Chapter Text
The electric pulses of his and Silver’s Super Forms echo in his mind as he races to save the world.
“I’ll drive and handle the warp portal,” Sonic says. “You handle the rest with your psychokinesis.”
“Got it!” Silver shouts.
His senses have all but died out as he and Silver soar faster and faster through Earth’s thermosphere. He acts on raw instincts, as he always has, working with Silver as they gather up the remaining toxins left over from the Metal Virus.
“It’s working!” Silver announces. “Where are you sending it?”
He can’t think. His mind still reels about his friends. They—everyone on Earth—had turned metallic and lifeless by Eggman, puppeted like evil dolls to do his bidding. Sonic couldn’t stomach another second of the Virus taking hold over them, much less himself. Even as Super Sonic, the Virus had shaken up his spirit. He’s been awake for days, fighting to combat the Virus, all the while fighting Metal Sonic, Zavok, and his team of deadly misfits, too. He just has to hang on a little longer, do this one thing and it’ll be over…
He turns to face the endless expanse of space. “I’m dumping it where it won’t hurt anyone ever again!”
The Warp Topaz thumps loudly behind them as they fly across the world. The glowing orb presents them the chance to open a wormhole through space and time and finally be rid of this Virus for good. They just need to collect more of the metallic liquid.
Sonic pushes himself faster, harder, flying beside Silver as they span across countries and continents in seconds.
The energy from the Warp Topaz blights Sonic from behind. He falters mid-flight. “The Warp Topaz isn’t going to last much longer! Hang on—we’re kicking it into Supersonic speed!”
Sonic’s vision doubles, then triples. The Earth blurs beneath his feet. Silver disappears. “H-how we doing, Silver?”
Silver comes back into view. He scans the curvature of the Earth. “I-I’m not detecting any more! We’re done!”
Electric pulses fry the last of Sonic’s nerve endings. His arms buckle from the weight. His eyes beg to close. Man, he’s tired. He wants to rest, to throw out his arms and declare himself done with being the savior everyone needs.
But he can’t do that, not with his friends still looking up to him. For them, he’ll fight until he can no longer stand.
He and Silver lift the Virus high above their heads. The Warp Topaz opens up behind them like a hungry maw. He screams, arcs his arms…
He might’ve spoken after that. It might’ve been triumphant, to plant the early seed of victory in his friend’s head.
He doesn’t know.
He passes out before he can reap the reward.
── ⋅ ⁺‧₊˚ ༓ ⋆ ♛ ⋆ ༓ ˚₊‧⁺ ⋅ ──
A burbling lake eases Sonic back to life. Critters chirp and tweet overhead. Blades of grass tickle the sides of his arms and nestle against his muzzle. Something smells sweet. Fresh flowers?
Voices mix behind him, not too distant. Someone shouts worriedly. Another interjects. Groaning, Sonic peeks one eye open.
Warm sunlight filters in through green leaves. He’s in some sort of forest, he thinks, with a pond close by. He tries wiping his eyes and is greeted with the cold kiss of metal against his fur.
Sputtering, he flicks out his hand, instincts screaming at him to get the Metal Virus off his skin before he infects another friend.
Then he stops. This isn’t the usual coating he was unfortunately used to. This metal is harder and in layers, creating some kind of gauntlet around his glove. And the metal shines as gold as the Sun instead of as silver as the Moon, and it’s cracked and charred—armor.
Used armor, at that. Pieces of it crumble off his body like burnt bread. To his side lies a spiked helmet, sliced in half by some foe, and down by his feet, wading in the lake reeds, rests a broken, half-submerged sword.
“Ow,” Sonic moans in delay. He tries moving his legs out of the water, then massages the back of his head with his gauntlet. Mysterious purple liquid stains parts of the armor. An exploded ink pen? What did he need to write down before getting rid of the Virus? Notes on how to kick Eggman’s ass for ever coming up with such an insane ploy for world domination?
“Your Majesty!”
Sonic blinks in recognition. People. He isn’t alone in this mysterious forest. Fighting to sit upright, Sonic meets the faces of his dearest friends.
He thinks. Shock spills out of the corners of his mouth as he makes sense of what’s before him. Amy sits behind him, holding his head in her lap. Knuckles stands a stone’s throw away, wielding a gaudy sword in a field of flowers. Blaze holds out her arms as if to catch Amy, and Silver hides close to her, and Shadow…
Sonic tries sitting up straighter. His arms, either too weak from the Virus or still in recovery from being Super Sonic, betray him. He falls deeper into Amy’s lap. “Shadow?” he asks. “What’re you all wearing?”
His friends gape right back at him, though they look a hell of a lot different than when he last saw them. Amy holds a wooden staff with a glowing jewel affixed at the top. She’s grown out her pink quills down the length of her back, and has changed out of her normal clothes in favor of a pink dress. Her sleeves slide off her shoulders and down the folds of the magnificent yet burned dress, hiding a thin coating of armor that’s stained purple like Sonic’s. Knuckles, Blaze, and Silver also wear similar armor, also burned to some extent, though with their weapons still in hand, they look ready to keep fighting. Blaze wields a rapier. Silver has a crossbow nocked.
Shadow, who’s knelt beside Sonic, looks at once like the rival he loved to hate and a stranger. His quills are more wild, more pointed than he usually keeps them. His tail is longer than he remembers and is dyed red underneath, and his fur looks…fluffier, for lack of a better word. He, like his friends, wears a knight’s visor, but his visor stays down, concealing his face. Sonic assumes he looks different underneath that, too.
His look of genuine fear cannot be so well concealed. In all of their faces, it looks like they just narrowly survived being burned to a crisp.
“What’s…going on?” Sonic asks. “Did we do it? Did we eradicate the Virus? Silver, talk to me.”
Silver casts a nervous look to Blaze before lowering his crossbow. “How is this possible?”
Knuckles takes one step forwards only to step it back. “Your Majesty,” he breathes out.
“Guys, what’s going on?” Sonic repeats.
Amy silences their worry. She holds up one hand as if to speak, but before she can, she grunts in pain and doubles over her staff.
Sonic scrambles off her lap. His hands sink into the muddy water of the pond. For a brief moment, he spots his reflection. Other than a few stray quills and the breaking-apart armor, he looks the same.
Amy falls back into the flowers, clutching her staff. Her shoulders heave as sweat forms on her brow.
“Nimue.” Blaze kneels to her aid. Her cat ears pin back as her tail whips through the grass. “My Lady, what’s wrong?”
Amy grits her teeth as she smiles up at Blaze. “I…overexerted myself,” she struggles to say. She lets her head tip back knowing Blaze will catch it. “I knew this would happen. The spell was too mighty, even for me. I just didn’t expect it to be so…unpleasant.”
“What’s going on with you?” Sonic asks, and stands up. He has to fight through this tremor in his legs, even if it hurts. Even if they go numb, his friends still need him.
“Your Majesty—” Shadow fights back the urge to grab Sonic. His fingers curl back in his gauntlets. “Please refrain from moving so hastily. Your injuries…” He doubletakes Sonic’s body. “You’re…no longer hurt.”
“Whaddya mean?” Sonic whacks Shadow’s hand away. “Shads, lay off for a sec. Amy’s hurt. What happened to her? Did Eggman hurt her?”
Amy shudders as she curls into Blaze. She pants shallow breaths into the girl’s thigh. “Knights…Knights of the Round Table,” she gasps. “Heed me.”
Sonic’s friends lend her their ears. Shadow’s attention never wavers from Sonic as he listens.
Amy relaxes her breathing to slow, steady intakes. Her body loosens up as if she might fall asleep.
As the world stops turning for her, a tiny ball of light emits from her staff. Sonic swears it’s the sunlight messing with him, but the ball of light does not disappear. It multiplies. They transform, taking the shapes of tiny winged creatures with familiar, onion-shaped heads, all forming a barrier around Amy.
“Amy?” Sonic asks.
Amy continues as the winged fairies flutter closer. “Dear traveler, pray tell, what is your name?”
Sonic waits to see if anyone else speaks up. “Sonic,” he then says. “I’m Sonic the Hedgehog, but you know that. Why’re you messing with me?”
“We do not know each other, Sonic the Hedgehog. Knights, listen closely. The spell I just cast was a powerful soul-swapping spell. It took all of my energy and then some to cast. I must retreat now and rest. I shall return as soon as I am able. In the meantime, look after Sonic here.”
She lifts one shaking hand to Sonic. Her pointer finger wavers as she makes her point clear. “This hedgehog is not our King. He does, however, share the king’s soul. They are one in the same, a shared soul split between dimensions. King Arthur must heal. To buy him some time, if he can return to us from where his soul now resides, this boy shall live on in his place.”
The fairies’ glowing lights grow brighter, enveloping Amy like a dying star. Blaze holds her until her hands begin to sink into Amy’s fading body.
“Treat him well,” Amy says as her body disappears. “Treat him as you would our beloved king. I will return posthaste.”
“W-Wait!” Sonic says.
“Until then…” Her last words disappear along with her body. She fades away into the grass, her fairies popping away like bath bubbles. The lasting impression of her stays only in the matted grass that once held her. Blaze keeps her gaze on the indent, her fingers searching for a body no longer there.
“Uh…” Sonic looks at each of his friends. “What was that?”
His remaining, non-ghostly friends don’t move. A soft breeze wafts through the forest clearing before any of them dares to speak.
Knuckles throws his hands down, clattering his sword against a rock. “What was the meaning of that? What did she mean? A ‘shared soul’? King Arthur was right there!”
“Why would she do such a thing?” Blaze mutters to herself. “To be so reckless with her magic, and to cast such a spell, not knowing the ramifications…”
“When will she return?” Silver asks. “She’ll return quickly, won’t she?”
“She said she will,” Blaze says. “So right now, we shall do what she says and wait.”
Sonic waves a hand between his friends. “Uh, guys? Is this some sort of prank, because while I appreciate the commitment to the bit, I’m getting kinda freaked out here.”
“We need a plan,” Blaze says. “First, we need to get out of this clearing. He can still be on our scent. His blood coats us all.”
“Whose blood?” Sonic touches the purple ink on the chipped armor. “Did we fight somebody? Did we win? And who’s Arthur?”
“And what next?” Knuckles asks. “Do we simply act as if everything is normal?”
“For the fate of your kingdom, yes,” Blaze says impatiently. “You are down one king and now one queen, and the threat of Black Doom still hovers above our heads.”
“Black Doom?” Finally, something Sonic understands. While he hadn’t seen the evil space monster being a part of Eggman’s plans, he didn’t put it past the dude to stay away from villainy for very long. “What did he do? Did you guys fight him?”
Blaze casts Sonic a tired, empathetic look. “We barely survived,” she then says to Knuckles. “So we must act…accordingly. Normal, so as to not draw his third eye our way. We must act as if nothing has changed.”
“Guys! Hello?” Sonic takes to waving both of his arms more urgently, fearing that, too, has become a ghost trapped between worlds. “Can any of you hear me, or is the Virus making me hallucinate you guys as fantastical knights?”
Shadow turns to Sonic. “Your…Majesty.”
“Stop calling me that! You’re seriously weirding me out.” Sonic pulls from Shadow’s care and falters deeper into the cold pond. The water seeps into his socks and sends an unnatural shiver up his spine. He feels sick. He is sick. If things don’t start adding up, he’s going to—
A hand touches his, stabilizing him on the uneven lakebed.
Shadow, ever so careful in his movements, his touches, helps Sonic back to land, one hand hovering behind his back quills. “Be careful, Your Majesty. You shouldn’t be standing.”
“Come on, dude, I’m fine,” Sonic lies. Every touch from Shadow feels too intense. From the forest noise to his friends’ indecision, the feeling of just being awake has become too overstimulating for him.
“Sir Lancelot, what shall we do?” Blaze asks, and it takes Sonic a beat before he puts the title to a face.
Shadow looks down in thought, not at all ashamed by how close he stands to Sonic, how his hands fall so naturally to his body. Sonic guesses it shouldn’t be too strange—Shadow has carried him once before, though it was from Shadow catching Sonic rather than whatever this is.
“We need to get back to the castle,” Shadow—or “Sir Lancelot,” if Sonic’s going along with this long-winded game of charades—says. “You’re right. We’re too vulnerable out in the open. Black Doom can return with his Black Arms. If he realizes that His Majesty is…” He stops himself before saying more. His head clicks to Sonic. Even with the vertical slits in his visor, Sonic can’t make out his eyes. “If he realizes Arthur is gone, we still need to get back to our carriages. How far away did we leave them?”
“A quarter mile northeast,” Blaze says. “Your…Majesty, are you fit to walk?”
“If need be, I can carry him,” Shadow volunteers.
“Are you mad?” Knuckles asks. “Absolutely not. You could drop him, and then where will that leave us?”
“I would never drop His Majesty,” Shadow says darkly.
Knuckles scoffs and throws down his visor.
Blaze sighs and pinches the skin between her eyes. “That won’t be necessary, Lancelot. It’ll be best if we all travel back as a unit. We’ll take the carriages, all of us.”
Shadow—Lancelot—yields to her reasoning. “Yes, Your Highness.” He turns to Sonic. “Do you need any assistance, Your Majesty?”
Whatever spell or curse was cast, whatever Amy did to their poor friends, you couldn’t have paid Sonic to believe what just left from Shadow’s mouth. Stunned, Sonic doesn’t know whether to laugh at him or fear for his life. Your Highness? Sir Lancelot?
“Uh, probably not,” Sonic says, and tries holding on to what little pride he has left and drags himself to said carriages.
He makes it all but ten paces before collapsing into the field of surprisingly soft flowers.
── ⋅ ⁺‧₊˚ ༓ ⋆ ♛ ⋆ ༓ ˚₊‧⁺ ⋅ ──
Apparently, surviving extreme sleep deprivation combined with trying to save the world for days on end would make even the fastest hedgehog a little sleepy.
He tries staying awake. After stripping off all that broken armor, walking was a hell of a lot easier to pull off. The carriages his friends mysteriously procured—did they seriously ride these things out into the middle of the woods?—are tight yet cozy, with gold trim lining along the edges. He can’t remember if he questioned its luxury or merely accepted it as a product of this strange dream.
As soon as his butt hits the velvet lining of the seats, his eyes flutter closed. Shadow—Sir Lancelot—tells him it’s a five-hour ride back to the castle, wherever that was, and Sonic doesn’t think to ask more. His body weighs too heavily to care, his thoughts dribbling out of his ears like a leaky faucet. Ten minutes, that’s all he needs.
Through one of the carriage windows, he sees Shadow take to steering the horses outside the carriage. Knuckles patrols on foot. Blaze has her own carriage but keeps her windows open, watching Sonic from the corner of her sharp eyes. The last thing Sonic remembers is him waving to her before he closes his eyes.
── ⋅ ⁺‧₊˚ ༓ ⋆ ♛ ⋆ ༓ ˚₊‧⁺ ⋅ ──
His dream is fast, and dark, and chaotic.
Flashes of color explode in his face and freeze him with frost. The Metal Virus grows closer to his heart. He tries to swat it away, but no matter what he does, the world attacks him without mercy. He struggles, digging his shoes into mud. He calls for help. His friends had just been there. Where did they go? Where were they now?
He shouts their names. He reaches out to break free of whatever’s holding him back. His knees buckle, the weight far too great.
The tips of his fingers make contact with something real. He grasps for a hand of some figure he can’t discern. They’re so close, right there.
The stranger’s other hand grips Sonic’s wrist, then forearm. Claws dig into him deeply and mercilessly. The figure’s strength doubles his own, and Sonic stumbles. He’s either tripping or falling and the wind is picking up fast. Electricity pulses. He curses as his feet lose traction and he’s sucked forwards into darkness.
── ⋅ ⁺‧₊˚ ༓ ⋆ ♛ ⋆ ༓ ˚₊‧⁺ ⋅ ──
The carriage jerks to a stop, and Sonic awakes with a gasp.
His world comes back to him in degrees. He’s still in the golden carriage, still stuck in this strange world where his friends are masquerading as different people. He feels the plush lining of the carriage seat and hears the horses whinnying from their journey. He swallows back a hoarse cough as he palpates where the stranger had their claws in him. The phantom pain lingers. Never before have his dreams felt so real.
But this world—the real world—doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels like a prank, yeah, and a pretty mean one to boot, given that none of his friends are breaking character, but…
Was Amy really telling the truth? Is he truly in a different world than his own, meant to act as a placeholder for some king who kicked the bucket too soon? He and Silver had opened up a wormhole to get rid of the Metal Virus. Could he have accidentally been sucked into a different dimension?
He can’t spiral about it. He needs to ground himself. Taking a deep breath, he peels back the carriage curtains to see where they ended up.
The sky opens up in bright, welcoming blues. White clouds coast across the flowery horizon line. In the field, a thousand, maybe even a million flowers grow freely, their fluffy, white petals dancing in the breeze.
Smiling, Sonic checks the left window.
Nothing but boring, grey stone. He frowns and goes to open the carriage door.
Shadow beats him to it. Outside, he has one hand poised behind his back as he waits on his supposed king to take the other hand.
“Your Majesty,” he declares. His free hand awkwardly lifts as if he’s expecting Sonic to actually take it.
The whole sight—the knight getup, his attentiveness, the calmness exuding off those prickly quills—makes Sonic laugh in his face. He gently smacks his hand away and hops out by himself. “Who’s paying you to act like this, because I’d love to know what it costs to make you like this.”
Nothing, Your Majesty. I do this out of a genuine respect for you and your kingdom. I take this job very seriously and have dedicated my life to protecting you.”
“We all have,” Knuckles adds. He tends to the horses, pulling off their reins and guiding them away.
Sonic goes to tease his friends more before he notices exactly where they’ve taken him, and his words fail him.
Sonic takes a step back against the carriage. Before him stands a medieval-looking castle. It’s massive, unlike anything he’s ever seen on Earth. It towers five stories tall, with pointed, golden spires topped with white and blue flags. The windows are as wide as cars and are decorated with multicolored glass that catch the midday sun. Vines grow up its marbled sides. A giant pond in the front lawn reflects its wealth back up at it.
Sonic tips back on his heels and whistles in astonishment. “Look at that. Where did you bring me to again?”
“To Camelot Castle, Your Majesty.” Shadow closes the carriage door and escorts Sonic towards the castle.
Silver pulls up in his own carriage seconds after them. Blaze stands on its steps, monitoring Sonic’s every move.
Again, Sonic waves to her. He has no idea what he did to make her so cautious of him, but he knows better than to be on her bad side.
“Are you feeling alright, Sire?” Shadow asks. “Do you need anything?”
“Yeah, for you to drop the act.” Sonic drops a lazy hand into the reeds lining the pond. Across the water swim a couple of ducks. They flap their wings as if in greeting. “I’m not a sire, or a king. Why do you keep calling me that?”
“That’s…who you are, who you were. If we’re to believe what Lady Nimue said—”
“Who?”
“The Lady of the Lake, the enchantress of this land. Your…wife, Sire, with whom you just spoke.”
Sonic gags. “You mean Amy?” he asks. “My wife? No, we’re just friends. Seriously, this isn’t funny anymore, Shads. Can you stop messing around?”
“…Lancelot, Your Majesty,” Shadow corrects. “My name is Lancelot Du Lac, fervent Knight of the Round Table. By the horses is Sir Gawain, and inside that opposite carriage is Princess Percival of the Sol Empire and her knight, Sir Galahad. They accompanied us to fight Black Doom up on the mountain, where…where you were struck.”
“Don’t remember that,” Sonic mutters. As they round the pond, he checks his reflection in the still water.
“It caught us all off guard, Your Majesty. Your last attack broke Excalibur in half and left you unarmed. Black Doom fatally wounded you, and we abandoned the quest and fled down the mountain in hopes of saving your life at the Isle of Avalon. That’s when Lady Nimue used her magic to save you, or…” He touches his breastplate, metal clicking against metal. “Where she…switched your places.”
“Still don’t really understand.” Sonic squints into the water. Is his eyesight really that bad, or…
He stills. Another face stares back at him. For a split second, he mistakes it for himself, just a blue hedgehog, his own reflection. But the reflection’s quills, the harsh look in his dark eyes. The cape he wears and the crown hanging from one of his ears…
The other hedgehog glares viciously at Sonic, freezing him in place. Shadow—Lancelot—is still speaking about a king and a magic spell. Sonic doesn’t hear him. All sounds disappear until Sonic can only hear himself breathing and a growl from the other reflection.
“Finally, asshole,” the other hedgehog grumbles, and he reaches out.
And Sonic, body broken and mind spinning, is pulled into the water by a ghostly apparition of his own self, and he sinks into a castle’s shallow pond.