Chapter 3

Found the Formula to Make Your Heart Swell and Burst

Disclaimer: I'm like...not joking at all, I seriously don't own any Sonic characters, I own the games...because I bought them. So oohh! WHAT NOW! ...I also own the right to be grossed out...and to say, THIS STORY WILL 'NOT' HAVE ANY SEX! Hello? I'm having enough trouble making them just be somewhat affectionate. Gimme a break, that's gross!

3 reviews for one chapter? For a story I thought would get zip(not counting flames), that's not bad, right? I haven't gotten any flames yet, but...I'm almost positive I will. I really am honestly a funny sight getting all scared every time I get a review, I've always been like that though. Well...yeah. So, guess I'm gonna keep going, I'm off school and once I get back in it, the updates aren't going to come as easy, y'know? I hope I can keep doing this!

And just for the record, this will have RougexKnuckles and miiiight have like a tiny bit of like Tailsx?(not my own character, I seriously just don't know of a good person, any suggestions?) and RougexShadow

"Maybe you're just accusing me of caring too much?" Rouge smirked at Knuckles who was convinced she was attempting to take the master emerald. He let out a sigh of relief finally as she turned to leave him once again.

"I don't care what you say, Rouge, the point is...as soon as you knew I was away from it..."

"Forget it, Knuckles, I'm not arguing this point with you anymore, I wasn't trying to steal your stupid emerald. Regardless, I did think you were with Tails and Amy...what happened?" Knuckles just waved his hand hastily.

"Cream showed up." This got a laugh out of Rouge, she shook her head at him after staring him down for a couple of minutes. His expression was stiff, positive he wasn't going to change his tune even if her expression was a subtle way of saying he was overreacting.

She smirked at him and ran her fingers along the green emerald, "Well, I guess I better leave you to protecting this though...and I do have my own business to attend to." Knuckles waved his hand motioning for her to go on. "Guess I'll see ya around." Knuckles nodded his head, but was too busy looking the emerald over to respond in a more attentive way. Rouge just snorted and took off. "The echidna is the most frustrating guy I've ever met all he cares about is that stupid emerald!" She took a deep breath, looking down on the ground below, "I can't be thinking about that right now though, I probably need to report what's been going on to the government."

Gliding for the most part on her wings, she flapped them occasionally to maintain her status in the air, she then pulled out her little radio that she seemed to constantly have. "Rouge reporting...we may have a problem with the chaos emeralds." She smirked, she knew this would trigger an uproar, as she already knew the emerald in Central City had been taken. She got just the response she was expecting too.

"Ya think?" It was that of a man, probably well into his forties if not fifties, it sounded like gravel, not one you would expect to come from an attractive man. "An emerald has been stolen from Central City already! Where have you been, Rouge! We have been trying to contact you for over an hour!" She knew what was coming next, they of course were going to try and put it on Sonic and Shadow because according to the government, they did absolutely everything.

"I'm aware of that, sir, I apologize...I've been a little busy...I'll try to stay more alert on your calls." Truth be known, she knew they had been calling for the past thirty minutes, she just hadn't cared to answer their little complaining messages.

"Yeah! Well, maybe you outta be more aware of your little friends-..." She scowled at the radio, mocking the man's voice. She made a few faces at him, which was what allowed him to get that far in his sentence.

"It wasn't Sonic 'or' Shadow, general. It was Metal Sonic, remember him?" She corrected him before he could blame the two of them. The normal procedure for their little conversations when something like this happened. She wasn't sure if he was just stupid or if he had an intense dislike for the hedgehogs.

"How do y-?"

She interrupted him once more, "I've seen him for myself..." She lied just to prove her point to the man, who accepted nothing more than this type of evidence. "And wouldn't it make more sense to blame the guy who hasn't saved the world before?"

"...oh, I, uh, guess?" She mocked him once again, this was the reason she was avoiding getting their latest little video cameras attached, it was too much fun to mock the idiocy of the government when they couldn't see her. "Well, be that as it may, ...carry on." He seemed befuddled as to what to say next.

Rouge didn't respond and clicked the radio off, putting it back on her belt, she shook her head. "Now, let's go see if I can find that metal contraption..." Rouge's shoulder was jerked back as Metal Sonic blew past her. "Uh!" She shook her head, knowing she wasn't making the greatest of decisions she took off after him. Luckily for her, actually, he was far too fast for someone going her speed to catch, she stopped and stared after him. "Guess Sonic and Shadow haven't found him...or...I hope they haven't."

---

Sonic opened his green eyes after a moment, Shadow heard the quiet whimper and looked to him after a moment. He still hadn't moved and he was still embarrassed, "Sonic?" The blue hedgehog pulled himself upright in his already sitting position.

"Ow, hey, did I pass out?" He looked at the black hedgehog, who was masking the redness of his cheeks even after Sonic had gotten up.

"Yes, Faker, you did. Right on top of me, actually, thanks a lot." He stood up, and Sonic leaned back on his arms. "Hey, you were the one who said we were stupid for sitting here when we should be chasing Mecha, so now what are you doing?"

"Hn, back off, Shadow. I can barely move..." He winced slightly as a jolt of pain shot through him, as if someone had stabbed him with a knife. He looked up at Shadow skeptically, "You would be hurting too if he tried to dissect you with his claws!"

Shadow just crossed his arms, he did notice the jagged lines of blood along the blue hedgehog's fur, he hadn't noticed due to his embarrassment before. Jagged lines down his body looked pretty painful by standards. "Well, you dumbass, what do you want me to do?"

Sonic mocked him and rolled his eyes after a moment, "You are a big help, a really big help." After a moment he got to his feet, he faltered but with Shadow's assistance managed to stay on his own two feet.

"You need some rest, Sonic...in your condition, somehow I don't think you'd be more than a pothole in the road for Metal Sonic and considering your past experiences, I don't think he'd have a problem making quick work of you." Sonic nodded in agreement and then looked over at Shadow, Shadow was definitely better off than him. A few bruises and that was it, he was the Ultimate Life Form, Sonic supposed he was probably designed to take more than a little damage.

"Oh, yeah, let's go take a nap while Mecha proceeds to blow up the Earth! That sounds like a pretty good plan to me." He smirked at Shadow's exasperated expression with him. He looked the opposite direction and then back into those cocky green eyes.

"Okay, Einstein, just give me your awesome idea! Run at Mecha screaming ridiculous war cries?" He scoffed at the idea immediately, "You're going to be killed if you go face him now, I probably will be too...and did you notice he wasn't holding the chaos emeralds?"

"Yeah, I knew he had some, but..." Sonic made a weird face, the thought of the power they all had come into his mind, but he assured himself he would not have noticed it if it was the power, because he never noticed it when it when people just randomly made things disappear. He stared at the ground for a moment, "Maybe he's using them to like...make himself stronger? Maybe he's...absorbing them or something?"

"How freakin cliche can you get, Mecha?" Sonic laughed at Shadow's comment after a moment of thinking it over. He smiled then knelt down, moaning quietly. Shadow looked down, his eyes getting a little wide with curiosity, he held out his hand which Sonic took after a moment. He slung Sonic's arm over his shoulder and looked at him, then he laughed, "Sonic, you are such a pain in the ass!"

"Oh shut up!"

---

After three attempts and the Tornado still failing them, Tails was beginning to get disturbed by Amy and Cream's impatience. "Look, what do you want me to do? It's not my fault!"

"You crashed it Tails! And I wanna know where Sonic is! He might be in trouble!" Cream looked at Amy, who had gotten herself all in a frenzy about Sonic. Cream just petted her in a way.

"It's all right, Amy! Sonic is always okay!" Amy nodded, trying to get a grip on the way she was acting.

"Please hurry, Tails. If you don't, I'm going to hyperventilate, and we still don't know where Metal Sonic is." Tails nodded back at Amy, and kept trying different ways to start up the Tornado, nothing was working.

Cream smiled and patted Tails on the back, "You can do it, Tails, I believe in you." Tails looked back at her and gave her a little skeptical glance and then started concentrating on the aircraft again. Amy pulled Cream back from Tails, realizing herself that Cream was being slightly dramatic about fixing the Tornado, since it broke on a daily basis.

"I'm really trying, girls! I'm worried about Sonic too." He tried again, thankfully the machine cranked up this time, Tails let out a breath of relief. Amy jumped for joy.

"Hooray! Good job, Tails, now let's go!" She jumped in the Tornado and her movements proved that she wasn't going to stop complaining at him until they were in the presence of the blue hedgehog that she seemed to have random compulsions to need to see.

Cream jumped in behind her and they both urged Tails along, he made a face and looked up, "Why do I always seem to get stuck with them? Is this someone's way of telling me I'm a whuss?" He didn't get to talk to himself anymore because the calling of Amy and Cream was really irritating him, he jumped in the plane and he took flight out of the tree. This left the tree really bent out of shape, which metaphorically speaking got Cream all bent out of shape.

"Tails, look what you did to that beautiful cherry tree!" Tails let out an exasperated hiss and snarled under his breath at the little rabbit. Amy patted him on the head trying to calm him down.

"Forget the chaos emeralds, let's go try to find Sonic and Shadow, now, Tails!" Tails nodded back to her, they honestly hadn't seen him since he ran off racing with Shadow. "Do you think he's with Shadow?" Tails shrugged his shoulders, he wasn't paying attention to what she was saying though because his thoughts were on his own issues.

"With Shadow? Wait, what? Wouldn't that be...?" Leave this kind of thinking to Cream, of course considering she thought she was ten years older than she was, she couldn't take this to mean what it was meant to mean, she had to make it mean something completely idiotic.

Amy jumped all over Cream now, "Cream! No, not like that! That's just...why would you even think that!" Tails laughed at her disturbed reaction to this, but then made a face at her next comment, "...or, that could actually be hot." His eyes widened as he bit his tongue after that, his cheeks flushed again.

"Hot? Amy?" Tails kept facing forward, hoping that she didn't notice the redness of his cheeks. He stared straight ahead into the blue sky. "Sonic? And Shadow? You think that would be hot?" He looked back at her for a split second, then whirled again.

Cream giggled as Amy mouthed to her that Tails was getting flustered again, "Sure...I mean, think about it?" Tails just made an interesting face.

"It wouldn't make you jealous?"

"Well, maybe...WHY! He doesn't like...Shadow like...that, right?" Tails stared ahead after a moment.

"No, of course not!" He shook his head, reassuring her and himself, he would have reassured Cream, but she had no idea what was so different about the two of them and Amy and Sonic. His blue eyes drifted back to Amy to see what she was doing, she seemed to be thinking of that seriously now.

"Why are you freaking out, Amy? Do you think Sonic li-..?" Amy shook her head furiously before Cream could finish her sentence, that made absolutely no sense. Sonic and Shadow were completely different, they didn't fit together no matter how you sliced it. The two of them seemed totally off to her, she hadn't thought Tails was serious, but now he was. But, why was he getting flustered about it?

"Why are we even TALKING about this? Let's just go find them! Amy shrugged off her strange annoyance at the subject, she wasn't positive Sonic liked her, but he couldn't possibly like another guy!

"You've got a point...but, I'm really not sure where to start!" He turned back to Amy, and made a face.

Amy pouted after a minute, "Tails! We have to find them! Figure out where to start! Because...just c'monnn!" Tails smiled at her, his smile was lopsided. Amy just nodded and rolled her eyes as she sat back slightly, though she couldn't go back too far or she would have crushed Cream.

"Cheese!" The chao decided to make its presence known with a high pitched voice just as annoying as Cream's herself, Amy looked back and forced a smile.

"...yeah, cheese..." Amy turned back to face the front, a look of frustration that she hadn't realized that while bringing Cream they would also be bringing Cheese. Though, he hadn't spoken up until now, so hopefully he would remain as quiet as he had been.

Nope.

"Cheeeese! Cheese, cheese, cheeese!" Amy and Tails thought they were about to pull their hair out, Amy closed her eyes tightly to keep from yelling at Cheese or Cream. Tails just kept trying to concentrate on flying the Tornado, though it was getting harder to ignore the squeak like noise Cheese was making, and Cream wasn't helping with her happy tone while playing with him.

"Umm...hey, Cream...Cheese is breaking Tails' concentration, could you kinda keep him quiet for a little while?" Amy looked back at her for a moment and Cream just smiled pleasantly at her, she nodded her head.

"Oh, sure, Amy. Sorry Tails. Shhh..." She attempted to quiet Cheese, it didn't help though, the annoying little blue thing kept right on. The bad thing was, Cream treated it as if she had actually succeeded in shutting the little nuisance up.

Tails was at the point of going insane when he jerked his head down to Shadow and Sonic, it looked like Shadow was supporting Sonic. "Hey! Look, it's our lucky day! There they are!" Tails gestured for Cream and Amy to look down.

Both of them complied and Amy proceeded to holler at Sonic, who flinched, Shadow jerked his head up. "...it's your girlfriend!" Shadow said this mockingly, knowing very well that it was going to get a rise out of the green-eyed hedgehog.

"Shadow, you know she's not my girlfriend!" He glared at the black and red hedgehog and Shadow just smirked, proving to Sonic that he had gotten the reaction he had wanted. "And don't look at me that way, either." Shadow kept the same look on his face, raising an eyebrow finally.

"I know she's not, Faker. But it sure as hell is fun to get on your nerves." Shadow looked up again, then frowned, "Ah, dammit, they have that annoying little rabbit with them! Man, I hate that thing!"

Sonic laughed and nodded in agreement, the Tornado landed fairly smoothly, this was good, another crash would have probably done the aircraft in for the day. "Shadow! Sonic! Did you two run into Metal Sonic?" They both gave Tails a "duh" look of sorts.

"No, Tails...Sonic just fell into a thorn bush." Amy jumped out of the plan as soon as it was near enough to the ground, as she had done before when she had seen Cream. Cream waited til Tails had secured the plane on the ground and came around to help her out himself.

"Aww, Sonic! You look horrible! Are you okay!" Sonic held out a hand so as to keep her a fair distance away from him and he nodded to her reassuringly.

The other hedgehog chuckled at Amy's reaction to be held away from him, "Sonic...ooh, Metal Sonic is going down when I see him." Shadow shook his head, as if Amy herself was just going to beat Mecha, that was going to happen.

"Yeah, Amy...I bet you're just gonna kick his butt, hm?" He smiled at her though, "...don't get yourself killed. I'm really fine, it's just a few cuts." Amy looked at the ground and nodded her head, she didn't believe him, but she didn't want to seem clingy, she did though as she grabbed his arm.

"...you're a liar." Shadow whispered to him lowly, as was his way of pointing out that Sonic was not fine and it was more than "a few cuts". Sonic just made a face at him.

"She doesn't have to know everything." Was his whisper in response to that.

She ran her hand along his arm, three jagged cuts, her green eyes were set on the blue fur, matted and out of place with the red liquid. Amy just looked up at him and shook her head, "You never get this hurt, Sonic...what happened?" Tails and Cream then made their way over to the three of them.

Sonic shrugged his shoulders, "Lay off, Amy...I was just being careless." He eyed her, his expression calling for her to back off.

She nodded her head and then looked to Shadow, "What about you? What happened?" She tugged at his arm now, he just twitched. He shook his head, he didn't really want to talk to her about their little skirmish with Metal Sonic. Honestly, Shadow didn't know why him and Sonic had faired so poorly against the metal version of the blue hedgehog.

Cream smiled and waved happily, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sonic looked as if he had been torn to ribbons, "Oh my goodness! What happened, Sonic! Did you fight Mecha?" Sonic found that just hilarious, she said "mecha" she really wanted to be important, and in his eyes, she was just failing horrendously.

"Yeah, Cream...don't worry about it..."

"Why do you keep telling me not to worry about things, Sonic? Stop treating me like a little kid!" Shadow snarled at her, he didn't give Sonic a chance to defend himself.

"...you 'are' a little kid." He shot her a hot glance, his glances were obviously more intimidating than everyone else's because Cream just whimpered and looked at the ground.

"Can you not stand by yourself?" Sonic made a face at her, he looked at Tails, not even feeling like he needed to answer something like that.

"Tails...where are Knuckles and Rouge?" Typical of Sonic to ask that question, he never really deemed Tails of any importance, just a way of finding out where everyone else was. Tails allowed him to do this though, because he honestly admired Sonic.

"Knuckles went to protect the Master Emerald and Rouge just...left, I'm not really sure where she went." Shadow nodded his head then sighed, and looked to see what Sonic was about to say.

"...gotcha..." Sonic looked exasperated as he knew he was going to have to openly explain what had happened when they fought Mecha. He wished Shadow would explain it, but he seemed to have no intention of doing so. "Yeah, Mecha was a lot stronger than usual...he seriously kicked our asses..."

"Or he kicked Sonic's anyway..." Shadow looked at Sonic, he knew that wasn't going to fly, but he still just wanted to receive that annoyed glance he knew he was going to get from Sonic if he said that.

"Shadow's too." Shadow shrugged his shoulders, he knew he had no right to disagree but he really wanted to.

Amy laughed at their argument, "Well, we were getting worried about you guys...but, since you didn't stop Mecha, I guess we're probably going to be doing more worrying, aren't we?" Sonic nodded at her. "Just great."

Tails just smiled at them, "Sonic, you really look like you need rest, or your not going to be able to fight Mecha at all, and you don't look in the best of shape either, Shadow...and without you too...Mecha's going to tear this whole world apart." They both liked that compliment and just nodded at him.

"Can't sleep at my house though! It's GONE." Shadow laughed, Tails scowled at the fact that he was laughing, he wouldn't find it funny at all if his house got blown away. But, he didn't know that Shadow even had a house.

Amy giggled, "Don't worry, guys! My house is still there and it doesn't have a chaos emerald in it, and Mecha can't get too far we have two of the emeralds!" Shadow looked at her, curiously, they had actually managed to obtain two of the chaos emeralds?

"That's counting the one you have, though, Shadow." She gestured to him. No, of course they hadn't, they did manage to get one though, so he couldn't complain.

"Guess so, but that means we might not have long to take a break...he has three-..."

"Two...one is a fake."

Sonic gritted his teeth, he didn't like being interrupted, nor informed of things by a five-year-old, "Thank you, Cream." She smiled sweetly at him and just nodded her head, her cream-colored ears flopping.

Tails patted Cream on the head, though she didn't sense the hostility in Sonic's voice, he sensed it for her. "Yeah...well, it's like you said, Sonic...you guys aren't going to get much time to recover, so the quicker you get some rest, the better." Both of them nodded again.

"I have a first-aid kit at my house too, I can treat your wounds!" Shadow smirked at Sonic, as they both knew she was talking just to him, as she didn't really give a flip about helping Shadow out. Sonic looked at him and just shook his head, exhaling sharply.

"That's just wonderful, Amy." She could tell by his tone, that Sonic really didn't think that was as "wonderful" as he was letting her think. Shadow stifled a laugh, as he saw the expression on her face was not amused.

"CHEESE!" Shadow proceeded to backhand the thing to the ground, Cream squealed and knelt down.

"Cheese, oh no!" She picked him up and cuddled him into her arms.

Sonic laughed, almost falling to the ground, as Shadow turned away, "That is enough of that nonsense." Tails and Amy were trying not to laugh too, though it was hard considering they had been wanting to do that for some time.

"Nonsense, Shadow?" Shadow nodded, informing Sonic that is exactly what that little outburst was. Suddenly, Sonic let out a slight gasp, Shadow jerked slight as he felt Sonic's weight increase on his shoulder.

"Sonic!" Amy knelt down, she saw Sonic was still conscious by the way his eyelids twitched, though they were closed. She looked up at Shadow, who made the wise choice of kneeling, allowing Sonic to rest slightly on the ground.

"I think he's just exhausted, Amy...just don't worry about it." Amy nodded, a lot of concern flooding her eyes. He looked up, his red eyes seeing the form of Mecha pass over head, he was glad Metal Sonic didn't take that opportunity to come kill them all, as that would have worked very well in his favor.

Tails nodded to Shadow, "You're right...I think he just needs to rest!"

"What happened! Is he going to be okay? Is he dead?" Everyone immediately resisted the urge to knock Cream and Cheese off the face of the planet.

Amy looked at Sonic, then back up at Shadow, she finally said something intelligent in the presence of Shadow, which was rare except that speech she had given him shortly before he went to help out Sonic and everyone else on the ARK, "You can warp yourself and Sonic to my house, the rest of us will take the Tornado."

"Yeah." He nodded his head, then looked back down to Sonic. After a second of concentration, he managed to warp the two of them in front of the pinkish white house that he despised being around, though that wasn't on his mind at the moment. He looked down at the stirring blue hedgehog.

Sonic lifted his head, unfortunately slightly TOO fast,which unfortunately resulted in the most awkward moment of either of their lives, his lips met Shadow's, it was gentle, which made it all the more awkward for both of them. Shadow blinked, his eyes widening, they both pushed each other, resulting in the other falling backwards. They both stared blankly at each other, their cheeks burning like mad. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry!" Shadow fumbled through the word about the same time Sonic did, both of them glared furiously at the ground. "I just KISSED him...as if that wasn't enough...I think...I might have...oh my God..."

Sonic had the exact same expression Shadow had painted across his face, "I think Rouge was right...and I think I'm going insane!" He just eyed the dirt, "I didn't mean–..."

"I know!" Shadow shook his head, but they both thought the dirt was the most interesting thing in the whole world at the moment. "Me either." He twitched, he kept thinking the utter burn of his cheeks was going to stop, it wasn't. "Guess, accidents happen..."

"...well, yeah. I would never...I mean, it's not like that..."

"No!"

"It was just an accident, that's all." Shadow nodded, this was officially weird.

OH MY GOD. I just wrote about two guys kissing. It didn't turn me on...WHY IN THE HELL WOULD IT TURN ME ON? Even if it did, it was hard as crap...but if I can do that...I can do this story...not I gotta figure out how long it's gonna be!