Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog and all related characters, trademarks, locations, etc. are the property of SEGA, Sonic Team, Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima. "Shining Star" is the property of Earth, Wind & Fire. I claim no ownership to any element except original story content.


Shining Star

Sonic had never had hallucinations before, but given the state he was in, that sounded like a reasonable explanation for what he was seeing. Given the widened eyes and outstretched arm in front of him, Ray seemed to be having similar thoughts. For a long moment, neither moved an inch.

"S-s-s-sonic?" Ray sputtered, breaking the silence with a few short steps toward his old friend. "I-is that—h-h-how did you—what are you d-d-doing here…?"

At that moment, he touched Sonic's shoulder, and they both knew it was real.

"Ray!" Sonic suddenly shouted, grabbing the squirrel's arm with his free hand. "Dude, what happened? Where'd you come from? How'd—" he stopped, finally taking in Ray's appearance. "Bro… you look terrible."

Despite the small smile of relief on the young squirrel's face, Sonic was not over-exaggerating. Nearly every inch of Ray's mustard-yellow fur was matted with some form of mud, dirt or grease. He clearly hadn't eaten anything decent in days and what little exposed skin he had was slightly paler than usual. Even the tip of his right ear seemed abnormally frayed, almost as if something had snagged it and nearly torn it off.

"L-long story," Ray meekly replied. "It's j-j-just that…" Without warning, he leapt forward and grabbed Sonic firmly by the waist in a hug. "Y-you have no idea h-h-how glad I am to see you! The others, t-they're…"

His jovial attitude quickly turned somber as he released the hedgehog, staring at the ground with a depressing frown on his face. Sonic couldn't help but feel a brief twinge of pity for all that the kid must've been going through—out of everybody in his gang, he'd always held a bit of a soft spot for Ray.

"Ray… where is everybody?" Sonic quietly asked. "Did that alien lunatic trap 'em in robots, too?"

Ray looked up and shook his head, his frown never leaving his features. "N-no. I th-think it's worse."

Sonic grimaced, his jaw clenching behind his closed lips. Robotnik had just pulled another fast one on him and he didn't want to waste any more time in hunting him down again. Breaking a few robots, he could do. "Worse" meant "worse." It also meant more work.

"Point me in the right direction, Ray," he said, bending down on one knee to tighten the straps on his shoes. "I'm gonna kick that guy right in his tin can…"

"And then y-y-you're gonna save 'em, right, Sonic?" Ray blurted out, taking a few steps forward eagerly.

"If I have time, dude," Sonic replied absently, giving his straps one last tug. "Can't be too far behind him, so I'd better jet now before-"

"If you h-have… wait, what?"

Sonic's head shot up, wide-eyed realization all over his face. Somehow, he figured that wasn't what Ray wanted to hear.

"Wh-what are you t-t-talking about, Sonic? All our friends are in danger! Th-the entire-"

"Hey, I know, alright? I just-" Sonic huffed, running a hand up his forehead in agitation. Everything seemed dead-set on making his life miserable today… "Look, just tell me where he took them, will ya? I have to-"

"Y-you can't just leave me! D-do you know what I've been through j-just to f-f-find help…?" Ray panicked, scrambling closer to the uncomfortable hedgehog.

"You made it this far, didn't you? I'm sure you'll have no problem-"

"T-take me with you!" Ray finally cried. "I can sh-show you where everyone was taken to! Then you can s-save them and we c-can all go home!"

"Duuuude," Sonic groaned. "I…" He leaned his head back, fingers sliding over his closed eyes. Yet another reason he wished for the old days… so he'd never have to deal with lame stuff like this. Very slowly, he straightened up and looked Ray in the eye. "I move faster on my own."

Ray was silent for a moment, wide eyes boring through the hedgehog's with an unblinking stare. "S-so…" he began, moisture beginning to form at the corners of his eyes, "Y-you're just gonna leave us b-behind?"

And now the crying starts.

Sonic let an exasperated puff of air escape his lips. He could try and convince Ray to quit being a coward. He could give in and let the kid take the lead. He could just run off on his own and take his chances. Either way, he was just wasting time standing around until he decided to do something.

"This is gonna hurt, isn't it?" he moaned under his breath.


Me and my big mouth.

"So explain to me—OW—why we've gotta do this? My fur keeps getting caught in this stupid…"

"Trust me," Ray replied, looking over his shoulder at the frustrated hedgehog, "this is the b-best way to get there without g-g-getting spotted."

Sonic snorted in frustration. They had spent the last hour or two crawling through ventilation ducts, sneaking across abandoned streets, and leaping across rooftops (with the help of a few well-placed springboards) finding their way back to where Robotnik was supposedly keeping the citizens of South Island.

"Well," he grumbled, yanking his tail away from an open fan, "anymore of this sneakin' around stuff, and I'm gonna snap! Seriously, if we don't get outta here soon…"

"I w-wouldn't worry about th-that."

Sonic looked up, suddenly aware of the light shining into the shaft from the grate in front of them that Ray was currently working on busting open with his feet. With one last clang! Ray knocked the grate cleanly off of its hinges and the pair slid out of the shaft.

They had emerged in a dimly lit alleyway, with only one direction available to them. Ahead lay yet another main street, complete with garbage blowing in the soft wind and flickering lights sputtering overhead. Sonic looked up at the building next to him, lightly running his fingers over the decaying wall. As pathetic as it may have looked to most onlookers, the hedgehog was still pretty impressed. No buildings built on the south side of the islands grew this tall.

He could only guess that they were headed in the right direction, given the way the landscape around him was slowly changing: eventually the endless fields of metal springboards began to make way for sky-scraping buildings tinted with a mix of rusty brown decay and sickly green peeling paint. In Sonic's mind, it was certainly further north than anyone, at least in recent years, had dared to travel.

In fact, the area was beginning to show signs of actual civilization, although it seemed to be an era long gone. Now all that was left was a jungle of empty buildings, a maze of abandoned streets regularly patrolled by swatbots, endless stretches of wide-open highways, and an atmosphere thick with foreboding smog that began to blot out the brilliant, star-spangled night sky.

It went without saying that the entire experience was boring, tedious, and downright uncomfortable. Having Ray around was slowing him down to an unbearable level, and the headstrong hedgehog couldn't stand sneaking around in dark alleyways or skin-snagging ventilation shafts (such as the one he had just left). In fact, it was safe to say that he hadn't had the opportunity to break out into a run for quite some time, and the sight of the city's highways (which they agreed to avoid due to its exposure to Robotnik's heavy surveillance) was making his mouth water. But he grudgingly had to admit to himself that Ray was right: Ray had been wandering around the north side of the island long enough to know which direction the prisoners were, plus it would do no good to simply charge straight into the enemy's base. If Sonic's current situation had taught him anything, it was that leaping headfirst into a fistfight with Robotnik just as he did in the Labrynth probably wasn't going to win any battles for him.

If there was anything Sonic the Hedgehog hated more than the doctor at that moment, it was losing.

So he settled for passing the time by exchanging stories with Ray as they crept through the deserted city. It wasn't easy, as they had to talk in hushed voices and stop the conversation completely whenever a swatbot patrol wandered a little too close for comfort, but Sonic soon got the gist of Ray's adventure.

Like every other Mobian on the island, Ray had been captured by swatbots. All the citizens of Knothole had been systematically dragged from their homes, piled into a large transport, and briefly incapacitated by a painful electric shock. Those few who had overheard Sonic's story about the swatbot in the forest briefly wondered whether they would meet the same fate as the small animals—to be trapped in a robot and used as fuel—but as the Mobians awoke and found themselves dragged deeper into the alien's lair, it soon seemed that Robotnik had different plans for them. Whatever they were, nobody had been looking forward to it, and Ray wasn't even given the chance to: by some stroke of luck, the swatbot handling him had malfunctioned and the squirrel wasted no time worming his way out of its clutches, outrunning his captors, and diving out of sight into a sewer.

By the time Ray started to describe how he managed to scavenge scraps of food and water while trying to escape the city during the days leading up to their reunion, Sonic had zoned out. He had to give the usually cowardly boy credit, though—it took real guts to do what he did.

Ray, for his part, didn't seem to zone out at all while Sonic was giving his brief retelling of his journey north. The squirrel's eyes continued to grow wider and wider as Sonic softly described the sights he saw… though, even he had to admit, he had exaggerated a little more than he'd needed to.

"L-look at that."

A harsh whisper snapped Sonic out of his memories. Just ahead, Ray had sidled up to the alley wall and was motioning towards something just out of view from around the corner. Curious, Sonic crept behind to him and peered down the street.

Another swatbot patrol was headed their way down the beaten-down sidewalk. Their formation was simple: three rows of neatly spaced lines with four 'bots in each, making a total of twelve, all with standard equipment. As always, they mindlessly marched forward, waiting for something to pass by their optic sensors and give them something to do.

"Th-there's a lot of them," Ray said, crouching lower behind the alley corner, "b-b-but maybe we c-can get around them and sneak across the street if we s-stay here and let them pass…"

…or maybe we can stop sneaking around like a couple of pansies and do things my way for once.

Reaching forward, Sonic grabbed a hold of Ray's shoulders. Without giving the boy a chance to even gasp in alarm, he gave Ray a hard shove, letting him stumble out into the street in full view of the swatbot patrol.

Immediately the robots stopped in their tracks and broke formation, a dozen laser cannons warming up with a bright red glow and squarely pointed at the terrified Mobian before them. Monotonous questions and commands were fired simultaneously:

NEW LIFEFORM DETECTED

INDENTIFY

PRIMARY WEAPON SYSTEMS CHARGING

INCAPACITATE AND RETURN TO BASE

Even if he had understood a word any of the robots were saying, Ray was far from able to answer them. His entire body became locked with fear, unsure whether run or scream. He settled on neither, only staring in horror as each robot's arm cannon began charging with a chorus of high-pitched whines.

The young squirrel wasn't sure what to be more shocked about: that he couldn't even find the strength to move when it counted most. That the great Sonic the Hedgehog had just willingly shoved him into harm's way without a moment's thought. That he was going to be toast right then and there, unceremoniously obliterated in the middle of an empty street.

…or that the entire back line of swatbots had just toppled over like dominoes.

Ray blinked, not sure what had just happened. Within a split second, every robot in the squad was completely caught off-guard, either spinning and whining at each other in utter confusion or being knocked over or sliced open by a familiar blue streak of light.

Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over, and a triumphant-looking blue hedgehog was soon standing over a pile of junk metal, tossing a busted swatbot head over his shoulder.

"Wow," Sonic said, looking over his handiwork below his feet. "Twelve swatbots in…" he paused, raising an eyebrow as he pondered his actions, "…five seconds? New record, baby! Eh?" He grinned as he looked at Ray, his hand outstretched to invite a high-five. "Right? Don't leave me hangin' Ray!"

"I—y-you—" Ray squeaked, his body refusing to relax from its perpetual state of paralysis. "What's wr-wrong with you?!" he finally sputtered, tears once again gathering in his eyes.

Sonic lowered his hand, a slight frown on his face. "Geez, Ray. How fast did you want me to smash 'em?"

"Wh-why did you do that to me?"

"To distract 'em, of course," he replied, shifting his weight to one side and tapping his foot impatiently. "Genius, right? You made them focus on you for a second, then I ran behind them without any noticing and kicked 'em right in the gearboxes!" He paused, lifting his right hand to stroke his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, maybe I'll have to scrap that one. Got the job done lickety-split, but it's just no fun while their backs are turned. Maybe if I—"

"Th-they," cried Ray, his voice growing softer as his gaze lowered to the pavement, "they could've sh-shot m-m-me…"

"Yeah, but they didn't," Sonic laughed, balling his hands into fists and shoving them onto his hips, "so no biggie! Lighten up, dude!"

"B-but what if… wh-what if…"

"Ray," sighed Sonic, "you can't live your life on 'what-ifs.' Just cut loose every once in a while!" He took a step forward, wagging his finger slightly. "What's the point of bein' alive without a few risks? What's work without fun? Y'get me?"

Ray sniffed hard, rubbing an arm over his closed eyelids. "I…" he sniffed again, nearly getting mucus all over his fur. "I g-guess…" But the young hedgehog failed to see that the trembling refused to stop.

"That's more like it!" Sonic stood up straight, his head swiveling as he surveyed the street. "So where to now?"

Ray pointed a shaking finger at a nearby building with a rusty metal ladder, stretching skyward until it nearly disappeared from their sight before it ended at the roof. "Up th-there," Ray whispered. "Another v-vent on the r-r-rooftop… sh-shouldn't b-be much further…"

Sonic groaned. "I always kinda hated heights…" he drew in a deep breath. "All right, Ray," he exclaimed, stepping forward and gripping the ladder's third-lowest rung.

"Time to juice."


A/N: As always, I like feedback. A lot. Thank you all for your viewership so far... it does not go unappreciated!