Chapter Text
It’s a lonely road, but the noise fills the air so much it’s suffocating. Night has long since fallen. The rain has been relentless. As dark as it is, the moonlight reflects along the wet pavement. The puddles resemble the ocean as the moonlight illuminates the roadway. The only other source of light being provided by the headlights of a police car speeding down the narrow road.
The police car speeds through the emptiness. They aren’t in a rush to get to their destination. The road was just so bare there was no need to go slow. It was boring really, so music filled the silence in the car. Just a single cop was enough of a performance as the radio blared its music.
“HERE I AM! ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE.”
Wade belts the whole song at the top of his lungs. Louder than the initial volume of the radio. Not caring if he’s on pitch. Trying to make his ride more eventful. To fill the quiet. He plays his steering wheel like a drum.
“HERE I AM! ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!! COME ON, COME ON BABYYY ”
He then proceeded to bite his lip and rip it on his air guitar. Following the rhythm of the electric guitar solo. Not bothering to keep his hands on the steering wheel.
It was an uneventful Sunday night at the station. Any excuse Wade got to get up from his desk and out and about, he’d take it. It was the first call he’d gotten in a few hours. The only other call was some elderly woman calling for directions to her bingo night. The same lady had called last week.
This call was a typical call for Green Hills. There were a few reports of a dead animal laying in the middle of the road. It’s not a typical call for most police stations, but these were the type of calls they got in Green Hills. Usually there would be someone else you’d call to do that kind of service. But not here in Green Hills.
His highlights illuminated the darkness in front of him. After this call, he gets to go home. Not that he cares. He loves his job. He might not be the best cop in the world, but being a cop is the best job in the world, so he won’t take it for granted for a second.
Just as he got into the groove of another guitar solo. A dark lump sat nearly in the dead center of the road. It came up so quickly he hardly had time to react. “Shit!” He grasped onto the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes as he swerved out of the way. Coming to a stop on the side of the road.
Wade took a few deep breaths to gather himself before putting his patrol car in park and turning off the ignition. He reached for his glove department and pulled out his bigger flashlight. He kept a smaller one on him, but decided to use the bigger one.
He opens the car door and steps out onto the soft wet ground. His flashlight scans the woods around him before he focuses back on the road. He slowly guides his light. Searching for the dark lump that he was called out here to remove. Which it didn’t take long to spot. Its dark fur was drenched and the light from the flashing made it glisten.
Wade made his approach, not bothering to look both ways in the street since no one hardly ever comes on these roads at this time of night. He held his light pinched between his neck and shoulder as if he were on the phone while he dug for a set of gloves in his pocket.
“Alright little dude, rough way to go out, but you can’t stay here. Time to go.” Wade snaps his gloves on like a surgeon and holds the flashlight back in his hands.
He gets down into a squat and just as he reaches for it Wade jolts his hand back. The animal’s chest moves. It’s breathing. It’s alive!
“Awe c’mon! I didn’t wanna have to call Maddie into this. Today was supposed to be her day off. Hey little guy. You hurt? You can’t sleep here.”
He stands up and uses the sole of his boot to gently shake it to see if he got any reaction and maybe wake it up. There was nothing. Maybe it’s hurt. It was curled up in some ball. There did seem to be some red streaks on some parts of its body. Is it bleeding?
Slowly, Wade got back down on one knee and reached his hand to check if it was injured or just asleep. He noticed its fur was spiky, so he avoided that. Right as he made contact, the animal unfurled itself slowly. Like it had relaxed.
Wade had the opposite reaction when he got a glimpse of what kind of animal it was. Only it wasn’t an animal at all. Well technically it was an animal, but not from earth. It looked like a hedgehog. A familiar hedgehog.
Taken back, Wade falls back into the asphalt, staring at the dark hedgehog in front of him. It looked a lot like Sonic. It was thinner, and smaller. Not quite as small as Tails from the looks of it. Luckily, it didn’t seem like the red he saw was blood. They were marking on top of his distorted quills and going down its arms and legs.
“Awe man! I was the wrong person for this kind of call.” He says out loud. Not bothering to keep his thoughts to himself at the moment. Still sitting in the middle of the road staring at the unconscious hedgehog. He suddenly remembered who would be the perfect person to call in this situation. “Tom!” He searches his pockets to call Tom, but forgets he left it in his patrol car.
“C’mon, c’mon. Where is it!” He grits his teeth and he frantically searches the front seat of his car. Sorting through a couple days worth of fast food bags on the passenger seat. Finally, he leans over the center console and finds his phone on the floor.
“Yes! Oh, C’mon!”
When he turns back around. The hedgehog is no longer there. Vanished from thin air. He looked away for one second and he lost it already. Just his luck…
Wade let out an anxious groan as he quickly scrolls through his contact before finally finding Tom’s.
“Please pick up. Please pick up!” Wade strangles his phone as if that would solve his problems and get Tom to answer faster. To Wade's gratitude, he picks up.
“Hello?”
“I call the bathroom first!”
“No, let me! For the fastest thing alive you take foreverrrrr in the bathroom!”
“But your tails drip water all over the floor! Let me go first”
The two brothers fight through the hallway. Trying to get past one another to reach the bathroom floor. Tom peaks around the corner.
“Boys. You’re gonna break something. Tails, you go first. Sonic, you’ve gotta clean up your video game mess in the living room anyways.”
Sonic lets go of Tails’s arm and crosses his arms like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. Tails slid by him and into the bathroom, but not without sticking his tongue at him before proceeding to close the door.
Sonic let out a short huff at what he witnessed but turned back to face Tom.
“Oh come on! I was just about to beat him! Can’t I pick up my games after I shower. It’s not that bad.”
“Sonic.” Tom gave him his typical ‘dad’ face, “the couch cushions are all over the floor, and you've got chips and candy wrappers everywhere.” He argued.
Sonic grimaced with slight embarrassment. “Right, sorry. I couldn’t get comfortable on the couch. I guess I‘ll go clean it up.” He drags his feet behind him as he makes his way into the living room. Tom follows behind, but instead turns into the kitchen where Maddie and Knuckles were just finishing the dishes.
Knuckles stood on the counter as Maddie dried the leftover dishes. She handed the dry ones to Knuckles as he went ahead and put them in their proper place in the cabinets overhead.
“Hey, Knuckles. Would you mind letting Ozzie out for me. I’ll take over for you.” Tom said to the red echidna. Which without hesitation, hops down onto the kitchen tile after closing the cabinet he had previously opened.
“Of course. Come wolf. Perhaps we can test your skills at hunting at night.” Knuckles announced as Ozzie wagged his tail so hard against the walls it could’ve been misheard as drums during a rock concert!
“No Knuckles! Please don’t teach Ozzie to dig the yard up. I just had it landscaped.” Maddie called out in a last ditch effort to protect her yard. She knew it was only a matter of time before it got ruined, but she would try to make it last.
Tom snuck up behind her, wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. She then relaxed at the gesture. “They’ll be fine.” Tom whispered into his wife’s ear. Maddie simply scoffed and rolled her eyes as she went back to drying the remaining dishes.
She hands Tom a plate to which he quickly puts up before hearing his phone buzz in his back pocket. He pulls it out to see Wade's contact on his Lock Screen.
“What is it?” Maddie asks.
“It’s just Wade, give me a second.” He lifts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
“Tom?! Thank God! Heh, sorry to call you so late, but this is more up your alley than mine.”
“Hey Wade, is everything alright?”
“Um. I think so? Yes? Maybe? I don’t know? Wait, quick question. Sonic isn’t going through a kind of phase or anything right?”
“A phase? What kind of phase?”
“I don’t know! Like is he more reclusive or is he acting all depressed. Has he been listening to heavy metal or anything? Like typical teenage emo stuff?
“What?” Tom said, genuinely confused. Fully convinced he wasn’t actually hearing what he was hearing right now.
“Never mind. More importantly, is Sonic with you?”
“Yeah, he’s right in the other room. Hey Sonic! Say hi to Wade!” Tom holds the phone out toward the direction of the living room. Which he forgets he doesn’t need to try that hard to let his son be heard as Sonic ran into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. “Hey Wade. Bye Wade.” He’s there for basically half a second before putting the phone back into Tom’s hand and rushing out of the kitchen.
“Ok that’s good.”
“So are you gonna tell me what's going on or are you just going to keep me guessing?”
“Right! Sorry!” Tom could hear Wade facepalming through the phone. “Remember when I shot you a text saying I had to leave the station for a bit after getting a call about some animal lying in the middle of the road.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I don’t think it was an animal.”
Silence took over. Tom waited for Wade to continue, but he didn’t.
“Well? What is it?”
“Oh sorry. I was thinking. I’m not sure how to describe it, but I think it was something like the boys.”
“What?” Shock rang through Tom’s voice, obviously Maddie took notice and tuned her head. She raised an eyebrow as a silent way to ask ‘what was going on.’ Tom carefully dismissed her by holding up his index finger and mouthing the words ‘hang on’.
In more of a whisper now he continues. “ Wade, what do you mean?”
“I mean it looked like Sonic, except it was black. It’s quills we’re all over the place too. I don’t know where it came from.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know!”
“What! What do you mean you don’t know.”
“It was right in front of me, but then it disappeared! I thought it was dead, Tom. I couldn’t tell if the little guy was hurt or not.”
Tom was quiet for a second before grabbing his car keys from a hook on the wall. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”
“Oh. Really? Ok! And I’m on county road 57, just past the old bridge.”
“Ok. See you soon. Stay put!”
He ends the call to see Maddie’s worried look.
“Tom, what's wrong?” She sets the dishrag onto the rack and makes her way closer to Tom as he heads toward the door.
Tom grabs a jacket off the coat hanger and turns back to Maddie.
“I’ll be back. It should be nothing. Once the boys go to bed, call me. I don’t want them to worry before I know more.”
Maddie narrows her eyes. Unsure by what he’s telling her, but she trusts him. She takes his hand and kisses him goodbye. “Ok” she said, “but please call me if anything happens, promise?”
“I promise. I love you. Tell the boys I said goodnight.”
Without another word. He leaves through the front door and into the complete unknown. Only going off of what Wade had just told him. Which wasn’t a lot. Of course things like this only happen to him….