The continuation to "All The Right Friends"... I still only own Ozzie, his uncle, and anything and anyone else who doesn't belong to SEGA.
"SONIIIIIIIIC!"
To the immediate shock and horror of Cream and Cheese and the interested amusement of Ozzie, Amy Rose materialized her Piko Piko Hammer with an appropriately steamy hiss and aimed a fiery glare upon the currently terrified Azure Wind. Cream and Cheese smartly backed up from the upcoming altercation.
"Whoa, Amy, take it easy!" the Azure Wind pleaded shakily, hands raised in meager self-defense. Just what he needed for a welcoming—the wrath of a displeased woman...
"Easy? EASY?! YOU GO AROUND GALLAVANTING AROUND SOME RUINS WHILE CREAM AND I NEARLY GET KILLED, AND YOU WANT ME TO TAKE IT EASY?!"
Okay, Cream did not like the ugly direction this confrontation was headed; she dashed up to her enraged friend's side in an effort to calm her down.
"Miss Amy, please! You know Mr. Sonic's not that type of person! I'm sure he would have saved us if he'd been able to. Something had to have held him up, right, Mr. Sonic?" She glanced to the older mammal with hopeful eyes.
Sonic caught Cream's eyes and managed to relax somewhat in spite of Amy's hammer still being brandished at him. "Well, now that ya mention it, Cream—Oh, Amy, you're hurt!" The blue hedgehog's eyes shot wide open when they caught out the injury on Amy's leg.
Seeing the Blue Blur's concerned look quelled the anger in Amy right away—as well as did a sudden pleasant warmth. Looking down at the clotting wound on her left leg—and a closed-eyed Ozzie sitting on his knees by said leg and his pudgy hands hovering over said wound—brought in a sudden wave of self-conscious.
Slapping the burrower's hands away with a feminine gasp of "Eep," Amy dashed up to Sonic's side and grabbed his right arm, much to the embarrassment of the blushing azure male. Poor Sonic froze up like a cartoon falling into wintertime water while Amy flared up like hellfire. "Hey! Just what do you think you're doing?"
Pupils wide in shock at first but then narrowing them in to slight slits, Ozzie tapped a thick finger to his chin; the action only held mock, however. "Hmm...," the mole responded in a snide tone before craning his neck at the lady hedgehog in a smart-aleck manner. "Healing, maybe?"
Amy, huffing indignantly in response, bristled greatly at his tone of voice at first but then softened her features a smidge so that her expression held curiosity tinged with worry,. So he could fight and treat injuries then? "So you're a doctor then, right?"
'A doctor...? Not exactly how I'd put it but...' With a look of modesty, Ozzie shrugged his shoulders with a casual "Guess so."
"Hey Amy."
The rose hedgehog turned her head to her cerulean counterpart with a "huh." "Yeah Sonic?
"Trust him on this. You need that wound treated ASAP and who knows whether we'll run into something else on the way back to the T-Plane, even if I do use my super speed." Sonic suddenly smiled an assuring grin, patting Amy on the shoulder. "Besides, you can always count on Talpidean magic to get the job done and then some!"
At those words, the rose Mobian had to do a double take. 'I really don't see how that argument makes sense. He should have no problem getting me back to the T-Plane. And wait a sec, how does Sonic know that about Talpidean magic anyway? I never even thought they could do-'
All thoughts in Amy's head came to an abrupt halt as she felt the same warm energy from before pass down from the hands of Ozzie, who the female had noticed had made his way back to her injured limb without her ever noticing, into her leg wound, the skin healing quickly and painlessly. But the effects didn't stop there. The blood on Amy's leg and boot faded from view as well, much to the stupefied shock of the "patient" and to the awe of Cream and Cheese. For a final touch, Ozzie whispered a few more words before casting a brief shower of light blue sparks over both the leg and its corresponding boot.
"Decontaminate..." Ozzie explained, needing one breath to say the word but punctuating it with a smug wink.
Sonic gestured a hand to the mole. There had been no need for Amy to worry after all. "See, Ames, what did I tell ya?"
For a few moments, nothing happened. Amy alternatively switched her line of sight from her wound to Ozzie, who was looking at her, expectant of appraisal, but gradually appearing more impatient the longer she took to answer.
Eventually, the pink hedgehog parted her lips, closing her eyes and shrugging her shoulders begrudgingly at the same time. "Hmm, I guess he did a good job."
Sonic, Cream, and Cheese sweatdropped in response, a bit stunned by her uncharacteristic lack of genuine appreciation, while a wide-eyed Ozzie let his arms and hands go limp and lurched forward with an agape mouth at the girl's indifference.
'Is she freaking serious?' burned through the mole's head like a wildfire through a forest.
How dare this woman belittle his efforts to help her! He didn't have to heal her wound; he only hadout of guilt anyway. In fact, he would have gladly let that injury get infected instead if he had known she'd be so ungrateful—that would've taught her. Besides, this Sonic guy should've been able to get her medical attention easily anyway with his super spee—
'Wait...super speed...?' Those two "s" words wiped away all entertaining thoughts of outrage and payback from the mole's mind. He had known someone with super speed a long time ago...a long, long time ago actually—someone cocky but righteous-minded, someone laid back but caring and friendly...someone...blue...
All of sudden, like a beacon bursting through a dense fog, a particular memory broke through the vagueness of Ozzie's mind.
("Treasured Memories" from Kingdom Hearts)
A tiny figure—a young, diminutive mole—sat hunched over on a rock in the middle of a dense forest, whimpering incoherently as tears fell from his eyelids and onto the cool, green grass under his shoeless, clawed feet. His pitch black fur, to his faint hope, helped blend him into the deep shadows of the towering trees, especially thanks to the dimness of evening approaching fast. At least this way no one would have to look at the 'monster'—or so he'd been branded as (both by others and, most recently, himself).
'I...I didn't mean to hurt her. I don't even know how I hurt her! Why won't anyone listen?'
He had tried. His parents had tried. Even his uncle had tried.
No one cared to listen to any of them at all. All the other children only wanted were recompensing revenge. All the adults wanted were 'justice' and 'discipline'—in other words, revenge as well. For those reasons, the poor child had been ejected violently from the school building by one of the officials.
He could still hear the laughing and jabs that had been thrown at him during his humiliating removal from the classroom a few hours ago. Tears flushed from the boy's eyes more rapidly than before.
Did they honestly think hurting him back would heal the girl he had mistakenly injured? Or were they even thinking of the girl at all anymore? Was so much rage and hate sealed up within their hearts at his actions that they would willingly resort to the easiest way available to them? If so, then they only proved themselves to be just as horrible as he supposedly was!
Yet no punishment had come to them. Why?
'You know very well why.'
At the dark, grumbling, bodiless voice, a startled gasp escaped the earthbound youth as he jerked his head up...before lowering it back down with a despaired groan. 'Not again...Please, not again...'
"Hey, kid...you okay?"
The earth-child jolted his head up in sudden fear, finding himself face to face with the curious-looking countenance of a young, blue hedgehog. Standing on his feet, which were clad in pointy, red shoes with white stripes, the spike-haired stranger easily towered over the burrower, even though he looked to be right around his age if not older.
"I said are you okay?" he repeated, his squeaky voice a smidge more demanding this time but still tinged with concern.
A few seconds had to pass before the smaller child could fathom the reality before him: someone of another species talking to him—and a child, no less! The mole numbly shook his head at the blue mammal, still unsure what to make of this unfamiliar face, much less its owner's concern.
Some tales back home detailed vicious and uncaring savages who dwelled beyond the walls of Talpidean society. Both the parents and the uncle of the mole child, along with some of the family's neighbors, criticized such tales, labeling them as mere hogwash tainted by narrow-minded prejudice and a corrupt bureaucracy.
Though the mole child couldn't exactly understand all the big, fancy words used by his family members, he gathered enough over the years to comprehend the basic gist that one can't judge somebody without at least a proper meet first.
On the reverse, however, the boy also preferred to be practical. After all, one can never be too sure of someone else's intentions or motives.
"Hmm, I guess you can't talk, can ya?" the blue hedgehog joked, chuckling not unkindly, but the mole still took some offense all the same.
"I talk!" the mole retorted in a flustered fashion as he shot up from his rock and onto his hind legs. Standing up now, the mole turned out to be only a head shorter than the blue Mobian. He lightly gasped shortly afterward and his creaky voice lowered a bit on account of his shyness's immediate return. "I just don't do it a lot."
The hedgehog tilted his head with a confused-sounding "huh." "Then how come you didn't answer me the first time?" he piped up in mild curiosity. He'd never met someone so unwilling to speak.
Mole turned his head to the side; his coffee-colored eyes shimmered at unsavory memories.
"I'm sorry. People got mad at me today," he began slowly and quietly at first. "Mad at me for something I don't even remember doing...No wanted to listen to me or even look at me. All they did was be nasty to me. I tried asking everyone over and over what I did wrong, and—and..." With each progressive word, Mole's voice became thicker and more strangled in sound. Tension was building up in his throat and Hedgehog had a feeling that the little guy would start crying any second now.
'...Not that I'd blame him...' "What happened?" the hedgehog slowly asked in trepidation, not liking the grim direction taken by this telling of recent events.
"They beat on me. They kicked me, they pushed me...one of them even tried to punch me." A gasp reached the mole's ears; the hedgehog hadn't expected the story to turn out so brutal.
"And...and...the w-worst part...is...I-I'm the one who got in t-trouble! The t...t...teacher grabbed me by the arm, dragged me down the hall...'M-m-monsters don't belong here.' That's all I remember him saying before he (hiccup) threw me out into the mud."
And like a wounded dove, the heart-trodden earth child, his throat clogged with gasps for air, curled into a ball in front of the rock and cradled himself, his tears now endless rivulets running down his cheeks and his chin. He could barely see anything aside from colored blurs and blobs but he heard the defeat-laden, choking sobs bursting from his throat quite clearly.
Enough was enough! He no longer wished to endure all the hate; he no longer wished to suffer all the accusations. 'I just wanna disappear...disappear to someplace where nobody can scream at me for being bad!' But...could such a place even exist?
"Hey kid..."
Hedgehog...
'He hasn't left yet?' Mole halted his crying and looked up to the smiling cerulean mammal; he thought for sure the disgusting tears would have driven the taller boy away; that's what everyone else outside of his kin did. Yet here stood Hedgehog, still present and not at all shrinking back or scoffing at Mole's display of sorrow.
His astonishment only grew further when Hedgehog offered a gloved hand for Mole to grasp. The Talpidean youth stared at the hand in confusion, not quite sure what the gesture entailed. Could this stranger be tricking him?
"How'd you like to take a trip with me?" the hand's owner asked with a bright and friendly grin, no trace of falsehood on his face.
A meaty hand gingerly and reluctantly gripped onto the hedgehog's slimmer one. Mole sniffled discreetly as Hedgehog, with some evident effort, hoisted him up onto his back piggy-back style, a feat of strength that impressed the earthbound tyke, who certainly hadn't expected someone with such a lean stature to pick up someone of his mass so easily. "(Hiccup) To...to where?"
For a response, Hedgehog merely winked in the same teasing way Mole's father would whenever the child would insist on being told what his birthday presents were. "You'll see once we get there! Trust me; you're gonna love it! Name's Sonic by the way! What's yours?"
"O-Ozzie," squeaked out Sonic's passenger. Mole—Ozzie no longer felt scared. Far from that—he felt downright excited! For what, he had no idea whatever, but he knew anything would be better than spending a Friday evening crying over people who couldn't care less about you. So why care about them?
"Hang on, Oz! This'll be a doozy!"
Before the mole had the opportunity to ask his new companion the meaning of those words, the hedgehog departed at hyper-speed in a burst of blue light, taking an unprepared and startled Ozzie with him into the orange twilit sunlight.
(Music fades out)
Earth-russet irises reopened to the open world, their owner back in reality and in still shock at the epiphany the long-buried memory had revealed to him.
Ozzie held a hand to his head and tore his line of sight away from everyone else, nearly dizzy at the truth standing right before him. After all these years, here they were—right in front of each other in the last place Ozzie would have ever expected their re-encounter to take place. He raised his eyes to get a look once more at the face that looked so much like that of the child that had saved him from total loneliness all those years ago.
Ignoring the perplexed stares of Amy, Cream, and Cheese, Ozzie took a slow step forward before placing a hand on Sonic's shoulder. The corners of his lips melted into a grin full of hearty disbelief. "Sonic."
With a gentle nod and nostalgic gaze, the Azure Wind matched his long-lost friend smile for smile. "Long time, no see, old buddy."
This chapter was more or less drama-practice for me. So did I lay down the drama on too much, or did I get it just right?