This is a fanfiction, and as such, most of the characters in the story are not mine. Most characters are © Sega, and are not used with permission.

Chapter 3: My Date with Shadow

Morning came, and almost before Shadow could rub the sleep out of his eyes, Rouge was dressed and out the door.

The black hedgehog finally got up, showered, and came down to get some breakfast, all the while thinking about what Rouge told him.

* * *

{You really haven't been paying much attention to Bunnie, you know.}

{How do you mean?}

{When we were talking, she told me something very interesting; she loves you. I don't mean in a platonic or familiar way either, she lusts after you; she moved in with us in hopes of booting me out and taking my place.}

{You can't be serious.}

{I'm deadly serious; her dream is for you and her to be together, romantically and sexually.}

{Bunnie?}

{She's not some kid you know; her breasts are almost as big as mine. She's a fully-grown woman, even though she is much younger than us; and that's why we've been treating her as such. We've seen her more like a little sister or daughter; Hell, we've been living together for so long it's almost like we're husband and wife.}

{I have never considered you as my "wife".}

{Maybe not, but we've grown too accustomed to this family for all the wrong reasons. Bunnie doesn't want to be our daughter, she wants to be your lover; so I made a bet with her.}

{I take it this has something to do with you leaving tomorrow.}

{She was threatening to leave, with a lot of pent up hatred; so I offered her one chance at you. For all of tomorrow, you're hers, with me totally out of the picture; free to do whatever you two want, and whatever she could convince you into. Don't make it easy on her, her real problem is that she can't gather her own strength and bottles everything up; plus she doesn't know that I'm telling you this.}

{And just how far does she want to go?}

{If she can muster the courage to ask, I figure she'll want you in the sack every second I'm gone.}

{This could be fun.}

{You would, wouldn't you.}

{This is for her benefit, and I'm always glad to help; besides, this is your idea.}

* * *

All jokes aside, the conversation he had with Rouge last night was quite unnerving. Rouge was right about one thing: he did see Bunnie like a daughter; or more specifically, a younger sister.

He thought back, diving into the memories that were falsely created by Void, but was the only history he knew. His mind caught glimpses of a small girl hedgehog, Maria his sister. By his recollection, Maria was several years younger than him, and if she were real, she would now be about Bunnie's age.

All that made him even more offset; in many ways, he was treating Bunnie the way he would have treated Maria. This led to a twisted thought of seducing his sister, something that made even Shadow sick to his stomach; even his dark heart could not fathom such a disturbing notion.

Could Bunnie really be in love with him; and if so, how would he react to her?

The more he thought about it, the worse he got; he just wanted something to put an end to his misery. It arrived just then, walking into the kitchen.

"Good morning."

Shadow looked across the table to see Bunnie standing in the doorway.

"Morning."

Shadow turned to the rabbit, and for the first time, took a real good look at her. She stood before him, just a bit smaller in size than he; but her arms and legs were a bit larger, padded with a fair bit of muscle tone from her work on the farm. She stood dressed in her usual garb, a pair of blue jeans with the legs cut off, emphasizing her toned legs and her sculpted hips. Her top was a red shirt cut off at the midriff and tied together beneath her breasts; revealing a good bit of cleavage between her chest that was about as large as Rouge's, and her stomach that was very tight and almost rippled when she moved in the slightest. Her face was the only thing that was really different; it still bore her youthful appearance, but also a hint of sorrow in her green eyes, half concealed under her purple shaded lids.

"So, where's Rouge?"

Shadow tried to remain as calm and oblivious as possible, despite what Rouge told him. "She went out this morning. You want some breakfast? I have some scrambled eggs there."

"Sounds good."

Shadow got up to get the pan with the leftovers while Bunnie went to the cupboards to get a plate; they met while trying to reach the complementary item, almost ignorant that the other had already retrieved it.

After the near mishap, Shadow stood back and scraped the eggs onto Bunnie's plate.

"You got a fork?"

"No."

"I'll get one."

Bunnie sat down while Shadow put the pan back on the stove, and pulled a fork out of a drawer.

"Orange juice?" Shadow asked as he delivered the utensil.

"Yes please."

Shadow fetched a glass and placed it on the table next to Bunnie's plate. He sat down behind his own plate, and took the carton of juice already on the table.

"Good eggs."

Shadow poured out the juice into Bunnie's glass. "Thanks."

The two, each almost too scared to talk, simply sat there, eating breakfast.

"So what are you doing today?"

"Not much, I'm taking a few days off from the farm. Not much going on right now; all the fields have been planted, nothin's ready to harvest, the other hands can maintain it for a while."

Silence returned.

"You gonna hang around here, or go somewhere?"

"No plans, but its a nice day out."

"Gonna hit the beach again?"

Bunnie almost scowled at him. "Not until Ah get mahself a new suit."

Shadow chuckled a bit. "Oh, sorry."

Bunnie almost frowned at him, but after a few seconds, she let out a small chuckle.

"See, yesterday wasn't that bad."

"Yeah, Ah guess so."

"Right, now finish your breakfast; Rouge is out for the day, so it's just you and me..." Shadow had to stop himself before he called Bunnie 'kid'. "So, what do you want to do?"

Bunnie was still a bit scared of what she wanted to ask, and that all this was happening so quickly. She envisioned what might happen if she dared to ask for sex; unfortunately for her courage, it never materialized into the act, only disaster. No, she'd have to wait; no one wants sex early in the morning anyway.

"Well, Ah don't want to hang out here all day."

"What about Rallier Park, they've got a nice little outside restaurant there where we could go for lunch; and I heard they're renting bicycles."

"Bicycles?"

"Holy cow, have you missed out on all the fun things in life?"

"Ah was raised on a farm, all we had were hop scotch and jacks."

"Well, at least you had that; I can't wait until they finish the movie theater, you're gonna have a conniption."

* * *

Shadow and Bunnie headed to the park on the East side of Mobotropolis. The clearings were wide open and covered in deep green grass, crisscrossed by pathways covered in gray cement.

Around the perimeter, handfuls of shops dotted the landscape. Like much of Mobotropolis, there were still many vacancies as the populous wasn't nearly big enough to fill the area of the recently destroyed and rebuilt city.

Shadow and Bunnie found themselves at a strange store, the likes of which the rabbit never saw before. Outside, she saw various people with odd two-wheeled vehicles.

"Are those bicycles?"

"Yeah, they can be a little hard to handle at first; we could always get one with training wheels."

Before reaching the store, the pair saw some others leaving wearing some odd shoes with wheels mounted on them.

"What are those?"

"Those are roller skates."

"Ah want to try those."

* * *

A few minutes later, Shadow and Bunnie came out wearing the rolling footwear; both were having some trouble adjusting, but Bunnie was almost falling down.

"How are you finding it?"

"Its a bit odd, Ah never tried anythin' like this before, or wore shoes for that matter."

"No kidding, Daisy Mae."

"'Daisy May'? Ah wish you and Rouge'd stop with those odd city references."

"When this place gets television, we're going to sit you down in front of it for a week, 24 hours a day; I swear your head will explode."

Shadow held out his hand. "Come on, I'll hold you up."

"Ah'm not some little kid that needs..." Bunnie tried to move in the skates, only to find her legs going in two different directions, and her butt heading for the cement. It would have hit too, except Shadow grabbed her arm and held her just above the ground.

"Are you sure?"

* * *

The hedgehog and the rabbit made their way around the park. Slowly, Bunnie was getting the hang of the skates. Shadow was a little rusty at first, but he got used to it pretty quickly; despite the fact that he never actually roller-skated in his life.

As they traveled through the park, they drew quite a few eyes, primarily from those who knew them. Sure, most knew who Shadow was, but many of them ignored him and Bunnie, seeing them as nothing more than the usual boy-girl pair who often hung out around the park. But to those that really knew Shadow, it was quite the sight to see him with Bunnie; they knew she lived with him and Rouge, but now there was something gossip about.

Neither of them paid much attention; Bunnie was having too good a time, and Shadow simply ignored what most people thought anyway.

* * *

"Oh, this is so much fun! We never had anything like this back on the farm."

"Glad you like it. You wanna go a bit faster?"

"Yeah." Then Bunnie realized who she was talking to. "No wait!"

"Too late."

Shadow took off; to Bunnie it almost felt like her arm was going to be ripped out of the socket.

"AAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!"

Up and down the park's walkways, a black wailing blur streaked past the onlookers; all watched in amazement at the ghastly object running amok on this peaceful day.

"Ssssshhhhaaaaaaaddooooooowww! Ssstooooooooooop!"

The hedgehog could hear the cries of panic from his passenger, but he chose to ignore them.

Bunnie's wild ride came to an abrupt end, when her skate hit a rock on the ground, and she was sent flying. Her trip into a nearby trashcan was halted when she was caught by the very one who drove her on this erratic trip.

"Shadow, yah jerk; Ah could've been killed!"

"You complain too much; that was fun, admit it."

Bunnie shrugged as Shadow set her down, her wobbly feet were almost unable to keep her upright. After a moment, Bunnie calmed down; she really never felt in danger with Shadow there, but that didn't stop her heart from racing at a million beats per minute.

"Alright, it was a little bit fun."

"See. Want to go again?"

"No!"

"Just kidding, let's go back and get some lunch."

* * *

After returning the skates and paying an additional fee to replace the half melted wheels, Shadow and Bunnie went to a small restaurant that had tables set up outside. The pair took a table and ate lunch; Shadow had a turkey sandwich while Bunnie had a garden salad.

"Do you want to try the bicycles later?"

"After what yah did to the skates, Ah don't think they want us within 100 miles of there."

"Hey, it's their fault if they can't make a decent set of wheels."

"How many pairs of shoes do yah go through?"

"I don't buy a pair of shoes unless they last me at least a year; mind you, it's rather difficult to find shoes with steel-belted radial soles."

"Ah'll bet." Bunnie mindlessly agreed with the statement, even though she's rarely seen a car other than Robotnik's tanks, and had no idea what steel-belted radials were.

"How's your salad?"

Bunnie was almost not paying attention. "What? Oh, yeah, it's very good."

"You not enjoying yourself?"

Bunnie was thinking; here it was, almost 6 hours since Rouge left, with night being almost useless she only had about 8 or 9 hours left to convince Shadow to dump Rouge, and she didn't think she was doing well enough. She figured that if she could get him in the sack that night, she'd have a chance; the problem was the short time she had to convince him to take her, and a small restaurant out in public was not the place to be putting on the moves.

"Ah'm having a good time, it's just that Ah'm trying to decide what tah do this afternoon."

"I'll admit, this place isn't exactly an amusement park, but there are things to do. There are some tennis courts a bit west of here if you want to play, or just watch. The beach is out. How about mini golf?"

The wheels started to turn; Shadow just gave Bunnie a hint of inspiration. The rabbit was thinking of something that all couples did at some point, so she and Shadow should be no different; after all, the beach problem had to be rectified.

Shadow could see the glow in her eyes.

"So where do you want to go next?"

To be continued