Return to the Underground

While I Was Gone (Epilogue)

Light flashed through the field as a blue hedgehog and his friends teleported back from their long battle.

"Yes. We're back!" The blue hedgehog turned and dropped to the ground, closing his eyes, smiling. "I could pass out!"

"Sonic," The two tailed fox next to him leaned over the hedgehog. "if you're going to pass out, wait until we get into the house." He looked up to the building in front of them. "You actually landed us in the right spot this time."

"What'd ya mean 'this time'?" Sonic sat up. "I've Chaos Controlled us plenty of places before."

"I seem to remember you landing us a few feet into the air last time you tried it," his elder brother pointed out.

"Okay. So I've had some bumpy landings. And Shads, you did that too." Shadow scratched his ear in concealed embarrassment. Sonic stood up and started walking toward the house. "Come on; let's just get inside."

All of the group followed, including the adoptive families of Sonic, Sonia, and Manic. Sonic had felt that he should show them what it was like in the 'unknown land'. Sonia had told Lady Windermere all about the shops, Manic had told Ferrell about the city, and Sonic had told his family about it all. Of course, he was going to show them.

Sonic dashed in and leapt into his hammock, relaxing. Shadow plopped into his recliner and closed his eyes, resting and trying to block out the large number of people around him. Surprisingly, everyone fit into the living room and sat down, some sitting on the floor.

"I'll be right back," Tails said as he ran to the stairs.

"What'cha doin', bud?" Sonic asked, having to yell from the other side of the room.

"Just grabbin' something," he replied before disappearing up the stairs.

The blue hedgehog looked to his friends, who just shrugged, giving him the same confused look he was giving them. "I guess we'll find out when he gets back. I bet it's some gadget or something he made before all this."

"Well, why don't you tell us more about this place while we wait?" his adoptive mother suggested.

"Sure. Why not?" Sonic looked upward, thinking about what he should start with. This place was so big.

"Start with the space amusement park you told me about. The one that Eggman built," Amy suggested from her seat on the floor. "You didn't tell me much about it when you got back."

"Amusement park? Eggman? Now I'm curious." Manic crossed his legs and put his hands in his lap, like a child getting ready for story time. Shadow perked an ear with interest and half-opened his eyes to listen.

Sonic laughed and got out of his hammock, sitting on the floor. "All right. Me and Tails heard about this amusement park Eggman was supposed to be making in space, so we went to go check it out. It seemed normal at first. In fact, it was kinda fun. But, of course, it was part of some wild scheme. I found a couple of his bots trying to catch these little aliens called Wisps. When I stopped them, one of the Wisps sort of absorbed into me and powered me up, kind of like a battery. Eventually, we learned that he was capturing them so that he could power a mind-control ray." Sonic made sure not to mention the part about Tails being a test subject for it. He really didn't want to talk about that.

"Like how he does with the Badniks?" Sonia asked.

"No, not like that." Sonic sat up straighter. "I said they were like batteries right? Well, Eggman was taking that energy from them and turning them into these weird types of aliens with really freaky energy. That's what he used to power the ray."

"That's awful!" Lady Windermere exclaimed, holding her hand to her mouth in shock. Shadow growled softly, clenching his fist in anger as it briefly glowed with Chaos Energy.