𝚖𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚒𝚌 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝟸

ℂℍ𝔸ℙ𝕋𝔼ℝ 𝕊𝕀𝕏

❝ 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 ❞

🦉

"Uh, Sonic? Where are we?"

Midnight mist spread between the trees poking through with a gasp for air not contaminated with the chill of the darkness, catching a clear glimpse of the sky oozing with black as strong as their roots to keep within the dampened soil in the wind.

The cold in the breeze was as sharp as what the three of them had just escaped, the moon struggling to keep an eye on them once Sonic, (Y/n), and Tails vanished into the warmth of an old friend's garage buried in the forest with a lamp outside to radiate with safety.

"Welcome to the Wadecave!" Wade chuckled, hands to his hips with pride. "Which is something I hope to one day say to a woman. A woman who's not my mom."

(Y/n) smiled at her dad's work colleague's jokes, but Sonic stabbed the humour alive in the air with the serious approach he wanted for such a dangerous situation.

"Wade, focus." Sonic commanded with a frown deepened with a mixture of panic and frustration, the desperation to solve such a mystery glowing in his green glare.

With that, Wade withered into silence, crickets thriving in the wild grass outside becoming audible until Sonic continued his instructive explanation of what they needed to do.

"We need to figure out why Knuckles thinks I'm the key to finding the Master Emerald, and why did he mention Longclaw?"

Tails frowned. "There must be a connection."

"Yeah, how else would he know that you have a connection with her?" (Y/n) chirped in, Tails' frown in thought sinking lower in the fuzz of his ivory muzzle with a gloved finger to his chin.

The silence grew in the dimly lit garage until it felt so deafening it would burst the room, but Sonic sliced a thought into it before such a thing could happen.

"Wait a minute, there is." He exclaimed, fingers digging into the small bag carrying his precious rings tied around his shoulder with a tinkle with every touch.

(Y/n) and Tails observed with interest, the little fox's eyes glowing with the hue of a sapphire refusing to blink to form a focused stare to what Sonic whipped from the bag.

It was a crumpled piece of paper with a shade that resembled an ancient scroll, with many mysterious letters and shapes carved into it in thick black lines.

(Y/n) examined the map, so many planets illustrated to the page scribbled out as being unsafe, with Earth circled as the opposite with the mushroom planet labelled to be next.

She subtly smiled, still over the moon that glowed above them that Sonic never had to go there, but also feeling the rage like what would be ablaze in the Sun that Robotnik managed to escape.

"There's an emerald on the map Longclaw gave me. I never knew what it meant before." Sonic explained, thumb that held the map gesturing towards the shape buried in the very corner.

It was indeed a large gemstone, an emerald being an assumption from there being no evocative green available to the page. Some sort of mystical symbols in perhaps an ancient language were neatly engraved above the image, red question marks scribbled in ink that leaked through the weak paper to radiate Sonic's uncertainty of the picture's purpose.

As if the map was aware of its conversational mention, a strange blue light crawled between the black lines constructing the images of both the emerald and the planets.