Snow Fight
Tails squeezed his eyes shut, fully expecting the bullet to smash through the bones of his skull.
But the expected pain never came. "Tails! Watch out!", Sonic shouted and Tails was thrown aside into the snow. His eyes shot open and he looked into Sonic's green ones.
The hedgehog had already grabbed him again and put him back onto his feet. "Quick, Tails, get up!" Sonic span on his heels, spotting Shadow still pointing the weapon at them. Without a seconds thought, Sonic leaped at him and plunged bodily into his black counterpart.
The two hedgehogs rolled through the snow for a moment, then Shadow managed to get a good grip on Sonic's arms and the blue hedgehog found himself thrown against the side of the plane.
Sonic struggled back to his feet, but froze when the gun was already on his chest.
"Destroy," Shadow said as flatly as before. But before he could shoot again, a pair of white-gloved fists from behind grabbed under his armpits and hurtled him a few meters away.
"Phew," Sonic let out the breath he'd been unconsciously holding.
Knuckles just gave him the briefest of nods and prepared to leap after Shadow. But the black hedgehog was already standing again, straightly upright.
Sonic and Knuckles jumped to tackle him as if they'd planned the move already. Shadow decided to take on Sonic and turned on the spot. Reflexively Sonic dodged the next shot almost at ease and watched how Knuckles slammed his fist into Shadow's side.
The black hedgehog simply stood back up as if it had been nothing, in spite of the bloody trails Knuckles' spiked namesakes had left on him. He lifted his gun back up, movement not betraying the slightest of pain. "Destroy," he declared and started to fire wildly at the three friends.
Tails quickly whirled his tails and ducked for cover, while Sonic just ran out onto the open field. After sending a few last shots at Knuckles, who dived into the snow, Shadow skated after Sonic. He shot a few more times, then the gunfire stopped.
Sonic turned over his shoulder still running and grinned at the sight of Shadow throwing the gun away. Sonic stopped. "Empty, huh?"
"Destroy enemies of the great Eggman Empire." The lamps on Shadow's helmet blinked wildly and he jumped at Sonic, curling into a spin.
Sonic dived aside lightening-fast and send a kick at Shadow as soon as he came back down. The force of the blow knocked the black hedgehog to the ground, but he stood back up without even shaking himself once. Just when he wanted to go for Sonic again, Knuckles stepped up behind him as if he'd grown out of the snowy ground and caught Shadow in a head-lock.
While Knuckles held him more or less still, Tails and Sonic stepped in front of him and the blue hedgehog tried meeting Shadow's eyes. "Hey, what's wrong with you?!" He waved his hand once in front of Shadow's face. No reaction, he just continued to stare at him.
Suddenly the black hedgehog jerked his head backwards, knocking a surprised Knuckles tumbling and holding his forehead. Even before the echidna had a chance to recover from the hit, Shadow had taken advantage of his free space and smashed into the unprepared Tails with a spin.
The fox yelped and jumped out of the way, the first seconds almost missing the sharp pain in his upper arm as Shadow's quills, as sharp as Sonic's, cut through his flesh, but it hit eventually and he dropped to a crouch and grabbed his arm, from the corner of his eyes seeing Sonic leap at Shadow and seizing his legs, both of them crashing into the snow once more.
Rolling over, Sonic was on his feet again as quickly as Shadow. This was sick. Now matter how hard they got him, it didn't seem to have the slight bit of an effect on his fighting. He seemed completely oblivious of the pain. And this weird helmet…
Sonic's train of thoughts was interrupted when Shadow stopped chasing him suddenly. For a moment he stood completely still and Sonic's eyes widened as he saw Shadow's hands fisting. He knew the look of the black hedgehog summoning a chaos spear. And the last one he'd met had really hurt.
Dropping to a tense stance and sharply watching Shadow to know the right moment to leap out of the way, Sonic stood and waited. But there came no lance of brightly glowing energy. Shadow clenched and unclenched his hands, his helmet blinking so brightly now Sonic thought it could explode any second.
"Error. No chaos energy accessible," Shadow declared. For another moment he stood utterly still and silent, then he suddenly jolted forwards, knocking his shoulder against Sonic's ribcage. "Destroy enemies…"
Sonic staggered backwards, rowing his arms to regain balance. He put a foot behind himself to steady his stand – and yelped when there was nothing to stand on. Reflexively Sonic span round to look why there was nothing and in the same moment cursed himself for doing it. The fast movement completely upset his fragile balance and he toppled over the edge of the gap they'd been walking along for hours already.
For a second Sonic couldn't move, he just saw the dizzyingly blurry ground far below him. Then survival instinct kicked in and the adrenaline hit him like a hammer. He reached out for the rapidly vanishing edge and his fingernails dug into the icy ground. A jolt ran through his entire body as the short fall ended abruptly.
Sonic took one deep breath and pulled himself up, but in the very second his head stuck over the edge, a hard kick was planted into his face. He fell backwards again and barely managed to hold onto the cold piece of ground he hung on as colourful stars flashed through his head. Squinting up through a haze of pain and confusing lights, he glimpsed Shadow's foot preparing for the second kick that would knock him down completely. Sonic yelped, but instead of hitting him again, Shadow was suddenly gone.
Tails tackled the black attacker to the ground, crouching on his chest, but as much as Shadow's movements were unfamiliarly stiff, his eyes seemed as quick as ever. They locked on the lines of blood that darkened the fur on Tails' upper arm and the drops of red liquid falling from his right elbow. Shadow's hand moved and with a startling strength squeezed at the open wound.
The two-tailed fox bit his lip against the scream that threatened to leap into his throat, but the pain loosened his own grip, and being the much stronger one anyway, Shadow pushed him off.
For almost two seconds he stood over the fox sitting in the snow and holding his injury and Tails waited for the next attack, but Shadow was pushed aside when Knuckles crashed into him full-tilt and clung to his back. Shadow staggered and would have almost fallen over from the weight of the angry echidna on his back, but he kept his footing.
"Leave Tails alone, you –", Knuckles growled, managing to get a hold of Shadow's right arm. The moment the echidna's eyes left the black hedgehog to check up on what his two friends were doing lasted only a second or two, but Knuckles quickly realized it was a bad idea when Shadow proved something Knuckles knew from fighting Sonic too: He moved faster than him. In a movement much smoother than the ones before Shadow's body jerked to the side and his elbow forcefully met Knuckles' stomach, causing the echidna to choke on his breath and release the black hedgehog completely as he doubled over.
Ignoring him, Shadow turned around and seemed undecided whether to go for Knuckles again or Sonic trying to climb over the edge. The seemingly rather slow thought process was rudely interrupted when he was hit on top of his metallic helmet by a handful of compressed snow.
Tails hovered a few meters above him and now threw the second snowball.
"Be careful, Tails," Knuckles shouted, watching from the edge of his vision how Sonic pulled himself back up and crawled away from the pit before standing up.
"He can't fly. And as we've seen, his chaos spears don't work." Tails stopped throwing snowballs at Shadow, seeing that Sonic had made it to safety.
Shadow stood still, staring up at Tails unable to reach the flying fox. "Chaos attacks failing," he said. "Outnumbered by enemies. Conclusion: Interrupt mission and wait for more appropriate conditions." He turned and quickly skated back to his plane.
Sonic raised his eyebrows, not bothering to try and follow Shadow, his knees still feeling rather weak. He just watched the plane lift off the snowfield. Tails landed at Sonic's side, shielded his eyes from the pale sun and watched the aircraft disappear behind the summits and the clouds caught around them.
"That was scary," the fox said, holding his left arm tucked against his side, a shudder running down his spine. "What did Eggman do to him? Shadow was working with him anyway. Sonic?"
"I don't know, Tails. I don't know." Sonic's eyes remained in the sky although he couldn't see Shadow's plane any longer. He shook his head slowly. "But he won't be getting away with it."
"That's one thing for you to say, Sonic," Knuckles remarked as he stepped up to his friends. "I mean, he tried very hard to finish us off this time. And it was the second time in less than a week he almost killed you. If it wouldn't have been for Tails..."
Sonic turned to the echidna. "It's not his fault. I guess we all agree that Eggman uses that helmet to control him. He was acting like a robot. Lucky for us he was also fighting like one and wasn't creative enough to know how to deal with the lack of chaos powers."
"Hmm." Tails rubbed the toes of his left foot along the snowy ground, looking at the line he drew. "That was horrible. Nobody should do anything like that to a living being. It's just... it's not right, it's..."
"Against every dignity of creatures, against life itself," Sonic continued and his green eyes narrowed, his voice carrying the undertone of thunder. "No matter if Shadow is our enemy or not, Eggman will pay for this. Count on it."
Tails and Knuckles just nodded. For a moment all three stood in silence, occupied with uncomfortable thoughts.
"Okay, let's go," Sonic finally said. "What's up with your arm?", he continued, finally focusing on Tails.
"Shadow spindashed me," Tails explained, trying his best not to sound whiny.
Sonic's eyes darkened a little. "And Eggman will certainly pay for this too."
"Let me look, Tails, okay?" Knuckles reached to pull Tails' hand off away from it.
The fox nodded a little and watched the echidna pull the torn sleeve of his pullover away to get a look at his bleeding arm.
"You were lucky," Knuckles noticed. "He just grazed you. It should stop bleeding in a little while."
"Will you borrow Tails your scarf?", Sonic asked while he took off his own. "We need something for bandages."
"And now it's also Shadow's fault you two get cold." Tails smirked sarcastically.
Sonic smiled, ruffling the fur between Tails' ears while Knuckles applied the makeshift bandage. "Don't worry about that, little bro. You saved our lives. We can take a bit of snow, right Knux?"
"I don't mind at all," Knuckles quickly assured the fox. "You were great, Tails."
Tails beamed proudly, seeming to suddenly grow a little and his arm didn't hurt that much any more; but he still eyed the green and yellow tissue around his arm skeptically, not really sure if it would help at all. But Knuckles seemed pretty sure it would eventually cease the bleeding and the echidna almost always knew what he was talking about. "Do we go on now?", the fox asked, hoping to get the topic changed as he slowly started to feel better and found he didn't want to be babied by the others.
"Of course, big guy." Sonic smiled and winked at him. "We were just waiting for you."
Blue and lilac sizzling bolts shot out of the walls' structure itself, meeting in the center of the corridor and closing around Shadow's body. The black hedgehog glared angrily, wriggling and struggling in vain effort to get out of the grip of the force field, but the sizzling restraints around his body held him firmly in place.
"Isn't it funny how easily a person widely believed to be the 'Ultimate Lifeform' is so predictable? I knew you'd come to see if I really have secret data I copied from the Ark's mainframe that contains information about the cloning project with Black Arm DNA." Eggman laughed shortly, his floating mobile just a few secure meters away from Shadow.
"And? Do you have that data?" If looks could kill, the human scientist would have been toasted now.
Merely smirking, Robotnik leaned back in his seat. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't…"
Shadow grunted. "Go to hell, Eggman." Though having his arms pinned to his sides, the black hedgehog's hands fisted, a light yellow glow starting to radiate from between his gloved fingers as he summoned a Chaos Spear.
"No, you do. And I am the one defining hell here." Robotnik lifted his hand above his head, his face a strange combination of anger and enthusiasm as he forcefully hit a giant red button on his dashboard.
Extending from the ceiling and tilting towards the trapped hedgehog, the tip of a large metal stick homed in on Shadow, starting to glow and give out a loud hum of building energy. It released like a giant spark plug, a bolt of plasma lightening colliding with Shadow's body.
The complete corridor flashed in blinding brightness as the blow of Robotnik's machine came together with Shadow's just about ready Chaos Spears, the scream of agony was reduced to almost silence in the bang resulting of air being heated and expending, and then cooling back down and compressed again in less than three seconds. Electrical system momentarily weakened by the surge of energy, the picture was unclear and the lighting flickered.
Slowly Robotnik rose from where he'd shielded his eyes and ducked for cover behind the dashboard of his mobile, overlooking the mess around. The blast had destroyed both the force field generators and the energy cannon, torn holes into the floor and melted right through the walls. In the midst of it all lay Shadow, right were the collapsing field had released his body.
Robotnik briefly consulted his computers, then waved at two of the robots that had come up behind him, watching them grab Shadow's limp form and carry him off.
"A satisfactory result," the human could be heard saying. "Not quite according to my plans, but satisfactory. Now if my work on the mind control goes as calculated, I will have an unbeatable weapon in no-time." Laughing and obviously pleased with himself, Robotnik turned his floating vehicle around, leaving just the picture of a deserted battlefield behind.
The rest of the file was statics on her TV screen.
Rouge shuddered. Again. "Satisfactory result," she muttered, not sure which one of disgust, anger, hatred or sorrow mostly played in her mind while remembering what she'd just seen. Also – again.
It was about the fifth time she looked at the video. Rouge and Omega had successfully sneaked into Eggman's computer rooms last night and simply copied all data that concerned Shadow. There were two more clips that showed how Eggman had put a mind-controlling helmet on Shadow, and a file containing technical data on this device.
The white bat ground her teeth. If she got her hands on that Eggman he should better have prepared for a series of serious trade-mark kicks with iron tipped boots into his ugly face…or some other tender spot.
But besides Rouge's flaring anger at the human robotist, their trip had been successful… in a way. They knew now how Eggman had caused Shadow's memory loss and how he'd designed the helmet he used to make him a mindless machine. Now they just needed to find a way to get it off him without gravely damaging his brain…
Rouge sighed and rested her chin on her hand. She had no idea how to do that, and so far Omega wasn't much of a help as his best idea yet contained storming Eggman's base and blasingt everything there to smithereens. Rouge doubted that could be the way…
But it was so very tempting.
"Phew," Sonic whistled through his teeth as he stood on the edge of the cliff, the same one he'd almost fallen off during the fight with Shadow, but the gap in the mountain was not as wide here. The past hours had brought them some hundred meters of extra height.
The path continued right-hand, following a half-pipe shaped way further up the mountain, clearly a way the melting water in spring had formed on it way down to the valley. If that was correct, the cliff he stood at must form an amazing waterfall then.
Sonic turned back to his friends. "I guess at other times of the year we couldn't stand here without getting wet."
Knuckles' gaze followed the half-pipe shape upwards the slope. "Bet on it."
The three friends slowly started to walk upwards. Sonic itched to be running, the pace was far too slow for his taste. The others seemed not really annoyed by it, so the hedgehog tried to stick with their pace, but was soon several meters ahead of them.
The thick layers of snow seemed harder here, his feet didn't sink in much. Generally, it made walking more comfortable. And faster.
Sonic hopped up a small hill of snow – and ended up with both feet stuck in almost knee-deep snow. He struggled to free himself, hearing the laughter of his friends from behind. Finally managing to get out, Sonic turned over his shoulder, grinning and about to give some sort of comment, but was suddenly knocked off his feet.
Crouching on all fours, the hedgehog looked back towards the others. "Watch out, guys! Earthquake!"
Tails was already sitting on the shaking ground. "The snowstorm from earlier this day couldn't stay the only mess..."
"I told you – whoa!" Knuckles tumbled, both arms stretched out in vain attempt to stabilize himself. But so far he was the one still standing... "Oomph!" Correct that: had been standing.
And suddenly the shaking was over, as abruptly as it began. The three friends drank in the silence; it seemed as the very nature around itself was glad it was over.
Knuckles crawled to his feet and started to brush the snow out of his bright red fur.
Tails had grabbed both of his twin tails, working white pieces of the ice out of them. "Everyone okay?"
"I'm great," Sonic replied, already standing. "I guess that could have been far worse."
A deep sound like thunder roared from the slope behind him and the hedgehog slowly turned around. His eyes shot all the way open.
"Like that?", Knuckles called from below.
Sonic didn't answer. His gaze was locked onto the cloud of dust that clung to the hill. Beneath it, the whole mountain seemed to come crumbling down. A white wall rolled towards them, swallowing up rocks the size of small houses, the noise increasing the closer it got.
"Guys...", Sonic started slowly, only to shout the next word. "RUN!"
"Great plan!" Knuckles span on his heels and followed the hedgehog's advice.
Tails trashed his namesakes for extra speed, quickly getting ahead of Knuckles as they tumbled downwards back into the half-pipe of the frozen riverbed.
Sonic paced himself to stay behind the two others, he could have been already miles ahead, but he didn't want to leave them alone. Knuckles was more sliding than running on the snowy ground, Tails at least didn't have to bother with the slippery ground, he was already flying.
The fox spotted the golden glitter from the very edge of his vision. Spinning round, they seemed almost to be calling him, offering to ease his pain and increase his chances in that race for life. Instinctively he changed his direction slightly to the left wall of the pipe and slithered into the line of rings. The moment he touched them, he was hit full tilt by a feeling of everything turning upside down and his vision filled with colorful lights. Confusing. Dizzying. He didn't even notice falling nose-first into the cold snow.
Sonic stared at the little fox going down suddenly; he had watched his little extra trip sideways into the rings. They appeared erratically all over Mobius and disappeared just as mysteriously as they came. Nobody knew how and why. But Sonic knew they were useful and able to heal almost every kind of injury. It was clear why Tails had taken the chance to get some, but not why he didn't run any more. Something was definitively not right.
Sonic skid to a stop aside of the fox, throwing a mass of snow around both of them as he did. "Tails! Hey Tails, what's up?!"
No answer. The two-tailed fox hunkered in the snow and didn't move.
Knuckles had noticed his two friends had stopped and was on his way back. "What's taking you?!"
Sonic threw a hasty glance back. The wall of snow was closing in... "TAILS!", he shouted, grabbing the fox' shoulders and shaking him as hard as he dared.
Tails' blue eyes looked up at him, blinking slowly, and he lifted his hands in front of his face as if searching protection.
Knuckles had reached Sonic's side. "Sonic, what's wrong?! This isn't the time for a picnic!"
The hedgehog shook Tails again, earning a weird strangled sound. "Okay, this is no use." He grabbed the little fox boy at either sides and pulled him to his feet. A look back at the snow let Sonic gasp and with a quick decision he looked at Knuckles. "I'll carry him. Run!"
"Sure..." Knuckles' eyes flashed between the avalanche closing in and the strangely unresponsive Tails with an expression of worry.
"I said run," Sonic told him and watched the echidna finally turn around and skid down the slope. Lifting Tails up into his arms, the hedgehog span around too and ran.
The noise of an incredible mass of snow and ice racing down the steep slope followed him closely and Sonic sped up his steps as much as he dared, his balance fragile as he was holding Tails and therefore unable to stretch out his arms at his sides to stabilize himself everytime his feet threatened to slip away under him. By now he was fast enough not to handle the turns without going up the sides of the half-piped riverbed. Sonic narrowed his eyes in concern. A little faster and he would be shooting out of it. And without his feet touching the ground any longer... he would not only hurt himself but Tails too.
His feet gliding weirdly on the snow and almost tripping him up again, Sonic glimpsed the end of the riverbed. He ran now as far to the right as he could. It would be a tough angle anyway. The soles of his sneakers were covered by a thin layer of ice. During the fight with Shadow, his quick running feet had melted the snow he ran on, then later it had frozen again and was now replacing the usual bit of friction he had on the ground with a complete lack of any friction at all.
Sonic waited to almost the last possible moment, then started to turn left, his right arm pressing Tails against himself and his left hand ending up in the snow as he slid around it.
In front of him Knuckles had gotten caught in snow with the tip of one foot when he tried to run faster, and for a moment the echidna lay on the ground, staring stunned at the approaching wall of hungry white stuff, ready to swallow a little echidna in no-time...
"Get up, you idiot!", Sonic shouted, snapping Knuckles out of it.
Jumping to his feet, the echidna reached for Sonic's left hand as the hedgehog rushed past him and was jolted along the last few meters. Sonic shot forwards, out of the half-pipe-thing and stopped a few meters away in the relative safety behind a big block of rock that looked out of the snow. Looking backwards he saw the loose masses of snow rushing down the cliff in a weird impression of a frozen and yet very much moving waterfall.
Gently sitting Tails into the snow, Sonic leaned on his knees, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths of much needed air. Not really to recover from the running, more to calm himself down. "Now that really was a close call," he mumbled as he stood back upright, finding Knuckles kneeling in front of Tails and trying to talk to him. It seemed with limited success.
Knuckles looked up and shook his head. "Sonic, he doesn't answer. I'm not even sure if he knows I'm talking to him..."
"Hm." Sonic too crouched at Tails' side and took a look at him again. Baby blue eyes were half closed and seemed to get in and out of focus. He couldn't even sit without swaying. "He looks as if he's drunk," Sonic noticed, waving a hand effortlessly in front of Tails' eyes.
"What happened, Sonic?", Knuckles asked, worriedly regarding the fox.
"I'm not sure. He ran into a line of rings and – bang." Sonic shrugged.
"Rings?" Knuckles' eyes widened. "Rings are chaos energy!"
Sonic turned to him. "You mean..."
"It's possible that they are also influenced by this Anti-chaos." The echidna shrugged. "Did they look different?!"
"Hell, I don't know. They looked gold and spinning, like rings do. And then they were gone with a pling when he ran into them." Sonic ran a hand through his quills.
"What do we do now, Sonic? We gotta help him somehow!"
"No idea!", Sonic snapped, his voice having a slightly hysteric pitch in it. "You're supposed to be Mister I-know-everything-about-chaos-stuff!"
"Oh yes? I have never seen anything like this happen, okay? It's not my fault!", Knuckles retorted giving Sonic a glare.
The hedgehog's ears drooped. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Just worried, I guess. No offence."
"None taken," Knuckles allowed, turning back to the little fox that seemed to be completely oblivious to their conversation. "Tails? Hey! Do you hear us?! Do you know who we are?! Tails!"
The fox didn't answer, instead shifting backwards, and looked between Knuckles and Sonic as if he was suddenly scared of them.
"Let me try," Sonic suggested as Knuckles gave up with a sigh. He looked into Tails' face, trying to meet his eyes. "Hey Tails, someone is trying to steal the Tornado!" No reaction. Sonic frowned. "I thought that could do the trick," he muttered, then lifted one hand, looked at his own glove in brief hesitation before slapping Tails softly across the face.
The young fox stared at him as if he'd never seen something as common as a blue hedgehog before, but Sonic didn't get any real reaction. The blue hedgehog sighed. "Alright, one more idea." He turned to the fresh snow at his side and reached into it. "Sorry Tails, stoned foxes need a good wash." With that, the hedgehog shoved two double handfuls of snow into Tails' face.
Spluttering, the fox leaped to his feet, coughing on some snow that had gotten in his mouth and nose and shaking himself like a dog would have, then stopped in mid-movement and stared at Sonic and Knuckles, turned to look behind himself, turned back and looked completely dumbfounded. "Ow... my head...", he mumbled suddenly, bringing a hand to his forehead.
Sonic grinned in relief, pulling Tails into a hug. "Welcome back to the party, little bro."
Tails blinked. "Eh... What? Anybody so kind to tell me what's going on?"
Knuckles stood up and closely looked at Tails when Sonic released him again. "Tails, how many fingers are that?" He held his hands out at him, causing Tails' face to take on a look that made it completely impossible for Sonic not to laugh.
Reproachfully Knuckles turned to the hedgehog. "This is not funny at all! I just want to know if he's okay! He was very far from okay just a second ago! And all you do is laugh!"
Sonic struggled to stop. "I… I'm sorry, Knux... but… with gloves like yours… counting fingers seems just…"
"Guys? Could you please discuss that later and finally fill me in on what is going on? Where did this avalanche go?" Tails looked between the others confusedly.
"The avalanche went down there," Sonic pointed, "you kinda missed on that 'cause you had to run into some freaky rings and knock yourself into a happy delirium."
Tails' jaw dropped. "Say what?"
"The rings consist of chaos energy and must have been changed as much as the other forms," Knuckles tried explaining the vague idea he'd developed about the events." And when you got into contact with them, they had some kind of, um, unnatural effect on you."
Tails blinked, trying to remember and get Knuckles' and Sonic's explanations to fit in. He shook his head when he failed, then regretted it when the movement increased the headache. He somehow felt as if rudely wakened up from a nightmare. He lifted his hands to massage his temples.
"Tails? Are you okay?", Knuckles asked.
"I guess," the fox replied," just have a headache." He stopped when a thought struck him and he reached for the makeshift bandage around his arm. "But this stopped hurting." He peeled off the scarf-wrap.
Sonic raised his eyebrows. "At least they do still heal your injuries," he noticed. "They just start having weird side-effects."
"That doesn't change that we should stay away from rings from now on." Tails frowned. "We better be careful."
Knuckles nodded. "We don't really need anyone to repeat that."
"It got us into a rather tight squeeze, so we better stay clear of this crap from now on," Sonic agreed.
"Tight squeeze?" Tails frowned. "You care to explain?"
Sonic nodded upwards the hill. "Why not? But we should be moving. We want to reach the hut while it's still light. And Shadow and this little snow festival here delayed us great deal." The hedgehog put an arm around his little brother as they started to walk again. "Glad to have you back, Tails."
"Me too," Knuckles admitted quietly when he followed. Though he wouldn't want to go as far as Sonic and hug Tails, the whole scene had been rather spooky. But considering where they were headed and what awaited them there, Knuckles almost feared it might get spookier.