Arcreus: Messiah Chapter 1: In The Beginning, a sonic the hedgehog fanfic

A/N: This is a remake of my old story "Swan Song", it will be longer, more spaced and will focus more deeply on the characters backstories. The old one didn't do much of these and was fairly confusing and boring, so I decided to rewrite this. Also this story does contain elements from the Archie Comics Enjoy!

It was a dark and cold February evening in Station Square, a torrent of rain was falling on the sleeping city, causing the roads and pavements to shine and the air to shimmer like liquid glass. The cities nightlife was starting to awaken and replace the hard-working atmosphere that hung around the city in the day like battle fumes into one of drinking, sin and entertainment. In a small, dark alleyway in a vacant industrial estate, a teenage hedgehog sat next to the overflowing bins, head hung low, letting the rain fall on him with no objection. He was wearing only a tattered pair of jeans, now soaked through and caked in mud, the dull white fur on his chest was matted and stained with blood. His spiky, purple streaked quills hung in a comic fashion as if they had never been washed. He stood up, bent double in pain, one hand clutched to his chest in a hope of ceasing the flow of blood that cascaded from five, long deep gashes that ran the length of his chest.

He cast his crystal blue eyes to the black sky, raindrops mixing in with his own tears of pain, anger and sorrow, his name was Theodore Arcreus, and he was the most broken soul you could ever meet. With a hand still cradled to his chest, he stumbled through the alley and onto a back road, it houses rising each side like sentinels, silent and unimposing, Theo shuddered, remembering his own home, or the shit-hole that he had once called home, where his father beat him 24/7 and called him a "Freak" and a "Bastard". That nights beating had been worse than ever, armed with his crystallised form, he had slashed him from here till kingdom come, Theo had some how found the strength to escape from that hellhole when his father had passed out from his consumption of alcohol. Even now, over three miles from his home, Theo swore that he could hear his blood-drenched footsteps and the sound of his fathers name echoing everywhere.

Mephiles…

He half-jogged, half-limped down the street, blood dripping from him and marking his tracks like breadcrumbs but were soon washed away by the rain. Every part of him hurt, as if his entire body had been put in a mincer then pounded by a sledgehammer, he needed to get to the nearest hospital and fast. The street was deserted except a few old cars and a small, white van. Then he heard some bangs and some mild muttering in the warehouse opposite, Theo looked around quickly, finding no hiding place, he tried opening the back of the van, the doors opened with a creaking sigh, he dived in and slammed the doors shut behind him. It was pitch black inside the van except for a narrow shaft of light that illuminated a bundle of oil soaked rags, he grabbed them and covered himself in them, warming and hiding himself and using them to stop the flow of blood that streamed from his fresh wounds.

The muttering grew closer and closer towards the van; Theo drew the rags closer to himself, shivering slightly from the cold but also from fear, the door creaked open, he curled up in rags leaving one small gap so he could see and breath. Through the open door, he could see two burly men, both dressed in dirty blue overalls, each of whom where carrying, a variety of tools and equipment over their shoulders. They were laughing over some unknown joke and didn't bother looking where they threw their burden of tools. After, a brief few seconds, one of the men slammed the door with a loud bang, plunging the inside of the van into complete darkness except the small shaft of light that filtered through the doors. Theo shuffled towards the small gap and peered through, through this he could see the silent street and the desolate warehouses standing like dark sentinels in the gloom. The engine of the van, coughed and spluttered into life, and the van turned off the road on onto another.

Theo sat back and sighed, he pulled the covers off himself and watched the streams of blood continue to flow down his chest. He remembered a trick he did to stop himself bleeding to death, he scrambled around looking for the materials he needed, after a few minutes of scrambling he found a dirty needle and a length of blue thread. With shaking fingers, he threaded the needle and dipped it into his flesh and began to stitch up his slashes, as his flesh knitted together, Theo winced with pain even though he was used to this surgical procedure, he bit off the remainder of the thread and pulled the skin together with a squelch. He pulled a loose thread off his jeans and threaded the needle once again and dipped the blood soaked needle back into his flesh. He heard the sound of a gate creaking open, being careful not to stab himself with the needle, Theo crawled over to the door and peered out of it, they had just turned off the industrial estate and were now racing towards downtown Station Square.

Then, a stab of pain hit him in his head, he pulled the needle out of his flesh , and cradled his head as pain coursed through him with no mercy, images began flashing before his eyes, horrible terrifying images, he groaned and let the nightmare consume him: A city in flames; people being slaughtered by an unknown force; their blood dancing in the air in a surreal fashion; an army being consumed by fire and heat; then overlooking them all was a shadowy figure, its cloak billowing behind it like the wings of a great and powerful creature, it was so dark and smoky that he couldn't see much detail except the figures shinning ruby eyes glinting in the darkness, the pure rage and evil in those eyes hallowed into Theo like an abyss. Suddenly as quickly as the visions happened, they ended as Theo was abruptly pulled back into reality,

"What the hell was that about?" Theo said aloud "What the hells wrong with me, first the weird powers, now these visions? What does it all mean?".

He felt the van lurch to the left as the van turned onto another street, then he suddenly felt a violent stab in his left arm, he yelped and cradled his arm, a black burn-like mark started to spread along his thin bicep, burning away the fur and revelling his blackened skin, Theo writhed in pain, and lashed out violently with his feet, smashing open the vans doors, and sending his pain-racked body flying out of the back. He was in so much pain he barely noticed his body slam into the wet tarmac at speed, Cars squealed to a halt as Theo rolled down the motorway in a bloody heap,a lump of rock flew up and hit Theo straight in the eye, puncturing it, Theo roared with pain as he felt warm blood pour down his face, he then discharged thousands of bolts of electricity, which flew all around, hitting cars and ripping holes in the wet tarmac, sending smoking chunks of asphalt and concrete into the air and raining down like meteors onto the halted traffic, dinting roofs and smashing windscreens. Theo's limp and broken body began to rise into the air, electricity still coursing through him. With a wild yell, Theo threw his limbs outwards and let loose a hyper-charged shockwave, which picked up anything within a 100 metre radius and tossed it away as if it were dust on the wind, the road ripped itself up casting out a shell of debris that tore through anything left. The injured white and purple hedgehog landed on the ripped floor then collapsed on his knees clutching his eye in a severe spasm of pain, he heard footsteps running towards him, he groaned and collapsed to the ground. He felt himself being lifted to his feet and a bandage being wrapped around his bleeding eye, he turned, weakly to his left to see who had lifted him up. It was a black and crimson hedgehog with dark red eyes and a grim expression on his face as if all of his life had turned upside down; he glanced down at Theo,

"Don't worry" he said in an emotionless voice "We'll get you to a safe place".

Some soldiers ran over and took Theo of the hedgehog and began carrying him towards a overturned black van, peppered with debris and shards of tarmac, the black and red hedgehog took a radio of one of the soldiers and after a bit of tuning, found a frequency and began talking into it,

"This is Special Ops, Agent Shadow, I need urgent medical assistance on the North Highway, we have three men injured and another civilian in a critical condition, we also believe that this is a Code 6 civilian, I repeat, Code 6, over.". Shadow tossed the radio back and walked over the van in which Theo and the other soldiers were being patched up. Theo looked up at the soldiers crowded around him, weapons raised, cold, hardened expressions on their faces.

"Stand down" Shadow said calmly, the soldiers grudgingly obeyed, putting their weapons back in their holsters and muttering insults along the lines of 'fucking hedgehog bastard'. Shadow crouched beside Theo and stared deep into his good eye,

"Who the fuck are you?" he murmured softly as he continued to stare into his eye, Theo didn't answer, he just looked at Shadow with a dark and broken expression, Shadow snarled and picked up Theo by the shoulders and slammed him into the wall, making Theo yelp.

"WHO ARE YOU!" Shadow yelled, "You've killed over 20 people and caused billions of dollars worth of damage, you're a danger to society, it would be worth if I could know your god damn name".

"Sir don't you think-" a soldier stammered

"Fuck off, Private" Shadow yelled at him, the soldier opened his mouth to say something, but then chose to sit down.

"T-T-Theo A-Arcreus" Theo stammered, quivering slightly.

"Well Theo, I hope you know you're in deep shit now" Shadow breathed, then threw him hard towards the back of the van, he smashed the back of his head against the solid wall, knocking him out cold.

A few hours later, Theo awoke in a bright, bare room on a clean, white bed, his quills had been washed and now hung around his head and eyes. The slashes on his chest had been stitched up and all of his cuts and grazes had been cleaned and disinfected. He thought it strange how his vision had suddenly been tainted with a red hue, then he suddenly remembered the horrible accident that had happened and the soldiers he had encountered. He reached up and touched the place where his horribly damaged eye had been, only to be met with cold metal. He jumped up and rushed towards a large mirror on the opposite wall. He stared dumb-struck at the new feature on his face, his eye had been removed and had replaced with a sleek, black robotic one, a glowing red light serving as the pupil, the edge of the mechanical implant had been welded onto his very flesh. A network of scars covered the skin just outside his new robotic eye, he traced his finger over them, they felt tender but not dire, Theo noticed some smaller scars covering his muzzle, but they were too small to feel. Then, he heard a quiet whining sound from an unknown source, however a few seconds later, his tainted vision zoomed forward so the miniscule scars could be seen.

"Holy shit!" Theo yelled and jumped backwards, his vision instantly righting itself, he scrambled up from the floor, and looked back at the mirror completely transfixed. However, unknown to Theo on the other side of the two-sided mirror was Shadow the Hedgehog and Commander Towers, the head of GUN.

"So, what do you think sir?" Shadow asked, smirking slightly,

"You said you found him on the North Highway?" Commander Towers asked

"Yes, sir, the kid fell out the back of a van travelling at speed and then subconsciously conjured up a protective electric force-field, which destroyed the highway and all occupancies in a 200 metre radius, the force of it flipped our GUN surveillance van over and injured several soldiers".

"Did you find anything for 'Arcreus'" Commander Towers said, his diverse eyes gazing at Theo as he tried to find a way out of his prison, He got so frustrated, that he charged up a white hot bolt of electricity and launched it at the wall, where it crackled against the wall.

"Yes, sir" Shadow said, darkly "Its just as we feared, he's Mephiles' son" he hesitated and began to talk "Sir, do you think we should hold the boy hostage, so we can capture-".

"No!" Towers shouted, glaring at Shadow " I'm not putting a kid in danger, no, my plan is the exact opposite".

"What?. you don't think" Shadow said, stunned,

"Yes" Towers said grinning "We're going to train him, if he does well, he could become a Sergeant in 2 years, a Captain in 4". Shadow smirked,

"So you think this kid one day may take down one of the most feared enemies on the planet?".

Commander Towers smiled, "I don't think he will, I know he will".

A/N: Review and tell me what you think. I'm also accepting OC's for this story, PM them me if your interested…