A/N: "Next chapter should be up within a month's time." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. Why I even said that is beyond me. I can never keep deadlines.

Anger was rarely an emotion Sonic liked to dwell on. It just wasn't in his nature. Today, however, he had a whole lot of reasons to be ticked. To start, he woke up in class. When he asked around about how he got there, all the students just told him that he came to school barely on time like he always did, then plopped down on his desk for a nap. We he asked when was the last they saw him, they'd say since he left school and went home yesterday. It didn't take long for him to piece together what happened.

Ryde knocked him out. She used whatever powers she seems to have to knock him unconscious for a whole day and send him back in school. Then she changed everyone's memories again to make them think he came here willingly.

The day went on about the same it went on the day before: agonizingly slowly. Sonic was wondering how someone could think they could teach anything to anyone in a place like this. He also wasn't terribly fond of their teaching methods. It all seemed set up in a way to prevent people from learning anything at all. Especially nothing of value. Sonic definitely couldn't see how someone would find this entertaining enough to wrap reality just to watch kids sit in chairs. A few horrid hours passed with Sonic lost in his thoughts before he went out for lunch.

Like the day before, he sat with his friends, though he found it really hard to call them his friends. He wasn't sure who they were anymore. They looked like his friends. He could make out a few pieces of his friend's once shining personalities. But they were changed. Their memories, wiped, their personalities simplified or changed and everything that made him love them were gone. He knew that he'd need someone else to help him but he still wanted to be with them if only to watch over them. He considered switching tables to check if one of the other students could be of help. A likely pointless effort, he knew, but he had to try something. He scanned the other tables for anyone who looked confused or out of place.

That's when he saw hedgehogs.

The two hedgehogs (or foxes? Wolves? Sonic really couldn't tell), walked up to him and the male of the two sat at the table. The female hedgehog (Sonic decided hedgehog would suffice at this point) just looked nervously at them.

"Do you mind if we sit here?" Asked the girl.

Sonic didn't readily see how that could be a bad choice and said she could.

"Good," said the boy hedgehog with a smirk, "cause I rather like this table."

"What are your names?" Asked a green-haired girl Sonic had never met before. He would've looked at her more closely but his attention had been strangely drawn by the two newcomers.

"I'm Gary-Stu! Gary-Stu the Hedgehog." Remarked the boy.

Sonic cared less about his name and more about the facts that 1, this boy stole his catchphrase, 2, Gary-Stu is a weird name and 3, he would not stop smirking. Even when nothing had happened yet that deserved smirking.

The girl sat next to him and replied, "I'm Mary-Sue the Hedgehog. Well, those are our nicknames anyway. Our real names are rather long."

"And what are those?" Asked Tails.

"We'd rather keep them secret," said Mary-Sue.

"Oooooh," said Rouge, "how mysterious."

She walked over the where Gary-Sue sat and hugged his arm. "What secrets do you have?" She asked, flirtatiously.

"Plenty," replied Gary-Sue with a smirk.

Sonic stared at him and regretted every allowing him at this table. The way Sonic saw it, Rouge was being manipulated into flirting with this guy she just met. Sonic knew Rouge liked to tease a lot but she'd never fling herself on a guy like this. Beneath her sass and smart-mouth was a girl with respect for herself. He also couldn't stand that this guy was smirking like he just did something really impressive when all he'd really done is sit at a table without being invited. At least the girl he was with was polite enough to ask.

Sonic turned to Mary-Sue and asked, "is he your brother or cousin or something? You guys have similar names and all."

Mary-Sue laughed and everyone else joined with her.

"No, we're just friends. Friends from early childhood, in fact. Like I said before, Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu aren't our real names. We intentionally chose similar sounding names as a joke."

"That's so cool!" Said Silver.

Sonic really wasn't sure what was cool about it. He figured they were just being extra nice to the new kids. While Sonic had met a lot of interesting people in his life, he knew that anyone who had any real secrets didn't go parading about it. They typically kept it to themselves until they were ready to blast a planet apart with a space laser. These kids were just trying to be mysterious for some reason.

"Now then," said Gary and turned to Sonic, "you're the famous hedgehog Sonic, right? The self-proclaimed 'Fastest Thing Alive.'"

For a moment, Sonic stopped caring about the fact that his friends were under the control of some reality-warping goddess. Someone just challenged his speed.

"I am the fastest thing alive. Unless you think you know someone faster," retorted Sonic.

"I think I do know someone faster, and you're looking right at him."

Sonic was no stranger to the classic art of pre-game snark. Experience taught him that he could get one more quip in before action was needed. "All I see is an annoying grin from a kid who thinks too highly of himself."

"Alright, a race then. 100 laps around the school."

Sonic had already zipped to the front gate. Sure, he didn't like the events that led him up to this moment but no matter what kind of world he was in, Sonic knew one thing: He was the fastest.

Gary-Stu casually walked over to the front gate and lined up with Sonic. All Sonic's friends gathered to watch (and, as Sonic noticed, the rest of the school for some reason).

Mary-Sue started the count down.

"3,"

Sonic got in running position while Gary just stood there. Sonic couldn't tell if he was just confident or was intentionally doing it to mock him. He figured it was a combination of both.

"2,"

100 laps around the school would take a little less than a minute for Sonic and not even at full speed. He wasn't going to assume this kid didn't have powers or tech or anything but it didn't matter. Sonic was going to win. If only to make at least one thing right in this upside-down world.

"1"

Gary-Stu just waved at the audience. He even got down to lie on the floor. Oh Sonic was gonna enjoy this.

"Go!"

Sonic dashed around the campus and made over a dozen laps in a matter of seconds. He was gonna take it easy on the new guy at first but his smugness was getting on Sonic's nerves and he figured someone needed to teach Gary a lesson about humility (it wasn't that the irony was lost on the normally cocky hedgehog, it's just that he knew there was a difference between confidence and arrogance).

It was only until he was almost done with the race did Sonic realise Gary-Stu never left his spot.

Is he really gonna challenge me to a race and then not even try? I bet he knew that he couldn't win and is gonna act like he just let me off easy or something like that.

Sonic stopped running at lap 97.

"Aw, why'd ya quit?" Asked Gary in a mocking tone.

Sonic was getting tired of this kid. "You know, if your gonna challenge someone, its only decent of you to follow up. I don't have to race someone as disrespectful as you."

"Is that your excuse?" Replied Gary-Stu. The crowd oooooohhhh-ed Sonic. "Sounds like the fastest thing alive is just a quitter!"

"Burn!" Exclaimed the crowd.

Sonic couldn't believe they were taking his side. Not only was he new, but he was acting like a jerk. Why were they acting like Sonic chickened out when he was the one that actually ran the race.

Tails flew up to him and said, "Sonic, you can't just turn your back on him."

Tails actually believed Sonic was chickening out of the race. Sonic couldn't believe it. He could feel his heart sinking. His best friend, his real best friend would never do this to him. That's when Sonic remembered where he was. This was FF Ryde Er's world, not his. These weren't his friends. These were different people all together.

"Wow, can't believe you scared Sonic off like that. Nice!" Congratulated Knuckles.

"I didn't think Faker was this much of a coward," added Shadow.

"I thought Sonic was the fastest, coolest thing ever but now I'm not so sure," said Amy.

His friends were leaving him for that smug jerk. His friends. He took back his earlier thought about this being Ryde's world. This was his world, no matter how much she twisted it. Those were his friends, no matter how much they'd been altered. No one was gonna take that from him.

"Tail, I am gonna stand up to him. I'm gonna stand up to this whole school, this whole world and Ryde! But I'm not gonna do it by playing into her hands." He turned to Gary-Stu and the rest of the confused crowd. "You think you won? Fine, I don't care. None of this matters to me, not you, this race, or this school. All that matters to me is that my friends and I get out of this nightmare. Maybe we can have a real race when things are back to normal. Hopefully the real you has some decent manners."

And with that, Sonic walked away from a crowd that had no idea what he was talking about. All they knew was that Sonic the Hedgehog was a sore loser and a coward.

Sonic decided not to go to the lamppost after school. He figured Ryde Er wouldn't tell him anything useful and he doubted he could force her to change things. He wasn't entirely sure where to go, though. His friends couldn't help him, he didn't know where GUN's newest base was or if they could even help. He thought of using the Chaos Emeralds. He didn't know how they'd help him, but they were typically the solution to most problems. Really, he just needed something to do. He couldn't stand that a large part of his day was being wasted and he needed to try something to stop FF Ryde Er other than just lunging at her. He was about to set off on a blind search for them when he bumped into Mary-Sue outside of the campus.

"Sorry, sorry," apologized Sonic (though he was fairly certain she did so intentionally).

"No, it's my fault. I just wanted to say, that was kinda cool what you did back there." Mary looked down as if she were nervous. "I know Gary-Stu can be kinda hotheaded but he's a good guy."

Somehow, I doubt that, thought Sonic to himself, he seems like a jerk pretending to be cool.

Mary-Sue started to lean in closer to him. "Look, I don't know why, but when I see you, I get all tingly. Sonic…"

Of course, Sonic already knew what was coming up. He'd hung around with Amy long enough to grasp the visual clues. This girl deluded herself into believing she loved him. Sonic was half-tempted to just run away on the spot.

Mary-Sue started yelling with her eyes closed (in a rather over dramatic fashion, thought Sonic) as if she was forcing the words out. "Sonic I love you!"

"Uh, no you don't," said Sonic, "look, I'm flattered, really but there's no such thing as love-at-first-sight. That's just a myth. I've lost count of how many times I've tried to explain that to Amy. I'm not much of relationship person, I don't even think I've dated anyone before (though there was this nagging voice in the back of his head telling him he has), but I do know there's more to love than just feeling flustered. It's something that takes time and work, ya know?"

Dang, thought Sonic, That was some pretty solid advice! Rank S if I say so myself.

Mary-Sue didn't share the same thoughts. Instead she just burst into tears and ran off. Sonic might've ran after her if he hadn't heard his least favorite voice in the distance.

"Why did you do that?" Echoed the voice of FF Ryde Er. "Actually, first tell me how you did that."

"What can I say? I can't stand a relationship built on false pretenses. Kinda like what you did to my friends. I'm gonna have to change that," replied Sonic to the bodiless voice.

"Your friends are better this way! What I want to know is how you keep resisting my story. It's like nothing I write affects you. And then you went and broke Mary-Sue's heart you selfish jerk!"

Sonic shook his head before saying, "is anyone really listening to me today? I've given two really great speeches and it seems everyone misinterprets it somehow. Also, if I'm a jerk for letting a girl down easy, then what are you? You stole my friends!"

"Quit acting like this is my fault! You just can't see how great this is is all. Now, I want you to go back to school and-"

Sonic didn't even let her finish. He took off running like a madman. He wasn't sure if the blackouts could be dodged but he knew running would surprise Ryde and at least give him a chance at escaping.

He got as far as the edge of town before suddenly stopping in mid-run by an unknown force. Sonic could see the robed figure standing to the side of him.

"You can't escape me! Now stop ruining things and let me write my story! Besides, you've been nothing but rude and mean and it's time you paid for that."

Sonic would've protested that he'd been rather kind and patient all day considering how things had gone but by then he'd already blacked out.

A/N: Damn, that took forever. I feel rather bad because it shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did to write this.

This chapter addresses Mary-Sues and love at first sight.

Whenever there's a Mary-Sue around, morality tends to circle entirely around them. If a Mary-Sue is a jerk to another character, it's treated as just another one of the Mary-Sues endearing quirks. I know there's more to talk about Mary-Sues, but I'll get to it soon enough. Also, a word of advice. Smirking =/= coolness/badassery. It just means your character has an issue with his mouth muscles and should probably get them checked by a doctor. You should only smirk when you've done or said something cool and no your very existence doesn't count. Cockiness also =/= cool unless handled properly. If you have a cocky character who's cocky without any real reason to be other than that you think it's cool, you've made a mistake. It doesn't make a character cool. It makes him annoying. Sonic and Generator Rex are a couple of examples of cocky characters written well. Both have their reasons for their attitudes and we don't need them to smirk to be able to tell they're cool. The only exceptions are when the character's cockiness are clearly portrayed as a bad thing that everyone hates or finds annoying (take Blue/Gary Oak for example) or if the character is a complete joke who constantly gets humiliated.

Also, despite what your love novels might have told you, love at first sight doesn't exist. ESPECIALLY between teenagers. Sure, there are plenty of couples that have dated in their teen years and were a strong couple till death, but it's not common. At all. And it's almost purely luck that the person who got their imbalance hormones going turned out to be their perfect match. To quote Garnet from Steven Universe, "love at first sight doesn't exist. Love takes time, love takes work. And at the very least you have to know the other person."

Anyhow, most of the life issues that have kept me from writing have been mostly sorted out so it shouldn't be several months before the next chapter is up again. Constructive criticism is appreciated to ensure only the highest quality for you guys and to make me a better writer. This story is for you guys and I want you to like it as much as you can. See ya next time.