Chapter Text
Sonia thought she deserved some credit for how quickly she was able to adapt to her new living conditions, at least mostly.
Sure, it took her time to finally accept that at no point would actually be they getting a maid. There was always some part of her mind that patiently keep telling her. “Once we stop sleeping somewhere different every night.”
“Once we settle in a semi-permanent spot for the resistances main base.”
The had to move at least every three days to avoid suspicion.
“Once everyone in the resistance knows we’re royalty then they’ll absolutely send us maids and private cooks themselves.”
The resistance never did that.
“Just a little longer and I won't have to do my own Laundry, wash my dishes, or make my own meals. Just a little longer.”
The trio were lucky to even find a laundromat while traveling, and Sonia had to scrub her "DESIGNER!" Clothes in the vans small sink with limited water.
like a slow decline Sonia gave up on the pampering. Over weeks talking to her new resistance friends her concept and perception of the world cracked and chipped away. How she used to live wasnt the expected, but the exemption. They never had maids, but who didn’t have maids? Everyone had maids. Well, maybe not the maids themselves but still. Before this Sonia struggled to even think of anyone she knew before who didn't have maids or servants in some regard. Most of them never even had a place to live, some lucky enough to have stayed in sketchy apartment's where rent was paid by the week.
So here she was, once a high-ranking socialite aristocratic foster child, subjected to the life of a literal princess stuck living beneath slums.
Sonia believed that she never looked down on those who lived less fortunately than her, at least she used to think so. Now though, surrounded by past and current thieves, hackers, blackmailers, and fugitives on the run was she forced to come face to face with the privileges she grew up with that she never considered to be a privilege. She grew up to believe that it just how the world worked.
Stealing was wrong of course, and before her life changed and everything happened, she condemned it completely. While not a fan of robotization, in the past she would shake her head at thieves taken away by swat bots, if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime.
That was before she and her brothers were hiding out in the same alleys where starving homeless pickpocketing kids hiding from swat bots themselves.
Sonia saw an old friend of hers, Madam Peabody exit an upscale salon, a pampered duck with artificial purple feathers. and she watched a pickpocketing child pretend to bump into her before asking for some change. The duck harshly scolded the child for being reckless, calling them dirty and a street urchin.
“Has she always been so harsh?” Sonia shrunk in on herself.
Sonia wanted to believe that her friend would have willingly to give a starving child in front of her help, “I guess not.” Sonia deflated at the truth.
Sonia wondered a scary thought, would she herself in the past help a child dirty and clearly alone homeless if she the one bumped into?
Of course she would have…right?
Madam Peabody won't even notice the rings gone from her impossibly tiny and jewel encrusted purse, and Sonia couldn’t find it in herself to care about a broad daylight robbery.
When night fell and the trio returned to the van they called home, Sonia thought about it for a while before declaring solidly, no room for disagreement. “When we’re finally proper royalty and treated as such.” Sonia raised her volume with each word looking at her brothers while the three of them eating a cheap dinner they were able to put together. The three lounging on the floor with a blanket underneath, balancing bowls of random things mixed together in their hands, “Mark my words i will make it illegal for kids to live on the streets.”
Manic scoffed, “Believe it or not, the last place I or any of them wanted to be was an orphanage.” Sonia back strengthened with an undignified huff.
“No, no I mean it. The first thing I'll do is make it law, any kids found living in streets, sewers, or wherever else that's gross must be taken to orphanages. BETTER Orphanages Manic, we’ll actually fund them unlike ugly Robotnik, and I'll have more built, lots more so no one has to sleep on gross overcrowded floors.”
“PLEASE tell me that doesn’t include schools.” Sonic spoke up after a slurp of noodles.
“That too.” Sonia decided immediately as if that that been part of her vision for the future from the start. “School is mandatory, no exceptions. Every kid legally must go to school.”
Sonics eyes did nothing to hide how horrified he was by the notion; he never liked the idea of school. Not like he had any experience with the place. Neither Manic nor Sonic ever sat at a school desk in a schoolhouse for class a day in their life.
Manic maybe would have liked learning history and science, maybe math too with his interest in economics.
Sonic however, could you actually see Sonic doing something so constricting as that though? Sonic couldn’t even picture a younger version of himself sitting at a desk taking notes or stressing over a pop quiz. Yeah, no think you.