Disclaimer: Sonic The Hedgehog and all related characters are copyright to SEGA. Athair the Echidna was originally copyright to Sonic Archie Comics and Sonic Underground. I changed him a lot, but they still get credit. Lemon the Echidna, Tenchi the Hedgehog and all related characters that don't belong to SEGA belong to me, Zeldafreak-Vikki and my friend, Alyssa the Bat!
Sorry for the hold-up, I'm on Christmas vacation at my grandma's and she's on dial up, which makes it much more difficult to update things (and all the visits with my cousins slow me down too). I may start 19 but if I don't before the 25th, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Now, Chapter 18!!!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – TAKEN
Shadow sighed as he closed the door, having finally closed the café for the night. He hung the keys by the door and started to wander towards his room. His thoughts lingered on Lemon's voice, asking that same question over and over again.
"What's your name again?"
He stopped in front of his door and clutched his chest as he felt a terrible pain in his heart. He had expected this, that Lemon wouldn't recognize him. But he had secretly hoped that she would somehow know that he was indeed Tenchi. He shook his head at his own stupidity and opened the door, knowing that his dreams would never become reality. He gazed inside and remembered when he had stopped Amy from going into his room. On his desk and beside his bed, there were dozens of papers, all piled up messily. And every single one of them started with the same words: 'Dear Lemon,'
After reading her letter to Tenchi, he had spent many sleepless nights attempting to reply, to somehow put his confession down on paper. Alas, it was easier said than done. Every time he tried to write down his feelings, it always sounded stupid to him after he read them over. He guessed writing wasn't included in his programming, which was quite unfortunate.
He took one step into his room, just thinking of what to do with all of the papers when a very heavy piece of wood came down onto his head, knocking him face-down into the floor, stars flashing before his eyes. His ears rang as a now familiar voice screamed above him.
"You stupid hedgehog," yelled Athair, waving his wooden cane around angrily. "I thought you were a burglar or something!"
Shadow groaned as he slowly got up, rubbing his throbbing head as he managed to make it to his knees.
"Uhhh," he mumbled, expecting a headache in the morning. "Sorry, Athair, I forgot."
"Do not call me by my name, you disrespectful whelp!" snapped the old echidna. "You will call me "Sir", got it?!"
The sore hedgehog got to his feet, nodding. "Okay, okay, fine," he said. "Whatever you want, Ath-..."
There was an uncomfortable pause as Athair tapped his foot and glared. Shadow tried to get his stunned vocal cords to work correctly before he got himself hurt again.
"...I mean, sir."
"That's better," said Athair. "Now, it's late and I need sleep. I want the bed." He gestured to Shadow's bed, which was the only one in the apartment.
Shadow didn't like the sound of Athair going into his room, especially with all of those papers. "Uh, I was going to set up the couch for you...sir."
Athair turned fully to Shadow and gave him another icy glare, making the whole room turn cold. He gulped, his own red eyes nothing but a spark compared to the iceberg before him.
"I-I meant..." he paused, cringing at the words forming in his head. "I'll set up the couch for myself! Yeah..."
"Oh good! Now stay quiet and see you in the morning! And if I wake up because of you, I might just change my mind about shooting you!"
Shadow nodded, showing he understood, then grimaced as Athair shut the door. He sighed and went over to the nearest couch, flopping down onto it. He could feel the springs poking through after being used for so many years and Shadow almost hoped that one would somehow impale him and put him out of his misery. Forever.
It seemed like a nice idea at the time.
"He's sleeping," said Yami, perched atop one of the nearby buildings. His eyes may have had no visible pupils, but his vision was very good. He could see where Shadow was lying on the couch, rather miserably, and where a stranger was sleeping in his bed. He didn't let himself be distracted by this change. He had to keep his mind focused on his mission to kill his most hated rival.
"Can't we break into his mind now that he's asleep?" he asked, looking over.
Starr appeared, transparent as a pair of fairy wings. She hoped her brother wouldn't be angry with her answer.
"No," she replied, cringing. "The most we can do is a dream at this point but it'll all break when he wakes up. And he's too aware during the daytime now."
"So we'll have to go with your idea from before," finished Yami, his mysterious eyes narrowing. "This will prove to be most interesting."
Starr looked to Yami, her pearly eyes shining emotionally. "Oh, Yami, do we really need all of this violence? Must we bring Shadow such sadness after all he's been through?"
Yami gazed into her frightened eyes dangerously. "The Ultimate Life Form will rise sooner or later. Its calling becomes louder in my head everyday. Arashi and Neo will eventually succumb to it. Even though Jigoku is sealed away on ARK, he can probably hear it in his mind too. I don't know who that seventh is but they're probably hearing it as well. I'm just guessing, but it might've been them who freed us in the first place."
He paused as Starr sat in mid-air, hugging her knees in close. Since she had no possession over her own body, her spirit could do whatever it wanted, except go away from Yami. He shook his head at her sickening innocence and continued.
"But Shadow is a threat to us. He is the only one of us who can resist that great voice. He'll even go so far as to kill himself to prevent it all from happening! Do you want Shadow to kill himself, Starr?"
Starr shook her eyes vigorously, her eyes wide in fear. Yami crossed his arms over his chest. "Then help me to stop him before something bad happens."
The young spirit nodded, gulping. "I'll tell you anything. Just don't let Shadow kill himself!"
Yami nodded. "Yes, yes, I will prevent him committing suicide at all costs."
And he thought out the rest of the sentence, where Starr couldn't hear.
'I'll kill him instead.'
The next morning, Athair hummed as he went through Shadow's room, looking through all of his drawers and his surprisingly organized closet. So far, he had learned that the hedgehog only owned one drawer's worth of clsothing, which he saw were barely used. He skimmed through the rest of the cabinet, finding that Shadow had an interest in electronic devices after finding several modified gadgets. Then there was one drawer that held some photos. Athair hesitated, then picked up a very old photo, which was black and white. A young blonde girl looked up at him, smiling and hugging a completely black hedgehog close. The hedgehog himself was smiling shyly, pretending to put up a fight and making her laugh. There was an upside-down white triangle on his forehead and his quills were bent upwards. He flipped the photo around, reading the back.
"Shadow,
While I was looking up The Ultimate Life-Form for the government, I found this. I think it belongs to you now.
-Rouge"
Athair wondered if that hedgehog in the picture was Shadow when he was younger. It was difficult to imagine, Shadow actually smiling. He seemed like such a cold creature. The old echidna guessed something terrible must've happened to him. Funny, he almost felt sympathy for the stupid hedgehog. But it quickly left as he heard his new roommate fall off the couch, groaning as he woke up. Athair quickly grabbed one of the pieces of paper and walked out, fully-dressed in his usual tribal robe, his beads clicking together around his wrinkled face.
Shadow opened his eyes and realized for the first time that he had fallen off of the couch. He looked up to see Athair upside down and blinked a few times, waiting until he could see him clearly. He wished he didn't have to look at such an ugly thing first thing in the morning.
"'Morning," he said groggily, his head pounding from Athair's attack the night before.
Athair simply gave him one of his mean looks and walked along into the kitchen. Shadow sighed and got up, reminding himself to stay quiet in all future encounters with Athair. He waited until the elder had left the kitchen to get his own food. He couldn't help but feel his pride being ripped up into little pieces as he was forced into this kind of life.
Down in the café, Knuckles had come in early to make sure Shadow was still alive. Accompanying him was Arthur, who had learned Shadow's story from Knuckles on the way over. He knew how Shadow was feeling about the whole dilemma with Lemon and went up to see how he was holding up.
"Tenchi?" he called, walking in and closing the door. Shadow looked up from where he sat in a chair, holding a knife that Athair had left in the room while making breakfast. He had been deciding whether to use it or not and you could say it was good timing for Arthur to come in and stop him.
"My name isn't Tenchi anymore, Arthur," he said, putting the knife back on the table, his hand shaking slightly.
Arthur smiled as he felt out a seat across from Shadow. "Yes, I know," he said, sitting down. "Knuckles took the liberty of telling me what happened. You've been through quite a lot, haven't you?"
"Yeah," replied Shadow, leaning back. "I guess I'm lucky to still be in one piece."
"Mm hm," said Arthur, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Then please tell me, what were you planning to do with that knife?"
Shadow cursed inwardly. He should've known Arthur would've spotted that. Now he had to make up some kind of excuse.
"Uhhh..." he began, looking towards the knife. "I, uh, I mean Athair left it out and I was just gonna go put it back..." He winced at his feeble attempts to lie.
"Riiight," replied Arthur. He may have been blind, but over time, he had learned to 'see' emotions. "Is there something wrong? Anything you want to tell me?"
Shadow paused. Telling someone just how he felt would be a good idea. He felt very stressed, as if his chest was going to explode. Telling Arthur would be harmless enough. But at the same time, if he told one of his friends that he wanted to end his life, he would try to stop him. Or even worse, he'd tell Arashi or Sonic, who would know what was really going on! He couldn't afford something like that to happen...
"No," he said. "There's nothing wrong, Arthur. Thanks for the visit, though."
Athair sat in the café, staring at one of the papers he'd snatched from Shadow's room. He would have added it to his blackmail collection, had it not been addressed to his own granddaughter.
"Boy!" he yelled, squeezing his fist around the paper.
Knuckles looked up from where he was talking with Sonic and Arashi. He got up and walked over, the two hedgehogs watching interestedly.
"What's the matter, pop?" he asked lazily, knowing his grandfather was angry. He flinched slightly as Athair stuck the paper in his face. He took it, annoyed and began to read it.
"Dear Lemon,
I've missed you more than anything. It was a close call, but I'm alive. Knuckles must've thought I was dead before he left. It's a long story.
I've been living on my own but I've kept in touch with the others. I've been thinking of you so much lately. There have been a lot of problems coming up. I won't bore you with details but it's getting bad. I want to see you again, but at the same time, I worry. I've changed so much since the last time we spoke. But I still-"
It ended there, the rest of the phrase erased. But Knuckles could just make it out.
"-love you."
The red echidna cleared his throat as he lowered the paper, looking to Athair and attempting to smile as if amused.
"Wh-where'd you find that, pop?"
"The hedgehog's room," he replied, crossing his arms. "And wipe that smile off your face! You knew about this, didn't you?!"
Knuckles cringed and felt a few sweat drops run down the side of his face.
"Kn-know about what?" he asked feebly. Sonic slapped his forehead.
"About that hedgehog and Lemon, you moron!"
"That idiot," grumbled Sonic, shaking his head. "I hope Shadow doesn't find out about this."
"Find out about what?" asked a small voice in Arashi's ear. It was Maria, listening through the earpiece.
Arashi used his telepathy to reply. 'It's no big deal. Just a girl Shadow likes.'
"Ooooh! A crush!" giggled Maria. Arashi rolled his eyes and was about to give her a lecture on maturity when Arthur walked in, a worried look on his face. Athair paused and looked to his fellow elder as he sat down. Knuckles blinked.
"What's the matter, Arthur?" he asked, hiding the letter behind his back. They didn't need anymore people reading it.
Arthur's blind eyes looked up to where Knuckles was standing and even Arashi and Sonic could see the worry filling them up.
"I think your new roommate is suicidal, Athair."
"Another Chaos Emerald was stolen from a Swiss bank today, who wishes to remain anonymous. The description of the thief fits the same reported from the five other thefts that have baffled the police! Even detectives and the forensics department couldn't find anything! Stay tuned for more details."
Lemon watched the evening news with mild interest. She switched it to "mute" as the commercials came on.
"Hey, Amy!" she called. "There was another theft!"
Amy walked in from the kitchen, taking off her oven mitts. "Are you serious?" she exclaimed. "That means whoever the thief is has six Chaos Emeralds!"
Lemon nodded. "They're pretty good. Whoever's doing this must be pretty desperate for some power. Do you know where the last one is?"
Amy nodded. "Sonic and Arashi keep one. They've had it since last year."
"Oh yeah, they mentioned it before. Let's hope this emerald thief doesn't bug us."
Amy shuddered at the thought. "That would be scary."
"Indeed it would be," said a voice. Lemon gasped as Amy whirled around. There stood Yami, laughing at their fear. The pink hedgehog sprang back and pulled her Piko-Piko Hammer out, holding it threateningly.
"Who are you," she demanded, her teeth clenched. "And how did you get in here?!"
Yami would have grinned if he had had a visible mouth. "You left your bedroom window open. It was easy enough to climb in."
Lemon stood up. "You're the one who's been stealing the Chaos Emeralds, aren't you?"
"Very good," replied Yami. "You must be Lemon The Echidna."
Lemon allowed herself a little grin, putting on her game-face. "You're not a complete idiot, although you look like it with your face hidden like that." She held up her fists, showing she was ready to put up a fight. "Now explain yourself before I break your face!"
Yami chuckled. "Such reckless behavior. No wonder he cares for you so."
"Who're you talking about?!" demanded Lemon, becoming impatient with this freak. "Why don't you just leave? We don't have any of your precious Chaos Emeralds here!"
Yami shook his head. "On the contrary, you have exactly what I need."
"I warned you!" With that, Lemon attacked, punching right at Yami's blank face. Yami, anticipating the move, easily grabbed her fist and squeezed it, crushing her fingers.
"Ah!" grunted Lemon, trying to pull away. Amy jumped forward with the hammer and swung but was surprised to feel it hit mid-air, which felt like a solid object. Her eyes widened as a small ghost appeared, blocking the hammer.
"A little girl?" she murmured, confused.
"Please!" cried Starr, her eyes shining with tears as she held the hammer back. "Please don't get involved!"
With that, Amy was knocked back into the wall, hitting the back of her head. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.
"AMY!" screamed Lemon, trying to pull away. But Yami used this opportunity to grab her around the waist. The yellow and red echidna yelled and tried to struggle but Yami ended her futile attempts to escape by hitting the back of her head, knocking her out.
"Jeez, she's a feisty one. Reminds me of Shadow, which makes me despise her even more."
"Yami, are you sure about this?' asked Starr, trembling in mid-air beside him. Yami nodded his head, not bothering to look at his little twin. "Its fine, Starr. This is just to get Shadow's attention. I won't hurt the girl, I promise."
And with that, they left, taking their new hostage with them.
Sorry for the hold-up, I'm on Christmas vacation at my grandma's and she's on dial up, which makes it much more difficult to update things (and all the visits with my cousins slow me down too). I may start 19 but if I don't before the 25th, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Now, Chapter 18!!!
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – TAKEN
Shadow sighed as he closed the door, having finally closed the café for the night. He hung the keys by the door and started to wander towards his room. His thoughts lingered on Lemon's voice, asking that same question over and over again.
"What's your name again?"
He stopped in front of his door and clutched his chest as he felt a terrible pain in his heart. He had expected this, that Lemon wouldn't recognize him. But he had secretly hoped that she would somehow know that he was indeed Tenchi. He shook his head at his own stupidity and opened the door, knowing that his dreams would never become reality. He gazed inside and remembered when he had stopped Amy from going into his room. On his desk and beside his bed, there were dozens of papers, all piled up messily. And every single one of them started with the same words: 'Dear Lemon,'
After reading her letter to Tenchi, he had spent many sleepless nights attempting to reply, to somehow put his confession down on paper. Alas, it was easier said than done. Every time he tried to write down his feelings, it always sounded stupid to him after he read them over. He guessed writing wasn't included in his programming, which was quite unfortunate.
He took one step into his room, just thinking of what to do with all of the papers when a very heavy piece of wood came down onto his head, knocking him face-down into the floor, stars flashing before his eyes. His ears rang as a now familiar voice screamed above him.
"You stupid hedgehog," yelled Athair, waving his wooden cane around angrily. "I thought you were a burglar or something!"
Shadow groaned as he slowly got up, rubbing his throbbing head as he managed to make it to his knees.
"Uhhh," he mumbled, expecting a headache in the morning. "Sorry, Athair, I forgot."
"Do not call me by my name, you disrespectful whelp!" snapped the old echidna. "You will call me "Sir", got it?!"
The sore hedgehog got to his feet, nodding. "Okay, okay, fine," he said. "Whatever you want, Ath-..."
There was an uncomfortable pause as Athair tapped his foot and glared. Shadow tried to get his stunned vocal cords to work correctly before he got himself hurt again.
"...I mean, sir."
"That's better," said Athair. "Now, it's late and I need sleep. I want the bed." He gestured to Shadow's bed, which was the only one in the apartment.
Shadow didn't like the sound of Athair going into his room, especially with all of those papers. "Uh, I was going to set up the couch for you...sir."
Athair turned fully to Shadow and gave him another icy glare, making the whole room turn cold. He gulped, his own red eyes nothing but a spark compared to the iceberg before him.
"I-I meant..." he paused, cringing at the words forming in his head. "I'll set up the couch for myself! Yeah..."
"Oh good! Now stay quiet and see you in the morning! And if I wake up because of you, I might just change my mind about shooting you!"
Shadow nodded, showing he understood, then grimaced as Athair shut the door. He sighed and went over to the nearest couch, flopping down onto it. He could feel the springs poking through after being used for so many years and Shadow almost hoped that one would somehow impale him and put him out of his misery. Forever.
It seemed like a nice idea at the time.
"He's sleeping," said Yami, perched atop one of the nearby buildings. His eyes may have had no visible pupils, but his vision was very good. He could see where Shadow was lying on the couch, rather miserably, and where a stranger was sleeping in his bed. He didn't let himself be distracted by this change. He had to keep his mind focused on his mission to kill his most hated rival.
"Can't we break into his mind now that he's asleep?" he asked, looking over.
Starr appeared, transparent as a pair of fairy wings. She hoped her brother wouldn't be angry with her answer.
"No," she replied, cringing. "The most we can do is a dream at this point but it'll all break when he wakes up. And he's too aware during the daytime now."
"So we'll have to go with your idea from before," finished Yami, his mysterious eyes narrowing. "This will prove to be most interesting."
Starr looked to Yami, her pearly eyes shining emotionally. "Oh, Yami, do we really need all of this violence? Must we bring Shadow such sadness after all he's been through?"
Yami gazed into her frightened eyes dangerously. "The Ultimate Life Form will rise sooner or later. Its calling becomes louder in my head everyday. Arashi and Neo will eventually succumb to it. Even though Jigoku is sealed away on ARK, he can probably hear it in his mind too. I don't know who that seventh is but they're probably hearing it as well. I'm just guessing, but it might've been them who freed us in the first place."
He paused as Starr sat in mid-air, hugging her knees in close. Since she had no possession over her own body, her spirit could do whatever it wanted, except go away from Yami. He shook his head at her sickening innocence and continued.
"But Shadow is a threat to us. He is the only one of us who can resist that great voice. He'll even go so far as to kill himself to prevent it all from happening! Do you want Shadow to kill himself, Starr?"
Starr shook her eyes vigorously, her eyes wide in fear. Yami crossed his arms over his chest. "Then help me to stop him before something bad happens."
The young spirit nodded, gulping. "I'll tell you anything. Just don't let Shadow kill himself!"
Yami nodded. "Yes, yes, I will prevent him committing suicide at all costs."
And he thought out the rest of the sentence, where Starr couldn't hear.
'I'll kill him instead.'
The next morning, Athair hummed as he went through Shadow's room, looking through all of his drawers and his surprisingly organized closet. So far, he had learned that the hedgehog only owned one drawer's worth of clsothing, which he saw were barely used. He skimmed through the rest of the cabinet, finding that Shadow had an interest in electronic devices after finding several modified gadgets. Then there was one drawer that held some photos. Athair hesitated, then picked up a very old photo, which was black and white. A young blonde girl looked up at him, smiling and hugging a completely black hedgehog close. The hedgehog himself was smiling shyly, pretending to put up a fight and making her laugh. There was an upside-down white triangle on his forehead and his quills were bent upwards. He flipped the photo around, reading the back.
"Shadow,
While I was looking up The Ultimate Life-Form for the government, I found this. I think it belongs to you now.
-Rouge"
Athair wondered if that hedgehog in the picture was Shadow when he was younger. It was difficult to imagine, Shadow actually smiling. He seemed like such a cold creature. The old echidna guessed something terrible must've happened to him. Funny, he almost felt sympathy for the stupid hedgehog. But it quickly left as he heard his new roommate fall off the couch, groaning as he woke up. Athair quickly grabbed one of the pieces of paper and walked out, fully-dressed in his usual tribal robe, his beads clicking together around his wrinkled face.
Shadow opened his eyes and realized for the first time that he had fallen off of the couch. He looked up to see Athair upside down and blinked a few times, waiting until he could see him clearly. He wished he didn't have to look at such an ugly thing first thing in the morning.
"'Morning," he said groggily, his head pounding from Athair's attack the night before.
Athair simply gave him one of his mean looks and walked along into the kitchen. Shadow sighed and got up, reminding himself to stay quiet in all future encounters with Athair. He waited until the elder had left the kitchen to get his own food. He couldn't help but feel his pride being ripped up into little pieces as he was forced into this kind of life.
Down in the café, Knuckles had come in early to make sure Shadow was still alive. Accompanying him was Arthur, who had learned Shadow's story from Knuckles on the way over. He knew how Shadow was feeling about the whole dilemma with Lemon and went up to see how he was holding up.
"Tenchi?" he called, walking in and closing the door. Shadow looked up from where he sat in a chair, holding a knife that Athair had left in the room while making breakfast. He had been deciding whether to use it or not and you could say it was good timing for Arthur to come in and stop him.
"My name isn't Tenchi anymore, Arthur," he said, putting the knife back on the table, his hand shaking slightly.
Arthur smiled as he felt out a seat across from Shadow. "Yes, I know," he said, sitting down. "Knuckles took the liberty of telling me what happened. You've been through quite a lot, haven't you?"
"Yeah," replied Shadow, leaning back. "I guess I'm lucky to still be in one piece."
"Mm hm," said Arthur, leaning his elbows on his knees. "Then please tell me, what were you planning to do with that knife?"
Shadow cursed inwardly. He should've known Arthur would've spotted that. Now he had to make up some kind of excuse.
"Uhhh..." he began, looking towards the knife. "I, uh, I mean Athair left it out and I was just gonna go put it back..." He winced at his feeble attempts to lie.
"Riiight," replied Arthur. He may have been blind, but over time, he had learned to 'see' emotions. "Is there something wrong? Anything you want to tell me?"
Shadow paused. Telling someone just how he felt would be a good idea. He felt very stressed, as if his chest was going to explode. Telling Arthur would be harmless enough. But at the same time, if he told one of his friends that he wanted to end his life, he would try to stop him. Or even worse, he'd tell Arashi or Sonic, who would know what was really going on! He couldn't afford something like that to happen...
"No," he said. "There's nothing wrong, Arthur. Thanks for the visit, though."
Athair sat in the café, staring at one of the papers he'd snatched from Shadow's room. He would have added it to his blackmail collection, had it not been addressed to his own granddaughter.
"Boy!" he yelled, squeezing his fist around the paper.
Knuckles looked up from where he was talking with Sonic and Arashi. He got up and walked over, the two hedgehogs watching interestedly.
"What's the matter, pop?" he asked lazily, knowing his grandfather was angry. He flinched slightly as Athair stuck the paper in his face. He took it, annoyed and began to read it.
"Dear Lemon,
I've missed you more than anything. It was a close call, but I'm alive. Knuckles must've thought I was dead before he left. It's a long story.
I've been living on my own but I've kept in touch with the others. I've been thinking of you so much lately. There have been a lot of problems coming up. I won't bore you with details but it's getting bad. I want to see you again, but at the same time, I worry. I've changed so much since the last time we spoke. But I still-"
It ended there, the rest of the phrase erased. But Knuckles could just make it out.
"-love you."
The red echidna cleared his throat as he lowered the paper, looking to Athair and attempting to smile as if amused.
"Wh-where'd you find that, pop?"
"The hedgehog's room," he replied, crossing his arms. "And wipe that smile off your face! You knew about this, didn't you?!"
Knuckles cringed and felt a few sweat drops run down the side of his face.
"Kn-know about what?" he asked feebly. Sonic slapped his forehead.
"About that hedgehog and Lemon, you moron!"
"That idiot," grumbled Sonic, shaking his head. "I hope Shadow doesn't find out about this."
"Find out about what?" asked a small voice in Arashi's ear. It was Maria, listening through the earpiece.
Arashi used his telepathy to reply. 'It's no big deal. Just a girl Shadow likes.'
"Ooooh! A crush!" giggled Maria. Arashi rolled his eyes and was about to give her a lecture on maturity when Arthur walked in, a worried look on his face. Athair paused and looked to his fellow elder as he sat down. Knuckles blinked.
"What's the matter, Arthur?" he asked, hiding the letter behind his back. They didn't need anymore people reading it.
Arthur's blind eyes looked up to where Knuckles was standing and even Arashi and Sonic could see the worry filling them up.
"I think your new roommate is suicidal, Athair."
"Another Chaos Emerald was stolen from a Swiss bank today, who wishes to remain anonymous. The description of the thief fits the same reported from the five other thefts that have baffled the police! Even detectives and the forensics department couldn't find anything! Stay tuned for more details."
Lemon watched the evening news with mild interest. She switched it to "mute" as the commercials came on.
"Hey, Amy!" she called. "There was another theft!"
Amy walked in from the kitchen, taking off her oven mitts. "Are you serious?" she exclaimed. "That means whoever the thief is has six Chaos Emeralds!"
Lemon nodded. "They're pretty good. Whoever's doing this must be pretty desperate for some power. Do you know where the last one is?"
Amy nodded. "Sonic and Arashi keep one. They've had it since last year."
"Oh yeah, they mentioned it before. Let's hope this emerald thief doesn't bug us."
Amy shuddered at the thought. "That would be scary."
"Indeed it would be," said a voice. Lemon gasped as Amy whirled around. There stood Yami, laughing at their fear. The pink hedgehog sprang back and pulled her Piko-Piko Hammer out, holding it threateningly.
"Who are you," she demanded, her teeth clenched. "And how did you get in here?!"
Yami would have grinned if he had had a visible mouth. "You left your bedroom window open. It was easy enough to climb in."
Lemon stood up. "You're the one who's been stealing the Chaos Emeralds, aren't you?"
"Very good," replied Yami. "You must be Lemon The Echidna."
Lemon allowed herself a little grin, putting on her game-face. "You're not a complete idiot, although you look like it with your face hidden like that." She held up her fists, showing she was ready to put up a fight. "Now explain yourself before I break your face!"
Yami chuckled. "Such reckless behavior. No wonder he cares for you so."
"Who're you talking about?!" demanded Lemon, becoming impatient with this freak. "Why don't you just leave? We don't have any of your precious Chaos Emeralds here!"
Yami shook his head. "On the contrary, you have exactly what I need."
"I warned you!" With that, Lemon attacked, punching right at Yami's blank face. Yami, anticipating the move, easily grabbed her fist and squeezed it, crushing her fingers.
"Ah!" grunted Lemon, trying to pull away. Amy jumped forward with the hammer and swung but was surprised to feel it hit mid-air, which felt like a solid object. Her eyes widened as a small ghost appeared, blocking the hammer.
"A little girl?" she murmured, confused.
"Please!" cried Starr, her eyes shining with tears as she held the hammer back. "Please don't get involved!"
With that, Amy was knocked back into the wall, hitting the back of her head. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.
"AMY!" screamed Lemon, trying to pull away. But Yami used this opportunity to grab her around the waist. The yellow and red echidna yelled and tried to struggle but Yami ended her futile attempts to escape by hitting the back of her head, knocking her out.
"Jeez, she's a feisty one. Reminds me of Shadow, which makes me despise her even more."
"Yami, are you sure about this?' asked Starr, trembling in mid-air beside him. Yami nodded his head, not bothering to look at his little twin. "Its fine, Starr. This is just to get Shadow's attention. I won't hurt the girl, I promise."
And with that, they left, taking their new hostage with them.