FireSeraphim
A Professional Vampire Hunter
- Location
- Mannford, OK USA
This is one I don't have the skills to do justice or write well at all. I will also freely admit that my knowledge of Archie Sonic is spotty and somewhat second hand but I am fascinated by the setting; I kinda cooked up this huge AU idea while I was busy doing housework and it requires some serious setup for me to describe. I will freely admit that the very concept that I'm about to lay out is potentially very crack-y so let me set the stage for you:
1. The rather messy setup
For the purposes of thise AU the SGW doesn't succeed at all, with Sonic somehow sucessfully stopping it while saving Sally. In this very odd AU, Akira and his friends lived a full life after the events of P5R and Strikers, dies and is eventually reincarnated in the Archie Sonic verse. Akira and Morgana in this verse are Cat Mobians who perhaps live in the one of big cities elsewhere, with Akira sorta adopting Morgana as a little brother of sort, working to make ends meet while they are on their own. Additionally both of them have regained their Personas and have gain the basic ability to use them in the real world, but this is a secret they keep to themselves. By day Akira runs a traveling coffee trading business, but by night both Akira and Morgana once again are the Phantom Thieves of Heart; using their stealth skills and their Persona powers to disrupt Robotnik's and other villains lesser schemes and exposing corruption wherever they go. Both of them do not run into Igor for quite a while and are seemingly never near where the main action is in terms of Archie canon but they do want to help the Freedom Fighters and try to do what they can without exposing themselves as the Phantom Thieves of Heart.
So basically Robotnik finds the Phantom Ruby and the basic plot of Sonic forces begins to happen, but Robotnik only has 70% of the world by the time Sonic is rescued thanks to the competent leadership of Sally Acorn and the Freedom Fighters; as well as the newest recruit to the cause, Akira and Morgana themselves with Akira taking the role of the Rookie but his Freedom Fighter callsign is Wildcard.
So the main story for this idea occurs in the timeframe between Infinite's debut and Sonic's rescue from the Death Egg (Also for the purpose of this AU Classic Sonic does not show up).
The day after Infinite shows up Akira once again enters the Velvet Room (and while in there he once's again a human, Igor explains this like this "while your body in the real world is Mobian, your soul is Human"). Igor once again meets Joker and asks him to save the world from ruin. Igor also gives them the ability to access the Metaverse via the doors to the Velvet room, which only manifests near their target. he also crypticly explains that there are five palaces of ruin, each one representing an inversion of the five classic virtues of Confucianism (but admittedly I'm using the interpretation of them that appears in MLP:FIM). Akira has to eventually get into each of the five palaces in the metaverse while at the same time helping the resistances retake the world from Robotnik's empire, with each palace the resistances gains more hope and more and more people seeing the Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves as their salvation.
2. The Five Palaces of Ruin
To be clear there may be better candidates for the five palaces and not all palaces of ruin are tied to a villain but I can't help but to imagine that the other Archie Sonic villians may decide to join Robotnik on his ruinous enterprise with the Phantom Ruby. So I am going to lay my ideas out in a list (and the last two are tackled after Sonic is rescued from the Death Egg).
Ryuji is a Greyhound, Ann is a Leopard, Yusuke is a one-tailed Fox, Futaba is a white mouse, Makoto is a German Shepard, and Haru is fitting enough a bunny.
But that doesn't mean a few new-ish people won't join the Phantom Thieves in their perilous journey through the five palaces (The P5 cast regain their human forms while in the Metaverse).
Bunnie and Antoine during the Tower of Treachery, Tails and Gamma ends up joining them during the Dungeon of Deceit, Knuckles and Sally during the Bank of Greed and our blur blue himself during the Warzone of Cruelty, which is after Sonic is rescued. All of the Mobian newcomers don't get personas because personas are solely tied to those who souls are human from the Persona-verse because of the piece of Nyx that exist in the soul of each persona-verse human. To compensate for this, the inherent chaos energy in Mobians allow them to actually damage and harm Shadows without the need to call on personas. Why did I not mention Goro Akechi, well...
3. Being Goro is Suffering
Akechi has also been reincarned in this universe as a mobian wolf (fitting since Fenrir is one of Loki's sons and is a wolf) but Goro has not had an easy time of it. Goro lived in Mobotropolis in this life prior to Robotnik's takeover of it and he had the traumatic horror of once again watching his mother in this life die, this time because of ol' Robotnik. To pour further salt into his wounds, Goro has been robotized against his will, His Persona and his burning hatred of Robotnik being the only thing allowing him enough freewill to struggle against Robotnik's programming and once again he is in opposition to Akira as part of a special taskforce by Robotnik to try and stop Akira from ruining his lesser plans. While Sonic and Tails are fighting Infinite for the last time in the real world, Akira and the Phantom Thieves have to fight Metal Akechi (or Metal Goro) inside the Warzone of Cruelty to incapacitate and free him. At the end of the Factory of Misery, Sonic is having his last fight against Robotnik outside while inside the Phantom Thieves are fighting Robotnik's Shadow, a dark nightmarish and metallic being reminiscent of Robo-Robotnik. Both groups defeat their respective half of Robotnik and things look like they might be looking up, that the world can finally heal...
3. One Last Surprise
Without our heroes noticing, gradually more and more people in Robotnik's territory have been acting weird, human and mobian alike letting the vile dictator tell them what to do and how to live. This doesn't change even after these territories have been liberated. What the hell is going on here? It turns out that Yaldabaoth has been biding his time, using the Metaverse to siphon chaos energy from the world to regain his lost strength. Yaldabaoth shows up and fully possess Robotnik for one last assault. This combined entity I hereby call Yaldabotnik, the Man-God of Perfect Control and Order. Bringing to bear on this world Robotnik's machines, Yaldabaoth's angelic minions, the power of the Phantom Ruby and Shadows in another attempt to create his perfect world of control, a world without freewill. Cue "Rivers in the Desert".
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD-OFP-0H5g
4. Showing that egotistical cup what We're Made Of.
The Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves both unite for one last grueling battle, with Sonic and Joker leading the charge, the intial battle against Yaldabotnik doesn't seem to go well until Knuckles shows up with all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, all pre-charged to their super emerald form. Both Sonic and Joker use them to become Hyper Sonic and Ultra Joker, with Ultra Joker outfit being in perpetual demonic flames around the edges, his wings of rebellion fully unfurled and allow him to fly. Allowing Ultra Joker to fully call on the power of Satanael within himself. The final battle against Yaldabotnik being a truly epic showdown for the ages. The combined being defeated by a Hyper Sonic and Ultra Joker powered Sinful Shell with Hyper Sonic as the bullet that lands the final blow. with Yaldabaoth once against defeated by a Wild Card defending people freedom and freewill. Robotnik is back to normal and is unconscious. The World celebrates the victory with the Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves of Hearts being acclaimed as heroes and Robotnik's empire being no more. The world begins to heals and Robotnik later wakes up, not knowing who is he is or what he has done. His sense of self seemingly deleted from existence...
Important Cliff-notes regarding this huge concept
There are few notes I wanted to clarify regarding this AU concept that I don't think I could convey with the main list, so have another list!
1. The rather messy setup
For the purposes of thise AU the SGW doesn't succeed at all, with Sonic somehow sucessfully stopping it while saving Sally. In this very odd AU, Akira and his friends lived a full life after the events of P5R and Strikers, dies and is eventually reincarnated in the Archie Sonic verse. Akira and Morgana in this verse are Cat Mobians who perhaps live in the one of big cities elsewhere, with Akira sorta adopting Morgana as a little brother of sort, working to make ends meet while they are on their own. Additionally both of them have regained their Personas and have gain the basic ability to use them in the real world, but this is a secret they keep to themselves. By day Akira runs a traveling coffee trading business, but by night both Akira and Morgana once again are the Phantom Thieves of Heart; using their stealth skills and their Persona powers to disrupt Robotnik's and other villains lesser schemes and exposing corruption wherever they go. Both of them do not run into Igor for quite a while and are seemingly never near where the main action is in terms of Archie canon but they do want to help the Freedom Fighters and try to do what they can without exposing themselves as the Phantom Thieves of Heart.
So basically Robotnik finds the Phantom Ruby and the basic plot of Sonic forces begins to happen, but Robotnik only has 70% of the world by the time Sonic is rescued thanks to the competent leadership of Sally Acorn and the Freedom Fighters; as well as the newest recruit to the cause, Akira and Morgana themselves with Akira taking the role of the Rookie but his Freedom Fighter callsign is Wildcard.
So the main story for this idea occurs in the timeframe between Infinite's debut and Sonic's rescue from the Death Egg (Also for the purpose of this AU Classic Sonic does not show up).
The day after Infinite shows up Akira once again enters the Velvet Room (and while in there he once's again a human, Igor explains this like this "while your body in the real world is Mobian, your soul is Human"). Igor once again meets Joker and asks him to save the world from ruin. Igor also gives them the ability to access the Metaverse via the doors to the Velvet room, which only manifests near their target. he also crypticly explains that there are five palaces of ruin, each one representing an inversion of the five classic virtues of Confucianism (but admittedly I'm using the interpretation of them that appears in MLP:FIM). Akira has to eventually get into each of the five palaces in the metaverse while at the same time helping the resistances retake the world from Robotnik's empire, with each palace the resistances gains more hope and more and more people seeing the Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves as their salvation.
2. The Five Palaces of Ruin
To be clear there may be better candidates for the five palaces and not all palaces of ruin are tied to a villain but I can't help but to imagine that the other Archie Sonic villians may decide to join Robotnik on his ruinous enterprise with the Phantom Ruby. So I am going to lay my ideas out in a list (and the last two are tackled after Sonic is rescued from the Death Egg).
- The Tower of Treachery (Geoffrey St. John) (which is the opposite of loyalty)
- The Dungeon of Deceit (Ixus Naugus) (which is the opposite of honesty or wisdom)
- The Bank of Greed (Mammoth Mogul) (which is the opposite of generosity)
- The Warzone of Cruelty (Infinite) (which is the opposite of kindness or empathy)
- The Factory of Misery (Dr. Robotnik) (which is the opposite of joy, or laughter)
Ryuji is a Greyhound, Ann is a Leopard, Yusuke is a one-tailed Fox, Futaba is a white mouse, Makoto is a German Shepard, and Haru is fitting enough a bunny.
But that doesn't mean a few new-ish people won't join the Phantom Thieves in their perilous journey through the five palaces (The P5 cast regain their human forms while in the Metaverse).
Bunnie and Antoine during the Tower of Treachery, Tails and Gamma ends up joining them during the Dungeon of Deceit, Knuckles and Sally during the Bank of Greed and our blur blue himself during the Warzone of Cruelty, which is after Sonic is rescued. All of the Mobian newcomers don't get personas because personas are solely tied to those who souls are human from the Persona-verse because of the piece of Nyx that exist in the soul of each persona-verse human. To compensate for this, the inherent chaos energy in Mobians allow them to actually damage and harm Shadows without the need to call on personas. Why did I not mention Goro Akechi, well...
3. Being Goro is Suffering
Akechi has also been reincarned in this universe as a mobian wolf (fitting since Fenrir is one of Loki's sons and is a wolf) but Goro has not had an easy time of it. Goro lived in Mobotropolis in this life prior to Robotnik's takeover of it and he had the traumatic horror of once again watching his mother in this life die, this time because of ol' Robotnik. To pour further salt into his wounds, Goro has been robotized against his will, His Persona and his burning hatred of Robotnik being the only thing allowing him enough freewill to struggle against Robotnik's programming and once again he is in opposition to Akira as part of a special taskforce by Robotnik to try and stop Akira from ruining his lesser plans. While Sonic and Tails are fighting Infinite for the last time in the real world, Akira and the Phantom Thieves have to fight Metal Akechi (or Metal Goro) inside the Warzone of Cruelty to incapacitate and free him. At the end of the Factory of Misery, Sonic is having his last fight against Robotnik outside while inside the Phantom Thieves are fighting Robotnik's Shadow, a dark nightmarish and metallic being reminiscent of Robo-Robotnik. Both groups defeat their respective half of Robotnik and things look like they might be looking up, that the world can finally heal...
3. One Last Surprise
Without our heroes noticing, gradually more and more people in Robotnik's territory have been acting weird, human and mobian alike letting the vile dictator tell them what to do and how to live. This doesn't change even after these territories have been liberated. What the hell is going on here? It turns out that Yaldabaoth has been biding his time, using the Metaverse to siphon chaos energy from the world to regain his lost strength. Yaldabaoth shows up and fully possess Robotnik for one last assault. This combined entity I hereby call Yaldabotnik, the Man-God of Perfect Control and Order. Bringing to bear on this world Robotnik's machines, Yaldabaoth's angelic minions, the power of the Phantom Ruby and Shadows in another attempt to create his perfect world of control, a world without freewill. Cue "Rivers in the Desert".
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD-OFP-0H5g
4. Showing that egotistical cup what We're Made Of.
The Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves both unite for one last grueling battle, with Sonic and Joker leading the charge, the intial battle against Yaldabotnik doesn't seem to go well until Knuckles shows up with all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, all pre-charged to their super emerald form. Both Sonic and Joker use them to become Hyper Sonic and Ultra Joker, with Ultra Joker outfit being in perpetual demonic flames around the edges, his wings of rebellion fully unfurled and allow him to fly. Allowing Ultra Joker to fully call on the power of Satanael within himself. The final battle against Yaldabotnik being a truly epic showdown for the ages. The combined being defeated by a Hyper Sonic and Ultra Joker powered Sinful Shell with Hyper Sonic as the bullet that lands the final blow. with Yaldabaoth once against defeated by a Wild Card defending people freedom and freewill. Robotnik is back to normal and is unconscious. The World celebrates the victory with the Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves of Hearts being acclaimed as heroes and Robotnik's empire being no more. The world begins to heals and Robotnik later wakes up, not knowing who is he is or what he has done. His sense of self seemingly deleted from existence...
Important Cliff-notes regarding this huge concept
There are few notes I wanted to clarify regarding this AU concept that I don't think I could convey with the main list, so have another list!
- (During the Tower Of Treachery) Akira is accused of being a spy by Geoffrey St. John due to a recent string of setbacks and Akira has to clear his name by clearing Geoffrey's Palace, taking his distorted desires and forcing the Skunk to confess to his treachery, with his recently reunited friends Ryuji, Ann and his adapted younger brother/friend Morgana being the only ones who believe in Akira's innocence. Bunnie and Antoine end up stumbling into the Metaverse after following the four of them in.
- (During the Dungeon of Deceit) Tails ends up appearing the Metaverse purely by accident and this is after Akira successfully helps Tails rebuild Gamma, with Ryuji, Yusuke, and Futaba helping.
- (During the Bank of Greed) Knuckles and Sally stumble into the Metaverse by accident during this arc, and this is during an operation to intercept the train containing the Phantom Ruby prototypes, which for the purposes of this AU occurs before sonic's rescue. Mammoth Mogul is on the train and both Fighters and Thieves end up having to fight both him and his shadow at the same freaking time because Mammoth Mogul is able to direct project himself into his own palace. Jeez that gonna hurt!
- (Before the Warzone of Cruelty) Akira and the Thieves finally come clean about the Metaverse to Sally and Sally comes up with a plan to use the Metaverse to defeat Infinite using the Metaverse but Sonic needs to be rescued first.
- (during the Factory of Misery) Goro is still recovering after being successfully derobotized by a procedure created by Igor with NICOLE's help. A procedure based on Igor's previous de-jokerization ritual from Persona 2 - Eternal Punishment.
- (Post Yaldabotnik's defeat) Akira and his friends are famous now, they're heroes and Akira's travelling coffee business is freaking booming! The villains all suffer a huge setback in light of all that has happened, the Phantom Ruby is no more and neither the God of Control nor the would be Evil Genius World Ruler are a threat. The events leading up to the Metal Virus saga still happens though, but with surprising changes and divergences from the IDW-verse version due to the presence of both the Freedom Fighters and the Phantom Thieves of Heart.
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