I do not own any of these characters, but the first movie and trailer released for the second inspired me. Unlike the creators of those projects I make no money from this, so please don't sue me.

A whoosh of air hit the older guard driving him back on his heels. Two feathered wings blocked his sight of and his way to his target. Then these wings pulled back from his face and folding up to encase his target. Above these wings frowned the face of Longclaw.

The old echidna guard huffed. He shifted his weight back, but then planted his feet and clenched his fists. His voice came out low, but strong it echoed off the walls and seemed to surround all the guards and child. "He's obviously infused with the power we are sworn to keep out of sight and out of knowledge of all beyond this island! That's the only reason our society exists here! We train, we fight, we live and die to keep the universe safe from this!" He pointed his spear tip toward the gem still keeping that tip well out of the range of the field the hedgehog had fallen into. The echidna then turned his weapon to jab its point at the wings surrounding his intended target now. "Everywhere he goes, he'll carry that power with him! He may even be able to use it for himself! He will be impossible to control, impossible to contain, capable of destroying the whole universe! He's so young, he could do it merely by accident!"

Longclaw leaned her narrowed eyes and bristling feathers over protecting wings. "How do you know you won't unleash all that power by harming him now?"

"Better even this whole island blow up than the whole universe should he stumble on a way to destroy it himself!"

"But he can learn to do better than that! He can help us protect what gave him this power he has better than any of us!"

"He will be a beacon guiding people to the emeralds! Others might even be able to harvest its powers from his very body!"

"Then we protect him! Like we protect the emeralds! We don't kill him! He didn't mean to do any of this!"

"And whose fault is that?! It's hard enough to protect a stationary stone, obviously, since you have failed to do so today! What chance have we of protecting a living thing, or training and controlling a child such power!"

"We can try!"

"We can fail!" The old echidna bowed his head. He sighed his eyes sliding shut as the air left him. He sagged bending at the waist and hanging his head. Then opened his eyes slightly again, locked his gaze wit hers, and spoke in a deep low soft tone. "It is sad: a tragedy," His gaze and voice grew harder, "And one of your own making warrior. So, either help me carry our duty out, do it yourself, or 'I' will kill you both."

Longclaw stared back into the echidna's gaze, before glancing to the other echidnas in the tunnel. Some had tight lips with narrow eyes glaring at her. Some had drooping mouths and teary eyes as they stared at her folded wings. Some didn't look her or the child's way at all gazing at the floor or even over their shoulders. None had taken a step nearer to her or who she protected. Longclaw looked up at the family of hedgehogs gathered along the edge of the hole. The mother's chest heaved. Her wide blurry with tears eyes focused on Longclaw's face. The little ones behind their mother stared at her folded wings with shiny half-closed eyes over their mother's spread-out arms forming a fence to keep them back. The owl felt the little form within her wings walk closer, and then arms wrap around her middle. Like happened sometimes when she flew low in a storm electricity crackled up through her feathers and over her flesh. Her eyes widened slightly. He truly was going to be unlike any creature there had even been before. He could have the powers of a chaos emerald within him!

Long-claw drew back a little lowering her wings. She heard a sharp "oh," from the mother hedgehog above, but didn't look toward her. Longclaw looked down at the small, blue hedgehog she'd revealed instead. He'd released her from his grip as she moved back. He now stood staring up at her pressing the tips of his index fingers together. Her taloned foot snapped out to grip him around his torso. His eyes widened and mouth opened wider as he stared back at her. Then his teeth clamped shut though his lips and eyelids still seemed peeled way back as he continued to meet her stare.

The old echidna guard nodded his head taking to large steps back from them. All the other echidna straightened and stiffened behind him including his young students who had stood up some time ago. Those who still stared had wider eyes. Even more of them had turned their faces away. Some who already had glanced back at the owl and hedgehog.

Then there was a whoosh of air. The gust swept over them all causing some to turn and duck. Long-claw shot up through the hole in the ceiling.

She passed a mother whose mouth was wide open. Then it curled up in a smile. Still watering eyes shone. Four tiny hedgehogs cheered. Longclaw continued flapping to rise higher into the air before turning her beak down and opening her wings wide to glide over the treetops and toward sand and water in the distance.

Down in the chamber of stone, next to a blue chaos emerald, the old echidna guard screamed. "Longclaw! You are a traitor! We will hunt you and the hedgehog down! There will be nowhere you can hide him! And if you do keep him from us, you have doomed the universe!"

Longclaw turned her head and gaze back slightly at this. Then she looked forward again. Her eyes narrowed and beak clamped tight. Behind her the four siblings of the hedgehog she clutched in her continued waving and cheering. Then their mother drew them close to her sides covered their mouths with her arms and hands. She whispered as tears fell down her face while she still stared after the bird, "Thank you …"

. . .

That night Longclaw glided low over crashing surf toward dry sand. As she passed over the dry sand, she dropped the hedgehog onto it before giving a final flap of her pained wings to land on empty feet. She opened her mouth wide. Her eyes almost closed. She sucked in air. Then she turned around and stumbled back to the young hedgehog who'd unrolled himself to stare up at her. Longclaw approached him with slow steps as he stood up and sniffed the wind now blowing from land to sea.

Then the owl felt a burst of air pass her much like those felt by others when she lifted into the air. She turned her head seeing a blue blur shooting over the sand and into the distance. She turned to look at the spot she'd last seen the young hedgehog standing. There was no one there.

She turned back to the inside of the island and cried or croaked up the beach, "No, no! Child! Come back! You can't .." The blue blur burst back out of long rough grass and sped down the beach like a shooting star. It stopped just before her and became the child holding out a clutch of berries much like he, his siblings, and his mother had shared earlier. The bunch was already half-eaten. His mouth, chest fur, and hands were already stained with an even deeper shade of blue than his fur had gained from the emerald. He continued lifting the remaining berries on the clump up to her. Longclaw laughed brokenly with the breath she had left. "You … you're fast .. and hungry …"

The hedgehog swallowed the berries he'd been chewing in his mouth. He burped before smiling and raising the berries even closer to Longclaw's beak. The owl smiled down into his face before saying, "No, thank you, little one. I don't eat berries. You can finish them."

The little hedgehog's eyes widened. He lowered the clump of berries, looked at them, back up at Longclaw, and then back to berries before looking back up at her again. She nodded down at him still smiling. "Go ahead."

He shrugged and picked and ate berries off the bunch in a blur of motion before running out, stopping, and burping. Then he yawned. He stretched his arms out over his head. Then he fell face forward onto the beach and began to snore.

Long-claw's eyes widened before she spread her wings over him. He began to make sleep murmurs. She pondered as she stared down at him and caught her breath. So, you are fast … faster than any bird in the air, faster than … Her mind went back to a battle with things from another place, another world. They had come through a portal flying in the air zooming past her at speeds she'd only seen lightning go. She'd heard some controlling them calling that speed, "Sonic …"

Having looked up and away into the past, she now looked down on the snoring hedgehog. "I fear I didn't know your young family well enough to know which of your mother's children you are. Because of this and how you are greatly changed …" Her eyes filled with tears and voice broke as she continued, "And I think you may never see your family for the rest of your life …" She gave a shuddering breath and nodded to herself. "I will call you 'Sonic.' And I will raise and protect you like my own or like one of the chaos emeralds themselves."

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes