Sonic Series ❯ Sonic Matrix 3 ❯ The next day ( Chapter 3 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Shadow poured himself another cup of coffee.

 Manic came in and grabbed his coffee cup off of the counter. “Do I need to make another pot of coffee?”

 Shadow handed the pot to Manic. “There’s enough left for one cup.”

 Manic poured the rest of the coffee into his cup. “I’ll make another if you want to get breakfast started.”

 “Fine with me.” Shadow said, plugging the waffle iron in.

 “You left your bedroom door open.” Manic replied. He scooped more coffee grains into the coffee maker and started it. “I got up to go to the bathroom around two in the morning and noticed you weren’t in there.”

 “I fell asleep while telling the girls stories about their mom.” Shadow said, getting the waffle mix out of the cabinet.

 Manic smiled weakly. “I dreamed about the time we went to that gelato place in 

Mobius beach after the war last night.”

 Shadow sighed. “I was going to take her there this week for our anniversary.”

 Sonic and Sally walked in.

 Manic sipped his coffee. “G’morning.” He said. “I’m making some more coffee.”

 “More?” Sally asked. “How many did you all have?”

 “One.” Manic replied.

 “Three.” Shadow said. “I barely got any sleep last night.”

 “I’m sorry.” Sally replied. “Why don’t you rest? We’ll make breakfast.”

 “Thanks.” Shadow said. He headed to Maria and Aleena’s room.

 Maria and Aleena, wearing their little bathrobes, came out of their room.

 Maria yawned. “Is breakfast ready?”

 “Not yet.” Shadow said. “Aunt Sally and your uncles are making breakfast.”

 “Can you tell us more stories until breakfast is ready?” Aleena asked.

 “Sure.” Shadow replied.

 Manic walked over. “Oh, Shadow, I almost forgot.” He said. “We have to go to Tails’ lab after breakfast. He’s gone over the security cam footage from your house and said it’s important that we see it.”

 “I don’t want to see my wife get killed.” Shadow replied.

 “He said he’s not letting us see that.” Manic said. “But he wants us to see who did it. You can see it clearly when it knocks you out.”

 “It?” Shadow asked.

 Manic shrugged. “We’ll see, I guess.”

 

 Sonic, Shadow and Manic walked into Tails’ lab.

 Tails swiveled his chair to face them, his eyes red from crying.

 “You watched the whole video?” Sonic asked.

 Tails sniffled and wiped his eyes. “Yeah.” He replied. “Don’t worry; she didn’t suffer. She didn’t even have time to react and it didn’t seem like she saw you, Shadow.”

 Knuckles walked out of the bathroom and handed Tails a cold washcloth. “I’ll start the video for them.”

 “Thank you.” Tails replied. He wiped his face with the damp washcloth.

 Knuckles started the video as Sonic, Shadow and Manic gathered around him.

 “So who was it?” Shadow asked.

 Knuckles paused the video as a robot hedgehog stepped out of the shadows and knocked out Shadow with a laser blast that grazed the left side of his head.

 “Another metal Sonic?” Manic asked.

 “It looks more like me.” Shadow replied. He pointed to the markings on the robot. “See the red streaks?”

 “It’s possible that the first metal Sonic who attacked Shadow could’ve gotten a sample of his DNA before Shadow learned how to warp the code.” Tails replied.

 “Or… he might be able to get DNA from shed spines.” Sonic said. “Does that work?”

 “I’m not sure.” Tails replied. “I haven’t done a study on that yet.”

 “Nevermind that.” Shadow said. “Who built them? Robotnik is dead, isn’t he?”

 Knuckles shrugged. “Maybe he faked his death.”

 “I told you two to do a thorough search.” Shadow said, clenched his fists.

 Sonic grit his teeth. “We did.” 

 “Yes, they did and I even sent drones.” Tails replied. “Manic searched around for a secret passage and found nothing, not even in the basement. The only tech he found was melted. It’s no one’s fault, but the metal Shadow’s… and whoever made it.”

 Shadow unclenched his fists. “Sorry.”

 Sonic nodded. “It’s alright, it’s been a rough time for everyone.”

 “There had to have been a secret facility elsewhere.” Tails replied. “From what I can gather, Robotnik was extremely misanthropic.”

 Sonic groaned. “Plain English, Tails.”

 “Anti-social, hated everyone.” Tails said. “Anyway, he worked with nothing but robots and made them with an adaptive AI program. It seems they’ve learned how to create more robots and a networking system.”

 “So that means Robotnik created something like Skynet.” Manic replied.

 “What’s Skynet?” Knuckles asked.

 “It’s from Terminator.” Sonic replied. “Ro-butt-nik was so unoriginal that he ripped off two sci-fi franchises.”

 Tails nodded.

 “That he rips off.” Manic muttered. “Instead of Jurassic Park.”

 Shadow looked at Manic. “So we’d still have to deal with something else trying to kill us. That’s not much of a substitution.”

 Manic sighed. “Give me a break, I haven’t slept well in a few days.”

 “Okay, focus, guys.” Tails said. “We need to find where these bots came from and destroy the factory. You can sit this one out, Shadow.”

 Shadow crossed his arms. “Who said I want to sit this out?”

 “No one.” Tails replied. He closed the video screen. “I just figured you’d want to stay with Maria and Aleena.”

 Sonic placed his hand on Shadow’s shoulder. “They already lost one parent, they don’t need to lose you.” 

 “I’ll be fine.” Shadow said, brushing Sonic’s hand away. “This is personal. Touch me one more time and I’ll break your fingers.”

 Sonic stepped back.

 “Everyone will be here to discuss the battle plans in a couple of days.” Tails said. “I’m not telling you what to do, Shadow, but please reconsider for Maria and Aleena.”

 Shadow nodded tersely, then walked out.

 Maria and Aleena greeted Shadow as soon as he walked through the door. 

 Shadow picked up the girls.

 “Did uncle Tails catch the bad guy?” Aleena asked.

 “Not yet.” Shadow replied. “It wasn’t a guy. It was a robot.”

 Maria and Aleena nodded.

 “We’re supposed to look for them as soon as we can get our old squad together.” Shadow said. 

 “Can you tell us some more stories about Mama after dinner?” Maria asked.

 “Yeah, after you get ready for bed.” Shadow replied.