Chapter Text
"If your dream only includes you, it's too small." ~ Ava DuVernay
Sonic hadn’t ever dreamed of space travel. It wasn’t on his radar. He’d never had the desire. Passing by millions of stars, seeing the sun dawn over the edge of the earth, might’ve been thrilling for someone who liked that sort of story. Voyages for adventure books, ones with cracked spines worn down by hitchhikers, space pirates, galaxy guardians, jedis and star trekkers.
And maybe if his friends were with him, Sonic would have thought this trip was one worth documenting, enjoying, writing home about. Or maybe if he had a place to run, it’d have been tolerable. Or perhaps if he wasn’t stuck with his messy ass ex he wouldn’t think about dropping himself out of the Starliner 3000’s dispatch hut without a helmet every time the feather brained muppet let out a misplaced warble of frustration.
Or better yet – if Sonic was the main character. Then, at least, he could feel there was a reason for the greater good that he was the one tasked with body guarding Jet.
But he wasn’t. So this rainbow road trip sucked.
“Get your feet off the dash,” Jet squawked.
“Oh, sorry – Didn’t realize I couldn’t leave scuffs on the rocket ship my brother built.” His brother that he hadn’t seen in a good while because the fox had been engineering the damn thing. Once Sonic had been attached to Jet as his bodyguard for this far-fetched galactic peace mission, Tails had gone into overdrive adding additional safety features – which ran down the clock on what little free time they had before Sonic departed.
So sue him if he was slightly bitter towards Jet for landing him in this job in the first place, he’d counter sue for lost time and entrapment.
“What if we get into an accident?” Jet harped, bring Sonic back to the reality he wasn’t escaping.
“The nearest meteor is only five clicks away. I’ll make sure they’re off before we run into one,” he slid back, the retort dripping with sarcasm. Sonic looked out a peripheral window, at the inky, dusty, glittering vacuum he wished was still fictional to him.
Jet took a minute to evaluate his adventure partner, pretty and tough and oh-so-done with him like Jet hadn’t landed the perfect opportunity for a promotion in his lap. Raising through G.U.N’s ranks wasn’t easy.
He’d come around though. Sonic always came around. But Jet wasn’t going to let him step out of line just because he was hot and they had a history.
“Y’know this attitude is fine between us, but I’m going to need you to shape it the fuck up when we get aboard the ARK.” If Sonic had bothered to look over at the hawk, he’d have seen red orbital feathers flexing scathingly. “On your best behavior, even.”
“Just be glad I haven’t thrown myself out of the airlock,” Sonic quipped, wishing he was running loop de loops, exploring ravines, making hammocks in the canopy tops of a rainforest, discovering beach side caves full of tide pools. Wishing he hadn’t spent the last year trying to integrate into human society, bettering people’s lives.
Wishing he was taking up space literally anywhere but space.
“Nice. Real mature,” Jet clicked his tongue in response.
“You coulda picked anyone,” Sonic pointed out, sinking lower into the cadet’s seat. “You didn’t have to strong arm my boss.”
“The last thing I’m doing is taking a 2001 space odyssey with someone I’m not attracted to,” Jet deadpanned. It wasn’t a joke – Sonic knew Jet didn’t joke. Since Sonic had met him, he was all business, blunt and uncaring unless the outcome suited him, charming only when he saw an advantage.
He had the promotion track to back it too. Once G.U.N. ‘discovered’ Sonic – as if he didn’t exist before their awareness – they’d recruited Mobians to their ranks like marketable little superheroes. And the bird wore his badges like fresh spring plumage, let them puff out his chest, bragging over how he could bend the rules over a strategy table till they were his.
Sonic was the opposite of that, in all honesty.
And he was so over Jet.
“We’re not together, Jet.”
“Oh, we’re not? Thought you changed your mind–”
“Is that why I’m here? Because you got confused over a hookup?” Sonic boiled, wondering if he hadn’t crossed the lines they hadn’t drawn if he’d still be floating through space junk right now.
What had even made him angry enough to check their baggage to fuck Jet again?
Oh, it was Knuckles getting traded to an enemy nation like he was a trading card and not a goddamn person with a life and a family and a home – a real home. Not that Sonic was going to see him again for a long while anyways, not as long as they all remained government pawns, divided.
“Coulda fooled me,” Jet shrugged, snide pride dripping like motor exhaust. “Wasn’t the first time you’d crawled back–”
“So you derail my whole life to babysit you through a business trip on an assumption – and have the audacity to tell me where my feet should go? I should stick ‘em right up your– ”
He paused, took a breath, and sighed. He was cramped and tired and upset, but getting angry was just entertaining the bird who had no business being sent as earth’s last hope for peace to the Robotniks’ Colony ARK.
The ARK that very much wanted to establish its independence, untether itself from the deteriorating planet its inhabitants had once called home. The inhabitants felt they’d given earth everything they could, and that the ground dwellers squandered every advancement they’d sent. It was only rumors, but Sonic heard they wanted the tether severed so they could explore the fringes of space, search for advancements well beyond what earth’s limited agenda allowed them.
“Babysitting? Sonic, how could you think that? You were clearly the most qualified for this mission,” Jet gaslit. “A hero with a winning streak and just enough infractions to be dangerous in the field.”
Those that are capable, must. The United Federation of Earth’s tagline bounced around his head, familiar, controlling, maddening. The hawk had bought into it, been promoted quickly, earned decorum as a model Mobian.
Sonic loved humanity, but he’d never thought of himself as a hero. But that was how G.U.N. had positioned him, all of them. Marketed their visages and their themes, deployed toys and games through Targets and Goodwills to restore some sort of whimsical hope to kids that just wanted to believe in something while it was all falling apart.
Dreams were all anyone had left, when he looked people in the eye. And that was hard, much harder than sprinting through what was left of nature on his own, taking in the fresh air for what it was.
“That all?” Sonic baited, bored.
Jet couldn’t resist stepping into the open space, sliding in a greasy, comedogenic subtext subdermally shallow. “And you’re hot in bed – felt like I’d want someone who knew how to need me,” he cocked with a grin, head feathers ruffling tall. He loved being sleazy, knowing he could get away with it.
And it was the brink of the world, the heavier storms, the deforestation, the disillusionment that led Sonic to smudge lines – erase and redraw them with Jet. Moments when change felt like it was too much, the world too big, the future too uncertain. But, the hedgehog noted for the fourth time, that sleeping with his ex would only complicate his life by the way of playing support on what could be the last adventure with earth in existence.
“I’m not sleeping with you.” Peach arms folded, closing the conversation.
“Look, I don’t know how long this deal will take to crack,” Jet explained, switching to a tone that held real gravity, leveled out his altitude. “The tensions are tensioning, or whatever. Don’t rule it out just yet – you know how you get.” The bird acted like he was being practical.
“Oh god – Jet, really ?” Sonic griped, “Do you even have a plan for this or was this some sick plot to– to–”
“Relax, Sonic. I’m an excellent negotiator, the head of G.U.N wouldn’t have sent me otherwise – and I have U.F.E backing. We’ve got leverage .” Jet’s chest fluffed, puffing out like he really had all the answers.
“They want to aim a death laser at the Earth ! What leverage could possibly be– ”
“They’ve got weapons of mass despair, we have weapons of mass despair,” Jet warbled lightly. “Weapons level the field, they’re there to neutralize.”
“We’re doomed.”
Jet clapped a hand on Sonic’s shoulder like that alone would keep the world from ending. “Hey – trust. And feet off the dash.”
XXX
Trust was in limited supply as soon as the travelers boarded the ARK. Stares were constant, lacking curiosity, clinical in the way that sent the hero’s instincts screaming. They weren’t being seen so much as measured, catalogued. The kind of look that pinned things to cork boards and labeled them: Other.
It made Sonic’s quills stand on end.
Negotiating a peace deal had somehow fallen to two hotheaded Mobians, and Sonic still didn’t know how. Jet had brushed it off, saying, brawn doesn’t need to know the brain’s plan.
As if that explained anything.
They’d suited up aboard their own ship, dressed in the kind of formality meant to demand respect from people who didn’t want to give it. Jet wore a silver number with absurd red shoulder pads that flared like wings, cutting a line between intimidation and spectacle. But it was clunky and confusing, so much so Jet had needed his help to button up the damn thing. Sonic’s armor was sleeker – agency-provided, built from unstable molecules to withstand whatever speed he threw at it.
Was there even a sound barrier in space?
He’d known the station was human populated. He was ready to feel short. What he wasn’t ready for was how alien they’d make him feel. He hadn’t considered just how little exposure these people had to Mobians.
He felt more like they were walking into a cleanroom, like they were being assessed for contamination, a plague. He smoothed down his body language, carefully tamping down any “animalistic” tells he wasn’t fully aware of. No twitching ears. No crinkling of the muzzle. No un thoughtful flicks of the tail.
His kind hadn’t been here before. He knew it instantly. From the way they looked at his legs, like he should be on all fours. Like he’d escaped some enclosure. Like he was a mistake in the gene pool.
Or maybe it was all in his head, and this was just how city-states on the brink of mutual annihilation greeted guests from the not-yet-warring planet.
Again, Sonic hadn’t been briefed. He wouldn’t know any better.
Field green passed over Jet, wondering if the bird felt it too – if feathers were itching like his quills. Watching for any signs the other was experiencing the harsh reality – two Mobians sent to advocate for the preservation of peace against people who might not even see them as people.
That was the fate of the world the leaders had left them to.
The possibility of self-sabotage passed through Sonic’s mind for maybe the hundredth time since he’d learned it was his problem to guard Jet’s body through this ordeal, when the doors to the grand entry burst open, and a woman swept in like she'd missed the memo on the tension.
Blonde, tall – close to six feet – wearing a sharp command uniform offset by bright blue shoes that matched only her headband, pulling back golden curtain bangs that framed sharp, sparkling eyes. On Earth, she could’ve been a model. Here, she looked like a glitch in the program – unexpected, radiant, human.
She barely made a show of adjusting her coat before she strode up and grabbed Jet’s arm in a two-handed shake.
“Lieutenant Jet,” she beamed, “it is so wonderful to see you again.” It was a warmer welcome than either of them was expecting, given the current precedent and circumstance.
“You haven’t aged a year,” Jet said with his usual slick charm, not missing the beat. “Thank you for welcoming us, Commander Robotnik.”
“Maria is fine,” she hushed, amicable. “Robotnik is what my nephew prefers – and he’d come to greet you, but he swears he’s on the brink of yet another great breakthrough. Always innovating, here on the ARK.”
“Maria, then,” Jet nodded. Behind them, Sonic caught a few uniforms stiffen at the break in decorum.
“I know we have much to discuss, many items to agree on – but we never have visitors,” she continued, her voice lilting with excitement. “Everyone’s been preparing. Come, come – I have so much to show you.” Diplomacy seemed less important to this woman than hospitality. It was odd – the circumstances of their arrival were far from happy, far from friendly. And even odder, was how easily Jet accepted the invitation, laughed along in chatter like this was some old friendship.
If all Sonic had was this conversation to watch, he’d never guess that the relationship between the city-state and their home planet had devolved so desperately – the representative’s body language was so open, so disarming.
Sonic didn’t trust it, any of it.
What he trusted even less was how easily Jet fell into her rhythm, bantering like this was a reunion, rather than a political standoff. Like they were old colleagues.
“And who is your friend, Jet?”
“I’m his bodyguard,” Sonic anchored, a little too stiff in his space suit.
“Sonic, Maria Robotnik – lead engineer and commander in chief of the Space Colony ARK. Maria, Sonic the Hedgehog – runs faster than light can travel.”
“Oh the trip must have felt so slow for you,” she empathized, shocking Sonic with how quickly she’d understand that from that one detail. Not sarcastic, not suspicious – considerate, actually. “We haven’t considered ourselves a Colony for some time,” she added with a smile. “It’s such a mouthful.”
Maria guided them through the ARK, showing them to their rooms to start. Separate and with locks to Sonic’s absolute personal and professional relief. Each had a window – tall and wide, circular, with enough of a ledge to lounge on – allowing in starlight. It didn’t feel old, the way Sonic would have expected, since this ship was built nearly seventy years ago.
They were granted twenty minutes to refresh before the tour began.
Maria didn’t walk them through the ARK so much as unfold it, more focused on sharing her blueprints, revealing the advancements they’d made in, well, in everything. Flocks of lab-grown sheep grazed in a simulated meadow, projected sky arching above with artificial wind rustling through Sonic’s fur. He could’ve sworn he was back on Earth.
Their agriculture systems were immaculate: hydroponics and aeroponics supporting grains, herbs, roots, berries, even lentils. And mushrooms. So many mushrooms.
Sonic wrinkled his muzzle. He hated mushrooms. Maria laughed warmly, her nose pinching up childishly despite her age.
“They’re a complete protein. Efficient and sustainable,” she explained, tugging him along before he could argue.
“She talks more than you,” Jet murmured in an aside. And it was true, she spoke with such fervor, information was flying at the two Mobians about as fast as Sonic could run.
More than once in the long tour of the science channel, Sonic felt his mind drift. Not because Maria was boring, and not because he wasn’t able to comprehend what she was sharing, but because he had a sense that they were being watched.
And he didn’t feel he was being watched like before, observed through sterile eyes at the docking bay. This feeling was warmer, deliberate, intent on keeping distance while staying close.
Sonic wasn’t sure if Jet felt the way the air swished in his feathers the way he felt it through his quills, or if feathers even worked that way. But anytime Sonic let his eyes drift, scan the edges of their surroundings, look back at a hallway they’d just come from, he found nothing.
But the feeling lingered, even as they waited in line for food in the cafeteria.
And maybe it was just itchy anxiety, that the situation felt so casual when the stakes were so high. Maybe it was the artificial lighting, or the fact he was on a space odyssey with his cheating ex. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t sure when he’d get to run through the sand, see his friends, enjoy a chili dog that had Sonic blurting out, “Don’t you both have, like, the fate of humanity to debate or something!”
His voice echoed, quieting the cafeteria, and the feeling of being watched intensified. That weird presence felt bigger, drawing pricks up his spine.
Maria received the frustrated unprofessionalism with grace, a smile that said she’d seen far worse shit than a grumpy earthling in her time.
Jet elbowed him under the table. “I’ve appreciated that Maria has kindly taken the time to show us hospitality and demonstrate the strengths of the ARK’s advancements.” Jet spoke through as if Sonic hadn’t had a moment, ignored the obvious breach in diplomacy.
Maria paused mid-chew, setting her fork down with a soft clink . “Sonic,” she began gently, “I know you're here on duty... and you’re right, Jet and I do have much to discuss… But I hope you won’t find your stay too boring while we attempt to define mutually agreeable terms.”
“Boring?” Sonic repeated, dry. Of course standing beside Jet while he waxed on and on about things he didn’t even understand would be boring. That was the job. He was the escort. Jet’s accessory. A side character with no action, no influence, someone who watched the plot unfold while others figured it out.
“You weren’t given security clearance, Sonic,” Jet cut in flatly, down to the chase. “You won’t be allowed in the room — your low ranking is why.”
Typical.
“I was wondering if I could introduce you to someone,” Maria said gently, stepping between them like warm light through a cracked door. Turning toward Sonic, her voice felt private. “Since you’re here.”
Sonic’s ears twitched, something shifted again.
“You must forgive me for requesting that Earth send Mobians for these talks,” she admitted. “It was a selfish request, really.”
And then Maria sighed, fondness woven into her breath.
“It’s alright, Shadow,” she called. “You can come out now.”
Shadow? Sonic hadn’t heard the name in any of the mission briefings. No mention in the security rundown.
Black and crimson, with quills that swept back like weaponry. Deep, red irises locked onto Sonic’s, recalibrating dangerously. Sonic felt like he was being scanned, assessed… and he might’ve liked that feeling now, seeing who was behind it.
No whisper of another Mobian onboard, much less one this… this cool. But there Shadow was stepping through a seamless panel in the wall like he’d been built into it.
An anomaly.
Shadow clocked every twitch of the reaction, the quickened pulse and flash of challenge through green.
Shadow was almost entertained when blue quills flared, flicking out at the ends, startled, suspicious. A plated arm shot out like a seatbelt over his green feathered charge’s chest, dutifully.
The thing was, Shadow had never seen another hedgehog before, certainly not one that felt designed, not one that made Shadow wonder if he’d ever actually looked at someone before. So he’d paid close attention when he’d wandered the ship. He was blue with long sloping quills that fell like water over a cliff. His coat was shiny, iridescent under certain lights, took on indigo under the growth lamps of the ARK’s farm. He was observant too, ears flicking and twisting every time Shadow warped to a new spot to view, out of sight.
He’d been having fun for once, playing a little game in his head, wondering if the other would be clever enough to spot him when Maria called out, summoned him to the conversation.
“Sonic, I’d like you to meet Shadow. He’s my closest friend. Shadow, Jet and I should probably begin outlining our concerns. Could you please help Sonic feel at home?”
Field green furrowed at him, that peach muzzle crinkling cutely.
“I’ll try.”