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Chapter 10

"Ezi? Ezi!" I could hear Chris's voice nagging over me. I groaned as I awoke groggily, my body rested against a cold, metal floor.

"Chris," I mumbled, "where are we?"

"Uh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you…" I sat up, assuming the worse from his response.

"Oh my gosh," I gasped, "Are we dead!?" He chuckled.

"No, Ezi, we're not dead." I examined the area. It was a large room; metal walls, metal floor, in white and grey (quite the decorative place). There was a long window to the wall left of me, and I didn't realize what the trouble was when I saw it at first.

"Oh man, it's night time already?" I carped.

"No, Ezi," Chris confined, "It's not night time."

"What? Have you gone color blind, man? It's dark and there are stars out there; hence, nighttime." He shook his head intransigently none the less.

"See for yourself." He waved his hand to the window, as if telling me to 'shoo' over to it. I arose, entranced by what lied ahead. I stalked to it slowly, until I could see a shred of blue light below us, that is. I raced to the window and gazed upon the glorious planet that didn't appear that far away from us.

"W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-we're..!"

"Yep."

"WE'RE IN OUTER SPACE!" I screamed. "H-h-how did this happen?!"

"Well, Shadow-"

"Shadow brought us here? Are you kidding me? What for?"

"To save us, I suppose." I frowned.

"Save us? Chris, Shadow's bad news; he's the one giving Sonic a bad name, remember?"

"Yeah, but, he can't be all that bad."

"Well, there's definitely a story with that guy." There was a quick pause. Chris paced over to me and we stood side by side as we stared out the window. "So now what? If he's not all bad, can't we just ask him to take us back home?"

"I'm afraid that's not an option at this point." The faker denounced behind us. Shadow sauntered up to Chris and me with his arms crossed.

"Shadow," Chris said enthusiastically, "I can't believe we're in outer space; and this is some sort of space station?"

"They call this place Space Colony ARK."

"I've never heard of it before."

"It was built 50 years ago by Professor Gerald Robotnik. It's been kept, secret."

"Secret?" I repeated.

"Hey Ezi, I bet we're the first kids to ever be in outer space!" Chris exalted. I smiled.

"Yeah that's so co-"

"You're not." Shadow cut me off. We both stared at him grimacing.

"Really? Then who else was here before us?" I decided to ask. His eyes wondered to the ground and stayed there during his silence.

"Hey you know what," Chris began changing the subject once again, "you look just like our friend Sonic!"

"No kidding, Chris? As if we haven't established that already." I said sarcastically.

"Well, I was just gonna ask him something." He whined. I laughed at his failing attempt to look cute. "So, are the two of you related?" He stared up at us, finally, with a glare that felt as if it could have pierced right through us. It was almost as if Shadow was giving Chris his answer right there and then; no. His presence was far more eerie than Sonic's, and there was nothing joyful or pleasant about him like there was with Sonic. Finally he stared passed us and gazed out the window; his teeth gritting. What on earth was this dark and sullen creature thinking? I thought. Asking him for any favors at this point seemed futile.

I wouldn't try anything funny if I were you two," He spoke at last, "Unless of course you know how to travel back to your pathetic home planet." He turned and walked out of the room. There was more silence.

"He scares me." I finally told Chris. Chris just nodded his head steadily, as if in a trance.

"Why on earth did he bring us here?" He thought aloud.

"Chris, we gotta get outta here. He might be using us to lure Sonic here!"

"You have a point; but so does Shadow. We can't just teleport back home!"

"Well, it's worth a shot."

"No it's not, you passed out last time. Why'd you do that anyways?"

"I dunno. I guess it's not in my genes to be able to handle traveling through time faster than a speeding bullet."

"Will you please stop being such a smart alike? I was really worried when you just fell to the floor when we got here; it wasn't funny." I froze.

"I-I'm sorry Chris. I didn't want you to worry anymore than you have to; especially about me." I chuckled. "My bad." He shrugged his shoulders.

"It's okay." More silence.

"I don't want Sonic to worry about us either. I wish there was some way we cold talk to him."

"Yeah, me too. Maybe we should explore; I don't think he locked the door." I smiled at the suggestion.

"Okay!" We reached for the door when it abruptly slid open with Shadow standing on the other side.

"Follow me." He ordered. I stacked my hands on my hips and asked, "Is there another option?" He just sent me that striking glare and I kept my lips zipped as he lead us down the metallic corridor. Chris and I kept glaring at each other, as if to say 'what's going to happen next?' but neither of us said a word. When we attained to the door up ahead, Shadow led us in to see a long bridge. Across the bridge was some sort of tall machine that went up to the ceiling that was impossible to see it was so high up. Dr. Eggman was standing in front of the contraption, with Decoe and Bocoe on the wide bridge aiming a camera at him. Rouge the bat stood far off behind them.

"Oh, there you are Shadow." she said ignoring us, "Eggman's about to 'demonstrate' how to use this old thing." I didn't say it out loud, but it was the first time I had realized that Shadow was actually working with Eggman; I hadn't thought of that already for some reason.

"Okay, we're ready Doctor!" Decoe announced.

"Excellent." Eggman cleared his throat and began chuckling maniacally. "This is an Eggman update," he told the camera, "I'm here to bring you some explosive news! Look in the sky." He pointed up in the air. "I'm coming to you live from outer space!" He laughed some more. "Let me show you all the true power of the Eggman Empire!"

"What the heck does that mean?" I complained.

"What's Eggman gonna do, Shadow?" Chris asked. I turned to see what Shadow would say; all this gave me butterflies. But the colorless character just stared at us with a crooked smirk; quite unsatisfying. As Eggman pushed buttons, the screen behind him altered from his face to a caption of the moon outside. There was a spark of light and before I knew it half of the moon was gone and at a blaze! It was shocking; something so big just being destroyed in front of everyone in seconds.

"Eggman can destroy an entire planet with that kind of power!" Chris yelled. Shadow's smirking was making me ill.

"That came form my Eclipse Canon; and, if you don't surrender to the Eggman Empire in twenty four hours, we'll blow your planet away!" The screen shut off and Eggman left his stage cackling over his evil plot's success.

"Great job, Doctor!" Decoe praised.

"Yes, truly spectacular!" Bocoe extolled.

"H-he can't do this!" Chris retorted.

"That's right; if he blows up the freaken planet, then how's he gonna make his stupid empire?"

"It won't matter," Shadow intruded, "so long as he fulfills the duties of destroying that planet; then it'll all be over."

"Why you jerk," I spat, "How could be so awful? There are living human beings on that planet! You guys can't just blow stuff up when you don't get what you want!"

"You couldn't possibly understand." Shadow said flatly.

"Oh yeah, well-"

"Ezi, stop." Chris said quietly.

"You're siding with him?" I yelled.

"No, it's not that, but-"

"How can you be so calm? These freaks are just gonna blow your home and you're doing what?"

"There's not much you brats can do anyways," Eggman said strolling towards us.

"We might not be able to, but Sonic will!" The doctor and his two lackeys began to laugh hysterically.

"It's true!" Chris said augmenting my point.

"That's why we have what we call 'hostages', my two little hostagees." He teased. I didn't know what to say after that; it would be rather difficult to escape from here without knowledge on flying a spaceship of our own, so Eggman was right. "Shadow, take these two back to the brig room, where you had them before; they're annoying me." There was no good coming out of trying to run; Chris and I both knew that. Shadow paced towards the door.

"Well, come on you two."

"Are we just gonna follow him?" I asked Chris weakly.

"What else are we gonna do?" He replied with a shrug. "Maybe we can figure a way out; maybe Shadow will help us." Why would he think Shadow had anything good in him? We portrayed ourselves to mindlessly follow Shadow down the corridor. It was quiet for a while.

"You know, Shadow," I finally said, "I feel sorry for you." He turned his head to the side.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that, our friend Sonic is freaken awesome; he's the fastest of the fast and the coolest dude around." He snickered.

"Not for long, he won't be." He said with a devious smirk.

"Jealous, are you? You should be. He's out on an adventure right now, and you're stuck here, having to watch a couple of kids." I glared over at Chris, and he was staring at me wide eyed mouthing 'what are you doing?' in terror. I winked at him.

"Well whether your friend is fast or not, it takes brains to get a real job done; and patience. You two may think you're awfully important right now after being brought up here, but I can assure you…" His pause caused Chris and me to gulp. "…In a few hours, your lives and everyone else's will be meaningless, I promise." There was almost a dark glow around Shadow; it was an aura that could not be shaped into anything else but pure evil. When I turned to Chris, I could see him almost shaking; his eyes entranced again. I hadn't meant to scare Chris so much, but I wanted him to notice how different Shadow was from Sonic; even though he probably had already realized it but was just ignoring what he didn't want to believe. I didn't want to either; I mean how could someone who looks so much like someone else be completely opposite from them?

When we got to the room, we sat by the window again. Shadow didn't say anything for a long time, and the silence started to get too awkward. Since Shadow's only pleasure was staring out the window, Chris and I began to chat.

"Everyone must be freaked out about the moon being cut in half." Chris began.

"Yeah, 'sucks for you guys; you'll never have a full moon again."

"I think we'll learn to live with it." He said blissfully.

"Not if Eggman has anything to say about it." I said quietly. I didn't intend to sound negative about it but Eggman's control over the whole world with a canon pointing at it would put a damper on your day. There was a quick pause.

"Ezi, are you ever homesick?"

"I think you asked me this question before."

"Well, I may have, but I don't remember what you said."

"Then it wasn't that important then, was it?"

"Ezi," He groaned.

"Okay, fine, maybe a smudge." I shrugged my shoulders. "But what about you? We're in outer space, dude!"

"Yeah, I'm just, worried about Sonic, that's all."

"Yep, I'm sure he's worried about you too."

"Don't you mean us?" I froze when I realized what I had just said.

"Uh, oh, yeah, US."

"Are you okay, Ezi?"

"I'm fine, I just…Yeah, I'm fine."

"Liar," He chuckled, "C'mon, we're friends. What's on your mind? You can tell me and I won't get mad, I promise." I stared at him, grimacing.

"Before I left for, eight months, was it?" He nodded his head. "Well, before I left, I saw you and Sonic when you thought you were never gonna see him again…" I paused, collecting my thoughts. "The whole time I had been with you guys, I had only been concerned about one thing: getting home. I didn't take time to get to know all of you, even with all the adventures we got into. I just felt that, Sonic saw you more as a closer friend than me, I guess." More silence. I was beginning to think the quietness was becoming a companion of mine.

"So…you were jealous?" suppliantly, I nodded my head. He scoffed. "Why? If anything, I was jealous of you."

"What?" My jaw dropped. "Oh I get it, you were hating over my good looks is all." He laughed.

"No, I was jealous of you because you were kinda like Sonic; both of you were from another world, and whenever you talked to him, it was like you knew him or something. And what do you mean you don't know everyone? You and Amy chat all the time; you're good friends now. You helped Tails with the workshop whenever you could and the same with Ella in the kitchen and you always listened to Cream when she told stories about her mother. And you…" He took a deep sigh before continuing, "You traveled across the universe to find Sonic, instead of looking for a way to your own home."

"Oh, well that was just because I was worried about him. You see, I met Sonic on this weird island (in Kingdom Hearts if you read, no big if you didn't) when Chaos Control was used, and, well, he was acting REALLY strange. It scared me and I had to find him as soon as possible."

"What do you mean 'acting strange'?" I shook my head.

"It doesn't matter, now, he seems to be his old self again…" Then I turned to Shadow. "And he should be foiling Eggman's plan sometime real soon." I said loud for him to hear. He didn't even blink; he just kept staring out the window. Then, he said to no one in particular, "they'll all pay for what they've done." Chris and I exchanged glances at each other.

"Shadow," Chris said softly, "why did you bring us here?" He stood up in hopes of Shadow's response. Shadow gave him a cold stare before focusing back on the window.

"I gotta go to the ." I said standing up. Chris gave me a questioning glare. "Uh, the bathroom, I mean?"

"Oh! I think it's down the hall, right Shadow?" Shadow shrugged.

"Great." I sauntered out of the room, while turning into the hallway, I bumped into Rouge, literally. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"Hey, careful kid." She said while dusting herself off, then she passed me to enter the brig. I wasn't sure if I should say anything else, but I did.

"Hey, Rouge?" She looked over at me.

"Yeah?"

"Um, why didn't you want Shadow to leave us on Prison Island? I mean you could've easily-"

"Oh, It was about to blow up." I gasped at her response.

"You mean-?!"

"Yep. Boom. Gone. The whole Island."

"S-so are you saying, everyone on it-?!"

"Relax, kid. Everyone on the island got off safely, including your friends, I'm sure; and that cranky Echidna too." I took a deep sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness."

"You wouldn't be here right now if it weren't for Shadow, y'know."

"But he was gonna leave us if Chris and you hadn't said something to him."

"That may be true, but if he was as bad as we all thought, then no matter what me or your friend." I thought about this for a moment. "Now," she said with a sly smirk, "watch how he reacts to my intrusion." She sauntered into the brig. "Don't you ever smile?" She asked playfully. I couldn't tell if she was being a flirt or if she just wanted to push some buttons. "Hi, Chris."

"Hello, Rouge." He replied softly. Shadow turned away from the unwanted visitor.

"Aren't you glad to see me, Shadow?" She asked. He started to head for the door when Rouge called out saying, "I love when you give me the silent treatment!" Definitely flirting; but he wasn't taking the bait. Shadow was coming my way! I spun around a moment to see which way I should run, and then all I did was walk clemently up the hall.

"Hey." His deep voice echoing through the corridor; it stopped me in my tracks.

"Yes?" I said turning around with a big, nervous grin. He took a second to walk up to me with his arms folded.

"You expect me to believe that?" I was baffled by the question.

"Believe what?"

"That you're from some other world? How could you possibly be from anywhere else but that miserable planet? You look just like the rest of those pathetic humans."

"Oh, my, gosh," I carped, "What the heck do you have against humans, man? You know we're not all that bad. Sheesh."

"That's none of your business."

"Well then, where I'm form is none of your business either; so let's just end our conversation here." I turned around to head down the hall.

"What's your last name?" He asked me suddenly.

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who's supposed to be the quiet mysterious type."

"Why won't you answer my questions?"

"Why won't you stop asking questions?!"

"Hmph. Never mind." He stalked by me and I waited for him to turn the corner before I actually started breathing again. I blinked with silence, my new best friend, and I thought. Why did he want to know my last name? And more importantly, why does he hate humans so much? There was a lot I didn't know, but more I was going to find out than I wanted to later on.

BC737: Yow! Okay sorry it's been a while, um, but I just summarized all of episode 36 that involved Shadow, hee-hee. So thanks for reading and reviews! Tell me more of what you wanna see, and what you don't. PEACE!