Cosmo was struck by how lost she felt as she looked down at the girl on the bed—Toph, if she remembered correctly. A few weeks ago, Cosmo had felt as though she understood her place in the universe. She was to serve as the guide to the galaxy for her Mobian friends, leading them from planet to planet to find the planet eggs and save the universe from the Metarex’s evil grasp. Whenever Tails asked where to go, she would point, and they would find more Metarex to defeat. They had been getting close to figuring out what the Metarex’s final plan was, but then…
Then this Void had shown up. Across the galaxy, they had been able to sense it, how it altered reality on a fundamental level. The Master Emerald had demanded it send Chris home before it was too late. And then… the Metarex themselves had started acting strange. While before they had been moving toward some kind of endgame in the center of the Galaxy, the moment the Void appeared all their large-scale movements had just stopped.
Nobody had any idea why. For the first couple weeks, Cosmo and her friends had continued to perform raids, liberating some planets, and even finding a few planet eggs to restore life to worlds that the Metarex had drained—including the one for Mobius. But there was no longer heavy resistance, and they heard nothing from the Metarex commanders.
Nothing.
All because of this Void that none of them understood.
So the Mobians had returned home, because home was very close to the Void’s origin. And now that they were here, they’d found some otherworlders who were sure this Void was set to destroy all worlds, devouring reality itself from all angles. Nothing was free from it.
Cosmo felt small. She’d believed she was important, helping the heroes of the universe save it from brutal tyrants. But all of that seemed utterly insignificant now. Who cared about the life-force of a few planets when all of reality was at stake? Evil overlords were far preferable to absolute nothingness.
She had been blind. The girl, the blind girl laying before her, saw clearer than she did.
Toph began to stir, letting out a pained groan. “Uuuugh, am I going to get beat up in every world I go to?”
“Nothing is broken,” Cosmo assured her. “You just have a nasty bump on your head.”
Toph sat up, kicking her feet onto the ground. “Are you a plant?”
“I am a Seedrian, a plant-based life form, so… yes,” Cosmo admitted. “How are you feeling?”
“I have a splitting headache and I wanna crack that old man’s egg.”
Cosmo pursed her lips. “That... appears to be the normal response after an encounter with Eggman.”
“I can see why.” Toph twisted around while performing a few stretches. “So, you the doctor?”
She shook her head emphatically. “Oh, no, I’m just Cosmo.”
“You sure sound like a doctor.” Toph finished her stretches and pointed to the bed next to her. “Lulu, stop pretending to be asleep.”
Lulu let out a dramatic sigh. “I was hoping for some more shuteye, but oh well.” She sat up, putting her red hat back on. “Don’t tell me my diagnosis, I already know I’m fine.”
“Oh… okay,” Cosmo said. “Your friends are waiting outside.” She led them through a door to where Twilight, Mimi, and Tippi were standing.
“Toph!” Twilight jumped toward her and pulled her into a winged hug. “I’m so glad you’re up!”
“Yeah.” Toph let out a yawn. “Do you know we’re in a spaceship? Not attached to the ground?”
“Yes! It’s the Blue Typhoon, and it has Knuckles and the Master Emerald on it!” She broke off the embrace. “I’ll explain more later. Right now, we’re flying to the Void to perform some tests on it.”
“Poking our head right into the belly of the beast…”
“It was my idea,” Mimi said, curtsying. “You never know when you need more information!”
Lulu let out a snort.
Toph pointed at Mimi. “You. Blaze, right?”
“Her name’s actually Mimi,” Tippi offered.
“Right, whatever, Mimi. You owe me some explanations.” Toph cracked her knuckles. “First, how about you explain why you transformed into O’Chunks.”
Mimi blinked. “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with m—”
“Attention all passengers and crew!” Tails called from an intercom. “We are entering the Void’s proximity—but Eggman’s already here!”
“I should get to the bridge,” Cosmo said.
“Then get going!” Mimi encouraged.
Toph grabbed Mimi by the collar. “You’re coming with us. I’m not about to let you run away without answering some questions.”
“Toph!” Twilight chided. “She fought for u—”
“I don’t trust her, so I’m not letting her out of my sight.” Toph’s frown deepened. “Be angry at me all you want and ground me later, I don’t care. She’s shifty.”
“O… kay.” Twilight folded her ears back. “I’m sorry, Mimi.”
“You can’t do this to me!” Mimi whined, flailing wildly. “Ninnies! Bullies! Put me down!”
Toph snickered. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”
Cosmo shook her head—she didn’t know what to think of this encounter. Was Mimi trustworthy? Was Toph being unreasonable? She didn’t know these people, so how could she judge? All she could do was lead them to the bridge. It was a short journey, taking less than a minute.
The bridge was an elongated room with several seats under a forward-facing partial dome of glass. This doubled both as a screen and a window to the stars outside. Directly in front of them sat a swirling mass of darkness that took up most of the view, with a purple, vaguely cylinder-shaped ship standing in front of it—Eggman’s craft. Tails sat in the captain’s seat, hands folded in thought. Sonic stood to his side, tapping an impatient foot.
Eggman appeared on a projected digital frame shortly after they arrived. “Oh ho ho ho ho! It appears we had the same idea, Tails!”
“We just want to run some tests,” Tails said. “We don’t need to start shooting at each other. Again.”
“You know how that goes!” Sonic said, waggling a finger at the screen.
Eggman began to twirl his mustache. “I don’t know, I have already claimed this Void in the name of the Eggman Empire. Who knows what kinds of new robots I could make with its power?”
“Nothing that could stop me!” Sonic chuckled.
Eggman let out a disgruntled sigh. “I’d need time to build it anyway. Bah. Fine. Scan away. I’ll warn you, get too close and it will rip your atoms to shreds. Best as I can tell, it’s a vortex of pure destruction poking in from another universe. And no, it’s not Earth, I checked.”
“Thanks Egghead!” Sonic gave him a mocking salute.
“Don’t get used to it,” Eggman groaned.
“C’mon, you know you like working together!”
“Yes,” Cosmo added. “I was looking forward to our joint effort to stop the Metarex.”
Eggman scratched his chin. “Fair enough. I did want to see the little scrap heaps blown to pieces. But we all know how that went.”
“I wonder where they are…” Tails mused.
“It doesn’t matter, right now we need to focus on this Void.” Eggman held out a hand in gesture. “It’s interfering with our reality on a fundamental level. I can’t even imagine the power behind it. My suggestion is that we introduce the Master Emerald’s power to it, see wha—”
A blazing ring of gold energy suddenly appeared in space beside the Egg ship and Blue Typhoon, depositing not one, but several dozen ships. Unlike Eggman’s robots, which were smooth and rounded with chrome exteriors and only sported the occasional spike, these ships were designed with harsh angles, scale-like plating, and soulless glass spheres that gave the illusion of eyes. The overall designs resembled fish more than anything, and predatory ones at that.
“The… Metarex…” Cosmo breathed.
“We haven’t seen this many of them in one place in weeks!” Sonic shouted.
“They’re here for the Void too…” Twilight said, ears perking up.
“Oh dear…” Eggman leaned back in his chair. “This could be problematic…”
Tails pressed a few buttons next to his chair. “They… they see us, but they’re ignoring us.”
“Hey Eggman!” Sonic grinned. “Wanna take them out?”
“No, I want to see what they’re doing…” Eggman let out a thoughtful grunt. “They must know something about it we don’t.”
“I still can’t believe they’re talking to you like some kind of old friend,” Toph muttered. “This is surreal.”
“Oh ho ho ho ho ho!” All evidence of Eggman’s concern left his features. “Just you wait, metal-smasher, before the week is out Sonic and I will have a showdown for the ages!”
“That quickly turns into us working together to fight whatever evil he’s unleashed,” Sonic added.
Eggman glared at him. “Clam it, wise guy, that doesn’t always happen.”
“It happens often enough!”
“I had nothing to do with the Metarex!” Eggman waved his hands around angrily.
Cosmo would have laughed if she weren’t so concerned about the Metarex. The destroyers of her people, messing with a world-eating Void. There was no way this could be good.
“They’re doing something!” Tails called, bringing up another image on the screen. One of the Metarex ships opened up, allowing a single member of their race to jump into open space. Cosmo recognized him instantly. Humanoid, with numerous dull purple spikes protruding from his metallic body. A single green orb dominated his chest, with a smaller one sitting in the center of his head. That was Dark Oak. The leader of the entire Metarex armada.
Why now? Their ships could get here faster than us. If they wanted to use it, they could have long ago…
Dark Oak lifted his hands toward the Void, summoning seven sparks of light to him. The seven chaos emeralds. Pure chaotic energy. What does he hope to do with them?
“Oh.” Eggman said. “Oh.”
“What?” Twilight asked.
“He’s trying to use the chaos energy within the Emeralds to control the Void.”
“Can we shoot him now?” Sonic asked.
“It’s too late. He’s done all he needs to.”
A tendril of purple, noxious smoke reached out from the void to the seven chaos emeralds, coalescing in the center.
“This… this is part of what the Master Emerald was telling me!” Twilight said.
Eggman stared at her with an intensity previously absent from his features. “What did it show you?”
“There was a dark hand, that… Metarex, and the emeralds. The emeralds turning to… dust.”
As she spoke the words, the seven lights surrounding Dark Oak exploded, tossing him unceremoniously against the hull of his ship. The darkness from the Void surrounded the bristling lights of chaos and devoured them, drawing all the energy into itself.
Everyone aboard the Blue Typhoon heard a pained, unholy scream come from engineering, shrill and panicked, yet beautiful in its call.
“The Master Emerald…” Twilight winced, folding her ears back. “It… it felt that.”
“At… at least the Metarex don’t have the chaos emeralds anymore,” Cosmo offered. “That’s good, right?”
“Maybe,” Eggman muttered. “Or maybe now that they’re gone the Metarex will destroy us. A—” Eggman paused as something came up in his feed. “Tails, are you broadcasting anything?”
“Hmm? No, I don’t think so.” Tails pressed a few buttons. “Wait… we are broadcasting something. Directly to Dark Oak’s ship…”
Cosmo glanced at Mimi—who looked more than a little nervous. But she had been under Toph’s watchful gaze, she couldn’t have done anything.
“Where’s Lulu?” Twilight asked.
Toph stamped her foot on the ground. “She’s… in a round, metal thing near the back of the ship? Another ship?”
“Locking down hangars!” Tails shouted, pressing a few buttons. “I’m locking it down… error? I’m the captain, the system shouldn’t be able to do that!”
“She’s gone,” Toph said. “No longer touching the ship.”
On the screen in front of them, a white airplane zoomed away from the Blue Typhoon, directly for the Metarex fleet.
“Shadow, take that craft out!” Eggman ordered.
The Egg ship opened a hangar to let Shadow out, but he never left—the Metarex fleet started firing its weapons, forcing the Egg ship and Blue Typhoon to raise shields. Cosmo whimpered.
“What is happening?!” Toph asked.
“We’re getting shot at!” Sonic said. “Tails!”
Tails pressed several buttons in rapid succession. “I’m getting us out of here!”
The Blue Typhoon shuddered as Tails pulled a 180 and flipped around, zooming around the moon of Mobius, the Egg ship flying alongside. They soon had an entire moon between them and the Metarex fleet.
There was no pursuit whatsoever.
“We safe?” Toph asked.
“I… think so,” Tails said. “But Lulu got away.”
“I wonder what she told them…” Eggman scratched his chin.
“I know who knows.” Toph punched Mimi in the face, driving her to the ground. “Enough games! What’s going on!?”
“Toph!” Twilight chided. “I’m so sorry Mimi, I…”
Mimi started laughing. She threw her head back, her laugh turning into a demented, unnatural giggle that sounded as though it was a skipping audio track.
Twilight took a step back. “Mimi?”
“Doofuses…” Mimi cackled. “I’m not telling you anything but this: Count Bleck says hi!” Once again, she snapped her own neck and twisted it a few dozen times, each cycle carrying with it the sound of a wind-up toy and cracking bone, taking the worst aspects of natural and artificial motion and blending them together. As her body began to shrivel, Twilight encased her in a magical restraint. This did absolutely nothing—when her spidery legs erupted from her crinkled form to Cosmo’s utter revulsion, Mimi burst through the barrier without even trying. The thing before Cosmo no longer looked alive or dead, but some kind of unholy mesh of mechanics, organics, and paper.
“What… are you?” Cosmo breathed, taking a step back from the spidery monstrosity.
“MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!” Mimi trilled. “I’m just Mimi! Just Mimi!”
Eggman frowned. “Well, I’m going to let you all have fun with that.” He hung up.
Sonic shrugged. “Just like Eggman…” He jumped into the air, spinning so fast he became a blue sphere rather than a hedgehog. Twisting through the air, he slammed into Mimi at outrageously high speeds.
She didn’t even budge.
“MIMIMIMIMIMIMI! I’m invincible, idiot! You can’t do anything to me!”
Twilight surrounded her in a telekinetic aura. “I might be able to do something.”
“What are you gonna d—”
Twilight teleported Mimi outside the ship into the cold vacuum of space. They could see her just outside the Blue Typhoon’s main window.
However, to Twilight’s shock, this didn’t seem to deter her. Her spidery legs stretched far beyond their natural length and latched onto the ship’s glass dome. She punctured a hole with one of her legs, and explosive decompression began. It was not as violent of a rush of air as most would think, but it was enough to blow the hair of everyone in the room toward the hole. The real danger was Mimi forcing her legs through the opening she’d just made.
“Everyone off the bridge!” Tails shouted, jumping out of his seat and to the exit door. Toph, Twilight, Tippi, and Sonic followed him, with Cosmo taking up the rear. Just before she slipped through the door, she stole one last glance at the disgusting monstrosity that was Mimi.
“So much anger…” Cosmo shook her head, running through the door after the others. It closed behind her and sealed shut. Three seconds later, something massive smashed right into it, buckling the reinforced metal.
“Keep running!” Sonic shouted.
“This is Tails!” Tails said into his watch. “Everyone, we have an intruder! A shapeshifter, Mimi! Nothing we do hurts her! Avoid at all costs!”
“Knuckles, that means you stay where you are!” Cosmo added to the order. They jumped into an elevator, the doors sliding shut just as Mimi broke down the outer door. For a moment, Cosmo felt the air around them depressurizing, but this ended the moment the elevator doors had sealed.
However, now that Mimi was further in the ship with more air, she could be heard again. “MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!” It was a sound of madness, delusion, and rage. Rage unlike any Cosmo had ever felt. What happened to you?
The elevator reached its destination. Engineering. Cosmo, Tails, Sonic, Twilight, Tippi, and Toph all jumped out just in time, for Mimi had caught up and crushed the elevator from above with her many legs.
“There’s nowhere to run in space…” Mimi chuckled darkly. “Nowhere to run at all! What do you think all this scurrying will accomplish!?”
“Now, Knuckles!” Cosmo shouted.
Knuckles nodded, turning to the Master Emerald. “The seven are the servers… and the seven have been lost…”
“What are you doing?”
Knuckles ignored her screeches. “In this tragedy, Master Emerald, still, I ask for your power! Strike down the evil before us!”
The Master Emerald flashed a bright green color. A burst of energy came from its many facets and hit Mimi directly. There was a sound like glass shattering, and Mimi took a few steps back.
“What… what did it do to me?” Mimi’s legs wobbled as she struggled to regain her footing.
Sonic jumped up and kicked Mimi in the face, making her yell out in pain. “I think it removed your invincibility!” Sonic laughed.
“No… no! Nothing can overrule the Count’s power! He gave this to me!”
“This Count of yours is nothing,” Knuckles huffed. “And now you’re going to feel the pain…”
“Me first,” Toph said. She kicked the metallic ground, peeling up a piece of Tails’ precious ship, slapping Mimi across the face with it. One of the spider’s legs detached, making her stumble. This allowed Sonic to jump in a few times, removing a couple limbs while Knuckles drove on, pummeling her with his fists. Twilight even got in on the action, releasing a few laser blasts right at her.
Without her invincibility, Mimi was helpless to the dogpile. She was soon nothing more than a crumpled green cube with gears poking out the sides—no legs at all. “MIMIMimimimimimimi… mi… mi…” She coughed. “You… can’t… no…” Letting out a noise that was a cross between a cobra’s hiss and the sound of knives being sharpened, she was engulfed by a purple vortex, taken out of the world.
“Coward!” Knuckles shouted.
“Get used to it, that appears to be how they work,” Toph muttered. “They talk big but then you beat them down and they run away.”
Sonic shrugged. “Eh, running's not that bad. I do it sometimes.”
Cosmo let out a relieved breath. “We’re okay… we won!”
Twilight nodded. “Thanks for your help.”
Toph coughed. “Uh, hello? I think we all forgot about Lulu escaping? What’s she doing?”
Cosmo’s smile vanished and her stomach fell. Lulu was going to the Metarex, and they wanted her. What was she offering them?
~~~
Lulu strutted off her stolen craft and onto the bleak, harsh railing inside the Metarex flagship. Her shoes clattered along the metal beneath her as she approached a central core. There was no floor to the room, only four bridges that led to a central power core powered by some sort of crystal that appeared to have a galaxy within it. Along the edges of the room dozens of small Metarex scurried around—though Lulu supposed they could just be simple robots, not complex beings like Dark Oak clearly was.
Speaking of Dark Oak, he was floating in front of the galaxy-crystal power source.
“Speak, Lulu,” he said with a deep, synthetic voice that was only accentuated by the expansive room.
Lulu curtsied. “My pleasure. I am Lulu, servant of Count Bleck, the man behind the Void in the sky.”
He made no visual response. “Your message said as much. Why did you contact us?”
“I’m here to offer you a proposition.” She pressed her hands together, smirk widening. “You see, I’ve been performing divinations ever since I arrived in this world, gathering information on the conflict in the stars. I’ve seen your power. The way you steal the life force from the center of worlds, leaving them to die. You do not conquer—you bring change.”
“This is true.” Dark Oak began tapping his finger against his arm, as if in thought.
“You recognize that the world is not as it should be, that it is filled with disgusting, horrible things that only bring pain and needless suffering. I see it in your soul.” She waved her fingers, prompting magical sparks to fly off into the air. “You are certain things are not as they should be.”
Dark Oak only nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Count Bleck agrees. That Void? We’re using it to destroy all worlds—and create perfect new ones in their place.”
Dark Oak stopped tapping his finger against his arm, plunging the room into utter silence. He floated down until he was standing on the same railing Lulu was. He was still several times taller than her, but she understood it as a gesture of respect. “And your Count would allow us to be part of these new worlds?”
“Rather,” Lulu confirmed.
“And we would be able to define the new form?”
“He has promised as much to me and the others.”
“Then what is the price of this?”
Lulu leaned forward, smile widening. “Help us destroy all worlds and stop those annoying vagabonds who call themselves ‘heroes’.”
Dark Oak nodded. “Tempting.”
“But?”
“I must confer with my commanders. If they agree to go forward, we will need to meet with your Count in person to finalize our agreement.”
Lulu bowed out of respect. “Just tell me when you’ve agreed. I can ask him to alter the Void so you can go directly through without being destroyed—the entire fleet.”
“Satisfactory. Thank you for bringing this offer to us. We unfortunately do not have quarters suited for animal life, so you will have to wait here.”
“Psh, not a problem. Go, talk to your people. I can wait.”
She watched intently as he turned around, summoning holographic images of two other individuals: both humanoid hunks of metal like himself. One was darker purple with slanted glass orbs akin to eyes, while the other was white with three eye-orbs in his face. Their discussion happened out of her earshot.
She didn’t mind. She had already performed enough divinations to know that this was going to work.
They would make a fine addition to Count Bleck’s army.
~~~
“Eggman’s returning to Mobius,” Tails reported. They were all back on the bridge. For all the devastation Mimi had caused, it hadn’t taken much to repair the broken windshield. Though Twilight was utterly baffled as to how Sonic could breathe in space.
“All Mobians can do that,” Cosmo answered. “I can too. I think Chris was the only one who couldn’t.”
“How!? You need air, right? Right?”
“I am… uncertain.” Cosmo put a hand to her chin. “Tails! How do you breathe in space?”
“No idea! I’ve been meaning to research it, but we haven’t exactly had time with all that’s going on!”
“When all this is over I’m going to run experiments,” Twilight said, tapping her hoof on the ground rapidly. “So many experiments.”
“I’m confused, is there not air in space?” Toph asked.
“No,” Twilight chuckled nervously. “The only thing between you and a vast expanse of nothing is that hastily repaired glass wall.” She pointed at what was effectively a duct-tape job performed on the shattered opening in the windshield.
“...I think I hate space,” Toph decided.
At that point, the two members of the Blue Typhoon crew that Twilight hadn’t been personally introduced to walked onto the bridge—the pink girl and the rabbit. This time, Twilight noticed a blue doll-like creature fluttering around the rabbit’s head.
“Amy, Cream!” Cosmo greeted them with a bow. “How are things?”
“Amy’s just upset Sonic isn’t back yet,” the rabbit, presumably Cream, said.
“My Sonic just went out to repair the windshield!” The pink one pulled a hammer out of nowhere and pointed at the repair job. “Clearly that’s done, so why isn’t he back yet?”
“Probably just going for a walk,” Cosmo said.
“Yeah, or avoiding you,” Toph added.
Amy twirled her hammer around and aimed it at Toph’s head. “What’d you just say, squirt?”
“I said he’s probably avoiding you, duh.” Toph tilted her head to the side. “You deaf?”
“I’ll make you deaf…” She swung her hammer. Toph slammed her foot into the ground, slapping Amy in the face with a metal plate.
“Toph!” Tails shouted. “Stop bending my floor!”
“It was in self-defense!” Toph held her hands up in surrender. “You saw the whole thing!”
Twilight facehooved. “Tippi, tell me, are we the only sane ones here?”
Tippi thought about this for a moment. “Cosmo seems reasonable to me…” Cosmo nodded her thanks to Tippi.
“Get back here!” Amy shouted, swinging her hammer after Toph.
“Give me some rocks and then we’ll talk!” She jumped over the hammer and kicked Amy in the face. “Or you can talk to my foot, that works to—” The hammer smacked Toph in the chest, sending her flying into the windshield.
“Everyone stop!” Tails shouted. “This is your Captain speaking!”
Toph and Amy ignored him, continuing to chase each other around the bridge.
Tails put his head in his hands. “I get no respect…”
Flapping over to him, Twilight laid her hoof on his back. “Hey, I know it’s hard. But they aren’t destroying your bridge anymore. And you know what?”
“What?”
“I think that’s their way of bonding.”
Tails sat up, blinked twice, and let out a short laugh. “You would think that after seeing Sonic and Knuckles punch each other all the time, I’d be able to figure that out. Thanks, Twilight.”
“Don’t mention it.” She ruffled her wings, thinking for a moment. “So, what do we do now?”
“I guess we go back down to Mobius and try to find your Pure Heart. The Metarex don’t seem to care about us right now. In fact…” He performed a check on their location with his scanners. “They’re flying right into the Void. ...Wait what?”
He quickly brought up the Metarex fleet on the screen. Sure enough, every last one of them was sailing into the purple fog of the Void. Rather than being torn apart by the vortex’s destructive energy, they approached it as though it were nothing more than a puffy cloud on a particularly windy day. They passed through into the darkness beyond, leaving the world of Mobius far behind.
“...I think Lulu got what she wanted.” Twilight swallowed hard. “I… get the impression that’s very, very bad for us.”
“Can someone explain to me what on earth is going on!?” Toph asked. “Blind, remember?”
“Wait you’re blind?” Amy asked.
“Yeah! Did you think these eyes were just for show, or something?”
“I didn—”
“OH HO HO HO HO HO!” Eggman’s voice came in over the comm. He appeared onscreen without Tails pressing any buttons. “Would you look at that, they’re completely gone! Not our problem anymore! So you know what this means—it’s time to use the power of that Void to start the new Eggman Empire! I hope you’re ready for a challenge, Sonic, because this time I’ve got one for you! Come and get me!”
Twilight blanked. “Eggman, wait n—” but the feed was already cut. “Ponyfeathers. I don’t think anyone ever told him what the Void’s for.”
“Oh, dear.” Cosmo put her hands over her mouth. “Can he make it… worse?”
“Tippi?”
Tippi fluttered up and down a few times. “He’d need an artifact of power, and from what I know all your chaos emeralds were destroyed by Dark Oak.”
“He has a lot of synthetic copies stolen from the Metarex,” Tails pointed out.
“Oh… Then yes, he might make things worse…”
~~~
Eggman sat back in his big, comfy chair, nestled right in the bottom of his base. “Your tips have turned out to be remarkably reliable, my dear.”
Mimi curtsied. “Golly, I just wanted to help!”
“I doubt that very much. You obviously have some ulterior motive.” Eggman snapped his fingers, summoning Shadow to his side. “Restrain her.”
“NYEH!” Mimi transformed into something so small Shadow couldn’t see it. “DOOFUSES!” There was a small burst of purple as she vanished from the universe.
“...Everything about that girl is deeply concerning,” Eggman commented. “No matter. She’s gone, and she left the secrets to crafting the Eggman Empire behind!”
“Hmph,” Shadow said, crossing his arms.
“Look, if you have issues with it, you can walk out right now, I won’t stop you. You’ve done it before and you can do it again.”
Shadow remained silent.
“But you want to stay and see how things turn out, don’t you? And you can’t bear to go to Sonic and his bunch of happy-go-lucky, hug-prone, overly-cheerful friends.”
Shadow walked away into the darkness.
“Bah, whatever, I have the Void. Time to rid myself of this pesky hedgehog once and for all!”
A notification popped up on his computer desktop, reminding him that every time he had said that in the past, he’d failed miserably. He dismissed the notification without thinking.