Next up! XD


-Chapter 96: Lost and Isolated-


With a single cleansing breath, Sonic calmed his anxiety driven transformation. He fully resumed his hedgehog form. "Aaa...thank you, Mina." He spoke into his wrist communicator.

'What can I say: I love me some on the spot therapy,' she said with a sleepy tone.

"Sorry to call so early," he said and rubbed the back of his neck. He realized after he dialed, that nine o'clock in the morning was still early for some.

'It's never too early to deal with mental health what-not's,' she said solemnly. 'Call when you get back. We'll chit-chat a bit more. I want to talk to you about a project I've got in the mix too; a new music video idea.'

Sonic perked up a bit. "Sounds like fun. We shouldn't be too long."

He, Shadow and Rouge set out to locate the source of the second transformation brought on by a new moon, rage or an unnamed red mineral.

"How we gonna do this?" Sonic asked as they left his home. "My hover bike is in the shop; I'm grounded for now, and Tails is tied up until later on today."

Shadow sighed. "I'm going to be generous," he said and closed the door behind them. "Rouge will fly you there. I'll follow along from below. Rouge can navigate better in the air than I can from the ground; and my jets can get me there without tiring me out or slowing me down."

Sonic pointed a single finger upward with both hands. "You plan to rocket through the jungle...to keep up with us in the air?" His fingers stayed extended as he processed the implication of flying through thick jungle plants at top speed.

"Correct." Shadow nodded.

"...if you say so." He went back into his and Amy's house and emerged with a pair of black goggles. "Tonic Concentration is storing a few things in our place until they set up shop. I know you can heal super fast and all, but taking some brambles to the eyes has gotta suck, regardless."

"Fair point." Shadow put the eyewear on and tested how it felt. He turned to Sonic and hesitated as he thought of a way to ask his question. "How much are these?"

"You can keep em for free. The stock we got is for advertising. You know, get the To-Co brand out there."

Shadow readjusted the goggles and felt the company's embossed emblem along the side. "The quickest way to get there is if we take the south river and follow it up until it bends. Then it's into the trees."

The three set out. Shadow traversed the brush and followed an airborne Rouge and Sonic as they flew above the jungle canopy. After nearly an hour of flight with only two pit stops for rest and recalibration, the three made it to a clearing. Rouge dropped her passenger from ten feet up. Sonic landed with ease and absorbed some of the fall with a hand down. Rouge's heels hit the ground next to him and went into the soil an inch. Her lost balance was steadied with a firm grip from Sonic's hand.

The two heard Shadow approach only moments later. He burst abruptly through the shrubbery and his jet shoes stopped him quickly. His quills were ultimately disheveled. A clutch of red and green burrs stuck to the back of one of his ears. With little effort, he dislodged them along with any other flora debris that clung to his fur. He took the goggles off and the few sticks they held to his head fell out of place.

"You do a flawless impression of Hugh; you know, pre-bath," Rouge jokingly said.

Shadow discretely spat a shard of leaf from his bottom lip. "I'm sure he would have enjoyed that trip a bit more than I did. I'm content in bending reality to my whim to get to where I need to go."

"That doesn't explain the motorcycle in your kitchen back home," Rouge said offhandedly.

"Is that why you wanted to keep the goggles?" Sonic said in surprise. "I don't know what's more shocking: The fact you own a motorcycle; or the fact you keep it in your kitchen."

Shadow folded his arms. "City folks aren't antiquated with the use of magic. Teleporting can disrupt their delicate sensibilities about time and space, so I use the bike to get around." He turned and faced the semi open plain. "I have a bachelor apartment. There isn't anywhere else to put it; and I refuse to pay the rental company's parking fees."

"That extra seventy-five must go a long way," Rouge commented.

"It's on principle," Shadow said.

"I never pictured you with a bachelor pad," Sonic added. "I figured you as more of a studio apartment or condo, kind of guy."

Shadow huffed, "Don't even get me started on condo fees. I have the apartment so I can get mail. I sleep and eat in the army barracks."

Sonic pondered, "Come to think of it, I assumed you still lived in the canyon up until recently."

Shadow, unamused, let his arms fall to his sides. He turned to face his rival. "You thought I lived in the desert this whole time?"

"Well, yeah. It's where Eggman always found you when he went looking for ya."

Shadow turned away from them completely and clenched his fists. "I did the majority of my training in the canyon! Did you ever think of that?"

"Not really. If you didn't live in the canyon, where did you stay while you lived on the island?" Sonic asked.

They all paused and allowed the query to percolate.

"..."

"You lived in the canyon, didn't you," Rouge asked.

Shadow huffed harsh then said, "...yes."

Rouge tapped a thoughtful finger on her chin. "Another similarity you share with your dear brother. You both actively lived in the middle of nowhere for an extended period of time."

"Except you're a lot dryer," Sonic snarked.

Shadow snapped a look at the two over his shoulder. "Can we get on with this?!"

Sonic quickly walked by and into the strange field. "No prob, gone, gotcha, uh, covered..." he said and took stock of what laid before him.

It was a squared clearing roughly a kilometer wide. It bore little foliage throughout. Random bald patches of grayish-brownish dirt littered the area. In between the muck, short grasses and half a dozen wiry trees with pinkish fruit wrangled the muddy mess into an odd sight. Scattered throughout the land were strange obelisks. Each was triangular and no more than knee high at their highest point. They didn't look to be in any specific order.

"Is this a graveyard?" Rouge asked as she approached a red triangle object from the air. She landed on it and gave it a tap with her foot. "It feels hollow."

"Let me see if I can identify the architecture," Shadow said as he examined one of the crests on the triangle nearest to him. He researched on his wrist communicator for answers and found nothing.

Sonic walked down a stretch of grassy spots that had tiny red flowers which collected in clutches of three or four and drooped down like a pea sized bell. Not far from the others, the mud swallowed his foot. It went in deep. "Ah! Dammit! I have no luck with shoes these days." After he freed the appendage, he slogged on in another direction. A few meters away, again, the same thing happened to his other foot. He couldn't pull it out as easily as the first. "Uh, a little help, I think I found quicksand," he said as he was no longer able to dislodge it.

Rouge flew to him. With a bit a strain, she pried him from the swamp.

"I wish Rolph would have given us some more info on this place. We have three echidna who could have dug through this in no time." Sonic kicked his leg directly away from the others, to remove mud and not splash them.

"It's not that simple for him," Shadow said as he read an article to himself.

"Is anything simple," he asked.

Shadow shook his head.

"Thought so."

"Hey, over here," Rouge said. She flew to them and picked Sonic up. Shadow jetted behind them. Rouge laid Sonic down on a large blue obelisk. It wasn't tall, but it had length.

Sonic saw the structure was over ten feet long and had visible, blue roof tiles. His eyes went wide. "Rouge, I think this may have been an unintentional graveyard. Shadow, look up Go'Maba Village."

He closed his device and nodded. "I'm familiar with it. Do you think this is the place?"

"What? I'm lost," Rouge said and folded her arms in confusion.

Sonic pointed to the thing they stood on, "So was Go'Maba Village. This is the roof of one of their houses."

Shadow added in, "They're a branch of-rather, it was a branch of the Gogo'Ba village. It went missing nearly fifty years ago." Shadow looked around to see where a mudslide could have occurred. Hills in the distance looked to be the culprits.

"Come to think of it, when Sticks and Xaun were looking for books on this whole 'werehog' thing, they found a book about the full moon form in the Gogo'Ba village back home. Do the Gogo'Ba's know anything about this transformation? If that what Rolph wanted us to realize without saying so directly?"

"Possibly," Shadow said with a nod. "The question is: Who's going to get them to talk?"

Sonic raised an eyebrow, "Talk? They love talking; or they like hearing themselves talk. Either way, I've talked to them in the past."

"And do you love talking to them, darling?" Rouge asked with a palm raised to the heavens.

Sonic paused mid-thought, mouth half open. "Oh," he said with sever disdain and disinterest, "Well, it can't be me. I can feel the rage building and I'm only thinking about talking to them." Sonic pointed to his pointed incisors.

Shadow panicked for a split second until he recalled the gems he held. Something suddenly crossed his sight. "We should leave."

Rouge pouted. "We just got here. I want to see if there's anything worth looting."

"I think this place had a lot of volcanic activity in recent days. Something caused the mudslide, buried this village and now volcanic gasses are escaping through the surface." Shadow pointed to an odd pile of mud that actually bubbled.

Rouge flew over to the simmering sludge. It was multi colored and had a sheen of rainbow in the late morning light. "I wonder if this is good for my skin. You know volcanic mud sells for really high prices."

Sonic scoffed, "Not as his as the price on my were'head if I have another freakout. We gotta leave it."

"Bother," she said and flew back to them. "There are a lot of red plants in the area. Maybe they absorb the mineral that causes the reaction. We should take a few back and see if Tails can make anything of it."

"That's a good assumption," Shadow looked around and saw a lot of the red pigment in plants and lichen alike.

Sonic's hands shook and his breathing intensified, "Yeah, we need to leave, now," he said and was grabbed by Shadow from behind, under his arms.

"I'll fly you two up high and you can glide back. We don't need to be as specific going back," Shadow said and got a nod from Sonic. Shadow launched them all upward at high speed. "I'll stay back here and look for information. Rolph obviously wanted us to know there was something important here. I might as well look for it."

"AH! You better not leave things behind!" Rouge said and waggled a finger at him.

"I'll bring you back something shiny! Okay!?" he shouted and tossed them further upwards when his jets overheated and he began to lose altitude.

"Thank you, darling!" she said and grabbed Sonic before he fell. Rouge tightened her wings and held them fast for a speedy glide home.

Shadow fell to the ground and indented it with a shallow crater from the force of his fall.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Sonic said as he tried to see the ground.

"Oh, yes, dear. He has a buffer for when he falls. It doesn't use the time portion of his magic, if you're wondering."

He shook his head. "What I'm wondering about is this motorcycle more than anything right now. You talk about it like you're surprised he has it, but you know it's there."

Rough laughed a bit. "It's not that he has it, it's that he says it's only for getting around."

"Isn't it?"

"Absolutely. We ride around on it all the time...but...if it's for practical use, why spend so much time building it?"

"He built it!?" Sonic wiggled and threw off their balance.

"Careful!"

"Sorry, sorry."

She realigned them. "Yes. He bought all the parts, built it from scratch and then detailed it himself. It's an impressive piece of machinery."

"It's a hog! Isn't it! Tell me Shadow has a chopper!" Sonic asked excitedly.

"You missed the boat on his apartment but you nailed down his transportation tastes."

"YES!" Sonic awkwardly poked his communicator. He dialed Tails. He was sent to voicemail. "Buddy! Guess what? Shadow not only owns a motorcycle, but he built it himself! Take it from there!" He ended the recording.

"What was all that about?" Rouge asked with a bit of a laugh.

"Tails is a bit nervous around Shadow. Having common ground to chat about should make it easier to get used to working together."

Rouge looked intrigued, "That could work."

"Kind of how like you and Amy bonded over her fantastic writing skills."

Rouge blushed.

"Yeah! I though it was weird you knew my middle name!"

"What?!" Rouge sounded incredulous, "I knew that from classified intel! I swear!"

Sonic waggled yet again, "Liar! Stop reading the porn my girlfriend writes about us!"

She laughed again, "Haha...no."


Heh, lolololol ;P