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Description
(Content Warnings: transformation, heavy mental changes)

It was a dark and stormy night, in the humble country of Morbidus. Yet even under the driving rain and crashing thunder, the townspeople slept well. The monsters that had once poured out every night from the menacing castle on the mountain to the north, hadn’t been seen in weeks. It seemed the prophecy about count Robotula rising from his grave every hundred years wasn’t coming to fruition after all.

And yet, deep inside the castle, something stirred; a short figure with a large nose, clothed in green, and hunched over with a sizable hump on his back. When he awoke, he realized something terrible; he could not hear the howl of wolf-men, or the crackle of a hydra’s flame, the boiling of cauldrons, the clanking of armor, or nearly anything else. He hastily hobbled through the castle halls, looking for any sign of his master’s monstrous minions, only to be met with empty room after empty room. Panic setting in, he moved as fast as his uneven legs could take him up the spiral staircase of the tallest tower in the castle.

He reached the top of the steps and flung open the door to room with a wide stained glass window, depicting a face with a pair of glasses and a vaguely bat-shaped moustache. The room was empty save for the dim candelabras set into the walls, and a black coffin in the center with an image mimicking the window’s design carved into it.

“Master Robotula?” The figure timidly approached the coffin. “Master, are you safe?” He knocked on the lid.

Thunder crashed and lightning gave a brief, eerie glow to the stained glass window as the coffin lid flew open. A long, thin arm ending in a gloved hand rose straight up, and clenched its fingers into a fist.

“I have awakened!” A voice called out from within the coffin. It then let out a cough, as the egg-shaped torso of the creature groggily set itself upright. “...Awakened far, FAR earlier than I would have liked!”

The creature that awoke from the coffin stood tall like a man, on long, spindly legs, with arms to match. His egg-shaped torso was covered by a black coat, with a red cape and a frilly cravat wrapped around his neck. His pale, sheet-white head was completely bald, save for a long orange mustache under his large nose, and his eyes were covered by a pair of seemingly opaque glasses. The two sharpened fangs that extended from under his upper lip made it clear that this irritated creature was a vampire.

“Snivgor! What’s going on? I thought I instructed you to awaken me one hundred years after that miserable hedgehog slaughtered me!” The vampire stretched, and brushed his “bed-stasch” to straighten it out. “It’s only been ninety-nine years, three-hundred-sixty-two days! A genius monster mastermind needs his rest!”

“Yes, Master, I know, but it’s an emergency! Everyone in the castle is dead!” The hunchback waved his arms in panic.

Robotula facepalmed. “Yes, Snivgor. Every last one of my minions are dead. That is the POINT of being a lord of undead monsters!”

“No! I mean they’re really, REALLY dead! Gone! Turned to ash! All of them!”

“Wait… Seriously?”

“Yes! Even the Spirit Of The Castle itself!”

Robotula’s mustache shot up in panic. “The Spirit Of The Castle?” The vampire leapt from his coffin and ran for the spiral stairs on his spindly legs. “Snivgor, fetch me my book on monster making! We’ve GOT to cook up some replacements before the vampire hunters arrive for our hundred-year battle, or the Spirit Of The Castle won’t be able to regenerate them! Or me!”

“Yes Master!”

As the two went deeper into the castle, a third figure became visible in the room, standing, oddly enough, on the wall. His cloaking device disengaged, revealing a blue hedgehog in a red suit, with gleaming golden shoulder pads and belt, and a silver helmet that covered his spines.

“Yeah, looks like this zone’s taken some losses,” he spoke into a comm device in his helmet, “I think we’ve got openings for some of those lost souls.”

Zonic the Zone Cop was the hedgehog’s name, and he was having a VERY busy day at work. A phenomenon known as the “Super Genesis Wave” had caused chaos in hundreds of alternate reality zones. In the worst cases, entire zones were destroyed, eradicating countless lives, past, present, and future, leaving no trace. Some “luckier” zones had their histories re-written, redefining many people’s roles in life, while others never ended up born at all, making their worlds nearly unrecognizable. The less severely impacted worlds “merely” suffered brief, but potentially devastating natural disasters due to a temporary flux in physics, like tidal waves, big earthquakes, and huge storms. Or, in this world’s case, a solar flare intense enough to pierce the spell of eternal night that typically kept the denizens of Robotula’s castle safe from the sun’s lethal rays.

Zonic and his fellow Zone Cops had mostly been spared the Super Genesis Wave’s effects due to their zone being perpendicular, rather than parallel, to the other zones of reality, and had used their advanced technology to rescue as many people doomed to either being ‘retconned’ from existence, or perishing as their world was destroyed completely, as possible. And now that the worst of the wave had passed, it was time to find them new homes, in zones that had been depopulated.

“No parallels to Zone 5773’s group A in the present time here,” he muttered into his comm after fiddling with a device on his wrist for a moment. “The zone’s pretty different from theirs, but given this one has a pretty strict ‘balance between good and evil’ ingrained into its natural laws, it’ll probably adapt them to it.”

An angry voice could be heard in his headpiece.

“Yeah, look, I know it’s not ideal, but we need SOMEONE to fill this role here. If all the evil in this zone is wiped out, another evil force will be pulled in to fill the void, and I’ve seen what’s forced itself to the top of the waiting list. Much better that they live on as a bumbling vampire’s lackeys and get revived every hundred years with him than insane deformed tentacled horrors.”

With blinding speed, the interdimensional hedgehog zipped from room to room across the castle, opening portal rings in different places and pulling out unconscious people one by one. When everything was clear, he slipped out a portal himself, which shrank and closed behind him.

A few minutes after that portal had closed, one of the displaced victims began to stir. A brown-furred, sixteen-year-old ground squirrel groggily sat up, with a hand to her forehead. ‘Where am I?’ She thought to herself. ‘The last thing I remember was a giant light in the sky. Then everything started getting blurry.’ She reached into the pocket of her blue vest, and pulled out a small PDA. She pressed a few buttons from memory, causing the screen to light up, as did a bright flashlight on the back of the device.

“There we go,” she muttered. She pointed her phone around seeing that she was between two large bookshelves, covered in dust and cobwebs, and lined with hundreds of worn, faded books, with titles in a language she couldn’t recognize. “Anything in your database matching this, Nicole?”

A holographic lynx woman appeared by her side, transmitted from the PDA. “The script bears a resemblance to 12th century Spangonian,” Nicole said, “but there are several key differences, and the arrangement of the characters doesn’t match the spelling conventions of the time. I cannot decipher it with my current resources.” And as soon as she had appeared, she vanished again.

“Thanks anyway. Guess I’ll have to look for other clues as to where we are.” The squirrel stepped out from between the bookcases, and saw that she was in a library, and a fairly large one at that. The walls and floor were all made of stone, and there was no sign of any modern technology anywhere; the only potential light sources were the unlit candelabras on the walls.

She suddenly heard a pair of familiar voices, and poked her head carefully around a corner.

“Here we are!” the light of a single candle revealed a tall, egg-shaped figure, pointing to a page on the table in front of him. “My collection of backup monster maker spells! Now all I need to do is put on an alias and head into town to recruit some imbecile peasants! What alias should I use this time? Dr. Alutobor?”

“Master, with all due respect, spelling your name backwards hasn’t fooled anyone in centuries,” the hunchback beside him said quietly.

“What, you think these commoners know how to spell? Don’t be silly, Snivgor.”

‘What’s with the vampire getup?’ Sally thought. “Did Robotnik go further off the deep end? Or is this some stupid show? Maybe that bright light sent me to another dimension?’ She stepped back to hide herself. Unfortunately, one of the stone tiles was loose, causing a scraping sound as she backed up.

“Did you hear that, Snivgor?” Robotula turned around slowly.

“I believe so, Master.”

“Well, either more monsters survived the solar flare than we thought, ooorrrrr....” Sally gasped as the vampire suddenly turned to a wispy smoke, and, moving quicker than her eye could follow, reformed in front of her, quickly lifting her a foot off the ground by the back of her vest. “As I thought, we have a visitor!” He grinned, his fangs on clear display. “Now, who could you be? A peasant sent in on a dare? Some holy woman trying to purify this place? Or maybe you’re the latest descendant of that accursed hedgehog hero’s line?”

“She could be a vampire fangirl, here to join the legions of the undead,” Snivgor suggested, “apparently romance novels starring vampires have gotten popular over the last few decades.”

Sally scowled. “Even if I was into vampires, you are definitely NOT the picture of forbidden sensuality, you giant, talking egg!”

“What?” Robotnik scowled. “You have a lot of nerve, little girl! Just who do you think you are?”

“I’m princess Sally Acorn, future queen of Mobius!” Sally said with confidence. “And I don’t care whether you you’re ‘Dr. Robotnik,’ or ‘Master Robotula,’ or ‘Mr. Alutobor,’ you AREN’T going to win! You NEVER do! I’ll find some way to stop you!”

Robotula sighed and turned his head to the hunchback. “Yeesh. You’d think that these heroes would get some new material. They’ve got a hundred years to do it!”

“To be fair, Master,” Snivgor spoke, “she didn’t start it off with ‘die monster, you don’t belong in this world!’”

“It’s the same principle. And besides, if she’d recycled that speech, I’d at least have an excuse to call her a miserable little pile of secrets! Here, she just gave out everything I need to know without a second thought.”

Sally’s eyes widened. She quickly thought back over what she’d said, trying to figure out what critical piece of information she might have given away.

“Surprised, my dear ‘princess?’ I doubt any royal line worth its salt would have neglected to tell you the most important principle when dealing with magic users: Unless you're blessed by the world's Holiness, Never give them your name!”

The vampire dropped her, and chanted a series of words in a language Sally didn’t recognize, She could occasionally make out her name among them. As the words danced inside her head, her thoughts became muddied and unfocused. Her vest suddenly grew longer, sleeves weaving themselves into existence as it became a black robe. A pointed, wide brimmed hat appeared on her head, and a broom appeared on the ground below her.

And then her mind suddenly felt SO much clearer. She could perfectly understand the words of Robotula’s spell, and those written on the books around her. And not only that, she knew how to use those spells herself.

She’d also come to see how silly she had been, worrying about following the morality of the common folk. Sure, evil never actually won, here, but the bad guys always had a lot more fun. And what was life without a challenge anyway?

“Thank you Master, for showing me the light, er, dark. I’ll be happy to help spread this gift.” She stood up, and bowed. As her eyes crossed the floor, she saw the PDA that had fallen from her clothes during their change. “And I think I know just where to start! Nicole, come on out.”

“Sally, are you alright?” The holographic lynx asked, as she appeared again “I heard Robotnik’s voice, and…” She looked around her. “Oh dear...”

Sally began her spell, the artificial creature having just enough of a soul to be susceptible to her magic. The Lynx shuddered and and flickered, before solidifying to stone, while her programming became conflicted with her new sense of desire. She felt parts of herself weaving into every stone in the castle, becoming its its eyes, ears, and soul. As the PDA that used to house her suddenly shut down, dozens of paintings and statues of the Lynx appeared throughout the castle, in a darker, gothic dress, with longer hair, each one able to perceive anything that happened in its room, and report it to her master. Like Sally, she felt a sense of liberation, that she was no longer tied down by programming of any kind.

“Thank you, witch, for setting me in charge of Master’s castle.” The Lynx statue “said” telepathically. “As the new spirit of the castle, I would like to inform you that there are more candidates for making monsters in other rooms in the castle. Many are alone, or only have one or two other companions, and all are in a state of confusion. It would be wise to take advantage of this.”

“Oh believe me, dear, we will,” Robotula said, “So tell us… Where are they now?”

_______

A pink female hedgehog in a red dress, a female bat in a skin-tight outfit, and a purple male walrus in a blue cap all slowly woke up in the lower portions of the castle, the sound of rushing waterways nearby. The walrus sat up groggily. He slowly blinked a few times, then leapt to his feet, startled, when saw the two girls. “Amy, Rouge, are guys okay?”

“I think so…” The pink hedgehog, Amy, said, propping herself up on her hammer. “Do you know where we are, Rotor?”

“Sorry, I don’t,” the walrus replied. “Last thing I remember was looking out a window in my lab and seeing a bright light.”

“I saw bright lights too!” Amy said. “What about you, Rouge?”

“Yeah, yeah, the light interrupted my nap before putting me to sleep again,” the bat groaned, and shook her head.

“Maybe it was some kind of incapacitating thing,” Rotor suggested. “That would explain why we all saw it before we ended up here.”

“If they wanted to capture us, and had the fancy tech to do it, why’d they just leave us here unattended?” Rouge said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re probably not being taken prisoner. It’d take a special kind of stupid to kidnap people and not even try to tie them up.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a good point,” Rotor said. “In any case, we should probably get a look around, and try to figure out where we are.”

A familiar laugh echoed through the damp room. “I think I can help with that!”

“Was that… Sally?” Rotor asked.

“Yes, and no,” the voice responded. In a cloud of green smoke, Sally appeared, riding on a broomstick above them.

“The little goody-two-shoes-princess you knew is gone. I’m much happier as Robotula’s witch. And you’ll be happy serving him too!” Sally grinned, and her fingertips began to shimmer. “Now, who to bring into the fold first?”

“Robotula?” Amy gave a confused squint, as she started to back up.

“Oh man,” Rotor muttered, “it’s like Mecha-Sally all over again!”

“Hmm, you’ll do, Rotor!” The shimmering magic flew from Sally’s fingertips, and surrounded Rotor, whose blubber began to grow dozens of scales. Fins began to poke their way out of his back, arms, and legs, another appearing atop his head like a mohawk, knocking off his cap, with crumbled to dust, while two more fins formed beside his ears. His tusks, no, his entire snout, shrank back, becoming a fish-like jaw, while his eyes turned yellow. His head felt fuzzy for a moment, and he suddenly realized how much better off he’d be working for Robotula, as his memories of the old world slipped away. Sally may have benefitted from remembering her friend’s old names, but for the others, a full mental rewrite would be far more helpful.

“What the-?” Rouge gasped.

“Rotor!” Amy cried out.

The former walrus turned to what used to be his friends, and growled.

“Good Fishman!” Sally cheered. “But I’ll have to ask you to hold back. We’re gonna make more monsters out of these two before-”

Her words were interrupted by a loud woosh and a streak of blue. In the blink of an eye, both Amy and Rouge were gone. Sally frowned. She knew what that meant. “You can run, Sonic. But you can’t hide. Robotula will have his monsters before the night is over. And you’ll be one of them.”

_______

Amy and Rouge took a moment to regain their bearings, having felt a sharp tug, and then found themselves in a completely different room. It seemed to be a small armory, with all sorts of medieval weapons hanging on its walls.

But more important to Amy were the people she saw; the first was a tall rabbit woman in a dress, Vanilla, the second, the woman’s young daughter, Cream, and her two pet Chao, tiny round winged creatures with bow ties, pink wings, and little floating orbs above their heads, one brown, named Chacola, and the other blue, named Cheese. And then of course, there was her savior…

“SONIC! I KNEW you’d come for me, even in some weird Transylvania dimension!” Amy cheered, hugging the blue hedgehog in front of her.

Sonic sighed, and gently pushed her back. “You’re welcome Amy. Would you two stay here with Vanilla and Cream while I scout out for more of our friends? I don’t want more of you guys ending up like Rotor or…” He shook his head. “Sally… Anyway there’s safety in numbers, once I’ve got everyone I can to someplace safe, if I haven’t seen a way out by then, I can start looking for one, and I can get you all out of this place.”

“Sure thing!” Amy smiled, a huge yellow hammer appearing in her head, seemingly from nowhere. “If any monsters try to break in here, I’ll show ‘em who’s boss!”

“Great, I’ll see you guys in a few minutes.” And with a soft woosh, the blue hedgehog was gone.

“Did… Something happen to Rotor?” Vanilla asked.

Amy, with some sadness, explained what she’d seen.

“The witch wants to turn us all into monsters?” Cream gasped, clutching her two chao close. “What if she turned me into a ghost?”

“I’m pretty sure being ‘turned into a ghost’ is just called ‘dying’ kiddo.” Rouge said with a shrug, while Cream whimpered.

“ROUGE!” Amy put her hands on her hips. “Think about what you’re saying to a little girl.”

“I don’t sugarcoat things, little girl,” Rouge said, as she made her way to the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Amy marched up to her. “We agreed to stay here and wait for Sonic!”

“YOU agreed.” Rouge waved dismissively at Amy. “And you can wait on your blue prince charming all you like, but some of us can do things for ourselves. And if anyone can work their way out of a haunted castle, it’s a bat. See you around, little girl.” She stepped out the door, closed it behind her, (muffling Amy’s loud, angry response,) and flew down the hallway, never noticing that the eyes on paintings of a certain lynx seemed to follow her as she moved, or peek out from within a hallway mirror

After several minutes flying through the dark, empty halls, she came to a stop, when she saw a tall, egg-shaped figure in front of her.

“Greetings, my dear Rouge,” he said with a grin.

“Nope.” Rouge muttered under her breath, and turned around, only to find the same man emerging from the shadows in front of her again. She sighed, and landed, deciding to play along while looking for some other way of escape. “You must be Robotula, right? How do you know my name?”

“Our mutual friend Sally has been introducing me to all the intruders in my castle,” Robotula steepled his fingers, “and I thought I’d come and greet some of them personally, and offer to let you all stay awhile!”

“Charming idea, but a girl like me can’t enjoy the nightlife indoors,” Rouge said, stepping back.

“Can you look me in the eyes and still say that?” Robotula grinned, and grabbed the bat woman. As she looked into his black glasses, she suddenly felt paralyzed, unable to resist anything he did.

The vampire chanted a series of strange words, and Rouge started to feel incredibly hot. Her white fur turned a deep red, and she could feel a sharp pressure in her head as two horns grew from her skull. Her clothes, save for her elbow-length gloves and long boots, unraveled and fell away, while her already alluring figure was amplified to extremes, her bust easily bigger than her head. Her gloves and boots became skin-tight, claws visible on the ends. Her tail grew longer, a spade shape forming at the end.

Her mind was twisted, her desires changing; she still found being a thief fun, but tempting away wannabe heroes suddenly seemed far more attractive. Robotula’s magic, meanwhile, combined with the castle’s own, filling her mind with fake memories of the other transformed people, memories that would be “updated” as more joined the fold.

Robotula broke the trance, and the new succubus looked up at him. “Know what? You’re right, the night life in this place is to die for, and I don’t wanna miss it. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re welcome Rouge. I hope you enjoy yourself. Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot to do.” And with that, he faded into the shadows and vanished.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

_______

A yellow-furred fox boy with two tails was exploring a tower in the stange castle he’d found himself in, hoping to find some clue as to where he really was. Most of the rooms he’d passed amounted to simple living quarters, restrooms, or closets, with little to help answer his questions.

But when he got to the top of the tower, he found himself in a room filled with all sorts of machinery. Not quite modern, but far more advanced than the medieval architecture would suggest. Still, he couldn’t quite tell what any of it was for.

“I had a feeling you’d find this place on your own, Tails.” A female voice said.

The startled fox turned around where he saw a familiar ground squirrel. “Oh, Sally! Glad to see you!” He leapt toward her and gave her a hug, then stepped back, and looked over her. “...Why are you dressed like that? Is this Halloween?”

“You could say that.” Sally smirked. “Now it’s time to get you in costume.”

Before Tails could react, Sally’s magic enveloped him. A white lab coat materialized over his body, and a pair of thick goggles appeared on his head. His body didn’t undergo many changes, but his mind was altered far more. Like the others that had been changed so far, his sense of morality was altered, little things like not doing harm seeming far less important, and his loyalty to Lord Robotula being the only constant, while his already budding genius was multiplied, granting him insight into the purpose and design of all the strange machines around him.

“This is brilliant!” The new mad scientist fox said in an inexplicable German accent. “With this new knowledge, I can create all kinds of wonderful new monsters for our benefactor! Time for some experimentation!”

Sally smiled and shook her head as the fox boy ran out of the room, in search of victims.

_______

A red furred echidna named Knuckles simply couldn’t muster the will to chuckle at his situation. Even his incredible strength couldn’t dent the maze-like halls of the castle he’d found himself in. He sat down on an empty pedestal to catch his breath, across the hall from a statue of a lynx. The design rang a bell, but he didn’t give it much thought.

“Enjoying yourself, Knuckles?” A voice spoke. “How about you just sit there for a while?”

“Dr. Robotnik?” Knuckles tried to get up, but found he was stuck to the pedestal.

“It’s ‘Robotula,’” the voice said as the vampire materialized in front of him. “And I’m in the market for a new guardian. Can I interest you in the position?”

“Buzz off! I’m not buying your tricks! You really think dressing up as a vampire is gonna fool me?”

“What if I told you Sonic’s the reason you’re trapped here, and that I can make it so he can’t hurt you?”

“Ugh! Sonic’s ruining things for everyone else again?” Knuckles growled, not really believing it, but it made for a good excuse to punch Sonic in the smug face and a chance to get Egghead's guard down. “Okay, you got a deal!”

Robotula resisted the urge to laugh at how easy that was as he cast his next spell, the stone of the pedestal seeming to suddenly grow over him and cover him completely. His body was then re-molded, made larger and more reptilian looking, with prominent claws on his feet, a toothy snout, large, bull-like horns, and a set of bat wings. His signature spiked boxing gloves remained.

The new gargoyle was content to wait in place to pin down any intruder that came his way, protecting the castle being his new purpose in life.

_______

Amy impatiently paced back and forth in their 'safe room.' The tight confines of the small armory were starting to get to her. She cracked the door open slightly to peek out, and was greeted by an empty, dimly-lit stone hall. She closed it again and sighed.

“What could be taking him so long. The castle can’t be that big, can it?”

“I’m sure Mr. Sonic is working as fast as he can,” Vanilla said, sitting beside her daughter. “I’ve never known him to do anything slowly.”

There was a sudden knock at the door.

“That’s probably Mr. Sonic right now!” Cream cheered, and ran to the door. But when she opened it, she didn’t see the blue blur, but a ground squirrel in black robes and a pointed hat.

“Hello girls,” Sally said, “Now that our friend Sonic isn’t here, what do you say we try out a little magic?”

Cream stepped back, shivering and clutching her two chao close. “But Ms. Acorn, I don’t wanna be a monster!”

“Oh, that can change,” Sally smirked, raising her hands to cast a spell.

“I’m not letting you do anything to them!” Amy rushed forward, her giant yellow mallet raised above her head to strike the witch. But she wasn’t quick enough, and the spell struck her instead.

Amy groaned as her tail began to grow longer and thicker tearing through her underwear, pink scales replacing the hairs that once covered it. Cream and Vanilla gasped and stood back as it grew nearly as wide as her body, becoming flexible and snake-like as it became large enough to rest on. And it would have to be, as her legs were shrinking away to stubs before vanishing entirely, her boots and socks crumbling to dust, her dress following soon after, (Vanilla covered Cream's eyes and her own). Amy clutched her head as all her spines began to move on their own, becoming longer and more flexible, their pointed ends reforming into the heads of snakes, each head’s eyes providing a new, if blurry, point of view, while their new tongues overwhelmed her sense of smell. Her pupils became narrow, and her canines became longer, thinner, and sharper, as the new gorgon’s physical transformation was complete.

Mentally, meanwhile, Amy’s changes continued. While she would have reeled at the sight of her current state before, now she saw her scales and and serpentine features as beautiful. Not to mention, the wonderful opportunity to make works of art out of people with a single glance.

“Ssso, Sssally,” the gorgon hissed, “ssshall I make sstatuess of our cute guests?”

“No, sorry, we need all the monsters we can get right now.” Sally walked past Amy to the rabbits cowering in the corner.

Both Cream and Vanilla gradually began to feel much lighter, to the point that they felt they could simply drift away if they weren’t focusing on staying grounded. Then again, staying grounded wasn’t nearly as fun, so up they went.

As they rose off the ground, their fur turned a pale white, and their clothes rapidly gained holes and tattered edges, giving the appearance of age. Their feet became whispy and almost transparent.

Cream suddenly couldn’t remember why she was so worried about possibly being turned into a ghost, now that she was one. Really, she couldn’t remember much of her past life at all, but flying around without having to flap her ears was fun, as was being able to walk through walls. She also felt as if her conscience wasn’t as loud anymore, but she still couldn’t bear to think of making other people sad. Just because some monsters were mean, didn’t mean she had to be mean. In fact, her not being a mean monster would mean a lower mean of overall monster meanness.

Her Mother, Vanilla, similarly, didn’t feel all that mortified about becoming a wandering spirit; it was bound to happen eventually. And, even if, as a ghost, she didn’t HAVE to follow the rules and morals of the living, she was determined to be polite and amicable to guests, and to make sure her daughter behaved the same. She felt the other monsters were far too rowdy, and somebody had to set a proper example of how people should act in the company of nobility like Lord Robotula.

The little ghostly rabbit girl somehow hugged her still unchanged chao and looked up at Sally. “Thank you, Miss Acorn. I’m sorry I was so scared of you at first.” She and her mother both bowed their heads.

“Uh, no problem,” Sally said, looking over the chao. ‘Wasn’t my spell supposed to affect them too? Guess I’ll need to make some ghosts the old fashioned way.’ The witch gave a whistle making a few motions with one hand, and pairs of tiny bats and guppy sized fishmen were conjured to her side.

“Oh Cream? I have a gift for your pets!” Sally pointed ominously toward Cheese and Chacola. A bat and a fishman dashed toward each chao, talons bared…

And were each hugged by the chao in turn. The creatures and chao alike were all briefly hidden by a shower of sparkles. When they were visible again, the chao’s feet and original, round tails were missing, replaced by little squiggly tails, while the orbs on their heads were replaced with blue flames, and were otherwise completely unchanged. Their attributes shared, the small bats and fishmen wandered off.

“Aw, they look so cute!” Cream cheered, hugging her pets tight. “Say ‘thank you,’ you two.”

"Chao chao!" The two ghostly chao nodded to the witch.

“You’re welcome, Cream,” the witch said, nodding in satisfaction. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more gifts to give.”

_______

Another rabbit, this one a young woman dressed in purple, was traversing the castle’s broken battlements. The metal feet of her robotic lower-half clanked against the floor, and the pistons in her similarly mechanical left arm hissed softly as it swayed back and forth at her side. Bunnie had long since tuned out the unnatural sounds coming from her altered limbs, not that it truly made her any more comfortable with them.

She pushed open a door to one of the towers, and was greeted by another poorly lit, empty room. She sighed, still having no clue where on Mobius she could be. But she’d been on enough adventures that finding herself in a strange place all alone after seeing flashing lights was something she was mentally prepared to deal with.

“HEEELP!”

She heard a male voice cry out, and her eyes widened. “Antoine!” She gasped, her voice carrying a heavy southern accent. “Don’t worry Sugah, I’m comin’!”

She darted through several rooms, paying no heed to the statues or architecture, until she finally found the source of the cries, a male coyote with a french accent, dressed in blue, hanging upside-down by his foot from a rope.

“B-Bunnie! Ah, mah Cherie! Watch out! The room, she has been booby trapped!”

Bunnie couldn’t help but laugh at the sight before her. Antoine always had a way of getting into trouble. “Oh, Sugah,” she shook her head as she stepped closer “just cause you fell for one of the oldest traps in the book doesn’t mean I’m-”

Her words were interrupted by a harsh zapping sound, and she cried out as electricity coursed through her body for a few seconds. She fell to the ground with a harsh thud, her robotic limbs shorted out and not responding. She tried to stay awake, but quickly lost consciousness.

“Ah ha ha ha!” A childish voice laughed, somewhat muffled by a wall. The two captured Freedom Fighters turned to see a wall spinning around in true secret passage style, revealing a two-tailed fox boy in a lab coat. “I was a little disappointed when the coyote fell into Lord Robotula’s primitive trap rather than my highly advanced electro-mine, but he ended up providing the perfect bait!”

“T-Tails?” Antoine stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Please, it’s Doctor Prowerstein. And I must say, you two are simply perfect for some experiments!” The scientist grabbed the stunned rabbit and the dizzy coyote, and dragged them both through the passage and into his lab, strapping the two of them to large wooden tables with all sorts of ominous looking electrical equipment.

Prowerstein began to hook the couple up to his strange machines. “Oh, the rabbit has some mechanical parts already? Fascinating! And it will save me some energy during the conversion process!”

While the fox flipped various switches on his machine, a ghostly ball bounced through the wall, followed by a ghostly rabbit and her two chao companions.

“C-Cream? Are you dead?” Antoine gasped.

The rabbit girl suddenly noticed him. “Oh, greetings honored guests. Yes, I’m dead.”

And with that, Antoine joined Bunnie in fainting.

She picked up her ball, then looked at the unconscious rabbit, and the fox scientist. “Mr. Dr. Prowerstein! Are you experimenting on people?”

The fox boy startled, and turned around, sheepishly adjusting his goggles. Even with their senses of morality skewered, none of the of the monsters in the castle could bear to ruin Cream’s innocence. “No, no, nothing like that… I’m just… helping them with hypersomnia! Nothing like a little electricity to help wake you up in the morning! I mean, just look at how tired they are!” He pointed to the two unconscious bodies.

“That’s so nice of you! Good luck with helping them!” Cream smiled, and walked back through the wall.

“Well, with that out of the way…” Prowerstein threw one last switch, and electricity arced all over his machines and into the captured couple, altering their bodies and minds.

Stitches appeared at various joints on their bodies, the patches of fur between each set of stitches having subtly different sizes and shades of color, as if pulled from different bodies. Antoine’s arms turned to metal, robotic limbs, and his forehead became larger, the top of his head flattening. Bunnie’s hair turned black and white, and metal bolts appeared in both of their necks.

The two new monsters slowly budged and twitched, groaning as they rose up.

“They’re ALIVE! ALIIIIVE!” The scientist laughed madly, turning off the switch and releasing their bonds.

The two stumbled forward. Having just been “born” their mental states had been near-completely wiped clean, and yet, when their eyes met, they both felt something deeply familiar stirring within them. The two stared at each-other’s corpse-like faces, each lost in the other’s eyes, while their robotic hands clasped.

“It seems my experiments have taken to each other far better than expected,” Prowerstein said, writing down note after note. “Now, I know you two were literally made for each other, but TRY to focus on Lord Robotula’s orders when they come through, okay?”

"Yes Papa!" They said together.

(Continued in part 2)

Description
(Content Warnings: transformation, heavy mental changes)

It was a dark and stormy night, in the humble country of Morbidus. Yet even under the driving rain and crashing thunder, the townspeople slept well. The monsters that had once poured out every night from the menacing castle on the mountain to the north, hadn’t been seen in weeks. It seemed the prophecy about count Robotula rising from his grave every hundred years wasn’t coming to fruition after all.

And yet, deep inside the castle, something stirred; a short figure with a large nose, clothed in green, and hunched over with a sizable hump on his back. When he awoke, he realized something terrible; he could not hear the howl of wolf-men, or the crackle of a hydra’s flame, the boiling of cauldrons, the clanking of armor, or nearly anything else. He hastily hobbled through the castle halls, looking for any sign of his master’s monstrous minions, only to be met with empty room after empty room. Panic setting in, he moved as fast as his uneven legs could take him up the spiral staircase of the tallest tower in the castle.

He reached the top of the steps and flung open the door to room with a wide stained glass window, depicting a face with a pair of glasses and a vaguely bat-shaped moustache. The room was empty save for the dim candelabras set into the walls, and a black coffin in the center with an image mimicking the window’s design carved into it.

“Master Robotula?” The figure timidly approached the coffin. “Master, are you safe?” He knocked on the lid.

Thunder crashed and lightning gave a brief, eerie glow to the stained glass window as the coffin lid flew open. A long, thin arm ending in a gloved hand rose straight up, and clenched its fingers into a fist.

“I have awakened!” A voice called out from within the coffin. It then let out a cough, as the egg-shaped torso of the creature groggily set itself upright. “...Awakened far, FAR earlier than I would have liked!”

The creature that awoke from the coffin stood tall like a man, on long, spindly legs, with arms to match. His egg-shaped torso was covered by a black coat, with a red cape and a frilly cravat wrapped around his neck. His pale, sheet-white head was completely bald, save for a long orange mustache under his large nose, and his eyes were covered by a pair of seemingly opaque glasses. The two sharpened fangs that extended from under his upper lip made it clear that this irritated creature was a vampire.

“Snivgor! What’s going on? I thought I instructed you to awaken me one hundred years after that miserable hedgehog slaughtered me!” The vampire stretched, and brushed his “bed-stasch” to straighten it out. “It’s only been ninety-nine years, three-hundred-sixty-two days! A genius monster mastermind needs his rest!”

“Yes, Master, I know, but it’s an emergency! Everyone in the castle is dead!” The hunchback waved his arms in panic.

Robotula facepalmed. “Yes, Snivgor. Every last one of my minions are dead. That is the POINT of being a lord of undead monsters!”

“No! I mean they’re really, REALLY dead! Gone! Turned to ash! All of them!”

“Wait… Seriously?”

“Yes! Even the Spirit Of The Castle itself!”

Robotula’s mustache shot up in panic. “The Spirit Of The Castle?” The vampire leapt from his coffin and ran for the spiral stairs on his spindly legs. “Snivgor, fetch me my book on monster making! We’ve GOT to cook up some replacements before the vampire hunters arrive for our hundred-year battle, or the Spirit Of The Castle won’t be able to regenerate them! Or me!”

“Yes Master!”

As the two went deeper into the castle, a third figure became visible in the room, standing, oddly enough, on the wall. His cloaking device disengaged, revealing a blue hedgehog in a red suit, with gleaming golden shoulder pads and belt, and a silver helmet that covered his spines.

“Yeah, looks like this zone’s taken some losses,” he spoke into a comm device in his helmet, “I think we’ve got openings for some of those lost souls.”

Zonic the Zone Cop was the hedgehog’s name, and he was having a VERY busy day at work. A phenomenon known as the “Super Genesis Wave” had caused chaos in hundreds of alternate reality zones. In the worst cases, entire zones were destroyed, eradicating countless lives, past, present, and future, leaving no trace. Some “luckier” zones had their histories re-written, redefining many people’s roles in life, while others never ended up born at all, making their worlds nearly unrecognizable. The less severely impacted worlds “merely” suffered brief, but potentially devastating natural disasters due to a temporary flux in physics, like tidal waves, big earthquakes, and huge storms. Or, in this world’s case, a solar flare intense enough to pierce the spell of eternal night that typically kept the denizens of Robotula’s castle safe from the sun’s lethal rays.

Zonic and his fellow Zone Cops had mostly been spared the Super Genesis Wave’s effects due to their zone being perpendicular, rather than parallel, to the other zones of reality, and had used their advanced technology to rescue as many people doomed to either being ‘retconned’ from existence, or perishing as their world was destroyed completely, as possible. And now that the worst of the wave had passed, it was time to find them new homes, in zones that had been depopulated.

“No parallels to Zone 5773’s group A in the present time here,” he muttered into his comm after fiddling with a device on his wrist for a moment. “The zone’s pretty different from theirs, but given this one has a pretty strict ‘balance between good and evil’ ingrained into its natural laws, it’ll probably adapt them to it.”

An angry voice could be heard in his headpiece.

“Yeah, look, I know it’s not ideal, but we need SOMEONE to fill this role here. If all the evil in this zone is wiped out, another evil force will be pulled in to fill the void, and I’ve seen what’s forced itself to the top of the waiting list. Much better that they live on as a bumbling vampire’s lackeys and get revived every hundred years with him than insane deformed tentacled horrors.”

With blinding speed, the interdimensional hedgehog zipped from room to room across the castle, opening portal rings in different places and pulling out unconscious people one by one. When everything was clear, he slipped out a portal himself, which shrank and closed behind him.

A few minutes after that portal had closed, one of the displaced victims began to stir. A brown-furred, sixteen-year-old ground squirrel groggily sat up, with a hand to her forehead. ‘Where am I?’ She thought to herself. ‘The last thing I remember was a giant light in the sky. Then everything started getting blurry.’ She reached into the pocket of her blue vest, and pulled out a small PDA. She pressed a few buttons from memory, causing the screen to light up, as did a bright flashlight on the back of the device.

“There we go,” she muttered. She pointed her phone around seeing that she was between two large bookshelves, covered in dust and cobwebs, and lined with hundreds of worn, faded books, with titles in a language she couldn’t recognize. “Anything in your database matching this, Nicole?”

A holographic lynx woman appeared by her side, transmitted from the PDA. “The script bears a resemblance to 12th century Spangonian,” Nicole said, “but there are several key differences, and the arrangement of the characters doesn’t match the spelling conventions of the time. I cannot decipher it with my current resources.” And as soon as she had appeared, she vanished again.

“Thanks anyway. Guess I’ll have to look for other clues as to where we are.” The squirrel stepped out from between the bookcases, and saw that she was in a library, and a fairly large one at that. The walls and floor were all made of stone, and there was no sign of any modern technology anywhere; the only potential light sources were the unlit candelabras on the walls.

She suddenly heard a pair of familiar voices, and poked her head carefully around a corner.

“Here we are!” the light of a single candle revealed a tall, egg-shaped figure, pointing to a page on the table in front of him. “My collection of backup monster maker spells! Now all I need to do is put on an alias and head into town to recruit some imbecile peasants! What alias should I use this time? Dr. Alutobor?”

“Master, with all due respect, spelling your name backwards hasn’t fooled anyone in centuries,” the hunchback beside him said quietly.

“What, you think these commoners know how to spell? Don’t be silly, Snivgor.”

‘What’s with the vampire getup?’ Sally thought. “Did Robotnik go further off the deep end? Or is this some stupid show? Maybe that bright light sent me to another dimension?’ She stepped back to hide herself. Unfortunately, one of the stone tiles was loose, causing a scraping sound as she backed up.

“Did you hear that, Snivgor?” Robotula turned around slowly.

“I believe so, Master.”

“Well, either more monsters survived the solar flare than we thought, ooorrrrr....” Sally gasped as the vampire suddenly turned to a wispy smoke, and, moving quicker than her eye could follow, reformed in front of her, quickly lifting her a foot off the ground by the back of her vest. “As I thought, we have a visitor!” He grinned, his fangs on clear display. “Now, who could you be? A peasant sent in on a dare? Some holy woman trying to purify this place? Or maybe you’re the latest descendant of that accursed hedgehog hero’s line?”

“She could be a vampire fangirl, here to join the legions of the undead,” Snivgor suggested, “apparently romance novels starring vampires have gotten popular over the last few decades.”

Sally scowled. “Even if I was into vampires, you are definitely NOT the picture of forbidden sensuality, you giant, talking egg!”

“What?” Robotnik scowled. “You have a lot of nerve, little girl! Just who do you think you are?”

“I’m princess Sally Acorn, future queen of Mobius!” Sally said with confidence. “And I don’t care whether you you’re ‘Dr. Robotnik,’ or ‘Master Robotula,’ or ‘Mr. Alutobor,’ you AREN’T going to win! You NEVER do! I’ll find some way to stop you!”

Robotula sighed and turned his head to the hunchback. “Yeesh. You’d think that these heroes would get some new material. They’ve got a hundred years to do it!”

“To be fair, Master,” Snivgor spoke, “she didn’t start it off with ‘die monster, you don’t belong in this world!’”

“It’s the same principle. And besides, if she’d recycled that speech, I’d at least have an excuse to call her a miserable little pile of secrets! Here, she just gave out everything I need to know without a second thought.”

Sally’s eyes widened. She quickly thought back over what she’d said, trying to figure out what critical piece of information she might have given away.

“Surprised, my dear ‘princess?’ I doubt any royal line worth its salt would have neglected to tell you the most important principle when dealing with magic users: Unless you're blessed by the world's Holiness, Never give them your name!”

The vampire dropped her, and chanted a series of words in a language Sally didn’t recognize, She could occasionally make out her name among them. As the words danced inside her head, her thoughts became muddied and unfocused. Her vest suddenly grew longer, sleeves weaving themselves into existence as it became a black robe. A pointed, wide brimmed hat appeared on her head, and a broom appeared on the ground below her.

And then her mind suddenly felt SO much clearer. She could perfectly understand the words of Robotula’s spell, and those written on the books around her. And not only that, she knew how to use those spells herself.

She’d also come to see how silly she had been, worrying about following the morality of the common folk. Sure, evil never actually won, here, but the bad guys always had a lot more fun. And what was life without a challenge anyway?

“Thank you Master, for showing me the light, er, dark. I’ll be happy to help spread this gift.” She stood up, and bowed. As her eyes crossed the floor, she saw the PDA that had fallen from her clothes during their change. “And I think I know just where to start! Nicole, come on out.”

“Sally, are you alright?” The holographic lynx asked, as she appeared again “I heard Robotnik’s voice, and…” She looked around her. “Oh dear...”

Sally began her spell, the artificial creature having just enough of a soul to be susceptible to her magic. The Lynx shuddered and and flickered, before solidifying to stone, while her programming became conflicted with her new sense of desire. She felt parts of herself weaving into every stone in the castle, becoming its its eyes, ears, and soul. As the PDA that used to house her suddenly shut down, dozens of paintings and statues of the Lynx appeared throughout the castle, in a darker, gothic dress, with longer hair, each one able to perceive anything that happened in its room, and report it to her master. Like Sally, she felt a sense of liberation, that she was no longer tied down by programming of any kind.

“Thank you, witch, for setting me in charge of Master’s castle.” The Lynx statue “said” telepathically. “As the new spirit of the castle, I would like to inform you that there are more candidates for making monsters in other rooms in the castle. Many are alone, or only have one or two other companions, and all are in a state of confusion. It would be wise to take advantage of this.”

“Oh believe me, dear, we will,” Robotula said, “So tell us… Where are they now?”

_______

A pink female hedgehog in a red dress, a female bat in a skin-tight outfit, and a purple male walrus in a blue cap all slowly woke up in the lower portions of the castle, the sound of rushing waterways nearby. The walrus sat up groggily. He slowly blinked a few times, then leapt to his feet, startled, when saw the two girls. “Amy, Rouge, are guys okay?”

“I think so…” The pink hedgehog, Amy, said, propping herself up on her hammer. “Do you know where we are, Rotor?”

“Sorry, I don’t,” the walrus replied. “Last thing I remember was looking out a window in my lab and seeing a bright light.”

“I saw bright lights too!” Amy said. “What about you, Rouge?”

“Yeah, yeah, the light interrupted my nap before putting me to sleep again,” the bat groaned, and shook her head.

“Maybe it was some kind of incapacitating thing,” Rotor suggested. “That would explain why we all saw it before we ended up here.”

“If they wanted to capture us, and had the fancy tech to do it, why’d they just leave us here unattended?” Rouge said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re probably not being taken prisoner. It’d take a special kind of stupid to kidnap people and not even try to tie them up.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a good point,” Rotor said. “In any case, we should probably get a look around, and try to figure out where we are.”

A familiar laugh echoed through the damp room. “I think I can help with that!”

“Was that… Sally?” Rotor asked.

“Yes, and no,” the voice responded. In a cloud of green smoke, Sally appeared, riding on a broomstick above them.

“The little goody-two-shoes-princess you knew is gone. I’m much happier as Robotula’s witch. And you’ll be happy serving him too!” Sally grinned, and her fingertips began to shimmer. “Now, who to bring into the fold first?”

“Robotula?” Amy gave a confused squint, as she started to back up.

“Oh man,” Rotor muttered, “it’s like Mecha-Sally all over again!”

“Hmm, you’ll do, Rotor!” The shimmering magic flew from Sally’s fingertips, and surrounded Rotor, whose blubber began to grow dozens of scales. Fins began to poke their way out of his back, arms, and legs, another appearing atop his head like a mohawk, knocking off his cap, with crumbled to dust, while two more fins formed beside his ears. His tusks, no, his entire snout, shrank back, becoming a fish-like jaw, while his eyes turned yellow. His head felt fuzzy for a moment, and he suddenly realized how much better off he’d be working for Robotula, as his memories of the old world slipped away. Sally may have benefitted from remembering her friend’s old names, but for the others, a full mental rewrite would be far more helpful.

“What the-?” Rouge gasped.

“Rotor!” Amy cried out.

The former walrus turned to what used to be his friends, and growled.

“Good Fishman!” Sally cheered. “But I’ll have to ask you to hold back. We’re gonna make more monsters out of these two before-”

Her words were interrupted by a loud woosh and a streak of blue. In the blink of an eye, both Amy and Rouge were gone. Sally frowned. She knew what that meant. “You can run, Sonic. But you can’t hide. Robotula will have his monsters before the night is over. And you’ll be one of them.”

_______

Amy and Rouge took a moment to regain their bearings, having felt a sharp tug, and then found themselves in a completely different room. It seemed to be a small armory, with all sorts of medieval weapons hanging on its walls.

But more important to Amy were the people she saw; the first was a tall rabbit woman in a dress, Vanilla, the second, the woman’s young daughter, Cream, and her two pet Chao, tiny round winged creatures with bow ties, pink wings, and little floating orbs above their heads, one brown, named Chacola, and the other blue, named Cheese. And then of course, there was her savior…

“SONIC! I KNEW you’d come for me, even in some weird Transylvania dimension!” Amy cheered, hugging the blue hedgehog in front of her.

Sonic sighed, and gently pushed her back. “You’re welcome Amy. Would you two stay here with Vanilla and Cream while I scout out for more of our friends? I don’t want more of you guys ending up like Rotor or…” He shook his head. “Sally… Anyway there’s safety in numbers, once I’ve got everyone I can to someplace safe, if I haven’t seen a way out by then, I can start looking for one, and I can get you all out of this place.”

“Sure thing!” Amy smiled, a huge yellow hammer appearing in her head, seemingly from nowhere. “If any monsters try to break in here, I’ll show ‘em who’s boss!”

“Great, I’ll see you guys in a few minutes.” And with a soft woosh, the blue hedgehog was gone.

“Did… Something happen to Rotor?” Vanilla asked.

Amy, with some sadness, explained what she’d seen.

“The witch wants to turn us all into monsters?” Cream gasped, clutching her two chao close. “What if she turned me into a ghost?”

“I’m pretty sure being ‘turned into a ghost’ is just called ‘dying’ kiddo.” Rouge said with a shrug, while Cream whimpered.

“ROUGE!” Amy put her hands on her hips. “Think about what you’re saying to a little girl.”

“I don’t sugarcoat things, little girl,” Rouge said, as she made her way to the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Amy marched up to her. “We agreed to stay here and wait for Sonic!”

“YOU agreed.” Rouge waved dismissively at Amy. “And you can wait on your blue prince charming all you like, but some of us can do things for ourselves. And if anyone can work their way out of a haunted castle, it’s a bat. See you around, little girl.” She stepped out the door, closed it behind her, (muffling Amy’s loud, angry response,) and flew down the hallway, never noticing that the eyes on paintings of a certain lynx seemed to follow her as she moved, or peek out from within a hallway mirror

After several minutes flying through the dark, empty halls, she came to a stop, when she saw a tall, egg-shaped figure in front of her.

“Greetings, my dear Rouge,” he said with a grin.

“Nope.” Rouge muttered under her breath, and turned around, only to find the same man emerging from the shadows in front of her again. She sighed, and landed, deciding to play along while looking for some other way of escape. “You must be Robotula, right? How do you know my name?”

“Our mutual friend Sally has been introducing me to all the intruders in my castle,” Robotula steepled his fingers, “and I thought I’d come and greet some of them personally, and offer to let you all stay awhile!”

“Charming idea, but a girl like me can’t enjoy the nightlife indoors,” Rouge said, stepping back.

“Can you look me in the eyes and still say that?” Robotula grinned, and grabbed the bat woman. As she looked into his black glasses, she suddenly felt paralyzed, unable to resist anything he did.

The vampire chanted a series of strange words, and Rouge started to feel incredibly hot. Her white fur turned a deep red, and she could feel a sharp pressure in her head as two horns grew from her skull. Her clothes, save for her elbow-length gloves and long boots, unraveled and fell away, while her already alluring figure was amplified to extremes, her bust easily bigger than her head. Her gloves and boots became skin-tight, claws visible on the ends. Her tail grew longer, a spade shape forming at the end.

Her mind was twisted, her desires changing; she still found being a thief fun, but tempting away wannabe heroes suddenly seemed far more attractive. Robotula’s magic, meanwhile, combined with the castle’s own, filling her mind with fake memories of the other transformed people, memories that would be “updated” as more joined the fold.

Robotula broke the trance, and the new succubus looked up at him. “Know what? You’re right, the night life in this place is to die for, and I don’t wanna miss it. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re welcome Rouge. I hope you enjoy yourself. Now if you don’t mind, I have a lot to do.” And with that, he faded into the shadows and vanished.

“Don’t be a stranger.”

_______

A yellow-furred fox boy with two tails was exploring a tower in the stange castle he’d found himself in, hoping to find some clue as to where he really was. Most of the rooms he’d passed amounted to simple living quarters, restrooms, or closets, with little to help answer his questions.

But when he got to the top of the tower, he found himself in a room filled with all sorts of machinery. Not quite modern, but far more advanced than the medieval architecture would suggest. Still, he couldn’t quite tell what any of it was for.

“I had a feeling you’d find this place on your own, Tails.” A female voice said.

The startled fox turned around where he saw a familiar ground squirrel. “Oh, Sally! Glad to see you!” He leapt toward her and gave her a hug, then stepped back, and looked over her. “...Why are you dressed like that? Is this Halloween?”

“You could say that.” Sally smirked. “Now it’s time to get you in costume.”

Before Tails could react, Sally’s magic enveloped him. A white lab coat materialized over his body, and a pair of thick goggles appeared on his head. His body didn’t undergo many changes, but his mind was altered far more. Like the others that had been changed so far, his sense of morality was altered, little things like not doing harm seeming far less important, and his loyalty to Lord Robotula being the only constant, while his already budding genius was multiplied, granting him insight into the purpose and design of all the strange machines around him.

“This is brilliant!” The new mad scientist fox said in an inexplicable German accent. “With this new knowledge, I can create all kinds of wonderful new monsters for our benefactor! Time for some experimentation!”

Sally smiled and shook her head as the fox boy ran out of the room, in search of victims.

_______

A red furred echidna named Knuckles simply couldn’t muster the will to chuckle at his situation. Even his incredible strength couldn’t dent the maze-like halls of the castle he’d found himself in. He sat down on an empty pedestal to catch his breath, across the hall from a statue of a lynx. The design rang a bell, but he didn’t give it much thought.

“Enjoying yourself, Knuckles?” A voice spoke. “How about you just sit there for a while?”

“Dr. Robotnik?” Knuckles tried to get up, but found he was stuck to the pedestal.

“It’s ‘Robotula,’” the voice said as the vampire materialized in front of him. “And I’m in the market for a new guardian. Can I interest you in the position?”

“Buzz off! I’m not buying your tricks! You really think dressing up as a vampire is gonna fool me?”

“What if I told you Sonic’s the reason you’re trapped here, and that I can make it so he can’t hurt you?”

“Ugh! Sonic’s ruining things for everyone else again?” Knuckles growled, not really believing it, but it made for a good excuse to punch Sonic in the smug face and a chance to get Egghead's guard down. “Okay, you got a deal!”

Robotula resisted the urge to laugh at how easy that was as he cast his next spell, the stone of the pedestal seeming to suddenly grow over him and cover him completely. His body was then re-molded, made larger and more reptilian looking, with prominent claws on his feet, a toothy snout, large, bull-like horns, and a set of bat wings. His signature spiked boxing gloves remained.

The new gargoyle was content to wait in place to pin down any intruder that came his way, protecting the castle being his new purpose in life.

_______

Amy impatiently paced back and forth in their 'safe room.' The tight confines of the small armory were starting to get to her. She cracked the door open slightly to peek out, and was greeted by an empty, dimly-lit stone hall. She closed it again and sighed.

“What could be taking him so long. The castle can’t be that big, can it?”

“I’m sure Mr. Sonic is working as fast as he can,” Vanilla said, sitting beside her daughter. “I’ve never known him to do anything slowly.”

There was a sudden knock at the door.

“That’s probably Mr. Sonic right now!” Cream cheered, and ran to the door. But when she opened it, she didn’t see the blue blur, but a ground squirrel in black robes and a pointed hat.

“Hello girls,” Sally said, “Now that our friend Sonic isn’t here, what do you say we try out a little magic?”

Cream stepped back, shivering and clutching her two chao close. “But Ms. Acorn, I don’t wanna be a monster!”

“Oh, that can change,” Sally smirked, raising her hands to cast a spell.

“I’m not letting you do anything to them!” Amy rushed forward, her giant yellow mallet raised above her head to strike the witch. But she wasn’t quick enough, and the spell struck her instead.

Amy groaned as her tail began to grow longer and thicker tearing through her underwear, pink scales replacing the hairs that once covered it. Cream and Vanilla gasped and stood back as it grew nearly as wide as her body, becoming flexible and snake-like as it became large enough to rest on. And it would have to be, as her legs were shrinking away to stubs before vanishing entirely, her boots and socks crumbling to dust, her dress following soon after, (Vanilla covered Cream's eyes and her own). Amy clutched her head as all her spines began to move on their own, becoming longer and more flexible, their pointed ends reforming into the heads of snakes, each head’s eyes providing a new, if blurry, point of view, while their new tongues overwhelmed her sense of smell. Her pupils became narrow, and her canines became longer, thinner, and sharper, as the new gorgon’s physical transformation was complete.

Mentally, meanwhile, Amy’s changes continued. While she would have reeled at the sight of her current state before, now she saw her scales and and serpentine features as beautiful. Not to mention, the wonderful opportunity to make works of art out of people with a single glance.

“Ssso, Sssally,” the gorgon hissed, “ssshall I make sstatuess of our cute guests?”

“No, sorry, we need all the monsters we can get right now.” Sally walked past Amy to the rabbits cowering in the corner.

Both Cream and Vanilla gradually began to feel much lighter, to the point that they felt they could simply drift away if they weren’t focusing on staying grounded. Then again, staying grounded wasn’t nearly as fun, so up they went.

As they rose off the ground, their fur turned a pale white, and their clothes rapidly gained holes and tattered edges, giving the appearance of age. Their feet became whispy and almost transparent.

Cream suddenly couldn’t remember why she was so worried about possibly being turned into a ghost, now that she was one. Really, she couldn’t remember much of her past life at all, but flying around without having to flap her ears was fun, as was being able to walk through walls. She also felt as if her conscience wasn’t as loud anymore, but she still couldn’t bear to think of making other people sad. Just because some monsters were mean, didn’t mean she had to be mean. In fact, her not being a mean monster would mean a lower mean of overall monster meanness.

Her Mother, Vanilla, similarly, didn’t feel all that mortified about becoming a wandering spirit; it was bound to happen eventually. And, even if, as a ghost, she didn’t HAVE to follow the rules and morals of the living, she was determined to be polite and amicable to guests, and to make sure her daughter behaved the same. She felt the other monsters were far too rowdy, and somebody had to set a proper example of how people should act in the company of nobility like Lord Robotula.

The little ghostly rabbit girl somehow hugged her still unchanged chao and looked up at Sally. “Thank you, Miss Acorn. I’m sorry I was so scared of you at first.” She and her mother both bowed their heads.

“Uh, no problem,” Sally said, looking over the chao. ‘Wasn’t my spell supposed to affect them too? Guess I’ll need to make some ghosts the old fashioned way.’ The witch gave a whistle making a few motions with one hand, and pairs of tiny bats and guppy sized fishmen were conjured to her side.

“Oh Cream? I have a gift for your pets!” Sally pointed ominously toward Cheese and Chacola. A bat and a fishman dashed toward each chao, talons bared…

And were each hugged by the chao in turn. The creatures and chao alike were all briefly hidden by a shower of sparkles. When they were visible again, the chao’s feet and original, round tails were missing, replaced by little squiggly tails, while the orbs on their heads were replaced with blue flames, and were otherwise completely unchanged. Their attributes shared, the small bats and fishmen wandered off.

“Aw, they look so cute!” Cream cheered, hugging her pets tight. “Say ‘thank you,’ you two.”

"Chao chao!" The two ghostly chao nodded to the witch.

“You’re welcome, Cream,” the witch said, nodding in satisfaction. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got more gifts to give.”

_______

Another rabbit, this one a young woman dressed in purple, was traversing the castle’s broken battlements. The metal feet of her robotic lower-half clanked against the floor, and the pistons in her similarly mechanical left arm hissed softly as it swayed back and forth at her side. Bunnie had long since tuned out the unnatural sounds coming from her altered limbs, not that it truly made her any more comfortable with them.

She pushed open a door to one of the towers, and was greeted by another poorly lit, empty room. She sighed, still having no clue where on Mobius she could be. But she’d been on enough adventures that finding herself in a strange place all alone after seeing flashing lights was something she was mentally prepared to deal with.

“HEEELP!”

She heard a male voice cry out, and her eyes widened. “Antoine!” She gasped, her voice carrying a heavy southern accent. “Don’t worry Sugah, I’m comin’!”

She darted through several rooms, paying no heed to the statues or architecture, until she finally found the source of the cries, a male coyote with a french accent, dressed in blue, hanging upside-down by his foot from a rope.

“B-Bunnie! Ah, mah Cherie! Watch out! The room, she has been booby trapped!”

Bunnie couldn’t help but laugh at the sight before her. Antoine always had a way of getting into trouble. “Oh, Sugah,” she shook her head as she stepped closer “just cause you fell for one of the oldest traps in the book doesn’t mean I’m-”

Her words were interrupted by a harsh zapping sound, and she cried out as electricity coursed through her body for a few seconds. She fell to the ground with a harsh thud, her robotic limbs shorted out and not responding. She tried to stay awake, but quickly lost consciousness.

“Ah ha ha ha!” A childish voice laughed, somewhat muffled by a wall. The two captured Freedom Fighters turned to see a wall spinning around in true secret passage style, revealing a two-tailed fox boy in a lab coat. “I was a little disappointed when the coyote fell into Lord Robotula’s primitive trap rather than my highly advanced electro-mine, but he ended up providing the perfect bait!”

“T-Tails?” Antoine stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Please, it’s Doctor Prowerstein. And I must say, you two are simply perfect for some experiments!” The scientist grabbed the stunned rabbit and the dizzy coyote, and dragged them both through the passage and into his lab, strapping the two of them to large wooden tables with all sorts of ominous looking electrical equipment.

Prowerstein began to hook the couple up to his strange machines. “Oh, the rabbit has some mechanical parts already? Fascinating! And it will save me some energy during the conversion process!”

While the fox flipped various switches on his machine, a ghostly ball bounced through the wall, followed by a ghostly rabbit and her two chao companions.

“C-Cream? Are you dead?” Antoine gasped.

The rabbit girl suddenly noticed him. “Oh, greetings honored guests. Yes, I’m dead.”

And with that, Antoine joined Bunnie in fainting.

She picked up her ball, then looked at the unconscious rabbit, and the fox scientist. “Mr. Dr. Prowerstein! Are you experimenting on people?”

The fox boy startled, and turned around, sheepishly adjusting his goggles. Even with their senses of morality skewered, none of the of the monsters in the castle could bear to ruin Cream’s innocence. “No, no, nothing like that… I’m just… helping them with hypersomnia! Nothing like a little electricity to help wake you up in the morning! I mean, just look at how tired they are!” He pointed to the two unconscious bodies.

“That’s so nice of you! Good luck with helping them!” Cream smiled, and walked back through the wall.

“Well, with that out of the way…” Prowerstein threw one last switch, and electricity arced all over his machines and into the captured couple, altering their bodies and minds.

Stitches appeared at various joints on their bodies, the patches of fur between each set of stitches having subtly different sizes and shades of color, as if pulled from different bodies. Antoine’s arms turned to metal, robotic limbs, and his forehead became larger, the top of his head flattening. Bunnie’s hair turned black and white, and metal bolts appeared in both of their necks.

The two new monsters slowly budged and twitched, groaning as they rose up.

“They’re ALIVE! ALIIIIVE!” The scientist laughed madly, turning off the switch and releasing their bonds.

The two stumbled forward. Having just been “born” their mental states had been near-completely wiped clean, and yet, when their eyes met, they both felt something deeply familiar stirring within them. The two stared at each-other’s corpse-like faces, each lost in the other’s eyes, while their robotic hands clasped.

“It seems my experiments have taken to each other far better than expected,” Prowerstein said, writing down note after note. “Now, I know you two were literally made for each other, but TRY to focus on Lord Robotula’s orders when they come through, okay?”

"Yes Papa!" They said together.

(Continued in part 2)