章 65: Wrapped In Sloth
Sonic kept running, a scratching feeling in the back of his head growing with every step he took. There were no Badnik parts anywhere, where before there was an abundance of them. "Majin! Where are you?" Sonic hissed, looking for the smallest of metallic shards so he wouldn't be completely alone. However, he knew he couldn't call too loudly or stop for too long to search one area. He knew the Deadly Seven were in the Dark Fog with him somewhere, or at least their Sins were. "C'mon out! Where did you go?!" Sonic called.
"Devoured, lost, forgotten in the fog…" A male, moany-groany yet overly-eloquent voice muttered. It was depressing just to listen to the nihilistic, uncaring cadence in his voice. Sonic looked over to a shadowy figure atop one of Robotnik's cannons. "Such is your fate, young blue hedgehog." The figure looked directly at Sonic.
"The hell are you?" Sonic asked.
"My name is Sloth the Sin. And with my mere appearance, a miserable mystery must be brewing in thy mind. Am I a friend, a foe? Does it really matter? Either way, I know I'll just end up hurting you," The figure announced. "A foe will hurt you by kicking you down at your happiest moment. A friend will hurt you by leaving you at your worst moment." Sonic's gaze followed a lone rose petal as it fell from the figure's hand and burnt to a crisp in the lava. Followed by a strikingly familiar cyborg faceplate being tossed in. "Who dares to awaken me from my long slumber?! Leave me be, for I only wish to sleep once more." The figure put its hands over its head, and dove off of the cannon elegantly, heading for the lava.
"Whoa, WHOA HEY!" Sonic shouted, shooting forth an ener-beam and wrangling Sloth the Sin back onto solid ground in front of him. "Don't do that!" Sloth looked up towards Sonic. Sonic took in how purely grotesque the guy was. He was, for lack of a better term, ugly as sin. He had a long, shaggy handlebar mustache. Graying purple hair matted with sweat. Colorless and ghastly skin. Sonic only then realized he was holding someone that may as well have been a walking, talking corpse. "Eugh… Sloth, eh? Let me guess, you're Zor's Sin?" Sonic hadn't even made direct contact with Sloth, and he felt like he needed to wash his hands just because he handled the ener-beam used to catch him.
"Zor… the vessel which has kept me alive as a faint spark of the flame I once was…" Sloth sighed. "She was there for me when nobody else was left. Oh, sweet pain! The pain I feel every second I go on existing. How truly cruel of her to force me to keep going in my constant misery. I hurt her by existing in her mind, forcing her to feel the way she does. And she has hurt me in turn. Please, do not follow me. Do not try to save me. For YOU… will only be hurting me more." Sloth turned back to the lava and dispelled Sonic's ener-beam. Sonic grabbed him by the arm.
"What are you doing?!" Sonic asked. "Listen, I won't let you go through with this. If you kill yourself, you'll take Zor with you!" Sloth struggled to get Sonic to unhand him.
"Leave me be!" Sloth whined. "I cannot be chained down to this cruel reality any longer. I care not what happens to Zor. She is the one reason I'm not already dead!" Sonic felt something kick him from behind. He was knocked over. He looked around, and saw one of Zor's Glooms, this time bearing Sloth's silhouette. Sloth, now free of Sonic's grasp, ran off into deeper darkness.
"Stop!" Sonic shouted, instantly giving chase. However, he quickly realized that he was directionless. Sloth could have gone any which way. "Come back here! You may want to die, but Zor has so much left ahead of her! It's not your choice to throw that all away!" Sonic gained no response. His Chaos Emerald heart surged and made him glow as much as he could, fighting back the Dark Fog within his general vicinity a little. He barely caught the fleeting image of a pale rat tail trailing behind Sloth. "Gotcha!" Sonic exclaimed, rushing forward and slamming his foot down onto the tail. He grabbed Sloth by both arms. "C'mon, don't do it. You have a lot to live for as well. Everybody does!"
"I have nothing but regrets, and I look forward to nothing but death's warm embrace," Sloth intoned, headbutting Sonic hard. Sonic held his nose, before instinctively kneeing Sloth in the stomach. He didn't lose his grip on the sin.
"Listen to me for one second, will you?!" Sonic asked, tangoing with Sloth as he tried to block his attacks. "This isn't fair to anyone. I need you to cut it out right now. You can go back to sleep in Zor's mind or soul or whatever if you really want right now, so why would you kill her too?!"
"This tires me so. I can't simply go back to sleep there. If I do, I will be awakened again eventually. I can't even stand the thought," Sloth groaned, pulling out a fancy pocket knife. He pointed it to Sonic's throat. "You are determined to make me suffer. So I will make you suffer instead. I will kill you and then myself with this blade."
"Give me a break already! What's up with all this drama?" Sonic asked. He produced an electric burst and sent Sloth flying back. Sonic caught the knife. "Ya still there, Majin? I could use some help with Sloth here." Sonic asked, looking into his reflection in the knife. Majin looked cross.
"I'm not helping you with this," Majin pouted. "I'm on strike 'til you say sorry for subjecting me to that… VILE MISTREATMENT..."
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I had no other option!" Sonic shouted, as Sloth summoned an entire gang of Glooms. Sonic stood his ground and pointed the knife at each of the Glooms. They then rushed towards him, and he was left with no choice but to slice through the shadow clones.
"Apology accepted," Majin sighed. "Now then… Do you recall when Envy briefly took over Zeena's body for the most part? Zeena appeared in Envy's reflection then. Wouldn't Zor be able to appear in Sloth's reflection?"
"Hey, you might be onto something," Sonic replied. He rushed forward towards Sloth and kicked him to the ground. He stood atop Sloth and held the knife in front of the sin's eyes so he could see the face of the blade. Moreover, the face in the blade. Zor. "Let's see what she has to say about all this. Zor?"
"Don't do this," Zor whispered from within the reflection. Her voice came out as sharp as the knife, as tears streamed down her face. "Let me out, let me out! I don't want to die!" She pleaded.
"How odd," Sloth replied. "I thought the opposite was true. I know you want to wilt away and perish just as I do. It's always clouding your thoughts. You say you want to die far too often for it to simply be a lie. Alas, your epiphany is for naught. I will go through with this either way."
"This isn't fair! It's my life to live, not your life to end. Why are you so hellbent on killing us both?!" Zor shrieked in terror.
"It's a simple answer," Sloth muttered. "Like the other 'Sins', I am not a person. I am a feeling. A thought. Just one of the many cognitive drives the living are born with. I was created with one goal: to rest and sleep. When reduced to a singular entity, I must achieve that goal as soon as possible and at all costs. Even if that cost is the death of myself and others." Zor's irises shrunk. "Does it all make sense now? Can you see why I am doing this?"
"So the reason I always felt like this… the depression, constantly being tired… That was you?" Zor asked. Sloth shook his head.
"It was not me at first. It was YOU, Zor. It was you reacting to your horrid environment, as well as the categorization that rather ovoid conqueror inflicted upon you," Sloth replied. "I am but the result of that mindset and notion. I fuel it in turn. It's a constant cycle of negativity spurred about by these natural thoughts and actions being amplified to an unhealthy degree."
"That doesn't have to be all you are," Zor sighed. Sloth raised an exceedingly bushy eyebrow. "I probably wouldn't have said that a few hours ago, but listening to everyone else's stories about how they freed themselves from Robotnik, I've realized something. No matter who you think you are, or who other people think you are, you can change. Anybody can break away from everything holding them down. All it takes is the courage to take that first step towards freedom." Zor took a long breath. "It won't be easy. Even I'm gonna struggle with these lies that dictated my life for a long time. But I know we can do this. Together." Sloth's eyes widened, as light enveloped his body.
"I… I see!" Sloth exclaimed, as his entire body began to float just above the ground and glow with a brilliant light. "Zor, you've changed my mind. I no longer desire to die, or even sleep. Right now, I just want to do everything I can to become free. Majin, are you there?"
"I'm right here, old pal," Majin replied from the other side of the knife. "What's on your mind?"
"Teach me your ways… on the other side," Sloth whispered.
"Of course," Majin replied.
The light that covered Sloth's body squashed, stretched and morphed into a different shape. The light then faded, leaving someone else to fall to the ground. "Ack!" Zor squawked as she hit the ground.
"Zor?!" Sonic exclaimed. "You okay?" Sonic ran over and reached his hand out. Zor looked to his hand. After a few seconds, she took it and got to her feet.
"I'm fine, I guess," Zor replied.
"Good. So uh, no judgment, but do you have anything to do with this Dark Fog?" Sonic asked. "I remember you making a lot of this stuff back in Silent Forest."
"No! It wasn't me, I swear!" Zor blurted. "Well, not entirely, at least."
"What do you mean?" Sonic asked.
"Well, it started with Zik giving us these strange fruits," Zor murmured. "She said they would give us the strength of a Zeti, but even then I had my suspicions." Zor looked around cautiously. "The fruits looked a lot like descriptions of Sintrus, a type of magic fruit native to Silent Forest. I've never actually seen one before today, because they only really grow around Relic Spire. I was born in Silent Forest after Robotnik's takeover. Given that he had tight security around Relic Spire, I don't know much about Sintrus besides what the legends had to say about it. I remember hearing that when bitten into, they release a mist known as Dark Fog. Dark Fog amplifies the worst traits of anyone caught in it. If you have an especially bad trait, it'll completely take over your body. I… lost a lot of sleep over these stories. I didn't want to doubt Master Zik, but it looks like those fruits were Sintrus after all. We were tricked. But why would Master Zik do this to us?"
"Beats me," Sonic replied. "I just ran into Zomom 'bout half an hour ago. She's already turned into her Sin as well. I would try and reason with Gluttony, but that thing's too dangerous and probably too stupid to try and reason with like you did with Sloth. Worst of all, when I was outside the fog, it looked like it was spreading. I just want to make sure I get to the Dark Battery so I can use it to suck up the fog before it gets out of control." Sonic began to walk forward. Zor followed. "How did you reason with Sloth, anyways?"
"I was in his head, just like he was in mine before," Zor answered. "He was able to practically control my thoughts, so I decided to do that very thing to him."
"Well, good job on that," Sonic replied, smiling.
"... Couldn't have done it without you," Zor said. She smiled a little too. "None of us could have done any of this without you."
"That's not true," Sloth whispered, taking form as an apparition behind Zor. Sonic and Zor stopped to look at him. "It was not all thanks to him in the end. It was you, Zor. And your friends. I thought our fate was to die by our own hands. But you have averted that fate. And I have no doubt you will avert the fate Robotnik has arranged for your team."
"Yeah… you're right," Zor replied, as she, Sonic, Majin and Sloth continued into Lava Mountain to save their friends.
クリエイターの想い 
NatQuin
NatQuin Hey there! Way back when this series hit 20K views, I promised a side-series with shorter stories focusing on characters besides Sonic. I recognize it took me a while to get on that (enough time to get over 10k more views as of when I'm writing this), but the first chapter of this side-series is now out!
Read Sonic Runaways Misfits here: https://www.webnovel.com/book/sonic-runaways-misfits_22477528505560805
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