Chapter Text
Cale stretched his arms, lazily reaching out of his deep nest of pillows and blankets towards what he thought was the direction of the ceiling. A mighty yawn escaped his mouth and left him blinking contentedly at the room around him. It hardly surprised him that it was mid-afternoon.
Cale untangled himself from his warm mess of bedding and made his way into the bathroom. He poured himself a bath and slid into it with a happy sigh.
The three children averaging 9 years old were probably outside and playing around. Cale daydreamed a little bit about what they might be doing now, sinking further into the water. The children weren't normal. They would most likely not be playing games like tag or hide and seek. Perhaps Raon was experimenting with magic again, developing some new bomb that would surely make Cale shake in his shoes to hear about? Rosalyn was visiting again, so perhaps the children were with her?
Cale was almost done with his bath when the explosion hit the shields of the Black Castle. He wasted no time in leaping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around himself, not even bothering to dry his hair as he grabbed a pair of pants and ran. The door opened just as he reached for it, revealing a panicked Hans with Lock trailing behind him.
"You-young master Cale!" Hans cried. "A large group of- er- talking animals- appeared on the front lawn!"
Cale paused and stared at him. "Beast people?"
"No, talking animals."
"Talking animals?"
"Yes, all of them somewhere around one meter tall."
"Excuse me?"
There was another bang that was loud enough the entire castle shook. Hans gestured at Cale's hair.
"Sir Choi Han and Miss Rosalyn are taking care of it for the moment. Young master, your hair..."
Cale sighed and shut the door in his face. He took the time to roughly dry himself off and put on proper clothes before he yanked the door open again and started walking. Hans, used to this kind of behavior, turned on his heel and led Cale and Lock swiftly to the front doors.
Cale wasn't sure what he was expecting. Hans said there were talking animals on the front lawn and there were explosions happening somewhere nearby. He supposed he'd been thinking they were under attack from some new plot, something that perhaps was left over from the White Star's forces that he'd overlooked, or something from the hunters that he was preparing to take down. Maybe it was a preemptive attack from a new foe.
He did not expect one just shy of a meter tall blue anthropomorphic hedgehog moving faster than the average eye could track yelling at a balding fat man with a comically shaped mustache.
...A balding fat man with a comically shaped mustache flying in what looked like a metal soup bowl.
"How was I supposed to know this would happen!?" the fat man blustered. "You're the ones that used Chaos Control!"
"You set up that machine to use chaos energy," growled a deeply voiced black hedgehog with red stripes. "It was a known possibility."
"That was what the master emerald was for, if you idiots hadn't removed it-"
A red echidna (was that an echidna? Cale wasn't really sure what he was looking at) with very pointy boxing mitts barked menacingly. "Tried to put back in its rightful place, you mean!?"
"Easy, Knux." the blue hedgehog appeared out of nowhere (not nowhere. [Record] saw everything and rewound, slowing the moment down just enough to see the blur moving out of focus-) and patted "Knux" on the shoulder. "You can punch him as soon as he's down from there."
"Leave some for me," snarled a tiny pink hedgehog with a bigass hammer.
Cale looked over to see Choi Han scratching his head at a robot that was taller than he was. The robot was comically proportioned- its torso was like a barrel, the head this tiny yellow dome with red eyes glaring out from inside, and the arms were almost as long as it was tall, ending in clawed hands and armor. But its legs were tiny stubbly little things, which ruined any sense of danger Cale felt from it.
"DANGER SENSES RECALIBRATING," the robot said. "FLESH BAG ASSESSMENT: FIGHT ME."
Cale slowly turned his gaze to his other side, where Rosalyn was crouching down and peering at a very dazed looking white hedgehog with fern-shaped spikes that reminded Cale of a maple leaf. A yellow fox with two tails was nearby, curled around a tiny rabbit girl and some sort of blobular blue creature, all three out cold. On and Hong were sniffing and poking at the trio with intense interest.
"Can you hear me?" Rosalyn asked.
"What year is it?" the white hedgehog replied. Cale squinted at the creature, noticing the blood dripping from his head and over one eye.
Rosalyn held up two fingers. "We'll get to that later. How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three?"
Cale turned back to look at the angry fat man in time to see some fucking missiles pop out of the soup bowl. The blue and black hedgehogs tensed up, as did the rest of the group paying attention-
"Raon, take those away."
-Alright, human!
Cale strode forward, walking past the strange animals with the Dominating Aura at one-quarter power. He felt all eyes turn to look at him, some in awe- like from the concussed maple leaf hedgehog- and some with intense interest, like from the robot and the blue hedgehog. His people looked at him with respect, but the blustering fat man with the missiles now floating away from his machine and vanishing in front of everyone's eyes recoiled and cringed.
Typical villain character.
"You," he said flatly, "are on my front lawn."
There was a moment of silence.
Then a something blue and metallic slammed into the grass between them, leaving a dent in the previously well taken care of lawn. Cale waved away the dust, unimpressed, and glared at the sharp looking metal robot that was so clearly a copy of the blue hedgehog that it almost hurt.
Then he looked back at the floating soup bowl.
"One of you, explain this to me."
"And who the heck are you?" the fat man blurted out, finally sitting up enough in his really round machine.
-Human! He looks like an egg!
Yeah, Cale thought, he really does. Especially in that soup bowl thing.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Choi Han approaching, sword already drawn. He must have seen the missiles before Raon removed them and recognized what they were. Rosalyn stayed by the four animals (three animals and one blob?), but her hands were shrouded in mana. Cale waved Choi Han down, looking the fat man in the spectacles.
He unleashed the Dominating Aura at half power, aiming it purely at the man.
"My name is Cale Henituse and if you pull any more weapons out of that machine I'll let Choi Han use you for dummy practice."
The man glanced down at Choi Han, who was now radiating his sparkling black aura in a threatening manner, then looked over at Rosalyn, who was surrounded in a red glow. He looked back at Cale just in time for a teleportation circle to appear and Eruhaben to step out.
"What's this?" the golden dragon asked, quirking an eyebrow at the soup bowl floating machine and its egg-shaped inhabitant, then looking at all the anthropomorphic animals, then at Cale. "You unlucky bastard, what is this situation?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out, Eruhaben-nim." Cale couldn't keep the exhaustion out of his voice.
Didn't he just crawl out of bed?
There was a slight breeze, and Cale looked down into the green eyes of the blue hedgehog. Eruhaben also looked down, his golden pupils slitted in a familiar reptilian way.
"Dude, you can teleport too? Awesome."
Oh no.
Oh no.
The hedgehog was peppy.
Eruhaben scoffed. "Of course I can teleport."
The hedgehog grinned and nodded. "Sweet! I wonder what's faster though- your teleportation? Or my speed?"
"Sonic, don't piss off the dragon," the black hedgehog snapped.
"The what-"
Eruhaben looked over at the black hedgehog with a new keen look of interest in his eye. Cale was also curious as to how the... creature? knew Eruhaben was a dragon right off the bat, but he had other things to take care of right now.
Cale pointed at the floating machine, then at the ground. "You. Land. Now."
The man stared at Cale, then at Eruhaben, then at the cast of animals in different states of consciousness. Some form of gears whirred in his head- and in the machine he rode in. A clawed hand shot out of the bottom of the soup bowl (where did an arm like that even fit?) and grabbed the fucked up blue hedgehog looking robot, and then the orb turned and shot off into the sky.
Cale squinted at the retreating orb and suppressed a sigh.
-Human! That thing is so slow! I could catch it if you want!
"Young master Cale, should we...?" Rosalyn asked.
Cale looked around him. He took in the sight of all of the weird animals, including the blue one standing a little too close for comfort and not at all phased by the Dominating Aura. Then he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"He'll be a problem if we leave him."
-Okay! I can-
"I will return shortly." Eruhaben patted Cale on the shoulder and leapt off the ground, flying away and quickly vanishing into the sky.
Near where Choi Han was, the goofy looking robot spoke up again. "THREAT PARAMETERS UPDATED: I WOULD LIKE TO FIGHT THE DRAGON."
The pink hedgehog sighed and leaned on her hammer. "No, Omega, you really don't."
Next to Cale, the blue hedgehog gasped in awe. "Woah! He can fly, too! Silver, he's like you!"
The black hedgehog suddenly appeared next to him and smacked him in the back of his head. "You dumbass!"
"Shadow, there's kids around! I thought you promised not to swear around them?"
"This warrants it!"
Cale quirked an eyebrow down at the two. He dropped the Dominating Aura and flinched as the black hedgehog's head whipped towards him at a speed that had to be bad for his neck.
"Is someone going to explain what all of you are doing on my lawn?" Cale asked. Behind him, something else exploded against the Black Castle's shield. Not missing a beat, "Lock, go see what that was."
"Er..." The two hedgehogs looked- well, one glared- at each other, then back up at him. The blue one took over, leaning on one leg and folding his arms. "Well, it was something like chaos control? I'm not really sure of it myself, pal."
Cale ignored the disrespectful tone and turned to the black hedgehog. The black hedgehog gave a long suffering sigh that Cale felt all too much deep in his soul.
"It wasn't like chaos control. It was chaos control." The hedgehog's fists gripped tightly. At Cale's confused expression he explained further. "Teleportation through space, in this instance. Doctor Eggman- the man who ran away- had some sort of machine we were trying to stop when something malfunctioned. We have no idea why we're here either."
Cale pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let me guess. Mad scientist?"
The blue hedgehog snapped his fingers into finger guns. "You got it!"
"World domination?"
"Yup!"
"Why haven't you just killed him yet?"
The black hedgehog stuck out his hands in a see?? See???? motion. The blue one, however, waved him off and stared defiantly back up at Cale.
"Nah. I can't go around doing that."
"He looks ready to." Cale gestured at the black hedgehog.
The blue one shook his head. "I believe in second chances. I can't go around killing people when everyone could have some good in them."
"Evil genius," Cale replied, so done with this conversation, "constantly in your way, probably given many chances before, always turned on you and went right back to being evil?"
"Well, there was that one time he got brain damage and turned nice-"
"Just kill him. It'll never stop otherwise."
The blue hedgehog slowly looked back at the black one. Cale saw the internal turmoil going on and waved his hand.
"Think on it. Either way, he's going in a prison cell when he gets back."
"Wait- what?"
"I can't have some evil asshole going around causing trouble, now can I?" Cale turned and walked over to where Rosalyn was now bandaging the white hedgehog's head. He knelt by On and Hong, who were still by the fox and the bunny girl.
Understandably, the blue hedgehog was suddenly there and hovering protectively around the children. Cale met his eye and scoffed before turning to On.
"How are they?"
"Nya! They're just asleep," On chirped. The blue hedgehog jumped about a mile high, and she chuckled.
"Let's move them inside," Cale decided, standing up again. "Kids shouldn't be lying on the ground like this."
He ignored the dragon snickering in his mind and calling him a good person as he turned to walk back inside the Black Castle.
He had a call to make.