I own none of the characters from the first "Sonic" movie. I'm only playing with them here while making no money for doing so, so please don't sue just enjoy. :)

Raising Sonic proved to be an interesting challenge for Longclaw. The owl warrior had hoped the hedgehog's coloring and powers might fade over time proving true her assurances to her fellow warriors that he was no threat. If that had happened, she might have dared to take him home to his mother, who, when she'd rescued Sonic, had whispered a "thank you." This never happened.

As the years passed, Sonic grew even faster. His emerald-blue hue never faded. She dared not let anyone else see him like this. Anyone might kill him as a threat or steal him as a resource if they saw him. Of course, with only her nearby to care for him, his incredible powers paired with his lack of experience might kill him first.

Once, when an island she'd brought him to ran out of the food, as she'd kept searching, because the more islands they went to the more likely it became they'd be seen, Sonic had tried running across the water to another island by himself. He could just see the land in the distance, so he'd thought he could make it. He sank less than a mile from shore. She'd heard his shriek, glided the distance and snatched his outspread arms keeping him adrift. His kicking legs churning up the water into many bubbles had probably helped too. She'd carried him back to his bed on the first island, and lectured him, then comforted him, and then lectured him again before carrying him to that distant island.

Another time, he'd swallowed many poisonous berried before she'd caught him. Luckily his stomach seemed to speedily recognize and then rid itself of the problem, but he'd cried even longer than he'd been sick. She'd waited until the next morning to give the lecture.

After that, she'd been even more careful to teach him what berries, nuts, and mushrooms could be eaten safely, and which could not. He hated even edible mushrooms though. He'd rather try running across water again than eat them. Only when his eyelids and head were slipping down while his stomach was still rumbling would he chew and swallow a few before falling sleep.

Once, he was ridiculously happy to follow a hermit crab around on the sand of a beach. Another time he chased a small, thankfully non-venomous snake. The poor creature couldn't figure out why it couldn't escape the blue hedgehog no matter where it turned to dodge and glide around rocks and through dust. Sonic had named both creatures and talked to them so fast neither would have been able to understand even if they could talk back. Longclaw had gotten a little jealous especially of the hermit crab who'd seemed not to mind. She'd felt a bit sorry for the snake. But then, neither small animal had had to tell Sonic "No" or give him a lecture when he hadn't listened. Despite the fact it would make more work for her, she wished she could give Sonic a friend. She knew she was too serious, too tired from just keeping him alive, to be a good playmate for him.

In four years, she had almost run out of islands to take him to, so she took him to the riskiest. It was the one where an chaos emerald had been not only found by an invader but taken aboard that enemy's ship. While these newcomers tried to use, study, or contain it, she had never learned which, it had destroyed their ship. They were uncertain how many of those invaders had survived and returned to their homeworld focused on retrieving the emerald as they had been.

Her fellow warriors would never want to go near such a compromised location again, but she thought it likely they had left transporting rings there. There was even a vertical looping track for Sonic to run on they'd used to develop and test movable machines. These large structures had been blamed for their enemies finding the island in the first place. Sonic loved them, though. She had trouble keeping him from using them on bright clear days where someone might see them even from the great distances their people kept from this place now.

She found dozens of transporting rings and a map of worlds on the island just as she'd hoped. The map showed one world no invaders had come from for millennia. Another shown on the map had never produced invaders or any other sentient life at all only mushrooms. Those would be safest for Sonic if her fellow warriors or invader came for them here. At least now they had a better exit strategy than her just flying him away or him running across water leaving her far behind if he didn't sink again. Life was hard keeping this little hedgehog alive.

She had not been chosen to be a mother when she came of age. She had wanted to be, to tend chicks of her own, see them grow and fly away and flourish. She had wanted to feel that love and have that pride in knowing she had nourished, taught, and unleashed new living things into the world that could become parents, workers, or warriors themselves. She would be partially responsible for all they would do then. But when she came of age, she was put through several tests. All sentient creatures born on their planet were put through a battery of tests unique to their kind. Her honor hadn't let her give anything but her best. If she hadn't and an enemy came, she could have helped defeat, who then stole and used an emerald to great destruction, any future chicks, any children in any world, might pay the price.

She was raised on stories of invaders that rained rocks, fire, and tar upon their people to get gems that would make them even more powerful gems that could, if tampered with wrongly, destroy the universe. They had to prevent that for all children, mothers, and fathers: all warriors even that were out there. So, she did her best. She had proven herself capable of being a warrior and that was that. The fastest movers and thinkers, the most strong and enduring born among them must be warriors, protectors of the islands and emeralds not parents.

She was a warrior forever.

She had dodged missiles, dropped weapons, and grabbed enemies behind massive guns before pulling them into the air and away from their weapons' controls. She'd even snatched weapons right from their hands. She'd also pulled allies from the water much like she had Sonic. When an enemy had even gotten an emerald into their very ship, and bolts of bright energy had shot out from its hull slicing it into pieces, so it first sank through air and then into water, she'd glided through those slices in that alien metal. She'd reached the chaos emerald gleaming in the midst of wires and probes. Another warrior had kicked the stand it rested on over so the emerald fell into a net. Then she'd carried it away in the net as he tried to find his own way out. She'd thought he'd died for four days till they found him glaring on a shore with a newly scarred face demanding if the gem was safe. He had been the echidna who'd insisted to her they needed to kill Sonic.

Had she betrayed all they'd fought for? Or had she succeeded? She'd taken away and was raising on her own a child with blue-emerald energy pulsating through his every muscle, hair, and quill. She was nourishing, carrying, and teaching him, but uncertain if she could ever set him loose into their own world or any other. But what would he do if he lost her? What would this living being with emerald energy become? She was a warrior raising a powerful child. And while all she'd gone through as a warrior had helped her raise him to this point, she didn't know how to teach him to do anything, but scavenge, hide, and run.

What do you think?

God bless

ScribeofHeroes