Hey guys, it's been a few days since I updated, so I hope this is worth the wait! More coming later in the week, probably aiming for Friday, so stay tuned!
"Jesus what the fuck is happening?" Shadow said to himself, rubbing his head as he glanced around. The air in the room was cold, with zero noise except sounds coming from Shadow. He stood up and opened the door to the room he was in.
Just as I thought… I'm back on the ARK. Why? And where's Rouge, Brie, and Sebastian? I need to have a look around…
He walked down the long, cold hallway. So many memories here, yet one kept coming to mind.
Shadow.
He shrugged it off, walking towards Gerald Robotnik's old lab.
You were created to help the people of Earth, yet all you ever wanted to do was protect me Shadow, you're a failure.
Maria's voice kept echoing throughout his head. He had a killer headache, and once he opened the door to the lab it grew worse, as he was met with a blinding light. When the light died down he was floating outside the ARK, next to him was Maria.
"Maria..? What the fuck is going on?" He asked bluntly.
"You were created to help the people of Earth, yet all you ever wanted to do was protect me Shadow, yet you let me die. You're a failure."
"Stop saying that… I tried." his tone went from blunt to a more saddened tone.
"Look at you, the "Ultimate Lifeform" crying over me… you're so weak, so pathetic."
"Where's the sweet girl I used to know?" Shadow grabbed her hand and forced her to look at him. His eyes showed something very rare, they showed weakness. One of the only people he ever truly loved… truly cared for, was shitting on him.
"That sweet girl DIED on the ARK because of you. She's gone because of you!"
A tear floated off his cheek, he was broken in more ways than he thought imaginable. It took a minute for him to realize what was happening, chaos control took him back in time, and the reason Rouge and his kids weren't with him was because they weren't alive yet. He was reliving a moment in his life, it wouldn't take long to figure out what moment it was.
"Look at that Shadow, it's us, so, so many years ago…"
"Maria… why is this happening? Is this hell? Am I relieving every fucked up thing that happened in my life?" Shadow cried out, he would be to his knees, but since they were still floating he couldn't do much of anything.
"Pay attention hedgehog, this is the best part!"
It was actually the worst part, the part where Maria was shot.
"Fuck… Maria… I-.. I'm so sorry." he grabbed her hands again, locking eyes with the very different Maria from what he remembered.
"You're sorry? OH that makes everything fucking rainbows and unicorns Shadow, YOU KILLED ME SHADOW, never forget this day."
Just then, the light returned, and Shadow felt the air return. He was back in normal time, holding Rouge and his kids.
He gave them a bewildered look, then ran over and hugged them, tears flowing like a river down his face.
"Shady, wha- what's this all about?" Rouge said in a shocked tone. My man never acts like this, somethings wrong…
Shadow backed off and glared at his family for a moment before he found the words to speak. "I love you… all of you, so much." he spoke with a broken voice, Sebastian and Rouge just sat stunned as the ebony hedgehog showed a side he rarely showed, sure he was loving, but he rarely, if at all, cried.
"Shadow babe, talk to me." Rouge grabbed him and walked him over to a bench. Shadow hadn't even realized it, but they were on a boat of some sort.
"Sebastian, hold your sister and go sit down by the pool for a moment, I'll come get you after me and daddy talk."
With a nod, the smaller hedgehog grabbed his sister and walked down the staircase to the pool.
"Babe… I thought you were dead. All of you, I went back in time, before you all were even born, I was on the ARK and -" he was cut off by his wife.
"Babe, slow down, time travel? The ARK? We only traveled long enough for someone to blink."
Shadow froze and met Rouges emerald eyes, they glowed with concern. "Wait… you weren't frozen in time? You weren't here waiting for me?"
"No babe, once you caused chaos control, we appeared here immediately after with you, maybe we were frozen and just didn't know it." She wiped the tears off his face and rubbed her fingers on his chin. He slowly calmed down.
"Well… let's talk about it later, okay? I need to do some thinking." he stood up to walk off, but Rouge grabbed his hand and held him in place.
"Shadow, why the hell are we on a boat?"
Shadow snapped out of his train of thought and looked around, this wasn't a boat, it was practically a yacht. It was huge, maybe a cruise line?
"I don't know… I don't even remember what I was thinking about when I caused chaos control besides getting us somewhere safe. Let me go ask around and then I'll come back for you guys, go get Sebastian and Brie, stay together and I'll be back. He placed a kiss on her cheek quickly, then ran off. After a few seconds he realized what boat they were actually on, this was actually his boat he and Rouge had stole back when they first met, Rouge got Shadow involved in a robbery and they needed a place to lay low, so they stole the boat.
He shook his head in disbelief as he was so distracted that he didn't realize where they were. He walked back to his family with a smirk on his face.
"Well Rouge, it's our boat. We stole this boat after our first… job together." He didn't wanna say robbery, he didn't want Sebastian to know everything this early in his life, they were trying to keep his head straight.
Rouge's eyes went from shocked to calm. "Oh yeah? So many memories on here…" She said in a seductive tone.
He responded by giving her a not in front of the kids kind of look . She simply laughed and took Brie from Sebastian. "I'll set up a room for our little girl, go show Sebastian where he can stay."
After some walking, Shadow and Sebastian arrived at a doorway. "You can have any room on this hallway you want son."
Sebastian's face lit up with excitement. He ran from room to room examining them. After a few minutes, he returned to his dad with his choice. "I want that one daddy." Of course, it was the biggest room on the hall.
Shadow couldn't help but smile, "All yours buddy." he patted his son on the back and let him go unpack. He poked his head in the doorway before going to find Rouge and Brie.
"Sebastian, later I'll chaos control us somewhere to get you some toys and stuff for your room." Again, his sons face lit up.
"Dad, you're the best!" he said with a huge smile.
Shadow nodded and left, walking down the hallway and up the stairs to find Rouge. He had a pretty good idea of where to find her, and his assumption was right. She was in the room they stayed in when the two originally stayed on the boat.
"Somehow I knew I'd find you in here." he said to her as he jumped into bed next to her. She greeted him with a warm smile and embrace.
"It wouldn't be right anywhere else babe, this is our room ya know." she said placing a kiss on his neck.
"Of course I know, how could I forget?"
*Flashback to the robbery/boat*
Rouge unlocked the door to her apartment above Club Rouge, only to find nothing had changed since she left. Shadow was still laid out on the couch, watching TV. She placed down the food she brought back on the counter and flew over to the couch, landing next to Shadow.
"Sit up for a minute Shady, I got an idea." as he sat up, she sat down, placing her arm around his neck.
"What's with you?" he said in a harsh tone.
"I wanna do something fun, let me take you out!" she removed her arm from around his neck and placed a hand on his leg.
"Don't you date knuckles?" he responded with that same harsh tone.
"Not like that Shadow, I meant take you out on a mission!" she chuckled as he began to blush.
How could I be so stupid to think that's what she meant?
"Oh… of course. What did you have in mind?"
"Well, since you're the ultimate lifeform, and I'm the ultimate thief, what happens when we team up?" She said with a upbeat tone.
"We can't be stopped, we're unstoppable together." A smile snuck onto Shadow's face, liking where this was going.
"Exactly, so, let's rob a place a sane person would consider impossible!"
Shadow sat for a moment, thinking what she could possibly be talking about. Then it hit him like a brick wall.
"Oh you're nuts!" He said, coming back to reality of how hard this would be."
"Oh come on Shad, one job and we're set for life!" She placed a hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off but she was persistent, placing it right back on his shoulder.
"Fine, we'll rob the gold depository." He said, exhaling with a tone of defeat trailing his words.
After days of prep and scouting, they decided it was time to hit the depository. Everything went according to plan, well, almost. Shadow went straight through the front door, he was on crowd control, on top of being a distracting for the cops. Meanwhile, Rouge entered through a vent, not having to worry about tripping an alarm since Shadow had set them all off. She reached the vault and cracked it after minutes of testing combinations, while Shadow was fighting off waves of cops.
"Rouge, can you hurry it the hell up down there? There's a shitload of cops up here, they really like their gold." She could hear the blasts and gunshots going off in the background as he spoke.
"Don't worry hun, I got as much as I can carry, I'm on the way out, meet me at the designated location, Rouge out."
Rouge slid out, no problem. Almost no problem.
Shadow on the other hand kept fighting off wave and wave of police. Eventually, they backed off to regroup and he too the moment to chaos control out of the bank. When he arrived at the location, Rouge was nowhere to be found.
"Rouge, come in Rouge." He spoke into his earpiece.
Nothing but radio silence.
Shit, something's wrong.
He knew the route she planned out and started to back track, eventually coming across an alleyway. A trail of blood led behind a dumpster. Shadow's heart jumped out of his chest.
Rouge you better not be fucking dead…
He jumped off the roof and darted towards the dumpster, once he arrived he moved the dumpster out of the way, revealing a wounded Rouge. She was still wearing most of her heist clothing, she had taken off her black hoodie, revealing a gunshot wound to her arm. She slid her mask off when she realized it was Shadow who had found her.
"Fuck you scared me Shady, can ya help a girl out?" She said trying to smile.
"Scared you? I thought you fucking died." He said kneeling down and examining her wound. "Damn, it's still in there. I'll have to get you out of here before I can help with that."
"Shadow, we can't go back to our apartment, when we get out of here we really need to lie low for a bit… let's… let's steal a boat."
He picked her up and cradled her, locking eyes with her and giving her a nod of approval. She returned a sad look.
"Shadow, I lost most of the gold… please don't hate me."
"Hate you? Fuck the gold, I only care about you, now hang on… Chaos Control."
When the bright light died down, they found themselves on the docks. He sat her down against a post.
"Once I find a suitable boat, I'll be back for you… don't bleed out, keep pressure on it." before she could even respond, he was gone.
She sat there holding her arm in pain. Jeez you really fucked this one up didn't ya? I bet Shadow's gonna let me hear it when he fixes me up… if he fixes me up…
She was struck with fear, she glanced down and saw the pool of blood that had formed around her. She slid off her combat boot and took off her sock, using it to wrap up the wound tightly.
"This'll have to do…"
In a flash, Shadow had appeared back in front of her, he had used chaos control again. Without speaking a word, he picked her up and caused chaos control for a fourth time that night. Once the light died down again, she found herself in his arms still, this time in a room on a boat. He laid her down on the bed, he was visibly fatigued. Rouge knew he was working himself too hard. She was about to tell him to slow down, but he had already turned around and caused chaos control again!
Shadow… he's gonna fucking kill himself.
After a moment, he returned yet again in a flash, this time he had a tiny bag with him, he stood for a moment catching his balance, then he opened the bag. He took out a needle and thread, pliers, rubbing alcohol, and some whiskey.
"Shadow slow the hell down" Rouge tried to place her hand on his chest to stop him, but he already sat down next to her and forced her down on her back.
"Please Rouge, be quiet… I gotta focus." he handed her the bottle of whiskey.
"Drink, it'll help with the pain you're about to feel." he said as he rubbed alcohol against the wound to clean it, he then grabbed the pliers and and removed the sock from her arm. Just before he began to take the bullet out, she took a few large gulps of the whiskey.
Fuck this is gonna hurt.
Indeed it did, she let out a loud scream as he took the bullet out. He wiped down the wound again then began stitching her up as quickly and as cleanly as possible.
"Shadow… thank you." she said between breaths.
He didn't respond, he wanted to but he knew he couldn't maintain consciousness for much longer.
He finished up and removed his shirt, using it to wrap up her arm.
Rouge was thankful, but she was distracted by his ripped figure.
"Shadow lay down, you don't look so good…"
Thump! Shadow collapsed as she sat up trying to catch him.
Damn he's gonna be grumpy when he wakes up… she thought to herself as she laid him in bed next to her. After a few hours of rest and worry, Shadow finally opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was Rouge laying on his chest. He was taken back and wanted to shake her off, then he realized he almost lost her. Instead of shrugging her off, he simply called out to see if she was awake.
"Rouge?"
Her ears perked up at his dull, deep voice. She rolled over and met his tired crimson eyes.
"Well well well, my hero finally wakes up!" she tucked her head into his chest, and he didn't stop her.
"Are you okay? How's the arm?" he studied her eyes, full of joy, while she studied his, full of worry.
"I'm great Shady! Don't look so worried, you took care of me surprisingly well for someone that was abusing chaos control." she replied with a chuckle.
"Abuse? No, it was necessary, I wasn't gonna lose you."
She blushed at his words, still lost in his eyes, she leaned in and met his lips. He pulled back at first, then he gave in to the temptation. He had wanted it for so long, but she was dating Knuckles.
After the two had their moment, they pulled away, eyes still locked. It took everything in Shadow's power not to pounce her right then and there, and little did he know, she was having the same conflict.
"Well that was something." She said with a deep blush.
Shadow, smiling bigger than she had ever seen, responded in a sarcastic tone. "Well, we're gonna be together for the next few days while the heat dies down, get used to it."
Though it sounded as if he was joking, Rouge was fine with it, she wanted it, and eventually she would get what she wanted!
*Current day*
"You know babe, I thought you were gonna die… it's pretty funny it took all that for you to realize that Knuckles was a piece of shit."
"I know Shady, play nice! He's a total dick, but still, be thankful we ended up together in the end." she met him with a deep and passionate kiss, then cuddled up into him. The two talked back and forth throughout the night, reminiscing on their relationship.
Meanwhile…
Blaze was standing at the docks, watching the boat off in the distance. She wore a black bulletproof vest, a green shirt underneath, blue jeans and the same combat boots as before. Alongside her was a new companion, Sonic. He wore a blue t-shirt and black combat jeans, along with his usual red and white sneakers.
"Think that's them?" Sonic asked, glancing over at his new partner.
"Positive, Rouge told me about it awhile back. Let's give them a day or two… then hit them when their guard is down." Blaze respond, still staring off at the ship.
The two stared off again, Sonic in thought of what Blazes intentions were, while Blaze was thinking if she would actually have to kill Shadow.
You got one more chance Shad, then the claws come out…
OOOO, expect a fight… no, a battle in the next chapter! The real questions here, will Sonic actually be more help or cause more trouble for Blaze, and where's Silver and Omega? Don't worry, all will be answered in time, this chapter was the longest yet, and I haven't started chapter 4 yet, but I got a feeling it may be even longer than this, so hang in there, updates coming soon! Feel free to review, and I'll catch you guys later this week with CH4.
