The writing bug's bit...finally
Inspired by watching the movies for the Sonic the Hedgehog game released for 2006 (you know? the one that was supposed to reinvent the series? again?) There's definitely some human/hedgehog affection goin' on in there somewhere. But I can't figure out if it was friendship affection or lurve affection. If it was indeed lurve affection I think it was all one-sided...on Elise's part. Sonic just...doesn't work that way. I did cringe, however, when I figured out she was going to kiss him. And I'm pretty impressed that they killed him off for a little bit--that was good!
Looking at the story and being able to watch it, beginning to end, all the way through the game really isn't that half-bad. But I didn't have to play it. The Sonic 3D games have been, as a group and individually, a horrible and shaming disaster for the awesomeness that is Sonic the Hedgehog. This game had so much potential, so much drama, and the story was almost there! But I don't need to play the game to believe all the bad things the reviews say about it. Sounds like the same things are wrong with it as they've been since Sonic Adventure. Horrible voice acting, sketchy character movements, a sucky camera, and frustrating gameplay.
Anyway, on the good side, it inspired fanfiction! It's a rough, fresh off the fingers, so be prepared for some crappiness and mistakes. Because of this I'll update the story on lj as it strikes me. Right now I'm most concerned with keeping the energy alive.
It was the first time Shadow surprised him.
The fight had been going well. The black hedgehog wasn’t usually one for games, but Sonic could tell with each passing encounter that Shadow was enjoying himself...just a little. Sonic was no stranger to hate; he knew it when he saw it. But he was also no stranger to pride, and knew he was the only challenge worth trying to overcome.
It was fun to watch the copy try to prove himself, fun to hear all the reasons he came up with to fight, then tolerate, then befriend his original before the cycle repeated. Had Sonic more insight he may have described Shadow as ‘interesting’-a child teetering back and forth between the see-saw or the slides, unsure of where he wanted to play. But Sonic reveled in the shallowness of Now, and simply saw the other as an amusement, much as anything else that tried to chase or beat him.
Shadow’s skates made him fast, but they also made him predictable. A turn of the heel gave his next direction away; a slant of the body signaled whether he was going to speed up or slow down. Sonic was lighting as liquid-free, pliable, impossible. But Shadow was as he had been made-logical, static...boring.
He got hits in, to be sure. Just because Sonic saw a punch coming didn’t always mean he could avoid it. But ultimately the contests ended more or less the same. Either both hedgehogs battled until they collapsed, or a mutual desist was reached when the radius of destruction extended beyond their immediate surroundings. They could both use the chaos emeralds, continue to fight until only one victor stood, but that was beside the point. The point was to live. The point was to prove which one deserved to live more. And the point was to make sure the opponent lived to know it.
“Too slow, faker!”
Sonic was in rare form today. He liked to taunt. It was a deep character indulgence he could only revel in battle. Shadow’s communications were limited to grunts and vocal thrusts of effort, each precise kick followed by an equally precise glare. Sonic had never liked looking into his eyes. They seemed to slide around in his face, serpents seeking their prey-cold, calculating like a machine, but distinctly alive. He saw them shift to focus on his arm and whipped it out of the way before Shadow grabbed for it. A leap from the ground and he was clinging to the stony face of the canyon wall, his double in fast pursuit. Streaks of blue and red shot from surface to surface in the valley as Shadow struggled valiantly to keep up with Sonic’s leaps. He was a champion climber; before long he’d reached the top of the cliff and tore off at top speed, the grass burning in his wake.
“Always the same...”
The voice was beside him. Shocked, Sonic tilted his head and received a heavy kick to the gut. He shot sideways off balance, body already contorting into a protective ball on instinct. He slammed into a tree, the shockwave sending aches of pain through his head, and quickly uncurled before Shadow caught up to him.
“You know you’re wrong about me, Sonic.”
He looked up but it was too late. Shadow dropped on top of him, one foot on his chest, the other pinning his right arm. Sonic grabbed at his ankle with his left but Shadow wasn’t pushing down. Instead he was leaning forward, one hand on his knee, the other reaching behind his back.
“I don’t hate you.”
A chaos emerald gleamed in the morning light, its yellow rays blending with the sun. Sonic’s eyes widened-what was he doing?
“I hate the idea of you. CHAOS CONTROL!”
“You bastard!”
Their fights were never organized, there were no rules of engagement, but Sonic smelled a cheater all the same. Shadow was teleporting him!
There was no stopping the energies once they were stirred. Sonic felt the distinct tingle of the chaos energy rippling through him before he braced himself against the nausea, the sensation of being ripped from the ground and flung, tumbling, into space at three-thousand miles per hour. A chilling cold seized him to his bones before a brush of hot night air doused his fur. He slammed into the ground, the smell of grass and dirt tearing at his nostrils. He had barely bounced twice before he was back on his feet running at full speed in the last direction he’d felt.
“Shadow!”
Something snagged his ankle and he skid, face first, into the ground. He pulled himself upright on shaky legs, a little more reluctant to resume his running.
“Jerk!” he spit as he dug a blade of grass from between his teeth. “You better not have teleported me to the Mystic Ruins! Had enough of that place the first time through...”
It took Sonic a moment to realize something was wrong. Dawn was just breaking while he’d been fighting Shadow...but here it was night. He glanced upward-high above him peeking through the prickly needles of a dozen giant pine trees was a full silver moon, stars twinkling behind it. Sonic rubbed his neck. Had he been knocked unconscious?
“No way.”
What was the distance a chaos emerald could teleport? Had Shadow sent him through time? Could he even do that?
A flutter in the woods drew Sonic’s ears upright. He tensed. Wind rustled the trees overhead. Pinecones cracked and plopped on their messy fall through the branches to the earth. The spines along Sonic’s back bristled.
Someone was here.
He leapt out of the way of the laser blast as it bored through a bush in front of him. In a heartbeat he’d circled to the shooter, a kick landing somewhere on their body. The familiar clank of metal beneath his heel gave Sonic hope.
He couldn’t be too lost if there were robots to smash.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw countless beams of red light barreling through the trees. Apparently the other machines in the area had picked up on the noise. Propelling himself into a spin Sonic blazed in circles around the immediate forest, chopping off limbs and severing fuel lines wherever he saw fit. He didn’t need to see to attack the whirring parts of the automatons as they walked-attack the charge of their pistols as they readied to fire. Always in a habit of counting his defeats, Sonic was up to seventeen before he was finally struck.
He bored into a machine headfirst, sharp spines tearing at the metal chassis protecting its chest, but failed to see the robot standing behind it, gun at the ready. The barrel was already charged by the time Sonic came into view. The resulting shot clipped his ear, his destructive rhythm broken, and a massive hand engulfed his waist nearly crushing his chest in the process. He kicked at the arms holding him and felt them release only to be replaced by a second, better grip from behind, this one trapping his arms at his sides.
“Well, well, what have we here?”
Sonic struggled but to no avail. He was hoisted off the ground and hung suspended in the air.
“Some little champion come to-”
The speaker stopped dead, invisible in the darkness. A gust of wind stirred the trees.
“No...! I-it can’t be!”
A spotlight switched on atop the robot’s head and Sonic was suddenly blinded by a searing white light. He slammed his eyes shut and turned away.
“It can’t be!”
“I don’t have time for you to stand around all night and repeat yourself, Eggman!”
Sonic threw the name out as a haphazard guess, even though the voice didn’t quite fit. Who else did he know that dealt in giant robots?
“What’s your name, hedgehog?”
“Bite me.”
The grip tightened around his body. He gasped as the air was crushed out of his lungs.
“What is your name!”
A dull clunk sounded behind him and suddenly there was the gentle hisssss of gas leaking into the air. Projectiles began to slice through the night at lighting speed, striking like bullets against the robots, the trees and, from the sound of it, Sonic’s living tormentor. He felt a sharp pain at his tail as one of the objects clipped him.
The moment he felt the grip at his waist weaken he threw himself into a spin. The robot’s arms came off at the elbow and fell heavily to the ground alongside him. Sonic went to take a step forward but staggered as the world began to tilt. He couldn’t get his bearings.
“Retreat!”
The forest burst alive with movement-clumsy metal feet scraping against the bed of pine needles along the ground. Sonic fought to remain standing but soon found himself on his knees, his head swimming. A soft hand fell on his shoulder.
“You okay, fella?”
He tried to speak but his tongue was thick in his mouth. His spines trembled.
“Sorry. It doesn’t really work on the robots, but we weren’t exactly expecting a fight on a hunting trip. Here.”
His head was pressed gently into the ground and the wave of nausea surging up in his stomach weakened. He felt his head falling but couldn’t lift it.
“It’s okay. It won’t hurt you. It’s just a paralytic compound-it should wear off in a little while. Can we get a light over here!”
A dull orange glow erupted on the horizon, swaying back and forth in hypnotic rhythm. A dull thread of logic clawed at Sonic’s mind. Lantern.
“That’s good, bring it over here. Just keep it away from the pine-”
The hands touching him withdrew as if he’d suddenly caught fire. “Son of Acorn!” There was shoving in the background, excited feet prancing. “Run! Quick! Get Sally!”
A faint voice called against the night as Sonic slipped into darkness.
“Sally! Hurry! You’re not gonna believe this...!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gone are the days of the Sega and SatAM...I've come to accept that. The fandom is tending away from Robotnik and towards Eggman, away from Sally towards Amy Rose. But I'm sure that world still exists out there...somewhere. If you can't beat them, join them.
Looking at the story and being able to watch it, beginning to end, all the way through the game really isn't that half-bad. But I didn't have to play it. The Sonic 3D games have been, as a group and individually, a horrible and shaming disaster for the awesomeness that is Sonic the Hedgehog. This game had so much potential, so much drama, and the story was almost there! But I don't need to play the game to believe all the bad things the reviews say about it. Sounds like the same things are wrong with it as they've been since Sonic Adventure. Horrible voice acting, sketchy character movements, a sucky camera, and frustrating gameplay.
Anyway, on the good side, it inspired fanfiction! It's a rough, fresh off the fingers, so be prepared for some crappiness and mistakes. Because of this I'll update the story on lj as it strikes me. Right now I'm most concerned with keeping the energy alive.
It was the first time Shadow surprised him.
The fight had been going well. The black hedgehog wasn’t usually one for games, but Sonic could tell with each passing encounter that Shadow was enjoying himself...just a little. Sonic was no stranger to hate; he knew it when he saw it. But he was also no stranger to pride, and knew he was the only challenge worth trying to overcome.
It was fun to watch the copy try to prove himself, fun to hear all the reasons he came up with to fight, then tolerate, then befriend his original before the cycle repeated. Had Sonic more insight he may have described Shadow as ‘interesting’-a child teetering back and forth between the see-saw or the slides, unsure of where he wanted to play. But Sonic reveled in the shallowness of Now, and simply saw the other as an amusement, much as anything else that tried to chase or beat him.
Shadow’s skates made him fast, but they also made him predictable. A turn of the heel gave his next direction away; a slant of the body signaled whether he was going to speed up or slow down. Sonic was lighting as liquid-free, pliable, impossible. But Shadow was as he had been made-logical, static...boring.
He got hits in, to be sure. Just because Sonic saw a punch coming didn’t always mean he could avoid it. But ultimately the contests ended more or less the same. Either both hedgehogs battled until they collapsed, or a mutual desist was reached when the radius of destruction extended beyond their immediate surroundings. They could both use the chaos emeralds, continue to fight until only one victor stood, but that was beside the point. The point was to live. The point was to prove which one deserved to live more. And the point was to make sure the opponent lived to know it.
“Too slow, faker!”
Sonic was in rare form today. He liked to taunt. It was a deep character indulgence he could only revel in battle. Shadow’s communications were limited to grunts and vocal thrusts of effort, each precise kick followed by an equally precise glare. Sonic had never liked looking into his eyes. They seemed to slide around in his face, serpents seeking their prey-cold, calculating like a machine, but distinctly alive. He saw them shift to focus on his arm and whipped it out of the way before Shadow grabbed for it. A leap from the ground and he was clinging to the stony face of the canyon wall, his double in fast pursuit. Streaks of blue and red shot from surface to surface in the valley as Shadow struggled valiantly to keep up with Sonic’s leaps. He was a champion climber; before long he’d reached the top of the cliff and tore off at top speed, the grass burning in his wake.
“Always the same...”
The voice was beside him. Shocked, Sonic tilted his head and received a heavy kick to the gut. He shot sideways off balance, body already contorting into a protective ball on instinct. He slammed into a tree, the shockwave sending aches of pain through his head, and quickly uncurled before Shadow caught up to him.
“You know you’re wrong about me, Sonic.”
He looked up but it was too late. Shadow dropped on top of him, one foot on his chest, the other pinning his right arm. Sonic grabbed at his ankle with his left but Shadow wasn’t pushing down. Instead he was leaning forward, one hand on his knee, the other reaching behind his back.
“I don’t hate you.”
A chaos emerald gleamed in the morning light, its yellow rays blending with the sun. Sonic’s eyes widened-what was he doing?
“I hate the idea of you. CHAOS CONTROL!”
“You bastard!”
Their fights were never organized, there were no rules of engagement, but Sonic smelled a cheater all the same. Shadow was teleporting him!
There was no stopping the energies once they were stirred. Sonic felt the distinct tingle of the chaos energy rippling through him before he braced himself against the nausea, the sensation of being ripped from the ground and flung, tumbling, into space at three-thousand miles per hour. A chilling cold seized him to his bones before a brush of hot night air doused his fur. He slammed into the ground, the smell of grass and dirt tearing at his nostrils. He had barely bounced twice before he was back on his feet running at full speed in the last direction he’d felt.
“Shadow!”
Something snagged his ankle and he skid, face first, into the ground. He pulled himself upright on shaky legs, a little more reluctant to resume his running.
“Jerk!” he spit as he dug a blade of grass from between his teeth. “You better not have teleported me to the Mystic Ruins! Had enough of that place the first time through...”
It took Sonic a moment to realize something was wrong. Dawn was just breaking while he’d been fighting Shadow...but here it was night. He glanced upward-high above him peeking through the prickly needles of a dozen giant pine trees was a full silver moon, stars twinkling behind it. Sonic rubbed his neck. Had he been knocked unconscious?
“No way.”
What was the distance a chaos emerald could teleport? Had Shadow sent him through time? Could he even do that?
A flutter in the woods drew Sonic’s ears upright. He tensed. Wind rustled the trees overhead. Pinecones cracked and plopped on their messy fall through the branches to the earth. The spines along Sonic’s back bristled.
Someone was here.
He leapt out of the way of the laser blast as it bored through a bush in front of him. In a heartbeat he’d circled to the shooter, a kick landing somewhere on their body. The familiar clank of metal beneath his heel gave Sonic hope.
He couldn’t be too lost if there were robots to smash.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw countless beams of red light barreling through the trees. Apparently the other machines in the area had picked up on the noise. Propelling himself into a spin Sonic blazed in circles around the immediate forest, chopping off limbs and severing fuel lines wherever he saw fit. He didn’t need to see to attack the whirring parts of the automatons as they walked-attack the charge of their pistols as they readied to fire. Always in a habit of counting his defeats, Sonic was up to seventeen before he was finally struck.
He bored into a machine headfirst, sharp spines tearing at the metal chassis protecting its chest, but failed to see the robot standing behind it, gun at the ready. The barrel was already charged by the time Sonic came into view. The resulting shot clipped his ear, his destructive rhythm broken, and a massive hand engulfed his waist nearly crushing his chest in the process. He kicked at the arms holding him and felt them release only to be replaced by a second, better grip from behind, this one trapping his arms at his sides.
“Well, well, what have we here?”
Sonic struggled but to no avail. He was hoisted off the ground and hung suspended in the air.
“Some little champion come to-”
The speaker stopped dead, invisible in the darkness. A gust of wind stirred the trees.
“No...! I-it can’t be!”
A spotlight switched on atop the robot’s head and Sonic was suddenly blinded by a searing white light. He slammed his eyes shut and turned away.
“It can’t be!”
“I don’t have time for you to stand around all night and repeat yourself, Eggman!”
Sonic threw the name out as a haphazard guess, even though the voice didn’t quite fit. Who else did he know that dealt in giant robots?
“What’s your name, hedgehog?”
“Bite me.”
The grip tightened around his body. He gasped as the air was crushed out of his lungs.
“What is your name!”
A dull clunk sounded behind him and suddenly there was the gentle hisssss of gas leaking into the air. Projectiles began to slice through the night at lighting speed, striking like bullets against the robots, the trees and, from the sound of it, Sonic’s living tormentor. He felt a sharp pain at his tail as one of the objects clipped him.
The moment he felt the grip at his waist weaken he threw himself into a spin. The robot’s arms came off at the elbow and fell heavily to the ground alongside him. Sonic went to take a step forward but staggered as the world began to tilt. He couldn’t get his bearings.
“Retreat!”
The forest burst alive with movement-clumsy metal feet scraping against the bed of pine needles along the ground. Sonic fought to remain standing but soon found himself on his knees, his head swimming. A soft hand fell on his shoulder.
“You okay, fella?”
He tried to speak but his tongue was thick in his mouth. His spines trembled.
“Sorry. It doesn’t really work on the robots, but we weren’t exactly expecting a fight on a hunting trip. Here.”
His head was pressed gently into the ground and the wave of nausea surging up in his stomach weakened. He felt his head falling but couldn’t lift it.
“It’s okay. It won’t hurt you. It’s just a paralytic compound-it should wear off in a little while. Can we get a light over here!”
A dull orange glow erupted on the horizon, swaying back and forth in hypnotic rhythm. A dull thread of logic clawed at Sonic’s mind. Lantern.
“That’s good, bring it over here. Just keep it away from the pine-”
The hands touching him withdrew as if he’d suddenly caught fire. “Son of Acorn!” There was shoving in the background, excited feet prancing. “Run! Quick! Get Sally!”
A faint voice called against the night as Sonic slipped into darkness.
“Sally! Hurry! You’re not gonna believe this...!”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gone are the days of the Sega and SatAM...I've come to accept that. The fandom is tending away from Robotnik and towards Eggman, away from Sally towards Amy Rose. But I'm sure that world still exists out there...somewhere. If you can't beat them, join them.