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“YOUR PRINCESS! IS ON AN AIRSHIP! THAT’S ABOUT TO EXPLODE! AND I’M THE ONLY ONE FAST ENOUGH TO SAVE HER! Could you PLEASE let me through?!”
“Sorry, no-one enters Kingdom Valley without passing the Trails of Soleanna. Royal protocol. No exceptions.”
Sonic has put up with a LOT on this particular adventure. Finding captains, racing humans dressed like him, flying boxes, loops with their own gravitational pull…
But standing at Soleanna Forest’s sandstone altar, speaking with three so-called “Priests” who were somehow dead-set on stopping him from saving the life of the princess they served? This was the last straw.
As if in response, the young oracle in the back said: “He’s got a point. This does seem pretty stupid”.
“Ignore him, he’s new”, snapped the middle-aged priest to the right.
Sonic sighed deeply as he realized there was no getting through to these people. Might as well get it over with. “Just point me to these ‘trials’ and I’ll have them done in a few seconds.”
“Not so fast”, said the older, head priest. “First, I explain the basic concept of the trial to you. Then, I swap places with the oracle, who waits two minutes, then gives you your task. We then wait two more minutes before sending you to your destination, wherein you must complete this task. Then, you wait two more minutes for our last member to take you back here. We call this the Waiting Ritual, and it must be done.”
“Let me GUESS”, Sonic snarled with barely contained rage, “Royal. Protocol?”
“See, he gets it! Can’t we just give him a pass?”
“Again, ignore him”, said the second priest, before adding: “One final thing. Should you fail the trails, you can repeat them as often as it takes.”
“Oh, that’s nice”, Sonic sarcastically replied.
“But every time you do, you must undergo another Waiting Ritual.”
“I HATE THIS CITY!”
-------
Two trials down, mostly painless. Aside from the stupid Waiting Rituals. Which, naturally, took longer than the actual tasks. But it was almost over. One more and-
“The final trial is the Test of Love.”
A moment of crickets chirping passed.
“PLEASE tell me you’re joking.”
“Trust me, I wish I was”, said the Oracle. “Now what was the speech again? Something about ‘you must lose something in order to gain something’, look it’s a bunch of old royal junk no-one cares about anymore. Just know this one’s easy. All you have to do is answer some yes/no questions.”
“Great, an actual test?” At this point even Sonic’s boundless sarcasm was starting to wear thin.
“Something like that. Also we need to put you to sleep.”
“Of course you do- ”
Darkness.
As he came to, Sonic found himself in a small circular forest clearing. Similar greenery to Soleanna Forest, where the rest of the trails took place. But it felt different. Darker. But less ‘night-time’ and more like… being inside a cave. And it was cold. And… isolating.
The most unsettling part was it also felt familiar.
A quick run around the perimeter revealed the tree-line was impenetrable on all sides. No running, or fighting this time. Apparently just… questions?
“Hello!”, Sonic yelled into the silence, “is anyone there?”
An echo was the only response.
But the three astrally-projecting priests overseeing the trial, invisible to its participant of course, could hear.
“When you think about it”, began the Oracle, “this test is really creepy and a total invasion of privacy.”
“It is not our place to question the royal Trials, young one. We merely judge whether the trial-taker is worthy”, the oldest priest replied.
“But it’s important not to judge them.”, the younger priest added. “For what their hearts reveal.”
“You say that, but I’ve seen things I can’t unsee-”
The Oracle’s voice was cut off by a burst of cyan light in the clearing. Out of it emerged a translucent blue figure. Human. A red-haired girl wearing a white dress and the traditional feathered earpieces of Soleannan royalty.
“OH SWEET SOLARIS, NO!”, cried the Oracle the instant he realized where this was going.
“I said not to judge… and I find myself making an exception.”
Even the oldest priest seemed perturbed. “Let us… observe first.”
“Elise?”, Sonic said once the light took shape. Noting her transparency, he added “This better not mean you’re dead.”
“I am a projection of your heart. A facsimile of someone you hold dear”, the spectral Elise answered, its voice echoing in the wind.
“Wow, I didn’t think my heart would use those kinds of words. So, what’s up?”
The projection smiled and explained:
“To pass this trial, you must truthfully answer one simple question: Who am I, to you?”
“I assume you want something a little more than ‘Elise, Princess of Soleanna’, right?”
Another moment of crickets chirping passed.
“Well, okay. To be honest I feel kinda bad for you. You’ve clearly been cooped-up in a stuffy palace for most of your life. After I rescued you and we went running, I could tell you had fun and… ‘fun’ isn’t something you have often. Don’t smile much either, do you?”
Nothing seemed to be happening. How much more did this illusion need?
“I guess I wanted to free you. Open up your world. And get you smiling more. Smiling suits you, y’know. That’s why I’m trying to… oh shoot, the real you is going to die VERY soon if I don’t get this over with. So can I go now?”
Silence again.
“Darn it, there’s no time! What am I doing wrong here?”, Sonic thought to himself. “These trials are so weird, especially this oneeeeeeeeee oh no.”
It suddenly hit him. The name of the current trial.
“I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately”, the Elise projection said, as if reading his mind.
“Elise? Does that mean you… y’know… ME!?”
The projection simply gave a nod.
“Oh boy. Kind of an awkward way to find out, huh?”
The words from before echoed again. “Who am I to you?”
Sonic gulped and hoped what he was about to say wouldn’t count as a failure.
“Look, you’re… really nice. And I care about you a lot. Just… not in ‘that’ way. If anything you’re… more like a sister to me? You’re great, and I’m sure you’ll find someone right for you. Another reason to stay alive, right?”
The spectral projection of Princess Elise gazed deeply at the trial-taker and gave a soft, kind smile, before bursting into a swarm of bright blue butterflies and scattering to the winds.
The three priests watching all breathed a MASSIVE sigh of relief.
“That means he passes, right? We can go now?”, said the Oracle.
“Yes, that should-”
The middle priest cut himself off as he realized something crucial.
Their trial-taker hadn’t stopped talking.
“No offense, but I couldn’t see myself dating a princess anyway. At least, not one set on ruling in a palace their whole life. If I had to date, HAD to” (Sonic was sure to stress that part), “they’d have to be…”
“Wait.” Said the middle priest. “Let’s… see where this goes.”
“See, what did I tell you? Invasion of privacy!”, yelled the Oracle, in futility.
If he could’ve heard those voices, Sonic would’ve DEFINITELY stopped there. But he couldn’t. Besides, by now, he had a pretty good guess where he actually was.
“A free spirit. Full of energy. Someone who can keep up with me.
Someone kind, who loves the world and everyone in it. But with a strong sense of justice. Not afraid to fight when they need to.
Someone strong. Who has my back in a fight. Actually, make that stronger than me. I’m not great with heavy lifting.
They’d have to be funny. Someone I could tease, and who’d tease me back.
And fun to be around. Someone who loves adventure as much as I do. Who wouldn’t mind not being tied down, just roaming the world. Which we’d protect, together.”
A long pause.
“This is all totally hypothetical, by the way. It’s not like there’s someone out there who fits that EXACT description, I mean, that’d be-”
“Oh I don’t know, Sonic. Sound like someone you know?”
Sonic jumped on hearing that unmistakably familiar voice. And suddenly, standing in the center of the clearing was a second projection. This time of a pink hedgehog in a red dress.
“Is that supposed to happen?”, said the young Oracle observer.
“No. In all my years, I’ve never seen a trial like this before”, said the oldest priest.
“Then what do we do?”
“We can do nothing. Only observe.”
“AMY?! What are you doing here?!”
In his panic, Sonic had only just noticed this projection looked different from the last. Instead of a cool blue, this one’s aura was… warmer. Closer to gold. And as it spoke, it didn’t sound as… echoing, as the previous. It… actually sounded like Amy.
“I think I’ve always been here. Waiting.”
Sonic shot several nervous glances around the clearing, before he remembered, to his horror: he’d checked before. No escape routes.
But to his greater horror, he realized something else.
He didn’t want one.
“I think we both know who I am to you. So instead, I’m going to ask something else. I know a path out of here. It might be a little scary, and dangerous… but since when has that ever stopped you?”, she winked, before holding out her arm in invitation.
“Will you come with me?”
Sonic stared at the familiar girl he’d accidentally willed into existence. Or had she somehow willed herself into his trial? He wouldn’t put that past her.
But, after taking another few glances around to make sure no-one was looking…
He whispered “Okay”, and accepted her hand.
The projection took hold, and, surprisingly, yet also not, pulled him into a hug. And the pair both dissipated into golden orbs of light, rising into the sky.
“So… So… that still counts as a pass? I’m so confused!”, the Oracle said.
The middle priest offered a theory. “I think he just… created his own answer to the trial. But that’s not possible!”
“If his legends are true, I would say it’s very possible. In fact, it may have been the only possible outcome for him”, the eldest priest said.
“The best part is, I don’t think he’s aware he did it”, the middle Priest added.
“Shame he won’t remember any of this when he wakes up, though”, said the Oracle.
And indeed, next thing Sonic knew, he was back at the altar, surrounded by three priests giving him very strange looks for no apparent reason.
“You… pass.”
“That’s it. Not going to give me a score, or something?”
“S-Rank, I guess”, the Oracle stated sarcastically. “Pretty hard NOT to get that on the Test of Love though. Now go make sure our princess doesn’t die.”
OH right. THAT.
“This sacred giant eagle will carry you to Kingdom Valley”, said the eldest priest as, indeed, a giant eagle had inexplicably appeared on the altar.
“WHY IS THERE A GIANT- you know what, I don’t care.” By this point, Sonic had learned not to question the bizarre nature of Soleanna, and simply grabbed hold of its talons. This had better be a SHORT eagle-trip because this thing was painfully slow.
Slow enough that a thought had time to emerge.
“Once I save Elise, I should introduce her to Amy. They’d get along great.”
Where the heck did THAT come from?
-------
Later, at Kingdom valley, Sonic encountered a now-familiar silver hedgehog, who took immediate notice of his ‘so done’ expression.
“You too, huh?”
“How bad were yours?”
“THEY PUT BLAZE IN A BOX!”
Bonus:
A long time later (after the events described above were erased from history… twice*), Silver and Blaze arrived in Soleanna for a vacation**. They were greeted by a disturbing old man in a top hat.
“Greetings! I’m Lord Regis, Soleanna’s new minister for tourism!", he said, wildly flailing his arms, "How may I help you?”
“We’re looking for Kingdom Valley”, said Blaze. “I have heard it’s a historic landmark of great beauty.”
“And so it is! Very popular with tourists, that one. But there’s a catch. In order to enter Kingdom Valley, you must first pass the Trials of Soleanna!”
Silver felt a splitting headache for reasons he couldn’t explain.
“We’ll… think about that. For now, just show us to our hotel.”
“Ah, yes. All our hotels are located in Soleanna New City. But in order to enter there”, Lord Regis said, “you must first find the Captain!”
A full minute of silence passed.
“On second thoughts”, said Blaze, “let’s not go to Soleanna. It's a silly place.”
As the two left, levitating luggage in tow, Silver could be heard yelling from the distance:
“How is this not in their tourism brochures?!”