Author's Note: Hey, I'm Astral! This is actually my first time writing a fanfiction, but I'm pretty used to writing in general. Anyways, this fanfiction is based off of an AU where Lyric had known the ancestors of the main Sonic Boom crew, and lived their lives alongside him until...well, the rest is history! Here's some brief character name translations because this might get confusing!

Blue = Sonic

Red = Knuckles

Rose = Amy

Root = Sticks

Bolt = Tails

Lyric = Lyric

Shadow = ...Shadow?

I hope you enjoy!

Chapter One: Introduction

Blue had never been one for long periods of staying still. Sure, he was reaching his early forties, a feat in this day and age, but it still bothered him to be like that. Many had insisted he retire from defending Ileveria from the inevitable roar of sea monsters, mostly monstrous crabs and other such sea creatures from hell, but Blue straight up refused their insistent offer on taking it easy. He might have been old, but he'll be damned if he wasn't going to die on the battlefield.

A light grin creased the greying hedgehog's tired face. The village meeting was absolutely dreadful to sit through, with the current mayor actually refusing to listen to Blue at all. He finally resigned from trying two hours ago, but the rest of the committee he was with had other ideas for him. Such as sitting there and looking pretty. Blue, however, wasn't pretty. He was battle-scarred, his quills an absolute mess half of the time because of how disjointed they were. Terrible treatment had done this to his quills, and that was the price he had to pay to fight as well as he did.

The hedgehog stood at a decent three and a half feet tall, with a long brown cloak trailing behind him. With every step of his tarnished red shoes, only kept together with sports tape, his necklace bounced against his tan chest. It was a simple ring, one that Sonic had found in his early twenties, and it was one he couldn't absorb into the device on his waist like he normally did. So of course, he kept it with him. He found it too small to fit on his finger, so there it stayed.

The device, however, was a miracle only his foster brother, Bolt could come up with. It was a grey, hexagonal device, with a bright blue, pulsing light in the middle of it. "This is meant to collect all those rings you keep missing, Blue! It'll store it all up in this pouch, and when you get hit, instead of losing blood, like you normally do, these will pop out!" he recalled Bolt excitedly explaining. That had to have been when he was twenty, nearly half of his life-span ago. He chuckled lightly, still remembering the sparkle in his foster brother's eyes as he showed it off.

Bolt was eight years younger than him, so the kid couldn't have been no more than twelve when he made it. "Bolt really is a genius..." Blue murmured, allowing himself to swell up with pride. Of course Bolt was a genius, he was the best of the best after all! Just like all of his friends. Blue's brisk walk had been interrupted prematurely, however, by a low hiss. "Oh, Blue...just the hedgehog I wanted to see..."

Blue had to stop himself from jumping back and grabbing his electrified whip from out of his wrist communicator. He hadn't heard anyone sneak up on him, so who on Mobius could it be? Blue simply glanced up, and towering over him was none other than Lyric. Blue took a few steps back out of instinct, just to but some distance between him and Lyric, since it had been uncomfortably close for him. "Lyric? I thought you were holed up with Bolt trying to-...?" Blue trailed off, not even remembering what Lyric and Bolt were doing together that day.

Lyric's grin turned from venomous to an attempt at genuine. Maybe he realized how unnerved Blue was by his sudden appearance. "Oh...we were dissecting a curious specimen that had emerged from the oceans, but that is not why I am here..." Lyric slithered closer to Blue, closing the distance Blue originally had gotten. "There's an interesting spike of energy located in the forest. I, myself, cannot go, as the specimen does require my attention, and I do not think Bolt wants to continue without me," it was an unspoken request, and Blue sighed, pushing his cloak back a bit. "Do you think that it might harm us?"

There was a pause from the snake, as if it was contemplating the genuine answer. "I do not believe so. It had stayed stationary for three hours. You should be safe to go alone."

Blue grinned. It had been a while since he had been able to be separated from the committee. He was still their most important member, after all. There wasn't another word that Lyric could say before Blue had taken off. It wasn't as fast as he was in his youth, but he could still give most people a run for their money.