A/N: Oh lor. These next few chapters are extremely shaky. I make absolutely no promises about anything being interesting and/or in-character, so if something seems wildly OOC or you're getting bored to tears, feel free to chuck tin cans at me. Virtual online tin cans.
Or you could just give me a sternly worded review. That works too . . .
Knuckles headed back to Angel Island, and Tails got to work on the flash drive as soon as he could. The encryption was fiendishly complicated, and it took him quite a few hours to tease it apart. Sonic, all this time, rattled around the house as if all the walls had been lined with spring-buttons.
"Sonic, what's wrong?" sighed Tails, looking up from his well-worn keyboard.
"I'm antsy," muttered Sonic, standing upside-down against the wall and kicking his heels. "Isn't there anything I can do? Maybe we should just go talk to Eggman again! Or maybe we should go find a historian or something! Or maybe someone who could crack that encryption faster!"
Tails sighed, ignoring the thinly-veiled complaint about his decryption speed. He knew Sonic was always impatient and antsy and itching to be active (when he wasn't napping, that is), but this was something new. Sonic's determination to keep busy was bordering on the maniacal.
"Just a few more minutes, Sonic," assured the little fox, turning back to his work.
Four algorithms later, Tails suddenly gave a little "Ha!" of achievement.
"I've got it! Encryption broken!"
"So, what's in there?" asked Sonic eagerly, looking over Tails' shoulder. Tails fiddled through the files, squinting.
"It's some kind of . . . picture," he murmured. "It looks like a high-definition photograph of an ancient parchment!"
Sonic looked blankly at the image on the screen: a tattered, ancient document, positively brown with age, but thickly scrawled with strange and sinister-looking symbols. The lower edge of the document was completely jagged, missing large chunks, and the upper corners crumbled noticeably.
"So . . . what does it say?" asked Sonic at length.
"I don't know." Tails frowned at the screen. "I don't even know what language this is."
"Maybe it's ancient Echidna?" offered Sonic. Tails shook his head.
"I've seen Knuckles' relic collection often enough to know what ancient Echidna looks like, and that's not it." He clicked open another file, and his face brightened. "Oh, wow! A translation guide! Oh gosh, Eggman must have figured out how to translate it all by himself!" He paged through the various symbols eagerly, while Sonic looked on, somewhat lost.
"So . . . would it be hard, translating it?" he asked at last, resenting the thought of Eggman achieving feats of intelligence.
"Yeah, it would." Tails looked up at his older brother earnestly. "The guide is incomplete and only covers a few of the symbols in the document, but even so—I hate to say it, but—it's pretty genius. Already it lets us know that the symbols are phonetic, not pictographic, and denotes the occurence of articles and some pronouns!"
"Uh . . . Okayyyyy . . . " Frankly, it couldn't be said Sonic shared Tails' enthusiasm. Understanding what he'd said might have helped in that matter. "So then . . . that means you can translate it?"
"With some help, yeah," said Tails, tugging at one ear. "I'd better contact Knuckles and Rouge. They both know something about translating ancient languages."
Truth be told, Sonic felt left out. He'd made the rounds to tell everyone about Tails' discovery (Tails had wanted to just phone them, but Sonic insisted it gave him something to do), and now there was very little he could contribute. Everyone seemed to have at least a little to add—Blaze had a bit of experience with old documents, Omega contributed a purely computational angle, Espio enjoyed brain-benders of this sort—and overall everyone seemed fascinated by this group-led large-scale cryptogram.
Sonic wasn't. He didn't usually have the patience to sit still and wrack his brain, and right now—heck no. When all else failed him, he dashed circles around the house.
He did meet Amy once, while she was on her way to help with the translation. When he granted her a polite smile, she threatened to call for a restraining order. At this point Sonic felt things had degenerated far enough.
"Look, Amy," he said evenly. "I know you're ticked and all, but we're going to have to get used to each other. We live in the same area, we're going to see each other often enough."
"Yes, unfortunately," said Amy coolly. "We'll see. If I run into you too often, I'll just have to move elsewhere."
"You're seriously mad, huh?" said Sonic, raising an eyebrow.
"Honestly? What do you think?" retorted Amy.
"I think you're overdoing it."
"Too bad for you, then. Now seriously, I'm not kidding. I do not want to speak to you again. Try it, and I will do you damage."
Sonic raised his hands in an "okay, you win" gesture and stepped back. Snorting, Amy turned and headed into the house.
She continued to make her dislike for him extremely clear. If he wasn't within earshot, she would badmouth him to the others—and when he was within earshot, she would badmouth him all the more, pretending he couldn't hear. It was a pretty awkward situation for the others to deal with too, but frankly, they had no clue what to do about it.
So the days crept onwards. Sonic ran willy-nilly all over the area, abandoning his old habit of naps and leisurely afternoons spent stalking a chili dog. He was borderline obsessive.
After four days of noticeable but excruciatingly slow progress in the translation, Sonic was starting to look exhausted. Even he couldn't keep up a constant blistering pace like this. After tearing several large ellipses through a wasteland somewhere, he flung himself down among some scrub bushes and tucked his hands underneath his head, studying the moody gray of the sky. Now that his attention wasn't taken entirely up by running, his thought processes turned back on, one by one. Honestly, the wasteland wasn't really the most mentally stimulating place; it did nothing to stave off that particular train of thought that kept inviting itself in, unwanted.
And when trains start inviting themselves in, you're really in trouble.
Clambering to his feet again, Sonic swaggered over to the face of a jagged cliff and began to scrabble his way upwards, digging his fingers and toes into the rough surface. When he reached the top, he settled back, considered, and sighed in frustration. All that climbing, absolutely no sense of finality. Scraped knees, no sense of accomplishment. Or maybe it just didn't kill that pesky train of thought like he'd been hoping.
Reluctant to heave himself back to his feet, he rested for a while, leaning back on his hands. His mind wandered, and his gaze became unfocused and relaxed, sinking him into his own little universe.
But even then, he never dropped so fully out of it that he couldn't register footsteps coming up behind him.
"H'llo?" Sonic perked up, glanced over his shoulder, and grinned. "Oh, hey Shads. Sorry, did I invade your favorite moping spot or something?"
"I've never been here," replied Shadow, shrugging. "I came around because I had news."
"Important enough to go hunting for me?" Sonic raised an eyebrow.
"But not so important that it can't wait." Shadow settled down a few feet away from Sonic, dangling his legs over the edge of the cliff. For a while he said nothing. Then: "So, you acknowledge this is a suitable place for moping, Faker?"
"I'm guessing, anyway," said Sonic airily. He hoped his tone made it very clear he'd been doing no moping of his own.
"First time in days you haven't been running around like an idiot," observed Shadow languidly, his eyes sweeping the scraggly landscape spread out below them. "About time you got over her."
"Over her?" Sonic snorted. Shadow merely raised an eyebrow at him superciliously. Sonic glared for a second, then made an annoyed noise in his throat and looked away.
"She'll be happy with Knuckles, I think," said Shadow quietly. "She hardly deserved the way you treated her."
"Oh great, now you're standing up for her?" Sonic laughed disbelievingly. "Sweet Mobius, we've got enough problems already, don't tell me you're—"
"No, no." Shadow was unmoved, still staring thoughtfully at the horizon. "But you missed your chance, Faker. And you know it."
"Ahh, shut up," grumbled Sonic. "So you didn't catch the hint with that whole 'constantly-running-away' part?"
"Hint? Faker. I thought you were the one who despised lying." Shadow's voice bore the faintest steely edge of mockery. "If you've decided to take up the hobby, I'm sure Rouge and I could give you some lessons. Because colloquially speaking, you suck at it."
"All right, all right!" Sonic threw up his hands. "If you all will just get off my case! Yeah, so I do kinda . . . miss her chasing me around. No clue why, because I hated it when it was happening. But yeah. I do. Happy?"
"Must have been quite a blow to your ego," remarked Shadow, twisting the knife.
Sonic winced, but allowed his better nature to win out. He gave a humorless chuckle.
"You could say that. Didn't think that she'd been mining me for data all this time, so that kinda bites. And didn't really expect her to be that . . . ticked with me. I guess . . . I should think about that stuff she said, maybe."
"No, not like that," replied Shadow, shaking his head. "I told you to stop lying."
"I'm not lying! What are you talking about?" Sonic kept his voice civil, but his ears flicked back ever so slightly in warning.
Unfortunately, Team Dark in general, and Shadow in particular, were lousy at paying attention to warnings. In Shadow's head, a sign reading "DANGER! Do Not Enter!" probably translated to "OMG Get In Here, We Have Cake."
So he pressed harder, his eyes narrowing. He was still looking out at the landscape, so Sonic didn't catch the grim smirk flickering across his muzzle.
"Stop playing dumb, Faker. Everybody knows the real reason you run away from Amy. It's for the gratification."
Sonic's ears were slowly folding back now, his eyes darkening in suspicion.
"What are you getting at?" he asked quietly. Shadow shrugged.
"I know how it must have been. Gratifying. She was utterly devoted to you, adored you, almost worshipped you. Unconditional love. And that fed your ego, didn't it?"
Sonic got to his feet.
"Shads, I think that's enough," he said coldly. "If I were you, I would take that back."
"So the truth hurts? You thought we didn't know?" Shadow snorted. "It was obvious to everyone. Surely, it must feel good knowing that someone will love you no matter how much you abuse them. You knew you could ignore her, run from her, insult her, spurn her again and again, and still she'd keep crawling back to you adoringly every time. Like a dog licking the hand that beats it."
That was pretty harsh terminology, and it hit where it was aiming. Sonic looked like he'd been punched in the gut.
"Take. That. Back," he hissed.
"Why?" Shadow tilted his head with an infuriating innocence.
"You—where, exactly, do you get off," gritted Sonic, "even suggesting I'd do anything that—that sick?"
"I don't know." Shadow shrugged. "Where do you get off doing it?"
That tore it. Sonic's fist flew at Shadow's head—but met only a lazily-blocking palm. Shadow looked up as if nothing had happened and smirked tauntingly.
Things got a little violent after that. Sonic and Shadow had fought before, and the fights usually ended in Shadow's favor—but the Ultimate wasn't really trying this time, choosing to toy with his opponent instead. Considering the rage Sonic was in now, Shadow could easily have finished him off in thirty seconds, and that's even counting the ten seconds on the floor before you're considered "out."
"The angrier you get, the more you prove my point," remarked Shadow casually, swaying aside and letting Sonic's fist swing by his shoulder. "People generally get touchy when their flaws are exposed."
"Flaws?" Sonic spat. "Dude. You have got to be kidding me. Maybe that's the kind of thing you would do, but I would—I'd—before I even thought of that, I'd—"
"Sputtering does not suit you," jibed Shadow, swinging out one foot and hooking it behind Sonic's knees, sending him crashing to the ground. "And I am not interested in conversation."
"Yeah?" Sonic scrambled back to his feet and lunged, morphing into a spinning blue wheel. Shadow shrugged and tumbled lightly into his own spindash ball, letting Sonic crash against him. The opposing spins sent them both ricocheting off in opposite directions, letting them circle back and strike each other repeatedly, shocks flashing from the locking and rattling of their quills.
When the spindash momentum wore off, they resumed hand-to-hand combat. Shadow hadn't even brought out the Chaos powers yet, but he was getting bored.
"Just give up and admit it," he said wearily, as Sonic tried for the fourth time to tackle him.
"Never!" snapped Sonic, and tried for a feinting uppercut that morphed into an elbow blow. That one actually connected for a change; Shadow stepped back, wincing into his bruised temple.
"Ha!" panted Sonic gloatingly.
And promptly received the same favor back, multiplied twice over. The force was enough to knock him backwards and send him tumbling, forcing him to dig in his fingers and heels to keep from sliding right over the edge of the cliff they'd been fighting on. He finally managed to stop, scrabbling right at the very brink of the hundred-fifty-foot drop.
Shadow shrugged and prodded him off the edge with one foot.
Sonic just had time to register that he was falling to his possible death when a green flash shot across his vision and a hand grabbed his wrist.
"Chaos Control!" called Shadow, unruffled. Sonic suddenly found himself back on the clifftop, hitting the ground none-too-gently. Chaos Controlling carried over any motion you'd been making just before the teleportation started, and he'd already been falling pretty fast when Shadow caught him.
"So," remarked Shadow, and Sonic realized that one of the red-and-white rocket shoes was now pressing down on his chest. "Give up?"
"No," growled Sonic, glowering.
"You won't admit you've been leading Amy on for your own enjoyment?" continued Shadow blandly.
"I have not."
Shadow rolled his eyes and charged up a Chaos Spear in one hand.
"Still no?"
"Still no."
A high-pitched laser-like sound, and Sonic winced involuntarily as a spray of earth peppered the side of his head. The smell of burnt soil and fur sprang into his nostrils; Shadow's Chaos Spear had shaved off the slightest little stripe of Sonic's quills.
"Next time we do this, I'll aim differently," said Shadow, removing his foot and stepping back. The fight was clearly over; he had already displayed his ability to finish Sonic off.
Twice.
Within twenty seconds.
Ouch.
Sonic sat up, seething for a variety of reasons. Obviously he was furious at losing, but more than that he was furious at ever becoming furious in the first place. He was supposed to be Mobius's devil-may-care unflappable hero, the one who never showed even the slightest hints of losing his cool—and here he'd just let himself be baited into going completely postal, making a complete idiot of himself.
And then, the original source of his anger was pretty humiliating as well. Did the others really think—did they think he'd been avoiding Amy because of that?
"The opinion is not as widespread as all that," said Shadow, as if he'd read Sonic's mind. More likely he'd read his expression. "It's been theorized, but the others seem to trust you too much to think you'd actually be doing that to her. One would hope their faith is not misplaced."
So he'd been baiting Sonic all this time . . . trolling, essentially. Sonic kept his head down and bit his tongue, trying to keep his shame from spilling over into fresh anger. He knew Shadow well enough to read the silent laughter in his eyes, and he was not about to give him any more satisfaction.
"Oh . . . the news," remarked Shadow suddenly, testing the already-healing bruise on his temple. "I forgot, that's what I came looking for you about."
"No," said Sonic dully. "You mean you didn't come around here just to have a laugh at my expense? Say it ain't so!"
"Just checking," said Shadow, his voice surprisingly honest. Sonic looked up, startled.
"Checking? . . . "
"Never mind." Shadow waved him off. "Now, the news. They're rounding everyone up, because they finally finished the translation."
"Really?" Sonic's eyes brightened. "That's great! What does it say?"
"That's what the meeting's for. They want to explain it to everyone in detail, because it's serious," said Shadow.
"I'm on my way!" Sonic scrambled to his feet and prepared to take off.
"Hold up," interrupted Shadow. "About Amy."
Sonic halted abruptly and looked over his shoulder warningly.
"She's been making hints," continued Shadow, not bothering to meet Sonic's glance. "If you catch my drift."
Sonic said nothing. For a moment his eyes traced Shadow's form suspiciously, but at last his expression softened slightly and he gave the faintest of nods, turning forwards and disappearing with a crack of broken sound barrier. Shadow rolled his eyes silently and glimmered out of sight, Chaos Controlling straight back to his destination.
Sonic approached his house with flying feet, ignoring a few aches and pains from the squabble with Shadow. The translation was foremost in his mind, but a nagging, shameless little corner of him was wondering whether Shadow's last comment had or hadn't just been another taunt.
He hadn't even reached the front door when it flew open of its own accord, and a small pink hurricane suddenly seemed to barrel in his direction.
"Sonnnnnniiiiiiic!" was all he caught, before his ribs were crushed by a familiar death-grip of a hug and all further dialog blurred into an incoherent avalanche of babble, muffled by his shoulder. For good measure she seemed to be in tears, and half out of reflex, half out of that shameless hopeful corner, he carefully put his arms around her and patted her shoulder.
After a few seconds of allowing the situation to settle in and making some laughable attempts to say something soothing, he glanced up. Tails was standing in the doorway, amusement and guilt mingling to form a comparatively priceless look on his face.
"Uh . . . sorry about that," he grinned sheepishly. "She promised she'd be mature and self-controlled about it, but I guess she got kinda . . . overwhelmed."
"Oh," said Sonic. His vocabulary seemed to end at that point.
"S-sorry," stammered Amy, finally pulling away and wiping her eyes. "I-I'm fine. Sorry."
"No, s'okay," said Sonic awkwardly. "Uhm . . . "
"I guess you wanna hear the explanation?" ventured Tails.
"Oh, I dunno." Sonic shrugged. "I guess? If you have the time, someday." He glanced surreptitiously at Amy, trying to read her expression, then looked back to Tails. "No, seriously. Clue me the heck in, before I go any further off the deep end."