Blue glanced up, finally snapping out of his daze to notice Shadow still staring at him. Blue shifted in his seat, squirming a bit under the gaze. Oh, how he longed to move forward, to keep going and maybe get away from this hedgehog. The hedgehog's expression was still unreadable, but he could only feel out one emotion. Pain. Blue passed it off as the other feeling physical pain, and offered an easy smile towards Shadow in an effort to at least coax the black hedgehog forward a bit as Blue extended his hand out.
"Er...I'm Blue. C'mon, the village's not that far from here, we need to get you some kind of medical attention..." Blue had calmly gestured with an open hand up and down Shadow's body. Shadow had simply turned his head with a small scowl, his eyes averted from the older hedgehog. "I don't think you realize, 'Blue', that I do not need your help," and as if Shadow was but a dream, he had vanished, leaving Blue with his hand extended into the clearing with no one to take him up on his implied offer.
Blue sighed, pushing himself forward into a run back into the village. He would have to tell the council about this, or at least, Bolt. As Blue pushed through the forest's fauna at a pace he considered as fast as he could, he couldn't help but reflect on how much faster he used to be when he was younger. When he used to slam into the sound barrier and smash his way through it with ease, he now could barely reach it on a good day.
Despite this, Blue didn't mind his morning runs getting to be slower over the years. It was a side effect of getting old after all, and Blue definitely was old enough to where his body just couldn't handle moving around at the speed of sound. At least, not anymore. It was here, at this specific moment of time, that Blue had rushed through the small village he had sworn to protect.
Mobians of all shapes and sizes were gathered around in the town square for a small concert, held by a local band. Fleeter's? Blue had no clue what it was, he just wasn't into the kind of music they were playing. Too mellow for his tastes. Blue zipped around the small village, dodging passerby as he went on his way to his friend's workshop. He stopped as if he were on a dime, and turned his attention to a wooden building outside of the village. It was made to look like a barn, but Blue knew what it was.
It was where Bolt was.
The doors to Bolt's workshop had pushed open with a low and loud groan of metal scraping by against a wooden floor. Bolt had immediately covered his ears with his hands, dropping the screwdriver onto the table that he was working on. A blue blur had rushed into the workshop, papers flying everywhere as a result. Bolt had smiled lightly, and pushed his goggles up to his head, calling out to the blur.
"Blue, you're gonna wreck what me 'n' Lyric have been working on for a few months if you keep runnin' around like that!" the fox called out to the blur, which had immediately halted on a dime, revealing the dull blue hedgehog behind it, wearing a sheepish grin, and hiding his hands behind his back. "Sorry Bolt, y'know, I had something to tell you, and all that...!" Blue continued to walk forward towards the fox, his grin vanishing.
"What is it?" the fox had piped up, pushing his goggles up. The fox was a bright yellow-orange as opposed to his friend's dull blue, his eyes, however, a slightly dimmer blue than expected from such a youthful fur appearance. Bolt had a ruffled appearance with his fur, with three strands spiking up at his head, kicking his red and white shoes, kept together with tape, back and forth.
"There was this guy in the forest...and he just...vanished! Tails, he like-!"
"Blue, people don't vanish," Bolt abruptly cut him off, grabbing a blow torch and continuing to work on what he was working upon. "You probably missed where he went, and you just don't want to admit that you were too slow to keep up..." Bolt continued, a smug grin on his face as he heard Blue's mind grind to a halt and resume working a response. "Bolt! Knock it off!" this earned a snicker from Bolt as Blue continued on. "He was black and red, a colour scheme I haven't seen in years, Bolt! Literal years! Do y'know what kinda people have that-?!"
"I know you don't," Bolt answered. "But that's interesting. Why are you on about him, anyways?" there was a brief pause from Bolt as he turned around in his seat. Then, a wide smirk. "No, no, Bolt it's not that! The guy was injured and he just disappeared after shoving off this weird vehicle-thing off him! It-It looked like something that you might have made!" Blue defended himself, covering his muzzle with part of his arm, and averting his gaze.
That seemed to get Bolt's mind out of the gutter. Bolt pushed himself off of his chair, and slowly approached Blue. "The guy...was stuck underneath a vehicle, and he just lifted it up and disappeared, whilst he was injured? That doesn't seem possible, Blue..." Blue seemed to only get more defensive as he continued on. "Damn it, if you don't believe me just...c'mon, I can show you!"
Bolt simply sighed, before hopping up to spin his tails in preparation for the breakneck run Blue was about to take. "Well, if I can get scrap metal out of it, I don't see why not."
Author's Note: Hey guys, Astral here! Sorry if this chapter took a bit too long! We finally introduced Bolt to the main story, even though that should have been done so much earlier than it has! Shadow's being mysterious as per usual, and Blue doesn't seem to be liking that too much. Bolt's also supposed to be really sassy, so hopefully that point does come across that way. The chapter's fairly short, terribly sorry for that, but I have work and school to worry about...hopefully you guys are alright with that! Here we have hints of Lyric and Bolt working together on a project, it seems, but I wonder what it is...
