Notes: Hello.

I don't remember where I was going with this story or even what the major story beats were anymore, and I'm loathe to reread it all because it's long and the writing is awful, but by god am I gonna finish this thing. (Why don't I rewrite it? Well, I'm glad you asked. I like to leave my terrible old writing up so that readers (especially younger aspiring writers) can experience my writing journey with me and see my progress. It helps to see someone getting better as they work.) Thanks for sticking with me this long!

Forward!

The Genesis of a Generation

"It's about time that this world goes up in flames."

The thing about Knuckles, which Sonic forgot, was that he didn't grow up on the surface. Sure, he had his moments where he was absolutely baffled by some gadget or surface custom, but those moments were few and far between in the present. The past though? The Knuckles of yesteryear looked like he was walking across glass every time he took a step on pavement, as if he expected it to open up and swallow him; he jumped at light switches and wasn't satisfied until he pinpointed the exact placement of every single speaker when there was music playing. He didn't trust anything he couldn't see, touch, or hear with his own senses, so he had a lot of trouble in crowded places, where people were on phones or getting in and out of cars.

So, suffice it to say, going out to mall with little Knuckles in tow probably wasn't wise.

"What was that?" he demanded as they passed a music store. There was a music video playing on a screen in the window, but the glasses warped and foggy so the dancers were just multicolored blobs, the music warbled and indistinct through the glass. "What was it?"

"Music video," the younger Sonic answered shortly, unamused by it all. Ah, the impatience of his youth. "You've seen them before."

Sonic, the older, didn't think he had, but he decided to stay out of this fight. The last thing they needed was a full out brawl in the middle of this mall because he opened his mouth. He shot a look at his own, older Knuckles, and saw that he too had diplomatically resolved to keep his nose where it belonged, and they shared a single nod.

A nod which Tails noticed, and he nodded back and very carefully placed a soft hand on his younger self's shoulder, physically pulling him away from the broiling echidna and agitated hedgehog.

Okay, so maybe the mall wasn't the best choice for a "family" outing, but Sonic was running out of ideas. The littles had been here for around ten months, so there wasn't much they hadn't done at this point, what with Sonic's past history with wandering— That was to say, when he was younger, he couldn't stay still, had to constantly find things to look at, new things to experience, and while the Sonic of today was much the same, he was content to sit on the couch for a few hours and watch a movie; a feat that his younger self had yet to master. When he wasn't sleeping, he had to be entertained, or else he got destructive.

So yeah, he was out of things to do. They couldn't do amusement parks anymore after what happened last time, Eggman was quiet, and all the other troublemakers were nowhere to be seen. The mall was close by and they had to take it slow, thereby distracting everyone for a good few hours, but the littles Knuckles and Sonic weren't amused by any of it. Knuckles was jumpy and looked ready to punch the next person that touched him, while Sonic seemed far too interested in the prospect of a fight—the elder Sonic knew that the second Knuckles acted up, his younger self was going to jump right in and kick him or something, inciting the both of them into a dust cloud of a brawl in the middle of this perfectly good mall. He had already resolved not to get involved if that happened, but Tails would probably be upset, which was never good.

"What the heck is a music video?" Knuckles rumbled, and he sounded frustrated, which was never good. A frustrated Knuckles's impulse control dropped catastrophically (not that it was that high to begin with, but Knuckles was working on it), which only made the tiny danger alarm in Sonic's brain rise from a weak six to a solid eight.

"That!" Sonic's younger self flung his arm at the television screen, where the colors flashed and the dancers swung their hips so violently Sonic felt his own ball-and-socket joint cry out for help.

"Okay!" Sonic the elder called, abruptly putting an end to their little argument before it could get going. "Let's move on! Hey look, robots!"

Little Tails squealed and took off toward the store that Sonic had so wildly, and irresponsibly, pointed at. His own Tails, meanwhile, sighed and sped up so he could walk next to Sonic. Probably to scold him.

Younger Sonic and the Knuckles twins took off after the small fox, and Sonic turned to Tails to let him get on with it.

"If Knuckles is overstimulated by a television, imagine how bad he'll be with robots," Tails grumbled as they started after their friends.

Sonic shrugged. "Yeah, but the tiny gearhead will be distracted, which will distract me." He indicated Tails's younger self, who they could see running around the tiny household gadget store—robot vacuums, mops, dusters, pet feeders, you name it—through the window, and the begrudging form of Sonic's own past-self following him. "See?"

Tails totally saw, but he just sighed in that way that made him seem like he was eighty years old.

Little Sonic and Tails were nowhere to be found, but they easily caught up with the Knuckles's. They were huddling around a small pen of vacuum robots, watching them scoot around and bump into each other.

"This is too much," Knuckles the smaller declared when they pulled to a stop. In the pen, two of the robots bopped into each other, beeped, and turned around. "Is this a sport? Do you enjoy watching these artificial creatures fight to the death?"

It was so unexpected that Sonic felt a laugh explode out of his own throat without warning or permission. Tails was much the same, though his came out as more of a bark, and they had to lean on each other for support for a few seconds, Knuckles getting more and more annoyed as they went on. (The elder Knuckles, meanwhile, looked close to tears, so at least he could laugh at himself, literally. Oh, Sonic reflected through his own laughter, what character growth.)

Knuckles had clearly had enough. His hands curled into tight, tiny fists, and he swiftly threw one leg over the small, white picket fence holding the robots captive. The other followed before Sonic could really comprehend what he was doing, and then he had a robot in his hands. It whirred in fear, small wheels still spinning.

"Whoa, what're you doing!" Sonic called in a panic, all evidence of the laughter gone.

"I'm rescuing them!"

"Put the robot down!" Tails hissed next, hands coming up as if he would catch it. "Those things are expensive!"

"Money means nothing! It's about time that this world goes up in flames!"

"Okay, you little anarchist! Chill out!" Sonic jerked to look at the older Knuckles. "Dude, control yourself!"

No luck, because that Knuckles was currently bent double, practically coughing on the laughter getting caught in his throat.

"Hey!" That was Sonic's own voice, but younger.

"Oh no," Sonic groaned.

His past-self was standing on the other side of the pen with his hands on his hips, feet spread, total hero mode. "Put that down, Knuckles."

Knuckles didn't put that down. In fact, he picked up further, as if to drop it from his full height.

"Chaos, we were dramatic back then," Sonic muttered to Tails.

"Still are," Tails shot back, peering up on his tiptoes, probably looking for his younger self.

"If you don't put it down, I'll make you!" Sonic called in all his ten-year-old glory. "I mean it."

"Oh yeah?" Knuckles, while a total cloud hermit, had the benefit of an extra year and a few inches on his side, so he had a right to be cocky. "How are you gonna do tha—!"

Little Sonic launched himself over the fence and tackled Knuckles. They landed in a pile amongst the robots, who continued to beep and scuttle along, bumping into their struggling bodies weakly, without a single micron of self-preservation in their servos. Knuckles's sacrificial robot flew through the air and landed with a harsh crunch of Sonic and Tails's feet and they shared one long, deep, dark look as they imagined a good chunk of their savings evaporating.

"I'm gonna go pay for that," Tails called over the sounds of the fight happening in the robot corral.

"I'll..." Sonic sighed and set his sights on the baby war. "I'll deal with this."

"I'll go find little Tails!" the elder Knuckles called, suddenly in complete control of himself. He disappeared into the shelves before Sonic or Tails could stop him.

"Then we go home," Sonic muttered to Tails.

"And we never leave again," Tails returned.

Sonic couldn't agree fast enough.

Hey you, you wanna see what I've been working on? How about you hop on over to sylvaniaschool of magic. tumblr .com and check out the Sonic/Harry Potter crossover I've been working on with Katiemonz and Yamiii? It's a multi-media (writing and art and comics and all kinds of stuff) project spanning seven years about Sonic and friends attending Sylvania School of Magic to learn magic. It's a story about Sonic with Harry Potter concepts infused into it, and we'd love if you went and gave it a look!

Also, Katiemonz, Yamiii, and I have a Sonic Discord chat that's still open for members! If you would like to chat with us, share your writing or art, or just have people to talk to about Sonic, drop me a PM! You need to be 16 or older to join though!

Thanks for sticking with this story everyone! See you next update!

Reviews are cherished.