Speedy's note: The Sonicverse is full of amazing items, some of them so awesome you can't imagine a way how they even work. Sometimes it's fun to think twice… ;) While I can accept the 'Light Shoes' to contain some form of device operating like a reverse ring magnet, earning an artistic feat like the wall jump through pulling on a pair of sneakers isn't really what you could call logical, is it?
So, here's a pointless little idea that came up on how the more impossible things might work, set in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood because this game has the most and freakiest upgrades of all :)
It's In The Shoes…
Chewing his lip in concentration, Miles 'Tails' Prower was leaning over the large table positioned right in the middle of his workshop. Before him lay his recently built 'Eggman Detector', a device searching for frequency patterns used by the notorious scientist's machinery and giving out an alert if a match was found. The device did what it was designed for, but Tails hoped he could improve it a little to avoid false alarms for every old piece of robot junk they encountered.
The fact that the team had decided to take a short break after having rescued Knuckles from the Marauders gave the two-tailed fox a bit of time to iron out possible quirks. Cream, Big and Amy had taken Cheese out to the backyard, Sonic was exploring the city, what left Knuckles and Rouge to watch Tails work.
As it seemed, the two had little to hold a conversation on, Tails knew the red echidna considered every moment they passed here a wasted one, and the white bat was looking over his shoulder with a little more interest than Tails would have liked from a government spy. It wasn't that he totally distrusted Rouge; distrust just wasn't the right term. He wasn't too sure what to really make of her, that was all. For now, he was okay knowing she was on their side, at least as long as they all worked against the Marauders.
Across of Tails, Knuckles still leaned almost motionless against a side-board, and now audibly cleared his throat. "How long is this gonna take you, Tails?"
"Not that much longer, Knuckles." Tails looked up just briefly. "I know you want to get going, but the Mystic Ruins are chaotic, and the better this device works the faster we'll find what we're looking for."
The echidna sighed. "I see…"
"Why don'tcha just let Cutie here do his job and chill out for a moment, Knucky?" Rouge smiled.
"You have no right calling me –" Knuckles' complaint was interrupted when the door flew open as far as the hinges would allow and noisily crashed against the wall behind it.
"You gotta see this, guys!"
Seemingly unimpressed, Rouge leisurely waved her hand at the blue-spiked newcomer. "Hi there, Big Blue."
"What's up, Sonic?" Tails threw a short look at his surrogate brother before focusing on his work again. He knew Sonic better than anyone else, and whatever was going on, it wasn't serious. A reaction to danger looked different. Still, the fox wondered a little what had excited the hedgehog like that.
Knuckles seemed less sure on the event's harmlessness. "What's wrong, Sonic?"
"Nothing, it's just awesome!" In a flash of blue, the hedgehog had moved to the echidna's side. "Here, check this out!" Balancing on one foot, he held the other one out at his red friend.
Momentarily speechless, Knuckles just stared at the hedgehog's foot that was being held dangerously close to his face, while Rouge and Tails exchanged a bewildered glance. "What?", the bat mouthed, but Tails could only shrug.
Having decided to stand on both of his feet again, Sonic pointed down on his footwear. "I checked out the shop a few minutes from here. They got tons of awesome stuff; for example these sneakers! They increase one's armor!"
Cocking an eyebrow, Knuckles mockingly looked Sonic up and down. "So, do they? Now what does it help you if your feet are nicely armoured and I punch you in the face, hedgehog?"
"Oh…" Sonic's jaw dropped; and Tails couldn't fight back a giggle. "But… Y'know, I ran in this group of swatbots and one hit me and I don't have a scratch! See?" He made a gesture of showing himself.
Beginning to look interested, Knuckles regarded Sonic again. "It's not that a swatbot is the mightiest foe we ever met…"
"Aww, come on, don't be so negative, Knux!" Sonic's ears flicked backwards a little. "Plus, my feet are important to me!"
"How is this even supposed to work?" The echidna stared down on Sonic's feet, scratching the back of his dreadlocked head.
The hedgehog shrugged. "Probably there's a magic force field the shoes make or something."
By now having put a pause to his work, Tails felt compelled to commend on the unasked question. "It would be possible, but technically not that easy to pull off, and therefore pretty expensive."
"They weren't exactly cheap," Sonic noticed, again looking at his brand new footwear. "But they're comfy, they look ace and they improve my armor!"
"Ah yes…", Rouge mumbled at Tails' side, appearing not very interested.
"You wanna check if there's some for you, too?", Sonic queried, still overly fond of his newest possession.
"Maybe later, I gotta work on our Eggman detector, you know?" Tails pointed at the device on the table. "But you others can just go, I still need some time and maybe Sonic is right and we should be as well equipped as we can when we go after the Marauders and try getting Angel Island back…"
"Hm." Knuckles thoughtfully looked between Sonic, eagerly bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Tails. "I never had any problems with my shoes…"
"Oh, they had some super-tough gloves there, too," Sonic remembered.
"Super-tough gloves? Well, maybe the Marauders would like a punch of these…" A fierce grin slipped on Knuckles' face. "I owe them."
Sonic chuckled. "That's the spirit, Knux. They won't know what hit them!" He turned to Rouge. "You coming, too?"
"No thanks." The white bat shook her head. "You know, a lady's gotta stick to her style, Big Blue."
Sonic grinned. "Oh well. Let's go, Knuckles."
The echidna nodded, the two of them walking towards the door. "And you're sure this works, right?"
"Yeah." Sonic strolled out of the house. "I don't know how, but I tell you: It's in the shoes!"
The door falling close behind the two boys, Rouge turned to Tails, a frown on her face. "It's in the shoes…", she repeated.
Tails shrugged sheepishly, blinking an eye at the female. "You know what they say… Faith moves mountains."