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Sonic clutched the side of his head as he came to. "Ugh... Feels like my brain's doing a Spin Dash in my skull..."
Upon opening his eyes, he found himself face-first in the dirt in the middle of a large forest clearing that best summarized the natural beauty of... West Side Island? There was no mistaking those familiar loops of Emerald Hill off in the distance, but when did he get here?
Then it started to come back to him: He had been caught up in another scheme crafted by Eggman, but he wasn't alone. Apparently, he had teamed up with another mad scientist from a whole other universe. Fortunately, he met another cool blue hero from that world in the form of Mega Man. Speaking of...
"I hope the kid got back to his own world okay," picking himself up off the ground, Sonic shook off the remaining dirt out of his quills as he took a good look around. As he recalled, both doctors were attempting to rewrite their respective worlds to their liking with something called the Super Genesis Wave. It reminded him of a plan ol' Eggy tried once with Phase 3 of his "Advancement Project": when he split the Earth into seven different pocket dimensions.
But whatever those two were trying to do seemed to have blown up in their faces as from what Sonic can tell, nothing's changed. Same old trees, same old critters running around. "Everything looks alright..."
But why did it feel like something was missing? He couldn't pit his finger on it, but all this wide, open space in the middle of nowhere - while pretty - felt, not exactly wrong, but… off.
I did stop that Genesis thing, right? Can't really remember…
Before he could think about it more, Sonic's wrist communicator went off. "Sonic? Do you read me?" Tails' voice stirred him from his thoughts as another memory took center stage: that of a battered little fox.
"Y-yeah, bud. You okay?" He replied a tad too quickly, but can you blame him. If memory served, his lil bro got seriously banged up by those Mega Killers or whatever they were called.
"Uh yeah? Where are you? You said you'd help test out the new modifications I made to our Extreme Gear."
Guess he doesn't remember. Hmm. I'll fill him in later. "Sorry, Tails. Guess I lost track of time. See you soon!"
After ending the call, Sonic gave one last look across the vista before speeding off to Tails' workshop.
Meanwhile...
On the grounds of the currently under construction Egg Base Alpha laid the wreckage of another one of the doctor's mechs: this one sported a strange skull design and foreign aesthetic overall. The sudden appearance of the mess had prompted the system to deploy the Egg Maidens to initiate clean up.
Suddenly, a gloved hand shot out of the eye socket of the machine as the sound of someone hacking up a storm echoed from within the wreckage. "I hate that hedgehog..." coughed out the Eggman as he crawled out of the mech. "Orbot! Cubot! You better have made it back too!" he bellowed as an Egg Maiden vacuumed his suit.
Following his query, both henchbots had popped out of the wrecked mech. "Oh, yes, boss. Surprisingly in one piece," said the sassy red orb.
"Speak for yourself. I think I got a few screws loose," uttered his oafish counterpart.
"I've been saying that for a while."
It was times like this where he actually started to consider missing that sniveling welp Julien. "Can it, you two-!" his usual berating was cut short as he had a sudden headache. "Blast it, Al... I blame you for all this..." he grumbled as he began to recall what had happened.
After the whole debacle with the Time Eater, Eggman had spent some time (or lack thereof) in White Space with his younger double. Eventually, the timeline would start to heal itself, thus returning his past self back to his point of origin. However it seemed to have taken its sweet time with him as he was left with nothing to do but to stew in another defeat by that blue rodent.
But it wasn't all bad, as it was there where he met Dr. Albert Wily: a kindred spirit from another world, who had his own blue pest that got in his way. Apparently, upon the Time Eater's destruction, one of the Chaos Emeralds had wound up on his Earth.
And so with their genius combined, the two doctors united to make their respective dreams a reality. However, as per usual, their respective blue thorns in their sides had also teamed up to thwart their plan. And, so they responded promptly with their joint creation, the Egg Wily X.
However, from the looks of things, it too had failed. And something seemed to have caused his synchronicity with Albert to falter, no doubt caused by the Hedgehog and Mega Brat. But whatever had happened didn't matter in the end as they were able to successfully launch the "Super Genesis Wave", and… huh. The Doctor seemed to be having trouble remembering anything else other than those moments. But perhaps that was to be expected as he was within the epicenter of the universal rewrite. Speaking of which…
He made his way to his Eggmobile and fished out an egg-shaped tablet as he hit a button to run a global scan to see what fruit bore from the Wave.
Results: No Changes Detected.
"What!?" That can't be right. He ran another scan. Beep. Same result. So he did another scan. Beep. And another. And with each retry, Eggman's temper began to rise.
First, Phase 3 of his Advancement Project failed and ended up costing him another robot to those rodents. Then, Shadow had absconded with the Paradox Prism to who-knows-where before he even had a chance to use it. Then, the Time Eater was destroyed by not one but TWO Sonics! And now, he had finally managed to set off his plan to rewrite reality, only for it to end up doing NOTHING except give him this bloody migraine!
"Super Genesis Wave" indeed. Bah! A Subpar Generic Waste of time is what it was!
"NO WAY! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!" he roared before another headache cut his tantrum short. He then let out a begrudging sigh. "I really need to stop meddling with space-time. All it does is cause problems," uttered Eggman as he tossed the tablet behind him (which Cubot barely managed to catch) and began to march into the base.
At this point Orbot would respond with a snide remark, but was cut off by an update from the EggNet - signified by his eyes giving off a quick glow. "Well on the bright side, boss, those scans did detect an unknown land mass within the upper atmosphere," he said as he grabbed Cubot to make him project a holographic display of a large planetoid made up of hexagonal plates. "And according to these readings, it seems to be connected to that relic you found awhile ago," an image of a strange conch shell appeared next to this Lost World, "Perhaps some good ol' fashioned conquering will distract you from your most recent utter failure?" Orbot suggested.
"Ugh, just catalogue it and I'll deal with it another time," grumbled Eggman, rubbing his temples. "Right now, my only concerns are dinner, a shower…" just then, a conniving grin managed to push through the pain, "…and ruining Sonic's day!" With renewed vigor, the mad doctor entered the facility (with Orbot following him inside, leaving Cubot alone) as he recalled an idea he had concocted before this whole mess began. Now, where did he put that King outfit?
As soon as the base doors closed, the tablet chimed in Cubot's hands as it detected anomalies on South Island's Green Hill Zone, a rather large blip detected within the Mirage Desert of West Side Island, and… right here?
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
Looking up from the screen, a familiar item had suddenly appeared in a flash right in front of Cubot: a red rocket with a clack and a Flicky popping in and out of it. "Oh hey, our cuckoo clock made it back too!"
CRACK!
In his excitement, Cubot had accidentally dropped the tablet, rendering it inoperable after impacting the ground. "Whoops…" he then shrugged, "Oh well. It was probably nothing," and went off to guide the nearest Egg Pawns to where he thinks the rocket clock would fit best, the locations of those anomalies no doubt already fading from his memory banks.
And any hope of salvaging any info was swept away by the broom of an Egg Maiden.