Chapter 4: Speechless

Sorry about that weird coded text glitch - fixed it

Ha! Surprisingly fast update! I'm going to use the rest of my holidays to work on this, as an apology for the long-ass hiatus. And don't go telling me that I can't do that - it's not like I'm doing anything productive otherwise. Besides, it's fun writing this.

I'm going to try and expand the personalities of a few characters in here, as well as introduce a story mechanic I'm going to use a lot in this AU. So let's see how that goes, I guess.

Inconsistencies between retro games IRL and knock-off retro games in-story are known about, but I wanted to make some changes for the story's sake. I know that MMX was a SNES game, and I apologise to the Nintendo kids who will inevitably hate me for putting discount MMX on the discount GBA.

Anyways let's do this! *music*

When I finally drag myself out of bed at about 9am, I don't feel like gaming online just yet. Instead, I pull out my old Gamekid Extra from under my bed and, after searching around for a minute, slot in the Giga Man Y cartridge. It's been a while since I played, and my conversation with Amy yesterday made me feel like re-living those memories. I load up a new save file and go through the first level, then the second. It's just as fun as I remember, and I'm demolishing Mecha Masters for about an hour before I remember that eating is also an important thing.

Uncle Chuck is analysing some science stuff on his computer at the kitchen table. He's a scientist, and always researching something. I've never exactly understood what, but I know that it's important. I don't recognise a single word on his screen, so I ignore it and get a bowl of cereal. "Morning, sonny," Chuck says. I wave to him and sit down with my Fruit Rings. He starts talking to me, asking if I stayed up until 2am again, all that stuff. I just occasionally nod, or shrug, or shake my head, knowing that he'll realise how talkative I'm not being but not bringing any attention to it. Eventually, he drops the question. "Not talking today?" he asks. I just develop a sudden fascination with the last bits of cereal floating around in the bowl and shake my head. He just shrugs and keeps typing on his science report thing. "Okay."

So, I get that you don't know what this is about, and I was hoping that I could just avoid this for now, but I guess I'm gonna have to explain. How do I put this simply? I guess the easiest way to phrase it is that I have a speech problem.

I don't want to make a big deal of it, so I'll explain it here and then it'll only come up when it comes up. So, lots of people do weird stuff with talking sometimes. There are shy people who don't like conversations, and some people stutter, and everyone's tripped over their words at least once. That's normal, that isn't a problem. But with me, it's way worse than what most people might get. For some reason, hell if I know what it is, my brain and my throat don't work together much. I can't slow down if I start speaking really quickly, I stutter like crazy if I'm even slightly freaking out, I mess up sounds sometimes and usually descend into just making the first noises I think of trying to correct myself, my first reaction to being under stress is to stop talking to people until I can chill out. Then there are days, like today, where I'm just kinda silent. Again, hell if I know why it happens, but I don't want to talk. No point forcing myself to stumble over damn near everything I say for a day, so I stop sometimes. Long story short? I'm not going to be making any speeches if I can help it.

But anyways, that's why I'm not talking to anybody today. It doesn't matter, it'll pass. Just don't worry about it, okay?

I realise that I've zoned out completely, and quickly snap my focus back to whatever Chuck's talking about. "…and I'll be out in the field tonight, looking at all those weird energy signatures. I'll be back at two in the morning, and I expect you to be in bed by that time, not still awake playing computer games with your friends. Got it?" he tells me. I nod in response. Before he can add anything else, I dump my empty bowl in the sink and head back to my room.

Time to set up. I grab my headphones and carefully position them over my ears. I leave my mic where it is - it's so cheap and low-quality that moving it won't help, and besides, it's not like I'll be using it today. A quick look at Skype confirms that Silver, Blaze, Knuckles and Rouge are all online and calling. I add myself into the call and my screen is quickly taken over by four sections of the screen. Rouge is in the top-left, Silver is next to her, Blaze is at the bottom left and Knuckles' face inhabits the bottom-right corner. "Hey, someone else is joining," Silver says, always the first guy to notice stuff like that. When my connection finally patches itself up and my video feed comes into the call, he announces, "Hey, Sonic's here! Hi, Sonic! We're playing Chao Island, come and join the server!"

I wave and give a thumbs-up. Everybody else collectively greets me while I'm logging in. When I'm online, Rouge asks, "Me and Knuckles are waiting for Silvaze (I feel like I should clarify that we call Silver and Blaze 'Silvaze') to finish karate, do you want to join a race?"

Knuckles looks to where I guess my video must be on his screen, and when I nod, he nods back and adds me into the race group. "Thank you for arriving, I was dying," he thanks me. "If I had been stuck with Silvaze and Rouge talking romance any longer, I was gonna hurl. Anyways, race time. I'm going to win this time, I swear!"

The look on my face tells him exactly how likely I think that scenario is. My calculations were correct, something which never happens in internet school. Ew, that reminded me of all the online homework I haven't done. Forget about that. Point is, Sonny obliterated the course in 40 seconds, Rouge's Dark-Fly-Power makes it 5 seconds later, and Volcano runs out of stamina near the end, which gives everyone else thirty seconds to have a conversation while Knuckles spams the space bar ineffectively.

Blaze is talking about how unimaginably boring some rich-person party she has to attend tomorrow is going to be, while Silver slips in a few dorky but cute comments like he does whenever he's talking to her, and Rouge offers solutions to the many problems Blaze is being faced with. I just listen. Nobody brings up my lack of commentary. Whenever I'm on silent, everyone just kinda goes with it. My friends are cool like that - we all know each other's limits in conversation or personal trigger buttons, and it's all silently acknowledged and never brought up. It's hidden underneath layers of trash talking and calling each other 'scrubs', but I'm pretty sure that we have the single most all-around caring group of friends ever going on here. I know it sounds cheesy, but I really couldn't ask for anyone better. Of course, you wouldn't guess any of that by listening in at the moment. At the moment, Rouge is giving Knuckles an earful for taking so long in the race, and Blaze is constantly repeating "Silver, stop flirting with me" with no success. When Silver finally agrees to give up the cute comments while giggling hysterically, she suggests, "How about a Karate tournament? We should do another one of those. Although I don't know if that has functionality for an odd number of players…"

"I don't think we need to worry about that," Rouge points out. Everyone's eyes move, and we all notice around the same time that Knuckles has fallen asleep at his computer. He does that sometimes. We all look at each other on-screen, the way that people in sitcoms look directly at the camera after a bad joke.

I have an idea suddenly. I pull my headphones off, and motion for everybody else to do the same thing. Once nobody except for Knuckles is still able to hear the call, I grab my GKE and save my progress in Giga Man Y quickly. Then, making sure that the volume is all the way up (for a 15-year-old handheld, it sure has powerful speakers), and holding it so that the speakers are right next to my microphone, I eject the game cartridge. The screaming noise of the bugged-out music hurts my ears, and judging by the way that Blaze holds her headset at arm's length, Rouge drops her earbuds, and Silver muffles the sound of his headphones with his hands, it's not much better on their end. Seeing as he obviously hasn't taken out his earbuds, the sound hits Knuckles directly, and he jolts awake. The image on-screen, of his mouth opening and him ripping out the earbuds, gives the impression that he's freaking out. Everyone replaces whatever they're using for audio, and I turn off the noise.

Knuckles stops yelling completely, and instead looks like he's about to murder me. I fight off the laughter. He looks like he could break his screen, or scream at me, but instead, he just flips us all off. His voice lowers to a whisper, probably to stop his family from waking up, and he says, "If I wasn't paranoid that my mum's gonna wake up and yell at me, I'd be swearing at you guys with no restrictions. What the hell was that?"

"Sonic's Gamekid. Do you think you should just go to sleep?" Silver replies.

I want to correct Silver and tell him that it's the Gamekid Extra, and that it's the third and most powerful Gamekid after the original black-and-white 8-bit Gamekid and the colour-introducing Gamekid Chrome, as well as the last of the GK lineage before the touchscreen technology that ended that era and brought in the TS and its later more powerful models, but I can't even form the first syllable of an all-knowing/incredibly condescending and exaggerated "Well, excuse me, princess" in my throat before Knuckles is talking anyway and there's no point. "Just because it's 2 in the morning and I fell asleep and I've been fatigued for the past 3 hours and my eyes hurt and I have precisely four seconds' worth of attention span…"

"Go to bed, Knuckie," Rouge instructs him, like an irritated parent. "In fact, I might turn in just after this tourney, it's pretty late over in Station Square."

"Fine," Knuckles whines. "Night, guys."

There's a chorus of 'goodnight', as well as me silently waving, before Knuckles shuts the screen on his laptop and his video feed disappears, causing the Skype windows to rearrange themselves. "I'll set up the tournament," Blaze offers. It only takes her a few seconds to select our usual rules and add everybody into the tournament, and we're quickly in battle. I'm facing off against Silver first, and it's Blaze v Rouge somewhere else in cyberspace.

The fight begins. Silver is trying to psych me out, but I ignore him. Chuck opens the door to my room a little. "What was that noise?" he asks. I just hold up my GKE in response, not taking my eyes off of the fight. "You played that thing all the time when you were little," he comments, shutting the door. Usually at this point, I would yell a snarky comment, like "The Giga Man Y series was the singular reason for my continued existence," but my head's in the game and my voice box is smoking weed or whatever the hell it does on these days, I don't really know or care.

"Well, Sonny? What are you gonna do now? Aqua has you cornered, and she's not gonna have any pity," Silver trash talks, going in for a hit with his Hero-Swim-Run. I just tap the right key with exact timing to perform a perfect dodge and counter. Sonny slides under Aqua's fist and kicks from the side, doing a bit more damage. So far, he's winning, but he doesn't have great defence. One punch and we're probably screwed. Silver keeps trying to break my mojo, but he isn't getting through to me. I'm focused on dodging and blocking. On the other side of the tourney, Blaze sounds like she's having trouble. Rouge just yawns, although I don't know if that's sarcasm to emphasise the simplicity of what she's doing, or if she's literally just tired. Silver isn't having much luck against me, either. He knows that he's losing, and he's started to run out of snark. "You know, trash talking is way more engaging when your opponent trashes back," he whines.

"You should be glad that Sonic isn't saying anything," Blaze reassures him. "If you had heard him against Knuckles a few days ago- GOD DAMN IT!"

"Yes!" Rouge cheers. "That's Scarlie one, Ember zero! How's it going over there, boys?"

There are 20 seconds left to battle. I dodge around Aqua and take the opportunity for a combo move, knocking her health down some more. Sonny hasn't taken a single hit, and our victory is all but assured. Silver sighs and stands up. "Screw this, I'm done," he complains. I shrug and continue to beat up his defenceless Chao for ten seconds, before the winners are announced.

Me and Rouge will be battling for first place, while Silvaze is going to try for third. "Oh no, a fight between lovers!" Rouge gasps in mock-horror. "How will they bear to attack each other mercilessly?"

"Well, to be fair, I'll probably just wipe the floor with Aqua effortlessly because Silver's too much of a good guy to fight his girlfriend," Blaze points out.

"Um, I didn't ask for part two," Rouge retaliates, just before round 2 begins. It's Sonny v Scarlie, a battle which I know won't be easy. If I can get a few decent hits in, victory won't be too hard, but Rouge's Chao hits like a truck and has great dodging skills. I quickly sidestep the first attack she sends our way, and there's a similar result when I aim a punch with no success. "Well? Do you plan on ever keeping this battle moving forwards?" she asks tauntingly. "I can't hang around here forever, you know. I have a bed behind me which seems much more interesting that this battle at the moment."

"You know, Silver, the entire point of this is that we fight to get third place," Blaze complains. I guess she's ripping him to shreds in-game.

"Yes… but that would mean hurting the love of my life," Silver flirts. Blaze blushes, and he smiles triumphantly and continues to not do a damn thing.

Rouge sighs. "This isn't awfully challenging, but at least it's more fun than it must be for Silvaze," she comments. "Come on, Sonny, are you scared to hit Scarlie? It can't possibly be that hard to actually hit her, can it? Come on, land a blow so that I won't feel so bad for not pulling my punches." I look at her face on-screen with the same expression I used when Knuckles was sure that he would win a race, then sigh heavily and tap the keys faster. I finally get the first hit of the battle in, and punch the air in victory as Scarlie is knocked back a little. Rouge gasps. "How could you? Don't you know that it's inconsiderate to hit a lady?" she fake-scolds me, then starts mashing the keys harder. I dodge and weave, using Sonny's superior speed to our advantage. Thirty seconds are left to battle. (Blaze completely obliterated Silver after 40 seconds of their fight.) My one lucky break has put me in the lead, but the match isn't over yet, so I'm not letting my guard down. I go for another hit, but Rouge is ready for me. She executes a perfect dodge, and I'm not ready. I scramble for the keys, but it's too late. Scarlie hits Sonny in the back, and he goes flying across the screen, knocked right to the edge of the arena and practically knocked out in one go. Critical hit. Before I can react, the match is over and I've lost.

I throw my headphones angrily while Rouge celebrates. I can hear Chuck yelling something along the lines of "Don't throw your headphones, they'll break," but I ignore him. I look at the results on-screen. First place: MadSpaceGirl/Scarlie. Second place: SuperSonicChao/Sonny. Third place: xXSol_PrincessXx/Ember. Fourth place: its-no-use-06/Aqua. Rouge seems incredibly happy with herself. "And that's another victory secured for myself," she says. "Well, that was fun, but the midnight hours have approached me and left me absolutely exhausted. I'm going to go to sleep now. Goodnight!"

With that, Rouge's video feed vanishes and she logs out of Chao Island. The boxes around the edge of my screen rearrange themselves. "It's pretty late here, and I'm going to need a lot of sleep to have enough energy to force myself through a day's worth of being nice to important people tomorrow, so I'm gonna log out as well," Blaze says. "See you guys later!"

"Goodnight, beautiful!" Silver says cheerfully. Blaze turns red and smiles shyly before her video disappears as well, leaving just me and Silver. For a while, neither of us says anything. Then, Silver asks, "Wanna race?"

I spend most of the day online. Tails joins in for a few hours, then he has to go to bed. Knuckles logs back on and us guys have a tourney, which Tails wins. Later in the day, Rouge comes back for ten minutes, then she has to leave to catch the bus to school really early. Silver has to disconnect because he's doing a charity thing, helping to rebuild some houses or something. He does a lot of that stuff, even a year and a half after the bomb hit. Knuckles calls me a scrub about four hundred times. I divert half of my attention to playing Giga Man Y (which saved properly, thank god) on my now not-screaming GKE, which makes him even more furious with me. I manage to defeat not only Knuckles, but another two Mecha Masters.

Knuckles' mum tells him that he has to go somewhere, so I'm left alone. With nobody to battle, I log out of Chao Island and keep playing Giga Man Y. I've nearly beaten the game when I get another Skype notification. I pause to check it. It's Amy. I smile, wondering what my new friend has to say. The message reads, 'Hi! I'm on the bus to school again. I don't have enough data to video call, but can we just use audio? I'd like to at least hear your voice! :)'

I look at the message for a moment and sigh. Oh, boy. No, we can't just use audio, I can't say anything. I don't normally like calling without video - if I start stuttering, it's easier for me to get my message across with an image - but usually I can handle it for a minute. Except for these days. For god's sake, why was it today that I forgot how to speak? I can't just tell her that I physically cannot make an audio-only call. How do you even do that? 'I'm sorry, but my voice box is currently tripping balls and will not respond to my mind. Try and call later, when I have the physical capability to actually say anything.' Nope, there's no way to phrase that and make it sound normal. I don't want to keep her waiting, so I try desperately to think of an excuse.

Amy hasn't said anything else, so I finally go with the closest thing I have to the truth. I don't tell her about my inability to talk normally most of the time, because that's not the kind of thing I advertise on a giant glowing sign with neon lights that looks like it came straight out of the 60's. I just send the message, almost laughing at the technicality of it.

'Sorry, my microphone's broken right now. It should be fixed soon.'

Like I said earlier, I usually don't care about this weird speech disorder. It's just a thing that happens when it happens, and I've had it my whole life, and I know how to deal with it. But at times like this, when it slows down my relationship with somebody, I really wish that it does get fixed soon.

But hey, you can't have everything, right?