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“You see Sonic, it’s not all that bad here.”, Nine said as he tried to sell the idea of “The Grim” to Sonic. The blue hedgehog hadn’t shown any of the emotions or spoken any words as the fox gave him the grand tour. It was almost like he was a puppet whose puppeteer hadn’t put the effort into making him seem more alive.
It was worrying and the environment changed with the weather and landscape differing as the seconds passed by the sky turned a violent red purple color. Then it all glitched and went back to normal. Sonic looked brighter, more alive, and Nine continued as if nothing happened. Nothing had happened as far as he was concerned.
"This place could be home. The one you lost. The one I never had. I can make that hope a reality, for both of us." Nine knew that the words sounded like a plea. Which it was but he would never admit that. The fox just hopes that Sonic would understand. He needed him to understand.
Sonic sighed and said, ”Well when you put it that way, I guess we can live here then.”
“What?”, Nine said in disbelief. He hadn’t expected to a hear a response and needed hear it again.
“Of course I’ll stay here with you, little buddy.”, the hedgehog rubbed the fox’s head playfully. “You’re right about how this place can be our new home. It’s the perfect spot with no one else here to give us grief.”, Sonic mimicked an earlier action of Nine by extending his arms out and turning in a complete circle. “Plus, someone needs to keep an eye on you.”
Nine stared at Sonic dumbfounded. His response again was expected but felt unexpected and wrong at the same time. For some reason he thought the blue hedgehog would want to back to New Yoke City to fight with the Rebellion.
Nine pushed that aside. It didn’t mean anything. Sonic was saying yes to him. Saying yes to being there for him. Saying yes to their new home. But for it to feel real, for the hope inside his heart to fully be validated, Nine had to hear confirmation one last time.
“Really?”, Nine asked as he moved closer to the blue hedgehog.
“Really, little bro.” Sonic affirmed nodding his head. Then the blue hedgehog put his hand on the fox’s shoulder and Nine knew he was going to be okay. The fox felt the happiness bubbling up inside him and his tails swayed a little bit. Their lives were going to be much better now.
Suddenly the happy scene shifted to Nine watching another younger version of himself holding Sonic at gunpoint in a dark purple setting. The two were talking with the other Nine seemly growing more and more frustrated at the blue hedgehog and Sonic was being to look concern for someone. Nine couldn’t tell if it was for his own or for Nine’s safety.
The fox couldn’t make out what the other him was saying but he recognized some escalations of movement coming from that other Nine. It was on. He was thinking and going about to pull the trigger if he wasn’t stopped.
Nine tries to run towards them and stop the other version but he found himself trapped inside an invisible box. He banged against the walls to get out but couldn’t.
The other Nine was about to take to take the shot.
“Wait Wait Wait Wait Wait! Stop! Don’t shoot!! Don’t shoot him”!, Nine banged harder against the walls to gain their attention, even using his robotic tails to help out.
“Wait! Me! Nine! This is a mistake! This is a big mistake! Don’t do this! He’ll say yes! Give him a chance!! Please Stop This!”, Nine yelled and cried out.
But it was all in vain to try and stop this disaster from happening. All that banging against the invisible walls of his prison to get the two’s attention wasn’t working. The other younger Nine couldn’t hear him and by extension, Sonic couldn’t either. And just before he could say another word, young Nine shot Sonic. The blue hedgehog collapses and the box’s walls disappeared along with him.
“Sonic? Sonic!”, Nine runs towards Sonic as fast as he can. He gets down to hold Sonic’s bleeding body. Somehow the other Nine disappeared but the fox payed it no mind. Sonic was more important at the moment.
“Shit. Come on. come on. Let me see. Maybe I can fix this.” Nine desperately tries to convince himself as he sees his gloves getting stained with red.
Sonic’s eyes start to close. Nine shakes him to try and keep him awake. ”Don’t fall asleep on me okay Sonic? I’m working on it and I need you alive right now.”
Sonic stops breathing and everything goes limp. “Oh fuck. Sonic, you need to wake up. Wake up!” Nine start light slapping the blue hedgehog’s face to get him up. ”Please. Please don’t leave me here alone, ok? You’re going to wake up. I need you to wake up.” It doesn’t work.
“Goddammit!” Nine finally cries out, tears flowing out of his eyes. “I was so close. We were so close to being a family.”
Nine holds Sonic’s dead body tightly as he cries on over the hedgehog’s shoulder. His surroundings changed to an all white background. The fox hears footsteps approaching him from behind but he payed the person no mind.
”You know he’s dead because of you, right Nine?”, a familiar voice told him. Nine froze. It couldn’t be. The owner of the voice belonged to the person in his arms.
Slowly turning his head, Nine saw who had spoken to him. It was another Sonic but in what seemed to be in worse condition than the other one. This one had black eyes with red pupils. He looked like a demon from hell with parts of his body decayed. Nine could see a bullet hole going through his chest.
”What?”, Nine asked the entity. The Sonic in the fox’s arms leaves as Nine stands up to face the the decayed Sonic. The hedgehog laughs and does a nose swipe. ”I mean what were you else were you expecting to have happened. Nothing good I tell you. It was like you wanted him dead.”, The decayed Sonic said.
”No, I didn’t want him dead. I- it wasn’t meant to turn out like this.”, Nine tried to defend.
”Excuses Excuses. I’ve heard them all before.”, Sonic said as he waved the words off. “I could bet all the chili dogs in all of the Shatteredverse that you’re the only version that would shoot Sonic because of their emotional issues.”
”What? No, that’s wrong. I-“, Nine said but the creepy hedgehog cut him off. “His Tails wouldn’t have dreamed to shoot a prototype bullet at him especially one that hadn’t been tested yet.”, Sonic taunts.
”Shut up! It not my fault that the Council couldn’t do their jobs properly and failed to test out the weapon that would temporarily slow Sonic down.“, the fox angrily tried to justify.
“But it is all your fault.” The hedgehog smiled a big unsettling smile that made Nine’s skin crawl. ”You see, you were the one who had the bullet in hand and made a choice to shoot it that day which ended your future brother’s life.”
“You’re gonna have to face the consequences of your actions sooner or later, little bro.”, Sonic sang in a sing sanging voice. Then the hedgehog grew in size and gained an even more demonic look. “Why don’t I show you?”, the dead hedgehog says in a distorted voice before he rushes to attack. Nine screams in terror as the dead Sonic approaches him and then wakes up.
The fox wakes up screaming as someone was trying to shake him awake. It was the pink hedgehog cyborg, Rusty Rose.
Nine begins gasping for breath and assess the situation. He could tell he was in his nicely decorated cell or bedroom as Dr. Eggman and Dr. Deep called it.
“What happened?”, Nine managed to ask as he calmed down his breathing.
“You were screaming, twisting and turning on the bed asleep. I woke you up to ensure you of your relative safety in the building with the Chaos Council.” Rusty said in her robotic voice. In a much quieter voice she asked, “Was it another nightmare?”
It had to be his imagination but he thought he heard concern in her voice. It couldn’t be. Nine dismissed that thought. He was probably still messed up from the nightmare he just had and Rusty’s questionable emotions/actions towards him wasn’t something he wanted to unpack at the moment.
“None of your business. Leave me alone!” Nine yelled as he threw a pillow at Rusty which she caught with relative ease. The cyborg shot him an unimpressed look replaced with resignation and placed the pillow down on a nearby couch. She slowly walked into the shadows to have the perfect view of him sleeping without disturbing him if he decides to rest again.
With both hands covering his face, Nine sighed. “Keep it together, Nine.”, he muttered to himself. The fox had lost count already on how many times those dreams had kept him up. They got to him no matter what time he chose to sleep at and constantly pushed him to work.
Most of the events he dreamed of happened a few years ago. And it shouldn’t have mattered anymore. It was already too late to even try and turn the course of the path he had chosen. Besides, to think about the deeper meanings behind any of the representations and deciphering the obvious, was something Nine was never going to do. Because it didn’t matter and he didn’t want to. God, he need to do something to get his mind off of that nightmare.
Well there was always work to be done for the Chaos Council. Yep, good ole work. A current assignment involves the takeover of a Shatterspace world mostly filled with nature and had guardian that would be a lot of trouble to had to deal with. Nine had to build another weapon to go and “resolve” any issues that would come up from that.
Looking at his alarm clock, Nine saw that he had a few hours before he had to officially get up for his job. But he already knew that it was a lost cause and wouldn’t be worth the hassle to try and attempt a good night’s sleep anymore. The fox knew what awaited him in the land of sleep.
Nine got up from bed and started to get ready. Rusty looked disappointed but didn’t say anything. She’ll try to figure out a way to help him get a good night’s sleep without waking up or experiencing any nightmares.
The fox didn’t pay any attention to the cyborg, opting to get started immediately on his designs for a weapon to destroy the guardian of the nature world. It was time to move on from that silly dream and get away from the nightmares that followed.