First story: Shadow's Partner

Shadow’s Partner
- Chapter 1: Beaten and bruised
It was the end of another long day of traveling for Shadow and his younger companion. The reason he wasn’t traveling alone was peculiar, since he saw himself as a bit of a loner: Shadow had been looking for wood to build a campfire for the night, about a week ago, when he heard something behind a bush nearby. When he went to check out what was causing the sound, he was surprised to see a young hedgehog, not older than six or seven years old, laying there, all bruised and scratched up. He looked liked he received quite a beating to end up like that. His breathing was rather shallow, which had to be the sound Shadow heard.

Another strange thing about this hedgehog was his fur color; it was a cobalt shade of blue, though it was a little hard to distinguish because of the scratches and bruises that littered his body. Shadow had only encountered green, brown, black and pink (for the females) hedgehogs since Doctor Robotnik released him, so he assumed those colors were more or less ‘main-stream’ for a hedgehog.

Shadow himself was a black hedgehog, too, but what made him stand out from other hedgehogs were his red markings. They were visible as streaks that traveled the sides of his arms and legs, as well as along his top quill. The other thing that made Shadow stand out was the shape of his quills. While other hedgehogs had much more, smaller quills, Shadow’s quills were fused together and upturned.

That was also visible on the younger hedgehog he now held in his arms. The quills of the boy were as blue as the rest of his body, though they were turned downwards in a streamlined fashion. They gave Shadow the impression of speed.

He decided to go back to the cave he was currently staying in for the night and receive some bandages and means to clean the boy’s wounds. The village elder of a nearby town had been saved by Shadow from an ambush from some of the Doctor’s robots, who had been very grateful for that and told him that he’d wanted to repay Shadow for his deed but was unsure how to do that. The black hedgehog had not seen any need to be repaid, but maybe the elder could help out by providing those medical items Shadow needed for the blue hedgehog.

Thankfully, the elder was more than willing to help Shadow out. He even gave some directions on how to apply some disinfecting liquids. After that, he went back to the cave where the boy rested on a bed of leafs. It took about an hour, but the boy’s wounds were all treated. Now all Shadow could do was wait until the boy woke up.