The next morning, pretty early though, Sonic woke up to the noise of Shadow's communicator beeping like crazy before the hybrid finally picked up the incoming call.
"Yes, doctor?" Shadow spoke to the communicator, already being active as he checked their little camp, snuffed out the fire and got ready for their departure to their next potential destination in an attempt to locate another chaos emerald on the way.
"Shadow, I located a chaos emerald nearby where you currently are. I am sending you the coordinates right now," Eggman could be heard from the communicator and Shadow looked at the display, pressing a button he opened the file with the coordinates.
"I'm on it, thank you, doctor," he replied politely.
"Good luck, Shadow. I will search for another in the meantime," Eggman replied before the line died.
"Ughhh, what's the time?" Sonic asked rather lazily as he just now sat up and rubbed his aching head. He went to sleep very late last night and thus did not get enough rest and it was all because of his busy mind constantly making him overthink stuff and wonder. Mainly about Shadow's sudden shift in behavior.
"8 am, come on, we got another chaos emerald to get," Shadow glanced down at him, getting rather impatient, for he believed, that someone else might find the emerald and snatch it before them.
"Shaaads, I need to sleep for a bit longer," Sonic whined, having a terrible dark circles under his eyes due to the lack of sleep.
"Stop damn whining and get up, else I go there alone! I don't care," Shadow growled at him angrily this time, unable to stand whiners, including Sonic, if he became one.
"Geez, fine, fine! I'm getting up, okay?" Sonic rolled his eyes in annoyance, standing up he had to take a moment, because his head decided to make him feel dizzy. Afterwards, another problem appeared - his stomach instantly grumbled, announcing him about his hungry situation. Placing his hand over his peach belly he looked at Shadow with nervous expression on his face, not daring to complain this time, as he didn't want to poke the beehive in form of the dark hybrid again.
"We will find something to eat, then we go, alright?" Shadow said calmer now as he softly patted Sonic's head before walking through the jungle, again wielding the spear, this time rather for a possible defense, if it was needed, than a hunt. Sonic gave him a quick nod and followed him. Soon, they discovered the same tree with the dragon fruits, so they tore off a few of the fruits and peeling them they both ate them until they felt full.
They walked all the time, as they couldn't afford to stop even for a minute. Shadow checked the map in his communicator and grinned for himself.
"We're close," he announced to his companion.
"Oh, cool," Sonic replied monotoneously, not sounding really excited about it. Shadow ignored that fact for now, as he kept walking now in faster pace the closer they were to the chaos emerald. Eventually, the two hedgehogs ended up standing in a meadow full of flowers and various types of plants. The dot in Shadow's communicator pulsed intensively now, indicating about their location being correct.
"Alright, let's dig in and-"
"Shadow, look! Over there, in the bush!" Sonic pointed at the bush and speeded off towards it, seeing a light blue bright glow coming from it he smiled just as brightly and gripped the chaos emerald. However, pulling it out of the bush was somewhat difficult due to some force holding it back. Wait, not only that - someone else was pulling it in the opposite direction!
"What the... hey! This emerald... is... urgh, MINE!" Sonic gripped the emerald tightly with both hands and finally managed to pull it out of the bush along with something big, which collided with him and caused him to fall on the ground with the big - actually another mobian - landing on top of him. It was a mobian male kangaroo, who kept his grip on the emerald as well, refusing to let go of it.
"Back off! We found the emerald, it is OURS!" Sonic yelled at the kangaroo, who seemed to wear only a loincloth on his waist, makeshift leaf-made fingerless gloves, matching sandals and a necklace made of strong bast decorated by multiple claws and sharp canines. Except for such minimal clothing of the mobian, he also had various white markings on his dark maroon fur and an apricot shaded skin tone, which was visible on his muzzle, neck, chest, belly, palms, feet and the bottom side of his exceptionally strong and well built tail. All his paw pads were black along with his nose and his eyes were bright amber.
"Get off my boyfriend!" Shadow, who watched the scene in shock for the whole time - until he snapped out of it - exclaimed and brought a strong punch towards the kangaroo, only to miss and stumble over Sonic's body due to the mobian using his strong tail to quickly jump out of the way and thus dodge the attack from the protective hybrid.
"No! Me find the Shiny! My Shiny!" the kangaroo finally spoke up while standing in a fair distance from the hedgehogs.
Sonic stood up and definitely now forgot about his sleepiness, whilst Shadow slowly came out of the bush he ended up landing in due to the kangaroo dodging his attack. He had sticks and leaves stuck in his fur and quills, but he did not mind it at the moment.
"No way, man! The emerald is ours, we found it with our tracker!" Sonic opposed while wielding the brightly glowing light blue chaos emerald in his hand.
"What is tracker?" the kangaroo asked while tilting his head and raising his eyebrow in confusion. But before the hedgehogs could give him an answer, there was a strong net thrown at them and it trapped them inside, followed by some yells and battle cries, as more mobians like this kangaroo showed up, obviously celebrating their little success at capturing the strangers and helping their tribe mate. Both Sonic and Shadow tried to make their way out of the net before the hybrid used the teleportation to get them out of the net, which surprised many of the kangaroos, but it did not fully stop them, as they tied the both hedgehogs' hands up behind their backs afterwards and held them hostage.
"Good move, Shadow," Sonic scoffed while struggling against the weirdly strong kangaroos.
"Shut up!" Shadow growled while doing the same and even kicking some of the mobians, which made them grin and soon laugh in response, which completely stunned the both hedgehogs, who watched them in disbelief. They are trying to save their own lives here and the mobians dare to laugh at them?
The maroon kangaroo took Sonic's emerald and held it high above his head, only to get it snatched away by another one. However, this one seemed to be the tribal chief, since he had a makeshift crown sitting on top of his head and two necklaces decorating his neck. His fur was obsidian black with occassional marigold stripes and markings on various parts of his body and his eyes were almost as red as Shadow's. Among all the variously maroon, brown or even silver and ivory kangaroos, this was the only dark one and it was evident, that they chose him as their chief.
"You want Shiny?" he asked the two hedgehogs in deep baritone while grinning at them, revealing a few of his sharp canines. The two hedgehogs now also noticed a terrible scar leading across the kangaroo's left eye with that eye being slightly paler than the other.
"It's our 'Shiny' and I suggest you to give it to us, else we might take it by force!" Sonic dared to threaten the chief, whilst Shadow rather remained quiet and didn't dare to say or do anything, now sensing some kind of danger from these tribal mobians.
"Hahaha, I want to see you try," the chief was probably the only one able to speak decently english, whilst the others had struggles with it. As the tribe, these mobians had their own foreign language and even signed amongst each other, which Sonic and even Shadow did not understand. The chief then exclaimed something in their foreign language, which caused everyone to cheer up and smugly grin in response, as two kangaroos each took the hedgehogs and along with the others headed back to their village.
Upon arrival, the two hedgehogs were forced onto their knees in front of a throne of the tribal chief, who stood right in front of them and thoughtfully rubbed his chin, seeing the hedgehogs as potential worthy opponents for their strongest member, who always did the battling and claimed the worth and value of the tribe for every year. This strongest member was named simply Savage, because his fighting style was usually mischievous and well, savage. The chief's name was Raven for his black fur and wisdom.
"You got two options, exotics! You either fight and prove yourselves worthy of Shiny, or you leave under my exceptional mercy," the chief spoke to them in strong exotic accent, yet the two hedgehogs were the real foreigners among the kangaroos. Shadow glanced at Sonic and gave him a warning signal to not do anything stupid, but Sonic seemed to already make up a decision.
"We'll fight and prove ourselves worthy of your precious 'Shiny'," the hedgehog spoke firmly while looking straight into the chief's eyes, which many kangaroos gasped at, since it was rude of strangers to hold an eye contact with their chief like this. They themselves did not even dare to look at him at all. The chief growled at him in his foreign language, which Sonic did not understand, but Shadow did, not based on the words, but based on the kangaroo's gestures.
"Look down!" Shadow quietly whispered to his hedgehog companion while lowering his head to express submission to the chief.
"What? Why would I- oof!" the chief gripped Sonic's cheeks tightly with one hand and hissed at him.
"Look at the ground, Blue Daredevil!" he forced Sonic to lower his head as well and was satisfied with Shadow's politeness.
"Call Savage in! Prepare the ground for the battle! The hedgehogs are ready," he then ordered the rest of the tribe and everyone listened to his commands, preparing Savage for the upcoming battle, whilst some of them cleared the area in the center of the village to create a battlefield there. The chief then glanced down at the two hedgehogs, disliking Sonic's guts, but Shadow seemed to be more sympathetic to him. In fact, he took a fancy to the hybrid right after his eyes landed on him earlier, thus saw him as a valuable being.
"Blue Daredevil will go first," Raven grinned in amusement, wanting to see the blue hedgehog try to defeat their strong and brave fighter, Savage, who was ready in the battlefield by now, already getting slightly impatient. Sonic nervously gulped and felt one of the kangaroos helping him up on his feet and leading him towards the made up battlefield surrounded by the tribal people, who started chanting for their favorite, boosting up his ego of course. Sonic's hands got freed by the same kangaroo and the hedgehog was then pushed to the center of the battlefield, where Savage started circling around him like a vulture, making an occassional sudden moves to scare and confuse his blue opponent. Thanks to the chief taking a fancy to Shadow, the hybrid was freed and the chief allowed him to stand nearby and watch his hedgehog companion battling against the kangaroo. Shadow quietly prayed for Sonic to win, so they could claim the reward in form of the chaos emerald and finally get out of here. He could make a risky move by snatching the emerald and teleporting himself with Sonic out of here, but some of these mobians could catch him in the middle of his actions and the two hedgehogs would then have to face much worse fate, as it was certain, that the chief would punish them in some way. Not to mention, that Shadow couldn't use his teleportation so often, especially to big distances, because it was energy consuming for him and he had to regularly recharge his energy by not using his chaos abilities for a temporary time being.
"Fight!" the chief commanded and Savage immediately lunged at the hedgehog from behind, but hit only air, as Sonic used his super speed to quickly dodge the attack. Afterwards, he curled into a spiky ball and performed homing attack at his opponent, who crossed his arms in front of his face and at the right time he swiftly swayed them towards the both opposite directions, effectively repulsing the spiky ball of a hero and making him fly a few meters away. Sonic then collided with a hard rocky block used as a fence for this battlefield and with a groan he uncurled from his ball form, landing on the ground he was temporarily stunned by such move.
"Hahaha! Weak!" Savage laughed loudly, making the crowd cheer up for him and clap their hands victoriously. Only Shadow watched the blue hedgie with worry written all over his face and the thought of just teleporting them out of here was more tempting than ever before. Maybe he would risk getting himself exhausted, but it would help them out of the trouble.
Looking at the chief, he saw the emerald constantly in his grip and wondered, how he could possibly snatch it from him without making him angry or raising any suspicions.
Sonic got up onto his feet again and wiped some dirt away from his face.
"So, you want it hard, huh?" he scoffed and clenched his fists, crouching down to the ground he waited for the right moment. Savage kept laughing and taunted his blue opponent while approaching him confidently and cracking his knuckles. Afterwards, he held his fists up and swayed them down at the hedgehog to completely destroy him, but all he hit was just an empty spot on the ground, for Sonic used a nice trick and slid between the kangaroo's legs and then spindashed towards his butt, causing him to make a flip and lay on the ground with a groan.
"Who's week now?" Sonic smirked at the mobian and quickly looked at where Shadow was to see his subtle proud smile and earn a small nod of approval from him while his arms were crossed over his chest. Sonic felt a little pang flow through his chest from the sight, because of the fact, that Shadow was already untied and allowed to stand there among the kangaroos, whilst he himself had to suffer.
"Haaaaaiyyyiiiaaaa!" Savage managed to recover from the attack and rushed towards the hedgehog with his fist ready to meet its target.
"WATCH OUT!" Shadow yelled and pointed at the kangaroo, Sonic looked back at his opponent and loudly gasped as he barely dodged such lunge attack by performing a side roll, before he swiftly got on his feet again, his heart now raced rapidly. The chief grinned at Shadow and gently patted his shoulder with his free hand, while wielding the emerald in the other.
"Your mate is fast," he admitted in an impressed tone, definitely not expecting the so called Blue Daredevil to have such ability. Yet, he still believed, that the hedgehog has no chance against the strong kangaroo.
"But not fast enough," he added with a little taunting chuckle, making Shadow roll his eyes and quietly growl.
"We will see about that," the hybrid scoffed in response, making the chief surprisingly chuckle again.
"You're feisty, I like feisty~" the chief looked at the hedgehog in the eyes, whilst Shadow stared him, completely dumbfounded.
Savage learned pretty quickly about his opponent's abilities, thus started rather planning his attacks and at one point he delivered a terrible, hard punch to the blue hero's side, which completely stunned the hedgehog and made him fall on the ground with tears prickling his eyes, as a sharp pain shot through the side of his chest, which he also held by his hand. He squirmed on the ground and was unable to continue the battle. There was a ringing noise in his ears and he just faintly heard all the mobians cheering and celebrating their fighter's victory.
"Sonic! Dammit, what have you done to him!" Shadow noticed his lover on the ground and the sight awakened his inner rage, as he clenched his fists to the point, where his hands slightly shook.
"Feisty, you go next," the chief nudged Shadow's side, earning a hiss from him, which only amused him further. He liked the hybrid's attitude and already saw him as a valuable equal.
"Oh, be damn sure I will! I will beat the life out of that damn kangaroo!" Shadow hissed at the chief before confidently walking to the center of the battlefield, whilst some other kangaroos dragged the stunned hedgehog away and their healers luckily took care of him, as they treated his injury.
"Go, Feisty, go! Haha," the chief cheered for the hybrid and the whole tribe got separated to two 'teams' - one cheered for Shadow along with their chief, the other still remained by Savage's side and cheered for him to win the second battle.
Shadow had a good advantage, that Savage was a bit worn out from the previous battle, not to mention, that his chaos energy is going to boost his attacks, so he should win pretty easily. And also avenge Sonic for what Savage did to him.
"Go, magic Feisty!" one of the females exclaimed, but Shadow completely ignored everyone around, since he fully focused on the kangaroo fighter in front of him. Savage made the first move, bringing his fists towards his new opponent he soon found out, that it won't be so easy to defeat this hedgehog, because Shadow used his speed to dodge the other's attacks while performing attacks of his own in the process. Thus, Savage got hit multiple times while trying to hit his target in return.
"GRRAAAH! STAND STILL!" Savage was slowly losing his mind there, when he received yet another punch to his face from the hybrid, who did not seem to even break a sweat during the battle.
"Hmpf, pathetic! You'll pay for what you did to Sonic!" Shadow growled at him and using his boots jets he gave himself a little boost as he tackle attacked the kangaroo, pinned him to the ground and ruthlessly kept punching him with both fists. Savage cried out in pain and out of desperation managed to get his strong tail under Shadow's chest and thus push him just as ruthlessly away from him. Shadow flew backwards, but slowed himself down with his boots, which he kept activated, as he now floated in the air with his fists tightly clenched, ready to meet their target again.
"Cheater!!" Savage shouted angrily while clumsily standing up, yet he had to support himself with the rocky blocks, else he would be unable to keep himself on his feet. The crowd started cheering for Shadow now, when they saw his tricks and in their eyes he became a strong and valuable fighter.
"Nobody set any certain rules here, so I think you are just throwing a tantrum, because I was able to beat you up, when Sonic couldn't," Shadow smirked at his opponent darkly and created a chaos spear in his hand while landing on the ground and confidently walking towards the barely standing kangaroo fighter, who watched him with pure hatred and shock in his eyes. Many mobians gasped at the sight of the energy spear in Shadow's hand and the chief himself was hugely impressed, because he has never before seen anyone like that.
"Surrender now, or I will shove this down your throat and tear you apart!" Shadow seriously threatened the kangaroo while gripping him by his throat and proving his immense power and strength by lifting him up above the ground without restrains. Savage wheezed a little while gripping Shadow's wrist tightly and kicking his legs in the air, desperately trying to free himself from the hybrid's grip, but to no avail, for Shadow held him in fair distance from his body, so the kicks weren't as strong and painful as they probably should be. Shadow watched his opponent gulp nervously and trying to look at his tribe mates, who now changed their favorite though, as they all cheered for Shadow and wished him to finish his opponent off. The hybrid was very tempted to do that, especially for what the fighter has done to Sonic, but eventually, he let the spear vanish and harshly slammed the kangaroo to the ground before stomping on him with his heavy boot.
"Listen!" he shouted at everyone, instantly shushing them.
"You give us the chaos emerald and let us peacefully leave this damn place!" he growled at the chief while glaring at him before turning his gaze down to the defeated kangaroo under his foot.
"You're lucky, that I have some remorse in me, else you'd be a dead meat by now!" he growled at him before finally leaving the battleground and standing in front of the chief with his hand extended towards him.
The chief sighed upon such defeat and gave Shadow the chaos emerald. The hybrid instantly hid it in his quills and nodded in approval before approaching Sonic and lifting him up to his arms bridal style. Sonic recovered a little, yet was still in pain as he held onto his lover's neck and whimpered in his arms. Shadow just glared at everyone before using the teleportation to finally get out of there, making them appear on the outskirts of the jungle, where the environment changed to a desert.
Meanwhile....
Team Chaotix travelled through various areas and on their search they managed to discover a few of the hedgehogs' fallen quills, which became a good indicator for them, that they were on the right path. Apparently, thanks to these little clues they were led towards the abandoned camp, where there were remains of the campfire.
"Hmm, it seems like they have been here just a few hours ago," Espio concluded thoughtfully, as he crouched down and examined the ashes left here after the fire has been snuffed out.
"It seems so, there is another quill!" Charmy exclaimed as he picked up the black quill with crimson tip.
"But we're now in the middle of nowhere, how can we know, which way they went?" Vector rubbed his chin while thinking hard.
"Easy, look for a footprints or anything, that might lead us to them," Espio replied, standing up he looked at the ground thoroughly and found yet another quill, this time a blue one.
"See?" he picked it up and held it out for his teammates to see it.
"There, I found something!" Charmy announced and picked something pinkish from the ground, then held it out for his comrades to examine it.
"It's a dragon fruit peel, good job, Charmy. Keep looking," Espio smiled proudly at their youngest teammate, who cheered up and excitedly looked for more of these peels, followed by the two reptiles.
Eventually, the dragon fruit peels, occassional quills and also some of the footprints led the team towards the village belonging to the tribal kangaroos, who were still both bitter yet amazed by the hybrid's easy victory. Savage was now resting in one of the shacks, while the healers did their best to take care of all his injuries and wounds. Raven noticed the three newcomers and instantly approached them with a wooden spear in his hands, accompanied by two guards.
"Who are you?" he asked them with narrowed eyes.
"We are Team Chaotix and we're looking for two hedgehogs, one blue, one black with red stripes," Espio spoke first, before his teammates could do so. Usually, Vector was the speaker of the team, but Espio was able to usually negotiate with calmness.
"Ohhhhh, Feisty and Blue Daredevil? They were here, fighted against one of us," Raven replied, still having the vivid image of Shadow in his mind and wanted him back for how cool and fearless he was. He also used an incorrect form of the word 'fight', because English wasn't his native language and the Chaotix quickly realized that, mainly regarding his strong accent. Yet, they let it be, as they had the two hedgehogs to focus on.
"Do you know, where they went?" Espio asked with a raised eyebrow, whilst Charmy and Vector looked carefully around, trying to find any clue, that could bring them closer to the lost hedgehogs.
"Feisty poofed with Blue Daredevil," Raven replied while making an explosion gesture with his hands to express the sudden disappearance of the two hedgehogs.
"They.. exploded?" Charmy tilted his head in confusion.
"No, no. They... stand here and poof, they gone," Raven elaborated while pointing at the spot, where Shadow stood before teleporting away.
"They teleported out of here," Espio concluded and rubbed his temples. With Shadow's chaos abilities, this search for the hedgehogs will be more difficult, he and his teammates were now very sure of it.
"How can we find them now?" Charmy asked helplessly.
"We can help! We have trackers," Raven offered and about four kangaroos approached him upon the mention of them.
"Tracker? The hedgehogs having tracker too! No see tracker," Maroon piped up, since he was the first one meeting the two hedgehogs and now recalled the blue one telling him about their 'tracker'. And just now he finally understood, what the word 'tracker' actually means, since he knew that term only in his native language. Now he learned it in English too.
"What?" Vector raised a brow.
"Blue Daredevil say, they having tracker. But me no see no tracker," Maroon tried to explain, but it only confused the team more. Raven spoke to Maroon in their native language, asking him, what he means and then let out an understanding "ahaaaa" before returning his attention to the team.
"Maroon says, that upon meeting the hedgehogs, one of them told him about finding Shiny thanks to a tracker, but Maroon did not see any tracker, as the person," he explained to Chaotix, who now finally understood.
"Um, Shiny? What is Shiny?" Charmy piped up while placing his finger on his chin thoughtfully.
"Diamond," Maroon replied simply.
"A chaos emerald," Espio breathed out in the realization, that the two hedgehogs are looking for the chaos emeralds. That explains, why they went missing for nearly two days by now.
"We accept your help then, we will need it," he added while looking at Raven, who nodded in response.
"These are our best trackers, they will help as good as they can," he replied, trying to act polite.
"Thank you," Espio replied just as politely and the chief started growing fond of the chameleon by now.
"Come, go! We knowing the jungle good," one of the trackers, an ivory furred kangaroo with red eyes, simply named Albino for his exceptional trait, gestured for the team to follow him and his fellow members while already walking towards some direction. Team Chaotix exchanged a bit worried expressions before following the trackers in hope of finding the hedgehogs as soon as possible.