320Foray
Prologue: Glissando
A Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction
Rating: K+
Pairings: None
Warnings: Slight OOC on Sonic's part. Sorry about that. He's kinda in an in-between place right now, so he doesn't have a set personality.
Notes: (Important!) In this, Sonic is the oldest. Just for clarification. I'm not sure what the head canon is on this, but I've gathered from the show that Manic's the youngest, and Sonic once told Sonia to stop worrying because "Big bro' Sonic is here" so, he's the oldest. Also, I'm throwing Knuckles and his weirdly shaped 'emerald' (and the Floating Island looks weird in that show, but I digress) out of the Underground continuity. Pretend it never happened. It doesn't work with Sega one iota, so I banished it.
This story… I had to write it because of reasons. I've always loved these stories that bridge Underground to the SEGA continuity and so sue me for wanting to try my hand at it. I've been stewing on it for a few months now, and I hadn't intended on working on it until I finished The Genesis of a Generation, but it just niggled at me a little too much in the past week so I decided to at least get the prologue out there. See if I get any good reception or if I'm just wasting my time.
Me: I feel like I'm encroaching on someone else's territory… I've seen so many people do so many good versions of this… I feel like I'm stealing.
Yami (who is my beta): Yeah, but I want to see how YOU would do it. Besides, it's fanfiction. Everyone's basically stealing. :P
So, without further ado, I present you with the prologue of this mess. Enjoy my dears.
Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends belong to SEGA and its affiliates. Sonia, Manic, Queen Aleena and everyone else from Underground belong to DiC (now Cookie Jar) (and, fun fact, Underground is now playing on Disney XD in the wee early hours of the morning). I claim no ownership over any recognizable material in this story nor am I making money off of this fic. I'm only a broke college student, please don't sue me.
*Modulation:*:Elegy*
The explosion is so expansive, it seems to eat even sound. Sonia can hear nothing as she gazes out the window of the van, parked just on the outskirts of Robotropolis. She can see the blast, yet her mind rejects it, as if it's just a figment of her imagination. The detonation was so unexpected, so completely out of left field, that she can do nothing but watch. She can feel her heart beating and hear her lungs taking in air as the flare of light, fire, dust, and debris races toward the van and the city, but she cannot comprehend the situation. The westerly wind coupled with the fact that ground zero is so far away saves the city, and she feels her throat choke up.
"Sonic…" she whispers, so quietly she can barely hear it herself. "No."
Sonic, her stupid, stupid brother had parked the van here, and ordered both her and their other brother, Manic, to stay put. Then, he raced off without another word, bolting across the landscape and right up to Dr. Robotnik's army of robots. She had no idea how he had managed to get the doctor to agree to fight him so far away from the city, and she never got the chance to ask.
And, now, she would never be able to.
She feels her knees quake dangerously and knows that she's going to collapse. The only thing she can do is take in a deep breath and wait for impact. However, before she can get close to the ground, Manic is there. His strong, nimble hands grab her shoulders and hold her up, because she is unable to do it herself any longer. He allows her to sink into his embrace before lowering both of them to the ground. They clutch to each other, and she sobs into his chest, beating her fist uselessly against him, and he simply takes the abuse with a strong face.
Inside, however, he is breaking.
Sonic… Manic's big brother… The one person who always paid attention to him, made him stop stealing no matter how much his fingers itched, who knew him to the core of his being… He couldn't be gone. Yet, as he looks at the remains of Robuttnik's battalion of robots, he cannot deny the fact. There is no way on Mobius that he could have survived that… even if he was Sonic.
Vaguely, he feels Sonia hitting him, her grief too much for her to contain, but cannot find the sense to care. He just hugs her closer, feeling the swell of her stomach and chest as she gasps for breath amidst her sobs. He cannot conjure tears, despite the fact that he is supposed to be the most emotional out the three – two, he corrects to himself, his heart squeezing painfully – of them, and quickly attributes it to the fact that he has to be the strong one now, for Sonia.
He simply rocks her, humming tunelessly under his breath. Her ears prick and she glances up at him, her eyes huge and puffy. Silently, she touches her medallion, not enough to activate it, but the brush makes his own thrum slightly. However, the reaction is not as strong as it used to be, and the medallions suddenly feel cold and lifeless, just like their brother.
He shakes his head, fighting off tears, and buries his face in her shoulder. However, he does not cry, and she does not start up again.
They just sit there, holding each other, feeling as if a piece of them has been taken away.
All is silent, as if the whole planet is mourning Sonic's loss. The explosive force that knocked him away has dissipated, completely vanished, and it has taken both their greatest enemy and their dearly beloved brother with it.
A few moments later, this is how their mother finds them, clutching to each other, their faces in different states of sorrow, and she knows, deep down, that all three of them might never recover from this.
o0o
...:Glissando:...
When Sonic woke, the first thing he noticed was that his head was throbbing. Of course, the fact that he was just in the middle of an explosion probably had something to do with that, and he chose not to dwell on it for long. He had more important things to worry about, like, how he was, in fact, still alive.
All he could remember was Robuttnik gathering an army of robots outside of the city, and rushing after him. He had no idea why he chose to do something so foolish; Sonia was always pressing the teamwork message into his head. All he remembered was Robotnik demanding that Sonic meet him on the outskirts of the city, or else he would unleash his whole force of robots on Robotropolis and round up every single free Mobian for robotization. – and to come alone. So, Sonic barely thought about it before he parked the van far enough away that his sibs couldn't follow him, and bolted off toward the human's massive force.
The hedgehog had easily plowed his way up to the good doctor himself, destroying every robot that dared to each in his way, where he was promptly captured by a surprisingly quick (and strong) SWATbot. The 'bot seemed to have some type of intelligence, because it kept him extended away from its body by his hands. He had been helpless to do much beside kick his feet uselessly like a five-year-old, glaring at his adversary with eyes that resembled hard pieces of flint.
Then, Dr. Robotnik had started ranting about some special gems he had found – six of them, he claimed, as the seventh and final one was lost forever – to power his flying base. They had infinite energy, he asserted, and Sonic, his siblings, and that useless resistance would be helpless to stop him, blah blah blah. The hedgehog had tuned it out, instead focusing on the robot holding him hostage. After spending so much time around Manic, he had learned a little about the SWATbot's makeup, and this one looked to have a fatal flaw in its arm joint. A few simple swings of his whole body would rip it free, letting him go in the process.
Needless to say, he had succeeded in getting free, and had proceeded to try to power down Robuttnik's machine. That was easier said than done, and he literally tried everything from a spindash to a kick, all the while avoiding SWATbots and swipes from the doctor himself, before he simply shoved his fingers around one of the gems and yanked it from its place in the dash.
The result had been less than glamorous but still totally effective, as Robuttnik had proceeded to scream and yell and roar that he had just brought on both of their deaths, but Sonic couldn't be bothered to care, because he was too busy listening as the mecha had started to wail and warn them that the Chaos levels were unstable.
He didn't get to puzzle over what the heck Chaos levels were before the world went up in a flash of white.
So, here he now sat, alive, whole, and completely confused. He slowly picked his hands up, and – after taking note of the fact that his gloves were missing, probably disintegrated in the explosion – pinched himself on the arm, just to be sure that he wasn't dreaming. The sharp pain rippled up his limb, awakening the nerve endings, and he hissed as they screamed at him for the rough treatment. His head was pounding now, and he could do nothing to ease it, so he simply glanced around, trying to figure out why he wasn't a splat of blue jelly somewhere.
After they passed over his shoes – and he took delight over the fact that both they and his socks had survived intact – his eyes alighted on something sitting a few inches out of reach. Green, like his brother, it winked at him in the dying light, as if assuring him that he did the right thing by pulling it out of the machine. It was one of the gems – Emeralds, his brain supplied, that Robuttnik had been rambling about, the very same one he had ripped away from the doc.
With a sigh, he reached over, gritting his teeth as his whole body shuddered in pain, and grabbed it. The surface was cool against his bare palm, and he couldn't help but stare at it, as if he could see for miles into its depths. Suddenly, it flared with energy and he felt power snake up his arm like a lightning bolt. He yelped, but was unable to let go of the Emerald, and it quickly finished siphoning energy into him before unexpectedly flying away from his hand. It winked out of sight seconds later.
Sonic was immediately energized, and he could feel his injuries healing themselves. The cuts riddling his body stitched together with a tug at his skin and his bones quickly realigned, reasserting themselves into place like puzzle pieces. He felt reinvigorated, as if he had just woken from a month of sleep, and he quickly jumped to his feet. His shoes were dazzlingly bright and his quills a healthy dark blue, as if they too had received a face lift from the Emerald. He had no idea what that Emerald was, but he was grateful to it just the same.
He glanced around the carnage, and was surprised to see that nothing had really survived the blast, save a large portion of Robuttnik's control room, which was overturned. Most of the plant matter was gone and the smoke had mostly dissipated. If that struck Sonic as strange, he didn't dwell on it, instead choosing to begin padding in the direction of the city.
Until, that is, his left foot crunched down on something in the dirt, sending a jolt of familiar energy jarring through his leg. He paused and took a few steps backward before dropping to his knees and sending his inquisitive hands sifting through the dirt and ash, sensitive fingers pricking on each grain and rock.
Eventually, his palms came into contact with something smooth and familiar, and he wrapped his right hand around it before yanking it away from its shallow grave. His eyes widened.
His medallion, somehow cleaved cleanly from the dual necks of the guitar, dully shined up at him. He ran his tan fingers over the surface, his face screwing into a grimace when it refused to pulse with energy at his touch, and he immediately knew that it was ruined. He fell onto his backside, a huge gust of air leaving him as he landed, yet he barely noticed as he gazed at the thing clutched in his shaking fingers with an expression of pure shock. The strong, polymer-based, red rope that secured it around his neck was missing, but he barely noticed that before something winked up at him in the waning sunlight, right next to his left foot. He fell forward to grab it, mentally preparing himself for the worst.
His suspicious were confirmed when he was sitting up again and he felt his stomach tie itself into a knot. Sonic's guitar shaped medallion was resting in two pieces in either of his hands, the body of the pendant – with the tell-tale swoops of hedgehog quills coming off the end – sitting in his right while the double necks were situated in his left, both parts looking alien separated from each other. He could only stare, his thoughts streaming quickly through his head. The fact that he hadn't noticed that it was missing as soon as he awoke was telling, but now that he was aware that it was impossibly broken, he felt sick.
The medallion was a connection to his family, something that bound him and his siblings together, but it always came second to his speed. When he was in a pinch, he always relied on his feet, not his medallion, something that irked Sonia and worried Manic to no end. He probably didn't need it, as much as it pained him to think, beyond a bond to his kin and a symbol of his royal heritage, but he couldn't help but sit there and mourn its loss. He had had it his whole life, and now that it was broken, he couldn't help but feel like he had failed in some way. Sure, he had gotten rid of Robotnik – which he still had yet to completely to terms with – but now he had to go back to his family and face them with a broken medallion and a crazy story about magical Emeralds as an explanation to how he had survived. He winced inwardly, mind supplying him with possible lectures Sonia would rain down on him.
With a sigh, he shook his head, sent one last longing look at his wrecked medallion, and secured it in his quills before pushing himself to his feet and glanced around once. The whole area was dead, completely void of any life except for the blue one, and for some strange reason, that calmed him a bit. He had always been a loner, able to defend and take care of himself without much help, and the constant companionship he had gotten from his siblings for the past few months was a very big change from his usual routine. Now though, with the wind blowing through his quills and the sun warming his skin, he couldn't help but miss what he could have had.
Suddenly, it struck him that he was done – finished. Robotnik was gone, and with him, his empire; Sonic's family was free to rule again. If – when – he went back he – as the oldest – would be declared crown prince of Mobius, and would immediately be catapulted into a position of power and responsibility. No more running around for fun; no more rude jokes; no more chili dogs whenever he wanted them…
Sonic shook his head, taking a few steps in the direction of Robotropolis – Mobotropolis, his brain corrected quickly – and forced his thoughts away. This is what he had been fighting for for the last who knew how long, and he did not intend to back out now.
No matter how much he enjoyed the idea of just turning around and taking off.
Sonic Hedgehog had lived most of his life being told what he could and could not do. First by his adoptive parents – 'No revin' in the house, Son.' – then by his Uncle Chuck – 'You're too young to help with the resistance, Sonny-boy.' – and, most recently, by Sonia – 'Sonic, we have to find Mother! Stop getting distracted by chili dogs!' – and he was getting sick of it. He had always been a free soul, liking to make his own decisions and forge his own path, and all of these orders were starting to rub him the wrong way. He loved his family, but they were smothering him, even if unintentionally.
He could only imagine what life would be like when his mother was handed the boss-torch. Of course, she was supposed to have been the one telling him what to do his whole life, but because she was the fourth in a long line, Sonic could only dread it. Add the fact that she was technically his queen – and his mother – and he could feel his freedom slipping through his fingers.
The blue hedgehog grumbled to himself as he kicked at a piece of debris, sending it skittering toward the only surviving piece of Robotnik's flying fortress. He could imagine life in the palace already, with the lessons and the future of Mobius lording over him.
"Pick up your chin, Sonic," he groused sardonically to himself, his tone raised to a falsetto in imitation of Sonia. "Stop smirking, Sonic. It's rude. No, you may not have a chili dog at the banquet Sonic. Do not complain Sonic. Princes never complain." He continued in his tirade at inaudible tones, carefully picking his way across a large section of warped metal, giving it a harsh kick out of spite.
The hollow clang that followed upset a flock of feral birds in the nearby trees – which had somehow survived the explosion – and the hedgehog watched them with huge, dark eyes. They took to the sky, darting away at a speed that even he admired, and he couldn't help but envy them. They were free to do whatever they wanted, including run away when they were afraid. He had never been able to do that, and would never get the chance, because princes never show fear.
Sonic paused as that thought crossed his mind, his feet planting in an almost perfect mimicry of a ballet dancer's first position, and his hands fell into their comfortably familiar position on his hips. Who am I kidding, he thought to himself as he leaned his weight onto his right foot, his eyes staring at the vague shapes of the city in the near-dark of twilight. I'm not cut out to be a prince.
For some reason, that small omission was just enough of a push that he needed, and he turned abruptly on his heel, heading back the way he had come. I can't do it. No running, no chili dogs, and all those rules, his thoughts paused even as his feet kept their pace. Sonia and Manic will be fine without me, he assured himself, picking up his mental assurances. Sonia's been trained pretty much from birth for this type of thing and Manic's a quick learner. They'll be the perfect pair of rulers for Mobius.
Despite his thoughts, he still felt a small niggle of guilt worm its way into his brain as he stepped past the spot where he had found his medallion. Sonia and Manic relied on him for a lot, maybe too much, he retorted to himself, but they were his siblings… But, he had always wanted to see the rest of the planet, beyond Robotnik's reach of control, where the people still lived, not just survived; where they smiled and laughed and enjoyed life. He wanted to make friends… Besides his siblings and Cyrus. He needed the freedom to become who he wanted to be.
Because, this angry, sarcastic joker wasn't what he wanted from himself.
"Hoho, Sonic!" Suddenly, a voice the hedgehog never expected to hear again yelled in his direction and he whipped around, his quills bristling. Dr. Robotnik grinned at him from a floating, rounded machine, his smile possibly one of the sickest things the blue hero had ever seen. "I see you survived the fireworks display! How did you like your first taste of Chaos?" He paused as if waiting for Sonic to speak, but the speedster was too shocked to formulate a response. "Well, no matter what your opinion, I can assure you that there is much more to come! And, you might not enjoy it as much as you did this time!" The human slammed his bulbous fist down on the control panel in front of him and his machine took off in the direction opposite the city, the evil man laughing the whole way. "Until next time, young prince!"
For some reason, that last statement sent Sonic over the edge and his fur ripped up his arms in agitation, his ungloved fingers twitching. How dare Robuttnik call him that, as if he understood what Sonic's life could – would – should be. He practically snarled as he watched the doc disappear in the direction of the mainland's southern border. Immediately, he took off after the human, ripping through the sound barrier in seconds.
Maybe he wasn't cut out to be a prince. Maybe he wasn't cut out to change Mobius in the way that his siblings saw as the only way, but he would make sure that his family was able to enjoy their victory. He was through with the resistance and the good-fight and the rules. He was done following blindly and being told what to do. He wanted to make a change, in his own way, and, right now, that meant protecting those unaware of Robotnik on the rest of the planet. They had no idea what was coming, and he would make sure they had someone who could save them.
Prince Sonic Hedgehog was now Sonic the Hedgehog, and he was not giving up without a fight.
A glissando is defined as sliding between two notes.
Reviews are cherished.