Shadow's Odyssey 2: The Chaos Continues

Everyone woke up early the next day. Most of them would be going to Iego. Rouge went to check on Shadow. He was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall.

"Hey. Are you doing okay?" It was a stupid question, as it always was. Rouge never needed to ask if he was okay because it was always obvious. But if he said he was fine when he obviously wasn't, at least that would mean he hadn't changed.

"No."

A chilling silence descended over them. Rouge was at a lost for words. She had always wanted him to be more honest with her about how he was feeling, but now that he finally was, she wished he would go back to lying.

When she finally worked up the nerve to speak again, she asked, "Are you coming on the mission?"

"No."

The silence stretched on again as Rouge struggled to find something to say.

"Shouldn't you be going?"

"You know, I don't have to go on the mission. I could stay here with you and-"

"And what?"

"Well, try and help you feel better?"

"My feelings are not the issue! The issue is that there is a Sith Lord on the lose! The way I feel doesn't bring us any closer to stopping him. Now why don't you go and something that's actually useful?" Shadow turned his back on Rouge and went back to staring at the wall.

Rouge felt her throat close up. Fighting back tears, she turned and walked away.

Outside, those going to Iego were boarding the Falcon. Sonic came out to join them but was stopped by Tails.

"Sonic, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to Iego."

"You sprained your leg yesterday."

"Well, I feel better today so let's go!"

"Sonic, you can't run on that! You aren't even supposed to be walking!"

"Then I'll just hop around on one foot."

Tails facepalmed.

"Don't worry, I'm gonna be fine."

Knuckles came outside and slung Sonic over his shoulder. "You're going to be fine because you're staying here." Without further ado, he carried the squirming hedgehog back inside.

Tails turned to the others. "You guys go ahead. Knuckles and I will stay behind and make sure Sonic doesn't hurt himself."

Han, Chewbacca, Rex, Omega, Rouge, Luke, Boba, Bokatan, Lando, L3, and Petro all boarded the ship and took off.

Eggman was drawing up plans for the super laser when Shadow came in.

"Alright, they're gone. Let's get to work."

"The first thing we need is a whole lot of scrap metal, which we should be able to find plenty of in the wreckage of the city. We're also going to require a hyper drive and a navigational computer, which we should be able to get from the remaining ships here. But most importantly of all, we need a place where we can build this thing without anyone noticing."

"We'll build it on the outskirts of the city. At a distance, it'll look like just another broken down ship. Now I just need to get us a quick means of transportation."

Shadow left Eggman and crept down the halls to where they were storing the Emeralds. Knuckles would normally be watching the room, but he was currently in a wrestling match with Sonic. Shadow took the green one and left again. He collected Eggman and they warped to the city.

Shadow collected scrap so Eggman could work.

"I need more round pieces. Round pieces!"

Shadow teleported away and came back with another round piece. Then Eggman realized something.

"Won't Knuckles notice one of the Chaos Emeralds is missing?"

Shadow let out a groan. He hadn't thought of that. As soon as he noticed an Emerald was missing, he would assume it was Eggman who had it and would come asking questions.

"I'll keep him distracted; you get started." Shadow ran back.

He went to find Knuckles, who hasn't discovered that an Emerald was missing. The echidna was just fishing tying Sonic to his bed.

"Is this really necessary?"

"Knowing you? Yes. I can't babysit you and the Emeralds at the same time! And Tails is too busy taking care of Gungi, Katooni, and Leia. So, I need to make sure you stay put even when I'm not around." Knuckles gave Sonic a commlink. "Call me whenever you're hungry or something."

He left the room and found Shadow in the hallway, leaning casually against the wall. Knuckles glanced at him but decided to ignore him. Shadow entered Sonic's room.

"Hey, Shadow would you consider tying someone to a bed illegal? Because I think this is illegal."

Shadow walked over and untied him. "Let's go do something."

Sonic stared. "Shadow, are you saying you want to hang out with me?"

"Let's go before Knuckles comes back."

Sonic hopped off the bed on his good foot. "I have no idea what you're doing but it sounds better than being tied to a bed all day." He hobbled out of the room.

Shadow picked up the commlink and called Knuckles. "Sonic escaped." He dropped it and followed Sonic into the hall.

"So Shadow, what are we doing?"

"We're going to be playing… tag."

Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Okay Shadow, what's going on with you?"

Then Knuckles rounded the corner and saw them. "Sonic!"

"Knuckles is It. Let's go." Shadow took Sonic down a different hallway.

"Shadow, this is really unlike you."

"You don't want to be stuck in bed all day do you?"

"Well, no but-"

"Then don't get caught!"

"Sonic, get back here!" Knuckles's bellows were getting louder.

Sonic looked at Shadow and then back at Knuckles. "All right, I'll play along. You'll never catch us, Knuckles!" Sonic hopped faster.

Knuckles tried to grab him, but Sonic was just a little too far away. Shadow looked ahead and saw a dead end coming up. Sonic saw it too.

"Uh oh. I think the game's up, Shadow."

"Just keep moving!"

They moved at full speed towards the wall. Just before they were about to hit it, Shadow used Chaos Control. Knuckles, unable to halt his momentum, ran right into the wall. Shadow and Sonic reappeared just a few feet away.

"Ha ha! You'll have to do better than that, Knuckles!"

They fled up the same hall they came down and eventually made their way outside. Shadow spotted a landspeeder.

"Over there!"

They got onto the speeder as Knuckles came charging out of the temple. "Sonic, this isn't funny!"

"Are you sure? Because from my point of view it is!"

The echidna dove at the speeder, only for it to accelerate, leaving Knuckles behind in a cloud of dust. They drove father and farther away from the temple, until they could no longer see it. They kept going until the speeder ran out of fuel and came to a stop.

The two hedgehogs got off and laid on the grass, staring up at the clouds. Hours went by and day slowly shifted to night.

"You know something Shadow? I think I get it now. You're trying to cheer me up. When Sidious destroyed the city, I blamed myself for it. It was my job to stop him and I failed. And then when Sidious got away, you felt horrible too. And you wanted to make things better. And so when I was forced to stay behind, you set up this little game for me so I could spend the day having fun instead of laying bed, thinking about how terrible everything is. Thank you, Shadow. This was a fun little distraction."

Shadow remained silent.

"Still not willing to admit we're friends yet, huh? Come on, you did all this for me."

Then they could see headlights in the distance. They watch as a speeder pulled up and Knuckles got off.

"Hey, Knucklehead! About time you caught up."

"Sonic, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I didn't want to be board and depressed. "

"And you, Shadow! What the hell? Why would you do this? Sonic might be a fan of goofy shenanigans like this, but not you! And what are you doing with one of the Chaos Emeralds?"

"Knuckles, relax. With all this horrible stuff going on, we needed this."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Just get on the speeder so we can go back."

Then the speeder was struck with a Chaos Spear. Knuckles looked back at Shadow.

"What did you do that for? Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to get back on foot?"

"Long enough." Then Shadow disappeared.

Knuckles was completely dumbfounded. Sonic's heart sank.

"Knuckles? I don't think Shadow did this for fun."