Tails was sitting, staring at his expensive dinner, physically present but his mind was absent from the situation. He was looking very gloomy. He raised his head and looked toward Sonic who was babbling about 'Sonic Heroes(2003)' and how impressive the graphics ended up looking.
Amy was nodding along but she looked completely bored. Knuckles was pretending to listen but he was more focused on enjoying his food. He and Sonic clash quite frequently during productions ever since 'Sonic 3 and Knuckles(1995)', Knuckles' first appearance.
Even though these projects are collaborations, Sonic is still the one in charge and he always makes sure Knuckles is aware of that. Once they were close friends, now they were business associates with a strenuous relationship. Knuckles felt like he was getting shortchanged. Yes, he got paid a lot of money for his work. However, Sonic would in promotions and interviews everything only about himself. Knuckles felt a great injustice that although chief director, Sonic gets all the credit even for the things he had no involvement in. Knuckles thought, it was always Sonic's game never our game.
Their arguments got more and more frequent during development, Knuckles even threatened to quit several times and that anger within him kept growing. This game, 'Sonic Heroes(2003)', had probably the most intense fights so far. He had reached a boiling point when he was listening to Sonic talk on Rick Ravette’s show. Why does only he get to sit there and none of us, why does he get to pretend like he singlehandedly designed and programmed everything, Knuckles was thinking to himself.
For the first game they did together Knuckles was able to strong-arm the board of directors that his name be in the title, so it ended up being 'Sonic 3 and Knuckles'. He also managed to get a seat in every interview along with Sonic and Tails. Unfortunately for Knuckles after that game in 1994. he wasn’t able to influence the company anymore. They were not keen on his last attempt to aggressively push them around and they would take a firm stance against him. In almost all arguments he would have with Sonic the company always sided with Sonic. To add insult to injury he was completely denied any media spotlight, a combination of receiving fewer and fewer interview calls and Sonic using his influence to make sure he doesn’t get a chance.
As much as he wanted to have another argument with Sonic he tried to keep his feelings to himself. In order to avoid a fight he decided to ignore everything Sonic was saying and just eat his dinner.
While everyone was sitting by the table, Shadow was standing away from everyone, looking through the window and thinking about his last meeting with the president of SEGA. The president told him that the board of directors was considering giving him a solo project where he would be the chief director.
Shadow had become incredibly popular because of the previous game, 'Sonic Adventure 2(2001)'. At first, it was meant to be the only game he would be a part of, it even ended with him dying.
SEGA saw the money-making potential of his popularity and requested that Shadow be brought back for 'Sonic Heroes (2003)'. Sonic fought to the tooth and nail for Shadow’s in-game character to stay dead. He purposefully wrote the death to be part of the story so he wouldn’t have to share the spotlight with another hedgehog.
Even sonic couldn’t stop the decision and was forced to write a contrivance for Shadow’s character to return, he was very displeased about that. He was powerful enough to stop Robotnik’s attempt to conquer the world, but he could do nothing against the mammoth machine that is corporate capitalism.
Now SEGA was considering giving Shadow his own game, a nightmare scenario for Sonic. Sonic is yet to be informed, he will probably make a huge fuss but there will be nothing he can do to stop it if the higher-ups decide to go with it.
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Shadow feels like he is on top of the world. He is at the height of his popularity and potentially has a project ahead of him. This a chance for him to build a career of his own, no longer a side character in Sonic’s world but the main character in his world. He is already planning out his game and writing the script. He hasn’t gotten the greenlight just yet, but he is very motivated to seize his potential opportunity.
Back at the main dinner table, Sonic is going on and on about the graphics and how good they look. Boasting about his achievements and mostly congratulating himself. Everyone was used to Sonic’s egocentrism and need to boast about how cool and great he is after every finished project but it never ceased to get on everyone’s nerves.
“I think we heard enough of this Sonic can we move on to something else” Amy interrupted Sonic.
“I was just getting started,” Sonic said.
“Nobody cares” Knuckles interjected.
Sonic was taken aback by Knuckles’ response. Knuckles was just about finishing his meal and was wiping his face with a napkin. He couldn’t stay quiet after all.
“We are done with the game and I’m done with my food, so I don’t have to take your shit,” Knuckles said.
“It's good to see you are as spineless as ever”, sonic responded in a smug tone, “only brave when none of the SEGA executives and board of directors are present, although I never understood why you always insult the hand that feeds you”
“I don’t need this job”
“You can trash talk me all you want but both of us know you’re nothing without me”
“Listen here Sonic, this is the last time I’m working with you”
“Yeah yeah, I know your routine. If this wasn’t your alleged 4th time quitting and you actually go through with it I might even respect you a little bit. However, as soon as the next game is starting development you crawl back to work. I get it, you want your game Knuckles and it hurts being second fiddle but you will never reach me, learn to deal with it”
Knuckles hit the table with his hand and stands up, ready to fight. Tails also gets up from his seat and tries to defuse the situation. Often when fights like this break out Tails is the one that has to be the mediator. Amy seemed totally unbothered and pretended as if nothing happened. The rest of the table had their eyes set on Knuckles. Tails extended his hand to knuckles to calm him and spoke.
“Knux calm down I’m sure we can-“
Knuckles cuts off Tails, ignoring him, and looks at Sonic “You think you can act like a garbage person just cause the company made you in charge and cause you’re popular, you realize that your popularity won’t last forever and that position you cling onto might be given to someone else?”
“I’ll worry about that when that time comes” Sonic responded to knuckles arrogantly completely ignoring Tails. He made a pause and put his hands together. “My friend when you stop an evil mad scientist from taking over the world then you can act as smug as you want towards me. When you start making generation-defining art that you put parts of yourself into that makes millions of dollars then you can be my boss, until then you should play the role you were given.”
“Firstly your memory seems to be failing you, we stopped Robotnik together, not just you. You got lucky that the spotlight fell on you. Secondly, yes you are the chief director of all of our games but you are dead wrong if you think the rap music I made and the levels I designed weren’t my expressions. Those games carry parts of everyone involved, they don’t belong just to you.” Knuckles turned his back to Sonic and started walking away. He was about to leave the restaurant but he turned to say one last thing to Sonic, “And I ain’t your friend”
Knuckles left the place leaving everyone else there. Amy started talking about the food as if nothing had happened. Things resumed for everyone normally except for Tails. He was staring at the door Knuckles had just walked out of. A feeling of regret overcame him instantly for not saying anything while Knuckles was leaving. To this day that moment is still replaying in his head over and over again.
Would things have turned out differently if I said something, maybe he would have ignored me like he did when I tried to de-escalate, or maybe it would have changed everything. Maybe Knuckles would have calmed down and maybe Sonic would try to extend an olive branch, maybe they would make up. Maybe I should have been more assertive to keep Sonic’s head out of the clouds before it became too late. Maybe I should have tried to explain to Sonic why Knuckles feels the way he does, maybe he would understand, maybe we would have all been friends again and the catastrophic years that came next would have been avoided. I will never have an answer and will forever swim in the sea of maybes, what-ifs and regrets. In life we always think about all of the wrong things we said in the past, those moments at 3 in the morning when you replay your memories, you go back to cursing your old self for having that poor choice words. I have learned that the most painful memories to go back to aren’t all the times you said something wrong, it’s when you chose to say nothing at all.