Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vaguely to the north of the United Federation, sat a place named Hilltop Mushroom Village. Named exactly as it looked, it was a cozy little village in the middle of nowhere. Built on top of a hill nestled in the mountains, it had everything a small town needed to thrive. It had cozy atmosphere, massive redcaps that served as easy homes with a little work, that thriving small town community togetherness bordering on love and hatred at the same time, a single street that ran down the hill, a loop-de-loop in the middle of said street formed out of natural vines and curling trees, and bored kids with nothing to do but try to kill themselves on it.

Wednesday at the start of spring break saw the local kids gathering to either jeer or celebrate their newest legend. Fidget the Bear was a solid thirteen years old, standing in at a whopping two and a half-ish feet tall. He wasn’t particularly aerodynamic, more a vague ball of fluff in the vague shape of a person than anything else. With no particular talents or unusual abilities, no super strength or speed, no strange chaos-borne anatomy like his friend Whitney’s whip-like tail.

No, what Fidget had was a pair of constantly busy parents, a need for speed, and a beginner's extreme gear. Longer than he was tall, broader than his shoulders, and an oversized air tank, it was a lean green bone breaking machine.

The little bear stood at the top of the central hill, his friends down below yelling at him to go for it as he consulted the manual just long enough to figure out how to get the gear to start. Full tank of air, open vents, grav drives flicked on and Fidget turned a knob on the underside hidden behind a thick metal panel.

It hummed in his hands beautifully as it kicked on.

Fidget scrambled to his feet, an almost painfully wide grin on his face and the manual forgotten on the ground. 

He sprinted for the edge of the hill.

He threw the board down and hopped onto it.

For a moment, Fidget was king. The wind whipped through his fur as he leaned forward, the board accelerating towards that impossible goal. There was a joy in his heart as he rocketed towards that goal of goals, towards that impossible full loop-de-loop!

Then, the gear stopped accelerating as he hit the safety limit built into it.

That joy turned to screaming terror as he hit the loop, and fell off halfway to the top. The screams of watching children turned to screams of shock as he hit the ground. Fidget’s fur saved him from the worst of it, the sheer fluff of it keeping him safe as he slowly bounced to a stop.

“HE LIVED!” The children roared!

Then, they froze as the sound of shattering glass split the air. A dozen children turned their heads towards a house further down, Fidget’s extreme gear sticking out of the smashed front window.

“SCATTER!” The children screamed, and sprinted for their homes.

Fidget bounced to his feet, and sprinted for his life to the safety of his home.

As a human, Oz was an oddity in the village. Tall and a sickly reed thin, with dull brown hair, he woke up to the noise of his window breaking in the middle of the day with a sigh rather than a jolt. He groped for his cane, and quietly levered his way into his front room to behold the problem.

There was an extreme gear in his window. The accelerator was still on despite the pilot being gone, and all he could do was sigh again as it jerked against the couch it’d wedged into. His front room was covered in glass shards.

Slowly, he picked his way around the glass to get to the wall next to it. With a hand on the wall to steady himself, he raised his cane and stared at the gear for a second.

“Safety shut off should be….” he muttered as he jabbed the cane into the board. It tapped against the metal, and he tried again. Three, four, five tries later he managed to hit what he wanted, and lowered the shaking cane to the ground.

He leaned against the wall to catch his breath, and quietly stared at the board.

With a sigh, he hobbled back into his room to get dressed and get his slippers.

He needed his shoes and the little roller shop vac from his workshop, and to get the neighbors to help him pull the thing out. He emerged bundled to the nines, and still shivering in the breeze through the window, but ready to try and at least clean up his home.

It took him hours to get the glass dealt with, the little roller vac only able to hold so much before he couldn’t empty it out.

When he left the house, he looked up to see the sun low in the sky and huffed as he made his way over to the neighbors.

They were a pair of rabbits who’d taken up carpentry in this ass end of the world and had almost single handedly furnished the village. Agatha the Angora was built tall and wide for a rabbit, her incredible fluff braided and covered to keep from catching in her tools as she worked.

She opened the door first, and paused as she beheld him.

“Oh, oh Ozzy, dear!” The rabbit rushed forward to support him as he swayed on his feet. She turned to yell back into the house, “Romero! Romero, get the chair!”

When her husband didn’t show himself, she huffed and thumped her foot against the floorboards hard enough the giant mushroom that served as their house shook. There was a thump from down below, followed by an angry squeak as Romero sprinted up from the basement.

He was opposite to his wife in almost every way. Where she was a massive brick of a woman covered in braids, he was a small reed of a man with short scraggly fur.

“Aggy, what’s-” He started, and paused as he saw Oz at the door. “Oh, oh, oh no, what happened!?”

The little rabbit blurred as he sprinted off into the house, and pulled a stool into the entryway.

“What happened?” He asked as his wife levered the human onto the seat.

“Dunno, I just… woke up to my window smashed in by a hoverboard.” Oz said with a cough. “Was hoping you two could help yank the thing out, I can’t lift it.”

“Of course, dearie,” Agatha chirped as she patted the taller man on the shoulder. The Angora helped him to his feet, and he hobbled his way back to the house with the pair in tow.

He paused as a little bear froze at the sight of the three of them, and looked between fleeing in a panic and bursting into tears.

“Hey-,” Oz started softly, and the kid cut him off.

“I’m sorry sir!” The little guy burst out. “I-I thought I could make it over the loop, and I lost control, and it flew off, and it-”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Oz waved for him to stop as the kid babbled out apologies. “Accidents happen, you okay?”

“”M okay,” the kid muttered after a bit of sniffling.

“That’s good, now, I’m going to have to talk to your parents about this,” Oz said, and the kid nearly panicked on the spot.

Fidget, as Oz learned the kids name was, was a good kid. He didn’t run from his mistake, and when his parents handed down the law he quietly went along with it.

The law, as they settled it, was that if Fidget broke something then he needed to work to replace it or fix it in addition to whatever time they’d decided to ground him for. Agatha and Romero helped the kid tape over the broken window, and they’d help him replace it the next day. The board itself was stowed in Oz’ workshop until the window was replaced. Oz meanwhile needed to pick up groceries, and quietly made his way to the little corner grocers that supplied the whole town.

Halfway there, he paused as something glinted in the brush on the edge of town. It was impossible not to notice, a gleam that almost purposefully caught the eye. Slowly, Oz hobbled over and brushed the vegetation aside.

It was a gem the size of his fist, a rich purple that gripped him with a vice. Oz’ hands shook as he bent over to pick it up.

“What’s a chaos emerald doing here?” He asked as he turned the thing over with shaking hands. It was surprisingly light as he rotated it, and saw the way the light refracted through it. With a hum, one he didn’t notice the gem resonating with, he tucked it away into his coat pocket. It didn’t matter that the pocket was too small to fit it, the emerald slipped in without a sign that it was there.

All the while, that fist sized purple gem glowed with barely restrained energy in his pocket.

The next day, Oz woke up with a yawn and a stretch that seemed to pop every part of his spine. He felt good, better than he had in years. He paused and took stock of his situation. He didn’t shiver as the air hit him, his hands didn’t shake under their own weight, he could breathe properly for the first time in years.

He looked at the emerald sitting on his bedside table, and leaned in to look it over.

“What did you do?” Oz asked as he picked the thing up. It was lighter than it should have been, maybe the weight of a baseball or so by his estimate. With a sigh, he set it back down and got dressed. He stowed the emerald in his pocket, and sighed as it fit without issue.

It felt… oddly nice to have the thing on him.

Oz got up, he got dressed, and he paused as realized he was actually hungry for once. He’d gotten about midway through frying up some eggs when the doorbell rang, and he pulled them off the heat to see who was up early in the morning.

He opened the door to find Fidget out front, and blinked as he realized he’d slept through most of the day.

“Um, here to help, Mr. Osmond?” Fidget stammered as he threw a halfhearted salute at the man. “Mrs. Angora told me to check if you were up.”

“Just woke up, kid,” Oz answered with a wave. “Making some breakfast, Agatha make sure you were fed?”

“Yessir,” the bear replied with an eager nod.

“Great,” Oz muttered as he stepped back inside. “Come back in ‘bout fifteen minutes with the Angora’s and you can get started on that window.”

It’d only take them about twenty minutes to get the thing replaced without the kids help, with it… probably an hour or two?

He handed out some lemonade to the three when they were finished, and waved the kid inside to get his gear.

Except, he hadn’t actually looked over the gear properly. The dents from the crash were still there, he couldn’t fix those, but looking over at a glance he winced at the damage on it. Extreme gear were expensive, several hundred dollars or a few hundred rings on the lower end. Nevermind the rings needed to fuel the thing beyond the base speeds if one wanted to do any amount of racing.

He could tell just by looking at it, the thing wouldn’t run without some professional work and that would cost an arm and a leg.

“So, your folks said you had to fix what you broke,” Oz started as he shuffled through the drawers for a set of screwdrivers. He tapped the side of the rolling chair with his cane, and smiled as the kid pulled it out to have a set. “Lemme show you how to diagnose a problem, and I can show you how to fix it.”

The days passed, Fidget dropping by to work with Oz after school or on weekends. He guided the little bear through checking the air systems, patching holes or replacing hoses where needed. He taught him to solder, how a multimeter worked, and pointed out where boards had cracked or had pieces knocked loose.

On the fourth day, they’d ripped the guts out of the thing fully and he hummed as he looked it over. Something nagged at the back of his mind as he looked over the pieces, and realized they just about had it fixed.

“Hey, you said you lost control on the loop?” He asked as Fidget quietly looked over the notes he’d made.

“Oh, um, yeah,” Fidget mumbled as he looked over the board. “It kinda jerked back on me, and started slowing down so I fell off.”

“So, this is a beginners board,” Oz said with a chuckle as he reached over to tap at the pieces.  First was a small metal plate poked full of holes, “this metal bit here? This is a restrictor plate, it goes in front of the gears air intake.”

“Over here’s a pitot tube,” he pointed to a little metal tube he’d directed fidget to rip out hooked into a series of little boxes and wiring that spread out to the rest of the internals that the little bear had carefully levered out. “Not going to get into the math behind it, but this little sucker right here measures your speed by the pressure of the air going into the thing.”

“So, what do you think they do?” Oz asked as he let Fidget take a look.

“They stop the gear from going too fast,” Fidget said with a firm nod. “So, if I go too fast this cuts back on the power, and the restrictor keeps too much air from going into the board.”

“Right on the money,” Oz chuckled as the kid glared at the things. “So, what do you think about fixing that?”

If Fidget were human, he’d have never suggested it. Most humans weren’t as durable as a good chunk of mobians, and he had a feeling the kid had a knack for bouncing rather than cracking when he hit the ground. Mobian and human extreme sports were very different beasts.

But, something pushed him to point out the problem.

So for two more days, they worked to mod the board. The restrictor was carved apart, the safety system bypassed, and Oz warned that they needed to test it somewhere Fidget wouldn’t smash into a tree if he fell.

“Okay, air flow?” Oz called out from where he leaned against the side of his car.

“Check! Pressure’s good!” Fidget called back as he fiddled with the board’s internals.

“Ring container?” Oz asked with a smile.

“Hooked up to the feed, I’ve got ten in already from scavenging around!” Fidget chirped with a laugh.

“Power?” Oz chuckled.

“IT FLOATS!” Fidget called out as he hit the switch, and dropped the board.

“Have at it, kid,” Oz leaned back and watched as the bear picked his gear up.

Fidget laughed as he ran, and threw the board down. It bounced for a second, air roaring out of the gear as it pushed back against the ground. With a shout of joy, the bear leapt onto it and took off. He swerved across the hill, tracing serpentine trails up and down as he pushed the engine to its max.

Every turn, every acceleration, everything worked perfectly. Then, Fidget almost fell as his head snapped to the side, eyes gone wide.

The little bear pulled to a stop, and hopped off his gear with a yell.

“Hey, HEY!” Fidget shrieked as he snatched his board and sprinted for Oz. “There’s some badniks in the woods!”

“Wait, what?” Oz pushed off the car, and nearly fell as he groped for his cane. He’d been growing steadily stronger as he’d held onto the emerald, but his cane remained something he needed.

“Yeah, there’s some monkey robots, and motobugs!” Fidget hugged his gear as he snapped the words out in a panic.

“Take the gear back to town, and warn them!” Oz snapped out as he strained to look out at the woods. He could see flashes of orange and red through the brush, and his heart sank in his chest while the emerald grew heavy in his pocket.

“But what’ll you-” Fidget started, and Oz cut him off.

“Go!” Oz yelled, and Fidget sprinted for his life.

He watched as the kid hopped on his gear, and took off towards the village.

For a moment, he considered hopping into his car and heading back to town. For a moment, he considered driving off on his own.

Instead, he quietly picked up his cane and leaned back as the robots slowly encroached. A pair of orange robot monkeys hefting bombs slowly loped out from the brush, while a metal ladybug on a single tire drove out.

The badniks paused as they found him staying in place, refusing to run.

Above them, their master floated out from the woods. Doctor Ivo Robotnik was a bald corpulent man, more a ball on a pair of stick thin legs with a massive orange moustache. He’d rapidly earned the mocking name of “Dr. Eggman,” and to his credit he’d owned it with most of his creations having an ‘egg’ prefix to them once he’d heard the name. Clad in a black jumpsuit with a red and white jacket over it, he sat in a round metal hover vehicle.

The two of them stared at each other for a second.

Robotnik quietly reached up to take off his pince nez glasses, and rubbed them clean on a small cloth he pulled from his jacket pocket.

“Ivo,” Oz said, his voice flat and as dry as a desert.

Robotnik winced at the younger man's voice. His own reply was slow and hesitant, “son.”

Without another word, Oz pulled the chaos emerald from his pocket and tossed it to his father. Ivo fumbled it for a moment, before catching it in both hands.

He got in his car, and he drove home.

He had to pack, and move again.

Chapter Text

It took a few days for Fidget to be allowed out of the house. Badnik sightings tended to be preludes to towns being attacked, and none of the parents in town let their kids out of sight until they were certain the man had left.

Fidget woke up to his first day of freedom, and went to grab his gear. He sprinted out for the day with the board under his arm, and rode off to visit Oz.

"Mr. Osmond!" He shouted as he rapped on the door with his knuckles.

No answer.

"Mr. Osmond?" Fidget knocked again, and listened hard. If Oz wasn't upstairs, it'd take a few tries for him to hear.

"Oh, did you not…?" Mrs. Angora asked as she walked up behind him. "Did Oz not tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Fidget asked as a weight settled in his stomach.

"Oz moved out yesterday," She told him with a sigh. "More than a few folks have packed up and left once they caught wind of Eggman, and Oz was one of them."

"But- but I haven't hit the loop yet," the little bear mumbled as he hugged his board to his chest. "I double checked everything, and we got the gear ready for it, and- and-"

"Why would he leave?" Fidget dropped the board, and Agatha winced as it clattered to the ground.
"Hey, hey," she knelt down to place a hand on the kid's shoulder. "He's probably scared like everyone else, and Oz has more reason than most to leave with his health."

"It's not right that he didn't tell you he was leaving, but fear…" She paused for a second as she held the board back up. "Fear can make people do things they shouldn't."

"Here, let's check the house and see what he left," Agatha smiled as the kid hesitantly picked his gear back up, and waddled after her.

Slowly, room by room, they swept the house. Oz had prepped everything before he left, dishes cleaned and put away, and extra bits and bobs left out. Aggy would have to check over the furniture, but Oz had been good about keeping his things intact.

The living room and kitchen held things that would be passed out to other families, the clothes Oz didn't want laid out neatly in to dig through. They'd be taken for any number of uses, clothing for larger mobians, cloth to reuse, or even as part of a scarecrow. The rags were always useful, while the dishes and silverware would be boxed up for whoever moved in later.

The bigger find was in the workshop downstairs.

Oz had left a few boxes, only kept shut by a piece of paper on each with a name on it. For Agatha, he'd bundled in a few parts. An extra saw blade for a table saw, the nicer silverware they'd given him as a welcome home present with a few extra pieces, and finally a small box radio.

"Oh," she hummed as she pulled the radio out of the box, and turned it over in her hands. It was a small block of metal, hefty enough she could probably bash a badnik open with it. Her last radio had shattered apart during a dance with her Romero. "Oh, Oz, you didn't have to…"

Fidget meanwhile stared at the two boxes left for him.

Neighbors moving out wasn't new, per say. People moved out all the time in the territories. Mobians would stop by in the village for the winter, or end up seeking adventure or more civilized living. By tradition, if you left it behind in a Mobian village, it went to whoever wanted or needed it the most. He'd helped his mom sort through old clothes and things before.

This was the first time the neighbor had been someone Fidget knew, and it felt off to be left something directly.

He grabbed the first box, and pulled it open. Books and magazines rattled as he pushed them aside to dig through what was inside.

Technical manuals, electronics books, even a few extreme gear and parts catalogues.

Fidget hit the bottom, and paused as his hand settled over an odd plastic tube. He pulled it out, and popped it open.

Inside was a poster, six brightly colored birds posed on the front with their own color coordinated extreme gear. Three were older mobians with their own boards propped onto something behind them, most of their features shadowed with the spotlight on the three younger. A hawk, swallow, and an albatross all gathered with their chests puffed out and a wide grin on their faces.

"Introducing the newest Babylon Rogues!" Fidget laughed as he held the poster up. It was the coolest thing in the world next to his own gear.

Then, he set the poster down and opened the other box, and paused as he found every tool Oz had taught him to use packed inside. The soldering iron, wrenches, screwdrivers, even extra parts he hadn't known Oz had.
All of it packed neatly with a small note that read 'For the future, good luck Fidget.'

The bear quietly packed it all back, he slid the poster back into its tube, and he taped the boxes shut. He refused Mrs. Angora's help when she offered to help him carry it back home, and instead waddled back home with the boxes blocking his vision the entire way.

He'd ask his dad for space to work with, and then get to work. Fidget knew he could make the loop, but he dreamed bigger.

South of the northern territories, Oz glared at a map. Most of the territory around the Federation was relatively undeveloped, its independence largely guaranteed by the chaotic regions spread about. Human civilization didn't tend to like dealing with chaos geography.

Unfortunately, without the United Federation in place most of the territories were also lacking in road infrastructure. It wasn't a huge issue when the average territory manufactured car came equipped with hover systems. It was however an issue when he didn't want to cross the Federation border.

He'd heard of what happened to his great grandad Gerald, and Ivo had always been careful around the Federation itself.

Which meant Oz carefully skirted the border on his way down south.

With little else to do while his car's compressor system refilled its tanks, he folded up his map and quietly pulled out a pen and journal.

'Day three of journey,' he wrote as he ran through what had become the norm. 'Testing strength and endurance post emerald removal.'

He quietly gathered together his things, pulled a few things out from the trunk, and tested how much he could lift. His hands shook at about twenty pounds going by a small scale he had, but he could push to thirty. He gave it some time for the shaking to go away, and he tried repeatedly lifting smaller things. It only took a few before his hands lost their grip and he dropped a small box onto the back of his car. 'Maximum lift back to pre-exposure levels, as is rapid exhaustion.'

He'd had the emerald for six days, and it seemed whatever it'd done to him had faded after three.

'Muscle weakness is back to normal, alongside general numbness in extremities, fatigue, and rapid loss of strength.' Oz wrote, his hands shaking as he struggled to keep the pen steady. 'Neurological degradation seems to have returned to pre-exposure levels as well.'

He quietly stowed the journal, and leaned back against his car. The path forward was clear, but set his teeth grinding when he thought about it.

"I am not going to be him," Oz grumbled to himself as he thought about it. "I am not going to obsess over some chaos rocks, and that hedgehog."

He stowed his tools back into the trunk, and set off further south.

There was a city south of the federation named Station Square he could settle down in. Ivo hadn't attacked any of the large cities, and kept to the territories.

It should be safe.

Chapter Text

Oz stared out at a room, tinted a rich cerulean blue by the liquid he floated in. He was in the lab again, staring out from a tube on a stone dais. His dad said it was water in the same tone he'd used to tell Oz about Santa bringing presents for evil little boys and girls.

It was like Ivo had taken water, and forgotten everything about it except for a vague description of 'Blue.' It bent the light in unnatural ways, shadows on the walls formed into vague mobian shapes with a massive beast slithering above them in the corners of his vision.

They vanished when looked at directly, slipping cleanly between the riveted metal plates of the walls.

It clung to his body, thick and greedy like it wanted to drag him down and never let go. Ivo hadn't given him a mask, instead oxygenating the stuff through a system in the bottom of the tube. It stuck in his throat and made him retch.

He swung for the glass, arms swollen and bright painful red as he tried to get OUT. His dad waved his badniks inside as Oz swung again. Exhaustion came down on him like a ton of bricks, and he sank back to rest his back against the glass.

One by one he watched as they wheeled in stone pillars, carefully strapped to the backs of larger transport badniks.

Motobugs with batons tapped to their claws directed robotic crews to set them into seven holes around the dais Oz' tube had been set up on. Seven gems carried in on a case, and Oz blacked out as his dad turned back towards him.

The last thing he saw was Ivo's half-moon smile, and a glint of madness in his eyes as he pulled down his goggles.

He snapped awake, his bones aching as he stared up at the ceiling. Station Square had not been great for Oz. For one, he wasn't an urban creature. The crowds threatened to knock his cane out from under him, the humidity had left him with a persistent cough, and he felt weak.

Oz had settled into a local hotel, paid with cash smuggled out from Ivo's coffers when he found they didn't accept rings. Finding a more permanent place to live hadn't gone well. Years of bouncing from town to town in Mobian country was very different from trying to find a viable apartment.

With a groan, he grabbed his cane and settled onto his feet. He hobbled to the window of the room, and pulled the curtains open.

He glared out at the ocean, and sighed.

"The damned water here's wrong," Oz muttered.

With a grimace, the man stumbled back from the window and got ready for the day. Slowly, he rode the elevator down to the back entrance of the hotel he'd been staying in, and stepped out into the world.

Oz froze for a moment as he found a blue-furred hedgehog dozing in one of the lounge chairs by the hotel pool.

The hedgehog's ear flicked towards the automatic door as it slid shut, and he looked over to see the man standing there.

"Huh, is that…?" The hedgehog muttered as he rolled off the chair to his feet. Standing at a little over three feet tall wearing bright red and white shoes, Sonic the Hedgehog was a legend among Mobians. Some Mobians were gifted with supernatural strength, speed, or durability. Sonic was in the top percent of percent of the gifted. He blurred towards Oz at a mild jog, snapping to a stop in front of the man. Sonic looked up at him, and rubbed a hand against his chin, "Yo, that you Oz?"

"Sonic, been a while," Oz replied with a small laugh. "You've grown taller."

"You've…" Sonic started, and trailed off. He took in the slump to Oz's shoulders,the shaking of his limbs as he leaned on his cane, and frowned. "You been holding up okay, man? You look like life's been chewing you for the last few years since I've seen you, and only just decided to spit you out."

"Still sick with the same thing," Oz hobbled over to one of the chairs as he spoke, and Sonic followed after him. "Never mentioned it, it's not the kind of disease that really goes away."

"You gonna die of it?" Sonic asked.

"Not any time soon if I have anything to say about it," Oz replied.

"Good to hear," the hedgehog replied with a nod. "Be pretty bad if you just-"

Both of them paused as they snapped towards the sky, Sonic by the noise of a malfunctioning propeller and Oz by an odd bone deep feeling. A plane flew by, looping and whirling through the air as black smoke trailed from its engine.

"Wait, is that… Tails!?" Sonic yelled as he saw the plane going by. He yelled up at the plane, "pull up! Pull up, you're going to crash!"

As he yelled, the propeller finally gave up the ghost and the plane went down further out.

"Friend of yours?" Oz asked.

"Yeah, he's pretty inventive," Sonic replied as he started towards the beach the hotel sat on. "I'll be back before you know it, and I can introduce you two! Back in a sec!"

"I wouldn't-" Oz started, and cut himself off as Sonic blurred off down the beach. "Aaaand, he's gone."

For a moment, he considered just leaving. Where one went, the other followed in the case of Sonic and Ivo. Except Oz hadn't seen any signs of Ivo, no badnik robots, no strange plots. The closest he'd seen was a casino built with giant pinball tables for Mobian use, and that wasn't that odd.

Ivo owned a lot of casinos, to the point he couldn't count on them as a sign.

He could have just left.

Instead, he remembered a smaller pudgier hedgehog finding him lost in a warped city filled with springs.

Oz kicked up his feet, and waited for Sonic to come back.

It took Sonic a couple of minutes to get back, all the while Oz had stared at the ocean. There was something entrancing about it this close. The hotels pool was bright chlorine blue, light shifting as it played through the water.

The ocean was brighter.

When Sonic returned, it was with a little orange fox in tow who Oz found himself staring at without thinking about it. It wasn't that the fox was particularly odd, he had two tails which was strange but Oz had seen weirder out in the territories. Bears who could lift cars single handedly at three feet tall, squirrels that could fly by flapping their arms hard enough, and at one point a mouse who could grow or shrink multiple times her size.

"Yeah, I think you'll like him, he's kind of like you." Sonic chirped as he led the fox to him. "Guy was great with machines, and knew how to crack through Egghead's systems like it was nothing!"

No, there was a familiarity to the feeling. He was recognizing something, he just didn't quite know what. He shoved it to the back of his head, and instead levered himself to his feet. Oz hobbled over with a strained grin, his arms shaking to keep the grip on his cane.

"This is… Tails, right?" He leaned over and held a hand out towards the fox. "Name's Oz."

"Yeah! Nice to meet you Mr. Oz!" Tails laughed as he took Oz's hand. He nearly yanked the taller human off his feet as he shook the man's hand. "Sonic said you were an old friend of his?"

"Ah, yeah, I ran into him back on South Island," Oz replied with a laugh as the kid let him go. "Used to hang out with him back then when I could get out and about before the whole… Eggman thing happened."

"Huh," the kid cocked his head to the side as he hummed. "I didn't think there were any humans on South Island besides Eggman."

"Far as I know it was just him and Egghead," Sonic said with a chuckle. "Bit of a surprise finding him out at the spring yards."

"Wasn't in the best condition back then, and I don't think we met more than… what, five times during your whole fight with Robotnik?" Oz added with a smile as he tapped the ground with his cane. "Couldn't keep up with him, y'know."

"Yeah, I had to figure out how to propel myself with my tails to keep up," the little fox added with a smirk. "Helped that I knew how to swim, and he's never learned."

"Alright, alright," the hedgehog waved them both off as they shot him a flat look. "We all know water and hedgehogs don't mix."

"So, why'd you crash?" Sonic asked before they could needle him anymore. "You're too good of a pilot to just go down like that."

"Oh, well I was testing my new plane. The Tornado's nice and all, but I wanted something with a bit more punch!" Tails laughed as he rubbed his hands together. The little fox reached behind him, and pulled out a purple gem the size of his fists.

"Huh, that's what I was feeling then," Oz muttered and both Mobians turned to him.

"Feeling?" Sonic asked with a frown.

"Ah, found that same emerald about… two weeks or so ago now?" Oz waved towards the chaos emerald with a frown. "Had it for almost an entire week before Robotnik showed up to take it, guessing you snatched it off him?"

"Yeah, joined this thing called the World Grand Prix he setup, won the emeralds as part of the races," Sonic replied with a laugh.

"I found it during a test flight yesterday!" Tails added with a chirp.

"Alright, mind if we test something?" Sonic asked, leaning in closer as he rubbed a hand on his chin.

"Depends," Oz said as he glared at the hedgehog.

"Oh, oh I get it!" Tails chirped as he closed his fist around the chaos emerald. The purple gem shrank until it was fully hidden from sight, and he stuck them behind his back and shuffled them back and forth for a bit.

When Tails pulled his fists out, Oz tapped his cane on the fox's right fist. Tails opened his hands to reveal the gem in his right hand.

"Alright, eyes closed this time!" Sonic cut in with a laugh as he waved for Tails to go again. Right, right, left, right left, over and over Tails shuffled the emerald.

They stopped when Oz opened his eyes for one last test, and calmly pointed back to Sonic. Behind him, the hedgehog laughed as he tossed the chaos emerald over Oz's head to Tails.

"Huh, regular radar for the things like Knucklehead, aint'cha?" Sonic smirked as he leaned back to look up at Oz. "Be pretty great to hang out again, heck, I can even smash some badniks for you for parts. It'll be like old times!"

Oz froze at that.

"I'm sorry, are there badniks here in Station Square?" He asked as his grip tightened on his cane. Shoulders square, and arms shaking he leaned heavier on his cane. The man bit back a swear, not wanting to curse in front of someone who was likely eight or nine at the oldest.

"Yeah, found a bunch of 'em on the beaches when I was running out to bring Tails back here." The hedgehog confirmed without skipping a beat.

"Ah, sorry, but I'm not going to be sticking around then," Oz sighed as he slumped in place. "Not in any condition to be running around fighting Robotnik's machines, and I don't know how but this place is actively making my health worse."

"Huh, alright," Sonic said after a moment. "Well, keep in touch man."

"It was nice to meet you," Tails added with a slow nod as he tucked the chaos emerald behind his back. "If you want to talk before you leave, I've got a lab out in Mystic Ruins right by the train station."

"It was nice meeting you too," Oz's smile was strained towards the fox. "I… I should go pack, good luck to both of you."

"I hope you find a good place, Oz," Sonic said with a small grin. "We'll chat more when we run into each other again."

"Same here," Oz chuckled as he started off to pack his things. "Take care."

They left for the train station, and Oz started down the street to where he'd parked to bring his car back over. Hotel parking wasn't free in Station Square, but there were a few spots set aside further into the city where he could park without having to deal with a meter.

Oz had owned a nice car, a slick black thing with blue tinted windows that had cost a small fortune to buy and upgrade. Built for the territories, it could ramp off a jump and stick the landing to keep driving just fine before Oz upgraded it. Afterwards he'd included a hover system, pushed the speed to the edge the engine could take, and gotten the entirety of the things interior ripped out and redone for maximum comfort.

It was Oz's baby in the same way Ivo's prized killing machines were his, and it sat mangled on the ground. He walked up to it, and ran a hand along the torn remains of its frame. The thing could handle a sheer drop at terminal velocity, but whatever happened to it had put all the weight on two small points on the axles about the size of a man's hands.

He leaned down, slowly moving down to the ground to stare at the undercarriage in horror.

It wasn't the size of a man's hands, it was a pair of mobian hands imprinted on the axles of the car like the world's angriest fingerprints.

Someone had popped open the sewer grate underneath his car, and then seemingly dropped into it while holding onto the axles. Someone absurdly massive, and heavy.

Oz slowly dragged himself to his feet, cane and the wreck of his car supporting him as he shakily stood.

He leaned back to stare at the sky.

He breathed in as deep as he could.

He swore at the top of his lungs.

Chapter Text

Oz was not having a good day. It wasn't the worst day, a day stuck in The Tube was usually worse, but he'd rate it pretty high up there. His car was destroyed to the point it had to be scrapped, and Oz didn't have the funds to replace it.

He sat on a bench across from the crew who showed up to haul the thing away, signed the paperwork, payed the bill, and just stared at the empty spot for a while.  Oz tapped his foot against the concrete as he thought it over.

A cheaper car would get him out of the city, but not far enough away to be out of the fallout of whatever plan Ivo had in the works.

Worse yet, Sonic was in town, which meant whatever scheme was fully in motion.

The hover system was fully custom, and took weeks on its own to design and hack together.

He had maybe a day.

Oz tapped his foot faster as he stared across the way. There was a police barricade in the midst of being torn down that had blocked off part of the city.

He had… one location he could think Ivo was involved with. It wasn't open until night, and he'd never been a fan of any of its kind, but he had an idea at least of what to deal with.

With a heavy sigh, Oz got to his feet and wandered further into the city.

Casinopolis was a massive building that dominated the central square of the city. Brightly lit, with red lines and golden stars all leading inward, it stood as a monument to greed and desperation. Oz had never quite gotten Ivo's obsession with gambling, and with the amount of people he'd seen in these places mindlessly pulling slot machines he didn't particularly care to.

He stopped in front of the building, and gave it a long considering look.

"Am I really about to do this?" Oz muttered as he walked up to the entrance. He'd made his life out of getting away from Ivo's schemes. Any time the man or his robots had shown up, Oz had left immediately. Peaceful coastal living in the northern territories, settling in the plains, island life, all ruined by Ivo deciding to poke his massive nose back into Oz's life.

He couldn't run this time.

Casinopolis was closed during the day, a mixture of city ordinance and pushback from various groups that Oz hadn't had the time to read up on and understand. Locked up tight, Oz checked the side of the sliding entrance doors and found a security pad. Nothing too crazy, a nine digit number pad with a trio of letters underneath.

"Lets see if I'm right," Oz grumbled as he punched in a code. He muttered every digit under his breath as he entered it, "4483 0 43343404."

"H4T3 H3DG3H0G, Hate Hedgehog," He said as he finished and waited. With a little blip, the light on the pad turned green and the door slid open.

Oz leaned heavy on his cane as he walked in.

He had hoped it wouldn't open.

The interior of the casino yawned before him like a great beast ready to swallow him whole. No windows to let the people inside see out, calm music to soothe the nerves, and flashing lights to catch the eye. There were card tables and banks of slot machines, the front half of a boat covered in lights up above. Screens had been hooked up on the ceiling showing massive pinball tables designed for mobian use.

"Still can't believe he set those up here, there's barely any mobians in the city," Oz muttered as he hobbled across the plush carpet. Something had caught his attention, a feeling similar to his meeting with Sonic and Tails.

It pulled him along, until he found a large smoked glass door. Surrounded in enough gold to make his eyes water and a bright red rug leading to it, Oz wandered up to the door and froze as it opened.

Most casinos used rings for their currency of choice. They could be used to fuel machines, were easy to store due to their size shifting nature, and most notably were incredibly easy to replace if lost or taken. A quick run over to a more chaotic zone could yield dozens if not hundreds of the things, and in Station Square they didn't have to do much to replace them. The place followed the Federations mandate on using mundane funds rather than more supernatural currency.

Rings weren't worth much to most people after all.

To Oz, rings were very much worth picking up. Almost everything in the territories ran on some form of ring power, the things were insanely energy dense.

He froze, because he'd found the ring vault. There were hundreds of the things, all radiating enough chaos energy that the feeling had effectively punched him in the nose when the door slid open.

Above it all, a white emerald sat precariously balanced on the edge of a platform.

It teetered for a moment, and then slipped off to bounce along a pile of rings taller than Oz was. The gem clanked to a slow rolling stop against Oz's shoes.

He stared at it, and considered what would happen if he picked it up. He could play off being caught here as wanting to talk to Ivo, or something. He hadn't even taken any of the rings. Taking the emerald though…

He could just… put it back.

"Let's get you back up there little guy," Oz muttered as he bent over to pick it up. There was a jolt through his hand as he picked it up, his fingers locking around the emerald.

For a moment, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he just existed as one with the universe.

Oz crashed into his body, stumbling as he groped for his cane. The heat of the sun beat down on him from high in the sky, muggy air heavy in his lungs. He crashed into the ground, his shoulder slamming into stone and dirt.

"Oh, oh I'm so sorry, are you alright?" A girl spoke up above him, and Oz paused for a moment. He opened his eyes, and squinted up at the sun.

"I.. yes?" He hummed as he sat up off the ground. Someone grabbed his arm, and steadied him. Slowly his eyes adjusted, and he found a small mobian girl holding his arm.

"An Echidna?" Oz muttered as he blinked the light away.

She wasn't very tall for a Mobian, with bright orange fur and orange dreadlock-like quills. With a white top and a bright colorful skirt, her jewelry jingled lightly as she pulled him to his feet.

"Oh, yes," the mobian said with a slight smile. "I am Tikal, daughter of Pachacamac, honored Elder."

Oz paused at that.

"I uh, miss I'm only like twenty-one," He replied with a slight chuckle.

The echidna went red, and the fact she was an echidna still threw him for a loop. As far as he'd known, echidnas were extinct.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, sir," she fidgeted in place.

They went quiet for a moment. Oz paused to look around for his cane, while Tikal opened her mouth to speak and closed it before saying anything.

Oz had woken up on the stairs of a monument with a familiar layout that sent chills down his spine. He stood at the base of a massive circular altar, assembled out of large cut stones. A pool of that same too blue water surrounded the altar, seven pillars placed with palm trees planted between each.

Seven emeralds sat precariously balanced at the tip of each pillar.

There was an emerald larger than he was in the center.

For a moment, the world flickered and Oz was where that emerald was; years younger, and trapped inside the water. He stumbled from the force of the memory, and Tikal rushed forward to catch him. The touch anchored him for a second, and brought him back to the present as she guided him over to one of the pillars.

"Where am I?" he asked as he leaned against the stone.

"You're at the Shrine of the Master Emerald," the Echidna told him. "It's actually quite surprising that you're here, the guardian usually doesn't let many people close. He is… extremely protective of the chao who live here."

"Ah, alright," Oz nodded, his shoulders hunching as he spoke. "Yeah, the uh, the shrine of the master emerald, sure."

Tikal went still as the larger human's breathing came in short huffing bursts, shaking as he slid down to sit against the stone. Her eyes blew wide as he broke out into a sweat, gripping his chest with a hand.

"Hey, calm down, calm down," she muttered as she stepped over to throw an arm around his shoulder. "You're safe here, the tribe won't attack anyone at the shrine."

It wasn't the touch, the voice, the cold of the stone, or the head of the sun that brought him back. Not the wind rustling through palm trees, or the barely audible chirpings of concerned chao as they peaked from behind the palms.

It was the drip-drip-drip of water, and the ringing of crystals in the wind. The water spoke in whispers, words felt more than heard.

Be calm, be safe, be protected, be not afraid.

It rang in his ears, enforced by an eight tone harmony that stilled his shaking hands and dragged his heart back from the manic shrieks of survival it'd been driven into.

"Are you… are you okay?" Tikal hesitated as if he was made of glass.

"Fine, fine, just… need to not focus on that," he said, and she hummed in thought. The echidna stepped back, and sat against the pillar across from him.

After a moment, Tikal spoke. She spoke quietly, calmly, of whatever came to mind. She spoke of the weather, the heat of summer and the humidity of the jungle driving her people to ever more extreme means to cool off.

The natural spikes on the knuckles of the men allowed them to scale nearby cliff faces with ease, and relax where the winds gathered.  She had already seen some of the 'more eager' ones collapsed in the shade after daring to brave the cliffs under the full glare of the sun.

There was a trial in the coming weeks, a coming of age ceremony for those with the aptitude to ride the heavy winds and see the beauty of their home from a new perspective. Not all of the clan could feel the winds, and glide with ease. Those who could would be taught as scouts and wayfinders.

The women of the tribe had taken to crafts work, weaving hats and baskets from reeds and leaves pulled from near the river. The shade and water kept them cool, while the projects helped pass the time.

"Huh," Oz hummed and she paused in moving on. "Not a lot to say about that?"

Tikal paused, and frowned.

"Father does not allow me to take part," she sighed. "He says it is beneath us, and I should spend my time learning to lead."

"Good leadership is to act for the good of the clan, and the clan repays good leadership in loyalty," Tikal said with a nod. "I think… I think he cares for me, but is afraid for me."

"Tries to keep you sheltered?" Oz asked as he shifted against the stone.

"In some ways, I am taught to follow in his footsteps," Tikal said after a bit of thought. "I learn our traditions, the ways of our warriors, but not how to fight as they are. I feel like he understands I do not wish to harm anyone, but does not understand how to truly accept that"

Oz sighed, and leaned forward away from the stone.

"Yeah, I get that, my dad was kind of similar," he sighed. "I learned a lot under him, how to build and fix things, lots… lots of math honestly. Probably a good bit too much math. Mine never really got that I didn't want to be like him though."

"How did you… how did you deal with it?" Tikal asked with a frown.

"I didn't," he replied without skipping a beat. "I skipped out, honestly a lot younger than I should have. I'm sick and I'll always be sick but I just… I wanted to be me y'know?"

There was a lot he could say, a lot he wanted to say. Part of him wanted to rant and rave, to give into the anger and let it all out. He could scream and roar until his lungs gave out, and in the end he asked himself 'what would that do?'

Silence settled over the both of them, Tikal shifting where she sat while he ran through what he could say. Whatever spoke from the water loomed invisibly over them both, its presence both oddly comforting and nerve wracking in equal measure.

"Talk to him," Oz said after a moment. "If you think he cares, talk to him and see if you can sort things out."

Tikal stood up, her gaze towards the shrine tired and heavy. The water said something to her Oz couldn't hear, and slowly she smiled. The echidna reached out for Oz, and he took her hand in turn. She pulled him to his feet, and giggled as he stretched to get a crick out of his spine.

"Thank you," she stood up straight as she spoke. Then, with her hands clasped together, she bowed, "thank you for your advice. I do not know if I will be able to follow it, but I appreciate the spirit in which it was offered."

"First step in dealing with the problem is acknowledging the way to deal with it," Oz said awkwardly as she straightened back up. "You uh, you honestly probably  just needed someone to talk to who wasn't connected to the problem."

Tikal nodded, and looked back towards the road to the shrine. She squeaked as she looked up at the sky and the sun slowly setting above, "Oh, oh no, I'm late."

"I… I will have to return home, but you should be safe so long as you stay here. Most of my people do not approach the shrine, and I am the only other the guardian has allowed this close." She said with a frown. "My people have been warlike, turned to raiding and conquest, under my father but you should be safe under both my protection and the guardians."

"Wait," Oz started, but she was already gone.

He sighed, and reached up to rub his temples. The largest of the emeralds rang behind him, an odd chiming sound that seemed to hook behind his spine and pull. It was irresistible, the presence of the seven pushed strength to his limbs as he hobbled up the stairs. The guardian was silent as he approached, and stopped before the master emerald.

Oz didn't know much about it, but he could listen.

"The servers are the seven chaos. Chaos is power, power enriched by the heart," he muttered as the chiming rang in his ears. Slowly, he raised a hand towards the massive emerald, and paused as he processed the rest. "The controller unifies the chaos."

Vertigo hit him like a truck, and Oz swayed on his feet. He didn't realize what was happening until the world tilted on its axis, and his head hit the water. The water swallowed him whole, and he was one with reality for a brief instant once more.

Oz stared at the ceiling of the Casinopolis vault. The ground was smooth metal beneath his back, the place dim and difficult to see while his eyes adjusted. The air was a shock of coolness on his skin, and he sat up slowly.

The strength that had filled him at the shrine drained away, and for a brief moment he wasn't sure if any of that was real.

He paused as he moved to push himself to his feet, and his hand brushed against his cane. The emerald sat glimmering next to it, and Oz found himself frozen at the sight.

"First step in dealing with the problem," he muttered. The words hadn't meant much to him when he said them. Just a bit of generic advice he'd heard over the years, the kind of empty platitude that took nothing to say.

Oz reached out for the emerald, and picked it up.

He stuffed it into his pocket, and leaned on his cane as he left the casino behind.