Startling Discovery

Shadamy

Startling Discovery Challenge Fic

It was a warm and sun filled day as Sonic the hedgehog relaxed on an overly sized fallen log. His eye closed and his hands folded comfortably behind his head. The shade provided by the trees of the forest he was now on the outskirt of shielding his eyes form the sun's rays. Making it the perfect place to simply lay back and enjoy the piece and quite of nature.

Lazily Sonic lifted his eye and looked over at his nearby friends. From his position on the log he could see his friend Knuckles zooming back and forth along the forest floor on his air board as he practiced dodging various trees and obstacles. While nearby his longtime friend and surrogate brother, Tails, was busy modifying his own air board in increase its overall speed.

It seemed that once again Eggman was holding a extreme gear racing tournament, and like always Sonic and his friends had signed up to compete. Sonic had no doubt that the tournament was a fake and simply meant to be used as a cover for another one of Eggman's overly complicated take over the world plans. Despite the looming danger though Sonic did very little to try and uncover what exactly the would be dictators plans was. He knew that the egotistical scientist would show his hand sooner or later, and when that moment came Sonic would shut him down the same way he always had. However until then he planned to simply kick back and enjoy himself.

As Knuckles raced back and forth with the small area he and his team had set up he suddenly saw something from the corner off his eyes. Slamming on the brakes he came to a sudden stop as he dismounted his board and looked over to see a failure pink figure run by. "Hey isn't that Amy."

Sonic sat up from his position on the log and opened his eyes as he looked to where Knuckles was pointing. Sure enough he saw the unmistakable figure of his friend Amy Rose as she disappeared into deeper parts of the woods.

"Wonder why she headed into the forest?" he said out load.

Tails, his concentration no longer on his board, turned to look at his best friend. "Do you think we should go after here?"

Sonic bit his lip, unsure of what to say. He didn't particular want to go after Amy, afraid she might pounce on him the moment she saw him. However he couldn't help but worry about her safely. The whole tournament was being run by Eggman after all. There was no telling what kind of potential dangers lay hidden around every corner.

"Excuse me Mr. Sonic."

Sonic tore his vision away from the forest and looked over to see their young friend Cream along with her choa standing nearby, looking up at him with pleading eye.

"I'm sorry to bother you Mr. Sonic but have you seen Amy? I can't find her anywhere and I thought that maybe she was with you?"

Tails nodded. "Actually we just saw her run into the forest a little while ago," he said pointing to the nearby trees where that they had seen Amy disappear into.

"Oh my," said Cream in a worried tone.

"Is something wrong?" asked Tails. Hearing the worried tone in the young rabbit's voice.

Cream's face to one of and confusion and she shook her head. "I don't know. Amy's been running off a lot lately since the tournament started and I don't know why. I'm starting to worry that something might be wrong with her," her voice filled with worry and confusion at her friend's strange behavior.

Creams words struck a chord with Sonic as he too had noticed that Amy had been acting a bit odd lately. Though she was still her same happy and energetic self she did not pester him as much as she normally did. Through the entire tournament her integration with him was minimal, only giving him an initial greeting at the opening ceremonies and a friendly hello whenever they passed each other.

Until now Sonic had been happy that Amy was not obsessing and chasing him. It seemed that girl had finally calmed down in her almost stalker like pursuit of his undivided attention. But Cream's confession made him worry that there might be some other reason for Amy's change in attitude one that could be putting her in danger.

Without a second thought he jumped down from his place on the tree landing next to Cream with a reassuring smile. "Don't worry Cream we'll help you find Amy and get to the bottom of what's going on."

Cream smiled happily at the cerulean hero. "Thank you very much Mr. Sonic."
The four headed to the spot where they had seen only moment ago see Amy enter the thicker parts of the forest and ventured inside as they began searching for their pink furred companion. The group searched high and low with Tail and Cream flying up and looking out from the tree tops, and Sonic zooming through the forest as fast. However because of the shear thickness of the forest it was hard for the two flyers to see that far ahead and even harder for Sonic to reach any kind of high speed when he had to constantly turn to avoid all the tree's along his path.

After almost twenty minutes of searching through the thick forest the group had found no sign of their friend.

"Well, well, look who I found."

The group looked up as the familiar form of Rouge the Bat floated down from the tree top and lander next to them.  

"What are you doing way out here Rouge?" asked Sonic, wondering why the bat was so deep in the forest. Especially considering her and her team were set up nowhere near here.

"I could ask you the same question," responded Rouge.

"Where's looking for Amy," said Tails. "She came running in here a little while ago and we don't know why. We've worried that something might be wrong. Have you seen here?"

Rouge shook her head. "Sorry but I've got my own problems. Shadow's been running off a lot lately and I don't know where. Normally I wouldn't care but we've got a race in a few minutes and if he's not with me at the starting line we'll be disqualified."

"That's weird. Cream said that Amy's been doing the same thing," notted Sonic.

"Hey Sonic, do you think Shadow could have something to do with Amy's behavior?" asked Tails.

Sonic nodded. "I'd bet my life on it. It's way too much of a coincidence for to not to be involved."

Knuckles anger began to boil as he quickly realized what must have been going on. "That snake. I bet Shadow's blackmailing Amy so she'll take a dive and he'll have a better chance of winning the tournament."

Tails looked at his best friend. "Do you think that's true Sonic?"

Sonic frowned and shook his head.. "I don't know Tails. I sure hope not. Shadow may not be the most moral person in the world is but I'd hate to think that he'd stoop to something so low a blackmail just to win a racing tournament."

Suddenly Cream heard a noise coming from somewhere nearby and lifted her ear to the source of the sound.

Tails noticed Cream was no longer paying attention to the conversation and saw that her attention had shifted away from them and was now looking even deeper into the forest. "What is it Cream?"

"I hear something. It's coming from over there." Cream lifted her ear higher, trying desperately to better make out the sounds she was hearing. She could just make out a soft but unmistakable laugh. "It's Amy."

The five rushed through the forest as Cream directed them toward the source of the sound. Soon the other also heard the voice and knew that it was indeed Amy they were hearing. It didn't take them long to reach the source of the sound a Sonic pulled back a curtain of leaves to reveal the source of the sound.

What they saw was not any of them expected to find. Standing underneath the shade of a nearby tree was Amy with her arms wrapped gently around Shadow's neck as Shadow had his arm wrapped around her waist. Amy had dreamy smile on her face the likes of which the group had only ever seen when Sonic himself was around. Even more shocking was the fact that Shadow had an equally rare look of happiness on his face.

The others were completely flabbergasted what they were seeing. Sonic and Knuckle's jaws completely dropped and would have hit the ground if not connected to their face. Tails and Cream's eyes both went wide as dinner plates. Cream's choa Cheese was so surprise that he forgot to continue flapping its tiny wings, not even noticing as he fell to the ground with a plop. Rouge, while being the least shocked, was still completely taken aback by the unexpected sight in front of her.

It took only a second for Shadow to take not of the groups presence as his face turned from one of joy to anger in a split second as he glared at the  looked over at the source, his eyes going wide when he spotted the nearby group starring at them with slag jaws.

Amy saw the chance in Shadow's and expression and looked over to where the dark hedgehog was looking. Her eyes went wide and face turned a deep shade red when she saw all her friends starring at her in complete bewilderment and a single word escaped her open mouth. "Crap."

Despite the compromising position they were in Amy smiled shyly and tried to act as though everything was normal. "Um, hi guys. What are you doing here?"

The others said nothing, too shocked to utter even a word speak.

The continued starring of her friends caused Amy to become more and more nervousness. Her heart began to race, her stomach dropped, and her body began to shack as she feared what her friends would say now that they had found out her secret.

Finally Cream managed to find her voice as she awkwardly approached her closest female friend. "Amy, does this mean that you and Mr. Shadow are dating?"

Amy's cheeks turned deep red as she answered her young friend. "Yes Cream we are."

Cream wasn't sure what to say. She had always found Shadow to be somewhat frightening but Amy seemed to be happy with the ebony and Cream didn't want to make her friend sad by voicing her fears. "Ok Amy. I guess you know what you're doing."

As the initial shook began to wear off Rouge could help but snicker at the odd but somehow cute scene. "Wow Shadow, I didn't know you were into younger women. I guess this explains why you always give me the cold shoulder."

Shadow growled, not appreciating Rouge's séance of humor. He walked away from Amy and past Rouge as he headed to leave the forest. "Come on. I believe we have race soon correct."

Still chuckling to herself Rouge fallowed after the ebony hedgehog. She could wait till after the race to tease him further about this.

As Rouge and Shadow walked away Amy slowly approached the still stunned cobalt hedgehog. "You're not mad are you Sonic?"

Sonic blinked, still trying to wrap his mind around what he had just seen. He saw Amy looking at him with her large pleading eyes, obviously worried about how he would react. He shook his head before flashing the girl a friendly smile and giving a thumbs up. "Of course not Amy. Shadow's a great guy and I'm glad you finally found someone."

Amy smiled happily. "Really." She had been so worried about Sonic's reaction to the fact that she had found someone else to love. She thought that he would become enraged with jealously and attack Shadow the moment he saw them. Or at the very least he would yell at her for dating someone who had once been a deadly enemy, and was still somewhat of a rival to him.

Sonic nodded. "Ya, now I can stop worrying about you tackling me every time you see me."

Amy frowned in anger and flooded her arms across her chest in a very Shadow like form. "Thanks a lot," she grumbled

Sonic realize he had crossed a line and put a hand on Amy's shoulder, prompting her to look at him as he spoke. "Seriously though Amy. I really am happy for you."

Amy smiled a genuine smile and hugged the cerulean hero.

For once Sonic didn't run away and even hugged her back somewhat. However after a few second Amy hadn't let go and Sonic softly pushed her away, grateful that she didn't struggle to continue to hold him like she normally did.

Amy blushed as she let go of the heroic hedgehog. "Sorry about that. Force of habit."

Sonic smiled and shrugged. "It's cool. How about we go grab a bit to eat. You're treat."

Amy rolled her eyes but agreed, and the two headed out of the woods with Cream and her choa fallowing behind.

Unfortunately none of them realize that they had left the still shocked Tails and Knuckles standing in the middle of the forest.