Sonadow
SonicXShadow
He Is My Master by Taranea

Chapter notes:
WARNING! WARNING! TEXT WALL APPROACHING! Yup, that's right, not a chappie for TL;DR folks... ;)
Chapter 32: Training Day

The frog opened the left half of the double door and Sonic, left with little choice, followed him inside the hall behind it. It wasn't as big as the throne room, but still quite impressive, measuring perhaps twenty metres of width and thirty in length. There were carpets and furs of animals (feral ones, Sonic hoped very fervently) hung on one side of the hall, and shields and weapons mounted on the wall. The part of Sonic that was responsible for the blue hedgehog surviving the madness he called 'life' so far immediately unconsciously noted the positions of the various blades and staves, evaluating them for potential use in combat.

Apart from the walls, though, the room was sparsely decorated. It had a sand-stone coloured floor, hewn from rough stone but worn smooth by years of use and thousands of furry feet (or scaly ones, the hedgehog reminded himself with a light scowl) shuffling across it. It had a sort of raised part of floor at one end with three steps leading up to it and otherwise there was a square indent sent into the stone in such a way that it created a sort of walkway along the walls while the main part of the floor was just an inch lower.

The only apparent furniture was a lone chest of drawers close to another, smaller door at the opposite corner of the hall that might have led into a storage room, and a couple of lengthy banquet tables (which sadly didn't hold any food, a certain disappointed stomach and high-speed metabolism noted). They were completed with a few rickety stools which stood just like the tables in apparent disarray; perhaps the hall had once been used for feasts, but now it looked more like an abandoned part of the castle that was the handy room for everything which wasn't important, but had to be done. Sonic noted with relief the absence of any obvious torture devices or similar which had freaked him out in the dungeon. Now a sudden touch at his choker let him snap back to attention as he noted the frog suddenly fumbling with his leash in an attempt to get it off the collar. Once again, a wave of annoyance flooded through the collared hero at the sensation of being touched by anyone but Shadow, but he held still until the thing had come undone.

"Until the trainer arrives, you're supposed to sit there, with the others," the frog said in a bored tone, rolling up the leather lead without hurry and nodding toward the left corner of the room. Sonic's head turned and only now he noted the two figures previously concealed from his view by the body of the doorman. Not sure whether he was supposed to reply verbally, he only gave a quick nod, before walking over to the kneeling Mobians, increasingly curious as to his new classmates.

The first thing he noticed was that they were either red, or red-and-black collared slaves like him, increasing his unease regarding the possible contents of the lessons just a bit. It ruffled his quills a little as he became aware that he, too, had started to regard the collar as the most prominent thing about a person and in his mind quickly went to rectify that. He took his own sweet time approaching them, especially since the frog had left the room again and for the moment there were no others to bully them around that he had to pretend to be terrified of. The one sitting closest to the door was a hedgehog like himself, although Sonic would have guessed he was maybe one or two years younger, and his fur was a vibrant green. The quills of him were thinner than Sonic's own, but just as long, sticking up wildly in all directions. He was a personal slave as well, red stitching on his black collar indicating that somebody wanted to have fun in private. The green teen was wearing simple sandals, wristbands covered in spikes and a red vest, which seemed to be a small mercy that his Master had granted him. Apart from that, his gaze was glued meekly to the ground, not even looking up when Sonic came closer. Next to him a honey-coloured cat girl crouched on the floor, and the hero of Mobius had the instinctive reaction to avert his gaze, mostly because she wasn't very…dressed.

Somebody had given her a tight, red skirt (that most people would probably have thought qualified rather as a belt), but nobody had apparently imagined any further garments were needed, her upper body on display for all to see. Sonic knew not all females were of the opinion that they absolutely had to wear clothes, but mostly they did, not only because it looked pretty, but also because a female's fur was generally thinner and along with their differing muscle/body fat ratio it meant that they got cold a lot more easily. The blue speedster had heard it was the same with humans, actually, but why even their males in that case would insist on clothes and the females instead were shaving off what little fur they had, remained a mystery to him. (But then again, everyone knew that humans were essentially mad, anyway.)

He turned a cautious glance toward the feline girl again, telling himself he wasn't disrespectful because he saw her as a person (instead of, say, a slim, very pretty female of his age) and thought that in the chilly air of the castle she was surely feeling cold sitting still like that, all of her thin pelt raised. But there was no evidence in her demeanour of that. Even though her face could have been called beautiful with its playful white tufts of fur at the tips of her ears and the satin black hair framing it, her dark eyes only held a vacant expression as they stared straight ahead, as if any life they once held had already been extinguished long ago. Her collar was red.

Sonic's fists clenched.

Still, uncharacteristically for him, he grudgingly accepted he had to bide his time instead of jumping into action right this minute. Roaring into the face of the slave trainer how he deserved to have his tail torn off because of what they had to have done to this girl surely wouldn't help in the long run. Instead, he just had to make it through this day until they finally had their chance at the dinner…

Sonic reached the kneeling pair and, hesitating briefly, at last sunk down next to them. He was still ignored, so, in order not to go insane from sheer boredom, he knew he had to open the conversation himself.

"Hello."

Silence.

"I'm Sonic."

Silence.

"You're going to open your maws now or are you here for the mime slave seminar?" the older hedgehog finally asked sarcastically, not for the first time wondering why most of the people he was trying to help were always so uncooperative. At least by now the green hedgehog seemed to have trouble pretending not to hear him, though, so Sonic knew he was on the right track. He leaned slightly forward on one hand and studied his neighbour somewhat more closely. The stitching on the collar caught his eye as he recognized it wasn't mere symbols, but actually roman letters…

"Manic," Sonic read aloud. "That your name, your owner's name, or a warning they shouldn't give ya sharp objects to hold?"

At last, this produced a reaction. The younger hedgehog's head turned around slowly to meet Sonic's gaze with his own surprised brown eyes.

"You can read?"

"What?" Sonic replied, somewhat taken aback. "Yeah, 'course I can, I learned a lot of stuff at school before I turned twelve-" he answered automatically, before the horrible truth hit home and made him shut up, namely, that they hadn't even bothered to teach the other hedgehog at least basic literacy skills.

Then again, this is like the middle ages, he reminded himself. By their standards, I probably qualify as an intellectual - and Shadow as the Witch King.

"Uhm, I mean, yeah. I can read. It's…handy," he replied instead, somewhat lost for words. The other hedgehog cocked his head, licking his lips nervously.

"Doesn't your Master mind?"

"Shads? Nah, I don't think he cares, honest-oh Chaos, will you stop staring like that?" the blue speedster groaned as the green hedgehog suddenly looked as terrified as if Sonic had started putting ketchup on small babies. "Yes, I call my owner by name. No, the apocalypse is not gonna start because of that. Okay?" he asked, trying to sound not quite as annoyed as he felt. It wasn't like any of this was the fault of the other slave, after all. "So, your name," Sonic started again instead. "Is it Manic?"

The other nodded.

"Okay, cool. Manic. I like it," the blue speedster replied with a smile and couldn't help but feel a small surge of triumph as the other's eyes briefly seemed to light up. "You live in the castle?" he enquired further, already wondering whether they couldn't do another rescue mission before their main plan was put into action…

"Only at the moment. My Master has come to Court for the dinner," the hedgehog called Manic said, Sonic raising one eye ridge a little as he started to wonder just how big an occasion the evening could possibly be if guests were coming from afar.

"You got, er, a nice owner?" he asked the younger one next, feeling slightly weird for accepting the premise so easily in his line of questions. Manic immediately dropped his gaze, now looking as timid as he had before.

"He…sometimes he's nice. When I do things right," he added quietly, biting his lower lip in a way much too similar to Tails for Sonic's taste and he immediately felt the pity and righteous fury welling up inside him again.

"Listen," he spoke, now more serious than his previous light-hearted tone, "You know that he shouldn't do bad things to you, right? No Master should mistreat their slaves."

"What?" Now the green hedgehog turned from shy to confused.

"There's a war brewing, you know that, right?" Sonic continued quickly, "Maybe none of us have to be slaves any longer after that," he explained, wishing for his enthusiasm to infect the other just a little. They had to understand the idea of freedom…

"But…my Master is all I have. I don't want to be away from him. And I'm going to become an even better pet for him, that's why he sent me here!" he exclaimed, causing Sonic to be a bit taken aback.

"What? You like the guy who put that collar on you?" he asked, ignoring the little voice in his head adding a Well, so do you, smart guy.

"He cares for me. He owns me. And I won't ever leave his side," Manic stated, swallowing. "And if he punishes me, I deserve it…"

Sonic gave a quiet groan. If he had to take a bet, he'd chance that this Sapient, like Tails, had probably been owned by somebody all his life so far. There was little chance he could reverse a complete brainwash in one afternoon, especially if he was bound to act like a real slave himself this time around. The collared hero sighed. They had to win this war, that was the only option. Until then, he could only hope that whoever was this guy's owner treated the green hedgehog well…

"Well, no, actually you don't," Sonic said again, simply unable to not contradict the other's opinion, but then deciding to change the topic anyway. "So, err…you wouldn't happen to know what they wanna teach us in these lessons, would ya?"

The other blinked, taken aback. He shot a slightly worried glance at both of the closed doors, biting his lip as if afraid someone might come through them at any moment and beat them for their disobedience.

"Well…" he replied, hesitant, "I believe it is mostly about attitude. Like, the proper way to move and to think to please our Masters. And maybe other things we can do for them to make them happy."

Sonic briefly wondered whether the training would contain a lesson on how to correctly serve the GUN commander's severed head on a silver platter, but thought that this wasn't very likely. (And besides, even if Shadow still harboured an intense dislike against the man who had tried to hunt him down during the events of the Black Arms invading the planet, and Sonic himself wasn't too fond of the human military who got in the way more often than not, the blue hedgehog knew himself he wouldn't resort to murder in any case. Yet how he was to stick to that principle while in a war, he still didn't know…)

"I've been trained by others before," Manic continued at this point, perhaps unaware that a glassy-eyed Sonic was once more demonstrating his very un-slave-like attention span of just under a second right now, "Some of them were very…strict," he said and then abruptly fell silent. The sudden absence of talking let Sonic snap back from the imagined battles inside his head to the present and he quickly had to review what Manic had actually said. Tentatively, he laid a hand onto the other's shoulder.

"Hey. Don't worry, you'll be fine. You'll do everything right. And tell you what, if you do screw up, I'll do something even worse and take the rap for ya, how's that sound?" he asked with a wink, smiling at the other's surprised expression. The role of protector came to him naturally, and, he figured, he seemed to be heading for a disaster anyway. If this guy, who is practically a pillow on legs, Sonic thought, figured their trainer was going to punish him for being too non-submissive, then Sonic would be lucky to get out of there with all his limbs still attached. But then again, what was the worst they could do to him? Whip lashes or beatings with a stick perhaps, and Sonic had been in much worse pain, so the blue speedster in the end wasn't overly worried. He gave the other a re-assuring thumbs-up.

"It's cool. Look at me, my owner only managed to break me a day ago or so," he lied. "The other day I kicked a noble. That guy totally deserved it, by the way. Bit Shadow, too, come to think of it, and stole stuff from the kitchen. Also, I shed on furniture," Sonic joked, poking his tongue out at the last comment and was delighted to see the incredulous expression of the green hedgehog then give the slightly curious twitching of the lips that Sonic had come to associate with people just getting used to his special brand of humour.

"I…I see…" Manic stammered, still staring at the strange blue-furred slave in front of him, giving him such a bright grin he'd only ever seen free people wear. "Thank you, I guess…" he seemed to try to recover. "Maybe – maybe the trainer isn't such a strict one, though. Do you actually know anything about him? Is he…rough…on slaves?"

Sonic was about to shrug. He had no idea what the guy even looked like (and also had the faintest suspicion his and Manic's definitions of what being 'rough' on people meant, differed…) and knew even less about his supposed character. But, before he could reply, the smaller of the two doors opened and somebody stepped through. As the other two slaves rapidly straightened up and looked down again, Sonic's throat suddenly went very dry.

"No," he croaked in a whisper to Manic in reply. "No, he isn't usually very rough on people. Not unless he thinks you're the one responsible for turning his home world into the biggest barbecue in history."

Turning once again to the new arrival he added:

"Hiya, Silver…"

xxx

Shadow briefly wondered why the sinking feeling in his stomach had just gotten so much worse.

"How long is the lesson supposed to last today?" he asked Greytail walking ahead of him, carrying the protective gear, gloves and rapier. "With the dinner still coming up, I mean. I will need time to get ready," the black hedgehog added, not wanting to give the impression that the Prince's spreading memory loss by now extended to his everyday habits.

The cat servant briefly turned to look over his shoulder where they were about to descend the marble staircase leading to the ground level. "Not too long, my Prince, I don't think. After your recent sickness it is generally agreed that no overexertion should be risked again."

The artificial hedgehog breathed an unnoticed sigh of relief. Black Doom obviously was a much worse genetic engineer than Gerald had been, since Shadow had never been sick a day in his life. However, it certainly came in handy that he wasn't supposed to be all that fit yet, because it meant he had an excuse if he wanted to terminate the lesson early.

"Very well. It does seem like I had my last lesson a lifetime ago," he said, planning to work on the pretext even now and set up likely explanations for why he probably wouldn't be all that great when it came to the actual fencing. Shadow was as dangerous as anyone with a blade, but they were by no means his preferred weapons. Much like Sonic, who liked to attack with razor sharp quills, powerful kicks and demonic speed, Shadow's fighting style of Chaos abilities mixed with hand-to-hand combat supported by artificially created muscles was based upon his own natural talents – the black hedgehog had a personal penchant for certain guns and rifles, liking the range it added to his attacks, but he had never had much to do with sword fighting at all. The only scenario when he had used one that sprang to mind had been over half a year ago when the Black Arms had been invading the planet and Shadow had suddenly found himself wielding a giant glowy purple sword, but even then he had merely used it to pin Black Doom's eye to a wall somewhere when the thing had gotten too annoying at some point. (Back then, he had also tried the same trick later with a certain incessantly talking blue hedgehog and a samurai blade, but fortunately Sonic had proved just a tad bit too fast for that).

"Yes," Greytail replied at this point, inclining his head in understanding. "It certainly has been a while since we had the honour to see you fence, my Prince."

Shadow calmed himself a little. That was good. It meant he could always claim he was a bit rusty and wouldn't run the risk of blowing their pretence in the process.

"But fortunately, your twelve years of expertise will certainly have survived that little lapse, won' t they? Hahahah," the grey-furred cat continued, adding a polite laugh at the end.

"Haha," Shadow replied, only privately wondering whether in the end it wouldn't be Sonic but him rushing through the castle to find the other with a bunch of angry guardsmen shouting 'IMPOSTOR!' at his heels…

xxx

The silver-furred slave trainer's head whipped around immediately into their direction at Sonic's words. Damn future hedgehog hearing. Sonic could barely resist the temptation to bite down on his tongue for being stupid enough to attract the trainer's attention this early in the lesson.

"Did one of you just say something?" the silver hedgehog asked, slowly approaching the kneeling slaves, all of their collared necks bent and staring fiercely at the floor. As for the hero of Mobius, he knew that even this was futile. While the other slaves here were projecting the general aura of being a footstool, Sonic's natural way of carrying himself could rather be compared to a giant, blinking exclamation mark above his head. It was pretty cool at parties, to have every head turn around when you entered the room, but even in primary school it had never been a good thing when you were always the first kid to draw the teacher's gaze.

"I think it was…"

The shiny light-grey legs stepped toward them and Sonic could see his boots come into view. Of course, they weren't the sleek, sci-fi-like versions he'd seen him wearing last time, but they still looked like a pretty good medieval replica. They were made from fine, polished black, white and blue leather, had a red jewel embedded in the front and were topped off with a golden band at the top, a couple of strange runes scratched into them. Sonic didn't know whether this edition of the silver hedgehog had the same psycho telepathic powers, but he hoped he didn't. Once Silver had stopped trying to kill him, the Mobius edition of the telekinetic hedgehog had turned out to be quite friendly and not that overly powerful, but there was still something about a café chair soaring straight toward your face that you never really got over.

Maybe making jokes about his mother's relationship with a cockatoo wouldn't be such a great idea this time around, Sonic thought. His characteristic curiosity finally got the better of him as he couldn't help but glance up just slightly, hoping to get another look at the other Sapient and maybe check out what had happened to his funky gloves. He raised his head just a little, his gaze wandering upwards to see what it was the silver hedgehog might be doing…

And emerald eyes stared straight into amber as Sonic recognized with a little flip of the stomach that the other had been gazing directly down at him.

"…you," the trainer finished his sentence, calmly. "I think it was you."

Sonic blinked, not sure what to (or whether to) reply. A part of him noted that yes, even the gloves had been replaced by medieval-looking ones with gold bands that had runes etched into them and strange lines painted onto the white fabric that covered his hands. Another part noted that, more importantly, he was also already in trouble. Sonic tried very hard not to sigh.

"Don't you know you're not supposed to call anyone by name, at all? Reply."

Sonic's mind cast about for an answer. He yearned to get up and talk to the other face to face instead of having to crane his head like this, but that was nothing likely to help him.

"Err...my…Master…said it was okay?" he tried, sounding vaguely hopeful. The silver hedgehog gave him a long stare. "Stand up," he said and when Sonic gladly complied, took a step forward with a raised arm and lightly touched the blue hedgehog's expensive collar and nametag, the supposed slave doing his best to suppress the fight-or-flight reflex he had developed in reaction to Silver making any sudden hand movements anywhere near him. The gloved hand of the other turned the metal tag around.

"Sonic", he read in turn. Then he raised an eye ridge. "You're the property of the Crown Prince, aren't you?" he said, somehow making this seem less like a question and more like a diagnosis.

I prefer the term 'associate', myself, Sonic would have liked to reply, but instead opted for an incline of the head. He had long since found out that he was just a couple of inches taller than the other, younger hedgehog (talking head height, anyway, and not taking the other's pineapple-shaped excuse for a hairstyle into account) and Sonic enjoyed underlining that fact by standing up even straighter afterwards.

"Yes. I thought so," the trainer said, now for some reason giving the impression of a schoolteacher who had just found out Bill Watterson's Calvin was in his class. "Down," he commanded again and when Sonic obeyed, added: "Your Master has scheduled a private lesson for you after this one. I look forward to it."

Sonic swallowed and idly wondered what Shadow might say if he saw his supposed slave come running before the Ultimate Lifeform had even reached the courtyard.

xxx

"Now, first up," the metallic-hued hedgehog stepped back a little, facing his trainees. "My name is Silver the Hedgehog. During this lesson, you can address me as 'Master'. Since your owners paid for you to be here, I will assume all of you are already advanced in your training and will give me no trouble. I expect instant and complete obedience from all of you."

Easier said than done, thought Sonic, whose legs were already tingling and itching to move again. This Japanese kind of eternal kneeling did not suit him well at all.

"First of all, I will teach you how to walk. You are part of your Master's presentation and you will need to be able to move with grace and appropriate demeanour to cast him or her in the best possible light. You will go first," he added to Sonic, letting the collared hero's stomach briefly clench, "Stand up and go over there," Silver said, pointing to the middle of the left wall where one of the bigger shields hung. "Now, walk forward until I tell you to stop. Imagine you are on your Master's leash and he is striding in front of you. There are people watching. Go," he commanded and Sonic reluctantly started to move. It didn't sit well with him that Silver had just assigned him the job of what was essentially a handbag, but if the younger hedgehog thought there was anything about moving on two feet you needed to teach Sonic the Hedgehog, he was sorely mistaken…

If they'd at least give us treats for completing the tasks, the collared hero thought dryly as he walked, was ordered to turn around, and walked back again. He hadn't had anything to eat since lunch yesterday, a few particular events of last night having distracted him enough to forget about dinner or breakfast and now his stomach was telling him exactly what it thought about its owner suddenly caring more for certain other body parts.

"Come back. You there, next," Silver instructed, letting Manic rise and gesturing for Sonic to sit down again. The blue hedgehog did so, relieved that it didn't seem so bad yet, even if his tummy was grumbling slightly. But then again, while most people believed that the hero of Mobius was living the spoiled life of a celebrity, Sonic was actually used to roughing it – his adventures often meant he was sleeping without a roof over his head, shivering in rain or snow, or going hungry, unwashed or sometimes collared and whipped, the blue speedster added sarcastically in his own head. But still, it meant that a mere 24 hours without nutrition were currently the least of his worries. He watched with a curious mixture of wariness and boredom how Silver made the other two slaves go through the same exercise, again without saying anything. Manic walked timidly and insecurely, fidgeting with his hands while his gaze was glued to the floor and almost stumbled due to nervousness more than once. The girl walked more like a robot, or a marionette with tangled strings and broken limbs, her movements without energy or spirit, midnight hair hanging over her face like a neglected doll's. Sonic himself had just walked normally, not particularly feeling like putting up a show; the collared hero privately thinking that him participating in this game of musical chairs at all was more than you could ask of anybody who hadn't yet lost their mind.

Silver gave no sign what he'd thought of their respective shows, but instead just ordered them all to stand as soon as the cat girl had finished. He waved Sonic forward.

"Good. Now walk again," he said, but before the blue hedgehog could even take his first step, suddenly there was a light tapping on the tip of his ear. Sonic looked over his shoulder in surprise and could see Silver now holding a short, polished wooden stick, its end engraved with thin circular lines which he'd just used to give him a non-painful rap on his earlap.

"Down," he ordered, and, when Sonic failed to do anything, tapped the blue-furred appendage again. "Your ears. Flatten them," the younger hedgehog clarified, once more prodding the triangular ear which was already starting to twitch and trying to escape the unwanted treatment. Sonic briefly met Silver's gaze a bit incredulously, but then actually tried to do what was wanted of him – not easy, since the blue hero's body was used to be on constant alert, attacks an almost daily appearance, but if he concentrated, he could keep his ears lowered, even if he didn't like what it signified. Hoping that was it, Sonic started to walk once again, but couldn't even take another single step, before the stick came down again, this time on his shoulders.

"Lower these, too. You've got fine muscles, but don't show them off."

Sonic blinked briefly, not entirely too sure whether he should take it as a compliment or his cue to jump out of the window. He tried to continue and to get this over with, but it soon turned out that this was futile – Silver seemed to find fun in poking his stick with hedgehog-like precision in between his quills, forcing him to flatten these too, tapped him on the nose when Sonic wasn't looking at the floor, ran the damned thing over his thighs to indicate Sonic should keep them closer together, and finally the blue speedster almost squeaked when the next thing he felt was the instrument brushing straight over his tail.

"You'll have to keep that one between your legs," Silver stated with a frown, gently tapping on the blue appendage, completely ignoring the sudden discomfort of his charge, who was looking over his shoulder with a bit of mortification.

"Uh…" the blue hedgehog began, but was interrupted when the trainer's face suddenly lit up.

"Or actually," Silver said, "it would look much better if you curved it upwards, like this," he finished, and the next thing Sonic knew was his tail being yanked straight up.

"Ah!" the hero of Mobius yelped at the sudden rough treatment, but couldn't very well escape while the other still had a firm grip on his poor appendage. Sonic could already feel heat shooting into his cheeks and for a moment was rather glad that Shadow wasn't here to see this after all...

"Can you keep it like this?" Silver asked and slowly let go, the short blue tail almost staying in position and the trainer nodded in approval.

"Very well. It does highlight your rear quite nicely, just as I thought. Onwards," he commanded cheerfully, and just when Sonic thought this couldn't possibly get any worse, Silver decided to show some encouragement and the stick landed on his now nicely highlighted rear with a very satisfying smacking sound.

If I survive this, Chaos, I solemnly swear I will support any anti-sexual harassment movement that I find on Mobius. Also, if I ever see Shadow after this, I will ask him whether I can make use of his fencing blade to show him *exactly* what we did in these lessons...

To be continued…
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