Episode 1B: Love at First Hedgehog

One afternoon, Maria is doing her grocery shopping like she's been doing for living here for a few weeks. This time is a little different. Maria is extra happy and is getting different fruit, vegetables, and other things need for her home.

"Hey Maria!" A familiar voice calls out.

Maria turns to see Sticks and Amy.

"Hi Maria, doing your shopping?" Amy asks.

"Yes. I'm just getting a few things for my house and trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight," Maria says.

"Huh? I didn't know you can cook," Sticks says.

"I can. Since I was healing better, the nurses and independent programers are teaching me how to cook, clean, and other ways to be independent," Maria says.

"Did you know how to fight too?" Amy asks.

"Not really. I was taught how to use my powers, not much about combat," Maria says.

Then says, "It will be great if he can teach me it."

"Who?" Sticks asks.

Maria cheeks begins to blush, "It-it-it's nothing!"

"Are you feeling okay? Your cheeks are blushing," Amy asks.

"Um they are?" Maria asks, making her cheeks blush more.

With a grin Amy suspects, "Maria, did you I don't know, met someone."

"No no I didn't met a boy," Maria says.

"She didn't say it was a boy," Sticks says.

Maria face turns red and looks down. Sticks and Amy becomes confused about it.

"Well, uh, you see, I did met someone," Maria shyly says.

"OOOH! You like someone!" The two girls squeal in excitement.

"No no no no no!" Maria panics, then hushes the girls.

Then then calmly says, "I… I sort of like him. I mean, he was cold and distance, but I can tell he has some good intentions."

"So who's the boy that captured your heart?" Amy asks.

"He literary stole her heart?! Then Maria's a zombie!" Sticks screams.

Amy rolls her eyes, "It's a figure of speech Sticks. I'm asking who Maria likes."

"Ohh! So who is it?" Sticks asks.

"Well, I don't know his name but…" But before Maria can say anything two figures zomes past them.

"What in the…" Amy asks in shock.

The girls look to see the two spinning balls one's red the other is blue. When the ball stops, it reveals to be Sonic, and a black and red color hedgehog.

"Great. Sonic and Shadow are at it again," Amy says.

Maria gasps in shock to see the two hedgehogs, especially the black and red hedgehog.

"That's him. That's the hedgehog I met last week. The one who saved me," Maria says in thought.

Just then, Sonic and the other hedgehog begin to throw punches and kicks at each other. Maria and the others stand and watch to see the battle.

Maria turns to Amy, "Um, who is that hedgehog fighting Sonic?"

"That's Shadow, Sonic's rival. Those two seem to alway fight each other whenever they see each other," Amy says.

"Really now?" Maria asks.

"Yep. Shadow is always, stubborn, serious, and a bit cold hearted," Sticks adds.

"If you say so," Maria replies.

Amy screams, "Here they come!"

The girls quickly move out of the way and crashes into one of the fruit stand, knocking one of the fruits out. Watermelon hits a palm tree and begins to fall. Maria falls to the ground and looks to see the tree going to fall her, making her scream. Then someone swifts her off her feet and the tree falls to the ground.

Sonic, Amy, and Sticks becomes confused, "What the..?!"

Maria has her eyes covered with her hands, but slowly peaks out to see that the hedgehog, Shadow has come to her rescue. To her, it's like what happened last time.

"Are you alright?" Shadow asks.

Maria blushes, "Um yes. Thank you. It's um… nice to see you again."

Shadow puts Maria back on their feet and the two stare each other for the longest time. Sonic and the others are looking rather confused by it.

Sonic calls out, "Hey Shadow, are we gonna continue or what?"

"Sonic!" Amy scolds, smacking Sonic on the head.

However, Shadow doesn't seem to hear him.

"I'll see you later," Shadow says.

Maria blushes, "Um sure."

Then Shadow leaves the scene leaving Maria with her cheeks turning red.

"That was weird, even for Shadow," Sonic says.

"Forget him, what's up with Maria?" Sticks says.

Sonic and the girls look to see Maria starting where Shadow is leaving too. Her cheeks are red and her eyes are sparkling.

Sonic walks over, "Hey Maria, what's up? You look dazed."

"Shadow is amazing," Maria speaks up.

"Amazing?" Sticks asks.

Sonic looks at Maria to see the funny expression on her face. He realizes that he has seen this with Tails, when he develops a….

"Oh! I know what's going on here," Sonic says.

"Maria has eaten a bad apple and is starting to have a strange food poisoning sickness making her delusional," Sticks suspects.

"Yeah, that, or maybe Maria has a crush on Shadow," Sonic says.

"Um well uh," Maria turns her head as her cheeks turning red.

"Oh I get it, you're all lovey dovey about Shadow," Sticks says.

"Well, uh, well, he um, did saved me from an incident at the quarry and then we um had lunch together, but that's all," Maria shyly says.

Amy squeals, "Oh my gosh! Maria is in love! That is so adorable! You are so adorable!"

"Um I well, I don't know about that and I'm um, not that adorable," Maria says.

"Awww!" Amy and Sticks reply.

Maria lowers her head, "I just… don't know how to talk to him is all."

Maria puts her hands on her cheeks and smiles with her eyes closed. Then lets out a sigh.

"Don't worry Maria, we'll help you to snag him, Maria. After all, that's what friends are for," Amy says.

"But how are we going to get the two together. No offence, but Shadow doesn't seem like the lady's man," Sonic says.

Amy thinks, "We just need to figure out how to get the two together and make sure Shadow doesn't get away. What's more, we need to make sure they're alone."

"How are we going to do that?" Sticks asks.

Sonic think about it, "Hmm, and I think I know just the thing."

Later on, Amy and Sticks are leading Maria to the perfect spot.

"So um, where are we going?" Maria asks.

"Don't worry, I know just the place for you two to be alone and so Shadow won't leave without any reason," Amy says.

"So what's with the pizza and sodas?" Sticks asks.

"That's their lunch," Amy says.

Sticks laughs, "Good idea. I just hope Sonic is having good luck getting Shadow to follow him."

"Why so?" Maria asks.

"When I told you Sonic and Shadow has a rivalry, it's more of a very bitter rivalry. The only way for Shadow to follow Sonic if he does something to make him mad," Amy says.

Maria worriedly says, "That doesn't sound good."

In the rocky ravean, Sonic is running super fast to go find Shadow. He suspects that the black and red hedgehog should be around the area. Luckily, he knows where Shadow is. He stops at front of a cave, which one of Shadow's secret places. He walks inside to see Shadow leaning against a boulder with his arms crossed.

Sonic goes inside, and calls out, "Yo Shadow!"

"Urgh! You again," Shadow says, annoyed.

"Hey Shads, How about we finish where we left off. Last one to the ancient ruins is a rotten egg," Sonic says.

"No," Shadow answers.

"Come on Shads, don't be a slo mo," Sonic mocks.

"I thought I told you about that stupid nickname," Shadow says with a glare.

"A bunch of lectures won't stop me from calling you Shads, Shads. By the way, I ran into your new girlfriend, Maria," Sonic says.

"She's not my girlfriend," Shadow denies.

"Not yet, I can tell you kind of like her," Sonic says, with a smirk.

Shadow turns his head with a huff.

"Don't try to deny it, Shadow. I saw how you acted in front of her and the quick save you did for her. You love her," Sonic says.

"I barely even knew her," Shadow says.

Sonic can see the slight blush on his cheeks.

"You do like her, the blush on your cheeks say otherwise," Sonic mocks.

Shadow growls in anger, "Why you…"

"Shadow and Maria sitting in a tree. K-I-S-s…" Sonic says, but becomes nervous to see Shadow gritting his teeth in anger and clutching his fists.

Sonic gulps nervously, "Gotta go!"

Sonic zooms out of the cave.

"Get back here!" Shadow shouts in anger and chases after him.

At the clearing, Dr. Eggman has make a special table and leaves it where it's out of the open. Dr. Eggman, Orbot, and Cubot are hiding behind some bushes waiting patiently.

"Remind me again, why you set up a table in the middle of nowhere?" Cubot asks.

"Because, Sonic will be coming here for some lunch and this is the perfect place for my trap. Once they sit on the chairs of the table, I'll activate the trap and send him on a one way trip to space," Eggman says.

"That sounds like a brilliant plan. Let's just hope everyone arrive because I see Amy, Sticks, and the new girl coming over," Orbot says.

Eggman looks out to see the girls walking to the table and place the box of pizza and soda bottles on the table.

"Now we'll just have to wait for Sonic to arrive," Amy says.

"And here he comes," Sticks says, pointing forward.

The three girls look to see Sonic running to the table with Shadow running after him.

"Here they come, hurry Maria, sit here," Amy says.

Hiding, the bad guys are looking a bit confused.

"What are they up to?" Eggman asks.

"Maybe they're having a picnic?" Cubot says.

Orbot says, "And it looks like Shadow might be joining them."

"Huh?" Eggman asks.

Shadow run to the clearing and stops to see Sonic standing in front of him.

"What is this all about Sonic?" Shadow demands.

"Glad you ask," Sonic says.

He then pushes Shadow to the table and places him on the chair at the table. Shadow is confused and annoyed.

"Hi Shadow," Maria shyly says.

Shadow turns his head to see Maria sitting on the chair on the other side of the round table.

"Hello Maria," Shadow says.

He turns to the others, "What's this about?"

"Yeah. What's this about? If I didn't know better, I say you are trying to hook Shadow and Maria on a date," Eggman asks.

"What do you want Eggface?" Sonic asks.

"Much as I like to reveal my plans, but it won't do this time. I need the love birds off the table right now," Eggman says.

"Did he say now?" Cubot asks. Then presses the button on the remote anyway.

Suddenly, the table create a metal around wall and an umbrella turning into a pointed cone. Then robot boosters appears on the bottom and launches high into the sky, with Maria and Shadow trapped inside.

Inside, Maria asks, "What's going on?"

"I don't know, but I'll bet this is Eggman's doing," Shadow answers.

On the ground, Sonic and the girls are not pleased with Eggman and the robots.

"What did you do?" Sonic demands.

"This wasn't supposed to go as planned. You were supposed to be in that rocket and get launched into space," Eggman says.

"Space?!" Sonic and the two girls exclaim.

Trapped in the rocket, Shadow and Maria have no idea what is happening. There are no windows, or even a door.

"Um where do you think we're going?" Maria asks, feeling nervous.

"I don't know, but knowing Eggman, this has to be a plan for him to get rid of Sonic… again," Shadow says.

Maria starts to get scared, "Shadow, how are we going to get out?"

Shadow can see the watery eyes and scared expression on her face. He feels strange, he never feels concern about anyone, but we can see the fear in Maria's eyes. Shadow walks over and wipes a tear from her face.

"Don't worry Maria, we'll get out," Shadow reassures.

"But how? There's no way for us to escape," Maria says.

"I wouldn't say no way of escape," Shadow says.

Maria becomes confused, "Huh?"

"Take my hand. I promise that everything will be alright," Shadow says, presenting his hand to Maria.

Maria looks at his hand and then looks at Shadow. Maria face starts to turn a little red.

Maria then takes Shadow's hand, "I trust you, Shadow."

Then Maria remembers, "Oh, but what about the food Amy brough to us. I hate for it to go to waste."

"Good idea," Shadow says.

Back on the ground of the island, Sonic is able to bring Tails and Knuckles over, and tell them what has happen.

"So what are we going to do? Shadow and Maria are probably out of orbit by now," Sonic asks.

"I think I can build a rocket that will get us up into space. Eggman will need to help us though," Tails says.

"Why me?" Eggman asks.

Amy says, "You're the one who wanted to blast us into space,but got Maria and Shadow launched into space instead. You're the one who got them into this mess, and you're going to be the one to get them out."

"Fine fine. It will take come time, but we can build one. We better do it fast before they are too far out of our reach," Eggman says.

Suddenly, Shadow and Maria appear in the same clearing they are at. Maria is also holding the pizza and sodas. While Shadow is still holding Maria's hand.

"Or Shadow could just teleport himself and Maria back," Sonic bluntly says.

"Glad to see you two are back from Cloud Nine," Knuckles says.

Shadow sternly glares at Knuckles, but quickly calms down and face Maria.

"Now that you two are back, how about we have some lunch," Sticks says.

Shadow says, "Mara and I will have lunch alone."

Then teleports himself and Maria away from the scene.

"Sheesh! He can be a real hard case sometimes," Sonic says.

"But I think it's best to give those two some alone time. Thought honestly, those two don't seem like a perfect match. Then again, love can happen in a strange way, and has a funny way of connecting one to another," Eggman says.

"That's actually logical, even for you Eggman," Sonic says.

Amy sighs happily, "I hope Maria and Shadow are happy with their alone time."

At the otherside of the island close to the beach, Shadow and Maria are having lunch together. Turns out, their time together is actually going well. Maria lands to shadow and close to his Shadow. Shadow does become surprised at first, but he smiles and puts his hand on the other shoulder. The two are beginning to have a special relationship together.