#evangelus

[velathetanager]

Tick, Tick, Tick (a Cybersphere One-Shot)

Author’s Note: Silver is a precious metal and a precious character, and it really did hurt to do this to him. --- In Sonic's defense, it had been the best option at the time. Silver was a dangerous hedgehog, and to be on the business end of his power was not something the blue blur wanted to go through again, even if it was for his own good. So when the time traveler stopped by, he had to think fast. Thankfully, Silver had dropped a plan right into his lap. "Sonic! I'm so glad I caught up with you. We got another future catastrophe to avoid." The hedgehog turned to the voice, dressed in a red and black jumpsuit. "Heya, Silver. Another one? Are you sure it's our fault this time?" Silver smiled slightly. "Most things are," he joked, hovering upside-down briefly before landing on his feet. "In all seriousness. I don't know where it came from, but I wanted to check here first and work my way closer to or father from this point in time depending on how it goes. Do you have time to help me?" Sonic leaned against a tree. "Sure. Just what are we looking for?" "Destruction's Core. A superweapon currently being used by one of Eggman's descendants to terrorize the planet. I don't know anything about how to counter it. Or where it might be." Silver held up a photo. A stormy orb that rather resembled a skull. Sonic cringed. "Okay... this is gonna suck to find, but I can help you, man. Let's start with the basics..." The Green Hill Zone didn't have it. Neither did Aquatic Run or the Marble Zone. Or really, any zone the pair checked. They fought badniks, mercenaries, and even the Deadly Six during their search, which visibly tired Silver out a little, but he wouldn't stop. Not now. The Core was too dangerous. So he carried on, burning himself out as Sonic helped him track down the weapon. Eventually, their search led them to the Mystic Cave Zone. Silver, of course, did a lot of the work moving boulders and gems out of the way, clearing the path for Sonic (who really needed to not run if he wanted to notice anything important, now that he thought about it). The caverns were long and winding, and there were deeper and deeper paths the two could go through. But Sonic was eventually the one to find the right one. "HEY SILVER! C'MERE!" he called, staring at the Core. It practically radiated malice and death; even the eyes in the skull looked sunken in and bore a sickly orange glow. Silver floated in, looking at it and seeming to go pale. "Oh... yep. That's it, alright. It looks so much worse up close..." "I bet," Sonic replied. "It's terrifying. A real game changer. Good thing we found it, huh?" And then he tackled Silver. The gray hedgehog tried to throw Sonic off, but the blue blur held his hands down and cuffed him. Of course, this prompted a shocked, "What the hell are you doing?!" "Listen. Silver. I can't explain everything right now, but big changes are coming soon, and if they happen the way things are now, I'll never see you again. And I don't want that. So I have to do this before I destroy that Core." "Do what?!" Sonic sighed. "I'm going to cut you off from the flow of time. And it's going to hurt. A lot. But I swear, you'll feel and BE better once I'm done. And you'll be immune to timeline changes." "Wh- You're insane! That's not even possible!" Silver protested. To which Sonic replied with a slow change in appearance, starting with an antenna poking out behind his ear. "Maybe for anyone else." One of his gloves turned black and the other disappeared, revealing a robotic hand. "But here's the thing." The sweatsuit twisted and warped into a black cape, revealing a red X on his chest with a silver circle in the center. "I've been running with a new crowd recently." His long, black boots retracted, revealing robotic versions of his lower legs along with black stripes where the white had been. "And they specialize in all the things no one should be able to do." A red visor grew from one side of Sonic's head to the other, and a red halo flared to life behind him, making him look like a dark angel. "So yes, I can do that." The silver circle on his chest opened, revealing a piercing red eye that stared right into Silver's own. Silver, understandably, tried to speak up. "Wait-" But Sonic just sighed, muted his hearing sense, and went to work. Time bent and broke around them. Space writhed and twisted. The universe was dragged into submission as Sonic violently tore Silver away from its laws. Even with the muted hearing, Sonic could hear Silver's ear-splitting cries just from the look on his face and the way his body was flashing and scrambling itself, then unscrambling itself. And it was terrible. But Sonic wouldn't back down. He couldn't. He didn't want to lose a friend. Finally the process ended. Silver lay weakly on the ground, holding his side, and Sonic cradled him, soothing him. "You did good, buddy... I'm so sorry. I wish it didn't have to hurt. It'll make sense soon, I promise. Just... just let me take you home." The blue hedgehog picked Silver up gently and put him to sleep (Sedative power was amazing). Then he looked at the Core. Arms made of shadow swarmed it and covered it. It took five seconds to grind the thing to dust. It had served its purpose, and he couldn't risk anyone else getting a hold of it. Sonic carried Silver into darkness and disappeared. humming a lullaby to the time traveler in his arms. It would be fine. Cybernet would make it fine.

[velathetanager]

Something something Sonic is canonically a pretty friendly guy and also does pretty much whatever the hell he wants, so that should play into how Evan treats survivors in Cybersphere content because even if he's after you he'll probably make light of it or compliment how you're doing sincerely (he doesn't actually want to hurt you, if he did he would have), which brings down a lot of people's guards and makes Cybernet seem better/more approachable, and if any fanfics or things of that nature don't capture that aspect of the verse they're not doing it right

[velathetanager]

Announcement

I am proud to announce the start of work on Vigilance, the story of a clash that split the world in two (AKA Cybernet’s webcomic). Huge thanks to @lilmissmiles​ for doing the promo art! Also if you want into the team, DM me!

[velathetanager]

Comic Pitch (Fake).docx

WORKING TITLE: [VIGILANCE: THE SAGA OF CYBERNET] WRITTEN BY: VELA THE TANAGER (PRIMARY WRITER), BABS (SECONDARY WRITER) ART BY: THEGLITCHEDCHILD, JOHNTDEX, JANETSHY, NIGHTFURY0o0, BERDS_N_ARTS LOGLINE A hive of bionic people known as Cybernet has arrived on Mobius planning to “upgrade” everyone ...

So! Turns out I never shared this here, and I need to make that right.

The story of the Cybersphere told in the form of a comic pitch.

[velathetanager]

The Cybersphere’s Main Story in a Nutshell

[velathetanager]

Random Cybersphere Thing

Evangelus could see an exe's survivor Tails and he'd immediately be like, "He doesn't care about you. He never did. How could he when he does this to you? But I do. We all do. We want what's best for you. Come with me and we can keep you safe."

Cybernet is supposed to be creepy, and Evan fits the bill.

[velathetanager]

Why I Like Writing Evangelus

I love all my exes, but I think the most fun I have is with Evangelus, the Sonic who got assimilated by Cybernet. Evangelus straight-up IS Sonic, though older and somewhat wiser. As I developed him, I made it a challenge to myself to take different aspects of Sonic's character and apply them in ways that make him a believable, compelling antagonist.

For one thing, Evan is arrogant and just a little bit short-sighted, at least in the moment, and he has a tendency to not know when to shut the hell up. But he's good at applying his words in just the right way to get his desired effect, and most of the time he can back up his big talk. Hell, his individual Cybernet power is the ability to alter his voice whenever he sounds like because I feel like one of the best weapons in Sonic’s arsenal is his voice. How many people has he talked down or gotten to join him? And in Archie, enough taunting from him along with another loss was enough to outright break Eggman, if only for a while. Imagine what Sonic could do weaponizing that more often.

For another, when he gets serious, he'll use every power at his disposal to win a fight because he hates losing, but usually he doesn’t hate it enough to get obsessed. Usually. There’s one exception, and it has to do with another aspect of his character: his love for his friends. The knowledge that death was once a certainty for him- and still is for the unassimilated- eats at Evangelus every day, and the fact that Crown Jewel (Amy Rose) is trying to resist Cybernet despite this has twisted his feelings for her into a focused obsession with assimilating her. He will abandon any task assigned to him to get to her if he sees her. (Side note: another example of his love for his friends is that despite being in immense pain and having his emotions forced down, he wasted no time getting Tails because he wanted to be with his brother)

Also, he still values freedom; a society where everyone does as they please without hurting others and has equal say in how things are run is what Cybernet promised and he accepted. With this in mind, he made a decision he thought was right, and just like Sonic in the Black Knight, he's gonna hold to that decision whether he's seen as the bad guy or not. This makes him unrelenting and stubborn.

So yeah, that’s it. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk!

[velathetanager]

Seeing a Ghost: a Cybersphere One-Shot

Author’s Note: This is basically the conclusion of Crown Jewel.vbs’s origin story (Crown Jewel is Amy, but she became an exe due to fusing with the Phantom Ruby to get an edge)

The sky split in two, red and blue power colliding. It felt good to have the upper hand. Before, Amy had to be carried by her robots and snipers, but now she could fight Evangelus one-on-one. She poured as much raw power into her battle with her ex as she could, letting herself unleash it to devastating effect.

Evangelus, for his part, looked like he was having the time of his life. “COME ON!” he called, a grin splitting his face. The red power of Cybernet illuminated his hands as he answered every beam she fired with one of his own.

Amy clenched her teeth. Oh, he wanted her to come on? Yeah, sure, she could do that. She had months of shit and Cream’s disappearance to work through.

When she brought out her hammer, she mentally told herself she needed to practice more. A lot of the swings she was missing would usually hit her opponents, but Evangelus was sidestepping and blocking more and more attacks. Still, that he had to conjure up a staff out of shadow in order to do so made her prouder of herself than she probably needed to be. Knocking him down made her even prouder. Quickly, Amy stepped on the hedgehog’s chest to keep him from getting back up, pointing a blast at him. “I win.”

“Do you?” Evangelus coughed, never losing that grin.

“What, did you bring Sha- Ambrose?” She had to catch herself a lot these days. Ambrose wasn’t Shadow. Not anymore.

“Nah. Figured I didn’t need him.”

“And look where that got you.”

“Oh, please. I’m not worried,” the blue blur smirked.

“Let’s fix that, shall we?” Amy shot back, and brought down her hammer.

Only it didn’t connect. Not to him. Instead, it hit the blade of a silver scythe adorned with the same red eye that could be seen on Evangelus’s torso, where the silver stripes formed an X. Amy’s eyes widened as she looked to the wielder of the bladed weapon, and her eyes widened.

Holding the scythe was Cream, but it was Cream with some heavy alterations. Her fur had gone from a cream color with light orange to purple and red. A gray and black short dress, black leggings and shoes, and gray leg warmers replaced her old orange dress and shoes. One of the hands that held the weapon was pure machinery, the silver metal shining against the light of the Phantom Ruby. The other bore a fingerless glove. A robotic mask covered the lower half of her face, and above it, two black eyes with simple white dots as pupils stared into Amy’s soul.

“Hi, Miss Amy!” the corrupted version of Cream greeted cheerily, and it was so unmistakably Cream that Amy stopped in her tracks.

Evangelus flashed Amy a grin as he rolled out from under her and stood up. “Surprised? Damon found her a month ago while you were looking for the Ruby. No clue why she was alone, but I guess it worked out.”

“Cream...” was all Amy could reply with, and the cyborg went on the offensive.

“They call me Rei now,” came the reply. How could someone be so sweet while actively attacking someone with a scythe?!

“Cr- Rei, I-”

“It’s okay, Miss Amy! Mr. Evangelus was right! I feel better now! And I just know you’ll feel better too if you come with us!” 

Amy fought back tears as she blocked Rei’s attacks, all sorts of terrible thoughts rushing through her mind that cracked reality around them. I’m a failure. I let them take Cream. I let my closest friend get turned into one of them for the sake of power. To track down the Phantom Ruby. I can’t lead everyone else like this! I can’t protect Ailton if I’m just going to screw up this royally!

She couldn’t tell what was real anymore aside from her fight with Rei. Errors in reality, shadows of other people, what looked like ghosts, the world seemed to come crashing down around her…

And then it all ended. Amy found herself in Big’s arms, the counter gem in his chest glowing a soft yellow. “I got you,” the cat told her, carrying her away from the fight.

That day marked one of the first retreats the leaders of Ailton would ever order.

---

Big sighed, patting Froggy as he watched Amy work. Or, the woman who had been Amy. He didn’t think he recognized the pink hedgehog anymore. Not after she’d learned about Cream. Where there had been a bright, hopeful mother to her men, now there was a cold, regal leader. He understood, though. She was upset. He was, too. So he promised himself he would be there for Crown Jewel; who knew what she would become if she lost him, too?