Chapter 11: Bad Information
"I'm just saying, what kind of magic would need us to to find insect legs?" Nikki was conversing with Nebula as the two traveled through a particularly mountainous area. Their first job needed them to go looking for some 'special shop' that held some 'practical' magic recipes. As it turns out, this shop was located somewhere in the mountains and also held some questionable ingredients.
"Look, there's probably lots of stuff about magic that we don't know about, so it doesn't really matter what the hell she uses, just so long as it turns me back to normal." Nights wasn't really sure if Nikki was taking this situation seriously considering how many stupid questions she asked. This whole time she just kept blabbering some irrelevant rambling over the weirdness of magic and frankly it was starting to get on Nights' nerves.
The mountains weren't too far away from the hidden lake they were at, at least not by their standards. In fact, it was an even closer run than it was to Mystic Ruins, which was also jogging distance for the two hedgehogs.
They continued to run up the mountains at incredibly high speeds. According to Zorra's directions, the shop should be located at the highest mountain within the area, but of course she forgot to give a description of the shop itself, so Nikki and Nights were aimlessly climbing upwards in hopes they would find a shack or something else that resembled a shop.
The mountains themselves weren't particularly high, but they were somewhat steep and had it's fair share of large boulders; of course, this only made the journey more fun for Nikki and slightly more annoying for Nights. They continued to run around, jump over, or even spin dash straight though some of the boulders and picked up their pace as the mountain steepened.
Nikki took the lead and continued to show off. As she jumped over yet another boulder and landed on a ledge she looked down at Nights and yelled. "Hey Nights! Zorra said that the shop was at the TOP of the mountain! What are you still doing down there?"
Nights cringed at the casual insult at her speed. "I'm not in the mood for this crap right now!" She yelled as she climbed up and caught up with Nikki. During their adventures together, it was part of their dynamic that Sonic would throw some casual insults while Shadow may come up with a sarcastic retort, and vice versa. But right now, Nights felt that Nikki was being way too annoying when she should probably take this more seriously. Just because Nikki was a girl for now, it doesn't mean that she was any less punchable.
Both continued to race as they neared the top of the mountain. Once again, Nikki took the lead. As she neared the peak, she quickly scanned the area for anything that might be peculiar. She ran up to another ledge and noticed something to the side that may not seem to out of place for most mountain climbers. She turned her head to Nights who had slowed down to stand beside her.
"Hey, call me crazy, but think I found a place to set up shop." Nikki pointed her finger to a tall cave that presided far away from the tip of the ledge they were standing on.
"I guess that wouldn't TOO weird for someone to set up a magic shop." Nights said. Maybe you do have a brain in that airhead of yours." She casually remarked.
"Hey! I have just as much brains as you," Nikki replied with a tone of false hurt.
"Oh please. If we were to crank up the stereotypes, you would have turned into a blonde valleygirl."
"Well, blonde or not, I still make a prettier girl than you." Nikki laughed at her remark while Nights simply rolled her eyes without her usual look of annoyance.
The entrance to the cave was roughly around the same dimensions of a home entrance door. Nikki walked in first while Nights followed closely behind, both using their phones to illuminate the dark cave. With their phones slightly illuminating the cave interior, they found that the cave didn't really have anything unusual inside it. It was dark, musty, and had slightly damp, bumpy walls. It felt like every other cliche cave that they've seen in TV or movies. However, the cave seemed to go much deeper, so they felt it a little necessary to at least explore it further.
Walking further and further down the cave with nothing but the dim lights of their phones to light the way, Nights noticed that the pathway became more and more narrow and developed some very long twists and curves. "I think we've traveled too far in. I really doubt that even some crazed wizard would set a shop this far in the cave."
"Yeah. We should just turn back and…." Before Nikki could finish her thought, both of their phone lights immediately blacked out.
(Meanwhile)
Nebula and Amy were standing at the entrance of Sonic and Shadow's upstairs apartment. Amy had already rung the doorbell around three times and was now impatiently tapping her finger against the doorbell hundreds of times per second.
"Looks like they're not home either," Nebula said worriedly. 'Maybe they fought those robots and didn't make it back. No… that's unlikely.' They flew to the sight of the explosion to check if there was any unfinished business, and after some flying around, they found the remains of the robots, both found in different places and clearly not functioning thanks to the signature attacks of their boyfriends. There were even some people gathered around the remains of these robots. Though nobody stuck around to witness the actual fight, plenty of people were taking pictures of the aftermath and posting them on the internet.
Nebula waited for Amy to stop ringing the doorbell before she finally took out her phone. "I'm gonna call Shadow one more time." She dialed his number and put the phone to her ear, but rather than hearing the ring of the phone on the other end, a message was immediately played saying that the person was currently unavailable. This only worried her more.
"He's not picking up," she said.
"Well I'm not just gonna stand here and wait for them to just come back," Amy said. She remembered how Sonic once said that he hid a spare key in a super secret location. So naturally, she bent down and found the spare key hidden under the welcome matt. She stood back up, put in the spare key, and walked in while Nebula followed closely behind.
Walking in, there was nothing particularly strange or out of place for an apartment. Nebula noticed there was a depression in the couch, showing that someone was sleeping there and a door leading to a bedroom was wide open, possibly because they were leaving in a hurry.
'Maybe they left as soon as they heard that Eggman was on the loose,' she speculated.
Meanwhile, Amy continued to walk around the apartment, looking for smaller clues of what could've happened. She walked up to the couch, took note of the compression in it, and noticed that the Dreamcast in front of the couch had one of it's controllers uncurled and that said controller was right beneath the couch.
'I guess Sonic was up all night playing with that thing again,' Amy thought with an amused smile. 'I wonder what he sees in it.'
She continued to walk around the apartment and looked into Shadow's room. Amy could tell it was Shadow's room due to how neatly organized everything seemed to be; DVDs and CDs were organized in their shelves, photos were upright and evenly spaced around his desk, and his guns were neatly polished and properly hung up on the wall. 'Well that's not creepy at all… Then again, Nebula has done some weird stuff too.'
After some quick inspecting, she immediately noticed that the bed was the only thing out of place. The covers were strewn around the floor and the bed itself was disheveled. 'He must have been in a hurry.' Both of the girls had come to the same conclusion, but they were no closer to finding out just where their boyfriends had gone.
Amy stepped to the side as Nebula approached the doorway to the bedroom. Nebula could guess that it was Shadow's room using the same deductive reasoning that Amy did, though she was more admirable of Shadow's arsenal of weapons. Despite the fact that there were no new clues that helped them figure out where their boyfriends were or what had happened to them, Nebula had one last idea before she gave up her search. She walked up to Shadow's desk and looked through. 'I really hate to look through people's privacy, but if Shadow kept what I told him to, maybe I can get a clue as to what happened."
She dug through the contents of two drawers, one filled with electronics and the other filled with reading materials such as philosophy books and magazines on weapons and vehicles. By the third drawer, Nebula had found what she was looking for, reaching in and pulling out a medium-sized black book that simply said "Journal" on the cover.
Opening it up to the inner cover she found Shadow's handwriting saying "If found, return to PO Box 8014 Gene St., or else." Not wanting to look at the rest of Shadow's inner thoughts from previous days, she skimmed through the book till she found the page that was last written on. 'If he's been using this like I said, this page should say what he might have been up to today or at earliest, last night.'
It had been Nebula that suggested that Shadow keep a daily journal in the first place. Like Shadow, Nebula had her own inner demons thanks to a rather traumatic past, and she explained to him that keeping a journal was a healthy way to vent some stressful thoughts without closing yourself off to the rest of the world. Though Shadow was insistent that such a thing was unnecessary, she had sweet talked him into begrudgingly give in, and appearantly, he's been writing in it ever since.
Though she never once dreamed that she would be digging into his privacy like this, the journal was probably the only thing that could tell them what's going on with her missing boyfriend. After all, when your boyfriend is threatened by an attack from a robotic version of himself built by an ingenious arch enemy of his earlier today, it's only natural to feel concerned.
She sat on the floor in her jeans with a book in her hand while Amy quietly watched with curious eyes. Nebula took a deep breath and finally opened her eyes to look at the date that was written on the page. Much to her relief, it was the same date as today and judging by the time that Shadow wrote, this was long before the 'Metal Sonic and Shadow incident.'
'August 8, 2014- 10:30 AM:
I've had some pretty off days before, but this… I don't even know what to call it.'
This caught Nebula's interest.
'I woke up today in the weirdest possible situation, and as it turns out, the same thing happened to Sonic last night in the living room. I have no idea how this happened. Maybe somebody spiked my drink last night, but even that doesn't explain what happened.
Now that I know what seems to have happened to me, I can't help but feel….. violated.'
Nebula was visibly shocked by these words. Though she was glad that he was using the journal to open up, she never imagined that Shadow would express words like this. She thought that Shadow told her nearly everything, but even she couldn't imagine him saying something like this. And the worst part about this is that nowhere does it say the cause of Shadow's distress, as if he was ashamed to admit it to even himself, and his vague description made her rather nervous.
'Sonic… or Nikki… is in the shower right now, getting ready to go out and find whoever's responsible for this. I just hope that Nebula, or any of Sonic's friends, never finds out what happened.'
Nebula gasped as she read this part. Who was this Nikki? Why would she be in Sonic and Shadow's shower? What does Sonic have to do with this? Should she tell Amy? How would Amy react? Why couldn't Shadow tell them what's going on? What was Shadow talking about?
She kept on reading, her nose practically touching the page.
'Once we're done getting ready for today, we'll head out to retrace our steps from yesterday. Maybe this will get things cleared up.'
This was where the passage ends. Nebula stared at the next blank page, completely dumbfounded and unsure of what she just read. Amy saw just how shocked Nebula seemed and walked over to her. "Hey. You alright? What did you read in there?"
Nebula finally blinked once again after what seemed like an eternity. Seeming to ignore Amy, she reread the passage much more quickly this time, trying to slow down her breathing. She read the last sentence one more time and finally looked up at Amy one last time.
"Amy, you said that Sonic took you to the mall yesterday, the same one we were at today, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
Nebula stood up from her criss-cross position and looked Amy directly in the eyes. "Amy, from what I've read, we need to retrace our steps from yesterday if we want to see what's up with our boyfriends," she said in a cold voice. She then thought back to the two girls at the mall that had helped them all too conveniently. "And call it a hunch, but I think it has something to do with those girls that took us to the hospital."
AN: Yet another cliffhanger. So now Nebula's read into Shadow's journal, and it seems that she might have gotten the wrong idea. That's what happens when you dig through peoples personal thoughts.
On a sidenote, you may have noticed that little line that alluded to Nebula's "traumatic past." I said before that I won't delve too much into the past of Nebula the Hedgehog's characters, but that doesn't mean I can't allude to them. With that being said, yes, I've read some of their origin stories written by Nebula the Hedgehog and no, I don't associate them within the same realm as this story. Quite frankly, I'd rather keep her backstory here a mystery than directly reference what Nebula the Hedgehog wrote.
Next chapter, Amy and Nebula begin their own investigation while Sonic and Shadow continue in their quest of manliness.
