Sonic paced the area of the shrine, hand tapping at his chin. Everything was pretty quiet. Everyone was recovering from… their last fight. Tails was off repairing Omega as well. At least the fox hadn't gotten too hurt but everyone else… Sonic sighed as he stopped in his pacing. Eggman had gotten away and that had him feeling… upset he guessed. Based on the snippets of emotions he was getting from Super, Sonic was fairly certain he was on the same page. Which felt kinda weird. Though that did get Sonic thinking about something else. Eggman had actually managed to control Super, for a short time anyway. Until Tails stepped in. Tails had also managed to get Super to give up control without a fight. Though he wasn't sure if that was because of Super being drained or some other reason.
Sonic let his hand fall back down to his side and he gazed out beyond the shrine. Eggman was out there somewhere right now, planning something he was sure. Leaving him to plan just wasn't sitting well with Sonic. Something had to be done, but none of them were in any sort of condition to fight. Even he'd taken quite a beating, well mostly Super did. Pretty much his entire body ached. He supposed Super wasn't too careful about not getting hit because of his increased resistance or whatever he probably had. Sonic sighed through his nose. This wasn't helpful right now.
Whatever was going to happen he needed to discuss it with the others first. He didn't have the answer here. This wasn't the sort of problem where he could rush ahead and deal with it. He had to rely on his friends. For now though he'd let them rest. It was his own reckless decision that had gotten them all hurt after all. The least he could do was let them rest.
"As I see it we're stuck at the moment." Shadow said, leaning back and wincing from the still tender wound on his back.
"We can't just sit back and do nothing." Sonic flicked an ear as he shot Shadow a look. "Eggman isn't going to take this lying down."
"And the last time you convinced us to go this happened." Shadow gestured to the group at large and frowned. "I believe those 'I told you so' rights are kicking in." Sonic huffed and glared back at Shadow, but didn't say anything else for the moment.
Tails glanced around the group. This discussion seemed to be going around in circles, mostly due to Sonic and Shadow's back and forths. No one else really had any good ideas though. At least not so far. Tails knew leaving Eggman alone to recover while they did wasn't the best plan, but it felt like they didn't have much of a choice right now. Everyone was hurt to varying degrees and were in no condition to fight something powered by four emeralds.
"What if we used the emeralds." Sonic suggested finally, crossing his arms.
"You can't, you idiot." Shadow scoffed. "Have you forgotten what happens when you're exposed to chaos energy right now?"
"I didn't mean me Shadow." Sonic shook his head. "You of all people should know that I'm not the only one who can use them."
Shadow was silent for a moment and Tails imagined that he might be silently conceding that point to Sonic. "Well that still raises another issue. We don't have all the emeralds."
"But we know where they all are." Sonic perked up. "If we can snag the other four emeralds while we're fighting Eggman-"
"That is a reckless plan and you know it." Shadow glared at the other hedgehog. "That entirely hinges on our ability to get the emeralds from him before he does something, either to you or us."
Silence settled over the group after that. It really was starting to feel like they were stuck like Shadow said. There was the option to ask more of their friends to help, but Sonic didn't want to risk anyone else getting hurt. Tails was pretty sure Sonic still felt guilty about everything. Even more so now with what just happened.
"I might have another idea." Sonic broke the silence hesitantly.
"If I heard another stupid or reckless idea come out of your mouth hedgehog…" Shadow warned lowly.
Sonic rubbed the back of his head and looked away. "It might be a really stupid idea." He admitted quietly. "But!" He held his hands out in front of him and turned back to face the group. "It might just be stupid enough to work."
Shadow drug a hand down his face with a long sigh. "No. We're not doing any stupid or reckless plans right now. Right now we all need to rest and recover so we're able to fight the doctor once he makes himself known again." Sonic opened his mouth to protest but Shadow shot him a glare. "We're waiting."
Sonic and Shadow held eye contact for a while before Sonic finally turned away. "Alright, fine. We wait."
While the group dispersed, mostly to go rest, Tails watched Sonic. He knew his brother better than anyone, so he was confident in saying that Sonic wasn't letting this drop so easily. Whatever stupid plan he had, Tails was fairly certain he was still going to try and do. Which meant he should probably stop him, or help him. Whichever felt like the better option. As Sonic began to walk off Tails followed him. Hopefully whatever Sonic had planned wasn't too crazy…
"Ok, ok I know this sounds kinda crazy, but what if we helped each other." Sonic said to the air as he paced back and forth. "You don't like Eggman and I wanna stop him so it's a win win right? Everyone gets what they want? We can go back to hating each other or whatever after. Basically we'd be calling a temporary truce." Sonic stopped. He didn't feel anything from Super. He frowned. "And you're ignoring me huh? Maybe… I'm not sure how all this works really." Sonic sighed. Maybe this was too stupid of an idea.
"Sonic..?" Sonic looked over to see Tails, looking at him confused. "What are you doing?"
"Oh I uh." He looked away and rubbed the back of his head. "Just-" He looked back at Tails. The fox was giving him a skeptical look. Wow he had even said anything yet and Tails was already doubting his story. "Trying to talk to Super." He relented.
"I assume you have a reason?" Tails asked, giving him an odd look.
"Of course." Sonic replied, an ear twitching. "It uh, just might be a stupid one." Tails crossed his arms and gave him a serious look. Sonic held up his hands defensively. "Look, it might just be our only chance to stop Eggman before he can recover. If I can get Super on our side at least for this fight we can make sure he stays down til we can figure all this out."
One of Tails' ears flopped down. "That requires you getting him to listen to you and agree to do this." The fox crossed his arms. "And also him not trying to keep control after he deals with Eggman."
"That's what I was trying to do. Seems like he's ignoring me though. Can't really get the guy to agree to anything if he won't talk to me." Sonic sighed.
Tails was silent for a while. Yeah admittedly this plan was one of his more reckless. Shadow would probably have a fit if he knew what Sonic was trying to do. It had a massive chance of backfiring, but Sonic was willing to take that risk. "Alright. You'll need help though." Tails held out his hand for a fist bump. "We'll do this together."
Sonic looked at Tails in surprise before a massive smile spread over his face. Returning the fist bump he chuckled. "Not that I'm not happy for your help, but why?"
"Well first, because you'd try to do it anyway. Second, because I think there's more to Super than he's letting on." The fox explained, tails swishing slowly behind him. Sonic shot him an intrigued look and motioned for him to go on. "I had a conversation with him after we'd captured him. Honestly I'm not sure why I talked to him at all." He rubbed the back of his head. "I guess I was just kinda desperate." He shook his head. "But he kinda surprised me. As much as he claims to just wanna destroy things I don't think that's all there is to him. I don't think I could have talked him down if there wasn't."
Sonic nodded. "Yeah, I agree." He sighed and crossed his arms. "Things were different this time. Before we got to Eggman I felt sort of… in sync i guess? With Super."
Tails perked up. "Really?"
Sonic nodded. "Yeah. I think he was excited about the battle like I was. It was sort of like a feedback loop." Sonic made a circular motion with a finger. "It was weird but I didn't have a lot of time to think about it you know?"
Tails hummed. "Maybe there's chance that you two could actually work together then. That'll be something we'll have to look into more though." The fox shook his head. "Despite all the data I collected about him I still don't know much about him."
Sonic waved that off. "No worries bud. We can figure that out. First order of business is getting him to actually talk to me."
"Have you spoken to him directly since the first time?" Tails asked, tilting his head. "Back before we got Knuckles' help."
"Yeah… One other time. Right before I got control back the first time." Sonic rubbed the back of his head. Despite spilling everything leading up to Super taking over he realized he never explained what happened right before he turned back. In his defense though he was a bit caught up in the moment and had a brother to comfort. "Right before I got back control the first time me and him had a… chat. That turned into a fight, but well." The hedgehog shrugged. "I don't think there's really any connection between those two times though, so I'm not sure how helpful that is."
"Well… it's something." Tails tapped his chin and looked over Sonic. "I might have an idea."
"Shoot. I'm open to any ideas." Sonic gestured for Tails to continue.
The fox grimaced before walking towards Sonic. The hedgehog tilted his head in silent question. Tails gently grabbed at his arm and tugged him to the ground. Once on the ground Sonic adjusted himself to a more comfortable position. He rose a brow at the fox. "I'm thinking that maybe meditating might help." Tails finally started to explain. Sonic blinked at Tails. I mean he guessed that could help? Tails would probably know better than him anyway. "It's either this or trying to expose you to a chaos emerald, and I don't think either of us want to do that until we know how Super will react."
Sonic winced. Yeah meditating sounded much better than that. "Yeah, let's try this then. Worse thing that happens is nothing right?"
"Probably." The fox answered, rubbing his arm. "Though I don't know enough about how this works to be sure. Anyway, just try to relax."
Taking a deep breath Sonic attempted to let any tension in his body fade. Which was harder than it normally would have been due to the pain, but eventually he felt some semblance of calm. It helped listening to Tails' even breaths. As he focused on his breathing he could almost feel everything fade into the background. Even his focus on listening to the fox's breath waned and eventually faded. Experimentally he cracked an eye open. A familiar black space stared back at him, as well as an annoyed looking golden hedgehog.
Super's arms were folded over his chest and his ears were pinned down against his head. Opening his eyes fully Sonic noticed Super was in a sitting position very similar to his own. "What do you want?" Super growled out, but thankfully made no move to attack Sonic. Yet.
Sonic couldn't help the small smirk that made its way onto his face. "Let's have a chat, huh Super?"
