The following is a work of fan fiction by Joshua D. Tarwater and is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Sega Sammy Holdings Inc.

“He is called a god.
Rings claim him, dreaded are they all.
But if him, why not any animal?
The world is full of sacred beasts.”

···

♪ ~ [Light your heart up:[nZk]ver. <INST> ~ Hiroyuki Sawano ~ KILL LA KILL Complete Soundtrack]

          ~Ooh~! I can’t believe how easy it is to get frustrated on an adventure. Maybe the next Zone I try to get Sonic to explore I’ll focus on sightseeing instead!~

Under starry skies upon white sand beaches
A wall castle without end
On cliff and touching ocean via great piers
Full of ballrooms and ornate halls
Floating, self-playing instruments all around
Cats and fairies audience to a party unattended
Fireworks bursting above to no revelry

          ~This was such a romantic Zone too. It was perfect to watch the stars with Sonic, or dance with him in grand balconies or under starlight. I mean, I know Sonic doesn’t do romance at all, but I could still dream. It’s fun to tease him about it too. But really, this whole Zone has just been one bit of trouble after the next. And really, it hasn’t gotten us any closer to home either. So, it’s time that Sonic and I make our way out of here.

          ~There is one more thing though. Tee-hee~♥ I’ve even got Sonic chasing me because of it~♥~

         “Did you forget that Metal Sonic is hanging out in this Zone?” Sonic asked as he skipped around a series of walls and ascended a staircase in a blink. Rosy however refused to slow down and he had to continue running after her at full speed. “We just need to use a Ring Gate and let it take us wherever the Rings feel like. That should shake the old tin can off our tails easy enough.”

          ~I know I’ve mentioned Ring Gates before, but probably not how they work.

          ~Basically, if you have fifty Rings or more you can make a really big Ring that you can step through. There are all sorts of things that can affect where they’ll take you, but really, no one knows how they work. The easiest way to use them is to return to a Ring Star Post, though Sonic says there are Ring Gate Beacons that function similarly. So Sonic is right, if we just made one and let the Rings take us wherever in the world they wanted, we could say goodbye to this Zone and not worry about anyone following us.

          ~It’s just the thing is…~

          “I get it Sonic,” Rosy playfully teased Sonic. As best she could anyway while she focused on not getting caught by him and choosing pathways with few enough Rings to prevent him from just dropping a Ring Gate in front of her. “But there’s a mystery here I just have to solve now that we’re leaving.”

         “This isn’t the time for you to be chasing ghosts Amy! Especially since we’re being chased as it is!”

         “It’s Rosy!” Rosy corrected Sonic, distinctly attempting to draw his attention to her nickname and the unspoken rascal part of it. She was chasing trouble and she knew it. So did Sonic.

         “And it’s not a ghost!” Rosy continued to correct Sonic. “It’s a really big cat! A really, really big cat!”

         “Sure it is,” Sonic countered, eying the coming scenery as Rosy spread her arms wide to demonstrate the size of the cat. And as he suspected, there was an open doorway with open glass French doors ahead of them.

         Sonic could have attempted to drop a Ring Gate into the doorway to catch Rosy if she decided to turn by grabbing the door, but he could not be sure if that was her intent. As it turned out it wasn’t, and she grabbed the door by pure accident.

         “Oops!”

         Laughing at herself as Sonic overshot her, Rosy ducked into the waiting castle hall where a group of regular house cats watched her warily.

         “It’s okay,” Rosy offered them a smiled and squatted to make herself appear friendly to them. “I don’t have a lot of time though before Sonic gets here.”

         “More like none,” Sonic mocked Rosy, drawing the hedgehog girl’s attention to the doorway where he stood leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

         “Gah! Sonic!”

         Jumping up in surprise, Rosy spooked the cats and they scattered. The sudden hissing and meowing of scattering cats surprised both hedgehogs, and in the chaos Rosy slipped past Sonic. Almost.

         “Eep!” Rosy squeaked as her leotard acted as a harness holding her in place, Sonic’s finger down the back of it. Unfavorable as the situation was, she couldn’t help but blush as her tail wagged excitedly. “S-Sonic~♥”

         “Really, what am I supposed to do with you, you rascal,” Sonic sighed as he pulled Rosy close and scooped her up into his arms. “Are you sure this wasn’t just a plot to get me to chase you all over the place?”

         “No~! Really Sonic,” Rosy attempted to convince Sonic as she hid her face with one hand and tried to push him away with the other. Her flushed cheeks and wagging tail though made her very unconvincing, yet she continued to try to convince Sonic. “I really do just want to find the big gray cat!”

         “Sure you do,” Sonic rolled his eyes and tossed Rosy into the air a moment, surprising her and enticing her hedgehog’s instinct to curl into a ball. She didn’t manage to however as Sonic caught her, exploiting the sizable hands of most sentient animals to pin her legs together and her arms to her sides as he took hold of her bridal style. “Now you’re stuck with me holding onto you until we get out of here. Though why I am not surprised that you don’t look unhappy about that.”

         “I can’t help it that I love being held by you,” Rosy laughed, her face flushing as she looked down at her own belly. She was defeated and she knew it. Sonic won this round, and she was enjoying it too much to protest. But Sonic’s lack of a follow up of any kind piqued her curiosity and she looked up to see why he had grown quiet.

         “Sonic?” Rosy asked as Sonic looked straight ahead, rather surprised. Turning her gaze to follow Sonic’s, Rosy’s mouth fell open in surprise. “That’s the cat!”

         Built no different from any common housecat, it was the size of the flat-faced cat that set it apart. With its long gray fur disguising the size of its body, it was best to describe the cat’s size by its face. A face that was two meters tall, from which a pair of amber eyes stared at the two hedgehogs. It then ran across the hall that Rosy had run into, the lights all going out as it passed, a wintry blast of air coming in from beyond the doors behind Sonic.

         “Yikes! That’s C-c-cold!”

♪ ~ [OhKami ~ Kevin Penkin ~ TV Anime [The Rising of the Shield Hero] Original Soundtrack]

Bright sunlight and clear blue skies
Clouds drifting just above the wall castle
Towering mountains of ice and snowdrifts deep
Cats lounging about unbothered by the cold
Their eyes as cold as the frozen Zone.
Life size wooden mannequins dressed as jesters
Far from still, but golems of wood and danger
Two hedgehogs far removed from what they knew.

         “That wasn’t a Ring Shift, was it Sonic?” Rosy asked confused, her eyes taking note of white and ice blue Light Blooms and roses blooming all over the wall castle.

         “No,” Sonic answered, confident that the phenomenon was not of the Rings making, but unsure of what just happened. The clear blue sky and fully visible sun with no sign of Yoluku telling him that this new Zone was even more unnatural than it felt. Even though Rings surely occupied it as they did any other Zone.

         “Then Sonic, where are we?”

         “I’m guessing your friendly cat has an idea. How about we see if we can’t find him.”