The Way I See It

Story Summary: A gender-bendered Sonic, possible awkward series crossover parings, altered meetings, and displaced echidna are only a few of the things you will run into in this SU altverse crackfic gone serious. I borrow elements from where I please, and like both making people laugh and making the characters angst. So buckle up. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic or any related characters, series, trademarks, etc, nor do I own any songs I'll mention. (No, this is not a songfic.) They belong to their respective owners.

Trust me, Sonic and the Secret Rings would've had some kick-awesome cutscenes (and better storytelling) if I owned it (even if I had to animate them myself, which I could've). Alas, I don't, so you'll just have to go read Taranea's Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart to help purge your bad memories of what should have been a rockin' game.

Coulda done better with Elise's frickin' monotone-when-I-should-be-angsting (etc) voice acting, too...

Okay, rant over. Just remember that this is my debut to the Sonic genre, so be gentle when you review, and please please please tell me if you find something too funky/OOC/screwed up to tolerate. Also, warn me of bad grammar/spelling/punctuation. I do check, but sometimes I miss stuff. I am human, you know.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot. Did you see the "gender-bendered" bit in the summary? Good. Then you know that since girls think differently than guys, Sonic might be acting/thinking a bit OOC. That wasn't a mistake. Just so you know.

Okeyday, enough epic-length author's note. Let's get this party started.

Chapter One: The Stage is Set

-Sonic POV-

"Niyeeh." I shudder when the DJ on my favorite pop/rock/alt station (one of the few that actually still plays real songs) reannounces for the third time that hour that all radio stations will be playing a nine-hour-long opera straight through the week—marathon style—starting this Tuesday in honor of Buttnik's birthday. A grimace contorts my face again when a screeching racket of disharmonious arias punctures the almost-quiet.

Oh, pineapple sock sauce. They're giving a preview.

I make a cross at the radio with my index fingers like I'd seen Pastor Miller—the human (yes, an actual human and not an Overlander; he's got five fingers) living in the apartment next door—do when the SWATbot patrols came by, then clap a pillow over my ears in a vain attempt to muffle out some of the gag-worthy noise.

Stupid sucky Egg-Radios can't be turned off. And it counts in your electric bill.

Speaking of eggs, I'm still trying to figure out where the nasty fart that designed these things came from. I mean, Buttnik was bad enough, but this Eggman dude (ever-so-affectionately referred to as Eggface and Eggbutt) is like his evil(er) twin or something. If they were normal badguys, they'd've wiped each other off the face of the planet by now vying for control of said planet. But noooo, they had to decide to work together. They're always fawning over each other in public, telling each other how brilliant they are. Gag city.

Waitaminute. Dude…are they?...naw…but they always…frickin'…I'm gonna laugh if someone finds out they're sleeping together. Gross…

The screeching gets louder, and I pile my blanket and sheets on top of my pillow and stuff my head under it again. Urhrgh. No dice there, either.

Instead of using Uncle Chuck's crowbar to pry the Egg-Radio from its wall mounting and lobbing it off the balcony like I'd like to—we'd get smacked with a major fine, and with my luck it'd hit one of the hobos that come out en masse during rush hour to beg—I drag my history book under the pile with me, trying desperately to lose myself in it, despite the dry, uninspired and generally tedious wording.

Blargh. I forgot that we're studying the chapter on Queen Aleena and her reign this week, so we can get to the start of Robuttnik's reign on his birthday next Tuesday. Naturally, the chapter is full of unsupported bullcrap about how horrible she and her court were.

It made me sad and angry, not only because Uncle Chuck was full of stories about how cool the Queen had been, but because her picture in the history book reminded me of one of the girls in my class. Her name was Sonia, and she was almost exactly how I imagined Queen Aleena—kind, cool, a bit spoiled, and all about fashion and standing up for your own.

I'd met her when I'd gone to use the bathroom and accidentally walked in while she was ranting about her fiancé Bartleby not wanting to spend time with her anymore. Instead of being embarrassed, she, for whatever reason, just started ranting to me instead. Even though we aren't really close—we don't really run in the same circles, what with her being a noble and such—we still talk or whatever sometimes. (I still wonder why they just decided to dump all the classes together in one school.) But still, she was a friend, and it kinda felt like the attacks on Queen Aleena were leveled at Sonia, for whatever weird reason.

I throw the history book at the far wall of my room with an exasperated shriek. It hits said wall and then the floor with a satisfying scrunch—THUD.

Hang history homework. That bull had been drilled into us since kindergarten, and anyone who had half a brain, a reasonable memory and the ability to write/recite answers could ace the tests blindfolded.

I make a face at the book, then pull the box that holds all the books Pastor Miller gave to me and Uncle Chuck from the collection he smuggled in from a place called Station Square out from its usual hiding place—a rarely used air vent behind my bedstead. I snag two books—a pocket-sized version of Genesis from a collection called the Bible, and 1001 Nights—figuring I'll pick up where I left off with Joseph in prison in Genesis, then check out that "Seven Voyages of Sinbad" story I saw in the latter book's table of contents.

Relief comes from both sides as the horrid opera song ends and the strains of Everlife's "Goodbye" take its place. Maybe it'll be a decent night after all…

--oOo--

I wake with a start, cold sweat soaking my fur and my heart threatening to pound out of my chest. Shattered images of a nightmare hang just outside my conscious memory—something to do with black and red, shock and hurt and betrayal, maniacal twin laughs, screams that sounded like Sonia and others I didn't know but were somehow important to me…

That's the last time I eat a tofu hotdog. Ever.

Needed to ground myself in reality, I look over at my nightstand, where my alarm clock is blissfully flashing 12 o'clock. It is clearly not 12 at night, as the rays of late sunrise are currently peaking in my window. I snag my watch of the nightstand, and barely keep from spitting out one of the more colorful words in my vocabulary. The hands read seven AM, and school starts at seven-twenty.

…

Craaap.

I drag on the dreaded uniform that the pervy, terminally-fashion-challenged headmaster makes us all wear, as usual barely able to shinny the ugly low-slung, tight olive-plaid skirt with its one orange pleat in the front over my wide hips and the metabolic-stabilizer-thingy at the base of my tail, and thanking the powers that be that I barely have enough chest to fill a training bra while I get unstuck from the arms-up position I have to use to get the low-necked sorry excuse for a grey-blue sailor shirt on. Long checkered socks and shoes with double pompoms and bum-ugly beret wannabe are next, then I dash down the stairs to kitchen, scarf some cardboard-flavored cereal, down the more vital pills from the collection I jokingly call my mini-pharmacy that helps control my whackball metabolism, and take off as fast as I can go without tripping over my own feet down the sidewalk to the school building. Hurrah for living three blocks away from school.

Thankfully, my first teacher today is Ms. Rouge, and she's one of the few who's cool and nice and somewhat intelligent and won't rat you out if you're a few seconds late getting to your seat. Yay block scheduling. I only have to see the bad ones every other day, and I have my two good teachers today, so I get to start and end my day reasonably well, even if I have three monotone talkers in between.

I plop down in my seat a full two minutes before the bell rings, a new record for my accidental sleep-in days, then jump six inches out of it as the person behind me taps me on the shoulder. There hadn't been anybody sitting behind me yesterday…

I turn around, and am greeted by a grinning Sonia. I grin right back. "How'd you get in this class? Pull the headmaster's teeth?"

Sonia snorts, then opens her mouth to reply. Nothing comes out. I follow her stare to the front of the classroom, and see Ms. Rouge returning to her desk with a sulky red echidna guy following her, dressed in the black button-down school uniform. Huh. Don't see many of them around these days…

I look back at Sonia again, and you can almost see the hearts in her eyes as she looks at him. I snigger, then turn back to admire the view. On the other hand, having a pervy headmaster that leans both ways makes for great guy ogling.

*looks up and sees the various stares* Wut? I said it was a crackfic, didn't I? Even if it is a more serious one...

So, whadja think? Do I need to edit this, or should I get started on my next chapter? I'm taking suggestions, btw. I have a large part of the story plotted out, but I like getting ideas I can take off with. And I have no idea how it's gonna end yet.