Hawk's Soul: Heh, thanks :D The mist...maybe I'll let that remain a mystery (no pun intended...then again, maybe it was :P) for now ;) And you shall indeed have aggravation between Sonic and Robotnik.
Private somebody: Thanks, glad you liked it :) (Knuckles: Heh. I do tend to save on Mobiums when I travel.) The Knuckles and Tails bond...I think it is as deep as Sonic and Tails, but I also think it's a different kind of bond. Tails helps Knuckles to relax and Knuckles knocks the crap out of anyone who threatens the fox.
D.C.111: Well...maybe it was ;) I sort of took a little time off to complete and format my latest manuscript which is why it's a little late :P And thanks, glad you liked the bit about the boot (weg) As to when I'm going to update Rising Star...the answer to that question is on my profile page and it hasn't changed.
Asher Tye: Oh yeah...monster suntan doesn't begin to describe it ;)
Matri90: Yep, just as Knux said; back to the tunnels :P
DragonUk: Yep, more and more and more and more sequels ;)
Overpants: Thanks :D
Owl: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it ;) (Knuckles: What? Some of us have better things to spend fifty Mobiums on than some crappy room in a run-down hotel)
Maverick87: Heh, thanks :D
TC Chan: Thanks...as to the rest of it...well, I'd never thought about the Genocide City people, but I promise you they are not made of cheese :P
Shadow-spawn180: Thanks :P Knuckles...yeah, I think maybe he is accepting things a little :P
My Memoirs by Me
I don't believe this. I don't believe Robotnik's things are gonna withstand the conditions outside, I don't believe he's gonna play straight, I don't believe I'm safe flying around in one of his damn contraptions and I really don't believe that I believed all his assurances!
--Sonic the Hedgehog
Bait's Jurnal
This is neet! I can fly and do all the stuf I never cud befor. Sonic seems nirvus tho. Dont no why.
--Bait the Jakkel
"That was cool!"
Bait's enthusiastic voice reverberated over the radio and into the pods, just as it had been doing for the last half hour. Even Sonic was getting irritated with the jackal's constant delight in flying the pod, and it was only with a supreme effort that he was reminding himself that Bait had had precious few treats in his life, and the few he had received had only come along after he'd met Sonic.
"Dunt you think it's cool, Sonic?" Bait persisted as he somehow managed to loop the loop.
"Yeah, kiddo. Real cool." Sonic flicked a couple of switches to turn the air conditioning up. "Man, I can't believe I missed a gig in Sky High Zone for this," he muttered.
Most unfortunately, he chose to mutter this without turning the radio off first, with the end result that his words were broadcast loud and clear to the others.
"A gig?" Bait echoed. "Like a singer?"
Robotnik's low chuckle reverberated through all four pods. "Hardly. The hedgehog sings like a duck, or he always used to. Isn't that right, Sonic?"
"I used to be a lead guitarist and singer in a band when I was a kid," Sonic said, ignoring this.
"And not very good at either, if memory serves," Robotnik commented.
"Butt out, doc," Sonic told him curtly. "And no, Bait, I wasn't talking about singing. I was talking about a gig as a DJ."
There was a stunned silence, then the word, "What?" came from three separate people simultaneously, and so loudly that there was a whine of feedback.
"A DJ," Sonic repeated, a little put out by this reaction. "It's a sorta hobby of mine. Robotnik's not trying to take over Mobius twenty four seven, and a guy's gotta keep occupied."
"Yes, well, coming up with world domination plans and building various robots takes time, Sonic."
"Still not talking to you, doc. And saying that doesn't count as talking." Sonic swerved rapidly to avoid a sudden eruption of noxious gas.
If the next chuckle was anything to go by, Robotnik was more amused than offended.
"Really, Sonic? What's upset you this time?"
"Your little tendency to try and take over Mobius!"
"Is that all?" Robotnik said calmly. "Well, I am perfectly prepared to stop trying to take over Mobius."
Sonic snorted. "Yeah, right."
"No, I mean it. I'm more than ready to stop roboticising people and waging war on the planet." Robotnik paused. "All that has to happen is for all the Zones to place themselves entirely under my rule and acknowledge me as their lord and master from now until the end of time."
There was no answer – Sonic having been momentarily rendered speechless by this declaration – and for a long time they flew on in silence, broken only when Robotnik suddenly noticed they were no longer flying in a quartet.
"Where did Raker go?" he demanded.
"Who cares?" Sonic muttered. The stuffiness of the pod was really getting to him, and he was in no mood for civil conversation.
"I care, Sonic, not least because he might well go back to the Egg Carrier Three and sabotage the place."
Sonic raised an eye ridge. "You're a paranoid, wannabe ruthless world dictator and self-proclaimed evil genius. Are you seriously telling me you'd leave your fortress of doom unlocked and untrapped?"
"You know me far too well, Sonic. As it happens, yes. I did leave one or two, ah, precautions. But if they're used up on Raker, they can't be used on anyone else who might show up." In his pod, Robotnik shrugged. "I'm not in the least bit afraid of Raker, but I don't want my defences depleted on some psychotic jackal when there's the slightest chance that someone else could find the Egg Carrier."
"You think someone knows it's there?"
"Well, maybe the people who tried to contact us, Sonic, and also whoever blasted it out of the sky." Robotnik was still indignant about that.
"Oh yeah. Forgot about those."
"Forgot!" Now Robotnik's moustache, unfortunately hidden from view inside his pod, fairly bristled with indignation. "Does the destruction of my home mean so little to you, Sonic?"
"Given how many of your homes I've wrecked over the years, that point's kinda moot, wouldn't you say?" Sonic retorted. "And on that subject, are we going to zoom about here mindlessly for the rest of our lives or do you actually have some kinda plan?"
"I do, as it happens. My instruments are picking up traces of oxygen – and plenty of it at that – coming from that mountain."
"Yeah?" Sonic frowned. "So...what? We have a planet with hostile air in one bit and good air in another?"
In his pod, Robotnik groaned. What had he done to deserve Sonic?
The thought wasn't a new one; even back when he'd been Dr Kintobor, it had occurred to him more than once. He remembered that he'd been fond of Sonic, but there had been times...uppermost in his mind was the occasion when they'd had a power cut and Sonic, out of a genuine desire to help, had deposited half a pound of potassium rock in the fishbowl, or the occasion when Sonic had been roped in by the local community to blow up balloons, and had decided to do so quickly by fitting them over the nearest Bunsen burners and turning the flame up full. The doctor had heard of other scientists having incapable assistants, but Sonic had been downright dangerous.
"No, Sonic," Robotnik answered as patiently as he could, "we do not have a planet with hostile air in one bit and good air in another. What we might very well have, however, is an artificial facility with artificial air. The oxygen in these pods won't last forever, you know."
Sonic relapsed into an irritable silence and they sped towards the mountain.
Later he would wonder how he could have been so stupid. It became obvious as they drew nearer that this was some kind of building, either built like a mountain or more likely carved into the rock. It wasn't until Sonic – who was flying slightly to the left of Bait and Robotnik – saw the green beam of light erupt from the building in question that he realised and swerved into the nearest pod, crashing it out of harm's way.
Most unfortunately, the pod in question didn't belong to Bait as Sonic had originally supposed, but to Robotnik, and so it was Bait and Sonic who were sucked into the building.
There was the sound of someone thumping loudly on the pod and Sonic fumbled around before locating the release mechanism, hoping like hell he wasn't about to die and pulling it.
The top flipped open with a little more alacrity than Sonic had expected, and a lot more than the unfortunate person standing behind it. Taking a deep breath (and finding to his relief that Robotnik's scan had been accurate and the air in that part of the planet was breathable) Sonic stood up, stepped onto the edge and leapt nimbly onto the floor.
The hallway he was in reminded him uncomfortably of the tunnels; it was carved out of rock with fluorescent lighting hanging from the ceiling and several doors off the corridor.
Someone caught hold of his arm and Sonic jerked involuntarily, then snapped his head around to stare at...well...he wasn't sure what he was staring at, largely because his captor was wearing what looked like a cross between a tribal headdress and a spacesuit, covering every inch of his (her? its?) body.
The creature pulled on Sonic's arm, not roughly but insistently, then pointed down another corridor to the right.
"Sonic!"
The hedgehog whirled, seeing another person in the same clothes as the first one attempting to pull Bait down a different tunnel.
"Hey. Hey!" Sonic twisted out of his captor's hold and raced over to the jackal. "Leave him alone!"
He didn't know how, but suddenly everyone in the room (and there were more people there than he'd first thought) was holding a weapon, all hi-tech, all deadly looking and all pointing at him.
"Look!" The hedgehog held up one hand in the universal gesture of parley while the other arm encircled Bait's shoulders protectively. "We'll go quietly, but we'll also go together or not at all." He accompanied his speech by pointing first to Bait, then to himself, then waving a hand towards the tunnel they'd been trying to drag him down.
The same person who'd grabbed Sonic (at least, the hedgehog thought it was; there wasn't much variety in the wardrobe) pointed at Sonic, then back down the first corridor. Sonic shrugged.
"Sure." He looked down at Bait. "C'mon."
The person pointed at Bait, then down to the other corridor.
"That one now?" Sonic deliberately kept his voice light and friendly. "Okay Bait. Let's go."
Without taking his arm away from the jackal's shoulder, he walked down the corridor indicated.
There was a babble of conversation behind them, then one of the creatures caught up with them, barred their way and pushed open a door to the left, one made of reinforced steel, or the local equivalent. It then pointed emphatically to Bait and then to the room.
"In there, huh?" Sonic shrugged. "You say so."
Before their 'guide' had time to react, he'd turned and walked into the room. Apparently giving up on them for the time being, the creature slammed the door shut behind them. Once closed, the door cut off all outside noise. A small bulb burned a poisonous red above it, illuminating the cramped quarters; little more than a bare room with no furniture or windows or any way out that Sonic could see besides the door itself.
Bait flattened his ears. "Why'd they put us here?"
"I dunno," Sonic said, a little shortly. He wasn't exactly crazy about their location either; it reminded him far too much of his time in Robotnik's prison. "How's your hand?"
"Hurts. I think them painkillers you got me are wearin' off."
"Yeah?" Sonic felt guilty; he'd mistrusted Robotnik to such an extent that he'd flatly refused to allow any of the doctor's robots to patch Bait up. Had he been too paranoid?
The slot at the bottom of the door clanked open suddenly and a tray with two bowls and two glasses of what Sonic could only hope was fruit juice was pushed through. Bait's face lit up.
"Hey, food! I'm starvin'!"
He grabbed for one of the bowls and opened his mouth, but Sonic caught hold of his uninjured wrist, preventing the movement.
"No you don't. Give it to me. If that stuff's poisoned or drugged, I'd rather I find it out than you." He sniffed at it warily, and almost immediately his stomach growled in sympathy. Whatever it was, it smelt good.
Carefully, he spooned a little of the – well, he supposed you could call it stew – into his mouth. It tasted strange, but not unpleasant.
"Now can I have some?" Bait demanded.
Sonic chewed, swallowed and when ten seconds had gone by without him dropping down dead, shrugged. "Sure." He passed the bowl he'd tasted over to Bait, who grabbed it in his good hand to keep it still, then ducked his face into it and started to slurp.
"Bait. Bait!" Sonic tapped him hard on the shoulder and when the young jackal looked up, startled and with what smelled like gravy all over his snout, the hedgehog handed him a spoon.
"Aw, Sonic."
"Don't aw Sonic me, Bait; you're not a feral. If we don't want to be tossed out to die or stuck here for the rest of our lives, we have to make a good impression. Now eat properly or I'll take it away until you can."
"You never cared before," Bait dared to mumble even as he took the spoon.
"Okay, so usually I don't worry about all that etiquette baloney," Sonic admitted freely, "but even I've never eaten like that."
"But I'm hungry!"
"And every second you argue with me is a second you're getting hungrier," the hedgehog retorted. Something struck him and he smiled slightly.
"What's funny?" Bait demanded, in between valiant attempts to spoon up a slice of root vegetable at the bottom of his bowl.
"Just...that's something Mighty's mother always used to say to me when I tried to get her to let me eat in front of the TV."
"Mighty?" Bait frowned, trying to place the name. "That 'dillo from Scrap Brain?"
"Yeah. We grew up together; I squatted with his parents most of the time." Sonic glanced away, remembering. Mighty had turned on Sonic as soon as he'd found out the truth about the hedgehog and Robotnik, and although they were friends again, both of them knew they could never be as close as they had been before.
Reaching down, Sonic picked up the glass and sipped at the murky liquid inside, and almost immediately his face brightened.
"Man, I haven't tasted this stuff since I was in Dust Hill Zone!"
"What is it?" Bait wanted to know, sniffing his own glass.
"I don't know the proper name for it. The nomads there just call it honeyjuice; it's honey mixed with water and ground coriander. If you warm it, it heats you up and if you chill it, it cools you down. Sort of a nutritious milkshake with no milk." Sonic took another swallow. "The ingredients are hard to come by in the desert, which means they only serve it on special occasions, but it's well worth the wait."
"I guess you comin' to visit were somethin' of a special occasion, right?"
Sonic laughed. "I doubt they saw it that way. I was dumb enough to think I could run across a desert without any form of water. About the most admiring or respectful thing I ever heard them call me was damn stupid idiot lunatic of a porcupine."
Bait frowned. "Well, they was completely wrong about that, Sonic, 'cause you ain't a porcupine."
Sonic laughed again. "Just a damn stupid idiot lunatic, huh? Anyway, they fixed me up and poured so much of that stuff down my throat that I thought it was going to start coming out my nose."
"So c'n I have some?" Bait licked dry lips. "I'm real thirsty, Sonic."
"Yeah, sure. Here." Sonic sipped out of the other glass, then, satisfied, handed it to the jackal, who gulped eagerly.
"What're we gonna do if they won't let us go?"
Sonic felt a chill run down his spine. "I don't know. We'll escape, somehow, and get out of here."
Bait flattened his ears. "You sure that's a smart thing to do? 'Cause if we go out without them pods, ain't we gonna die?"
Sonic winced. "Good point." He considered for a few minutes. "Alright, let's think about this. We haven't been chained up yet, which is hopeful. Maybe they just want to make sure we don't leave before they have a chance to talk to us."
"Mebbe that void thing's how they take prisoners."
Sonic shook his head. "No, it kills everything, remember? We only survived because Robotnik – for all his bad points – builds damn good fortresses...and whatever lives here, it seems to breathe the same kind of air we do."
Bait finished eating his portion of stew and before Sonic had time to react, had grabbed the hedgehog's bowl and slurped that down as well.
"Hey!"
"Huh?" Bait swallowed the last mouthful, then glanced at the two empty bowls and cringed. "Oh jeez, I'm sorry, I dint mean to, it jus'...I was..."
Sonic managed a grin, ignoring the complaints of his stomach. "It's okay, kiddo. I wasn't that hungry anyway."
There was a silence.
"Sonic?" Bait said in a muffled voice.
"Yeah?"
The jackal wrapped both arms around the hedgehog's waist, snuggling into the comfort of Sonic's body. "I wanna go home."
"Yeah, kiddo. I know. Me too." Glancing around, the hedgehog caught sight of the door and an idea occurred to him. "Hey Bait?"
"Yeah?"
"Think you could pick that lock?"
Bait looked up, ears flat. "You said you dint want me to do stuff like that no more."
"And I don't, not in the normal scheme of things. But in case you hadn't noticed, this is far from normal, so I think we can overlook it this once. Can you pick the lock?"
The jackal shook his head violently. "Nuh uh! I ain't doin' nothin' like that, Sonic, 'cause I know you hate it an' I'm not gonna let you hate me for doin' it!"
"I wouldn't hate you, kiddo. I'm telling you, this one time it's okay."
Bait shook his head again and dived back into the comfort of Sonic's ribs.
"No!" His voice was slightly muffled, but perfectly audible. "I can't, Sonic. I dunt have a lockpick anymore. I chucked 'em all away."
"Well, that was a pretty damn stupid thing to do," Sonic said, the heat and fear of his confinement making him snippier than usual.
"Whaddaya mean?" Bait lifted his head to glare at Sonic. "You tole me to do it!"
The hedgehog glared back for a few seconds, then his face abruptly softened. "Yeah, I guess I did, didn't I?"
"You coulda let me keep one," mumbled Bait, who had fought long and hard to retain such a privilege before finally admitting defeat.
"Yeah, well, I didn't know we were gonna get sucked through an interdimensional portally vortexy voidy thingy and taken prisoner by a crazed and ultra-paranoid bunch of alien slavers, did I?"
"We coulda been prepared!"
Sonic rolled his eyes. "Bait, I said no more sneaking around or dishonest activities, didn't I?"
"Yeah, an' then you said, Bait, you gotta pick that lock, remember? Why's it okay to do it for you an' not anyone else?"
The hedgehog hesitated, floundering. "Well...because we're trapped here and we need to get out."
"Yeah, but if you hadn't made me get rid a my lockpicks we'da been clear by now." Bait frowned at the lock. "Or mebbe not. I never seen one a those before an' it might be trapped or somethin'."
Trapped. Great. Just like they were.
"I hate this place," Bait muttered.
"You think I don't?" Sonic closed his eyes, shivering. It was at times like this that he really wished he had larger ears; through Tails and Bait he'd learned that flattening the same was a very good way of expressing fear or shame, and he thought it was probably also a good way of blocking out unpleasant sounds without being so obvious as to stuff your fingers in your ears. The hedgehog method was slightly less obvious; fear was signified by the quills either bunching together or flaring, depending on how aggressive the hedgehog in question was.
Yeah, and with blades instead of quills, I can't even do that, Sonic thought grimly. His blades moved enough to allow him to curl up and spindash (and were far deadlier than his original brown quills had been) but were nowhere near as flexible.
"Yeah," Bait said, jerking him back to Mobius (or wherever the hell this place was) with a jolt, "but I dunt like small places."
Sonic glanced at him, startled. "You never told me that. You seemed okay when we were in the tunnels."
"That was different. Tunnels're okay because I c'n jus' tell myself they're on'y underground corridors an' besides, they wunt that small. But somethin' like this..." Bait quivered. "I dunt like anythin' that's like bein' in a cage or bein' trapped. If you really wanna know, I...I got in the way of one a Raker's jobs when I was six. He was real mad at me an' said I was no better'n a wild animal an' wild animals gotta be caged. So he got one a them cages that was 'bout three foot by three, stuffed me inside an' locked the door, then dumped the cage in a swamp an' left."
"How long for?" Sonic asked very quietly. Bait shrugged.
"Dunno the exact hours. But I dint get out until five days later an' that was on'y 'cause one a them robots tried to zap me but missed an' blew the cage door open an'...Sonic, are you okay? You look kinda pale."
Sonic moistened dry lips. "Did you say a robot?"
"Yeah."
The hedgehog was silent. He'd been there when the robots had arrived; Tails had taken him to his 'secret place' soon afterwards. Before that, they'd been relaxing, having fun and generally hanging out (although Tails' bout of salmonella had put something of a damper on their activities). While they'd been having fun, had Bait been locked up in some tiny cage, abandoned like so much trash?
"Why didn't you cry out?"
The look Bait turned on him now suggested that the hedgehog was suffering from a terminal case of idiocy. "Jeez, you think I dint? I gave up after a couple hours 'cause my voice was gettin' sore an' anyway, nobody come to see what was goin' on." He shrugged. "That's the Em'rald Hill Zone for you."
"It's sick is what it is." Sonic paused. "Did anyone actually hear you?"
Bait nodded. "Uh huh. I know they did 'cause they walked past and ignored me, but they'd say somethin' like, I wish that kid'd shut up. So I did an' it dint make no difference; I was still stuck there."
Sonic looked away, sickened. "Jeez. Man, if I'd known..." He shook his head, only coming back to himself when Bait yawned hugely. "Yeah, you get some sleep. I'll keep a watch."
Bait shook his head. "I dunt wanna sleep. 'Specially not here."
"Bad dreams?" Sonic said quietly.
A vigorous nod.
"Yeah, I don't sleep too well myself, kiddo. Haven't since the last time I was inside Robotnik's prison."
Bait looked up to fix him with a wide-eyed look. "How'd he catch you, Sonic?"
The hedgehog glanced away and Bait was momentarily afraid he'd overstepped the line. In the same way as Sonic understood not to press Bait about everything that the jackal had suffered in his life, so Bait knew not to quiz Sonic about his time as Robotnik's prisoner.
Eventually Sonic shrugged. "I was grinding backwards to show off and the rail came to an end. Knuckles tried to warn me, but I didn't believe him. I fell off and one of Robotnik's transporter robots happened to be passing and it caught me and zapped me straight to the fortress before I hit the ground. It didn't release me until...later." Something in the way the hedgehog said it warned Bait not to press any further, and the jackal dropped the subject obligingly. Curiosity notwithstanding, he didn't want to think of Sonic being tortured.
"He coulda taken me if I'da bin there," he said into Sonic's ribs. "Mebbe he'da let you go an' kept me."
Sonic smiled slightly. "And maybe he'd have just laughed in your face. Robotnik doesn't do deals and if he does, he almost never keeps his side of them."
"Sonic?"
"Yeah?"
Bait pushed closer, ignoring the agony that flared in his broken ribs. "If we get outta here—"
"When, not if."
"—when we get outta here," Bait repeated obediently, "are we gonna take Raker?"
It was on the tip of Sonic's tongue to say that Raker damn well deserved to stay here and be enslaved (if that was what was in store) then he caught sight of Bait's wretched, hopeful gaze and sighed.
"Why, kiddo? Why don't you just leave him?"
"Are you gonna leave Robotnik?"
The question caught Sonic off guard and he floundered. "Uh...well, I...if we can't, then...um..."
"See?" Bait persisted, correctly interpreting Sonic's answer as Not a chance in hell. "Sonic, what if they try to split us up again?"
"They won't, Bait. I promise." When the jackal continued to look unconvinced, Sonic reached out to fluff up the fur on his head. "Go on, kiddo, go to sleep. Whatever they want to do to you, they can damn well do to me first."
There was no more talking after that. There didn't seem to be anything to say – Sonic couldn't even tell Bait it was going to be okay since he had no idea what it was – and gradually the jackal dropped into sleep.
It was an hour or so later when Sonic finally noticed the slow but steady drop in temperature. At first he was thankful; anything was better than the sluggish heat they'd been suffering for the past who knew how long.
Maybe they finally decided to pump some air conditioning in here.
At the end of another hour, Sonic could see his breath misting in front of him and after a third hour, he was shivering. Whether it was that or the temperature which woke Bait up, he didn't know, but the jackal stirred slightly, cracked open both eyes and said hoarsely, "I'm cold."
"You're cold?" Sonic echoed, by now shivering so much he could hardly get the words out. "How the hell do you think I feel? You got four inches worth of fur on most of your bod; I'm practically bald."
Bait didn't answer, just continued looking at Sonic with those big, liquid brown eyes. His expression was one that Sonic had seen all too often on Tails' face when the fox had been younger; that look of total confidence that he, Sonic, could solve any problem and make everything bad stop.
It was hard to believe, Sonic thought with grim amusement, that Bait was two years older than Tails.
"Okay, c'mere." Reaching down, he lifted Bait up and into his arms, holding him as tightly as he could without exacerbating the jackal's injuries. "Better?"
A small nod. Bait was already half asleep again and Sonic decided not to wake him.
So what's going on? It was colder than could be explained by simple air conditioning. Could it be Robotnik? Had he done what he'd done on Angel Island, turning the people here against the hedgehog? If so, what was he supposed to do about it?
Sonic shook his head. His rational self (and it did exist, despite remarks from a certain red echidna to the contrary) told him that now he was fully healthy, he had nothing to worry about from Robotnik, or at least nothing he couldn't handle. His primeval self, however, tended to shriek terrified warnings whenever the hedgehog came face to face with the doctor, and when Robotnik had actually laid hands on him by the swimming pool...a chill flickered down Sonic's spine. He'd never told anyone the full story of what he'd endured in those three months of hell, and never planned to either, but Robotnik's favourite – after literally running the hedgehog's feet ragged – had been various and ingenious forms of water torture, apparently all designed by his own race. Waterboarding had been one of the doctor's main choices, combined with water curing to break up the monotony. Of course, that hadn't been all that had gone on, not even half of it, but it had been the worst.
Sonic squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away, remembering and trying very hard not to. That was one good thing about this place; there was no water, at least, none that he'd seen.
Yeah. They're probably just going to slam dunk you into a pool of lava or whatever they have here, something inside him whispered, and immediately something else answered, Suits me. At least that would be relatively quick; there'd be no internal agonies, no vomiting, no lingering, mind-numbing terror...just a brief burst of intense pain and it would be over.
Bait's ear flicked once in his sleep and he squirmed closer, finally settling when he was half draped over Sonic's lap.
Sonic himself remained awake for a long time, mind working furiously as he tried to figure out what he was going to do about Bait.
No wonder Robotnik was so happy for me to take the kid; all the time he's with me, I can't go off after the doctor. Bait's a good kid, but he can't fight to save his life.
The hedgehog shook his head. Despite the fact that Bait was closer to Sonic's age than Tails was (and despite Sonic's adopting him as a 'brother') the hedgehog knew full well that his relationship with the jackal was far more parental than fraternal, and he also knew Bait well enough to know that his tough, gutsy façade was just that; a façade to hide the insecure and badly frightened kid beneath.
Well, at least I don't have to decide now. Robotnik's not likely to cause trouble for the minute.
How long did the two of them lie there? Minutes? Hours? Sonic didn't know; all he was really aware of was the oppressive heat (and having what amounted to a fur coat on his legs didn't help either). No more food or drink was forthcoming, and he didn't know if he was apprehensive or relieved when their prison door suddenly swung inward with a clang to reveal one of the guards. Sonic wished he/she would take off the mask; he'd like to see just what kind of creature he was dealing with.
The creature in question pointed to Sonic, then to Bait and then jerked its thumb towards the door.
"You want us to come with you?" the hedgehog guessed.
No answer, just a repetition of the gestures.
"Got it. C'mon kiddo," Sonic said, nudging the still slumbering Bait into wakefulness. "Looks like someone wants to see us."
The creature led them out of the cell (this time not trying to protest Bait's presence) and through a labyrinth of passages which finally culminated in a plain looking door. It pointed at Sonic and Bait, then to the entrance and turned away. Sonic glanced at Bait and raised an eye ridge.
"Guess we go on alone, huh?"
Calmly, trying to pretend he wasn't worried, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.
This room managed to be cluttered and functional at the same time; that is, every wall was crammed with consoles, and every console had a vital part to play in the running of the facility. That was the second thing Sonic noticed.
The first thing was the vaguely familiar person sitting with their back to them and studying one of the wall monitors.
"I suppose nobody ever taught you to knock, Sonic," the stranger said. His voice was impassive and somehow cultured, the kind of voice who could order someone's execution as calmly as he would a pizza.
Sonic frowned. He was used to everyone on Mobius knowing who he was, but an alien? No way. That was just too freaky, almost as freaky as someone here actually speaking his language.
"Do I know you?"
The other gave a low chuckle. "Of sorts." He swung around and Sonic took a step back. The last time he'd stared into those eyes, the owner had been doing his utmost to throw him off a casino table, and had also succeeded.
"Who the hell are you?" Sonic demanded, staring openly.
"I have several names, Sonic, especially on this world. For now, though, you may call me Shadow. Shadow the hedgehog."
So...another part completed (snickers quietly to self in an evil manner) Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!
