Shooting Star (A Sonic Movie Fanfic: Book 1 of the Real World Chronicles)

Ch. 21: Mini-Break

Willow, Tom, and Jojo all stared at Sonic's unconscious form that laid on the kitchen counter.

"He's gonna be okay, Jojo," Tom tried to ease his niece, who sat in a chair. Just then, Maddie walked in with her human and animal first-aid kits.

"Oh, thank golly. He's gonna be okay, right?"

She set her things on the counter. "I'm a vet, Tom. I don't even know what I'm looking at here." She gestured to Sonic.

"He's a hedgehog." Tom shrugged a bit. "Or so he says."

"It talks?"

"Almost constantly. Willow hardly talks at all," he pointed at the mint green-haired girl. "Think we can now all bet why she caught us off-guard." Tom chuckled a little at his joke. All he got was a death look from Willow, so he just decided to let it pass.

"Okay," Maddie pinched Sonic's right wrist and checked her watch. "Holy..."

"What?"

"His pulse is super fast."

"That actually might be normal for him," Tom guessed. "I don't know. You gotta help him, Maddie."

"I don't know his physiology," she explained as she felt around the hedgehog's body for any injuries. "He doesn't seem to have any broken bones. He's just... really banged up." Maddie carefully took off his worn-out tennis shoes and could only gasp.

"Oh, look at his poor little feet."

Willow and Jojo both looked with worried faces at the few large tears in Sonic's socks. His shoes didn't speak out any better; they were very old and mismatched, borrowed, perhaps. One of them, which was a croc, Jojo picked up and found the large gaping hole where the sole should be. The only thing holding it together was duct tape. 'Must've been from all that running,' thought Willow as she watched Jojo trace the hole with her fingers.

"Hang in there, buddy," they heard Tom say to Sonic. "You're gonna be alright."

Putting the shoe down, Willow watched Jojo get out of her chair and leave the kitchen. "Where are you going?" she cocked her head.

Rachel, now awake and all tied up in jump-rope in a living room chair, watched her daughter go by. She firmly commanded, "Jojo? Untie your mother--" She quickly changed tactics and cooed lovingly, "Jojo! Untie Mommy.~"

Jojo ignored her and went upstairs.

"Sweetie. Jojo!" Rachel looked around and mumbled nervously, "I have to go to the bathroom..."

She heard someone snigger in the kitchen. "I heard that!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Willow quickly stopped her laughter and turned her focus back on Maddie performing her magic on the hedgehog.

"He's gonna be okay, right?" she heard Tom keep asking Maddie. "He'll snap out of this. He'll wake up soon?"

His face then lit up. "Oh, smelling salts!"

'Smelling salts?' thought Willow.

"Don't you have, like, vet smelling salts, like, for cats or parakeets or something?"

"No. They don't make cat smelling salts," Maddie shook her head.

"They should."

"I have human smelling salts in my human first-aid kit." She reached under Tom, unzipped her red bag and pulled out a clear twig. 'That's what a smelling salt is?' thought Willow.