Sonic the Hedgehog, and it's respective characters, are property of SEGA, Sonic Team, Yuji Naka, and Naoto Ohshima. I in no way own any rights to the characters contained within this fan-based retelling, with the exception of any original characters who may occur, who in their present state exist in Copyright Limbo! Aside from those guys though, please support the original owners!

WARNING: Sonic the Hedgehog - The Project Chaos Chronicles does not follow the plot of any Sonic the Hedgehog game, nor is it set in-universe, instead this story takes place on an altered Earth and merely uses the characters and plot devices of the Sonicverse. If you are looking for a story about Sonic the Hedgehog throwing down with the maniacal Dr. Eggman in an attempt to save feral animals, you will not find it here (probably).

Special thanks to Taranea and Captain Space, who took time to look into the first chapter at or prior to release and offered constructive feedback, which I accepted generally, however on some levels abandoned!

Without further ado, I give to you, Sonic the Hedgehog! (cough) Dr. Samuel Ivans.

CHAPTER 1: THE PROPERTIES OF CHAOS WASTE

Research Note 1: After three years doing basic lab work with the Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome virus I have finally been assigned to my own project. I have been told that this project will require a great deal of isolation, I am being sent to South America, to one of the abandoned cities, to begin research on a gel-like substance called Chaos Waste. Three details have been revealed to me about Chaos Waste outside of what is known within the public spectrum, which is simply that it must be contained and is the byproduct of the Chaos Energy put out by the Emeralds. 1: Chaos Waste, though a byproduct of a very advanced energy production system, contains within itself a massive store of untapped energy. 2: The Waste appears to have a Polymorphous nature to itself, taking on shapes of its own 'will'. 3, and this appears to be the reason for Project Chaos W: Within the gel-like substance are traces of what appears to be an un-evolved, or perhaps de-evolved, strain of NIDS. My plane touches down in four hours, at that time, I will make myself at home in a mansion on the outskirts of the city, already pre-furnished with all of my needed supplies.

DR. SAMUEL IVANS, HEAD RESEARCHER- PROJECT CHAOS W

Dr. Samuel Ivans gazed out of his window, at a massive growth of dense jungle. It was the only thing that could be seen from this side of his new home. That's quite a thought, he mentally noted, calling this lonely place your home.

Samuel was only twenty-seven years old, yet he was already considered an authority on biology, particularly in viral and bacterial fields. The man had been born with a sharp mind which was carefully attuned to the studies of sciences. He had not cared for history beyond scientific discoveries, he could care less for previous world leaders and great generals, and literature nearly bored him to death, having less interest in false histories than the real ones. Nevertheless he was a quick study and by age fourteen he had been accepted into a top university and was rapidly pursuing a degree in medical science, with intentions of being a surgeon.

However, his plans were altered after six years in university when he developed NIDS, the disease that would turn his entire personal life around, and drive him to hunt for nothing but a cure, after all, how could a man seek a physical relationship when his very touch could threaten to kill the woman he loved? Thus Ivo changed the focus of his studies, from medical sciences to bio-engineering and viral research, a field that had boomed in the last fifty years. Now his sole desire in life was to cure that horrible disease so that he could finally return to his life. Someday, he reassured himself, Mina and I shall raise a family.

Dr. Ivans turned away from the window and proceeded down his stairs toward the first floor, he stopped for a moment to examine himself in the mirror. His red hair was a thick, untended mop lying across the back of his head and down his neck. The dark red stubble on his chin had become unbearable, he would need to shave sometime soon. His green eyes twitched for just a moment as he stared at them, and in the same moment he clenched his fist in order to stop an uncontrollable trembling. The skin around his knuckles turned a ghostly white as he dug his fingers into his palm, an almost unnoticeable change compared to his already pale skin. Ivans had never been athletic, he was built slim and tall, and saw no reason to risk a single slender bone in pursuit of some sort of physical contest with larger men.

He chuckled, a thing that came so naturally to him it was almost a tic, he chuckled at the bad, and the good. It was almost a hearty laugh, or it would be if he did not always attempt to subdue it and in turn dragged it down to a low, thick noise, though it was not without mirth. The very thought of it being a tic made Samuel chuckle again, What if it's just another byproduct of this damned disease? He turned away from the mirror, proceeding downstairs toward his lab.

Ivans' lab took up the entire first floor's west wing, occupying what had once been an office space, a library, and a gym. Now, it was all one large room surrounded by bare stone walls. Tables lined the walls, filled with assorted instruments, dozens of microscopes and test tubes, and small cages. Samuel had two tables set aside in this room, both currently situated in the exact center of the laboratory.

The first bore several test tubes filled with blood, mostly his own, though two were labeled 'HEDGEHOG'; the small creature had been meandering around in the mansion when Ivo arrived and he resolved to keep it, as a sort of pet and to form the base of his research into the mysterious second strand of NIDS that appeared to occur in the plants and animals of the southern hemisphere.

The second table held fourteen small sealed containers, seven pairs each labeled with a unique color. These were the basis of Project Chaos W. Inside of each metal box was a large sample of Chaos Waste from one of the seven Chaos Emeralds that now provided power to most of the northern hemisphere. The expectation was that as these samples of Chaos Waste contained a simple version of the NIDS virus, it would be possible to engineer an antivirus by experimenting on the different wastes to see what exactly allowed the virus to mutate. A side advantage to this of course was that someone would be experimenting with the waste itself.

Samuel cleared off a table under one of the windows that provided sunlight to the lab, carefully setting the test tubes that had been on it on one of the other nearby tables. He then took up the first container of Chaos Waste within reach and set it on the newly cleared table. A clean cut was made across the white band holding the container's lid on, and Ivans slowly poured the metallic liquid onto the table.

Well, it doesn't seem to be doing anything, he thought as the slime simply edged out toward the ends of the table, In fact, it's not even changing shape.

At that the slime almost stood upright as all of its material was sucked toward its center, forming a rising stack that then slowly formed into an orb as it dispersed downward. Dr. Ivans chuckled as he gave it a long hard look, and he felt as if it could almost be looking back at him.

No one has yet come in physical contact with this substance, Ivans noted as he hovered over the slime, Ha! It doesn't appear to be corrosive; it's not eaten through anything yet anyway. Hm…doesn't really seem toxic either, at least it doesn't have noxious scent.

With that Dr. Samuel Ivans took the first step he felt he needed to within Project Chaos W, he touched Chaos Waste. It was cool and sticky to the touch, but the doctor felt nothing else.

Well then, I suppose the next necessary step would be to pull a bit of that gel and see if it has reacted to me in any way.

Ivans turned about to grab a syringe from the table in the center of the room but it appeared to be gone. He frowned, then, as usual, he chuckled at his misfortune, "Ah well, I must have moved it somewhere else," he sighed, "Wait for me my little slime ball, I'll be back in a microscopic moment."

The doctor jogged up the stairs of his home to the second story to check his bedroom, where he found nothing but his still packed clothes and medical books. He then proceeded across the building the east wing where he checked to ensure he hadn't misplaced it during his initial tour in one of the many vacant rooms. Of course it was not there either. Samuel resolved to run and check the kitchen, NIDS forbid he left it in there, but he never made it there, because as he was running down the stairs the most disturbing noise caught his attention: the noise of a dozen pieces of metal clattering to the floor.

Samuel broke into a mad dash toward his lab, where the noise had come from, fearing that something had gone horribly wrong with the supposedly polymorphous substance while he was gone. What he found was a very young white haired child, no older than three years old, sitting in the floor playing with a ball of blue slime, alongside a dozen still sealed containers. Samuel was taken aback of course when he saw this child, playing with his Chaos Waste, in the floor of his lab, in the middle of an abandoned city in South America. He promptly attempted to right the whole situation in his mind, examining every possible explanation, and then laughing madly as he realized he must be dreaming, or delusional. However the child took this as a sign that he desired to play, and threw the ball of blue metallic liquid at the doctor's face.

The next moment was pure instinct. Samuel dove to the floor, just barely avoiding the ball of blue Chaos Waste. As he hit the ground he rolled, attempting to regain his footing, however, as he stood he smashed his forehead into one of the tables in his lab, and slowly his vision faded to darkness. The last thing he heard, was the clearly hallucinatory giggling of a child, and that noise a cage makes as it topples to the ground and its bars break apart with the force of the fall. Wait, why do I know what that would sound li- and Dr. Samuel Ivans blacked out.

"Hey, I think he's waking up," echoed a chipper young voice.

"Well that is optimal, and here I thought that thrashing he gave his head may have been a bit too much for the doctor," replied a second voice, it was huskier, but seemed just as young.

Samuel sat up, taking a glance around the room as he searched for the two voices. The first, he gathered, was that of a blue figure, standing around three feet tall, and nude. Typically he would have averted his eyes, save for the fact that the creature was covered very well with a thick fur, blue all around save for a spot of peach fur in the front of its torso and under its muzzle. He bore a series of razor edged spines running from the top of his head to the bottom of his back, where there appeared to be a small tail protruding. Samuel stared at this for a moment, shocked at the strange creature which, if he didn't know any better, he would say was a rather large hedgehog, that stood on its hind-legs…and spoke.

Ivans shook his head and turned toward the second voice, embodied by a young man who had evidently taken the liberty of digging up some of the taller doctor's clothes, particularly a black t-shirt, a pair of matching cargo pants, and he currently had a lab-coat draped over his shoulders. The youth's head held up a thick coat of white hair that all stood up erratic, his face was bare, and his eyes were a dark blue. Samuel gripped a nearby table and pulled himself up, finding that the boy stood about a foot shorter than him, probably around 5'6 if he had to estimate.

"Well now this is a surprise," Ivans let out a low chuckle as he leaned against the table behind him, "May I ask how you two got here?"

One looked to the other, and then they both looked back at Dr. Ivans, it was the youth who spoke, "Well, I presume you are Dr. Ivans?"

"That is a very good presumption my boy."

"Well," the white haired character thought for a moment, "Do you remember anything from before you passed out?"

"Why yes, as a matter of fact…I was on my way to find a syringe, when I heard a horrible noise from down here, and when I rushed in to check what had happened, I saw a-" Dr. Ivans was caught on the next sentence, that was where it stopped making sense, "toddler…playing with my- Chaos Waste!"

Samuel pushed past the other two figures and quickly dropped to his knees on the ground to look for the Chaos Waste containers. However, as he dug around and scanned the floor rapidly, he found only two containers, both empty with a blue, and a white seal on them.

"Right, about that…" now the blue hedgehog creature spoke up, "See uh, Doc, the Waste, it kind of is us, at least we think, or he thinks."

Now the white haired boy spoke up, "Correct, you see I looked through some of your research notes and kind of put some things together. Based on what I read, and what I've seen, I believe the Chaos Waste only remains poly-morphous until it comes in contact with another lifeform. At which point, I believe it duplicates the base cellular construct of that subject, and duplicates it as best it can."

"As best as it can?" Samuel wondered at this for a moment, "You mean it doesn't create an exact duplicate?"

The white haired youth nodded, "With myself I have white hair, in place of your red hair, and my eyes are different, not to mention my stature."

Ivans chuckled again, "Right, well I can see that. What about you little fell-" Samuel turned to address the anthropomorphic hedgehog, however the creature appeared to be gone. He blinked, and then rubbed his eyes, then looked around the lab for it. But, the hedgehog was nowhere to be found.

"Did you see where that-?"

Suddenly there was a rustling as the hedgehog returned to the room at such speed it was hard for the green eyes to follow him. He stopped on a dime though right beside the other mysterious figure.

"That was…incredibly fast," the doctor trailed off as he stared at the blue thing. He took note of it's extremely slender figure now, both its arms and legs were almost only skin and bone, with a very small frame for its torso. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the snout and spines, I suspect his head would be just as small.

The hedgehog grinned and folded his arms behind his head, a sort of cocky stance, "Yeah, I suppose I am pretty fast eh, doc?"

Another hearty chuckle followed, "Indeed. I noticed you both seem to talk rather well, and have at least a basic grasp of the English language, though it clearly exceeds the average student's in places. Do you have any theories on that one m'boy?"

"Heh, not really," the youth scratched his head, "I didn't give it a lot of thought, I figured we were like animals and our communication skills were instinctive."

The hedgehog shook his head here, "Not really though, I mean I had no clue what I was doing when I…woke up?"

"Came to life perhaps," Samuel added, "What do you mean?"

"Well I didn't really understand what was being said toward me by my…counterpart?"

"That will work for this situation, yes."

"But the more he spoke gibberish to me, the more sense everything started to make."

Samuel gaped, "You came to understand the English language…through the speech of one man, over a period of- well, how long was I out?"

"Approximately four hours," the human answered.

"Four hours and you gained such a significant grasp on a language that has been said to be one of the hardest to learn…of course that's because of all of our stupid rules and repetitive words, I suppose if you don't learn some other language first it's only natural that it would be easy to speak. Of course, even those who are born in an English speaking home I suppose struggle with it from time to time, I myself, I've never been one for absolute proper grammar. There are those out there of course that could go on for days about speech patterns and correct sentence structure and-"

"Doctor," the white haired youth interjected rather anxiously, "You're rambling, and something concerns me."

"I apologize," Samuel chuckled, "I do ramble on occasion, what was it that was bothering you?"

"What are you going to do with us?"

Samuel thought on this a minute, rubbing his chin and scratching the scruff along his jawline. He furrowed his brow for a moment, and then simply smiled at the two, "You'll live here, if that's perfectly alright with you of course. You both appear to be sentient, you'd have to be to behave and speak the way you have. As such I can't really make you do anything, but I couldn't possibly do away with you either," here Samuel chuckled again, "And even more impossible would be the idea of sending you two out into the wild! However, I will need some cooperation from the two of you."

"Of course doctor!" the youth replied.

"Hey, we're technically made from your property or something anyway right?" the hedgehog grinned.

"Well, I'll need to take some blood samples, and I'd like some assistance around the lab, with test subjects and the like," he paused for another brief second before continuing, "Boy, and Hedgehog, simply won't do. You two need names."

"Like Dr. Samuel Ivans right?" the hedgehog questioned.

"Well, similar, of course you wouldn't take the title doctor!" he chuckled, "That takes years of education, and an official certification! But it would be something similar to that. Let's see," the doctor stared at the two for a moment, "Ivo, how does that sound for you lad?"

"Ivo?" the boy replied.

"Yes! Ivo, it's my old nickname from med school. Can't tell you why everyone called me that, but they did."

"That sounds wonderful doctor!"

"Good, good," Samuel turned to the other new boarder, "And for you, my fast little friend, how do you feel about the name Speedy?"

"Speedy? Well I don't know doc, that sounds kind of lame," he grinned, "Besides, I'm a little faster than Speedy."

"Ah yes, well, how fast are you then?"

"May I," the hedgehog questioned, "Demonstrate?"

"Please, I would be delighted."

With that, the blue blur was gone, leaving nothing but a haze and a scattering of research papers and empty vials in his wake.

"Oh my, at the speed he just took off, if he's accelerated since making it outside I'm surprised he hasn't created a sonc-" and at that very moment a loud noise rung out, the sound of the sound barrier being broken, "boom…well Ivo how do you like that, our little friend is faster than the speed of sound, isn't that something?"

"It certainly is Dr. Ivans."

Samuel scratched his chin again thoughtfully, "Sonic, I wonder if that name would suit him better?"

As if on cue the hedgehog barreled through the door at breakneck speeds and slid to a stop, barreling Ivo over in a cloud of dust, "That sounds fantastic Doc!"

Ivans chuckled as the two stood, Sonic dusting himself off and Ivo frowning as he fixed the oversized pants. "Sonic it is then! Come on boys, let's get you two settled into your rooms now. We'll discuss more after we've had some dinner."

Dr. Samuel Ivans turned, stepping between the two young boarders as they left the room. He wrapped his arm around the shoulders of the small hedgehog and grinned down at the two, he hoped that these new lives would bring about a great advance in his search for a cure for NIDS. Sonic the Hedgehog, and Ivo, my oh my what am I getting myself into.

EDIT: For clarity purposes a scene break was added between Dr. Ivans passing out and waking up.