Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ovi sighed as the recent sect of Egg Pawns was smashed into by his escrima, looking over the scene in full. They were near the centre of Obsidianna, a bustling city on the West Coast of Northamer. A mishmash of a city, the megalopolis is planned right from the bottom up to have multiple structures of different eras, creating the disordered and hodgepodge nature of the city. While the city itself was disorganized in it’s structure, all the roads and paths connected to one another, allowing every part of the city to be interconnected. Ovi himself had sat on top of his pile of Egg Pawns, looking over a park area that had been nearly trounced by Eggman’s latest scheme. One hand on his chin and sitting at the topmost Egg Pawn on the pile, Ovi couldn’t help but glare at the building just a little further away from the park.

It was the most grandiose building in the area, a true building meant to mark the epicentre of the city. Its sleek design made Ovi want to gag at it - yet held a certain fondness for the very thing he was glaring at.

“At least we’re on the side that doesn’t display it’s name.” Ovi thought, getting up and dusting the pants of his leotard, before carefully walking off the pile of Egg Pawns.

Eggman had been eyeing this company for reasons that have yet to be found out, but the idea of letting this location be trashed by the mad doctor made Ovi even queasier.

Once the changeling got off the trash pile, he decided to look for the most damaged/destroyed area of the park. Just as Ovi was looking for the fight, a supersonic pop came through the air, a blue hedgehog tumbling on the ground towards Ovi. As soon as the hedgehog got close to Ovi’s feet, the momentum of the hedgehog’s descent subsided, leaving the blue hedgehog half-burrowed into the ground. Ovi, feeling a bit cheeky, crouched at the hedgehog’s face to mock his friend.

“You seem to be doing well today.” The orange haired changeling stated, smirk getting wider as the hedgehog glared at him. Instead of following up his comment, he immediately held out his hand, which the hedgehog accepted immediately. Once the hedgehog was not half-submerged in dirt and mud, Ovi switched to being serious. “He’s really persistent lately.”

“It seems that whatever Eggman wants this time, he really needs.” The hedgehog stated, dusting himself off before stretching and relaxing his muscles. He turned towards Ovi, and winked his gorgeous, beautiful lime green eyes. “It’s not like it’s going to be super long, anyways.”

“Yeah, it’s just you’re taking longer than you usually do.” Ovi remarked, catching the hedgehog off-guard with the persuasiveness of someone who wasn’t blushing madly. The hedgehog smirked, turning back toward the fight he just flew from.

“Why don’t you come, then? It’ll take less time than staring at that building across the way.” He held out his gloved hand, expecting Ovi to be as eager to join in the fight. However, what he got instead was an intense stare and a nervous bite on the lips, before Ovi decided to accept the hedgehog’s offer – slapping his own gloved hand into the hedgehog’s.

“Well, we shouldn’t be dawdling long, Sonic.” Ovi commented, yet it didn’t feel like the natural flare of his usual remarks. Sonic frowned a little, but immediately zipped along towards where the fight with Eggman was taking place, filing the strange behaviour for later.

After all, it wasn’t right to ask when Eggman’s being his usual self.

The two had arrived at the location where Eggman’s latest mech was tearing through the street, it’s drills going all out against the concrete. It looked like the giant version of Eggman’s original mech in Emerald Hill, only more mole-esque, with the front claws and snout of the mole being replaced by drills. The rest of the machine wasn’t up to Eggman’s usual flare, instead looing like it just only rolled out this morning. Amy was currently trying to hammer one of the front paws into the ground, with Tails staying back and analyzing the situation. Sonic, thinking of the consequences of just placing Ovi near the robot, opted instead to have Ovi get off next to Tails instead.

“Tails, what’s the down-low?” Ovi immediately asked as Sonic got close to drop Ovi, with the latter instead opting to vault off Sonic like a horse vault. The hedgehog grumbled as Ovi stuck the landing, moving his shoulders to get rid of the pain. Tails looked at the two with a slight smile, before showcasing the Miles Electric screen to Ovi.

“It seems that this ‘Egg Mole’ Eggman’s got is meant for more underground work – simply drawing it to the surface has severely damaged most of the mechanisms.” Tails stated, pointing to a line of code that specified this information. Ovi nodded, finding that code correct in Tails’ assumption. “There’s a whole area underneath one of the paws, and Amy and Nebula are trying to figure out which one.”

Just as Tails said that, another blue blur shot off like a rocket from the Egg Mole, the missing ‘paw’ of the machine being the culprit. The bullet managed to hit the tree Tails was nearby, before sagging down to have their butt touch the ground.

The bullet was a light blue dragoness, with a purple skirt and top. When her eyes opened, they revealed a pink so bright it hid any iris or pupil from the outside world. Her head was framed with two horns stuck to the tree itself. The horns themselves go straight to a sky-blue hair like mane that flowed straight down to her tail. Ovi hissed as the dragoness immediately shucked her horns out of the tree, causing a large amount of damage to it.

“Nebula, are you alright?” Tails asked, trying not to look as the dragoness removed herself from the tree. Nebula dusted herself off before replying.

“I’m fine, Friend Tails.” She stated, honey voice dissonant with her tone and glare at the robot. “It seems I might have gotten lucky on which ‘paw’ it was.”

“Good, that’ll make it easier to get Eggman out of here.” Sonic cawed, winding up his arms and preparing for his next attack.

Just as Sonic was about to attack, Amy was also thrown towards Nebula, whom caught the fastball right into her hands. “Ohhh! I think I found it…” Amy dizzily said, getting up before falling back into Nebula’s arms. Tails hummed quizzingly.

“That’s… That’s strange. That’s a bit too easy…” Tails said, before a blast of dark blue and orange ran off toward the Egg Mole. “Sonic, Ovi! Wait!” the fox kit tried to warn the two a second too late – they were already out of earshot.

Sonic immediately stopped in front of Eggman’s newest toy, whistling out a long note for Eggman to hear. The mole-mech turned towards Sonic, whom waved cheekily.

“Eggman! You’re making a mountain out of a molehill! Why don’t you try and pick someone your speed?” Sonic yelled out, confident smirk taking most of his face. The mech immediately slammed one of it’s paws into the area that Sonic was just at, the hedgehog using the arm to climb up to the back where the egg-shaped scientist was seated, the iconic Eggmobile situated within the mole robot.

“Ah, Sonic. Been wondering if you would return after I threw you off earlier.” Eggman stated, not believing a word he said as he pressed a few buttons. “Then again, you’re a persistent little pest, just like the animal I based my current masterpiece off of.”

“Last I checked, I’m a hedgehog, not a mole.” Sonic irritably stated, clenching his teeth. Eggman grinned wider at the testiness of his enemy.

“Now, now. You going off on me might not be the best option for you. After all, claw drills aren’t the only thing I installed.” With that, Eggman pressed a button, bringing out huge machine guns and rockets.

With another press of a button, the rockets went flying off, having targeted Sonic. Sonic broke out into a run at that point, dodging the machine gun fire and dancing around the rockets that got close. In a moment’s notice, Sonic used the rockets to try piercing the metal without success – at best leaving a scuff mark and not much else.

While Eggman and Sonic were having their ‘talk’, Ovi tried his best to handle the feet of the machine. However, no matter how much he tried to line up the pressure points with his escrima, the ‘claws’ kept on moving about thanks to Eggman being preoccupied with Sonic. “Damnit, it’s hard to get a decent hit.” He muttered to himself as he tried again – this time, with a hit.

The machine reared backwards, nearly throwing Sonic off. Ovi yipped and hollered at the hit, getting Eggman’s attention immediately.

“Oh, so you brought the rich brat along?” Eggman callously sneered, pressing another button immediately. “Perfect.”

Sonic realized what was going on, and jumped off the robot to grab Ovi before –

Crash

Boom

Crunch

“GYAHHHHH!"

Ovi’s scream pierced the air before Sonic managed to jump off the Egg Mole entirely, his eyes widening as he saw the damage from the treadmills from the Egg Mole’s hind legs.

While Ovi had been fast enough to get out of the total crush zone of the detached arm, he hadn’t been fast enough to get his left leg free from the falling debris. While the leg didn’t seem to be pierced at all, at least as far as Sonic could tell, he could tell that Ovi was unable to get himself out if Eggman were to try to escape now.

Sonic clenched his fists, not even noticing Tails, Amy and Nebula working together to lift the debris off Ovi, nor did he notice a new human trying to pick Ovi up. Sonic needed all that he had to trounce Eggman right then and there, but as soon as he decided on his plan of action, the contraption started to buckle and sway a load, forcing Sonic to jump off the robot.

“Do leave a space for me! I’ll be paying the family home a visit soon, after all!” Eggman chirped, malice dripping off every word. “His father is who I plan on going to collect from! Ta-ta for now!” Eggman waved as the Egg Mole rolled into the hole it came from, shaking the ground as Eggman fled the scene. Sonic growled, wanting to chase after Eggman, but flashes of Ovi’s scream just minutes before made Sonic reconsider, turning back to find everyone sans Ovi and the mysterious human.

Rushing over to where the trio were, Sonic immediately searched for their wayward friend. “Where’s Ovi?” Sonic asked, keeping himself collected as best he could. Amy and Nebula immediately went into a tirade that Sonic, for the life of him, couldn’t follow. And it wasn’t for lack of trying – both girls were doing their best to inform him about what happened when he was too focused with Eggman, but their constant interjections made it impossible to follow, even at the best of intentions. Sonic instead turned toward Tails, hoping to get a bit of info on what was going on.

Tails’ ears drooped as Sonic got closer, and then hung his head when his brother asked the question. “The man that was here earlier…” He trailed off, before becoming resolute in what he had to say.

“He just took Ovi and left.”

Chapter Text

It took a bit for Ovi to wake, once consciousness hit the boy like a truck. Everything felt dizzy and bright, even though the changeling had not yet opened his eyes. Even thinking was a bit of a struggle, head full of cotton and ears ringing loudly. The soft beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor perpetuated the fuzziness of his head – wait, beeping?

Ovi’s eyes immediately shot open, then quickly closed as the bright white of the room penetrated his senses. He groaned loudly, head hitting the starchy pillow once again.

He had hoped not to be back in a hospital again, but here he was, back at it again at the hospital.

“I just hope nothing –” Ovi’s thoughts trailed off as he felt pain up the wazoo when he tried to even shift his left leg a bit. “ARGH!” Ovi yelled out, the beep-beep-beep of the machine increasing with his panicked state.  Ovi sighed loudly, hitting the itchy, raggedy bed (well, they weren’t really, but Ovi wanted to be snide) he was stuck on. Instead of trying to run off, Ovi did his best to look around – and immediately went white as a sheet as he saw the other occupant in the room.

The man was tall, with jet-black hair and a suit that Ovi hadn’t seen in years. The man was chiseled like one of Apotos’ many statues, broader than most musclemen under the three-piece suit. Ovi noted that the tie that the man had a distinct button on it – the signature ‘K’ symbol of the Kintobor family. The man’s tired blue eyes were looking intently – did they look sad or disgruntled? Ovi didn’t know… and didn’t want to know.

Ovi gulped - and realized what had happened to him after Eggman did that nasty trick.

“Julian.” The man seemed to sigh out, as tiredly as Ovi remembered him. He brought a gloved hand to brush the sweat off his head, not noticing Ovi’s flinch at his name being spoken. The man turned back to Ovi, and continued, “I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

Wait, what?

“Huh?” Ovi said, blinking in confusion. The man sighed, though whether it be from exhaustion or from the cocktail of medication the IV was pumping into Ovi’s arm, the changeling didn’t know.

“I just stated it’s good to see you’re alright, Chum.” The man stated, standing up from the chair he was sitting on to clasp Ovi’s right shoulder. “I would have preferred that we met without you breaking your leg, but at least we’re seeing each other now.”

Ovi shook off the man’s hand as gently as he could – he was not going to lash out in anger to this man, whether he wanted to or not. “I’m sorry, I don’t think –” Ovi tried to interject, but the man simply pulled his chin up so that the man could look at him closely.

“Despite the change in hair and iris colour, you’ve got the exact same speech patterns, the same face and eye shape, and the same inquisitiveness as my son.” The man stated, infuriating Ovi even further. “We’re also conducting a DNA test in this building, just to make it 100%.” The man stated, with an affirmation that exuded confidence. Ovi kept his face neutral as best he could, but inside he was panicking.

“If that test result shows that I’m 100% his son…” Ovi’s thoughts died as the nurse came into the hospital room, checking over Ovi’s heart vitals and clammy body.

“Hmm, seems that besides the sweating and sudden heart palpitations, you seem to be alright. We might discharge you to your father soon.” The man looked to the nurse at that, and the medical staff clarified. “My apologies, Mr. Kintobor –”

“Please, call me Harold.” The nurse blushed at the (almost) sincere smile, and it nearly made Ovi want to gag.

“Erm, H-Harold…” The nurse stuttered, blushing hard at the smile. “The DNA test came back. This boy is your son.” She handed the clipboard to Harold, before going over to pull the heart monitor and IV out of Ovi, making sure not to damage the veins they were placed in. “I’m sorry, but we’re short on beds now. We asked your father –”

“Yeah, I understand.” Ovi interrupted mutely, even though it felt like a death sentence as the nurse confirmed it. His mind was blank as the nurse left to find a wheelchair, letting Harold know stuff that Ovi was too drained to hear. Ovi felt like the world was turning on it’s head as the visage of his father distorted completely in his vision, his mind nopeing too hard to properly function.

As soon as the feeling came in, Ovi finally passed out, possibly shocking his father.

“Good.” Ovi‘s last bit of remaining consciousness said as he drifted off, “That’ll teach him.” However, a passing thought came through his head.

He didn’t even bother to hear how long it would take for him to heal.

Crap.

Meanwhile, at the Kintobor Building in Obsidianna …

Sonic sighed loudly, resting at the pine trees along the road. He, Tails, Amy and Nebula have been searching nonstop, looking for the mysterious man that had taken Ovi. None of them were sure where the man had come from, so looking around most of Obsidianna was a start. With Sonic’s speed, they were able to pinpoint whom took their changeling within a moment of their search.

“Oh, you’re asking about Mr. Kintobor?” a suited man asked the quartet, having been going into the building that Eggman was targeting earlier. That left everyone confused, not sure what to say to that.

“Mr. Kintobor? Who’s he?” Amy asked, asking the question on everyone’s minds. The man blinked, surprise showing on his face.

“Why, only the most well-known eco-friendly guy on the planet!” the man explained, getting stars in his eyes. “Harold Kintobor is the biggest man who’s been pushing many of the companies he works with to adopt his way, or the highway – even if it breaks the bank for some of them.” He started, and before anyone could interject, the man continued. “Harold’s known for being the one to revamp the entire sewage system of Obsidianna from top to bottom, placing the sewage into a facility that’s meant to change sewage back into water! Also, he’s the one to propose different electricity methods, like –”

“Okay! I don’t think we need his life story!” Nebula shouted out, her patience running thin. Before she could punch the man into a wall, Amy gently grabbed the dragoness’ hand.

“That’s a little rude, Nebula.” Amy clarified, when Nebula looked her way. The pink hedgehog turned towards the suited man. “I’m sorry about my friend here, but we’re a little stressed and we need to know where Harold lives specifically.” She said, keeping her voice neutral throughout. Tails looked at Amy in confusion at their statement.

“Ah, sorry, it’s just that he’s my hero, and –” The man trailed off, blushing and mumbling to himself. The dragoness looked guilty for shouting at him, but before she could say anything, the man pulled out his phone to type in the location. “I don’t have the exact address – in fact, nobody does. He’s a very private man and only gives out his information to scientists and the like, but his estate is on the other side of Coal Harbour, nearest the border to the United Federations.”

Tails immediately wrote down the address in the Miles Electric, and it immediately pinged the location. “Ok, I’ve got the exact location through Ovi’s route of the G.U.N. spy satellite! I think we should be able to –” All of a sudden, the Miles Electric short-circuited, forcing the fox kit to drop the now-useless device as it sparked and popped. “What the -?”

“Well, that really shows how paranoid the guy is.” Sonic stated, having leapt up from Tails’ initial panic. Amy went over to Tails, making sure the fox was alright after that shock. Nebula looked over and picked up the Miles Electric, sniffing it as it sparked and buzzed.

“Nebbie!” Amy yelled out, whacking the damaged electronic out of Nebula’s hands. “Don’t do that!” She cried when Nebula looked at her quizzingly. “What if you got hurt from the shocks?”

“Ah, my apologies, Friend Amy.” Nebula stated, scratching a bit of her nose carefully. “It smelt strange before Tails put in the address, but I wasn’t sure until it zapped the tablet.” Then, the dragoness opened her hand, to show a blue microchip that wasn’t part of the Miles Electric in the first place. Tails noted that the microchip had the address that he had found with the Miles Electric earlier. “It seems that this ‘Harold’ placed this onto the tablet earlier.”

“Well, I don’t think he wanted that to survive.” Tails stated, looking over the microchip carefully. Then, looking over to Sonic, he said “Sonic, you know this area?”

Sonic huffed a bit, before replying, “I dunno, Tails. I’m not usually good with addresses… but,” He continued as he remembered something, “I do remember running on the street that’s listed on this address earlier.” Immediately, the blue hedgehog grabbed both Tails and Amy’s hand, dashing off before Nebula had a chance to blink. Luckily, the dragoness can keep up as best she could, flying off after the trio.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, near the Kintobor Estate …

The ride to the mansion itself hadn’t been grandiose – just a constant stream of silence as Ovi pretended to be sleeping. He had been forced awake by Harold placing him into the limo - but opted to remain ‘fainted’ for the purpose of not talking to his father. However, that was prevented when Harold uttered the very words he didn’t want to hear.

“Julian, it’s not good to pretend you’re still fainted.” Ovi opened his eyes at that - ruse completely butchered. When he did, he found Harold pinching the bridge of his nose in his vision. Ovi noted how unimpressed the man looked – right down to the glare he was leveling at Ovi. If the two weren’t in seatbelts, Ovi probably would have jumped out the window – cast or no.

Ovi looked away from Harold, not bothering to even engage in a bit of chit-chat. As far as Ovi was concerned, it wasn’t worth the effort – Harold may look guilty, but Ovi learnt from the best of the best, after all.

Ovi knew Harold was faking the rejected sadness.

Once they got to the driveway of the Estate, Ovi glared extensively, not looking at one thing as Harold wheeled him up to the Estate. The land was covered in a forest, with the only thing sticking out was the large mansion in the middle. The mansion itself was 18th century Gothic design, right down to gargoyles on top of the roof and some on the pillars. Many window panes on the house had bars on them that looked like floral art, with each one having the stylized ‘K’ button square in the top-most part of the window. The perimeter itself was surrounded by a fence with a similar style to the window panes. They were also electrified, preventing anyone but those with electro-kinesis from trespassing.

It was very much the prison that Ovi escaped from, long ago.

He felt queasy as Harold wheeled him up to the entrance of the mansion. Unlike most other most well-known gothic places, the Kintobor Mansion was made without a staircase to the front doors, which made it easier for his father to wheel Ovi into the mansion.

They got into the building itself, which showcased a foyer beyond any splendor the world had ever seen. Its gothic looks persisted throughout the foyer, the railings having a similar floral design to the railing/windowpane/gate/fence outside. The floor and the walls were a warm brown, with the chandelier hanging in the middle of the foyer sparkling from the light seeping through the white stones. The paintings of various Kintobor ancestors hung on the walls, with one of the founders of Obsidianna hanging above the entrance to the second floor of the mansion.

There, waiting underneath the founding member of Obsidianna was a little girl. Her eyes were glowering at Ovi, and they held the same sharp glare as Harold does, with the same bright blue to match. She was wearing blue jean overalls over her pink turtleneck, with stylized shoes like Ovi’s. tilting her head, she sneered a little at the intrusion.

“Who the heck is that?” The girl asked, her voice as cold as ice. The angelic glow of her golden hair did not lessen the chilling assertion of Ovi – in fact, it seemed that the changeling had disrespected an angel, or a god just by existing.

Well, Ovi always knew he was some sort of sick prank from a god, anyways.

“Helen, why don’t you come down and meet our new friend, Julian?” Harold commanded, not impressed with his young daughter’s attitude.

“What if I don’t want to?” The girl said, yet came down the grandiose stairs. Ovi couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. Helen came up to Ovi, scornfully looking at her ‘new friend’ in full. She then sneered out. “He looks like he hasn’t showered at all.”

“Hard to find clean water when you travel beyond your comforts.” Ovi retorted back, smirking at Helen’s glare. He immediately petted the top of Helen’s head, and then pulled back when the girl tried to bite his hand off. “I think I’ll call you Hope. You’re too much of a ‘Hope’ to me.” His smirk didn’t go away when the newly christened Hope slapped his arm a little too harshly.

“Don’t call me that!” Hope snarled, making Ovi smile a little more.

“Sorry, but your name doesn’t fit you.” Ovi winked at Hope instead, rubbing his arm at the sore spot. Before Hope could get another slap in, Harold immediately caught her hand.

“I think it’s time for Julian to rest. He’s had a hard day.” Harold stated, letting go of Hope’s arm as he pushed Ovi up to the hidden elevator. Hope glared at Ovi, and the changeling smiled back even as the elevator door closed off. It wasn’t until the elevator opened that Harold tried to speak again. “Julian, you should be easier on Helen -" The elder was immediately blocked off by the younger, hearing the animalistic snarl from the boy.

“Don’t call me that.” Ovi growled, gripping the wheelchair’s armrests tightly. He looked over to Harold with a sharp twist. “Mother would have told you that –”

“You do not speak on her behalf, Julian.” Harold’s voice dropped to a whisper, and the use of Ovi’s old name caused the changeling to choke on bile. In fact, the comment nearly caused Ovi to sail off the wheelchair. Harold pulled his son back into the chair with a sharp thunk , taking his hand off Ovi’s shoulder once the changeling was square in the seat. Ovi groaned and massaged his shoulder as Harold walked around the chair to come face-to-face with his son. “I would prefer if you tried to not kill your sister while you are recovering.” Harold added, looking a bit sterner than Ovi remembered him. “As far as she is concerned, you are not her sibling. Just a random stranger. And she’ll make you aware of that.”

“Well, you better tell her that I’m going after my leg heals.” Ovi stated, looking squarely in his father’s eyes. “I’m not going to stick around since you decided to leave me behind in your sorrows.”

Harold’s glare almost became silts at that point. But, whatever he wanted to answer disappeared through a sigh louder than Ovi had ever heard. “I think it’s been a long day for all of us.” Harold said instead, returning to the wheelchair to push Ovi through the hallways.

They eventually came up to a door, stylized like all the rest of the doors – intricate metal patterns of roses line throughout the wood, giving the door a more beautiful design. Harold opened the door to reveal a brightly lit room, filled with toys that would make any 9-10 year old’s dreams. The toys, despite being scattered all over the place, seemed scratched as if they were touched recently. Ovi wasn’t sure why, but it felt out of place for some of them. There were also some odd-end toys placed high in spots where Ovi knew he couldn’t reach as a child, wondering who moved them there as Harold wheeled him in. Ovi blanched at how angelic it looked, with his bed made exactly the way he left it – some action figures on the fluffy carpet, the window to outside was framed by the same tree, and his desk contained all the notes that the kids wrote about his looks from school.

They’d probably laugh at him harder if they saw what Ovi looked like now.

As Ovi was thinking that, Harold immediately picked the changeling up from the wheelchair, and transported Ovi to the star-patterned bed. At Ovi’s grumpy confusion, Harold stated “I’ll go get the staff to help you get dressed for bed. After that, they’ll bring you meals to eat.” He said, hesitating before leaving Ovi’s room.

Ovi looked out the window, wondering how Sonic would find him.

-

Sonic was not having a good day.

Being able to get to the Kintobor Mansion was a challenge in itself, with all the lasers that Sonic had to dodge (being much more skillfully placed than Eggman could ever hope to achieve) and the anti-air missiles perfectly designed to safely shoot down a biplane from the sky. When the quartet finally did manage to get close enough to the Kintobor Mansion to scope it out, they were ready to blow the place up – Ovi’s survival be damned.

“Sonic, are you trying to glare the Mansion down now?” Tails asked, nursing a headache as he planned out their next set of actions to enter the Kintobor Mansion. All the machine-based options were off the table – The Tornado 2 being in disrepair after nearly losing the engine from one of Harold’s anti-air missiles behind him. The fox kit was writing on a notepad he had fished out of the glove compartment. Amy and Nebula were talking about whatever in the distance, while Sonic was glaring at the mansion.

“Honestly, I’m not sure what other options we can go with.”  Sonic stated, thinking about the options Amy and Nebula went with. Cream and Vanilla were currently having a vacation somewhere else, Harold never answered when they tried to call him, and Harold used Sonic’s momentum to immediately throw him out when they tried the Fastball Special. The man was on top of their antics, and they were running out of options.

“What if,” Amy stated loudly, catching the other’s attention, “we tried just walking up the door and asking if we could come in?” The other three stared at Amy with disbelief, causing Amy to be self-conscious. “What? All our other plans have failed so far! Maybe if we didn’t try to brute-force our way in –”

“Yeah, and they’re probably not going to let us in now –” Sonic said, but was interrupted with a soft ‘ah-hem’ from behind him, causing everyone to turn to the voice. It was a female chinchilla with golden fur, dressed up with a suit that would put most English butlers to shame. She bowed to the group as they noticed her presence.

“Mr. Kintobor and his children have been expecting you. We’d like for you to come in without trying to kidnap one of our own.” The chinchilla stated, earning the ire of the group immediately. Both Sonic and Nebula were immediately ready to fight the chinchilla.

Nebula was the first to speak. “Tell the owner of the estate that we do not like our friends being kidnapped from us.” She growled out, teeth barred and fists bawled. Sonic couldn’t help but snort, tapping his foot even as his quills tensed.

The chinchilla looked at the two, before turning to Tails and Amy. “My employer would like to remind you that the person you’re ‘trying’ to save is his son.” She stated as if it was a matter of fact. The others paused in their anger, confused with this new information.

“Huh?” all four asked. They had not thought of the possibility, as Ovi had never expressed his relations with anyone.

The chinchilla looked mildly surprised at that. “Did Master Julian not bother to tell you that Master Harold was his father?” She asked carefully, a quizzical eyebrow raised as their only change in emotion out of the mild surprise.

“Julian?” Amy sharply yelled out, startling the others. “You mean the Julian Kintobor, the kid that won multiple Mathalete tournaments before running away?” The others looked at her confusingly, getting upset over it. “What? I like guys who can make math sound interesting!” She huffed, a bit embarrassed about her nerd-out. Nebula came up to Amy to pull her into a hug.

“It’s fine, Friend Amy. I enjoy your talks about them.” Nebbie patted the pink hedgehog’s head, purring as she did so. The two girls immediately turned to the discussion back at hand, catching the last bit of conversation from the butler and Sonic and Tails.

“I cannot allow you to enter unless you all show that you won’t be taking Master Julian away from us. He needs time to recover.” The chinchilla stated, bowing her head. “Your attempts at taking Master Julian away from his home have caused Harold to become paranoid and frantic.”

“Well, if he didn’t take Ovi from us –”

“Sonic, please.” Tails, Amy, and Nebula all stated, stopping Sonic from making the situation worse. Sonic snapped his mouth shut, turning his head away from the others and crossing his arms petulantly.

The chinchilla raised an eyebrow at Sonic’s behavior but continued regardless. “If you will follow me, then.” She turned away, not waiting for the group to follow. Sonic allowed the others up the Estate on their own, before following behind at a much slower pace than he would like. As the five walked to the mansion itself, Amy and Nebula were awed by the landscape around them – what with the many trees that matched the climate of the area, the wildflowers embedded into the path’s sides, and the amount of forest creatures the others could see in the vicinity. Sonic couldn’t help but smile, the pleasant aroma soothing his nerves as the group reached the main entrance.

The group entered the mansion, mesmerized by the beauty of the foyer in contrast to the rest of the landscape, unable to keep their eyes off the intricacies of the metal work. As Sonic’s group were looking about, Tails’ ears started reacting to shouts coming from upstairs.

“—I’m fine to walk with these crutches! Let me pass!” Ovi’s distinctive voice permeated throughout the air, snapping the others out of their trance. “It’s not like I haven’t broken anything in the past –”

“And it’s obvious that you’re struggling to keep yourself up with that other break of yours.” A gruffer, more masculine voice interjected Ovi’s tirade, causing the changeling to growl loudly. The two kept on walking, revealing themselves to the group.

“Look, just let me pass!” Ovi’s irate boom came out, his more rigid stance a contrast to the usual animated attitude. They could barely make out what Ovi was wearing in the distance, but it seemed he had changed from his usual clothing to his new look.

The gruffer man, on the other hand, looked the same as he did when the quartet (besides Sonic) saw him the last time. And it was obvious he didn’t want Ovi to see them- with the way he was blocking Ovi from the elevator.

“What if they take you away? You can barely -”

“Any location is better than here, you -”

“Ah, Master Julian, Master Harold. Master Julian’s friends are here.” The chinchilla announced, calmly bringing herself out of the conversation by walking away. Sonic and the gang moved into the foyer to gander into the changeling looking down on them – wearing blue pyjamas patterned with yellow stars all over the fabric. Ovi was shaking on worn wooden crutches, trying to balance himself despite the shaking of his right arm. But the thing that made Sonic glower the most were his eyes.

Ovi’s sclera were black, making him look like Metal Sonic failing at its disguise.

And Sonic liked it less on Ovi’s face.

Before Sonic could do anything, Amy immediately grabbed onto his arm. “Please, don’t start yet.” The pink hedgehog reminded him. “We’ve only been allowed to see him.” Sonic, not wanting to cause a scene, simply nodded as Harold came up away from Ovi.

“Thank you, Bella.” Harold called out as he and Ovi came out of the elevator, snapping Sonic and Amy out of their conversation. The two came out slowly, Harold wheeling Ovi’s wheelchair out alongside a wobbling Ovi. He glared at Sonic and the gang, looking over them as if they were gnats. Then, before Sonic could glare back, the man sighed and turned to Ovi. “Julian –”

“Ovi.” Ovi interrupted, the snap making Harold’s eyes bug a bit. Harold sighed at that, shaking his head.

“Don’t start, Julian.” Harold commanded. “You’ll throw your friends out if you behave like that.”

“What -”

“Julian wanted to see you.” Harold continued, ignoring Ovi’s glare. “Since you are well and not ‘dead in a ditch’, I think we can –”

“Oh no, Harold.” Sonic started, shutting Harold up completely. Tails’ cries of ‘Sonic!’ and Amy and Nebula’s shocked expressions were ignored as Sonic stomped toward the man. “You can’t keep us from our friend like that, especially since he’s making it so clear to you that he’s not comfortable with you.” Ovi snapped to Sonic at that point, sclera whitening a tiny bit as he watched the hedgehog stand up to Harold.

“Sonic…” Ovi’s voice came out uncharacteristically meek, his eyes turning back to the inky blackness that the blue hedgehog hated. “Please, don’t –” Ovi’s large canines, indicative of his inhuman nature, nibbled into the skin of his lips, threatening to break under the pressure.

Sonic ignored the pleas and kept going. “Look, if you haven’t noticed, we’re as stubborn as you are. So, unless you allow us to see him from now on, you’re not getting him back.” The hedgehog threatened, a smirk evident across his face. The two glared at each other at that point, not looking away from each other for a solid minute… until Harold turned to look at Ovi, his expression blank as he observed his supposed son’s face. The man sighed a few seconds later, turning back to the rest of the group.

“As long as you return him back here to recover, you all can stay –” Harold’s eyes bugged out as the group cheered and yipped, Amy hugging Sonic and Tails and spun them around, and Nebula picking up Ovi and nuzzling into his face, making sure not to jostle the broken leg too much. Harold coughed, stopping the group from celebrating too much. “Julian cannot leave the grounds for too long while his leg is recovering – I’m not risking him breaking it again.” Ovi snapped to Harold as the older man said that.

“Excuse me?” Ovi growled out, trying to wiggle out of Nebula’s grip. Harold immediately walked up to the changeling and Nebula, placing Ovi back onto his feet gently, before giving Ovi one of the crutches that had fallen earlier.

“I’m wanting to see you recover as well… Ovi.” Harold said, shocking everyone in the room. He left at that, leaving everyone bemused at the change in behaviour. Sonic and Ovi looked to each other at that, confused at what just happened.

Chapter Text

Over the next few days of Ovi’s imprisonment (read: healing time) were honestly a bit mundane – Sonic would often come in, with either Amy, Nebula, or Tails in tow behind him. They rotated throughout the week, which caused Ovi to feel a bit upset when Harold would remind them that they couldn’t stay for long. However, Sonic was the one most available for the resting changeling, giving Ovi the much-needed space between him and his father.

In fact, they were doing just that – visiting a café within the innermost sanctum of Obsidianna, with Ovi drinking some hot chocolate, and Sonic… Well, Sonic just had water. The two were outside seating, the cold chill blasting the two hard. Ovi had been given entirely new clothing – since his old clothing was too small – and was bundled up in a puffy sky-blue winter jacket. The changeling took a sip of his drink, the whipping cream coating his upper lip and nose.

“Hmm…” Ovi hummed, basking in the silence. Sonic couldn’t help but smile at his friend, noting how the sclera of Ovi’s had lightened since leaving the Manor. The blue hedgehog watched as Ovi tried licking the cream off his nose, the taller’s eyes cross-eyed in concentration. Sonic couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the scene, quickly grabbing a napkin to hand to Ovi as the other looked at his friend.

“Sorry, you look so cute doing that, but removing it with a napkin would be easier.” Sonic clarified, holding the napkin out so Ovi could grab it. The changeling chuckled himself, taking the napkin from Sonic and wiping his nose of the whipped cream.

“Silly, more like.” Ovi corrected, licking the amount not touching the napkin and sighing dreamily. “Damn, did I miss their hot chocolate.” Ovi said wistfully, his smile almost blinding. The changeling shifted in his wistfulness, accidentally throwing his cast into the table leg. Ovi winced, breathing harshly through his teeth. Sonic immediately stood up, getting to Ovi’s chair within a blink.

“Ovi, are you ok?” Sonic asked, carefully pulling Ovi’s chair away from the table. Weakly, Ovi smirked back at Sonic, a wince betraying the pain he was in.

“It-it’s fine. Just dumbly knocked my leg into the table.” The changeling stated, smile forced and a bit snippy. Unfazed, Sonic gave his tall buddy a look. A look that had Ovi immediately sigh and say instead, “Ok, it hurts a bit, but it’s not like I plan on using my leg immediately.”

Sonic looked away, looking unsure. Ovi quickly looked through his mind, thinking through their ‘conversation’ fully. Biting his lip, he turned back toward Sonic and stated, “Why don’t you get me some strawberry shortcake? You know how much I love that treat.”

Sonic couldn’t help but smirk at that, before coming back about .03 seconds with a plate of strawberry shortcake. “Made sure to pay the place down the street before I took it.” he stated as Ovi looked at him awkwardly, before taking the (thankfully undamaged) cake from Sonic. The changeling quickly dug into the cake, making Sonic chuckle. “Thought that strawberry shortcake’s not good for your figure, Ovi.” The hedgehog teased.

Ovi couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I’ll work it off – I’m still an acrobat, after all. And it’s only my leg that I injured…” He sullenly stared at the shortcake, frowning a little after the jest.

Sonic looked puzzled at the shift in mood, but if he had to guess… “I’m guessing that strawberry shortcake means something to you?” he asked, breaking Ovi out of his funk.

“Ah, yeah?” Ovi said, coming out more like an ask. Realizing what Sonic said, his eyes went wide, and a blush formed on his cheeks. “That obvious?” Ovi scratched the back of his head, an uneasy smile on his face.

“You wear your emotions on your sleeves, Ovi.” Sonic stated - a small smile on his lips. Ovi felt eased from the honest answer, trying to match Sonic’s own with his own smile. Ovi ended up finishing his little treat, allowing Sonic to take him back to the Manor in the hedgehog’s arms.

Back at the Kintobor Mansion …

Tails sighed longingly, working on a newer version of the Miles Electric, as Sonic and Ovi went out on their ‘date’, as Amy and Nebula so eloquently put it earlier. A spark flashed inside his head, followed by a slam on the desk he was using, denting the wood with the screwdriver that the fox was using.

“Oh…” Tail’s anger immediately dissipated, looking at the scrape made in his fit.

It had been happening more often, these sudden outbursts whenever Tails thought of Ovi. At first, Tails was ambivalent about Ovi joining the group – wait, no. That was wrong. Tails was excited to see Ovi join him, Amy and Sonic with their adventures – his acrobatics fitting right in with Tails and Amy’s own abilities of flight and hammering respectively. Tails had often enjoyed it when Ovi used him as a ‘bounce-pad’, and Amy loved how much air the changeling got from the hammer leap. However, as time wore on, Tails felt… disconnected with Ovi.

Before the ‘Incident’, as Tails liked to call what happened to Ovi, the fox had started to notice some things from the changeling that he didn’t like – the constant glances to Sonic when he thought nobody was looking, the too-often touches the changeling would give after a difficult battle, and the times Tails caught Ovi burrowing into Sonic’s quills when they were both asleep on the couch…

Well, to say that Tails wasn’t jealous was a complete lie.

Tails couldn’t help but remember the awkward smiles that the changeling gave turn into sinister smirks at the right moment, as if Ovi knew what he was doing. No amount of ‘it’s just a trick of the light’ and ‘you’re imagining things’ was going to help the onslaught of vile feelings he felt towards Ovi… and the fact that he reveled in it…

…Maybe it was good for Ovi and Sonic to be out, if his feelings were getting this bad.

Tails sighed, moving away from the Miles Electric to take a walk outside. It was one of the things that he started doing to pass the time – and to keep his mind off his feelings, of course. He’d never thought that a mansion like this would have so much in it’s backyard – the forest that overlapped most of the land, the soothing splashes of the waves hitting the rocks below, the alcove that allowed deer and other creatures to run into the wild if need be –

And the warm body that he didn’t see, as he was admiring the petunia garden.

The two fell onto the dirt path – Tails on his butt, the stranger on their hands and knees. Before he could immediately ask ‘Are you okay?’, the person whipped around and pointed their finger into his snout so suddenly it caused Tails to squeak in fear.

“Watch where you’re going, imbecile!” the high-pitched voice blasted out of the irate human’s face, her features contorted into a snarl. Yet, Tails could see the puffiness in the other’s eyes.

Without thinking, Tails asked “Are you alright?”, which caused the human to step back. As she did that, Tails took a moment to notice the bright clothing she had on her – a discrepancy from her initial impression. She also hid something behind her back - Tails caught a glimpse of a sketchbook cover before it fully disappeared.

“What –” The human asked, her snarl melted into confusion immediately. She glowered instead. “Oh, you’re one of Julian’s friends, aren’t you?” the accusation came out, causing Tails to flinch when she tried jabbing her finger into his snout again. “One of those little forest people that he likes, right?”

“N-not really –” Tails’ protest – well, what could be considered a protest – was too quiet to keep the girl from continuing her tirade.

“Don’t bother. You definitely came with the people who care about that monster.” She flicked her hand away, as if she was discarding a piece of trash instead of talking about Ovi. Tails couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at her choice of words.

“’Monster’?” Tails asked carefully, earning a snooty flare that Tails knew came from her upbringing. She walked around Tails, his memories of the time before Sonic causing him to tuck his tails into himself, yet she never went for them as she nattered on.

“He looks like one, doesn’t he? What with his ugly teeth and all.” Tails bristled at that comment – but had no ability to work up a tirade when she, herself, continued her tirade. “And he’s here, and my father is seeing him like some sort of Messiah-analogue! Ugh!” She stomped her feet at that, then hugged herself as she turned her back to the fox kit. Tails suddenly reminisced about Ovi doing the same thing, when they had to go to Obsidianna to stop Dr. Eggman from doing… whatever he was doing in this city.

“Ugh! We don’t have to go to Obsidianna! The after-party will be completely lame!”

“As much as I agree, Ovi, Eggman’s probably got something up his sleeve, and I’m sure the before-party bashing Eggman’s robots would be amazing!”

“… I dunno…”

“…Ovi, it wouldn’t be good for you to turn this down, you know? I know you tend to hold injustices to heart…”

“… Sonic, I hate how you just click with me. Alright, then. Let’s bash Eggman’s little surprise on KintoborTech!”

With hindsight, it seemed much clearer why Ovi felt so hesitant in coming – but now, there was a mystery to be solved here, one that made his jealousy of Ovi seem poignant.

No, no. He shouldn’t be feeling like that, not to Ovi. But it was just so hard…

“What do you mean, ‘Messiah-analogue’?” Tails asked, keeping himself from following the train of thought in his head. The girl looked at him like he grew a second head along with his tails.

“Exactly what you think it means, Two-shoes.” She jabbed Tails’ forehead with her pointer finger, hurting Tails more before taking it away. “He acts so holy, as if he belongs with us. I can tell the fake from the real people, and Julian’s as fake as they come.” Tails had to agree with Ovi being not suited for any life with the group – remembering how much Ovi tended to keep himself upright, despite his laxer demeanor. Tails also noted how Ovi tended to shy away from more expensive products, having to stop himself before reaching for something cheaper, or how his jacket seemed expensive – even though everything else about Ovi was from the circus. Tails was so absorbed in his thoughts, he almost didn’t catch Hope calling Ovi a ‘useless charity case’ out loud.

“Do you know why he’s here?” Tails had to ask, which only earned him a shrug from the girl.

“I don’t, nor do I care that much.” She did that snooty hand-motion again – complete with a snort of frustration – before continuing “If any one knows, it’s probably my Father. But you saw how stubborn he can get at points…” She went quiet at that moment, causing the kit’s ears to strain a bit to catch the last bit. “… At least, when he wasn’t here.” Tails decided not to comment on that last bit, and instead extended his hand out to her.

“Well, erm… Oh! Why don’t I tell you my name! I’m Miles Prower, but everyone calls me Tails.” He said, waiting for the girl to give out her name. Hesitantly, the human slowly took his hand, before giving a shake once.

“Name’s Helen. Helen Kintobor.” She said with a smirk. Her smirk then turned into a frown. “Why did you want to introduce yourself?”

Tails shrugged at the question. “You seem lonely.” Was all the fox would elaborate on, before turning toward the Kintobor Manor yet again. “You gave me something to do while we’re here, and I’m kind of curious about what happened here…” Tails dashed off, leaving Helen in the dust. The girl just tutted at being left behind. After a few seconds, Helen huffed, running after the two-tailed fox to keep pace.

“So, what are you looking for?” Helen asked, wanting to both know and not know what Tails was prattling about. Yet, she couldn’t really say she wasn’t interested in what Tails had to say…

“Well, anything at this point. I want to know Harold’s connection with Ovi, since it seems we have conflicting information.” Tails immediately asked, making Helen balk a little at his forwardness. Did he just say that her info was wrong, or… Is she missing something here? Her first instinct was to go accuse him of being wrong on his info, but a growing curiosity patted at her heart like a cat trying to get a teasing toy.

“Huh? What do you mean?” the human girl asked, face turning into a near-mimic of her father’s own glare. Tails gulped, but kept pressing as they walked back to the Manor.

“Helen, you said you don’t think Ovi and Harold are related, right?” Tails asked, looking at Helen's intense stare as they walked down the path. The silence stretched between them, wondering if Helen even got what he was trying to say, before she sighed in a similar fashion to her father and relaxed her face.

“I… I did. Why’s that important?” Helen asked, a quizzical eyebrow raised like Ovi’s and Harold’s did. Tails, for the better part of himself, chose not to comment on it.

“Bella told myself and the rest of our group that Ovi’s related to you.” Helen’s eyes bulged out like Ovi’s did when he was surprised at something he wasn’t expecting. Tails had to file that information away quickly, as Helen immediately reacted to that tidbit of information.

“What! That can’t be real! Bella wouldn’t lie like that!” Helen cried out, crossing her arms and tutting at the very idea of it. Tails looked at her antics, perplexed at her shift in attitude. Helen paused at that moment - not even noticing Tails’ curious gaze, and muttered to herself, “She’d totally make some snippy remark, though…”

“Well, why don’t we go look?” Tails asked, knowing fully well this won’t be solved with them bickering to each other. That, and Tails needed something to do to get rid of the resentment building in his head. What else to do but look through someone else’s files?

He does it with Eggman all the time, what’s going to be different with Harold’s?

“... We’ll have to go into my father’s office for that, that’s where he keeps all the records.” Helen stated, stopping her walk as Tails stopped as well. The fox turned towards her, a gleam of mischief shining in his eye.

“Alright, let’s search there.”

--

The office in question, just like the rest of the Estate, was as grandiose and ominous as the rest of the place. The doors that lead to it were large, and contained bats with spanners and hammers carved into them in thick, dark-stained mahogany wood, making the door seem more blood red then they really were. The room itself wasn’t much better for comfort - bookshelves lined most of the walls in the office, their dark colours contrasting with the soft, yet faded brown that the walls and floor held. The bookshelves themselves contained the more practical how-to books, like ‘How to run a Business for Dummies’, to fiction tales, like an entire anthology of the latest Grand Bat comics.

Tails wasn’t too sure what to think of that one, considering Ovi had a collection similar to Harold. He couldn’t judge a man’s tastes in literature.

On the subject of the floor, it seemed to be made of hardwood like oak, absorbing what little heat one can get in the place. In order to alleviate the coldness of the room, soft, Fluer-de-lis patterned couches were placed on top of a soft, white plush carpet, reminding Tails of a bed more than a carpet. In the back of the room sat Harold’s large, imposing desk - with carved depictions of anthrons and humans working alongside one another in some sort of building. On top of the desk contained many, mainly reports for business stacked neatly in piles, and ordinary office supplies to contrast with the ominous design of the desk. There was also a random bust of someone, as well, though Tails wasn’t sure of who it was or where it came from. By the side of the desk, there was an old grandfather clock - though, it seemed the clock itself hadn't been working for a long time, due to it not ticking as they searched the files.

All in all, the place fitted Harold to a tee.

Helen and Tails had opened up the file cabinets as soon as they came into the room, the girl having a second set of keys to open them. They got out all the possible files that Harold could hide Ovi’s information into, and started reading them throughout the next three hours. However, their search through the files proved fruitless, as they found themselves growing agitated over their lack of success.

“...No, nothing. Miles, you got anything?” Helen asked, breaking their tense silence. She looked slightly to her companion, to find Tails fishing through the same file again.

“No, it’s not here either.” Tails sighed, having gone through the file containing ‘Helen’s Medical Records’ for the third time, throwing it onto the not-as neat ‘Nothing’ pile he made on the cold floor. “I don’t get it.” He sighed, falling backwards onto the plush carpet that was in front of the fireplace. Ahh, to have the fire on and to curl up to it… “Ovi talked about Harold doing a blood test, but you’d think he’d keep it out to look it over again.” He leveled his eye at Helen, watching as she nibbled at her thumbnail.

“Father’s pretty rigid when it comes to important documents. He likes having them in a set place, and hates leaving them out - especially if they contain sensitive information like medical conditions.” Helen answered Tails’ underlying question as she was looking through the files that only said ‘Terestri’s IOUs’ on it.

They were twice as thick as about even a quarter of Harold’s usual files, and they all contained casino usages by some random man. Tails, for the life of him, could not get through even a quarter of what Helen was reading through. Tails wasn’t sure if he wanted to bring them up to Harold later.

Right now, though, it wasn’t what Helen or Tails were looking for.

“You think we might have to look for the medical files, then?” Tails asked, hoping to get what they need before the day is up. Helen, feeling his sentiments after looking through 15 different, thick files, closed the one she had in her hands and got up from the ground.

“Yes. Though I have not seen where my Father put them… I have a sneaking suspicion they’re in the closet.” She pointed to the only door in the room - besides the grand entrance doors, of course - and it contrasted with the rest of the Estate with how simple it looked. Just a regular old door - no patterns, no intricate designs, nothing but a brown door with an out-of-place electronic lock. Tails sat up to look at the oddly plain door right behind Harold’s intricate desk, looking confused at why it looked so plain in comparison to the rest of the house.

“Then let’s go and look -”

“It’s locked. I haven’t been able to open it. Threatening the electronic lock with a sword didn’t unlock it.” Helen said as if that was the most rational thing in the world to say, causing Tails to look at her in bemusement.

“You… threatened an electronic lock? With a sword?”

“Don’t look at me like that! Father said he would teach me how to break electronic locks, but he never does!” the human girl huffed, crossing her arms and turning away in embarrassment. “I had no other options at the time.” She tacked on, sheepishly rubbing her arms. Tails couldn’t help but cough back a chuckle, since he knew how easy it was for Helen to get riled up.

“How about I teach you how to do it?” He asked, causing Helen to turn to him in wonder.

“Really? You would?” Helen squealed as Tails nodded, hopping up and down as her eyes shone with excitement. “Thank you, Miles!” She squealed, making Tails wince from the noise.

“Hehe…” Tails blushed, unused to his real name being used. Nevertheless, he went up to the control lock near the closet door, feeling determined to impress this girl with his abilities.

Tails pulled out something from his fur (how anyone managed to carry things about in their fur, Helen would never be able to understand), holding it up to the control pad. It fizzled and sparked, automatically opening the door to the closet as a preventive nature. The two opened the door carefully - finding boxes beyond boxes of old reports and files - Some of which were marked ‘Elf Conspiracy - Do not OPEN’. Others simply stating ‘KintoborTech Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly Reports’. And even some simply stating ‘Obsidianna Eco Renewal Plan’.

Clearly, Harold loved to keep records of things.

“Oh, wow! What did you use on that lock?” Helen asked, leaning over to look at Tails’ magnet. It was one of those small magnets that you can hold, yet Hope could feel a strong pull coming from the magnet from her old fillings.

“A high-grade magnet, for when you can’t get shrapnel bits out without damaging yourself. It just so happens that it’s powerful enough to damage electronics like this!” Tails crowed, feeling proud at remembering that factoid of his industrial magnet. Helen, on the other hand, crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

“... Let me guess, you scrambled your own electronics with it.”

“... Yes.” he squeaked out, embarrassed that Helen had got it right on the first try. He didn’t know how powerful it was until he left it near his Miles Electric… “A-anyways! We should probably -”

“Wait, that box…” Helen gasped, pointing to a box at the end of the packed file closet. “I saw it before…” she stated as she went up to the brown filing box, carefully opening it as if she was about to unleash some sort of beast. “Father was digging into it when I was younger…” She trailed off as she opened it, eyes bulging out of her sockets as she looked to the contents. Tails, not used to having Helen go silent on him. He immediately darted over to where Hope was, then peered over her shoulder.

The box was lined with pictures of what Tails assumed was Julian with Harold, and all the security camera pictures of Ovi walking down the street. Multiple red lines and notes pointed out the similarities to the two, but the most recent - and prominent - pictures were of both Julian and Ovi sleeping, along with a DNA test from the hospital.

Possibility of patient being Julian Kintobor: 99.9999%

“What the Hell?”

-

As Tails and Helen were looting through Harold’s reports, Harold himself had decided to look into Ovi’s room. Mainly to understand his son better now that he was home. However, as he opened the door to Ovi’s room, he found a pink hedgehog and a blue dragoness on his son’s bed, waiting for him. Harold sighed, not wanting a confrontation with his son’s friends.

“My son’s not here - if you wanted to see him, he left with Sonic.” Harold stated, looking at the two on his son’s bed. They seemed to be irate with him. Not surprising, considering he failed his son.

“Oh, I know about that. I was the one that suggested the idea to him!” Amy shouted at Harold, shocking the older human with the word choice. Had he miscalculated something?

“Huh. I didn’t think you’d be that into helping out a rival of your affections.” Harold stated his question, keeping his expression as neutral as possible to hide his confusion. It was Amy’s turn to be confused.

“Huh? What do you mean? Ovi’s not a rival! Nebula and I agreed it’d be healthier for all of us if we did things separately as well as together!” She stated, throwing Harold off a bit. When did they agree to share with each other?

Nebula, on the other hand, didn’t want this conversation to continue. “Friend Amy, as much as I’d like to explain to Harold about this…” She said, which Amy caught on and nodded to. Damnit, there went getting information from these two.

He’d have to try talking to Tails later. It seems he has the loosest lips out of all of Ovi’s group.

“You’re right. This isn’t the time nor the place.” Amy snapped out, leering at Harold as she stated it. Fair, he was fishing information out of her earlier. “Look, whatever it is you’re thinking of doing, it’s not gonna work.”

“Friend Amy is right - We’ve heard from Friend Ovi that you’ve been spying on him, lately.” Nebula agreed, also leering at Harold. “He hates it when people don’t speak the truth to him.”

“You and your friends should start asking about what he remembers, then.” Harold dropped, waiting to see their reaction. The hedgehog girl gasped a little, eyes widening in confusion, while the dragoness’ leer dropped, confusion evident on her face.

“Huh?” 

“What?”

“Ovi, as I’ve known my son, is extremely secretive about things.” Harold stated, keeping himself as neutral in his tone as possible. “I didn’t even learn about the bullying he’d sustained in school until he disappeared one day.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Nebula asked, her leer returning in full force.

But Harold could see the cogs turning in both their heads, their minds linking back to all the times Ovi dodged questions too easily.

“Ovi’s our friend! You putting doubts in our heads isn’t going to help you!” Amy stubbornly said, but her voice wavered near the end. It became clear to Harold that Ovi wasn’t as forthcoming as anyone thought he was.

“But had either of you known where Ovi came from, or the family he was born with until you met myself?” Harold pushed further, knowing they would keep this in mind as they tried to help him. “He’d keep enough secrets to fill a bank full of them. I’m worried that he’s…” He trailed off, thinking about the rest of his family.

The family he’s been failing.

“He’s…?” Amy asked, worrying despite moments before accusing him to be a bad person.

She has every right to, after all.

Harold wasn’t too sure if he could ever forgive himself for causing mistrust in his son.

“... It’s none of your concern. Ladies, I’ll make my leave.” Harold stated, turning to leave. He knew he had no ability to sway the two girls on his own problems at the moment - not when he’s already got the brunt of their hatred onto him for going into his son’s room. But he didn’t account for Amy and Nebula chasing after him.

“Wait! Mr. Kintobor!” Amy yelled out, getting off the bed to run after him.

“Hold on just a second!” Nebula called out, about to open the door when a sonic boom blasted outside, rocking the window to Ovi’s room.

Sonic and Ovi had arrived back at the Kintobor Manor, running back into Ovi’s bedroom just as Harold, Amy and Nebula were just coming out of it. Sonic, not paying attention, immediately put the breaks on, curling inward to try and protect Ovi from the incoming collision.

“Sonic, wait—” Ovi gasped out, the jostling of Sonic’s attempt to stop shooting pain up his leg. Before the two could figure out a quick way to safely stop and keep Ovi from injuring himself further, Harold stepped out of the way and plucked Ovi out of Sonic’s hands.

“Ovi, what did I say about letting Sonic go that fast?” Harold started, holding Ovi like a cat anthron would a kitten as Sonic dashed past them. Amy and Nebula stared at Harold, unable to comprehend how he managed to get Ovi out of Sonic’s hold so easily.

In fact, all three were so flabbergasted, none of them heard Sonic crashing straight into a wall.

Ovi, for lack of better words, stuttered in his father’s hold – too surprised by Harold’s ability to come up with a suitable answer. Harold’s face dropped the stern expression leveled against Ovi, softening as he adjusted his hold into a bridal carry. 

“You can’t just - How the Cosmic Entity did you manage to -” Ovi sputtered out constantly, his mind returning back to “HOW???” every time he tried making a sentence.

The two walked into Ovi’s room as the changeling ranted and raved, stepping around both Amy and Nebula as he did so. 

“Hey! You can’t just-” Sonic’s shout permeated the area, getting louder as Harold took Ovi away into his room. “Look bud, Ovi’s not some kind of doll you can randomly pick up-”

“I am not interested in your shenanigans, Harold ! Put me down! I can walk just fine -”

“I will uphold my threat when we first met -”

Ignoring even Sonic’s own irate raving as the hedgehog came back, Harold tucked Ovi into bed as the changeling kept on ranting non-stop.

“ – and you yoinking me out of Sonic’s hands like that ! How’d you –” Ovi stopped his tirade, thinking over something. The silence thereafter Harold took as a cue to leave, attempting to leave Ovi with his thoughts on the subject. However, Ovi caught Harold’s sleeve, eyes hardening as he realized what was going on. “No, you’re not leaving! You need to tell me –” He stopped as he looked to the doorway, confusion gracing his features. Harold, unsure about what caused Ovi to pause, turned around to find his young daughter leering at him from the doorway, the two-tailed fox that loitered around Sonic beside her.

“Helen, what’s –” Harold immediately ducked from the object thrown at him, realizing in reflex that the thing that was thrown was a picture… one that, once Harold felt safe from any more getting thrown at him, realized in horror at what Helen learnt.

The pictures of Ovi that he took, comparing his son of old with the mysterious stranger.

Ovi felt tense, his body shaking over the realization blooming in his head. He turned toward the conversation that was happening in his muted absence.

“ – Made me think he was just a random orphan you had a strange interest in!” Helen’s accusatory tone blasted through his senses, but for once it wasn’t directed at him. Instead, Helen’s own finger was jabbed into Harold’s face, the girl’s face all red with anger.

Harold, for lack of a better word, kept his face neutral as he walked out of the room, ignoring Helen’s demands of ‘Father!’ and Tails’ cries of ‘Don’t walk away!’ reverberated with Amy and Nebula’s own shouts of ‘Hold on!’. Ovi, on the other hand, kept staring at Helen as she angrily ran after her father.

Chapter Text

Tensions have risen as the days went on. Ovi’s recovery was coming along great, but that was the only thing that was going up. Helen’s trust in her father decreased over the days, finding more information about Harold’s little ‘investigation’ on Ovi. Ovi himself was finding it harder to be near his family, always wanting to get away or eating out when Harold or Helen wanted to be near him. It felt like, to Sonic, that Ovi was going to explode if he got between another fight with either the young kid or the supposed-to-be-adult of the group.

Which was why currently he, Ovi, Nebula, and Amy were in the Kintobor Manor’s backyard, camping.

Ovi was currently fidgeting on his little camp mat, unable to help with much as Sonic lit the campfire. He grumbled and glared at the roaring flame, poking at it with a sharp stick. Amy and Nebula were setting up the tents, with Amy using her trusty Piko-Piko Hammer to hit the spikes in the ground.

“I really can’t believe Harold, not telling Hope about me!” The changeling growled, his form aglow with orange light from his hair. The sclera of his eyes was as pitch black as Metal Sonic, making Sonic wonder if he would see Ovi’s normal sclera again. Nebula looked over from Ovi’s outburst, Sonic catching it in his peripheral vision. Immediately, he shook his head at her dour expression.

It wasn’t the time to talk about what Ovi was dealing with.

Nebula nodded, though her expression became grimmer as he turned back.

“Ovi, Harold could have –”

“I don’t believe that, either.” Ovi cut Sonic off. “I know what he said to me. ‘It’s not good to speak about someone like they’re alive’… Like, he stalked me enough to know that I wasn’t dead!” He growled out, flinging his stick (still lit) off to some distance. Sonic, feeling antsy already, zipped out to where the burning stick landed, stamping out the fire that was going to spread from Ovi’s carelessness. Ovi had the gall to look sheepish when Sonic came back with a glare and half-charred stick in hand, throwing the stick into the fire that they built up. 

“Sorry.” Ovi sheepishly whispered out, looking away like Tails did when he ate all the Christmas Mints. Amy and Nebula giggled at their antics, whispering at how cute they were together.

“Ovi, you can’t just burn down this forest because your dad’s a butthead.” Sonic stated as he sat down, leveling off his glare with a more sincere smile. “That doesn’t mean you aren’t right about Harold keeping secrets from Hope.” He comforted Ovi.

“Yeah, you’re right. I should take it out on Harold later.” Ovi nodded, before looking back to the fire. “Least Hope and Tails are getting along.” He said suddenly, a whisper of jealousy on his tongue. Amy and Nebula perked up at that.

“Ovi, it’s not your fault.” The pink hedgehog cheerfully smiled, smiling as she turned from the tent. It was already completely set up, upright and ready for the four to sleep in when the night came.

“I’m just glad that Friend Tails has more friends his age. Do you not think the same, Friend Sonic?” Nebula asked, coming toward the fire with Amy to sit down near it. Nebula sat between Ovi and Sonic, leaning carefully into Ovi as he snuggled into her. Amy, on the other hand, sat beside Sonic, giving a light peck on the cheek on his face. A small blush formed, ears flicking as he glared at her - though no real heat was found in that glare.

Sonic nodded at Nebula’s question, smiling despite the conversation. “Yeah, I was kind of surprised on that front.” Sonic said, leaning back onto the log he was sitting in front of. “Usually, Tails hates to gravitate closely to people. I’m glad he and Hope are getting along.” Amy and Nebula nodded at that, smiling despite themselves - they had tried to get Cream and Tails to be friends once before, but Cream’s boisterous nature and Tails’ past kept them from bonding properly.

Ovi, on the other hand, sank lower in misery. “… I don’t even know her.” Ovi stated mournfully, so quietly Sonic almost didn’t hear it over the roar of the fire. “I don’t know my own sister…” Ovi tried to curl into himself, hissing as his broken leg refused to bend properly. Nebula tried to fix him up from the position, but Ovi swiped her hands away, leaving her hissing as he mourned what could have been. “… Should I have brought her with me, when I left?”

“Ovi.” Sonic snapped, causing Ovi to look up from his wallowing. “You told me once that you left because it felt like a cage, correct?” the changeling nodded, not up to speaking out in case he started to cry. “You weren’t in any state to take care of a one-year-old, let alone old enough to know how to.” He simply stated, smiling as Ovi started to consider the logic. “Also, didn’t you say that the circus group picked you up within a short few months? And the group that helped you find them said it was a long trip, as well. That’s not a lot of time to get back to the Manor on foot on your own.” Both Amy and Nebula nodded at Sonic’s response, knowing that Ovi needed only one person to listen to at the moment.

“If I had your speed, maybe…” Ovi sighed out, nodding despite the proclamation. “But… you’re right. On everything.” He smiled shakily at Sonic, which Sonic took to mean that he was at least keeping it in mind. Amy, Nebula, and Sonic all nodded at that, an unspoken agreement between them. Ovi looked at the three in confusion, his head switching between Sonic, Amy, and Nebula.

Before Sonic, Amy, and Nebula could say anything to change the subject, or Ovi to ask what’s going on, a soft ‘ahem’ halted Sonic’s thoughts, causing him to turn and find Bella right behind him.

“The Master would like to see you two.” Bella pointedly looked to Sonic and Ovi as she said that. “Please put out the fire and follow me.” She all but commanded, holding out a bucket filled to the brim with water for Sonic to throw. As Sonic did that, Bella pulled Ovi’s wheelchair from nowhere, picked up the surprised changeling, and started to walk off while Sonic wrapped up putting the fire out, knowing the hedgehog would follow her back to the Kintobor Mansion.

Before Sonic could do that, Amy gripped his bicep, keeping him in place. “Sonic, he’s shutting us out…” She said grimly, as Sonic turned towards her. “He’s not opened at all since we came here. I’m worried that he’s trying to get away from… everything.”

“I know.” Sonic growled out, surprising the two girls. He then turned toward them. “The fact that he’s managed to open up about his feelings on Hope on his own is great, but there’s obviously something going on with Ovi that we don’t know about.” Sonic then sighed, turning back toward the area where Bella left with Ovi. “He’s keeping things from us, and I think we deserve to know.”

“I’m afraid that Friend Ovi will try to throw this behind him, and try to get us to stop asking.” Nebula pondered, biting her lips. “It seems like that’s his habit with bad situations. It’s not healthy for him to bury his feelings like that.”

“To think, none of us realized that he’s been suffering like this…” Amy mournfully sighed, letting go of Sonic’s arm as she thought of it. Sonic lifted her head with his finger to make her look at him.

“Come on, being sad about Ovi isn’t going to help him.” He commanded, knowing fully that Amy would get determined again. “He needs us to help him out, and you’re the best at getting people to open up.”

“Yeah, but Ovi and I are quite similar in temperament…” Amy pondered, before puffing up her cheeks and her face settling into a determined expression. “Alright! I’ll try to get him to open up! No challenge is too great for Amy Rose!”

“Thata girl!” Sonic cheered, then turned toward Nebula. “What about you, Nebbie? Gonna try talking to him?”

“Yes. I think us talking to each other about our pasts would help.” Nebula smiled, her eagerness to try powering through her fears of failing. “He might find we’re so similar in that regard.”

“Alright. I’ll try to get him to open up as well. It’s not good for him to be so closed off.” Sonic raised his fist in the air, Amy and Nebula joining him in his cheer.

“Yeah!” They yelled together, before the girls pulled back and blushed sheepishly.

“You should catch up to Ovi and Bella, Sonic.” Amy said, pointing back to the Mansion carefully. “Ovi might need someone to keep him from hurting himself further.”

“More like preventing him from trying to kill his dad.” Sonic said, but gave his usual confident, yet lazy grin. “See you later!” He called out, zipping to where Bella and Ovi were along the path.

Ovi smiled as the blast of wind tousled his hair, giving him a laugh as Sonic stopped just behind them. Bella, on the other hand, frowned as her kempt hair became frazzled and frizzled from the gust, glaring at Sonic as he shrugged haphazardly.

They trudged into the Kintobor Mansion without much fanfare or talk, going past the main gardens, into the ottoman, through the kitchen, before taking the elevator straight down into the basement of the Mansion. As they went down, Sonic noticed the air getting colder as they went deeper, his breaths puffing out visibly. In the corner of his eye, he saw Bella wrap Ovi up in a Snuggie as they descended. When the chinchilla got the Snuggie, Sonic would never know.

The elevator dinged just as Sonic thought of the implications of Bella’s abilities, the door opening to reveal a massive cave structure, with multiple machines and lights leading up to said machines evenly spaced out in the cavern. Rushing water roared underneath the trio as they walked over the catwalk, the *thump, thump, thump* of their feet echoing throughout the cavern. A few small squeaks of bats pierced through the constant roar of the water and the *thumping * of the two’s feet, but nothing compared to the eeriness that Harold was given with the screens illuminating the area around him. As Sonic and Ovi got closer to Harold, he immediately turned to the two.

“Thank you, Bella.” Harold stated, with Bella bowing and retreating after Harold dismissed her. He then looked to Ovi and Sonic, careful to keep his eyes on Ovi as he stated “I entrust you two with what I’m about to tell you – this information cannot be let out in general.”

Seeing the seriousness of this request, both Sonic and Ovi nodded.

“Alright.” With that, Harold turned to the computers, entering a password into the login system that the two just noticed. As the password was accepted, a cylinder tube was slotted out of a containment holder further in the cavern. Harold immediately pulled out the cylinder out of the holder, bringing it out to Sonic and Ovi to see –

“Wait, is that -?” Ovi gasped with Sonic, the changeling’s eyes widening at the container. Indeed, the crystal that changed colours in the light – and one of the most sought-after jewels on the planet – was contained in the cylinder container that Harold was holding. Currently, the Chaos Emerald itself was a bright, golden yellow that glowed in the container. Harold immediately set the container onto a roller cart that was nearest Sonic and Ovi.

“This emerald, I had found in the outskirts of the Kintobor Estate.” Harold started, his expression neutral. “It had slowed its descent as it got close to the ground, but it didn’t leave much of an impact. We didn’t even know about it coming until Helen found it a day later. Since then, KintoborTech has been studying it to try and reverse-engineer the energy it emits.” Harold then turned to Sonic. “However, there have been… complications lately, mainly due to a giant egg-shaped man. We don’t know how he managed to find the emerald, but he let us know immediately that he knew. First, he sent a simple Egg Pawn that we destroyed easily. Then, Eggman started to send more and more robots every week, up until Eggman himself started showing up. He wanted the Chaos Emerald that Helen and I had found, letting me know of the business opportunity that he would give to me and my company if he got the emerald.” Harold paused then, causing Ovi to tense.

“You didn’t…?” Ovi asked hesitantly, which Harold immediately emoted to – a slight downturn of the eyebrows that Sonic noticed. However, the emotion disappeared before Ovi could register it, returning into the stern cold expression that the two teens were used to.

“No. I don’t make business plans without proper analysis for the collaboration.” Harold stated, not noticing the breath Ovi released at that assertion. “I have suspicions that Eggman might have snuck in something to look into what data we have for the Chaos Emerald – as afterwards we found evidence of data tampering in KintoborTech’s servers.” He sighed, picking up the cylinder container again. “I had the emerald kept here for safekeeping, and made sure to hide its location so that he couldn’t find it… It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that he started acting on his threats.” He turned to Sonic and Ovi, not bothering to continue with his talk.

“So, why’d you call us, then?” Sonic stated, brow raising a bit. Harold smirked at that question.

“Besides letting you two know the location of the emerald for safekeeping?” Harold couldn’t help but turn away from the two, hiding his emotions. “I want to run one last test.” He simply stated, pulling on the cylinder’s handle carefully. “Make sure that I know that this is Sonic the Hedgehog I’m talking to.” Harold pulled open the container, shocking Sonic into action.

“Harold, wait -!” Sonic’s plea went unheard, as Ovi immediately convulsed as Harold pulled out the Chaos Emerald. Harold looked over, then completely froze as he morbidly watched Ovi’s body convoluse from the strain of new found Chaos energy, unable to comprehend what’s going on. Sonic quickly went over to Ovi as he fell out of the wheelchair, the shock to his system making it harder for him to get up again. 

“Harold, put it back !” He snarled at Harold, sharp teeth prominent. Harold looked over to the hedgehog, snapping out of his reverie.

“H-how? Ovi wasn’t –” A loud gargle came from Ovi’s lungs as the changeling hacked and coughed, what little height he managed to get falling under him. Then, the worst thing Harold ended up seeing since finding his son broken: Ovi throwing up.

Ovi retched from the overdose of Chaos energy permeated through the cavern, his heart pounding as every organ screamed to get out of there. He struggled to get up again, bod sweating from the exertion/radiation from the Emerald. Ovi panted heavily, using his elbows to try and sit up – not caring that his arms were getting soaked with his own ralph.

Harold immediately shut the container, eyes wide with realization about the events that happened.

Chapter Text

After Harold accidentally exposed Ovi to large amounts of Chaos energy, tension increased throughout the mansion. Helen kept to herself more days than not, only finding comfort with her new-found friendship with Tails, whom isn’t telling either Ovi or Harold where Helen has been lately. Ovi would understand the sentiment, especially since he hadn’t been left alone since then. Harold had been, for lack of a better word, hovering over Ovi lately, making sure he was all right after the fiasco with the Emerald.

It's gotten to the point where Ovi himself has started hiding in his room, only allowing his friends to bring him food and whatnot. Thankfully, him having a walk-in bathroom allowed him to avoid most of the problems with hygiene and hydration, which Ovi was glad about.

His friends, on the other hand, had opinions.

“You can’t hole up here forever, Ovi.” Sonic stated, eating one of the burgers he had bought for himself and the changeling while lounging on Ovi’s overtly large bed. Ovi winced, smelling the overtly greasy smell even with the little distance the two had. Ovi’s leg was now removed out of the cast it was placed in. Now, Ovi was just simply in a bandage brace, able to move his leg around without much issue… Though he still had a warning to ‘keep light on it’ from the doctor that removed it from the casing. Ovi himself was finishing off  a simple burger for his lunch, trying not to gag as the grease slithered up his mouth.

Ovi’s never asking Sonic to go get food again. Then again, Ovi did pull this on himself when he asked Sonic to ‘avoid all the chilli dog stands’.

“I know.” Ovi sighed, flopping backwards onto the bed. He groaned as Sonic gently pushed his sore leg away. “I just – I think Harold would know if I managed to leave at this point.” He turned away from Sonic, laying on his side. At that point, Nebula came in through the window – Amy in tow.

“Hello, dear friends! Friend Amy and I have returned from the Mall of Shopping!” the dragoness announced, floating toward the bed with Amy and their purchases in multiple bags. As soon as she got close, the Dragoness threw the items (and Amy) onto the bed, causing Sonic to scramble and grab his lunch, and the three of them to bounce as the impact launched them in the air.

Sonic glared at Nebula, holding onto his dinner angrily, but relaxed and went back to eating as he asked them “Got anything interesting?”

“Just a few cute shirts. Nebula wanted to try out some new styles.” She pointed to Nebula, who had pulled off her regular shirt to put on a flowery top that flitted about in the light breeze from the window, giggling as she twisted and twirled about in the air. The blue of the flowers shone in the sunlight, the yellow of the base colour matching the sunlight coming in –

“Ovi, you’re staring again.” A nose flick brought Ovi back to reality, that nose flick belonging to Sonic’s own cheeky fingers and smile – which Ovi focused on after getting flicked. Ovi growled at Sonic’s snickering but couldn’t say anything when Sonic continued “That growl’s the reason that you need to get out. Like, right now.” True to his word, Sonic moved to pick up Ovi, with the latter trying to fight against the blue hedgehog.

“Sonic, get off-” Trying to slap the hedgehog away, only to end up in a bridal carry, Ovi ended up ‘giving up’ and pouting instead, crossing his arms over his chest in frustration. “This isn’t going to work.” He started instead, grumpily turning away as Sonic smirked at him.

“Only when you’re no longer Mister Brooding.” Sonic stated, watching Amy get up and Nebula change back to her regular top. Ovi looked at Sonic’s green eyes at that point, feeling disgruntled and unsure about his feelings.

“… I’ve turned into Harold, haven’t I?” He asked carefully, looking at his friends in sheepishness.

Amy was the first to speak up. “A few days being grumpy doesn’t mean you’re acting like your – Harold.” She covered her slip-up fully. Ovi smiled when Amy did that. “Besides, you’ve got us!”

“And Hope’s got Tails.” Sonic stated, adjusting Ovi in his grip carefully, then wincing when the changeling winced. “They’ll be fine, Tails can handle himself.”

At least, it was enough for Ovi to calm down, as Tails hadn’t seemed to be hurt from hanging around Helen too much lately. In fact, he seemed… happier with Helen than he was with him.

Part of Ovi was glad that Tails was enjoying himself (and also sneaking out at night to let them know how Helen was doing - not that Ovi needed it, no grumpy Ovi to be found, here!). But another part wished that it was him bonding with Helen, not Sonic’s little buddy.

“I know… I still can’t believe it.” Ovi said, leaning onto Sonic’s shoulder carefully, tears adorning his eyes. Carefully, gently, a finger came to Ovi’s eye, wiping the stray tear from it. Turning, Ovi looked at Nebula in confusion.

“Tears don’t suit you, Friend Ovi.” Nebula stated, smiling in sympathy before taking Ovi out of Sonic’s hands. Ovi huffed at that but allowed himself to be carried.

Sonic and Amy laughed at the two taller people, watching as Nebula nuzzled into Ovi. “Hey, you want to get ready for the day?” He asked her, loud enough to cause Ovi to look over in confusion.

“Huh? Where are we going?” Ovi asked, confusion getting the best of him. Amy came up to smooch Ovi’s cheek, which the changeling blushed at.

“Well, if you’d believe it, I got tickets to go to the aquarium today!” Amy pulled out the very tickets to said aquarium, making Ovi gasp in surprise.

“Wait, we’re going to see the aquarium?” He asked, eyes shining in excitement. Sonic nodded.

“Yep! It’s better than going straight to the beach - since the water here’s not that great to swim in, I heard.” Sonic agreed, sticking his tongue out at the thought of swimming. “Don’t know how any of you like it, considering that it’s a death trap for all of us if we get too tired.”

“We still got your floaties, Friend Sonic.” Nebula teased, causing Sonic to gasp out in mock horror.

“No, not the uncool floaties! Nobody will ever take me seriously ever again!” Sonic wailed dramatically, smirking and breaking character as Ovi’s soft giggles broke out of him.

“You get taken seriously?” Amy teased, causing Sonic to gasp out louder in fake indignation.

“No! Not even you think I’m cool anymore! Oh, how horrible!” Sonic finished off, letting his performance stay in silence… before all four let out a large guffaw in general, laughing at their antics. They eventually calmed down, smiling at each other as they basked in their happy moment.

Eventually, it was time for them to get to the aquarium. Sonic and Amy both got up at that point, before heading out the window with Nebula and Ovi in tow. The four had decided to see the sites of the area as they went to the aquarium, going from local to local wherever they pleased. They visited the biggest park they ever saw, completely enamored with the nature of the area. They visited the aquarium in the park, amazed by all the belugas and other creatures of the ocean. They laughed at the octopus escaping, only to then try and ‘eat’ Sonic’s quills, forcing the staff to help take the octopus back into its pen.

Fortunately, while their stroll through the aquarium was cut short, the quartet were compensated with the chance to see the art museum, which they happily agreed to use that day. The exhibit was ‘Perfection’, where all the paintings/sculptures were showcasing the destruction of people with greedy hearts. The most common subject was dedicated to Perfect Chaos and the destruction of the Knuckles Tribe – as that had been accidentally revitalized in Station Square a couple of years back – but there were other Perfects shown in their monstrous glory. Sonic himself felt more drawn to the skeletal dragon depictions of a Perfect, while Ovi himself was mesmerized by the half-zombie, half-cyborg depictions of another Perfect.

For some reason, Nebula seemed off-put by the depictions.

“I hope these aren’t real…” She stated, looking up an oil painting of the God of Time and the Sun, Solaris. Her lips were pursed, and a dreary expression took her features. She stared at the swift, harsh strokes of the painting, the harsh contrast of the dark purple sky with the golden yellow of the bird-monster.

“Most of the beasts depicted are not, no.” Amy said, looking over her shoulder from the remorseful scene of Perfect Chaos destroying Station Square. “Though, having an encounter with two certainly puts your mind into perspective on things…”

“Two?”

“Ah, Chaos, and a piece of Dark Gaia. Though, some part of me feels there was a third…” Amy shrugged as soon as the thought appeared, unable to remember what it was. “Eh, whatever. It seems the memory doesn’t want to come back.” She sighed frustratingly, not realizing that she already forgot what she was talking about. They went back to looking at the artwork, not bothered at the lack of memory.

“Sonic, Amy, you think that the owl-griffon Perfect’s scary looking?” Ovi asked, breaking everyone out of their thoughts. He was sitting on a leather bench nearby a statue in the shape of the griffon Perfect. Made from scrap metal and lopsided cogs, the griffon-like creature was a spectacle for murder. Especially with the rust over the claws looking like blood, the entire sculpture was meant to entice fear and horror.

Yet… Ovi didn’t feel a whiff of it.

There was also a statue behind the spot Ovi was sitting at. One with an eerily shaped head. Nobody thought it was off putting as they walked past it - as the rest of the exhibit had similar looking items. But the others ignored it as they walked over to Ovi.

“Why do you ask if it’s ‘scary’?” Sonic asked, an eyebrow raised. He leaned onto Ovi’s shoulder as he looked at the giant statue. While Sonic didn’t seem too perturbed at the statue, Ovi could see Sonic jittering with his legs as he looked at the sculpture.

“This exhibit is about fearing these beasts might come into existence… yet I feel drawn to this Perfect…” Ovi muttered, unable to think of reasons why he felt like this. Amy sat beside him at that point, holding onto his arm as he stared longingly at the statue.

Behind them, a statue of a head suddenly moved - looking intently at the back of Ovi’s head. Ovi turned to look, in time to see the head blink.

The changeling stared straight at it, yet the Statue did nothing else.

‘Must be a trick of the light.’ Ovi thought, as he turned away from it to continue looking at the griffon statue in front of him.

He didn’t even notice the other three giving each other a big look of uncertainty about Ovi’s behaviour. 

It took Sonic, Ovi, Amy, and Nebula most of the day seeing the sights of Obsidianna, as the city itself was disjointed and overlapping in terms of design, leaving them to have dinner on the most expensive part of Obsidianna.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile, back at the Kintobor Manor…

Helen’s room was… different from Ovi’s room. Tails had thought it would be just as childish and messy as Ovi’s was, but no. Where posters plastered the walls in Ovi’s room, Helen’s had swords of all kinds - decorative, fencing, scimitars, katanas… Whatever the sword, Helen had got it. The room itself had soft pinks on the walls and blues on the ceiling, contrasting with the more militaristic and sparse decorating with the room. While the bed, drawers, and bookshelves were similar to Ovi’s, Helen’s own seemed more suited for work/sleep than anything Ovi had in his room.

Though the fluffy, faded carpet that Tails oddly found himself waking up on was interesting, the sounds coming out from the door caused him to forget the carpet.

“What’s going on?” Helen yawned out, getting up and stepping over Tails’ tails carefully. How Helen could even see with the lights off, Tails would never know. But he was glad she switched on the lights by the door.

“I dunno.” Tails stated, getting up from the floor. “It sounds like it’s coming from the kitchen.” He said as he pressed his ear to the door. Helen’s face twisted a bit, unsure about what’s going on.

“I kind of want to know.” Helen cheered, smirking a bit as she opened the door. She looked to Tails again, lips pursed over as she stared. “Well? Why don’t we get going?” She asked carefully. Tails shyly smiled at that, walking through the open door.

Tails and Helen snuck out of their shared bedroom, hearing voices further down the hall. Immediately, Helen was on instant alert, running off towards the sound, expecting Tails to follow. Tails, despite his misgivings, obliged Hope’s curiosity and followed after her, hoping to get things over with so that they could go back to bed. They were in matching pyjamas – Hope’s were dark red dragons imprinted all over it, while Tails’ had metallic blue dragons. Hope had decided to wear her neutral-fly chao shaped slippers, while Tails remained in his regular shoes.

“Hey, there’s something going on down there with your father, Helen.” Tails whispered, trying to avoid getting caught. Hope ignored him, causing him to get a bit irritated. “Hope, we shouldn’t be up right now.” Helen spung on her heel at that, irate that Tails would use her so-called brother’s infernal nickname for her.

“What, have you never gone against your parents?” Helen decided to say instead, though the anger of Tails calling her by the wrong name was evident on her scrunched-up face.

“… I don’t want to talk about my parents…” the fox whined, his ears flattening as he stated it. Hope stepped back in shock, trying to comprehend what that meant.

“Oh…” She started, then cursed under her breath for sounding too nonchalant. “Erm, I’m sorry.” She whispered, unable to make it higher, yet Tails saw her mutter out the words. As she was about to apologize properly, the noises from the kitchen got louder, causing the two to snap out of their moment. “Let’s listen in.” She growled instead, ending the conversation as Helen got closer to the balcony overhanging the kitchen. Tails sighed, but joined Helen at the railing.

The two got close to the kitchen area – decked out like a pristine 5-star restaurant kitchen, with every tool imaginable, and the floor space of a tournament cooking show – where Harold and another person were coming into the Mansion. The man was tall, had an extremely bushy mustache to compensate for his bald head, a red military jacket, and an egg-shaped body -

“So, Ivo, what brings you here? I sent Bella home just a few minutes ago.” Harold said as he opened the refrigerator, only raising an eyebrow as Ivo strolled past Harold.

“Harold, my old friend! Been keeping yourself busy with father-son bonding?” The egg-shaped man cawed, immediately strutting toward the bar stool, its harsh creak indicating it had been in this position many times as the man sat on it. Harold glared at the egg-shaped scientist when Eggman dodged his question, yet refused to sit, opting instead to stand on the opposite end of the island.

“Who’s that guy? He sounds… egotistical.” Helen asked, looking to find Tails’ face draining of color as he watched the scene.

“Wait, I know that man!” Tails nearly shouted, Hope gasping at the sudden loudness. “That’s -”

Helen slapped her hand onto Tails’ muzzle, keeping him from getting too excited as she listened in the conversation.

“– have you been, dealing with your son? You seemed pretty… upset about him, over the phone.” Ivo stated, accepting a glass that looked to be full of rum and eggnog in it. Harold, on the other hand, chose only water to drink.

“It wasn’t that I’m upset about him. It’s that he doesn’t want me. I can understand, considering what I’ve done to him.” Harold stated, drinking a bit from his water glass as Eggman took a full swig of his drink. The mustached man grimaced into the concoction - but decided to have another drink instead.

“Ah, the abandonment after Marian left, that’s what you’re referring to?” Ivo asked instead, drinking a small sip when Harold nodded.

“Yes… I can’t believe it’s been ten years since then...” The younger man seemed wistful at the mention of that name. “If only Helen knew her… She acts just like her mother, all stubborn yet head-strong…”

“Wait, I have a mum? That also left?” Helen was shocked at this – she just assumed she was some cloning experiment, or at least an adoptee of her father’s. She never had thought -

“It’s Dr. Eggman!” Tails softly blurted out, getting out of Helen’s slack grip and pointing toward the egg-shaped man.

“That’s Eggman? He really does look like an egg!” Helen stared amazed that the infamous Dr. Eggman. Before realizing how many of Ovi’s stories made sense now – how he got to meet Sonic, his first fight against the malicious scientist, the fact that he was sitting in HER HOUSE -

“Yes, and it seems that Marian still hasn’t been found. I highly think she’s -”

“It’s possible. Yet I don’t want to give up on her. Not until I know she’s gone. For Ovi and Helen’s sakes.” Harold stated, turning away from Eggman at that point. Helen was shaking, too many revelations were happening at once for her – she needed someone who would take it more calmly…

“Call Sonic… and Julian.” Helen spat out, looking at Tails with an intense stare. Tails immediately nodded, but then turned towards Helen with a shocked expression on his face.

“Huh, why?” He asked, wondering why Helen would want to ask her brother for help. However, the human didn’t recognize what the question was, and answered the one that he already knew.

“They need to know who's visiting Harold now.” Helen stated, turning towards Tails with a hint of finality. When she found that Tails was staring at her, she snapped out “Well? Get to it!” before turning back to stare at the scene.

“Yeesh, no need to get angry with me…” Tails grumpily tacked on - but did as Helen commanded regardless. It took two rings for Ovi to answer the phone.

Neither made any mention of her tacking on Ovi’s old name to her request. They had more pressing concerns.

“Yo, it’s Ovi -”

“Ovi, you got to come back! You won’t believe who’s in the Estate!” Tails cut Ovi off, an ominous feeling coming up his back. Would it be a good idea to bring Ovi into this? But he needed to know whom Harold was on good terms with…

“Who-?”

“Eggman.”

“… I’m on my way. Sonic, Neb-” Ovi hung up then, leaving Tails to pocket his phone away, biting his lips.

“They’ll be coming soon.”

“Good. They’ll be able to-”

“Do what?” Sonic squeaked out in between Tails and Helen, startling the human girl. The blast of air came in as soon as Nebula and Ovi settled in besides Helen, with the young girl panting to calm herself down while her hair was tussled in the wind.

“Hope, you okay? You look like you’ve -” Ovi’s mouth snapped shut as Helen put her hand over his face, turning his head toward the open-floor kitchen. “What -?” Ovi cut himself off when he looked over the kitchen area that Helen was pointing at.  “Oh…” Was all he could state as he saw the scene.

“No way…” Sonic could only look on in bemusement.

“I knew it!” Nebula hissed out.

“So he is here!” Amy couldn’t help but mutter, not believing her eyes.

“Harold?” Ovi looked aghast at the scene, unable to comprehend what was going on.

Eggman’s smirk seemingly got wider, as he pulled Harold closer. “It’s not too much of a worry, is it not? After all, your children will come around eventually!” the roboticist crowed, lifting the rum/eggnog combo up to over his head. “After all, it wouldn’t be good for them to come back more hurt than they already are, now would it?” His eerie suggestion rang out through the room, and Harold’s face was blank. No emotion, no idea what he was thinking.

Ovi growled at the scene, in disbelief about the scene playing out before him: Eggman, being chummy with Harold! To think, this is the worst thing the changeling found out about his father!

“No, he was never my father.” Ovi’s dark thoughts supplied, his world shutting down. ”Why would he talking to Eggman if he was?” With that thought, he immediately got up to run off. Nebula and Helen noticed his movements, and their eyes caught the changeling’s retreating back.

“Ovi, wait!” Nebula called out, but her calls were ignored as the changeling ran off. Before she could try to go after him, Harold’s voice rang clear in the room.

“…To think, I would even try to keep my children caged like that.”

“Oh?”

“If I try to keep them trapped like you suggest I should do, I won’t ever have them again.” Harold growled out, looking at Eggman into his small, round glasses. Eggman feigned surprise at Harold’s proclamation.

“But-”

“Don’t start with me, Ivo. I’m never going to do that to Helen. And now, when Ovi needs me the most… He’ll never forgive me if I do what you suggested.”

Eggman frowned, then cruelly smiled at Harold’s statement. “You’re right, my old friend.” The roboticist then gave Harold a pat on the shoulder with his hands – “Big enough to crush someone with.” Harold thought absently. 

“It’s not like I’m the one that needs to explain anything to your kids, since you’ve been keeping them in the dark on a lot of things.” Eggman then pushed Harold aside, not bothering to clear up his message as he walked out. As the egg-shaped scientist got to the door, he stopped- turning his head to look at Harold out of the corner of his blue eye.

“Harold.” Eggman said, tone analytical rather than the cruel voice he had moments earlier. “You might check in on some pests in the Belfry. I think you got too many ears in our conversation.” With that, Eggman left the house, causing Harold to turn around  to the upper floor balcony.

Just in time to see a slipper in between the rails of the balcony disappear into the night.

Chapter Text

 It was one of those nights where you could see the stars.

Ever since traveling with the circus, Ovi found an appreciation for stargazing. Having been raised in an environment where light pollution was abundant, Ovi found the stars as a constant companion in his travels, even with the circus turning their lights into the sky.

It was this particular night that Ovi found himself on the roof of the Kintobor Manor, looking up to the night sky. Ever since finding out Harold and Eggman were too close for Ovi’s comfort, dark thoughts pressed into his mind, and different ways of getting back at his father came out.

After the whole debacle with listening in on Harold, the elder human tried his best to ‘have a talk’ (read: tell the group to ‘stop spying on him’) with the group of funny animals and human-like beings. However, as far as Ovi was aware from the group he hung out with, nobody had that specific ‘chat’ yet, leaving the changeling worried about his friends. His thoughts couldn’t help but chime in, making sure Ovi knew what they wanted him to do.

‘Why don’t you try to throw him onto the rocks down below? ’ one stray thought pounded Ovi’s head, making him wrap himself further in the black blanket he found. ‘You’re gonna end up dead if you don’t -’

“Ovi, can I talk with you about something?” Nebula floated out of the window that Ovi escaped from, looking over Ovi carefully. Lost in his thoughts, Ovi hadn’t noticed his friend until she ‘harrumped’ carefully.

“Huh?” Ovi blinked once, twice, turning to Nebula and looking at her as if she hadn’t waited for him to notice her. “Oh, erm, what’s it about?” He asked, as Nebula repeated quickly, interest now piqued.

“Have I told you about how I managed to escape the people that kidnapped me?” Nebula asked, floating to Ovi’s side and sitting down beside him. Ovi blushed a bit as her warmth flowed into him, his worry about the past possibly affecting her.

“Yeah, but if you’re uncomfortable with it, Nebbie -”

“It’s fine, I can handle it.” Nebula interrupted, giving Ovi a small smile at his gesture.

“... Alright.” He conceded, nodding.

Nebula’s smile got wider at Ovi’s response. She closed her eyes, and inhaled slowly. She holds her breath for a few seconds, before starting her tale.

“I had managed to get enough of my fellow servant’s attention to stage a coup against my people’s enemies, the Sky Tigers.” Nebula started, melancholy look gracing her features. “They had all wanted the Sky Tiger’s blood one way or another, but we had managed to kill their king.” She spat out the ‘king’ part with venom, her fists shaking as she tightened them. “Enraged, the Sky Tigers chased me around their galaxy, killing all the members of the coup and leaving me to run off and be chased.” She slammed her fist into the siding, creating an indent on the roof. Yet, neither Ovi nor Nebula bothered with it as she wrapped up.  “The Little Planet had come when I needed it most, leading me and the remaining Sky Tigers to Earth… and to you." the space dragoness finished, gently looking to Ovi as the sentence hung in the air.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through all that.” Ovi stated lamely, looking away from Nebula as he thought about what he heard. Nebula did the same as she finished, biting her lips carefully as she thought her next statement.

"It's a bad thing that leads to a good thing, for me." Nebula vaguely stated, causing Ovi to turn his head in bemusement. 

"...What?" Ovi’s eyes widened a lot, unable to comprehend what was going on.

"My home, while I miss it, wasn't as bright and free as I am here - you make me free, here." Nebula stated, smiling at Ovi as she finished. Ovi blushed, turning his head from her as the space dragoness giggled.

"Nebula…"

"And I want to help you with your problems." Nebula finished, looking at Ovi with a sweet smile, punching through Ovi’s defenses. He pursed his lips, trying to get Nebula to relent. 

"Nebula, please -"

"Please, let me in, Ovi." Nebula scooched closer as she said it, forcing Ovi to push further away. At this point, he started worrying about the edge of the rooftop as he moved toward it. Instead, he decided to move upward the next time he needed to.

"It's not - you wouldn't understand. My problems lie with Harold." Ovi sighed again, turning away and huddling into his blanket instead of answering. Nebula, seeing how stubborn her friend was being, switched tactics.

"Then tell me about this place. Why do you call it your prison?" Nebula asked carefully, both she and Ovi knowing that answer. While Ovi knew it was to ease him into talking about his feelings, he couldn’t help but dodge it completely.

“I’m not going back, Nebula.” Ovi growled, lasering into Nebula’s clear eyes. The space dragoness blinked at his forcefulness, unable to understand where it was coming from.

“Friend Ovi, why do you not want to go back?” Nebula asked, confused by her friend’s word choice. ‘Go back to where ? Does he mean what I think he means?’ she mused in her head, looking at her friend in worry. If she meant what she thought it was…

She needs to pry Ovi open, with or without his help.

“My fa- Harold. It’s Harold, you stupid brain! - I can’t trust him anymore.” Ovi spat, his anger rising with the sparks coming out of his hair. He didn’t notice when Nebula flinched from the constant sparking, too focused on the source of his anger.

“Is this about what you heard the other night?” Nebula asked, looking over his sparking form, trying to reach out to Ovi as best she could. Ovi scrunched further into himself, hiding in his blanket away from her touch.

“Yes, I can’t deal with him now. The fact that he works with Eggman -”

“Ovi, you don’t know if-”

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I DO AND DON’T KNOW, NEBULA!” Ovi shouted, the blanket falling from his back as he stood up. Inhaling sharply, his eyes bulged as he realized what he’d done. “... I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“No, I get it. You want to be left alone.” Nebula said miserably, turning away from Ovi as his outburst finished. Tears threatened to fall out of her eyes, yet she did nothing with them as she held herself together. Ovi, terrified of what he did, tried to bring his hand to comfort the dragoness, but stopped halfway.

“Nebula, please -”

“You’re trying to push us away Ovi.” Nebula stated, breaking through Ovi’s own self-loathing moment. She sat down next to her friend, trying to hug him as he kept slipping away. “To wallow in your own misery. We want to help you.” She kept inching towards him, and he kept scooching away.

“Please, just tell us what’s going on…” Nebula pleaded, getting close to Ovi's face. Ovi shivered, moving away from the space-dragoness’ warmth and pleading with his eyes.

“I… I can’t.” Ovi whispered, not able to look at Nebula’s miserable expression. Nebula kept her expression, before turning away fully.

“... I’ll leave then.” Nebula, tears in her eyes, sat up to leave. Before she did, however, she turned to Ovi, a miserable expression dominating her face. “Think about what I said, Friend Ovi.”

Ovi, from all of his heart, kept staring out to the darkened world as Nebula walked away.

--

“So, you came to me, thinking that your outburst with Nebula wasn’t going to reach my ears?” Amy irately tapped her foot on the stool, crossing her arms as she glared her jade-green eyes at him. They were in the kitchen, standing over the kitchen sink cleaning off the vegetables that were grown in the Manor garden. Bella had just taken the veggies that they washed with only water, allowing the two to talk about things that were going on - mainly, about how Ovi blew off Nebula’s help last night.

“Amy, don’t start -”

“Ohhh! I have half a feeling about whacking you with my Piko-Piko Hammer!” Amy spat, pushing her finger onto Ovi’s button nose. “But… That’s not going to help. You’ll clam up faster than Sonic rushes off on a new adventure.” She deflated, pulling back as she sighed dramatically.

“Master Julian -”

“My’s name’s Ovi.” Ovi said exactly as Amy said, “His name’s Ovi, Bella.” Bella blinked at the two’s response, noticing slightly that Ovi turned a shade of green. Immediately, she sought to correct her wrong.

“... Right, Master Ovi. Might I suggest you try pantomiming your feelings to your friend?” Bella asked, not realizing the storm she opened by saying it.

“... You’re asking me, to do Charades with Amy?” Ovi blanched, pointing to Amy as he said it. Amy gasped at that haughtily, turning toward the changeling in anger.

“Hey! Don’t make it sound like I have bad eyesight! I see just fine!”

“You thought I was Sonic when we first met.”

“Ahhh! You had his body shape when we met!”

“I was in human form!”

“Tails and Sonic both agree that was a rude prank, Ovi -”

“Enough! The two of you either apologize this instant, or neither of you are having dinner tonight!” Bella yelled out, shoving the two away from each other before they had a fight of some kind. Whether it’d be a slap-fight gone wrong, or an actual fight with hammers and escrima, Bella did not want to find out.

“... Sorry, Amy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ugh, if only Marian was still here… She’d have had you two work out your problems.” Bella huffed, turning away. For once, the gastric feeling didn’t come along with the mention of his mother’s name. Damn.

“Marian?” Amy asked, missing the flinch that Ovi gave, as well as the tears building up in his eyes.

“Master Ovi’s moth- Master Ovi! Where are you going!” Bella called out, as Ovi started stomping away from the sink.

“Out!” Ovi yelled over his shoulder, not wanting to hear anything about his mother. Amy gapped at his retreating back, before growling and pulling her quills in frustration.

“Ugh, the nerve of that man!” Amy scorned, getting irate over Ovi’s retreating back. Puffing up her face and crossing her arms, Amy muttered darkly. “He mixed up Shadow and Sonic once, too…”

“... Marian was the one thing that kept this family together. I don't know how you'll reach him if he hasn't opened up yet." Bella stated, her expression grim as she thought about the past. “He’s never been open with anyone. Only Marian was able to crack out his shell at times.” The chinchilla then turned toward Amy, a bit of hope shining in her eyes. Amy turned her head from the stare, not sure what to say.

"He's only opened up about Hope…" Amy whispered, looking only to find Bella’s miserable expression staring back at her.

"... I hate to put a downer on your determination, but if he's only opened up about his sister, you're not going to get much else out of him. If ever."

--

"Tails, you needed me for something?" Ovi asked, coming out of the door to the training room. It was currently decked out similarly to a kendo dojo -- bamboo practice swords stood on their standees at the end on one side of the room, the wood boards nicely waxed for the purpose of strenuous activities. There was a small, smaller area where one was meant to put shoes. Fortunately, Ovi only had socks on, so he didn’t need to remove them. Hope’s katanas were nicely placed at the edge of the wall, one even being close enough that Hope could grab it easily. There was also a trophy case, showcasing all of Hope’s major wins and minor trophies in the room. 

It didn’t feel as stifling to Ovi as the rest of the Manor, making Ovi feel right at home oddly.

"Well, uh, it's not really I who wanted to talk to you…" Tails said, scratching the base of his ear as he smiled awkwardly. It seemed he really didn’t have anything to ask - then who-?

"Oi! Julian!" Hope’s voice rang out, startling Ovi and Tails out of their skin - well, Tails did, Ovi didn’t jump that much. The fox and the changeling turned toward the smaller human, finding no door in the area.

"Helen, when'd you get in here?" Tails asked, earning a look from his baby sister without much heat. He was glad that Tails and Hope were getting along, but man did it feel wrong to be jealous of Sonic’s little bro.

God damn his father -

"Vents." Hope said, snapping Ovi out of his (increasingly violent) thoughts.

"I knew you were an imposter." Ovi stated, a smile gracing his lips. Finally, all this time of telling Tails to get Hope invested with games has finally made her a gamer ! Praise the Helix Fossil!

"... Is that a meme game? The one with the weirdly shaped astronauts and whatnot -" And Hope shot that down. Damn. Tails, step up your game.

"Hope, what was it you wanted to ask Ovi?" Tails asked, turning toward Hope eagerly. When did the two get close enough for Tails to use Ovi’s nickname for her? ‘Eh,’ Ovi thought to himself, ‘As long as Hope’s happy with it…’

"Oh! It's come to my intention that you have something that I require. I want you to give it to me." Ovi’s eyebrow furrowed in confusion at Hope’s statement. Did she have to word out her request like that?

But now he was intrigued - he wanted to know what Helen wanted out of him. Was it candy? Tickets to see the newest concert? But first, Ovi needed to do some teasing.

"... Is this a business contract or a request? You made it so eloquent -"

"I want to know about Mother, Ovi." Helen stated, looking at Ovi dead in the eyes.

…Or Helen can go ahead and make him talk about the one thing he didn’t want to talk about. Alright, two can play at that game.

"... Business contract it is. Sorry, I don't plan on signing any papers -"

"Ovi!" Tails called out, trying to grab his arm. But Ovi was quicker, and pulled his hand away from the two-tailed fox as he opened up the vent immediately.

He was not planning on leaving the way he came in, no surie!

"Julian, you asinine swindler! Get back here!" Helen’s call rang out as Ovi jumped into the vents. At this point, Ovi was expecting a conspiracy between everyone that was trying to get him to talk.

At least Helen can tell Tails how ‘sussy’ he was being at this moment.

--

"Sonic, I don't get it - everyone's all acting like I need help with myself!" Ovi cried out, snuggling into Sonic’s quills while Sonic obliged grumpily. 

They were outside at the Manor patio, on the summer couches that Marian used to care for when she was still there. The soft greens and blues of the grey wicker couches had long faded, the sun and rain eating them of their colour. Now, it looked as softly white as the rest of Marian’s stuff, a faded drench of what remained of her. The couches themselves were circled around an electronic/gas fire pit, meant for those long, cold nights in the Summer. He sighed, inhaling the scent of the sun from the furniture, and something else…

The fact they still smelt of her - lavender and rosemary, with a hint of satsuma - was a miracle for Ovi’s miserable heart.

The fact that Sonic chose this location meant only one thing - the hedgehog wanted to get him to open up . He would have loved to open up, but the memories were too much for him right now…

"We're worried about you, Ovi. We're trying to understand what's going on-" Sonic started, but Ovi did not want to hear this right now. He got it, he needed help - but how could he ask for help, when he didn’t know what was going on?

But, a violent spark made him point to a direction… one that would get Sonic to shut up .

"What's going on is that my so-called 'father' has been stalking me for the better part of my life -"

"Yeah, the whole camera thing was a bad call, I can agree on that -" Sonic agreed, but Ovi was not done.

"- and had also lied to my sister about me-"

"Ovi, I think he didn't-"

"What? Want her to know the greatest shame in the family?" Ovi kept going, not bothering to look at Sonic’s face. He knows he’s being unfair now, but right now Ovi wanted to go off.

He didn’t notice a soft voice in his head, telling him to ‘get away, get away’.

"Ovi! You're being unfair now-"

"Oh, what now, Sonic? You're taking his side? After he used that Chaos Emerald on me?" Ovi fully turned to Sonic at that point, getting irate over his friend’s lack of focus. Which side was Sonic on?

"Ovi, he didn't know how sensitive you are now-"

"Forget it. It's obvious he got to you somehow." Ovi spat, the flickers of what Tails saw before igniting in his eyes. Smacking Sonic’s outstretched hand aside, Ovi sat up, intending to stomp all the way to the vent nearby in the house in frustration. Sonic looked up, finding the clouds darkening with his mood.

"Ovi- augh!" Sonic shouted to his friend’s retreating back, watching as he darted into a vent and *thudded* away from Sonic. "Why did I agree to this? I've never been good with these things!" He revved up, hoping to use his speed to find his friend immediately. "I'd better find him, before he does something rash!" Sonic thought, speeding off as it solidified in his head.

--

Ovi jumped out the vent on the other side of the hallway, leaning onto the wall with his arms crossed. The beginnings of a storm was festering outside the house, the hard pelting of rain distracting Ovi a bit as he thought about everything going on lately. No matter how much it made him smile that his friends were trying to help… The boiling anger that the Chaos was latching onto would not go away, and it was getting worse as the night wore on. Harold was in his office, having a meeting with KintoborTech about the sudden lack of activity from Eggman or something - Ovi stopped caring about it since he left home.

In his thought, he almost didn’t notice his fa-Harold coming out of the office that he worked in. Ovi wanted to steer this conversation to something a bit more… productive.

Yeah, right. Ovi knew that this conversation was going to turn south the moment both of them opened their mouths. But, he didn’t know how bad it would get.

"Fa-Harold." Ovi greeted as Harold walked out of the office, looking more tired than Ovi expected him to be. ‘ That’s great .’ A sinister part of Ovi smirked as Harold looked to him in confusion. ‘He doesn’t know what I’m about to do to him, yet.’

“Ovi.” Harold greeted curtly, causing Ovi’s blood to boil. How dare he treat this so casually!

Well, Ovi wasn’t going to let that go.

“Just my name? Really? Can’t sum up even an apology?” He snapped out, causing Harold to flinch. Even after all these years, Harold still can’t understand Ovi’s temperament.

Never bother to learn how Ovi worked. Just a perfect little boy.

"Ovi, please. I just want to-"

"Talk? Like how you told me that everything Hope would do to me would be my fault?" Ovi spat, getting up close to Harold’s face at that point. The sparkling of Chaos Energy flickered in his eyes, teeth gritted and sharper than any other human’s barred out at his father’s neck. Harold glared at his son, not realizing that he was fighting against pure energy at this point.

Energy fueled by Ovi’s own willingness to give it his anger.

"Ovi, that wasn't-"

"Or about how you maybe sorta were thinking of telling Hope about me, when you'd find my body?" Ovi’s dark thoughts reached their apex, his finger getting too close to Harold’s nose. Ovi immediately pulled his arms back, crossing them as he turned away from the elder human.

"No, that isn't-"

"The plan? Like how you planned on telling me that my mother was dead?" Ovi growled out as he whipped back at his ‘father’, hearing the gasp escape from Harold’s mouth as he realized the implications of what Ovi was saying. Eyes bulged and irises shrink, Harold took a few steps back, mouth gaping like a fish.

"...When? I tore and burnt the scratch pad's remains long ago !" Harold gasped, the gun fired in his mind. Yet, the spark in Ovi’s eyes roared ever higher, not bothering to stop as Ovi revealed the very thing he’d been keepin for so long. Unfolding his arms, Ovi waved them violently, ready to get into the apex of his frustrations.

"You still had the paper underneath it, dad…" Ovi growled, taking his eyes away from the man that was supposed to be his birth father. Fist clenched and shaking in anticipation, he let out the nail in the coffin. "I thought I had unlocked something when I found it- only to find your scrawl trying to think about ways on how to tell me my mother was dead." He looked pissed at Harold then, hoping that his anger would melt his father right there and then.

It didn’t, but it opened Harold enough for one moment.

"Ovi… I'm sorry." Harold whispered, unable to keep eye contact with his son any longer. He knew what this meant, and Ovi knew it as well.

"I'm sorry as well, for being so trusting of you." Ovi growled out, leaving Harold gobsmacked. Good, the chaos within him sparked angrily, flaring as he stomped away from his father. 

Sonic zipped along the hallway, looking for his friend after the latter had stormed off. Looking over the other end of the hall, he found his wayward friend, stomping towards his end of the hallway. Smiling, the blue hedgehog zipped across the area, hoping to try and make conversation with his wayward friend.

Too bad for Sonic, Ovi was tired of making conversation.

"Ovi, are you -"

"I'm heading out." Ovi stated, eyes seemingly on fire as he stomped toward Sonic. Knowing the latter’s outbursts from being a bit overcharged, Sonic stopped as Ovi walked away.

"... You need me to-"

"No." Ovi growled, Chaos energy sparking out of his mouth as he stormed off, leaving Sonic unable to comment.

"... Okay, then." Sonic blinked, thinking about the unwarranted anger that Ovi was seeped in. Before he could go after his friend, a rough, calloused hand tightly gripped his shoulder. Sonic turned to find Harold, keeping him in place and not helping Ovi. "Harold? What are you-"

"Don't follow Ovi, Sonic." Harold said, looking at Sonic with an expression Sonic couldn’t place. Was it defeat? He wasn’t sure, not with Ovi running around miserable. But then, Harold’s words sank in, making him pause before revving up.

"What about what I said before? About -"

"If you want to stay as my son's friend, you're going to have to listen when I say 'don't follow him'." The elder man growled out, flicking his eyes to Sonic before walking away. Sonic got irate then - was this man trying to sabotage himself?

"Why? It's obvious that -"

"He's paranoid, thinking that everyone is ganging up on him when he just wants company." Harold stared longingly into the direction Ovi had gone through. "It's his wish to be left alone at the moment…" Harold sighed, holding onto his head as he realized the thought:

"So he'll hide until everyone gives up on looking for him."

Chapter Text

True to Harold's words, Ovi seemed to end up vanishing after his argument with Harold, avoiding everyone for most of the day. Sonic and the gang tried chasing him from the highest point of the mansion - where all of the unused rooms and furniture covered in white cloths of the mansion resided - to the most lived in parts of the ancient building. Fortunately, everyone had caught enough glimpses of him - from either the tip of one of Ovi's boots, to the sudden reappearance of his coat - that nobody was really too worried about him.

It wasn't until later that evening that everything went wrong…

--

Ovi sauntered around the Kintobor Manor aimlessly that night, his eyes red-rimmed from all the crying that he had been finally allowed to do. He was glad that Harold, for once, allowed him to cry off on his own, but now… Now, his tired and miserable mind left him vulnerable.

Vulnerable to a voice that persisted in his head.

Ever since the ‘Incident’ with the Chaos Emerald that Harold had obtained, Ovi’s head had been filled with nothing but the thoughts of another being, pulling at the strings of his body better than he ever could. He didn’t understand how whatever it was got control of him, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get it out. He tried his best to get the others to notice - using his uncontrolled ability to fight against the control of whatever had taken over his body. But not only was the being in his head persistent, it easily brushed his mind aside every time he tried.

The fact that not even Sonic tried to find him when he needed help was worrying him. A lot. 

“I shouldn’t be doing this…” Ovi said, walking down the Kintobor Manor’s halls without much purpose. Yet, even without a set destination in mind, Ovi finds himself at the elevator to the basement, unable to convince himself to get away from the elevator. “Mother wouldn’t want me to do this…” He tried to tell the voice as he tried to think on what his mother would say, but it persisted:

She won't mind. Please, release me…

“I don’t get it,” Ovi thought long and hard, yet couldn’t recall what his mother would say to him about this. What was going on? “I can’t seem to recall my own mother…” His eyes widened as another pounding headache pulsed into his head, and another, intrusive thought pierced through his attempt at getting her advice:

She’s not here.

Do you not like her?

“ARGH! I can’t even think of what my mother would say at this moment…” Ovi growled out, pulling out his hair and smacking his head on the wall a few times. He sighed as he pulled away, massaging his head as he thought of getting someone else’s idea. “What would he do?”

“1. Approach your deadbeat dad. 2. Call him a deadbeat and a bitch. 3. Fistfight him.” The voice of Ovi’s old friend rang in his head, making Ovi realize how stupid that sounded. He smacked himself, for even daring to think with that guy in mind. 

“No, that’s the opposite of what I want to do…” Ovi sighed, staring at the elevator doors as they opened automatically, allowing Ovi to get off and look around. He was back at the same place - the one where Harold accidentally -

Help me… Please…

No, not good thoughts. But Ovi’s body had other plans than going down memory lane at this moment… One bright jewel that needed freeing.

Like he needed to be free, as well. 

Ovi gulped, how much was it trying to mimic his thoughts -

Take me.

Take me.

T̵̛͙͉͒̽̈́̅̐̈́̚A̴͔͊̉K̴̨͚͍͙̰̽̉͂͌Ẽ̵̫͔͉̫̱̳͔̕͝ͅ ̷̢͎͎̩̒̋́̊̋̃̀M̵̘̂̆̀̀̈́̀̆̃Ȅ̸̫̿̇̈́͌̿͑ ̸̜͚̥̞̹̞̳͂̚O̸̠̱̰̯͊́̾͌̚͠͠V̵̧̡̛̞͉̦̉̂͗̌́I̸͍̪̣̥̐͆̂̔̓́͜.

“Please… Don’t…” Ovi turned to the cylinder shaped casket that Harold had shown him a couple of days back, getting a horrific, nasty idea from the emerald…

He didn’t even realize his eyes were blinded with the emerald’s glow…

--

“Sonic, have you seen where Ovi went?” Harold stated, looking around the game room carefully. Fitted with a wide-screen tv, and bookshelves containing all the latest video and board games both past and present, it was the one room that Ovi had not been seen going in yet. There was a box of Ovi’s old favourites right by the tv, none of the older consoles and games having been touched - both the American and Japanese versions of the SEGA Saturn, the Dreamcast, and other such game consoles that Herold remembered buying for his son.

It was one of the few memories Harold had that wouldn’t have caused his son stress over, as he remembered buying all the games for his boy.

“Possibly around the basement, but I haven’t seen him since.” Sonic said, playing Mary Karte (or whatever the game was - Harold could never remember what Helen was blabbering about) on Helen’s Neentondo Switch. 

“Alright. Amy, Nebula -”

“Nope. Haven’t seen him since you ran him out.” Amy snipped, flipping through an old gardening magazine that Marian liked. He could barely muster the courage to try to get rid of them, even though they were crumpled and water-logged all these years…

“Try asking Friend Tails and Friend Hope, Harold.” Nebula absently noted, trying to play Solitaire on the computer that he left out for Helen. Harold sighed, and walked out the game room for that purpose. 

Harold walked back into the garage -- filled to the brim with all the tools and sportscars a billionaire like Harold himself can afford. It was big enough for Tails to work safely on the Tornado from the constant downpour that was happening outside. Helen sat in one of the office chairs that Harold couldn’t really throw out -- too comfortable to throw away, yet too old to keep in the office. Helen sat cross-legged, her sketchbook out to a page with a sketched out drawing of the Tornado. Harold notes, out of the corner of his eye, that Helen seems fixated on the design and shape of the plane rather than the fox working on it, though he’s seen a few messily erased bits of Tails’ smile on that page, too.

“Tails, Ho-Helen?” Harold called out to the two, before going straight into his question, “Have you seen Ovi around? I need to talk to him.”

“No…” Tails muffled, working on the damage that’s been done to the Tornado when Harold was trying to keep Sonic and the gang from the house.

“He’s gone.” Helen said absently, waving off her father as she worked on the drawing.  Tails immediately pulled himself out of the Tornado, a shocked expression covering his face from Helen’s announcement. The young fox kit dropped his tools as he did so. Harold turned to her in confusion.

“What?”

“Ovi ran off with the Chaos Emerald in hand. He’s probably off the grounds now.” Helen stated, not looking from her page as she sketched the Tornado that Tails was fixing up. Harold looked at the young girl in stern anger, wanting to know how she found out Ovi’s location.

“How did you -”

“Looked through the cameras. He gave me the middle finger as he darted off.” Helen answered Harold’s question. Harold himself made a mental note to go change the passwords to his security systems. Again.

“Hope! Why didn’t you say that earlier?!” Tails barked, snapping to Helen in horror. Helen made a face, interrupted again from her art.

“Why would I? He’s at the point where he trusts none of us, at this point.” Helen growled out, deciding to end the 20 questions game before it got going. She returned back to her sketchbook, drawing the Tornado’s last details before shutting it.

Harold balked at the idea of it – his son, doing something so momentously stupid? Yet, no matter how he turned it in his head, the behaviour lined up with Ovi’s previous attempt. Only now, Eggman was gunning for him, now that Ovi had the Chaos Emerald in his grasp, and the changeling’s leg was not yet fully healed –

Grabbing his coat and shoes, Harold rushed out the door, immediately snatching Tails and quickly demanding the fox “Call Ovi. Now.”

Seeing the barely hidden panic under Harold’s irate gaze, Tails quickly called Ovi.

One ring, two rings. Three rings.

“Hi, this is Ovi - Ovi the Marvelous! If you’d like to leave a message, leave your name and -”

Voice mail. Tails hung up, then redailed again.

Straight to voicemail.

“Hi, this is Ovi -”

Redail again.

It was picked up this time.

“Stop calling me, Tails. I’m done with this.”

Ovi’s phone hung up, and the tone rang out.

Everyone’s hearts stopped, as the implication set in:

Ovi had run away.

Chapter Text

“Ovi’s gone.”

That was the very first set of words that fell out of Harold’s mouth, as he returned with Tails after looking through the cameras. They had a recording of Ovi pulling the Chaos Emerald’s container out of the containment in the basement.

The group were all huddled around the computer in Harold’s office, going over Ovi’s path out of the house in order to gauge his direction out of the house.

“Wait, I thought the Chaos Emerald -”

“After the… incident,” Harold interrupted Sonic’s question, causing the hedgehog to ‘tch’ in anger. “I had the data from the retinal scans be placed into the computer in case either you or Ovi needed to get the Chaos Emerald out…” He sighed, trailing off completely from his thoughts. “I should have…” He trailed off, thinking of what ifs and has beens he could have done, only to hang his head.

“It’s all my fault…”

“Of course it’s your fault, you drove him away!” Amy snarled at Harold, shaking as she glared at the elder human. “Didn’t you think before allowing him to -”

“If that was my doing, you’d think I’d be here, telling you all this instead of trying to find him, myself?” Harold snapped back, before entangling himself into his own misery again. Tails, on the other hand, started pacing about, his nerves spiking up his fur.

“I should have said something to him… I can’t believe I let him walk off!” Tails muttered loudly, a crisis in his mind. The others - besides Harold - immediately turned to the fox kit, horror dawning on their faces. Nebula and Amy were the first to get to Tails, rubbing his back in circles as he stopped pacing to shake on the spot.

“Friend Tails, it wasn’t your fault…” Nebula said carefully, hoping a calmer approach would help. However, that caused Tails to shiver harder, clutching his head as he shook it.

She was not expecting Tails to suddenly lash out, forcing the girls to back off.

“But it is! All because I didn’t know where to start with my own issues with him!” Tails screeched with his outburst. Amy was the first to try again, but realized something with Tails’ scream.

“Tails, why didn’t you-”

“I couldn’t… because of my own jealousy of Ovi…” Tails interrupted Amy, when a soft sigh came out of the perpetrator of all this.

“I was wrong . I was wrong about everything.” Harold muttered. The rest turned toward him, confused out of their minds.

“Huh?” Sonic mutely said, blinking owlishly at the statement.

“What.” Tails growled out.

 “No way.” Nebula huffed, crossing her arms.

Helen, despite not answering, also copied Nebula’s pose and irate expression, glaring at her father as he wallowed in despair.

“Don’t make this about you!” Amy snapped, glaring at Harold. “Tails is -”

“No… If I hadn’t trapped Ovi at all… None of you would be dealing with this…” Harold looked up then, and they could see the unshed tears in his navy blue eyes.

The group hesitantly stared at Harold, then glanced at each other. They weren’t sure how to handle this situation.

“To be fair, Harold, you were the last one that had a conversation with him.” Sonic was the one to speak, his glare leveled on Harold. Despite the glare that the hedgehog was permitting, Harold didn’t bother looking up.

“I… You’re right. I’ve been a fool.” Harold sighed out, giving up completely. Sonic growled angrily at that.

“Damnit, Harold…” Sonic cracked his knuckles as he walked closer to Harold. “You leave me with no choice.” It was the only warning Harold was allowed to get.

Harold saw the punch not two seconds before he felt it, unable to stop it as Sonic knocked him flat onto the floor. He felt the bridge of his nose snapping as the impact hit, toppling to the ground. Harold groaned as he planted his hand on his nose, finding it bent from the impact. He waited for the next couple of hits, not disappointed as Sonic kept on pounding him - in the stomach, in the chest, it didn’t matter - it felt like an appropriate punishment for what he’s done.

Not just to himself, to his son and daughter.

To his wife, as well.

He’d always been the major screw up. Even when he was in the right .

“How dare you not hear out your son!” Sonic growled out as he kicked Harold. “How dare you tell him how worthless he is! Ovi is far more than you could ever hope to achieve!”

“Yes, you’re right…” Harold mournfully agreed, hanging his head in shame. “I’ll never be like my boy… All I’ve done is hurt him…” He finally looked into Sonic’s irate eyes, no longer seeing anything but his failures staring back at him.

“I should have given him to -”

Thwack

Another punch from Sonic, leaving Harold in confusion as he fell to the ground.

“And now you’ve decided to give up.” Sonic growled out, ears flattening to his head as he scowled down at Harold. “You’re really trying to piss me off, aren’t you?”

“Sonic, I don’t think he can take it anymore.” Amy stated, carefully coming up to Sonic and Harold in the hopes of patching the human up. Sonic sighed, but shrugged and turned around.

“As much as I hate this guy, Eggman’s done a lot more to get me to hate him more.” Sonic said, walking away as he said it. “And it’s obvious that he knows that he’s done wrong… and he is going to fix it. Right, Harold?” Sonic winked at Harold, watching him get up with Amy trying to balance him.

“... You’re right. You can deal with me later.” Harold agreed, which caused Sonic to laugh a bit. This laughter caused Harold’s head to snap up to the blue hedgehog. “What?”

“You really want me to fight you more, huh?” Sonic asked, leaving Harold to raise an eyebrow quizzically. “Thing is, I’m not fighting a man that wants to change, but wallows in misery over it.” He extended his hand, before asking “Are you here to help, or are you here to wallow in your misery?”

Harold, without saying a word, slammed his hand into Sonic’s waiting own. Before Sonic could pull him up, the sound of slow claps alerted everyone to a new presence.

“Oh bravo. Bravo! I’ve never seen anyone smack sense into Harold like that.” A lanky, dark red man called out from the distance, coming up to Harold as he was hoisted up by Sonic. The man wore ancient, yet elegant clothing that put him in a position of ‘noble’ - with a gaudy cape, puffy sleeves, and old riding boots, the man looked like he came out of the Romance Age with that getup. The only thing out of place was a pair of thick sunglasses over the newcomer’s eyes. “I see you got yourself into a predicament, old friend.”

Harold wiped the blood off his face, then adjusted his face into one of composed neutrality, before replying. “Terestri, you and I are not friends.” 

Sonic’s and Tails’s ears twitched at the name Harold used - it sounded almost familiar to Tails, but he couldn’t place where he knew it from. twitched, glaring at the newcomer in distrust. Amy also glared, but she held still.

Nebula’s own mouth pursed at Terestri, but otherwise showed no reaction to the newcomer. Likewise, Terestri looked at Nebula and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Helen was the only one that openly tried to get closer - whether it was to attack, or to snark, nobody was sure - as Harold immediately snatched her hand before she could take the necessary steps to Terestri.  Harold put himself in between Terestri and Helen, making sure that Terestri saw him front and center.

While Tails pondered, Harold now faced Terestri. “I need to find my son. Whatever petty thing you want today will have to -”

“Ah, do you perchance mean the little Changeling that ran off earlier?” Terestri was immediately jumped by Tails, the fox getting to the large being’s eye level through flying with his tails.

“Where’s Ovi?” Tails barked but Terestri merely huffed, pushing the fox aside as he stepped away. Tears were threatening to pour out of his eyes, but the fox wiped them away before they could fall. Amy and Nebula were the first to reach the fox, helping him up as Sonic immediately got in the way between him and Terestri.

“I was not talking to you , kit. Now sit down like a good dog and-”

“HEY!” Sonic and Amy yelled out, angry that Terestri would call Tails that. Sonic huffed and balled his fists, but the exertion and everything else with Ovi kept him from punching Terestri  at all - yet. Amy, on the other hand, brought out her Piko Hammer; the only thing that held her back was the prospect of losing information on where Ovi went. 

“Huh…?” Helen, for all her posturing beforehand, had not thought of how bad that sentence could truly be for her newfound friend. She attempted to stomp past Harold - to try and put some sense into Terestri - but Harold’s grip on her shoulder prevented her from leaving his side.

“‘Sit down like a dog’?” Nebula pondered out loud, never having heard the expression with her friends before.

“I-I’m not…” Tails tried to state, his voice quieter than the others.

Harold’s glare into Terestri’s glasses obscured eyes intensified, if that was even possible.

“ - Are you all finished? Good. How about I tell you what happened earlier? I believe I ran into your son, Harold.” Terestri proclaimed, getting into his story without acknowledging their anger. “I was walking in the woods earlier…”

Much Earlier…

Terestri was in fact walking in the woods, holding a random jar of mayonnaise as he walked into the Kintobor Estate. He thought about the awkward, misshapen shape of the jar in his hands, how it could barely contain the material in it, a grin on his face as he thought about Harold’s surprise at it -

Terestri’s musings were horribly interrupted when he collided straight into an orange and blue blur.

“Da-damnit! Watch where you’re going!” The blur growled out, looking at Terestri with his red eyes while massaging his head from the impact. Terestri scoffed at the obvious child, wiping off the dirt and mud from his glorious outfit.

“Ugh, spritely young child, aren’t you? Begone, I don’t want to keep speaking to you.” Terestri stated, walking off without much of a glance at the child before him. The ungrateful child huffed, getting up and dusting himself off from the impact.

“Ugh, fine. Get away from me, you overtly snarky being.” The child said, to try and reach Terestri’s uninterested heart with such a weak insult. 

“Good day, then.” Terestri huffed out from his nostrils as he watched the child get up - his hand reached out and picked up a random cylinder that Terestri hadn’t noticed before - before marching off in the direction Terestri came from. The brat seemed to be set on the mission heading off towards the direction of Obsidianna itself.

“Ugh, the nerve of some people…” the child muttered as he stomped off.

“Hey, you there!”

The child stopped as a voice called out. Terestri, getting curious, decided to hop behind a conveniently placed tree for the purpose of hiding.

 A generic anthron, presumably the one who called out, ran up to the child - it was a random brown cat with blue boots not dissimilar to the child’s. “I need help!”

“Huh?” The boy asked, having a face that screamed ‘Where’d you come from? ’. The unknown thing kept getting into the child’s space, almost pressing their face into the changeling’s.

“My father, he’s gravely injured!” The being squeaked out, and Terestri could hear the mechanical whirrs coming out of the newcomer. Unfortunately, the brat that Terestri could run into… could not. A shame that he did not possess the impeccable hearing that Terestri possessed.

“Alright, I’ll help. Can you tell me where he is?” the child asked, taking the hand of the newcomer. He frowned at the cold touch, but couldn’t think more as the kid dragged him along to his destination.

“Yeah, he’s right over this way!” The newcomer squealed out in a synthetic voice. “Follow me!”

“He-Hey! Slow down!” the changeling yelled out, trying to keep pace with the suspicious fool. Terestri waited as they departed from the area, watching them get closer to the outskirts of Obsidianna until they disappeared over the canopy.

“Hmm… What an obvious trap. Stil, the brat felt…familiar.…” Terestri mused to himself as he stepped away from the tree, thinking about the Changeling that he watched walk away. “Eh, I’ll probably figure it out later…” He shrugged, then sauntered off, holding onto the misshapen jar of mayonnaise in his hands.

Present

“And that’s how I brought this jar of mayonnaise to you.” Terestri held aloft the jar of mayonnaise that he mentioned one too many times, seemingly oblivious to his audience’s now boiling frustrations. Harold, hands clenched into fists, pushed Terestri into the wall behind him, prompting him to grunt loudly. 

Before Terestri could try to push Harold off, the human got close to his face, and growled out, “Which parts of Obsidianna did they run off to?”

Meanwhile, with Ovi …

“So, where’s your pops?” Ovi asked the kid, not liking the feeling of this kid dragging him. Nevertheless, the changeling kept a cheery attitude as he asked, “What’s happened to him?”

“Well, you see, my father’s a bit of a manchild, often running off with something new to play with.” The child mumbled, a soft crackle coming from the voice. Ovi found it odd, but assumed it was their power making their voice sound like that. Though, Ovi had never seen an anthron that wasn’t as mutely coloured as this one. “He got hurt when I tried to tell him to stop beating up his toys.”

“Really? I would have thought he was stern, considering your beat up look.” Ovi questioned, thinking about Eggman as he voiced his opinion.

“Well, yeah. He is.” The kid said, looking wistful as they stopped. “But he likes his toys… and breaking them himself.” He added, shocking Ovi out of his stupor.

“Oh? That kind of sounds like -”

“Metal Sonic, grab the brat.” An extremely familiar voice called out… 

And the kid that Ovi had been half-dragged with automatically complied, quickly turning the changeling around and harshly grabbing both of Ovi’s arms - and dropping the canister that contained the Chaos Emerald. The canister rolled a bit toward the man that called out, who picked up the canister with one hand. 

“Huh? H-hey! Let me go!” Ovi yipped out, trying to look over his shoulder as the kid twisted his arm painfully, forcing Ovi to the ground. He glared at the being behind him, finally noticing the synthetic breathing despite that lack of breath -

“TRANSFORMATION REINITIATED.” As Ovi noted the lack of breath, the form of the kid changed shape - from the generic brown to a metallic blue, from regular brown eyes to black with red eyes, looking exactly like Sonic with a more robotic look. It seemed to glare angrily at him, with its frozen expression.

“Eggman! You tricked me with your stupid robot lacky!” Ovi renewed his struggle as Eggman came to stand over the changeling, maniacal grin plastered on his face.

“To be fair, Kintobor, you put all your trust in a random kid in the middle of nowhere.” Eggman’s sinister voice sneered out, the smile never wavering as he explained. “The fact that you did, that shows to me how stupidly trusting you and your little pack of animals are.”

“They’re not a ‘pack of animals’! They're my friends!” Ovi snapped, elongated canines pointed at Eggman. The elder man took a step back, spittle nearly hitting him as he got close to the brat.

“Friends don’t allow rich brats like you out of their sights.” Eggman emphasized, getting close to Ovi’s ear to almost whisper it. The grin seemed to stretch more, if that was possible. 

“I… I-”

“Now, now. Don’t be like that.” Eggman growled out, not at all sincere as he harshly gripped Ovi’s chin. “You have information that I require. The way to open this.” Eggman lifted the canister to the brat’s face, and Ovi immediately closed his eyes. “Give it to me.”

“Please, as if I’d give anything to you.” Ovi snarked, grinning as he heard Eggman sigh in frustration. Eggman let go of Ovi’s chin at that point, stepping back as the next words came out of his mouth:

“Metal Sonic. Rough him up.” 

With the command, Metal Sonic punched the back of Ovi’s head, causing him to lurch forward and open his eyes from the pain. 

Right into the sensors of the cylinders.

The cylinder clipped open, making Ovi feel nauseous already.

“Excellent job, Metal Sonic!” Eggman cawed, taking the Chaos Emerald straight out of the container, and throwing the container away. “I knew you were capable of something beyond what I made you for!”

Metal Sonic nods, as Eggman pats its head. It tossed its head aside, rubbing its finger under its nose like it was Sonic.

“You’re not as useless as I thought you’d be!” Eggman stated, causing Metal Sonic to look at its master in disbelief. “Now, take the brat.”

Metal Sonic did just that - pulling Ovi up to his feet, and forcefully moving him towards Eggman. Metal Sonic, itself, was hovering, both hands holding onto Ovi’s wrists as it pushed and shoved the changeling towards Eggman.

“Usually, you’d ditch people like me at this point.” Ovi snipped as he went past, not bothering to look at the cold glare Eggman was giving him behind his glasses.

“Yes, but you’re still useful to me.” With that last comment, Eggman marched off to where he’d been hiding, Metal Sonic dragging Ovi behind him.

Chapter Text

Ovi found himself admitting he felt a bit nauseous, almost touching the clouds as they sailed over Obsidianna.

Eggman had not uttered a word of gloating from his Eggmobile since they started flying to the other side of Obsidianna - whether to prevent Ovi from snarking back, or because he was cooking something in his head, Ovi couldn’t tell. Metal dangled him over the buildings of Obsidianna, watching the mismatched architecture of the city. Modern buildings clashed with older, shorter designs -  Overtop a giant tower with stepping-stone-esque buildings beside it, Eggman paused over it. Hovering in place just long enough to make Ovi squirm. Eggman could and would order  Metal Sonic to drop Ovi if he so wished. So the time was spent in the awkward silence of humming engines.

Eventually, arriving at the seaside, which was just a vast amount of ocean underneath a concrete harbour. Eggman beelined towards one of the out of the way warehouses, its colours long since rotted away to a monotone gray. Anyone passing by would think it was slated for demolition.

Eggman pressed a button as he descended, causing the warehouse doors to open up before they got close to it. They went inside, Metal Sonic finally letting Ovi go to find something to restrain him. Ovi almost managed to bolt, only to find a gun pointed at Ovi’s temple to prevent him from escaping. 

“Brat, I will not be responsible for whatever my trigger finger decides to do.” Eggman growled out, his patience wearing thin. “You, on the other hand, will be responsible for the way my trigger finger acts if you so much as take one step to run off.” Eggman pulled the barrel away from the changeling’s head, gripping both of Ovi’s hands with one of his own.

Ovi sighed, and waited for Metal Sonic to clasp him in multiple chains and cuffs, preventing the sneaky rodent from escaping easily. Ovi looked around as he did so, finding the place lacking Eggman's usual flare. 

“Must be a temporary location, then.” Ovi thought, before hearing the cling cling of chains on him. Metal harshly tugged on one of the chains, making Ovi lurch as he was dragged towards the one thing that stood out from the rest of the warehouse as ‘Eggman’s base’ -

Which, actually, wasn’t there at all. Was Eggman becoming senile in his old age?

“Look upon my latest, greatest machine - redesigned to destroy your pathetic woodland friends!” Eggman roared, arms waving above him in triumph. Ovi couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that, knowing that everything made by Eggman was the ‘greatest’ to him. 

Ovi fell over as the area shook with soft rumbling, ending up being caught by Metal Sonic as it got more chaotic. Chains from above shook with finality, as if the place was resigned to come down. Boxes and crates were thrown/shoved aside as the ground broke apart, revealing the cause of the sudden earthquake.

Ovi blanched as a beast of a machine rose from the ground. It was the Egg Mole from before, only completely redesigned. It resembled the standard Grounder enemies, only without the ugly antennae hat and more mole-like. The red of the machine shone in the artificial light, a small bendy bit Ovi had sworn was for buses only keeping the top half and the bottom half together. The machine hissed as it fully emerged from the hole, opening up to showcase a compartment filled with empty rocket launchers, waiting to be filled.

“What once was one drill on each paw is now multiple, tiny drills! I fitted them with electric charges to prevent you from smacking them.” Eggman started, pointing at each part as he boasted. “The treads at the back had to be covered by a guard that contains spikes, making it harder for Sonic and your pathetic friends to traverse up the back.” Eggman coughed, before continuing, “ - which also sports electric prongs designed to shock those on the back when they spring out.” Eggman then motioned to the torso of the beast, grin encompassing his face. “As it trundles about, the top part of the machine will be able to twist and contort, allowing it to turn and give me a chance to see whoever’s climbing on its back.” Finally, Eggman motions to the back of the Egg Mole, smile broadening sinisterly. “That pales in comparison to the massive amount of missiles that I placed into the back of the machine, which I had to pop out to load them.” He finished, giving a bow as if he finished a presentation.

Ovi, despite his anger and frustration over everything, couldn’t help but be amazed how quick Eggman was able to redesign the Egg Mole.

That month was really worth Eggman’s time.

“Well,” Ovi thought, a sly smile coming to his face, “Time to be the brat Eggman thinks I am.”

“Well, it seems rather…” Ovi shrugged, gesturing to the lack of current paint job to the machine. Eggman, having just put down his favourite gun, sharply turned toward Ovi in seething anger.

“Ah ah ah! Did I ask for your opinion, brat?” Eggman waggled his finger as he spoke, before flicking Ovi’s nose. Ovi, getting irate and feeling bold, decided to go straight for the jugular.

“I’m going to say it anyway: It’s trash.” Ovi sneered, looking to Eggman’s ugly glasses and stupid sneering face. “Besides, all of your stupid, ugly little machines would never be as useful as even one of my friends!”

“Oh, Metal Sonic~” Eggman sang out, and Ovi could sense Metal’s hand lingering over his long-damaged shoulder, before digging into the spot where it broke with a grip comparable to a hydraulics machine in strength.

“Arrrgh!” Ovi screamed out, the pain causing him to topple to his knees. Even the pain of landing on the chains and cuffs wasn’t enough for his body to disregard the flaring sensation in his shoulder.  Metal Sonic let go at that point, looking to its master for praise.

Eggman didn’t bother to even acknowledge Metal Sonic’s look, picking Ovi up and throwing him into Metal. The robot caught the thrown changeling, head dipping in some attempt at emotion.

“Spare me the theratics, boy. You simply don’t have enough appreciation of the fine arts. Now stay silent for a bit, as I make the last few tweaks of my greatest invention!” Eggman ignored Ovi’s yelling, preferring to wax philosophical about what his Egg Mole would do to Sonic. He never acknowledged his trusted machine’s wordlessness as he went off on his tirade. “The one that’ll crush my archnemesis to smithereens- !”

Ovi rolled his eyes before he tuned Eggman out - he heard enough of Eggman’s mad ramblings for a lifetime. Instead he turned inward, thinking about how wrong he was for running off in the first place. If he'd known that was Eggman’s plan all along-

Stop that, Ovi.

“Great, the Chaos is talking to me again.” Ovi sighed, turning his head to the side and trying to think different thoughts. Suddenly, the memory of Sonic speaking about Metal Sonic came to mind:

“Metal Sonic’s not much of a talker. The last time he was, he ended up getting downgraded by Eggman…”

And Metal Sonic had been talking in its disguises…

“So, Metal Sonic, how did you -” In place of Metal Sonic was the kid that Metal Sonic had turned into, a smile wider than many anthronians taking most of its muzzle.

“My current model allows the usage of nanites to allow me to change shape and form…” Its face started to melt as it talked, causing Ovi to try and step back. But the amount of chains and cuffs prevented him from doing that, forcing him to watch Metal Sonic as it changed shape and disguise.

“Meaning -” It turned into Tails, after spinning around in place.

“I can -” Amy.

“Become -” Cream the Rabbit, and Ovi thought that was weird without Cheese hanging by.

“Whomever I want to be!” Hope. Ovi gulped at that.

“As long as -” Nebula.

“They’re in Eggman’s data banks -” Shadow.

“I can become your bestest friend!” Sonic, and it got really close to Ovi’s face then.

“Or your worst nightmare.” It melted into Harold’s face, making the feelings of nausea come back stronger than ever.

“As for my talking,” Metal morphed into the generic anthron’s face again, its smile back in place. “I’m only allowed to speak when in disguise. When idling, it would ruin my master’s work.” Metal then ‘sighed’, before looking eager; “Unless… you want to be my ‘friend’?” Ovi’s eyes bulged at the question, wondering where Metal got that idea from.

“I already have enough friends, thanks.” Ovi growled, not bothering to look when Metal Sonic’s ‘child’ disguise drooped at the answer. This was still a dangerous weapon he was talking to, bound only to its creator/master for its loyalty. No matter how it tried to act like his friend.

There’s no reasoning with something that’s not ‘alive’, after all.

“Oh ho ho, my boy. I didn't think you’d care about those lowlifes!” Eggman cawed, breaking Ovi out of reverie. “Why, they just happily let you run away from dear ol’ daddy Harold, right on cue for you to deliver the Chaos Emerald to me!”

“You liar! They would never do that!” Ovi squealed, his voice rising an octave higher than his usual amount. Eggman gleefully smiled at Ovi’s despair, glasses gleaming as he thought his next words.

“Oh, am I now?” Eggman said, taking on a gentler, almost grandfatherly voice. “Tell me, Ovi. Why are you here?”

“Wha-what? You brought me here!” Ovi yelled, not wanting to play Eggman’s games.

“And yet,” Eggman leaned closer, keeping the grandfather act despite creeping Ovi out, “You came on your own volition to me, boy.”

With that, Eggman left Ovi to think on what was said. The horror dawned on the brat’s face as Eggman went back to the finishing touches.

Meanwhile, with Sonic and the gang…

After Harold finally wrangled out of Terestri where he last saw Ovi, Sonic and the gang scoured the Kintobor Manor’s entire forest for any traces of Ovi. They had split up, tackling different parts of the woods. Nebula floated over the trees, keeping an eye out for movement as she scoured the tree tops. Tails was using his Miles Electric as a dowsing machine, hoping to find the trace signatures of Ovi and the Chaos Emerald.

Hope and Amy - as Harold refused to let his daughter out of someone’s sight - looked around inside the tree line, calling out Ovi’s name as they traversed carefully. Harold himself kept checking the ground for tracks, following the line of footprints as Sonic zipped and dashed by all of them, barely leaving an imprint before it was swept away again.

Eventually, the entire group converged to the point where Terestri had said he last saw Ovi, taking the steps to find the container the Chaos Emerald was kept in, along with the last of Ovi’s footprints in the grass. Right until Ovi’s signature bootprints stopped.

“It seems his trail ends here.” Harold stated, keeping a neutral mask as he surveyed the area. “Ovi seems to have picked up the habit of placing his signature onto his shoes.” Harold mused to himself, tracing a faint outline of Ovi’s name left in the ground. Sonic was the first to react to the news, stomping his foot in the ground.

“Damnit!” Sonic yelled, slamming his fist into a nearby tree. He regretted it right away, as he shook his hand to try and alleviate the bout of pain.

“That can’t be the end of it! Are there other paths he could have taken?” Nebula floated down, arms flailing as she gestured to the spot that Ovi’s last footprint was.

“No, it seems they just… flew off.” Harold bemusedly muttered, not understanding what happened.

“Flew off?” Amy’s eyes got wide. As soon as she and the others heard that, then looked at each other, a silent nod of understanding given between them. Apart from Harold and Helen, that is, who stared at the trio. “Do you know something I don’t?” Harold asked.

“Eggman probably got on his stupid Eggmobile to prevent anyone from tracking him…” Sonic’s voice had an edge to it as he swiped his nose. Helen looked at Sonic, expression blank with confusion.

“Eggmobile?” She asked, which Tails obliged.

“The Eggmobile is Eggman's own hover car. A nifty invention that allows him to take control of his robots quickly and efficiently! You see…” Tails and Helen kept talking about the mechanics of the Eggmobile, geeking out over its ability to levitate despite no known thrust…

Nebula decided to tune them out, and pick up the canister. There, her heightened senses picked up something that she couldn’t tell before - but remembered smelling when Ovi and Sonic had come up with Harold the previous day. Hesitantly, Nebula stuck her snout into the container’s opening, and - 

Sniff, sniff

“Hmm…” Nebula hummed out, looking through the canister to make sure. Yep - The strong, almost distorted taste/smell of the Chaos Emerald mixed with the canister itself, almost giving off an ethereal glow as she looked into it.

“Nebbie? What do you smell?” Amy asked, looking over to Nebula’s position as she regarded what they could do. 

“I smell the container that the Chaos Emerald was trapped in.” Nebula stated, licking the container for good measure. “It seems the Chaos Emerald stayed long enough for the canister to absorb most of its smell.” 

Harold, still looking at the footprint Ovi left longingly, immediately swiveled and glared at Nebula in disbelief.

“You can smell electronics?” Harold asked, surprise written in his features. He got up from where he was kneeling, walking over to Nebula to assess the cylinder.

“It was how we managed to find out your address - her smelling your microchip.” Tails stated, he and Hope coming towards Harold and Nebula.

“That… that should have exploded along with your tablet.” Harold’s brows knitted together as he ran things through his head. 

“It didn’t.” Tails stated, shaking his head in thoughtfulness. “The microchip had your address on it, so we used it to find your place.” Harold blinked, huffing a bit at being bested by faulty machinery.

 “Great, I'll have to let them know not to put my address onto these chips…” Harold growled to himself, thinking about the division in KintoborTech who thought it was a great idea to leave his address on the microchip. He’ll have to demote the person, now…

“Okay, enough already!” Everyone immediately looked to Sonic, happy for the interruption. “We need to get to Ovi, and fast. Who knows what he’s doing with Ovi?”

“Yes, it would be a problem if Eggman found Ovi to be worthless in this endeavor…” Harold muttered, his mind drifting to the possibility of his son dead.

“Right. Nebula, can you smell where Ovi went?” Sonic asked, mind frazzled and ready to bolt.

“Yes, I think he went that way!” Nebula bolted into the sky, floating off as she followed the scent without bothering to see if the others followed. Sonic immediately grabbed Harold’s hand, not bothering to check if he was okay with it as the hedgehog zoomed off after the dragoness.

Amy, Tails, and Helen looked at each other, before Tails grabbed Helen’s hand and darted off, flying in the air as he did so. Amy was not far behind them, her own training with keeping up with Sonic helping her catch up with the others.

“Nebula, wait!” Amy and Tails yelled, trailing after Sonic and Nebula.

Back with Ovi and Eggman…

Ovi sighed, left alone while Eggman had gone off to gather more scrap metal for his Egg Mole. Ovi had taken a nap in between pretending to listen to Eggman’s newest spiel and fighting off an existential crisis, trying to avoid thinking about it by getting Eggman irate. Fortunately, Eggman deemed Ovi ‘too useful alive’, as most of Ovi’s ‘punishments’ for back talking usually came to Metal Sonic roughly squeezing the breaks and fractures all over Ovi’s body - most of which were made from his careless attempts from the circus.

Now, without the ability to sass Eggman, Ovi was stuck, with only Metal Sonic for company. Currently, the robot was idling, unable to even provide Ovi any moment of entertainment, even if it was horrific.

 “Friends don’t allow rich brats like you out of their sights.”

“Why, they just happily let you run away from dear ol’ daddy Harold, right on cue for you to deliver the Chaos Emerald to me!”

“You came on your own volition to me, boy.”

“Damnit!” Ovi yelled out, bringing his hands over his head to massage the thoughts out. Tails was right - Eggman would go for your weaknesses in the moment you showed one. He needed to force them out…

How can you say that? You agree with him!

That… That was true. Ovi did agree with them. It didn’t matter how much he wanted them out - Ovi always believed that he was a monster, from the sharp incisors he had since birth, to his orange hair and red eyes that he got after nearly dying from trying the quadruple flip. A mix between human and anthron. Never belonging in either.

“You’ll always have a place with us.” Sonic had said to him, one time, but Ovi never really believed it. He still didn’t, despite how he and Sonic were close.

After all, if Tails, his somewhat equal in being weird… Well, there was no other way to put it - Tails hated him, didn’t he? Hated that Ovi took up most of Sonic’s time from the fox, hated how Ovi charmed Amy and Nebula so easily, while the little fox seethed in the corner…

Well, now he won, didn’t Tails? Managed to get Hope to like him, when Ovi couldn’t -

“No, don’t think like that.” Harold’s old words creeped into Ovi’s head, shattering his dark thoughts with a purpose. “Wallowing isn’t going to help you at this moment in time. Take a look around yourself - what’s available to you that’ll help you get out?”

Ovi immediately looked around the area, compartmentalizing his thoughts for another time. Around was mostly boxes, not much close to him that would work… Well, save for the screwdriver Eggman had used to tighten some stray wires earlier. It seemed Eggman had forgotten to place it with the rest of his tools before leaving.

Ovi, knowing that Metal Sonic would do nothing as long as he didn’t try to run away (Ovi had tried to run a few times before, Metal Sonic kept on dragging him back before he managed to get away), Ovi got a marvelous idea.

One that would probably help his pals in the upcoming fight.

Using the screwdriver to get himself out of the restraints, Ovi took a look around now that he was unbounded. Ovi didn’t know what the warehouse contained - well, besides Metal Sonic and the giant, obvious Egg Mole in the building - and he needed something that would work.

Eventually, his foot caught a spray paint can, causing it to roll away from Ovi. Taking a look to his right, he saw all the boxes of spray paint right beside him.

Ovi smiled cruelly, looking back to the Egg Mole.

Immediately taking a few paint cans, Ovi leapt onto the Egg Mole, and started spraying more colourful patterns over the dull red, black, and grey the design had. In addition to the machine’s new ‘makeover’, Ovi took a look at the potential weak spots, areas where Ovi knew Sonic could dispatch easily.

At least, up until Eggman returned from wherever he went.

“I am the EGGMAN, That’s what I am - What! My creation!” Eggman dropped the bag of scrap in his hand as he entered the building, looking at the ‘paint job’ that Ovi gave his new masterpiece. “You insolent little brat! How dare you paint over my masterpiece!” Eggman’s voice boomed throughout the warehouse as he stomped towards Ovi.

Ovi, having just enough time to hide his ‘additions’ as random additions, yelped and nearly fell off the Egg Mole. Catching himself on the edge where the Eggmobile would be inserted into, before hauling himself up and trying to relax carefully on its sides.

“It looked a little drab, so I painted it!” Ovi snarked eagerly, not mentioning the fall he had earlier. He was sure Eggman didn’t see it, but Ovi noticed that Eggman’s face was alight with glee. Ovi was so focused on his slip up, he didn’t notice the swift presence of another coming behind him.

“Bah, you absolutely have no understanding of colour coordination! You’ve got blues and greens over top my brilliant red, and left bright yellow on top of my perfect blacks and grays! Oh, and Metal? Our guest needs another lesson in manners.” Eggman sneered, offering his palm as if he were allowed to bring a lady down the stairs.

Instantly, Metal Sonic charged up its electricity, grabbing Ovi before the changeling could move. A shock resounded throughout Ovi’s body, causing his muscles to react erratically.

“AHHHHHH!” Ovi screamed, his throat going dry immediately as Metal Sonic dropped Ovi onto the ground. Who knows when Metal Sonic was moving Ovi to bow towards Eggman, as he was being electrocuted, but hey.

“No, don’t stop. I’d like to hear you cry out for daddy.” Eggman childishly snarked, making Ovi look up to the scientist, snarling his teeth at the comment.

“You… You bastard.” Ovi growled out, rasping out his breaths as he glared at his captor, body spasming from the residential electricity in his body. Eggman’s smile widened with a vengeance.

“You know, your dear old dad wanted you to be sent to me, didn’t you?” Eggman stated, causing Ovi’s eyes to widen in response. “After all, I know how to take care of petulant children.” He emphasized, seemingly in accordance with his rivalry to Sonic. Ovi chuckled without humor, making Eggman growl back at him.

“Please, as if he’d give me to you.” Ovi slurred out, yet trailed off as he thought of it - how it explained both Harold’s current and past behavior. He couldn’t tell anymore if what he stated was true. Had it been, once before?

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Eggman cut through most of Ovi’s cruel thoughts, lapping up the realization in Ovi’s eyes. In the corner of his glasses, Eggman saw his cameras sighting a rather intrepid gaggle of morons out on his front door . “Oh, here he is now.”

“Harry -?” Ovi whined - whined! - at that. Eggman soaked in all of the little pest’s fear.

“Yes, you brat.” Eggman then turned to Metal Sonic, pressing a button on his jacket before addressing the robot. “Now, you get to take a backseat while Metal Sonic greets your friends. Right, Metal?”

“You got it!” Ovi’s sharp, yet snark-filled voice reverberated in the warehouse, causing Ovi to turn around. There, in place of the robot Ovi hated to see, was himself .

Save for one detail…

“You do know that my friends will see right through this trick?” Ovi growled out, glaring at Eggman as he pointed at Metal’s Ovi eyes.

Metal Sonic’s disguise used white sclera, as opposed to the black sclera that Ovi had.

“Bah! Semantics. Besides,” Eggman chuckled, waving at Metal “Ovi.” At once, “Ovi’s” sclera turned black, before returning to white.

“A master showman never starts with all of his tricks! You’ll get to see them not fall for it, then fall for it when it’s you!” Eggman lifted Ovi as Metal Sonic walked off to the entrance, getting ready to fight Sonic and the gang. Ovi stunned out of his mind, could only watch as Eggman threw him into the insides of the Egg Mole, his laugh haunting him as he fell into darkness.

“Ho, oh oh oh - hoh!”

Chapter Text

The warehouses, as Harold remembered it, were a dilapidated mess of concrete and patchwork of possible demolition. With all the cracked walls and lack of proper access to the main road, it was desperate for a reworking, one Harold was hoping to make. But ever since Harold had found Ovi, the warehouse demolition plans had to be put on hold.

Now, it took no small part of his will power not to slap himself for not going ahead anyways. 

The group managed to get to the right warehouse after a series of misadventures.  Nebula being the prime suspect for getting Sonic and Harold lost within Obsidianna. The two got lost in the oddest of places - ending up a few times in the Chun-nanTown District at least twice, near the Obsidianna Convention Centre three times, and North Obsidianna five times. Amy and Hope, fortunately, had Tails scout out and search for Nebula to keep them on track.

Sonic and Harold were the last to arrive at the warehouse that Eggman was possibly hiding. The warehouse Eggman was hiding looked similar to all the other warehouses - dilapidated, rusted doors, multiple eviction notices letting people know it was slated for deconstruction, etc. - save for the suspicious, hastily made Eggman Enterprises logo spray painted onto the doors.

Harold wondered if Eggman was even trying to hide, at this point.

“Friend Sonic, Harold, are you two okay?” Nebula asked, looking guilty at having abandoned the two in the dust. Sonic couldn’t help but chuckle, rubbing the underside of his nose with a finger.

“The entirety of Obsidianna isn’t as bad as the time I got lost in Empire City.” Sonic stated, shrugging a bit. Tails’ eyebrows raised upward, turning to Sonic in confusion.

“Wait, you got lost?” Tails asked, Sonic suddenly backing up at that moment. If it could be possible, Tails’ eyes widened more. “So that’s why you were late coming back when the world was in pieces!”

“Sonic~! You could have told me!” Amy came up to Sonic at that moment, face in Sonic’s as she huffed and puffed. “Then we could have gone shopping -”

“Wait, what’s that?” Hope started, causing everyone to pause. A soft whirr of mechanics filled the air, causing everyone to turn toward the doors of the warehouse.

The others watched, carefully, as the doors to the warehouse they tailed Ovi to open.

Sonic glared at the fake - the very thing that was wearing his friend’s face - walking out of the warehouse that they had tailed the scent of the canister to. The ‘Ovi’ that they saw was smiling, gentle…

Yet had more gray sclera instead of the black.

“Heya, Sonic, how’s -”

“Cut the crap, Metal Sonic.” Sonic growled out, his ears flattening. “You are not Ovi!”

“What… What do you mean, Sonic?” ‘Ovi’ stated, looking hurt at Sonic’s accusation. “I’m still me -”

“ Please. I can smell the servos on you.” Nebula stated, her growl just as harsh as Sonic’s.

“And you’re being -” ‘Ovi’ couldn’t get to finish, as Amy threw her Piko-Piko Hammer at it, wanting to start the fight.

“That’s it ! I’m done with your stupid trick!” She yelled as she violently swung her hammer, ‘Ovi’ barely dodging each swing.

“Stop! Pretending! To! Be! Our! FRIEND! ” Amy yelled with each hammer swing, getting quicker and quicker until -

THWACK

The hammer managed to hit ‘Ovi’s’ head, causing it to explode into a silvery, jelly-like substance. The jelly-like substance froze in mid-air, like it was made to be like that, before returning back into the shape of Ovi’s head. Once it was done, the ‘Ovi’ glared at the group.

“Well, then.” The impostor growled out, transforming back into Metal Sonic. “I guess this means that I will destroy all of you.” As soon as it finished, Metal Sonic finished morphing from its Ovi disguise, getting ready to strike once again. Sonic laughed at the posturing, smirking as Metal Sonic got ready.

“It’s not like I’ve beaten your many shells once before, Metal!” Sonic snarked, getting ready for the fastball. “Oh wait. I did.”

Before Metal can process what’s going on, Sonic immediately throws the first punch, punching and kicking Metal repeatedly. 

As Sonic was doing so, he was knocking the robot back into the swing of Amy’s Piko-Piko Hammer, the hedgehog girl reading her own swing as everyone kept to the sidelines. 

Before either hedgehog could land another hit, Metal immediately melted, causing Sonic to crash into Amy, with the two falling into the ground.

“ARGH!” The hedgehogs yelled as they tumbled, Sonic’s speed causing them to crash a bit of a distance away from Metal Sonic reforming. 

The concrete had cracked from their initial fall, but Sonic took the brunt of the fall - having shielded Amy when he realized what had happened. 

He ended up under Amy for that, leaving Amy to have to get up first.

“Sonic! Amy!” The others - save for Harold, who was trying to see where Ovi was - yelled out, worried for their fallen friends. The only one that responded to their cries was Metal Sonic, who seemed to glare at the group as it processed their demise. 

“Augh, that was a headache ! What hit me?” Sonic growled, clutching his head as Amy scrambled off of the blue hedgehog.

“Apparently, yourself.” Amy said in jest, pulling Sonic to his feet before hearing the whirring of an engine. Immediately turning, she saw Metal Sonic blasting closer to her and Sonic, taking advantage of their sudden weakness. 

But before it could, a tornado of yellow knocked Metal Sonic off course, causing it to careen into one of the warehouses. 

Half splooshed and half crushed by the rubble, Metal glared at the fox that dared to interrupt its mission, before dashing toward Tails and choking the poor fox.

“SONIC!” Tails tried to choke out, but it came across as gasps and heaves as he struggled in the tight grip.

But Metal’s grip was impossible to get out of, and it was getting tighter, constricting more of Tails’ air flow, leaving him gagging -

Suddenly, the pressure ceased, dropping Tails to the ground before the spots danced in his vision. 

Hacking and wheezing on the ground, the fox was immediately lifted into an arm, being carried around like a sack of potatoes.

A glimpse of blue overalls and a purple shirt gave credence to it being Hope.

As Hope carried him off, Metal recalled its arm, the goopy substance jumping back into the broken socket before dashing off after the two.

With a more frantic pace than Tails had become acculmed to seeing, Hope unsheathed her sword, trying to violently swipe Metal’s arm.

 Instead, the robot hedgehog caught the sword, its grip straining the flimsy material and bending it. 

Thinking quickly, Tails squirmed out of Hope’s hold, before grabbing a small rod from his tails and pressing a button in the middle of it. 

As soon as he did, his hand was encased in a red and yellow coloured long cylinder, ending with a rather large nozzle.

Metal let go of the sword - just in time for an electrical blast to burst from the nozzle.

Metal Sonic sailed off back towards the warehouse it crashed into, sliding to a stop just short of it. The concrete broke apart from the tension of the impact as Metal Sonic slammed into it, creating a spider web of damage along the wall and ground of the warehouse.

Hope shielded her eyes from seeing the electrical blast, not prepared for the sudden brightness in her face.

Metal Sonic shook off (for as much as a robot could shake off) the electric blast, dashing toward the fox again when Hope sliced the robot’s arm off, the appendage turning into goop as the momentum from the cut sent it flying away from it.

Staring longingly at the arm as it turned into goop, the robot was free to be struck again.

Hope attempted to slice another bit of Metal off as it was distracted, which the robot attempted to stop with its still functioning hand. 

Instead of it catching the sword, like it expected, a too familiar shlurp of the hand disconnecting from its arm caught its attention, forcing it to look at the stump that was its arm. 

The goop that comprised its body followed the path that the sword sliced through, before returning back into the familiar sharp edges of Metal Sonic’s hand.

Hope couldn’t help but smirk at her success, before having to immediately duck when Metal Sonic tried to swipe at her with a buzzsaw that came out of its hand. 

Before it could get another swing, however, a shield came in to smack Metal Sonic away from the children, throwing it away from them. 

The shield lowered, revealing its wielder to be Harold Kintobor.

“Father…” Hope’s smirk dropped, awe and a hint of something. Tails wasn’t sure if it was fear of her father, or confusion that painted her face.

Before Harold could speak, Metal Sonic slammed into the elder human - who, on reflex, brought up the shield he used on the robot earlier - throwing Harold away from the kids as Harold skidded across the pavement from the force.

Harold manages to push Metal sonic back enough to give a bit of wiggle room, but Metal’s main thrusters only roared harder, throwing Harold off-balance and plowing through Harold’s defense.

Nebula immediately caught Harold in the air, gripping the older man as she softly descended to the ground.

Harold nodded at Nebula, gently releasing her grip off of his shoulders.

Harold stepped away from her, looking at the robot - who was now fighting against Sonic, Amy, Tails, and his young daughter, all at once - and growled angrily at it.

“Where is Ovi?” Harold growled out, stomping toward the fight as Metal dodged a punch from Sonic. 

The robot glared at Harold, turning its arm into a taser to try and shock Tails, only to then get it knocked away by Amy’s hammer.

“Harold, I don’t think Metal Sonic’s gonna answer!” Nebula called out, before joining in on the fight as well.

Sonic and Hope sliced through Metal Sonic’s taser arm, forcing it to become goop as it flew in the air.

Tails’ tails swiped into the other arm, Hope’s own sword slicing all the electronics out along with him.

Metal tried to kick the kids --

THWACK

Only for Amy to underhandedly knock it into the air with her hammer.

Nebula, who had flown into the air for this, immediately got into position until -

KAPOW

Metal Sonic was immediately knocked back into the battle, the force of her spiking the robot almost causing Sonic to miss his cue.

Almost.

Just before Metal ended up eating concrete, Sonic had soared toward the falling mass, eventually knocking it towards the ground with his legs.

The launch of Metal Sonic into the ground tore up the concrete, leaving a trail of rough, indented slabs of rock and concrete behind it.

Hoping to crowd around it and finish it off, the gang - minus Harold - had gathered around the downed robot, hoping that was the end of it.

Tails got closer to the robot, carefully edging toward the robot, making sure it was finally down --

THUNK

Tails flew from the kick that Metal Sonic gave, before being caught by Sonic from the hit.

The fox groaned as he dizzily spun his head, the kick being more than expected. Tails instantly fainted in Sonic’s arms right then and there.

Growling, Sonic carefully sat Tails down.

Sonic attempted to jump onto Metal Sonic -- 

KATHUNK

… Only to then get thrown into Nebula from Metal Sonic’s own spin kick.

Both Sonic and Nebula, irate beyond compare, dashed to punch Metal in the face.

KATHUNK

Metal Sonic kicked the two away, having wound up its attack before the two got close.

Before it could go after them again, a thunk came from its side, sending the robot Sonic flying into another warehouse.

If it were flesh and blood, Metal Sonic would have groaned out in agony.

As it was, it was currently half-embedded into the wall, contemplating its next move.

Finally, it turned into the goop it was unleashing, as if it wanted to stop fighting.

Tension rose in the air as Metal Sonic melted into the silver sludge, unsure what the robot’s next move was. 

They relaxed, but only just.

“Is that it?” Amy asked carefully, looking over the goop as it separated itself into smaller piles. Amy looked over to Nebula, biting her lip as she did so.

Nebula came closer to the largest puddle, not noticing one of the smaller ones forming a new, sinister shape. In fact, everyone was too focused on the main goop the Metal Sonic had turned into to pay attention to the other puddles.

“That’s surprisingly easy -” Nebula got knocked over by a silver object before she could finish that sentence, being thrown away from Amy and the rest of the group as she stepped on some of the goop.

The object grabbed Nebula, a childish giggle coming out of it as it swung Nebula around with long, claw protrusions coming out of its arms.

The newcomer then slammed her into the concrete a few times on her back, snapping the group out of their daze. 

“Nebula!” Everyone but Harold yelled out, jumping in as soon as they could.

Unfortunately, more of the little objects came into view revealing themselves to be tiny, silver Sonics with grapples for arms and a sinister smile.

Sonic growled at the little robots, glaring as he kicked one away. 

“Silver Sonics…” He muttered, looking to where Amy had ended up beside him - finding her already gone to Nebula’s location.

Sonic grumbled, holding onto the bridge of his snoot before being painfully kicked by five Silver Sonics flying at him.

“Hold on, Nebbie, I’m - HEY!” Before Amy could help out Nebula, two Silver Sonics grabbed hold of her hammer before she could swing it, trying to pull it out of her grip.

“Let go!” Amy yelled out, pulling her hammer away from the Silver Sonics, but the little robots were too strong - the Piko-Piko Hammer was slipping out of her grip, the Silver Sonics weren’t relenting, and she could see that more were coming in her peripheral… 

Amy closed her eyes, trying to pull harder as the robots pulled, but even she had limits.

THWACK

As swift as the wind, the tugging sensation was gone, and Amy - in a fit of familiarity and nostalgia - opened her eyelids to find someone she didn’t expect.

Harold, Ovi’s father, had thwacked the robots away from the Piko-Piko Hammer, using the circumference of the shield to prevent the robots from trying to grab onto it again.

Amy blinked a few times, seeing Harold had left the hammer right beside him. She immediately picked it up, and looked at the man in confusion.

“Th-thanks…?” Amy stuttered, not sure if what she saw was actually happening.

Harold simply nods, pulling his shield when the Silver Sonic attacking Amy tries to rip his shield out of his hands.

He grunted as they managed to get a grip on his shield, pulling it away from him as they ganged up on the human.

THWACK

A few of the Silver Sonics flew away from the swing of Amy’s hammer, releasing Harold’s shield.

Harold, eyes wide in bemusement, nodded toward Amy as they both went back to the fight - Harold, rushing for the youngest, and Amy for Nebula.

Tails, fully recovered from his fainting spell, blasted most of the Silver Sonics away from him and Hope.

Hope herself was cleaving through the Silver Sonics with her short blade, trying to keep them from grabbing her weapon.

The Silver Sonics snickered as they dodged each of the swipes and slices from Hope’s sword, only to get blasted by the Energy Ball Tails unleashed.

And the Silver Sonics fell similarly when Tails couldn’t attack them with his tails nor the Energy Ball attack - they were immediately sliced by Hope’s own sword.

As the two were doing that, Nebula came back into the fray, punching and kicking every Silver Sonic she could get across.

In fact, Nebula held a few Silver Sonic’s arms in hand - slamming them around and twirling them like they did with her.

“Muahahaha! How’d you like that, Sonics of Metal?” Nebula crowed out, her maniacal grin contorting her features, which affected Amy as they bashed and smashed the Silver Sonics together.

“It’s time for ‘Whack-a-Hedgehog’!” Amy yelled out, thwacking and bonking all the Silver Sonics that tried to get closer to her.

Sonic couldn’t help but wince at the violence the two had, but he smirked at their antics.

“Least they’re enjoying themselves…” Sonic muttered, smacking a Silver Sonic away with his own Homing Attack.

Eventually, it came to the point where everyone was getting exhausted from the fight, while the Silver Sonics seemed capable of increasing their numbers. 

Every slice, every punch, even every bash caused the Silver Sonics to split apart further.

The group eventually ended up surrounded by the Silver Sonics, their staticky snickering discerning in the moment. 

The Silver Sonics moved closer to the group, keeping them trapped from escape.

Tails looked to Hope, a dawning realization coming onto his features.

“Hope, you noticed how the Silver Sonics stopped splitting after they got to a specific size?” He whispered as the human and fox were pushed into the circle with the rest of the group.

Hope nodded, not even mentioning the usage of the name. 

They had more important things to worry about (even if she found that it didn’t sound so… off, anymore.)

“They have to have a limit to how much they split off…” Hope smiled, eager to test things out. 

“Tell Sonic and the others, quickly!” She yelled out, slicing a few Silver Sonics around Tails to give him clearance.

Tails used the opening to do exactly that - take to the skies and locate Sonic quickly.

FWOOSH-THIP-THIP-THIP!

BURRRRRRRRRRRRZZZZZZZZ!

The Silver Sonics tried to grab Tails in the sky, only to have their arms chopped in half with Sonic’s quills.

“Sonic! They’re only able to multiply so much! If we’re able to get them smaller - ”

“ - They won’t be able to form properly! Nice eye, Tails!” Sonic called out, having noticed it as well.

He leapt up into the air, catching Tails’ hands before he descended.

Then, Tails kicked Sonic, shooting him into the group of Silver Sonic’s like a soccer ball. 

KER-THUNK!

The Silver Sonics, unable to defend themselves, ended up being bowled over.

One could almost hear the sound of bowling pins being knocked down.

“He-he!” Sonic laughed out loud as he destroyed a few in front of Amy and Nebula, smirking all the while. 

“So, Tails figured out something about the Silver Sonics,” Sonic started, before letting the two know about what was going on. “The Silver Sonic’s are shrinking down to a smaller size, but they have a set size to shrink to.”

“So, you’re saying that if we get them down to that size…”

“We can easily eliminate them!” Nebula finished for Amy, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

Sonic could almost smirk along with Nebula’s excitement, but frowned a bit before saying, “Nebula, you need to wait until we get them down to size. Don’t want you to ruin your throat to have to do this all over again.”

“Of course, Friend Sonic.” Nebula stated, her eyes fierce with determination. “I know my limits now.”

“And besides, I’ll be sticking by her side to help her, just in case!” Amy cheered, winking at Nebula as the latter cooed at Amy’s antics.

“Good. We got to finish them off. Are you two ready?”

Amy and Nebula looked at each other, then turned back to Sonic, nodding.

“Yeah! Let’s stamp them out!” Sonic cheered them on, watching as Amy and Nebula bashed and golfed the Silver Sonics with almost a speed that would have made him jealous - if he wasn’t so confident in himself.

Tails tossed dummy rings in the air, thinning out the straggling remains of the Silver Sonics from high up in the air.

Hope and Harold Kintobor were combining their strengths - Harold with his shield, and Hope with her sword.

Bashing and cleaving through the army, the two made sure they didn’t hurt Hope while she cleaved through the swarm. 

Nebula’s mouth started to smoke, bright light illuminating from her mouth. 

Feeling the intense pressure from her friend behind her, Amy turned, then gasped out loud.

“Guys! Nebbie’s charging!” Amy yelled, getting the attention of the others. 

SCREEEEEEE-

A whirring noise reverberated through the area, all originating from Nebula’s mouth.

“Everyone, get down!” Sonic yelled, immediately grabbing Tails and pulling the fox down to the ground.

The others followed suit - Harold pulling down Hope, Amy holding her head - as Nebula unleashed a full beam of almost sun-like energy from her mouth.

SCREEEEEEAAAAAAHHH!!!

Said beam started to turn as Nebula had, cutting through the army of Silver Sonics as it sliced through. 

Not much was left untouched by the Star Beam - even the harbour they were on was struggling to bear the might of the Star Beam as Nebula cut through the crowd.

Eventually, once the last Silver Sonics turned into goop, Nebula shut her mouth. 

Immediately she collapsed, clutching her throat as she went down hacking and coughing.

Amy was the first to get up from the disaster zone, rushing towards Nebula. Sonic and Harold got up first, carefully looking over the area as Hope and Tails got up next.

“Ugh… my mouth…” Nebula coughed, her throat raspy from the blast.

“Nebula! Are you alright?” Amy said, carefully patting her friend’s back. Nebula turned to the pink hedgehog, eyes half-closed from the exhaustive process.

“Ye-yeah… I’m fine, Friend Amy.” Nebula reassured, looking at Amy with a pitiful expression.

A faint rumbling started up as Nebula said that, causing the rest of the group to turn toward the source. It was the doors to the warehouse, slowly opening up, but the rumbling increased as whatever came out of the area. 

Tails and Hope fell onto their butts, unable to keep themselves steady as the ground rocked about them. Sonic and Harold immediately grabbed Tails and Hope respectfully, keeping them upright as the ground shook.

None of them noticed the goop of the Silver Sonics rushing back into the open doors - or at least, until Sonic noticed it.

“Wait, the goop -!”

Sonic’s cry nearly got drowned out as a giant, robotic mole crashed through the warehouse walls, finishing off the tension fully. However, unlike the original version of the Egg Mole - which had caused Ovi to break his leg in the first place - this one had been redesigned from the ground up. 

“Do you like my upgrades, Sonic?” Eggman announced, his gleeful smile radiating a sickly madness. 

“It's able to turn its top half now, thanks to the new joints and servos keeping both halves together.” Eggman stroked his mustache, grinning from ear to ear. “The missing arm I had to replace with a rather large drill - similar to the Egg Dragoon’s sword. The paint was done up, unfortunately, your rather large friend had ruined my handiwork…”  

Sonic couldn’t help but grin at Ovi's machinations.

Though that grin slid off his face immediately, when he saw where Ovi was placed.

There, in the center of the upper half of the Egg Mole, Ovi was precariously hanging. The changeling himself struggled to get out of the hard chains and dented Egg Pawn arms, keeping his limbs in place.

“OVI!” Hope and Harold yelled, the former getting up quickly and about to swing her sword for an attack. Harold held his daughter back, pulling her away as the robot slapped its other arm down.

“Ovi!” Tails yelled, as he, Amy and Nebula jumped away from the attack - as it tried to sweep them and Sonic away.

Amy gritted her teeth, tightening her hold on her Piko-Piko Hammer. Nebula looked on weakly at the cockpit of Eggman’s mech, but even her eyes held hatred at the man that took her friend.

“Ovi - hold on!” Sonic yelled, looking up at the robot’s chest. His hands were gripped and ready to fight back, ready to save Ovi right there and then.

“I literally am not able to do anything else at the moment!” Ovi snarked out, yet a gleeful look spread across his face manically. “Finally,” he thought, “an end to my humiliation.”

“Enough! It’s about time I get rid of some pests !” Eggman’s confidence radiated from his announcement, eager to crush all that opposed him and his work.

Chapter Text

The Egg Mole roared with an eagerness that matched its maker, bringing out the arm that wasn’t left behind to try and destroy Sonic and the gang. Its five drill bits roared as the arm came down, hoping to drill through the skulls of the beings that opposed its master.

Hope and Harold immediately jumped out of the way in time, allowing the drill to dig into the dock without them becoming puree. However, as the two humans got back up, they found that it might not have been a good thing to have dodged instead of course-correcting… The Egg Mole got dented and scratched from the debris flying about, but as it came out of the concrete, it came out brand new!

“Sonic! If we only dodge the drills, there won’t be any ground left to fight him on!” Harold yelled out to Sonic.

Sonic zipped about the area, marking all the spots of paint that Ovi left on the machine. Realizing what Ovi did, he gently grasped Hope’s shoulder.

“Helen, sweetheart -”

“What if I like the name Hope, father?” Hope interrupted Harold, stopping him in his tracks.

“... I… I wouldn’t mind calling you that, if you prefer it.” Harold accepted, but then turned back to the fight. “We can’t get caught up in that now, Hope - Ovi’s painted the contraption to point out where the areas of integral structure are most compromised.”

“Ah, so the random markings aren’t random after all…” Hope stated, a gleam in her eye.

Harold nodded, though looked awkwardly at the rest of the machine. “Even with the areas highlighted, I wasn’t expecting so little spots…”

“So? Sonic seems confident we can take it.” Hope pointed out, pointing towards where Sonic, Amy and Nebula were. 

Sonic was already after the points that Ovi painted out. Nebula went after the back of the machine, eager to tear it apart. Amy smashed weak points in the treads, trying to get them disabled. Even Tails was flying through the wild swings of the machine, impressing Harold with the speed both mech and fox were going at.

Hope turned to Harold with excitement. “If we can get that Egg Mole taken down, we can save Ovi!”

Harold looked at Hope’s eagerness, then back to the others as they went after the points on the Egg Mole. Even Ovi seemed eager to watch them work, cheering them on as Tails hovered around him, trying to release Ovi from his entrapment.

Harold wasn’t sure what to call the feeling in his chest, but there was some part of him that wanted to follow it through.

“Yes, I think the odds are in our favour, Hope,” a hint of a smile came through Harold's features, taking up his shield.

Hope smiled, happy that her father was agreeing with her. Harold couldn’t help but smile a bit, gently patting his daughter’s head as they looked to the fight.

Sonic grinned, ear twitching as he got into position to start rocketing towards the Egg Mole. The Mole’s arm fell at a speed faster than Sonic was used to with Eggman’s mechs, making him have to move before he was ready.

Ducking away in time to see the Egg Mole’s arm crash through the space he was at earlier, Sonic had to steady himself. Then, with a spin and a drop, Sonic was off - circling around the Egg Mole, distracting Eggman from the others as he kept Eggman’s attention.

“What’s wrong, Eggman? Can’t see what’s in front of ya?” Sonic yelled out, as he dodged another brutal swing from Eggman’s upgraded mech - sliding under it as Eggman swung.

“Good swing! You might be going to the playoffs soon!” Another swing, another dodge - this time, Sonic backflipped over.

He might have winked at Eggman at this moment, with the latter shouting into his mic in rage!

“STOP THAT, YOU… YOUUUUUU -” Sonic simply hopped onto the Egg Mole’s swinging arm this time, twirling and hopping off before Eggman used the other arm to hit the hedgehog.

“Thanks, Sonic!” Amy called, before going ahead to bash the treads that Ovi severely painted over.

THWACK

Only for the hit to do nothing to the treads!

“Huh?”

THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!

Amy whacked the painted area a few more times, each swing getting more powerful and frantic as she did so. Yet no matter the force behind her swing the metal barely dented at all. In fact, even the small dent repaired itself right before her eyes…

“Well, I’ll just keep on whacking, then!” Amy grumbled out, using her speed to start hitting the treads harder.

At the back, Nebula tore at the casings of the Egg Mole’s back -

“Nggggh!”

 - But found her claws slipping off every time she pulled.

Humming in frustration, Nebula put her thumbs and her fingers in her mouth, coating them with her post Star Beam spittle. She then tried again, pulling the casing away. Her own spit, as she moved the casing off the Egg Mole, melted the drills and welding holding it together.

Which made it easier for Nebula to pull the casing off. But Nebula herself failed to notice the silver goop bubbling out of the open cracks and spaces.

Tails, meanwhile, tried to get close to Ovi enough to free him.

Unfortunately, Sonic’s distractions were working a little too well - violently swinging the Mech (and by extension, Ovi) from side to side, making it near impossible for Tails to get close.

“Ovi, are you alright?” Tails yelled, watching Ovi get thrown around at a distance.

“I WANT TO GET OFFFFFFF!” Ovi’s voice trailed as he was thrown about, the nauseated feeling coming to the forefront yet again.

Bracing himself, Tails launched himself toward Ovi, barely catching the chain before Tails was suddenly jerked with the Egg Mole. 

Eggman growled at the constant interference Sonic and the gang were doing to his precious machine. Multiple system warnings flared up, as Eggman considered his next options carefully.

The back casings were half-melted from whatever that dragoness from space was doing.

Amy's own wild hammer swings were faster than the nanotech’s repair abilities  - forcing a focus on integral repairs as the damage went past external armor.

And Sonic… that pest was causing damage to his arm, while his 'little buddy' Tails had managed to cling onto the bindings holding Ovi in place!

It took Eggman moments to process the events around him. And he was not about to stand for it.

“Hah ha! Is that all you Farthing Wood rejects got? Well, how about I show you what my beautiful machine can really do!”  

Eggman raised his hand into the air, finger out - then down it came, pressing down a button with a no-sign over cartoon representations of Tails and Nebula. 

At the press, several holes opened up from the back of the Egg Mole - one such hole happened to be in front of Nebula as she was pulling the casing off.

She looked inside, discovering a rocket within.

"Oh, drat." 

Nebula immediately let go of the casing - dripping molten Star Spit and all - and lept up into the sky, hoping to beat the rockets before they fired.

She was not nearly so lucky.

As soon as Nebula flew 3 feet above the Egg Mole's back, the rockets launched with an alarming intensity for Nebula.

“You gotta be kidding me… Eggman planned for me.” Nebula growled out as she did her best to dodge and maneuver through the homing missiles.

She veered left, right, up and down and all around, hoping to get the rockets to explode around her.

A few did veer off course. Others smashed into each other in a burst of metal and flame. Unfortunately, one managed to graze her shoulder before she could duck past.

“Ah!” Nebula yelled, clutching her shoulder as more came to the vicinity. Fighting to ignore her shoulder, Nebula tried her best to slip the missiles. Even still, a few more managed to get past her, blowing up in her face.

“Nebula!” Amy yelled out, distracted from the light show surrounding her friend. She fell, fell, fell down - the homing missiles still following her as her limp body fell into one of the warehouses. As soon as Nebula’s body slammed into the building, all the missiles immediately lined through, blasting and exploding all over her and the building until there was nothing but rubble.

With Amy distracted, she noticed too late the Egg Mole’s other, original arm coming her way. Fortunately, just before he could hit Amy, Sonic caught her in time.

“Thanks!” Amy yelled.

“Be careful! Eggman wants us dead!” Sonic yelled out, placing Amy back on her feet.

As if to drive it home, Eggman roared in the back in frustration, shattering the harbour ground and the pier under it.

“How dare you hurt one of my friends!” Amy yelled out, rushing back into the fray to avenge Nebula. She gritted her teeth, throwing more swings of her hammer at the wildly swinging Egg Mole arms, some even managing to deflect some of the attacks back!

Doing his best to keep focused, Tails struggled with Ovi’s bindings - both the Egg Pawn arms and the chains kept moving with the Egg Mole. He was about to open one digit when -

THWACK

Tails was shot into the air by the released Egg Pawn arm! Then -

KER-POW

Tails was smacked into a wall by a wild swing of the Egg Mole!

“TAILS!” Ovi and Hope yelled in unison - with Hope dashing out toward the Egg Mole, to -

SNATCH

“Hope! What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Harold growled out, holding Hope in his arm as he pulled her close to his chest.

Hope was not about to let her father stop her.  With a growl, she chomped into her father’s hand, forcing him to drop the child.

“Fuck!” Harold muttered, nursing his injury as he watched Hope run off towards Eggman’s Egg Mole. Harold pulled off his glove to make sure that the wound wasn’t infected… And found sharp puncture wounds instead of barely pierced skin.

Hope dashed through the area, dodging the wild swings of the Egg Mole as best she could.

KER-THUNK!

But one sudden swing buried the new arm into the ground in front of her.

“Ah, interesting. The younger of the two brats.” Eggman sneered out, a maniacal grin coating his mustachioed face.

Eggman swung one of the Egg Mole’s arms at Hope, in the hopes of crushing her.

“Hope! Wait -” Sonic was trying to get to Hope, but each swing from the Egg Mole’s right arm kept Sonic from getting closer, barricading him from the young girl. Hope dodged as best as she could, but she wasn’t as fast as Ovi himself, so she kept narrowly avoiding the strikes as they came.

“Ugh!”

Which left her to get hurt from the debris every time she dodged.

“Ho-hohohoho! To think, you’d be so easy!” Eggman cawed as he kept attacking Hope, his malicious smile growing wider as Hope got hurt.

“Hope! Hold on!” Amy yelled, surprising everyone by batting one of the drills away with her hammer -

When it was pulled out of her hands by the Egg Mole! Straight up plucked out of her hands like the hammer itself was a flower!

“Hoh hohoho hoh! Got your hammer, Amy!” Eggman said, his voice booming as the Egg Mole lifted the hammer away from Amy’s jump.

“I’ll get my hammer back, Eggman!” Amy yelled, jumping up to the arm towards her hammer. Sonic looked over at the pink hedgehog as she grabbed her hammer and pulled, then looked over to Ovi as a whirr started to commence over the entirety of the robot.

Ovi’s face soured into pure terror, mouthing ‘electricity’ as he started struggling again.

“Amy!” Sonic yelled, attempting to dive toward her, just as Amy pulled the hammer out of the Egg Mole’s grip.

“Ah-ha!” Amy laughed, lifting her hammer over her head.

The whirring grew louder, dread filling Sonic’s body as it increased.

“Amy, get DOWN -”

“Huh -”

KER-ZAP!!!!

Electricity zapped through the Egg Mole, with the Eggmobile keeping Eggman safe.

“GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!”

“AHHHHHHHHH!!”

Ovi and Amy, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky.

Ovi, slumped over from the electricity running through his system, looked almost like a messiah figure in the chains. Amy, dazed from the electric shock, buckled to the side - falling off the Egg Mole’s arm as she did so.

“OVI! AMY!” Sonic yelled out, jumping to catch Amy as she fell from the arm of the Egg Mole.

Hope held her gaping mouth with both her hands, tears threatening to fall. She shook like a leaf under the Egg Mole - unable to do much beyond stare at the beast of a machine.

“OVI!” Harold yelled in the distance, trying to run closer to the Egg Mole.

But Harold was not Sonic, and only got about a third of the way of the fight before having to double over, panting.

“Ho-ohohohoho! Marvelous, isn’t it?” Eggman pulled his mustache, gleefully grinning at the damage he caused. “Your pathetic friends are down from my master piece, and all you have to show for your futile attempts is a mere dent!”

“Eggman, you disgusting -”

“Ah ah ah! Get any closer, my spiny blue friend, and your brat of a friend will be a splat on the pavement.” The Egg Mole adjusted to emphasize his point, landing on its hands and getting closer to the ground. It seemed like Eggman was going to splat Ovi immediately, without interference.

Sonic quickly took a gander at the situation, and found things weren’t stacked in their favour:

Harold was too slow and too far away to be of any help, still catching his breath from the run. Both Nebula and Tails were incapacitated - the former buried under a ton of rubble, only her head poking out. The latter was still knocked out from the swing earlier. Hope… Hope was just as trapped as Ovi, tears pouring out of her face. Yet she didn’t back down, trying her best to glare. Amy… Amy was knocked out in his arms. She wasn’t gonna wake up any time soon.

Sonic had to think of something, and fast.

“Come on Eggman, you know your beef is with me.” Sonic yelled out, trying to muster a cocky smirk with Amy in his arms. A silence came over everyone in the vicinity, waiting on baited breath for Eggman’s response.

“He… hehe…”

“HOH-hohohoho!”

Eggman’s laugh bellowed throughout the area, shocking Sonic to his core.

“You think I don’t realize I have the advantage here, Sonic?” Eggman’s voice boomed out of the speakers, his laughter sounding like death bells.

Then, without warning, the Egg Mole batted both Sonic and the unconscious Amy away from the fight!

“Now, to finish what I started.” He stated slowly, using the Egg Mole to crawl over to Hope.

Hope started crawling away backwards, unable to pick herself up as the Egg Mole loomed over her.

The Egg Mole lifted its new arm dramatically, pointing the big drill straight at Hope.

The Egg Mole then started the drill, its harsh whirr reverberating through the area.

“It's about time I end this.” Eggman almost seemed to whisper, his smile overtaking his face.

Eggman pressed a button on his Dreamcast controller, and then slammed the control stick towards Hope.

VRRRRRRRRRRMMMMM -

CLANG!!

The drill hit something that sounded metallic, not at all what Eggman aimed for.

“What?”

KER-CLUNK! KER-CLUNK!

In fact, it seemed the drill was stuck in something. But that wasn’t possible, not with the dinky little sword the younger bat held-

Unless…

Eggman leered over the cockpit of the Eggmobile, seeing a rather large shield in the way of his beautiful drill .

All right in front of the cowering girl, as well…

That shield bears a stylized K symbol in the middle of it, too…

“UGH - persistent nuisance! Get out of my WAY!” Eggman yelled out, shoving the control stick in further as the Egg Mole’s giant drill clicked and whirred in place.

“No. My morals will not allow me to.” Harold stated, as the clicking stopped and the drill finally began to work. Eggman laughed harshly, making fun of Harold’s love of morals by going ‘mimimimi’.

“Are you seriously going to lecture me about morals, now? Missing the point aren’t we?”

“I let them rule me,” Harold continued, ignoring Eggman, “without thinking about what would happen to my family as I upheld them.” The Drill started slowly, pushing both Harold and the weathered shield backwards into Hope.

Yet, Harold kept strong, holding his ground as the drill bored into his shield. “I let you rule my decisions, and I let you get into my head for everything that I did, but no more!”

A young dragoness pulls herself out of rubble, panting a bit as she looks over the scene. She was having trouble processing what was going on, blinking to find the humans under the drill.

Then everything clicked.

With a quick glance around, she found two hedgehogs, each lying in different spots.

Hope pulled her arms away, seeing her father protect her.

“Father…”

“I hurt my family too much…” Harold growled out, falling to one knee from the pressure.

“But, if I can make it up to them in any way, I’ll help them.”

The drill pushes forward, forcing Harold onto his back.

Ovi, still dazed from the electricity in his veins, looked to Harold limply, his eyes hardly focusing. 

Harold stared at his son, as he was tipped over by the drill.

“Ovi, I’m sorry.”

Ovi… Blinked at Harold.

“... What?”

BURRRRRRRRRRRR -

The Egg Mole’s drill tip tore its way into the other end of Harold’s shield, and Harold could feel his grip loosening.

Ovi noticed that the chains and Egg Pawn Arms holding him to the Mole were loose, possibly from Tails’ attempts and the constant swinging from before.

The sound woke up a fox, not that far away from the battle.

“I’ve been a real shit father to you, Ovi.”

As Ovi jostled against the bonds keeping him in place, he paused, looking at Harold in confusion.

That fox looked at the scene, then back to three others - A dragoness, and two hedgehogs. 

BURRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE -

The hedgehogs were knocked out, while the dragoness seemed to take care of them.

A tear fell down Ovi’s face.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!

Hope’s own scream was drowned out by the roar of metal on metal.

The Drill pierced through the shield.

The dragoness nodded to the fox, and the fox lifted off with his two tails.

“I’m sorry… That I made you and Hope suffer under my care.”

“FATHER!”

CHA-CHUNG

Harold’s shield flew through the air, nothing more than a useless piece of slag.

And Harold flew with it, a trail of blood flying after him.

Eyes wide from the sight, Ovi watched as Harold fell hard onto the ground, the trail of blood following him.

Harold did not get back up.

“HAROOOOLLLDD!!!” Ovi yelled, pulling at the chains that kept him in place. 

What Ovi did not know was that he was pulling on them so hard, that the plating for the Egg Mole was coming apart as he tore through them. Ovi fell from the Egg Mole as he pulled away. Ovi closed his eyes as he fell, knowing his fate.

“Ovi! Hold on!” 

As Ovi closed his eyes, some one grabbed his wrist, preventing his fall. He opened his eyes, to find -

“Tails!”

“Sorry about the late arrival, Ovi!” Tails said, scratching his head with his free hand. Ovi bit his lip, trying to hide the tears staining his face.

“Tails, I’ve been thinking -”

“I’m sorry, but can we save that for later?”

“Huh -?”

 “We’re kind of in the middle of fighting Eggman, here.” Tails reminded Ovi, looking over the Egg Mole as Eggman roared in anger.

“You stupid, stupid machine!” Eggman yelled as he thrashed the console in front of him, before turning toward both Tails and Ovi in anger.

“Right. The guy trying to kill my baby sister for the heck of it.” Ovi agreed, turning fierce with his black sclera on max.

“Well, we seem to have his attention now. Let’s lead him away from Hope!” Tails said, flying off away from Hope and the Egg Mole.

The Egg Mole gave chase immediately, no longer interested in the girl. As Ovi and Tails were being chased, Sonic started to wake up in Nebula’s lap.

“Ugh, my head…” He groaned, clutching his head. Sonic then took a look around, seeing the Egg Mole chase after Ovi and Tails.

“Ovi! Tails!” Sonic called out, about to chase after the two when Nebula grabbed his arm.

“Friend Sonic! You need to get Harold!” Nebula stated, pointing toward where Harold had fallen. Sonic’s eyes widened at where Harold lay, zooming over to the man quickly. Picking Harold up, Sonic moved him a bit away from the battle, placing him beside Amy before zooming off.

He hadn’t noticed Amy waking up, looking over to see Harold injured.

With Tails and Ovi, the two decided that the Egg Mole was far enough from the others to start attacking it.

“Tails, throw your dummy rings at my painted areas.” Ovi started, causing Tails to dip in the air a bit.

“Huh?” Tails looked to the areas marked, the idea forming in his head.

“If we can get one of them into the areas I marked -”

“We can stop the machine!” Tails stated, snapping his fingers in his free hand.

Immediately, Tails went toward the marks Ovi put out, throwing the changeling up into the air to throw his dummy bombs.

Ovi himself flipped and twisted as he was thrown, distracting Eggman constantly as he did so.

The Egg Mole, try as it might, could not hit the distracting acrobat nor the fast two-tailed fox - its arms flailing as both Ovi and Tails in tandem worked to damage the Mole.

However, unlike Amy’s rapid pace and Nebula’s tearing of the plates, the dummy-rings could only bust so much as the nanites immediately repaired it.

“Damn it… We’re not piercing it!” Ovi growled out, throwing his fist into the air.

“If we keep at this, Eggman’s gonna tear the entire city down before we beat him!” Tails yelled out, swinging himself and Ovi away from another swing.

SWUNK!

Not nearly fast enough.

“Ah!”

Tails loosened his grip on Ovi’s hands, trying his best to dodge while still holding Ovi.

“Tails! Maneuver as best you can!” Ovi yelled over the wind, his hand slipping from the jerky movement.

A missile got too close to the two of them, zooming by and startling Tails.

Enough for him to let go of Ovi’s hands.

“TAILS!”

“OVI!”

Ovi fell, fell, fell down, knowing his fate of splatting the ground. Ovi clenched his eyes shut, letting himself go.

THUMP

‘Odd, the ground feels a bit softer than I thought…' Ovi opened his eyes at that point to find himself staring into green eyes.

Good thing he is good friends with a fast-paced hero, like Sonic.

“Sonic!” Ovi yelled, adjusting himself so Sonic had him on one shoulder. “Where’s Amy and Nebula?”

“They’re fine!” Sonic stated, not stopping as he jumped over the Egg Mole’s destroyed drill swing. “Accidentally took a snooze cruise thanks to Eggman!”

“What about Harold? And Hope?”

“They’re fine, Hope and Nebula moved Harold out of the way.”

Eggman was, at this point, irate to the point of -

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHH!”

… being unable to speak coherent sentences. Eggman threw everything he could into destroying everything , toppling warehouses, slamming the concrete below the Egg Mole, even throwing the Egg Mole’s weight to crack the pier underneath.

“I’m not losing to all of you, just yet!” Eggman yelled, tearing up more of the lot as he trudged after Sonic and Ovi, malice shining in his eyes.

“Sonic, the machine has -”

“Yeah, I get it - Eggman’s put the Chaos Emerald inside, right?” Sonic stated, winking at Ovi as he dodged Eggman’s wild swings. “That’s how it’s so fast despite the weight.”

Sonic immediately dropped Ovi, causing the Changeling to stumble a bit. Immediately revving up a Super Peel Out, Sonic ran headfirst into the upcoming swing of the Egg Mole.

Chapter Text

Sonic slammed his body into the wild swing of the Egg Mole, grinning as it slammed back into the Eggmobile.

“ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!” Eggman yelled as he stumbled back from the hit, trying to steady the Egg Mole. The Egg Mole threw itself into a warehouse as he tantrumed in his Eggmobile, getting stuck under the debris. 

Eggman immediately went silent as he tried pulling out the Egg Mole from the rubble, finding the ruined drill stuck in between the pier and the warehouse rubble. The only sound picking up on the speakers was his inhalation and exhalation as he struggled to pull the Egg Mole out.

“Sonic!” Tails yelled, snapping a quick shot from the Energy Ball and hitting a rocket that was coming his way. “Everyone’s gotten up, and both Amy and Nebula patched up Harold!”

“Wait, how? He was pretty -”

“I believe you’ll find that I patched up Harold.” A voice interjected, sounding as condescending as it had when they first met him.  

“Wait, isn’t that -”

A ring soared through the air as Sonic turned - by reflex, he caught it before it bounced off his head.

Even he could tell it was drained of its power, not able to be used as a shield for later.

Terestri, still adorned in regalia straight out of a Renaissance museum, sauntered into the blue hedgehog’s vision with the confidence and smirk that knew he was in one's good graces.

“Hello again, my little friends.” Terestri’s voice oozed with smarm, “I couldn’t help but notice your escapades right now, and, well. As Harold is such a dear friend of mine, I was obliged to help him.”

If it weren’t for the itchy nose Sonic was having, he would have believed it to be sincere.

“You… you’re only here to cover your debts to my father…” Hope stated from a distance, which beyond making Terestri’s eye twitch, didn’t do much for the elf.

“To think that you all left dear Harry here to bleed out. For shame on you all.”

Any huffed, holding up the gauze roll she had used up. “Hey! I did fix him up!” Amy yelled as she threw the used gauze roll, which Terestri caught before it hit him.

“At the rate you’re fighting that thing?” The man in sunglasses scoffed. “Please , it’s obvious he would die from internal bleeding. It’s a good thing I had a ring on me, don’t you think?”

“It’s not like we have equipment out here!” Tails yelled out, getting tired of the fashion challenged man’s antics.

“And he,” Terestri pointed straight at Sonic. “can reach medical facilities in a minute. Well, if he can carry Harold that is, the man’s gotten weight since -”

“Please, can you stop?” Hope announced as she got closer. “We’re in the middle of something, here.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Terestri stated, glancing towards where the Egg Mole thrashed around, “The egg-shaped man you’re fighting. I know, I know.”

“If you haven’t noticed, Enemy Terestri -”

“Really? I’m an ‘enemy’ to you? After being so helpful just now-”

“ - We’re in the middle of battle.” Nebula snapped, interrupting Terestri before he could prattle on. She and Amy crossed their arms, glaring at the elf-thing like he was the next thing to be snapped in half.

“Yes, and?”

“Are you going to help, or not?” Amy asked, tapping her foot like Sonic would when impatient.

“I’ve already helped... So,  I’ll just let you all get back to it now.”

“Oh come on!” 

“You gotta be joking!” 

“Do I look like a joking man?” Terestri spun around on his heel, pointedly away from the group and the still struggling Egg Mole in the distance.

“Hey!”

“Enemy Terestri, if you don’t help us -”

“Oh please, I saved Harry’s life already. I’ll sit out of missile range over there -” Terestri waved his hand as he began walking away, leaving a suitcase beside Harold. “and I’ll cheer you from a safe vantage spot. Toodles!”

Terestri flaunts a walk away from the battle, leaving the group dumbfounded.

“Good riddance.” Tails stated, ears flat into his head as he watched Terestri walk away.

“Good job on handling that, Tails.” Sonic stated, looking over to his younger brother and patting his head.

Tails could only blush, a small smile creeping onto his face.

“Oh, and do watch the missiles!” Terestri called out, his gait broken from his so far signature leisurely stroll to almost a jog.

“Missiles?” Nebula asked, before hearing a faint whirr in the distance. She immediately looked over to see -

“Oh drat, the missiles!”

Missiles zooming in the air - just like before!

The group gasped, jumping away from Harold to guide the rockets away from his prone form.

“How sporting of you all to allow me to free myself! Now, let’s get back to the part where I turn you all into smears on the pavement!”

Amy herself was knocking the rockets out of the sky, throwing them back with extra force.

“Ugh! Where does he store all of these rockets?!”

Nebula chuckled, throwing a defunct rocket with effort into the slew of other rockets. “Maybe all his rich friends give him the rockets, Friend Amy?”

Ovi huffed, the electricity from earlier coursing through his veins. “Damnit…”

Tails gently lowered toward Ovi, landing beside him and patting his leg. “We’re all tuckered out, but whatever Metal Sonic turned into is keeping the Egg Mole pristine!”

Indeed, the entire frame of the Egg Mole remained intact while they had been picked apart one by one.

Sonic, despite his eager facade, was panting and struggling to keep himself up. Amy was also huffing as well, as Tails and Ovi got close to the girls, using her hammer as a crutch. Nebula hovered toward the ground, unable to go further in the air due to the damage she had taken in the fight. Even Tails was panting, unable to keep up with the three as they joined Hope and Harold back.

Ovi hummed, looking at Eggman coming closer to them. They were in dire straits, while Eggman himself was still in tip-top shape. It definitely was going to end with all of them squashed… or worse, as Ovi looked toward Harold and Terestri, the latter of whom had fled to eat… popcorn.

Ovi then thought about Metal Sonic, how it essentially became water with the nanites - and suddenly, a lightbulb went off in the changeling’s head.

“What if we overload the machine?” He started, causing everyone else to turn to him immediately.

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” Sonic asked, crossing his arms and mimicking Ovi as he tapped his foot. “Isn’t Metal Sonic coating the wires, protecting it?”

“Yeah, but that thing’s currently nanobots, and those have the same viscosity of water.” Ovi stated, opening up his little computer on his wrist and typing on the keyboard.  It opened up the specs of the Egg Mole, having recorded all the info while Ovi himself was stuck in the middle of it. “If we can get the Egg Mole to a large amount of electricity, we could -”

“Cause it to overload and melt it from the inside!”

“... I was gonna sayed ‘Overclock it to slag it’, but that works too, Amy.”

“We better go before -” 

SMACK

All of Team Sonic immediately flew through the air, before crashing straight into the last few warehouses still standing. Eggman’s malicious laugh rang through the area, with the Egg Mole celebrating its ‘win’ by raising its arms into the air.

“Finally! I’ve got all of you now…” Eggman licked his lips as he brought the Egg Mole closer, watching as they tried to get back up immediately.

Tails was the first to fall back, the hit just too much for his tired body. He slid down the rubble pile, not able to do much as Eggman crept closer. The next two unable to get up were Amy and Nebula, both exhausted from having to fight for so long. They immediately fell on top of each other, unable to keep pace. Like with Tails, Amy and Nebula ended up sliding down the rubble, unable to get back up. The only ones that were able to get up were Sonic and Ovi, and even they weren’t capable of standing up fully. 

Sonic was scrunched down onto his knees, his right eye squinting in pain as he watched Eggman draw closer. Ovi, on the other hand, held his head as a bit of blood rushed out of it. He was favoring the leg that hadn’t been broken for support, making him sway a bit more due to lack of concentration.

Eggman couldn’t help but laugh at this. This is what’s left of the brat’s fire and the so-called ‘Light of Hope’ the former Resistance was prattling on about?

“HO-HOHOHO! This is what you got, Sonic?” Eggman bellowed out the speakers, the machines cracking static as Eggman peaked the audio levels. “To think, you’ve been a menace on my side for so long…”

The Egg Mole crawled closer to the group, blocking out the afternoon sun from their vision.

“I get the chance to personally make your deaths slow and painful.” he sneered, lifting the arms of the Egg Mole one last time. Watching as the hedgehog and the brat closed their eyes, getting ready to die by his hand. Oh, the screams will be so glorious - he was giggling madly in excitement!

“Ho-ohohohoho! Do you all need a nap?” Eggman teased, voice dripping in sarcasm. “I can give you one right here!”

Not wasting any time, Eggman pushed the lever forward.

The arm drops.

KER-THUNK!

The arm hit, once again, a metallic object.

“Eh?”

Eggman moved his body as he tracked his eyes down the arm, to find a familiar piece of slag…

“Leave my son and his friends alone, Robotnik!” Harold’s voice echoed in the area, looking at Eggman with a newfound vengeance.

Eggman, having seen Harold fly from his attack the last time, had to do a double take.

Since when could Harold manage getting drilled into?

“Harold?” Eggman asked, then cringed when he realized the mic was still on. “You always let your stupid morals rule you, Harold!” He course-corrected, throwing his arm into the levers and switches. Eggman threw Harold straight into the wall - getting him out of the way to kill some brats…

Only to find both Sonic and Ovi got out of the way!

“My PRIZE!” Eggman slammed down on the controls, turning toward Harold in a sea of rage. 

“YOU.” The Egg Mole meandered toward Harold, not noticing that both Ovi and Sonic popped out of the rubble.

Hope came in sprawling after, running toward Sonic and Ovi.

She immediately checked Sonic and Ovi over, muttering an ‘Good, you’re okay.’ before finding them okay enough to go for Tails, Amy and Nebula.

“Sonic, Ovi - go! Take father with you!” She called out as she lifted Nebula out from the rubble, looking toward the two in determination.

“Hope…” Ovi whispered, lifting his hand up. Fortunately, he stopped before he moved a step, lowering his hand down.

“I’ll take care of these guys - go stop Eggman!” Hope yelled, not noticing that her voice was echoing in the room.

Eggman crept closer to Harold, glasses gleaming with hatred for the man. “Time to say goodbye, Harold my old friend!”

“Sonic!” Ovi yelled, watching as Eggman raised the Egg Mole’s arm like before, ready to crush Harold into the concrete.

“I see it!!” Sonic yelled, immediately running off to grab Harold.

Sonic sped straight for Harold, not stopping once he immediately grabbed his legs, and dashed towards Ovi to grab him as well.

“Wait, hold on -”

“SONIC! ” Eggman yelled out, immediately turning the Egg Mole towards the Hedgehog, and following after the blue blur. He didn’t even consider the other four lives inside the dilapidated warehouse, anger too focused on the particular three that were mucking up his plans.

Sonic adjusted his grip on Ovi and Harold, making them both sit on his shoulders as he ran through the streets.

Eggman and the Egg Mole followed, crashing through every building he could. Harold growled at Eggman’s sloppy attempts at maneuvering, and immediately called out to Sonic.

“Let’s head back to the Manor!” Harold yelled out, fighting with the rush of the wind to get Sonic to listen. “Robotnik’s going to smash innocent civilians in his anger, we got to lead him out of the city!”

“Harold, we need to use the electricity in the fence to stop his machine!” Ovi called out, then explained how he came up with the plan to shock the Egg Mole with Electricity.

“That’s… Risky, Ovi. Are you sure you can handle it?” Harold asked carefully, but Ovi glared at him instead of responding.

There was still a rift, but Harold wanted to believe the plan could work…

Sonic, Ovi and Harold arrived at the border of the Kintobor Manor, the electric fence gleaming with the opportunity to shock any unsuspecting trespassers.

Hopefully, the electric company of Obsidianna wouldn’t mind them over shooting the electricity for Eggman’s machine.

“Harold, you think the fence can conduct the electricity required to overload that machine?” Sonic asked, seeing as Ovi wasn’t interested in speaking at the moment. The two fell in a reverse sort of role, and Sonic’s own throat was starting to rust over from how much talking he had to do today.

“It could, but we’d have to shoot it up to extremely high levels -”

The whirr of treads on soft ground made Harold pause, causing the trio to look up and find Eggman and his Egg Mole, leaving them with no time but to try.

“I’ll go run in and set the voltage up - distract him!” Harold ran towards the gates, leaving Sonic and Ovi to contend with Eggman.

The egg-shaped doctor bellowed out in irate laughter, a menacing smile etched onto his face.

“I never knew you were this much of a coward, Sonic!” He cockily stated, hoping to get a rise out of the blue hedgehog to stamp him out completely.

But Sonic wasn’t falling for the trick, instead smirking and taunting Eggman himself. “Funny, that - considering I heard you sent a tv with your face to KintoborTech a while back!”

Eggman immediately cut over the electric fencing, almost clearing it in full.

Neither Sonic nor Ovi were allowing that to happen, as they immediately moved back over the fence.

Eggman, as predicted, trundled after them, too focused on the two to remember Harold.

“That was me scoping out the security!” Eggman hollered, sneering more prominently with an attempted swing. “It was so easy to break into that place!”

Sonic and Ovi darted all over the Egg Mole, allowing it to make swing attempts as it rolled over the electric fencing.

“Yeah - So easy, Harold found out what you wanted and hid the Emerald from your nose!”

“Grr - Ah!” Eggman caught himself, finally remembering Ovi was with him and Sonic. “But then, his little brat of a son comes along… And I came up with a plan on the spot!”

“I’m getting real tired of that name!” Ovi spat out, twirling his escrima and glaring at Eggman dead in the eye.

“Oh, what? Brat, the thing you are?” Eggman sneered, watching Ovi go red in anger.

“That’s IT! I’M DONE WITH YOU!” Ovi snapped, throwing himself into attacking the Egg Mole. Everything Eggman had done, along with the months before reaching a boiling point.

He was done with everything, and Eggman was the cause.

Ovi jumped at the swing of the Egg Mole, whacking into the arm as it rammed down into the ground. He threw himself into the joints, hacking them out without much thought. He was too blinded by Eggman’s taunts to notice the rising arm that was coming for him.

“Ovi! Stop -”

Sonic’s scratchy warning came too late, as Ovi got whacked by the Egg Mole’s wild swing, throwing him into the Manor’s wall.

“Finally, you’ve outlived your usefulness.” Eggman crowed, before starting to move towards Ovi. “It’s about time I give Harold a present, don’t you think?”

Sonic, recognizing the threat that it is, immediately started hitting the back of Eggman’s Egg Mole to try and draw attention back to Sonic.

 Unfortunately, Eggman was anticipating this, and slammed Sonic into the ground.

“Stay there, Sonic. This doesn’t involve you.” Eggman said, before thinking about it. “Just to make sure…”

Eggman then repeatedly slammed the Egg Mole’s arm onto Sonic, like he was an annoying little fly rather than the fastest hedgehog possible.

“Harold… I hope you got it on max…” Sonic thought as he was being beaten up, not able to move as Eggman hammered him into the soft ground.

BZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTTT-

“There. That should -” Eggman paused, looking over toward the sound from the electrical fence starting up.

His eyes widened at the realization, and tried to get the Egg Mole moving again.

"Pull back! Pull back -”

BUZZZZAAAAAPPPP!

The Egg Mole was electrocuted inside and out. What hastily made reinforcements Eggman had in the Eggmobile to prevent the electricity from short-circuiting him failed, and he took the full brunt of the damage.

“ARRRGGGGGHHHH!”

As Eggman was screaming, the Egg Mole itself was bursting into flames - unable to handle the large amount of electricity coming into its systems. It started to slump over, shutting down as most of the insides blew up.

“No - No, no no NO!”

Eggman started slamming the controls of the Eggmobile, accidentally hitting the eject button for the Eggmobile out of the dying machine. Startled from the sudden action, Eggman readjusted the machine in the air.

Eggman glared at Sonic, who was managing to get up from the crater Eggman made earlier.

“How dare you shut off my machine with a cheap party trick!”

“Well, we can finish it off for you soon enough!” Sonic called, before looking toward where Ovi had flown into.

And found him back up, fully charged. Sure, he was hunched over and panting, clutching his stomach as he stood, but the light of Ovi’s eyes lingered in his now-white eyes.

“Let’s finish him, then!” Ovi said, waiting for Sonic to finish off charging his own move.

Sonic immediately charged his Light Speed attack, and then nodded.

They both yelled out ‘Go!’ and became blue and orange streaks, zooming and flying over the downed Egg Mole, hitting Eggman enough times to cause his Eggmobile and Egg Mole to explode.

“ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!”

Eggman, unable to do anything but fly away, got enough distance from Sonic and Ovi as it short-circuited. However, he was able to notice something in his possession…

“Ho-hohohoho! You may have beaten my mech, but I still have the Chaos Emerald!” Eggman stated, holding up the Chaos Emerald in question. “I will be back, Sonic…”

“And Ovi Kintobor.”

With that, Eggman used his dying Eggmobile to run off, getting a bit of distance away before another explosion shook the machine down lower.

“Wait, stop -” Ovi yelled, but immediately collapsed when he took a step, energy spent.

Sonic attempted to go after Eggman, but the adrenaline of fighting the Egg Mole, using their secret technique against Eggman’s robot, and the countless hits by Eggman took their toll on the hedgehog. 

Sonic was the next to fall over, unable to even keep walking as Eggman flew away.

“Egg… man…” Were Sonic’s last thoughts as he collapsed - his last sight being Eggman flying away.

Chapter Text

With Eggman and her father and brother (and Sonic) gone, that left Hope alone. She had spent the next five minutes freeing the others. Or at least, trying to. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t free them from the rubble Eggman left them in.

Nearby, Terestri sat upon a bench- the half left of it! - observing Hope’s efforts.The first minute was amusing - he could picture Harold’s wretch of a wife bumbling about like an incompetent show clown. He’d even gone so far as to chuckle at the mental image.

But now? The novelty was all but gone, boiled away faster than water pooled onto lava heated surfaces. Worse, the girl was at risk of injuring herself. That would be no issue to him, normally. But for who knows what reason, he’d been told to keep an eye on the girl. And now with no Eggman around, he didn’t have any excuse for not intervening.

What a bother…

Terestri stood up off the bench. Dusted off his pants and shirt. Then sauntered over to the child.

“Oh, do stop that, child.” Terestri said as he got close to the girl. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

Hope, too busy trying and failing to drag Nebula out of the rubble, lept up into the air! She rolled as best she could, getting onto her feet. Katanna sliding forth from it’s sheath, she held it towards Terestri.

“How dare you come close to me -”

“Put that little letter-opener away before someone’s hurt, child . And besides, I am not your enemy.” Terestri said, bemused sneer on his face as he pushed the sword away with only a pinky finger. “I am only here to grant you a small, shall we say favor?” 

At the mention of a ‘favor’, Hope slowly put her sword away. Every fiber of her being scramed it was a trap, and yet-

“What sort of favor?”

“Your friends seem rather planted into the ground, yes? Much like a pot-a-tato.”

“...You mean potato?” Hope blinked, tilting her head in confusion at Terestri. 

“Whatever it is, you clearly lack the strength to free them. Fortunately for you, I’m in a gracious mood right now.”

Terestri brushed Hope aside, heading for Nebula. Wasting no time, he grabbed her horn, then yanked her straight out from the rubble. With one hand. 

He stored Nebula in the crook of one arm. Soon both Tails and Amy joined her, plucked out like potatoes in the field. Spinning on his heels, he strolled towards Hope, then dropped them at her feet. He smirked as Hope gasped, running up to the three to see that they were okay.

Of course they were, they managed to survive that machine for a long while. And besides, he could hear their breathing. They were just completely useless it seems, if they did little more than bumble about the machine only to be laid low by it.

The only other person who Terestri could talk with was Harold’s brat - a brat with the smell that he so despised. One shred between her mother and her brother. Which meant one - no, two things.

A half smile formed on Terestri’s face, as the wheels of his mind turned.

“Tell me, child,” he said, gaze focused on the nearby city, ”what do you know of your mother?”

Hope ignored Terestri, focusing on trying to move the others away from him. Which proved difficult with three at once.

“Oh, dear me. Ol’ Harry’s told you nothing, hasn’t he?”

“My mother’s dead. Father said -”

“Wait, stop,” Terestri held up a hand, index finger raised up. He fixed Hope with an inquisitive look, brows raised. “Dead ?” Terestri bit his lip, as he was holding back something. Was he smiling?

Hope growled at Terestri, losing composure. “Yes. She’s dead.” She said teeth barred at the fop. Fed up with the man, she focused on Tails and making sure he was alright.

That was when she heard it.

Laughter.

By reflex she whipped back towards Terestri, ready to snap at him. Yet he wasn’t there. Now she thought about it, that laughter was coming from her right. But he was on her left just moments before! 

“Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry. Only he would think telling his child that her mother’s dead is an excellent idea. How does he even run a business like his in the first place?” Terestri’s voice paused for a moment. “Oh, of course. That must be it, then. Too focused on work. And perhaps. Secrets.”

He sounded like he was walking away. Pebbles from the battle before crunching his boots.

Then he was right beside her, leaning down as his hands gripped her shoulders. Hope tried to pull away, by instinct. But Terestri’s grip was firm.

With a pound in her heart and eyes widened as they could go, Hope struggled in Terestri’s grasp, trying to shake him off even more.

“You cannot begin to fathom all the things your dear old man hides from you.” He ruffled Hope’s hair, prompting a flinch by instinct. 

“After all - did you know that your annoying pest of a mother is alive? Alive, and I cannot harm even a hair on her body…” a growl of hatred slipped into his voice, his grip tightening down on her shoulders.

Hope winced at the force - she bit her lip to make sure that she didn’t let out a cry from it. She refused to show any more weaknesses. Not after standing up to Eggman!

Then she realized the grip was gone.

Terestri strolled towards the rubble pile he pulled Tails and the others out from, stooping down to pick up a rock. Or, rather, tear a chunk out of concrete dislodged from the ground by Eggman.

“And yet,” Terestri turned the concrete chunk in his hand, as if it were a priceless treasure instead of a piece of junk, “she seems to be too much of a coward to return to her family. Must run in the family, given how your rude brother ran off as well - what is his name again? Jude, Jules?”

“His name… is Ovi.” Hope declared,  more to herself than to Terestri. “And my mother… she was not a coward!”

“Hmph.” Terestri turned around to face Hope, left eyebrow raised. “No, Ovi is not his name at all. I’m certain of that. Ah, well,” Terestri lifted his shoulders and lowered them, “it doesn’t really matter…”

Hope’s voice took on a growl. Her canines began to grow, ever so slowly. Unnoticeable by most.

‘So, the fledgling does not stray far from the roost after all…’ Terestri thought.

Terestri chuckled, both at Hope’s bravado and from satisfying his own curiosity. He began to stroll up to her. Casually tossing the rock and catching it in his hand as he approached.

“And how, pray tell, would you know that, child?” he said, coming to a stop in front of her, before he stooped down to her eye level.

“Did she leave your father some sort of note? Give him a warning? What mother abandons children with a hapless fool like Old Harry?”

Hope… faltered, realizing that Terestri was right. She didn’t really know her mother, not like Ovi or her father, so how can she say as such if she didn’t know her? And the things like notes, warnings, whatever - Both Ovi and father never mentioned anything like them, so could mother… Could she have abandoned them without a second thought?

Could she have… hated them? Hated her?

Hope’s body shook with an uncontrolled coldness, locking her limbs as Terestri turned his back to her. His laughter echoed in her ears.

“Do my words anger you, child? Frustrate? Aggrieve? Drive you to tears?” He paused, gauging Hope’s expression, before smirking cruelly. “Oh hoh yes, I hear that bite of your mother there.”

He turned around, starting straight at Hope. “Don’t you find it amusing - no, hilarious! That I, a man who despises your mother, know everything there is to know about her. But you? Her own flesh and blood? You know nothing about her save whatever your dullard father tells you!”

He giggled - giggled! - at Hope’s angry face, mocking the child in front of the elf!

Hope growled, pulling her own sword slightly out of her own sheathe. As Terestri swung his sword, Hope threw out her own, slicing it just right -

-through a pair of glasses. They shattered as Hope threw her weight into the swing.

Terestri stepped back, eyes shut. And then opened, revealing dark gray sclera hidden under greenish - gray hair. The dark blue eyes gazed at her. A twisted wolf to a poor defenseless rabbit, the light within mocking at her failed existence as the rabbit struggled to get out.

“That was a designer brand, you know.” he said, tossing the rock aside. “Do you know how expensive those are?”

Hope didn’t believe it for a second. She knew cheap plastic when she saw it!

And yet.

Those eyes.

Hope couldn’t help but growl at Terestri’s unblinking gaze. Ovi’s own black sclera stared back at her, no matter how blue the eyes were.  

Hope swung again -

Tink!

Terestri caught her mid swing. Hope found herself lifted up for a moment, her sword pulled on by Terestri.

“Tsk tsk tsk. All of my help, and still you attack me?” Terestri said, twisting his wrist as he held onto Hope’s prized sword. It cracked and creaked in his hand, the flimsy material unable to take much pressure.

“And with such shoddy swordsmanship. Your mother would be so disappointed.”

He crushed his hand with the sword, letting it shatter in his hand. No amount of blood fell in between his fist as the pieces fell, the natural light reflecting off the pieces, accusing her of not being good enough.

Hope watched, dumbfounded, as the pieces of her prized sword fell out of place, before Terestri put his cane to her neck, forcing her to step back tensely.

“Did you really think that such a flimsy toy was a threat to me?” Terestri said, a cruel smirk on his face. “Ah. But it would be just like your mother to attack with such a pathetic weapon.”

Terstri’s predator eyes sharpened into slits. Hope shivers uncontrollably. His smirk was evening out, now almost a frown.

“Hmm. Your mother would never quiver with fear like this. Was that really the best you could do?”

“What are you?” Hope asked, gulping down whatever moisture she could. Then -

BRING-RING! BRING-RING!

BRING-A-DING-A-LING-DOOO~!

She was immediately taken out of her musings with a dual ringing noise coming from her side. At once, the feeling of the cane on her neck vanished, Terestri’s spare hand dashing to his own pocket while he looked at the watch on his wrist.

“Ah, of course. How silly of me, I seem to have my sense of time get away from me!” Terestri said, tapping his cane on the ground. And, as if he hadn’t been threatening a child not moments before, he gave Hope a friendly wave and a smile. 

“Do be sure to bring that suitcase there to Old Harry for me, girl. He’ll no doubt be pleased with what’s inside. Ta-ta!”

With a flourish and a whisk of his cape for dramatic effect, Terestri sauntered away, pulling out his phone as he did so. Hope, baffled, could only watch the demon… man… thing as he made wavy hand motions to the other caller, before reminding herself of her own phone.

She immediately pulled out her own phone - decorated with Hello Kitty charms thanks to a brother she had only begun to learn - and found not a call (as she ended up missing it thanks to the elf that was leaving), but a simple message on it:

5:30pm

Father: Bella is on the way with the limo.

Father: I decided to come with her, to make sure you’re alright.

Hope let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, thinking over everything that Terestri said. She barely noticed the arrival of Bella and her father much later.

--

Black. Pure black.

That was the colour Ovi awoke to, before realizing the sharpness of light changing to a more almond-ish pink. He immediately opened his eyes then, red eyes darting left and right to find himself back in his childhood room. Things felt more… lived in than it first had when he came in just a month ago - the carpet, though cleaned of any and all items off it that didn’t belong, had more areas that indicated someone’s weight standing on it for long periods. 

The sheets no longer had the childish design of stars on it. Instead, the bedsheets contained accurate galaxy pictures on them, something Ovi appreciated as he sat up and surveyed the area. His friends and sister were scattered around the room, in places Ovi was sure he could have guessed they would have - Tails rested his head on Ovi’s desk, a visage both he and Sonic saw whenever they barged in his workshop. Ovi noted that the fox had bandages around his waist and head, wondering how much he was hurt in the fight. To the right of Ovi, at the base of the settee with the window contained Amy’s sleeping form. Her head, too, was covered in bandages. She had a blanket around her that trailed over to Nebula’s shoulders, her head resting where Ovi’s legs were resting. Unlike Amy, whom Ovi couldn’t see much of besides her head, Nebula’s arms and hands were covered in bandages, making him wonder how much Nebula damaged herself in the fight.

Carefully shifting his legs out from under Nebula’s head (and finding another bandage on his leg, though it felt nothing like the cast he had for the past month), a soft moan came from Ovi’s side, causing Ovi’s head to tilt toward it. There, the fluttering eyelashes of his baby sister rested beside him, surprising him the most.

“Huh…” Ovi gasped out, gently moving Hope to a more comfortable position. But that only woke her up faster, allowing him to see the dazed and soft baby blues he yearned to see for a long while - without malice or hatred behind them. The owner of those baby blues gasped, tumbling off the bed before Ovi could catch her.

THUMP

The loud crash immediately alerted the others of something happening. They immediately readied themselves: Tails, with a piece of paper stuck on his face, was the first to get up, his training with Sonic alerted him of the danger. Amy was the next to get up, revealing her mighty Piko-Piko hammer that Sonic often warned him about when she was upset - and showcasing the damage Amy went through with the electricity, as her back was bandaged up as she flipped off the settee. Last, Ovi heard rather than saw the growl coming out of Nebula’s lips, her hands immediately reaching up to him.

A couple seconds passed, as they realized that nothing was wrong.

“Ow…” Hope called, catching everyone’s attention to her… before looking over to the bed, and finding Ovi awake. He leaned over to take a look over his baby sister, before pulling up when he noticed everyone’s eyes on him. Meekly, unconfidently, Ovi raised his hand up.

“Erm, hello?”

Nebula was the first to react, jumping straight into Ovi’s arms. Her ability to float meant that the push toward the almost dream-like pillows behind them didn’t aggravate any wounds he had. 

“Friend Ovi! You’re okay!” Nebula crowed as she landed onto Ovi’s chest. The two giggled at the sudden moment, Ovi looking deep into Nebula’s eyes. She shifted up, allowing Ovi some breathing room as he huffed.

“He-Hey! Nebbie -!”

SMACK

“Nebbie!” “What?” Amy and Tails gasped out, not anticipating Nebula’s actions. Amy’s grip tightened on the handle of the Piko-Piko Hammer, while Tails’ finger twitched.

Hope gritted her teeth, scrambling to get up onto the bed to try and attack Nebula. She then stopped herself, looking at the two in confusion.

Nebula lowered her arm, watching as Ovi massaged the red spot on his face. She herself had tears rolling down her face, unable to contain her emotions any more.

“You should have not run off like that! We were extremely worried about you!”

Ovi gasped at Nebula’s confession, biting his lip with… something he couldn’t quite understand.

But, he knew exactly how to fix it.

He took stock of the other’s expressions - Amy looked ready to fight, but he didn’t know who . Tails and Hope both seemed hesitant to leap in, but Ovi knew they would jump to him if he fought her back. He hoped.

But, truthfully, Ovi was reminded of all the things he thought about during his time with Eggman, and only one thing on his mind was the thing he wanted to say.

“... I’m sorry.”

With that, his head thwomped straight into Nebula’s shoulder, pulling her into his arms as the space dragoness softly cried her heart out.

“I’m… * hic * I’m sorry too… * hic *” Nebula sputtered out in between hiccups, tears fell over his bandages and clothing as she carefully gripped Ovi tighter, as if she feared him poofing into smoke.

Amy, holding back tears herself, immediately decided to hop onto the bed, then tackle both Nebula and Ovi. The two, shocked from Amy’s own spontaneous moment, are tackled further into the bed.

“Gah!”

“Amy!”

“You’re an absolute idiot, Ovi! Don’t you dare do something like that again!” Amy yelled out before Ovi and Nebula could respond, digging further into Ovi’s arms and knocking a limb straight into one of Ovi’s sore spots.

“Ow, ow, ow!” Ovi snapped, clutching the sides Amy knocked into as she pulled back. Her ears flattened  against her head, face covered by her hands.

“Oh no! I’m sorry!” She said, pulling back further away. 

Ovi winced, rubbing the side of his bandages to make sure nothing was split open. He didn’t feel anything wet, so it seemed it might be okay…

“I’m fine, I’m not gonna keel over.” Ovi said, winking at Amy as she shuffled closer.

Carefully, and with more hesitancy than Ovi was used to seeing from the pink hedgehog, Amy hugged the changeling.

Hope shuffled on her feet, feeling out of place in the room. She looked towards Tails, before noticing her friend seemed to be lost in his own world. He had that thinking face on, the one where he held his chin in his fist, the other hand covering his little snoot.

Hope was upset she was going to miss that look, most of all.

“I… I guess I should leave…” Hope said, heading off toward the door -

Only for a soft grip catching her left hand before she could.

She looked toward Ovi, a soft smile on his face as he looked at Hope.

“Give your brother a hug, Hope.”

Hope scoffed at Ovi’s sentimentality. But she thought of everything that happened to her, as well as everything with Terestri…

And compiled, gently bringing her arms around Ovi, as Nebula and Amy moved away.

“...Stupid moron.” She muffled into Ovi’s shoulder. Tears fell off her face, light hiccups overtaking her breaths.

“... Yeah, I am.” Ovi gently brought his sister towards him, his own eyes glistening with his own tears.

They sat in silence for a while, letting Hope’s soft sobs quiet down in silence. Which left just Tails. Watching everything from the sidelines, he decided then and there that it was time to conclude a loose end.

He coughed, reminding the others of his presence. Ovi and Hope shared a similar quirk of the eyebrow, something that Tails couldn’t help but smile at. 

“I… I would like to speak to Ovi. Alone.” Tails starts looking at Amy and Nebula, hoping they would get the hint.

Amy and Nebula’s eyes widened at him, not used to hearing him speak out. Amy blinked first, then let go of Ovi and got off the bed. Nebula, not sure about everything but still wanting to follow Amy, did the same. Though not without a soft kiss to Ovi’s cheek that she slapped. 

Hope looked to Tails, then to Ovi. Realizing that the two needed a moment, the young girl let go of her older brother and walked to Tails.

“I’ll see you.” She said as she passed, leaving the room along with Amy and Nebula. The door closed behind them, leaving the two in the room.

The fox and the changeling stared at each other for a few minutes, neither of them willing to speak first. Tails bit his lips, not noticing that Ovi did the same. Scrunching his nose up, Tails took in a breath. 

“Okay Tails. You got this, you’ve run this through in your head!” He thought to himself, then he started to talk -

“Ovi -”

“Tails, I-” 

- At the same time as Ovi started up.

The two stopped, looked at each other for a moment. That didn’t happen in Tails’s mental practice! He stood there frozen, unsure of what to do next.

Then Ovi began an awkward, slow giggle. Despite himself, Tails joined in, rubbing the back of his head. An unwanted, nagging voice began nipping away at Tails, accusing him of messing up, saying that he should just tell Ovi to forget about it and leave -

“You want to go first?” Ovi asked, snapping Tails out of his thoughts.

Tails couldn’t help but mimic Sonic’s nose flick, imitating his good friend to gather courage for what he wanted to say. He inhaled again, giving himself a blank slate from the thoughts before.

“I… I want to apologize. For avoiding you.” Tails said, looking down at his shoes. “I - I thought I could get rid of my jealousy over you by hanging around with your sister…” Tails scratched the back of his head, his tails twitching as he kept going. “But I must have made things with you and her worse, haven’t I?” Tails turned to Ovi then, only to find the other’s expression unreadable.

Ovi blinked once. A pause. Tails fidgeted his hands. Ovi blinked again, a soft snort coming out of his lips. All of a sudden, Ovi bent over, laughing his head off!

“Ha-ha-ha-HA!” Ovi guffawed, clutching his chest as Tails’ fur stood on end. This wasn’t in his mental run through either!

“Wha- what’s so funny?” Tails blurted out. To say he was flustered would be an understatement.

Opening up an eye that had been closed, Ovi found Tails’ face looking… strained as he chortled to himself. Thinking quickly, Ovi held out a finger at Tails, letting the other know he would explain himself soon.

“Ha… Ha…” Ovi calmed himself down, wheezing and wincing as he jolted a sore spot.

“Ha- ow.” Ovi groaned out, lifting his head to Tails. “Sorry, I wasn't laughing at you.” He said matter of factly, waving his hand about. 

“Oh,” Tails said, voice blank. “Then, what were you laughing about?” 

“I just - Ah, I don’t know how to say this…”

Tails watched as Ovi got more comfortable, waiting on Ovi to continue. The Fox kit sat back into the chair, his legs too short to reach the ground.

“... I was jealous of you, with how you and Hope clicked.” Ovi said, capturing Tails’ interest. “She was hostile to me when I first got in. considering Harold’s habit of not mentioning me while also stalking me, I honestly understand.” He huffed out that last bit, a sore spot still aching in his mind.

Tails blinked, before thinking back to the way Hope treated him before.

“Oh, you’re one of Julian’s friends, aren’t you? One of those little forest people that he likes, right?”

Yeah, he could see Hope as antagonistic, now that he thought about it…

“Did you know she tried to bite me when I first came into the Manor?” Ovi pulled Tails out of his thoughts, surprising the fox with that bit of information. 

“No way!”

Ovi smirked, hearing the enthusiasm from Tails proclamation, even if it was at his expense. He nodded to the question, watching as Tails’ smile grew wider in mirth.

As the two spoke adamantly about Hope’s more childish antics, Harold hovered just outside the ornate door leading to Ovi’s room. Despite meeting with the girls earlier to let them ‘hunt down some snacks in Bella’s kitchen’, Harold really wanted them out of the way so that he could talk to his son. He stretched out his hand to the knob. Stopped. Pulled his hand back. It didn’t help that Harold’s ragged breath was doing nothing to calm him down, as he still winced in pain from the injuries he sustained in the fight earlier. Even with this minor setback, Harold kept himself poised and steady no matter what.

The soft footsteps alerted Harold to Sonic’s approach. Sonic was perhaps the worst hurt of the lot, having one arm in a sling along with the bandages to his head - and Harold was sure Sonic had a bandaged foot in his shoe. He walked awkwardly over to Harold, coming to a stop by the door. His ear twitched, hearing the soft laughter of both Tails and Ovi in the next room.

“So, what’s the hold up?” Sonic asked, leaning onto the wall beside him. Harold turned toward the hedgehog, expression grim.

“... I don’t think I’m allowed to.”

Sonic sighed at that, shaking his head at Harold’s stubbornness. Least he knew where Ovi got it…

“You don’t know unless you try, Harry.”

Harold glared at Sonic for the nickname, but his eyes glittered with sadness behind them. Sonic waited for Harold to enter the room, which Harold almost hesitated again on.

After much deliberation, Harold opened the door, and stepped into Ovi’s room.

“ - And then she threatened the blow torch when it malfunctioned!” Tails wrapped up a story with Hope, smiling as Ovi doubled over in laughter. Harold blinked at the scene, never having seen Ovi so… carefree in a long while.

“Phhhtttt! I hope neither of you got ha-ha-hurt!” Ovi’s mirth spilt out, hurting his sides as he belly laughed.

Harold stared at the scene, half tempted to close the door and leave. But if he didn’t do this now then who knew when he would. And in light of his close call earlier, it was time to start owning up to his children. And himself.

“Ovi.”

Ovi stops laughing, coughing a bit as he forces his body to stop laughing. Both he and Tails turn towards the older man, with Tails’ eyes widening at the prospect.

The fox kit then saw a blue quill coming through the door frame. Tails smiled, then started walking toward it, then remembering who he was leaving.

“... I think it's time for me to leave.” Tails said, a soft smile on his lips as he moved to the door frame.

Ovi’s eyes darkened a bit at the comment, but as soon as he saw the quills in the door, they immediately lightened. 

“Sure, go ahead.” Ovi said, carefully gripping the duvet as he watched his friend run off.

As soon as Tails left the door, the room suddenly felt stuffy. Ovi kept looking at the door where both a fox tail and a blue quill could be seen, not once looking at his father as he contemplated what to say. 

Harold himself opted instead to look out the window, not bothering to initiate conversation first. The silence between them is tense, almost as it was when Ovi first returned to the mansion.

Ovi decided right then and there that nothing would be done unless he initiated conversation, and decided to speak first.

“I’m only staying because I want to get better.” Ovi snapped, glaring at his father without hesitancy.

Harold doesn’t respond at all to that, only nods in agreement.

“I… I need time.” Ovi said, thumbing the duvet in thought as he asserted himself. “I need to take in everything that’s happened. I’m not sure -”

“You can take all the time you need, Ovi.” Harold interjected, knowing how much he hurt Ovi by locking him up.

“Huh?” Ovi blurted out, looking at Harold in confusion.

Harold moved closer to Ovi’s bed, before slowly, agonizingly, hovered his hand over Ovi’s head. Ovi watched, cautiously, as the hand reached over to his head… And then stops, halfway. Without thinking, Ovi pushed his head into Harold’s hesitant hand, making the latter gasp before stroking the top of his son’s head.

“I… Think it would be best if we got together every now and again. Just you, I, and Hope.” Harold finally said, his mouth forming a soft smile. “Make us a proper family again.”

Ovi looked up at that point, seeing the soft smile on Harold’s face… and started to tear up.

“You’re… You’re allowing me to leave?” Ovi got out through his sniffles trying to dry the tears that were falling out of his eyes.

“... You can come back anytime you wish.” Harold stipulated, looking for some tissues for Ovi to grab. Finding them, Harold placed them onto his son’s tear-ridden face, carefully brushing the deteriorating cloth as he continued. “I shouldn’t have kept you here, against your will -”

Harold gasped, pulling his hands away from Ovi’s face entirely. But before he could leave his son’s grasp, Ovi caught both of Harold’s hands by the wrists. 

“... I wouldn’t mind coming every now and again.” Ovi said, not looking as he made circles on his father’s palms with his thumbs. “Someone’s got to teach Hope on not acting like she grew up in the woods, after all.”

Harold scoffed at Ovi’s accusation, before smiling mischievously at his son.

“Says the child who runs around with woodland creatures.”

“H-hey! They can hear you calling them that!” Ovi whisper-yelled, throwing his pointer finger toward the door. Both Sonic and Tails waved back, their smiles as merry as Ovi’s.

Harold and Ovi laughed along with Sonic and Tails, the four enjoying the company that they were given. Amy, Nebula, and Hope, arms full of junk food and chips and even some candy, joined in on the laughter as well.

--

Night Time, at KintoborTech:

A dark cloaked figure runs straight toward the luminous KintoborTech, the dark clouds brewing storms outside. Logos blazened over the building, right down to the doors having handles with the logo. The figure pushed open the door, revealing a swanky ground floor with the extravagance of the most well-known companies. The floor is smoothed with black marble, juxtaposing the more mellow and inviting browns, gold, and creams of the pillars, walls, and ceiling respectively. What walls weren’t windows to the outside world contained portraits of the founder and their family. The one major portrait was of Harold and his missing wife, held predominately over the door that the stranger walked through.

In this area is the main receptionist desk, just as swanky and beautiful as the rest of the area. The computer at the desk is the only jarring thing about the area, as it looked like an upgraded desktop computer made to play games rather than a professional’s computer. The receptionist - a cute little bat with lavender fur - yawned and turned toward the figure in confusion.

“Do you have an appointment with someone…?” the bat asked, his ears folding backwards as he looked at the cloaked figure in confusion.

“Yes. I’m looking for Harold Kintobor.” The figure said, looking at the receptionist with an intense glare.

The receptionist’s ears flickered as he frowned, using his computer to check the times of Harold Kintobor’s scheduled times to come in. The receptionist noticed that Harold was not scheduled until next week.

“... He’s not available at the moment, but I can book you in for -”

The cloaked figure slams their hands onto the desk, in which their hood falls off their head completely. As the hood fell, it revealed long, pastel orange hair tied up in three rings. The woman (now that the receptionist could tell it was a woman, he was a bit surprised by how beautiful she looked) glared at the bat with familiar red eyes…

Similar to the ones on the portrait that she had walked under earlier.

“I’m sorry, but this can’t wait.” The woman warned, seemingly ready to chomp the bat into smithereens. “This problem involves our son.”