Sonic and Knuckles conversed as they walked through a forest. They walked past a bridge and a station, with nobody there. Sonic took the time to steal the comically large ketchup though.
...Knuckles took the lamp, too.
There was a bunch of puzzles, a guard dog that didn't seem to care that they were there and even a note on the ground.
"Junior Jumble?" Sonic exclaimed, examining the paper. "I love Junior Jumble! Who would just leave this lying around?!"
Knuckles looked amusingly at the hedgehog. "You like this kinda stuff?" He chuckled slightly. "Crossword is more my style."
The blue blur shrugged in response. "Crosswords take too long to solve. At least for me anyways."
Suddenly, the flower from earlier popped out of the ground again... spitting out more dirt and snow.
"Oh come ON! You don't even know the two buffoons but you said the exact same thing as them! I can't stay quiet about that!" He then shouted as he hit another realisation. "SAME COLOUR SCHEME TOO?!"
Knuckles set down the lamp and clenched his fists together. "You again. Why do you follow us?"
"It's the only thing to do in this hell-hole!" Flowey shouted. "Well, since this isn't going too well..."
The hedgehog noticed a text box that appeared in front of them. All of the text was printed backwards so it was hard to make out what it said. Flowey selected something and everything started glowing white. Their vision was completely obscured for a moment...
...and then it returned back to normal.
"WHAT?" The flower seemed outraged. "Why isn't it working? Why didn't the SAVE work?"
"Save?" The echidna asked, lost on everything happening in front of him. "What are you talking about?"
The flower didn't say a word in response. He went back into the ground almost immediately.
"That flower doesn't seem okay." Sonic commented.
Blaze examined her surroundings a bit more. Nothing of interest, but at least she was out of that damn capsule.
...it was a bit cold though.
She was about to continue onward when suddenly a bone shot out of the ground and into the air. It didn't really go anywhere, but it drew her attention to a... thing standing next to her.
"hello stranger. you aren't from these parts?"
Blaze turned to face them. "Correct."
The strange person walked up to them. "all good greetings start off with a hand shake." They extended their arm out to Blaze, which she accepted.
...and then a flatulent-like noise emitted from his hand.
"heh heh. the ol' whoopee cushion in the hand trick. always works."
The princess just stared at him, confused. "Forgive me, but I am not acquainted with your way of introductions."
"is that so?" The weird monster-like figure turned away from her. "doesn't matter. what i'm wondering is where exactly you're from."
"i know just about everyone in the underground except for you. so tell me, where do you come from?" The strange person was asking rather demandingly.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang noise on the other side of the village, distracting the two from their conversation.
"What the-?!" Knuckles shouted. "Who put an explosive device in that spiked maze?!"
Sonic fell from the sky and landed next to him. "Who booby-trapped that spaghetti to have bombs in there...?" He asked muffled; due to being face first in a pile of snow.
"Regardless," The echidna got up and wiped a bit of dust from his shoulder. "The village is just up ahead. Maybe there we can find a clue."
Sonic stood up as he searched his belongings for something. "Or maybe a Chaos..." he then gasped loudly. "The Ketchup! It got spilled everywhere!"
"Get serious, Sonic." Knuckles scoffed. "You are too relaxed for the environment we are... huh?" He trailed off.
"What is it?" Sonic stopped.
"I sense it, nearby... a Chaos Emerald!"
"care to explain what that is?" A voice whispered into his ear suddenly, causing Knuckles to jump back slightly.
"Who are you?" Knuckles asked whilst throwing his arms in front of him for defence.
"who are you? you're the stranger here." He then suddenly vanished.
Knuckles looked around all confused, wondering where he went. Not far behind him, Sonic was also trying to spot the strange person.
"you too." The figure suddenly appeared next to Sonic. He curled into a ball and zoomed forward out of reflex, which the skeleton avoided narrowly by teleporting.
Sonic uncurled and slammed his fist into the ground to stop himself from moving. He quickly shuffled to a stand and wiped the snow off his hand.
"Chaos Control!? You have the Chaos Emerald!" Sonic shouted angrily.
Knuckles' eyes widened in shock. "Impossible! How could a person like you channel even a single Chaos Emerald?"
"that's kinda rude. i'm gonna have to escort you outta here." He lifted his hand and a bone appeared from nowhere. It launched itself at Sonic.
"Look out!"
Sonic instinctively knew to roll out of the way. As he did so, he accidentally dropped the remains of his fallen ketchup bottle.
"You're not beating us that easi-"
"did you just-" The skeleton cut him off. "is that... is that my ketchup? you stole my ketchup?"
Sonic followed the skeleton's line of vision to the bottle on the ground. He picked it up and hid it behind his back, giving a sheepish grin and wave after doing so.
"...well to be honest i was just toying with ya, but after seeing that you're just thieves..."
A slow and loud scratching noise could be heard. The three of them looked over to it and saw a vine protruding from the ground dragging a lamp towards them before stopping.
"Ah, the lamp! I must've dropped it after..." Knuckles stopped himself after catching the skeleton's judging glare in the corner of his eye.
"after...?"
Knuckles sighed. "After I stole it..." he changed his answer to suit what the skeleton wanted to hear.
"honesty. i like it."
Shadow sped through his surroundings. Waterfalls, lava... more water... spiderwebs... snow, water... again. There wasn't anything here. Nothing worth his time, anyways.
The hedgehog kept pacing back and fourth through each area to try and find anything new. Nothing. Perhaps the Chaos Emeralds weren't even here.
Trying something else by going back to the Waterfall area, Shadow followed the path of a narrow bridge that didn't seem to lead anywhere. He leapt down, hoping to find anything worthwhile.
Oh boy, did he find something.
He found some flowers to break his fall. They weren't his main focus however, as he spotted Eggman collapsed on the ground next to his mech. He also sensed a Chaos Emerald nearby, but...
"Guess I won't need the Emeralds after all." He remarked at the unconscious doctor. "For the sake of our world, I must put a stop to you!"
Shadow jumped into the air. The rushing of the Waterfall seemed to slow down for him as he prepared his attack. He positioned his fist readily and charged forward.
"Goodbye, Doctor!"
But that attack never came. What instead happened was that his attack was... deflected. So quickly that Shadow had no time to react and was flung into a wall hard enough to be knocked out instantly.
The commotion didn't go unheard as Eggman woke up. He saw the hedgehog knocked out in front of him.
"Shadow...?" Eggman picked up the hedgehog, examining him. "How did this happen?"
The doctor pondered for a moment. As much as he would love to capture Shadow, he didn't exactly have a means to keep him contained at the moment.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a glimmer in the water next to him. It was a Chaos Emerald.
Eggman started laughing as he began to conjure up a scheme.
To be continued…
Hey, Chapter 3 is here! I've been working on this on and off for a while. I didn't want to burn myself out on this because I'm having a blast writing it. Sorry for just vanishing for a while after talking about "it sucks when people don't update their stories" because now I just look like a hypocrite. I have a good reason though!
With things changing up due to COVID, my schedule got a lot more mind boggling and I had to adjust to the new changes, along with more shenanigans. I can't promise an update in the next 2 weeks but perhaps afterwards?
Anyways, more reviews to respond to!
Megan Kitkat - These interactions are very fun to write! I'm glad you're enjoying these dynamics.
kthornto79972 - You can't point out plot holes until the story is done. I'm not done explaining thingsssssss (but thank you for the attention to detail, I appreciate the extra effort!)
blazedveggies556 - Thank you so much for the kind words! Hopefully this was worth the wait!
milogamer314 - Hey, I'm a Tails fan too. But that's not how Tails or Flowey is written. I don't think world peace would be established if I wrote a story where Tails became a Demi-god.
Anyways, that's all for now! This isn't gonna be updated for a while, so please wait - and stay tuned for the next chapter!
