Sonic the Hedgehog Online Issue 251

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***Sonic the Hedgehog Online Issue 251*** is the two hundred and fifty-first issue of the Sonic the Hedgehog original continuity and the fourth issue of STH Online continuation series.

## Summary

### Official Solicitation

*The fight to reclaim the kingdom begins in “Redemption Part One: Fragile Egos!” New Mobotropolis is safe from external threats at the moment, but the evil machinations of the ailing King Naugus threaten to tear the city (as well as himself) apart from the inside! As the Secret Freedom Fighters prepare to make their move, will Geoffrey St. John be the one to pay the price? Featuring cover art from atomic Sonic artist Riggo!*

### Story One

*Redemption Part One: Fragile Egos*
At the outskirts of New Mobtropolis, a mysterious Dark Egg Legionnaire observes the city through their binoculars. Shedding the legionnaire outfit, the mysterious person begins to make her ascent towards the city, asking someone to hold on as she comes for them.

On the Council of Acorn, Naugus, still in Geoffrey's body, begins to convene with the Council. Hamlin speaks to "Geoffrey", thanking Geoffrey for standing in while the king is absent, but noting that talks about war with the Eggman Empire are pointless without the king itself. Trying to control his anger, "Geoffrey" egregiously agrees with Hamlin's statement. Rosemary continues the council meeting, asking of any other options to create power rings for Naugus, aside from the Lake of Rings. Uncle Chuck solemnly states that it's not possible without Nate Morgan, saying that he can't even replicate his work without his notes. When Dylan brings up the Special Zone as another option, Penelope shoots the idea down, reminding everyone that Feist still guards the zone and the King's previous experiences in there.

Nervous, "Geoffrey" tries to assuage the situation by stating that NICOLE's efforts would be sufficient to revive him, asking the council to not rush her. However, Geoffrey consciousness and Penelope both note the irony of him trying to defend NICOLE after condemning her. Seething with anger, Naugus can only watch as Penelope continues her statement, noting that even after the council allowed "Geoffrey" to use Naugus' staff to defend the city from Metal Sonic, people still saw him flee the battlefield. Going further, Penelope launches a tirade at him, saying that while he's always claiming to be at his master's behest, he didn't show any results for them.

However, as Penelope tries to tell Geoffrey that unless the council has a personal audience with the king, he can't sit on the council with them as an acting substitute, Naugus, not wanting to hear anymore, uses his magic to make Penelope forget her train of thought. Trying to save face, Naugus claims through Geoffrey that he allowed his own concern to cloud his own judgement, and how he nearly put the city in danger due to his overconfidence, swearing on both fronts that won't allow it to happen again. Returning to the topic of NICOLE, "Geoffrey" claims that he himself does not distrust NICOLE. Finishing his case, he states that once the king is fully restored, New Mobtropolis will be safe from any threats, including Dr. Eggman.

Meanwhile, the Secret Freedom Fighters learn from NICOLE that she’s building an energy converter based on Rings for Naugus, which she argues she’s not legally allowed to refuse to build it due to possibly being accused of treason yet again and fears for the townspeople getting involved in retaliation. Shard thinks they’re running out of time to keep this low profile if Ixis returns to full power and be in the people’s favor once more.

Harvey agrees, saying that with the people's faith in Naugus severely shaken by his repeated failures to protect the city, their next move is clear: To overthrow the despot, Elias must take the Sword of Light and end Naugus’ life. While he understands the reasoning, Elias is conflicted at the idea of essentially executing a dying man. Compounded was that the Director had met with the Secret Freedom Fighters beforehand and unanimously agreed this to be the course of action that had to be taken, with Shard explaining that he was created as a pragmatic war machine as the reason he agreed, while Silver reminds him that he was prepared to kill the potential traitor to the Freedom Fighters. Furthering the point, Larry doesn’t want to let his friends be put in danger any longer and the twins agree. They then discuss the possibility of assassinating Naugus and framing it on Geoffrey, as most people will accept it as the truth since he’s been associated with treason, then leaving Elias alone to think.

Afterwards, Sonic and the rest of the main Freedom Fighters gather in Freedom HQ along with "Geoffrey", who’s busy keeping the body shapeshifting under control. Believing that now that they finally have some time to breathe, Sonic says that their next order of business should be trying to bring the rest of team back together, so they need to track down Bunnie. When Cream points out Antoine, Tails says they've tried everything they could to wake up Antoine, but simply didn’t work. Rotor elaborates that they wanted to avoid this option, but at this point their only choice is to use a Chaos Emerald, and ask "Geoffrey" to ask that Naugus lend the one he has.

Geoffrey promptly refuses to let them have the Emerald because it’s "his", causing the Freedom Fighters to stare at him in surprise and suspicion. He soon corrects himself by saying that he doubts it would do any good for Antoine, and that he can’t imagine his master parting with it even for a moment. As Sonic angers Naugus by reminding that the Emerald is rightfully Sonic’s, Geoffrey thinks on how Naugus used the Emerald to suppress the mutations, and wonders if that’s what is making his condition get worse and whether it’d actually be a good idea for him to share some of that power to save Antoine. Naugus overhears him and gets the idea to possess Antoine, as his next host would be just a shell with no mind to conquer, causing "Geoffrey" to agree with their request, saying he can convince Naugus to heal Antoine as a goodwill gesture.

Moving on, Sonic then (correctly) guesses Bunnie went to her uncle in the Great Desert Dark Egg Legion, to which Sally agrees and assumes she's safe for the time being. She then says she would like to be at Antoine’s side during the procedure to wake him up, as Sally doubts Naugus’ intentions because of his past endeavours. "Geoffrey" then taunts Sally by calling her a hypocrite for judging him on that, as she used to be Eggman’s favorite robot, and was responsible for putting Antoine in the hospital in the first place. Sally runs away crying, and Sonic, while mad at Geoffrey, runs after Sally to comfort her. "Geoffrey" dismisses the other's stares by saying that her friends were all thinking the same thing, leaving the real Geoffrey miserable.

Taking on Harvey's suggestion to reflect, Elias greets Chuck and asks about the disabled robot. Chuck explains that it won’t wake up without a jumpstart, and once he’s confirmed its attack protocols are deactivated, he’ll bring it over to the science center for a recharge. NICOLE then comments that Rotor was right about its complexity as even she couldn’t decode its adaptive capabilities. Chuck agrees, noting that Amy didn’t even gave it any internal damage earlier and merely struck the module that forced it into standby mode.

Elias then changes the subject by asking Chuck and NICOLE’s opinions on whether they really advocate regicide, to which Chuck replies that all of his years of war taught him that no price is too steep to protect those he cares about the most. NICOLE in turn says she’d prefer to avoid violence as well, but also wants to prevent innocent people from being caught in any crossfire if Geoffrey and Naugus go unchecked in their desperation. NICOLE then puts her hand on Elias’ shoulder and apologizes they can’t give him an easy answer and asks if getting fresh air would clear his mind. He thanks her, but says he knows what he has to do.

In the Julayla Memorial Park, Naugus keeps telling Geoffrey, who’s trying to appeal to him, to shut up. Silver then greets "Geoffrey", and while hesitant, he says that Geoffrey needs to leave Naugus now. With "Geoffrey" confused by this, Silver says that while he might undo everything he’s fought to accomplish by telling him this, he tells "Geoffrey" that bad things are about to go down for Naugus, and that while he doesn’t care what happens to Naugus, Silver doesn’t want Geoffrey to get roped into it as he knows Geoffrey isn’t an evil person, pointing out that if Geoffrey hadn’t warned him about Naugus’ ritual to enslave the city he wouldn’t have stopped it in time. This revelation causes Naugus to be furious with Geoffrey, and as Silver says he can still own up to his mistakes, "Geoffrey" says to Silver that he’ll never betray Naugus, especially not for a bunch of "treasonous Freedom Fighters".

Outside of the nanite city, a mysterious person is stopped by the guards, who questions if that's how they welcome an agent returning and asks where Geoffrey is, which one of them assumes he’s in the Tommy Turtle Memorial Hospital in order to see Antoine. The mysterious person thanks them for the information and rushes through the entrance. As Elias went to retrieve the Sword of Light in order to ensure the wizard's defeat, Elias talks to his father, assuming that he can't hear him while taking a rest: The young man reflected out loud how he was about to become no better than his father in choosing to compromise his principles for a throne he never wanted. Max, in a rare moment of sanity, called his son a kind boy and that he is proud of him, urging him to protect Sally and Alicia, bringing the former king to tears.

At the hospital, as Geoffrey begs Naugus to stop his plan, the mysterious person interrupts them: Despite Geoffrey and everyone else's beliefs that she died, Hershey the Cat reveals herself to be alive and well, shedding a tear and saying she’s glad he’s safe. Hugging him and saying that after she went undercover in Soumerca she heard Geoffrey joined Naugus and rushed home. Worried at his lack of response, Hershey says she promises she’ll still love him no matter what happened, and says she’s here for him as she has her hand on his shoulder. She the turns to Antoine as Naugus’ Emerald starts glowing, and Geoffrey, desperate, gathers just enough strength to temporarily break free from Naugus' control and warn her that Naugus is controlling him.

Cornered, Naugus uses Geoffrey's body to kidnap Hershey and both vanish in a puff of smoke. Outside, a purple ball is seen floating over the top of Castle Acorn as a thunderstorm gathers. Naugus, now transformed into a mutated fusion of himself, Geoffrey, and the three wizards he was formed from, has an unconscious Hershey in his claw, who he threatens to kill using her husband's body if New Mobotropolis's citizens don't bow to him…

### Off-Panel

* **Script**: Linkstar21
* **Pencils**: Linkstar21
* **Inks**: Linkstar21
* **Colors**: Rero
* **Letters**: Dr. Z

***"Naugus' Ill Bleeding"***

Naugus curses the mutations and states that he should have possessed the quickster, in which refers to Sonic, when he had the chance. Geoffery then imagines Sonic as a demon called Zodick the Heckhog, and states that it's good that he never did so.

### Appearances

#### Characters

* Agunus Rhino
* Amy Rose
* Antoine D'Coolette
* Cheese the Chao
* Council of Acorn
	+ Dylan Porcupine
	+ Hamlin Pig
	+ Isabella Mongoose
	+ Penelope Platypus
	+ Rosemary Prower
	+ Sir Charles Hedgehog
* Cream the Rabbit
* Doctor Eggman
* Doctor Robotnik
* Emerl
* Feist
* Geoffrey St. John
* Hershey the Cat
* Jules Hedgehog
* Maximillian Acorn
* Metal Sonic
* Miles "Tails" Prower
* Mina Mongoose
* Nate Morgan
* Nicole
	+ Iron Nicole
* Nigel Acorn
* Nusgau Bat
* Rotor Walrus
* Sally Acorn
* Secret Freedom Fighters
	+ Elias Acorn
	+ Harvey Who
	+ Larry Lynx
	+ Leeta
	+ Lyco
	+ Shard the Metal Sonic
	+ Silver the Hedgehog
* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Suguna Lobster

## Gallery

### Early Covers

*Sonic The Hedgehog Online Issues*

 *Sonic Universe Online* (SUO)