CHAPTER 20

DISCLOSURE

Later at the Tech City library, Allan, Damon, and Razi had broken inside of the library and were sitting at a small table together waiting for Shadow to show up.

Allan looked at his wrist watch and sighed in impatience. "Damn him. He's late."

Damon tapped his fingers on and off of the surface of the wooden table impatiently. "Who breaks into a lame library anyway?"

"Maybe he wants us to steal this mega valuable book", Razi spoke with a chuckle.

"We're looking for something far valuable than some book", a familiar yet dark voice had spoken.

The group turned to find a black and red hedgehog stepping out of the darkness from the far corner of the room.

"About time you got here", Damon spoke with a smirk.

The group stood from their seats and approached the hedgehog.

"I'm glad you all didn't find difficulty to break in here."

Allan couldn't help but to let out a chuckle. "Oh come on! We're The Villains remember? We can break into anything with ease especially a low security library."

Shadow sighed heavily and thought that most libraries wouldn't be so tight with security anyway.

"All right Shadow, spill it! Why are we here?" Damon and the rest of the group saw him take out a piece of paper that revealed a black and white picture of the talisman that he had shown them before.

The hedgehog pointed to the picture of the talisman. "The talisman. I narrowed my search here. It must be somewhere in this library. I just know it."

Razi glanced around the huge room full of books. There was an upstairs and downstairs. Even he had to admit that the library was huge and would probably take forever to find the talisman. "But this place is huge."

"Then we'd better get started", he said as he began to pull a book off of a shelf and started flipping through the pages.

The group sighed and started looking as well.

"Are you kidding? This is the big assignment?" Razi leaned his back against a bookshelf until he felt the entire shelf lean back. His heart skipped a beat when he no longer felt the cold wooden shelf full of book leaned upon his back. He and the rest of the group were startled when they heard the huge bookshelf fall on the floor.

Shadow dropped the book he was holding and saw Razi standing beside a fallen bookshelf. He angrily approached him and grabbed him by his gray collared shirt and gave him a cold glare as he shook his body. "You idiot! What are you trying to do? Wake the dead?"

The way Shadow had looked at him, he had hoped he didn't have the intent to kill him. "I-I didn't mean to! It was an accident!" He tried to explained while stammering.

The two were both interrupted when they saw Damon point his gun to a dark corner of the room. "Yo Shadow, I hear something over there."

Shadow took his mind away from the nervous beaver and looked over at the dark corner of the room as well.

"Whoever you are, you've been spotted. Come out now or I'll blow a cap in your ass", he spoke with his finger steady on the trigger of his gun.

Everyone watched as an orange echidna slowly stepped out of the darkness and confront the group.

Shadow's eyes widened at the sight of the echidna girl. "No wonder I felt something weird…What the hell are you doing here?"

Tikal fixed her eyes on the dark hedgehog. "I felt a strange energy coming from inside of here so I decided to check it out."

Allan shifted his eyes over to Shadow. "You…know this girl?"

The hedgehog crossed his arms and gave the echidna girl a cold glare. "You need to leave."

Tikal shook her head slowly. "I'm not leaving until you tell me why you're here late at night with these strange people."

The hedgehog slipped a dark chuckle. "Oh? I have to explain myself to you? I don't have to tell you anything, child."

Tikal clenched her fists and shook them in frustration. "I have the right to know!"

The black hedgehog shrugged his shoulders and formed an evil smirk. "You wanna know? Fine by me."

Tikal found it hard to swallow suddenly. Since Shadow was going to tell her why he was at the library so late at night with the strange group, she had a deep regret that maybe she should have never asked.

"I came here to find a magical talisman called the Devil Bond. I'm sure you heard of it am I right, Tikal?"

After hearing the name of the talisman, Tikal had suddenly become weak in the knees as all of her forgotten memories had started to come back to her. "…The Devil Bond…" She kneeled to the floor and held her head down staring at the floor in distraught.

Shadow slowly started approaching her. "I knew there was something about you I didn't like…You can feel my dark presence inside of Shadow can't you?"

"…You're…you're not the real Shadow…"

A dark chuckle had escaped him, "About time someone figured it out."

"What do you want?"

He stopped in his tracks and looked down at the devastated echidna girl. "What I've wanted for a long time. Immortality…power…to be become the ultimate being of this pathetic world and Hell itself!"

She clenched her fists onto the cold hard floor. "You want to become some kind of king is that it? That's your goal?" She looked from the floor and glared into his deep demonic eyes. "Then why did you have to get Shadow involved?"

"I don't think you understand, child. You don't know who I am do you?"

Her body shook in fear from his dark presence standing in front of her.

"For years I've been just sitting back waiting and waiting for the day Shadow's entire body to fall weak. When he stepped into that church, he was completely helpless. I took that opportunity to take him over completely."

The orange echidna's eyes widened in horror as she slowly stood from the floor and began to back away from him. "No…you…you can't be…"

"That's right! I'm the very darkness that's been lying deep within his heart. Shadow is a fool. So much power yet he gives it all up for the sake of his stupid friends! No wonder he's become so weak…"

"You evil demon! You won't get away with this!"

He once again started to approach her with a blood thirsty look. "You have never been so wrong."

When she tried to get away, Allan and Razi had grabbed her to keep her from running away. She struggled while they held her. She couldn't believe this was happening. He was going to hurt so many people. "How could you do this? To Shadow! His friends! Rouge!"

"Because he has no use for them! All Shadow needs is to get stronger! All of his pathetic friends would just slow him down!"

She had stopped struggling when Damon aimed the barrel of his gun to her head knowing that if she continued to struggle, he might would shoot her. "You stay away from everyone! Especially Rouge!"

He let out a menacing chuckle. "Rouge? I have no use for her. I'm just simply playing the game and giving her what she wants. That bat girl is so oblivious. Since Shadow is already in love with her, I thought why not have some fun? She doesn't realize that she's closer to her death out of everyone else in the Chaotix."

Tikal couldn't believe what she was hearing. She was right the entire time. He was hurting Rouge in more than one way. Her body jumped when she felt his hand stroking through her dreadlocks.

"However, I'll make sure she's the last to die out of the group. I'll make sure she suffers the most…"

"Fuck you, you evil demon!" She was suddenly kicked in the stomach by the dark hedgehog. She fell to her knees in pain.

"I didn't realize you had such a dirty mouth on you. Looks like you need to be put in your place…"

Damon formed an evil smirk as he once again pointed the gun at the echidna. "Shall I put a nice silver bullet in her skull, Shad?"

Before he could speak, he saw Tikal pull out a black object from the inside of her green blazer pocket.

Damon let out a cry of agony when a gunshot had been fired into his leg. He fell to the floor while holding his bleeding leg. "God damnit!"

Tikal had used this opportunity to get away from the group and started fleeing up the stairs of the library with a small handgun in her hand.

"That son of a bitch has a gun on her!" Razi had shouted in shock.

"Fucking shoot her!" Allan shouted as he and Razi started to fire their guns towards the stairs.

When Tikal ran up the stairs, she fired back and took cover behind some bookshelves when she had the chance.

"Stop it!" Shadow had demanded. "Hold your fire!"

Razi and Allan gave the dark hedgehog a puzzled look.

"Don't waste your ammunition on that brat! I got this."

Tikal stopped firing her gun when she realized that Allan and Razi had stopped firing their own guns. She had wondered what were they planning. When she peaked downstairs she saw the three strange men but didn't see Shadow. Her body froze when she felt her wrist being suddenly grabbed making her drop her gun. She spun around only to find the demonic hedgehog having her in his grip.

"Did you think you could defeat me?"

Frightened from being in his grip, she tried to pull away but he would not ease his grip from her. She let out a scream when he suddenly slapped her hard in the face. The hit was so hard, blood came gushing from her nose.

"It's too bad your life will have to end like this and you know what? Your so called new friends won't even notice you've disappeared."

She panted and groaned from the constant kicks and punches he was inflicting on her. She felt weaker and weaker by the moment. She really thought she had lost.

The full white moon's light that was shining through the huge window had fell upon the two when they were giving each other one final cold glare at each other.

Tikal's angry but sorrowful eyes looked into Shadow's demonic pupils. "You think you've won but you're wrong", she panted in exhaustion. "You will be stopped because you're still too weak. You have no right to possess that talisman and call yourself a king."

Angered by her words, he was then seeing red. Without hesitation, he positioned his hands around her neck and quickly snapped her neck. In anger, he threw her limp body to the floor.

Damon, Allan, and Razi's bodies were frozen by the sight as they watched Shadow easily kill Tikal. Witnessing his power, the group had to admit that they felt frightened by him.

Razi's body shook after he witnessed what had happened. "Oh my God…"

"He killed her…He killed that girl like it was nothing…" Allan spoke in disbelief.

Shadow kneeled down at the body and suddenly shoved his hand inside of her chest. When he took his hand out of her chest, he held her bloody heart in the palm of his hand. "Good fucking riddance", he murmured before he started devouring on her lifeless heart.

In The Next Chapter...

Rouge: Are you okay? You don't look too good.

Shadow: Trust me. I've never felt better.

Rouge: There's something strange...something's off about him.

Shadow: You seem troubled. Let me take whatever it is off of your mind...