FicWad

Chapter 8 Mysteries of life

"Are you okay, Sonic?" Tails asked, as he cleared off his end of the table.

"I'm fine." Sonic answered, with a cheerful, and at the same time odd tone.

"You're eating your dinner really slow." Tails said, not willing to drop the subject, although he had a pretty good idea why Sonic was taking the time to chew his food until its consistency was similar to that of soup.

"So?" Sonic asked, just before he took another, almost apparent, deliberately slow bight of his food.

"So, you usually wolf down your food almost as fast as you can run." Tails answered, as he started washing his plate.

It took Sonic thirty seconds to finish chewing his bight, before he could answer Tails. "I want to eat my food slowly today." Sonic said, just before taking another small nibble.

Tails shook his head, but then again he should have suspected Sonic to pull something like this after Amy had announced that they could all play, Truth Or Dare, or Spin The Bottle, right after dinner.

"Maybe we could tell her we're tired, and go to bed early." Tails suggested.

Sonic shook his head, and said. "Thought of that already. I've got a better idea."

Tails raised his eyebrow, but before he could ask Sonic what he meant, Amy came back into the kitchen.

"Sorry guys, but I couldn't find a bottle. Sonic, why are you still eating?" She said.

Sonic finished chewing slowly, and sent Tails a look that told the young fox just how he felt about Amy not being able to find a bottle before answering her.

"Because I'm not done yet." Sonic answered, just before taking a long drink of his punch.

"Well hurry up." Amy said, managing sound a bit whiney, and commanding at the same time.

Tails shook his head again, smiling like crazy. Amy turned her attention from Sonic to him. "What's with you?" She asked.

"Oh, nothing." Tails answered, trying to put on a straight face, and not doing a very good job of it.


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"There it is." Shadow thought to himself, referring to a cave he had found in Mystic Ruins earlier that day.

After finding another Chaos Emerald fifty miles from his current position, he had decided to find some kind of shelter. That was when he remembered the cave he had happened upon shortly before his fight with the Echidna.

He didn't particularly want to rest. The more time he spent resting, the more time past before he finally avenged Maria, but in this case he thought that it couldn't be helped. He was running into tough opponents on his quest for vengeance. Opponents who where highly likely to be resting, now that the sun had gone down, and he couldn't afford to have a handicap like being tired for his next fight, especially after loosing four Chaos Emeralds to that blasted water creature, Chaos.


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The sun may have been down, but Sonic was not in bed. And he wasn't planning on going to bed anytime soon either.

Sonic gave the dice another shake, examined the faces of his two opponents, decided that he had, once again, pushed their patience far enough, and rolled.

Tails shook his head anyway, and said. "Will you please stop doing that?"

Sonic smiled, and said. "Its good luck to shake the dice two or three times as many as you want it to be."

"I guess that means that you've wanted a twelve for all three of your turns." Tails said.

"My turn." Amy said joyously, as she picked up the dice and started shaking, and shaking, and shaking.

Sonic laughed at this, and Tails groaned. Now that Sonic had explained his reason, or at least lame excuse, for making this game of Monopoly take forever, Amy was adopting his style.


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The game of monopoly was finally over, to Tails relief. Under normal circumstances the game would have been a particularly short one, but Sonic, and Amy had shook the dice in their hands an obscenely large number of times, so the game ended up being two hours.

"I still can't believe I won!" Amy said. "Your strategy really works Sonic."

"Thanks Amy." Sonic said.

While playing the game he had seemed to relax his guard that he put up when Amy was around. Tails figured that it was probably because Amy was doing something normal, instead of acting all fan girlie, but now his apprehension was beginning to come back, because Sonic had said that after the game, which he had tried to make take up too much time for there to be any other activities, they would all play...

"Time for Truth Or Dare." Amy declared.

Tails saw Sonic check the clock, and turn back, a disappointed look on his face.

Tails still hadn't figured out what Sonic's big reason for staying up late was, but apparently it wasn't late enough to satisfy, whatever that reason was.


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Tails awoke to some odd shape bending over him.

"Tails come on, wake up." A voice said.

"Mmph." Tails answered, his mind too sleep fogged to identify the voice's owner.

What time was it, anyway? Tails couldn't see the window, because whoever was in his room was blocking the view, but the lack of light told him that it was very early.

Tails checked his alarm clock, groaned, and said. "It's only five twenty five."

"I know." The voice said, and this time Tails was able to identify it as Sonic's. "Come on lets go."

"We only went to bed four hours, and twenty minutes ago." Tails protested.

"Come on Tails. We gotta go after Eggman, Shadow, and Eggman's weird water creature Chaos." Sonic persisted.

"If you wanted to go after them this early, then why did we stay up half the night?" Tails asked, pulling the covers over himself, and laying back down.

"Because, I didn't want Amy to wake up when we left." Sonic said, shaking Tails as he did so.

It took Tails sleep fogged mind time to process what Sonic had said, but once he had, he knew that there was no chance of him talking Sonic out of this, which meant that he had to get up.


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Rouge pulled out her cell phone, and checked the caller ID. It was said G U N Command. She sighed, and answered it, remembering the macho Colonel as she did so.

She did have a fraction of respect for the military commander who had master minded her capture, but only a fraction. Since she started working for him she was becoming more and more convinced that her capture at Gun's hands was due to luck, more than military finesse. That meant that it would be all the easier to ditch G.U.N. when she was ready, but it also meant that pulling the ditch off wouldn't feel very rewarding, but you couldn't have everything.

"Report." The Colonel's voice came out of the phone's speaker.

"Laaame, quoting a Sith." She thought, but aloud she said. "Nothing so far. I've got a few leads, but nothing looks promising."

"You've had a _week_ to find something." He hissed angrily.

She sighed. "You're the one who said 'Eggman is the biggest threat to this Nation, and tracking him down won't be easy.'."

That just made him even angrier, not that she cared. "Just don't get any ideas. Remember I can."

"I know, I know. Blow me up with the touch of a button. You only remind me every other time we talk." She said.

He huffed, and hung up.

She sighed, the last bit of her respect for the man leaving with the air that came out of her lungs. "Was he raised by rich people or something?" She wondered.


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Colonel Schmit hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, quite pleased with himself. Playing the big bad, and not very bright, military commander was a particularly easy role, and apparently the bat had bought it, hook, line, and sinker. He had been watching her movements, and knew that she wasn't really looking for Dr. Eggman, but that was fine with Schmit. She probably wouldn't be able to find the Dr. anyway, and Schmit wanted to keep an eye on her, as well as have her on call, incase a scenario came up where he actually needed her. And with the arrangement he had set up, he was able to do just that, right under her nose.

But of course she could have seen right threw his act, and just played along. There were factors that diminished that possibility, but it was still plausible, and if anything Schmit didn't want to be caught flat footed, again, ever. But still, Schmit was in a very good mood.


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Shadow looked down on Earth, from the space colony Ark, curiosity, and anger, running threw his veins. "Hmm." He muttered. He had never been to Earth, and wanted to see the planet that Maria had grown up on very much.

"What is it Shadow?" Maria asked.

Shadow jumped and spun around, startled. "Oh, Maria, you startled me." He said.

Maria smiled. She usually smiled for Shadow, because he had once told her that seeing her smile was one of the things he lived for. "Sorry. Whatchya doin?" She asked, in a rather goofy tone.

Shadow laughed, and some of the stress he was feeling left. "How come your always, so cheerful?" He asked.

"Because you're always too serious." She answered. "You need to lighten up."

Shadow shook his head, and some of the stress returned. "But we're in such a lousy situation. We didn't do anything to deserve this. We need to try and do something that would fix it." He said, sounding agitated.

"Grandpa's trying. He's smart he'll think of something." Maria said soothingly.

"It's just that sometimes I wish there was something I could do to force Major Schmit to let us go, and then we could all go down there." Shadow said, gesturing to Earth.

"Don't worry. You'll get to see it someday, and when you do I'll show you around." Maria said, taking Shadow's hand as she did so.

Shadow smiled, and said. "Don't forget about..."


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Shadow awoke from his dream slowly. For a while he just laid there, his sleep fogged mind trying to finish the dream, to remember, or make up, what happened next. But the rest of the dream didn't come, and once he became conscious enough to remember that Maria was dead, he cast all thoughts about the dream, aside. He needed to avenge Maria, and breaking down, and crying wouldn't accomplish that.

Shadow blinked his eyes open, and noticed that someone was in the cave with him. He reacted instantly, jumping up, and curling into a ball, that rolled away to the other end of the cave.

When Shadow uncurled he saw that whoever had found him had moved as well. He was now coming at Shadow, in some kind of spin attack that was very different from Shadow's own.

Shadow ignited his jets, and skated out of the way. His attacker's attack connected with the cave wall, and started tearing pieces out of it.

The cave started rumbling, and Shadow realized that there would soon be a cave-in.

He grabbed his Chaos Emerald, and was about to Chaos Control outside, when he realized something. The Chaos Emerald was giving off more energy than usual. That meant that there was another one nearby. There hadn't been a second Chaos Emerald in the cave last night, so that meant that the intruder must have brought it in.

The intruder stopped his attack, on the wall, and landed on _her_ feet, as Shadow suddenly realized that she was a girl. And based on the fear, that was evident on her face, when she saw the cave falling apart around her, she didn't know how to use the Chaos Emerald to Chaos Control.

Once again, Shadow reacted instantly, he ran over to her, grabbed her, and shouted. "Chaos Control!"

They both appeared outside the cave, and Shadow, suddenly feeling repulsed by the fact that he was practically hugging, and being hugged by, this female, pushed her away from him.

She landed on the ground with a thump. "Ow. Is that how you treat a lady?"

Shadow grunted, and turned to leave, but then he remembered that he hadn't saved her for her own sake, but because she had a Chaos Emerald.

In the background the cave collapsed.


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Amy woke up, and jumped off of the couch. Today she was going out with Tails and Sonic, and she wanted to be ready.

She ran into the kitchen, but neither Sonic nor Tails were there. She went threw the
House from top to bottom, but didn't find them.

Finally she checked the garage. She didn't find Sonic or Tails there, but she did find the box with the Chaos Emerald in it.

"They must have forgotten me." She thought. "How could they forget me?"
She felt hurt, but then again Sonic and Tails were used to doing things themselves. They had probably got distracted, and forgot that she was there. They had even forgotten the Chaos Emerald. "If I take the Emerald to them that will show them how helpful I can be."

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Rouge got to her feet, as the hedgehog, who had saved her, turned back towards her, and said. "I didn't save you, because I have morals or anything. Now, give me the Chaos Emerald you have."

Rouge smiled. She knew from experience that someone who volunteered the information that they were bad was someone who was fighting his or her conscience.

"I don't know." She said. "You could have taken it from me, and left me there." She knew that that was easier said than done, but his reaction to the statement would help clarify whether or not her first assessment had been correct.

"Stop wasting my time, and hand it over." He practically barked.

"Yep, I was right." She thought to herself. "He's cute when he's angry, but not as cute as that Echidna." Rouge lost track of what she was doing for a second, startled by train of thought she had just taken; however it only took that second for the black hedgehog to loose all patience.

He punched her.

Rouge had never been struck by a male before, some had tried to certainly, but this was the very first time that any man had actually laid one on her, and it made her furious.

"That's it." She said, as she turned, back to him, and kicked, but the dark hedgehog skated to her left, and the kick met open air. She took to the air, and gave chase.

He ran around to the other side of a stone pillar, where she couldn't see him, but even as the blur he left behind faded from her site, he had come back into view, but he was no longer skating along the ground. Apparently after he had put the pillar between him, and her, he had used his momentum to skate half way up the pillar, and then come back around, to her side, and jumped at her.

She didn't dodge in time, and his spin attack connected, bringing her to the ground, which brought a grunt of pain out of her, but didn't stop her from kicking him off of her.

She got to her feet about the same time that he did.

They just stared at each other for a moment, each trying to look angrier than the other. He moved first, and came straight at her, with a spin attack.

She was ready this time, and kicked him away from her, but the kick sent a jolt of pain up her leg.

Suddenly explosions and lights lit up the area where the dark hedgehog had been sent by her kick.

Rouge didn't bother to see what happened to him. Anyone that shot at him would probably shoot at her too, so she broke for cover. Once she was semi safely behind one of the pillars she peeked around to see who was responsible for the attack.

"Ahhh ha ha." Dr. Eggman laughed, as his hover craft zoomed off in the direction that, she presumed, the hedgehog had retreated to.

Rouge came out, from behind the stone pillar, slowly, and wondered whether or not she should go after them. She was supposed to find Eggman's base, and the best way to do that would be to hide, and stalk him when he left. But that would mean that she couldn't go after the Chaos Emerald that the hedgehog was carrying. She had no intention of finding Eggman's base, but if she past up this opportunity, and the Colonel from G.U.N. heard about it he would blow her up as fast as his finger could hit the button. And Rouge wasn't sure she could keep it a secret from him, not sure enough to bet her life on anyway.

"Gaaaaahhhhh!!!"

"That sounded like the hedgehog." Rouge thought to herself. "And he sounded very angry."

The sound of Eggman, and the hedgehog fighting could be heard from the direction the Dr. had taken off.

Rouge went after them slowly; careful not to make too much noise, or any sudden movements.

The sounds of the fight were getting louder.

"You're pathetic." She heard Eggman bellow.

"I'm going to kill you!" The hedgehog shouted back, and there was no mistaking the murderous intent in his voice.

Rouge was suddenly knocked flat, and completely soaked. She tried to get back up, but when she did she breathed in a mouth full of water. Before her brain could catch up with what was going on she was thrown into one of the pillars, and landed on her face. She got up on her hands and knees and coughed the water out of her lungs, not bothering for the moment to understand what had just happened.


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Eggman pulled out the spring pad, and the dark hedgehog was once again bounced off of his Eggmobile

This time Eggman had added one of his many attachments to his signature hover craft. A large laser chain gun was mounted on the bottom, and a small supply of heat seeking rockets was mounted on his left and right side.

Even though the laser chain gun was now a hunk of scrap hanging from the Eggmobile, courtesy of one of Shadow's spin attacks, Eggman's plan was going remarkably well. He had successfully distracted the dark hedgehog, which had allowed Chaos to steal the Chaos Emerald from him, and by not paying any attention to the batgirl, Chaos had successfully taken the Chaos Emerald from her as well. At least that is what Eggman assumed from the sudden spike in Chaos's energy.

Eggman sent a rocket down to the dark hedgehog, but the dark hedgehog jumped up and skated around one of the pillars at an incredible speed, and the rocket, unable to make the same maneuver that its target had, crashed into the pillar.

"You can't evade me forever." Eggman bellowed.

"I was thinking the same thing." The dark hedgehog retorted.

"There must be this thing about hedgehogs that they keep getting in the way of my plans, and seem to be well versed in comical one liners." Eggman thought to himself.

Something struck Eggman's Eggmobile, and it went tumbling in the direction of one of the stone pillars. Eggman barely pulled up in time, and turned to see who had attacked him.

Chaos was allot bigger now, and looked something like an oblong spider with a tail; however Eggman didn't quite notice the shape of his water monster, because he was swinging his tail at the place Eggman should have crashed, and knocked over the stone pillar.

"Chaos! What are you doing?" Eggman yelled.

But Eggman's former servant ignored the question, and went after the Dr. a third time.

Eggman dodged the attack, ready to throw a fit. He had been betrayed. But now was not the time to try to claim vengeance. The weapons that he had with her had been chosen, because he had wanted to distract, not destroy, and besides that the laser chain gun, and one of the rocket launchers had been destroyed.

Eggman flew off, but he left Chaos some unkind words to remember him by.


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Shadow had been puzzled by Chaos's betrayal, but even before Eggman had left, he had gotten beyond his puzzlement, and was back to attacking the creature.

Eggman flew away, and Shadow began to feel excited. The reason Chaos had escaped, the last two times, was because Eggman had saved him. Now the six Chaos Emeralds that Chaos had would surely be his.

Shadow hit Chaos with spin attack after spin attack, but he had run into a problem. Even though this version of Chaos didn't have any bones, like the one he and Sonic had fought together, his watery hide was proving extremely resistant to attack.

As Eggman flew out of sight Chaos turned his attention to Shadow. Chaos tried to step on Shadow, with any of his many legs, but the hedgehog was too fast, and ran out from underneath the watery creature.

Shadow skated about thirty feet away before turning around to continue the attack, but even as he did so Chaos sent half a dozen watery tentacles, out of his back, to attack Shadow. Shadow dodged one, jumped over a second, rolled under a third, and was knocked aside by the fourth.


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Eggman put the Eggmobile on autopilot, and started working on what he would do next.
His entire plan had been dependant on Chaos serving him. Perhaps he should have read a little more from his grandfather's journal before rushing to awake the creature.

A beep from his radar distracted Eggman from his thoughts. He looked down, and saw a sight that made him smile. Sonic and Tails, or at least Tails, where in the Tornado, not ten miles away. But they where going in the wrong direction.

Eggman took a moment to plan what he'd say, and then switched on the radio. "Blue hedgehog, and two tailed fuzz ball, this is Dr. Eggman. Over." It took a few moments for them to respond. Eggman smiled as he imagined the startled look on their faces.

"Egghead, this is blue hedgehog. To what do we owe the displeasure of speaking with you? Over."

"Nothing much I just thought I'd let you know that I'm over in Station Square, and having a wonderful time, watching Chaos make a mess." Eggman said, as he stroked his mustache.

"And you're telling us this, why?" Sonic asked.

Eggman's smile grew bigger, as he answered. "Oh, no reason. I just thought I'd invite the two of you down here to give the police a hand, cleaning things up."

"Riiight." Sonic said, and then there was silence for a few moments.

Eggman watched his radar, in anticipation. If he had miscalculated... But no the Tornado changed direction, heading in the opposite direction of Station Square.

"Yes." Eggman thought to himself. "Go fight that traitor Chaos."



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Rouge looked down on the fight, between Chaos and Shadow, from her perch, on top of one of the pillars, and tried to decide what to do.

Eggman had already left, and the two fighting underneath her were the only ones left. She could go after the Dr. Tracking him down wouldn't exactly be easy, but doable, if she went after him before the trail got too cold. But she didn't really want to follow him anyway; besides that it was quite clear to her that the hedgehog down there was in a fight for his life, even if he didn't realize it, and like it or not, she owed him.

"Dang this stupid conscience." She thought to herself, as she got herself ready to attack.

The hedgehog, and Chaos, as Dr. Eggman had called him, were all over the place, the hedgehog zipping around with his amazing speed, and Chaos was just so big he took up a large part of the battle field. The fight seemed to be going in Chaos's favor, though. The hedghog could barely avoid his attacks, and whenever he tried to attack he got smacked around.

Rouge watched long enough to determine that the hedgehog was aiming for Chaos's head, and then waited for an opening. When she thought she saw it she jumped, and started her spinning kick attack, aimed for Chaos's head. But the water creature saw her, and knocked her aside with his tail.

Rouge went spinning, head first, into one of the pillars, and then fell to the ground.

"Owe." She moaned as she slowly got to her feet.


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Shadow saw Rouge get smacked by Chaos, and tried to spin attack his head, while he was distracted, but his watery hide was just too dense, and Shadow was repelled.

For the first time Shadow wondered if this foe was in fact too much for him. Every time he fought Chaos the watery creature was harder to take down. Shadow tried to think of something that would give him an edge, but Chaos turned his attention back to Shadow, so he had to go back to skating.

Then a miracle happened, at least in Shadow's opinion. A blue blur fell out of the sky, and hit Chaos's head. It didn't reach Chaos's brain either, but it came close.

Sonic was propelled off of Chaos's head, and Shadow felt his confidence return. Three to one, four if Sonic had brought his young, two tailed, fox friend. This time Chaos was going down, and Eggman was no where in sight.


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Sonic bounced off of Chaos, and scanned the area for Eggman, but the Dr. hadn't shown his face yet. "I guess he thought he really had us fooled, when he tried to send us in the wrong direction." Sonic thought to himself.

Chaos sent some of his new watery tentacle at Sonic, who ran, jumped and rolled, to dodge them. Then suddenly Sonic was past them. He looked up, and saw that Shadow, and some batgirl where also occupying Chaos's attention.

Then Tails came into the fray. He had told Sonic he would jump in after he had checked for Eggman, if the Dr. wasn't there. Sonic was surprised by this. He had been sure that they would find old Egghead watching his pet destroy stuff. Maybe Chaos was a distraction after all, while Eggman went off to do something else. Like find another Chaos Emerald?

Tails fell towards Chaos's head, already curled up in a spin attack, as he spun his tails around to increase his speed. But Chaos saw him, and swatted him aside, with one of his tentacles.

"Tails!" Sonic called, and he ran over to see if his buddy was hurt. It took a second, because Chaos wasn't going to let him just run threw, but he made it past the watery creature's tentacles, feet, and tail unscathed.

"Are you alright?" Sonic asked, when he finally reached Tails, who had just picked himself up, off the ground.

"I'm fine." Tails said.

Sonic gave his buddy a once over, just to be sure, and then they both jumped back into the fight.

Sonic ran around till he was facing Chaos, and tried to get threw the beast's defenses, which weren't all that coordinated, because he was trying to fend off four opponents at once. Sonic dodged a tentacle, that had been swung at him, steered clear of another that was just swinging by to try, and keep everyone back, and spin attacked Chaos's, now very big head.

Out of the corner of his eye Sonic saw Shadow attack at the same time.

The blows connected, and for a few moments Chaos lost his integrity. But he brought himself back together, facing the opposite direction to avoid a second attack by Sonic, and Shadow. However the effort was in vain, for he was dive bombed by Tails, and the batgirl. Chaos lost his integrity again, and fell to the ground, like some great big puddle.

Tails, and the batgirl took to the sky, while Sonic, and Shadow backed off, so as not to get caught in the puddle, by Chaos. For a moment nothing happened. And then chaos zoomed off like some great big oblong watery snake.

"Get back here!" Shadow yelled, as he took off after Chaos, followed closely by Sonic.

They rounded a corner, just in time to see Chaos vanish.

"No! no, no, no! Not Chaos Control." Shadow wailed.

"Bummer." Sonic said. "As I remember it, you and me still have a fight to settle."

Shadow looked at Sonic, and did exactly what Sonic had expected him to do. He took off, with Sonic right behind him.

To be continued...