Sonic Apocalypse

Chapter 13 - A Mysterious New Power

Eggman and Starline have been studying the unnerving amount of damage Mobius had taken within a few mere hours of their initial attack on Central City. Within a matter of 7 hours, almost half of Mobius was under the Empire's control, and those numbers would only begin to increase thanks to the Chaos Emeralds accelerating the rate of production.

It had been only a few minutes since the Alliance had claimed victory at Central City and decided to split their team up in order to help multiple cities at once. Eggman and Starline were able to witness anything the Alliance pulled via Dr. Starline's Warp Topaz.

"They're splitting up it seems." pondered Eggman, "Amy, Blaze and Silver are going to Station Square? Heh, how about we direct most of our attention there? Overwhelm the Alliance's most powerful fighters."

"Great idea." said Starline, "the only issue is that they are going to try and convince Shadow to join them. Now, if you asked me, I would send Metal Sonic to Westopolis to try and convince Shadow to join us."

"I agree." replied Eggman, "while we don't exactly need him, the Alliance would have far less of a chance of winning if we had his help. For the Alliance, Shadow is a make or break, but for us, he'd just simply be overkill on top of overkill. Our victory would be sealed if we had him on our side. Shadow's relationship with the Alliance is very...complicated. He might just throw their offer right in their face."

"Very well then." muttered Starline. "Metal Sonic"!

"I shall not dissapoint." said Metal Sonic as he bowed to his masters, "Shadow will join us and the Alliance will be finished."

Metal Sonic saluted his creator and headed out for Westopolis. He ran outside, where his feet transformed into rocket powered boots which propelled himself into the air, allowing him to get to Westopolis in a much shorter amount of time than Cream, Big and Knuckles could.

Almos immediately after Metal Sonic made his departure, Eggman's computer picked up a strange energy reading nearby.

Eggman spit out some of the Lo Mein he was eating, pieces of noodles and vegetables stained his moustache. This was more than an unconventional energy reading, this one had more power than Eggman had ever seen before.

"Starline, are you seeing the same shit I'm seeing?"

Starline was baffled by what him and Eggman were seeing, "Yeah...as a matter of fact I am."

Eggman threw his arms up in the air, "Well, let's go and check it out, shall we?"

"Let's." replied Starline.

The two headed outside to investigate the unorthodox energy reading they found nearby their base. The signal was radiating from a small forest approximately a mile from Eggman's base. Eggman, Starline and a few robots who were capable of drilling holes into the soil, made their way to where the signal was coming from.

And after a few minutes of walking, Starline noticed a bright, purple glow in the distance that was glowing on and off at the same rate as a heart beat.

"Uh, Eggman, you might wanna have a look at this." said Starline with clear awe and excitement in his voice.

Eggman appraoched the glowing object and glared at it with more wonder than Starline.

"It sure is a beaut." gawked Eggman who was on the verge of drooling over the pure majesty of their discovery.

Eggman vigorously shook his head to gain back his focus, "Ooh boy, sorta conked out their for a minute. Anyway, you two! Dig that thing out of the ground! I'm sure it's got some sort of power if it's able to emit this much raw energy."

The two excevation robots began to carefully drill into the ground around the ominous glow and eventually removed all of the ground and soil that buried the gemstone, revealing its physical form.

Eggman and Starline stared at the gemstone with great pleasure and curiosity. At that time, they had no idea what it was capable of, but they knew that it had intense power of some sort. And of course, they were going to utilize it with their already overpowered Empire.

"Oooh Starline, it's so...lovely," said Eggman who was in a perplexed state, just staring curiously at the gem and wondering just how powerful it may be and how beneficial it would be for his Empire. Eggman reached his hand over slowly to touch it, but the moment his fingers came into contact with the gem, a huge, dark purple shockwave washed over the area and Eggman transported to what at first appeared to be Metropolis. But as he looked around, he noticed black and red flags with Eggman's logo on them draped over several buildings and swaying in the air.

The longer Eggman had a look through this dystopia-like world, the more pleased he became. He saw his androids exporting familiar looking prisoners, which included Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic appeared to be getting lined up for what looked like an execution. Eggman grew the biggest smile he's ever had in his life.

As Sonic was being lowered onto his knees, the virtual reality Eggman held a huge blade over Sonic's head.

"You've made the biggest mistake of your life." said the virtual Eggman, "Your cowardly refusal to kill me when you had the greatest chance has forever doomed your planet. And you."

Just as Eggman was about to execute Sonic in brutal fashion, Eggman was trnasported back to reality. He was bewildered, excited and curious, all at the same time. He quickly jumped up to his feet and held Starline by his burgundy colored jacket, shaking him like a leaf.

"Starline! You won't believe what I just saw!" Eggman continued to shake Starline, much to his annoyance.

"O-kay. Cou-ld. You. Jus-t. Sto-p. Sha-king. Me. First?!"

Eggman let up and set Starline back down on his feet, "Apologies."

"It's fine. Just...get to the point, what did you see?" 

"I saw... Metropolis, a much different Metropolis. One where I ruled the city, as well as the entire planet. I can't really explain it in detail since it was too vivid, but the gist of it was that the Empire had conquered the entire planet. And Sonic the Hedgehog was about to become executed. We absolutely need to take a look into this thing because this is fucking insane. You'll have to excuse my childish behavior but I've never seen anything do what it just did before. Before my eyes, a virtual reality was created, the reality that I am striving for. It's as if coming into contact with this stone...allows the user to witness a virtual reality of their greatest desires.

"That sounds interesting, more than interesting I should say." replied Starline. "Let's take this damn thing back to our lab so that we could unlock its true potential."

Eggman stared at Starline for a hot minute, with a huge smirk on his face. "Alright, let's bring this stone back to base."

Eggman's robots carefully put the stone into a glass jar-like receptacle that would concentrate its energy in order to prevent it from overreacting when it comes into contact with the Chaos Emeralds, which could lead to something catastrophic.

Meanwhile, Sonic was somewhat lost inside of the structure he had found, thinking that Eggman's base could be somewhere around here.

"Please don't tell me I got lost again." Sonic said to himself, feeling agitated.

"It's not like I can run either, it's such a small, dark place and I'm willing to bet that someone's gonna hear me if I run. If I walk all the way through this place and come up empty handed, I'm not gonna be a very happy hedgehog to say the least."

Sonic walked for a few more minutes around the building, getting caught in spiderwebs, tripping over machine parts, and carefully avoiding traps. But none of that mattered after Sonic found a clue that could lead him to Eggman's base.

A blurry, yellow-ish glow, that appeared to be fire, could be seen in the distance. He could also hear faint metal clanking and indecipherable chatter as well. Sonic took the perfect opportunity to have himself a look, so he quietly progressed forward, hoping that he had finally found Doctor Eggman's base.