Disclaimer.
Most of the characters in this fanfic are fan characters,
And this fanfic contains multiple ships, including sonaze, silvamy, tailrine, shadia, knuxouge, jetave, and many others.
I will not rewrite this to follow any other alternate ships I put too much work into it, so deal with it. I have nothing against these other ships (except sonamy, silvaze, and sonadow, they don't deserve to exist), so please enjoy.
One, summer morning, in the Castle City Zone… the sun had just rose, and a certain girl was eager to start the day. She was a mobian, which meant humanoid animal, but she was a special one. She was a hybrid between a cat and a hedgehog, or hedgecat. She had more cat features, having a long bushy tail, retractable claws, and a cat like build. However at the back of her head were hedgehog spines. She had mostly lilac fur, but her spine tips were blue. She had emerald green eyes like her father, and greatly resembled her mother. The minute her clock struck 7:00 A.M. she opened her eyes and jumped off her bed, ran to her closet, and slipped on a blue sweater, white sweatpants, and her two most prized possessions, a golden necklace that belonged to her mother and a pair of scarlet-red sneakers that belonged to her father. She left her room, then took a right down the hall where she ran into her older brother, Scorcher. He was a navy blue cat with golden eyes, he was wearing a dark purple jacket, sneakers that were similar to hers but had a different design, and a golden crown with a bright ruby embedded into the top.
"Watch where you're going Ashley," he said in his usual calm voice, unlike his siblings he was the calm and patient one, his personality was very similar to that of his mother. Because of this, he was untrusting and didn't have many friends, he just spent his time watching over the Sol Emeralds as every other eldest child on his mother's side of the family had.
"Sorry, bro. Didn't see ya, and call me Ash," Ash responded, like her father she prefered to be called some edgy nickname instead of her normal name.
Her brother didn't bother to say much, he knew she wasn't the type to listen to lectures.
"Just try not to run into anyone, I'll be at the altar if you need me," he said and continued down the hall.
With this she ran down towards the stairs, but then slipped on something and ran into the nearest wall. She got up and saw someone had placed sticks of butter all over the floor. From past experiences she came to the conclusion her younger brother, Blitz, was up to his old tricks. He had the tendency to play pranks on EVERYONE. She was cautious from there on in as to not "fall" for another prank.
Once she made it to the door she figured she was safe and let her guard down. She opened the door but then looked up to see a bucket of water was resting on top and it then plummeted down on top of her. She was soaked from head to toe, with an angry scowl on her face. "BBBBBLLLLLIIIIIIIITTTTTTZZZZZZZZ!" she screamed in rage.
Meanwhile, in the other half of the city, there was a stone structure made to look like the emerald altar on Angel island. It was surrounded by piles of gold and jewels, but what was important was the giant emerald in the middle. It was the master emerald, when Knuckles the Echidna was told he could move to the city he insisted on bringing it with him. He had always feared if he was absent it would be stolen. In more recent years his worries were put at ease when his son, Blanc, became old enough to watch over the emerald himself. Blanc was a white bat with red wings and dreadlocks. Guarding the master emerald was most of his life, but he was aloud to have friends over and to leave if someone trustworthy was watching the emerald. Blanc sat at the top of the altar's stairs below him was an Ivory hedgehog cleverly named Ivory Rose, he wore red boots with a blue line and cut his quills into short sideburns. Across from him was Jack "Sparrow" Prower. He was a two tailed brown and yellow-orange racoon wearing a blue jacket and pirate hat. The three were playing go fish while waiting for some of their other friends to show up.
"Hey, guys, I think I'm gonna ask Ash out to the movies later," Ivory said putting down his cards.
Blanc and Sparrow exchanged looks then burst out laughing.
"Ye ain't got a chance!" Sparrow said still laughing.
"Bad grammar aside, he has a point. Ash has a crush on that Umbra guy," Blanc added.
Those words hit Ivory like a bullet to the heart, Umbra Robotnik was a black and yellow hedgehog with beading red eyes. He was a greatly feared person, with his edgelord personality, but most people feared him on his heritage, his father was Shadow the Hedgehog, the so called ultimate lifeform, and was technically a cousin to Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, a mad scientist, both tried to destroy an entire world in the past. Shadow had been reformed and was captain of the royal guard thanks to being a close friend to King Solaris Dark, and Eggman was presumed dead and even if he wasn't, he was definitely no threat in his old age.
The fact that Ivory's crush likes someone that scary shocked him, and with his connections, Umbra could get closer to her than he could. He was terrified of what would happen if he try to date Ash if Umbra felt the same way.
"Hey, ivory," sparrow said snapping him back to reality.
"Yeah what?" he responded.
"Ye got any Queens?" sparrow joked.
"Har har, like that'll ever happen," ivory said.
"Depends on when Mister lonely-cat kicks the bucket,"blanc cut in.
Back to Ash who was now dry and running through the town. She had to keep her speed, her brother's pranks had made her late on her usual schedule. 7:30 she would go shopping with her girlfriends Tele, and Scarlett, 8:30 they would meet up with their other friends and hang out 'till noon, she would go home and have lunch. At 1:00 her mother would teach her to use her pyrokinesis, and then she and her friends would look for adventure 'till around 6:00, and then she would hang out with her other friend, Umbra, until 7:30 P.M. Then she'd do whatever at home till 9:45 then go to sleep. This was every Saturday for her.
When she reached a tall, glass building with a sign that read "Cassidela Mall" she ran to the entrance she saw waiting at the entrance, was a white hedgehog with pink bangs wearing a black dress with a blue design, and a red echidna with sky blue eyes wearing some weird outfit covered in hearts.
"Well, the speed queen ends up late, huh?"said the echidna.
Ash sighed and said, "My little brother held me up, don't scold me for it, Scarlett."
"Well EXCUSE ME, Princess," Scarlett said in a mocking tone.
This is something she knew Ash hated, being acknowledged as royalty, and this was hard to avoid because she WAS indeed a princess. Her parents were the king and queen of Castle city. In fact, if she didn't have an older brother, she would end up as the next ruler. Most would consider this a blessing, but she hated the royal treatment, she hated that everything in life would be handed to her. Similar to her mother, she was very independent, and didn't need help from others. She promised herself as soon as she was 18 she would move out and become an explorer seeking out the unknown, the one thing she desired more than anything.
"Scarlett, you know she doesn't like… the P word," the hedgehog cut in.
"Tele, just forget it, let's just go hang out with the guys," Ash said with a weak smile.
The three began to walk towards the emerald alter. Not a word passed between them.
Meanwhile in a building that was an add-on to the original castle north of the city…
The royal scientist and Sparrow's father, Dr. Miles Prower, was hard at work in his laboratory. He was crunching numbers on a computer, when a knock on the door and a voice yelling, "Open up!" broke his concentration.
"Uuuhhgg, I am trying to work here," he said as he open the steel door, "Shadow, what could be so important that it interrupts my research?"
In the doorway was shadow robotnik, the captain of the royal guard, his black and red fur almost completely hidden under his silver armor along with his face, but you could feel his red eyes staring at you.
"The king requires your presence," he said in his deep, scowling voice that could strike fear into even the bravest soul.
"I'll be right there," Miles responded in a more formal tone.
The doctor knew that if King Solaris required his attention it was a serious matter. They saw each other regularly, but that was when the king showed up at his lab unannounced or the doctor was updating him on his work. Something involving him was on the king's mind, and he was about to learn what it was.
He followed the armored hedgehog down a long hallway, down two fleets of stairs, and through the door to the throne room. He saw the king. He bowed and said, "What shall I do for you my king?"
The king's expression changed to a grin "Come on Tails, you know you can just call me Sonic," he said cheerfully.
"Sorry, it's just your in a high position and it's only proper to address you as such," the doctor said.
"Proper? I thought you stopped hanging out with Cream,"the king said laughing.
"Oh Sonic the jokester as always," the doctor replied.
The two laughed for a solid minute, even after all these years, and all these changes they remained the friends they were when they were children.
Shadow gave a fake cough to snap them back to the matter at hand.
"Right thank you, Shadow," the king said changing his tone. With that the guard left, he knew this was none of his concern.
"Now, to the matter at hand," the king continued, "you know what tomorrow is, correct?"
"Yes, it is the 20th festival of flames, the celebration of the day we won the war against the Eggman empire," Dr. Miles replied, "our 20th year of peace."
"Yes, and Infinites 20th death day," King Sonic added.
"My king you're not scared he will return, are you?"
"Unfortunately, I am."
"My king, the Phantom Ruby is locked in a case of lead and steel, kept in the deepest, darkest part of the dungeon, kept guarded twenty four hours a day by one hundred guards, including gatekeeper Knuckles."
"I'm sorry but I will never be able to rest on this day until that cursed jewel is shattered."
The doctor paused, and said, "I'll see what I can do."
And with that he headed toward his lab.
Back at the emerald altar, the game had changed from go fish to poker. The boys had a tendency to gamble while waiting, but for "some reason" sparrow would win until Blanc and Ivory were broke or just quit. The reality was that sparrow hid extra cards in his sleeves and blanc and Ivory were too gullible to realise. He didn't do this with his other friends because they saw through his cheating.
"HEY GUYS!" a female voice yelled.
Ivory turned to see a group of three girls and said, "Hey sis!"
Then the white female hedgehog said, "hi brother!"
"Ah it's about time ye gotta here me hartys,"sparrow said.
Just as he said this there was a flash of purple and sparrow's cards were gone.
"Hey, who be the wise guy?" he said.
Then someone said, "gotta few extra aces in this deck, eh?"
He looked up and saw his hedgecat friend, ash.
"Give em their cash back, sparrow," she said
"Ye aint no fun," he said with a sigh and handed over the money.
"So, what we doin today?" scarlet asked.
The a smirk formed on Ash's face, "getten revenge."
The group then huddled up and began whispering to each other. They then broke apart, nodded to each other, and all but Blanc began running off. They ran through the streets, around buildings and up hills until the castle was in view. They turn at the front gate around to the back. They were sneaking past the altar, when they heard a noise which caused scarlet to jump into ivory's arms.
"Eeep!"she screamed.
She then realised she was in ivory's arms and he let go.
"Ow", she said.
"What in Davy Jones' locker was that," sparrow asked
The group turned to the altar to see scorcher was in front of it with his eyes shut and snoring.
"It's just scorcher, he must've fallen asleep again," ash said
He was always falling asleep from pure boredom when he guarded the emeralds.
