Shadow looked down at the eight infants in something akin to annoyance and curiosity. He didn't entirely know how they were alive or surviving, or exactly why they were hive minds. He picked one up, and it seemed overly pleased at being held, then looked at the others smugly. Shadow had to smirk at that; they did have his genes, then. Shadow pressed his ear to its small chest and heard a heart beating, and felt the expanding and contraction of his ribs, and heard squishing of organs, but he didn't know what organs it had.
Shadow didn't know if they ate or slept or understood most knowledge, all he knew was that he was apparently their father and leader. He shuddered and set the creature down. He did not want to think of himself as a father. Especially not to eight children.
"I can't even tell you all apart." Shadow breathed through his nose and looked towards the door, wondering what was taking Tails so long to return.
A tiny claw grabbed his leg, and he kicked it off, glaring down at the creature below him. "Don't ever touch me." he hissed, and it backed up, looking at him with wide eyes. The others hissed at it and began to single it out, barking and crying until it was a suitable distance away from Shadow.
The agent crossed his arms and folded back his ears, ignoring them thoroughly by turning his back to them. He was not going to, refused, even, to take care of them. Children were already not his strong point, and he scared them if not threatened to hurt them for simply doing children stuff. He once threatened to tear off a child's arm if it continued to pester him. While he did get it to stop, it also ran crying to its mother and caused him to get into an argument with a furious cat mother who didn't seem too pleased that Shadow hated kids. He had to remind her multiple times that not all people liked to be bothered.
Whimpering snapped him out of his thoughts, and he looked over his shoulder, seeing all the hiveminds raising their paws up to him, almost begging him to not hate them. Shadow sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Get this through your skulls right here and now; You only exist to cure. You're not-"
"AND I'm back! Please tell me when I open my eyes I won't see blood all over the place!" Tails laughed, but there was pure fear in his voice, and, true to his word, his eyes were closed. He was holding a tray with eight... empty baby bottles stacked on it?
"No blood yet," Shadow called, and the kit opened his eyes just to see Shadow looking pointedly at the bottles.
"Oh, well. Ya know, they're infants?" Tails chuckled, "The lady at the store was very confused."
"I am as well." Shadow hissed.
The kit ignored that comment and gave Shadow one of the cartons of milk he bought, pointing at some of the bottles as he filled the rest. "I had to fly to the store and back; I didn't have time to fill them up."
Shadow said nothing but did as he was instructed. He doubted they would take to the bottles, but it was worth a shot. Once each bottle was full of lukewarm milk, which Shadow admitted was disgusting in his opinion, they called over the Hive Minds,
It took a bit of forcing and a few nipped fingers, but they eventually got the nipples into the infants' mouths, and they began drinking like it was second nature to them.
"Also, have you thought of names yet?"
"You sound like an excited new mother."
Tails frowned at him "Well! Technically!" He then pointed to one in particular, which had now laid on its back and curled its tail around the bottle to hold it steady, "I wanna call that one Steve."
Shadow groaned and looked at the fox, slightly worried for him. "Are you insane? Why Steve? These are experiments."
"Your name was Ultimate Lifeform, so I don't think you get much of a say in whether or not I call that one Steve." Tails shot back. Shadow opened his mouth but didn't have much of a comeback for that. His name did use to be Ultimate Lifeform before being given the nickname Shadow.
"Fine. That one's Steve, then. Answer me this, how do you know which ones are girls or not, then?" Shadow said instead, and it was the fox's turn to be stumped. He picked up Steve, and it screamed, as expected, to lift it up.
"Uh... Shadow, did you have genitals when you were first created?"
"It was pretty much an afterthought to give me male reproductive organs."
Tails frowned. "Then these are all 'Its', then."
Shadow didn't seem to be paying attention.
All of them had a sort of personality. One was half-asleep but still drinking, another was almost done with theirs but was still going strong, two others were having a contest of who could drink faster, One had barely drunk any, and the rest were either finished with their bottle or had ripped off the nipple and dumped the contents all over themselves. A thought crossed Shadow's mind.
"Tell me this, Tails. What comes after Input?" Shadow asked sweetly, and the fox looked over to him with a weak glare.
"You weren't even listening..." He mumbled "Output. Why?"
"So, milk is input, correct?" Shadow continued.
It took a second for the fox to put two and two together, but once he did, he rushed to Shadow and dumped Steve into his arms and sprinted up the stairs, screaming 'DIAPERS!' all the way.
The agent sneered and set the hive mind down, standing up to go up the stairs and back into the living room. He had half a mind to shut the door behind him, but it was too late, as the hive minds had followed him up and out at his heels.
"Annoying," Shadow growled under his breath, then stilled and strained his ears. There was a sound coming from upstairs, so, he followed it.
And the hive minds followed him, but that was collateral damage.
"Tails? That you? I think my temperature's high again! I need more orange juice!" Sonic called through the door, fully expecting his brother to be on the other side. One arm was draped over his eyes while the other held out his empty cup.
"The fox left," Shadow smirked. At his voice, Sonic yelped and dropped his cup, and it hit the ground with a plastic thud, the hedgehog quickly looking up to Shadow.
He was a bit worse for wear. He had bags under his eyes, and his muzzle was pale but flushed, along with his fur matted down by sweat and quills frizzed from laying in the bed for so long.
"Fever?" His first thought was to leave him be to suffer without his beloved orange juice, and then his second thought was to go ahead and heal him so he wouldn't get blames for letting him stay sick, but apparently, a hive mind had a better idea.
It leaped onto Sonic, and both of them screamed, Sonic out of fear while the hive mind out of being held up from Sonic trying to get rid of it, still out of fear. It hissed louder, and the blue hedgehog dropped it, and it rose it's tail high and then stabbed the tip of it straight into Sonic's stomach.
"Ow! What is this thing!? Why did it- Oh, I feel better," Sonic sat up, and the hive mind pulled its tail out of Sonic's skin, jumping off his lap to curl around Shadow's leg. Sonic followed it with his eyes, then gasped.
"Why is there eight of them!?"
i've hit a writer's block kill me this chapter was so hard to write, too.
also suggest names, can't think of any right now lol
Next chapter will be good, I promise.
