Sunshine looks out at the dormant snow covered garden as he sips at a mug of hot chocolate, noticing with slight alarm that the wrapping paper and packaging from his family's Christmas gifts had vanished from where they had been placed by the trash cans outside the previous evening. Things had been disappearing from the garden for weeks now, first it started out with the random piece of fruit or vegetable but then items such as solar path lamps and gardening tools had started going missing as well.
"What in the...?"
The hedgehog mumbles to himself before sighing softly when a thought crosses his mind "Not again...Sonic! Eggman's kid was in the yard again last night!" He calls out to his husband, sounding beyond frustrated.
It had turned out that the strange figure that Sunshine had been seeing hanging around his home and who he suspected to be the one stealing from the garden was a young girl named Sage who claimed to be Dr.Eggman's daughter, although it didn't seem that she was quite as human as she appeared to be at first glance. She had an eerily cold and calculating demeanor about her, and an almost glitchy aura. That and she also floated, usually only an inch or two above the ground, but still floating. He'd have to try and talk to her next time he caught her hanging around again so he could figure out what she was up to and what she even was for that matter, she hadn't caused any harm yet but the father didn't like how she seemed to be watching his family. What kind of information could she be bringing back to Eggman and what could he do with it?
He didn't want to have to move and uproot his family again, especially since they had all just settled in where they are now and after everything Sol and Pandora had gone through the last time they had changed residence. He couldn't do that to them again...not when they finally felt safe and at home with their family.
{A Few Months Later}
It had been a couple months since Sunshine had last seen Sage snooping around his garden, he figured that his failed attempt to approach her last time might have scared the girl off for the time being. At least that meant she wasn't watching his family until she worked up the nerve to start coming back again, if she ever decided to return. The hedgehog only wished that he could have gotten some information, any information to answer his questions about the girl's intentions.
Hopefully Starlight would be able to help him clear things up once he returned from his latest journey to find the Chaos Emeralds with Tails and Amy. According to his husband, the emeralds had been drawn towards a set of islands that none of them had discovered before, which was strange considering how many times the couple and their friends had traveled all around the planet. The whole thing felt... off to Sunshine. First Sage starts showing up at their home, then the Chaos Emeralds disappear to some strange, unknown location. Could the A.I girl be the cause of all this? Was it nothing more than an elaborate trap set up by Eggman to lure Starlight straight into the mad doctor's hands? Or was it just a strange coincidence and Sunshine was worrying too much?
Thankfully, his siblings as well as his husband's family were more than willing to watch the kids while Starlight was away. Sunshine hadn't feeling well for the past few weeks, and needed a break to try and get some rest from the stress these last few months had been piling up on his shoulders. His family didn't need to be involved if things were to take a bad turn with Sage or whatever cosmic horror Starlight was likely about to be facing on his own adventure. They'd be safe and look after each other if the worst were to happen to himself or his husband.
Sunshine was currently in the bedroom packing a bag of his essential belongings to go to the islands and warn Starlight of his suspicions since none of his attempts to call his husband had gone through to reach him, causing him to worry about the other hedgehog. He accidentally bumps his knee into the bedside table while standing up from the bed, knocking over a bottle of water, causing it to roll under the bed. He kneels down and reaches under the bed to retrieve the bottle, only to grab something else instead. Sunshine pulls out what looked like a large blue and black gear that he'd never seen before. What is it, and how did it even end up there?
