Another Psych topic, but this is a one-shot.
And for the readers of my other stories, don't worry; they aren't dead or anything. They're not even supposed to be on hiatus. I just haven't had a good chunk of time to sit down and write a suitable chapter for them, and I want to be able to write the rough draft all at one sitting. So yeah. Here's this in the meantime, if you're interested.
And, without further ado:
Schemas
A hedgehog's natural color is brown, grey, black, or some variant shade of this selection. They come in neutral colors that help them blend into the ground where they live. Ogilvie had never met a hedgehog with any other color. Actually, he had rarely met another Mobian with any other color. Birds came to mind, but they flew in the sky, so light blue seemed like a pretty natural color for them to have.
At least in his well-informed, four-year-old opinion. Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog had lived in Green Hill Zone all his life. Born and bred there, one might say, but people rarely, if ever, mentioned his birth because the hoglet had lost his parents at a criminally young age in an accident. He never talked of his family, and most of his fellow Green Hill-ians wondered whether he even remembered them. After all, he had only been able to crawl when they had semi-adopted him in a manner of speaking and taken turns providing for him.
At three years of age, they had begun to notice Ogilvie's excursions, not least because of how long they were. It was very easy to forget the brown hoglet when worrying over and counting one's own children throughout the day, but when he wasn't there for the headcount before bed, the adults grew a tad more concerned.
Their worries were completely nullified, however, when he returned the next day for a meal. Eventually, his absences became longer, crossing over two nights instead of one, and then three nights instead of two, until he stopped staying at their homes altogether, only coming back to horse around with the other children and politely nod a greeting at the adults. Nobody knew where the now-four-year-old went or stayed, but he appeared healthy enough, and so they didn't waste their worries on him.
But Ogilvie knew. When not under adult supervision, said four-year-old wandered through the Zone. He didn't go very far because everything beyond this green hill was going to be the same as everything on his side of the green hill, but it was far enough. His days fell into a regular routine, go to the village, play with the kids until their parents called them, wander, and find some hole or make a tunnel to sleep in.
(Except when it was raining. Holes ended up with a wet hedgehog and tunnels ended up with a wet and muddy hedgehog, neither of which Ogilvie liked being, and so he tended to head for the trees and imitate his avian caretakers then.)
The routine wasn't strict. He was hardly aware that it was a routine, allowing his subconscious to drive his feet while his conscious came up with plans on what games they could play tomorrow and other such things.
He became hyperaware of it, however, on the day when his entire life shifted.
He had woken up in his snug little tunnel, warm and well-rested. Crawled up out of it and given himself a brief shake to clear away the dirt, and then half-walked, half-jogged to the village, jumping onto the highest parts of the pathway he could find the way every kid does. He especially loved crossing bridges. He had no idea why, but they just charmed his attention. Maybe it was the bouncy feeling…
There was one last bridge he had to cross to get to the village. Hopping up and down on it a few extra times and taking smaller steps to make the experience last longer, he didn't notice there wasn't really a village in front of him the way there should be.
More precisely, there were no people. The buildings were still standing, although some buckets were knocked over and a few windows were shattered.
What happened? This wasn't the way things were supposed to be!
Not knowing what else to do, Ogilvie walked around the village center, up to the houses of his former caretakers, picking up a few items and placing them in their proper spots where they always were.
Around then he encountered his first robot, a badnik.
It had a shiny red body and two antennae, kind of like a ladybug. Actually, Ogilvie thought it was a gigantic ladybug at first, bigger than him, but it balanced itself on a wheel, and once again, the size was kind of off, not to mention it didn't have any black dots…
So no, not a ladybug.
He did know it wasn't supposed to be there. Hesitantly, he approached it. The thing just went back and forth, and back and forth, and back…and forth…and…OW!
With a yelp Ogilvie jumped back from the thing, nursing the prick on his shoulder. It wasn't supposed to do that…! It had just been walking…wheeling around, he corrected himself, not attacking anything! Ouch, his shoulder stung…
So he would avoid those things from then on.
Ogilvie began jogging back the way he had come, glancing back to see the thing continuing on its path as though nothing had happened.
Yes. He would definitely avoid those mean things from now on. It wouldn't even be that hard.
Returning to a walk, Ogilvie slowly climbed a hill, only to receive another surprise, although granted, this one was much better.
Rings. There were levitating rings all over the place, or at least what he would have called "levitating rings" if he had known the word levitating. And they didn't even really look like rings. The first word that ran through his head was "bracelets". People wore rings on their fingers, and these were way too big. Although now that he stuck his hand through the center of one, it was also quite clearly a little too loose to be a bracelet, too. A necklace maybe…? Although he seriously doubted that thing could go over anybody's head, and it didn't look like it had a clip of some sort…
Ogilvie jumped in surprise, another small yelp that sounded like it came from a puppy sounding in his throat, when the ring (he'd go with that; the only difference between a ring and this ring was the size and the weird floating thing) disappeared.
Rings did not disappear. While he was on that topic, nothing was supposed to disappear.
On top of that, he felt a warm feeling, a sort of energy that coursed from his wrist through his veins. Wow! He hadn't felt this good in weeks, no, scratch that, ever! Even with his shoulder hurt, although he couldn't feel the sting anymore, he felt good.
Speaking of his shoulder, a glance made his eyes widen. A golden glow had surrounded it, gently emitting from the wound, and before his very eyes, the blood disappeared and the skin and fur grew right over the injury as though it had never been there. Experimentally, he lifted his arm a few times, swinging it back and forth.
Good as new.
But the glow was gone, and he didn't feel…good anymore. As fast as he could (which really wasn't very fast at all) Ogilvie ran up the hill and grabbed each of the rings, which disappeared in his grasp, until there weren't any more left. Each time they disappeared, he felt a burst of goodness, he decided to call it (well, he was a four-year-old), before it subsided.
But it hadn't done anything. Pausing, Ogilvie's feet stopped as he searched for the feeling. No, wait…it was there. When he really concentrated and closed his eyes, he could feel the rings' comforting energy running through him, but the moment he thought of something else like the village, he couldn't tell if he had it anymore.
While he was focusing on this, Ogilvie did not notice the badnik (or 'thing' as he would have called it) that had appeared in front of him. His eyes were closed, and so he missed the small, perfectly spherical plasma ball that was aimed straight for his face at point blank range…
Ogilvie gasped as he was thrown backwards down the hill, barely managing to curl up into a ball until he landed in a heap on the ground. The rings…all gone. Of course, he didn't have to concentrate to know that. As if the bouncing rings around him wasn't a good enough hint, he felt as though something had been ripped away from him, or more precisely, out of him.
And he wanted to know what had.
Collecting as many of the bouncing rings as he could before they disappeared, Ogilvie marched right back up the hill to the spot where he had stood before, not even faltering when another thing, not like the ladybug-thing, but shiny like it, appeared clinging to the level in front of him and a small light hit him full in the face.
And again he was sent tumbling to the ground, the rings ripped away and bouncing in every direction. He felt the pain in his face this time when the ball exploded, and felt how the rings immediately surged to his head and stitched him back up. As he lay face-down on the ground, he felt rather than saw something, probably the shiny thing, pass by right above him, and only when it was gone did he scramble back up.
His list of things to avoid grew by one.
Ogilvie continued on his way, more wary of the appearing-things (chameleons? He had heard of how one moment you wouldn't see them, and then the next you could) this time. And, oh, snap, that had to be the BIGGEST hornet he had ever seen flying above him, not to mention its blue color.
Except then it stopped. Ogilvie could have sworn its eyes were looking at him as it angled the stinger end of its abdomen at him, clearly targeting him as it followed his movements, and released a ball of light towards his face that looked remarkably like the one the chameleon had shot at him.
The little hedgehog dodged out of the way, watching from the safety of the ground as the hornet continued on its path.
Great. It wasn't enough that he had to avoid the shiny ladybugs and the shiny chameleons that spat those balls; he also had to dodge the shiny hornets that actually aimed the balls at him.
Worse yet, he could see them ahead of him. The place was infested.
And none of it should have been there. They had never been there before; why were they here now?
But on the plus side, he could also see some rings. Every minus had a plus, he supposed, and Ogilvie ran towards the rings, laughing as he collected them. He clambered up rocks and ran down the pathways of the Zone, dodging the shiny-s as best he could, and when he couldn't, well, that was okay, because he had rings.
That didn't mean he was happy about them. No, Ogilvie still wanted them gone, but they weren't so bad, were they? He could dodge them pretty well, and-
Ogilvie stopped dead.
There.
Right there, was a bridge. Not uncommon, but still just as fun.
Gleefully, he followed the path towards it, immediately bouncing up and down on its flexible beams and rope, until…
SNAP!
"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
No.
No no no no no.
Ignore that fact that the rings were gone.
Ignore the fact that it had hurt.
"Get OFF my BRIDGE! GET! GO! SHOO!" Ogilvie shouted at the giant, shiny red fish whose jaws had just clicked shut on his legs. The little four-year-old used as many words as he could think of, hopping up and down in outrage, even though he was careful to avoid the two (TWO!) fishes' jaws. He would have stomped on them, but it was really hard to stomp on a bridge that was waving up and down, and when the bridge's movement made him hop accidentally a little too close to one of the fish, he went with Hedgehog Instinct and immediately curled up, short stubby spines set on end and nose and knees tucked into his stomach.
BOOP!
Ogilvie uncurled when he landed, frowning at the noise (and the fact that no fish was landing on top of him). Pieces of scrap metal lay around him and the other fish was still leaping in and out of the water. And was that…?
"Ogilvie!"
"…Johnny?"
"What happened? What did you do?"
Ogilvie just looked back and forth between his playmate and what had previously been the robot.
"Never mind. Come on! We have to go!"
"Where-?"
"No time! Come on!"
Johnny Lightfoot grabbed his friend's hand and began dragging him along, hopping at full speed as Ogilvie half-stumbled and half-ran behind him until he just managed to catch up, gasping for breath, but still running pretty quickly nonetheless.
And the shiny-s! They barely managed to miss all of them, and then there was that one time when they didn't, and Ogilvie, who still had some rings, bounced right back, searching for Johnny who was supposed to be leading, except the rabbit was on the ground and he had a small hole in his side…
"Johnny!" Ogilvie cried, running back.
"Get to the underground, Ogilvie," he replied.
"No, come on, I found this really neat trick, come on!"
The brown hedgehog managed to drag him away from the shiny and to some rings, but when he reached out to grab them they kept disappearing.
"Grab one!"
Struggling, Johnny managed to get himself up to a half-sitting position, reaching up and grasping it firmly. "Okay. Now what?"
Ogilvie just stared at the solid ring in the bunny's hand. "Why didn't it work!"
"What work?"
But then they were out of time, and Ogilvie had to get him away from a shiny hornet's blast. Firmly grasping his friend under the arms, he began dragging him again, ignoring the hisses of pain as Johnny's side got jostled. The village was coming up behind them, but-
"Ogilvie! Look out!"
-a shiny chameleon had appeared in front of them, as well as its ball of light, and Ogilvie couldn't pull Johnny away in time, but he could take the hit himself.
"OGILVIE!"
And then get rid of the thing as it detached itself from the wall and started coming towards them. He nearly missed, his frantic thoughts and lack of experience throwing him off, but he hit it enough that it shattered and out came-
"Porker Lewis?"
"Ogilvie? Johnny!"
"Take an arm and help me get him underground!" Ogilvie ordered, and together, they managed to get him away without any further mishaps.
And thus began Ogilvie's new routine.
Well, it wasn't really a routine. It was more of a series of habits. He went around the Zone a lot more, making sure to free everyone he could and collect all the rings he could in the process. Instead of hearing an incredulous, "OGILVIE?" he now received, "Thanks, Ogilvie!"'s from all directions and merely responded with a thumbs-up and a smile.
Unfortunately, no one could say what happened before they got caught, or re-caught in later cases. They just knew the feeling of metal and then black until they saw the light of day and broken casing again.
This bothered Johnny and the others. Ogilvie? Not so much. It was the way the world worked now. Maybe it was because he was so young that he found it so easy to accept.
Of course it was unsettling at first. As time passed (and his fifth birthday drew nearer), Ogilvie noticed a number of other changes in Green Hill Zone.
Gravity no longer seemed to apply to many things, for example. He began to find lots of floating bits of ground and while they were fun to ride on, it was still kind of weird.
He got over that pretty soon, though.
Then there were the yellow things, 'springs,' Johnny had called them when Ogilvie had dragged him out to show him them and bounce on them a few times. They often led to more rings, which was why Ogilvie liked them, but still, since when had those been there? And seriously? Who put them on top of palm trees?
Weirdo, whoever the guy was.
And then there were places where the ground crumbled out from beneath his feet, and really sharp spikes (he had found that out the hard way) in the most random not to mention inconvenient of places.
The first few times Olgilvlie had encountered any of these things, he had nearly freaked. But over time, he came to expect the oddest things in the oddest places. He no longer shrieked when he found himself launched uncomfortably high into the sky unexpectedly, and he just ran as quickly as he could when the ground began falling. He was constantly on the alert and never batted an eye when a chameleon badnik, as they had termed the shiny-s, appeared at eye-level three feet away.
Yes, he traveled all throughout the Zone, and became pretty much immune to surprises. It got so bad he even became bored on the paths, his walk turning into a jog and then into a hedgehog-speed run just to cover more ground so he could get back to their 'base' and the others faster.
But then came the day when his entire world shifted.
He saw green grass, as usual.
He also saw pillars and broken buildings as well as a lot of very orange, very hot liquid-y stuff. Not usual.
Apparently, it was called 'lava' according to Johnny, and was not something you wanted to touch. The rabbit had heard about it from a rare traveler who had just left the next Zone over, Marble Zone.
So Ogilvie had been wrong. There was a difference between the land on the other side of the green hill and the land on his side of the green hill.
He was shocked by the difference. There was more architecture, different animals. Well, different badniks. These badniks were like bats and caterpillars, but there were different animals inside, too, usually poodles and chipmunks. There apparently weren't many birds, hedgehogs, or even bunnies in their Zone, so they were surprised and intrigued by Ogilvie. They loved to talk with him (not to mention be freed by him) and he loved to talk with them, and pretty soon Ogilvie was taking daytrips to Marble Zone, running as quickly as he could back and forth.
He listened to their tales of the Zone beside theirs, Spring Field Zone. And one had even heard that there was a Zone beyond that one, although the chipmunk couldn't remember the name.
Ogilvie decided to find out.
Despite the rabbit's protests that they needed him there to free the others (a pointy stick would do the same, Ogilvie pointed out) and help find the kidnapper (I'm no good at that brainy stuff!), he told Johnny that he was going to go on a long trip for a while and that he'd be back. Packed some provisions, headed out, running through his more familiar Zone. When he reached Marble Zone, he told his new friends the same and they wished him luck, sending him deeper in their Zone than he had ever been before.
And he also got another surprise about it. There were tons of underground tunnels! Now, Green Hill Zone had its tunnels, too. Some carved by the villagers to ensure a safe place for them to go to during a disaster like this one, others by hedgehogs that had lived there in centuries gone by, and a few by Ogilvie himself.
But Marble Zone had natural tunnels!
Surprising, but cool.
What was in them was not.
For example, the badniks turned out to be weird, or at least weirder. He expected to bounce off one in ball-form and it would shatter.
He did NOT expect himself to bounce off one in ball-form and lose all his rings.
?
RRRRRGH!
Stupid caterpillars…
There were also tons of spikes and lava and not very many rings. And the first time he ran into those flaming stones…
The stone was in the shape of a gargoyle's head. Neat. He had heard about that from the Zone's inhabitants. Turning around, he shouldered his backpack and was about to take a step when suddenly…
"OW!"
…He lost his rings again.
Never would he ever look at a stone the same way again, whether it be gargoyle-shaped or not.
Or those chains? Another time he had lost his rings. They weren't supposed to haul spikes up and down!
And spikes were not meant to move! They never moved in Green Hill!
Grumbling under his breath, Ogilvie continued his journey.
His grumbling increased when a surprise lava-fall made him lose his backpack and everything in it.
And just like those ground pieces in Green Hill? Well, the lava was defying gravity, too. He had had to run afap (as fast as possible) as he could and jump from grassy island to island to avoid the lava-shots.
That was it. Nature could do anything now, in Ogilvie's opinion. Gravity didn't exist half the time, currents could exist on the yz-plane, and pigs could fly (although he rarely saw one inside a buzz-bomber).
With this established, Ogilvie actually grew rather found of the metallic mechanics. They were consistent. You saw them do their motion, and then you could predict what it would do based on where it was in its cycle. They looped.
Nature did not.
But that didn't mean he wanted to get rid of nature, Ogilvie reasoned as he stood slack-jawed in front of Spring Field Zone.
There was hardly any green. There were a lot of badniks, some familiar, some not. There were anti-gravity starposts that bounced him around silly. Antigravity spikeballs that he had never seen before and that pricked him.
HIM! HE was the hedgehog! He was supposed to do the pricking!
Oh, he did not like that place.
By the time he reached Labyrinth Zone, as one of its previously entrapped inhabitants had informed him, a penguin with some funny-looking, yellow tufts over its eyes, he breathed a sigh of relief at seeing nature again.
There was naturally-occurring water calmly filling naturally-occurring tunnels, looking exactly as it should. Nature had decided to follow its rules again, which made him give another sigh in relief.
Hallelujah.
Except for when it didn't. Again.
The water was unpredictable. He would be running/swimming and then a current, his new worst enemy, would pop up. Ogilvie desperately struggled in them, pin-wheeling his arms and kicking his legs as hard and fast as he could even while he still moved backwards towards the spikes at the other end of the tunnel at an alarming rate.
The water level was constantly changing, too. One moment when he was desperate for air he thought he could jump to the surface and breathe open air. The next, he was stuck staying next to an air vent on the cavern floor waiting impatiently for a big-enough bubble.
Ogilvie would have screamed and shouted at the water for being so stubborn and inconvenient if doing so wouldn't have caused him to lose his air and consequently nearly drown for the four-hundred and twenty sixth time.
And the water-badniks! The seahorses were actually kind of okay. A little hard to spot if he was rushing towards an air vent, but not terribly difficult to deal with if he was expecting them.
The spike-fishes would be frequent visitors in his nightmares, he was sure. They threw their spikes at him, a completely novel concept that made his eyes widen. There were four small spike balls in a row, and it would have been easy to dodge them, if not for the viscous fluid surrounding him…
Ogilvie didn't like water, he decided. First off, he couldn't breathe in it. Second off, it was cold. And third off, it slowed him down when he, being a hedgehog, was already slow enough.
By the time he made it out, Ogilvie never wanted to get in the water ever again. In fact, he ran as quickly as he could to the next Zone so that he wouldn't even have to see the water. And then he shook himself as hard as he could, sending any water droplets that were left on him after his hard sprint flying away. And as mechanical as the next Zone was, it still didn't make him miss the previous one.
The only natural part left about the place was the sky. It was completely dark and full of stars, hence the name 'Star Light Zone', he supposed, casting the entire Zone in a mysterious, harsh, sort of depressing type of mood. It was pretty, but still, it just didn't sit quite right with him. He high-tailed it through there, in most cases.
The looping pathways? Eh, a little nauseating and hard to run around (most times he ended up just jumping down and avoiding the loop). But they were okay. He was used to wild, three-dimensional paths anyway.
The seesaws that would have been a little kid's dream (minus the spikes, of course)? Well, he was a little kid, too. Those were actually pretty fun as long as he didn't impale himself, and with a little practice in sprinting and balance, he was golden.
The floating spike-badniks? Probably the most deadly, and yet, the best for him. They were almost exactly the same as the ones in Labyrinth Zone, except here, he was completely mobile, and two hits took them out pat.
They stopped entering his dreams after that.
No, the only things that really surprised him and made him mad were the detonating robots. True robots, not the badniks.
He had expected a person to be freed. He would hit it, and it would go poof, and they would hop away.
Nope. Instead, he would hit it, it would go poof, and then he would go poof and lose all his rings.
And no one would be freed.
He spent a good ten minutes stomping on the remain of the first few of those he came across.
And then came his favorite Zone: Scrap Brain Zone.
Not.
There was no nature. Zero. Zip. Nada. Everything was mechanized, and he found a catchphrase for himself: "Lemme go back to my green hills!"
In short, he really did feel as though that last badnik had scrapped his brain. Everything was so weird. Nothing worked right. Nothing was the way it was supposed to be or the way he was accustomed to it.
So Ogilvie made good use of the Zone name and scrapped all his ideas and preconceptions.
It may have been conscious. More likely it was subconscious. An adult wouldn't have been able to do it.
But he did.
Ogilvie no longer took anything for granted.
That really doesn't sound like much, but oh, how do you explain it. A world without consistency is a world without rules, and a world without rules is like a lawless government, completely unstable. There's no trust and there isn't even any knowledge. The only things that exist are possibilities and probabilities, and trying to live a life with only these things is like trying to keep your balance on a shaking balance beam made of seashells.
Nearly impossible.
And the only reason we can put "nearly" in front of that word is because Ogilvie succeeded in doing it. He dashed down the corridors and leapt from level to level, dodged spiked pendulum after lava fountain and jumped badnik after badnik as though he had known where everything was and everything that was going to happen and when it was all going to happen. Of course, having never been there before, he hadn't known. He hadn't even guessed.
And because he never guessed, only reacted, he never made a mistake.
Ogilvie wasn't even surprised when he got to the end of the Zone, where an out-of-shape, and he meant out of shape, human with a long, red mustache and a bright red and black uniform was bent over some device with his back to him, muttering to himself.
"Well, that ought to hold him. At least for a little while. Then I can make an even bigger and better one for that pest! HEHEHeHehehee!"
"Who's him?"
"Huh, wha…?"
"Who's him?" Ogilvie repeated.
The human jerked around, surprise flashing across his features before a smile (if you could call it that) spread across his face and he leaned forward as if he was welcoming a small child for storytime.
Ogilvie decided he didn't like him.
"'Him' is the little rat who dares to destroy my creations!" he cackled.
"Your creations?"
"Indeed." The human drew himself up, puffing out his chest. Sort of. Ogilvie wasn't exactly a stick himself, and he thought he could do a better job of it. "Everything you see around you, your entire Zone, is of my own ingenious design! I have turned it into a beautiful-"
"You did all this?"
Now the man looked irritated. "Yes. Don't interrupt m-"
"Why?"
"Because it is a world far superior to the old one and completely at my command! At my feet is a world of my own making, full of creatures that will all obey me forever! Well, at least until their energy sources run out, but by then, I will have found a suitable replacement. Now,-"
"Energy sources?"
Ogilvie had to admit he enjoyed watching the reddish-purple color taking over the human's face.
"RRRRGH! SOMETHING YOU WILL BE VERY SOON IF YOU DON'T STOP INTERRUPTING ME!"
Ogilvie regarded him silently for a moment. Here was the key to all the trouble, all the changes, what Johnny and the others had been looking for.
Now what?
"Now," the human continued, clearly having an idea of 'now what' to do, "if you would just step forward and allow me to make you another one of my minions so I can get back to chasing him, I would be much obliged. Don't even think of running, because I have machines that will-"
"Who's him?"
"AAARRGH!" He threw up his hands and began hopping from foot to foot in a petty display of fury.
Oh, yeah, Ogilvie hadn't had such fun since that mudpie fight with the other villagers back when he was three.
"I DON'T KNOW! HE'S WHOEVER HAS BEEN DESTROYING ALL MY ROBOTS AND FREEING ALL MY ENERGY SOURCES AND WRECKING ALL OF MY ZONES! HE'S WHOEVER MAKES IT LOOK LIKE A TORNADO HAS COME THROUGH!"
Ogilvie backed away very slowly and carefully, at least until the madman's gaze landed on him again. "And you don't know who that is?" Just checking. He could still escape…
"NO! HE COULD BE A JACKRABBIT OR AN ANTELOPE! OR A SNAKE! OR 'HE' COULD EVEN BE A 'SHE' FOR ALL I KNOW!"
"I am not a girl!" Ogilvie snapped back, quills raised and feet spread apart by reflex, stance aggressive, at least until...
…Oh, boy.
"YOU?"
Well. Snap. He hadn't meant to give that away.
Ogilvie was running.
There were two things wrong with this statement.
The first was that most would assume he would be running away from the megalomaniac trying to trap him, take over the world and turn it into a polluting heap of metal. They would be mistaken. Once Ogilvie had given the whole 'energy source' thing some thought, especially when he had run past a purple bear badnik and given it a good hit that released the prisoner inside, well, things didn't look so good for this 'Doctor Robotnik'.
In short, he stopped on a dime, did a one eighty, and started running at the Doctor, quills on end and gleaming, eyes narrowed, a snarl on, and his arms and legs pumping in overdrive.
It made Robotnik laugh. Sure, the puny hedgehog may have bested his minions, but this was he, the great supergenius, and he was in his well-protected, tough Eggcarrier a good ways above the hedgehog's head. The hedgehog, beat him? Not a chance.
The chance grew considerably when said puny hedgehog curled up into a ball and leaped right at the Eggcarrier. He couldn't jump high enough to reach Robotnik, as the Doctor had predicted, but it gave the Eggcarrier a good shake that rattled the human to his bones. Two more made the Doctor do a one-eighty as Ogilvie had done earlier, and suddenly, it was the hedgehog chasing the human in the opposite direction.
The second wrong assumption everybody would make about that statement has to do with Ogilvie's running. Hedgehogs are not well-known for running. It is in fact common knowledge that hedgehogs are one of the slowest species of Mobians to ever exist, the sloth being the slowest. Ogilvie had been stretching this speed for some time, ever since the first raid Robotnik's badniks did on Green Hill, but it was only now that he realized how fast he was actually going. Had he ever gone this fast before…?
No, he realized. He certainly had gotten faster – he'd known that since he began traveling back and forth between Marble Zone and Green Hill Zone – but he hadn't thought he could go this fast. The last time he ran a race, he had been able to match, maybe even slightly surpass the average rabbit's speed. Then he had gone through Labyrinth Zone, where everything had seemed slow because of the water, but he had managed to get up to his usual speed down there in some places. Star Light Zone…he hardly even remembered it, just what it looked like overall, and the same with Scrap Brain Zone.
If he didn't even remember his path, how fast had he been going?
How fast was he going now?
Everything around him was a blur. The Eggcarrier was the only thing that was focused, and it was getting closer by the second. He probably could slow down if he wanted to, but there was always that risk of slowing down too much and falling behind.
Ogilvie leaned forward even more, letting his arms stream out behind him while he forced his legs to move faster. His calf muscles burned and it felt like the air was being ripped away from his lungs, but if he could just focus on breathing and the whirring motion his feet were doing, nothing else, just that, the rotten Doctor he was going to catch up with…
Something seemed to build up around him, making it even harder to run. But at least it took his attention away from the pain of his muscles-no! Ogilvie focused on the pressure, pushing forward more and more, his sneakers finding traction on the ground and his many quills streaming out behind him, the sound of the air going through them comparable to the screeches of knives on metal.
He was so focused on shoving against the air's push Ogilvie didn't even notice he had long since caught up with and even passed the Doctor, who was staring in amazement at the figure disappearing into the distance until a loud BOOM reached him…
The boom he heard was nothing compared to the boom Ogilvie felt, though. The air had suddenly given way and he had shot forward, faster than even before as though he had just been launched like a torpedo. The noise sounded like the bellow of all Robotnik's machines put together and made him vainly press his ears against his head.
The boom only lasted for a millisecond, though. And Ogilvie suddenly had more important things to worry about when he saw an island of land that looked a lot like the islands in his home Green Hill coming up way too fast.
Curling up for protection only made him move even faster, too, and he braced himself for the impact…
Only to stop when he hit a palm tree, hard. After a few minutes of gazing up at the sky full of stars Ogilvie managed to sit up on his hands, legs splayed out in front of him, and stare at the holes through the islands that marked his passage. They must have; his ball-form would fit perfectly in them.
And how happy he was to see them! The islands, he meant. Home. (Kind of.) He must have run all around the planet. Proved that Mobius was round the way Porker's books said.
Oh, forget the books. Ogilvie didn't care.
He was just happy to be back.
When he got up, it was with regret. The grass had felt so wonderful, and he had missed the blue sky overhead. The trees. He hadn't seen trees in any of the other Zones.
But he couldn't lay there all day. With a sigh, Ogilvie sat up again, pulling his legs in and getting on all fours before attempting to get himself to stand up all the way. With an exasperated sigh he let his head fall towards the grass, getting onto one blue knee and bracing himself with a hand on the other as he dragged himself up.
"…Huh?"
Ogilvie looked down at his legs again. Blue. His arms were their usual peachy tan, as was his stomach, but all of his fur was blue. "What…?"
He scrambled for some water, ignoring his intense dislike of it.
There. Staring right back at him was a hedgehog with a peach muzzle, blue head, and several large, streamlined quills on the back of his head. Just to check and make sure it was him, Ogilvie started pulling weird faces at himself, sticking out his tongue and holding down one still-peach eyelid while crossing the other eye.
"Hey! You!"
"Huh?"
"Who are you?"
Ogilvie turned away from the reflection to see a rabbit in jeans, a white turtleneck, and a red jacket. "Johnny!"
"…And how do you know my name?" Johnny asked suspiciously, holding his staff out in front of him as he crept forward warily.
"It's me, Ogilvie! I'm back!"
That got him a look. As in a, 'why do I have trouble believing you?' look.
"I know I'm blue now, and I have way fewer quills, but seriously, Johnny, it's me!" Ogilvie cried, holding his arms out in front of him as though he was standing for inspection.
Not that an inspection would help his claim at all.
Johnny, however, perceiving him not to be a threat, set the butt of the staff down on the grass and leaned on it. "You really don't look like Ogilvie to me," he said doubtfully.
Ogilvie rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. "Alright. What do you want me to do to prove to you that I'm Ogilvie?"
"Well first off," Johnny pointed out, "if Ogilvie comes back while you're still here, you know you're going to get ratted out."
"Yeeeees." Ogilvie felt an urge to tap his foot.
"And – wait," Johnny interrupted himself, raising his staff again. "You don't seem concerned about that. What did you do with my friend!"
"Woah, chill, Johnny!" Ogilvie cried, backpedaling some (although he was careful to stay away from the babbling water. "I didn't do anything to myself! And if I was really trying to impersonate myself, don't you think I would have done a better disguise? Seriously? I knew you thought I was stupid, but that's just insulting!"
Johnny stopped. "Ogilvie…?"
"Yes!"
But when he moved forward, Johnny pointed the end of the staff at him. "Wait just a minute."
Ogilvie rolled his eyes again, assuming his earlier pose of impatience.
"I have a few questions, just to make sure."
He nodded.
"What is our age difference?"
"Three years. And you don't ever let me forget it."
"What sort of badnik was I in when you saved me?"
"Which time I saved you?"
"Er…the first."
"Fish. A really ugly red one."
"And last one: how tall are you?"
Ogilvie grinded his teeth. He hated getting asked that question, and always gave a classic response. "Shorter than you, bunny ears. Now ask me how many doorways I get stuck in."
"Ogilvie!"
"Took you a while, Johnny," Ogilvie teased as the friends embraced each other.
"OUCH!"
Ogilvie pulled back frowning. "What?"
Johnny just nodded to his back, sucking a finger. "Spines. Yours are really sharp. What happened by the way?"
"I…don't know, actually. I was chasing Robotnik out of Scrap Brain Zone and then I started running really, really fast and the next thing I knew there was a giant boom and-"
"Woah woah," Johnny interrupted, holding up a hand. "Okay, now, start at the beginning: who is Robotnik?"
Ogilvie stared at him for a moment. "We have a lot of catching up to do."
Even with Ogilvie's new coloring, Johnny still had to see him run around as a blur a number of times (and into a number of things; he wasn't used to going that fast yet) in order to believe his story. And even then, he stayed silent about it.
"I'm glad you're back, Ogilvie," Johnny said as they walked back to the underground base.
"Glad to be back. You have no idea how wacked out the other Zones were," Ogilvie responded easily.
"Speaking of 'wacked out', you really don't seem all that bothered by your new color."
"Hmm? Well, blue's a neat color."
"It's not a natural hedgehog color."
"Well it is now."
"I doubt the others are going to accept that as easily as you," Johnny commented dryly.
"?"
"Come on, Ogilvie, it took a test, a story and a lot of running and injuries to convince me, and out of everyone here, I know you the best."
"True…so what would you suggest?"
"Tell them Ogilvie found you and sent you here while he kept exploring the world and looking. He thought you would do a good job protecting us, especially since he's going to be gone for so long."
"Meh…doesn't feel right. And besides, who would I say I am?"
Johnny regarded him for a long moment. "Sonic."
"What?"
"You made a sonic boom when you ran. That should be your identity. Sonic."
"You mean my cover identity," 'Sonic' corrected. "Fine, but still, if anyone figures it out, they're free to know. I'm just doing this because it would be so hard to get people to believe us."
"That's fair," Johnny agreed.
"And we should tell Porker."
"Yeah. We'll tell Porker."
"And Amy."
"…Okay."
"Kaid and Helen."
"Why don't you just name all of Green Hill while you're at it?"
"Max, Anthony, Aria, Cassie, Frank-"
"Sonic!"
"Heh, just teasing ya, Johnny."
"Pfft…"
Sonic's friends all noticed he was very hard to surprise after that.
He didn't so much as blink when he met a two-tailed fox with a brain that rivaled a supercomputer.
When he was told he had to somehow get to a mythical flying island that probably didn't even exist he just asked for a plane.
When the resident echidna of said floating island told him about Chaos energy, the Chaos emeralds, and Sonic's capability (eventually; it took a while) Sonic just cracked bad jokes about Knuckles's girlfriend, the Master Emma-rock, as though it were nothing fantastical.
Yes, they noticed that he was quite hard to surprise indeed, and when he was surprised, he always responded quickly. They attributed it to his fast feet and reflexes. His brain had to work quickly, too, to keep up with his sonic speeds.
It never even occurred to them that it was a far-fetched survival tactic belonging to Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog, and Sonic never corrected them.
So the psych concepts here and their definitions for all those interested (from my Psych textbook):
Schema – a concept of framework that organizes and interprets information; they are like models/categories that we use to label our experiences/what we see
Assimilate – to interpret one's new experience in terms of one's existing schemas
Accommodate – to adapt one's current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information
Phew *pants* THAT was long. Waaaay longer than I expected. And it probably wasn't as good as I would like it to be, but I really want to get it up there to say, 'Hey! Not dead yet!'
Oh well. Please review! The Writer's Creed says all about that.
I applaud you for making it all the way through :)