Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tails had known Knuckles for a long time now. Long enough for the reclusive guardian to proudly proclaim the fox as one of his closest friends, and given how few friends he had in the first place, that meant a lot. Through the tribulations of their rough first encounter, they’d both found life-long companions to take on the world with, forming an unbreakable trio alongside Sonic.

They knew each other well, and monthly visits to Angel Island ensured their friendship stayed strong. Knuckles remained stubborn and abrasive at times, but his rough exterior had softened and flaked away to reveal surprising serenity. He and the island’s inhabitants lived in harmony, much of his time was spent caring for the animals and plants with shocking tenderness, or maintaining ancient ruins, keeping them from decaying further while transcribing texts nobody alive could read anymore. It was a side to him hardly anyone got to see, and really enforced to Tails just how much trust the echidna had in Sonic and himself.

And it was due to this trust that Tails felt he could maybe get away with asking a certain question that had been bugging him for a while.

Tails couldn’t help but steal glances at Knuckles’ gloves every chance he got. Them being mitten-like was already a little weird in his opinion, he assumes it’s supposed to make them function like boxing gloves, but regardless, it was those rounded spikes on them that drew the fox’s attention.

It’s well known that those without claws or unwilling to use them for combat will resort to punching as an attack. In place of something sharp to use as a weapon, they turn to the blunt force of a fist. But that’s just it – punching is a blunt attack. Adding those spikes on top doesn’t make much sense, especially only two on each hand and, judging from appearance, made of stuffing and cloth. Even if there is something inside those cones, a piece of metal perhaps, it still didn’t make sense to only have the index and pinkie covered. He’d assume that’d make punching very uncomfortable for the wearer.

Weapons that enhance a person’s punch like brass knuckles or a cestus will have all four fingers covered, and are more inclined to use studs and smaller spikes, if anything. Knuckles’ spikes are, dare he say, comically large and impractical in his eyes. The presence of metal in the spikes would make his punches hit harder, but any piercing potential that adding spikes in the first place would allow is dampened by them being concealed by cloth. It confused him; were these gloves supposed be used as piercing weapons or were they to protect his hands from the shock of his punches as the boxing glove appearance implied?

This was what Tails mulled over for the duration of the flight to Angel Island. As he prepared for landing, he told himself that today was the day he’d finally ask about the gloves. Maybe he’d even volunteer to make some alternatives to either push the usage of dangerous spikes or maximise protection. He just hopes that asking doesn’t set the guardian off, Knuckles can still get quite defensive about certain topics.

Sonic, as usual, had run off for a few laps around the island, completely sidestepping Knuckles’ constant insistence on his island being ‘not a damn playground, hedgehog!’. Knuckles never once actually made any attempt to stop him, though. He knew he could trust Sonic to be respectful of the island’s more delicate sites at this point.

Tails sat atop the steps of the Master Emerald’s shrine, watching the echidna as he relaxed under his Emerald’s warm glow. How he never got sick of laying in that one spot, Tails would never know. But now that the two were alone, he had his chance. He took a steadying breath, and stood up to shuffle closer.

Knuckles lazily slid open an eyelid to meet the fox’s eyes.

“Hey, Knuckles,” Tails began as he sat down again. “Could I ask you about something?”

The echidna in question let out a drawn-out yawn as he stretched and sat up to better face Tails, leaning forward with his legs crossed, elbow on his knee and head in his hand.  

“Sure, kid. Fire away.”

Tails fiddled with his fingers as he stared at the hand propping up Knuckles’ head. “Uh, I’ve been wondering for a while now… I don’t mean to sound rude, but um, why are there spikes on your gloves?” Knuckles blinked in surprise, straightening up and bringing his hand in front of him to look at the spikes in question, “I mean, I assume they’re to assist in combat, but then why only two and why have them covered in cloth and why blend them with boxing gloves and-… could you explain them to me, please?”

Knuckles stared off to the side and started rubbing at his neck in absent thought. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, thinking through what to say as Tails patiently watched. The reaction wasn’t immediate anger or offense, so, that’s a win. He thinks.

Finally came a subdued, hesitant, “Uh, echidnas have claws, Tails.”

The fox tilted his head, brows scrunching. “…So do foxes? And plenty of other species, that’s why we wear gloves…” He shook his head, “Sorry, I don’t see how having claws is relevant.”

Knuckles narrowed his eyes at Tails, exhaling sharply through his nose as he brought his hand back up to stare into his palm. He closed his eyes with a sigh, and pulled over his other hand to grip the cuff of his glove, “I guess I’ll just have to show you, then.”

Tails’ eyes lit up. He still didn’t quite understand what Knuckles was getting at, but seeing Mobians’ bare hands was very rare, and he loved seeing what differences manifested in different species. Like between him and Sonic, hedgehogs had thinner, transparent nails while foxes like himself had thicker, darker sharp claws. He knew nothing about echidna hands! This’d make him the only mortal on the planet that can boast seeing the bare hands of a live echidna!

He leaned in, tails swishing with excitement as the glove was peeled off with peculiar delicacy. When Knuckles got half-way, Tails let out a soft gasp at what he saw starting to peek out of the glove’s cuff. He reeled back, shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and looked back at the fully revealed hand to see that, no, he hadn’t imagined it. His jaw hung open in awe as he shuffled himself forward to sit even closer, reaching out his hands to hover without daring to touch as he stared at the back of Knuckles’ bare hand.

Overall, his hands were mostly what he expected. Tough, calloused skin with long, dark, blunted claws adapted for digging. They reminded him of those of armadillos; long, heavy and powerful, but not designed to slash flesh. But no, what really caught his attention were the two tiny sharp barbs of what appeared to be bone, attached to the proximal phalanges of the index and pinkie fingers, just above where they connected to the metacarpals. They were around the length of a human thumbnail, poking out of the skin in a way that he would have assumed to be painful were it not, presumably, a natural adaptation.

Tails looked up with wide, shocked eyes to meet Knuckles’ bland gaze.

“Yeah.” The echidna said shortly. “The gloves aren’t supposed to be weapons, the massive stuffed cones are there to make sure I don’t give my enemies fatal gashes. And, I needed them because I kept nicking myself in my sleep and accidentally hurting the animals.”

He frowned, looking away with a sad crease to his brow. “There was a while when they were scared of me. They ran when I tried to help them, because they’d seen me give others scratches that would bleed. Trimming didn’t work, every time I tried, they’d be just as sharp as ever the very next day.” He sighed before moving to re-glove his hand. “It took a while for them to trust me again. I was lucky to find these gloves buried in some ruins in good condition.”

He met Tails’ wide-eyed stare once more. “Does that answer your question?”

The fox in question startled, momentarily snapping out of his gawking. “Uh… I suppose so? But…” He hadn’t expected this at all, but now a whole new slew of questions whirled around in his brain as his eyes remained glued to the subject of his new fascination. “Do you know why echidnas have spurs like those? What’s their purpose, did all echidnas have them? No, wait, Tikal didn’t have them… please tell me everything you know!”

Shining, hopeful, curious little eyes stared up into Knuckles’, and he groaned, dragging a hand over his face. He muttered under his breath something about fox kids and their weaponization of cuteness before dragging out a long, unenthused, “Fine.”

“Let me preface this by saying that everything I know is only from reading ancient texts. I didn’t have anyone else to compare myself to, or to pass this information down to me in-person, so a lot of what I know is extrapolated and may be a little off from the actual truth.

“All echidnas were born with spurs, but some lost them as they aged. Typically, they are regarded as a male trait, but there are instances of males losing theirs or females keeping theirs. An 80-20 split, maybe. Anyway, keeping them is told to be a sign that one is a born warrior. That they are destined to reign supreme in the battlefield. Something along the lines.

“It’s said that, a long, long time ago, the spurs used to be venomous. This caused problems; people kept accidentally nicking each other with their venom. So, they started wearing gloves. With the venom glans going unused, the echidnas lost their venom overtime, but the spurs remained. I suppose the whole “destined warrior” thing is a carry-over from when they had venom. Even when they picked up spears and no longer solely relied on their natural weapons, the spurs remained. So they started using them to climb and to dig, instead of their original purpose as deadly weapons.”

Tails’ eyes shone as he listened intently, and Knuckles silently smiled, glad to be able to talk about his people with someone so incredibly enthusiastic.

“That’s it, really. They’re still sharp and dangerous, even without the venom, but their purpose has strayed away from being weapons of war. So I wear these gloves to make sure I don’t pierce flesh if I’m fighting a person. I’m strong enough that I don’t need dumb little knives stuck to my hands to do serious damage, y’know?”

Tails giggled, “Boy, do I!” He smiled as he stared up at Knuckles, “Thank you for telling me about all this, sorry if my questions were out-of-line or anything.”

The echidna grinned, “’Out-of-line’? Not at all, Tails! It’s not often I get to talk about my people. It’s nice, really. You’re a lucky kid, getting to learn this stuff from a first-hand source.” He winked.

With that, Sonic came flying up the stairs, “Yo Knux, Tails, what’ve you been up to?”

Tails instantly took the opportunity to ramble and ran with it, regurgitating Knuckles’ information and occasionally throwing in his own hypotheses as he thought aloud. Sonic, while clearly getting lost on occasion, nodded along and readily joined in on the speculation.

Knuckles laid back down under the warm green glow with a satisfied smile. It was nice knowing that someone cared to listen and keep the scarce knowledge alive.

Chapter Text

His life was one of eternal solitude and darkness. Hunger, pain and cold. He was well-acquainted. He was born into it, raised to bear the burden without complaint. It was all he had, and it was all he knew. It was a quiet, lonely existence, tethered this isolated land for all of eternity. And that was okay.

Yes. He was okay.

Then, one day, out of the sea of vantablack nothingness, there arrived a blinding, piercing beacon of light. The Sun.

He hated the Sun. He hated the light; it hurt his eyes. It was foreign, unknown, too different, and that made it an enemy. Yes, the Sun had arrived to destroy all he held dear, everything that encompassed his very purpose for being. That is what the Doctor had said, and he believed it. The light hurt his eyes, after all.

He stole the Sun’s power and hindered its progress at every turn, but its luminescent glow kept coming back. It grew hotter, brighter, despite his relentless attempts to extinguish it. It regained the power he had taken, somehow convincing his Master to lend its power and allow the Sun to push its limits even further, attaining an even higher state of being than when it had arrived.

Their final confrontation came, and the light blinded him. He lost. The one he thought a friend turned traitor, taking his Master while he was distracted, and he had been brought to his lowest point. He’d failed his one sacred duty. The island had been set ablaze, his charge had been swiped before his eyes, and the sacred ruins above, the ones forbidden to all but himself to step foot, became diseased with mechanical vermin.

And then, in this lowest point, the Sun saved him. It didn’t care that he had tried to eradicate it; it saw him in need of help, and it acted. His own actions had brought ruin to this sacred land, and this stranger, this being of pure, limitless optimism, condensed into the form of a mere lowly hedgehog, had saved what little he had in his isolated existence.

The light stopped hurting. The light, it was beautiful, now. Its aura was that of carefree, cool confidence, stating “everything is okay” with unshakable certainty. It brought the first hints of comfort and warmth into his lonely, cold life. A beacon shining defiantly through the deep, dark ocean he called home. He stared until his eyes hurt. It was beautiful.

Of course, as soon as he got used to its presence, it was gone. He watched duo of hedgehog and fox leave and said nothing. It was inevitable; they’d done what they came here for. He had been the one insisting they leave. So really, this was what he wanted. No, it didn’t hurt to be plunged back into the pitch blackness. He was used to it. He’d survived this long without such light, without anyone. This was nothing.

Ha, “This was nothing”. As if.

He started thinking, too much. The outside world, beyond this shroud of darkness, what was it like? Was it just as bright, under the protection of the hedgehog, the Sun? What had he been missing out on, how was it that he had been allowed to live so carefree when he had been burdened, shackled to this accursed land since birth?

He grew spiteful. What was the point of seeing such brightness for the first time in his life if its warmth was forever out of his reach? All it had done was instil a painful longing for something unobtainable. He had a duty. He had a purpose, he was bound to the island, to his Master; this well of darkness is what had moulded him and he did not need the Sun.

Damn his stupid light, and damn that traitorous Doctor and his stupid not-a-dragon-egg for leading them into his life.

When the Master shattered, and he had been forced to gather its shards on the surface, he went out of his way to not pay attention to the surface dwellers’ lives. It was none of his business after all, he was just here for his Master. Nothing else.

He turned a blind eye when he saw a certain hedgehog and fox duo passed out on some street. None of his business, he reminded himself. Why should he care that they looked injured, the light dimmed and weakened in unconsciousness? He did not offer a hand. That wasn’t his job.

Focus on the shards, his Master sung.

(or had that been himself?)

The dutiful servant he was, he obeyed unquestioningly.

When the Doctor told him that his Master’s shards were being pursued by the Sun, he didn’t care that it didn’t make sense. Suddenly, he had been given an excuse to hunt them down and fight. He took that opportunity without hesitation. He saw a flash of green in the hedgehog’s mitts, and he pounced. He thought he was angry, that this would be his payback for being pushed back into his life’s solitude after being given a mere glimpse into the joys of life beyond what little he knew, but truthfully, his heart wasn’t in it. He was holding back, and evidently so was his opponent.

The scuffle ended with an unintentionally hard hit knocked two of his Master’s siblings from the hedgehog’s quills. The Doctor showed his ugly face, fed the gems to his pet water monster, and called him a fool. The hedgehog felt the need to inject his own quip, and he found himself grateful for his red fur and dark muzzle hiding his assuredly blushing face as he stuttered out a feeble “shut up”.  

Not one to leave someone else to clean up his mess, he assisted the two in taking down the transformed liquid beast, making the Doctor flee. He went off on his own then, pointedly not looking the hedgehog in the eyes.

The light stung for a different reason now.

They ran into each other once more upon the Doctor’s flying ship, and he simply wished the hedgehog luck as he ran after the Doctor. Not that he needed his well-wishes, but it felt like the right thing to say. He was glad it was a short interaction. He just wanted to go home and forget everything.

He stole back six of the Master’s siblings from the beast of water, then did just that.

Apparently, the gods despised him, for immediately after, the island felt the need to fall yet again. He was infinitely sick of this, he’d done his part and fixed the Master so why wasn’t this over with already? He deduced this was the six smaller gems’ doing and was planning to palm them off to the hedgehog – surely a being the Emeralds deemed worthy of a super state would know what to do with them. Before he could do so, however, a certain weakened, defeated Doctor showed up and brought the water beast right to his doorstep, and right to six of the seven Emeralds it needed to achieve its perfect form.

And then, somehow, he suddenly had a hand in saving the world. Though, his part was very minimal. He simply brought over the greyed-out siblings of the Master and watched. And, oh boy, did he watch. The God of Destruction itself was no match for the all-encompassing might of the Sun. The Sun didn’t care how hopeless the situation was, he refused to settle for mere imprisonment to allow the cycle of sadness and anger to continue and fester, he was the bringer of light, this world was his to protect, and he was here to put an end to Chaos’ senseless rampage. The golden light made manifest through controlled use of the innately uncontrollable pierced the flood as efficiently as a sharp blade would cut through flesh. It was truly a spectacle, a sight which he was unworthy to bear witness to, but he found himself unable to look away. He was entranced.

He found himself wishing, selfishly, that this light, this warmth, could shine on him eternally as it did the rest of the world.

Immediately that train of thought was violently evicted from his brain. By the Controller, what is wrong with him!?

When Chaos had been defeated and calmed, and the hedgehog had run off to who knows where, he slinked off silently back to his island. He wanted – no, needed to be alone again. He was so far out of his element. He hated it. He was tired, emotionally exhausted, and found that he really, immensely disliked these traitorous, detestable thoughts. He hadn’t wanted any of this nonsense, he’d just wanted to mend his Master and go back to not thinking. He didn’t want these feelings. Dear the Master, why did the world feel the need to tease him so?

He gets it. Okay? He’s the guardian, the last and only guardian, and has been his whole life. It’s his duty, his fate, he’s accepted this a very long time ago. He’ll be here forever, never knowing the details of how or why, just knowing that it’s what he needs to do. That had been enough. It had been enough for so long, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t dream of anything more, because he didn’t know of anything beyond the void. Desire has no place in a life like his.

Why does he care so much? About both of them, the frighteningly intelligent fox child and the blue ball of spines that hurt his eyes by simply existing. He wants so badly. To be normal, have friends, explore the vast, unknown planet below him, hang out, have fun, not be burdened with taking on the responsibility of an entire extinct race. It’s stupid to resent them for their kindness, their boundless optimism and kind, forgiving smiles, he knows, but all they were accomplishing was hammering it in even deeper how infinitely out of his grasp these things are.

This incident, this second instance of them crossing paths, it was a mere coincidence anyway. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’ll never see them again, and that’s fine. He’s fine. His duty is all that he is, so if his Master is fine, so is he. It’s that simple. Up here, where no one knows how to find him, is where he belongs. It’s where he’ll remain for the rest of his days. Alone and isolated in the dark, in the cold, fulfilling the single purpose he was brought into this world for. He’ll forget what it’s like to want more with time. The familiar fog will reclaim him, eventually.

He. Is. Fine.

He certainly did not expect to be jolted awake one day to sense the rapidly approaching presence of the blinding, eye-wateringly powerful light again. It had been a decent while, perhaps a month, and he had only just settled back into his normal routine, what in the Master’s name were they doing here!?

He confronted them immediately upon their landing and barked out his demands before they could even speak. “You are not welcome here,” he had spat, voice laced with venom, “leave before I make you.”  

The hedgehog, as obnoxiously casual as always, held up his hands in a half-hearted placating gesture. “Chill out, Knux,” he started, earning a growl at the nickname, “what, are we not allowed to pop in and hang out with a friend?”

“’Friend’?” he’d asked aloud, scrunching his face in confusion. They had no friends on the island; he was the only one there. Is this some trick? “What friend?”

The hedgehog scoffed, rolling his eyes with a tiny smirk. He intensified his glare in response. “You, Knucklehead. Is that not obvious?”

“We’re not friends,” he instantly hissed in utter distain, “I don’t know what stupid joke you’re trying to pull, hedgehog, but I want no part in it. Leave.”

“Um,” At the new voice, he snapped his heated gaze to the fox child, who had been quiet up until now. He flinched, shoulders hunching as he rubbed an arm, looking sheepish and apologetic, eyes turned downcast. “Actually, visiting you was my idea, not Sonic’s. I thought you looked kinda sad when you left last time without telling anyone, then I thought about how lonely it must be up here, so I wanted to come say hi to make sure you’re okay?” The child peeked upwards to meet his stunned eyes. Encouraged by the lack of scolding, he eased out of his tense hunch and continued, eyes lighting up and voice picking up as he spoke, “We would’ve come sooner, but it took a while to locate your island; it’s like it has some sort of cloaking properties while airborne! It’s no wonder modern technology hadn’t been able to find this place - count yourself lucky, ‘cause they’ve been trying their damnedest to find this place since it crashed the first time, and it’d be swarming with researchers for sure if they knew what to look for!”

The fox smiled as he spoke, tails waving in enthusiasm. Then he contacted an uncomprehending pair of amethysts, making him jump and curl in on himself again. “But uh, clearly you don’t want us here, so… sorry. We’ll be on our way…”

The fox child turned his wide, sad eyes back to the plane’s controls as the hedgehog crossed his arms and settled back onto the wing, shooting a judging sideways glance in his direction. He didn’t see it, he was too busy glaring into the dirt, grinding his teeth a little too tightly to be healthy. Stupid kid. “Lonely”? Tch. He doesn’t know the meaning of such a word. He doesn’t need their pity, he had been doing just fine until they rudely barged onto his land, thank you very much.

Never mind the wrecked sleep schedule, the decreased appetite, or the fact that he hadn’t been into the ruins transcribing the texts that were on the verge of disappearing forever in a little over a month. Information, of which there was already so painfully little, crumbling to ashes before his eyes from the aftermath of crash-landing into the ocean on two separate occasions. And when that was gone, when it all finally collapsed and vanished as it inevitably would, what would he have left? Nothing but memories, and his own transcriptions, which could never hold a candle to the rich history of the grand murals adorned with the tales he had drawn his very understanding of the world from. His proof, that they were real, that they existed, they were here once, they lived and breathed and smiled and laughed and it would all be gone.

He would be well and truly alone.

“Wait!”

Two pairs of confused, surprised eyes turned back as the plane slid to a halt after only moving forwards a mere metre. He stared back, matching their confusion with a heaping dollop of shock on top. He… hadn’t meant to blurt that out.

He sputtered, “Uh, I mean, uh…” His eyes darted across the ground as his brain went into overdrive. Abruptly, he snapped his fingers, “You!”

The fox startled as the spiked fist gestured in his general direction. “Huh!?”

He stomped over to the front of the plane to get right in the kid’s face. “You said you managed to track down this place. That others from the surface seek to invade my island, but lack the knowhow.” Despite the fact that he was currently in a lower position than the two seated up on the plane, he managed to emanate an immensely threatening aura.

“You will tell me how. And you will teach me how to make this place truly untraceable.” He left no room for arguing. They would not be going anywhere.

Chapter Text

He stared, defeated, as the storm finally showed signs of coming to an end outside the cave’s mouth. There was still no sign of them, when they should have been back hours ago. He’d told them not to go, begged them, he wasn’t worth the risk, but off they went anyway while he hadn’t the strength to stop them. And now it was clear that their attempt to prolong his life had been the end of theirs.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t cry, he didn’t scream, and he didn’t curse the Controller that had sat by and done nothing. He didn’t have the energy for that anymore. It had long-since settled in that, this was it. The inevitable end. A race of prideful, powerful people reduced to a tiny settlement of three, then one, then none; their long, drawn-out suffering being all for naught. A divine punishment for one dead man’s insatiable greed. It wasn’t fair, it had never been fair, but there’s no room for tears now. It’s over.

Another round of wet coughs racked his body, and when he pulled his arm away from his mouth he stared down at the vibrant splatter of red against his dull brown fur. Breathing was getting more painful by the minute; it was clear that his body was failing him. Soon, he’d reunite with those he held so dear. He’d finally be free. He’d smile and welcome Death with open arms.

However, his time wasn’t up yet. He had one last task. He had a barely a few more hours to push through, one final duty to fulfil before he was allowed to fall. He looked down at the tiny, defenceless egg between his legs, the one entrusted to him by the two that had willingly walked into the storm that had been battering the world outside knowing full-well that they would likely never return to see the hatching of their child. Their trust in him was absolute, and in his care was now the true final descendant of their long-suffering kind. He knew what he had to do.

With his final hours, he would do what little he could secure the child a good life. This child will inevitably lead a life of immeasurable lonesome; alone, isolated from the world, and the final, sole remainder of an extinct people. Their survival past hatching would already be questionable were there someone around to raise them, but with them being alone? The Island is a harsh place. He knew this first-hand; his own life had been a daily struggle, and he was once the strongest amongst their small, dwindling numbers. A mere child stood no chance.

That was, unless, he could grant them the protection of a higher power.

The trek to the Controller’s altar was a struggle for his waning body. Swathed in every cloth he owned was the egg, protectively hugged to his chest with one arm while the other wielded his spear. His body shuddered, his pained breaths uneven and heavy as the unforgiving trees dripped the remaining rainwater onto his uncovered fur, freezing him to the bone. The ground was wet and unstable, and he found himself having to resort to using his spear as a cane to avoid slipping in the mud throughout the journey.

He had been taught from a young age to never go anywhere near the Controller’s altar. Their kind were unwelcome there; they were a blight on this land that It had attempted to eradicate through Its God of Destruction. It had only been through a sacrifice of the Chief’s daughter that their lives had been spared centuries ago, and the following generations hadn’t dared intrude on Its sacred ground lest they invoke Its rage once more.

He was about to be the first to dare attempt crossing this boundary in hundreds of years.

He stood before the bridge leading to a disconnected landmass, leaning heavily on his spear-turned-cane. There, he took in the sight forbidden to his people for generations with awe. A large stone structure, made by an unknown people many thousands of years before his time, standing tall, if damaged, in spite of the conflict it had been at the heart of. And there, atop the stairs, idly spinning away in Its slot, sat the large green gem Itself. It had sat there, this whole time, unbothered, uncaring, as his friends and family had been taken by the harshness of Its land. Good people, punished, despite his generation having no part in the attempted takeover centuries ago.

He was angry. He didn’t think he had it in him anymore, but yet, there it was. His breath came out hot and harsh, a stark contrast to his frozen exterior, his mouth tasted like blood as his teeth clacked and tightly ground together. His grip in the spear tightened and tears rolled down his snout as the full weight of the situation crashed down on him again. He’d known this was coming, he had already mourned the end of it all, the three of them together had long-since accepted that one of them would be the last one standing. They’d all agreed on this plan when the egg was laid, this final plea for an innocent child to live the good life denied to so many of them for daring to have been born on this accursed land in the sky.

He’d known for years what was coming was inevitable, but by the Gods did it still hurt.

The blood in his mouth choked him, and he dropped the spear and fell to his knees as a startling amount of red was ejected from his body. His vision blurred a piercing white as his throat and lungs screamed. It was excruciating – of course it was, he was dying, but no amount of physical pain could ever rival the agony of his grief. He cried for his friends and his family, taken so young and so unfairly. He cried for the unborn child in his arms, whose fate regardless of his pleading would be so horrifically cruel; a swift succumbing to the elements or a drawn-out existence trapped on an isolated landmass with no knowledge of why, of who their people were, their parents were, or why they alone were left to inherit what remained.

It wasn’t fair.

He strained to raise his head from the puddle of red to gaze once more at the shrine across the bridge through his swimming, tear-filled vision. He turned his blurred gaze down to the egg, smeared with flecks of his blood, and bit down another sob. “I’m so sorry,” his tortured vocal cords croaked as he shuffled away from the blood-soaked patch of grass and pulled the egg into his lap. He gently used the cloth to wipe away the red from the shell, “You deserve so much better than this.”

Every breath brought with it waves of blinding pain, but regardless he spent the next few minutes speaking softly to the egg cradled in his arms. He spoke of the child’s parents, how kind they’d been, and how much they would have loved to be there for their hatching. He recalled his childhood, and all of the friends he used to have, leaving out how their numbers slowly dwindled before his eyes. He retold the stories of centuries past, telling how their people had once lived a good life on the surface, where they were a powerful tribe to be respected and feared.

It was almost nice, sitting there reciting these stories. It was the least he could do, offering a tiny sliver of comfort in the only way he was able. By the end, his tears had run dry, the grief still present but abated, and a strained, weak smile appeared on his face. He stood back up with significant help from his spear, finally collecting himself enough to do what he’d come all this way for. “You’ll be okay,” he spoke to the open air. “I’ll make sure of it.”

The Emerald perked up from its state of resting when it sensed a presence approaching its shrine. It was one of those echidnas! How curious. Their kind had gone out of their way to stay as far away from it as possible for centuries, and it had passively observed as they had set up a guard station near the bridge to ensure nobody, not even rebellious children, dared to “intrude” on the small island it had to itself. It was some self-imposed rule they came up with, it didn’t know the details nor did it care.

But here he was, a sickly, older male echidna walking up the steps of its altar to greet it. He held a spear, but was clearly in no position to use it as a weapon, instead leaning most of his weight on it so he wouldn’t topple over. In his other arm was a bundle of cloth spattered with dried blood. The Emerald would let out a huff if it had lungs, it could already guess what he was here for. The man was a breath away from keeling over dead, and anyone on the verge of death with knowledge of its power would inevitably seek its aid. How predictable.

The man reached the top of the stairs and paused to catch his breath, coughing a mouthful of blood into his already blood-encrusted arm. Nasty. He sighed before looking up to meet its eyeless gaze. It could easily spot the barely-hidden hatred in his eyes and could tell that he blamed it for all of his suffering. Of course, blame it when it had been the one to save their entire species by sealing Chaos at Tikal’s request. Mortals are ungrateful as ever, it sees. 

It could see him visibly struggle to swallow his pride before taking a step forward and kneeling before it, gluing his hard, glaring eyes to the ground in front of him. Again with mortals thinking it desires worship, why did they all think that? Always the same drivel, “oh, almighty emerald, your greatness, please solve all of my problems for free!”. Tikal had been the only one in an eternity to speak to and treat it (and Chaos) as equals, and it dearly missed her presence; she had been naught but a comatose spirit contained within itself since she’d been sealed.

It was ready to tune out the conversation and ignore whatever the dying man had to say when he started with something it didn’t expect.

“Controller. Please, I beg of you, hear me out before you smite me for my intrusion.”

Smite him? It couldn’t do that if it wanted to, but the fact that he thought it could… he wasn’t here to save himself?

“As you must know, I haven’t much time left in this world. With my death, the Knuckles Clan, and the Echidna race, will effectively be extinct.”

… Oh. It had known their population was in decline, that became evident when the guard station was left abandoned a decade or so ago, but does this mean that the echidna before it is the only one left? It quickly scanned the island for the signature of any other echidnas, and true to the man’s word, it came up empty. Now it was annoyed they hadn’t sought its aid sooner, it would’ve happily helped them out if it meant their species survived. Despite what one would assume due to the incident that had created this very island, it did like echidnas as a species. Tikal had made a good impression, and it couldn’t fault a whole race for the actions of a single misguided leader.

Now it was intrigued about what this man was asking of it if it wasn’t saving his own life.

“However,” he laid down his spear to hold out the bundle of cloth with both hands, pulling back a layer to reveal a tiny egg kept inside. “This child will be left behind when I am gone.” He raised his head to stare into its facets, eyes determined and focused. “This child has wronged no one. They had nothing to do with the wrongdoings of our ancestors. They don’t deserve to suffer and die alone.”

He placed the egg down then turned from kneeling to full-on bowing, forehead pressed against the floor. “So I beg of you, Controller. Please, allow this child a good life, spared of hunger, thirst and pain. It is all I ask, on behalf of their parents, and for the sake of our people, our legacy. Grant us this, and we will have died in peace, and you needn’t worry of our presence ever again.

“I understand this is a selfish request, and I haven’t anything but my own waning life to offer up in return.” He paused for moment before he clenched his fists and swallowed hard. “If… if my begging isn’t enough, if you still hate us and want us gone, then would you,” he took a shaky breath, curling in on himself and squeezing his eyes shut as his voice cracked, “would you at least grant us both the mercy of a quick, painless death? Please…”

The Emerald was stunned. This was certainly one of the strangest requests it had ever received; this echidna wanted it to raise a child? It was definitely not caretaker material, the closest thing to a child it had was Chaos, and just look at how that had turned out. But on the other hand, if it declined, the child would die for certain and then it’d be without any Mobian kind left on its island. The previous echidnas weren’t technically guardians of it, but they fulfilled a similar role in not allowing anyone to go near it, let alone abuse its power. While it never happened, it was fairly confident that if any intruders from the surface had appeared while the echidna population was stable, they would’ve been shooed off by being told the land was “cursed” and “evil” or something along the lines.

And now that unofficial line of defence was about to die out, except for a lone egg…

It supposed it was a little overdue for a Chaos replacement.

It pondered how it would go about raising a child from scratch as the deteriorating husk before it started to leak tears in his pitiful curled up position. Eliminating the threat of hunger and thirst would be easy, it could accelerate the growth rate of the island’s edible plant life and steer into plenty of clean, safe rain while purifying the island’s waters of anything potentially dangerous; like what Chaos used to do for their Chao brethren through powers derived from its gifted mutations. Eliminating pain, though? Physically impossible. Perhaps it could try to affect the temperament of the island’s wild animals to make them less aggressive, but the warping of minds, while within its skillset, wasn’t really its forte. And there wasn’t much else it could do beyond that, seeing as it lacked limbs or telekinesis. It’s the best it could think of. That part of the man’s wishes would have to go mostly unfulfilled.

Speaking of him, his raspy weeping was making it hard to think. For a man barely a few hours away from death, he sure knew how to stretch his tortured throat to the very limit. It was almost impressive, but it needed him to shut up so it could come up with a hasty, last-minute child-rearing plan in peace. He’d stop crying if he knew it was going to honour his dying wish, right? It doesn’t exactly have vocal cords, though, so how should it go about this…? Hm.

The Gem before him let off a wave of light, alerting him enough to get him to peel his eyes back open and look up at the Controller towering over his hunched form. Through his once-more tear-filled eyes, he could make out some sort of image forming within It. It was… the egg. A perfect, three-dimensional replica, cloth bundle and all, of the egg that lay between the two entities. The image lingered, long enough for It to be sure he had seen it, before it shifted to a young echidna he didn’t recognise - however, from descriptions he’d heard growing up, he felt confident in identifying this as the child sacrificed centuries ago to save their remaining people. She looked to be in the middle of praying.

The image changed again to, confusingly, a replica of the very altar where he currently sat, but this version was one lacking the extensive damage seen around him. The structure, whole and untouched, was truly a gorgeous sight to behold, and so peaceful and calm. Truly, his ancestors had been cruel, heartless people to bring ruin to such a beautiful sight. Within the small green-tinted static scene, the same orange echidna from before was seen happily playing with these strange small blue creatures as the Controller sat where It always did behind them. He awaited another image, to clear up what It was trying to say, but the image faded out with nothing replacing it.

He waited for a few seconds. Nothing changed.

He blinked. From his mouth fell a dumbfounded “What?” as he refocused his gaze. The Controller was trying to communicate something, but the strange series of images meant nothing to him. What had the corrupt chief’s daughter have to do with anything?

The Gem gave off a harsh flash of irritated light, making him cover his eyes at the sudden brightness. When he looked back, the image of the egg was back, but instead of moving onto a new image after a while, this time It altered the scene to show the egg fading away, leaving the bundle of cloth.

The image of an empty cloth pile lingered for several long seconds as he stared dumbly, trying to decipher what this meant. The egg would… vanish? Hatch? Be eaten? Taken as a sacrifice? As he pondered, the image shifted back to the young echidna girl. Again, he did not understand what she had to do with anything. Were these images recreations of memories? Is that the extent of what It can show? That’s awfully limiting for a source of such unimaginable power.

When the image changed again, he flinched. It was an image of himself, as he had just climbed the steps of the altar and glared at the Controller in greeting. (Did he really look that bad…? Eugh…) He couldn’t help but look back and forth between the image shown before him and the real stairway behind him. The same scene, identical in every way except for the fact that he was sitting here on his knees instead of standing at the top of the stairs.

That confirmed it; the Controller is limited to showing snapshots of objects and scenes that It had seen before. He supposed he wouldn’t be able to communicate any better than this in Its position, but he still had no idea what It was trying to tell him. It didn’t seem like the Controller was planning on outright killing the child, that was a relief, but he desperately wanted to know what fate It had in store before any premature celebration.

As he continued staring in confusion, something told him the Controller was getting frustrated with his lack of understanding; the intensity of Its glow was steadily increasing, becoming almost painful to look at. He was about to try suggesting some other means of communication - yes or no questions answered with one flash or two, perhaps - when the scene changed again to something moving this time. It was as if he were watching from the perspective of a speeding spectre, hovering above the ground and having no body to speak of, zooming across the Island’s landscape at dizzying speeds.

The speed of the movement made his stomach twist uncomfortably, but he refused to look away lest he enrage the already frustrated Controller. The movement came to an abrupt halt as, ignoring the existence of gravity, the entity he saw through the non-existent eyes of hovered up to a tree to focus on a nest occupied by a few eggs. The poor mother of the nest, alarmed at the unseen force, squawked indignantly without sound and searched in vain for a danger she felt, but could not see nor comprehend.

Done with showing off the eggs, whatever he was observing zoomed off again in a seemingly random direction. He saw slim glimpses of landmarks he recognised, but keeping up with the wild turns as it weaved through the trees was nigh impossible. It moved with such speed that most things blended into a blurry smear of green and brown. As suddenly as it had before, it came to a stop at another tree and closed in on another bird’s nest, filled with young that couldn’t have hatched more than a day ago.

It was then that it finally clicked.

He gasped, snapping his focus to the Gem instead of what was shown inside It.

“You’re allowing the child to hatch?”

The reaction was immediate; the image was gone in an instant and the Controller pulsed rapidly, making him wince and cover his eyes.

“Controller, please, I don’t know what that means,” he wheezed, “how about, uh, one flash for yes, two for no?”

The pulsing stopped, and when he turned back and the Controller had his full attention, it sharply flashed once. Finally, they were getting somewhere! A relieved smile tried to take over his face but he bit it down, he needed to know more before he let relief wash over him. Allowing the child to be born and ensuring their survival are very different things. He wanted a clarification.

“Does… does this also mean you’ll ensure the child’s survival?”

The Gem flashed once, signalling “yes”, and he swore he could feel what seemed like a sense of pride emanating from It. Before he could choke himself on relieved, disbelieving wheezy laughter, It caught his attention with an image. He was surprised to see the bird mother from earlier, standing protectively over her eggs and on high alert from the earlier encounter. Seeing his lack of understanding, the Controller cut to another image, being of… Itself. It was hard to see the second Controller within the true one, the green blending in with Its gemstone body, but it was unmistakably a projection of Its own form.

It flipped back to the bird, and back to Itself once more, pushing him to make a connection. He thought of something, but surely, that’d be ludicrous. Right? Surely.

The Controller remained insistent, clearly waiting for his input and getting impatient judging from the steady increase in the intensity of Its glow. So, with extreme hesitance, he voiced the only thing he could think of.

“You want to-… to mother the child…?”

The Controller paused, going dark and still, stuttering to a stop in Its idle spin, and for a moment he feared for what little life he had left that he had angered It and was about to meet an abrupt, painful end for daring to ask such a foolish question of the most powerful item known to exist. Instead, after five full seconds of painfully tense stillness, It gave off a single slow, dim pulse of light that felt somehow as hesitant and sheepish as his question had been.

He stared.

He waited for a second glow. It never came. This was a definitive “yes”.

He stared.

It knew for a fact that if it were a being of flesh its face would be as red as a common-coloured echidna’s vibrant fur. Yes, that had been what it was getting at, but it wouldn’t have worded it as mothering. Raising, caretaking, even guarding, ironically, but not mothering. And yet, it couldn’t outright deny that it was… that, so it simply swallowed its mortification and agreed. As long as he understood the gist of what it wanted to get across, it supposed.

But could he stop gawking already? Dear Itself, for a man so afraid of being smitten he sure knew how to get on its nerves. Yes, yes, the almighty Unifier of Chaos raising a mortal child, how positively enthralling. He’d better move on quick before it started looking for a way to strike him down for real, like, hm… it sensed a thunderstorm nearby…

Before it could go further down that path, how disappointing, the man let out a startled cough that he just barely held back from becoming a full coughing fit. Finally coming to his senses and realising how very rude his staring had been, how its venomous glow had spiked with its increasing irritation, his shocked face quickly planted itself on the ground as he collapsed into another bow. Ugh.

“Cont-Controller! I’m- I apologise deeply for my reaction, it was awfully disrespectful of me! Please, I beg of you, don’t allow my foolishness to sway your decision-making, please, I’m so sorry!” His voice had all but collapsed into a crackled whisper by the end of his stuttered ramble-y attempt at grovelling. It sounded awfully painful; it’d likely wince in sympathy if it could. He’d definitely lose the ability to speak soon.

And his insistence on choking on his own panicky breaths certainly wasn’t making it any better. It started thinking of ways to calm him down again, and faintly realised it was already playing the role of “parent” despite the child not having hatched yet. Funny.

Chapter Text

His life was simple. He woke up, ate his fill of termites, ants, and fruit, cared for the animals and plants, and spent several hours laying by the shrine that housed the Master Emerald. The gem was a constant tug on his being, it hummed in his mind and body and beckoned him into the comfort of its gentle glow with each passing second he remained absent from its immediate vicinity. Its proximity was so intrinsically right that he hadn’t questioned it, nor had he ever questioned why the other animals gave the Shrine Isle such a large berth in contrast.

He had never been like the other animals, so what did it matter anyway. They couldn’t speak, they couldn’t read, and something told him they definitely did not have innate knowledge of all happenings of the island. Every birth, every death, every visitation from foreign birds and their subsequent departures, he knew of it all the very instant it happened.

Perhaps this was something all of the ones like him could do. The ones that left the temples and shrines and cities behind, the ones whose texts were all he had to prove his own ability to read, the ones he occasionally found the skeletal remains of.

The ones he knew next to nothing about.

One day, near the underground palace, he found a well-hidden room. Inside were stone tablets. Hundreds upon thousands of them, neatly stacked in rows and engraved with recounts of the daily actions of those who proclaimed themselves “guardians”.

They all followed the same formula of stating their title, “Guardian #00“, and a day count ascending by one with each new log. Even with numbered days, it was difficult to discern how long the gaps between guardians was. Some gaps were noticeably longer from the amount of fading in the text. Decades? Centuries? He couldn’t tell.

A pattern he noticed very quickly was that many of the guardians’ first and final few logs were partially scratched out, and what little could be made out of the final ones appeared to be inane ramblings. Repetitive phrases covering entire pages, large slashes - recognised as being made with knuckle spurs much like his own - dragged through the tablets, curses, words of seething rage etched harshly and quickly in mostly illegible writing.

He didn’t understand. Many of the guardians hadn’t, either. Many of them questioned themselves what happened to their predecessors, where they went and what drove them mad, determining that they would be better before inevitably falling to the same apparent madness.

It scared him. He’d read a lot from the people that used to live here, the ones that spoke and wrote and drew like he could, and very few had spoken of the guardians. What little texts did speak of the guardians also bore the marks of another party trying to erase what was there.

He wondered what happened here. Had the people turned on the guardians? Were references to them destroyed for being taboo? Who was it that scratched out all of these logs? Whoever had done this came along far after the initial etchings. So much information, lost to time forever…

Through his disappointment, he still made room for excitement. After all, this is the most extensive library of text he’s found, ever. Lost information or not, this could give him more insight as to what his people had been like and whatever happened to them.

-

A few centuries later, an echidna stumbled across the guardian’s logs. He, too, wondered what happened to these people, and what eventually drove them all to madness. So much lost information, he tutted. He couldn’t read the scratched-out text that accompanied every new guardian’s introduction, nor much of their maddened ravings marking the end of their time. That was on purpose; they didn’t want him to see. He was not allowed to see, for his own sake. Not the endings that raged with the boiling anger that came with a horrific realisation, and certainly not the re-wordings of the same introduction, repeated again and again in identical handwriting for millennia.

“The last echidna,” they had all proclaimed themselves.

And, once again, so did he.

Chapter Text

He woke up, and for a moment, he didn’t know where he was. He shielded his eyes from the sun trying to blind him and sat up, keeping his head angled downwards to see he had been lying on a familiar structure of stone. The shrine. Ah, of course. Him drifting off on the job was a common occurrence. A bad habit, but a tough one to break. His recollection of the previous night was hazy-to-non-existent; must’ve been done in by exhaustion again…

Hold on.

He squinted at the floor below him. On closer inspection, something seemed off. The floor, it was far more decayed than what he knew. Far older. His head shot up, turning left, and right, and down the stairs, and… where did all the water go? Why was there nothing but grass, why were the circling pillars destroyed? Alarm bells rang as panic gripped its icy claws around him, what had he missed? What’d happened in his sleep, how could everything change so drastically without his knowledge? Why does it look so old so much older a hundred years perhaps even a thousa

…

A familiar wave of comforting warmth commandingly seized his attention, greeting him as tenderly as a doting parent would their beloved child. In a manner almost mechanical in its precision, he turned to look behind him, eyes magnetically drawn to the subject of interest in response to a silent, incontestable order. There its green all-powerful self sat, welcoming him home with open arms of omnidirectional light.

He tilted his head. “What’s with the special greeting?” Why a ‘welcome back’ when I never left?

The Master Emerald gave off a small burst of dim flashes that felt distinctly reminiscent of a knowing giggle. He shook his head; he truly never would fully understand the gem’s moods. Sensing its meaning does not equate understanding its intent. It’d always been like this, handily sidestepping his questions and leaving him in the dark on things he knew for a fact it hid from him.

He’d given up prying a long time ago.

He blinked. What had he been doing, again? It felt important; something about water? Must be thirsty – he does long periods without food or water when doing his duties, after all. It’d be so much more convenient if a water and food source existed on the Shrine Isle, but alas, he’d have to head onto the island proper if he wanted to sustain himself.

(Something about the thought of a water source existing on the Shrine Isle made him involuntarily shudder; it was an uncomfortable, tingling sense of visceral wrongness, of missing something of incomparable importance.)

(He pointedly ignored it.)

His back popped as he stretched with a yawn, an action with the highly specific name of pandiculation, as he recalled being taught by Tai

…

As he recalled. He suppressed another shudder, one of those days, huh, as he got up and descended the steps to go do his daily tasks upon the main landmass that was his home.

As he proceeded through his day, he idly noticed some abnormalities. Many of the objects in his numerous shelters had been shuffled around from what he last recalled, and alongside them were new items he only recalled the existence of upon laying eyes on them. In one of his more frequented dens, he found a small rectangle of metal and plastic. He stared uncomprehending for a whole five seconds before its name slotted itself back into his memory; a radio.

A radio… surface technology, used for long-distance communication. Where’d he get that from? He turned it over in his hands, noticing the wear indicative of long-term use. Use by… him? Muscle memory egged him on, and he found himself pushing a series of buttons in an instinctual, automatic fashion.

“Hold this one down to talk,” he parroted, from somewhere he couldn’t recall. Still running on autopilot (what’s an autopilot?), he followed the half-remembered instruction and chose to speak into the thing his brain provided as being the sound-receiving part, the “microphone”. His nose scrunched at the unpleasant sound coming from the thing when he pushed down the button, but something told him that was normal, so he continued.

“… Hello?” he tried.

He startled at the sudden cacophony of shrieking coming out of the device, and on pure instinct the radio had been crushed in an instant. He stared down at the smoking heap of crumpled plastic in his hands, and some part of him felt… remorseful. As if he’d struck down a friend.

Tentatively, he put the destroyed device back where he’d found it. That was… strange, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it. He’s got more important stuff to worry about.

An hour passed, and something was coming.

He’d been tending to his grape vines when his head abruptly snapped to the side, sensing a foreign presence fast-approaching the island. An aura tinted with Chaos, dripping with hidden depths of raw power. Surely, a threat, yet…

It was familiar. It felt like a friend. Someone close.

How strange.

He stood at the edge of the island and patiently awaited the arrival of this mysterious spark of familiarity. Out of the clouds came a large metallic red bird (that’s what a plane is, right,) that pinged in his head as going far faster than would be safely recommended. Pushing the speed to the limit, huh? Typical.

(Typical of whom, again?)

He watched on in intrigue as it came ever closer, when without warning, a streak of blue decided to leap from the plane and leave it to tumble into a nosedive due to the sudden lack of a pilot. Before he could react, the violent sphere of dangerously whirling spines tackled his unprepared form.

He went flying, crashing through a tree and choking as the breath was evicted from his lungs. Okay, he wheezed as he fought his way to his feet, note to self, don’t trust senses of familiarity and friendliness.

He looked up with a glare, raising his fists in preparation for a brawl as his assailant stomped before him, but his eyes widened in shock as the other came into view. He knew this guy! Blue hedgehog, yes, he knew him very well. An ally – no, a friend. A rush of recollection washed over him, yes, this was his friend! His best friend. His name, something with an S, it was…

“Sonic?”

The one in question hissed, baring his teeth in an expression that felt completely unbecoming of him. “Don’t you dare!” He growled, oozing sheer malice. “This is vile, just drop the act already.”

“What?” He was truly baffled. “Acting isn’t my thing, Sonic, wha-“

He was cut off by a kick to the chin, knocking him flat on his back to slide all the way into the next tree in his way. Sonic continued his approach, “What are you, huh? Another Mecha Knuckles? Shed your skin, already, you useless pile of junk.”

Despite his spotty memory right now, he was 100% certain this dangerous, wrathful tone had never once come out of the hedgehog’s mouth. What’d he possibly do wrong? He winced as he sat back up, rubbing at his jaw. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, man. Mecha Knuckles? What, you think I’m a robot?”

Sonic scoffed, a vicious, harsh sound. “As if you could be anything else. You were surprised to see me; you didn’t recognise the Tornado. Dead give-away.”

“Or, hear me out, I don’t see your plane as often as I see Tails’? The hell happened to make you assume I’m a bot when I’m on my island, doing my job. A bot would just take my Emerald and leave, wouldn’t it?”

Sonic paused in his steady approach, before growling and sprinting the rest of the way to pin him to the tree behind him by the neck. “I don’t need to know what Eggman’s purpose for you was. You’re a fake - that’s reason enough to destroy you.”

He easily pried the arms away from him, irritation piling on as the hedgehog refused to listen to reason. He didn’t want to fight his friend (He’d done enough of that in the past), but he wasn’t making it easy! “You’re still not telling me why you’re so certain on this whole robot thing when it makes no sense!”

At that, a sudden burst of strength came from the hedgehog, and he pushed through the mittened grip, aided by the element of surprise, to close his hands firmly around his neck. As he choked on the abrupt, overpowering strangle-hold, he stared wide-eyed into eyes brimming with rage and the beginnings of tears.

“Because Knuckles is dead!” He panted, squeezing harder as the tears flowed over, “I saw, we all saw, I wasn’t good enough. I failed, and he’s gone. There wasn’t even a body…” His grip slackened minutely, and the rage fell away into despair, sorrowful agony. “Nothing but strips of skin and bone and fur, and so, so much blood. When we heard his voice from the radio… you gave everyone false hope, you freak…”

Sonic crumpled to the floor, arms falling limply to his sides, openly crying now.

He remained stiffly stood where he had been pinned, bloodshot, pinprick eyes jittering as they stared sightlessly down at the collapsed blue form before him. His mind was a battlefield; gaping holes trying to knit themselves closed, long-lost memories begging to bubble to the surface only to be met with heavy, green-tinted resistance. He fought the green fog, and it stubbornly refused to let up as it even tried in vain to swallow up what he’d just heard.

That alone was enough of a conformation for him.

How long? How long? It wouldn’t tell him. It wouldn’t let him know. This is what it hid from him.

He screamed.