Doc's gonna be pissed about the maintenance costs again.
The thought alone saddened me—Doc deserved better than scavenged parts and jury-rigged repairs, his brilliance constrained by wartime scarcity. I knelt beside the wreckage, claws tracing the jagged fissures along a drone's shattered chassis. Each fracture mapped my failures—not in combat, but in stewardship. Mobius deserved more than a strategist who bled on training mats while its infrastructure crumbled; Doc deserved a world where his genius wasn't wasted patching my violent indulgences.
My journal's pages would fill with schematics and slaughter-blueprints soon enough, but for now, I let the ink dry on this room, before I get the cleaning supplies ready—Doc's rules, not mine. The drone's innards glistened under flickering lab lights, exposed wires twitching like dying nerves. I cataloged each flaw with clinical detachment: stress fractures along the thruster housing, coolant leaks from mishandled seals, the unmistakable scorch marks of plasma feedback.
I wonder if I could ask Doc for some gravity rings on my limbs to weigh me down—just for training. The thought curled through my mind like coolant through fractured pipes. My reflection in the drone's shattered plating stared back, warped and fragmented: a blue blur smeared across failure. The lab's air tasted of ozone and cheap lubricant, thick enough to coat my tongue. I flexed my fingers, watching synthetic tendons stretch beneath fur—each movement precise, calculated, unwaisted on cleanup.
First was picking up the scraps—literally—the robots strewn across the battlefield like discarded tin soldiers, their servos still twitching with residual charge. Doc would sigh, adjust his cracked goggles, and mutter about efficiency ratios while patching them up again.
Second was the stains—non-polutant oil slicks and coolant blooms spreading across the training mat like abstract accusations. I dragged a mop across the worst, watching dark streaks dissolve into gray smears. The scent of industrial cleaner mixed with burnt metal, triggering a memory of Doc's hands—overworked, grease-stained—flipping through schematics with the same care others reserved for holy texts.
My claws tightened around the mop handle. Failure wasn't just broken drones; it was forcing him to choose between repairs and sleep again. The lab's humming lights flickered—another power fluctuation—as I stacked shattered plating with methodical precision. Each piece clicked into place like a guilty verdict.
Doc's footsteps echoed down the corridor—too heavy for his frame, weighted by exhaustion. I braced for the sigh, the disappointed adjustment of his goggles. Instead, his hand landed on my shoulder, warm through the fur. "Sonic," he murmured, thumb brushing a smudge of coolant off my quills, "you're shaking, you're pushing yourself too far again."
"So are you Doc." My claws dug into the mop handle—too tight, too telling—as I avoided his gaze. The drone's innards stared back at me from the floor, a mess of exposed circuits and hydraulic fluid pooling like spilled ink. Doc's fingers lingered on my shoulder, warm through the fur, but his pulse stuttered against my skin—an arrhythmia he'd blame on stress if I called him out.
The lab lights buzzed overhead, flickering in time with the twitch in my jaw. I could already hear his lecture about overclocking my systems, about pushing until my tendons screamed—but his own hands shook when he thought I wasn't looking, grease smeared across knuckles that never quite fully healed right.
"You're a child Sonic." Doc's goggles reflected the shattered drone between us—his lenses fracturing my image into jagged shards. "Not a weapon." His words hit harder than any training dummy, because they tasted like truth and battery acid. My claws left crescent moons in the mop handle before I forced them to unclench; even my anger had to be efficient now.
The drone's ruptured power cell hissed at my feet, spitting arcs of greenish energy that made my quills stand on end. Doc knelt beside it—ignoring the way his knees cracked—and began extracting the core with hands steadier than his heartbeat. I stared at the coolant blooming across his sleeve where it soaked through the bandages underneath. Some strategist I was about to be, I couldn't even protect the one person who I knew that geniuly cared.
"D-Do I make you feel like you have to do this?" Doc's fingers trembled against the drone's exposed wiring—not from exhaustion this time, but something quieter, sharper. The flickering lab lights caught the fresh tear tracks cutting through the grease on his cheeks, and suddenly the mop handle snapped in my grip with a sound like a rifle report. Raw ozone choked my throat as I wrenched the broken shaft aside, my quills bristling with static that made the hanging fluorescents sway.
The drone's dying power core flared between us, casting jittering shadows across Doc's face that exaggerated every wrinkle, every tremor. His goggles reflected my distorted silhouette—a spiked blur vibrating with suppressed voltage—but he didn't flinch when I crushed the remains of the mop into splinters. My voice came out cracked and foreign: "You're the only one who *doesn't* make me feel like a weapon." The admission tasted like scorched copper, like a live wire stripped bare.
"I still remember your eyes when we met, how deep your eyes where Sonic, you're clearly very mature and intelligent for your age, but that doesn't mean you can't be a child and enjoy your childhood." Doc's voice cracked like old vinyl as he wiped his goggles with a grease-stained rag, the motion smearing coolant across the lenses instead of cleaning them. His hands smelled of antiseptic and burnt circuitry—a scent that had become synonymous with safety in my mind—as he reached out to adjust my crooked glove with fingers that knew every scar beneath.
What he said stung me deeply. I wasn't a child mentally, only physically. Doc's insistence on treating me like one sometimes felt suffocating—like being wrapped in layers of protective foam while watching Mobius burn through the cracks. My claws twitched at my sides, phantom impulses to claw through restraints that weren't physically there. The shattered mop handle dug splinters into my palm, the pain a grounding counterpoint to the storm brewing in my chest.
But what was I supposed to tell him, 'Hey I'm actually mentally almost thirty, I used to be an Overlander but not really, and all of this is just backstory and lore for a video game series.'? That would just sound crazy and I knew that.
Still, if only Doc took in an actual child that actually needed help.
Instead, I took a deep breath—inhaling the scent of scorched metal and Doc's chamomile soap—and forced my quills to relax. Static dissipated into the humming air like exhaled smoke. "I'll try," I lied, watching his shoulders sag with relief he couldn't hide. The broken mop pieces clattered to the floor between us, their impact muffled by coolant puddles reflecting our fractured silhouettes.
Doc's fingers lingered on my glove, his thumb brushing over the reinforced stitching where I'd worn through the fabric during last week's drills. His goggles caught the erratic pulse of the dying power core, casting emerald streaks across his cheeks. "Good," he murmured, but his eyes tracked the way my claws flexed—subtle tells of restless energy with nowhere to go.
Behind us, the lab's emergency lights flickered to life as primary power failed again. Shadows leapt across the walls like startled animals, freezing when distant generators rumbled to life three seconds too late. Doc's smile tightened at the edges as he released my wrist. "We'll resume maintenance after dinner," he said, but his gaze darted to the boarded-up windows where Maxxopolis' artillery flashes painted the skyline in strobes of orange and white.
Then there was the sound of the front door being broken down.
------------
Buns kept pace beside him, her cybernetically enhanced iris scanning the crumbling storefronts with predatory precision. "So what's the play with this hedgehog anyway? He some kinda prodigy or somethin'?" Her claws drummed against the scalpel's grip—five precise taps, like a countdown. Boomer exhaled through his nose, steam curling from his nostrils as they rounded a corner littered with the charred remains of a Sector 7 patrol vehicle. "More like a loaded gun waiting for a trigger," he muttered, flippers tightening around the sled's handles.
The containment unit pulsed irregularly, casting long, twisting shadows ahead of them as they emerged into the neon-choked arteries of Maxxopolis' slums. Above, the skeletal remains of Overlander architecture loomed like broken ribs against a sky choked with smog and distant plasma fire. Boomer's grip on the sled tightened, his flippers twitching with the ghost of old betrayals before he finally clasped it—his grip firm enough to crush bone, but hers matched it hand for hand, servo for servo, hydraulic actuators whining under the pressure.
Soon they came to a Frankenstein looking base with a metal door that looked like a giant jaw with razor teeth, a fitting reflection of its brutal purpose. The low hum of machinery inside pulsed through the rusted walls—part heartbeat, part warning—as Boomer adjusted his grip on the sled's warped handles. Buns' cybernetic eye whirred, scanning the perimeter's flickering motion sensors while her plasma scalpel etched lazy circles in the air, leaving behind trails of ionized stench that mingled with the alley's burnt beetroot reek.
"You sure this is the place?" Buns drawled, her claws flexing around the scalpel's grip. The containment unit shuddered violently beneath its tarp—its irregular pulsing casting jagged shadows along the door's serrated edges. Boomer didn't answer; instead, he jabbed a flipper at the security panel, punching in a code that made the system screech like a dying animal before the metal jaws fell down with a giant thud.
"Huh. Didn't take you for knowing the entry codes to freak shows," Buns mused, her cybernetic iris contracting as hydraulic pistons hissed behind the doorframe. The revealed corridor pulsed with fluorescent lights you'd see in a hospital.
Then, a blue blur, and next thing Buns knew, she was airborne along with Boomer before having the life choked out of her.
Her claws lashed out instinctively—plasma scalpel carving molten arcs through stale laboratory air—but for once, her reflexes weren't fast enough. The hedgehog had them both pinned against a coolant tank before her servos finished hissing, one gloved hand crushing Buns' wrist actuators while the other pressed Boomer's face against glass frosted with condensation. Up close, his eyes weren't just green like mobian grass or emeralds or whatever poetic bullshit the royalists liked to spin—they were the exact shade of Acorn military-grade biohazard weapons.
"What are you doing here?" The hedgehog's voice wasn't raised—that's what froze Buns' servos mid-twitch. That quiet, glacial tone carried more menace than any scream could, his breath fogging the coolant tank's glass as Boomer's shades cracked under the pressure.
Boomer's sled lay overturned nearby, the containment unit hissing through its ruptured seals—static crackling across the floor like reverse lightning. The hedgehog's grip tightened even further.
"I asked you a question rabbit, I may not kill children, but I am perfectly fine with injuring one."
Wasn't he supposed to be their fucking age?!
The thought flickered through Buns' glitching neural net—too fast to articulate—as the hedgehog's grip made her wrist servos scream protest. His claws pressed just shy of breaking skin, calculating pressure like he'd done this a thousand times before. Boomer wheezed against the tank, his flippers scrabbling at the glass as coolant dripped onto his cracked shades. The hedgehog didn't even blink.
"You've got three seconds," he said, so quiet Buns almost missed it over the containment unit's death rattle. His pupils contracted—pinpricks in radioactive green—as his free hand flicked open Boomer's sled with a single claw. The reactor core pulsed like a diseased heart, its veined surface oozing dimensional static that warped the air above it. "One."
Buns' cybernetically enhanced eye whirred, scanning the room for exits, weapons, leverage—but the hedgehog shifted his weight, cutting off every angle with predatory precision. His claws flexed against Boomer's windpipe in silent warning, the motion effortless, practiced. The containment unit's static discharge painted jagged shadows across his muzzle, emphasizing the unnatural stillness of his expression—not rage, not panic, but the terrifying calm of someone who'd weighed violence and found it efficient.
"You'll—" Boomer wheezed, flippers scrabbling at the hedgehog's wrist, "I don't understand, you were raised by the pacifist of pacifists..." His voice cracked as the hedgehog leaned in closer, his quills casting jagged shadows across Boomer's convulsing form.
Static from the ruptured containment unit danced along the hedgehog's muzzle, illuminating the clinical precision in his gaze—not anger, but the cold calculus of someone who'd long since stopped flinching at brutality. "I was," the hedgehog agreed, his grip tightening fractionally, "and that's how I know exactly which arteries to nick without killing you."
His thumb pressed against Boomer's carotid—not enough to collapse it, just enough to make the walrus' pulse stutter against his claw like a trapped bird. The containment unit's erratic pulses painted the walls in strobes of sickly green.
"W-we were going to strong arm you into helping us destroy Maxx Acorn's regime and burn it all down." He strained to push the words out, his body trembling under Sonic's grip. The hedgehog's expression didn't change—no flicker of surprise, no twitch of anger—just that same unnerving stillness as his claws flexed again. The containment unit's static discharge painted jagged shadows across his muzzle, emphasizing the unnatural steadiness of his breathing.
Then the hedgehog stared, smiled, and just laughed.
It wasn't a cruel sound—that would've been preferable. Instead, it carried the warm, almost musical cadence of someone genuinely amused, like he'd just heard a particularly clever joke. The incongruity made Buns' servos lock up tighter than his grip ever could. His claws loosened just enough for Boomer to gasp in a ragged breath, but the way his quills relaxed into casual elegance was somehow more terrifying than any combat stance.
"You want to overthrow Maxx Acorn?" The hedgehog's chuckle vibrated above the skin where Boomer's ribs where they were pressed together—a sound that should've been comforting if not for the way his claws still hovered near vital arteries. He tilted his head, quills casting knife-edge shadows across Buns' frozen face.
"My dear walrus and rabbit—you both came to the right damn hedgehog," His grip shifted from throttling to pulling Boomer upright with effortless strength, dusting off the walrus' cracked shades with a tenderness that clashed violently with the preceding brutality.
"But there's just one problem. You both seem just want to tear it all down. I wish to build something after. So how about this—you listen to me, you get to take part in destroying this decadent society, I get two more people to work for me when I'm rebuilding it."
Boomer's flippers twitched against the coolant tank. The hedgehog's voice carried none of the feverish pitch of revolutionaries or the oily cadence of politicians—just the calm certainty of someone who'd already seen the blueprint. Static from the ruptured containment unit danced across his muzzle, illuminating the way his pupils contracted as he studied their reactions.
"Or," he continued, brushing a fleck of coolant from Boomer's shoulder with surprising gentleness, "you can keep struggling. I'll let you go either way. But only one path gets you what you really want."
Buns' eye whirred, scanning the hedgehog's face for tells—but his expression remained as unreadable as a surgeon's mask. The containment unit's dying pulse threw jagged shadows across his muzzle, highlighting how his smile didn't reach those biohazard-green eyes. Her servos hissed as she flexed her claws, plasma scalpel flickering uncertainly.
"What's stopping us from walking and doing it our way?" she challenged, though the static along her circuits betrayed her hesitation. Sonic exhaled—a slow, measured sound like a safety clicking off—before tilting Buns' chin up with one claw. "The Overlander tech in your spine," he murmured, tapping the rabbit's seventh cervical vertebra with clinical precision. "It's wired to fail spectacularly when Maxx's heartbeat stops. Ask me how I know."
"H-how?" Buns' voice cracked as the hedgehog's claw traced the concealed implanted Overlander circuitry along her body. The scalpel slipped from her fingers, clattering against the coolant-slick floor with a sound like shattering ice. Sonic didn't grin—his expression remained neutral—but something in the stillness of his posture radiated satisfaction as her cybernetic eye's glow dimmed in surrender.
"Because," he said quietly, lifting Boomer's cracked goggles with surgical precision to reveal bloodshot eyes brimming with terror, "I have insider information, simple as that. Now are you two going to accept my offer or not?"
His claws hovered near Boomer's throat again—not pressing, not threatening—just present. The containment unit's erratic pulse threw jaged shadows across their faces, making his smile flicker like a broken neon sign. Buns' servos whirred faintly as she glanced at Boomer, whose flippers trembled against the coolant tank.
Sonic sighed and abruptly released them both, stepping back with his hands raised in mock surrender. "Fine, fine. I'm not here to force you. Just thought you'd appreciate not dying horribly when the failsafe triggers." He nudged the overturned sled with his foot, sending the ruptured containment unit skidding toward Boomer. The static discharge arced toward the walrus' flippers, making him yelp—but Sonic caught it mid-air with a lightning-fast grab, his quills crackling as he absorbed the energy. "Oops," he deadpanned, flexing his fingers as the excess charge dissipated.
The silence stretched, thick with the stench of burnt circuitry and Buns' panicked sweat. Then, they caved in, both of them.
"Fine." Boomer's voice was hoarse, his flippers shaking as he straightened his cracked goggles. "But if you're lying about the failsafes—"
"Wouldn't waste the breath," Sonic interrupted, tossing Boomer's sled back upright with one hand while the other caught Buns mid-stagger with embarrassing ease. His grip wasn't gentle—just efficient, like a surgeon steadying a scalpel—but the way his claws avoided her overloaded neural ports was almost considerate. Almost. "Your cybernetics are poorly Overlander-designed junk. That likely tremor in your left actuator? Kintobor could remove that in twenty minutes if you stopped pointing plasma cutters at people." The offer hung between them for only half a moment.
"Fine, what are we doing first?"
"First names, what are yours?"
The hedgehog's sudden shift in tone—still authoritative, but now edged with something resembling civility—made Boomer blink behind his cracked goggles. The rabbit hesitated before swallowing hard. "Buns Rabbot," she muttered, servos twitching as her plasma cutter sputtered out. The walrus adjusted his cracked shades with trembling flippers. "Boomer the Walrus."
Sonic's muzzle quirked in something that wasn't quite a smile as he tapped his comm unit. "Boomer and Buns. Got it." The device beeped twice—too sharp, too precise—before he flicked it off with a claw. "You probably already know that I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, so next you're both going to fix that door, after that Doc's going to look over you two."
Boomer and Buns knew that they had to just accept that, so they slowly got up after regaining their breaths and got started.