"I don't think I'm going to be able to track the other emeralds… whatever Eggman did to hide them before must still be in effect." Tails sighed. The fox had touched them down on the mainland not long after they'd left Angel Island.
"That's fine bud. We can just go for plan b then." Sonic pat the fox on the head.
"Dare I even ask what plan b is?" Shadow crossed his arms and shot Sonic a weary look.
"You won't like it." Sonic nodded as he closed his eyes. "But unless we wanna take forever it's our only option."
"Wonderful." Shadow grumbled as he turned away.
"Super? You gonna behave? We kinda need you to track down the other emeralds." Sonic thought, not opening his eyes.
"Yeah fine, but if he makes a move first I'm not sitting there and taking it." Super warned.
"Fine. I can give you that much." Sonic relented, as he opened his eyes. "Alright since I don't really wanna spook anyone right now, Super's gonna be taking over. He can track the emeralds down for us."
"Is that a good idea?" Knuckles asked as he crossed his arms.
"Don't worry about it Knux. Like I said, if he'd wanted to take off with my body he could have done it days ago." Sonic put his hands behind his head and sighed. "I know it's… hard to believe but he has been behaving more or less."
"I feel like I should take offense to that…" Super grumbled.
Sonic decided to ignore the comment. "Look, the more time we spend discussing this the more time Eggman has to plan something new. We're doing this, and no-" He looked at Shadow. "-you can't change my mind." Shadow huffed but said nothing. Sonic closed his eyes again. "Alright Super you're up." He thought.
Super's eye twitched as he could feel Shadow's stare on his back. It was hard enough to concentrate on finding the emeralds when he wasn't being distracted. He sighed in frustration and spun around to glare at Shadow. He smirked in satisfaction at the way the hedgehog flinched in surprise. "Do you mind? It's hard to concentrate with you staring holes into my back." He twitched an ear as he frowned.
"I-" Shadow cut himself off and looked away.
Super stared at him for a moment before it was clear he wasn't going to say anything else. He turned back around and tried to focus on finding the other emeralds again. Admittedly he wasn't actually sure he could do it; he'd never tried after all. Though why shouldn't he be able to? He came from them… technically. Why wouldn't he be able to track them down? "Just take a deep breath dude. You can do this." Oh right. Sonic could very much hear his thoughts or at least sort of understand his feelings. Ugh, stupid self doubt. Stupid extra emotions he shouldn't even have… "Calm down, your breathing is getting kinda hard."
Super paused as he realized that. He glanced over at Tails who was shooting him a concerned look. He didn't even want to know if the other two had noticed. "I'm fine." He growled in his head.
"Sure dude. Sure." Sonic replied, but he didn't try and force the issue.
With Sonic finally deciding to be quiet he started to focus again. He closed his eyes to try and help block out any other distractions. It was hard to pick out the other emeralds from the two they had with them admittedly. Eventually though he was fairly certain he could feel them. It was a faint feeling, but it was unmistakable. "I got em." He said quietly, opening his eyes and looking at Tails.
The fox nodded and smiled. "Good job. I knew you could do it." He walked over to Super. A quick glance at the other two revealed just how tense they were at that. Though Tails didn't seem to pay any attention to that. The kid really did trust him huh? Super really thought that was a bad idea, but he couldn't deny it felt kinda… nice? To be trusted like that. He grimaced as he felt the smugness from Sonic at that. "Shut up." He grumbled. Based on the way Tails faltered for a moment he realized he must have said that out loud.
"I didn't say anything though?" Sonic's voice was just as smug as he felt.
"Don't play dumb with me, hedgehog." Super glared at the air, but managed to keep the response from being said aloud again.
Tails shook his head and smiled. "Talking with Sonic I assume?"
Super huffed. "Yes. He's being annoying, as usual."
The fox nodded. "Sounds about right. Anyway you said you found the emeralds? Could you lead us there?"
Super scoffed. "Of course I can. I said I could before, didn't I?" He crossed his arms. "Just get the two tagalongs in the plane and try to keep up."
"Will do." Tails nodded. "Shadow! Knuckles! We're good to go if you want to get back in the tornado."
"He manage to find them?" Knuckles asked, a mildly surprised look on his face.
"Sure did." Tails confirmed, nodding.
"Then let's go." Shadow moved his way past the two and towards the plane. The hedgehog locked eyes with Super before breaking eye contact first. Super reveled in the small victory before wandering over to Tails and Knuckles. The way the echidna tensed up slightly did not go unnoticed.
"He seems a bit… touchy." Tails said, once Shadow was out of earshot.
"Well…" Knuckles glanced at Super. "I feel like there's a reason for that."
"I mean… yeah." Tails admitted, one ear flopping down.
"Look like the blue idiot keeps saying, if I had reaaaaally wanted to betray these two I would have done it before. I'm not exactly patient. Plus it would have been way easier when only Tails and Sonic knew." Super huffed.
"Right…" Knuckles looked Super up and down. "You still owe me a rematch at some point too. You got lucky the first time we fought."
Super shot him a feral grin and was happy to see that the echidna held his ground. "I'd be happy to give you a rematch at some point. You won't win, but it'll be fun to see you try."
Much to Super's delight, Knuckles rose to the challenge. "We'll see about that."
"Ok you two. Now's not the time." Tails stepped between the two, shooting both of them an unimpressed look. "We need to go stop Eggman remember?"
"Fiiiine." Super sighed. "We settle this later, echidna."
Knuckles shot him a challenging look. "I look forward to you losing."
Before Super could retaliate Tails grabbed him around the arm and dragged him towards the plane. Super was so shocked that he just allowed himself to be dragged. Had… had Tails ever actually voluntarily touched him? He didn't think so… "Ok Super, lead the way." Tails said once they were by the tornado.
Super shook the odd feeling off and nodded. "Right yeah. Follow me." He floated into the air and waited impatiently for the plane to start up. That was odd, but Super was just glad Sonic chose not to comment on it. Finally the plane started and Tails gave him the thumbs up. With any luck once this was over he could go back to not caring about all this stuff…
Shadow was concerned. Perhaps concerned wasn't a strong enough word but regardless, he just knew this whole situation was going to go wrong somehow. How could Sonic and Tails actually trust Super? There was no way he wasn't planning to betray them at some point… right? Though admittedly Shadow did have some doubts. In his limited interactions with Super he didn't really strike Shadow as a good actor. He seemed to show his emotions rather plainly; he wasn't particularly hard to read. What was his angle then? Surely he hadn't just actually agreed to help… right? It didn't seem likely and yet the more he thought about it the more it felt like that was actually the case. He had to admit that yes, it would have been rather simple for Super to run off with Sonic's body before they'd know he was even working with them. Especially with how proficient he seemed to be getting with chaos control…
Shadow shook his head. For now? For now he'd keep an eye on Super. It's all he really could do. "We're almost there." Super shouted over the wind.
"I'll take us in for a landing then!" Tails responded, banking to find a place to land.
That seemed like a wise decision. Best to not let the doctor know they were coming. With any luck he wouldn't be expecting them so soon. He frowned as he watched Super land beside them. The hedgehog's ear twitched before he turned to look at Shadow. Almost immediately he returned the glare that Shadow was giving him, but didn't do anything more. Yeah, he was not good at hiding his emotions. Though Shadow wasn't doing much better right now. As he hopped out of the plane he kept his eyes on Super. A mild shiver went down his spine as Super held his gaze. He shouldn't be scared, but part of him knew that he likely couldn't beat him. Maybe he could privately admit to himself he was… scared of Super. If only a little. The other hedgehog had given him quite the beating in their past encounters.
"Alright let's do this." Knuckles smacked a hand into his palm after he jumped out of the plane. "Eggman won't know what hit him."
Super broke eye contact with Shadow and grinned widely. "Oh yeah. He doesn't stand a chance this time. He'll pay for what he did to me." Super's eyes became unfocused for a moment. Shadow did wonder what was going on. He'd seen that happen a few times. In fact he'd taken advantage of that when he'd fought him. "Fine." Super suddenly said. "I won't hurt him… too much."
What? Who was he talking to? Tails wandered over to Shadow's side. "You seem a bit confused." The fox grinned at him knowingly. "He's talking with Sonic."
"I… see." Shadow frowned as he finally looked away and turned to Tails. "I have to ask. Do you… truly trust him?"
After a moment Tails nodded. "I know it seems odd, but I know that at least for now he's not going to betray us. After Eggman's defeated… well I'm not sure but I'm optimistic. We might be able to work with him." He shrugged. "Sonic trusts him for now and after being around him for the past few days I do too."
"I still don't trust him." Shadow said after a moment of silence. He watched as Super pestered Knuckles; the echidna was showing a surprising amount of restraint.
"That's understandable." Tails nodded. "I didn't really want to trust him at first either… but I believed Sonic when he told me he was confident that Super would help us." He tilted his head and smiled as he also caught sight of where Super was messing with Knuckles. "There's more to him than you'd think."
Shadow sighed as he crossed his arms. "If you say so."
"Don't worry, I won't try to get you to trust him right away." Tails flicked an ear. "But at the very least I ask that you don't try to get in his way? It's not exactly a secret that he doesn't like you-"
"The feeling is mutual." Shadow interrupted Tails with a huff.
"-but we don't want him getting distracted from dealing with Eggman alright?" Tails folded his ears down in minor annoyance.
"Fine. I'll do my best not to antagonize him as long as he does the same." Shadow finally relented, letting his arms fall back to his sides.
"Thank you." Tails ears perked back up. "And don't worry. I'm sure Sonic will keep him in line."
"Hey! We going or what?" Super shouted, effectively cutting off any further conversation between the two. "I can only mess with Knux here for so long til it gets boring."
"Why you…" Knuckles growled out.
"Right right. Let's go." Tails nodded and walked over to the two. A quick glance back at Shadow had him following as well.
"The emeralds are just down there." He pointed to a set of old ruins.
"Mystic ruins huh?" Tails sighed. "Hopefully Eggman didn't break anything."
"He'll regret it if he did." Knuckles growled out, glaring in the direction Super had pointed.
Super tilted his head for a moment before sighing. Without a word the gold faded to blue and it seemed like Sonic was back in control. He shot the group a confident smirk. "Let's do this then, shall we?"
