Puzzle Pieces (Shadow The Hedgehog Love Story)

Chapter Seven

We soon had everything packed up and tossed into the Jeep; Shadow grabbed onto my hand tightly and placed his other on the Jeep. "Chaos Control!" A bright light consumed us, and it faded just as fast.
I looked around curiously, wondering which area we had ended up in. "Angel Island?" I titled my head.
He smirked, "Yeah. It is. No one should bother us here as long as we stay out of sight, and don't approach the Master Emerald. If Knuckles finds us, I'll take care of him."
"Technically if there is a flying threat we aren't safe." I poked his nose playfully.
"True, but even then, I'll protect you." He grabbed my wrist and pulled me close.
Suddenly I felt him tickle my sides, without thinking, I smacked his arms away and slammed him into a tree. Once I realized what I had done I felt guilty, and I'm sure I looked it too. "Don't tickle me..." I muttered.
He sighed softly, "... Sorry..." he gently brushed back the quills from my face. "Apology accepted." He could tell I was upset. He looked around for a moment. "Hm...?" He turned towards me for a moment. "Close your eyes for a sec."
I looked at him weirdly, "Why?" I asked.
"Just do it." With a moments hesitation, I obeyed, wondering what he was up to. I heard him walk away and then some rustling of vegetation off in the distance. After it stopped footsteps came towards me and I felt something being placed in my quills. "There."
I opened my eyes and looked at him, "What did you do?"
He grabbed a small mirror and showed me my reflection. A huge beautiful blue and orange flower was holding back my bangs. It had bright yellow filaments with dark brown, yellow pollen dusted, anthers. "Wow... it's so big and pretty. The colours are so intense..."
"And for once, I'll be able to see your face instead of your quills." I slowly pulled up my clothing to hide my face as much as I could. "Really Cat?"
I nodded and hid my face in his fluff. "I feel exposed when nothing is hiding my face, and I feel vulnerable."
"You have no reason to think that." He grabbed onto my shoulders and pushed me back enough to grab a hold of my chin and have me look up at him. He was blushing some. "All I see when I look... Is your beauty..." He looked away, his face getting redder.
He must feel uncomfortable saying those things. I could feel a burning sensation all across my face from blushing. "You're cute... but that sorta sounded cheesy." I stuck out my tongue. This is starting to get a little awkward. I'm thinking about it too much.
He looked at my tongue. "You better put that away before I decide to do something with it."
I slipped it back and intended on remaining a good girl, or at least for a little while. My ears perked up when I heard a twig snap not too far from us. I turned around to see a familiar face. Knuckles? Well this visit was short lived...
"What are you doing here Shadow?" Knuckles asked, clearly annoyed, as usual.
"None of your business." Shadow growled lowly, pushing me behind him.
I sighed and held onto him. "Look, Knuckles, we don't mean any harm, or trouble okay?" I wanted to try and avoid conflict.
"You both don't belong here." He sternly said, "If you're here for the Master Emerald you can forget about it!"
"We can be here if we want to be." Shadow spat out at him.
"We don't want any Emeralds, including the Master Emerald." I tugged on Shadow's quills like a would a dog to try and tell him to stop without using words. He looked back at me briefly.
"Leave, before something follows you, or finds you here. I don't need any more attention being brought to this Island." Knuckles growled.
Shadow looked more pissed off. I knew if I did not do something they were bound to fight. Without much delay, I pulled Shadow close enough to the Jeep and grabbed a hold of it; with haste, I Chaos Controlled without much thought. "I don't want you fighting! I don't need to see you get hurt!" I scolded him.
He scoffed, "Fine..." I could sense there should have been a 'for now' at the end of that. I grumbled under my breath. After a few moments of silence, Shadow quickly broke it; "Um... Cathy? Where are we?"
"Huh?" I looked around finding that there were only plains of grass surrounding us in all directions as far as the eye could see. "I... I don't know..."
"You must, you are the one who used Chaos Control."
"But... I don't know... or at least I don't remember this place..." Puzzled, I tried to search for any memories of this land. I breathed deeply to see if my olfactory sense could aid me, in the end I got no closer. I shook my head some, "I got nothing."
"Well, since we are here, we might as well investigate a little bit... It really doesn't appear to have anything in this area though." He peered at the sky. "We may want to do it tomorrow though... There is only five hours left in the day here, we should make camp, find what we can for fuel, and rest for the night. We'll eat whatever you happened to have packed, hunting here may prove difficult unless you happen to like snake, which I doubt you do."
"Never tried snake, but, unless I'm starving, I'm not big on the idea of eating one. Not right now anyways." I sighed then started to make preparations for the night with Shadow's aid.