#pollet

Maybe it was a little ironic the situation Bullet has found himself in, but it was his fault for trying to chase after a cliche. He wanted nothing more than to live up to his parents legacy and follow in their footsteps. He thought the best way to do that was to find a competitive rival of his own!

Poly, on paper, would have been a perfect fit for a rival. They were the strong and mysterious silent type to Bullet’s funny and cocky hero type. And with their own legacy of being the adopted child of his father’s robotic counterpart, that bred well for a good battle of witty comebacks and heated competition.

Except Poly wasn’t the type to do that at all. In fact—despite their perfect origins—they were the worst person to have a rivalry with.

Bullet was a bit of an overachiever. He had already daydreamed and planned for this frenemy type relationship with Poly before he had even met them. When he was young, he heard many hushed conversations from his parents and their friends about schemes that Eggman and Metal Sonic were planning, talks of a child his age being involved. He remembered eavesdropping on a conversation between his father and Amy about a kid she was taking care of. She had seemed a little concerned that the Robotnik influence could rub off on them.

Since then, Bullet had been a little obsessed with them. It embarrasses him to this day the amount of daydreams and badly made drawings of this mysterious half-hedgehog-half-robot super rival he had thought up as a kid. All his childish drawings of their explosive battles did not live up to the expectations.

Maybe he should’ve guessed where this was gonna go if he was acting like that back then.

When Bullet first officially met Poly, he quickly decided that he would need to be the Sonic in the relationship, opposed to his anti-hero other father. Poly doesn’t speak. Their speech is only that of a normal, non-Mobian hedgehog. A couple chirps and snorts came from them occasionally, but for the most part, they were very, very quiet. From what Bullet knew of Sonic’s many rivals, they would best fit in the category of their own father, Metal. Which was obvious, of course.

He did his best to enact a rivalry that very first day, taunting and teasing the hedgeborg in a way that imitated his father almost perfectly, if it weren’t for the poor self confidence ruining most of his attempts.

Poly had not acknowledged him even once. They were focused on dragging a stick through the beach they resided on, hovering just slightly above the ground so as not to get sand in their leg gears. With the bundle of fur and quills that covered their eyes, you couldn’t really tell if they had reacted at all to his attempt at riling them up.

Bullet had kept trying to goad them on. Poking, prodding, running circles around them—careful of their mechanical limbs and not trying to kick up dirt—but nothing. Not even a twitch of their ears.

Just as he started to give up and began walking away, there was a soft thunk to the back of his head. He turned back around towards the hedgeborg.

First, he noticed the stick—that was definitely thrown at him—on the ground right in front of his feet.

Then, he noticed Poly was actually facing him. Closed lipped smile on their face, arms crossed over their knees. Clearly amused.

And finally, he noticed right in between them, circled in many shoeprints caused by his own chaotic running about, were three words written in the sand.

“Go away plz :)”

The punctuation clearly being Poly’s little smile, which might as well be a shit-eating grin that meant to mock and belittle him.

Bullet huffed, crossing his arms in embarrassment and scowling. The image was a striking reminder of who his other father was.

“Whatever. Fine,” he stumbled through his words, muzzle flushed by their blunt first words to him. “I have other people I can hang out with anyway! I was just trying to be nice.”

Poly chuffed, clearly laughing at him. Bullet felt even more heated by that. He left them in the sand to go back to his parents, arms still angrily crossed and huffing when he met up with them.

That was their first meeting, and he hadn’t stopped bugging them since. Bullet had wanted an even opponent, one that he could verbally spar and battle with like their parents did before. A frenemy relationship that kept them both on their toes and solidified that he was the son of Sonic and Shadow.