Two
Shadow the Hedgehog was not pleased with his allies efforts. He had been lodging with Eggman since the failure aboard the Ark. He once again took a moment to distract himself with thoughts of what happened there. He remembered failing to stop Sonic from destroying the Eclipse Cannon, and then blankness until being reawakened by the Doctor, who told him that he'd been knocked out by Sonic, after he had been beaten, but something about that didn't add up, and he was confident that something had happened during the gap between his fight with Sonic and ending up on Earth, but the Doctor would divulge no more. In truth Shadow had reached the conclusion that he would never remember, but he would still occasionally spare a thought to digging up the truth. Conversely, he tried not to think about Maria. The machine he had placed in the Doctor's control room was ready.
Sonic collapsed after landing on the floor. His adrenaline had held him through the fight, but it was impossible to escape the fact that he had been horribly burned, he didn't feel pain on the way to the floor, and it only hit him on his way back up. He found himself in Tails' medical bay, the clock made it three hours later, 10 O'clock, assuming he hadn't been out for more than twelve hours. Someone he didn't recognise walked in the door, a human who a moment later he recognised as Alex, who showed clear signs of surprise at seeing Sonic.
"But you've only been out for three hours, how are you up already" Sonic was relieved that he hadn't been unconscious longer.
"What can I say; even asleep I get bored easily… That was a joke by the way" he clarified at the look of confusion that crossed the human's face
"It wasn't funny"
"Hey, live and learn" he was already standing, and Alex would normally have asked someone who had suffered severe burns three hours earlier that they should stay resting, but he didn't know anything about this guy and he seemed fine. Sonic wanted to see Alex's reaction, so he did some magic, holding out his left hand, and, by moving as fast as he could, made it appear as if a chilli dog had appeared in his hand. He got what he wanted as Alex jumped out of his shoes in surprise, as the hedgehog took a massive and probably worryingly unhealthy bite, performing yet another impressive feat by downing the whole thing in three. Sonic the Hedgehog saves the world one day, and destroys it the next, the amount of food he ate to keep him running should place him as one of the top single contributors to the worldwide energy crisis, if all the food wasn't grown and prepared by himself and Tails. After all, no-one was eager to supply him, and he could hardly ask them. An occasional pizza dropped at the door of an "empty house" was their only outside food, and of course the money had to come from somewhere. The problems that were presented to someone living without anyone having knowledge of their existence were overcome by the fact that they just didn't care. It was what they were used to and what they enjoyed. After all, they had no employment or responsibilities, the only thing that they felt they had to do was stop Eggman, and that was fun as much as responsibility.
"I'm going to tell GUN where Eggman's base is"
"One piece of advice, make sure they come when he's not there. A full scale attack will be phenomenally dangerous if the defences are run by him. His genius isn't restricted to robots you know."
"Yeah I'll bear that in mind"
Alex had to put some distance between him and the lab before radioing a pickup, so he boarded the train. He passed through Station Square, staying on board until reaching some unimportant village in the middle of nowhere. Disembarking, he radioed H.Q. and then had to wait; after all, they dealt with people in danger first. They didn't even send a helicopter; just some quiet guy in a car, Alex was unused to being pulled without the usual hail of bullets. When he got back things got faster, he was pulled into debriefing, where he gave what he would swear to this day to be a full account of the story, dismissing the end of the mission as "unimportant" and the small fact that he was picked up from somewhere miles from where he claimed the target was. He was neither surprised nor disappointed to be told he would not be on the team hitting the base. He didn't care, he had the date and he knew where he had to be; now all he had to do was make sure the hedgehog was ready on time, ready by tomorrow.
Sonic took the news better than he expected, and then went off casually to do his own thing, a one day deadline didn't seem to worry him too much.
Sergeant Radcliffe took the news hard, it was going to have been his day off, and now he's being told about a priority mission, and that he needs a team prepped by 9PM the next day.
Shadow knew. He would have laughed if he were prone to displays of emotion. One day, more than enough time.
