Evil is Vanquished

(This what-if scenario diverges from the path the main story takes around the end of WANTED. It is strongly recommended you read through Sonic Runaways: WANTED in the main series before reading this arc.)

Super Sonic had been holding the one-armed Lord Robotnik by the cape for some time now, aboard Sky Base. Super Sonic's arm wasn't even getting tired as Robotnik kicked and struggled for dear life. "Sonic… please let me go!" Robotnik begged, tears bogging his mustache down. "My empire… the throne… it will be yours! I promise!" Super Sonic stared blankly into the orange sky, as if he was zoning out. "Sonic… are you there?" Super Sonic's red eyes sparked with electricity. "Please, my son. Let's just forget this ever happened. We can go home." Robotnik grinned.

"What did I say back in Green Hill?" Super Sonic asked, tilting his head to the side and glaring at Robotnik. His eyes formed red loops around them. They were almost hypnotic. "This isn't my home."

"Sonic…?" Tails asked, stepping towards Super Sonic and placing a hand on his shoulder. "C'mon, stop it. We talked about this before, remember? He isn't worth it!"

"Stand back, Tails. Don't try to talk me out of this," Super Sonic growled. "This time, he's not running away."

"Soni—!" Tails shouted, running and reaching for his best friend. Super Sonic shot a sudden blast of Chaos power that made Robotnik dissolve instantly. Its sound pierced Tails' ears, and the sight nearly blinded him. He recoiled, stumbling away from the blast as it ceased. Super Sonic stood there, repeatedly blasting every speck of ash until there was nothing left. He gritted his teeth as the blast ceased once more. Tails opened his eyes, and the ringing in his ears faded away. He was left standing there in disbelief. Super Sonic turned towards him, away from the spot where Robotnik had been just seconds prior. Tails stared into his crazed eyes in sudden fear. "No way… you didn't just—?"

There was a moment where all but the Sky Base's propellers remained silent. Super Sonic collapsed, and the Chaos Emeralds fell all around him. He turned back to normal, blue fur and all. "Are you okay?!" Tails cried, running in and trying to help Sonic up. Sonic took deep and strained breaths. "You… killed him." Tails gasped. "Why?!"

Sonic didn't know what to say. His vision was blurring together, as Tails stared up at him. Sonic couldn't tell if Tails was on his side after what had happened. "I don't know," Sonic mumbled. Darting around for an excuse, his eyes landed on the Chaos Emeralds. He walked over and picked the yellow one up. His heart resonated with the gem's power. He turned the gem around in his hands, looking at his reflection in the rock. "These gems, they must have been controlling me somehow." Tails lunged forward and slapped the emerald out of Sonic's hand.

"What are you thinking?!" Tails screamed, as the emerald clattered onto the ground. "If they were controlling you, don't touch them!"

"Right… yeah, you're right," Sonic muttered. "Sorry."

"Sorry? SORRY?!" Tails cried. "Sonic, we could have let him go. He wouldn't have been able to hurt us anymore. Isn't that the whole reason we came to de-mil?!" Sonic began to shake, as he looked down to his hands. The hands that would have been covered in another man's blood if there was anything left of him. Instead, they were dry. Tails clutched his head. "What the HELL do we do now?!" Tails asked, turning away from Sonic. Sonic reached for him. "No. Don't. You don't understand. This isn't like killing an enemy soldier. This isn't even like the Uprising in Azerbaijanistan. You just killed the supreme leader of the third most powerful country on Erius!"

"So? We don't live in the empire anymore," Sonic argued. "If we stay in the Iron Dominion, we're safe. If the empire sends anyone to this country, Iron Queen will carpet bomb Robotropolis." Tails' jaw dropped as he glared at Sonic, dumfounded. Tails analyzed everything that sentence could have possibly meant.

"Nuclear war?" Tails asked. "You're suggesting nuclear war."

"And the empire KNOWS that," Sonic grumbled. "So they won't."

"I can't believe you," Tails groaned, nearly pulling his own ears off. "That's it. We're dead. If anyone finds out about this, we'll be found guilty of regicide. They'll execute us." Sonic's heart sunk. "Don't you get it? We're going to DIE."

"Well what if we used the Chaos Emeralds?" Sonic asked, desperately. "They make me invincible. They could protect us both!" Sonic heard a twinkling sound from behind him. The Chaos Emeralds then shot off into the distance in brilliant beams of light. "Oh." Tails groaned.

"Nobody can know about this," Tails stated, grabbing Sonic's hand and walking him to the control room.

"What are you doing?" Sonic asked.

"Putting in the final trajectory. The ocean," Tails muttered. "We'll make the entire thing look like a freak accident." Sonic nodded, taking one last glimpse at the Iron Dominion's shore. It wasn't too far off. "I should be able to fly us the rest of the way." Sonic's heart was still racing. "This makes everything a lot harder, Sonic. I hope you realize that. Robotnik was bad. REALLY bad, but… you shouldn't have killed him."

"You're still sticking with me?" Sonic asked.

"Of course," Tails sighed, typing away at the terminal. He didn't smile, or so much as look at Sonic. "Ready, partner?" Tails glanced to Sonic.

"... Yeah. Let's go," Sonic mumbled, hanging his head in shame. Tails pressed enter. The Sky Base began to nosedive. Sonic and Tails ran out of the control room, with Sonic grabbing Tails' hands as they took off. The Sky Base lowered into the ocean, eventually becoming completely submerged.

…

"Lord Robotnik is missing," Scarlet Garcia reported, tired of the knowledge that things would only get more tiring from there. "He was last seen in Star Light city, piloting the Rob-O-Matic and presumably headed for the demilitarization zone. It has been four days since this sighting." There was one huge collective gasp spanning the entire empire. Then, the murmurs shook Erius like the awakening of a titanic beast within the planet's core… or something like that. "Please, stay calm and wait for further details."

"The Eggman is dead!" A person shouted in the midst of the crowd in Metropolis city. "WOOOO!" He was immediately detained by a Swatbot. The people around him screamed and cleared out as the man was tased and brutalized.

"This is no time to panic," Scarlet Garcia stated through TV and phone screens around the entire country. "Due to Lord Ivo Robotnik's absence, a substitute has been selected to fill his role until the day he returns." A small girl with blonde hair and a monocle jumped up onto the desk Scarlet sat at. "Everybody please welco—"

"Nah, forget it!" The girl shouted directly into the mic. "I don't need any of you lowlife bottom feeders praising me, welcoming me... Heck, I don't even need you to like me! All you need to do is listen to me until my Uncle Ivo comes back. For I am—!" She twirled around into a curtsey. "Ivanna Julianne Robotnik! As Lord Robotnik's first cousin once removed, I was born to serve the Robotnik Empire. The only one fit to rule it is Lord Robotnik. But for now, call me Lady Robotnik!" The streets fell silent. "Finally, that shut you all up. I must take my leave, got a nation to run, y'know? Long live the Robotnik Empire!" The people clapped and rejoiced, as Lady Robotnik hopped down from the desk and fluttered to the floor.

"Well said, Lady Robotnik. We all hope your uncle, and our lord, returns soon," Scarlet replied. Not looking at Ivanna, but directly into the camera.

"Why? So you can be rid of me?" Ivanna asked, turning around right at the door. Scarlet Garcia laughed nervously.

"That won't happen, you know," a scratchy voice stated. A tall anthropomorphic vulture with one eye larger than the other entered through the door to the studio, staggering right past Ivanna and taking a seat on the floor.

"Excuse me, sir? Who are you?" Scarlet asked, creeped out. "Security…" she whispered.

"I'm the guest star of your show today," the vulture rasped. "Have you forgotten already, Ms. Garcia?" Scarlet's pale face got paler.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She exclaimed. She then realized the cameras were still rolling. The walrus camera man made a slicing motion with his finger hovering by his throat, looking at Scarlet. Everyone was unsure of what to do. Scarlet checked her notes. "Are you—?"

"Relax, sweetheart. I'm pullin' your leg. Name's Blot the Vulture," the vulture coughed out some cigarette smoke, pounding on his adam's apple a little too hard. He wobbled over to the microphone, and Scarlet jumped away from her chair with a frightened squeak. Blot took her place as the center of attention across the entire Robotnik Empire. "But I'm not joking with any of you anymore. Listen to me VERY, very closely. Lord Robotnik is dead."

"Hey, buddy! You need to leave," a member of Scarlet's security team muttered, grabbing Blot's arm. Blot released a viscous orange ooze from the pores the man's hand covered, making the security guard instinctively unhand him in revulsion. He tried to wipe the strange mucus off of him. Blot stared back to the camera.

"I am a Psychic Type. My brain is a database of all information in existence, and should I need to know the answer to anything, I can merely look it up in my own head like an omniscient web browser. I have seen the answers to the very nature of the universe, the meaning of life. But that is not what I'm here to discuss," Blot looked up to the ceiling slightly. "I was wandering near the demilitarization zone, when I saw a large blast of energy in the sky." Everybody in the room looked even more frightened. "At first, I believed it was a mere explosion from one of Robotnik's many machines. A malfunction in an airship, perhaps. But no. Once I looked into it, I saw that this blast was produced by none other than Sonic the Hedgehog, fueled by the seven Chaos Emeralds."

"Sonic?!" Everybody else in the room asked.

"Yes. If you've been paying attention, you'd know that he and Tails vanished as well. They were trying to avoid execution as a result of Sonic's crimes against Robotnik," Blot recounted. "They nearly made it to Iron Dominion before Sonic killed Robotnik in cold blood, and Tails sunk the airship they were on to make it look like an accident. After that, they made their escape and are now running free in the Iron Dominion."

"Uncle Ivo?" Ivanna asked, shocked. "Where are Sonic and Tails now?!" Blot looked up for a few seconds.

"Atezuko city. It's not far off from Coast Renjin, the closest Iron Dominion beach to the Robotnik Empire's soil. They aren't running. It looks like they're having an argument over breakfast," Blot sighed.

"I'll get Agent Stone to warn the Iron Dominion about Sonic and Tails," Ivanna muttered, turning away. "Those two will pay for murdering Uncle Ivo." She stormed out of the room. Blot looked down, and smirked for a second. The cameras didn't pick it up. He got up off the chair, and walked to the door.

"Wait… Mr. Blot!" Scarlet called. Blot stopped in his tracks and turned towards her.

"Yes?"

"We could really use your help in the future. Wait here for a while. I'll give you my boss' number if we can verify what you told us," Scarlet whispered. Blot nodded, and sat back down on the floor. Scarlet walked back to the mic. "Umm… that'll be all for right now. We've got a lot more of the latest events in the Robotnik Empire coming towards you on News 77, so stay tuned."

The cameras stopped rolling.