Chapter Text
“Come on… Pick up already! Pick up!”
Amy resists the urge to bite her thumbnail as she listens to her phone ring in her ear, the sounds of crashing and commotion behind her making her tap her heel with anxiety. She’s almost ready to give up on backup and just take her chances on her own when the call finally connects, the ringing replaced with the static sound of rushing wind that accompanies every call Sonic makes.
“Yo, Ames!” Sonic says, clearly yelling into his receiver to just barely be heard over the sound of the wind beating against his speaker. “What’s up?”
“It’s an emergency, Sonic!” Amy cries. She hears something large collapse behind her. “It’s a really big emergency! There’s a huge Badnik attacking the Natural History Museum-”
“In Emerald Town?” Sonic interrupts.
“Yes, it-”
“I’m on my way,” Sonic says, “I’ll send Tails over too. Hold ‘em off till we get there!”
There’s a loud noise over the receiver that Amy assumes is Sonic swerving in the direction of the museum, and then the call cuts off. Amy sighs a little at being interrupted, but she knows better than to waste time being offended– she needs to focus on minimizing damages as much as possible until the backup arrives.
Pocketing her phone, Amy picks up her hammer and runs out of the alcove where she had been sheltering. She has to crane her neck up to get a good look at the Badnik– its body takes up more than half of the massive lobby it’s currently trashing. The robot’s main body is a large, disk-like shape, held aloft by spindly legs many times Amy’s height. The design reminds Amy vaguely of a crab, though instead of claws, it’s equipped with giant blasters, currently laying waste to the museum’s grand lobby.
Her eyes scan for anyone who needs to be evacuated; while it seems people had, for the most part, managed to clear out when the bot first crashed through, there were still stragglers who were cut off from exits by the Badnik’s imposing mass. Amy cuts under the robot’s legs, sweeping rubble out of the way with her hammer. She approaches a couple of civilians whose paths to escape had been blocked off.
“I’ll cover your backs, so go for it! Run!” she says, waving the pair towards the nearest exit. She hears the robot shift behind her, and throws a glance back just as its eyes lock onto her with a precise click, her shouting and wide motions having attracted its attention. She grits her teeth as she hears the whir of the robot’s cannons charging up.
“Keep running!” She calls, “stay behind me and keep running!” She casts one glance back to make sure that the couple were listening, then quickly refocuses on the bot itself. She tightens her grip on her hammer as she tries to analyze where to strike. Should she go for the eye…? She could try striking the cannon, but there are multiple, spaced out, likely to fire all at once– there’s no guarantee she’ll be able to hit them all and still keep the civilians safe. The whir of the cannon’s charge reaches its apex, the sound shrill and piercing, and Amy makes her move.
In the second before the cannon fires, Amy leaps for one of the robot’s legs, somersaulting into a powerful strike of her hammer against metal. The Badnik stumbles, its shot going wide and piercing a pile of rubble yards away from the escaping civilians. Amy dodges out of the way quickly as the robot's leg waves wildly in its attempts to right itself, its eye spinning and emitting frantic clicks and beeps as it refocuses. Amy rushes to put distance between herself and the Badnik, hopping up the piles of fallen rubble to find her best vantage point now that everyone has been cleared out of the lobby and she can focus fully on her takedown. The Badnik wastes no time in setting its sights back on her; its cannons begin to buzz as it charges another shot, and she hoists her hammer in response, searching for the best point to strike. The cannons are glowing, their attack almost charged, and Amy bends her knees, readies to strike, and-
Crack!
In a flash of light, the Badnik is sent staggering, its leftmost cannon completely wrecked, and for a second, she thinks a bullet has been shot through it– until she sees him. Sonic kneels on the robot’s head, his hands braced against it to keep his balance atop the flailing mass. His eyes sweep over the lobby, no doubt searching for stragglers the same way Amy had– when their eyes meet, he raises one questioning eyebrow, and Amy shakes her head and flashes a thumbs-up; all clear. Sonic grins, righting himself and jumping off the top of the robot, spinning around into an axe kick against its side that sends it off-balance once again.
“Amy!”
Turning to the source of the voice, Amy sees Tails floating towards her, reaching out a hand. She takes it, guiding him to a stable landing onto the rubble upon which they’re perched.
“Is everyone okay? Everyone made it out?” Tails asks. Amy nods.
“I just got the last of them,” she confirms. Tails opens his mouth to respond when he’s interrupted by a sharp cry. Both of them turn quickly in time to watch Sonic get swatted into the wall like a fly, if a fly were able to leave spiderwebs of cracks in concrete walls upon impact. Amy cringes and raises her hammer, running back into the fray with one last worried glance back at Tails.
“Sonic!” She cries, waving her hammer till his eyes lock onto hers. In a moment, the two exchange a plan through their glances, and Amy nods and sets off as Sonic rights himself and spins back onto the top of the robot. He runs around its head a couple times, the lens of its eye struggling to stay focused on him, disorienting it. As the bot grows more confused, Amy plants herself near one of its legs, her hammer raised at the ready. From where she stands under the Badnik, she can’t see Sonic– she instead glances to Tails, who watches carefully from his vantage point, his tails waving nervously in his concentration. He holds his hand up in front of him; Wait… wait… wait…
“Go!” Tails cries, snapping his fingers as he signals them into action. Amy doesn’t waste a second; she throws her entire weight into a spin, her hammer connecting with the robot’s leg with a resonant Clang!
At the same time, she hears something collide with the top of the robot; on the opposite side from her, Sonic has driven his weight down into the bot, providing the extra push needed to knock the bot entirely off of its feet. In a familiar whirl of blue, Amy feels herself lifted and carried out of the way of the collapsing robot, as if she were being blown away by the wind. Sonic places her near where Tails stands, and all three of them turn their attention towards the convulsing bot, an easy mark now that it’s been fully overturned. With all three of their attacks focused on it and no defense of its own, their adversary goes from a Badnik to a pile of scrap remarkably quickly.
When all the bot’s lights cease blinking and it no longer moves to so much as twitch, Sonic whistles. “That was a workout,” he laughs, looking around the wrecked lobby. Amy grins.
“Aw, was it? I didn’t even break a sweat!” She jokes.
Tails grins. “You sure did, though, Sonic,” he points out. Sonic wipes a hand across his forehead and frowns at the feeling of moisture wicking off his glove.
“That’s not sweat,” Sonic says, and his tone is bewildered enough that Tails’ smile drops slightly. Tails moves closer to Sonic, scrutinizing him.
“Was the robot powered on water, or something?” Tails asks. Amy looks over, not quite sure what they’re talking about– until she gets a good look at Sonic. The hedgehog is completely soaked in water, so much that it pools around him in a small puddle on the floor.
“No, there wasn’t any water in that thing at all,” Sonic says, casting a glance back at the wreckage that was once the Badnik. Amy hums in agreement– she’s sure she would’ve noticed if the robot had anything water-based in its arsenal, and since when was Eggman interested in renewable energy sources?
Tails runs his hands over Sonic’s head, nose crinkling as he does. Sonic’s ear flicks in indignation at having his quills touched, but he allows Tails to continue, shaking water out of the fur on his arms.
“You smell really salty,” Tails says, bewildered. “Is this seawater?”
“How should I know?” Sonic says, gently shaking Tails’ hands off of him. “I don’t even know how it got there.”
“One of the exhibits…?” Tails wonders aloud, looking around the museum lobby, though Amy can attest to the fact that this part of the museum never had any kind of water installation. Sonic simply sighs, shaking his quills out and frowning.
“Give me a sec to run this off,” he says, and then he’s gone. Tails and Amy stand waiting for a few seconds– Amy makes a concentrated effort not to count– and just as quick as before he’s back, running a hand through his own quills and frowning when droplets of water still shake from them.
“How far did you run?” Tails asks.
“To the city limits and back,” Sonic says, “More than enough wind to dry off with. What’s the issue?”
Tails circles Sonic slowly with a pensive look. “This doesn’t feel right. Can I take some?” he reaches into his bag and procures a small, empty glass vial.
“If it’ll help you sleep at night,” Sonic says, frowning. “It’s just water, I don’t see what there is to test.”
“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Tails says, taking a cluster of Sonic’s quills in hand and squeezing some of the water out into his bottle, a sensation Sonic clearly doesn’t appreciate. “We don’t know if this could be one of Eggman’s schemes.”
“He must be running out of schemes if some annoying water is the best he can come up with,” Sonic says, his foot starting to tap on the ground impatiently. “You ready to get outta here yet?”
Tails nods, putting the vial of water away in his pack. “Sure thing. Bye, Amy.” he waves, Sonic following suit.
“I’d love to stick around and chat, but we were already in the middle of something when you called us up,” Sonic explains as he turns to leave. Amy nods, waving back.
“I understand,” she says, “but make some time to hang out soon, okay?!”
Sonic laughs and nods. “I will,” he says, and then he and Tails are off.
—
Sound rushes back into Blaze’s ears as her head breaches the surface of the water. Wading towards the shore, she wipes the moisture from her eyes, taking in the low light of the setting sun around her. A large towel is laid out on the beach, a stack of smaller ones folded atop it, from which she takes the one on top and begins to rub the seawater from her hair. She lets her attention wander towards the horizon, surprised at just how long she must have been swimming for– when she had started, the sun had not even begun to set, and now all around her the sky is painted orange and pink, refracting off of the sea with a kaleidoscopic fervor. Blaze allows herself to sit down, staring out at the waning sun and letting the sound of the rolling waves wash over her. She had come out to the beach to clear her mind; in the time she had spent in Sonic’s dimension, time in her own had marched steadily forward, and in her absence the responsibilities had piled up. Gardon and the other members of her court had done their best to keep things manageable for her, but without the authority of the princess herself there was only so much they were able to do, and since her return she’d had barely a moment to catch her breath. It wasn’t until Gardon had taken a stack of papers out of her hands and ushered her from her office, telling her as politely as he could to take a break before she collapsed, that Blaze allowed herself to come here.
The ocean had always been a place for Blaze to calm her mind. She’d been taught how to swim when she was quite young, and from then it had been a struggle for her mentors and retainers to keep her focused on anything that wasn’t the water. Despite the way it served to neutralize her fire, her weapon, there was nowhere else that Blaze felt more safe than when she was in the water. Nothing could reach her there; no sounds or sensations could startle her. Only in the dull and muffled world found under the sea could Blaze really clear her head.
Blaze sighs as she watches the sun dip further down under the horizon. Her mind wanders away from her work and responsibilities and to that same thing it’s been wandering to for weeks now– that dimension. Cream, Amy… Sonic. As much as she tried to prevent it, she couldn’t stop her mind from straying to her time there. Of course she couldn’t; it was no common occurrence to be transported to an entire different dimension, to be thrust into such an adventure as she had, and even Blaze could not deny that the transition from the excitement of her stint in Sonic’s world back to her menial day-to-day routine had left her feeling disappointed– even incomplete, in a way.
Sonic and the others… she wonders what they must be doing now. Blaze cares for her kingdom more than anything, can’t imagine ever leaving her post to globetrot in the way Sonic seemed to, but she still can’t help wondering what it would be like to live more like him, always running somewhere new, living life as it comes to you. She can’t really picture their positions switched– just imagining a piece of paperwork in Sonic’s hands is difficult enough. As appealing as Sonic’s lifestyle may be, in theory, Blaze simply can’t imagine a world where a balance could be struck between the two of them. Sonic’s place was out in the open world– Blaze’s was in her palace, watching over her people. She wouldn’t give it up for anything… and she’s sure Sonic wouldn’t either.
The sun has almost dipped completely below the sea, the sky’s honey-orange lacquer giving way to the rich purple of dusk. A thought crosses Blaze’s mind unbidden– was Sonic seeing this sunset too? She hadn’t considered if time in her dimension matched that of his. She wasn’t even certain of how many days she had spent in Sonic’s dimension, too caught up in the whirlwind of her search for the emeralds to keep track. Were days the same length there? Did time match up between them, or as Blaze watched the horizon swallow the day’s light, was Sonic’s sun only now beginning to rise?
For the first time since her return, the magnitude of the word dimension weighs fully on her mind. Her friends aren’t standing on another island, another continent, not even something so close as another planet. Nothing that they can see, nothing they can feel, is the same thing that Blaze can. She had known that before, but as she watches the last rays of light fade behind the horizon, she really understands it for the first time. Even if Sonic is watching the sun set, like Blaze had wondered, it wasn’t the same sun. it wasn’t the same horizon. It wasn’t even the same sky.
Blaze has never felt such great distance in her life.
—
“I just- I can’t believe it. Something has to be wrong!”
Sonic stifles a yawn. “Buddy, you’ve run like twenty tests, and I trust your tests. I think we can give it a rest.”
Tails frowns at Sonic and then back down at his screen. “I just.. I don’t know, Sonic. Some strange water that gets on you that comes from no discernible source, it doesn’t dry off even under high wind pressure, and then all tests just say it’s normal seawater? And right after fighting an Eggman robot? It doesn’t feel right.”
“It did dry off, though,” Sonic points out. The water had, in fact, quickly dried off on its own after around twenty minutes of trying to get it off through other means. Sonic was glad for it, though it had only left Tails even more confused and distressed.
Tails is still looking down at his screen and muttering. Sonic sighs, walking up to him and swiping it out of his hands, holding it away from his reaching arms.
“Listen, bud,” Sonic says, holding the screen up higher as Tails stands on his tip-toes to try reaching it, “If I feel anything wrong, anything at all, I’ll tell you. But for now, I think you should let it go. Every fancy little test of yours says it was just seawater, and since it went away on its own and I’m not dead or turned into goo or whatever yet, I’m pretty inclined to believe it.”
Tails has quickly given up trying to reach for his screen, and now stands with his arms crossed over his chest, tails swishing in indignation. “You promise you’ll tell me if you feel anything bad?” He asks.
“If my insides start melting, you’ll be first to know.”
“ Anything at all.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you.”
Tails’ eyes narrow suspiciously, but he acquiesces. “Fine. Can I have the Miles Electric back?”
Sonic hands the device back to Tails, who takes it and walks over to his cluttered desk, placing it in its designated space. Sonic watches, taking in all the tools and pieces of machinery strewn about the desk. “Working on anything interesting?” He asks.
“Nothing much, as of late… I’ve been trying to work on something for Knuckles, a sort of device to help him with gliding…”
Sonic hums as Tails begins to explain the mechanics of his current project. Taking care to still be listening, he lets his eyes wander around the cluttered lab. He didn’t spend much time in this room, and he felt like every time he was there, it was completely different. Some of the bits of machinery he recognized; some of it was stuff Sonic had scavenged from Badnik fights and delivered to Tails himself. Most of it, though, was completely alien to him. Sonic is particularly drawn to the largest thing in the room– a sort of tank-like machine, the size of a fridge and covered in dials and switches. It kind of reminds Sonic of an elevator. He lets Tails finish talking before he points it out. “And that thing over there? What is that?”
Tails looks toward the machine. “Oh, that? It’s not done… I’m not sure it even has a chance of working. It’s, uh, a medical machine, I guess. Or supposed to be. Like a healing pod, you know?”
Sonic whistles. “Woah! Ambitious. Does it work at all?”
“Right now, not really,” Tails laments, “Standing in it for a while can soothe some aching, but it’s not capable of actually healing any wounds.”
Sonic nods. “Well, it’s a really impressive start, buddy. I never would’ve guessed it was a medical thing, though. It kinda looks like some sort of transporter.”
“Oh, yeah… I guess it does.” Tails’ brow furrows. “I should work on making it look less utilitarian…”
“Have you ever tried making one of those?” Sonic asks, a little too abruptly. “A transporter?”
Tails looks over at Sonic in mild surprise. “A transporter? Um… Not really? I guess I maybe could, but, not in any way that would be easier for you than just using Chaos Control… or running somewhere yourself.”
“Well, sure, but what about something for places even I can’t go?” Sonic himself isn’t even sure why he’s asking after this so much, but he keeps going. “Like, other planets, or dimensions?”
“Well, rockets are pretty easy,” Tails responds, still mildly bewildered by Sonic’s line of questioning, “But dimensions are… a whole different story. With the power of the emeralds, maybe, but… there’s just so little we know about alternate dimensions, and the lines between dimensions aren’t the most stable things. Messing around with them can be pretty unpredictable, even dangerous.” Tails’ ears tilt inquisitively. “Why do you ask, Sonic? This planet not enough for you, anymore?”
“Woah, no way!” Sonic says. “I don’t think our planet will ever get old. There’s a ton I haven’t seen, and the things I have are always changing.” He crosses his arms, breaking eye contact with Tails to look around the lab again. “I just got curious, is all. Being able to travel to different dimensions…”
He trails off, not even sure himself of where his sentence had been going. Tails looks a little worried, like he wants to press further, but he knows Sonic well enough to know he’s probably not getting anything else out of him.
Really, though, there’s only one other dimension I know enough to care about visiting, Sonic thinks. And I know there has to be some way to get there…
“Thanks for the tests, Tails, but I think I’m heading out now. It’s getting pretty late.”
“Oh! Well, okay,” Tails says, already returning to his workbench. “You’re not staying tonight?”
“The weather’s nice,” is the extent of Sonic’s explanation, and in the next moment he’s out the door. Tails shakes his head and turns back to his desk.
Sonic zooms back in so quickly some papers are blown off Tails’ desk. “Don’t stay up too late,” he adds, and then he’s gone again just as quickly.
—
It takes little time for Sonic to find where he’ll stay for the night. The vast field is a favorite of his, though located far enough to the north that it’s not comfortable to sleep in year-round, so he likes to take advantage of it whenever the weather is warm enough.
Though not the strangest thing for a Mobian to do, sleeping out in the wilderness was one of the few habits Sonic still had that Tails always put his foot down on. We have a house, Sonic, the kit would chide, you don’t have to do that anymore.
Sonic knew he didn’t have to, and if pressed he really couldn’t explain why he still did. Sleeping on a bed was still nice, sure, and he would definitely take Tails’ well-heated home over a night in Holoska, but sometimes he still got the urge to find a secluded patch of grass or a mossy cave and curl up under the stars. Tails eventually just gave up trying to convince him to stay inside, though he still sometimes fretted about Sonic getting sick or being attacked in his sleep, so Sonic always made sure to choose somewhere temperate and secluded to alleviate his little brother’s concerns.
The field he currently sits in is large, but still suitably concealed, surrounded by a thick ring of forest and miles away from any city or town. This far from any city lights, the stars overhead shine so brightly it almost rivals the light of day. It’s one of Sonic’s favorite views, and one of the few he’s loath to share with anyone else– Sonic’s an open guy, but even he has those places he wants to keep for himself.
As he settles into the grass and stares up at the luminous sky, Sonic’s mind wanders back to his earlier conversation with Tails. Though he hadn’t admitted it at the time, he knows what spurred him to ask all those questions; ever since his adventure those few weeks ago, he hadn’t been able to get Blaze’s dimension out of his mind. Part of it was just the idea of a whole new dimension; a world’s worth of new places to discover, new adventures to have… while he hadn’t been lying when he told Tails he was happy with his current world, he couldn’t deny the appeal of something so novel.
The other part, though, and something told Sonic that this was an even greater influence than that promise of new adventure, was… Blaze. Sonic felt like he had barely the chance to speak with Blaze, and yet… at the same time he felt like the bond between them was something greater, like their time together had been cut too short. Admittedly, he often couldn’t help feeling this way; with the amount of new people he met on his journeys, he couldn’t help sometimes feeling like he didn’t have enough time to spend with everyone he knew. But he hadn’t been able to get the princess off his mind. Maybe it was due to the magnitude of their separation, the knowledge that Sonic couldn’t just pop over to her country for a visit whenever it struck his fancy. Blaze wasn’t gone– not in the way some of his friends were– but where she was was so unreachable that Sonic couldn’t help the way it made his heart twist in the same way.
Seeing the stars has begun to make Sonic’s chest twinge uncomfortably, so he allows his eyes to slip closed. Lamenting these things wouldn’t change them, he reminds himself. He just has to face what each new day brings him.
—
When Sonic opens his eyes, he is standing on a balcony, so high up even he feels his stomach flip a little at the considerable drop below. The balcony overlooks a sprawling landscape; something vaguely tropical, but wholly unfamiliar to him. He can see miles of lush jungle, spreading out until they hit the shoreline of the rolling sea that surrounds them. It’s beautiful, breathtakingly so, and Sonic laments having missed a place like it all this time. Where could this be?
He looks around his immediate surroundings a little more, and that’s when he notices her; a girl standing to his left, staring out over the balcony just as he had been. He doesn’t recognize her– or maybe he does? He dimly notes that he can’t really focus on any of her features, a fact that might be worth concern but that his mind does not allow him to dwell on. He’s not even sure how he knows she’s a girl at all, just that he does, as well as he knows that standing here with her makes him feel content, like a weight is lifted from his shoulders and all is right with the world, and he knows that-
“Are you doing alright?” He feels himself asking without even thinking the words.
He knows that she must be very scared.
She regards him for a moment, or at least he thinks she does, before she shakes her head. “...I can’t deny I’m nervous,” she says, “But I think… I’m okay.” She's silent for another moment, and then, ever so hesitantly, she says, “I know I’m safe, when I’m here.”
A thought crosses Sonic’s mind unbidden, like a flash; a single name. He stares at the girl next to him, wide-eyed, and opens his mouth.
He wants to ask her what she means. He wants to tell her everything is okay. He wants to say her name.
Sonic’s eyes open to the feeling of grass at his back and the morning sun beating down on his face. Whatever he was going to say is dead on his lips, fading through the cracks of his mind, taking the details of his dream with it. He stands up, carefully, stretching out his limbs and frowning as he does. He’s not ready to face the morning; he feels as though he hasn’t slept at all.