Bah! Sorry for the delay. I had to run some errands, you know, Christmas falling action, back to school homework and test studying, among other stuff.
Cough*i.*Cough
Not to mention the fact that it is once again pretty long. *does faceplant onto the floor* I was planning on putting the rest of the dinner conversations in this chapter since I did say that the dinner scene would be finished with this chapter, but once again, they're turning out longer than I expected. So I'll be splitting each conversation up.
And they're kind of hard for me to write. I stink at writing explanations and storytelling inside stories. Blegh.
Anyway, it's here now! Thank WinterMuffin for this update
And don't expect another one until next Sunday. Sorry in advance, everyone.
Storm337 – Yes. Yes, they will. And yes, Bartleby definitely will be once he hears about it, as we get to see in this chapter. ;)
snoe mahns cumn 4 u – Eh, sorry. I did mean to skip, but I meant for the italicized parts to be flashbacks. Thanks for telling me, and I'll say so next time :)
Wintermuffin –I will most definitely be updating; I really want to get this story done before moving on to my other stories. Sorry for the long wait (runs away from a ticked off Chaos). As for your earlier comment? Yeah, SU is really oriented towards little kids who like fantasy. REALLY little kids whose parents don't mind them shouting…whatever catch phrases there were. "IT'S JUICE TIME!" *brrrrrrrrrr*
xxKuroTsukiNekoxx – Thanks! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much.
Chapter 6: Conversations
"Aw, come on, Shads."
Unacceptable. The black and red hedgehog just couldn't believe it. It was terrible.
It had been bad enough that Sonic called him that.
Now Manic was doing it, too.
'Shads' sent the green Hedgehog (who not only sounded like his blue brother but also looked eerily identical to him at the moment, wearing the same grin and devious expression the other currently had on) a red-eyed glare. It wasn't his most impressive, bound as he was by courtesy to his amiable hosts, but it was still enough to make the GUN general start stuttering.
At least, he thought that was the glare he used. Manic, however, followed Sonic's unperturbed example, his grin not even faltering.
"Look, we told stories," Sonic gestured to himself, Tails, and Knuckles, when Shadow's lips remained clamped shut. "Sally regaled us with tales of the Great Forest, Sonia and Bartleby told us about what's been going on over here, and Manic even dredged up an old, washed-out adventure to share with us."
"Hey!" Manic cried indignantly. "What was I supposed to do, be Sonia and Bart's echo? They pretty much already said everything there was to say about Mobotropolis!"
"What about your own personal endeavors?"
"Manic!" Sonia snapped.
"hey, chill, sis'. There's nothing to say," he replied, an innocent look on his face while Sonia retained her suspicious one.
"Eh, I guess," Sonic allowed, but with a glance at his brother that said 'you are telling me everything LATER!'. "But seriously, dude" – this was directed at Shadow, who was still glaring – "it's your turn. So, spill-"
"AAHH!"
The moment the word left Sonic's lips, the entire table turned to look at Uncle Chuck, whose robotic form was sitting frozen, absolutely drenched in icy cold water.
"No, no, I've got it," he said, waving everyone's efforts off as he leaned back and held out his arms, allowing the water to run down the metal plates and drip onto the floor.
"You sure, Unc'?" Sonic asked, still standing with a slight frown.
"Of course, Sonny," he replied. He stepped away from the table and began dabbing at the water with his napkin, careful not to push any water into the circuits beneath his metal surface.
"Just gettin' old like the rest of us, huh, Chuck?" Jules asked with amusement in his tone. But there was still some concern laced in it, and it told Shadow that the Hedgehog family was more worried than they let on.
"Hah!" Chuck snorted, sharply waving his arms and sending water droplets across the table and into his organic brother's face.
"Here, Uncle Chuck, use my napkin," Sonia offered.
Acting as a bridge, Shadow took the lacy piece of silk and handed it to the genial robot, who accepted it gratefully and began to dry off his ankles and shoes before straightening up. "Phew, than-"
Half the table gasped at the sharp crackles coming from Chuck's direction, and Shadow could suddenly see why they were so worried. He had automatically assumed that the robot's highly advanced AI meant it had a highly advanced structure as well, but…
Observing the crude nails keeping the metal together and the gaps that allowed his limbs to move and left them vulnerable at the same time, Shadow could only conclude that 'Uncle Chuck' was a very old model. Maybe not in terms of years, but technology developed quickly, and so even just a few years could make a robot out-of-date. But at the same time, if Chuck wasn't even waterproof…
"Ah, I just need to make a quick stop down at my lab," Chuck reassured everyone. "Shadow, would you mind coming with me? I might not be able to reach everything."
This is my way out, Shadow realized. That sly, old…Normally, the self-assured, supportive wink the red-eyed robot sent him would frustrate him beyond measure (partly because it usually came from a hedgehog who thought he was better than him), but at this point he would do almost anything to escape the table's storytellers, who had all been gazing him expectantly like kindergarteners at story time.
Nodding, he stood up, but not before he shot a smirk in the blue speedster's face, which seemed to look strangely disappointed. Not upset or irritated with his prey's escape, just unhappy like a kid who didn't get his favorite food for dinner that night.
But he didn't bother dwelling on it, instead following the slightly fizzing robot out of the room and down the dark corridors as conversations sprang up and the former chatter filled the air again behind them.
"I figured you could use some help getting out of there," a robotic voice chuckled once they were out of earshot. "I know my nephews can be persistent."
Shadow snorted, rubbing his shoulder slightly where Sonic had kicked him once. That was an understatement if he ever heard one. He would never admit it, but…it was always the first part of his body to ache when he was in a fight, and the longest one to heal afterwards. And the next time Shadow was ordered to stall the hedgehog from reaching the deadly weapon that was going to wipe out the population and half the planet to boot so that GUN could observe and test the device? He was calling in sick and informing them that someone else could keep a bristling, desperate supersonic hedgehog that fought robots for a living at bay.
"Yes, you're right," Chuck sighed. "Mule-headed. I remember that one time when Sonic was four and wanted to go around running them loops all over Green Hill. Of course, he couldn't make any sonic booms back then, and he was a little roun – ah, here we are." The old robot stepped forward and paused a moment before punching some numbers into the dial beside the door, which slid open.
It was a lab just like any other – meaning it was big and full of junk. An oval-shaped screen was attached to where the wall met the ceiling on the left and was tilted down some. Under it stood counters with blueprints and stacks of metal beside them, along with some empty spots that served as work surfaces. In the center stood a table that Chuck briskly walked toward, still telling his story of a young Sonic, a few broken bones and a lot of concussions.
Lost in his observations, Shadow didn't realize the robotic hedgehog had finished his repairs – without his help, for the record – until he hopped off the table.
"But that was before I was like this," he concluded his tale, a chuckle in his words to ward off some of the sadness in his tone.
Shadow raised an eyeridge when Chuck waved his arms at himself. "'Like this?'"
"Roboticized."
"…Ro-bot-icized," Shadow repeated the unfamiliar word.
Chuck gave him a quizzical look.
"I've never heard the term before," Shadow replied definitively.
"Well, I suppose that's good. Means Robotnik – Egghead, you call him now? – hasn't been using it." Strolling over to the big screen and the computer in front of it, Chuck punched in some numbers. "The roboticizer was Robotnik's most powerful weapon. He used it to turn regular Mobians into robotic slaves that would work for his will, which we call Robians." Shadow watched impassively as some statistics showed up on the left side of the screen and a large cylindrical container took up the right.
Large enough to hold a Mobian, Shadow saw, as a simulation played out and a Mobian dog walked inside the bars. Two sheets of metal came down, encasing him completely and blocking him from view, while a green light flashed from inside.
The metal parted and the cage opened, allowing the now metallic dog to walk back out, unrestrained and with glowing red eyes.
But it was the roboticized hedgehog in front of him who was still staring up at the screen that really made him understand the loss.
"So you thought the others' title for me was just a title?"
A sparkle of humor was in Chuck's eye; what, did this whole family get kicks from keeping secrets? "Yes," Shadow said.
Apparently they did, if Chuck's small laugh was any indication. "No, I really am Jules' big brother."
"So Jules and Bernadette are his biological parents?" Shadow, who had never gotten his explanation, asked.
If Chuck hadn't been made out of metal and wires, he would have choked at the idea. "No, no, no! Aleena is his biological mother. Jules and I are her brothers and Bernadette is Jules's wife." Sensing Shadow's confusion, he added, "For Sonic's protection, he lived with Jules and Bernadette when he was a child."
Shadow nodded and walked up to stand beside Chuck with crossed arms, gazing up at the screen as he brought the discussion back to the original topic. "You know, I've never seen or heard of Eggman using this."
"And let's hope he never does in the future," Chuck added vehemently, his amused mood gone.
"But if he has it, why wouldn't he use it?" Shadow argued, his mind immediately returning to 'GUN mode' and 'DANGER! PROTECT!' "Lately, his inventions have been fairly lame."
"Oh?"
"His latest plot to take over the world involved a machine called the 'Eggcellent Egger' which was meant to support him in his face offs with Sonic, or 'egg him on,' as Sonic put it. And then it exploded in the middle of the fight."
It was the first time he had heard Chuck laugh outright and without any reservations. "Julian never was a very good inventor." Seeing Shadow eyeing him oddly, he amended, "I mean Ivo."
"Why did you say Julian?" Shadow questioned.
"It is a name he went under once many years ago."
Note to self: Read a history textbook when you get back to GUN, and when they want you to go fight Sonic on one of his insane missions that he ALWAYS SUCCEEDS IN, tell them you are still reading it, he resolved.
Or get the story here and use it as an excuse for why you couldn't make small talk.
Uncle Chuck could see the lightbulb go off in Shadow's mind, and then his auditory processors heard a word that sounded rusty and unused.
"Thank-you," Shadow began, "for getting me away from the table."
"It was no problem, Shadow. I wasn't really speaking much with the other adults anyway and I sure wasn't eating." He rubbed the spot where his stomach would be if he were still organic.
"I dislike telling stories," Shadow continued, "but I am very interested in yours."
Chuck sent him a knowing smile. "And interested in not returning to the table, eh?"
"That, too," Shadow admitted, glad that Chuck didn't seem to mind. "But I was planning on grabbing a history book later on. There seem to be a number of gaps in my knowledge of recent history."
"A history book. Bah!" Chuck ejaculated. "They're all bound to be modified and changed; we don't have a clean copy left that escaped Robotnik's ravages. Sit down, Shadow, and you'll get the story first hand," he invited, settling down himself on a countertop while Shadow took the invitation to sit on the table and rested his hoverskates on the bench.
"Ivo Robotnik was always a power-hungry, idiotic Overlander – do you call them humans? – and he's shown it since day one, seventeen years ago. He designed one type of robot, the SWATbot, probably the only robot he ever could design" – here Chuck snorted – "and built factories across Mobius to manufacture it. By the time the Queen had given birth to the triplets, he had five hundred thousand, four hundred and eighty-two SWATbots."
Shadow raised an eyebrow.
"I found that out after some hacking, and these circuits do not forget things. But point of the matter is, he used his army to take over Mobotropolis and the surrounding kingdom, turning it into a metallic garbage heap he called Robotropolis."
"Wouldn't the inhabitants have rebelled?"
"We did," Chuck replied. "But the royal family that people always turned to for leadership had disappeared, and many were caught by Robotnik's SWATbots."
Shadow frowned at Chuck, having a hard time imagining him as a member of the fleeing royal family. "Why did you run?"
"Robotnik put a price on our heads. If we had stayed, we would have been roboticized and then we really wouldn't have been able to reclaim our city. So Jules, Bernadette, and I escaped to some of the woods on the edge of the city and settled down as rustic pioneers" – a picture that fit Chuck much better in Shadow's opinion – "and Aleena sought refuge elsewhere. We're not entirely sure where she went."
"And this is the part where Sonic was sent to Jules and Bernadette to protect him?" Shadow connected the dots.
"We figured that Robotnik wouldn't give a passing glance to two blue hedgehogs who had a blue hoglet," Chuck affirmed. "But Manic and Sonia were different stories since they're the only green and pink hedgehogs we know. They were sent off to live with different families. Sonia lived with the aristocrats, which Robotnik protected since they were his source of money and resources, and Manic was stolen and grew up among thieves, who slipped under Robotnik's radar.
"But returning to the first coup's events, many people tried to flee or fight back as you said, but they were caught and once you were caught, you were roboticized and joined Robotnik's army. Some of the rebels managed to escape and went underground, forming the Resistance. I was part of it, and when Sonny's house burned down and we thought Jules and Bernadette were dead, he came to me and joined it as well as soon as he was old enough, even before he was technically allowed to."
Shadow found himself leaning forward, interested. "So how did the Resistance get rid of Ivo?" Maybe this was the key to getting rid of Eggman, too…?
"With a lot of help from the Sonic Underground. When Sonic, Manic, and Sonia found each other, they swore to join the Resistance, fight Robotnik, and find their mother. As you can see, they succeeded, turning Robotropolis back into the Mobotropolis you see today." He gestured upwards, taking in the palace and its city as a whole.
So that was what Sonia meant when she was talking about the city's 'repairs,' Shadow realized. "How long ago was this?"
"They kicked Robotnik out of his main base of operations nine years ago. I was so proud; I could hardly believe it. We all thought that was the end, and that we would never hear from Robotnik again." Chuck sighed. "But we forgot that he still had strongholds and armies elsewhere.
"At the time, I had agreed to go and work under King Maximillian Acorn, the one sitting at our dinner table right now. I was supposed to be a sign of goodwill, a scientific gift that would strengthen the alliance between him and Queen Aleena. We thought I might even be able to convince him to help support us in the war by giving us resources.
"But then Julian Kintobor arrived on the scene." The Robian lowered his head.
There was a silence, until, "Chuck?" Shadow prodded. He did his best to cut back on the rough, naturally dark edge his voice had, but he had very little practice trying to be gentle. Few people tried to tell him personal stories, and the few that did found empty air the next time they looked at him.
The slight smile on the Robian's face told Shadow he could hear and appreciate the effort, even if guilt overtook the expression a moment later. "Yes, Shadow, it was Ivo Robotnik. I should have recognized him, I should have…He told the King that he was a sibling to Ivo Robotnik, but that he wanted to do good to even out his brother. We both accepted it, and he rose in our ranks until the day of the second coup.
"That was the day I was caught, and the next morning, I along with the majority of the city's population was roboticized. Only the kids and Rosie, the nurse, escaped by following the secret passageway into the Great Forest and hiding in Knothole."
Chuck sighed again. "Robotnik controlled that area for eight years. It's only been free for the past two, and it's still in need of major remodeling."
Eight years? But the Sonic Underground (Shadow inwardly cringed at the name) had only needed two. "Why did it take so much longer to get rid of him there?"
"Well, Shadow, here in Mobotropolis the Sonic Underground may have been seven-year-olds, but they were powerful, determined, and they had an entire network backing them up. The moment he heard of Robotnik's new conquest, Sonic raced over to Knothole and joined the new Freedom Fighter ranks, and including him, they were six kids under the age of ten and one adult."
"And they still managed to defeat him? Why didn't Queen Aleena send them help?"
"She couldn't afford to; she was already missing Sonic, and she needed everyone else she could spare to restrain the Robians and reclaim the area. As for how they managed to defeat him, well…quite literally with a bang. Remember, it did take them eight years, so by the time they put Robotnik out of commission, they were around fifteen and much more capable of putting up a physical fight. But they also had good brains."
"I'm assuming most of those brains came from Sally," Shadow commented dryly, but his insult didn't have the usual biting quality about it. After all, Sonic had been one of those eight year olds to defeat the despotic dictator, too, and while that did not make the blue hedgehog any less cocky, optimistic, foolish and childish to Shadow, it did increase the amount of respect Shadow held for him.
"True," Chuck said frankly. "Tails did help a lot in the later years, but Sally generally came up with the undercover missions, taking out factories, destroying hordes of stealthbots, shutting down security and protecting the environment, that sort of thing.
"Now Shadow, you may have noticed that I am not currently worshipping Robotnik."
"I did notice," Shadow replied, refusing to ask the question Chuck clearly wanted him to.
"Believe me, I did, too, the moment it happened." A frustrated note entered Chuck's automated voice. "I don't know how to this day, but Sonic and the others found me and used a power ring – you're familiar with those? – to restore my mind. At first they could only do it temporarily, but eventually, it became permanent…somehow." Chuck seemed about to go off into scientific ponderings, but shook his head. "It doesn't matter how right now. I worked as an inside spy, and managed to come up with the plan concerning the Powerstones."
"Powerstones," Shadow repeated, a little irritated. Yet another thing he hadn't heard of.
"They were like the Chaos Emeralds," Chuck explained, correctly assuming Shadow's ignorance, "except they're not well known, there were only two of them, and they didn't hold as much power. But it was enough to destroy Robotnik's Doomsday machine and all his other major tools – except for one."
"The roboticizer?" Shadow guessed. "But then I still don't understand why he wouldn't use it. Why wouldn't he do the same thing he did before?" It was not a pleasant thought. Eggman still made armies; he could still capture GUN if he wanted to instead of chasing Sonic and destroying the planet and then he could roboticize everyone, leaving the planet defenseless just as Sonic and Sally's homes had been-
Chuck shook his head. "Because it was destroyed afterwards by Sonic. Not long after Robotnik's final defeat, Sonic told Sally that he was going for a run and not to expect him back for a while. He easily slipped away from the celebrations and when he came back a day later, they were effectively terminated. Sally had to send him to Mobotropolis immediately in critical condition, he was bleeding so badly from lacerations. His internal systems were fine, but he was past the point of exhaustion and had shrapnel everywhere, outside and inside his body. I think the piece that scared me the most was the large sheet of metal that was sticking halfway into his leg, nearly puncturing his patella and femur. We weren't even sure if he would ever run again."
Shadow didn't know what to say. At first, Chuck had been telling him a historical account to pass the time and hide out away from the happily babbling Hedgehog family, but it had quickly turned into a personal account of the trials said family had been through. Shadow had been separated from someone before. He knew what it felt like to lose family, even if he would never know what it felt like to be reunited with them. He had been in plenty of life-endangering situations, and while he hadn't thought seventeen-year-old Sonic paid them much attention with his wise-cracking and banter, he couldn't help but wonder what a seven-year-old Sonic felt like when standing in front of the doctor's latest weapon specially built to incinerate him. Or Manic and Sonia for that matter. How Chuck had lost his own free will and body was something Shadow was sure he had and would never experience, but once he thought of how the uncle must have been twisted to fight for a despicable cause against his nephew to whom he had a close bond, it sickened him to his stomach.
"Did Sonic destroy the blueprints, too?" Shadow asked intently.
"Everything," Chuck nodded solemnly. "When we got to the site, everything was rubble. There was not a single part anywhere; the wires were unsalvageable, keys and buttons lay scattered and cracked all over the place, and even the metal plating was shredded. It looked like an army of spearmen followed by a tornado had stormed through, not a hedgehog."
"But Ivo could still recreate it, couldn't he?" Shadow worried, and the fact that he was doing this in front of Chuck said something about how dangerous the situation could get. He hated showing concern and vulnerability, even in front of someone as…well, like Chuck, but he couldn't seem to stop his brain from honing in on the problem and his mouth airing his thoughts. "He would just have to start from scratch-"
"No," Chuck interrupted. "I told you he was an idiot. You told me yourself he can't come up with any machine worth fighting."
"But-"
"And Robotnik didn't create the roboticizer in the first place. I did."
Shadow's blood-red eyes instantly snapped up and homed in on the robot. "What?"
Chuck rested his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees. "It was meant to help old people. Parts wear out. Eyes get cataracts, joints get worn down, and skin gets scars. At first, the roboticizer only targeted those worn out parts, turning people into cyborgs. But to do this, it also replaced the parts of the brain that controlled these areas. The replacement parts took away people's wills, so I trashed the entire machine."
"Then how did-?"
"Julian stole it." Chuck's head hung down even further. "He modified it to replace the entire body and brain, and with it, he controlled the lives and caused the deaths of thousands of Mobians."
Some people may have called Shadow cruel for ignoring his host's pain and pursuing the subject, but he had to make sure. "Wouldn't he remember those modifications?"
"Robotnik would have," Chuck agreed. "But Robotnik died the day Sonic trashed his roboticizer. Today Robians serve no master and a madman called Eggman who's crazier than a cuckoo bird terrorizes both Mobians and his fellow Overlanders across the globe with ridiculous plans. Sonic lost a good chunk of his health that day, but Robotnik completely lost his mind."
They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment, the black-and-red hedgehog almost reveling in the defeat of one terrible way to dominate the world while the shiny one developed a better appreciation for the good times of the present, before Chuck abruptly slapped his legs and stood up. "Well, it's past now and sitting here moping won't change a thing about it," he declared, repeating a line Shadow was sure he had heard before. "I have probably kept you down here longer than you wanted. Off with you."
Shadow nodded and stepped out the door. "Good night, Uncle Chuck," he said, using the Robian's title for the first time.
"You too, son. Now shoo. Go enjoy the party. You have things to do upstairs and I have things to do down here."
Shadow turned away and began walking the way they had come, the door closing shut with a swish behind him.
Thisisalinebreak
When Shadow walked into the dining room, the entire table went silent. This was not unusual for the Ultimate Lifeform, whose glare could make a weathered GUN officer shut his trap.
But this time, it was the news he brought, not his glare or overall presence, that made people lock their attention on him.
"Uncle Chuck is fine," he said curtly to all the gazes as he sat down. "He is staying in his lab in case something happens, but everything is fixed for the most part."
The tension in the room disappeared immediately, as did the lack of talking, and Christmas flared up around Shadow again. The room turned brighter and nonstop laughter echoed from wall to wall even when Manic paused in the middle of a story for dramatic flair and the rest of the table paused with him, waiting for the punch line. The adults had by this time left the table, following Queen Aleena as she promised to show them something 'positively exquisite!' across the hallway, her eyes glowing with pride and delight even as Jules poked fun at the unnamed object and whined about it not being slimy or disgusting. As Shadow continued his now-cold meal, he was glad that they had all but forgotten about him and his adventures. Instead, the Hedgehogs were focused on pestering Sally, the military leader and brain of operations. Even as she teased them a little before giving her eager audience a story in her direct way of speech, she used logic to return their jabs and remained calm, if exasperated with the many interruptions, throughout her story. It was easy to envision her devising strategies and delivering plans in one of the rooms of GUN HQ.
Sonic…well, Shadow had since learned that there were two sides to Sonic: the one that was laughing at life as he sat beside Sally and the one that had given him a permanent mark on his shoulder over a year ago. In a situation as bad as the one Uncle Chuck had described, Shadow could practically see the enraged, fierce blue light crashing around a metal room of controls and literally bringing the shaking base down. But as long as the planet and its inhabitants were safe, Sonic remained nothing more than a mischievous teenager who ran around on adventures and loved life.
And Manic and Sonia…the same must be true for them, because they were smiling and laughing (or turning up their nose in a show of disgust, respectively) right along with their sibling when only a day ago, they had pinned him against the wall and threatened to knock him out. Although that had been more Sonia than Manic.
The pink hedgehogette caught Shadow looking at her and smiled at him, immediately setting her napkin down and taking his attention as an invitation to talk.
"So Shadow, how did you get so strong?" (Shadow wasn't sure if he had imagined the momentarily green faces of the mink and echidna at the end of the table.) "The only person who's managed to match me is Knuckles, but I had to use almost all of my strength yesterday to hold you still."
Well, that was a creative conversation starter. Shadow swallowed his food before answering with just a touch of pride, "I was designed to be able to withstand immense amounts of stress and strain."
Sonia paused with her glass raised in the air and raised a fine eyebrow. "Designed?"
Shadow in turn raised one of his ridges. "How much did Sonic tell you about me?" he asked, nodding slightly towards the blue hedgehog who was doing a silly balancing act with his silverware to the applause of his brothers.
"That you grew up on a space station called 'the ARK' and were frozen for fifty years." A sly look suddenly overtook her features and she leaned closer to him so she wouldn't be heard. "Then he told us how he was worried about keeping his title of 'the Fastest Thing Alive' and that he now sleeps with a Chaos Emerald under his pillow because of your, and I quote, 'totally epic Chaos powers.'"
Shadow made a mental note about the position of that Emerald even as he returned Sonia's smirk. He wasn't one to blackmail others (even if the Chaos Nightlight was good material), but it was nice to know that he was more than a bug to be squashed beneath his unconcerned rival's sneakers.
His smirk disappeared as he opened his mouth, however. "I am the Ultimate Lifeform, an artificial hedgehog engineered by Professor Gerald Robotnik."
The glass promptly shattered from her strong grip.
"Engineered by Robotnik!"
Oooh, he thought. His quills started to bristle and his posture uncharacteristically scrunched down a little as fires exploded behind the highborn girl's eyes, making them suddenly look a lot more threatening than they had a few moments ago.
…Maybe I should have left that part out…
Eh, not my greatest.
If anyone wouldn't mind leaving a review telling me how to improve the dialogue…I am all ears. Er, eyes.
Happy New Year :)