They continued on the dimly lit road, gawking pedestrians passing them by. Sonic tried to ignore them but he was still in shock from all the confusion, and he was beginning to get concerned. What exactly did people think about him now that all this time had passed and so much changed?
He tried to get the thought out of his head.
Well, at least his friends would understand, he was sure.
They had walked, he realized, across the city from one wall of the cave to another. This had taken considerable time, but how much time? He had no idea.
Approaching the wall of the cave, the three reached a small doorway in a dimly lit pile of rocks.
Tails took out a little card from the bag slung over his shoulder and opened a secret panel on one of the rocks he held the card up to a scanner, and after a tone, the door opened. Knuckles waved to a guard in the next room, who sat on the other side of a window and waved them on, apparently not really paying too much attention, because she payed sonic no mind.
They entered a doorway into a circular, clean metallic room. On the other side of the room was what seemed to be an elevator. There were benches on the side of the room, and Tails and Knuckles carefully loaded sonic onto one of the benches. Sonic leaned against the wall, tired, oddly enough. But feeling slightly less sick and more hungry.
"So uh, what are we gonna do?" Knuckles spoke up, glancing to Tails.
"Well. We should take him to the living quarters, there are guest rooms there."
"Shouldn't we take him to the nurse?" Knuckles asked.
"I'm fine, just a little hungry." Sonic looked at them. He wasn't sure how he felt about them talking about him like he wasn't there.
"But, if we take him to the living quarters we'll pass by the bar and the dining room and the living room…" Knuckles pointed out.
"So?"asked Tails.
"So, we'll pass by everyone else, and then we'll have to sit around explaining the whole thing."
"…That's bound to get messy…" Tails admitted.
"Well, it's past midnight, maybe they went to bed." Knuckles pointed out.
"not after last night. Everyone's too on edge."
"What are you talking about?" Sonic interrupted them.
"Sorry Sonic, you may not get to go to bed for a while…" Tails turned to him.
"Well that's fine, where are we going?"
"Living space?" Knuckles looked to Tails and Tails nodded. Knuckles turned to the elevator and pressed the "up" key.
"I hope we have our story straight "
"…Uh, yeah." What was his story, actually, what happened? He slept? He was buried? He was trapped?
The elevator arrived, and knuckled supported sonic again, almost pulling him off his feet.
"Hey careful!" Sonic stumbled, his shoulders ached, even though he was just being held up by them. He was dragged into the elevator.
"Well, sorry, princess," Knuckles joked."Am I not servicing you well enough?"
"Oh, don't even think about trying to carry me!"Sonic could still guess what Knuckles was thinking.
"Oh then I guess you should know he carried you over his shoulder out of the ruins." Tails stated, laughing. He pressed a button on the elevator.
"Like a heavy sack." Knuckles agreed.
"What?! You can't be serious." Sonic laughed in spite of himself.
"now that I think about it, I've been carrying you around all night, and you still stink of that slimy goop you were in. Maybe Tails should carry you for a while." he turned to Tails.
"What? No! I mean… not that I'm not strong enough to do it, but you're not even tired, right? I'll carry him when you get tired."
"Oh, sure you will, we're already home!"
The three were laughing like old times again.
"Hey when do I get to carry me? As much as I appreciate you guys helping me out right now, this can't keep up forever." Sonic proposed, trying to sate his confusion.
"Actually, good question, I'm not keen on lugging you around for the rest of my life."Knuckles sighed.
"well, we need to help you regain your muscles, so i assume we'll be doing some kind of rehabilitation."
"whats that gonna be like?"
"i dunno." tails admitted.
"you'll basically have to spend a long time doing exercises. well, i had to get rehab when i broke an arm a while back, but you'll have to get rehab for all your muscles... so.. that's gonna take a long time." knuckles explained.
"oh great."
"hey, maybe it wont be so bad... we'll ask cream about it."
They arrived at a higher up floor of this strange headquarters. And the doors of the elevators slid open. Knuckles dragged Sonic out with Tails just behind him. They now stood in a small, homely hallway with carpeting and dull pictures on the wall. The carpeting was particularly nice for Sonic, since he had just walked all the way across the rock city completely bare-pawed. At first, having a soft ground was nice. Except he wasn't really putting much weight on his own paws, and as a result, now the carpet was just brushing against all the places were gravel and pebbles had sliced up the bottom of his foot... the carpet was really dirty, brushing against small wounds, and he found himself having a hard time being thankful for it, so he tried to ignore it.
Tails looked into the room through the doorway beyond them, he inhaled and turned back to Knuckles and Sonic…
"So. How exactly are we gonna do this?"
Knuckles motioned a shrug, as much as he could with the hedgehog weighing on him.
"What's the holdup?" Sonic asked.
"In order to get to the guest rooms we need to go past the kitchen and the living room. There's people in there. We'd cause commotion, we're bringing back Sonic the hedgehog!" His eyes lit up briefly as he started to get more and more stressed.
"Wait, we could hop back on the elevator and bring him to your lab, we set him up on the couch there, and no one finds out, no harm no foul!"
"Knuckles, to get to my lab we have to go past literally all of the higher up's offices. If someone recognized him they'd flip out!"
"Ok, maybe we can find a disguise."
"You really think that no one would question why you're carrying a person around, disguised or no?"
"Maybe he can pretend to be dead." Knuckles was just throwing ideas out there...
"That would make things so much worse!"
"Hey, why don't we just go for it?" Suggested Sonic.
"Go for it?" Tails asked as he turned to Sonic.
"Uh, hello? we walk right in there, and if they have questions, we answer them. Then I can get the situation straightened out, everyone learns what really happened to me, I can get something to eat, and we can all go to bed!"Sonic said.
"I don't think…" Tails started "that's a good idea."
"Well, what else you got? And what do you have to lose?"
"A lot actually."
Sonic scoffed "then what's the alternative? I was already spotted in town, they'd find me eventually anyway, why delay?"
"He's got a point there." Knuckles grumbled. Tails looked worried, but he silently nodded, and pushed the button on the side of the door. With a hiss, the door slid open.
End of chapter 4
super short, huh? sorry for uploading the other one late.
Oh boy. This next part is the real reason I had to rewrite, I split that part from this part because uhhhhhh the next chapter wasnt very good. it might… take me a whillle to rewrite that part.
Besides, opening a door is a good way to end a chapter yeah? It represents like…. New beginnings and changes and "opening up" and having an "open mind" and being emotionally open right? Get excited!