The lights flared to life, revealing Boomer mid-pounce—his claws out, fur bristling—and Buns with her stolen pistol aimed at the ceiling. I grinned. "See? Like I said." I plucked the gun from her grip.
"Family's messy," I joked, "Now then, how about we all eat?" Doc's lab smelled vaguely of disinfectant and age-old machinery—the kind of scent that clung to your fur for days—but right now it was overpowered by Buns burning toast in the corner while Boomer attempted to stab it with a plasma cutter. Doc slowly sighed, rubbing his temples with that familiar blend of exasperation and reluctant fondness.
Soon we made our way to the kitchen to help out with making dinner—the scent of charred toast giving way to something richer—as Doc assembled ration packs with military precision. I nudged Boomer's shoulder with my elbow, watching him fumble the plasma cutter before snatching it mid-air with my other hand. "You're gonna set the whole kitchen on fire like that," I remarked, tossing it back to Buns, who caught it without looking—her focus locked on scraping carbonized bread into a waste chute.
The way her ears twitched at the clatter of metal told me she was counting seconds between Sector 7's aftershocks. *Good.* Old habits died hard around here, and mine were particularly stubborn. I was going to go out on one of my runs after everyone went to sleep.
I leaned against the counter, watching Doc portion out nutrient paste with the same dedication he once reserved for dissecting Overlander tech. The spoon trembled slightly in his grip—fatigue or slowly progressing age, I couldn't tell—but his hands steadied when I helped.
On the other side of Doc was Collin Jr., also helping him make dinner—his movements precise, calculated, like he was assembling a bomb rather than portioning nutrient paste. His claws scraped against the metal tray with a sound like a knife being sharpened, deliberate and slow, as if daring anyone to comment on his presence. I watched him from the corner of my eye—the way his hair bristled whenever Doc brushed past him.
His loyalty was... complicated. Not unlike mine it seemed. Neither of us were as pure hearted as Doc was—Collin Jr. was a knife balanced perfectly between usefulness and threat. I studied him as best as I could when I also had to help with cooking.
Soon the three of us finished cooking—Doc humming some old Overlander tune under his breath while Collin Jr. methodically arranged the ration packs into precise geometric formations. I grabbed two trays and tossed one toward Boomer with a flick of my wrist, watching his ears pin back in reflexive alarm before he caught it awkwardly against his chest. "Bon Appetit," I joked—pronouncing it wrong on purpose—and was rewarded with Buns' suppressed snort as she was about to start eating.
The scent of synthetic protein and overcooked carbohydrates filled the mess hall, thick enough to taste, as I say down across from Boomer and Buns—my smirk stretching when they instinctively scooted closer together, shoulders brushing.
His fork hovered over the nutrient paste like he expected it to mutate somehow. Buns elbowed him—hard—her smirk sharp as the plasma cutter she'd reluctantly surrendered. Boomer scowled, rubbing his ribs, but obediently took a bite. Doc watched the exchange with tired amusement, his smile much brighter now.
Collin Jr. ate silently, clearly slightly confused at the wider situation—his fingers tapping the tray's edge in a rhythm that matched Sector 7 last week's artillery pattern.
Fair enough honestly, I didn't think I'd be in a situation like this either.
Soon I finished eating (first of course) and stretched, my spine popping in a satisfying series of cracks, before slowly getting up to begin doing the dishes. Partially because I wanted to and partially to give Collin Jr. some breathing room from my suspicious hovering.
Buns continued eating while Boomer practically inhaled his meal—the way he shoveled nutrient paste into his mouth reminded me of a starving stray that had finally found scraps. Doc eyed me over the rim of his glasses as I washed dishes, his mix of concern and pride obvious. The water hissed against my gloves, steaming as I scrubbed scorched pans.
Each scrape of metal against metal syncing with Collin Jr.'s restless nervous tapping—three beats per second, a subconscious drill from his uncertainties.
What can I say? Having a genius to 'raise' you has its perks especially when said genius is the type to keep meticulous notes on your every quirk. Kintobor knew exactly which frequencies made my fur stand on end, which vocal tones would snap me out of a spiral, even the precise angle to tilt his head when handing me a fresh-baked velvet cake so I wouldn't feel patronized.
The old man had turned care into a science, and that? That was power—the kind that didn't come from simple cunningnese or brute force. I flicked water off my gloves, watching droplets arc toward the sink's cracked surface.
One by one, everyone else finished eating—Collin Jr. being the last to reluctantly scrape his tray clean—while I lingered near the sink, my damp gloves creaking as I flexed my fingers when I called out to Boomer and Buns, "And where do you two think you're going?" Their shoulders tensed in perfect unison, halfway to the exit.
They turned, ears flat—caught.
"Uh, going to bed?"
"Not without helping in cleaning up you aren't," I said, tossing Boomer a dishrag with enough force to make him fumble it—his ears pinning back in protest while Buns rolled her eyes and snatched the rag mid-air. Their synchronized annoyance was almost endearing, like watching two feral kittens reluctantly cooperate.
I flicked the dishwater off my gloves, watching droplets arc toward Boomer's muzzle—he flinched, but didn't dodge, eyes locked on mine like a hound awaiting orders. "Scrub clockwise," I said, tapping the counter where Buns' plasma cutter had left blackened scars. "Counterclockwise leaves streaks." The words came out softer than I'd intended, almost fond. Doc's quiet exhale at me from down the hall sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
Buns elbowed Boomer aside, seizing the sponge with her usual lethal precision. The way her claws flexed around its edges—deliberate, controlled—spoke volumes. She'd spent years turning domestic chores into weapons drills, and here I was weaponizing chores right back. The irony tasted better than Doc's nutrient paste. Boomer hovered awkwardly, tail flicking like an agitated metronome, until I tossed him a drying towel. "Ears up, kid. You're not polishing plasma grenades this time." His resulting grin was all teeth, but genuine.
Collin Jr. lingered in the doorway, arms crossed, his silhouette sharpened by the emergency lighting. I turned around at him, his surprise evident.
I sighed, it was obvious that we needed to have a talk.
"Hey, I know this might look kinda dick-ish, but can you two finish without me? I think I need to do something."
Buns and Boomer each raised an eyebrow, then looked at the hallway, or more specifically, Collin Jr., understood, and nodded their heads.
"Sure."
"Fair enough."
"Thanks," I muttered, tossing the dish towel at Boomer's free hand before stepping toward Collin Jr. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead the both of us.
"Hello there Collin," I said, tilting my head just enough to catch the flicker of tension in his jaw—that telltale tic Doc had noted in his files. The overhead lights buzzed louder, casting jagged shadows across his fur as he stiffened. I leaned against the doorframe, gloved fingers drumming a lazy rhythm against the metal—three taps, pause, two taps, just like the old man did when waiting for test results. Collin Jr.'s pupils constricted.
*Gotcha.*
The silence stretched, thick with unspoken history, until I broke it with a chuckle. "Relax. If I wanted you dead, you'd already be decorating the wall." I flicked a glance toward the kitchen where Boomer was now attempting—and failing—to dry dishes without shattering them. "Doc's got enough stains to scrub without adding your blood." Collin Jr.'s fingers twitched toward his concealed blade, but his stance loosened just enough to tell me he was listening.
Good.
I slid past him into the hallway, close enough to brush by, "Besides, you seem like a half decent guy to me so far." The corridor lights flickered—casting fractured shadows across Collin Jr.'s face—as I pivoted on my heels, walking backwards while keeping eye contact. He flinched when my spines nearly grazed the wall, but held his ground.
Again, good.
"Look, we both care about Doc, yeah?"
"Correct." Collin Jr.'s voice was sandpaper wrapped in silk—smooth, but ready to draw blood if pressed too hard. His claws flexed, retracted. A tell. The kind of micro-aggression I'd cataloged in my own reflection after particularly bad nights, and Doc would recognize that.
So I smirked, slow and knowing, watching his pupils constrict like crosshairs locking onto prey. "Then we're already halfway to being friends," I said, spinning on my heel to face forward again, my spines barely missing the crumbling wall panel behind me. The hallway smelled of ozone and rust—like every other corridor in this damn ruin—but beneath that, something sharper: Collin Jr.'s adrenaline, sour as old batteries. He matched my pace, his footsteps deliberately out of sync with mine.
One more time: Good.
I hated sycophants.
"Perhaps we will be friends one day Sonic, but that day is not today." Collin Jr.'s beak like nose wrinkled as he sniffed, fingers tapping against his thigh in perfect sync with Sector 7's distant artillery remnants. I cocked my head—chin up, shoulders loose—letting my smirk widen just enough to show teeth. The fluorescent light above us flickered, staining his gray fur in sickly yellows and greens as he matched my gaze without blinking.
Behind us, porcelain shattered—Buns cursing while Boomer laughed—and I didn't need to turn to know Doc was rubbing his temples again. Collin Jr.'s ear twitched toward the noise, his shoulders stiffening beneath that ridiculous high-collared coat. "Relax," I murmured, leaning in just enough to make his claws flex, "Doc's survived worse than some broken dishes." The words came out softer than I'd intended, almost fond.
The overhead lights buzzed louder as Collin Jr. exhaled through his nose—a controlled, measured sound. His fingers uncurled slowly, deliberately, like he was disarming a bomb instead of easing tension. I grinned, sharp and sudden, watching his pupils constrict. "See? Progress already." My gloves creaked as I flexed my fingers, mimicking his earlier gesture mockingly before clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to make him stagger.
Down the hall, Doc's weary sigh echoed—equal parts exasperation and reluctant amusement—as another dish shattered. Collin Jr.'s lips twitched.
Not quite a smile, but close enough.
Rome wasn't built in a week or something like that right? I think that's how the saying went.
Yeah, while my memory as Sonic was better than when I was human, it wasn't perfect at all. I was beginning to forget the more minor things—like how I died—but I remembered the important details. Like how I used to be human. Like how my corpse was rotting somewhere in another dimension—or perhaps entirely already eaten by decomposers—as my soul got stuffed inside a game hedgehog with none of the self-preservation instincts that had kept me alive for about twenty-six years I think.
And now here I was—living as the embodiment of everything I'd once mocked—trapped in a world where speed meant survival and kindness was currency for manipulation. Collin Jr. studied me like I was an equation he couldn't solve, his beak-like nose twitching at the scent of ozone clinging to my gloves. I flexed my fingers, watching static crackle between the joints, and grinned when he flinched. "Still scared of a little lightning?" I teased, rolling my shoulders until the spines along my back caught the flickering light like live wires.
His silence was answer enough for me.
I walked back to the mess hall to Buns, Boomer, and the dishes—Collin Jr. walking away, likely to his new room—as I saw how many broken plates there were now. "You two are worse than toddlers," I remarked jokingly, leaning down to pick up fragments of ceramic—each piece jagged and sharp. Boomer grinned sheepishly, tail flicking behind him like an embarrassed pup, while Buns merely shrugged—her plasma cutter humming idly at her hip. The scent of ozone mingled with nutrient paste, creating a cloying aroma that clung to the back of my throat, familiar yet nauseating.
"They're not gonna clean themselves, genius," she muttered, tossing me a shard I'd missed—her throw precise enough to embed it in the wall beside my ear. I plucked it free, rolling it between my fingers—feeling the razor-sharp edge threaten to split my glove. My smirk widened as I flicked it back—embedding it into the table between her claws. Her ears twitched, but she didn't flinch.
Soon we finished cleaning up (mostly)—Boomer's tail wagging with exaggerated enthusiasm as he presented me with the least-broken plate like a trophy.
Buns and Boomer later found their respective new rooms to sleep in—Buns' door locked with three distinct clicks of reinforced hydraulics while Boomer's remained slightly ajar, his snores already audible through the gap. I lingered in the hallway, tracing the grooves of Doc's old schematics etched into the wall—each line a relic of failed experiments and quiet desperation.
The metal hummed under my gloves, vibrating with the distant pulse of Sector 7's crippled reactor, as I pressed my palm flat against the wall. The schematics beneath my fingertips told stories Doc would never voice aloud—blueprints for restraints repurposed as rehabilitation tools, shock absorbers recalibrated to cushion a child's falls. I exhaled through my nose, static prickling more than it had in a while.
I was so going on a run.
I tiptoed quietly near Doc's room, my footsteps silent against the rusted floor panels, listening. His heartbeat was slow—steady—but his breathing hitched occasionally, the way it did when nightmares clawed at him. I lingered by the door, fingers twitching at the scent of antiseptic and old paper, debating whether to knock or let him rest.
I chose the latter.
I ran at my too speed to the front door—whipping open the creaking metal hatch—and inhaled the damp, polluted air of Mobius' wasteland. The scent of ozone and burning oil clung to the back of my throat, familiar as Doc's worn-out gloves, as I launched myself forward in a blur of cobalt and crackling energy.
The ruins blurred beneath my feet, jagged metal and shattered concrete reduced to fleeting impressions in my wake as a rogue artillery shell detonated near me—shrapnel freezing midair like insects in amber. I grinned, pivoting on the shell's casing to redirect its trajectory toward a crumbling watchtower, relishing the delayed *crump*.
Doc would've scolded me for reckless energy expenditure, but the old man wasn't here to witness me carving figure-eights through minefields, my spines shearing through unexploded ordnance like paper. Besides, exhaustion was useful—it kept the memories at bay. The ones where sterile white walls bled into Mobian fur, where scalpels became chaos emeralds mid-incision. I skidded to a halt atop a gutted tank, its rusted hull groaning under my weight, and exhaled sharply.
Static danced along my gloves as I flexed my fingers, watching the distant silhouette of Doc's compound flicker through heat haze. My smirk faded as Sector 7's reactor pulsed—a sickly green heartbeat against the horizon—and I remembered the way Doc's hands had trembled stitching some of my wound through an accident last year.
**"You're reckless,"** he had muttered, tweezers hovering over shrapnel lodged near my spine. **"One day, that speed won't save you."**
That's when I realized that I needed to start training.
The memory stung worse than the wound had. I kicked off the tank's hull, splintering rusted plating as I arced toward the ruins of Diamond Heights—where Jules' and Charles' bones still gleamed amidst the wreckage. My sneakers barely grazed a twisted I-beam before I was airborne again, the wind howling through my spines like a chorus of ghosts.
They whispered things I refused to hear.
I still thought about Jules, Charles, and Bernadette from time to time—not with guilt, except maybe for Bernadette, but the clinical detachment of analyzing failed variables. Their bones were probably scattered across Diamond Heights' wreckage by now, powdered into the polluted wind. Static prickled up my arms as I leapt from a collapsing smokestack, twisting midair to avoid a sniper round frozen in my wake.
The shooter—some King Maxx Acorn loyalist clinging to delusions of his order—didn't even have time to widen his eyes before I redirected the bullet into his kneecap. His screams followed me like confetti as I accelerated, the sonic boom ripping apart sandbags and sending his comrades scrambling. Loyalty meant nothing when faced with the physics of a hedgehog moving at Mach something. I grinned, tasting copper and ozone, and let momentum carry me toward the skeletal remains of Diamond Heights' central plaza—where Jules' sterilization wave had scoured the earth down to bedrock.
Doc would've called my current method of stress relief "destructive impulse escalation." I called it practical cardio. The cracked foundation trembled beneath my feet as I landed atop the half-melted statue of King Maxx Acorn—his bronze face frozen in mid-snarl—and dug my claws into the metal. Static arced from my gloves, welding fingerprints into the statue's brow as I surveyed the battlefield below.
Pathetic.
No one builds monuments to dead kings in a wasteland—unless they're stupid, suicidal, or at least a bit of both. The bronze husk of King Maxx Acorn's statue groaned under my grip, its hollowed-out eyes staring at nothing as I crouched atop its crumbling shoulders. Below, the skeletal remains of Sector 6's loyalists scurried like roaches, their rusted rifles glinting in the toxic dawn.
I exhaled sharply, static prickling along my spines as I studied the fools below—half-starved militia boys playing soldier with the imitation of King Maxx Acorn's corpse still warm in the ground. Their trigger fingers trembled; their boots were mismatched. Easy prey.
But not my problem.
Not yet.
The wind carried their whispers upward—"Demon Hedgehog," one was about something called an "Anarchic Titan" —but I didn't care enough to correct them. My gloves creaked as I flexed my fingers, watching static spiderweb between the joints. Below, a scrawny wolf Mobian with a rusted pistol aimed at my back.
*Click.*
His trigger finger spasmed—too slow by half—and I was already behind him before the misfire echoed, my claws resting lightly against his jugular. "Bad move," I murmured into his twitching ear, savoring the way his fur bristled. His comrades froze mid-reload, their breath fogging in the chill. I could've slit his throat.
I Should've, by Sector 6 logic. Instead, I shoved him forward into the mud, kicking his pistol into the irradiated creek. "Just. Run. Away."
Again, you have to set the line somewhere.
Let's pray to Anarchy Below I never forget that anytime soon.
------------
Well, this the last chapter of the year, so much happened to me and probably all of you as well, good, bad, ugly. For example, I finished my first College semester with a B since my final project got lost apparently and I wasn't fucking notified until two days after the deadline and couldn't turn it in! But I did start working out, so there's that. Overall, let's hope by some miracle 2026 doesn't completely suck ass somehow for all of our sakes!
(And do tune in at midnight, I have a little surprise for you all then ;))