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CHAPTER EIGHT

Tails built a new toy and now he's shining it in my eyes.

"Tails, stop." I bat at him with one hand without opening them. I roll onto my stomach and pull my blanket tighter, burrowing into the bed.

"But look Sonic! I can make it dif'rent colours, see! I just gotta put this in front a here an' look! It's purple!" The light doesn't change.

"It is NOT purple. Now go play with it somewhere else."

"It is SO purple! Look!"

I bat him away again and try to pull the blanket over my head. I've gotten myself tangled in it over the course of the night, and it won't come up any higher.

"Sooooniiiiiic! Look at my light! You been sleepin' long enough!"

"I have not! And that light is not purple, get it out of my face!"

When he doesn't, I open my eyes and push myself up, determined to prove to him that the light isn't purple. I'm surprised to see that I'm lying in a treehouse I don't recognize. I look around quickly to see Hydrocity stretching out ahead of me. The sun is bursting through the clouds like it would through a window, and I rub at my eyes. Where's Tails? Dr Robotnik's getting away.

It's only when I see the bruise on my arm that I realize I was dreaming.

I shake my head violently and sit up straight, feeling my spines rub together as I stretch out the kinks in my back. I'm a little sore from lying on solid wood all night, but it's not too bad. And my headache's gone. Bonus points.

I rub my eyes again and fold up the blanket, leaving it in the tree. I should probably bring it into the house or something, but I have no clue what time it is and don't want to bother them. So I'll just leave it here.

I jump out of the tree, a bit of shock running through one of my knees, but that's normal. I ignore it. I pull out the handheld and figure out where the next Chaos Emerald is.

It's in Station Square. I think that means Amy has it.

I wonder what I'll have to do to convince her to give it to me. I'm definitely not going to beat on Amy. Insult her, yes. Hit her, no.

I stretch a bit more, trying to pretend I really need to and that I'm not trying to delay going to see her. Then I start running.

Sometimes it happens. Sometimes I'm running, and I stop paying attention. The steps, the routes, the rhythms, they're all so familiar to me that sometimes I just tune out and surrender to the blur. I can't always see where I'm going.

Sometimes I run into things.

So all of a sudden I find myself lying on the ground, with a whole bunch of people staring at me. Yes, people. For some reason people and Mobians live together here without getting into too many fights. I just stay away from it. I have nothing against Overlanders, but they make everything so complicated that I prefer to leave them be. So when I look up and see them starin' at me, I feel a little uneasy. They like to make big things out of us running in the middle of the road and stuff. I wonder why they ruined perfectly good grass to put a road there in the first place. I glance over and see a transport truck lying sideways on the road. Oops.

"Uh… hey there." I hop up and brush myself off. Most of the Overlanders surrounding me back up a good distance, all staring at me harder.

"Are you… are you Sonic the Hedgehog?" one of the closer ones asks, poking me with his index finger.

"Hey! Yeah, I am, and I don't appreciate being poked like that! Look, I'm only here for one thing. I need to talk to…" The words stick in my throat. "I need to talk to Amy Rose. Does anyone know where she is?"

Silence.

"C'mon guys. Don't you wanna be able to tell your friends that you helped Sonic the Hedgehog out?" I cross my arms and start tapping my foot.

Nobody answers, they just keep staring and fidgeting.

Well, I guess what works on Tails don't work on everybody.

"Fine." I start walking away from them. Damn those Overlanders. Always ready to take from you, but they never have anything to give.

A small, high voice pipes up from behind me. "Wait, Mr Hedgehog! I can tell you where she is!"

I spin around, expecting to see a little kindergarten girl with tight brown pigtails complete with pink bows but instead come face to face with…

Okay, nowhere near face to face. Let's try face to gut. That works better.

The guy is enormous, with a mushy face and curly blonde hair. And when I say enormous I mean twice as big as me. I mean bigger than Eggman. And if I knew a guy that was bigger than Eggman, well, I'd add them to the list too. I'm not understanding how he could possibly have such a voice but it keeps on coming.

"Amy Rose is at Casinopolis! She's helping them get things running again."

Oh man. I'm gonna start laughing. I try not to judge people, really I do, but this guy… seriously…

"Uh… thanks." I turn around and duck through the ring of Overlanders, some of whom try to grab me as if I'm some sort of rock star, spinning around the corner of a nearby building and into the alley it shelters. Then I start laughing, barely managing to hold myself up by leaning one-armed against the side of the grey brick wall.

"What's so funny?"

I know that voice. I need all my wits so's I can talk to him. It doesn't pay to be distracted.

I fight to stop laughing. When I'm able to look up I can see Shadow standing over me, arms crossed and eyes narrowed as usual.

"Oh, nothing. Just thought of something funny all of a sudden."

"Really." His voice is dripping with sarcasm.

"Yeah. One a those 'you had to be there' things. So what's up, Shades?"

He shrugs. "Well when I heard that some dumb animal went and knocked over a semi I figured you'd blown into town to grace the humans with your presence."

I stand up and brush the brick dust off my gloves, noticing the blackness left on it when I burned Knuckles's wrist. I quickly try to hide it. "It's not easy being blue, you know."

"What happened to your hand?" He's got a suspicious tone in his voice, as if he's just asking to see what I'll say. Well, I'll bite.

"Huh? My hand?" I look at it and hopefully give off the impression that I've never seen the mark before. "Wow, look at that."

He snatches my wrist and holds it up near his nose. His eyes narrow even further, which I didn't think was possible. "Blackened fabric with torn fibers… right through the material and onto your skin… don't tell me you're so oblivious you didn't know you you'd burned you hand."

"Uh… I missed it?"

He almost throws my hand back at me, then all of a sudden pushes my shoulders against the wall. "What are you hiding, faker?" he intones in a low growl.

"I'm not lying about anything! I don't know how that got there!" I struggle against his grip. He looks into my eyes for a minute, hard, then roughly lets me go and wrinkles his nose. "I don't know what you're keeping from me, and I don't particularly care. I only wonder what could be so important that you're willing to keep lying about it."

"Shad… " I look at the ground a minute. My leg is twitching a little, and I make a conscious effort to still it. "It's nothing, okay? I probably just did it cornering, or something."

"If you'd done it cornering there would be dirt or gravel in the wound." I'm not surprised he noticed that. He doesn't miss anything. Before I open my mouth to answer, he shakes his head. "I don't want to hear any more excuses. If you want to keep lying to me, fine."

I shake a little in frustration. "Well what do you want then? You don't usually just drop by to say hello."

"Amy asked me to give something to you. I saw her a few days ago."

He holds out a banana.

"Uh… why were you hanging out with her in the first place?" I cautiously take it. It's from Shadow. For all I know it's cursed.

"Why would I need to explain myself to you?" Shadow sneers, folding his arms together again and stepping back.

"Thanks for the banana?"

"Thank Amy. I didn't care, but she made such a fuss about how you were coming all the way from Green Hill and probably hadn't eaten in a while."

On cue my stomach growls. Shadow makes a rude noise and turns around.

"Wait… how did Amy know I was coming?"

"She called Tails for help with the computer system. Apparently the mainframe was down last night. He told her."

I'm gonna have a word with that kid…

Shadow starts walking away, then turns around suddenly. A chill runs down my spine. The sun from in front of the building almost seems to divide around him, as if he's his own eclipse. His scarlet eyes are sharp.

"I don't know what you're up to, faker, but the second I hear you're doing something stupid, I'm coming to take you down. "

He faces away from me again.

"I know exactly what you did to your hand. I've done the same thing in G.U.N. training. I only wonder who was on the other end."

He walks away and I'm left standing there, feeling dazed.

Shadow knows what's going on?

I look at my hand. Honestly I hadn't realized I had burned it, but there it was, a rash and some small blisters underneath the little holes in my glove.

I need to hurry up and get this over with. With Shadow suspecting me, my plan could get found out real fast. And that's one thing I don't need happening right now.

I am starving, though, so I quickly open the banana and eat it in about three bites. Having food in my stomach at last actually makes me feel hungrier and for a second I think I'm going to fall down, but I put my hand against the wall again, and it passes. I toss the peel in one of the Dumpsters behind the building and head for Casinopolis, trying not to think about what'll happen when I get there. An Amy surprised by my sudden appearance is bad. An Amy who's prepared for me is much, much worse.