Cripes. I just realized that it's been a year since I last updated. No wonder you all thought I was dead.
-Tails' POV-
Sally, Fiona, Julie-Su, Honey, Mina, Typhoon, Sonic, Knuckles, Silver, Shadow, Jet, Amy, Cream, Rouge, Blaze, Tikal, Wave, Storm, Scourge, Espio, Mighty, Shade, Cosmo, and I were in Health the day we received our eggs for the egg project. It was the first week of October when Ms. Doe walked in with a clipboard and a tray of eggs. Everyone looked up in nervous excitement as she sat down and placed the carton on the table. She looked up to make sure we were all paying attention. I looked over at Amy nervously. She seemed to be half asleep.
This couldn't be good.
"As you all know," Ms. Doe began, "we are starting a new project today. This is the first day of the much-anticipated Egg Baby project." Sonic groaned from his seat next to me, obviously not excited about taking care of something that delicate. "Yes, Mr. Hedgehog?" The woman asked from the front of the class. Sonic, Shadow, and Silver all looked up. "Now if there will not be anymore outbursts you may choose your partner who will take care of the egg with you. If there are different amounts of girls and boys, you may be paired with someone of the same gender. Understood?"
We all nodded, eager to begin picking partners. No one wanted to be paired with someone who was the same gender as them, I suspected. "Okay, first up is Sally Acorn. Who would you like?"
The chipmunk turned around in her seat to wink at Sonic. "Sonic."
"Okay, Storm Albatross?"
The large bird scanned the room with an uninterested look. Wave looked away from him in either anger or nervousness before his eyes stopped on Typhoon. "Uh…Typhoon, the blue bird." Her beak dropped in shock and she choked a little.
"B-b-but…"
"Mighty Armadillo?"
He scanned the room carefully. "She's wearing the same color that I am," he muttered, "and she's hot." Then he spoke directly to Ms. Doe. "I'll take Honey." The cat shrugged, glad that she didn't end up with a girl, figuring that Blaze's name came before hers.
"Rouge Bat?"
Knuckles cast a sorrowful glance in Julie-Su's direction before glaring at Rouge. "Knuckles, I want Knuckles!" The bat said happily. Julie-Su sighed and the red echidna put his head down on his desk.
"Okay, Blaze Cat?"
She frowned and blushed at the same time as she muttered, "Silver." My friend smiled a little bit nervously. The cat hadn't spoken to any of us much since the meeting a week ago.
"Espio Chameleon?"
The boy looked around uninterestedly before stopping on Shade, a tan echidna in two rows over. "Her…the echidna girl." Shade blushed a little, obviously happy not to be one of the last people picked.
"Julie-Su Echidna?"
Since Knuckles was already taken, she frowned unhappily and scanned the room. The people left were Amy, Jet, Wave, Scourge, Mina, Shadow, Tikal, Cream, Cosmo, and myself. Typhoon and Mina glared at her pointedly, and she focused her attention on Amy, Wave, Mina, Tikal, Cream, Scourge, and Cosmo. The girl seemed unsure until Sally made a noise in the back of her throat. The chipmunk pointed to Amy with a devious smile.
"Um okay, I'll take Amy."
Ms. Doe raised an eyebrow. "You want to be one of our female partnerships?"
"Yes?" It sounded more like a question than a statement as the echidna looked to Sally. Sally nodded. "Yes."
"Okay then. Fiona Fox?"
My heart clenched as the girl turned to stare at me like a piece of meat. Crap. I had wanted to be paired with Cosmo, or even Cream. Just anyone except Fiona.
"I'll take Tails, of course." A sour knot formed in my stomach. Everyone looked at me questionably, and I was sure I had gone pale.
Ms. Doe shook her head despondently. "Next is Jet Hawk."
Wave, Mina, Tikal, and Cream glared at him while Cosmo seemed uninterested. The hawk gulped nervously. I already knew who he wanted to pick. "Can I work with Wave?" The swallow growled a little bit, indicating that she didn't think so.
Ms. Doe blinked. "Of course you can," she stated as she wrote his decision down. "Scourge Hedgehog?"
The hedgehog took his feet off the desk in front of him and looked around, uninterested. He stated his thoughts out loud. Looking at Shadow he muttered, "well I'm not gay." Then Scourge looked carefully over Cream, Cosmo, and Tikal, "and I'm not that clean." His eyes stopped on Mina, who had almost as many piercings as him. "Yeah, she'll do. I'll take Mina, teach."
Ms. Doe glared at him for a moment before writing down his choice. "Almost done. Shadow Hedgehog?"
My ebony teammate looked over the three remaining girls. "I don't know."
Patiently, Ms. Doe turned to Cream. "Who would you like to work with?"
The rabbit looked confused. Looking at Tikal, who was giving her pleading eyes and then at Cosmo she blinked. The echidna clearly didn't want to work with Shadow. Something in Cream's eyes lit up curiously as she looked at Cosmo, then me. "I'll work with Cosmo."
Tikal let out an exasperated breath. Even Shadow seemed annoyed.
Ms. Doe wrote down the final choices before rolling up her clipboard. "That's it then. Everyone line up in front of my desk and get your eggs."
Sally and Sonic got up first, and seemed to be one of the few pairs who actually seemed happy. Storm and Typhoon both seemed content, but not overly excited. Mighty and Honey flirted with each other a little bit. Knuckles looked dismayed with his partner and Rouge looked a little angry. Silver seemed to be nervous next to Blaze, who still tried o avoid him despite their partnership.
Espio and Shade chatted amiably about weapons, which was something of a common interest to them. Julie-Su seemed a little disgusted with Amy who was still a little out of it. Jet tried to scoot away from Wave who looked ready to wring his neck. Scourge was heavily flirting with Mina, who blushed and tried to keep up. Shadow and Tikal both faced away from each other in annoyance. Cream seemed to be trying to start a conversation with Cosmo.
As Fiona and I neared the front of the line, I still tried to get away from her hungry glare. The girl just made me nervous for some reason.
Once we all received our eggs, we filed out of the room. I went straight to English class. As the late bell rung, Amy ran into the room looking dazed and confused. I thought I saw a detention slip in her hand as she sat down.
-Rouge's POV-
At the end of the day, our whole health class waited outside deciding where they should go. Scourge, Espio, and Mighty immediately left with their partners Mina, Shade, and Honey. We all agreed that the girls would each go to their own house with whoever they were partnered with. That only left the issue of Julie-Su and Amy.
"Julie-Su should come with us! Your friend Pinky here is asleep anyway," Sally argued.
Wave snorted. "For some reason, I don't really trust you guys to take care of her."
"What's the worst we could do?" Fiona said, smiling sweetly.
Blaze smirked. "I don't know, Fiona," she said sarcastically, "for some reason I just don't trust you."
"Mina and Honey are already gone," Typhoon whined, "at least let us keep one of our friends."
Tails coughed. "Do we get any say in this?"
The girls glared at him. "No!"
I spoke up. "Let them have Julie-Su," I said with a shrug. Truthfully, I just didn't want Knuckles to be talking to her the whole time we were supposed to be working. It would take away the point of me picking him as my partner.
Cream, Blaze, Wave, and Tikal looked at me strangely. "Why?" Tikal asked suspiciously.
"There's already plenty of people coming over our house. And," I added, looking at my phone's clock, "we can't be here all day."
Sally's eyes lit up. "Well, that's it then girls," she chuckled as she lead Sonic, Fiona, Tails, Julie-Su, Amy, Typhoon and Storm away. "See you around!"
My friends all looked at me strangely. I shrugged.
-Tails' POV-
Fiona had been half-pulling me along by my fur, but let me go once we were inside of her house. It seemed to be a standard GUN mansion, really. The whole residence seemed to be a carbon copy of the building I lived in. We all sat down in the living room, which had two couches. One was big and the other was small. There was also a single-seating love seat in the corner.
Sally made her way over to the couch, swinging her hips as she went. Sonic followed her over like a lost puppy and two sat next to each other. Typhoon and Storm headed into the kitchen to work on their project on their own while I went for the single seating love seat.
The fox that was my partner snagged my collar, of course.
She seated both of us on the other couch near Sally and Sonic. I immediately tried to scoot away from her. Fiona smiled and scooted closer. "So Fiona," I asked as I continued to try and keep my distance, "how do you want to split up caring for the egg?"
"How about every other day," Fiona suggested as she scooted closer once more.
I gulped. There was no way I wanted to be forced to be with her every day if I could help it. "Or we could each do half of the week," I recommended quickly.
The fox glowered at me for a moment. I flinched nervously. Fiona forced herself to smile and moved closer to me once again. "Oh-oh-okay," she stuttered out. "I'll take it first then."
I looked over at Sonic and Sally, who actually appeared to not be getting anything done. I was ready to get out of there. "Are you two almost done?" I asked. "I have to get home and get my math homework done-" Sally glared at me.
"Then go home and do your precious math homework," she spat. "Sonic's staying here." I looked at Sonic questioningly.
He gave me an apologetic look. "Well if my buddy needs to go-"
I lowered my eyelids, seeing that my best friend had no intention on leaving. "Right. I'll just go then," I explained as I headed for the door. Fiona glared at me and sighed.
"Bye Tails," she muttered.
-Silver's POV-
More than once on the way home Wave tried to sneak away so she didn't have to work with Jet. Blaze eventually grabbed onto the bird's hand to keep her from slipping away. Tikal seemed frustrated by the whole charade but she might have been ticked off in general. Shadow is always grumpy, and Jet and I were both feeling awkward. Rouge was flirting with Knuckles who seemed just about ready to explode. Even Cream strayed in the back interrogating Cosmo who looked nervous.
When we reached the girls' mansion it seemed to be the typical one from GUN. Wave slapped her hand out of Blazes' with a growl and opened the door. The room we went into had two couches and a love seat for one person.
Wave, Tikal, Blaze, and Knuckles all pounced for the love seat. After a brief scuffle Wave sat in the single seat. With dejected expressions everyone else dispersed. Knuckles stomped into the kitchen while Tikal and Blaze huffed and sat down on the couches. Anxiously, I sat next to Blaze while Shadow frowned and sat down next to Tikal. Rouge smiled and followed the red echidna into the kitchen.
"You can have the egg today. It doesn't matter to me," the purple cat muttered while facing away from me. Nervous about talking to her, I tried to read her mind first to see what her problem was. That decision caused me to flinch in pain as if I was hit with a wall of fire. "Don't," was the only word I could get.
"Ouch," I muttered as Blaze turned around. She muttered something, but I didn't quite hear her.
"I said I'm sorry," she clarified in a louder voice.
I gave her a confused look. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she shot out. "Do you have the egg?"
"Yeah," I answered as I pulled the egg out of my bag. "Do you want to hold it?"
Blaze gave an unamused laugh. "You want the fire freak to hold the egg?" I cocked my head in confusion.
"Fire freak?"
-Shadow's POV-
I was looking at Cream interrogating Cosmo for information about her relationship with Tails when I noticed Tikal pull a Ziploc container containing the egg out of her bag. Her usual good manners were clearly put behind her for the time being. "We're switching the egg every other day," she ordered.
I narrowed my eyes. "Why would I do that?"
"I don't trust you with something this delicate," she stated as she turned her nose in the air. "You're likely to break it."
I snorted. "Fine."
-Wave's POV-
Jet followed me into the kitchen when I got up. He really had been following me too much lately. I know it couldn't have been hard to see that I wanted to be left alone. Plus, I was about three steps away from throttling that hawk.
"Stop it hawk," I ordered angrily.
He lowered his eyelids and crossed his arms. "Wave, we have to decide on the egg days."
I raised my eyebrows. Since when did he get an attitude with me? I thought Jet was still halfway terrified of me. "Okay then. Which days to you want?"
The hawk shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me," he replied nonchalantly. I rolled my eyes and began to walk away. "Or," he said quickly, "we could just each take it for a week."
I snorted. "I'm not doing a whole week."
"Half a week?"
I finally looked him straight in the eye. "Fine." We were both silent for a moment. "So," I drawled, "why did you join GUN anyway? I thought you hated all that hero stuff."
The hawk grabbed his backpack and got ready to leave. He blushed a little and muttered, "I was trying to find you." With that he left the room, laving me leaning against the counter, stunned.
-Typhoon's POV-
I sat on the counter of the kitchen I had lead Storm into. "Okay bird boy. We're splitting up this egg thing by a week each," I ordered. The albatross nodded.
"Hey," he barked. I looked at him strangely. "Watch your attitude girlie. I might actually turn out to be someone you can deal with." He had a strange glint in his beady eyes.
I leaned forward, intrigued. "How so?"
"You hate Wave, right?" Storm asked, although I was sure he already knew the answer. "Well so do I. We actually go back. Way back," he said smoothly. I smirked.
"Do tell."
"Basically, we used to be in a gang of thieves together." I looked at him skeptically. People with criminal records can't join GUN on their own. But I couldn't tell him about the organization.
"What happened?" I asked curiously.
A smile overcame Storm's beak. "Funny you should ask."
-Knuckles' POV-
I glared at Rouge as I headed downstairs to get rid of her. "Come on, Knuckie," she teased. "If we're going to be parents you should stay with me. I like it down here with just us all alone."
Growling, I spun on her. "Batgirl," I barked, "we are not parents, we are partners. And I don't even like you that much. I don't know where you get off talking to me like you do. Plus, I didn't even want to be your partner. I wanted to work with Julie-Su and you knew that. Stop worrying about only your goals for once and care about someone else you self centered witch!"
The bat blinked once. "Did you just tell me off?" I nodded briskly. "Fine then," she growled. "I don't like disgusting boy echidnas like you anyway. I'll go to school tomorrow and switch partners if that's what you want me to do. Amy probably needs me more," and then she looked at my spiked gloves. "And she won't break the egg."
"Perfect," I growled as I stomped upstairs and out the door. I could feel Rouge's eyes on my back as I left, almost expecting me to turn around.
Sadly for her, I had no intention on staying.
-Julie-Su's POV-
We were all having a great time messing with Amy, who was only about half awake. Sonic seemed to be a little uncomfortable with it but listened when Sally asked him sweetly to go along. We were just about to finish our makeup job on the pink hedgehog's face when all of our GUN communicators rang.
Secretary Penny's voice rang throughout the room. "We may have a mission for all of you. Meet Chief Vulcan and I on the school roof next week on Monday for your briefing. Continues as normal until the meeting while we gather information. That is all."
We looked at each other in confusion. What type of mission would involve three GUN agents from the school?
Sorry Keiji.
