Fading Reminder

Chapter Ten: Separated (part one)

Tarnished. Demolished. Stupid. Heartbroken. Angry. These are words Sonic began to loathe as he stepped over wrecked furniture. He held picture frames in his arms that managed to survive the attack somehow. It's funny how something as delicate as tiny picture frames seemed untouched while he stood there a complete mess inside.

Knuckles, Tails, Amy, and Rouge were all at the site of what used to be Sonic's humble home the next day. They each managed to find a few things that had only minor damage, or were fixable, but only a few.

Knuckles seemed to be seething with anger. "I can't believe this. Sonic, if I ever see him again…" he trailed off, mumbling to himself. It was somewhat inaudible to Sonic, though he didn't mind. He had an idea of what Knuckles was saying.

Rouge bent down and moved a few pieces of scattered wood around, hoping to find something else to salvage beneath, but she turned up with nothing. The only things she managed to save throughout their entire morning were some medals that Sonic had won for the many times he had saved the Earth. At the thought of that, she decided to return to that area where she had found them. Maybe she'd be able to find a few more, considering Sonic had plenty.

She moved towards the back of the debris with her head down, eyes scanning each area. When she approached a tiny pile of ash and wood, she knelt down, careful not to get herself dirty, and dug around the area to find anything else. After a good ten minutes of staying in the same spot, she was about to give up, but something caught her eye. She stood up and walked only a few feet in front of her before she knelt down again. There was a red ribbon sticking out beneath the leg of a tarnished chair. She pushed the furniture up with little effort and pulled out the object. The ribbon was in a loop with threads torn through it and dust clods throughout the fabric, obvious that the damage was done through the accident. Attached to the ribbon was a gold medal with an engraving on it. Rouge blew off ash that had blocked the letters so she'd be able to read it clearer. She frowned. It read:

To Sonic the Hedgehog, and in honor of Shadow the Hedgehog. On behalf of the entire human race, we thank you for saving our planet from the Eclipse Cannon. The both of you are our true heroes, and you have our deepest gratitude.

She was hesitant at first to show this to Sonic. One, it had mentioned Shadow, and two, well, it was pure gold after all. She could sell it…The temptation was there, but she decided now was not the time to be greedy and she should show the blue hero.

"Sonic?" she slowly approached him.

"Hm?" He didn't look up. He stuck the picture frames in a bag the group was putting his saved belongings in. The bag wasn't very full.

She waited for him to finish what he was doing before he turned around to look at her. She said nothing, and just handed him the torn ribbon.

He knew what it was before his hands were even on it again. His eyes traveled over the ribbon, to the medal, over each individual letter. He remembered the many times he had looked over this medal after Shadow had "died." He didn't need it anymore. He didn't want anything to remind him of the dark hedgehog.

He took in a breath and let it drop to the ground. "I don't need that," he said, quietly, and very out of his character. Rouge had never—ever—seen him like this. But he had right. After all, his house was just demolished indirectly by someone he was becoming the best of friends with.

"Come on everyone," Sonic began, "I don't think we can find anything else." He forced out a smile, "thanks a lot though, guys. This would've taken a lot longer alone." He turned around and tied up the knapsack.

No one protested. They realized there wasn't much to save anymore and if they were to look longer it was just more painful for Sonic. They gathered beside each other and walked towards Tail's plane, the Tornado, to leave the Island.

Knuckles moved towards Sonic's side. "Hey, you can always stay over on Angel Island if you want." Concern pushed through his voice. Sonic didn't exactly like people feeling sorry for him, nor did he want to be on Angel Island again any time soon due to recent events that had occurred there.

"Thanks, Reds, but I'll pass. Tails and I will find a place to stay."

Amy decided to jump into the conversation and decided this would be a good time to try and get Sonic to stay at her home. She pushed in front of Knuckles and linked her arm with Sonic's. The blue hedgehog didn't have the energy to push her off of him.

"See Sonic? I told you that he shouldn't be trusted. He was always out to hurt you. You should've known that from when he hurt you last—"

"Amy," he began and stopped just before he got on the plane. "I know you were just waiting for him to hurt me, and now he has, but save the 'I told you so' speech, will ya? You're not making me feel any better." he said harshly. He did not feel like listening to a lecture; and from her, of all people.

He hopped onto the plane with his bag without hesitation and sat on the back of the wing. Amy decided not to say anymore and got into the plane with the others as well.

Rouge, however, stood on the ground and watched the plane load with her friends.

"Not coming?" asked Knuckles, trying to sound uninterested.

"I'll fly over later, sweet cheeks," she teased and noticed him grow angry. "I have to take care of a few things."

The few said their goodbyes and the plane flew off into the sky.

Rouge decided to fly around the island before she left to find Shadow. After all, she wouldn't want him getting into any trouble.

After almost an hour of flying she noticed an odd energy around a stream and a patch of trees. She decided to land there. She had felt this sensation before in the presence of a Chaos Emerald and she was sure to either find Shadow or an Emerald somewhere. Either would be a good find.

Shadow was sitting beside the stream watching the fish and water move by his dangling feet. He wished he could be as carefree as the fish seemed on such a sunny and warm new day. They swam with strong energy through the water and jumped as much as they pleased. They cared about nothing, had no worries. He envied them so much, for his day was still night with a sheet of black over his head.

In short, he felt flat out miserable.

Suddenly he felt a foreign force beside where his emerald was hidden. He immediately hopped to his feet and cast out his hand. "Chaos spear." he said in an even tone; then a small, quick light shown below the tree followed by a yelp.

"Ah! What the—"

He ran towards the trunk of the tree. He noticed a young white bat standing there with a scorched glove.

"Shadow!" she walked towards him and pushed him in the shoulder. It didn't have much effect on him.

"I don't want anyone near my emerald."

He bent down and grabbed the emerald out of the dirt that seemed to be disturbed. It was obvious that Rouge was digging.

"Hmph, don't leave your belongings out for people to find, and you are buying me a new pair of gloves, mister."

He ignored her and took a seat at the foot of the tree where he had fallen asleep for a short while the night before. "What do you want, Rouge?" He didn't look at her; he just sat there and twirled his emerald within his hands.

"My my my, someone woke up on the wrong side of the uh…tree this morning." She walked beside him and sat down. "You've gotten yourself in quite a situation now haven't you, Shadow?"

"Tell me something I don't know."

She took a small breath, "Well you probably have everything figured out. Sonic and Tail's home is destroyed, as are all of their possessions, Knuckles hates you, as does Amy, well, she always has. And as for me, I don't really care. It's not like you did it to me. Which, if you did, I'd send people after you, but I wouldn't be as stupid as that blue hedgehog to trust someone like you so easily."

"Way to be real subtle, Rouge." He said with a sudden distaste for the bat.

She smirked, "I won't sit here and lie to you, Shadow. I've come to give you somewhere to stay before you up and leave. Now, not my main home, but a small place I own in station square. You just can't roam around, or else they'll capture you again and we wouldn't want that, now would we?"

"I don't know, would we?"

"Shadow!" She pushed his shoulder, "stop being so depressed. Now, get onto your feet and let's get going. Do I need to carry your brooding self or can you use that chaos control thing to make things easier on myself?"

He was hesitant to leave. He wasn't sure if this was such a good idea, but he didn't have many choices to consider.

The two of them both stood on. "Rouge, I've never been there. How can I warp somewhere if I don't know where I am going.?"

"You've been to Station Square, haven't you, silly? Just warp us somewhere in there out of sight, and I'll take care of the rest."

He cocked an eyebrow, "why are you doing this?"

"In all honesty? I like you, Shadow. Always have. It must be the dark, mysterious persona that does it to me but with that aside, that's why I'm doing it. I don't want you to get hurt. Now, are you going to take us there, or what?"

He took in a deep breath and gently grabbed hold of her forearm, "chaos control."

Station Square was just as busy as ever. It was a city that rarely calmed down, even at all hours of the morning. At 12 in the afternoon, there wasn't much difference.

There was a beam of light in the back of a building and the white bat and black hedgehog appeared in an alleyway.

Rouge straightened herself out. "Well that was fast, and this is perfect. My apartment is just down the block. We are going to have to move fast to get there. Come on, We'll fly over."

Shadow just shrugged. He didn't care at that moment. If he got caught it didn't matter, if he didn't, it didn't matter. He just followed along with her.

Rouge grabbed his hands and began flapping her wings and they were over buildings within just a few moments.

"Did you put on some weight, Shadow?" she smirked, knowing she had no real trouble in carrying him; it was just a small attempt to make him smile.

But he didn't acknowledge her. He just kept quiet until they reached the back stairs that led to the window of her apartment. She looked somewhat disappointed but she didn't let it bother her.

Once inside, she invited him to sit on her couch as he waited for her to get him a glass of water. He didn't exactly want to stay there. He just wanted to run to a place he has never been to before and away from anything to do with Sonic. He was too ashamed to stick around. But having a place to sleep that wasn't a tree stump was somewhat appealing.

Rouge attempted to make small talk with the hedgehog but she hadn't succeeded for over ten minutes. It was almost impossible to get through to him. Every word she spoke to him was responded with a nod or a one word answer.

The bat began to grow tired, "Where do you—" She was cut off.

"Rouge?" Shadow interrupted, "do you mind if I just get some sleep? I didn't rest well at all last night."

She just nodded. "Sure. Let me show you where you can nod off at."

"And why would you listen to his lies! I should've known better then to let you take him in. I should've stood up to you more, but no, I didn't bother. And you…you should never have let him in your house. I can't look after you constantly, Sonic."

Knuckles seemed to trail on and on the entire way to Amy's apartment. All he did was lecture Sonic and rub the mistakes he made in his face. Though Sonic tried his best not to listen to him, he was growing tired of it. He had thought the guardian would've knocked it off after he had told Amy to stop, but no, Knuckles just didn't get it.

The Tornado had landed atop an apartment complex in Station Square. It was taller then Rouge's, who's was located on the other side of town. Just beneath, on the top floor, was Amy's apartment. She was overwhelmed with joy that Sonic was going to be staying at her house. Sonic, on the other hand, was not nearly as enthused as she was, but he didn't have much choice between hers and Knuckles' island. At least with Amy's place he could up and leave. To get to Angel Island, you need a plane to arrive and leave, considering it was a floating Island.

The group of four jumped out of the plane and began to make their way to Amy's apartment. Once inside, Knuckles still continued to lecture Sonic. "Ya know, you should have seen it coming. We all kind of did. I just don't know why you didn't…"

The aggravated hedgehog turned to Knuckles and looked at him with a stern face. "Listen, Reds. What's done is done. Stop talking about it. You aren't helping the situation in the least. Now…just. Shut. Up!" He seemed to accentuate the last three words with pure annoyance.

Knuckles just stood there staring at the hedgehog, as did Amy and Tails who had begun paying attention to the scene when Sonic's voice was heard. "Ya know, Sonic," he began as his short temper immediately clicked on, "I helped you all morning and now you're freaking out on me. I even offered you to stay on my island."

"I know! And I'm grateful!" he yelled, standing his ground, "But you going on and on about how Shadow betrayed me over doesn't help me at all! In fact, you're making me feel worse. Do you understand that?!"

Knuckles' blood pressure had risen higher and higher with each word between the two. "Just because that no for good hedgehog betrayed you doesn't mean you have to take it out on your friends! We're just trying to help you!"

"Oh, you're trying to help? By rubbing my problems in my face?"

"I'm not rubbing them in your face; I'm just telling you what you should have done!"

Sonic was aggravated, annoyed and just downright mad at how thick-headed Knuckles could be. He shook his head and took a breath. "Forget it. I'm outta here."

Tails grabbed Sonic's arm on his way out, "where are you going?"

It was just yanked away without even a glance in the kit's direction. "Out. I'll be back later."

The door opened and shut with a loud slam and Tails and Amy directed their glares at Knuckles.

The guardian just looked at them with a confused face. "What? He started it."

Sonic had had spent the afternoon just running. No destination, no desire to go anywhere in particular…just run as fast as he could to clear his head. He decided to rest after a few hours and was angered at himself where his unintended destination turned out to be.

He heard the rustle of the waterfall and the small river descending from it. He sighed to himself and walked over to the small area in back of the waterfall. He had led himself subconsciously to his old thinking spot; the spot that he and Shadow really connected for the first time.

He took a seat on the wet ground, his knees to his chest and his elbows resting on them. He let his mind wander on the events that had transpired within the last 24 hours and he felt his chest tighten. He just could not believe what Shadow had done. Sure, he expected it a few months ago but not now. He let his guard down, trusted too easily, just like he swore he would try to work on since it was one of his biggest flaws.

Obviously, he hadn't worked hard enough.

He took a deep breath and leaned his head on his forearms and closed his eyes. He let the sound of everything around him enter into his ears, trying to calm the anger and frustration that was beginning to arise within him again at the thought of Shadow's actions. The sound of the waterfall was almost deafening to the noise around itself, but there was a slight sound of birds heard beneath the rustling of the water. Sonic tried to concentrate on the voices of nature, suddenly regretting trying to sort out his thoughts about Shadow as they were just making him upset.

He had never felt this much hurt before in a situation like this. None of his close friends had ever sold him out. He considered Shadow closer then Knuckles, even Tails towards the end there. It felt wrong to think about since he and Tails had been friends for years, but he couldn't help the way he felt about Shadow. There was something about that black hedgehog that he just connected with and enjoyed being around.

Sonic's eyes began to water, but he didn't hold them back like he normally would. He was in solitude then and it didn't matter if he let his emotions leak out. He didn't have to pretend for anyone.

He felt like a ball pressed itself up through his chest and exploded through his eyes. He let his tears fall for once.

He stayed there until the evening.

Shadow had slept throughout the afternoon and into nightfall. Rouge had let him stay on her couch in the living room. It was rather spacious. The whole apartment was lavish. There were expensive paintings everywhere amongst white walls. A border of pink and black lined just below the ceiling, and a large fuzzy carpet sat in the center of the room below various types of expensive furniture.

Rouge had tiptoed through the living room and tried to pass a sleeping Shadow quietly. She paused for a moment when she reached her front door to leave and stared at the sleeping hedgehog for a moment. His face was buried in one of her pink pillows and his quills were aimed towards the ceiling. He had curled himself almost into a ball. This had put a smile onto her face. But her smile wasn't genuine; it had a sort of malicious and seductive tint to it.

She walked out of the door.

Rouge flapped her wings and flew over building after building. She eventually found herself in the next town besides station Square, Ikleburg, where it wasn't exactly safe. Thieves, murderers, con-artists and the like roamed throughout the area. But this didn't faze her, not in the least. After all, she was a lady who could take care of herself.

The white bat seemed to know exactly where she was going. She, after all, had been here plenty of times. She continued to fly high until she had found her destination. She hovered just a moment over a dark alleyway. She nodded to herself and flew down between power lines to land.

She dropped down right in front of a wooden door. It was old, weathered, and also, bolted shut. She thought to herself for a moment, as if she was trying to remember something. After it had entered her mind, she knocked on the old door with a gloved hand in a specific order. One knock, a pause, three short knocks, another pause, one knock, then five, and another pause followed by one last knock.

A low voice was heard behind the door. "Who is it?"

She smiled to herself, knowing that she had remembered the password correctly. Now…just to remember his name and she would be in. "Rouge, Rouge the Bat…Elion."

The door was heard unlocking and it had opened, revealing a tall and muscular looking creature. He was a form of a large wolf with squinty black eyes. He had an intimidating demeanor, but not to the treasure hunter. He nodded, "Ms. Rouge."

She smiled at him. "Nice to see you, sweetheart. How ya been?"

Before he spoke, she interrupted him.

"That's nice, now where is Nack?"

Elion just grunted, ignoring her rudeness and pointed behind him with his thumb.

She smiled, "thank you," and walked into the direction the wolf had directed her to.

The whole room was covered with thieves. You had to make sure all of your belongings were in safe keeping or you would walk out of there with nothing you walked in with. Tables and tables were set up of things being sold that were originally stolen and the atmosphere was very dank and dark, considering it was set up in an old one-floored abandoned warehouse. There weren't many windows, and what windows there were had dirt covering them not really serving their purpose anyway.

It didn't take her long to see her old friend standing behind a table adorned with fake jewels. He stood out with his fedora atop his crown and his glistening jewels laid out ever so neatly on his long table. Rouge stood in front of the small business man and put a finger to her lip in fake thought. "Hm…now what do I want? These don't exactly look real…"

Nack, a purple Australian weasel, looked up at the tall bat beneath the rim of his hat. "Ah, there you are." His heavy accent was laced throughout his speech.

"Long time no see. Do you have what I asked for?"

"Indeed I do. Do you have the jewels I asked for?" He eyed her up and down, obviously suspicious of what she would do. It was obvious neither of them would trust each other. They were both conscious of their possessions but kept their 'cool.'

She pulled out a brown bag filled with diamonds and all sorts of expensive jewelry. She noticed the thief reach for it and she quickly snatched it away. "Now, now. You know that's not how we do business. Let me see it first." She smiled at him with a sinister grin.

There was a small growl heard beneath his breath but it wasn't acknowledged. He pulled a board out with an object beneath a cloth sitting upon it from beneath his show table, but never let his eyes leave Rouge.

"I do have to say, Nack, I appreciate your promptness. I only called you this morning. I hope you didn't rush it and do a horrible job. I am paying you extra, you know."

He shook his head. "Not at all, Rouge." He placed the object on the table between the two. "Now, just have a look see."

Rouge's eyes brightened as the object was revealed to her. "It's beautiful."