To SunSera: You're quite right! We're about a halfway through. (The whole story is planned out to take place over a 7-day period.) And, yes, references and Easter eggs, I like to sprinkle them thorough the story. The underground tournament is kind-of a reference too. In the Archie comics it was said that at one point Rouge used to participate in illegal tournaments and it really seemed like something Game!Rouge would do too. And if I like wisps? Yeah, I just haven't found the right opportunity to use them yet.

AN: Thank you for all your lovely comments/kudos/favorites/etc.! I'm really sorry this took so long. University has been busy.

Chapter 21: Don't Shoot the Messenger

Giving yourself a moment to self-reflect can be an amazing tool for self-discovery; it can help you realize many things about yourself that you haven't before.

Unfortunately for Sonic, his moment was cut short when a certain terrified-looking yellow squirrel flew out of the woods as if his tail had been set on fire and a confusing mix of red and black fur tumbled out right after him.

This fur was soon identified as one clearly pissed echidna and an exasperated-looking hedgehog. The two were snarling at each other, Knuckles throwing all the punches with Shadow either evading or blocking them and not putting in any of his own.

Taking Shadow's lack of offensive moves as a clue the agent hadn't been the one to start this unforeseen death-match, Sonic focused on shouting at Knuckles.

"Hey! Cut it out, knucklehead!" he yelled, immediately rushing towards the fighting duo to break them apart. He had no clue what could have possibly transpired between the two in the last twenty minutes to trigger this fight but he wouldn't put it past Knuckles to start a fight just because he thought Shadow was 'trespassing' or something like that; Knuckles was quite paranoid about all kind of guests since Eggman. "We're not here to fight!"

"Sonic?!" The look Knuckles shot him was a mixture of confusion and alarm. However, after seeing it was indeed him, the guardian's expression quickly morphed back to the anger from moments ago. Purple eyes narrowed dangerously as Knuckles made a menacing step towards him and jabbed a hand towards him. "You brought him here, didn't you?!"

Uh-oh. Making a small tentative step back, Sonic's whole body tensed in anxious anticipation at the other's hostile behavior. He had no idea what he had done to earn the echidna's wrath—well, obviously it had to do something with bringing Shadow here, but he had no freaking clue how—but obviously Knuckles was in a pummel-first-talk-later mood, so de-escalation was in order before he could even get a proper explanation from the echidna.

Fortunately, for him, he had somebody that Knuckles wasn't angry with to do that for him.

"Knuckles, stop! Calm down!" Mighty rushed over, grabbing the echidna just as he seemed about to lunge and not budging even when the other tried to jerk from his hold; Mighty might be smaller in stature than Knuckles but that didn't made him any less an absolute powerhouse than the guardian. "There's no need for violence!" Mighty continued, insistent, not wanting anyone to get hurt as the pacifist he was. "They're not here to fight but to talk!"

"Talk?" Knuckles repeated, stopping his struggle for the moment, the purple eyes first shooting to Mighty, then Shadow and finally to Sonic, who nodded ever so slightly. The echidna's drawn-up shoulders seemed to sink a little at that and his expression seemed to lose most of the aggression; the guardian still looked tense as if planning to jump into battle at any moment, but the murderous aura was no longer there.

Assuming this meant Knuckles didn't meant to fight anymore, Mighty let him go. Ans truly Knuckles didn't try to lunge again. He just huffed and rubbed his forearms on where Mighty had hold onto him with a look of displeasure on his face.

His tone reflected the look on his face as he barked, "About what?" towards Sonic.

"We, um—" Sonic cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly. "—We need you to use the Master to find us the green Chaos Emerald."

For whatever reason, that simple sentence seemed to be enough to open the floodgates of Knuckles' anger again. The guardian's face twisted and his voice got back its dangerous edge. "You mean the Chaos Emerald this guy—" Knuckles jabbed his hand in Shadow's direction. "—and the damned bat—" Knuckles very much growled the word. "—stole from me two weeks ago? You mean that emerald?"

Sonic blinked. Okay, that explains why Knuckles has attacked Shadow, but— "Shadow?" Sonic asked, his tone being enough to convey the question.

However, Shadow didn't immediately confirm his involvement in the heist. His brows furrowed as if in deep thought and then Shadow seemed to have some a kind of 'oh' moment of realization.

His gaze locked back with Sonic's, thought it took a moment longer before Shadow was able to get a formulated answer out as the adrenaline of his fight with Knuckles had started dropping by now. "I...not know what she was up to. I only take she here."

However, Shadow's odd wording didn't escape the others' notice, judging by the multiple confused looks the agent was suddenly regarded with. Knuckles even seemed to forget his anger in his confusion, the emotion giving away to bafflement. "Why does he talk so weird?" he asked, looking at the agent searchingly. "...I haven't hit him that hard," he added a tad defensively.

Sonic gave a small wave of his hand. "Chill, Knucklehead, that's not your fault." The guardian's purple eyes turned to him questioningly. Therefore, Sonic promptly continued, "Eggman's been trying his hand on chemical weapons and Shadow got hit—Tails is currently developing an antidote."

Dark shadow of emotion fell over Knuckles' face at the news. "He's doing chemical weapons now too?! As if he wasn't a thorn in our side with the robots already," the guardian huffed, giving a quick glance to Shadow once more before turning his eyes back to Sonic. "Honestly, I'm glad you're the one dealing with all this nonsense and not me."

"Yeah, instead you sit here all day, polishing your Emerald and marveling over it. Probably even writing serenades about it and stuff," Sonic teased. "Seriously, you're overly-attached to the thing. Why don't you ever drop-by to bust a couple of Eggbots with me like back in the old days, Knux? I could use your help sometimes, you know?"

"Considering I haven't seen you in months and you still seem to be in one piece just like when I left, I doubt it," Knuckles retorted. "Plus if the Dr. Eggman's really messing with chemical weapons then I definitely don't want to be there. That one time during the alien invasion when I almost got eaten as result was enough for me, thank you very much."

"You know, Knuckles, some people actually pay to get leech treatments," Sonic joked if only to hide his own queasiness he still felt about that ordeal; sure, the paralysis gas had stopped working shortly after Black Doom left, so the weird alien leeches didn't really have the time to do anything but kind of gnaw at them, but still...it wasn't really one of Sonic's treasured memories either.

Knuckles had a stone look on his face. "Well, some people are just crazy," the guardian stated. "Some in other ways than others," he added, giving Sonic a pointed look. Sonic opened his mouth to retort that he wasn't crazy—just his life was—but by then Knuckles was already walking up the stairs of the M.E. altar, clearly uncaring what he had to say. "Wait here while I'll go to check where the blasted bat managed to lose the Chaos Emerald."

Green eyes followed the echidna up the length of the stairs and only once Knuckles was out of the earshot, Sonic allowed himself to huff. "Somebody woke up by falling from a tree today apparently."

A short amused chuckle sounded from Sonic's right at the comment. Mighty's warm hand descended on his right shoulder just a moment later. Green met blue. "Don't take it personally. Knuckles just takes his job seriously—just like you do fighting Eggman."

"I never take it personally," Sonic retorted, waving his hand dismissively as that it was not really a big deal; he knew Knuckles for years now, he was used to it. They'd exchanged much worse smack-talk when they were younger.

Mighty gave a thoughtful hum. "If you say so," he murmured, shooting a quick glance towards the altar, where Knuckles was currently performing his GPS-mojo with the Master Emerald. Noticing the other's eyes were lingering there, Sonic sneaked a quick glance too.

Clearly what had caught Mighty's attention was that Shadow was standing at the bottom of the stairs and staring up at the echidna with rapt attention. Sonic didn't see what was so interesting about Knuckles just sitting still on the giant emerald, but then again considering Shadow's expert chaos-sensing abilities, Sonic supposed the agent might actually feel in some way what the guardian was actually doing.

"Anyway," Mighty cleared his throat and Sonic's eyes snapped back to the armadillo whose face had written worry all over it now, "What was this about Dr. Eggman and chemical weapons? What exactly happened to Shadow?"

"Old Egghead just wanted to try a different way of getting rid of me. He gave Shadow some drug that was supposed to shut off Shadow's logical brain and make him hella murderous, but all it did was shut off his speech center and made him kind of, erm, moody." Man, what an euphemism.

He cleared his throat, trying to not let show how flustered those memories still made him feel on his face. Him turning red as beet for no apparent reason would raise a lot of questions in Mighty. "I'm keeping an eye on him until Tails makes an antidote for him; making sure he won't get into trouble—" Sonic was fairly aware he was rambling—he did that a lot when he was flustered—but he needed to distract himself. Talking would have to do. "—or end up doing something he might regret, you know? It's actually why—" I didn't want you to ask Shadow on a date, he intended to say and barely managed to clasp his mouth shut before that could get out, because, man, that sounded just bad.

Then again...why hadn't he just told that to Mighty from the start? He would have understood that Shadow was not in the condition to make that kind of decisions right now with the serum messing up his brain and accepted that he would have to wait to ask. He wouldn't be giving Mighty any false hope at all, because, after all, Shadow may actually be interested in a date with Mighty...

Once more Sonic's stomach began to make gymnastics at the thought of the two dating. What on Mobius was that feeling?

Was that...what jealousy felt like?

Sonic blinked in confusion. But why would he be jealous of all things? After all, Shadow and him weren't a thing. Sure, the agent had showed interest in him, they had spent some fun times together and clearly worked great together—but still they weren't a couple. He had no right to be jealous over Shadow possibly turning his attention to someone else, to spend time and have fun with them—to make them feel all these weird but nice feelings that Shadow made him feel sometimes just with a small smile alone. He had no reason to be jealous about Shadow showing romantic interest in anyone else. He should be happy for him. They were friends. Only someone that was in lo—

...Oh. Realization washed over Sonic and this time the hero wasn't able to keep the embarrassed red from blossoming on his face. Well, that answered one question.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, turning slightly away from Mighty, trying to appear like he was just casually looking at the surrounding greenery. "So have you ever been to Soumerca? I heard it's nice this time of a year."

Mighty raised a curious brow at the sudden change of topic, but didn't call him out on it. Instead he played along, telling him of a wise sloth shaman he'd met in Soumerca and who had helped him learn how to control his strength...

~O~

By the time Knuckles decided to come down from his little perch, Mighty and Ray were already gone, looking for the lunch Knuckles had originally been searching for. Though judging by the trouble look and a sour scowl on Knuckles' face, he doubted the echidna would have much interest in it.

"Something is blocking me from seeing the Chaos Emerald," Knuckles announced straightforwardly, not one for dramatics, as he descended the stairs. "I managed to trace it to a group of islands in the South sea, close to the shore, but that's as close as I can get. Some kind of force is keeping me from coming closer."

Sonic perked up at the news, his recent realization getting pushed to the back of his mind for the time being. "A force? What kind of force? Like a magic one?" he asked, intrigued. It had been a while since he last met someone able to do genuine magic.

"Who knows." Knuckles just shrugged his shoulders, clearly not sharing his curiosity about the possible origin of this force. Then again Knuckles had one powerful rock stolen under his watch already, so he was probably feeling reluctant to go looking for it when he still had a bigger and much more powerful one to watch over. "But knowing how well you attract the supernatural, it probably is."

"It's the charisma." Grinning, Sonic made a small twirl as if to show-off. "Not even the supernatural can resist." Nor could half-aliens judging by the weight of crimson stare, he suddenly felt resting on his shoulders. Sonic did his best to pretend he hadn't noticed.

"Yeah, sure." Knuckles just rolled his eyes, clearly not even slightly amused by his ridiculous antics as Sonic hoped he would; grumpy-Knuckles wasn't fun-Knuckles. "Now do me a favor and leave before any trouble decides to follow you here, would you?"

Sonic felt a small pang at Knuckles' dismissive tone. He understood that Knuckles wasn't happy with them—especially Shadow—suddenly crashing here unannounced and that he was also still grumpy about the whole emerald heist, but, hey, they weren't at fault for that. He especially didn't have a single finger in the matter so he didn't deserve this cold shoulder treatment.

Thus he let his displeasure show in his tone. "Yeah, it was nice to see you too, Knuckles," he said as he turned around to get back to Shadow, making sure to add a great deal of sarcasm to his tone so even this thickheaded knucklehead could understand it. "Sorry for bothering you—"

"Sonic, wait—" Suddenly, a heavy hand clasped his shoulder. Automatically, Sonic turned to face the guardian again. Knuckles' expression was solemn and his eyes were hard to read. Sonic's ire gave away to uncertainty at the other's suddenly oddly serious expression.

However, Knuckles didn't offer an explanation. "Watch out around Shadow," was all the guardian said. The red hand fell from his shoulder. "I think Eggman's drug messed with his brain more than you might believe."

Sonic's brows rose at the cryptic remark. Knuckles was normally distrustful of Shadow, but by the way the guardian was looking at him told him this wasn't just that. Something else was at play here. "Why?"

Knuckles' lips pulled into a thin line and he seemed to have some kind of brief internal debate before he spoke. "Alright, I honestly have no idea how these things work among you hedgehogs, but just...that guy reeks like a deer in rut. You better watch out around him. He might get aggressive."

Sonic's eyebrows flew up at that comment. Alright, that was not what he had expected Knuckles to say. "How...how do you even smell something like that?"

"I spent most of my life on this island without anyone else to help me." Knuckles just shrugged his shoulders. "You learn to pick up these things to know when to stay away from various areas."

For whatever reasons the words ran in Sonic's mind. Where have I heard the words before? Hadn't...Sticks said something similar?

"I've trained my nose for these things. It's necessary when you live in the wild like me."

"He really wants to hunt me, you know?"

...Oh. So that's what Sticks was picking up on back then. Shadow's, ehm, frustration.

But...how come Knuckles was picking on that too? Did that mean Shadow was still...? But the agent hadn't tried to jump him for whole three days.

Curious, he glanced at the agent from the corner of his eye. When after the morning talk that they had yesterday, Shadow still hadn't returned to his early post-serum behavior, he had simply assumed that Shadow's continued lack of interest in his more physical qualities might be due to Shadow's body processing the serum or the brain-chemistry tweaks that happened when the agent got worked up. Not Shadow actually reining in his desire.

He supposed he now ought to give more credit to Shadow's self-control rather than metabolism. It seemed Shadow's strong will was another thing, Eggman's serum couldn't really meddle with...

"You don't need to worry, Knux," he assured the other, patting the echidna on the shoulder reassuringly. "I've been handling him for a couple of days now. I've dealt with his episodes."

Knuckles' eyes narrowed slightly at his confession, but he didn't say anything. He just gave Shadow another look before returning his gaze to him. "Take care," the guardian said, patting Sonic's shoulder once more. "And sorry about...earlier. The bat just..."

Sonic laughed. "You know, Knuckles I'm fairly sure she's just trying to get your attention."

Knuckles looked confused. "Why would she want that?" he asked and he looked like he genuinely had absolutely no clue why. Which Sonic found plausible as the guardian had often interpreted Rouge's blatant flirting as the bat trying to mock him. (Even if he didn't understand why she would do that by complimenting him.)

Sonic gave a sigh. "You really need to spend more time on the surface, Knuckles."

~O~

After forwarding confused Knuckles to Mighty to deal with, the guys finally returned to the heroes' house, which apparently had gotten two more guests while they were away.

"Hey, boys."

Rouge gave them a little wave the moment they appeared. The bat was sitting by the kitchen table, while her substitute partner—or that's at least who Sonic assumed the blond human was—was leaning against the wall. She was dressed in black combat gear and exuded a no-nonsense attitude. A GUN agent through and through on the first sight.

"Hey, Rouge," Sonic greeted her before giving a small nod and a smile to the human. "Madam."

Madonna gave him a sharp nod of her head, then one to Shadow as well. If she was surprised to see Shadow, she didn't let it show.

Sonic moved his attention back to Rouge. "So, we've talked to Knuckles and he said the Chaos Emerald is somewhere in the South Sea, at archipelago that should be close to the mainland. However, he was unable to see where exactly, he said some kind of force was keeping him out."

Madonna and Rouge exchanged a look. Madonna gave a sharp nod. "I'll inform the HQ we'll need a transport and reinforcements," she said before leaving the room to make the call.

Reinforcements? He suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. "So, why exactly is GUN chasing after a Chaos Emerald?"

"It's not about the Emerald itself; it's about who is attached to it," Rouge explained solemnly, earning herself two confused looks from the hedgehogs with her cryptic words.

However, Rouge's own eyes were trained solely on Shadow, her mouth an unhappy line and jaw clenching.

Shadow stood a little straighter at that, knowing her better than anyone else and therefore also knowing something must be very wrong if her usual laid-back attitude nowhere to be found at the moment.

Then she dropped the bomb.

"They've got Omega."

The change in Shadow's expression was immediate. Crimson eyes widened ever so slightly and the entirety of his dark body went rigid as if Shadow was forcefully keeping himself himself from going out and tearing off the heads of those responsible—which he probably was.

However, the agent didn't blast off in a blind search of the enemy but instead he made a couple of sharp angry hand movements, which Sonic choose to interpret as Shadow cursing in the only way he could at the moment to give at least some outlet to the violent emotions that were currently overwhelming him.

Sonic's lips pulled into a thin line as he watched the other's outburst; he didn't know how close Shadow and Omega truly were but Shadow obviously cared deeply for the big destruction-loving robot; and so did Rouge judging by the look on her face.

Sonic would like to give both of them the time to recover, but someone needed to ask the important questions here. "What exactly happened? And who's they?"

Rouge sighed, leaning heavily against her chair. "About a month ago Omega got badly banged up on mission, so he was shipped to Spagonia to be repaired. Our research team decided to use the opportunity to upgrade his systems and test them out—as well as try to integrate a Chaos Emerald into them to make them more efficient, apparently. But two days ago someone infiltrated the facility and kidnapped Omega."

A frown marred Rouge's face. "The culprits haven't been identified yet as the camera records are fried and the staff can't be asked; the Commander hoped to get some clues at their identity from them, but apparently nobody has woken up yet even though none them suffered any kind of serious injury during the incident that would keep them unconscious this long—even their blood tests came up clean when they were checked for drugs. There were some attempts to wake them up, but because none of them were successful, me and Madonna were ordered to try to locate the Emerald and find Omega this way."

Rouge's hands clenched around her bicepses more tightly. "...However, I didn't learn Omega was involved until an hour ago."

Seeing the overall mood of people present was once more getting into more negative territories, Sonic tried to lighten up the atmosphere. "Don't worry, we'll get him back in no time!" He offered both wretched agents one of his megawatt-smiles. "I'm expert at kicking magical butts!"

Rouge raised a confused brow. "Why do you assume magic is involved?"

"Well, Knuckles said something about odd force keeping him from coming closer to the emerald," Sonic explained, "and you've got a bunch of people currently playing the Sleeping Beauty. I think that's enough of evidence."

"...Fair enough."

"Sonic?" The trio all turned to the doorway, only to see Tails, currently with most of his head-fur knitted into a bunch of small braids that probably were a courtesy of Cream and Cheese. Sonic did his best not to laugh at the sight considering how desperate Tails looked. Rouge however didn't seem to have enough willpower to fully suppress her amusement, judging by the wheezing coming from his right. Luckily, Tails didn't seem to notice. "Please, tell me you're finished now."

Sonic sheepishly scratched his ear. "Well, you see, I've kind of promised to help Rouge with—"

"Sonic!"

"—Omega got kidnapped! Okay? It's an emergency!" Sonic defended himself. That seemed to take at least some heat from Tails' glare. "We need to fly to the South Sea and—"

"The South Sea?" Tails perked up at the name, his eyes getting oddly sharp and his voice a bit shaky. "W-where exactly?"

"Dunno. Some island close to the shore. Knuckles managed to trace Omega's emerald there so we assume that's where the culprits have taken him."

Worry and a hint of fear twisted Tails' face. "But that's where the Witchcarters were back in they day!"

"Witchcarters?" Rouge echoed. Shadow too perked up at the name, clearly remembering them. "Who are these 'Witchcarters'?" Rouge stood up from her seat and stepped forward, eager to learn more of who was possibly the criminals they were searching for. Her expression was resolute and determined. "What do you know about them, Tails?"

"I've fought them a few years ago and I don't remember much—but they are dangerous. Very. There was four of them, the boss and her three henchmen, who could make these pink energy balls that burned you if they touched you and the boss had the same power and also a power to turn living beings into crystals. It-it was horrible."

"Turn living beings into crystals?" Rouge repeated, clearly surprised. After all, that wasn't really a common ability.

"We've also met the henchmen at the EG tournament," Sonic added, gaining Rouge's attention to himself. "They didn't appear much dangerous back then, but I'll take Tails' word for it."

Rouge hummed thoughtfully at the new information, her teal eyes straying back to Tails. "It seems I'll have to ask you to come along too, Smart Boy. Your information about the Witchcarters will be invaluable if it truly is them."

"...I understand." Tails nodded, solemn. However, his expression quickly changed. "But what about Amy and the others?"

"I guess we'll need to send them home..." Sonic mused aloud, sighing. However, his expression quickly changed to an almost nervous smile when he turned fully to his brother, the hero clasping hands together in an universal begging gesture. "Tails, do you think you could—"

"No." The look on Tails' face was resolute. However, it cracked just a moment later, a trace of amusement making its way there as well to Tails' voice. "It's your turn, Sonic."

"...I don't have a brother."

[Last Edited: 2018-11-25]