Chapter Text
“Princess!” Then, a second name uttered a little more reluctantly, “Sonic!... anyone?”
A smoldering city edge dotted with wreckage left over from Infinite’s phantom army. Gray smoke drifted through the streets. The chaos was muffled by Infinite’s strange silence field — it was like being underwater. Antoine's ears flopped miserably. He didn't know how long it’d been since he'd last seen any of the other Freedom Fighters. They had been traversing Station Square. Reports of something major in the works had brought them there when they were suddenly attacked. The ambush had scattered the group to the winds. Unsure of what or who he might bump into, Antoine had drawn his trusty saber.
“Are you lost, little coyote?”
Antoine jumped as if the question had scalded him like boiling water. Spinning around, he brandished his sabre with trembling hands.
Standing just out of the blade’s reach was the individual responsible for all this insanity and the Freedom Fighters’ latest enemy, Infinite. Antoine had never actually seen him in person before, only in photos the Freedom Fighters had obtained. Antoine thought he looked positively terrifying. The long-limbed figure looked like he’d been carved from the blackest shadows. A mane of snowy headfur spilled untamed across his shoulders. The strange, nightmarish silver mask that obscured his face and even ears was cocked ever so slightly to one side, considering the sword as though it was some strange new thing he'd never beheld before.
‘Another trick?’ Antoine wondered. Even as the question formed inside his mind, he could smell the other’s fur. It was a feral musk, that of a wild animal. So unlike the respective scents of his teammates, with their carefully bathed, groomed coats and otherwise mundane scents (well, aside from Sonic, whose odor Antoine wouldn't have cared for even if they had been friends. Chili dogs and old sneakers – at its worst, it made Antoine’s gag reflex flare up). ‘Do illusions have their own scents?’
Infinite lifted his head. The lone amber eye that was visible through the red cracked visor studied him intently. His voice was musing, languid as he addressed Antoine. “Young master De Colete. Refined. Loyal. Always running after the others’ shadows, hoping they’ll notice your light. They don’t deserve you, you know. Not really. You see the world for what it is – terrifying, uncertain – and you act anyway. That’s courage, Antoine. True courage.”
Antoine's defensive stance did not waiver, but internally he was completely thrown off. This – this was not at all what Antoine had been expecting. Infinite was a merciless killer who laughed in his victim's faces, the cruelest of the cruel. But there he was, just conversing with Antoine like a normal person.
“You are watching us?” The French canine demanded.
The ebony-furred shoulders rose in a shrug. “I always observe my opponents. It's what gives me the advantage over them.”
Infinite stepped closer. His mask reflected Antoine’s anxious face back at him. “You sheath your claws behind gloves, hide your teeth behind smiles. Do the tree rat or any of the others ever thank you for it?”
“‘Tree rat?...’ How dare you are insulting Princess Sally this way!”
“That –” Infinite gestured at the uniform jacket Antoine wore, ignoring his outburst. The navy-blue outfit, with its crimson points and gold accents, was symbolic of his role in the Acorn Kingdom. “That is simply a hollow facade. She and the others laugh at you because they've forgotten what you truly are. You think they don’t see your worth, but I do.”
“Antoine!”
“Sugah-Twan!”
Hearing voices calling his name in the distance, Antoine immediately turned in the direction they came from. It sounded like his cohorts had finally figured out where he was and were on the way. Relief and happiness flooded over him, but then, a brand-new thought chilled him through to the bone. If they were coming his way, then they’d be in danger from Infinite. Should he shout out a warning? Or distract Infinite somehow?
Now in a panic, Antoine glanced over at Infinite. Like smoke on the wind, he’d vanished. Antoine could still hear his voice however – a distorted, layered, electronic growl.
“They’ve forgotten the old ways. What it means to fear the hunter. Why not remind them?”
Minutes later Sonic came barreling in, closely followed by Tails, then Bunnie and Princess Sally.
“Are you all right, Antoine?” Tails piped up. The little inventor was one of the very few people around who Antoine knew held genuine concern for him, instead of regarding him as a nuisance. It made Antoine smile in spite of everything.
“I am fine, mes ami.”
Bunnie's light green eyes darted here and there, both fists raised as she watched the shadows. Her posture indicated that she was very much prepared for either flight or fight. “Thought I heard somebody ‘round here. You all right, darlin’?”
“I have not seen anybody.” Antoine forced himself to answer.
“Jeez, what's with you, Ant?” Sonic was smirking at him. “You missed the whole fight, running off the way ya did!”
Bristling defensively, Antoine retorted, “I did not run off, I was being separated!”
Sonic waved a dismissive hand at him. “Yeah, yeah.”
“Sonic.” Sally pinned the speedster in place with a look before taking stock of their surroundings. “Well, we're all finally back together again. Let's see if we can try and find a good place to camp for the night.”
It was right about that time that Rotor came hustling ponderously up to the group, looking winded. Not even bothering to acknowledge the presence of his formerly lost teammate, which didn't even surprise Antoine, Rotor started talking a mile a minute in between puffs. “Guess what? We found evidence that Infinite is up to something huge!”
Everyone clustered around the walrus, excited, righteously upset, worried. Sally had to raise her voice in order to be heard. “As much as I want to hear this too, we really need to get back before it gets too dark. It's not good to be out in the open like this right now.”
Standing separately from the rest of the group, Antoine could only listen and observe. His relationship to the other Freedom Fighters might not have been perfect, true, and all too often he found himself longing for a deeper connection with one of them, or someone outside of the team even, but still, Antoine found a strange comfort in the familiarity.
****
Antoine dreamed. He’d dreamed countless times before, of course, but this was nothing like any of those times.
He runs through the trees. Not running from something. No, he’s chasing after some kind of animal. What is it? He doesn't know. All he knows is that he wants to catch it between his jaws, and…
He runs the effortless, easy lope of a canine pursuing prey. He can run like this for hours and be just fine. The blood in his veins sings. Leaves rush past his face, the briefest of green blurs in his periphery. His footfalls stir up the forest floor. Its earthy scents of damp soil and musty decaying leaves are better to him than the finest perfumes from back home.
Then he'd woken up. He felt strangely disappointed to find himself in the confines of his tidy but cramped hut and not out in the freedom of the pristine wilderness. His jaw inexplicably ached. Frowning, he gingerly rubbed it with a hand, wondering if he had accidentally hit it on something during the night or something.
For the rest of the day Antoine wondered about the strange dream. He could not remember a time when he ever felt a desire to bite anyone before. If he ever had, then he couldn't remember. So where did that even come from? Infinite’s words came to the forefront of his mind, but he dismissed them. But it all still left him feeling unsettled, as did the fact that the scent of the forest never seemed to leave his nose, beckoning him with its wildness and secrets.
Whenever the other Freedom Fighters actually sought him out (which wasn't an all too common occurrence), they had to call his name several times just to get his attention. Or they found him just staring off into the distance, into the surrounding woodland.
****
A week had passed after Infinite's attack. Antoine had meant to return to Knothole before night fell. Now evening was slipping its fingers around the treetops, squeezing the last of the light until it finally bled away.
He just wanted to make sure the village would be safe that night. He told himself it could be a leftover phantom from Infinite’s illusions out there lurking in the forest. Something worth investigating before it could reach Knothole.
In truth, something out there was calling to him.
The forest didn’t feel right — the air seemed syrup-thick, and even more disturbingly, he had not seen any signs of animal presence in the area. No rustling in the underbrush, or any other sounds. Even species that would venture out during twilight seemed hidden.
He adjusted the strap on his sword belt and grumbled to himself, “You are nervous, Antoine. It is just the forest. Just trees and shadows.” That was it. That was safe. If he was going to prove himself to others and be an active member of the team, then he couldn't let himself fall victim to his fears like usual.
Looking towards the sky, Antoine found himself wondering exactly when he'd left. He only knew that his legs had kept moving, guided by something he couldn’t name — not duty, not fright, not reason.
With every step the forest grew darker, yet the air was growing clearer, sharper. The strange haze that had clouded his mind since leaving Knothole began to lift. He could almost think again – almost breathe. He convinced himself that meant he was heading the right way.
Hearing something, he froze.
A low hum, more felt than heard. Like a heart beating under the earth – slow, alive. He pressed his hand to a tree trunk close by — it thrummed faintly beneath his fingers. A wrongness in rhythm, like the pulse of something alive and artificial at once. The ground under his boots hummed. His hackles prickled and his eyes narrowed in irritation.
What was this?
“So. They send their lapdog again.”
That voice. Antoine’s eyes trawled his surroundings to locate its owner. “Show yourself!” He barked, but his voice sounded thin in his own ears, lost under the hum.
There he was, standing atop the crest of a hill off to Antoine's right, looking down at him. Infinite again.
“I thought we were finished,” Antoine said, trying for calm.
Infinite sighed. “You always think you’re finished when things just begin to get interesting.”
Antoine’s ears pinned back. He knew when he was being toyed with. “That awful humming noise --" he gesticulated around himself "-- are you the one responsible?”
“And what would you do if I answered yes?”
“My comrades will –-”
“— stop me, right?” Infinite mockingly finished for him. “I know for a fact they can't hear it. Just you. It isn’t meant for them, you see. It calls only to us.”
Something about that word – “us” – made Antoine’s heart stutter. He wanted to raise his sabre and drive it through the mirage before him. But the hum beneath the soil pulsed faster, echoing in his chest. The forest swayed like it breathed with him.
Swiftly springing down from his perch on legs like coiled springs, Infinite landed cleanly on the ground in a crouch. Was this Infinite in the flesh, or another mirage? Antoine’s fingers curled tighter around the sabre’s hilt as the jackal smoothly got to his feet and approached.
He moved like heat on glass — all shimmering distortion and the cold gleam of his mask. The single glowing eye regarded Antoine with something between amusement and hunger. The taller canine circled him slowly, almost companionably. Antoine would not allow him to get behind him, always turning with him.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Infinite’s voice was softer, almost kind. “The quiet that lives under the noise. The world recognizes its predators, Antoine. It knows you.”
He took a step closer. Antoine didn’t move.
“I am not like you.” Antoine spat. In spite of his defiant words, his tail and ears were held low, submissively.
Infinite chuckled, like he knew something Antoine didn't. The sound was throaty and rich. “Aren’t you? You and I, Antoine — we were born to hunt. But they clipped your claws. Muzzled you. Placed a leash around your neck. Told you to keep watch at the gate while they all strolled off together, happy and complacent. Me, on the other hand? I run free with my friends under the sun. We follow pack law and take what we want when we want.” Raising his arms into the air, he spread them in an expansive gesture.
Antoine knew he should've just turned and walked away right then and there. But something, some strange invisible force, compelled him to stay. The humming intensified. “Are you saying they are...” he frowned, mind struggling to get a handle on the Anglo words, “Uh, how are you saying?... Crippling me?”
“Your words, not mine.”
“W–why would they want to do this?”
“Because they see you as nothing more than a tame pet. And you have allowed them to treat you as such. No matter what they do or say to you, you keep coming back for more. It's like clockwork. You must give them a reason to respect you. Fear you.”
He shook his head back and forth slowly. “I am not… a wild animal.”
“But you are, Antoine, you are. We all are. Some wild animals exist as prey, just as we carnivores exist to chase them down and devour them.”
Antoine’s throat worked, but no sound came. For a flicker of a heartbeat, he saw himself as Infinite saw him: white fangs bared, light brown and tawny fur streaked with dirt, eyes wide and bright with excitement and hunger.
“Tell me, young soldier… how does it feel when they laugh at you?”
Antoine stiffened. “They… they tease. It is nothing.”
“‘Nothing.’” Infinite rolled the word around in his mouth like a piece of spoiled fruit. "You brush it off, fume for a little bit maybe. But you hear it underneath – the pity, the snickering behind your back.”
Antoine’s mouth was dry. “They are my friends.”
“Then why are you out here alone?”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
“The pack does not laugh at weakness,” Infinite said, almost gently. “It hunts together.”
The sentence thudded through Antoine’s chest like a heartbeat. He wanted to disagree. Wanted to say that he had no need for a pack when he was a proud member of Princess Sally's Freedom Fighters. But that sounded – no, it felt like a lie.
Infinite stopped moving behind him, voice low and close. “You don’t need their mercy, Antoine. You need teeth. Go on. Tell me you haven’t dreamt of tearing the world apart. Tell me you haven’t felt their hearts beating and wondered what it would be like to bite.”
The hum climbed higher. Antoine's pulse raced to meet it.
By then Antoine was clutching the hilt of his sabre so hard that his knuckles were beginning to hurt. “No.” he said, the word trembling. “I – I am a gentleman – not like you –”
“This again?” Infinite’s laugh was soft, almost pitying. “Oh, mon ami. You’ve simply forgotten.”
He sauntered around to front Antoine. He might not have been able to see his face, but somehow Antoine knew he was smiling.
Infinite pressed in closer, his mask now mere inches away from Antoine’s muzzle. “You’ve forgotten the language of your own blood.” His voice was barely above a husky whisper. “I can teach you to remember.”
The mask tilted, and for an instant the warm half-light warped. Antoine could see shapes in the reflection of the gleaming metal — a running pack of jackals, their howls rolling through endless dunes. He felt heat in his lungs and powder-fine sand beneath his paw-pads.
When he blinked, the vision was gone. Infinite stood where it had just been, watching.
“You’ll come around,” he said. “When you’re tired of pretending.”
Infinite started to walk away. Before him the air seemed to shift and shimmer, like heat haze above an asphalt road on a scorching summer's day, and it was this spot Infinite was making for. His form dissolved, and the hum faded with him.
Antoine was alone. Panting, disoriented, he stared at the spot where Infinite had just vanished. The sabre felt heavy now. He didn’t remember even drawing it.
The earth underneath him throbbed once more, faintly — as though something alive beneath the soil had shifted in its sleep. He sheathed his blade and told himself the ache in his teeth was nothing. Just adrenaline. Just the ‘jitters’, as Bunnie would sometimes say.
He prepared to leave. There'd been no point at all in coming out there in the first place. Time to return to what he knew. But Infinite’s words seemed to suddenly trigger something inside him, a delayed reaction. The forest -- somehow – smelled alive now. It completely overwhelmed Antoine's senses. Wood and moss and earth and damp and rot and animal odor.
It was too much. Crashing to his knees, his hands gripped the cool dirt, claws plunging in and out of it. Azure eyes wide and yet unseeing, he fought to breathe. What was wrong with him? Was it really nerves? No, it had to have something to do with Infinite. All this… strangeness had only begun when he had first encountered Antoine. Maybe Infinite had infected him with something. Or more than likely, he was using his powers to sow chaos inside Antoine's head. Yes, that had to be it.
Antoine honestly didn’t remember the walk back to Knothole. The world felt thinner somehow, like the edges had been shaved off and the air was leaking through the seams. Again he failed to mention Infinite to anybody else, or the uneasy feeling he had that something inside him had unclenched at last.
That night, he dreams of running once more – not the clumsy lollop of an awkward gangly teenager, but the graceful, joyous run of a creature built for the chase. The music of the wind whistles by his ears. He can smell the world’s fear.
When he awoke later, his sheets were tangled. And when he ran his tongue along his canines, he thought they felt sharper than before. That just simply wasn't possible. A person's teeth just didn't suddenly change out of nowhere like that.
The thought of confessing everything to the others crossed Antoine's mind, but what would he even say? His grasp of English was fairly shaky. He would sound insane. Everyone would just look at him in either sympathy or irritation, shake their heads, and continue on their merry way.
He was always the first to jump at shadows. The first to pine for the safety and security of Knothole when things started getting crazy out there in the field. No. He would not give any of them any more reason to look down their noses at him.
That morning Sonic had already loudly asked him why he was acting twitchier than what was normal even for him. Not out of concern of course, but to ridicule. Antoine didn't have an answer because he himself had no clue what was happening to him.
Bunnie, who’d evidently been listening from nearby, jumped in. They all knew Infinite liked playing mind games, and she’d bet her right foot that that was why Antoine had been behaving the way he was. She’d then turned to look him directly in his eye, told him not to worry, that they were going to get him.
In turn Antoine had forced himself to smile and simply nod at her. ‘Why are you telling me what's wrong instead of just asking me?’ His mind screamed at her. ‘You don't know anything! You don't really even care about me! None of you do!’
Antoine was falling, and there was nobody around to help him.