The Zone of Noise pulsed around them, its dissonant hum growing louder—or perhaps that was just the Beryl's influence, gnawing at Wally Naugus's already fractured sanity. He flexed his lobster claw, the chitinous appendage twitching with phantom pain as Ooma Arachnis's brood skittered ahead, their many legs tapping out a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Yes, King Maxx Acorn would get his seven precious Anarchy Beryl—right after he choked on them.
And that was right after his very own plan went into action.
And so they all traveled to another opening in the Zone of Noise to go back to Mobius—it was a long trip, longer than any of them had anticipated, and yet none of them complained—not even the youngest of Ooma Arachnis's children—as they knew exactly what was at stake.
And yet despite the grimness of the situation, there was still room for laughter—perhaps it was Ooma Arachnis's dry sarcasm—perhaps it was her children's sharp wit—perhaps it was Wally Naugus's very own dark humor—but the trip wasn't as grim as it should've been—it was almost... enjoyable.
And soon they arrived to another portal to Mobius—one that pulsed with an eerie green glow, its edges fraying like torn fabric. Wally Naugus hesitated for the first time in decades, his lobster claw twitching toward the Beryl wedged into his chestplate. "You'd think after all these years, stepping through wouldn't feel like swallowing broken glass," he muttered, earning a chorus of rasping laughter from Ooma Arachnis's brood.
"Perhaps, but the very first Ixis must be found if your oh so mysterious plan you have right now is to commence."
Wally Naugus's grin widened, "Perhaps you have a point there Ooma Arachnis."
And so, one by one, they all stepped through the eerie and acidic green portal onto the other side onto some surprisingly distant corner of Mobius—one that was utterly deserted—one that was utterly silent—one that was utterly perfect for their plans. The air smelled of ozone and rotting vegetation, the ground beneath their feet squishing slightly with each step—like walking on a waterlogged sponge.
Wally Naugus flexed his lobster claw, the chitinous appendage twitching with anticipation—or perhaps it was the Beryl's influence gnawing at his already silencing sanity—either way, he was grinning like a madman. Ooma Arachnis's brood skittered ahead, their many legs tapping out a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like laughter—or perhaps it was the sound of distant artillery fire—it was hard to tell in this place.
"My old master has to be around here somewhere..." Wally Naugus muttered, his lobster claw clicking against the Beryl lodged in his chestplate—a habit when nervous that made Ooma Arachnis's brood skitter closer in anticipation. The swamp's oppressive humidity clung to his fur like a second skin, the scent of decay and ozone thick enough to taste.
Somewhere in the distance, the faintest tremor of energy pulsed—as if the wrongness itself was almost given physical form.
"Wasn't your old master a mammoth? Why wouldn't he be in the Southern Tundra?" Ooma Arachnis clicked her mandibles in amusement, watching Naugus' tail lash like an irritated cat's. The air smelled of stagnant water and something far fouler—like meat left to rot in the sun—as distant thunder rumbled in sync with the Beryl's pulse.
One of her hatchlings skittered too close to the water's edge; Naugus' lobster claw snapped out faster than a striking viper, yanking the child back just as the murky surface erupted with snapping eel-like jaws.
"You see Ooma, my master was cursed long ago by the Bygone Walkers when they foresaw the future threat to their reign my master would pose, and cursed the Anarchy Beryl he was fated to find so that every time he would use it, it would lead him to a key misjudgment, and ultimately, failure," Wally Naugus explained, his voice rasping like sandpaper against glass, as he twisted his lobster claw around a dangling vine thick with glowing lichen.
The swamp's oppressive mist curled around his ankles like a living thing, thick with the scent of ozone and something far fouler—rotten meat left to fester in the sun, "Some time after teaching me, or well, my three predesecors" he continued, his lobster claw twitching toward the pulsing Beryl in his chestplate, "my master went looking for a cure—and found something *worse*."
The waterlogged earth trembled beneath them, not from footsteps, but from something *deeper*, like the planet itself recoiling from the memory. Ooma Arachnis's hatchlings skittered closer, their carapaces clicking in uneasy harmony as Naugus dragged his claw through the lichen-streaked mud, revealing glyphs older than Mobian civilization. "He dug too deep—and the Bygone Walkers *answered*."
The hatchlings recoiled as the glyphs flared acid-green, their light refracting through the Beryl shards embedded in Naugus's flesh. He didn't scream—he *laughed*, a sound like rusted hinges forced open, as the swamp's stagnant pools began *boiling*. "They cursed him to *misjudge*," he rasped, watching the water churn with the silhouettes of things too sinuous to be eels. "But my dear old mammoth? He saw the Devourer of All."
"The Devourer of All?" Ooma Arachnis's mandibles clicked in derision, her brood skittering backward as the swamp's boiling pools spat up chunks of blackened bone. "Sounds like bedtime stories for hatchlings who won't sleep." Wally Naugus's laughter curdled into a wet cough, Beryl-light bleeding from his eye sockets (that meant his master was close) as he yanked a writhing eel from the water—its flesh sloughing off to reveal a rusted chain coiled around a spine.
"Oh, Ooma," he crooned, shaking the dripping vertebrae at her like a macabre rattle, "you'll wish it was *just* a story when it consumes Maxxopolis whole—starting with that wretched hedgehog." The chain dissolved into Beryl-dust mid-swing, the particles scattering into the swamp's unnatural fog where they pulsed like fireflies. His lobster claw twitched toward the still-boiling water, its surface now writhing with skeletal eels that moved in perfect, unnatural unison—a mockery of the coordinated assaults Sonic had used to begin to dismantle Sector 7.
Sonic...
Perhaps his master would be able to explain him, he was quite strange, even for an Anarchy Titan, he was not like the others that came before, and yet he was the most dangerous of them all—because he was not just an Anarchy Titan, he was *Sonic the Hedgehog*, the five year old that was obsessed with order seemed obsessed with order and was already about to topple King Maxx Acorn's regime.
The waterlogged earth trembled again—this time with purpose—as Naugus's claws dug into the mud, feeling the pulse of his master's presence being nearer than ever before. The hatchlings skittered back as the swamp's boiling pools spat up not just bones, but jagged fragments of rusted machinery, their surfaces etched with the same glyphs now glowing beneath Wally Naugus's feet.
"Oh, he's *close*," Wally Naugus crooned, his voice dripping with a reverence that bordered on hunger, his lobster claw twitching toward the largest fragment—a warped gear big enough to crush a Mobian flat, its teeth gnawed by something with *sentience*. The swamp's stench thickened, ozone giving way to something metallic and cloying—like blood left to congeal in the belly of a war machine.
Ooma Arachnis's hatchlings pressed against her carapace, their usual skittering laughter reduced to tense clicks as the glyphs beneath Wally Naugus's feet pulsed faster—matching the arrhythmic throb of the Beryl embedded in his chest. The warped gear groaned, its rusted teeth grinding against each other like a beast waking from hibernation, and the swamp's boiling pools spat up another relic: a shattered visor, one lens cracked in a spiderweb pattern, the other glinting with residual energy.
Soon they came across a clearing, and meditating there was the first ever Ixis, Mr. Mogul the Mammoth, formerly Ixis Mogul, the very same one who was Wally Naugus' master when he was still three beings and then when he was still Ixis Naugus and the one who had an Anarchy Beryl logged into his chest, thankfully it led it to him being the one being in all of history to truly master an Anarchy Beryl, even if he was cursed.
"Ixis Mogul," Wally Naugus said, kneeling before his master, his lobster claw twitching toward the Beryl lodged in his chestplate—not in fear, but in kinship. The mammoth's eyes remained closed, his massive frame wreathed in the swamp's unnatural mist, the scent of ozone and ancient parchment clinging to him like a second skin. His tusks, once pristine, now bore deep grooves where Beryl energy had leeched into the ivory, turning them jagged and cruel.
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of centuries, until Mogul finally spoke—his voice a landslide of gravel and static, "Speak Ixis Naugus, my wayward disciple. Your presence stinks of desperation and great worry." The Anarchy Beryl in his chest pulsed once, casting jagged shadows across the clearing as Wally Naugus bowed lower, his lobster claw scraping through mud now threaded with glowing veins of corruption.
Ooma Arachnis's hatchlings hissed as the swamp's mist coiled tighter around Mogul's massive frame—only for their carapaces to clack in shock when the mammoth's laughter erupted, deep and grating like tectonic plates scraping against each other. His eyelids peeled back to reveal pinpricks of Beryl-green light, fixing on Naugus with the weight of glaciers shifting.
"Still groveling after all these centuries?" Mogul's tusks gleamed with residual energy, their jagged edges catching the glyph-light as he leaned forward, the stench of ozone and something distinctly *alien* rolling off him in waves. "You reek of The Devourer of All and of an Anarchy Titan."
Naugus didn't flinch—he *grinned*, his lobster claw digging into the mud as Mogul's gaze bored into him like a drill press. "Desperation? No, master. *Opportunity*." The glyphs beneath him pulsed faster, their light refracting through the Beryl shards in his chest to paint the clearing in jagged, sickly hues. "King Maxx Acorn's regime is crumbling under the weight of a child—a hedgehog who wields anarchy like you once did, for order sir "
The mammoth exhaled through his trunk, the sound like a steam valve releasing pressure, and the swamp's mist recoiled from the heat of it. "Sonic." The name wasn't a question—it was a verdict, syllables grinding between Mogul's teeth like gravel. His Beryl pulsed once, casting jagged shadows that slithered up Naugus's spine. "You bring me news of the latest in a long lines of Anarchy Titans, not merely Anarchy Titans, but *Sonic*?" The glyphs beneath them flared brighter, etching themselves into the mud like brands. "Describe him. Not his power—his *mind*."
Naugus's grin widened, his lobster claw twitching toward the Beryl in his chestplate—knowing full well Mogul would taste the memory he'd dredged up from Sector 7's collapse. The scent of burning circuitry and spilled coolant flooded the clearing, thick enough to choke on, as Naugus replayed Sonic's laughter—high-pitched, childlike—ringing out over the screams of Maxx's enforcers.
"Five years old," he rasped, watching Mogul's tusks twitch at the admission. The swamp's mist thickened, curling around Sonic's memory like a spectral hand trying—and failing—to strangle it. "Five years old and already rewiring Maxx's own neural override traps into teaching tools." Naugus's lobster claw scraped against his Beryl, drawing sparks that danced in time with Sonic's recorded taunts echoing from the glyphs. *"Catch, princess—you'll need it for Sector 5's real vaults."* The security card's edge slicing Sally's palm wasn't just strategy; it was theater, the kind Mogul would appreciate.
Mogul exhaled through his trunk—a sound like a vault door grinding open—and the swamp's boiling pools stilled instantly. "He doesn't just break systems," the mammoth rumbled, his Beryl casting jagged shadows that slithered up Naugus's spine like living things. "He repurposes their bones." The admission hung in the air, thick with ozone and the cloying stench of rotting parchment, until Mogul's massive paw crushed the warped gear beneath it with a screech of metal. "You fear him." Not a question. A dissection.
Naugus's laugh was a rusty hinge forced open. "Fear? No." His claw twitched toward Ooma Arachnis's brood—the youngest now mimicking Sonic's smirk with unsettling accuracy. "But Maxx should." The glyphs pulsed faster, etching Sonic's latest broadcast into the mud: *"Hope's overrated, your majesty. But desperation? That's *useful*."* Static hissed through the clearing like a serrated blade dragged across the two of them.
"You should be afraid of him Naugus..." Mogul's voice was like grinding glaciers, his Beryl pulsing in time with Sonic's mocking laughter still echoing from the glyphs. The mammoth's massive paw flexed, crushing another rusted gear into powder that sizzled against his palm.
Wally Naugus looked up in surprise, "And why is that Master?"
"Because unlike every other person in my 10,000 years of life, I can't see anything in the future involving him," Mogul growled, his Beryl flaring violently as the swamp's mist recoiled from the heat. The glyphs beneath them writhed like dying snakes, their light refracting through the mammoth's tusks to cast jagged shadows that seemed to *avoid* Sonic's recorded image. "He doesn't just disrupt fate—he *eats* it."
Naugus felt his lobster claw twitch involuntarily, "What future did you originally see of him Master?"
"I saw that he was an Anarchy Titan that always fought to prove that he was the greatest by introducing his opponents to excruciating pain, and, if given the chance, killing them, to prove he was King, that he would cross worlds and cause havoc on Mobius Prime, simply put, he was just an Anarchy Titan on Max, but he's not that at all," Mogul's Beryl pulsed erratically, its light fracturing against the glyphs as if recoiling from the contradiction. The swamp's mist coiled tighter around his tusks, thick with the scent of charred circuitry and something unnervingly *alive*. "What he *is*... is worse. He doesn't crave dominion—he *curates* it. Like a gardener pruning rot."
Naugus' claw spasmed, gouging furrows in the mud as the glyphs flickered, revealing not destruction, but *repurposed* ruins—children salvaging Maxx's neural traps into playgrounds under Sonic's (who now seemed slightly older) watch. Mogul's trunk lashed like a whip. "See? He will in the future *reshape* their suffering into loyalty." The mammoth's Beryl pulsed, casting jagged reflections of Sonic crouching beside a trembling lynx kit—offering a shattered enforcer's badge like a toy, his quills casting shadows that *moved* independently, curling protectively around the child.
Ooma Arachnis recoiled as the vision shifted—Sonic's grin sharpened, his posture loose like a predator feigning harmlessness while Sector 7's rubble reassembled into fortified checkpoints behind him. "He's..." Naugus hissed, catching the scent of ozone and something unnervingly *warm*—burnt sugar clinging to Sonic's gloves as he tossed a candy to Sally, his quills flicking dismissively toward the corpses of Maxx's enforcers.
Mogul's laughter shook the swamp, sending skeletal eels fleeing. "Not a conqueror. A *cultivator*." His Beryl flared, revealing Sonic's latest broadcast—not a taunt, but a *lesson*, his child's voice disarmingly bright as he demonstrated how to rewire torture devices into irrigation pumps. The lynx kit from earlier giggled, clutching her makeshift tool, oblivious to the bloodstains on Sonic's boots.
The vision fractured as Mogul's tusks gleamed. "He'll spare Rosemarie Prower's unborn kit, the Chosen One," he rumbled.
"But why do you think he will spare him?" Naugus asked, watching the glyphs shift to reveal Rosemarie Prower's swollen belly pulsing with unnatural light—a forced pregnancy, Maxx's final gambit to breed a weapon. The image fractured as Sonic's shadow passed over it, his quills casting jagged patterns that *rewove* the light into something softer. Mogul's Beryl pulsed once, and the swamp exhaled the scent of freshly turned earth and antiseptic.
"I believe he somehow knows of the upcoming destruction of my Mobis Prime counterpart, and he wants the kit to be his pawn in ot," Mogul said, his tusks grinding together like millstones as the glyphs twisted into a future-scape of flames—Sonic Prime's Green Hill burning, armies clashing in the embers, and a single lynx kit (now older, scarred) standing at the epicenter, holding a blade that pulsed with *both* Anarchy and Chaos energy.
"Like I said, Sonic the Hedgehog confuses me, Ixis Naugus," Mogul's Beryl pulsed violently, casting jagged reflections of Sonic's latest broadcast—where he'd turned Maxx's neural scramblers into carnival rides for orphaned kits, his laughter bright as rusted metal shrieked in protest. The scent of burnt sugar clung to the vision as Sonic casually tossed a candy-bar to a trembling squirrel child, his quills flicking dismissively toward the smoldering wreckage of Sector 7's torture block—already being repurposed into housing.
"He already killed his father five years before he should of," Mogul rumbled, his trunk coiling around a skeletal eel that thrashed weakly before dissolving into Beryl-dust.
"Jules Hedgehog died screaming about betrayal, but the newborn child *smiled* while repurposing his sterilization wave into a city-leveling strike." The glyphs pulsed, replaying Diamond Heights' collapse frame by frame: Sonic's tiny frame silhouetted against the explosion, his quills casting shadows that *moved* independently to shield Bernadette's corpse from debris.
Mogul's trunk lashed like a whip, scattering the vision into motes of Beryl-light that clung to Naugus' chimeric carapace—burning where they touched flesh. "You think he'll spare Rosemarie Prower's kit out of *mercy*?" The mammoth's laughter shook the swamp, sending skeletal eels darting into the boiling depths. "No. He'll let it live because *broken things* are easier to reshape. You know about my curse Naugus, and how the Bygone Walkers made me misjudge every plan—this? This hedgehog *wields* my misjudgment like a scalpel."
Sonic's shadow stretched across the glyphs—not a conqueror's silhouette, but a *surgeon's*, his quills precise as they excised Maxx's enforcers from the infrastructure they'd guarded. The scent of antiseptic and charred circuitry clashed as the vision sharpened:
A possible future of an older Sonic crouched beside the Chosen one himself, Miles "Tails" Prower, the kit born to Rosemarie Prower and Amadeus Prower, a baby Miles 'Tails' Prower himself was clutching a toy plane—a repurposed Sector 5 surveillance drone—his stubby fingers tracing the jagged weld marks where Sonic had fused its shattered parts back together. The hedgehog's grin was all teeth and danger, but his gloves were gentle as they adjusted the kit's grip.
"Fly it right, and it'll never break," he murmured, the threat in his voice softened by the way his quills curled protectively around the kit's trembling frame. Behind them, the wreckage of Maxxopolis smoldered—twisted neural traps now repurposed into jungle gyms, their jagged edges filed smooth by Sonic's own claws. The air reeked of molten steel and burnt sugar, a sickly-sweet contrast to the blood drying on Sonic's gloves as he nudged the drone into Tails' tiny palms as the glyphs panned out to the rebuilding of Maxxopolis, now renamed since King Maxx Acorn was no longer in power.
And then the vision shattered.