Anonymous Review Replies!
Shahryar: Glad you like! :D If, as your name implies, you might be a fan of the world of the 1001 Nights, I would of course also recommend my fanfic "Burning Arrow, Wildfire Heart", which is set in that exact universe, featuring our beloved egg-shaped Doctor as King Sharyar…:P
Lone Garurumon: Ahah, the perfect quote to end the chapter! :P I'm really enjoying Amy's protective attitude to Shadow, too, her character does have a heart of gold and a similarly good outlook on people as Sonic and I like it when scenes give her the opportunity to shine. Boo for Sonic X for giving her scene with Shadow aboard the ARK to Chris! And yup, Rouge has been introducing herself as Rogue everywhere, even if Omega almost stumbled over her codename and Silver...wasn't impressed. XD I actually did have a couple readers trying to tell me I'm "spelling her name wrong" too…. (and as for humans being squishy: one of my friends once dislocated her shoulder by rolling over wrongly in bed. We ARE the most breakable things on the planet to cartoon animals.^^;)
Rei: Love hearing about your excitement! Please enjoy the next chapter :)
Karofi: Aw thank you! I'm glad people like Shadow's characterisation, the AU setting is so cool to write because he gets to be the cynical edgelord we all love but without Maria's death there's still that softer side that wants to be a good brother to his sister and maybe doesn't hate everybody. :D
Long time reader: No worries about being bad with words, I love each and every single comment! I like hearing about parts people liked, or characters they particularly enjoy, or plot twists they found cool, everything! And of course sharing how they enjoyed the references, like that terrible Shadow the Hedgehog boss we all fought against XD Thanks for commenting!
DEV: JAAAAA, ich kann nach 15+ Jahren immer noch komplett akkurat das "Have no fear - AMy Rose is here!" in meinem Kopf hören, also das musste rein. XD Und natürlich macht nichts mehr Spaß als mit Fanfic auf die ganzen super seltsamen Plot-Elemente der Spiele zu verweisen, der ganze SA2-Storybogen ist bonkers XD Mensch/Mobian Dichotomien sind nach wie vor mein Lieblingsworldbuilding-Thema und jupp, wir sind irgendwo schon super fragil im Gegensatz zu Sonic u. Co konstruiert - kein Wunder, dass die uns in Watte packen würden wenn sie könnten lol. Was man für den Egg Dealer aber auch sagen muss, ist, dass er auf jeden Fall in Erinnerung bleibt - ich meine, die meisten von uns haben sich ja schon mit Dutzenden seiner Contraptions herumgeschlagen, aber das Ding sticht irgendwie trotzdem noch raus ;p Und jo, eine Konfrontation upcoming! Wie immer mega vielen Dank für das wundervolle Review, ich hoffe, das neue Kapitel hält alles, was das letzte versprochen hat! :D
Chapter 23: I Am All Of Me
The other Shadow - no, the other black hedgehog, Shadow mentally corrected himself, was staring down at them from his perch, face expressionless and crimson eyes intent. His gaze almost seemed puzzled as he looked at them, though his stance was tense. Ready for either fight or flight.
If he was anything like Shadow, it would be fight.
His doppelganger cocked his head. "Fa...ker?" he asked, and Shadow had to suppress a jump in his heartbeat - because that was his own voice. The other had copied even that. "No," the copy then said, simply. "You are the fake hedgehog."
And that, in Shadow's opinion, was it.
"You're...you're comparing yourself to me?" He snarled up at the impostor, striding forward and baring his teeth at the hedgehog in the tree. "Ha! You're not even good enough to be my fake!"
"Yeah!" Sonic chimed in at his side. "We'll make you eat those words!"
And with that, the blue hedgehog was already off. In the blink of an eye, Sonic had thrown himself forward, curling up and shooting toward the doppelganger still standing on his branch, a blue blur of spikes racing up the tree. The black hedgehog himself was just standing there for a moment, watching Sonic's approach expressionlessly, but as soon as Sonic had almost reached the top -
The doppelganger vanished.
"AGH!"
There was Sonic's scream as he went straight over the branch and flying off toward the other side, but Shadow had felt the ripple through the surrounding Chaos field, this had been a Chaos Control the other had used, but where-?
"There's no time to play games," his own voice announced behind him, and then pain exploded behind Shadow's eyes as the metal edge of his own shoe connected with the backside of his head.
Shadow crashed to his knees with a pained gasp, barely managing to twist sideways onto his back on the ground in time to see his doppelganger drop down from the roundhouse kick he had just delivered, expressionless gaze still focused on Shadow, and already raising the hand that wasn't holding the Emerald.
"Chaos Spear!"
"Shadow!"
Shadow grunted at the impact as Sonic smashed into his side, barely managing to scoop him up and stumbling away as the Chaos energy exploded into the ground where Shadow had just been sitting, leaving a charred crater.
"Chaos Spear!"
"DODGE!" Sonic shouted, releasing Shadow for both of them to scramble away in opposite directions as the Chaos Energy roared through the space where they had been standing.
"Hey! You! Just who do you think you are?!" Sonic yelled again, briefly whirling to a halt at the other end of the clearing again, jabbing an index finger toward the doppelganger, who was still staring back at him with an unreadable expression. "Say something! You fake hedgehog!"
"...Chaos Control!"
In retrospect, Shadow thought as the other Shadow then instantly disappeared and also re-appeared behind Sonic to immediately smash into him with a homing-attack, that was to be expected.
"Ugh!" Sonic gave a pained grunt as he was driven face-first into the jungle earth, and the other black hedgehog again looked like he was stepping up to deliver a Chaos Spear at point-blank range as a lethal follow-up, but this time it was Shadow who shot into him, curled up into a deadly ball of spikes and travelling at a speed high enough to smash his doppelganger into the nearest tree.
Very sadly, he managed to keep hold of the Emerald.
"Anything broken?" Shadow asked curtly as he reached down to pull Sonic to his feet again, the blue hedgehog grasping his outstretched hand with a noise of pain.
"My pride, mostly. What the hell."
"It's because of the Chaos Emerald he has," Shadow snarled through gritted teeth. The other hedgehog wasn't better than him. He wasn't. "That's what makes him able to teleport this far and attack from behind," he said, watching as on the other side of the clearing his doppelganger was picking himself up.
"Oh yeah?" Sonic's eyes narrowed. "Then how about we don't give him a behind to attack from."
Shadow nodded. "Alright."
And within a heartbeat, they were off. For a moment, the clearing in the jungle was transformed into a blur of black and blue, the other hedgehog reacting to their curling up with a spin-dash of his own, and as a result there were now three cannonballs of spikes ricocheting across their battlefield, bouncing off trees, off each other, tearing up the ground and blasting through any vegetation in their way.
"Dammit. This isn't working either." Sonic gritted his teeth as they came to a stand still again, all of them looking a bit worse for wear but no sign of injury visible on the other hedgehog, who was still staring at them. "Hey!" Sonic cupped his hands around his mouth in frustration. "Where do you even get off, attacking us? If you're anything like Shadow, don't you get that the bad guy here is Robuttnik?!"
This, interestingly, let the black hedgehog pause in his stance that looked like he had been about to either teleport or throw another Chaos Spear.
"There's...there's no time to play games," he said, but, for the first time sounded slightly uncertain.
"Huh," Sonic said. "Didn't think that would work."
And then he shot forward like a wrecking ball, hitting the doppelganger straight into the chest. As he did, a handful objects apparently got dislodged in the black hedgehog's spikes, tumbling onto the grass as both Sonic and him went down from the blue hedgehog's attack, rolling a few more feet as Sonic was apparently trying to wrestle the other Shadow into submission.
"Shadow!" Sonic shouted, "Help me! Get the Emerald!"
The other black hedgehog snarled, expressionless gaze now replaced with open hostility, but it was obvious that in upper body strength he clearly had the upper hand, Sonic struggling to contain him. The Emerald had landed in the grass next to them, too, both fighting to get at it.
"No," the doppelganger growled. "You won't even get the chance."
Shadow was already running, skating toward the pair of fighting hedgehogs on the other end of the clearing, but then he could feel the Chaos Energy being sucked in from all sides, concentrating in the doppelganger's hands - Sonic was still halfway on top of him, holding his wrists captive with an effort in an attempt to prevent him from throwing another Chaos Spear at his face, but Shadow immediately knew - the other wasn't planning a Chaos Spear.
"Sonic! Get off him!" Shadow shouted, but of course it was too late. The doppelganger managed to reach the Emerald before Shadow could get to them, and his grin was feral.
"Chaos Blast."
The shockwave hit Shadow a millisecond before Sonic did, and both hurt equally as much.
His breath was knocked out of him a second time when he collided with a tree hard, the spikes of Sonic's back being driven into his face as an ungentle reminder why sapient hedgehogs usually ranked as somewhere on the bottom five species in 'best bedfellow' polls, and Shadow gasped for air as they both fell down, rolling on the ground in the aftermath of the Chaos Blast.
"Ch-Chaos Spear...Chaos Control...okay just how many of those are there?" Sonic next to him wheezed, face twitching in pain. "I mean, why not just have a 'Chaos Death' and be done with it?"
"No, just those three," Shadow grunted, rolling to his feet again and ignoring Sonic's sarcastic 'Oh good!' as both the blue hedgehog and the black one at the other side of the clearing were picking themselves up as well.
"Okay, you sorry excuse for a hedgehog, you steal, you sent me to prison, and you call Shadow the faker - that's IT for you!" Sonic shouted. "Better be ready for round two!"
This time, the other hedgehog only stared at them again, a mild frown on his features.
"No," he then said simply. "Playtime is over."
And then he vanished.
Xxx
"What the - NO!" Sonic exclaimed in protest, staring at where the black hedgehog had just disappeared. But before he could say anything else, a crackling sound attracted Shadow's attention and his gaze snapped toward a small black gadget the doppelganger had dropped - a...radio device…?
"Shadow! What are you doing?!" a voice that was unmistakeably Robotnik's hissed through the speaker, letting both of them freeze. "Hurry and get back here right now before the island blows up with you on it! And where's Rouge?!"
"Blows up?!" Sonic repeated, flabberghasted and giving Shadow a wide-eyed stare. In a heartbeat he had rushed over and picked the thing up, albeit without pressing the "sending" button on the walkie-talkie, so Robotnik wouldn't be able to hear them. They shared a glance for a moment, Sonic clearly as undecided as him what to do next, but before they could do anything, the gadget had already crackled to life again, another transmission incoming.
"Shadow? This is Rouge. I've got a small problem…" a very familiar voice crumpled through the static. But while it was unmistakeably the white bat's, the cheerful, confident tone of her previous appearance on video was gone - now her voice sounded tight and anxious.
"Shadow? Are you there? I tried the Doctor, but he...he won't answer…"
"Shadow! Say something!"
"What?!" Now it was Shadow's turn to stare at Sonic, who was holding out the walkie-talkie to him with an urgent expression.
"You sound the same as your doppelganger! And now that he's gone that bat is the only lead we have! Ask her where she is - and oh, maybe also when this island explodes!"
"Right," Shadow said, already grabbing the walkie-talkie. He pressed the "send" button.
Then he unpressed it.
"...but what should I say?"
"ANYTHING!"
"Right," Shadow repeated again. Imitate the imitation. He could do that. He was the only one entitled to his own voice. He pressed send again.
"This is Shadow. Where are you?"
"Shadow!" Rouge's tone now sounded audibly relieved, but then dropped down to a more defeated register again. "I...I'm still in vault 123 in sector A. I can't believe I'm trapped inside this locked safe with the Chaos Emeralds. And the bomb's rigged to blow up in five minutes, so I...I guess I won't be able to call myself a treasure hunter anymore," she said, and now even through the distorted crackle of the transmission, her voice sounded like that of someone who was trying their hardest not to let it break. There was a swallowing noise at the other end and what sounded like a shaky huff.
"And now listen to me, speaking my last words to you of all people."
"Five minutes," Sonic said, also swallowing, and then also said a word Shadow guessed he wouldn't have said in front of Tails. Then he let out a breath. "Okay, let's go."
"...what?"
"We're going back, we warn everybody, we're somehow getting her out of that vault, and then we take care of Eggman and save every single life on this island," Sonic said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "Let's go."
Shadow stared at him.
Then:
"You are the biggest troublemaker alive."
"My middle name," Sonic grinned. "Okay I remember the floor plan and I think I can get us there in a minute, if we hurry. You ready?"
Shadow's eyes narrowed - truthfully, he cared very little whether that bat-shaped thorn in his side had now gone and gotten herself trapped in some safe or other, but what Sonic had said about her being their only lead was true - and she had also mentioned there being Chaos Emeralds with her. Shadow nodded and within a second, they were already gone again, sonic boom rippling in their wake.
xxx
It turned out, the 'warning' part of their plan didn't even seem necessary. As they rushed back through the hall where the Egg Dealer had been on a rampage, the area was already deserted, sirens and automated emergency announcements now loudly blaring for everyone to evacuate. Apparently whatever bombs the Doctor had set had also been discovered by GUN.
Shadow rushed after Sonic, the two of them tearing through smoke-filled and red-lit corridors like a blue and black force of nature, racing along walls where rubble was covering the ground and smashing through any doors locked in their way. Sector D was left behind in a hurry and soon they were in sector A again, zipping through a giant security hall filled with malfunctioning laser grids, cranes, boxes in the weirdest of all places and vaults upon vaults lining the walls.
And Shadow's Chaos sense pinged hard.
"Dammit," Sonic's gaze roved around wildly. "Which one of them is vault 123-?"
"Over there - this one!" Shadow rushed over to one of the many closed steel doors - he could basically feel the concentration of Chaos Energy within, calling to him like a siren.
"How did you - doesn't matter, how do we get this to open?" Sonic hissed, fingers running along the line where the double doors met in the middle, the vault opening easily two by two metres wide and high and nowhere an indication how to get it to unlock.
"We don't," Shadow said - and then pulled out the second remaining Chaos drive from his quills. "Grab hold, we'll go in."
"Are you -" and for a moment, Sonic seemed to hesitate. "Are you sure? Because if we can't get out again, like back in our cell, then we're trapped."
And also, they would likely die if the island then blew up. But for Sonic, the trapped part seemed somehow to be the important one.
"If you don't come, there's still time for you to get out," Shadow said. "But I am pointing out that this entire thing was your idea."
"Fair point," Sonic said, and grabbed Shadow's shoulder.
"Chaos Control!"
xxx
"Shadow!" Rouge, sitting against the back wall of the panic-room-sized vault, three Chaos Emeralds in her lap, gasped as the two of them materialized on the inside of the door. There was a brief moment of confusion as she took in Sonic by his side, but then she was already scrambling to her feet, black wings behind her flapping as she rushed towards them.
"Oh gods, we have less than four minutes, please get us out of here!"
And Shadow took great pleasure to let her collide with him like a brick wall, immediately seizing her by the front of her cat suit.
Or.
Well.
That was the plan, at least, before he realized that the front of her cat suit was really a heart-shaped plate, and the only way to grab that one usually let guys get slapped in cartoons.
So he settled for the next best thing, which was closing his fingers around her bare upper arm, yanking her against him and snarling into her face.
"Who the hell are you? Why were you at the school? I swear I am going to leave you to die if you don't tell me what your deal is."
"You're…wait, you're not the a-" Rouge was stammering now, hands still clasping the three Emeralds between the two of them, their energy like a fire almost on the cusp of burning his skin with its intensity. He ignored it.
"No. But I am your only way out of here and I will leave you if you don't tell me the truth."
"Um," Sonic managed in the background, raising a finger.
"Hush."
"Ow," Rouge was now wincing, pretty turquoise eyes squeezed shut for a moment, before opening again, glistening with tears. "Please, let go, you're hurting me! I'm only a jewel thief, please-"
"Two minutes, now," Shadow informed her. "But by all means, continue to waste your time."
Rouge looked at him, fearful and in pain for another second, before she then blinked and within a moment was back to a composed face, annoyance written all over her features as she bared her fangs at him.
"Fine," she snapped. "I am a government agent from GUN. They sent me to keep tabs on you and I'm just collecting my payment. Happy now? Now can we please go, before we all die?"
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Shads," Sonic also piped up, voice just slightly higher. "Y'know, much as I love another edition of 24 with Shadow Bauer here-"
"Liar," Shadow growled at Rouge, ignoring Sonic in the background. "I saw you talking to the Doctor on the surveillance cameras. Now, either you tell me the truth or I will break that arm of yours. I'm not joking."
He gave the appendage in his grip another squeeze, one sure to leave bruises just to show he meant it, but to her credit, only Rouge's eye twitched slightly, otherwise she didn't give any indication of fear or pain.
"I am a double agent, duh!" she spat. "Honestly, by now I'm not even sure you're the original ultimate lifeform anymore, because you are about as dumb as your-!"
"Shadow!" And now it was Sonic cutting her off, grabbing the arm of Shadow that he was holding Rouge with, green eyes intense. "There is literally thirty seconds left. You get us out of here right now-!"
Shadow blinked, for a moment slightly shocked that he now had lost track of time. "Fine," he snarled, then brought up his free hand to grab the red Emerald still in Rouge's grasp, concentrated on the beach and -
"Chaos Control!"
xxx
They all landed on the shore where they had arrived at, stumbling in the sand and gasping. Shadow had almost forgotten what Chaos Control with a real Chaos Emerald felt like, how the sheer power they made you channel felt like spacetime formed a spike and punched it through your stomach if you weren't prepared and now he was ringing for air and seeing stars.
"Oh...oh gods. Remind me to learn how you do this and then never ever use it, because this is awful," Sonic next to him groaned, the blue hedgehog kneeling and holding his head. Behind them, somewhere far away on the island, there was the distant sound of an explosion, indicating that the bombs must have started going off, and now Shadow also heard the roar of planes all around them, as well as the distant shouting of human soldiers, either running towards boats or more planes about to take off on the other end of the beach, where the entrance of the fortress was located, the evacuation in full swing.
"Wh-where's the Doctor," Shadow managed, swallowing and shaking his head to get rid of the dizziness, "I need to- we need to-"
"Yeah, thanks for the save, boys, but that's my cue to split," Rouge's voice cut through his confusion. "My ride's here."
"Your - what-?" Shadow rasped, but by then the wind was suddenly picking up, one roar of a plane engine suddenly much louder and closer than the ones taking off at the other end of the beach. On reflex, he followed Rouge's gaze upwards where there seemed to be something, something large and giant and invisible-but-for-a-strange-shimmer flying overhead, the sound waves from its engines now hammering down on them like a physical force.
"My ride," Rouge repeated, still clutching all three Chaos Emeralds to her chest with one arm. "So sorry to leave you here, but I think your fox kid will probably pick you up before the beach goes boom. I'll put in a good word with GUN for you, even. All my love," she said, blowing Shadow a wink and a kiss - and then also tossing something at the ground that immediately exploded into violently purple smoke that let Shadow's eyes sting and blurred his vision with tears, Sonic next to him also starting to wildly cough and stumble into Shadow in their disorientation.
"NO-!" Shadow wanted to surge forward to grab at Rouge, but he could also barely keep his eyes open, chest heaving with hacking coughs as he waved to dispel the purple smoke. His Chaos sense told him that the Chaos Emeralds were disappearing somewhere upwards, but he was unable to jump like this, couldn't break free of the cloud -
Another explosion let the ground shake beneath their feet, almost letting them lose their balance again, and, still coughing, Sonic grabbed Shadow, pulling him toward the waterline.
"We need to - get out of the cloud, or else- Tails won't-"
"GUYS!"
As if on cue, the Tornado was roaring toward them over the water, Tails in the pilot seat with Maria behind him, Amy standing on one of the wings like a hammer-wielding valkyrie. Explosions continued to shake the island, cones of fire erupting ever closer toward the beach and the base, evidently leaving them with little time before even their small strip of sand would be hit.
"Grab on!"
Almost in a repeat from their maneuver when fighting the Kukku Battle Bird armada, Tails dropped low enough that Shadow and Sonic were able to leap toward the landing gear of the plane, pulling themselves upwards onto the lower wings, fresh air finally clearing the smoke that still stung like hell in Shadow's eyes.
"We need - Rouge escaped in a plane of some sort, we need-!" Shadow tried to rasp out, yelling at Tails over the roar of the engines and the air rushing past. Another explosion from below cut him off, but Tails was already shaking his head.
"I know!" he shouted back. "We picked up something on our anti-stealth radar-!" the fox kit twisted around in his seat for a moment. "Maria! Try that anti-stealth pulse!"
"Got it!" Maria called and pushed a button on what looked like a remote control, which sent a ripple through the air - and just for a moment, an impossibly giant, red-and-yellow flying fortress above them flickered into view, although it was already rapidly ascending and accelerating back towards the coast line.
"No way," Sonic stared. "The Egg Carrier?"
"He must've repaired it," Tails agreed, swallowing. "But with three of you on my wings there's no chance I can gain enough altitude or speed for an airfight or a chase. I'm sorry," he said, biting his lip.
"It's...fine, li'l buddy," Sonic let himself drop down onto a knee, tilting his head downwards toward Tails as he replied with a sigh, lips twitching into a lop-sided smile. "You got me out and that's the main thing. Let Egghead run and we'll catch him later, I promise."
And, even if a part of Shadow was still reeling at the sheer size of Maria's cousin's airship (and...Egg *Carrier*? What-?!) this comment brought him right back into the present again.
"Catch him later - you - you did it again!" Shadow snapped, teeth abruptly bared at Sonic. "If you hadn't made me save that two-faced bat girl, we would have three Chaos Emeralds now! Instead, the Doctor is getting away! Again!"
"Shads, how many times?" Sonic shot back, tone just as irritated. "No. Killing. If we had left her to die in that vault we'd be just as bad as Eggman!"
"Well instead we're worse than the Doctor, because we have nothing," Shadow retorted, feeling the anger bubbling up now that their one chance of getting answers was gone. He hadn't even been able to ask about the doppelganger. The gun he'd liberated from the unconscious soldier still sat heavy in his quills - he briefly wondered whether Rouge would maybe have been more forthcoming with information if he had used it, but...Shadow grudgingly admitted that a part of him actually doubted it.
"Well, you guys got me out, we got to see the fake you in the flesh and we found out about a spy in our school, all connected to Egghead," Sonic pointed out. "That's not nothing, Shadow."
"Also, we all made it back out alive and me and Maria got to test out the stealth-technology we re-engineered," Tails piped up. "That could be pretty useful next time."
Shadow scowled. "Nothing of that changes that Maria's cousin got exactly what he wanted from this base and we couldn't do a thing."
"Well, no," Maria admitted, tipping her head back and also giving Shadow a lop-sided smile. "But we all did get to know each other better and working together as a team, that was...pretty cool, right?"
Shadow tried to glare back at his sister, who was looking at him as always with an expression showing nothing but open happiness about having made new friends, progress in an actual life they could now have on Earth, and, as, always, he could already feel himself failing spectacularly in his objective.
"We finally found you, faker!"
"We'll make you eat those words!"
Dammit. By now it was getting harder to hold on to genuine anger for even ten minutes.
"...Fine," Shadow finally grated out. "But the next time that bat shows her face at school or anywhere, I will turn her wings into a chaosdamned umbrella."
xxx
It was about three hours later that Tails' plane touched ground in Shadow's and Maria's garden again and Shadow was fairly sure all of them were relieved for the ride to be over. With two additional passengers and the stealth mode engaged, Tails had had to fly more slowly and while Shadow was the Ultimate Lifeform, somehow Professor Gerald hadn't managed to get him immune to muscle cramps.
They had managed to swap their respective stories on the way - Tails, Amy and Maria listening with wide eyes as Shadow and Sonic relayed their run-in with the strange doppelganger, though thankfully the three younger members of their team hadn't had any confrontations of their run back to the Tornado, just a frantic search for Sonic and Shadow until they'd found them at the beach. Thankfully, Sonic hadn't asked any follow-up questions pertaining to the pieces of his history with GUN Shadow had told him about during their chase through the base, but Shadow had a feeling they would probably come up later anyway.
So it was evening by now, and they had all trudged back into the house at varying degrees of exhaustion while Maria had called out for pizza ("I'm sure grandpa won't mind...or, well, at least ordering 50 bucks worth of pizza on his credit card will likely not be the worst problem when he finds out what else we did on the weekend," she admitted with a wince.)
As they waited, they had also turned on the evening news, where predictably, the attack on the GUN base of Prison Island was a topic, but even so not one that was the main story - after all, to most people Prison Island was nothing but a remote army base, the reports couldn't even tell if anything interesting had been stolen because the whole place had been blown to hell, and, Shadow was starting to realize, 'crazed Robotnik Doctor attacks again', was apparently such a depressingly familiar headline that it wasn't even worthy of hogging an entire news report. At least there was no mention of any of their little group running around on the island, so that was a small mercy.
Once the pizza had arrived (all of the Mobians now sitting on pillows as booster seats), and people started to look more alive again, the conversation therefore predictably turned back to the Doctor's actual target of his heist. "Okay, so, what is the actual Emerald situation, then? Which ones does Eggman have now?" Amy asked, taking another bite from her lactose-free pizza.
"Well, he has the one he took from the Battle Kukku army, and the one that Shadow's doppelganger stole from Central City bank," Maria started counting off on her fingers. "Plus the three this Rouge person stole from Prison Island if she gives them to him."
"If she gives it to him," Amy repeated. "We don't actually know who she is working for, right?"
"She said she was a double agent for both GUN and Eggman," Sonic nodded. "But we don't actually know which of the two she is a double agent for, no."
"Or maybe she's just in it to steal Emeralds and torment people, that's an option, too," Shadow grated. If he never saw that bat again it was too early.
"Well, okay, let's say worst comes to worst and she gives those Emeralds to my cousin," Maria said. "That still leaves us with two of five Emeralds unaccounted for, the dark blue and the yellow one."
"What if he has the blue one already, too?" Shadow asked. "I tried to research the known locations of the Chaos Emeralds and the blue has also recently disappeared from a research facility, even if they haven't caught the thief."
"Well, even if he does, he isn't getting the seventh," Tails said, determined. "Because I have that one, in my safe at home and that's super-well shielded from any radar.. I mean, I'm fairly sure he can't do anything with six because you always need all seven, right?"
"Let's hope so, little buddy," Sonic said, then stretched and yawned. "Sheesh, I'm knackered. I think we should probably call it a day, not much we can do now when we're half-dead and have no idea where Eggman is anyway. Sort that stuff with GUN and the wrong accusation out in the morning before we go on the hunt again. At least it's not a school day tomorrow..."
"They should probably have enough chaos that it'll take a while for them to sort themselves out, too," Maria nodded. "Depending on how severe the damage to Prison Island is they might not even be able to ascertain whether you escaped or died in the blast."
"It might still be a good idea if you didn't go home tonight, though," Amy said. "Like. What if GUN checks up on your house to see whether you holed up in there." She leaned closer to Sonic. "I mean you could...just for safety reasons...stay at mine…?"
"Or we could stay here. With Shads and Maria. In separate bedrooms for girls and guys," Sonic stated very firmly, also shooting an imploring gaze at Maria. "There, there is room. Right?"
"Technically, yes," Maria replied thoughtfully. "You and Tails could stay in grandpa's room, if we make up the bed it's definitely big enough for two Mobians. And Amy...Amy can stay in my room," Maria said, and now her voice had turned from thoughtful to almost awed, like she just had realized something. "We can have," she stared at Amy, now so hopeful she looked nearly three years younger, "a girls' sleepover? Please? I've never had one before."
"Huh?" Amy blinked. "You never…?"
"No!" Maria exclaimed, "I never even had a girlfriend my age! All I ever had was, well, uh. Shadow."
"Hey," Shadow managed, who wasn't sure whether he should feel insulted.
"And he never wants to do anything but movies and video games," Maria went on (also ignoring the looks Sonic, Tails and Shadow were exchanging, indicating that this sounded like a perfectly adequate way to spend any and all sleepovers), but apparently Amy shared Maria's sentiment, covering her mouth with her hands in shock.
"No. You never even got to do your nails with a friend?"
"No!"
"That is. That is criminal," Amy said, reaching out to take Maria's hands in hers. "We need to do moisturizing face masks, right now. And do something with your hair. How many issues of Teen Cosmo do you have."
"Uh, yeah," Sonic piped up, "So, Shads, if you wanna show me and Tails where we are gonna be sleeping, that'd be great. Like. Room with a lock on the door if you have one."
"Right," Shadow nodded.
To be continued….
Well, everyone back safe and sound! But how will the next day pan out and will that sorting-it-out-with-GUN business go as easily as Sonic thinks it will? And will everyone get a permanent mark on their record for missing school?! These and more burning questions answered next chapter! Hope you had a nice Christmas, New Years and and a good start in this one (considering cirsumstances...) and would love to hear what you enjoyed this chapter - as always, if you read, please review, you always make an author's day with a good one, promise :D