Chapter Text
Sunset was at its wake in Green Hill at this time, creatures going wherever it is they needed to to get their rest that night. There was a chill in the air, announcing that Autumn was finally in its descending hour.
The battle of the Prism Shards had ended about 3 months ago by now, meaning Green Hill and its residents were all back to normal.
And Sonic couldn’t be happier about that. As of right now, he was laid out on the beach, enjoying the chill breeze and enjoying the moment of peace he had fought long and hard for. The others had insisted after he explained all of what happened.
But, this wasn’t the only reason the hedgehog was avoiding base at the moment.
“There you are Sonic!” The hedgehog sat up and turned abruptly as he heard his best friends voice, and soon enough Tails landed to his side, giving him a smile that seemed to hold some evident nervousness, “I just finished restraining the uh, for lack of a better word, prisoner”
“Thanks buddy…” Sonic said, giving a saddened smile to his two tailed friend. “Sorry if this is super strange for you, seeing double and all that”
Tails gave a nervous little laugh, sitting next to Sonic as the fox gave a disinterested shrug.
“I’ll admit, it’s weird, but according to him, we’re nothing alike, so I guess I don’t have much to worry about”
The so called ‘prisoner’ in question, well, honestly they fact this was happening at all was bewildering to them all, even Shadow.
Even after all the shards had been returned together (and locked away somewhere by Tails and Rouge, in a place Eggman couldn’t get his hands on it) and everything returned to normal, not to mention all the other dimensions ceasing from existence, there was still one thing, or rather someone, still left here.
Nine.
No matter how many times Sonic tried to wrap his head around it, none of it made sense. The different version of his fox friend should’ve disappeared with everything else, but still yet, he remained. He was found unconscious right outside of the temple, and by Shadow's order, he was then put into confinement for safety. There hasn’t been any reality shakes or other world oddities happening. It was almost as if their world suddenly decided it needed Tails to, in Knuckles’ words, ‘have an evil twin’.
“Yeah, but still… you’re positive he’s contained though? He’s about as smart as you, he may find a loophole” Sonic responds, lying back down in the sand. Tails joined him, giving a hum in acknowledgment.
“Positive. I made sure to immobilise his uh, robotic tail things, and he’s been secured in a confinement chamber that’s comfortable but keeps him contained” Tails says in an informative tone, then he frowns, turning his head to look at Sonic, “but… he seems to really dislike you”
Sonic let out a tense laugh, raising a hand to brush through his quill ridden hair, “Heh, yeah… let’s just say we both worked together for very different outcomes and he wasn’t happy about it”
Tails sat up, sitting cross legged and tilting his head, intrigued, “How do you mean?”
Sonic sat up as well with a chuckle, reaching a hand up and ruffling the young foxes hair, causing him to giggle. Then the hedgehog looked to the sky, frowning slightly.
“I was his first and only friend in his entire life, and he didn’t want to let that go. So his plan was to use the Prism Shards to make one of the dimensions into a home for the two of us to stay together” Sonic starts, feeling solemn as he remembers, “I wanted the shards to bring our world back to reality, but the whole time he thought I was working with him for our so called home”
Tails listened to his words, frowning shortly after. He thought for a moment, then stood, brushing sand off his baggy t-shirt and cargo pants.
“Well maybe you can amend things now! If he’s gonna be here, then you can try and make this place his home!” Tails says happily, “I don’t mind sharing my best friend with another version of myself, after all”
Sonic looked up at him, then nodded in confidence, hopping up onto his feet. The two walk back to base together, Tails giving a couple ideas as to what Sonic could say to Nine. They soon make it back, both shocked to spot Shadow of all people standing at the entrance.
“Sup Shadow! Odd to see you round our parts of Green Hill” Sonic says cheerfully, speeding forward to stop next to Shadow, placing his arm and on his shoulder. The ebony hedgehog rolled his eyes, shoving Sonic off of him.
“I came to see the fox from New Yoke.” Shadow explained simply, crossing his arms. Sonic and Tails looked at each other, then back at Shadow.
“And why would that be?” Sonic says, curious.
“Since you dimwits seem to be lacking on questions, I’m going to have to do it instead” Shadow scoffed, “did you ever think that maybe he knows how he got here?”
Sonic gave a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his head, “Ehhh, I didn’t think about it too much, true”
“But there’s also the fact that he hasn’t been awake” Tails adds in Sonic’s defence. Shadow gave the fox a slight glare, then rolled his eyes, turning and walking in the direction of where the counterpart was. Sonic and Tails looked at each other then hurried to follow.
They make it to Tails’ lab, and the fox puts in his combination then walks inside with the other two. In the corner of the room there was a small rectangle area with laser bars surrounding it, and sitting inside was Nine. The fox was finally awake by now, but he seemed really out of it, glaring at the floor. His robotic tails had what seemed to be like a blanket wrapped around them, and which probably had tech of its own attached to it to ensure the captured victim couldn’t use the metal appendages.
To be totally honest, the fox looked worse for wear. Sonic makes note that he seemed to have suffered some during the final battle for the Prism Shards, there were various scars littered against any of his skin that was visible, and a chunk was missing out of his right ear, but only a little. There seemed to also be a hole in his shirt on his left shoulder (which if Sonic recalls, was from one of the Council's laser attacks).
Nine finally noticed the three of them, and once his gaze landed on Sonic, it hardened into a glare, and he looked away and at the wall. “I thought I said I didn’t want to see him.”
“Well— I know that’s what you said but…” Tails responds, ears perking down as he tries to think of what to tell his New Yoke counterpart.
“Don’t blame Tails, Nine, I wanted to come and see you” Sonic says solemnly, coming closer to the confinement and crouching down next to it, “we left things on a bad note, and I wanted to make things right because your my friend”
“Yeah well.” Nine gave the hedgehog a glare, “you're not mine. So leave.” Sonic's eyes widened, shocked by what he said. It was such a cold response, and it was evident that what Sonic had done, no matter how unintentional, left a bad impression on Nine.
“Listen, Nine” Sonic begins again, watching as the fox rolled his eyes and looked away from him once again, “I didn’t know that your intention for the Prism Shards was to make the Grim into a home where the two of us live, but… even though you are one of my best buds, I needed to get my friends back, and fix everything to ensure the Council never got the shards, so-“
“Just stop talking” Nine interrupts, tails thumping against the ground in his agitation, “I don’t want whatever stupid reasoning you had! You wanted your world back, you didn’t want me, Sonic, you wanted this silly original counterpart of myself, and all of your other friends. Putting that Prism back together was never what was best for us like you kept telling me, it was what was best for you” he crossed his arms, glaring once more, “I don’t want to be your friend if you’re just gonna replace me, so give up now.”
Sonic just remained where he was for a moment, then smiled, standing up, “Well, unfortunately I am not one to give up easily. You may hate me now but I can guarantee I’m going to do everything in my power to restore my friendship status!”
Nine rolled his eyes, looking back at the wall and not answering. Sonic left him be, turning to look at Shadow, walking back to stand at Tails’ side. Shadow sighed, walking a bit closer but still keeping some distance between himself and the nine-tailed fox.
“How are you here.” Shadow asked simply, causing Nine to look up at him, “do you know?”
“No, I don’t.” Nine scoffed, shifting his legs up so he can hug them with his arms, resting his chin on his knees, “according to how this whole Prism thing works, I should’ve ceased to exist, along with the other worlds. But I don’t know why I remained.” Shadow stared at him, seemingly not believing the fox for a minute.
“Oh, I know!” everyone turned their heads to look at Tails who had spoken up suddenly, “we could ask Silver and Blaze! They know a lot more about this stuff than we do probably!”
Silver and Blaze were two of their friends from the very far future. Thanks to their unique abilities, they had found a way to travel between time and into their present day some years back. Of course, it was risky business, so they didn’t really make any visits, however Tails had invented a way for them to communicate with their friends from the future if it so became necessary.
“Maybe, but getting them here is gonna be hard” Sonic hums, placing a hand on the back of his head, “and time management can be hard with time travel, according to SIlver”
“I’ll send them a message and we’ll just have to wait and see,” Tails said, flying over to his desk to find the device he had created.
“Alright, we’ll leave it to you bud!” Sonic says, turning and walking out along with Shadow. Nine watched them leave, then moved his gaze to his counterpart. He just couldn’t understand it. How did him and Sonic have such a good relationship, even after the hedgehog had messed up their world so badly? There was no sense of it he could make.
“...How are you so calm about what Sonic did?” He finally spoke up, glaring at his counterpart. Tails’ ears rose and he turned his head to look at Nine. It took him a moment to realise what he meant, and once he did he just gave a little shrug.
“Well… I look at it this way” Tails hums, going back to the device in his hands, “Sonic learns best by making mistakes. It sucks sometimes but, I also had complete trust in him to fix everything, as he always does” he gave Nine a smile, “he’s my best friend, after what he did for me in the past… I at the very least owe him trust”
Nine could only scoff at that, rolling his eyes. That felt like an extremely low standard in his eyes. What did Sonic even do to deserve something like that? “What did he do for you?” He looked up at the fox again.
Tails finished his message then got off his chair, moving over to sit next to the cage Nine was inside of. “You were bullied too, right? For the two tails?” Nine glared off to the side, but nodded. “I did too. But Sonic was there, he told all of the bullies to leave me alone, and in turn, he made every effort to make me feel like my tails were a gift, not an oddity.” he frowned, watching as Nine didn’t seem to acknowledge. After a moment he turned off the lasers long enough to move inside the space, and placed a hand on Nine’s shoulder, “I know your world didn’t have a Sonic to save you, but then it did. I promise you this, Sonic cares about you a lot, and not just because you’re my counterpart, but because he understands that you’ve never had someone on your side.”
Nine looked up at him, ear twitching. Could he really believe that? Sonic did become his friend, but he just wanted to get this weaker version of himself back. He’d need to think about this. He sighed, pushing Tails’ hand off him and standing up, moving to his bed and sitting on it instead of the floor. Tails watched, then stood, walking out of the cage and going to find Sonic, figuring the nine-tailed fox needed some space.
It was about five days later that Silver and Blaze finally came around. They appeared somewhere near the loop. Sonic was (obviously) the first to come greet them, tackling Silver into a hug, startling the silver toned hedgehog.
“Good to see you too?” Silver said with slight nervousness, but he returned the hug either way. Sonic released him after a moment, giving him a wide grin.
“Sorry bud, it’s just been awhile and a lot has happened. Seeing any familiar face is always an emotional moment” Sonic chuckled, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. Silver gave a nod of understanding. “Anyways! Good to see you as well Blaze, I’m gonna guess you’ll take a pass on a hug though” Sonic adds.
“You are correct” Blaze confirms with a following nod, “and we can’t be here for too long, so let’s see what we’re dealing with here”
Sonic nods, and starts leading them in the direction of Tails’ lab. They enter, spotting Tails and Rouge. As for Nine, he seemed to be asleep, and Sonic couldn’t help as he watched the fox for a moment. He looked so… calm, which wasn’t a very normal thing for the young fox. He snapped out of his thoughts and walked over to Tails and Rouge with Silver and Blaze.
“Well, I see you two made it” Rouge says, catching the notice of their friends.
“After some complications on Silver’s end, yes” Blaze sighed, crossing her arms, her words instantly causing Silver to grow flustered.
“Listen! It’s been awhile since we tried time travel, so what if I had a moment of complications!” Silver defended himself, glaring at Blaze with a pout.
Rouge could only laugh, shaking her head in fondness. Tails turned around in his chair, not having been paying attention, so he was a little confused but didn’t question anything. “Uhh, anyways, back to the subject of our issue at hand.” He starts, then gestures towards Nine. Silver and Blaze look in the direction of the cage, a shocked expression being left on their faces.
“But- how-?” Silver was looking between the two foxes, bewildered. Then he shook his head to snap himself out of his confusion, then gave Sonic a knowing look, “What did you do this time?”
“Hey! Why do you always assume these things are my fault?!” Sonic said, placing a hand on his chest in mockery of offence. Silver just kept staring at him with a bored expression (honestly it was times like these that he and Shadow could be related), and Sonic gave a defeated sigh, “okay, technically this is my fault. Stressfully long story short, we had a dimension prism issue in which there were a bunch of different versions of my friends and eventually I got all the shards back together and everything went back to normal but for some reason Nine is still here”
This explanation seemed to only confuse the two more, but soon Blaze put on a thoughtful stance.
“That is certainly odd… I think I know what Prism you mean, it’s in a museum somewhere in our city” Blaze begins, looking back at the fox, “nothing in our world has been out of the ordinary, so that must mean in some way, eh, Nine, remained for a good reason, as if the stability of this dimension relied on his presence in some shape or form”
“But that’d be weird, wouldn’t it?” Silver adds, placing a hand on his chin, “the off chance of someone in our world looking and sounding exactly like Tails is very unlikely, and even then, the only way he’d have remained himself but gone to another world wouldn’t be likely unless he was trapped inside the crossroads.”
“Wait, how come you knew about the crossroads?” Sonic interjects, confused.
“Eh, I was messing with you earlier, we already know about the whole Prism dilemma. It’s in the catalogues back in me and Blaze’s base” Silver says, shrugging.
“Wow, rude,” Sonic scoffed.
“Guys, please, stay on topic here” Blaze groaned, glaring at the two, “there was one other thing the catalogues said, remember?” looking pointedly at Silver now. Silver blinked, then realised what she meant.
“Oh! Yeah I remember” Silver hummed, crossing his arms, “it mentioned that Nine was taken to the future so his situation could further be evaluated. So if I had to guess, there’s someone back in our present time who’s gonna help us figure out this issue”
“You want to.. Take Nine to the future?” Sonic said, a hint of uncertainty in his tone.
“In a way, it’d be the safest option, rather than keeping him here in the present” Silver replies, gesturing to Tails afterwards, “seeing doubles can, in recent studies - for us anyways - have shown that it can drastically affect each duplicate's mental state. There’d be a lot of confusion in thinking that one should be more like the other, vice versa, and could, probably not in these twos case, lead to madness”
“Have you felt anything like that, Tails?” Sonic questioned his fox friend, who looked a little startled, having been lost in thought.
“Uh, maybe a little” Tails shrugged, “though, he already said we’re nothing alike, so I haven’t been too bothered by it. But, it has been really odd having another version of myself around”
“I understand if you feel attached to him, Sonic” Blaze said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “but we have to consider both their mental stability on this one. And if we want to figure out what’s going on, then this is necessary”
Sonic knew she was right. He just didn’t want to believe it.
Silver and Blaze left after sometime, as did Rouge and Tails, so they could go hang out while they still had time with the two before they went back to their own time. Sonic remained in the room with Nine, entering the confinement area so he could sit next to the sleeping fox. If he only had a little time left with him, he wanted to spend it wisely.
Nine woke up a couple minutes later, groaning and sitting up, rubbing his eyes to rid them of sleep. He soon noticed Sonic, and was about to say something before noticing his solemn look. He rose a brow, studying him, “What?”
“We talked to Silver and Blaze, our friends from the future, about why you were here” Sonic explains, “they decided it’d be best, in terms of finding out why you’re here and I guess for you and Tails’ mental stability, for you to go back with you”
Nine’s eyes widened, then his ears slicked back as he frowned, “So you’re perfectly fine with a couple strangers to me taking me off into the future? Are you fucking serious?”
“If I’m being honest, not at all,” Sonic sighed.
“Then why did-”
Nine stopped abruptly as Sonic hugged him, his body stiffening up.
“If it were up to me bud, it’d be amazing to have you stay here” Sonic murmured, frowning, “so I could do everything in my power to repair our friendship… but you know what?” he let go of the fox, but left his hands on his shoulders, giving him a smile, “I think you’ll like it better in the future. It’ll be more similar to New Yoke, and you won’t have to be constantly bothered by me and all that!”
Nine looked at him with a blank expression. After a long and tense moment, right as Sonic was moving his hands, Nine hugged him this time, pushing his face into his shoulder. Sonic was shocked by the action, but he easily returned the gesture, pulling Nine close.
“....I don’t want to go..” Nine finally mumbled, “you’re the only person who’s ever been my friend. But I guess I understand if you want me to leave, I’ve been a total dick”
Sonic was surprised by the confession. But, it made sense why he was having the sudden change in attitude. He knew for a fact that Nine hid a lot of emotions behind a veil of defence because of his rough past. Hesitantly, but with sincerity, he ran a hand through the young foxes hair, still holding him close.
“It isn’t because of that, I don’t want you to leave either” Sonic responds, tone soft, “you can still visit, y’know? Maybe you’ll make a cool Time Machine and won’t have to rely on Blaze and Silver to be able to come back here, and we can always use Tails’ messenger to give updates”
Nine was silent, but he was listening. He knew that was true, but it didn’t really make him feel better. And there was another thing. Even after he and Sonic had become friends, he always refused affection. But this… it was nice. It gave an odd sense of security that he’s never felt before, wanting to somehow keep it on hand whenever he needed it. Guess he never gave hugs enough credit.
For Sonic this was relatively normal. There was always an occasional time that he’d give his friends a hug, especially if it was Tails and he was feeling down. Another thing he notes is that even though Nine seemed to always live in the rough, his hair was very soft. He mainly notes this because it reminds him of Tails’ hair and tails, which were also very soft.
“Nine?” Sonic speaks up after a moment, noticing the fox had gone very still. He looks down, first checking for vitals since he couldn’t see his face. His heartbeat and breathing were slowed, announcing he had fallen back asleep. Sonic gave a chuckle full of fondness, shuffling onto the bed, while still keeping Nine close, and laid down with him, letting the fox rest before he had to make his venture to the future. And hey he wasn’t gonna lie, he’s gonna miss Nine. Even if the kid was overall… cranky, per se, Sonic knew that with enough work he’d come ‘round and be similar, if not close, to how Tails was.
That made him stop. Was that his problem? Was he seeing Nine as Tails? At the time in the Prism scenario, it made sense, but when he really thought about it… he always had done that. With Mangey and Sails, he had somehow immediately accepted that they weren’t really Tails, that they were truly different people. But when he first went to New Yoke, he’d seen all the different versions of his friends as them, but for some reason he got especially attached to Nine because he was a different version of his best friend. So much so that he trusted him with the Prism, to the point where–
“Nine! Nine wake up” he suddenly shook the fox close to him, who gave a disgruntled groan at having his restful sleep disrupted.
“For the love of Prime, Sonic, what?!”
“I think I know why you’re here!”