Chapter Text
IT'S SUDDEN—
—the sharp pang that shoots through your arm. Comes out of nowhere—just like the faint ringing in your ears.
"Come on! He'll love you!"
You wince, head tilting up as a flash of pink greets your vision before your arm is yanked yet again—this time: with a lot more force.
The force is so much, in fact, that it ends up in your face falling forward, and your eyes abruptly training onto the small bumps that litter the ground beneath you.
Ah, shit.
Your lids screw shut—bracing for impact—
—before shooting straight back open at another tug.
Double shit.
Your body lurches forward, head spinning as you trip over your own two feet, desperate to match the level of haste you're pulled with. Though your efforts are to no avail, so you resort to other means lest you wish to actually fall.
"Amy! Slow down a little!"
Pink ears perk up as the hedgehog in question's head whips your way, revealing to you the shaky smile displayed clearly on her muzzle. "Sorry," she says, panting a little, "I'm just so excited! With you on the team, I have a feeling things will finally go our way!"
Finally go their way..?
Ah... that's right. Things haven't really been going their way lately, have they?—the Freedom Fighters'...
...or, what's left of them at least.
Your face twists, a grimace swallowing it whole.
The Freedom Fighters: once a name revered for the hope it was associated with—now a mere spec of dust left behind in the rubble of that one, fateful day.
The day that started, or rather, ended, it all.
"Ah, hello!"
You blink away the clouds in your vision, ears perking up and head tilting in the direction of the new voice.
Amber fur, two tails, whisker-like muzzle—it's the genius of the rebellion: Miles 'Tails' Prower.
"You must be the new recruit Amy picked up!"
"Oh, uh—" your lips quirk up, "—yeah, that's me."
"I'm Tails! It's nice to meet you!"
"Oh, I'm [Name]. It's nice to meet you too."
Both of his tails flutter behind him, moving in a back-and-forth pattern that's almost too hard to look away from. "You're here to see Sonic, right? I'll help Amy take you to him."
You blink, mouth opening for a brief moment in time, before closing once more, colours blurring as you nod instead of breathing a word.
Your nod is returned with enthusiasm, with a hope you haven't the pleasure of seeing in anyone for a while—a long, winding while.
It's strange, how quickly things can change; how the grass can turn from the vivid green of the northern lights, to the dull grey of a hellish storm within the span of a day; how flowers can bloom with the burning heat of fleeting beauty, before wilting away in the icy hands of death itself not a moment later; how children can giggle and frolic and dance, then scream and wail and cry in the wake of their parents' lifeless eyes.
Even now, as you take a look around these cold, barren halls that once housed great heroes, while Tails and Amy lead the way, you can't help but feel... off? Wrong? Solemn—almost?
It's like something's supposed to be here, but you can't quite place your finger on what, exactly, it is.
"That's Bunnie's equipment—"
You blink, finding yourself zooming in on a desk with a metallic, shining pair of scissors laying next to a small, bristle-filled comb.
"—She used to love hairdressing."
Swirling around, your eyes find Amy's own. But she's not looking at you, no, she's looking at the desk—lids drooped with the same, longing weight as her words.
She almost looks a little... what's the word..?
Her eyes are far-off, cloudy as though with a vision, a memory of a distant past. You know that look, you've worn that look. She looks—
...Ah, forlorn.
"Amy—"
The hedgehog turns her head, quills whipping around in a blur of pink until she's facing forward again—expression completely and wholly obscured from you.
Your lips tug down. Maybe it's best not to—
The sound of another voice cuts through your thoughts
"Bunnie was..." you turn, eyes finding a glossed-over pair of blue, "...really brave, and so, so cool."
"She was." Amy nods—slow, and no more than once.
Then, all grows silent again.
It's almost funny how quickly you screwed it up—turned their hopeful cheer into despairing wallows. And at just a look in the wrong direction too. Perhaps it'll do you better if you just face the floor, avoid accidentally landing your eyes on yet another valuable belonging to that of the many Freedom Fighters who no longer roam these halls.
Yeah, that's probably for the best—
—or maybe not.
You may be facing the ground, but you sure as hell aren't registering what's actually on it, which is probably what leads to your next predicament.
No sooner than a few steps down the line, your foot catches something; something sharp and cool and icy to the touch. You're lucky to not get a cut—even more so to be able to catch your footing again—
—you're not lucky, however, to have caught Tails' attention.
"Ah, sorry about that. It was something Rotor and I were working on—a pet robot he was super passionate about finishing," says the two-tailed fox, and you find your gaze training onto the puppy-like invention before slowly trailing up to meet his own, soft one. It feels all too fast when his perked up ears then flatten against his skull. "...I never had the heart to put it away."
Way to go, [Name], you did it again.
Your ridges curve. "I'm sorry."
He shakes his head. "Don't be." Then he turns, continuing, "Sonic's just around the corner. Come on."
He's quick to dismiss the topic—almost too quick. But to be completely honest, so are you.
Sonic—the Blue Blur, Mobius' great hero himself, the man you've come all this way to see, to meet, to join.
He's so close.
Will he greet you with a smile?—a thumbs up oozing approval and readiness to take on the world? Or perhaps he'll greet you with a teasing remark—a jab at how you don't look like much before looping an arm around your neck and grinning to indicate the lack of meaning behind his words. Or maybe he'll—
"Sonic! Hey!"
You jump, tuning back into the world just in time to see the pointy, cobalt quills of everyone's favourite hero; said quills a stark contrast from the soft fabric of the sofa they lay upon.
Sonic.
Electricity jolts from within you, coursing through your veins to riddle you with further sparks of anticipation as the quills begin to move, and a head starts turning your way.
Green meets [eye colour]—
—and in an instant, the spark dies out.
That's strange.
You're not greeted by any sort of teasing, playful glint—in fact, you're not greeted by any glint at all; just the dull, lifeless green that reminds you more of moss than the vibrant grass of your homeland.
And there's no smile either—not even a cocky quirk of the lips filled with that familiar sense of narcissism only seen in Sonic himself—no, instead, there lies a downward pull: a tug drowned so thoroughly in negativity, it almost makes you wince.
Then there's the bags under his eyes—hanging heavily with the mark gravity left on them; the terribly tiring, merciless mark.
To say the hero looks worse for wear would be an understatement.
He narrows his lids. "Who's this?"
That's it; no greeting, nothing—just a small, sceptical glare thrown your way.
"This is [Name]," replies Tails, beaming, "She's the new recruit!"
"New recruit?" Sonic repeats—slowly, and with a blank stare.
"Yeah!" Amy's the next to speak, her tone seeming as light and airy as Tails' own. Though you're not too sure, you're paying more attention to the Blue Blur than her.
Sonic continues to stare.
"She's—"
"New recruit for what?"
You're stunned into silence, speechless with shock, as venom launches off the hero's tongue, hurdling straight towards Amy's face, and ushering a wince to take over the girl.
Silence sits heavy in the room, suffocating you as it claws at your neck and crushes your airways 'til all you can do is hope and pray and beg for someone to say something—
"Tails, what'd I say?"
—though, you're not too sure if you wanted it to be him.
The hedgehog speaks without the speed he's so revered for, spits without the friendliness he's so admired for, and glares without the fire he's so beloved for.
It's almost like you're staring into a completely different mobian.
"I—" Tails starts—
"I told you it's over, didn't I?"
—only to be immediately cut off.
"Eggman won."
The fox freezes.
"We lost."
Amy's grip around your hand falls.
And with one, last movement of finality, Sonic slowly gets up, turning to fully face you all, to tower over you like he himself is the threat everyone so readily claims Eggman to be, as he finally spits out:
"The Freedom Fighters are dead."
The air hangs heavy as you all but take in the words you never thought would spill from the lips of Mobius' great hero himself.
What... happened to him?
This isn't the hero you know; this isn't the hero your little brother gushes about to you every day, the hero who refuses to give up no matter what sort of loss he faces, who braves it all with a shining hope that blinds all who dare stand in his path.
This isn't the great hero you came for.
That spark you thought died out earlier returns, bursting in your chest until a flame of confidence ignites in your soul, flickering up to your lips until you're able to utter out a single, resounding:
"Excuse me?"
A dull pair of emerald‐green flit in your direction.
"I'm sorry but—who the hell do you think you are?"
You're shaking, hands having balled up tight to contain the flurry of white, hot heat that burns your body from head to toe. In that moment, the very desert zones of your planet can only watch on in envy as even the sun gasps in awe of the flames that flicker around you.
"Tails and Amy are both trying their hardest to protect their people; something which—last I checked—" you raise a half-gloved finger, pointing it directly at the hedgehog as you continue, emphasising, "—is supposed to be your job."
"My job?" scoffs the speedster, tone swimming in disbelief, "My job? Maybe you need to check your facts again because, last I checked, I don't get paid to save the world, I do it out of my own kindness."
"That's funny, 'cause I don't see any of this so-called 'kindness' in you now."
He grits his teeth, and with a sudden, blur of cobalt, appears no more than a few centimetres away from you.
Now you've done it.
"That so?" Sonic questions, slowly tilting his head to the side in mock curiosity, "Maybe you should try looking for it under the countless corpses of every villain I defeated—"
He inches closer to your face, gaze narrow and eyes slitted.
"—Or the heaps of rubble from every robot I destroyed—"
A pressure pushes down on your chest, the source connecting to a certain gloved hand in front of you as the male's gaze becomes clouded.
"—Or, oh I know!" He perks up, mouth curving in a smile that seems just a little too sweet. "How about you look for it under the pile of my dead, fucking friends?"
With a shove, you stumble back, arms flailing for any sort of purchase—but before your behind can meet with the stony ground, a force tugs at your collar, and your vision is flooded by raging green.
"I'm done being the hero, so you might as well just pack your bags and go right back to where you fucking came from."
And with one last shove, Mobius' great hero storms off.