He is My Master

50: A Band of Brothers

                 *******EXCLAIMER*******
I DO NOT OWN THIS NOVEL IM MERELY TRANSFERRING IT TO WATTPAD CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL AND GIVE KUDOS TO AUTHOR Chiisai Kitsune ON FF.NET HERE

     https://m.fanfiction.net/s/4256772/51/

It was dark and lightless in the unfamiliar woods Shadow strode through on his search for a creek, and the only things he could hear were his own breath and sometimes cracks and rustling from behind the trees, noises that could be anything penetrating the night air where moonlight could no longer reach. But he was Shadow the Hedgehog, and the Ultimate Lifeform's walk was the stride of someone who knew that the night held untold terrors, and that he was usually the one causing them.

It was then that he walked into a cactus.

xxx

"..did you just hear anything?"

"No. Why?"

"Nothing..."

Sonic and Knuckles meanwhile were striding towards the campfire, and the hedgehog got a better look at people seated there. They were four in total, all echidnas, although differing quite a bit in age, clothing and demeanour. They sat around the fire on logs in a circle, and Sonic thought that the two closest to him were obviously female, their dreadlocks a bit longer and thinner than the males' and one of them wearing a dress. It was actually the first time he had been able to look at a girl of Knuckles' species properly and tried not to stare – or feel a bit of pity for his friend at home who would never be able to see this scene, remaining the last of his race as a lonely Guardian in the sky.

"Alright. Sit down, I'll get some food," the Knuckles of this dimension said, stepping away and leaving Sonic at the edge of the circle a bit surprised. The other echidnas had looked up at their approach and were now staring at him with unreadable faces, letting Sonic swallow inadvertedly and remember what Knuckles had said about the tribe's stance on slavery. Still, lack of confidence had never been Sonic's problem. Even with a collar around his neck that supposedly denoted him as Shadow's property, he walked up boldly to a gap in the circle, stopping at the edge of the fire.

"Hi!" he said brightly, nodding toward his audience with a grin, "I'm the guy that came here this morning. Sonic's the name and speed's my game, nice to meetcha!"

The response was...slightly underwhelming.

One of the two younger echidnas' glances turned suspicious the moment he had opened his mouth and it didn't get much better from there. One of them was definitely a warrior, his fur bright red like Knuckles' and in age probably about the same, just missing the white crescent mark across his chest. Currently he seemed to be trying to scorch Sonic on the spot with his glare, fingers sliding not-that-subtly over the curved blade hung at his belt. The blue hedgehog raised an eye ridge at the thinly-veiled threat, yet refrained from pointing out that it probably would look more impressive if the red-furred face of the other didn't have small black spots all over it, making it look as if Sonic was being menacingly stared at by a case of seriously angry acne.

Hoooh boy.

The other male did not move at all, and Sonic was wondering whether this meant the guy was already dead. Well, almost, anyway. To the seventeen-year-old hedgehog, the second warrior (was he a warrior?) looked ancient, coat a dark rust-colour like blood that had been spilled a long time ago, battered iron rings encasing some of his dreadlocks and reflecting the fire on a surface that seemed to have been scratched by countless blades in countless battles. Bushy eyebrows were as grey as the beard below his chin, and the gaze from dark violet eyes, while not as hostile as the other's had been, simply seemed to tell Sonic that he had already seen things more interesting to him than the blue hedgehog, and those included everyday rocks. Now it passed over him like a dim searchlight, didn't even bother to meet his eyes, and then the elder was already staring into the fire again, mumbling without seeming to have acknowledged Sonic at all.