Rip In Time: Sonic Act 3

ACT 3: Dark Castle Zone

Sonic opened his eyes, this time seeing himself in a prison cell, with a still-unconscious Silver on the floor next to him. Sonic made an attempt to stand up, but he wobbled and fell back down. Examining himself, he saw that he had been handcuffed again. Not only that, he had a pair of matching cuffs around his ankles, limiting how much he could move his legs.

"Oh..."  Sonic groaned, "And here I thought they weren't that smart..."

"Uh...? Hey, Sonic?" Silver called out, waking up.

"I'm right here, Silver." Sonic said. Silver turned to him, and inspected his re-cuffed hands.

"Where are we now?" Silver asked, looking around the dingy cell, "Seems like something I saw in a book once... from the middle ages, or something."

"And here I thought we were in the future!" Sonic said, "It blows either way, though..."

"Attention prisoners." Said a robot, coming to the cell bars, "You two will accompany myself and Guard Unit 6354. The master has requested to see you."

"Good. I'd like to have a word with him too!" Sonic said, "The service in this place is terrible!"

"Who IS this master guy?" Silver asked.

"You will see soon enough." The Robot said, opening the door, "Hurry up."

Sonic and Silver were lead out of their cell by the two robots. Sonic was constantly annoyed by how little he could move his legs; he could only break into a super-sonic shuffle at best. Escaping seemed unlikely because of this, not to mention one of the robots had what seemed to be high-tech tasers to their backs.

Going up the stairs and into a large hall, they saw a room decorated with treasures. In the center of it all was a large throne with a hooded figure sitting in it. The hooded man stood up; he has about the same height as Sonic and Silver, but none of his traits could be made out because of the long robe that he was wearing.

"So. You two were the escapees." The Hooded man said. His voice was familiar sounding, but it was gruff and aged.

"Yup!" Sonic said, being positioned in front of the throne along with Silver, "You're stuff isn't all that hard to break! We'll make our way out of here soon enough, so why don't you just let us go?"

"You underestimate us. The security here is a lot tighter than it is out there..." The man said, "Even if our restraints ARE fragile. I have enough trouble just keeping these robots from falling apart!"

He kicked one of the robots over, just to demonstrate. The robot fell and had it's arm break off, and it made no attempt to retaliate. It quickly got back up while trying to put itself back together.

"Such is the fate of the materials in a wasteland..." The man said, "It's all quite fragile as of late."

The man walked over to the two hedgehogs to get a closer look at them. Sonic also got a close look, and saw a muzzle like his and Silver's underneath the hood.

"Even though I said that you underestimate us..." The man said, "I shouldn't underestimate YOU either. From what my guards tell me, you're quite fast."

"You could say that!" Sonic said with a smile.

"And from what my guards tell me, you came out of a big blue hole, correct?" The man said, backing up a bit.

"What's it to you?" Sonic said, with a cross face.

"That 'hole' sounds awfully familiar." The man said, "My memory is a bit fuzzy... but it's called a Time Rip, right?"

"How did you know that?!" Silver said in shock.

"Heh. I wasn't sure, until now." The man said, "Thanks for confirming my suspicions!"

"How would you know about it in the first place?" Sonic asked.

"For some time now, people have been showing up out of nowhere." The man said, "I thought it might be the Time Rips, but my memory was so bad I couldn't be sure... but now that I remember,  AND that I know a stable one has opened... I'd say it's time to have some fun!"

"You didn't answer me!" Sonic yelled, "How would you know about the Time Rips? Just who are you?"

"You're in the future, boy!" The man said, flinging out his arms, "I could have read it in a book! Or maybe a historian told me! Or maybe..."

The man pulled back his hood and faced the two hedgehogs. Sonic and Silver's jaws dropped at what they saw.

"...I was there when it happened... two hundred years ago!" The man said, with his face fully revealed. There was no mistaking it it; blue fur, green eyes, quills and peach muzzle. The man wasn't a man, but he was an animal. Standing before them, somehow, was Sonic the Hedgehog.

"What kind of trick are you try to pull!?" Sonic yelled, trying to lunge forward at his duplicate, but was quickly pulled back by the robots.

"No trick. No lie." the other Sonic said. He had an elderly look to him, with darkened fur and black rings around his wrists. "You and I are the same being... I don't remember ever coming to the future, though. But then again, I'm not quite the hedgehog I used to be!"

"I don't understand!" Silver said, "How are you still alive?"

"That's what you get for time-traveling so much, Silver." The other Sonic said, waving his finger, "You go back, change the past, and then you miss out on things! It's amazing you even still exist with the amount of messing you do with time."

"What's that supposed to mean...?" Silver said, a bit worried.

"It means you don't even belong in this time!" the other Sonic said, "You left your time, the future changed, and the future you remember doesn't even exist anymore! By all the laws of time and space, YOU should have vanished with it!"

"W-what!?" Silver said, starting to panic.

"Don't listen to him, Silver!" Sonic said, "This FAKE is just trying to mess with you!"

"Oh, a fake, am I?"  the other Sonic said, "Tell me, can a fake-"

WOOSH!

"-do this?"

The other Sonic was suddenly standing behind the group. He had ran there, just as quickly as Sonic could have.

"Trust me, boy. I'm just as real as you are." The other Sonic whispered in Sonic's ear. Sonic was too stunned to move.

Before he could retaliate, their was a large explosion down the hall. People and animals alike started to storm in, carrying guns and wearing tattered clothing.

"Freedom Fighters!" The Other Sonic said in surprise, "Don't just stand there, you idiot robots! GET THEM!"

A gun fight broke out, with Sonic and Silver ducking out of the way.

"Don't you two even THINK of going anywhere!" The Other Sonic said to the escaping hedgehogs. But before he could go after them, a Black blur zoomed up and pointed a gun right in the other Sonic's face.

"This ends today, Sonic!" The familiar voice of Shadow said.

"That's what you said last time!" The other Sonic said back, as he kicked the gun out of Shadow's hand and used the other leg to kick Shadow in the face. Shadow did a quick flip to recover, and grabbed his gun and opened fire.

"Just what's going on here?!" Silver said, as he and Sonic were over at the edge of the room.

"I don't- LOOK OUT!" Sonic said as one of the robots was knocked into the air and flung towards them. They dove out of the way, and the robot smashed into the wall behind them. Dropping it's gun, Silver grabbed it and fired at the chain on the cuffs holding Sonic's legs together. The chain broke, and Sonic's legs were free.

"Nice thinking!" Sonic said, jogging in place, "Now, time to take out the trash!"

Sonic, hands still cuffed together, ran into the fight and dove at the other Sonic, who was preoccupied fighting Shadow. Knocking him down with the tackle, Shadow ceased fire and took a look at what he just saw.

"TWO Sonics?!" Shadow said, "What's going on?!"

"Don't worry, Shadow!" Sonic said, getting up, "I'm nothing like this faker!"

"I've had quite enough of this!" the other Sonic said, "You're right, Shadow! This does end today!"

Beginning to radiate with a dark aura, the other Sonic tensed up. One by one, eight gray emeralds blinked into existence around him.

"NO!" Shadow said, opening fire. The bullets however, bounced right off the other Sonic.

"There's no winning for you now!" The other Sonic said, floating up into the air with his eyes completely white. While he seemed to be undergoing some kind of dark transformation, it suddenly came to halt part way.

"What's going on?!" the other Sonic said, still floating in mid-air. He looked  around realized he was missing two of the emeralds he had summoned.

"I'm not sure what just happened... but let's take this opportunity!" Shadow said, taking out a walkie talkie, "All units retreat! We're leaving!" Shadow put it down and took a look at Sonic, while using a pick to unlock his hand cuffs, "You come with me! Grab your buddy over there and get moving!"

"All right, but you tell me what's going on later!" Sonic said. He bolted over to Silver, grabbed him, and bolted out with Shadow. The Other Sonic realized what was going on while he was distracted looking for the emeralds that went missing.

"DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!" He shouted, as the robot army went after the escaping Freedom Fighters.