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thatphantomstar · 5 days ago

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YEAHHH! YOU GET TO POST IT NOWWWW! Can't wait for everyone to read it! You did a great job!

I'm back for the Sonic Big Bang #2, hosted by the lovely mods at @sthbigbang!

HUGE thanks you to my artists: @12shelves, my original warrior. Thank you for sticking through the insanity LOL @thatphantomstar, God’s strongest soldier. So glad you got your CSP fixed!! @noxunderground, Sonic’s silliest soldier. Both the fastest and TWO arts… I salute you o7

And thank you to my beta readers! @starzdeath, my conspirator; @mattreverse, my Sonadow guy; and @ghostonthelnternet, my hype squad! Love y’all <3

All of the arts will be linked in the [MasterPost]

Without further ado, I present,

Legend

Summary: Sonic the Hedgehog. He goes by many names, takes on many roles. To those closest to him, he’s the best friend you could ask for. To those who challenge him, he’s a force to be reckoned with. To most of the world, he’s a hero, a legend to rival the days of old. If you were to ask Sonic himself, he would say he’s no one special. He’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong. He knows he’s special in ways he doesn’t yet understand. It’s hard to ignore when the chaos emeralds thrum constantly in the back of his head, reminding him of the role he’s meant to fill. The role he rejects every time he borrows their power. When the time comes, he will accept, because that’s just who he is. For now, he tries to live life like he always has, because there comes a day when he will no longer be able to ignore what lies ahead of him. Tell him, how does he make the most of the moment when the moment lasts eternity?

(AKA: The chaos emeralds claim Sonic as their guardian, essentially turning him into a god. Now, he has to deal with the implications of that— and immortality.)

…………………………………………

Chapter 1 (Prologue): Do You Believe in Destiny?

Summary: Sonic has a complicated relationship with fate. More than anything, he wants to forget their connection. It isn't so keen to do the same

Read Below 🔽

Do you believe in destiny?

If you asked that question to Sonic the Hedgehog, chances are he would say no. He would smile and wink and reassure you that nothing’s set in stone. He would laugh, not unkindly, put a hand to his heart, and tell you that only you can control your life.

He would be lying.

Sonic wishes he could say no, and mean it. But the truth is that long before he was born, he lived in the mind of the Ancient Echidnas, in prayers and prophecies largely lost to time. The truth is that his fate was sealed before he ever opened his eyes, etched in the aged stone of Angel Island by careful hands that promised power to a kid yet to come, that promised the world a savior to the likes which they’d never seen.

The truth is that maybe his life had been woven by forces outside of his control, scripted before he ever knew how to read.

He tries not to think about it too much. Yet fate and all its friends haunt him like a ghost, trailing in his footsteps and reminding him of their presence. He sees it in Amy’s tarot readings, some of which are eerily accurate. He sees it in Silver’s hopeful face, determined to save the future and rewrite history that hasn’t yet happened. He sees it in the Time Eater’s glowing mouth, filled with events past and yet to come.

Most of all, he sees it— feels it— in the chaos emeralds and their hum that no one but him can hear, beckoning him to accept a role that he was made to fill.

…………………………………………

There are some days when Sonic does nothing. Contrary to popular belief, he does actually relax. If he were to be honest, constant peril does wear on him, though he’d never say it outright. He lives as much for the adventure as he does for the peace his antics tend to bring the Earth. It’s nice to quiet down.

There’s something so calming about taking a winding run and flopping down in a random field, letting multicolored wildflowers tickle his peripheral vision as he breathes in the fresh air. The grass is cool where it slides between his splayed quills, slowing his heartbeat to match the sway of the breeze.

It’s in these moments where he lets himself be, setting his mind loose and melding with the planet. Before his eyes, the sky turns into a moving canvas of oceans, mountains, and valleys in rich blue and bright white, spinning a world he’s content to view from below. Beneath him, he could almost feel the Earth shift, breathing like a living being in itself.

Without realizing, the hum of the planet lulls him to sleep.

His dream is quite innocent at first. Dirt shifts under his shoes as he runs through a forest, surrounded by vibrant plant life at every step. The sun shines through the canopy, shadows of leaves dancing with light rays dappling the uneven ground. The occasional critter darts about, barely noticeable even with his enhanced reaction time.

Running isn’t unusual of his dreams. Neither is the inconspicuous setting. He spends most of his waking moments moving, after all, and he was pretty much taking a hike through nature just like this before he fell asleep.

Then, the forest gives way to ancient ruins. Intricately patterned structures stand smoothed by the weather, crumbling in some parts yet clear-cut in others. Statuettes dot the pillars and niches, figurines of people he’ll never know.

Recognition strikes him. Angel Island.

He realizes where he’s going.

His path suddenly drops underground and he whispers a temporary goodbye to the surface. The sound of rushing water is the first thing to hit him, then the vibrant brick-built structures of Hydrocity. Pillars prop up the high ceiling, ducts funnel water through the cavern until they break off and further flood the ruins. It wasn’t his favorite place, sure, but it was far from his least. He could commend the work of the echidnas.

In fact, he’s glad he’s here this time. He’s not sure why his dreaming mind decided to drop him in Hydrocity, but he’ll put it to good use. Gently pushing aside his aversion to water with a mutter of ‘This isn’t real,’ he tucks himself into a ball and spins at the nearest waterfall.

As he suspected, the sudden action forces the dream to show him exactly where it was leading him. The other side is thankfully dry, and the cold water slips off him like it was never there. Momentum carries him forward and he skids to a halt deep in the bowels of Hidden Palace, turning to face the mural that sprawls across the adjacent wall.

A jagged crack behind him allows a ray of sunlight through the caldera’s opening to hit it at just the right angle, illuminating the shining green gem in the center. A man with a mustache and out-reached arms grabs at it, opposed by a blue hedgehog wreathed in golden fire. The whole thing is abstract; geometric shapes covered in lines and patterns, captioned with a language lost to time. Once vibrant colors have dimmed with age, but not so much that its meaning has been lost like the words have.

It’s something that Sonic has seen just once, yet he can recall it in vivid detail as if it were drawn into the backs of his eyelids.

It might as well be, with the way it haunts him. For it told him the reason the chaos emeralds seemed to give him favor, allowing him to behold their power, the first in many years. He wondered what they would’ve done if he’d never found them, or if that was even possible when he’d already been scripted to take them on.

If he never used a chaos emerald, what would he be today?

What would the world be?

Questions like that hurt his brain. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder…

As if it could read his mind, the sunburst hit a particularly reflective section, bringing Sonic out of his thoughts. How long had he been standing there?

Long enough for the day to shift, it would seem, the sunlight falling on the hedgehog instead of the emerald. Sonic steps closer on impulse, carefully reaching up to touch the history that he’d been bound to before it ever happened. A tremor runs through him as he brushes the cracked stone, accompanied by the ever present hum he’s grown to ignore.

A single question embeds itself into his miraculously quiet mind. ‘Why me?’

The edges of his dream crumble as he traces a finger over blue-green. He closes his eyes and lets it take him.

When he opens them again, he’s greeted by vast blue skies. It stretches across all corners of his vision, marred by a single fading cloud the color of fire. The belated realization that there was no ground beneath him only comes after the wind whipping his quills around causes one to poke a tender spot, and his attention flies to the fact that he’s falling.

There’s nothing but sky above him and the unforgiving ground far below, yet he feels a disturbing sense of peace that seems out of place for a hedgehog about to be a blood splatter on the ground. Perhaps that says something about him. Or perhaps he’s just fallen enough times to know that he’ll be okay in the end.

Something tells him it’s not the latter.

He realizes he hasn’t awoken.

This is the first time he falls. The charred Death Egg, its ugly death attempted by his own hands, would make its first descent alongside him. In his periphery, a red dot appears on the horizon. Tails, piloting the Tornado full-throttle in hopes of saving his newfound hero from an untimely death. He would be too late, but it doesn’t matter. Sonic knows how this plays out.

Seven emeralds slip out of his quills, singing seven notes in harmony as they circle him. It’s quite beautiful, their melody, yet there’s a hollow edge to it that he hadn’t understood. All he knew, back when he was still young and unversed with chaos, was that these seven gems he’s spent his time collecting and protecting held power that they were now offering to him. Power that he could use to save himself.

He embraces them as he would embrace the Earth, and they embrace him in return as if he were an old friend. That eternal hum ran itself through him and for the first time, his soul sings in tune with the emeralds. His breath is robbed from his lungs as it lights a fire in him, golden with potential, bright like the sun. In that moment, cradled in their support for the first time, the chaos emeralds claimed Sonic as theirs just as they were now his.

Suddenly, at 11-years-old, he knows what it feels like to have all the world just a touch away. It’s scary, yet euphoric, the feeling of connection to everything from the stars to the sea. Then he blinks, and it all melts faster than he could comprehend.

This time, he realizes what’s happening before it starts.

This moment is something he dreamed about a lot, a moment of many firsts that he also wished to be lasts. The blue sky prior is replaced with the vast expanse of space, dotted with dying stars and fading galaxies. The broken moon disappears from view as Sonic falls, this time with intention, chasing the meteor bleeding gold in its descent.

Amid his desperation, there was confusion. By all means, the striking red-and-black hedgehog was more powerful than Sonic could compare to, not that the latter would admit it aloud. So Sonic didn’t understand why he won their unspoken competition. Why he could step into gold like a second skin while Shadow struggled. Why the latter exhausted while the former stood strong. Why the Ultimate Lifeform could not compare to a random guy who just wanted to live as he saw fit.

The sentiment echoed in time with his heartbeat as he dove with an urgency he’s never felt, yet like Tails in the Tornado the day Sonic fell himself, he knew he’d be too late. It didn’t stop him from trying, begging the emeralds to save Shadow in the same vein he’d been saved back then.

They didn’t comply. Rather, the chaos energy bleeding from Shadow’s form circled back to Sonic, and he choked on the fire that he wished would fuel the other falling star. In vain, he tried to establish a connection, to loop energy to the fading hedgehog if only to buy time. Shadow took no notice of his efforts, but at least his expression was unmarred by the troubles that seemed to live there for all the time Sonic’s known him.

Ruby eyes pierce his soul as consciousness is returned to Shadow at the arguably worst moment. They’re covered by a haze that twists Sonic’s gut with such force something shifts inside him, like setting the last piece of a puzzle.

Tumult waves crashing into a jagged shore smooths to gentle tides. In, and out. Multicolored strands seep into the corners of his vision as he pushes forward with newfound strength, the chaos emeralds within him aligning in such a way that they felt an extension of his will rather than an outside tool. Unknowing, he takes up an irreversible offer and taps into a power he’s never dared to touch.

His entire form flickers with a spiral of colors he didn’t know existed. It melds with pure white, a concert of lights that floods his vision and coats everything he sees. There’s a strange feeling of falling apart yet being more complete than he’s ever been.

Almost there…

The two hedgehogs, one fading, one forming, brush fingers. Through the light cascading in his vision came Shadow’s smile, a tether to reality as Sonic realizes what he’s doing.

In an instant, he stops, the force of the deceleration enough to kill him had he not been in Super form. All the blooming power snaps back to his core like a collapsing star, overwhelmed by its own gravity. In the time it took for Sonic to recover, in the time it took for him to blink, Shadow fell out of sight, leaving the former with nothing but the whispers of a goodbye and that serene smile to remind him of his failure.

Sonic chokes on the non-existent air. Despite burning with seemingly infinite power just a moment prior, he feels as cold as the void around him. He stays like that for a while.

When he restarts, it’s to grab the lost ring slowly descending to the same fate as its owner. The golden material buzzes with residual power as he wraps his fingers around it and presses it to his chest. The chaos emeralds hum stronger, like an urge. He shoves it down, then promises himself that he’ll never do that again.

Even as iridescence taunts him with that smile.

When he opens his eyes, the setting sun greets him rather than the ARK. Sonic sits up in the grass, stray flower petals falling off his body, and breaths in the breeze that ruffles his quills.

It’s so scenic it hurts. Yet he can’t help but stare at it, a deep-rooted sense of appreciation winding around his heart.

“What do you want?” Sonic mutters, as if the landscape could hear him. Well… in a sense, it can. The same energy that pined for his attention ran through every living being in this world and more. That’s what this is all for, isn’t it? To appease him in some way?

The world answers his question with a rising hum and understanding floods through his head. ‘You already know,’ it says. His dreams, his memories, play back like an old film reel, its edges soft as if it’d make him want to watch it any more. He shakes it out.

“No.”

It chirps in response, settling with a weight he wants to be rid of. Only when it sounds again does he realize that it is physically on his head; a little bird pecks at the spot where blue quills meld into fur.

He sighs, reaching up with a finger extended, gently coaxing the bird to stop trying to drill into his skull. It eagerly hops on the new perch as Sonic brings it down, holding it close to his chest. Beady eyes flash up at him before it pecks his fingers and flies off.

Sonic doesn’t want to follow it.

The green of the forest darkens in the reddening light, throwing long shadows that hide the hazards of the rough ground. He’s versed enough at running through trees in the dark that he doesn’t fall, thankfully. He'd say it was difficult to chase after such a small figure darting about above his head, but as much as he resists the chaos energy’s wants, he’s not willing to deny its benefits. He can feel exactly where his guide is at all times.

Realization sinks in like a stone in water, heavy with knowledge in the tide of ignorance. The melody in the back of his head lulls as he nears one of the seven chaos emeralds, growing louder, brighter, like it would convince him today.

Against his petty hate, Sonic stops in the clearing, toes brushing against the jutting roots of an old stump. The source of his irritation rests in the hollow, its glow strengthening as he leans in close.

“You just won’t leave me alone, will you?”

The emerald flashes as if to agree. The hum rises with it, hopeful. Sonic rolls his eyes and directs as much of his thought as he could to firing sarcasm at its general location in his mind. He thinks he gets his point across when it dims, only to hear a sound akin to a violin strum through him.

The environment responds to the call in like and lifts. Suddenly, Sonic’s surrounded by fireflies, blinking a language he doesn’t speak as they swirl in a dance to mirror the stars gently peeking out of the oncoming twilight.

He heaves a deep breath, brows knitting together as one of the bugs plants itself on his forehead. He carefully plucks it off, a look that could be mistaken for fondness weaving itself on his face as he lets it fly.

In his heart, he can pinpoint which beetle is the one he released, despite the hundreds of them it’s among. That’s what’s so special about chaos energy: its uniqueness in every individual being, no matter how small.

Sonic supposes he’s the most unique of them all.

The chaos emerald flares again. He crouches, gives it a long, hard stare, then picks it up with as little grace as possible. It, in return, is just happy to be held.

He runs a thumb over an edge as he holds it up to the moon now settled in place of the sun. A waxing gibbous, so round it could be mistaken for a full moon. He adjusts his gloved hand to cover the crescent of darkness missing, filling in the empty spot in his vision. Through the colored facets of the emerald, the moon distorts, and he could almost imagine it to be complete.

With a sigh, he drops his hand and shoves the rock into his quills. Tails will probably find some use for it.

The mist of fireflies pepper him with kisses as he walks through. Sonic gently waves them away, but they don’t seem to get the memo. Sucking in a deep breath, Sonic shakes them off and drops into a running stance. He can feel the pulse of the emeralds in the back of his head as he peels out through the forest, opposite the way he came, eager to take his mind off the events of the day.

Weight trails his footsteps like a shadow, forever tethering him to a fate he wishes to avoid. No matter how fast he darts through the landscape, he can’t leave it behind.

#sonic big bang 2025 #sonic #sth #Legend AU

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