Chapter 3

"When were you going to tell me that you guys were accepting visitors again?"

"We were kinda hoping that you never found out."

Sonic caught the glance that Tails gave him. The fox had a hand propped under his chin and the fingers of the other drumming on the kitchen table. He had been following Sonic's and Amy's conversation with his eyes, giving the occasional glare to the both of them.

Sonic chuckled. So what if his brother disapproved of his last statement? It was fun to see how would the pink hedgehog react. This time she scoffed and turned her attention to the open back door she had casually strolled through.

"Knuckles! Save some for your hosts!" Sonic couldn't see the echidna but it wasn't hard to guess that he was on the porch table devouring the daily pastry that Amy brought. She always brought something over.

The three males had spent the last two days together surprisingly well. There had been another minor argument between the elder teens, but it was over in a few minutes. The echidna planned to go home tomorrow afternoon, after resting from today's festival. Sonic and Tails had been debating on what was the best part of the Spring Festival when Amy had walked in unannounced through the backdoor and gave them a morning greeting.

Now the pink hedgehog was rushing out the same door to scold the echidna. She came back with a muffin tin and the red visitor in tow.

"So," He pulled up a chair and finished off the muffin he had brought with him. "I'm guessing that she's coming with us."

"You're going to the festival?" Amy gave an incredulous stare to the echidna. "I thought you just came to tell Sonic something."

"No, he spent the past two days in the guest room." Tails confirmed Sonic's statement with a vigorous nod, his face too full with muffin to speak.

"Cool." A brief smile was aimed at the echidna before she turned her attention to the muffin tin. Sonic glanced at it as well.

Figures. They didn't leave him a single one to try.

"Ooh! Look at that one!"

Sonic didn't even bother to look. He had seen fireworks before. Besides, he was getting tired of tilting his head up every five seconds.

Amy was ecstatic about every single detail of the night festival, from the food to the sights. Sonic knew that her favorite part was she had been able to spend most of her time with him alone.

All four of them had arrived at the nearby city at noon, when the festival started. The city had transformed into what seemed like an amusement park. They had stayed together when they ate lunch from the various food booths that had been planted around. Tails had been the first to go off on his own, wanting to see a showcase about ancient technology. Knuckles had gone off in search of a quiet place an hour later, leaving the two hedgehogs alone for quite a while. It wasn't as bad as it would have been a couple of years ago. Amy had mellowed out and wasn't as crazy for him. They played a few games and went into many of the booths that were around.

"Hey, Sonic?"

"Hmm?"

"We can't miss the parade!" Amy tugged on his windbreaker and pointed to the left.

"It's impossible to miss something that big. Besides we have about an hour before it starts."

"But we won't get a good spot! Come on!" Sonic allowed himself to be dragged two blocks before he spotted a familiar red figure.

"Hey, it's Knux!" Amy stopped and followed the blue hedgehog's gaze. Knuckles was in front of a small store. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be a store that specialized in stuff like astrology.

"I never knew that this store was here." The echidna said when they came up to him.

"The truth is that I don't really come this way often." Sonic usually did his business in the center of the town because it was faster to get to places and easier to blend in with the crowd. It didn't help he wasn't as interested in this kind of stuff as Knuckles was, despite the situations he's been dragged into that focuses on this exact subject. Amy was, though, so when she and Knuckles started a conversation he slipped away.

He was glad that the citizens had gotten used to the fact that a world hero lived around here. It was the tourists that he had to watch out for. He did run into a few of them as he got closer to the heart of the city but for the most part he was left alone. Sonic could tell that the parade was starting by how the crowd was acting. Quickly, he found a spot to stand right in front of the street.

The parade was obviously the highlight of the festival. Each year people would decorate floats that had a certain theme. Each display would go down the main streets, pausing in the middle of each one to perform or show off whatever the theme of their cart. There were eight floats, one for each major road. The roads had been built so that all of them were connected by smaller streets, meaning that eventually the line would end where it started. After they passed the starting point they would disperse into the eight streets for the grand finale.

There was a little break after the last one completed the circuit to allow the pedestrians to pick what float they wanted to be by for the end of the festival. Sonic had made his way down a few streets when someone called his name.

"Sonic!" Tails panted.

"Where have you been?" Sonic ruffled his ward's hair. "I haven't seen you in hours."

"I've been in the technology section of the festival the whole time. It's on the other side of the city."

"Figures. Only you would spend so much time inspecting machines."

"What have you been doing?"

"I spent most of the time with Amy-"

"Oooh! How romantic! Hey!" Tails was caught off guard by Sonic's shove and almost collided with a family. He grinned an apology before glaring at the hedgehog.

"It wasn't like that at all, buddy. We just did some games before we came across Knuckles at the fortune shop and we separated there."

"Hmm." Tails smirked. Sonic was about to tell him to get his mind out of the gutter when the announcer came on the speakers.

"Attention! It's almost midnight! I hope everyone has already selected where they want to be for the finale! May I suggest to newcomers that a great place to be is in front of their favorite float."

"I'm going to go see that pirate ship one!" Tails yelled to him before disappearing into the sea of bodies. Sonic started to jog. His favorite was still a few blocks away. The announcer continued his speech.

"Each one has a unique way to finish off the night and welcome the first day of spring! Which one is your favorite? Two minutes 'till!"

Sonic managed to reach his float before the announcer came back on.

"30 seconds! 29...28...27..."

His voice was drowned out by the crowd as they joined in. Sonic grinned as he was caught up in the anticipation of it.

Suddenly, the noise around him vanished. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat and he started to shiver, even though the windbreaker he had on had been sufficient earlier. Then moment left as quick as it came. The crowd roared as the seconds ticked by. But the hedgehog didn't join back in.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.