Fanfic / Little Hands, Big Attitude

Little Hands, Big Attitude is a fanfic series written by Burningstars98. It takes place after Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), and crosses over with the games continuity.

The plot starts shortly after the events of the movie, when a farmer calls Tom Wachowski to tell him that he "found another one of them". The "one" in question? An alien baby hedgehog that unbeknowst to everyone, is a fully aware fragment of Mephiles.

Cue the family of five suddenly becoming a family of six, strange reports of trash theft, the army being a pain on everyone's ass, and a little god slowly finding out that he can be loved after all.

The series consists of the following parts:

1. Little Hands, Big Attitude (complete)
2. Little Steps, Big Changes (complete)
3. Buying the Essentials (one-shot)
4. What is Love? (one-shot)
5. The Thief and the Sleeper (complete)
6. Family Comes From Many Places (ongoing)

The series can also be read on Wattpad here.

ATTENTION! Unmarked spoilers for the movies and the games of later fics contains spoilers for earlier fics.

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This series contains examples of:

general

• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the games continuity, the only thing known about the origins of the Chaos Emeralds is that the Ancients brought them with them from the planet, and left them near the Master Emerald (which is still a complete mystery) when the End came for them. In this fic (which takes place in the movies continuity), Kaia aka Chaos created the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald as a means of splitting her power, and the Echidnas fought her for them (before losing the combined emeralds to the Owls).
• Adoptive Name Change: As the Wachowskis have no means of knowing Mephiles' original name, they give him a new full name, and he is referred to (and refers himself) as Obsidian from there on. "Obbie" for short.
• Baby Talk: Obsidian due to being an infant. At first he can't talk at all, but over time he manages mangled versions of names and some simpler words. Specifically, he calls Knuckles "Nuk", Sonic "O-nee", and Tails "Ails".
• Combo Platter Powers:
  • Kaia can transform into a human, Teleport, create clones of herself to which she can transfer her consciousness, communitcate with fish (at least according to Carl), and has Chaos Control on top of all that. Oh, and she's a Physical God.
  • Obsidian unlocks powers as he grows older; first he is a shadow-walker (essentially teleportation), and later he can see alternate worlds and project illusionary scapes made of Chaos Energy.
  • Despite being handicapped in this fic and therefore loses his speed, Shadow still has Chaos Control, can sense and see Chaos Energy, needs much less food than normal, can use Chaos Energy to affect electronic devices, and can overcharge other aliens.
• Composite Character: According to Word of God, Kaia is a mix of Chaos and Tikal. She looks like Chaos but has Tikal's role as the former guardian of the Master Emerald who was hunted down by the power-hungry Echidnas. She has also been called "Lady of the Lake", though it's unclear if she implies she's from the Arthurian Legend or references how she literally lives in a lake.
• Decomposite Character: GUN Commander Abraham Tower from Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) is broken down in two different characters:
  • Commander Walters, in that he's the leader of GUN with a hatred towards Shadow.
  • Abraham Tower who witnessed the ARK raid but never joined GUN. He is never seen in the fic, but his grandson (who shares the same name) mentions him frequently.
• Fantastic Racism: Commander Walters is angry just being at the mere presence of aliens and treats them like bombs that could go off at any given moment.
• First-Person Perspective: Obsidian's (aka Mephiles) point of view is narrated from a first person perspective, in contrast to every other character who has a third person perspective.
• Fountain of Youth: Mephiles is de-aged to a few days old infant hedgehog.
• Homeschooled Kids: Knuckles homeschools himself as opposed to attending regular school because large crowds in cramped spaces stress him out. As a result he's the one who looks after Obsidian for most of the day.
• Metaphorically True: Whenever a new alien pops up, the locals don't say "there is a new alien." Instead they say phrses like "a furry friend came for help" or "I found another one of them." It's implied that the town tries to keep the existence of aliens a secret from any outsiders, given the last outsider was Robotnik.
• Original Character:
  • Some of Maddie's co-workers at the clinic, especially Allison. There are also occasional mentions to other twon residents, like the farmer who finds Mephiles or Phillip who runs the grocery store. The author states that this is their way of making the town feel more alive.
  • Kaia, who is a Composite Character of two who exist within the games.
  • Abraham Tower the Third, who is the grandson of this universe's version of Abraham Tower.
• Otherworldly Technicolour Hair:
  • All the aliens that come from Sonic's home planet to Earth - including Sonic - have fur colours that are impossible to find on normal animals. The one exception is Rouge, who has albinism and therefore has white fur.
  • Kaia at first glance is a normal human, and Tom assumes her blue-green hair is dyed. As you'd expect from this trope, it's not dyed - it's one of the many parts of her Meaningful Appearance that hints she's a water goddess. The exact shade of her hair changes depending on her emotional state.
• Pals with Jesus: Kaia is a water goddess of Sonic's homeworld and is on friendly terms with the cast and always willing to defend them or hang out with them.
• Power Incontinence: Obsidian is particularly prone to this; whatever powers he unlocks, he does not have control over it.
• Psychoactive Powers: Generally all the aliens have issues controlling their powers when they're distressed.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • How did Mephiles get de-aged and landed on a random barn in Green Hills? Nobody knows.
  • Little Steps, Big Changes introduces a second one along these lines: how did Blaze and Silver come to this world? All they know is that a light took them.
• Slapstick: Obsidian's favourite form of comedy. Especially when he's the one causing it.
• Troll: Obsidian takes full advantage of the fact nobody knows he's fully aware of his surroundings to pull all sorts of pranks on people. Only Knuckles is on to him.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Rachel and her family are never brought up. Which becomes really weird when Abraham Tower brings up Operation Catfish during a report, but no word about what happened to Randall. Family Comes From Many Places reveals that she still needs time to process things so she's staying away on purpose.

Little Hands, Big Attitude

• Adoptive Name Change: The Wachowski's start discussing what to name the baby hedgehog once it becomes apparent his mother won't show up to look for him. The parents decide to go with a colour theme, Sonic comes up with a bunch of anagrams of his own name, Knuckles goes with the Deathbringer the Adorable approach, and Tails suggests normal human names. Eventually they settle on Obsidian Phillip Wachowski; obsidian for his fur colour (courtesy of Maddie), and Phillip courtesy of Tails (and Mephiles notably reacting to it as it shares a syllabe with his original name). Afterwards he is always referred as (and thinks of himself as) Obsidian. Obbie for short.
• Alternate Self:
  • All the alien characters compared to the versions Mephiles remembers. For Sonic in particular, he notes that the movie version seems much younger and more innocent.
  • Obsidian is surprised to see a version of Chaos that's not full of rage and determined to destroy everything. By contrast, Kaia looks defeated.
• Amusing Injuries: Obsidian finds the various absurd injuries the animals at the vet clinic suffer to be hilarious - especially the sheer bafflement of the owners. Examples include a cat with a hairball problem and a dog who got a squeaker toy up its ass.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Obsidian is baffled to find a language he cannot understand, but thanks to constant exposure he starts understanding the general meaning of some conversations in a few days and has a really good grasp at English in a few months. Unfortunately for him he cannot use English as he's still too young to pronounce words.
• Big Brother Instinct: Sonic adores his new baby brother and constantly hoovers over him. Though over time Knuckles takes the main big brother role.
• Big "WHAT?!": Sonic and Tails' reaction when Tom announces that they have a bed time now.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Part of Maddie's worry for the baby hedgehog is that she has no idea at what rate Mobians grow and mostly has to go off guesswork. Obsidian is able to develop physical skills much faster than a human, but he doesn't grow as fast as earth hedgehogs.
  • Chao evolve like Pokemon. And Kaia has no idea where the food they eat goes. It just vanishes when they eat. Even though she's transparent.
• Brought Down to Badass:
  • As Obsidian grows older, he starts slowly re-accessing some of his old powers, starting with teleportation.
  • Kaia created the Chaos Emeralds to split her power in pieces because she had too much of it.
• Brought Down to Normal: Obsidian used to be an immortal god of time and now he's a mortal infant, who needs food and sleep and all. He even hypothesizes that he forgot some of the previous knowledge he had, like his former Omniglot status, as he cannot understand modern English at first. It turns out that he was actually Brought Down to Badass, as he still has incredible Chaos powers (albeit more limited ones) and Kaia identifies him as a tiny god.
• Cassandra Truth: As usual, nobody believes Carl when he tells everyone he suspects there's a new devil in the woods stealing stuff. Carl decides to capture them as last time Tom only believed him when he met Sonic in person.
• Child Prodigy:
  • Tails is an incredible inventor and consistently gets perfect scores in tests. In one test where he got 97%, Maddie jokingly asks him what happened to the remaining 3. Apparently the teacher doesn't like Tails using advanced vocabularly.
  • Subverted with Obsidian, as his learning is aided by his adult intelligence.
• Continuity Nod: When Sonic complains about having to take a bath Tails remarks that Sonic likes bubble baths - a reference to their conversation in the second movie.
• Cumbersome Claws: The spikes on Knuckles's gloves are actually parts of his hands. While all Echidnas had them, his are unusually long and when he was little he constantly hurt himself with them. His father taught him to keep his hands curled in fists to be on the safe side.
• Cuteness Proximity: Nobody can get over how adorable the tiny baby hedgehog is. Even Knuckles looses his composure for a bit. At one point Mephiles seriously wonders if the constant cooing is the reason normal infants scream all the time.
• Declaration of Protection:
  • Sonic declares that if anyone tries to take away the baby they will have to get through him first.
  • Obsidian decides that anyone who tried to hurt his family or separate them will face his wrath.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • In Mobian culture, diapers are not a thing; instead the baby's guardians carry them outside in the yard whenever they need to relieve themselves.
  • Knuckles states one of the first gifts given to a new member of the family must be a heilroom from an older member. Apparently this is an Echidna-exclusive custom, as Tails and Sonic think that everything must be new or at least in good condition.
  • Tom admits that he's baffled by Mobian naming conventions, because while Sonic and Knuckles' names come from their abilities, Miles is an actual human name. Tails says he never learned where the names in their village come from.
  • Mephiles is also baffled by the Mobians' Line-of-Sight Name thing.
  • Blaze and Silver think that the trash are generous humans leaving supplies for the less fortunate.
• Didn't See That Coming: A minor instance is when Tom is told that there's a fourth alien around. He was expecting another teenager, not a baby.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • The Wachowskis spend a few days waiting for the baby's mother to appear, as they don't understand how a newborn could end up alone in a far. However, the audience knows that Mephiles doesn't have parents, so he'll end up staying with the family permanently.
  • The Wachowskis name Mephiles "Obsidian Phillip" for his fur colour and because he reacted to "Phil", not knowing that it's a Meaningful Name for him; a crystal formed in a volcano is a neat nod to Iblis. Obsidian lampshades this.
  • Kaia has no idea what happened to the Chaos Emeralds or the Master Emerald after the Echidnas stole it from her. All she knows is that they were wiped out recently for unclear causes. She doesn't even know about the conflict between the Echidnas and the Owls, or that the Owls stole the Emerald from the Echidnas.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Obsidian's lack of knowledge about normal life leads to some hilarious comments in his narration; he thinks Ozzy is a "mighty beast", wonders why Sonic likes eating "cold tubes of meat" (he confuses Chilli with chilly), and thinks that mustard is edible paint.
• Faux Horrific: Mephiles at first is utterly terrified of Ozzy the family dog. He calls it a beast!
• Feigning Healthiness: Knuckles pretends not to be in pain from his intense stomach cramps because he believes he has to appear strong, and he had pains like this anymore and they passed. Then it turns out he has an unusually large kidney stone, wihch is definitely not "just a cramp".
• First Contact Farmer: Mephiles arrives on Earth inside a farmer's cow barn. The farmer at first thought one of the cows miscarried before taking a closer look.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Sonic recalls an old story from Mobius about a creature living in the waters around the islands, which contributed to his fear of water. Then Kaia the water goddess shows up.
  • Maddie worries that Obsidian will develop powers akin to Sonic and Knuckles and worries what the government will do to him if that's the case. In a following fic, Obsidian's powers awaken because GUN shows up.
  • The mysterious new girl has green-blue hair and in her first appearance is soaking wet even though it wasn't raining. She also somehow vanishes the second she leaves the store. She turns out to be a water goddess.
  • Carl says that he saw something with glowing beast-like eyes stealing a pair of sneakers. In a later incident, while he's chasing the new "devil", when he returns home he finds the lights turned off and his belongings ransacked. Kaia used her cloning ability to make a distraction.
  • When Tom looks for Sonic after his nightmare, he finds marks on the shore that indicate that someone dragged him out of the water. The last chapter reveals that it was Silver who did it.
  • Commander Walters shows up in person to tell Tom that they have records of "mysterious bursts of energy" that go as far back as 50 years.
  • The mysterious teenager acts like she's never worn a seatbelt before. As a goddess she never had to enter a car before.
  • Kaia states that she never stole anything, which means the trash thieves are a different group. Said thieves being Blaze and Silver.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: Subverted. Kaia usually stays in human form to disguise herself, but after The Reveal she is surprised to be told that the Wachowskis don't mind her true form if it drains her to maintain the disguise.
• Freak Out: Kaia goes through two of them in rapid succession - first when she sees a living Echidna and realizes that's not a ghost, and second when she is told that the Echidnas lost the Master Emerald AGES ago. Fortunately, she calms down enough to sleep through the first, and the second is interrupted by Sonic to give her the full story.
• Glamour Failure: Kaia cannot turn her feet into a human shape.
• Goo-Goo-Godlike: Kaia jokes that it's a good thing the tiny god has a loving family for when he hits his Terrible Twos.
• Hating on Monday: Sonic loathes Monday mornings. Mainly because he is Not a Morning Person.
• Jaw Drop: Mephiles' reaction when he sees that this world also has Sonic in it.
• Jump Scare: As part of his Torment by Annoyance scheme, Mephiles likes to scream at random times to scare the crap out of however is next to him. This resulted in quite e few spilled drinks.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Nobody wants Commander Walters to know about Obsidian, considering his actions in Sonic 2.
  • The brothers decide not to tell their parents about Obsidian's teleportation abilities.
• Loud Sleeper Gag: Sonic snores so loudly that Tails uses earplugs to deal with him.
• Meaningful Appearance: The new girl in town has dyed blue-green hair, wears an army jacket, jeans and sneakers. She is a water goddess from Mobius; her overall colour scheme references the colours found in a lake (army camouflage is supposed to look like natural earth colours, jeans are blue), and the sneakers are the shoe of choice for Mobian characters.
• Meaningful Rename: Mephiles is named "Obsidian Phillip Wachowski" by the Wachowski's when he's adopted. From that point on he thinks of himself as "Obsidian", and the narration refers to him as such.
• Mythology Gag: Knuckles recalls a story about how his tribe once fought a great water beast over the Master Emerald. This is an extremely short summary of the flashbacks revealed in his story in Sonic Adventure.
• Nightmare Sequence: Sonic has a nightmare where he runs through the woods in the middle of the night to find that Echidna warriors have killed his whole family (including Knuckles), plus Longclaw, and that Obsidian is missing. The nightmare is so bad that he actually flees the house while sleepwalking and takes out the power of half the town.
• Noodle Incident: Tails did something to the old blender, so Maddie had to buy a new one.
• Physical God:
  • Kaia, the water goddess who created the emeralds. She's going around disguised as a human teenage girl.
  • According to Kaia, Obsidian is also one despite being in infancy.
• Poke the Poodle: Since Mephiles is completely helpless as an infant and conviced the humans are trying to lull him into a false sense of security, he's going to be the most poorly-behaved infant ever! ...It doesn't really work.
• Properly Paranoid: Knuckles is always ready for the house to be under attack. When Maddie tells him he can't just assume the house will be attacked, Knuckles points out it was attacked and damaged twice within a year. Maddie amends the point.
• Purple Is Powerful: Obsidian's eyes glow purple when he uses his powers, and he is the most powerful of the Wachowski siblings.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Discussed when Tails asks Sonic what would everyone in town think if Sonic broke the rules by Jaywalking because he was the sheriff's son and wouldn't get in trouble for doing so.
• Secret-Keeper: Knuckles is the first and only one to realize that Obsidian fully understands what everyone is saying, and asks him for confirmation. He even offers a secret on his own; that the spikes on his gloves are actually part of his body. Obsidian confirms by calling Knuckles by his name.
• Selective Obliviousness: Kaia pretends that Knuckles is not there for a bit and that she's hallucinating because to her knowledge the Echidnas were wiped out so from her perspective she's arguing with a ghost.
• Sequel Hook: The last scene of the fic gives the first look of the trash thieves. And it's Blaze and Silver.
• Shout-Out:
  • Knuckles is reading through The Hobbit. He and Tom briefly discuss the book's use of The Call Knows Where You Live trope, which Tom compares to the time Sonic broke into their garage in the first movie.
  • Sonic vetoes the name Richard because he knows from watching Batman that it leads to Embarrassing Nicknames.
  • He also vetoes "Twilight" because he refuses to let the baby being associated with the titular franchise.
  • When Kaia mentions that her species evolves as they reach maturity, Sonic instantly compares it to Pokémon.
• Sick Episode: Knuckles starts feeling intense pain around the time the family visits Tom's parents, and it turns into a full blown vet clinic visit when it turns out he has a kidney stone.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Knuckles freaks out when he finds out that the "great beast" his tribe fought for the Chaos Emeralds is their terrified creator, and blames himself for everything wrong his tribe did even though he was around for none of it. The others always try to talk him out of it.
• Tears of Joy: Obsidian can't stop crying when he realizes that the Wachowskis are serious about adopting him and consider him a part of their family.
• Technicolor Toxin: Knuckles is hesitant to try guacamole because in his experience lumpy bright green substances are best avoided. Tom agrees that's a fair assessment.
• Too Good to Be True: For a good while Mephiles can't believe that the humans that took him in - Tom and Maddie - have geniunly good intentions and do not wish to hurt him. He even namedrops this trope.
• Unfazed Everyman: Mephiles is impressed at how Maddie laughs off the antics of four aliens in her house, including the known Weirdness Magnet Sonic.
  "...Nothing fazed this woman, did it?"
• You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Obsidian decides against telling his new family (once able) about his Dark and Troubled Past and how he ended up here because he doubts they would take him seriously if he did.

Little Steps, Big Changes

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: These versions of Silver and Blaze grew up together as opposed to first meeting each other in their teens, so their relationship is Like Brother and Sister as opposed to the canon's Ship Tease.
• After the End: Blaze and Silver's original world. It once was a prosperous kingdom, but then Mount Pele errupted and reduced absolutely everything to ash. The air is so full of ash that it's impossible to tell the passage of time, there are ever-flowing rivers of lava, the seas themselves are boiling, and society just doesn't exist anymore - there's hardly any food left.
• Age Lift: Silver is younger than Sonic in canon but slightly older than him here.
• Ambiguous Situation: Was it really Obsidian who created the imaginary landscape or something acting through him?
• Animal Lover: Played for Laughs. Carl complains that Kaia keeps telling the fish to avoid his lines.
• All for Nothing: Agent Stone finds the chamber Shadow was stored at just after Rouge breaks him out and escapes with him. The narration lampshades this by saying that his efforts are wasted.
• Alternate Identity Amnesia: The only thing Obsidian remembers of the illusionary plane he created was the sensations of being experimented on and someone speaking though him with his old voice. Overlaps with Ambiguous Situation in that this someone called themselves the Sun (implying to be Solaris) but refuses to be associated with the name and expressed Obsidian's own thoughts when talking.
• Alternate Self:
  • Blaze and Silver are different versions from the ones seen in the games, as their individual backstories are sort of merged in a single setting. Games Silver is a time traveller from a ruined future, while this Silver is from the present of a ruined dimension. Meanwhile this Blaze is a descendant of Sonic Rush Blaze, and also has the "ruined world" backstory.
  • Obsidian can see alternate worlds in his sleep. Examples include a winged version of Sonic, a version of Tails who explores the depths with a submarine, and an elderly Knuckles looking over a community.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Even after the absolute chaos that was Obsidian's illusionary scape, Tails doesn't believe that Obbie can understand everything they're saying.
• Artistic License – Biology: Discussed. Tails points out that earth woodchucks do not actually eat wood despite the popular tongue twister.
• Ascended Extra: Original Character Allison gets a more important role in this fic, as Maddie cannot afford - financially or otherwise - to take in more aliens. She is the person Blaze and Silver interact the most with.
• Bait-and-Switch: Knuckles tells Sonic that Obsidian was trying to say Sonic's name. Sonic instantly tells Obsidian to say Sonic, and Obsidian opens his mouth... and spits at him.
• Barefoot Poverty: A sign to show just how bad Blaze and Silver's life was before they got here is that they don't even have a pair of shoes between them.
• Berserk Button: Obsidian has two: hurting his family and being reminded of Solaris. Both are pressed in very quick succession.
• Big "NO!": Obsidian screams no in terror when Commander Walters attempts to kidnap him, which is his greatest fear.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Obsidian hits major baby milestones (figuring out how to crawl, run, say basic words, and growing his baby teeth) at three months old. Sonic's account of his own growth matches this development rate.
• Blessed with Suck: Blaze lies to Sonic that she doesn't have powers. When Silver tells Sonic that Blaze does have power and Sonic asks why she would lie about that, Silver replies that she doesn't like hem. Given that she can create flame in a world that was destroyed by a volcano, this makes sense.
• Body Horror: Obsidian's illusionary recreation of game Sonic. He has a bullet hole in his torso that goes straight through him, No Mouth Mephiles-style, Red Eyes and Obsidian (or whoever is speaking through him) uses him as a puppet. Knuckles tries to stop Sonic from looking at it when he spots it, but he fails. Sonic is completely freaked out afterwards.
• The Bus Came Back: The last scene of the fic marks the return of Agent Stone to the story.
• Call-Back:
  • When Obsidian is trying to figure out which alien group has arrived in Green Hills, he thinks back to the Chaotix Detective Agency, "Team Dark", and Cream with Gemerl and Cheese.
  • Obsidian's illusionary scape is full of these.
    • Knuckles and Tails are trapped into a recreation of the GUN raid on the ARK. This is the most important vision down the line when a bit later Mephilles and Abraham Tower all but force Walters to admit that there is someone "in storage".
    • Sonic and Maddie are trapped in a vision of games Sonic being broken out of prison by Cream.
    • The room Obsidian trapped himself in is the chamber in which the Soleana scientists experimented on him, with game Sonic's corpse thrown in a corner.
    • There are voices quoting the Motive Rants of the various villains in the series coming from thin air.
    • The last memory he shows everyone is the moment Sonic, Shadow, and Silver, all in Super mode, use Chaos Control in the 2006 game.
• Comically Missing the Point: Tails, being eight years old, has no idea why Knuckles is being so polite with Blaze and why Sonic is freaking out over it.
• Continuity Nod: When Tom introduces Kaia to Silver and Blaze as the creator of the Chaos Emeralds, Blaze asks if they are anything like the Sol Emeralds. Kaia says she's not sure.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Combined with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech; Maddie tells Commander Walters that if he hadn't shot her children they wouldn't be trapped in a literal nightmare maze now.
• Drama Queen: Sonic is Afraid of Needles so when the subject of getting shots comes up he describes the experience in the most over the top terrifying way possible. He successfully scares the crap out of Tails even though everyone else in the house tells him Sonic is exaggerating.
  Maddie: Well, don't listen to Sonic. Sonic knows a lot, but he doesn't know everything.
  Tails: Has he gotten shots before?
  Maddie: Yes, he has... And whatever he told you is most likely an incredibly overdramaticized version of how it went.
  Sonic: (not making eye contact) Only the honest truth, Mom!
  Maddie: Mmmhmm... Sure.
• Dramatic Irony: After Kaia tells Tom that dreamscapes are based on their creator's memories, Tom figures that since Obsidian is an infant he came up with some surreal musical Sugar Bowl setting, which is how most infant-aimed cartoons are like. This is immediately after Tails and Knuckles got front seats for Maria's death.
• Drunk with Power: Obsidian's opinion on humanity. While he knows that the striking majority of humans are good and decent people, those who are in positions of authority and not held accountable by others are desperate for more power and wish to rewrite the world as they see fit, all because they can't handle not being the most powerful beings in existence.
• Eldritch Location: What Obsidian temporarily turns his house into after his Traumatic Superpower Awakening. The whole building floats off the ground with twisted floating pathways created from the natural surroundings, while the building is trapped into a dome of mist. Inside the mist the ground breaks to trap each fragment into different life-like intersecting illusions based on Obsidian's memories.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Allison tells Silver that Blaze is taking a shower, Silver asks if humans can command rain showers. Allison laughs but tells him it's actually pipes.
• Evil Laugh: Obsidian when he's pulling pranks - though since he's a toddler it sounds more like a manical cackle.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Obsidian when he's trying to remember which of game Sonic's friend groups consists of two people and realizing the only one he can think of is Silver and Blaze - aka the two people who in this dimension who could possibly recognise him on-sight.
• Fish out of Water: Blaze and Silver, moreso than the other aliens. Since they come from an apocalytpic world, concepts that are known to the others, such as trash or money, are completely foreign to them. They have next to no cultural background either, other than Blaze vaguelly remembering some history, so they can't fall back to habits of everyday life like Knuckles can. This even extends to the climate; ash-free water is a novelty to them.
• Foreshadowing: Sonic identifies the emotions on Commander Walters' face upon seeing Obsidian as confusion and fear, which makes him wonder if Walters recognizes Obsidian. He doesn't, but he sure as hell spots the similarity with Project Shadow.
• From the Mouths of Babes: One of the chapters is titled "From the Mouths of Babes With Past Trauma". Unfortunately, the trauma is very literal; the chapter is about baby Obsidian using the powers he got from his Traumatic Superpower Awakening to force his family and Commander Walters to witness the experiments he suffered in his past life as Mephiles before delivering a "The Reason You Suck" Speech at Walters. Everyone is left very shaken afterwards.
• Great Escape: Obsidian traps Sonic and Maddie into an illusion where Sonic with the aid of Cream and unknown outside help escape an unknown prison.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Tails thinks the only person Robotnik could possibly have a romantic relationship with is Agent Stone. He also wonders if they could have kids together but banishes that though from his mind as quickly as it appears.
• I Am the Noun: Obsidian's response when Commander Walters asks him what he is.
  Obsidian: I am... The Flame of Time... The Trigger... The Sun...
• I Will Find You: Tails and Knuckles decide that they have to find Shadow, especially since from what they figure, he's trapped by GUN somewhere.
• If Only You Knew: When Knuckles openly ponders on Obsidian's past and abilities and wonders how much Obsidian himself knows about them, Obsidian mentally retorts that Knuckles has "no idea how much [he] remembers".
• Ill-Timed Sneeze: Obsidian accidentally sneezes when his family is trying to hide him from Commander Walters who just arrived at their house. Sonic pretends he's the one who sneezed and blames allergies. Unfortunately, that doesn't hide the rest of the evidence.
• Improperly Paranoid: Obsidian knows it's extremely unlikely that the two newcomers (who as far as he knows may not be Blaze and Silver) are going to kill him, but he has a panic attack over the possibility.
• It's All My Fault: Shadow blames himself for Maria's treatments failing because he was created to be a cure, even though Maria makes it clear to him that she cares for him regardless.
• Loophole Abuse: Maddie attempts to pull this when she points out to Commander Walters that Obsidian came to their care before they made the deal not to take in more aliens. Unfortunately, Walters is too much of a xenophobe for that to work.
• Love at First Sight: Knuckles is instantly taken by Blaze. And so is Blaze two sentences later when he admits he was admiring her beauty and elegance.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Silver's pulsating blue marks around his limbs, which are connected to his telekinesis.
• Meaningful Name: Allison compliments Silver on his name saying it suits him. Especially after a good scrub turns his fur from light grey to actually silver.
• Meet Cute: Knuckles and Blaze's first meeting, in which he immediately gets all flustered and admits he wasn't expecting a girl accidentally insulting Blaze, only for then to clarify that he's taken by her beuty and elegance, resulting in a very "Prince Charming" introduction.
• Mirror Routine: Obsidian engages in this with Silver when they finally meet face to face.
• Mistaken for Related: Knuckles and Tails wonder if Shadow is Obsidian's father based on their physical resemblance, but rule it out after they figure out what happened to Shadow.
• Mundane Luxury: Being from a post-apocalyptic world, Blaze and Silver are amazed at things such as bedding or food being easy to find.
• Mythology Gag: Some teens in town decide to start a rock band named Smash 30.
• Nervous Tics: Blaze curls her tail around her legs and ankles when anxious.
• Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females: It's not that the females can't go naked; Blaze at the beginning of the fic gives all her clothes to Silver to keep him warm and shows up at the clinic naked. However, the trope is played straight afterwards.
  Allison: The boys can wear nothing but shoes and gloves all they want, but I have a feeling you'd prefer something more.
• People Puppets: A variation: Obsidian uses the illusion of Sonic's corpse he created to communicate with the people trapped in his mindscape, while Obbie's real body is trapped in a glass test tube.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Discussed. Rouge wonders if the engine room she finds herself in is using the trapped hedgehog as a power source, or if the hedgehog is the engine.
• The Prankster: Now that Obsidian has figured out crawling and running, he entertains himself and Maddie by stealing his brothers' belongings and hiding them in the most random places.
• Princess Classic: Blaze. She is actual royalty, tries her best to move with elegance and manners and make her ancestors proud, is self-sacrificing, and kind. Even though she is reduced to absolute poverty due to coming from an Outback-style Standard Post-Apocalyptic Setting, her elegance shines through enough that other characters call her "young lady" even before she reveals that she's royalty, and curtsies for introductions. She also feels bad not to repay other people's kindness to her.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Abraham Tower isn't happy at all with Commander Walters ordering them to hurt children, even questioning if it's really necessary. But he does it anyway.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:Tails is correct in assuming that Shadow and Obsidian are not related, but for the wrong reasons: he figures that there's no way Obsidian would remember his father from before he was born, so he must be connected to Shadow in some other way. Thing is, Obsidian remembers his past before he was "born" and he does not have parents.
• Secret-Keeper: Kaia finds out Obsidian's former identity as Solaris after she breaks in his illusionary mindscape. However she also understands that Obsidian hates to be reminded of this.
• Security Blanket: Obsidian uses his plush toy Duckie whenever he's distressed and needs to calm down. It doesn't always work.
• Sequel Hook: The final chapter ends with Rouge breaking out Shadow.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
  • Silver's response when Allison suggests he takes a shower.
    Silver: ...Are you subtly suggesting that I am giving off an odor you dislike, Miss Allison?
    Allison: Are you eloquently asking if you stink?
  • Tails combines this with Technobabble when playing Scramble.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Knuckles wonders of Kaia will be alright in the freezing weather, Maddie replies that the cold may not even bother her.
  • Sonic asking Silver for a demonstration of his powers.
    Sonic: Pleeeeeeease? What if I said 'Pretty Please With a Cherry on Top Covered in a Banana Sundae?'
• Sick Episode: The whole fic is one long sick episode, at least from Silver and Blaze's perspective. While he has the ordinary flu, between the fact he's not used to the cold climate and total lack of immunity, his case is far more severe than average. He even suffers short term memory loss from the fever. The plot kicks off when Blaze, seeing no other solution, decides to go to the vet clinic for help.
• Signature Scent: Silver and Blaze smell like soot and smoke, and the scent carries over to everyone they interact with. It's strong enough that even humans can smell it hours later. The issue is solved after a good bath though.
• Something We Forgot: Tom freakes out when he realizes that with the day's chaos, he forgot Silver and Blaze in his car for hours and did not even call Allison. Fortunately the two snuck out of the truck and returned home on their own.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Sonic realizes that Commander Walters seems to recognize Obsidian based on his expressions.
  • Tails notices how Shadow's markings look artificial compared to Obsidian's which blend in with his fur.
  • Tails also realizes that the events he's currently watching (the ARK raid) took place a few decades ago based on Maria's clothing style.
  • Sonic notices that Obsidian creating an illusion where he's being tortured doesn't make sense if his goal is to protect himself.
• Suspicious Missed Messages: Allison realizes something is terribly wrong at the Wachowski house when she tries calling the landline and Maddie's cell phone multiple times and gets no answer. She knows that there's always at least one person in the house able to answer at all times. Sure enough, the house is trapped by Obsidian in his mist dimension after GUN attacked it.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Maddie, Obsidian, and Kaia deliver three separate speeches to Commander Walters in quick succession over his obsession to control the lives of the aliens who have arrived here and condemning them; to say nothing of Tower's snide remarks over Project Shadow in-between speeches.
• To Be a Master: Rouge is determined to be the best thief in the galaxy.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: The sheer terror Obsidian experiences upon beeing kidnapped by Commander Walters and seeing his family get hurt is enough to awaken his illusion/spacial manipulation powers, and trap everybody in immediate rage into a nightmerish illusion dimension that encompases their house.
• Understatement: After Obsidian's illusionary prison of literal nightmares is dispelled, Maddie and Sonic are hilariously nonchalant about the whole thing.
  Maddie: We just got busy dealing with a toddler tantrum.
  Commander Walters: Mrs. Wachowski, I believe you fail to fully comprehend and express the psychological torture we all just went through.
  Sonic: (shrugs) We come in peace and you got told off, what else is there to say?
• Who You Gonna Call?: After seeing that Obsidian has wrapped his entire house in a Chaos Energy mist barrier, Tom goes to the only expert on Chaos Energy around: Kaia. Subverted in that the people in trouble find their own solution.
• Worthless Currency: Discussed. Blaze observes that an economy that mainly uses paper that's only said to be special can collapse at any moment, because the material the currency is made of is worthless by itself.
• Would Hurt a Child: Upon seeing Obsidian, Commander Walters orders his soldiers to shoot tranquilizers to Sonic and Knuckles and kidnap Obsidian straight from their arms.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Obsidian combines this with Batman Gambit to come up with one hell of a plan within seconds; realizing that Commander Walters knows Shadow simply by his facial expressions, and simultaneously going through a Traumatic Superpower Awakening due to stress, he manages to set up an elaborate illusion where he traps Walters, Abraham Tower, and his entire family, in which he shows Knuckles and Tails Shadow's backstory and then uses another illusion along with Tower's own knowledge of the events to all but force Walters to admit that they have someone "in storage", and helping Knuckles and Tails realize that Shadow is real and share this information with the rest of the family. The whole thing is downplayed though after it's revealed that Obsidian felt something speaking through him and he doesn't actually remember anything after the point Sonic passed out.

Buying the Essentials

• Continuity Nod: Blaze decides to name her new "raccoon" plush after Captain Marine.
• Fish out of Water: Allison knows that most teenagers wouldn't be caught dead sleeping with plush toys or boys and girls sharing a room, but Blaze and Silver didn't grow up with such notions. Then there are things like Silver wondering if there is a "right" size for a foot, or Blaze wondering why a bed needs a skirt. They also wonder what normal teenage bedrooms look like, since they only thing they can compare to is Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles' room, which is full of stuff Sonic gathered over the course of ten years.
• Flashy Teleportation: Silver tells Allison that he and Blaze were taken to this dimension by a light.
• Mundane Luxury: Once again, Blaze and Silver are amazed by having blankets without holes.
• Rule of Three: Silver fails to tuck in the matress cover three times before giving up and asking Blaze for help.
• Shout-Out: Allison puts The Wizard of Oz on TV. Silver asks her if it's really possible for tornadoes to teleport people.
• Vague Age: Because it's impossible to keep track of dates in their original dimension, Blaze and Silver don't know how old they actually are. Allison believes that there somewhere between 15 and 16, in that they look a bit older than Sonic but not Knuckles.
• Viewer Species Confusion: In-Universe, Blaze confuses the red panda plush for a raccoon plush.

What is Love?

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the games, Blaze and Knuckles barely if ever interact, but here they are at the very beginnings of a romantic relationship (as in, not even realizing they're crushing on each other but spending a lot of time together).
• Big Brother Instinct: Allison calls it "Protective Brother Syndrome". Aka how Silver feels about Knuckles possibly hurting Blaze's feelings.
• The Ex's New Jerkass: Allison's older sister left her previous boyfriend Wade for a guy she was infatuated with despite all the red flags Allison tried to point out to her.
• First Snow: This fic ends with Silver and Blaze's first time seeing snow. At first they think it's ash and panic, and then they're baffled when Allison explains to them that's it's frozen water.
• Fish out of Water: Once again, Silver and Blaze, who have no idea what snow is. They think it's ash, and then freak out over it being cold.
• The Four Loves: Allison brings up Storge, Philia and Eros when explaining the different kinds of love to Silver.
• Psychoactive Powers: Silver loses control over his powers whenever Knuckles is around because he's distressed over his growing relationship with Blaze.
• Questioning Title?: What is love?
• Shout-Out: Sonic invites over Blaze so they can play LEGO Batman.
• Visual Pun: Silver accidentally calls back a ball he threw in a baseball match right Knuckles' head. Sonic's reaction?
  Sonic: That's what I call a Curveball!
• What Is This Feeling?: Silver has a hard time identifying his emotions. For example it takes him a while to figure out he's angry at something, and has to be told that there are different types of love and the type of love he feels for Blaze (Like Brother and Sister) is different than what is developing between Knuckles and Blaze.

The Thief and the Sleeper

• Adaptational Badass: This version of Rouge has Super-Hearing and she can also hear the history of places she's in. This makes her a Scarily Competent Tracker. The game version of her doesn't have any superpowers.
• Adaptational Personality Change:
  • This version of Shadow has practically nothing in common in terms of personality with the game version of him. He hates fighting and is polite as much as he can.
  • Rouge isn't the confident master gem thief she was in the games, but a rookie yearning for the respect of The Guild. Not to mention she cannot manipulate people for shit. Overall she comes of as far more immature and far less experienced. She's also ashamed of her albinism and therefore wears more covering clothes to hide her fur colour.
• Afraid of Doctors: One of Shadow's Trauma Buttons, as he was experimented on. Just being in Maddie's clinic stresses him out because it smells sterile.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Was Shadow really created by Gerald Robotnik? Or was he yet another alien who randomly popped up on Earth, and Gerald made him his lab rat? There is evidence that points to both directions, but it's so miniscule it might as well not be there.
  • Who sends Shadow visions of Sonic Adventure 2? Shadow wonders if it's Obsidian doing it (since his illusion told the others about Shadow's existence) but Obsidian's own POV doesn't reveal anything like that.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: According to the ARK reports, Shadow used to be viciously aggressive, even attempting to kill one of the scientists. Post amnesia Shadow is polite and hates violence, leaving behind a child-like curiosity.
• Amnesiac Hero: As a result of being in stasis for fifty years and the trauma from the ARK raid, Shadow experiences Identity Amnesia and short-term memory loss. The former leads him to a Quest for Identity, while the latter leads him to forget what he's doing even as he's doing it, which is always Played for Drama. The only thing he knows for sure is his name. He gets some memories back over the course of the fic.
• Amusement Park of Doom: Shadow's pod was hidden in an abandoned amusement park, featuring all sorts of attractions like a Hall of Mirrors. And it was built over a top secret government base.
• Awesomeness by Analysis:
  • Stone figures out that Project Shadow was broken out by teenage female alien by noticing how the open airvents aren't big enough to fit a human and listening to a broken up voice recording. That said, he didn't know that the male teenager he was hearing was Shadow, as like many people, didn't know that this is a sentient being and not a machine.
  • Stone also succeeds in making a rudimentary Chaos Energy scanner just from his very brief exposure to the Master Emerald.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: The Queen's Sequence (using a horn to make the Morse code for the letter Q), is supposed to be used by ships on which the Queen of England rides on as a signal to other boats and ships to move away, or by incoming trains warning incoming cars. Agent Stone uses it to get other cars to get out the lane he's driving on, which leads to a lot of confusion. The crazy part is that Stone doesn't think he's using this trope because in his mind he's on a mission (aka his self-appointed revenge quest) and therefore really does have the right of way (which he doesn't).
• Bears Are Bad News: Shadow is more worried about running into a bear than being captured by the government.
• Blatant Lies: Sonic promises that he'll come back straight to the house after he's all gun-ho about finding Shadow in the woods and helping him. The scene immediately following that?
  Tower: ...You know, I don't think he's coming back like you told him to.
  Tom: Nnnnope.
• Buffy Speak: When he's freed from his stasis pod, Shadow describes the Earth as "the big, round, blue shape".
• Call-Back:
  • Sonic asks Shadow not to crush his hand like Knuckles did.
  • Tails boasts that their dad is really good at punching government agents.
  • Agent Tower reminds the GUN leadership that they were very reluctant to let Robotnik investigate the blackout. In the same discussion he also references Operation Catfish.
• Cane Fu: Shadow jokes that if any human spots them he can whack them with his cane. Rouge kills his good mood by reminding him that canes don't beat guns.
• Cassandra Truth: Knuckles no longer bothers hiding that Obsidian can fully understand them, but nobody believes him.
• Chick Magnet: Shadow has a memory of Maria telling him that all the girl hedgehogs will blush when he grows up and walks by.
• Continuity Nod: One of actual plot significance: Shadow keeps having visions of his fall after the final boss fight of Sonic Adventure 2, with Super Sonic attempting to save him.
• Demoted to Extra: Most of the fic focuses on Shadow, Rouge, and Agent Tower (who is an Ascended Extra), while giving next to no attention to the main cast of the previous fics.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Nobody expected Project Shadow to be a living being.
  • Stone is shocked to see his mech stopped by Silver, as he did not even know Silver exists.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of the reasons The Guild abandoned Rouge is that they realized that she really could find Project Shadow and bring it to their base, and that's probably not the safest thing to be near to.
• Disappointed in You: Tower thinks he'll have to practice his "not mad, just disappointed" look for dealing with Sonic. Especially since he doesn't really know how to deal with kids.
• Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy: Taken to it's ultimate conclusion when an overcharged Silver breaks down Stone's Power Armor to its individual components, even separating the individual wires, all in an instant.
• Doesn't Like Guns: As a result of witnessing Maria's death, Shadow has an instinctive dislike of firearms even when he doesn't recall her dying.
• Dramatic Dislocation: Sonic dislocates his shoulder after crashing on the frozen lake, making it impossible to carry Shadow who can't walk due to his disabled leg. They need Silver's assistance to make it home. Maddie gives him a towel to bite down when she sets it back. Knuckles says his tribe used bark instead.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • GUN thinks that Shadow is responsible for the abandoned structure blowing up because they detected his signal there right before the explosion. They have no idea it was the headquarters of The Guild and the building was set to explode anyway.
  • An agent calls Agent Tower "Commander's Pet" for being assigned to permanently watch the aliens at Green Hills by his (Tower's) request, not knowing that Tower was the one who told the higher-ups that Commander Walters is unfit for the case and therefore probably hates Tower.
• The Dreaded: Carl, for his general tendency to greet those entering his property with shotguns and chainsaws.
• Dumpster Dive: Rouge calls it "finding free samples". It's her main method for finding food.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Sonic knocks on Silver's window and asks where Blaze is, Silver asks him if "his older brother send him on an errand on behalf of Eros". It takes Sonic a moment to register the question before denying it.
• Exact Words:
  • Rouge and Shadow's deal states that he will let her take him to the guild, and she won't hurt him. He never said he'd stay at the Guild. This becomes moot when it's revealed that The Guild abandoned their base.
  • Agent Stone tells Shadow and Rouge that Robotnik is away on a Sabbatical. Considering that they Never Found the Body, it's entirely possible (and he believes) that he's right.
• Eye Am Watching You: How Rouge convey's to Shadow to stay put while she's looking for The Guild members.
• Facepalm: Rouge's reaction when she accidentally presses Shadow's gun-related Trauma Button.
• Fish out of Water: Whatever little things Shadow remembers of his past don't help him in the slightest. His introductory scene has him wondering how he knows the word "chlorophyll" and why he can't see the stars and the Earth in the sky.
• Flash Sideways: Shadow seems to somehow remember the ending of Sonic Adventure 2, where Super Sonic tried to save him from falling to the Earth.
• Foreshadowing: Shadow notices quite a few things about The Guild from Rouge's descriptions that foreshadow that they decided to abandon her and blow up their base.
  • Rouge is desperate to prove herself to them.
  • All the members address each other by numbers, but while Rouge has a number everyone calls her "Batgirl".
  • The mere fact that they sent her alone without backup to retrieve a top secret weapon, when she's supposedly a rookie.
  • Shadow openly wonders why a seemingly professional organization that only hires people who have something to offer would take in and raise an alien child.
  • They frequently change the code of the hideout entrance while she's away on missions. Including this one.
  • The elevator says "out of order". Rouge at first dismisses it as a deterrent against intruders but then it turns out that it really is out of order.
  • After he and Rouge are locked in the elevator, even after five minutes nobody comes to investigate. Shadow has to break them out of the elevator.
  • Shadow notices that Rouge uses many words like "maybe", "I think", or "probably" when talking about them.
  • Even after they escape the elevator, they don't find anyone in the hall.
• General Failure: Commander Walters lies to his superiors that Sonic attacked them in order to hide that the mission went FUBAR because of his trigger happy tendencies. Fortunately, the superiors see Agent Tower twitching in the background and privately ask him for his version of the events.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy:
  • Stone found out Project Shadow's location by eavesdropping conversations and switching a fake resume with a fake name with another resume; Walters was too eager to hire new people to actually check if any of the people applying for the top secret mission were clear.
  • At one point Shadow wonders if the GUN agents looking for him are actually military or if they're Bigfoot hunters due to how incompetent they are. Downplayed in that the mysterious voice indirectly disabled their tracking devices. Hell, the local police finds him before GUN does.
• Had to Be Sharp: Silver knows how to make excellent psychic shields from having to block volcanic debris back in his home dimension.
• Handicapped Badass: Overlapping with Disabled in the Adaptation; Shadow is among the top three strongest Chaos users in the series (along with Kaia and Obsidian), but other than his amnesia, he also has horrific pains in his left leg that prevents him from using it much, forcing him to limp and walk with a makeshift cane. The end of the fic reveals that there are bullet fragments in his leg, and if left alone without surgery, it could result in him losing it.
• Hearing Voices: Shadow oftentimes hears Maria's voice talking to him. There's also a different voice that guides him to Green Hills and later talks to him about his problems.
• Heroic RRoD:
  • Shadow gets exhausted if he teleports too many times in a row.
  • Silver gets one hell ofa migraine that lasts through a whole night after Shadow overcharges him.
• Hey, You!: Rouge gets so annoyed with Shadow that she starts calling him "Quill Pickle." Soon afterwards, Shadow starts calling her "Baton Rouge".
• Homoerotic Subtext: Sonic outright refers to Agent Stone as Robotnik's Boy-Toy.
• Honor Before Reason: Shadow declares he won't lie to anyone about his actions and origins even if that puts him in the ice again.
• I Am Not a Gun: Shadow decides that he doesn't feel neither like a cure to all diseases nor a weapon, and there fore from now on he will make his own decisions.
• I Am the Noun: Sonic says that his dad IS the law.
• I Don't Pay You to Think: Agent Tower's view on how it's like to work under Commander Walters.
  "Listen and obey, that was what they wanted Tower to do, and never question or ask for more details, even if it meant preventing the situation getting out of hand."
• I Gave My Word: Shadow states that he always keeps his promises as long as he's physically capable of doing so.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Tails is left alone with Obsidian and out loud wonders that Obsidian is such a cute baby, how much trouble could he be...?
  Tails: Actually, my monkey wrench is still missing, so there's that.
• Invisible to Normals: Chaos Energy registers as a green glow to those particularly attuned to it. So far Shadow is the only one on this list. Tails states that it's a well-known legend but never had actual proof for it.
• It's All My Fault: Shadow blames himself for his sister Maria and all the innocent people at the ARK dying.
• Jumped at the Call: As soon as Sonic hears that Shadow is around, he ignores all orders from his parents and Agent Tower to stay put so they don't get those parents into hot water and more or less drags Silver to help him. Tower later chews him out on it, pointing out how Sonic's Leeroy Jenkins tendencies have endangered himself and his loved ones in the past and they are only unscathed thanks to outside interference or dumb luck.
• Kudzu Plot: The fic leaves many, many things unanswered. Who is The Guild and how did they know about Project Shadow? Why send someone to steal it? Who is the mysterious voice that's helping Shadow? How does Shadow have memories of Sonic Adventure 2? Is Shadow really an artificial creation like he was in the games? Who is Doctor Walters and does he have a connection to Commander Walters? What REALLY happened to Eggman? And those are just the ones introduced here; we still don't know how the aliens other than Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles found themselves on Earth.
• Language Drift: Shadow occasionally uses outdated slang, reflecting how he's from the 70's.
• Left for Dead: Stone manages to knock Rouge unconscious and trap her in a machine cage out on the snow to freeze to death.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Tower is annoyed by how little he knows about Project Shadow. He only knows a vague outline from the drunken ramblings of his grandfather (as in, his grandpa had a crush on a girl named Maria, Shadow was a person, and that several people were killed and arrested). Meanwhile GUN tells him absolutely nothing.
• Lying by Omission: Agent Tower tells GUN leadership that the infant hedgehog threw a tantrum when Commander Walters attempted to take him by force and therefore they were "trapped in the house for a while". While that's certainly true, the whole "the baby turned the house into a maze dimension of nightmares where Walters got told off by a being from beyond who knows about Project Shadow" is left out.
• Master of Unlocking:
  • Rouge as a thief. According to Stone, she managed to disable all of the security systems in Shadow's compound site and enter undetected.
  • Shadow can use Chaos energy to unlock electronic locks.
• Meaningful Name: Rouge's name means "red" in french. When asked about it, she says that her mother told her she was born red like a rose and screaming at the world.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Sonic's attempt at comforting Shadow, which instantly backfires.
  Sonic: Careful is my middle name!
  Shadow: Really?
  Sonic: Erm... No, not really.
• Mistaken for Related: Shadow asks Sonic if he and Obsidian are biological siblings, as they have the same eye colour and Obsidian has blue hues in his fur. Sonic denies it.
• Mr. Exposition: Stone tells Shadow and Rouge about how he was made as a cure for various diseases and what happened at the ARK raid, as well as about Maria. Interestingly, he doesn't lie once.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Rouge's opinion on the the name "Robotnik" is that it's very sketchy.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: The mysterious voice hides Shadow's Chaos Energy signature by filling the entire town with Chaos Energy, disguising the signal.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Shadow says he and Sonic are not so different after Sonic tells him how his guardian Longclaw was killed by people who wanted to use Sonic.
• Obviously Evil: Shadow and Rouge immediately peg Stone as suspicious because he's "too chummy" with them and his (truthful) claim that he worked for the grandson of Shadow's creator.
• Oh, My Gods!: At one point Silver swears an oath to Pele's Crown.
• Parental Abandonment: Rouge's parents abandoned her when she was little and she was taken in by The Guild.
• Powered Armor: Stone has one. He uses it to pursue and attempt to kill Sonic and Shadow.
• Precocious Crush: Downplayed. Grandpa Tower still wishes that he was born a few years earlier so he could have a chance with Maria.
• The Promise:
  • Shadow and Rouge promise each other that they will stick together after The Guild abandons her.
  • Out of all the things the people at the Ark wanted out of Shadow, he decides to keep his promise to Maria to be good and live for her.
• Protagonist Title: The Thief refers to Rouge the Bat, and the Sleeper to Shadow the Hedgehog, who are the two main characters of this fic.
• Put on a Bus:
  • GUN informs Commander Walters that he's removed from the Green Hills case.
  • Kaia spends the entirety of the fic trapped in the frozen lake.
• Real Is Brown: Shadow's impression of Earth is that he expected it to be more colourful.
  Shadow: So far, this world has been a lot more... blah, than I was expecting.
  Rouge: What's that supposed to mean?
  Shadow: I guess I just expected more... swirling colors and spontaneous action, not brown grass, and gray, creepy rooms like this.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Agent Tower correctly points out to his superiors than so far GUN's actions have only provoked the aliens and they cannot accurately observe their behaviors if every interaction puts the aliens on the defensive, and points out how Commander Walters is far too aggressive and eager to attack them unprovoked. He also hides the existence of Silver and Blaze (he saw them hiding in Tom's truck), knowing that the less Walters knows (or has the possibility of knowing) the safer everyone will be.
  • Suprisingly, GUN leadership is in this position, as they realize based on Tower's reactions that Commander Walters was ommiting things from his report, carefully listen to Tower's report and suggestions, remove Commander Walters from the Green Hills case and take Tower's suggestions into consideration.
• Refusal of the Call: Subverted. Sonic asks Silver to help him find Shadow, and Silver refuses. However he then goes to help anyway, but not because he wants to help but because he wants to keep an eye on the person who asked.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder:
  • Rouge sarcastically asks Shadow to try and talk to a human and see what happens. Then she's gobsmacked when he actually turns around to take her up to it. Shadow grew up surrounded by humans and he's amnesiac to boot, he has no concept of having to hide from them.
  • Later she asks him if he even knows what Baton Rouge is after he calls her that, and he instantly replies that it's capital city of Louisiana, located on the shore of Mississippi river.
• Sadistic Choice: The reason Rouge's mother abandoned her was because the village forced her to either do that, or have both of them starve to death.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Sonic completely ignores Tom and Tower's warning not to go look for Shadow to help him. The chapter is even called "Heroes Before Rule-Followers, Or... Something Like That".
• Secret-Keeper: Agent Tower hides the existence of Silver and Blaze from GUN.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Shadow is annoyed whenever his brain brings up the scientific terms for things he sees around him, mainly because he doesn't know where those big words come from.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Guild members address Rouge as "Batgirl".
  • Shadow at one point exclaims "Jeepers Creepers" in exasperation.
  • Sonic gets mad at Maddie for disrespecting The Sixth Sense by not recognising the I See Dead People line.
• Skewed Priorities: While Rouge is tracking Shadow in the Hall of Mirrors, she takes the time to adjust her outfit and complains about how her leotard always sags at the front.
• So Much for Stealth: One of Shadow's attempts to evade detection by teleporting accidentaly starts a snow flood.
  "...Well dang, so much for sneakily getting away, he'd just started a ''snow flood!"
• Super-Empowering: Shadow can use Chaos energy to supercharge the abilities of other aliens.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Shadow and Rouge agree to work together, even though they don't like each other at all, because they have no choice in the matter - Rouge has to deliver him to The Guild and Shadow has no idea what to do and where to go.
• Thieves' Guild: The thief guild which Rouge is a member of, which is just called "The Guild".
• This Is Gonna Suck: Tower is pretty sure that telling Tom he's now permanently stationed in Green Hills on GUN's behalf is going to end in a disaster.
• Trap Is the Only Option: Shadow knows that taking the old, out of order elevator to the Thieves' Guild that wants to kidnap him is a bad idea, but his other option is to hobble down seven flights of stairs on his bad leg and cane.
• Trauma Button:
  • Anything even vaguelly similar to the destruction of the ARK sends Shadow straight into a panic. He freaks out over the carnival laser rifles and flees when Rouge tells him that The Guild sent her to collect him.
  • Rouge's button is over her appearance; because she has albinism, she was abandoned by her family and the other bats, who are normally dark-furred.
• Uncertain Doom: Nobody knows if Robotnik is alive or dead. Stone is convinced that the man will return one day, and Sonic doesn't rule out the possibility, but there hasn't been a single hint that he's around, and he was last seen being crushed by a giant robot. Even though they Never Found the Body.
• The Un-Smile: Shadow's one memory of Gerald is him smiling down at him in an attempt to comfort him, but Shadow instead found it disconcerting.
• We Win, Because You Didn't: Combined with an almost Heroic Sacrifice; Shadow figures that if he can't avoid getting captured, he can at least prevent Stone from getting the Chaos Emeralds, and throws it in Kaia's lake through a hole in the ice. Shadow can't use any of his abilities without it, and he's later informed that Kaia is looking after it.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Tom and Allison try to convice Maddie to tell Allison's father about Shadow, as he is an extremely skilled surgeon, and is visiting town in a few days anyway. Asking him to perform surgery on Shadow in secret is possibly the only way they have to save Shadow's leg from being permanently crippled or amputated.
• What Did I Do Last Night?: Shadow tried to break into the Wachowski house and then get back to Rouge, and next thing he knows, he's alone in a cave god-knows-where. He once again curses his memory problems.
• Who's on First?: The mysterious voice's attempt to direct Shadow to Green Hills doesn't go so well.
  mysterious voice: Green... Hills... Go...
  Shadow: Green Hills... There are a lot of those, I'm sure.
• Won't Get Fooled Again: Sonic once convinced Silver that the parked cars of the teachers must be arranged by colour. He got grounded for that one. So when Sonic comes to his window telling him miscievously that there's an emergency in the woods and he must come now and be a hero, Silver doesn't believe him for a second.
• Would Hurt a Child: Agent Stone is perfectly aware that all the aliens that arrived on Earth so far have are teenagers (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and whoever broke out Shadow), but his reaction is to grin over how easily it will be to exploit them.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • After The Guild abandons Rouge, Shadow tells her that she is a great inflitrator and that he'd still be in that capsule if it wasn't for her, and they have no idea what they're loosing by leaving her.
  • Maddie tells Rouge that her colony was wrong for thinking she's useless as she survived for so long and that she's a fighter.
• You Are Grounded!: Maddie grounds Sonic after he lies to them and Agent Stone to try and find Shadow on his own.
• You Keep Telling Yourself That: Shadow's response when Rouge tells him she's the best thief in the galaxy.

Family Comes From Many Places

• Affectionate Nickname: Mrs. Riley instantly starts calling Blaze "precious".
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Tails calls her out on hurting Sonic's feelings, Rouge retorts that no one ever cared about her feelings. Tails retorts that was probably because she never let anyone do so. The bat's response to that is to huff and leave the room.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When Espio complains on the phone about the cold and the snow and the weather and his job turning out to be more serious than he expected, his friend bluntly reminds him that he wanted to be a ninja. Espio amends the point.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Knuckles mentions an alien species called Venfrelk. He desn't give many details, but Earth's atmosphere has too muchoxygen for them to survive, and they have a roar so loud and low in tone that it causes earthquakes.
• Black Sheep: Nobody in the family seems to really like Opal. Her parents love her but constantly keep an eye on her in case she starts fighting with Allison again, and she and Allison clearly hate each other. On top of that Opal is The Resenter because their parents sold their old house to Allison as opposed to her, and she thinks it should have been hers because she's older.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Allison briefly mentions her sister in What is Love? when pondering how she left Wade for a guy who was nothing but red flags. In this fic, it's revealed that sister's name is Opal and she came with Allison's parents because she doesn't have anyone to spend Christmas with.
• Didn't See That Coming: Allison is very surprised - and displeased - to find out her sister was also coming unannounced.
• Dreaming of Times Gone By: Shadow has a dream of being very little and an adult hedgehog holding him while running.
• Exact Words: Maddie tells Sonic right after the roar that she'll consider letting him and the others investigate. The next morning she forbids them from going, and when Sonic protests, she reminds him that she said "consider", not "allow". She considered and decided on "no".
• Fantastic Racism: Upon seeing Silver and Blaze, Opal calls them mutant rats, calls them "it", and refuses to come close to them in case they have parasites or infect her with something. She even yells to call the police or the army on them, and is less than happy to know that both know and are doing nothing.
• Hell Is That Noise:
  • The whole town is woken up in the middle of the night by some kind of roar powerful enough to shake buildings. What's worse is that nobody has any idea what it is; Rouge can only tell that it doesn't sound mechanical, Shadow has heard it before but has no idea where or when, and Knuckles says that it sounds a bit like an animal he encountered on another planet, but he knows for a fact they cannot survive on Earth. Later it's revealed that Espio was near the source and was knocked back by the shockwave.
  • The alien creatures in question are called Venfrelk, and according to Kncukles their roars are even bigger. He describes it as a sound so low and loud that the house should have been shaking far more. Sonic hopes they never run into one.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Allison mentions all the aliens who are currently living on Green Hills to her family; except Shadow. Mr. Riley picks up that she's hiding something but she tells him she wants to discuss it away from the kids.
• No Name Given: Allison's parents are referred to as Mr. and Mrs, Riley in the narration, and Allison calls them "mom and dad". We don't know what their given names are.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Allison held on to Opal's phone all day because she wanted her sister to spend some time with Blaze and Silver, and totally not because she was worried about said sister posting pictures of the aliens on social media.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Allison introduces her parents and sister to Silver and Blaze - her sister less than willingly, since she didn't know she was coming.

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