Fanfic / Tales of Sonic the Hedgehog

Tales of Sonic the Hedgehog is a Sonic the Hedgehog Fan Fic written by Nintendoman01.

Like the author's other fic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the fic is an AU taking cues from all over the Sonic franchise, serving as an Ultimate Universe.

Can also be found on Archive of Our Own. Though it was originally posted as a full work, the authors began reposting the multiple arcs of the series as volumes, to make the reading easier (as well as announcing that the posting of new chapters on AO3 would be made this way from now on). The entire series can be found here.

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Locke is a very emotionally cold parent. He abandoned Knuckles when he was 10 and berated him when they were reunited for prioritizing fighting Robotnik over watching over the Master Emerald. As the series goes on, however, he has a Heel Realization and begins to redeem himself.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • How Sonic and the Omni-Viewer met is shown here, whereas in Sonic the Comic, Omni's introduction was a case of Remember the New Guy?.
  • It is established that Sonic is afraid of water due to nearly drowning when he was six years old.
  • In Sonic Adventure, Chaos seemingly obeyed Eggman of his own free will before deciding to rebel. Here, Robotnik had the foresight to make a Mind-Control Device to keep him in line, with Chaos only rebelling after it was destroyed during a skirmish on the Egg Carrier.
  • The fic actually shows Tails being rewarded by Station Square's mayor for saving the city from Robotnik's missile, whereas it was only mentioned in Sonic Adventure 2.
• Adaptation Name Change: A minor example; Professor Gerald and Maria are given the surname Kintobor rather than Robotnik.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Due to this Sonic still having his parents here, Longclaw is his nanny here, instead of his adoptive mother.
  • Since this version of Alicia and Elias never went on the flight that got them separated from Sally and Max, they grew up as one big happy family.
  • Tex and Avery of the Sand Blasters are in a relationship.
• Adaptation Species Change: Downplayed with Tex the Lizard. In the Archie comics, Tex was an unspecified, generic, spiny lizard. Here, he's identified as a horned lizard/horny toad.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
  • Unlike in most media, except the Archie Comics and Sonic the Comic, the constant fight with Robotnik is taking a toll onto Sonic's mental health, moreso than in the aforementioned comics, since this toll causes Sonic to go into therapy, unlike in the comics.
    • There is something good that comes out of this: having witnessed the trauma Sonic was going through, none of the Freedom Fighters fall for Kane's smear campaign (not that Tails did in the Source material anyway).
  • In addition to the horrors of war they had to endure protecting their city from Robotnik, Tex and Avery were victims of persecution. The former due to his species and frightening appearance, the latter for being an overweight computer geek (both before and after the Anti-Robotnik hysteria overtook Sand Blast City), and both for being gay.
• Adaptational Backstory Change:
  • Sticks' backstory was barely explored in Sonic Boom, whereas here, it's fully explored. She grew up under the thumb of her father Jebediah Badger, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who groomed her into taking over his empire. Having only seen the bad side of Mobius' citizens through him, eventually Sticks ran away, shedding her birth name and becoming the Wild Child she is.
  • In Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, the members of the Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad were intended to be Hypercompetent Sidekicks that could easily defeat Sonic, only to come out the exact opposite: Lethally Stupid clowns that posed no threat to Sonic at all. Here, Robotnik created them solely to serve as cannon fodder, admitting to Metal Sonic that he deliberately made them as stupid as they are so they wouldn't think of rebelling against him (though even he admits that he dialed back their processing power a bit too much).
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Dulcy is a far more competent fighter here, being a One-Woman Army that can take on a whole hoard of Badniks herself.
  • Princess Elise, while still not a combatant, is noticeably more defiant towards Dr. Robotnik, refusing to give him the secret to the Flames of Disaster. She also averts Neutral Female, knowing to stay out of fights when her safety could hinder the heroes and instead actually goes to get help from the other Freedom Fighters. She only gets captured a total of three times instead of five like in the 2006 game due to some unforeseen circumstances on the heroes' side^note She still gets kidnapped at the beginning of the Soleanna arc when Sonic's attention is taken away from her and Robotnik uses this opportunity to sneak up on her, gets kidnapped a second time due to Robotnik outwitting the heroes and forcing Elise to come with him lest her new friends get killed, and the third when she goes willingly in order to keep him from carrying out his threat of carpet bombing the city. It's also shown that she's gained the power to manipulate flames as a result of containing Iblis within her for so long.
  • Cosmo the Seedrian, who was mostly The Load in Sonic X, is shown becoming more capable in battle due to unlocking her Mover Mode which allows her to transform into a plant-like velociraptor in combat.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Taking from his Archie depiction and the Stc depiction, Knuckles is a Child Prodigy and Genius Bruiser, able to pull off college-level math at age three. Furthermore, unlike the games and Sonic X, Knuckles is not Super Gullible or a Horrible Judge of Character. Once he learns the truth about Sonic and Robotnik during the events of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, he is not so easily duped by the doc again; while he does end up falling for one of Robotnik's tricks again during the Sonic Advance 2 adaptation, it was a much more elaborate and convincing deception.
  • Heck, most of the world itself prove to be this when Kane does his smear campaign: only a small number of people believe him, with some people even trying to assault Comedy Chimp for cracking jokes using the smear campaign, something that Sonic himself disapproves of.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Sand-Blasters Tex the Lizard and Avery the Bear were originally straight-up antagonists like the rest of the group. Here, they're the white sheep of the team, only going along with Jack's plans out of fear for their safety and a desire to improve their lives.
  • The true Solaris is a benevolent deity of Soleanna, with Mepiles and Iblis being imitations created by the failure of the Solaris project. When Sonic, Shadow, and Silver destroyed them both after they combine into Solaris, the true Solaris is restored and Elise gains his power of the Flames of Hope.
• Adaptational Modesty: Most incarnations of the Sonic universe have the vast majority of Mobians running around as Accessory Wearing Cartoon Animals at least and Half Dressed Cartoon Animals at most, or followed a Pantsless Males, Fully-Dressed Females scheme. Here, every Mobian so far is fully dressed, or at the very least wears pants.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Chomps, Knuckles' pet Velociraptor, acts like a puppy, whining, wagging his tail, and asking for head scratches.
• Already the Case: Part of the reason Commander Tower ultimately decides to come clean about Project Shadow. Agent Johnson forces him to use Sonic as a scapegoat for Shadow’s crimes to avoid widespread panic and chaos from ensuing if the truth about the ARK comes out. Once panic and chaos ensues regardless as a result of Robotnik and Shadow blowing up Prison Island and half of the moon, Tower decides their reasoning is null and void and announces it to all of Mobius on national television.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: In the Bad Future created by Iblis, Mammoth Mogul had plenty of time to reconsider and regret the atrocities he's committed, becoming a genuine ally to the remaining survivors in fighting Iblis, even becoming a mentor to Silver. When Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, Rouge, and Hope meet him in the future, he explains the situation to them and sacrifices his life to help them reach the Master Emerald and return to the past to prevent the awful future from ever occurring.
• Arch-Enemy: Sonic and Dr. Robotnik become this to each other. During the climax of both the Angel Island and Little Planet arcs, Robotnik even invokes this, stating that he and Sonic define each other and calling himself such things as "the tumor on Sonic's soul".
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Dr. Robotnik has the Badniks kill Kodos with their weapons.
• Batman Gambit: When Kane catches Sonic and Manic trying to rat out Kane as a fraud, Manic tells Kane that the authorities of the Acorn Kingdom would let him and Sonic get away with it scot-free, due to Sonic being in cahoots with the King. Now, if they were taken to Mobodoon, that would have been another story... Kane decides to accuse Sonic and Manic of theft to Queen Aleena... but it turns out that Manic actually lured Kane there: when he's brought to Queen Aleena, Manic casually calls her "Mom", shocking Kane (and Sonic, who was Locked Out of the Loop about Manic being a prince). Aleena, after learning that, on top of Sonic's smear campaign, Kane also attempted to assault Manic when he was trying to put an end to it, condemns Kane to community service.
• Blind Without 'Em: Subverted. In chapter 102, Keith ends up losing his glasses, and while his vision is horrible, he is still able to successfully defend himself against the bot who shattered them. He later explains that while he's at his best with glasses, he can still see enough to get around.
• Blow You Away: It is noted by Longclaw that avian Mobians like herself often have this ability.
• Big Bad: Dr. Robotnik is the source of mostly everything bad that has happened so far.
• Big Good: President Roberts is this for the humans.
• Bland-Name Product: Aside from the games focusing around the Marxio Bros., we have the more popular Bookeymon. The Freedom Fighters even assume Thunderbolt is a Rikachu (the reason Bookeymon is more popular than Super Marxio Bros. is because the Marxio Bros. are known enemies of Sonic).
  • Chao Cola is the Mobian Coca Cola.
• Both Sides Have a Point: How Sally ultimately settles the dispute between the Dingoes and Echidnas. The Echidnas were right to be angry at the Dingoes for launching a nuclear strike, but their discriminatory treatment played a role in pushing them to that point, whereas the Dingoes, while right to be furious at the Echidnas for treating them like second class citizens and refusing to listen to reason, that doesn’t justify them launching a nuke on Angel Island.

• Bully Hunter: A flashback during the Adventure adaptation reveals that Sonic and Tails first met when the former stepped in to save the latter from being tormented by bullies.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: At the end of chapter 55, Knuckles calls his father Locke by name, having reached his limit with his traditionalism and bigotry.
  Knuckles: I wish I could say it was nice seeing you again. But that'd be a lie... Locke.
• Canon Character All Along: The Model 1 of the GUN Needlemouse robots modeled after Metal Sonic becomes known as Shard.
• Casting Gag: Some of the voice actors for the Hypothetical Cast include Michael Bell, Jim Cummings, Tim Curry, Kath Soucie, and Charlie Adler...who have all been in Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM).
• Chained to a Railway: Heavy Magician does this to Mina in chapter 50. Shortfuse saves her via Trainstopping.
• Christmas Episode: Chapter 184, "Sonic Christmas Blast" has everybody enjoying the holidays, the Freedom Fighters having a Christmas Party, while Dr. Robotnik actually goes out Christmas Shopping for Agatha and even gives Sonic presents for the other Freedom Fighters, no strings attached!
• Composite Character: Pretty much the entire cast combines elements of their various incarnations in different adaptions and media, but there are a few standout examples:
  • King Max has the appearance of his original self, but the personality of his Post-Reboot counterpart, Nigel.
• The Corruption: The negative side of Chaos Energy is depicted as such. When Dark Sonic is unleashed in the climax of the South Island arc, his very touch corrupts Robotnik's hand when he breaks it, forcing the doctor to amputate it. Kat and Metamorphia are also on the business end of it, though the Power Rings' energy is able to stop and reverse it.
• Death of Personality: After their initial attempts to get through to Robotnik's better side fail, Sonic and Uncle Chuck come to this conclusion, considering Julian Kintobor effectively dead. Sonic in particular declares that when they see Robotnik, they're not looking at Julian, but the monster that killed him, and during the climax of the Westside Island arc, he flat-out tells Robotnik to his face that he's nothing but a "heartless, evil monster" who's wearing Dr. Kintobor's skin. Averted come the Sonic Heroes adaptation and the Christmas Episode, where Julian manages to surface for brief moments.
• Domesticated Dinosaurs: Knuckles has a pet Velociraptor named Chomps, who is his only companion until the Angel Island arc.
• Door Stopper: At 277 chapters and 1,048,042 words, this is a long one.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Locke turns out to be one for Kat, repeatedly criticizing her during Guardian training and reading her the riot act whenever she doesn't do as he says. Chapter 119 reveals that he's been acting this way because he's been deliberately trying to drive her away from the Guardians out of Fantastic Racism. Tikal's spirit sets him straight.
• Drunk with Power: During the Sonic Heroes adaptation, Metal Sonic soon goes through this after being upgraded into Neo Metal Sonic, leading him to usurp control over the Robotnik Empire.
• Embarrassing First Name: Thunderbolt's real name is Rika, and it's implied that people used to bully her by calling her a Rikachu (Rikachus being Bookeymons). The irony is that she was born before Bookeymon came to be.
• Enemy Mine: The Freedom Fighters and Robotnik against Kodos.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Robotnik and Metal Sonic towards Agatha. Both of them are very protective of Agatha and make sure she is happy and well-cared for. Dr. Robotnik is willing to tolerate Agatha helping out the enemy so long as she remains loyal to him first and foremost, and even when Metal Sonic becomes Drunk with Power, he never once tries to hurt Agatha.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While he may be an evil Mad Scientist with plans for world domination, Robotnik still has lines he refuses to cross. Best shown when Kodos escapes the Devil's Gulag; he barely hesitates to form an Enemy Mine with Sonic to defeat him. As he points out, even when he does kill, he's done so for an actual goal, while Kodos is an Ax-Crazy anti-human extremist who kills whoever and whenever he wants For the Evulz. Plus dealing with Eggman Nega’s destruction for fun and the Black Arm’s widespread destruction and their plans for the inhabitants of Mobius.
  Sonic: Why should I believe anything you say, Robotnik? You've never shied away from drawing blood before.
  Robotnik: Yes, but always with purpose. Always with greater goals. Kodos' actions are nothing but the pointless, petty rampage of a racial supremacist.
• Everyone Can See It: The Freedom Fighters all know about Sonic and Sally's feelings for each other:
  • When Undina gives Sonic CPR, they tease Sally for letting Undina steal Sonic's first kiss.
  • When Sonic and Sally have The Big Damn Kiss, Tails says "It's about time".
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Muttski is the first to notice Sally is actually Metamorphia.
• Failure-to-Save Murder: During the Angel Island arc, Kat blames Sonic for the deaths of her family and hometown at Robotnik's hands because he just automatically assumed there were no other slaves on the Death Egg and didn't bother to make sure; nothing Sonic says changes her mind until after he allows her to dish out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on him to allow her to vent.
• Fantastic Racism: Locke towards Kat for being a human. Kodos even moreso so as he violently despised Humans. There is also Jerome Wise who was angry at Sonic upstaging him due to being a Mobian.
• Fate Worse than Death: Robotnik intended to use the Time Stone to trap Sonic in an infinite loop of death.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse:
  • In the Angel Island arc, Kat blames Sonic for the deaths of her family and hometown at Robotnik's hands because he just automatically assumed there were no other slaves on the Death Egg and didn't bother to make sure, shutting down any attempts at rationality and inadvertently fueling Knuckles' belief that Sonic is evil and Robotnik is good by not bothering to tell him the full details of her escape from the Death Egg. Only by venting her frustrations out, courtesy of Sonic allowing her to beat him to a bloody pulp, does Kat finally calm down and realize the truth; after the Chaos arc, she freely admits that what she did was wrong, and regardless of her being hurt, grieving, and not thinking straight, she had no excuse to treat Sonic that way.
  • Discussed with Erazor Djinn. It's implied that Erazor's imprisonment inside the lamp, and his sentence to grant wishes to a thousand people made him feel less like a person and more like property to others, fueling his hatred for humanity. Sally did feel sorry for him after hearing this, but King Solomon and Sonic are quick to inform her that while he definitely is a tragic figure, his crimes prior to the sentence make it clear that he has no one to blame but himself.
  • The Diablo Kid, aka Jesse MacNeil suffered a Trauma Conga Line where after he's deroboticized, he returned home only to be attacked by his parents because Jack Rabbit taught them to believe that roboticization kills the person turned into a robot and those deroboticized are pretty much the dead possessed by demons. Jesse killed his parents in self-defense after he and his sister Jamie tried to get out of town, only for Jack to kill her. This led Jesse to become an Egg Soldier whose only goal is to take vengeance on those he blames for his suffering. Sonic and the Freedom Fighters are horrified upon finding out what happened and acknowledge that they in part are responsible as they're actions motivated Jack to form a violent branch of Freedom Fighters, but they still note that this doesn't excuse Jesse's crimes as an Egg Boss and note that his sister would never approve of his actions, something that gets through to Jesse. This trope gets reconstructed however, since while Jesse does have to pay for his crimes, the Freedom Fighters go out of their way to make sure that Jack doesn't get off the hook for his crimes either, exposing him for the vile hate criminal he really is and turning the entire populace against him, while also at the same time teaching the populace why they don't stoop to Jack's level.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: The entire purpose of the Super Special Sonic Search and Smash Squad in this version. When showing them to Metal Sonic, Robotnik admits that he made them specifically to distract Sonic and serve as cannon fodder, and that he deliberately made them idiots so they wouldn't think of betraying him.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: In a scene right out of The Dark Knight, during the Sonic Rush adaptation, Sonic and the Freedom Fighters hit a dead end trying to understand and figure out the motives behind Eggman Nega's actions, especially when he unleashes an Egg Cerberus on Mobotropolis For the Evulz. Uncle Chuck helps them understand that people like Eggman Nega have no motives for such atrocities; they do it purely because they want to watch the world burn. Earlier, Blaze even tells them point-blank that trying to understand why Nega does what he does is "an exercise in futility and madness"; she herself gave up attempting to long ago.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Sonic defeats Arsenal by cutting him down the middle.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Max allows himself and Alicia to be captured so Sally can escape.
  • Coco allows himself to be roboticized to spare his wife the same fate.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Robotnik built a statue of himself with these installed in Casino Zone.
• Interspecies Adoption:
  • Kat was unofficially adopted by Knuckles' family. As of Chapter 184, Shadow has become the foster father of Hope.
  • Lupe adopted two human girls as her daughters.
• Internal Reformist: GUN was once a merciless organization, adopting a brutal approach to most missions, culminating in the ARK raid and death of Maria Kintobor. When Commander Tower took over, he did everything in his power to make GUN a good, noble organization, weeding out all of the corrupt elements.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Robotnik describes himself as the Hyde to Julian's Jekyll, which the author confirms in the post-chapter note. As explained, Julian always had darker desires like a thirst for power and wanting to Take Over the World; the ROCC explosion just released him from his inhibitions and restraint. Everything Julian Kintobor fantasized about and kept under control, Dr. Robotnik does the instant it occurs to him.
• Jerkass Realization: In the tail end of the Sonic 4: Episode II adaptation, Knuckles lashes out at Sonic and brands him a monster after he succumbs to his Superpowered Evil Side, Sally and Kat immediately tell him to shut up, pointing out Sonic needs their support right now, not to be branded by a vicious animal; Knuckles realizes what he's doing and has one of these after Kat unfavorably compares him to Locke.
  Knuckles: Aurora, they're right. Seven years alone on Angel Island, and I still became my father.
• Just Following Orders: Topaz tears this trope and reasoning apart in chapter 138, pointing out some of the worst atrocities in history were committed by people who were "just following orders". In her opinion, it's a coward's excuse to duck responsibility.
• Knight Templar: The MASH (Mobians Against Sonic Hatred) movement is this: during Kane's smear campaign, they tried to assault Comedy Chimp for roasting Sonic. When Tom told Sonic about this, Sonic was less than pleased.
• Kryptonite Is Everywhere: As in the initial Archie continuity, Chaos Emeralds number in the low hundreds at the very least all over Mobius. Chapter 199 reveals it's much the same all over the galaxy, courtesy of the Drakon Empire.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In chapter 73, Robotnik, frustrated with Sonic's constant streak of victory and uncanny survival, remarks that it feels like he's in a story where Sonic always wins because he's the hero.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Zigzagged. While Robotnik does initially react to his arm being cut off by screaming and smashing a table, after a few minutes he gets it under control, looks at his severed arm, and calmly reiterates his hatred of Sonic.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: Sonic's adventures get to him in this story along with having the world on his shoulders and his failure to save Kat and her family on the Death Egg, which climaxes when he snaps and unleashes his Superpowered Evil Side on Metamorphia upon discovering she'd been impersonating Sally and planning to assassinate him. This incident leads him to start taking therapy to deal with his issues.
• Mineral MacGuffin: Like canon, the Chaos Emeralds are this. They are used to access Super Modes and strengthen attacks.
• Misplaced Retribution: During the Angel Island arc, Kat blames Sonic for the deaths of her family and village on the Death Egg. Sonic may have left them behind while escaping the Death Egg, but it was an honest mistake and he genuinely didn't know, while Robotnik was the one who imprisoned and murdered them. After calming down following chapter 30, Kat admits to Knuckles that she knew it wasn't Sonic's fault, but needed someone to blame and a reason to keep going, and chose him.
• Mythology Gag: GUN gets ahold of Metal Sonic's design specs and uses them to mass-produce their own Metal Sonic series, dubbed the GUN Needlemouse line. "Mr. Needlemouse" was believed to be Sonic's original name before it was changed to "Sonic the Hedgehog" (in actuality the name was a mistranslation of “Mr. Hedgehog” which was his original name”.
• Never My Fault: Kage refuses to accept that the dingoes are as much to blame for the Dingo-Echidna conflict as the echidnas are, despite Sally outright stating that Both Sides Have a Point. Instead, he joins forces with Robotnik. Fortunately for the dingoes, Kage is the only one who refuses to accept his faults.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In chapter 114, Hope attacks Robotnik directly to save Sonic and Knuckles, and in the ensuing skirmish, ends up smashing the Anti-Chaos Nullifier the doc was using to control Chaos. This leads to Chaos betraying Robotnik, becoming Perfect, and flooding Station Square.
  • When Sonic and his friends defeat Enerjak, they leave his host Dimitri behind thinking he's no threat and will just die from old age. Eggman and Lien-Da find him annoying implying fully this will bite back at the heroes.

• Psychopathic Manchild: Par for the course, Dr. Robotnik is an Evil Genius with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. Best shown in chapter 44, which shows both Mina and Robotnik himself depressed and moping around after the events at the Egg Dungeon. Mina's depression is actually justified, considering her imprisonment at Robotnik's hands and losing her mother, her only family, to the Roboticizer, whereas Robotnik is merely moping around in his lair after his latest defeat and acting like a teenager or young adult who's simply become bored and confused about what to do with his life. As the author put it in his notes, Mina's depression is taken seriously, while Robotnik's is Played for Laughs.
• Rags to Riches: Like in Archie, Breezie went from a poor girl to a business mogal.
• Related in the Adaptation: Breezie was a possible Love Interest for Sonic in AoSTH and Friendly Enemies in the Archie Comics. Here, they're cousins through adoption. She is also Chuck's adopted daughter here.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • In chapter 55, Knuckles gives one to Locke when he returns for abandoning him, treating Kat as an unwelcome pet and standing by doing nothing as Robotnik threatened to take over Mobius. Lara gives him one as well as a slap.
  • In chapter 94, after he's defeated yet again, Hope deals out one to Robotnik, remarking that the main reason his Evil Plans always fail is because his own evil methodology has been self-defeating. It actually stuns him for a few moments.
• Robot Me: Metal Sonic, as well as the Silver Sonics.
• Rule of Seven: There are seven Chaos Emeralds, seven Time Stones, seven founding members of the Freedom Fighters and seven Badniks in the Super Special Sonic Search And Smash Squad. Sticks even lampshades this:
  Sticks: Why're these things always in sevens?
  Amy: ...I have no idea.
  Sticks: Y'know that's just gonna bug me for the rest of the day.
• The Scapegoat: Agent Johnson of GUN's Special Operations Division orders that Sonic become this after the theft of the Chaos Emerald by Shadow, to stop the existence of Project Shadow from becoming public.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: GUN Commander Tower and Topaz defy Agent Johnson’s orders and publicly reveal the existence of Project Shadow, the conspiracy to cover it up and Agent Johnson’s orders to use Sonic as a scapegoat.
• Shout-Out:
  • In chapter 4, the Marxio brother, Harpo, Groucho and Chico appear as antagonists.
  • In chapter 5, Sonic tells Brutus NO CAPES.
  • The Egg Walker is stated to be based off of the Riddler's Mecha Suit from Batman: Arkham Knight.
  • Robotnik quotes Joker in chapter 12, claiming he is '''A lot happier'''.
  • Robotnik quotes Neo Cortex after his defeat in chapter 41.
  Robotnik: Defeated again. This isn't fair... Maybe I should just retire to a nice, big beach with a nice, big drink. And a woman with nice, big.. bags of ice for my head.
  • Shard's activation pays homage to Robocop's own revival, line for line.
  • In chapter 130, he quotes his Satam self, telling Snivley he has no heart.
  • In Chapter 152, Robotnik, Scratch and Coconuts do an iconic scene from Disney's Hercules.
  Robotnik (sees Scratch wearing a replica of Sonic's Power Sneakers): "What. Are. Those?"
  Scratch: "Uh, I dunno. I thought they looked kinda... dashing."
  Robotnik: "So, Let Me Get This Straight.... The hedgehog is my sworn enemy, the sole reason why my Robotnik Empire repeatedly fails to spread across Mobius, a royal thorn in my side... AND YOU... ARE WEARING... HIS... MERCHANDISE?!?!" (Coconuts comes in with Chao Cola cans, bearing Sonic's image)
  Coconuts (sheepishly): "Thristy?"
  Robotnik: "DYEAAGGHH!" (angrily activates a missile launcher; cut to the Westside Island base exploding in the distance as Echidnaopolis shakes. Kat, Knuckles and the Chaotix are shown at Azure Lake, hearing the distant explosion, then shrugging it off.)
  • At one point, Cream and her family rat out a scammer to the police.One of the cops that comes to arrest the scammer is Judy Hopps, while Nick Wilde scams the scammer into turning himself in.
  • When the Freedom Fighter summit is compromised despite the only ones who know being the delegates of each Freedom Fighter group, Geoffrey St. John says "There is an imposter among us".
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In chapter 94, when Robotnik declares himself Sonic's Arch-Enemy and swears that he will never rest until one of them is dead, Hope retorts that Robotnik himself is His Own Worst Enemy and the main reason his Evil Plans always fail is because his own evil methodology has been self-defeating. It actually stuns Robotnik speechless for a minute or two.
  Robotnik: This isn't over, Sonic! As I said before, you're my greatest enemy, and I'll never rest until one of us is dead!
  Hope: You're wrong! You could be a good and kind ruler if you wanted to, Eggman, but you chose to be evil! That's why you'll always lose! Sonic isn't your greatest enemy! You are!
  • In chapter 184, Kage calls the echidnas animals, abusers and supremacists, but, since the echidnas went through a Heel–Race Turn prior to the return of the Dingo Regime, Knuckles states that Kage is the only animal he sees.
• Skewed Priorities: During the Curse on South Island chapter, with the reveal that Eggatha repaired Metal Sonic even after all of his heinous actions during the Metal Overlord arc, most of the Freedom Fighters are more concerned with lambasting Metal and refusing his aid despite the fact that Ixis Embalma’s curse is active and all of South Island is sinking. Sally has to literally scream in their faces that the island is sinking and innocent people are going to die to get them to focus on the bigger picture.
• So Proud of You: Jules and Bernie towards Sonic.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the film, Longclaw isn't killed when Sonic is a child.
• Tempting Fate: After the echidnas and the dingoes (except Kage) make amends, General Stryker wishes that Kage would drop his Fantastic Racism before it's too late for him. The next scene shows that it already is too late: Kage made a Deal with Robotnik.
• That Man Is Dead: From the minute he's created, Dr. Robotnik regards his former identity of Julian Kintobor as such. After multiple attempts at an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight fall on deaf ears, Sonic comes to agree, as does Uncle Chuck.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted; once his issues and Heroic Fatigue reach their boiling point and lead to him injuring his friends after succumbing to his Superpowered Evil Side, Sonic starts seeing a therapist named Dr. Sorders to deal with his issues.
• Time Skip: There is a three month one between Chapters 37 and 38.
• True Companions: The Freedom Fighters and Chaotix become this over the course of the series. Come chapter 147, they all declare themselves to be Hope's family, a description she embraces wholeheartedly.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • When Robotnik's escaped human slaves learn there were others like them still on the Death Egg when it crashed, yet Sonic didn't save them, they start shouting angrily at him for his inaction. Sonic is devastated enough that he starts hyperventilating, and he has to be led away by Sally while the other Freedom Fighters keep the angry humans from going after Sonic.
  • When the Freedom Fighters refuse to take Amy with them to Little Planet on the reason that she's inexperienced, she angrily calls them out for rejecting her as a recruit, then saying she has 'potential', only to sideline her once a real crisis happens. The Freedom Fighters realize she has a point, so they let her join them. Unfortunately, Metal Sonic kidnaps her for her knowledge on the Time Stones.
  • Sticks calls Sally out for constantly antagonizing her and trying to 'civilize' her by nitpicking at all of her bad habits, while not reprimanding Sonic for his own bad habits. Sally realizes what she is doing and apologizes, admitting that she finds Sticks a bit much for her to handle. She then tries to compromise by being more lenient in exchange for Sticks taking baths and keeping her dumpster-diving at a minimum.
  • When Knuckles lashes out at Sonic and brands him a monster after he succumbs to his Superpowered Evil Side, Sally and Kat immediately tell him to shut up, pointing out Sonic needs their support right now, not to be branded by a vicious animal. It's only when Kat unfavorably compares him to Locke that Knuckles realizes what he's doing, with Sally in particular slapping him and coldly telling him to "keep his damn mouth shut" and not judge Sonic until he's suffered through everything Sonic has been through over the past year.
• Your Door Was Open: Eggman Nega was able to get into Eggman's base because his Badnik's left the gate open.

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