The following short story is based on characters created and/or copyrighted by SEGA! Enterprises, DiC Productions, Archie Comic Publishers, Fleetway Comic Publishers, and the Taki Corporation. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery. The author gives permission to distribute this work freely as long as it remains intact and unaltered, and the transfer of monetary units is not involved. Questions, comments, suggestions, complaints? Send them to me at . I enjoy hearing from people who can spell. Chaotic Multiverse Tale #6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote for the day: "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future, . . ." -Fly Like an Eagle, Steve Miller Band ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heroes Fallen (Part 2 - The Heroes Saga) by Roland Lowery SONIC TILTED his head forward and placed it gently in his hands. What just happened? he had asked. 'Scuse me? Bunnie had said, like nothing was wrong. But something WAS wrong. "I said, 'What just happened?', Bunnie." His head was pounding. "Hmm, tha's a toughie, shugah," Bunnie said, "but ah believe we was jus' sittin' here, an' you said, 'What jus' happened?' Why?" His head thumped once, twice, then stopped. "I-" he started, but then the pain came back to him tenfold. His mind was suddenly unindated by millions upon millions of pictures and scenes of familiar people, places, and things in unfamiliar situations. Through the hurt, he was able to reason out that he was seeing . . . memories. Finally, the pain subsided again, but the memories remaind, all jumbled up and falling over one another inside his head. "Wha's wrong, shugah?" There was a tinge of fear in Bunnie's voice. She quickly jumped over the campfire in between them and was at his side in a split second. Sonic uneasily stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Where . . . am . . . I?" he gasped. "Ah'm sorry, but ah jus' don' know what y'all are talkin' about!" she replied. Her face was clouded with confusion. Sonic let her go. The headache had come back, but he talked through it. "The last thing I remember was standing with Knuckles and one of the robots in Robotnik's new R&D plant when the machine we were looking at seemed to change color. Some kind of . . . energy . . . shot out of it and hit me and Knux. Now I'm here, not that I know where here IS, and you . . . you have regular arms and legs, and my head feels like it's gonna EXPLODE!" Bunnie was silent for a moment, staring at Sonic. Finally, she put her hand to her mouth and said, "Mah stars, shugah . . . Ah ain't had mah ol' roboticized limbs f'almos' fifteen years!" Fifteen years. The words reverberated in Sonic's head, getting louder and louder, threatening his sanity. He tried to speak again, but his voice caught, his mouth suddenly dry. He began to sway back and forth. Bunnie stepped back over and caught him. "Maybe y'all should lie on down, Sonic," she said as she led him to a sleeping bag lying on the ground. After sitting down, Sonic found his voice. "Bunnie, how . . . how old am I?" Bunnie laughed gently. "You've been thirty for nine years now, Sonic." Sonic didn't laugh at the joke. "I'm . . . I'm THIRTY-NINE?" "Yes, shugah," Bunnie replied, quietly. "No . . . " Sonic's brain wouldn't accept it. "No! I'm only sixteen . . . " He couldn't have lost twenty-three years! "No, Sonic. Ah'm sorry." He blacked out. Knuckles T. Echidna couldn't figure out why his left eye wouldn't open. He had reached up to the eye, but only felt some sort of patch covering it. He tried to move the patch, but it wouldn't budge, nor would it peel off. "What the hell-" he said, then stopped as he was once again suprised by the deep, gravelly voice that came out of his mouth. It had bewildered him completely the first time he heard it, so completely that he had been sure it was someone else that had spoken. Great, he thought, NOW what do I- Suddenly, the bottom dropped out of his mind as a flood of images packed into his brain faster than he could sort them out. Images that seemed perilously close to memories, but memories that were not - COULD not - be his own. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground. A minute later, he passed out. The Machine wasn't sure that it liked its current position. It instictively recognized the energies that flowed during time travel, but something about it all was . . . not right. It was feeling the strange sensation of being in two places at once. It wasn't sure if that was right or not, as it had no true experience with time travel. Could it be that a temporally displace being or thing occupied both the origin time and the destination time? If this were true, then it would explain the readings it was getting, and it was also possible that the temporally displaced being or thing would occupy the same SPACE as he/she/it would occupy in the destination time as well! That would explain why the Machine had been programmed to place the past time hedgehog and echinda in stasis while they were connected with their future time selves. Their limited facilities would probably not be able to handle being in two places, two times, or two bodies all at once. The Machine, however, had no such problems. It was easily able to maintain itself within its new parameters. It was suprised, though, that it was still in the dimension that it had brought itself and the 'bots to in the future. It had been sure that . . . Phil, that was the name the echidna had given the 'bots' leader . . . sure that Phile would've found a way to get them back by then. Probably, it had something to do with the temporal mechanics of linear time, a problem that could be relegated to a lower echelon of the Machine's vast "brain". It wasn't a very interesting or pertinant problem, and was therefore given lower priority. Instead, the Machine decided to look through the future Machine's file system to see how many functions it had performed in the 23.7489 years distancing them. It recieved a confusing reply. The older Machine had all but ONE Level 2 function to perform before it could unlock Level 1. A rapid search found, however, that the factors behind the unlocked functions would not be disclosed to the younger Machine. It was quite an enigma. The Machine was deliberately hiding information from itself. From its younger self, anyway. Actually, the Machine thought, that's no such a bad idea. It wouldn't be right for me to know such things, as it would disrupt the time stream not only in this dimension, but possibly in others as well. But what of the hedgehog and echidna? Wouldn't they cause problems in at least their own time stream? Maybe it would be best to leave their younger selves in stasis forever. But no, that would mess up time even worse. If the Machine had kept them in stasis all those years, their older selves wouldn't be roaming around, would they? So, apparently, it let them go at some point. Maybe it should just send them back now before they fully assimilated the memories of their future selves? But, no, it was unable to perform functions without the necessary factors to go with it. It was unable to take direct action, so all of this speculation was moot. The Machine was unable to develop headaches, but knew that this was the right time for one. Sonic woke up, a thick haze surrounding him. A sudden thump from his constant migraine brought him fully into the waking world with the authority of a sledgehammer. "Ow." Bunnie was still awake, busy roasting a sausage over the embers of the dying fire. She looked up when she heard Sonic mumble. "You okay, honey?" she asked. "I feel like a thousand SWATbots are trying to kick my head in," he replied softly, holding his ailing skull in his hands, "but otherwise I'm okay." Bunnie took the slightly scorched sausage off of its stick and placed it on a slice of slightly stale bread, then poked it in Sonic's direction. "Hungry?" "Yah. Thanks." He took the sausage gratefully and bit into it. "So, c'n yuh remember anthin' yet?" Bunnie asked. Sonic swallowed, then said, "Yah, some of it. It's still a little mixed up, though. Maybe . . . maybe if you start telling me about it, it'd jog my memory." "Shoah. You said that th'last thing you remembuh was you and Knuckles going to check out that R&D plant? That was . . . a little after Knux showed up with Mecha-Sonic?" Sonic nodded. Bunnie closed her eyes and sighed. "So much has happened since then. When y'all two didn' return from Robotropolis that nahght, we was all worried near t'death, but . . . well, we'all knew that you sometimes stayed on a job over nahght, and if'n you ever got caught by ol' Robotnik, you'd get away in tahme. "But . . . we waited f'four days. Sally was devestated, t'say th'least. We could only guess that you'n Knuckles had been captured an' roboticized. Well, we figured there was nuthin' we could do, so we trahd to go on, business as usual. "But then th'two a'you come limpin' in after 'bout fahve days aftuh yuh left, with no mem'ry a'what y'all had been doin'. Ah still remembuh you draggin' Knuckles in, him hangin' on t'yoah shoulduh. both of yuh looked like y'all had been in a war! "The worst part-" she choked on the words, "-was that Knuckles had somehow lost - - my left eye." Knuckles had woken up a few minutes ago. Though his head had still been spinning, he knew he had to sort the memories stuck in his head out, or he'd go crazy. Since he had no one else to tell him the story, he was telling it to himself, aloud since he also wanted to get used to his new voice. "I don't know how it happened. When I try to remember it . . . I get the sensation of falling, but nothing else. It's strange, though, since I should'a been able to glide outta whatever danger I was in. But, however it happened, that memory got erased. Probably . . . whatchamacallit . . . 'retro-grade amnesia'." He had decided to start walking as he talked, to see if he could find the Chaotix anywhere. He wasn't sure if they were still residing on this No-Longer-Floating Island, but it was worth a shot. "When I got back to Knothole, Rotor gave me an electronic eye, but the blamed thing itched too bad. About a year or two later, I switched it for this patch. I remember now that I can't move it, 'cause it's been permanently drilled into my skull. Nasty, that, but it was probably for the best. Don't want it getting infected . . . "Okay, so what happened - - next was what became known as 'The Battle for the Floating Island'. It was . . . awful. "Y'all got back jus' in time t'see th'results of Nicole's tests on Mecha-Sonic. There was a buncha elaborate plans t'steal one or more Chaos Emeralds from th'Floatin' Island, startin' with th'one that held th'island itself up! "We offered our help t'guard th'island, but Knuckles . . . he - -refused, blinded by my own ego, confident that I and the Chaotix could hold the fort ourselves. I didn't want any help from mainlanders, especially that of Sonic. Not that he made the choice any harder for me, the creep. When I told them of my decision, he told 'em to just let me go, 'cause it was what I wanted. Told me I was stuck up and that he'd be glad to see me and my rotten island sink into the ocean. "Well, we agreed on one thing . . . I DID want them to leave it to me. Maybe if I showed them just how strong I and the other islanders could be on our own, both sides would leave us out of the war. "But I was wrong. By the Walkers, I was wrong. "Robotnik and his goon squad took one side of the island . . . I didn't get to see the attack, because I was down in the Zoot Chute, guarding the emerald, but I heard that it was massive. The stuff of . . . legends. Legends I decided never to listen to. "Meanwhile, on the OTHER side of the island - - Nack the Weasel snuck in." "Nack?" Sonic frowned at the unfamiliar name. "Who the heck is Nack?" "He was a bounty hunter hired bah Robotnik. A purple weasel that rode around on a hoverbike of his own design. Ah heard tell that he came over heah from the Far Eastern Territories after studyin' up on all kindsa ninja mumbo jumbo . . . "Well, anyway, he slipped in and snatched the spare emerald that Knux used to keep up there without ever tippin' off anyone. He snuck inta th'Chaos Chamber next, where he'n Knuckles tussled. Nack got th'upper hand, unforunately, and took took the emerald. "That was the day - - the Floating Island fell." Knuckles had stopped walking, and stood silent, contemplating what he had just said. Because of him, because he let his ego stand in the way, the island had fallen down to Mobius. It had been over the ocean while the fight had been going on, just off the coast near the Great Forest, but the way Nack had pulled the Chaos Emerald out of its stand had sent the island careening sideways until it crash landed onto the mainland. It was all his fault. "And now," he said quietly, "I've been roaming the Walker forsaken island for over twenty years." He looked up, resolve in his face. He knew what he had to do. He abandoned his search for the Chaotix, and began one for Sonic T. Hedgehog. "That's when everything went downhill," Sonic said. He looked up at Bunnie. "I'm starting to remember it all clearly now. Everyone lost hope when they saw the crash. More and more territory was lost to Robotnik over time. Fifteen years ago, he found Knothole. Nine years ago . . . he found US." He paused. "You . . . you're a cyborg," he said quietly. Bunnie nodded. "Robotnik tried to roboticize all of us. It was doin' just fahne, too, up until he got t'me. See, Rotor had been upgradin' mah arm'n legs over th'years, as Ah'm sure you remembuh. Well, the roboticizer couldn't handle 'em f'some reason. It went haywahre an' Ah ended up a tangled mess. Only me, you, and Rotor was able t'get away. "At first, it was really jus' a patch-up job, but Rotor was able t'keep me alahve long enough for you t'go and steal the rahght parts to . . . " She trailed off when she noticed Sonic wasn't listening. "S-Sally . . . " Sonic choked. The image came to him unbidden. He saw Sally standing behind a podium on a raised platform. On the side of her head sat a small device, wires protruding from it sunk direction through her skull and into her brain. Her face and body gestures were animated to their fullest. Arms swinging, fists pounding, mouth shouting. Her eyes, however, were dull and lifeless, staring out into the cheering crowd of partially roboticized Mobians. Sally's legs were gleaming in the sunlight, catching what little sunlight that filtered through the smog choked clouds, for she, too, was partially roboticized. From the waist down, she was nothing but robotic parts. And sitting behind her was evil incarnate, his own metallic parts glittering. He was controlling every word spat out of the twisted lips that once belonged to Sally Alicia Acorn. He was called Counselor Smalley by the populace, but Sonic knew him for who he really was. Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Sonic laid over on his side and proceeded to cry himself to sleep. Bunnie new better than to bother him while he was in this state. She quietly crawled into her own sleeping bag and drifted off into her own private dreams. She awoke the next morning to find Sonic gone, just as she had expected. She didn't even attempt to go searching for him. She knew exactly where he would be. As he sped along towards the crumbling Robotropolis Sprawl, more and more of Sonic's future memories were coming back as he felt himself become more and more immersed in his future self's personality. After Robotnik's attempt to roboticize them all, Bunnie had been a complete mess, as she had said. Rotor, fortunately, had been able to stabilize her long enough for Sonic to gather the parts needed to fix her. After several of these raids on Robotnik's factories and at least a hundred operations, Bunnie was nearly 80% robotic. In many respects, she was vastly improved. She was able to run almost as fast as Sonic did in cruise mode - something her old roboticized limbs wouldn't have been able to stand up to. She was three times stronger than before, could shut off her pain receptors, and had a head computer that could store data and even interface with other computers. Her eyes were able to register all known light and radio frequencies, as well as magnify the distance she could see. This hadn't made it any easier on Bunnie, however. The depression she had been in ever since the island's crash was suddenly amplified. She had wanted to become less robotic, but instead had become even more so. Sonic still remembered many of the night rages she would go through. One time she had trashed her hut, then smashed every tree in what was left of the Great Forest that stood directly between her and Robotropolis. Sonic and Rotor had found her in the Great Plains, sucking her thumb and unable to remember who or where she was. It had been as if she had been semi-roboticized all over again. And once again, Sonic cursed himself for being too slow to save her. And as if it wasn't bad enough that he had failed Bunnie, but he hadn't been able to save the others at all . . . Antoine, Tails, even little Amy Rose. All the rest of the Freedom Fighters, either roboticized or brain controlled by Dr. Robotnik. But the pain that cut the deepest was the loss of Sally Acorn. Robotnik had roboticized her completely at first, but then later changed her halfway back. The evil doctor had infested her brain with a Mind Bleeder, a small device that attached to the side of a living being's head and controlled all of that being's motor functions and senses. It gave Robotnik complete control over the Princess, more complete than even roboticization. Not only could he control her directly, but he could actually change information in transit from her extermnal sensory collectors to her brain. She saw only what he wanted her to see, hear what he wanted her to hear, feel what he wanted her to feel. Using her, the doctor had been able to force almost all the remaining Mobian populace into surrendering. They, too, recieved Mind Bleeders, and in many cases, partial roboticization as well. Sonic had learned from Rotor that the mind-bled Mobians were made to think that they had finally escaped Robotnik's rule, that he was dead. They saw all free Mobians as robots in disguise, leftovers from Robotnik's reign. Robotnik himself had assumed the role of Smalley, the Princess' personal assisstant and counselor. None of the mind-bled Mobians knew the difference. That was what made what Sonic was preparing to do so much harder. He would be fighting SWATbots, Combots, and QUANTUMbots as usual, and he might even have to face a few roboticized Mobians . . . . . . but he would have to face real, live, innocent people, as well. Knuckles was high in the air, searching for Sonic from an eagle's eyeview. He had been sure the hedgehog would be on the Great Plains somewhere, and he had, in fact, found a recently snuffed out campfire, but Sonic himself was nowhere to be found. This meant one of three things to the echidna. One, Sonic was no longer on that part of the continent. He may have left for any number of reasons, but Knuckles thought this was unlikely. Two, Sonic was moving around too fast for Knuckles to catch up, or even see him if he DID catch up. Again, unlikely, as there wouldn't be any reason for Sonic to be doing weird things like doubling back or even heading out too far from the Great Forest/Plains area. Or three, Sonic was in Robotropolis again. Number three was the more likely choice, so Knuckles turned towards the stinking city. Sonic would be found there, as he had been so often before. He would either be on some mission or another, or another one of his "Sally Raids". After gliding along for a few more moments, Knuckles suprised himself by pulling a cigar and a box of matches from his backpack, sticking the cigar in his mouth, and lighting it with the match carefully blocked from the wind. When did I start smoking? he wondered. Searching his memory was not help. It seemed that he had been doing it forever. Bad habit, he thought, better stop. Just as he was getting ready to pull the stogie from his mouth and drop it from his high altitude, he puffed deeply and though . . . Right after I finish this one. Sonic's next trip through memory lane dealt with his constant, screaming migraines. He had been on one of these, as Bunnie termed it once, "Sally Raids" when one of Robotnik's new and improved Mecha-Sonics had confronted him just outside the city limits. The battle was a short but decisive one. The evil mecha had dealt Sonic a blow that had cracked the hedgehog's skull. Some of the bone splinters had sliced directly through the section of his brain that helped his body ignore pain. His skull had repaired itself over time. Rotor had debated on trying to remove the shards, but since they hadn't killed Sonic and more damage would probably have been caused by their removal than if they stayed there, he decided against it. Ever since then, Sonic's head pounded every time he moved, and oftentimes when he DIDN'T move. Another reminder of the battle was his left eye, which had been left permenantly black due to blood vessels that were perpetually bursting, another contributor to his headaches. It was rather ironic, actually, considering Knuckles' own problems with that same eye. They had both paid for their arrogance in similar ways, it had seemed. What made that fight the worst, however, was the fact that it was the first Sonic/Mecha-Sonic confrontation that Sonic had lost. The Machine turned outwards and began to search for the hedgehog and echidna's older selves, and was suprised to find that they were very close and getting closer every second. Where they coming for it? Unlikely, the Machine thought. It was more likely that they were beginning to believe they had only gone through a temporary bout of amnesia and were sliding into their future selves' lives. The Machine was nothing more than a distant memory anymore. That left the doctor, then. The Machine had sensed his evil, older presence quite some time ago, just after the temporal displacement, in fact. For some reason, the Machine felt it necessary to watch the doctor every second of every day, just in case. It felt a loathing for the digusting blob of organic flesh that it didn't - or, at least, was unalbe to - feel for anyone or anything else. The machine mused that it might actually enjoy seeing the doctor get what was coming to him. Dr. Robotnik sat silently in his massive control tower, looking down upon the instruments and computer screens set before him. All of the instruments were scanning one thing, all of the screens showing him just one view. Sonic the Hedgehog. The whole world was in Robotnik's grasp. The Mobians were subdued, mind controlled into submission. Mobius was his. EVERYTHING was his. Everything . . . except the hedgehog and his two accomplices, Rotor Walrus and Bunnie Rabbot. Those three irritations still troubled him with their incessant raids and terroist actions. Even that bothersome echidna had sense enough to just give up and keep to himself after his precious island had crashed! Why didn't Sonic just give up the ghost? Why don't he and his rebel friends just give themselves in? Because, Robotnik thought, Sonic hates me with every fiber of his being. He will never give up until one or both of us are dead. And now, Sonic was headed straight for Robotropolis. True, he had done so many times in the past and been deflected from his main goal, but this time . . . this time something in Robotnik's black heart told him that maybe this time, it would end, once and for all. Maybe he'll finally kill me and be done with it, he thought. But then another, darker side of Robotnik spoke up. Maybe, it said, but I certainly won't make it easy for him. The original mission had to be aborted. Bunnie had gathered up the camp supplies and quickly run back to home base. After exchanging a few words with Rotor, telling him of the situation, she set out again. It was going to be a long, hard jog to Robotropolis. TO BE CONTINUED. Roland Lowery