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solalunar-eclipse · 1 year ago

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Sonic Boom - S3E15

Chapter title: Schrödinger's Hedgehog, Part 4

Summary: Mighton and Bolts appear with grave news: their sensors have picked up an incredibly dangerous weapon nearby. However, the one thing they fail to make clear is that their idea of "weapon" and Team Sonic's are…very different, to say the least.

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Sonic sped through the forest, springing over roots and bushes with ease, the speed bringing a big smile to his face. Running without a care in the world was one of his favorite things to do. It always brought him joy, and in this moment, he felt as though nothing could possibly sour his mood—

—and then he slammed directly into someone, sending both himself and the stranger tumbling across the forest floor.

Once the world had (mostly) stopped spinning, Sonic righted himself, only to be met with an equally disoriented Sticks.

“I found you! Finally!” they cried, jumping to their feet. “You’re almost as difficult to get hold of as me, you know that?”

Sonic frowned. “Uh, I really doubt that, but anyway…why were you looking for me, exactly?”

“Oh! Right! Those two robots with the weird accents landed near my house and said they were ‘on a mission of the utmost importance’. I couldn’t get them to tell me what it was, though, but I figured you’d be able to. I woulda gotten Tails, but he’s cooped up in his lab with Shadow.”

“That sounds exactly like Tails.” Sonic snickered. “Alright, let’s get back to your house and see what Mighton and Bolts are up to this time.”

He grabbed Sticks’s arm and pulled them alongside him all the way back to their house, where his Roboken friends’ ship sat. Just outside it, Bolts was fiddling with a device that had a long antenna sticking out of it, while Mighton hovered beside him and offered mostly unhelpful advice.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Sonic asked, strolling over with his hands laced behind his head. “Not another robot overlord, right?”

“Sonic.” Mighton stood at attention at the sight of the hero. “Thankfully, this is not to do with a robot overlord. However, we are currently on an extremely dangerous mission to secure a machine that we believe has been discovered somewhere near your village. Its signal appeared only a couple of days ago, but this technology is unspeakably deadly and could threaten the lives of everyone on the island if it is allowed to remain out in the open and unguarded.”

The hedgehog’s eyes widened at that. “Geez, that sounds…bad. Really bad. Uh, you guys wouldn’t happen to know where exactly this machine of yours is? Like, somewhere more specific than ‘this area’?”

With a completely straight face, Mighton replied, “We don’t have a single clue.”

Sonic let out a long, tired sigh.

[The intro sequence is back to normal again! This time, Shadow actively participates in it along with everyone else, albeit with much rolling of eyes and smirking.]

[There is no villain reveal in this episode, once again, and so Dr. Eggman is introduced like an ordinary character (and yes, he would like everyone to know that he is still one of the main characters of the show, whether or not he appears in this specific episode).]

[The intro then continues on, before ending with the title of this week’s episode.]

Once Bolts had fixed his machine, the four set off towards the general area of the village. Sonic darted ahead of everyone else on occasion and then tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for them to catch up, clearly wanting to resolve the danger so that he could go back to his usual fun activities. As they drew closer to the town, however, Bolts frowned at the device and let out a hum that made everyone else stop.

“Oh, this thing better not be broken again!” Sonic complained, visibly drooping at the thought.

“No, it’s not that.” the smaller robot explained gravely. “I have simply pinpointed a more precise area for the signal, and it does not appear to be in the village after all.”

“That’s good, ain’t it? So why’re you looking so serious?” Sticks asked.

“Because it is located in the lab of his younger brother.” Bolts said, looking directly at Sonic.

Moments later, the four of them had vanished in a flash of blue as Sonic dragged them all along to Tails’s workshop. Bursting through the doors, he yelled, “Tails! Hold up!”

The young engineer, who had just been about to take a wrench to…some unidentifiable pile of scrap metal…paused and glanced over at the doorway. “Hey Sonic, what’s up?” he asked casually.

“Is something wrong?” Shadow asked, studying the hero curiously from his seat on the edge of the table.

“Guys, Mighton and Bolts are here, and—”

“—you are in possession of some extremely dangerous technology, old friend.” Mighton proclaimed, stepping alongside Sonic. “Please back away from the table immediately. It must be neutralized at once.”

Immediately, Tails skittered away from the table, eyeing it nervously. “Oh no! I-I swear, I didn’t know!”

Bolts gave him a kind look. “Don’t worry, that was never in any doubt. It is very difficult to spot unless you know what you’re looking for, after all.”

Mighton walked towards the table where Shadow still sat, the latter frowning down at the materials (and steadfastly avoiding the eyes of the two robots). “I’m sure there’s nothing dangerous in here…I checked very carefully.” he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, the taller of the two robots gave him a hard stare. “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” he asked.

“What?” Shadow asked, bewildered.

“Hang on, what are you—” Sonic began, but he didn’t even get to finish his sentence before—

—Mighton smacked something onto the side of Shadow’s neck and the android fell lifelessly to the floor.

“Whoa, wait!” Tails cried, jumping back against the wall. But even that was nothing compared to Sonic’s reaction.

“What did you just do?” the hedgehog barked, his eyes narrowing.

Bolts darted over to Mighton’s side uneasily. “We…we neutralized the threat, just like we told you.”

“And now, it will be put into storage so that it cannot cause any further harm.” Mighton finished, pressing a button on his wrist. Suddenly, Shadow was encased in an oblong green container, which began to float next to the two conscious robots.

“It?!” Sonic growled. “What the heck, guys? Shadow’s our friend!”

“I understand how you might have thought that,” Bolts began, nervously tapping some keys on his device, “but it is not what it seems. It is actually an android, designed to mimic—”

“But we already know that!” Tails interjected, glancing worriedly over at his incensed brother. “He’s not a danger to us!”

“You know of its true nature, and yet you did not deactivate it?” Mighton asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. “I thought you were a person of logic.”

“We can discuss this later,” Bolts reminded his companion. “Right now, we need to get the weapon into storage.”

And before anyone could respond, the two robots rocketed out the door with Shadow in tow. Moments later, the sound of an ascending airship reached their ears, and Sonic and Tails dashed outside to see Mighton and Bolts’s ship flying off towards Roboken.

“We’ve gotta go after them, Tails!” Sonic cried, his hands curled tightly into fists.

“You’re right, we do.” Tails said, steel beginning to enter the young engineer’s voice. “But first, we need to call up our friends.”

[Scene cuts to all five heroes riding on Tails’s plane. Knuckles is in the back seat, Amy and Sticks have each taken a wing, and Sonic is standing on the struts at the bottom.]

“What I don’t get is, why did Mighton and Bolts only come for Shadow now?” Knuckles asked.

“I dunno…they said something about his signal only appearing a couple days ago, which is weird, because he’s been around for years!” Sonic frowned, clearly struggling with that himself.

Tails thought for a moment, before snapping his fingers suddenly (and yes, that did mean he was flying the plane one-handed for a moment). “That’s when the wiring on Shadow’s crystal was dislodged! Maybe it has something to do with that? It could’ve changed his energy signature enough to catch the attention of Mighton and Bolts!”

“We can talk about this later—right now, we’ve got something else to deal with!” Amy exclaimed, pointing off in the distance to where Roboken floated. She squinted at the city for a moment, eyeing the various airships that patrolled its borders. “The question is, how are five of us on a bright yellow plane going to get into a city that’s notorious for its security?”

“Last time, we used one of their own ships, but I don’t know if we can get them to come after us again.” Sonic called up to her.

“Plus, this plane can’t take the kind of fancy flying we’d need with all five of us on board!” Tails added.

“If you’re on a hunt, always go for the soft underbelly!” Sticks yelled, shaking a fist in the general direction of Roboken.

“I’m sorry, what?” Amy said, slightly taken aback.

“Wait…wait, that’s actually not a bad idea!” Tails exclaimed. “The underside is the only part of the city that isn’t transparent, and they don’t have ships down there, so they won’t be able to see us coming!”

The engineer frowned, adjusting a few dials on his plane as he shifted into position. “Okay, just warning you guys now, my scanner’s picking up a few cameras on the metal plating. I’m gonna send out a quick localized EMP to knock them out, then we’re going to have to fly straight up so nobody notices us. Hang on tight!”

The other four barely had any time to adjust their grip before the plane shot into a dive, using the clouds as cover to keep from being spotted. Once Tails’s GPS informed him that he was in the correct position, he slammed the EMP button and pulled back on the yoke, dragging his beloved aircraft completely vertical as they blasted towards the city.

…but they’d forgotten that there was no opening on the underside.

[cue a close-up of all five’s eyes widening, before Sonic suddenly seems to think of something.]

“Amy! Hit me with your hammer!” Sonic yelled, flipping himself onto the top of the biplane’s wing. As he revved up a spindash, the pink hedgehog pulled out her signature hammer and whacked him as hard as she could, sending him flying into the bottom of Roboken.

He smashed straight through a piece of metal paneling, knocking it entirely loose and leaving a hole just wide enough for Tails to zip into the maze of pipes underneath the city and grapple his plane onto the nearest surface. Carefully, the entire team climbed out of the aircraft, taking care not to let each other slip. They weren’t about to have more than one friend in peril today.

Once they’d all gotten their feet on solid ground, Tails began to fiddle with one of his many devices, keeping his voice as low as possible. “Shadow’s energy crystal has a very specific frequency. That’s how Mighton and Bolts found him…but we can use it to track him down as well! If I can just pinpoint the location of that frequency, then we should be able to find him and make sure he’s okay!”

“Sonic and I will keep watch.” Amy said, a determined set to her face. “You just focus on finding him, okay?”

Immediately, the engineer got to work, while Knuckles and Sticks guarded him. Meanwhile, the two hedgehogs went to stand a little farther down the hall, ostensibly keeping an eye out for any robots that might be approaching.

Sonic shifted from foot to foot, fiddling with one of the bandages on his wrist. The silence felt so heavy he could hardly stand it, and so he said the first thing that came to mind.

“They’d better not have hurt him.” It was an embarrassing thing to say, but true nonetheless.

To his surprise, instead of making a comment that sounded more like a motivational quote than anything, Amy simply nodded in agreement. “If anyone has, they’d better hope their metal’s stronger than my hammer.”

Sonic looked away briefly, not at all to hide the small smile he most definitely didn’t have on his face. “Man, if I went back in time and told myself I’d be trying to help my broodiest rival, I never would’ve believed it.”

“I definitely wouldn’t have believed it either. You, helping people? Never!” she shot back, smirking at him. “Sonic the Hedgehog, local hero, rescuing someone from danger? It’s unimaginable!”

“Hey! You know what I meant!” he complained, rolling his eyes.

“Would you two quit with the banter already?” Sticks called out to them both, making the two hedgehogs’ quills spike up in surprise. “Tails just found where they’re keeping Shadow!”

Sonic was back with the group in an instant, Amy not far behind. “Really? Great job, bud!” he said, giving Tails a quick pat on the back. “So, where’re we headed?”

The engineer studied his device for a moment, before pointing off to his left. “That way. I have a pretty good idea of how to get there, but my maps are a little patchy this deep into Roboken, so I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”

“Eh, ninety percent’s good enough for me.” Sonic shrugged and began to walk off, spurring the rest of the team into action. Carefully, the five of them crept through the halls, for once actually not stepping on any conveniently creaky paneling or running into anything. It was almost impressive how well they were doing, really…

…until they ran into a giant chasm where the path should’ve been.

Tails glared at his device. “Come on! I thought it might be a little inaccurate, but this is just ridiculous!”

“And this is why GPS is evil and paper maps are better.” Sticks commented sagely, glancing towards the camera.

“Can’t you just fly us all across, Tails?” Amy asked him.

“Uh, well…I can definitely try…” he said, utterly lacking any kind of confidence whatsoever.

“What my dear buddy pal friend Tails here is trying to say,” Sonic cut in abruptly, “is that he gets tired if he has to carry too many people at once. Or really quickly one after the other. Or even if it’s just one person but it takes a while—”

“I think we get it, thanks, Sonic!” Tails cried, trying unsuccessfully to push the (incredibly self-satisfied) hero out of the way.

“Well then, how many of us can you carry, Tails?” Amy said gently.

“I could probably get you and Sticks across fast enough if I really tried, and I might be able to do Sonic, too, but…Knuckles…”

“Yeah?” the echidna asked, seeming genuinely curious.

“You’re just too strong! Muscle mass—it’s really dense, and you’re already the tallest person here. I won’t be able to do it!” Tails exclaimed, real distress on his face.

“Oh, that’s okay! I know how to glide across.” Knuckles said encouragingly. “Don’t worry about me!”

Everybody stared at him, speechless.

“You know how to what?” Amy cried.

“Since when?” Sonic added.

Tails managed to scrape his jaw off the floor enough to ask, “And why didn’t you say anything before?”

Knuckles shrugged. “It never came up.”

The entire team stared at him in silence for a moment, wearing identical expressions of disbelief, no less.

“Okay…I guess that means we’re all set?” Sticks asked, once they’d finally recovered.

“I think Tails just has to get Amy and Sticks across.” Sonic said. “I can run on walls—which was established previously, by the way.” he finished quickly, just in case his team decided to round on him next.

The fox looked much more relieved at that, smiling. “Well, if that’s all I have to do, then this shouldn’t take long at all!”

He was absolutely right. While Sticks did flail around a little the first time they were picked up, they eventually managed to get used to flight just enough to get across (although they made it clear that they would not like to repeat the experience if at all possible). Amy, on the other hand, was a very good passenger, and Tails wound up being rather glad he’d taken her across second.

Meanwhile, Sonic had, of course, zipped across the wall in ten seconds flat. Then, he did it a few times more just for the fun of it, until Amy told him off lightly for distracting Tails while he was flying. And Knuckles? He climbed up one wall, then leapt off it and glided diagonally across to the other wall, repeating the process in a sort of zigzag pattern until he made it to the other side of the chasm.

“How do you even glide?” Tails asked once he’d set Amy down, seeming more bewildered if anything now that Knuckles had demonstrated his skills.

The echidna, however, simply shrugged. “I don’t know, nobody taught me! I just sort of…learned how, I guess?”

“Oh man, now I have two friends to study! This is great!” The engineer beamed, clearly delighted at the prospect of more projects to fill up his spare time.

“Yes, but maybe let’s focus on finding Shadow first?” Amy prompted, at which point Tails whipped out his device again.

“Oh yeah, right!” he exclaimed. “Shadow should be…about four doors down on the left. We’re almost there!”

The five heroes rushed down the hallway, and it took Tails less than a minute to unlock the door. As it slid open, everyone held their breath, waiting to see what state Shadow might be in.

Inside the room, an array of weapons lined the walls—everything from guns to swords (and even a few gun-swords), as well as several unrecognizable pieces of technology were present. There were even parts of a mech like the one Sonic owned stored on some shelves. The heroes snuck past it all warily, everybody seeming far too overwhelmed by the circumstances to start any of their usual snappy banter.

And then, at the very back, there was Shadow. He was held inside a large tank, slumped at the bottom. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t moving in the slightest. All of the little involuntary movements that marked something as being alive…none of them were there.

Before any of them could react, Sonic had spin-dashed the tank once, then twice, then a third time, until it finally shattered under the force of his whirling quills. Moments later, he’d pulled Shadow’s lifeless body out of the way of the shattered glass, settling him carefully in front of Tails.

“You can fix him, right?” the hero asked, his face turned carefully away from the camera and his voice oddly flat.

Tails fiddled with the gadget in his hands. “I’ll do my best.” he said quietly, already kneeling down next to his friend and connecting his tablet to Shadow’s systems.

“We’ll keep an eye out for you, Tails!” Knuckles punched his fists together, and then set about barricading the door to the room so that nobody else could get in. Sticks soon pitched in, while Amy watched over Tails’s progress nervously and Sonic zipped around the room in an effort to keep from going completely stir-crazy.

After a few tense minutes, where the team went absolutely silent anytime they heard footsteps in the halls, Tails finally sighed, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’ve done everything I can do…now we just have to start him up and see what happens.”

As he pressed a few buttons on his touchscreen, Amy silently stood up and walked over to Sonic, taking his hand. For once, he took it back. Sticks moved to Amy’s other side and put a hand on her shoulder, and Knuckles did the same thing with Sonic, both of them supporting their friends with their presence.

Slowly, Shadow’s fingers twitched. His face shifted slightly.

And then he shot bolt upright, his eyes glazed and distant. As he glanced around, his eyes slid directly over the team, not seeming to register their presence at all. “No…not here! I—I escaped!” he muttered to himself, and Sonic jumped into action.

“Shadow! Hey, Shadow, it’s me!” he cried, stepping into his friend’s field of vision and waving his arms over his head. “We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

“…Sonic?” Shadow hesitated, his eyes beginning to focus, and looked around. “Everyone? What are you…how did you get here? Why are you here? Wait—where is here?”

“Got here on Tails’s plane, here to save you from the Roboken jerks who think they can keep you in some dumb storage room,” Sonic explained, his energy fading in favor of venom on the last two words. “And ‘here’ is a room somewhere in the underground of Roboken.”

Shadow stared at him. “You…you all…came here to free me? From—from—”

“What did I tell you?” Amy interrupted, giving him a kind smile. “We’re not letting anyone mistreat you or lock you away ever again.”

The android hesitated, looking around the room once more. He shrank in on himself slightly, eyes flickering at the sight of the impenetrable metal walls…and then he looked over at his friends, who had risked their longer-standing friendships with the people of Roboken just to save him.

…his friends.

“Thank you.” he said softly, giving them a small, but genuine smile.

Sonic threw an arm around his shoulders, and Knuckles did the same from the other side. “We’re just glad you’re okay.” the echidna said, nodding sagely.

The other three looked like they were about to crowd in as well—when the door suddenly shook as someone tried to open it from the other side. The barricades held, but that just made the robot on the other side of the door yell for help, making everyone freeze.

Tails looked around on his device for a moment, before grimacing at what he saw. “There’s a lot of robots headed this way…including Mighton and Bolts.”

Shadow bared his teeth slightly, making Sonic and Knuckles step protectively in front of him. “We’re not gonna make the same mistake twice, Shads.” Sonic said firmly.

The door rattled once. Then again. But before the robots could try anything else, Amy shoved all of the barricades to one side and then opened the door, hammer in hand. Standing outside it were Mighton, Bolts, the five robot clones, and several other citizens of Roboken.

“…I feel like I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am.” Bolts said, sounding rather startled anyway.

“Heroes.” Mighton began, stepping closer to the room. “You have saved Roboken, and for that, you are always welcome here. But while we do not have many laws, stealing is absolutely prohibited.”

“You can’t steal a person!” Sonic barked. “That’s not how that works!”

“Wait, hang on, you were keeping a person in here?” Robot!Sonic asked. “Mighton, I thought you said you were going on a mission to find a weapon!”

“That’s what they told our Sonic and Tails, too—and then they knocked Shadow here out and kidnapped him.” Sticks explained, her eyes narrowed.

“What?! Not cool, man!” Robot!Knuckles cried.

“You must understand, Project: Shadow was designed primarily to be a fighting machine, not a person.” Bolts cut in, attempting to explain. “It is a relic from a long-finished war that is no longer necessary.”

“Yeah, and you’re all relics from a dead civilization!” Tails snapped suddenly, making everyone jump. “The people who made you have been gone for ages—are you saying that every single one of you is doing exactly the same things as you were back then?”

All of the non-clone robots shifted uncomfortably, suddenly unwilling to meet the heroes’ eyes. “Not…as such…” Mighton admitted.

“Exactly! And neither is Shadow!” Amy insisted, stepping forward. “He was made with the same mental matrix as all of you, so it doesn’t matter what he was meant to do, what matters is what he wants to do!”

“What does he want to do, then?” Bolts asked genuinely.

Shadow looked up at that, looking the smaller robot in the eyes. The android flinched, but refused to break his stare. “I want to live with my…my friends. I want to help them protect their ridiculous village, and watch their stupid shenanigans, and I don’t want to have to watch my back nonstop thinking that you all are planning to abduct me again and lock me up.” he said. His voice wavered slightly as he spoke, but the presence of his five friends seemed to ground him.

Mighton and Bolts glanced at each other for a moment, and then the former nodded. “Spoken like a true hero, and a true friend of these five too. Very well, you may leave…but we will require permission to come and check in every once in a while to see how you are faring, living among the villagers.”

Shadow sighed. “If that is the price I must pay for my freedom, then I suppose I can pay it. But rest assured, you will only find your trips to be for nothing.”

Sonic put his hand on the android’s shoulder reassuringly. “C’mon, Shadow, don’t worry about them for now. Let’s get you outta here first, and we’ll deal with this later, okay?”

The six heroes left the room, and thankfully, nobody made a move to stop them. As they went, Robot!Tails called out. “Do you guys mind if we visit sometime? Just to, you know, get to know your cool robot friend…” He grinned sheepishly.

Shadow glanced back, the faintest, tiniest hint of a smile on his face at the clone’s familiar enthusiasm. “Yes, I suppose you may. Sometime.”

And with that, the six headed back to Tails’s plane, and flew away from Roboken. It was only once they’d touched down outside the engineer’s workshop that Shadow seemed to truly relax, his shoulders slumping.

He stared off into space for long enough that Amy called out to him, worried. “Shadow? What’s wrong?”

“I could have been trapped in there forever…again…” he said softly, wrapping his arms around himself.

“But you weren’t!” Sonic interjected loudly, shaking Shadow out of his reverie. “That’s what matters, and now Tails can build you something that’ll keep them from using that weird gadget on you again—right, Tails?”

“I’ll get on it A-S-A-P!” the fox promised.

Shadow smiled again, but it was still faint. “I appreciate it. Before you do that, though…I still have yet to try that new game you told me about. Tomatopotomus Borders, was it?”

“They just released a new DLC for that!” Sonic exclaimed, suddenly beaming with genuine excitement. “You’ve gotta play it!”

“I think…I think I would like that.” Shadow said.

And with that, the six friends walked inside together.

#sonic boom #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #miles tails prower #knuckles the echidna #amy rose #sticks the badger #sonic boom: ancient secrets #sol's fanfiction #and with this we've finally completed the second of shadow's two arcs!#i wasn't sure if i'd ever get to share this story #but i'm happy that i was able to do just that :)#not only that but now...we only have 5 chapters left #we're in the home stretch folks!#hope you all enjoyed :D #and as always thanks for reading!!

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