Training a King

Sonic stood at the entryway, the curtain clutched in one hand. "You know what Silver." Sonic said quietly. "I'm really glad the two of you are okay." He let the curtain drop as a Silver smiled fondly at him.

Today had been a heck of a day. With his speech, the Eggman attack and the blow of losing part of their attack strategy, there wasn't much to celebrate other than the fact that they were all alive. And for now, Sonic thought wistfully, that was more than enough.

"We have precisely two weeks until the big attack." Knuckles said loudly, his voice carrying over to the small group of rebels that had been invited to the meeting. "It may seem very soon, but we need to attack as soon as possible whilst giving ourselves as much time to prepare as we can afford." Knuckles paused for a moment. "Is there anyone who disputes this date?"

There were general murmurs from the crowd as they considered the date but no one spoke out in disagreement. After being sure that everyone in attendance was in union, Knuckles continued to explain the rest of the plan.

"We will be split into small evenly matched attack groups. This is so we can get the most out of the initial wave of attacks as possible. All of you here today will be leaders of your own groups so I've devised a basic training plan for you all that you can amend to suit your team." Knuckles gestured to a piece of paper that he'd stuck to a board.

"You are all skilled in some area or other, so it is your duty to make sure those who need your specific training get it. The lists of people and timings of sessions are here," Knuckles gestured to a another sheet of paper that he'd tacked up, "and they start bright and early tomorrow morning. Please do make sure you turn up."

The crowd started to talk again but Knuckles quickly cut them off as he interjected with one last thing. "You have basic teams right now, but they'll be re-evaluated at the end of the week. That way, if any changes are made you'll still have a week to get the chemistry in your team right."

There was a firm murmur of appreciation as the team leaders broke off into smaller groups, all attempting to see what they're schedule was like for the week.

Sonic hung back as the small group surged past him, opting to lean against the wall and wait for everyone else to finish instead. He closed his eyes as he waited, and remained that way until a deliberate coughing sound close by broke him out of his trance.

He whipped his head round to where the sound had come from and found a frowning purple cat analysing him.

"Princess Blaze?"

"Why are you slouching Prince Sonic?" Blaze asked simply, her hands folded across her chest accusingly. Sonic was lost for words and just gaped at her before catching himself and fixing his posture. "That's better. Now, stop lazing around and follow me. You're training will begin forthwith."

"Wait, what? Now?" Sonic said, confusion evident in his voice. "But Knuckles said the training doesn't start till tomorrow." He cringed when he realised how childish that sounded.

"Yes, for everyone else it does. But yours starts now Prince Sonic." Blaze said sternly, motioning him to lead the way to the weapons storeroom.

"Fine." Sonic grumbled as he pushed himself off the wall. "But can you drop the 'prince'. It's just Sonic."

"Very well...Sonic." Blaze said uncertainly, as if testing to see if she could actually say it or not. That earned her a pleasant grin from Sonic as he reluctantly led her out of the room.

Blaze was anything but a slacker when it came to teaching someone under her mentoring, much to Sonic's dismay. Sonic groaned and rubbed his arm quickly, attempting to numb the pain of her latest slew of attacks.

"You would be dead already, Sonic." Blaze said simply, her wooden stick spinning effortlessly between her fingers. Sonic's own stick lay forgotten in some corner of the training hall.

Since being outside might give Eggman the opportunity to see them both, even though he already knew of Blaze's presence, as a precaution they had taken to training inside. Sonic preferred it for the fact that he could just crawl into a corner and sleep off a beating from the princess.

Admittedly, said beatings were getting fewer and far between and Sonic could swear he could sometimes even see a hint of pride when he managed to dodge or counteract a difficult attack from her.

They'd been training together for just over a week now and already Blaze had taken a reckless fighter and turned him into a halfway decent warrior.

Sonic collapsed against the wall, his breathing deep and heavy. He held out his hands in front of him in defeat and let his body drop to the ground. "I'm done Blaze. I'm done."

Blaze raised one eyebrow at him but let her arms drop to her side. She sighed and shook her head. "Alright Sonic. We're done for today, but don't expect me to go easy on you tomorrow."

She began to walk away and Sonic could've sworn he heard her mutter something about a 'slacker' as she left. He grimaced in pain as he pushed himself off the ground. Yep, tomorrow was going to hurt like hell.

Sonic traced a finger lightly along a sword hung carelessly on the wall. It wasn't all that sharp he surmised, but given some force it could do quite a bit of damage. He sighed as he glanced around the rest of the weapons chamber.

He'd been here waiting for Tails for at least ten minutes now and Sonic was getting pretty bored looking at the pieces of metal scattered around the room.

He leaned against a rack of poles, even he had no idea what weapon they were supposed to be but the rebels had to make do with whatever they could get their hands on. The metal rattled against each other before coming to rest against the wall.

Sonic closed his eyes. If Tails was gonna take his time then he might as well use the free time to grab a wink or two. Especially since training and planning took so much out of his day and strength. He felt his mind slip into a quiet embrace.

It wasn't long before he was shaken out of his dreams. He hazily glanced around him to see who'd woke him up and was surprised to see Amy Rose standing across from him, arms crossed over her chest.

"Sleeping on the job huh Prince Sonic." She said with a playful smirk.

Sonic jolted into an upright position and awkwardly held out his hand before realising what he was doing and pretending that he was just scratching his head. Amy stood up straight and began to walk down the rows of weapons.

Sonic sleepily stretched his arms and yawned as he silently followed the pink hedgehog.

"Tails and Cream are waiting for you down the other side of the hall. They didn't want to wake you earlier."

He kept after the hedgehog until they rounded a corner and at the far back he saw his oldest friend chatting to that rabbit he'd met when he'd arrived. He'd quickly learned that Cream was Amy's best friend and those alone was enough for him to trust her.

Cream and Tails were chatting quietly, obviously not realising that Sonic and Amy had arrived, and as Sonic watched them a thought came to him. He reached out and grabbed Amy's wrist to stop her and she turned around in alarm.

He was about to ask Amy the question that had come to him when he heard Tails shout his name loudly. Both hedgehogs turned and hesitantly walked over to where Tails was. Amy walked ahead, and after taking a few step she turned to look questioningly at Sonic.

"Don't worry, we'll talk later." He whispered as he shook his head just enough for her to notice. She nodded and continued on ahead, embracing the rabbit in a warm hug as she reached her. Sonic got a respectful nod from his friend.

"You're finally up huh." Tails said jokingly.

Sonic rubbed his head, obviously embarrassed that he'd been caught sleeping at a time like this. "Yeah, uh, sorry about that."

"Don't worry about it, we had things covered." Tails said, glancing at Cream. That's when Sonic realised that the both of them had clipboards in their hands, with barely intelligible markings scattered across the paper. He frowned as he tried to decipher what they meant but no dice.

"What are you guys doing anyway." Sonic asked, gesturing to the boards

"Oh, these? We're cataloguing the equipment. We need to know exactly what we have and what we need for the attack." Tails explained. "We need to make sure we have enough robot smashing equipment to go around for the big attack."

"Is there anything I can help with." Sonic asked, suddenly perking up.

Cream frowned in thought and Sonic couldn't help but realise that Tail's looking at her in a way he couldn't describe as anything other than 'enchanted'. Maybe that thought he'd had earlier hadn't been just a hunch after all.

"Well Mister Sonic, there's the next section down that still has to be done. I think that's all that's left actually." She looked over to Tails for confirmation and the kitsune nodded in response.

"That's right. Just grab a board and write down how many types of each weapon there are in that area."

Sonic nodded and grabbed a pencil and board and began to trot off to the next corridor when he heard Amy's voice from behind him.

"Hey wait up! I'll help you with that." She said as she scooped up a board for herself and joined him. Sonic couldn't mask the surprise on his face as they rounded into the next corridor. Did Amy just volunteer to spend time with him?

Once they were safely out of view and earshot of the other two Sonic stopped and turned to look at Amy, his eyebrows raised.

"What?" Amy asked simply.

"You." Sonic replied eyeing her suspiciously. "You sure you wouldn't rather be anywhere else than with me right now?"

Amy frowned and stalked past him. "Don't make me regret my decision Sonic." She made her way to the end of the corridor and glanced around the walls which were hung with many different weapons. "I'll start from this wall. You start from that side, okay?"

"Sure thing Ames." Sonic joined her at the end of the corridor and began to examine the wall opposite to the one she 'd begun working on.

They'd made it halfway through the section in silence, with nothing but the scritch scratch of pencil on paper and the occasional rattle of metal on metal. Sonic was getting really bored and antsy and he needed something to distract his mind as he continued to jot down the weapon stock they had.

"So... earlier I wanted to ask but I think I already know my answer now." He started, his eyes focused on his work. "Tail's and Cream."

"What about them?"

"They're kinda a thing, aren't they?"

Amy paused and for a moment Sonic thought that she might not have heard him. He waited a while longer and she finally replied. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"That took an awful lot of thinking for such a simple answer." Sonic stated, turning to look at Amy. He was surprised to see that she was looking at him too, but as they're eyes met she quickly turned away.

"I was debating whether to tell you to ask them yourselves." She replied quickly. "But then I realised that making you do that was more trouble than it was worth."

Sonic laughed softly. He didn't totally understand her reasoning but her flustered tone was more than enough to sate him and he returned to his work in silence.

"All right! I'm all done." Sonic said cheerfully after a while, holding the clipboard up to Amy as proof.

"Great." Amy said with a sigh of relief. "I've been done for the past twenty minutes." Amy responded as she picked herself off the floor and flipped her own board around to show a page full of doodles. Sonic tried to work out what she'd drawn but the girl flipped it around so quickly he didn't get a chance.

"If you finished ages ago, why didn't you just go?" Sonic asked, unable to mask the confusion in his eyes.

"Would you rather I left you alone?" She asked, and part of Sonic couldn't help but admire how dedicated she was to avoiding answering his questions properly. It was always another question.

"Not really." He said as he followed her out into the main corridor. She turned to head to the corridor Tails and Cream were working in but Sonic's attention was drawn elsewhere. He slowed to a stop in front of a podium he'd missed before.

A long staff was placed on the podium, delicately engraved with ancient markings. Sonic ran a hand up the staff until he came to the claws at the head of the staff. The claws that once held a powerful gem were now bent at odd angles, dangerously sharp. It was beautiful he thought, but without the gem, utterly useless.

"Your mother's staff." Amy's voice behind him was soft and kind. Sonic took a deep hard breath.

"I had this during my speech but I didn't even get a chance to look at it properly." He said, his voice quiet and threatening to shake. "I thought Eggman had this. How did you guys even manage to get it?"

"We got it back a couple of months ago in a raid mission." Amy said. "It was all pointless though. Eggman took the gem out and without it, it's just a stick." As she spoke, Sonic couldn't help but notice that all the edginess she'd shown towards him had melted away. She might not have forgiven him, but she was definitely not holding it over him anymore.

"My mother, she had it on her the day that she..." Sonic choked on his words as he felt a warm pressure build up behind his eyes. He sniffed and let out a deep breath as he stared at his mother's staff. He felt a warm pressure on his shoulder and he turned his head just enough to see Amy's fingers gripping his shoulder firmly.

He placed his own on top of hers and stared at the staff for what felt like an eternity. He didn't know how long he had been stood there staring at the staff. All he knew was that it was probably a lot longer than he should have. When he was ready, he turned away and took a couple of steps away. He faced Amy and she looked at him worriedly.

"You must be hungry." She said quietly. "Let's go get something to eat." Amy turned away from him and led him back outside, dropping the clipboards off to Tails on the way. As they left the corridor Tails and Cream were still working in, Amy reached out and grabbed Sonic's hand. She squeezed it reassuringly and Sonic sent her a thankful smile.

She didn't say anything, just held onto him as he fought with his feelings. Sonic didn't feel like talking and he was grateful for the small kindness she'd shown him in not pushing the subject further. There was still some sort of tension between the two of them, but there was also a kinder familiarity between them as well. Just enough that, for that moment, Sonic let himself hope for something more. Something better. Not just for himself, but for all his people.

Thank you so much for reading. Drop me a review if you can and let me know what you thought. Until next time, chao :)