Chapter Three – Unknown
Jules Phronshentico, but more commonly known as Jules Hedgehog, was the world-famous Air Speed Racer. A Golden Blonde Hedgehog with Chaos Wield, Super-Speed and Super-Flight, he became famous for flying around the world, showing off, and fighting Julian Robotnik. (Eggman's father). He was also very arrogant, selfish and rude. He may have been incredibly famous but he wasn't well liked. His wife, Bernadette, was a deep purple Hedgehog who powers of Healing made her an incredible nurse at the hospital. She was kind, gentle and selfless, and many thought, far too good for Jules. Her surname was actually officially Herisson, another ancient word of 'Hedgehog', hinting at her rather exotique background, and deep the ancestry in Chaos Powers.
Family names varied throughout Mobius, depending on culture and heritage. All of the family names, were variations of the species name, just to distinguish between different regions. Herisson, Draenog and Phronshentico were regional variations of 'Hedgehog'. Cwningen and Lapine were variations for 'Rabbit', and so on. Even though most Mobians used the common species name in public, such as Hedgehog or Rabbit, their birth certificates always showed their true family names.
But Bernadette had a secret, which even Jules may not have known about. She actually had Chaos Sorcery, Magic, extremely powerful but was exceptional good at hiding it. She used to heal people and that was it. Chaos Sorcery is an illegal power due to its dire corruption issues, and if the Mobian Authorities had ever caught her, she would have been killed. Both sneaky and clever, she fooled everyone, and managed to grab the most famous guy on Mobius for a husband. He may have been arrogant but he was good to Bernadette. She wouldn't have it any other way. Soon, she was pregnant.
Everything went normally, the scan showed one baby. But during the birth, the baby Blue Hedgehog was born normally, but his umbilical cord split halfway along it's length, and two cords went back inside Bernadette. Panicked, the Doctors realised there was a second baby, identical twins, that no one knew was even there, and race was one to save the second child. Three minutes later, a second baby Blue Hedgehog was born, but was absolutely tiny. A quarter the size of his brother, he weighed less then four hundred and thirty grams, and the Doctors feared for his survival.
But against all the odds, he made it. The first baby was named Sukko, meaning Saviour, and the second, Sonikku, meaning Miracle. Sonikku (or Sonic for short) broke the world record for the smallest Hedgehog to ever be born and survive. Two years later, they had another son, Manikkos, meaning Defender. (Or Manic for short) Unfortunately, Julian Robotnik got into an almighty clash with Jules and Bernadette Hedgehog, and all three were killed in the resulting fight, orphaning the boys. But Sukko was strong and raised his little brothers, from infant and toddler to their independence, just before Sonic meant Tails.
As Sonic left to become the Hero of Mobius, Manic stayed home, helping wherever he could, defending the place as Sukko went to medical school, to become a Doctor, having inherited the power to Heal. But when they were conceived, the Powers-That-Be must have decided that one embryo, and therefore one baby, was not strong enough to carry both sets of powers. So the embryo divided and thus the powers. Sukko got his mother's Chaos Sorcery, Sonic his father's Super-Speed. Also the ability to harness Chaos Energy directly, aka wield Chaos Emeralds. Sonic could do it, Sukko could not. Neither twin had their father's arrogance or selfishness.
They were their mother's sons, and very proud of it. Sukko had the Super-Flight, but very rarely used it, even though it was his only method of high speed travel. Their powers didn't divide equally when they were born. Sonic had never mentioned to anyone he had a brother, an identical twin, none the less, the King of Stealth liking his privacy. The powerful Sorcerer was now a fully qualified Doctor, board certified, and earning his tattoo. The serpent-entwined rod, Asclepius. The highest honour in Mobian medicine.
Twice Sonic's weight, Sukko had an enormous black tattoo of a dragon down the entire length of his back. The Sorcerer was proving very illusive. Sonic's complete polar opposite, Sukko didn't like fame or crowds. He was calm, quiet and very reserved. He survived the war, so did Manic, but Sonic did not.
Maximus Phronshentico hated the world right now. He was the only son of Sukko, the Hero of Mobius's identical twin brother, and now, at the age of fifteen, he had a lot on his shoulders. It had been ten years since his Uncle's death, and quite frankly, he'd had enough.
"It's Max." He's shout constantly, to everyone who'd care to listen, hating his full name with a passion. He was one of the eldest children of the 'new generation' as it was called, as his father was only twelve years old when he and his twin sister, Sapphire, was born, their mother dying in childbirth.
He didn't blame his father at all, for what happened. His mother, Martha, was terminally ill, and had been for years, and despite everything, she desperately wanted children, knowing she wouldn't survive the birth. Sukko, loving her more then anything, granted her, her wish, and the twins were born. Max and Sapphire. Despite loosing his mother, he know just how much his parents loved each other, and wasn't surprised in the slightest, when three years later, Sukko, getting broody again, asked a surrogate to carry for him, as Martha had died. Which was legal with the correct documentation. Martha had had some eggs frozen and as a Doctor, Sukko managed to get his hands on them, and successfully using I.V.F., made two embryos, which were both transplanted into the surrogate, who got pregnant.
The pregnancy when normally, and Sukko was delighted when, himself at just fifteen years old, the twin girls were born, Jade and Crystal, with him as the father, and his late wife, Martha, as the mother. It worked. Jade, was a green hedgehog, and Crystal, a beautiful white albino Hedgehog, who blindness made Max very protective of her.
Now a single father of four, Sukko had his hands very full, but loved every minute of it. A dangerous move with Eggman around, but Sukko was the King of Stealth. If the world had no idea he existed, then what chance did they have of finding out about his family. They didn't, and to this day, no one knows.
Max now had three sisters. He huffed, a brother would have been fun, but despite that, he deeply loved all of them. But there was one person he loved the most but now he was no longer here. His Uncle.
Sonic The Hedgehog.
He was just seventeen when he died, and at the age of five, Max remembered it well, crying constantly, saying that it just wasn't fair. Why did his Uncle have to be the hero? Couldn't someone else have done it? Why did he have to die? He knew he'd have to face those questions, for one simple reason.
Max was his legacy. Max was a young Hedgehog, with long deep Purple quills flowing down his head and back. He had a black nose, a peach muzzle and belly, white gloves and socks and black shoes. He was fur coat was deep Purple, the same colour as his paternal grandmother, Bernadette, but he had inherited his father's large emerald green eyes, which he loved, but not his powers. Sukko was a Sorcerer, Max was not. He had inherited all of his Uncle's powers, the Super-Speed and the Chaos Wield, though he'd never used it. Never needed to.
Even though Sukko had four children, only Max inherited Sonic's powers. Chaos Powers are only inherited once from one generation to another, no matter how many children born, and they did occasionally jump across gaps, such as from Uncle to nephew as well as from father to son or daughter. As first born, Max got Sonic's powers and Sapphire got Sukko's. He got the Super-Speed and the Chaos Wield, and she got the Chaos Sorcery. Their younger twin sisters were less powerful. Jade got the Whitelighter teleporting, Orbing, and Crystal, was the Healer. A good one, currently in medical school, following her father into medicine, training to be a nurse. Sapphire did not have that Chaos Sorcery technique. No one inherited the Super-Flight. Sukko used his incredible powerful Magic to stop that from happening. There was two reasons for it. One, it was no longer needed, he barely used it, and Sonic had proved it and two, he didn't want any of his children turning into his father. Jules Hedgehog, the Air Speed racer who constantly showed off everywhere.
Jules was so arrogant, and as a Doctor, Sukko now, finally, understood why. When it comes to Chaos Powers, male and female Mobians deal with them differently. Males can handle up to two different Chaos Powers without any consequences but females, not being as strong, can only handle one. Jules Hedgehog had three, Super-Speed, Chaos Wield and Super-Flight, and it mentally broke him. Broke him enough to actually hurt one of his own sons, going against everything the House of Phronshentico stood for. His mind and body physically just couldn't cope and that showed itself as pure arrogance. Sukko wouldn't have been the least bit surprised if having three Chaos Powers had been slowly killing his father. If he hadn't have died at the hand of Julian Robotnik, Sukko doubted he had lasted much beyond that. Dropping dead, ruthlessly young. So Sukko decided that the Super-Flight should stay and die with him, plus he couldn't see which child could inherit it without it causing major problems, with it clashing with the other powers they already had. His brother had proved you didn't need it to be a Hero, and his son was well on his way to following in his footsteps.
Any further children, regardless as to which of the twins, either Sonic or Sukko fathered them, would be born without any Chaos Powers. They had all be inherited in Sukko's four children. All of them were now accounted for, and any more children would be completely powerless. It was considered brutal, to be related to a powerful Chaos family, and have nothing to show for it. It was shameful and embarrassing. It was something that Chaos families, were one, well aware of, and two, did everything they could to avoid, as the public ridicule could be horrendous, them being rather nastily known as 'Squids'. Even if Sonic's wedding with Amy, hadn't failed, and Sonic married her for real, he would have been very reluctant indeed to father children with her.
The simple fact was that in identical twins, the divide in the embryo when it splits is not equal and nearly always, one twin was born super fertile and the other, barren. Sukko was a father of four, which meant that Sonic was the sterile twin. But that was not the end for Amy, if she still wanted kids with a Blue Hedgehog. The Family Planning Clinic was a facility on Mobius that specialised in I.V.F. for those who specifically couldn't bare. Being barren would have gained Sonic automatic entry, and the clinic would have legally arranged for Sukko to father the child with Amy, but for Sonic to adopt it, raising it as his own. But with all of the superpowers gone, would the Blue Blur still have agreed to this?
Amy had tried to get him into bed, after the fake wedding, but Sonic just flat out refused. He wasn't ready, and the principle of the thing. He could still pull a one-hit-wonder and get Amy pregnant, despite everything. It has been known to happen with identical twins, but extremely rare, the both them having children, so he said no. There was two reasons for this. One, the Blue Blur's impending doom. He knew it was coming. No one, other then Sukko, did, and his brother had agreed from the very beginning to be a single parent whereas Amy didn't, and that just wasn't fair, and two, any children would be powerless, certainly from the father's side. They may get Amy's enhanced abilities, which wasn't guaranteed as they tended to be developed rather inherited but not the incredibly hefty Chaos superpowers, that any offspring of the Hero of Mobius would be expected to have. They were all gone and Sonic just couldn't bare thought of any children to face such ridicule. So he never had kids. His legacy now lay in brother's family.
But Max was his father's, Sukko's son, not his Uncle's. The fact that convincing everyone that he 'wasn't' the son of the Hero of Mobius was going to be intensely difficult, despite it being the truth. That was why, despite being fifteen, Max had never taken on Mobius yet. He'd been just too frightened. He knew as soon as he broke his first sound barrier in public, he'd become instantly famous, by blood alone. It just wasn't ready for that until how. He'd spoken to his father, Sukko, at length over this. The Sorcerer being his usual illusive self, and he just said for Max to forge is own path ahead of him. Sonic would always be there, Max would never be rid of him, but he should one, be proud, and two, be true to himself. Max thought.
True? The best thing to do was to tell the truth, and if Mobius didn't believe him, then that was it's problem, not his.
Finally, he swallowed his nerves and left. Time to go out and explore.