Chapter 3

Just Like old times.

Everyone had stunned faces as they looked upon sonic stuffing his face with some leftovers from yesterday. "S-sonic. How?" Tanaka managed to stutter out. Sonic looked at him quizzically, "why does everyone keep asking that, i told you. Chris called and i answered." Everyone turned to Chris and gave him a 'What did you do' kind of look. Chris's hair was still dripping wet from when he got out of the shower, 'ode to demon blood' wasn't exactly his favorite cologne. They all stared at Chris and sonic before Ella finally said, "well, I think this is enough questioning for one night. Lets let the boys get some sleep."

Everyone nodded in agreement, they were all tired. Everyone went there respective ways and went there bedrooms, Tanaka was in his room reading. Ella was snoring on her bed in her room. Chris's parents lay awake talking about how they hadn't seen there son this happy in a long while. Chris was in his bed, Sonic was in the bed next to his, "Chris, isn't this nice?" Chris rolled over to face sonic, "isn't what nice?" Sonic also rolled over, they were now facing each other, "Well I mean its been four years, its nice having things back to the way they were before." Chris smiled and closed his eyes as he rolled onto his back, "yup, just like old times." And with that they both fell asleep, when the morning came there would be lots of questions, lots of answers, and quite possibly a party.


The house had more rooms than people, most of the rooms were libraries or laboratories for research. His room was at the end of the long hall on the second floor, two doors away from Marias. The first door was a bathroom and the second was her room. Shadow lay, tossing and turning, sweating and freezing at the same time, in complete bliss and complete agony. His head was killing him so he walked into the bathroom to run some water on his face. He bent down near the sink and once the water touched him he remembered something, something cold.

"Catch him! Don't let him escape!" The gun members shouted as they ran down the long corridor of the space colony ARK, chasing after Shadow and Maria, "Shadow leave me behind and you run for it, I'll just slow you down. Besides they want me not you, if i give up you can take an escape pod and get to somewhere safe." Shadow glanced back for have a second at Maria's pleading face, "no. Once they get you they'll just kill me, then your efforts will have been in vain and no one would be happy." Shadow picked up his pace a little as a bullet whizzed right past his head, "And i also made a promise to the Doctor to protect you, I wont run away."

Maria smiled, knowing shadow would always protect her was a comforting thought. They reached a room where all the escape pods were and quickly hurried inside one. Maria input commands and the engine began to start, when all of a sudden a red light began flashing. It was running low on engine coolant, and without some it wouldn't fly. The door had already shut and they were programmed not to open until they landed somewhere. Shadow quickly forced the doors open and jumped out, kicking the two GUN soldiers that were following them, unconscious, but 10 more were just down the hall. Shadow turned around and gave maria a small smile. Her smile quickly turned to a frown, she knew what he was going to do. A Chaos Spear was quickly shot and the back of the pod and it whizzed out into space, when she was about 100 yards away he turned to face all the GUN soldiers surrounding him.

"You can no longer escape, now tell us, where did you send Maria." Shadow merely looked at them all, rounding up his chances of victory. "Tell us now!" The man shouted as a warning shot made its way next to Shadows foot. Shadow finaly paid attention to the man, and merely smirked. He got into a form that was said to be impossible without the Chaos Emeralds, "CHAOS CONTROL!" Everything thing froze and Shadow quickly ran across the ship to the other side, where some more escape pods were. He kept running but he was starting to feel the effects of the Chaos Control. Without the Emeralds to power him up he had to use his own life force, meaning he was starting to die.

He reached the pod on the other side, input commands and flew off towards earth, it would be a long ride so he leaned back in his chair and fell asleep. And that was the last thing he remembered. Sleep, and his promise to protect Maria. When he awoke it was four years later and Maria was standing over him, she said he crashed on some remote island in the pacific and that he was only found because she had been monitoring the airspace in case he did manage to escape. She said he had some minor head injuries because the pod ran out of fuel near earth and it couldn't steer anymore, causing him to crash.

Shadow abruptly took his face from the water and fell backwards, the sudden rush of memories made him feel nauseous and he threw up in the toilet. His eyes seemed to burn with hatred as he rinsed the vomit from his lips, "promise me shadow, promise me you will always look after her." Shadow nodded and made his way for the door, the guards would be coming for Maria soon, "Shadow," he called out, "When you reach earth, i want you to kill someone, someone who will come after Maria. His name is Sonic The Hedgehog." Shadow nodded as he ran.

"You will die Sonic, even if your master helped save Maria." And with that shadow walked out of the bathroom and went back to his room, immediatly falling asleep on the bed.

"You...Will...Die."