Chaos Bond

We Lost Silver

First there was a polite, knock knock knock. Then, not a second later, thump thump BANG BANG BANG on the front door. The movie had to be paused as Amy looked round fearfully and Sonic immediately tightened his back muscles.

"Who's that?" Amy cried, hugging one of her throw pillows.

"Stay here, Ames," Sonic told her, getting to his feet. "I'll go see."

Opening the front door, Sonic almost jumped to find a badly bruised Team Dark crowding Amy's doorstep. Omega was stood at the back, robotic expression giving nothing away while Rouge, who had knocked first, had been moved to one side. Up in front, and no doubt the one responsible for the more aggressive knocking, was Shadow wearing an expression that promised a swift end to anyone who hindered him.

Sonic opened his mouth to voice his surprise. "Sha-?"

"We've lost Silver."

Sonic closed his mouth again. Shadow wasn't one to joke around or to jump to conclusions like that without reason. The two hedgehogs gazed into one another's eyes a few seconds before the blue speedster opened the door wider and let the team in.

Amy was on edge when Sonic returned, accompanied by Shadow, Rouge, and Omega who had made sure to close the door after him, being a considerate robot.

"... I'm calling Tails," Sonic flatly stated, heading to the phone.

"What's happened?" Amy asked calmly, knowing full well that panicking wasn't going to help her.

Shadow was watching Sonic make a phone call but he spared Amy a quick, considerate glance. "Metal Sonic took Silver.

Tails came over immediately within the half hour and began to debrief each member of Team Dark which eventually turned into a conversation that went something along the lines of:

"You're telling me that Metal set a trap to specifically catch Silver?" Tails said rhetorically, talking to himself mostly. "You sure he wasn't hoping for Sonic and just made do with Silver instead?"

"I don't get it," Amy said. "Was Silver the actual target?"

"He seemed to be," nodded Rouge, "from what I could see."

"Then why..." Tails wagged his tail in aggitation and held his chin. "Surely Metal would know that Shadow would have been more likely to go to Sonic about joining you guys on the mission."

"But instead Metal was counting on Shadow bringing Silver," Amy murmured.

"How do you make a trap specific enough to target one person? Something as broad as an energy spike could be an open invitation to anyone."

"Basically, what we've gathered is that Metal knew Sonic wasn't going to show up. Is that it?"

"It's just the question of HOW would Metal know?" Tails sighed. His back and forth with Amy wasn't giving him anything satisfactory but no-one else besides Rouge seemed to be making an effort to chip into the conversation.

"They have that mental link, don't they?" Rouge said, nodding her head towards Sonic who had leant himself against the wall.

"The mental link has to be two-way in order to work," Tails told her, "and Sonic's been blocking Metal for years. There's no way Metal could have used it."

"Let's stop wasting time on trying to theroise Metal's trap-making techinques and instead focus on the fact that Silver's gone," Sonic then said quietly.

Rouge sighed and rolled her bruised shoulder. 

"I better head back to Angel Island," she said. "I can get Knuckles to contact Blaze through the Master Emerald."