DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN SONIC THE HEDGEHOG AND ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi, guys. It's been a while since I've updated or uploaded anything on here. And I've gotten quite a few reviews for my past stories, "Gaining Back My Love" and "The Stepbrother", stories that I'm definitely and without a doubt going to finish. Just pleeeease bear with me. I had gone through a little writer's block with The Stepbrother, but I'm currently in the process of writing a chapter at the moment, so you'll see one very soon. I just had another idea for a story that I wanted to write, so I thought I'd put it up while you were waiting for the others. Sorry if I'm boring you guys with these Sonadow stories; they're just my favorite couplings! Lol, but I'll think about working on some others, though. I really love Naruto, so I might start some fanfics about him, too. Anyway, thank you guys for all your support and your awesome reviews. I swear, I enjoy reading them, so keep 'em coming! Well, here's my new story, Amnesia, and I hope you guys like it, so far! R&R&ENJOY!
"Tails, can't this thing fly any faster? Egghead'll have the entire place leveled down if we keep moving at this rate!"
A young golden fox rolls his eyes at the impatience of his 'older brother'.
"It's moving as fast as it can, Sonic." Sonic, everyone's favorite blue hedgehog, was standing on the wing of the Tails' latest plane. As 'way past cool' as Sonic thought the plane was when he'd initially seen it, it just wasn't fast enough for Sonic's liking.
"But, Tails—"
"I'm sorry, Sonic! There's nothing I can do!" The twin-tailed fox moaned in an exasperated tone. "Sheesh!" He mumbled under his breath.
"Sonic, give the little guy a break." A deep voice stated. It was Knuckles. "We'll be there in plenty of time to kick Eggman's butt before it gets outta hand." He said from the inside of the plane.
Sonic sighed aloud. He knew that what Knuckles said was true, but he couldn't really care less. He liked it when things moved at his speed, because the speed of others was often too slow for him.
"Whatever you say, knucklehead." The blue one mumbled while narrowing his eyes and looking off into the trees they were flying over.
"What was that, Sonic?" Knuckles threatened.
"Was I not clear?" Sonic glared impatiently.
"You know what, you little smartass? I outta— "
"Both of you shut up." Everyone looked over at the voice coming from the opposite wing that Sonic stood on. Shadow the hedgehog had earlier on accepted Sonic's invitation to thwart another one of Eggman's devious schemes. Having nothing better to do at the time, he agreed to follow. "You won't get anywhere any faster by bickering at each other like two childish brats. Just shut up until we get there."
Shadow looked around to ensure that peace would indeed be established between the red echidna and the blue hedgehog. As he glanced over at Sonic, he noticed the blue hedgehog glaring at him, excessively. His emerald eyes seemed to be accusatory toward the onyx hedgehog. Shadow narrowed his eyes at Sonic to let the immature one know that he meant business. Sonic simply looked away in a huff.
"Tails!" A female voice called from somewhere on the plane's speakers.
"Hey, Sally. What's up?" Sally Acorn was one of the main brains of the operation, aside from Tails. She would formulate plans on how to foil whatever no-good idea Dr. Eggman was up to, and she would sometimes help Tails build machines that would benefit the gang in the long run.
"I got the radar for the plane working from here. The coordinates for the chaos emerald should appear on the screen, as well as any possible threats to it or to us. The green emerald we already have is also helping to locate the blue chaos emerald. You should be seeing something on your screen in a short moment."
No sooner had she said that did the radar turn on.
"Thanks a lot, Sally!" Tails said.
"No problem, Tails. You guys be careful!"
"Will do!" Tails said before the speaker shut off.
After speaking with Sally, a few minutes had passed before Sonic decided to open his mouth again. "Tails, how much longer, now?"
"Well, Sonic, the radar that Sally and I attached to the plane indicates that there's a chaos emerald about three minutes from here. It also shows that there's a weird metallic contraption a few paces north of it. I deduced that the contraption was some machine that Dr. Eggman is using to look for the emerald. The radar also shows that a lot of green is being destroyed; I guessed that the doctor is probably still hunting the emerald down somewhere in the forest area. By doing so— "
"So," Sonic interrupted. "How long will it take to get there?"
" . . . Three minutes, Sonic." Tails replied, dryly.
"Three minutes, uh? Betcha I can run there and make it thirty seconds." Sonic smirked. "Later, guys." He saluted right before he made to free-fall off of the plane.
"Sonic, wait!" Tails called out.
"Idiot." Knuckles mumbled.
Shadow, with his arms crossed, closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'll follow him." He stated. Then, he too proceeded to free-fall from the plane after the younger one.
"I hope Sonic doesn't screw this up." Knuckles said to Tails.
"Me too, Knuckles." The fox sighed. "Me too."
Meanwhile, a blue blur was flying through the trees of the forest, courtesy of his incredible speed. The huge leaves, the branches, and trees themselves made the forest very thick and a little hard to see through. But, Sonic's speed propelled him through the obstacles with ease.
"Heh! I should've done this from the beginning." Sonic talked to himself. "It would've saved a hell of a lot of time."
Then, Sonic heard a gentle ruffling noise a little ways behind him. He screeched to a stop and brushed the dirt off of him before turning around to glance behind him.
'What was that?' He thought. He looked around and saw nothing, so he shrugged to himself and continued his run toward the mad doctor. 'That crazy jet lag must be getting to me.'
Right before reaching his previous speed, he heard the noise again. He knew that hearing the same ruffling noise a second time meant that he wasn't crazy and that he'd heard correctly. He came to another stop and turned around.
"Who's there?" He demanded. "Egghead? Is that you?" He called out. He took a couple of paces back from where he came from. The ruffling noise sounded like it was getting closer. Sonic stopped walking all together and pushed a few branches and leaves out of his way to hopefully get a better view. The noise got even closer. Sonic perked his ear and listened intently on what the noise might be.
'Sounds like . . . it sounds like . . . footsteps?' He thought. 'Running footsteps?'
Sonic pushed a few more leaves and branches out of his way to see who dared approach him so sneakily. He pushed one more branch out of his way before something, or someone, collided into him, causing him to hit the ground, hard. He instinctively brought a hand up to his head.
'Ah! What the hell?'
He tried to get up and move, but whatever collided with him was keeping him from doing so. And whatever it was, it was heavy. The blue hedgie opened his eyes to see what was pinning him so roughly into the ground. His vision was a little foggy from his head hitting the ground so hard, and he had to blink a few times before something came into view. Something black was on top of him. And it hadn't moved yet. Was it an enemy, he thought?
"Faker!"
Sonic knew that voice. He blinked a few more times before his vision cleared to see Shadow the hedgehog straddled on top of him. Sonic's cheeks suddenly became a little hot at the sight above him, and he didn't know why. There his onyx clone was, sitting over top of him and panting slightly from the running and the collision, with a little dirt on him from the fall. Shadow's ruby orbs were beaming down at Sonic in an exasperated expression that Sonic oddly found attractive. 'Wow.' He thought.
However, he was soon brought out of his trance.
"Why don't you watch where you're standing, you dumbass?" Shadow exclaimed clutched the side of his head.
Sonic blinked a few times again before replying. "Me? How was I supposed to know you were following me? Why don't you watch where you're going!" He retorted before pushing Shadow off of him into the dirt. He stood himself up from the forest floor, turned his back to Shadow, and dusted himself off. "And for the record, I don't need a stiff like you following me! I can handle myself." He proceeded to walk away from Shadow, until he was grabbed by the arm from behind and forced to the ground on his back. Shadow had pinned him down, again.
"You'll get handled if you hold that tone with me, misemono."
"Get off of me, Shadow!"
"Make me, Sonic." Shadow replied coolly. The way Sonic's name rolled off of Shadow's tongue so easily sent tiny shivers throughout Sonic's body. The proximity in their situation wasn't exactly very helpful, either. Sonic's cheeks began to flare up all over again, this time producing a slight red hue along with it. It was embarrassing to say the least to have an ego as big as Sonic's crushed by the hands of his clone. And Sonic dared not struggle under the onyx one's grasp for fear of making matters worse.
"What's wrong, Faker? Why don't you push me off of you like you did a second ago?" Shadow taunted with a smirk.
"Shadow, I—." Sonic looked beyond Shadow when he heard more footsteps running toward them. Shadow turned around to see who was approaching, as well.
"Sonic?" Tails' voice questioned. He was a little puzzled to say the least at what he was seeing.
"What are you two doing on the ground?" Knuckles came from behind Tails and asked.
It was then that Sonic and Shadow realized their position on the ground and what it looked like. As Shadow made way to relieve Sonic, Sonic hurriedly pushed him off again, instead. Shadow glared over at Sonic. "I was teaching Faker here a very important lesson about how she should treat me." Shadow answered, to which Sonic stuck his tongue out, childishly.
"Guys, we don't have time for this. Eggman could be here any moment, and we've still gotta find the chaos emerald." The echidna reminded them.
"Well in that case, where should we look, little bud?" Sonic asked Tails.
"According to the radar, the emerald should be just a little bit north from where we're standing, now."
"Then, let's go!" Sonic ran off in the direction Tails had pointed out.
Shadow jumped in front of Sonic to prevent him from going any further. "Hold on, Faker. You can't just run wherever you see fit."
"And why can't I?"
"The forest could be booby-trapped, you idiot. Ever think of that?" Shadow challenged him.
Sonic just scoffed at him, cockily. "Shadow, the forest is huge. How could anyone set a trap somewhere out here?" And with that, he pushed past the Ultimate Life Form, not knowing that he would step on an unseen sensor that would alert the enemy.
The group of four walked a little ways into the forest before the radar beeped. "Sonic!" Tails called out. "The radar says we're here."
Everyone looked around. "Well . . . where is it?" Sonic asked.
"Is something wrong with your tracker, fox?" Shadow questioned.
"No. Sally and I fixed it up this morning before we took off."
"Well, I don't see anything." Sonic spoke up.
"Maybe if you'd stop using your mouth to compensate for your eyes, you'd be able to see a little more." Shadow told Sonic.
"And what's your excuse, Oh Powerful and Mighty One? Huh? I don't see you finding anything either." Sonic faced Shadow and began to approach him.
"It's because all of your hot air is fogging up my eyes, Faker." Shadow walked closer to Sonic, too.
"You're such an asshole." Sonic spat.
"And you're an insolent child." Shadow fought back.
"Um, guys?" Tails had gotten between the two hedgehogs and spoke in a smallish voice.
They both looked at Tails, back at each other, and then stepped away.
"See what you've done? Now you've upset the fox." Shadow accused his look-alike.
"Me?" Sonic whined.
"For the love of Mobius," Knuckles mumbled. He dug his fists in the ground and proceeded to dig with his knuckles. He dug deeper and deeper until he created a small, but shallow hole in the ground. Sonic, Shadow, and Tails gathered around the hole to see what Knuckles was doing.
"Knuckles?" Sonic called out. "You okay in there?"
"Just fine." He echoed back before resurfacing with something blue and shiny in his hand. "And look what I found." He smirked.
"Good going, Knux." Sonic grinned.
"Way to go, Knuckles!" Tails cheered. Shadow simply smirked. "Two down, five more to go!"
"Yeah, and if I don't have to fly on those plane wings for the entire search, maybe we'll find them before I'm fifty." Sonic added, as he and the others started to walk back to the plane.
Shadow rolled his eyes and followed behind the others, until he heard something weird that made him stop in his tracks.
Knuckles stopped when he didn't hear Shadow's footsteps walking behind him.
"What's wrong, Shadow?" Knuckles asked. But, Shadow remained still, quiet, and staring a little dazed at the ground. He looked as if he were trying to focus on something. By this time, the other two had caught on to the halt in the steps of Shadow and Knuckles.
"What's going on, guys?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." Said Knuckles. "Shadow, why did you . . ." It was Knuckles' turn to stop and listen.
"Not you, too, Knuckles." Sonic said.
"Shh! Listen," he said. "Do you guys hear that?"
"Knux, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you're the one that hopped out of Tails' plane and landed on your head."
"Hush, Faker!" Shadow shushed him. "It's getting louder."
"I hear it, too!" Tails piped up.
Sonic crossed his arms. "Well, maybe I'm the only sane one, because I don't hear a . . ." Suddenly, Sonic was quiet. He heard the noise that the others were talking about. The noise seemed like a few different things. One of the noises sounded just like the running footsteps that Sonic had previously heard when Shadow was following behind him, only it sounded like the footsteps belonged to more than one individual. But, the other noise was strange; it sounded something akin to metal scraping against metal. And the noises were coming from behind them.
CLANK * CLANK * CLANK * CLANK
Everyone looked back with mouths agape in wonder of what the strange sounds could possibly be.
"What is that?" Shadow asked.
"Sounds like it's getting closer." Sonic said as the noises got louder and louder, seeming to approach the group.
CLANKCLANK * CLANKCLANK * CLANKCLANK * CLANKCLANK
The noises got louder and louder until Shadow decided that whatever the noise was didn't sound friendly at all.
Out of nowhere, a huge machine appeared from out of the forest leaves and trees and sprang into the air. The contraption was metallic with the form almost like that of a human body; it held the similarities of legs, arms, fists, and a torso, and it was a good enough size to chop down the trees in the forest. However, the gang didn't have time to marvel at the dangerous-looking device. They each caught a quick glimpse of it before realizing they were in trouble.
As the machine soared through the air, it seemed to target one person in particular: Sonic the hedgehog.
Shadow saw this immediately, and he saw that Sonic, who was still staring agape at the machine, was strangely a little slow on the uptake.
"Sonic! Move!" Shadow called, and he dove on Sonic, pushing the both of them out of the way right before the machine landed on the both of them.
Sonic was in pain, but he wasn't in as much pain as he would have been had Shadow left him standing where he initially was. He clutched at his head for the second time that day before realizing that Shadow was on top of him, glaring.
"What's the matter with you? You could've been killed!" Shadow reprimanded him. Why couldn't the azure one be more careful?
"Thanks, Dad. I'll keep that in mind, next time." Sonic replied with a sneer.
As the four reunited, they turned to look at the robotic machine for answers as to what was going on. Just then, Tails pointed toward the head of the contraption. "Dr. Eggman!" He shouted.
Sure enough, Dr. Eggman could be from the head of the machine through a window. He was controlling the robot from the inside.
"Another one of his stupid machines?" Sonic whined.
"What's he up to, now?" Knuckles growled.
On the inside of the robot, the four could see Dr. Eggman bringing something that looked like a built-in microphone up to his mouth. "Hello, rodents." He greeted in a mockingly jolly tone. "How are you doing on this lovely day?"
"Cut the crap and tell us what you're doing here, Egghead? Here to try to steal the chaos emerald from us, again?" Sonic laughed.
"Oh, Sonic, I'm touched. You know me oh so well. And here I thought we were sworn enemies."
"How did you find us, doctor?" Shadow spoke up.
"You can praise Sonic for that, Shadow. He deserves the honor for setting off the sensors that I planted back in the forest somewhere. And in setting the sensor off, we were led right to you." Eggman chuckled.
Shadow snapped over at Sonic, clearly angrier. "I told you to watch where you were going, Faker. See what happens?" Sonic looked at Shadow uneasily with his hands up in a defensive motion.
"Hey, hey! How was I supposed to see a sensor somewhere on this dirty ground?"
"You would have seen it if you would have slowed down and listened to me. I said 'don't rush out because there might be a trap'! Remember?"
"Oh, boys," Dr. Eggman cut in. "It really doesn't matter what happened a few minutes ago. All that matters is that I'm here, now. And I will be leaving with the chaos emerald, whether you give it willingly or not."
Realization on what the doctor had previously said hit Knuckles, causing him to speak up. "Wait . . . what did ya' mean by 'we'?"
"Hehe! I'm glad you asked Knuckles." Eggman replied. He then put his hands up to his mouth and made a loud whistling noise.
"What's he doing?" Tails asked. He clutched the emerald a little tighter to his person, not knowing what would happen next.
Suddenly, a quick and somewhat powerful gust of wind picked up and circled the four boys. Sonic noticed that the wind held a tint of lime green to it, and went wide-eyed. "Oh, no." He mumbled.
"Ohh yeah, Blue. It's your lucky day." A green hedgehog appeared in front of Eggman's robotic machine. "Nice to see you all, Knucklehead, Tail-freak, and . . . the Emo-hog. Really didn't expect to see you here." Scourge grinned slyly while baring his pointy fangs. Shadow glowered at the hedgehog and the pet name that was given to him.
"Don't tell me you're working for Eggman!" Sonic exclaimed.
"Woah, woah, woah! I don't work for anyone, Blue." The green hedgehog known as Scourge gestured back and forth between Eggman and himself. "Partners is more like it."
Eggman chimed in. "That's right. I asked Scourge to help me retrieve the chaos emeralds in exchange for my assistance in making him the richest hog on the face of the planet."
"Good luck with that, Scourge." Knuckles scoffed.
"Yeah, you picked the world's dumbest evil genius to help you with something that ain't gonna happen." Sonic chuckled.
Dr. Eggman's grin turned into an annoyed frown. "Well, I believe that's enough for introductions. We know each well enough, and I'm done with talking." Eggman controlled the robot to raise its arms, and he intended for the fists to smash into the four friends.
"Split!" Sonic yelled. And everyone dodged the attack.
"Scourge, let's make this quick." Eggman demanded through the speaker.
"Quick is my middle name, doc." The green one spoke. He took off toward Tails who had the blue chaos emerald in his clutch. "Sonic!" The young one yelled.
Scourge jumped to attack Tails, but Sonic collided with Scourge before he reached the emerald. Then, Sonic kicked Scourge roughly into a tree. The green one shook his head and dusted himself off before rising up. "You're gonna wish you hadn't done that, Blue." Scourge warned and walked toward Sonic. Tails backed up to get himself away from the battle and to protect the emerald.
Scourge spin-dashed to attack Sonic, who barely dodged the attack. Scourge grabbed hold of a tree branch and swung him, self around it, propelling himself forward to charge at Sonic, once more. Before making contact, a blur of onyx crashed kicked him in the side of his stomach. Scourge hit the ground hard another time. He started to get up, again, and coughed in the process. "Ya' know, I'm getting tired of being pushed around by you bastards." Scourge managed to get out.
"Hmph. You should've thought about what you were walking into before attacking us." Shadow spoke.
On the other hand, Knuckles was looking around for Dr. Eggman. As soon as Scourge set off to attack Sonic, Eggman had disappeared in the background. Knuckles continued to look around rather frantically.
"Argh! Eggman, where'd you go" He called out.
Tails looked around to, trying to be careful to keep the emerald safe. He unconsciously took a few steps back, not knowing what was going to happen. What he didn't notice was that Eggman had crept up right behind him, and at this moment, he chose to jump out at Tails. "Aaaahhh!" Tails screamed and ran away from the robot. The robot was hot on his tails, gaining on the fox and the emerald. But, Knuckles got to the robot before it had gotten to Tails. He ran up behind the robot and punched it in the back of the leg causing it to lean forward a little. Then, he ran in front of it, jumped high in the air, and punched the robot with so much force in its torso that it staggered backwards, and it fell.
"Hey!" Eggman screamed. Knuckles smirked and flexed his fingers. "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with." He was clearly feeling cocky.
"Knuckles, we've gotta grab Sonic and Shadow and get out of here, before they steal the emerald from us."
"Right. Let's get 'em." He said. And they ran off in the direction that they saw the three hedgehogs go.
Meanwhile with the three hedgehogs, Shadow and Sonic had the upper hand. Scourge continued trying to attack each hedgehog on his own, but no matter which one he attacked, the other would come to the rescue. Scourge was running out of ideas and breath.
As he was in a hand-to-hand combat with Sonic, he failed to be mindful of Shadow's presence, once again.
"Chaos Spear," was the last word he heard before he was hit with a burst of chaos energy in the form of a spear. "Ah!" He exclaimed in a pain that became familiar to him since he started the battle with Shadow and Sonic. The chaos energy knocked him into a tree, once more. He slumped down into the dirt, and relaxed there to catch his breath.
"You two . . . *pant* . . . are a p-pain . . . pain in the ass." Scourge breathed out.
Shadow and Sonic walked over to the fallen enemy. Sonic placed his hands on his hips proudly and grinned. "It's what I'm good at." He stated with a wide grin.
"Tell me about it." Shadow rolled his eyes. Sonic narrowed his eyes at Shadow's snide remark. Footsteps from behind alerted the duo. Tails and Knuckles.
"Guys, c'mon! Let's ditch this place before Eggman recovers." Knuckles said.
"Sounds like a plan to me." Sonic said to Shadow who nodded his head in approval. The four ran back in the direction that the plane had come from. Once they boarded, Tails started up the plane and they took off with the emerald out of the forest and into the sky. Again, Sonic and Shadow were riding on the wings of the plane while Tails flew and Knuckles relaxed inside.
"Great job, guys! We made it with the emerald!" Said Tails.
"Just barely, thanks to Faker." Shadow glanced over at Sonic and glanced away.
Sonic defended himself. "Hey! I said I was sorry for the booby trap incident. But, we made it out anyway. What do ya' want me to do about it?"
"Stop being so damn reckless." The onyx one exclaimed.
"That's like telling the sky to stop being blue. Hehe!" Knuckles joked. "Not gonna happen." Tails snickered to himself at the truth in Knuckles' joke.
"Very funny, Chucklehead."
"I've warned you about the name calling, Sonic." Knuckles retorted.
"Yeah, yeah." Sonic sneered. Knuckles mumbled something under his breath about 'childishness' and 'obscenity'
Sonic looked back over at Shadow. His eyes open a little wider when he noticed Shadow staring at him rather intently. Sonic knew that Shadow saw him looking, but the onyx one still continued to stare. It wasn't a glare or a look of disparagement; Sonic couldn't quite read the look in Shadow's ruby-colored eyes, however the stare did still manage to faintly tint the color of Sonic's cheeks.
Sonic and Shadow had been past archrivals for a long time, now. Shadow still resisted using the label of 'friend' on anyone, but everyone that knew Shadow and how he operated didn't have to have him elaborate on his emotions. They could sometimes deduce how he was feeling. Those who held somewhat of a closer relationship with Shadow could almost read his 'nonexistent' emotions like an open book. Those people were none other than Rouge the bat and Sonic the hedgehog. Sonic often didn't need Shadow to tell him how he was feeling to know how he was feeling.
But, this time was different. Occasionally, he would catch Shadow glancing his way for a prolonged period of time. But, he would brush it off as nothing more than the onyx one being 'weird'. Admittedly, Shadow wasn't exactly like the average bear. He wasn't the ray of sunshine in everyone's day, and he wasn't very talkative, either. That was part of the reason why Sonic refused to question Shadow about his strange actions. He knew he either wouldn't get an answer or he'd receive a sarcastic one. Though, he couldn't help but wonder what was going through Shadow's head.
After guessing that Shadow wouldn't look away unless he was ready, and wanting to relieve himself of the awkward situation he felt he was placed in, Sonic glanced away from Shadow. "W-well . . . at least we got one of the chaos emeralds, today. That's all that matters." Sonic assured, trying to hide his face's discoloration.
Tails glanced over at Sonic. "Sonic? Are you alright?" He asked.
Sonic grinned over at Tails, giving him a thumbs up. "Sure, bud. Why wouldn't I be?" Tails shrugged and kept flying.
"I can't wait to get home." Knuckles said. And the plane flew off into the direction of their home and to the others waiting there.
