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Part 1: Unrestrained Summer Fun
“Join me again in thanking our wonderful, talented, and highly marketable guest star, Sabrina the carpenter ant, for that great monologue. Sabrina, you’re a star.”
Comedy Chimp leaned on an elbow to peer over the desk at her as she made herself comfortable on an ant-sized sofa.
“Thank you, Comedy Chimp,” laughed Sabrina, fluffing her sparkly blue dress, “And thanks for having me on the show. I’m glad I decided to skip my bodybuilding lessons to be here.”
“Bodybuilding?” Comedy Chimp repeated skeptically. He turned to the cameras, discreetly stage-whispering, “Between you and me, folks, I don’t think she’s got very much body to build!”
Sabrina hopped up from her seat.
“I’ll make you eat those words!” she exclaimed.
She rounded the desk and disappeared, while Comedy Chimp and a handful of increasingly frantic stagehands searched the set for her. All of a sudden the desk went flying away and Comedy Chimp was hoisted into the air, much to the horror of the screaming stagehands. The last transmission on the air was Comedy Chimp being spun around like a basketball on Sabrina the carpenter ant’s finger while Wolverton begged on his hands and knees for her to put him down.
“She’s such an icon,” Amy sighed, as the channel blanked to a ‘technical difficulties’ screen, “You know she’s having a concert soon? I really want to go but I just haven’t been able to find anyone to go with me.”
“I’ll go with you!” said Knuckles. “I’ve always wanted to visit the mosh pit.”
Sonic froze with half a chili dog crammed in his mouth. His eyes gleamed with excitement.
“‘osh ‘it?”
“It’s not that kind of concert,” Amy said flatly.
The tv crackled into static, distracting her from Knuckles’s attempts to force-feed Sonic a hamburger.
“Oh, good,” she said, shoving her own food towards Tails, “The show is back on.”
But instead of a continuation of the Comedy Chimp Show, it was the face of Soar the eagle that filled the screen.
“I have some breaking news for you, folks,” he said gleefully, “I’m currently standing on the steps of the village courthouse, where the judge has just passed gas!”
The technical difficulties screen returned. When the camera began rolling again he looked much more somber.
“Ahem. I would like to apologize for the inaccuracy in my previous report. The person responsible for coding my teleprompter has been fired. I have it on good authority that what the judge has just passed is in fact this–” he held up a small-ish rock, “--kidney stone!”
Technical difficulties.
“Again, I apologize. The person responsible for firing the person responsible for coding my teleprompter has been fired, and the person who was just hired to replace the person responsible for coding my teleprompter has also been fired. Along with the person who hired them. On an unrelated note, my agency is now hiring for all positions.”
Soar dove to catch the camera, which he had propped against a rock, having already fired his camera person for getting him the wrong kind of latte that morning.
“This morning the judge met with a special council or jurors,” he reported, face smushed up right against the camera lens, “And passed the decision to repeal all active restraining orders on record.”
Amy, Knuckles, Tails, and Sonic all stared up at the screen in expectant silence.
“For real, the judge told me so himself just before he ran off,” added Soar.
Sonic spat out his half chewed chili dog and hamburger.
“All active restraining orders?” he said, scooting his chair out from the table just a little bit too fast, even for him, “ All of them?”
“Is something wrong, Sonic?” asked Tails.
“Nope, gotta go, bye.” He vanished in a streak of blue, leaving them all to blink after him in silence.
Sonic rushed through the town with a cloud of dust at his heels. He skidded to a stop at the steps of the courthouse, where Soar was still in the process of untangling himself from his camera.
“Tell me which way the judge went,” Sonic demanded, “I need to talk to him.”
“Yeah whatever. He went that way.” Soar waved an arm in the direction of the ferry, then returned to wiping the face-smudge off the camera lens. As Sonic dashed away something else seemed to occur to him. “Hey, Sonic! Care to comment on the recent pattern of thefts targeting your merchandise?”
Putting on an extra burst of speed, Sonic was able to arrive at the ferry docks just in time– just in time to watch the last ferry of the day cast off, that is. The judge, who had been standing on the deck waving a white handkerchief as was ferry-going tradition, squeaked when Sonic made a grab for the tether line.
“Wait!” yelled Sonic, “Come back! You need to un-pass that decision about the restraining orders!”
“No can do! I’m retiring to Southside Beach,” the judge announced, “You’ll never see me again! Part of the agreement was that I never have to live with the consequences of my actions. Toodles!”
“Agreement?” Sonic said shrilly. Then, “ Eggman. ”
Luckily Sonic didn’t have to go very far to find him. The evil scientist was out and about in town, headed out of Meh Burger with a pep in his step.
“It’s over, Egg-head,” he growled, “Whatever you’re planning, I won’t let you get away with it.”
“Get away with what?” chortled the doctor, twirling his mustache evilly, “My to-go order of a Mediocre Burger with extra Bleh Fries and an orange soda?”
Sonic smacked the to-go bag out of Eggman’s hand and tackled him to the ground.
“Why did you do it, huh?” He shook him by the collar of his evil coat. “Why did you make a deal with the judge to get rid of all the restraining orders? Answer me!”
“Alright, alright, just stop shaking me!”
Sonic stepped back just far enough for Eggman to sit up and rub gingerly at his lower back.
“If I had joined the villains’ union I probably could have gotten worker’s comp for this,” he muttered. When Sonic raised a fist threateningly, he relented. “Okay, fine. I did bribe the judge. But I wouldn’t have had to do that if someone hadn’t gotten me banned from the premises for life!”
He whipped around to glare at Meh Burger. Behind the counter, Dave narrowed his eyes.
“Like, maybe someone shouldn’t have eaten all the gruyere at the last Evil Alliance meeting,” hissed Dave, in that whiny way of his.
“Pah!” Eggman made a rude gesture at his former intern, then turned back to Sonic. “But anyways. I just needed that specific one annulled, but it seemed like it was going to be a lot of work and I was really craving a cheeseburger. So I had the judge just get rid of all of them at once. Genius, right?”
“I need one of those back,” Sonic fumed. “ASAP.”
Eggman scratched the side of his head.
“I mean, you could probably take the first ferry tomorrow and talk to him,” he said awkwardly, “If it’s really important I’m sure he’d understand.”
“No. No, I can’t wait that long.” Sonic’s foot tapped a manic rhythm into the ground. His quills began to rise slightly from their usual windswept style as his gaze swept across the plaza. “There has to be another way to Southside Beach from here.”
“I mean I guess the most direct route would be to go over the mountain but–”
“The mountain!” Sonic exclaimed, with a snap of his fingers. “Of course! You’re a genius, Eggman!”
He sped away in the direction of Tails’s workshop. Dr. Eggman took a long slurp from his orange soda.
“Something is definitely wrong,” he decided.
=
“So you’re going to visit the ancient temple at the top of the mountain… to get another power crystal?” asked Tails, reluctantly filling up the gas tank of Blue Force One.
“That’s right,” Sonic lied cheerfully.
His attempts to get the neglected vehicle road-ready had not been as subtle as he’d hoped, and now all his friends were clustered in the doorway. They watched with open suspicion as he zipped around the workshop stuffing random tools and supplies into a backpack.
“Then why can’t we come with you?” asked Amy.
“Yeah, you’ll need Knuckles’ fat butt to open the door,” added Tails.
Knuckles gasped.
“I had some work done but I didn’t think anyone would notice!” he said happily.
“Nope, I am more than capable of navigating that temple alone. You guys have nothing to worry about.” Sonic slung the overflowing backpack into the passenger seat and hopped behind the steering wheel. “I’ll be back in time for dinner, you’ll see!”
Blue Force One peeled out of the garage before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. Tails joined the rest of them at the door, holding the gas can with limp fingers.
“I wonder what that’s all about,” he said.
Sticks came charging out of the bushes, waving a tinfoil cone.
“Wait!” she yelled, “You forgot your anti-alien hat!”
Part 2: Mark of the Beast
Two minutes outside of the village, the snow was falling heavily enough to overwhelm even BFO’s windshield wipers. Sonic was already discovering that the journey up the mountain was a lot less fun without his friends skiboarding on the tow line behind him, and he had turned up the radio as a weak replacement for their bright chatter. To make matters worse, the sky was already starting to get darker.
“This doesn’t feel right,” he muttered aloud to himself.
Through the snow, he thought he could see the shape of the same boulder he had already passed twice. From between the folds of his hankerchief he pulled out the map he’d hastily sketched from memory before leaving the village. It was easy enough to read, since it was really just a cartoon scribble of the mountain with a dotted line zig-zagging over it, and yet he had still managed to get lost.
“Maybe I should have turned left at that patch of spruce trees…”
He tilted the paper, squinted at it, and then held it upside down. It remained unhelpful. With a sigh, Sonic lowered the map– and immediately slammed his foot down on the brake.
It was too late, though. BFO’s treads crunched through the snow too fast to stop, and in the next moment it collided full speed with that same familiar boulder from before.
Sonic went flying over the steering wheel with a shout. While BFO’s newly crumpled-up engine whirred and clunked, he was sent tumbling into a soft snowbank nearby.
“Whew!” his head popped out of the snow, and he shook his head with a grin, “That could have been a lot–”
The snowmobile exploded. The entire engine block came hurtling through the blizzard and landed squarely on Sonic’s leg.
“Worse!” he cried out, punctuating the sentence with a wail. “Ow, ow, ow, OW!”
This hurt way more than the time he had sprained his ankle in Buddy Buddy Temple. And this time he was stranded all alone in the cold and dark, with not even Eggman to rely on.
Wriggling out from underneath the engine hurt even more than getting hit in the first place, and when he scrambled to his feet and tried to put some weight on it, his leg collapsed out from underneath him.
Sonic balanced on one leg, arms wrapped around himself for warmth as he tried to figure out what to do. His friends were sure to come looking for him when he didn’t get back at dinner time, but he couldn’t just stand outside in this storm while he waited for them. He would freeze solid first.
What he really needed was a warm place to lay low. He needed somewhere to rest his leg. He needed some food and maybe a big mug of hot tea. He needed…
A light shone through the blizzard, blinding him. When he looked up, a glowing green neon sign blinked down at him through the darkness like a watchful eye.
TIP TOP CONVENIENCE , it read. Sonic limped towards it on shaky legs.
He stumbled out of the whipping wind and into the warmly-lit store, feeling so grateful he thought he could cry. He didn’t, though. It wouldn’t be very on-brand.
“Hello,” he called out, “Is anyone there? I was on my way to Southside Beach but I crashed my snowmobile and hurt my leg. Would it be alright if I just waited out the storm here before trying to head home?”
The refrigerators full of bottled drinks hummed quietly, and the snow continued to beat against the windows in big, flaky lumps, but no answer came to his question. It seemed like he was alone in the store.
“Great,” Sonic sighed.
Tossing a few coins onto the checkout counter, he hopped around on one leg gathering up a couple of water bottles, an armful of chip bags, and a comic book. He pushed himself up onto the counter and cracked open the water, then the chips, then the comic. After taking a long gulp of the water, he sighed and began to read.
On page eight Sonic got the sudden, unnerving sense that he was no longer alone.
He looked over at the door. There was a string of shiny, round bells hanging from one of the handles, but for some reason he couldn’t seem to remember if they had jingled when he’d walked in.
Slowly, he set down the comic book and his bag of chips. From his perch on the counter he could see across the tops of all the empty aisles. Even the big round mirrors in the corners showed nothing moving in the entire store. No red light blinked on the lone security camera set into the ceiling. Still the feeling of being watched persisted. So where–
Air whooshed across his ear.
Sonic leapt away from the counter like he’d been scalded, forgetting for a moment that one of his legs was not in working order. He collapsed against a shelf, sending trail mix and candy rattling to the floor, and stared in shock at the person standing still as a statue right behind where he’d been sitting.
“Mark,” Sonic threatened, quickly righting himself, “Don’t come any closer.”
Mark the tapir smiled back at him guilelessly. His long nose twitched. He had been sniffing Sonic’s fur.
“Why shouldn’t I?” he asked, “Now that I finally can again.”
He took one step to round the counter and Sonic shuffled back two.
‘This is such good luck,” Mark said dreamily. “I packed my things to come back to Hedgehog Village as soon as I heard the good news. I’ve been living on the other side of the mountain.” His smile slid off. “Since you, you know, banished me from my home.”
Sonic bristled.
“That is not my fault. I gave you plenty of warnings, but you didn’t listen– I said don’t come any closer!”
“Sonic,” cooed Mark, “You’re hurt. Let me help you out, huh? For old times sake?”
He took another step, then another, then another, and all of a sudden he lunged forward. Sonic skittered out of his reach, ducking around another shelf for shelter.
“Weren’t we the best?” Mark pleaded, “Wasn’t I everything you could have ever wanted? Didn’t I do a good job as your personal assistant?”
“You’re crazy!” Sonic shouted.
Sonic ripped open a bag of peanuts with his teeth and threw them straight into Mark’s face. While Mark was busy howling in agony and trying to rub the salt out of his eyes, Sonic made his great escape.
He staggered back out into the snow. The blizzard buffeted and battered him, tossing him around mercilessly. He couldn’t stop, though. Not when he could hear Mark’s voice rising on the wind like a bad omen.
“Sonic! I’ll find you! ”
Snowmelt seeped into Sonic’s shoes, chilling him to the bone. He had lost all sense of direction; all he could do was hope that if he kept moving forward he might just happen to stumble out onto the familiar sandy beaches and green forests of his home.
No sandy beaches appeared, but during his wandering he did happen across the next best thing: the rocky mouth of a mountain cave.
Inside was, if not warm, then at least not windy. The illumination suit Tails had made for him powered on with a touch to the sensor in his scarf, shining soft blue light onto the hundreds of thousands of strange archaic symbols scratched into the rock walls. With a backwards glance at the yawning cave entrance, Sonic began deeper into the darkness.
As he went further in and deeper down, the symbols were replaced by chiseled murals. They looked a lot like the ones in some of the other ancient structures scattered across the island, and he carefully gave them a wide berth.
Then he rounded a bend and ran straight into an unexpectedly hard surface. Sonic shook his head and lifted his hand to illuminate what looked like a carven statue standing in the path.
The light glinted off of narrowed crimson eyes.
“What are you doing here?” growled Shadow the hedgehog, as Sonic shrieked in alarm.
“What am I doing here?” Sonic repeated incredulously, still breathing hard, “What are you doing crouching like a gargoyle in the middle of some random cave?”
“I was not crouching.”
Shadow watched as Sonic slid down the cave wall, kicking his leg out in front of him.
“You’re injured,” he asked in the monotone voice he used to make everything sound like a sarcastic statement.
“No I’m not,” snapped Sonic.
Having the faceless silhouette of a guy like Shadow the hedgehog looming over him was already testing Sonic’s nerves. And then Shadow really sold the boogeyman impression he was doing by moving between one blink and the next to grind his heel into Sonic’s shin.
The shout Sonic let out ricocheted against the stony walls like a concussive blast.
“You are,” Shadow insisted, as Sonic slapped a hand over his own mouth. “Why are you out in this type of weather, alone and injured? Where are your friends?”
Sonic kicked Shadow’s knee in and slammed an elbow into his stomach when he hit the ground.
“What’s it matter to you?” Sonic barked.
Shadow’s hands locked around Sonic’s neck. He used that as leverage to slam Sonic’s back into the wall.
“Answer my questions,” Shadow said silkily.
Sonic snapped his teeth at him.
Then from outside in the blustering storm there came a wail, almost like a ghostly lament, “Sonic…”
Shadow’s ears swiveled. He turned towards the cave entrance and as he did so his grip loosed just a hair– just enough for Sonic to shove him away.
“It’s Mark,” said Sonic, eyes burning holes into the ground. “He’s a psycho who conned his way into being my friend and took me and the rest of the gang hostage when it didn’t work out.”
“Mark…?” Shadow raised a disdainful eyebrow. “You would let yourself be bested by someone named Mark? Pathetic. I have clearly overestimated your skills.”
Sonic rounded on him, every spine and quill standing on end.
“Shut up! You have no idea what he did!”
That stopped Shadow short. This was not part of the natural rhythm of their fights.
Caught somewhat wrong footed, he asked, “…what did he do?”
“None of your business,” Sonic said waspishly. “Now go back to whatever moldy hole you crawled out of and leave me to wait out this storm in peace.”
He sat down, hard, and presented his still threateningly spiky back as a warning. Meanwhile, Shadow was still struggling to regain his lost equilibrium in this conversation.
“There… there…” he tried, calling upon his very, very rusty socializing skills and even daring to smooth a featherlight hand between Sonic’s flattened-back ears.
Sonic gave him a look that asked if he’d lost his mind.
“What are you doing?” Sonic asked, baffled. Shadow yanked his hand back like it was on fire.
“Nothing,” he snarled.
In a flash of light, he teleported to the mouth of the cave.
“If Mark is such a problem, then I will simply have to destroy him myself,” Shadow declared. “That will prove, once and for all, that I am the superior hedgehog.”
“Wait, don’t–!”
Without waiting for Sonic to finish his warning, Shadow jetted out into the snow. The flames of his rocket skates were like twin beacons in the darkness, skating further and further away until suddenly–
There was a sharp crack, and a shout, and the flames went out.
“No!” yelled Sonic.
Struggling to his feet, he charged out after him. The melted tracks Shadow had left behind him were already freezing over and beginning to fill in with fresh snow. He was able to follow them for only a little ways before they suddenly vanished. When Sonic looked around wildly, he could find no trace of Shadow, or whatever had hit him. Worse, the cave was nowhere in sight. It was just blackness and a stiflingly silent rain of snow, as far as his eyes could see.
There was nothing to do but pick a direction and keep moving. Under his breath, Sonic shivered and muttered about stupid show-off hedgehogs. His legs were just starting to go fully, blissfully numb when he spotted the lights of a cabin.
A silhouette passed across one of the windows, darkening it.
Immediately, Sonic dropped into the snow. Only his nose stuck out as he waited with bated breath for any sign that he had been noticed.
None came. The silhouette disappeared with no fanfare, and although the front door of the cabin creaked open, the person who emerged only went trundling off across the snow in the opposite direction. Sonic relaxed with a sigh.
He turned his attention to the snow drift. After hours of falling non-stop, it had piled up nearly waist-high. It was perfect for burrowing through. Wasting no time, he swiftly dug himself a tunnel that led all the way to the cabin, and popped out right beneath one of the big bay windows.
Slowly, discreetly– he peeked over the windowsill.
What he saw made him leap to his feet immediately. Smack in the middle of a cozy living room rug was Shadow, trussed up and with what looked like an old sock stuffed in his mouth. As soon as he saw Sonic’s face pressed up against the glass, he began to squirm and thrash frantically.
Sonic threw open the door and was by his side in a flash.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here in no time,” he promised.
Shadow shook his head emphatically as Sonic got started on the ropes.
“Hisha hrap,” Shadow said, muffled beyond recognition, “Ou i’iot, hisha hrap!”
“Hang on a second. There we go,” Sonic pulled the sock out of his mouth, then held it up for closer inspection. “Wait, is this an official Sonic-themed ‘Gotta Go Fast’ sock? It is! Oh, that must be so embarrassing for you dude–”
“It’s a trap!” Shadow bellowed into his ear– right as something sharp and heavy slammed into the back of Sonic’s head.
=
Sonic woke up in a cage.
Wherever this was, it was cold and damp and dank, like the nastiest abandoned basement you could possibly imagine. All sorts of gross, half-rotten and mildewed things were scattered around, including another hedgehog.
Shadow glared at him in furious silence. Sonic glared right back.
“Superior hedgehog, huh?” Sonic deadpanned.
“You are also in a cage,” Shadow pointed out sourly.
“Yeah, well. Sorry.”
Sonic could feel Shadow’s eyes boring holes in the side of his head, but he ignored him. Instead, he stretched his leg out as far as he could and tried to massage some of the tension out of the muscles around what he was pretty sure was a bone fracture.
“What did Mark do to you?”
There was a surprising lack of mockery or anger on Shadow’s face when Sonic glanced back up in surprise. There was a lack of anything, really. Shadow was always hard to read, but now his expression was downright stony.
Sonic laughed weakly.
“Let’s just say this is an escalation I was kind of expecting,” he said vaguely, gesturing to the cage bars.
Shadow’s gaze became, somehow, even more piercing. “Meaning?”
“Meaning,” sighed Sonic, “That after he decided being my ‘personal assistant’ wasn’t good enough, he got me injured in a motorcycle accident and put me in a full body cast so that I couldn’t escape. Then when the rest of my friends came looking, he did the same thing to my friends and fully intended to keep us locked away like that in his house forever.”
Shadow looked like he wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“But it gets worse. After that, he just didn’t stop, and the things he would do kept on getting weirder and weirder. He would hang around all of my favorite spots in town, just waiting to see me. He started harassing my friends and trying to frame them for things they didn’t do, all to make it seem like they were against me. Some of my stuff started going missing. First my favorite chair, then one of the clips for my hammock, and then eventually my– my socks and gloves. And then. One night I woke up and he was trying to–”
Sonic’s throat closed up. He took a deep breath.
“He had gotten into my house,” he finished simply. “That’s why I filed that restraining order and got him kicked out of the village. I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. I couldn’t sleep knowing that there was a chance he might be–”
A door creaked open at the top of a set of termite-bitten steps, and Sonic lapsed into silence immediately.
In the doorway stood Mark the tapir. His fingers were contorted into angry, trembling claws around the pie tin in his hands.
“Oh, Sonic…” he said, “All you do is make my life difficult.”
His footsteps down the stairs were measured. Sonic refused to back down as he set the pie aside and crouched down, leaning in uncomfortably close to the bars that separated them. For a fleeting moment Sonic was grateful for the cage; it was keeping Mark out as much as it was keeping Sonic in.
Mark’s sickly-sweet smelling breath slapped Sonic in the face when he sighed, “I was so mad when you got that restraining order against me. Me! Your biggest fan! All I wanted to do was give you the love you deserve, and what do you do? Tie me up. Run away from me. Push me away. I’ve finally realized that it's you who’s been treating me wrong. So I’ll just have to keep you here until you understand how much you need me. And you do, Sonic. You need me.”
Holding out a forkful of pie, he coaxed, “Come on, you’ve been out in the cold all day. I know you’re hungry.”
Sonic turned his nose up, leaning away in disgust. There was no way he was going to stoop to being spoon fed with Shadow, of all people, as a witness.
“Aw, don’t be that way… How about I make you a deal, huh? If you let me feed you one bite of pie, I’ll unlock your cage. Just like that. No catch, no caveat. As simple as that.”
That got Sonic’s attention. He scanned Mark’s face for any hint of deception, then looked back down at the fork shoved temptingly through the bars. If there was even the slightest chance Mark was being honest… Sonic had to hope. Plus, he was starting to get pretty hungry.
He leaned in cautiously, opening his mouth to accept the pie while in the corner of his eye he could see Shadow adamantly shaking his head, no!
So focused was he on the pie that he forgot to watch Mark. If he had been looking, he might have seen the triumphant smile that twisted across Mark’s face as he swiftly tipped the fork over.
The pie landed on the ground with a wet splat.
“Of course, being fed is a privilege reserved for good little hedgehogs,” Mark simpered, “Hedgehogs who don’t, say, throw things in my face or refuse to cooperate until escape is an option. By the time I’m done with you, I’ll be able to open this cage and you won’t even want to get out anymore. I’ll feed you by hand and you’ll like it. You’ll be a good little hedgehog for me. It’ll be just you and me, the hero and his biggest fan, forever. ”
Sonic couldn’t help it. He shrank away in terror.
“You’re a sick freak!” shouted Shadow.
Agonizingly slowly, Mark turned around. Sonic felt Mark’s attention lift off of himself like shedding a ten thousand pound weight.
“Ah, the impostor,” Mark said delicately, “Imagine my surprise when the first trap I laid was sprung by his stupid, fan-favorite wannabe rival. It’s a lucky thing that you made such good bait, too.”
“You–”
Mark violently kicked Shadow’s cage, cutting him off mid-word.
“Be quiet,” Mark sneered, “I don’t care about anything you have to say. And don’t expect to get any pie, either. Nothing you could do would ever make you a good hedgehog.”
He stormed back towards the stairs, then stopped as something occurred to him.
“Just in case you two get any bright ideas while I’m gone…”
Sonic plastered himself against the far side of the cage but there was nowhere near enough room to escape as Mark’s hand shot through the bars. His fingers dug into Sonic’s shin and twisted.
Everything went white.
=
When Sonic came to this time, Shadow was picking the lock of his cage with the discarded fork.
“We have to get out of here,” Shadow whispered. “You have to get up, Sonic.”
“Can’t,” Sonic slurred.
“Yes you can.”
The lock clicked open. Careful hands slid under Sonic’s back and knees, sending lances of bright-hot agony shooting up his leg. He covered his own mouth with his palm and screwed his eyes shut. Nodded once.
Whited out again.
The next thing he felt was Shadow setting him down on the floor. The fibers of the living room rug were scratchy under his cheek.
“What’re…?”
“He took my teleportation rings when he tied me up the first time,” Shadow explained quietly, rifling through a desk drawer, “I need them if I’m going to get us off this mountain.”
A part of Sonic distantly noted that the shiny gold rings Shadow always kept clasped over his gloves and shoes were, indeed, missing. Another part marveled that this was the longest string of words he’d ever heard Shadow speak. The rest of him just hurt.
“I found them.” Shadow extricated the rings out from the junk drawer in the cabin’s small kitchenette.
Mark glided up behind him, silent as the specter of death.
“...‘adow,” Sonic murmured deliriously, “Look…”
That proved to be just enough warning. Spinning around, Shadow caught Mark’s arm before he could plunge the sharpened pie cutter into his back. In one brutal movement, Shadow twisted the utensil from his grasp and tossed the tapir through the window with an almighty crash.
“Close your eyes,” said Shadow, snapping the rings back around his wrists and ankles.
Sonic did not process this order fast enough, so when Shadow picked him back up and warped them away in a crazy swirl of color and light he nearly passed out again on the spot. Somehow he managed to hold out, and as a reward he got to watch as the dingy little cabin in the snow melted away into palm trees and blue skies.
It was like waking up from a bad dream. Sonic had to blink and rub his eyes a couple times before the reality of safety finally sunk in.
Suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion, he dropped his head onto the nearest stable surface, which just so happened to be Shadow’s shoulder.
“We never speak of this again,” he mumbled into the soft fur there, “ Ever. ”
So focused was he on his embarrassment and discomfort that he forgot to watch Shadow. If he had been looking, he might have seen the conflicted look that darkened Shadow’s face for just a moment as his arms tightened around Sonic.
“...Okay,” he agreed at last, and then headed off into the village to find the rest of Sonic’s friends.
Part 3: Our Regularly Scheduled Broadcast
“--and then a bunch of huge, spinning razors fell out of the ceiling– and they were on fire!”
Knuckles and Tails oooh -ed and ahhh -ed at the appropriate times as Sonic gestured wildly with his hands. Several times he gestured to his cast – which had been scribbled all over with well-wishes and crude drawings – to emphasize some part of the elaborate story he had concocted to explain it.
After a particularly spirited retelling of the pits of boiling oil that were guarded by giant stone lions, Amy cleared her throat.
“This all sounds pretty dangerous, Sonic,” she scolded, “Think of all the trouble you could have saved by letting us come along with you to the ancient temple!”
Sonic laughed, scratching sheepishly at his quills.
“I guess you’re right, Ames,” he grinned. “I’ve definitely learned a lesson about going off on my own.”
Everyone was very pointedly not acknowledging the elephant in the room. Or more aptly, the Shadow at the table. That went out the window when Sonic very blatantly winked and nudged him with an elbow.
“Yeah,” Knuckles said valiantly, “It’s a good thing someone was there to fish you out of trouble!”
Shadow scoffed, sensing the tension but clearly at a loss for what to do about it.
“Someone certainly had to,” Shadow growled, pushing away from the table, “Although I have no idea how I keep getting dragged into these idiotic adventures of yours. Next time we meet, hedgehog, it’ll be on my terms.”
“Sure,” Sonic called after his retreating back, “I’m free for lunch every day except Tuesdays, just let me know what works best with your schedule!”
Shadow aimed a rude gesture over his shoulder.
Smiling to himself, Sonic shook his head. He took a long drink from his soda.
“Um… Sonic?” Tails asked hesitantly, while steam practically poured out of Amy’s ears, “Were you just… flirting with Shadow?”
Amy exploded.
“Were you just staring at his butt ?”
Sonic coughed so hard that the soda spewed out of his nose.