The Difference Between You and Me
"Infinite huh? I like it. Nice and humble, showing that you don't think too much of yourself," Sonic said. Infinite raised a hand over his head and unleashed torrents of crimson might upon Sonic, who zipped out of the way.
"Mockery, Sonic? After what I did to you, the months of agony, you dare to mock me?" Infinite asked.
"Sorry, but you must have me confused with another Sonic. This is my first time meeting you, pal," Sonic replied.
"I see. So this is what Eggman meant when he said I would have a chance to destroy a Sonic. He wants me to deal with his, as he cannot," Infinite nodded. He clapped his hands together and buildings came crashing down around Sonic and his team. "But as revenge still burns in my heart, I will destroy any and all Sonic's that cross my path. So curse your own fate, Sonic, that you had to cross paths with me!"
Sonic raced around the buildings to avoid getting crushed, until violet magic flashed across the sky and erased the buildings. Infinite watched the magic before glancing to his right to see Twilight floating beside him. "You posses a unique power. Yet you dare to use it against the Infinite?"
"So do you practice saying words all mysteriously sounding like that or does it just come naturally?" Twilight asked. "Because it doesn't make you sound intimidating, it makes you sound annoying."
"Fool. Your infantile mind cannot comprehend what I am capable of achieving," Infinite replied. Reality warped around his hand and he sent tendrils of crimson energy around Twilight, who yelped as they tore through her magic and entangled her. "What do you think of the Crimson bands of infinity?"
"What do I think? I think Dr. Strange is going to sue!"
Infinity glanced to his side just in time to take a cherry pie to the face. He snarled as he floated back, the pie breaking his concentration and his old on reality. A snap of his fingers erased the pie, though for a moment he thought he was still not seeing clearly as Pinkie hopped around him...through the air.
"I mean, come on. You're not even trying! And that building stuff earlier looked a lot like something Xemnas would pull off. Is there anything you have that's all you, all original?" Pinkie asked.
"Original? Very well, I shall show you what I can do!" Infinity claimed. He clenched his hand to conjure stone hands out of the ground that grabbed at Pinkie, but the pink horse managed to hop out of the way while humming a tune. Infinite narrowed his eyes before aiming at the horse and getting interrupted as a blast of magic blasted him in the back. He snapped his attention to Twilight, only to take a spin dash to the chest that sent him tumbling across the ground.
"Sonic. Your attempts to fight me are akin to an ant trying to battle the sun. Amusing, but futile!" Infinite sent beams of crimson power hurling at Sonic, but the blue blur easily weaved around them and spin dashed Infinite again. Infinite snarled as he staggered back, creating a sphere of energy around him to fend off the hedgehog.
"And for a guy called Infinite, you seem pretty weak," Sonic mocked. "So you can throw around lights and make some stuff. Congrats, that puts you on par with Rarity. Actually, you're a bit below her because you do not have her fashion sense. What is with that helmet?"
"Prattle. Is that your answer to everything?" Infinite asked.
"What can I say? I just love an opponent I can match wits with. So if you could go down already so that guy could show up, I would really appreciate it," Sonic said with a wink.
"Hmph, you believe me to not be up to your standards? Then allow me to rectify this." Infinite snapped his fingers and duplicated into a dozen different versions of himself. "Does this satisfy you?"
"I'm no numbers expert, but I'm fairly certain that twelve is not infinite," Sonic joked. The Infinite's began unleashing storms of crimson energy on Sonic, who actually had to try to avoid these ones. While he ran, he placed a hand to the comm in his ear. "Yo Tails, the distractions going great. How are you doing on getting our friends freed?"
"This is trickery than we thought. Do you think that you can send Twilight over to help us?" Tails replied.
"Can do." Sonic raced in front of Twilight, motioned for her to go join Tails and took off running again before the crimson blasts could catch him. Twilight got the message and headed over to the others, while Sonic came to a stop in front of Infinite and wagged his fingers.
"Come on now, I was promised a fight. All you've done is shoot things at me and talk fancily. If I wanted a foe who could do that, I would fight Mammoth Mongul. At least he has some class."
"Class? A whelp like you dares to mock me about class?" Infinite asked. He raised his hands once more, getting Sonic to roll his eyes, and summoned a colossal meteor that he hurled down towards Sonic. The sky went red, the clouds were blown away and the planet began to shake from the meteor's impending collision with the planet.
"And a giant meteor. Sonic, this guy is boring," Pinkie said.
"Agreed. Want to shoot me into a meteor?" Sonic asked.
"Do I?!" Pinkie exclaimed, her party cannon already out. Sonic hopped in, Pinkie took aim and a moment later Sonic was being launched into the meteor. He landed on the surface of it, flashed a smile and then raced around it with such speed that the crimson meteor quickly became blue. It exploded a moment later, nearly every part of it vaporized by Sonic's speed. Sonic landed in front of Pinkie, took a bow and then smirked over his shoulder at Infinite.
"Ta-da. And that is how you save the dinosaurs from extinction," Sonic said.
"Wow, that was so cool! You were like the Flash there!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"But...how...?" Infinite asked.
"Don't you get it? It was me, Infinite. I blew up your meteor," Sonic replied with a smirk. "Sorry, I'm a fan of the comics and I wanted to say that line."
"What are you going on about?!" Infinite roared.
"Hey, I'm paired with Pinkie today. We were bound to make some references," Sonic chuckled.
"This...this isn't right," Infinite growled, though there was fear in his voice now. "I have fought you. I have fought two of you. And yet neither of them...were anywhere close to what you are. What you do so...casually. Why are you so strong? How are you this strong?!"
"Well, a lot of people have said I'm one of the stronger Sonic's, but hey, I like to think we're all strong in our own way," Sonic replied. "See Infinite, that's how you be humble while still being cool. Not by naming yourself after something you're clearly not."
"It matters not! My power is...well, you get the idea!" Infinite roared as he channeled all of his might into his hands. Sonic raised an eyebrow at the sight before placing a hand to his ear.
"Tails, we nearly done? This is getting boring over here."
"We've just about gotten them free, Sonic," Tails replied. "Sally figured out how to counter frequency the crystals so that the harmonizing effect-"
"Glad to hear you got it figured out. We'll finish up things here," Sonic replied.
"Finish up. I am glad to see that your sense of humor still functions," Infinite cackled madly. "Because I am done holding back. With the full might of the Phantom Ruby, I shall-"
"Phantom Ruby? You mean that thing that Pinkie's got there?" Sonic asked. Infinite looked over at Pinkie to see that she was holding the ruby. Infinite stammered out some babble before he fell to the ground, unable to comprehend what had just happened. "What's the matter, pal, never fought another reality warper before? Not so fun when you're on the receiving end."
"How disappointing. I had really been hoping he had been more of a challenge for you."
Sonic raced Pinkie back as Infinite exploded in a pillar of chaos energy, turning him to dust. The dust reformed into an image of Eggman, who smiled down at Sonic.
"Eggman. I should have known you'd never let another villain take the spotlight," Sonic growled.
"You know me so well. Did you like the guest I brought over for you? With the chaos source crumbling, the barrier between realities is weakening, meaning I get a chance to see so many interesting versions of ourselves. Yet, of course, I seem to have gotten the most annoying."
"So I was right. Infinite wasn't from this reality. I knew he felt way too much like a rip off!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Yes, I brought him back to life and supplied him with that fake phantom ruby," Robotnik continued. He then laughed at the looks Sonic and Pinkie gave him. "Of course it's a fake. Do you really think I would give someone as foolish as that the real thing? Sombra and I have much greater plans for it. So go ahead and free a few more of your friends. That will just make it all the sweeter when we kill them too. Tata."
The ash blew away in the dust, leaving Sonic to glare after it.
"He was able to make a fake object that powerful? Eggman's gotten even more dangerous," Sonic growled. He then looked at Pinkie, who had bitten off a corner of the ruby and was chewing on it.
"It's actually rock candy!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Well I hope you're not going to hog all of it?" Sonic asked. Pinkie snapped the ruby in two and gave half to Sonic, who took a tentative bite, found she was right, and decided to save it for later. The two walked back over to Twilight, Tails and Sally, who were helping their friends out of the crystals. "How are they?"
"They're all unconscious and have lost a lot of their strength, but...they're alive," Twilight whispered, a smile on her face as she placed a hoof on her sister. "We didn't lose all of them. We saved them."
And that smile made it all worth it for Sonic.
||==O O==||
"Another day, another third tier villain bites the dust against the Friendship Fighters or whatever they're calling themselves now," Sombra chuckled. "You know for somepony called Infinite..."
"Please don't, that joke has been done enough," Robotnik sighed. Sombra chuckled and appeared next to Eggman, who was working on the Master King. "And I'm not surprised. Every villain that has gone up against that hedgehog aside from me has been bested. He was there to buy time and to prove a hypothesis, nothing more."
"Well, he certainly did that," Sombra agreed. "So this Phantom Ruby..."
"If Infinite's universe had one, then we should as well. And low and behold, I found it," Eggman chuckled. With one last blast of magic he finished infusing the Master King with the Phantom Ruby, causing red lines to burn through the Master King while it glowed like a sun. "Haha, now that is some power! The Master Emerald, the Tree of Harmony and now the Phantom Ruby! We have enough power to take on any being in the multiverse!"
"Or any force," Sombra cackled. He placed a hoof on the front of the Master King, looking at the branches of the Tree of Harmony...and the images of the seven beings who rested on the ends of those branches. "Fueled by magic, chaos, reality and the souls of the very beings we've slain. I have to admit, I'm a lunatic, but even I'd never dream up something as crazy as this. Robotnik you have outdone yourself."
"I am so glad you like it. Because now, there is only one last force to conquer before everything belongs to us," Robotnik grinned. And the two looked up towards the heavens, their smiles growing large.
"One last force indeed."
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I get the impression someone was not impressed with Infinite.
(holds on to head) can we please not meld the multiverse in this? its hard enough trying to see things in a straight line with pinkie bouncing in.
ok that last bit was funny but where is this amy with wife and child bit?
10961496
It's a reference to the Fleetway Sonic Comics that ended in 2002. The writers for the comics had an inside joke that Amy and her friend Tekno the canary were essentially girlfriends and kinda wrote them that way. In the fan continuation Sonic the Comic online, there was an issue called Exit: Sonic that got the head writer of the comics and one of the artists to do one last issue, essentially how they would have ended the story if they had been given the chance and in it Amy and Tekno are married with a kid. I see it as semi-canon as it's written and drawn? by the original artist and writer. But if you don't see it as canon, that's fine. Neither are these off panels at the end of the chapters ;)
10961476
I actually love Infinite, both ironically and unironically. At least, in concept. I love all powerful beings that kicked the crap out of the heroes and force them to re-examine themselves to overcome them. It's the writing where Infinite falls apart, but that's a problem of Forces in general.
Let the heads bang.
So are these idiots trying to bring the attention of Wonder Women and her merry band of adventures (been a long time since we have seen them) or bring in the Element Bearers from your first set of crossover stories? Because I want to see these guys get smashed and I a, starting to not care who does it but I hope it will be the big green rage machine that shows up.
My brain hurts so much from pinkie antics. And also ture point.
10943907
Yeah...and I don't trust myself to not get angry at it so I'm just foregoing this one. Both series mean a lot to me and I would just ruin the experience. I'm sure it's amazing and very well written as always. I'm just a snob and a sour puss.
OK I've spent the last week reading this story from start to where it is here. I got some feedback.
First though I want to say this story was worth the read for me. It starts off not really hooking me but it takes off. There's some really good ideas here that I think are executed well.
Clearly I'm not alone since a few chapters ago you made the Featured box, which is how I found this story. Congrats on that.
Now I'm going to go over The Bad and then The Good,, based on what I've read so far.
The Bad:
The story didn't do a good job of hooking me in, I had to read up to where our heroes start collecting their macguffins before I really got hooked. You want to hook a reader the moment they start reading, ideally. The broad strokes of the opening chapters were fine, but stuff like Sombra's first words being "Hey guys" talking to his enemies... that doesn't sound right to me. Some other dialog things I noticed were Rainbow and Sombra both acknowledging their egos. Nobody thinks they themselves have a big ego, they always feel it's the perfect size for them. Even if they do realize it, they're not going to acknowledge this to an enemy's face. Seemed off to me.
Also Robotnik would never try to employ Tails. At least not seriously. He's too proud of himself and his arrogance would keep him from acknowledging anyone else is on his level or even close. Of course I'm thinking about the SatAM Robotnik; not too sure about Eggman. But I think he'd be similar enough. just seems unlike him to do that.
Interestingly as the story shifted into the macguffin hunt I found the situation flipped... while the small strokes got really good, the larger picture became a bit bland. Go on a mission. Come back with a macguffin or two, and a few rescued allies. This repeats for a large chunk of the full story. That said the individual details of each mission help keep things fresh and also keep me from suggesting it should have been shorter... but it would have been nice to see some more variation in the larger structure.
The introduction of our heroes had some issues since there are several iterations of Sonic and his friends, and they have long timelines where it's not clear when this fic takes place. IMO it's important to be clear where the story is set as far as universes and timelines. Are we dealing with one of the four Sonic TV series? Archie comics? IDW comics? Our introduction establishes it is either SatAM or Archie easily enough through the heroes we see, but then things get less clear. A team clearing out a factory of civilians captured by Robotinik suggests SatAM since we see similar things there, but then we see the chaos emeralds and Metal Sonic, so it's Archie for sure., but it's still not clear when. And also which Robotnik/Eggman for that matter. And where on the timeline is it? The obvious place is near when the comics were cancelled. But IIRC the Freedom Fighters had their own city at that point,.. and there's no mention of it here for use as a possible base of operations. But the Sky Patrol only comes into play in the comics when that city exists. Nicole should be running the city but she was left behind in Knothole... Sally never did that, and of course as referenced by Eggman himself later... he destroyed Knothole. So this is very confusing and I suspect there was a change in where in the timeline this story took place at some point that was never edited around. (Other than this weirdness everything does get established eventually, it just would have been nice if it was worked in sooner somehow.)
The timeline the ponies' story is interrupted is also not clear at first, but it clears up quick enough when we figure out Twilight runs Equestria by herself. Though referring to Canterlot Castle as "Twilight's Castle" certainly doesn't help pin this down since I think it's fair readers would assume it refers to the other castle. That's really the only confusing point. It still could be established earlier where in the timeline this story is set of course.
Sombra's robotization doesn't make any sense when you consider this means Eggman's should have full control over him... not the best foundation for a partnership (except perhaps from Eggman's PoV). A couple of our heroes do point out it's odd, which is good, but then nothing further happens. It's possible you're going to do something with this down the line... I would expect Sombra has no clue Eggman has total control over him, and Eggman is just waiting for Sombra to turn on him or to outlive his usefulness to Eggman, then he'll flip the switch. Not really a bad point I suppose since we have yet to see if anything happens here or not.
Not sure how I feel about pulling Infinite in. Don't go too crazy with the crossovers. I generally have found I don't like fics that just pull in lots of characters from everywhere; they end up not focusing on a core set of characters properly. Not saying that's going to happen here, and Infinite's role was minor so it's fine, but I'm just saying if the Tardis shows up or Riker, Data, and Worf beam down to Equestria you've gone too far.
The intro chapters try a bit too hard to draw parallels between the Freedom Fighters and the Mane 6. Sonic and Rainbow are both fast, Sure. We definitely want to see them race at some point. Sonic and Rainbow are both significant enemies of the big bads? Eh, Rainbow doesn't really fit that for Sombra I think. Sombra is a repeated enemy of the Mane 6? That's stretching it further. The first time he died (not counting when Celestia/Luna beat him 1000 years ago), Spike did it, and he wasn't really aware of who was beating him anyway, as far as we can tell. The next time the Mane 6 did blast him... but that was just the one time. So I am guessing you're either including some comic continuity here (I haven't read it in a while so not sure how many times Sombra pops up) or you just handwaved and pretended there were some extra encounters to make things fit better. If so this was unnecessary imo. Sometimes contrasts can be as interesting as similarities, and in fact you do have characters looking at how they are different a lot.
Pinkie breaking the fourth wall a bit I don't mind. She does it a lot in a couple of the latest chapters though, and Sonic joins her, which I think is a bit much.
The chapter where Eggman and Sombra first meet is a bit weird. I don't think where they are is ever really described. Then Eggman pulls out a portal creation device he just happened to have, and Sombra just so happens to be able to step between dimensions as well. Probably better to just have them wake up somewhere in the real world together to have their conversation, honestly.
Come to mention it, Rarity seems more powerful than she should be. Though we can chalk that up to always having her element I suppose.
There's a few typos each chapter, this story could use an editing pass. It's stuff that spellcheck misses.
The Good
I touched on this earlier but I really love the broad stokes of the opening. You start in the middle of two battles and have world collide almost immediately. Some other fics would start things out slowly (zzzz) but you did good here. I think it's only some of the issues I pointed out above that kept me from being hooked immediately.
As the story goes on as I said before I love the variation in the missions. From the start they look the same but then something unique or interesting always happens to keep things different. The ambush while looking for Nicole. Sonic's capture. The uncertainty of why Eggman and Sombra aren't interested in the macguffins. Etc.
The plot twists and turns we've seen so far are great. Personally I'd say Harmony is the balance between Chaos and Order, not an opposite in itself (and in fact the MLP comics toy with the idea of an opposite Discord who is obsessed with Order), but the plot twist you did is so good I don't even care. It's clear you planned this story out to some degree which is always refreshing to see over stories that don't.
Being willing to kill off characters is bold. It's a permanent change to a world in two series where the status quo must be preserved from one week to the next. I don't know if you plan to bring everyone back or not somehow, either way is works, and you use it well for the purpose of creating a parallel for what the Freedom Fighters have been through. I mentioned forcing parallels above but this one is handled very well and comes naturally as a result of the story.
Also killing off characters is only in The Good because all the Best Ponies are still alive
You better leave Trixie and Derpy alone!There's plenty of good hanging plotlines yet to be resolved I'm looking forward to see what you do with. What happened to Nicole and what role will she play in the upcoming story? (Oh yeah, and she better be ok, she's Best Cat.) Will the killed heroes be brought back somehow or are their deaths a permanent price for victory? What was the thing crying in the middle of the superweapon (or is the Storm King/Mammoth Mogul a big baby now that someone stronger is in town)? What is Flurry Heart's role in all this? Will Orbut and Cubot do more than diddly squat? Will the villains finally turn on each other? Will the emeralds/elements be restored? What happens to the Tree/Master Emerald being abused like they are? What problems will the crack in the Chaos Force cause going forward, and how will it be fixed? Will Picard give Eggman and Sombra a long, boring speech about the importance of the Prime Directive while Luke Skywalker and Captain America sneak up behind them? (Don't you dare!) Lots of good questions there to keep us coming back, I'm looking forward to answers.
Also I find it interesting the repetitive format of the missions lends itself well to an episodic format, like if you were writing Season 3 of SatAM or something (though the fight with Master King would surely be a cliffhanger for Season 4). I could easily see these chapters being re-split into "episodes" at some point.
A lot of the issues I had with the early story were gone once it started to pick up steam. Not sure if just because I was hooked I started not seeing issues like that as easily or if the writing was improving as you went along. Doesn't matter I suppose, does underscore the importance of good early chapters!
I should probably summarize here but I gave a blurb at the beginning about liking it, plus this has gone on long enough so I'll stop. Keep it coming!
10963823
Wow. I'm glad to see that my story has interested so. I can't respond to all of this, but I can get to some of the bigger points. This story was written as a massive love letter to the archie sonic series, so I wanted to incorporate all of the different aspects of it. The fun single issues, the overarching plots, the villains who are both silly and diabolical, the romance angles, surprise twists and defeat being all but certain. I know that this story isn't my best, but I love it and I'm very happy with it and I'm glad most people seem to be as well. Hope you keep enjoying.
wait is eggman versus streetfighter a reference to an actual thing?