#where like that’s how knuckles finds out sonic finally trusts him because he no longer points his toward knuckles while sonic n tails slept

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Street floofs

[l-sincline]

Cybernetics - Chapter 27

Amy Rose is a mechanic, plain and simple. But aside from that, she feels utterly alone in a cruel world where she makes just enough to scrape by. One night she’s visited by a mysterious Cyborg that needs his arm fixed, little does she know this repair will change her life.

Flung from the confines of her normal life, Amy finds herself working with Anarchists set on creating a new life for themselves and the poor people of Mobius. The only downside? Seeing who she thought was her best friend fight against her.

AO3 Tags:  Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Amy Rose/Shadow the Hedgehog, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog), Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles “Tails” Prower, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik, Rouge the Bat, Whisper the Wolf, Cream the Rabbit, Knuckles the Echidna, Badnik (Sonic the Hedgehog), E-123 Omega, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Slow Burn, Partners in Crime

AO3 Link

Previous/Next

Amy had taken a precarious seat on the back of one of the offroaders, hoverboard clutched in hand and hammer-turned-bag slung over her shoulder. She could hear Rouge and Omega flying a little behind them. Shadow had disappeared as soon as they had all started to move out- despite his begrudging going along with the plan- it was clear he was upset. 

She found herself worried- though it wasn’t completely out of character for him to just up and disappear, she’d felt that previous times he’d been at least a bit more neutral mentally. Now that he was clearly stewing in some anger she worried they’d touch base in the inner ring and he’d still be nowhere to be found. 

Regardless of her worries, the offroader trudged on, kicking up dirt as it turned corners. At the front of the pack Blaze seemed to have her focus on the Blue Blur and his crew. The echidna android- Knuckles as she’d learned- had also opted to hitch a ride on one of the offroaders, while Sonic ran ahead with Tails flying overhead. 

Despite her heart somewhat yearning for her friendship with Tails, this whole interaction had shown her some colors she wasn't ready for. Maybe a part of her had hoped that Tails would see her and return to taking her side, to being her friend. But the other part of her remembered the initial attack on her; how Tails had lured her away for Sonic to grab, and finally she came to terms with the fact that their relationship could never quite be the same. 

He was so different now. In a way she felt like Tails had died and been reborn- reborn as someone much more confident and loud and unabashed. Sonic had changed him. No longer was he her quiet friend, her smart little confidant. Sonic had helped him grow- she wondered suddenly if he felt the same way about her. 

Amy realized she was no longer as timid as she used to be. She looked up to Rouge- there was a part of her that wanted to be like the android. Confident and fun, but smart and calculated. Even more than that; she wanted to be friends. When it came to Shadow… she wasn’t sure she’d ever been able to put this much trust in someone before. The amount of times that Shadow had saved her- perhaps physically and metaphorically- had caused her to understand that she could rely on others again after Tails. She hoped- wished- that he felt the same way, she knew this now as the anxiety over his disappearance sat heavy in her stomach. 

Amy looked back to Tails- she didn’t want to chase his friendship anymore. Maybe they would work together for as long as this lasted, but he wasn’t home to her. Not anymore. When all this was over she would wave goodbye and go back to Rouge and Shadow and Omega, because those were the Mobians that had been there for her, the ones that had helped her grow. 

In that moment she smiled slightly. She never would’ve imagined doing this, and yet here she was. And she felt better for it. 

-

You could hear a pin drop in the resistance headquarters as Blaze paced back and forth, planning their next move. Shadow was still nowhere to be seen, Amy chewed her bottom lip. Omega sat idly in a corner- Knuckles sat next to him, staring up at the large bot in wonder. Tails and Sonic had disappeared as well as Rouge. Amy chose to follow suit just then, realizing that Blaze’s pacing was stressing her out even more. 

The door creaked open and shut behind her. The halls were just as quiet as the room had been, but she let out a sigh of relief anyways and moved on. The lights flickered dimly and the floorboards creaked beneath her feet. This was the kind of situation she remembered before the base. 

Just then, she jumped. A door next to her opened quietly. 

“Oh,” She breathed out, “Rouge.” 

The bat stared at her.

“I haven’t heard anything from Shadow.” She said promptly.

“I figured.” Amy chuckled nervously, silence fell on them. After a moment she looked back to Rouge, “How are you?” 

Rouge looked surprised, she leaned on the doorway.

“I feel like I should be asking you that. A few hours ago we were using you as bait.” 

“Ah- I’m fine. Everything worked out.”

“But if it didn’t you…” Rouge stopped, looking to the ground, “I don’t know what I’d have done if I did that to you.” 

“You didn’t do anything, Rouge.” Amy spoke as softly as she could, “It was a group decision and I agreed to it. Nothing that could’ve happened would’ve been your fault.” 

“I know I just-” Rouge stopped herself and looked up again, “After we got kidnapped, and you were hurt up there, I felt so bad that I didn’t do more. You can handle yourself but you’re not like me or Shadow or Omega. You’re…” 

“A plain ole’ Mobian?” Amy cut in with a slight laugh. Then, a sigh, “I know.”

They looked at each other for a moment. 

“Sometimes I wish I was like you guys. It seems like I could be more helpful if I was.” A pause, “But at the same time, I think maybe you guys needed someone like me- and you didn’t even realize it.” 

Rouge stepped out of the doorframe.

“Come in.” 

So she stepped in.

The room seemed to be a random, unused one that Rouge had opted to step into. There was a dusty couch and coffee table by the center and some bookshelves lining the walls. Cobwebs littered the corners and an unused broom leaned against the wall next to the door. Rouge sat down in the dusty armchair diagonal to the couch- Amy took her seat on said couch, coughing slightly when the dust kicked up. 

“I was the one who found you, you know.” 

“Really?” Amy asked, she’d always assumed Shadow had done it on his own.

“He walked around with that broken arm for a week. It was a bad run in with Sonic after a heist. We didn’t have Omega to tank all those kicks, so Shadow took the front to let me get away. He tried that entire week to fix it himself while I looked for underground mechanics that would be easy to not get tangled up with. I actually thought it would be you and Tails looking at it, so we were kind of reluctant at first. Two people is a crowd, you know.” 

“But he went anyways?” 

“No.” Rouge shook her head, “I did some reconnaissance on the building and figured out it was just you. So we decided you were the best option.” 

Amy was silent. She had no idea she’d been watched. Would she be smarter now? She hoped so. 

“So you guys really didn’t mean for all this to happen to me?” 

“No way.” Rouge let out a breathy laugh, “It was a weird sweet spot we found you in. We didn’t know Sonic had a sidekick at that point, so there was no way for us to know it was Tails- let alone the same one you were friends with.” 

“Were is a pretty key word there.” Amy scoffed. 

“Figured you weren’t friends anymore.”

Amy was silent for a moment, wringing her hands. 

“I don’t know. Every day he was gone I missed him. His ignoring me affected me so much, it made me feel so awful. I thought that meant I just really missed him and his company but… I think it was always one sided. He was never as close to me as I was to him. He always had bigger and better things going for him and I was the alley girl without any parents he took pity on. I’m grateful for everything he taught me but…” 

“But?”

“... I’m much happier where I am now. With you guys.” She smiled. 

Rouge nodded proudly and leaned back in her seat. 

“Can I ask you something?” Amy started.

“Shoot.” 

“How did you get involved with all of this?” 

Rouge was silent, her grin faded into a frown and her brows furrowed.  

“There's a red light district in the middle ring.” Rouge glanced up to see the shock on Amy’s face and laughed bitterly, “Yeah. I figured you didn’t know. Most people outside of the inner ring don’t. Even the middle ring was pretty deaf to it. It was just populated with rich people with too much time on their hands, poor people that were at their last straw, and androids like me.” 

“Like you?”

“I was made specifically for… that line of work. Some genius scumbag wanted to make some more money and he figured modifying androids was the perfect way to do it. He poured some of his own cash in to start the business with some new models, but then he would take donations from his customers to modify.”

“Then do you know…?”

“No. I have no clue which group I’m a part of. He would wipe the memories of the donated models. I could be either. I don’t think I’d want to know, anyways.” 

“Eventually I managed to get out of that building. I hightailed it down those streets, but I stood out like a sore thumb. Half naked white bat android with heavy makeup- everyone knew where I was from. It was like every hand on that street was reaching for me, and I couldn’t be sure if they wanted to take me back or if they just wanted me for themselves. Eventually someone pulled me around a corner and just… kept pulling. Until I’d gotten away from the hoard of mobians chasing me.” 

“Shadow?” Amy asked.

“Yeah.” Rouge responded, “He gave me his cloak and asked what was going on. I told him I’d broken out and begged and pleaded for him not to send me back. He didn’t send me back, and when I told him I had nowhere to go he took me with him. Back then the base was just a skeleton of an old building. He was sleeping on a ratty blanket on the ground in some bushes. Certainly needed a woman’s touch.” 

“But Rouge,” Amy stopped her, “Are you… okay? After all that?” 

Rouge smiled- it was bittersweet. 

“Okay as I’ll ever be. Now that I’ve been out for a few years all I see is myself. It used to be like an out of body experience when I’d look in the mirror. Like that couldn’t possibly be me. But now I really do love myself- even if that sounds cheesy. I’m powerful and I’m doing something good with my time. And eventually I’ll break all those other Mobians out of there, too. I’ll burn that district to the ground. After all this is over… I want to make a program for them, to help get them all on their feet. To find homes for them.”

Amy smiled. 

“I hope you’ll let me help with that, too.”

Rouge smiled back, genuine, bright, a shining star.

“I’m sure a mechanic’s touch will be needed.” 

AUTHORS NOTE FROM AO3 CHAPTER:

Haha okay hello. Sorry, its been a second. TLDR: Updates every other week for now, might switch to once a month

So hi, life has been hectic lol. I graduated from College earlier this year and meant to get back to Cybernetics so I could keep in line with my previous hiatus pattern but... life got me. Generally my idea was that I'd finish writing the story and then go back to updating but I just couldn't quite get there. I kept hitting walls, writing other things instead (hence Girlish Whimsy... shout out to my new longfic lol) but at the end of the day I do really want to finish this- so I'm pushing on! I asked on tumblr what the general consensus was for how I should keep going with this and the feedback I got was that people wanted stuff now so: here it is! Some of these chapters were written at the beginning of this year, others were written closer to now, but they've all generally been in safe keeping waiting for the hiatus to end. So for now I'm going to do updates every other week, but if I start to catch up with myself again I'll switch to once a month.

Anyways, sorry for leaving you all in the dust for so long! just for some updates if you're interested in my (sonic) writing: I was recently a part of a Shadow the Hedgehog zine called 'Never Turn Back' which is available to you until January 15th on the @ neverturnbackzine tumblr! I recommend checking it out, there's a lot of cool stuff in there from a lot of cool people! I also wrote a prequel short story to Cybernetics earlier this year (specifically to apply for that zine, actually lol) and you can find it on my AO3 under the title 'Reluctant Hero'! Not necessary to understand Cybernetics at all, but it is a kind of nice character exploration of Shadow, who admittedly gets less screen time in comparison to Amy here lol.

Long winded author's note aside, thank you to everyone who stuck around (and hello if there happens to be anyone new). Thanks for not losing faith and I promise that I will chip away at this story even if it kills me lol- you WILL see the end of Cybernetics, promise!

[detroitbydark]

Fox and Mouse Finale 1/2

Characters: Commander Fox x Mouse (reader), and more Jedi/clones/politicians than you can shake a stick at.

Summary: Fox makes plans and then remakes them...

A/N: Ladies and Lads this is it! A chapter so stupid long it required it be split in two pieces. I'm not going to make you wait and I'll be posting both this evening. I'm feeling really sentimental because this is the longest thing I've ever written and completed. I couldn't have done it without y’all. Your support and comments have helped me get through the tough periods of writing and the stress in my life as of late. This is for you guys! Thank you. I love you! 

Special thanks as always to @skdubbs and @crimson-dxwn for being there to listen to me and help me every step of the way. You are both absolutely amazing!

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The crick in his neck is the least of Fox’s worries when he wakes. It wasn’t like he could call the tossing and turning he’d done for the last six standard hours much of a rest. After returning to his room, tail tucked between his legs, Fox hadn’t been able to unwind. He couldn’t lay his head down without a million thoughts racing through his head.

He loved her. 

Yes, it was something he’d known for a while, maybe even longer than he was willing to admit. He loved her more than he loved himself. For a long time he’d thought that’s how love was supposed to work. You sacrificed yourself for the things you loved. Now he’s not sure.

Mouse loved him. It was something he hadn’t hoped for, but after being near her, feeling her lips against his own, seeing the depth of emotion in her sad eyes as she’d kicked him out of her room - he didn’t question it. The issue he finds himself struggling with is hard to put into words. If he couldn’t love himself, if he didn’t think he was worthy, could he truly love her? Mouse was willing to accept him at his most broken, for his flaws and his lingering self doubt. If he couldn’t do the same for himself-

The thoughts kept him up the better of the night. He’d lost count of the times he’d walked to his door intent on barging into her room… and doing what? That’s where the plan got dicey and inevitably where he decided against any further action until first light.

Of course, by the time he’d fallen asleep he’d been so exhausted that he’d missed first light. It wasn’t until a pair of noisy male tik-tak birds jostled for the affections of a female outside his window that Fox woke.

His first thoughts were of Mouse as he shooed the noisy creatures from his open window.

He didn’t enjoy the smell of failure -or sweat - that permeated the air around him. He took a sonic shower so fast he would have set a record back on Kamino. 

He focused on the words he’d say to her. The words that would make her see that he was sorry. That his shabla behavior was a fluke that he could and would correct. That he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her if she’d just give him one more chance.

 He pauses as he slips into his armor.

The rest of his life.

He didn’t want her for a moment in time. He wanted her for all time, at his side through whatever life would throw at them. Resolve settles over him, the kind that a lifetime training for battle honed. There’s a certain peace to it.

Darasuum.

Like any good soldier he makes a plan. When she fails to answer her door when he knocks, he goes to plan B. He knocks again. Louder.

When that doesn’t work, he moves on to plan C.

There’s a small cadre of Jedi and Clones eating a quiet breakfast on the veranda. The sun is just peeking over the waterfalls in the distance. Cody and General Secura are speaking in quiet tones over two cups of caf. General Kenobi sits nursing a cup of tea staring out over the placid lake. Like, a sore thumb, Bly sticks out, devouring whatever pastry and fruit had been piled on his plate like he was a cadet late for morning exercises. He looks up in time to see Fox and give him an encouraging smile and a wave over before taking a bite of some sort of plump sausage even Fox found to be too large.

“Vod!” The golden yellow hues of Bly’s facial tattoos seem to glow brighter in the sun. “Su cuy’gar!” he greets happily.

Fox pauses, then pulls out a chair, grabbing a cheese filled pastry from his batch mate’s plate. “Su cuy’gar,” he greets in return. “After the sounds I was hearing last night I wasn’t sure I’d see you in one piece this morning.”

“Don’t be fooled. I’m held together by the Force and a prayer. My Aayl’ika does nothing in halves.”

Fox, even with the pressure of his impending conversation with his own love weighing on his shoulders, can’t help but chuckle as he steals the other Commander’s mug of caf. 

“Oya!”

Bly snatches the mug back and hot caf sloshes over the edges. The commander of the 327th makes a grunt of discomfort before leaning in and sucking the drops of spilt caf from the space between his thumb and index finger.

Fox smothers a laugh with a large bite of pastry. Bly raises an eyebrow before his eyes narrow in on Fox’s mouth.

“I know red is your color,” Bly grabs a napkin and tosses it to Fox, who catches it easily, “but I didn’t believe you were a lipstick man, regardless of color.”

One swipe across his mouth brings back a small smear of star cherry red lipstick. Mouse’s lipstick. He must have missed it in the shower.

“Since I don’t see the lovely dal I’m taking it either went very well or very poorly.”

Fox takes another swipe and places the napkin down when it comes back clean. “It’s a work in progress”

Bly gives him a serious look, the easy going manner from a moment ago pushed to the back burner.

“Tell me, vod. How do you and General Secura-“ Aayla glances up when she hears her name. Fox offers a tight smile. Bly shoots her a wink. “How do you do it?”

“Well you see Fox’ika, when a clone loves a Jedi-“

“Fierfek! Bly I’m being serious!”

“We’re honest with one another” Aayla’s smooth Ryl accent interrupts whatever comment Bly was getting ready to make. She moves gracefully over from her previous spot near Cody. The Marshal Commander has now joined his Jedi staring peacefully out across the water. Fox doesn’t doubt he’s listening in.

He isn’t sure whether he should be thankful for Secura’s intervention or not. Never having had a Jedi of his own, he still has moments where he finds their presence overwhelming. Aayla looks about as intimidating as a loth kitten this morning in leggings and a loose tunic, somehow looking incredibly chic and supremely comfortable all at once. Her eyes find his, searching for something as she sits down next to her Commander. “We’ve had to learn the finer points of communication.” She looks to Bly. Adoration is written across her delicate features as her lekku twitch happily. “We have to be able to trust each other.”

“It’s work,” Bly says, taking Aayla’s hand and placing a soft kiss along her knuckles ,“but we make it work.”

“And after the war?”

Aayla sighs. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it, but I don’t know if my loyalty can remain with the order alone. Once the Force has shown you something-“ she pauses and smiles softly at Fox, “The Force works in mysterious ways, would you agree?”

“General Secura.” Cody’s voice comes from across the veranda because - of course - he was listening, “I believe you forgot to mention respect.”

Aayla smothers a smile. “Oh yes, respect is quite important.”

Fox is very quickly beginning to feel the nonexistent walls close in around him. “Yes. Yes. “ he grumbles, “I’m a lousy di’kut.”

“You said that - not us - Commander,” General Kenobi chimes in without turning his head away from the lake spread out before him.

“Beg your pardon Generals, Commanders, but I don’t need the Force to tell me that I made a fool of myself last night.” He pushes up from his seat, stealing the caf back from Bly and finishing off the dregs. The other Commander makes a disgruntled sound. “Now, if just one of you could point me in the correct direction I have some-

“Groveling?”

“Pleading?”

“Apologizing?”

The voices all mingle together as they chime in and Fox sighs, rubbing his temple.

“Yes, all of that and then some. Just-“ he lets out an exasperated sound “-has anyone seen her?”

——-

Mouse hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Really, she’d just hoped to get away for a bit. She needed to separate herself from the faces that looked so much like his and the sad looks they’d given her as she’d picked at her breakfast.

She needed to know that Fox wasn’t just a few easy steps across the hall. She’d stood with her hands flat against the door too many times for her liking last night. It was only a few steps and she could be wrapped up in him, repercussions be damned.

Mouse wanted to pretend that her ultimatum may not end with a choice she wasn’t happy with. If Fox decided he couldn’t - or wouldn’t - do what she’d asked, well, she wasn’t sure how she’d handle it.

The field, nearly half a klik from the estate, had become a favorite over the last few months. Close enough to the waterfalls to hear the rush of water over the edge - and catch some mist on a windy day - but rarely visited by locals. It was peaceful. 

The summer grasses had easily surpassed the height of her knees weeks ago and - with a little more rain and sunshine - would soon be at her waist. For now it was just long enough to make a makeshift nest when she lay a blanket down. The green stems stood proudly around their brothers and sisters squashed by the worn quilt she spread out. 

The sun shone softly through a sea of gossamer clouds, its rays warm and soothing as she lay down with a datapad to review Padmé’s personhood bill in its entirety. Mouse couldn’t help the pull of sleep. The legalese of the document and warm kiss of sun paired with the sleeplessness from the night before had her first drowsing then, finally, blessedly sleeping sheltered from the world and her problems that lay outside her ring of softly swaying pastoral grass and millaflowers.

Her dreams begin as nothing in particular. Another blessing in disguise. Nothing bad troubles her sleep, though nothing good brings tenderness either. Instead she catches glimpses of Coruscant, of Fox and the other boys of the Guard, of a tiny green-skinned twi’lek girl. Images of Luke and Leia older and toddling around with their mother and father laughing and following behind them. Slowly, the boys are filtered out, then the Amidala-Skywalker clan, even little Me’kar fades away. All of it is gone and Mouse finds herself alone in front of a tiny cottage. It has a vegetable garden along one side and rows of flowers along the other. She hears her name whispered softly, the warm rumble of it so familiar.

“Mouse.”

“Mouse”

“Mouse.”

Her eyes flutter open, and she squints into sun spilling around a vaguely humanoid shape while her eyes attempt to adjust to the sudden change. 

“I’ve been looking all over for you.” 

Fox.

She’d know his voice anywhere. Hope springs to life in her chest. He’d come to find her. Surely that had to be a good thing, right? She moves to stand, getting as far as sitting before he makes a disgruntled sound and angles himself down and onto her blanket. She watches him look around, his head barely above the tall grasses surrounding them. His gaze moves to her discarded shoes and bare feet, slowly traveling up over her calves where her dress has ridden up in her sleep. She blinks, trying to push the residual fog of sleep from her head. Fox’s gloved hand reaches out and skims over her ankle. That electric spark she’d felt at his touch last night is still there.

“Fox?” He won’t look her in the eyes. The feeling of his touch is missed when he pulls his hand away. “Fox-“ she tries again, hiding and failing to hide the slight quiver in her voice.

He holds his hand up. “I have things to say and I need you to listen to every one. I’m- I’m not sure if you’re going to like what I have to say.”

Mouse nods slowly. He’s more his namesake now, more animal than she’s ever seen him. She moves slowly to rise to her knees, afraid the wrong move, a sudden quick one, will see him breaking away.

“I can do that,” she offers slowly. Fear at what he has to say leaves a thick knot in her stomach. “If we’re going to do this, though, I need to see your eyes. Ok?”

Fox makes another sound, a small grunt of assent as she rises on her knees and puts her hands to either side of his bucket. She releases the locks, hears the gentle hiss of release. His features are schooled when she lifts it off, but she knows her Fox. Whatever he has to say is eating at him. She can see it in the dark circles that rest underneath his eyes, the exhaustion that looks almost permanent in the soft brown eyes she adores so much. Always the caregiver, she fights the urge to pull him down, make him lay his head in her lap. She wants to card her fingers through the new growth of hair, brush through the locks that were just beginning to curl and swirl at the ends until he falls asleep. 

But she also needs to know what he has to say. She needs her answer so her heart can shatter or mend because whatever it is, there will be no in between. Not with him. Not with them.

She watches him swallow, look at the sky and the soft clouds above them before bringing his attention back to her.

“I’ve made mistakes in my life,” he begins, “Some of them widely known. You- you are the mistake I regret the most.”

Mouse attempts to turn away, but she can’t. His words- it feels like she’s watching a hover train come off the rails in slow motion. Fox glances down at his hands, squeezes them into fists.

“I-“ his eyes travel back to hers, pinning her in place “I’ve called you my precious girl more times than I can remember, because to me you are the most precious gift the maker has ever deemed fit to give me. But you're not a girl. You’re a woman,. A smart, strong, caring woman and I called you a girl. When things got hard, I treated you like one, like I had never made a mistake, like I knew what was best for the both of us.”

Mouse can see it in the little ways he moves, the clench of his fingers and the way his eyes trail to her shoulder, the scar covered by the thin summer dress, that it is taking everything for him to muscle through this.

“Fox, why are you saying this?”

“Because I need you to know.” His jaw is set in a sharp line. “I need you to know that I’ve thought about you every day since you left Coruscant, that I dream about you every night. I need you to know that I’m afraid to be around you, that even with the chip gone and that- that hut’uun,” spitting the word out as if it tastes bad in his mouth, “dead, I’m scared that it’s not enough, that someone is going to say the wrong thing and I’m going to do something you won’t come back from - and there’ll be no field of wildflowers for me to find you sleeping in, because you’ll be dead and it will be my fault”

Mouse grabs his hand, forces her fingers between his until he relents and lets her hold it. Her other reaches up, strokes along his right temple and feels the telltale ridge of scar under her fingers.

“Listen to me.” It’s a firm order and his eyes go a little wide. “You are not a bad man. You never have been. You never will be. You are the reason I’m alive. Your will, your strength kept you from making a shot I know for a fact you could make in your sleep. The scars I bear are your love brought to life.”

Fox shakes his head quickly. “That is sick, cyar’ika, you were-“ 

It’s Mouse’s turn to make a sound of discontentment as she pulls at the collar of her dress, stretching it out and down around her shoulder. “Look at it,” she demands. When he hesitates, she places his hand on it, holds it down with her own. “It’s just skin, just flesh over bone. Do you think Palpatine would have allowed me to live even if you hadn’t been the one to do it?”

Her hand slides his down to her chest where she holds it high on her left breast. “This has always been yours. Do you feel it?”

Fox’s fingers twitch over her racing heart. She had to make him see. Even if this was the last moment they were ever together, he had to leave without the guilt. “This has always been yours,” she repeats again, “You protected it and I’m alive because of it.”

Fox pulls away from her with a rough exhale, shaking his head. Mouse lowers herself, sitting on her feet, pretending she doesn’t feel the pins and needles building in them. He won’t look at her as she adjusts the neck of her dress back. She’s failed. The sudden realization hits with such certainty. She was going to lose him for good.

“You are so warm. You draw people to you and take them in, claim them as yours and care for them. You’ve never seen myself or any of the other Guard as just clones. From day one you spoke to each and every trooper you met as an individual. You’ve always tried to help and for some reason I was the one lucky enough to have you helping me. Even when I was acting like osik. Even when I was gruff and dismissive. You dealt with me-“

“-And I loved you” 

Love her head screams at her to correct but she doesn’t. Fox nods.

“Someone else will come along and they’ll love you with everything they have to give.”

Mouse feels a sharp pain in her chest and tries to turn away. Fox’s curled finger catches under her chin and brings her eyes back up to his. Mouse sees something steely in their warm depths.

“They’ll give you the world. Everything I can’t. But you know what?” He lets the question hang in the air for a moment. “I don’t want anyone else to love you. That’s my job. I don’t want to lose you and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I ever put you in a position to think otherwise.”

Relief, warm and fluid fills her veins as tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. Fox watches with slow building panic.

“I- please don’t cry.”

Mouse laughs then and leans up, capturing his lips in a chaste kiss that he doesn’t respond to immediately. When she pulls back, he looks pleasantly bewildered.

“I’m not sad.” She wipes aggressively at a tear rolling down her cheek. “These are happy.”

Fox’s hands cup her cheeks, his thumb brushing away another stray tears. “Well if that’s all…”

 He leans in and captures her mouth in another sweet, delicate kiss, pours his love into it until it’s spilling over and Mouse thinks she could happily drown in the feel of it. 

When she attempts to deepen the kiss, he pulls back. Mouse bites the inside of her cheek to stop a whine from escaping.

“My self control is negligible at this point.” Fox manages a strained laugh while he cradles her face. “I don’t want to rush-“

Mouse presses forward and kisses him hard, sharp teeth nipping just this side of painful along his lower lip. The growl she’s missed over the last few months rumbles in his chest.

When she pulls back, letting his lip slip between her teeth, she can’t help but appreciate the way his eyes have darkened. His hands fall down to her hips and he stares. Just stares into her eyes, searching for something. Mouse doesn’t look away.

“You want to do this right here?” His voice is thick with the familiar gravel of lust and Mouse feels a wave of heat ripple through her body. Right here, on the blanket in the warm sun where anyone could see. There’s a certain thrill to that thought. She swallows thickly. 

“We need to slow down,” Fox repeats.

“Are you saying that for you or me? Because I’ve been waiting months to touch you,” she admits. If possible, Fox’s eyes darken more at the admission. She’s always loved his durasteel will, but right now Mouse found it more than a little irritating. 

“Cyar’ika.” His tone is warm, but the warning underneath is very clear. Ok. Fine. She could go a bit longer. 

“Can I show you something?”

A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth as his thumbs brush small light circles over her dress. 

“I suppose it depends on what you're trying to show me.” 

Mouse leans forward and the pair meet in a slow kiss, just a soft press of their mouths that neither can seem to deny. She murmurs against his lips when she pulls back. 

“Come with me.”

——-

Link to part 2/2 here

[cutegirlmayra]

Here's an angsty prompt idea. After their latest battle with Eggman his latest invention inadvertently gets Amy sick which is quickly becoming fatal (not necessarily what IDW is doing but like same vibe you know). Sonic demands Eggman do something to fix this and save her. And we all know Sonic isn't the most emotionally vulnerable but when it gets touch and go he really fears it might be the end. But Amy gets healed and all's well that ends well. Appreciate it ^_^

Only if you’re okay with me going SUPER angsty lol.

-----------------*TRIGGER WARNING*--------: This will be dealing with disabilities/seizure like symptoms, if you are sensitive to this material, please read any of my other fanfictions! (As someone with Asbergers and ADHD, I hope you’ll understand that I know the severity of the context, but I’m in no way trying to make fun of or portray disability in any negative way. If my writing appears as such please note it was unintentional.)

I have put a ‘Keep Reading’ for those of you who wish not to read it.

(Image found from this location: (x), if you have art you’d like to showcase, I still need Preview Images! I’d love to have some helpful artist allow me permission to use their art with their links as credit to advertise their works and also for a preview image to my prompts, thank you so much and support the original creator of this image!)

Prompt:

After all was said and done... no one thought it would turn out like this.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Silver all piled around as Sonic sat beneath a shaded tree and held a sleeping Amy next to him.

“This doesn’t look too good...” Tails had taken a sample of Eggman’s third party experimental toxin, meant for Sonic but the enemy ended up targeting Amy as a test-run.

Needless to say, Eggman ended his alliance with the third party after he got ‘experimental crazy’ and decided he didn’t want to work with someone so trigger-happy.

The toxin seemed to place Amy in an endless sleep cycle, but she would twitch or sound off painful whimpers and groans and toss in the sleep at times.

“The data suggests it’s attacking her brain, working it’s way up from the injection point it was shot from all the way up the spinal chord, so it’s striking the main hub for communication signals to the rest of the body.” Tails was watching the gunky chemical inside her progressing at a sluggish pace as it infected up the spinal chord, but not quite at the brain yet.

The image made it look like it was hugging her spine and oozing its way up, but still had a ways to go.

Sonic blinked his eyes, not sure what this could all mean but looked down at Amy. She started her twitches and sounds of pain, so he took his hand and moved it up off of where she was leaning, looping it around to rub the opposite shoulder and looked back to Tails. Her struggles ended with struggling pants, before going back into a deep sleep.

Silver shook his head, folding his arms. He was clearly distressed, him and Amy had joined up early in the adventure, he felt this was somehow his fault, even though he did nothing wrong.

“That madman just kept shooting those shots with that drug everywhere! Whatever it is, it’s got to be a threat to the future as well.” He was so focused on the task at hand, that he hadn’t looked back until he heard Amy cry out and bent to a knee, seeing she had taken a hit for him.

Eggman hollered about waiting for Sonic to be the first hit, but the third party seemed to have their own agenda, and almost shot Eggman too.

Everyone escaped getting hit and defeated both him and Eggman before they parted ways, taking Amy’s limp form somewhere safe.

Before she was fully under the chemical’s effects, she had flinched and stiffened on the ground, trying to keep her pain silent before dropping into the blacked-out state...

“We have to find Eggman, he’s the one who knows the most about this experimental chemical.” Tails motioned his hands, then showed the gunk’s path upwards by pointing to Amy and traveling his hand up from where her spin would be. “We’ve still got time, a couple hours, just going off an estimate.”

Sonic looked back to Amy, “I can’t leave her like this, Tails. She’s unsafe, and that guy still hasn’t shown up yet.”

It was true that they lost sight of the mad scientist, but they were unaware Eggman had separated himself from their ‘unethical services’ but mostly because they wouldn’t follow orders.

Silver shook his head, getting a grip on his emotions. “I’ll do it.”

Knuckles, remaining silently crushed by the lack of help he could offer, turned in surprise to Silver.

“I’m partly the reason this happened... if I just had looked back and paid more attention to her...” he closed his eyes, clearly distraught as Knuckles turned his head away, also thinking that since Silver was with her, he should have been more attentive.

“It’s not your fault, Silver.” Showing some compassion, Tails moved over to him and placed a reassuring hand on Silver’s arm. “Honest, I’m sure if Amy could, she’d say the same thing too.”

Silver looked to Tails and sighed, nodding. During his brief moments of meeting her, he could tell she was a very kind girl.

“I know that, but... I still feel awful!” He kicked the ground and turned away, but looked back over his shoulder to Sonic. “Sonic,... I promise you, I’ll do what I can to keep her safe... but you have to go and confront Eggman about all this.” He swiped out his hand, showing his strong sense of justice as his eyebrows narrowed in his anger.

Sonic waited a moment, as though weighing his options and looked down at Amy.

He gently picked her up, and carried her over to Silver.

In a few short gestures with his eyes, he showed that he was passing the responsibility over to Silver, however short the time would be from him facing Eggman and then coming back to her.

They held a stare for a long time... as though both hedgehogs were making a silent contract, and Silver finally bowed slightly as he took Amy.

Sonic’s hand gripped her arm that was about to flop off her stomach and dangle to her side but his fast reflexes had caught it. He held it a moment, as though transferring the responsibility was a difficult decision. But... if there was hope, he was going to go for it, and Amy would have to be okay...

He had to make sure of it.

He slowly placed it back on her stomach, rubbing her hand discreetly as though promising her he wouldn’t be too long.

He then looked back up to Silver and nodded, the transaction was made and the message was loud and clear.

Don’t Fail.

As Sonic gestured for Tails and Knuckles to follow with a pivot to the new route and a nod, Tails spun his tails and lifted off the ground, taking one final look to Amy and Silver. He smiled weakly, as though also showing his agreement to this, and then went to follow Sonic.

Knuckles... just walked by, glaring Silver down... but finally he unfolded his arms and groaned towards the ground, taking off in a running start.

Looks like he felt too uneasy about this... but didn’t voice his concerns.

He was trusting that it was Sonic’s decision, and apparently would go with it. As he went though, he caught up to Sonic’s leisurely pace in waiting for him, and gave him the same uncertain glare he had given to Silver.

Another message between men: I don’t like this.

Sonic looked away from it, but his expression held no joy, only a serious focus towards the next, on-coming step and fight: I know. Neither do I.

Tails’s eyebrows bent, seeing the mute exchange between the two, his hands bundled up and held in as his usual go-to position for flying, but he turned his body around as he flew forward to look back at Silver holding Amy, his head slackening with his shoulders falling... Helpless.

Tails swallowed hard, “Be safe... Amy...” And didn’t look back...

When Silver finally took a deep, calming but determined breath in, he looked over to see Sonic and his friends had disappeared into the next zone.

“I won’t be naive this time.” He told himself, and headed towards the X-Tornado, stationed just beside the tree. “This time... I won’t make anyone worry.”

It was several hours later as Silver sat down after collecting water and watched Amy on the ground. He fiddled with his gloves, growing a bit restless, wanting to help protect the future but knowing his place was to protect Amy for now.

He looked up and used his telekinesis to fiddle with a blade of grass, making it move left or right and tugging on it but not enough to pull it from the ground.

The world was so beautiful to him... he didn’t want even one blade to die in it.

That thought... led him to look over at Amy.

His eyes bent and it was clear he was remembering her finding him, and how sweet and bubbly she was... she had persisted in joining him for his search for Sonic, carrying a warning that he never knew would have benefited her to know... why did he feel the need to keep it a secret for only Sonic to know?

It wasn’t like he disregarded her, but maybe he didn’t value her company as much as he should.

Now, seeing her so still upon the ground... the wind not even reaching her... It was all a bit much to bear.

He tucked his head down between the gap of his raised knee and bent arm, trying to hide his emotional state as his eyes squinted and mouth trembled.

He wasn’t crying, but he was also trying to fight the sensation of being about to cry.

Then it happened.

She started another twitching and jerking, making odd sounds that spooked him.

“N-no, you’re okay. You’re okay..!” he rolled to his knees and held his hands out as though once again... feeling helpless.

Even his words were desperate to sound comforting, but his panic was so relevant in them.

He used his powers to get a blob of the fresh water he had collected up into the air, moving it towards her mouth.

“Please Amy... just endure it a little longer...” He pleaded, before he heard a large crash and turned around.

The water fell to her side, as the twitching and flinching became minor, but still happening.

He saw a fallen tree, and narrowed his eyes at it before gasping as a robot from the third party, clearly stolen from Eggman’s designs, began to approach.

Then more and more of Eggman’s stolen property, with new logos that were just slapped on over Eggman’s logo sticker started approaching him.

“Not again...” Silver’s fists shifted into a rage-filled jerk, as though in one swift moment, he was ready to destroy and protect. “I won’t let you hurt anyone ever again!”

As the robots all raised their machine-gun arms, having detected them, it was clear they weren’t shooting bullets... but darts.

 “Ur-rah!” Silver lifted up the X-Tornado with his power and held it up as cover to the shots fired. The darts stabbed into the X-Tornado, and the black substance was evident in a small cylinder attached to the dart’s tip.

It leaked into the X-Tornado,... but at least it wasn’t into anyone’s body.

He rose to a knee, shoving the X-Tornado forward to push the robots down. Amazingly, the X-Tornado didn’t even dent in, but was still perfectly intact.

However, some of the darts did bend like a nail having been jammed in the wrong way.

He shoved the X-Tornado to the side and skidded the robots hide off of it, shoving them back into the forest where they came from.

He stopped only to look down at Amy, her twitching much less now, but it was clear something was happening.

He gritted his teeth, his eyes still glossy from his despair before at her condition. “Hang on, Amy... They aren’t getting you. You’re no one’s experiment!” he moved one arm away from lifting the X-Tornado, but his balanced faltered now that one arm was using his psychic power to lift the huge plane up.

He strained, sweat falling from his brow as he jammed his teeth together even more and tried lifting Amy up from the ground too... then himself.

It was a huge escape effort, two hands carrying one large plane’s weight in one hand, and the other with him and Amy.

Knowing his power was faltering at handling too many objects at once, and one being massive, he kept feeling himself dropping and having to catch himself.

When Amy jerked, his mental concentration was momentarily lost and he almost dropped her.

That was the last straw.

“I can’t out run them.” He looked around, knowing he needed a better solution. “I’ll have to hide you and distract them.”

Seeing in the distance a mountain, he pulled up his legs, gathering the rest of his courage and strength, and shot himself towards it.

There was a cave!

His expression turned to joy at the realization, and he quickly flew down to it. “That looks safe!” he exclaimed, gliding down and putting the X-Tornado in the cave first, in and off to the back left where another tunnel formed from the main one.

Out of sight.

“Okay, Amy... Please forgive me...” He caught her into his arms, and held her tightly, dipping his head down in shame at having to leave her side. “Sonic... I said I’d do my best... this is my best option... please believe me...” He flew up to the plane’s passenger cockpit, thinking that if anyone did discover the plane, they would see there’s no pilot and perhaps not search it further but abandon it.

He lifted the clear shielding and placed her in the seat, strapping her in.

She had stopped twitching, and worried, he put two fingers to her nose and mouth.

Shallow breathing...

He frowned, but leaned forward and hugged her head one last time.

When he heard more logs crashing and snapping from being trampled by robot bodies forcing their way through the landscape, his head swung up to check the cave and hurriedly dropped the shielding down again.

“I’ll come back, and hopefully, I’ll bring Sonic and some good news too.” both hands were against the shield, he moved his face closer to look in and still saw her asleep.

“...I’m sorry.” He turned his head away, flying off from the plane’s exterior slowly... danging himself in the air before looking back to the entrance of the cave, having flown into the center tunnel way again and looked as though he was prepared to battle.

He shot out of the cave and began hitting the robots with his power, ramming them into each other and denting their hides till they sparked. “This way!” he cried out, and led the assault of robots after him.

More hours passed...

Shadow was running off with a stolen formula blueprint, trying to evade flying robots that were even greater rip-offs of Eggmans.

As he turned into a cave to hide, he walked down it stealthily, still holding the container with the data chip inside it.

“Rouge, I’ve got it.” he spoke out, touching a device by his ear as he examined the cylinder container further.

“Does it have it?” her voice rang urgently through the mic.

“No... but my scanners say it should be... what?” He walked towards the hidden tunnel path and his eyes widened.

“Shadow? What’s wrong? What are you getting?”

“It’s...” His eyes traveled down the darkness from the plane’s tip, seeing it littered on the side with darts. “The X-Torn-... AH!” his shock couldn’t have been more real as he hurriedly jumped from the cave’s side to the plane’s hide and pulled an intact dart out.

He tilted the chemical inside it... watching it slosh around.

“It wasn’t an error... they’re here!” He exclaimed, but hearing the robots outside, he moved down the plane’s top and kept stealthily pulling out more darts.

“Incredible! Way to go, Shadow! Who knew this abandoned G.U.N base would come so much in handy..! Oh, that’s right. I did. Is it some sort of secret lab..?”

He ignored Rouge’s gloating when his foot hit something in the dark, another cockpit. He looked back to adjust his foot and get around it,... when a darkened silhouette that didn’t match the angles of machinery caught his attention.

Then the shaded figure began to violently twitch and cause a ruckus, almost like a seizure episode.

The thrashes completely threw Shadow off guard, and he stumbled back, his expression showing his horror at whatever beast was trapped inside.

“Rouge, there’s something else here.” He didn’t have time to explain, but pulled out a Chaos Emerald, “Chaos Control!” he illuminated the cave and his entire demeanor fell into a grave look of confusion.

“It can’t be...” His eyes darted left and right, examining her condition as he couldn’t understand what he was witnessing. “It’s-!”

But before he could continue to explain to Rouge, who was blind as a bat from only being able to listen in and not see what was going on, robot steps started echoing in the cave. He turned around, a look of serious emergency on his face.

“Shadow!? What did you find!? Don’t leave me in the dark here! What’s all that thumping sound!? Shadow! Shadow, respond!”

“Not now, Rouge!” he killed the mic, tossing it to the ground as he ripped it off his ear and used Chaos Spears to jam into the shield and break the material.

He unstrapped her from the seat, feeling her flopping onto him and helped her over his shoulder. “Darn, I was hoping for more samples, but this is too important.” He turned back to the see the robots’ lights now come on, searching like a beacon out at sea in all sorts of directions... it was as though they were hurrying to find him too...

He jumped down and consequently crushed the G.U.N earpiece on his decent down, hurrying to the back of the cave.

When the robots fired on their jets, he knew he was heard.

“Chaos-!” he held up the Chaos Emerald. “Control!” and teleported through time and space.

Back with Rouge, she was complaining how the old computers couldn’t diagnose Amy and scan the chemical at the same time.

“What’s more important?” Shadow folded his arms, looking to Amy, “A life or a future life?” then glared to Rouge as though it wasn’t an option to contradict him.

She looked to Amy, not shaking anymore and sighed, knowing the answer as she cut off the research side of the computer and turned on it’s scanners.

“This is bad...” Rouge saw the screen... “The chemical has spread up her spinal chord and has it’s greasy little tethers at the base of her brain.”

“That’s impossible.” Seeing the image, Shadow’s arms dropped and he lurched forward, as though he wasn’t expecting the results to be this severe. “The chemical compound would need an extraordinary amount of time before reaching that far! Where was the injection location?”

When he turned back to Rouge... her hands were trembling, hovering over the keyboard.

He looked up to see her eyes mortified at these readings of Amy’s current state, and Shadow had to approach her and pull her away from the computer, quickly typing in to see more data.

It took all of Rouge’s strength to look away, turning back to Amy and covering her mouth, reaching for her hand.

“How... How could this happen?” Her voice was choking up, “Sonic... Sonic would never allow this to happen! How could they just abandon her like that!” she hit her hand holding Amy’s into the table she was laid out on.

“Keep it together, Rouge.” Shadow’s voice sounded controlled, as though a solider, keeping the trauma at bay and back away from his work. “We need a cure.” He continued, “Or the rest of us are going to end up this way.”

“Who says they haven’t already!?” Rouge’s back bent forward as she coughed into her hand, unable to keep her emotions under control with a sight like this. “She’s slipping away and they just left her there to-!”

Shadow flung around and gripped her hand, pulling her back to him.

His glare said it all.

Don’t assume anything.

She felt her knees get weak and slowly lowered herself to sit on the ground, her wings drooping in stages as they lowered down and dragged against the floor.

Shadow just watched her and removed his aggressive grip on her wrist as it slipped through his grasp. He didn’t mean to be so hostile, but now wasn’t the time to judge others’ actions.

It was the time to act and save.

“I will find Sonic.” He declared, moving back over to the panel of controls and typing in more directives. “I’ve seen enough to know her state... she still has some time before it completely eats away at her mind.” the entire computer shifted over to what looked like research on the chemicals being scanned. “The amount we found should be plenty, I’ve set the computer to reverse engineer. It will take some time... but keep her alive till I can bring Sonic and his friends here... to answer for what they’ve done.” With that last sentence, Rouge looked up to see the pain in his eyes... to show he had a heart after all.

Did he have doubts that Sonic wasn’t as kind and admirable as he had seemed to be? The answer was a resounding yes. He wasn’t denying Rouge’s accusations, but wasn’t going to give in to them until he had the truth.

Nothing was being ruled out, and Rouge nodded as she wiped her wetted eyes and stood back up, being brave.

“Make sure you give them what they deserve for me... Shadow.” she moved back to Amy’s side, and Shadow closed his eyes as though silently accepting that he would.

“If all looks lost...” He began, turning his back to her and talking over his shoulder.

She shook her head, raising her head up as though to catch any remaining wetness from becoming tears.

He looked back towards the exit, not finishing the thoughts, per her body language’s request... and took off.

More hours passed...

“This is ridiculous!” Rouge was surrounded by Eggman’s robots, but stood in front of them and held her arms out to keep them from approaching Amy. “You expect me to believe you came all this way for her!? And not to get your greedy hands on the chemical!?”

“My machines are already leagues ahead of your outdated G.U.N technology!” Eggman’s voice billowed through one of the robots, holding guns made of lazer-power towards her. “As you can see, I’m not equipped with that awful drug. I had thought it would make controlling mindless robots easier to get rid of the human mind entirely, I had no idea what they were really working on...” he confessed, pausing Rouge a moment as she listened to what he was saying. “Now, if you’d be so kind, I’d rather have something to barter with when Sonic realizes I’ve parted ways with the mad professor...”

“So she’s your bait and switch!?” Her leg swung as though threatening to drill into his robots.

“W-woah, woah, calm down, Mama Rouge. I have a nutralizer I created for myself in case this might happen... It would benefit both me and Amy’s current state to test it out, don’t you agree?” His voice sounded as though he was trying to negotiate. “Yes, I want Sonic’s fury to be redirected, but that doesn’t mean I have no intention to present a perfectly healthy Rose to him... Savvy?”

She... slowly lowered her foot down, still ticked off as the robots surrounded Amy and began to move her into a floating transport pod.

“There, now we see eye to eye...”

“If anything happens to her Eggman...” She flew to sit on the end of the pod, showing she was coming too. “You’re screwed.”

“Don’t think I don’t know that... come along then.” he groaned, showing his own ‘calm distress’ as the robot he was speaking through turned and the rest marched out with the transport pod in the middle.

Getting to Eggman’s base, his computer screens were massive compared to the old G.U.N base... but as Rouge stayed by Amy’s side... Eggman’s face grew more and more like stone...

The results... were not in his favor.

As though whimsical at first, he was now showing signs of racing against the clock. Treating Rouge like a nurse all of a sudden, he spoke quickly out without a shred of emotion, only hurry. “That extraction gun. Over there.”

Rouge was being to panic at his odd shift in behavior, but quickly used her wings to push herself to move faster, rapidly grabbing the object he barely gestured to and rushing back to him with dust flying up in her wake.

“She better make it Doc.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Hold her down, she’s not going to like this.” He jammed the gun’s barrel to her side.

“DOCTOR!” Rouge shoved it off her body, “Have you lost your mind!?”

“Rouge, if you interfere, I’ll be sure to blame the consequences on you.” His threat was nothing like she had seen from him before... and complying, she did as she was told.

She pushed Amy’s arms down to the her sides, over her head as Eggman swung the gun back into position.

“What will it do to her?”

He said nothing, only working fast, moving some parts on the gun as it lit up, and then cocked it.

“Eggman...” her plea revealed her fear...

He shot into Amy’s side.

Amy’s body lurched forward and from her, a painful cry.

“Keep her down.” Eggman seemed to be grabbing a stick with movable features and cocked it back again.

An odd substance started draining into the gun.

“You’re not gonna do it again!” Rouge cried out, but Eggman just lowered the gun and let the substance spill into it.

“Could you not talk and let me work, woman!?” Eggman rudely spat out as he watched the substance mingle with some blood... before unhooking it from her side and grabbing some medical supplies to stop the bleeding. “There... if anyone asks...” He kept one hand on the bandage... “I did what I could.”

Rouge saw the grim look on his face and her’s finally broke.

She looked back to Amy, who was slowly coming too, but something was off with her.

Eggman looked away, “I stopped the process.”

“You what?” Rouge saw him turn his face away from her, as though he was hiding something.

“...It’s damage could be recovered... but that’s up to Amy now...” he was speaking too sorrowfully, as though trying to distance himself from the situation.

Rouge wouldn’t allow it.

“EGGMAN!” she grabbed his padded shoulder and yanked him down, he let her, though it was clearly uncomfortable for a man of his height to slump so far to the side like this. She hollered frantically in his ear, “You tell me what you don’t want me to know!”

He grimaced, as though not wanting to but then Amy stirred again.

Her body did some more twitches... as though her muscles were aching, before she slightly... opened her eyes.

Rouge released Eggman and appeared right by her side in seconds, “Amy..? Sweetie, tell me you’re okay.” she placed a hand to her cheek.

“...Rrrrouge...” she breathed out.

Rouge sighed in relief and dropped her head, “Thank Chaos.”

But... when she looked to see Eggman’s face.

Stone.

Why wasn’t he relieved too?

Rouge, worried again now, looked back to Amy.

She was making odd hums, as though waking up, but something was off with them. She looked to Eggman, “Egg...” she said, but began to create weird forms with her mouth, and Rouge’s hand twitched off her cheek as she continued to move as though unused to her limps.

Rouge’s chest rose and fell... “What’s wrong with her?” she demanded, feeling her heart tighten as though not wanting to beat anymore. “WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!” she turned to Eggman but that was when Sonic, Silver, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow busted through the door as it feel like cold steel to the empty entrance.

“Rouge!” Shadow cried out, and it was clear Silver was beaten down and bruised... what had happened?

Knuckles darted by the two, followed by a speedy blue blur and Tails... was frozen in fear.

Amy’s eyes wouldn’t concentrate on anything, and her expression didn’t match the situation at all.

Sonic’s blur paused in front of her... stone.

Knuckles halted his franic steps... before looking to the screen, then back to her... his footsteps slowed... and then he fell to his knees.

He bashed his fist into the ground, and then lowered his back as though unable to look further.

Silver’s eyes shook, “Is she..?”

Shadow turned his head away, and Tails finished everyone’s trail of thought...

“She’s... gone.” He gripped his head.

“B-but she’s alive!” Silver gestured to her, grabbing Tails’s shoulder, “She’s still moving!”

“She’s not there!” Tails jerked himself away from Silver, “Her mind’s gone! The Amy we knew is gone!” he cried out, crying and cringing as he fell to the ground, sobbing. “It’s been too much time... We traveled to the cave and she wasn’t there. That took time!” He gripped his chest as Silver’s world began to crash down on him. “Shadow took time to find us!” He seemed to curl up on the ground, as Amy gestured a hand in the air, as though trying to grab something flying around her, as though in her mind... things were different. “We were stopped by that man and had to fight for our lives! We finally got him taken care of and unable to stop us further, but then Shadow got the G.U.N results remotely and my miles-electric had to download the signal, that meant we waited!” he gripped his head again, panting and wheezing as though also going through a mental breakdown. He started shouting as the room fell motionless... still... except for Amy. “When we discovered that the chemical probably had destroyed half of her already, we rushed to find Rouge!”

The situation looked like they were hung up on a wild goose chase, trying to scramble around and find Amy.

“BUT WHEN WE GOT THERE SHE WAS GONE!”

Rouge collapsed to the ground, covering her face with one hand, but through the slits in her fingers, her eyes shrunk and trembled.

“WE COULDN’T SAVE HER!”

-Many days later...-

Cream was out with Amy, supervised by Vanilla as she sat on a bench and walked the two. Cream was bending down to pick flowers, but Amy was staring up at the sky, as though transfixed on something, before Cream held up a flower and she took it, wobbling it in front of her face.

Cream gave a forced smile, just glad that it amused her.

Then... beside Vanilla... Sonic appeared.

“..How is she?” he asked, but his usual cheer and charisma was gone.

Vanilla smiled and looked down to her hands laying gracefully on her lap. “... Her appetites good... she only says one syllable words though... and not many for several days now.” She looked back up with a mother’s care at the two girls, seeing Cream and Cheese try to engage Amy but Amy was still shaking the flower profusely in front of her eye.

Sonic also stared... then folded his arms and adjusted his balance, looking on the ground as though uncomfortable.

“...Does she recognize anyone?”

“She recognizes Cream, but doesn’t seem to notice me. She’ll speak to Cream, but not engage me.” There was some pain being held back in her words... “I hand feed her... But sometimes she bats my face or shoves my hand away.”

Sonic turned abruptly away from her, “I don’t need to hear that!”

“... You asked...” she lowered her head, as though she’s been answering politely for too long, and so she told him the truth to see if that would satisfy him. “She may never get any better, Sonic... You come by and ask but I always tell you the same, kind things... today, you must face the possibly that Amy may be mentally disabled for life now.”

Sonic whole being tensed up, but not wanting to lash out at her, he held it in, struggling.

“... You should see her. Talk with her.” Vanilla finally said, looking to him, “She’d like that.”

“...I don’t think I can handle if-” he cut himself off, hearing the shift in his voice cracking and not liking his emotions being so real in front of others. He cleared his throat and looked to the sky... just like Rouge had done to keep the wetness in her eyes. “If she doesn’t know me.”

Vanilla remained silent, but like a loving mother, got up and embraced Sonic from being, resting her head on his shoulder and leaning her cheek into his, rubbing and stroking his head to calm him down.

“Her mind may not, but her heart will always know who you are, Sonic. You should speak to her.”

With that kind, motherly encouragement, Vanilla called back Cream and Cheese and took her hand as Cream took Cheese’s arm.

“We’ll give you two some space.” she moved further down the trail as Sonic was now solely in charge of watching her.

He took a deep breath, clearly uncomfortable, but walked softly over to her, trying not to spook her.

He bent down by her side, “Hey,... Amy.” He felt a lump in his throat as his smile he had tried to summon for her sake vanished at the sight of the flower falling from Amy’s hands and her taking a few seconds to stop shaking, and just stare at her hand while her damaged brain tried to figure out what had happened.

He closed his eyes, sitting down from his squat and finding this terribly hard.

He had avoided this for so long... he had beaten up Silver in his rage and then yelled at Shadow for leaving her as well.

By the time he got to Rouge and Eggman, there was no rage, only heartache.

“It’s been a long time...” He admitted, “That we haven’t seen each other.” He pressed his two fingers into his eyes, and as he strained against crying, his lips trembled like Silver’s had once done... and it was clear he was on the verge of crying.

That’s when Amy’s eyes blinked and she turned to look at him.

She made some weird mumbling sounds that were in-cohesive, and hit his shoulder with a few strong bats.

“Ow, ow, stop!” he leaned away and held up his hand, catching her slapping hand.

“Son.” she said the first syllable of his name,... stared at him... and then angrily, almost child-like, began to hit him again.

“Woah, stop,.. stop,.. stop!” he kept counter-weighting the hand as she hit before trying to pull away from his touch, crying out as he finally let her go and she scrunched her arms into herself.

He didn’t know how to handle this, but he was going to do his best. “Do you... do you know who I am.”

She made a strange, but clearly upset face, and glared at the ground.

“... I’m so sorry.”

“Son...”

“I failed you.”

“Son...”

“I shouldn’t have left you there. I should have let Silver go with Tails and Knuckles. I shouldn’t have blamed him either... I should have listened to Knuckles’s gut feeling... he kept bringing it up and I kept thinking we had more time. I shouldn’t have punched and kicked him... I shouldn’t have shouted at Shadow... I should have just run, like I always do. I should have ran straight to you and I didn’t. I’m so sorry, Amy. I’m so-... I’m so lost without you.”

Amy’s body turned away from him.

It was a beautiful sky... a wonderful summer day... a perfect scene for a picnic or family outing.

But there they were, a broken man once revering himself as a hero... and a broken girl who he missed dearly.

Then, as though a snake about to strike, her hand went back up to strike him... but he began to cry.

Her hand twitched and slowed... before landing on his head.

“...Son...ic.”

He kept crying.

“Son.. ic... cry...”

He didn’t notice.

“Son..ic.. don’t... cry...”

Then his ear twitched, and his eyes shook a moment as they grew wider and wider.

“Sonic...”

He turned to look at her.

She was crying...

He watched... then cried out, “Vanilla!!!” his voice rang through the flowered fields...

It took time, but with help, Amy slowly recovered, and Sonic was with her every step of the way.

(A huge AU, but ya know, I thought-- ‘what’s worse than a huge side-effect that would lead Sonic to his breaking point?’ here you go~)

[chaosworthyarchive]

                                                           9.11.3227                                                                                                                                 Location ¦ Angel Island

                                                   ---------------------

     “You can’t stay out of trouble for three seconds, can you?”

     While playful despite the current situation Sonic still narrowed his eyes at his smirking brother, unable to hide one of his own as the echidna raised a brow in turn. Truthfully the hero was touched that The Guardian had bothered to come see him given this was usually the busiest time of day and season for Knuckles, but then again he couldn't remember a time he ever visited The Shrine and not had the other at least greet him in some fashion. Sonic was going to chalk that up to a brotherly instinct and not a lack of trust.

     “Hey, this wasn’t my fault, thanks,” he pointed out, gesturing to the wound that Tikal was currently examining proper. He could see worry on her face, just as he could see the slight concern in Knuckles’. Both of them knew what had happened and the effects of which (Kintobor and Porker had been nothing but thorough it seemed) and the only reason it had taken him so long to come to them was because he wasn’t sure he could make the trip. The need to know had overpowered that doubt, however, and now here he was sitting on the grand steps with the two echidnas, trying to reassure the princess with a small smile and a light joke. “Any hope, or am I a goner?”

     It took a moment but she did look up to meet his gaze, a soft but sure smile forming on her lips even if the concern remained. "I don't believe it is your fault that it is not healing as most of your injuries normally do, and I don’t believe the emeralds mean to be as they are. From what I can determine the emeralds are merely keeping the balance. The power they hold, that mixture of good and evil, is delicate. Taking too much bad could throw things off balance and lead to terrible events. I believe they want to help, they simply cannot risk it."

     There was a sound of gruff agreement from Knuckles, though he didn’t seem to like the news. He merely understood the conditions. "It's just like when Chaos drained them and sucked out all of the bad. Look how well that went. If we had acted any later things would have been irreversible." 

     Tikal nodded, her fingers brushing over the discolored veins on the hedgehog’s side with a featherlight touch, almost despondent. "But you are not like them, you are an individual made of good and thus cannot process the bad. Your body cannot handle the energy, it can purify it in its own time, yes, but the process is slow. That is why..."

     It was why it looked as it did, why some parts of the affected area looked, for lack of a better word, lifeless. Tikal didn’t need to say it, everyone there was thinking it. Even Chaos, who was at the base of the steps looked up with what the hero could only deem as another worried face. Still...none of this was news. It was all what the hedgehog had been expecting, what he had been able to piece together by himself and with a few hints from Kintobor. He supposed, despite its erroneous implications, it did all make sense. 

     When he had cured Chaos the circumstances had been so very different than they were now. It was like Knuckles had said, the emeralds had been drained of their negative energy, leaving only the good and whatever hadn’t been put in the hero at the time of bringing him back to life. It was the only reason he was able to do what he did on such a grand scale, being able to force out that negative energy wasn’t something he could do in normal circumstances. Not on that scale and not, it seemed, when it was within his own body. At least not to the rate he would have liked.

     Given everything else his new chance had granted him, this seemed like a perfect catch-22 but, as with most things, the hero would learn to live with it. It was still a small price to pay. 

     "Well, that's lovely," he quipped, clearly not as bothered as either echidna had expected judging from their reactions. He already knew this was the extent of their help, neither of them could do much else given their power was tied to The Master Emerald, not the ones tucked safely away at the base. "So there's nothing I can do but wait, I figured as much. Thankfully 's not too bad, not as much as it was a week or two ago, anyway."

     More and more he was thankful that the attack that had caused all this wasn’t worse. Yet it gave the hero a new, creeping fear that if The Four ever did come back to finish what they started he might not be so lucky a second time. All the more reason they had to find out who those people were, where they had come from and why they knew about the emeralds in the first place. 

     Something to consider later, he reckoned, looking from the princess to his brother with a grateful smile. "Thanks for the help, but I should probably head back. I...don't think everyone's quite as happy t’ see me."

     The nod he made down below, towards the little blue chao floating around was sure to answer the unspoken question the other two had. It was hard not to notice, frankly. Whenever he visited the island the chao that resided near the shrine were always far too quick to cling onto the hero in any way they could, he had been told this was because of his radiating energy so now that it was more or less tainted it was no wonder the poor creatures looked both torn and wary of him. Even a certain off-red chao was avoiding him. The last thing he wanted to do was cause them any more unneeded stress and Tikal had seemingly understood this and gone to rewrapping his injured side. Though she didn't get far before a light blue, watery, hand reached out to stop her with a gentle touch. The motion enough to cause everyone to look up at odd, almost translucent green eyes. 

     "Chaos…?" 

     The demi-god said nothing, which wasn’t exactly unusual but did look between the two echidnas and the hedgehog, lingering on the latter before their eyes flicked to the burned flesh and back again as they spoke in their odd manner. 

     << I can take it. The bad energy. Let me help. >>

     It was unexpected, so much so that the hero wasn't entirely sure what to say or if it was even a good idea to stop the three-pronged hand from hovering over his side. Fortunately, nothing happened, not just yet, and the two pairs of jewel-colored eyes locked onto one another. Oddly enough, the hero wasn't frightened by the offer, merely confused and wary, chiefly for Chaos' sake.

     Knuckles, however, snorted gently, a sound of realization. Now, why hadn't they thought of this before? "Of course. It makes sense, they did drain the negative energy from the emeralds after all, this would be just like back then. Just on a smaller scale. Seems good or bad Chaos can handle the energy."

     The words didn't help as much as the echidna was maybe hoping they would, in fact they only made the hedgehog frown. While well aware that this was nothing compared to what the demi-god had acquired before there was still a caution about the hero, who knew all too well what negative energy could do to a person. Even as Chaos finally closed the small space and laid a hand on the wound. It was an odd feeling, cool and yet warm at the same time, ever-shifting like the tide but still a solid thing. Still, nothing happened until Sonic looked at those substantial eyes once more, his hesitation clear but nothing but confidence, assuredness, in Chaos' features.

     A moment more passed before the hero relented. What did they have to lose? He trusted that Chaos wouldn't have offered if it meant there was the slightest possibility of something bad happening, and it was so rare that the demi-god took the initiative that the hero almost felt bad for wanting to deny them. It was the first time they had a chance to offer the hero what they had always wanted to give them since their fateful day in the city: help. So, with a small release of breath, mainly to relax, the hero gave a small nod.

     It was all Chaos needed, an equal nod given in return before the faintest glow surrounded not only their hand but the wound itself. Another unusual feeling. Sonic had never wondered what it might have felt like to have something unseen, something leaning on the side of deadly, pulled out of him, but he certainly experienced the sensation that afternoon. It hurt, he wouldn’t deny that much, but the pain was fleeting, momentary, before it seemed to cease altogether. Though it was the small sound of surprise from Tikal that had the hero looking down at his side once Chaos stepped back, both pleased and astonished to see nothing but natural, unharmed skin. No burn, no dark tendrils. No fur either, but the hero certainly wasn’t going to complain about that much, it would grow back in a few day’s time. It always did. 

     Yet, ever true to his nature the hero looked back to Chaos, particularly their hand with an air of concern. He was met with what he assumed to be a faint laugh, both of the water god's hands raising and neither any worse for wear. 

     << Fear not. Small amounts are fine, I am fine. And now so are you. Yes? >>

     It was a mix of relief, gratitude and the inability to resist after seeing Chaos' triumphant expression that made the hero smile, truly smile that was. He took just a moment to gather himself, to make sure that things really were back to normal, before replying with a gentle, "I am, yeah...thank you." 

     Chaos only shook their head, once more surprising not just Sonic but the two echidnas watching the proceedings with clear investment, when they reached out to place that very same hand on the hero's head. Not in a way that was meant to be demeaning, it was precisely the opposite.

     <<Thanks is unnecessary. You saved me. I want to do the same. You are family. >>

     They weren't words the hero had been expecting and, little did he know, his eyes gave away just how thankful he was to hear them even before he could voice them out loud. A chance he never got given how, just a split moment later, he was nearly flattened by a dozen or so chao. Thank goodness for his reflexes and steady feet. Though now it seemed he had to stay just a little while longer, if only to make up for lost time with the little creatures nuzzling into blue and tan fur alike. Chaos knew they weren't going to let him go anytime soon, after all. 

     Sonic would say this. Despite the obvious next steps, despite the fact they still had to find The Four, he was glad things were more or less back to normal. Hopefully, they would stay that way for a bit longer. 

[another-sonic-blog]

a possible prompt for you: "I cannot offer you sanctuary; but if you would ever ask it of me, I would find a way to build it."

Sanctuary

ShadAmy (You didn’t ask for a specific ship, so I thought you want ShadAmy lol)

.

There was something about her that intrigued him. It was her small acts, her personality and that strange side of her that he couldn’t quite decipher.

They didn’t talk, he doesn’t remember the last time they shared words. It was probably six months when everyone believed that Sonic was dead.

.

“I’ll start my mission now.”

Shadow had gotten his mission report and as soon he finished it reading, he was ready to leave the Resistance.

“Shadow, wait-”

Shadow felt something soft get a hold of his hand. He would have pushed her away immediately but the look in her face made him doubt. His attention went to their hands and back again to Amy.

“Please … be careful,” Amy said in such a pleading manner that it made Shadow remember about a certain blond girl. “Come back to me … ok?”

They were in silence for a few seconds in which they only looked at each other’s eyes. Emeralds were lost in rubies and vice versa.  

Shadow moved his hand away in an abrupt manner and turned his body to walk away.

He reached the door to exit the room but he stopped himself. He didn’t look at her, but he said something to her loud and clear.

“I will come back,” Shadow said. “ … I promise.”

.

He kept coming back to her. In different ways, on different days, in different presence.

After the war with Eggman was done, he passed by the Resistance once in a while just to make sure Amy was fine. Of course, he made sure she didn’t know he was there. He didn’t know why, but Shadow just didn’t want Amy to know he was there.

Shadow could recall different situations where Amy needed help and he gave it to her.

She couldn’t find a file? Shadow will stay up the whole night to find it and placed it in front of her room.

She felt sad because there weren’t flowers around? He planted a small garden a few meters away from the Resistance.

Was she angry at Sonic for leaving without giving her a previous notice? Shadow would find him and start a fight with him only so he could hit him for Amy.

Even with all of that, that didn’t feel enough.

He didn’t know what it was.

But he was completely invested in her.

“Shadow!”

     "Walk away, Shadow"

“Shadow!”

      “WALK. AWAY.”

“Shadow, please!”

       "Dammit.“

Shadow’s job was done. He had defeated Metal Sonic along Sonic and Knuckles and he didn’t want to stay any longer than he needed to. He wasn’t one to celebrate the victories but when it came to Amy …

"What do you want?” Shadow turned around facing the pink one. They were away from the crowd which was good for him.

“Where are you going?” Amy asked in her cheerful self. Shadow looks to the side, he just couldn’t look at her face. He was just acted differently whenever he was with her.

“I don’t know, I’ll find out in the way.”

“Then follow me!”

Amy once again did the thing. She held his hand but he didn’t mind. He will never admit it, but he enjoyed the gesture.

.

They were in Angel Island but after going down and reaching the ground, Amy still took him to a place he didn’t know. They walked through the woods and after a few minutes they reached a place where the sun touched the ground.  

Shadow noticed a small wooden cabin, the sunlight illuminated it. Flowers surrounded the cabin and a little farther from it, pine trees surrounded the area.

“Do you like it?” Amy asked as she looks to Shadow.

“Does it matter?” Shadow responded

“Of course it does! It’s your birthday gift!”

“What?”

“I know that you usually don’t have a place to stay, so I thought that building you a small place to stay would be a good birthday present,” Amy said. “Everyone in the Resistance helped-”

Amy stopped talking as he realized that Shadow’s expression had changed.

Shadow didn’t know what it was. Maybe her nice gesture or the fact that they were still holding hands. However, Shadow felt different. Like something inside of him had exploded like he had sparkles inside his stomach as if his heart was beating faster than usual.

But it was more than that … it was all of those feelings and more.

“Shadow, are you … alright?” Amy asked. Seeing that he wasn’t responding, she began to panic. “You … You don’t like it? I am sorry, I knew I should have gotten you a bike. It’s just … I thought this was better I wanted you to have a nice place to call home but … I am sorry, I will give you a bike! Yes, that would be better right? You really like them and-”

“Today is not my birthday,” Shadow said. He didn’t know how to respond to her and he told her the truth.

“Of course it is!” Amy said. “Today was the day you put your past behind you. Today was the day you saved the Earth from the Black Arms … Today is the birthday of Shadow the Hedgehog!”

.

He just couldn’t stay away from her. Before he was intrigued, but now he was completely fascinated.

There was more to Amy than just being Sonic’s fangirl. She was smart, strong, independent and pretty although he will never say that out loud.

They were peaceful times although Shadow senses weren’t still 100 percent sure. His instincts were telling him that there was something wrong. Nonetheless, he sometimes liked to slow down a bit. To enjoy the times Amy would visit him in his new home.

He trusted her and it got to the point in which he gave her a key to his home.

Sometimes the scene was too perfect.

Shadow would get home after a mission and when he opened the door a sweet smell met his nostrils. It was the delicious smell of Amy’s cooking and her sweet scent.

She never liked her own voice but to him, her ‘Welcome Home’ was a delight.

She didn’t do it often due to her tight schedule but whenever she did, he greatly appreciated it.

He expected this day to be one of the days Amy visits him.

 The peaceful days in which he doubted himself, Shadow usually didn’t need anyone. But having Amy there was a friendly reminder that he made the right decision.

Sonic convinced Shadow of letting Eggman staying alive and Shadow decided of letting Eggman live a peaceful life in Windmill Village.

Because if Shadow could have a peaceful life just like right now, then Eggman could too.

He arrived home, excited to share today with the pink one … but she wasn’t there.

.

Days passed and still, no sight of Amy. He tried hard not to care and he tried to convince himself that he didn’t need her. That they weren’t that close.

For Chao’s sake, they weren’t even friends.

Not they weren’t, so he shouldn’t care. No, he shouldn’t.

So, how did he find himself here?

He walked through the halls of the Resistance HQ as the other agents passed by him. Whispering between each other, thinking he wasn’t able to hear them.

“What is Shadow the Hedgehog doing here?”

“Maybe he wants to meet with Captain? Something wrong must be going on?”

“Well, something must be really wrong if Shadow the Hedgehog is looking for help from the Resistance.”

Shadow felt relief by those comments. Shadow preferred for the agents to think that he was here for a mission than to think that he was there … just to see the Captain.

He finally reached the Main Room. Amy was up and down the room, looking for files, typing in her computer and communicator through her earpiece. Shadow didn’t think he was going to get this far. What was he supposed to do now? Stop her from doing her work and ask why wasn’t she visited him?

“No, Shadow, you are not even friends! Not even work buddies … She cooked for you sometimes just to be nice, you can’t expect her to do that every day-”

“Shadow?”

Shadow’s thoughts were interrupted as he recognized her voice.

“What are you doing here?”

“SHIT-”

“I am here to get information regarding … Eggman.”

Amy looked at him confused. It has been a while since they last saw each other and talked about the matter. It surprised Amy that Shadow even went to the length of coming to the Resistance for such reason.

“Sorry Shadow, I can’t offer you that information right now. You can talk to Lanolin about whatever information you need,” Amy said. “I am going to head out to a mission soon, so I won’t be able to attend you.”

“You are going to a mission?” Shadow facepalmed himself mentally.

“Of course she is going a mission, genius. She just said it.”

It was a surprise to Shadow that Amy was doing a mission, especially since she was so busy at the moment managing the Resistance.

“Yes, I am. I will be going with Sonic but we will be back soon.” Amy said. “We are going to an abandoned mine-”

Shadow didn’t hear anything else. There was a certain feeling rising within him. He wasn’t sure what it was but it wasn’t nice.

“I don’t need that information,” Shadow said. “I am taking my leave.”

Shadow began to walk away. This was a waste of time, this is what he gets for caring for others. He gets … disappointment.

“Shadow!” Amy once again caught his attention, Shadow stopped walking. “I am sorry … I haven’t been able … visit you.”

.

How could Shadow ever stay away from her when she has only shown him kindness? When she has shown him her vulnerability and strength?

How could Shadow ever stay away from her when Amy has always been … there.

“It’s my fault Shadow … I should have known better. Sonic is infected and I couldn’t do anything.”

Amy had gone to Shadow’s cabin to inform him of the current situation. The Zombot virus, something that could threaten Mobius. He didn’t know if he should be angry at Sonic for letting Eggman on the go or at himself for letting Sonic convince him so easily.

Shadow didn’t know how to react to that. He knew that she was looking at some type of comfort in him but … how?

They were seated at his sofa, Shadow looked around his room and to his lamp. He took a deep breath and with all the courage he said,

“It’s not your fault,” Shadow gave Amy three pats on her back. Exactly three, no more and no less. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

Amy looked at Shadow who’s head was pointing at the ground. Amy knew that he was trying really hard to comfort her and although he only gave her three pats on her back, that was all she needed.

“Thank you … I needed that,” Amy said. “Shadow … thank you, for everything.”

“I haven’t done anything,” Shadow replied.

“That’s what you think … but I appreciate every single thing you do.”

Amy smiled at Shadow. She knew everything. Amy was aware of Shadow staying up late at night to find a file she needed. Of Shadow’s secret flower garden that he made for her because she was sad there weren’t any flowers at the Resistance.

Amy knew that Shadow will fight Sonic only because he made her angry.

She will never tell Shadow that she knows. Amy didn’t want to embarrassed Shadow and most importantly she didn’t want him to stop.

“You are strange,” Shadow said seeing that no one was saying a word. “But I guess that’s good.”

“Well, thanks for the compliment.” Amy looked to the side, pretending to be hurt. She clearly wasn’t, she was only acting this way to tease Shadow and she thought she had made it obvious.

On the other side, Shadow was panicking. He didn’t mean to be mean to her nor hurt her feelings. He had to fix things quickly.

“What I am trying to say is … that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,” Shadow said. “But meeting you … I don’t think that was a mistake.”

When those words left his mouth, Amy turned to look at him. She was extremely touched by this. Shadow, was really trying to open up to her, to explain his feelings. Amy was just really touched and happy at the moment.

“Shadow …” Amy looked at him. She was speechless, a few tears wanted to escape her eyes and Shadow noticed this.

“Shit. She’s crying! What did I say wrong?”

“What I am trying to say is that I cannot offer you sanctuary,” Shadow said. He instinctively grabbed her hands in a pleading manner. “But if you would ever ask it of me, I would find a way to build it.”

He was like a lost child looking for forgiveness. Amy had never seen Shadow display such vulnerability. At first, Amy didn’t know what was what intrigued her so much about Shadow. Maybe his hidden kindness or his strong sense of justice that she admired. Either or … Amy was happy that her nonexistence bond with Shadow had grown into a friendship.

“Shadow, I will never ask you to build me a sanctuary …” Amy softly caressed Shadow’s hands. “Because I already have one … you are my sanctuary.”

.

“Alright, so Team Dark needs to go help out Sonic at Sunset City? Rouge asked. Omega, Shadow and her were at the Resistance’s Main Room along with Amy.

"Yes, there are civilians there who need to be evacuated,” Amy said. “I am counting on you three, you are the best team that we have.”

“Rouge and Omega will go first,” Shadow commented. “I will arrive as soon as I can with my truck and help the civilians evacuate.”

“Very good! Also, yes you three are the best team that we have but you can be reckless as well.” Amy said. “Your mission is to only help the evacuation, do not interact with the Zombots.”

“We have everything under control,” Omega said, trying to calm down Amy.

“I know but still … ” Amy said. “Just be careful please.”

“Yes, Captain!”

Rouge and Omega were the first to leave the room, leaving Shadow and Amy alone. They shared a knowing look. It was starting to become more common between them. To know what the other was thinking without speaking a word.

Shadow turned to his body and began to walk away.

“Shadow, wait-”

Shadow knew this was coming. It was an unspoken ritual between them. He turned to look at her, she smiled.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Amy said. “And come back to me … ok?”

Shadow smirked at her. A few seconds passed were they only stared at each other’s eyes. Their strong friendship was unknown to others but that didn’t matter to them. They were each other’s secret sanctuary and they didn’t want it any other way.

“I will come back to you …” Shadow said. “I promise.”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A/n: First of all, I want to say that I really enjoy your art! It’s amazing. Second, thank you so much for the nice prompt! I hope this is somewhat what you wanted.  

Thank you for reading!

I will keep working on the next prompts!

[mobius-prime]

241. Sonic the Hedgehog #173

Round Up!

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Jason Jensen

So! What is this mysterious thing that Antoine is so determined to do? What is so intimidating to him that he needs Sonic and Amy to back him up? Well, the first page of today's issue tells us quite plainly…

Compared to the constantly-in-flux love life of most of the other characters in this comic, it's so nice to see two characters who (aside from the hiccup caused by Evil Antoine) have remained pretty steady with each other throughout most of the story so far. And now they're about to get hitched! Especially considering how many other plot points have revolved around marriage and potential marriages, this is incredibly sweet and heartwarming to see - an actual marriage based on love and respect. With his main goal completed, Antoine's nerves finally crack though and Sonic has to steady him as he admits that he's been trying to work up the courage to do this for weeks, while Amy excitedly discusses girly things such as dress fittings for the wedding. Bunnie then takes everyone in search of Sally so they can tell her the good news as well. Sally is currently taking a call from Knuckles with Rotor in the brain trust lab, discussing Mina's current world tour and how the Chaotix are acting as her bodyguards in case of any other assassination attempts. Knuckles then mentions he's heard a rumor that Rouge has stolen the Master Emerald from Angel Island and is offering to sell it to the highest bidder, and apparently the only strange thing about this according to everyone present is that normally Rouge would likely want to keep the gem for herself instead of selling it. Really, guys? No mention of how the theft of such an important gem would likely be nearly impossible to pull of at this point with so much security, or how doing such a thing would cause the entire island to plummet violently to earth? Sally prepares to arrange a mission to go after Rouge at the same time that the happy couple and Sonic arrive in the room, and thus, that night finds the four of them split into two groups on watch for any sign of the emerald. Sonic and Antoine, while on watch, discuss their situation.

I feel like Antoine here has kind of summed up what I had said before regarding The Slap - namely, that Sally's erratic and uncharacteristic behavior was a result of severe stress and trauma stemming from what happened during the year that Sonic was in space. Furthermore, those two aren't the only ones discussing Sally's current involvement with this mission - Sally herself has something to admit to Bunnie.

I think in lieu of Karl making it clear before he left that Sally is self-aware about her behavior, Ian has made a point of clearing things up right here. Sally was once a core member of the Freedom Fighters, leading them all personally and participating in nearly every mission with enthusiasm. I still firmly hold to the idea that her parents, particularly her father, are who influenced her so strongly to give a lot of that up and transition to being a more distant, princess-like ruler instead, staying within the safe boundaries of the village. It's taken her a long time to work through her trauma and begin to get back to where she was before, but she's closer than she has been in a long time. Both conversations are interrupted by the abrupt arrival of several familiar faces - Bunnie and Sally find themselves facing a vengeful Nack, while Sonic and Antoine are up against Bean and Bark, the former of whom is as insane as ever.

Nack alone isn't much of a match for the two girls, and quickly finds himself subdued, while Bean and Bark take Sonic and Antoine a little longer, though in the end they too end up defeated. Bunnie and Sally go about tying up their new set of captives while Sonic and Antoine head out to find Rouge, who is nearby, lying on top of the emerald which is covered in a sheet. She's very unnerved to find herself suddenly faced by none other than Mammoth Mogul and Naugus, who have naturally been lured here by the promise of a powerful magical artifact. However, there's something… different about Naugus now…

Mogul sends Naugus to try to take out his two new challengers with a new technique he's developed called a "shadow-meld," but they easily guess that he's trying to sneak up on them from behind and knock him out. A furious Mogul threatens them with his Ixis abilities, until a rapidly-growing engine revving sound reveals itself to be Sally on Nack's bike, dropping in from above to knock him out cold. With the most obvious threats out of the way, the heroes turn their attention to Rouge, but she quickly points out that she's on their side, pulling the sheet away to reveal the "Master Emerald" is nothing more than a table with a green lantern (no, not that one) underneath it. She then says that she did all this, helping them capture various baddies, for Knuckles and Knuckles alone, wanting to show him that she could "be a good girl and play by the rules," in perhaps the most stunning misunderstanding of what Rouge is actually like in the comics so far. Seriously, normally I appreciate Ian's take on most characters, but I think it took him a while to actually figure out Rouge's whole deal, because not once in the games does she pull anything like this solely for Knuckles' sake. Her interactions with Knuckles in the games mostly seem to amount to a lot of flirting, flustering, and teasing purely to make him angry and mess with his head - I believe there's even a line somewhere where she outright admits that he's "not her type" and she only does all that for fun. I mean, she is known for being a flirt after all, but that doesn't mean she's actually interested in everyone she flirts with - she's a manipulator. Now, of course that's not something that will ever stop fans shipping, and I'm certainly not one to judge people for shipping whatever the hell they want, but if we're talking canon, her actions here don't really make a lot of sense.

Anyway, Rouge does consent to help transport their haul of prisoners back home, and before they all head out, Bunnie and Antoine ask Sally and Sonic to be their maid of honor and best man respectively, to which they both say of course. As they get ready to head on back to Knothole, we zoom out to find that Eggman and Snively have been watching the proceedings the entire time from their cameras, with Eggman having hired Nack, Bean and Bark to attack just to be certain that the Master Emerald offered up by Rouge was fake. They then smirk as they discuss a new plan of theirs being right on schedule - something to do with the production of a "new fleet," which seems to have just been launched…

See Ya' Later Chao! (Part One)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley Colors: Jason Jensen

On that ominous note, it's time for something much more lighthearted! Bernie comes out of her room one morning to find Jules and Sonic doting on a chao that's causing a bit of chaos in their home. She has no idea what it is or how it got in their house, so Sonic explains what he was up to yesterday, beginning with Rotor picking up a strong energy signature from the old, dried-up Lake of Rings that Robotnik sucked dry all the way back in the Sonic Quest miniseries. Thinking it might be a Chaos Emerald, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all set out to investigate, only to be surprised by the sight of a chao garden thriving where the lake once sat.

The three basically just played in the chao garden all afternoon and discovered what every young Sonic fan did back in '99 - the chao life cycle and how the way you interact with them affects their appearance, stats, and ability to reincarnate. Unfortunately, in the middle of their delightful chao-filled afternoon, Eggman showed up in a big mech with a drill on it, ready to mess up their day… Wow, guess both stories in today's issue end on a cliffhanger!

[thatcrazysonicchick]

Come Back to Me, a FanFiction by That Crazy Sonic Chick

~ Act IV ~

Sonic, 21

Anastasia, ??

Augustus, ??

Only a few moments later, in another world…

“Augustus,” The woman called, entering a large corridor. The owl’s feathers as white as snow, her blue eyes almost piercing. She was wearing an elegant, yet simple, light blue gown, which flowed behind her as she approached the leopard, who sat in his throne, greeting her with a smile.

“Ahh, Anastasia, you’ve returned.” He welcomed with a smile. “Are you ready?” She gave a nod. 

“Yes, Your Grace.” He gave a silent nod in return.

“Is he ready?” He prompted, with a serious look in his eyes.

“He is, Your Grace.”

“Bring him to me.” He ordered kindly. She gave a quick nod, and placed her hand on her amulet, closing her eyes. The second she opened her eyes, a portal opened, allowing a gust of wind to pass through. A blue figure flew out from the other side, and sped straight into a nearby pillar, tumbling down with a loud crash to the ground.

“OW!” He yelled, sitting up and holding a hand against his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “Hey, what gives?!”

“Hello, again, Sonic.” Augustus spoke, his expression unreadable. Sonic ceased his groaning and whipped his head around, and realized where he was. He scrambled up to his feet, dusting himself off and giving his nose one more rub before approaching the man. He stood before him, hands on his hips, tapping his foot.

“Hey there, Gus. Long time no see!” Sonic said, giving his good old, lopsided grin. He saw Anastasia shoot him a sharp look from the corner of his eye, and cleared his throat. “Ahem! Uh, sorry, I mean…” he shot the wise owl a look for help, but her eyes were focused on Augustus. “... You called?” He heard the lady behind him groan under her breath and gulped. Augustus hesitated, and looked at the woman questioningly.

“Umm, Sonic, we’ve summoned you here because we have matters to discuss.” She spoke slowly, not wanting to give him any chance to make things more complicated.

“Uh oh, what did I do?” Sonic said, his eyes widened, ears laying back. “Did I tear up the grass again? I tore the grass up again, didn’t I?” Anastasia let out a heavy sigh and covered her eyes with her wing. Sonic pressed his lips together in a tight line, hands folded behind his back and bouncing lightly on his feet, eyes angled with worry.

“It has… come to our attention that you are needed elsewhere.” Augustus spoke heavily, hinting a bit of dread in his voice. Sonic crossed his arms, tapping his foot impatiently.

“And where would that be?”

“Anastasia?” Augustus motioned her way, and she stepped up, standing where Sonic faced her.

“Sonic, did you ever wonder why you were sent here, and not Heaven?” Sonic shook his head, shrugging his arms.

“I figured I’ve just been in a coma, and this is some crazy dream.” Sonic said, before his eyes lit up. “Am I about to wake up?!” She shook her head.

“No, Sonic. You really did die, and this is not a dream.” She spoke, somewhat sympathetically. 

The blue blur’s ears drooped back down, his mood suddenly changing.

“Then why do I remember everything? My home, my friends, my family?”

“Because we knew it wasn’t your time yet.” Augustus answered, showing the same sympathy as his lady in waiting. “And now the time has come for you to-” the speedster gasped, throwing his hands over his ears.

“I’m gonna die?!” I’m going to the afterlife?!” Sonic panicked, his whole body fidgeting. He paced back and forth. “I’m gonna forget everything! I’m not gonna remember anyone! Amy, Tails, Knuckles, everyone is gonna be wiped from my memor-” Sonic finished in a muffled voice. He stopped in his tracks and looked down towards his mouth, but saw nothing. Anastasia lowered her hand, and Sonic’s lips were free.

“Sonic, please, stop making this difficult. Just listen for a moment.” Anastasia ordered. Sonic took a deep breath and untensed his body, looking at the lepard, who was waiting for his attention. Once he knew he had it, he pushed himself out of his seat, and walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and looked down to him.

“Sonic,” Augustus acknowledged, a small smile curved his lips. With a short squeeze to his shoulders, he said, “You’re going home.”

~    ~    ~

“Home?” Sonic said, his voice and eyes filled with unbelief. “Home, where I was before here? Back on Mobius with my friends and family? Home, home?” The two nodded, smiling. Sonic couldn’t stand still. He drew in a deep breath and opened his mouth and began to cheer.

“Whoo-HOOOOO!!! Aw man, this can’t be happening! Is this a dream? Please tell me this isn’t a dream!” He stopped in his tracks and brought his hands back in, and simply flicked his nose, still sore from his recent collision a moment ago. He yelped in pain, but a bright smile continued to shine on his face. “Oh, thank Chaos!” He said, finally calming down. He looked to Augustus expectantly, then Anastasia.

“Well? What’re we waitin’ for? Let’s go! Hocus pocus!” He said. The two looked at him confused. 

“Abracadabra!” Nothing. “Bippidi Boppity Boo?” What the heck was taking so long? Where was the faith, trust, and pixie dust? “Uhh… Am I missing something here?” Sonic said, looking around for answers. Augustus motioned for the wise owl to explain to him the conditions and consequences for the series of events to take place.

“Sonic,” Anastasia spoke, stepping up to his side, hooking her arm in his. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?” Sonic threw his head back, groaning.

“There’s no time to walk, Ana, I gotta get moving!” He said, revving his feet, readying to dash off. Suddenly his feet froze, sticking to the floor, throwing him off balance and tipping over, landing forward with a thud as the rock material dissolved from around his feet. He pushed himself up off the ground, brushing himself off. “You know I hate it when you do that.” He muttered.

“And you know not to call me anything but Anastasia.” She said, standing with poise before him. 

“Now, where were we?” She asked, tilting her head with a raised eyebrow. Sonic let out a sigh, holding his elbow out. And in a dry tone, he answered,

“Let’s go for a walk.”

~    ~    ~

The two walked through a garden out in the courtyard. It was a beautiful day out, but so was every other day there. Sonic didn’t bother hiding the fact that he couldn’t care less about the rules of going back home. He just wanted to be back with his friends and family. He pictured everyone in his mind; Tails, Knuckles, Amy… He smiled at the thought of seeing them again. To hear their voices, to hug them,  hold them, and just being back with them. Sonic wanted nothing more than to get out of this place and return home, where he belonged. Anastasia looked over to him, noticing his smile, the hint of excitement and anxiousness in his eyes. She cleared her throat, calling Sonic’s attention to her.

“Sonic, there’s more to it.”

“What? To going home?” Sonic said, the owl nodding her head. “What’s the catch?” Anastasia’s eyes grew serious, and just told him straight forward,

“You can’t tell them who you are.” Sonic laughed, kicking a pebble into the nearby pond, folding his hands behind his head.

“I don’t have to.” He said, chuckling. “They’ll recognize me the second I get to them.” He scratched his ear, eyes looking up in thought. “So… How am I going to explain where I’ve been for the past…” he trailed off, not realizing how long he’d been there.

“Year.” The woman finished, lifting the skirt of her dress up above her ankles to step on the stoned path.

“Whoa, really?” Sonic said, skipping rocks across the pond, looking at himself in the rippled reflection. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

“...Sonic, this isn’t easy to tell you, but there’s no other way to say it. They aren’t going to know who you are.” Sonic stopped in his tracks, getting annoyed and impatient.

“Of course they are. They’re my friends! Tails is like my brother, Knuckles, my best friend. And Amy…” He paused, spotting a rose bush a few feet ahead of him. “Amy’s my wife. They couldn’t have forgotten about me. That’s impossible.”

“Of course it is, Sonic. Of course they’ll remember you. No one has forgotten about Sonic.”

“Then what are you trying to say?” Sonic demanded. He stopped himself from telling her to just spit it out. He was not about to get on the bad side of the holder of his ticket back home.

“You’re not going to be you, Sonic. Yes, your heart will be the same, and your spirit.” She waved her hand in a spiral motion, a thick sparkling mist appearing around him. Before he could ask what was happening, his view was cleared, looking at Anastasia. “But your appearance, will not.”

“Wha-” Sonic spoke, throwing his hand to his mouth. Why did he sound like that? He took his hand away, looking down at himself. Whoa. He was no longer in his royal blue body. His fur was now the shade of the summer grass around him. He felt taller, seeing the ground further than it was before. He turned back to the pond, its surface now calm and still. His eyes, staring back up at him from the reflection were now an ocean blue, his nose smaller. He raised his hands to the back of his head, feeling the new quills. They were shorter, and pointed upward. He looked back up at the lady who was observing his transformation.

“What is this?!” He cried out, not liking it one bit. “Change me back!”

“I’m sorry, Sonic, but I can’t.” She answered. “This is the only way you can return home.”

“But how are they gonna know it’s me?” He asked, gesturing to his figure.

“They can’t.” She said. Sonic froze in place, his eyes still.

“What?”

“They can’t know who you are, Sonic.” She said. “There are consequences if you reveal yourself.”

“And what would that be?” He asked, too many emotions going through his mind to pick just one.

“If anyone finds out you are you, it will change the whole timeline going back from the day you were born.” She explained.

“But… why?” He asked. This wasn’t making any sense. “What will happen?”

“Your existence will be erased from all time, meaning everything and everyone will be different, and the world will be doomed.”

“How?” Sonic asked, eyes growing wide.

“If you don’t exist in the reformed timeline, evil will conquer not just the world, but the universe. The world and the life on it will simply cease to exist with time... destroying existence of everyone and everything.”

Sonic thought this over, taking it all in. His eyebrows connecting, looking down at his reflection. He didn’t even recognize himself.

“So… let me get this straight,” The now green hedgehog started, checking his tone before continuing. “I get to go back home, be back with my friends, my family, my wife and…” Sonic’s eyes grew wide. “Amy! The baby! Oh my God, my kid! Is it a boy or girl? What’s their name? How old is he- she- whatever!” Sonic could feel his breathing increase. He went back to pacing, freaking out, and rightfully so. A sound of a portal materializing turned Sonic’s head, showing him the real world. Sonic’s breath got caught in his chest. It was only a few steps away, he could feel the cold winter air blowing in the wind nipping at his skin. He stood there and took it all in.

Is this really happening? Sonic thought. He reached to pinch himself, but quickly pulled his hand back to his side. Who cares if it's real? I have to see them. He straightened himself, getting ready to go.

"Are you ready, Sonic?" He jumped at Anastasia's voice, forgetting he wasn't alone.

"Y-Yeah." Sonic said, mentally encouraging himself to enter the cold world in front of him. "But, uhh… Where is this taking me?" All he could see was snow. She leaned forward from Sonic's left, tilting her head up to him.

"Only one way to find out." She said, reassuring him with a smile. "Let your journey begin" He looked forward, through the portal awaiting his entry. He shook his body, preparing himself for whatever came next.

Alright, Sonic. He thought. "Time to go home."

[thankskenpenders]

Archie presents Ken Penders’ Knuckles the Echidna: A Postmortem

At long last, we’ve come to the end of the Knuckles solo series. Again, this is far from the end of the Penders Knuckles stories, but he no longer gets a whole series to himself. And thank God for that

While a 32 issue run (or really, 35, counting the first miniseries) might pale in comparison to Sonic’s nearly 300 issues, it’s a pretty impressive feat. That’s a lot of comics! A lot of series these days don’t get to enjoy runs that long. Hell, a lot are lucky to even last a year. And assuming that’s 22 pages of story in each issue, that means Penders got a whopping 770 pages of Knuckles comics where he got to do whatever he wanted

What did Penders spend those 770 pages doing? Well, he sure introduced a lot of new echidnas, that’s for damn sure. Let’s break down the Knuckles series arc by arc and briefly summarize what each one actually contributed to the world of Archie Sonic

Sonic’s Friendly Nemesis Knuckles miniseries #1-3

Characters Introduced: Enerjak. Knuckles also first meets Archimedes, who had been previously set up

Summary: Knuckles meets and begins to work together with Archimedes, who he inexplicably trusts right away. Enerjak comes back and announces he still wants to take over the world. Knuckles beats him up

Lasting Impact: Archimedes and Enerjak/Dimitri stick around as important-ish characters

Knuckles #1-3: The Dark Legion miniseries

Characters Introduced: The Dark Legion, Kragok, Steppenwolf, Christopholes, Menniker

Summary: The Dark Legion returns. The founding of the Brotherhood of Guardians is touched upon, as is their dumb pro-/anti-technology feud with the Dark Legion. Locke uses some sort of Chaos Emerald magic from afar to stop the Legion’s guns from firing so Knuckles can beat them up

Lasting Impact: The Dark Legion and the Brotherhood would be major players for the rest of the story

Knuckles #4-6: Lost Paradise

Characters Introduced: Julie-Su, Lara-Le, Remington, Helmut von Stryker, Gerbil, Hawking, Sabre, Wynmacher, some other fire ant whose name I forget

Summary: Ex-Dark Legionnaire Julie-Su suddenly defects from her faction to seek out Knuckles, because they “soul-touched” and now they’re destined to be lovers or something. Echidnaopolis suddenly comes back because reasons, and boy do they sure still have a lot of technology for people who said they renounced it. The dingoes are apparently evil fascists, and Hawking explains how racist he is to Knuckles.

Lasting Impact: Julie-Su and many of the characters here become mainstays in Knuckles’ supporting cast, and obviously Echidnaopolis becomes the main setting of the comic

#7-9: Dark Vengeance

Characters Introduced: The Echidna High Council, High Councilor Pravda

Summary: Enerjak comes back (again) and immediately becomes the new leader of the Dark Legion. Hawking is on life support. Enerjak kills Knuckles, but then the Ancient Walkers bring him back so he can be a Christ metaphor. Enerjak is defeated and turns back into Dimitri, who ages rapidly. Mammoth Mogul shows up so he can be trapped in the Master Emerald in the following Sonic issue

Lasting Impact: Dimitri’s old now

#10-12: The Other Road Taken

Characters Introduced: The Lost Tribe, Yanar, Athair’s mom (I forget her name), Rob O’ the Hedge and friends, Mari-An, Zax, Raynor, Gala-Na. Athair makes his first appearance in a Knuckles comic

Summary: The Lost Tribe is introduced. They’ve apparently been searching for the ancient echidna homeland of Albion in a big caravan for centuries. The Day of Fury happens, which doesn’t amount to much here compared to the literal apocalypses that share the title in the lore. They make a pit stop over in Snottingham in the Sonic series for some Robin Hood shenanigans, then Knuckles walks on water to lead them to Albion and continue being a Christ metaphor

Lasting Impact: These characters and locations are EVENTUALLY revisited, but not in the remainder of the Knuckles solo series

#13-15: The Chaotix Caper

Characters Introduced: Harry the cab driver, Mello (while dying), Unnamed(?) Echidna Doctor and Nurse, Downtown Ebony Hare, his fox girlfriend, his bulldog goon, the scientist guy who was making the drugs, Charmy’s family, Saffron, Jeepers the Bee Butler, a bear biker gang, Bimmy

Summary: Charmy’s apparent best friend Mello dies of a drug overdose. To investigate, the Chaotix all go to an amusement park, eat the drug-laced food, trip balls, and almost die. Charmy’s past is expanded upon so that he can then go home and get written out of the series. Knuckles starts to show off his Chaos powers

Lasting Impact: Harry sorta stuck around. We know more about Charmy, who is now gone

#16-18: Reunions, Deep Cover

Characters Introduced: Tobor, Moritori Rex, Spectre, Sojourner, Thunderhawk, Tobor’s family

Summary: Knuckles finds out his mom is getting married to Wynmacher. We find out that Lara-Le had major problems with the way Locke raised Knuckles, which goes nowhere. The Brotherhood convenes. We find out that one of them has been replaced with someone evil for years through one of the dumbest twists in the history of these comics. Knuckles beats up Kragok in jail, then Kragok and Tobor fuck off into a “quantum beam,” apparently killing them both. I didn’t even realize they died when I first read this. That may be a retcon

Lasting Impact: Tobor and Kragok died I guess. Lara-Le and Wynmacher’s marriage is teased

#19-21: The Forbidden Zone

Characters Introduced: Prince Elias Acorn, Queen Alicia Acorn, the bulldog colonel and his wife, a baby

Summary: Geoffrey and pals show up from the main series to rescue the Queen, only to walk right up to the Acorn family compound on Angel Island with no trouble and meet Sally’s long lost brother Elias, who nobody knew about. The Queen, meanwhile, is in a pod. Locke and Lara-Le meet up and he tries to kiss her for some mindboggling reason. Knuckles gets mad about all the secrets and finally meets the Brotherhood, but his dad isn’t there at the time. He also fights Moritori Rex (fake Tobor), who gets away 

Lasting Impact: Elias would become quite important... over in the Bollers stories in the main series. He had nothing to do with Knuckles.

#22-24: Dark Alliance

Characters Introduced: Lien-Da, Benedict, Xenin

Summary: Echidna/dingo tensions rise in the runup to the election. Dimitri is a cyborg now. Lien-Da is apparently the new leader of the Dark Legion, and she kidnaps and brainwashes the High Councilor so they can rig the election. Tons and tons and tons of tasteless allusions to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust are made. Knuckles shows off his Chaos powers a little more. The fact that Remington is Kragok’s son is alluded to, but Penders never actually remembered to reveal this in a comic

Lasting Impact: None

#25: Childhood’s End

Characters Introduced: Harlan, Rembrandt, Aaron, one of Robotnik’s ancestors

Summary: Knuckles finally finds his dad... because he didn’t run away fast enough when Knuckles spotted him. Locke tells him the baby microwave story. He also tells him about a vision of the future he had, which scared him into doing all the horrible things he did, but this future never actually comes to pass in the comics. Knuckles immediately forgives his dad for experimenting on him

Lasting Impact: Locke’s not hiding from Knuckles anymore

#26-28: The First Date (feat. Friend in Need)

Characters Introduced: Raynor (not to be confused with the other echidna named Raynor), a bunch of nameless furry girls for Vector to ogle; Nic the Weasel, the real Fiona Fox, Ray the Flying Squirrel

Summary: Julie-Su is mad at Knuckles, so she goes out with some other guy for half a day. Vector tries to get laid and acts like an incel. Locke gives Knuckles the talk. Knuckles finally actually asks Julie-Su out, then has his 16th birthday party. In the backup story, Mighty, Nic, and Fiona rescue Ray from a time anomaly, and Fiona’s past is explained

Lasting Impact: Knuckles and Julie-Su are dating now. Nic, Fiona, and Ray stuck around as important characters in the main series

#29: My Special Friend

Characters Introduced: None (but this is only one issue)

Summary: Sally tries to get help from the Brotherhood now that Robotnik is back in the main series, but they refuse because Sally won’t use guns. Knuckles is a centrist who won’t firmly side with Sally, so she leaves angrily. Along the way, Sally rationalizes her dad’s attempt at Robian genocide

Lasting Impact: None

#30-32: King of the Hill (feat. Espio the Chameleon)

Characters Introduced: Monk, Hunter, Snowpidgeon, Aryu One-Two; Barney, Liza, and several other unimportant chameleons

Summary: Knuckles’ childhood bully, a large purple gorilla, returns to Angel Island after being yeeted into the ocean by the Brotherhood years ago. A human hunter named Hunter shows up to reenact The Most Dangerous Game. Monk falls during the fight and dies. Hunter is captured. In the backup story, Espio has a run-in with the roboticized Valdez, his apparent best friend, who he then murders

Lasting Impact: Hunter eventually made a minor appearance in a Bollers story years later. Valdez dies

Are you noticing a trend? Things keep happening in these stories, but it rarely has much of an impact. One of the Guardians was a traitor all along? Eh, doesn’t affect much. The Dark Legion candidate in the election ends up being a robot and dies? Eh, they had a replacement ready--but also, the election didn’t matter anyway.

Rarely do we learn anything of value about the characters. Knuckles doesn’t grow much as a person, and he never gets much of a personality. Julie-Su’s whole life revolves around being soul bound to Knuckles with only the faintest hint of her own personality. The Chaotix never contribute anything of value. When something comes up to make us question Locke and the Brotherhood, Penders then goes “No, no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Supporting characters and subplots that go nowhere keep getting introduced just so it can feel like a lot is going on, but it’s all shallow. Knuckles has like 12 grandpas, most of whom are still alive, and only maybe three of them are distinct in any way. They all just talk like Penders, just like every character in these comics (except for Vector, who gets to be Urban). Things just keep happening around Knuckles, often without his actual involvement, while Penders says that every other arc is the biggest most important thing that’s ever happened.

It’s the oldest trick in comics. End on a cliffhanger. Say that NEXT ISSUE something interesting will DEFINITELY happen. Promise that the story is going somewhere. Just keep buying more issues! But the payoff never comes

While Sonic’s better stories have him sprinting around the world, the Knuckles series just plops him down on a treadmill for 35 issues. In the background, he’s listening to a boring documentary about echidna lore and genealogies

His life is in shambles

[sonic7ischaos]

Putting my money where my mouth is...

I talk a lot about the Sonic Adventure series and have mentioned a potential Sonic Adventure remake but I haven’t gone into much detail about it. What I think is done right, what I think is done wrong. How to improve and fix things and how to amplify working things. I’m doing this because, if enough people can form a consensus on what an Adventure remake should do, it’s designers might take notice and look to the discussion for guidance in some way. Maybe it’s indirect and we don’t even notice the little detail they took from us but nothing happens if no one tries to steer the conversation...

So let’s get started.

1st thing that needs to change fundamentally is how the camera operates. The camera in Sonic Adventure was designed with the idea that there wouldn’t be a second analogue stick to control it. It was made on a console without one and (for some reason) it’s an issue that wasn’t fixed in SADX. This needs to change. Sonic Adventure is a 3d platformer first and foremost. The last thing the camera should be able to do in this sort of game is get in your way and because of how it has to follow your movement so the player isn’t lost, it WILL get in you way if it remains as is. Another thing this might fix is Sonic’s seeming lack of control on narrow roadways. With a camera at the player’s beck and call, they could put it behind sonic and control his horizontal movement with it (y’know, like how most 3d platformers do) so you wouldn’t be getting stuck on walls as much. Speaking of the camera, we need to talk about loops. In every single official 3d Sonic game, loops are handled via automation (I’ll get to that in a minute). In every one of these segments the camera is pulled away from the character or is rendered irrelevant by the boost pads (again in a minute). This needs to not happen in a Sonic Adventure remake ESPECIALLY if the camera is to be reworked to give the player finer control. Having a camera automatically pull away or rendered meaningless by boost pads (IN. A. MINUTE) is inherently contradictory to the freedom and control the player will want and expect with a manual camera. It WILL kill them or it WILL bore them, depending on how you handle it. To summarize, the camera in Sonic Adventure worked how it did to accommodate a controller with no right analogue stick and, with modern controllers, need no longer do so. FIX THAT.

2nd thing that needs to fundamentally change is the automation (told you I’d get there). Now, the presence of automation itself isn’t necessarily a problem, it can be useful for designers who want to guide players in more open ended terrain or who want to present a story moment. The best automation is short and only takes away part of your control so you’re still interacting with the game. Loathe as I am to credit it, Sonic 06′s mach speed sections are a decent example of point about retaining some control. OH they’re abysmal to play for sure but you are still making gameplay decisions during them. The other problem with them is their length. The mach speed sections present an interesting spectacle (kingdom valley in particular is great for that though again, truly awful to play). The problem with Automation in Adventure (and every single subsequent 3d game) is that the automation is far too prevalent in the form of boost pads and springs that divide level sections so that you’re no longer interacting with the game. So, for example, if you remade Sonic Adventure and removed every single boost pad from Emerald Coast, that level would still be mostly playable ESPECIALLY with tweaks to the physics so it takes slightly longer to fall off walls at speed (the vertical boost pad set piece in emerald coast comes to mind). I’m not suggesting getting rid of the whale section, only that bits like that should be modified to be more like the speed highway building section where you’re dodging obstacles and collecting goodies. I’m also, in general, suggesting that the designers have a little more respect for the player’s intelligence and skill. Don’t railroad me into where you want me to go, trust that I’ll get there myself. The physics in Adventure are there for a reason, use them.

3rd thing that needs to be addressed is the level design. This one isn’t so big and to change it too much would make this less a remake and more its own game (which I wouldn’t be opposed to) but the pure linearity of the levels actively takes away from the free nature of the movement mechanics. Sonic can do some crazy stuff with his movement, make it so he’s only doing stuff in one way?Add stuff to the levels so players can experiment and play around more.

4th...the other characters. Now, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Gamma (I like Gamma anyway) work fine (though some tweaking might be good but I’ll get there) but Big is abysmal. His gameplay is frustrating and slow and boring. The problem lies in the fishing mechanics and how hard it is to control where the lure is and how effective it is. There’s also no reason to catch other fish. If there was some integration with the chao garden (I’ll get there) it might help but there’s a lot of other things that need to happen too. Maybe you can unlock things by catching certain fish or meeting certain requirements.  The pools where you fish should also have more thematic elements to them as well. Robot fish in eggman themed levels, that sort of thing. There also needs to be better difficulty scaling and specific challenges to differentiate each level mechanically. As for the tweaks to the others? Well Amy’s levels are, thematically, horror themed right? I’d say play that up. Maybe make her acceleration a bit better so she’s not frustrating to control but make Zero more capable and much scarier. Give him more places to pop out of. Make the player always feel like he’s right on their tail. Knuckles just needs to have his dig work like it does in Sa2, other than that, he’s fine. Tails needs no changes and I can’t think of any for Gamma. Maybe make his bosses harder? I dunno.

That’s all the main stuff that absolutely needs to be fixed but there are some other things as well that should be addressed.

1st of these is the hub worlds. They’re fine but they need more things to do. Collectibles to find, puzzles to complete, that sort of thing. Emblems functioning like the red rings of the modern games would be nice (and hide them in more places, maybe expand the hub worlds themselves to create more hiding spots or fun level elements to play with).

2nd is the presentation and there’s a few things I want to touch on. The cutscenes need fixing, that much is obvious but since the technology will let us, why don’t we go all out and make them ALL pre rendered and fully animated.  Pour every bit of love into them that was given to the opening to Unleashed (maybe get the same studio/set of artists on that). As far as the voice actors? Well, this is more up to preference but honestly I think it would be fitting to re-cast the surviving actors of the original since this is a remake. Have the lines re written slightly so the story is communicated better and have an actual voice director. For the visuals, don’t just have them look “good” have them be appropriate to the story of both the narrative and specific level. The first fight with Chaos is a tense, intimidating encounter in the darkened rain with a mysterious new foe, lit by police lights. Emerald coast is a sunny vacation spot. Lost world is a dark, mysterious catacomb, lit only by torches and mirrors. Generations actually got the tone of the final boss fight (though I’d prefer if chaos was less lizard+water monster and more just made of water). As for the music and sound design? Modern instrumentation are musts but the actual musical composition should remain untouched. New sounds for game interaction should be recorded so long as they’re mostly the same as the originals (with touched up quality and better sound design from more experienced artists).

3rd is chao gardens. I don’t actually think these need to be changed that much but I DO think they should be changed. Specifically, I think the chao events need to be expanded so that you’re not just unlocking emblems but rather you’re training your chao or unlocking new gear for them. I think the chao themselves need to have a direct impact on the main game in some way. Maybe an equip system so that their stats translate directly onto the character or maybe they can follow you into levels to find items and such. I also think there need to be more gardens, probably themed after levels in the games, probably subdivided so you find each level garden in the hub world garden it belongs to. Speed highway garden in the station square garden for example.

[theashemarie]

Blank Space (Sonic Forces Fic)

[first scene is based on this art by @neil-degrasse-china. also, this is AU now yaaaaay]

[[He’s the same, after all this time, and that’s the thing that bothers Gadget the most. ( Infinite’s memory after the Ruby is removed is spotty, and he doesn’t remember the war. At all. Infidget.)]]

Gadget is sitting up in bed, reading through a series of texts in the Sonic/Tails/Amy group message (sans Knuckles because he’s... not in a service zone) with Infinite asleep next to him. It’s strange to be here, back in the apartment, pretending things are normal. Infinite has a bun like he used to, arm stretched above his head, lightly snoring. His chest is Ruby-free but he’s still sleeping like it’s there, like he has to accommodate its hard, pressing edges—arms out of the way, on his back, breathing slowly so as to not upset it.

Of course, he doesn’t remember it, but his body holds the memory somewhere.

Sonic asks, how is he, because Sonic is kind and attentive, notices things others don’t. Gadget squints at the phone because putting on his glasses would be committing to a day he’s not ready to face yet, and the letters appear before him, still fuzzy but there. He wants to say, fine, because that’s the easy answer and he is fine, but he’s also not at the same time. Plus, that’d be cheating. Gadget knows that Sonic, Tails, and Amy want real information.

He still doesn’t remember, he taps out instead, forcing his fingers to find the familiar smoothness of the screen, even after all this time. New phone, same feeling.

Infinite rolls suddenly, throws his arm over Gadget’s middle, makes a tiny snuffling sound, and it’s all so familiar that it almost makes Gadget cry. He’s surprised by it, but he’s also not. His phone falls out of his hand and his other hand falls with it, to grasp Infinite’s arm.

His fingers clutch hard to scarred, thin limb, and it’s like old times. Except it’s not. It can’t be.

+

Infinite’s memory of the war, of the Ruby, doesn’t exist. He showed up at the apartment about a week after it was over, exhausted, confused, and collapsed into Gadget’s arms, sobbing his eyes out. He babbled as Gadget reeled, something about waking up in the woods somewhere, confused, lost, had to find his way home. Luckily, it wasn’t far, just outside the city, and he woke up in a crater, which he didn’t understand; was he abducted by aliens or something?

Gadget could’ve laughed, but he held it in. Yes, you were pretty much were abducted by aliens, he wanted to say, but instead, strangely, he started crying too.

That night was confusing. Gadget took Infinite to the hospital, where the doctor determined that he was dehydrated but not malnourished, hooked him up to an IV, and left them alone. Infinite asked small, probing questions, looking tiny, so small, in the bed, trying to get a grasp on everything. Gadget didn’t know how to answer, so he just made small noises in neither confirmation or denial. It felt a bit like he couldn’t touch the ground, like he was hovering just a few feet above his body, looking down at himself and Infinite.

Infinite doesn’t remember anything from that first day, right before the war. He doesn’t remember Gadget doing well on his final, the Ruby’s slash through the sky, or his decision to go find it. He doesn’t remember the war, the months and months where he reigned terror on the whole planet in Eggman’s name, where he killed— It’s better not to think about that part.

(Was it really him, doing the killing, if the Ruby was in control? Where does the body end and the person begin?)

He treats Gadget like he did before. Tender looks, soft touches, lingering hands, hands on hips. It all feels pastel after the darkness of the war, a thin film that isn’t real with its soft pinks and blues—like valentines and their safety, their canned sayings, their rounded, heart-shaped edges.

+

Gadget makes breakfast at the stove, poking at pancake batter, and Infinite is at the table, sorting through the newspaper. It’s been hard, trying to keep him away from the more dangerous periodicals, the ones that still declare him Public Enemy No. 1, because he loves his news. It calms him, he claims, especially in the morning, but Gadget knows that finding out he hurt so many people would do anything but. The local newspaper is safe enough, but this play won’t last much longer. Infinite is already getting antsy at being cooped up in the house—a farce Gadget cooked up, something something doctor said something something stay indoors—so, Gadget has to make some decisions.

Should Infinite know, and how much? The philosophical issue of the week. Hard answer: yes, and he should know all of it, but slowly, so as to not shock him. Gadget’s preferred answer: yes, but only some of it; he (Gadget) still hasn’t really confronted how much he (Infinite) killed (worldwide citizenry), maimed, and burned. If he can’t reconcile it, how can he expect Infinite to? How can he explain it to Infinite with the delicacy this desperately requires?

“Your glasses are different,” Infinite says as he puts down the paper. “What happened to the rimless ones?”

That’s true enough. Pre-resistance he had different frames, but the battles had required a few sacrifices, starting with his fashionable glasses. He traded them for thick, sturdy ones, ones that clutched close to his head, that they could attach a strap to, pull it tight around his head and ears. Now, after the war, he can’t put the old ones on, because they remind him too much of before.

“I wanted a change,” he answers, instead of all of that. “Don’t you like them?”

Infinite hums and his ears drop in thought. “Yeah, they’re kind of grunge, especially with those new gloves you’re so fond of.”

Gadget looks down at his bare hands, grips the spatula a little tighter, and decides not to answer. Instead, he flips the pancakes and lets the sizzle sit between them.

Infinite sighs and rubs his eyes. “I know there was a war.”

Gadget drops the spatula. It smacks into the pan, clatters to the floor, and he kicks it as he turns. Infinite isn’t looking at him, just above and to the right of him. “How?” Gadget demands.

“I’m not stupid,” Infinite shoots back.

Gadget crosses his arms, sets him with the hardest look he can manage.

“The TV might not work,” Infinite says, indignantly, “but the radio does.”

Of course— Of course it was the radio. Infinite loves that thing, and Gadget hasn’t had the heart to hide it. A grave mistake.

“Not to mention,” Infinite continues, “the city is quiet, and everyone is nice. That only happens after something big. It’s not hard to put together.”

Gadget doesn’t know what to say, can’t say what he needs to say, so he mechanically bends down, picks up the spatula, throws it in the sink, and pulls the pan off the stove. The pancakes aren’t done.

+

That night, they sleep in the same bed, back to back. It was dark when Gadget returned, but he could hear and sense Infinite waiting up for him in bed. The sheets were pooled around his middle, his hair was up, and he was watching, eyes partially glowing in the dark. He didn’t say anything as Gadget climbed under the covers, but he didn’t have to—it was all there, between them, festering and weeping like an open wound.

Gadget wandered off into the city after breakfast. Mainly because he was hungry (they didn’t actually eat at breakfast, just kind of pushed cereal around their bowls and avoided looking at each other), but also because he had to get out. He felt bad leaving Infinite in there alone, knowing that he wouldn’t leave no matter how much he wanted to. He still loved Gadget that much, trusted him that much, that even when they were arguing, he still didn’t want to upset him.

He’s the same, after all this time, and that’s the thing that bothers Gadget the most. He can’t get away from it, how Infinite was pre-Ruby, all softness in the privacy of their apartment, long stares and hard sighs. Gadget, in comparison, is completely different—hardened by war and by loss, by fighting with the person closest to him. And not typical, domestic fighting, not arguing. They battled to the death, on opposite sides of a war, fought at the tipping points. He couldn’t get it out of his head, saw Infinite in his dreams, saw him launching projectiles and teleporting around, kicking everyone like soccer balls. People died— He almost killed Gadget. He can’t just forget that.

He stayed out all day, trying to put all of this into boxes, pack it all up so he could deal with it later. For now, he needed to go back, to the time before, try to understand how the Infinite-of-before would be feeling in this situation. He’s still operating on the Infinite-of-now, the Infinite that Gadget sorta wants to suffer a little, just because of how much he hurt everyone. But, the Infinite-of-before is innocent to all that. He was just trying to do his job before all this started, trying to set his life on track, trying to make sense of the world in his own little way. Gadget can’t fault him for everything that happened in between, not really.

But, eventually, the two must meet. Before and now. It’s just a question of when and how. Gadget has to do it soon.

Or else, Infinite will find out from somewhere else, someone meaner, someone who can only see the worldwide tragedy in its grandness, someone who wants to pin it all on one or two people. Gadget alone can see the tiny tragedy unfolding in his living room, where innocence meets terror, when the past must reconcile the present, and he knows there’s more nuance than just whodunit. Infinite is a casualty in this too, in his own way.

So, he climbs into bed, petrified of the conversation, but he’ll have it if Infinite wants it. They’re both adults; they trust each other endlessly and know how to talk to one another. They can do this if they want.

It’s quiet, barely the whisper of their breaths. The dresser is casting a strange shadow on the wall that Gadget’s never seen before, and he squints at the wall, trying to pinpoint what it is. The same bottles are there, lined up in the same order because Infinite is particular, the same picture frames, the same knick-knacks.

Then, he sees it. The mask. Hard points, lightning bolt eyes, large ears. Gadget sits up, shaking, wants to gag but swallows it down, and he kicks his legs out. He has to get out of here— He can’t— He can’t be here with that thing—

Infinite’s hand snakes around Gadget’s wrist, pulls his whole arm taunt as Gadget tries to pull away. Infinite’s still stronger than him, just barely, but he doesn’t jerk him, pull him, just holds him in place. His hand is hot, brand hot, his fingers tight, and if the color white had a feeling it would be this: those fingers, clutching desperate, searing like plasma.

Gadget turns his head, just there, and can just make out Infinite’s face in the low light. He’s got tears in his eyes and he makes full eye contact, doesn’t hesitate, just lets his eyes draw a parallel line with his arm, right up to Gadget’s face.

“Let go,” Gadget says hollowly, and he can feel the mask staring at him. “Infinite, let me go.”

“I need you,” Infinite whispers. “Gadge... I don’t know...” He looks toward the dresser. “I don’t...”

Gadget pulls and Infinite lets him go. With quick, sure steps, Gadget scoops up the mask without cognizant thought, opens the window, and flings it out. They hear it sail in hyper-detail, hear it land on the street below, where it will be run over by a passing car, then another, then another, eventually become so mangled that no one will recognize it come morning.

+

Gadget finds himself back in bed with his arms wrapped around Infinite’s back. Infinite is crying softly into Gadget’s chest, and Gadget wants nothing more than to pull Infinite into his ribcage to keep him safe from this hard truth, these evil deeds and their reporter-neutral statistics: this many dead, this much property damage, this many injured, this many children parent-less, this many buildings burned, this many lives ruined, this many people who can’t hold those they love like Gadget is holding Infinite, this, this, this...

“I don’t remember,” Infinite whispers so lowly it’s like he’s mouthing it into Gadget’s skin. “I don’t remember any of it. How do you know— What if it wasn’t me? What if they just used me somehow?”

Gadget doesn’t want to say these horrible things to him, but he also doesn’t want to lie to him. Lying would be doing them both a disservice, running from the problems, ignoring everyone who still suffers. “You recognized me.”

Infinite pulls away from Gadget, sits up so he can see him. The fur on his face is stained from his tears, tacky with salt and still slightly wet. “What?” he whispers.

“In one of the battles...” Gadget struggles for words for a second, because suddenly he’s back there. Barrage from above, crawling, speedy robots on the ground, Infinite floating before them, juggling two of his cubes like Baoding balls. Gadget’s battalion, nearly decimated except for Gadget and one other, bleeding out under Gadget’s hands as he tried to CPR breath back into his lungs. Infinite, floating toward them, indifferent toward the dying soldier, eyeing Gadget like he was a familiar landmark, with a detachment that terrified him.

You’re still beautiful, Infinite said as he grabbed Gadget’s chin between his hard, strong, thin fingers. A waste on the resistance. When this is over, I’ll come for you.

He can still feel those fingers on his face. They were like ice, left his face burning from frostbite, and he has to fight to keep himself from flinching.

“You saw me in one of the battles and recognized me. Said my name,” Gadget mutters (lies). It’s better to just keep it simple. Infinite doesn’t need to know this; no one else was there. The soldier died under Gadget’s worried hands after Infinite teleported away, suffocated on the blood filling his lungs. When Gadget got back to headquarters, numb, everyone thought he was shocked by the death, and he was, but there was also Infinite and his darkness. This was his friend... His— His. Infinite used to be his, and now he wasn’t anything Gadget recognized.

“I don’t remember,” Infinite whispers again. “You have to believe me.” He’s pleading, as if Gadget’s belief really matters. Even if he doesn’t believe him (and he does), that won’t change what he did.

“I believe you.”

“It wasn’t me. They were using my body. I’m— I’m terrified of guns.”

Gadget doesn’t want to have this conversation anymore. He nods, because that’s a good way to let someone know you’re listening if you don’t want to say anything, and pulls Infinite back into his chest. Even with all of this, it feels good to hold him again.

+

In Gadget’s defense, it was self-defense.

Dreams are fickle things, but Gadget usually doesn’t let them get to him. This time though, with the stress of rebuilding, the stress of Infinite’s memories (or lack of memories), the stress leftover from the war... just, the stress. With all that stress, this one gets under his skin, lives within him even as he opens his eyes, realizes he’s thrashing but can’t move, something is holding him down, someone—

Mismatched eyes, glowing in the dark, a sharp muzzle, leaning over him with what looks like a smirk, a poisoned grin.

“Get off!” Gadget yells and throws his head forward. It’s a move he learned from Knuckles months ago and he’s never had to use it, mainly because all of his enemies were robots that he destroyed from a distance with a wispon, but he has the muscle memory from practice. He headbutts his attacker hard, smashes the hardest part of his head into the guy’s nose, is satisfied by a crunch.

“Ow, Gadget, what the hell!”

Gadget comes back to himself then, recognizes his bedroom, the familiar lumps of his bed, and Infinite, angled away from him, cradling his face, attempting to mask his bleeding nose.

“Oh, oh Chaos,” Gadget springs up, climbs onto his knees so he can reach for Infinite. He takes Infinite’s head between his palms, moves him so he can see his nose in the low light. It’s twisted out of shape, clearly broken, and he flounders for a second, unsure of what to do. Quietly, gently, he reaches up and brushes his finger over the crushed cartilage.

“Shit! Gadget don’t touch it!”                                                                            

“Sorry, sorry!” Gadget recoils. “I panicked.”

Infinite is avoiding his gaze and he winces away any time Gadget tries to reach for him again. “Chaos, Gadge, what did the war do to you? You just headbutted me and broke my nose! I was trying to wake you up!”

“I’m sorry,” Gadget whispers, looking down at his own hands. “You reminded me... You reminded me of you... Hovering over me and holding me down.”

Infinite winces, but for a different reason this time. “I didn’t— I didn’t do that to you, did I? During the war...? I-I didn’t hold you down and— Oh Chaos.” He hides his face in his hands, being very careful of his still bleeding nose, and Gadget hears his breath hiccup some, as if he’s going to start crying again.

“No!” Gadget yells, almost impulsively. For a second, he’s back there, back in the war, with Infinite floating above him, grabbing his chin, grinning that sharktoothed grin, and he wants to get away from it, these horrible memories that are creating these horrible dreams, these horrible flashbacks. He just wants to go back to before, when he could trust Infinite without flinching or second guessing, but that’s about as possible as the war being a dream. There will be no going back.

This is their new normal: Gadget with bad dreams, self-defensive attacks, Infinite with broken noses, confused, betrayed expressions, this distance between them that Gadget is clawing at, trying to close. Infinite is exhausted and confused, trying to put together the scattered pieces of the last six months, but he can’t when Gadget is still dealing with it himself.

“No, you didn’t,” Gadget mumbles. He can give Infinite this: reassurance that he was bad, but not that bad. “You didn’t do anything like that. We just... fought.”

Infinite visibly deflates, nose still freely bleeding, and Gadget feels filthy, as if he’ll never be able to get rid of this horrible feeling—that he’s a liar, even though he’s telling the truth.

+

Emergency room again, Infinite’s nose splinted, held together with tape and gauze, a curtain surrounding the bed, Gadget in the visitor’s seat. Silence between them.

Infinite’s nose is numbed; Gadget watched them stick the needle in with blind horror, but he had to watch because of everything that he’d done. He had to stay with him. Still, even after the war, he’s not a fan of needles. He’d been stitched up plenty times, but the needles always got to him. Death robots firing at his face? Piece of cake compared to a needle.

It’s strange, being back here again so soon. People were looking at them, before the curtain was drawn, probably because they knew Eggman’s lackey was a jackal, so every jackal was suspicious. Even the doctor, when he asked why Infinite’s nose was broken, had looked at them with narrow-eyed contempt. Gadget and Infinite had both been quick to say, “Ran into a door,” their agreed upon excuse, and their chorused answer convinced the doctor. He nodded, fixed Infinite up, and told them both to be more careful. He even pulled the curtain as he left, because he could see the eyes too; they weren’t subtle.

“What really happened?” Infinite asks, voice stuffy because of his nose. “During the war?”

Gadget doesn’t want to answer, but he has to. He can feel it, the inevitability, the compelling urge to just get it all out there. Whatever had been holding him back disappeared when his head collided with Infinite’s nose.

So, he tells him. He tells him about how the Ruby took over, how Eggman used its powers to create robots and to destroy everything, capture Sonic, destroy more. How Gadget himself joined the Resistance because there was nothing left, both of the world and of his sense of self, time, and space. It was the only thing he could do, because anger was all he had left—anger and fear.

He tells him how he found Infinite again, how they came face-to-face there, on the battlefield, and how everything had narrowed to just the two of them for a second. How everyone else died around Gadget and he was the only one and Infinite knew it.

How Infinite let him live, how he recognized Gadget, how something cracked then. When he fought Sonic later, and lost, it was the beginning of the end. How things fast-tracked after that, how Infinite went down and disappeared. How Gadget mourned him silently, inconspicuously, even then.

(What he doesn’t tell him: how Infinite grabbed his chin, said those horrible things to him. How Gadget half-wished, in that moment, that Infinite had killed him, because at least then he wouldn’t have to see it anymore—wouldn’t have to see Infinite, so corrupt and unrecognizable.)

+

The next afternoon they’re at home. It’s quiet, but a comfortable quiet. Infinite is sitting by the radio, large ear piqued to listen to the news. Gadget is scrubbing the floors because cleaning helps him forcefully forget things. They haven’t talked much since the hospital. Infinite took it all in with downcast eyes and ears, fiddling with the threads of the hospital blanket. They slept together in bed, back to back, but didn’t say anything, didn’t touch beyond their spines, slotting together like puzzle pieces.

Now though, Infinite mumbles, “I’m sorry,” to Gadget’s bent back. Gadget freezes, looks up, drops the mop.

“For what?”

“For not remembering.”

Gadget’s brow furrows, and Infinite thinks he’s cute, thinks that if things were different, he would stand, scoop Gadget up and swing him around because he can. But, things aren’t different, and he’s glued to the seat, trapped by his own fear and the giant hole in his memory.

“That’s not your fault,” Gadget answers, mystified.

Infinite shrugs, looks up into Gadget’s face, ignores the flinch when Gadget makes eye contact (and how long until that ends? until Gadget learns to trust him again?), and mutters, “Maybe not, but if I could remember, then I could apologize for what I did.”

Gadget’s brow clears up, his eyebrows rise, and he makes a small ah sound. With barely a whisper of his bare feet on the tile, he ghosts toward Infinite. Gently, he places his hands on Infinite’s shoulders and bends so that they’re on the same level. “It wasn’t really you,” Gadget says. “We’ve talked about this. It wasn’t really you.”

Infinite can’t say what he means, not really. He wants to say I’m sorry for not being in control. I’m sorry for giving in. I’m sorry for not being strong enough. I’m sorry for not loving you enough, you and this world that you live in. I’m sorry for letting something so evil poison me. But he can’t; he doesn’t have the words. So, he just says, “I’m sorry.”

Gadget sighs, picks Infinite’s chin up with a gentle hand, and holds him there, fingers around his jaw. “Listen to me, there’s nothing to forgive. It wasn’t you. I’ll have some nightmares and sometimes, from the wrong angle, I won’t recognize you, but that’s not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t help.”

Infinite wants to argue, but Gadget looks so serious, so earnest, that he can’t. His breath catches as he watches Gadget watch him, trying to find a crack in Infinite’s face, and all Infinite can do is nod. He wants nothing more than to give Gadget exactly what he wants, after everything he’s done to him.

“Good.” Gadget lets go and rises. He turns on his heel and goes back to the mopping, cleaning up after their messes like always.

[zuzuhe]

the sonic archie comics are unreal

as an 8 year+ ‘sonic veteran’, I gotta tell you, young me has read some shit. I used to be way into sonic stuff for some reason, and one day I discovered the sonic comics. I’ve collected over 300 issues and many of its spin off stories, and I need you guys to sit down because sonic comics are one fucking wild ride that never stops.

fun fact: Sonic comics are the longest running comic based off a video game. (started like... 1990′s and continues today...nearly 20 years now)

here’s my top 16 weird ass facts about the sonic comics you guys might enjoy:

16. Knuckles' half brother Knee-cap

So Knuckles’ mother(Lara-le) divorces his father(Locke) and ends up marrying a guy named Wynmacher and has a child with him who they named “Knecapeon Mace” but called him Knee-Caps for short.

15. Knuckles becomes evil Thor at some point

So Knuckles has this arch-nemesis named Dr. Finitevus who looks pretty cool and all and Finitevus I guess curses Knuckles to become this weird evil god that wants to destroy technology or something... and Knux’s father Locke ended up sacrificing himself so Knuckles could go back to normal so Finitevus indirectly killed Knuckles’s father...

honorable mentions.... Knuckles has a great uncle that is a floating robotic head because he abandoned his body so he could live longer... also Rouge has flirted and kissed Knuckles’s dad more than once.......................................... just thought I should throw that out there...

14. Sonic is a fucking stud jfc

Sonic has dated or flirted with nearly ever girl in this fckin franchise I need to lie down... and this one girl he was dating... Fiona the fox:

So apparently there was this robot duplicate made of Fiona when she was Tails’ age and Tails was dating that robot on an island or some shit and then he realized Fiona was fake... but then the real Fiona appears one day and she’s a few years older than Tails (16 while Tails is like 12 or 13) and Tails is heart broken because she starts dating Sonic but then she starts fucking cheating on Sonic with Sonic’s anti-self Scourge from another dimension and if you haven’t pulled out your wine bottle yet, now is the time to because damn do we need a drink after all this shit ... there’s just a lot of romantic drama in Sonic’s life

13. The Mina the Mongoose situation

So Mina Mongoose is this popular pop-singer that dated Sonic at some point. They have this weird drama where Mina gets shot in the back to save Sally for Sonic… but she survives and then I guess she gets over Sonic and starts dating her gothic asshole manager named Ash?????? Mina I guess had some weird ties with Mammoth Mogul some weird psychic evil mammoth who somehow initiated control over Tails, Mighty, and Mina and threatens to kill them unless Sonic breaks him out of jail and gives him a chaos emerald… trust me this comic gets really fckin dark and confusing..

Speaking of dark, Sonic and Co. eventually lose their entire city to Eggman and Nicole, a robotic A.I. makes an artificial recreated city, but then she gets taken over by some techno bitch and Mina has reoccuring nightmare and tries to throw a rebellion against her or some shit idk

Mina’s life has always been about drama, to the point where in the future she fucking marries Tails?! and they have TWO children Melody and Skye like what the fuck is happening right now

12.Tails’ family

Tails’ father (Amadeus) was a general that lead the mobian army against the humans. His mother Rosemary had actually worked with her husband to fucking OVERTHROW THE KINGDOM OF ACORN TO TRY AND CREATE A DEMOCRACY….. …. also Tails’ uncle Merlin Prower is more or less a “jedi” wizard who is learning the way of chaos power…. so Tails’ family is all over the place they’ve been kidnapped by aliens, roboticized, thrown in jail, I mean damn this kid has been hanging out with Sonic because his family was just not around him most of their life they love him but they got shit to do… fuck shit up Prower family damn….

11. Sonic’s family

Sonic’s real name is Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog. I shit you not. Sonic was just a nickname. Can you fucking believe this I’m dead omg.... His mom is blonde by the way, her name is Bernadette. His father (jules) was turned into a robot by Eggman and they have yet to reverse this process, but his Uncle Chuck is fine...he’s still got his luscious mustache.

Sonic ends up marrying Sally in the main future timeline and they have two children named Sonia and Manic, which are names derived from the Sonic Underground series where Sonic has two siblings named Sonia and Manic and all three are royals who the queen hid within the city to protect them from the evil Robotnik or some shit…. I mean how deep does this get….look at those fucking parallels...

10. Shadow marries Sally / future situation  

Knuckles who somehow has become a cowboy with a robot eye… marries an echidna named Julie-su and they have a daughter named Laura-su. Bunnie and Antione have two children who for some reason are half metal, as mentioned Tails married Mina and their two kids Melody and Skye…. no idea what the fuck happened to Amy in this future, she’s just kinda gone…. ???? idk

Shadow went and fucked up the timeline and took over as the new king of Mobius… so he married Sally. Luckily they didn’t take it as far as to have children but damn is Shadow a mess in his intentions throughout this comic series. Sonic and Co. somehow regain control of timeline and everyone is happy again and there’s new freedom fighters... Oh fyi Shadow also reunites with Maria kind of… he sees her in a computer program along with his creator… so that’s nice

9. the antis

…..there’s a anti sonic dimension.. where everyone is a gothic-punk alter-ego….. and Anti Sonic turned green because of the master emerald for some reason and I think either Knuckles or Knuckles’ father game him that scar on his chest…. Anti Sonic names himself Scourge and was dating Fiona who was cheating on Sonic…. fucking look at Anti-Tails I cant with this I am deceased…..

his gang likes to jump dimensions and Zonic the Zonecop didn’t like that.

8. Zonic the Zone cop

Zonic the Zonecop…. works under Zobotnik….. they’re basically cops who monitor all Sonic dimensions and take in prisoners who leave their dimensions or threaten to destroy dimensions/zones… Zonic always has to hunt down Scourge and other trouble makers and lock them up…. so anyone who dreamed of Sonic in power ranger gear well congrats your dream has come true….

7. Bean is fucking related to Jet from Sonic Riders apparently?????

So remember Jet the Hawk from Sonic Riders… well somehow he might be related to Bean or something???… and Bean calls him “ jettison Q. Hawkington….”   don’t know why but I find that funny

6. Eggman fucking snaps

Eggman FUCKING SNAPS OK LIKE HOLY SHIT.. like out of no where he destroys Sonic’s entire city, beats the shit out of him, captures his family and friends, and then tries to turn Charmy bee into a robot but instead gives him brain damage…. Sonic kinda snaps too and would almost consider severely harming or killing Eggman… luckily Sally’s robotic A.I. Nicole had built them all a new city out of nanites …  but this whole plot was…. out of every possible plot I could see in a Sonic franchise, having such a grave one thrown at me out of no where was the biggest fuckign surprise 7 year old me has ever seen ok holy fuck

5. Amy’s situation and her cousin Rob’O who is a king..?????

Amy used to be like… 8 years old or some shit then she wished upon a magic ring that made her body grow older by like 4 years or something so she could be part of the freedom fighters and potentially date sonic or something… so Amy is way younger mentally than she looks…

She has a cousin named Rob’O who married some echidna lady and they had a son named Jon… apparently Amy’s uncle was a king and Rob’O is next in line to the throne so Amy is somehow technically royalty ?????????????????? slkfjdk????

4. Charmy bee is a fucking prince and has a girlfriend

oh Charmy Bee is also a fucking prince who has a girlfriend named Saffron… no idea who came up with this plot or why

3.  Sally’s weird love life

Sally has a weird love life too, she is princess of Mobius despite her brother and his wife and child being next in line for the throne…..??? She ended up dating this secret service agent Geoffrey the Skunk who had a wife named Hershey the cat who I guess maybe got killed during a mission or something… Geoffrey got into some weird corrupted scandals with villains too I don’t recall his allegiance but Sally was smart for dumping his ass.

She also has some weird ass thing going on with this embodiment of the monkey king………??????

and then she had this arranged marriage thrown together by her father to marry the royal guard Antoine who was actually anti-Antoine from the anti dimension who imprisoned the real Antoine….. Antione I guess finally escapes and then ends up marrying Bunnie instead?????? who the hell are these writers and where did they come from

Sally and Sonic end up together in the end and Sonic becomes king of Mobius and they have kids and all so happy ending for her I guess…. besides that one timeline where she had to marry Shadow…

2. SNIVELY’S...LOVE LIFE...

Um…. Snively is …. Eggman’s nephew…. and something happens to Eggman and Snively somehow ends up dating this one techno-magic chick named Regina the Iron Queen.. she tries to take over Nicole’s nanites…  I have no idea who the fuck is writing the romance in this series but I’d like them to sign all my comics

1.THE WAR

apparently the sonic mobians had this massive war against “Overlanders” basically somewhat de-evolved humans due to a mutation experiment / bombs that aliens called Xorda bombarded onto pre-Mobius aka Earth. So more or less Eggman and Snively and any other humans are basically the endangered human species trying to regain control over their planet through xenophobic / racist ideals against the evolved animal species that is the Mobians and Sonic……………………….. I’m not fucking joking

LAWSUITS AND THE WEIRD REBOOT

So apparently Sonic Archie comics went into this huge timeline-dimensional reboot because one of the former writers Ken Penders has thrown multiple lawsuits into Archie comic’s hands and this shit has been going on since 2009 until even now…

Some weird things going on in the reboots:

there’s this lady named Breezie who is … in love with Neo Metal Sonic……I think she’s based off a side character from the old show………and I really think that’s all I should tell you as you can probably see how she was first introduced…  

Honey the cheetah… a concept from an old Sonic game I guess returned????

No romance at this point…….

they gave Sally clothes for some reason…

But basically Ken Penders, a previously major archie sonic comic writer, was the creator of multiple if not all of the echidnas involved in the sonic comic storyline. So Finitevus, Julie-su, basically the entire Echidna brother hood, Knuckles’ younger brother, Charmy’s girlfriend Saffron, Mina Mongoose, Mammoth Mogul, and even Amy’s cousin Rob’O are now required to be out of the story. Ken wanted to use the sonic characters he made for his own original graphic novel but Archie wanted to maintain copyright on his characters and concepts… I mean most writers and artists are aware that the things they produce for a licensed company are usually OWNED by that company, so its weird he’d even attempt something like that. Archie claimed Penders signed a contract as evidence for it but failed to produce the contract so the lawsuit settled in 2013. Because of this, Sonic Archie comic and it’s spin off series of Sonic Universe had to completely rewrite their stories to get his characters out of the picture, or straight up just redesigned the characters… he’s also recently claimed in 2015 he’s got another law suit in mind…??? He’s actually ‘inspired’ Scott Fulop to also file lawsuits after he left archie comics too.

Here’s a chart someone made for Ken Pender’s logic in some of his lawsuit filings which you can obviously tell is quite a mess:

honorable mentions

I mean there’s a shit ton of stuff I’ve missed or haven’t even mentioned about this shit…..

thanks for stopping by and letting me explain the horrific treasure that is the sonic comic series because whAT thE FUCK

my god I love the sonic comics 

[cutegirlmayra]

Sonic is gone on a mission for a lot of years that when he comes back, everyone is now adults. He tries to reconnect with everyone and it's mostly the same except with Amy because of how much her attitude has matured. Because of this, he finds its easy to hang out with her and easily finds himself falling for her but since he was gone for so many years, Amy is no longer pursuing him and now just sees him as an old friend, so Sonic does his best to reignite the old flame in her.

(Preview image is used with permission from the amazing Sonic Artist @masked-bixch! Please support her and her amazing talents! x 

I’ve done quite a few of these before, but I’m always down for Older Sonamy~

Prompt:

“It really was a whirlwind,” Sonic’s now lanky arms and legs draped over the tree’s branches, closing his eyes after looping an arm around it and jumping up. He was much older now, his quills were so long that they arched from his head and drooped down towards the ground.

He placed his arm behind his head, a cushion of sorts, looking up at the stars.

“But enough about me, Tails. How are all of you doing?” He smiled as he looked over to Tails, who happily obliged to the question.

“Well, Knuckles finally took my advice and used technology to protect the island more. He even convinced G.U.N to make it a sanctuary. It’s heavily guarded now and Knuckles even has a small living making it a tourist site.”

Sonic’s eyebrows raised, amazed to hear so much had changed.

“And the others?”

“Cream is happily married. Vanilla loves her new grandchildren.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Yeah. I mean… they’re bunnies, Sonic.” Tails kinda gave him a funny look and Sonic just scratched his nose, embarrassed.

Tails poked some figurative fun at him before sighing, “And me? Well…” He looked up at the sky. “I’m getting married too.”

“What!?” Sonic bolted upward, turning to him before seeming to sulk back to being unexpressive again. “…You really have all changed…”

“Not really. Not in here.” Tails pointed to his heart, looking up at Sonic. But then his smile changed to concern, worrying his friend hadn’t changed, and what the future held for him. “You know… it’s rather peaceful these few years… We’ve been defeating our home pretty well. What… What do you think you’ll do?”

Sonic remained silent, looking down at the waters below him, a stream babbling over Tails’s matured voice.

He closed his eyes, “Don’t know.”

Tails once again seemed worried, “…Sonic…”

“Everyone’s moved on. I know.” Sonic sighed and hopped down from the tree. “But there’s still someone you haven’t told me about.” He dusted off his back from the tree’s bark and twigs.

“Huh? Who’s that?” Tails tilted his head.

“Heh,” Sonic chuckled, never figuring he’d be asking something like this about… her. 

“Ever since I chose to leave on that mission… Amy said she’d never forgive me.” He looked to Tails now, carefully hiding with a sturdy mask his real intention in asking this. “Where is she now?”

Tails held his breath a second, his tails wavering in their usual bending behind him and situated themselves low to the ground.

“Amy’s…” Tails’s hesitance was clearly not for Amy’s benefit… and Sonic picked up on that.

The hurt was apparent in Sonic’s eyes, thinking the worst, as the shine of the water’s moonlight hit and sparked a deeper emotion that Sonic usually never revealed upon his face.

He still didn’t.

He turned around and folded his arms, “Figures. I guess that’s how it goes though, huh?” He took a deep breath, turning his head slightly to address Tails over his shoulder, “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“No guy.” Tails walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, a light smile, “There never was.”

Sonic’s surprise was covered by the darkness of the night.

He lowered his head and smiled, “Really..?”

Tails nodded, “But I wouldn’t let that glimmer of hope sink in too deep, Sonic. She’s changed. She’s not the little girl you used to know. She’s really grown up quite a bit.” he emphasized that change, but Sonic seemed to let it pass through one ear and out the other.

In a greater spirit, Sonic strutted away, waving back to Tails. “Thanks, buddy.” He barely heard him, only thinking about how much fun it would be to surprise her by showing up again. Maybe a playful tease here and there. At least that wouldn’t change.

“Sonic! I’m serious! She’s-!” Tails finally quit. He gave up trying to shout out when Sonic took off, “He’s gonna get himself hurt… And there’s nothing I can do about it.” he sighed, flying off into the night to return to his now luxury cruiser plane, massive and expensive.

Time went by and Sonic did end up meeting Amy, however, Tails was absolutely right. She had a fine job, a great set of new friends, and was living a very independent life.

A bit too independent for Sonic’s liking…

It was like she was just polite and sweet to him, but nothing more. She would joke about the old days, and her humor bothered Sonic when she used self-depreciative jokes about how she used to act around him.

“It wasn’t that bad…”

“Haha! You were my whole world! How was that not bad?”

She wore heels and long draping dresses. Her hair was slightly up and styled. She was a high-class lady. Purses and accessories, a real uptown girl.

It made Sonic uncomfortable.

However, though that was the case, it was suddenly easy to talk with Amy and get the real scoop on everyone and how their lives had changed. Amy held no secrets, and she told Sonic everything about Eggman and the gang. The battles they had to fight while he was gone. The great successes…

“It was hard at first,” Amy admitted, nodding to the beat of a song she was listening to over the speakers of the carnival they had stopped by. “We all realized we depended on you so much… We had to really fight and push past all our insecurities. We learned to rely on each other instead of just you. That was a huge turning point for me too… It wasn’t one man who could save the world, it was all of us.” She took a bite out of her ice cream and Sonic just held the cone in front of him, looking deep in thought at the ground as he heard how much his friends suffered without him, but also picked themselves up and overcame everything after him.

“Guess I didn’t realize how much I was limiting you all.” It was a spitfire comment and Sonic’s hot-tempered ego was shown just a bit. He took a bite of the ice cream and flinched at a brain freeze.

“Ohhh, don’t be so gloomy!” Amy patted his back, having him cough and swallow the pain back as he turned back to her, pouting. “You’re so much like your old self. I can’t lie, I was hoping you’d change a little bit…” She took another lick of her ice cream, “Emm~ So yummy~”

He just watched her… She had grown so much, but she was still as kind and trusting as ever.

“…Would it be so bad?” He suddenly said, jumping down the raised parking lot where they were sitting and looking over the carnival. “If everyone started trusting me again?”

Amy paused and lowered her ice cream. “…We did miss you, Sonic… but… Heroes are everywhere now. It’s not as rare as when you were with us.”

He felt his fist tighten.

“So… No looking up to me like I’m the greatest thing in the world?” He faked a smile to her, trying to keep everything light.

She noticed this time, something he wasn’t used too. “Sonic…” She jumped down and walked up to him, placing a hand on his cheek. “You’ll always be the famous Sonic The Hedgehog. History will count you as the fastest hedgehog in the world… The one who lead the revolution towards heroes saving the world. But that doesn’t have to be all you are.”

He had never felt her touch like this before. It startled him. His heartbeat… what was wrong with it? His hands flexed like a twitch at how calming and comforting the sensation was. It was like he wanted to come closer to it, and that spooked him.

She smiled a sorrowful look, which also upset him.

She removed her hand and placed it back by her ice cream. “You know… I think love is kinda awesome. It probably…” She began to turn away from him, and he felt the urge to reach out and grab the twisting end of her dress, just to hold her there… a little bit… longer…

“Only happens once… and never comes around again.”

If eyes are the windows of the soul, then words were the breeze and sunlight that escaped into the room within.

Sonic’s eyes were deeply plagued with having seen the room, knowing it was beautiful and lavishing in wonderful, homely comfort. And yet, he also noticed he didn’t hold the key to that home anymore…

“Only comes once?” He tried to act as though he didn’t understand, faking a false comprehension.

“…That’s not what I meant.” Amy took the bait but didn’t turn around. She took another small bite of her ice cream. “I should go, it’s been fun to catch up. But I do have work tomorrow…”

“…Tomorrow…” Sonic looked down. What would await him tomorrow?

Everyone had moved on and was living their lives… No one had time for a has-been.

“…Will you be okay, Sonic? Finding a place in this world… who has itself covered?” She finally did look back at him but was jolted back at how serious his expression had turned.

“S…Sonic?”

He narrowed his eyes to the ground, then looked up at her. “So… The world doesn’t need me anymore… Heroes are abundant… and I’m just a name drifting on the wind?”

She shook her head, immediately regretting her words. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it like that! Sonic! You’re still so important!” she came forward but that desire for someone had slipped out of Sonic.

He stepped back and turned his head away. “Alright… so the world doesn’t need me.” He closed his eyes, shutting her out. “But then…”

“…Do you?”

Amy’s eyes flinched back, her heart felt like a string had been pricked and dust sprayed off of it. She hadn’t felt this melody in a long time… She had forgotten so much about it.

“Sonic…” her eyes watered. “I… I have to go!” she wouldn’t cry in front of him. She had hardened herself too much for that. She bolted at lightning speeds, the ice cream dropped and abandoned in her rush to escape the past she loathed so much.

But… did she really hate that time? When she was so lovestruck and ditzy? Not a care in the world?

He bent down with a much tender look towards the fallen ice cream.

He let his own fall next to it and walked towards the side of the edge.

He scaled the rooftops and darted around the world that had no need of him… but waited. Patiently. For the time that maybe Amy’s world would.

And like usual, he didn’t have to wait long.

A car had almost hit Amy, but something blue and speedy had caught her and brought her to the other side of the street. That was the first occurrence.

Another time, someone stole Amy’s wallet. She summoned her hammer and raced behind him till he turned a corner. When she got there, he was already beaten down and the wallet left with a flower beside it. She had gripped her heart.

This kept happening… over and over again… and as it did, her heart pained to be beside him again… She couldn’t fight it. The loneliness of not being in love… The strain of taking on life without someone beside you.

When she finally did catch him, he had slowed down and turned his head back to her, wondering what she wanted…

The news had talked about a blue bullet, going around and saving people from ordinary inconveniences. But even those reports were so thankful for a guardian angel with blue light that surrounded him, saving them from a rainy day.

“Where do you think you’re going.” she stepped forward, heart pounding as she dropped her bags and charged him. “Without one of my infamous Amy Rose hugs!!!”

He smiled, having waited quite a while to hear that greeting again.

He held her close upon impact. She rubbed her head deeper into his chest and gripped him closer to her. She didn’t want to have a life without him again. It was too much to not be with the man she loved…

And Sonic?

Evil always rises when there’s greater Good to combat it.

But the Good is always better and conquers all its scheming.

Amy and Sonic were a power couple, alright. Villains rose that normal, present heroes didn’t have the skill to handle. But Tails and Knuckles would happily join in the ‘old times-sake’ fun, finding Amy and Sonic and taking them all on once again… as not a couple of snot-nose kids trying to save the world…

But as a family that would save the world, one act of love at a time.

[cynical665]

Sonic Adventure DX Retrospective

Sonic Adventure was Sega's way of brining their beloved Mascot into the 3rd Dimension. Since 1996 The Nintendo 64 was cleaning the floor of what it is to have great games with Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Sega was the first ever competitor in the 16-Bit Era against Nintendo with their Sega Genesis and Sonic The Hedgehog. 2D Games were now becoming Obsolete with consoles like the N64. Sega did try to make a 3D Sonic Game that was canceled called Sonic X-Treme. They canceled it because it was becoming more and more difficult to develop and even people like Yuji Naka, Head of Sonic Team, saying that it wouldn't be a good idea. They did try to put Sonic in 3D with the Sega Saturn with Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast. But those two weren't seen a true 3D Sonic Games, along with that the Sega Saturn died out. But Sega wasn't down yet, with the Release of the Sega Dreamcast on 1999 and it's Launch Title, A True 3D Sonic Game, Sonic Adventure.

Sonic Adventure was seen as the First True 3D Sonic Game. The last Sonic Game was Sonic 3 & Knuckles in which you can play as 3 Characters, Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles 'Tails' Prower, and Knuckles the Echidna. Not only are they also playable here in Sonic Adventure, each with completely different Stories and Gameplay styles, but also 3 Extra Characters: Amy Rose, introduces in the Sega CD Exclusive Ad-on Game Sonic CD, Big the Cat, a Brand New character, and E-102 Gamma, A Robot created by Dr.Eggman within a Series called the E-Series. Everyone has their own different Gameplay style going from Highspeed Action, A Third Person Shooter, A Hot & Cold Gameplay, all the way to Fishing. In the beginning of the Game we can only play as Sonic, but as soon as we finish Sonic's Story we can play as all the Characters. Let's go back and see all the gameplay to see if the game still holds up. I'll be playing the Steam Port of Sonic Adventure, so it'll be Sonic Adventure DX Directors Cut Version. With that out of the way, let's see what the game has to offer, years later.

-Sonic

Sonic hasn't changed much ever since 2D Times. He still has his Highspeed action, maybe too Highspeed. Sometimes bugs and glitches will creep their way into Sonic's Levels due to him just being too fast for the game to handle. Even in the first level Emerald Coast there's a large loop before a segment where whales chase you, where a side of the path pulls you in and you fall through the floor. This is one of the major flaws the game has. Major Bugs are in the game, all of which I've experienced have negatively impacted me. However these Bugs only affected me in Levels like the mentioned Emerald Coast, Red Mountain, and The Final Egg. Obviously it's only those 3 Levels, but I'm not going to put it down because it's only those 3. Sonic's Gameplay, as mentioned, is Highspeed Action filled with Levels that have nice Transactions like in the Classic Games. What I mean by that is like each part of the Level is like an Act in the Old Games. For example, In Speed Highway: Act 1 is on top of Buildings under the Night Sky going from Road to Road, Act 2 is running down a Tall Building being chased by Police Robots, then Act 3 is the Moring of that same city with Traffic more active then ever. Most Levels are like this for Sonic, however not for the rest of the Characters. Others get Exclusive Levels or Experience small portions of other Levels. But why is Sonic running around Beaches, Mountains, Cities, And Final Egg's? Well this time Eggman has awakened a Beast called Chaos. Eggman is trying to get all the 7 Chaos Emeralds to make Chaos Perfect Chaos, and with that he'll take over the world. Pretty Simple Plot for The Story, so simple In fact they could've made a 2D Sonic Game with just Sonic's Story and Level's and it would be a pretty Solid Game. Through out the game we keep on fighting Chaos, in different forms because we keep failing to get the Chaos Emeralds. After Chaos becomes strong enough Eggman goes into his brand new Flying Ship called The Egg Carrier. Once we got on board the Egg Carrier we go through the actual ship with a level called The Sky Deck. Besides the Hilarious entrance into the Sky Deck there's not much wrong about this stage. Though Gravity & Platforming are a bit wonky here and don't normally work to your advantage, and the level will take some Trial and Error to get through. However I only went through this with the Jet Section where the Floor Crumbles down. The Camera just didn't want to move and I couldn't get out. After that we're inside the Ship, then we go outside. What was the point of that? Why did we go back outside? Why couldn't we just go around that same area we went inside the Sky Deck? What was the point of that Entire Level? Whatever, after we go outside Eggman sends out E-102 Gamma. We defeat him, then Amy says that we shouldn't actually kill Gamma. We follow then we fight Chaos again, Then we reach our Final Level, The Final Egg. This level is a perfect Final Level, challenging what you already know and your skills. After a really well designed Final Level we fight Sonic's Final Boss, The Egg Viper. Before this I had so many lives with Sonic, here the Egg Viper is filled with inconveniences. The Homing Attack just refuses to lock onto Eggman, Eggman's Attacks seem to always hit if you aren't constantly running. But finally, we've beaten Sonic's Story.

-Tails

Tails shares the same most of the same stages as Sonic. This brings up one major flaw in Sonic Adventure DX, The Main Trio: Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles Go through the same stages but with slightly different gameplay styles. The gameplay style for Tails is the same thing as Sonic 2, where you just follow Sonic. But instead of just following Sonic, you're racing him: Trying to get to the Goal first. The story itself is the same with Sonic, Stop Eggman. But this time Tails finally learns that Sonic isn't always going to be with him and becomes more brave, something that is definitely missing in modern games. What happened when Tails want a coward, yes He IS 8 Years Old but that doesn't mean anything. He's faced much more then literal Water walking up to him. He's faced Dr. Eggman in Space. This is something about Tails that just disappeared after Sonic Colors, for no real reason. But this is where everything started for Tails, in my eyes. One other thing is Repetition.

 ~Repetition

There's a Game Mode where we go on The Tornado, Tail's Plane, and we fight against the Egg Carrier. Since Sonic AND Tails are in the level, we have to do it twice. This level comes up twice and it's so boring.

Whatever, We race Sonic and at one point we're split apart from him. During that time Sonic defeats Chaos, and out of desperation Eggman fires a Giant Missle at the city. We defeat Eggman, as brave as Tails ever was, and we save the City. And that's the end of Tails' Story

-Knuckles

Knuckles is just chilling on Angel Island and Chaos appears out of the Master Emerald, a bunch of pieces broke flew away. Knuckles has a sort of Hot & Cold Gameplay style, The closer you get to a Master Emerald Piece the Louder the Radar (That's exclusive to Knuckles' Levels) and you do that through the some parts of Sonic's Stages that actually have platforming. This leads to something I really don't like about Sonic Adventure DX.

~Character Development

The Characters, except E-102 Gamma & Tails, Are so Bland! They're actual bricks, they have a personality for one half and they keep it for the rest of the game. Gamma and Tails are the only one who I feel actually evolves while everyone else stays the exact same. Sonic just wants to stop Eggman and doesn't really change, Knuckles is just a Moron and only pays attention to what's in front of him, & Big just wants his Frog back. However Amy grows as a Character slowly over time, while Tails and Gamma sorta just get their Personalities in a Single Thought. After, I think its the first or second stage, Knuckles Finds Eggman and chases after him. And since Eggman doesn't have an Emerald Piece Knuckles sorta just leaves him go, DESPITE Eggman having a Chaos Emerald and even showing Knuckles he has it. Knuckles is so Idiotic that he trusts Eggman when he pulls the Sonic 3 & Knuckles Plot and says Sonic is after the Master Emerald.

So we fight Sonic, then insanely Fight Chaos 4....AGAIN. Uggghhh, and we just fought Chaos 3 before this! Why? Other then this, nothing interesting happens in Knuckles Story. It feels like a Rushed Game Mode, but it doesn't make it Not Fun. It's still alright but it could be improved on.

-Amy

Amy Rose is just walking around Station Square and a Bird flies up to her with a Robot, E-100 Alpha, chasing the bird. Amy runs into a restaurant and the Robot leaves for no reason. After that we try to find that sweet Sonic Booty. We head over to Twinkle Park and play around in there. We get caught by E-100 Alpha and we're inside the end of the story, Well that Escalated Quickly. We get trapped and E-102 Gamma is sent to get the bird from us. Instead of giving it to Gamma, we give Gamma a Speech about how he should be good and stop Eggman instead of helping him. We're sent free, we get off the Egg Carrier, we get back on and we fight the Final Boss for Amy, Zero (E-100 Alpha). It seems like I just breezed by this, and it's not because it's 11:09 PM while I'm writing this, it's because of how short the stories become after Knuckles. Amy is just 3 Levels and then the Boss. Also there are no other bosses, just Alpha. Amy's Story just proves that they wanted the game to be longer, she doesn't even get any exclusive levels, just old ones with a robot chasing you.

~Useless Stories

After Knuckles The stories become obsolete and futile. Amy, Big, and E-102 Gamma (as much as I hate to say it for Gamma) are just there to pan out the time of the game. They, Themselves, have nothing wrong with them, It's their Gameplay Style just stretches the game out due to how Slow, Unfair, Unfinished, and Boring the Levels are. If they were optional to reach the final story I wouldn't care about them and push them aside, but the fact that they are "key" factors in the game's plot and NEED to be finished to reach the End is just asinine.

-Big

Big the Cat has nothing to do with the story, all we do when playing Big is fishing. We need to fish other fishes to weigh enough to even think if catching froggy. There's actually nothing, the closest to the plot is that Froggy ate a Chaos Emerald and we want him back. We also fight Chaos 6. I've never felt more lost and bored in a video game in my life.

-E-102 Gamma

E-102 Gamma is the Prototype Version of The Eggman and Tails' Levels in Sonic Adventure 2. E-102, In My Opinion, is the best Gameplay style for The Level Design. But what's the difference between E-102 and the others? Well, first if all, E-102 is a Third Person Shooter where you mark enemies and shoot them down. One major difference is that now we have a Time Limit, the more things we shoot, target, and combo the more time you get. This opens up opportunities where you can finish a stage Minutes over the Clock or just barely scrap through a boss. But who is E-102 Gamma? E-102 is one of Eggman's Creations, in a Series called the E-Series. There's E-100 Alpha, E-101 Beta, E-102 Gamma, E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon, and E-105 Zeta. All of these efforts were put into the complete product shown off in Sonic Hero's called E-123 Omega. It's a disappointment that E-102 Gamma never came back, but I feel like his story explains why he never came back. You see, his story is alot more 'Emotional' then the other stories, well as Emotional as a Sonic Game can be. But enough about that, let's go to the first stage. Strange, we're in the last story and we have a tutorial stage. Here it shows off The Clock Gimmick and how Gamma Controls. After that Eggman pins us against our Older Brother, E-101 Beta. Instead of having a Machine Gun for a hand he has..Cannons? I don't know what to call those. We beat Beta and here it shows how Cruel and Heartless Eggman is, Since we beat Beta, he has no use for him so he was going to just throw him away. Beta stands in front of him like a crying puppy and Eggman say's he'll be allowed, but only for parts. This shows that, since Beta was the first, that the other robots having feelings and free will to disobey Eggman. It's sorta like a little view on what Gamma's story is all about. After that we are on board the Egg Carrier, along with E-103 Delta, E-104 Epsilon, and E-105 Zeta. Eggman tells us to go find Froggy, the Frog Big the Cat has been chasing for so long. We go over to Emerald Coast, get to the Half Point of the Stage, Find Froggy, and Go Back on The Egg Carrier. Delta, Epsilon, and Zeta are arguing over who has the real Froggy and Eggman calls them all useless. Eggman comes across us and sees we have the real Froggy. After that everyone is captured by a beam of light. E-104 Epsilon looks at us, in like a "Oh, don't leave me way" in shows and other media, and disappears. Eggman tells us to go to Amy, captured in cage, We're forced through another door and see E-101 Beta being..repaired? But he lost, isn't he supposed to be dead? Well, it isn't answered. We go through the right room and see amy refusing to give the bird to us, the bird flies towards us and Gamma gets a grip on himself. But why there? The bird was right in front of him, why give upon your objective? Whatever, now we're sent to go an top of the Egg Carrier and fight Sonic. Once we defeat Sonic, Amy stops us and tells us to ditch Eggman to do good things: Like save the birds. Gamma realizes what the others are doing so we go off and try to "Rescue", killing the others, and stop Eggman's Plans. But why does Eggman want the Bird? It's never said why, does he just want them just because? Once we go off, we defeat Delta and Epsilon, so onwards we go back to the Egg Carrier to get E-105 Zeta. He's a lot more different here, instead of just being a Robot he's now an entire Machine, most likely powering the Egg Carrier. This one was Heart-Thrusting for me because no matter what I always came at the last 10 Seconds or Less. But it's pretty easy, just tense. But there it is, we've finished everyone off. Or have we? It's final boss time. Here, we are against the final one of the E-Series. E-101 Beta, but he isn't a Beta now. He's now E-101 mk ll, mk is known as Mark. This boss is pretty Mediocre, but the Music. OOOO The Music it's so good. The boss consists of Dodging mk II, waiting for him to charge right at you, then hitting you. But why can't we just spam shoot him? Well because he takes that bullet and tosses it away, this is the only boss you cannot spam, and 2 Minutes to fight him is a good amount of time. This. Boss. Is. Difficult. One of the few difficult bosses in the game infact, the best one I would say. But once we defeat E-101 mk II, he does what the rest do and blows up. With that, Gamma doesn't have a purpose anymore, so just like his brethren he blows up, all the birds are now free and that ends all the stories of Sonic Adventure DX.

________________________________________________________________

{SPOILERS}

This part of the Retrospective will talk about the final boss of Sonic Adventure DX, You have been warned.

-Super Sonic

The Final Story is about Chaos Betraying Eggman and Destroying the City of Station Square. The Spirit of the Last of the Echidna Tribe, Tikal, appears and tells us that we need the 7 Chaos Emeralds because it turns out that Chaos only used the Negative Energy of the Chaos Emeralds and We can use the Positive Energy. We turn into Super Sonic and Finish Off Perfect Chaos. The Gameplay of this is just going forward corridors of Water, boarded off by Destroyed Buildings. We run into him, dodging projectiles, and keeping our speed along with our rings. We do this with Good Music, Open Your Heart which is alright. It's short, It's sweet, and even if you don't like it's gone very quickly. We defeat Chaos and he goes up into the...Sky? With Tikal, and the City is saved, under Rubble and an Ocean of Water.

Does Sonic Adventure DX still hold up today? God No, not even Half of the Game is Great, it's Mediocre. But I grew up with this game, so for me I don't care how bad this game is I still love it. I'd only recommended this game if you want to pass the time. But to just play it for fun, I'd only play Sonic's, Knuckles, and E-102 Gamma's Story.

[mobius-prime]

199. Sonic the Hedgehog #131

Deep breaths, guys. I know what the cover page says. I know. We'll get to that. Just hang in there. I think you might like what I have in store.

Home (Part 2 of 4): The Gathering

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

So not much actually happens in this installment of Home other than the various characters talking to each other about and preparing for the upcoming battle. Since Sonic has been gone, a new Freedom Fighter Special has been constructed that can cut travel time dramatically around the globe. A journey that in the Tornado or on foot (in Sonic's case) would have taken up to two hours can be completed in a mere half hour now, thanks to Rotor's engineering prowess. And thus, Sonic and Tails head out to Old Megaopolis to stop Eggman's twin nukes from launching, along with an… interesting backup team, to say the least.

Man, remember Fiona? It's been ages since we've seen her! It appears that while Sonic was in space, she joined up with the crew in Knothole and has been helping them fight Eggman. That's definitely a better life for her than to be running with the likes of Nic the Weasel, eh? Meanwhile, Knuckles, Julie-Su, Amy Rose, and the other two (active) members of the Chaotix head to Fort Acorn, where General D'Coolette is giving a speech to the soldiers under his command. We've never even heard of this fort before, but according to the general it's been here for ten years, keeping a forward watch on Robotropolis, and this watch has been maintained even after Robotropolis' destruction in case of just such a situation as the current one. With their reinforcements from Knothole, the crew at the fort prepare to defend the city against a massive swatbot assault to lower the forcefield keeping the radiation in check. Back in Knothole, extra measures are being taken to make absolutely sure that even if the worst happens, the citizenry will be safe.

Station Square, for their part, has sent a squad of GUN commandos to help in the battle at Old Megaopolis. The commander of the military is baffled by this decision, wanting to send in their full fighting force, but the president instead opts to trust his allies from Knothole - though just for insurance, he's sent one of his own operatives along for the ride…

Now that's what I like to see! It's about time Rouge got herself some proper screentime. As all this is going on, Eggman waits aboard a docked battleship in the harbor of Old Megaopolis with his assistant M, and orders A.D.A.M. to begin the missile countdown. However, almost immediately, the sound of a biplane puts them on high alert, and Eggman is shocked to see Sonic and Tails bearing down on his location, not having expected them to be able to get here nearly so fast. See, Eggman, this is why you resist the siren call of your ego and keep your damn plans to yourself. All you did was give your enemies ample warning to prepare to foil your evil plot, you idiot!

Mobius 25 Years Later: Prologue

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

Okay, guys. This is it. We've reached the most Penders thing of all time. This is something that has been hinted at here and there from all the way back in the Sonic In Your Face special to now, and we're finally seeing the culmination of all of that buildup. All the intricate worldbuilding, all the complex character arcs, all the intrigue and political spider webs and back to back wars and everything that the world of Mobius has been through up until now - there's so much to explore, so many directions it could have gone. We're about to see what this world might look like twenty-five years into the future, and with so much rich history to draw from, what might you imagine this story might look like? What genre might it fall into? Well wonder no longer!

It's a drama. It's a teen drama.

There's a reason that Mobius 25 Years Later is widely considered to be one of the worst parts of the comic. The tone of it is just so far off anything else we've experienced so far that it clashes horribly with what we've come to expect. It's not some masterful subversion of expectations or something - in a lot of ways I consider it to be a genuine insult to the rest of the preboot's material up to this point. It's painfully and immediately clear that this is a story Penders has wanted to tell for a while, but, not being able to fit his "middle-aged adults adulting everywhere and being so adult-like while ignoring the feelings and difficulties that ordinary teenagers face" plot anywhere into the rest of the comic, he's opted to just fire the world a couple decades into the future, pair all the major characters off into weird and oftentimes arbitrary heterosexual marriages, give everyone 2.5 children and a titanium picket fence, and then throw in some allusions to the old "war against Doc 'Botnik" here and there lest we forget, entirely understandably at this point, that we're reading a Sonic the Hedgehog comic here. This thing goes on for nineteen whole issues, taking up each subsequent issue's backup story, and ultimately has no real impact on the actual story involving the characters we already know and love. However, this is technically canon, or at least a version of canon (as when you play with alternate realities and multiple timelines, futures are bound to get mixed up here and there), so we're gonna be covering it - all of it. I wouldn't be tempted to skip it anyway, as by delving into each chapter in this trainwreck, we can actually explore why this whole thing fails so hard, and why it's therefore so loathed in the fandom. Plus, I do recognize that some people actually do enjoy this arc for various reasons (one of my close friends does, and has a whole AU of her own relating to it in fact), so I do plan to at least try to be fair in my review - but I really can't hide that I find this whole affair boring as hell, often downright offensive, and ultimately completely out of place. With all that in mind, let's dive in!

We begin with a full page of exposition delivered to us via high school lecture, because everyone knows the best way to establish your worldbuilding is by infodumping it directly into your audience's eyeballs. Apparently, over the last twenty years, Angel Island has been heavily developed into its own independent republic, with a new city, Portal, acting as the center of trade between the island and the mainland below. We're once again introduced to Lara-Su, who, instead of being the badass time-traveling young adult whom we followed before, is now an ordinary teenager taking ordinary high school classes among a bunch of ordinary high school echidnas.

One of the biggest failings of this story is that Penders writes every teenage character how he thinks teenagers act, from his point of view as a middle-aged adult. This becomes abundantly clear the longer you read, as every teenager is a hormone-fueled, authority-defying, entitled, whiny, fickle child who just doesn't understand how the real world works, while every adult is a wise, experienced, and highly logical individual who always knows more than their younger fellows and refuses to pay attention to the whims of mere children. Like, I'm not even exaggerating here - I'm going to be pointing out every instance of this kind of behavior over the entire rest of this arc, and you can't stop me, so nyah nyah. Penders shows so little respect for the mere concept of teenagers, which is a terrible attitude to have not just in general, but especially if you're one of the head writers for an entire series about teenagers saving the goddamn world! Anyway, case in point: the teacher, instead of admonishing Rutan for being a bully, merely snaps at Lara-Su for not acting enough like a "young lady" and tells her to stay after class. Ugh.

Later that day, Rotor arrives on Angel Island as a liaison for the royal ruling couple, Queen Sally and King Sonic, because yes, Sonic literally becomes king in this timeline. He catches a ride from Harry - hey, good to see our favorite dingo still doing well for himself at least - and meets with Espio, who is now apparently Knuckles' secretary or something. At least, that's all I can assume from this weird-ass conversation.

As a matter of fact, yes, Sonic and Sally are bringing their two children, Sonia and Manik, to the family dinner! How very mid-70s domestic family unit of them! Espio informs Knuckles of this over a television screen as the latter broods around in some kind of high-tech facility. Unlike what we've seen of Espio, the years have dramatically changed Knuckles' appearance - his right eye is missing, replaced with a mechanical one, and he sports the cowboy hat that Hawking gave him in the past (you know, the one we never saw again after he received it). While I actually quite like the idea of a main character in the comic losing something as important as an eye, I feel like there's a huge missed opportunity here - instead of just thrusting us into an alternate future where everything is fine but one character is inexplicably missing an eye, how about actually showing us the story of how that eye was lost? Show us a Knuckles who's learning to cope with the loss of an important body part, and having to adjust to his mechanical prosthetic! Go into his feelings about the subject, as someone who has so long been opposed to a faction that thrives on mechanical prosthetics, instead of just skipping over what has the potential to be the most interesting part of this story! Ugh, sorry, there's just nothing that gets to me more than a missed opportunity like this. Knuckles and Espio exchange some tortured small-talk about their kids for a little while, with the only interesting part of the conversation being their discussion of Rotor's arrival and how he's likely here to see someone named Cobar, with whom he apparently has a history. More on that later. Knuckles excuses himself from the conversation, as he has to be home in time for his daughter's "Unveiling" tonight, and as the call ends we zoom out to see that apparently nowadays, the Master Emerald is hooked up to all sorts of technology in this facility, presumably maintaining everything automatically. However, this story isn't done throwing weird curveballs at us yet - it's time to see what our former villains are up to in this future!

There is so much to unpack here. Dimitri, feared overlord of the Dark Legion, is now an amiable cyborg-head-in-a-bubble. Lien-Da, the treacherous second-in-command who regularly spoke of betraying Dimitri and taking the Legion in her own darker direction, is now apparently a single mom who's embraced the domestic life, taking care of her rowdy teenage son while, predictably, complaining about the behavior of kids these days. And weirdest of all, apparently everyone is just fine with these literal former terrorists living in their midst and doing ordinary mom and grandpa things, with Lien-Da even apparently amenable to the idea of trying to make up with Julie-Su because "they're family," despite her history of, you know, erasing Julie-Su's memory multiple times and killing her biological parents as revenge for her birth. I mean, is this what Penders thinks adulthood is? Is he even entirely sane? Does he know the definition of terrorism?

Any-goddamn-way, Knuckles arrives home to his eerily sterile-looking steel-plated mansion that looks more like the lobby of a pharmaceutical laboratory than a place where people live, and greets his loving housewife Julie-Su, who's gained a cute giant ponytail but lost absolutely everything else that made her unique, including her own cybernetic parts and just her personality in general. She informs Knuckles that Lara-Su has locked herself in the bathroom and is having herself a mighty tantrum, refusing to come out to get ready for her Unveiling ceremony, which is apparently the equivalent of a Quinceañera for echidna girls. Knuckles, instead of doing something reasonable like asking her why she's upset, starts aggressively demanding that she come out of her room this instant, while Lara-Su repeatedly yells about how she doesn't wanna. Ugh, teenagers, amiright?

Seriously, I just can't get over how little respect Penders has for teenagers in his writing. Like, yes, I acknowledge that teenagers aren't always the most logical of beings, but they're also not goddamn three-year-olds either. They're old enough to articulate their desires and express their unique opinions, and often do so in very mature ways, especially if they're raised well and treated with the same respect you'd afford any adult. I should know, I was one myself. I would have assumed Penders was one as well at some point, but perhaps he just popped into the world one day as a fully-formed 43-year-old, full of disdain for those younger than himself. It would certainly explain everything we're seeing here.

Anyway, it turns out that the reason Lara-Su is upset is because Knuckles refuses to train her to be a Guardian, and so she whines and yells about it from behind the door like a petulant child as Knuckles continually refuses to actually give her a solid reason why he won't let her be one. When Julie-Su basically forces him to calm the hell down and explain himself, he reluctantly explains that since all the duties of a Guardian have by now been taken over by other functions of their society, he feels there's no longer any need for one, himself included. This is apparently enough to make Lara-Su immediately happy enough to burst out of the bathroom and grab her father's arm, suddenly totally excited to go to her Unveiling as long as Knuckles promises her the first dance. Ah, the fickle mind of a silly, silly teenager!

Kill me.

[mobius-prime]

105. Sonic the Hedgehog #62

Icon

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo

Sonic and Tails continue their search for Naugus, flying over a desert in the middle of nowhere, when they abruptly begin to run into engine trouble. Sonic tries to find a safe place to land, and manages to aim the plane directly at the only tree in the entire desert, crashing and uprooting it. Great job, buddy!

Uh, sure, Mr. Rabbit Man! This issue contains some flash…aways? (I feel like that's the only logical thing to call something that isn't a flashback but acts like one, as a break from the main action. I dunno man.) We get to see Snively biding his time in the Devil's Gulag, and actually get some new info on the place, namely that the place is named for the fact that the island the prison resides on is surrounded by volcanoes that superheat the ocean water around it, causing the waters to boil with no obvious method of getting away, which is about as close to hell as you can get on this mortal plane. Snively keeps bragging about how he's trained up his mind and body to escape, flexing some pathetically tiny arm muscles while Drago laughs his head off at him, and really, can you blame him for laughing? Snively is about as threatening as the Universalamander's original form at this point. Back to Sonic, and we learn that this tank-drivin' cybernetic-eye-havin' rabbit, named Jack, is just an honest to god huge fan of Sonic's, going so far as to take inspiration from the Freedom Fighters and modeling his own band after them to drive back Robotnik's sub-bosses in the area. But that's not the only trouble they face…

For whatever reason, these Robians never got the memo that they were free of Robotnik's control, much like the Mercian Robians, and they've been viciously attacking Jack and his band of Sand-Blasters. Sonic hops out of the tank and impresses Jack by creating a tornado with the sheer power of his spinning speed, sending all the attacking Robians flying. He gets back from his show of heroics just in time to be dazzled by the sight of Jack's city in the distance, glowing amongst orange rocky cliffs with a bright yellow forcefield grid stretching over the entire thing. And here, as they enter the city, is where we come to the first of what I'll go ahead and call the "satellite sequences." Remember that, 'cause I won't show them all as many look very similar, but they're very important to note, now that they've started showing up.

What's going on here? What's activating? What's it locking onto, and perhaps most importantly - who's activating it? All answers that will come in time…

Inside the city, everyone is greatly pleased to have the hero Sonic himself here to help them defend their land. Sonic initially thinks they're going to a nice hotel where they can rest, but nope, they're going to the "most important spot in town," which turns out to be…

…a little much, don't you think? I mean, be real, first of all - that's not even how Sonic would be posing after a battle. It makes him look all solemn and grandiose, when the real Sonic is more prone to, I dunno, running around talking smack, grinning like an idiot, and stuffing his face with chili dogs after a battle. Jack is hopeful that now that they have the real Sonic around to help them, they may be able to drive off the hostile Robians and no longer have to rely on the forcefield surrounding their city to protect themselves. Back we go to the Devil's Gulag, where Snively is reclining on his bed and filing his nails while detailing all the dastardly things he plans to do once he escapes his cell. Naturally, Drago isn't having it.

…well, that was easy.

Back in Sand-Blast City, the next morning, Tails awakens while Sonic is still asleep, only to worryingly find their room's door locked from the outside. He initially thinks they've become prisoners while they slept, but then finds a skylight open for him to fly out of. He heads out to find Jack and his team covering Sonic's biplane with a tarp, and questions them on why. Interestingly as well, this is the first time we see Tails' eyes depicted as blue. It's only for a couple of panels as he flies out of the room to investigate, but as you might know, at this time the Sonic Adventure game was being developed (this issue came out in mid-1998, the game was released in December of the same year) and that game was the first to depict everyone with colorful eyes instead of the usual black pupils. The comic actually found a way to handle that transition, but it wasn't always smooth, as we'll see.

Sonic, don't be getting lazy on us now! Naugus may have already put his cloudy face back together, after all! We end on one final shot of the pandemonium unfolding in the Devil's Gulag, as Drago, Sleuth, the Fearsome Foursome, and even ol' Nack the Weasel begin a riot that spreads through the whole prison…

On His Majesty's Secret Service (Part 2)

Writer/Colors: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney  

This story begins right where the previous one left off - turns out Geoffrey didn't get a good night's sleep after all, because as soon as he walks into his quarters, he detects an intruder - an intruder which then explodes violently!

Oh, hey, remember these guys? They helped out way back in the Knuckles Chaotix special, apparently friends of Mighty's, but never showed up again. Well, here they are now! Also, apparently Bomb survives by transferring his artificial intelligence into a new "vessel" every time he explodes, allowing him to essentially use himself as a walking explosive, escaping digitally at the last second before he goes off. I guess that makes more sense than how Bob-Ombs work in Paper Mario, so I'll take it!

The next morning, Geoffrey gathers his new recruits - Heavy and Bomb, Hershey, Wombat Stu, and the chameleon, whose name is revealed to be Valdez - in the armory to show off a cool new weapon. It looks like a block of machinery about the same size and shape as a tube of lipstick, but when he fires it off it straight up blows a hole in the roof, because who needs the training grounds to maintain any kind of structural integrity? He then promises the sufficiently dazzled recruits that he'll work them to the bone training them for combat and secret missions until he feels that they're ready, and demonstrates this by immediately dropping a trapdoor out from under Hershey, sending her plunging into a tank of water with a mechanical shark in it. Amazing leadership skills man, I'm sure everyone will trust you with their lives after a stunt like that!

Can we just remember that Hershey didn't even volunteer for this? She even asks herself "What was I thinking when I enlisted in this," but like, girl, you didn't. This madman just told you to show up here in the morning and then surprise dunked you. You have every right to walk away right now. She doesn't, however, and Geoffrey commends Valdez and Bomb for immediately jumping in and showing a spirit of teamwork to save their fellow secret service recruit. He also yells at Hershey for being upset that she got dunked, telling everyone that they'll have to work on making up for their weaknesses. I can tell Geoffrey is going to be an instructor who's great for morale!