Jump 1: Director's Cut

The Black Arms had been chasing after the comet for a long time now, sensors locked firmly on it yet always unable to catch up. It glowed with prismatic light and radiated incredible energy, yet that very light and energy concealed what exactly laid at the comet's heart. They knew it held power-power enough to forge a new Black Comet, power enough to reshape and revive their species back from the bleeded remnants that was all that was left of them now. They could sense Chaos Energy, Hyper Go-On, Psychic Energy, something unquantifiable-all in such incredible amounts that it was like staring into the heart of a supernova that simply remained stable and flying forward throughout the universe. 

As they tracked it, more and more of that unquantifiable energy disappeared, and the Chaos, Hyper Go-On, and Psychic signatures grew more and more powerful-as if it was converting itself into those other three forms. This spurred the Black Arms Remnants on further, hoping to catch it before the entirety of that unquantifiable power was lost...but they were simply too slow, and too late. 

The comet approached the planet, seeming to lose mass, shrinking, burning away in atmosphere...and when it impacted, the entire planet split apart into tectonic plates that floated around a living, writhing molten core. And then a living firestorm sprung up upon the planet, screaming out to the universe. And then a literal living ocean shaped like a dragon emerged, and began battling the living firestorm. And then a living tide of silver nanomachines claimed another third of the planet. And at that point, the Black Arms Remnats decided that they would do the greater universe a rare favor and isolate any of these things from escaping the planet and wreaking havoc elsewhere. Let all the apocalyptic beings and grey goo scenarios burn themselves out against each other.

It took some weeks for these apocalypses to truly ramp up after the impactor split the world, and in the meantime, there was a crater on the planet Mobius. Around that crater were the remnants of a great deal of metals and gemstones, and further still were shredded and burnt bits of paper money. In the center of that still burning crater, emanating fading prismatic lights, was an unconscious Mobian-a hedgehog, to be precise. She was young, still a teenager by her looks and body size. Her hair and fur was a dull purple; the hair on her head was long, and would cover her eyes and most of her back if it was not splayed out by her impact. And of course, she was entirely ***** and unconscious.

A green-haired hedgehog poked her head over the lip of the crater, staring at the occupant with both bafflement and annoyance. "This is gonna be bad for business..." She murmured to herself. "Alley-oop!" She huffed, jumping into the crater. She was wearing a red business suit, which she dusted for a moment as she walked up to the unconscious hedgehog. Without fanfare, she began to nudge the unconscious Mobian with her foot. "Hey, wake up. Get up, kid." 

The purple hedgehog groaned, curling in on herself briefly, until disturbed by another nudge from the green hedgehog. Slowly, she pulled herself into a sitting position, rubbbing her eyes as she did so. A moment later her eyes snapped wide-shining with prismatic light for a few moemnts, before settling into a deep crystalline blue as she began to look around the crater.

"Hey kid, what the heck's with all of this?" The green-haired hedgehog demanded of the purpole one.

The purple hedgehog started at the green one for several moments, then opened her mouth. "W͞҉̶h͏̡̕͜͡á̴̧̨͠t͏̀-̛̀w̕͞͝h̶͜é̢͟͡r̢͢e̸̢̧̕͏-͏̷́҉L͏̕͢I̴͠G̡̕͘͞͝H̨͜T̶̀-̧̨̀͝͠ẁ̧̛͟h̷̸̡̕̕ò͜͢͜ ́̕a̛͘̕͜m̵̸̷̧-͏̷̶́͞C̵͢͟Ḩ̶͢͝À͘O̧͘͟͜S̷̢̀̀" Several voices emerged from her mouth at the same time, speaking different things in different languages, creating a discordant mess. She closed her mouth, seeming to concentrate for a moment, then spoke again-much more slowly and quietly. "Where...am I?"

The green hedgehog nodded to herself. 'It's always the aliens.' She thought. "You're in Casino Park, kid. But you probably don't know what that is-this is Empire City of the United Federation, Northamer. And because I'm sure you'll ask, this is the planet Mobius. What's your name, kid?"

The purple hedgehog thought for a long while, scrunching her face up in confusion for several moments, before answering. "Gene...sis. I am...Genesis." She answered.

The green hedgehog favored Genesis with a smile. "Good to have you onboard, Genesis. I'm Breezie, and as of today I own your ass."

This would mark the start of their relationship, and years of Breezie exploiting Genesis for mind-boggling profit.

0-0-0-0-0

It was several weeks after Genesis had landed on Mobius, and she thought she was getting a hang of her new existence. This Mobian body-HER body, now-was infinitely better than her previous human body. This life, though hard and full of constant stress, was much more exciting and incredible than her previous one. Breezie was a harsh mistress, but fair and good at directing her to profit.

And all of that didn't even mention the powers at her fingertips.

Genesis ran across the earth, staring at a frozen world. At the speeds she was moving at, it was as if time was brought to a standstill. In this moment, when the world was brought to a halt and she was the only thing that moved, she felt a sense of peace and freedom that left her utterly breathless. And that was just the very beginning of her new gifts. A thought saw a slit in reality opening up before her eyes, a light tear held open with mental fingers. She slipped through, and beheld a golden world of light and power, infinite potential yet unrealized. She didn't stay long-just barely a moment, just long enough to open another slit and slip back through into reality, several meters forward. It was further than she could move in a single "jump" just a couple weeks back; her skill was growing quickly, though she still didn't have the courage to draw upon the chaotic golden force in that strange world.

Instead of that, Genesis turned to a different light-a light in countless colors that laid within her heart. Tapping into just a small fraction of that light made a prismatic aura begin to surround her, and she shot through the desert with renewed speed. She let go of the prismatic light a moment later, letting it fade back into her while she retained the momentum her burst of speed granted her; like this, she found she could stretch out her reserves of "rainbow light" far more than simply burning them all at once. 

Right now, Breezie had her searching through a distant desert for some old Babylonian ruins; the green hedgehog was quick to help Genesis discover her amazing powers, and even quicker to use them for money-making opportunities that were simply impossible if you couldn't cross the breadth of a continent a dozen times over in an afternoon. She'd already made a pretty hefty sum for Breezie via high-speed courier service, good transporation, and other such things-and as the world got more chaotic with the emergence of Dark Gaia, Iblis, The Metal Overlord, and Chaos emerging all at once in a for-way battle for the planet, the zome of peace that Genesis herself could establish via her powers and services let Mobians flock under Breezie's banner...and let money flow into Breezie's coffers.

Speaking of-Genesis ducked, striking out with a fist clad in prismatic whisps at a spike of silvery material, shattering it with a sensation somewhere between her hand passing through a dusting of water and a stiff breeze. She jumped into the air-meters into the air-and shot back down at a glowing node in front of her. Her feet smashed directly into it, and the latest extension of the Metal Overlord's nanomachines began self destructing. Despite destroying that metal force, Genesis frowned. It wasn't a good sign to see the Metal Overlord's forces out this way; this was Iblis's territory. Looks like the clashes would be spreading a little closer to Empire City soon.

Her body was powerful, there was no doubt about it. She could fight off the forces of all four of those living apocalypses pretty easy, and did so on a daily basis during patrols around Empire City-keeping the place a bastion of peace in the process. But those forces were small for now, merely scouts and dregs from distant masters...she didn't know how she'd handle herself against a whole army of them, let alone their masters directly. Pensive frown firmly in place, Genesis ran onwards.

A few entirely subjective minutes later-in truth, maybe a whole a second had passed since she had first set out from Casino Park on this latest mission-Genesis arrived at the temple that Breezie suggested held a great deal of ancient Babylonian treasures. Genesis slowed down her running, and simultaneously began pulling on the prismatic energy within her; if she wanted to maintain the accelerated perception that her running granted her and remain in this frozen world while "jogging", "walking", or "staying still", she had to pull this trick for now. It had something to do with her simply not being acclimated to processing things at those speeds while not running; if she got more used to moving at those speeds, she could keep her accelerated perception on at all times. But for now, this extremely crude workaround would have to do.

Slowly-at least subjectively-Genesis began to wander into the ancient temple. She stopped to stare at and consider inscriptions, marvelled at architecture, and in many ways just...played tourist, just a bit. At these speeds she could afford to take her time and appreciate this monument to the ancient history of Mobius; she wasn't /wasting/ any time, at least. But as she progressed deeper into the temple, she began to notice signs of something being distinctly /off/.

A patch of wall far less dusty than the rest of the wall. A set of footprints in sand winding deeper into the temple. A few pebbles, suspended in the air as they fell from the ceiling. 

And then, she found the source of these disturbances. An utterly beautiful white bat Mobian, eyes only just beginning to widen. Large hips, luscious *******, soft and plump lips, beautiful shining eyes...everything about her simply sung to Genesis's heart. She knew the name of this Mobian before having ever met her...Rouge the Bat.

And several meters behind Rouge, aimed directly at her head, was a sharp spike of metal-even now, moving at what appeared to be a very slow crawl towards the bat. Genesis's eyes widened. In this accelerated state, the entirety of the world should be frozen-she could sit down and stare at a fired bullet for subjective hours, and it would only seem to move perhaps an inch. For this spike of metal to be /visibly moving/ while she was like this...

There was no way Rouge could ever react in time. Genesis was her only hope of survival.

Genesis ran, moving around Rouge and began to push the spike of metal away-but it was heavy, incredibly so, and resisted her pushing. Even the toughest of metals that Genesis had previously encountered felt like loose snow underneath her fingers while she was moving this fast...but this spike of metal felt like /actual metal/. Even the heaviest of objects felt like lifting styrofoam at these weights...but this spike of metal felt like pushing against a wall. 

Genesis grit her teeth, and called up more prismatic light from within. Not just a trickle or a dreg, but a flood of prismatic light-and in moments she burned with alien power. The metal spike began to give under her hands, and slowly turned away from Rouge...until finally it pointed down the corridor rather than at the bat's head. Genesis cut the prismatic light, and a moment later a sonic boom rang out-the railgun spike shooting off down the corridor while Genesis herself slumped down and panted on the floor. Channeling that sort of power really took it out of her...

"Holy...looks like I might just owe you my life, miss." A husky and seductive voice rang out as Genesis attempted to catch her breath. Rouge sauntered over and crouched in front of Genesis. "Could I know the name of my saviour?"

"Gen..." Genesis attempted to say her name, still panting.

"Gen...cute name, for a cute girl. What were you doing out here, anyways?"

Genesis-or Gen, as Rouge called her-finally got her breathing back under control. That didn't exactly make her any better at talking to such a beautiful woman, unfortunately. "Breezie sent me to look for treasure..." She mumbled out.

Rouge frowned. "Ah, that's a bit annoying. Hmm...Tell you what; we'll split what we find. I'll just take the particularly nice jewels and gems, and you can have the other treasures. Deal?" Rouge smiled flirtatiously at Genesis.

"S-sure..." Genesis answered back, blushing heavily now.

Rouge got a mischevious gleam in her eye, beginning to suspect something. Her smile pulled wider, and she immediately lunged in-for a kiss on Gen's cheek. "Thanks, darling! I just know I'll be able to count on you~!"

Genesis was far too busy blushing from head to toe and stammering something along the lines of "awawawa" to be able to respond to that, and only numbly followed after the bat deeper into the ruins. Rouge mentally congratulted herself on this feat; her looks never let her down.

At first Rouge began to make small talk with Genesis, intending to wind the lovestruck hedgehog further around her finger...but found that she actually began to take a liking to the girl. She was skittish, a bit naive, and had a habit of talking slowly in a way that made her seem a bit simple-minded...but she was also incredibly cute, and charming for all that. Plus, she /did/ save Rouge's life without a second thought. That counts for a lot. And as the two progressed further into the ruins, she did it again several times over; the ancient Babylonians had set up traps based on gravity manipulation, with hyperdense metals and gravitic railguns being frequent. Rouge would never have been able to react to any of these, let alone dodge-but Genesis? Now that she knew what she was looking for, and had some time to catch her breath, this was effortless for her to handle. Sure the railguns themselves were incredibly hard to move...but Rouge could be moved pretty easily, and that worked out far better.

And let her subtly touch and grope Rouge too, though Genesis would never admit to that.

Several hours passed in this way, and the pair of Rouge and Genesis proceeded to loot this Babyloniant temple to the bedrock as best they could. From ancient Babylonian tech and metals, riches, texts, artifacts, anything and everything they could get their hands on-and with Gen's help, they could easily transport all of it with a simple trick of telekinesis-another power that Gen had discovered rather early on, and a handy one at that.

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and a relationship that would span countless lifetimes.

...And also how the two of them pissed off a resident djinn who would proceed to hunt them down and curse them at every available opportunity for "ransacking her home". Luckily, not a very powerful djinn! And Gen willingly took the brunt of the djinn's attentions, since she was powerful enough to handle it.

0-0-0-0-0

"Grr...blasted hedgehog! Get back here so I can kill you!" A young girl's voice shouted, shortly followed by the sound of missiles launching and subsequently exploding. Gen only ran faster in response.

"I prefer life!" She called back, ducking and weaving through trees in order to avoid the hail of bullets coming from above-constantly moving at a steady hundreds of miles an hour, of course. Practically a leisurely strolling pace her for, admittedly, but there was a purpose to this. "What is with this world and crazy girls? First Dinya, then Bump, now this Mini-Egg-girl?" She muttered to herself, still moving forward even as the treeline gave way to plains, and those plains began to show cracks and lone fires dotting the landscape.

And then quite suddenly there simply was no more time for muttering, as Iblis's minions began to quite literally pull themselves out of the cracked ground, fall from the sky, or even just straight up coalesce out of nothing. Genesis set her mouth in a grim line, and poured on the speed-going from a casual couple-hundred miles and hour or so to a blistering several times the speed of sound. The world around her ground to a halt as she did, but she ignored that-instead jumping into the air, and launching herself forward in a burst of distinctly purple light. Her feet impacted against one minion, and she springboarded off of it even as it began to blow apart in slow motion-immediately launching herself to the next, and then the next, and the next. The Homing Attack, as tricky as it was to learn, was a powerful tool in her arsenal...and more importantly, let her save up her prismatic power for when she actually /needed/ it, rather than expending tiny amounts to destroy each and every minion.

A moment afterwards, Gen slowed herself back to a leisurely pace, and dodged a stream of bullets coming from her young pursuer. "You're not gonna lose me that easily, hedgehog!" Omelette called out from within her eggmobile. As she did so, several missiles shot out to the sides-destroying a number of Iblis minions in the process, and saving Gen just that much work. 

And thus we came to the crux of why exactly Genesis was leading Omelette on a chase through this blasted desert-like hellscape. Today was an Iblis Culling Day, and Breezie was paying her (or rather, removing debt from her) based on how much of Iblis's enemies and territory were destroyed by the end of the day. Omelette...was not particularly much of a threat, not riled up like this anyways. What she /was/ good at was collateral damage. Fighting her in Empire City would've just seen more debt piling up on Gen, whereas fighting her out in these wastes...well, the results spoke for themselves.

Gen and Omelette moved through the blasted wasteland like this, destroying a veritable army of Iblis Minions as they went. Every now and again Gen would accelerate herself to imperceptibility, then move backwards through areas that they'd already cleared. She'd raise her hands; one hand would hold a small but dense spark of prismatic energy from within herself, while the other opened up a /tiny/ hole in the world to the golden realm she could access, allowing streams of golden light to begin shooting out. With the hand holding the prismatic light she began to catch those golden streams; the prismatic light seemed to let her hold them and actively shape them, as if playing with clay. While she shaped them an expression of great focus appeared on her face, and a construct of golden light began to emerge.

At the end of that focus was a golden ring, threaded through with prismatic threads and holding a bright white core in its center. Without fanfare, Gen shoved this strange ring directly into the ground. The strange ring sank straight through the earth, and a subjective moment later a spot of pure white light emerged from the earth where the ring had sank in. Gen nodded to herself, and promptly ran back to where she had been before-swift enough that Omelette wouldn't realize that she'd abandoned the chase for a micro-instant to achieve this task.

Gen knew that a wave of light would spread out from that spot, and as it passed the earth would be healed; the wastes restored to grassy plains, cracks in the earth filling in, and the remaining embers from Iblis being put out. It was a trick she'd figured out through experimentation and dealing with Dinya the Djinn, along with knowledge from her past life. "Chaos was Power, Enriched by the Heart"; if she focused herself, drew forth the Chaos Energy from that golden world she could access, and focused her heart...she could use it to actively restore the world around her. Unfortunately she wasn't an Echidnan sage or even just someone with a lot of experience with wielding Chaos Energy, so she had to use a crutch; the prismatic light within her responded to her will, rather than emotions. She drew that up, infused it with her thoughts and intentions, and used it to shape and focus the Chaos Energy she needed. The end result was mentally and physically straining...but allowed her to actively heal the land as she passed through it, and even establish barriers that kept the forces of the Apocalyptic Quartet out for a good while. 

As the activities of the Apocalyptic Quartet had picked up in the past couple weeks, this was how Genesis managed to maintain Empire City as a safe zone. It wasn't a perfect solution; her "blessing" tended to wear off after a couple days, lasting a week at the absolute longest she'd managed so far. Breezie, of course, was /entirely/ okay with that state of affairs; it let her charge protection subscriptions after all. And she still had to weaken the apocalyptic forces in the area-remove all the enemies she could-to ensure the blessing and barrier were as powerful and stable as she could make them before moving on...

It was good that she could fix places, but it was only a temporary measure, in the end. This thought nagged at Gen as she dodged Omelette's attacks, fought against Iblis minions, and healed the land around her. All she did was treat the symptoms of the issue, put a bandage over a gaping wound. As content as Breezie was with the situation-making money hand over fist via charging for protections, safe deliveries of goods and services, and much more-Genesis herself had enough morals to acknowledge that this state of things couldn't last. If someone didn't come around to put the world back together eventually...

Never was this thought more obvious than when she spotted a Genesis Portal, opening up right before her eyes. Before Omelette could notice it Gen reached out with her psychic powers and forced the portal shut, preventing anything from the alternate timeline from leaking through. Omelette herself had actually come through one of those Genesis Portals, just before Gen had finished closing it-stranding her in this reality, and beginning their grudge. The very fabric of reality was fraying apart, Gen acknowledged. Things /could not/ go on this way, not for much longer.

She was scared of those apocalyptic monsters, Gen acknowledged. They were massive, horrifying beasts-beasts that were literally shredding the planet and reality apart. But...Sonic was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he was on a different planet, or a different Zone, but there was nobody who had the sheer power needed to stop these rampaging monsters.

Nobody...except her.

Genesis knew how much latent power she had within her. If she tapped fully into the prismatic power, if she learned to actively harness the Chaos Energy she could call up on a whim, if she pushed her telekinesis and speed to the absolute limits...Sonic needed the Chaos Emeralds to go Super. If she mastered manipulating the golden realm, Genesis could potentially do it on a whim. She could be far more powerful than Sonic EVER was...if only she had the courage and will to reach out and take that power.

And she didn't have much longer to waffle on about this. The planet grew more unstable by the day, those titanic beasts and their forces clashing more often and more destructively. Either Genesis learned to tap into the power she held within her soon...or Mobius would be destroyed.

0-0-0-0-0

It's been almost six months to the day that Genesis crashed into Casino Park. She'd grown a lot stronger in that time. A lot faster. Perhaps not a lot wiser, she considered as she stared at the distant Metal Overlord and his army of machines, spreading a nanobot swarm across the land underneath them. Gen took a deep breath, focusing herself, and closed her eyes.

"You sure you're ready for this, Gen?" Rouge asked her, placing a hand on Gen's shoulder.

Gen smiled a little, then nodded. Then, she focused herself once again. Ever so gently, telekinetic fingers tore open seven small slits in the fabric of reality around her. Golden light began to pour from those slits as Gen spoke. "The servers are the Seven Chaos." She intoned, and the golden light of Chaos began to flow from those slits and into her body. "Chaos is power, enriched by the heart. The controller is the one who unifies the Chaos." The ancient echidnan prayer had no true power in her lips, but served as a powerful mnemonic.

Seven streams of Chaos energy flowed into Genesis, concentrating within her body and soul. She focused herself, unifying the seven streams of power into one. She didn't try to control the Chaos directly, but instead guided it, /became/ it. She let the light and power fill her, her body becoming the unifying fulcrum of power for these streams. Lightning crackled along her body and her fur burnt from purple to gold; underneath her eyelids, her eyes were overcome with shining prismatic light. 

Genesis grimaced-and lightning lashed out from one of her arms, burning both the arm and a nearby rock in the process. Her control over this form was.../far/ from perfect. But they were nearly out of time at this point, and at the very least it was /good enough/. Genesis opened her eyes, and stared out to her first target. 

The Metal Overlord was simultaneously the easiest of the enemies she would be facing, and also the hardest. On the one hand, the Metal Overlord didn't have any of the bullshit immortality measures that the other apocalypses had; Iblis could revive infinitely, Dark Gaia couldn't truly be killed without destroying the planet, and Chaos would just reform from the water that composed it sometime after its destruction. The Metal Overlord may be morphic and capable of swift recovery, but once it was destroyed that would be that...assuming she got all of it and it didn't have any backups. Even still, it'd take the Metal Overlord a whole lot longer than the other three to revive and build its power back up.

On the other hand...the Metal Overlord could adapt and generate new weaponry on the fly. It could grow and evolve in the midst of their battle. Gen had a rough idea of what she could expect when fighting the other apocalyptic monsters. With the Metal Overlord though? There was no telling what she'd face.

She took a deep breath, calming her heart and allowing the Chaos to flow through her body more smoothly. Then, in a single smooth motion, Genesis launched herself from the cliffside and into the sky. Crackling lighting and winds of Chaos propelled her through the air as reality once again ground to a halt around her, and she moved faster than she'd ever moved before.And as she approached the Metal Overlord, a shiver ran down Gen's spine. Because in an otherwise frozen world...

The Metal Overlord's eyes were following her.

She raced forward and gathered power in her fists, intent on shooting straight through its head and killing it in a single blow...but the Metal Overlord moved backwards and dodged. IT was sluggish in her sight, but the fact that /it was moving/ while she was filled with such power and moving so fast, let along moving /fast enough to dodge her/...Genesis was right to be worried.

"Did you think I was not prepared to face a Chaos-empowered hedgehog?" A mechanical voice, deep and gravelly, echoed out into the otherwise silent world around them. "You are not Sonic, puny creature, yet I will take great pleasure in ripping you limb from limb as I test out my latest anti-hedgehog protocols."

Primal fear tugged at Gen's heart...but she grit her teeth, drew more Chaos into herself, and launched herself at the machine.

The battle that followed would last years. It would last for just a few minutes. Time becomes strange and flexible when you move at such speeds. Genesis and the Metal Overlord clashed countless thousands of times, until grand golden light encompassed the entirety of the robot and his nanomachine sea. And then, there was an explosion-an explosion which rocked the entire continent of Northamer. The explosion faded, and all became silent.

"Gen!" Rouge screamed, jumping out from where she'd been hiding on the distant cliffside and moving through the smokecloud left behind by the incredible explosion. In the center of all that smoke was a crater...and in the center of that crater, was Gen-burnt in several places and ***** as the day she was born once again. Rouge reached her and began to check the unconscious hedgehog over...and sighed in relief when she found that Gen was still alive. Rouge picked up the purple hedgehog and held her against herself. "Oh, you have no idea how worried I was, my gem." She murmured to Genesis. In spite of herself, the two of them had become close friends over the past several months...and though she denied it, Rouge even felt something a little bit more.

Unknown to her, Genesis had woken up briefly as Rouge began to fuss over her. Before she could speak or communicate anything though, Rouge pulled her close in an embrace...notably, pulling Gen's head directly into her bountiful cleavage. Gen's skin burned red for reasons entirely unrelated to being in the heart of a continent-shaking explosion, and moments later she fell back unconscious-this time with a silly smile on her face.

0-0-0-0-0

It would be a couple weeks after that Gen recovered and trained herself up to face Dark Gaia, resulting in another close shave victory. She may not have had the power of Light Gaia to pull the world back together...but enough enriched Chaos Energy and Hyper Go-On (the proper name of the prismatic power within her...frankly "prismatic light" was a far better name) could do the job at least well enough. The world pulled back together, and with a steady stream of golden light at the center of Mobius, the cracks in the planet largely faded away. A month after that, Gen felt a strange disturbance in the golden world that she could call upon...and felt that now would be the perfect time to head out and take down Iblis. 

As she fought the living inferno, a similar golden blur would be seen almost on the opposite side of the planet fighting the living ocean that was Perfect Chaos. Eventually, Genesis beat Iblis down until all that was left was the immortal ember from which it would spring forth anew eternally. This was when preparations months in the making finally got to shine; Genesis pulled out a very unique Power Ring, gained from a Lake of Rings that had called to her. This Power Ring had been further augmented and enchanted by both Omelette and Dinya-reluctantly and with many favors promised to them-and purified once more in the Chaos Energy-infused waters of the Lake of Rings. Harnessing her tap to the limitless plane of Chaos Energy that was the Chaos Force, Genesis pulled the immortal ember of Iblis into the specially prepared Power Ring. The ring burnt an angry orange, and cybernetic markings throughout it began to light up while mystical glyphs glowed around it. 

As soon as Iblis's ember was fully sealed within the Power Ring, Genesis shoved it directly onto her wrist...and began to scream. The Iblis Ring shrank skin-tight around her wrist, sizzling and boiling her skin where it made contact as it quite literally melted her flesh. Glaring through teary eyes, Genesis channeled both Chaos Energy and prismatic light into the Iblis Ring. The heat died down, though the ring itself began shining even brighter...until a supernaturally loud "click" resounded, and the ring fell quiescent. 

This was the best solution she and her friends/rivals could think of for permanently defeating Iblis. Harnessing the matrix of energy that formed a Power Ring, augmenting it with advanced technology, reinforcing it with magic, then powering it with both Chaos and Hyper energy...it would be forcibly and permanently bonded to her body, but Iblis would be defeated for good as well. As a side benefit, she would be able to call on dregs of Iblis's flames and her own energies would grow stronger, faster due to the constant mild drain and suppression from the Iblis Ring. 

She had a similarly augmented ring packed away, specifically designed to seal away Chaos...but it would turn out that she wouldn't need to use it. Nearly at the same time that she'd defeated Iblis, the other golden blur defeated Perfect Chaos-bringing an end to the War of Four Gods, as the Mobians would later go on to title the event. 

Things became quite a bit more peaceful after that evdnt. It would still take Genesis several years to pay off her "debt" to Breezie...but after a long enough time, not even Breezie could continue to exploit Gen in good faith. Or at least legally, considering that Gen had single-handedly made her several dozen times the money Breezie lost when Gen first crash-landed on Mobius.

Throughout those years, Gen and Rouge would have quite a few adventures together-treasure hunting being both profitable and rather fun. Their friendship grew practically unbreakable over the years-especially as they had to deal with traps, rivals, and occasionally threats from strange Genesis Portals. If it was up to Gen, she would've waited a good five years into her life in this world before so much as attempting to ask Rouge out. Luckily, Rouge was much more assertive than Gen was. It took her just three months after the War of Four Gods for the seductive Mobian to lose her patience and kiss Genesis silly. From that point on the two were a couple, and Gen wondered how she went her whole life without Rouge beforehand.

And a year or two after the war itself, Genesis finally ran into the most powerful being on the planet...the blue blur, Sonic the Hedgehog.

As a long-established habit, Gen went on daily runs across the breadth of Northamer-doing laps and timing herself to push herself to run just a /little/ bit faster every day. It was good exercise, and it gave her a chance to decompress in a place where time was essentially frozen-a place that was all her own. But today, in the distance, she saw someone moving in her personal frozen world. Someone moving rather fast, at that. 

Whatever it was noticed her as well, and subjective moments later the blue streak shot off from the distance to meet her. Genesis flinched back, stopping-and then the blue streak was right in front of her. 

"Hey, you're the one who stopped those other monsters and protected Empire City, right?" A happy, but surprisingly gentle voice asked her. She opened her eyes to see...Sonic, in the flesh, standing right in front of her and smiling. Sonic grinned a little wider at seeing how Genesis reacted to him. "It's nice to meet you! I'm Sonic; what's your name?"

Genesis tried to push past the hero-worship of her childhood and past life and answer. "Ah; I'm Gen." She managed to answer. 

"Well, nice work Gen! From what I heard, you did pretty amazing protecting the entire region practically all by yourself." Sonic seemed to take a long look at Gen, and saw just how nervous she was. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "C'mon, I'm not that scary, am I?"

Gen shook her head. "I'm just-uh, not really good with people." She excused. 

And Sonic went right back to smiling. "That's totally understandable. Say, you were moving pretty fast earlier; how about instead of talking, we have a little race? Just for fun, don't worry."

Gen thought for a long moment, then nodded with a small smile. Sonic smiled wide right back. "Great! Up and down the coast? C'mon, let's go!" And without another word, the two were off.

Right away, Gen noted that...well, she was a little bit slower than Sonic. Not by much, but it was noticeable when the two of them ran at what they considered "casual" paces. When Gen pushed herself to keep up, Sonic looked back, smiled, and just went a little bit faster. In this way the two of them raced; Sonic constantly egging her on to move just a little bit faster, and Genesis pushing herself harder and harder to keep up...until she was just about reaching her maximum speed. Well, without any boosting factors, at least. 

The two of them raced at these incredible speeds up and down the coast of Northamer a few times over, and though Genesis still lost that race they agreed to do it again next week. And then the week again after that. Soon enough it became a weekly routine of its own; Genesis found her speed increasing by leeps and bounds this way, and Sonic was a comfortable racing partner. Despite her growing speed and skill, Genesis would never once be able to defeat Sonic in a straight-up race without resorting to Hyper or Chaos energy. She would push him several times, but unless she was willing to break out the golden or prismatic power within her, she just never had the capacity to truly surpass Sonic's own speed.

That didn't mean she /didn't/ get a few wins in. Sonic knew she relied on those powers quite a bit frequently, and grabbed himself a Chaos Emerald for a race one day-and the two of them competed to see just who was the /absolute/ fastest. On that day, Gen had her first real victory; the prismatic power in her pushed her faster, further, and simply /more/ than a single Chaos Emerald could.

The next week, Sonic came back with two Emeralds...and lost again.

The week after, Sonic came with three Emeralds...and lost again.

The week after, it was four Emeralds...and four losses.

Week five, five Emeralds...five losses.

Week six, six Emeralds...six losses.

And seven weeks after this little escalation competition began, the final nail in the coffin came...when Sonic brought all seven Chaos Emeralds. Sonic went Super Sonic that race, and rushed forward at the speed of light. Genesis opened up stable portals to the Chaos Force, going Super as well...the difference was, she also had Hyper energy. And where Sonic had a set amount of power from the Chaos Emeralds and the Rings he picked up along the way, Genesis could just keep pouring more and more power into herself directly from the source of all Chaos Energy. On that day...Sonic conceded that Genesis was faster than he was, at least when using powers.

While it never really mattered to Genesis-she knew that this would be the result the entire time; in terms of pure body speed she could never match up, but Sonic had limited Chaos energy to autment himself with whereas she had functionally infinite-Rouge threw Genesis a little party for her victory against Sonic that week. THAT, made the victory quite worth it.

0-0-0-0-0

It was almost a decade to the day Genesis had crash-landed on Mobius...and Genesis could feel a new world calling out to her. She had already mostly put her affairs in order, settled all her debts, and so on. All that was left...was one final conversation.

"Are you sure you want to come with me?" She asked Rouge, absently rubbing the Iblis Ring on her wrist. It'd become something of a nervous habit of hers over the years, and right now she was feeling plenty nervous.

Rouge sighed and favored Genesis with an exasperated smile. "Darling, I've been preparing for this for months now. Yes, I'm sure. Maybe I might miss a few friends here and there...but there's no way you'll get rid of me that easily. Just imagine all the sights to see, the adventures to have, the treasures to find..." She trailed off for a moment, then re-focused herself. "Besides, it's not like time will pass here while we're gone, right? I lose nothing by coming along, and potentially gain everything. I don't see a downside."

"But still-" Gen was about to continue, until Rouge's lips silenced her. All thoughts in Gen's head popped like a soapbubble.

The two kissed for several moments, until Rouge pulled back. "Gen, I love you. I'm not gonna leave you, especially not when you're gonna go gallavanting across the cosmos. We're in this together."

At that, Genesis could only nod dumbly as a wide and dopey smile spread across her face. At least until Rouge dopeslapped her. "Now c'mon, help me back up the last of my bags. I'm not leaving any of this behind!"

It wasn't until just shortly before they left through the strange prismatic Genesis Portal that appeared on the promised day of Gen's departure that Gen would realize...Rouge had packed a lot of her bags with a LOT of stolen gems. As in, an entire museum's worth stolen literally the night before. Some habits die hard, she supposed.

Director's Cut Fin