Act 2-7: Broken Trust

Shadow's POV

When I woke up, I felt like my mind was spinning out of control.

My eyes slowly opened up to see that I was not in Forever Fall. I took a moment to observe my surrounding. I recognized this place as the Beacon Medical Wing, which I visited months back when I had discovered my Aura.

I looked down at my chest. A long white bandage was wrapped around my body. The most noticeable part was the blood on the wrapping. It covered the same spot where Metallix had slashed me.

Metallix...

My thoughts turned to that of anger. That machine would be at my mercy the next time it saw me, and I would make it sure it would be the last.

But the bigger subject on my mind was how I was still alive. I clearly remember Metallix about to finish me off before I blacked out.

"Took ya long enough."

I turned to my left to see that I had a visitor. Sitting a chair next to the bed was Sonic.

Of all the people to come and visit me, I wasn't expecting him of all people to pay me a visit.

"So, how was your nap?" Sonic asked as he leaned back in the chair.

My face turned to one of confusion. "What nap?"

"Ya know, the three day nap you just woke up from."

Three days!? I was out for three days!?

"Are you kidding me!?" I exclaimed. "How are you not treating this like a bigger deal!?"

"Oh come on, we both know you've survived WAY worse than a slash to the chest. And if it makes ya feel any better, I got knocked out for five days when I fell off a waterfall."

When and how Sonic fell off a waterfall was something I didn't know and didn't care about.

"So what happened after I passed out?" I asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Well, for starters, I saved your life." Sonic put on a smirk.

I had a feeling he wasn't going to let me this live this down.

And then I remembered something very crucial and important.

"Sonic, please tell me the Chaos Emeralds are safe."

The smirk on the hedgehog's face disappeared. "Yeah...about that. Metallix sort of...took 'em?"

...

"What!? How!?" I demanded.

"I don't know," Sonic replied. "He just absorbed some power of the red one, then he used a Chaos Control and knocked everyone else out with a giant laser beam. Then while we were out in dream land, Metallix must've done the same to the one we had."

This thing could absorb small amounts of energy from the Chaos Emeralds AND was able to use Chaos Control with that little energy!? This was bad.

"If we didn't have that Aura stuff, we'd be toast. And luckily he didn't get the Chaos Energy in my weapons, so that's good."

"I don't care about wheatear or not your weapons still work. I only care that Metallix stole the two of the Chaos Emeralds."

"Well, you might care about the other thing."

"...What did you do this time?"

Sonic defensively held up his hand. "I'm innocent! That Metallix thing is the guilty one! The guy talked like he personally knew me, but I've never seen him before in my life!"

"And this is important how?"

"Because he basically destroyed our disguises, and now every student in the whole freaking school doesn't trust us!"

...

This was definitely worse.

"How much do they know?"

"Next to nothing, but keepin everyone in the dark has made some issues. Weiss thinks we're liars and refuses to talk to us 'till we tell the truth, Blake is tryin to figure out what's going on, and Yang just outright ignores us. The only one that actually still trusts us is Ruby, but her teammates just drag her in the opposite direction whenever we run into each other. Everyone else either gives us looks or ignores us."

I smashed my fist into a nearby table, causing Sonic to slightly flinch. That piece of junk was smarter than it looked. Metallix just have figured that he could break the trust we had gained from the world's inhabitants, and now they were against us.

There was only one thing we could do now.

I pushed the blanket off of myself and stood on floor. I wasn't at my best, so it felt somewhat painful, but that didn't matter to me. I then started to exit the room.

"Where are you goin?" Sonic asked.

I stopped in front of the door and turned to face the hedgehog. "I'm leaving."

Sonic's POV

I just stared at Shadow with a blank look. "What!?"

"You heard me correctly," Shadow said. "I said I'm leaving."

I just stood there like a complete idiot. To be honest, this wasn't the reaction I was expecting at all. I thought was gonma do something 'bout the whole situation, not ditch the place.

Shadow opened the door to the room, then opened the door to leave the Medical Wing after that.

"Wait!" I dashed out of the area and into the hallway to find Shadow walking off. "Ya can't just leave like that!"

"Stop trying to change my mind," Shadow stated. "My decision is final."

"...You're goin after Metallix, aren't ya?"

"..."

I couldn't believe it. This Metallix guy managed to slash Shadow across the chest with a freaking energy sword, put him in a three day coma, managed to take me and everyone else out with one move, and absorbed a bit of energy from TWO Chaos Emeralds and managed to use a Chaos Control with it! And the first thing Shadow wants to do when he wakes up is hunt down that same guy!?

I mean, I'm okay with a challenge, but this is absolutely insane!

"Are you kidding me?!" I exclaimed. "This guy mopped the floor with us!"

"He got lucky," Shadow replied. "And it won't happen again."

"How can you be so sure!? The only reason you're standin right there is because I saved your life, and barely at that! If you run into him again-"

"I'll beat him."

"You'll lose! Can't ya just trust me for once!?"

I don't know why he did it, but Shadow stopped in his tracks, and gave me a murderous look.

"Trust you? Trust YOU!?" he shouted. "What do you think I've been doing for the past months!? I put my trust in the idiotic plan of yours, and look where it's gotten us! Metallix as two Chaos Emeralds in his possession, and nobody at this damn place trusts us anymore! We could've had all seven emeralds by now and be home, but no! You just had to join a stupid school to maintain a pointless disguise and drag a bunch of people we barely know into this whole damn mess! The only thing you've done is waste my damn time! All of this is your fault! So how in the name of Chaos am I supposed to trust you when all you've done is made things worse!?"

"..."

"That's what I thought." He then began walking away.

"Wait..." I tried to stop Shadow one last time, but he quickly turned around and punch me square in the face.

"Try and stop me again, and I beat the living hell out of you," Shadow warned. I saw as he walked away from me.

I sat down next to a wall, putting a hand up to the possibly broken part of my face.

"All of this is your fault!"

That same thought kept ringing through my head. I tried shaking it out, tried to think 'bout somethin else, but I just couldn't.

Maybe Shadow was right. Maybe this was all my fault. Maybe I'm the reason the rest of the students at Beacon don't trust my team anymore.

"Some hero I am," I muttered as I sulked back into the wall.

STAGE CLEAR

TOTAL EMBLEMS: 19