Sonic coughed and rolled over to spit out water. He groaned as he pulled himself to his knees. What had happened to him? Since when was his style a hate rampage? The hedgehog wanted to blame Eggman, but how could he? Eggman didn't control his emotions or actions, he never told him to hurt anyone. All he had done was trap him on a different planet. While it wasn't the best thing ever, it didn't mean Sonic could blame him for everything.
"You're awake, finally." Sonic looked up weakly to see who it was and growled. Eggman. "Chill out, hedgehog. I'm armed, with empty pokeballs; Not that I'm going to use them." The genius added as he handed him a large tray of chilli dogs.
"Amy." Sonic rasped, ignoring the food as he glared at the doctor.
"She's fine, I promise." Eggman slumped down into a chair tiredly and Sonic noticed rings under his eyes. He hadn't slept properly "After she attacked, I put her in a cell and Tails got her out. I don't know how, but I swear, I didn't hurt her."
"Where am I?" He demanded groggily as he slowly started to eat.
"In Professor Oak's lab. He saved you and Meowth from the pool, by the way. You should thank him." The doctor closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he spoke "I need your help, Sonic." He murmured "I screwed up again."
"What have you done now?" Sonic narrowed his eyes at him, but he'd gone to sleep. The blue blur was itching to grab a pen and draw on him, or slap him. Either way, it would be funny.
After gulping down the tray, Sonic slipped out of the room and looked around, quickly seeing Pikachu. "Hey, thanks for helping me." The hedgehog gave him a thumbs up and the mouse smiled in return.
"Pika!" He called back and scurried off into the lab. Following him, Sonic found Ash, Gary and Professor Oak talking together. The professor had a nasty gash on his head that had been treated to and terrible rope burns on his wrists, but he looked happy enough.
"Hey guys, how long was I out?" The blue hedgehog jumped into a chair and looked up at them expectantly, but they looked a little angry at him.
"A few days. Do you have any idea what you put us through, Sonic?" Professor Oak asked sternly and he hesitated, before shaking his head.
"My grandpa went after you, he saw you fall into the pool and got you out. He told them that you were dead and hid you, but then someone realised he didn't work for Team Rocket." Gary took a sharp breath as Ash interrupted
"Team Rocket stormed our home! Gary got attacked by Meowth!" He pointed to long thin marks across the boys face, who tutted at him as he spoke to Sonic again.
"Giovanni tried to threaten Eggman through him, for another Sonic."
"There's only one of me." The hedgehog replied immediately.
"That doesn't matter to me, Sonic." Eggman yawned from behind him "I'm a genius. I made three hedgehog pokemon using eeveelution designs, some of your DNA and some of Amy and Shadow's DNA. Right now, they're in their lowest form, but when they get to their final evolution, there's no way you could beat them." He hesitated and sighed "Not like this anyway. Here." He held out the chaos emeralds to him.
"Y-you're giving me the chaos emeralds?" Sonic gasped.
"Please don't drag this out."
"Doctor Eggman is just handing me the biggest form of energy that exists?"
"I swear, Sonic, just take them, I may have lied about Amy breaking free and maybe I can hurt her." Eggman snapped.
"What?" The hedgehog grabbed them and his whole body shook with power as he hovered over the floor, his fur turning yellow and his eyes red, Sonic's quills stuck upward and he glared down at Eggman.
"Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that just as you got those back." Eggman stumbled back into the wall as Sonic advanced on him, but the professor moved between them.
"Stop it." He demanded of Sonic "If Giovanni has three versions of you, we'll need the doctor's battle strategies."
"No you wont, I'm just as good!" He promised "You stay out of this, professor, me and Eggman know how this works." His eyes gleamed.
"Please Sonic..." Eggman begged "I'm trying to help."
"I'm not an idiot, Eggman, how many times do you think you can pull that? It's never worked on me, by the way." Sonic gently pushed the professor aside as he gripped the front of Eggman's shirt.
"Right now, I'm on your side." Eggman insisted "Giovanni hasn't let me sleep, keeping me up for his damn Pokemon experiments. I'm fed up of it, but with those new Pokemon he can threaten me even more and I need you to stop them!"
Sonic laughed and threw him out the door. Then he ripped him into the sky and dropped him, catching him just before he splatted to the floor. "No deal, doc! I'm leaving you here, where you can suffer Giovanni for the rest of your life!" Eggman grunted.
"I thought you might say that." He grinned as he pulled out a pokeball and threw it at him. Sonic prepared to rebuke it, but it swallowed him up and he couldn't escape. "Master ball, rodent." Eggman sneered and released Sonic to shoot him. It struck it's target and he sagged to his knees, clutching his chest. "You deserve this, Sonic. I've been pushed to my tipping point, so now, you'll just be my Pokemon, you'll follow my orders, unless you want someone to get hurt."
