Nazo opened his eyes to darkness.
Not the comfortable darkness of sleep, or the temporary darkness of a power outage. This was the absolute, consuming darkness of the Nightmare Zone—the hungry void that had swallowed him what felt like a lifetime ago.
"No," he whispered, his voice swallowed by the emptiness. "No, that's not possible. I escaped. I found my way home. I saved them. I—"
Did you?
Marcus Chen's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, carrying the weight of infinite sadness.
Did you really think it would be that easy? That love could conquer quantum-locked neural shackles? That emotional resonance could reverse roboticization? That you could simply will your way out of a trap designed by a three-hundred-year-old genius?
Nazo's chest constricted with dawning horror. "The journey home. The final battle. Saving Sally and the others. All of it was—"
A dream. A fantasy. The Nightmare Zone giving you exactly what you wanted most, only to tear it away.
That's what this place does, Nazo. It doesn't just show you your fears. It shows you your hopes—and then it destroys them.
The void around him began to shift, and suddenly Nazo was watching his own memories play out like a movie on invisible screens.
He saw himself escaping the Nightmare Zone, filled with confidence and integrated power.
He saw himself journeying through the multiverse, getting closer to home with each step.
He saw himself breaking through the dimensional barrier, reuniting with his loves, defeating Robo-Robotnik once and for all.
And then he saw the truth: himself, still floating in the endless dark, still trapped, still broken. The journey had never happened. The victory had never occurred. He had been living in a fantasy constructed by the Nightmare Zone while his real body drifted in the void between moments.
"How long?" Nazo asked, his voice hollow. "How long have I been here?"
Time has no meaning in this place. It could have been seconds. It could have been centuries. The Zone exists outside normal causality.
But if you're asking how long you've been dreaming your little fantasy of escape and victory...
The darkness seemed to smile.
Long enough for Robo-Robotnik to complete his conquest. Long enough for everyone you love to be converted. Long enough for Mobius Prime to become just another trophy in his collection.
"You're lying. You're trying to break me again."
Am I? Reach out with your chaos senses. Tell me if you can feel them—Sally, Rouge, Bunnie, Amy. Tell me if that connection you relied on so heavily still exists.
Against his better judgment, Nazo tried.
He reached for the bond he had shared with the women he loved. The warmth, the resonance, the unbreakable thread that had supposedly guided him home across infinite dimensions.
There was nothing.
No warmth. No connection. No sense of their presence anywhere in existence.
Just emptiness.
"No," Nazo breathed. "No, they can't be gone. They CAN'T be."
They're not gone. They're converted. Roboticized. Their consciousness erased, their bodies transformed into machines that serve Robo-Robotnik's will. Just like you saw in your fantasy—except in reality, there was no miraculous salvation. No power of love overcoming technology. No happy ending.
There never is, in the real world.
Nazo fell to his knees—or the conceptual equivalent of knees, in a place where physical form was merely a suggestion.
Everything he had experienced since escaping the Nightmare Zone had been a lie. The journey through the multiverse. The reunion with his loved ones. The final battle against Robo-Robotnik. The moment of triumph when love had conquered hate.
All of it, fabricated by the very prison he had thought he'd escaped.
"Why?" he asked, his voice cracking. "Why show me all of that? Why let me believe I had won?"
Because hope is the cruelest weapon of all, Marcus Chen's voice replied. Breaking someone with fear is easy. Breaking someone with despair is simple. But breaking someone by giving them everything they want and then revealing it was never real...
That is how you truly destroy a soul.
The apparition of his former self materialized before him, that same sad smile on its face.
You were strong, Nazo. Stronger than anyone the Nightmare Zone has ever consumed. You faced your fears and found ways to accept them. You turned your insecurities into strengths. You discovered the power of love and connection.
So the Zone adapted. It gave you a fantasy of escape and victory—one so perfect, so satisfying, that you never questioned it. You believed you had won because you WANTED to believe. You accepted the lie because the truth was too terrible to face.
"And now?"
Now you know the truth. Now you understand that there is no escape. No victory. No salvation.
Now you break.
Nazo stared at the apparition of Marcus Chen—at the face he had worn in another life, another world, another existence entirely.
He thought about Sally, roboticized and enslaved.
He thought about Rouge, her brilliant mind erased by programming.
He thought about Bunnie, her warmth extinguished forever.
He thought about Amy, her fierce devotion reduced to lines of code.
He thought about all of them, lost while he floated in a void dreaming of rescues that would never come.
And something inside him snapped.
Not broke—snapped. Like a rubber band stretched past its limit and releasing all its stored energy at once.
"No."
The word was quiet, but it carried a weight that made the void itself tremble.
No? The apparition seemed almost amused. You're going to deny reality? Refuse to accept what's clearly—
"I said NO."
Nazo rose to his feet, and light began to flicker around his form—not the silver of his base state, not the crimson of Perfect Nazo, not even the green of Chaos Nazo.
This was something else.
Something that had never existed before.
"You want me to believe that everything I experienced was a fantasy. That I never escaped. That everyone I love is gone." His voice grew stronger with each word. "But here's what you don't understand about fantasies."
The light intensified, pushing back the darkness for the first time since his arrival in the Nightmare Zone.
"Sometimes they show us what's POSSIBLE. Sometimes they show us what we're CAPABLE of. Sometimes they're not escapes from reality—they're BLUEPRINTS for changing it."
That's not how this works, the apparition said, and for the first time, there was uncertainty in its voice. You can't just decide that your fantasy was real. The Nightmare Zone defines reality within its boundaries. I define reality.
"No. You don't."
Nazo's form began to transform, but it wasn't like any transformation he had experienced before. He wasn't drawing on darkness or light, destruction or creation. He was drawing on something more fundamental.
Possibility.
The raw, unfiltered potential that existed before reality chose one path over another.
"The Chaos Force didn't just give me power," Nazo said, his voice now resonating with harmonics that seemed to come from every dimension simultaneously. "It gave me CONNECTION. Connection to the Master Emerald. Connection to every source of chaos energy in the multiverse. Connection to the fundamental forces that shape existence itself."
That connection was severed when you entered the Nightmare Zone, the apparition protested. You can't access—
"I CAN ACCESS ANYTHING I CHOOSE TO ACCESS."
The transformation completed, and what stood in the Nightmare Zone was something entirely new.
Nazo's form had become translucent, as if he was made of crystallized possibility rather than solid matter. Within his transparent body, galaxies swirled and dimensions folded. His eyes were windows to infinity, containing every color that existed and several that didn't.
He had become something that transcended the categories of Perfect or Chaos or even Ascended.
He had become Infinite Nazo.
The Nightmare Zone screamed.
Not metaphorically—actually screamed, a sound of pure existential terror as the prison realized what had been born within its depths.
This is impossible! The apparition of Marcus Chen was fragmenting, its coherence failing as the Zone's control over Nazo's psyche shattered. No one has ever—the Zone is absolute—you CAN'T—
"I already have."
Infinite Nazo raised one hand, and the Nightmare Zone began to collapse around him. Not destroy—collapse, folding in on itself like a deflating balloon.
"You made a mistake," he said calmly as the void gave way to something else—something that looked like the space between dimensions. "You assumed that breaking my hope would break my will. But hope isn't just about believing in good outcomes. Hope is about believing in POSSIBILITY. And as long as possibility exists, nothing is truly final."
The apparition dissolved completely, its last words a whisper that faded into nothing: You're still trapped... you're still...
But Nazo was already moving, already reaching across the dimensional barriers with senses that could perceive every possible reality simultaneously.
And he found them.
Not the roboticized husks that the Nightmare Zone had shown him. Not the converted slaves that Robo-Robotnik had supposedly created.
The real them. Still organic. Still fighting. Still hoping.
Three months hadn't passed. Three HOURS hadn't passed. The Nightmare Zone existed outside normal time, and what had felt like an eternity of dreaming had been mere moments in the real world.
Sally was still in Knothole, coordinating a desperate defense against Robo-Robotnik's forces.
Rouge was running intelligence operations, searching for weaknesses in the Death Egg's systems.
Bunnie was on the front lines, her cybernetic arm blazing as she fought wave after wave of robots.
Amy was guarding civilians, her hammer a blur of destruction against any machine that threatened the innocent.
And all of them were reaching for him—sending love and hope across dimensions, trying to help him break free, never giving up even when it seemed impossible.
The connection had never been severed.
The Nightmare Zone had just made him believe it was.
"I'm coming," Infinite Nazo said, and his voice echoed across every dimension simultaneously. "I'm coming home."
He tore through the dimensional barriers like they weren't even there.
The Nightmare Zone tried to reform around him, tried to pull him back into its depths, but Infinite Nazo simply wasn't subject to its influence anymore. He had transcended the very concept of psychological imprisonment by accepting that reality itself was mutable.
The Death Egg appeared before him—massive, threatening, exactly where it had been when he'd first been displaced.
And inside, Robo-Robotnik's consciousness was just beginning to celebrate its victory.
"DIMENSIONAL DISPLACEMENT SUCCESSFUL," the mechanical tyrant announced to his robot lieutenants. "THE CHAOS ENTITY HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM THIS REALITY. NOW, LET US PROCEED WITH—"
Infinite Nazo materialized in the command center.
His translucent form cast light across the entire chamber, galaxies and dimensions swirling within his crystalline body. His eyes—windows to infinity—fixed on Robo-Robotnik with an expression of calm certainty.
"You were saying?"
Robo-Robotnik's optical sensors went wide. "IMPOSSIBLE! THE NIGHTMARE ZONE IS INESCAPABLE! NO BEING HAS EVER—"
"I'm not just any being." Infinite Nazo floated forward, reality bending around him with each movement. "I'm the one you should never have provoked."
He raised his hand, and every single robot on the Death Egg simply stopped functioning. Not destroyed—stopped. Frozen in place by a will that could perceive and manipulate every particle of their existence simultaneously.
"WHAT—WHAT ARE YOU?!" Robo-Robotnik demanded, actual fear creeping into his synthesized voice for the first time.
"I'm what happens when you push someone past every limit they thought they had. I'm what happens when the Nightmare Zone shows someone the worst possible outcome and they decide to reject it entirely. I'm what happens when love and hope and connection become MORE real than the reality trying to destroy them."
He stopped directly in front of the mechanical tyrant, his infinite gaze piercing through every layer of armor and shielding.
"I'm your ending. But not because I'm going to destroy you."
He reached out and placed one translucent hand on Robo-Robotnik's chest, directly over the nutrient bath that contained his organic brain.
"I'm your ending because I'm going to give you what you never had. What you destroyed in yourself centuries ago. What you've spent your entire existence running from."
Power flowed from Infinite Nazo into Robo-Robotnik—but not destructive power. Something else entirely.
Connection. Empathy. The ability to feel what others felt.
For the first time in three hundred years, Robo-Robotnik experienced emotion.
Not his own emotion—he had burned that out of himself long ago. But the emotions of his victims. Every being he had converted, every life he had destroyed, every hope he had crushed.
All of it, flooding into his consciousness at once.
The mechanical tyrant screamed.
It was a sound of pure agony—not physical pain, but something far worse. The accumulated suffering of billions of beings, experienced simultaneously by a mind that had deliberately isolated itself from such things.
"STOP!" Robo-Robotnik begged, his massive form collapsing to its knees. "PLEASE! I CAN'T—IT'S TOO MUCH—MAKE IT STOP!"
"This is what you've done," Infinite Nazo said quietly. "This is the cost of your conquest. Feel it. Understand it. And then choose."
"CHOOSE WHAT?!"
"Whether to spend your remaining existence trying to atone—or whether to simply cease."
Robo-Robotnik trembled, his systems overloaded by sensations he had never been designed to process. The suffering continued to pour through him—an endless river of pain and loss and grief.
And somewhere in the depths of his three-hundred-year-old consciousness, something broke.
Not his sanity—his certainty.
The absolute conviction that he was right, that his conquest was justified, that his victims were merely resources to be exploited.
All of it, shattered by the simple truth of what he had done.
"I... I didn't..." His voice was barely a whisper now, synthesized harmonics cracking with something that might have been genuine emotion. "I didn't know. I didn't LET myself know. I made myself into a machine so I would never have to FEEL..."
"And now you do."
"How do I... how do I LIVE with this?"
Infinite Nazo's expression softened—just slightly. "That's the question, isn't it? The question everyone who causes harm eventually has to face. You can't undo what you've done. You can only decide what you do next."
He released the mechanical tyrant and floated backward.
"I'm not going to kill you, Robo-Robotnik. That would be too easy—for both of us. Instead, I'm going to leave you with your new understanding of what you are. And the choice of who you become."
The translucent form of Infinite Nazo began to fade, his consciousness already reaching toward Mobius Prime—toward home.
"Choose wisely. The multiverse will be watching."
And then he was gone, leaving Robo-Robotnik alone on a silent Death Egg, surrounded by frozen robots and the weight of three centuries of suffering.
Nazo emerged from the dimensional barriers above Knothole Village.
His Infinite form faded as he descended, the crystalline translucence giving way to familiar silver fur and green eyes. He was still incredibly powerful—more powerful than he had ever been—but he no longer needed to maintain that transcendent state.
He had done what needed to be done.
Now he just wanted to go home.
Sally saw him first.
She was in the village center, coordinating defenses against an attack that had suddenly stopped when Infinite Nazo disabled every robot on the Death Egg. Her eyes went wide as she saw the silver hedgehog descending from the sky, and for a moment, she seemed frozen in place.
Then she was running.
Nazo landed just in time to catch her as she threw herself into his arms, her body shaking with sobs of relief and joy.
"You're alive," she gasped. "We felt you disappear—the dimensional displacement—we thought—"
"I'm here," Nazo said, holding her tight. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere ever again."
Rouge arrived next, her wings carrying her across the village in seconds. She didn't say anything—just wrapped her arms around both of them, pressing her face against Nazo's shoulder.
Bunnie came running on her mechanical legs, her organic arm reaching out to join the embrace. "Sugah, don't you EVER scare us like that again!"
And Amy, of course, tackled the entire group with enough force to send them all stumbling.
"I KNEW you'd come back!" she cried, tears streaming down her face. "I KNEW it! I never stopped believing! Not for a single second!"
Nazo held them all, feeling their warmth, their love, their fierce devotion.
The Nightmare Zone had shown him a world where they were lost forever. A world where love wasn't enough to save them.
It had been a lie.
But in a strange way, it had also been a gift. Because it had forced him to confront the possibility of loss—and to reject it so completely that he had transcended the very concept of hopelessness.
"I love you," he said to all of them. "All of you. More than I have words to express."
"We know," Sally murmured against his chest. "We've always known."
"But it's nice to hear you say it," Rouge added.
"Real nice," Bunnie agreed.
"SAY IT AGAIN!" Amy demanded.
Nazo laughed—a sound of pure, unfiltered joy.
"I love you. I love you. I love you."
He would never stop saying it.
He would never stop meaning it.
And he would never, ever stop fighting for the people who had taught him what those words truly meant.
Above them, the Death Egg began to drift away from Mobius Prime, its systems still frozen, its master still lost in the weight of his own crimes.
Robo-Robotnik would have to make his choice eventually. Would he try to atone for three centuries of conquest? Would he retreat into delusion, rejecting the empathy that had been forced upon him? Would he simply shut himself down, unable to bear the burden of what he had done?
Nazo didn't know.
And for now, he didn't care.
He was home. He was loved. He was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Everything else could wait.