A/N: I'm sorry for the delay in this chapter. I was busy, lazy, and my laptop conveniently broke down. Seriously. Over half this chapter was typed out by phone alone, so I hope it's not read too awkwardly.
Amy Rose, Shadow thought disgruntledly, what an enigma.
Enigma. The word was unsuited to a girl possessing a boundless innocence; an outlook of the world so pure it was borderline naive, really. Yet it was that naivete that had pulled him from his lowest point, putting to a stop the darkest hour. Malevolent schemes were foiled; lives had been saved―billions including his own. And gratitude was most earned to none other than the small wave of nostalgia elicited from her words.
There were times he found the girl strange, off balance even. She was a vigorous ball of energy. Kind and cheerfully amiable in character. She retained confidence in oddest of times and, he thought with a mental roll of his eyes, held unwavering affections for his ultimate rival. These traits compiled the character that was Amy Rose. However, these balanced traits shifted off their equilibrium on the night of the. . .incident.
Injured and repugnantly copper scented, Amy monitored him with a stare unlike her own. It was a lethargic gaze with reserved defeat and the tiniest hint of jubilance. She'd muttered words―memories Amy Rose held no part in. His aloof and often callous barrier, built from the tragedies of life, deteriorated revealing the shock etched into his features. Rose had caught him off guard once again.
Shadow witnessed the other faces of Amy Rose. Emotions lurking and curtained to all but Shadow. Acrimony, melancholy, a pensive depression, jealousy, and the sorrows of an unrequited love. True, these dispositions were not as upstanding to the girl he thought Amy. They were dark, one might even call them un-pure. Shadow set aside these criticisms as a bond, divergent from their previous, bloomed between them.
Her words articulated that fateful day was not left forgotten. They niggled at his mind, yet the topic never crossed their conversations. He feared the slightest hint of mention would chink the armor of their relationship, for it was fragile as it was durable.
Their conversations were an aspect of their friendship he greatly enjoyed. In truth there was not much they held in common, nevertheless, their antithetical differences artfully equated the both of them. Shadow was careful not to reveal too much, his past a vetoed route of conversation. He often fought vehemently for the concealment of his past. GUN frequently pestered the hedgehog on the antiquity of his memories, hoping to uncover any unlocated weapons on the already stripped ARK. Thankfully, Amy was never one to pry. Never with him anyway.
He felt a liable guilt towards Amy Rose. She hid much from him, yet divulged greatly in the process. Unintentional or not, Shadow was stripping her being layer by layer with the unconscious desire to know more. He disregarded the consequences of this discord and potentially dangerous repercussions of coming across her core. It was unfair. He was dismantling the workings Amy Rose with every deductive glance and tactfully terse initiation of conversation in the absence of doing the same.
His limbs stigmatically stiffened in shame at the thought. He'd meticulously avoided wayward behavior in fear of maudlin, in fear of exposing his disgrace. Surely, Rose would be disappointed.
He didn't want that.
Shadow sensed, much to his dismay, the sentiment oddly familiar. The ardent effort in averting feelings of discontent for his actions.
Vivid memories of his days aboard the ARK flooded the banks of his memories. Thoughts of Maria's gentle cobalt gaze came to mind, the mellowed tone of her voice whispering the innovations of an outdated field of science. Her laughs of happier days were something he held close to his heart, her smiles shedding light, pulling him through the darkest of times.
Without conscious volition, his blood chilled, the Maria of his memories, immaculate and pristine, formed into the familiarly coral hedgehog, her coy grin cutting through the fragility of Maria's smiles.
A part of him had hated her. Amy Rose. He'd despised her vitality, both in bodily and spiritual forms. Her active lifestyle, stemming from robust activities and trifling social activities was not something he himself was envious of, but pondered all the same. The amaranth hedgehog, he mused, was the very thing Maria had strived to become, an embodiment of her very desires, it seemed. But as their allied acquaintanceship leveled towards true friendship, Shadow found the flame of resentment flickering through the wind of reason. Rose was no longer the girl Maria fervently wished to be, Amy filed in a far corner of his mind, away from the memories of his late friend and the adversities that'd occurred aboard the ARK.
Yet nothing could equip him for Rose's later actions. With her emulated words spoken that momentous night still taking up his thoughts, her actions and culinary dishes, sparking recollection of his time with Maria, he discovered the border between thoughts of Amy and thoughts of Maria had thinned exponentially.
But if anything could solidify the mental border, it was Amy's evil deeds.
Chapter Ten: Maria and Amy Rose
"What on earth do you mean by that?" he asked, the seethe in his words stronger than he'd intended. No matter. His fury was justifiable. Questions plagued his mind like the infestation of insects in a well-gardened field of vegetation. What were her reasons? Why the Doctor? Shadow demanded more than a one worded answer. "Understanding," he scoffed, "What a broad and unspecific term."
Her fingers, interlaced, pressed tightly against the bones of her knuckles, her jade eyes regarding everything but him. Sweat beaded her forehead as she spoke, muttering unintelligible words, her tongue tied from the nerves of his unyielding scrutiny. "W―Well I need the seven Chaos Emeralds because. . .there's something I have to do." Her eyes, if only for a moment, sparked with resolution. "I didn't have any bad intentions, besides stealing them, I guess. . . I―I was only going to borrow them for a little while, I swear!
"But you're wrong. I haven't betrayed you―any of you! Eggman only gave me his emeralds because. . .he knew."
He raised a brow. "He knew?"
She met his eyes quickly tearing away her gaze. She chewed on her lower lip, contemplating her next words―if she planned to utter any. The seconds past, Shadow grew increasingly impatient. Forearms crossed, his finger jabbed relentlessly at his upper arm only pausing when Amy's unusually hushed voice reached his ears.
"That evil doctor. . .he knew my secret. I don't know how but―"
"A secret? Care to share?"
Her eyes widened, horrified. Unable to voice her revulsion to the idea, she furiously shook her head. "N―No! I wouldn't go through all this trouble just to spill everything to you!" She winced at her words, her reply coming off as an oddly unsolicited insult. She tightly clasped her hands, gaze lowered to the ground. "Please Shadow, I know you don't trust me, but I need your emerald."
He regarded her desperate eyes with an unsympathetic gaze. "What are your plans in having all seven Chaos Emeralds in your possession? You say you've no ill intentions, but I have no reason to believe you."
Her brows knotted, lips twisting oddly at his words. "You're right. Trust me, there's nothing I can say to make you believe in―" She paused offering him a hesitant glance. "Well. . .I can show you," she said, the uncertainty of her words, palpable.
His eyes narrowed. "Elaborate."
Her lips pressed tightly together seeming to regret her latter statement. Outstretching her arm towards him, traces of doubt and ambiguity expelled from her aura. "First, your emerald."
"This is a trick―"
She shook her head.
A moment of strained silence passed between them.
"Fine."
The emeralds were set in a meticulously constructed circle in which Amy stood within, stationed at its center. Smoothing the creases of her skirt, she lowered herself onto the ground, the front of her legs smushed against the precipitated soil. Recoiling slightly at the mesh of mud and grass against her skin, she evened the agitation biting at her face, alleviating the tautness in her expression. Her lids lowered, half-mast, serenity beginning to settle within when Shadow's voice broke through her concentration.
"What is it that you're doing?"
She peered an eye at him. "It's something I picked up from Knuckles."
"And that would be?"
"You'll know soon enough."
"Ambiguity doesn't suit you, Rose."
She ignored the comment, her eyes drooping to a close. Darkness enclosed in on her, a calm washing over her diverted state. She extinguished flares of qualm and hesitation, maintaining her harmonized being. Brief periods of hushed calm passed, waves of doubt beginning to splash through her resolve, when, in an abrupt moment of clarity, a blazing flash of white light dazzled brilliantly under the darkness of her concealed lids, taking her aback. She was quick to revert back to her meditative state, fixating her focus onto that light, the light that would lead her down the path of her soul searching discovery.
.
.
.
It was a blanched field of white with the tiniest hint of lackluster beige, the drab colour enveloping the stark pink hedgehog in the meadow of nothingness. Her surroundings dull, boundless, and deafeningly silent unnerved her, an agitation building at her core―a fear for the unknown dangers lurking in the blank desolation. She took a breath, an inadequate attempt in appeasing her nerves. The air was stale chafing her lungs with every breath she took, her throat dry. She walked through the white abyss, anxious, the action laced with trepidation.
And then she spotted her.
Maria.
She was but a mere speck in the distance, but the aura of her presence was unmistakable; a correlation of sea breeze and fresh greenery in scent with the taste of a particularly bitter brand of medicine. A strange but interesting mix.
Her silent panic mouldered away with Amy's accelerating approach towards the girl. The human's expression, weary yet gentle, placified her features bringing into light the quiet beauty that was Maria Robotnik. Her hands were bound together by nimble fingers held behind her back. She waited on Amy who stood a mere hairs away from reach. Yet as her own gloved fingers came close to brushing against the girl's ghostly pale skin, she was deprived the chance of sounding the girl's name―taboo!―she turned to a run, her golden locks bobbing with movement.
And Amy paused, jaw slacked at the audacity―the nerve of the girl!
"Hey!" she snapped, hurrying to catch up to her. "Wait!"
The hum of an engine revved under the soles of her boots, a strange calm bristling through her fur. Florescent lights hummed with life, it's dim, yellowing glow reflecting off the transparent glass of the ARK. Through it, a breathtaking view of the stars dusted across the dark matter of space aesthetically acquainted by the marble glow of the Earth.
Amy blinked, confused. Her surroundings seemed to have changed at a random interval. Interesting. She had little time to waste marveling at the astonishing abnormalities of her emerald induced state of mind, however; voices drew from the corner, and by the mint condition of the ARK, she was unsure whether she should duck behind a conveniently stationed box or stay where she was.
Sure enough, Shadow and Maria rounded the corner. They strolled the hall in idle chatter passing Amy without sparing her so much as a glance. So they couldn't see her. She'd thought as much. This was a memory after all, though never had she called to mind her anamnesis from the outsiders perspective. Amy followed the pair, falling purposely behind. Muddled noise sounded through her ears. Low and incoherent, she dismissed it, tuning out the soft clamor as she drew her focus back onto the antecedent duo.
"Hm, I still think he dislikes me."
Maria giggled. "Oh Shadow, Abraham still needs a bit of time to adjust. I'm sure in the coming months the two of you will become the best of friends. Just give it time."
He grunted affirmatively. "If you say so."
"Maria, I know you can see me!" she accused, stomping forward.
The moment Amy had given her the indication of her irate approach, the corridor distorted in shape altering the breadth of the area. The artificial lighting darkened, compensated by the holographic glow of the technological intricacies of the ARK's cannon core. Gerald Robotnik stood hunched over the illumined keys of the cannon, hissing evils under his breath, a crack of light blazing the tail of his lab coat.
The automatic doors of the room were pried open by Maria's skeletal fingers. She peered through the small space, eyes shinning with worry. "Grandfather. . ."
Amy had manifested by Maria's side, positioned at the other end of the door. She stood rigidly, body stiffened from her own aberrant sense of wary caution. She cut Maria a glance before squinting through the darkened room ascertaining the man as the mad scientist known as Gerald Robotnik. Amy was sadly accustomed to the augmentative memory as she had been with the prior, a shared sensation of worry rippling through her chest.
"Maria, I know this isn't a good time but―Maria!" she called after her.
She stepped forward allowing the doors to open with her nearing. The crack of light broadened with the filtration of the foyer's incandescent glow, beaconing the attention of the particularly unstable man. His frenzied eyes were set upon the young Maria, his elongated mustache dampened with sweat. He breathed irregular―haggard breaths. "Maria," He feigned his cool. "what are you doing up so late?"
An afflictive silence tethered between the Grandfather and Granddaughter, the hushed quiet so arrantly prevalent left Amy in the midst of discerning the cryptic noise humming through her ears.
"Grandfather please don't," Maria begged seeing through his farce. "The people don't deserve this."
His fist smashed against the keys. "I have to! They've stripped me bare. My funding! My research! Don't you see? My endeavours to cure NIDS―to cure you. . ." Tears streamed his cheeks. "They hope to burn out the last light in my life and see me engulfed in darkness."
She adamantly reached out towards him. "I'll fight it," she declared boldly. "I won't let this disease that threatens to eat me inside out destroy me. I'll beat it and together we'll live in that wondrous blue planet till the end of our days. So please, stop this!"
Gerald took a hold of her unfurled arm and pulled her into a bone crushing hug. "Oh Maria, you alone keep me sane."
Amy blinked catching Maria's frail smile in her peripheral vision. When her lids raised Amy found she no longer bore witness to the intimate moment between Gerald and Maria Robotnik, instead stood confined within the darkness of an enclosed room. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness, catching sight of Maria's gaunt frame. She was leaned over Shadow's sleeping form, whispering in his ear.
The context of her words were lost on Amy, as was the memory. She'd no recollection of the imperturbable event unraveling in front of her eyes. Her voice, hushed as it was, was drowned out by the unascertained tone of something deep and sonorous. It corroded away her focus, a quibbling curiosity seeping through the cracks of her resolve.
And then the penny dropped.
Shadow. It was Shadow's voice.
It was in the midst of her epiphany did an abhorrent picture burn through her irises, the very essence of her fears manifesting. Her throat constricted, a web of venomous animosity cocooning her heart, squeezing away the goodness and buoyancy she possessed, like the juices of a ripened fruit. White dotted her vision, heat flushing her cheeks a deep red.
She fell faint.
Chaos is power, power is enriched by the heart. The echidna's words were reiterated as Shadow discerned the murky, bedimming shade of the emeralds. A moment earlier, the Chaos Emeralds had hovered in levitation, encircling the younger hedgehog in its iconic band of colour, granting her skin a faint yet descrying golden hue. And Shadow had spoken to her through her comatose state, confessing to secrets that'd left her none the wiser. But the emeralds sunk to a fall, their sharp points embedded to the soil. They veiled a midnight black and Amy's rose fur darkened to a deep plum in colour.
Shadow knew hollering her name would do little to rouse her from her meditative state, but endeavoured in the attempt anyway."Rose―Rose! You must detach yourself from this dark form. Rose! Dammit!"
Disregarding the consequences of what was sure to be a foolish mistake, and quite frankly an asinine regard for his own well being, Shadow broke through the emerald barrier sensing the brunt of his actions instantaneously. His blood ran cold, as if kissed by the ice queen herself. The negative Chaos energy wreathed around his fur settling through his lethargic limbs as he fell pathetically to his knees, darkness creeping around the corners of his vision.
He reached out towards Amy, grabbing a firm hold of her shoulders. Her eyes, he noted in distracted interest, were as red as his own. Shadow's dark aura wisped along side Amy's, albeit his a corrupting and malicious gloom―dominating almost. Powered by his antagonistic musings of both past and present and the ugliness of his own heart, he fell into a hypnotic state.
In an ordinary night no different from another, Maria watched over her anthropomorphic companion, masking her pain, serenity in countenance, as the NIDS induced ache crawled up her skin. Her chest bloomed with a different pain, however. An amicably fervorous heartache in which she relished in.
It'd been a chaste, brief, and more importantly unrequited brush of lips, deepening only to the slightest peck.
She kissed him.
The moment their lips met, Amy sensed it. The wave of Maria's emotions flooding into breadth of her lungs, drowning her from the sheer intensity of it all. Her love burned brighter than the North Star, bore more intensity than the disease threatening to consume her. Her ambitions—in time of their pressed lips—were shared with her. To fly the skies; to sail the the seven seas; to explore land unsought for by the mild-mannered, and so much more. But agony cloaked beneath those desires, a knowledge of her inevitable passing. She would soon part from her dear friend, her first and only love—
"Do you understand now, Amy?" inquired Maria's crystal voice.
She stood back amidst the blank fields of the white abyss, if anything, feeling more confused than ever. "No! This whole day has consisted of me chasing you while you. . . you've been strolling down memory lane! I went through hell breaching the trust of my friends—of Shadow and now I have nothing to show for it. So tell me, Maria, what exactly is it that I'm supposed to understand?"
A cold wind brushed through her quills, an immature response if she'd received one. She recoiled at the unnaturally bare sensation, a chill circuiting up her spine when a gasp from behind signalled the presence of another being. Turning around, she caught sight of Shadow, shrunk down by the distance, his expression not one she was able to discern.
She approached him, the strides in her steps deliberate and purposeful. Her pulse quickened, face flushed a humiliating shade of red. She extinguished the flares of doubt heating her skin, challenged (intimidated) by the supposedly timid girl's assertion in her love for Shadow. And perhaps her reverence turned adoration for the ebony hedgehog couldn't hold a candle next to the intensity of. . .whatever that had been, but she wasn't willing to back down. That just wouldn't be Amy Rose.
"Shadow, I—" Oh, who had time for words. She leaned forward, kissing him deeply. It was adverse to the chaste kiss he received from Maria. It was ardent, messy, desperate—but true to who she was. She ignored Shadow's grunt of surprise, nibbling on his lip, pressing their mouths together, gratifying in the oxytocin shared between them. To her delight, he relaxed into her embrace, returning her kisses, caressing her face, murmuring her name. . .
"Maria."
She slapped him.