Chapter 9: In Order to Win

An eerie, uneasy silence hung over the vast lair. There were no guard robots patrolling the corridors nor was there any other being disturbing the unnerving quietness that had settled over the building since its creator had retreated into the main laboratory in the depths of the great structure.

It had been many hours since that moment and the human was still leaned over his workbench, the metal surface covered by various papers full of chemical formulas and notes, glass and plastic bottles filled with chemical substances and compounds, tools and other kinds of equipment scattered among them. There was only a small table lamp illuminating the scientist's work, but the man seemed unconcerned by the inadequate lighting; he did not get up to find better source of light and just continued on mixing the various chemicals together, studying the products and murmuring under his breath, scribbling notes as he went along.

Orbot and Cubot both watched the show, not having anything else to do as their creator had not bothered to give them much instructions before he entered this strange hyper-trance. The doctor had not spoken a word to them for over twelve hours and had not moved from the bench at all in the time frame; which knowing human biology, both Orbot and Cubot knew was not healthy and definitely shouldn't be possible for the scientist.

They exchanged a glance, unsure whether they should alert their creator of this fact and then also possibly suggest him to get a bit of rest and sustenance that all organic beings needed. Tending to and moving the human would be much more difficult if he suddenly collapsed from not meeting his biological necessities than if they convinced him to meet them now.

But again there was still the possibility that any kind of interruption would make the human snap and finally carry out his threat of turning them into scrap metal...

"Eureka!" the human suddenly bellowed, both robots jerking in alarm at the sound, as the doctor triumphantly raised a gloved hand into the air, a vial full of bluish liquid held securely in his fingers. "The SWD-2 is finally complete! Now that damned rodent will finally get what he deserves..." Dr. Eggman began to chuckle, the sinister sound soon echoing through the room and replacing the unnerving silence with something even more disturbing.

The duo of robots exchanged a glance, neither of them sure what to expect to come out of this plan. It was true that none of Dr. Eggman's plans had been successful so far but they all were built on the same principle—to beat Sonic with sheer force and numbers. But this one was different; this time the doctor planned to turn Sonic's own ally against him and if he had not made that dosage miscalculation all these days ago, he would have surely succeeded in that already...

"Are you totally sure it won't kill the guy?" Cubot asked, breaking the scientist from his inner world and drawing the human's attention their way. "It doesn't seem like something you organic beings should be drinking."

"It truly is not," Dr. Eggman stated, lips curling as he looked back at the vial. "However, it would kill Shadow only if he'd been severely overdosed with it." The scientists turned to them. "Of course, I shall not risk something like that. This time the plan must succeed—now, when will they be here?"

Orbot cleared his non-existent throat, planning to answer the question, but by then a voice had already sounded.

"—How about now?"

In alarm, Dr. Eggman turned in the direction of the voice and watched as a purple figure emerged from the dark, the intruder flashing them all with a smile and bowing in a mock greeting. "Fang the Sniper at your service."

"How did you get past my security?" Dr. Eggman frowned, wrapping his hand protectively around the vial, brows furrowing when he noticed the Hooligan was alone. "And where are your colleagues?"

"First business—then questions," the weasel replied with a smirk as he walked over to him, tipping his hat more into his eyes, leaving only his fanged smile visible to the scientist before him, "I want to know if this deal is as good as your promised it to be, or if I'm just wasting my time here."

"It's even better than you expect," Dr. Eggman said as he sat the vial on the work-table, frowning when he saw how unabashedly was the mercenary eyeing his work.

"Lutropin? Scopolamine? Sildenafil?" Fang scowled as he read the labels on the various containers before him, grabbing the one that was nearest to him to smell the blue powder in it curiously. "Sounds like pretty nasty poisons to me..."

"Then you shouldn't be smelling them don't you think?" Dr. Eggman remarked with a frown as he pulled the box from the weasel's thievish hands. "You won't be using them anyway."

"Oh, really?" Fang crossed his arms over his chest. "Just for the record—because I heard what you have said earlier—you want to kill someone? We don't do that. Only robberies, smuggling and some of the other illegal stuff. Killing is too much hassle. Though for a generous sum, I suppose I could make an excep—"

"You won't need to kill anyone," the doctor interjects. "Actually, you will have to do barely anything." The mad scientist smirked. Fang raised a questioning brow. However, Dr. Eggman only gestured into the darkness of the lab. "Metal, come here."

Two shining red opticals appeared in the darkness of the room and Dr. Eggman could feel Fang shift beside him uncomfortably as the Sonic-look-alike slowly stepped into the light, a white Chaos Emerald held in his artificial hands.

"You will need this Chaos Emerald for your mission," Dr. Eggman explained as he took the pale gem from Metal Sonic's hands, the red opticals following his every move before settling on the mercenary, who immediately tried to make an inconspicuous step backwards and away from the deadly robot.

Dr. Eggman smiled, pleased. "Now, let me explain what exactly I want you mercenaries to do with it..."

O-o-O-o-O

"—and input a password of your choosin'—that will lock the capsule. It will unlock only after you input password again. As long as you keep yer password secret, no one else should be able to get the rings you deposit. Of course, we will provide full compensation if anythin' happens to yer capsules while yer competin'," Bunnie finished, tapping one of the ring boxes in which the racers were supposed to store all their rings for the following round; from the sounds of it there would be some kind of ring-collecting objective and therefore they weren't' allowed to carry any rings as it could affect the results. "Any questions?"

Sonic shook his head in denial, his gloved fingers tapped against the container thoughtfully, the hero trying to estimate how many rings he might have currently had. Keeping track of how many rings he collected as he blazed across Mobius' plains—either chasing after Eggman or just for the fun of it—wasn't really among his priorities so he didn't really keep count. However, he could feel there was quite a big amount of ring energy flowing thorough his body just waiting to be called on, so this would definitely require more than one or two boxes...

"If yer unsho' how many boxes you need," Bunnie's voice sounded again and Sonic looked up at the female again, "Ah may have a solution."

Then Bunnie gestured at the other member of the staff, a blond-haired coyote that Sonic had seen before the previous round calming down some of the racers that had freaked out upon seeing their roller-coaster of track. The male immediately scurried their way, Sonic just now noticing a name tag on his shirt that read 'Antoine' and that the male's hands were full of what appeared to be...digital watches?

"Thank you, sugar," Bunnie said, smiling as she took two of those 'watches' from her colleague, the coyote appearing a bit red in the face suddenly, a nervous smile on his face as he met her gaze.

Somebody has a bit of a crush here, Sonic snickered mentally and reached forward to take the electronics the rabbit was now offering to him. He grasped the devices, each into one hand, studying both for a brief second curiously before handing one to Shadow and then focusing back on Bunnie, who was already demonstrating what the device—'ring-counter' she called it—could do, though personally Sonic believed the name was enough of explanation in itself.

Therefore, Sonic didn't hesitate to strap it onto his wrist, the device immediately activating. It took the gadget only a moment to determine the total amount of rings in his body and when it did, his eye-brows flew up on the number.

Alright, he'd had no idea that he was carrying this many.

"Um, it seems I'll need five of those boxes," Sonic stated, turning to his team-mate. "What about you, Shadow?"

Apart from him, Shadow only raised two fingers, clearly not in need of so many boxes.

"Alright, so five for me. Two for Shads. Seven in total then," Sonic said, smiling, as he turned back to Bunnie, who for some reason seemed a bit taken aback. The hero raised a questioning brow at the reaction. "Will it be a problem?"

The female seemed to finally snap out of her shock upon hearing his question. "No, of course not!" she said, waving her hands in a placating gesture. "Just, um, give me a minute to secure yer boxes." Bunnie then turned her back to them, walking a few paces away to talk to Antoine, who had already started to distribute the ring-counters to the other competitors.

They shared a few words in a hushed tone, Bunnie explaining the situation quickly, Antoine's eyebrows rising up in surprise.

"Five hundred rings?!" the coyote asked aloud, just a bit too loud not to not be heard, "who in zeir right mind carries five hundred rings on zem?!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Sonic called and shrugged his shoulders, drawing the coyote's attention this way. It wasn't like anyone could see how much money he carried on (or, well, technically speaking in) himself; plus he would be very capable of defending himself from any kind of thief if anyone ever dared to try to mug him. Sonic grinned. "It's always better to have enough change on you, isn't it?"

The coyote starred at him in shock, with mouth gaping open. "But zat is—zat is—"

"You call five hundreds a 'change'?" Jet interjected as he approached them, an already filled ring-box under his arm. "I always suspected you made quite the money with all the 'saving the world' thing going on, though I didn't really expect you to turn out to be a millionaire."

"I'm no millionaire," Sonic shook his head. It was true that sometimes he got money as a reward for stopping Dr. Eggman's schemes or helping people in other ways but most of his income was really just from him collecting the rings that naturally appeared all across Mobius. "But I heard you Rogues made quite the money just recently. Something about finding Atlantis I believe...?"

"Oh, yes, Atlantis," the rogue smirked, "we made quite fortune with that. Nothing draws people like the idea of visiting place where no one has set their foot in thousands of years—"

Sonic grinned. "Five years."

"...What?" Jet furrowed his brows in confusion.

"I've been there five years ago." Sonic shrugged his shoulders as if it wasn't a big deal. "Locals call it the Flicky Island. Quite a lovely place if you don't mind all the deadly traps that Eggman has left there."

"...really?" Jet stared at him in disbelief, which then slowly morphed into horror when he nodded. "I...I think I need to call a few people right now—Wave, Storm, get me a phone!"

The hero watched with silent amusement as the hawk scurried away to the other Rogues, looking very much like a panicked chicken with his feathers all ruffled up. It might be true that Dr. Eggman had left many deadly traps the Flicky Island, but all were broken beyond repair—he had made sure of that before leaving the island—no need for anyone to get hurt by accident.

Sonic sighed and diverged his attention from the bird trio, Wave now yelling at Jet and Storm for not checking the island more thoroughly—or something along those lines, it was hard to tell when he was this far—back to Antoine and Bunnie, only to find the mammal duo was no longer there and instead were right now helping a purple walrus to unload an utility cart that was standing just a couple of yards away.

There was a single giant ring box on the cart and Sonic immediately had a sneaking suspicion for whom it was intended.

O-o-O-o-O

"—and done!" Sonic announced with a grin, making a somersault down from the giant—honestly, the thing was the size of Big—capsule. Once back on his feet, he rolled his shoulders and swung his arms in a circle around him, stretching his stiff body and releasing the tension in his back.

He peered at the giant box over his shoulder. It was kinda over-kill as small boxes would have been enough, but apparently the head of the staff believed that if all of their seven hundreds rings were stored in one giant, heavy ring box then there was a smaller chance of somebody trying—and managing—to steal it, which Sonic had to admit made sense.

The hero rubbed his neck, rolling his head a bit. After discarding all the rings, he somehow felt a bit light-ish now. Kinda weird considering it was supposed to be only energy and not mass he'd had to let go of...

"Attention, ladies and gentlemen. The second round is about to begin. All competitors, please, return to the start area immediately."

"Well, I guess that's our cue. We better go." Drooping his arm back to his side, Sonic smiled and outstretched his arm to take back his Extreme Gear. Shadow immediately handed him said item and they both fell into step, setting off in the direction of the racing track. "Oh, and our password is 'Chili dogs' by the way."

Shadow snorted in dry amusement at the choice.

"What?" Sonic cocked his brow, lips curling into an amused smirk. "You think you'd come up with something better? I haven't heard you say any suggestions."

The agent's lips pulled into a scowl at the remark. Sure, it was not Shadow's fault that he couldn't speak at the moment but Sonic just couldn't resist poking a bit of fun at the ebony agent because of this fact.

Shadow shook his head and sighed. Then—very much to Sonic's confusion—the agent made a weird hand motion that looked way too elaborate to not have meaning.

"Huh?" Sonic blinked, perplexed. "Come again?"

Shadow repeated the gesture; he balled his hand into a fist and raised it to an eye-level, then he outstretched both forefinger and his middle finger, and swept the digits from the bridge of his nose to its tip two times as if he were scratching it, his hand forming an 'O' shape the moment it lost contact with his face.

And even though the gesture had been performed much slower this time, Sonic still wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean.

Sonic raised a questioning brow. "...are you cussing me in a sign language?" Even the hero's second brow rose when he realized that was most likely what Shadow was doing. "Wait a minute, since when do you know a sign language?"

Shadow raised an eye-ridge, wordlessly asking him how he was supposed to do something like that when he clearly didn't understand a word he was signing.

Sonic's lips pressed into a thin line at the realization. Go figure, he'd have a skill like this and it still wouldn't help us communicate. Was this something all GUN agents knew?

You know, because not having to speak during stealth missions would definitely be quite useful...

Maybe he and Tails should learn a few signs as well; it could help them stay unnoticed while they sneaked around in Dr. Eggman's lairs...

"So, were you cussing at me or not?" Sonic asked again, eyes briefly darting to the area ahead of them where Bunnie and Antoine were already chasing the riders into their assigned starting positions before looking back at Shadow, who was still keeping silent. He nudged the other in the shoulder. "Come on! Tell me what you were saying! You can't leave me hanging like this!"

There was the typical amused 'you'd like to know that, wouldn't you?' expression on Shadow's face now, the agent still not offering any sort of explanation.

"...you're enjoying this, aren't you?" Sonic concluded, noticing from the corner of his eye how Bunnie was waving to them now and how the female gestured to the visibly empty spots among the other competitors.

A smirk was his only answer.

"You—" Sonic paused as he could feel a cold hand wrapping around his bicep, his eyes finding the female to which it belonged just a moment later.

"Sugar, yer gonna have to leave yer lovers' quarrel for after the race. Yer competin' now," Bunnie announced as she started to tug him away, her hold on his upper arm surprisingly strong for a person of her stature.

Sonic stumbled a bit, not quite expecting to be pulled away so suddenly—and with such force. Seriously, was Bunnie a cyborg in disguise or something? "Um, I guess we're gonna see each other later—see you at the finish line, Shad!" he shouted over his shoulder, not able to resist adding a bit of taunt at the end, "make sure to get there in time!"

However, before Sonic could receive an answer—surely in a form of another hand gesture, probably a bit more familiar one this time—he was already being dragged through a mass of people, which with their greater height—he sometimes really hated being so short—were blocking his view.

Bunnie pushed her way through the crowd until she reached an empty spot where she positioned him beside a certain familiar weary-looking, green-feathered hawk and then disappeared back into the crowd without another word.

"Sooo—" Sonic drew out, lightly jabbing the hawk in the side with his other hand to make Jet take notice of his presence, "crisis avoided?"

Frowning, Jet turned to look at him, clearly unhappy about being reminded of the issue again. "...Hopefully."

"It surely is." Sonic grinned, placing his Extreme Gear vertically against the ground and then leaning against the hover-board as he stood. "...Hey, Jet, do you know sign language by any chance?"

The Babylon Rogue looked a bit confused by the question for a moment. "...No. Why?"

"No reason."

Jet raised a brow but didn't question him further.

O-o-O-o-O

"I suggest you give up right now, Sonic!" Jet shouted over the screeching wind, his voice once again full of cockiness, the rush of adrenaline clearly helping him forget his fatigue for now. "You have no chance of beating me this round! Treasure collecting is in my blood!"

The cobalt hero grinned. "And speed is in mine, pal! Don't ever forget that!"

And to underline his point, Sonic pushed his Extreme Gear to go faster, taking the first five rings for himself to the dismay of his green-feathered rival. The golden rings disappeared with their regular burst of sparkles, a rush of familiar energy entering Sonic's system and making the ring-counter on his wrist beep in acknowledgement of his success.

Frowning, Sonic shook his hand and then squeezed it, hoping it would remove the uncomfortable buzzing sensation that had come to life there after it had came in contact with the rings—Where the heck did it come from?—before taking a quick glance at the ring counter that was still strapped to his wrist, noting the big bold numerals that showed the number '50' at the moment; just like in the other teams, his and Shadow's ring-counters had been synchronized to show how many rings they currently had as a team instead of as individuals, as like this, they didn't need to stay together to know when to head for the finish line once they reached the one-hundred rings mark.

Whoa, Shadow has already got 45 rings? Thirty seconds into the round? What is he? A magpie? Sonic questioned internally, at the same time spotting another quintet of golden rings that had just come to view, the hero making a sharp right turn to seize them.

"These are mine, hedgehog!" Jet shouted just as he managed to hit a speed dash and was propelled forward, getting just enough of boost to snatch them out of the hero's reach. "—told you!"

Sonic grinned. "Oh, I'm gonna get the next bunch! Just watch me!" Sonic replied with a smug smile to the hawk's own self-assured smirk, the hero aiming for another speed boost and successfully hitting it.

"You think I'll let you get them so easily?!" the hawk replied just as he caught up to him, the duo shoulder to shoulder once again, and both fueling more power into their gears to speed forward and be the first ones to grab the shiny collectibles. "No, way!"

Sonic grinned and made a sharp turn to the left, Jet reflexively slowing down to avoid collision and thus giving him the opportunity to put some distance between them.

The rogue gasped when he realized what he had tricked him into doing. "H-hey!"

"I'm gonna wait for you at the finish line, Jet!" Sonic mock-saluted as he made a sharp U-turn, diving into another path that presented itself. "Yahoo—!"

Jet scowled. "You won't beat me, Sonic the hedgehog!"

"Oh, really? I think we're doing pretty good so far!" Sonic shouted as he briefly raised his arm with the ring counter, while he outstretched the other and made another row of rings disappear in a flash of golden sparkles. "Eighty now! Woo hoo!"

Jet gasped. "Watch out!"

"Wha—?!" Sonic barely had the time to turn around at the warning, let alone dodge the female that was hurtling at him. Sticks, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, barreled into him at full force, and it was a miracle he somehow managed not to fall off his hover board—though there was this odd chime of something hitting the floor.

"Hey, Sonic, you seem to have you lost something!" Jet called from up ahead, the hawk once again getting the lead thanks to their accident.

Confused, Sonic looked behind himself. There was a group of ten rings—which had definitely not been there when he passed that section—floating in a circle formation right above the track—

Oh.

Oh.

He glanced on the ring counter on his wrist to confirm his discovery. So that's what Bunnie meant that they might not keep the collected rings until the end of the race—and that's also why he'd had that odd buzzing sensation; the rings were purposefully over-charged with energy and couldn't be absorbed properly and the slightest tap to the holder's body would send them flying.

Shoot. He'd always been terrible at holding on to over-charged rings. Hopefully, Shadow would do better; the agent was an expert at controlling chaos energy, so he'd surely managed even ring energy better than he could.

"See?! I told you this evil thing is gonna try to kill us all!" Sticks roughly stamped on her hover-board, pointing an accusing finger on the vehicle, and then turning to looking at them, "We need to perform a ritual of purification on this thing! We need to head back and—" Sticks turned around to point behind her, her eyes going wide at the sight of the rings, "—oh, shiny!"

Sonic watched in a mixture of amusement and bewilderment as the female apparently all forgot about her 'evil' Gear and instead dashed to collect the shining rings, the scene oddly reminding Sonic of a certain human movie trilogy about dwarves, elves and by-evil-possessed rings he had seen couple off years ago.

Well, I guess I can leave those rings to her. She seems happy to have them. Sonic grinned as he turned around and began the pursuit of his rival, who had gotten already quite the distance between them thanks to his short moment of idleness.

"Hey, Jet!"

"How are you back already?!" Jet questioned as he glanced over his shoulder, the hawk not daring to slow down even a bit, determined not to lose his advantage once he finally had it.

"I'm the fastest thing alive! Nobody leaves me in the dust!"

"Oh, yeah? Watch me!"

Jet angled his body, lowering his center of gravity and pushing his heel onto the sensor fully to make the Gear to work at its maximum capacity.

Seeing this, Sonic immediately copied him, knowing that in order to overtake Jet and thus also have a chance to get his hands on the scattered rings—it seemed they had picked a route with minimal amount of rings, unfortunately—he now needed to do everything flawlessly and as efficiently as possible.

"What do you say about another bet, Jet?" Sonic questioned as he diminished the distance just a bit more. "You can pick the reward this time."

"Why so eager?" Jet's sky blue eyes peered at him through his racing goggles. "You want to lose again?"

"Nah, I don't feel like losing to Wave again." Sonic's lips pulled into an amused smirk when he saw the corner of Jet's mouth twitch at the remark. "I'd rather win this time. You surely would too. So what do you say? Let's bet again?"

"Well, I—"

A loud pitched sound interrupted Jet before he could finish, the ring-counter on Sonic's wrist now flashing the number '100' in big bold red letters.

A wide smile broke out at Sonic's face. Shadow did it! "Hell, yeah!"

"Are you—?!"

"Well, I guess this settles it. Let's leave the bet to another round!" The hero sharply turned around, to follow the big red arrows that were there to point them in the correct direction of the finish line. "See ya later, Jet!"

"Hey—!"

Sonic grinned as he dashed forward, keeping an eye out for extra rings and throwing occasional glances at the ring-counter to assure Shadow had not lost any rings so far. It could get problematic if Shadow did, as Sonic himself had no rings at all as his collision with Sticks had knocked them all out of him. And it was quite the crash; his shoulder still ached from the impact.

With lips pressing into a thin line, he glanced over the length of the racing track. For some reason there were no rings on this route either.

Well, I guess that's just my luck today. Sonic sighed. First, Amy and Shadow start a fight, then Sticks almost breaks my shoulder and now this.

Sonic sighed again.

Today just wasn't his day.

O-o-O-o-O

"Do you need anything, sweetheart?"

"N-no, Mrs. Vanilla." Amy shook her head, forcing a smile on her face, and tightening the hold on the cup of warm cocoa in her grasp to hide how much her hands were still shaking. "Thank you."

"No problem." Vanilla straightened her back, smiling softly as she smoothened the fabric of her skirt. "Call me if you need anything."

"S-sure." The pinkette nodded and the diverted her gaze back to the mug in her hands, taking a small sip of the hot beverage before adjusting the blanket around her shaking form more securely. There was the soft clap of Vanilla's shoes against the wooden tiles, the female leaving the room to return to the kitchen where she was currently preparing the lunch.

Amy sighed, her breath blowing away the gentle vapor that was rising from the cup. She stared at the swirling liquid for a moment before she took a hold of the spoon and fished out one of the tiny marshmallows Vanilla had added into the cocoa. She brought the spoon to her lips, tasting the sugary treat in order to distract herself.

However, even the sweetness didn't help to stop her mind from wandering back to that moment. As she had been lying on the ground and her own hammer had been being brought down on her. She had felt just so terrified at that very moment. She was no stranger to a battle—being close to Sonic meant getting into trouble quite often—but back there...

A violent tremble racked her form and she did not even try to hide it.

She had truly felt as if she was about to die. It had...it had almost felt as if Shadow had wanted to kill her.

The thought was ridiculous really; there was no bad blood between them, they spoke only couple of times and Shadow had no real reason to want to hurt her. But back then...

She shook hear head to chase the thought away.

Sonic had said Shadow was not really himself at the moment and that he needed to keep an eye on him. She now understood why. Whatever Dr. Eggman did to Shadow, had made the agent dangerous. Sonic just didn't want to worry her and so he had lied about the gravity of the situation.

She would bet that the bruise on Sonic's neck was actually no accident at all either.

Fawn lips pressed into an unhappy frown. Oh, how she hated when Sonic did that.

Sonic always tried to deal with things on his own, be it a horde of Dr. Eggman's robots or just struggling through illness; the hero was always eager to give help but was reluctant to accept help himself—it took her years to make him stop from trying to persuade her to keep out of the battlefield. She belonged there too. Because how could she just stand on the sidelines when her boyfriend was out there fighting for the fate of the world?

...her boyfriend...

She was still confused by Sonic's morning outburst. What had happened? Had she done something to make him angry that he started denying their relationship? Sure, they had only went on three dates so far but they spent a lot of time together! Sonic even looked after her when she was sick! He might not admit his feelings aloud but his actions spoke for him. Other than a boyfriend, no else would do all that!

She nodded. Sonic surely had not meant it. He had been probably just worn out from having to look after Shadow for who knows how long. He was surely going to apologize when they saw each other again.

She let the spoon slip back into the cup so she'd have a free hand to reach into her pocket and check the love potion was still there. She took the small flask out, staring at if for a moment. She had intended to use it yesterday, but Shadow had interrupted her before she could have added it into Sonic's food.

She had hoped that the potion could finally help him overcome his nervosity and help him freely express his feelings towards her; Sonic was an affectionate person by nature, but when it came to her, he sometimes tended to be unnecessarily shy. She had just wanted to help him a bit with the potion.

Sure, when they see each other again, she might not need it as Sonic might finally surpass whatever is stopping him from openly declaring his love for her. Nevertheless, she was going to keep it.

Just in case.


[Last edited: 2018-07-09]