I do not own this scene or any of the characters in it. I am only playing with them here for free while also making no money. So, please do not sue and just enjoy. :)

She let herself fall asleep. It had been a long night of letting Sonic run through places mice might be, so she could swoop down, catch, and eat them as he flushed them out. Sonic had been more helpful of late. Her hedgehog was growing up. Still, he was energetic and eager to run. She could not really keep up with him barely contain him.

Longclaw had been in deep restful darkness, when something collided with her chest. Sonic had run into her again. He bounced off and rolled over the floor of the hut they'd used as their home before unrolling and laughing at her.

She shook off sleep and cocked her head to watch him. He'd been up long. She could tell. He was clear eyed and ecstatic. He must have been using the loop-de-loops on a bright sunny day. "Sonic, someone could have seen you."

He stood to his feet turned partly toward her and waved her concerns away with one hand. "No one saw me." Then he mimed running. "I'm too fast!" His tone changed to sweet as he turned back to her, reached up into his long spiked-back hair all hedgehogs of their world had and pulled out a flower. "Plus, I wanted to give you this."

She didn't want to be angry, but she wanted to be firm. He knew her weak points though. She appreciated beauty in stones, metal, and flowers. More than that she appreciated the love for her in his gesture even if it was likely partly coming with an unspoken "Don't be mad at me."

She let out the breath she'd been holding to scold further and began to reach for his gift. Then movement outside grabbed her attention. Echinda warriors dresses in full hunting gear stared at her from the trees outside.

Sometimes, she and her fellow warriors could barely throw on their armor when invaders arrived before flying out to meet them. That was one reason they had the habit she had continued even on her own with Sonic of always wearing "some" armor even in sleep. It was more comfortable for owls like her than echidna like she saw now. These were wearing masks like they did after battles to hunted surviving invaders … or when they hunted traitors.

Longclaw flung herself at Sonic. "Get down!" She wrapped herself around him and reached out one foot to hook the open door with her claw and fling it shut. Arrows hit it and the walls letting in dots of light around their points poking inward. One arrow found its way in through a window. In its landing, it stabbed through the flower Sonic had dropped on the floor. Staring at it, she wondered if she had been harder on him, even when he was being so sweet, would this have happened?

They couldn't have arrived so soon after seeing Sonic today. They had been ready planning, preparing for this long coming in force. Had they just been checking island by island like this or had someone seen Sonic's bright blue blur on an earlier day, or on a night he'd run to flush out mice for her?

They couldn't stay here. Warriors were crawling up the walls outside, in through the windows. Longclaw looked from one to another of her once fellow warriors measuring the threats presented looking for a gap. One held a spear. Another held a net too small for her. It was probably meant for Sonic. But that meant, it wasn't holding a weapon. Still ... She glanced to one more window this one had glass in it with light unimpeded shining through that ...

She threw Sonic into the air and out of her wings. She gave the latter a great flap. She rose off the floor and snatched his falling form with her feet. Then Longclaw tilted toward the window and gave another flap to propel herself through it.

Partially covered her head with her wings, she burst through glass sending shards of it and one echidna warrior making his way to cover it flying. Holding Sonic in her feet still as far back from the impact and flying glass as possible, he nonetheless escaped with her and she flew on. They had made it out of the trap, but were still not safe.

Arrows flew after her. She began evasive maneuvers. They had partially gotten her made a warrior in the first place. They had helped her evade javelins of wood and metal, missiles coming from cannons and catapults, and flying machines with razors for rotating blades. It was a good thing she'd kept in practice all this time. She climbed higher making herself a smaller target to those below, but not fast enough.

An arrow struck through her beneath her armor. Its point nearly reached into her lung. Still, she knew warriors rarely survived such wounds more than a few days. The more she flew and moved, the faster her death would be. She hoped she'd already given herself and Sonic enough distance.

Longclaw folded her legs and wings in and tried to aim her fall through a gap in the tree branches below. She rolled pinning Sonic under her wing and holding him near her head as they crashed to earth. Though she spun in her landing bouncing like a skipping stone a few times, she made sure none of these impacts hit Sonic. All she heard from him was a "Whoa" that sounded almost more mournful than afraid. She was glad he was saying anything at all.

After they stopped spinning, Longclaw felt herself slide a few steps of distance across the ground causing a wave of dust to rise. Then she pushed off with one foot to stand again. She set Sonic down.

After a breath, she began. "Listen carefully Sonic. You have a power unlike any I have ever seen."

Machines, she had seen go fast. Emeralds she had seen glow blue. But a living thing faster than any machine she had seen glowing with blue energy. In all her years of invasions from other planets and watching over chaos emeralds before rescuing and raising him, she had only seen such things done by one living thing: him.

After all those experiences in her earlier life though, she knew another thing. "And that means someone will always want it."

Maybe not everyone. They had captured prisoners who begged for mercy saying they were only doing as told because to do otherwise had meant death by order of one who did want the stones enough to pay for them with unwilling lives. But someone in the universe had always seemed to want chaos emeralds. And Sonic was even more proof of what kind of powers they could obtain with them.

Sonic looked up at her with his eyes enlarged, focused, and growing more moist. Usually, she had to shout to make him look like this. Now, she kept her voice low and as even as she could. He was already scared enough, and this would be their last talk, which meant she had to make every word count.

She lifted a foot and reached a hooked claw into the bag of the interplanetary travel kit. She threw it. She would send him to earth, earth that seemed to know nothing about them. Green Hills where the villagers seemed to be at peace. He needed peace right now. He needed comfort. He needed space away from these enemies … that were their own people and to be near those who had never been their enemies, whose ancestors hadn't been their enemies for millennia at least.

As a dark forest appeared within the gold circle. She turned back to Sonic even while gesturing with her wing toward it. "This world is on the far side of the universe. You should be safe there."

He looked up at her with those large wet eyes again. His voice high and tight, he declared, "But I don't want to go without you!"

"You must."

She placed the travel kit in his hands. "These rings will be your most precious possessions." He had to value them as much as she had when they first found them, because now he would be alone. All alone.

Oh Sonic!

Even as her heart lurched and twinged at the thought of him alone for the rest of his life, she heard a cry of an echinda warrior. Its tone said he was pleased with his discovery and alerting the rest of the hunting party to it. He was drawing the rest to him, to her and Sonic.

She looked up. The warrior in a bone mask with grey feathers was followed by others with blue. Blue warriors. Guardians of the blue emerald. From which Sonic's power came. This hunt was personal to them a way to make up lost honor.

Others with red feathers came out form the sides to join the first line of attack. Guardians of other emeralds had joined those who guarded the blue in this hunt. She looked down from measuring their pace and distance to meet Sonic's gaze again.

"If you're ever discovered use one." She began to push him toward the portal with her wing. It should be closing soon, but not soon enough. "Never stop running." Because the universe never ran out of the power hungry, and she never wanted him speared, or shot, or netted and caged. She never wanted him made an experiment, and energy source, a soldier slaughtering anyone in a ruler's way at high speeds. No, she wanted him to stay Sonic even as he grew older and grew up. She wanted him to be free and kind and happy as he had been with her these past few years as happy as he could be without her, without anyone.

The sounds of beating feet neared behind her as Sonic continued to stare up to meet her gaze with his big wet eyes. She put volume as well as stiffness into her voice. "Now go!"

He ran through the ring into the dark forest beyond, the place where she had found peace, however briefly, and not much for herself. She'd been happy to see it all around her there among others though. Perhaps Sonic would feel it there too even within himself. She hoped so.

She turned back to their pursuers. Then she spread her wings to cover the portal as a wall between that other world and these enemies. She heard Sonic call out her name behind her. "Longclaw!"

She had never encouraged him to call her mother, or grandmother, or even aunt out of respect for the hedgehogs she'd taken him from even if it had been to save his life and his real mother had thanked her for it. She didn't know who else beside his mother and siblings had missed him. She wished she could have given him back. This proved she'd made the right choice though. If she lived long enough, she would be missing him now.

She turned back to give him a calm encouraging smile. "Goodbye Sonic." The portal was going to close very soon.

She turned back to face their enemies again, but still heard Sonic's "No!" She was prepared to bump him back through with her own back if he out into their world, but he didn't. The portal dissolved. Then she was tackled to the ground by at least four echinda warriors. A net fell over her face.

"Stop!" The warriors pinning her froze as the voice spoke again. She opened her eyes. The echidna in the bone mask with grey feathers approached her. She knew from his voice it was the leader who'd tried to talk her into letting him kill Sonic or killing him herself years ago. "She's hurt, and the hedgehog's gone. Get off her."

A deep guttural voice shouted, "Why?!"

"Because we know not where she has sent him. And we need to know. Get off before you injure her further."

The other warriors did as he commanded. She shot upright and tried to jump into the air, but a rope wrapped around her legs binding them together and throwing off her leverage and balance. More ropes were then thrown over her shoulders. They tightened holding her down. She gasped as the arrow in her side moved inside her stabbing through flesh it hadn't before.

One of the echidna approached shaking a bottle. She looked over to see the familiar shape of the container and groaned. It was a medical supply taken from certain invaders who'd come to their planet several years ago. The echidna aimed the bottle's nozzle at the arrow shaft protruding from her side and pressed a button spraying a circle around the now broken stick.

Longclaw sucked in a breath as the foam that came out of the bottle hardened stabilizing the weapon so it wouldn't move, but also making the flesh it hardened and stiff. The old leader approached her a few steps while meeting her gaze. He spoke. "Now, Longclaw, traitor to your people. You will tell us where the danger to the universe is."

She rose to her full height the arrow in her unmoving. She tried to keep the pain and discomfort out of her voice as she said. "No. I won't."

The eyes within and behind the holes in the mask narrowed at her. She narrowed hers back. The leader then spoke to the other echidnas even as he kept his gaze meeting hers. "Get her on the ship."

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes