A/N: For anyone confused by the geographic/ethnic descriptions I've been using, I'm basing most of my world info on the map from Sonic Unleashed. In that game, most named countries are analogous to (and based upon) real-world nations, though not quite identical in setting or location, i.e. "Chun-Nan" is roughly counterpart to China.

To use an example from last chapter, if I describe a character like Manic (and Sonic) as being half-white & half Chun-Nanese, readers can imagine them as being half-white, half-Chinese racially. Of course, neither Manic nor Sonic is actually from Chun-Nan, being born and raised elsewhere, so NATIONALITY is still the most important factor to consider in terms of characters' origins...just like in real life.

CHAPTER TITLE: Calling at the Crossroads
CHARACTER(S): Sonic

NEXT WEEK: Hey, is that creepy senior guy hitting on Amy Rose? No, whoa, hold up a sec—he's hitting Amy Rose! Someone get help!

Sonic ran.

Cold, stinging wind from the mountains rushed at his face and clothes, his green eyes, his blue hair. It didn't bother the fifteen-year-old in the slightest. Tails had warned him before class started that morning (halfheartedly, as though he acknowledged his words would likely fall on deaf ears) that Sonic ought not go far today if he ran, since they had company scheduled for dinner in the evening back at the house. Sally and Antoine were coming on a visit from Central City, and naturally Vanilla wanted everyone to be there.

Sonic hadn't taken Tails's advice at its word, obviously, but he still had enough precautions lined up to feel reasonably certain he wouldn't make it home too late. For one, he'd skipped his last period of class in order to get a decent head start, and he'd also left his backpack at home the way he often did, to avoid anything extra weighing him down or an unnecessary drop-off detour. Sonic knew that neither measure was likely what Tails had intended per se, but then, better to meet his buddy halfway than not at all, right? Antoine could be something of a pain in the derrière when he wanted, Sonic knew from experience, but all the same it would be a shame to miss a chance to see Sally. Sonic would be back in time, no sweat, no questions asked. He had it covered.

Besides, the whole point of running was to avoid worrying pointlessly about the things that didn't ultimately matter. Worrying about running itself, Sonic thought with a wide grin, might make him just as crazy as old Eggman!

So far this particular afternoon, Sonic had made decent distance from the school, going by his time—he'd nearly reached the edge of Station Square already, and he didn't plan to stop outside the city. High, towering rock cliffs banked him solidly on his left, forming a jagged brown blur in the teen's peripheral vision; the metal train tracks beneath his feet were just beginning to curve inward toward an upcoming tunnel that he knew cut all the way underground through the mountain. If it was dangerous for Sonic to be running directly along the path of a city transit line like this, he didn't care. He'd always managed himself just fine in times of danger before.

Coming around the bend, Sonic saw the entrance to the darkened tunnel looming less than a hundred meters ahead of him on the tracks. He didn't slow down, instead taking the transition from bright daylight to total darkness at his usual hard run. He couldn't see in the dark of the tunnel, save for the occasional spots of dim light where an emergency lantern had been mounted overhead, but the track was familiar enough in Sonic's mind that he didn't have to see the rails to know where he was going.

Rather than pride or relief, the familiarity he had toward his surroundings made Sonic feel a spark of impatience that bordered on outright resentment. Not for the first time, he reflected that his habit of running for long hours each day, even at longer and longer distances over time, tended to really mitigate his long-term chances of finding new and unseen territories to explore. He had lived in Station Square going on three years now; that was time enough for him to see pretty much everything the place had to offer within a thirty-mile radius. He was bored. The city had been fun at first, being a chance to finally see the mainland after a childhood spent running from one island to another, but...Station Square wasn't his home. Sonic wasn't sure he even had a home, in the physical sense—the closest he could imagine was the particular feeling he got sometimes, when he was right on the heels of a new adventure. It was the same feeling he had when he ran so fast that it seemed the world itself couldn't keep up, couldn't spin fast enough to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground. Nothing in Station Square approached that.

All the same, thoughts like those inevitably made Sonic feel a prickle of guilt, when he recalled any of the dozens of reasons that conspired to keep his wandering feet grounded in Station Square thus far. Vanilla and Cream themselves were the heaviest pull on his conscience: the two of them had been kind and inviting enough to open their home to Sonic and his friends for years, without any expectation of payment in return. Sonic couldn't deny that it had been comfortable, having a base of sorts to return to, especially the most convenient and accommodating one he could have imagined. Vanilla had been more understanding than most Federation adults, never once trying to change him from his stubborn habits. He doubted many caretakers would tolerate his coming and going as he pleased the way Vanilla had, always reminding Sonic gently (but firmly) to be careful before simply letting him be, on those occasions when he wandered in at 11 PM on a school night, or disappeared for weekends at a time to explore the coastline. Vanilla didn't fully understand Sonic or his circumstances, and she didn't pretend to, but unlike most people in her situation she never once attempted to force a meeting between their two differing worldviews—a distinction that Sonic, who hated compromises more than the wars they prevented, greatly appreciated.

There was also the matter of his friends. Tails and Amy really seemed to like it here. Sonic knew Amy would follow him happily to the ends of the earth, if he ever chose to leave the city (whether he wanted her there or not—she'd been tailing Sonic since she was eight and he'd long since given up wondering how she managed), but that didn't change the fact that she'd finally settled in, and had made good friends here, Cream included. Tails liked Station Square for other reasons, though no less compelling: he had a space rented out near the Mystic Ruins used as a private workshop on the weekends, where he could keep the Tornado stored along with other projects he wanted to work on. There was no doubt in Sonic's mind that his young friend would willingly give it all up, follow in Sonic's footsteps the way he always had without complaint, if Sonic ever announced a desire to leave this city, but...that didn't necessarily mean Tails would be happy about it.

Life had been so much simpler before he came here, Sonic thought, still running and shaking his head. It seemed bizarre put in concrete thoughts, but really, there was no denying that his life's direction had been clearer while solely reliant on Doctor Eggman—there just hadn't been the same amount of thought or meditation necessary, in the old days. Back then, Tails had been the only constant in Sonic's life, his best-friend-turned-partner always running at his side, and the others had been left wandering in and out of focus between adventures without much lasting consequence. Sometimes, Sonic still wished...

These wandering thoughts abruptly ground to a halt, as he picked up from sudden changes in his surroundings that he'd run much farther in his distraction than he intended to. Sonic slowed and came to a skidding stop, finding himself at the edge of the beaten path he knew lead into the untamed jungle that lay shortly beyond the city lines—he hadn't even registered leaving behind the underground tunnel, let alone arriving at the Mystic Ruins. Sonic wasn't too far out from the train station yet, but if he wanted to make it back to Vanilla's in time to beat Sally, he ought to turn back around now.

Instead, he stayed where he was, frozen by a feeling he couldn't name. An unknown sense of disturbance had rooted his feet in place, on the line that divided the ruins' mossy grass from the jungle earth that lay ahead. Was Sonic just imagining things, or did he see a dim glow coming from inside the jungle? It was hard to be certain: the light, if it was there, was almost vanishingly faint, an uncertain specter in his distant vision...but all the same, he could feel curiosity calling out to him irresistibly. Could it be an emerald he was sensing? Rings, maybe? Or something else? His heart began to beat faster.

Without conscious thought, Sonic began to move in the direction of the light: just a few steps at first, halting and uncertain, making his way into the jungle, but then before he knew it he was jogging at regular speed. The farther he went along the path, the more distant the light seemed to grow, though he quickly became certain that something was out there waiting for him to catch up. The phantom light remained just beyond the boundary of his vision, no matter his speed, but Sonic knew in his gut that he needed to keep going: the light was calling out to him, beckoning him for reasons he could hardly guess, and if he turned back now he didn't know when he might find it again.

Please, you must stop him!

There—out of nowhere, a voice! Dumbfounded, Sonic skidded to a stop on the path, glancing around the surrounding jungle to make sure he wasn't imagining things. The voice had been ethereal, and he hadn't heard it in his ears, or in his head, just—some terrified, helpless stranger's cry, coming from a place that he knew instinctively to be real yet somehow untraceable.

I beg you!

There it was again! If he was imagining this, then his imagination was a whole lot better than he'd given it credit for.

Without thinking, Sonic began to run again, farther along the path, hoping that whoever or whatever was calling out to him would be in the same destination as the distant light. He couldn't see his way back to the Mystic Ruins anymore, but he didn't care. Sonic wasn't one to ignore a plea for help.

"Hey! Who's out there?" he shouted loudly, not caring if sounded like an idiot calling out to imaginary voices in the jungle. "Hello? Can you hear me? Who is this!"

Before him, the light kept moving, always just out of reach, forcing him to follow. He could see it now, a bright colorless glow moving ever faster to outpace him. But though Sonic could now tell that the glow had a concentrated source, he couldn't catch a glimpse of it, no matter how quickly he ran—which almost never happened, not to a person with his speed. This whole thing was surreal.

Why? Why did this have to happen?

The odd phenomena wasn't stopping, so Sonic didn't either, now more determined than ever to see his newfound mystery out to the end. Moving faster and faster, he followed the phantom light down one branching jungle path after another, until he was sure he'd run at least a mile or two into canopy. He no longer cared about where the light might be taking him, or how long it would keep him running. The voice was frantic, clearly desperate about circumstances known only to it, and if Sonic didn't hurry up there was no telling what might happen before he reached it.

Finally, one winding path after countless others led somewhere different than another identical expanse of jungle: Sonic blinked, and found himself to his surprise running straight out of the thick of the trees and into a clearing. There was an enormous expanse of flat land before him, surrounded on all sides by a solid bank of trees, but at the center of the clearing was a large, magnificent temple rising from the ground. It towered over the jungle trees surrounding it, easily as tall as any of the skyscrapers in Station Square.

Sonic had to crane his neck to see to the top of the temple, and even then, he still couldn't believe his eyes. The monument was a magnificent construction, involving clay, brick, and faded paint; from the cracks spread throughout the foundation and the chunks eroded from the sides he gathered it was centuries old. Sonic could tell that whoever had built this temple had done so with reverence, paying a great deal of attention to beauty in the smallest of details: from the minute carvings engraved at intervals all the way around the outer brick wall, to the chiseled stone stairwell leading up toward the entrance, which was decorated with statues and crumbling pillars on either side.

Sonic wasn't big on old ruins or art appreciation (that was more Knuckles's bag, he thought), but all the same, he couldn't help but feel rather astounded at what he was seeing—and not much of it had to do with the design of the temple itself. What had Sonic truly confused was, how could this place have been here all this time in the center of the jungle? The temple wasn't exactly hidden, and between the countless archeologists who flooded Station Square each year seeking remnants of a rumored lost civilization that had lived in the area, and the handful of isolated jungle folk who still inhabited, sometimes illegally, the winding forest most of their lives...someone would have found this place by now if it had been here all along. Surely he couldn't be the first!

Sonic was so taken aback that he nearly failed to notice that the light he'd been chasing was now coming toward him, a formless brilliance that had already half-blinded him before he had a chance to realize what was going on. He tried in vain to keep his eyes open against the painful brilliance shimmering in the air above him, hoping to catch a glimpse of the unknown entity that had summoned him here...

"Who are you?" Sonic shouted upward, reaching a hand up toward the spot where the light seemed to shine brightest. "What's going on here?

The servers are the seven Chaos...

"What?" he demanded. "Servers? Chaos? What are you talking abou—"

The painful brightness disappeared. Sonic blinked, then opened his eyes.

He was back at the edge of the jungle, right at the very place he'd stared. The strange light, and the temple, were both gone, like they'd never been in front of him in the first place.

Wait. That meant that his strange encounter, the unknown voice, the light—none of it had happened at all. He must have been dreaming. Or just crazy. Sonic wondered how much he could trust his own memory, when it showed him bizarre things like this.

The encounter hadn't really happened. Had it?

"Whoa," he muttered to no one, blinking again and rubbing his eyes to make sure he was still in the same place when he opened them. "Am...Am I hallucinating? What's going on here?"

Scratching his head perplexedly, Sonic found himself mercifully snapped out of his bizarre thoughts by the startling realization that his shadow stretched across the ground was much longer than it was supposed to be. How long had he been standing out here?

Glancing up, he was startled to realize that the afternoon sun had already disappeared halfway behind the horizon. That meant he was late. Very late. He needed to go, or risk missing Sally and Antoine's arrival at the house...or incurring his housemates' wrath.

Against Sonic's better judgment, he nonetheless glanced down the jungle path before him again. The way seemed alight with promise, secrets of mysteries to come, calling to him so strongly he could almost hear the voice inside his mind once more: Please.

I beg you.

Slowly shaking his head, Sonic took one step backward, then another, then another. When he'd put a solid meter of distance between himself and the jungle, its phantom hold on his senses abruptly disappeared. He found himself suddenly able to turn about like normal, and he quickly started sprinting in the direction of the train station.

Sonic didn't deny that he still wanted to know more about what had happened—if anything had actually happened, which was up for debate. He wanted to know who it was that had called out to him tonight, where it had come from, and what it wanted.

But for now, Sonic's life in the present was calling him too. And there were still things in that life that, however begrudgingly, required his immediate attention. Those familiar ties were chafing him rather close for comfort as of late, as tonight's strange circumstances had proven beyond reasonable doubt...but all the same, Sonic found himself with the sneaking suspicion that certain interesting events were waiting for him on the horizon, and his friends as well.

His footsteps were already much lighter than they had been just hours ago, when he was leaving school from the first day with no real hopes of finding a new adventure. Sonic found himself grinning without trying as he ran faster, picking up speed when his feet hit the rails of the city train.

Perhaps Station Square wasn't quite so stagnant a place as he had previously believed.

Only time would tell...

EYECATCH CARD #14

NAME: Sonic
ORIGIN: SEGA
AGE: 15
EDUCATION: Station Square High School
GRADE LEVEL: Junior
NATIONALITY: Eggman Islands
TRAITS: FAST, FASTER, FASTEST—GO! Easygoing, wisecracking, friendly, lively. Impatient and nearly always on the move. As curious as the next guy, but not big on overthinking things. Easily pleased; just as easily bored. Chronic hero, attracting trouble (and new friends) like a magnet wherever he goes.
TRIVIA: Good with animals.