MELT

Written by Felicia Rondo, Published: 4/19/2018

Summary: Set during the events of Sonic Unleashed, one overnight search for a Sun Medal in Holoska leads to Sonic’s world adventure nearly meeting an ice-cold end! But what awaits Sonic back in town is what truly causes the hope in his heart to melt away…

Contains: A Near-Death Experience, Heroic Chocolate Chip Bag-Opening, and brand new Amy dialogue!

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The shrill sound of arctic wind filled his ears, all but totally drowning out the occasional sound of his cleats stomping down onto the floor of snow surrounding him. Both did their respective parts to make his day just a little bit worse. It was dark, the snow was cold, and his fur did little to keep him warm. Sonic’s heart hardened.

He held his furry arms as his fangs chattered. “Almost there, almost over… I can f-f-feel it…” he told himself, imagining being in another continent far away from any cold, where he could relax and—for the first time in days—get to hang out with his best friend Tails. Sure enough, moments later, he shoved his frosty fist into the snow and through the ice - finding and grabbing hold of the last Sun Medal he needed in the area. He then went to pull his outstretched arm back out, but… it got stuck.

“Ohhhh come on!” The Werehog growled in frustration, grunting and gasping as he struggled to get it out. It was then he saw the sun begin to rise over the horizon. “No…” he whimpered, horror in his voice, before trying even more desperately to get his arm out before he changed back into his Hedgehog form. What on Earth would even happen to him if he did, he didn’t know, and he did not want to find out.

With all his might, he gave one last hard yank and broke his arm free, at last.

“Aww hell yeah! That’s what I’m fucking talking about!” He howled to no one in particular, the triumphant sound of his voice echoing in the lonely Holoskan air around him, before his furry ears faintly caught the sound of ice cracking… as he realized the force of his last yank had caused the ice to begin to break apart below him.

He blinked, and then he ran.

The icy surface he had reluctantly trusted thus far began to shift and split, leaving gaps of freezing water between them that Sonic dared not step into. As he ran, he began to revert to his Hedgehog form, which gave him the speed he direly needed in order to escape, narrowly-avoiding a chilly death for the time being. Speeding up once he finally landed on solid ground, the sight of the village drawing closer with each step he took was a welcome one.

Sonic had spent nearly the entire night looking for that one Sun Medal. They had hoped to get up to three that night, so the night felt very much wasted by that metric. Still, the new day had just begun, and now all he had to do was return to the village and meet up with Tails.

From the moment he reunited with the fox, their travels mostly consisted of Tails locating the medals and Sonic getting as many of them as he could in as few days as possible—and, at the end of the day, Sonic would drag his tired feet over to the tornado and Tails would fly them to the next destination while the hedgehog slept.

Truthfully, Sonic had begun to view Tails and the Tornado almost like two symbols of escape from the exhausting work he had been doing nearly-nonstop for weeks. He would imagine resting recklessly on the wing, leaving his fate to Tails in keeping him on it, without a care in the world.

Now, however, he was the opposite of relaxed. His eyes were stinging with cold, his body shaking even more uncontrollably than when he was in his werehog form, and his will to go on being frozen out of him more with each passing moment. He always preferred a warmer climate, which led him to dwelling most-often near beaches and islands - ironic, given his famous dislike of water. The cold never warmed up to him.

Once he had made it to the village, he did his best to be polite as he excused himself through the crowd of thankful people - who all wanted nothing more than to show their gratitude for his help in repairing the planet. He appreciated it, but he would find more time to be there with them when his work was done. He hoped he would, anyway.

When he finally reached the place where Tails had last landed the Tornado, he and the Tornado were nowhere to be found. “Wh-wh-what?” Sonic spoke, through chattering teeth, as the cold breeze flew into his open mouth. Tails had always waited for him before, but now any trace of the fox and the Tornado had been snowed over and the hedgehog couldn’t spot a single spec of snow in the sky that at all resembled the aircraft.

He had no energy left to cry out, he had nothing left but the snowy ground he stood on. His legs folded weakly as his trembling hand lifted the spare Miles Electric he had strapped to his hip. Sonic attempted to call the fox’s other Miles Electric, but the fox apparently did not pick up, for reasons unknown to him. Resigning to it, Sonic left a message, “T-T-Tails… c-come back to H-Holoska…” he couldn’t think of what else to say, so he hung up shortly after. There was nothing left to do.

Everything else seemed to fade around him. The storm grew stronger, more violent, but what transpired within the hedgehog remained unmatched. Feelings of despair swirled around within him, like a whirlwind in a whirlpool in an all-consuming flame, it was a familiar moment of pure chaos inside.

If you were anything like Sonic, you could only live fast and free for so long before everything began to ache. Like every good time the hedgehog had felt caused a rush of negative feelings to balance it all out, every fleeting smile costing tears & anguish to be paid back with interest. He sank into a lower layer of snow, the snow piling on further around him, but the trembling all around Sonic’s spiky blue body came from something colder than the most-ferocious snowstorm.

Sonic’s eyes twitched, wide open and not focusing on anything in particular. He looked through the snow, through the Earth, through everything and stared off into space. A nagging voice in his spiky head kept telling him he needed to get up and move on, but that too faded.

Numb. He couldn’t… feel, anymore. Every sense departed, to the point that he couldn’t even feel it when he was grabbed from the ground and held close… until… Heat. He began to feel another’s body heat, snapping him out from within himself and back into the world. “H-huh?” Sonic reacted, through chattering teeth.

He could hardly hear a word of what the being was saying, every sound had become so distant. He was lugged over to an unknown object and placed on something that felt like leather to the hedgehog’s needles. More heat. His vision began to refocus and his mind cleared as the being joined in beside him, as the unknown object he was in began to close around them translucently.

Until finally, it hit him - he was in the Tornado, the being was Tails, and they were leaving the snowstorm. “T-T-Tails…” Sonic breathed, lowly “y-y-you came back…” With every passing moment, the heater felt as though it was bringing him back to life, making him almost sweat as it ‘thawed’ him.

“Of course I came back, Sonic, what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” Tails said, as Sonic could faintly hear. His hearing was returning. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here earlier, I was helping Professor Pickle locate the next Moon Medals. When I got your message, I flew out as soon as I could,” Tails apologized. Sonic weakly nodded, any capacity for grudges having long been frozen out of him.

“This is actually a prototype I’ve been working on for the past couple of months - it’s a two-seat Tornado!” Tails explained, with pride, “I usually wouldn’t rush this out so soon, but I could almost hear you becoming an icicle in your message, so I couldn’t risk slinging you over the wing of the regular Tornado like usual in your condition,” he added.

It was times like this that he had been missing so badly. Hearing about the fox’s latest creations, his various reasonings for each thing he did, and the unabashed enthusiasm he had for it all gave him life like little else could. He certainly was in no condition to come up with a snarky response, but he was at least able to muster a chuckle. “I owe you o-one, Tails…” he smiled, before fading into a sound slumber.

When he awoke, it felt like not a moment had passed since he had fallen asleep, only he found himself in completely different surroundings. Still beside Tails in the prototype biplane, but in a different continent. He was sore all over from the exertions of the past—unaware if it had been a day or mere hours since he had obtained that last Sun Medal—but his heart had healed more since he had rested.

Above them, the glass cover over the cockpit receded, allowing a very exuberant little friend to come flying in. “Sonic!” Chip exclaimed, holding an unopened bag of chocolate chips, “Sonic, can you help me open this up? We’re making chocolate chip cookies and Amy is too busy!” Sonic blinked and smiled softly at the little one, gently taking the bag from Chip’s hands.

“Umm, Chip, I’m not sure Sonic is in any condition to exert himself,” Tails offered, thoughtfully, but Sonic shook his head. “Y’think you can handle it, Sonic?” the fox asked.

“I wouldn’t be much of a hero if I couldn’t open a bag of chocolate chips for someone, now would I?” Sonic answered, with a chuckle, as he weakly opened the frail plastic bag and handed it back to Chip. “Be careful with that now, make sure you don’t spill any—and don’t eat any that fall out, okay?” Chip nodded dutifully, giving a grateful look to the hedgehog before flying back to Amy with the opened bag of chocolate chips.

Tails promptly flew out of the cockpit after unbuckling Sonic and himself, flying over to the other side of the biplane to help Sonic out of it safely. “Easy there, Sonic, the ground won’t go anywhere if you take your time,” Tails joked.

Briefly, Sonic remembered the feeling of the ice in Holoska cracking open under his feet. “Yeah, haha, ‘guess so,” he replied, trying to ease his mind. Sure enough, when he set foot on the solid ground of Spagonia once more, it was stable and he was safe from any freezing water.

What he wasn’t safe from was the great, big hug Amy surprised him with as soon as he was settled on the ground.

“Yah—! A-Amy, careful, I’m so weak!” Sonic joked, as his self-proclaimed girlfriend squeezed him tightly, “I just finished having a near-death experience, darn it, can’t I have a rest before my next one?”

“Oh, now you’re weak? What happened to that talk about being a hero for opening a bag of chocolate chips?” Tails teased, causing Sonic to burst into giggles as Amy continued to nuzzle her concerned face into his chest.

“Sonic Hedgehog, you had me so worried!” Amy said, “I’m so glad you’re safe! There’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight, not for at least a few days! I don’t care if it’s the end of the world, you’re my Sonic!”

“A few days?!” Sonic laughed, turning to Tails, “What do you think? Will a broken planet wait patiently for one hedgehog’s vacation~?” he asked, dramatically.

“You have been making great time with the medals lately, Sonic,” Tails told the hedgehog, to said hedgehog’s surprise, “we can definitely afford to give you some downtime ‘til the next time we send you out to get those last few medals. Sound good?”

As they walked into the laboratory that had been turned into an impromptu kitchen, Sonic took in the scent of cookie dough. He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of each member of this little planet-saving ‘team,’ and felt as though all the cold that had hardened his heart melted away. He turned back to meet the eyes of the fox beside him and smiled,

“Yeah, sounds good to me, buddy.”

The End

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