Chapter 19: A New Day

'Shadow, please, protect this world! Bring hope to Humanity!'

"Maria!" Shadow reached out to a familiar figure as it dissapated into the void in a loud flash. He found himself in a vast darkness, drifting in the endless void.

'Shadow...' he felt a dark pressense behind him. An all familiar pressense of doom. Black Doom.

"You have no control over me, Black Doom." Shadow growled, not turning. "You are dead."

The booming voice laughed. 'As long as my blood runs through your veins, I will never truely die, Shadow!'

"I will not even answer that with a response." Shadow scowled looking forward.

The enormous visage of Black Doom shifted to face Shadow, looming over the hedgehog and glaring down onto him. 'Ha! Still so foolish, you ignorant little traitor.' He leaned down to Shadow. 'If you think you can keep them safe, your wrong. You are destined for destruction and ruin. My blood doesn't only live in you anymore, Shadow!'

For a second, Shadow's eyes filled with realisation, and the looming ghostly figure of Black Doom vanished, as if in satisfaction.

Shadow woke up in a daze with a loud gasp.

Sevie sat up in a start. "Shadow, are you okay?"

Shadow stared at the ceiling a moment, then shook his head. "I'm alright."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

Shadow sat up in chills. "I suppose you could say so. It's nothing to worry about." Shadow got up and shook his head, then stretched. It was dark.

"Shadow um... I wanted to talk to you. Please." Sevie nervously sat in her bed, shuffling her hands.

"Hm?" Shadow looked back at her.

"Um... I have a feeling you've been avoiding me." Sevie laughed a little. "It's like, I know you've been busy, but ever since you found out and that night on the beach, it's like... well..." She looked over to him. "What I mean is, don't feel like your obligated to stay. That wouldn't be good for anyone. I'd be... I would be okay."

"What are you saying?" Shadow said, surprised.

"Its... everything was just going so fast, and I don't want to pressure you, if you don't want to it's fine." Sevie sighed. "Although I would much rather have you stay... I do want you to be happy too, you know?"

Shadow sighed and sat down with her. "I'm not leaving. I 've just been busy." he set his hand on hers. "What matters now is it's safe."

Sevie sighed. "Did... did Blaze tell you what happened?"

He looked to her in confusion. "Blaze?"

"Well..." She told Shadow what happened, her fears spilling out before she could comprehend what she was saying. She felt a chill down her quils as she spoke. "... I still don't know what's happening, they've been helping me to find out but, as far as we can tell, they are my parents. I don't know what happened to me Shadow..."

Shadow sighed. "And you said you didn't mind if I left? It sounds to me you definately shouldn't be alone now."

Sevie smiled and gave him a hug. "Thankyou!" She couldn't help it, but she felt herself tearing up.

Shadow wasn't sure what was happening, but he felt himself laugh in his head. 'As if I would let that consume me again...'

Meanwhile, in an underground prison deep under Central City...

Luxe kicked her lets as she sat on a ceiling beam inside of her cell. She smiled, an almost playfull smile, and looked down with her glowing mechanical eyes. She had been there for almost two months now, but she didn't act like she was being confined.

Her joyfull disposition was disturbing to the GUN gaurds who came to her room. She didn't seem dangerous, if anything she seemed like a blissfully unaware child, being smaller and thinner than the Mobians they saw on a regular basis. Perhaps that made her all the more disturbing. She wouldn't even try to talk to anyone, just watch the gaurds with her big, bright eyes as she meandered around. Not that the Gaurds would be permited to start talking to her.

Three times a day, she would get a meal, which she would gladly take with a wide, unblinking smile, then slump into a corner of the room and maintain eye contact as she ate. At night, they would assume she would sleep, moving to her bed and laying there, her eyes going dark but not closing, staring at them. They weren't sure if they were right to be paranoid, or if she was just toying with them like this was all a game.

From her Perch, Luxe saw the white bat, Rouge, of whom she had started to get aquainted to, enter the room. Rouge watched her as Luxe jumped down and sat in a chair. "Luxe."

Luxe looked up at her and smiled. "Yes?"

Rouge looked behind her at the gaurds, who left the room. "I have pleasant news."

"Do you?" Luxe tilted her head quizically.

"Yes. The Diamond has been found."

Luxe's eyes lit up bighter. "Where? Do you have it?"

Rouge sighed. "It's as I thought."

Luxe looked in surprise. "If you tell me where it is, we can get our treasure back and you won't have to worry anymore."

"What about you?" Rouge said. "Luxe?"

"I don't need to go anywhere. This was my mission."

"We'll give you the Diamond, no need to worry. But if you wouldn't mind," Rouge pointed a small gun like device at Luxe's face. "I will need to speak to Luxe."

Luxe's Mechanical eyes twitched to a pink. her mouth didn't move as a familiar voice rang through her open smile. "Sorry, but we don't know what you mean."

"So, you're the one I was talking to, right? The one that sent that robot to the Beach?" Rouge didn't waver.

"Oh, Wen was right, this was fun!" A long metalic laugh sputtered out. "If you back out of our deal now, we'll just send out every robot we got, you know."

"I wasn't planning on it," Rouge said. "So, who was I talking to before? This Wen person?"

"You'll find out."

"Why wouldn't you just send a robot if you wanted to observe us? She's still living, for all you knew we would have killed her."

The mechanical eyes narrowed. "You already know."

Well, that wasn't a lie. They had their suspisons since the begining.

The voice rang out, moving Luxe's mouth and eyes with almost Puppet like articulation. "This one wasn't fit for anything less than a messager. Kill her, don't kill her, to be honest her misson is complete. If your wanting to save her for infomation, I wouldn't bet on that. She would have no use to you. She's not even concious of our conversation right now. This entire situation you put her in would surely be tramatic as well. How cruel."

Rouge unwavered. Where they really going to negotiate with people like this? What were they going to use that Diamond for anyway? "We're still giving you the Diamond." Rouge said. "We'll send you a meeting place over transmission with the camera."

"Then why are we argueing?" Luxe said, switching to the voice Rouge has been getting used to as her eyes switched to white.

"I need you to agree not to kill Luxe."

"Me?" She smiled. "But your the one pointing a gun in her face. Pointing a gun in the face of a defenseless little girl."

"This isn't a gun." Rouge said. "If you don't agree to let us deactivate whatever you did to her, you will never get the diamond."

"That's not much of a threat. We know where your base is, Rouge." Luxe tilted her head. "This is pointless. Luxe is of little value to us."

"If you think the Diamond is here, that's rediculous."

"We know you for some reason care if this one dies though." Luxe stood up, and her eyes looked down at Rouge. "In my conclusion, we have the upper hand."

Rouge suddenly Shot her gun at Luxe, and Luxe froze before falling to the ground, her eyes going dark. "I disabled it for now! Now, get her!"

Groups of GUN assosiated human doctors ran in and checked Luxe's vitals. "She's alive, but we need to move fast."

"I'll leave you to it." Rouge quickly flew out of the room, stopping inside of an underground rail transmport car and sitting inside. She looked to her projection communicator. "Sonic, report in."

"Oh, hey Rouge!"

"Everything in order?"

"As usual," Sonic said, smirking. "Sure enough he had that weird rock. A little heavy to move, but no issue for me! Should be heading to get inspected now."

"So you touched it? Did it appear dangerous?"

"Well, I sure hope it isn't!" Sonic gave a thumbs up. "Not anything special."

Rouge smiled. "Hm. What about the Dr.?"

"Eggman? Oh, he went running, vowing vengence, yadda yadda. Didn't even have all the loops set up, ideal time for a sneak attack!"

"Good job, Sonic! Was he using it as a power source like usual?"

"Ha, it seemed like he was trying but it wasn't really doing anything."

"Hm." Rouge thought to herself, 'They said it had energy, but... what kind of energy?'

A/N: Hello everyone! our next Chapter is here!

So, anyway, remember to like it if you like it and leave a review to tell me what you think, and follow my art instagram (Yogurt Destiny) for drawings of my ocs, fanart, and other stuff!

For now, Yogurt