A light knock came at Shadow's residence a few days after Ash managed to move into his sister's old room. Maria had been exploring Mobius with her husband Chase, and it was pretty well assumed she wouldn't be staying on Earth as Sara had done when she mated Shadow. Family bonds were far from severed, though, as the teenager stood outside the house with Chase a step behind her.
While not entirely thrilled with his daughter's choice in a mate, Shadow had been surprisingly civil toward the lad. Still, when he threw open the door, he gave him a fairly harsh look, diffused by his daughter's equally stern gaze.
"...Hi."
"...Hello Da--" the orange hedgehog fished for another term, "umm...Mr. Shadow..." he paused, "..Sir."
"Just Shadow's fine," he said evenly, then smiled at his daughter. "He treating you well?" he asked earnestly.
Maria nodded in reply, slipping into a comfortable smile. "Yes, of course. How's Mom?" she inquired, peering into the living room.
Shadow stepped aside and motioned the two in. "Not bad. Good as can be expected." He shrugged. Chase lagged behind a bit, grabbing their things. Shadow's ear twitched in a slightly annoyed way, even though he knew he should be helping Chase bring in their bags.
"And Ash?" She looked around the living room as if she expected it to have suddenly changed. Any changes were very minor, a couple new coasters for drinks on the coffee table, for example.
"Off at Tails' place today," he replied casually. "Supposed to be studying for his GPT."
"Hnn? Oh, the Grade Placement Test?" Maria responded.
Since Mobians all matured faster than humans, the matter of educating them was a bit more ambiguous than human students. While some had infiltrated the public school systems, most preferred home education. The Grade Placement Test was mandatory for any Mobian reaching age 12, as that was their legal work age. The test not only covered typical school subjects, but also questions similar to those given foreigners who wished for American citizenship. The GPT acted as a High School Equivalency Test, like a GED, and qualified them for a number of jobs and enrollment to most colleges. Maria had no problem passing the test, though it was unclear if she'd ever need a standard job with her Gear ace mate bringing in a good amount of money (by both Earth and Mobian standards).
"Yeah. Kit and Tracey are taking theirs next week. His is scheduled for the end of the month." Shadow waited for Chase to fully enter the house with the bags before closing the door, perhaps harder than he needed to.
Maria sighed a bit, understanding her father's frustration. Even after all this time, he still had a hard time accepting Chase. She gave her dad a light kiss on the cheek. "I'm going to go check on Mom. She's in the den, right?"
"Yeah." He pulled Maria into a light hug. "We missed you, kiddo."
"I missed you too." She smiled, slipping from her father's grip. "Now play nice, you two!" She waved behind her as she headed off to the den. Shadow and Chase then exchanged looks in the awkward silence that followed.
A few years ago, Ash enjoyed going over to the Prower residence to play, mostly with Kit. The two of them were usually employed to fix gadgets around Tails' shop, which kept them out of trouble for the most part. Sometimes Blitz, Rift, and Race would show up to have their Gears tuned up, and the younger foxes and hedgehog would tag along to the Gear park. Now that he was older, he found Kit less of an attraction to his sister, whose adolescent body was growing into its adult form quite nicely and trailing an enticing smell.
Both Kit and Tracey had their father's twin tails, and they were able to fly with them like he was. Tracey didn't have her brother's endurance, but she flew faster. She was the same bright yellow-orange as her father and had his eyes. She could almost have been a female version of him but for her hair, which was full and long, drawn into a braid that trailed half way down her back. Her silver eyes were another deviation from her father. Kit, on the other hand, had the reddish orange fur of their mother and also had silver eyes. Both of them wore more clothing than the average Mobian, but since their father usually donned a grease monkey suit, and they had been raised on Earth, it was understandable.
In some ways, Ash wished they had been raised in the wooded parts of Mobius. He recounted "Uncle" Sonic telling about his days in Knothole, and how the girls out there (particularly Princess Sally) favored as little clothing as possible. He was thinking such thoughts while vacantly staring at a textbook he'd borrowed from the library. The boy was much more interested in the small white tuft of fur peaking out from Tracey's pink halter top.
"...And they've found evidence that the bone was mending, so the patients must have lived some time after the surgery," Tracey continued, reading on history from the South Americas. "Terrible to think that people who could do brain surgery like that would also practice human sacrifice, eh?"
"Huh? Oh...yeah." The blue and black hedgehog nodded.
"You seem distracted," Tracey noted, tilting her head to one side. "Oh!" She perked up and snapped her fingers. "Your sister's coming in for a visit today, isn't she? That's it, right?"
The dazed youth knew quite well what was distracting him but nodded anyway. "Y-yeah, that's it."
"Sorry, I didn't realize," the vixen laughed. "Gonna be weird having her back, eh?"
"Yeah...I'm in her old room," he replied. He glanced around the teen's room. She wasn't a typical boy crazy kind of girl, her walls holding portraits of landscapes and buildings considered to be superstructures. Her aspirations were architectural, and it showed. She had no plush dolls like his sister had hoarded, but a collection of robot and mech figures from various animated series ranging from Transformers to Gundam Wing, Eureka 7, and a set of Rockman figures. Many of the toys she had were models she'd personally assembled, her favorite being a Metool she made from scratch with a bowling ball base to the hardhat head. The door to her room was bright yellow with black striping, making it look like some construction warning sign. Obsess much? he thought inwardly. Still, they'd grown up together; he knew her tastes well as anyone.
"How long's she staying?" Tracey asked, noting his interest in her decor. She smiled a bit at a Rockman figure he'd given her for her last birthday.
The boy shrugged. "Mom's having a baby shower in a couple days, so, probably after that's over."
"Ohh...is she really going to stay in Mobius?" Tracey frowned a little bit. She rather liked the older hedgehog; she was like her mom in being able to talk about a range of topics that didn't automatically fall back to how cute a guy was.
"Probably." He shrugged and looked over at her black and yellow door, wishing it wasn't cracked open like it was; anyone could come in. Not her brother, though; he knew he was out with Fennel (one of Charmy's sons, who was a couple years younger than Ash) and Pan (a yellow pangolin) for a day at Twinkle Park.
"You know, if you're distracted we could call it quits for today," the vixen offered. "I mean, you pretty much know this stuff cover to cover, you really need me to help you with this stuff?"
He thought about it a minute. Whenever she said things like that it meant they'd be going their separate ways, but he really wanted to linger today. His mother had been prone to mood swings, and he honestly wasn't interested in watching a glaring match between his sister's mate and their dad for hours on end. He also rather enjoyed the company he had right where he was. "I guess. Oh, still tinkering with robots any?"
"Not so much, that's more Kit's deal," the girl chuckled. She leaned over the edge of her bed, giving Ash a rewarding view of her curvaceous rear end. She pulled a rather thick notebook from it and turned to the once again dazed teen. She suspected it had something to do with her, though she kept her suspicions to herself. "Want to see my building designs?"
"Absolutely!" the boy perked up. This meant he could get closer to her on the bed and lean over her shoulder without being accused of anything. Some genuinely offered praise and critique for her work allowed him to slip an arm around her. Consistent interest allowed him to lean against her. Interest in her best work garnered favorable attention, and a kiss on her cheek was hardly refused. He leaned his nose up against the back of her ears and nuzzled gently; she smelled like honey to him. Jackpot.
Ash was on an emotional high as he returned home that evening, though his parents were less than thrilled. He hadn't called about being home late, and though he was 12, he was still under his parents' roof. Shadow had noticed a feminine scent clinging to him and furrowed his brows a bit.
"Stay late at the Prowers?" he asked from the couch; it was his turn in Mexican Train.
"Yeah." Ash yawned and stretched. "Fiona had me stay for dinner...whew...she cooks biiig meals!" he said a bit exaggeratedly. "I'm kinda tired."
"You don't want to play with us?" Shadow said in the blandest tone one could imagine, though a slightly fanged expression was seen under his unhappy lips and his fingers threatened to snap the domino in his hand.
"Well...not really." He laughed nervously and looked over to the rest of the family. Sara was shooting her mate a concerned look at his strangely antagonistic attitude while she rubbed her belly to soothe both herself and the cargo within. Maria was looking more casual, having taken to wearing a white halter top and a pair of khaki daisy dukes and a white ribbon in her hair. Chase seemed as nervous as he was; Ash's father was not a known source of comfort.
"You don't have to," Sara put in warmly. "Studying go well?"
"Yeah yeah...I think I've got this aced." Ash smiled a reply. His dad was still staring. What?
"How much did you study the books, and how much did you study Tracey?" Shadow inquired calmly.
Ash's cheeks turned bright red. He cleared his throat loudly. "Daad! Come on, we're just friends." He laughed.
"Yeah...just friends..." Shadow's expression was doubtful. "Just remember, 'friends with benefits' is a human concept. We mate for life."
Ash swallowed hard. "We're friends," he insisted once more. He glanced over at the game and sighed. "If you want I could play tomorrow...really, I'm just tired." A short range Chaos Control later, and he was in his bedroom wondering what that was all about. He hadn't done anything with Tracey...yet...nothing that he hadn't done with Lilly anyhow. The lavender bat girl was a regular kissing partner for him, and he'd become quite good at it, which Tracey had just found out tonight. Moments later, Shadow was standing in the teen's doorway. "Hey! You heard of knocking?"
"You have any idea what a dangerous game it is you're playing?" the adult black and red hedgehog said in all seriousness.
"...Eh? What game?" Ash feigned innocence.
Shadow grunted. "You go over to Rouge's, I smell Lilly on you. You go over to Tails', I smell Tracey on you."
The teen shrugged. "That's normal, though, I mean, you're always going to get other's scents on you."
He grimaced. "Not like that." He took a deep sigh. "Tell me you're not trying to carry on a romance with both of them?"
Ash gave a sheepish grin. "Not really...just messing around…."
"Messing around?!" Shadow's tone became angry and the kid shrank back against his bed quickly. "Look...'messing around' is something humans do. We're Mobian!"
The blue and black hedgehog rolled his crimson eyes in typical teen fashion. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're on Earth... You know the saying 'when in Rome'...right?"
Shadow growled and backhanded his son. "You may be on Earth but that doesn't change who or what we are. Just because I'm part alien and was raised in this dimension, does that mean I'm not Mobian?"
"OW!" the boy yelped in surprise after the deafening slap hit his cheek. He barely had time to regain his wits before he gave a weak, somewhat frightened "...No."
"Look...if anything, Maria respects mating more than a typical Mobian...she went far enough to have a wedding." Said wedding, only having passed about a month ago, was still fresh in both their minds. "Some human ideas aren't bad, but the idea of women being a plaything is just...wrong."
"Dad...they're not," Ash protested.
Shadow sighed and sat beside his son. He really should've talked with him sooner about these kinds of things but it had just...never come up. "You've read some Mobian history, right?" His boy nodded. "Don't ever put your scent on someone you don't intend to mate..." Shadow warned. He was at something of a loss for more to say; it was just...common sense to him.
"Yes, Dad." Ash assured him and kicked back on his bed. He wasn't really tired like he said, though after that talk and hearing his mother moaning downstairs because the baby was being rough, he had a few things to mill over. Although he was the youngest of the children born to the core freedom fighters or Sonic Heroes, he was hardly the least mature. He knew his mom was 17 when she was pregnant with Maria, and it was only a month or so after she'd taken Shadow for mate that she'd conceived. He certainly didn't like her sudden moodiness with this child, and the thought of possibly impregnating a girl scared the hell out of him. He just couldn't decide...the intelligent and slightly reserved vixen, or the sensual and passionate Lilly? If he couldn't decide, the lingering scents would inevitably lead to a conflict, either directly between him and the girls or the parents on both sides--Lilly's parents being far scarier with Rouge being a government agent and Nack being a former bounty hunter. He shivered, thinking about such possibilities; all he wanted was a little "fun," and though he was Mobian...his thinking toward women was probably a little too human... For now, he wasn't sure he wanted to decide at all.