Sonic was spat out of the Portal Ring, and splashed into a puddle of murky water. The Ring closed. It took him a few seconds of laying face-first in the filth to realize what just happened. Sonic raised his head from the puddle, and his vision slowly faded back in spots. He coughed out glistening, soapy water with a bitter taste. "Whoa…"
Sonic was standing in the middle of a prism-colored wonderland. The patches of grass had a glossy rainbow finish, the exposed soil was rife with a checkerboard pattern. "Green Hill?" Sonic asked, looking up into the vibrant blue sky. "No, something's different. Just where did that Ring take me?" Sonic carefully crept forward, the grass squelching under his shoes.
As Sonic ran by crystal-clear lakes and alluring gardens, a gross feeling formed in his lungs. There were no animals anywhere. Over the hot pink mountains, he spotted a large metal wall. "I'm guessing this universe has its own egg-shaped problems. But if there's an Eggman here, that means there has to be a—" Sonic's words got lodged in his throat. It was… swollen shut. An itchy feeling invaded the surface of his skin and below.
Sonic collapsed to his knees, and then his arms. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were locked. Tears fell from his eyes, they felt like acid. Through the hazy blur, he saw a Motobug approaching up ahead. Sonic couldn't move at all, and before he knew it, the Badnik was zooming towards him. "N-no… poison…" Sonic grunted, as the Motobug circled him like a vulture. It then moved to his arm, outside of his field of view. Sonic felt a sharp pain just below his shoulder.
…
The next thing Sonic knew, he was being carried on the Motobug's back. While he panicked and tried to regain his breathing, he realized the land around him wasn't as colorful as before. As the Motobug continued on through the plains, the grass died. The checkerboarded dirt hardened to a cracking point and became uneven. Sonic looked back in the direction he came from. He wasn't just moving away from the colorful environment, it was actively shifting to something else around him. "What kind of… dimension is this?"
"Please do not talk," a synthesized voice whispered out from the Motobug. It sounded… familiar. "It is not safe to make noise in this Zone. Additionally, your body has not yet fully recuperated despite remarkable recovery thus far. Please rest."
"... Sage?" Sonic mumbled. The Motobug halted. "Is that you?" The voice didn't respond, the Motobug stayed still at the edge of a filthy river with the consistency of jelly.
"Rerouting," Sage's voice said. The Motobug turned to the side, and continued driving. Bubbles formed from the ooze.
Sonic heard squelching sounds. Looking past his shoes, he saw what looked like a pair of headlights coming after him. The Motobug swerved as a fuzzy spike crashed down onto where they just where. Sonic almost went tumbling into the mud, but something flew through and snatched him.
"Whuh…?" Sonic asked, looking down at the Motobug as it became a speck on the ground below. He then saw who was lifting him. "Tails?! Man, am I glad to see you. Heck, I'm glad to see any Tails!" Tails didn't respond, his eyes projecting lights through the smog clouds. Though his body was still numb, Sonic felt a poky pressure on the sides of his head. Slowly, the clouds turned a cotton candy pink. Color returned to the world. "Hey, what's going on?!" Sonic pulled on both of Tails' claws affixed to the sides of his head, and tore them out. They leaked soapy water and trace amounts of cerebrospinal fluid. "Never was a fan of those crane games, they're always so flimsy!" Sonic arm-wrestled Tails' claws as they tried to stab back into his head, until they broke apart with the sound of bones snapping. Tails screeched, but it didn't sound like Tails' voice at all. "I don't like this version of you as much. I'll apologize to you when I get back to my dimension!"
Sonic landed back on the Motobug, and laid down with a smirk. However, he was snapped out of his relaxed pose by the ground rumbling underneath them. "Mind hurrying up?" Sonic asked, looking down at the clumps of dirt forming behind the Motobug. Something was burrowing after them.
"Apologies, I'm going as fast as I can!" Sage's voice replied chipperly. "You seem to be in good health, it may be advisable to run the rest of the way."
"Sure, where to?" Sonic asked, flipping onto the ground and blasting forward through the hellscape. Carrying the Motobug in his arms like royalty. The Motobug scanned its surroundings.
"The Yolk, it's right up ahead," Sage said. She lifted an arm and pointed her finger at a metal eggshell. "Please dispose of this unit, it is only slowing you down. The Ravagers will catch up at this rate. You may have survived Tails, but the others will overpower you, especially if they converge together." Sonic lifted an eyebrow, but didn't look at her directly.
"Not a chance. You're this universe's Sage, aren't you?" Sonic said. "I'm not letting you go again, you got that?" Sonic slid down a rainbowy oil-slicked hill, as his determined smirk grew larger. Waves of soapy water sprayed out from under his shoes, a giddy and breathless feeling tightened his lungs. "We're almost there!"
"No, you do not understand," Sage mumbled, gripping onto Sonic's shoulder and pinching it. The antidote was administered yet again. Sonic found himself face-down in another murky jelly puddle. The Motobug rolled him out of the small ditch. "This unit is a liability, it has been exposed to the Hillscape too long. This unit must be disposed of immediately, and cannot be allowed back in the Yolk anyways." Sonic staggered to his feet.
"Must be tripping some serious balls right now…" Sonic mumbled, choking out the gross jelly-like mud. He looked back, and saw the foggy image of Knuckles in the sporal haze.
"Yes, the liquid of the Hillscape is a potent hallucinogenic," the Motobug said, shooting even more of the antidote up Sonic's arm.
"... If you think for a second that I'm leaving you behind!" Sonic grabbed the Motobug's pincer and jammed it even deeper into his arm. The Motobug struggled to release itself from Sonic's grasp, but its pincers were too firmly lodged in his arteries. The Motobug began to spin its wheels to escape, Sonic grunted as its tires scraped against his back, and he kept running towards the Yolk with the Ravager Knuckles chasing after. "Most robots I meet try to kill me, but you seem like you're meant to help people! That means you can't let anything bad happen to me. If you try to escape now, I'll just bleed out! Think!! We're getting to safety together, Sage, whether you like it or not!" The Motobug, Sage, remained silent for a moment.
"He's here it's—!"
Something appeared seemingly out of thin air and tripped Sonic with a tattered red shoe. He fell right down, the Motobug still firmly attached to him. This thing that attacked them grabbed Sonic's spines and hoisted his head out of the dirt. Sonic stared into the glowing, rotten eyes of his own body.
"Fresh….. eyes…." the Ravager Sonic wheezed, gripping Sonic's spines and bunching them up in the process. The Ravager Knuckles shambled towards them.
"Do we beat… sense… into him?" Ravager Knuckles asked, placing a large swollen hand around the Motobug's antenna. Sonic heard Sage squeak in pain, but was too transfixed by the sight of his own decaying body to think of an escape. Sonic couldn't disassociate this being from himself, it didn't feel like he was looking at a similar person. It was more like a vision from a cruel future.
"No… Tails will take him back to Temple Mountain. Protect him from… the others, if need be," Ravager Sonic grunted, kneeing Sonic in the bridge between his eyes. "He'll see it our way eventually. Besides, something about him… reminds me of nicer times." Ravager Tails floated down and grabbed Sonic with his claws. The other Ravagers departed into the wasteland. Sonic was airlifted away, as color and life returned to the world around him.
"Y'know, Sage…" Sonic muttered to the Motobug on his back. "I would leave, but the second I get to safety, I'll have to leave you behind, huh?" Sonic smiled, as his head became fuzzy. "I came all this way to see you, so I'm gonna hang out for a while longer." The Motobug stayed silent, but in the distance, Sonic could still hear Sage's voice. What she said was…
"Terminate."
A metallic arm stretched to the sky and brained Ravager Tails, the monster's claws went limp. Sonic began to plummet to the ground alongside the empty host, before landing… on his back.
…
"Damn it," Shadow muttered.
Back in their home universe, the jet-black hedgehog stood over the crater in Golden Capital. There was a single blue quill at the bottom, surrounded by blood and teeth. Shadow reached down and pulled the quill out. He eyed it intensely. "Who did this to you?" Shadow whispered, his scowl so tight that it felt like he had shock rock candy stuck in his gums. He lifted his head, took a deep breath, and let the quill fall. "He couldn't actually be dead, it's not possible." Shadow breathed in the night air, raised a hand to his head, and facepalmed. "Why did you have to go off on your own? You IDIOT!" Shadow stomped down onto the quill with his Rocket Skates activated. He took a few seconds to catch his breath, before slapping a Leg Missile away from him. It exploded in a nearby shop and sent Rings flying everywhere. "It's you again… If you think a third hedgehog will go down in this spot today, you're dead wrong." A string slowly pulled Sonic's quill into the hand of Penumbra the Spider. Shadow turned around.
"What a bother. My aim is immaculate, and there's clients out there who would spend their entire life savings just to rent your head on their wall, but I guess there's no use sneaking up on someone who's even close to as fast as Sonic," Penumbra sighed, admiring the stray quill before placing it between her fangs.
"No. He was much faster than me," Shadow said, letting his fist fall back to his side. Penumbra opened one eye, staring deep into Shadow's soul and judging it. "My speed at its peak pales in comparison. I feel no shame in finally admitting that. Because now he's dead, which means you'll stop desecrating his quill before I stab you with it." Penumbra bit down, before using the quill as a toothpick and grinning about it. "Repulsive… you call yourself a lady?"
"You're willing to say that because I'm not as prim and proper as… ah, what did you call her…? Hope?" Penumbra asked. Shadow formed what must have been a hundred Doom Spears behind him, all of them locked onto any one Penumbra's vital body parts. She barely even flinched. "It would be a shame to kill me. After all, I know a lot that you don't." Penumbra showed off the quill, it was teeming with a prismatic energy. Shadow's eyes widened, the Doom Spears fizzled out. He began walking towards her.
"Explain, wretch," Shadow growled. Penumbra smirked, pulling out a Ring that showed a portal to another world.
…
Sonic's entire body ached. He felt like he couldn't move his arms or legs as the robot that saved them both rushed through a filthy city, carrying Sonic in its arms. He could only guess this place was the interior of the Yolk that the Motobug Sage had mentioned. Wait… where was she?
Sonic's vision faded in and out, every motion felt delayed and blurry. He could tell he was in a hospital. He felt his mouth moving as he asked the doctors and nurses where Sage was, over and over again, but he wasn't sure if anything was coming out. Anything besides red checkerboarded soil.
"Where's Sage??? Where is she?!" Sonic choked on his own vomit.
"Steady, pace your breathing…" Sage's voice said. Someone stood over Sonic, their face obscured in the glare of the overhead light. "You must have been through a lot. All that effort to survive the Hillscape is commendable, but you're lucky we got to you before you overdosed on the antidote. Perhaps we can administer a kinder end." Sonic couldn't believe his eyes, he couldn't comprehend what he was hearing. Her hair, her voice, it was…..
"AMY?!" Sonic tumbled out of his death bed. The tube in his arm snapped. This universe's Amy turned her head all the way around to look at him. A shiny metal plate covered her eye. "You're a robot, too?!"
"Cybernetically enhanced. My name is Wilt Rose. Please lie back down. If nothing else, you need rest," Amy said. Sonic looked cross-eyed at the tube dangling right in front of his face. It dripped with an eerie pink liquid.
"No thanks," Sonic said, pinching the needle and pulling it out of his arm. "Where's Sage? I need to find her and get out of here."
"Sage? Oh, of course… the Motobug running SageOS," Wilt Rose said. "Motobugs are just retrieval drones, I advise against getting attached to them in the future, despite how personable they can be. Although, it's strange. They don't typically manage to find people alive, let alone bring them back to the Yolk." Feeling returned to Sonic's body, he felt like he had been run over by a motorcycle. He felt his heart skip a beat, and hopefully not because of the euthanasia. "Your survival is nothing short of a miracle, we don't get those often around here, so treasure it. Your Motobug destroyed itself to protect you, after all." Sonic stumbled to the doorway. "Where are you going?"
"I need air," Sonic mumbled. Wilt's metal arms extended and grabbed him under the arms. In his weakened state, he couldn't resist. Besides, how could he lay a finger on her? It was Amy. "Let me go."
"Shh, calm down," Wilt mumbled. "You need rest. Now that you've shown signs of recovery, you'll be out of here alive in no time, you'll see." Wilt smiled. "If you need anything, or if you get lonely, just press the red button on your armrest. I'll be here. Besides… I'm not so different from your companion, I run on SageOS as well."