Chapter 5- All Even Now
When Sonic came around, he thought he knew what to expect: A dank, dingy hole, waiting for Eggman to get his revenge and dispose of him like the rat Eggman thought he was. It was only the natural conclusion after all. Maybe Metal and that weird skeleton faced ghost, Skulker he think he called himself, would hang out in the background while he was getting ripped apart. Danny surely would have been in another cell nearby; maybe Sonic's torture would be watching the poor defenseless kid get tortured.
So then… why was Sonic on his own bed?
"Ugh…" Sonic groaned as he regained consciousness, the soft warmth of his comforter almost making him want to fall back to sleep for awhile. That was shot when she heard Amy's distinct shriek of joy call out to him.
"Sonic, you're okay!" Amy was on the blue hedgehog in an instant, gently hugging him to not cause him ay pain. Knuckles, Tails, and Shadow burst into the room as well, covered in bandages. A little glance told Sonic he was probably worse off than them.
"What happened…?" Sonic asked, still in a bit of a daze from getting hit with that missile blast.
"You passed out in the middle of the fight. Soon as that creep, Skulker was taken care of, I called Amy and we carried you all back home," Tails answered.
"What were you thinking trying to fight with all those cuts and bruises you already had?!" If Sonic wasn't so hurt, Amy would have probably slapped him in the face for his stupidity.
Sonic sighed and shook his head, "That's the problem. I wasn't thinking. I was just so mad and… well, thanks anyways for saving my butt back there, Tails. I saw that blast before I blacked out. Looked pretty sweet from my position."
Tails shared a look with the others, thinking of how he was going to break the truth to his best friend. With a sigh, Tails explained.
"Uh, Sonic… I was still trapped in a net when it happened. I couldn't do anything to help if I tried."
"Then who-?"
"This scrawny looking human kid," Knuckles answered for Tails, "Danny, I think Tails said his name was. He came into the fight firing blasts from his hands one after the other. Seemed to be the only real thing that could hurt the creep. When he took the guy down, he got us all free."
"That was Danny?!" Sonic shot up in surprise, wincing when his injuries flared. He couldn't really believe it. The kid looked petrified of even going outside before Sonic left. But when he remembered the distinct green blasts Danny kept pelting him with the night before, it couldn't have been anyone else. "How… wha… why…? Where is he?!"
"In the living room resting. He was so exhausted from beating the crud out of that Skulker guy, he nearly fainted. He's awake now but-"
"Tell him to come in here and that I need to talk to him. I'd do it myself, but I'm not up to walking right now."
Knuckles and the others blinked at Sonic's urgency, but Tails knew what he was getting at. They already knew the kid was superpowered, they established that on the rocket ride home. If he could come in guns blazing like that, maybe his memory was starting to come back. If so, then what did that mean? They still barely knew anything about the guy and he wouldn't exactly be able to tell them anything.
If only they could get through those files...
"I'll go get him, Sonic," Tails flew out of the room and a few minutes later returned with a very shy looking Danny. The boy had a few bandages of his own (not that he needed them because of his apparent rapid healing), but other than that he looked no worse for wear; he just looked incredibly tired. His eyes looked around the room and glanced at everyone nervously before following Tails inside.
"Kay, now the rest of you, outta my room. The three of us need to discuss something."
Amy complied reluctantly and had to basically drag the hopelessly confused Knuckles and Shadow out with her so he could fill them in on what she knew.
Danny took a seat on the computer chair and waited to get yelled at, head hanging in mild shame. He had disobeyed Sonic and potentially put his own safety in danger all because of a stupid urge to fight Skulker.
Sonic allowed his features to soften. He had to put in more of an effort to befriend Danny in order to get him to work with everyone and making him think he was angry with him wouldn't help. Sonic wasn't that angry at all, far from it really. But then getting your life saved doesn't exactly constitute anger.
"Alright, so," Sonic began, "why don't you start by telling me what happened."
Danny nodded slowly, took a deep breath, and began to tell the two what went on with him during the battle.
"I-I can't just let him go out there when he's in that state! He'll get himself killed! … But what the heck can I do?"
A press of the remote made the flat screen flicker on, and as Danny predicted, he was met with live coverage of the devastation. It didn't look pretty.
Half of the buildings were already leveled, and in such a short time. Unconscious and charred bodies of the unlucky or slow lines the streets and explosions went off one after the other. Those who escaped the devastation hid inside of a train station.
"This is Rouge the Bat live with coverage of the devastation of Station Square. A missile rain has penetrated the clear blue skies previously observed, all of which appear to be coming from a new Eggman robot. The man has had little to no activity for the past four months, but his hiatus appears to be over." The camera panned over to the 'robot' responsible, fighting one-sidedly with Shadow and Knuckles. "Currently, Knuckles the Echidna- hiya, Knuckie…" the bat interrupted herself seductively towards Knuckles.
"Don't you have a job to do, Bat Girl?" Knuckles glared and got right back to it.
"-And Shadow the Hedgehog- You still haven't called me back yet, Shadow." The reported now pouted and glared. How can this girl be so unprofessional?
"Shut it," Shadow all but snarled, not bothering looking into the camera at the risk of losing focus.
Rouge cleared her throat and continued with the report, "-are trying to subdue the robot quickly and without any more casualties." The camera panned and zoomed to get a closer look at the robot.
It was at this point that Danny stopped paying attention altogether, mesmerized by the look of the attacking robot.
The moment he glanced at that suit, a heavy feeling in his mind rammed into him that screamed 'Familiar!' He couldn't help but feel he should remember who the robot was. But how should he know, he was just another one of his robots, right?
Then, a flash. Danny was assaulted with image after image of the robot, now recognized as Skulker. There were fights, team-ups, a purple back gorilla in there (why the hell would a gorilla be involved?), prison (!), and flashes of this strange white-haired, green-eyed ghost in reflections. That particular ghost confused Danny more than about Skulker.
And then there were the flashes of power. Little snippets of soaring through the air (Danny could fly?!), ecto blasts bursting into Skulker, intangibility (is that what happened to the cabinet yesterday…?), and invisibility were what he identified by the time the little flashbacks ended.
By the time the flashbacks were done, Danny remembered Skulker, how to use a few of his powers (unfortunately not how he got them, which confused him greatly), and the existence of purple back gorillas. And he couldn't be more ecstatic.
"Whoa…" Danny was clutching his seat without even realizing it. As he let go, he let out a mirthful laugh. It was the first time he remembered that past four months that he felt truly happy. Happiness was soon joined by eagerness; now that he knew he had these powers, he just had to test them out. And now that he knew about them, they came easy, unlike with yesterday's dilemma. He turned invisible and intangible on a whim and a simple snap of his wrist let out a small ecto blast that barely left a dent in Sonic's wall. He also tried flying, but he could barely hover off the ground.
Regardless of the current inability to completely fly, Danny was still overjoyed… until he paid attention to the news once again, and the reporter bat screaming in terror.
"-ic the Hedgehog has just been captured by the robot!" He looked and he saw a very weakened looking Sonic trapped inside of one of Skulker's nets, struggling to get free as his friends were incapacitated one by one. The gut feeling came back once again, and with the rediscovery of some of his powers and the fact he'd beaten the armored ghost many times before, Danny couldn't help but listen to the urge this time. He quickly bolted out of the house and zoomed over to the city with the endurance and speed of an Olympian.
When he got to the sight, he faltered a bit at the damages. More of the city was wrecked, and the train station that had been housing the survivors had major damage, making Danny's blood boil. The moment he spotted Skulker towering over the defenseless Sonic, he couldn't help himself and fired the largest ecto blast the human could make. Danny knew it wasn't as strong as it could have been, but it was enough to get Skulker to back off and pay attention to him.
"Whelp?!" Skulker said with a look of disbelief before twisting into a condescending sneer, "I thought you were hidden away somewhere like a coward…"
"Funny coming from someone who hides under an ugly exosuit to get the job done," Danny taunted effortlessly, as if he had been doing so for a such a long time it became natural. This caused Skulker to snarl.
"You won't find it funny once I have yours and your friend's pelt…"
...Was this guy talking about skinning Danny and Sonic alive like he was talking about going shopping? Danny unconsciously shuddered and got into a battle stance before shooting off another ecto blast at the unprepared Skulker.
"You're going to fight me in human form? I take it you have a death wish then." Skulker shot a blast and Danny, deciding to ignore the perplexing comment for now (human form?), turned intangible to avoid it, then pounced, and the fight began.
Danny made quick work of Skulker, who complained about the boy's "lack of witty banter", and destroyed his armor, revealing his true form. The tiny ghost writhed around in Danny's grasp before he was punted far away from the city, a threat to no one in the state he was in.
Wasting no more time, he freed Tails and worked with him to get everyone back to Sonic's house for recovery.
"Dang dude…" Sonic said softly once Danny was finished with his tale, "Wish I could have been awake to see his wimpy 'true form'. I think that would have been a real nice pickmeup."
"Trust me, he's really not that threatening once the armor's off." Danny said with a small laugh.
"So, you DID start to remember," Tails said, causing Danny to curl up shyly and nod.
"You said you saw this other ghost in your memories of Skulker. Can you tell us anything else about it? We should probably learn about as many of these ghosts as we can just in case," Sonic asked, hopeful that Danny was willing to talk to them now.
"Only a little bit about its appearance and that's it." Danny shook his head solemnly, wishing he could remember more, and he shivered a bit at Sonic's tone towards the ghost. He knew the hedgehog had no reason to see the ghost as benevolent, but still… Danny had a gut feeling that the ghost really wouldn't mean them any harm.
"Anyways guys, now that Sonic's okay, I'm gonna go back home and try to sort out the files we got from Eggman." Tails said, heading for the door and waving at the two.
"Files?" Danny turned to Sonic and tilted his head, causing Sonic to grin sheepishly.
"Well, ya see, Tails jacked a bunch of files from Eggman, but most of the stuff is heavily encrypted. If Tails can break into them, then we can learn more about his motives. Plus, uh… he had a lot of files on you too. That's how we learned your name and stuff." Sonic saw the anxious and mildly hurt look Danny gave him and raised his hands in defense. "I swear, we only got info on your medical stuff and your name. Anything else about you in there, we want your permission to look at. You tell us to back off and we'll back off, hedgehog's honor," Sonic said with a smile, right hand over heart, left raised in the air.
Danny thought about it for a minute, deciding to calm himself. He had to remind himself that they were only trying to help. However, it stung a bit that they looked at his files without permission before.
"...Fine. If he gets them unlocked, you guys can read them, but I wanna be there when you do." Danny said with a nod to himself and a matter-of-fact tone telling Sonic this wasn't up for debate.
So he still doesn't trust us… Sonic thought sadly, but he agreed to the terms and texted the deal to Tails.
The two of them sat in awkward silence before Shadow and Knuckles burst into the room, demanding to know who Danny was and what the heck was going on. Amy gave the two younger teens a look and said she held them back as long as she could. The boys sighed in unison and looked at each other, wondering where to even begin.