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It’s a beautiful day. Sky’s blue, grass is green, birds are singing, gas prices are low but morale is on the rise- quick stop here to smell the roses, which are also beautiful ‘cause again it’s a beautiful day so why wouldn’t they be- and it’s not too hot and not too cold and they’re running a two for one on chili dogs somewhere in the world probably, maybe, in theory, yadda yadda, good day stuff, whatever; see, taking all that talking and putting it up on the shelf, Sonic doesn’t technically have the time for all this. Not for a whole bunch of reasons but specifically not for one really big, semi-aquatic, fifty foot reason that we’ll probably get around to at some point but can’t get to too quick ‘cause we’ve gotta pad for time.
See, time is money and money makes the world go round and buddy if we’re not rotating like a gas station chili dog out here, but that's not the point. The point- twentyish minutes may it live- is that this might not be the time for exposition but to make an omelet you’ve gotta break a few eggs, and to get our narrative rolling you’ve gotta tear down a wall or two. We’ve all gotta make sacrifices. Sure he’s waiting and you’re waiting and we’re all waiting, but there are rules to these things and we can’t go breaking rules so long as we’re playing ball-and-chain to the role of 90s kid’s cartoon role model. There’s context here. There’s context and a larger framework. There’s a larger framework to the larger framework. It’s hedgehogs all the way down.
It’s also pretty quiet. It’s a beautiful day, and they’re in a town, and there’s no one around but the blue sky and the green grass and the longer stretch of red-orange ground, curved soft along the edge of the horizon and bleeding fuzzy little lines over into the sky. The town itself is workin’ some pseudo-suburbia magic, rows of neat-looking houses and corner stores and more schoolhouses than are really probably necessary stacked as far as the eye can see.
It’s also empty. Dead-flat empty. And more to the point, it’s a sufficiently established setting, and so: it’s a beautiful day outside. The sky is blue and the grass is green and the birds are not singing because they’ve all flown away because they all got scared off by the giant deep sea creature that’s systematically decimating our previously established town not sixty feet away, giant eyes and giant tentacles and vaguely mythological tendencies and all.
“Oh no! That’s not good!” Tails- who’s here too- exclaims, good ol’ nominal tails whirring away as he chews his nails down to the quick quicker than a speeding bullet but not quite quick enough to get him out of this one. That’s cool. They’ll work on it. For now, the more immediate issue:
“It ain’t great,” Sonic agrees. They both stand there then, wallowing in how not great this situation is right up until Sonic prods Tails to the side just in time for a chunk of what was once probably a very nice public library to go flying past his head. He tugs him back down to the ground and behind him after that, because taking chances when he’s on the line is one thing but his friend? His buddy? His pal?
Not on his watch, buster! Not on this particular run ‘round the sun and definitely not the next, okay, because knowledge is power and knowledge is a collective like a portuguese man o’ war and so obviously by the second time through they’d know better, right? It’s basic math. Basic marine biology.
And as it is that would probably be helpful right around now, because before we get around to introducing character number three, we’ve first gotta give it up for the man, the myth, the mystery or the riddle or the enigma even, depending first on what school of thought you subscribe to and then of course the year and maybe the season and possibly the wind chill, provided that you wanna get picky about it:
Taxonomy. God help us all.
“What is it, anyways?” Tails asks to that end, peeking around Sonic's side. Sonic pats absently at his head, considers the scene before them.
“The Kraken, I think,” he says after less than a second of said consideration, because well. Context clues, baby, and also: giant monster squid. “But that’s a bit of a shot in the dark- wish I could tell you more, but he doesn’t seem much for conversation. Maybe if I ask for an autograph?”
“I dunno, Sonic,” Tails says, uneasy. His fingers tap nervous against Sonic's arm. “Seems like all his arms are busy. And I don’t think it’s The Kraken, anyways. Maybe not even a kraken. Maybe it’s a badnik? One of Robuttnik’s?”
Ah, the dulcet tones of denial. Sonic hisses through his teeth.
“Not sure, kid. Seems like there might be a bit of bad blood there,” he says as the maybe-Kraken whips an arm around the Doctor Robotnik in question- who was also also here, but there were way more important things Sonic would’ve had to mention before getting around to him, like today’s special or a patch of clovers or a mildly interesting cloud- and flings him away with a yell of HEDGEHOG that’s to the moon and back before you could say, well. Hedgehog.
“But his badniks turn on him all the time!” Tails argues anyways, watching with mild interest as Robotnik lands with a poof somewhere off in the distance. “Maybe it had a, um. Crisis of conscience.”
“Maybe,” Sonic agrees, because support is important and also because he feels like he’s gotta at least pretend to have some sorta leg up here. Seriously, crisis of conscience? Where is that kid even hearing these things?
Anyways. They watch as the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Kraken crashes unconscionably into an abandoned food cart, and then gets right back up and crosses several ethical boundaries (and no crosswalks at all ) to get itself across the street and then takes a swing at immorality with one of its tentacles towards nothing, apparently. It’s also gone sorta green, which is just plain wrong.
“But then again, maybe not,” Tails grumbles. He sniffs a bit- all that dust taking its toll- and Sonic whips out and hands over one of his patented handmade monogrammed handkerchiefs. Linen. Lace around the edges. Personalized. He’d make a killing on Mobius equivalent etsy.
“But then what’re we gonna do?” Tails asks, once all that’s through and he’s handed the handkerchief back and it’s been disappeared into hammerspace, never to be so much as mentioned (much less seen ) again. “We can’t do nothing, so we’ve gotta do something, and we’ve gotta do something fast. ”
“Kid, have ya ever known me to do nothing?” Sonic snorts, gently prodding at the side of Tails’s head. “Heck, have I ever done anythin’ slow ?
“Yes. Saving the town,” Tails says immediately, and Sonic tilts his head a bit in acquiesce because, well. He’s not wrong.
“You’re not wrong,” he agrees to that end. “I think you might even be right.”
“I’m never wrong,” Tails announces with a fantastic degree of confidence considering the situation, and Sonic has to stifle a bit of a laugh.
“Never?” He asks, just to be sure.
“Never ever ever,” Tails says, solemn as ever, and Sonic snorts.
“Yeah, I bet,” he says, going in for that hair ruffle again because, well. If it ain’t broke. “You get that from me, y’know. Capital-C Con-fi-dence. Homegrown, born and raised, all-organic . Gotta build up that foundation, buddy. Gotta give yourself somethin’ to work with once you and I are through with all of this, yeah? You understand me?”
“Nope!” Tails exclaims nice and cheerful as he ducks out from beneath his hand, scrunching up his eye and smoothing his fur back down with clumsy little little-kid movements. “That doesn’t make sense, Sonic!”
Oh well. These are the burdens we’ve gotta bear.
“Sonic, Sonic,” Sonic sighs, half in response and half to himself, complete with a dramatic glance off into the distance. “Faster than a speedin’ bullet, that Sonic. Makin’ sense, that Sonic. Watchin’ a car get thrown right at us, that Sonic. Incoming!”
He tugs Tails to the side again as the car in question goes crashing past. Sonic swears slightly, lightly, under his breath then, and turns his attention back towards the Krakin which is probably where it should’ve been in the first place, but hey. What’re you gonna do?
Besides- and to be fair- from what he’s seeing it’s all pretty much what he expected anyways. Havoc, destruction, curses rained down upon them all, etcetera, etcetera, all caused by the creature we’re gonna assume is The Kraken for the sake of wordplay but that we’re leaving a bit of doubt about regardless because plausible deniability is a solid cornerstone when it comes to covering your ass, and Sonic is not about to incur legal costs on the grounds of false advertising.
Sonic says: nothing, without a lawyer.
Anyways.
“Well, my professional opinion is that it’s not lookin’ good,” he announces a second later, rocking back on his heels.
“So we should probably get crackin’, right?” Tails says, very carefully in that way he does when he’s mimicking- must’ve picked it up from Sonic a town or two back. It’s super heartwarming. Super-duper heartwarming.
It also opens up the way for one of the worst puns Mobius has ever seen. And so the stars align and the sky goes dark and the world stops turning (it owes him a favor) and Sonic- who has been waiting for this moment for literally his whole entire life- feels a grin spread across his face. It is wide. It is sharklike. It is just a little teeny tiny bit dramatic.
It’s also not subtle in the slightest, and Tails- ever pragmatic and preemptive and everything in-between- drops his head into his hands.
“You’re right, buddy,” Sonic says grandly, magnanimously, and (to be fair) still a bit dramatically. “It really is time we got kraken .”
It’s a good pun. It’s a great pun. It’s so good in fact that it’s got the sky turning over and the buildings heaving up and oh nope that’s just the continued and systematic destruction of the town’s infrastructure by the winner of the 1992 Kraken Lookalike Contest. Hm.
“I changed my mind,” Tails (resilient, that one) groans regardless, lifting his head back up to slide Sonic a side-eye like it’s an ambiguously alcohol-equivalent drink and Sonic’s a mysterious traveler who showed up out of the blue one day to challenge the sheriff to a duel and maybe rob a bank or two. “I can save the town alone, I think. Without you.”
“You’ve gotta learn to appreciate the finer things in life, kid,” Sonic (also resilient! Look at him go!) huffs. “Long walks on the beach. Short runs on the beach. Real short runs everywhere else. Good puns. Cheese platters.“
“The town!” Tails exclaims.
“Sure, the town,” Sonic agrees.
“The town that we’ve gotta save,” Tails says.
“That’d be the one,” Sonic says.
“The town I’m gonna help you save?” Tails tries, pulling out the puppy-dog (fox?) eyes which might’ve worked if he wasn’t trying to launch himself headfirst into an allegorical wrestling match between man and the great unknown, but as it is (and four years old or not) he’s as subject to hubris as the rest of us and so as it is, he was just as doomed before he started.
“With air support, if you want,” Sonic decides anyways, because Tails has also got Sonic on his side, and Sonic’s got a way of defying the odds. “But hang back a bit from the messy stuff, yeah? I’m all for learnin’ by doing, but sink or swim seems a bit toooo literal here, dontcha think?”
“But I like swimming,” Tails grumbles, and Sonic snorts.
“I know, I know,” he says, hands up and placating as well as any hedgehog ever has. “But it’s dangerous, kid, ‘specially with something this big that’s been at it for this long-“ thousands of years, presumably- “and at this point, I think we might end up considered accomplices if we don’t get up and get going. Seriously, dragging your feet is one thing but we may as well be setting up shop for all the good we’re doin’, and I don’t know about you but I’d like to keep our reputation squeaky clean.”
“And maybe save the town,” Tails says.
“And maybe save the town,” Sonic agrees. “Which we can get done nice and neat and quick if you help me out from the sky, yeah?”
There’s a halfhearted staredown. There is a halfhearted description of the halfhearted staredown. There is drama. There is pathos. There is overtly intense eyebrow movement. There is- god forbid- pointed silence.
“Al right, ” Tails heaves after a moment. Mulish. Good, mushy-sounding word. His face has gone all scrunched up. “I’ll at least look cool, right?”
“The coolest,” Sonic promises. He nudges lightly at Tails’ shoulder, over and over until he starts to perk back up again. “So whaddya say then? Off to the races?”
“Yeah! Let’s go already!” Tails says, fists clenched and fire in his eyes and all, and Sonic grins. Revs on up.
“Alright, alright,” he laughs, fixing his eyes on the whirlwind that used to be Second Street. “Hearin’ you loud and clear. No more messin’ around, then- this is the real deal, buddy. We’re gonna have this done in a sonic second!”
And then, well. They don’t.
Yeah they’re up and off right off the bat, but at the end of it it ends up taking around two blinks of an eye, and well the thing about sonic seconds is that if you do anything in more than one then it just gets sorta embarrassing. Falls a little flat, so to speak, or otherwise goes the way of the Krakin (which is not all it’s cracked up to be, let him tell you) and trips over itself, wound under-over like a calamari potholder as it chases after Sonic and dodges shots from Tails because at the end of the day you can lead a squid to water, but all that that’s really gonna do is get it all tied up in knots.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, got the aquarium gift shop souvenir, because the fact of the matter is is that for as big as it was and dramatic as it looked, the crackalackin’ kraken was never really that big a threat at all. Most things around here aren’t, in the same way that most things anywhere are just looking for a way to keep themselves occupied at the end of the day, same as Sonic himself. It’s a symbiotic kinda thing.
To that end:
“Alright,” Sonic says, as he ties the last of the Kraken’s (REAL! NOT CLICKBAIT!!) tentacles to what was probably a lamppost at some point. “Almost broke a sweat near the end there and everythin’!”
“But you didn’t,” Tails says, picking his way over to him.
“But I didn’t,” Sonic agrees. He shuffles a bit to the side so that Tails can stand next to him, because as far as he’s concerned there’s no better way to learn than by doing, and while the full-on, thick of it fighting might be a little much for now, these things are all about opportunity, and when’s Tails ever gonna get the chance to see something like this again? Tomorrow? That’s literally ages !
“Where’d you even learn to do this?” Tails asks, prodding at one of the Kraken’s (we’ve used up our allotted free name-based jokes for the day- please either upgrade your subscription model or try again tomorrow) tied-up tentacles. “‘S not movin’ at all !”
“Well I was a Mobius scout, for one thing. Got my first badge in kraken tying, actually,” Sonic tells him.
“And the other thing?” Tails asks, peeking up and looking over.
“You’re gonna have to wait for that one,” Sonic- says. “My second badge was in building narrative tension.”
“Wow! That’s… real cool!” Tails exclaims a bit stiffly- humoring him probably, which is a bit embarrassing because Tails is four but like what’re you gonna do- and Sonic snorts.
“ I’m real cool, buddy. Comes with the territory,” he says, and Tails giggles for real this time. They stand there for a moment then, just sorta hangin’ out in the general carnage as Sonic tries to figure out what the heck it is they’re supposed to do next. The Kraken- because any good story’s got an arc, and denial’s as solid a thing to overcome as any- undulates softly. The birds have started to close back in, fluttering overhead in cautious little flocks. The suspense is palpable, cut it with a knife palpable, bring it up and work it out palpable, this roof is not my son but I will raise it palpable, and- believe it or not- palpably palpable.
Now seems the time to mention that Sonic never quite managed the thesaurus badge. Can’t win ‘em all, folks. Can’t win ‘em all.
“Hey, Sonic?” Tails says into the silence after a moment more, breaking that expertly leveraged narrative tension, and Sonic hums nice and light.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“We’ve gotta clean all this up, don’t we,” Tails says, appropriately mournful, and Sonic reaches over. Ruffles his fur.
“Yeah, kid,” he sighs, surveying the town in all its rent-apart, soon to be rent-controlled glory. “Ground-up and everything. Lotsa heavy lifting. Lotsa red tape. We better hit the bricks, you and I.”
“Hit the bricks and hit the ground runnin’,” Tails mumbles, leaning into him a bit.
“A fox after my own heart,” Sonic says. “But between the both of us we’ll have it done in a sonic second, yeah?”
“ No, ” Tails says, drawing back and shooting him a glare that’s impassioned as anything, and Sonic can’t help himself this time; he laughs. He laughs hard. Good, wheezy laughs that get bigger and bigger right up until Tails starts laughing too and then they’re both just standing there laughing which is all well and good until the Kraken makes an ominous creaking noise and all that laughing cuts off pretty quick in favor of more immediately relevant issues.
Oh well, oh well, Sonic thinks as they finally kick back into gear and start getting things sorted. No skin off his back. Nothing lasts forever, remember, not the great big sky nor the deep blue sea and especially not the random giant squid that decided to try its tentacles at amateur city planning when Sonic the Hedgehog was out and about.
So it goes, and such is life. Now, and more to the point: did anyone see where all those damn schoolhouses ended up ?