Sonic loudly scream as he and a frowning Shadow plummeted down the large vertical tunnel. Shadow, with his arms crossed, repeatedly tapped his finger before letting out an agitated groan, as Sonic's scream became more obnoxious.
"Do you need to be so obnoxious?" Shadow rhetorically asked before he punched Sonic in the back of the head, to make him stop screaming.
"Come on Shadz, we been falling for a while now, gotta entertain myself somehow," Sonic remarked as a gust of wind rushed past the duo. The hedgehogs peered downwards and noticed the metal grating at the bottom of the tunnel.
"It's about time," Shadow snarked before aiming his hand at the grating and firing a chaos spear. The chaos spear collided into the grating before exploding and vaporizing the grating before Sonic and Shadow dropped down onto the grating platform below.
The two glanced around at the industrial factory-looking area before they spotted the Masked Doctor far off in the distance.
"How'd they get over there so fast?" Sonic asked with a puzzled look.
"Having super speed isn't a rare ability anymore, I even believe that Tails said that Infinite was faster than you," Shadow mentioned before activating his hover shoes and skating off, while Sonic had an exacerbated look on his face.
"...".
"You play the games that Tails and Cream made about all of our adventures? Who would've thought," Sonic remarked before running after Shadow. The hedgehogs raced down the metal grating before leaping into the air and landing on the circular-shaped platform metal above, where the Masked Doctor was waiting.
"You sure took your time getting here hedgehogs, I hope your age isn't catching up," The Masked Doctor snarked as they readjust their mask. Sonic snickered as he nudged Shadow's shoulder.
"He's calling you out, gramps," Sonic jested, making Shadow unamusedly roll his eyes. Shadow flicked Sonic's arm away before mentioning to Sonic he should take this a little more seriously.
"Fine... alright, not so tall, dark and, like my pal here, totally not an edgy emo villain, mind monologing your tragic backstory that leads to you acquiring all this older model egg tech, I kinda need to get back to my nap?" Sonic snarked as he crossed his arms.
"It seems you're as snarky as ever, ex-adversary of the great Dr Eggman," the Masked Doctor said.
"Great huh, so you're a fan of his?" Sonic jokingly asked. The Masked Doctor remained silent for a spilt second before they began to uncontrollably laugh, with the occasional quack.
"Of course, you'd mistake my admiration for the old ways of the great Eggman as something as measly as being a fan," the Masked Doctor stated as they grabbed their mask and removed it from his face revealing it to be Dr Starline, with a tri-core for a left eye.
"I am the superb super genius, second only to the great Dr Eggman, Dr Starline," Dr Starline proudly proclaimed. Sonic and Shadow stood in awkward silence as Starline began to monologue to himself. As Starline started to go into how he came to procure the egg tech, Sonic leaned over to Shadow.
"Do you have any idea who this dude is?" Sonic whispered to Shadow; Shadow slightly leaned towards Sonic before sighing.
"I'm fairly sure he's the platypus the Dr mentioned restored his memories," Shadow whispered. The two whispered something to each other as Starline's monologue appeared to be coming to a close.
"And that is how I acquired the last component to ensure my plan would go off without a hitch," Starline explained as he tossed his mask away. Starline prepared to continue talking but halted himself when he noticed Shadow was missing. Shadow appeared behind on the other side of the platform before firing a single chaos arrow (a smaller faster cyan-coloured chaos spear) at Starline.
As the chaos arrow was inches away from Starline a warp topaz portal appeared between him and the arrow before the arrow flew through the portal.
"Well, that'll be inconvin-ahh!" Sonic shouted as he was struck in the back by the chaos arrow. Starline tilted his head and looked at the warp topaz.
"Did I open the portal in the wrong direction?" Starline commented before his tri-core eye glowed blue; Starlie quickly ducked out of the way of Sonic's swing kick.
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"This guy's faster than Sonic!" Shadow shouted while putting on a fake Tails voice with a mocking tone.
"Will you knock it off, you're ruining the moment!" Starline shouted angrily while dashing over to Shadow.
"Mind your step," Sonic snarked as he chaos-controlled in front of Starline and tripped Starline over. Starline flew through the air directly for Shadow, who pulled his fist back before hurling it at Starline.
Starline panicked and opened a topaz portal and ducked into it, to evade Shadow's fist. Starline emerged from another portal on the other side of the platform as Shadow chaos controlled next to Sonic.
"Learn anything?" Sonic asked.
"I sensed the energy in that topaz seems to be unstable..." Shadow said before pondering something, "Perhaps if you can catch him off guard I'll be able to take it from him and destroy it," Shadow mentioned as he readjusted one of his inhibitor rings.
"Sounds simple enough" Sonic snarked before sprinting at high speed for Starline; Shadow scoffed before teleporting away as Starline readied himself. Sonic made a b-line for Starline before abruptly stopping inches away from him. Sonic pulled his fist back and Starline pulled his arm, with the warp topaz, in front of him before activating the warp topaz.
Sonic hurled his fist and, the moment the warp topaz was starting to form a portal, Sonic halted his fist mid-punch. Starline flinched and Sonic smirked when Starline dropped his guard; in the split second Starline was distracted by Sonic's faint, Sonic ducked down before flash-kicking Starline in the jaw and launching him into the air. Sonic quickly reached out his hand and grabbed one of Starline's legs.
"Care to dance?" Sonic joked and before Starline could respond, Sonic pulled him to the ground. Sonic tightened his grip on Starline's leg and he spun around on the spot with enough speed that the blur created the appearance of a blue tornado; after a sufficient amount of seconds, Sonic hurled Starline into the air and told Shadow to do it.
As a disorientated Starline hurtled through the air, Shadow teleported in front of Starine's trajectory and grabbed Starline's hand, which had the warp topaz on it, with a chaos energy-covered hand. Starline frantically tried to break free from Shadow's grasp while panically telling Shadow he doesn't want to do that as he stared at the chaos energy-covered hand, making Shadow smugly exhale.
"Chaos..." Shadow said in tandem with a slightly distorted voice; Shadow darted his head around in an attempt to find the owner of the voice but didn't see anyone other than a confused Sonic looking up at him. Sonic asked what was up and Shadow stated it was nothing.
"CONTROL!!" a now prominent distorted robot voice shouted through the hedgehogs' minds, causing them to panically get on guard while Starline was still trying to break free from Shadow's grip as the warp topas' shine became even brighter. Shadow, realising something was up with it, yanked the warp topaz glove off Starline's hand and teleported it far off into the distance, right before the topaz exploded into a bright, blinding orange and yellow flashbang.
"No!" Starline shouted in frustration. Shadow angrily rolled his eyes before letting go of Starline and letting him drop back onto the platform with a loud metalic thud. The light from exploded warp topaz slowly began to dim.
"Heh, looks like that's over-" Sonic snarkily joked before both he and Shadow noticed something at the centre of the dimming orange light; as the two continued to nervously stare, the dimming light completely faded and revealed a distorted/narrow-looking warp topaz portal as the sound of maniacal laughter emanated from it.
A bulky blue metalic arm plunged out from the topaz portal, followed by a second one; the hands of the arms grabbed onto the frame of the topaz portal and with little effort forcefully pried the portal open, which left everyone, especially Starline, in shock.
"Finally after aeons of being trapped in that infernal void realm I am finally free!" the voice that sent shivers down Sonic and Shadow's spines proclaimed as its owner emerged from the topaz portal and revealed it to be Mecha Sonic.
"And who better to greet me on my return than the two insects that dared to trap me with such a cheap party trick," Mecha Sonic snarked as Sonic and Shadow were both left speechless.
"I-impossible, you should've been destroyed by the void's dimensional effect," Shadow shouted, which caused Mecha Sonic to boastfully laugh.
"Sadly for you fools, this all so imposing void was nothing before my might," Mecha Sonic proclaimed before Starline interjected; he stated that he actually researched the void realm while he was fine-tuning his warp topaz controller glove and discovered that the realm has a toxic radiation effect that rapidly drains life force so it doesn't have any effect on machines, especially ones made by Dr Eggman. The hedgehogs, including Mecha Sonic, stood in silence and blankly stared at Starline.
"Do all wiseguys always have to interject and correct people on slightly incorrect information," Sonic defeatedly asked to himself as he shook his head. Starline went to respond to Sonic before an energy bullet shot over Starline's head and shutting him up.
"Speak again and your usefulness won't be able to save you from annihilation," Mecha Sonic coldly stated as his gatling gun arm transformed back to normal. Starline frantically nodded in agreement followed by him jumping off the platform and into an eggmobile before flying off.
"Heh, not trying to murderize everyone in your vicinity; did you have a change of heart on your void vacation, Mecha?" Sonic jokingly said as a sweat drop rand down his face and Shadow teleported next to Sonic. Mecha Sonic scoffed at the very implication he had any empathy and stated Starline's knowledge of other worlds was too valuable to simply just kill him right now.
Mecha Sonic raised his right arm before tightly clenching it and a massive amount of chaos energy erupted from his body; Sonic and Shadow were slightly pushed back by the pressure from Mecha Sonic's surging chaos energy. Sonic joked it seems Mecha Sonic got a little stronger, which made Shadow roll his eyes as the two hedgehogs got into battle-ready stances.