Chapter 4

Friendly Encounters

A/N: I appreciate your critiques. It helps me to see what I need to look for when I write my story, and see things that could have been better explained or described. Lastly, as you have seen, Shadow has appeared, and later, Cream and Zoran (The character, not me) will appear.

Bam! The thugs guns went off. However, they severely underestimated the speed of a Shadow. It is theorized that a shadow is as fast as the speed of light, but theoretically, is it not? Though Shadow is not that fast, he is still far too nimble for a mere gun. He quickly evaded the first bullet, and then knocked the first man to the ground, picked up a second, and threw it at the third. In the confusion, two more of the thugs shot each other in the arm, and they both recoiled in pain. Shadow grabbed their heads, and banged them against each other.

Shadow laughed. "Is this all you got?" He inquired them. Suddenly he felt a gun at his back. "Don't move, or I'll shoot." The thug leader told him. But then the thug's face lit with fear when it felt a cold blade on his own back.

"Don't move or I'll just have to backstab you with this sword." A voice said to the thug.

(Meanwhile…)

Amy was busy filling in Sonic on what he missed. Though the original team disbanded, she was one of the few who had been in contact with everyone. For the first time, Sonic was both afraid and curious on what Amy had to tell him about what his friends had been doing. "Knuckles is still guarding the master emerald, but he also is trying to protect the forests as well. He sometimes works with Tails to find solutions to nature problems." Sonic cringed when she said Tails. He probably still hated him for what he did.

Amy was examining his wound, mending it, and muttering a few notes to herself. "You really should be more careful, Sonic." She said empathetically, and in her voice, Sonic could hear the love in heart flow through it. Perhaps her love for him had not faded at all through the years, unlike the way his friendships had. "Anyway, Cream is a junior in college right now. She said she's coming over soon to visit, she told me she has a long brake in classes. She had a lover for a while, but he became too addicted to gambling, but I don't think that's why she's been depressed lately."

"What do you mean?" Sonic asked, flinching for a moment when Amy touched the wound. She quickly withdrew, and then carefully went back to mending the wound.

"I think she misses him, but she hasn't really talked much." Sonic thought for a moment. Him? Who was him? Was it the same him Sonic had known many years ago? He knew the answer was yes, but it was so long ago…

"Rogue has joined the government as one of their top agents, and she is definitely one of the best from what I know, but trust me, her salary is more than a lot of famous people's salary." Of course. Who wouldn't expect Rogue to be a bit picky on how much she got paid. "I don't know what Shadow's been doing lately; he's like one of those night heroes, doing a thing or two to help the world, without trying to get any attention for it. And Zoran, well, he just disappeared, right after he saved the city from being blown to shreds from two atomic missles. No one quite remembers how he did it, but there are quite a lot of stories that are based of his dead." She looked up dreamily, as if she was recounting the tale in her head.

Amy now satisfied with her work, showed Sonic his wound. It wasn't bleeding now, and the cut wasn't even visible anymore. Medical technology must have really improved these days. "What about the last two?" Sonic asked her, not wanting to say Tails' name. Amy lifted an eyebrow, but answered his question anyway.

"Cosmo's a biology teacher now. Fitting, considering who she is and all. And Tails is a scientist of course, and a grand inventor at that. They got married last year, and Cosmo wants a child, but she tells me that Tails seems afraid of the aspect, but she doesn't know why. He won't really tell anyone, and he doesn't like to talk about it."

Sonic sighed. Tails probably had his reasons, but he didn't really feel like telling this to Amy. He stood up. "Thanks Amy. I've got to go now."

"But you haven't told me what you've been doing for all this time!" She replied earnestly, and Sonic sighed.

"I've just been staying clear of society. They don't need a hero anymore." He replied, and he left the hospital.

Amy watched the room, and one of the nurses, noticing his departure came toward her. "You realize who that was? Didn't he nearly kill you nine years ago?"

"I forgave him long ago." She responded to the nurse. "I love him, and that's all that matters to me."

(Back to the battle…)

One of the thugs, noticing his leader was in trouble, tried to fire at the creature with the sword aimed at his leader, but Zoran was too fast. He easily deflected it with his sword, somersaulted toward the assaulter, and knocked him out. Shadow, taking advantage of the leader's shock, turned around picked him up, and threw him at three of the thugs. Then he went toward the three and threw them against the wall.

Shadow's helper had another thug knocked out, when the last looked at them maniacally. "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." He had a grenade in his hand, and he activated it. But before he could throw it, fate had chosen him to be the target of misfortune.

Lightning came down and struck him, and he was shocked terribly, shaking in pain and surprise. The lightning did not, however, kill him, but the activated grenade, did.

Shadow turned toward his helper. He was a grey fox, which was rare for his species. In fact, Shadow hadn't seen a grey fox for…

"Long time, no see." The grey fox said. It was Zoran. Shadow remembered the first time he met him. He could be quite annoying then with his mockery. Hopefully, it had lessened since their last encounter.

"Where have you been all these years?" Shadow asked him.

"A place where I could not be found." He replied evasively.

"But why did you leave?"

"Because I don't like fame that much." Zoran replied modestly. "I hate being famous. Even now they are still telling stories about me, but they are quite far-fetched. One of them has me saving the city while carrying a cow on my back. A cow! How ridiculous can legend be?"

Shadow looked indifferent. "You haven't completely told me why you left." He said, aware that Zoran was hiding something. He was very good at it actually, but some things are very difficult to hide.

Zoran sighed. "Alright, I left to get away from her, too. I was afraid of being weakened because of it, so in order to avoid it, I left. It probably broke her heart, but it was all for the best."

Shadow, angry at his apathy, pulled him up from the shoulders. "Do you not even care?" He retorted.

Zoran sighed. "I do care. When I left, it made things only worse. I've lived in misery for nine years."

Shadow turned away. "Well, at least you're not the only one…"

(Elsewhere…)

Tails was working on his lab, retrieving as much data as he could about the storm. From what he had seen, the storm had subsided, but his data was telling a different tale.

"This is the only the beginning… of something far bigger and worse." He said, terrified of what awaited around the next bend…

A/N Now every character but Rogue has appeared so far. The chapters seem to get longer and longer. Anyway, I Hope that she'll appear soon. Anyway, stay tune, and hope the suspense ends quickly!