Chapter Text
How does a prince become an orphan?
What a silly question.
It’s simple, you see. You just have to kill the king. The queen was already long gone, anyway.
It was not Sonic’s intention for his father to fall suit. At least not consciously.
His father was fascinated by him. So deeply invested in his son- perhaps for all of the wrong reasons, but he made sure he was well cared for.
There is, however, a difference between well cared for and loved.
Sonic was an infinite source of power, born from his own blood. Jules never did say how mother died and constantly shifted his eyes away with any mention of her. Told Sonic that everything he did was for the good of his country, to uphold the great peace.
Sonic tried to keep that in mind when he was hooked up to invasive machines and prodded like he was an object instead of a child. He tried so very hard to be a good son. Nod when asked to do something. Comply no matter the order. Don’t let out a sound even if he hated needles and tubes and wires.
Be a good little boy and let daddy take you to banquets and Royal events to show his wonderful son to the masses and wonder just why he’s never so warm or welcoming behind closed doors. Be a good little boy and try not to question why everyone else you’ve ever met has a smile that never quite reaches their eyes, teeth bared in a facsimile of happiness while their tired, angry eyes bore holes into your own and your father’s head. Be a good little boy and act properly, sit up straight, learn vocabulary and manners, and more than any other toddler ever should.
Sonic was very smart for his age.
He knew there was something different about him. The powers he had weren’t normal. In fact, sometimes he felt that his powers were all people saw when they looked at him.
All that his father saw when he looked at him.
At least, before the incident.
It happened on a beautiful twilight in the middle of the warm season.
Sonic was so tired, despite his young age. They wanted to take more and more each day. More than he wanted to give- or at least, more than he could feel okay giving. He only gave his energy for the sake of his father, not because he had wanted to.
If Father smiled and was happy with his performance, it used to be enough. It wasn’t, anymore. They had noticed him beginning to waste away. His breathing growing more labored, his ribs becoming more visible despite him eating well.
That night, they had brought a surprise.
“We have something special planned tonight, son,” Jules said, placing a gauntlet-covered hand on Sonic’s shoulder.
“Something we retrieved just for you.”
Sonic’s eyes sparkled just a bit underneath the gloom, the shadows under his eyes- young, far too young to appear so drained- lightening just a bit as he glanced up at father with a glimmer of hope.
The servants used for heavy labor wheeled in a large cart full of something covered entirely in a rich red velvet cloth, enough that he couldn’t guess just what it was, and the only information that rang in his mind was that it was huge.
What could it be? A gift? For him? But what gifts were that large? He never had seen such a large gift before, even as a prince.
The grunts of the servants were still lingering in the air as they pushed the thing on the wheeled cart, heavy enough to make the wheels screech with the weight. Their sallow cheeks and downturned eyes were worse than Sonic had ever seen them before, red dreads hanging limply from lowered foreheads like the tentacles of some long-dead creature.
Instead of the cloaked anger that only Sonic seemed to sense, the only thing that filled the air was a cloying sense of defeat that Sonic couldn’t understand. Shouldn't a gift be a good thing?
It finally came to a stop, punctuated only by a fierce glare from one of the echidnas directly at his father’s face. The others quickly and quietly pulled his head down before Jules could see. Glaring at the king was dangerous.
With a flourish and a massive grin, a lynx servant pulled the cloth covering the surprise back with an almost ethereal flair, her movements graceful as a dancer as she revealed the biggest, greenest gem that Sonic had ever laid his eyes on.
And then, he felt the power.
Something in that gem hummed in sync with his energy, almost welcoming but tinged with melancholy.
As beautiful as it was and as much as he did appreciate it, after he felt its energizing effects even from across the room Sonic realized that while this may have been a surprise for him, it really was a gift for Father instead.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Sonic?” Jules asked with his smooth, gentle voice. His tone was admiring and awestruck but tainted with the greed that Sonic became all too familiar with.
He didn’t want to know what they were planning with it this time. He didn’t want to know how they’d use him. He didn’t want to know if it would hurt.
But, as per usual- there wasn’t a choice.
“Yes, Father,” Sonic quietly responded, doing his best not to shake or fidget despite every cell of his feeling as if it was on fire with the desire to run. To get away.
His shallow breaths became even smaller as his body grew rigid, everything boiling just underneath a surface expression as smooth as an undisturbed pond.
They directed him to another machine. He didn’t want to think he briefly had hope that maybe this was a change, that maybe he was going to go a night without tests. That maybe Father really did want to give him something nice without expecting something in return.
Like a prisoner sent to death row, the child’s slow footsteps echoed as he walked towards the glass coffin he had become all too familiar with.
He sat on the chair provided in the center of the tube that would collect his energy, the cushions creaking as his heart continued to pound against his ribs like a caged animal desperate to escape its confines. Eyes glazed over as wires were snaked around his arms and legs and a muzzle was placed over his mouth, soft steps clanking against metal floors as the scientists worked around him.
The wires trailed around the gigantic green gem- he thinks it’s called an emerald?- and had fed back into the tube that he sat patiently inside. It pulsed with a faint glow, the warmth of its light welcoming him, the warm caress of the unknown yet familiar energy soothing his aching heart and hungry blood in a way he never had felt before.
For just a moment, he could close his eyes and pretend that everything was okay.
He heard the click of the door to his glass cage as he forced his eyelids closed as much as possible, his breaths finally beginning to even out.
The warmth was there. There’s a warmth that cares for him. That felt so much better than anything before. There’s a warmth that enveloped him but slowly increased in intensity. There’s a warmth that-
That-
And as if struck by lightning, he burned.
White-hot agony had encircled every part of his being, the energy, his energy, the gem’s energy, all of it coursing through his veins and it burned, it burned, it burned-
Electrified lungs heaved, and Sonic screamed.
The glass around him shattered, a blinding, glistening light show erupting from the capsule like an extravagant, deadly firework, the metal tubes and wires around him melting as he glowed and screamed and cried, his body no more than a silhouette as the room became so very green, the emerald shining in tandem.
His muzzle, his restraints, his containment, everything just melted away. He wished it could feel like a good thing, wished he didn’t feel like his organs were filled with molten slag, wished against all of what he previously wanted that he could just go back to the before. All he could do was scream, and scream, and howl in agony as he watched the world around him melt, his form a blinding white as tendrils of verdant chaos burst from him in a flurry of hellfire complemented by the jagged arcs of wildly convulsing electricity.
The wails of a child and the ringing of the Master Emerald created a horrible, discordant melody that would linger in those halls for years, the lab never to be touched out of fear of the residual chaos that was left behind. The indistinguishable sounds came to a crescendo of a keening whine akin to that of an overloaded circuit before a sudden silence had finally set upon the place, Sonic heaving for air as the energy barreled right back into him at once, everything still for just
One
Moment.
Sonic’s tears, previously unable to be seen from the sheer heat of his own body evaporating them as they left, finally dribbled down sullen cheeks before dropping off-
And rising upwards.
Gravity had loosened its hold for that one split second as everything began to float before with one last echoing ring, the Master Emerald had shattered.
And alongside it, Sonic himself was broken as well.
The scientists and servants involved had either run or were caught in the epicenter of what would be known as the beginning of the end of the Great Peace. The only audible sound, ricocheting and echoing off of cold tile floors and glass and metal were the pained cries of a child who lay crumpled in the middle of a circle of destruction, framed by broken glass and machinery like some sort of twisted summoning circle.
Sonic whimpered, covered in twisting red lines and trying to soak in any cool air that came from the night through broken windows, catching his tongue on teeth that shouldn’t be that sharp and panting as he bleeds, the new self-inflicted wounds on his tongue paling in comparison to the rest of his freshly acquired scars.
Spines shook and hands, now free of gloves as they never should be, had dug deep into fur that was no longer right, no longer the blue he loved to admire because it denoted his royalty, and he was a good prince, a good son, a good-
Now, he is nothing.
He took a moment. Waited until his lungs no longer heaved, raised himself onto shaking legs and arms, and slowly began to crawl past his platform, one step at a time.
He wouldn’t die. He didn’t want to die. He wanted Father to hold him and tell him everything was alright. Wanted Mother back. If only he could have the family he wished for.
He trips on his perilous journey across the room, despite being on all fours, over a gauntlet. One that he recognizes near instantaneously, its golden gleam seeming like a beacon of hope and familiarity through the haze of pain. It was Father’s! It was-
Melted.
His gaze and breathing hitched and halted once more, spines flaring as he whimpered and noticed how the gold plating lost its form, dripping down and becoming one with the tile below in a manner akin to candle wax after its light had burned for far too long.
As he followed his father’s arm, trepidation in his gut, his eyes laid upon more and more molten metal and his nose finally began to register a horrible burning smell, the scent of seared flesh lingering in the air.
When Sonic finally looked up to his father’s face, all his eyes met were the empty sockets of a dead man’s skull.
All he could do was stare and shudder at what used to be Jules. All he could do was freeze, limbs heavy and eyes burning as he panted, the rhythm of his chest growing ever faster, sparks flying from between his fangs.
Choking, laying by his father’s corpse killed by the very thing he was so fascinated by, Sonic couldn’t even scream.
He didn’t have a voice left to do so.
The silence was deafening in those moments of grief. Nothing was right. Nothing was okay.
He was not a good son.
What kind of son kills their own father, even while in pain? Even if it was because he-
The numbness had set in, adrenaline making his skin crawl as the only sound was the wind whistling through the destruction that he caused, all alone because of his own cruel mistake.
He knew it wasn’t just father. He could smell them. He couldn’t hear anyone else’s breaths.
A sudden shout from a distant corridor finally reached his twitching ears, cleaving the silence and his frozen state in two as he realized something he learned when Mother had died.
Those who kill royalty must pay the price.
And like a shot, wounds singing horrible melodies that went unnoticed by his panicked mind, Sonic ran and pushed away from the scene of his first crime as fast and as far as he could, blindly speeding towards his bedroom chambers.
He passed the threshold of what marked the beginning of the crumbling of a kingdom. And he never turned back.
Legs pumping, blood boiling, lungs heaving, the process of running, so oddly freeing, replaced all else. His feet pounded the ground. He passes the entrance to the banquet hall. The guard’s quarters. The ballroom. Passersby looked on in shock as a green blur sped by, the only detail showing that it wasn’t a figment of the imagination the scorched pawprints left behind.
One, two, one, two, steps fleet and faster than milliseconds, broken body crying out but adrenaline coursing through him, one, two, one-
His room! Yes, his room, that’s what he was looking for-
He barreled into the bedroom chambers, muscles burning and bones shaking, splintering the door as he crashed through and slammed directly into his bed, scrambling like a wild animal on all fours to the drawers that held his escape from the castle.
Shaking fingers laced with feather-light scars dug desperately into piles of clothes, memoirs that he wanted no part of, pieces of finery and jewelry left behind as he clawed until he finally found the heavy velvet bag that was nearly half as big as he was, only there in case of emergency.
He couldn’t stop. Couldn’t breathe. One moment of hesitation couldn’t be spared, he heard the clanking of armored boots and the shouting of guards as they trailed ever closer, shouts of alarm growing ever louder as the people finally realized that something was very, very wrong.
With one last breath, Sonic had opened the bag, grasped one ring from within with a muffled sob, and threw it as hard as he possibly could while his body still felt the searing pain of whatever it was they had done to him.
One last push. His only thought as the portal opened was to go far, far away from here.
Right as he saw the helms of knights, barely hiding their stares of shock and horror as they veered into the room and the flash of gilded blades, Sonic saw what was once his home for the last time, the only remnants of his presence the glowing particles of a recently closed ring portal and the dark marks of despairing tears trailing into nothingness.
He didn’t know if he’d ever forgive himself after he saw what he had caused.
But he didn’t have a choice to mull it over.
With unsteady steps on unfamiliar terrain, the smell of some alien kind of trees filling his senses, he finally collapsed onto the soft green of meadowgrass.
And everything went black.