Awakening

by Kogarashi

Sonic the Hedgehog just wanted to explore the world. Get out of his home village, stretch his legs, and maybe have an adventure or three. First stop: South Island, and a legend of "miracle stones." Unfortunately for him, fate—or a mad doctor with robots that look like insects and seafood—had other ideas. A Sonic 1 novelization.

5. Wreck and Roll

Chapter 5 – Wreck and Roll

Red sneakers swished through rain-soaked grass, carrying their owner at a steady but rather slow—for him—pace through the green hills. The world lay fog-shrouded and wet, low-lying clouds snagged in the tops of dripping palm trees, after the rains had fallen all through the night and well into the morning. Wan sunlight filtered down through the swirling vapor and washed out the color in the world until everything seemed to be shades of blue and grey. It left the island misty and mysterious around the young hedgehog.

Sonic hadn't minded the ongoing deluge, though. It was a good enough excuse to stay holed up in the tunnel resting, even if it meant a breakfast of nothing but dry, crumbly biscuits and lukewarm water. But now, with the rains finally abated, he had set out once more to explore and make his way further inland. The speedster reflected that any sensible Mobian would turn around at this point, head for their plane and leave the island behind them and good riddance. After all, everything he'd run into so far had either tried to kill him or run away from him.

But then Sonic wasn't exactly sensible. Adventurous, certainly. Curious, most definitely. Incorrigible, or so his uncle said. But not really sensible. He was a teenager after all, just thirteen years old, barely out of childhood. And there was still a mystery to solve, and he couldn't honestly say it would be a fun adventure without a bit of difficulty.

Plus, a small voice whispered at the back of his mind, what if those Mobians aren't in the bots willingly?

So he continued through the hills, working still further inland.

He'd done some exploring fresh out of the tunnel, consulting with his journal—which thanks to his uncle contained notes on useful plants, among other things—and had managed to track down an herb that made a passable burn remedy when crushed between his fingers and packed onto his blistered skin. A swath of gauze held the leaves in place, and their soothing oils made it easier to move today, though he was careful not to rub up against bushes on that side.

As he continued through the natural trails of the area, weaving between stepped cliffs and terraced hillsides, crossing bridges and dipping beneath ledges, he scanned the terrain for strategic points he could use if he ran into the bomber-bots again. There was currently no sign of the robots, thankfully, but it wouldn't hurt to be prepared, to try to train his eyes into noticing those things early just in case. Paying more attention now, Sonic could spot areas where a quick burst of speed could carry him up a sloped cliff face, or a few athletic jumps could take him to upper ledges where it would be far easier to leap onto the bots and knock them out of the sky. If he curled up into a spiky ball as he jumped, as many hedgehogs did in defense, he might even be able to cut through the metal again as he had that motobug a couple days ago. It was certainly worth trying if the opportunity arose again.

The path wound upward once more, disappearing into the fog that hung amid the gorges like a thick white soup. Sonic's quills quickly beaded up with moisture, giving him a distinctly clammy feeling, and his feet squelched in his sneakers. He made a face. Fog was nice to look at, but too thick, too humid, and it became rather uncomfortable. Just a little too much like drowning in the open air.

The fog limited his visibility to just a handful of feet, the stone columns that formed the ridges above the path reduced to mere shadows within the low-lying clouds. As the path continued to climb the vegetation became shorter, sparser, the palm trees and tall flowers yielding to smaller blossoms and mossy turf. Higher up a breeze began to blow. It swirled the mist around Sonic's arms and legs and across his spines, making him start occasionally as he thought he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye.

The dirt beneath Sonic's sneakers gave way to wooden planking, a boardwalk that clung to the side of the jagged ridge like a ramshackle shelf, held together with rough rope and splintery posts. This high up the mist thinned out again, and the steadily strengthening sunlight began to warm the air and burn off the haze, giving Sonic a clear view once more.

The young hedgehog stood among the tops of the stone spires, the wooden walkway an elevated path that wove between the fingers of rock. Sonic paused to take in the view, shading his eyes against the brightening sun and looking back along the way he'd come. He could just barely make out the coastline, a fair distance behind him and still cloaked in fog, the terrain throwing early afternoon shadows across everything. Ahead, the island's forested foothills were closer than ever. If there hadn't been fog to obscure his route, Sonic probably could have made it there by nightfall.

As it was, the sun had chased away enough mist that Sonic could pick up the pace despite the wooden road's notable lack of railings. He took off again at a much faster clip, mindful of dew-slick boards but otherwise enjoying the run. The wind whistled through his quills as he zig-zagged between grassy outcroppings, taking turns at a bit of a skid to keep from flying off the edges into the foggy unknown. His run kicked up a breeze, his wake whipping what tendrils of cloud remained into curling streamers that dissipated into the humid air. It even churned up the fog beneath the walkways, pulling it up and out of the valleys in an odd mimicry of a dust cloud.

Sonic wound up in a spiral around one barren rock peak, the path alternating between wooden boardwalk and hand-cut ledge, then skidded to a stop at the summit as he caught sight of the valley below.

The mist had cleared out of the lowlands enough to reveal the buildings of another hamlet, nestled among terraced hillsides thick with cultivated gardens. This village looked to be the largest Sonic had encountered yet, but what caught his eye more than anything else was the sight of things moving among the buildings, and of smoke. Too much smoke.

Someone was still in this village, and judging by the shouts that rose on the winds to his vantage point, they were under attack.

Without thinking twice, Sonic kicked back into gear and ran across the bridge, down a second spiraling path around another barren tower of rock and into the valley. He crossed the terraced gardens in a series of easy, athletic leaps before skidding into the village proper, sneakers leaving a rut several yards long behind him.

Everyone in the village center—Mobian and robot alike—stopped what they were doing to stare, surprised at the high-speed intrusion, as the dust cloud around the hedgehog settled. Sonic straightened from his crouch and glanced around quickly, warily. The villagers appeared to be a mix of mammals, squirrels and rabbits mostly but with a few pigs mixed in, while the robots herding them along looked like oversized crabs. More of the wasp-like bomber robots hovered in the air around a levitating vehicle shaped like an egg with a wrecking ball hanging from its underside, halted momentarily in its destruction of one of the mud-brick huts as its occupant glared at the interruption.

Sonic drew up short at the sight of the wrecker's pilot, dark eyes widening in surprise.

He'd heard of humans, even seen an "artist's rendition" once in one of his uncle's books, but had never actually seen one in the flesh before. As far as Sonic knew, humans never set foot in the Emerald Archipelago, the chain of islands that included his home. Maybe they were more common on South Island?

This human didn't look much like the drawing in the book. If anything, it looked like a mad walrus in red pajamas, and Sonic tried and failed to stifle a laugh at the creature's absurd appearance. Its head looked like a shiny, pink egg, completely hairless save for a spectacular red-brown mustache that would put any Mobian walrus to shame. Glasses with round blue lenses obscured the human's eyes, and a pair of yellow lapels on its red shirt gave the impression of a set of tusks. Sonic thought the human might be male, but he wasn't entirely sure. For all he knew, among humans it was the females who grew facial hair.

The human pointed accusingly at Sonic and growled, "What is the meaning of this?" Male, Sonic was almost certain of it now. The human leaned out of his hover-vehicle, unbalancing the craft slightly and showing more of his massive, egg-shaped girth. Sonic slapped his hands over his muzzle to keep the giggles in as they involuntarily bubbled to the surface. This seemed to annoy the human more, as his pinkish skin turned red, and he slammed a fist against the edge of his ride. "Who is this brat?"

Sonic flashed a toothy grin at the human, taking a juvenile delight in seeing the man's face grow even redder at the display of impudence. "I'm Sonic," he said, jabbing a thumb at his own tan-furred chest. "Sonic the Hedgehog. What are you supposed to be, some sort of shaved walrus?"

The human spluttered, beating his fists on his vehicle's console again. "I am Doctor Robotnik, the greatest scientific genius in the world!"

"Scientific genius?" Sonic raised an eye ridge incredulously. "Who builds robots that look like bugs? And...uh, seafood?" He gave a dubious glance toward one of the crab robots, once again making threatening shooing motions at one of the villagers.

The human—Robotnik—ground his teeth audibly at the insult, and somewhere in the back of Sonic's mind, a tiny voice suggested that maybe deliberately provoking the human might not be such a good idea.

He told it to shut up.

Instead, Sonic carefully tossed his pack to the side, folded his arms across his chest, and tried to strike a casual pose, even as his eyes flicked over the terrain around him. If it came to a fight, he wanted to be ready this time. "So are you the one responsible for sticking people in the robots?"

Robotnik regained his composure with a visible effort, forcing his expression back to a carefully composed mask. He glared at the young hedgehog before him—Sonic tried not to squirm under the human's calculating scrutiny—eyes lingering on the bandage around Sonic's midsection, before answering with a measured, "Yes." He leaned back in his seat, deceptively calm but his voice dangerous, tense, every syllable deliberate. "Are you the one who's been breaking my robots?"

Sonic grinned again and drawled, "Maybe."

"How...unfortunate." The human suddenly snapped his arm forward, pointing at the young hedgehog. "Get him!"

Instincts screamed, and Sonic reacted without thinking, ducking and rolling swiftly to the side as a trio of rockets—fired from the open pincers of three crab bots—blasted into the ground where he'd been standing.

Sonic's nerves thrilled as he regained his footing, adrenaline making his heart pound with excitement as a chorus of thunks and whirrs, robots leveling their weapons, echoed off of the half-collapsed walls of the surrounding huts. A chill like ice in the pit of his stomach fought with his sense of adventure as he quickly tallied up the bots advancing on him, but he ignored the worries that tried to overwhelm him. Now was not the time to freak out over his previous loss against the wasp bots.

Peripherally, he was aware of Robotnik retreating a pace in his wrecker, of the villagers the bots had been herding making a break for it while their captors were otherwise occupied. All the better. Less of a chance for casualties.

Several bombers fired hot projectiles at him, and Sonic leaped forward in a roll that turned into a sprint as more missiles tried to lock onto his position and failed. A trail of explosions followed his quick circuit of the village green.

An angry buzz overhead alerted him to the bombers' attempt to cut him off, and Sonic swerved in a zig-zagging arc to dodge their shots with a precision he'd lacked the day before. Even with his still-healing injury, he found himself better able to anticipate the bombers' attacks now that he knew what to look for and now that the ground was drier, and dodged yet another salvo before leaping up a pile of rubble from a completely demolished building. He pushed off the top brick in a powerful leap at the lead wasp, and had the satisfaction of seeing it halt briefly in what appeared to be surprise moments before a spiky blue ball of quills smashed into its mechanical face.

Quills squealed against metal, and the wasp bot fell in two halves to the ground below.

Momentum carried Sonic up and toward the next wasp before it could react, dropping it to the ground beside its comrade. The rest of the bombers broke formation to scatter, and Sonic uncurled and landed on his feet on the grass below, stumbling slightly as his injuries reminded him that yes, they were still there.

Rockets peppered the ground around him, drawing his attention back to the crab bots scuttling across the ground. Sonic wove between missile impacts, charging headlong toward the red and chrome machines even as they tried to scramble out of the way. One was too slow, and found a spinning blue buzz saw cutting its legs out from under it, collapsing it face-first to the singed earth. Its claws clacked open and shut ineffectively, and Sonic realized one major flaw they had: apparently the crab bots had a very limited arsenal. Once their payload had been fired, they lost their ranged advantage.

Sonic allowed his momentum to carry him past the first felled crab toward the second, tucking and rolling beneath its claws and kicking up to crash into its face with another deafening shriek of razor quills on metal. He rolled to his feet again with another downed bot behind him, took a split second to regain his bearings, then charged toward the next crab. It tried to scrabble away, but only managed a foot or two before Sonic slammed into it shoulder-first, shoving it into one of its allies in a tangle of steel and wires.

Fire flared in his injured side, and Sonic whirled to face another crab as it drew back a blood-streaked claw to strike again. The young hedgehog gritted his teeth against the pain, glanced upward briefly to gauge his position, then quickly spun in a tight circle around the crab to distract it as he listened for the telltale hum above.

There.

Another abrupt change in direction, and the crab bot stumbled directly into the path of a sizzling bomber missile, blowing part of its outer shell off and knocking the bot out for the count. Sonic immediately planted a sneaker against the fallen crab's face and launched skyward, colliding with the wasp that had fired the finishing blow before it could bring its weapon to bear again. A pair of well-placed feet sent the wasp plummeting earthward as Sonic jumped clear to a still-intact rooftop and darted along its edge. Muscles began to protest with strain—this was far more sustained exertion than he'd done before, with far more sudden twists and turns—and even adrenaline was starting to wear thin in the face of renewed pain. He pressed a hand to his wounded side, hoping the cut was shallow.

Two more bombers flanked him, keeping pace easily, and that scared, little kid voice rose in his head again before the adrenaline stomped it down. Not now.

Instead, Sonic darted quickly left, then right before the bombers could adjust. The two faltered in the air, one clipping the other with its wings and spiraling out of control as a result. It collided with the wall of another hut as Sonic leaped off of the intact roof and into the remains of yet another building. He caught hold of a support beam, swung around, and as the still airborne wasp bot closed in, flung himself back out and feet-first into its abdomen. It spun off and crashed into two more bots, and the trio fell into the ruins as Sonic landed heavily on the ground again. One more bot to go.

The bot in question swooped down toward the sprinting hedgehog, projectiles firing as rapidly as it could manage from its stinger. Sonic dodged back and forth across the now-pockmarked ground, then pushed to accelerate even more, breath coming with effort as he charged at a nearby wall. The wasp was too high to hope that he could ram it into the building, but there was another option at his disposal. He'd never done it before, but it should be doable.

Hopefully.

Sonic reached the wall at speed, planted one sneakered foot against it, and ran.

Gravity fought tooth and nail to keep the hedgehog earthbound, but his speed was more than enough and carried him upward. Sonic almost laughed out loud as he raced up the wall, would have laughed had his breath not been reduced to near-panting with exhaustion. Just wait until he showed his uncle this new trick!

He ran out of wall at the top and found momentum carrying him up in an ungainly arc, legs instinctively trying to find purchase where there was none. He forced himself to twist around, looking below as the wasp bot followed his trajectory with its optics even as it tried to draw up short, correct its course to intercept.

Sonic's awkward flight slowed, stopped, and gravity reclaimed the hedgehog, pulling him earthward again. He grinned even as the bot realized this, but it was too late.

Hedgehog slammed into mechanical wasp, driving it down and into the ground face-first. The impact sent shooting pains up Sonic's legs, and he stumbled off of the machine's sparking chassis and looked up once more.

Only Robotnik remained, sitting in his wrecker with a surprised and somewhat dumbfounded look on his face, slowly fading into anger. The villagers and any other bots present were gone, save for a few Mobians just pulling themselves out of the broken crab and wasp robots. These quickly looked at the human and battered hedgehog and high-tailed it away. Sonic didn't spare them more than a passing glance, focusing on Robotnik in case the human made a move. The young hedgehog couldn't keep a smirk off of his face, which widened when Robotnik visibly fumed at his impudence. All things considered, that fight actually hadn't gone too bad. Much better than the previous day's rout. All that was left was the human and his wrecking ball.

Something inside Sonic rose to the surface, a knot of indignation and anger that Robotnik would trap living, defenseless people inside robots and use them against others. Just how many people had he imprisoned, with no one there to stop him?

Sonic lifted his chin defiantly and braced his fists against his hips. "That the best you've got?"

Robotnik growled and threw a lever on his controls. The vehicle pitched forward at surprising speed, wrecking ball swinging wildly, and Sonic immediately crouched and pushed off of the scorched turf to meet the machine's assault with his own headlong charge.

Wind whistled in Sonic's ears, pinned back against his head. Adrenaline pounded through his veins. The world around him narrowed to the alarmingly scant stretch of ground between him and Robotnik.

The wrecker drew up short, causing the massive ball to swing on its chain directly at Sonic. The hedgehog ducked and rolled at the last second, skimming just beneath the deadly weight, feeling his quills glance ineffectually off of the steel surface. Sonic uncurled mid-roll, skidding with one hand and both feet through the dirt to keep himself balanced while maintaining speed, and sprinted around in a wide arc back toward the hovering vehicle even as Robotnik recovered from the first swing and brought the ball around to bear once more. Sonic managed to swerve around the second attack—just barely—and immediately started wracking his brain for an idea, any idea, of how to come out on top of this fight.

On top...

Dark eyes snapped to the top of the wrecker's housing. Of course. The cockpit lacked a proper roof, exposing its human pilot to the elements...and to Sonic. Now he just needed to get up there.

Sonic turned in another curving run, angling for one of the half-fallen walls. The tactic had worked against the wasp bots, after all.

Momentum carried him up the pile of rubble in the ruined building, and he kicked off and toward the approaching wrecker, grinning at the human's surprised look behind his dark spectacles. Robotnik tried to pull the machine away from the spiky blue missile, but Sonic was far more maneuverable than the clunky vehicle, and a pair of red sneakers slammed into the windshield. Cracks spiderwebbed through the reinforced glass with a satisfying snap, and Sonic bounced off and landed on the ground in a roll.

There was no time to rest, though. Sonic pushed to his feet and dashed out of the way just as Robotnik brought the wrecking ball slamming down into the ground where the hedgehog had been. The impact left behind a crater in the soft soil.

Sonic dodged again as Robotnik tried to swing the unwieldy ball at him, then ran up the side of another building to the roof. He ran along the top until Robotnik brought the wrecker near, then leaped clear just as the human smashed the makeshift weapon into the wall. Bricks collapsed beneath Sonic's feet, throwing his jump off slightly, and he curled into a ball before crashing into the side of the machine. Quills gouged into the steel paneling before the hedgehog was knocked loose and flung to the ground, and he staggered back to his feet, dizzy.

Something dark loomed in Sonic's peripheral vision. He tried to throw himself to the side, but fatigue had slowed his reflexes and he only twisted partly out of the way before the wrecking ball crashed into his shoulder. It spun him around violently and knocked him halfway across the village square, tumbling like a rag doll. He skidded to a stop against another building, the breath knocked out of him, vision momentarily blurring before he shook his head and forced himself back to his feet. His shoulder ached and his arm refused to move for a second or two, but there was no time to check for further injuries.

Robotnik's machine careened toward the young hedgehog, and Sonic forced himself to scramble to the side, out of the way. The human pulled hard on the steering column to avoid colliding with the wall, his vehicle weaving unsteadily back around. Sonic took the opportunity to dash toward the wrecker again, leaping up and bouncing off the building at the side of the hovercar his quills had marked. Twisting in midair, he drove a foot at the damaged spot, his speed adding force to his kick, and the paneling dented in with a satisfying crunch. Sonic dropped to the ground once more, gasping audibly and cradling his shoulder as the landing jarred it, and ran in another wide circle, eyes on the wrecker and its pilot.

The machine was smoking now, sparks falling to the grass below, but it was still airborne, and there was a feral, almost murderous rage on Robotnik's face as he forced his sputtering machine to lurch toward the hedgehog again, faster. Out in the open, and unlikely to let himself get near the buildings any more. The hedgehog's brain ran through options at lighting speed, and latched onto an idea.

Sonic dashed forward.

Robotnik wrenched the control stick to the side, swinging the wrecking ball around in a lethal arc.

Sonic leaped up right in front of the machine, planted his good hand against the steel sphere as it closed the gap, and vaulted upward directly at the cockpit. A fierce grin flashed across his face at the human's look of utter shock at the daring maneuver, and then Sonic whirled and his feet collided with the vehicle's paneling with the impact of a meteor. Metal dented inward with a screech, sparks flew, and thick black smoke billowed from the breach.

The machine jerked about as Robotnik tried to regain control of his damaged vehicle. Sonic threw himself free and tumbled to the ground, rolling to lessen the impact, coughing and gasping at the smoke in his lungs and the burning ache in his shoulder. The wrecking ball thudded into the ground nearby, chain clattering around it, as Robotnik jettisoned the makeshift weapon.

The retreating human shook a fist through the smoke at Sonic. "This isn't the end, hedgehog! You'll pay for this!"

Sonic forced a grin despite the pain. "Yeah right, Whiskers! Try not to sound so cliché next time!"

Robotnik shouted something else that may have been unflattering commentary about Sonic's ancestry, but the increasing distance swallowed the words and Sonic couldn't quite make them out, even if he'd cared to.

He watched a while longer to make sure the human didn't double back, then let his cocky mask drop with a pained gasp, clutching his injured shoulder. The joint was tender, but the limb responded when he flexed his hand. Not broken, at least. That was a blessing. Satisfied that he wouldn't need to splint himself up for the time being, Sonic inspected the rest of his body for other injuries. A few minor singes marked his blue fur in places from the machine's sparks, and the bandages covering his torso had been ripped loose, exposing the raw burns to the air again. Everything else seemed fine, if a bit bruised and aching from exhaustion. And filthy all over. He really needed a bath.

Sonic glanced around the village. Deserted now, just like all the others, the villagers wisely fled into the hills. Sonic doubted they'd be back anytime soon, if ever. Oh well.

He trudged to a building that still looked intact and walked inside, and began searching through cabinets and storage chests.

—

Two hours later, Sonic sat beside a pool at the base of a waterfall outside the village, scrubbing dirt out of his fur and quills. His pack lay nearby, a cloth-wrapped bundle of scavenged food and medical supplies on top of it, provisions raided from the partially demolished village. He'd left a hand-written note in one of the huts thanking the villagers for their absentee hospitality, but preferred to clean himself off before bandaging his injuries or recharging his drained energy reserves.

He hissed as the water stung the burns in his side, winced as his shoulder protested continued movement, but scrubbing himself down with the cloth was better than the alternative. Knee-deep was far enough into the waterfall pool for his liking, so a proper bath would have to wait until he could get his hands on a more reliable, less deep tub. Besides, the water was cold. A full dunking in cold water was simply out of the question.

His mind kept wandering back to the odd, walrus-like human who built robots to imprison Mobians and took exception to a smart-mouthed young hedgehog. What was that Doctor Robotnik doing on South Island anyway?

Sonic tossed his impromptu washcloth to the side and picked up the bundle on his pack, unwrapping it and pulling out the burn leaves and gauze bandages. Rolling the leaves between his hands to release their soothing oils, he swiftly dressed the burns on his torso once more, then took the rest of the gauze and rigged a compression wrap around his shoulder to relieve some of the pain when it moved.

Slinging his pack onto his good shoulder and picking up the bundle with the food still inside it, Sonic stood and headed off around the shore of the waterfall pool toward a path that cut upward and toward the island's foothills. His legs protested the further exertion, but he gritted his teeth and pressed forward. He wanted as much distance as possible between him and the village before nightfall, just in case Robotnik got the bright idea to come looking for him. The soreness in his legs annoyed Sonic. He'd have to build up more endurance for sudden direction changes. Not to mention bot-fighting, he mused, chewing thoughtfully on a wedge of cheese. Especially if that becomes a regular thing.

The hills around him steadily grew rockier, the swaying palms and oversized flowers of the coastal zone giving way to thicker grass and stands of tall, skinny cypress trees. Sonic found a cluster of rings just off the path behind a rock outcropping and gratefully grabbed them, power flooding his veins as the rings disappeared in a sparkle of light. Warmth filled his injured side and shoulder and eased some of the pain away, and the young hedgehog continued his hike with renewed enthusiasm and energy.

He soon reached the summit of the cliff and glanced back, surprised at his elevation. He could see a fair distance across the island's lush coastline to one side, for all appearances untouched by the hand of human or Mobian alike. To the other side, the path wound back down through a tree-filled valley toward visible stone structures, columns and the occasional roof, all crafted of a dark purple-grey stone. Ruins, by the look of things. Sonic grinned despite his injuries, and headed down the path deeper into the foothills.