The World Less Traveled

Hello, and welcome to “The World Less Traveled.” I apologize for the quality, and yes, I do plan on re-writing it....EVENTUALLY!!!
~~~

Paul Henderson was just an average, 12 year old kid. Went to school, rode the bus to and from, and was picked on. However, one thing was odd about him, besides his glasses. He was quite a dreamer, and always wished he could go on some sort of amazing adventure. Of course, he never wanted to tell anybody, because he thought people would think he was crazy. So, he just went along with his daily life, bored and wishing for something different to happen. This is the story of that something different.

Paul got off the bus just as the rain let up. He looked up and thought to himself, At least I don’t have to walk in the rain. The bus bully, Kendall, then got off the bus.

“Hey, Shrimp, where do you think you’re going?” Kendall yelled to him.

Oh boy, Paul thought to himself as he turned around.

“What do you want to do to me today? Punch me in the face, Force me to eat worms, or harm my self esteem? I’ll even pay you tomorrow’s lunch money for it,” He said, almost as if he was reading from a script.

“You know me well. I think I’ll try all three.” He gave an evil grin as he as walked towards Paul.

Paul took a step back. “That’s not quite what I had in maieeee!” as Kendall grabbed his arm and flung him into a ditch. A deep ditch. Filled with a lot of water.

Paul closed his eyes as he went flying into the water. He hit the water, and went under. Then he came back up, and went to the other side of the ditch away from the road, and listened to Kendall laugh as we walked off.

“Aw man! I’ll never be able to get the mud out!” He exclaimed to himself as he looked at his favorite shirt, now drenched with mud.

Sighing, he looked on the ground for his glasses, which had flown off when he was flung into the ditch. Feeling around, he found his glasses, next to something else. Something…hard. He put his glasses on, and saw that it was a crystal of some sort. It was bright red, and about the size of his fist. Hmmm…this looks familiar.

“Where have I seen something like this before?” He said to himself. Pocketing it, he jumped the “river” And walked to his house, wondering how he was gonna explain the clothing to his parents.
~~~
Paul sat in his bed. It was about 12:00 at night, and he wasn’t able to sleep. In his hands was the gem he found earlier today.

“What is this thing?” He questioned to himself. As if trying to answer his question, a small hologram appeared within the gem.

“What the…”

The hologram showed a large green emerald, then promptly cut out.

“Hey, c’mon, finish what you started!” Paul yelled at the emerald. Unfortunately, the emerald did nothing else…at first.

“Uh oh…”

The emerald started gaining a white tint, glowing brighter and brighter.

“….” Paul was in awe as he watched the emerald turn brighter and brighter until it was pure white. He tried letting go of it, but he found he was unable to. Two words sprang unbidden from his lips.

Chaos…..CONTROL!

It was only after he heard himself yell those words that he knew what it was. It was a Chaos Emerald.

All he remembered after that was a feeling like he was imploding. That was the only way he could describe it.

Paul disappeared in a flash of light.

--

Black. All was black. Black was all. Then, a feeling. Bitterness. Cold bitterness. Like a snowstorm. Strong wing and light. And not on solid ground.

Paul opened his eyes. Looking down, (Or up.) he noticed something odd, besides the fact that it was cold. He saw clouds.

Snapping to his senses, Paul instantly knew something was wrong.

“AIEEEEEEEEEE!” He was falling from the sky.

Knowing the grave danger he was in, he also noticed that he wasn’t flipping through the air.

How am I staying st- He didn’t have time to finish his thought as he hit a cloud. Coughing and damp, he continued plummeting.

Somehow, he managed to stop himself from screaming and tried to see how he could take control of the situation. It was then that he noticed something blue whiz underneath him. “Eh?” As if this day couldn’t get any weirder.

Falling some more, he realized he was below the cloud line. Knowing he was gonna hit the ground soon, he started to panic. Before he could react, he hit something hard, and blacked out.
~~~
“So, who do you think he is?”

“Well, he’s defiantly not-“

“Shh, I think he’s waking up.”

“…”

--

Paul groaned as he remembered what happened, if not too well. He remembered free falling, then hitting something and…after that was blank.

He opened his eyes and saw orange and pink blurs hovering over him, in front of a light.

“Hey there,” the yellow blur spoke.

I must be dreaming. I’m on the ground, dying right now. Ah well. May as well go along with it. He groaned, then responded.

“Where…where am I?”

“Well, where do you think you are? You’re on Mobius!” the orange blob replied. (A/N: Sega Sonic Mobius.)

Mobius…where’s that? What’s that?…” Paul mumbled.

“Wow, you really are lost, aren’t you? Where are you from anyway? We sensed some Chaos energy and-“

At this, Paul snapped awake and started feeling round himself and yelling, as if looking for something.

“AH! Chaos, freefall, cloud, shiny-“

“Woah woah, calm down!” A now clear Orange-Yellow …thing, which had apparently jumped back, yelled, although Paul didn’t know the yellow fox was.

“Man, you scared me!” Another pink…thing wearing a dress yelled, looking a bit startled.

“Ah! What are you? Where am….Chaos…”

“He seems a bit distressed,” The yellow orange thing said to himself.

“No, ya think? I think Imploding after a gem forces you to yell for no reason just to wake up finding you self in a free fall isn’t distressing! You try it some time!” Paul yelled, suddenly angry at the Kitsune.

“Ah, I see our little friend is awake. You seem a little upset!”

Paul turned to the voice, to see that another thing had walked in. This one was blue, and looked a little like the pink one, with spines coming out of his head.

“Upset!” He yelled at the hedgehog. “It’s one thing to wake up in the middle of nowhere, but to wake up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by freaks! I’m beyond upset!”

The blue thing looked a little shocked, then smiled.

“Well, ya know, you really shouldn’t insult your own species!” "Blues" (The name was forming in Paul’s mind.) yelled back at him.

Paul’s eye’s opened wide.

“What? I’m nothing like you!” Paul yelled.

“See for yourself,” "Blues" pointed to Paul’s right. He then thought to himself. 'What’s up with this guy? Doesn’t even know his own species!'

Paul glared at the blue thing, then hopped off the table, (Did I get shorter?) and walked to the mirror. What he saw shocked him.

“ Oh…God…”

What he saw in the mirror shocked him more than any type of electricity could.

He saw something similar to Blues, but a different color. The left half of him was pure white, while the other was pure black.

The last thing he remembered was a loud Thunk!
~~~
Paul sat on his bed. After he fainted from shock, he was carried into this room to rest. He had been examining himself all day since he woke up. At first glance, he looked the exact same in every was as that blue- (Well, he didn’t exactly want to call him the name he had given him earlier, so he decided to call him “Blues” for now. He didn’t know why, but that name sounded familiar.) except with a BlackWhite color scheme instead of a blue one. However, upon closer examination, he noticed that the spines on the back of his head were a lot longer, going down to his waist.

Next, he looked at his arms, and more importantly, his hands. He had white gloves on, which he found odd. He flexed his hand to test if all this was real. Well, I’ve never had any vivid dreams like this before, so it seems like… He fell back onto the bed. “I might be here a while,” he muttered to himself.

“I don’t even really know how I got here in the first place. All I remember it being forced to yell some words, and I don’t remember what they were, then that Chaos whatchamajiggit flashed and I was freefalling. Ugh.”

He sat back up and yawned, sighing at his misfortune.

“Oh well. Guess I just have to deal. No matter how bizarre this whole thing is.”

He looked down at his feet and noticed that he had some really weird shoes on. Kneeling down, he noticed that they had cool black and white designs on them and really thick soles. “How odd…” he commented to himself as he stood back up. He then turned towards the door, and walked out of the room.

That is, he would of, had the door not opened, and he had walked straight into the yellow Kitsune from earlier.

“Ow!”

“Hey!”

The two fell to the ground as they hit each other.

The two rubbed their heads, and Paul opened their mouths to speak. The kit beat him to it, though.

“Oh, hey. You’re that guy that fainted yesterday.”

He smiled.

Paul felt his head.

“Yeah…” He rubbed his head again and felt a bump. “I guess I am.”

The kit smiled.” I don’t think we got properly introduced. My name’s Miles Prower, but my friends call me Tails.”

“Tails, Eh? Well, at least I have a name now. I’ve been trying all day to think of names for you guys. Say, is that a trick of the light, or do you have a tail?

“What are you talking about? Usually, when people comment on my tails, they usually talk about how I have two, not how I have any at all. You have a tail too, don’t you?”

Paul raised his eyebrow.

“I don’t think so, but considering all the other weird things that have happened to me, like the Gloves, spines, shoes, and overall change in appearance, I’m not surprised.”

Curious, he turned his head around as far as he could, and looked down. He turned back around.

“…I guess I do,” He said, sighing. Upon the discovery that he had a tail, he finally realized…

“I’m not a human anymore.”

Now it was Tails’ turn to raise an eyebrow. “What do you mean,’ Anymore.’”

“What do you mean, ‘What do you mean,’ What do you mean; Anymore.; ?’ ?’

“What do you mean,’ What do-‘ Ugh. This is getting nowhere fast. Just tell me what you mean.”

Paul sighed again. “I mean what I mean.” Then he got an idea. ”Do you know where Algoa is?”

Tails shook his head. “Nope. Sorry. I haven’t.

“No surprise there. What about Alvin?”

Tails shook his head ‘no’.

“Alright, I’ll have you on this one. Houston.”

Tails shook his head.

Paul was starting to get desperate. “Texas?”

Shake.

“The United States of America?”

No.

“North America?”

No.

“Earth!”

“Look, I don’t know what spouting of random works is going to do, but-

Paul started getting angry. “Those weren’t just random names.”

He calmed down. “Those were my home.”

“…Oh.” Tails sounded embarrassed. The yellow Kitsune finally realized that he was still on the ground from when he collided into Paul, and stood up.

Watching Tails, he did the same. “You ok?

“Yeah. Follow me, I want to show you around.”

Tails turned around, and walked down the hallway that was previously behind him, Paul following behind.
~~~
Tails led Paul through the hallway into the main room, which was about the size of about of an average living room, and had all the furnishings of such; A couch, a few chairs, and a TV were seen. On the wall was a poster of some band or something called “The Blue Hog Group” which showed a picture of about four blue (seemingly painted) hedgehogs standing next to each other wearing blank looks on their faces. There was a sort of a gray color scheme about the room, as well as the whole workshop, that was sort of getting on Paul’s nerves. Sitting on the couch, was Blues, watching them as they walked in.

“This is the living room, and sitting on the couch is-“ Tails was about to introduce Blues, when he was cut off.

“Let me introduce me self.” Blues interjected “I’m Sonic.” He stood up and walked towards Paul. “Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“Well, you sure do know how to introduce yourself,” Returned Paul, happy that he knew Sonic’s real name. “Well, I can’t say the same thing for myself, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“I’m Paul. Paul…the hedgehog?”

“…”

“What?”

Sonic slapped his forehead, and Tails walked over to the couch and started watching TV.

“First off, you need to be doing something as you say it. Hand movements, cool pose, whatever.”

“Second, you don’t sound so sure of the fact that you’re a hedgehog.”

“Funny story about that actually…” Paul explained the story to Sonic. Two seconds later, he was finished.

Sonic waited for the story to continue. “And then…?

“That’s it.”

“The whole story”

“Yep.”

“Wow…that was short…. Anyway. Third of all…Paul? What kind of lame name is that?”

…Paul gave this a second to sink in. “………….WHAAAAAAT?!!?!?!…!?”

Sonic sighed. “Face it. Your name sucks.”

Paul looked angrily at Sonic. “Well, I just so happen to like my name!”

Ignoring Paul, Sonic mused to himself. “Hmm…Akuma? Nah, that’s taken. Bean? Nope, also taken…”

Paul calmed down a bit, and looked at Sonic in confusion.

“Speed? Nah…too illegal…I’ve got it!”

Paul snapped to.

“Your nickname is….”

Paul sighed. “Spit it out.”

“…Dual!”

Paul sighed again.” Well, I suppose it’s not THAT bad of a name…”

Tails piped in, turning the TV off. “I kinda like it. It’s a fitting name.”

Paul, or Dual as he was now called, agreed. “Yeah…yeah, I guess it is.”

Dual turned to Sonic, and was about to say something, when he was inturrupted by Blues himself. “Wanna have a race?”

Dual was thrown off a bit by this question. “Why?”

“Why not? I haven’t ran in a while, and I thought it would be fun to practice with you.”

Paul shrugged. “Why not? I gotta warn you though, I did pretty good at track. Managed a mile in 3 and a half minutes. Not the best in the world, but-“

“Three and a half? Gimmie 10 seconds, tops.”

“…. I’m doomed, huh?”

Tails piped in again. “Yeah, pretty much.”

--

Sonic and Dual prepared ourselves at the entrance ramp of Route 66. The trip here had been intresting to Dual, what with Tail’s House/Workshop thing being in the middle of some ruins site, a nearby town filled with an abundance and variety of other animals, and the fact that it seemed a lot like home in some respects.

Sonic had demonstrated his speed, racing there and back about five times on the way to the highway. “Really doomed.” Tails whispered to Dual as Sonic laid at the entrance of the highway, seeming to be asleep.

“What took ya? I was starting to get bored.” Sonic mocked Dual as he got up from a fake nap.

“I was watching you show off. Not much else to see, other than the ruins and other various sights.” Dual retorted.

“Ah, witty. Well, get over here, lets get started.”

Dual did so.

“Now, to start off, were gonna find out how fast you can go. We’ll start off slow, and all you need to do is try to keep up. Simple, right?”

Dual nodded. “Yep.”

“Ok. Tails, start the countdown.”

Tails stood between, and slightly in front, of them.

“3…2…1…”

The anticipation built up in Dual. He knew he wouldn’t last very long.

“Go!!!”

Both Sonic and Dual took off at a blazing….2 miles per hour.

“…”

“…”

“…”

All three were silent as they walk/jogged along.

“Time to speed it up a bit!” Sonic blasted to 10 MPH.

“Woah!” Dual exclaimed. “I’ll never be able to keep-“ He noticed that he was rocketing along side Sonic. “up?”

“Whaddaya know, you’re faster than you said! Let’s crank up the heat!” and blasted ahead at 30 MPH.

“Aw, there’s no way I can…” He caught up with Sonic, and matched his speed. He was rocketing foreword at speeds he never knew that he, or anyone else, except Sonic, could run on foot. His feet looked, and felt, like a blur, as everything went whizzing by fast, wind whistling in his ears.

Sonic and Dual, exchanged glances, and smiled at each other. The race had truly begun.

Both started gaining speed, 32 MPH, 35MPH, then 40 MPH. Dual felt like he was starting to reach his limit. It was kind of a hard feeling to describe, you just knew it. Also, the strain to move faster helps signify such. By 45 MPH He was really straining, and by 50 he couldn’t go any faster. He saw the finish line up ahead, and saw that Tails had somehow gotten there already. He saw Sonic suddenly accelerate to the speeds of a jet engine.

He crossed he finish line Tails had the time to set up somehow at exactly 761 MPH(Mach 1) and created an incredibly loud Sonic Boom. Dual slowed to a stop next to Tails.

“He overdid it a bit, didn’t he?” Dual said to Tails.

Tails sighed. “He always does.”
~~~
The dream started with Dual walking across green, flat plains with a clear blue sky. As he continued, he reached a tree. Instead of stopping at it or going around it, he walked into, and through it. As he continued, his vision panned out so he could see himself. As he entered the tree, everything turned black and white, matching the color of his fur, and rendering him invisible. As he continued, he stopped in front of three renditions of himself. One, standing on the black side, was pure white, with all the spines on the back of his head flowing together like a robe. The second, standing on the white side, was all black, with short spines sticking out above his head like unkempt hair. The one he was paying the most attention to him, however, was the version of him standing in front of him. He was gray, and had the spines curling around his neck.

Who are you? Dual spoke wordlessly.

I am you. The gray him responded similarly.

Why am I here?

In the future, you will have some choices to make.

What kind of choices?

I cannot tell you. You will need to find out on your own. All I can say is that there was a reason you were brought here, and one other thing.

What’s that?

These two that stand beside me will help you in due time. It is up to you to choose who it will be.

How will I know who? When?

You will know. NOW ISH TIME FOR TACOES!

The group of three all began dancing with maracas under the light-pink weekend darkness as a banana ran by yelling “TOASTY!” Then Dual was yanked from his sleep.

Dual suddenly sat upright in his bed. It was the night after the race between him and Sonic. The rest of the day had been pretty uneven-
“Wait, that just happened to me! I’m just trying to remember the dream!” He coughed a little. “Weird. But still, what did I mean in that dream? I don’t understand a thing I was saying… I guess I don’t make much sense.” Dual hopped out of his bed and walked into the kitchen to look in the fridge. “Milk…eggs…bacon…ugh. All breakfast stuff.”

He closed the fridge, and was about to walk into his room, when he got an Idea!™. He walked into the hallway, and saw that the door to the storage room was open. “I bet it’s in here…” He crept his way into the room.

Despite the fact that it was a storage room, it was well kept and organized. Dual looked through some cabinets, and found what he was looking for. A Chaos Emerald. It was the only one in the cabinet, so he was kinda worried that it would be missed, but he didn’t care. He was just happy that he was going to get to go home. He ran to his room.

“First thing’s first.” Dual muttered to himself, clutching the gem in his left hand. “ Now, the words were ‘Chaos Control’, right?...Well, it's been fun..." He quietly yelled out the words.

“Chaos…Control!”

A whole lotta nothing happened.

“…Well, crud.” He walked back to the storage room, and put the emerald back where it was.

As he walked back to his room, he heard a crashing noise. He flinched. “God…dammit…” He turned around to see what it was. Sonic and Tails sprang out of their rooms to see what was the matter.

“What was that noise?” Tails asked as he burst out of his room. A mechanical noise was heard down the hallway.

“Is it Metal?” Sonic asked Tails.

I piped in behind him. “Of course it’s metal! What does it sound like?”

“No, not metal, metal, Metal Sonic. Shh! It’s coming!”

A small figure turned the corner into the hallway.

“Crabmeat.” Sonic muttered under his breath. He walked foreword, and crushed the crab robot under his foot. “Well, that was pointless.”

“Yes,” Tails started to explain,” but that means that Robotnik’s back.”

“Robotnik?” Dual had a confused look on his face. Sonic turned around to face him.

“Robotnik, also known as Eggman, is the general baddie. He causes a lot of trouble for us.”

“Ah.” Dual had a look of understanding on his face. “Well, I’m going to bed. ‘night,”

“G’night.”

“Good Night!”

All three walked into their rooms.
~~~
Elliot stood on the floating island.

“You’ve got to jump off the island!”

“I can’t do that, I’ll die!”

“I’ve played this game, I know what to do!”

“Who asked you?”

Sonic held a Saturn controller in his hands as he and Tails argued over what to do in the game. Dual walked out of the hallway, sleepy eyed into the main room, where Sonic and Tails were causing a storm. Dual walked over to the two bickering Mobians, took the controller from Sonic, sat next to him, and A-Ranked Twin Seeds in six minutes.

“You do jump.”

The two looked at the screen, amazed as Dual stood up, and walked into the kitchen to get some brunch.

---

Dual and Sonic walked next to each other in a nearby forest. Sonic turned to Dual, and asked a question. “How did you know how to play that game? I thought that you were from another world.”

Dual shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know that we had Saturns though. The only game I owned for it was NiGHTS, so I played it non-stop, and got really good at it.” Dual then stopped. “Speaking of dreams…”

Sonic stopped as well, and turned around to face Dual. “What is it?”

Dual looked up at the sky for a minute, then back at Sonic. “I had a strange dream a couple of nights ago. There were like different me’s standing in front of me, and one of them said I would need to use them, and make some great choices in the future…or something like that.”

Sonic looked at the ground, and tapped his foot. “Well, Eggman is back…”

Dual looked confused. “Who?”

Sonic continued to look at the ground. “Eggman’s a nickname for Robotnik.”

Dual nodded. “I see. Do you think he has something to do with those great choi-“Dual then promptly blacked out.

Sonic looked up to see Dual fall. “Huh?”

---

Dual was falling. However, it wasn’t like when he first came to Mobius. It was a different feeling. Though he could tell that he would be coming at the ground headfirst, this different feeling made it feel as if he was floating. His eyes were closed, so he decided to open them. It didn’t do much good however. All around him was black. Wind rippled through his fur, even though it didn’t feel like he was falling. What he saw next surprised him.

Two of the him’s from his dream were falling up (down?) towards him. The came to a stop in front of him, black and white, and faced him as they fell/floated. Which spoke, he could not tell, for no mouths moved.

You are making an important choice right now. Who you choose here will decide the fate of those around you. Choose wisely. Do you wish to protect all and hurt none? The white hedgehog nodded in the air. Or will you destroy the enemy at all costs, and risk the safety of those around you? A greedy smile quickly flashed the black copy’s across his face. The choice is yours. There is no neither.

Both hedgehogs held out their hands as they continued to fall/float.

Dual looked back and forth at the two hedgehogs, and, despite the fact that all of this had come upon him very suddenly, calmly took the hand of the white hedgehog. The black one broke away into dust. Duals vision suddenly started fading to white until he could see nothing.

---

“-ou ok?” Dual opened his eyes to the face of Sonic looking down at him. His eyes dashed left and right until finally, he understood where he was. “Why am I on the floor?”

Sonic helped Dual up, and gave him a long, detailed explanation of exactly what happened. “I have no clue what happened.”

Dual shrugged. “That makes two of us….anyway…what were we talking about again?” Sonic looked around a bit. “Uhh…I’m not quite sure.” Sonic smiled, and scratched the back of his neck.

Dual looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. “I know it was something important…”

Sonic suddenly called out an idea. “How about a game of Samba-De-Amigo?”

Dual’s eyes brightened. “Oh! You have it? I love that game!” He dashed into the next room.

Sonic sighed, and walked after Dual into the next room. However, as he walked into the living room, he noticed something was amiss. He looked down, and saw a rope on the ground leading from the hallway out the front door. It seemed to be moving quickly, little whisps of smoke flying into the air through friction against the carpet.

Dual was standing next to Sonic, observing the rope as it whizzed past. “Interesting piece of rope, huh?” Dual commented. Sonic shrugged. “I don’t really know what to make of…” At that moment, a screaming yellow blur flew past as the rope abruptly disappeared. Both hedgehogs looked at the door. “Tails!” they called out simultaneously. The duo almost immediately dashed after the rope that rapidly was widening the gap between itself and the workshop.
~~~

To be Continued...Hmm...I sense disappointment...