A/N: hello! Just a short note: this fic wasn't meant to be some incredibly philosophical, deep character study, and it... mostly isn't. (okay, there's some darker stuff in here, but.) I wrote this story to be fun, and it was fun to write it. It's also a canon-divergence AU!

-October edit: well. it still is a canon-divergence AU, but I'm not so sure about the rest, as the plot keeps evolving...

Mercenaries where spiteful, prideful, and hard to get rid of. Jackal Squad were just as annoying as all the others, no matter how much better than most they were with a blade. Shadow should know, having lent a hand to many and destroyed equally as many others. Jackal Squad's leader, though… he was skilled. He was someone Shadow could have respected, maybe even allied himself with, if only Infinite hadn't-

-decided to take over the world.

Mismatched eyes wild, nearly glowing in the light of the embers, he ascends from a pile of wreckage, flying in the air. A brush of his hand, and the people in front of him first widen their eyes in fear, frozen in place – and then they fall down, dead. Shadow's crouched down on a roof watching it all, and the power radiating off of Infinite is so strong, so overwhelming that Shadow feels like he will never get rid of this headache. The instinct to flee, confronted by-

It must be a performance.

The Chaos emerald Shadow has been carrying around isn't even a fraction as strong as whatever it is Infinite's got. It simply isn't possible.

There's no way he could win this fight. Ultimate Lifeform against the Ultimate Mercenary – he needs a plan. He needs a strategy, he needs answers-

-As another batch of innocent citizens with their whole bright lives in front of them gets pointlessly slaughtered, Shadow the Hedgehog makes his move and leaves Central City for good. And as the next morning dawns blood red, the city is renamed Metropolis and flies the flag of the Eggman Empire, even though the fighting around Ivory Plaza won't stop for long yet…

He leaves a message for Rouge: the jackal's name is Infinite. Don't try to fight him alone. He presses the send icon – and then he writes another message; I'm leaving the zone. To the point. He can explain more in person, later. But– after a moment of consideration, he adds: Goodbye.

Two months later…

The audience – his friends, his acquaintances, brave survivors – has the hall explode into applause, whistling and cheering as Sonic bows once, grinning as he leaves their makeshift podium made out of old crates and tape. He had just held a hopefully reassuring speech, told a few jokes and presented an excellent case for why he shouldn't lead the resistance. He refuses to take up the mantle as Commander, and honestly – would he actually do a good job as Commander?

-That's why they have Knuckles, anyway. Knux is the better leader, but Sonic makes the best speeches. Share the work. See your kingdom flourish.

…And no one needs to know how Sonic still flinches at red lights, at screeching metal, still freezes momentarily at the glint of steel-

Ah, well! Off to flirt with the new recruits!

With a forced cheerful spring in his step Sonic then starts traversing the corridors, greeting each and every person he passes on his way to the Great Room. It is pretty crazy that they actually, whoa whoa, managed to move the whole resistance up into the ARK… It's pretty insane, actually. The good things are that no one knows the ARK even exists, and that the ARK is a vast maze of available space, and that the station has defences already in place that even the Doctor can't break through without considerable effort. Haha!

…The bad thing is that you need a shuttle every time you want to get back down to the surface. To only see grass and blue skies again, to feel rain on your skin… not to mention it takes like a week just to get your own grocery shopping done, not to mention rations for the whole base which would amount to- well. They're all going to be eating a lot of canned food the next few… months, Sonic hopes; hopes that the resistance will have beaten Eggman in a few months' time…

They only need a plan. And that's why they have the Great Room – affectionately named by Sonic, taking no suggestions from Knuckles – the meeting room. The one without dust, and with flashy blue lights lining the ceiling and a panorama window out to the stars. And the doors open automatically if you wave your hand, which Sonic does, and proceeds to enter the Great Room. Several people either wave or scowl at him, so he grins back.

"You're late," growls Knuckles, ever so irritated.

"A little," Sonic quips back, taking his seat. "What have I missed?"

Tails wordlessly holds up his Miles Electric with a stern expression. The screen reads, The glorious Eggman Empire is growing ever greater! As of today, the republic of Holoska and the kingdom of Soleanna join our glorious empire!

"That's… not good."

And they had been so sure that the kingdom of Soleanna would manage to hold on a bit longer…

He tears his eyes away from the article. "So… how do we reconquer this?"

Knuckles exchanges a look with Amy, their best strategist. The price on her head is almost as high as the one on Sonic's (it could be higher, but Eggman has a personal vendetta bordering on obsession against Sonic). "We've contacted our forces in Soleanna, and they could theoretically take the city back…

"But first, we need to get rid of Infinite."

All eyes fall on Sonic.

And. And no, he can't-

"I couldn't beat him," Sonic says, mostly to himself. "He-"

"He needs to be stopped," Knuckles cuts in, face grim. And then it softens, just slightly. "Please, if anyone can take down that bastard… it is you."

Sonic can't stop himself from replying, trying to act casual, "So you're finally admitting I'd beat you in a fight?"

Knuckles doesn't budge, just continues to look at him. Like he's waiting for Sonic to admit to… to he doesn't know what. Sonic looks back, feeling his grin slipping. Knuckles, he tries to say with his eyes, I can't do it. I can't. He'll get me just like last time and-

-and blackout. Red lights, red lights – he can't feel his legs, he can't – he's trapped -

His hand is shaking. It's the hand that's missing one and a half finger.

Three weeks ago…

When the United Federation fell, Dr Eggman decided that he had waited long enough. Which meant that Sonic was finally about to die – and oh, how Sonic wanted to laugh at him. How he wanted to, but instead there was a cold, creeping fear spreading through his veins and he felt like- like this might be it. Like everything had gone way too far this time, too far even for him…

With hands shackled he can't do much, but one of his latest nervous ticks is to gingerly rub his other hand over the scar tissue, and that he can do. Scar tissue. Fingers cut off-

It can't get to me, he thinks desperately, feeling nauseous. I'm the fastest thing alive. Nothing can get to me.

(Not even torture.)

-When Zavok comes back, opens the cell door, freeing his hands – Sonic realises that this is his one chance at escape. His friends need him, and he needs to see that they're all safe- and how he wants to feel the wind. The vast sun soaked fields, the unpolluted forests and the jagged mountain ranges- to run on real earth, feel real air, real dirt and dust… He misses it with every single part of his body. He needs to escape.

…And then, there's that fire of anger burning quietly, beneath all the cold fear.

As soon as his hands are free, Sonic curls up and dashes away, bouncing against a wall before coming straight at Zavok. The Zeti (how is he here again?) stumbles back, and Sonic lands, skidding to a halt before standing up with a grin, part nasty and part joyous.

-And then sirens start wailing, red lights starting to flash as speakers crackle static: "Intruders in sector B-4. Intruders in sector-"

Could it possibly be… that his friends are finally arriving?

Wild hope flickers in Sonic's chest, and after a look at Zavok he decides to just get out of here. Zavok can wait: right now Sonic just wants to be reunited with Tails and Knuckles and Amy and-

Grinning, he dashes for the doors, and zaps through the corridors…

There are many small rooms on his way which makes Sonic's skin crawl with discomfort, and many sudden sounds which makes him flinch – but he doesn't stop running. It's so good to be able to run again. He knows he need to get to the shuttle hangar, and fast if possible, so he jumps and leaps and ducks and takes all shortcuts he can find.

He's nearly at the hangar, when luck runs out and he runs straight into a squadron of robots…

And it might have been another jolt of anxiety he felt, but he ignores it and concentrates on smashing the 'bots. Kicks two of them into a wall, puts a shoe through the head of another, turns around to look- and then there's the cold barrel of a gun pressed to his head.

I wasn't fast enough, he thinks hysterically. No time at all passes and the robot presses the trigger-

– and then flames erupt from his right, and the last robots promptly short-circuit and die. Sonic flinches away on pure instinct, feeling the scorching heat, and the shot from the robot flies by, grazes his ear, harmlessly.

Oh, gods.

Sonic spins around, and sees a… mobian. With glasses. Oh, alright then, he thinks, adrenaline still buzzing in his ears, trembling with it. A mobian. OK.

He relaxes a tiny bit, and blurts out the first thing which comes to mind; "You here to rescue me? Been a while since I've seen a friendly face."

The mobian, the guy just beginning to get up from the floor, flips on the safe on his weapon (honestly, what is that weapon? It looks like a wisp, almost-) and stands up fully. He's taller than Sonic, but who isn't. And then the guy starts speaking, voice surprisingly toneless, "I- yeah, we're here to rescue… Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Well," says Sonic, shrugs, and smiles tiredly. "That's me."

…and then the unmistakable tune of a communicator starts playing. The guy who rescued him fumbles for it, and comes up with a green one hidden underneath the wristband of his glove. "Hello?" he has time to ask, and then someone with a light voice answers. The guy listens for a bit, before saying, "Yes, he's here-" and then he turns up the volume.

"Sonic!" cheers at least three voices in a chorus, and it's like a surprise hug. "We were worried sick-"

"Are you alright?"

Him? Alright? "Good enough," Sonic says. And then, happier, before he can choke on his emotions, "I've missed you guys." So long-

"So much, us too-!" Comes the chorus, and Amy and Tails start to talk over each in their haste to update him on the situation, so Sonic takes a step back. The guy who saved him takes this as his cue to end the call, telling Amy 'bye' and saying 'we'll be on our way.' And then that guy turns off his communicator, slips it back into his glove, and looks at Sonic again…

There's a sort of pause, and Sonic thinks he might be remembering how to breathe normally again.

"You… I kind of thought you'd be taller," that guy confesses sheepishly.

Sonic raises a hand to rub at his ear, and says offhandedly, "Nah. Dunno who's been spreading those rumours, anyway." You know what would be nice right now? To actually get to those blasted shuttles so they can escape this hunk of junk.

Instead the guy says, "Other than that-" and then his voice just drops. And so does his face. "Your hand-" he says, shocked, and Sonic thinks dammit, dammit- "-you're – your fingers are-"

Sonic tries to hide his hand behind his back, the guy reaching for it- and Sonic snaps, "Let's just get back to Mobius, alright?"

Sonic almost thinks that this will spark an argument. But instead the guy says, "…Fine. And my name's Gadget."

Gadget, huh. Sonic nods impatiently, and then finally they're heading for the shuttles. The resistance seems to have stolen one of Eggman's shuttles and painted their star over the Eggface logos, but Sonic couldn't care less as long as the thing can fly fast enough. And it turns out that yes, it can, because as soon as Sonic and Gadget have buckled their seatbelts the pilot, a bird called Avi, makes the thing shoot off into space like a bullet.

Sonic catches one last glance of the Death Egg, and thinks that if he had enough explosives right now – then he would've personally turned the shuttle right back around to go and blow that damned place to a million billion tiny bits.

Five weeks ago…

First and foremost, Gadget the Wolf had been a scholar. He loved research, books, mathematics; he loved figuring stuff out. He had worked for GUN as a CE-weapon developer, which in hindsight is a pretty shady career. They engineered weapons which based their functions off of Chaos Energy, such as shields of energy and guns which shot bullets of searing blue light. Gadget himself had made prosthetic hands and protective gloves, with inbuilt energy shields which would switch on if you flicked your wrist just right…

However, there had also been That Branch which worked with biological weapons. Illegal, scary and shady business. They made artificial diseases. They made all kinds of confidential and dangerous projects…

…and when Gadget first saw Infinite, hovering out in that corridor, all he could think of was that he looked like a monster made in those labs. Or no, not looked like – Infinite looked like a jackal with mismatched eyes and long wispy hair – it was how it felt to be near him that sent chills up your spine. There wasn't that much time to muse upon it though, and Gadget and the other fourteen scientists at work had to move very, very fast.

Nia and Scales shut off all the lights, five others tried desperately to power down as many unstable pieces of engineering as possible, and Gadget and the rest got to work opening the emergency exit. The speakers installed in the walls just kept playing, hostile intruder on floor minus three, identified as Mercenary infinite. Hostile intruder on- and then the gunfire began, drowning out the rest…

And Infinite killed the soldiers in the blink of an eye, the gunfire stopping dead. The speakers crackled, once, and then they died too.

The whole floor seemed to hold its breath, and then… then Infinite turned towards the CE engineering workshop.

And all the scientists, Gadget included, fled toward the emergency exit, finally open-

-a blast of red light, and Gadget watched in horror as fourteen scientists collectively seemed to choke on air, knees buckling. Infinite was just – just hovering there and Scales was choking-

Gadget reached for him, frozen numb with horror-

-and then the lizard stilled. Blood trickled from his mouth, but his chest didn't move – his eyes unseeing-

"No," Gadget whispers before he can stop himself, breath hitching and voice cracking. "No, no, no-"

It all felt so very, very unreal.

This can't-!

"Run, boy," drawls an unfamiliar voice, and Gadget feels a tremor of fear as he realises that it's Infinite speaking. "Run… and I'll spare your life."

-he hates himself for it, but run he does, runs for his life, and for the lives of all his fourteen colleagues who never got the chance.