Disclaimer: Sonic is owned by Sega and the Mask is owned by Dark Horse comics.

The Mask in this story is based off the Mask from the Newline Cinema movie.

Sonic the Hedgehog

The Masks we Wear

By TimeLordParadox

(aka)

Ross Pickering

Prologue

Tumbling through the void it went, the space between spaces, where it was space and time didn't exist as such and the tremendous forces pressing on it would've been enough to destroy anything and everything passing through this blackness. But for some reason this one small object defiantly refused to be destroyed by such miniscule and pathetic inter-dimensional forces which would rip anything else apart. It stubbornly kept its shape and its power.

Many times people have recognised what it was, the danger it held to those foolish enough to think they could tame the raw power it provided. It had no consciousness as such but if it did it would know something happened to it, somehow it had passed between the dimensions, another pathetic and futile attempt to destroy it but all they'd managed to do was to pass on this curse to another world where it will continue to do what it has been doing for centuries, causing mischief.

Suddenly the blackness wasn't so black anymore, pin pricks of light started appearing around it, fading into existence and the crushing inter-dimensional forces lifted as the object found its new home dimension. It was in the blackness of space tumbling end over end thousands of miles away from any suitable 'host'.

If it had any sense of movement it would know it was still travelling incredibly fast as it began to speed towards and get caught in the gravitational pull of a planet, a green and blue planet, a pleasant looking planet, a peaceful planet untouched by its mischievous ways.

It began to follow the curvature of this large blue marble as it descended towards its surface. The object began glowing a bright shade of green as it began skipping across the planet's atmosphere like a pebble would skip across a pond before sinking. It heated up to such extremes it glowed an even brighter shade of green but the intense heat wasn't even singeing it.

Those watching from below would've seen what looked like a green comet or shooting star in the sky as it rapidly approached the solid ground. Due to its momentum it was travelling almost parallel with the ground and it passed over the sea quickly it was all a blur. In the distance was land, a large continent was looming in front of it.

It passed over this land creating a thundering sonic boom, and due to its speed the sun above was giving the appearance that it was rapidly started to set, plunging the side of the planet it was now on into darkness.

It was so low now it was sure it was going to come down here, but it was coming to the other side of the continent and the sea was rapidly approaching. But before reaching the ocean it impacted the ground and bounced off it leaving a very long gash in the soil as it rapidly began spinning end over end and very fast due to its own momentum, momentum which propelled it over the cliff and out to sea and began travelling away from the solid ground.

It watched the land slowly start to recede away but it soon came to a sudden stop as it impacted the water with such speed it made the liquid feel like it was made of concrete. It sank a little ways into the ocean due to the force of the impact but still it was completely undamaged, not ever scratched. Bubbles formed around it as it slowly began rising from the inky depths. Anyone looking at it would've been able to see a slight afterglow as the cold sea rapidly cooled it down, the glow slowly vanished leaving no evidence that anything had hit the water except a few ripples on the surface.

Something small broke the surface, a very small object no bigger than a football, and anyone looking at it would not have seen anything remarkable about it. It was a mask, a very old looking green wooden mask with a metal bar running halfway down the middle of its face. The paint was pealing in places and the metal bar slightly rusted showing its age. You would've been forgiven for thinking this was just a piece of drift wood, or something mistakenly dropped from a ship or in a river, but you'd never believe this was the object that had just fallen from the depths of space.

It began drifting in the sea bobbing up and down and side to side with the waves as the current began to carry it closer to the continent it had passed as it flew through the sky. The tide was coming in on that land and this odd mask began to float closer and closer to its shores.

If it were alive in any shape or form or if it could feel any emotion at all, it would've been triumph. They had tried to destroy it and instead had just flung it here, onto the shores of another dimension. They had just past the problem on to the universe next door.

If it could laugh it would've. The Mask still existed, and now it was waiting, waiting for another foolish mortal to claim it and its power.

Authors notes: This is my very first attempt at a Sonic the Hedgehog story so I'd really like to know if I've got the characters right.

-cheers