind, it's because once upon a time she was also a newbe who didn't know what to do but wanted to help people regardless. She sees herself in him. She's letting her emotions control her. That's not what a leader does. And that's her main problem, she doesn't take precautions, she doesn't problem solve, she doesn't stop to communicate with her teammates, hear them out, listen to their worries or reservations and then take it to account. In a team, every voice counts, not just the ones you personally want to listen.

Again, I know being a leader is not easy, she is shown to have many other responsibilities, she must’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed already. But honestly, that would serve as another reason not to trust Duo just like that. She can't afford any more headaches than she already does so why not just dismiss this new guy? Make him go do something else, something so simple even a newbe couldn't possibly screw it up. He's new, so he has little to no experience by default, he is bound to screw something important if given such too-high-responsibility.

I don't care how good of an actor Mimic is. She should've known better and kept this new "kid" at a safe distance! Silver (As well as literally ANYONE) would be completely in the right in distrusting Duo, if not because he might be an imposter, then because he might be a liability.

I hate her. Idc. I feel what I feel.

[that-phantomstar]

Written a new Dark Sonic fic for AO3!

I wanted to do my take on Dark Sonic and how I would put him into the canon of the current world, so I did this!

It's very messy since I wrote most of it late at night, so don't expect the most grand thing you've ever set eyes on however.

Here's the fic's link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61823041/chapters/158078368#workskin

If you want to read it here, it's under the cut:

(It's very long, so don't open it unless you're keen on reading the whole thing, with a count of 13,008 words)

CHAPTER ONE: ARRIVAL:

TUESDAY, 2:34 PM, THE RESTORATION:

Sitting inside the main office, were the Diamond Cutters, gathered around the circular table. At the head of it, was a monitor screen,  the Restorations logo proudly sitting in the middle of the black void, static slicing through the still image every so often.

In between the gap of the screen and table was Tails, a finger to his mouth, patiently waiting. His other hand rested atop of the glass table, softly tapping it to the rhythm of some song. Behind the door resting across from them, a muffled bang was heard, echoing through the hallways.

“Right on cue”. Tails hums out, a smile on his face as the door opens, revealing the blue hedgehog in all his glory. “Did I miss anything?”. Closing the door behind him, he lets out his trademark grin, looking right towards Tails, a gentle click coming from the smooth metal door behind him.

“Heheh, not yet. Couldn’t start without Mr. Fashionably late after all.” Tails grins at Sonic’s direction, arms folded as Sonic mirrors the look, letting out a small chuckle.

“Sonic! You’re here! And not the last one to make it for once!” Stars light up in her eyes as she faces him, tails swishing behind her, curling into all sorts of shapes. Whisper watches the two interact, smiling from her spot.

“Well who else is supposed to be here? I mean I believe Jewel might, but when I ran by she seemed to be doing somethin-”

His voice being sliced by an invisible blade, he, Tangle, Whisper, and Duo turn towards the door, being opened by yet another person, sounds of warm conversations more audible now from the other rooms.

Cautiously, Knuckles steps out from the frame, thick gloves cushioning the door handle. Behind him is the silhouette of  Lanolin, looking annoyed as she usually does.

“Oh, didn’t think you’d be here”. Looking Sonic straight in the eyes, he goes to sit besides Sonic, not losing contact. “Well I make sense, you don’t however. How’d Tails convince you to crawl away from the Master Emerald?”

Sonic leans forwards, invading Knuckles’ personal space, grinning ear to ear, ready for Knuckles’ response. “I was trying to be sarcastic. I already knew you were going to be here since Tails told me first thing”

Sonic slouches back, slyly rolling his eyes. “Oh of course you were…” He muttered underneath his warm breath. Before Knuckles could ask what he had said, Lanolin interrupts, clearing her throat, purposely interrupting the two.

“As nice as it can be to see a friend after a while, we’re here for a reason.” Dragging herself forwards, she stands tall besides Tails, at the other end of the screen.

“I got Tails to get you two,” she nods towards the blue and red figures, “since we seem to have found something interesting, something that me and the Diamond Cutters would struggle with on our own.”

Turning to Tails, she continues on. “Care to show, so we can get started?” Tails, grabbing a small black remote off a nearby shelf, points it at the screen. “Sure will do!”

The screen flashes to a group of images stacked on the left, showing what clearly was an Eggman base, alongside notes and bullet points besides them.

“When searching through Eggman's files, due to him being quiet out of the blue,” he muttered the last part through his teeth,  “I found what seems to be data on some new project of his.”

The screen flicked to some more data. No images, just words. “I can’t tell how ambitious it is, but it’s not his average plan.” Combing the short fur at the back of his head, he shifted his body to the side. “He seems to be creating something using a Chaos Emerald. That I could get from the data.”

Turning the screen off,  a small digital pitch cutting off, he turns to the group sitting at the table. “Whatever it is, one thing is for sure, Eggman is creating alterations of the Chaos Emeralds and distorting their energy signatures. For what reason I don’t know just yet, or what they are to accomplish.”

Thinking for just a second, Sonic pipes in. “What's so bad about it that the Diamond Cutters alone can’t take it on? They’re all capable themselves.”

Turning her head up to Sonic, Whisper replies. “I agree, it does not appear to be too bad.” Her voice soft and quiet, facing Tails, resting her mask in her hands.

“Well, if the fastest speaker alive will be still for a moment, I will get there.”

“Youch, all these names you’re calling me today…” He puts a hand to his forehead, palm facing outwards, eyes shut in a ‘offended’ manner. “If only they were original…”

Letting out a small laugh, Tangle adds on. “More like the fastest critic alive…”

“Hey!” Sonic playfully wails out, both leaning over and giggling, before Lanolin buts in again. “You two need to focus more like Whisper and Knuckles do…”

Confused, Duo, who had been quiet the whole time, leans into the table. “What about me? I haven’t done anything.” He nervously blurts out “I didn’t bring up your name, did I?” Lanolin lazily replies. Letting out a nervous laugh, he grips both of his arms. “Yeah, that's true, heh…”

Duo turns his head away from the rest of the group. Lanolin, ignoring this, signals to Tails. Nodding Tails looks away from Duo, confused face turning to a serious one once more.

“While like I said before, that being I don’t know what they are for, I do know that they emit some kind of radiation however. From what I can tell, it’s highly dangerous. That alone is enough to point out that Eggman hasn’t just been starting out a unique rock collection…”

Turning towards the direction of Sonic and Knuckles, he finishes his breath. “Hence why you two may be needed. With you, Knuckles, being more equipped with knowledge of Chaos energy.”

Sonic stands upright, chest grazing against the edge of the table as he stands upright, the plastic chair clattering down to the ground. “Well let's go then!” Literally leaping out of her chair, Tangle follows suit, pumping a fist into the air dramatically. “Yeah! I’m ready!”

Knuckles scoffs, as Tails pipes in, drawing in a quick breath. “Now hold on. We need to wait, as it seems that almost nothing is getting in and out from there, unless scheduled. I assume it’s to keep it secure…”

“Awwww” Sonic and Tangle deflate, pouting. Whisper lets out a small, almost nonexistent chuckle, with Knuckles smirking. Duo presses his mitten into the table, squeaking from the thick leather material.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, he looks over Tails’ shoulder, avoiding direct eye contact. “What will we do with them all when we are done with the mission…?”

Tails opens his mouth, until carelessly, Lanolin speaks up. “Make sure that he can’t use them for any plan, or make more ever again…”

A blank face forms on him, almost looking as if he was suppressing something. “Sounds good to me…”

Facing away from him, Tails and Lanolin look to the main group before them. Tails cheerfully bursts out. “Be ready to wreck the place!” Sonic and Knuckles laugh, with Sonic being the loudest. “Gotta love the enthusiasm!”

A gust of wind blows things off the table, as Sonic is now at the door, handle in hand. “See you until then!” Flashing a finger gun, he darts out of the door in the blink of an eye, an audible, sharp whoosh echoing down the halls.

“That's Sonic alright…” Knuckles sighs, rolling his eyes halfway.

“Well I don’t see you getting ready Knuckles…” Tails sternly replies, hands on hips, as if parenting the Echidna.

Knuckles slowly gets up, before walking to the exit, shoes squeaking against the smooth metal floors.

“Remember, in three days you have to meet us back here to get going!” Tails calls out, hands circling his mouth in an attempt to make his voice louder, teasing the guy.

“I know, I know, I’ll keep an eye on the time this time…” He takes his exit, a click from the door being the last sound in the room before the rest of the group get up, with Tangle spouting out all kinds of theories as to what it may be inside the base to Whisper.

Tails took his leave, taking his Miles Electric, which was plugged into the monitor, slings the strap over his shoulder, namesakes lifting off, as disappears from the room.

Duo, being easily forgotten in the group, slinks off, to no one's notice, blending into the shadows.

SATURDAY, 6:28 AM, THE OUTSKIRTS OF EGGMAN'S BASE:

Sitting atop of a grassy field is one of the many ‘proud’ creations of Eggmans. Shiny silver glistens in the morning light, accompanied by the sharp smell of metal. Branding the building is Eggman's logo, grinning with evil malice down at the group, watching from a distance.

Tapping his foot, Sonic looks up at the sky, trying to find entertainment in anything at all, but all that he can watch is the shifting clouds. Not even the Flickeys are out to chirp little songs. After all, why would they be sitting comfy near EggTech?

Tangle too seems to be bored, following Sonic closely in behaviour. Digital beeps and chirps slip out from Whispers maks as she tampers with it, dead set on improving something.

Knuckles is resting against the grass calmly, eyelids shut as he feels the breeze dance between his dreadlocks.

In his hands, the MIles Electric scans over the field, scouting the area. Tails’ ears bounce back and forth between his focus and the impatient blue hedgehog behind him, who is now sending small stones loose, clattering against other grey formations.

The Electric begins to beep a slow rhythm, as Tails reaches for a button to turn it off.

Sitting upright, feeling his muscles stretch and pull from slouching, he turns to Sonic. “Ok, we can go now. No need to destroy the ground around you.”

“Alright!” Sonic boasts, boosting off towards the base entrance. Startled, Tails tries to call out for him, voice cracking due to the cold air. “Sonic, wait! You can’t run in like that!” However, his plea is lost to the thick, still air.

Without hesitation, Tails jolts forwards, in an attempt to catch up. Knuckles lurches forwards. “Tails!” He gets up, as the rest of the group follow suit, darting to the entrance that Sonic had already reached.

Tails is the first to make it, landing on the ground as grass blows outwards. “Sonic! What was that all about!”

Back turned to the fox, Sonic does not respond, staring up ahead at the door. The air around them lingers, no one moving.

He steps forwards, placing a hand on his shoulder, feeling the cold skin through his gloves. “Sonic…?”

Tails rolls his eyes, shaking Sonic at a fast pace. “Sonic you can talk now.”

He turns his head to Tails, just in time to see the rest of the group catch up, with Tangle and Knuckles in the lead. “Oh!” He looks to the group direction, gaze slicing through them.

Knuckles is the first to speak. “Sonic! What was all that about!” Tails can feel him flinch through his glove, as if brought back to reality. “I dunno, getting away from you!” Suppressing a laugh through his teeth, he watches Knuckles become enraged.

Tails holds out a hand to both, preventing them from arguing any further. “Ok, let's not do that here…” His warm breath makes contact with the cold air, causing an unusual sensation to creep down to the ground.

Knuckles grunts, before loosening up, hands dropping to his sides. “Alright, Tails is right, let's get goin’!” Sonic spins around, facing back at the door.

Moving to the side, Sonic bows down, arms gesturing towards the door, his now exposed back shivering in the cold air. “Care to do the honors my dear companion?” He speaks, putting on a fancy accent, putting on the biggest smile.

Tails shakes off the earlier tension, adding an accent of his own to the situation. “Why I will, Mr. Needlemouse!” He puts on a cartoonish stride, approaching the access panel.

He reaches for the plug, connecting it to the server, waiting for the code to work its magic, with the occasional beeps filling the silence.

“Heyyy, you did not just call me what I think you did, did’ja?” Now upright once more, he slumps an arm over Tails’ shoulder, inspecting his little brother.

He blows a raspberry in response. “Nooo, you just misheard, my dear friend.” Tails pushes himself to Sonic, bantering with him.

Sonic puts his hands up in defence. “I mean is that even an insult to me? Really, I don’t think I was ‘Sonic’ at that time, thanks to a bad hit to the head.” He knocks on his head with his knuckles, a tapping sound coming from them.

“In case you two were too busy, you may have failed to remember that we’re here too, and to do a mission…” Lanolin buts in, approaching the now open door, which the duo had failed to notice, giving a very sheepish look to each other.

“Alright Diamond cutters, remember, be cautious of any Badniks here, since they’re going to be coming in and out now…” She and her group walk past the duo, with Tangle giving them a thumbs up on the way.

A streak of red stops by them. “Come on you two, we got a job to do…” Turning his head up, Knuckles walks off, as the two follow suit.

The door shuts firm behind them, sucking in the remaining cold air in one swoop. Echos of the classic trio’s conversation bounce around the lifeless corridors, alongside the eerie, distant pinpricks and jolts of unstable energy lingering around the base.

7:12 AM, INSIDE THE BASE:

“Taillllllls, it’s been like, hours and we’ve found nothing!” Sonic moans behind the red and orange figures, dragging himself forwards.

“Letting out a sigh, Tails mumbles out, “it’s hardly been an hour yet, Sonic. You just gotta wait until the Diamond Cutters have placed the USB drive in, so that we can navigate the more secure rooms with ease, and no alarms…”

Turning his head over his shoulder, dreadlocks rolling over, he speaks out. “Tails is right Sonic, you just need to be patient for once in your life…”

Scuffing his shoes and leaving small marks, Sonic begins to slow down. “But this is booooooring!”

Getting no response from his friends, he decides to throw more of a tantrum. “B. O. R. I. N. G! BORING!” He shouts out the last part rather harshly, piercing through what was still air, and bouncing around the hallways.

The two immediately turn around, halting in their steps. Knuckles looks furious, while Tails is startled. 

“Sonic! What do you think you are doing! We shouldn’t be bringing attention to us!” Knuckles immediately tenses up, a fighting stance in place of his relaxed posture from before.

Saying nothing more than a shrug, the sound of metallic joints and parts thunder through the halls. “Now look at what you’ve done…” Turning away, he faces the hallways up ahead, seeing tens if not hundreds of figures storm right their way, glistening under the industrial lights.

“Finally, some action! I don’t know what you have to complain about Knucklehead!” In a flash, nine metal frames are already down, with more being wrecked by the blue blur.

“Don’t hog all the fun!” Knuckles glides right on in, landing with a thud underneath a rather large robot. He hits the underside, sending it flying into the ceiling, damaging the light above it.

Standing apart from the commotion, Tails grabs out his device instead. “You two deal with them, I’ll let the Diamond Cutters know that they need to hur-”

Static cuts him off from the various speakers around the hallways. “New device paired, waiting to connect”. Almost unable to hear it due to the fight going on, he does not hesitate to finish up the steps needed to override the Badniks here.

“Hey Knuckles, catch!” Sonic kicks a smaller Badnik his hay, as Knuckles guts the thing right through, letting the frame slide off his hand.

Suddenly, a singular, loud beep echoes between the room, coming from all directions. Every Badnik in the room halts, before backing down. Knuckles dusts himself off while Sonic looks around confused.

“I’ve got access to most of base now!” Tails calls out to them, running to their position.

“Yeah! Now we can really start to trash the place!” Sonic, about to dash off, is grabbed by Knuckles, his wrist threatening to be torn off. “Now hold on Sonic…” Confused, he slinks into the grip, in hopes that Knuckles will loosen said grip.

Sliding into the conversation, Tails grabs Knuckles’ hand, in an attempt to get him to let go, before turning to Sonic. “We need to stick together still, since while I do have access, Eggman still does too.”

Now free, Sonic rubs his wrist, shaking it down as he turns to Tails. “I have it so that no basic alarms or functions will go off, but bigger ones with more tight access will, so I need you to follow me so that we don’t run into that problem…”

Taking in a deep breath, Sonic nods. “Fine, let's go now, get it done with…” Humming in agreement, Tails turns back to his device, connecting to Lanolin.

The audio from the Electric comes out poorly, almost butchering any words said through there, but he still listens in.

“You guys alright down there?” Tangle pushes herself in front of Lanolin, concerned for the group. “We sure are! No need for concern!” Sonic flashes a thumbs up, winning at the screen from over Tails’ shoulder.

“Oh! Well that's great!” Having to be escorted from the screen by Whisper, Lanolin’s face makes an appearance once more.

“Alright. So now that you got it sorted out, we’ll get to the plan, alright?” Tails nods. “Yeah, make sure that you get any information you can on this floor and the floor above, and contact me if need be.”

“We’ll go to the lower floor and inspect the crystals and see what we can do to get rid of them.” Tails finishes, opening another tab to access the map.

“Sounds good to me Tails. Once you’re done, let us know and we’ll see you at the exit.” “Alright! Just remember to keep contact to a minimum, as we may risk Eggman detecting us.”

With a simple nod, Lanolin cuts the feed on her end, leaving the group with the map on the screen.

“Heh, let's get on with it!” Knuckles, who was now also behind Tails’ shoulder, waited for an answer.

Sonic and Knuckles paced behind Tails, who was making sure to be precise in their exact location to not miss their destination, eyes glued to the screen.

Turning a hallway, Tails stops at a dead end.

Whistling, Sonic chirps in, “impressive”. He walks up to the door, knocking on it a few times. “Hello, any secret gem-thingies we can have?”

“Sonic…” Tails sighs, gently pushing him to the side, as he tampers with a panel at the side of the wall, tucked away in the corner.

A few beeps and clicks, and the sound of metallic gears begin to turn. Heavy metal gears, at that.

Suddenly, the middle part of the wall begins to split, showing nothing but darkness, before more metallic clicks ring out, and it begins to part.

The lights lazily flicker on, barely lighting the way down to the metallic stairs, descending into the ground, before blowing out and leaving darkness behind once more.

Decorating the plain walls were small, strange crystal formations in the gaps of the metal panels, ranging in various colors. However, not bright, welcoming colors, instead a dull, eerie, lifeless pulse.

Looking nervous, ears nearly pinning downwards, Tails takes the first steps, plunging into the darkness, with the Miles Electric leading the way.

Grunting, Knuckles follows suit, arms folded as he enters the cold pit.

However, Sonic stares down into it, a weird feeling entering his stomach, as if static were dancing through his blood and bones.

Attempting to shake it off he follows the two, slipping further and further into the void, before a cold shiver sends him to a halt, his quills rising. He lets out a noise of discomfort, gaining the attention of both Tails and Knuckles to stop and turn.

Despite the darkness, with the only light coming from the dim crystals and Tails device. He held it down to the ground, not wanting to flash it in his brother's eyes.

Tails draws in a cold breath. “You okay Sonic?”

Nothing but silence, before getting a late response, his voice cold and flat. “I don’t know, Tails, but suddenly, I don’t feel so well…”

He begins to slowly descend towards the duo, footsteps loud and sharp. Now face to face with them, he added on, “something feels… Off…”

Turning to Knuckles, he folded his arms. “You were brought down here with us since you’re good with the Master Emerald and whatnot. Can’t you feel it too?”

Knuckles shifts his posture, turning around, before replying to his question. “There is nothing strange or unusual I can detect down here. I can, however, feel the Chaos Emeralds power nearby, and that these-” He taps on a dull, violet formation. “-are the results of it being tampered with.”

Turning away, he descends further down the stairs, before letting out one last sentence. “The only ‘strange’ thing about these, is that I can’t seem to connect to them and get a better understanding as to what they can do…”

Those last words fade out, almost inaudible as he continues to walk further up ahead.

Tails however, turns back to Sonic. “I think it might just be the cold finally setting in for you, since typically you’re on the move, but here we’re moving at a much slower pace.”

Giving a reassuring smile, he too turns, following Knuckles. “If you do have any more ‘strange’ feelings however, let me know, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Sonic catches up, dragging himself through the thick air. “Yeah, that's true… I think I gotta stop running around and heating myself up like that, heh…”

Sheepishly playing with his quills, he and Tails reach the bottom of the dark room, finding Knuckles inspecting a freakishly large crystal.

“Yo Knuckles! What's the holdup! We need to find the Chaos Emerald first!” Sonic calls out, now on thick, solid, metallic ground.

“Hm. I thought that my lack of connection was due to those other crystals being small and weak, but here is a much bigger one, yet the same effect…”

He stands up from the ground, the pulses they emit lighting the hallways and rooms. While not as dim as the ones from the smaller clusters, they still appeared saturated and sad.

“Let's get moving then.” Firm words set in stone, Knuckles turns left, searching one of the various corridors.

“I’ll go this way, you two search up ahead. I can’t tell for sure where that Emerald is since all these fakes are interfering.” “Heh, that's fair…” Waving goodbye, Sonic and Tails depart from Knuckles, in hopes of finding the fabled Chaos Emerald.

8:25 AM, EGGMAN'S BASE, LOWER FLOORS:

So far, the search had not been doing so well. Nothing at all. Every room they checked had computers that were too risky to turn on without the issue of Eggman noticing their little visit.

By this point, Sonic and Tails had taken a break, resting in an empty room with nothing but one or two dusty crates inside.

This was one of the few rooms not to be covered in the eyesore that was those strange gems. Sure, there were a few here and there, but not coating the walls entirely. Thus, making it an easy choice.

Of course, that still didn’t stop the buzzing, electrifying feeling racing around Sonic’s body. It still crept and lingered around him everywhere he went. It had felt as if the crystals had eyes inside their translucent shell, following the hedgehog around, their pulse reaching out for him.

“Ughh… This is quite the letdown…” His voice was rather loud, despide, the quiet manner he spoke, since the room was so small and captured that line inside its metal walls.

“Well yeah, our best hope is that Lanolin comes back with something to make sense of this…” Tails sighs, rubbing his temples.

Fidgeting with a small, rusted orange gem that was corroding the metal around it, a thought came to Sonic’s head.

“Say, why don’t we give the computers a try?” He stands up, walking to Tails’ side of the room, footsteps blaring out like thunder in the lonely hallways.

“And guarantee letting Eggman know that we’re not just admiring his little collection down here?” He gives a disapproving look at Sonic, picking up the Miles Electric that was left lying besides him.

“Not if we can do it quick enough!” He grins, lending out a hand to him. Hesitantly, Tails looks down to the reflective black screen, seeing nothing but his own face looking back up.

Clearing his throat, Sonic attempts to get the fox on board once again. “I mean, any data on there has to be important, right?” He let that last word drag on out, eager to get Tails to do something down here.

Groaning, Tails sits up, taking Sonic’s hand. “Fine, but any casualties are on you…” Returning the grin, Tails begins to lead the way, booting up the map on his screen once more, a rhythmic pulse echoing through the speakers.

Nearing the main computer, the two begin to speed up their pace, swiftly entering through the frame.

Inside is a massive computer, with smaller ones accompanying it on the sides. In the middle of the room is a small metal table, with various metal draws scattered about.

Sonic whistles, laughing to himself. Tails turns to him, confused. Sonic notices, shaking his head. “Just getting deja vu. This place really reminds me of the Death Egg, more specifically the room Mecha Sonic kept me in for a while, I mean just look at it!”

He holds his arms out towards the room in all its sad glory, with the thick air (due to all the dust buildup) really affecting their sight.

Tails walks on forwards, around the table frame. “Heh, and the whole ‘splitting up part’ with Knuckles and the Diamond Cutters elsewhere…”

This time, Sonic lets his short laugh out, not trying to hold it back. “Yeah! Now all we need is for a giant towering robot to pop out of nowhere and swoop me away!”

Now at the computer screen, Tails notices that he has suddenly begun to stare at nothing. Said hedgehog then lets out a short puff of air before his gaze seems to land on solid objects again.

“Talking to Mecha again?” Tails pipes in, eyes adverted to his device as he cautiously hooks it up to the monitor. “Heh, yeah. Thinking of him and the Scrapniks kinda brought his attention over to me. He was just wondering what was up.”

Humming out a random tune, Sonic walks about the room, inspecting every space that he could invade, opening the squeaky drawers and making an annoying racket.

Watching his screen boot up, Tails calls out, “tell Mecha I said hi to him and the Scrapniks!” Sonic, who hadn’t even looked away from his ‘important’ task, called back. “Already heard you.” He slammed the draws shut, advancing to another space to snoop through.

Tails had flinched at the response. Sometimes he forgot that the two could experience some of the world around each other, just like how Mecha Sonic’s tears had shown on Sonic’s face instead, or how Sonic told him that he was able to glimpse a memory of Mecha’s when fighting him.

Stepping back and waiting for the computer to turn on, he scratched his head, wondering if some of Sonic’s actions or thoughts sometimes show through Mecha.

Booting up, the room was flashed in color, blue coating everything. Sonic was quick to cover his eyes, facing away from the light. “Geez, a little warning before giving me a flashbang?”

Tails grins, fiddling with his ear. “Sorry, didn’t think the screen would be that bright…” Files begin to clutter the screen, almost leaving no background behind.

“Ok, just give me a secon-”

In mere seconds, every light that was switched off down this floor burst with color, flashing red over and over, accompanied by the loud siren playing out. Tails has to cover his ears from the surprise.

Right then, the sirens are replaced by static laughter, from none other than Dr. Eggman. “Ohohoho! Did you seriously think that the first time you triggered my Badniks I wasn’t aware of your little ‘detour’ from you and your pesky group?” Somehow, the low audio quality made the man even more menacing, filling his voice with an unnatural tone.

Tails is left agasp, nothing to say, while Sonic is squaring up, looking around the room for any potential danger.

He looks up to what he imagines is the camera, giving it a death glare. “Well what were you sitting around for the first time you noticed?”

With no shift in tone, the madman once again bursts out laughing, having to cut himself short to explain. “Oh, you would’ve easily gotten out from the first floor, those Badniks were nothing new to you and your colorful companions. So, I waited until you were in a more… Trapped spot.”

As he says that, a loud bang sweeps through the halls, metal colliding with metal.

Tails is the first to know what it was. “The door!” Tails gasps out, panic starting to fill the air.

“Indeed, now you two, alongside that pesky Echidna friend  of yours, is stuck down here… As for your frail little friends upstairs, well, they’ve been dealt with for now…”

Blood begins to rush to his head, heating up. The feeling from before only starts to intensify, that fuzzy static zigzagging through him now racing around at a faster pace, becoming much more noticeable. “What did you do to them, Egghead?!”

Sonic yells out, tone immediately shifting, doing nothing to stop Eggman's howls of laughter. “Oh nothing much at all! However, they won’t be leaving here anytime soon…”

Ragged, shallow breaths starting to form, Tails manages to speak up. “What’s your game Eggman! You always have something planned! What is up with all these crystals and where is the real Chaos Emerald!”

“Hahaha! Oh those things! Originally I was going to test these out much later on when I found the right opportunity to, but seeing you both trapped down here alone with Knuckles, well, now I should be thanking you! You’ve made my job far easier!”

Suddenly, the red flashing comes to a halt. Tails looks down to see that his device has completely shut off, alongside the computer screen. He gives a deflated look.

“Now I know that I could’ve locked you all in here first step in, but I needed to make sure that you wouldn’t try hacking into any of my systems, so all I had to do was wait until you would carelessly plug it into my computers and link it up. Now that device of yours is mine to control.”

Tails slowly looks up to Sonic, a blank anger staring right at the blue hero. Sonic doesn't need words to know what Tails was thinking; It was his fault.

That static in his body becomes almost overwhelming, building up in his chest. Trying to push it down the best he could, he turns to the camera once more.

“Would you like to gloat about these ‘pretty’ things perchance?” He glides his knuckles down the side of a smaller gemstone, the pulse stuttering and flashing more to life upon the contact. Of which Tails had indeed picked up on. “What was the thought process behind them?”

Silence occupies the room for a minute, before the speakers screech once more. “Hm. Why I’m glad you asked. My first plan with these was to make a decent amount that was perfected to use in my machines, but then I made a discovery. A rather big one, infact…”

Another pause, presumably to take in a breath. “You are always taking down my greatest feats with those measly Chaos Emeralds every time. I decided I had enough, and the only way to prevent any more victories on your side, was to make sure they could no longer be used.”

Sonic just laughs. “So you went ahead and made my job easier by duplicating a bunch’a cheap knockoffs of ‘em instead?”

Eggman clears his throat. “Not exactly, my dear friend. What you see surrounding you everywhere is the result of my successful plans to replicate the Chaos Emeralds true powers…”

More silence, presumably Eggman was waiting for them to respond. So they did. “And what may this ‘true power’ be just now?”

“Wonder why Knuckles was having a hard time reaching out to their power?” Sonic and Tails recoiled, remembering that Knuckles was down here, certainly hearing this conversation from wherever he stood, due to the speakers implanted everywhere. Heck, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Diamond Cutters were too, from wherever they are being held.

Taking the lack of response as a sign to continue, Eggman lets the bomb drop. “He was searching for all that positive energy, the one that you and your friends rely on so heavily… But not the negative power of the Emeralds…”

Dread sinks in, filling the air with despair. Sonic looks to Tails, who has nothing but shock written all over his face.

“Heheh, without that spark of ‘pure’ power, you all won’t be able to harness them anymore, once I get rid of the original copies, that is…”

Sonic, dumbfounded, tries to come up with a response. “What makes you think that we can’t restore these to have that spark in them again like we did with Perfect Chaos and so many others?”

“The fact that these never had that ‘spark’ in them to begin with. That, and the fact that nobody, not you, or even Shadow, will dare to use the negative side of them. If you even could touch into that kind of power, that is. Hahahahaha!”

Sonic turns to Tails, hoping to find his mind lost in thought, of any way to get them out of the current situation, but nothing showed.

Sonic lets out a grunt. “So what, you just leave us here to rot away while you go and enact that plan of yours?” Something inaudible moves in the background, along with the sound of a keyboard clattering, before silence fills the air once more, Eggman speaking up.

“Why of course not! I am no fool, and I know that you’ll find your way out of here at some point. So, while you lot are here, I might as well make you useful.”

“I myself cannot use Chaos Energy alone, with my glorious machines not having to pick sides, just the energy it’s given. No changes, no ‘advantages’, just plain energy. Thus, I have no way to make sure that you really can’t tap into some ‘repressed’ side of these Chaos Shards.”

Tails and Sonic look up to see some of the hallway lights outside of the room light up a bland white glow, leading out somewhere.

“So, care to prove me wrong, that these really can be ‘fixed’ to their original glory by the hands of you and your friends? I’ll even lead Knuckles back to you, which I have just done with the pathway being lit.”

Before Sonic can even consider it, Tails cuts  in. “You don’t need Sonic for that! You can easily gather data alone by using your tech! You’re hiding something! Sure you’re robots don’t use certain aspects of it, but data alone can tell you!”

Silence is left on Eggman's part, faint clatters once more echo through. He was searching for something. Or doing something behind the scenes.

“You don’t know that, somethings can be… Complicated… Especially when using the Chaos Emeralds. Always making machinery faulty when nearby…”

Tails slinks back. He had a point, although, something was still rather off.

Sonic however, has decided he has had enough. “Well I’m the one in question here. What if I decide to say no to your little ‘project’?”

“Well, I think your friends would be the ones to find out first if you don’t comply… I have them somewhere you can’t access from down there. One wrong move, and they’re nothing more than a pile of dust.”

He begins to cackle, before bursting out into a sickening laughter. “So what’ll it be? End the lives of your friends, or follow my simple requests?”

Sonic looks down, able to see Tails’ face of concern in the corner of his eyes. “Sonic, it’s going to be a trap, something else behind that demand…” He whispers, in the hopes that Eggman’s speakers can’t pick that up from where they stand.

He turns to face Tails. “Yeah, but our friends are on the line, we can’t let any harm come to them…” He lets out a shallow whisper, turning his back on Tails before the fox can change his mind.

“Alright Eggman, let's do this.”

“Haha! Splendid! Follow the path I lit up! Knuckles is already there waiting. Don’t try and take any more debtors on the way over…”

The speakers screech, probably Eggman cutting the line. Sonic walks on out. “Let's go Tails.”

A face of horror, Tails runs in front of Sonic. “What! You can’t be serious! It’s Eggman of all people! He never keeps his word!” Gritting his teeth, Sonic suppresses any angry comments that were daring to come out. “I know what I am doing. Now let's go.”

He walks right past Tails, now speeding up his walk. As Tails watches him walk by, Tails notices that the ‘Chaos Shards’ were lighting up a brighter color as Sonic walked on by, some kind of reaction to his presence.

Shoving the stone in his gut down, he follows the path, not too far behind Sonic.

9:12 AM, EGGMAN’S BASE, LOWER FLOOR:

Sonic and Tails enter a vast room. Right ahead of them was Knuckles, looking rather angry. Storming right up to Sonic, he points a finger, the awkwardly shaped fabric misshaping it. “What did you just agree to?!”

Seconds from hitting Sonic, Tails grabs Sonic’s arm and forcefully tugs him back, stepping into his place. “We didn't have much room to say no, or else Tangle, Whisper, Lanolin, and their newest recruit, Duo, will be harmed…”

Knuckles does not move for a whole minute, before backing down. “You’re right. Just make sure we get out of this alright…”

Looking past Knuckles, the two are surprised to see the room. While yes, the hallways were grossly covered in a ridiculous amount of those gems, this room however, had no walls whatsoever, but only those very gems, taking up every space in every dull, monochrome color.

The only thing safe from this was the roof and floor, but even they had one or two small stones peeking out from the gaps of the metal panels.

Filling the silence, Knuckles comments to Sonic once more. “If anything happens at all, I’ll be blaming you for it, since you’re the one who dragged Tails’ butt over to that computer to start all this mess from what I could hear over those speakers…”

Before they can even comment on anything however, said speakers once more fills the room with Eggman's voice.

“Alright hedgehog! Let’s see how you do up against my newest creation!”

The ceiling opens up, to reveal yet another Egg Dragoon knockoff, with a few more armor pieces thrown into the mix and much larger size.

Aside from the new gadgets and gizmos, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, right?

CHAPTER TWO: UNLEASH:

9:20 AM, EGGMAN'S BASE, LOWER FLOOR

“Heh, really Egghead? Another one of these? This’ll be easy.” Sonic begins to take his defensive stance, followed by Knuckles, eyes deadset on the robot.

“Oh but there’s one thing you should know hedgehog. This is powered by those Chaos Shards all along the room…”

With that said, the thick, heavy doors behind them begin to shut, creeping along the floor.

Now joined together, with no sign there ever was an entrance point before, the Egg Dragoon begins to move, rising up from its dormant state.

Engines whirring, it charges forwards, arm extended as the comically large drill begins to spin, aiming for the group.

Knuckles slides under, stomach brushing against the smooth cold floors, while Sonic quickly grabs Tails’ arm and darts to its left, ankles grinding into the floor to stop his slide.

Now out of the way, the Egg Dragoon instead hits the bottom of the wall, crystals flying out from the impact, scattering like glass shards.

A particularly large chunk bounces off Sonic’s head, as he immediately begins to cup the hit spot, eyes scanning for any more that may hit Tails instead.

Seeing that it missed its target, the mech begins to roughly yank it out of the wall, each thrust sending loose shards to the floor around it, clanking against the floor like rain.

Now free, it looks around the room for the brightly colored figures, spotting Sonic and Tails first. Lifting up its other arm, it begins to fire a flurry of bullets at the two, who were now evading the shots.

Knowing that having the two in one location was a bad idea, Tails splits off from Sonic’s path, flying up high, watching the neon line zigzag all around the room, bullets lying on the ground from where they all missed.

Supposedly running out of bullets, it stops to recharge, smoke billowing out of the holes.

“Grahhh!” Knuckles yells out,  jumping up from behind the now vulnerable bot, making contact with the back of his head, a loud metallic bang ringing out.

However, as he holds onto the shoulder blade, Knuckles looks down in horror to see that he did nothing at all to the metal shell.

Engine charging up, the machine jolts backwards, flinging Knuckles off, as he collides with the cluttered walls, little shards chipping off. Tails could’ve sworn he saw some strange, discolored wisps of smoke fade out from the collision.

Sonic and Tails, who had watched from a distance, were shocked. Knuckles was physically the strongest of the trio, yet that had done nothing at all.

Crunching his teeth, he sprints up again, colorful shards falling from his dreadlocks. He goes for the leg, letting out a rampage of anger out on it, a blur of punches colliding with it over and over.

Yet still, it’s left unharmed.

Not paying Knuckles any notice, it turns to Tails, who was still hovering above, his namesakes chopping the wind up in the surrounding space.

Its back plates open up, revealing rows of missiles, as they all launch out, curling around the mech to charge at Tails, whistling in the wind.

“Ah!” Panicked, he begins to swirl around them, narrowly missing them as most hit the walls, more shards flying out, with one cutting Tails’ arm, a thin, almost unnoticeable slice.

With some of the missiles knowing better, they swivel around, going back for a second round at Tails.

Sonic catches sight of it, static faintly buzzing in his gut, the surrounding Chaos Shards pulsing a brighter color for a second, as he launches himself up at Tails, knocking him right out of the air and into the walls.

Sonic had made sure to take the impact of the sharp hazards poking out, with Tails being held in front of his chest.

“Grk.” He holds the noise in between his teeth, as he begins to slide down the wall, still holding onto Tails tightly, muscles straining.

Landing on the ground, he lets go of Tails, getting back up.

He shakes off the shards from his back, some still stuck in his quills. He turns to Tails. “You alright bud?”

Sitting back up, Tails turns away, watching as the mech stares them down. “I’m fine.”

Looking around, Sonic spots Knuckles still going all out on the mech, hitting every spot he can in the hopes that something will cave.

“Knuckles! Quit doing that! It’s not working at all and we could use your help!” Sonic yells, an unusual hint of anger filling his voice, tensing up.

Tails catches in the corner of his eye that once again, the Chaos Shards were flashing a brighter pulse, surrounding the blue hedgehog, including the ones still lodged into his quills

Knuckles stops, turning to Sonic, something unusual in his eyes. “Well at least I’m trying! You haven’t done anything at all! Now we’re stuck here thanks to you dealing with this!”

He leaps off the mech, as it once again darts at Sonic, with him disappearing in a flash of blue. Landing at the opposite side of the room, he once again faces Knuckles.

“Oh yeah? Is that what you think?” Tails, who is spectating from the back of the room, begins to worry. The two were outright fighting. Not in the usual way when they disagree on something or banter. No, this was turning into something else.

Almost forgetting the situation they were in, Sonic and Knuckles look up to the sound of machinery charging up once again. Aimed at Sonic, a blue, focused laser blasts at Sonic, who had no time to react.

Hitting him right in the chest, the laser lanches him right into the wall, a loud bang thundering through the halls. Multicolored smoke bellows out in all directions, accompanied by the shards, which Tails was shying away from.

Coughing up smoke, Tails waves his hand through the air, frantically searching for his brother. “Sonic! Are you alright?” Tails’ heart pounds violently in his chest, adrenaline kicking in.

Unfortunately, the thick puffs of smoke render looking for him useless. He can hardly see the towering mech’s silhouette from inside the mess.

However, that is not needed, as suddenly, a bright, colorful glow surrounds a patch of Chaos Shards, looking as if they were going to blow up on the spot. Thanks to the lights, he can spot Sonic’s dark shape in the centre of it.

Small cracks of static dancing around his shoes and the Chaos Shards, Sonic begins to tense up. “Grahhhh!

 Yelling out with fury, blasting forwards at the mech, colliding in an instant as it hits the opposing wall, shaking the room, with the force so strong it blew Tails back into the wall. Thankfully a smoother patch due to most of the Shards being crunched up from the fight.

Not finished yet, Sonic begins to ram into it over and over, streaks of blue bashing into the mech relentlessly, sparks flying out as he yells out, loud bangs bouncing around the room.

As the hedgehog moves about, the smoke begins to clear, dull oranges, violets, and greens fading out, seeping into the metal plates of the floor.

With a clear view, Tails can spot Knuckles watching from the other side of the room. In no way can he see any concern for their friend being harmed, but the same anger from before, if not filled with hatred.

Turning back to the scene, Tails’ fur rises as he sees the damage. The bot now had varios dents sinking into the bot, along with some small holes, which were now letting out dark puffs of smoke, rising into the ceiling.

With one last yell, Sonic blasts into the arm, a loud snap as it goes flying, bouncing off the wall and skidding against the floor.

Landing in front of it, Sonic stares it down, breathing out deep intense breaths. Small flickers of static bounce off him and around the Chaos Shards, which were now pulsing an intense rhythm, glowing brightly around the room, matching Sonic’s heartbeat.

Tails runs up to Sonic, footsteps being the only other noise aside from the static and Sonic’s rage-filled breaths. Tails could hear Knuckles too running to the hedgehog, either to yell at him or see the mech for himself.

Now next to Sonic, Tails has to double check with himself, looking into his eyes, which were now looking rather pale, which confused the fox.

Ignoring Tails, Sonic turned around to storm off to Knuckles, meeting him roughly in the middle of the room.

Spite and hate filling his voice, he stares Knuckles down. “You wanna call me ‘useless’ again?”

Knuckles, who hardly shows any facial changes, grits his teeth, beginning to yell. “Defeating one pathetic robot does not deem if you’re helpful at all!”

Sonic just laughs. “Oh yeah? Says the person who was too weak to do a single thing to it!” Now he wasn’t holding back, going into a full yell. “Oh yeah?! Want to explain why that is?!”

Knuckles doesn't hesitate to join in on Sonic’s yelling. “Well why is it that every time you get yourself into trouble, you’re always dragging your sorry face over to me?! Every time I try to do my job, you’re always making an appearance on my island!”

Sonic scoffs a mocking tone. “And that was when Blockhead?!”

“How about the Metal Virus?! You dragged a whole party on over during a crisis that you started thanks to your stupid delusions!”

He clenches his fists, jabbing a finger into Sonic’s chest. Tails now begins to run towards the group, seeing that this was going down badly.

“To make matters worse, you yourself were infected! Spreading it everywhere around the world! Who knows how much of it was caused by you alone taking a ‘nice’ little run around the place!?”

“And then, to top it all off, you ran around my island, all over the natural wildlife and environment, even though you-” He jabs yet again at the hedgehog, “-and your little friends deemed a ‘safe’ haven for the last survivors! What kind of logic is that to bring the only ones left and immediately contaminate the space!”

Fire begins to burn between the two. Sonic freezes up for a moment, thinking of something to shout back, before settling on one.

“Oh yeah? Well while you were having a nice relaxing time up there away from all the chaos, I was running about trying to fix things! Something that you never do! All you care about is that stupid rock of yours!”

Tails, now standing right by them, can only watch as they fight, with no way of speaking up over the yelling.

“Well what about when we were on the Starfall Islands?! Rather than trust me, Tails, or Amy, or heck, even Sage of all people,  you decided the best person to listen to was that ‘Mysterious Sky Voice’ following you around with no reason as to what it was doing there!”

Stepping closer to Sonic, he looks right into his eyes, a look that could kill written across them. “You even let the end out! Running around, following the orders of whatever it said, breaking the locks that were keeping it out of this world!”

His voice begins to crack from the intense yelling, throat now dry. “If we weren’t there, me included, you would’ve been stuck in between Cyberspace while the End consumed our world!”

Breathing ragged, shallow breaths, Knuckles says no more, only looking down on the hedgehog.

Shoving the echidna away, Sonic begins to tense up, a strange look forming in his eyes, realization hitting him like a train. Stumbling for words, he can only look at Knuckles.

Now done with his points, Knuckles lowers his voice, but only slightly. “It’s always you messing things up for everyone. You, your friends, the world, everybody.”

Finding a response, Sonic turns to Tails. “Tails, you tell him that's not true!” A commanding rage hits Tails, as Knuckles too turns to him.

However, something inside Tails begins to stir. If he wasn’t caught up in the argument, he would’ve noticed that something was wrong, him included, but something blinded him from doing so; anger.

“No Sonic, Knuckles is right. You never listen to what any of us tell you!” His high pitched yell takes Sonic aback, wincing at the reply.

“Every time we try to warn you, you just run in and make everything worse!”

Tails takes a stance, standing upright.

“The Paradox Prism, the first time you broke it and caused a whole mess of things despite all of us trying to tell you to stop! Shadow had to help you resolve it!”

Sonic tries to speak up, mouth opening before Tails continues.

“The Metal Virus, as Knuckles pointed out, is directly the cause of your actions, leaving ‘Mr. Tinker’ alone with no precautions whatsoever, leading to Starline fixing him back up to how he was before!”

“The device I made to find a cure for it all? Wrecked all because you thought it would be a good idea to run into Eggman in a town infested with Zombots that you were very much aware of!”

Sonic begins to tense up, fists clenching tightly. “Or what about when-” Sonic yells out, cutting Tails off from saying anything else. “Oh so I guess that I’m just the villain behind everything then!”

Around the room, the pulses begin to flash at a much faster rate, glow increasing as Sonic stands there, static now leaping out all around the room.

However, due to the trio being blinded by their fight, no one notices the sudden changes in the environment.

Knuckles decides that now would be a good time to speak up again, facing Sonic. “Well maybe you are! Almost none of the things we go through would’ve occurred had it not been your doing! Eggman would be no more if we got rid of him as Mr. Tinker the first time around.”

“We would all be safe from your mistakes!”

That was the final straw, as all hell begins to break loose.

A mess of pointless yelling fills the room, becoming a blur of words. At this point, you’d think that they were yelling for the sake of it.

9:42 AM, EGGMAN'S BASE, UPPER FLOORS:

 Static filling the rooms with high pitches and blurred words, Eggman sat behind various monitors, grinning as he watched it all unfold. What was an organized team built on trust was now falling apart and bickering meaningless words to each over.

On nearly every monitor, the Chaos Shards were lighting up a blinding glow, rhythm matching Sonic’s pulse.

However, this was something that Eggman paid no attention to, focusing only on their fight, laughing to himself.

9:44 AM: EGGMAN'S BASE, LOWER FLOORS:

Deadset on making their own points, the group did not let in any breathing space for another, talking over another despite them continuing anyways.

Tails, who was probably the most pitchy of the three, heard something beeping nearby. He saw his Miles Electric discarded on the floor. Amongst all the Chaos, he failed to even notice that it was no longer slung over his shoulder.

Curiosity winning over the desire to be right, Tails walks away towards the Electric. To no one's surprise, Knuckles and Sonic don’t even notice, and continue to yell between each other.

Tails, now calming down, began to realize that the Chaos Shards were acting very differently, static threatening to hit either of them, along with the sickening pulse that dared to blind his eyes.

Reaching for the device, he faces the screen. An incoming call from the Diamond Cutters.

Almost forgetting that they have been captured, he does not hesitate to answer, worried as to what they want to communicate through.

“-I don’t even know if it’s still working. For all we know, it might be broken no-” Lanolin, looking as calm as ever, is cut off by Tangle. “Look! Tails!”

She points to the screen, as the group looks down into the camera.

“Tails! It’s about time you stopped fighting with your group.” Lanolin looks right at him, speaking in her usual monotone voice.

“Lanolin! How could you say that! You know what's going on down there!”

Not reacting at all, she speaks in a somewhat urgent tone.

“Tails, before being attacked, we managed to find out what those shards are for.”

His eyes light up, surprised that they managed to grab any at all. “What is it?”

Tangle cuts anything Lanolin has to say right off. “No time to explain! You guys have to get out of there now!” She half-whispers, presumably to keep Eggman's attention off them.

Lanolin sighs, with a worried Tangle looking back at him.

“Wait no, tell me first, What do they do?” Tails only now, having calmed down, realized that the Chaos Shards were getting more intense, along with Sonic’s voice.

“Tails, I need you to leave first, I will explain whe-” “No! Tell me now Lanolin, what do the Chaos Shards do?!”

It’s neither Tangle or Lanolin that answer, but rather Whisper, who is still keeping her calm.

“Eggman planned for you to go down there and fight that mech. All those shards in the room are, as you know, filled with all the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds. However, alongside that, he’s added in a chemical that, when damaged, releases a gas.”

“That gas is supposed to trigger an angry response to the person inhaling it, blinding them by rage and hate.”

Tails has to sit down. It all made sense, the sudden anger when colliding with the Chaos Shards, the bickering, and the strange setup. If only Tails had known sooner.

Listening around him, Tails begins to realize that something is happening in the room. Muffled under the shouts of the two, there was a crunching noise.

He looked around to see that some of the larger, still intact shards were forming little cracks on their sides, with more small puffs of smoke blowing out. 

He turns back to the screen. “Why would he want us to get angry at each other?”

“That's why you need to get out, especially Sonic!” Tangle cries out, trying to muffle any loud pitch that may alert Eggman to what they are doing.

“What?” Panic fills Tails’ gut, dread weighing him down.

“Remember when Eggman said that he made those shards in the hopes that none of you would be able to use them since ‘no one’ can wield their negative side?” Not letting Tails answer, Tangle continues.

“Well looking at his notes and research, that would be a lie. Somehow, something led Eggman to the conclusion that Sonic can do just that.”

Silence fills the room, Tails’ eyes shrinking. “Oh no, that's really bad.” He turns to Sonic, seeing him argue with the Echidna, eyes still hazy.

He sinks further into the ground, grabbing his arms, letting the tablet slip onto his lap. “Why did I have to say all those things to him?”

Tangle is able to see the worry on his face, and tries to reassure him.

“But hey! So far nothing has happened! You just need to get out of there now before something does-”

Suddenly, the screen goes dark, static blaring out of the speakers.

“Tangle? Whisper?” He shakes his Electric, looking down at nothing. Something has happened on their end.

With no time to spare, he darts over to Sonic, that blind anger begins to slither over his shoulders, crawling back around him.

“Sonic! You need to get out of here right now befo-” Turning around, Tails is met with pure spite. It is now that Tails can also see that Sonic’s fur has turned to a darker navy blue, which is not good.

“And do what Tails, ruin everything for you and ‘your’ friends?” Tails feels a shiver run down his spine. His voice was haunting and empty, coming from somewhere deep within.

Tails pushes down that ‘natural’ feeling to say something along the lines of ‘yes it is’ and keeps his mouth shut, blood heating up.

For Sonic however, that was the wrong answer. “What? Don’t want to be right as you always are yet again? Don’t want to ‘hurt’ my feelings?”

Sonic has now fully turned away from Knuckles, staring Tails down. Even now, the Echidna is starting to see that something is wrong, and holds his breath.

Holding those unnatural feelings back, he backs up. “No, I… I was just-”

From out of nowhere, a flash appears from behind Sonic, being none other than Shadow himself.

He looks between the angered echidna, the frightened mechanic, and the quiet not-so-blue, blue hedgehog, before letting out a scoff.

“Hmph. Doing nothing as usual I see, faker. Sitting around here with your friends while I have to deal with the Diamond Cutters, who were captured by Eggman waiting for your help. Typical.”

Slowly turning around, Sonic faces Shadow, giving an empty look, as if holding in the urge to jump out right there and fight him.

He lets out a small laugh. “Oh yeah? What made you come down here in the first place? Were you looking for the missing Chaos Emerald down here?”

There is no playful tone to that line, no heartfelt teasing, just cold, emotionless words. Tails can feel that inner anger boiling inside him, feeling that hazy detachment from his ability to think clearly.

“Until now, I was unaware there was a Chaos Emerald here at all. I came here since the Restoration got Amy to get me to come here and pick up your slack since all contact with you was shut off.”

Shadow replies, uncaring as usual, staring back at Sonic.

Sonic however, delays his response, a strange, faint laugh falling from his mouth. “Oh, because I let them get caught due to my little mistakes, right? Since I was the one to convince Tails to check out the computers in the first place, leading to where we are now.”

The mention of his name sets off that rage, mouth opening upon instinct. “It’s because it is Sonic!”Tails yells out, as the room goes quiet. Sonic doesn't say a word, keeping his back to Tails.

“Right now you won’t listen to any of us! Stop falling for another trap of Eggmans and listen to me! I know how to solve this!”

As those words come out, Tails begins to panic, realizing that he let that anger slip out again.

Tails can see that Sonic’s fist is once more clenching tightly, body tensing up as he begins to shake. Looking around the room, Tails realizes that  those shards were really starting to spark up, threatening to blow at any second. He watched as more began to crack and split, some falling off the walls completely.

Unfortunately, before Tails can try to fix what he said, Shadow decides to add on to his words.

“He’s right Sonic, you need to stop and think clearly for once…” Sonic’s fur begins to darken even more, as Tails spots static bouncing off of it once more.

“No Shadow! Don’t-” “No, Sonic needs to know that he has to stop this, right now? Another one of those mistakes.”

Knuckles looks at the hedgehog, face matching that of Shadows.

Sonic slinks down to the floor, hands holding him up, quills raised. “This is pathetic behaviour on your part, hedgehog. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Grabbing his head, Sonic finally yells out. “Would you just shut up for once?! Why do you always need to be in my head?!” He cries out, voice echoing around.

“What are you talking about faker, I’m no-” Looking up, he gives Shadow an animalistic stare, an unnatural voice filtering out. “I wasn’t talking to you, Shadow…”

Almost moving right on from that, he goes back to whoever it was he was talking to. “You don’t know everything about me, and you need to stop trying to get me to ‘calm down’, I’M FINE!”

That last line was loud, a cry that thundered through the room, some of the shards in the room bursting out, with others on the verge of breaking, pulse almost non-existent as they shined brightly, static still bouncing about.

Unlike Shadow and Knuckles, who didn’t catch up on everything Sonic did, Tails immediately knew who it was he was talking to.

“Sonic, that's not Mecha you’re talking to, is it?” Not looking up, he responds. “Yeah, and he won’t stop! He always has to comment on everything I do!”

Knuckles is the first to respond. “Mecha?! As in Mecha Sonic?! What do you mean by that! He was destroyed long ago!”

He yells at Sonic, with Shadow’s face showing that he was thinking the same thing too.

Tails steps in between Sonic and Knuckles, trying to stop him from doing something else.

“Knuckles wait. I can explain what he me-” Shadow steps in, angered. “What is he trying to hide from us?”

Tails whips around to him. “Nothing! You just just weren't there when Mecha Sonic went rog-”

“He’s still alive?! How!” Knuckles points at Tails, anger filling the red echidna once more. Tails begins to panic. “He was, but Sigma fixed him up when he washed asho-” “He’s been repaired?! We need to go and get rid of him now before he can do anything else!”

“Knuckles no! He’s good now! And the reason why Sonic can hear him is because his programing went all funky and he tried to switch out their minds so that he could leave the island an-”

“He tried doing what?” Shadow steps in, anger filling his voice even more. Tails turns around, getting overwhelmed from the two, alongside the bright lights and the sounds of static everywhere.

“No, Mecha Sonic was stopped by the Scrapniks halfway through, causing them instead to have a mental connection to each other-”

“Another error in Sonic’s judgments again?” Shadow replies, as Knuckles faces Sonic, who is still behind  the fox, down on the ground and shaking.

“What? Was he too trusting and gave him another chance before getting attacked? Cause that sounds like him.”

“No! That’s not at all what happened! He-”

“GRAHHHH!” A loud bang erupts from Sonic, a cold, uncanny static fills the room, knocking back the three into the wall.

Smoke fills the room, with no way to see through as all the lights that the crystals were emitting are gone.

All three coughing out clouds of smoke, they turn to see it settling, trying to look for Sonic. However, they are horrified by what's there

Instead of their energetic happy-go-lucky blue friend, is the imposing figure of a neon-black silhouette floating above the ground, eyes blank and empty, with his quills floating up. Surrounding him was a strange dark purple aura, dancing around his fur like waves.

Sonic looks down at the group, not saying a word, before flying right through the ceiling, debris falling down onto the ground with a heavy thud.

Tails gets up, ready to fly after him before being grabbed by the arm. “Tails, wait.” He turns to see Shadow, confusion and the creeping appearance of terror on his face. “What’s going on?”

Knuckles turns around. Any anger that was on his face before was gone, replaced with confusion and terror. “Yeah, everything feels… Confusing…” Tails stops to think, surprised at the sudden calm behaviour, before looking around himself.

When he had transformed into that, it had destroyed almost every shard, with only a few little crumbs scattered on the floor. Even the small clouds of multicolored smoke that were resting above the ground were pretty much gone.

“I think the effects are wearing off since all the chemicals in the air are gone now…” Walking up to Tails, he folds his arms, dreadlocks being pushed back. “What chemicals?”

“That's what I was trying to tell you all before this happened; Eggman has inserted a chemical that would leak out of the Chaos Shards and cause an angry response from the person breathing it in.”

Knuckles shifts slightly. “Oh.”

However, that leaves a question. “Shadow, you only just got here though, how come you were getting affected like us too?” Turning away, he calmly responds. “When rescuing the other half of your team, I saw those shards all about the hallways.”

“I didn’t like the look of them, seeing that Eggman made them, and destroyed each one that I came into contact with…”

He closes his eyes, thinking about something. Tails just facepalms. “Oh of course you did…”

All three look up to the ceiling, which had a massive hole in it, revealing the base floors. Knuckles gives a half-laugh, still shaken up a little. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the fact that Eggman locked the door shut now.”

However, that just reminds them even further as to what just took place. Shadow walks into the center of it, right underneath the hole. He turns to Tails, confusing written all over him.

“Tails, what just happened to Sonic?” Tails sighs, thinking for a whole minute. He takes in another breath, coming to a conclusion.

“I got into contact with Tangle and Whisper before, and they said that Eggman somehow found information that Sonic can use the Chaos Emeralds negative energy.”

“However, I just can’t think of why…” He rubs his temples, not able to come up with any reason.

Each of them looked at each other, worried. Anything that had to do with Dr. Eggman was bad news, especially something like this.

Shadow steps forwards, grabbing both Knuckles and Tails by the arms. “We can’t just let him roam free like this. We have to fix what we’ve done.”

In a flash, they’re gone, leaving the empty room behind.

10:58 AM, EGGMAN'S BASE, UPPER FLOOR:

Eggman was watching the monitors. Everything was going to plan. For whatever reason, Shadow decides to show up, but that only makes things better.

Finally, the hedgehog snaps. Destroying almost everything in the room, he see’s Sonic in the centre, looking down at his friends from up high.

However, this is where things immediately begin to crumble. Instead of what Eggman had planned, Sonic decided to blast right through the ceiling.

“That's not good…” He immediately leaned forwards, looking into every monitor to see where he had gone, however, none showed him at all.

Without hesitation, he presses a button on the side of his console, an underwhelming click comes out.

He begins to mash the button frantically, hoping for the best. “What happened to the emergency lockdown?!”

A loud bang comes from behind him, rubble hitting his back and the computer. He is knocked right out of his chair, now against the left side of the wall in the corner.

Sonic looks at Eggman, emotionless blank eyes piercing through the smoke.

“Eggman!” He zips forwards, grabbing him by the collar, before bursting right through the wall, entering one of the hallways as he watches the man tumble on the ground.

“Gah! W-Wait!” He begins to crawl backwards, looking up to face Sonic, watching him in an unsettling manner.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen! You were supposed to go after your friends!” He cries out, desperation showing in his voice.

Sonic just laughs, even more cruel than Eggmans. “Oh, they're not the problem. All they did was make a point.”

He takes a step forwards, pointing at the man. “Every time I let you go, you only cause suffering and pain to everyone else around you!”

He clenches his fist, anger visibly intensifying. “Well it’s time I stop you right now!”

Suddenly, he’s attacked from behind, getting knocked over. He turns to see Metal Sonic hovering above the ground, determined to protect his creator.

“Don’t get in the way, Metal…”

However, the robot dashes forwards, arms outstretched ready to stop Sonic.

Without almost any effort, Sonic leaps up and kicks Metal right in his side, slicing through with ease.

Clattering on the ground, his power cuts off, red eyes fading to black. Eggman clenches his teeth, keeping in an angry shout.

Sonic turns to him once again. “Looks like you’ll have to go back to the drawing board, Eggman!”

He charges up, ready to blast right at the man, however, something catches his attention, a sound echoes out from behind him.

He turns to see Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow standing right there, who’s eyes were all darting between Metal, Sonic, and Eggman.

Tails is the first to look right at Sonic in the eyes, seeing nothing but an emotionless glare.

“Sonic! You need to stop! This isn’t right! Eggman is down, you’ve destroyed almost all the Chaos Shards when you transformed, and you’ve destroyed Metal! You don’t need to do anything else!”

He does nothing, as if his friends were invisible to him.

“He’s right, Sonic.” Knuckles speaks up, looking at him. Gone is the face of hate, and now filled with a sombre mood.

Something changes in his face, a flicker in his eyes, hazy greens appearing for a second. Still floating inches off the ground, he lowers himself, shoes making contact with the ground.

“We all have problems and mistakes we make.” Knuckles gestures towards the other two, who were not leaving their focus off Sonic.

His fur begins to lighten up, going from the colorless void, to a dark blue. His eyes are now slightly visible, which shows some kind of regret sitting inside them.

Seeing Sonic start to calm down, Shadow decided to step in. “You can’t let your anger get the better of you, blind your actions. It only leads to causing more pain, for both you, and the person you inflict it upon.”

“I should know.” He steps forwards. “Which is why you need to go with Tails and Knuckles, and return home, before you do something that’ll never be fixed…”

Sonic’s fur returns to his normal color, along with his eyes as the warping effect in the air vanishes. He looks over his shoulder at Eggman, who is still shaking from where he lays, before turning around and looking down at the ground.

“Yeah, lets go…” He walks up to his friends, waiting for them to lead the way, still making no eye contact with any of them.

All three of them take their leave, walking down the hall, disappearing from sight. Shadow stays put, before striding up to Eggman.

He points a finger, threatening tone making a very clear statement. “If you ever try to mess with Chaos Energy like that again, I’ll see to it that no one comes to save you next time around…”

Turning away, he says one last thing. “Not that you can right now, as the Chaos Emerald you had is now in safe hands…”

With that, he disappears in a flash of yellow and green light, leaving Eggman alone to himself.

2: 13 PM, OUTSIDE THE RESTORATION:

Sonic had almost returned to his usual self, cracking a few jokes and laughing along the way. However, he was still narrowly avoiding eye contact with Tails, who had stayed with Sonic and Knuckles left to return to his island.

Outside the garden, Sonic stops, turning to Tails. “Sorry about that later today, I shouldn’t have lashed out like that…” He puts a hand in between his quills, messing with them.

“It’s fine Sonic! It wasn’t even all on you anyways! Eggman set all that up.” Tails pipes in, cheerful energy back in place.

“Heh, I guess that's true…”

Suddenly, the doors to the elevator open, as Tangle runs out, with Whisper following behind in a calm manner.

“Sonic! Tails! I was so worried!”

Now face to face, she stops for a second, catching her breath as Whisper stands by her.

“Shadow came in out of nowhere and took us back here before we could finish talking to you!” Her tail darts around frantically, showing the energy she had inside her.

“I just couldn’t believe that!” She begins to emote with her hands, detailing her story with body language. “He just swoops in, grabs us, and says that-” She clears her throat, putting on a voice that mimicked Shadows. “-Everything will be taken care of…”

She returns to her usual voice. “But how could we know, especially sin-” Whisper puts a hand on Tangle's shoulder, wanting to talk herself.

She faces the two, more so Sonic in particular. “Did everything turn out fine?”

Sonic puts on a grin, giving a thumbs up. “Without a hitch! Tails and co even managed to swipe the Emerald, so no more ‘Chaos Shards’ as Tails tells me!”

Whisper lets out a soft laugh. “That's good to hear. We better tell Jewel…” She faces Tangle, as the other nods. “Of course! Well see y’all later!” She darts towards the elevator, with Whisper in tow.

However, Tails can feel that something is amiss. “Are you sure you’re fine…?” Sonic only smirks. “No doubts about it!” He ruffles the fur on Tails’ back, playfully messing around.

“Why don’t you go and make sure Eggman isn’t doing something else? I’ll go for a run!”

Tails, although hesitant, agrees. “Alright, just don’t do anything foolish…” He walks off, searching for the Tornado which was parked outside the crater. Looking back at Sonic once more, he waves goodbye, before flying away.

As he watches the Tornado vanish out of sight, his smile slightly fades, before zoning out, thinking about something.

Shaking it off, he turns to the Restorations entrance, scanning the garden surrounding it.

Turning away, Sonic jumps out from the garden, running down the streets. However, a strange, unsettling static follows behind, sitting on his shoulders where he goes.

[molinaskies]

So I’ve been going through all of The Bumblekast, Ian Flynn’s and Kyle “KyleJCrb” Crouse’s podcast, and cherry-picking the questions that interest me (as it’s a QnA podcast). One question answered in the April 24th, 2023 episode (source) was the following:

“The IDW original cast are all great characters, but it feels like they haven't had a lot of chances to have their relationships with the main game cast explored much so far. So to keep it fairly concise, let's stick with the core four for now(Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles). Which member (s) of the IDW cast would you personally like to explore their relationships with and what kind of dynamic do you think they would have with them? For example, I think Tails and Tangle would have a really fun dynamic.”

At timestamp 18:30, Kyle asks Ian, “What about Lanolin and Amy?” and Ian’s response was so validating:

Let’s just say that I’ve been cooking with someone in my DMs and I think we’re on to something based on Ian’s seeming intentions—and I think we’re gonna see it soon, too.

I’m not nearly as angry about Lanolin as a character existing in her current state if the intention is for her to be put in her place. Because that’s means there IS an intention for her and she IS meant to irritate the reader because she IS supposed to be in the wrong.

If the comic ultimately plans to make a statement against Lanolin’s behaviour to teach some lesson about how you shouldn’t impose yourself/your opinions on others, then I am all for it. And for all the reasons Ian notes, I think Amy to be the one to take that stand makes a lot of sense (and is something that I actually predicted).

Here’s hoping Lanolin gets the development she deserves and that she’s not just a wasted character.

(why lanolin bothers me)

[randomthefox]

I think this type of message is what makes the fans believe that all the hate Lanolin got was intentional from the writing because they're playing 5D chess. Some say that it's because Mimic is such a great manipulator that he fooled the audience as well, and ABT here seems to imply that she was meant to be so divisive, because hey, if no one is neutral about her, it means that she is a strong female character, right? That's what the responses here imply.

I think it kind of belies a rather... self-congratulatory mindset? Basically, he doesn't care how Lanolin is perceived, if people are understanding her correctly or if the writing is mangling her. He's just happy that his OC is being talked about. His OC is popular, even if she's popular because a good chunk of people cannot stand her and think she's actively harming the story.

The strength of a character isn't measured in how much people talk about them. It's measured in how coherent and well-written they are.

As if ABT has literally anything to do with how the character is written. Indeed, he has gone out of his way to make his own little sequences with Lanolin that demonstrate HIS VERSION of her character being completely different from how she's portrayed in the comic. Also still thinking back to his "no she was supposed to be a cunt the whole time look at the way I drew the ends of her smile being pointed downwards!"

This is industrial strength fucking cope, no other way to describe it. Reminds me of the original singer of the song "Subhuman" from DMC5 dismissing how everyone hated his version of the vocals by saying "if people don't hate your art you're doing something wrong."

Capcom would replace him as the singer for the song and gave us the version of it that we ended up with in the final game, for reference =P

Contrary to the old saying, there IS actually such a thing as bad publicity.

[zosonils]

🫵PHOTON TRIVIA

o7 YOU GOT IT BOSS!!

as much as i love making robots who Think Like Robots there's none of that here! photon is the ghost of someone real shoved into a metal body and just as unpredictable and irrational as any meat brain is. too obviously mechanical to be a person, too painfully human [mobian. whatever] to be a robot. [and don't you worry, i've definitely thought about how this in-between existence would collide with other robots in the series. give me a minute to stop crying every time i think about mecha sonic mkii and then i'm sending his ass to scrapnik island]

he derisively calls sonic 'meat sonic'. at first it was in response to being called 'metal sonic,' but now that he has his own name it's just this bizarre orphaned punchline kept alive by some mix of complacency and spite. for what it's worth meat sonic thinks it's funny as fuck that photon calls him that

photon can't cry, at least not at first. just doesn't have the physical functionality built into him. he tells himself that it's no loss, he/sonic hated crying anyway, but it's definitely not good for him that such a deeply psychologically necessary function is gone!

of course my autistic ass has thought about the jules and photon dynamic. it's weird, and awkward, and steeped in a thousand layers of feelings that neither of them know how to articulate, but i reckon they do like each other and they are good for each other. jury's still out on whether they can claim to be family, but it's hard not to at least be SOMETHING with the probable only other person on the entire planet who understands at least a little bit of what you're going through, y'know

out of all the things he can't do anymore, photon REALLY misses eating. leftovers from his organic-by-design brain keep telling him that it's been way too long since he ate and he'd feel better if he slammed back a chili dog. he can usually laugh off being asked a fundamentally robot-proof question like when he last slept or if he needs a shower and genuinely not be hurt [much] by it, but he gets real quiet if someone accidentally asks him if he wants anything to eat

because he struggles to conceptualise his body as His Body, he's really bad at treating the possibility of hurting himself with the appropriate gravity. as a result, he's prone to letting himself get injured if it means he gets more done in a fight, or ignoring minor damage until it compounds enough that he's falling apart, or pushing himself until his systems short out. thanks to this reckless approach to personal safety, he's been fully ship of theseus'd at least once since his original neo metal sonic body, which i'm sure is great for that aforementioned difficulty connecting himself with the body he's in

most of photon's interaction with sonic canon post-heroes is vague and messy and not something i've come up with an answer i like to, but i'm pretty confident in how he fits into the idw chunk of the timeline! he never 'officially' joins the restoration, and he's still just as prone to fucking off halfway across the planet as meat sonic, but he starts to be a pretty common sight around their hq. fighting eggman isn't really fun for photon anymore the way it is for sonic, having your entire identity irreversibly ripped away from you by someone makes any future victory against them feel hollow, but he's still got that burning drive to help others - the restoration gives him ways to fight indirectly enough that he can actually feel good about it again. he's one of the few who can meaningfully defend the metal virus survivors, and you BET he's so pissed at sonic for letting it happen he can hardly think straight. lanolin and tangle probably try to get him in the neo diamond cutters, but i don't think he'd take them up on the offer, given that he doesn't respond well to being told what to do. like i mentioned, i want to send his ass to scrapnik island and see how he plays off of another robot sonic turned terrifyingly real and separate person. then of course there's the dynamic between him and belle, which honestly could be a whole post by itself. after a couple years with only a tiny handful of non-grief-inducing friends and some unsustainably destructive coping mechanisms to his name, the point that idw picks up from is where photon finally goes from just enduring the horrors to genuinely feeling happier again :]

[beevean]

Reminder that Surge's greatest act of villainy was using five wisps against their will

Something that Eggman has already done before. But when Eggman harassed and enslaved wisps, he did it on an interplanetary scale/to the entire species

It's crazy how the idw comic will do anything to convince audiences that its original villains are cool EXCEPT having them do anything actually impressive

I just remembered. One of the first things the comic establishes is that Eggman can endanger entire worlds when left unchecked. the comic has yet to introduce a new villain who matches that threat level, but we're still expected to take the comic villains more seriously than Eggman? Even though in this very same comic Eggman released a virus that nearly ended all life on the planet?

Are we really supposed to think the comic villains are scary purely because the story said they are?

The idw comic completely fumbles the rule of show don't tell

To be fair, I would put "nearly killing Sonic by electocuting him in a pool of water" high up as well. That's attempted murder, or murder even if we believe Flynn that Sonic died for a few seconds. The fact that Sonic's heart restarted doesn't make it less violent.

Of course, that's also the same scene where Surge is stopped by her own device breaking, so basically just her being unlucky, so it's hard to see her as a worthy foe :P

But yeah, they are still nowhere near Eggman's level of threat, which maybe why they keep benching him lol. I guess... Starline aided Eggman with the Metal Virus, which made him responsible by proxy? That's the most I got.

The villains in IDW are mostly petty delinquents. They are pre-Phantom Ruby Infinite level of threat. You know, the jobber that Shadow kicked so hard in the face he had a mental breakdown? I get that the comic is very low stakes at this point, but the villains simply aren't compelling. Clutch wants to be the hot shit but he's boring as sin because his personality doesn't go beyond "smooth kingpin", Mimic is only getting his way because Lanolin is an idiot asshole, Surge doesn't know whether she wants to be an edgy badass or a woobie, Kit doesn't exist, and even Starline lost his charm when he started to sniff his own farts. (I'm not counting Rough and Tumble because they are barely nuisances)

[all-together-now]

Show of hands; who here wouldn't mind being a parent if life ends up going that way? Vanilla, Crasher, and Vixy are excluded because they're actually parents.

Amy, Blaze, Rouge, Tikal, and Jewel were the only ones to raise their hands.

“Wh- Guys, seriously?!” Amy asked is disbelief.

“Amy. Look at me with a straight face and ask me if I’d want a child,” Sonic deadpanned.

“…okay, yeah, you? Fair. But no one else here would want a child?!”

“I’ve spent all of my life guarding something already, and aside from meeting you all it has gained me nothing,” Knuckles huffed, “I have no interest in doing it anymore.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I’d ever be cut out to be a mom,” Tangle chuckled, “Having a kid does sound nice, admittedly, but I don’t see myself as a responsible caretaker.”

“I’m the opposite,” Whisper said, “I’d be responsible with a child, but I don’t like the idea of having one. It just isn’t appealing.”

“Ditto,” Lanolin grumbled, “I hate kids.”

“Hey!” Tails shouted in the distance.

“Not you!” Lanolin shouted back.

“I suppose it is a commitment that not everyone would like to have,” Blaze said, “So I’m very proud you all realize that.”

“Yes, that is very true. No one should have a kid if they don’t want to.”

“But you do~” Rouge purred, cupping Jewel’s face, “Oh, and how much I’d love to be the one to give you one. If only it worked like that.”

Tangle snickered as Jewel pushed Rouge away with a flurry of flustered noises.

“Well, hey, I don’t think you’re getting kids anytime soon either, Pinky ‘n Hotty,” Surge chuckled.

Amy sighed and rolled her eyes, “Oh believe me, I know Surge. But the question was if I wanted children, not if I would have one while also trying to keep three out of my four girlfriends alive.”