"Please, Shadow, do it for me…"

          "Maria…"

          "For all the people…on that planet…Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog."

          Shadow found himself lying on the cold, steel floor with sweat trickling down his brow. He had a reoccurring nightmare about that miserable, austere night, fifty years ago when Maria Robotnik gave up her life to save him from the soldiers of G.U.N.

          "That promise," he thought, "I will never forget it. I promise you revenge! Revenge on all the humans on this pathetic little planet! I will destroy it all for you, Maria, as long as Angel does not get in my way. But soon, she will join our side in our pursuit and together we will do it for you…"

******************************************************      

"Tails, do you have a lead on any more emeralds?" Sonic walked up beside the X-Tornado, Tails' plane/bi-pedaled robot, and looked in the cockpit to see that the radar was not picking up anything.

          "Sorry, Sonic," Tails replied, "I'm not getting anything!"

          "Keep on trying, we can't risk someone getting to them before us!"

          "I'm workin' on it."

          "Hey Ange…? Where's Angel?"

          Sonic looked around the verdant, desolate plains of the Mystic Ruins to see nobody except for Amy picking some dandelions and other wild flowers.

          "Amy, do you know where Angel's at?"

           "She's over there," Amy pointed to a tranquil waterfall flowing from the top of a hill and into a large, cerulean pond, "She looks really bummed out though…"

          Sonic took a few steps toward the cascade to see that Amy was right. Angel was lying curled up amongst the grass of the prairie, staring hypnotically into the waterfall as if she had zoned out into outer space.

          "Do you think we should go talk to her?" Sonic asked Amy who blushed and smiled as she handed him a large bouquet of wildflowers.

          "Yeah, I think she needs some definite cheering up. C'mon!"

           The two hedgehogs walked over to their melancholy friend and sat down next to her. It seemed as if she didn't even notice they were there, she just kept on gazing at the water. The expression on her face was almost terrifying…so still her body was and how fixated on the blue her eyes were. Her eyes…they didn't blink. They looked tear-filled, but they didn't stream down her cheeks but rather stayed there as if stuck in time.

          "Angel…? Angel, are you alright?"

          Amy bent over her and tapped her frivolously on the shoulder. Finally, she showed some movement. She rolled over onto her back and looked upwards-right into Amy's lime green eyes.

          "…what…" She asked indolently as she gave an exasperated sigh.

          "What's wrong? Why are you all slumpin' around like this?"

          "…Just thinking about someone…"

          "'Want me to go beat 'em up for ya?'" Amy said playfully as she tried to sound like Angel's habitually spunky voice. She gave out a small chuckle, but suddenly wiped the grin from her gloomy face.

          "If there's anything we can do," she continued, "let us know. I don't like when my friends are all depressed and moping around!"

          The once cloudless pale blue sky slowly transformed into a gray overcast. Light sprinkles showered down from the heavens as the droplets slipped down Angel's face.

          "Why am I here…what do I live for…" Tearful thoughts rushed through her head as she laid almost presumed dead while deafening thunder cackled, "I have no purpose…no life…"

          "Angel, come inside! You're going to catch a chill!"

          The words her friends were speaking made no effect on her; she just poignantly looked up towards the lofty dull firmament.

          "Amy, get inside the shop, I'm sure Angel will come in a few minutes."

          It began to rain harder; lightning blazed so bright that it could have made one blind. However, nothing affected her now; she felt no emotions-no pain-nothing…just the heartbreaking recollections that burdened her. She knew what she must do; she yearned for revenge. To kill an innocent young girl was already crime enough, but to annihilate and obliterate an entire space colony was just beyond words.

          Angel put her hand on the pocket of her baggy blue jeans, pulling out a diminutive, jagged metal blade. She could end this anguish now and join the friends she longed for, or do the unfeasible and demolish the soldiers of G.U.N.

          "I'm sorry I let you down, Maria…but there's just nothing worth living for anymore…"

          Angel held the dagger close to her heart, ready to carry out the final blow.

          "Sayonara, fuckin' world-"

          "ANGEL, STOP!"       

          She looked up into the rain- down pouring so hard that you could not see more than a few mere inches- to see that Amy was clutching the hand that was about to send her out of this world.

          "Don't do it!" Amy yelled into the bleak weather, "You can't kill yourself now! I may not have known Maria, or anybody on that ARK, but I'm sure that they all would want you to continue on living! When you're dead, you're gone…you're nothing. It's over!"

          "And tell me what is so fucking wrong with that. Everyone whom I once cared for and cared for me are now all above, why can't I join them?"

          "Because there are people down here, on earth, who care for you! You're one of my only friends, Angel. I can't just sit back and watch yourself waste away into nothing."

          Angel could tell the droplets streaming down Amy's face were not from the rain. She was actually crying…and for her? She threw the knife away, putting her hands on her head as she lost herself in despair.

          "Listen to me: you can't give up, not now, not ever! Do you really want to be a quitter, and find the easy way out by just simply letting it all end with the edge of that blade?"

          For being only twelve years old, Amy had quite a way with words. Lightning and thunder continued to roar and cackle around them as the wind reach speeds so fast that the trunks of the trees began to curvature.

          "You have to come with me," Amy said as she extended her soaked hand to Angel, "or else everyone on that ARK will die in vain."

          ******************************************************

"Shadow, I think I've found something here."

          Rouge the bat-Shadow's new comrade who had a very zealous love for jewels- pointed to a miniature intermittent red mark in the center of an infrared map.

          "We're getting a signal that the emerald should be there."

          "Yeah but where the hell is that? Can't you zoom the damned thing in?"

          Rouge typed in a few commands on the keyboard, making the map zoom in 10x. The speck continued to blink over a building right off of the main street.

          "We need to arrive there before that blue hedgehog retrieves it," Shadow said as he walked towards the doorway, "Let's go."

******************************************************

          Amy and Angel sat on the springy cushions of the cobalt and burgundy print couch, completely drenched while Tails and Sonic looked out the window at the raging storm. No one spoke; they didn't really know how to respond to Angel's suicide attempt.

          "I…I don't know what came over me," she pronounced, looking down at the floor, "I just felt like I had no reason to live…"

          "Don't say that," Amy responded soothingly, "there are tons of reasons to keep on living…"

          Beads continued to pelt the windowsill as silence crept over the four teenagers once again. However, a low, beeping noise coming from the garage broke the stillness of the scene.

          "It looks like we've found another emerald," Tails declared as he looked at the radar inside of his plane, "It…it appears to be in Station Square."       

          Amy looked to Sonic, and then to Angel.

          "I…I'll go with you…" she said as she stood up; letting the water drip from her wet fur.

          Sonic, Amy, and Angel followed Tails out into the garage where they hopped into the passenger seats of his X-Tornado. The enormous doors opened, revealing a long stretch of road for proper take off.

          "Everybody, hold on!" Tails announced as the jet sped upwards into the diminishing storm clouds.

          "Isn't this a little dangerous?" Amy asked.

          "The storm's almost over, so we should be okay."

          Tails continued to steer the plane towards Station Square; the beeping of the radar progressively escalating as they approached the heart of the metropolis.

          "Go more eastward," Sonic told Tails. The raining had stop, and visibility was starting to recommence. The plane attain a structure as the radar turned red; indicating they were right on the emerald.

          Tails landed his X-Tornado in front of an old, decrepit edifice. Every window was boarded up, except for a few at the top which looked as if someone had broken in. Spiders and cobwebs graced every crack in the walls while rats and roaches seemed to rule the place.

"The emerald…is…is in there?" Amy's voice sounded shaky and worried.

          "If the radar is right it should be."

          "Ugh…"

          Sonic approached the door-which was boarded up as well-and scratched his chin.

          "Stand back," he said as he backed up a little bit. He curled himself into a ball and sped directly into the boards, creating an opening for Angel and the others to crawl through.

          "This place is creepy!" Amy continued on complaining; "Can… can I wait back in the Tornado??"
          "Me too!" Tails said as he and Amy darted back outside of the building and into the passenger seats.

          "Jeez, it ain't all that scary…" Angel said as her voice echoed through the vacant, musty hallway. The furniture had been concealed with white coverings and boxes upon boxes were stacked as high as the ceiling.

          "Well it looks like it's just you and me," Sonic said, "the signal was stronger when we were in the Tornado, so maybe the emerald is on an upper floor."

          Angel followed Sonic up a flight of stairs that had no hand railing as if the building never got finished built.

          "Whoa, watch out!"

          Sonic quickly grabbed Angel to prevent her from falling into a hole right in the middle of the floor.

          "That was a close one…"

          "C'mon let's keep goin'"

          Sonic held the radar high in the air as they climbed more stairs. Stairway after stairway they climbed-the beeping getting faster with every step as they approached the last floor.

          "It must be here somewhere," Angel said as they walked into a room filled with more boxes with various markings, including 'G.U.N.' and 'SOAP'.

          "It's probably in one of these boxes, start looking." 

          Sonic and Angel dug into the piles of endless boxes, coming across nothing of importance to them except for a small newspaper article dated 50 years ago about the incident of the ARK, claiming that the disaster was Dr. Gerald Robotnik's fault.

          "Hey, Sonic! I think I found somethin' here!"

          Angel pulled out a large box from the stack that was unlabeled, but had a dull, luminous glow to it. She lifted up the flap and what was held inside was what they had been seeking.

          "The Chaos Emerald!" Sonic exclaimed as he picked up the gem.        He handed it to Angel, who had a suspicious look on her face.

          "What's wrong?" he asked her.

          Angel stared at it and scanned it over and over, looking at every indentation on it. After a few nerve-racking minutes, she finally shouted out, "This is fake!"

          "Ha ha ha, it doesn't take a genius to figure THAT out."

          Sonic and Angel looked up to where the voice was coming from. However, they saw nothing except spider webs and dust bunnies.

          "Is…this what you're looking for?"

          The two hedgehogs turned behind them to see a femme bat hanging upside down from the ceiling, holding-obviously-the real emerald in her hand.

          "Shadow wanted me to tell you he was…sorry for last night. He didn't want it to go that way. Y'see, he really cares about you and wants you to join him to help him fulfill the promise to Maria…"

          Angel gazed at the bat as more thoughts lingered into her mind. Was what she said true? Does Shadow want the emeralds for Maria, and not for any other reason she did not know?

          "Angel, come with me. Shadow really wants to talk to yo-"

          "If he wants to see me so bad then he can come here. How do I know this isn't some kind of trap?"

          "Do you think Shadow would do that to you? He looked after you and took care of you when you were on the ARK, so…what do you say? Come with us?"

          "Don't trust her," Sonic whispered into Angel's ear, "She's up to no good, don't believe anything she says."

          It was too late. Angel was already partially convinced that Rouge was telling the truth. Even though she thought Shadow had turned on her, she would do anything for him and always be by him.

          "He also said to give you this," Rouge pulled a small folded piece of paper out of her pocket and tossed it to Angel, "I'll tell him to drop by and have a chat with you…but I'm afraid I must be going now…"

          "Hey! You can't get away that easily!" Sonic called out.

          "Oh? And who's going to stop me? The last time I chequed hedgehogs don't fly. Catch ya later, hunny!"

          Rouge jumped out of the window and glided away with her wings. The emerald she held in her hand glistened in the San Franciscan sun as she disappeared from sight.

          "Shit! We can't allow them to get any more emeralds! I don't care what that bat said, I know she's lying!"

          Angel wasn't paying attention to anything Sonic said. She zoned out at the wall as various thoughts continued to leak into her mind.

          "Angel, you don't believe her…do you?"

          She said nothing, but looked down at the small note Rouge had handed her. Taking a deep breath, she unfolded it

          "I will be watching you, Angel, no matter where you are. We will discuss various things on our next face to face meeting, such as the emeralds, our purpose…and Maria.

                                                                   Shadow"