MIDNIGHT the BADNIK
« I can not leave my people, my family. They need me. »
Midnight † Agender : they/them † Asexual
The eternal Princess of the Neo Badnik Empire.
Vote for them in the Sonic Fankid Showdown on Tumblr! =)
No one seems to be happy here...
Personality
Midnight is quiet and distant, often glaring and standing very tense. Even ignoring their dark coloration with splashes of aposematic coloration, they look very intimidating.
So the people that meet them are usually surprised to find that they're fairly friendly. Almost robotically polite, even, and very patient. They're still quiet, but it makes them a good listener.
Their initial appearance might keep them from having a lot of friends, but their few friends are close friends they will reach out to often. Usually to show them something that made them think of them.
They have no concept of 'friendship decay'; once they consider someone a friend, they will continue to consider them a friend unless it's made very clear they aren't friends anymore.
They have a strong sense of duty and loyalty to their Empire. They're only second in line for the throne, but they still take an important role as a representative of the Empire's inner circle. They try to make a good impression, both to outsiders and their own subjects.
Midnight is very curious. They love learning new things, no matter how small or unimportant. Especially gossip. It's one of few things they can't simply look up. They will listen intently if offered this information, but they couldn't possibly risk being caught eavesdropping. It'd reflect horribly on their mother.
Their tail is probably the easiest way to read their body language. They'll flick their tail when annoyed or bored, and it curls up when they're happy.
They have a very soft voice, quite unlike either of their parents'. Even when they raise the volume, it still has a gentle sound to it.
Midnight was asked to choose their gender, and they... didn't. It was one of those things that didn't interest them and wasn't important. Their gender is still left as a blank variable to this day.
Appearance
A dark blue hedgehog with star-shaped streaks on their quills. Their four quills are cropped relatively short. The top quill and the two on each side curl up and have white streaks. The lower middle quill, often hidden behind the two side ones, curls down a bit and has a red streak. Their ears are red, and they wear red eyeliner pointed up. Their eyes are sharp red circles on a dark screen. Their nose looks sharp.
Their muzzle and arms are a shiny steel gray despite moving like flesh, with a red spot on their cheeks. Their intake is yellow. The cover for the exhaust of their engine has a white tip, and the part in the middle is red, while the rest is yellow. They have a long tail with a red tip and white blades similar to those of a halberd.
White pauldrons cover their shoulders. They wear a golden necklace with dangling star-shaped adornments. A sheer red cape with a gold trim hangs from the pauldrons, tucked into a golden belt with white spikes. They wear long fingerless gloves that come up to their elbows and boots that come up to their knees, the latter loosely modelled after Shadow's air skates. Both the gloves and boots are primarily blue and have red stipes. Both also have jewelry resembling Shadow's inhibitor rings with white spikes. Their fingers are very sharp. Any part of them which is white glows in the dark, along with their optics. They sometimes wear a golden tiara with white spikes.
Exact Palette
Dark Quills [#1f1d40]; White Quills (actually a very pale blue) [#def4fe]; Red Quills [#e00e0e]; Metal [#9db0c7]; Red Clothing [#c40000]; Blue Clothing [#180078]; Golden Rings [#fedc00]; Optic Screen [#2c0112]; Eye Color [#ff0000]
Less fanfare for Neo Red. It wasn't the red associated with the Empire before.
Abilities
Midnight has technology copied directly from Neo's own body and was made with Shadow's biodata, so they have just about any ability either of them has.
From Neo's side, they have a special chip allowing them to control their nanobot body very precisely. Allowing them to shapeshift. It should be noted, though, that they have size limits in both directions. They have to work with what material they have, and all of it. Denser packing may allow them to get smaller, but it will also decrease airflow and risk overheating more easily. Conversely, spreading material thinner can make them larger, but more brittle. These are problems also faced by their mother, of course.
Often hidden by their mobian-passing form, they also have a very powerful jet engine, every bit as good as their mother's. They can copy the biodata of others, allowing them to copy other people's abilities if they so wish. The most common is Orchid's psychokinesis (itself first copied from Silver's biodata).
They also have technology copied from Shadow's air skates, allowing them to travel fast on the ground, too. Which method they prefer to use depends on energy levels (flight is more taxing) and environment (skating can be more difficult in, par example, a forest). They of course don't need real inhibitor rings. Any necessary inhibitor technology was built directly into their body, and wouldn't need to be visible. The rings are merely an homage.
Inherited from Shadow, they can absorb and manipulate Chaos Energy. They can store it as Chaos Energy and convert it to the normal energy that runs the rest of their body. Depending on availability/ease of charging and average level of energy demand, they may choose to split the amount that's stored vs the amount that's converted differently. Once their stores are full, though, any surplus is automatically converted to regular energy. If they commit all intake to their normal battery, and keep energy consumption low on average, they could run off Chaos Energy alone in perpetuity.
Stored Chaos Energy can be used to safely perform abilities like Chaos Control without a Chaos Emerald. It takes a while to build up that much energy, though, so they still can't do that often. Unless, that is, they have a Chaos Emerald. This of course negates the need to charge, too; the surplus of energy gained from an Emerald even tends to make them a bit hyper.
They, of course, also have abilities typical of all badniks in this story; being able to connect to the internet wirelessly and communicate silently with other robots through something similar to Bluetooth.
You may notice the lack of the inciting incident for the other timeline. That's because it didn't happen. If it did happen, the other timeline would've happened.
Story
Neo created Midnight to be a powerful and worthy successor, with the hopes they would ultimately surpass xen. Most importantly, xe wanted them to have the freedom to choose their own "purpose". Xe treats them like a normal child, for the most part. Despite continuing to talk about them in terms of superior ability. (How else does one express pride?)
Shadow wasn't directly involved with their creation. Neo used the biodata of The Ultimate Lifeform when creating xer perfect little warrior, supposedly without considering the social implications. No one batted an eye when Eggman used Sonic's to make Shard. And Shadow accepts this explanation. After all, Gerald did the same with Black Doom's DNA, right?
Neo of course didn't expect Shadow to take a parental role with the child. Xe wouldn't expect that without expressed agreement, much less with them having no knowledge of the child before they were running. It's Shadow who tells the robot they are their parent. They help them learn how to use their air skates properly, and take them out to enjoy nature. Midnight appreciates nature a bit differently from their parent, wanting to understand how everything works rather than simply sitting in the moment, but they do still appreciate it and enjoy the time spent with Shadow.
Shadow and Neo are, of course, often quite busy with Team Dark business. While Midnight's AI is never quite immature enough that it would be dangerous to leave them alone for a day, Orchid and Cupid often take it upon themselves to babysit them. They enjoy spending time with their neicew, anyway.
The twins aren't all that much older than Midnight, but they both try their best to be good role models. They end up acting more as older siblings to them. Not entirely unfitting given Neo pretty much raised the twins too.
Shard is ecstatic to learn about them. He immediately appoints himself 'Uncle Shard' and decides he has to be the coolest, most fun uncle ever. They can copy his arm cannon, so he also teaches them how to shoot while flying, though they don't have much interest in it.
They eventually become a habitual traveler wandering the planet, keeping in touch with their family and friends through messages and frequent visits. They rarely talk to strangers, preferring to keep a distance and even stand on rooftops to watch from afar, but people still slowly start to notice them. Not having any context for their existence but finding their presence creepy, people think of them similar to a cryptid and assign various omens to their appearance. There are multiple "fan theories" about their nature and backstory. They find this very amusing.
Trivia
* Their primary, cyborg-esque form is not their "true" form. They have a standard form much more similar to their mother's standard form.
* They say NBE stands for "Nightmare Bad End" timeline. Is that true? (No, of course not. Nightmare maybe, but everything will be okay in the end.)
* I had the idea for this au for a while - just ask Anton - but getting enough done to launch it is taking a while. It'll eventually have an ask blog on Tumblr.
* Things went much more poorly for them in this timeline. How typical. The White Orchid Timeline may be the Team Dark Neo Timeline, but this is the Dark Timeline.
* Midnight has one of the biggest differences between their main visual design in the NBE and White Orchid timelines.
Even though I was left out of their little happy ending.
Their standard form.