Shadow fished one of the small whitish-green beans out of the cloth sack and popped it into his mouth.
Coffee beans were so much better roasted. But it was better than not having them at all.
Julie came into the room with Shikari on one hip. "Good morning, Shadow." She said cheerfully as she set the puggle down on the table. "Are those coffee beans that you're eating?"
Shadow nodded.
"Oh," Julie considered this. "If you're willing to let me have some of those, I'll roast those for you."
Shadow picked the bag up and handed it to her. "You don't strike me as a coffee drinker."
"I've never had it, but Papa," this was the term she used to refer to Knuckles. Shadow couldn't claim to understand it since she had married into the family, but he didn't know that much about families anyway. "Must have had it before he came back to the Island because he talks about it sometimes. Now that I think about it," she dumped the beans into a pan and plucked a few back out. "Maybe these will grow here." Then she turned her attention to roasting the rest.
Shadow sat and waited patiently. Shikari had pulled himself over and seemed fascinated by Shadow's inhibitor ring. He gave up beating on it with his little hands and started to teeth on it.
The roast Julie ended up giving to the coffee beans was a light roast, but it was an improvement. She slid the pan toward him and took the puggle away. Shadow was popping another one into his mouth when Julie asked. "Is Silver your son?" Shadow nearly choked, and Julie picked up Shikari and set him on a chair.
When Shadow could breathe again, he told her. "No. He's no relation."
"Oh, you just seem..."
"Responsible? He's young. He'll learn."
Julie decided that she had better let the conversation go and set about getting Shikari's breakfast.
Silver came bounding into the room. "That was weird. I was outside looking at the stars and then I was in bed. Someone must have brought me back in. Oh, berries!" He finished, having spotted the bowl that Julie had put on the table.
Julie looked at Shadow who was pointedly ignoring her and eating the coffee beans.
(-)
After breakfast, Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, and Hunter made their way back to the shrine of the Master Emerald.
"I'll recite the mantra once a week. If Mephiles is still out there, you might end up alerting him and he was kind of the one who destroyed the Chaos Emeralds."
Silver paused. "I thought Iblis destroyed them."
The rest of the group stopped.
"I thought Mephiles and Iblis were the same," Hunter ventured.
"They are two halves of Solaris." Shadow told them. "Two aspects of the same being."
Knuckles had his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest. "Two different problems of a similar nature. Anyway, the other thing I thought of last night was that every item I do this, it might alert Iblis to the location of Angel Island."
"Is that a problem?" Silver asked anxiously.
"Yes. He can reach up here, send his little monsters to cause havoc," Hunter replied.
"And he has done it before, but not often. The fact that the island keeps moving helps protect us," Knuckles said, and the group set off again.
"If you're going to try and find the Emeralds, you should try Freeville. Some of Julie's family gets to the mainland sometime and they have some pretty amazing stories about the technology in that place," Hunter said. "Maybe they can help."
Shadow nodded. "It's a place to start."
"Alright. Tomorrow morning I'll recite the mantra," Knuckles said, and glanced at his son. "You will too. This will be good practice. And maybe that will help you two find whatever's left of the Emeralds."
Shadow nodded once.
"Then we can..." Silver trailed off. "Iblis!"
The others turned to see what he was looking at, and saw the streamers of smoke and fire rising up over the island to converge on one point.
Hunter gasped. "Julie and the children went up there this morning to pick berries!"
"We have to help them!" Silver was starting to glow blue, preparing to fly them all there as fast as possible.
But he had barely stopped speaking before Shadow said, "Chaos Control." The four of them disappeared.
Shade had been a warrior in her time, and she had not forgotten how to fight.
With her daughter-in-law and grandchildren's lives on the line, she would have fought through a thousand of Iblis' monsters, but she and Knuckles had talked about this a long time ago and come to the decision that whatever happened, the children – and now grandchildren – would have to come first. If she could retreat, she would, but if she needed to fight, she was ready.
While her mother-in-law brandished her spear, an energy generating weapon she had brought with her when she left her clan to marry Knuckles, Julie snatched Shikari up and was running toward Dusk, who had dropped his basket and frozen when the monsters came toward them.
It was into this melee that Shadow teleported them. Shadow took off after the monsters, firing blasts of chaos energy at them, while Knuckles punched his way through the other monsters. For a moment Hunter and Silver seemed disoriented by what had just occurred, then they too regained their bearings and began to fight.
Julie had just reached Dusk when one of the monsters, the largest of the group, lunged toward the three of them. She could hear Hunter behind her shouting her name, but it was on top of them.
Shade and Knuckles, being the closest, had started to run toward Julie and the grandchildren. A gold blur shot in the same direction at the same time.
Before the monster could land a giant fiery limb on the children, that same gold blur shot in and grabbed them, before doubling back through the smoke and coming to stop.
Shadow set Julie and her children down. The monster was coming in for another attack, but a wave of blue energy knocked it back.
"Get outta here!" Knuckles shouted, pushing Julie past him and toward Shade. The two women began to retreat, taking the children with them.
The monster lunged toward them again. Shadow started to spin and launched at the monster.
"Whoa! That's so cool!" Silver was wide eyed, and Hunter was left by himself to try and hold back a writhing lava creature.
"Uh, focus, please," Hunter called to him, and Silver turned his attention back to the other echidna, launching a blast of psychic energy at the monster Hunter was trying to hold back.
Shadow, in his spin dash, hit the monster but it flung him back, still a spinning ball.
Knuckles leaped up, catching the air under his quills to hold himself in the air. "Take this!" He grabbed Shadow and spun the hedgehog around before throwing him as hard as possible back at the monster.
This time Shadow went through the creature, which crumbled away a moment later. The black hedgehog teleported back from his spin. The other monsters, all smaller, had been defeated. Hunter was digging sand onto one fire that was left behind, while Silver was using his powers to choke out another one.
Knuckles punched at the air. "Looks like I still got it!"
"Not bad for an old man," Shadow said.
Knuckles responded by punching the black hedgehog so hard he went flying into a nearby tree. "Yeah, I definitely still have it."
"What was that thing you were doing!?" Silver demanded as Shadow, grumbling under his breath, go back to his feet.
"What, the spin dash?" Knuckles asked. He seemed confused. "Haven't you ever done that before?"
Hunter must have heard of Sonic's spin dash exploits, because he seemed equally surprised at Silver's ignorance. "All hedgehogs can do that."
"I can't. I don't know anything about that," Silver said.
Knuckles looked at Shadow. "You've been real lax with this boy's education."
"Shut up!" Shadow ordered. He looked at Silver. "You're going to learn how to do it. But not now. We need to get back to the surface."
"Yeah! Who know what Iblis has been up to while we've been up here!"
"I'm gonna head back to the house. Make sure the family is okay," Hunter said. "Nice to meet you two. Julie wanted to make sure you knew not to be strangers."
He started making his way beck through the brush. Knuckles turned in the other direction. "Come on. I've got something I want to show you."
(-)
They trekked deeper into the forests of the island, Knuckles and Shadow walking at a quick strides while Silver, as he was wont to be, was in front, behind, or off to the side based on whatever they passed that managed to catch his fancy, which included assorted small songbirds and plants.
Knuckles drew to a stop in a small clearing. It was quiet and peaceful, shaded by tall trees behind it. At one end was a tall boulder that had been there for a long time.
"I just thought that, before you go, you should this," Knuckles said quietly. The part where Shadow had not been around for the events that led to him needing to be shown this went unsaid between them.
Carved into the rock were the words,
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG
HERO
A row of smaller rocks outlined the grave itself, touching the boulder at front and bottom.
"Tails wanted him buried here," Knuckles said finally. "He said that Sonic's grave should be safe from Iblis. Everyone else agreed."
Shadow pushed past the echidna, stepping closer to the stone. None of this had been a focus when they were trying to get the Emeralds, so all it must have happened later, after he had been locked away.
Looks like now I have to finish your job, Faker.
Then again, maybe that's my fault anyway.
Silver flew into the clearing and landed very gently outside the rock ring by the big boulder. He set a hand on it gently, as though it were made of glass, and ran his fingers over the lettering. He looked down at the grave and saw a gold ring on the it.
"He really was a hero, wasn't he?" Silver asked, tone reverent.
"Yes," Knuckles said quietly. "He was."
[A/N:] Or, the chapter in which Julie nearly kills the Ultimate Life Form by asking an awkward question at the exact wrong time. Sorry if the battle scene's a bit lackluster. It was bound to be quick one once the guys got there anyway.
I don't know if I'll update before Easter so if I don't, have a holy Good Friday and a blessed Resurrection Sunday.
Please review!
