As Sonic slammed through the enemy’s weapons Knuckles slid to a stop next to Shadow and threw his body protectively over the black hedgehog’s smaller form, a hand resting on Shadow’s head, and face turning to snarl at the soldiers. Only when significant damage had been done did Sonic skid to a stop, standing between the soldiers and Shadow with his arms spread wide, blue lightning rippling off his form.
The quiet that fell over the field wasn’t complete, but it was still numbing.
“Stay down, new hedgehog. I’ll keep you safe,” Knuckles spoke quietly to Shadow when he tried to push himself up despite the form over him. He smelled of blood mixed with ash, and Knuckles could hear the slight wheeze in his painfully heavy breaths. It was a simple command, but Knuckles was uncertain if the way Shadow’s form relaxed after a moment was a good thing or not. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open.
“Mr. Wachowski. Care to enlighten me why you’re here?” Commander Walters returned the greeting.
“Well, I live here,” Tom answered with a brief smile. “Green Hills is right over there, in case you weren’t aware. We’d appreciate it if the military wasn’t firing off weapons so close to town.”
“A minor incident. We have it under control, and will be leaving shortly.”
Sonic snorted and opened his mouth to shoot a bitter reply, but Tom stopped him with a hand.
“Great! Well then, I’ll just pick up my kids, and we’ll pretend this never happened. We can tell the town you were cleaning up a rogue Eggman drone?” Tom suggested brightly.
That got Commander Walters to crack a fake smile. “Ah. Yes, that should do nicely.”
“Cool! Keeping it simple. I like it,” Tom breathed, clapping his hands together and turning slightly. “Honey, is kid number four safe to move?”
“Four?” Commander Walters spoke in mildly confused protest.
“Uhhhhh yeah. Two right here, and then two over there with Maddie makes four,” Tom returned easily, pointing to Sonic and Tails near him, and then Knuckles and Shadow as Maddie reached them.
Commander Walters cleared his throat. “I’m sorry Mr. Wachowski, there seems to be a misunderstanding. Project Shadow is property of G.U.N.. I can’t allow you to take it.”
“Huh,” Tom voiced, forcing a pause. “That’s strange. I thought slavery was illegal in the United States.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I actually don’t. Care to enlighten me how kidnapping a lost child and subjecting him to experimentation and indefinite imprisonment is something the government does?”
Commander Walters’ expression twitched, and Tom started nodding his head.
“Yeah, we figured some things out,” Tom confirmed the unspoken, possible question.
It prompted Commander Walters to change tactics, shifting his shoulders and drawing a breath for a new conversation. “We’re simply containing a dangerous weapon. It’s standard procedure.”
“Excuse me? The only dangerous weapon we’ve had to deal with recently was that moon slicing cannon your people built. The one that my kids stopped, because some nutcase stole it from you. Remember that?”
“Didn’t he almost kill you in the process?”
“Because he thought I was you!” Tom snapped. ”And seeing what you've done to him now I can see why his first reaction to seeing you was to fight!”
“He's dangerous-”
“He is a child!” Tom bellowed. “And if you would treat him as one, as a person, instead of a weapon he may have come to like you instead of wanting to kill you the moment he saw you! Now are you going to take my suggestion and get the hell out of here without a fuss, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?”
“I think he passed out.”
Maddie faltered for a moment, but then pushed through, somewhat reassured since they were already in the clinic. “Alright. That’s okay, bring him over here,” Maddie directed, pointing to a shallow bathing station. “We need to get him clean. Can you get his gloves and shoes off?” she gave for further instruction before turning to her three boys. “Knuckles, take your brothers to the front room and call Uncle Wade to come help watch you three.”
“But I wanna help!” Sonic protested, already having been dancing around their feet staying out of the way but also trying to stay as close as he could.
“I know, but this is a little more intense than I’d like you to have to deal with,” Maddie assured, running her hand over his head.
“I’ll be good, I’ll listen.”
“No, Sonic,” Maddie stressed. “I’m gonna have to do surgery to fix his ribs, and I don’t want any of you to see that. Okay?”
Sonic’s eyes went wide, and Maddie raised her hands to steady him if needed. It was a little blunt, but she didn’t have time to keep trying to convince him.
“It’ll be okay, boys. I’ll take care of it. So just be good for Wade, alright?”
“I’ll watch over them, mother,” Knuckles assured, moving forward with Tails already clinging to him and putting a hand around Sonic. “Come. Let us contact our Uncle, then construct a plan to welcome Shadow home.”
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Iiiiiii have a lot of scattered incoherent thoughts about Shadow getting adopted that I cannot figure out how to string together in a straight story, so I'm just doodling and writing the lil bits that pop into my head. 8 |
Something about Shadow trying to find his inhibitor rings again, but he only gets the 2 for his legs and G.U.N. finds the other 2 first, which leads to Shadow trying to steal them back but inevitably getting worn down by them and his own chaos energy beating him up. So he gives in and goes to Green Hills to find Sonic for help because "I thought that...since you wouldn't kill me… even after all I did, all I said, I thought that maybe…. maybe… you could help me"
This all took long enough that the Wachowski fam had enough time to talk things over about everything.
This also might be the 'I may have beat Shadow up a lil too much haha whoops' headspace 'cause he ended up with this list of injuries by the time the fam got him:
- 2 displaced broken ribs on the right (stabilized by Maddie with pins to be removed later)
- broken right arm
- broken left leg
- injured right lung (causes wheezing mostly)
- large laceration on right torso and right thigh
I'm still not sure if I want Walters to be the one there chasing Shadow or if it should be the other military lady and Walters helps stop them and let Tom and Maddie take Shadow 8 |
anyway post is getting way long so * finger guns and leaves ya'll with this *
