For The Love of Speed

Chapter 4: In the City

((Author's note: I have quite a bit of this story written already, but I'm still editing the chapters and checking for typos. I don't have a schedule for posting yet. I'm just posting chapters as I get them edited and ready.))

POV: 3rd Person

In the morning Knuckles and Sonic are the first two awake. Knuckles sits up and stretches, thinking to himself 'at least this floor is smoother than the rocks I normally sleep on'. Sonic wakes up, sitting up and stretching his sore back from the barren floor he barely managed to fall asleep on. He goes over to Tails' backpack laying in the corner and quietly rummaged through it, not wanting to wake the sleeping fox up. He enters the barren living room, yawns and stretches again. "Morning Knux. I took the currency thingamajig from Tails' backpack. He's shown me how to use it before, want to help me get us some furniture?" Knuckles nods and gets up from his sitting spot, making his way over to Sonic. They use the machine to generate the cash they need (all 3k from Knuckles' account) and leave the device on the kitchen counter for the others to use if need be. They exit the house, looking for a furniture store.

Tails wakes up and realizes Sonic isn't there anymore, which isn't unusual to him. He makes his way out to the kitchen before remembering they have no food. He yawns and stretches before seeing his currency exchanger on the counter. 'Huh, I guess Sonic must have used this' He thinks to himself, rubbing his tired eyes. Not long afterwards Amy and Rouge emerged from their room. Stretching and groaning "That was the worst sleep I've had in a while!" Amy complained. "Tell me about it" added Rouge. They notice Tails standing sleepily in the kitchen and make their way to him. "Morning, Tails" each of them say. "G'Morning" Tails replies with a yawn.

Shadow wanders out of his room into the kitchen with the others. He sleepily walks to the counter and looks in the cabinets, before slamming his fists down on the counter, rattling the drain stopper in the sink and the currency exchanger still sitting there. "God DAMNIT there's no FUCKING coffee." he complained, growling lowly. Rouge, Amy, and Tails all chuckle quietly to themselves before Rouge pipes up. "Well. We can go find a coffee shop first thing, before we figure out what to do first." He grumbles and nods, holding his temple. Tails picks up his currency exchanger and asks "so, um, who's money should we use?" Shadow grumbles and walks over, grabbing the device. "We'll use mine. How do I work this thing?" Tails nervously reaches his hand out asking for it back. Shadow complies only because he doesn't want to delay his coffee anymore. "Here let me just- and ok, put your finger here so it can read your print. We don't have to do this part every time."

Shadow does as he's told and then crosses his arms "how long is this going to take?" "Just give it a few seconds. There see- holy shIT. H-h-how much do you want to withdraw?" Shadow thinks for a second before answering nonchalantly "just do 25 thousand. Should be enough for now" Amy's jaw nearly drops to the floor, Tails is still in shock as he types it in. Rouge just shrugs, already knowing how rich Shadow is. "How do you have that much?" Asks Tails, his voice cracking. Shadow shrugs and yawns "Apparently it pays to be the prized agent and Ultimate Lifeform. Also I kept demanding raises or I'd kill everyone at G.U.N." Tails nodded "whelp. That'll do it. Can I ask why you want so much out?" "Well, that's not really that much, and I want do do something with it." Shadow collects his money from Tails and the four of them head out to find a coffee shop.

POV: Sonic

Knuckles and I left our house and began wandering the street looking for furniture stores. Luckily we found one a couple blocks from our house. We are currently looking at the couches they had on display. "Ooh how about this one? It's only 200 and it reclines!" I say as I sit down, pulling the lever to put the foot rest up, leaning back. Knuckles nodded "sure, and it's black, so it'll fit with any theme we end up choosing." I smile and get up from the couch, moving over towards the sign. "Should we just get the whole living room set to make it easy? The total only comes to 845." I watch as Knuckles shrugs, still standing there. "Might as well. We do need to get a big enough kitchen table though, so let's go to that section." "Alrighty." I reply as we walk over to the tables they had on display. I find a nice dark wood table that'll sit 6 people "What about this one?" "Sure, but why are you picking dark furniture?" 'Why am I? I mean, it does  look really nice against my hand.' "I dunno I guess it's just something about the darkness of the colors. Maybe it's because it compliments my blue quills?" I chuckle and Knuckles shrugs "yeah. I guess it does. I just didn't think you'd like anything dark. Oh well. At least it all matches nicely."

We continue shopping until we begin to run low on money. The store offers to deliver it to us for free since we spent so much there. We give them the address and money, and walk out the store, looking for more places to explore. While we are walking around we bump into the other four. Shadow was in front walking with his arms crossed and his eyes squinted, Amy and Rouge were walking on either side of Tails chatting with each other while Tails dragged his namesakes, obviously bored of their conversation. "Oh hey, what are you four doing?" I ask. Shadow only grumbles. 'wow, ok, He seems tired' Tails replies with "well Shadow needed some coffee so we were heading out to go find some, we havent had any luck yet though." Rouge smirks "Yeah. Mr grumpy pants over there gets EXTRA grumpy if he doesn't have his coffee"

I see Shadow turn to Rouge and give a low growl that gave me the shivers. "Oh, ok. Well I did see a Coffee shop down the way we just came from, follow me Shads, your coffee awaits." I turn and almost take off into a sprint before remembering what Rouge said. I lower my shoulders and huff quietly then head towards the Cafe at a slow, way too slow for me, pace. Shadow picks up his speed and catches up to me. "Thanks. I was about to give up my search. Dont think this means I like you though." I ignore his glare and continue down the road in silence. After a bit, I see him looking at me confused and almost like he wanted to say something, but I ignore him and he looked away. 'What was that about?' Tails makes his way up to Shadow and I while Knuckles stays back behind the girls. "Thanks Sonic. I was getting tired of listening to the girls talk about different makeup ideas" He shudders a bit and I chuckle at him before we get up to the Cafe.