It had been a little over a week since Team Sonic's picnic. While the blue blur's injured leg had healed up quite nicely, Sonic's mental state had dramatically declined. The dark circles and bags under his now dull green eyes and unkempt quills only added to this fact.
The poor hedgehog had been plagued with more reoccurring dreams of himself in diapers (as an adult and infant) while being looked after with love and care by his friends. Most notably, Shadow and Amy.
It was pure torture.
It wasn't the dreams themselves that were nightmarish; it was the mushy heartfelt warm fuzzy feelings of unconditional love and attention they brought with them that would plague him long after waking up. Sonic couldn't shake away the yearning and crushing weight he felt in his chest every morning after a dream; sometimes, he would even wake up surprised to find the remains of tear stains on his muzzle.
The burning pain in his chest increased to excruciating levels whenever he was hanging out with his friends. At first, he thought maybe he was experiencing some heartburn from too many greasy meh burgers, but that theory went out the window after a few days of forage food only diet.
The irregular toddler treatment and newly acquired affectionate nicknames didn't help either, as it only reminded him of the incessant dreams. He tried to refrain from behaving in any way that would encourage his friends to coddle him, being as serious and level-headed as possible in every situation. To no avail, as they only teased him for attempting to imitate the Ultimate Lifeform, just like a little kid pretending to be like his dad.
He blew up at that retort.
Sonic's positive mood declined with each passing day becoming more uptight and hot-headed. Due to the fact, his current effort to make the chest pain go away was to stay up all night, avoiding the origin of his plight.
Ok, maybe it wasn't his best plan, but he had to try something!?
A gloved hand combed through unruly quills while the other brought a sugary, caffeinated, filled beverage to his lips, trying to stay awake while sitting at the table with his friends. Sonic picked up a barely salted fry and tossed it into his mouth, chewing slowly. "And then the guys says watermelon? I thought you said Guatemalan. Why would I marry a watermelon?"
"Hahahaa...I don't get it." Knuckles scratches his head, "Tails, you need to stop hanging around Sonic so much that was a horrible joke." Amy moans, Shadow grunts rolling his eyes, agreeing with her. "Oh, come on! It-it wasn't that bad, was it?"
"Bad enough that even Sonic didn't find it funny. And he comes up with the corniest jokes besides that ape in the suit you all watch on tv." Shadow mutters, "Hey, Comedy Chimp's jokes are not corny! Right, Sonic?...eh, Sonic?" Tails waves his hands in front of the dazed blue hedgehog.
"He's getting worse." Amy says, "Let me try." Shadow leans over and slaps Sonic across the face, "Momma's little boy say what!" Sonic screams, blinking rapidly; his eyes focus into sharp emerald daggers straight at Shadow, holding a hand over his burning cheek snapping at the black hog, "What the hell was that for faker?!"
"You weren't paying attention to the conversation again. Though that was probably for the better, you zoned out on the horrible joke Tails just told us-"
"Hey!"
"Regardless...what's going on with you, Sonic? Your attention span is even shorter than it usually is of late."
"Yeah, and you've been kinda mean too." Knuckles added, "I have no idea what you're talking about, faker!" Sonic hissed, "I disagree. I think your hiding something from us." Amy turned to the sleep-deprived hedgehog, tenderly placing her hand over his, "Is that true, Sonic? You can tell us we're your friends."
"I'm not hiding anything!" He jerked his hand back away from her touch; Amy flinched, looking hurt when he did that as if he was disgusted with her.
"Then explain the bags under your eyes. And why I've been seeing you run yourself ragged over the last few nights and drink nothing but coffee and eat sugary foods constantly." Shadow prodded, trying to pull out an answer from the speedster. "Since when did you start spying on me?! And who said you could dictate on how I live my life?!" Sonic rose from his seat, quills rising in a threatening stance. Shadow imitated his posture, both of them leaning over the table into the other's personal bubble. "Since you've started acting like a short fuse bomb ready to explode at any second!"
"So you admit stalking me! What are you gonna do next? Stab me in the back, take over the village and go back on Maria's promise just like the evil villain you are?!"
On some level, Sonic knew he was going too far. Still, sleep deprivation never leaves one with rational thinking ability, and Shadow's admitting he had been keeping tabs on the blue blur added to his building paranoia.
Shadow almost jumped over the table to tear out Sonic's throat for that accusation. Stealing himself back, he slowly took in a shaky breath. He doesn't know what he's saying. He doesn't know what he's saying. He's not in his right mind, and you're making it worse. Calm down before it escalates any further. Clenching trembling fists, Shadow breathed out. Letting the hedgehog's comment on Maria slide, for now, speaking in a neutral tone,
"No, I was not stalking you, Sonic. I've merely been keeping an eye on you because of your erratic behavior of late. You haven't been acting like yourself, and I'm not the only one who's noticed."
"Yeah, Sonic, you've been acting really weird."
"We're just worried about you, little blue." Knuckles put a large hand on the hedgehog's tense shoulders; Amy nodded sympathetically, agreeing with their sentiments.
Sonic's eyes shrunk to pinpricks. If looks could kill, the whole table would have been in flames. His quills sharpened and rose, pricking Knuckles hand making him jerk back, "LAY OFF! There's nothing wrong with me. It's you guys who have been acting like jackasses making fun of me and telling me what to do!" shoving a finger in front of Shadows face he snarled, "And you. Quite stalking me or you can officially consider yourself off the team got it faker." he spat.
Shadow was about to say something to try and de-escalate the situation again when all ears at the table rose, hearing an all too familiar laugh cut through the air.
"Well, well, well. It looks like there seems to be a little bit of a dispute going on between our two favorite pin cushions. What's the problem? Someone forgot to put the chili on your dog blue rat?" Eggman jeered, hovering above the group in his eggmobile. Sonic dropped his arm and slumped, harshly rolling his bloodshot eyes and moaning in aggravation, "This day could not possibly get any worse until you showed up." he muttered under his breath. "Can it, fathead!" Sonic snapped, whipping his head back to the human, "I'm too tired to deal with your shit today so just go back to that deserted island you call a lair and dig into another pint of Rocky Road."
"Wow, Sonic!" Eggman whistled, "Really packing it in with the insults today, aren't you? Words hurt, you know." Sonic mentally screamed some filthy phrases that would put a sailor to shame, "But no matter. It's no skin off my back if you're in a bad mood today. Megabot...Destroy that pissed off pest!" rolling on to the scene, Megabot's laser eye lit up charging and aiming for the center of the furry group.
"Aaaaaaaaahhh!" Sonic screamed a war cry, speeding off and attacking the massive robot. He curled into a spin dash and, homing, attacked the bot in a blind furry making large dents with each hit. When that wasn't enough, he sloppily punched and kicked it as if the machine had insulted him personally.
Villagers panicked and fled, getting as far away from the battle as possible while Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and even Eggman did nothing but stand back, watching a blue blur attacking the machine. Mouths gaped open in slight shock not only with how mad Sonic was but also at how much damage he was causing in such a short amount of time despite his flimsy moves and unsteady gait. They didn't want to get in the way of his assault, accidentally ending up on the wrong end of Sonic's deadly kicks; even Eggman knew better.
Why else would he send robots to do the dirty work for him instead of doing it himself?
Making the final hit, Sonic landed in a crouch, hands resting on bended knees, trying to steady his pounding heart. His head was killing him now, accidentally head butting the robot a few times, leaving a ringing sensation in his ears and spinning vision.
Megabot crashed to the side. The collateral damage so extensive you couldn't even tell what the mass of metal had been just a few minutes ago.
"Woah, " Eggman breathed, "Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." growling, Sonic glared through his peripheral at the man.
"Seriously, you need to go to anger management or something. That was the worst temper tantrum I've ever seen."
Something in his brain snapped at those words, eye twitching, blue shoulders shaking. Sonic shoots up, stamping his foot on the ground like a toddler not having his way screeching. "I am not having a temper tantrum! You big fat, bald poo-poo-headed meanie! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
SNAP! BOOM!
The sound of air cracking and an explosion blasted every eardrum in a 5-mile radius. A thick dust cloud whipped up, covering everything.
As the powder slowly settled, the ringing in everyone's ears lessened. Waving away the puff of dirt from his muzzle, coughing, Tails blinked, looking around, "What was that? Is everyone ok?"
"We're-cough-we're still here, Tails." Amy wheezed, "The doctor isn't." Shadow pointed out. Eggman having left the scene long before anything more disastrous could happen as per usual. "Wait a sec..." Amy turns around as the dust cleared enough for her to notice something blue was missing, "where's Sonic?" All eyes widen and quickly take in their surroundings, not finding their team leader anywhere. Shadow's head fell, having his chance to help someone he loved taken away from him once again; he cursed to himself, lowly, "Shit."
It didn't take long for the four friends to figure out that their blue friend was the one to cause the shock wave after his rapid disappearance.
All eyes drifted to rest on the ebony hog, Shadow blankly stared back between the fox, echidna, and pink hedgehog staring at him, "What?"
"You were the one watching him for the last few days. Explain." Amy demanded fists set firmly on her hips. Shadow sighed, "As I said earlier. I noticed just like the rest of you that Sonic was acting differently, and I decided to investigate." he let out another tired sigh, "Something has been bugging him. What? I don't know. All I know is he's been doing everything possible not to fall asleep, leading to this literal explosive outburst."
"Well, do you have any idea what might be the cause?"
"No. My first inclination was that he was suffering from nightmares, but I...don't know what the cause might be. Or it could be something else entirely that's bothering him. Like I said, I don't know the whole story."
"Well, whatever the case, may be we can't do anything about it without Sonic around." Tails places a hand under his chin in thought, his namesakes twitching, "We need to find him and get to the bottom of this. How long has he gone without sleeping?"
"4 days."
"Ok yeah, that explains a lot. We need to find him a.s.a.p. Sonic's in serious danger of hurting himself if we don't find him soon."
"Got it. Knuckles, you take the beach and the village, Tails, you give us an aerial sweep of the island, Shadow, you search the canyon and east jungle, I'll take the west side of the jungle and all of the archeological sites. Meet back here before sundown?" Serious faces and eyes filled with determination nodded in agreement with the pink hedgehog. Everyone ran off to begin the search in their designated areas, ready to hurry up and find their blue leader before the worst could happen.
Darkness that's all he saw, mind-numbing darkness.
Ok, so it wasn't mind-numbing. That was just his sleep-deprived mind talking nonsense. There wasn't anything besides that around him except for the sound of his sneakers squeaking against the wet floor and drops of water falling from who knows where. He couldn't tell; he didn't even know where he was or how he got here. All Sonic could remember was fighting Eggman, then yelling at him and spouting something embarrassing before dashing off feeling pissed off; he couldn't remember why though. Everything was just a blur that faded in and out in his mind. But not sleeping for 4 days straight will do that to you: that and give you a killer headache.
Having cooled down, Sonic continued shuffling blindly down the path of the cave. He was hoping to find an exit fairly soon cause Chaos was he tired. The lack of sensory input was not helping him keep awake either, the darkness easing his tired eyes, and the sound of water running was soothing to his ears.
Wait a minute, running water? And...is that a light I see up ahead?
Shifting to a light jog, he realized that the light was not white like it should be if it were coming from the sun. Instead, this light was softly changing colors. The sound of running water also grew in volume as he got closer.
Then there it was.
Sonic halted at the entrance, eyes widening in amazement at the sight before him, "Woah..." he breathed. The echo bouncing off vibrantly colored walls sparkling like a thousand stars. He places a hand on the wall brushing his gloves over the surface; it was smooth, worn away from condensation continually running down the walls over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Examining the surface further, he saw tiny slivers of pigmentation glowing spread all over the cave's walls, reflecting into many rainbows against the water dripping down stalactites and stalagmites scattered in the massive room.
"This is way past cool," Sonic spoke lowly, strolling further to a pond in the middle. His lethargic legs faltered, and losing balance; he landed on his knees before the calm water. "Ouch." he groaned, barely registering the pain but made no attempts to get up; he was too tired. "Hehe, I guess I'm clumsy and today.~" he sing songs and giggles with a crooked smile, delirium hitting him. Dull eyes drifted to the pond in front of him, leaning forward. He sees something moving underneath the surface.
There swimming underwater were several small fish with enormous eyes glimmering in several different shades of pink; Sonic giggled, "Hehehe, pink fishes." he watched the fish gracefully moving about the water in a stupor mind utterly empty of all thoughts. His arms slowly gave way next, sliding underneath him, laying on the cool floor. Sonic continued to watch the fish. Eyelids flickering until they finally drew closed, breathing deeply. Unaware of the moment when he finally gave in to sweet sleep after being awake for so long.
Everything in the village was back to normal, citizens going about their business, and the metal scrap that had been Megabot removed, like the scuffle earlier that day, had never happened.
Amy was the last one to meet back with the group at the restaurant. Any hope she had that one of the others had found Sonic fell from her face as she saw the rest of her friends looking just as sullen as she was. "Nothing?"
"Not even a blue quill." Tails replied sadly. "W-what do we do now? It's getting dark soon." Amy twisted the end of her outfit anxiously, totally at a loss on what to do now and where her little emerald had ended up.
Shadow held himself close, seeming to be in a debate; he had an idea. But he didn't like having to stoop to asking for help, especially from the person he was thinking of. But they were running out of time, "We need to go to the Doctor." he says reluctantly. "Are you serious?" Knuckles asks shocked Shadow would even suggest going to the so-called evil genius for help, "He's the one who made Sonic runoff in the first place! Why should we go to him for help?!" Amy scrunches her face, appalled at the mention of the human at a time like this.
"Unless fox boy has some kind of tracker for blueberry-" tilting his head in the fox's direction, Tails shook his head negatively, "We don't have a choice. We've searched this entire island and haven't found even a single clue as to where he could be. I know the Doctor has a way to track him down. He's our only chance to find Sonic before nightfall." he pointedly looked up. The beginning of the evening sun already shifting the colors of the sky into warm shades of orange and red emphasizing Shadow's point for him.
Eggman sitting on his couch in the lounge room, dug another spoon full of, (wouldn't you know it.) Rocky Road out of the pint while watching the latest episode of Hedgehog Abby. He was considering changing into something more comfortable at the next commercial break when something dark and brooding materialized right in front of the screen along with 3 other furry creatures. Gawking at the sudden appearance, the doctor didn't react until Shadow had swiped the remote from his fingers and turned off the tv, "Hey! I was watching that!"
"And now your not." Shadow tossed away the remote and crosses his arms, tapping his foot. "What do you pests want? I've already filled in my weekly quota to attack the village this week, and Maurice was just about to find out his girlfriend Amelia has been cheating on him with his cousin Nicky so unless it's an emergency, kindly hand back the remote and scram."
"This is an Emergency. Sonic is missing." Amy clasps her hands, walking up to the human with a pleading look, "So go look for him."
"We have. We've searched all over the island and can't find him anywhere! He's suffering from severe sleep deprivation and ran off; we know you have a way of tracking Sonic, so could you please help us?"
"And why should I? It's not my fault the blue pineapple has gone missing." he huffed, "Because if you don't, you'll have someone far worse to deal with than him." Shadow took a threatening step towards the doctor, making him gulp.
"My grandbaby is missing?!" a nasally high-pitched electronic voice suddenly asked in alarm; Eggman groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "For the love of-for the last time, Mom-bot. Sonic is not your grandchild! But yes, it seems the annoying rat has disappeared."
Grandchild? All of the anthropomorphic animals in the room silently questioned with surprise garnishing their features, watching the bot fret about. "Oh, my goodness! We have to find him-oh! Metal would know where he is. I'll go-"
"Nonononono! We are not going to-" Eggman shrieked like a little girl when a chaos spear interrupted him, striking the wall just inches away from his nose; he could smell the hot burning crackle of energy char the edges of his 'magnificent' mustache. "W-waste any time. H-hurry up and get Metal, would you, Mom-bot?" his voice trembled as Shadow hmphed, smirking and crossing his arms. "Sadistic pincushion," Eggman mumbled low enough for Shadow not to hear, hating how the brooding hedgehog could easily have the human bend to his will.
Moments later, Mom-bot returned with Metal Sonic by her side before she left off again. "Wait a minute. How is Metal going to help us find Sonic?" Knuckles asks with raised brows, "Metal Sonic is installed with Sonic's DNA. And is also programmed to collect data about him to calculate the best way to attack and neutralize the hedgehog. Sonic's specific bio and chaos energy scans will help Metal locate where he is." Eggman explained proudly, walking over to the robotic copy patting his iron head. Knuckles didn't get a word of what the evil scientist said, but he sounded confident that the robot would find their blue friend, and that was enough for the echidna, "Metal. Locate Sonic."
"LOCATING PRIORITY ONE: SONIC T. HEDGEHOG." Metal beeps, red eyes changing to a buffering image, "This will take just a minute or two. Would anyone care for a bit of cocoa?"
"No, thanks!" Tails quickly answers, remembering how 'tasty' Eggman's recipe was from last time. Yuck! Tails shuddered, the taste and texture faintly returning to his tongue.
"BING! HEDGEHOG LOCATED." Metal beeped, red optics returning to normal, "Excellent!" Eggman beams before glowering, "Now scram!"
"Wait just a moment!" Mom-bot calls, wheeling in with a red duffel bag and hands it over to the robotic duplicate, "Here, Metal, take this with you just in case."
"What's in the bag?" Amy asks suspiciously, pointing to it, "Just some emergency supplies. First aid kit, water, snacks, a blanket, and other things to help make my grandbaby more comfortable."
"Aww, that's so sweet, Mom-bot!"
"Alright, alright, that's enough mushiness than I can stand. Take Metal with you, and get out-oh! And be sure to send him back after you find that rodent." Eggman says, while roughly pushing the group out the door,
"Thanks, Eggman!" Tails sends him a knowing grin. The human humphs and slams the door closed.
"Ok, we've got Metal Sonic, now what do we do?" The fox asks, turning back to the group, "I'll follow Metal to Sonic's location to make sure he doesn't try anything before bringing him back." Shadow thumbs to himself, glaring at the robot in the corner of his eye, "It'll be faster and safer that way. The rest of you can go back home and wait till we return." Amy places a hand on Shadow's shoulder, "Be careful and gentle with him." she gazed into those red eyes, recognizing the message they conveyed to her that he would do his utmost best to help and protect their little one and bring him home.
Nodding once, he looked to the blue robot waving a hand. "Lead the way." Beeping, Metal turned on his boosters, rising into the air, and took off with Shadow hot on his heels.