Light of Hope

(Disclaimer: I do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of the games/characters, I only own my OC character(s); all credit goes to the original creators at Sega, please support the official release).

Prologue: Where it all began (OC's POV)

My name is Nyx Snowfall, I'm a member of the Resistence Force against the evil Dr. Eggman or at least I was until our side finally won the war, saving the world and tossing that demented bastard into Null Space. You're probably wondering who I was just before all this went down, well let me tell you my story:

I was born and raised in Sunset Heights, and I lived with my mother and father, Angel and Titan Snowfall. We weren't very rich but we still managed to live a decent lifestyle and I was just grateful to have a loving family despite not having much money. Growing up, I've always been a pretty smart kid when it came to medical science and I'm sure my parents had picked up on it considering as a little kid, whenever I had accidentally injured myself, I'd treat myself instead of letting them do it.

So when I turned eighteen, they decided to send me to Medical School so that I could become a doctor; since the schools expenses, like textbooks, were kind of on the expensive side, I offered to get a part time job in order to help my parents cover the costs but they assured me that they could handle it and that I should only focus on my studies.

I spent all my free time, that I had once spent walking through the woods and drawing pictures of flowers, studying for my classes and exams. I wanted to make extra sure that I passed every single one of them so that I could become a doctor and my parents would be proud of me. They were able to cover the costs for all the materials I needed to succeed, though I did sometimes question where they were getting the money to do so, but they'd just shrug me off and said they were working overtime in their jobs as an accountant and a chef in a small diner.

Of course, I was suspicious but I let it go as I was more concerned with succeeding in school. Soon the big day had come when I learned that I passed every class and exam when straight A+ and was able to graduate with a Master's Degree and a license to practice medicine. I had left the graduation party early so that I could surprise my parents with the good news, but when I burst in through the door of our house, my smile immediately dropped.

Standing in the middle of the living room was a burly looking bear wearing black leather and holding a gun, and lying on the floor were...my parents...in a pool of their own blood. They both had three bullet wounds in their chests and didn't appear to be moving or breathing; I stood there in shock but quickly snapped out of it when the intruder came running towards me, I thought fast and grabbed a nearby lamp, throwing it at him. It struck him on the forehead and knocked him unconscious.

I then walked over to the corpses of my parents, fell to my knees and began crying hysterically; I think I might have blacked out at one point because next thing I knew, I was in the employee lounge of a police station. One of the officers came up to me and explained what had happened: as it turned out, my parents had been borrowing money from a lone thug who got said money by stealing from rich homes and selling the stolen items on the black market.

My parents had been desperate for cash to help get me through medical school so they met him in an alley and pleaded with him to let them borrow a couple thousands of dollars, and he agreed so long as they could pay him back, but when they couldn't he decided to take another form of payment... their lives. He would've killed me too if I hadn't knocked him senseless with that lamp. My friend, Andrew the Squirrel, showed up half an hour later to ask me if I wanted to go with him and my three other friends, Rachelle, Toby and Lindsay, to a fancy restaurant to celebrate my graduation and that's how he found me crying and screaming over my parents' dead bodies and called the police.

The officer said they apprehended the thug and he was being sent to jail but there was nothing the paramedics or doctors could do to save my parents, they died a few minutes before I came home. I immediately burst out into tears just as my friends came in to comfort me, and what made it worse was the last thing I said to my parents was "I love you Mom and Dad, I'll see you guys later and next time you see me, I'll be a certified doctor!"

And now they'll never get to see me be the doctor I've always wanted to be.

A month or so after the incident, Toby offered to let me stay with him and his two sisters at their home since mine was a crime scene and still being processed for evidence, he figured being among friends would help me get over the trauma of my parents' death but within two months I fell into a serious spout of chronic depression. I would lock myself in the guest room Toby let me sleep in for days on end; I didn't sleep and barely ate anything.

And then my depression took a turn for the worst: I began to have frequent nightmares and then one day, Toby found me in the bathroom sliding a steak knife across my arm. I had started cutting myself so I could feel something, so I could feel a pain worse than the pain of losing my parents. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't care; at that moment it felt good to distract myself from the pain with even more pain.

My friends had quickly got me some professional help when one of my little cutting sessions almost ended with me inadvertently slitting my wrist and nearly killing myself. I started seeing a psychiatrist every few weeks, he came to the conclusion that witnessing such a violent scene and having my parents be the victims traumatized me so much that my brain had instantly shut itself off from trying to heal itself and convinced itself that more pain would help me get over the pain I was already in.

I had to spend three months in a mental ward and was put on antidepressants to help me recover from my trauma; my friends visited me, and spending time outside and drawing flowers like I used to when I was little helped me slowly but surely heal. I still thought about my parents but only about the good times we had together and how much I loved them and they loved me.

I was eventually allowed to go back home with my friends and I even started working at a hospital after that, I did become a doctor and so it was time for me to start saving lives. I was happy again...that is, until we heard the bad news. My friends and I heard about the attacks by Dr. Eggman and a jackal named Infinite and how supposedly Sonic the Hedgehog, famous hero, was captured and killed by them after being defeated in a fight with them.

There was a resistance force gathering to combat this threat and the civilizians were being evacuated to secret underground bunkers to kept them safe while they fought, but Eggman's forces were too strong and in about six months, he had taken over most of Mobius.

My friends and I didn't immediately leave Sunset Heights when they were evacuating and they had the "smart" idea of fighting back. I was against it, I'm a healer not a fighter and besides, what could we do against an evil mad scientist and a jackal armed with some kind of gem that gives him the power to create illusions and distort reality?

My friends insisted we go anyway, and we ventured to Capital City where Infinite was currently attacking. Armed with laser guns and Wispons, my friends fought as hard as they could while I sat in the background hoping they'd change their minds and run away, but that wasn't the case.

Infinite blasted them with lasers, instantly killing all four of them. My friends...Rachelle, Toby, Andrew and Lindsay...they all had died right there in front of me while I cowered in fear. I wasn't thinking, I grabbed one of their Wispons and lifted it up at Infinite but I was too shaken by shock and fear to shoot him. He laughed at me fear and blasted a laser beam at me, knocking me over; he then said, "Flee screaming and I'll let you live".

To this day, I never understood why he spared me but nevertheless, I did run away screaming for my life until I found myself in another town, which was deserted. I collapsed near some crumbling rubble of a building and once again began crying hysterically; once again, someone I cared about was violently taken from me and there was nothing I could do to stop it or reverse it.

I had spotted a piece of broken glass near me, I had wanted to pick it up, I wanted to cut myself again but I remembered what my therapist said the day I was released from the mental ward, "I'm proud of you for the amount of effort and maturity you put into recovering, and I'm sure your parents would be proud too. Just remember that you have to be strong in the face of such tragedies, the moment you give up is the moment you truly lose everything".

And that's why I couldn't cut myself again because if I did that would've meant that I gave into my fears and sorrow and let it beat me. So, despite my emotional pain, I got up and wandered around looking for someone to help me; I wandered around the abandoned town for days, with no food or water. Just when I had collapsed from the heat and thought I was going to die of starvation/dehydration, I was found by a red echidna I now know as Knuckles.

He brought me to the Resistance Base where I was given some food and water and looked over by some of the doctors that managed to escape, some of which I recognized as my coworkers from the hospital. They found out I was a doctor too and suggest I stay on the sidelines to help treat injured soldiers but I pleaded with Knuckles to let me join in and fight on the front lines; I wasn't about to just sit on the side and let the monster that took my friends from me continue to hurt others if I could fight back.

He agreed to let me join in the fight and I was given both a grappling hook and a Wispon to defend myself; my very first mission was to rescue Sonic, who as it turned out was actually alive, from Dr. Eggman's Death Egg Base. I was both excited and terrified to go on a solo mission but I had managed to pull through and, as it turns out, Sonic is a pretty great guy.

He had given me a few pep talks about being brave and not letting my fear control me, which helped in the few times I ran into Infinite again; before he had terrified me, but with Sonic and my new friends backing me up, I was able to swallow my fear and fight back.

Together we managed to defeat Infinite and , the latter of whom was now trapped in Null Space, and finally put an end to the war, saving our planet. I had never been so happy in my entire life, but standing there knowing I helped save an entire planet home to billions of Humans and Mobians, I couldn't have been more proud of myself.

After the fighting was over, we all had to say goodbye to that tiny Sonic that doesn't speak as he was brought to our dimension with the Phantom Ruby's power and when it was destroyed, he slowly began fading back to his dimension. I didn't have that many interactions with the little guy seeing as he never spoke, but I was still sad to see him leave; he was a great partner to have by my side during the final battle and to be honest, he was really adorable. Seriously, there were a lot of times I had to remind myself that he wasn't a baby despite how small and child-like he looked.

After the war ended, I made a quick trip back home just to make sure my house was still standing; I lived in a two story house between the entrance to a small forest and just outside of Sunset Heights. Sure enough, it was one of the few buildings that was still standing, it just was covered by some dust and bits of debris. I returned back to the base to join my new friends in rejoicing that the war was finally over.

There was one question that still lingered in my mind though: what happened to Infinite? When Sonic and I defeated him, he just shot off into the direction of Eggman's base, but after we defeated Eggman there was no sign of Infinite anywhere. Even though he had hurt me and a lot other people, I was still very curious about him and what his story was.

Who was he? Where did he come from? And where was he now? A part of me hoped I'd never see him again as he still struck fear into my heart but another part of me wondered if I ever would see him again, if only so I could learn more about him and find out just why he did what he did in the first place.

Author's Note: And thus ends the prologue to my Sonic Forces story; I don't care what anyone says about this game because I love it! I love its story, I love its concepts, I love its new villain and I love the gameplay option of making your own character. I've had this idea for a long time now and I'm finally going to follow through with it. Oh and if there's any of you wondering where that Shadow story I wrote went, I deleted it because while I came up with the concept for it, I had no way of continuing it so I just gave up on it. This story, however, I have a concept and a story to go along with it, so come back in Chapter 1 to see what happens. Until next time, this is SuperKirbyLand234 signing out!