Chapter Text
They don’t tell you about what happens after the story ends.
The bad guy saved, disaster averted, the hero goes home. Maybe you get an epilogue showing how the characters are getting on now that everything’s great, but when that happens it’s almost never right after the end card.
You don’t have to sit through everyone picking up the pieces that the villain knocked over. You don’t have to ask how the hero gets down from that giant spire in the sky where he slew the demon king or whatever, or what happened to all the lingering fragments of the demon king’s army. You just assume that they all got taken care of offscreen. You don’t have to worry about it.
I did.
Chaos was defeated and sent to heaven, I guess, Robotnik got out of dodge, and Sonic ran off into the sunset, and the rest of us were left to deal with the shattered husk of a flooded city.
So it was that I finally returned to my modest apartment after three days, in an effort to see if anything was worth keeping.
My bed had fallen through a massive hole in the floor of my bedroom, down into the apartment below. My bathroom was a complete loss, looking like a bomb had gone off the way every pipe had busted at once. The entire outside wall was gone, my couch was ruined, and my glow-in-the-dark poster of Harvey the Wonder Hamster, signed by the man himself, was reduced to nothing but pulp.
“It’s not as bad as I expected, honestly,” I said, after looking it over for a while.
“It’s a wreck.”
“Thank you, Humi, I hadn’t noticed.”
She winced. “Sorry, that was mean.”
I let out a breath. “Nah, you’re fine. It’s true enough.”
Gamma had chosen to return to looking for survivors in the city center, and I left him to it. Instead, Big had offered to help me out, and once Tails heard where we were going he decided to join us. They were nice kids.
I wasn’t sure why the red echidna was here.
Knuckles walked over to my TV and lifted it off the table it sat on, pulling the plug from the wall with a yank. “Do you think this thing still works?”
I watched the way water poured out of the vents as he picked it up. “Probably not. It was an old model anyway. Now I finally have an excuse to get one of those new flatscreens.”
Tails gently bade him to set it down and inspected it. “I could probably fix it…”
“Don’t bother.” I looked at Humi, who was stuffing the microwave into the backpack. “Humi, if you can get it inside the pack, it’s yours. Just drain the water out first.”
“I can and I will!”
I inspected the fridge next. The power was out everywhere, obviously, but some of it might be salvageable. Actually, the fridge was an ancient monster that came with the apartment; it was one of those kinds that lasted forever and could probably survive a nuclear explosion if it came to it. Even if the food inside was gone bad, I would definitely be keeping it. “Big, can you lift this?”
Big walked over, the floor creaking alarmingly underneath him, and easily hefted the metal box onto his shoulder. “...It’s heavy, but not too much.”
“Great. Set it back down now.”
“What are you going to do with a fridge?” Humi asked, abandoning the microwave for now to clamber onto the kitchenette counter. She started rummaging through the cupboards.
I felt my ear twitch. “We’re going to need some way to keep food cold in that warehouse of yours, packrat.”
“I don’t have electricity, though.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Humi just gave me a doubtful look and returned to the cabinets. “Let me know if you find anything, I don’t actually remember what I have in there. I’d been putting off a grocery run for a few days.”
While they were pilfering through the destroyed remnants of my life, I stepped carefully into the bedroom to look through my wardrobe. I didn’t have many clothes, but the ones I did have were mostly colorful shirts or polos, and two pairs of pants; one black for when I needed to look formal, and one pair of sweats for when it was cold.
The wardrobe itself was already showing signs of water damage, but the clothes themselves were all okay. So that was something.
Something else, and this was actually a miracle: not all of my books were a lost cause! A lot of them were, but the handful of favorites that I kept on the top of the bookcase were only slightly damp. If I let them dry, they’d probably be fine.
“What’s this?” I heard Tails ask, and I turned to see him looking through my desk. He pulled out a small black lockbox, and my eyes widened.
“Let me see that,” I said, digging my keys out and grabbing the relevant one, a tiny little thing. The lockbox wasn’t particularly complex. In fact, it was the cheapest one I could find. But it was real metal and real sturdy, so I had to hope… “There we go.”
The top popped open, and I let out a relieved breath. The money I kept inside was still intact.
Tails peered inside. “...Is that a rock?” he asked, confused.
“Oh, yeah.” I took the smooth pebble out and handed it to him. “River rock. I liked the way it felt in my hands when I found it… ten? Twelve years ago? I’ve held onto it ever since.”
I had a lot of little bits and bobs like that. Most of them I left at my parents’ place when I moved out, but a few I took with me. Sentimental things. Old souvenirs from family trips, trinkets I found in thrift stores and bought on a whim. Buttons from old shirts that I liked the pattern of and kept. A scarf I never wore because it itched, but kept because it was a present. A truly hideous hat with an outrageous feather, given by a friend as a joke that still made me smirk years later. In a way, I was almost as much a hoarder as Humi was. I just didn’t have bottomless pockets to keep it all in.
Most of it was gone now.
I leaned against my desk, since the chair was in fragments, and just looked over what had been my home for two years. This little space was where I kept my stuff and slept, and where I went when I was done with the outside world for the day. It was never the place I intended to spend the rest of my life; in some oblique sense, I expected to eventually find a better job and have a nice house out in the suburbs. But this had been my space, and now it was gone.
I must have let it show on my face, because Tails hopped up to sit on the desk next to me. “Are you okay?”
Of course I wasn’t. “I’m fine, kid.”
“It’s a lot more real, seeing the damage up close,” he murmured.
“It is,” I agreed. “But I don’t think we could have done anything to stop it. Chaos was a slippery guy. Even if Mecha Sonic wasn’t there to slow us down, I’d have had to sleep eventually. I’m not sure Chaos would.”
Maybe if I’d had more time to come up with a plan. Maybe if I’d been able to interpret the visions faster. Maybe if I’d smashed Mecha Sonic when I had the chance instead of giving Robotnik the opportunity to activate it.
But none of that was useful thinking. Only thing for it was to move forward.
So I clapped my hands and put on a smile, making Tails jump from the rudeness of it. “Enough sadness! I’ve got a question for you, Tails?”
“What is it?”
“What happened to the Emeralds?” I asked, standing back up. I think I had a duffel bag somewhere for my clothes… “When Sonic went back to normal, the things just vanished.”
“Oh! That.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. The Chaos Emeralds come and go, really. They always turn up again later.”
“Well, I guess they aren’t called the Neat and Tidy Emeralds for a reason.” That was disappointing. And a little worrisome. I don’t think I liked the idea of not knowing where the artifacts of potentially infinite power were. More importantly, Humi had been really invested in that thing.
Humi. Right, that was still a whole thing. I didn’t regret any of the things I said to her, but taking care of a child was complicated. Shelter wasn’t a problem, but her house in the jungle was half-ruined. No electricity, no water, no heat, no wonder she spent most of her time in the Square.
What was I going to do?
“I could help.”
I flinched. I’d gotten so caught up in my own head I forgot Tails was there. “Did I say all that out loud?”
He nodded.
“Great…” Then I registered what he said. “You can help?”
“Sure! I had to wire my workshop up when I moved in, since it absolutely wasn’t up to code. I don’t know about plumbing, but it can’t be as hard as retrofitting a biplane with a supersonic jet engine!”
I stared at him. “How old are you again?”
“I’m eight, why?”
These kids. “Nevermind. We’ll talk to Humi about it but I doubt she’ll say no. It’s her house, though, and I--”
The wall rattled from the next room, and I heard shouting. I was up and moving in an instant.
When I opened the door into the main room, it was to the sight of Knuckles on the counter, holding Humi upside down by her legs, and shaking her. A small pile of metal parts were on the floor beneath her, and as I watched a monkey wrench fell out of her pocket to punch a hole in the weakened floor. Big was just standing by, watching.
“What are you doing?!”
Knuckles looked up at my shout and glared. “I saw her take something out of the cupboard, the little thief!”
“...Yes!” I threw up my hands, incredulous. “That is why we are here!”
“But it looked like--”
“I don’t care . You are manhandling a child.”
Knuckles blinked and visibly reevaluated the situation. As if only just now realizing what this looked like, he quickly set her upright. “...Sorry.”
Humi stuck her tongue out. “I’m not!”
“You didn’t do any--ow!”
Humi kicked him in the shin before jumping down to pick her junk back up.
I sighed. I looked at Big, who was still holding the fridge. “Why didn’t you do anything?”
With his free hand, Big pointed down. I looked. His feet had partially broken through the floorboards, leaving him unable to move his legs.
“...Okay. Okay okay.” I rubbed my temples. This had already been a long day, and I wasn’t about to make it even longer. “I think I’ve seen everything that can be saved. Let’s just go.”
And after that, things started slowly, slowly winding down. The trains weren’t running, but someone had set up a few handcars that we borrowed, so we didn’t have to walk all the way to Mystic Ruins.
Gamma met up with us, accompanied by Amy and the birds. He elected to run on the rails like he did before, which was just as well since he wouldn’t have fit on the cart.
What surprised me when we met up with him at the train station was the group of people following him. A short round man with a thick mustache and a man and woman both in very serious-looking suits were talking to the robot as they approached.
“--and we can’t thank you enough, we really can’t,” I picked up as we were preparing the cart.
Gamma looked as uncomfortable as his expressionless face would allow. “No thanks is necessary. I act in opposition to Doctor Eggman. His actions caused this disaster. It is my hope that my actions may serve to in some way undo his.”
The man he was talking to beamed. “Such a noble spirit! You are a treasure, Mister Gamma.” He looked over the rest of us. “You’ve all done Station Square a massive service today, of that I have no doubt.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Amy beat me to it. “And don’t forget Sonic! He was the real hero of this adventure!”
Knuckles snorted next to me.
The man simply chortled good-naturedly and waved as he left.
When we finally got back to Mystic Ruins, a few of us got ready to say goodbye.
“The Master Emerald needs guarding,” Knuckles insisted. “I don’t trust Eggman not to make a move when I’m not there.”
“C’mon Knuckles,” Tails said. “He just suffered a huge loss. Several in a row, even! We’ve got a few months at least before he shows up again.”
Months. Months? “Only a few months, huh?” I wondered out loud. I guess that tracked given his previous exploits… I was going to have to follow the news more closely from now on, I thought.
Knuckles huffed. “I’m going anyway. Tell Sonic to stay off my island. And that goes double for you, little thief,” he said, giving a pointed glare at Humi.
Humi made a face at him. “I’m not a thief! I bet your big rock is ugly anyway.”
“Hmf.” He turned and left, not bothering with another glance.
I gave her a look. “...Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Who, me?” she said innocently.
I didn’t buy it for a second, but I didn’t press. I didn’t blame her for not liking Knuckles after what he did, but I don’t know what made him hostile. Some people just weren’t going to get along.
“Do you guys want to stay the night again?” Tails offered. “Gamma needs to be nearby for me to work on him, and Amy, I know you lost your home, too…”
She waved it off happily. “I’ll be fine, but thanks!”
“Are you sure?” I gave Amy a concerned look, but she shook her head.
“I’ve been missing traveling! And there wasn’t anything there I can’t replace.”
“You’re twelve.”
“And?”
These kids. I was so tired.
Gamma beeped. “Miles Prower, I have a request to make.”
“Sure, Gamma, what do you need?”
“I would like to free my Flicky now.”
Amy immediately protested. “What? But--”
The robot held up his hand. “I have thought about it much, the past several hours. Heyu vouched for my personhood, and I am still uncertain of it. But regardless of the truth of the matter, it is unfair for me to continue as I am while the animal inside me is left imprisoned.” He lifted his hand to point at Birdie and Gray. “It is unfair to force them to wait to be reunited with their family.”
Amy frowned. “Gamma…”
Tails nodded slowly. “If you’re sure that’s what you want…”
“It is.” Gamma’s eyes brightened. “It is not forever. I trust that you will find me a new battery, one that is not reliant on cruelty.”
Tails and Amy both perked up. “I will!” the fox said. “You can count on me!”
Amy pumped a fist. “And I won’t let him forget, either!”
Humi climbed up on my shoulders so she could look Gamma in the eye. “You’re a good person, Mr. Robot. I hope Iota’s as nice as his big brother.”
Gamma regarded her for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you for your kindness, and for seeing me as a person. I hope one day to pay this kindness back in full.”
“Hey, as far as I’m concerned you have several times over already,” I said, slapping him on the shoulder. “You saved more lives than the rest of us combined. That counts for a lot.”
I could swear the robot’s eyes twinkled at that. Without any further talk, he turned to walk up the stairs.
The rest of us followed behind, with me taking up the rear, until I noticed that Big wasn’t coming with. “Something up?”
He shook his head, but didn't move, so I pulled Humi off my back and set her down.
“Humi, you go with Tails and them, alright? I’ll catch up in a little bit.”
She looked up at me with a frown. “How come?”
I looked at Big again, and while his face was blank, his tail was lashing back and forth. I’d known enough cats, Mobian and mundane alike, to know he was agitated. “I think Big needs help with something.”
She looked past me to Big, who met her gaze evenly, then back to me. “Are you sure you don’t want me coming?”
I paused. “I don’t not want you to come, but I think you’ll be happier to go on to the workshop. I think we’re just going to take my stuff to your warehouse. It’ll probably be a boring trip if you come with me.”
She nodded, accepting that, then caught me by surprise by jumping into a hug. I squeezed her back before letting her down to run up the stairs.
That done, I turned to Big, and without speaking we both made our way towards the jungle.
Once we passed the cliffs and the forest opened up, I struck up a conversation. “Thanks again for carrying that.”
Big grunted, adjusting the fridge on his shoulder. We made our way to Humi’s place and unloaded.
I stuck out my hand and we shook. “I’m going to guess that you’re not going back to Tails’s?”
He shook his head. “I… don’t… usually deal with people this much. Need some alone time.” Froggy croaked. “Not you, Froggy.”
“I get it, I get it. You have a good night, neighbor.”
Big smiled, and turned to leave. I watched him go until the jungle swallowed him up.
And then, for the first time in three days, I was alone.
I really did get it. Take it from a cashier, dealing with people is exhausting. You know what else was exhausting? Saving the world while watching teenagers fight gods and getting attacked by a billion robots.
With no one to keep my composure for, and knowing that all the trouble was finally, finally over, I let myself collapse just a little. Really let my shoulders sag and my ears droop. I wasn’t prepared for any of what just happened, and I didn’t know if I was ready for what came next, either.
And then I put myself back together. Because there was still work to do, even if it wasn’t happening today. And because I left three preteens and a robot alone, and I needed to get back to them before they started plotting. This was going to be my life now, I guess.
At least it wouldn’t be a boring one.