This is what happens when you go to bed at 11:38, fall asleep at midnight, and wake up for three seconds at 4 o'clock in the morning before going back to sleep… And the fact that I focused solely on Sonic and Shadow friendship stuff yesterday… Yeah, this was initially a dream…
Anyway, this is an AU fic, but I'm not going to go crazy and mess with the canon too much… Ok, I am. But I won't be one of those people that change practically everything but the names… Yes, some personalities will be a little different (Shadow may be a bit more than a little different), but not that would make them unrecognizable… With one (possible, non-Shadow) exception… XP.
DISCALIMER: I DON'T OWN SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG OR THE REST OF THE CANON GANG, AS WELL AS THE CANON LOCATIONS. I DO THE OFCs THAT ARE DEFINITELY IN THIS STORY… AND THE IDEA BEHIND THIS, OF COURSE.
0-0-0-0-0
Shadow stood on the roof of the skyscraper, looking out over Westopolis. Red eyes looked for any trace of his arch-enemy, the robotic scientist and evil mastermind Dr. Eggman. Ears flicked upon hearing the quiet clink of metal on metal, but he knew that it was just Mira, a fourteen year old hedgehog/wolf hybrid.
"Thought I would find you up here," Mira said, walking over and flopping down, legs dangling over the edge. A soft breeze kicked up, rustling her dense, quill-like fur. Yellow eyes swept the city, and darkened to more of an orange color when she seemed satisfied that nothing unusual was out there. "So what are you doing? And don't give me the lookout crap, because Rouge already tried that one when I caught her watching Knux."
Shadow chuckled softly. Everyone but Knuckles, the Master Emerald guardian, knew that Rouge was secretly in love with him, and also that Knuckles had a bit of a thing for the albino bat. Mira had considered trapping them both in a locked vault a few times, but Shadow had kept her from doing so. "Thinking," Shadow said, in response to Mira's question.
"Ah," Mira said, not really surprised. Both she and Shadow preferred getting away from the hustle and bustle of the city when contemplating, and this particular roof was the one they both preferred. "Is it possible that I may have the privilege of knowing what has you up here this late? Most of the others are asleep… Esme is trying to convince Tails and Rivet to let the new X-Tornado wait until morning."
"I'm sure that will go over well," Shadow said sarcastically, knowing how stubborn the two inventors were. When Mira said nothing and just looked at him rather pointedly, he gave in. "About… The beginning."
"Oh," Mira said, understanding immediately. It was a term the two had agreed upon that referred to Shadow's release from cryostasis five years prior. It had been accidental, a Chaos Emerald coming in close enough proximity for the machine holding him in suspended animation to start up, freeing him. At the beginning, the government group GUN had thought he was going to attempt to destroy the humans for sealing him in there, but rather he had stopped Eggman, who attacked the city to get to the Emerald. After stopping him from doing so, Shadow had made it clear that, although he wanted the truth behind his imprisonment, he wasn't going to kill the innocent because of something that happened fifty years ago.
He had been upset when he learned that it was because Professor Gerald refused to allow GUN to turn Shadow into a living weapon, and had quickly squashed Commander Towers' rebirth of the idea. The president had backed him up, and soon Towers had been forced to abandon the dream when Shadow was granted full citizenship, in spite of his artificial birth.
"Remember how we met?" Mira asked softly, and Shadow chuckled again, harder this time. He had settled down next to her, the two sitting close together as they always did.
"How could I forget? You showed up out of nowhere in the middle of a celebration, tackled me, and started spewing on and on about how I was nothing but a cheap copyhog of a faker, even having gone so far as to steal your hoverskate idea," Shadow said.
"The crowds thought I was a crazy lunatic because I was actually daring to antagonize the so-called 'Ultimate Life-form'. Especially when I roundhouse-kicked you in the chest," Mira said, a smile forming.
"Next thing I know, I'm crashing into the side of a building while a porcupine looking girl of nine years in age gives me a glare that instantly makes the thought 'if looks could kill' run through my mind. Even more surprising was what happened when I tried to retaliate," Shadow said, his slight smile appearing.
"Said porcupine-lookalike creature is gone before you can blink, and you realized that I wasn't kidding when I ranted about you stealing the hoverskate idea, since all you could see of me was a caramel colored blur," Mira said, laughing a little now. A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Probably didn't help your cause that your opponent was a good three pounds lighter at the very least and had killer reaction times."
"Still caught you with a Chaos Spear, did I not? Even if it was just the tip of your tail," Shadow said. "Of course, that caused you to use your own Chaos powers… I can honestly say I did not enjoy hit with one of those Chaos Orbs, especially since it just had to be the one you kicked like a soccer ball."
"I apologized afterward, didn't I?" Mira asked, huffing slightly as she folded her arms across her chest. "After we both Chaos Blasted all the nearby decorations into oblivion, that is…"
"You had lost your footing during it, throwing yourself back and into the hard stone wall," Shadow said. "I remember how you snarled at me when I offered to help you up."
"And I wanted to nothing more than to bite you when you saw that I had cut my leg rather deeply and commenced to use Chaos Heal to close the wound," Mira said, slightly embarrassed as she remembered. "But then I got a good look at how you used those skates of yours, and realized that in spite of them being sorta similar, they were built rather differently."
"Those cream cheeks of yours went such a beautiful shade of red as you started stammering out apologizes, although you did seem rather surprised when I was quick to defend you from GUN," Shadow said, subconsciously taking Mira's hand in his own. "You couldn't believe that the person you had just attacked was keeping the military from arresting you."
"Yet I fled first chance I got," Mira said. "Too scared that you would figure out that a girl three years younger than you was living on her own, and had been doing so for two years."
"A year passed, and all that time I wondered where you had gone and why you left," Shadow said. "Then, one day, Eggman attacked, and somehow managed to pin me down. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the pain that was sure to come, but instead of the robotic tentacle crushing me that I was expecting, I was suddenly free. My eyes flashed open to find out that my savior was a caramel blur."
"You were so confused," Mira said. "We had met only once, and you didn't even know my name, yet I pop out of nowhere again to save your life."
"You tore through the robot with a ferocity I didn't understand, cutting the legs off like a hot knife through butter," Shadow said. "Within a minute, it was nothing but junk metal, and Eggman was taking off in his Egg-Mobile while shouting curses at the 'little, scruffy brown thing'."
"You called out to me, but I was too cowardly to stick around. Not because of the loner thing, I was old enough that it wouldn't be too much of a surprise for a Mobian to going off on their own, and besides, I had been taken in by a nice, if extremely young couple. No, I was worried that you had just stopped GUN because of your own imprisonment, and would want nothing to do with a hybrid that had temper problems and an independent streak that was something fierce," Mira said, smiling at her own foolishness.
"Three months later-"
"Two months, three weeks, and six days," Mira corrected, earning her a bemused glare, at which she proudly smirked.
"I got a call from a Rivet, who wondered whether I would be willing to meet up with him," Shadow continued, letting go of Mira's hand to wrap an arm around her when she leaned in against his shoulder. "Slightly surprised, I agreed. We met at the local park, and walked around the town. He was polite, and acted like an older man than the seventeen he was. He asked me how I liked fighting the Doctor, what other activities I was into, and what I did in my down time.
"Surprised by my lack of answers, he was taken aback. I asked him what he did. He spoke of the planes he worked on, his fiancée, and the four year old fox kit they had taken in after finding him during a thunder storm. I listened politely, but as he spoke of his fiancée, I realized why you invaded my thoughts so. I had fallen in love with a girl I had seen twice, and whose name I didn't even know.
"Then he spoke of the girl that he had found wandering the streets," Shadow said. "He said that she was a couple years minor my age, but asked if I would be interested in meeting someone more my own age for a change. Stunned, I automatically agreed, and he called to let his little patchwork family that a guest would be coming home for dinner."
Mira took over again. "I, meanwhile, was being an absolute nightmare. Moody, sullen, often flying into fits of rage, the only thing that brought me was joy was hearing about you. Yet every time, it also was slightly painful to hear about you, the hero, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out why. That is, until Esme came in my room one day, and refused to leave, even after I threw a rather destructive temper tantrum.
"After I was done, she came over to sit on my bed and asked me if anything was wrong. Startled, I could do nothing but stare in shock. She smiled faintly, and said she was pretty sure she knew why I was so sullen lately. I felt my temper rise again, but that disappeared with her next words. She was quite positive that I had fallen in love with a young Mr. Shadow the Hedgehog. I was shocked for a minute, but then realized she was right. I had fallen in love with you, renowned hero and three years older than me.
"Esme smiled at me sweetly, but then had to go answer the phone. When she came back, she announced that there would a guest for dinner, and they were coming to meet me specifically. I didn't know that Rivet had told her of his plan, however, and so was quite confused. She tried to confiscate my skates for the evening, to insure that I wouldn't run off rudely, but I was having absolutely nothing to do with that, going so far as to threaten to take off now and not come back again. Giving in to that, she did manage to trick me into a button up shirt in place of the black and amber striped t-shirts I normally wore and nicer jeans than the casual knee-length Capris I liked."
"I was happily surprised by the coziness of Rivet's home, but that was nothing compared to the shock I felt when the girl Rivet had spoken of was you, the mysterious girl that I had fallen for the first time we met, even if you had attacked me," Shadow said.
"I was held immobile, unable to believe that THE Shadow the Hedgehog was standing in the place I was slowly beginning to think of as home," Mira said, snuggling in closer to Shadow, hand reaching up to the gloved one on her shoulder. "When I heard Rivet asking me to introduce myself to you, I snapped out of the trance I was in."
"'My name is Mira,' you had said," Shadow said. "I was happy to finally learn the identity of the girl that had plagued my thoughts and captured my heart."
"Then Tails came in and wrecked the sweet taste of reunion with his excitement," Mira said, laughing as she remembered. "He was so excited to meet you, but I must say, the look on your face when he flew into the air was priceless.
"'How can you do that?' you asked, and I tried my best to explain that he had figured a way to spin his two tails fast enough in a helicopter motion to fly."
"Didn't do a half-bad job, either," Shadow said. "But do you know what I liked best about that day?"
"I can take a pretty good guess," Mira said, smirking again. She leaned over to kiss Shadow firmly on the lips. "Am I right?"
"When are you wrong when it comes to these things?" Shadow asked, and suddenly the two were away from the edge, kissing again. Breaking apart, Mira's eyes, a pretty orange color, shone brightly. Unfortunately, the moment was ruined when she yawned behind the hand she raised. "Urgh… Guess it's a bit later than I thought…"
Shadow just scooped Mira up, ignoring her protests at being carried. Soon enough, however, she just snuggled in tight to his chest and drifted off.
Shadow looked down to find Mira fast asleep, mouth open slightly. Chuckling quietly, he kissed her forehead. "Sleep well, my love."
XXXXXX
Esme looked up as the door opened, smiling when Shadow walked in with a sleeping Mira in his arms. "I was beginning to worry," the adult fox said. "Kestrel kept trying to sneak out to find Mira."
"Stripes!"
Shadow dodged the gray youth that tried to tackle him, mostly because it would have woken up Mira. "Shush, Kestrel. Mira's asleep."
"Oops," Kestrel mouthed. Her charcoal gray fur was slightly similar to Mira's, but her hair was definitely more of soft quills rather than the stiff fur with quill-like properties Mira possessed. Only Kestrel and Mira actually knew what species the eleven year old was, and neither of them was telling, so they just assumed she was a porcupine. Soft golden brown eyes shone as she flopped down on the couch.
When Mira first brought the girl home, it had been a fiasco. Kestrel had lashed out at everyone but Mira, who she had some strange unlimited trust in. Shadow had been away when the girl had first come home, and it was a bigger hassle than when Raven, Willow, and Kyle had drifted their way in.
Shadow had been away fighting Eggman in another area, so he was quite surprise when a gray ball of fur glared at him the instant he came in the door. Everyone was braced for her to strike him when he crouched down to her level, but Kestrel had just glared at him. Mira had then taken Kestrel aside, and after a few days, Kestrel's guard went down, and the gang was able to see that she was really just scared of rejection, and once they had proved they weren't going to turn her back out on the street, she did a complete one-eighty, although she did get a little sullen when Cream had first dropped by before the two had gotten to know each other. And she reacted similar to her first few days whenever GUN agents were around, so Mira was careful to take the girl and steer clear of the agents whenever possible.
Rouge had solved most of the GUN issues when the bat joined up to serve as a contact so that the group could function better, and even Towers had been forced to admit that too much interference from GUN wasn't helping the heroes stop Eggman.
Mira stirred, eyes fluttering open as Shadow laid her down in her bed. Luckily she didn't wake up more than enough to mutter something in Spanish. Shadow had tried learning it at one point, but it had been far too confusing, not to mention time consuming. Besides, Shadow wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know what some of the foreign words Mira would utter meant.
Walking back out to the entrance, Kestrel lost no opportunity to pounce on the striped hedgehog. "So what did you and Mira talk about?" Kestrel asked, although she knew that she was more likely to get answer when she bugged Mira on the subject in the morning.
"Stuff," Shadow said, and Esme had to stifle a sigh, knowing that the too often used circle conversation was going to start up.
"What kind of stuff?"
"Things."
"What kind of things?"
"Stuff."
Luckily, Kestrel was too tired to keep the conversation. "Urgh. I'll just ask Mira in the morning… Night, Stripes."
"Good night, Kestrel," Shadow replied curtly. Noticing Esme giving him a world-class dead-panned look, he turned to her. "Something wrong, Esme?"
Esme just shook her head back and forth. "Bed, mister."
"But-!"
"No buts."
Shadow frowned, muttered a few choice swear words under his breath, and left for his own bed.
Esme sighed. "Children," she muttered under her breath as she too left for bed.
XXXXXXX
"Wakey-wakey, Mira!"
"Urgh…" Mira said, eyes opening blearily to see Kestrel seated on her bed. "Morning, Squirt."
"Not a squirt," Kestrel said, although she didn't bother to try and avoid the hand that mussed with her hair. "You and Stripes got back late last night."
"And you want to know why we were gone so long, wouldn't you?" Mira asked, knowing the eleven year old like the city she called home.
"Yup."
Mira sighed and chuckled lightly. "If you must know, we discussed how we met."
"Again?"
"Look, when you meet the guy that steals your heart, you'll understand," Mira said. "Now come on. I smell cinnamon buns."
"Hair, face, hands, and ears," Kestrel reminded.
"Just go make sure the others don't eat everything, would ya?" Mira said, shoving Kestrel towards the kitchen as she headed to the bathroom to wash up and brush her fur, which upon inspection, needed it.
It took ten minutes to finish cleaning up, but her hoverskates allowed her to snag a cinnamon bun from the pan when Esme turned her back for two seconds.
"Hey, when did you and Shadow get back last night?" Amy, another orphan who had joined their patchwork family when a water monster named Chaos flooded Station Square, asked.
"Erm… 10:49," Mira said after a moment, eyes glowing yellow for a second as she used her Chaos Sense to figure out what the time had been.
"And neither of you went back out later?"
"Nope. Why?"
"Because last night, there were several reports in Central City about a very peculiar type of disturbance," Amy said, reading the newspaper as she did every morning.
"What does that have to do with Mira and me?" Shadow asked, annoyed by Amy's withheld information.
"Because the disturbance was caused by something breaking the sound barrier," Amy said, showing them the paper so that they could see. "And people think it was you or Mira because of the location, but if were both here…"
"Who else is capable of running that fast?"
0-0-0-0-0-0
And that concludes chapter 1! Oh, and Shadow isn't semimortal(ageless but able to die) in this. Rather, he was designed to be superior to other people, but ages at a normal pace. He was sealed in cryostasis when he was twelve, and therefore was still twelve when he was released. If anyone has any questions or ideas for the plot, leave a review and I'll try to answer questions and work in plot requests if possible.
Flames will be given to Blaze to play with. Thank you!