Imbalance
Chapter 6
-...-
"...adow?"
"Shadow!"
Hearing his name being called, Shadow's eyes opened to find himself lying on a small cot, inside of a smaller G.U.N. aircraft. Rouge was standing over him with an expression that was a mix of worry and aggravation, and Omega was at the front of the ship, looking out the windshield.
"...Rouge?" Shadow muttered, his head still fuzzy from waking up. His teammate smiled a bit, but put on a stern face.
"Thank goodness you're alright, sugar. What were you thinking, running from rooftop to rooftop like that?" Shadow sat up, crossing his arms.
"Hmph, what happened to 'live a little'?"
"That doesn't mean you should get yourself killed again. You're lucky I was generous enough to save you." Rouge said, jokingly.
Shadow scoffed in response and got up, beginning to walk towards the front of the ship. According to the navigational system, they weren't that far from their destination. and if he squinted, Shadow could see a speck of the floating island among the sea of clouds. Shadow had always felt a little strange at high altitudes, but waking up from a major headache attack definitely didn't help.
"Omega," Shadow said, turning to his robotic companion, "How long was I unconscious?"
"ACCORDING TO MY INTERNAL CLOCK, YOU WERE 'OUT OF COMMISSION' FOR AROUND 3 HOURS."
Shadow stepped back in surprise. "3 hours?! That's impossible."
"Sorry, Shadow, but Omega's right. Oh, that reminds me! Did you get another one of those visions of yours?" Rouge asked, walking up to her teammates and leaning on the back of one of the seats. Shadow stopped for a second, gripping his forehead in an attempt to remember what it was he saw.
"...It's hard to recall. It's a bit fuzzy, but all I can remember is the color blue." Rouge grinned in response and looked out the windshield.
"The color blue, huh? I wonder why." Shadow turned to look at her, his expression suspicious.
"Rouge, do you have an idea on what it could mean?" The black hedgehog asked, and Rouge stood up and winked.
"I've got a hunch. Think about it, you said you're getting your headaches from a chaos energy signal, right? Who's the strongest chaos user on the planet besides you?"
"DO YOU MEAN SONIC THE HEDGEHOG?" Omega asked, and Shadow pounded his fist into the seat next to him, sending it spinning across the room.
"That must be it! Sonic's the one behind this." Shadow growled. "It would makes sense why it's coming from Angel Island, too. That hedgehog must be messing with the Emeralds again."
"Now, Shadow, we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Sonic could have been affected by the waves the same you you have." Rouge pointed out.
"Tsk. Whatever it is, he's got some explaining to do." Suddenly, a sharp beep emitted from the navigator, causing Team Dark to shift their attention towards it.
"Attention: you have arrived at your destination: Angel Island." Upon hearing those words, the ultimate life form grinned.
"Hmph. Time to get to the bottom of this."
-...-
Meanwhile, down on the Earth below, Sonic himself was just waking up from his own blackout. He found himself in the guest room of Tails' house, which was technically his room, but since he rarely stayed in one place very often, it was essentially a guest room. As such, it barely looked lived in, with only a few knick-knacks from Sonic's adventures dotting the room, like his Extreme Gear and Chip's bracelet. Kicking himself out of bed, Sonic opened his door and immediately caught a whiff of pancakes coming from downstairs. Grinning, Sonic leaped over the flight of stairs and landed on the bottom, turning to see Tails at the kitchen.
"Yo, Tails! What's cookin'?" Sonic's sudden question startled the fox, who jumped and accidentally let go of the pan in his hand, sending it and the pancakes cooking on it into the air. Luckily, Sonic reacted quickly, jumping up to grab the lid of the pan and scoop up the three nearly-cooked cakes before they could hit the floor.
"Sonic! You're awake!" Tails exclaimed, and Sonic chuckled.
"Yep, you bet. So, mind explainin' what exactly happened to knock me out? Last thing I remember, we were doing that ritual thing with Tikal to figure out what's goin' on with my Chaos energy." Sonic placed the pan back onto the stove and leaned onto the wall. Tails went back to cooking the pancakes and began to think up a response.
"Well, we were doing the ritual, but then when your burst of energy began, everything began going... weird. Next thing I knew it, we were all sent flying by a tornado! You hit a tree, and that knocked you out. I was really worried about you, Sonic!" Tails frowned, but Sonic kept smiling.
"Aw, come on, Tails. You know I've handled worse. I've fallen from space at least twice now, remember?"
"I guess, but it still scared me for a second."
"So, did Tikal figure out what was happenin'?" Sonic asked, and Tails shook his head.
"Not really. She looked pretty upset, but all she said was that your Chaos energy was spiking unusually, and that usually the chaotic flow was more natural."
"So, basically the same kinda thing your device was telling us earlier? That's not great."
"Yeah, it didn't really give us much to go off of. Although, it makes me wonder..."
"Wonder about what?" Sonic asked, raising an eyebrow at Tails' thinking face.
"Oh, it's nothing. But I might head over to my workshop at the Mystic Ruins later. More importantly, how are you feeling, Sonic? Are you really alright?"
"I feel better than I was before, at least. You know, I'm thinkin' I could go for a run right now, that might clear the headache I've got." Sonic said, beginning to walk towards the door of the small house. Tails frowned again, clearly worried for his best friend.
"Sonic...are you sure you're feeling better? If you have another burst again-"
"Don't worry about it, Tails. If I take off again, I'll just use it to Chaos Control back here, alright? I just feel like goin' on a run right now." Tails sighed and began fiddling with one of his tails.
"Okay, Sonic. Just be careful, okay?" Sonic nodded in response and opened the door, escaping outside. Tails tried to shake off the odd nervousness he was getting and looked back over to the pancakes he was cooking.
His pancakes were burnt.
-...-
Sonic jogged through Emerald Town at a steady pace, looking around at the different buildings. He never really thought too much about it, but he had probably run by this street thousands of times. He probably ran by the entire planet a good dozen times, too. He's been everywhere there is to go at this point, really. Most adventures he'd gone on recently have been interstellar or interdimensional. Could it be that he really-
"Hey, Silver!"
The sudden interruption cut off Sonic's train of thought. Looking around, the hedgehog saw Charmy flying in his direction and waving his arms.
"Silver! Hey, Silver! Over here!"
What Charmy was yelling caught Sonic's attention. If Silver was here, that meant that the future might be in danger again. Sonic turned behind him to look for the future hedgehog, but he wasn't anywhere to be found. Suddenly, Sonic was caught off-guard by Charmy ramming straight into him.
"Hey!" Sonic exclaimed, catching himself before he hit the pavement. Looking up, he saw Charmy spin through the air before coming to a stop and looking at Sonic with some confusion.
"Oh, hey, Sonic! I thought you were Silver so I started flying towards you. Sorry about that." The bee boy apologized. Sonic picked himself up and began brushing off his quills before addressing Charmy's statement.
"Confusing me for Silver? How'd somethin' like that happen?" he asked, and Charmy just scratched his head.
"Well, a second ago you had grey fur like he does. Did you learn how to change colors like Espio?" Charmy was just confusing Sonic even further. This wasn't the first time the idea of him changing color came to him. Back at Angel Island he noticed his darker fur, but he thought there it was just his eyes playing tricks on him thanks to the Chaos energy burst. Although, he didn't feel any energy build-up a minute ago, so maybe it was a trick of the light, or-
"Hey, that reminds me! Espio and Vector told me we were running low on cash to pay the rent recently, so I was thinking I could find a bunch of rings and collect them myself! Ooh, do you think you could help? We could team up and get a bunch of rings!" Sonic decided to put his own dilemma aside for now, and help Charmy instead. Maybe a good round of ring-hunting was what he needed.
"Alright, Charmy, sounds like a plan! So, where do ya think we should start?" Sonic exclaimed as he started to stretch his legs.
"Well, at first I went to Casino Park to win some rings, but Vector got us banned there a few months ago. I heard there's a place called Night Babylon in Central City that has a casino, should we start there?" Sonic shook his head and began to grin.
"Nah, Night Babylon's a total sham. Once I went there to win some rings, and I got on the only losing streak I ever had. They don't even have any self-ball pinball. If you really wanna win big, we should head to Casinopolis over in Station Square!"
"I didn't know you gambled, Sonic." Charmy said, as Sonic got into a running position.
"Well, Tails says I've got a problem, but I don't see anything wrong with testin' your luck every once in a while. Now c'mon, let's go!" With that, Sonic and Charmy took off in the direction of Station Square, with Sonic slowing down a bit to make sure Charmy could keep up.
"Hey, Charmy," Sonic said as they ran/flew, "Did you know that Casinopolis's got a board with my face on it?"
-...-