"Shadow!" Someone yelled, pulling the young hedgehog out of his sleep.
"Gah!" Shadow screamed, jumping out of his bed, revealing the Pikachu design on the sheets, and landing on the white carpet. "What?" He yelled looking up and meeting Sonic's green eyed glare, "I was sleeping!"
"Look down." Sonic said, pointing down at Shadow's red shorts, that had a large dark spot on them. As soon as he looked down, he felt how cold wet shorts stuck to his legs. "That makes it every morning this week you've woken up wet!"
Shadow, with his mouth open, was at a lost of words. Every morning he had woken up to warm sheets from him just finishing wetting the bed, or the sheets cold from him and Sonic waking him up, and his cold smelly clothes, sticking to his fur.
"I-I'm sorry." The young hedgehog apologized, keeping his head down, "I don't mean to." For whatever reason, his chest hurt every time he had woken up wet; it was like a small pin was poking at his heart.
"It's okay. That's why these are called accidents."The blue hedgehog sighed, "I'll take care of it; I need you to get ready for the day. I have some running around to do today, and since Tails and Silver are back in school, you're stuck with me."
"I can stay home by myself, I'm not a child!" Shadow said, opening the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulling out a kid sized red football jersey that said '#1 SON' on it.
"I'll believe that when I'm not changing your sheets. But it actually works, we need to do a few things to finish changing you into 'Merric'."
"Like what?" He asked, wrestling in jersey.
"You'll see." Sonic laughed, dropping the soaked sheets and helping find the head hole.
"I had it!"
"Sure you did. Before you put your underwear on; go to the bathroom and use some of the baby wipes to wipe yourself off. There's no time to run you a bath and I can't have you smelling like pee."
"Okay." Shadow sighed, taking his underwear, designed with different first gen pokemon on it, and shorts; and making his way to the bathroom. As he walked in, the cool hard floor stung his feet, and he shut the door behind him; making sure to lock it. He pulled down his wet shorts and underwear. "Okay, wet wipes." He talked to himself, scanning the bathroom for the wipes. He didn't feel comfortable calling them 'baby wipes' while he was stuck as a child. He spotted the yellow cylinder on top of the toilet.
"Great." The four year old mumbled, as he started to climb the white porcelain toilet.
"Got...it!" He said, making it up to toilet seat. He sat for a few seconds, catching his breath. Even climbing up on the toilet had become a difficult task, like climbing a cliff side. When his heart didn't feel like it was running a marathon, he stood up and grabbed the yellow cylinder. He looked at the picture of a mom wiping her son's face off with on one the wipes. He popped the top off, grabbed one of the cool white wipes, and put it on his leg.
"Ah!" He cried, as the coolness of the wipe stung his leg. It didn't really hurt, but it took him by surprise. As he continued to clean himself, someone came up to the bathroom door and tried to open, making the doorknob jingle.
"Shadow, you ok in there?" Sonic asked pounding on the door, "Why is this door locked?"
"I'm ok" He replied, closing the lid. putting the wet wipes back. "I just finished."
Shadow jumped off the toilet to the ground with a 'thud', threw the dirty wet wipes in the trash can, and started to finish dressing himself. "And the doors locked so you don't just barge in here!" He stated, finishing dressing and unlocking the door, walking out into the hall. "I'm ready!"
"Really?" Sonic asked, "Your shorts are on backwards."
"What?"
Shadow looked down and saw that his back pockets were facing forward. But how was that possible? Shadow was sure he had put his pants on forward. Shadow pulled his pants forward and checked his underwear, just to make sure they were on straight; which, thankfully, they were.
"Come on." Sonic said, falling to his knees and pulling Shadow's pants down.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Shadow snapped, reaching down for his pants.
"Helping you, because it seems you need a lot of it."
"I can get it!" Shadow said, lifting his feet out of the shorts, and turning around pulling the shorts up.
"Ok." Sonic said, picking Shadow up and running off. When he got the door, he grabbed the first pair of shoes he saw and put them on Shadow, making sure the strings were tied tight, then ran them out to his truck. It was the same shade of blue as his quills, but it wasn't as fast as him. But people prefered him to drive it, than run everywhere. Sonic was sure it was because they were jealous of how fast he could go on foot.
"Stop!" Shadow demanded, "I'm not feeling so good."
The young hedgehog's face was turning a shade of green from motion sickness, the other reason he had to take the truck. Most people ended up throwing up after he ran them somewhere.
"Don't worry that's all the actual running we'll be doing today." Sonic assured Shadow, opening the back door of his truck and sitting him in a car seat.
"What's this?" Shadow asked, looking at the weird looking seat he was in.
"It's called a 'car seat'," He explained, "Little kids have to sit in these for some reason. Are you going to give me a hard time about sitting in this?"
"Wasn't planning to." Shadow sighed. Though he would never admit to liking something childish, the 'car seat' wasn't the worst thing in the world. It was comfortable to sit in, and it had a some sort of platform sticking out the bottom of it that Shadow could use like a foot rest. It even had cup holders on the sides of it, so he didn't have to hold his drink, or reach forward to one of the cup holders to get his beverage. The only problem with it was it had for seat belts that went into one buckle.
"Ok, good." Sonic said, buckling Shadow in. The rushing over to the driver's side and getting in. They pulled out of the stone driveway and began to drive down the road. Shadow, with nothing else to do, stared out the window. If it wasn't for the car seat boosting him up, he probably wouldn't have been able to do that. There wasn't anyone out, since kids and teens were in school, and adults were at work; so there wasn't any hope of seeing someone doing something stupid and entertaining. He tried counting and reading the signs that they drove by, but that got boring fast. The clouds in the sky were a grey blanket in the sky; so there wasn't any point of seeing what shapes there were.
"Here we are." The older hedgehog said, as they pulled into a parking lot. In Front of them was a brick building with a two giant glass windows with mannequins posing with different styles of clothes on. Adults, children, boy, girls; they were all there. The roof of the building was pink and had a giant sign that said AF on it.
"Where are we?" Shadow asked.
"Amy's store." Sonic answered, opening Shadow's door and unbuckling him.
"What are we doing here?"
"To do some last minute changes to you."
"Last minute changes?" Shadow gulped. He didn't like the sound of it.
Sonic took his hand and lead him across the street. Shadow wanted to jerk his hand away, but he didn't want to draw any attention to himself. Though the rest of Soniville seemed to be desolate, Amy's store had people walking in and out of it. Some of the people had kids, who were holding their hands, so Shadow figured it'd draw attention being the only 'kid' not doing it. As they entered into the store, Shadow noticed all the mannequins that were set up.
"What does Amy do?" He asked.
"She's a designer." Sonic said, "She makes clothes if you don't know what that means."
"I knew what it meant!"
"She spends a lot of time working on her designs." Sonic continued.
"Hello Sonic." Someone said, walking up to them. Shadow looked over and saw Blaze the cat walking over to them. She was wearing a pink shirt with a AF design on it.
"Hey Blaze," Sonic said to the purple cat, "We're here for a 'special' appointment."
"Yeah I know." She said between chomps of her gum, "Amy told me to send you two to the back when you got here."
"Okay, thanks." He said, walking away and going to the back of the store. As the went Shadow looked around and saw all the different mannequins wearing clothes, but there was no clothes actually out for people to try on. There was dressing rooms on the sides of the store, so there must of been clothes for people to try on.
"So where is all the clothes?" Shadow asked, looking around again, "This is a clothes store, right?"
"It is, but it's a little different from most. You have to set up an appointment with Amy and then you come in and she custom fits each article of clothing for that person."
"So all these people that are coming in and out are just setting up appointments?"
"Yep." He said, opening a door that had a 'Employees only' sign on it. The room they entered was about the size of an average living room. But instead of a couch and TV, there was a weird looking in a chair, like one you'd see at a barbers, and and wooden structure that looked like an armour stand from Minecraft. On the side of the room there were counters littered with different beauty products on them.
"Amy, we're here!" The blue hedgehog announced.
"Ok, right on time." The pink hedgehog said, walking in behind them.
"So is this going to take long?" Sonic asked, looking at his black digital watch, "Cuz', if so, I need to do some running around."
"Yeah this could take a while. Maybe a couple of hours, at least."
"A couple of hours!?" Shadow gasped
"Yeah, can't rush perfection." She said, pick Shadow up and carrying him over to the chair and sitting him down on it. "Blaze." She said into a walkie talkie, that was pinned to her pink T-shirt. "I'm going to need you back here."
"What's going on?" Shadow asked, watching Amy walk over to the counter and picking up some of the beauty tools.
"Just a make-over." She giggled, walking up to him with a weird looking clear ovals, "Close your eyes."
"What is that?" He asked, obeying.
"These are eye guards. I'll put these on your eyes, and while Blaze and I are dying your quills and fur, you won't have to worry about getting any of it in your eyes."
Shadow felt the eye guards put on and tried to open his eyes, but they were sealed shut.
"Hey! Why can't I open my eyes?"
"Because the eye guards are keeping them shut. Blaze, Vanilla, and I have found it easier to work on kids when they aren't seeing what we're doing."
"But I'm not a kid!"
"Well they're on already, so might as well just keep them on."
Shadow was about to say something, when he heard the door swing open.
"I'm here." Shadow recognized Blaze's voice, "Let's get started."
"Yep." Amy said.
First, Amy grabbed a can of hair dye and put it into a sprayer. Then she sprayed it on the highlights on Shadow's quills, and above his eyes.
"Do you feel alright?" The pink hedgehog asked, pulling the hair dye out of the sprayer.
"Fine." Shadow said, "But what's that funny smell?"
"Hair dye."
"What?!"
"Yeah, that was apart of your appointment." Amy said, grabbing a clipboard, "Sonic said, different highlight color, new wardrobe, and contacts. We just finished blanking it, making it the same color as the rest of your quills; then after that dries, we'll dye it a different color"
"What color are you guys changing my highlight color to?" Shadow asked, reaching for the eye guards.
"DON'T touch those!" Blaze yelled, grabbing Shadow's hand, "Those are very fragile!"
"I-I'm sorry!" Shadow apologized quickly, the sting that had been in his chest earlier had appeared again.
"It's okay, "Blaze said, in a calmer tone, "You'll see what your new highlights are when we're done."
Shadow just sighed, as he slumped over in the chair. The fumes from the hair dye was starting to make him feel light headed and the only thing to keep him distracted from it was the sound of Amy and Blaze messing with some beauty tools.
"Okay, Shadow." Amy said, walking back to the young hedgehog, "You ready to finish this?"
She waited for an answer for Shadow, she put in a new color hair dye in the sprayer.
"Shadow?" She asked, leaning in closer to Shadow. "Oh."
Even though she had only been a mother for a few months, she had recognized when a child was asleep.
"No problem. This won't be the first time I had to work with a sleeping patient.
I craeted a discord page for those of you who want to talk straight to me about the story or other stuff:https/discord.gg/6RUJfe7