Chapter 14: a dragons rage

it has been a week since we had the concert and we have been making our way to eggmans newest base which was really easy to spot what with the giant mustached face, we battled many of his robots that he sent to delay us but because of our abilities most of them went down pretty easy, so yeah it was mostly uneventful until we got closer to his base that's when we started getting into his more powerful creations, at one point during one of the fights we met up with shadow who decided to join us.

So here we are standing on a hill covered in trees looking at the egg fortress in front of an obliterated robot courtesy of yours truly, I look around and see that everyone looked tired even shadow who was doing his best to keep his ego up. I then look at sonic who lets out a tired sigh and says "i think we all should rest before we crack eggheads fortress wide open" I nod my head in agreement and the others respond in the positive, as we sit on the hill Sonia slides up next to me laying her head on my shoulder and weaving her fingers with mine, I kiss her on her forehead and she giggles softly as she nuzzles under my chin, as this is happening shadow walks over and sits in front of us seeming a bit nervous "drake I want to say something but I don't know how to say it, its been a long time since ive had to do something like this" I look at him with curiosity "whats up shadow, its not like you to get so nervous over something" after I said that he turns his head to the right and brings a hand to the back of his head "well its not very often that I do things like this so, here it is, thank you" my eyes widen and I look at Sonia who also has a flabbergasted look on.

I look back to shadow still slightly taken aback "thank you? For what?" he then gives a serious look and says "im thanking you for bringing back maria, my life had been in shambles after her death, I thought I could get over it like any other time, for some reason though she kept persisting in my thoughts and dreams, so again thank you".

i look at Sonia still at a loss for words, as far as I knew he has never been nice and it just blew my mind, I look back at shadow and finally say "um... sure no problem" then he did something that I will never forget, he smiled, and not just his usual smirk no it was a genuine smile of happiness. Mind. Fucking. Blown.

Shadow gets up and walks away but I barely notice because I was to busy trying to process the happy smile, I am finally shaken out of it when Sonia kisses me right on the lips, as she pulls away she gives me a smile and says "well, looks like you did the impossible, you managed to make shadow of all people smile" I scratch the back of my head a little embarrassed "i only did what I thought was right at the time" she leans closer and gives me another kiss, man I cant get enough of this I am so lucky.

"gah, come on guys its bad enough that I know your dating but I don't want to see you guys get mushy too" said sonic in a joking manner, I chuckle and say "your just mad because you don't have someone yet" he puts his hand to his chest in mock hurt "ouch man that cut deep" we all laughed at this.

As we were laughing a sound caught my attention it sounded familiar, before I could determine the noise a large metal arm came out of the bushes and smacked me in the chest, knocking me back a few feet scraping against the ground, I look over and see another machine that looked like the one I first destroyed saving rouge.

The others were already attacking it but they weren't even scratching it, the machine then swung down and hit both manic and shadow throwing them back and into some trees effectively knocking them unconscious, by this point I get up and run after the thing while sonic is bashing it with homing attacks and Sonia is blasting it with her magic instrument, as I get close it attacks again this time hitting sonic while he was in his ball form sending him directly towards me, you know being hit with a hedgehog buzz saw really fucking hurts as I am once again thrown back landing on my stomach I lift my head and see Sonia desperately fending it off.

I push myself up onto my knees when I hear a scream, I quickly look up and see that the robot has Sonia trapped inside its chestplate screaming for help "SONIA" I spread my wings and fly straight for the bot colliding with it knocking it down as I start slamming fiery fists into its metal shell trying to get Sonia out, unfortunately one of its arms gets a good swing and knocks me away, as I right myself in mid air the robot takes off into the sky towards the egg fortress, I fly after it grabbing one of its feet trying to take out its thrusters, what I didn't notice is that a missile bay opened behind me and fired, the missile hit before I could react in time tearing holes in my wings and knocking me off of its foot.

As I fall I hear Sonia screaming my name, dammit I was so close, tears start flowing as I stretch out my arm in a futile attempt to reach her "SSSSSOOOOOOONNNNNNNNIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAA" I yelled as I fell into some trees hitting a lot of branches on the way down finally crashing hard on the ground on my back, my body is in pain my eyes unable to focus another tear falls down my cheek as I hear foot steps approaching, the last thing I see is three blurry forms before falling into darkness.

(sonics POV)

I get up and shake my head to try and clear it, looking around I see manic and shadow also stirring and I sigh in relief that they were not seriously hurt, looking back to were the robot was I see scorch marks from its thrusters but what worries me the most is that I don't see drake or Sonia, I hear shadow and manic walk up behind me "hey bro, wheres sis and drake?" I look towards manic and start to respond but was cut off by an explosion going off in the distance but what really got my attention was a now smoking figure falling from a the robot screaming sis' name before it vanished into the trees.

I motion for shadow and manic to follow me as we head into the forest to find drake which didn't take us long, when we got there I couldn't help but look at drake in shock he was hurt badly with blood flowing from the multiple tears in his wings and some of his scales missing.

(end sonic pov start third person)

sonic shadow and manic stare in shock at the defeated form of their friend, the first to recover was sonic who runs over to drake to take a closer look at his wounds, what he saw wasn't good, he had a large patch of scales on his chest missing obviously from laser fire and his wings were almost in tatters.

Sonic looks back and says "oh my god drake what happened to you(rhetorical question obviously) and where is Sonia" this instantly snaps shadow and manic from their daze as they search franticly for the magenta hedgehog, manic looks to sonic and says "what do we do, we need to look for sis but we also need to get drake treated for these wounds" sonic thinks for a minute then says "OK I have a plan manic, you and shadow will take drake back to the house while I look for sis, if she fell at the same time as drake she shouldn't be far off" manic and shadow nod and grab drake by each of his arms and start dragging him to the house as sonic speeds off in search of Sonia.