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Team Sonic had to admit, Eggman had upped his game with this robot. Every time they got close to it, it sent out a forcefield, pushing them all away. Homing attacks, projectiles, even lasers from Tails’s plane all weren't doing anything to it.
Suddenly, Tails noticed something - a microphone and camera. “Just be sneaky!” Tails shouted, “It can't put up a shield if it can’t see you coming!”
“Sneaky? As if any of you know how to be sneaky!” Eggman gloated, then dodged the boomerang Sticks had thrown, “See, I even saw that comi-” he stopped when it hit him on the way back.
Sonic dashed over to Knuckles, and pointed at the robot. “Distract it for me, will you? I have a plan” Knuckles nodded, then ran directly at the robot, being knocked into the air by the forcefield. “From outside it’s range!” Sonic clarified, shrugging innocently when Knuckles glared at him.
He beckoned Tails down to the ground, and then gestured to the opposite side of the robot from Knuckles. Tails set his plane to fire at Eggman, and they both got into their best sneaking stances.
With Eggman occupied, and the robot distracted, Tails was able to get close enough to reach for the control panel. He slowly, silently eased it open, and carefully fiddled with the control panel. He flipped a few switches, then pointed at the camera, and held up five fingers, then four, three, two-
And Sonic started loudly beeping.
The force field hit them harder when they were closer, apparently. They flew an unreasonable distance backwards, skidding on the sand as they landed. Sonic hopped up, frantically pushing buttons on his wrist until the noise stopped. Everyone had stopped to stare at him. Even the robot looked confused.
“Under control,” Sonic chuckled, then winced from the large crashing noise. Amy stood amongst the wreckage of the robot, hammer in hand.
“Thanks for turning the camera off, Tails!” She said, stepping aside for Eggman to collect the broken pieces.
“I told you you should have used the motion detector, sir,” Orbot pointed out as they flew away.
“Yeah, yeah, shut up,” Eggman grumbled.
“What even was that?” Sticks asked.
“It was my-” Sonic stopped, looking at his wrist, panicked, “drat, it was my alarm! Gotta dash, guys!” He sped off, leaving a hedgehog-shaped dust cloud in his wake.
“Since when did he have an alarm?” Amy asked.
“Since when did he have a watch?”
---
Later that week, Tails was messing around with some tech in his lab when Amy walked in.
“What’cha got there?” She asked, pointing to the multitude of different scraps of fabrics and foams laying over the workbench.
“Sound-proof shoes,” Tails said, holding up a new pair of sneakers, identical to Sonic’s but with slightly thicker soles, “Actual sound-proof shoes. Sonic needs all the stealth he can get apparently.”
Amy chuckled. “You can say that one again. Anyway, do you know where you put the dvd of Comedy Chimp I gave you last week? Sticks wants it.”
“Oh ummm, Sonic was the last to watch it, so probably in the tv stand, but if not, ask him. He should be home right now anyway.”
An empty house greeted Amy when she walked in. No matter, she could find the dvd on her own. But it also seemed to not be in this house. It wasn’t on the tv stand, not on the shelves, not under the couch cushions, not behind the wardrobe. This was getting ridiculous. She did some final cursory checks, before heading back to the workshop.
“Can I look around here? Sonic wasn’t home.” Amy explained. Opening cupboards and drawers without waiting for an answer.
“Sure, go ahead,” Tails said, “That's weird though. He said he’d be home all night. He was insistent about it,” He switched to an impression of Sonic “I’ll definitely be here, and nowhere else, you don't have to check on me, because I'll be here. All night. definitely.”
“And that wasn’t at all suspicious to you?” Amy said, pulling out the dvd, which had been placed under a toolbox.
“No, why would it be?”
---
Tails was starting to see what Amy was talking about. Sonic was disappearing from everything, from lunches, to sports games, even half-way through movie night. Every time he was questioned, he always was vague about his answers, or straight up lied. It was getting on everyone’s nerves.
“Alright, now begins the meeting of the “What’s up with Sonic” club” Amy said, tapping her hammer on the ground for effect.
“Oh come on, we haven’t had this kind of meeting for months!” Knuckles complained, “And the last time we held it, it just turned out he wasn’t eating meh burger because he was ill!”
“Well, illness doesn’t really explain running off with no prior warning every few days” Tails said, writing down what times Sonic was leaving, and what they were doing at the time, trying to draw some correlation.
“Maybe it’s mind control!” Sticks suggested, “There's some frequencies in the air that only hedgehogs can hear, and they make them all go to some secret location, to build an army of hedgehogs!”
“Your theory is solid, Sticks, save for one thing,” Amy pointed out, “I am also a hedgehog. Also, maybe we’re digging too much into his personal life. If Sonic wanted us to know where he was going, he would have told us.”
“You’re probably right, I’m just scared,” Tails admitted, “Eggman has been up to some freaky stuff these days, I don't want Sonic to be getting himself into danger without us knowing about it.”
“But what could he be planning that he needs Sonic for?” Sticks wondered. Knuckles opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by the door opening.
“Hey guys, what you all up to?” Sonic asked. He was slightly out of breath, and had a bandage on his arm. The mystery deepened.
---
After a few weeks with no change, Tails decided that enough was enough. Sonic definitely had a schedule for disappearing, but what for? It was sundown, same time and day that Sonic left last week. Like clockwork, he looked at his watch, looked around, and headed out.
“Where you going?” Tails asked, not entirely expecting an answer.
“Uhh, I’m going on a run,” Sonic lied, “to tire myself out before bed.”
“Since when do you ever get tired from running?”
“It’s gonna be a long run.” Sonic said, only slightly more confidently. He did a few stretches, and then dashed out the door. Tails waited a few seconds, then followed after him.
He stuck to the rooftops, flying from house to house to make sure he wasn’t spotted. Sonic took an arbitrarily complicated route through town, and only slowed down after he’d visited every street possible. He was headed just outside of town, to the warehouses. He passed by every single building, until he reached the empty one at the end of the street. Tails landed on the roof, out of sight but within earshot.
“Hey, bud, sorry I’m late. Yeah, yeah, before you say anything, I know I’m always late. It’s part of my charm, okay.”
Tails shifted slightly. Big mistake. The roof clanged under him, which sounded a lot louder in the relative silence. There was a familiar zzap sound, and Tails realised what was going on - and then got a lot more scared about getting caught. He oh-so-carefully took off, then headed straight back home, wondering just what he was going to do with this information.
---
“One more game?” Tails asked. Knuckles and Amy had been losing soccer that day, they couldn’t resist another chance to even the score. And just as well. Sonic was scheduled to leave in two minutes.
“You’re on!” Knuckles shouted, and Tails grinned.
“Can we save it for later, I got something I gotta do soon,” Sonic said, double checking his watch.
“Aw come on Sonic, it won’t take long for us to beat them, will it? How about we make it first to three goals.”
“That sounds great, I’m about at my limit.” Amy admitted. Sonic considered it for a second, then conceded, letting Sticks blow the whistle and continuing with the game.
Time pressure made Sonic mess up, a lot. He was distracted, too distracted. Tails had to focus entirely on defence to stop them from losing immediately. Five minutes turned into ten, and Amy had scored two goals, and they’d scored none. Sonic finally gave up and just started walking away.
“Guys, I’d really love to stay and finish but really, I gotta g-”
Zzap.
“Scared of losing?” A smug voice said from behind them. Shadow sat on one of the hammocks set up by the pitch. “I thought you were humble enough to admit defeat.”
“Shadow!?” Sticks shouted, “What’re you doing here?”
Shadow looked confused, “Picking up Sonic.” He turned to the hedgehog in question, “You’re late, later than usual.”
“I had- there was- Tails said- soccer,” Sonic tried, not quite looking anyone in the eye. “Ugh, lets just go.” He tried to dash off, but Amy held him back.
“No no no, I wanna know what you’ve been running of to do with Shadow these past few weeks.” There was mumbled agreement from the group, and Shadow looked almost disappointed.
“Are you ashamed of me?” He asked, the softness in his voice catching everyone off guard.
“No, it’s not that,” Sonic said, turning to the group “I just - fine, I’ve been slacking in fights recently. I’m training with Shadow so I can get back on my A-game.”
“And you didn’t tell us that because…?” Amy trailed off.
“I thought you’d be ashamed of me!” Sonic said, “I’m the leader, I should be strong and fast and able to fight well without trying. I didn’t wanna let you guys down.”
“Oh come on, we’d never be ashamed of you!” Knuckles said, clapping Sonic on the back, making him stumble slightly, “Everyone’s gotta train, how do you think I got to be this strong?”
“Honestly, I just thought it was natural,” Sonic laughed, then turned to Tails. “How long have you been onto this, buddy?”
“Honestly, I didn’t know that was what you were doing,” He admitted, “I kinda thought you two were secretly dating.”
There was a round of laughter from everyone else as two hedgehog voices simultaneously shouted “Wait, What!?”