The world began to break. The Infinite—the masked mercenary—descended from the sky, red cubes swirling around him. "I am the ultimate power!" he roared.
Sonic took a step, intending to sprint, but the "Hack" had stripped away the laws of physics. He didn't just run; he teleported. One millisecond he was at the starting gate; the next, he was standing at the finish line of a level that hadn't even started yet.
When the lights flickered back on, Sonic was back in the real Green Hill Zone. His coin count was zero. He had to run, really run, to catch up to Eggman. He smiled, felt the wind in his quills, and bolted. It was much better to be fast than to be infinite.
When Sonic stepped through the digital veil into this modified world, something was wrong. The air didn't smell like ocean salt and grass; it smelled like ozone and burning copper. He looked at his hands—they were glowing with a pulsating, neon-blue aura. In the corner of his vision, a counter began to spin.