As soon as Shadow opened the front door, he was yanked in and nearly thrown onto the couch.

"THEY WON'T STOP CRYING!" Was then screamed into his ear, and, by the sheer fact that he was exhausted and unable to fight at the moment, Sonic and Tails could call themselves lucky.

A giant bundle of towels and squirming lumps was tossed onto his lap and he cringed at how cold it was. "Down, Champ." He whispered, and it followed to pull at the corner of the towel.

Out spilled the other seven Hive minds, all still damp, with no diapers mind you, and sobbing. He could see them shaking, and their tails were limp while their ears were frozen in place.

"What did you-- they're freezing." Shadow ripped off the soaked towels and sent Champ upstairs for the blanket, hugging the toddlers to his chest. "What. happened."

"W-we-- we tried--" Tails started, only to be cut off.

"Those demons tried to kill us! Look how many scars we got! They kept freaking out and screaming at us so Tails sprayed them with water and they started crying!" Sonic huffed, and Champ came back down, struggling to pull the blanket with him, but ultimately getting it to Shadow.

He didn't say anything at first, just combing his fingers through their fur as they huddled close to any part of him they could grab. The blanket was pulled tightly around them all, anyway, and Champ joined in to provice any heat that he could. Then, Shadow lifted Steve's head, a blank stare masking his face.

"Doesn't look like that's all you did." There was a split in the skin, enough that it bled green blood and was tender to the touch.

"T-that wasn't me!" Tails went over to inspect the damage himself, only for them all the shrink away from him and claw closer to Shadow.

That didn't help his case, as the agent glared daggers at the brothers. He grew deathly silent, and so did the room. Other than the shaking whimpers of the slowly warming Hive minds, no one spoke. Sonic looked at his feet and stepped back a few paces, turning to get the heater stored in their closet.

It was upstairs, hidden under boxes and random sheets haphazardly thrown in and not at all stacked in any way. Sonic sat and started digging through the pile.

"I didn't mean to," he told himself, lifting an old sheet and looking it over "I didn't mean to swing that hard, I was just... scared."

The sheet was tossed aside, along with a half-destroyed pillow. Sonic grabbed the corner of the heavy box and went to pull it, but an odd sounding gurgle made him freeze and look over his shoulder.

A hive mind, the one he remembered Shadow calling Champ, was standing a few feet away with a deadly snarl plastered on his muzzle, eyes narrowed and a deep growl tumbling from his chest. His claws were raised high along with his tail, both tensed and ready to strike.

"Hey. Are you gonna hit me? I deserve it. I shouldn't have hurt one of you anyway." Sonic lowered his ears in defeat, waiting for Champ to do something.

But, he didn't. It took a few seconds for any reaction to show, but instead of attacking, his ears twitched back and forth and he fought down the growl in his chest. The sneer disappeared into a neutral frown, and he lowered himself into a sit.

Sonic unearthed the nearly ancient heater and turned to fully face Champ. "Are you... forgiving me?"

The hive mind only nodded and burst into a sprint downstairs, Sonic quickly following with the heater still in hand.

"Don't believe anything he says!" he chanted, nearly tripping over his own feet once he got to the livingroom "He's lying!"

Of course, no one had said anything yet. Other than Tails now caring for the scar on Steve's head, no one had really moved, either.

"You must be guilty if you're outting yourself when no one has spoken." Shadow shrugged one arm, then looked to the space heater "But, that is appreciated."

Sonic and Champ locked eyes, but neither dare say anything. Sonic set up and plugged in the space heater, and the hive minds hurried to huddle close to it. Within seconds, Shadow began to explain what he had been told while Sonic was gone. That the hive minds were panicked because Shadow was suddenly not there, along with another hive mind, when they knew he was going somewhere dangerous. Then, they got angry that they couldn't be understood and attacked out of frustration, but due to Sonic and Tails fighting back, their natural instinct to protect themselves kicked in. So, the more the brothers faught them, the more the hive minds faught back.

Tails shrugged a shoulder once Shadow finished, "And they already hate being cold, so when I sprayed them with cold water, they started crying because they wanted Shadow to warm them up, not us. Doesn't help that they're sleepy and cranky now." He set down Steve once the bandage was fully on and he raced to the heater, nearly wrapping himself around it.

"That still doesn't explain where all the diapers went."

There was a pregnant pause, Shadow staring straight ahead while Sonic and Tails looked at each other, then to the bare Hive minds.

"Oh my god, they had on diapers."

Thus commenced the easter egg hunt where the reward was not chocolate, but most likely a full and discarded diaper that would ruin the house if left unfound.

Tails flew down to the lab first, hovering above each machine, as those pecky critters could get into anything, and peeking behind them. After that was successfully useless and found him nothing, not like he was sad that there wasn't a soiled diaper behind any of expensive machines, Tails rushed to the few places the toddlers knew best: the table and bench they were created on, and the tank they sat in overnight to grow.

The table was clean, but the tank... He had no clue how the small white diaper, luckily closed up tightly, managed to get in there at first. But, after closer examination, he saw tiny punctures going up the glass.

"They climbed it?" He nearly cried, flying up into the tank and slowly floating down, pinching the fabric with his thumb and forefinger before launching himself out the tank and to the nearest garbage can.

After Tails came back having only found one diaper, he saw Shadow holding two in one hand and setting the couch down with the other.

"Isn't that couch like, an inch above the floor?" Tails asked aloud, and as Shadow discarded the bundles, he shrugged.

"It is, but I wouldn't underestimate them if I were you." He sent a somewhat knowing look to Champ, though the child was fast asleep and, at the moment, couldn't care less about whatever he said.

"Well, one of them threw a baby bomb into my six foot tall holding tank, so I don't think I can underestimate them." Tails bent down to the pile of them, where one sleeplily opened its eyes to look at him. "Though they're cute, they're little demons, Shadow. Kinda like you!"

The fox kit stood and left before Shadow could retort, buzzing his way upstairs to help Sonic and leaving Shadow to search the kitchen.

It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to find the diapers, as he simply had to tell the children to retrieve them for him and then promptly throw out whatever they found. He also had a leg up on Sonic and Tails, too. He knew the diapers weren't used, but just balled up and discarded because they hated how they felt. So while the brothers tip-toed around the bundled peices of fabric, he boldly grabbed and tossed them.

"Tell me again, if they aren't used, then where do you dispose of your waste?" He brought his head out the cabinet to turn to the eight bouncing toddlers, all busy chattering to themselves about nothing in particular.

One answered him with a shrug, since most of the words he wanted to use wasn't in their dictionary, and ended up pointing out the window. After Shadow tossed out the last bundle, he grabbed whatever snack he saw and made for the window as well to look out. There was some sort of garden, but it was mostly a flat, empty plot with weathered popsicle sticks that used to have pictures of vegetables or herbs on them, but were now bare.

It took him a second to understand, but once he did, his eyes widened a fraction and he stepped back. "I won't say anything," he shrugged "But, I swear to chaos, if anything grows in that garden do not eat it."

Just as he finished, the brothers came downstairs empty handed and satisfied yet somewhat disgusted.

"What were you looking at?" Tails mumbled, while Sonic crouched to poke Champ in the chest.

"Nothing."

xox

why did it take me three days to write this