Super Smash Brothers Fan Fiction / Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Empty Nest Syndrome ❯ Empty Nest Syndrome ( One-Shot )

“I don’t understand.”

Shadows framed Amy’s face, pale and drawn with worry. A sliver of moon reflected in her wide eyes. She had caught him there, at the boundary. How long and desperately had she ran for this one last chance at goodbye? Amy didn’t appear winded. He realized he had been standing there for some time, gathering the nerve to step over.

“There’s nothing to understand. I can’t stand staying in one place forever, you know that.”

“That’s not true. This is your home.”

In the dim bluish light Sonic saw her a little better now: hands behind her back; the toe of one running shoe restlessly poking the ground. She looked so forlorn that a mad urge seized him. It whispered: gather her up in your arms and rush back to a quiet place, where warming familiarity can settle over you like an old blanket.

A shiver of terror ran through him. Suddenly weak, he almost gave in. Sonic looked past her to the great shapeless mass of the distant nighttime landscape–a land formed not from stone and mud, but from slumbering nightmares. And amidst that slumber, visions stirred to life as he watched, taking on structure, texture, color. The world, as it was and would be, scrolled before his eyes. Upon the shores of every shining bay, replacing every forest and climbing every mountainside, the urban growth of man crept forth.

Pardoned and sanctioned, Robotnik lead them. For his ceaseless subversion of life awards heaped upon the ground his boots trampled. It was no longer water that gurgled through the forest streams. Trees fell by the hundreds to make way for twisted constructs of metal and wires. He converted woodland creatures to cyborg sentries. Hills hollowed out to become dens for clanking monstrosities.

Each day, the lights dimmed a little more in the eyes of his friends. Their faces slackened and their words crumbled into bestial grunts. Already, the humans were eager to fill the special zoos they had prepared.

Nature everywhere converted into joyless parody.

“This isn’t home anymore.” Sonic turned away so that Amy could not see his face. “If you care, nothing’s stopping you from crossing over too. I’ll be waiting.”

Before he could falter, he ran. He felt nothing crossing the horizon.

The sun’s warmth washed clean his night-chilled face. Mushrooms as great as any of Robotnik’s towers grew wild around him. In the distance a pink castle presided over regal gardens and a glittering pond.

Nearby, a humble cottage’s front door swung open. Out stepped a human, short by their standards, with a great domed belly and the burly arms of a construction worker. The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled in joyful recognition.

“You came.”

Sonic fell into those strong arms and hugged back with all his might, unabashed tears glossing his cheeks. “It’s all screwed up. I can’t save anything. I’m sorry–”

Mario gave Sonic’s blue spiny back a kindly, if cautious, slap. “All’s forgiven. Welcome home, son.”