#cyber corruption

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When Sonic lands on Starfall Islands, and a weird disembodied voice tells him to destroy the barrier between dimensions, he does it—because his friends are all missing, and he loves them too much not to do something about it. 

The islands seem to sprawl all the way to the end of the horizon, ancient ruins connected together like constellations. It’s equal parts beautiful and tragic; Sonic is fascinated by everything he finds, but he can’t help wondering after the people who built it all—the strange, almost porcelain creatures they’ve left behind. The hardest part of it all, at the beginning, is knowing that his friends are out there somewhere, and though he has every faith in them, he can’t know for certain whether they’re doing alright. 

It’s a relief, finding Amy, but the dread that comes with it is almost as immense. She’s here, yet somehow she’s not. She can talk to him and understand just fine, walk alongside him and insist with all her familiar fervour that he help the Koco find each other even in the face of her own struggle—but she reaches out to palm a flower head, curl a hand around his arm, and her fingers pass right though. 

Sonic helps the Koco reunite with their partner, their children, with her. He listens as Amy tells him that she’s worried about the energy he absorbed when he freed her, that overtakes him just a little more each time he restores a part of her. But Sonic tells her he’ll be okay, because he knows—more than anything—that she has his back.

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When it takes nearly everything Sonic has to beat the first Titan—Super form flaring to life in a shower of gold, over and over pushing forward and wrenching himself out of its jaws, only to be shot down as he arrives at the next island, Chaos Emeralds scattering into the distance—he bounces up from the floor and runs until he gets somewhere. Because he knows that his friends are counting on him to do what’s right, and he loves them too much not to try. 

Absorbing the Cyber Energy is giving him some kind of boost, Sonic thinks. His attacks are landing harder, he’s discovering powerful new techniques to fight off the ancient tech, but… at the same, he can feel it draining him. Taking something.

He doesn’t let it worry him, though—and he certainly doesn’t let it worry Knuckles. It’d been a surprise to find the echidna trapped in that sphere on the second island, when he’d been so certain the other was with the Master Emerald this whole time, but he welcomes the breath of fresh air eagerly. Knuckles had described Cyber Space as a unique kind of nightmare, and yet, he doesn’t seem concerned about their situation at all. He has every faith that they can get through this like they always do; as much as they taunt each other, he has every faith that Sonic won’t stop until they’re all okay. 

It’s hard not to notice how little he can feel in his right arm, now, roiling with a sporadic red and black every time he starts to slow down. It’s difficult to ignore how strangely cold the desert seems even in the midday sun. But when the Wyvern Titan looms overhead, Chaos Emerald pulsing like a heartbeat from its head, he doesn’t hesitate to take the leap. He’s got this, and he knows—more than anything—that Knuckles believes in him. 

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When he begins to feel the effects of the Corruption, struggles to fend off the Titans, and he’s told over and over that he’s destroying himself for a futile effort—he keeps on running no matter how many times he forgets the way. Because his friends are all stuck in Cyber Space, and Sonic loves them too much to stop for such a little headache.

The third island is formed around a giant active volcano but, if he’s being honest, he isn’t nearly as warm as he should be. It’s getting harder to pretend that the Corruption isn’t affecting him. He keeps finding himself keeling, holding a hand to his side as if to keep everything in one piece—every now and then, he catches off-colour patches blooming across his body, his vision fuzzing at the edges like a scratched CD. In the moments of the aftermath, he struggles to recall what he’s even doing.

Tails is worried about him. They both know he’s not behaving the way he usually would, uncharacteristically reserved with his energy, but they both know better than to dwell on it. His little brother is doing everything he can to make it easier, and Sonic is always grateful for him, but he feels it more keenly than ever as they travel through the rough terrain to collect pieces of an ancient weapon and find the Chaos Emeralds again along the way. 

Every time he stumbles on the sudden numbness—has to search desperately for what was happening just minutes before—there’s no choice but to get up again. Tails is too young, too bright, too brilliant to be stuck here; he wants the opportunity to stick it out on his own, and though the thought of how fast the kid’s grown is an ache in his chest, he’s so proud. He knows—more than anything—that Tails will do whatever he can to make sure he’s okay, and he needs to do everything he can in turn to make sure they all get the happy ending they deserve.

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When he climbs the towers, barely managing not to fall off the rain-slicked surfaces and barely dodging the projectiles being launched in his direction, he doesn’t give up. He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him at each peak—forgetting more and more what he’s really trying to achieve—but he knows he’s doing it for his friends, whatever it is. And in that case, he loves them too much to do anything but keep going.

He doesn’t really remember what happened when the Corruption fully consumed him, but he knows his friends sacrificed themselves to Cyber Space a second time to bring him back. It’s not gone—he still recognises it by the cold ache in his core, just waiting to be tipped back over the edge again—but he’s not gone yet, either, and he can work with anything beyond non-existence. 

They’ve all split up over the island surrounding them to find something important that’s going to help with the threat they’re facing. He’s been told it’s up to him to climb the towers that loom over them like mountains, that the maw of Corruption slowly swallowing him can be turned into a power that might save them from annihilation. Four times, he ascends a dark obelisk, and crashes into obstacles like he has something to prove at the peak. Four times, he makes the climb back down, and the memory of what lay behind him fades just a little further. 

Everything is slipping like sand through his fingers, the unique terror of being conscious as you lose each little piece of yourself—but though his name turns quickly to only the static running across his arms, forgotten with an almost reckless abandon as he fights, and fights, and gets up again—he clutches steadfastly at the memory of the people waiting for him on the other side of it all. 

“That power is a fragile thing,” Some strange monument of someone called the Master King tells him at the top of the final tower, having clashed with hulking giants over and over to attain whatever it is the ancient has just given him. “It was not meant for you. If used recklessly, it will leave you entirely—and it will take every part of you alongside it.”

He tells the Master King he’s not used to holding back even though he barely knows it himself. He descends the final tower remembering only that he has a power he has to use to stop the world from ending. He finds a group waiting for him and knows—more than anything—that whatever he’s about to do, he’s doing it for people he loves. … The dark side of the moon towers like The End in front him, and through the invisible air, it speaks to him. 

“I can sense the Cyber Corruption overwhelming you,” It tells him, a kaleidoscope voice echoing everywhere around him. “You barely know what you’re fighting for, the force you’ve put yourself up against.”

The energy surrounding him sparks like quiet supernovae, and though the thing on the horizon is right—though there’s a black hole in his chest slowly taking everything else apart—he clings to his will with a grip tighter than god. 

“I’m doing this for the planet. I’m doing this for my friends.” He tells it in return, golden in a way he thinks should be familiar, azure blue in a way he knows shouldn’t be, but is. The world around them is almost at a stand-still; it’s as if the stars themselves are holding their breath.

“Ah, your friends —such a weak excuse. Tell me, do you even know who they are anymore?”

There are people behind them, shouting and screaming encouragement, fighting a war at his back that he can only hope they’re winning. He doesn’t recognise the voices, or the person they’re yelling for, but they sound desperate—more than that, determined. 

“You’ve got this, Sonic!”

“I know I love them,” He says, willing everything he possibly has to give forward; every single piece of him on the line for a fight he barely understands but knows—more than anything—that he has to win. “That’s enough for me.” … When someone falls from the sky, the golden glow of power and the blue-black of something else dispersing from his form like vapour as he hits the ground, he doesn’t recognise the people in front of him. He doesn’t know where he is; he doesn’t know who he is. The only thing still visible in the dark cavity of it all is a single, burning question.

He feels like he’s been hit by a train, as his body wakes up inch by agonisingly slow inch. The world is bright as his eyes reluctantly deign to blink open; rich with emerald greens, and the sky a glowing display of shooting stars, casting ochre reflections across the ground.  

There are people standing above him—pink, and red, and yellow—all of them with stares wide-eyed and glassy, all of them beaming at him like they’re trying to take the collective place of the sun. He can feel the ecstasy seeping from them as they cry out, rushing to help him upright, calling a name he doesn’t know. The sight of them, circling around him, jolts him into motion; a sudden, stricken question tumbling from his lips.

“My friends.” He says, breathless with the need to get the words out. “Are my friends okay?” All three of them still at the exact same time, faltering synchronised as the question makes its way into their heads. The pink one gasps, the red freezes like he’s been shoved into an ice block, and the yellow flinches hard enough that a few captured tears slip out unnoticed.

For a second, the reaction punches through him, and he’s struck with desperate terror of what the answer might be—until the pink shakes into motion, looking like she’s seeing him for the first time all over again. “You… really don’t remember us?” She asks, like the answer to that terrifies her just as badly. 

“Sonic,” The yellow one exclaims, surging forward even further—all of their faces are barely inches apart. The way it’s said, that must be his name. “We’re your friends. You just fought The End, you went Super in a way we’ve never seen before; you have to remember.”

And he—Sonic—has… glimpses, of something. It’s so far away from him it may as well be a canyon out of reach, but, he thinks he knows what the kid’s talking about. 

The kid. The yellow kid; a little fox with two yellow-white tails and the world’s biggest, bluest eyes. 

“You’re my friends.” He says, and the three in front of him look world-shatteringly devastated, but he can’t help smiling—eyes bright and beaming like nothing has ever gone so horribly wrong. He hardly even recognises them, and yet, Sonic looks at them like they’re the most precious things he’s ever known. “You’re my friends,” He repeats, so delighted. “And you’re okay?” Amy goes to exclaim something, and Tails opens his mouth in kind, alarm clear in his eyes. But it’s Knuckles who beats them to it, and though he perhaps sounds just as upset as they feel, his grin is so, so warm. “We’re okay, Sonic. We won.” None of them really know where they’re supposed to go from here. The Cyber Corruption has taken more from him than they’d ever prepared for, or at least hidden it in a way they don’t know how they’re meant to get back. The world isn’t ending any faster than it was before, and the sacrifice feels almost insurmountable. 

Still, Sonic is laughing. Jumping up like nothing’s ever hurt him, and chasing them all into an embrace tighter than they’ve known him to give, holding something that he never, even once for a second of his life, wants to let go of. And the world hasn’t ended, and it’s ending right in front of them for every second that the reality of what’s happened crashes down on them, and Sonic didn’t even remember who he was looking at when he first opened his eyes.

But he knows—more than anything—that he loves these people to the end of everything else, in spite of everything The End did to take that away from him. 

“We won,” Sonic parrots, even as his friends cry into the embrace, clinging like he’ll disappear if any one of them let go. “We won, and I love you guys. That’s all that matters.”