Mobius Present Day
All Shirou could sense was darkness. He couldn't tell how long he had been out for as time seemed to all blur together. Then suddenly he heard something.
"Life Signs Detected." stated a mechanical voice.
"But wasn't this place supposed to be abandoned even before the Xorda bombed everything?" said a confused female voice.
"They appear to be in a state of suspended animation." explained the mechanical voice
"Dig them out of there Rouge. They might know something." said a reserved masculine voice.
Then Shirou heard the sound of digging. Then he was stirred awake. And what he saw surprised him.
Two demihumans and an automaton stood before him. The first demihuman was bat-like with white fur, a curvy figure and wore blue eyeshadow. She was dressed in a skin tight white, pink and grey outfit (imagine the outfit from Sonic Heroes but colored differently). The second demihuman had quills like a hedgehog or something but the quills were colored black with some red stripes, he was also naked with only gloves and shoes. The Automaton was around five or six feet tall with a stocky upper body and claws for hands and an Omega symbol on it's shoulder-plate.
"Who are you why were you here?" asked the hedgehog creature.
"There was a war and I was sent to stop a rogue magus who was performing experiments on human beings." answered Shirou.
"What war?" asked the hedgehog further.
"The war in Ukraine." said Shirou.
"Wasn't that a country from Old Earth?" asked the hedgehog curiously.
"Wait, Old Earth? What do you mean by that?" asked Shirou with concern.
"I hate to break it to you handsome but the world you knew was destroyed tens of thousands of years ago by an alien race called the Xorda. They tried to exterminate the human race using Gene Bombs with mixed results." said the bat creature indicating toward herself and the hedgehog.
"Then… then that means Rin and Sakura are …"
At the realization Shirou fell to his knees.
The bat wrapped her wings around him like a blanket in an attempt to comfort him.
"It's okay everything's going to be alright. You can find a new home and new friends. And if you need a shoulder to cry on I'll be here." said the bat.
The hedgehog was giving her a blank stare which seemed to annoy her.
"What?! I'm not completely heartless!" she complained with a pout.
"Didn't you insist on stealing a Sol Emerald even if doing so threatened the existence of the Sol Zone not too long ago?" asked the hedgehog blandly.
"Look we all do things we regret okay! And besides you seemed perfectly fine with helping me do it." shouted the bat in response which seemed to shut him up.
"Anyways If you need me just call." She said as she gave Shirou a card from an organization called G.U.N. with the name Rouge the Bat written on it with contact information.
"Well, how do we get out of here?" Shirou asked taking a look around seeing as the ruins of the laboratory were buried underground.
"Oh, that's easy we just have to gather around Shadow over there." said Rouge pointing towards the hedgehog now identified as Shadow as he took out a strange gemstone that gave off a strange mystical energy signature.
As they all gathered around Shadow shouted out two words.
"Chaos Control!"
It was after this day that Shirou began to work for G.U.N. for a time while he found a new place of residence in Empire City and secured enough funds to settle down. But he would eventually stop working for G.U.N. to become an independent mercenary again. When asked why he simply said that he could save more people that way and following an organization would only get in the way. Rouge figured that G.U.N. had just been a means to an end for him.
Months later in Empire City
Fiona was seated at a bar. She was all by herself drinking mug after mug of beer. She sat her head down on the counter groggily, her mind adrift with thoughts of a life wasted. Fiona would never say this to anyone but she hated being alone. It reminded her too much of when she had been locked in that dungeon all those years ago.
She remembered how many chances she had, had to turn back. Tails, Antoine and Sonic had tried to reason with her and she had turned them away every time.
"I-I-It's okay if you don't want to like me- I m-mean 'like me' -like me- b-but please don't go with Scourge!"
"They are not from our Zone, Fiona. What are you doing with our Evil Twins?"
"Wait you're not part of the mutiny? Why?! You're not even from Moebius!"
"Another." she asked the bartender as she blinked unevenly.
"Ma'am I think you've had enough." the dog mobian told her.
Fiona got up and walked out. She couldn't stop thinking about what had happened that time at the abandoned laboratory. When she had broken Sonic to the point where he had tried to kill her in cold blood.
"You almost got his friends killed and told him that you're relationship with him had all been a lie. How did you expect him to react you stupid Bitch!" said a voice in her head.
She had heard the voices ever since her time in Robotnik's labor camps. They were starting to get loud again. Fiona then remembered what she had said to Sally about her being a robian. She didn't like Sally but she knew that being a robian was a fate worse than death and she shouldn't have said those hurtful things to her. Even though Fiona wasn't the one who turned Sally into a robian she still felt like if it was somehow her fault for not being there. Then speak of the devil she saw the last person she wanted to see tonight, her electronic eyes glowing in the dark of the night.
Fiona tried to walk away but Sally had already noticed her and began to approach. And before Fiona could speak Sally got in her face and spoke first.
"Do you know what it's like to not have control over your own body?" Sally asked angrily and before Fiona could respond Sally continued.
"Do you know what it's like being forced to watch as you hurt your friends and try to kill your own family? Do you know what it's like watching helplessly as you're taken apart with a blowtorch as your only chance of going back to normal is taken away from you?" Sally asked again.
"This is about what I said isn't it?" Fiona asked already knowing the answer.
"Look I'm sorry, okay. I've been a horrible person to all of you and I regret it. I'm stupid! I'm Just A Stupid Bimbo Who Threw Away The Only People Who Cared About Me And Decided To Trust The Wrong Guy!" Fiona began to shout as she burst into tears.
Fiona then ran away before Sally could respond.
A bit later that same night
The alcohol was beginning to effect Fiona even more. Now she was standing on the railing of a highway intersection. She lifted her foot off the edge but hesitated. She paused for a minute before finally deciding to do it. As she jumped, she felt two hands grab her.
She turned to see a tall bronze-skinned overlander with snow white hair and steel gray eyes. Fiona then got angry and started to hit him.
Meanwhile
Shirou saw a young Mobian Fox girl about to attempt suicide. He tried to stop her only to get a negative response.
"Let me go. I want to die. I wanna be in hell before dinner." the young woman mumbled weakly as she pounded her fists on him clearly intoxicated. He was starting to lean even further off the railing as he almost dropped her.
Then a large semitruck began to approach from under the bridge as Shirou then noticed that the fox had now suddenly fallen asleep and was already snoring.
"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" Shirou panicked as he frantically pulled the girl up back onto the bridge before rushing back to his apartment.
Later the next morning
Shirou had left the fox girl in bed overnight and now he was cooking breakfast. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast consisting of steamed rice, miso soup and grilled fish served with a side of nori(dried seasoned seaweed) and fermented soybeans with green tea for the drinks. He remembered how she had been crying in her sleep last night while muttering the name "Sonic." He was suddenly cut from his thoughts when he heard the door open and turned to see the girl was awake and sober again with a gaze that appeared to be studying him.
"Oh, I'm glad you're awake I'm making breakfast." said Shirou while greeting her.
"You really should've let me die." she said calmly.
"Why is that?" asked Shirou.
"I'm nothing but trouble." said the girl.
"Well then let's exchange life stories over breakfast because I just finished cooking." said Shirou.
The fox girl looked at the food hesitantly.
"Do you not like it?" asked Shirou nervously.
"No it's not like that, I'm just not used to eating like this is all." said the fox awkwardly.
As they started to eat Shirou decided to start the conversation.
"I'll start by telling you my story." Shirou said as he then started to get serious.
"The earliest thing I remember was a fire the only thing I remember from that night was that it was hot and that I couldn't breath. And that I had tried to save someone but that person had ended up dying anyway. I have no memories from before the fire almost as if the person I was before had died in the flames." said Shirou darkly.
"But then a man found me he had looked so happy that he had saved me and I wanted to be happy just like him. I then decided I wanted to make a world where everyone could be happy. I wanted to become a hero of justice." at Shirou's words the fox mobian started to laugh.
"That's so corny!" she said wiping a tear from her eye. But Shirou continued regardless.
"I would later learn that the man had spent his entire life sacrificing the few to save the many and what I had actually seen that night had been a man drowning in despair being allowed a moment to breath. I also learned that you can't save everyone." finished Shirou.
As Fiona swallowed her breakfast she decided it was her turn to tell her story.
"When I was a little girl me and my family lived in Mobotropolis when Robotnik staged his coup and took over. I was captured and sent to one of the mining camps where I met Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel we stirred an uprising but it got taken down by the robot guards. We got imprisoned again until Sonic came and rescued everyone but no one found me. I became convinced that they had simply forgotten me but now that I think about it, it probably had to do more with the fact I got relocated. I eventually escaped by myself after Robotnik made a robot copy of me and I was left to rot in a prison cell then I found out my family was long gone, maybe they had moved on thinking I was dead or something." she said.
"After being used and betrayed a few times I had learned to depend only on my self until using people had become almost second nature to me. I became a treasure hunter and thief for a time working with Nack's sister, Nic and later Bean and Bark." said the Fox
Shirou knew about those individuals from some of G.U.N.'s records on independent mercenaries.
"Then for a time I tried to turn my life around and became a Freedom Fighter." she explained.
Shirou had heard a bit about them from some of G.U.N. they were apparently a revolutionary force that fought against Robotnik and later Eggman. Sonic, The Hero of Mobius was a particularly well known and prominent member.
"I then got in a relationship with Sonic when he came back after everyone thought he was dead. Since he had sacrificed himself to save The World I figured he wouldn't have left me on purpose and it's part of the reason why I joined the Freedom Fighters in the first place, but a small shred of doubt kept gnawing at me. I also started to feel like I could never really fit in with the Freedom Fighters once they knew about my past. Then my ex, Scourge came ..." she paused before continuing.
"I first met him earlier when he still went by Anti-Sonic. He pretended to be regular Sonic for a time and that's when he hit on me and we hit it off for a time, but then he left me for Rouge of all people. So I started to date the normal Sonic. Then when he showed up again later now calling himself Scourge I was understandably mad at him so I helped Sonic beat him up. But then he met me in secret and swore that he had changed and like the other Sonic he was a sweet talker, and since my relationship with Sonic had slowed down because of an incident with Tails I started to date him again in secret."
She then went into explaining the events of her betrayal to which Shirou's expression visibly soured. She had slapped a child that cared about her, became a tyrant in another world, attempted to take over her home reality and reveled in tormenting the people that had once been her comrades. He didn't know who Scourge and the Suppression Squad were but he had known about the Destructix, they were a group of assassins, mercenaries and psychopaths that had been gathered by the insane thaumaturge known as Mammoth Mogul and later went under the employ of the mad techno-mage Dr Finitevus both of whom had been listed as potential threats by G.U.N. Shirou remembered that in the Old World he had filled entire graveyards with people just like the fox and the Destructix.
"I also forgot to mention the time me, Scourge and the Destructix tried to unleash Enerjak for Dr Finitevus."
"Who or what is Enerjak?" Shirou asked.
"Basically, he's some sort of Evil God." Shirou's mind then went to the memory of Angra Mainyu.
"And the worst part was that I actually felt like I belonged with Scourge and the Destructix. With the psychopaths and the murderers I felt like the normal one. Then there was the night Scourge made a final attempt to kill the Freedom Fighters, I was willing to kill them all for him, hell I had planned the ambush and all Finitevus did was create the energy surge I needed to lure them into my trap. Then I broke Sonic to the point where he tried to kill me. That was when Scourge left me for dead and I felt trapped again only this time I only had myself to blame." said the girl.
"After I was saved by Sally of all people and I saw how much Sonic genuinely loved her that was when for the first time in a while I had a moment of clarity. I had become everything I had hated most and it was all over nothing. They can't forgive me, they shouldn't forgive me. I won't sugar coat things, I'm a monster, but I'm a monster the world made me." finished the fox.
"Well, I won't lie to you when I say that you're actions were absolutely deplorable and you can't be forgiven easily for things like that, but that just means you have to become a better person." said Shirou.
"What?" asked the fox in confusion.
"The best example I have is an old friend I had named Shinji." explained Shirou.
He then explained everything awful Shinji had done. How he had regularly abused his adopted sister Sakura. How he had tried to kill Shirou. Then he explained how after having a near death experience Shinji had realized how much Sakura actually cared about him when she took care of him while he recovered even after everything he had done and felt genuine remorse. Shinji had become nice to Sakura and became a genuine friend to Shirou.
"I forgot to ask you this but I didn't quite catch your name." the mobian asked.
"My name is Shirou Emiya. What's your name?" he said to her.
"Fiona, Fiona Fox." she said.
That was when the name clicked in Shirou's head.
"Oh, you're Fiona Fox!" he exclaimed in realization.
Shirou had heard Shadow and Rouge occasionally mention a person named Fiona Fox in passing. Rouge would mention them with pity while Shadow would with disdain.
Fiona then stared at Shirou blankly.
Later During the Afternoon
As Fiona watched tv she scoffed and turned it off after seeing a tv add for an Interstellar Amusement Park built by Eggman who claimed to have done it out of complete remorse for when he took over the World. It was probably just an elaborate charade being done after he lost a lot of territory recently. She then got up and walked outside.
…
Fiona went for a walk in the park and became lost in thought. She wanted to make amends with the Freedom Fighters she really did. But they would never truly welcome her back. She then heard crying nearby. She turned to see a little fox boy that was probably eight years old that reminded her a lot of Tails.
He had gotten his kite stuck in a tree and couldn't get it out. Fiona walked over and climbed the tree. She grabbed the kite and came back down with it. She then handed it to the boy.
"Thanks lady!" said the boy excitedly as he was able to play again.
"Oh, it was nothing." She said while giving him a smile like the ones she used to make when she was a Freedom Fighter as she ruffled his hair like she used to do with Tails.
"Hehehe! Stop!" the boy giggled before he left.
Fiona actually felt a little better after doing that.
Later as she went back into the apartment she heard the Overlander, Shirou say that dinner was ready. She then saw that Shirou had cooked something familiar this time.
"Are those chilidogs?" she asked with surprise.
"Well, I heard they were pretty popular around here and I wanted to try something new." he said happily.
Fiona sat down with an orange soda she had picked from the fridge and began to eat. She could taste the effort that had been put into making the meal the careful use of the spices and ingredients. It had been made with love. Her mind then drifted back to the memory of when she used to eat chilidogs with Sonic at his Uncle Chuck's restaurant. Then she started to cry.
"Is something wrong?" Shirou asked.
"No, it's just that me and Sonic used to eat chilidogs together." She said quietly.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Shirou muttered apologetically.
As day later turned to night and Shirou went to bed he felt someone climb into bed next to him. It was Fiona, she had her own bed but for some reason she now decided to climb in next to him. He was going to protest against the action since she was underage but then realized that he missed the warmth of another person sleeping next to him, the feeling of their chest rising and falling as they breathed. He missed Rin.
Ending Short: Fiona's Nightmare
Fiona woke up in Freedom Fighters HQ she wondered how she got here as she wouldn't be welcome here anytime soon. She got up and started to look around.
"Sonic?! Tails?!" she called out. Only to hear a door open and close behind her.
She turned to see that it was Sonic. She excitedly went to embrace him.
"Sonic, I'm sorry for everything! I want to make amends! I want to be with you again, I want you to hold me again." she said letting it all out.
"Well that's too bad." Sonic said before he pushed her to the ground.
Fiona looked up at Sonic with tears in her eyes. He stared at her coldly, there was no love for her in those eyes. Then the same dark aura from that night in the lab began to envelop him again.
"Scourge was a low-life thug but you're something much worse. You're a manipulator Fiona." said Sonic.
Then Dark Sonic lunged at her.
...
Shirou awoke to hear the fox that he had rescued crying. He went to investigate and heard her talking in her sleep.
"Sonic ... Sonic no."