Sonic the Hedgehog was not having a good day. He couldn't find Knuckles, he'd probably have to singlehandedly fistfight another god…
"Yo, Knucklehead, where-hrk!" … and he now owed Tails ten rings. At least his first problem was solved.
While Sonic was doubled over and wheezing from the newly acquired bruise on his gut, Knuckles took it as an opportunity to finally ask Sonic a simple question that he had on his mind for a few days:
"What in the name of the seven servers did you do this time?!"
"Oh, you know, traveled the world. Went to Spagonia." Sonic said sarcastically from where he crumpled onto the ground. "It's a lovely place, you should visit it sometime." Knuckles gritted his teeth as he marched up to the hedgehog.
A few moments later, Tails walked into a clearing and was greeted with the sight of his older brother imbedded into a palm tree and an extremely irritated echidna. "Soooo" He offhandedly started. "I'm guessing this means I won the bet?"
"Oh, shush you." Came a muffled voice from the tree. Blue legs flailed in the air, then went limp as they failed to make contact with anything. "Tails, could you-"
"Yeah, hold on." Knuckles watched as the kitsune struggled to help his brother, before nudging him out of the way and yanking the hedgehog out. He then turned towards the two with arms crossed and a deep frown.
"So," He growled, making the brothers flinch. "Does anyone want to tell me why the planet is literally in pieces?!"
"Um," Sonic started, and was once again reminded of the strange blanks in his memory that were starting to become concerningly common. "Eggman…probably did something?" He then proceeded to shrink under the stares that the other two gave him.
"Probably?!" Knuckles roared.
"Look, I don't remember, okay?!" Sonic snapped back. Knuckles looked like he was about to give a very memorable retort before Tails took a step towards Sonic with an unreadable expression.
"What do you remember?" The kitsune asked, his tone surprising not exasperated. In fact, it was more reminiscent of an interrogation.
"Uh, I woke up on the ground." Sonic started, then briefly paused. "Which now that I've noticed has been happening a lot lately."
"Really?" Tails said, silently begging the older mobian to continue.
"Yeah, like today, yesterday, the day before yesterday…" Sonic tapped his foot as he thought. "...I think that's it."
"Does that mean that you passed out more than once too?" Tails asked, motioning the hedgehog to continue.
"Uhhh…I think so?" Sonic said, sounding very unsure and feeling mildly like an actor in a detective movie who hadn't been given any of the lines. Or plot. All of which the younger mobian either didn't notice or ignored as he pressed on.
"When?"
Sonic sent Tails a confused look at the increasingly specific questions while wracking his memories. "In the...evenings?" He hesitantly responded, now noticing some of the patterns to his weird amnesia unconsciousness thing himself. "No, no, I think all of this has been happening every night, for like, the past half-week or so."
Tails nodded, then paced as he thought aloud. "So this probably started happening three days ago, which is when you went to fight Eggman…" His voice quieted and he mumbled under his breath. Knuckles watch the kit with a raised eyebrow, before tapping Sonic's shoulder and gesturing towards the fox. He then silently groaned when he received a shrug from the hedgehog instead of an explanation. Suddenly Tails perked up. "You've been turning into that other form every night! That's why you've been passing out and forgetting stuff! It all makes sense now!"
"Tails, literally nothing you just said makes sense." Tails jolted at Knuckle's deadpan as he was reminded of his audience, who currently looked like they were heavily questioning the kitsune's mental stability. The fox awkwardly coughed into his fist.
"Sorry, went off tangent." Tails turned to Knuckles. "The reason why Mobius is broken right now is because of a god called Dark Gaia. We were kinda hoping we could use the Master Emerald to defeat it via Super Sonic."
"Why can't Sonic just use the chaos emeralds?" Said hedgehog gulped at the echidna's question.
Sonic nervously laughed. "Well...they're...kinda…"
"Dead?" Knuckles provided. Sonic blinked.
"Yeah, how'd you-" A slew of ancient (and not so ancient) curses cut the hedgehog off. Sonic flinched as the guardian roughly grabbed his arm and marched towards the master emerald shrine. The hedgehog squirmed before twisting himself out of the echidna's grip and gingerly rubbed the circulation back into the abused limb.
He then dumbly stared at the extremely lifeless master emerald.
"Oh."
Knuckles was ready to throttle the hedgehog right then and there.
"Oh?! OH?! The master emerald is completely drained of all its chaos energy, WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE INFINITE BY THE WAY, and all you can't say is OH?!"
Silence. Knuckles marched up to the hedgehog, then paused as he saw the hedgehog's face. It seemed strange, alien even, with how uncertain and lost it looked. The look was then broken by a smile, but it never quite left the hedgehog's eyes.
"Welp, looks like plan a's not gonna cut it, but since when do they ever?" Sonic said with strained levity. "Looks like we're fixin' this IKEA style instead."
Knuckles squinted at the blue mobian. "What."
Sonic merely shrugged. "Apparently this ain't the first time the planet's shattered like a vase, and there's some ancient instruction manual on how to put it back together. Y'know, magic rock A goes into temple B, sacrifice C will summon god D."
"And apparently head of hedgehog S gets dropped on ground G." The echidna grumbled.
"Hey, at least I was held."
There was a beat of silence.
Tails looked up from his Miles Electric that he went to retrieve to see his brother crash into another tree.
"Okay, this one I deserved." Came the muffled voice, and Tails bit back a sigh. He then turned towards the sound of approaching footsteps of an extremely annoyed Knuckles.
"Alright, since this idiot" The echidna said while jabbing a thumb in Sonic's general direction. "somehow drained both the chaos emeralds and the master emerald, you're gonna need to go with whatever the hell's plan b."
Tails nodded and turned to the plane. "Right then. We'll-" He then paused, before face palming. "-have to head back to Spagonia for the Gaia Manuscripts. Chaos, why didn't I grab them?" He muttered under his breath.
"Take me with you." Tails blinked at Knuckles' order.
"Um, what about the master emerald?"
"As of now, the master emerald is useless and with the planet being in pieces, I assume everyone's too busy to steal it. I might be able to help translate or find things."
"Woah, am I concussed or did Knuckles actually called the master emerald useless? Didn't know one of Dark Gaia's powers was freezing hell over." Sonic chimed in as he walked over. Knuckles clenched his fist.
Tails pinched the bridge of his nose. "Guys, please don't." Heaving a sigh, He turned to his Miles Electric and opened up a map. He mumbled to himself as he calculated the travel times, then stiffened when he realized what the arrival time would be. He suddenly rushed to the two older mobians and started dragging them to the plane.
"Hey!"
"Wait, what are you-"
"Nope, nada, nyet, non, nein, I am not going through that again." The fox staunchly stated. He then practically shoved the other two onto the biplane and immediately turned on the engine.
Sonic scrambled to get a grip on the plane wing as Tails took off. "Woah, what's the rush?" He asked. He was then taken aback as the fox proceeded to respond without separating his teeth even once.
"I absolutely refuse to fly with your night form again."
The rest of the trip was rendered silent as two older mobians awkwardly watched their pilot completely dead set on outflying the sun.
…
When the Tornado landed on a (sunlit! Just barely though, but still!) grass hill of Spagonia, Tails was filled with relief. He idly wondered if this was what the first successful skydiver felt when their parachute worked.
When Sonic hopped off of the plane wing and shook out his aching arms, the hedgehog was filled with worry. He idly wondered if he should start investing in a child psychiatrist.
When Knuckles climbed out of the plane, he heaved a long suffering sigh. As fun as it was watching the blue idiot struggle to not get blown off the plane wing, once again the echidna found himself completely out of the loop. He idly wondered if Tails' offer to install internet onto Angel Island was still open.
All three trains of thought immediately crashed and burned when Sonic collapsed onto the ground.
Knuckles rushed towards the hedgehog but was wordlessly blocked by Tails.
The echidna tried to nudge the younger mobian out of the way. "Tails, I'm trying to help...him." Knuckles' voice trickled away as his eyes widened, and Tails took the moment to look back.
Both mobians watched frozen as purple tendrils of smoke enveloped Sonic. His peach arms bulged impossibly as it was suddenly covered with navy fur. White gloves ripped apart to reveal large unnaturally gray hands with deadly claws. As the smoke cleared away, the figure revealed was nothing short of monstrous.
The two mobians instinctively stepped back and watched warily as the figure groggily sat up.
"Sonic? Are you okay?" Tails hesitantly asked. The former hedgehog looked at the twin tailed fox.
"Sonic? Sonic…" It said, testing the word in its mouth. "Okay, I guess I'm Sonic. Nice to meet you, Tails." It held out its hand with a friendly? smile. The other two mobians could only blankly stare at it. Its smile faltered. "Am...am I doing it wrong?"
"What?" Tails dumbly asked.
"I was trying to do what you were doing. On that plane wing." The now navy mobian supplied, pointing at a wing of the bi-plane.
"What? Oh. Ooooooh, riiiiight." Tails said. "That was back in Mazuri."
"Maybe? Dunno what Mazuri is, but we were in that sandy place trying to get Professor Pickle back home." Sonic? added with a smile.
"Alright." Knuckles cut in. "Alright. If you two are done reminiscing will someone PLEASE TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON."
"Right, sorry." Tails sheepishly replied. "This is Sonic's night form. Every time the sun sets he turns into this. I think."
Knuckles shot the kit a look. "You think."
"I mean, this is the first time I've actually seen it happen." Tails responded, shrugging.
Knuckles buried his face into his hands and tilted his head back with a deep breath. He then threw his hands into the air and started pacing. "Okay. Okay. The world's somehow in pieces, the chaos emeralds somehow lost its infinite energy, and Sonic now turns a monster every night. This might as well be happening."
Tails tentatively raised a finger. "Uh, Knuckles?"
The echidna sharply pivoted to face the younger mobian. "Is the planet gonna launch itself into the sun next? Don't tell me the moon's going to crash into mobius. I swear to the seven servers if Sonic somehow managed to drag Chaos into this-"
"The library's the other way." Tails said. Crickets obliviously chirped as Knuckles abruptly fell silent.
The echidna could only grace the fox (and the whole situation in general) with an extremely tired groan.
Gremlin: y'all ever try juggling three characters before realizing that you can't juggle. Like-
me: so whose perspective is this gonna be in?
my single remaining brain cell: yes
me: but i don't know how to-
brain cell *cocks gun*: i said yes
oof, anyway, thanks for reading
(also, as a reminder to myself, i'm gonna try to aim for at least 1800+ words per chapter.
also, also, y'all mind if i just use a crap ton of adverbs cause i have no idea how to actually write descriptively, cause i do. if i ever finish this fic the editing process is gonna be hell. please send help.)