She paused at the city's outer limits, where the stink of industry gave way to something sharper—the cloying musk of royal perfumes and gun oil. Maxxopolis rose before her like a festering jewel, its spires glinting with stolen electricity while its underbelly oozed sewage onto the streets below. Buns' lips curled beneath her respirator. "Well ain't this jus' a pretty lil' shithole," she drawled, her Southern accent dripping venom over each syllable. The words tasted like home—like Uncle Beauie's rasping laugh before the slavers came—but she shoved that thought down deep, locking it away with the rest of her useless sentimentalities.
Sentiment got you killed here. Sentiment got you hurt. She rarely, if ever did use her actual voice anymore, it was considered 'improper'—what wasn't?—but she was alone, and it was dark. So Buns let herself snort, then chuckle, then laugh—a throaty, rasping thing that scraped against her vocal cords like sandpaper—because Maxxopolis smelled like a whorehouse doused in kerosene and set alight.
"Oh honey," she crooned to no one, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm against her thigh, hydraulics hissing. "Y'all decorated just for me?" The city's flickering neon signs painted stripes across her face as she approached—first cautious, then bold, then downright predatory. That patrol had been pathetic, but the real test? That'd be the men with clean uniforms and polished boots waiting beyond those gates.
Buns' claws twitched—half reflex, half threat display—as she eyed the flickering security cameras. She knew how this worked: act small, get crushed. Act feral? They'd either shoot her or chain her to some lab table again. So she settled for the middle ground—leaning into the warped metal gates with a creak of protesting hydraulics, her smirk sharp enough to flay skin.
"Well bless your hearts," she drawled, Northern Barony syrup dripping over venom as her optics flickered mockingly at the security camera's blinking red light. "Y'all roll out the welcome wagon or do I gotta knock?" Hydraulics hissed as she rolled her shoulders—a lazy, deliberate motion that sent sparks skittering from her right elbow joint—just enough to remind whoever was watching that her limbs weren't decorative.
The gate's rust flaked beneath her claws like dried blood as Buns leaned in closer, her respirator steaming against the metal bars with each sardonic exhale. Somewhere beyond the flickering neon, a speaker crackled to life—some minor pencil necked bureaucrat undoubtedly sweating through his pressed uniform—but she drowned out the static-laced demands with a slow, exaggerated yawn, stretching her damaged limbs until servos whined like dying cicadas. "Sugar," she drawled, rolling the word around her tongue like cheap bourbon, "if y'all wanted me to follow orders, shouldn't have tossed me in the scrap heap with yesterday's lunch meat."
Her eyes flickered mockingly—one iris dilating mechanically wider than the other—as the bureaucrat's voice stammered through the tinny speakers. "Yah ever notice how y'all's hospitality's 'bout as warm as a corpse's tit?" Buns drawled, dragging a claw down as her limbs croaked from the wires underneath her skin, squeaking with every movement she made.
The scent of ozone and hydraulic fluid mixed with the city's stench as she leaned closer, her smirk sharpening when the speaker emitted a panicked squeal—the pencil pusher realizing too late that protocol manuals didn't cover feral rabbits with a grudge. "Now, sugar," Buns purred, her voice dripping molasses-thick condescension, "y'all got two choices: open this gate polite like, or I start playin' demolition derby with your pretty lil' security booth."
Her left leg's actuator whined ominously as she shifted her weight, deliberately telegraphing the damage—not weakness, but consequence. The bureaucrat's breathing hitched audibly over the speakers while Buns traced a claw along the gate's reinforced hinges, each scrape echoing like a gun being cocked. She knew this dance: they'd either underestimate her ragged appearance or overestimate their own authority, and either way, she'd carve her way through their miscalculations like a buzzsaw through rotten timber.
When the gates finally shuddered open, Buns didn't stride in—she *loomed*, her silhouette swallowing the neon glow as she hissed a slow, theatrical exhale as she always did. The trembling guards' rifles dipped instinctively, their training overwritten by the way her eyes refocused with a predatory almost whir—calculating, dissecting—before she drawled,
"Well, lookie here. Somebody finally remembered their manners."
Her claws clicked against the pavement in a lazy rhythm, each tap syncopated with the bureaucrat's panicked sputters over the intercom. Buns inhaled the stench of ozone and polished leather—these soft bellied city guards reeked of starch and unearned authority—before rolling her shoulders with deliberate, hydraulic menace. "Y'all look like ya swallowed a live wire," she mused, cocking her head as the nearest guard's Adam's apple bobbed. "Or maybe jus' realized ya pissed off the wrong bitch."
The guards' rifles sagged as she advanced, their training evaporating under the weight of her predator's gait—not sprinting, not stalking, just *existing* with the kind of stillness that made their trigger fingers itch with impotent dread. Her limbs still aching, the surgery scars still fresh, her skin still fraying at the seams—it didn't matter.
Buns let her Northern Barony drawl ooze through the silence like molasses—thick enough to choke on. She wanted them to know where she was from—wanted them to smell the beetroot fields and irradiated soil clinging to her mustard fur—but mostly she wanted to watch their uniforms stick to their backs with sweat. "Y'all oughta know," she mused, claws tapping a lazy rhythm against her thigh's rusted plating, "when ah was less than knee high to a mobini, folks used ta say manners make the mobian." Her optics flickered, scanning the twitch of the nearest guard's trigger finger.
"Course, them same folks also said a bullet between the eyes makes a corpse," Buns continued, her drawl laced with the kind of cheer reserved for funeral eulogies, "but bless their hearts, ain't no teachin' common sense to the willfully stupid." The nearest guard's grip tightened around his rifle—a reflex as pointless as it was pathetic—and Buns rewarded his defiance with a grin that showed too many teeth, her optics flickering in a mockery of amusement.
She could smell his sweat now, acrid and sour, clinging to his starched collar like a stain he couldn't scrub out no matter how hard he tried. The guard—barely more than a kit himself—flinched when Buns leaned down, her shadow swallowing him whole as she inhaled deeply through her respirator, savoring his fear like cheap whiskey. "Sweet pea," she murmured, voice dripping with honeyed malice, "you ever hold a gun 'fore they shoved this one in your paws?" Her claw tapped the rifle's barrel—once, twice—each touch lighter than a lover's caress but sharper than a scalpel.
The boy's grip trembled; she could see the whites of his eyes, could count the pulse fluttering at his throat like a trapped bird. Buns exhaled—slow, deliberate—letting her breath fog the rifle's polished metal before flicking an imaginary speck of rust off with her claw. "Bless your heart," she sighed, shaking her head with theatrical disappointment. "They done sent me a half of a whole ass welcome committee what's greener than a backwoods privy."
Behind the rookie, his sergeant finally found his spine—or at least enough of it to bark orders through chattering teeth. Buns didn't even turn her head, just let her eyes refocus with a near audible click in the silence that made the man's voice hitch mid-syllable.
She could practically taste his sudden hesitation—that gut deep realization that protocol manuals didn't cover feral rabbits with rusted hydraulics and a grudge older than his grandparents' wedding china. Buns let her claws trace idle circles along the rifle's barrel, savoring how the rookie's breath hitched with each metallic scrape. "Now ain't you just precious."
She could kill this kit, but despite everything, she still had stupid fucking sentimentality—and that was the real joke here. "Sugah," Buns murmured, dragging a claw down the sergeant's chestplate with a screech that made his men flinch, "you ever seen what happens when a rabbit gets cornered?" Her voice was syrup thick, slow dripping, the kind of exaggerated folks back home used right before they put a bullet between your eyes.
The sergeant swallowed—she watched his throat bob—and she grinned wider, letting her optics flicker like a faulty neon sign. "No?" Buns drawled, claws flexing with a series of hydraulic hisses that sounded suspiciously like laughter. "Well, sugah, let me 'educate' ya." She leaned in until her respirator brushed his cheek, her voice dropping an octave or two.
And so began the 'education'...
-------------
Doc and I finally made it back to the house—our *real* house, the one tucked between two dead factories where the air smelled like burnt wire and old motor oil—just as the sun was bleeding out over the rooftops. I kicked open the door with my left foot, letting Doc stumble in first because his hands were full of salvage. He didn't thank me. He didn't have to. Not him.
I decided to write some more in my journal—some of who I was before becoming Sonic, some of it notes on today and some more on the games as a whole.
You might ask why I write about my old human self—why dig up memories of someone who's last ever memory of being human was being on his phone in bed before waking up as a newborn infant of a gaming icon? Nostalgia? Not exactly. Writing down who I was lets me measure exactly how much I've changed—or how much I haven't. The old me wouldn't have been capable of what I've done.
Not just the violence, the slight manipulations, the careful destruction—these things were tools, instruments wielded with surgical precision rather than uncontrolled rage. Every action, every word held intentionality, sculpted to elicit exact responses from allies and enemies alike. Fear wasn't the goal—it was a byproduct. Control wasn't arbitrary—it was architecture. Bodies piled high not from some berserker's frenzy, but because each corpse was a brick in the road I paved toward a world that wouldn't *need* me to be this.
As a human, I was just another nobody in the nameless crowd that was the common man—but here? Here, I had the potential to be one of—if not the most—powerful forces alive, both in sheer might and influence. Each calculated strike, every silence coiled tighter than a spring-loaded blade, all served a singular purpose—to mold Mobius into something that wouldn't collapse the moment I stopped holding it together.
In truth, I wish I could live like the actual Sonic—carefree, laughing as the wind whipped through my spines, unburdened by the weight of a broken world. But wishes are for children, and this world doesn't tolerate innocence. My kindness is a blade sheathed only for those who've earned it—those I've tested in fire and found worthy. Doc gets the softness reserved for survivors and with him taking care of me out of the kindness of his far, far too pure for this world heart.
Sally receives the patience needed for a child's learning curve—gentle corrections murmured against her temple rather than barked across war rooms—but my claws score trenches into the briefing table when Maxxopolis delegates stutter through excuses. They think it's rage. It isn't. Each splintering groove maps supply routes they'll wish they'd approved voluntarily. My silence stretches—deliberate, calibrated—until the youngest councilor whimpers.
That's when I finally smile. Not the jagged, knife edged grin I've adopted lately—the one that makes councilors flinch—but something softer, something real. It's reserved exclusively for them—Doc slumped over his salvaged machinery with grease smeared across his muzzle, Sally clutching her schematics in her room at Castle Acorn like bedtime stories.
In truth, even in a better world, I couldn't have been like Sonic—not truly. His effortless charisma, the way he thrived amidst chaos without succumbing to its darkness, how simply carefree he was—these weren't traits I could emulate, only dissect. Because where he moved like wind given form, I was something else: a scalpel honed by necessity, a blade tempered in the furnace of this world's decay.
Every smile I wore was calibrated, every silence weighted with intention—tools as deliberate as the knives strapped to my thighs. To Maxxopolis' bureaucrats, I was an anarchic stormfront rolling over their polished desks, my presence pressing down until paperwork trembled and inkwells shivered. Their whispered pleas for mercy evaporated under the slow tap of my claws against mahogany, each metallic click a countdown to compliance.
Yet when Doc entered those same chambers, his mustache flecked with machine grease and exhaustion bowing his shoulders, I didn't loom—I leaned. My spines, which hours earlier had been rigid enough to skewer dissenters through their pressed uniforms, now drooped like weary sentinels as I nudged a steaming mug toward his trembling hands. The porcelain was chipped—salvaged from some pre-peace ruin—but the tea inside smelled of chamomile and stolen honey, brewed precisely seventy two seconds as he preferred.
My claws, which had carved trenches into oak tables during negotiations that Doc took me a long with on, now traced feather light circles across Doc's hunched shoulders as he slumped over his workbench. He was slowly getting thinner from the stress—his lab coat hanging looser each week—but the warmth of my palm between his shoulder blades made him exhale, just once, like a sigh he'd been holding since sunrise.
Then there were the parts that made this world feel less real at times—the games that were still running parallel, the echoes of scripts I half remembered. Sometimes I'd catch myself humming Green Hill's theme, only to realize the ruins around me had once been its looping landscapes. The dissonance made my spines itch. But I never let it show—not when Sally needed steady hands guiding her through Maxxopolis' bloodstained halls, not when Doc's tremors worsened after another night salvaging corpses for usable prosthetics. My performance was flawless, my control absolute.
There was so much I had to deal with without the plot of the games being involved. I finally walked back to my room, my spines bristling slightly from the day's frustrations and under my suit. I decided to run at my super speed, I didn't feel like just walking anymore today, and I didn't feel like smiling either. The halls of Doc and I's house blurred past me as I finally made it inside of my room.
I leaned against the doorframe for a moment, letting the quiet settle around me like a second skin. The faint hum of Doc's makeshift generator buzzed through the walls—a sound that had become as familiar as my own heartbeat. My claws flexed unconsciously, tracing the grooves in the wooden frame where I'd carved my frustrations over the months. Each jagged line told a story: people in power who'd underestimated me, fools who'd thought mercy was weakness, that this 'age' would last forever.
I pulled out my journal—its leather cover worn smooth from my claws—and let the weight of my own history press between its pages. The ink smelled faintly of copper, a detail I would have never noticed as a human, but now clung to every word like an accusation. My handwriting was precise, each stroke deliberate, the letters slanted just enough to convey control without appearing rigid.
This time I wrote about the characters in the games themselves instead of the the plots:
- Amy Rose: A pink hedgehog who was obsessed with Sonic in the games—here, she was possibly just another orphan or another daughter of a probably corrupt beauricat—who was left to fend for herself in the ruins of Holiday Hills. If she exists—I haven't looked for her—she wouldn't be the bubbly, love struck girl from the games—at least not yet. The thought coils in my gut—maybe I should find her—before the rot does.
- Shadow the Hedgehog: A creation of Gerald Robotnik—a man that once was not too dissimilar to Doc—he was bred for destruction, molded into the ultimate weapon with a purpose etched into his very DNA. Here, he's still being kept secret from the world, hidden on some island or military base—but not for too long. The thought of him stirs something in my chest—not just fear, but anticipation. Like calls to like, after all. And when he emerges, it won't be a hero that stands opposite me—with any luck it'll be a force of nature, one just as calculating, just as ruthless. But unlike me, his hatred isn't tempered by attachments. That's dangerous. That makes him predictable.
- Rouge the Bat: A jewel thief turned government agent—or was it the other way around? In this shattered world, she'd be no less opportunistic, but her alliances would shift like desert sands beneath combat boots. I can already picture her silhouette cutting across floodlit warehouses, her smirk sharper than the diamonds she pilfers. Unlike Shadow, Rouge understands the value of connections—how to tighten the leash just enough to make her partners gasp, but never enough to snap. She'd size me up the moment we met, those calculating eyes dissecting my spines, my stance, the way my claws twitch near my weapons. And I'd let her. Because a thief who steals secrets is infinitely more useful than a soldier who follows orders.
- Knuckles the Echidna: Guardian of the Master Emerald, last of his kind, and—in another life—Sonic's occasional ally. Here, there's still a lot of other echidnas, if I can trust what I've heard—but I've yet to actually see any. Somewhere out there, this world's version of Knuckles is likely guarding his emerald with the same single minded devotion, isolated on Angel Island until circumstance—or disaster—forces him into the fray. The thought of him is almost amusing—a warrior bred for solitude, thrust into a war he didn't choose. I wonder if he'd recognize the calculation in my stillness, the way I measure every word before speaking. Or if he'd just see another threat to his charge.
- Silver the Hedgehog: A time traveler from a ruined future—his world scorched by war, his hope as fragile as the temporal threads he manipulates. Here, he hasn't arrived yet—or perhaps he's already failed, his corpse rotting in some forgotten battlefield. The thought of him sends a shiver down my spines—not fear, but recognition. A mirror reflecting what I could become if I falter. His desperation, his blind idealism—they're weaknesses I've shed like dead skin. But the way he fights, the way he *refuses* to break even when the cosmos itself demands it—that's something I'll dissect when the time comes.
- Big the Cat: A gentle giant with a fishing rod and a loyalty deeper than the oceans he haunts. In this world, he was likely still just fishing in some forest, oblivious to the world burning around him—or perhaps he understood all too well, choosing solitude over complicity. His simplicity was a weapon sharper than my claws—an existence untethered from the puppetry of power. I envied him in a way that tasted bitter on my tongue.
- The Chaotix trio: Espio the Chameleon, Vector the Crocodile, and Charmy Bee—in the games, they were detectives—here, they likely haven't even met yet, much less Charmy Bee who hasn't even been born yet. Espio is possibly just beginning his training as a ninja, Vector's still a street thug with a heart of gold buried under layers of cynicism. The thought of them together is almost nostalgic—a team that shouldn't work but somehow does. I wonder if they'd see through my calculated smiles, my carefully constructed persona—or if they'd just see another client with soon to be deep pockets and deeper secrets.
- Cream the Rabbit and her mother Vanilla the Rabbit: A child with innocence untouched by war and her mother, who was far too gentle for the world they lived in. If they existed here, they were probably soon to be living in their little cottage somewhere actually nice after Cream was born—or they were going to be dead. The thought of Cream twists something in my chest—her wide eyes, her trust, her belief in the goodness of others. I'd almost hope they were going to be dead—better that than what this world would do to them. Almost.
- Miles 'Tails' Prower: a fox kit with two tails and a genius intellect. In the games, he was Sonic's little brother in all but blood—here, he was still a fetus in Rosemarie's stomach. The irony wasn't lost on me—the one person who might have understood the fractures in my psyche wasn't even born yet, and I'd raise him to be the best genius he could be to help me with the finer details of fixing this broken world.
- Blaze the Cat: A pyrokinetic princess from another dimension, or the future, or both somehow, her regal poise concealing molten fury beneath fur groomed to imperial perfection. Here—assuming she existed at all—she's a princess somewhere I can't access, her claws sheathed in velvet gloves while plotting to incinerate obstacles with precision strikes. I imagine her flames wouldn't just burn; they'd *purge*, reducing enemies to silhouettes of ash in the wind. If we ever crossed paths, our dance would be one of measured dominance—her controlled infernos licking at the edges of my calculated strikes, neither yielding an inch.
- Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik—huh, thinking about it right now as I'm writing this down, Kintobor is Robotnik backwards—talk about a small, strange world. Anyways Doctor Ivo Robotnik, the grandson of Doctor Gerald Robotnik—who wanted to establish his own legacy in the form of the Eggman Empire—in the games, was a dictator with a god complex who sought to conquer Mobius with his Eggman Empire—here? Here he was likely still grovelling and planning on some corner of this decadent world. While Doctor Eggman was cruel and ruthless—a narcissistic dictator—he was also incompetent, cowardly, stupid, and childish—he wasn't just evil—he was pathetic. Incompetent—he lost all the time—a joke—a clown—who couldn't even conquer the world with his impossiblly high 300 IQ—who couldn't even defeat Sonic—who was defeated time and time again—who was humiliated—who was mocked—who was laughed at—who was beaten—who was destroyed—who was worthless—who was nothing—who was weak—who reminded me too much of my old self.
I finished writing the last letter of the last word in my journal—my claws lingering on the page longer than necessary. The ink gleamed wet under the dim lantern light, my reflection warping in its dark sheen. Outside, the wind howled through shattered factory pipes, a dissonant chorus that matched the restless tension coiling between my shoulders. My spines twitched—not from fear, but from the suffocating weight of unfinished plans pressing against my ribs like shrapnel.
Doc's muffled cursing drifted through the wall as he fumbled with some salvaged circuit board, his usual frustration softened by the chamomile tea I'd left steaming at his elbow an hour ago. The sound eased something jagged in my chest, just enough to unclench my jaw. For him—for the few who'd clawed their way past my defenses—I could sheathe the razor edges of my presence, could let my claws retract into something approximating softness.