Nothing.
That was everything Sonic could see right now. Absolutely nothing.
How he got there? Where was there exactly? When? He could not remember, but even if he could see nothing, he could still feel. And boy, the pain on his whole body was killing him. He wanted to scream, to cry, to shout at the top of his lungs until his voice couldn't speak anymore. He didn't had any broken bones, that was good, but he was sure he got new scars, and even some bruises.
And then, in the middle of the silence in the darkness, he could heard something. He didn't knew what, but he was glad that he could still listen at least. Slowly, the sound became more and more clear, until he could start to hear something like... stomps? Yeah, they definitely where stomps. But why? Who could be doing such loud noises? Sonic didn't knew, and despite the pain on his body, he started to grew nervous as he also heard some kind of skrrrahh.
Yeah, it's a weird word, but it was the best way to describe how it sounded like. Now, what could it possibly be?
Lasers. Those were the only things that could make a skrrrahh sound. He felt his eyes opening at slow pace, and that just made all the pain of his body multiply, while the sound became clearer: it was both stomps and lasers. He managed to finally open his eyes, and got a hard time to adjust his sight at the light. At first he only saw something big and blurry, but as his sight started to adjust, he felt his heart bumping at fast pace as his eyes widened.
Right in front, there was a giant robot with Eggman's face. But with giant it meant giant, like, 1700 feet taller at least. It combined his distinctive red color and also a bit of light blue and black. It was also launching giant red lasers from its eyes, destroying everything on his way.
Sonic decided to stood up, and he felt his whole body begging him to stop, but he didn't yield and decided to keep moving anyways. If you're wondering how much it hurt, well, it was basically like if his skin was burning and his bones were cracked and destroyed into small pieces. Again, no bones were broken, but he could still feel the pain on his entire body.
Finally, he managed to stood completely up and check his surroundings: the environment was on fire, ruble of the Brighthouse could be seen around, and the 7th Chaos Emerald was a few meters ahead of him. His mind was a bit dizzy, and he still couldn't remember how he got in this situation or what was happening...
No. No, he did knew what was going on: Eggman. He did something, something really bad, and now he's taking over Equestria.
"... I... need to..." Sonic said weakly, as he took a step, and then immediately fell in the ground with pain. "... g-get... that... Emerald..." he finished, as he stood up again and started to walk slowly towards the Chaos Emerald.
Then, the robot opened his head and grabbed something inside of it with his right hand, then threw it away as the head closed up again and looked straight at Sonic.
The hedgehog didn't felt intimidated and kept walking towards the Emerald limping, while holding one arm in pain as he also groaned, but never stopped watching the Emerald.
"Hey you! Yes, you, the one reading this. This is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog! And I'm pretty sure you have no idea what the actual fuck is going on, right? How do I ended up like this, where that giant robot with Egghead's face came from, why the Brighthouse seems destroyed and how did we found the seventh Chaos Emerald..."
Sonic finally reached the Emerald and kneeled in defeat, then grabbed carefully the powerful jewel and looked at it with a little smile.
"Well, to answer all of your questions, I believe we should rewind back to where everything began..."
The robot focused on Sonic and charged up the laser eyes, and then he shoot them towards him.
3 Weeks ago...
In the skies of Equestria, Tails flew around at top speed, spinning his tails fast enough as the wind blew his fur and he smiled with excitement.
Feel the passion ignite me
Feel it burning inside me
I won't let this life just pass me by
He then charged up his electrical powers to give some rockets to his shoes, and then boosted through the sky as he started to make some loops in the air and twirled some clouds around just for fun.
Gonna start a revolution
Go by the name hero
Take back control
Yeah, here I go
After that, Tails swooped down with a smirk, and then, seconds before touching the ground, he boosted flying back as he broke the speed of sound in the air, and then flew all around Equestria.
Today I've gotta make a change
Straight to the top, I'm on my way
And I was meant for so much more
And I found a dream worth fighting for
And nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me
Nothing can stop me now
Can stop me now
He finally reached his destination: Maretime Bay, where he lived on the present since neither him nor his friends have found all the Chaos Emeralds yet. But it didn't bothered him at all. In fact: he liked Equestria, a lot that is. He had peace very often, and he even started his own business to gave his new powers a good use. Electronic Tails was doing great, and now he had his own workshop to make his work easier. It was near Hitch's station, actually, and it was a yellow building both on the outside and the inside.
Even Sonic and Knuckles have said that they loved this land, and that they wanted to stay if they could, but...
No Tails thought. Don't think on that.
He decided to focus on the path towards Electronic Tails instead. Once he reached the door, he scanned his hand on the scanner so it could recognize his print and let him exclusively enter. He decided to put the scanner as the lock instead of a normal one to avoid robbery, and it had worked so far thankfully.
"Time to get to work, then!" Tails told himself with a smile.
He grabbed his goggles and putted them on his forehead, changed the 'Closed' sign to 'Open' and prepared everything at fast pace. He smiled with pride at the place ready for get clients, as the door opened and the first client got in.
"Welcome to Electronic Tails!" Tails greeted with a smile. "So, what can I do for you?" he asked. However, once he realized who entered the place, his smile became bigger. "Morning, Sonic!" he greeted to his big brother.
"'Sup, Tails!" Sonic greeted back with a smile. "I hope I'm not coming on a bad moment" he said.
"Oh no, don't worry. I literally just opened!" Tails explained. "I'm guessing you're not here just for talking, are you?" he asked with a smirk.
"Actually, I am" Sonic said with a smile, which confused Tails a bit. "Hey, don't tell me I cannot pay my little brother a visit now" he joked, grabbing Tails and rubbing his head with his fist, while Tails just giggled.
"Stop!" Tails said in laughs. "I'm not saying that you can't, but... well, usually you don't show up here. Not that it bothers me! I mean, with the missing Chaos Emerald, and Eggman still out there, waiting to attack at any moment now... I understand" he said with a sad smile.
"Hey, cheer up, bud!" Sonic told him with a smile. "Eggman may be planning something, and the last Emerald is still missing, that's true, but for that, we have the clue Discord gave us, remember?" he said. "Besides, I'm the one who gave the place to you as a present, remember?" he added with a smirk.
Tails blushed a bit in embarrassment and scratched his head. "Yeah... I forgot about that..." he confessed with a sheepish smile.
Sonic shook his head with a smirk and a fist on his hip. "Classic ol' Tails, I guess" he said with a smirk.
That just made the two brothers burst out laughing, and then they began to chit chat normally.
Unknown for them, they were being watched by Misty, who was hiding behind one of the stock doors, listening to their conversation and gulping nervously, afraid that they might accidentally discover her hiding and spying on them.
Useless.
That was the perfect word to describe everything he has done so far with the glyphs Metal Pipp sent months ago before she got destroyed. Everything he did was useless, and the fact that he barely understood the ancient language of the ponies back in the day didn't helped either.
"This is beyond everything I know..." Eggman muttered to himself with frustration, as he walked back and forth on his lab. "Nothing has worked: the translator; the glyph codes, the reinvention... not even Opaline knows the meaning of any of this!" he pointed out.
He then rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb from this right hand, as he tried to think on what to do and where to go from here. So far, persuading Sonic and his friends hasn't working. It didn't worked in the cave, it didn't worked in Winter Wishday, and it pretty much won't worked in general. He was trying to be as patient as he could, but he was reaching a point where there wasn't any patience left.
"It's not that I need to find out what those glyphs mean ASAP, but there was an image of Opaline and those 'Mane 5'..." Eggman muttered again. "Even the Crystals Opaline wants to steal where on it, so it must mean something..." he said.
He looked back at the computer and frowned. He still couldn't find a way to restore the death Chaos Emerald, and he knew that, in order for his plan to succeed, he needed to steal the ones Team Sonic had. However, knowing that Opaline, the Mane 5 and even the Unity Crystals where part of the glyphs, made him wonder if he or Team Sonic were part of it as well.
"Gosh, the things one have to do in order to get what it wants..." Eggman muttered with concern, and then he sighed. "A very, very small part of me hates the idea of betraying Opaline, and Misty as well in the process, in order to fulfill my master plan... but sometimes, we must do some sacrifices in order to change the world" he stated, a bit more confident now.
While the idea of betraying Opaline sounded very easy at first, as time passed by and he interacted more with her and Misty, everytime he remembered he will have to betray Opaline, and therefore Misty, a part of him felt he needed to think things twice before doing it. But another part of him, always shouting louder, told him to keep going. He already got this far, why regret now when he was so close to victory?
"Maybe I should go to attack Sonic and his friends to distract myself..." Eggman suggested to himself. "But they're already more alert because of my previous attacks, so the fight wouldn't last at all..." he pointed out. "Gosh, this is getting harder than it needs to be..." he complained. "But one thing it's for sure... It doesn't matter how long it takes, I will decipher the meaning behind these glyphs. One way or another..." he stated with confidence.
And so, Eggman turned around and walked out of his lab, because he had a pending talk with Opaline after he threatened her months ago.
Both Amy and Rouge where almost dying from a cold because of their unexpected arrival in he snowy parts of Equestria, and the worst thing is that they arrived during a blizzard.
After they opened up the portal to arrive into this land, they wondered around for at least 2 or 3 hours before finally finding a cave to stay. Using his Chaos Control, Shadow managed to stop time long enough for Rouge to make a fire, with Amy gathering some wooden planks. However, that fire wasn't enough to warm them, so Shadow left to look for more, and Omega went with him since he was a robot and he couldn't feel anything at all.
"H-He's never going to admit it... b-but I bet he's f-freezing as much as us..." Rouge commented after a very long moment of silence.
"Y-You mean Shadow?" Amy asked, as she rubbed her heads, trying to warm up herself.
"H-He likes to play hard to get, b-but I know him well enough t-to know he's also freezing to death" Rouge said with a side smile. "H-He's just out there for us..." she added.
"I-I guess in that aspect he r-resembles Sonic" Amy said with a little smile. "T-Thinks on others first before t-taking care of himself, I mean" she said.
"I thought we were past that stage of comparing myself to Sonic" Shadow's voice spoke suddenly.
The two girls turned to the entrance of the cave, finding Shadow and Omega. The former was wearing a black winter coat and carried some female winter cloths, while the latter was carrying more wooden planks.
"W-What took you so long?" Rouge asked with a mocking smirk.
"We were out for 20 minutes" Shadow said with a bored expression.
"Correction: We were out for 23 minutes and 45 seconds" Omega said, as he walked towards the fire and placed the wooden planks on it, making it more alive.
Shadow then extended the winter clothes to Amy and Rouge, who didn't even hesitated to take them and put them on. In Amy's case, it was a pink coat and a light blue scarf, while Rouge had a white white and black coat with a grey winter hat.
"Oh, this is so much better!" Amy exclaimed, happy to finally feel a bit warm.
"Agreed" Rouge said with a smirk. "Where did you get these?" she asked to Shadow, who lay on a wall with his arms crossed.
"It seems like Omega was more prepared for any kind of situation than us" Shadow simply replied.
"The chance for a climate situation like the current one was from 27.3%" Omega explained. "I was prepared for the current situation, despite the low chances" he added.
"Well, you could have saved us before you guys left, but thanks anyway!" Amy said with a smile.
"That's what I told him" Shadow said. "Anyways. Moving to more important stuff... we should leave once the storm has passed" he suggested, now sitting in front of the fire as well.
"Again, agreed" Rouge said.
"I hope it passes out quick..." Amy said with worry. "The quickest we found them, the better" she stated.
"I know you're worried about them, Amy, but knowing those three, they're probably fine" Rouge commented.
"Hate to admit it, but it's true" Shadow confessed. "No matter how hard he tries, the doctor can't take them down so easily" he said. "Yet... I have the feeling that they could need our help..." he added, despite still showing a cold expression.
"So you do are worried about them, huh?" Rouge said on a mocking tone.
"I don't want any more deaths" Shadow replied. "Not even from the faker" he confessed.
"It's currently 10:45 in the night" Omega said suddenly. "Climate analysis: should be clear by sunrise. Recommendation: rest to recharge energies for the awaiting journey" he said.
After that, he immediately entered in resting mode, shutting down for what was left of the day.
"Well, you heard the robot" Shadow said.
"Nap time, huh?" Amy said, as she yawned and putted herself comfortable.
"Well, I'll see you in the morning, I guess" Rouge said, putting comfortable as well.
Shadow stood awake, however, and when he was sure the girls fell asleep, he took out some blankets from Omega and covered them. Then, he walked towards the entrance of the cave, and even if there was still a blizzard, he could see the stars in the sky.
He wasn't a big fan of Sonic, and his relationship with him was complicated. They didn't hated each other, but it wasn't like they were besties either. As for Tails and Knuckles, he's pretty neutral about them. In his eyes, they're just another Sonic, but one is way smarter and can fly, while the other one has super strength but gets easily angry.
And yet, just like he said before, he didn't cared how much it'll take. He was done with deaths, and he was done loosing people, even if they were not what he could consider his friends.
"Wherever you are, guys... we'll find you" Shadow muttered with a confident look. "Whatever it takes..." he added, before heading back to the cave.