Chapter 2: In His World

In the depths of space, one teenage boy flies about with a small smile on his face. His name was Riku, the third of the reborn Elemental Overlords who act as the protectors of the good and righteous in the world. However, this particular Elemental Overlord had very recently gained a differing view on that previously dictated role thanks to the influencing presences of the dragons of Light and Darkness, Sodenko and Takashi respectively.

Now, Riku has seen that Light and Darkness can not just be defined through one generalizing point of view. One who controls light may have dark intentions, and it is all too possible for a pure heart to wield the might of darkness. As the wielder of the newly discovered Chaos element, Riku had to make sure to forever keep those views as a genuine part of his thoughts and actions from then on in order to keep the power that new form grants him while also ensuring the loyalty of the two dragons that observe him from a prison in a far-off void.

With a shield of air protecting him as he flies through space, Riku tries to communicate with the nicer of the two dragons through his thoughts for the first time in a week, saying in a delicate tone "How are you holding up right now Takashi?"

"Pretty fine…That is, as fine as anyone can be in a blank realm with barely anything to do." Takashi jokingly replies in his usual gruff tone of voice.

"You are welcome to come out and explore space with me anytime Takashi." Riku kindly responds with.

"Thanks but no thanks. I'd feel a bit guilty if I was out there while my sister was left in here." Takashi honestly says to the boy.

"Well all Sodenko has to do is be genuinely remorseful for her behavior and I would break her chain in an instant." Riku replies, at the same time using his Light powers to sense the white dragon's presence within the other realm and noting her coiled stance the moment he says that.

"Heh, I guess she's not ready yet." Riku says in a somewhat disappointed tone of voice, letting out a light sigh moments later.

"Admittedly though, it is starting to get a little boring in here ever since you cut my chain." Takashi admits after Riku has said his piece.

"It wasn't boring the other two-thousand years you were inside of that void?" The teenage Overlord asks in a sarcastic tone of voice.

"No, Sodenko and I generally had the ability to observe some of the stuff that was going on in the outside world so long as it pertained to our respective elements or you three carriers of the Elemental Overlord's legacy. But ever since you broke my chain my connection to anything that isn't you has slowly been breaking away." Takashi says.

Riku then goes quiet for a few moments as he reflects on something, and proceeds to ask the black dragon once he is done "Do you still have a connection to my brother?"

"…The second Elemental Overlord? Sorry Riku, my connection to him was one of the first to drop. 'D.' probably noticed the break immediately and dropped my view on him then and there." Takashi's remark makes the boy mutter out a slight "Oh…" to himself as a melancholy expression drops across his face.

In an attempt to cheer up the depress Elemental Overlord, Takashi goes on to mention "Errr…Well, if you want to know something about the first Elemental Overlord though, I can tell you that he seems to currently be in the middle of a battle with a green-haired fedora wea-"

Before Takashi can finish trying to draw Riku's attention away from his brother's condition, the boy quickly glances off to the right upon detecting the presence of a planet full of life and happens to see that the planet he is observing is blue and green…And looks almost exactly like Earth.

"Hold that thought for now Takashi." Riku thinks before cutting off his link to the two dragons and pointing his body in the direction of the 'Earth' he sees up ahead.

"That can't be right…Have I come back to my own Earth?" As the teenage Overlord ponders this question to himself he begins to fly towards the planet. "No wait, if this was my Earth then I'd sense my brother's presence somewhere, even if he ended up…"

Stopping himself from saying those dreaded words, Riku shakes his head to toss those thoughts away as he heads towards this 'Earth'. Wasting little time in penetrating the atmosphere of the planet, the teenage Overlord descends through the clouds and tries to make his way to the nearest segment of ground below his line of sight. Along the way, he quickly makes glances at his body, letting out a relieved sigh as he notes quietly "Good, I'm not changing into another life form like last time…"

As the ground neared closer, the teenage Overlord flips around so his feet are pointed towards the ground and he lands not long afterwards, his impact making a tiny circle of dirt around his shoes. The first thing Riku notices is that he had landed on a normal grassy plain, which did little to help him determine just where he was at on this strange Earth. The air was clean and there was a clear sign of life on the planet as the teenage Overlord happened to notice a city in the distance to the right as he descended.

"Couldn't risk falling directly into the city though. Who knows what type of history this planet has?" Riku notes to himself as he clenches his right hand into a fist and glances towards the upper right, noticing that the glowing rays of the sun are peering through cracks in the clouds and continuing on with his previous words by mentioning "Though considering my luck with planets, maybe a flying human won't seem out of the ordinary to the populace here…"

The teenage Overlord lowers his head and eases his fist as he begins to walk across the surface of the planet to get a preliminary overlook of the scenery. Skidding down a nearby hill with his shoes angled at their sides, Riku comes across a few trees littered about the field of grass. The boy flinched in surprise for a moment though, as instead of normal leaves the trees were littered with green cubes of differing sizes that swayed in the breeze like leaves would. These leaves were attached to trees that all had a stripe pattern on them, and each tree had perfectly circular trunks.

Quietly looking at the trees for a few seconds, Riku proceeded to fold his arms in front of his chest and walk forward, saying in a joking tone of voice "Well…This planet definitely has an interesting set of plant life…"

Hearing the chirping of birds, the boy looks up and notices a small flock flying through the air. However, the "birds" in question had stout bodies with wings barely the size of pennies and heads roughly the height of the rest of their bodies. Things then began to click in Riku's head as he slowly notes "And interesting…aviary life…too…"

Slowly lowering his head and raising his right fingers against his chin to think about these two peculiar sights, Riku murmurs to himself "Hey wait a moment here…"

Adding up all the facts in his mind, the teenage Overlord begins to quietly say "I must have landed on…"

Before he finishes, a blur of pure blue streaks past the right side of his body. A powerful breeze follows behind the blur, and Riku's clothes and hair are swayed forward as the boy stumbles as he tries to keep himself balanced on the ground. A small smile crosses Riku's face as he sees the blue blur running through the grassy plains, and he finishes his earlier sentence with a merry sounding "Sonic the Hedgehog's Earth…"

Though the question of how there could be multiple Earths in the same universe began to form in Riku's head, it was quickly overtaken by the boy's desire to find and speak to the famous blue hedgehog in person. But with the speed that the hedgehog was going at currently the odds were slim that Riku would be able to catch up with him even if he started right now. Snapping his fingers and letting out a slight "Tsk" in disappointment, Riku says to himself "Maybe I'll run into him later."

"Run into who later?" A snappy and energetic voice speaks to Riku from behind, causing the boy to immediately leap to the right while simultaneously flipping his body around mid-jump. Standing on the ground in front of him is a blue-hedgehog with green eyes, white gloves, red shoes and a cocky grin on his face. The hedgehog, who was about as tall as Riku up to the bottom of his chin, quietly tapped his feet on the ground as he tilted his head and looked at this mysterious boy.

The hedgehog then zips out of view, appearing behind the boy with arms folded as he examines his body. Riku only manages to twist his head around to glance at the hedgehog from over his right shoulder before the blue blur zips right back in front of him and asks "You aren't from around here, are you?"

The teenage Overlord flinches in shock at what the hedgehog was asking, and in a stuttering voice he gestures his right hand forward and asks "W-What makes you think I'm not from around here?"

The blue hedgehog takes his right hand out and wiggles the pointer finger in the air, gesturing with it towards the bottom of the boy's body as he says in a joking tone "Your shoes. They aren't made here."

Riku embarrassingly comes out and says to the blue hedgehog "W-Well you see…" In a spark of inspiration though, the boy hopes on the similar geology of his Earth and this one and says to the hedgehog confidently "I'm British! My shoes were made in Europe!"

The blue hedgehog then quickly shrugs, saying with a barely caring attitude around him "Alright, whatever you say. Just making sure you weren't out to cause trouble."

The hedgehog then turns to the left and prepares to dash off, but as he started his run Riku quickly held his hand out with a wide-eyed expression and proclaimed "Wait Sonic!"

Having been referred to by his name, the blue blur skids to a stop and flips around, dashing back a few feet in front of the boy and saying in a joking tone of voice "You know, my name isn't Slug the Hedgehog, so whatcha holding me up for?"

With the blue hedgehog standing right in front of him with a anticipating expression on his face along with his right foot tapping and his arms folded against his chest, the teenage Overlord asked "Speaking of trouble…Is anyone causing any trouble around here for you?"

Sonic responds with a simple "Not at all. Though I kind of wish something would happen, I've just been running around since my birthday ended a while back."

Now that Riku knew what the situation was for Sonic's world, he cracked a light smile and breathed a sigh of relief as he thought about how nice it was to not drop in while some kind of villain was poking their head around and causing trouble. For once, the boy was going to just try and enjoy spending time with the planet's hero…Though for someone as wild and free as Sonic, that might actually prove to be a bit of a problem.

Of course, the first step towards having fun with someone like Sonic was to earn his trust. And with a smirk on his face, Riku quickly came up with an idea to entice the blue hedgehog into trusting him. First though, he acknowledged Sonic's earlier sentence "Well I'm glad to hear that everything is going ok for you."

Folding his arms in front of his chest and smiling, the teenage Overlord coyly asked "Saaay, if you aren't busy with anything major at the moment, is there a chance that you'd like to race?"

Sonic's eyes light up and a cocky grin crosses his face as he gestures with his right hand and asks "You're challenging me to a race? Do you know who I am?"

"The fastest thing alive, right?" Riku bluntly responds with a hint of respect towards the blue hedgehog's title. "It is a nice moniker, but lets see how you hold up against someone from another world."

The teenage Overlord unfurls his arms and takes a step back while Sonic smiles and points out "What happened to that 'I'm from Europe' story?" as he begins to bend his legs down and hold his hands atop his kneecaps as he stretches himself for the race.

Riku states in turn "Eh, it was a moment of stupidity on my part. Sorry if that might cause you to distrust me."

"Well you don't look like someone who'd cause any trouble, so I don't know why I wouldn't trust you." Sonic says, and as he stands upright and gives the boy a thumbs-up he states with a cocky smirk on his face "Besides, how can I possibly pass up a challenge?"

The blue hedgehog turns around and gestures towards the forest, saying as the boy stands beside him "Does eight laps sound good?"

"That seems rather short, honestly." Riku says.

"Eight laps around the planet sounds short to you?" Sonic says as he glances at the boy and smiles eagerly, saying afterwards "I like your confidence! Well, lets get moving!"

The blue hedgehog quickly folds his arms off to the right of his body as he kicks one foot up and breaks into a swift sprint, leaving Riku temporarily dumbfounded at the beginning of the forest as he thinks to himself "Around the planet? Geez, that's a little extreme, but I suppose I can handle it." The boy then lets his arms dangle beside his body as he breaks into a mighty sprint right behind the blue blur, his swift take-off leaving behind a gale that nearly blows the cubed leaves off of the nearby trees.

The intense speed kicked up by Sonic and Riku creates a mighty yet gentle gale behind them, but as a difference between the two of them the teenage Overlord breaks apart the ground beneath his feet as he runs. However, when he quickly makes it to the ocean surface, his feet runs across it in a completely gentle fashion. As he runs across the ocean, the environment becomes rather stagnate save for the clouds in the sky, which come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.

There is also a rather nice smell coming from the waters that Riku takes in as he starts catching up to the blue hedgehog, who was running backwards with a surprised smile on his face and his legs rapidly kicking against the water in a circular manner. Sonic speaks out enthusiastically once Riku gets beside him "That's some wicked speed you have there!"

"Thanks for the compliment! I'm surprised I'm keeping up with you, honest!" Riku exclaims so the hedgehog could hear him.

Sonic flips his body around without breaking his speedy stride, saying as holds his arms beside him "Lets step it up!"

The blue blur then increases his speed further, kicking his legs around in the air at such speeds that they too become blurs on both sides of his body. And as Sonic zips onto dry land, Riku holds his eyes widened in surprise for a good couple of seconds before he smirks and states "I should have known he was trying to play fair…"

The teenage Overlord, however, was also holding back some of his speed, and with a burst of air emerging from behind his body that pushes back the water in a large but otherwise harmless wave. Making his way onto the dry land, the boy tries to catch up with Sonic, keeping a steady enough breath to sustain the oxygen for his sprint as he heads towards a mountain range. Watching the streak of blue zipping back and forth across the mountain face, the boy reaches the base of the first mountain and scales it quickly.

But even though he was catching up with Sonic slowly but surely, he was also breaking apart the environment below his feet as he ran unknowingly. The mountain range was crossed rather quickly, and the blue blur was more clearly noticeable in the distance now. The two began to cross a desert, whose heat didn't affect the two thanks to the cool gale wrapping around their bodies as they ran.

Past the desert the two heroes made their way back to the ocean, and in a lesser time than the last leg of water they managed to make it to the east coast of the next continent. Now the race was taken to the city, where the blue blur manages to zip through the busy streets without harming a single person who happened to be in the way. Riku, however, was not so lucky in the middle of his sprint.

As he moved through the streets, his untamed gale along with his rapid feet movements causing the concrete roads to be torn apart while the cars driving around are blown straight into the air. As he ran through the city, Riku heard the frantic honks coming from the cars behind him and quickly spun around and skid to a sudden stop in the middle of a four-way road. Noticing the torn up debris of concrete and the cars flying where he once ran, the teenage Overlord quickly thrust his hands into the air as he was unaware of all the people watching around him.

Relying on the Earth element, Riku catches all of the cars and concrete debris before even a single one crashes against the ground and break apart. Thankfully none of the cars had their windows open, so nobody spilt out of the vehicles. As the humans on both sides of the street murmur about what was happened in fearful shock, the cars heading towards the four-way street brake to a stop while Riku uses his powers to put the concrete perfectly back into place along the road he tore up.

He made sure to deal with this quickly before anyone in the vehicles panicked and did something to threaten their lives, and once the streets were fixed the boy lowered the cars back into place just in time for Sonic to zip on through the city and stop perfectly in place right in front of him. Seeing as the blue hedgehog didn't know what was going on at the moment, he looked at the boy and said with a curious tilt of his head and a gesture of his right hand "Hey, don't tell me you've given up already."

Riku lowers his hands beside his body, and without a single sign of exhaustion yet many embarrassed glances back and forth across the area the boy says to Sonic "Err…Can we get out of here and talk somewhere private?"

The blue hedgehog gives a thumbs-up and says with enthusiasm in his voice "There's a field to the west of here. I'll meet you there at sonic speed!"

Living up to his name, Sonic zips right through the city towards the aforementioned field, while Riku glances around at the murmuring humans and says in a very apologetic tone of voice as he kicks up into the air and takes flight "Sorry for causing trouble! I didn't mean to!"

The teenage Overlord then goes off to field, and upon descending he sees Sonic speeding around back and forth across the grass until he happens to notice the boy land. The hedgehog then zips right in front of him and gets straight to the point "So what's up? Why did you stop racing?"

Riku was up front and honest about his concerns, saying to the blue hedgehog "Its too dangerous for me to go as fast as you. I was tearing up the streets and putting innocent lives in danger."

Sonic asks "You were? But everything looked ok when I came back around."

The teenage Overlord sighs and goes on to state "That's because I put everything in the city back to normal before you arrived."

The blue hedgehog smirked and said in an intrigued tone of voice "Really now? You're just full of surprises, aren't ya?"

"Well, I kind of can control all of the elements." Riku states.

Sonic says in a barely fazed tone of voice "You'll have to tell me more about that later. Right now, I want to help you with your speed."

Riku flinched in surprise and said to Sonic "Wait, huh?! You want to help me out? …Why?"

Sonic shrugs and says honestly "I was enjoying our race. Haven't had some competition on foot for months!"

The teenage Overlord, despite realizing that the hedgehog's answer made sense, was still a little surprised by the generosity as he commented in his head "I don't think I'll ever get used to this…"

Riku then says to Sonic "So what are you gonna do about my speed problem?"

Sonic gestures his right pointer finger towards the boy and answers with "My buddy Tails could probably whip up a thingamajig for your shoes so you don't go busting up streets as you run."

Nodding his head to show faith towards the idea, Riku says to Sonic "Well, guess you can lead the way then."

"Sure thing!" Sonic says with enthusiasm as he turns himself around and quickly kicks into a run while Riku leaps into the air and flies after the blue hedgehog to follow him to the place that Tails' currently lives in…

Next Time: Two Best Friends