Disclaimer: I don’t own Sonic or Mighty. They’re owned by the Sonic Team.
____________________________________
Timothy was an average guy who had a great interest in Mighty the Armadillo. His favorite Sonic character, he read many comics with Mighty in it, and played Games that had him in it - both official and fanmade. The Armadillo appealed to his sense of style perfectly.
However, lately, he was feeling a bit like he was missing something in his life. Though he was already very quick in racing, he felt he needed to be able to protect himself, since there are times that you can’t run away from situations. He decided to enroll in a martial arts class.
However, before he did enroll, he decided to call his friends, Ben and Kyle. He decided to call Benjamin first.
"Hello, Bonner residence," Ben’s mom said.
"Misses Bonner, it’s Timothy. Is Ben back yet?", Timothy asked.
"No he’s not. I’ll tell him you called though."
"Uh... Thanks," Timothy said as he hung up. Ben was never in anymore. Something was definitely off.
He considered calling Kyle, but decided not to. He heard weird news reports, and wouldn’t doubt that Kyle’s parents had disconnected their phone. Turned into Miles Prower and went to Mobius? Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see it.
He did, however, call his other pal, Josh. Josh was excited to hear about what his friend was doing. At least Josh didn’t let him down. Although the two were growing distant.
The next thing he did was call his band and tell them he’s quitting. Max was the unofficial leader of the band. He frowned. He’d rather tell his other bandmates first, but if he did, Hayato and Riley will get a brunt of Max’s anger.
"Yo, It’s Max, Talk ta’ me," shouted the loud voice on the other end.
"Hey Max, it’s me, Timothy," Timothy started.
"Ah, our lead singer. What’s up?"
"Well, I’m sorta’ not going to be able to be the lead singer anymore... At least, not for a while. Think you can find a replacement in time?"
"Bah, who needs a replacement, I’ll do da’ singing until yous return!"
Timothy winced. The whole reason he JOINED their band was to keep him from singing. He had no choice tho, "Umm... Okay. Tell the others that I’m sorry about this, okay?"
"‘shore thing, pal. I’ll sees ya later, alright?"
"Yeah... Bye"
CLICK
* * *
A Few Days Later, Tim grabbed his gi and got ready for his karate lessons. Along his way there, he met up with his least favorite person in the word, Nicholas.
"Nice pajamas, geek."
"It’s called a gi, Nicholas. Why don’t you just go jump down a Chimney?"
"Ho ho ho, keep talking and I’ll give you a Christmas present early."
"Whatever. Just get out of my way, weasel."
Nicholas pushed up on his glasses, a dangerous look in his eyes. "No one, calls me a weasel."
"...What? You want to fight? Out in the middle of the street, in broad daylight? That’s a sure-fire way to get arrested you know."
"Good point . . oh you’re not worth it. I have more important things to do than waste time on a guy fixated on a obscure cartoon character."
"Look who’s talking, you’re fixated on Nack the Weasel"
"His name is Fang the Snipe-err, whatever!" Nicholas rolled his eyes and sulked off into the nearest book store. "Loser."
Timothy smirked at his newest victory against the powers of idiotic thugs, and walked off to his karate class and Nicholas looked through the true crime books in the reality section of the book shop again.
It was true, Timothy was a fan of Mighty, while he hadn’t been in that many games, he was his favorite. While he was disappointed, he had to admit Mighty would be an unbalanced character in games like Sonic Championship and Sonic Battle, he’d kick all their butts! Sadly that situation was inverted in his karate class, he was the newbie among them.
Tim shook his head, getting off the mat. "Timothy, you need to stop challenging the more experinced students like this to sparing matches . . . You need to match up with students at your level." Said one of the instructors. "There’s no honor in being foolish."
Timothy could barely hear him over the pounding headache he had from that last kick. "Oww... Yeah, I guess your right... But this is a lot harder than my friends made it seem."
"That’s what experience makes anything seem. You’re eager, your focused, you just need time."
"Yeah... Your right Sensei..."
"Now then . . . practice on the kata short one, block, block, upward block, upward block, left foot at eleven o’clock not right foot Tim."
Tim sighed. "Right."
And that’s how it went. He’d get over confident, and get his butt handed to him from reluctant students a couple belts above him, it was getting harder to find ones that would fight him, they said it just wasn’t right. And when he did fight with the other white belt students.
"Tim! You’re putting too much force behind your blow, don’t super extend your arms, don’t lean foreword when attacking, you just leaving yourself open to attack."
"Once in a fight Tim you tend to forget yourself, if you don’t recognize your limits you can’t pass them."
"Right." Tim grunted.
After Tim finished there, he went to the track, to see his friends... The circle of friends has shrunk the last few days... Timothy, Charlie, Josh and Chris were all bored to near tears while Sean was ranting.
"The others are gone! It must be a plot by Sony to pick off each and every single Sonic fan in the world! We’re doomed," Sean whined.
If Timothy was an anime character, he would sweatdrop.
"Come on, do you realize how STUPID that sounded?", Chris pointed out.
"It must be true! It’s the only explanation. That’s why they invented that absurd story about people turning into Sonic characters and vanishing!"
"I’m not so sure it sound so absurd to me . . . Ben and Kyle’s families-," Josh began to point out.
"Sony must have forced them to say those things!"
" . . . . You taken your pills today?", asked Charlie
"I’m not on medication!"
"Maybe you should be," Timothy replied.
"If you believe that crazy story then you’re the one who needs medication."
While Sean continued his rant, Timothy walked off, rolling his eyes.
It was getting late anyway... Timothy decided he’d have supper and go to bed...
* * *
Tim awoke the next morning feeling strange. The dreams he’d had were nonsensical, filled with images that made little sense. He still felt uneasy mentally as though something was going to happen. The feeling was one he couldn’t explain. He’d never experienced a feeling like this and it terrified him.
He climbed out of bed and as he started walking towards the bathroom, he immediately noticed something was wrong. His shirt seemed longer and his pants looser. He considered it was his imagination and continued on his way.
When he walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, his reflection seemed off. Everything felt a little higher but this wasn’t what captured his attention. There was something odd about the lower half of his face. His skin tone was different there, like a toned beige color.
"Hey, what’s going on?" he asked.
He then noticed that the skin on his arms was the same color and they seemed skinnier yet for some reason felt stronger. As well, his brown hair seemed rigid and he could have sworn it was growing down his neck and onto his back.
"Um, okay," he started, beads of sweat forming on his head as he started shaking with fear.
Nervously, he lowered his pants to see that the skin tone on his legs was far darker then normal. It looked like he’d been tanning for weeks. Finally, he could have sworn his ears were higher up on his head, seemed to be protruding more, and were skinnier.
He finally lifted his shirt off to see that his chest had the same tanned beige skin as the lower half of his face and his sides the same skin color of his legs. Rigid brown hair seemed to have covered his back. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get a good view of it even with the mirror.
"What’s wrong with me?"
He tried to rationalize what was happening; perhaps it was his imagination or maybe he was still dreaming. Something about this however, felt far too coherent to be a dream. A wave on panic ran over Tim as he realized this was all too real. He put his clothes back on and ran back into his room, closing the door behind him.
He walked over to his closet mirror and looked at himself. There was something familiar about the pattern of his coloration. He knew he’d seen it before but he was far too nervous to pinpoint exactly where. His hair color seemed to change, almost literally in front of his eyes. The normally brown color seemed to change into auburn; it grew down over his forehead, getting even more rigid as it marched further down his back.
Tim nervously touched the hair, it barley moved and felt much less like hair then some sort of shell. He also noticed his gray eyes were starting to take on a hint of blue. His eyes also seemed to be getting bigger and his nose was turning black.
When he lost a little more height, he was starting to have an idea of what was happening.
"It’s impossible," he said, touching his face, feeling the skin on it. It itched under his fingers, feeling as though it were slowly changing. He couldn’t deny it.
He’d heard that the others turned into characters and then disappeared. He’d never believed them to be true and had always suspected the people had run away and someone was using these fantastic tales as a cover up. Now, he seemed to be changing into the one character that he understood and could relate to, Mighty. People often misunderstood both he and Mighty and it felt as though both were capable of excellence if only someone gave them the chance to prove themselves.
His initial reaction was denial. He couldn’t accept this was happening to him. He got dressed in his jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt, trying to ignore that they were now too big for him. He ran downstairs to his computer, hoping to find information about the others that had disappeared, thinking that maybe it this were real, he’d find information on how to get help.
Even as he sat down at his computer, he could feel the changes advancing over his body, his hair was feeling harder and the skin on his back felt different, although he couldn’t place exactly how. Twice, he had to raise his chair in order to keep his eyes level with his monitor.
After almost two hours of searching through information as he felt the changes progressing over his body, he discovered four others had vanished over the past few months. Two of which were his very close friends, Ben and Kyle. Witness claims had said they had become various characters from the Sonic universe and promptly vanished after. As he would have guessed, several news agencies disputed those claims. Of course, given what was happening to him, it seemed that those claims were real. There’s got to be more to it than that... What could be causing this?
He jumped off his chair, gasping when he realized he’d jumped of rather then stepped off. By now, his pants were so lose that the legs were nearly half a foot to long for him. His shirtsleeves not only covered his hands but extended a great deal beyond them. His waist was narrow enough that they fell down his legs. He gasped when he saw that the skin on his legs was completely black. He nervously touched his legs, noticing the skin was harder. It seemed that the harsh conditions his new species lived in had increased their strength. His shirt covered all of the way down to his knees it was now so big for him. He rolled up his sleeves even further before giving up and throwing his shirt off in frustration.
That seemed a mistake, for it allowed him to see the extent of the changes to his torso. His torso was shorter relative to the rest of his body. The beige tanned skin on his chest was now an upside down and raindrop shaped. His chest was featureless; there was no sign of nipples or chest hair. The skin of his sides was completely black. His arms still had the same tanned skin his chest did.
He rushed over to a mirror, noticing just how fast he could run; he ran so fast that he kicked up papers and even some dust from the furniture in his wake.
The mirror allowed him to see that his eyes much bigger and blue. His brown hair was now almost completely red and extended all of the way down to his back, completely obscuring his rear end. That hair no longer looked like hair; it looked more like a shell. He reached back and felt it, finding it soft, but still far harder then any hair he’d ever felt. His ears were now located between the top corner of his eyes and his forming shell; they were longer and protruded far more then human ears even did.
"Oh God, I’m a freak!" he exclaimed.
He ran away from the mirror and up to the telephone, hoping to call either his Mom or Dad at work so they’d help him. He considered calling his brother; although their rocky relationship made contact difficult. Tim had a feeling his brother would mock him or have him arrested or something so decided against the option.
When he felt another surge of change, his soft shell seemed to harden and he lost a lot more height, shrinking by nearly a foot to a height he’d of surpassed ten years go. In the mirror, he saw his nose had become a little black nose, looking little as if it’s formally human shape.
He ran upstairs as fast as he could, desperately hoping he’d be able to get to a hospital or perhaps one of his neighbors to get help.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get far before he shrunk even more! This time, he lost so much height that he couldn’t even see over kitchen counters. He felt his shell hardening even more and when he reached up to feel it, he discovered it felt nothing like hair.
Running to a mirror, he found that the former hair was now red and looked nothing like hair. He was so short that it was insulting. No clothes would fit him, although it seemed that he didn’t need them. The new structure of his body apparently made him naturally modest.
Pushing at the handle of his front door, he found t swung open easily, as though despite his stature, he was incredibly strong. As soon as he was outside, another wave of change hit him, shrinking him down to just shy of four feet tall. He felt a little different, not just physically but mentally. He obviously wasn’t human anymore. He looked down at his body, seeing that physically, he was mighty. It seemed that the stories he’d heard of were true!
"Great, now what am I supposed to do? What if someone sees me?" he said, noticing his new voice.
He wondered if he could run as fast as Mighty could or if he had the same strength. Although he was barefoot, he walked to the sidewalk, and stood there. Taking a deep breath, he started running.
He ended up in a dark alleyway, where he once again ran into his least favorite person on Earth, Nicholas.
Nicolas eyes went wide in surprise at what he saw. "What the . . . heh . . . So what game store was so low on cash they couldn’t even afford a good Sonic costume for you?"
Tim just reacted. "Would you prefer Nack, weasel boy?"
"His name is . . . Tim? . . . How’d you fit into that tiny costume? Oh well, I’ll just take it apart and figure that out, pursuit of knowledge and all that."
Tim was about to repeat what he said yesterday about broad day light but realized that he wasn’t out in public, he had run right into a dead end ally . . . what the heck was a skinny guy like Nicolas doing in a place like this?
"Well, at least you saved me the trouble of finding you, I told you brains beat brawn . . . after all . . . three is more than one."
"Three?"
"Three."
The other two allies of Nicholas surrounded Tim. Instead of Panicking, which he would normally do, he just smirked, "Finally get to test out my ability."
The two brutes were much larger than either Tim used to be or Nicholas was at the moment. Tim wondered how Nicholas was able to convince these thugs to do anything he asked them.
Quickly running in, Timothy did a ‘flying dragon kick’ right into the chest of the largest of the brutes, then followed up with powerful roundhouse.
When the hell did he learn to do THAT?! Nicolas mentally exclaimed his eyes the size of saucers.
Grabbing the next guy, he slammed him into the ground and then stepped HARD onto his back, making some bones crack.
"Too easy," Was all that came out of Timothy’s mouth.
Nicholas actually took a step back, and he thought these missing links were brutal . . . but Tim was like a . . . like a-a blood thirsty berserker.
Timothy looked straight at Nicholas, and gave him a cocky smirk, one like Sonic gives in the Intro of Sonic Adventure.
Of course to Nicolas it looked much less than friendly. Not used to violence in reality, only used to reading it, and his fantasy not going the way he thought it was going to, Nicolas turned and ran.
"MOM! SIS!!!" Nicolas screamed like a little girl moving as fast as his feet would carry him.
Timothy grinned as he cracked his knuckles, "That was refreshing."
That was when he looked around what he had done and at the unmoving forms of the goons. What had he done?
What the hell did I do?, he thought, I saw the guy, and I just snapped.
Timothy looked at his hands. The very first lesson any sensei gives their student is that you don’t learn martial arts to start fights or harm others.
He had lost control and he had harmed these guys much more than he needed to, and enjoyed it. That wasn’t a martial artist or a hero, that was the heart of a sadistic thug.
A quick look at what each of the men were carrying though, sort of made that a moot point... Each were carrying handguns.
Despite this point, Timothy had to get out of there... If the cops caught him, would he be put into a zoo?
He had to put on the breaks FAST to keep from running straight through the door. That would have been painful. Looking around, Timothy sighed and then limped into his room and climbed onto his bead, staring at the ceiling, contemplating his situation... After a while, he drifted off...
Tim opened one eye, and saw the melee of lights, but he assumed it was just his state of half-sleep playing tricks on him. However, when it cleared, he did realize something was wrong... He was definitly NOT in his room.
Timothy woke up, and looked around. He was outside now, and nearby him were a pair of shoes and some white gloves. Tired of being completely naked (and because running so fast causes friction), he grabbed both pairs of clothing and put them on. They fit amazingly well, and he then remembered where he had seen them. They were the ones MIGHTY wears!
He suddenly saw something in the distance. A fight. What looked like Sonic fighting a bunch of Robots. He grinned and ran into the fray. Running right towards the melee, barely noticing the desert sands under his shoes Tim gave a battle cry.
The badnik were too stupid to pay attention to the wild voice. Sonic noticed it too. After doing a spin attack on the Mantis badnik freeing the normal non-anthro animal inside he yelled as if this was all just some sports game. "Yo! Mighty! How’s ya’ doing?"
Same old Sonic, Tim though as he curled up into his protective ball and rammed directly into the beetle badnik right behind the waving hedgehog.
"Let’s catch up AFTER we beat up the tin-planted robo-dorks."
"Fine by me." Sonic smirked. "Ah think it’ll take little more than half a minute if I only use one hand."
Timothy was no Knuckles, but he punch his fist right through the Bee-bomber knocking right out of the sky into the ground.
A pair of Rhino badniks charged at Sonic and Mighty from both sides, Sonic laughed, these dumb bots were making it too easy! The two Mobians jumped at the exact same time, the Rhinos smashed into each other freeing the innocent flickies inside. The two jump attacks also took down the bee-bomber just above them getting into position to attack. The return trip to the ground also sliced and smashed respectively the badniks below them trying to catch them as they fell (stupid mistakes). But what did you expect from a pair of droids built by Robotnik?
The sandy battle field was quickly turning into a scrap yard dotted by chibi-animals cheering the heroes or playing it smart and hiding till the fight was over.
The last badnik, a coco-nut MP model, realizing it was alone, and between the two heroes, was the picture of panic on it’s metal features, the flesh and blood part of it coming through enough for it comprehend it’s defeat that was mere seconds away.
"Going up?" Timothy asked, while smirking. Sonic got the idea and leaped onto Tim who tossed him extremely high, from where Sonic used his Light Speed Attack to turn the Coconuts into Scrap.
The animals cheered for their heroes before scampering off...
"Sonic... I...", Timothy began
"Actually, I’m not REALLY Sonic the Hedgehog. I’m Benjamin Bonner," Sonic started up
"BEN? Hey, it’s me, Timothy," Timothy smiled back.
"Well, looks like Dreams Come True after all, huh?", ‘Sonic’ Said.
"Yeah, The only question is... WHY did we get brought here?", ‘Mighty’ added.
"Good question. Me and Kyle or as everyone else calls ’em Tails are still wondering about that. Just watch out for Amy, she just won’t stop trying to glomp me whenever we’re not fighting, eating or taking care of Chao."
"Just Amy?"
"She doesn’t have a clue who she used to be, and she acts like we’re crazy if we try and ask her, Kyle saw her arrive, but she started out as bad as Rings got."
"Rings?"
"He said he name was Mark . . . then he just seemed to forget."
"Oh man . . ."
"Oh furry you mean." Ben said.
"Funny," Timothy deadpanned, then he got serious, "So are we gonna’ forget too?"
"I don’t have a clue. But I’ve been here before almost anyone else, well, anyone else who remembers, and I’ve kept it together."
"Heh. Dreams and nightmares?"
"Real life." ‘Sonic’ spoke.
"So where’s the real Sonic?"
Ben shrugged. "No sign. Everyone else sees me as the Sonic."
" . . . . So it was just you?"
"At first . . . along with Egg Butt. I don’t have a clue about him . . . but when Kyle showed up . . . suddenly it was as if it had always been ‘Sonic and Tails.’ Same thing when Amy showed. . . ."
"You know it weird hearing that deep stuff coming out of Sonic’s mouth . . . weird . . . you don’t sound like you used to . . . but you don’t sound like any of Sonic’s voice actors either."
"Same to you."
"Huh . . .? I got into the fight as soon as I showed up here . . . I didn’t even notice until now . . . I kept hearing Kyle can go to and from home . . . how about you?"
"No go. I guess it wouldn’t be Mobius without Sonic the Hedgehog. And no, Kyle doesn’t become himself again when he goes home."
"So ya think someone is re-creating the Sonic The Hedgehog universe for their own entertainment?"
"But why go to the trouble of changing my voice and not making it like one of the voice actors? And why make Amy and Rings forget but not you, me, or Kyle?"
"Copyright? Remember Robin Williams and The Genie. Twisted plot device?"
"Maybe . . . But with the killing someone would make from something like this, why worry about little things like that?"
"Maybe it’s BECAUSE they’ll make such a killing that they don’t want to share."
"With corperate greed? Possible. After all, if this is all artifically made, you gotta admit the details are intense."
Tim finally noted how everything wasn’t well, photo realistic, the colors too solid, shapes too defined. "If you wanted a world that was a walk in video game or cartoon."
"Still, if this was just a coperate project with us as the innocent guinea pigs, why are we still aware?"
Tim thought for a moment. "Maybe we’re players testing the ’PC’ version of whatever this is, and we’ll become ’NPC’s once we’ve proven there are no bugs . . . didn’t you already go over all this with Kyle?"
"I did. I was just hoping you could lay some more on the table we hadn’t thought of."
"Sorry. So do we just trash this place until they decide we’re non-cost effective?"
"One thing just doesn’t add up. If this is just some twisted Disney Land. Why not kidnap us or ‘teleport’ us from the start instead of letting us go about as we’re changing?"
"No one would believe what they saw, we can only be ’up loaded’ once the changes are complete?"
" . . . . Better question." Said the blue blur. "Why us Sonic fans? Why go to THAT trouble?"
"Because they think we’d see this thing as a gift?"
"...I doubt it, nobody wants to be taken away from their home for long."
"Yeah...," the red one said, "good point. I still wonder HOW we ended up changing. We didn’t get hit by anything or stuff like that."
"Yeah... That’s what I can’t figure out either."
Timothy suddenly thought of something and chuckled.
"What’s so funny?"
"Think of how Amy’ll react if Sally or Sara show up."
"Well, THAT would keep her occupied."
Tim laughed too. "That’s rich. Now that I think about it, having Kyle being able to go home wouldn’t make sense since even if they were testing out the ‘log out’ function, not many want to be turned into video characters and be stuck like that and they’d need to test that like anything else."
"Kyle can see his family, and he doesn’t seem to mind the whole ‘changed into Tails’ thing. He says after he got over the itital shock and panic that he kinda liked it."
"Kinda’?"
"Okay . . . he felt like he was an angel given his wings. It’s creepy how he has these bursts of brillance, can act so childish and still seems to be remember who he is through it all."
"And you?"
"...It’s hard to say exactly how I changed. Except I’m alot cooler now."
"And alot less modest. You used to not brag about your speed."
"And you used to not be such a powerhouse."
"Point taken."
An ankward silence. The two friends were obviously deep in thought. However, being that Ben was now Sonic, the silence couldn’t last.
"Well, I think we’ve done enough catching up."
"Gee, you really CAN’T stay still, can you?"
"Nope! Guess with speed like mine, staying still, naw, not guess, I know staying still just doesn’t feel natural. Hold on, I know Kyle will be thrill to meet someone else from home that remembers himself."
"Sounds like a plan. But any idea were my berrow, ugh, I mean home is around here?"
"If it works like it did for Kyle, you’ll know where it is as soon as you start looking for it. Anyway, we’d better get back ASAP, Amy threatened to give my chao fluffy unicorns if I tried to use this badnik attack as an excuse not to continue our ‘date.’" Ben sniggered.
"What’s so funny?"
"I’ve been handing the little guy chibi dragons."
Mighty’s eye widened in recognition. "You really are Sonic the Hedgehog aren’t you?"
"Yea right, and Tim’s really Mighty the Armadillo." Ben didn’t wait for a responce and took Tim’s arm and took off like a rocket, cheering, "And here we go!"
In a place untouched by space and time, a hedgehog viewed Mighty and Sonic’s little ‘Reunion’.
"All is going according to plan. Let’s just hope that they’re up to the challenge."