"Why Would You Bother With Me?" - An Analysis of Kitsunami, 09/07/2024
tw: major discussions of abuse, the cycle of abuse, re-traumatizing situations, toxic and abusive relationships (non-romantic)
so like when I first read this panel my reaction was just to joke with Cori that this is a "get out of my school" moment (iykyk) but I've been thinking about it a lot recently because I... couldn't remember any specific beef Kit had with Tails?
Last we saw of them interacting one-on-one, Tails was talking Kit down from fighting, and Kit's beef with the squad later was more with Sonic than him. Tails didn't take down Surge in #56 or even affect the fight in any way, and Sonic was the one who told Kit that Surge was dead beforehand. At least that I could remember, so I went back to those comics. Indeed, in #56 he shows no animosity towards Tails specifically, nor when he talks to Surge in #55.
Then I went back to #54.
See, he does seem to blame Sonic entirely for the Surge death fakeout, and he thinks that Sonic is literally trying to kill her when he walks in. But he does have one (1) reaction to Tails, right at the end of the interaction.
In the previous issue, after Sonic and Tails saved his life, Kit immediately switched on his subservient personality and was desperate for any kind of validation from the hedgehog. We only see it for a few panels before he is told about Surge and sinks into a depressive state, but it's made very obvious.
And when he leaves to help?
Kit's conditioning under Starline means that he is excessively codependent on Surge– and if Surge isn't around, on anyone who is nice to him. The hypnotic repetition shown to us was "You live to support Surge. You'll do anything for her." Kit's sole purpose in life is to be a Support party member.
Kit's conditioning was to be the new Tails.
Starline wanted Surge and Kit to replace Sonic and Tails– that much was obvious from the get-go. But what was also obvious was his fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic and Tails's dynamic and how that negatively impacts Surge and Kit's relationship.
Starline completely misses the strong sibling bond that Sonic and Tails have. To him, Tails is just there to support Sonic, to provide the brains and tech that Sonic lacks, and so Kit needs to be there to support Surge in the same way. He sees it only as a business partnership, and not a mutual relationship built on trust, love, and shared experiences. Starline only saw other people as tools, so obviously he projected that onto Surge and Kit, hoping that they would immediately take up the closeness that Sonic and Tails did because, well, they served the same purpose to each other, right?
Except Surge and Kit don't have that relationship. These two children were forced into the same proximity and made to work together. They're coworkers at best, being told to act like a family.
Obviously their dynamic is super toxic, with Surge clearly holding a lot of power over Kit, but it's also clear that this isn't because Surge wants to beat on the kid. She was made to be Sonic, and so she has his arrogance (and possibly Shadow's, considering IS1 showed his image when Starline was talking about stealing abilities), but, as Boom!Sonic says, "Without any of the awesomeness to back it up." Okay, wrong, she's plenty awesome, the correct phrase is "Without the experience" and, most importantly, "without the altruism that makes Sonic Sonic." Surge wasn't programmed to like the people she saves, because that would conflict with Starline's goal to take over the world. So she's only made to be competitive and to want to best Sonic, anyone inbetween them be damned. This clashes with Kit's programming to not only be liked, but to be liked by Surge. Surge was also programmed to believe fully in herself in order to enhance the arrogant trait, and Kit was made to give her the help that she doesn't want.
To Surge, Kit represents everything holding her back. And she's not built to view him as a person, because Starline doesn't view him or her as people. Obviously this doesn't absolve her of her treatment of him, and later issues showing her getting more and more aware as she becomes more social is definitely going to impact the way she views him– or, if it doesn't make her reconsider Kit's personhood, it'll serve to make her more antagonistic for the viewer.
But the point is, Sonic trusts Tails because he knows and respects him as a person. It isn't just because Tails can help him, but because he knows Tails will. Surge, at this point in the comic, not only doesn't view Kit as a friend, she doesn't even care what he thinks or feels.
And despite the brainwashing, I don't think Kit is oblivious to this. He knows how bad their situation is, but he is so conditioned to accept it that he can't escape it whatsoever. In both fights with Tails, Tails talks him down easily because Kit doesn't want to hurt anyone. Kit only reacts violently when Surge is brought up, because he's meant to do anything she wants.
Like he said to Belle, he was made for Surge. And what he says directly after– "Sonic can use me, too." Kit doesn't even view himself as a person, only a tool– that's how far Starline's brainwashing went. It's clearly even affecting Surge, who realized in the latest issue, #72, how fast she and Kit fell into their abusive patterns again once Clutch took over– they were conditioned to be tools. Clutch claimed to want to help them, but really he was just using them for his own ends, just like Starline. So they went back to the familiar.
And speaking of familiar– pain is familiar to Kit, specifically pain in service to others. In his breakdown in #50, he says that Starline made him happy he'd been hurt. And in Imposter Syndrome #3 and #4, we see that him and Surge hate Starline and want to usurp him... but also are still trapped in the patterns he implanted in them. Surge still wants to kill Sonic and outperform everyone else. Kit still can't do anything but what she wants, to the point he becomes near catatonic when he believes she's dead.
Another pattern Kit is still trapped in is the idea that he has to be okay with his own suffering.
The only sense of home or family Surge and Kit have is in each other, but they fundamentally can't work together, at least as they are currently. Kit is expected to take Surge's anger, and Surge isn't expected to treat him like his own person.
And this, I think, is Kit's problem with Tails.
He was made to be Tails, and he knows this, but he can never have what Tails has. He can never live up to Tails and do what Tails can do, despite that being his entire life's purpose.
He doesn't hate Tails because he was programmed to– as he says to Surge, he only wants to destroy Sonic because she wants to. When he first encounters Tails, he refers to him as his target- a simple, unemotional term. He doesn't have the deep ingrained hatred for him that Surge does for Sonic.
Instead, he hates Tails because of what he sees in him. He sees Sonic and Tails interact, he sees how much Sonic trusts and relies on Tails, and he sees how he also loves and respects him. He sees how Tails has his own motivations and opinions, and he's experienced Tails's genuine compassion that was in part fostered by the hedgehog that raised him. In turn, Tails is loyal to Sonic, but not because he has to be– because he, in turn, loves Sonic and wants to be with him.
Kit only wants to be with Surge because he was forced to. Starline wanted to use Surge and Kit to stop Sonic and Eggman's cycle, but he made a whole new one instead. Kit is trapped in a cycle of pain, knows he's trapped in it, and is helpless to escape it.
Tails isn't, and Kit sees that in Tails. Subconsciously, he sees Tails and only sees how he fails to live up to his life's mission, and how he'll never have what Tails has.
After all, why would anyone bother with him? They already have Tails.
hahaha what if me and cori wrote a long-ass essay explaining our fnaf interpretation and halfway through hw2 dropped and we realized like twelve different things at once
soldier keep on marching on (head down til the work is done)
Stranger Things / PJO AU One-Shot – written September 2023, forgotten about in the drafts until Jan 2026, sooo. have fun everyone
Nancy Wheeler was sixteen years old, and whenever she walked out in public, heads would turn. Her hair was always perfectly curled, no matter what she did to it. She instinctively put together stunning outfits every morning. When she spoke, people listened, and they listened hard. People did what she told them, but this wasn't because of her natural magic. Rather, she had learned early how to speak if she wanted people to listen, and she was good at it. She was the smartest teen in the entire city, consistently passing whatever written test she'd sign up for. She'd take classes at the nearby high-school sometimes, but always dip in and out, saying something about being a transfer student but never naming the other school she was going to. This was because, truthfully, she lived at a beautiful camp full of fresh fruit bushes, where the other campers all loved her, where the counselors trusted her, where she didn't have to attend any other academy if she didn't want. She was beautiful and smart and powerful.
Which meant she was fine. Totally fine.
Nancy Wheeler was sixteen years old, but she'd been only eight when a monster first attacked. She'd sometimes seen monsters in crowds before, but her parents had always told her that she was seeing things, so she chalked it up to her own imagination. But when she was eight years old, in the backyard with her four-year-old brother, a scaly, spitting snake, half the size of their house, tried to swallow Mike whole. Nancy was panicking, but when she heard her brother scream and fall, she found herself suddenly on the snake's head, a branch in her hand, slamming and beating against it. When it threw her off, her mind began to shift, taking in everything around her. It had always done that, the school doctors called it ADHD, but for once it was working in her favor, and before the half-hour was up, she had leapt over trees and crawled through bushes until the snake had wrapped around itself, and squeezed itself out of air. Then Nancy had held her sobbing brother close, staring at the carnage with wide eyes and a pale face, whispering comforts she didn't believe until her mother came outside. When she did, she took one look at the wreckage, ushered the kids inside, never asked what happened and never spoke of it again.
It happened again when she was nine; two harpies perched atop her school, waiting for her to leave, before leaping down on her and trying to rip out her eyes. She was shocked that nobody around her seemed to notice anything was happening, that they just kept walking like there weren't two creatures descending from the sky and trying to murder a child in front of them. But she used her backpack this time, bludgeoning them until she could take off at a run. They passed the bushes she hid in within a few minutes, but she still waited there for hours, ignoring the leaves in her hair and scratches on her knees, until it was dark outside and she made her way home, and her mother met her on the porch. This time, she did ask what happened, but when Nancy told her, she didn't say anything. She just gave her a sad look, and Nancy felt like she wasn't believed, and her mother took her inside to wrap her wounds and kiss her forehead and tuck her into bed.
After that, they started appearing more and more. She'd spot a man with one eye watching them from across the restaurant, or a lady with strangely-moving hair trying to get closer to her in the mall. It scared her most, though, when she was with Mike. He didn't notice the creatures at all. Instead, he stumbled along and kept on babbling about what cartoon he'd been watching recently, or the game his new gym teacher had taught them, or what flowers to give to Mama for mother's day. He didn't see the danger behind them, and she would think about the snake in the yard, and grip his hand tighter and drag him away.
She considered asking her mother about it, but she was starting to think her mother knew and wouldn't tell her. She'd always said the monsters were in her head, but the wounds from the harpies up her arm that she'd had to explain away at school as "falling into a ditch," the destruction that snake had caused, and the way Mike had seen it too... these things were real, and when her mom didn't ask any questions, it let her know that Mama knew, and Mama wasn't going to do anything about it. And Nancy knew her mother well enough to know it wasn't out of a lack of affection, it was just that her mom– both her parents, really– loved to pretend that her problems did not exist, and she thought that if she just pretended hard enough, those problems would indeed go away. Recently, she'd taken to drinking a lot when she thought her children were asleep, or when they were at school, or in the backyard, or simply in the other room and she thought they couldn't see her. While Mike never thought twice about it, Nancy knew what was in that bottle, she'd written down what was on the labels once and looked them all up on the library computer. She'd listened in on her parents' arguments on some nights. She knew it was part of her mother's game of pretend, just as much as she knew that game of pretend would never become real. They still had bills, and payments, and job insecurity, and whispers at the PTA, and cold looks at family gatherings from people who should have loved them, but whispered, when they thought Nancy couldn't hear, that they didn't look enough like their father. And they still had monsters.
But Nancy was young, and though she knew, deep in her chest, that something was wrong, and bad things were happening around her, and something needed to be done about it... she tried to put her worries aside, and let the adults handle things. She assumed that the monsters were something grown-up she would understand later. She thought that, well, if she could get away from the first few, surely they wouldn't be a problem forever.
Then she was ten years old, and Barb died.
She'd had a best friend since diapers, a young girl who lived across the street. They were always in the same class, holding hands and whispering about whatever they could think about. They slept over in tents set up in living rooms, raced around in backyard sprinklers, coordinated outfits, traded books, sat and stared at the clouds and wished on dandelions. They were inseparable, and that was the problem. Because when the hydra attacked, Barb was there, and Nancy couldn't save her.
She didn't like to think about it now. She pushed it to the back of her head and stared ahead and thought about the future.
But she figured out that coping mechanism later. After it happened, she'd blown up, screaming at her mother in the living room, still covered in the blood of the monster and of her best friend, her hands covered in ash from the torches she'd used to burn the creature's heads. Mike, not yet six, was crying on the couch, scared at the argument before him, because their mother insisted that there were just some things that kids shouldn't know. And Nancy snapped that maybe if they'd known, she wouldn't have watched a little girl die not an hour before.
It was so long before her mother broke and admitted the truth. She'd slipped up one too many times in the argument, and Nancy refused to let her leave the room, standing in the doorway, covered in blood. "Look at me," she had demanded. And finally their mother told them the big secret. That their father, who was still at work, of course he was still at work, it wasn't like he was ever home when they needed him– he wasn't their father, but they had a second mother. A second mother who appeared twice to Karen Wheeler and disappeared just as fast, leaving a small bag of belongings on her doorstep on the day nine months later when she came home with a baby. And the other mother spoke of monsters sometimes.
Even after the admission, she did not relent when Nancy demanded to see what their second mother had left them. So she stormed upstairs, leaving trails of blood on the railing, slamming and locking the door to her mother's room before her mom could catch up to her, and she dug through the closet until she found a safe and cracked it. By the time her mother got the door down and found her, she'd spread out the little bag on the ground, throwing aside the shiny gemstones and gripping her little hands onto a tiny sheet of paper with an address on it.
"Take us there," she'd said, and her mother didn't want to. She didn't want to give her children up. But Barb was dead, and hours into the night, when Nancy shouted that she refused to let Mike be next, her mother finally broke and made a call.
Mike hid behind Nancy as their mother dropped them off at the camp border, a nice man telling her all about the summer they were about to have. Their mother couldn't see that the man had goat's legs, but the children did. They said goodbye to their mother– their father hadn't been able to take off work to take them, and Nancy wasn't sure she would know what to say if he'd come anyway– and went into the camp. There were others like them there. They were all told that their parents were gods, and that meant monsters would come for them again, and keep coming for them, and there was nothing they could do about it. So all they could do was learn how to fight them when they did come.
So Nancy threw herself into training. She learned how to use a sword, how to throw a spear. She found herself best at archery, practicing until she nearly had impeccable aim, and by the end of the summer she was hoping to be claimed by the god of archery. But instead, her and Mike found themselves in fancy clothes, their hair done up, a wonderful scent wafting from them, and they were applauded and led to the cabin of Aphrodite.
Nancy wasn't pleased with it. She couldn't see how the powers of "love" and "beauty" could help her fight monsters. But she couldn't very well change her lineage, so she kept her head up and made small talk with her new half-siblings, pretending not to care when they cooed over little Mike, pretending that she wasn't worried when they took him out themselves to show him something or another, or gave him advice while she was busy, or told her it was fine, they could take him to the pegasi while she trained, she wouldn't have to worry about it. She knew it was wrong, and she shouldn't ever say it to them, but she hated that they felt they had as much right to her brother as she did. Not when she'd been protecting him for so long.
After summer, they went back. Their parents had moved to a new apartment to get away from "everything" that had happened in the last town, and that autumn was cold and distant between them all. Even Mike could feel it, and Nancy watched him become quieter and softer in those months, retreating into his room instead of listening to his sister and mother snap at each other. He was upset that he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about camp, and that when he did whisper it to his classmates, they didn't believe him. That dad didn't even believe him, just murmuring "that's nice" to whatever he said. He was upset that their second mother still hadn't talked to them, and that the counselors said she might never do so. He was confused, having been thrown into a whole different world where he was surrounded by magic, and thrown into a cabin of family who treated him like family should, and then sent back to live in a quiet apartment, listening to his grandmother on the phone not even ask about them once, watching the neighbors whisper about the checked-out dad and alcoholic mom and angry daughter. The angry daughter he'd seen, last year, come home covered in blood and ash and tears and scream that she didn't want him to die.
Their parents weren't going to do anything about it. So Nancy rolled up her sleeves and sat with him, and read him every Greek Mythology book she could drag from the library, telling him about their history, and what she'd learned about the world while he was coloring with the Apollo and Iris children, and held up her phone so their siblings could say hi to him and tell him they couldn't wait to see him over the summer.
It was only the beginning of spring, though, when things went bad again. Nancy never told Mike exactly what happened, and by the time he was twelve and preparing for his first quest, he'd honestly forgotten the whole incident. Honestly, he barely remembered spending time in the apartment at all. But their mom had taken her kids to the park. He fell asleep on a bench, and his mother was watching him, and she did watch him closely, she really did, because she loved him, but she also thought that he could handle himself for just a few seconds while she went to the street vendor and grabbed a shot, and then came back to the bench destroyed, her sleeping son stuffed inside an overturned trash can for safe-keeping, and her daughter standing there, covered in the dust that was once a harpy.
"She flew off with him," Nancy said, a fury in her voice and a fire in her eyes. "I shot her down. I had to catch him." She had scratches up her arm, just as she had when she came home from school. She slid a bow onto her back, letting it turn back into a crossbody bag.
The argument that night was just as fierce, if not fiercer than when Nancy came home bloody and grieving. Mike, not understanding what was happening, locked himself in his room and hid under his bed, covering his ears and singing to himself. He didn't hear the accusations thrown towards each other, the insistence that children should not talk to adults like that, the furious retort that she was not a child anymore. And she was only eleven, shaking with fury, having killed monsters with her own hands, having watched her best friend die, having looked up from the plants she was sketching at the park to see her brother about to be eaten by a monster because her mother turned around for just a moment. A monster her mother could not see.
Mike only really remembered, if he thought hard enough about it, Nancy flipping his bedsheet up, a backpack slung over her shoulder, and saying, "Get your stuff. We're going to camp early."
He was happy to be back at camp, and didn't realize until the next autumn that there was something weird happening. His best friends Lucas and Dustin were going home for the school year, and he asked Nancy when Mom was going to pick them up.
"She's not," Nancy said.
She told him that their mother sent them here to keep them safe.
She did not tell him the truth.
She did not tell him that the second their mother slammed her bedroom door, probably trying to let off steam, or maybe trying to sleep it off, Nancy had packed her and Mike's things and taken him out of the house and all the way to New York with her own pocket change and a map she stole from the car's glove compartment. She did not tell him that she left a note written in anger on the counter, that she had her bow at the ready the entire way over just in case, that for months she wouldn't let him out of her sight, always staying a distance, even if he couldn't see her, just to be sure.
Every now and again she did send her mother a letter, and she would receive cordial ones back. She would read them out loud to Mike, skipping sentences she didn't want him to hear and swallowing her own anger so that he could form his own opinions on their parents. He kept those opinions to himself, and it wasn't her place to ask, even though she wanted to know, she wanted him to tell her everything so that she knew how to make him happier, so that she knew how to keep him out of trouble, so that she knew how to protect him more.
When she was thirteen, she got a letter from her mother about a new baby. She skipped that part when she read the letter to Mike. Even though he didn't hear it, he told her she didn't need to read him the letters anymore.
When she was fourteen, she went out on a quest. She pulled her sister Chrissy aside the night before they left, and told her, sternly, to watch after Mike. Chrissy said of course she would, but Nancy yanked her closer and made her swear, and Chrissy heard the terror in her voice, heard Nancy begin to plead that nothing could happen to him while she was gone, that absolutely nothing could happen to him ever again, and Chrissy swore, and Chrissy watched him for three weeks before the questers came back. Before two of the questers came back. The third demigod did not return, and Nancy did not like to think about it.
She didn't realize, really, that she inherited her parents' problem-solving skills. She would never think so; she always acted when necessary, always leapt into battle, or sat down to strategize any way to solve their predicament. She didn't avoid what was right in front of her. But the things that were close to her chest, those things she kept far from her mind. She tried not to think about the deaths she'd witnessed, the family she'd left behind, the fact that she was lying to her brother about why they'd left. That was in the past, she told herself, so she didn't have to think about it. So she played pretend that those thoughts would go away.
When she came back from that first quest, the previous head counselor had graduated, and she was voted cabin leader unanimously. She took her job very seriously, making sure that her siblings straightened themselves out, that they went to practice even if it scratched them up and muddied their clothes, that they always picked the best team for competitions, that they would always be prepared for anything. Nothing was going to happen to them, not while she was in charge.
She got a letter from her mother. She did not open it.
She was sixteen years old now. She was the head counselor of her cabin. She was a fierce warrior. She was skilled in any weapon she put her hands on, she was smart as a fox and could hold her own with any Athena kid she studied with. She popped into town and dropped into schools to take classes, to get the grades she needed. The kids there loved her, she was popular, she was cool, she was mysterious, she was beautiful. She was always beautiful and skilled and perfect.
And when she went to sleep, she still saw Barb covered in blood, and the third demigod crushed under rocks, and her brother being carried away. She still saw her mother's distraught face, and thought of how she'd never seen her other mother and probably never would, and how unfair it was, that that woman brought her into this world and then did nothing to help her when it turned against her. She thought of how she kept everyone prepared, how she volunteered to patrol the camp, how she kept reminding them, though not out loud, that they were always in danger. That they couldn't afford to let their minds slip for even a moment. That they did not have the luxury of a childhood when monsters surrounded them.
Nancy Wheeler was sixteen years old. And she wasn't fine.
A/N: Thank you so much for your lovely comment Anon <3
A/N 2: Just as a PSA as off 2022, I no longer take Harry Potter requests; please do not send any x (also this was written before the Johnny Depp recast)
Being Grindelwald’s daughter would involve:
He had you shortly after his falling out with Dumbledore, and if he was being honest it was an accident.
You were left with your mother for most of your life until she died of a terminal illness in your teens and you reached out to your father. You had very little hope that he would reply, but to your surprise he did.
Grindelwald takes you in, as a while Ariana’s (Dumbledore’s sister) death, he has been thinking about legacy and also wants someone to align with him on his goals.
What better person than his own kin?
Your mother wasn’t the most well off, so you didn’t have a lot of belongings. Therefore, your father treats you to a whole new wardrobe.
Tasking you to help you with his mission.
He makes sure you’re very well educated beyond your regular wizarding schooling. He let’s you read any literature you want, and teaches you all about ‘dark magic.’ Grindelwald thinks that those who don’t are too small minded and do not appreciate magic for all of its capabilities.
Building a relationship with him again. Slowly.
Learning about who Dumbledore was, and when you’re feeling brave one day, you ask him about their relationship.
Unfortunately (as expected), you don’t get a very clear answer. Though, that part of his life is over- he tells you that much.
Growing up knowing a war is coming.
Although you want to love your father, everything in you tells you his ideas are dangerous. And, are not going to end well.
Shadow was quiet for the rest of the party, but that was to be expected. He wasn't completely out of it, though, which was a pleasant surprise. He talked with the others, had a long conversation with Blaze about something or other, sat with the chao for a while, and smiled at a joke Sonic made– when he wasn't looking, of course. If the blue hedgehog ever realized Shadow thought he was funny, then they'd never hear the end of it.
But once Tails and Cream fell asleep under the tree, the two bushy fox tails wrapped around them both, everyone started to separate. Sonic picked up his brother and carried him on his shoulders, Blaze and Silver disappeared into wherever it was they came from, and Team Dark went back to Rouge's place.
Rouge had an apartment above her club. It wasn't big, definitely not big enough for three lifeforms, but Rouge stubbornly refused to move, and Shadow never thought to ask her to, and Omega used to live in a closet, so anything was an upgrade, really. Rouge swore under her breath as she kept missing the lock on the door, her numerous keychains bouncing around and reflecting starlight. Omega offered to shoot the door apart, but Rouge reminded him about their insurance rates, and Shadow let out a noise that might've been a laugh. Rouge took that as a win.
Once they were inside, they went up the stairs, and Rouge immediately flopped onto her fluffy sofa, stretching out her wings and letting out a yawn as loud as she could make. "Good Gaia, that was a long day."
"Hmmph. Tell me about it." Shadow amiably rolled his eyes, sitting at the edge of the sofa, barely finding room with the bat all spread out.
"TECHNICALLY, YOU ARE CORRECT." Omega informed her. "AS THE TIME DISTORTION MADE THE DAY LONGER THAN–"
"Yes, big guy, I know. Maybe I shoulda taken a nap in White Space. Whoo! The paperwork on this is gonna be insane."
"IF YOU SO WISH, I CAN BURN THE PAPERS."
"Tempting. We'll see." Rouge sat up, rolling her shoulders and sighing. "Might actually crash here for the night. I know I'm usually upside-down, but everything just aches, you know?"
Shadow nodded, staring at the floor.
Rouge waited a moment, watching him carefully. She glanced at Omega, who wisely figured out that something involving those pesky "emotions" was happening, and that was not his area of expertise, so he simply let Rouge take the lead.
"So," Rouge said quietly, scooting a bit closer to Shadow. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Shadow shook his head.
"You wanna ignore it?"
He shook his head again.
"Okay. You want advice, comfort, distractions? Weighted blanket? Coffee beans?"
"Just..." Shadow closed his eyes, trying to figure out what he did want.
Rouge let him take all the time he needed. After all, Shadow wasn't used to being in touch with his emotions, especially not after such a wreck of a day.
Finally, after a long pause, Shadow said, in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, "I just need a moment. Just one. To let it out."
Rouge shrugged. "Knock yourself out. You earned it. Just try not to break the floor agai–"
Shadow let out an ear-splitting scream, gripping onto his knees so tight she was surprised the thread on his gloves didn't snap. Omega immediately leapt forwards, prepared for an attack, only to realize this was, once again, part of the "feelings" department. Both of them stared at Shadow, Rouge with wide eyes, until Shadow stopped screaming and then, even more shockingly, started loudly sobbing.
For a while, nobody moved. Omega glanced towards the door, but then decided to stay, watching Shadow carefully as he continued to cry. Then Rouge spread a wing over him, wrapping it over his shaking arms. She knew Shadow wasn't a touchy guy, so that was all she planned to do, until he practically threw himself at her in a hug, clinging to her and burying his face in her shoulder. She stiffened, and then hugged him back, running her fingers through his quills in a way that reminded him of someone else.
"Alright, bud." she said softly. "Let it out. We'll be here."
“I bet there’s lots more places to run than up here. It looks so big. All the pictures make it look so open. So much bigger than this stupid ship.”
“Don’t be rude.”
“I hope it’s just like those fairytales you read me, Maria! With magic and destiny and true love…”
“--What about you, Shadow?”
“...it doesn’t matter. If we go there, we’ll go together, and that’s what’s important.”
“...”
“...”
“...Stop being a sap, Shadow, and tell us what you actually wanna see.”
“Fine. I wanna hold a spider.”
“I knew it.”
“Ha ha.”
“Stop arguing, boys. We have to go back to lessons in a bit. Let’s just… enjoy the view.”
“It… it is a lovely view.”
“...Yeah.”
---
Knuckles the Echidna and Miles “Tails” Prower the Fox had been thorns in the side of Doctor Ivo Robotnik for way too long for him to not lose his mind the second he saw them during his most recent conquest of the planet. Of course, they wouldn’t have it any other way, this was pretty much how they get their kicks. It got a bit difficult sometimes, but that’s what the extended team was for. But for today, it’s just Knuckles and Tails. They should be fine for now.
Today’s mission brought them somewhere strange, though. When Tails picked up the signal that Robotnik’s ship had reached the general area, he was worried that he was going to a deserted island in order to capture more flickies to turn into robots-- still hadn’t gotten tired of that, apparently. But when he picked Knuckles up from Angel Island and flew over, they had to engage stealth mode incredibly quickly, as they noticed the island was, indeed, not deserted.
“Hurry it up, Tails.” Knuckles muttered, standing on the wing of the plane and staring down at the huge metallic facility taking up half the island. He could see a protected road and an arched, towering fence over it. It led a little bit off the shoreline, over to what seemed to be some form of landing pad. What drew attention the most, though, were the flashing lights and distant sound of an alarm. Robotnik must already be inside.
“I’m working on it.” Tails muttered, giving him a quick glare. “It’s a bit hard to scan government files and fly a plane at the same time.” He put a hand to the communicator in his ear, and called, “Vector, Espio, you better be working, too.”
He heard a few mutters of confirmation from the other end of the line.
Knuckles glanced down at the land below, narrowing his eyes so the lights stopped bothering him so much. “This isn’t the kind of island I like being around, Tails.”
“I know.”
“I prefer silence. Nature. Solitude. No sudden noises.”
“I’m aware… hold on, Vector got something.”
Knuckles sighed and reached to his ear, turning on his communicator; he tried to keep it off, mainly, because the static when everyone was silent annoyed him to no end. But once it was on, he could hear the Chaotix from back in Station Square, scanning whatever computer they’d managed to snag.
“–Prison Island,” Vector was saying, as Knuckles could hear Espio distantly chasing Charmy around the room; the bee seemed to have grabbed something from his fellow detective and was refusing to give it back.
“Prison Island?” Tails asked.
“Secret Military Base.” Vector affirmed. “Research facility of GUN. There’s a ton of military facilities, but that big thing in the middle should be their prison. Six levels of security. Should be completely impossible to get through.”
“Okay,” Tails said, “So how long do you think it’ll take us to bust after Robotnik in there?”
“Less than an hour.”
“Alright. We’re shutting off communications. Send the emergency alert if you need anything, you know how.” Tails switched off his communicator, and then said, “You ready to break into a government facility?”
Knuckles finally smiled, and punched his palm. “When am I not?”
---
Six levels of security, protected by the best technology and weaponry that the Guardian Units of Nations could offer, were never going to be a match for Dr Ivo Robotnik. He hadn’t even brought his best robots-- he sat in a simple Robo-Walker and blazed his way through hall after hall, hidden elevator after elevator. Security drones would come to attack, but of course they were no match for his technology. Robotnik was the genius of the century, at least according to him, so of course this would be no problem.
There were six levels of security, he knew, and the files he’d spent days hacking into were a bit more correct than what Vector dug up in a few minutes. While each level had defenses, guards, cameras… everything stopped at Level Seven. GUN never assumed that anyone would be able to get that far, and besides, they didn’t like people knowing what was in there.
Once Robotnik entered, he approached the large, shining computer in the center. And he looked underneath, to see the frozen tube, holding GUN’s dark, shameful secret within.
“So this is the military’s top secret weapon. A bit smaller than I expected.”
He was not deterred; size was no guarantee of power. His own Bokkun messenger could carry a multitude of explosives, and that stupid fox couldn’t be over 3’0, and yet he and his echidna friend had been foiling his plans for far too long. Luckily, he had a solution, thanks to the hidden files, the buried research of his brilliant grandfather. And now that he had that information, he could finally defeat those dumb animals, and proceed with his plans for the Robotnik Empire. All he had to do…
“Enter user data, aha… enter password.”
An easy password. Of course, GUN wouldn’t have guessed it. Robotnik had guessed it due to, as Tails would put it, his inflated sense of ego leading him to believe his family line was superior to all others on the planet. Robotniks had always treasured family above all else, but not always for reasons of superiority, something the girl he was using as a password had once understood.
“M-A-R-I-A.”
The computer buzzed, and then all Robotnik had to do was place the key to open the chamber, a key that GUN had haughtily assumed none but them would ever be able to find, bring to the facility, and reach level seven to utilize.
But being experienced at stealing these precious stones to power his machines (though Knuckles always somehow got them back, annoyingly), Robotnik simply removed the white chaos emerald from his pocket, and placed it into a console beside the capsule. It took only a moment before the distant hum and glow of the emerald began its work. Robotnik allowed the gunner machine he sat inside to step back as the capsule slowly began to rise, a small amount of smoke clearing from the platform. GUN and their dramatics… well, honestly, Robotnik could appreciate that. Presentation was very important.
The capsule finished rising, and lifted itself in a diagonal position, as if whatever was inside would need to sit up. Then, with another puff of smoke, the lid flipped open.
And, in confusion, Robotnik watched as a black hedgehog climbed out, shakily standing.
The hedgehog was still for a moment, eyes narrowed, clearly trying to figure out where he was. He then turned, seeing Robotnik himself. His eyes widened for just a moment, before the emotion was hidden again. Carefully, he observed the room, and then crossed his arms.
Sensing he wouldn’t speak on his own, Robotnik prompted, “So. The military’s top-secret weapon is… a hedgehog.”
The hedgehog continued to stare, and then knelt down. Eyes down, he said, in a quiet, dark voice, “My name is Shadow.” He looked up, then stood and crossed his arms again. “Since you were so kind to release me, my master, I will grant you one wish.”
Robotnik took a moment, trying to decide if the hedgehog was joking. It seemed a bit impossible to tell. But, well, with an ego like Robotnik’s, it was quite easy for him to accept that, of course, this creature would immediately want to serve one as great as him.
“Well, I could definitely use some assistance getting out of here.” Robotnik said, considering. “I’m sure GUN has already brought in more forces. And that silly echidna and his little friends will probably come in to ruin my fun.”
The hedgehog once again had a moment where his facial expression changed, a glimmer of something behind his eyes. “GUN? We’re in a GUN facility?”
“Where else would you be? If you are this ‘ultimate lifeform,’ you are a GUN weapon.”
The hedgehog watched him for a moment, and then turned and began inspecting the room. He walked to the computer, running a hand across it, before he turned to his capsule. He peered inside, almost confused.
“Is something the matter… Shadow?”
The hedgehog looked up. “Am I the only one here?”
“But of course. You’re the weapon, aren’t you?”
The hedgehog blinked once. Then twice. Then he turned, so the doctor could not see his face. A small whisper. Tiny enough that Robotnik, who wasn’t paying much attention anyway, definitely wouldn’t have heard it– and if he did, he wouldn’t have known what to do with it, or with the break in the hedgehog’s voice as he spoke.
“They killed them.”
They wouldn’t have kept them separate, would they? They’d want all their eggs in one basket. That’s why they were all on the ARK in the first place.
Maria died to keep them all safe. She died and they killed the others anyway. Of course they would. Of course they would, they’d always said that Shadow was the most useful. That’s why he’d had to protect them, that’s… that’s why it was his fault, he hadn’t protected them enough, and now they were all dead.
GUN had taken everything.
---
Shadow burst through everything in the facility, and when they reached the outside, and he stopped to take a breath, and he looked up at the Earth that had been denied to him for so long, denied to all of them, he held his tears back.
Two mobians were there, species he vaguely recognized from their textbooks on the ARK. Fox? And… porcupine? Bandicoot? Echidna? Echidna seemed right. The red echidna turned to him, eyes wide with confusion and anger.
“Hey, you!” he shouted, and Shadow resisted the urge to cover his ears, the noise of the collapsing building inside and the distant gunshots already thundering in his head. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The fox gave him some kind of chiding, but Shadow didn’t listen. He just gave them both a fiery glare. “I’m granting my family justice.” he whispered, not caring if they could or could not hear him.
He leapt forwards, then, spinning and ramming into the echidna. It sent the red mobian flying back, and Shadow took no time in turning and swinging a kick, sending the fox flying away from him. He heard the echidna leap back up, shouting something in an excited tone– someone who liked to fight, then. The fox said nothing, but Shadow could see him get back to his feet, steadying himself.
But as Shadow turned to continue the brawl, he wasn’t thinking about them. He was thinking about that first night.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Why?”
“It’s a new room. I don’t know how.”
“So why bother me?”
“It’s your room. How do you sleep here?”
“I just… do. Other hedgehog, help me out here.”
“No, I’m with her on this. I feel weird.”
“...you want to cuddle, don’t you?”
Two little voices, muttering, “Maybe.”
“Fine. Come here.”
He remembered that feeling. He had to be ten years old then, they were all so young. He’d scooted back on the bottom bunk, and then the blue hedgehog had crawled up, cautiously curling up on the bed’s edge, but then the youngest leapt on, bounced, and dragged them all together. She laid inbetween them, hugging them to her, refusing to let go. She had her head on Shadow’s shoulder, then, and whispered, “Night-night.”
Both of the others had been uncomfortable at first, not used to touch. But they’d realized fast that she needed this, and, well, maybe they needed it, too. Just someone to hold.
I’m sorry.
They were gone now. Because he’d failed them.
I’m sorry, Maria.
I’m sorry, Amy.
I’m sorry, Sonic.
I won’t fail your memory.
---
Hundreds of miles away, on a deserted island, a second pod let out a long beep, before falling silent again.
Shauna closes her eyes sometimes and sees the 25th reunion again. Coming in for the quarter-of-a-century celebration of being a state champion. She hasn't played soccer since then. Not that anybody cares. The world moved on.
Taissa drives her there– she lives somewhere else, of course, somewhere far away, but Tai paid for her plane ticket over because she wanted her to be there with the rest of the team. Even Allie, who didn't make it, but gets to be in the photos with them anyway. Tai is still married to Simone here, but when Van shows up to the reunion, still talking about VHS tapes and muttering about the insane Ohio weather, there's lingering gazes and wonders of what could have been if she'd just been a little braver a little sooner. Shauna wonders if she'd have the same look when she sees Jeff, but when she does, she's just happy that he found someone nice, smiles politely at the pictures of his kids on his phone. So, no, there's no regrets there. After all, it was never about him.
Tai and Van weren't the only lesbians on the team, of course. Turns out the gay jock sterotype was right about most of them, she thinks with a snort. Crystal– or, Kristin, apparently– actually ended up married to Misty fucking Quigley of all people. Apparently they'd ended up at the same college, Kristin had gotten her into the theatre department, and now she performs for a community Shakespeare company while Misty works ER and does some "reddit investigations" on the side. Shauna wonders if she should apologize to Misty for how they all treated her as kids– yeah, she was a bit awkward and liked to peel wings off of bugs while waiting for practice to be over, but they'd been a bit cruel. Misty doesn't seem to remember, though, instead hugging her instantly as if they'd just seen each other yesterday, instead of spending twenty-five years apart.
Then there's Natalie. While they all liked Natalie and thought of her as a friend, they'd all kind of expected her to burn out. She hadn't had any college plans, and was already getting high off her ass at parties and drunk inbetween classes. But here she was, smiling and chatting with Mari. She told Shauna that she'd gone through two stints in rehab before reuniting with Lottie, who'd become a psychiatrist instead of the business major her parents had expected. Lottie had let her move into her house while she recovered, and now here they were, married with a daughter, while Natalie coached the soccer team at the same High School they'd used to play at. Lottie was in an intense discussion with Laura Lee when Shauna found her that night; apparently Laura Lee had become the head of a charity to help queer religious people, and Lottie thought the clinic she worked for might want to keep them in mind.
Coach Martinez's son was there– Travis, she thinks? Yeah, that was right. Apparently he'd gone through a few career paths, and now worked on a farm and was dating a waitress from nearest coffee shop. He trades information with Akilah, who's a vet who lives on her own farm with her extended family. She has horses and kids and a few books on animal care that've done well-enough. She goes to sit by Natalie and Mari, the latter of whom jokes that she's technically a vet, too, as humans are a type of animal. "You probably shouldn't call your kids animals," Natalie quips at the pediatrician, who laughs brightly. Her, Gen, and Laura Lee had all become professional soccer players for a while, but she'd gone back to school after a bad fall, and was now one of the best doctors in her field.
Shauna didn't know the Junior Varsity team as well as the others, but it's nice to see they're doing well. Melissa has a wife, daughters, and a bundle of cats. She's insisting to Gen right now that Buttercup was named after the princess, not the powerpuff girl, while Gen laughs at how insistent she seems about this. She's a coach now, too, though across the country from them– she says that Natalie should be lucky that their teams don't clash, and Natalie says the same, a competitive gleam in both their eyes. Rachel Goldman was a secretary until her daughters convinced her to post some of her fluting videos on YouTube, and now she made enough money off of cover songs and guest appearances that she was able to quit her job and focus on her music. Britt is a video game designer, and Robin's a science fiction author. Allie Stevens is a journalist, which Shauna thinks is perfect. She was pretty nosy in high school.
Then she sees Jackie. Jackie, her hair still perfectly-styled, her dress immaculate. She makes her way over to Shauna, and Shauna doesn't know what to say. They haven't spoken since their blow-up after the match. When Shauna told Jackie she was going to a different college. When neither of them were able to acknowledge how they actually felt about each other. They'd figured it out by now, of course, with a rainbow pin stuck to Jackie's bag since she'd found herself alone at college and a ring on her finger for some woman who faded into the crowd behind them.
"Well?" Jackie asks, tilting her head. "What's my job, then? Do I still play soccer? I wasn't very good at it, though. Just at getting people to work together. Maybe I'm an HR manager. Something boring like that. You knew I'd be boring, didn't you? How about you? What do you do?"
Shauna thinks of a million responses, none of which she can imagine herself saying.
"How about you? What's your job in this wonderful, perfect future? Did you ever have a plan for what you'd be in this world? Any ideas? You wanted to go to Brown and be successful, but in what? What was your plan? Or did you just want to get away from me?"
Shauna thinks about when she'd applied to Brown. Thinks about telling Jackie at a celebration of their win, or at a graduation party, or just some random teenage get-together. She never imagines Jackie taking it well.
"Did you ever have any idea who you'd be without me?" Jackie leans close, and whispers in her ear, "Or do you think the woods would always be calling to you?"
Shauna feels a chill in the air, and they're not standing in a high school gymnasium anymore. They're where they were always meant to be, in the deep snow, surrounded by trees.
"It was always the wilderness, wasn't it? This was always it for you. You didn't have any other choice."
