FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

After a good hour, maybe an hour and a half of searching, Sonic and the rest of the crew found Shadow lounging in a tree. He seemed to be brooding when they found him, but didn't seem the least bit surprised. With a little bit of explaining from Sonic, and a few whispers told here and there that the rest of the crew didn't know about, Shadow was convinced to follow them back to the Speedz' house, where Shadow could get out of his clothing, and perhaps take a shower.

Because of the way they had been searching, the distance from the tree where Shadow had been resting to the Speedz' house wasn't more than a 20 minute walk. The group had extended that distance and time by looking in every nook and cranny of the city, by Sonic's request. His excuse for doing so was that Shadow was very resourceful, and he could have taken shelter anywhere, plus he would have been hungry that morning and could have been looking for food.

Of course, the real reason for such a thorough search was that Sonic was looking for Chaos Emeralds. In fact, just before finding Shadow, Sonic had spotted one in that very same park, and had quickly grabbed it while the others were distracted. He now held the green emerald in his left pocket.

The walk back to the house was filled with awkward silence. The lion and two foxes tried asking Shadow an assortment of questions, but the hedgehog seemed to be in his own world and would not answer them. They eventually gave up, resigning to walk in silence with Sonic, back to the foster home.

They reached their destination, and Sonic took Shadow inside for introductions, while rest of the group waited at Pokeinfo's house while the lion got something to eat, an activity he had skipped before going to look for Shadow.

The two hedgehogs, after going through introductions with Mr. Speedz, were informed that Rachel had gone shopping, as well as to look for some college applications online at the local library, and would be back in time for dinner. Shadow was advised to go up and take a shower, and that Sonic would show him their room and where to get clothing from once he had finished.

Thirty minutes later, a black and red hedgehog in a MUCH better mood appeared downstairs, dressed in black and red pants made of some kind of parachute-looking material, and a black t-shirt. Sonic and Shadow were both treated to lunch of homemade chilidogs and french fries, then allowed back outside with the instructions to be back home by dark, and not to get into any fights. Jon had been informed early on about the fight they had been having when the police picked them up.

Once out the front door, Shadow took off down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of Pokeinfo's house, making sure to memorize where the house was located. He had not been intimidated by Jon as much as Sonic had, but he still didn't want to make the military skunk mad. He intended to be home by dark... he had a Chaos Emerald now, so at the very least if it was getting too close to time, he could just Chaos Control himself home.

Sonic, after watching Shadow wander off by himself, turned and headed over to Pokeinfo's house to hang with the rest of the crew. After knocking on the door and being let in, he found the rest of the crew crowded around Pokeinfo's computer, watching the lion play a videogame on an emulator. From the reactions of everyone else, it seemed that Pokeinfo was pretty good.

Once Pokeinfo had used his last life and turned the game off, the group left the house and milled about in the front yard, wondering what to do next. It was around three in the afternoon, so there was plenty of daylight left. Edna suggested going swimming, but Edward shot that idea down. He used the excuse that Sonic didn't have a membership at the public pool and probably hadn't been here long enough to receive mail so that he COULD get a membership. But the real reason why Edward didn't want to go swimming was that Pouncefield's public pool only had one changing room, and it was co-ed, and the least thing he wanted was for Edna to show herself off in front of their new friend. If he could help it, Sonic would NEVER have to go through an Edna temptation.

Pokeinfo suggested the arcade, and the others agreed. Apparently there was a new policy in place that gave anyone under 16 as many free games there as they wanted, because money was so tight nowadays. In Pouncefield, one could not get a job if one was not yet 16.

The group walked to the arcade, Sonic trying his best not to run off and give away his extraordinary gift before it was time. Edna made the remark that the city needed to implement a public transit service, and the others agreed. All the walking around that day had made everyone's feet hurt.

Arrival at the arcade provided good news and bad news. The bad news? Pokeinfo's favorite game, The Emerald Guardians , was broken. The good news? The sequel has come out and they had installed it the day before.

Sonic had never in his life been to an arcade. There was not a single arcade to be found on Mobius. Oh, sure, there were videogames, but they were all home systems, and occasionally someone would order an arcade system for their home, but nobody had the idea to order a lot of different arcade systems and place them all in an open building, allowing kids and adults to pay quarters and play them. Sonic was in awe, and resigned himself to introduce the concept to someone when he got home.

Sonic spent quite a few minutes looking around the place, scoping out what games he might be familiar with, and which ones he might find interesting. He was overjoyed when he found the grouping of dancing games, and even more so when he saw that his favorite, In The Groove 2 , was included among them.

A worker at the arcade, a female red wolf named June, had been assigned to setting up games for "underworks" to play. (An underwork was someone under the age of 16, who was under the legal age to work.) She saw Sonic admiring the ITG2 machine, and informed him that anyone that successfully placed a high score on the machine would receive a free 2gig flash drive that had been formatted to carry songs and courses and be used with that very machine.

It was all Sonic needed to try his luck. The conditions were that he had to play a round of 3 songs, all on Challenge difficulty, and he couldn't fail a single song or he'd have to try again. The contest had been in place for months, and not a single person had been able to win the prize. Apparently the person that had given the machine to the arcade had been a real hacker, and had a really cruel sense of humor. All the Challenge courses had been given complete overhauls and were nearly impossible to play.

Sonic climbed up on the machine, and people gathered around to watch. It was always something else to see someone try for the flash drive, but it took a lot of guts for an underwork to try. After stretching a bit and memorizing where he was, June started the game and Sonic scrolled through the songs. He picked the longest song first, "Through the Fire and Flames" by Dragonforce, and there were quite a few gasps at his choice. June even thought that he had picked it by accident and asked him it he wanted her to restart the game for him, but he shook his head no.

The game started, and Sonic was able to keep up with the streams of arrows, though he realized that this course was very different from the course back home. He realized that someone had edited this to make it more of a challenge, and that he would have to expect the unexpected if he was going to ace it.

Almost as if on cue, the arrows went off the beat of the song, and started doing their own thing. Sonic had trouble keeping the beat going, and his energy gauge was taking quite a beating. When the song finally resumed the correct tempo, Sonic was barely holding on, and his screen was flashing "DANGER."

Sonic was able to complete the song. Seven and a half minutes of intense arrow pounding, Sonic got to stop and take a breather and check his score. Because he had been unable to keep up his flow during the uneven part, his score had suffered, and he received a C for his dance.

A C wasn't failing, so Sonic was able to choose his next song. He went through the ranks, looking for something cool, and when he hit upon "Mello" by Alien#six13, he went after that song. It was short compared to his last feat at a mere minute and a half, but it boasted to be a 15 footer, and loaded with mines. There were some remarks in the crowd that nobody had ever been able to beat "Mello," but people countered that with the fact that nobody had ever beaten "Through the Fire and Flames" either.

The song started up, and Sonic had to use extreme self control to keep himself from laughing. The song was "loaded with mines," alright. Just about every step had a mine on it, and he had to pick out the arrows from the mines. By the time the song ended, Sonic had stepped on maybe one hundred twenty-six arrows, and the rest of the course had been mines. When the score had come up, Sonic was not surprised to see he had made an A on that course. The crowd cheered.

Sonic's surprises weren't over. The game went into random mode to choose his last song, and he got the shock of his life when it picked out "Malicious Fingers" by Snappleman. The song was obviously a remix, and the source was vaguely familiar, but Sonic couldn't quite place it...

As soon as the song started getting good, Sonic was able to identify where he had heard it before. It had been AGES since he had played this game back home, having to be constantly battling Eggman, but there was no doubt in his mind that this was one of his favorite and best performing songs, and a new remix to it, too. The course was identical to the course of the original song on the ITG2 machine back home, so Sonic was able to step this song with confidence. There were mines galore in this song as well, and the streams would have been torture to anyone else who weren't used to moving fast. Sonic was in heaven.

The song ended, and Sonic looked up at the screen to see... AAA. Never in his life had Sonic ever aced that song. A AAA meant that Sonic had hit every arrow perfectly, and that he had not broken his stream once. Indeed, the crowd behind him was also in shock. This underwork had aced the song, and had beaten the contest, winning the flash drive! Perhaps he'd be back to show off new songs!

The game moved to the name entry screen so that Sonic could enter a four letter name to show he had scored. He entered BLUR as his name, and the screen went to the high score board where, sure enough, BLUR topped it.

Sonic was ecstatic. He was also sweating like a madman. He stepped down from the stage and felt his legs nearly collapse out from underneath him. June must have sensed how tired he was because she ran and got a chair for him, to let him sit down and rest. Once he had recovered, she presented to him his new flash drive, as well as an instruction booklet on how to transfer songs to the machine.

Edward, Edna, and Pokeinfo had been in the crowd watching, and were all impressed with Sonic's performance. Pokeinfo had been doubly impressed, because the only other person he had ever seen attempt the challenge was Cynthia, his girlfriend, and she had been beaten by that final song. The trio ran up to Sonic while he was resting and admiring his new flash drive, and they held a little party there for his triumph over the game. Pokeinfo even offered that Sonic could use his computer to download songs, which Sonic agreed to.

The group stayed at the arcade until it closed at around 8pm, and they all went home to their own respective houses. It was late in the summer, and early in the school year, so at 8pm there was only about 30 minutes of daylight left. Sonic said goodbye to Edna and Edward, who left in a different direction than he and Pokeinfo to get home. Sonic walked along with the lion cub, then stopped suddenly, saying he had a cramp, and that the lion should continue on by himself and that Sonic would get home once the cramp had been rubbed out. Pokeinfo didn't have to be told twice, running home.

Sonic allowed the cub to get out of sight, because once the cub was out of sight, Sonic too would be out of sight. Sonic, stretching once more, knelt to the ground to get a good heading, then kicked off the ground and sped towards home. Halfway there, he tucked his arms and legs inward and rolled into a spindash, rolling the rest of the way and coming to a gradual stop in the front yard. Pokeinfo had not seen the hedgehog roll by, having run into a group of nine white bunnies and one brown bunny who looked suspiciously like Cynthia...

Sonic stood and dusted himself off, opening the door to the house and going inside. He turned to close the door, and saw Shadow suddenly appear, noting that he had used Chaos Control to get home. He held the door open and Shadow walked inside without so much as a thank you for holding the door open.

Dinner was tacos, and after dinner Sonic headed for a shower, while Shadow headed for bed. Rachel stayed downstairs for her turn at the dishes, and Jon stepped out on the front porch with a beer to observe the night sky.

In the shower, Sonic went over the day's events in his mind. He had hidden the flash drive in the top drawer of the dresser that Jon had provided for him, but he kept the emerald with him at all times, to keep it away from Shadow. He went over the tough challenge of the ITG2 machine at the arcade, as well as remembering his new friends. Thinking of them somehow lead to thinking of Rachel, and thinking of Rachel lead to Sonic eventually leaving four thick streams of white come all over the shower wall. He cleaned it up, though.

After his shower, Sonic dressed for bed and went to his room, where Shadow had already claimed a bed and had fallen asleep upon it. Sonic jumped into the other bed, soon falling asleep as well.