"Wow, this island has everything! Where did you guys get all this stuff?" Sonic asked, sat cozily inside the dining room of Strider Stronghold. Gifts lined the banquet table, along with snacks and drinks.
"Simple! The Portal nearby suddenly started spilling out a bunch of random knick-knacks! We thought it might be stuff you wanted," the special Sumo said. "By the way, name's Crunk the Sumo. Just call me Crunk. Happy birthday… Sonic, was it?" Crunk extended his arm, and opened his hand for a handshake. Sonic obliged, only now realizing that Crunk could probably squash his whole body in one hand if need be. "We take celebration very seriously 'round these parts. It's our way of life! If that sky-worm wants us dead, I say we should enjoy every moment like it's our last!"
"Huh. Never thought of it like that," Sonic replied. "Back on Kronos, we never had the time or supplies to celebrate much of anything. Everything we did, we did just to eat." Sage began to shovel pieces of cake into her wide open mouth with her hands. "This is nice. Thank you." Sonic opened one of his presents. Inside… was a photo. In the photo was Sonic, as well as Amy, a rabbit, and someone else. Someone red. All their faces were smudged out. Sonic looked into the picture, watched as it seemed to… zoom out.
"Hey! Wait! No! Come back!" Sonic shouted. His vision began to blur…
The sun rose on a vast, dull, dead field. It bathed one side of Erius in a strong warm glow through the potentially toxic rainclouds. Badniks shambled about aimlessly. Wandering through the once lush farmlands, attempting to climb out from the usurped and dammed-off Great Glittering River, falling from the top floor of a local barn.
As the night sky began to be painted purple, orange and blue by the sun, the Badniks were none the wiser. They had not been programmed to see beauty. They continued their trek towards any possible victims. Oblivious to the fact that their reign of terror had all but ended. The Eggman had been dethroned in light of the recent war, the Empire had been forced to restructure under the complete jurisdiction of the Top Two. The world was finally waking up from its latest horrible nightmare.
They began to walk away from the glow of the sun, they walked away from the birth of a new day. But just when they did, Sonic the Hedgehog came crashing through the tall grass. A strong wind trailed in his wake, knocking over the directionless Badniks as he chased the sunrise. The giant dead dandelions covering the area had their seeds blown away into the sky.
Sonic skidded to a stop by one very special, very girthy palm tree atop a hill. He looked up to a near-perfect circle of cedar wood planks in the middle of the tree. An unfinished treehouse. The quintessential epicenter of forgotten wishes and broken promises. There was no ladder. Not due to the incomplete nature of the tree base, but because they had never needed one.
Sonic ran up the palm tree, defying gravity with sheer speed. Eventually, he reached the wooden planks. He stopped completely, before pulling out a bouquet with a card inside. When he gazed at it, he nearly choked on the newly clean air he was breathing. It looked like through his speed and carelessness, he had somehow managed to decimate the entire thing on the long journey there.
He sifted through the ashes and shreds of the hand-picked flowers, until a soft gust of wind came by and threw whatever may have been there away. The small crisps of beautiful gifts went flying free into the air. Sonic watched powerlessly as they left him. The bouquet wrapping lost its ribbon, and became a flimsy piece of plastic. The plastic-gold sheet was placed gently on the grass below as it lost its way in the world. Useless.
Sonic fell to his knees, frustration burning his insides. He pounded the ground until he punched right through a plank of wood, leaving a hole in the plank and a scratch on his arm. He looked to it as crimson blood beaded up on the small wound. But he hardly cared as he looked at the damage he had done to this old structure. It felt like he had hurt a friend. He then diverted his attention to the distant de-mil zone of what was once the Robotnik Empire. He gritted his teeth in sorrow, but sucked up his pain.
"Hey, Tails," Sonic muttered to his best friend. "It's been a while since I was last able to come here." Sonic sniffled. He sat down by the palm tree in the center, and didn't dare look around to the other side. "It's my birthday! Lots of stuff has happened, and I… I'm sorry, man. I wanted to make everything up to you, but I kinda messed that up."
"It's okay, Sonic," Tails replied on the other side of the palm tree. "I know you didn't mean to wreck the flowers."
"You really do?" Sonic asked Tails, appearing sheepish.
"Of course you wouldn't do it on purpose," Tails sighed, seeming a little disappointed anyways. "I know you still care, even if you haven't visited me in almost a year. I know it's been busy, I just wish it didn't have to be that way for either of us."
"Thanks for making the time, Tails," Sonic mumbled, letting his head tilt to the side in sleepiness. "I know it's hard work being Light Gaia, and lots of responsibility, so I really appreciate you coming back every now and again."
"Don't be so formal," Tails managed to say through a fit of laughter. As if this was the funniest thing he'd heard in ages. Sonic wasn't intending to be funny. "We're friends, and it's not that hard being Light Gaia anyways. I get to sleep LITERALLY all the time."
A quiet moment where even the wind seemed to stop blowing. "... Tails?"
"Yes?"
"Would you still call us 'best friends'?"
"... Yeah, of course," Tails chuckled lightly, seeming caught-off-guard. "C'mere, Sonic. I feel like you need a hug before you visit the others for your party."
"That would be nice," Sonic chuckled as well, scratching his head. He got up, and walked to the other side of the tree. "C'mere, Tails." He and Tails reached out for a hug, and Sonic wrapped his arms around his best friend.
And Tails disappeared into a scattered collection of dandelion seeds. Sonic stood there, arms wrapped around himself. Sonic stepped back, bewildered. He looked all around as the few living flowers of Emerald Hill Zone began to take off to new lands, to renew their lives in a more lush environment. "Eh, may as well…" he muttered, grabbing onto a looped handle at the bottom of a flower's stem and being whisked off into the distant sky. His body dangled what felt like millions of feet in the air as he held on tight. His eyes were vacant. One of his red shoes slipped right off and fell into the dried river, as he took heavy breaths. He was so high up that the air was thin. The flower kept floating up, beyond the atmosphere and into the stars in the sky. Sonic decided it was a good time time to get some shuteye, this was going to be a long flight.
…
Two Sumos approached the mountaintop Portal. "Is this the one they came out of?" One Sumo asked the other. The other Sumo nodded with its whole body. "It could potentially be useful, it's turning his thoughts into reality. We could summon anything!"
"Yeah, but only if the blue guy wants the same thing we want," the other Sumo said.
"Dude… you don't remember his name?"
"Of course I do! We sang him 'Happy Birthday'," the second Sumo grumbled. Suddenly, the Portal began to glow. "Oh? What could it be this time? A weapon to destroy Wyvern?!" Something took form out of the Portal. It fell to the ground. A pair of shoes. Not quite Sonic's style.
…
"Hey, I've been looking for those for weeks!" Sonic shouted, jumping halfway to the ceiling. One Sumo with a particularly storied history of messing with Sonic was holding the shoes in the air, dangling them in front of him.
"Heh-hah! What's a fella like you want with some little girl shoes?" The Sumo taunted him. Sonic jumped, double jumped! Homing Attacked! But the Sumo held them just out of reach each time. "Crunk told me to deliver these to you, but I'ma make you work those boney legs out for them!"
"You don't understand!" Sonic hissed quietly as the Sumos around him laughed at his mild misfortune with pitchers of RED-CODE-laced rum in their hands. "She'll be here any second. You'll ruin everything!"
"Sonic?" Sage asked, sleepily rubbing her eyes and entering the room. "What's going on here?" Sage looked at the pair of shoes. She gasped. "Whose shoes are those?" Sage floated over to the Sumo and held her hands out, eagerly wriggling her fingers. The shoes were dropped into her hands.
"Ugh, they were supposed to be a surprise," Sonic groaned as the Sumo left the room with a belly laugh. "I think, anyways?"
"What are you saying?" Sage asked. "Who do you think you're surprising?" Sage looked out the window at the vast empty desert, populated only by deadly spring-based Hopper bots and the odd Sumo sentry. "Nobody's here except…" Sage looked down to the shoes, then back to Sonic. The shoes! Sonic! The shoes! "SONIC!"
"Whoa– what?!" Sonic exclaimed, startled.
"What were you thinking? Why would you want to give me these?" Sage yelled, holding the shoes close to her. "You had every reason not to, and yet… you did, anyways. I do not understand!"
"Simple! I was tryna be nice," Sonic said with a slight smile. "They'd look nice—"
"IDIOT!" Sage shouted, turning her back to him. Sonic jolted upright. "Don't talk to me!" She flew out of the room, taking the shoes with her. Sonic sighed, looking to the floor.
Later, Sonic was sat in the Strider Stronghold's tavern. Stirring a glass of cider. "Here I thought the birthday bash was over!" Crunk exclaimed as he sat by Sonic on one of the barstools. "Didn't take you for a party-hog."
"Nah, I'm not celebrating anything," Sonic groaned, looking at his own reflection in the cider. Crunk splashed his own drink onto his metal face, letting it seep through his teeth. "I've lost everything, man. I thought I was building it back up, then poof! That's gone too, in the blink of an eye." Sonic slurped the cider down despite hating the taste of it. "Sage is kind of all I have left. I was never certain if she hated me or not, but I guess now I know." Sonic glanced to Crunk. "Uhh, you haven't seen her around lately, have you?"
"What are you, her dad?" Crunk asked, slapping Sonic on the back. "I saw her heading towards the Portal. I dunno if she'll be happy to see ya, but it's worth a shot to go out there and make amends." Sonic nodded, an unsure frown on his face.
…
"Lord Eggman?" Sage asked, approaching the Portal. She held the ballet shoes Sonic had given her. "Father, I want to know if you're there." Sage stood in silence, staring at the inactive Portal. "I may have found a way to bring you back. These shoes… Right after receiving them, I discovered leftover code that suggests you wanted to make articles of footwear exactly like these for me." The hot sand further burned Sage's soles. "Crunk told me his men retrieved these shoes from this Portal. Is it perhaps a sign? Are you trying to communicate? Please, send me more of these relics. They could possibly lead to a breakthrough, maybe even a way to reconstruct you from Cyberspace once I gain sufficient information about you." Sage waited. And waited. Nothing happened.
"Sage?" Sonic asked, climbing to the top of the mountain she was perched upon. Sage didn't turn to him. He slowly approached.
"Didn't you hear me earlier? Leave, immediately," Sage ordered. "My creator doesn't think kindly of you."
"Can I talk to him?" Sonic asked, standing alongside Sage and staring up at the Portal structure. Sage clenched her teeth in apprehension. "Yo, Mr. Tinker! Been a while, I—!"
"That's not his name." Sage balled up her fists and scratched at her pointer finger with her thumb. Sonic cleared his throat.
"Lord Eggman," Sonic muttered, holding his arm. "I'd like to say… thanks a ton for bringing Sage into this world." He stared up at the Portal with a thumbs up and a big smile. "I'll admit, it can get a bit lonely around here. I'm just glad I have someone like her to fall back on." Sage gasped, then covered her face with one hand. "I wanna ask you for one more thing. I want you to show Sage you're still here." Sage clutched the shoes closer. They looked like they could have creased.
The Portal began to glow. A blue light enveloped Sonic and Sage's vision.
Sonic found himself in the Mystic Jungle Zone, just outside of the Zone that would later become Spring Yard. He saw a smaller version of himself wobbling towards a tall purple hedgehog woman, as she ran down the path with a blanket in her arms. She turned to him, a vitriolic expression of disgust and unbridled hatred on her face as she stared at his chest. Right where his normal heart should have been. He could only see her face for a single second before she disappeared.
The baby Sonic wandered through the forest, quickly losing his way in the maze of trees that no longer existed in the present. However, he made a vow to himself to find his mother. He wouldn't give up despite nobody wanting him to come back home. Sonic followed the constellation of an owl as she guided him through the dense and dangerous woods. He could just about see the direction her long claws were pointing in through the leaves of the trees. Her image was his north star. He found his way into a village hidden in the treetops above a green hill. Connected by mossy branches, sweeping wind currents, and totem pole bridges.
And then he found her. The owl that had guided him all the way here. She wrapped him up in her wings, he closed his eyes and dozed off… When he awoke, she was gone. Ash speckling his newly gloved fingers.
Sonic rushed through these memories. All these different caretakers that were eventually stripped from him. He could feel Sage somewhere around here. He could hear her off in the distance.
Feelings of panic as the cop who had promised to get Sonic out of the Robotnik Empire swerved onto a road to Robotropolis, dropping him off on the dirty sidewalk and driving off. Feelings of dread as Sonic approached Robotnik's doorstep. Of unease as Robotnik raised him not as a child, but as a weapon of war. Now he could see Sage beside him, crying and trying to wipe her tears with her sleeve. As the visions quickly changed to Eggman creating her, only to abandon her in Kronos Island in standby. Forgetting to return for her until it was way too late.
…
Sonic and Sage found themselves back on Ares Island, heads in the sand. The Portal fell silent once more. "What… happened?" Sonic grunted, holding his head.
"I'm not sure," Sage groaned, sitting up. There was sand in her shoes. "The Portal reacted to something… Could it have been you?" Sonic closed his eyes, trying to recall the Cyberspace vision. But he couldn't remember any specific moments… only the feelings attached to them.
"Never mind that. Are you okay?" Sonic asked, approaching her. "I'm sorry about the shoe thing. I'll try to do better with gifts in the future." He chuckled.
"The future? Why would that be necessary?" Sage asked him, stumped. She couldn't help but smile a little bit at the thought, though she tried to hide it. She gave up when she looked over and saw Sonic giving a big, stupid, idiotic grin right back to her.
"Are you ready to go?" Sonic asked, giving Sage his hand. "It's getting really late." Sage apprehensively grabbed his hand, and the two walked back to the Strider.
"Sonic? Thank you…" Sage mumbled. "For the shoes."
Sonic and Sage eventually arrived back at the stronghold. However, when Sonic attempted to open the door… it didn't budge. "Ugh, they must have locked us out again. I guess we DID stay out past curfew," Sonic groaned.
"Do not worry. I can merely phase us into the Strider Stronghold," Sage offered. Suddenly, Crunk's elevator began to rise into the sky in a blast of steam.
"That won't be necessary," Crunk called from up above. He stomped down in front of them with enough power to shake the ground. Sumos surrounded Sonic and Sage. "Because YOU TWO are no longer welcome!"