Across the Rift (SNT X Rookie/Gizmo)

Chapter 22: Where to?

Everyone stared at the beam of light that was right in front of them. "Hide!" Miles shouted. The Chaos Emeralds stopped glowing. SNT and Maria ducked behind some large, empty test tubes. Eggman arrived soon after in his Eggmobile. "Well if it isn't Tails. And here I thought you were helping Sonic fight Infinite." "He can handle it just fine on his own. After all, I did hear that in another Dimension Infinite was beaten." "He was. Luckily, I've had the luxury of learning from those mistakes without even having to make them. This time, I won't stop until I know SNT and Sonic are both gone for good!" "Even if they're gone, I won't let you take over this Dimension!" "As if you could! In Infinite's Dimension, you ran away like a scared little fox once your hero was defeated!" Miles clenched his fists. "Not this time!"
"Eggman!" Amy shouted. Her and Gadget were running towards him. Gadget almost tripped on an pink overgrown flower. Eggman turned around. "Soni- Amy!" "Surprised there are multiple heroic hedgehogs ready to stop you." Gadget grinned. "The more hedgehogs I crush, the more spirits go with it. Soon your rebellion will end and the Eggman Empire will rule!"
Eggman pressed a button and his Eggmobile transformed into a tiny mech. He shot out some missiles, and they headed towards Amy. She dodged them and hit one back with her hammer. It hit Eggman's mech, but it looked like it didn't do anything. "Hahahahaha! Try all you want, but my new and improved Deadly Egg Robot, name pending, can't be hurt by it's own missiles." Gadget went to kick it, but Eggman dodged before he could do it. "What the!?" Gadget got caught in some abnormally long weeds. "And with its new boosters, it can dodge before you can get your grimy shoes on it! Hohohohoho!" While Eggman was gloating, Amy hit the machine with her hammer.
Eggman got angry and fired more missiles. Miles flew inside the lab. "Man the Eggman in your Dimension is a lot dumber than he looks. And that's saying something! I mean, leaving me alone and giving me free access to his lab!" He started to make a machine of his own. While he was doing that, SNT grabbed Maria and flew out of the hole stealthily. Maria watched the battlefield, mainly looking at Gadget when she suddenly gasped. "GADGET BEHIND YOU!" she shouted. Gadget turned around and dodged a beam of Null Cubes just in time. The beam hit the side of Eggman's mech which tore the left arm and leg off. "Hey! Careful where you're aiming that." Eggman struggled to keep his Eggmobile balanced and it fell to the ground. Infinite was floating in the distance silently. The Phantom Ruby started glowing and he teleported right next to SNT. "Hello.~" The Phantom Ruby activated.
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SNT opened her eyes and looked around frantically. She was in front of the hole but things looked very different. The island seemed back to normal, no more Null Cubes floating in the air, no random shifts in the terrain, and the sky was blue and clear instead of purple and thundering. "H-hello!?" She cried out. Her voice echoed. She went back down into the abandoned lab and checked for the Emeralds. They weren't there either. She immediately ran to where Eggmanland was. The park looked abandoned and without the Phantom Ruby warping the island, part of it was hanging off the edge and falling into the water. She held her head in pain. Her watch suddenly made a sound. A whisper was heard "Come home." She couldn't tell who said it but she ran towards her house anyways. SNT opened the door. She walked around looking for her family. She checked Vanilla's room, Cream's room, and Rookie's room. There was no one in any of them. SNT found it strange how Rookie's belongings were nowhere to be found in the guest bedroom. She heard the door to her room open. She slowly walked towards it, and gently opened it.
Sitting on her bed, was Infinite. He seemed calm and welcomed her. SNT slammed the rest of her door open. "GET OFF OF MY BED!" "Now that's not very nice. The guest knows best right." "What did you do with everyone!" "They're all gone. After I knocked you out it was easy to get rid of everyone. After taking over the world, this island wasn't needed anymore so Eggman abandoned it. Now it's just you and me." SNT didn't want to believe it but for some reason it felt like he was telling the truth. She held her head in pain again. "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to hit you so hard. Wait yeah I did." "If the island is abandoned, why are you here?" "I wanted to keep you company. A girl as special as you shouldn't be left alone." Infinite put his hand on hers. "Now that the world's been conquered, we don't have to be enemies anymore!" "The world can't be taken over! Everyone's still here, I-I know you didn't get rid of them!"
There was something that was telling SNT to not believe what she was seeing, and it wasn't just herself. "SNT! I don't want to fight anymore! After the Resistance took the world back from Eggman, I've been learning.. to be kind! I basically rescued two robots from being scrap metal, get to 'hang out' with Sonic and his friends, I finally learned-" "This world is a lie!" A voice cried out. The room glitched and Infinite looked around. "What was that? I didn't add that?" "The fight's not over! Trust yourself, not the environment!" Infinite started looking around to find the voice. The room glitched out more. "What's happening!" SNT started to freak out. "I don't know!" Infinite panicked. "Your Virtual Reality won't work anymore!"
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SNT looked around again. She was back at Eggmanland. This time there were a bunch of people fighting in the park. She seemed to be in a circus tent. SNT looked outside and saw the sky was purple and it was thundering again. The park looked like it was going to catch fire at any moment. Sitting next to her were Maria and Miles. They were being held by Null Cubes. Miles muttered something. "I-I can't run away! Stop!" SNT quickly got them out of Infinite's grasp by pushing the Cubes away from them. Miles opened his eyes. "That wasn't fun." Maria opened her eyes and held her head. "It's not my fault!" She screamed. She looked around. "It wasn't real? It wasn't real!" "What?! How did you all escape so quickly!" Infinite started to float up and was powering up the Ruby again when he started glitching. "Enough!" Rookie held on to Infinite's hand before being smacked away. Infinite stared at Rookie. "Of course! I can't use the Phantom Ruby without you always being in my way." Infinite attempted to hit Rookie but as soon as he made contact he started to glitch out. "Just die and don't come back!" The more he glitched out the more his grasp on the island faded. Infinite stopped attacking. Rookie went to grab him but Infinite summoned a wall in front of him and Rookie flew into that.
Infinite was surprised he was able to do that. He chuckled. "You could've just moved on peacefully. But you choose to die a second time." He turned his focus onto Rookie. Gadget climbed a chili dog stand and grabbed Infinite's leg. Both of them fell to the ground. "Don't even think about it!" Gadget held him down. Infinite got up and threw him at the stand. The speakers came on. "Metal SNT, I need you to come to the circus tent and finish SNT off!" Metal SNT flew in only for Gadget to throw a bag of popcorn at her. "No refunds." She shot a beam at Gadget. Maria pulled him out of the way. Metal SNT scanned the area. "So it seems like most of you here are from Dimension B." "Dimension B? I choose to call it the Phantom Dimension, because of all of the Phantom Ruby shenanigans." Miles interrupted. Metal SNT turned to him. "What do you call this one?" Metal SNT asked curiously. "The Special Dimension." "Don't you mean, the *Special* Dimension?" Sonic then homing attacked her.
She fell onto the bleachers. "Sonic!" Infinite shouted. "Heard Egghead's little announcement. Now what is it with you attacking SNT? Is it because you like her?" "Of course he does." Amy rolled her eyes. Infinite dashed at Sonic. Sonic dodged. He held his left arm and kicked the air so hard that a shockwave was created. Infinite could barley react and dodged it. "Ow!" Metal SNT yelped, she got hit by the shockwave. Amy swung her hammer at Metal SNT.
SNT looked at Sonic and he immediately stopped holding his arm. "Are you ready to show this robot the real deal?" "Where's Metal Sonic?" "Rookie- his name is Rookie right? Anyway his poorly built weapons actually did a lot more than I thought they would. I helped a group of civilians take him down." "S-Sonic like my tech? My wispons were actually- wait a minute. Poorly built!" Gadget and Maria picked up some weapons on the floor, Maria got a Wispon that can create a line of lightning, while Gadget grabbed a Wispon that could make him hover for a bit. Metal SNT whispered something to Infinite and Amy took this chance to hit both of them.
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Everyone was suddenly in the sky. Infinite and Metal SNT hovered and watched everyone else fall. Amy grabbed onto Metal SNT and she struggled to get Amy off. Gadget caught Maria and used his wispon, Miles started flying and Sonic landed on a cluster of Null Cubes. SNT instinctually grabbed Rookie's hand. "I can float." "Right!" SNT blushed. Sonic jumped from cluster to cluster and hit Infinite. He then bounced off of him to hit Metal SNT while she was busy with Amy and leaped back on them. "Removing the ground won't stop me." He commented. Infinite tried to remove the Cubes Sonic was standing on but it wasn't working. Thunder struck Metal SNT and Amy. "OW! You should get rid of the lightning!" "No. It adds more atmosphere." Infinite rebelled. "Then take-" she tried to swat away Amy while she talked. "Take us somewhere else then."
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Everyone was back on the ground but there was fog covering the area. Rookie turned behind him and saw an Infinite statue. "Oh. We're here." Gadget perked his ears up. He went to Maria and aimed her wispon towards the statue. Maria shot lightning and it broke the statue. Infinite suddenly appeared. "Hey! How dare you mess with that!" Gadget then threw his wispon at Infinite before catching it. He looked at the wispon. "It'll be fine." Metal SNT appeared from the fog and grabbed Infinite before trying to grab Maria, Maria was able to dodge because of that. Infinite made the fog thicker, thick enough that nobody was able to see their own hand.
"Hello! SNT! Where are you!?" A thud was then heard. "Ow." "Wait was that you Sonic?" Flying could be heard. "Maybe if we use our tails, we could blow the fog away!" "That won't work, it's not actual fog." "Oh come on! I get affected by this fog as well!" "Wait! I can see everything!" "You can?" "Yes! Let me just ge-"
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SNT and Gadget were running down the stairs of the Choatix Agency. "Over here!" Metal SNT called from the dining room. they ran and made a sharp left turn only to see no one was in the room. The roof collapsed and Infinite fell down. Maria jumped down and landed on him. "Sorry! Well not really, you're being evil right now." She got up and he dashed away. SNT followed him. She was able to grab him, he tried to slash her with his hand but she ducked down. Infinite tried to grab the front door however, SNT slammed him on the ground. Infinite suddenly became a bunch of Null Cubes. SNT became shocked and looked around. She went back upstairs and saw Amy. "Have you found them?" "I only found an illusion of Infinite." "They're just hiding because they know they'd lose fighting us head on." Miles suddenly ran to them. "SNT you left the Chaos Emeralds at the abandoned lab right?" He whispered. She whispered back. "Yeah." "Good, we need a way to have him teleport us there."
"I have an idea." SNT went to the hallway and pulled a cord on the ceiling. The ladder leading to the attic fell and SNT climbed up. She saw the broken wall and was able to climb to the very top of the building. "Hey! Infinite! I'm up here, come and get me!" Her voice echoed through the mountains and spikes. She waited for a bit before she looked down and saw Infinite float towards her. "I thought you would take this opportunity to hide. Instead here you are calling for your doom." SNT sarcastically yawned. "This battlefield seems a bit boring. Do you really want to have the final battle here?" "Hmph! Why would the scenery matter if you're going to die?" "Can't we go somewhere Y'know, prettier." Infinite scoffed. "Fine, I'll entertain you. Where would you like to go?" "How about you bring everyone to Eggman's abandoned base? It was where I was created after all." Infinite put his hand on his chin and started thinking for a bit. "Very well."
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SNT looked at the hole and saw nobody was in there. She turned around and walked to the old tower. "A base by the shore. Not really a good idea, where was I supposed to train?" She walked closer to the tower. "Hello?" "SNT! There you are! I haven't been able to find you." Sonic approached her. "It's been hard to find anyone since Infinite keeps teleporting us. All of this traveling is making my head spin." SNT looked dizzy. Sonic looked at the tower door, it was opened. "You think they're in there?" Sonic asked. "Yup." SNT didn't turn her gaze from the door. They both crouched, leaned forward and dashed inside, not caring what dangers would be lurking ahead of them.