Anonymous Review Replies!
Jet The Hedgehog: He truly does. When the fanfic isn't focusing on Sonic in a romantic relationship with someone else, I generally like to put in some background Sonamy vibes, kinda like Sonic X :)
Jackson: Thank you! Glad you like! :D
Guest: More coming right up! Thanks for commenting!
anon: Very true, he does have a fear of thunder and lightning! Let's hope for him there aren't any Pokémon of that sort at the tournament...! As for the Pokéball also rendering you other Pokémon to interact with...errr, that might be a bit difficult. I think it would likely put Tails into his workshop in his house in the Mystic Ruins where he can do all kinds of projects, though :)
LoneGarurumon: (looks around in a panic) That's not what happened...! At all! Totally. Definitely not. XD (no seriously, you're far too good at this^^;) Glad you enjoyed the Pokéball sequence, though, I had fun with that one :)
ClawedIndecisiveFangirl: Heh. Maybe? ;P Please read on to find out! As for Shadow's and Sonic's relationship in this fic, it pretty much follows the pattern I've already written in "Shadow the Hedgehog: First Class" or "Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart" or "All They Want For Christmas". :)
Recap Time! The gang's at the tournament now, the first prize the missing Emerald! Sonic found out that for him, the inside of a Pokéball apparently looks like Green Hill Zone (and that he is also now encoded as one of Ash's Pokémon on their central database). But now he's been released to fight - against Gary Oak's Dragonite! It's hedgehog against dragon now and Sonic has just shot off for his first attack...!
Chapter 23: It's A Party
"Dragonite! Take to the sky!"
And shot straight through thin air.
"Huh-?!" Sonic uncurled to land on his feet with practiced grace, sneakers digging skid marks into the gravel of the arena. A shadow fell across his eyes as he looked around and he instinctively threw his head back, just in time to see Dragonite hovering above him, a black silhouette eclipsing the sun.
Suddenly it did not at all look cute anymore.
"GET THAT THING WITH AN ICE BEAM FROM ABOVE!"
Sonic yelped as he evaded another blast of freezing energy only at the last second, leaping backwards to stumble gracelessly until he found his footing again and then barely had time to avoid the next attack that immediately followed.
"Hahah, yeah! That thing obviously can't fly, Dragonite, so stay in the air and keep blasting it with the Ice Beams! What were you thinking, Ketchum, sending such a pathetic normal type against my dragon?"
"Okay, keep calling me a thing, buddy, and I'll show you what I did to the last guy who kept getting my species wrong!" Sonic snapped at Gary, briefly pausing at his side of the field as he kept dodging the ice blasts from above, but of course, only earned himself a confused stare from the trainer (and then almost a frosted tip of his tail for the trouble).
Dammit. Sonic threw another glance upwards, trying not to get blinded by the sun's light. He could keep dodging the blasts, hoping the dragon would tire itself out eventually, but if that strategy failed, or if there was some sort of time limit on these tournament things and Ash simply lost because he was already down two Pokémon, while Gary had only lost one…
He glanced around the arena, but it was no use. If he had been able to roam freely, it would have been easy to zoom up the viewers' ranks, race up the big TV on the side, maybe, and then hurl himself at the Dragonite from there. But he was not allowed to leave the stupid tournament field without officials throwing Pokéballs at him, and there weren't any ramps or springs like in any decent battlefield here – who designed these things, honestly?!
And then Sonic screamed, mostly because his foot had just hit solid ice and he crashed onto his side spectacularly.
"YES! That's it, Dragonite, you've got him!"
Hell no, this here's one hedgehog you're NOT gonna catch! Sonic curled himself up in one smooth movement, spikes digging into the ice where sneakers would have scrabbled uselessly to find purchase and revved away before the next Ice Beam hit. But as soon as he had managed to uncurl on the other side of the arena, he could already see this did not look good – over half of the battlefield was already covered in icy patches. Dragonite was eliminating any ground he could run on bit by bit.
"Uh, hey coach?!" Sonic turned his head, looking at Ash, "Any hints here?!"
"Uh…" Ash looked seriously stressed out, chewing on his bottom lip, before he licked over it, "Can you…can you do Twister?!"
Sonic stared back at him. "Can I do what?"
"Twister!" Ash shouted back, as Sonic once again dodged an icy ray, this time leaping to land closer to Ash, "It's an attack especially effective against flying Pokémon!"
"…so not the most annoying party game ever to play with Silver?"
"What?" now it was Ash who looked at him in confusion. "No, it's when a Pokémon forms a tornado meant to bring flying types down, I thought maybe with your speed…?"
Sonic blinked. That actually sounded viable. He grinned.
"Tell you what, that sounds like a half-decent plan. Thanks, coach!" And he was off, just in time for another ice blast to impact dangerously close to Ash, letting the crowd gasp and cry out.
Sonic turned back and winked at Ash. "So - just say the word."
And Ash grinned. "Alright, then…" he took a deep breath. "SONIC! Twister, NOW!"
Sonic shot forward. Calculating trajectories wasn't the easiest, here – he knew what he needed to do in theory, but he also needed to avoid the ice patches, the ice blasts and keep an eye on where Dragonite was flying, all the while going so fast the air around him wouldn't even stand a chance of not getting sucked in.
His lips pulled into a smirk.
This Pokémon planet had seen nothing yet.
The wind around him was howling within an instant as he ran in a tight circle, keeping moving to evade the Ice Beams, angling his trajectory so it pointed straight at the Dragonite – and then released the Twister to see it whirl directly into the Pokémon, letting the Dragonite crash to the ground at the other end of the stadium. The crowd roared.
"Sonic! No letting up now! Do a Spin-Dash!" Ash yelled and Sonic snapped to attention again, cutting his own basking in the cheers of the crowd short - but then he could also see why Ash had yelled, because the Dragonite was far from down and out; as Sonic watched, it was already raising its head again, now glaring at Sonic with ice-coloured murder in its eyes.
"Dragonite!" Gary shouted, "Don't let that thing hit you - Hyper Beam first! NOW!"
The dragon obeyed instantly, opening its mouth, and for a moment Sonic was frozen because instead of the more traditional fire burning at the back of its throat, there was a sphere building up, as bright and as blinding as the white-hot heart of the sun.
"SONIC!" Ash's voice nearly cracked with the intensity of his scream, now bordering on pure panic, "Get AWAY, Hyper Beam is literally one of the strongest-!"
The light beam emanating from the dragonite's mouth blasted across the stadium with the roar of air atoms split in half and others rushing in to fill the void, only narrowly ending at the battlefield's border before it would have hit any humans; the crowd gasped and Misty shrieked, everyone's hands flying up to shield their eyes from the blinding light.
"That - that was one of the strongest Hyper Beams I've ever seen!" the announcer finally found his words again as everyone (including the Dragonite) blinked, "Did it - what happened to Ketchum's Pokémon, did it…?!" he asked, voice faltering as he (and everyone else) stared at the spot where Sonic had just been but where there were now only some slightly scuffed trackmarks in the gravel, not even an unconscious body -
"Hey Dragonite! You bring the lightning?!"
Heads flew up. Even if for most of them, the words would have been incomprehensible, what was far more readily understandable was the body of one blue hedgehog in sudden freefall above Dragonite's head. Sonic grinned and curled up.
"Cause I bring the thunder."
And the hero of Mobius impacted on the dragon's body with the force of a comet.
"OHHHHHHHH!" the announcer shouted as the crowd went wild when Dragonite was smashed into the ground, ice splinters, dust and gravel erupting around it in a dust cloud - and when it cleared, there was one blue hedgehog standing atop an unconscious dragon, arms crossed and wearing the mother of all cocky grins.
"Looks like your dragon is dra-gone, buddy," Sonic suggested to Gary (even if he privately knew the only ones who could have understood him at this distance - and likely took psychic damage from it - were his Mobian friends, but to heck with it; the way Gary stared at him suggested he had gotten Sonic's sentiment exactly and was about to go apoplectic).
"This is - amazing - look at this replay -!"the announcer was still stammering in awe and Sonic cocked his head to see the giant displays switch to a slow-motion recording of the previous minute. On the large screen, slowed to a hundredth of real speed, one could now see Dragonite's mouth opening again, the Hyper Beam forming in its throat, Sonic's eyes widening while Ash's distorted, slowed-down scream thundered in the background.
And then Sonic was gone.
On screen, the camera panned back to see how the hedgehog was now moving even faster than before, circling in a tight pattern in front of Dragonite like a dervish caught in a bottle as the beam of light was approaching with infinitesimal slowness, everything else appearing frozen in time - and then, as the whirlwind began to form, Sonic leapt into it, the windhose he had called hurling him into the sky just fractions of a second before the Hyper Beam blasted across the spot he had been standing in.
The camera briefly rested on Dragonite's surprised face, but then was already whipping up and zooming in to see Sonic, twisting to gain control over his flight, spreading his limbs as if he were soaring, a wide grin forming on his face as he began to plummet downward again and shouted -
And then the replay returned to normal speed to show Sonic's impact a second time, steel-blue quills fanned out like the spikiest meteorite in history as he impacted on his opponent.
"INCREDIBLE! Absolutely INCREDIBLE!" the announcer screamed into the microphone as the audience exploded, again."Dragonite is DOWN! That Sonic's agility stats must be through the roof!"
"Awesome! Way to go, Ash and Sonic!" Misty, Amy and Tails cheered from the sidelines, even Knuckles, Professor Oak and Brock giving appreciative nods. (That Sonic next took a few bows to the various sides of the stadium seemed at first to surprise the viewers, but was then also greeted by more cheers).
"That means Gary Oak is now down to his last Pokémon!" the announcer (that Sonic had dubbed as a Captain of the MS Obvious loooong ago...) shouted. "He needs to have a pretty fast one in store if he hopes to catch up with Ketchum, that's for sure!"
"Oh yeah? Don't even think you've won yet, you just got lucky!" Gary yelled at Ash from the other side of the stadium as he held out a Pokéball to retrieve the unconscious Dragonite. "But if you're playing with fancy new Pokémon, so can I!"
And he hurled a pokéball into the arena with all his might.
"Get him! THUNDERHOG!"
And then Sonic stared nearly as boggle-eyed as his new opponent, mainly because he apparently had expected to see Shadow appear on the field just as much as the black hedgehog himself.
Then the blue hedgehog frowned.
"...wait. Thunderhog?"
"IT'S ANOTHER SONIC!" the announcer almost seemed to choke on his own excitement as the crowd now roared in a frenzy. "Incredible, we get to see two new Pokémon fighting against each other at once! This is the Xeno-cup of the century!"
"WHAT did you just call me?!" Shadow seemed to whirl around on reflex alone, right before catching himself, "Wait, how come…?!" he trailed off, staring at Sonic, the viewers and Ash and the others on Sonic's side of the playing field with uncharacteristically ever widening eyes.
There was still a roar of cheering from the audience drowning out nearly everything else, but Sonic thought Shadow's moving lips shaped the words "I understand them?" distinctly enough.
"Yo, it's a translator chip, Shadow!" he called out with an excited grin, waving the wrist that had the gadget strapped around it. "Our friend the professor developed i-!"
"Huh, don't overestimate yourself, you loser! Maybe they're the same species, but my Thunderhog is obviously a further developed stage. Can't you see how lame your thing looks in comparison to mine?!" Gary's voice cut off Sonic's shout, the brown-haired boy still glaring daggers at Ash.
"Wha-hey!" Sonic abruptly re-focused on the other kid, initial general dislike now abruptly having turned personal. "You sorry Daenerys-wannabe roll up here with that fashion sense and you call me-?!"
"Thunderhog!" Gary cut him off again at that moment, reminding Sonic once more that only because he could understand everything in his personal translator bubble (that currently included Shadow), people outside of it could very distinctly not, but it was Gary's next words that really let him snap to attention. "Don't just stand there! Tackle! NOW!" the boy screamed at Shadow, who at least seemed to have somewhat recovered from the shock of suddenly understanding his surroundings and now whirled around to glare at the human.
"The hell I will-!"
"Save your breath, Shads, they can't understand you!" Sonic called out, "My translator has a sending range of about 20 feet, only people inside it can understand other languages," he said as he jogged a bit closer, "so we get to hear the kids, but they can't hear us. Speaking of which, where did you even find that br-?"
"Oh, what is this? Thunderhog is not taking Oak's order! Instead it appears confused! Perhaps it had a status ailment before it came here?!" the announcer shouted at this point, prompting some laughter from the audience and letting Gary turn an interesting shade of red.
"Yet Ketchum appears to be taking the chivalrous route, not yet giving Sonic any orders before Thunderhog has recovered! Cheers for fair play!"
The audience dutifully whooped at that point, Ash and Sonic also quickly exchanging a glance – Ash mostly seemed to have understood that this was their missing friend and was therefore predictably unsure on whether Sonic would want to be ordered to attack. (Sonic, in fact, wasn't even quite sure what he wanted to do right now himself.) He glanced back at Shadow who also looked just as uncertain how to proceed.
"What on- THUNDERHOG! You are mine and you will fight!" Gary screamed at Shadow at the top of his lungs from the sidelines, brandishing the dark purple ball he had released the black hedgehog from in his hands like a threat. "Or else it's back in the ball for another 24 hours! I know you understood that last time!"
Shadow whirled around at those words, his eyes blazing with unspeakable fury as he gave the human an almost feral snarl. But, somehow even more shocking, Sonic thought he could also see a hint of distress in the black hedgehog's body language, quills subtly flattened as if Shadow knew he was going into a battle he would lose...
Sonic felt his stomach contract as suddenly he was pretty certain that contrary to him and Ash, Shadow and Gary were not friends.
"Come on move! I said TACKLE!" Gary shouted. "I swear, if you let Ketchum's Pokémon thrash you and lose me this tournament-!"
Sonic's eyes darkened.
"Come on, Shadow," he said, quietly. "Let's give him a fight worth watching."
Dark red eyes locked onto him and the uncertainty in them flashed only for a moment, before it was immediately replaced with a nod of determination. Sonic only briefly glanced back at Ash, giving a decisive nod before finally hurling himself toward Shadow, rolling in a shoddy spin-dash which the black hedgehog side-stepped easily more out of reflex than anything else.
"Oh, uh, right! Sonic! Spin-dash NOW!" Ash, bless his heart, called belatedly behind him right as Sonic uncurled in a three-point-stance behind Shadow, nodding at his rival.
"Come on. Let's play for some time till we figure out how to get you out."
Shadow blinked at him, pausing for a moment. Then he inclined his head. "Fine."
This was all the warning Sonic got before the black hedgehog rushed him, Sonic barely able to leap away from the homing attack aimed at his face.
"Woah! Shads! More showmanship and less murderous intent, here!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, it seems as if Thunderhog has gotten over its confusion! This might be the most exciting fight of the tournament yet!"
"Thunderhog! Dammit, what on Earth was that supposed to be?! Be faster or I swear it's back in the box for you! Tackle, again!"
"How did you know I would be here?" Shadow's eyes were blazing as he threw a punch at Sonic's head, but this one (perhaps in direct defiance) came at least slower than the spin-dash had, meaning Sonic could duck under it easily.
"We didn't," he replied truthfully as he dodged. "We came here because the prize for this tournament is the Chaos Emerald." Ash yelled something in the background that Sonic hoped was a command for a kick, because that was what he retaliated with, albeit telegraphed enough that Shadow could have jumped over it in his sleep. "We kinda figured you would be looking for it too and would be around somewhere, so we signed up."
"'We' signed up?" Shadow's eyes narrowed as he landed on his feet after a backflip to avoid the kick, charging up for a forward blast.
"Well, us and Ash and his friends," Sonic jabbed a thumb over his shoulder as he threw himself to the side to avoid the rush and shoulder tackle of the other, the two of them circling each other now as if waiting for an opening.
"Ash," Shadow repeated the name, snarling. "That the name of the human who captured you?" Red eyes narrowed to briefly flash over for a glance at the boy on the sidelines.
"Well…not quite," Sonic replied. "He tried at first, but I, uh, accidentally dropped a tree on him."
At this point, both Ash and Gary yelled something that sounded like one of the myriad Pokémon attack orders and this time Shadow followed Sonic's lead and leapt after him into a telegraphed homing attack, both hedgehogs bouncing against one another to land again and uncurl in mirroring battle stances, hands locked in a faux-shoving contest against each other.
Sonic shrugged. "Long story short, we're friends now - and he and his friends have been helping us on the search for the Emerald a lot."
"Friends?" Shadow hissed, immediately enraged. "With the humans on this planet?!"
"Uh – yeah?" The blue hedgehog replied, at the same time dodging a swipe of Shadow's leg that only barely seemed to have been meant for Sonic to be dodged, disengaging again. The bad feeling Sonic had had as soon as Gary had yelled at Shadow solidified. "Why, what happened to y-?"
"That human over there imprisoned me! Marked me! Enslaved me!"
A lance of Chaos Energy was hurled at the ground before Sonic, letting the earth explode and the audience gasp. Curiously, Shadow almost looked woozy after it, but recovered quickly.
Nevertheless, at his words Sonic's eyes grew huge. "Wait what? How on Mobius did he manage that?!" he gasped. "I'd have thought you'd wipe the floor with anyone here!"
They were circling much faster around each other in their show fight now, the Chaos flames in Shadow's hand crackling ominously. At Sonic's surprised question, the black hedgehog gritted his teeth.
"I was...weakened when I came here," he growled. "The Chaos Control made me lose one of my inhibitor rings and I can't function properly with just one. My energy becomes unreliable." Shadow's gaze for a moment flickered away from Sonic's. "I'm…liable to pass out from overuse."
Sonic felt a small sting of guilt. Even after Tails had mentioned that bit with the rings, it actually hadn't occurred to him yet that Robotnik's manipulation of the rings could have had more consequences than just dumping the group of them on this planet. Somehow, Shadow ever not being able to handle things hadn't been imaginable.
"Also, I was barely conscious when I came here. There was little I could do when he and his attack dogs came across me only hours after the Chaos Control," Shadow said, once more shooting a hateful glance at the brown-haired boy over his shoulder. "And every time I tried to escape afterwards, that...thing he throws at me would bind me. Trap me in a virtual reality designed to mock me."
"They're...they're called Pokéballs," Sonic said, swallowing. He had enjoyed his time in the simulated Green Hill Zone inside the ball, (even though he figured it was a bit creepy that what the balls apparently did, as they held you in that strange black void, was reading your mind and memories to know what they should render) but he now he also wondered whether Shadow perhaps didn't even have an environment where he would be comfortable.
"You know how they work?" Shadow's eyes flashed at him, as he feinted to the right, Sonic dodging to the left, anger briefly subdued by interest.
"Yeah, Ash brought me here in one of those. I, uh, tried to capture Knuckles in one of them, that...didn't go too well," Sonic gave a little wince that had nothing to do with the kick of Shadow he barely blocked. "Anyway, 's long as you're healthy when caught for the first time it seems like busting out of them is easy, but apparently that changes when they get you when you're down. From what I know Gary will now always be able to capture you. Sorry," Sonic said with a grimace as renewed fury seemed to flush Shadow's expression.
Then the black hedgehog's eyes narrowed. "He - brought you here? I thought you said he didn't capture you?" he asked, suspicion lacing his tone.
"I let him capture me to get into this tournament, okay? Important difference," Sonic shot back, slightly peeved. "Anyway, I got-"
"So he can re-capture you at will, too?"
"Yes, but he wouldn't," Sonic snapped, dodging Shadow's punches left and right easily, "Look, Ash is a good kid, okay? Also, I actually got your missing ring in my quills right now, so how about we focus on getting that back on you first?"
"My ring?" Shadow looked at him, for a moment his face betraying open need, before immediately becoming determined again. "Give it to me."
Shadow made a grab for him and Sonic allowed the black hedgehog's hand to close around his wrist, docilely going with it and flattening his back spines when the other twisted his arm onto his back to bring them closer together. Sonic noted with relief that despite his understandable rage, Shadow was at least in control enough of himself to not hurt him by bending the arm far enough for it to become painful. He struggled a bit for show, making it less obvious when Shadow's free hand went into his head quills to search for his property.
"To the left a bit…" Sonic tried to weakly pull away, a joke effort against Shadow's strength as he directed the other. "Then what happened after that brat caught you? And how did you figure out that we're on a different planet?"
"He...brought me to a treatment facility of some sort. Got it," Shadow grunted, releasing Sonic as he spun to break out of his grip, the flashy manoeuvre enough to draw attention as Shadow slipped the ring back on. A light seemed to flash in his eyes as it snapped into place.
"I knew almost as soon as I regained consciousness that this was a different planet. Completely different Chaos field - disoriented me. As you can see, I'm fine now," Shadow flexed his hands into fists. "But when I tried to escape before..."
Sonic broke into a zig-zagging run as if the submission hold had scared him off a bit, leaving Shadow to initiate pursuit, a few lazy Chaos Spears thrown wide of their target for good measure, crackling green-and-yellow energy impacting the ground and leaving scorched sand in their wake. Judging from the gasps and roars from the crowd (and Gary's encouraging shouts) the show looked suitably impressive.
"I had defeated nearly all of their servant creatures, but then was recaptured." Shadow's voice took on a bitter edge, biting the words off. "Afterwards, whenever I was released, I was immediately attacked."
"That does seem to be a big part of their culture, yeah," Sonic winced. "Kinda like dogfights, but they say the 'dogs' like it."
Surprisingly, Shadow all at once tackled him to the ground at that, not enough warning given for a dodge.
"That makes them the animals," Shadow snarled above him, eyes blazing.
Underneath him, Sonic gave an uneasy shrug. "I...well, most of Ash's pets do seem to like it. And most of them really seem to be having fun..."
"You would be the kind of person to say that," Shadow shot back dryly. "And now what?"
"I, uh, well, hadn't thought of that. The plan was actually to defeat the enemy's Pokémon and get the emerald, then find you. And I had been hoping to have thought of something new by now…" Sonic winced, still pinned underneath and squirming a little. You...wouldn't consider feigning defeat, perhaps...?"
Shadow's expression seemed to convey for a moment what exactly the Ultimate Lifeform thought of feigning defeat, ever, even if it were a family game night with toddlers, but before Sonic could wrack his brain to come up with something else to get them out of this, a gigantic shadow suddenly fell over them both.
"What…?" Sonic craned his head back as the crowd gasped as well, and his eyes widened as he beheld the giant battle fortress emerging from one of the cloud banks, now hovering not a hundred feet above the stadium.
A very large, very red-and-yellow battle fortress, with a very grinning moustache emblem.
"No way," Sonic whispered.
"CITIZENS OF THIS PATHETIC WORLD!" A very familiar voice boomed, "Behold the majesty of the Egg Catcher – as it will be the last thing you see! OHOHOHOHOH!"
To be continued...
The gang's all back together! :D And won't our heroes be so pleased about it. XD As always, hope you liked, would love to hear all your thoughts and favourite bits, so if you read, please review!