Hop To It - Advance 14

[Shadow]

“Shads, can you set that speaker down--right there, yeah.”

Shadow adjusted the large speaker slightly, angling it back out towards the bleachers. “Is this good?”

“Looks good to me, man, but the sound guy will look over it later,” Ringo said. “Man, I’m glad you’re here. You’re a lot stronger than you look.”

Shadow looked at his thin arms, idly comparing them to the other stage crew. He didn’t think they looked any more muscular than him, but on the other hand it took two of them to lift the same speaker, and they still seemed to struggle more than him.

He shrugged. “I suppose.” He walked back to the truck to grab another and continued in that vein for about ten minutes until the truck was empty.

While he did that, Ringo drove his motorcycle around the stadium they’d arranged for the event, getting a feel of the terrain. Shadow watched him jump a few small ramps as he worked.

Ringo weaved between posts, tricked off his bike, and took one huge jump that cleared eight ramps at once. Shadow caught himself twitching a little as he watched.

The truck was empty, and the other two crew members were wandering off for their lunch break, so Shadow tapped his shoes against the ground, and started running.

Ringo squawked when Shadow blitzed past him, bringing the bike to a halt as he took his turn to watch. The black hedgehog jumped from hill to hill, took a flying leap off the big ramp and landed perfectly on the receiving ramp. The parrot grinned and clapped. “Go for it, dude!”

Shadow must have heard him, because he pivoted and ran for the nearest halfpipe, gliding over it and straight up into the air, climbing higher, and higher… Ringo had to put a hand over his eyes to see him against the sun.

He whistled. “Dude…”

In defiance of physics, Shadow came back down faster than when he left, blue sparks arcing between his quills as he came to a stop, breathing a little heavily. He brushed the sparks out of his fur by the time Ringo approached, and accepted the light punch in the shoulder stoically.

“Shads, if you wanted a part in the show, you just had to say so!” Ringo said cheerfully.

Shadow looked away. “No, no, that’s fine. I had my fun.”

“C’mon, you’re a natural.” Ringo shrugged, not pressing the issue further than that. “What was that zappy thing you did?”

Shadow frowned, looking at his hand. “I don’t know. I just… wanted to go faster, and it happened.” It was easy, too. Felt natural.

“Think you could do it again?”

“...” Shadow focused on the feeling, trying to grab it again.

It came to him almost as soon as he reached for it, though the energy that surged to his hand was distinctly pink, not blue. It crawled up his arm to his hand, making his muscles shake, and Shadow’s eyes widened. He pointed his hand away from the both of them, and a lance of pink light shot from his palm and struck one of the dirt mounds on the track, exploding on impact and carving a foot-deep trench in the ground.

Shadow and Ringo stared at the trench in shock. The hedgehog looked at his hand, eyes wide.

“Do that again.”

“Huh?”

Ringo was grinning widely. “Do that again, straight up!”

“Are you sure?” Shadow asked, looking at the damaged ground again. “What if--”

“Dude, trust me. This is going to be awesome.”

“Very well.” Shadow grabbed on to the power a second time, and now knowing what to expect, he aimed his palm at the sky and fired.

It flew for two seconds, and then popped like a firework. Pink and yellow particles floated down around them like glowing confetti, and Ringo laughed excitedly.

“Shadow, my man, that was amazing! You gotta do that for the show! Pyrotechnics on demand!”

Shadow smiled. It was pretty cool, but… “I don’t know. Didn’t Penelope want to keep me a secret?”

Ringo waved the question away. “Nah, man, she wanted you to keep a low profile. If she wanted you to be secret she wouldn't have let you leave our apartment.”

“...And this would be keeping a low profile because?”

“Duh. The attention’s going to be on me. No one pays any mind to the fireworks guy when they can be looking at the fireworks,” he said, sounding completely sure of himself.

Shadow wasn’t sure he had that same level of confidence. He looked at his hand, and the dark pink smoke curling off of it. “Do you think she’s having any luck finding out more about me and where I came from?”

Ringo blinked at the change in subject, quieting down. “Oh, uh. Probably. Penny’s good at her job.” He flashed a thumb’s up. “We’ll figure you out, man. Don’t even sweat it. And in the meantime, we’re having fun, right?”

Shadow considered that. Was he having fun? “I guess.” Yes, on the whole he was. He was travelling, getting to see free shows, and was making friends. Things could be a lot worse. “...I’m still not sure about the ‘fireworks’ though.”

Ringo blew a raspberry. “Worrywart. You’re worse than Penny. Tell you what, you at least do some practice runs with me with that pretty flashbang of yours…” He pointed back at his bike. “...and I’ll teach you how to ride. Whaddya say?”

Shadow blinked rapidly, then smirked. He did not grin like a dope, he was too cool for that. “I’m sold.”

“Awesome! So first thing first, let’s get you a helmet…”

--------------------------------

[Penny]

Shadow. Walking mystery, even to himself.

There had to be some deep dark secret surrounding him. There had to be. He barely knew what roads were. His Air Shoes were a design from fifty years ago yet seemed to outperform most modern models. He claimed to have amnesia and just appeared in the middle of the woods before wandering into a desert, after G.U.N.’s official report said that he died falling from orbit… something that aligned with Heyu’s testimony, but that couldn’t be right. Could it? He was right here, perfectly fine.

Penny wasn’t even certain if he actually had amnesia, or was faking it to avoid some sort of consequences. He had that vibe about him. The only thing he was able to remember aside from his name was a human girl named Maria, and that was nearly useless!

What did she know about the ARK incident? Eggman teams up with Shadow, yes, and a double agent named Rouge. Someone in G.U.N. changes Tower’s orders to catch Shadow to be about Sonic instead, getting those guys involved. Then??? And then Heyu’s kid gets kidnapped, Heyu goes to rescue her, and the two of them sneak into Eggman’s base to teleport(?!) to the ARK. Meanwhile, Sonic and friends are tracking down Eggman separately, they all meet up on the space station, Shadow has a change of heart, a big monster happens, and Shadow… against all odds, doesn’t die.

Heyu’s explanation of events was barely different. The only useful bit of additional information he gave was that Shadow was born on the ARK, but he wouldn’t give more details than that because they ‘weren’t important.’ Something about not wanting to air Shadow’s dirty laundry out of respect for the dead. Except Shadow wasn’t dead and would like to know his past almost as much as Penny would, but Heyu didn’t know that because--

Penny groaned and banged her head on her desk. “Me and my stupid temper.”

A snicker behind her pulled her out of her misery, and Penny sat up to glare at her coworker, a dark blue cat named Shelby, another columnist. Well, ‘coworker.’ She described herself as a freelancer, but since she lived in Empire City she ended up working for the Imperial Tribune more often than not. Most of the time she ended up doing restaurant reviews.

“Boyfriend causing you trouble again?” Shelby asked, hopping up to take a seat on her desk. “How… dreadful.”

“Haha, haha…” Penny said, deadpan. “That one never gets old. For your information, no, Ringo is on tour right now.”

“Oh, I see. So your nest isn’t as warm as usual, is that it?” tittered the cat.

“No!” Penny sighed. “I’ve been trying to crack this case for months now, and I keep taking one step forward and three steps back.”

Shelby stood up, inspecting her computer. “You still on that Shadow guy? I thought you found him?”

Penny’s eyes widened. “Ssshhh! I told you to keep it quiet!”

The cat rolled her eyes. “Please. Everyone went out for coffee. It’s just you, me and the obituary guy, and he’s deaf.”

Penny blinked, then pushed her chair back and leaned out to look over the rest of the room. True enough, the only occupied desk aside from hers was Horace’s. The old man very slowly wrote out tomorrow’s death toll on a typewriter that looked as ancient as he was.

The crow sighed. “Yes, fine then, it’s about Shadow. I told you about his memory, right?”

“Mhm.”

“Assuming he’s telling the truth, I think there’s only three people in the world who could tell me anything about his past.” She held up one finger. “Commander Tower, who was also born on the ARK and who definitely didn’t tell us everything he knows--”

“And so won’t be likely to tell us now just because some journalist asks,” Shelby added, nodding.

Another finger. “Dr. Eggman, whose grandfather practically built the ARK--”

Shelby shuddered. “I don’t need to say why that’s not an option.”

The third finger went up. “And Hayden Fiver, my friend from college, who was on the ARK and actually went exploring while Sonic was fighting Eggman, who met Shadow, but who won’t tell me anything I can use!”

Shelby looked bored, and took a moment to inspect her claws. “...You could always, you know. Tell him Shadow’s alive.”

The series of expressions that twisted Penny’s face over the next several seconds were a sight to behold, and Shelby wasn't quite able to stop herself from laughing.

“Ugh. I can’t tell him now, after pulling that on him. I’ll look like a petty jerk.”

Shelby, obligingly, did not mention that continuing to withhold the information was, in fact, very petty, and instead shrugged. “Well, he’ll find out either way once your boytoy makes it to Station Square, what with his new roadie following him.”

Penny groaned, letting her head fall back onto the desk.

“I don’t know why you’re so set on this Shadow story now anyway,” Shelby mused, mostly to herself. “It’s old news by now. Heyu is the real mystery now.”

“Is he?” Penny asked, muffled.

“Him and that mouse of his? They’re in a lot of papers at Station Square, and some of the forums I follow.” The cat smirked. “He’s in that recording G.U.N. showed everyone, but he never gets mentioned by name, which--given the company he keeps in the video? The conspiracy nuts are looking for any info they can find. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to--”

“I’m not going to sell my friend’s information without his permission, no matter how unjustly mad I am at him.” Penny was aware that she was being ridiculous, but she still knew where to draw the line. “And I don’t care about writing the article anymore, not really. Shadow was a nice kid when I met him. If I can help him get some memories back, that’s good enough for me.”

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, before Penny sighed again.

“But you’re right. He’ll find out sooner or later. I should at least have Ringo tell Shadow about him. One of the two sides of this problem should know what to expect.”

Shelby nodded sagely. “Very true, yep. Now, are you sure that you can’t--”

The crow snorted. “Shel, if you want to investigate so badly, maybe you should go to Mystic Ruins yourself. Heyu said they’ve got a small bar going on down there now, so you’ve got the excuse.”

“Oh really? Hm. I might just end up doing that.” Shelby’s eyes narrowed. ”I’ve always wanted to find a cryptid.”

-------------------------------------

[Heyu]

“I would while away the hours, conferring with the flowers, consulting with the rain…”

I closed my eyes and rotated the rings in my hands, concentrating. I started them spinning, and for a second I almost felt like I could feel something leave me… and then it entered again, and the sensation fell away. I added more rings, to see if that would solve it. I had a theory.

“And my head, I’d be scratchin’ while my thoughts were busy hatchin’ if I only had a brain…”

…Aha. I felt it again. Still fleeting, but I definitely felt something that time.

“Oh I… could tell you why… the ocean’s near the shore. I could think of things I’d never thunk before.”

On my desk next to my little ring device, I had a handful of yellow shards. I grabbed one and set it to hovering between my hands. Now this I could feel. It was an almost electric feeling that set my fur on end.  The second I even thought about it, I could feel something crawling down my left arm, vanishing out of my hand, and then reappear in my right and crawl back up. It was a circuit, very definitely. The shard of the fake Emerald was simply stronger than the tiny amount of energy held within the rings, and was easier to feel. It was a crutch, but sometimes you need a crutch when you can’t walk on your own. I’d get there.

If you looked at it from a purely materialistic standpoint, the experiment was a complete success. I managed to improve my chaos sensitivity just enough that I could begin to train it the hard way, which was all I really wanted anyway, and Humi got a dozen chaos shards that were basically just recharging, more stable chaos drives. Arguably more useful than a single fake emerald. She already switched one out with the battery that was in my Y-Mi before, so now it would never run out of power. That was great!

I ran my tongue over my teeth before singing the next line. “And then I’d th--sit. And think th--some more.” I winced at the lisp. I hoped that would go away as I got used to it. I didn’t remember anything that happened the other night, but I had a little reminder in the form of my enlarged buck teeth.

Talk about stereotypes.

As side effects go, it wasn’t the worst I could have ended up with. For all I knew even that would go away with time.

Focus.

I set the shard aside and returned to the rings, shoving all other thoughts out of my mind, and started revving one up.

…

…

…there.

I could feel it! A tiny spark, jumping from my finger onto the ring, flowing through it, around once, twice, and then back into my other hand. I felt it!

Oop, headache. That’s fine, I just wanted to try one more thing; I brought the ring to a stop, then spun it in the other direction, then stopped it again. That done, I tried to… Well, what I did was adjust my hands. I’d already figured out through playing around that once I’d gotten it started floating, I didn’t actually need to keep the ring between my finger-rings--ugh, saying the word ring so much makes it stop sounding like a word. I’m going to call the ones I’m wearing my foci from now on--I didn’t need to keep the ring between my foci to keep it afloat once I got it started. Now that I could pay proper attention… the flow of energy got a lot more complex, wrapping around like--well, it was hard to describe, but I could definitely tell it was moving weird. What if I…

While holding the ring in front of my hands, I made the gesture for spinning, but only with my left hand. And instead of making a complete circuit back into my body, the chaos flowed into the ring and stayed there. And got bigger.

The ring went from two inches across to five, when suddenly I felt absolutely exhausted, and I dropped my hands to let the ring clatter on the floor.

“Heh. Hehehe.” Despite the tiredness I suddenly felt, I couldn’t help but grin. I was making progress again. If I could make rings bigger, I could do all sorts of things. Smaller, too. I had a sudden vision of myself, as a superhero, using size-shifting rings as makeshift handcuffs after using huge ones to beat some fool criminal over the head…

I snickered at myself. Silliness.

…

But my smile fell away as I remembered the other thing. Humi was taking the monster thing a lot harder than I was.

My ears twitched, and I stood up from my desk with a grunt. I could hear someone picking about the warehouse, and I was hopeful that that meant she was feeling better. I stepped into the space, looking around.

My ears led me to a pile of parts that included a broken clock, an old boombox, and a CRT TV with a broken screen. A lamp fell off the top of the pile, and I caught it before it could shatter on the ground. “Hey, careful now.”

A head stuck out of the junk, and I frowned. It wasn’t Humi, it was just that Kiki she put back together. What did she call it?

“Hello, Cavendish,” I said. He didn’t look much like Kiki anymore, aside from being a monkey. The original Kikis had an exaggeration of Mobian proportions, while Cavendish here could have been mistaken for a regular monkey if he wasn’t bright red and shiny. I doubted that this is what he was going to look like forever though; I’d seen her sketches.

She was going to call him Coconuts, until she realized Robotnik had already used that name for a model of badnik.

The robot monkey hooted once in greeting, then returned to collecting parts and grabbed the boombox, dragging the lot over to an empty patch of floor and taking it apart, then methodically started putting it back together.

I stood watching him work for a second, then looked up out the nearest window, squinting. I could see Iota and Spud standing over that big hole that… the wererabbit had made, arguing over how best to fix it. As I watched, Fry made his way over to throw in his two cents, and I considered adjusting my ears to listen in…

I shook my head. I was making excuses now, but I was not going to procrastinate any further on this. “Cavendish, do you know where Humi is?”

The monkey paused long enough to point up towards our loft, and I nodded.

“Of course. Thank you.”

“Oohoo-ook.”

I climbed up the stairs, not wanting to startle anyone with a jump. She probably knew I was coming anyway, but… Anyway, I stepped out into the area we were still using as our bedroom and saw her immediately, sitting on my bed, looking utterly dwarfed in the middle of an ocean of fabric that even Big could spread out on and not touch the sides of. She was sewing something, small enough that I couldn’t tell at first glance what it was.

With a pause, I glanced at the hammock she still slept in and grimaced. She said she liked sleeping like that but I should really try to press the matter of getting her a real bed. I didn’t feel good having this huge antique frame while she slept like she was camping. One problem at a time.

I sat down on the bed, gently so as to avoid disrupting her work, and then had the awkward task of scooting over until I was properly sitting next to her.

“Hey there, packrat.”

“Mm.”

Responding with a grunt. Off to a great start. I leaned over to see what she was working on and blinked in surprise. “Hey, isn’t that Tails’ logo?”

She smiled, just slightly, and held up the patch she was working on. “Yep. I’m making him an aviator jacket for his birthday, and this’ll go on the shoulder. Or maybe the breast pocket, I haven’t decided yet.”

I smiled and nodded, though my brow was furrowed. “That’s cool. Really cool, actually. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

“I hope so.” She muttered something else under her breath, and I chose not to hear it for now.

I scratched my cheek. “So, did you finish the Y-Mi you were making for him, too?”

She paused, then continued sewing like I hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know if it’ll be ready yet.”

“You knocked mine out in an afternoon, though.” I pulled one of the shards out of my pocket. “That’s the whole reason we--”

She flinched when I took the crystal out, so I stopped talking and stowed it away again. Instead, I opted to pull her into a hug.

“Listen, Humi. You know I’m okay, right?” I said quietly.

“...Yeah. Now.”

“And I know things got crazy but…” I hesitated. How was I supposed to reassure her when I couldn’t remember what happened? Big said no one got hurt, and I didn’t think he’d lie to me, but being scared wasn’t something you should just wave away. “...Look. We pushed that machine to do something it wasn’t meant to do, and something unexpected happened. We’re not going to do it again, are we?”

“No!”

I leaned back at the sudden shout. “Right. So we don’t need to worry about it, right?”

She didn’t answer, and I sighed.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Lith--Listen to me,” damn lisp, not now, “I hate seeing you blame yourself for this, especially when the experiment was my idea.”

“But it was my machine,” Humi responded, not looking at me. “I should have done better.”

“I shouldn’t have worn my rings.”

“I should have tested it on, like, a Mobini first.”

“I volunteered.”

“You got bruised and banged up!”

“I could have done worse to you, or to Cream, or to the fox or Spud or Big,” I said, berating myself, how was that making it better. “I would gladly take those bruises and worse if it means you were defending yourself.”

Humi huffed angrily. “I… don’t want to talk about this.”

“...Okay.” I watched her finish the patch. “...Do you think you could finish that faster with a sewing machine?”

“We don’t have a sewing machine.”

“Not yet,” I said, “But you could make it an hour, I bet, and then the jacket would be a breeze.”

“I don’t want to build anything right now. I’ll just mess it up again,” she said morosely.

…

I took a mental step back and reminded myself that Humi was ten, and a child wasn’t going to have a logical reaction to… to trauma, oh Gaia did I traumatize my own daughter?

Shaking that unpleasant thought away, I grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her to face me, to only minor protest. “Humi. Packrat. You amazing, wonderful little rodent,” I said, looking her straight in the eyes. “We were messing with chaos, something neither of us--something no one knows anything about. Everything else you’ve ever made has worked beautifully, and even when it doesn’t, I’ve seen you laugh off explosions before.” Very seriously, I said, “You are a genius.”

She frowned and tried to look away. “But I hurt you…”

I moved to maintain eye contact. “A genius. You can make a sewing machine. I believe in you.”

She stared at me. Then she snorted. “You’re a dork.”

Letting her go, I leaned back with a small smile. “Maybe so, but you’re a nerd.”

Humi chuckled, still a little subdued, but at least she was smiling. She crawled to the side of the bed and jumped down, and I followed her.

She sighed and went to the stairs. “I guess you’re right, anyway. I need a machine if I want this done by the party.”

I rustled her hair. “It’ll all be fine, I promise. You know, I had a scare like this when I was your age, where I was playing basketball--”

“Getting hurt playing a sport is not at all like turning your dad into a werewolf, pops,” she said flatly.

“...Ah. Have I told you this story before?” I turned my head as we reached the ground floor, and Humi whistled to call Cavendish over. My ears twisted as I listened.

Humi noticed me listening and asked, “Is something going on?”

“...The Vespas are watering the flower garden, Fry is trying to convince Spud to let him shore up his tunnels--you should maybe work on that digger robot next.”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.”

“Shelldon is trying to buy Spud’s potatoes for vodka, but apparently he doesn’t believe in money--”

She actually laughed, startled. “What?”

I grinned back. “And finally, we have a visitor.”

“Is Fritz back? He wandered off after… everything, and I wanted to talk to him about--”

Our door slammed open, and a pink hedgehog walked in. “Helloooo Heyu and Humi!”

Humi brightened considerably and ran to give her a hug. “Amy!”

I waved. “Howdy, stranger.”

Amy clapped her hands once twice. “Okay, Sonic is taking Tails out on a run--that’s what they do every birthday--and we’ve got three days before Tails comes here, so we’ve got that long to prepare for his party.”

“Ooh, I should get some cake mix.”

Humi rolled her eyes at me. “Let’s just make Fry bake it.”

“I can bake a cake,” I said, a little offended.

“As good as Fry?”

“...Maybe.”

“Hey, focus!” Amy said, snapping her fingers. “No goofing around, I want this whole village covered in streamers! And balloons, and confetti, and a whole picnic, all for Tails!”

I raised an eyebrow, wondering how many people she was inviting. That sounded like an awful lot to clean up. But then I looked down at Humi, who almost looked like herself again bouncing in place excitedly, and I sighed. “Well if we’re doing all that, we should get started. Three days might just barely be enough time.”

“That’s right!” Amy agreed. “So chop chop, hop to it!”

Eh?

“Hey…”