Disclaimer: The Sonic the Hedgehog setting belongs to SEGA, not me. All characters in this story not belonging to SEGA, however, belong to me unless stated otherwise in their intro chapter.
Yeah it's an OC fic, in case the description didn't clue you in. Sorry. I don't think the canon characters are going to show up at all in this one.
Chapter One: Precious Little Life
The bus slowed to a stop and the doors opened with a hiss of hydraulics. A Mobian fox stepped onto the curb amongst the rest of the crowd and held a gloved hand over her mouth to muffle her yawn. The cool fall breeze ruffled at her silver fur and blue ponytail; despite the changing season, she'd declined sweaters and jackets in favor of a green tanktop and dark blue sweatpants. Ah well, she was out of her work uniform, and that was all she cared about as she trudged along the sidewalk. She squinted with her mismatched eyes- one green, the other violet- at her watch. It was five-thirty, same as always. Her roommate would already be home from whatever she usually did during the weekdays, they'd both crash on the couch and watch old movies while she tried not to fall asleep, and then the next morning it was up at six AM again on the dot.
...Or she could walk right into her as she turned a corner. Her startled yelp was met with a flurry of cusswords as the taller Mobian dropped the brown grocery bags; the fox winced as she hoped that nothing breakable was being brought home this time before bending over to help. The cat was still cussing up a storm, and seemed oblivious to the stares and glares the two were getting.
"-hell, eggs're gonna be completely fuckin' shattered and can't do shit about it, gonna get my tail rammed up my ass if Tide finds out I did it aga-"
"Caracal?"
Caracal stood up ramrod straight and stared down at her. "...Aw fuck. Hi, Tide."
Tide couldn't help but laugh as she took one of the bags from her roommate's arms. "What was that about me ramming your tail up your butt?" She laughed again at the cat's reaction, and then started to stroll past. Caracal headed after her with a sheepish look. "Don't worry about it; I was the one not looking. And hey, maybe one of the eggs survived this time."
Looking at the two of them, no one would've imagined them to be best friends. To be honest, Tide hadn't either. Caracal was a tall, athletic-looking bobcat with reddish-orange fur marked with black on her eartips, face, and belly, and always wore spaghetti-strap tops and baggy jeans, even in winter. Sometimes Tide wondered if her friend even knew what cold was; if she did, she didn't show it. If they were in a highscool, Caracal would've been the rough-and-tough bully who won medals in gymnastics, and Tide would've been in the top percentage of "most average people on Mobius": nothing more than another face that blended into the crowd. Yet somehow they fitted together like two pieces of a puzzle; despite the arguments, general squabbling, and occasional items being flung at each other, the two were practically inseparable.
The duo crossed a street as they chattered about their day. Tide was sick of work and considering leaving her job for something better, and as usual Caracal nodded and went "mhmmm" like she believed her friend didn't have the guts to actually do it but was supporting her anyway. Meanwhile, her response to today's "what do you even do?" ended up being checking out hiking trails, just in case Tide ever decided she hated herself enough to lug around a backpack on already sore legs for half an hour following someone who always forgot to actually follow the trails half the time. "You need a vacation," Caracal told her. "Working your damn legs off, what're you gonna do?"
"Like chasing you uphill is any easier on me." The cat rolled her eyes in response before the fox continued. "It'd be another thing if I was still in the racing scene." Tide sighed, and Caracal switched her bag to her other arm to rub her on the back in sympathy. "I've always been dreaming of finally winning the grand prize and taking home a trophy, but after the accident I'm even further away from making it come true than I used to be. It'd be one thing if the Arrow was in top condition, but there's still so much that needs to be repaired and replaced…"
"You've got your skates, don't you?" Caracal looked down at Tide's feet pointedly. Tide rarely ever took them off, except for work, and even then the first thing she did after changing out of her uniform was to put them back on. Unlike the models from years past, the more recent line of airskates were enough like boots for her to walk around comfortably without getting many stares. Sure, she never used them, but she was reluctant all the same. Her justification was that it would be like she was walking around stark naked without at least something with her.
"Yeah, but you've never seen what using skates in the Grand Prix is like. When you're up against heavy-duty boards, motorcycles, and all that, you're just looking to get yourself flattened." She frowned. "Better handling is great and all, but you're going to spend most of your time dodging and watching your butt when you could be at the head of the pack. …Anyway, I'm not even comfortable enough with them to try them out on an official circuit. Last time I tried racing with these, I sprained my ankle, remember?"
"You're not gonna get comfortable unless you use the damn things." Caracal groaned. "Just wait til summer rolls around again and get yourself signed up in one of the city races. Or we could go hiking and you can just blaze along the trail."
"Is that even legal?"
The two reached downtown as they chatted to each other. The sky overhead was a clear blue with wisps of clouds drifting by, and the sidewalks were filled with pedestrians (both human and Mobian) on cellphones, talking to each other, hurrying along to reach destinations, and the like. Traffic was busy too, with cars racing by in the last rush hour of the day to get home from long hours at work. It was not anywhere near as hectic as the larger cities, sure, but with its famous history Station Square had evolved from a fairly sedate location to a popular hotspot. Not much had changed since the rebuilding of the city after Pefect Chaos' flood several years' prior despite that, however: The train station that gave it its name was the same as it had been years ago despite being relocated closer to the heart of the city, the ocean was serene as always, and in Tide's mind she had no regret about moving here.
She was busy enough taking in the landscape that she didn't notice Caracal had stopped until the cat grabbed her by the arm. Tide looked over her shoulder to give her an incredulous look and was met with an expression of severe worry. What? It was then that Tide noticed the atmosphere around her had changed. People were staring at their phones in disbelief, cars jolted to a stop, and lights in storefront windows flickered on and off like possessed. As one, the two turned their gazes to one such window. The TVs on display flickered with static; now and then the picture would come in clear (some news anchor lady she didn't recognize) only to be interrupted by a "please stand by" screen, or to be warped like it had been recorded on an old VCR tape. People crowded around the two to watch the display with several different flavours of horror.
A car alarm went off several blocks away and her fur stood on end. It rose into a terrifying cacophony, and suddenly her heart plummeted down into her skates as she felt something happen that shouldn't be happening. The ground was starting to move underneath her. "Earthquake!" Caracal hissed as the word was echoed around her in various levels of panic. Tide shot her a horrified look.
"Station Square hasn't had one in years!" She looked around at the hysteria occurring. The tremors were getting worse, and her knees threatened to buckle. "What do we do?!" Her head spun; everything had been fine a second ago, hadn't it? It was almost like nature was laughing at her for considering that everything had been perfect.
"Get to safety, duh!" Caracal took advantage of her grip on her friend's arm to tug her along. Tide's heart pounded in her ears; she hadn't lived in Station Square during the flood, but news of the catastrophe had spread across the entire continent like wildfire. What if they would be subjected to another? Even with the help of several other Zones, it had taken years to fully rebuild the city. Images flash by in her mind's eye of a tidal wave rising up over the beach to engulf the city once again. 'Don't panic. Don't panic.' She closed her eyes as Caracal dragged her through the chaos. 'Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna- What is that?!'
"That" was a loud humming that felt like it was coming from the centre of the city. Her fur stood on end, in response to the sound more than her overwhelming fear; something deep inside her itched like something was about to happen. She opened her eyes and looked up to see that, judging by her confused expression, Caracal was having the same feeling. What was going on? The crowd of people surrounding them took on an uneasy feeling as the noise increased in volume. Scattered memories of movies flicked through her vision: this was the kind of thing that happened before another disaster hit. Then the humming pitched up into an unbearable squeal, and she got the impression of something buckling as she dropped to her knees and clapped her hands over her ears. She could barely hear the thud of the groceries being dropped to the ground again as Caracal copied her action. More terrified screams echoed around her, and Tide found herself expecting the worst.
The earthquake had ended. A mob of people was crowded into the streets all over Station Square, herself among them, everyone suddenly dead silent. From a nearby storefront, a lady on TV was talking about the earthquake and urging everyone to stay calm and be alert for any aftershocks. Tide let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding in. It was over. 'Just a freak earthquake, nothing to worry about. Welcome to Station Square, everybody, home of random natural disasters!' She almost wanted to laugh from the absurdity of it; the all-consuming terror of earlier was gone just as quickly as it had come.
But why was everyone staring at the sky?
She looked up and her blood turned ice cold. Something was happening to the sky. She thought it was a trick of the light at first, or that something was obscuring her vision, but Caracal made a strangled half-noise of terror and her stomach knotted in fear. The sky had darkened, but not because of any clouds overhead: in fact, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It was almost like an eclipse. And in the centre of the sky, above the town's centre, was something impossible-
'No,' Tide thought to herself, 'this isn't a hallucination. It's real. It's happening.'
The sky was breaking.
It was impossible, but the cries of terror around her told her it was true. As the ground rumbled in another earthquake, the sky was broken up by hairline cracks arranged into a terrifying spiderweb that slowly spread out. Tide's vision spun as she stared up at it; everything around her seemed to shift, as if the very foundation of reality was coming out from under her feet. She wasn't sure what had been worse: the loud screech from before, or the sheer oppressive silence that now blanketed everything; she couldn't see Caracal at her side or feel the ground shaking beneath her feet once again or even register anything at all that wasn't the impossibly damaged sky.
The sky exploded outwards into thousands of glittering, gleaming, shimmering shards, like someone had punched a hole through painted glass. Everything felt like it was slowing to a crawl: the earthquake stopped like a switch had been flipped, the crowd moved like it was in slow motion, and even the explosion looked like it was being played frame-by-frame. Tide felt Caracal's hand grip her arm tighter, but it might as well have been happening to someone miles away. The precious little life she'd been living just a few minutes ago felt like it had been nothing but a fever dream.
Her eyes widened in shock (as if they weren't wide with terror already) as she saw something drifting down from the solid black hole in the sky. No, not drifting: it was speeding up, plunging earthward and out of control. It was like some kind of comet or meteor on a crash-course toward the city. Everyone around her was too busy fleeing the scene to notice it, but to Tide it was the only thing in the world that mattered right then.
As she thought back on the day, Tide would never be able to figure out what exactly possessed her in that moment to run. Run away from the nightmarish hole in the sky and the object racing towards Station Square, sure, that'd be logical, and most of the crowd was scattering to do just that. But Tide was running toward it, even as Caracal screamed at her "What the hell are you doing?!" as her arm wrenched itself out of the cat's tight grip, even as the crowd stampeded past her. With a click of a hastily-pressed button, her airskates came to life and she shot down the street like a bullet towards the heart of the city. The mob parted like a massive sea to clear her path. And, despite swearing at the top of the lungs and screaming that she was going to get herself killed, Caracal bounded after her.
With her emotions completely shot from the mess of reactions, Tide instead gave in to something that felt like half hysteria, half euphoria. Even with her eyes squinted against the wind, there was nothing she loved more than racing, and even if she was racing to catch a meteor instead of racing down a track the savage glee still took hold. Everyone else had fled from the area, but she rocketed ahead like it was some sort of game. The city's centre loomed ahead of her: skyscrapers towered overhead and reached toward the shattered sky. City Hall was dead ahead, placed like a diamond in the ring the skyscrapers around it formed around the plaza. A detailed mosaic sprawled across the very center of the plaza: a colourful depiction of the legendary battle that had saved the city years ago, with a plaque in front labeling it as such.
On a normal day this area would be flooded with people, but the cataclysmic event overhead had driven everyone to the shelters left over from the flood. In the wake of the earthquake, the plaza was completely deserted and as silent as a grave. As such, Tide Sanglo was the first one on the scene as the mysterious object slammed into the dead centre of the mosaic.
She braked hard just in time, but the immense shockwave caught her like a hundred-ton punch to the chest and blew her back. Caracal landed on top of her and knocked the rest of the air out of her lungs before grabbing the fox by the shirt and staring her dead in the eye. Tide had never seen Caracal like this before: the cat was wide-eyed, breathless, and shaking with fear. Caracal was, as she loved to brag, the type that could never get rattled by anything, but a sudden disaster out of the blue tends to shake up such notions. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" she wheezed out; her tone was nearly frantic, and Tide could barely hear her over the loud ringing in her ears. "Are you trying to get killed?!"
Tide's response was to gasp and wheeze, wriggle out from under her, pry off her hands, and stumble into the large impact crater. Broken tiles were scattered everywhere and crunched under her skates; the crater had hit the mosaic like a bulls-eye and left it completely unrecognizable. Caracal hovered around the edge of it, shouting and cussing her out for "being so fucking stupid" and crying out that "you're supposed to be the responsible one, for fuck's sake!". Sirens wailed faintly in the distance as the paramedics made their way to the scene of the disaster, but Tide found herself still heavily detached from reality. Instead her gaze was entirely focused on the thing in the centre of the crater: a small cyan hedgehog, surprisingly without any injuries or marks beyond the scuffed-up look of her baggy clothes.
It took the fox a moment to find her voice. "Cara- Caracal, call 911!"
"911's already here!" Caracal shot back. "What's going on?!"
Tide wished she knew the answer. After a moment's hesitation, she scooped the kid up into her arms and turned to face her friend. "It's a kid!"
"What?!" Caracal's eyes bugged out in what would've been comical if not for the severity of the situation. "What—Why—" She stammered a bit. "Is it hurt?"
"No!" Tide scrambled back up the side of the crater to stand next to her. Panting hard, she crouched down to gently set the hedgehog on the concrete. "They're unconscious, I think..."
Caracal dropped to one knee to check the kid over herself. "Prolly got separated from its parents..." She cocked her head to one side and perked up an ear." Ambulance is heading over by the station, sounds like. People got knocked around from the earthquake when they tried takin' shelter there. Let's carry 'em over." As Tide picked the hedgehog up again, the cat glanced back at the crater. "Find what that meteor was?"
Tide shook her head. "I only found the kid in there."
They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Finally, Caracal reached over to thwack Tide on the side of the head. "Don't fuckin' do that again, okay?! Scared the goddamn daylights outta me and there's not even anything to go chasin after!" Tide laughed weakly and turned to head back to the station; sure enough, several emergency vehicles had pulled up. 'More will probably be coming this way to check out the impact site,' she thought grimly. 'But what was that meteor..?'
She looked up. Far above their heads, a gaping hole in reality hung suspended over Station Square. Her knees felt weak as she stared into solid blackness; the thoughts of work the next morning, of the dropped groceries, of her old racing days, and of Caracal's hiking vacation were completely gone from her mind. It was like she could fall into the void at any moment. The only thing that felt real to Tide right now was the weight of the unconscious kid in her arms as she slowly trudged toward the nearest ambulance.
It would be the first in what would become many, many strange experiences.
Author's Notes:
Congrats! If you've read this far, that means you've found this story interesting enough to at least skim through.
If you think this first chapter is a mess, then yeah, it is. Things will slow down and become clearer as this fic goes on. And as much as I would've liked to have a slow build-up to this, I think it's better that I started off with a bang instead of taking a few chapters to wind up for it; you're going to find out more about everyone as we go along.
I'm not sure exactly when the next chapter is going to be up, because I'm super finicky about getting this just right and having it all pretty. To the point of the rough draft being done in a day, but the looking-over and proofreading and adding details took a few weeks. Ouch.
This isn't my first time writing a multi-chapter fic, to be honest, but it's the first one I've put serious effort into and have been planning out for years... so it's probably going to crash and burn, haha. Hopefully it'll be a fun ride if it does, hopefully it'll be an entertaining read if it doesn't.
This is set three years after Sonic Chronicles, for the record. There's more to it than that, but that'd be too much to fit into this tiny space and would probably end up giving away spoilers for another fic I'm hoping to throw together.
And if you think the plot so far is lame or cheesy... yeah, it is. It's basically going to run through all the tropes. But at least I'm going to have fun with it!