Chapter Four: The Path's Laid Out
Shadow slipped the disk into the DVD player, and then sat down on the table in front of it, crossing his arms and waiting for the black screen of the TV to light up with pictures. It was the face of a woman, with thick classes and long black hair who ended up looking back at him. Shadow cocked an eyebrow as she adjusted the screen, thinking all the while that she looked vaguely familiar somehow.
"Hello, Shadow. It's been such a long while. Maybe fifty years or so?" The woman laughed, a cold maniacal thing that made Shadow's shoulders tense. Enough to hurt his back, since he had already tensed with suspicion when she called him by his name.
"My name is Raven." The woman stopped smiling and adjusted her glasses now. "I was a young scientist on the Space Colony ARK. I'm sure you remember it? And I'm sure you remember the horrible events that took place there as well?"
She asked a question like he was supposed to answer. Shadow was much too busy being shocked by Raven's similarities in his own history to really noticed the rather silly tone.
"I was never close to Dr. Robotnik, so we never saw much of each other. In fact, I knew nothing of you until we were both captured and he told me of his plans for you. He was truly a genius! Someone I will forever be looking up to. As you know though, this is not why I'm contacting you.
It's because I loved that man, and surely I thought his plan was fool proof, however I was wrong. It was then I realized that every single thing he taught and told me, was to prepare me in being the back up plan in case such a failure did occur."
Raven shifted enough on the screen to show Shadow the three chaos emeralds in the container behind her. Shocked further, his eyes widened and he shot to his feet like a spring. "How-!" Of course, he cut himself off when he realized this was a recorded message. Flushing slightly, he collapsed back on the table, watching now with much more interest than before.
"This is why I need you to help me collect the chaos emeralds." Raven continued in her message. "I'll send Salt to collect a chaos emerald or you're decline in two days time. If you do decide to find me a chaos emerald, which I know someone of your caliber should be able to find effortlessly; I will give you more details about my plan for you, I, and the remaining three chaos emeralds."
She moved back in front of the chaos emeralds and now Shadow could see her eyes were twinkling with a devilish delight. "While considering you're answer I urge you to remember who it was who killed Maria. This could be you're last chance for revenge."
The screen went black now and left a small little emerald shape on the side of the screen while the timer on the DVD player continued to count down. Once it finished it spit the disk back out and the TV went black ominously.
Shadow could only sit and stare at the screen. She… she knew Maria…? Something in his heart ached at this, and he was desperate to want to help her, to get information about the girl he knew he had loved and yet barely remembered.
Except… there seemed something fishy about this. Gerald had wanted to destroy the world, and if she was the back up plan, then she wanted to do the same. Why did she need him and the chaos emeralds? It seemed the only way to really get the information was to collect an emerald and give it to her, but was that really wise?
Did he have any choice?
A flash of blue entered his mind rather suddenly. He picked up the disk and narrowed his eyes at it. Sonic would benefit from hearing this information, along with Rouge. Both had been extremely interested in the enemy who was supposed to be able to defeat Eggman effortlessly.
Shadow placed the disk by the side of the TV. Did he want to share this with them though? Especially when it contained such intimate information about himself. He was positive he could (and probably would) tell Rouge, so she could get further along in her case; but the faker…?
He had two days to decide of course. Unlike his counterpart Shadow knew better than to rush into things. Sighing to himself, he pinched the bridge of his nose as his eyes began to ache from weariness, and he began heading towards his bedroom, eager for sleep.
Telling Rouge was the only decision he would be making tonight.
There was sounds that echoed in his mind… words that swam through a fog and were hard to understand. The voice though, he knew who it belonged to. It urged him to open his eyes, forcing his body and mind from the comfortable unconscious and into the waking world. Things suddenly came into focus sharply, pain shooting up his body, and blinking rapidly to try and make the blurry gray ceiling come into focus.
Thankfully the pain receded, as though it just wanted to remind him that he had been ignoring it, and the ceiling came into focus enough for him to recognize he was in Tails' bedroom of his workshop. He also realized it was Tails who was talking to him.
"- much electricity! No wonder you-"
"Ugh…" Sonic groaned. He lifted a paw to his forehead and turned his head towards the babbling fox. His green eyes were still foggy from exhaustion, but he looked like he was awake enough to comprehend what was happening.
"Sonic! You're awake!" Tails cheered. His blue eyes were brimming with molten happiness at seeing his hero was awake and well. "I was starting to worry!"
"Don't need to worry about me, buddy…" Sonic smiled weakly and started to push himself up. The pain was from tense muscles all over his body, like they had constricted harder than normal for some reason. Sonic was trying to remember what he happened, but all he could gather was getting caught by the bee before everything went black.
"What happened anyway?" He asked. Already his eyes were starting to clear, and his strength was coming back. Sonic was remarkably good at healing. Probably because everything seemed to be accelerated for the hyperactive hedgehog.
"Well, the easiest way to explain it would be the robot electrocuted you, but I don't think it's that simple." Tails seemed unfazed that Sonic was already shifting to get out of bed, despite the fact he had only woken up moments ago. "Something seemed weird about it."
Sonic tried to get up, and felt his legs protest so strongly that he almost fell back down again. He was a stubborn fellow though, and he wasn't about to just lay around when there was a new enemy out collecting emeralds. He forced himself on to stiff legs, scowling to himself. "I feel like my whole body is full of concrete!"
Once again, Tails seem unworried about Sonic getting up. A flash of it entered his eyes when his idol swayed, but seeing he was alright again eased it away. Tails had seen a lot of his hero getting beaten and then bouncing right back, so this was really nothing new to the fox. "It's probably because you're muscles seized really badly. That's why I said it was unnatural! You zonked out and then it made you're body react all funky for at least a half an hour after word!"
"Funky?" Sonic asked worriedly. He paused in slipping on new gloves, since the old ones had been half frayed or fried, resulting in him throwing them away (thankfully his shoes seemed hardly damaged at all). Just pulling on the gloves seemed to take a lot of effort and scowling as well, and it was actually starting to make him worry now.
"Weird energy readings, a high temperature, and a couple times you're body got all stiff…" Tails suddenly looked away, wanting to hide what he was feeling. He knew Sonic would sense it otherwise, but he still tried. "I couldn't really do anything to help…"
Sonic knew his little brother was guilty, and he also knew how scary being helpless could be. Plus, watching someone you grew up with react so violently and not having anything to help them? Sonic imagined the situations reversed and had to suppress shuddering for fear of hurting himself. He was shocked again just how strong his best friend really was.
"Hey…" Sonic walked over and placed a hand on the little foxes head. "You saved me yah know! Thanks a lot big guy!" He ruffled his fur and grinned, which only resulted in Tails trying to push him off.
"You're messing it up!" He complained, but he was smiling. The unspoken words of comfort successful in cheering him up.
Now it was back to business. With this new threat, Sonic didn't want to waste time. For that enemy could have found another one as he was unconscious. And seeing just how strong this new enemy was first hand, he was reluctant to find out what the new enemy had in store for the chaos emeralds.
"Let's get moving!" Sonic suddenly announced. "We need to find the remaining emeralds!" He shifted around Tails, forcing his stiff legs to jog.
"Yeah!" Tails agreed, glad to see his idol back to normal, and eager to follow.
Except Sonic stopped short when a flash of black and crimson entered his minds eye. For a moment he was confused, before he realized it was a memory that being zonked out had pushed aside.
"Oh crap!" The hedgehog bristled in alarm and whirled around to face Tails with dread.
"What's wrong?" Tails had nearly run into Sonic when the other had stopped and was now looking up at him in some curiosity laced with worry.
"I forgot about my date with Shadow!"
And to this Tails fell to the floor.
"Interesting. I don't remember reading about her in the files before," Rouge was saying as the DVD finished playing. She turned to Shadow curiously.
"She's a cheap knock-off of the Doctor, so of course you wouldn't." Shadow looked highly annoyed, sitting with a leg crossed over the other and his arms crossed about his chest.
"Bad idea laced with better weaponry," Rouge concurred. "All cliché's and plagiarism aside, she is a very strong opponent. Her weapons seem to operate a lot like you're chaos blasts."
"Hmm," Shadow closed his eyes and leaned back in the couch. "That metal she builds with is also resistant to any attacks unless chaos energy related."
"So really, this enemy is all about you," Rouge finally concluded.
"Seems so."
"What are you going to do then?"
Shadow opened his eyes again to face the bat sitting beside him. He noticed she was eyeing him curiously, leaning back with her legs crossed and her arms casually resting.
"I could get her the emeralds and keep you updated with information?" Shadow offered.
"Yes, but what about Sonic? Surely he will be no match for her, and could use your help."
The sudden and uncharacteristic suggestion made Shadow narrow his crimson eyes at the bat. "Why would I ever do something like that?"
"You're the only one who uses chaos energy related attacks, yet Sonic has a natural way of finding chaos emeralds. Being the great treasure hunter that I am, so do I, but I am unfortunately busy with another case right now, so it'll be up to you two."
"Rouge…" When did she ever turn down hunting for chaos emeralds? He knew her far better than she liked, since he was now glaring at her to come up with a better excuse than her last one.
Rouge sighed before smiling. "Alright, alright. I think it would be obvious for you to help him. You two are dating remember? It would only make sense." And now she winked playfully.
"Since when did you get so involved with this scheme?" Shadow couldn't help but drag his hand down his face now, exasperated. Sometimes he felt like he was surrounded by idiots.
"Since when I started thinking you two would be a great couple!" She laughed at the way Shadow looked up with an embarrassed flush and a furious glare.
"You're joking," Shadow declared, almost pleadingly.
He got no sign that he should be relieved from the bat though. Just a smirk. "I'll never tell."
The black hedgehog rolled his eyes before glancing away. "Working with him is an impossibility. He is much too childish for my tastes."
The white bat eyed Shadow now with a smile that was fading. Silence stretched between them both before she sighed. "Still mad about last night, huh?"
Getting no answer from the black hedgehog only proved her point. "I'm sure he'll have a good excuse." Rouge wasn't so sure, but she wanted to comfort the silently seething hedgehog somehow.
Shadow shut himself off completely though. Rouge could tell by his cold brooding and the murderous intent in his red eyes. Which meant no more talking would be going on now, because Shadow didn't want to hear it.
No, he couldn't force himself to care that something might have happened last night. He was filled with anger because he didn't understand why Sonic not showing up had bothered him so. Not even using the excuse he made Shadow look like a fool was valid anymore.
The silence became a bit much for Rouge at some point. "I gotta get going. Promised to visit Knuxie." Shadow's lack of conversation was a good enough indication that their conversation was over now anyway.
She stood up and placed her hands on her hips now, looking at the hedgehog sternly. "You're a stubborn hog who won't listen to me, but I'm still gonna say it! Think about helping the good guys for a change, if only because something does not seem right about this whole thing."
Shadow thought her paranoid.
"If you do decide to help her though, keep me in touch. I want a chaos emerald, but more importantly, I want to able to bail you out if something goes awry."
Shadow wouldn't bother to fight with her. Instead he nodded, and satisfied with the answer Rouge sashayed her way to the exit (which was her normal way of walking, believe it or not).
The door shut and Shadow remained sitting still for a long while, lost in his thoughts.
It seemed only logical to help Raven and figure out what the new enemy was all about, but because Rouge felt the same weird suspicious feeling he did, Shadow knew something about this Raven girl couldn't be good.
Yet, she might hold secrets about Maria?
Like Sonic did with those lost files…
Shadow pinched the bridge of his nose. He now found himself even more confused about this decision he was supposed to be making twenty-fours from now then he had been twenty-four hours ago.
Yeah I know. Boring and short. Two worst combinations. I needed it to set up the story's plot though…
I promise there will be more Sonic and Shadow in the next chapter.
Read and review please!