It was quiet. Way too quiet.
For those who were getting used to the near constant chaos of war, seeing it now over and the world around them now quiet, it was a big change for them. They were going to have to get used to normal life again, that is once they rebuild.
The regular folk have it easy, though. At least they didn't have to endure six months of torture on Eggman's moon base.
That unfortunate honor fell to the world-renowned hero Sonic the Hedgehog, standing on a cliff and watching as Knuckles and Amy directed the cleanup effort in a nearby town, assisting where needed.
Now, Sonic had always prided himself on never letting anything get to him. People looked up to him as a hero, so he always had to keep a brave face on, even when things got hard for him, like when Eggman used the power of Dark Gaia to turn him into a werehog. That wasn't fun for him.
Still, there was only so much a hedgehog like him could take before he broke, and the six months he spent captured by the doctor just happened to be it.
While Sonic was too proud to admit it to anyone out loud, he knew that if Eggman really put his mind to it, he could be as sadistic as he wanted to, and the torture he put Sonic through proved it without a doubt, being less physical and more mental.
Thankfully, the resistance was there to bust him out before he finally broke (and getting to kick Zavok's butt was a nice stress reliever), but what had happened in that cell was always in the back of his mind.
Luckily, he'd had the war to keep his mind off of it, but once Infinite and Eggman were defeated and the Phantom Ruby was destroyed, Sonic had nothing else to occupy himself, so the memories came back in full force.
Sonic desperately needed to get away from everyone for a while, so that was why he was standing on said cliff having just had a nervous breakdown in peace. Frankly, he was lucky that everyone was used to him running off on his own a lot, because he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to handle the awkward questions that would come each time he tried to have some private time to himself.
Still, it was worth it for him to put up with it, because he had no intention of letting anyone know of what he was dealing with, not even his friends.
After wiping his eyes with a gloved hand to hopefully clear up some of the tearstains, Sonic decided he was probably going to have to head back before the others started to get concerned.
Zipping off, Sonic made a quick U-turn around the bottom of the cliff before speeding off to the town he was looking over before, coming to a stop inches of front of Knuckles as a gust of wind followed in his wake.
"Sonic! We just spent the last hour cleaning all that up." said Knuckles.
Sonic was admittedly slightly puzzled, but after looking to where the annoyed echidna was gesturing to, he soon realized that he'd accidentally scattered a pile of debris around the area that was originally in a neat pile.
"Whoops." said Sonic, a sheepish grin on his face as he scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry about that. Guess I kind of poured the speed on a bit too hard. Need any help getting that back together?"
Knuckles sighed heavily, pressing a gloved hand to his temple to relieve a headache coming on.
"No, Amy and I have got it."
Sonic glanced over to where Amy was standing with some civilians, looking slightly windswept but otherwise normal. After a small smile of acknowledgement which Amy quickly returned, Sonic turned back towards Knuckles.
"So…is there anything else I can do? I'm getting kind of restless here."
Knuckles opened his mouth, intending to make a snippy comment, but Amy beat him to the punch, stepping in front of the suddenly bewildered echidna.
"Actually, I just remembered that Tails said he needed a hand."
"Really? What's he up to now?" asked Sonic, genuinely curious.
"Apparently working on some upgrades of some sort for Omega. Come on, I'll take you to him."
"Hang on, Amy. What about Knuckles?"
Sonic's voice was lowered as he spoke, not wanting the subject in question to hear what they were talking about. Luckily, he seemed to be busy recollecting all of the debris that Sonic messed up, so for all intents and purposes the echidna wasn't really listening.
"I'm sure he'll be alright for a little bit. Now come on!"
Sonic couldn't help but be puzzled as to what was going on with Amy as she grabbed his wrist and began leading him off towards one of the buildings down the way, letting go once they got going.
Once they were out of earshot of the others, Amy quickly went to work, turning towards Sonic as they continued walking.
"Listen Sonic, are you doing alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." said Sonic, his answer coming out very quickly as he was used to having to deal with those questions by now.
However, unlike other days, Amy wasn't willing to just drop the subject. Taking a few quick steps forwards, the pink hedgehog stepped in front of Sonic, the blue blur forced to stop as he gave her a puzzled look.
"I'm sorry, Sonic, but I'm not convinced you are fine. I know you like to have your alone time sometimes, but I've noticed that it's been starting to get excessive ever since the war ended."
Sonic really didn't want to get into an argument with Amy, but he really felt the need to at least defend himself.
"Amy, I just needed some time to think. That's all. Seriously, I don't know why you're being so persistent right now."
"Tails and I are worried about you, Sonic. Especially Tails." said Amy matter of factly. "The poor kid's been a mess ever since you got captured all those months ago, and you going off on your own so much is really not helping him."
Sonic opened his mouth once more, but he quickly realized that Amy was right. Ever since he was filled in on what had happened while he was gone, he'd wanted to make things up with his best friend, but he'd unfortunately never found the chance to. Even after the war was over, the cleanup combined with his issues had sidetracked him ever since.
Letting out air through his nose, Sonic brushed his hands through his quills before focusing his attention on Amy once more.
"You're right as always, Ames. I think I'm going to have a nice long talk with him."
Even though the original point of joining him was to lead him to the two-tailed fox, Amy instead smiled, pointing off towards a nearby building.
"Last I saw him, he was working inside that building."
"Good."
Sonic lifted a foot up to speed off to the building, but after a few seconds he reconsidered, not wanting to make a mess of Tails's work like he did with Knuckles and Amy. Plus, it wasn't really all that far anyway.
Adopting a brisk pace, it still didn't take very long for Sonic to reach the building that Amy pointed him to, and as he came up to the blown-out entrance, he could see his best friend just inside, his back to the doorway as he stood over the deactivated Omega. There were also flashes of what Sonic assumed to be welding sparks coming from between them, so as he stepped into the building, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light.
"Yo!" said Sonic, having to shout a bit to be heard over the torch. "How's it going, Tails?"
The torch was thankfully shut off, and as Sonic lowered his arm back to his side, Tails looked behind him and saw the blue hedgehog, beaming as he raised the welding mask he was wearing.
"Hey, Sonic!" he said. "Glad to see you've finally decided to join the rest of us."
"Me too, little buddy. So, what have you been up to?"
Sonic was specifically looking at Omega as he spoke, so Tails was quickly able to understand what the hedgehog was getting at.
"Oh, right! I've noticed that Omega's machine guns tended to jam sometimes, so I looked inside him and noticed that the belt feeding system was worn out, most likely from lack of use. He was pretty rusty when I found him back while you were…gone."
Sonic was about to ask Tails to translate his tech speak into something he might be able to understand, but when the fox mentioned the word gone, all of those thoughts immediately went out of the window as he saw the distressed look on the kid's face.
Sonic immediately dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around Tails, lightly patting him on the back as his shoulders shook, the young fox trying his best not to cry.
"It's okay. I'm here. I'm not going to leave you again."
Luckily, Tails was able to hold himself together, so when he heard the hitching in Tails's breath come to a stop, he let him go, smiling as he watched Tails wipe his eyes with a hand.
"You gonna be alright?" he asked.
"Yeah. I just…I'm still not quite used to seeing you back. I was so convinced that you weren't going to come back after seeing you get beaten so easily by Infinite and get taken away to Eggman's ship. I don't want to think about what they could have done to you there."
Sonic froze, looking haunted as the memories flooded back unfortunately thanks to being reminded of that time.
"Are you alright, Sonic?" asked Tails, having clearly noticed Sonic's sudden change in demeanor, not to mention feeling Sonic's hands squeezing his shoulders a little too hard.
The only real sign that Sonic had even heard his best friend was his ear flicking towards him, but luckily he managed to pull himself together, shaking his head before focusing his attention back on the fox in front of him.
"Yeah, I'm good. I was just…thinking for a bit."
Tails did not look convinced, but at this point in time he desperately wanted to avoid ending up driving Sonic away, so he reluctantly kept his mouth shut.
Meanwhile, Sonic was admittedly a little nervous that Tails would see through his admittedly weak excuse. Thankfully, even though his expression said differently, Sonic was a bit relieved when Tails didn't say anything about it, taking that fact as a win.
Before things got more awkward between them, Sonic decided it was probably a good time to change the subject, so after returning to his feet, he clasped his hands behind his back, rocking back and forth on his feet as he adopted a playful tone.
"So…I hear a certain two-tailed fox could use a bit of help working on…whatever it is he was working on." he said, mentally wincing as he realized he forgot what Tails was working on.
"I suppose that's true. Is there anyone who would be able to help?" asked Tails, smiling as he was luckily catching on.
"Well, I'm not busy with anything, so I guess I could help out." said Sonic, retaining his tone as he drew out the word 'guess'.
Almost beaming knowing that he managed to pull Tails out of his funk, Sonic spent the next few hours with his friend, handing off tools when needed, but for the most part just spending time catching up since the whole mess started.
Once the sun set, though, they both knew that they were going to have to go to bed early considering there was still a ton of work to do with the restoration efforts.
Unfortunately, Omega wasn't in a state where he could be turned back on so that they could head back home, so they had to stay the night inside the town. Luckily, the townsfolk were more than happy to accommodate them, letting both Sonic and Tails as well as Amy and Knuckles stay in an unused house.
While the latter three were eager to get some sleep, the former really felt like he wasn't going to be able to sleep. He didn't blame Tails in the least for bringing the memories back, but the fact that they were back at all didn't help his mental state.
So, while the others headed into the house, Sonic decided he needed to take a bit of a walk alone.
Thankfully, everyone else was too worn out from the long day to pay too much attention, so he managed to sneak off without any issue.
As he began walking, though, he soon realized that the fresh air wasn't doing him any favors, as images flashed through his mind of the hallucinations that Infinite put him through at the behest of the doctor, images that would scar even the hardest person in the world.
Frankly, Sonic was surprised that Infinite would have had that kind of ability even with the powers he had, but then again, this was just another form of proof of the doctor's extremely sadistic nature.
His face scrunching up in a desperate attempt to get the images out of his mind, Sonic quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway, clutching at his head as he curled into a ball.
His shoulders soon began to shake as Sonic, the normally unflappable hero, was struggling to keep his emotions in.
"You're okay. You're okay." repeated Sonic to himself, almost like a mantra as he tried to calm himself down, rocking back and forth on his behind.
He wasn't okay, though, as the images in his mind refused to go away, and the quiet words soon gave way to quiet sobs as Sonic hid his face in between his legs.
Over the next few minutes, the only sound in the area was the blue blur having yet another nervous breakdown.
Unfortunately for Sonic, though, the emotional toil he was currently going through meant that he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. If he was doing so, he would have heard the telltale sound of a grappling hook connecting with a nearby building.
The owner of said grappling hook soon swung in, landing with a soft thunk on the ground, followed by some gravel falling on the ground as well as he detached the hook from its connecting point.
Once the noise stopped though, the owner, a red wolf with military green boots and gloves and a pair of glasses attached to a communicator, stopped, having heard a noise coming from nearby.
Carefully following the noise, the wolf eventually came up to the alleyway and took a few steps inside only to stop, his jaw dropping as he saw just who was inside.