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mashounen2003 · 3 years ago

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Chaos Emerald - Summarized | Chapter 2: Brand New World

[link to AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31143266]

混沌緑柱玉・要約した | Konton Ryokuchūgyoku - Yōyakushita | Chaos Emerald - Summarized

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編纂：真新しい世界。 | Hen-San: Ma-Atarashī Sekai. | Group of Sagas: Brand New World.

[link to AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31143266/chapters/76957619]

Here are the events immediately after the end of the war against the original Robotnik. The general tone of this part is much less dark and more optimistic than in Sonic SatAM, showing this is a bright new world after the end of a worldwide guerrilla war. On the other hand, it never gets too whimsical, and with the exception of the downright comedic moments, the seriousness level (the edginess, if you will) remains equal to or higher than that of the Red Ribbon Army saga (during the second half of the original Dragon Ball, before the Great Demon King Piccolo's appearance; the RRA saga's tone is already relatively lighthearted, we must admit).

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[Last edited on February 14, 2023.]

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Opening theme for this group of sagas:

“Makafushigi Adventure”, the opening theme of the original Dragon Ball TV series (original Japanese version by Hiroki Takahashi et al., French TV-size cover made by “AMVF Studio”, French TV-size cover made by “Beastboy”, English TV-size cover for the Funimation dub by Jimi Tunnell et al., English cover for the Phillippines’ dub).

Ending theme for this group of sagas:

“Kawaita Sakebi”, the opening theme of the often called "season zero of Yu-Gi-Oh!", the 1998 Yu-Gi-Oh! TV series made by Toei (original Japanese version by "Field of View").

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Right after "Doomsday", all Robians are mentally freed, although there’s no way to restore them to their organic form at the moment. In a bittersweet moment, Sonic and his uncle Chuck are reunited with the rest of their family: Sonic's parents, Jules and Bernadette, and the family’s pet, the non-Mobian dog Muttski; Aleena is nowhere to be found, not even appearing on Robotnik's records of Robians under his control. The Freedom Fighters also keep travelling throughout the rest of Mobius, initiating diplomatic relationships with more nations, dealing with lesser villains, and sometimes assisting with rebuilding efforts.

The super-weapon Doomsday was apparently not only far more powerful than any other invention of Robotnik, but it was also more powerful than the Freedom Fighters had calculated: since its destruction caused the very inter-dimensional barriers to weaken. A couple of weeks after Robotnik's fall, Sonic and his friends are forced to face the invasion of the Suppression Squad, his doppelgängers from the planet Moebius; the Freedom Fighters win this time, after easily finding out the key to defeating their Moebian versions is by making each one fight with the evil counterpart of another. A few days later, the Freedom Fighters also take a chance to rescue King Maximillian Acorn from the Zone of Silence, with no side effects this time. Just another couple of days after that, as the Freedom Fighters freed people from Robotnik’s prison camps and eliminated remnants of their forces, they find Fiona Fox, who soon after joins the team as a field medic.

Hope Kintobor is a 14-year-old Overlander girl, a mechanic prodigy and pilot-in-training; she’s also Snively's half-sister and Robotnik's distant relative. After the fall of the Overlander nation at the hands of the dictator, Hope had migrated throughout Mobius; she eventually settles in Knothole after the regime’s fall and does her best to help the Freedom Fighters and restore the Kintobor name in the process.

At around the same time, as soon as it seems the Robotnik Regime's remnants are under control, Antoine leaves Knothole, just leaving Bunnie a brief letter where he says goodbye without saying where he's going or what he plans to do, thanks her for her support and for being such a good friend, and apologizes for “not having lived up” with her and the rest of the team.

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編：七つの混沌緑柱玉の探求。

Hen: Nanatsu no Konton Ryokuchūgyoku no Tankyū.

Saga: the Quest for the Seven Chaos Emeralds.

At least a month after Robotnik’s fall, the Freedom Fighters learn that Snively is preparing some kind of super-weapon on some unexplored islands south-southeast of the former Kingdom of Acorn; Sonic goes there, initially alone, beginning the adaptation of the classic 8-bit and 16-bit games and the fan-games created by LakeFeperd, in the following order: 16-bit Sonic 1, 8-bit Sonic 1, Sonic Chaos aka Sonic & Tails 1 (an 8-bit game), 8-bit Sonic 2, Sonic Before the Sequel (by LakeFeperd), 16-bit Sonic 2, Sonic After the Sequel (by LakeFeperd), and lastly, Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

[Snively gets a redesign from here: he's a bit more athletic taller, and has hair again, which in his case is light brown and styled like Dr Starline's hair (based upon a drawing by @adokle)]

Upon arriving on the islands -called "Berilian Islands" by their inhabitants-, Sonic discovers an absurd and astonishing variety of climates and landscapes, as well as a technologically quite advanced society made up of Mobians and other sentient beings suspiciously very similar to the Overlanders but without such markedly violent tendencies; he also finds that Snively has reactivated the old Badniks Development Program and is using it to try to take over the islands, so the blue hedgehog decides to take the mantle of the region’s new local hero. Throughout his adventures, he finds six Chaos Emeralds that Snively is also looking for, probably to use as a power source; every time he picks one up, he’s taken to a pocket universe called "Special Zone", where he apparently has to overcome different tests and challenges in order to return to his homeworld and keep the Chaos Emerald he has just taken; also, when Sonic carries Chaos Emeralds with him, he feels some kind of mysterious energy emanating from them.

In the adaptations of the two versions of Sonic 1, both set in the South Island of the archipelago, the hedgehog simply collects the six Chaos Emeralds before Snively does, then proceeds to destroy the Overlander’s operations base, and for some reason, the gemstones drift away from him and spread throughout the South Island once Snively has been defeated. Each time, he has no problem with this... until Robotnik's nephew attacks the islands again and the blue hedgehog has to gather the gemstones again.

In the Sonic Chaos adaptation, also set on the South Island, Tails arrives aboard his mini-submarine Sea Fox to help Sonic, if only to explore the rest of the island.

[Once “A+Start” -aka “Son of a Glitch”- and others release the full final version of the “Sonic Mania style” remake of Sonic Chaos, that's what I'd rather use for this adaptation]

At the end of that adaptation, Tails goes back to the continent in the Sea Fox...

[Soundtrack: Serris / Yakuza Boss Theme – Metroid Fusion OST, orchestral arrangement by “The Noble Demon”]

But a nuclear submarine manned by Snively's forces approaches him in the middle of the trip and begins to pursue him; Tails manages to resist and deal some heavy damage to Snively's sub. When the Sea Fox's ammo runs out and the drill on its prow is too damaged and stops working, the fox decides to let himself be captured and activate the self-destruction of his mini-submarine, letting its remains sink into the sea and take with them its true source of energy: a seventh Chaos Emerald.

A couple of days later, both Sonic on the islands and the Freedom Fighters on the mainland are officially very worried; they soon learn Tails has been captured and is held prisoner at Snively's new base on Westside Island, and Sonic decides to gather the Chaos Emeralds for the fourth time, initiating the events of the 8-bit Sonic 2 adaptation. It seems the hedgehog is merely trying to collect the gemstones before Snively and then destroy his base of operations and rescue Tails, but the plan turns out to be more complicated than that: Sonic trusts to be fast enough, but he also trusts Tails's slyness; the hedgehog creates a distraction of sorts, letting Snively try (and fail) to go after him and find the Chaos Emeralds or simply eliminate the hedgehog and take from his corpse whatever Emeralds he’s carrying; meanwhile...

[Soundtrack: Crisis Mission – Metroid Fusion OST, orchestral arrangement by "The Noble Demon"]

[Soundtrack: Facing A Huge Reaction – Metroid Fusion OST, orchestral arrangement by "The Noble Demon" & Julia Booth]

Robotnik's nephew's base is weakened, allowing Tails to eventually escape on his own and rendezvous with Sonic.

Once Tails is safe and Snively's new base is neutralized, the six Emeralds in Sonic's hands signal him, through some kind of vision or suggestion, to go to the region of Hilltop Heights on the Eastside Island; upon arriving there, he founds out the real super-weapon Snively was building: the aerospace battle station Death Egg, which is mounted on a rocket and whose construction has already progressed considerably. As Sonic tries to stop the launching of the Death Egg, Tails is pulling the Sea Fox's wreckage out of the seabed with a little help from the islanders, after Sonic publicly gave the fox some credit for saving them from Snively; Tails also receives the plane Tornado, piloted by Rotor, after the fox commissioned his friends in Knothole to send it to him so he can update it with the technology provided by the islanders; once his submarine’s remains have been recovered, Tails secretly removes his Chaos Emerald from among them, realizes it seems to be attracted to the six gemstones in Sonic's hands, uses its energy to slightly increase his own physical attributes just as he had done in Tails Adventure, and heads to Sonic's approximate location at that time: Star Shores. This kicks off the events of Sonic Before the Sequel. In the final battle, Tails provides Sonic with the seventh Chaos Emerald, allowing the hedgehog to turn into Super Sonic for the first time, attack the Death Egg and render it useless and severely damaged.

Sonic and Tails reach the Westside Island in the Tornado, the seven Chaos Emeralds once again scatter across the island, and the duo set out in search once more: now the duo know better the gemstones’ immense power, and aside from preventing Snively from getting his hands on them, they also have to prevent him from finishing repairing and rearming the Death Egg in space; this leads to the events of the 16-bit Sonic 2 adaptation. This is followed by the events of Sonic After the Sequel, set in the North Island, where Tails presents an invention he had developed based upon an idea proposed by Fiona about a weapon based on static electricity: a jester hat that gives its wearer great powers, either to manipulate and concentrate static electricity or to briefly crystallize the air around oneself (the hats that gave Sonic & Tails powers based on Kirby's in the game made by LakeFeperd). They also come across Elemental Shield technology, which they had already seen a bit of when Sonic used a Bubble Shield in the underwater urban district of Fortress Flow on the Eastside Island (Sonic Before the Sequel).

After the Death Egg crashes on Angel Island, the adaptation of Sonic 3 & Knuckles unfolds almost exactly the same as in the original, but with three noteworthy differences: Sonic hasn’t developed the Insta-Shield yet, Tails can access his Super form with the ordinary Chaos Emeralds and his Hyper form is the one that allows him to summon the Flicky Army of Death, and Knuckles in his Hyper form turns bright green.

[Soundtrack: Metal Gear Solid 1 main theme (version for the 1997 E3)]

Sonic and Tails explore Angel Island, usually going their separate ways and meeting again when fighting the war machines sent by Snively. The Freedom Fighters act as Mission Control, staying in contact with them, watching everything they do and helping them when needed: Rotor is granted access to the satellites of the inhabitants of the Berilian Islands, and coordinates them with each other and with his own scouting drones to scan the island's regions from the outside and give Sonic and Tails a rough idea of what they're up against; Sally and Nicole routinely chat with Sonic and Tails about possible strategies for entering each region; Fiona uses her personal experience as a treasure hunter to watch and try to interpret the inscriptions in some areas (mostly the ancient echidna constructs in Hydro-City, Marble Garden, Sandopolis and the Hidden Palace), in order to deduce if there may be either hidden deadly traps or mechanisms that Sonic and Tails can exploit to keep going.

Meanwhile, Snively gets Knuckles to let him investigate the ruins of the ancient echidna civilization. Robotnik's nephew makes some discoveries, the most important being a stone golem guarding the Lost Pyramid [this is Sandopolis's mini-boss, the Guardian, and the pyramid from which it comes out and where Sandopolis Act 2 takes place is known as "the Lost Pyramid" in the British Sonic comic] and a series of "Guardian Robots" [another element from the British comic], both with armour that might endure attacks from someone on a Super form; he experiments on many of his vehicles and war machines, trying to copy and apply to them that revolutionary "anti-Super armour", forcing Sonic and Tails to find and directly attack weak points and/or cleverly identify and exploit design flaws in order to destroy them even though they've already gathered all seven Chaos Emeralds and attained their Super forms; this can be seen in the Bowling Spin [Carnival Night's mini-boss], the Gapsule [Flying Battery's mini-boss], the Laser Prison [1st stage of Flying Battery's boss], the Big Arms [Sonic 3's final boss, a sort of "3rd stage" of Launch Base's major boss, if standalone Sonic 3 is played], the Egg-Golem [Sandopolis's major boss], the Heat Arms's giant hand [Lava Reef's mini-boss], and the Egg-Inferno —including its supply of spike-clad bombs— [Lava Reef's major boss]. To ensure the success of his plan to manipulate Knuckles into continuing to help him, Snively also shares with him all his discoveries about the echidna's own home, not holding back a single detail, as a sign of goodwill.

Angel Island is not completely deserted: there are descendants of very diverse groups of Mobians and humans who discovered and settled on the island, with Carnival Night being the main settlement. Knuckles, in his role as Guardian, used to just live on his own, make no contact with them, and ignore them as long as they didn't get too close to the Master Emerald.

Tails and Knuckles meet in the Hidden Palace, and the former tries to explain to him what's happening, his and Sonic's true intentions, and what kind of person Snively actually is. At first, Tails seems to be successful in calming things down, but one tiny knee-jerk reaction of his ruins everything: the fox is still on the defensive in case Knuckles doesn't believe him and attacks him, this eventually causes small green sparks induced by his Chaos powers to briefly run through his tails' surface, and Knuckles sees that and reads it as a sign that Tails is lying and planning to attack him from behind when he lets his guard down, so the Guardian lashes out.

[Soundtrack: Boss Theme – Mega Man 2 OST, cover made by Maxim Zhuravlev]

Tails manages to react in time, deflecting Knux's punch with a tail swipe. Then the fox begins to fight mercilessly, trying to slice the echidna with his tails immediately after deflecting that blow; Tails also keeps his distance, making fleeting attacks and moving away again. At one point, Knuckles manages to catch Tails from behind, but he uses his tails to finally slice through the echidna's defenceless belly with little effort. Knux heals his wound with his own body's Chaos energy, and now Tails has only pissed him off even more, but that doesn't seem to matter to the fox; when the Guardian lunges at Tails again, the latter dodges the blow, wraps his tail around the echidna's outstretched arm, and begins to squeeze it and try to twist it; Knuckles tries to get rid of the fox, but he doesn't yield.

*CRUNCH*

Tails shatters the bones inside Knux's arm. After one loud crack, thin strands of echidna blood slowly trickle out from between the foxtails firmly gripping the Guardian's arm. Knuckles reacts by punching Tails in the temple with all his strength with his good arm before Tails can get away again; the fox flies into a corner and lies on the ground, knocked out, with blood dripping from his head; Knux heads towards him, but Sonic grabs the echidna from behind by surprise, knocks him to the ground, then just looks down on him... and goes Super: now Sonic is genuinely angry and determined to sweep the floor with the Guardian.

Super Sonic does just that, overwhelming Knuckles and not letting him even react. But then Knux senses the energy of the Master Emerald and figures out how to use it to go Super too. The fight becomes more even until Tails —already healed though still with his own blood staining a whole half of his head— goes Super as well, ascends to their side, calmly declares "this is getting annoying enough", points one finger at Knux...

Tails: [echoing] "Bang."

And from the tip of his finger, Tails generates and fires a bullet of pure radiation at the Guardian; the fox fires several times again, but this time Knux deflects all the shots by simply hitting the energy bullets with the back of his bare fists, then the echidna tries to get to Tails but Sonic attacks him again to get him away from his little brother. Now Knuckles mostly runs away, dodging Super Sonic's strikes and the energy shots from a Super Tails who seems to be enjoying this a bit too much. As a last resort, Knuckles calls Snively and asks him to deploy the Hidden Palace's Guardian Robots, which turn out to be durable enough to be able to swarm and hold off a Mobian in their Super form; then Tails does a long and tortuous Hyper transformation, and when the transformation completes, Hyper Tails is visibly struggling to maintain the form but manages to yell a Kiai, send all of his flickies in one go and take out the Guardian Robots. With the droids destroyed, Tails immediately sends those same flickies to attack Knuckles from the sides as Tails himself attacks from behind by doing a mid-air spindash towards the echidna, and Sonic —who begins to transform into his own Hyper form as well— also does an aerial spindash from the front towards Knux so that he and Tails defeat the Guardian together. Knuckles can no longer take this and decides to do a kamikaze by releasing from his own body an explosive wave made up of almost all the Chaos energy stored within him.

Knuckles returns to his base form and is still more or less conscious and able to move, though he can't fight again yet; Tails loses his Hyper form but then falls back to his base form and also gets knocked out; Sonic exits his Hyper form, then reverts back to his base form as well but by his own choice, and is still able to fight. Snively takes the opportunity to steal the Master Emerald; Knuckles tries to stop him by holding on to the gemstone, but Robotnik's nephew electrocutes him and easily gets rid of him, then taunts Knux by complaining that he "expected more from the one in charge of protecting such a powerful artefact"; Sonic tries to stop Snively but the hedgehog's normal attacks can't even scratch the "ASA" (Anti-Super Alloy) coating the Overlander's vehicle, which is shown to have similar properties to the armour of both the Guardian Robots and the stone golem in Sandopolis.

Sonic wakes Tails up, they both tend to Knuckles' wounds, and the Guardian decides to finally listen to their side of the story and then help them retrieve the Master Emerald, giving them access to the Sky Sanctuary.

[Soundtrack: Milky Way Wishes: Shooting – Kirby Super Star & Kirby Super Star Ultra OSTs, mash-up of multiple versions by "Fuhi"]

The Death Egg has got its own combat drone squadron, the Lamna-class Stealthbots ["Lamna" comes from "Lamniformes" the order the great white shark belongs to], either to defend itself against external attacks or to defend the core against attempts to sabotage it from within [they look like something in between the Stealthbots from Sonic SatAM and the Fighter Aircraft A from Sonic Adventure 1 (the aerial combat drones deployed by Eggman to defend the Egg-Carrier in "Sky Chase"), and the name "Lamna" is another reference to the "shark" design of the latter]. When Sonic and Tails are already inside the Death Egg, while one of them makes his way through the decks, the other gets on one of the "Lamnas", takes control of it by hacking into it with a program created by Tails beforehand, and attacks the core of the Death Egg, powered by the Master Emerald. When the core is severely destabilized by this direct attack, Snively ejects the Master Emerald from there and stores it inside the giant EggRobo, using this mech later to fight Sonic and Tails themselves. [If this were a Sonic 3 & Knuckles remake videogame, the player would choose which of the two to assign the two acts of the traditional Death Egg level and which of the two to assign the shoot-'em-up level, and the order would be: Death Egg act 1 with one character, the shoot-'em-up with the other, then Death Egg act 2 with the first one, and lastly the fight against the giant EggRobo with Sonic and Tails together.]

Snively is shown to have used the ASA again on the pillar housing the Red Eye [Death Egg's mini-boss], the Death Ball —whose mobile mines have a less resistant version of the ASA— [Death Egg's major boss], the giant EggRobo —minus its fingers— [Sonic 3 & Knuckles's final boss (but not its true final boss), a sort of "2nd stage" of Death Egg's major boss], and the 1st stage of the Final Weapon —both the blue casing itself and the cannons and missile launchers mounted on it and all their ammo— [the true final boss, in the level "Doomsday"]. When Sonic and Tails are chasing Snively and his Final Weapon through Mobius's upper atmosphere, they coordinate their attacks, with Sonic doing the actual chase and attempting to make the Final Weapon's weapons damage the vessel itself while Tails gets ahead, flies away and attacks from a distance. They eventually get the Final Weapon to lose its casing, but this reveals the Death Egg Robot inside it has its own version of the ASA enhanced by Snively himself rather than just an imitation of the Guardian Robots' armour; fortunately, both Mobians have already mastered their Hyper forms and their attacks can pierce the ASA armour, so they continue the chase until they finally destroy the machine, retrieve the Master Emerald, and bring it back to its Guardian.

Knuckles' story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles —set after Sonic & Tails destroyed the Death Egg and brought the Master Emerald back— is not adapted here... yet.

[I briefly considered the possibility of including the 8-bit game Sonic: Triple Trouble, aka Sonic & Tails 2, but then I found out its plot is even less defined than that of its predecessor Sonic Chaos; then I thought about including, after Sonic’s & Tails’s story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the 16-bit remake of Sonic: Triple Trouble being currently developed by Noah N. Copeland, which was mentioned to be set after the events of Sonic’s & Tails’s story in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but there’s still a long time until that remake is finished]

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幾つかの副筋書き。

Ikutsuka no fuku-sujigaki.

A few sub-plots.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey and Hershey start spending time together. They're just friends for the moment: she just got out of an abusive relationship with the traitor Drago Wolf, and even though it hadn't lasted long enough and the scars left by that relationship were thankfully not as severe as they could have been, she’s still not ready to start another romance so soon; on the other hand, his friend (who's not a perverted asshole here, unlike how Penders tried to write him) is actually not even very interested in being her boyfriend. It's not until some months later that both begin to feel something for each other, after having known each other better. Geoff also begins to question the idea of honouring and following in the footsteps of his father, the late Commander Ian Saint-John, someone who may have been kind to his son but was also fiercely and openly racist against the Overlanders and also quite sexist.

When Fiona joined the team, her resemblance to Auto-Fiona had rekindled traumatic memories of fairly recent events in Tails's life, so he initially decided to keep his distance and spend more time working on his projects with Hope. However...

[Soundtrack: The water returns (M116) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST]

Fiona shows quite an interest in science -specifically electricity- outside her work as the team’s new field medic, proves she’s quite smart, astute and a bit of a fast learner, and approaches Tails of her own free will. Sometimes Hope invites her to the workshop too. The two-tailed fox begins to feel more comfortable around Fiona, especially as he realizes she has very little in common with that robot: in addition to having one or two interests in common with him, she’s sassy and sharp-tongued, frequently uses rather subtle humour, and has no qualms about criticizing Sonic and Sally, something that makes her a kind of new role model for Tails, who’s also trying to be a little more independent from his “surrogate family”. The two become friends, working together on a project or two, including the jester hats with powers to manipulate electricity and light, used in the adaptation of Sonic After the Sequel.

[This version of Fiona is loosely based upon both Caulifla and Kale from the Dragon Ball Super anime, and her friendship with Tails is inspired by the relationship between Nadia and Jean in Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.]

Fiona also befriends Bunnie. The cyborg Freedom Fighter is much more open than the others to the idea of having more people on the team, and both she and Fiona find they’ve had similar experiences.

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Someone else joins the team too: Leónidas Proción. The raccoon had spent much of the war living relatively isolated in a hut near Knothole, visiting the village from time to time to do some small jobs and gather supplies; he was aware of what the Freedom Fighters were doing, but he only knew Sonic and Sally were part of them and he had heard a few things about Tails and the possibility of him also joining the team someday. In a demonstration of the abilities Leónidas thinks he can contribute, he does quite well in mêlée combat, although it’s nothing extraordinary; he shows a pretty simple, a bit rudimentary fighting style based on using his whole body as a sort of ram, onrushing and tackling with all his weight, and he’s quite fast, which leaves some surprised due to the kind of body he has -robust, wide, rather square-shaped-; he also uses his 大小 ["daishō"] (set of a 刀 ["katana"] and a 脇差 ["wakizashi"] short sword), made by him, to demonstrate quick attack techniques for emergencies, mainly the 抜刀術 [“battō-jutsu”] techniques of attacking while unsheathing (of course, the weapons he uses in that demonstration are 竹刀 [“shinai”], non-lethal substitutes made of bamboo). On the other hand, when they make Leonidas go through a simulation against SWAT-bots, stealth seems to be his weakness; when he attempts to directly engage the reprogrammed SWAT-bots, he’s able to dodge the fake laser shots, although it’s the first time he's forced to actually predict the shots’ direction instead of just using his reflexes after each shot was fired, and then he attacks with his daishō at the joints and other areas where he assumes SWAT-bots may be more vulnerable, but then he outright fails at the simulation when being overwhelmed by one or two squads of SWAT-bots.

Sally and Sonic aren’t convinced to admit Leónidas to the team. It’s true he's got gifts: he can fend for himself most of the time, as proved by living on Knothole’s outskirts of his own accord for a few years now; he’s inventive and capable of adaptation, having developed his own fighting style from the resources and knowledge available to him; he’s dedicated, fiercely and passionately loyal, visibly eager to help but not naive at all, and realizes how horrible war can be; he doesn’t seem to be seeking fame and glory, and the fact that he has chosen to live fairly isolated and keeping a low profile seems to suggest otherwise; on the other hand, he seems to get along with the rest of the team, being quite funny but without being unbearable nor getting trampled on either. However, Sonic sees no use in his abilities should they enter actual combat -something that seems to have been proven by their failure in the simulations of infiltration in Robotropolis and combat against SWAT-bots-, and Sally feels forced to agree with him in that regard, since the only ones with truly useful combat skills had always been Sonic and Bunnie, a super-powerful Mobian and a cyborg respectively, while the others were useful in other ways but always had to either be stealthy or be kept protected by Sonic and/or Bunnie; also, much of what Proción learned to do seems to be specifically to assassinate ordinary Mobians and this doesn’t suit her or Sonic very well, since the Freedom Fighters have fought for ten years a war where Robotnik has claimed many lives but the only ones they ever had to kill were the robots Robotnik manufactured and deployed and the Resistance had always had the sole goal of overthrowing the dictator and freeing the roboticized Mobians.

Two days after Leónidas's demonstration, he learns from Bunnie, Tails, and Rotor that the Knothole Freedom Fighters and some other Resistance teams across Mobius had made impressive technological advancements that could help make the raccoon's abilities useful in battles against robots; for example, there’s the alloy “Megatal”, capable of withstanding extremely high temperatures while also remaining solid and preserving all its properties, and Tails could try to make a more advanced version of Leónidas’s daishō, where the blade of both sabres is replaced by a Megatal filament traversed by an intense electrical current that heats it to white-hot and allows to cleanly cut robots in half almost like butter. Later, Proción is informed that Sally has rejected his request to join the Freedom Fighters, the raccoon begins to have doubts about the way he was evaluated, and heads to speak with the team's tactical leader.

Sally and Sonic explain to Leónidas their reasons for not admitting him to the team. Proción responds by insisting the team will need people like him to fight other different kinds of villains, and even if someone like Robotnik appears again, it’s also known there are Mobians who were mentally free or even organic but had pledged allegiance to the dictator anyway; the raccoon also claims the team should give its non-super-powerful members technology to combine with their already present abilities and actually help. Sonic is especially against the latter, he and Proción start arguing, the hedgehog accuses the raccoon of trying to get some sort of “special treatment”, Leónidas accuses the hedgehog of being conceited, and Antoine is eventually mentioned. Proción finds out Antoine had joined the Freedom Fighters, he asks Sonic and Sally about him, and what they tell him about the coyote is very different from the "Tony" that Proción remembers, a usually nervous but more idealistic cadet determined to become a brave and honourable warrior over time; when it’s also mentioned that Antoine had recently left the team, Sonic and Sally insist they have no idea what the former cadet's motives might be, but Proción deduces Antoine’s departure was their fault. As the discussion drags on, Proción begins to lose his composure and become much more emotional, getting closer and closer to breaking down. Leónidas accuses Sonic of being a brat and not taking the team's cause seriously; Sonic, remembering with pain and sorrow the day he lost Kat (Sonic SatAM, 1st season, episode “Sonic Boom”), angrily accuses Leonidas of never having gone out to fight, cowardly staying isolated and safe in his own bubble; Proción argues he didn’t come to their aid because he knew his abilities would be of no use against Robotnik, Sonic dismisses this and takes it as a mere excuse, and Proción replies by calling Sonic a "hypocrite" and mentioning that, when Antoine did offer to help despite his apparent uselessness, Sonic responded by bullying the coyote. The discussion escalates more and more, becoming more and more heated...

Until Proción finally breaks down in tears silently, later revealing he wants to redeem himself for his inaction on the day of Robotnik’s coup d’etat, when the dictator's forces had killed his family and boyfriend and made his mentor disappear. The raccoon ultimately begs to be allowed to participate, to be given technology to modernize his weapons, in exchange for him being absolutely obedient to them. Sally doesn't really know how to react to this. Sonic doesn’t dare to say anything either, seeing that prolonging the discussion and continuing to verbally attack each other wasn’t helpful anymore. Leónidas, thinking he has just “hit rock bottom” when resorting to pleading, decides to just walk away, forgetting the whole thing about him joining the team.

While Sally is pondering this matter in her office, Tails shows up at Proción's hut. The two chat for a while, and when the raccoon talks about his missing mentor, Tails realizes that person is his father, Colonel Amadeus Prower.

According to what Leónidas recalls, Amadeus was a quite unusual member of the Royal Army of Acorn. He was cordial and chivalrous, but also matey and not very rigid, and had found a way to healthily cope with his war-related trauma. That attitude wasn’t a facade, it corresponded with his actions; in particular, Amadeus was almost the only hierarch of the Royal Army of Acorn who focused his hatred only on the Overlander nation’s leaders, had no intention of getting revenge by hurting its people, and treated the Overlander POWs with at least a modicum of respect. The use of child soldiers from the age of 12 was common practice, and many military leaders from both Acorn and the Overland used their armies as cannon fodder; however, Amadeus tried to somehow "save" as many children as he could, and rather than just throwing his people straight onto the battlefield, he tried to train the younger ones properly to start fighting as adults or even avoid being sent to the battlefield whenever possible, and their tactics usually consisted of sending small groups of well-disciplined agents with the best possible training and equipment to attack Overlander facilities and avoid fighting head-on against the enemy army; one of those "special forces" teams included Amadeus himself, his wife Rosemary, and Sonic's parents.

The conversation is interrupted when Sonic departs back to the Berilian Islands and Tails goes with him, leading to the adaptation of Sonic Chaos. With Sonic and Tails out of Knothole, Sally asks Proción to have another meeting. She decides to allow Leónidas to join the team, but she also warns him she’ll be watching him in order to stop him from just starting killing Mobians indiscriminately, and she also recommends people to help him deal with his guilt over his loved ones’ loss. Sally also begins a program to modernize all of the Freedom Fighters' equipment.

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外伝：節・針土竜・と・「混沌とした・×」隊。

Gaiden: Fushi Harimogura to “Kontontoshita-X” Tai.

Spin-off: Knuckles the Echidna & Team Chaotix.

Later, on Angel Island, the events of the adaptation of Knuckles’s Chaotix unfold. Mecha Sonic, severely damaged and barely able to move and function after his fight against Sonic & Tails in the Sky Sanctuary (Sonic 3 & Knuckles), finds ancient writings about something called "Chaos Ring": so small that it can be worn on a finger, it’s considerably less powerful than a Chaos Emerald but still seems to have a high concentration of Chaos energy, since it’s still quite powerful. Quickly but secretly, Mecha Sonic makes six artificial Chaos Rings, rebuilds himself, creates his own army of Badniks and equips each unit with a fake Power Ring of his invention; on the other hand, the robot hedgehog is still not capable of powering up or reaching any kind of Super form as Sonic & Tails had achieved.

Two weeks after the events of the adaptation of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the robot hedgehog finally goes on the offensive. Knuckles tries to stop him and is kicked off the island, but he also discovers a ring he used to wear is actually the only, true, original Chaos Ring. Realizing once and for all that he cannot keep living alone or protect the Master Emerald without help, the echidna decides to set out in search of allies, and thus forms Team Chaotix:

Espio, a ninja chameleon who had left his clan, supposedly to explore the world. Actually, he also left his clan because he was the heir to the position of leader but had a totally different vocation and didn’t want to sacrifice it.

Vector, a strong but unorganized crocodile who on the other hand aspires to be a detective, with a past no less mysterious than Espio's.

Charmy, an irate and prideful swordsman with his modified stinger as his weapon of choice. He used to be the Prince of Golden Hive Colony until Robotnik destroyed it and killed or roboticized everyone except him, who managed to escape and later developed a bit of survivor guilt along with a much stronger thirst for revenge.

Mighty, a quite strong armadillo for his size, somewhat weaker than Vector but also protected by a shell capable of stopping bullets and even laser shots. He stands out for being very friendly, calm, focused and cordial, and though he's willing to use his physical strength for combat when there's a good enough reason for it, he still deeply dislikes unnecessary violence and his fighting style is mainly based on defence and using an opponent's attacks against themself.

Lastly, the flying squirrel Ray, a humble and rather introverted boy. He was born to a family of circus performers but lost them all to Robotnik, and later Mighty picked him up and cared for him as if he were his little brother.

The six Mobians retrieve the six artificial Chaos Rings, defeating Super Badniks each powered by one of those rings. However, Mecha Sonic finds the Master Emerald and manages to turn into an unstable Super form (like in Knuckles’s story of Sonic 3 & Knuckles) that later degenerates into a red robotic monstrosity (the "Titan Metal Sonic" or "Metal Sonic Kai" from the final battle of Knuckles’s Chaotix). Despite this, Knuckles partially goes Super by using his original Chaos Ring and the six artificial ones made by the robot and retrieved by team Chaotix. He fights the metallic beast with the help of his new friends, and finally finds an opening to take the Master Emerald, directly become Hyper Knuckles and take down Mecha Sonic once and for all.

After this adventure, the ragtag team begins a new life on Angel Island, they and Knuckles establish their new base of operations in the Hidden Palace, and the echidna takes them to meet the Knothole Freedom Fighters shortly after.

————————————————–

御負け [“omake”]:

Once upon a time, Mighty was on the verge of being kicked outta Team Chaotix.

After each of the team members had done all the housework at least once, it came the day when Mighty would have to cook, so the armadillo made fried eggs as the main course, and later he made flan for dessert. Since almost everyone else in Chaotix was oviparous, they didn’t take it very well.

Ray’s mediation attempts, coupled with Mighty’s promise never to step into the kitchen ever again, were the only thing that saved his place in the team.

————————————————–

外伝：アントワンの復帰・と・保護天使の謎。

Gaiden: Antowan no Fukki to Hogo-Tenshi no Nazo.

Spin-off: the Return of Antoine & the Mystery of the Guardian Angel.

Meanwhile, Bunnie and Proción are sent on a mission that at first seems simple enough: track down a hitman, capture them, and take them somewhere safe for questioning. That hitman has done some jobs requested by local criminal organizations, but isn’t working for the remnants of Robotnik’s Regime or for any major villains at the moment, and doesn't seem to have any loyalty to anything or anyone either, working sometimes for villages and some visibly vulnerable and defenceless people. As far as it’s known, this hitman wears some kind of electro-mechanical suit or very light and flexible armour, and they use a 直刀 ["chokutō", "straight sabre"] whose blade vibrates at high frequencies, but their signature weapon is a bow and special arrows with varied tricks and effects.

Bunnie and Procion head to the Alemannic Raetia, one of the regions of Mercia where Robotnik’s Regime has already been expelled for good, hoping to find the hitman there. Once they locate them, they begin to chase them, but to the surprise and slight horror of both Freedom Fighters, the person they were looking for is actually Antoine. He manages to get out of their grasp shortly after, but the two Freedom Fighters have caught a glimpse of his face when he had been forced to open the armour on his head and expose his face: the coyote is pale and somewhat gaunt, a physical appearance in stark contrast to his suddenly enhanced abilities.

Then the two Freedom Fighters are contacted by a mysterious independent agent, whom many Resistance teams around the world call "their Guardian Angel" and treat almost like a legend: a young Mobian Indian wolf wielding a strange kind of multi-function laser weapon; undoubtedly a hero, someone loyal to the Resistance’s cause and dedicated to protecting the defenceless, but also apparently very reserved and non-talkative, always speaking in whispers and through a voice distorter, wearing a mask similar to those of the kabuki theatre and remaining in the shadows, usually operating as a sniper despite being able to fight hand-to-hand. The agent introduces himself to Bunnie and Proción without giving any name, but the raccoon is immediately amazed and intrigued by this legendary "Guardian Angel". The mysterious agent tells they’ve been chasing Antoine for over a month, insists the Freedom Fighters allow them to keep looking for him alone, and requests details that may allow them to know him better and help to find him; Bunnie and Leónidas are reluctant at first, but contact Sally and she in turn contacts other Resistance groups, which in turn confirm the existence and description of the "Guardian Angel", so the two Freedom Fighters reveal everything they know about the coyote, begging the Indian wolf to have mercy on him and to try to bring him back so that the three of them can talk.

In a town in Batavia, another region of Mercia freed from the remnants of Robotnik’s Regime, amid torrential rain in the evening, the "Guardian Angel" finally finds Antoine. The unknown Freedom Fighter figures out what happened to the coyote: he was subjected to experiments with cybernetics and an advanced Badnik suit prototype, which included uploading combat knowledge directly into his brain via some kind of interface; Antoine broke free from his captors, but his physiology had been radically altered (including the replacement of much of his blood with silvery, mercury-looking synthetic simile, more effective than normal blood at its same functions, but very rare and difficult to produce and obtain), his new cyborg body needs special maintenance, and the coyote cannot perform that maintenance by himself or access it without giving himself back to those who made him this experimental fighting machine; that's why, although he sometimes used his new abilities to help vulnerable people, he started working as a bounty hunter and hitman in an attempt to get the maintenance necessary for his survival, either by accessing surrogates that give him a little more time to live or by amassing money to buy his former captors the means to repair and maintain his cyborg body on his own. The Indian wolf defeats Antoine with relative ease: the coyote's combat knowledge doesn't seem to include improvisation or developing new techniques or adapting to new situations or anything like that, he's only got what's strictly necessary to infiltrate and steal or kill with the least degree of confrontation possible; the only thing that seems to be a "genuine" skill of Antoine is his marksmanship with the bow and arrow, as he can shoot and be pretty accurate no matter what he's doing or the situation he's in.

Antoine accepts his surrender, claims to have been a disgrace and asks the "Guardian Angel" to finish him off. The people who turned him into a cyborg were a few Mobians who had worked for Robotnik, had gotten their hands on an abandoned experimental Badnik prototype, and were trying to produce their own bootleg versions based on it; Antoine had learned of its existence and had offered to be an experimental subject, and his reason for doing so was somewhat superficial and selfish: the coyote wanted just the skill and raw power to fight, the nullification of his own emotions so he'd never have fear again, and to stop caring for "unnecessary values and feelings" such as honour (after Antoine's former obsession with honour hasn't prevented his reprehensible behaviour during the war against Robotnik). However, the Indian wolf lets him live: they know Antoine, despite his behaviour, shortcomings, awkwardness and bad relationship with his comrades, was always one of the most loyal members of the Resistance; the coyote has left behind much of his problems, including his tendency to brag; before offering to be turned into a cyborg, he was simply "lost" and now it’s a matter of time until he finds his way again and becomes a hero, especially now that the "Guardian Angel" has a chance to establish a healthy friendship with him and achieve what the Knothole Freedom Fighters hadn't been very successful at; Also, the cybernetic enhancements are already installed on Antoine and can still be useful, they simply have to give the coyote the means to survive, let him have his own life, and train him so he puts his new abilities to better use.

The "Guardian Angel" shows Antoine their Variable Wispon, the multi-function laser weapon they've been seen with so many times; the Wispon's power source turns out to be "Wisps": sapient, jellyfish-like creatures capable of emitting their own light, who agree to lend the mysterious agent their many powers. The agent sends a white Wisp at Antoine, and the creature lends some of their power to the coyote, allowing him to stay alive and in peak physical condition for a few more years, thus giving him much more time to get maintenance for his cyborg body. The “Guardian Angel” also lets Antoine go, only proposing for him to be their apprentice, without forcing him to do so or demanding anything else in exchange for having saved his life. Time ends up proving the mysterious agent is right: the coyote stops accepting jobs no matter what they are or who pays for them, and now that he has a clearer mind, he agrees to follow the Indian wolf's steps.

————————————————–

Snively replaces Robotnik and tries to continue his legacy, with little success. The events of Sonic Adventure 1 unfold almost four months after Robotnik's fall, and the events of Sonic Adventure 2 happen another six months later, always with Snively taking his uncle’s place.

Bunnie also meets with Antoine occasionally: he helps her a bit on some missions, she's also willing to talk with him, and both help the people of Station Square when Perfect Chaos attacks, although he leaves again without telling anyone shortly after.

[For every event, dialogue line and element of any kind that remains unchanged from the original videogames, the original Japanese script will always be used.]

————————————————–

編：ソニックの壱番目・大冒険。

Hen: Sonikku no Ichi-Banme Dai-Bōken.

Saga: Sonic’s 1st Grand Adventure.

[Main theme for this specific saga: "Sono Chi no Sadame", the opening theme for the anime of JoJo Part 1 (original Japanese version by Hiroaki "Tommy" Tominaga, French TV-size cover by "AMVF Studio", English cover by Jonathan Young)]

[Here's a video of the Sonic Adventure 1 intro but with that song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ErW7RRWe0g]

[Alternative main theme for this specific saga: "Dio's Dervish" – JoJo Part 1 1993 OVA OST, Disc 2, Track 9]

At the beginning of the events of this adaptation, Sonic and Sally -the latter accompanied by Nicole, still in the form of a handheld computer- go together to Station Square to take a vacation and also as an excuse to visit Tails in his new workshop near the Mystic Ruins. Sonic and Sally witness the appearance of Chaos 0, the hedgehog fights the water creature alone, and after some successful attacks by Sonic, Sally deduces a pattern, discovers the weak point in Chaos 0's brain and accurately shoots at its head, forcing the eerie creature to escape. After this, Sally calls the rest of the Knothole Freedom Fighters (at that moment: Bunnie, Rotor, Fiona and Leónidas), asking them to go to Station Square as well: if there’s any danger lurking, they can investigate and try to prevent it, and if not, they can still take this chance to take a vacation together with her and Sonic.

————————————————–

The beginning of Tails’s friendship with Sonic in Sonic SatAM and Archie-Sonic (on which my fanfics are based mainly) was very different than in the games, and this version of Tails has already accomplished some feats on his own and is aware of his Chaos powers and what he's capable of, so his character arc in these fictional universes can’t be about him learning to fend for himself, or put a lot of focus on him having been bullied either. Here, his story is about him fighting against reminders of his own flaws, maybe also overcoming the fear of destroying everything with his powers.

[Soundtrack: Special Boss – Spark the Electric Jester 1]

In some battles, immediately after delivering the coup de grâce to an enemy, Tails -or his mind, at least- is apparently teleported to “corrupted” versions of the locations where those battles had taken place, where he’s forced to fight beings that look like demons or hellspawn, who in turn seem to be linked to Tails's insecurities and emotional issues; every time he’s drawn into these battles, his body is knocked unconscious in the real world and he only wakes up once he defeats those mysterious enemies. This happens for the first time in the fight against the Egg-Hornet, Sonic goes to help Tails when seeing his “little brother” lying on the ground, and Snively takes that chance to steal the Chaos Emerald the fox had dropped; after the fight against Knuckles and the loss of Tails’s and Sonic’s two Chaos Emeralds, Tails again falls unconscious and fights another of those creatures as Snively takes the Emeralds and unleashes Chaos 4, but the fox wakes up just in time to face the water beast along with Sonic and Knuckles; when the Tornado 1 is shot down by the front laser cannon of the Egg-Carrier, this happens again and the enemy in this battle has Sonic’s shape and abilities; the last of these battles is after defeating the Egg-Walker.

[For a moment I considered the possibility to make this adaptation of Tails’s Story in Sonic Adventure 1 be also a crossover with NiGHTS Into Dreams. But I ultimately discarded that idea, since it'd have made Tails’s story way too “loaded”.]

[Theme for Sonic’s & Tails's boss battles: “Encounter”, from the Metal Gear Solid OST]

During Sonic's fight against Chaos 6, Tails manages to get the Tornado 2 flying again... by pushing it off the Egg-Carrier, falling with it and starting its engines mid-fall.

Snively's mechs are a bit more sophisticated and aggressive than in the original version of Sonic Adventure 1. In the particular case of the Egg-Walker, it has two stages: the first one is the same as the original version of this boss; in the second one...

[Theme for the Tails-versus-Egg-Walker final battle, stage 2: “Escape”, from the Metal Gear Solid OST]

The mech radically transforms, becoming bipedal, deploying heavier and more comprehensive armour along with deadlier and more accurate weapons. Tails can no longer attack him directly, so he sends out a signal for the Tornado 2 to bring and drop weapons and ammo for the fox to use against the Egg-Walker. When Tails manages to do enough damage, Snively is forced to remove the armour from his cockpit; Tails still can't use his tails to fly up and then attack in the air without quickly falling down, so he rises to a low altitude and then fires his bazooka towards the ground to propel himself up, repeatedly slashing Snively's cockpit with his tails as soon as he reaches it.

[Soundtrack: Voodoo Kingdom – Soul’d Out]

Meanwhile, the spirit of Mammoth Mogul, the elite sorcerer who had founded the Order of IXIS about 1,200 years earlier, breaks free from his prison, which relied on the Master Emerald to keep him locked away. He still doesn’t make public appearances and remains in the shadows, until he finds out about Tails: the fox is appearing on television, having deactivated Snively’s nuclear missile and defeated the Egg-Walker manned by Snively himself; seeing him, Mogul senses he’ll be the main obstacle in his plans. When Tails has already turned away from the people who were cheering him on for his latest exploits, Mogul ambushes him in an alley; the fox's experience in magic is almost nil, and the sorcerer brutally wounds him, cutting his body along his left half, from the head’s top, passing through the eye, the corner of his mouth, the left half of the torso and the left leg, to the ankle, almost completely separating the fox's body into two pieces. However, as Tails is lying on the ground apparently dead, small blue flames light up along the cut on his body, emanating a shining blue smoke that in turn takes on a shape vaguely similar to that of a big wild fox as Mogul also manages to hear a sort of ethereal animal growl; Mogul freaks out slightly, mutters something about a prophecy that has just been proven to be true, and quickly walks away. Some minutes later, Tails wakes up again, discovering he’s healed and all that remains of the wound caused by Mogul is a long scar along the left half of his body, almost entirely hidden under his fur. He immediately goes back to his workshop, frightened by the fact that he’s had three near-death experiences in less than an hour, and also with many unanswered questions about this mysterious wizard and his own Chaos powers.

Later, in the battle against Perfect Chaos, Tails turns into his Super form and fights side by side with Sonic: as the hedgehog attacks Chaos directly, the fox spends most of his time away from the beast, either hovering or standing on terraces of buildings, sending his "Flicky Army of Death" to attack specific spots. While Tails is in his Super form, the scar of the wound caused by Mogul, including his entire left eye, also glows but in blue.

————————————————–

Although Amy Rose isn’t totally removed from the story, her role is largely fulfilled by Sally, whose missions are stealth-based, à la Metal Gear Solid (yes, with Codec and everything). Amy accompanies her most of the time, albeit reluctantly at first, since the friendship between the two is almost non-existent and the relationship between them is a bit tense, especially after Amy had tried to flirt with Sonic, which Sally didn't take well but Sonic also took really bad.

————————————————–

Flashback:

After Amy tries to “get close” to Sonic for several days in a row, he calls her to his hut to have a private chat. There, the blue hedgehog asks Amy questions so that she’ll reveal why she’s trying to flirt with him, and it soon becomes clear Amy is actually in love with an image of him she had created after hearing about his exploits.

Sonic explains (so eloquently that he’s amazed at himself) that although he likes to meet more people and make friends, he still has a small circle of much closer friends who are the Knothole Freedom Fighters, he trusts them much more, there are things he’d do for them and wouldn’t do for anyone else, and that kind of close relationship has to be cultivated by all the participants, which Sonic is willing to do but Amy seems to be overlooking. Amy insists Sonic to be at least her friend; Sonic, having hoped a little talk would be enough to solve this, begins to get tired, reminds Amy she has no idea what he’s like in his private life or what kind of flaws and bad habits he may also have despite being a hero, and declares she’d keep being a fangirl more than a friend, only praising him and never calling him out in case he’s wrong about anything.

Then Amy mentions Sally and says the former princess bosses him around and stops him from being “free”. Sonic was trying to hold back his anger in order to avoid hurting Amy's feelings, but that comment really hurts him on the inside, to the point that calling it "the last straw" would be an understatement: enraged and also wanting to cry, he asks how she dares to say such a thing; Amy starts to get scared when she sees Sonic like this, and he tells her how Sally isn’t only her girlfriend but has also been her best friend for years along with Tails, they had both fought the war together, he had privately shared with her many of his fears and insecurities, and they both complement each other. In the end, Sonic is still angry and now he’s also embarrassed for being forced to tell something so intimate about his life in order to get Amy to understand; in a rather ominous tone, he demands Amy to leave.

Since then, Amy begins to avoid Sonic and Sally. Sonic does the same, and Sally raises some concern that he might have been too harsh on the hedgehog girl.

————————————————–

Back to the Sonic Adventure 1 adaptation: throughout Sally’s & Amy’s story, the hedgehog girl is fascinated by Sally's abilities as a fighter and strategist, is surprised by how the former princess also helps her overcome a breakdown when they’re trapped aboard the Egg-Carrier, and begins to feel inspired by her to be more independent. They also reconcile and begin to better know and appreciate each other; at the end of their story, Amy also makes amends with Sonic, with Sally’s help.

The Freedom Fighters’ leader meets with Amy, who’s protecting the blue Flickie, and helps them to escape from the Badnik “Zero”; the three are captured by the robot later, but the events are pretty different than in the videogame: firstly, they and Sonic enter Twinkle Park in an attempt to confuse “Zero” by taking advantage of how extensive and labyrinthine that place is (Sally and Sonic had already gone for a walk in Twinkle Park the same day the Chaos 0 incident had later happened), then they reunite with the rest of the team and Sally decides to let “Zero” capture her so she can infiltrate the Egg-Carrier while Sonic follows them as well; the plan is successful, except for the fact that “Zero” also went after Amy, who was carrying the Flickie with her and was also captured; once on board, Sally finds escape may be more difficult than anticipated, but then E-102 Gamma is convinced by Amy to let her, the Flickie and Sally go, and inexplicably Gamma also develops a soul of their own and actually sets the three of them free out of genuine kindness and concern; during the escape, Sally steals some heavy artillery and manages to set a trap for “Zero”, and it seems both she and Amy have destroyed it. At the end of Sally’s story, as Sonic and Knuckles battle Chaos 6, Tails has escaped along with Amy & Gamma and the Egg-Carrier is slowly falling into the ocean, she fights Snively hand-to-hand on the scaffolding of the first part of the Sky Deck; she ends the fight by kicking Snively off a scaffold and letting him fall into the void, but he ends up landing in his Egg-Mobile and escaping; Sally is picked up by Tails on the Tornado 2 shortly after. Later, Amy is ambushed by “Zero” (rebuilt as a "Mark 2" variant) but she destroys it for good and takes the Flickie back to its family.

[Sally’s character theme: “Starfox - Corneria”, Synthwave remix by "Elezeid"]

[Tema for Sally’s boss battles: “Solid State Scouter”, “80’s” remix by "Elezeid"]

[Theme for the Sally-versus-Snively final battle: Snake’s theme from Metal Gear Solid, “80’s” remix by "Elezeid"]

[The other Freedom Fighters’ theme: the Ginyu Special Forces theme from Dragon Ball Z, “80’s” remix by "Elezeid"]

During Sally’s & Amy's story, not only the Freedom Fighters’ leader is impressed by Amy and sees potential in her, but she’s also intrigued by some abilities the hedgehog had unintentionally manifested when they were on the Egg-Carrier: Amy summoned her hammer seemingly out of nowhere, and she was moving slightly faster than normal without being aware of it at all; she wasn’t fast as if she had Sonic’s super-speed, but as if the flow of time itself was altered for her only and she was going in fast-motion. After the events of Sonic Adventure 1, Sally invites Amy to train with her personally.

————————————————–

Erased scene:

Amy is in a simulation room, fighting holographic SWAT-bots with her hammer. She had increased the difficulty by making the robots smarter, but now this seems to be too much for the hedgehog. After receiving about three fake laser shots, she stops the simulation.

Amy: *pant* *pant* “Goddammit, this way I'll never be of any help to Sonic, Sally and the others! How did I even manage to get by on the Egg-Carrier?”

???: “Maybe you need someone guiding you to train you and find that out.”

[Soundtrack: Ryu’s theme – Super & Ultra Street Fighter 4]

Amy looks to the side and sees Sally. The chipmunk carries a non-lethal 薙刀 [“naginata”] for training and wears its corresponding variant of 防具 [“bōgu”, “training armour”].

Amy: “S-- Sally? No way, are you really gonna help me?! Oh, I love what you and the others on your team do, show me how to destroy entire SWAT-bot squads and s***!”

Sally: “The ways of Freedom-Fighting can be learned in one of two ways: we can do what everyone else did during the war, training your mind and body for ten long difficult years just so you know all the ins and outs of the tactics to infiltrate enemy bases and live to tell the tale... or I can show you how to spam like a pussy.”

*The music stops*

Amy: [wearing Tha Shades] “F***, yeah! Show me how to spam like a pussy!”

*The music resumes*

Sally: “The first step is to look deep inside yourself, and ask yourself what has led you to this moment.”

Amy: “Probably fantasizing about Sonic.”

*The music stops*

Amy: “What? Are you gonna tell me this is not an open secret?”

*The music resumes*

Sally: [closes her eyes] “The answer lies... [opens them again] in the heart of battle.”

The combat simulation resumes. Sally nimbly moves between the SWAT-bots, cutting some with the blade of the naginata and tripping others on its pole portion. When Amy locates Sally again, she’s already on the other side of the room, SWAT-bots holographically exploding behind her.

*KA-BOOM!*

Amy: “HOLY S***! THAT WAS SO F***ING COOL!”

*The music stops*

*BUM!*

Something falls from the ceiling, leaving a crater on the floor and raising a dense cloud of smoke.

[Soundtrack: Akuma’s theme – Super Street Fighter 4]

Sally: “It seems we have attracted unwanted attention.”

Amy: “But who the hell is that?”

Knuckles: “Hey! I am Knuckles, and I will teach you the meaning of pain...”

The echidna activates electricity in his fists, charging a Thunder Arrow.

Knuckles: “Prepare yourselves!”

[Yes. I made a rip-off of this “DevilArtemis” video. Deal with it.]

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Big the Cat shouldn't even have been in the original game, and his story could have been removed or replaced by a different one with another character and Sonic Adventure 1 would have been a very good game anyway. Therefore, here I replace his character arc with one centred on Bunnie and featuring Johnny Lightfoot (from the British comic), wherig the Cat shouldn't even have been in the original game, and his story could have been removed or replaced by a different one with another character and Sonic Adventure 1 would have been a good game anyway. Therefore, here I replace his character arc with one centred on Bunnie and featuring Johnny Lightfoot (from the British comic), where both become friends and learn to see life differently: he learns strength isn't everything and he can still be valuable and a hero in his own way, while she understands she's much more than just the robotic limbs that give her the huge power allowing her to fight. Their missions would be “beat 'em up” fights against multiple enemies, a tribute to the Streets of Rage saga. Near the end of Bunnie's story, Johnny is injured and rendered permanently unable to fight, so Bunnie decides to carry on his legacy, symbolically represented by his bo staff, which will be used by her ever since; in fact, during Sonic's battle against Chaos 6, Bunnie uses both her skills & weapons and Johnny's staff combined when fighting another mech sent by Snively.

[Bunnie’s character theme: “Dashing Thunderbot” by "Elezeid" & "Ryan Thunder"]

————————————————–

Unlike the original game, and just like in the Archie-Sonic adaptation, Gamma survives. The E-100 series’s robot is eventually found by Sonic, Amy and the Station Square authorities, who offer Gamma to help protect the city-state.

————————————————–

間奏。

Kansō.

Interlude.

By the end of the adaptation of Sonic Adventure 1, the Freedom Fighters and the local authorities in Station Square managed to coordinate efficiently in rescue efforts in the face of Perfect Chaos’s attack. Once Chaos is neutralized, these events inspire the President of this city-state, João Falcão, to initiate closer diplomatic relations with the rest of Mobius and with the Freedom Fighters, as well as to launch a campaign across the United Federation for the rest of the city-states to follow Station Square’s example and for GUN to collaborate with the Freedom Fighters. Falcão also starts a project to host the Overlander people in Station Square, which leads him to meet Commander Abraham Tower and Hope Kintobor.

In the Great War, Tower had been well-known among the Overlander forces for his great concern for his own soldiers and his respect for the rights of prisoners of war, a behaviour totally opposite to that of the rest of the leaders of his own army, including the Overlord Charlemagne; in the Acorn Army, there had been a colonel called Amadeus Prower, who had similar ideas and was also surrounded by other less morally upright military leaders; both he and Tower developed a great respect for each other, as neither the Mobian colonel nor the Overlander commander agreed to wage this war, and neither had contempt for the other's race. Falcão shares many of Tower’s ideas, wants to cultivate and maintain a friendly relationship with the Mobians and for the United Federation to integrate with the rest of Mobius, doesn’t approve of many things happening both in GUN and in the society of many city-states of the United Federation, and wants to change all this by taking office as Federal President; so he proposes to Tower to work together, with the Overlander commander joining GUN, becoming its leader, having the organization collaborate with the Freedom Fighters, and ensuring that Falcão's reforms in GUN are actually carried out.

Tower gets his former rank of Commander recognized in GUN. Four months after the events of Sonic Adventure 1, Falcão wins the election while his allies also win a sizable chunk of the seats in the Assembly of the Union; he takes office as the new Federal President, and with Tower's help, begins investigating within GUN.

Tower also offers Hope to work at GUN, answering only to him and Falcão directly, and begins the search for suitable people to create a Special Ops team of their own...

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Once life has pretty much returned to normal throughout the Kingdom of Acorn, a provisional educational system is established, more similar to that of the university courses not requiring attendance: children and teenagers study in their homes what used to be taught in schools before Robotnik's coup d’etat, and then they attend school only to take the exams, on dates chosen by the students (no, the events of those dumb comic issues about the heroes going to school never happened here). There's a brief disagreement about the topics to be included in the exams, not only because there are many teenagers and even children who were forced by the war to mature early and now know many things or at least have learnt a trade or a skill, but also because the programs of the country's schools before Robotnik were already terribly outdated.

At one point, King Max attempts to rebuild the nobility and the Royal Court at Knothole, as a first step in restoring the old Kingdom of Acorn and its traditional system of government. But Robotnik’s coup d’etat had had unexpected effects on the country's society: the noblepeople's children had lived in total equality with people from other social classes for ten years, and in fact, that way of life is the only one many of them even know; as for the nobles of the pre-Robotnik era themselves, if they hadn’t been roboticized and used as slaves, they did have to live in Knothole and other similar villages, also on an equal footing with every other survivor and contributing to the war as much as everyone else; people had left behind the idea that some individuals deserve privileges and a higher rank than others by birthright only; the villages created at the beginning of the war, which are now beginning to become new cities, mostly govern themselves by direct democracy [like in Ancient Greek city-states, but truly including everyone]; even the national identity of the Kingdom of Acorn had faded, and other new identities had been constructed in its place by each village of survivors, eventually coalescing into one brand-new, unique national identity centred on Knothole, from where the Resistance was being led. Bottom line, Robotnik had inadvertently “rebooted” Acorn's society. Therefore, King Max's "National Restoration Program" doesn’t get any support and ends up being abandoned; he's still rather a figurehead, and the new cities -now inhabited by both Mobian survivors and Robians recently freed from Robotnik's control and even Overlander survivors- keep functioning as they used to.

Shortly after the Knothole Freedom Fighters' journey to Angel Island and their first encounter with Knuckles, Geoffrey and Hershey find out that Elias Acorn, the kingdom’s original Crown Prince and Sally's older brother, is still alive and has settled in the forests at the Mushroom Valley. During the Great War, Max had tried to keep both his son and Queen Alicia safe by sending them somewhere far away on Mobius accompanied by Colonel George Sommersby and his wife Martha, but the plane they were travelling in had apparently been shot down by the Overlanders. Now Elias makes a living as a lumberjack, married to a female Mobian squirrel named Megan, and they both take care of Alexis, the daughter Megan had had with a deceased previous husband; the Sommersbies had survived but Queen Alicia had fallen into a coma after the plane crashed on Angel Island, and Elias had been lucky to find a way to keep her alive in a makeshift stasis pod. Geoffrey and Hershey bring Elias, his family and the Sommersbies to Knothole, the prince is reunited with Sally and Max, and the Freedom Fighters use Power Rings to heal and awaken Alicia. Max repeatedly tries to convince Elias to become heir to the throne again; however, the young prince is quite disenchanted with his father's behaviour, considers Sally to be much better prepared to rule, feels the Monarchy has already lost its raison d'etre in this new world even though he still doesn’t think that system is fundamentally harmful, and decides to carry on with his simple life as a lumberjack along with Megan and Alexis, although moving to the Feral Forest, southeast of the Kingdom of Acorn. Anyway, Elias and Sally stay in touch; on the other hand, Alicia stays at Knothole with Max.

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編：ソニックの弐番目・大冒険。

Hen: Sonikku no Ni-Banme Dai-Bōken.

Saga: Sonic’s 2nd Grand Adventure.

[Main theme for this specific saga: “Bloody Stream”, the opening theme for the anime of JoJo Part 2 (original Japanese version by "Coda", Italian TV-size cover by "ohitsjuno", English cover by Jonathan Young, English Eurobeat cover by "MasakoX" et al.)]

This Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation would have more content and would take its due time to explore interpersonal relationships a little more. There are also some things from the original game's story that were present but only in an implied way, and here those things would be mentioned openly; for example: how Sonic managed to do Chaos Control with the fake Chaos Emerald, and why Shadow was exhausted and fell to Mobius while Sonic remained unharmed after both had defeated the Biolizard and stopped the ARK's fall.

Sonic is quite flamboyant in this adaptation’s events: he poses all the time; he still does things he used to do during the war, like taunting and aggravating his enemies a lot, pretending to be less smart than he actually is, and sometimes being playful and goofy even with his enemies while also liking to make more friends. Tails has imitated him, not out of blind admiration but because he has discovered he likes to present himself like this; he doesn't have much problem expressing his feelings; he’s kind, friendly, polite, selfless and humble but also shows that without fear of appearing weak -although he may still flaunt his talent for mechanics a bit- and is still determined to fight and defeat every villain.

This adaptation should also better showcase Sonic's knack for befriending people, the blue hedgehog's effect on Shadow, and how he led the "Ultimate Lifeform" to become a hero.

[Some extra notes: Sonic's clothing is relatively minimal, with a tank top showing part of his belly and tight pants, sometimes also wearing a red jacket and a really long dark purple scarf; Tails has developed his own way of presenting himself, with his hair syled into a pompadour, wearing expensive clothes such as a pair of Bally shoes, and with a dark purple Japanese school uniform he himself modified with many golden emblems, unbuttoned and pined aside in his torso’s upper half and forming an opening vaguely similar to a heart that lets the fluffy white fur of his chest come out; Tails also strongly likes vintage stuff, having in his workshop a vinyl record player and a racing car designed from the Lotus Super 7 but hydrogen-powered (a reference to the Sonic Drift saga for the Game Gear). Seeing either Sonic or Tails on the street is usually quite a... shocking sight, in any sense, for most passersby.]

When Snively awakens and frees Shadow...

Snively: “Awaken! My living weapon!”

[Soundtrack: Awaken – JoJo Part 2 anime series]

Shadow: [makes a Pillar Man pose as “Awaken” intensifies on the background]

Sonic is in Central City when GUN -still led by Commander Hugo Brass- issues an arrest warrant against him; the Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha-2 captures Sonic, but he manages to escape, starting the events of the Hero Side Story in Sonic Adventure 2. Both Falcão and Tower are convinced of Sonic's innocence and suspect GUN is hiding something, but the brand-new President thinks he and his friend on GUN have to be cautious and go one step at a time, so they start investigating on his own by hiring Rouge. The bat learns Snively had broken into a clandestine GUN military base and taken something from there; she follows in his footsteps, and she eventually not only gains Snively's trust but also finds out all about the Space Colony ARK, Project Shadow and the Eclipse Cannon: indeed, GUN had issued the arrest warrant against Sonic, thinking they'd thus divert attention and try to keep all this a secret.

Sonic's friends at Knothole cannot officially come to his aid, should they worsen Knothole’s and its team of Freedom Fighters’ relations with the United Federation. Sally is trying to be pragmatic, find the truth and solve this peacefully, but GUN’s hierarchs give her no explanation and rudely demand of her not to stick her nose in their affairs; the only good thing she gets is the President telling her he’s also investigating to clarify what happened, without going into details. However, the princess has also given permission for a really eager-to-help Tails to unofficially go rescue Sonic from Prison Island, and the fox has taken his heavily-armed convertible mech Cyclone with him.

When Tails arrives at Prison Island, he’s surprised to see Fiona and Amy: apparently, they had thought the same as him, had enough of sitting around doing nothing and already arrived on the island, but now they’re fighting Snively, with Fiona mostly protecting Amy; Snively also has his own mech and has both Mobians on the ropes, although Fiona manages to shoot Robotnik’s nephew and blow up his ear, exploiting that his mech had its cockpit open and unprotected. Then Tails gets in the way with the Cyclone and defeats Snively; as the latter escapes, both foxes and Amy separate to search for Sonic inside the prison.

When Fiona finds Sonic locked in a jail...

Fiona: *gasp* “I never thought I'd live enough to witness this: Sonic inside a cage. How does it feel to be locked up this time, "Hero of Mobius"? Did somebody else here turn you into their prison b--?”

Sonic: “Pssh, you wish. By the way, nice to see you too, Fiona. I thought I heard lots of explosions, gunshots and a mech walking around. Tails came to rescue me too, right?”

F: “Yeah, and Sally is busy with this "diplomacy" thing. Ugh, I'm never gonna understand this sudden obsession of hers!”

S: *tsk* [starts exercising inside the cell] “Let her do her thing. She has always had a gift for solving problems through words, unlike me; this is how she settled all the disagreements between Knothole villagers and between Resistance teams for ten years. That hasn't stopped her from being a passionate fighter and leader, willing to do whatever it takes. I mean... If Tails is here having fun blowing up stuff with his inventions, it's because Sally gave him permission. Anyway... Are you gonna get me outta here?”

F: “Not so fast. Amy discovered me when she was trying to leave, so I let her come with me.”

S: “Great...”

F: “Yeah, I thought she could take care of herself without me helping her much.”

S: “Looks like Amy still didn't quite get over her crush for me either, she couldn't help but want to rescue me... Wait a sec: Amy did get over her crush! I bet she never asked you to come, and bringing her here was 100% your idea, like some kind of sick joke. Do you still hold a grudge against me for leaving you in that other jail, and now you're taking it out on me?”

F: [walks over to the cells' control panel] “Oh, c’mon... I couldn't be that evil, much less with the magnanimous Hero of Mobius, Sonic the Hedgehog. By the way, you should be able to break those bars with your trademarked spin-dash.”

S: “Stop teasing me and get me outta here. I may have let GUN catch me to see if I could find out something this way, but staying in this cell ain't useful for me anymore. Besides, I wanna teach that fake hedgehog a lesson already. It's because of him that GUN is chasing me in the first place.”

F: [presses the button to open Sonic's cell] “You mean the black hedgehog with red marks who appeared on TV?”

S: [surprised, leaves the cell now open] “Yes! That’s him! How did you know that wasn’t me?”

F: “Everyone at Knothole and the Berilian Islands knows it: we’re watching a news channel from Station Square, and their videos clearly show the guy who robbed a bank and destroyed a GUN base is someone else; the thing is, a media group based on Empire City, the Kane Broadcasting Company, is intentionally showing lower-quality images and using them to claim that hedgehog is you, and a few places on the United Federation are crying out for you to be captured and punished. I wonder how they’ll react when they find out this black hedgehog is helping Snively: I saw them together on this island.”

S: “So the Robuttnik wannabe is behind this... Alright, I’ll take care of everything from here. You can play with all those formulas written on the walls of my cell if you don't have anything else to do.”

F: “Which formulas--? [She notices Professor Gerald’s notes] MA CHE CAZZO?! This is science gold! Tails and Hope are gonna go nuts. I'm totally taking photos of this...”

S: [thinking as he runs away] (“Fiona and Tails are made for each other, I swear to Perfect Chaos...”)

With Sonic's second face-to-face encounter with Shadow in the jungle of Prison Island, the "Ultimate Lifeform" taunts the blue hedgehog and seems to have managed to hurt his pride, but Sonic also teases him in response, making Shadow somewhat flustered too, and doesn’t immediately jump into fighting the black-and-red hedgehog; then they have their first actual fight, which takes place throughout the island's jungle rather than being confined to a small square platform of flat terrain; Sonic makes some -at first glance- absurd plans, many of them being feints or ruses, which catch Shadow off-guard and lead to them ending up in a tie when they’re forced to escape before Snively blows up the island. On the other hand, both hedgehogs begin to be truly intrigued by one another: Sonic keeps claiming he's better than Shadow, but he also has a feeling that this black hedgehog is anything but a heartless villain like Snively, and Sonic doesn't dislike Shadow that much either (although the “Hero of Mobius” will never admit it out loud); Shadow still sees Sonic as a faker, an uncool copy of himself, but he’s also confused by that blue hedgehog, someone unconventionally smart, greatly determined, and at the same time carefree and not as hostile as he expected; Shadow is also impressed by how Sonic uses Chaos-based abilities, although when the "Ultimate Lifeform" asks Sonic about it, he claims not to know what he’s talking about and seems to be honest about it.

After Snively's announcement and the warning shot that destroys part of the moon, Tails contacts the Freedom Fighters, specifically Rotor, for help locating Snively, and Sonic meets again with Sally secretly. When Tails gets ready to go after the President's car, he decides the Cyclone would be too flashy... So he chooses to bring his Lotus Super 7 (as if a collector’s racing car driven by a pre-teen Mobian fox dressing like Prince didn't turn heads too).

As Tails follows the President, Rouge catches up to him and damages his car with her Screw Kick, starting another fight. Tails recognizes Rouge as the one who tried to steal the Master Emerald, based on what Knuckles had told him, and is already pretty pissed off after she has wrecked his vintage car. But then Rouge “presses the Fiona button”: the bat deduces Tails is in love with the red vixen, tells she had already met her, and claims Fiona is just a gold digger who joined the Freedom Fighters purely for convenience; this makes the fox throw his sanity and any sense of honour overboard, grab his Chaos Emerald and use it to enhance all his abilities. Tails goes berserk and begins to attack everything with his tails, slicing through things indiscriminately, including the cables of the bridge where he and Rouge are fighting; one of those tail-slashes makes a tiny cut on Rouge's ear, indicating to her he's serious. At one point, Rouge inadvertently kicks Tails in the head; the jewel thief is horrified to have done such a thing to a child, but then gapes when seeing Tails's head has a deep crack but the damage hasn’t reached the brain, and that crack slowly closes; the fox, all blood-stained and with his pompadour dishevelled, just smiles at Rouge, admitting she’s a strong and capable fighter and he’s not surprised that Knuckles has apparently fallen in love with her. In the end, he asks Rouge why she joined Snively and is still working for him if, judging by her reaction to breaking the fox's head, she's not a bad person at heart; Rouge only replies that he and Sonic should stay away from this matter and she’s already taking care of everything; the bat also tells Tails that Fiona is actually not a bad person and she only said those things about her to make him angry, but he should be careful around Fiona anyway, though not because the vixen is dangerous.

Sonic and Tails break into the President's limousine, but he and the two Mobian heroes exchange a few words too: Falcão clarifies he believes in Sonic’s innocence, tells them he suspects GUN, and warns them he has already sent someone to investigate for him. Regardless, Sonic and Tails continue as normal on their mission to find Snively's “Pyramid Base” and go to the ARK from there.

When Sonic and Tails leave the limo, Falcão is phoned by someone else: it's Rouge, who has yet to gain access to some data and is still investigating but already has enough evidence to prove that GUN was covering up the existence of Project Shadow, falsely blamed Sonic as part of their efforts to hide the truth, and had in their possession three Chaos Emeralds in a secret base without informing the government about it. The President immediately starts making calls: he removes Hugo Brass from office, appoints Tower as GUN's provisional chief and asks the Knothole Freedom Fighters for them and GUN to devise a plan to neutralize the threat Snively poses in the ARK (trying to keep out of this the Paladin Team Sigma-Alpha-2, who were apparently chasing Sonic because they also knew about the cover-up and participated in it, not just because they were following orders).

At Snively's Pyramid Base, Sally takes the place of Amy Rose but the hedgehog girl still comes with her, and Sally’s role is quite different: she runs ahead of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles to do surveillance, watching the Pyramid Base from a safe position, sending a drone built by Rotor from Robotnik's old “Surveillance Orbs” into the facility. After this, Sally leaves to meet with the rest of her team and a group of GUN soldiers, the Spider Troop, selected and led by Tower himself: they’d act as a distraction while the team led by Sonic enters the ARK.

Both when Sonic, Tails and Knuckles enter the Pyramid Base and when they enter the ARK, Fiona goes with them to take care of everything related to computers and hacking as Tails mainly blows s*** up with his mech.

In a rather stupid incident, Tails finds a room with prototypes and blueprints for a few science projects, tries to go inside to obtain them and share them with Fiona, and when trying to bypass the safety mechanisms, he loses his left hand. Anyway, he reunites with Fiona taking with him a disk with all that data digitalized. She immediately runs to check on his wound, but he doesn't seem very concerned or upset about the loss of a hand; quite the contrary, he looks disturbingly happy and satisfied, assuring his teammate that "the Freedom Fighter insurance will cover this". [This is a reference to the cutscene before the battle against the Egg-Golem, where Tails is missing his left hand.]

Once Sonic and his team have managed to enter the ARK, when they’ve not yet parted ways and are still planning what to do next, Tails presents them with his fake Chaos Emerald. When Sonic, Tails and Fiona finally go their separate ways...

Fiona: “Wait a minute, Tails: how did you manage to create the fake Emerald?”

Tails: “Oh, it was very simple: by harnessing the power of the true Emerald we had already got--”

Sonic: [with a knowing smile] “The one you got as a prize for saving Station Square.”

Tails: [blushes, avoiding looking at Fiona directly] “Yeah, that one, hehe... *ahem* By using its power, I generated heat and pressure high enough to synthesize one of those yellowish synthetic diamonds, but much larger. To store Chaos Energy within that diamond, I took samples of my blood and mixed them with the carbon I used to synthesize it. Applying a lot of heat and pressure apparently doesn’t cause the stored Chaos Energy to be lost, even though the blood has been burned or evaporated, so the diamond ended up with Chaos Energy stored within.”

Sonic and Fiona look at each other, visibly concerned.

Sonic: “Tails, you've been through some pretty... heavy stuff lately, if you will. Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it--?”

Tails: [talking fast] “I’M FINE! Totally fine! Nothing bad happens to me, now let's continue with the mission, we’ll resume this conversation NEVER!” [runs off in his mech]

Meanwhile, in another corner of the ARK, the team of the Freedom Fighters and GUN led by Sally and Tower bumps into a strange creature moving through the corridors; this creature immediately attacks them, but Bunnie manages to react and stop it, then fighting it for a short time before it finally escapes and the team loses sight of it. Judging from what they had seen, it’s a long-bodied Mobian lizard, taller than the average Mobian, red on the back and black on the belly, with a set of machines similar to a life support system messily connected to its back.

While Tails and Sonic carry out the same parts of the plan as in the original version of Sonic Adventure 2, Fiona sneaks through vents and other safer but hard-to-reach spaces, looking for some station, terminal or control panel from where she can hack into the system, control the entire space colony and launch some kind of plan B. However, Snively realizes what Sonic, Tails, and Fiona are planning to do, detecting the suspicious signal of an "eighth Chaos Emerald" and a subtle side effect of one of Fiona's intrusions into the colony’s network. Robotnik's nephew finds and captures Fiona, albeit not before she shoots him with her gun and blows up his other ear.

Tails goes there first, followed by Sonic. The events unfold the same as in the original version, but with Fiona replacing Amy Rose and with a notable difference in Tails's reactions: when Snively locks Sonic in a pod with the fake Chaos Emerald and a ticking bomb to launch him into space, Tails tries to calm down after this surprise, not to reveal the Emerald is fake, and to play mind games with Snively to make him distrust himself and suspect the Emerald offered by Sonic may be the real one. Despite Tails's best efforts, the Overlander is simply not convinced by this, ejects Sonic’s pod into space, and in retaliation for being taken for a fool, fires his mech's bazooka with no warning, destroys Tails’s Cyclone, leaves Tails himself badly injured and trapped in his own burning mech’s wreckage, and forces him and Fiona to watch as Sonic's pod explodes.

Tails cannot move at all, he has his right side impaled by a piece of metal from the Cyclone. Once he’s seen Sonic’s pod explode, he immediately takes the true Chaos Emerald he was carrying with him and exits his mech’s cockpit, letting the piece of metal rip from his body and cause an even more serious injury; the wound begins to regenerate but is very severe and heals too slowly. Meanwhile, Snively points a gun at Fiona's head and orders the two-tailed fox to give the Emerald once and for all. But as soon as Robotnik's nephew finishes saying that, a screw from the Cyclone shoots out at full speed and cleanly pierces the wrist of the hand he was using to hold the gun. Snively lets go of Fiona, looks at his incapacitated hand, then turns his gaze to Tails, and is left dumbfounded.

[Soundtrack: The Crane / At Sea Again – 2000 OVA of JoJo Part 3]

The fox is piloting the Cyclone, battered but repaired, functional and armed, as some metal threads come out from within the cockpit to cover the wound in the side of its pilot and keep him alive, and as many threads connect with his amputated left hand’s stump and specifically to its nerves in order to make piloting as easy as it used to be. Snively has truly succeeded his uncle with all his atrocities so far, has killed Sonic and threatened to do the same to Fiona; Tails himself had also failed to fight for his friends and live up to his own ideals, but now he's ready to right both his own wrongs and everything Snively has done, by mercilessly beating the s*** out of him.

Once Tails tells Fiona to go away, his second mech battle against Snively starts. Tails wins, he even regenerates his hand and manages to heal his wound in his side enough not to need to be rushed to a hospital immediately once the metal threads are separated from his body, and Snively has to escape again.

[Soundtrack: J. Geil – 2000 OVA of JoJo Part 3]

However, right after the battle ends, the fox passes out from fatigue due to using one Chaos Emerald to simultaneously stay alive, enhance his abilities, fight, pilot the Cyclone by some kind of “bio-mechanical connection”, heal, and use that new whole "machine manipulation” power he has only just discovered.

While he’s unconscious, someone else enters there: it’s the red and black lizard-like Mobian, the one who had attacked the mixed squad of Freedom Fighters & GUN soldiers; the creature sees the passed-out Tails, but does nothing to him, just grabs the Chaos Emerald with all the patience in the world and silently leaves.

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The events of the Final Story of Sonic Adventure 2 unfold the same as in the original version mostly, at least until the Shadow-Biolizard battle. With Tails exhausted and still injured, Fiona takes his place piloting the Cyclone, and Bunnie participates too. On the other hand, as soon as Snively fulfils his part of the plan to stop the ARK's fall, he leaves instead of staying to help the others.

Amy convinces Shadow to help save the world, but there are some differences in this event as well: she, Sally, Tower and the mixed squad of Freedom Fighters and GUN approach Shadow, but Sally insists that they stay away from him due to his righteous hatred against GUN’s soldiers; when they discuss who should go talk to the “Ultimate Lifeform” and try to convince him to help save the world, Amy volunteers, and the way she expresses her arguments to Shadow is slightly different than in the original version, sounding less naive but still friendly, inspiring and optimistic. Shadow not only remembers his original promise to Maria but also details that make him suspect the veracity of that video recorded by Professor Gerald, Shadow's memories also show that, although Maria was kind-hearted, she was pretty feisty too and had activated a mech to resist the advance of GUN’s soldiers in the raid of the ARK 50 years ago [a reference to the fact that Emerl's “soul” in Sonic Battle was based upon Maria's and Emerl themself strongly liked to fight and show their powers after gaining more Chaos Emeralds and thus developing a more “complete” personality.].

When Sonic, Knuckles and Shadow arrive at some kind of altar [it doesn't look familiar to Sonic or Knuckles because the echidna still uses the Hidden Palace to guard the Master Emerald] where the Eclipse Cannon’s core is located with the seven Chaos Emeralds, they meet with that red-and-black Mobian lizard from before: it’s the Biolizard, who had mutated and evolved in their 50 years of confinement in the ARK, connecting with the abandoned colony’s systems and devising a plan. Programmed only to destroy, the Biolizard sounds more cultured and magnificent when speaking and gesturing but he never truly surpassed that programming, becoming instead a strategist and setting himself the primary goal of destroying Mobius: he had set everything up for the ARK to crash onto the planet when someone too greedy tries to use the Eclipse Cannon with the Chaos Emeralds, and he also created a fake video of Gerald detailing these plans and vowing revenge on humanity. The Biolizard introduces themself to Shadow as his “brother” (although the implicit innuendos in his voice tone aren’t few or subtle) and tries to convince the hedgehog to join him, but Shadow already remembers more than enough not to believe him, so they both fight while Sonic and Knuckles carry the Master Emerald to the altar in order to deactivate the Chaos Emeralds and separate them from the cannon’s core.

During Shadow's fight against the Biolizard, Sonic moves away from Knuckles and helps the black-and-red hedgehog, thus ensuring their victory over the reptile [and yes: before, during and after the fight, both Sonic and Shadow do JoJo poses to their hearts' content].

When the Biolizard is defeated by Shadow and the ARK stops falling, Shadow's "brother" teleports to the Eclipse Cannon itself, merges with it but stands very theatrically on the tip, and causes the entire space colony to resume its fall towards Mobius. Aside from the Biolizard's shape and personality, the battle against Finalhazard is almost the same as in Sonic Adventure 2. At the end of the battle, Shadow lunges at the Biolizard and cuts him in two, then flinging both halves towards the Sun at full speed; despite the creature is capable of regeneration, the intense heat and radiation from the Sun are too much for the Biolizard, who’s destroyed even before hitting the surface.

[As for why Shadow falls to Mobius but Sonic doesn't after preventing the ARK's collision, I'll just copy and paste the explanation provided by @toaarcan...]

[Shadow telling Sonic he's actually the "Ultimate Lifeform" may be one of the many mistranslations in the English dub of Sonic Adventure 2, but if taken as intentional, then it could be seen as Shadow acknowledging he's been surpassed by Sonic in some way despite being this apparently perfect being. There's a little more evidence of this since, after the battle against Finalhazard, Shadow falls for seemingly no reason while Sonic remains unhurt; true, Shadow does land the final blow if you hit the boss perfectly every time, but considering the terribly wonky flying controls and those goddamn lasers, that’s no easy feat, and Shadow falls even if Sonic did more work than him. Another bit of dialogue from the battle is Sonic warning Shadow to be careful with his Super form because he'll "disappear" if he uses too much energy; that's probably another mistranslation, with it really being Sonic reminding the player to make sure they have enough rings, but it could easily also be taken to mean that, if someone overexerts themself while using a Super form, then the Chaos energy destroys them by breaking their own body down. Shadow falls because he uses too much power; Sonic, having been using the form since Sonic 2, has mastered it, perfected his use of it, and even went beyond the Super form in Sonic 3 & Knuckles; Shadow used it for the first time here, so he's probably unaccustomed to it; to top it off, the last cutscene clearly shows Shadow using his hover-shoes to fly, so he possibly spent himself too much.]

Tower tells Tails about Amadeus Prower, comparing the young fox to his father, and offers him to work for GUN and help reform it. Tails cordially asks to stop being compared to a father whom he didn't even know. He also demands that Tower and the rest of GUN earn his trust first.

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[I've already touched on this in the preface, but I'll address it here as well as it'll be particularly relevant to my portrayal of GUN, the United Federation, and both organizations' relationship with Sonic, the Freedom Fighters, and Shadow. I'm aware that a large part of the Sonic fandom reads the events of Sonic Adventure 2 as a work with a markedly anti-police and anti-military message, specifically against the fanaticism of the USA government of Bush Jr. back in 2001, and they prefer that GUN and the United Federation government be portrayed as yet another villain in the Sonic universe, to imagine Shadow as a punk icon of resistance to authority, and to imagine he never joined GUN and the entirety of the Shadow spin-off game is non-canon; I'm also aware of a more specific and recent aspect of this: a big fear among fans is that the 3rd live-action Sonic movie, while featuring Shadow and even portraying him decently, will also end up "watering down" the original anti-authority message of Sonic Adventure 2 by having the ending be like "Shadow's creators and GUN were just a rogue faction in the government, the USA military as a whole is still a-OK" in order to avoid damaging the USA Armed Forces' reputation too much and thus get the Department of Defense to continue giving Hollywood the money and other resources needed to film Sonic movies.]

[I'll concede that GUN's actions certainly do fit in with an over-the-top but accurate enough fictional portrayal of the excesses the real-life USA military and security forces have committed and/or are capable of committing (Prison Island and Sonic being locked up there is pretty close to being some sort of abandoned Guantanamo), and I realize my plans for my stories (having Project Shadow, Eclipse Cannon, the assault on the ARK Space Colony and all other reprehensible actions by GUN be the work of an internal rogue faction and previous United Federation governments) might not be well received by a large part of the fandom. But on the other hand, a sizable portion of the fandom's ideas are their own interpretations encouraged by SEGA not providing more information, such "headcanons" sound more like typical anarchist rhetoric from someone who has always lived in the USA and never seen what life is like in the rest of the world, and it's pretty clear that SEGA and the members of Sonic Team lack any political convictions and included such anti-authority messages in Sonic Adventure 2 only because that was trendy in the early 2000s (I don't know about you guys, but for me, Sonic casually saying "Sheesh! There always seems to be a lot of police around when you don't need them!" just sounds cheap, effortless and too contrived and convenient to take seriously, both in English and in Japanese); this is also part of a broader phenomenon where fans "asign" revolutionary and progressive political messages to various Japanese videogames and manga/anime series, even though this is usually an over-simplification with no knowledge of contemporary Japanese culture, very few authors write these stories with some genuine conviction for the anti-authority and anti-establishment messages conveyed by their work, and many of these stories could be simultaneously labeled both "progressive" and "conservative" by Western standards. Besides, these fans are blatantly hypocritical and have piss-poor short-term memory if they're demanding today that the Sonic movies' producers not be the USA military's bootlickers, because this already happened with the two previous Sonic movies and the Marvel movies both after Disney bought Marvel Studios and before that buy-out (when Marvel movies were instead produced by Paramount, which as also pretty infamous for its nationalist propaganda not too long ago and now produces the Sonic movies), and yet these same fans praised Sonic non-stop for its supposed anti-authority message (almost non-existent in the live-action movies) and lambasted Marvel solely because its movies were being produced by Disney. The experiences of much of the world with either the police, the military or the government as a whole are usually not as negative as in the USA; if the big underlying problem to fight against is actually the selfish and bigoted ultra-conservative elites corrupting institutions such as the Armed Forces, then it's worth mentioning that those same elites in my country have chosen the tactic of doing the complete opposite and using anarchism as a tool to take over the government and get whatever they want, not to mention the way climate change deniers or COVID deniers have turned resistance to authority into their perfect propaganda device, so perhaps it'd be better to be careful before turning the heroes of a story into champions of absolute individual freedom without an iota of critical thinking skills. Lastly, here I'm working mainly with material from the Archie comics (both before and after the reboot), where the United Federation is more like a hypothetical global government based on the UN and includes all city-states inhabited mostly by humans, while the United Federation in the videogames (and in Sonic X, for that matter) is much more specifically an allegory for the USA and encompasses only those city-states that most obviously reference the major cities of that country.]

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A few days later, Sonic tells Sally he’s still strangely hurt by Shadow's sacrifice. Sally decides to ask Tower and Rouge for help to search for the black hedgehog, and she encourages Sonic to participate in the search. Shadow is found at the bottom of the sea by Sonic himself, who feels the black hedgehog is still alive and jumps into the water to rescue him, overcoming his hydrophobia. The “Ultimate Lifeform” awakens just as Sonic is about to drown, and they both manage to get out. Shadow, with his memories intact, stays to live in Knothole for a while, shows great interest in Tails's Chaos powers, and spends time with Sonic (albeit reluctantly at first).

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Some random headcanons:

Jewellery theft isn’t Rouge’s only passion: she also has a vocation for Psychology. When the bat woman wasn't stealing jewels or carrying out a mission, she studied to pass subjects of the Degree in Psychology; GUN first, Falcão and Tower later, founded her studies after she pointed out this knowledge would help her to do a better job as a secret agent.

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Tails has an unspecified ASD (autism spectrum disorder), and “reading” others’ facial expressions and voice tone was always difficult for him; if he manages to understand them, it’s just because he usually interprets the understanding of non-verbal language as an exact science: he previously studies all about facial expressions and voice tone, how they’re generated and what they could mean depending on the context, watches people’s gestures and analyzes them, but he doesn’t use intuition for this as almost everyone else does. On the other hand, he’s very perceptive: he pays great attention to details and seemingly irrelevant things, and when people do anything and he’s just near there with nothing better to do and without anyone caring about his presence, he also has a habit of carefully watching and analyzing those people and their actions and gestures. He may not initially be able to capture, for example, micro-expressions of someone he’s talking to, but if he’s given the necessary information about them as if they were accurate scientific data, he’ll be able to make surprisingly correct assumptions about what his interlocutor is feeling and actually wanna express, which helps him, for example, understand and comfort someone who’s going through a bad time and doesn’t wanna admit it; Rouge, with her knowledge about Psychology, is usually the one who helps him by providing that information.

Anyway, as is often the case with many people with an ASD, any kind of "limitation" in Tails's ability to perceive others' emotions via "social clues" and whatnot is a completely superficial trait of his personality: once he manages to perceive what another person is feeling, he's fully capable of understanding emotions, as well as "connecting" with other people and feeling their emotions when observing them as if he was experiencing them himself. In fact, despite his reputation as a mechanical genius, an aspiring scientist and someone with a fairly strict self-imposed discipline, Tails can still get too carried away by emotions (which adds the problem of potential Chaos powers, closely linked to their user's state of mind) and could even be considered the most emotional member of the Freedom Fighters.

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Sonic regrets a lot of things, including some which he thinks were his fault; for example, people who were victims of Robotnik, such as Kat, while the hedgehog was busy somewhere else with something else or wasn’t available for whatever reason. His title of “Hero of Mobius” makes him feel obligated to keep this to himself, without letting that other side of him be seen by anyone, not even by his closest friends. He usually cries, and a lot, when there’s no one watching him.

Sonic certainly has no qualms about using lethal force against villains when the situation calls for it; quite the contrary, much of his internal conflict comes from a feeling of not having done as much as he could have done from his position: not having saved enough prisoners, not having prevented the capture and roboticization of more Resistance comrades, not having destroyed enough Robotnik facilities, not having ended the war faster, and so on. Sonic's attitude of a carefree "free spirit" who does what he wants and helps others because he wants to is natural, this is his true self, it's not a mask he wears in front of others; however, he has gradually become more aware of the effect he has on people all over Mobius, how he has become a symbol on whom the survivors of Robotnik's conquest depend to be able to go on, so behaving naturally as a "free spirit" feels more and more like an obligation for the blue hedgehog... and he's still not entirely sure how to feel about it: for example, he wants to keep being himself and also wants to keep helping people whenever, wherever and however needed, but there might come a day when those two desires -for whatever reason- collide with each other.

That's why Sonic totally understands Sally's situation as the Freedom Fighters' leader and main strategist as well. On the other hand, when he saw Fiona still alive and organic, and especially when she seemingly overcame any possible grudge against him and joined the Freedom Fighters, Sonic momentarily felt immense relief: everything he had done hadn't been in vain.

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Sally genuinely appreciates Amy Rose, notably for her unwavering optimism, her inspiring character, her "rascal" attitude (sassy and mischievous but in an adorable way), her rebellious spirit, and her never-ending energy; the former princess is also impressed by Amy's people skills and her natural aptitude for connecting with others and being so convincing. For the chipmunk, all of this reminds her of Sonic, and sometimes also reminds her a bit of herself when she was younger. When Sally personally trains Amy, she does her best to strike a good balance, trying to make her a competent Freedom Fighter aware of the reality around her without crushing that bright personality or turning Amy into some kind of "hardened war veteran with no faith in the world".

Sonic had initially been a bit irked because of Amy: her character was slightly "overwhelming" to him (later he'd internally laugh at the irony of having reacted like this to someone whose behaviour was so similar to his own, and he also better understands how Sally feels having to live with him), but Amy had also assumed a lot about Sonic's personality even though the two barely knew each other, and that's what made Sonic take offence and react so harshly to Amy's advances before the Sonic Adventure 1 adaptation (it wasn't helped by the fact that Sonic is still quite the introvert, contrary to what his exceptional charisma might suggest). With some help from Sally, he gets used to Amy's presence later, and the two become fairly close friends. Amy's attitude keeps causing problems anyway: she can be quite teasing and bluntly honest when she wants to, and she's the first to openly point out that Sonic likes Shadow (by the way, when that happens, Sally doesn't take offence, she just raises an eyebrow instead...).

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Knuckles is the one who has the typical friendly rivalry with Sonic: he admits the blue hedgehog is trustworthy, honest, responsible when necessary, and the one who helped him out of his isolation, even though the echidna is also easily irritated by his antics. On the other hand, Shadow is comradely, prudent and discreet, and has developed a profound admiration for Sonic, namely the way he never seems to lose his composure, the fact that Sonic is always the one commenting on his enemies and getting on their nerves instead of the enemies doing that to him, and the way Sonic seems able to move on with his life with no regrets whereas Shadow still feels he owes Maria and his life revolves around his promise to her. Speaking of Maria, the "Ultimate Life Form" can't help but notice similarities between her personality and Sonic's after having unlocked his true memories about her. Something that left Shadow completely starstruck in the battle against Finalhazard is Sonic's Super form, his majestic appearance and the fact that he was so stable while Shadow was still out of practice with his own Super form. After the events of the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation and Shadow's rescue, Shadow starts practising and experimenting with his Chaos powers, seeking to control them in the same way Sonic has managed to.

[Shadow's personality after the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation would be similar to Proto Man/Blues in the classic Mega Man/Rockman games and Zero in Mega Man Zero/Rockman Zero. Maybe I'll include Jack at the end of Mega Man Star Force 3/Ryūsei no Rockman 3 as another example, but I still need to actually play it and see it myself. I'm not sure if I should use Eugene Chaud/Enzan Ijūin -along with his NetNavi ProtoMan.EXE/Blues.EXE- from Mega Man Battle Network/Rockman.EXE as an example either, since Chaud seems to be cockier than Classic Proto Man.]

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To be continued...

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