Sicily took Venice towards a children's center, where she chatted with the two Mobians regulating who came in. From a distance, Venice could see that they all knew one another, as if Sicily was a family member. She came back to Venice and started walking with him.

"So what's up? Did they see him?" he asked, whilst Sicily put her hands in her pockets.

"Yeah, two days ago a silver hedgehog with a tattoo came in," she said. "Called himself Mercury."

Venice quirked his eyebrows. "A tattoo? Are you sure it's Silver?"

"He had a white mane, and they gestured at you saying he looked like you," she offered. "They haven't seen him since, though." Her pierced cat ears drooped. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to help."

"I don't know... have you heard of a Selene Phoenicia, maybe?"

She stopped, swishing her tails. "Who's that?"

Venice unfolded the paper Dr. Librum had given him as he said, "She was his real mom."

Sicily squinted at the barcode on the right side. "Where's his dad's name?"

"It didn't give him one," he explained. "He tried typing it in a database, and then a GUN thing popped up. Next thing he knows, every phone in his house is ringing off the hook."

The cat fox swished her tails and took the paper. "GUN? Oh, I know a guy- C'mon, this way!" Further into the underbelly of Selstice she took him, down alleyways with shadowed faces and figures. The smells became unbearable to Venice the further they descended into the darker, more dangerous side of his home town.

Sicily opened a stuck metal door near the subway station and led Venice down the dark stairs. He stumbled a few times before they came to a curtained doorway. A dim light partly broke through the curtains casting a dusty brown glow around the dark hallway.

The cat poked her head in. "Hey Murphy," she called out. "Murphy, you here?" Sicily slipped behind the curtain, releasing dust into the dark air. "Murph?"

Venice grabbed the curtain, but didn't pull it away just yet. He bit his bottom lip as he imagined a shadow popping up behind him and stabbing him- maybe out of fear, maybe out of no reason at all.

Is it worth Silver?

Slowly, Venice peeked inside the room. The desk was cluttered with wrappers and papers, books and pens, and the lamp on it began to flicker, causing Venice's will to do the same.

He stepped inside, whispering, "Sicily?" He started to make his way inside, trying not to make a single sound.

The light bulb went out and Venice's fur stood on end. Not a move. Don't move. Please…

"Sicily?" Venice wisped.

A dark shape loomed over him before his skull cracked.

Shadow sat by the door where Haku had put Silver after he passed out. Metal had "come back" from work and began to help explain what happened to Selene and Silver. It would be the "Shadow-less" version of what really happened.

It was a lie that he couldn't tell. He couldn't lie about the girl whose life he saved. That night came back to him as he rested his head against the wall, just like he did so many years ago.

"Oh, Selene," he'd sighed. "What am I supposed to do?" Pale yellow pills enough to cause a grown Mobian to foam at the mouth were scattered all around the bathroom's tile floor, and Selene sobbed into his heaving chest.

"Ta-take..." she choked out, "take me away from...from here..." She hiccupped a breath and burrowed into his fur. "Please... hic-I can't-I can't live like this anymore..."

Shadow stroked her black hair slowly as she quivered. "Shhhh..." he whispered. "I only want what's best for you, Selene," he said, eyes resting on the pale stripes across her arm that shook on his torso. "Whatever makes you better."

A tear landed on his fur as she whimpered, "You...you make me better..."

So he took her away. Far away from her family that turned away from her and her scarred, pale body and all of its problems. She was getting better like she said she did around him, maybe even faster when they found out Haku, her old friend was living with them, too. But maybe it was the baby that made her absolutely glow.

"I bet he'll be as good-looking as you, Selene," Haku wagered at the rounded island soon after Selene made the discovery.

"Don't you mean as good-looking as me?" Shadow corrected.

Haku squinted at Shadow for a moment. "Nah. I hope the kid isn't cursed with your ugly looks." There was a lot of laughter in the house during those days. Sure, there was still a lot of laughter around here, but it sounded empty without Selene.

Metal broke the bad news during the third trimester. Paradoxical complications, he put it, around 85%. So the Coffee House Crew held a little discussion at the Steam Shop after hours debating what to do about it when the time came.

Shadow didn't care to remember the details, just that it ended up with Selene bent around a light post, horror plastered on her face. Silver flung into the snow, shivering, almost falling into a cold endless sleep, and all that would've been for naught.

Silver was separated from Shadow for a few weeks until it was safer to leave him in the park for someone to pick him up and raise him as their own. It'd worked out just fine.

For a little while.

"Haku, is that true?" Mrs. Phoenicia asked, cupping her hands over her mouth. "He has no one?"

"Not a single blood relative, besides you," Metal answered for her. "That's why we left Silver in the care of the Hedgehogs. We didn't want you to stir up something that was buried as soon as it was made."

"Stir up?" Hyperion echoed. "What is there to stir up? We don't even know who the father was."

"It doesn't matter, Mr. Phoenicia," the android replied, firmly, eyes glaring. "He has no living relatives, unless you count me. And children raised by robots don't grow up to be children at all, in my opinion." Metal's engine was growling quietly. Haku put a hand on him to try and calm him down; being a Badnik, Metal was subject to evil tendencies, and would eliminate anything that made him angry.

"Metal," Haku urged, holding his metal hand. "Let me handle this... Stripes never told us his real name. He never told anyone who he really was, and we don't really know anyone related to him."

"Surely-" Mrs. Phoenicia started, but put her finger to her mouth. Haku wasn't worried about her feelings, though.

"I don't believe this," Mr. Phoenicia puffed, standing up. "If Selene made you the godmother, why didn't you raise Silver yourself?"

Haku glugged her left hand and he sighed in agreement. "Fine. But know this," he said, eyes cold blue steel, "my wife and my children have been looking for Silver for a long time, and I am not going to keep him a secret from them." They left, glancing up the stairs before shutting the door.

"That's two down," Metal sighed, tightening his grip on Haku's hand. "Thank you Haku. I needed that." He let her hand slip away as she went upstairs to check on Shadow and Silver.

He was sitting next to the door, head against the wall. "Hey Booze," he said, raising his head. "No movement so far."

"I'm going in," she said, and Shadow moved his legs from the door so she could open it and shut it behind her. The kid was on his stomach like she'd put him before, out, but still breathing softly. They'd taken off his shoes and leather jacket, so there was nothing left of Mercury. Just Silver.

"All quiet," she reported as she came back out. She joined Shad outside the door with a sigh.

"He was coming for me, wasn't he?" Shadow asked.

"I bet," she replied. "Didn't believe you died, because of the phone call." He cursed. "Hey, man, if I was in your shoes, I'd probably end up with the little paradox and the world would implode or something." She patted the hog's shoulder. "Why don't you go down to the Steam and be Ethan for a while, huh? I'm sure you're less likely to cause an apocalypse serving coffee than staying here."

He made his way down the stairs with no reply, shoulders hunched like before, some fifteen years ago.

There was no official record of Selene or Shadow bestowing godparenthood on Metal and Haku, it was just agreed. The coffee house crew looks after each other. And if Stripes and Snow had died, which they did, Haku would have put Silver in a box like Shad did too.

She sighed as she ran her hand through her hair. Oh, God, he was here now- what were they supposed to do?

"Geez, Murphy! D'you always have to knock strangers upside the head when they come into your house?!"

"Sorry Sicily- I thought he-" Venice didn't recognize the voice and started to get to his hands. His head throbbed and it was dark-

"Venice!" Sicily chimed, her shadow covering the part of the couch he'd been on. "You okay?" He held the back of his head and let out a groan as pain shoot through his eyes. He clamped them shut as he sat up.

"Wha…what happened?" he grumbled, trying to focus on a blonde fuzzy mass and a reddish brown one behind it. Sicily hissed a curse at it and handed something squishy and cold to Venice, who put it on the throbbing spot.

"Venice? You remember me? Sicily," she said. "Do you remember what we're doing?"

"Don't tell him my name," the shape pleaded.

He groaned as his eyebrows pinched together. "Ugnnngh…Silver…looking for Silver...?"

"Okay, good. Great," she said. "The paranoid retard who clubbed you's Murphy. Murphy," she growled, "the guy you hit over the head is my friend Venice."

"S-sorry," the shape mumbled, and it started to sharpen into a rodent Mobian with a sheepish grin. "And could you not call me Murphy, by chance?"

"Why…why not?-"

"No time for that," she said, three tails lashing about, "Murphy, we came to ask you about this barcode…" Sicily showed a piece of paper out to the rodent, who squinted at the numbers.

"Huh. This is a strange combination," he mumbled, running his finger over the code. "Why would this pop up on a blood test?"

"Can you find out who that is?" Venice asked, slowly maneuvering off the couch.

"Or what it is," he added, starting to go over towards his cluttered desk, pushing items to the floor.

"What do you mean what?" the hedgehog asked. "He's a Mobian, isn't he? Like you, me and Sicily."

"This isn't a person-barcode," he said, beginning to pant, "It's a weapon-barcode."

As Silver dozed in the bed, his shadow pulled itself away from him, crawling on the floor towards the window. Slipping through it, Silver's shadow walked along the wall towards the master bedroom's window. It gained entry and fled to the dark closet, searching the shadows for something… proof. Proof of what, though? He didn't understand it much when he thought about it. Why was he looking for proof of a "Shadow the Hedgehog?" Who was he? What did he do?

Something inside the shadow said Destroyed us.

That made the shadow of Silver growl as he looked through the shadows. He stumbled upon a picture of two hedgehogs, one looking like the kid he'd been injected into, and the other was-

His green eyes glared green- There he is! That's the one who destroyed us!

There was no confusion as to what he had to do now… but how would he kill this Shadow the Hedgehog?

Lure him away from the rest of the world.

How would he do that?

Bait him.

With what?

Idiot, he thought smirking, why'd you use the kid to get to him?