Feel the Air

Chapter 4 – Hedgehog-Hawk Games

At 12:15, everyone left Sonic's room. Twig went over to the Chaotix's room, and he joined up with Vanilla and Cream to go to the dancing lesson. Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails went to the 10th deck so that they could participate in the ping-pong tournament. When they got up there, they found out from a sign that pretty much the entire 10th deck serves as the entertainment portion of the ship. They knew exactly where they would go if any of them got bored.

The three of them then wandered around the deck until they noticed a couple of dozen people crowded around 8 ping-pong tables. Sonic looked around and found a sign that pointed out a sign-up sheet for the tournament. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles went over to it and signed themselves up.

Soon after they did, a grey echidna took the sign-up sheet and started reading off the people's names to himself. He then looked up from the piece of paper and said, "Everyone calm down and we'll get this tournament going."

The crowd of people soon silenced and the echidna continued speaking. "Alright, we have 32 contestants and 8 ping-pong tables. 16 players will go now, and we'll call the other 16 to go when people begin to finish. Am I clear?" Most of everybody nodded and waited for the echidna to speak again. "Alright, let me read off the first round."

Sonic and Knuckles were apart of the first 16 players while Tails had to wait his turn. Sonic was paired up with a bright green hedgehog, which he beat effortlessly. Knuckles was paired up with a grey cat, and he too didn't have any issue winning. As Sonic walked away from his first competition, he could see that Jet was facing off against Tails, while Storm and Wave were completely losing to their competitors. Jet, on the other hand, seemed to be dominating Tails.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Jet were among the 16 winners to move onto the next round. Again, Sonic and Jet were able to effortlessly defeat their competitors. Knuckles, surprisingly, lost a match with an extremely low score of 2. Knuckles walked away in a bit of shame as Sonic and Jet briefly celebrated their victories.

Sonic and Jet passed by each other as the 2nd round ended. "Looks like we're in the top 8, hedgehog."

"Yeah, let's see if you can manage the next one."

Jet smiled deviously. "Heh. Well, break a leg, Sonic."

Sonic smiled back. "With pleasure."

In the third round, Sonic was paired with a grey rabbit with patches of black all around his body. Sonic saw how well this bunny was playing earlier, but he didn't let that disturb him. The two of them stayed pretty even for the most of it, but Sonic ended up grabbing the last few points and winning the third round. Sonic looked around and saw that Jet left his competitor in the dust with a low score of 3.

"Well, maybe we'll end up facing off against each other, Sonic."

"I guess so." Sonic winked over at Jet, "See you over at the finish line, Jet."

"I'll be waiting," Jet replied with a slight laugh afterwards.

The grey echidna then announced the two pairings for the semi-finals. It was Sonic against a brown hedgehog named Sickle, and it was Jet against a purple cat named Odd. They each found that their competitors were very tough to beat. Sickle was clever with all of his hits, and Odd had a high amount of ambition that Jet couldn't even relatively match. It was close, but Sonic won 11 to 9 and Jet won 15 to 13.

This meant that Sonic and Jet would be able to face off against each other in the finals. The announcer then called for a ten-minute break where the finalists were given a couple of sandwiches and some water to drink. Sonic and Jet went over to a table and grabbed a sandwich and started quickly eating it.

"I had no idea that you were so good at ping-pong, Jet."

"I didn't think you were going to make it even close to the finals. You surprise me, hedgehog."

Sonic smiled and laughed to himself. He finished the last bite of his sandwich and brought it down with some water. "Are you ready to lose?"

"Maybe later. You can lose this time if you want." Jet cackled a little to himself at his little joke.

Sonic smiled. "No, I insist."

Jet smirked. "I'll think about it."

The two of them then went to the finals ping-pong table and got themselves prepared. The grey echidna signaled for them to start. They then played for about a half hour, and the round turned out to be grueling for both Sonic and Jet. Simply getting the first point took three minutes of rallying the ball. Both seemed to be very good, and they both seemed to have no intentions of giving up.

At the half hour mark, the score was 8 to 7 in favor of Sonic. In the next play, Jet began playing a little more aggressively and tried to spike the ball harder than normal. This tactic proved to fail though, because the ball went out-of-bounds from heavy spikes twice, giving Sonic two more points. He only needed one more point.

Jet, however, did not stop his aggressive tactic. He just tried to control it so that his spikes wouldn't go out-of-bounds. It was the game point, and Jet wouldn't allow himself to lose. Jet and Sonic then got themselves into a 4-minute rally, and they weren't giving up. To see if he could end the round more towards his favor, Jet did a heavy spike to end the long rally. The results did not end in his favor.

The ball heavily landed on Sonic's side and shot up towards Sonic's forehead, hitting him hard in the head. This caused Sonic to take a step back and topple over, hitting the back of his head against the ping-pong table behind him.

Jet went wide-eyed after Sonic toppled over and quickly went to his side. The grey echidna made it to him first. The echidna shook Sonic and tried to wake him up, but to no avail.

"It seems that Sonic has passed out. I'll take him over to the medical ward. I think it's safe to say that this tournament is over."

He then made his way through his crowds with Sonic passed out in his arms. Knuckles and Tails, who were glaring at Jet for being so aggressive, followed the echidna to the medical ward. Wave and Storm, however, were congratulating Jet for doing such a good job.

Jet turned to face the two of them. "Yeah, thanks, guys. I'm going to go to the buffet and get something to eat."

Wave nodded. "We'll join you. I'm starving."

"No," Jet somewhat yelled. Wave and Storm gave him uncomfortable stares for shouting at them. "I thought you wanted to check out that sushi bar, Wave. Isn't that open right now?"

Wave looked over at the clock and then suspiciously looked back over at Jet. "Alright, it looks like Storm and I are going to the sushi bar while you're going to the buffet by yourself."

"Sounds like a good plan to me." Jet then, without hesitation, walked away from the game room and went towards the elevators.

Some time later, Sonic began to open his eyes to find himself in the medical ward. He tried to raise his head, but he grunted at the pain of his injured head and lied back down. After being silent for a minute or two, he heard some shuffling from the left side of the room.

Sonic turned his head to see who was in the room with him, despite the pain that he was getting for turning his head. It turned out that Jet was standing at a window, overlooking the clouds.

"What are you doing here," Sonic asked.

Jet turned his head and was happy to see that Sonic was finally awake. "I kind of spiked a ball into your forehead."

"Oh, right. Where are Knuckles and Tails?"

"I ended up waiting with them for about an hour and a half. They then left to go play at the casino or something like that."

"That must've been awkward staying in a room with them like that."

"Nobody really talked. I told them that I was only in here because that announcer guy forced me to check on you so that they wouldn't think that I was up to something fishy. They really don't trust me that much."

"Give them a chance, I guess. I guess they don't see you in the same light as I do."

"What kind of light is that?"

"You stayed in here longer than Knuckles and Tails: my true friends. That has to mean something, Jet."

Jet took a seat next to Sonic's bed. "I guess it does mean something." Jet paused as he looked at Sonic as lied down in his bed. He blushed a somewhat noticeable pink, but turned his head so that Sonic couldn't see him. "The doctor told me you should be free in about a half hour if you're feeling good enough."

"That's good. You know me; I don't like being confined in a small place for a long time." Sonic then tried to sit up again, but the pain then rushed back to his head, forcing him to lie back down.

Jet stood up from his chair and tried to lend Sonic a hand. "Here, let me help you a little." Sonic then smiled and tried to lift himself up again, despite the pain. At the point when he was about to give up, he felt Jet's warm gloved hand touch his back, pushing him up. That was the kind of support that Sonic needed to fight the pain of his throbbing head and he was finally able to sit up.

Jet quickly took one of Sonic's pillows and put it behind Sonic's head so that it wouldn't hit the wall behind him.

Sonic smiled. "Thanks, Jet."

Jet smiled at the recognition.

The two of them then talked there for about a half an hour. They were talking about slightly more personal things, things that they never thought they would ever tell each other. That's when a doctor entered the room and interrupted them.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," the doctor said.

Jet smiled at the polite doctor. "Don't worry about it."

"Alright, good. Do you mind if you step out for a second while I speak to Sonic and hopefully we'll get him out of this bed?"

Jet nodded his head and exited the room, leaving the doctor and Sonic alone.

After ten minutes of waiting, Jet heard the door open behind him and the doctor came out with Sonic following behind him. The doctor went away, saying goodbye to Sonic, leaving Jet and Sonic alone again.

"What did he say," Jet asked.

"He almost tried to pull me out of tomorrow's race, but after ranting for about 5 minutes, he gave up and let me participate."

Jet smiled deviously and nodded. "That's good. Tomorrow's race would be really boring if I didn't actually have someone good to race with."

Sonic then heard his stomach begin to rumble. "I guess my stomach is telling me that I'm hungry."

Jet nodded. "Yeah, I'm hungry, too. I told Wave and Storm that I was going to the buffet after I hurt you, but I went over to your room instead."

Sonic raised an imaginary eye-brow over to Jet. "You ditched your friends to come check up on me?"

Jet nodded again. "Yeah, I did. I hit you really hard and put you in a hospital bed, and they were actually congratulating me."

Sonic laughed and smiled deviously. "Well, looks like I'll have to teach them a lesson on the tracks tomorrow."

"You already taught them a lesson earlier. They stunk so badly at ping-pong, and they didn't even get past the first round. I'm sure they're both fuming with jealousy because of how awesome we are."

Sonic laughed. "Alright, almighty ping-pong lord. Let's go get something to eat."

Jet smiled and they headed upstairs to eat… dinner. Sonic had been passed out for a little while.