Ch.2 Spilling the Beans
"Shadow!" Sonic shouted " I've fought one of these before, aim underneath"
Shadow understood what sonic meant and dashed forward. He chaos controlled out of the way of the spiders laser that it shot from two guns that were mounted to the side of the beasts head. As soon as he was out of range of fire one of the robots long legs came down hard onto Shadow but was quickly caught by the black hedgehog. He held onto the leg as it pushed him back slowly using all its force to try and move its attacker. Shadow glanced over to Sonic who was obviously hurt but not to bad. Sonics eyes were wide as he stared at Shadow. Suddenly Shadow felt something bubble within his chest. He felt guilt first this was all his fault after all. Then he felt anger, Sonic was needlessly hurt and that made him grit his teeth. Finally something strange and a little selfish, With Sonic staring at him like that he felt... something. Something that made Shadow want to impress Sonic.
Shadow then griped the leg hard and pulled with all his might, making sure to flex his muscles in the process. He effortlessly tore the leg from the fake arachnid and tossed its own appendage at the creature. Shadow then skated under the robot where he spin dashed upward hitting the spider directly in the thorax tunneling into it. He soon surfaced on the other side and jumped down from atop the metal monster. Sparks flew out from the hole Shadow had left behind and with a loud boom the robot fell backwards.
Shadow stood triumphantly overlooking his handy work before remembering Sonic was stuck. Shadow turned to the trapped blue hero and with an apologetic look began removing the heavy rocks from Sonics leg. "That thing popped right out of the ground and caught me off guard " Sonic said with a smile even though he was in pain. Once the rocks had been removed Shadow stared in shock at Sonic's leg. There was blood everywhere and Sonics leg lay cut up with deep gashes. "That was awesome what you did, Shads!" Sonic stated happily. "No it wasn't," Shadow wanted to yell the words that spilt from his mouth, not at Sonic but at himself, "you should not have gotten hurt, this whole situation is my fault." "Shadow, what are you talking about I'm the one who ran head first into a killer robot." Sonic looked at Shadow with comforting eyes and a soft smile. All of Shadow's emotions that he had bottled up for the past six years that he had been on Mobius where suddenly in his throat, how did Sonic have this power over him. He lost his composure in that moment. "No, you don't understand there would not have been a killer robot if I hadn't had used that chaos spear and if I had not made up this whole..." Shadow paused and looked at Sonic who was looking back at the other with a smug smile and half lidded eyes, "you knew..."
"Of course I knew," Sonic said with a slight chuckle," I'm not an idiot and you're a terrible liar, of course I didn't expect all of (that) to happen." Shadow stared at Sonic. He is glad he can not see his own face because he must look utterly idiotic. Sonic was right, of course he knew. Sonic was many things impulsive, impatient, overly excitable, but a fool he was not. At one point he had believed sonic to be a complete idiot but over time found that to be entirely untrue. Sonic was observant in most situations and cunning. He could always see past other people's bull crap and was good enough to make Shadow fall for his. Perhaps he realized this around the time he started to feel...
"Why did you play along?" Shadow asked coldly attempting to rebuild his protective walls. He wanted to chaos control away so badly but without an emerald he wouldn't get to far. "Hey, no need to get defensive," Sonic said ironically in defense, "I just was curious why you felt the need to lie to me. You could have just said, none of your concern Faker, and left it at that. It kind of made me think you had something to hide." Now Shadow really wanted to disappear; would it of been that simple? "So, why'd you do it?" Sonic looked at Shadow with one eye brow cocked. Shadow then realized he had let Sonics leg remain untreated and quietly began to dress Sonic's wounds to the best of his ability using only the material from his gloves. Shadow started tearing his gloves into strips as he said "I'm not sure."
Shadow wrapped Sonics deep wounds first and then continued until he was out of material to work with. Meanwhile Sonic sat on the ground growing impatient with the answer that was given to him, but he knew Shadow would need to take his time to collect himself.
" I suppose I might as well tell you, you would know if I were to lie again anyway." Sonic hummed in agreement. "I- I was embarrassed" sonic snorted in sudden laughter. "Well yeah, I caught you being weird out side of my house, anyone would be." Sonic continued to giggle as he spoke, "WHY were you hang outside my house starring?" Shadows face began to heat up as sonic laughed, not because of the embarrassment, but because sonic looked really different when you actually laughed. Not his usual cocky chuckle, but actual belly laughs. " well... I... um..." "out with it." Sonic said now that his patience had worn thin. "I was going to challenge you to race or something along those lines, just something to get you to come and... be with me. But I decided against it at the last minute."
It was now Sonic's turn to heat up. "You came over to ask me to hang out with you?" Sonic looked stunned. "Why would mister ultimate life form want to spend his time with me?" Shadows face turned to a scowl. "Alright, you can just crawl your way home." Shadow, who was crouching, suddenly twisted his body to get up but was stopped by a hand grabbing his arm. "Shadow wait, that came out wrong" Sonic pleaded, "I just didn't expect you to even want to be around anyone, I mean from the way you always act. I guess I don't understand why you would want to be around someone who annoys you."
Shadow looked back at Sonic, "well I thought that when we were pretending to sneak around was quite enjoyable." Shadow kept a straight face but was dying inside. Why had he blurted that out?
Sonic know looked to Shadow with a child like glint in his eye, " I thought you were having fun when you started to play along." Sonic turned thoughtful for a moment and something that Shadow couldn't read was written in those emerald green eyes. "You don't have to be weird about asking me to chill with you, I'd be happy to," Shadows eyes went wide with Sonics statement, "I guess it would help if I cut back on making (edge lord) statements though." Know Sonic felt a bit guilty, and Shadow picked up on this. Sonic should not feel guilty, Shadow thought to himself, I certainly act like an ass most of the time. Although, it did hurt when he would try to better himself and immediately be shot down by other people's comments. Suddenly sonic spoke again, "I mean you have saved the world and helped me so many times, I know you're not a bad person. Heck, you're great!" Shadow and Sonic know stare straight into each other's eyes for an awkward amount of time before Sonic turns his head away to hide his face. Was sonic blushing, Shadow thought? "Well are we just going to sit here or are you going to help me get out of this dump." Sonic snapped with a smile. "Oh right" Shadow, then pick sonic up bridal style and was careful not to hurt Sonics leg. "Should I take you to a hospital?" Shadow asked. "No no... just take me to Tails' workshop in Mystic Ruin, he can patch me up and then I'll just walk it off." Sonic spews out confidence even though he currently is being carried like a baby. "As you wish," Shadow said before blasting off in the direction of the fox's residence. Sonic looked up to Shadow but then quickly looked ahead. Sonic kind of liked being "rescued" know he can see why Amy loves this part.
They reached Mystic Ruin in record time, then Sonic began to direct Shadow to the workshop. They could see the massive aircraft hanger in the distance adorned with a symbol depicting twin tails. How did Tails afford all this, Shadow thought? "Isn't your friend like... twelve," He stated flatly. "He actually just had his fourteenth birthday," Sonic corrected. That was right, Tails had been eight when the Ark Battle had happened. It was strange to the dark one to be able to recall information like that having had lost his memory for so long. Only after the battle with the Black Arms had Shadow gained back most of his memories. "That's not much of a difference."Shadow quipped. Actually Shadow was not sure how old any of the members of Sonic's Entourage were. He didn't even know how old Sonic was. "How old are you?" Shadow asked quizzically. "I'll actually be twenty one this month on the twenty third." Sonic looked up to the dark male cradling him in his arms and winked, "Why? Trying to see if I'm legal." Shadow almost dropped Sonic, he was not expecting something so crude to come out of the family friendly hero's mouth. He almost thought he was talking to Rouge in that moment. "Don't be daft." Shadow said with a huff. Sonic put his hands out in mock defense, "okay, okay it was just a joke." Shadow rolled his eyes at the blue hedgehog but was pushing back the blush that was threatening to crawl back onto his face.
They sped into the open garage doors of the workshop and found a deep yellow fox sitting at a workbench tinkering away as some new invention of his.
