Sonic laughed as he raced with Knuckles, Amy, Sally and Tails on their new water skiers that Tails had just invented. It had been a month since they had seen or heard from Maria Robotnik but they heard rumours that she was still snooping around, causing them all to be on edge.
She had even tried to tell people that Sonic was a sae fae, but without any evidence and she believing that he had erased any sea fae DNA from his system, she lost her reputation and her job.
Sonic kinda felt bad for her but he was relieved that no one believed her.
It wasn't until earlier that morning that Sonic decided he had had enough of all the horrid tension and fear and that they all needed to blow off steam and have some fun on the waves. His friends were worried that someone would see him but he just brushed it off.
As they tore through the surface Sonic swam effortlessly down below, enjoying the water around him.
He really needed this. He loved the colourful reefs all around him as well as the beautiful fish swimming laughed as he thought about when he was younger and he when he was terrified of deep water and yet now, here he was swimming in the ocean like he had been doing it all his life.
But he was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a terrifying scream of fear above him.
He looked up and saw that his friends had stopped the boats and saw a large, hungry bull shark circling them!
He quickly went up to save them from the hungry beast. As soon as the shark saw him it charged at him with it's giant jaws opened wide for it's next easy meal. Sonic smirked as he calmly waited until the very last second before moving out the way and laughed as the shark swam right into the sandy ocean floor.
He quickly swam up to the surface to make sure his friends were alright.
He smiled when he saw that although they were badly shaken up the were unharmed. Knuckles was angrily looking around for the bloodthirsty ocean devil whereas Amy and Tails were noticeably shaking in fear. Sally was the worst of them. Her last experience with sharks during the film contest had left her traumatised.
He was about to tell them to head back to shore when he felt an excruciating pain in his tail.
As he screamed in complete agony he looked down and saw the shark biting just below his waist with it's razor teeth! His friends starting screaming in fear as the deadly bull shark started violently ragging him around and the water around them turned a sickening crimson red from is blood. Knuckles looked ready to jump in to save his blue friend, but he wasn't stupid.
He knew that if he jumped into the firing line then he'd be shark dinner too.
He and the others could only watch in horror as Sonic cried out in pain. The monster shark suddenly threw the bleeding blue hedgehog up into the air before jumping up at him with it's mouth wide open again, knocking the Mobians off their little boats. Seconds before Sonic landed in the hungry shark's jaws, however, they were all suddenly surrounded in a strange aqua coloured aura that froze them all in place.
The shark was suddenly thrown into the far distance before it vanished over the horizon.
Before Sonic could see who was responsible he body suddenly felt heavy and icy cold before everything went black...
******
The first thing Sonic notice when he returned from the thick fogs of unconsciousness was that he was surrounded in cold. But it was a strange type cold; a kind of warm, comforting kind of cold that eased his nerves slightly. When he finally opened his eyes he saw nothing but a bright, aqua blue glow blinding him.
It hurt his eyes for a bit and he snapped them shut.
When his eyes finally adjusted to the bright light he saw that he was lying on the rocking shore and his friends were standing over him with worried looks on their faces. The aqua aura disappeared and Knuckles helped his blue friend sit up. Sonic looked at his waist and saw there were only a few small white marks where the shark's teeth had pierced the skin.
He looked to see who it was who had saved him and froze when he saw who his hero was.
It was another sea fae like himself. He looked around to be Sonic's age and was a very light grey, almost white, hedgehog with white fur on his chest surrounding his neck with gold eyes and tan skin. He wore white gloves with cyan circles with lines sticking out of the bottom leading to his golden bracelets accented in cyan.
His tail was covered stunning white scales that shined brighter than his fur and glittered in the sun with cyan blue fins.
He had two large spines at the back of his head, while at the front of his forehead there were five distinct spines flared up and back, the two final ones covering up most of his ears; his five front spines had cyan tips. He wore a shiny golden belt with a small ruby red gem in the middle that covered where his fur changed to scales and a gold earring in his left ear.
When he noticed the Mobians staring at him he smiled at them.
"My name's Silver, it's really nice to meet you all." He said. "Especially you Sonic. My mother told me all about you after your mother told her. They were really close."
The group stared at him in shock before Sonic regained his senses
"You knew my mother?" He finally asked as he sat up to properly talk the ivory merhog.
"Everyone knew your mother." He replied. "She was the Queen of Atlatica. But she disappeared years ago and the kingdom was taken over by her younger sister Bernadette, who has ruled selfishly, never caring about anyone but herself. She's putting the ocean in great danger. Aleena has been missing for almost 17 years now. No one knows what happened to her. Not even my Mom."
"Your Mom?"
"She's the head seer in the queen's court. The only one your mother trusted with the secret she had fallen in love with a Mobian and had bore child with him." Silver explained.
"And your Mom told you?" Sonic asked.
"Now that I'm of age by sea fae law, yes." Silver nodded. "Mom wanted to make sure that I would understand how important this secret is."
"So Sonic isn't just a sea fae, but sea fae royalty!" Amy squealed. "This is so cool!"
"No it's not." Sonic growled as he turned his attention to Silver again. "If this all happened years ago, why am I finding out now? Why didn't Emma ever tell me that my Mom was a queen?!"
"Because you've finally mastered your basic sea fae powers." He replied. "Now you're ready to return to Atlantica and defeat Bernadette and take your place as a prince of Atlantica, just as my Mom foretold." He smiled, full of hope.
"That is so deep." Knuckles gushed.
"No!" Sonic growled at them. "I've been trying to live as normal a life as I can and this sea fae business has been getting in the way of that! Now, just when things are starting to get back to normal, I'm being told that I have to travel with a crazy haired hedgehog to some sea fae city to defeat an evil queen and take over this city?! Well forget it!" He shouted.
Suddenly his locket that Emma gave him burst open and no one expected what happened next. Glowing blue tendrils of something came out of the opened locket and formed a cylinder as tall as Knuckles.
"Merillia!" Silver suddenly gasped.
"Merillia?" Sonic asked as he looked down to the sea fae and then back to the cylinder, which form a picture.
In the picture was a beautiful quill-less hedgehog with long dark purple hair, thistle pink fur and stunning green eyes. While the armour covering her body was white, the jewel on the middle of it was cerise. The Mobian looked and saw that instead of legs she had a dark purple tail with lavender fins. She was moving her hands side to side as some kind of blueish glitter floated down from some kind of large shells and into a large basket.
"Queen Aleena!" Silver gasped. "She is alive! This picture proves it!"
"That's my Mother?" Sonic asked in disbelief as he stared at the picture.
"Yes." The ivory merhog nodded. "I've only seen pictures of the queen, thanks to my Mom, but it's her. Your mother must of filled your necklace with merillia, that's what's making the picture."
"What is merillia?" Sonic asked.
"It's what keeps the ocean alive." He explained. "Without it, the coral and ocean creatures will die."
"So controlling merillia is what she is doing right now?" Tails asked, wanting to make sure he understood all this new information on sea fae culture.
"Yes." He nodded. "But the members of the royal family are the only one who can make it and release it into the ocean."
"Is she okay?" Sonic murmured as he continued to stare at the woman.
"With Bernadette ruling, no one is okay." Silver glared. "Sonic, we need you in Atlantica." He pleaded. Sonic reached for the image of his mother, but it suddenly disappeared. He froze for a second as a million thoughts ran through his head all at once.
"All right." He sighed and looked down at Silver. "I'll help you. I'll help defeat Bernadette."
"Thank you." The ivory merhog cheered as he leapt back into the water and swam out towards the open sea.
"And fulfil your destiny." Amy cheered and Sonic glared at her.
"No, when all this stupid sea fae stuff is finally over then I come back to my life on land and no one will mention this royalty stuff ever again. Deal?" He huffed.
"Deal." They all said and Silver smile widened. He was just giddy that Sonic had agreed to come.
"Wish we could go with." Amy sighed.
"Yeah." Knuckles agreed. "This sounds like a blast."
"Good luck." Tails grinned.
"I'll let your uncle know that you're all right." Sally said to her friend as he climbed to the top of the rock. Sonic nodded and took a deep breath.
"You coming or what?" Silver asked as he swam out further. With his trademark smirk, Sonic dove off of the rock edge and into the water, coming up next to the ivory merhog as he transformed.
"Have fun!" Tails shouted.
"Bring back some souvenirs!" Amy added.
"Okay." Sonic called back, and tuned, following Silver under the rolling waves and down to a whole new place he had never been to in his life...
******
After roughly an hour of swimming through the dark waters of the ocean, Silver and Sonic passed by a sunken ship before they reached the coral reef. Sonic came to a stop and stared in awe at the coral reef.
"It is beautiful." Silver agreed, then a glowing blue strand of familiar substance floated by. "Recognise this?"
"That's what came out of my locket." He answered. "Merillia?"
"Yep." Silver nodded with a smile before his face became saddened. "Like I said, only the royal family can create it, and it's their greatest joy. Maybe you'll do it yourself someday."
"What's wrong?" Sonic asked.
"My Mom showed me pictures of what the reefs around here looked like 17 years ago. Your mother's merillia made it vibrant with colour, Bernadette's merillia isn't strong enough to properly care for her people, much less the entire ocean. Without proper merillia to sustain it, the coral changes colour, like your autumn leaves, becomes bleached and eventually dies all together."
"Oh." Sonic muttered, slightly saddened by this, as they swam passed some coral pieces on the ocean floor.
"But now that you're here, things will go back to the way they were." Silver smiled.
"We can always hope." Sonic sighed, still a little sad. Silver noticed this and smiled at the blue teen.
"I heard your fast on land and in the sea, wanna race?" He asked and Sonic smirked.
Within seconds he dashed through the water, letting Silver eat his bubbles. The ivory sea fae laughed and quickly chased after him. In less than 5 minutes, Sonic suddenly came to a stop and up at an underwater city. As he stared at the city Silver finally caught up to him and laughed at his expression.
"Sonic, welcome to Atlantica."...