Chapter Text
You can find all sorts of stuff when you aren't expecting it. The less you were looking for something, the more it felt likely to materialise in your path. The Fastest Thing Alive had personally experienced the phenomenon more times than he could possibly count, with more things than he could possibly keep. Rings, big blocky monitors containing items, little convex tubes containing items, odd hexagonal jars containing items... yes maybe a lot of them were breakable glass boxes containing random stuff, and yes they usually belonged to Eggman, but there were some pretty cool collectables here and there.
When he was eight years old, he found an AGES Genesis and took it home with him. No television to actually hook it up to so he could play it, considering his living conditions at the time had been dependent on whatever tree or shrubbery he could burrow under each night, but it had been really cool nevertheless. When he took the Tornado and departed Christmas Island later that year he left it behind, half intentionally. Hopefully some other kid — one with a home and a way to play the console, even — would come across it, half embedded in a collapsing burrow from... heh, 'ages' ago.
When he was ten years old, he found a jeweller's worth of gems on South Island, mostly as a result of having visited the Marble Zone while chasing down Dr. Eggman. Not only had it been a totally awesome buried palace, but the tiny gems that littered the cave walls made the underground tunnels almost look like a dazzling night sky. When Sonic later found a photo camera — fourteen years old — he went back and snapped as many photos as he could, which had ever since been pinned to the walls around his bed. As soon as he had a bed, at least.
On West Side Island at eleven years old, he found the seven Chaos Emeralds, and went Super. That was... all he came across there.
If Sonic was going to be honest, he... didn't like West Side Island all that much. It was a nice-looking place, of course, same as any part of the world not yet choked with the suffocating smog of rampant industrialisation. But the people... gave him that particular feeling. They were the kind of people that looked at his speed and only saw an unpleasant oddity, a deviation in their perfectly 'natural' lives. Any of the few times he'd spoke with the native mobians on the island, a population of primarily foxes, he'd gotten that twitch in his sinuses, a sneeze rapidly forming in his nose. It just felt... unsafe. What part of it, he didn't really know. Thankfully, he never had to find out before he could hop back in the Tornado and hightail it out of there.
There was a reason why Sonic, in all his galavanting across the globe afterwards, never went back to West Side Island. Maybe it changed since then, but in defiance of his own beliefs, Sonic didn't want to give it the liberty of another chance. That feeling never went away. Someone there had... done something terrible, to some part of him. Even if he didn't know what they'd done, or what part of him they'd done it to.
Soon after that, still eleven years old, he'd found himself on Angel Island. The coolest thing there, other than his first friend, Knuckles, was an ancient tablet kind of thing he found on a jog. Looked older than Sonic himself, older than Knuckles, and probably older than any village or township on West Side Island too. Chipped and cracked and brittle in his hands, but he recognised the same echidna symbols and patterns from around the Master Emerald's shrine. He turned in that one to Knuckles.
Little Planet hosted the Time Stones, alongside Amy, his second friend, and Metal Sonic, who was a pretty awesome find even if it was a killer robot doppelgänger that still made Sonic toss and turn at night over how copyright worked on a person. At twelve came the Chaotix, along with Cream and Vanilla.
The rate the years came and went started to match Sonic's own pace. Thirteen years old, he found Shadow the Hedgehog, his forever-frenemy. Fourteen years old he came across the aforementioned camera that became his favourite way to memorialise his adventures, and Blaze the Cat. Another young, morally strong, and unstoppably determined hero that lived only a hop, skip, and an inter-dimensional portal away. With fifteen years of age came far, far, far too many things to ever list. Mementos and Eggman gadgets to tinker with and courses to learn more of the intricacies of the Tornado he never really had and his world... expanded, exponentially. Wisps and Zeti and time travelling psychokinetic hedgehogs, oh my! Then came sixteen years old... and the no-take-backs gift of imprisonment, aboard the Death Egg. Psychologically tortured. Reminded just how... alone he was, in the grand scheme of things. He was a homeless, orphaned kid with no family, no story, no driving force but his own two feet, which he was trying to slip into shoes far too big for him. A child against an empire.
Seventeen years old. Mr. Tinker was imprisoned... and killed. Sonic didn't like the ending, but... what choice did he have? It wasn't like Sonic personally decided the punishment for the amnesiac supervillain, he just played the hero, like he always did. Stopped the bad guy... and let the Chaotix make the call to turn him in to the Resistance and G.U.N. Did Sonic sometimes see the kindly man in his dreams, already scared to death as Resistance members closed in on him with vengeance on their faces? Did Sonic see him apologising for things he hadn't known he'd done? See him asking desperately what was going to happen to him, who 'Dr. Eggman' was, and if there was anything he could do to rectify his mistake? Yes, yes Sonic the Hedgehog did see that. All too often.
But in his dreams Sonic also saw the man standing over him as he tried to back away, knowing he couldn't with the weights tied around his limbs. He saw himself, apologising just as much and asking for even the briefest moment to be allowed some minuscule modicum of freedom, if not of the body then of the mind. The tiniest respite against the torture being done to him by Infinite. Sonic saw the man grin, then stand prouder, then cackle, not even a hint of forgiveness or mercy in his eyes.
And then he always awoke knowing that the world was safer with Dr. Eggman gone.
At seventeen years old, the item that Sonic the Hedgehog found without expecting was a sickening relief, one that in turn filled with him so much grief it made him want to crawl into a burrow and fill it in on himself some days. With the relief and the guilt bubbling up inside of him, he disappeared from the public eye. No teenaged heroes to fight the world's battles for it, no action-packed theatrics that belonged in games and comics and television shows and blockbuster movies.
Infinite may have given him nightmares for life and a lifetime voucher for biweekly therapist recommendations from his friends, but it had also reminded Sonic of something that was actually somewhat helpful. He was just... a guy. A guy that loved adventure, sure, but not... whatever the last few years had been. He was thankful for the opportunity, everything it brought him, but it was all... too high-stakes for a guy. He only wanted to live.
And he did. Tried his best, with the help of friends that he'd been protecting once upon a time, instead of the other way around. An apartment as close to the edge of Central City as the residential blocks would go. Close enough to enjoy the boons and conveniences of civilisation, but never too far from the outside world. Any month, any day, any hour, it would only take the intrusive thought to run, and Sonic would be camping under the stars before anyone realised he was gone.
It was a good life. It was a life that was so clearly missing something, but the Fastest Thing Alive didn't know what. The things he had were the only things he knew. Twenty-one years old now... the hedgehog wasn't quite sure if his lifestyle still had the malleability it did when he was a nomad. The room to just... slot something in like a paperback to a bookshelf, knowing it would be able to squeeze in just fine, welcomed by all the older epics and novels around it. All the pieces of his future had already settled in so comfortably, so tidily. He had a schedule, or something resembling one. Just right for him... organised, but not oppressive. Just the things that were required, not tight enough to be restricting.
Though, obviously, if something in his life were going to change, it would first be evident in that schedule. At twenty-one years old, Sonic found that out.
Sonic ran laps around the city in the mornings for some light exercise, and was typically back before Amy woke up so he could be a half-decent roommate and help her with breakfast. By nine-ten at the latest, that was done and dusted, just as it was today.
Then, at least five out of every seven days, his brain would complain to him about the lack of real excitement, which he always heeded without complaint. The search for excitement almost always ended with him tagging along with whatever Rouge and Shadow were doing, usually some kind of abnormal crime scene investigation or something. A badnik from years back that decided to use the last of its juice to waltz into a town before keeling over, or a stray piece of tech that looked just a little too advanced for G.U.N's liking. Sonic wasn't sure if they actually expected an Eggman Volume II; Sunny Side Up, or if they were just grasping at what was left of their funding.
Whether they were just making the most out of every dollar, or really thought they had some reason to be worried, the little outings Sonic had with the special agents rarely went anywhere that the blue hedgehog couldn't have guesstimated from the get-go. The robotic unicycle dressed as a ladybug rolled a little too close to civilisation? Yeah, that was pretty much the extent of a motobug's directives. Roll up to stuff. It didn't take a detective to figure it out.
This one, uh... this one wasn't a badnik.
"So, Blue? You're the aviation guy, what's your take on this one?" Rouge asked, pacing back and forth beside him with a hand torch shining forward, not yet daring to cross the perimeter like her light was.
Sonic's teeth clenched, muscles in his leg getting antsy. That tingle in his sinuses was happening again... same one from West Side Island, a decade ago. "I think... someone crashed their plane."
An understatement, really. Sonic had experienced his fair share of crashes. It would have been weird if he hadn't, flying like a combat pilot in a vehicle better suited for crop-dusting. He'd had hard landings caused by engine failures, airframe failures, hydraulic failures, damage from flak guns, laser shots, electromagnetic pulses. He was pretty proud of the Tornado, and pretty proud of how much he'd come to know about its maintenance. This plane, too, was made by someone who was pretty proud of it. At the same time, it looked like it was still being assembled when it had taken flight. Picked up while its creator was still finishing the bodywork and thrown like a paper airplane that hadn't seen its last few folds yet. It was a gross amalgamation of scrap steel, unsteady welds and messy rivets. The creator was so painfully desperate for it to fly, and so unsure in their own ability to make that happen.
"Plane is a strong word for this... I'll put improvised aerial vehicle in the report," Shadow stated, Rouge conceding to his correction with a silent shrug. Unlike Rouge and Sonic, the Ultimate Lifeform didn't seem to care too much about taking the investigation reverently, trudging around on the muddy ground around the crash site and shining his own hand torch around at everything. "No markings, no identification details. Seems like it was made in a shed. It probably looks about as good now as it did when it first took flight."
"If it was made in a shed, it was one hell of a shed," Sonic finally moved towards the grounded aircraft after Shadow, shooing him out of the way of the open-air cockpit so he could bend down to make an inspection, running a hand across the sloppily-welded metal dashboard, pulling half-heartedly at the yoke and knocking his knuckles against some of the instruments. "Look at the controls... I mean, look at the fact it has controls. Rudder pedals... look like they're off a push-bike, but the jack shaft is custom made. This speedometer... I think it's reading engine power instead of air pressure like it should, but it still works. If it was made in a shed, I would have expected it to be more... 1903 Wright Flyer, y'know? Whoever made this knows some stuff."
"So our unregistered pilot is smart."
"Yeah. Or they were trying to get it to work for a very, very, very long time."
"Didn't care enough to stay with it when it touched down though," Shadow noted once again as he continued his slow circling, squelching through the mud and letting out a grunt when he found his next clue. "They were wounded, a cut, either on the landing or on getting out."
Sonic looked up, first to Shadow before following his eyeline down to a spurt of darkened blood on one of the jagged corners of the plane's scrap metal frame. Hadn't fully dried, or at least wasn't caked into the metal yet, but still pretty far from fresh. A few hours maybe. Shadow took a small field kit from the inside of his jacket and picked out two items, dabbing at the blood with a sterile swab before slotting that into a vial.
"They must have been in a hurry," Rouge deduced, finally approaching as well. Though, in an effort to not wade through the murky soil underfoot like the hedgehogs were, she was hovering a few feet off the ground, her wings making a light thumping sound against the air. "Looks like they left some of their supplies under their seat. Food, tools, unused bandages... didn't even tend to their wound. They really wanted to get away."
"Fleeing. Might imply the wrongdoing G.U.N. is looking for," stating it like it was obvious, the Ultimate Lifeform as cold as ever.
"Or, maybe, it implies they were just in a plane crash and had to go find help?" Maybe it was a baseless assumption, but Sonic didn't like the idea that they were looking for a bad guy. If running from a bad situation was proof of guilt, the blue hedgehog would have been a more dastardly criminal than Dr. Eggman— and the only mind that ever thought that was his own unconscious one. "Touching down here... closest place they could have gone would be Floral Forest Village, if they knew where it was."
"I'll ask Vanilla and Cream if they've seen anything suspicious," already getting into position to run like an ice skater getting ready to push off of their own boot, Shadow glanced over to Rouge, who nodded, wings twitching as she prepared themselves too.
"I'll head above the canopy. Maybe I'll see some signs of escape, or see where the plane came from."
Sonic stayed quiet even as Shadow looked at him too, almost daring their ally to state his plans too. Nothing. The only movement he made was a sneeze, after which he casually rubbed a finger under his nose. The two agents probably appreciated that— or at least Shadow did. The blue hedgehog was about as unaffiliated with G.U.N. as you could get, meaning every mission he tagged along to was an extra mountain of paperwork... especially if he ended up doing something helpful.
Zipping out of the splash zone as a pair of air shoes kicked up mushy dirt in Sonic's direction, the former hero only had to wait a few seconds until he could no longer hear the burning of thrusters or the flapping of bat wings overhead. Then...
You can find all sorts of stuff when you aren't expecting it.
"Hey. Is, uh... someone, something, anyone there?" He turned on his heels, towards a thick clump of trees just to the left of where the plane was facing. Only silence came from there, thankfully Sonic wasn't using his hearing to know something was there. Not his vision, not his smell. He didn't detect a person out there, no. His sixth sense was what tipped him off to whatever was close by. That familiar feeling from West Side— it wasn't dangerous, exactly, it wasn't any real threat to Sonic. It was just... some presence of pain. Some unknown part of him that was hurt. "The scary agents are gone, okay? It's just the two of us. I'm not going to hurt you. I swear it."
Thirty seconds passed, and the forest gave him no response. Flickies chirped and pickies chattered, the sounds echoing between the trees in every direction except the one the young hedgehog was facing.
"I... okay, yeah. I get it. Trust doesn't come easy. It doesn't for me, either... but I try," Sonic shifted, fidgeting with his legs, before he fell into a crouch. Palms flat on the mushy grass, touching his knees to the ground and forced them to stay, despite how desperately they groaned on the way down, then growled about wanting to get back to moving. "My name's Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. I live... close to here. Those agents were friends of mine— they look scary, but they mean well. Can you tell me who you are? Are you alone? Lost?"
A knock on wood, against the bark of a tree. The sound came from moderately high up, whoever it was maybe nestled in the branches of one of them. A climber, perhaps? Somebody that belonged up high? A squirrel, maybe, or an avian of some variety. Any information helped.
"Alone and lost," Sonic breathed, fighting the urge to dash towards the source of the sound. "I've been there. It isn't fun. Do you have anyone you're... trying to look for? Anywhere you're trying to find?"
Nothing. The hedgehog's voice moved through the trees like a breeze, but no response came.
"Are there people looking for you?"
Another single, hesitant knock.
"Okay... okay. So there's somewhere that... maybe you belong. We can start there," Sonic offered. "Maybe I can help you track the people down, get you hom—?"
Two knocks rang out, in rapid succession. Hardly a second had passed, before there were another two knocks, like the person had wanted to make sure Sonic heard it.
Sonic definitely heard it, a little too clearly actually; the knocking against the bark wasn't muffled at all, like the person wasn't wearing gloves. "These people... you don't want to be found by them? Are you running from something?"
Knock.
"Did you do... something wrong?" Sonic asked, and the quiet came back for another round. It stretched on this time, long enough for his mind to start wanting for activity the same way his legs wanted for movement. When the silence from the forest reached ten seconds, and the hedgehog almost started wondering if that question had scared the person away, it finally broke.
Knock.
Heart sinking so fast he almost fell further to the ground, Sonic tried not to let it show in his voice. "Okay. It's... you don't have to tell me what you did, unless you want to. I'm here to help, okay? Help everyone. It's what I do."
What he did, at least, once upon a time. Before he got in too deep, got hurt and scared, and got someone killed who maybe still could have been saved.
"A few years ago, I was, uh... I was dealing with somebody who did something wrong. I didn't help him, when I should have," just as quiet and wary as the knocks, probably a little too quiet for whoever the stranger was to even hear. Sonic choked the limp in his throat back down, and forced himself to speak louder. "I'm not going to let it happen again. Whatever you did, we're going to fix it. Together. I promise."
"T'... t-togeth'a..?"
That... that didn't sound right. Beyond not sounding right— that sounded violently, heartbreakingly wrong. The Fastest Thing Alive felt his mind empty, the head usually filled with racing thoughts hitting an unseen brick wall in his path.
That wasn't someone who had people to hide from. That wasn't somebody that had a home they didn't want to go back to. That wasn't someone who should have been climbing trees— for fun, maybe, but not to escape from aircraft wreckages and government investigators. That wasn't someone who should have let out a weak, tired groan of discomfort as a body that didn't weigh nearly enough scrambled down from a tree and landed on the ground hard enough to leave them breathless.
Sonic thought his heart had dropped to the ground when the 'criminal' admitted he was just that— that Shadow was right about fleeing meaning some kind of guilt. Now, when a small, grimy frame stepped out from the darkness of the treeline with a limp in its step, Sonic found that his heart could sink further, beat slower, push itself six feet under while his body was still above ground.
The less you were looking for something, the more it felt likely to materialise in your path. At twenty-one years old, Sonic the Hedgehog found a battered, bloody, exhausted fox kit hobbling closer, face so pained — so afraid of trusting him, but hoping with every scrap of hope it had that it could — and Sonic's legs didn't let him stay put any longer.
He approached too fast, clearly, by the way the kid's expression filled with fear and regret and apology, but he couldn't stop himself. He closed the distance in a second, arms gently around the boy in another, and trying desperately not to restrain him too much Sonic was giving a hug to a kit he didn't even know. At the same time, one he knew all too well. Even if he didn’t know where from. This was that piece of himself he’d failed to find years ago— that one more story he’d been missing in his bookshelf.