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“Shadow you need to hide me!” Sonic pleaded desperately, looking around warily.
Shadow looked up from his book with a grimace and all the excitement of a kid going to the dentist.
“What are you running from this time faker?”
Before the cobalt hedgehog could answer, a familiar cry of “Sooooooooooonic!” made its way downwind. Sonic cringed as he turned back to his onyx doppelganger, petitioning his case.
“C’mon Shads just Chaos control me to Holoska or something. Work with me here!”
Shadow shot him an unimpressed look. “Didn’t you say you weren’t going to run from your feelings anymore?” He sneered as he said so, coaxing a reaction out of Sonic.
“This has nothing to do with that at all.” he said exasperatedly “There’s no time to explain. All you need to know is that I’m innocent.”
Shadow rolled his eyes “You’ve never been innocent a day in your life, Hedgehog.”
“Semantics, Shadow, semantics.” He answered lightly, waving a hand in front of his face flippantly.
Shadow let out a huff and leveled a hard gaze at the hedgehog before him, “You promise me this has nothing to do with you running from a date?”
“Scouts honor” he said, donning his most serious expression and raising his hand to a salute. The sound of Amy’s shouts were getting louder by the second and the cobalt hero was beginning to look a little too nervous for Shadow to ignore. Without another word Shadow took a chaos emerald from his quills and held it out to the blue hedgehog.
“You’re going to Angel Island and nowhere else. Don’t lose this.”
As Sonic reached for the emerald, Shadow pulled it away from him.
“And you and Rose are coming over for dinner on Friday.”
“Whaaaat? Aww c’mon Shadow don’t give me ultimatums now.”
“Tikal wants to do more group activities. Now do you want the emerald or not?” Shadow shook the gem in his hand enticingly. The cobalt hero seemed to debate with himself before reluctantly plucking the emerald from the ultimate lifeforms hand. “You drive a hard bargain Shads.”
Plastering his bravado back on, he held the emerald high above his head “Don’t wait up!”
The tell-tale flash of chaos control illuminated the patio and just like that he was alone once again. Although that wouldn’t last for more than a second as a pink bob peaked over the top of the bushes. “I’ve got you now, Sonic!” Amy declared triumphantly, vaulting herself into the yard, careful to land on her feet unlike last time. Meeting the ground with a light thud, she quickly sprung back up, ready to pounce. She was, however, soon disappointed to find her hero was nowhere to be found. “Rats, I was sure I had him… Oh hi Shadow!”
“Hello Rose.”
He welcomed her with the ghost of a grin; It was getting increasingly more difficult for him to hide how funny he found the lovely couple’s antics to be. Where do they find the energy? He thought to himself.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where Sonic is… would you?”
Shadow debated whether or not he should give Sonic away; he did seem sincere about his innocence and giving him away like that may cause more harm than good. Amy had picked up on his hesitancy; narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
“You know where he is, don’t you.”
“Angel Island” he answered matter-of-factly.” He had given Sonic a chaos emerald. He never promised he wouldn’t tell Amy where he was going. Besides- he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to see how things played out.
“~Thank you~” She sang, perking up immediately “Do you mind if I?” She pointed to the back door.
“I don’t know, Rose.” He smirked, “You didn’t care for the door, a second ago…”
Amy sweatdropped and rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, a bad habit she had picked up from the blue blur. “Sorry about that…”
“Oh Shadow, stop giving her a hard time.” Tikal chided lightly, joining the two hedgehogs on the patio with a pitcher of lemonade and some cups, saving the fuchsia hedgehog from further teasing.
She handed her husband a glass before turning to Amy.
“Could I get you anything to drink, Amy?”
The fuchsia hedgehog checked her watch before shaking her head “No time but thank you Tikal.”
“Let me know which one of you wins.”
“You got it Tikal!” She shouted back, rushing through their home before barreling out the front door in the direction of Tails’ workshop.
Shadow was still very confused at everything that was going on. Had he missed an memo or something? Tikal seemed to know exactly what was going on which didn’t surprise him in the slightest.
“So, sunshine, do you know anything about what just happened?”
Setting herself into one of the patio chairs adjacent to her husband, Tikal poured herself a glass of lemonade and gestured for him to sit down.
He raised his eyebrows incredulously “Is it really that long of a story?”
“No, I just really want to watch how the sun reflects off of your eyes.” The tips of his ears turned a subtle shade of blush
“And you say I’m bad.” He muttered as he took the seat parallel to her with a shallow grin. “So what trouble are those two up to this time?”
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“Really, a bet?” Shadow almost choked on his lemonade at that one. “Sonic needed a chaos emerald for that!?”
“To be fair he agreed to not use his top speed. And If Amy catches him, he’ll have to take her to that new bakery that just opened downtown.”
“The one that specialized in strawberry shortcake?”
She nodded sagely and Shadow finally understood why Sonic wanted to get away so badly. The faker hated that dessert with a passion that rivaled Shadow's own love for coffee.
“And what does Sonic get out of all of this?”
Tikal seemed a bit stumped at that question, setting her cup down and tapping the table thoughtfully. “You know… she never told me; but I’m sure she’ll end up making him chili dogs or something.”
Shadow chuckled at the thought, speculating with Tikal about what goofy request Sonic would make of Amy if he won, but in his heart, he knew that for Sonic, the chase was the prize.
So it was, not on faraway angel island, but in a cafe just down the street, that a pair of hedgehogs sat laughing together; one attempting to feed strawberry shortcake to the other.