Chapter 34: Zis Is Sparta!

That time when Shadow had framed him and he had been stuck in one of GUN's cells for a whole day, before Amy of all people had had to save him – after trying to coerce him into marriage, of course. But yeah, no. That had actually been okay.

The time when he had tripped over his own shoelaces and crashed into a cactus facefirst while trying to show off in front of a horde of girls when he was twelve? Close, but no.

Or maybe that time when Robotnik had had him strapped to a laboratory table and Rouge had been the one to find him – and make about a dozen inappropriate jokes afterwards about what the scientist had wanted from him. No, not quite.

Or maybe, just *maybe* it's right now, when a former ally of mine is trying to teach me how to crawl 'seductively', Sonic thought acerbically, the hero of Mobius quite sure he had just about reached the most embarrassing moment of his entire life so far.

"Arch your back more. Move your hips," Silver instructed cheerfully and Sonic was hard-pressed not to move his feet – either to the exit or into his trainer's face, that was.

"Look, can't I…"

"Ah. No talking,"

Sonic gnashed his teeth, directing a scorching glare at the wood beneath his hands. Silver had had him and Manic re-arrange the banquet tables into a sort of improvised cat-walk and now he was being forced to stalk across it on all fours – a sure sign for Sonic that he had somehow missed to last exit on the express lane to Sillyland.

"You don't seem to be initiated in the rules of slave-speak much, are you? You should know you're not supposed to refer to yourself as 'I' – after all, you're your Master's property and therefore should designate yourself as 'this slave' or similar," Silver admonished, fortunately unaware of Sonic's nails digging ever so slightly into the table at this point.

Hoo boy. The collared hero rolled his eyes, privately thinking that if he ever got out of here, 'this slave' would like to tell Shadow exactly what he thought of these lessons.

"Now, move. Like this," Silver said – and Sonic's eyes grew wide when suddenly, those gloved hands of his had found their way to his hips and were moving in time to the motions of his legs. The blue hedgehog didn't need a mirror to know he had just lit up like a fireworks display.

Oh, gods…he hung his head briefly in embarrassment, which was, of course, what earned him the second smack of today.

"Look up! Show your pretty face to the world!"

I need a door. And an axe. And then I will break through that door, shove my face through the gap and go 'Heeeeere's Sonic!'

Xxx

"Here you are, my Prince. Please get ready, the instructor will be here in a moment," Greytail instructed, carefully laying Shadow's blade onto the floor, before proceeding to hold up a sort of leather vest that probably qualified as protective clothing for Shadow to slip into. The supposed Prince reluctantly complied, the tough material smooth against his fur but still thick and stiff enough to probably block weak to minor slices and stabs. Shadow noted with faint amusement that it even had two holes in the back for his quills to slip through, although it felt a bit odd to wear a garment that hugged your form like it had been tailored just for you but belonged really to someone else. Greytail fastened a few clasps on the thing and then stepped back to hand Shadow his blade – the black hedgehog taking the weapon a bit self-consciously, not entirely too sure whether he liked the feel of it yet. How good was he even supposed to be with this thing? He made a few tentative slices at the air, briefly musing that he might prefer a heavier weapon, but then again, that wasn't his main concern, here.

"Well, where is my instructor?" Shadow asked with a frown, feeling that offence might be the best tactic. Plus, he wanted to get this over with fast as possible.

"He will be here any minute, my Pri – ah, here he is," Greytail announced, seemingly relieved. Shadow's head turned into the direction of the cat's gesture and then, a black eye ridge rose ever so slightly.

The fencing teacher was another Mobian – no surprise there – but of a species Shadow hadn't yet set eyes on. It looked a bit like a cross between a weasel, a desert dog and a wig store, all bundled up in a fine navy blue uniform with shining buttons and golden epaulettes. The…male, Shadow supposed, even if only for the fact that despite the perfume cloud wafting from him, the canine had foregone any clothing below the waist – had cinnamon-coloured fur with lighter patches of cream around the muzzle and his eyes while also sporting a short, brushy tail. His entire appearance was as groomed and immaculate as Sonic and Shadow's own had been four days ago; an almost impossible feat considering the circumstances of the everyday life here, but somehow, the guy had managed it. He was also one of the few male Sapients Shadow had yet encountered who had actual human-like hair growing from his head, most others just making do with tufts of fur. The Ultimate Lifeform for a moment wasn't sure whether the lethal-looking long blade hanging from his belt, or the apparent short blonde perm should worry him more.

"Mon Prince! General Antoine D'Coolette à votre service!" the instructor called out at this very moment and proceeded to salute with a flourish. Shadow had a sudden sinking feeling that could only be compared in its magnitude to that the Titanic had to have experienced.

Where had that guy even *got* a perm in the middle ages?

xxx

"Good. You can stop now."

Oh, thank the *gods*.

Sonic breathed a sigh of relief as he sat back on his knees, grateful that he could finally cease with the absurd cat walk show. He shot a half-curious glance at Silver, the metallic-hued hedgehog regarding him with his head slightly tilted.

"Hmm…that didn't look half-bad…"

Sonic raised an eye-ridge. He had crawled like he usually would – which would have been either while escaping through the ventilation duct systems in some fortress or other (no, they never seemed to learn), spying high from the rafters above a robot factory of Eggman's, or simply hiding behind wreckage on a battlefield, all of them situations where a single noise could mean discovery, and a foot wrong could mean death. He hadn't exactly learned how to crawl decoratively.

"A little bit…predatory, perhaps, but I think it suits you…" Silver continued, approaching Sonic and pretending to ignore the narrowing of the collared hero's eyes as he ran another hand along his flank. "Your movements are beautiful."

Emerald eyes blinked.

No one had ever called him 'beautiful' before…

xxx

"Le salute, mon Prince? I am in waiting."

"What?" Shadow blinked. He was facing Antoine now on a cleared area in the courtyard, the smells of earth, horses, leather and people not able to tell they should put their ablutions in his nose, and he, frankly, had no idea what to do.

"Le salute. Do not tell me you 'ave forgotten." The other now looked mildly annoyed, his lithe blade which he held in his hand by his side twitching as if in disapproval. Shadow gripped the hilt of his own weapon tighter.

"Well…"

So far, things had been working out all right. They had gone through a series of warm-ups and stretches and Antoine had worked him pretty hard – or probably at least thought he did. The fact that Shadow's artificially engineered muscles required neither previous stretching (unless he was going up against a seriously fast opponent), or that Gerald had created them to be easily twice as strong as a normal Sapient's, of course had meant that the black hedgehog's performance had at least elicited a few raised eye ridges from his teacher. But then again, anyone who had spent some time brawling with Sonic the Spineless Wonder would have picked up a bit of agility...

"Mon Prince, vot am I going to do wiz you?"

Ask me 'ow to speak ze language proper, per'aps? Shadow thought a tad acidly, not at all appreciating the cluelessness this situation put him in. Hell, at this point he was actually a bit envious of Sonic. At least he would be ordered about like an idiot.

Examine that last sentence and wonder how that wish reflects on your personal life.

"Fine, zen. I will show you it once more. Your mind, mon prince, is like a, 'ow do you say it,  'ollander," Antoine stated down his furry nose, leaving Shadow to flat-glare at him for now apparently being designated a dutchman.

"Très bien. Regardez." The instructor then drew his feet together, at the same time bringing the hilt of his drawn blade up to his chest, raising it for a brief moment toward the sky, before lowering it again, all with the utmost sincerity. Shadow briefly tensed as the other then actually pointed it toward him, but didn't react yet  - the right choice, it seemed, for Antoine next only brushed his lips against the crosspiece, gave a final flourish and then dropped into a ready stance, legs bent and spread apart, left arm raised behind him to align itself with the sword. 

"En guarde, mon prince. Zis is ze salute of ze school of ze raging heart!"

Yeah. More like the school of raging insanity. 

"Well?" Antoince asked, thankfully not being able to read his unwilling student's mind. "Repeat, s'il vous plaît."

Shadow sighed deeply, but had no choice but to obey. Well, at least he could do the salute properly...

Gloved hands grasped his weapon. There was a zing as the rapier left its sheath, the edge of the blade gleaming in the sunlight briefly as Shadow raised it toward the sky, then brought it down to his heart and saluted his teacher as best as he could. Before he twirled the blade, his lips briefly caressed the hilt just like the other one had; the black hedgehog only hoping that he was the only one who would be forced to kiss today...  

xxx

"Alright! Sonic, you can get down. Manic and Honey, come here," Silver called, waving the other two Sapients forward. The hero of Mobius swung his legs over the edge of the table he'd been paraded along, both curious and filled with slight dread what would happen next. He wondered briefly whether that was how actual slaves felt all the time…

Chaos, don't even go down that road. You just need to make it through this and get back to Shadow.

Emerald eyes unfocused for a moment as Sonic couldn't help but muse for second what the black hedgehog might be doing now…and whether the Ultimate Lifeform with a blade would actually look kinda hot. He shook his head quickly.

Sonic the Hedgehog, stop this. You can daydream later all you want, but if Silver finds out you're basically as slave-like as Groucho Marx…

The blue hedgehog finally slipped off the table and walked over to the others, secretly wondering whether that was another part about falling in love that hadn't yet occurred to him – the little, annoying fact that you wouldn't be able to stop thinking about the other even for a moment.

Then again, not like I'm gonna miss anything important here, either, the collared speedster scoffed mentally. I mean, Silv's been talking for a while now, but I don't think he's said anything import-

"- which makes for another important skill. So I will demonstrate the use of the technique, and then you can practice with each other. Sonic, please get down in front of me."

-wait, WHAT?

xxx

"Ze footwork, mon prince, ze footwork. Ze footwork, mon prince, you are doing it wrongly."

Shadow by now felt tempted to hit his teacher with a thesaurus.

Another lunge barely missed him and he swore under his breath as stumbled – the silly-looking coyote (as he'd found out) moved with deadly speed as soon as there was a blade in his paws and Shadow was starting to have serious trouble to block the attacks the way he was supposed to.

"Non, non, non! Do ze parry like zis!"

D'Coolette demonstrated again and gave an elegant flourish with his weapon, at the same time moving his stance slightly backwards and keeping his weight on his back foot to immediately advance as soon as he'd finished. Shadow's expression darkened. He was having trouble with this mostly because he couldn't use his skates. Not many people knew (mostly because the Ultimate Lifeform usually treated information on a I Could Tell You But Then I'd Have To Kill You – basis….) but contrary to Sonic, Shadow's sense of balance and agility depended heavily on his jet shoes, stabilizing bursts of Chaos Energy from their soles often supplementing his movements as integral part of his fighting style.

"Prime, Seconde, Tierce, Quarte," the coyote illustrated his non-intelligible words with a serious of moves of his blade, apparently intending to remind Shadow of some sort of basic counter-techniques he should know, but for all the good it did the black hedgehog, his instructor could have been trying to play Pictionary in the air.

"En plus, 'onestly, mon Prince, votre passatta-sotto 'as seen, 'ow do you say it, better weeks."

"My what?" Shadow repeated, the only thing at the moment coming to mind at the moment being the Italian rice dish he'd once tried to cook with Maria and indeed burned horribly.

"Votre passatta-sotto," the teacher repeated not very patiently. "Ze move zat-" – Shadow at this point was very hard-pressed to figure out whether he'd rather gag Lazar or this guy if he got the chance – "Ze move zat lets you pass under ze arm of ze opponent and strike from down-dessous. You attempted it earlier."

"Ah. Yes," Shadow said. That had actually been one of his techniques that had almost hit their mark. "What was wrong with it?"

"Mon Prince, I cannot stretch zis enough, in a fencing tourné, I am sorry, but it is forbidden to roll at your opponent."

Damn.

Shadow inwardly growled as yet another weapon was taken from him. When he had been a lot younger aboard the ARK, Gerald had told Shadow it had taken him ages (in comparison to the rest of his rapid development) to learn how to walk and the old scientist once surmised that it might stem from his DNA being partially derived from Black Doom, a floating being without legs. So, much like Sonic couldn't achieve very high speeds without his friction heat-resistant sneakers, Shadow the Hedgehog was at a severe disadvantage as soon as he was denied the use of his specialized skates – and the fact was, that if he utilized them here, he waslikely to be burning at the stake before midday, probably with Lazar claiming Shadow had turned him into a lizard.

"What do I see here? Are you finally training again, Shadow?"

Shadow's heart sank. In this universe, there were exactly two people who called him by name and not by supposed title – and the last time he'd checked, Sonic hadn't had three eyes and a head shaped like an evil anvil. Suppressing a moan with great difficulty, the black hedgehog turned around to face the new arrival.

"Hello, father. How thoughtful of you to drop by…"

xxx

"Errr…what?"

Silver gave Sonic a look that communicated his opinion on non-attentive slaves very thoroughly (but was entirely ineffective on the blue hedgehog. After all, after years of living with his hyperactive older brother, Tails was already the undisputed master of the Haven't-you-been-listening-goddammit – exasperated glance and Sonic had been subjected to it too many times already to really care any more.)

"You. Sit down here. Now," the metallic-hued hedgehog instructed, at the same gesturing to the bare stone floor. "Time's already running out and if I want to complete this last exercise with you, there can be no more dawdling."

"…okay…." Sonic replied, lowering himself carefully onto the smooth rock, not quite sure where this was supposed to go. He wondered whether he should be cheered by the fact that the ordeal was almost over but his stomach clenched up just a little when he remembered that afterwards, the insane original Prince had had 'private' lessons scheduled for him with Silver…and Sonic was pretty sure he didn't need those.

"Sit cross-legged. Relax and let yourself sink forward a little."

Blue ears twitched as he could hear the younger hedgehog kneel down himself behind him and a tongue flicked nervously over peach lips as Sonic wondered just what on Mobius Silver was up to. Manic and the cat called Honey just looked on silently, watching. Silver motioned them closer.

"Here, position yourself so you can get a good look. Honey, you can also get down so Manic can practice on you. Now, follow my movements exactly…"

The collared hero almost flinched when those hands came down onto his shoulders again, taking a firm grip of the muscles there. What-?

"Shh. I told you to relax."

Sonic had to suppress a strangled sound in his throat, wanting very much to tell Silver that the last time he had been in his grip, he had found himself hurled through a window of a Soleanna café and he doubted that this - whatever it was – would be any more pleasurable. And Silver wanted to demonstrate on him so Manic could 'practice' on the girl…oh gods. The collared hero swallowed but decided that he owed Shadow's efforts at least a last attempt at reasoning before he'd up and run.

Sonic took a breath and turned his head to look at his supposed trainer over his shoulder, emerald eyes wide and slightly fearful, knowing that if this Silver's character was the same as that of the one he knew, the pity card should be rather helpful here.

"Silver…" he began, then, remembering his status, quickly added, " I mean…Master. Please. You don't have to do this to me."

Silver blinked.

"What?"

"This isn't right. You know it isn't."

The confused face of the other turned into a frown.

"What are you talking about? It's a back massage."

"…oh." I knew that.

xxx

"What?" Tails snapped uncharacteristically surly as the door bell rang. The two-tailed fox kit was lying rather haphazardly draped across the couch in his workshop-cum-living room, where also the Chaos-safe glass container entrapping Shadow was situated, Sonic curled up in front of it on a rug Rouge had placed in a rare moment of pity there. The blue hedgehog had refused to leave his dark look-alike, and since even in this strange amnesia state he was nowhere near as aggressive as the Ultimate Rageform, none of them had deemed it necessary to restrain him as well. (Plus, if they tried to take him away from his spot in front of Shadow, he simply started to cry and since that made Tails cry, Knuckles and Rouge had in the end simply settled for telling Sonic he was not to leave the house and not done anything else. At the very least, the blue speedster seemed to be strangely obedient if not much else, even if in Sonic's case that was simply more disturbing.)

"The door is open, come on in!" the owner of the house shouted at this point, still angry that his nap had been interrupted. The end of the world was due in less than fifty hours, but he still needed his sleep if he was to think clearly…raising his head to see whether it was the echidna or the bat that had come back with news, Tails suddenly wished he was still sleeping and this was a nightmare.

"Hiiii, Tails! I heard something was wrong with my Sonikku?"

xxx

Another 'Sonikku' at the moment had difficulty to control his breathing. Silver was perfect at this. Thumbs dug into his muscles, slender fingers kneaded knots out of his back as if they were butter, and those hands danced around his backquills as if they had never done anything else. If anybody had shown up to chain him up for real right now, Sonic wasn't sure whether he'd even have minded, his mind too clouded with the bliss of the massage he was receiving as the demonstrational object.

The hero of Mobius gnashed his teeth to stop himself from groaning out aloud as Silver pressed down on a particularly tense part, the pain coupled with the relief afterwards making Sonic feel woozy enough as if he was just coming down from a Super Sonic high.

Oh gods…

"Do you think you've got the essentials down now, Manic?"

Silver's voice penetrated the cotton candy that qualified as Sonic's brain right now and the collared hedgehog blinked as he could feel the hands suddenly ceasing in their motion.

…five more minutes, please?

"That's good. Then we can switch. Sonic and Honey, I hope you've tried to memorize the techniques," Silver said, getting up from behind the blue hedgehog, grabbing a cushion from one of the benches and seating himself in front of his former charge. "Because now it's your turn. I'm sure your Master will be delighted once you've acquired this skill."

…wait, what?

Sonic felt a bit like thrown into cold water as he was so brutally yanked from his own private hedgehog heaven into the harsh reality of his current life as the supposed property of someone else. Then again…

Hmm…

Peach-furred hands sank down onto silver-tinted shoulders as the hero of Mobius' face had assumed a calculating expression.

If he could make Shadow feel only half as good as he'd felt just now…

The collared hedgehog got to work, for the first time actually trying his hardest to fulfil his new role to the letter.

xxx

"What, Amy, no, wait-!" Tails had scrambled to his feet, frantically attempting to stop the pink-furred female Armageddon now striding toward the living area, but it was futile. When Amy Rose had set her sights on a certain target of the blue and spiky sort, it was very likely not even steamrollers, Kryptonite, restraining orders or the planet Jupiter (as had been proven) would be able to stop her.

"Sonikku! There you are!"

"Ahh! Help! Help!"

"No…" Tails moaned, namesakes bunching up in horror as she had finally dashed past him and was already hugging the life out of her panicking perceived future husband. The kitsune felt like he very, very much needed to go to the bathroom as he then looked at the third hedgehog in the room. He swallowed. At this point, saying that Shadow looked 'angry', was a bit like saying that the sun was 'big'.

"Err…Amy…"

"Ma-master, please, help me!"

"My darling Sonikku, what's wrong?"

"If you lay one more finger on him I will cut you down."

Sonic was very unceremoniously dropped on the floor.

"What…?" Amy blinked, for the first time even registering that there was another person in the room.

"Tails, why is Shadow in a giant fish tank?"

"It's…complicated. Look, do you think you could maybe come back later-"

"Master…" Sonic was once again not helping the situation as he was now once more pawing against the glass on the side, kneeling and pressing himself against it as Amy obviously had him spooked. "I'm scared, make her go away, please!"

"Sonic, what the heck?" Amy stared at her hero incredulously, then back at Shadow, who was still busy glaring not daggers, but broadswords at her. The black hedgehog folded his arms.

"He is mine, foolish pink Amazon. Leave now before I destroy you."

Amy's face was for a moment entirely blank. Then, without her moving a single muscle, a giant red mallet slowly appeared in her hand.

"What did you just call me…?"

It was at this point that Tails departed screaming for Knuckles.

To be continued…