Chapter 7 A Friend's Sacrifice
This is where I left off in my story. I was hedgehog now, unbelievable it was, but true. But it kinda made things easier for me. I didn't have to be carried anymore, I can keep up with Sonic while running, and I can fight. Being like this would make our adventure quick too, like what Sonic said.
After me and Sonic went through a corkscrew, Tails and Knuckles were waiting ahead. I guess they woken up from sleeping. They both looked surprised at me.
"Court is that you?" Knuckles said with his widened eyes. Tails eyes were like that too.
"Yeah, it's me." I said, looking at myself again. I was midnight black like Shadow was, and my long quills ended with violet at the ends. Everything about me was changed, except for my eye color and personality.
"Well I kinda expected that something like this would happen." Tails said. "If any human stays in our world too long, they'll turn into Mobians like us."
"Really?" Knuckles looked at Tails confused. The fox gave him a simple nod.
"Yeah, you see it's like this—"
"Are we ready to go!?" Sonic interrupted. He was crossing his arms and his right foot was tapping repeatedly.
"We can talk about this later. But as of right now, we need to start looking for the Chaos Emeralds. And also try to be close to Eggman's base."
Knuckles looked at the blue hedgehog angry, but he knew he was right. Both he and Tails nodded.
"Ok!" Sonic grabbed my hand once again and started to dash off without warning. Tails and Knuckles followed close behind.
I thought it was hard to keep up with the fastest creature alive, but Sonic held on to me as I ran aside him in my new speed. Not as fast, but enough to keep us near each other. It was funny how I'm running this quick and I don't have a drop of sweat on my face, and that I didn't want to stop. With me being like this, running didn't worn me out; it made me feel alive and free. Now I knew how Sonic felt when he ran.
"Doing alright?" Sonic asked me, making sure I was fine. I gave him a laugh.
"Heck yeah!" I sounded really happy. "I wouldn't mind if I was like this forever!"
Sonic grinned. I can tell by his smile that his up-burst excitement took control of his thoughts. "Ready for the ultimate speed?!"
"NO SONIC DON'T—" Tails and Knuckles screamed behind. I was going to say something too, but it was too late. Sonic was off in full speed in no more than a second.
It was now difficult to run aside the blue hedgehog now. I took steps here and there, but most of the time I was being dragged like a rag doll.
"Stop Sonic! I can't run fast as you!" I yelled at him. Sonic came to his senses and slowed down to my speeding range again. I gave the hedgehog a glare.
"Sorry I got out-of-control there." He looked ashamed. "I was just…well…happy that you liked being this way."
My glare softened. "You like me being this way? Why's that?"
It took awhile for the speedy hedgehog to answer, but I can understand why because we were dodging and jumping through all of these obstacles in the way.
"Well…" Sonic began. "…I always wanted a running buddy. Yes, I know sometimes Tails and Knucks sometimes run by me sometimes. But I like somebody who can go quicker than their pace. And you're a hedgehog now, so you're quick like me."
I can just tell that Sonic was lying about the whole 'running buddy' thing; I knew that he wanted to say something else. But I guess he was too chicken to say.
"How come Shadow, Silver, and Amy are not your 'running buddies'?" I listed the hedgehogs. I wanted to tease him, to make the blue hedgehog complain.
"Cause Shadow is sometimes a jerk, Silver lives in another time, and you know why Amy's not…" Sonic grumbled. I giggled.
"Since you think that Shadow's a jerk, I want to be his running buddy instead." I made a smirk.
"Oh! You did not just go there!" Sonic said surprised and angry. I continued to smirk.
"Yes I did."
"Well since we're running together…" Sonic made a smirk as well. "We are running buddies!"
"But I didn't accept you!"
"Who needs acceptation while we're running together now?"
I bet Tails and Knuckles were hearing our conversation from behind. If I looked back now, I think they're looking at us like we're weird.
But before we continued our strange argument, Sonic stopped suddenly. I was about to ask why, but I looked ahead and saw that a robot army was in our way. It was the same kind of robots that were in the front yard of my house. Eggman's robots.
"I think it's time to start a junk pile." I heard Knuckles say as he and Tails stopped behind us. Knuckles started to charge at the robots, but Sonic held out an arm to stop him.
"Let's be polite Knuckles, I'm sure they'll let us pass if we've asked." Sonic said, smiling. Knuckles grunted.
"Hey, mind if you guys stepped out of the way?" Sonic walked toward the robots. "We don't want to be late for Eggman's party."
The robots replied by holding their arms up, ready to fire.
"Oh…I see." Sonic nodded while his right fist was by his mouth. "Not invited are we? Well…" Sonic quickly jumped rolled into a ball, and then slammed himself into the first row and destroyed all the robots there.
"I'm sure Eggman wouldn't mind if we'd crashed it."
The robots that were behind the first row began to circle around Sonic. But the blue hedgehog just snickered.
"Ready to help out guys!? I sure need some help!"
"Heh, So much for the polite method!" Knuckles charged right at the mechs like a bull, and punched them out, to make a path.
"I never fought before." I said nervous, looking into the hundreds of robots. Tails turned to me.
"It's easy really, especially for a hedgehog." The fox smiled. "The simplest thing you can do is just turn yourself into a ball and ram into the enemy. Like what Sonic did, but do it on the ground."
"Like this?" I bent down, grabbed my legs, and started to roll.
"Yeah! Go faster Court, and you'll can run over more mechs!" Tails cheered on.
I followed Tails instructions and began to roll faster. I kinda felt dizzy, but while I rolled and span, I felt like I was knocking over a bunch things in my path. It was working!
When I stopped and turned around, I saw I was at the end of the army of robots and cleared out an entire row on the first try. Confident as I was, I looked at my gloved hands.
"Maybe I should try punching next." I thought.
I quickly ran back to the army of mechs, and began to launch my right fist back. When I was close enough to one of the robots, I punched the heck out of it. And there, the robot I've punched fell like a rock onto the grassy plain. After that, my fist didn't hurt at all. I even put all of my strength into that punch. I looked at my fist.
"Heh, I would soo beat the crap out of Amy if we fought. I can't wait to see her again!" I made an evil chuckle.
"Court! Watch out!" I heard Sonic yell ahead, ready to run out and help me. I turned around and saw that one of the bigger robots of the army just shot a beam, ready to pierce me. I stared; I was already too late to get out of the way. But something came right out of the ordinary. A bright orange hedgehog with clothing jumped in front of me and made the sacrifice of getting hit.
I watched the whole thing happen surprisingly.
I ran at the injured orange hedgehog, seeing that blood was going right through the black-and-white shirt through his chest. I looked at his face, and saw that he was out unconscious. And there, I noticed that he was wearing glasses. My eyes just shot wide open.
Dylan!?
He was here all this time! He was the shadow spying on us. But why didn't he just come out earlier if he knew that I was here? And I would have known he would have not hid since Sonic was around. I looked at his hedgehog form, worried.
He didn't have to do that! I could've dodged, even if I would have a little injury!
I heard Sonic destroy the robot that hit Dylan, and he quickly rushed by me.
"Is the guy alright!?" Sonic asked me in a nervous tone. I began to tear up.
"That 'guy' is Dylan, Sonic! And he's badly hurt!"
Without thinking, Sonic called out for his best friend for help. "TAILS!"
And the two-tails fox propelled quickly by the blue hedgehog's side. He stared at Dylan and made a nod, knowing what to do.
He revealed a glass container behind him, which had a picture of a gold ring in the middle and the number 10 on the right bottom corner.
He dropped the container on Dylan, making a 'bop' sound as the container vanished. And suddenly I saw that his bleeding slowed to a minimum. Tails gave me a long white cloth while I was continuing to look at my unconscious friend.
"Do you want to help?" Tails asked me softly. I nodded and grabbed the cloth.
Sonic held Dylan up as he took off his shirt, then I quickly began to wrap the long cloth around the now small wound on his chest. Bandaging him.
"I would have completely healed him by using more rings, but that was the only ring package that I held." Tails sounded ashamed in himself.
"Tails, it isn't your fault. You didn't know that something like this will happen. But he's alright now, since he has rings, and will probably heal in no time with that bandage wrapped around." Sonic held his left thumb up and smiled.
I wiped off my tears and also made a smile at Tails. "Yeah, Sonic's right. No worries."
I heard Knuckles in the distance, destroying what's left of the robots. After awhile, the noises stopped and the echidna came rushing to us.
"Hey! What with you all just sitting there, while I was the only one having—what the?" Knuckles stared blankly at the wounded orange hedgehog. Sonic grabbed a hold of him and stood up.
"We need to find us a resting spot. Green Hill Zone is far from our reach now, and if we stay here then we'll be attracting more pursuers." Sonic told everyone seriously. The red echidna looked ahead.
"I can see a great body of water nearby; I think we're almost to the ocean."
"Perfect." Sonic said. Then he turned to me and Tails. "Is that alright for you two?"
"Yeah." Tails and I said together. But the fox looked at Sonic strangely.
"Are you sure you want to be by water in a long length of time?"
"As long if I'm not in it, I'm fine." Sonic winked at his bud.
I looked at Dylan in the blue hedgehog's arms, worried as heck. I was still wondering why he would do such a thing like that. I wouldn't mind if I've gotten hit and bleed for a short time. I'm tough like that. But I guess he didn't know. I knew there are some things that we don't know about each other, which we've never discussed much. But, that was nice of him to do that. Taking coverage for me. I owe him a lot for that.
"Court?" Sonic looked at me worried now. I guess he'd said my name more than once whenever I was in thought. I looked up at him.
He laughed. "Ready to go?"
"Yep." I made a short smile at him. And we've ran to catch up to Tails and Knuckles, heading for our next destination: Seaside Hill.
