I get so emotional when I remember how kind Jojo and Maria were to their hedgehogs.
Because these two little girls
really encountered a lonely and beaten up alien hedgehog and choose to be kind. Jojo's mom was screaming her lungs out about calling the government and yet Jojo looked at Sonic's beaten up shoes filled with holes and listened to her aunt lament how beat up his feet were, went up to her room, grabbed those shoes (ignoring her mother all the way) and gifted them to Sonic. So his feet wouldn't hurt anymore T.T
And Maria? You cannot tell me that when she found Shadow, immediately someone probs came around and warned her not to get close bc he was "dangerous" or "unstable" or some bullshit like that, and she still choose to break all the rules and disobey her grandfather to hang out with Shadow and be his friend until the end.
Anyway, I am so emotional and this is the reason I am writing a whole series to have them meet :3 Gonna really go in for the bonding between Jojo and Sonic (and later on Tails and Knuckles) and the time Maria and Shadow spent together before the accident. AND THEN the epic adventure of Jojo and Maria is gonna happen. I am so excited!
Fun fact, I went looking for Jojo's age casually for my timeline (i choose to ignore how the 3 movies are supposed to only be in like a 2 year period bleh) and found out she is 10 in the first movie, and by the third, which I am setting in its release year 2024, she is 14. Can anyone guess how old Maria is when we see her flashbacks with Shadow? Yep! She is also 14! I was sure she was at least 13 but couldn't be older, and I was right! It was like a lightbulb went off in my head when I realized. And 6 fics planned later, here we are! As a little tease, I'm putting the summary here for that big fic, but it's number 4 so if you are interested, you are gonna have to wait!
At the location of the (former) ARK Lab in Idaho, Jojo finds Maria Robotnik, who is suddenly 50 years in the future with unstable chaos energy powers. Together, they become runaways of GUN as they embark on a journey to Green Hills in search of the Wachowski's.
In London, Maddie has been arrested for her "involvement" at the attack to GUN HQ and is confined to Tom's hospital room. By accident, Stone finds them and for his own personal objectives, helps her send Tom back home while she remains to try to contact her missing children using Eggman's tech.
Somewhere in China, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have no way to get back home, having used the last ring in the atmosphere escaping the Eclipse Canon. Not only that, but the Chaos Emeralds are lost and GUN is after them. Due to their usage of the emeralds while trying to stop the canon, Sonic has a bond to Shadow. This guides Team Sonic to the dark hedgehog, hoping they find him before GUN.
Alliances are formed, friendships new and old are tested, and all roads lead to Green Hills as two girls hold the key to Rockwell's plans to secure GUN the strongest object in the Universe: the Master Emerald.
I talked a little bit about it here, but I'm oh so happy to talk about it more
Last Chance is a movie au where Earth was not planet Longclaw sent him to. Sonic had been to 5 other planets first. 5 places where he tried to hide and stay safe, 5 places he's had to run from. He's been threatened, captured, injured, scarred (literally), betrayed. Each time he was found, each time he was forced to flee, he found new meaning in Longclaw's last words.
Somebody will always want his power? No. Everybody wants his power.
This Sonic doesn't trust anybody. Nobody is to be trusted. Everyone is a potential threat. Someone who will potentially hurt him.
The safest place to go is the Mushroom Planet. He knows there's no intelligent life there. No one to cage him. No one to see him as a thing instead of a living, breathing being. It's his best bet at safety. Staying alive.
But he goes to Earth instead.
Because Sonic is still the same at his core. He yearns for connection. He wants to be around people. He wants to laugh and high five and talk to someone that's not himself.
He wants to be able to trust someone. He wants to be proven wrong about people.
Earth is his last chance. If he has to flee Earth, he'll be forced to go to the Mushroom Planet. If he has to flee Earth, that belief about others - that you can't trust them, that they only want to hurt you and use you - will solidify and won't be broken.
Then he's discovered. Then he loses his rings. Then he's forced to go on a roadtrip to get them back.
The rabbit woman had said her garden was damaged in a storm. This was quite the understatement.
The rabbits’ cottage sat at the edge of a green forest. It was secluded and cozy, but one of the shady trees had been struck by lightning and collapsed right into their garden. Chunks of burnt wood and small splinters covered the roof and yard. The house had escaped with only some scraped up walls and a broken gutter. The garden was destroyed. The white picket fence was knocked over and even crushed in places. A bird bath lay shattered, stones scattered across the ground. Some of the garden plants were bent but unbroken while many others were in various states of dying or dead. An effort had clearly been made to clear away some of the wood, but what this had accomplished was scattering wood chips and flattening the grass into mud. A wheelbarrow lay on its side, chopped wood spilling from the bucket while one of its wheels lay broken several feet away.
“It’s quite a mess, as I said,” the rabbit woman said.
“The poor flowers,” her daughter crooned.
The woman hummed fretfully. “Perhaps I should have hired two people.”
“I can manage,” Knuckles said. He wasn’t quite sure how to rebuild a fence, but at the very least he could remove the tree, and that was probably the biggest obstacle. He trod across the muddy ground toward a nearby fork in the branches.
“I have sheers,” the rabbit woman said hastily, lifting her skirt to follow him, though she was slowed having to step around the maze of branches. “And I borrowed an axe from one of my neighbors–”
Knuckles grabbed one of the branches in between his mitts and snapped it.
The rabbit woman paused and her daughter gasped. Ah. Right. The branch was as big around as his hand–bigger than the little rabbit girl’s whole torso. Probably an alarming thing to see him break so easily.
“How did you do that?!” The little girl asked, bounding to the nearest section of the fallen branch. She grabbed the wood between her little hands and pushed until her cheeks went pink.
Knuckles stepped easily around the leaves. He reached out and took the branch in one fist, snapping it easily. “I’m strong.” He grabbed the base of the branch he’d broken off and lifted it over his shoulder. Scattered leaves rained down around them.
The little rabbit girl’s eyes sparkled. Knuckles ignored her, focusing on her mother instead. “Where should I move this?”
The mother’s eyes were as wide as her daughter’s, though with less awe and more pure shock. She pointed toward the back of the house and said faintly: “The firewood pile… Around the back…”
Knuckles strode away.
After a moment of hand wringing, the rabbit mother bid her daughter to leave ‘Mr. Knuckles’ alone and they retreated into the house. Still, whenever he looked up from his task, he’d find the little girl and her chao companion peering at him through the windows.
He found he didn’t mind it as much as he once might have. She sort of reminded him of–but no, that was an ill comparison. He chased the thought from his head. He had a mission to complete.
He worked the whole afternoon, breaking the branches into smaller, more manageable sections and dragging or carrying them around back. The rabbits had a modest woodpile behind their home, with neatly cut logs stacked against the wall. Knuckles made a passing attempt at tidiness. He piled the leafier branches in one area and the more wood-heavy parts in another.
As he made his way around and through the garden, he took mental note of all the damage he saw as he went. His conclusion was that he would have a lot to do. But at least he would be paid. That was what he reminded himself. Just as he had for his entire life, Knuckles imagined obtaining the Master Emerald in his mind’s eye and pushed on. It was just… now he also had to shove down thoughts about a family who betrayed him while he did it.
Late afternoon he looked up from his task and found the little rabbit girl standing there with a glass in her hands. She smiled brightly up at him and her little chao friend fluttered over her shoulder, chirping a merry greeting.
“Hello!” The rabbit said.
Knuckles looked around. As far as he could tell, the child was alone but for the chao. “... Hello? Where is your mother?”
“She’s inside cooking dinner!” The girl replied. She looked out across the garden. “Wow, Mr. Knuckles, you’ve gotten so much done!”
The chao trilled a reminder of why she’d come.
“Oh, right!” She held up the glass. “We brought you something to drink!”
It was some sort of juice, Knuckles didn’t know what kind. He only knew the sides of the glass were sweating and it was a warm day. Still, he hesitated. One of his few weaknesses was poison. If the drink was drugged he might be stricken helpless and wake up who knew where. That Cream was a child only made it more suspicious–sending an innocent face was just the sort of thing a poisoner would do. But the Vanilla rabbit had promised meals as part of his payment. Did a drink count as part of a meal?
The longer those big, brown eyes were watching him, the more tempting it became. Thirst and a squirming feeling in his chest told him to accept the offer.
The little girl beamed as he accepted her gift. Under her watchful gaze he drank the entire glass. “Thank you,” he mumbled. He really hoped that wasn’t poison.
“You’re welcome!” Came the sunny reply. She watched him, almost expectantly.
Knuckles didn’t know what to do. Had he not thanked her properly? Did she want money? Was it truly poisoned and he was going to faint any moment? Did she expect him to get a drink for her in return? He handed the glass back to her but she didn’t go away, just stood there unperturbed, staring at him.
“Well, then… I must get back to work.” He walked away, but he heard her small steps follow after him.
“I’ve never met an echidna before,” she said. “Are all of them as strong as you?”
Knuckles didn’t see any harm in answering. It wasn’t like he could endanger any other echidnas. “No, I was the strongest of my tribe... When I had a tribe.”
He reached what was left of the tree. All the smaller branches had been pulled away so it was just the larger branches and trunk. He punched the wood to break it apart and tugged away a sizable portion.
“Are those spikes on your fists part of your glove or part of your hand?”
To Knuckles, this was a ridiculous question–who would wear gloves with empty spikes on them? “They’re my spurs. Part of my hand.” He slung the branch over his shoulder and started off for the woodpile before she could ask to touch them. He did have limits.
The girl was undeterred and hurried along after him. The chao trilled for her to wait for him as he zipped along behind her. “Do all echidnas have spikey fists?”
Some. His father told him in the time of the Master Emerald there were many echidna clans. Some were very tall, some were very short. Some had white quills, some long snouts, some had spurs on their fists, some did not, and for some, only the males carried spurs. Knuckles’ tribe was the descendants of these clans merged together. Many of his tribe had spurs, but not all. He did not care to explain all of this to a stranger though, so he merely told her: “Most do. Some don’t… Didn’t.”
All echidna had spurs now. Because he did. And he was the only one.
Knuckles slung the branch onto the pile a little harder than was necessary. He stalked past the girl.
Knuckles repeated the same steps as before, breaking apart the wood and carrying it behind the house. This time he had two little shadows trailing after him.
He wasn’t sure what to make of this. He was a spectacle wherever he went, but… his time on Earth had introduced him to the concept of being harmlessly strange. There, people thought he was weird and stared in curiosity. In most of the galaxy, people thought he was weird and stared in revulsion. Now he was in the galaxy again, but the look in the rabbit girls’ eyes wasn’t disgust or fear, just innocent fascination. Her eyes widened and sparkled every time he displayed his strength.
“Do you think I could be that strong one day?” She asked.
Knuckles did not answer straight away. His thoughts returned, without his permission, to his life before. This little girl wasn’t like the fox. She clearly wasn’t as knowledgeable and had no trace of shyness. That shyness was the reason the other members of the Wachowski tribe had urged him to take on ‘little white lies’ to spare his feelings and bolster his confidence. Knuckles wasn’t very good at it, but he’d tried…
Maybe if he’d tried harder the fox wouldn’t have taken Sonic’s side.
Knuckles shook his head as though he could toss the thoughts away. He focused instead on composing a little white lie for the rabbit. “Perhaps if you work very hard… You will get stronger.”
He highly doubted she would ever be as strong as he was, but she might grow stronger in the attempt.
“I’m going to start training!”
She bounded over to a broken section of the tree’s trunk and grabbed one part in her small hands. Her face screwed up with effort as she tried to drag the trunk through the mud. Her chao companion fluttered beside her, grasping a section of wood in his own little paws and pulling with all his might. It seemed a shame to Knuckles, for earnest effort to go unrewarded.
He slung a branch over one shoulder and plodded to the struggling pair. “Let me help… a little.” He grabbed the other end of the branch in one hand and lifted it easily.
The little rabbit girl gasped, eyes wide.
“Is that you?”
“That is both of us. You are doing very well,” the little white lie sounded flat to him, but it worked. Cream’s face stretched into a sunny smile. They carried the branch together to the woodpile, where Knuckles was careful she didn’t drop it on her tiny foot when he set it down.
“Let’s do another one, Cheese!”
The chao trilled excitedly and they both bound away.
Knuckles laid his own branch down and followed after. He ‘helped’ the rabbit carry heavy loads of wood a few times more after that. He might have got the work done faster if he didn’t have to follow behind her tiny footsteps, but he could not leave her to struggle on her own. Indulging her set a warmth in him that was as familiar as it was painful.
Because Tails had taken Sonic’s side.
But wasn’t that always how it went? In the end, it was always Knuckles who kept his word, who told the truth, who remained steadfast and loyal.
He shoved it aside. It didn’t matter now. He would only be here a short time. He could afford to give a little kindness and cheer to someone who was so kind and cheerful. Because he would leave again soon.
“Cream? Are you out he–oh!” Their little party paused as the mother rabbit appeared at the front door.
“Look, Mother! Look how strong we are!” The little girl held up her arms to show off her lack of muscles, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be holding the branch up. It made no difference to Knuckles, but still she made a show of gasping at her mistake and taking hold of the branch once more. “Mr. Knuckles is helping us.”
“I can see that.” Vanilla smiled at Knuckles. “That is awfully kind of him!”
Knuckles looked away. He’d just wanted to encourage the child. He’d done nothing special.
“It’s time for our supper,” Vanilla continued. “Go inside and wash up, dear. Mr. Knuckles must get home to his own dinner.”
“Oh, good I’m very hungry! Carrying all this wood worked up my appetite.”
It had for Knuckles too, but he wouldn’t be having any dinner or going home. He likely wouldn’t be ‘washing up’ either. But the well-dressed bunny lady probably wouldn’t like to hear that.
“You’ve done an excellent job so far, Mr. Knuckles. I never imagined it could look so much better so quickly!” The mother rabbit held out a basket and a fist. “Here is your payment for the day. It’s not much, as I said. But I’ve made a dessert for you to cover the rest.”
She dropped a small amount of coins into his waiting palm. Her smile dipped ever so slightly when she realized the basket handle was too small for his hand. He held it in his palm instead. A checkered red and white towel was wrapped over the contents so he could not see what lay inside, but he could smell something sweet and fruity and his stomach writhed with hunger.
“You may bring the basket back tomorrow when you return.”
“I’ll be back in the morning,” Knuckles vowed.
“Cream, say good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Knuckles!” The little rabbit waved cheerfully from her mother’s side. “See you tomorrow!” Her little chao companion darted around her head, waving and trilling his gratitude for a fun afternoon.
“See you tomorrow…” Knuckles left feeling out of sorts. He hadn’t met such pleasant people since he’d left Green Hills. Maybe that was why it felt so strange. On Earth there’d been many smiling faces to fill the day and then he’d gone home to someplace warm and welcoming. That was the life the rabbits lived too. His brush with it here made it all the more jarring when he left the light of their doorway to look for a dry place to sleep.
He’d never looked at the glow of windows from the outside and wondered what was happening inside. But now he knew. Inside were people eating their dinner and talking about their day, sharing funny stories and unburdening their stress. They might take a hot bath or shower and wash until their fur was clean and their colors bright. The little ones like Cream would have stories read to them by someone who loved them. Beds would be tucked in and foreheads would be kissed and sweet dreams would be bidden. Such things weren’t for Knuckles anymore.
The sun was low when Knuckles came to a sagging bridge over a dry ditch. The bridge was clearly in a state of disuse; Knuckles wouldn’t be disturbed. He crawled beneath the wooden structure and dug into the ground. In a few moments he’d created a burrow large enough to crawl inside and turn around. Then and only then did he turn to the basket.
The towel had protected the food from any flying dirt. Knuckles brushed the grit away as he peeled the fabric back. The smell of fruit, sugar, and cinnamon filled his burrow. Memories hit him like a blow.
At his and Tails’ first Giving of Thanks holiday, Sonic had insisted on having several pies for them to try. Maddie made one from pumpkin and Aunt Rachel brought one covered in pecan nuts. Tom’s mother sent them a cherry pie with thick whip cream and syrupy sweet fruit. Wade’s mother sent them a key of lime pie that Knuckles ate nearly half of by himself. And Tom? Tom made the apple pie.
By some cruel or kind twist of fate it seemed this planet too, had apples, and its inhabitants had also learned to combine them with sweets and spices and make them into breaded pastries.
Knuckles refused to be cowed by his own memories. Food was food, and he hadn’t eaten in days. The pie was uncut, so he held the whole thing in his mit and bit into it, scattering crumbs. A crisp crust gave way to soft, sweet-tart fruit. That he had expected. What he hadn’t expected was for his mind to be flooded with such a powerful nostalgia.
Tom lead them to a neighbor’s house and secretly fed carrots to their shaggy pony. They played games in the snow. Snowball battle. Fort building. Angels of snow. They went inside and feasted. Knuckles ate until he was stuffed full and there was still food left over. A fire warmed the living room. Cousin Jojo painted their nails. It took all three of them and several bottles of polish to cover Knuckle’s claws completely. Then Knuckles stuffed himself full again, this time with pie. Made with apples just like this one. He carried the fox to bed. Cousin Jojo slept on the floor by Sonic’s bed. Knuckles fell asleep to their whispers and giggles.
Knuckles’ eyes stung. He forced himself to take another bite.
He wished so badly that the Wachowskis hadn’t betrayed him. Knuckles would have been happy to stay the dutiful son and brave eldest brother for all the rest of his days. If only things could have stayed as they’d been.
He swallowed and his mouth felt dry. Dry pastry slid all the way down his throat. He took another bite.
There was no sense in wishing for the past to be changed. He knew this better than most. Knuckles was always betrayed. He always lost what he loved. Perhaps he just wasn’t meant for good things.
But he had earned this dessert. It was good. Vanilla must have worked hard on it. Tomorrow he would have to give her his compliments. So he made himself eat it all, even if the sweetness turned bitter on his tongue.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
SCU!Tommy gets revived in C!Tommy's place in prison.
i dont think i need to elaborate
but
hello
you know that whole post i had over SCU!Tommy
yeah so like i couldnt help myself and did a crossover lmao
i want to turn it into a series but knowing my motivation i might not lol (i wanna write like a before oneshot where SCU!Tommy sees C!Tommy? but i did this thing where SCU!Tommy woke up in this field of grass, how the fuck would he have time to see Tommy? ???? i fucked myself over sobs. I could do stuff where he meets other people but like aAAaa)
uhh.
i rewatched the 100 days video at 2 am to 4 am after already rewatching it the day before and then somewhere in 2 am to 4 am i started writing the oneshot
its 5 am
on an unrelated note, im joining a minecraft series today
theres a scheduled time for the sessions and everything
You’ll all be pleased to know that you will still get all of your Wachowski boys interacting with a baby content but not at all in the way you expected hehe
