//------------------------------// // Chapter 56: Sonic The Hedgehog // Story: Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers // by Lucar //------------------------------// Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo entered a large room where there were two portals. Sweetie Belle recognized the one to the human world, so the other - entirely mechanical although she could feel magic in it - must be the one leading to the two versions of Mobius, present and alternate past. Before activating the portal, Scootaloo hesitated a bit, wondering which version they should go to first. In the end, she settled for the present version, which she knew more thanks to the memories of her Infinite side. Once the portal was activated, they traversed it and came out inside a bare room with walls made of plated metal. "Where are we?" Sweetie Belle asked. "It should be Tails' workshop in the Mystic Ruins," Scootaloo answered. "He told me that he would build the portal there, so this must be it. I don't know if he's around however." She then spotted an advanced phone device beside the portal and said, "Let me call him," before she approached it and activated it. «Yes?» the voice of a young boy answered after a few seconds. "Hello Tails. It's me, Phantom. Where are you? I have someone with me who would like to meet you and Sonic." «Phantom! It has been a long time!» «Phantom?» asked another male voice, more mature. «Hey! How are you? Finally decided to visit us?» Phantom rolled her eyes. "Great. He's with you. This will gain us time." «We are flying around with the Tornado,» the young boy, who Sweetie Belle supposed was Tails, informed. «You should join us. Nothing in my opinion beats the feeling of the breeze on the face while standing on the wing of a flying plane. You will love it,» the other, Sonic the filly assumed, said. "Uh. Sounds fun. I should try it," Sweetie Belle said to herself. "But darn. The guy has guts." Phantom grinned. "Maybe I will take you up on your offer another time. Can you come?" «Of course! We should arrive to the workshop in a few minutes. Make yourself at home until then, but be careful with my inventions please.» Phantom chuckled. "Who do you take me for? Sonic? Knuckles?" Tails laughed. "Remember, I'm part Infinite, and Infinite was mature enough to know when to keep his hands away." Sweetie Belle smirked. "But you are also part Scootaloo, who just couldn't stop herself from touching what she shouldn't." She received a glare from Phantom in return, making her guffaw. "We will wait for you outside of the workshop," Phantom growled at the phone in the middle of Tails' laugh before she hung up. "Let's go." They had to explore the workshop a bit to find the exit, finding the hangar where Tails kept variants of the Tornado which wasn't actually far of the room with the portal. Sweetie Belle wanted to get a better look, but Phantom continued and she had to follow her. Just beside the hangar were stairs leading to a smaller, currently empty hangar where Phantom opened a door that revealed to be the exit. It turned out that most of Tails' workshop was underground, and the hangar they came out from was the only part at the surface, on a cliffside to the ocean. The hangar was on a plateau, with stairs leading to the bottom. From the hangar started a long road ending at the cliff, serving as a runway for the Tornado to take off and land. There was also a hydro-generator just beside the hangar, indicating that the workshop worked on hydro power. Not far, a wooden train station could be seen, and in the sky was a large floating island. Sweetie Belle and Phantom were barely out of the workshop that they spotted a red and white biplane approaching. Standing on its left wing was an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog, Sonic, and Sweetie Belle could see a bit of Tails' head in the cockpit, Tails revealing to be an anthropomorphic fox. The fillies waited as Tails landed the plane on the runway, opened the hangar's large door, and slowly made the plane advance into the building before closing the door. As soon as the plane landed on the runway, Sonic jumped from the wing and approached the fillies with a wave of his hand and a "Hey!" Sweetie Belle waved back at him. "Hello!" "Hey, I think that I saw you in the victory party. You are one of Phantom's friends. Sorry, I don't remember your name." "My name is Sweetie Belle, but I'm not the Sweetie Belle that you remember seeing." Sonic looked at her questioningly, then raised an eyebrow as his eyes moved toward Phantom. "More dimensional trouble? Or temporal?" "Dimensional," both Sweetie Belle and Phantom said. Sonic sighed in relief. "Great. For a moment, I thought that we had another Time Eater mess." "I don't know about this Time Eater you are talking about, but I can safely say that our actual mess may be worse," Sweetie Belle said. Sonic remained silent for a few seconds, staring at Sweetie Belle, wondering what that new mess was, before he spread his arms and gave a shrug in a "whatever" fashion. "Baldy McRottenegg has been strangely silent these pass few months, so I guess that I should as well accept the new distraction." At this moment, Tails came out of the workshop, and for the first time, Sweetie Belle could see that he had two tails. "Hey, Tails! Guess what? We're back in action!" Tails groaned. "Of course things couldn't remain peaceful forever... Is Eggman back?" "Well..." Sonic began before he looked back at the fillies. "Actually, does he have anything to do with this?" "Not that I know," Sweetie Belle answered. "All I know is that some army will appear and invade many universes, and two evil Gods will come some time later to add more problems." "Jeez! Talk about a mess," Sonic said. Sweetie Belle then turned anthropomorphic like Phantom. "By the way, since I'm not the Sweetie Belle that you encountered back in Phantom's world, then let me present myself correctly." She extended her arm to shake. "I'm Sweetie Belle, alicorn of the void. To differentiate me from the other Sweetie Belle, you can call me Sweetie Void." Sonic was the first to shake her hand, not questioning her ability to transform. "I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!" "And I'm Miles Prower, but my friends call me Tails," the fox then presented himself as it was his turn to shake Sweetie's hand. Miles Prower... Oh! Miles per hour! Oh my gosh! Sweetie Belle did her best to not laugh. "Nice meeting you two." "So, alicorn of the void? Does this mean that you are the alicorn of nothing?" Sonic joked, having been told what were the alicorns before. "Yup! It's really nice to be able to create spaces of nothing where you would disappear because there is really nothing, not even physic laws to hold the atoms composing your body together." ... "Okay... Please, avoid doing that near somebody," Sonic said. Sweetie Belle giggled. "Well, truth is that I don't know if I can really do that yet. I never tested. I was just messing with you. And you, I got it from Phantom that you can run very fast!" ""Very fast?" Come on, that's almost insulting. I can run several times the speed of sound no sweat! That's far more than "very fast."" "Oh boy..." Sweetie Belle muttered before she turned toward Phantom. "You didn't tell me that he was a Rainbow Dash number 2." "Hey! She's the one who's a Sonic number 2!" Sonic shouted upon hearing her. Phantom rolled her eyes and said to Sweetie Belle, "At least you weren't there when these two were together." "Uh. If this happens again while I'm here, then remind me to bring the popcorn." Both Phantom and Tails chuckled at this while Sonic rolled his eyes. "So I guess that you are searching allies to face this army and these two Gods? This is why you are here?" Tails asked to Sweetie Belle. "Yup!" "Well, you found yourself two more!" Sonic said. "Between my speed and Tails' genius, these guys won't know what will hit them." "Careful. I don't know what this army will bring. They could have the technology to counter your speed," Sweetie Belle warned. "It's a multiversal army after all. Their technology will certainly be above anything you ever encountered." "Eh. I'm used to deal with high-tech foes. I eat robots for breakfast and blow up battleships for dinner everyday. Don't worry. What other allies you have already found?" "Well, as we speak, my Celestia is assuring the alliance with a Galactic Federation. It's exactly what it is. Whole fleets of powerful spaceships. Armies of well-trained space-marines. Laser and plasma guns. And even a bounty hunter who can take on an army by herself with her powerful armorsuit. I have too some powerful friends in an universe that we name the Dream Universe, also with some advanced technology like portals. My Twilight and some other friends are also in a world full of creatures called Pokémon, helping in dealing with a crisis there to ensure that they can join us. Then, once I'm done here and I've checked the second coordinates my Discord gave me, I'm planning to return to a place called Hyrule to talk with the royal there to see if she will accept to join too. Her magical powers and the local hero would be a real plus. There's also that alternate Equestria where everyone is human that I suppose I should visit with Twilight once she's back from the Pokémon World." "Not bad," Sonic said. "Already getting yourself quite the army it seems." "However, do you have a mean to communicate between dimensions?" Tails asked. "It's good to form a multiversal alliance, but if you can't communicate, it will be difficult to coordinate to face the enemies." "No..." Sweetie Belle said with a sigh. "We still haven't managed to find one." "Well, you are lucky! Back during the Time Eater Incident, I worked with my past-self to modify some transceivers to be able to talk with anyone anywhere, even in other dimensions. I'm sure that, with some help, I could make more of them." "You will have to tell me more about that Time Eater Incident, seems like things were interesting." "More like headache-inducing..." Sonic said with a hand on his forehead. "Yeah, time shenanigans tend to do that," Sweetie Belle said with an amused shrug. "At least, I got it easy. The time shenanigan I went through consisted simply of going back and forth between two time periods to solve problems, defeat an evil dark lord, and save the future. Anyway, it's a great news Tails! Twilight, Magolor, and Susie will be happy to hear about it! You are incredible!" Her praise made the young fox chuckle while rubbing the back of his head both in pride and in shyness. "He is not just incredible," Sonic said as he put a hand on Tails' head. "He wasn't even eight years old that he began to repair and tinker my Tornado. At nine years old, he built himself a plane that can turn into a mecha and went one on one against Eggman several times. And that Time Eater moment happened not long after we celebrated his tenth birthday - during MY birthday, that party pooper -. He is a genius that is born only once every few thousands years." "C-come on, Sonic!" Tails shouted with embarrassment. "Eggman is even more of a genius than me! I don't hold a candle compared to him!" Sonic sighed. "I admit... But we could have done without that genius." "Yeah. It's such a shame that he uses his genius to do evils... These few times we had to work together to face a common threat really made me see how much I would have loved to be his assistant in other circumstances." Phantom shrugged. "We can't do anything about it." Sweetie Belle raised a finger and said, "Well..." gaining the attention of the others. "You can do something about it?" Phantom asked. "Yeah, but I already know that these two won't like it." "Tell it anyway." "I could rewrite his mind. I can enter others' minds and do pretty much anything I can think of. See their thoughts, turn them into vegetables, enslave them, or change their personalities. I could turn the most cold-hearted jerk into a softy giving to charities without ulterior motives other than wanting to help." "Yeah... That's definitively a no," Sonic said. "As nice as it would be, it would be too wrong. It would be like killing Eggman and replacing him by some clone who is him but not really." This made Phantom roll her eyes but she decided to not say anything. Stupid goody-two-shoes heroes and their foolish morals. At least, this Sweetie Belle seemed willing to dirty her hands/hooves. Still she was impressed that Sweetie Belle could do something like that. Where were her powers stopping? Sweetie Belle simply shrugged at Sonic's words. "I told you you wouldn't like it." In an instant, Sonic was beside Sweetie Belle, an arm around her shoulders. "That's okay. Say, do you wanna see our pals?" "I would love to!" "Sonic! Sonic!" a voice that sounded like Tails but younger suddenly shouted from the entrance of the workshop. Its origin quickly revealed to be a younger-looking Tails who was running toward them, panicked. Sweetie Belle guessed that he was the Tails from the alternate past version of this world, which the portal was also linked to. "Woah! Hey, Past Tails! A problem?" Sonic asked. "Phantom! You're here too! Oh I'm glad!" Past Tails said upon remarking the presence of Phantom. "Sonic- I mean my Sonic! He...! Help!" "Breathe!" Phantom said. "Calm down, breathe, and tell us what happened." Past Tails followed Phantom's instruction and took a big breath to calm himself down. Once he was calm enough, he said, "I'm really glad to find you here, all of you. I don't think we have long. My Sonic has been captured by my Eggman!" "What?!" both Sonic and Tails shouted in shock. "So Eggman escaped, what a big surprise. Anyone who hadn't seen it coming raise their hand," Phantom said. Nobody raised their hand, mostly because the Sonic and the two Tails instead rolled their eyes. "What happened?" Tails asked. "My Eggman escaped from Prison Island a few weeks ago..." Past Tails began. "Wait. Only a few weeks ago?" Sonic asked. Past Tails shrugged. "Either he was bidding his time, took the time to come up with a plan or prepare his next one, or the security of the prison was just THAT good. Anyway, he escaped, and apparently, he freed my Shadow in the same occasion, the G.U.N. never bothering to tell us about this." "Yeah. As much as I like them, the G.U.N. seems to be mostly made of idiots. Remember Tails? They couldn't even tell the difference between me and Shadow, as if they were all colorblind," Sonic said with some disdain. "Don't remind me... Wait, so Eggman freed Shadow earlier than planned? Ohh that's not good..." Tails said. "It definitively wasn't," Past Tails said. "So we learned about Eggman's escape, but not that he escaped with Shadow. Not sure what happened next, but Eggman kept a low profile in the following weeks. We knew of course we needed to prepare, so the others and I began to gather the Emeralds, but we only wound six of them." "That's not surprising," Tails said. "I learned that to free Shadow from Prison Island, the power of an Emerald was needed. I don't know how Eggman managed to get one from his cell, but if he freed Shadow, then it means that he had one somehow." "That's what we found out. Without warning, a roboticized Shadow appeared and used the seventh Chaos Emerald to take Sonic totally by surprise before he could activate the six others. I saw all this and immediately knew that I needed your help. the last thing I saw before flying away was Eggman flying down on his Egg Mobile while Robo Shadow grabbed Sonic. This means that Eggman now has the seven Chaos Emeralds and Sonic! Maybe he will roboticize him too! We must hurry!" Now everyone was astonished and horrified. "He... roboticized Shadow?" Sonic asked. Phantom put a hand on her face, groaning. "I should have seen that coming. Eggman knew that Prison Island was where his grandfather's secret weapon was kept. Of course that he used the occasion to see what it was. And when he saw that this secret weapon was Shadow, the very Shadow who helped us defeat him, then he decided to not trust him and roboticized him. Worst of all, he freed him at a time where you and Sonic are not ready to fight him." Tails nodded. "Phantom is right. When our Eggman freed our Shadow, Sonic and him were even. Your Sonic, however, still lacks some of the skills and experience to face him. As for you, you haven't even made yet the X Tornado. And it doesn't help that as a robot, Shadows is certainly different." The fox then looked at the others. "We must help them!" "You don't have to tell us twice!" both Sweetie Belle and Phantom said before they ran into the workshop, quickly followed by Sonic and the Tails. "Wait, has Shadow told Eggman about ARK and the Eclipse Cannon?" Sonic wondered. "No idea," Past Tails said. "If he did, then we have double reason to hurry! Eggman doesn't know that inserting the seven Chaos Emerald into the power supply will cause the ARK to hurtle toward the planet and destroy everything! And without us, he won't be able to stop it!" Tails said. "Oh, and also, I hope for you that Knuckles hasn't had to break the Master Emerald into pieces," Sonic said. "One world crisis is already enough, we don't need to add Chaos in the mix. And by Chaos, I'm speaking of a liquid creature that can absorb the Chaos Emeralds to become a powerful giant water-dragon-thing able to destroy whole cities by flooding them." Before long, they were in the portal room, and Tails quickly activated it and set it so it would led them to the past version of the world. "I just thought of something," Tails then said. "How will we find where Eggman has taken Past Sonic?" "Uh..." Sonic began, searching for a solution. "I can feel the energy of the Emeralds and follow it. Where the Emeralds are, Past Sonic must not be far," Sweetie Belle said. "Really? Thank you! Uh... Wait. Who are you? You are familiar," Past Tails wondered. "I'm an alternate version of Sweetie Belle, one of Scootaloo's, or Phantom's, friends. Call me Sweetie Void. You can count on me to help you deal with your Eggman." Phantom smirked at her. "Eh. I don't think that your powers will be needed. My Phantom powers will be more than enough to make Eggman regret that he didn't remain in his cell." Sweetie Belle smirked back. "Doesn't mean that I can't be part of the fun." "Hey! Leave some to me!" Sonic said. The group then entered the portal.