𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝟐, 𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐒!

⸺𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚'𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚́𝙟𝙖̀ 𝙫𝙪. 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙞𝙩 𝙟𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙞𝙨 𝙫𝙪. 𝙄𝙩'𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙢𝙚𝙚𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙧 𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙩 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚𝙨, 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩. 𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙖 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧. 𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙧.❞

Black; everything and anything.

Numb; every inch of your body.

Blank; your every sense.

Darkness surrounds you again.

Ah... This feels familiar, isn't it?

You grimace, seeing a white glove in your view. Sonic smiled at you.

You sighed and reached for his hand. He pulled you to your feet.

Before you can get on your feet, a not-so-white glove appears in your view. Sonic smiles at you.

You slapped away his hand and got up to your feet with the help of the wall.

"Promise me."

"I promise I'll tell you everything; no secrets..."

You hug him tightly, shaking your head, "Please, Miles. Promise me you'll no longer bother with this."

Tails hugs back, exhaling, "Okay..."

Sonic busted through bots, but one of them came behind and hit him, causing some rings to fall out of him as well as making him soar through the air. Tails flew by and caught him by the wrist.

"Sonic!"

"Yo, Tails!"

.

What he didn't notice is another bot creeping up behind him, resembling some kind of caterpillar. Luckily, Rouge came to the rescue and kicked it away, "Hiyah!"

"Thanks, Rouge!" Sonic waves.

"Don't mention it. Literally." She flew off.

Before an Eggforcer can sneak up on him from behind Batten harshly kicks it away.

"Heads up, matey!" She flies off.

He laughs, "Hey, thanks for the save Batten." He winks at her. Rusty punch his face sending him off. He yelps, losing his balance as he drops down from the submarine.

Until Sails got him with his metal arm, "Don't worry, I've got ye."

You smile warmly, "You always have my back, don't you?"

He winks, "Always, Y/n. Don't you ever doubt it."

Nine scoffed, "A human? It can't be my friend. Only a lump of dead meat is what it would be..."

"But it's true." You spoke flatly.

"WAIT, Y/N, DON'T-!" Tails' panicky voice crackles through the communicator.

"Sonic, Y/n! Wait!" Tails shout after us.

She was confused, never seeing anything like you, "What are you?"

You joked, making jazz hands, "I am the spirit of this jungle~ And I don't appreciate what you're doing here. Hurting people is bad. But causing them to starve? Dude, you have a lot of sin points there."

"What are you?" One of them asked, confused.

You razzed, "I am the spirit of the seven seas~ And I don't appreciate what you're doing. Stealing from people? Causing them to starve? More sin points here. Now that you disturbed my peace you all gonna taste my wrath!!"

Espio grunts, "That's not what I'm- Look. Hearing me won't gonna do anything for you. It goes in one ear and out the other. You need to listen." He pokes your nose, smiling.

You crash a coconut opening its inside, sliding next to the pink hedgehog, "If he doesn't want to see, he can't see, you have to let him see for himself to understand."

"If she doesn't want to see, she can't see, you have to let her see for herself to understand." You murmured.

"We are going to call you... Golden."

Nine flinches when something appears before him, something he sure to admit wasn't expected, a hologram...

"He did something, I had a gut feeling about this since you disappeared for a few months! You didn't have healing powers before. You can't heal yourself! You're just regenerating yourself like I've been doing. And I've been proved when I get these sensors! I was right! You are not-" His eyes landed on somewhere before you closed your eyes tightly as he screamed in pain.

You yelped in fright as you felt arms around you, "I'm here now, it's okay. You shouldn't have left like that before telling me."

"01010011 01000011 01010010 01000101 01000001 01001101 00100000 01010111 01000001 11000100 10110000 01001100 00100000 01000011 01010010 01011001 00100000 01010011 01001111 01000010 00100000 01000011 01001000 01001111 01001011 01000101 00100000 01011001 01000101 01001100 01001100 00100000 01010111 01000101 01000101 01010000 00100000 01000010 01000001 01010111 01001100 00100000 01001101 01001111 01010101 01010010 01001110 00100000 01000111 01010010 11000100 10110000 01000101 01010110 01000101 00100000 01010011 01001000 01001111 01010101 01010100 00100000"

"This will solve all our problems, Y/n!" Nine shouted happily.

"I guess..." You muttered out.

"We can change this grim place with all we desire! We can..."

He smiles warmly at you, "...make it look like home. Our home."

He clasped your hands with a big smile, "Isn't that amazing?"

You blinked, glancing into his hope filled eyes, "Sorry. I can't respond to your feelings right now."

He shook his head, "It's okay. That does not matter right now. Not anymore. With Sonic by our side. You will be fine."

"You think Sonic is the problem with my feelings?" You tilted your head.

"I know it is. My theory will be proven when he shows up once again." He turned around.

"Now let's continue changing these rocks into something lively!" He shouted happily.

"Bring the shard to me." He asked as he walked away.

You glanced at the shard not too far away from you.

You slowly walk up to it, reaching to grab it, only to hesitate. Your breath becomes shaky and rapid, hands were shaking, you couldn't resist your fingers, fingers nearly brushing it.

Nine hold your arm, "Sorry... I forget you didn't like touching it... Lemme handle that."

You exhaled. You watched him from afar as he walked up to the palm trees with a smile. You muster one yourself. You never saw him this happy before.

You glanced down at your hands. You still couldn't feel anything... Then why did you just feel... anxiety? It didn't feel like... you were the one doing the movements anymore. Like... your will power changed only for a second... But you should have known... it was your body after all, right?

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘

You glanced at your gloves tilting your head.

"What now?"

The yellow hologram smiles sympathetically at you.

"Ah, Mint... How sad... You look just like an empty vase. You must miss the warmth. Don't worry. Listen to me and we'll find your flowers back. I promise."

You stare at him with a nod.

"Now I want you to find an empty room where we could find some... computers, okay? Anything to get me into the eggnet is fine."

You acknowledge, "Okay, Hollow."

He looked up confuse, "Hollow?"

You stared at him, you thought it was obvious, "You are a hologram..."

He stared back at you.

"At least this name is better than the last one he gives to me."

You just neutralized the Eggforcers that were taking you to another room, as Hollow told you.

The Council took you and Nine apart for a while. You didn't know why. But judging by the 14 robots that were guarding you, it must have been something important, or they were just scared you would get away...

You walked away from that corridor before you could activate any alarms or any other Eggforcer in the way. Maybe they wanted to talk to you specifically or the council was gonna do something. Maybe they didn't need you next to Nine anymore. So many things you are careless to even think about at the moment. What you wanna do is...

"There is a vent hole above you, dear. If you get in and crawl your way around. It could be easier for both of us to go undetected. No one can suspect us."

You looked up, "What if there are also sensors that can detect us in there?"

"There isn't... get in." He sounded confident.

You listened to him and jumped, grabbing the vent. You swayed a bit and broke the entrance with your foot getting in.

Without fixing back the opening you just crashed you start crawling. Searching for some computers.

You didn't know how long you crawled around in this dusty claustrophobic place but you will until Hollow can help you.

You stop noticing some big screens from the gaps of the vent. There were also noises too. You heard Eggman and his goons talking. You also notice Nine's voice too. They were a bit afar, reverberant and a bit muffled. Are they... arguing? You couldn't make out much.

"Good job, Y/n. That is just enough for me to log in. Let's get in before they get inside the room first."

You broke the vent again landing on the room.

You opened your gloves and ripped open his chip, plugging him inside the system.

"I am NOT going anywhere without Y/n! I'm NOT gonna do any of your dirty work unless we find her! Now, WHERE IS SHE?!"

You turned around with Nine's voice.

Don't groan, "Agh, for the love of-- Quite whining already! I told you she is--"

The three stopped seeing your figure.

"--there." He pointed out with a bit of relief and confusion... also suspicious. But he mostly looked relieved, not for your wellbeing, because Nine seemed ready to rip their throat open any minute if they couldn't find you.

You casually waved at Nine. He sighed, clearing his throat. Mostly embarrassed you heard all that.

"If you two finally united and Mr.gentleman here stopped his tantrum CAN WE GO ALREADY?!"

Babble huffed at him.

"I didn't say that to you, jeez. I was talking about-- You know what? Forget it. Let's go already! We have a job to do!"

You walked along with them.

"Do not get out of my sight again." Nine whispered to you.

"Okay." You muttered back, "I will not..."

"Eurgh, what a dump." Don't comment on watching Boscage Maze through the screen.

"I bet this place doesn't have wireless." He complained in disgust.

Babble laughed at him before he hit his little table angrly.

Eggman's voice came through the communicator warningly, "Button your lips and open your eyes."

"Report back as soon as you've located this backwater jungle world's power Shard!"

Done-it pushes his face away, "And don't muck this up. Like all your other tasks." The call ends.

Babble takes off his pacifier and blows a raspberry.

"Right? The nerve of those fossils. Ditching us in this stink hole."

He turned and glanced at Nine and you, "At least we've got the rat to do all the work."

Nine give them an uninterested stare while you even didn't give a f#ck.

He turned back to work on his computer while Don't spoke up again, "Okay, smarty pants, show us your stuff. The sooner you can score us that Shard, the sooner we can bounce."

"My name is Nine. And I need access."

Don't scoff, turning away, "Do I have to do everything?"

Nine smiled to himself.

He writes the password and gets inside the system.

"Wow. Full access." He grins, no expression of surprise in his voice. "What an egghead."

Don't turn to him, "Hello?"

"Don't worry. Soon things will be going exactly to plan." He smirks to himself with a dark glare.

You glance back at the screen.

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂

Sonic slides down vines, jumps, and flips then spins down to the grass and runs. He soon come down to a stop and watched the Eggforcers cut down trees.

"And I thought gardening was supposed to be relaxing."Sonic commented, not amused at all.

He runs off and grabs an Eggforcer, swings it against the tree. Two more Eggforcers comes behind him when he spin dashes them away as they slam into a thick vine.

"So if the Chaos Council's still looking for the shard, that means they haven't found it yet!" Sonic said with relief.

"Good thing for me, I have a pretty good idea where it is." He said with a smile.

Sonic jumps onto a tree branch and looks down.

"What have they done?" Sonic gasped.

Eggforcers are cutting down more trees with chopper bots scanning.

"They're destroying the forest!"

"Looking for the Shards is one thing, but why all this needless destruction?" Sonic questioned with a frown.

He jumps down and bashes into some Eggforcers.

"I need to find the Boscage Gang." He muttered.

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔

Don't groaned, "This is taking forever!" He turned to you and Nine impatiently.

Nine spoke up unfazed, "Locating the shard will take time."

Don't shouted, "We don't have time!" He glared, "The only reason we haven't already made you into a hat is because you're suppose to be an expert on the shard," He points at you, his eyes never leaving Nine's figure, which his face become sour from his next words, "And your girl friend here hasn't been our little robot servant by now, is because we have an agreement. But I can break it whenever I want--" He stop himself after hearing Babbles' squawks. Questions rised inside you especially after the look you receaved from Nine. Nothing you expecting coming from him like an eye roll, a scoff, or a growl maybe even a scowl but not a nervous side eye. He wasn't upset or scared. It was something else he was wrorried about....

Don't growl to see the hedgehog destroying their bots. You and Nine light up with the familiar blue hedgehog.

"Sonic."

Don't slammed his fist, "No way, I am letting that annoying hedgehog trips us up again!"

Hr huffed and flared away muttering something as Bubble squawks something on his own.

Nine quickly typed a few things in the keyboard and smiled at the screen.

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂

Sonic push an Eggforcer off of him, getting up from the position he fell in the middle of Boscage Maze, surrounded by dead eggforcers, "huh, where is everybody?"

He glanced around quickly, taking notice of an Eggforcer getting up. He turned and got into his fighting stance.

"Oh, no, you don't!"

Sonic tackles it on the ground.

"Sonic, it's me." Nine whisper through the Eggforcer.

"Nine??" Sonic exclaimed in pure shock and happiness, "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"I dunno how much time I have." Nine replied quickly.

"Are you inside the Eggforcer?" Sonic asked, checking around the bot, examining in quick terror.

"I'm up on the ship with the doctors along with Y/n." Nine whispered.

"Wait!" Sonic gasped in happiness, "Y/n is with you too? Thank god! I was worried sick when she didn't appear with me here!"

He paused, "Wait! You're working with them?!" He exclaimed.

"No! Would you just listen for a second?" Nine huffed in frustration. "They captured us but we're working them from the inside."

He asked worriedly, "Are you okay?" He paused.

"Wait, does that mean they also have their Shard back?" He exclaimed in alarm.

"Yes, temporarily." Nine sighed.

Sonic boosted in determination, trying to cheer him up, "Well, don't worry, I'm coming to get you two."

"No, you're not." Nine declined.

"I'm... not?" Sonic questioned. "Pretty sure I am."

"Don't worry about us. Focus on finding the Boscage Shard."

"I think I have a good idea of where it is."

Nine reaches for his glove, "Yeah, so does the Chaos Council. Now, hold still."

Nine twisted Sonic's rings on his gloves and started zapping electricity onto them.

"Is this some kind of secret handshake I have to learn, 'cause-"

"I'm re-programming the regulators so we can communicate through them!" Nine explained, cutting Sonic off.

"Oh, score." Sonic commented checking his gloves out.

"You'll also be able to make contact with the Shards in any way without risking teleportation. Something I picked up from being here. You see? Playing prisoner has its advantages." Nine explained.

"If you say so." Sonic said, kicking the grass. "I mean, we should still come up with a secret handshake, but that can probably wait."

You quickly whispered, cutting him off, "Sonic! I have a