Something I should have mentioned earlier. The Sonic side of this story is technically an AU, so don't be surprised if a few names get dropped where they wouldn't. History has also played out a little diffrently, you'll probably be able to guess where. It's more to give Sonic a superhero worthy rouges gallery as well as some major back up for what's coming, so don't panic if you end up confused at some point. I'm not going to go into it in too much detail, other than to say that while the Archie Freedom Fighters will show up this Sonic has a fond history but not total membership. More of a part time thing to his universes JLA. Time and Space is a big place, there's got to be at least one continuety where all Sonic story lines have come together at some point. The Loonatics have the advantage of having two solid cannon seasons to host this in, some time in the middle of season two. So no whineing about nothing making sense. It's called taking liberty, not Doing Whatever The Hell I Want. Well, it is, but I've got the fancy name to hide behind.

--

Mallory Casey peered through the reinforced glass of her cell, whip thin eye brow raised in a gesture of curiosity and mild amusement, not something that occurred often in Acmetropolis‘ underground prison. Then again it was a Friday.

A still firing guard slammed against the glass, the occupant not even blinking at the sound of breaking bone squeezing through muscle and armour. A connoisseur’s gaze travelled over the array of robots, some big, some small, tramping in simple metallic unison over guard station rubble.

Not Acme tech, but still advanced in a sticks and stones kind of way. Some stood in gleaming thin, silver alien grace, LCD cameras embedded in stylised heads feeding data along multitudes of wires running from reed thin necks to machine gun arms. Other’s tramped and waddled on stalks bolted to upside down egg shell feet beneath orange chassis, moustachioed domes revolving in search of targets or more punching bags. Probably the same thing.

“Very nice.”

“Thank you. A little art deco meets the age of the cell phone, but I try.”

Overhead underground shadows peeled away to reveal an egg cupped shaped pod. Any trained Acme University lab technician could have picked up the tell tale hum of anti grav generators trundling away from within, and after half a minute with the monkey pounding of the subterranean security system generators the sound of something sophisticated, if alien, was a symphony. The pod’s occupant rose, regal steps taking him down the flight ramp that unfolded in a simplistic ballet of metal and electronics. White gloved hands tugged at red lapels, then flew to the minuscule dark glasses seemingly embedded in the curves of the otherwise perfectly oval skull.

“Do I have the honour of addressing…”

He checked the small blue cerulean type of an electronic blue holographic list.

“…miss Mallory Casey?”

She stood up, arms crossed, legs apart, head high (not that it took much), a vision of self confidence even if metallic prosthetic armour was concealed beneath an absolutely tasteless standard issue jumpsuit.

“I prefer…”

(Pause for dramatic effect, a must for a super villain introduction. Hold it, hold it…)

“…Mastermind.”

“Ah.”

Another check. A smile, the only thin thing on the man, curved beneath the bushy devil red moustache riding his lower lip like a tidal wave seconds from knocking a hapless surfer to the sharks.

“Yes, yes. Fitting.”

A tap, and the hologram morphed. She vaguely recognised battle footage from her debut invading Loonatics headquarters. Her butt still looked unflatteringly large even reversed and miniaturised. A green flash could only be that damn dog’s powers and her lip curled at the sight. Her eyes darted back to the stranger at the sound of a sympathetic sigh.

“Such well crafted work and simply no appreciation from the most unsubtle of opponents. I can relate, believe me.”

She rolled too big eyes.

“Why don’t you just make your pitch. I appreciate some stimulating conversation, but on Friday night I honestly don’t have the patience to play these games.”

Perhaps something flickered beneath those dark glasses. Perhaps not. Apart from a twist of his moustache the man did nothing. But the damp and metallic smelling air of the prison was tense for just too short to not be noticed. Breech of etiquette did not concern most super villains, least of all one who had excelled at hyper astro physics at eighteen so this was ignored, eyebrows almost pushed all the way to the back of her skull as she waited for a response.

“Very to the point.”

The heels of black booted feet click clacked off the stone floor as the man dismounted the hover craft, footsteps echoing over the multiple whines of robots falling into rank and file formation on his right and left.

“Dr Ivo Robotnik. A pleasure.”

--

“So what do these guys do again?”

Green eyes traced the ark of the…puck he guessed. He couldn’t make it out from down here. Make. Out. Something he should not be thinking about right now. Beside him, Lexi ( “Call me Lex. Go on, you totally can.”) pushed her braid off her shoulder, the green tails coiling into the natural curve of her back. She grinned, a smile that put toothpaste models out of work.

“Again? This is the about the fourth time you’ve asked.”

Sonic shrugged, brining soda and chilli dog to near eye level in each hand.

“I’m learning as I go.”

Not that adjusting to a surprising evolution of the stagnation of culture wasn’t hard enough and being sheltered by a group of super powered anthromorph with enough generosity to spare (even the jerk ass duck) wasn’t a help, but understanding the “Tasmanian Devil” was a job for Super Linguist.

The hedgehog had, as far as he could recall, flunked into the Emperor Hedgehog latent super speed abilities although Uncle Chuck and his parents hadn’t. Tails had turned a possible evolutionary fluke into an advantage. Knuckles, Rouge, Mighty and the Chaotix had trained for their skills. Shadow was designed for what he did and Amy was a testament to what too much adrenaline could do. So for him this counted as his first Super hero team up. Comic books flashed in and out of the nomad lifestyle along with every other great work of literature, but while he’d encountered wizards, gods, mad geniuses, telekinetics, psychokinetics, pyrokinetics, and robots, God bless the little clanky gears in those robots, he’d never actually met another animal who actually dressed like a superhero. Everyone else he knew back home was just as normal person as they could really be with two tails or an anal big jewel guarding disorder. And the Loonatics ( he hadn’t asked ) were normal, as normal as overnight celebrities before the golden years starting to set up. Penthouse apartment in a metal ball hovering in the middle of an art deco nightmare of a tower, yet it was a business office with a personality. They’d save the world…but only after that first cup of morning coffee and a decent read of their respective sections of the paper.

You couldn’t deny what they were…but pointing it out made about as much sense as pointing out he was blue back home. That’s just the way things went. Save the world and after that back to being adult edition college roomies. He….liked that.

“You listening?”

“No. I got bash.”

That grin again.

“Two guys get in different colour hamster balls, and have to dodge the other guys from each team bashing the crap out of them.”

“Was that so hard?”

“Cave man.”

“Hog.”

“That to.”

He grinned this time.

--

Shadow gave the last robot’s head a glare for the road, before dropping it and crushing it beneath a sneakered heel. Knuckles puffed out his cheeks for a few seconds, deflating after the quick scan of the second amount of robo wreckage that afternoon.

“Not going to speak for anyone else, but that was kinda a highlight for a hot sunny day. Rev?”

The Road Runner flashed back and forth through the air, black and red over one pile of wreckage, red and black over another kind of wreckage. The echidna wondered if the only other speedster in the area, possibly the only one native to this dimension as of now, experienced the high speed fidgeting in real time, but if Shadow could track and discern Rev’s movements he didn’t so much as line up a pitch for an eye lid to show he could.

“Wow, the tech here is amazing, almost as amazing as back home, and that’s half a century away, maybe more, maybe not even that if your still using the old Christian calendar, in which case gadgets at this level are even more cool, almost as good as your stuff Tails, if not better, unless this is your stuff, in which case while I really have to apologise you have definitely been holding out on me, but if they are your toys could ya please keep them on a leash, because man those things were cranky!”

Shadow’s eventual look said I’m Going To Put My Foot In His Flight Path And See What Happens.

Knuckles waiting one would have like to have said Your Foot Would get Scythed Off and I’d Get To Watch but instead said I Know You Can‘t Be Bothered, So Don‘t.

“Rev, over here please.”

The Road Runner’s beak materialised in front of his nose.

“Yep?”

Just deal with it like you would a super fast ADD kid…or whenever Sonic comes to dinner.

“You know how we beat these things?”

“Guile, tactics and cunning? Although technically aren’t guile and cunning the same thing, and you need to be tactful to be cunning, is that the right word, I don’t know, man all this cloak and dagger stuff is really really neat, but totally confusing, you gotta remember all sorts of stuff, like I Don’t Know But I’ve Been Told, worst song ever, you know what the army really needs, yodelling, seriously, there is nothing like yodelling, nothing at all, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a champion yodeller…”

Knuckles held up a hand, blocking out Rev’s face like the moon eclipsing the sun. He didn’t let his slight surprise that the noise stopped show.

“Nope. We beat these things because whenever you got near one. It. Blew. Up.”

The long necked head peeked through the space between slab of rock hard flesh and thumb. Knuckles saw the beak starting to blur with that slight speed haze that he had come to recognise as Talk Mode Activated and decided he wasn’t done yet.

“Blew up. Like ground zero fireworks. Bang, boom, zoom kinda blew up. Really pretty if your into war zone art-I’m not by the way-but its like back with the TV.”

He lowered the hand. The Road Runner said nothing. The echidna took that as a signal of interest or confusion, most likely both, and tried to take advantage of it. Staring with the theory buzzing away at the back of his left lobe. More like ringing from the flaring energy field surrounding the Road Runner.

“Shadow and I…know our way around some energy signatures. Can recognise them. Feel them if we concentrate. You’re generating something. It’s there, all around you in every movement, but it spills out when you kick it into high gear. Is this part of your powers? Because a heads up would have been nice.”

As much as he’d like to see Shadow swatted away by a flying girder, he was vaguely aware of the power of cartoon physics, meaning he’d probably be smacked out of his viewing spot by the same girder before he could get the first G out of gloat. He didn’t need that out in the middle of a combat field, and whatever else was to come in the company of the Road Runner. Like dinner. With spoons. And forks. And knives. And chop sticks.

Hey, it could happen.

And that was just assuming the effects were magnetic. The organic effects would most likely be worse.

Rev stared out over the breaking waves rolling into the side of the cliff housing Tail’s workshop. After the sound of battle and constant use of vocal cords the silence was almost terrifying. Something either mumbled too low to be heard or too fast to be comprehended hissed out of the Road Runner’s beak.

“What?”

“The comet.” Rev repeated. His look was more serious than Knuckles would ever have thought possible. Like when Sonic found out the hamburger was more popular than the chilidog. Rev sighed, face becoming so downcast that if Shadow had had a heart it would have melted. The hard look had returned by the time the Road Runner looked back up.

“We gotta talk.”

--

Sonic put his head on one side, watching the rabbit girl cheer on wildly.

It’s not that she’s not hot…but there is that…it’s that she’s…well, hand to God honest…it’s that she’s pink.

Save one clingy fortune teller from an exploding planet and you were sent running like hell at the slightest suggestion of peach. That kinda got in the way of things. What exactly could a super sonic nomad offer to a girl any way? A normal, honest to God sixteen to eighteen year old girl, somewhere sufficiently above or below his age group anyway? He wasn’t a super hero, that would be chaotic enough. He was freelance. Where and if he was needed and right out over the edge of the chaotic with only experience and adaptability keeping him alive. He liked that. Loved it. Average ordinary everyday mom and dad’s apple pie day to day girls…not so much. But then, since when did he hang with ordinary girls? Sally, Mina, Fiona…and then there was Amy. Hard to tame the party animal and stand still for the half a second or two it would take to actually start thinking about having a relationship. And while commitment was a very real problem there was past experience.

So…what, I gotta turn off my instincts completely?

He blinked suddenly, realizing she had stopped. Was staring at him.

--

There was this…disease that hung over Station Square. Constantly, although mainly at day

Step down one street to reach a book shop on the other side, intending quite innocently to purchase, say, a short history book that might prove better then the typical tour guide pamphlet bull you picked up on the street corner outside your hotel, and about half way there you woke up in a casino on the other side of town or at the very top of a Twinkle Park (Jesus, humans and their commercialism…) roller coaster seconds away from the make or break plunge. You couldn’t run against the atmosphere, only jog along in it’s wake and try and see what was happening this time through the blinding sunlight. Not that Knuckles, as the last of thousand centuries old blood line dating back to before anthromorph/human interaction, had that much experience with Station Square. Vegas out did it but lacked that California meets New York atmosphere that made it so…Station Square. It was a stepping stone, but one hell of a stepping stone. Bright lights, big city. Go figure.

“You sure about this?”

He kept one hand on the door to the rental jeep, eye scanning left, right, right, left, right, the same direction as that cat with the very short purple skirt…uh, left. He adjusted the sunglasses he’d grabbed from the work shop. Keeping an eye out for thieves. Yeah, that was it. Tails huffed, indignation clear through the strain of securing the large back pack.

“I’ve done this a hundred times Knuckles. More than that actually.”

The echidna tried not to go redder, from indignation or embarrassment. Despite several combat missions alongside the kid and the fact that other than legal status and money he required little in the way of support from Charles Hedgehog, preferring the solitary inventor life balanced by sleep in visits from Sonic and various other friends made over the years, it was still difficult not to think of the kid as…well, damn it, a ten year old kid. One that could slap your head off your shoulders if he moved his tails with full speed and weight, but still. Could have been worse though. He could have been trying to hold the kid’s hand.

“Just doing security detail. You were set up with the mission parameters.”

The no nonsense G.I route sounded like a offended, concerned mother.

“Yeah, why am I the one with the curfew shoved up my butt while Shadow gets to stalk off through the night and play commando?”

“Because he vanished before I could be bothered asking for his help. Besides, he’s not the issue. The issue is if you can pull this off while I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

“I suppose you know how to jury rig a…”

Knuckles was fifty percent sure the kid made the following series of words up.

“No, but I can dance. Wanna see?”

Tail’s snorted. His look was amused rather than derisive but faded to concern.

“You okay? You’ve been kind of on edge since we came up with the idea.”

The idea had been to get Rev out of the super slick super suit and into something less conspicuous, all the better to scrape up some resources to put the portal back together. Problem was, Rev without the suit was…even more conspicuous. Road Runners weren’t common to this dimension and therefore probably didn’t have that much to do with this planet. The long neck was slowly murdering the hoodie they’d grabbed out of the dust infested trunk and if red and black had been bad camouflage, purple and blue was worse. Of course any hostiles could probably laugh themselves to dehydration by the sheer act of wetting themselves But when were there not hostiles? Not property damage?

And the pants. The long green pants covering the freakish chicken stilt legs. Oh God, the pants.

Red Guardian Echidnas weren’t that common either, but at least had some basis in early evolutionary history. And didn’t wear green pants. But what fur colour hadn’t quite done media attention had, the shades at best buying him razor’s edge time. The blue Hawaiian shirt dotted with little yellow pineapples did help in acting as a kind of furniture. No hero could possibly wear a costume that bad. But again even with his Guardian brotherhood birthmark hidden, Clark Kent he was not and his options were too limited for anything else.

“Driving into town to grab parts…yeah, okay. I don’t want to leave Rev alone since he could blow up something important and screw up our chances of getting him back home , but this is a city. Lot of important things here. Assuming it is the energy from that comet in his system that’s affecting everything. And Robotnik’s tinker toys are still out there.”

“So you don’t think Rev’s safe either way?”

Knuckles shrugged.

“I don’t want to see what happens when he stops at a cross walk. There’s too many electronics around here but, unless Robotnik orders it, the Tin woodsman’s relatives aren’t in the habit of dive bombing heavily populated areas. Guess he was planing on leaving something to conquer after blowing up half the planet. But if Rev stays up there he’s a sitting duck.”

“Road Runner.” Fox and bird supplied.

“Whatever.”

Tails pulled a blue baseball cap over his head, reluctantly keeping his twin tails intertwined and therefore looking like one bushy tail. Being the hero of Station Square put him more in the public eye than simply standing out in news photos from the constant blue of a speeding Sonic, and shyness could easily give way to appreciation. Despite himself the lack of attention was mildly frustrating. There’d be no fooling the clerks in the electronics stores he made second, third, fourth and fifth homes for himself, but the echidna had decided this would be a silent running mission.

Robotnik’s robots may be monitoring communication channels and two of the most popular heroes on the planet showing up would draw far too much attention and firepower. Attention was to be avoided, as it would eventually shift from the fact they were there and Sonic wasn’t. The robots seemed stuck on some kind of instant kill mode, possibly because no one was around to tell them any different, and individuals such as Mammoth Mogul, Ixis Naugus, A.D.A.M, Mephiles, Erazor Djinn and every other major psycho on the planet didn‘t need an excuse to celebrate.

Firepower was self explanatory. Especially if G.U.N got involved. Knuckles tried to avoid that line of thought. Better to start moving, consequences came when they came.

“Okay, let’s go over this one more time. Tails?”

The fox got to go first because of the unsubtle groan.

“Go to the stores, get what I need, get out.”

Knuckles nodded.

“And if someone does recognise you?”

“Try to avoid getting dragged into a conversation about Sonic unless it’s someone we know, if it’s not and I can’t fly outta there, just lie.”

“And if it is someone you know?”

Knuckle’s look through the lenses was almost a physical thing. Tails had been ready for this.

“Do not talk to Amy. At all.”

“You added that last part.”

“I thought it fit pretty good.”

“Agreed. Rev?”

The Road Runner nodded. And nodded. And nodded.

“Try and avoid talking to anyone unless you say it’s okay, because I’m sure anyone you know has to be just great, apart from that Shadow guy, and in all honesty you don’t strike me as that much of a social person, but hey I’ve known you for, like, five minutes, so I could be way off, anyway, I gotta avoid talking to people because I’d probably freak them out, just stick close to you because you know your way around and I don’t, although I think I forgot to mention my GPS, it’s sorta like telekinesis, or is it telepathy I always get those too mixed up, but it’s really cool, like being a mom cause you can find anything wrong going down like that, oop, sorry about that little sonic boom there, gotta remember to slow down the fingers, takes a little time, I used to play piano, but anyway back to the point, I need to stick to you and avoid being spotted, got it. Oh, and don‘t freak out if any pink hedgehog girls grab me, go limp if they hug me so they don‘t break my neck, and don‘t talk to them, like, at all.”

Knuckle laughed. It wasn’t clear if it was good hysterics or bad hysterics.

“Yeah, something like that Rev.”

Tail’s lifted he cap brim slightly, regarding the echidna frankly.

“You sure you don’t want me to give him the grand tour of downtown and give your ears a rest?”

“Nah, we only have this plan. Let’s not increase our chances of getting killed by thinking about it. You have your objective cadet. Quick march.”

Tails paused in the mid mock salute, realising he was the only one who had an objective as such.

“So…what about you?”

“Us? It‘s Friday in Station Square.”

Knuckles draped an arm over the hooded Road Runner’s thin shoulders, smile perhaps the most genuine in the past couple of hours.

“We’re hitting the beach, amigo.”

--

Ace’s gauntlet beeped. The three hero convoy of Zoomatrixes slowed to a hovering stop, cockpit shields sliding back. Helmet removed, Ace tapped the response sequence and held his wrist at the familiar crocked angle to both display to the group and himself. Hologram light flashed out, slid into the separate beams from Tech and Duck’s separate gauntlets then formed the space for Zadavia’s image to fill in.

“What’s up boss lady?”

Hair billowing like seaweed underwater, Zadavia regarded the scene around them. Ace knew what it must look like on underwater monitors. Smoke, fire, cracked asphalt, roads blocked like clogged arteries by rubble…typical, but unnerving because it felt new.

“I see you’ve been busy.”

Ace shrugged, careful to avoid disrupting the feed, yet eager to get down to basics before the standard hyperbole spilled out of Duck’s opening beak.

“Nah, we’ve mostly been tracking down this Robotnik guy. Or trying to.”

A light based eye brow was raised.

“Robotnik? The danger our new visitor mentioned?”

“Sonic, yeah. Turns out he’s kinda smarter then we figured. There’s some kinda strategy going on. He went after info on the neighbourhood first instead of resources, and while we’ve got an idea where he’s going, he had his wind up toys rough up enough stuff that’s it’s gonna take us awhile to get there. We’ve been ambushed twice by a couple of his junk yard pals. This guys a lot nastier than you’d think.”

He indicated the still fresh laser burns and battle dents spaced almost picturesquely across each vehicle. Duck shrugged to back up the snort.

“With a name like Robotnik he’d have to be. High school could not have been fun.”

Tech waited until a passing ambulance lumbered by, taking the sound of sirens with it, before voicing something that had been bothering him pretty much since leaving headquarters.

“What’s happened to communications? We haven‘t gotten any word from you since getting called out here. Seems to hit closer to home to. Lexi and Slam either aren‘t wearing their comms or nothing’s getting through. It‘s the same pretty much at every scene, emergency teams are down to word of mouth unless they figure out how stop their channels turning on and off again.”

A regal hand was placed thoughtfully to a regal chin.

“I’d have asked for a status report earlier but I have experienced similar difficulties gaining and sending a signal. Although it seems easier now. I’ve had similar problems with about thirty percent of general city communications, domestic or otherwise.”

“Part of his first move?” Ace guessed.

“If it is he’s being very generous about it. Apart from areas where he appears to have actually been, the signal is decently clear if delayed. Although that has been building for a while now. Still, if this is part of an overall attack ploy why not simply black out the whole city? He’s creating larger pockets of panic than we’d like, but a city wide attack would gain larger results.”

Ace sighed. Even the good was looking bad and they hadn’t even fought the guy yet. Duck didn’t seem to notice.

“I say let him do his worst, it’ll be a cloudy day in July when a mere villain is considered a match for Danger…”

The crash behind him failed to drown out his yelp. Avian hands flashed, pulling matter and energy together into revolving energy eggs, Duck’s fear almost leading to an inventive way of using Aqua Dense. The robot rubble seemed unimpressed.

“Anyway…” Tech said pointedly. He pinched the bridge of his snout. It had been a long day, a long evening approaching before a longer night. Thank God most super villains decided to take weekends off. Or whoever had thought to install TV and air conditioning in prison.

The coyote scratched his brow, shuffling fur beneath fabric as if trying to trace the electrical arcs of each brain impulse as the thought emerged from the cloud of multiple ideas.

“Zadavia…if you can get a bead on where the black outs are happening, would it be possible to find out how many there actually are overall?” He met the raised eye brow with one of his own, confirming what she thought he was thinking.

“Like a trail?”

--

“This is nice.”

And that was stupid. Sonic thought, trying not to let it show.

“Yeah.” Lexi replied from beside him on the couch. The couch that suddenly seemed like a gnat sized island in the middle of an unsure ocean. Going to the pizza parlour hadn’t sounded like a good idea. Nor had any of the major food courts or restaurants Lexi had listed off, like a local girl trying to coax someone into a good thing instead of one of those C list actresses shelling out for travel agencies. The overall problem was Slam. The chaperone played the role of super hero body guard paranoid enough to make Batman proud. Any big name sight was a potential super power target, so fun was minimal. All he needed was a pair of sunglasses, but Lexi had confiscated them and they now perched proudly on the hedgehog’s brow. Then there was the other issue.

“We’ve got a pretty big budget y’know. They wouldn’t mind if we shelled out a couple of bucks seeing the sights.”

“But there’s a fridge here! Why should Slam pay for food when there’s a fridge here?” He half leaned over the back off the couch. “Am I right, bro?”

A purple gloved hand waved back half sincerely, massive black back kept to them, blotting out the fridge light.

“Excellent! Keep it real man! You’re an inspiration!”

Lexi shook her head, knowing smile across pink mouth piece.

“True, so true. The Tazmanian way if life. Awe inspiring. An example to everyone.”

The Tazmaninan Devil gave them an humbly smug look, tongue sticking out. The mutual laughter stopped dead as a box of something tumbled out of his hands. Orange goo stuffed with meat chunks congealed on the floor, practically mating with it.

“Slam!” Lexi cried, hands on hips. The Devil’s mortified face could have belonged to a rabbit sitting next to a pile of droppings. The rabbit girl pointed at him sharply, arm swinging to the elevator door like an axe through a redwood.

“Go get some toilet paper and clean that up right now! We’re all out since Rev’s birthday party so you better buy in bulk!”

The whole slab of black covered muscle was gone fast enough to mildly impress Sonic. Lexi turned back to him as though nothing had happened, smile seven year old innocent.

“You wanna do anything else?”

“TV sounds good. If we’ve got high def on plasma screens back home, you guys have got to have something even cooler!”

She laughed, pounding air out of lungs through sheer surprise.

“Plasma screen? Those are, like, ancient! Older than my grandma!”

Sonic’s mock offended frown would have worked better if not for the smile.

“Hey, don’t knock plasma screens! The damn thing cost me like a thousand bucks! And that was just to think about buying one!”

Her laugh was louder this time. Sonic jerked a thumb in the direction of the closed doors.

"So what was that for?"

“I had to get him out of the building.”

That didn’t sound very good, even under this chemical free druggy haze snapping and popping around his brain and crackling down his arms to flow down…elsewhere.

“Yeeeeah?”

“Slam, Duck and Rev are anal about people touching this these things so much it makes Tech in the lab look normal.”

That sounded worse.

She reached under the couch. Whatever he’d been imagining while trying not to take her in was replaced by a small silver disk. She clicked the small square bearing some kind of movie poster like picture, the thin top sliding back. Sonic grinned hugely at the smaller game cube style disk tat glistened within, eyes flying from it to the thin silver rectangle the size of a PC keyboard. Different coloured buttons covering the thing like an out brake of measles. The golden words MAXBOX printed across it as though burned in by a comet. Two wireless disk like controllers squatted on the surface, two of the last puppies pressed up against shop glass.

“Beautiful…” he drooled.

“Thanks. I try.”

Embarrassment crashed through the haze like a rock through glass.

“I…uh…was talking about the game.”

Her face went though surprise to puzzlement to sharing the embarrassment.

“I know. I was…joking.”

“Oh.”

Oh? Oh!?

This was Sonic the Hedgehog? This stuttering blue buffoon stupid enough to not only get himself thrown through space to crash into a different time, but fumble the ball like a thirteen year old on a first date? This guy who was stupid enough to think up analogies to be stupid over? And worst of all, traumatize the most willing of the five people (four, since the duck was kind of a jerk) to try and help him. So…start from square one. Its difficult, right? Like a challenge. Make it like one. She knows how to deal with that. You do to.

“So…”

She looked up.

“MAX’ box?” He grinned. What, you guys run out of names or something?”

Either of their grins could have come from a mirror.

--

“Interesting.”

“Thank you.” Robotnik straightened his glasses, a gloved finger running through moustache hair.

Mastermind looked up from the jumble of electronics splayed amongst the various plates of food and cutlery.

“I was referring to the pulse generator.”

Blue eyes, small yet piercing, gazed at her over adjusted lenses.

“I was aware of that.”

She laughed, the cowering restaurant staff almost burying through floor boards to get lower. She had to admit she was enjoying this. Daring escapes had become simply risky, advanced electronics and mechanisms were rarely this readily available, and, to her mild hidden embarrassment, the thought of taking hostages and going to ground somewhere had never occurred to her. Villainous, yet outside the confines of the box of super villainy to pass undetected. The idea was hers of course, the invitation his. Partners hadn’t featured in her world for a while now since the entire Optimatus disaster. But one look at the electronics in those robots, (Actual technology!) and she couldn’t say no. And to his credit, Robotnik was the first partner to actually provided food (Actual food!) when she said she was hungry. A quick hover over to this restaurant a few blocks away, leaving the reprogrammed automated drones to continue what they were doing, and here they were. It had been years since she’d had an actual Friday night out. It was different…nice.

Robotnik broke off a piece of stake, tossing it to a cluster of terrified children almost squashed together in protective parental strangleholds. He returned his smile. It was cute, feeding the animals like that. He was such a sweetheart, for a villain. Or rather philanthropic terrorist as he preferred to be addressed.

A security button embedded in Robotnik’s lapel buzzed angrily, flashing an irritating electric blue. Mastermind sighed, stirring the remains of a salad with a fork as if she had a grudge against it.

“Now? And must it be that colour? I hate that colour.”

Robotnik grinned widely.

“Sorry, security feature. It alert me certain levels of intruders. Super powered intruders in this case. A force of habit. I recalibrated it a little to detect the energy signature you described.”

She smirked back.

“How many? There can only be five Loonatics left if our theories concerning your transfer

are correct.”

Robotnik reached into the jumble squatting on the table top, selecting a holocomm, flicking it on.

The halls of the military base blinked past slowly, the security footage eventually coming to the tunnels leading to the sub-sub-basement workshop for the newest version of a weapon the Loonatics had returned months ago. And had been ineffective against, that was important. Three of them, the rabbit, the duck and that damn dog flashed past the camera, the scraps of conquered reprogrammed security drones rolling behind them.

“How irritating.”

Robotnik reached for a near by remote control, oddly simplistic against the sophistication littering the table…pausing as Mastermind’s hands hovered over his own.

She retracted it a little.

“May I?”

He drew his back all the way.

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”

She could practically hear the frantic emergency frequencies dancing over the air waves, see the looks on their faces as the garage doors pulled back to reveal the shapes squatting within. It was almost poetic in it’s irony. The idea of animals would never have occurred to her, the benefit of having a partner on this level. Spiders, scorpions, tigers, lizards, birds and rhinos. She snickered. Dogs. All headed for Loonatics HQ.

This should be very interesting.

She clicked it.

“Dessert?” She offered.

“Please.”

--

Two sets of eyes stared at the hole in the TV screen, big and gaping as their mouths should be if shock hadn’t ionised them shut. Sonic ran a dry tongue around his mouth, turning it into a crowbar to pry his lips apart.

“Are TV’s supposed to do that?”

Lexi shook her head, eyes never leaving the screen. Or lack thereof.

“Didn’t. Didn’t think so.”

Sonic could barely remember anything, or rather could and was simply overwhelmed by it, a strange thing for a speedster. It felt like minutes ago, mainly because it was. They’d been neck and neck in Black Hole Grand Prix 111, Blackout, his heart pounding, his grin wild at the way past real graphics…before the explosion had punched it’s way out the screen, practically through the middle of the finish line. Instinct and enhanced reflexes had saved the bunny girl from a bad hair day and worse, the hedgehog dragging her to the floor as glass and fire screamed towards them. Better the couch than them. He realised his hand was o her back, and removed it as though burnt.

She snorted. Then giggled. Her laugh, when it came, was pure and strangely comforting. He felt terrified guards melt down to become a new, slightly more confidant foundation. She wiped a tear from her eye, the material of her suit glistening with the moisture.

“I gotta say…despite everything…I’m kinda having a good time.”

He smiled weakly.

“Good?”

“Yeah…yeah…really good.” She looked at him, smiling. “Really good.”

“Uh…really?”

She nodded, looking straight at him even as she tried to toss her braid out of her face and behind her ears. Sonic reached out a gloved hand almost without thinking. They froze as the green band drifted to a halt behind the rabbit.

“It’s…it’s stuff like that.” She managed, voice almost breathless.

“What?” His voice was practically the same. He didn’t know why.

“Don’t you…don’t you feel that?”

The hedgehog could feel something, and it was not the kind of thing you discussed in public.

“Lex, I…”

She put a finger to his lips.

“Shh.”

She then put her lips to his lips. For a very long time. Each closed their eyes…

And saw sparks.

--

“Bet you really are Sonic.” the ten year old duck in the blue hat said. He looked smugly pleased with this declaration.

Rev gulped. The split second bulge in his neck was disturbingly surreal.

“Uh, um, that is, I, ah, uh, I’m not Sonic, although I told you that five times already, you gotta believe me, I mean do I look like a hedgehog, although my feathers are kind of a mess today, of course it could be just the clothes, I’m getting kinda sweaty with my costume on underneath all this, uh, I mean, no I’m not Sonic, I’m not a super hero, I don’t have any super powers of any kind at all, I was always picked last for laps at college, kinda ironic now…”

Knuckles took a defensive step forward. It might have helped if he was capable of towering over the trio of brightly coloured boys, but he had to settle for them being around waist height.

“He’s not Sonic.”

“But…” began the one in the red cap.

“He’s not Sonic.”

“But…” chimed in the one in the green cap.

“He’s not Sonic.”

“But…” the one in blue almost pleaded.

“He’s. Not. Sonic.”

Knuckles pointed to the end of the beach a very long way away. He mad sure to strain every muscle in his arm to emphasise maximum distance.

“Sonic’s over there.”

The two beach walkers breathed sighs of well deserved relief as a multicoloured dart took off into the distance, continuing their aimless stroll after they were surer than the sun rising that the small piles of rocks and various other ocean oddities wouldn’t be spawning anymore duckling trios to throw at them.

“Didn’t handle that too well did I?” Rev kept his hands in his pockets, eyes almost magnetised to the sand. Knuckles almost smirked, but settled for a more kindly version. Didn’t stop Rev looking like a manly crying album cover.

“Hey, being a hero is hard enough. Being the hero? That’s a lot more than anyone should ask.”

Rev may have returned the smile as he returned the gaze, his face seeming to sag around his eyes as they widened at the source of faint shadow creeping predator like over the beech. The air suddenly felt a lot heavier. Turning around proved to be a mistake.

The sunlight seemed unsure how to deal with the big scary heavy duty battleship moving across it‘s path, seeming to settle for glinting off it menacingly while technically letting it blot it out. Knuckles took in the aircraft like a seasoned car veteran presented with the latest model, an feeling of slightly high octane panic bubbling away underneath.

The Egg Carrier?

Or at least it had been before what had presumably been a very ugly collision with an even uglier…whatever was supposed to be squatting at various points around the hull and presumably up top on the deck. Wet gravel grey pebbledashed across metallic if faded and rusted red, odd metal barnacle shapes either clinging to the thing or part of it, ugly yellow cables running, twisting, hugging and generally just being there tracing a mad man pattern across the entire thing. More cannon shapes than Knuckles remembered protruded here and where everything else wasn’t there, clustering together with unnervingly sharp blades or spikes, from this distance it was hard to tell but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to get up close and find out. The thrusters spit out faint vapour streams that faded away like starved ghosts, visible only because there were so many of them. The hulk seemed to be propelled by a pulsing pale green light deep within the thrusters, although similarly shaded lightning crackled off every spiked tip and earthed itself into every cable before zooming off somewhere else in an endless nightmare pattern.

The entire thing glistened poisonously as it finished drifting over the beach and came to rest, hovering like the world’s worst Broche rendition of a vulture, over the city. Knuckle’s lowered his head before his neck broke off trying to follow the entire thing.

“Rev, this looks bad. You’ve probably seen a bunch of stuff like this back home, but I think…”

He was talking to a rapidly thinning trail of dust. Heading straight for downtown.

Knuckles peered over the rim of his shades, replacing them to squint up at the heavens.

“I’m being punished, aren’t I?”

--

“Stay close, we gotta do a wide spread!”

Hands clamped around jetpack joysticks, Ace felt his body numb with focus yet shudder with power as energy hammered out of nothing, streaming up optic nerves and pounding against pupils. Narrowed, they became burning laser sights, clanking curves and masses of steel, metal and wire swinging in and out of view.

Each blast raced across the horde, mix matched light flashing painful black and white with unrestrained power. Tech in particular was surprisingly vicious. Being forced to self destruct all three Zoomatrixs to slow down the rampaging horde had been traumatizing, but fortunately targets for plenty of healthy rage release were plentiful.

The leading wave evaporated into shrapnel and fire, Duck quaking twenty centimetres to the left to avoid a large piece of scything, flaming wreckage. An emerald magnekenisis blast popped the support bolts of an upcoming suspension bridge (idle construction equipment indicating it was thankfully abandoned), wrapped around it like a starving anaconda and hurling it backwards into the perusing second wave.

They landed a full mile ahead of the crisscrossing I-beams, piled like a two story mountain.

Duck’s panting carried over the distant tin can echoing on the other side of the make shift barricade. The glow of the twin eggs in each hand was smaller than usual.

“Think that’ll hold ’em?”

An I-beam shifted with a bang. Ace drew his sword.

“Nope.”

Another movement further up the mound was the only warning. One of the strange new style robots, spider like with the tell tale picked apart and put back together Mastermind flair, black wire coil legs dotted with silver and orange plating leading into what may at some point have been an air conditioning unit, loomed over the tip of the highest beams, focused a camera eye with a surreally small whirring. It’s shadow was large and black as it leapt. It didn’t get any smaller when it landed. A blast of laser vision and magnetic beams, a barrage of explosive eggs and a slash down the middle curtsey of the Guardian Strike Sword took care of it, but the damage was done, the example set. Hunched shapes lined the tip of the pile, squatted against the evening sky like metal moons. Too many shapes and far too many sizes to pull it off smoothly though.

A purple wind tore them off and up, smacking them back behind the blockage and down onto the scrambling massed beneath them. The series of explosions barely had time to fade before the remains of the bridge came apart and toppled down the street through midair like dancing metallic dominos, obliterating the remaining waves.

Ace smiled, relived, not turning around until he’d sheathed his weapon.

“Nice move big guy.”

Slam returned his thumbs up, faint wind trails fading away around his hand. His aim had been computer targeting worthy, despite the lop sided pose he’d been forced to adopt around the weight of the crate of…

Ace, Duck and Tech held a staring contest to see who’d ask. Tech lost.

“Uh…what’s with the tissue paper Slam?”

Slam snarled his way through an explanation. Duck frowned at it, a gloved hand scratching a masked scalp.

“But I stoked up last week after Rev’s birthday party. We’re full up.” He recalled the aftermath of his present, All You Can Eat Chilli Gurt Dogs at the Worldrome, and shuddered. “We had to be.”

A boom carried up the evacuated blocks, the distant warehouse swelling, then unfolding in an entropy of dust and collapsing metal and stone. A large shape, the size of the average human this far off, glinted in the setting sun. The shape was the Troll Bot 9001, the head a battleship of platinum framing a stylised front of red metal curves, almost like a moustache.

The battle armour glinted platinum on the chest, arms, crotch and legs, the pelvis, hands and feet the same shade of red as the face plating. Time Skip would have gone nuts.

“A giant robot?” Tech snorted in canine derision. “That’s the best they could do?”

The giant kicked it’s way loose of the skeletal frame of the building, right foot dragging along the air. One building folded into another, each dissolving into dust and solidifying into tumbling rubble.

Ace’s face was grim.

“I think it’ll do.”

Duck waved an unconcerned hand.

“Eh, no problem, this is why God invented defence systems. Five minutes and I’ll blow that thing away before it even reaches headquarters.”

The light made each of them turn, regretting it instantly as closed eyes and raised arms proved feeble shields against the intensity. Acme Tower glowed like a deranged bug zapper, shook as thunder strike fast lightning shot out of the penthouse globe and danced around and down the building. The jets of smoke from the blown out electronics on various floors was nowhere near as cinematic as the defence system battlements, which shook outward, caved inward still dancing with electricity, finally mushrooming upward and downward at the same time as they blew apart. One by one by one. The beacon atop the entire structure flickered surreally before stabilising and glowing away as if nothing had happened. It was the only thing the three could look at for a very long feeling time.

Duck clapped his hands together decisively.

“So! I’m hearing Mars is nice this time of year.”