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 7: Venturing Out

Day 12

Three days had gone by, and no action was seen in the small village; naturally, Shadow was getting bored again.

His previous victory was no longer fresh in his mind, and he knew that his effectiveness in battle wasn't totally proven. He was able to take down one dragon with his Chaos Spear, but it seemed to do no permanent damage; how he could handle being in a massive firefight with more dragons was a serious question.

There was another problem: he was here in Lalberdean, but there were other villages in the mountains. He couldn't defend them all, he didn't even know if he could reach any of the other villages. Studying the maps that Yohan had given him, Shadow plotted a path to the nearest village, Nosadire. By truck, you could leave at dawn and arrive sometime late at night; but Shadow hoped to make the trip in record time.

Spending all of yesterday studying the maps to the town, Shadow had the route memorized down to each turn. The last thing Shadow wanted was to stop and ask for directions, especially on a road where there was no one between him and the final destination. This morning, he spent the day going over the map one last time, and having a midmorning snack. Confident that he was ready to go, Shadow rolled up the maps, keeping the one that showed his route, just in case.

Back at his room, Shadow left the rolled up maps, then packed a small backpack with as many Power Rings as it would hold. Before leaving, he took one last thing, the two photo albums he brought from Mobotropolis. Before putting them in the backpack, he laid down on the bed, and started to flip through the pages. He first hit the "special" album that Rouge and Bunnie made, something that he liked to look at before going to bed to give him something to dream of as he slept; in the daytime, Shadow rarely looked at it. It really wasn't appropriate for the middle of the day, especially now when he was preparing to leave. Shadow wondered when they had the time to put together this album, they only had the one day before he left. He didn't feel like taking this album with him, and put it back in the dresser; not really considering what might happen if he left it behind, hoping that no one would come in and poke through his stuff.

Shadow looked on his dresser and picked up the other book. Opening it, he flipped through the pages, more slowly and intently than the "special" book. There were pages upon pages of bits and pieces of Mobotropolis, pictures of almost every inch of the city, and the people in it. The first page had a picture of the palace, a truly grand structure when compared to the simple stone houses in Lalberdean. Below that was a picture of Queen Sally wearing a semiformal purple dress, something that she usually wore when meeting with dignitaries as it was much more dignified than boots and a vest. Queen Sally was also giving a bit of a wave to the reader; apparently the image was meant as much a travel brochure as a memorial.

Shadow flipped the page over, and the on the reverse was another image of Sally, this time holding Prince Comet in her arms; a beautiful picture showing Sally's motherly side. Below that was a picture of Sally with Amy, and Amy was holding the young prince. The next page had a close up of Amy's head, smiling and waving at the camera. That was followed by a picture of Geoffrey St. John, standing at attention before a troop of the Mobotropolis guards.

The next flip brought another two pages, these featured the two girls that Shadow left behind. The top left had a picture of Bunnie riding on one of the tractors, a large metal beast painted a bright yellow. Below that was a picture of Rouge, blowing a kiss at the camera. The right side had a picture of the two of them at Shadow's house, Bunnie was in the door while Rouge was sitting on the roof. Finally, there was a picture of the pair together, Rouge was standing a bit behind and to the left of Bunnie with her arms around the rabbit's waist.

Shadow quickly glanced over the next few pages, pictures of the orphans playing in a park, Knuckles and Tikal, the fields surrounding Mobotropolis, Maria, the dancing robot, the ruins of Castle Acorn, and one image of the rather disturbing Omochao, who was playing the role of digital camera and took a shot of himself in a bathroom mirror.

Shadow almost forgot that he was getting ready to leave; snapping back to the present, he stashed the photo album to take to Nosadire, then closed up his pack. Taking the one map, he rolled it up, then tucked it inside his coat. Swinging the backpack around and over his shoulder, Shadow left his room and went out into Lalberdean.

* * *

Outside, there were only a few villagers around as most were busy with their jobs, but a few did see him off. After a brief exchange, Shadow made his way to the outskirts. Once he was out of range of the town, Shadow kicked it into high gear and charged down the road. In seconds he was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Shadow ran along the roads for more than five minutes before stopping. Taking a break, Shadow reached into his coat to pull out the map and looked at the route, just to make sure he was on the right road. Certain he was on the right path, Shadow continued on.

* * *

After a few more minutes, Shadow came to a fork with a pair of road signs, Cordeng to the left, and Nosadire to the right. Another name was written on the sign pointing to the left, but it was marked out.

Shadow paid it little mind, as he was aiming for Nosadire, and it was listed on the sign.

* * *

After another five minutes, Shadow stopped when something caught his eye. Moving to one side of the road to get a better look. Up in the sky was a large floating shadow.

When Shadow recognized the large black mass as a dragon, he ran into some brush growing on the mountainside, wondering if the beast had seen him.

After a few minutes, the flying eyesore had moved on. Shadow was content that he wasn't spotted, but took his next few steps cautiously, as if he was sneaking around a sleeping guard during a big heist. Confident that the coast was clear, Shadow hit the road running.

* * *

It took almost fifteen more minutes for Shadow to find what he was looking for, another small village much like Lalberdean. Before approaching Nosadire, he stopped for a moment to take in the scenery.

Unlike Lalberdean, which was in a valley, Nosadire was on the mountainside, so the sky was completely open on one side, letting the sun shine right down on the stone houses. The houses where made of gray stone with an orange-brown cover of brink shingles on slanted roofs. None of the houses were very large, none of them were as large as the two storey house that the Sancot's shared. There were no overly large storage buildings like the barn, in its place were three smaller storage sheds that combined weren't as large as Lalberdean's whale of an edifice. There was also a central building that was about the same size as Lalberdean's, about the only thing that seemed to compare in the least to the other village.

"Another quaint little village, oh great."

Shadow was thinking that Lalberdean was the closest thing to a major urban center in these mountains. Shrugging off the comment, Shadow ran down the last stretch of road to the entrance of the town.

When he got there, the village seemed somewhat vacant, but when he listened he could hear some commotion in the village.

"They must be in the mines."

Shadow wandered around town, looking for someone.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

"Howdy, stranger."

Shadow looked to his left to see a chipmunk coming up the side.

"Where'd you come from, I didn't see a truck come in."

"I just came from Lalberdean, I ran here. Name's Shadow."

"You ran here? Don't be ridiculous, that miles and miles of rough terrain, there's no way you…" The chipmunk thought for a moment. "Wait a minute, you're a hedgehog, I heard that Mr. Sancot was heading down the mountain to get the help from some great hero, a hedgehog or something."

"Yeah, that's me."

"Well I'll be damned, it's nice to meet you Mr. Shadow."

"It's just Shadow."

"Glen Mackey. How long did it take for you to get here?"

"About half an hour."

"Well heck, you're pulling my leg. Hey, it's almost lunch time, you're probably starving; come on, we'll get something to eat."

"Well I wouldn't say no,"

* * *

Shadow was led to the main hall where a bunch of tables were laid out like Lalberdean. In the back behind a steel shutter, Shadow could hear the sounds of the cooks preparing the next meal. In the room with them were the children of the village with an orange cat; at first it looked like she was just baby-sitting, but on closer inspection it was a classroom with the feline teaching a history class. Shadow was a little surprised that there would be kids studying when all that racket was going on in the back, but he figured that they have to learn somewhere. Also around the room were several other people who obviously had nothing else to do at the time, and were here waiting for lunch to start.

Glen directed Shadow over to a small group to the side.

"Hey boys."

One of the men at the table noticed Shadow. "Hey Glen, who's this guy? Some hiker that took a real wrong turn?"

"This is Shadow the hero of Mobotropolis."

"'Hero', we sure as Hell could use a few of 'em around here."

Another man remembered hearing about this "hero". "I heard of him, but I thought his name was 'Nick', or 'Slick', or…"

Shadow corrected him. "You're thinking of my brother, Sonic. He died a few years ago, then I took his place." Shadow mentally kicked himself, he had been using the ploy that he was Sonic's brother so much that he was starting to believe it himself.

A rather grizzled old man called out in a muffled voice. "Sorry to hear that son. Sit down, tell us about this Mobotropolis, I haven't heard a good story in a long time."

Shadow sat down and placed his sack next to him once he was down, he started to talk a bit about Mobotropolis and the war against Dr. Robotnik.

After about 10 minutes, the teacher came over and interrupted Shadow.

"Excuse me, but you are being a bit loud, my students are having trouble working."

"Oh sorry."

"Did you say you're from Mobotropolis?"

"Yes I did."

"Could I trouble you for a few hours this afternoon? It would be real nice if you could talk about it to the children, I'm sure they'd love to hear about Mobotropolis."

"Oh, sure."

"Thank you, we can do this after lunch."

The teacher turned back to her class and told them about the visitor from Mobotropolis. As she anticipated, the children were quite wide eyed at hearing about the presentation later that day.

* * *

After lunch, the teacher had Shadow sit down with her class and tell them all about Mobotropolis and the war with Robotnik. Shadow managed to avoid talking about Mobotropolis before Robotnik came, as he never saw Mobotropolis before a few years ago. Although it was meant for the children, a few of the adults heard about Shadow's appearance and stayed to listen.

He started to talk about what life was like in Knothole, the little forest encampment where Princess Sally led her rebels against the vile doctor. He talked about how rough it was living in the small community that was nowhere near big enough to consider itself as a town. He got to talking about Robotnik and his robot army, and the battles that Shadow fought in, which weren't very many as Shadow came in on the last few months while the war lasted more than a decade.

Shadow also talked about the floating island of the echidnas, and how he fought Robotnik for control of the Master Emerald. He skipped over the part about Void, since it conflicted with the whole "Sonic's brother" story, and jumped right to the final battle with the tyrant.

The children were enthralled by the stories of the war, but the teacher was hoping that Shadow would move onto life in Mobotropolis of the present.

Shadow sped past the reconstruction and got to the present day. He spoke about the new palace that wasn't anywhere near as grand as the old castle, but certainly impressive when compared to anything in the mountain towns. Shadow continued by talking about the parks and the hospital and some of the people when he remembered what he brought. Opening his pack, Shadow pulled out the photo album with pictures of Mobotropolis in it.

Shadow enlisted the teacher's help to hold the book while he explained the pictures in it. He showed them what Queen Sally looked like, and his "nephew" Prince Sonic. Some of the kids thought that Amy was Shadow's sister or something. He then got to Bunnie and Rouge, whom he tried to explain off as being close friends, but a series of childish "Ooo"s suggested the kids had other ideas.

The show continued with pictures of more people, and then pictures of what Mobotropolis looked like, with streets and houses, and parks, and a shopping mall, and a hospital, and trees, and a whole lot of other things that were not found around here.

After going through the whole picture book, the class asked Shadow a bunch of questions. The whole session ran right into supper hour.

* * *

Shadow ate supper with the people of Nosadire and was talking with some of the miners that were away all day while Shadow was talking with the children.

The presence of the visitor was the talk of the hour as it was very rare to have visitors, let alone someone not from the mountains, hearing about Mobotropolis was a real change from the normal tedium.

Shadow was playing nice with everyone, just as Sally had instructed, but he really didn't need the coaxing. After having time to adjust to his situation and putting the initial hesitation behind him, Shadow was letting himself enjoy the quaint little town; having long since forgotten his homesickness.

"Hi."

Shadow looked up to see the teacher standing over him.

"Thank you for talking with the children today, they often find my normal class to be very boring."

"Oh, it was no problem. I enjoyed it."

The cat sat down next to him. "That's good, I hope you found the children to be well behaved."

"Please, I'm not well behaved."

"Well you had better behave yourself or you can go sit in the corner."

"My you are a mean teacher, miss…"

"Kearney, Sandy Kearney."

"Shadow, no last name."

"Well then, Mr. 'No Last Name', how long are you going to be staying in Nosadire?"

"Not long, I figure I'll hang out for the night, and head back tomorrow morning."

"Oh, I see. I didn't think your visit would be so short, it's a fair trip from Lalberdean to say just over night."

"It didn't take long, only about 30 minutes one way."

"30 minutes, well that is impressive, it usually takes a whole day."

"I didn't come by truck, I ran here."

"You ran here, in half an hour? That's quite, something. Tell me, back in Mobotropolis…"

Shadow was listening, but Sandy didn't say anything afterwards.

"Was there something you wanted?"

"Oh nothing, just…"

Shadow saw the way the teacher fidgeted and knew that there was something that she did want.

"I wanted to ask you if you had… anybody."

"Come again."

"I, I was…" The woman sighed. "I'm 25 years old, and most women my age have been long married and have families."

"Do you usually approach every man who comes down the road?"

"No, of course not, but, I'm getting kind of lonely. I'm not about to take anyone who comes along, but I can't just let someone go by without at least saying 'hi'."

"Don't think too much of this, but that sounds to me like you're starting to get desperate."

"You're not far off, I am desperate. After four years of subtle hints not getting me anywhere, I had to resort to clubbing guys over the head."

Shadow thought about it, that was the exact same problem Bunnie had; the rabbit always had problems being open about her feelings for him, especially when Rouge came along. It eventually got to the point where Bunnie was taking drastic measures to get Shadow's eye, in particular a skimpy swimsuit that she hoped would have Shadow ogling over her, but even that didn't work.

"Yeah, guys are pretty stupid."

"So, do you have anyone?"

"Yes, I do."

"You planning on getting married anytime soon?"

"I guess, as soon as I figure out which one."

Sandy looked at Shadow. "Which one? Are you saying you've got more than… Do you mean those two girls in the picture book?"

"Rouge and Bunnie, they're competing for my attention, but the three of us are pretty close; so it's probably better to not spoil it with something as silly as marriage."

"And how can you love someone without marriage?"

"Marriage is a technicality, love cares not for such things."

"You have the heart of a poet."

"I have my moments."

"Oh, if only you could've come into my life so many years ago."

Shadow considered that, a few years ago would not have been the best time to have known the black hedgehog.

"So, are there any good men in Mobotropolis that might be interested in a 25-year-old school teacher?"

"I'm sure there are some."

"Mobotropolis, land of opportunity, where even a silly teacher can find true love."

Shadow was enjoying the talk with the teacher, the first person he could sit down with and talk since he came here. Sandy was different, most of the people lived very specific lives of a quaint pattern, although many knew of tragedy since the dragons came, that was an aberration of the norm. Before that, most people lived their lives pretty much the same, mining, getting married around 20 and having a family, everybody living as one close-knit family. Shadow was a foreigner, a bachelor in his late twenties, a definite anomaly; but so was Sandy, she was also unwed at 25, in a way, she was closer to Shadow than even Veder's darkness was.

They talked for the rest of the evening until nightfall, when even the cooking crew had finished all their duties for the day and was ready to go home.

"Oh my, I had no idea how late it is. Where are you staying?"

Shadow had completely forgot about where he'd be spending the night. "I don't know, I forgot to look into that."

"You can stay at my house."

Shadow was a little apprehensive about that, Sandy was getting just a little too close a little earlier, and he thought that maybe she was putting the moves on him again. "I don't think that would be appropriate."

"Why not?"

Trying to come up with a reasonable excuse, Shadow thought back to Rouge and Bunnie's parting words.

"Let's just say that I'm not a big fan of being disemboweled."

* * *

One of the men that Glen introduced Shadow to upon his arrival made arrangements for Shadow to spend the night in Nosadire. It was only now that Shadow realized that he left his toothbrush and other toiletries back in Lalberdean. It was too late to get a toothbrush, but he was able to borrow some mouthwash from his host; at least he'd have fresh breath in bed.

After leaving the bathroom, Shadow went to the small room and the small bed, and laid down. Before falling asleep, he reconsidered Sandy's offer, and wondered weither or not it was sincere or if it was another act of desperation.

He wondered what would've happened, perhaps they could've sat in front of the fireplace and talked well into the night, sipping wine or whatever she had. After that, they'd see each other off for the night, perhaps ending with a kiss for the sake of it, or perhaps she'd want a bit more. It was possible that she might invite him into bed with her, she was lonely, and wanted the feeling of a warm body in bed with her; or her deeply buried passion might want him to make love to her, to seduce her and make her the woman she longs to be. Or maybe this was just Shadow's own loneliness that was playing tricks with his mind.

Shadow was now regretting giving he the brush off and wanted to go to her place and possibly salvage the night that could have been, but unless she really wanted the most intimate option, that would seem very silly. He wondered what Rouge and Bunnie would really think of him if he did, afterall the two girls had accepted each other; but was it possible that Shadow wanted Sandy as nothing more than a substitute for his two loves.

All these thoughts seemed pretty pointless now, it served nothing other than to keep him awake and restless. Shadow tried to put them out of his mind and get some sleep.

* * *

Day 13

The next morning, Shadow got up pretty early. The plan for the day was to get some breakfast and make his way back to Lalberdean.

After cleaning up and another gargle of mouthwash, Shadow made his way to the town hall and got in the line for breakfast. A few minutes later, the hedgehog was sitting down with a tray of food. Some of the villagers passed by to say hello, but only one stopped to talk.

"Good morning, did you sleep well?"

Shadow looked across the table. "Good morning, Sandy. I had a fair night. Care to join me?"

"No I have to get ready for the children's lessons for today. I should've done that last night."

"Sorry about that."

"Don't apologize, I enjoyed talking with you yesterday. I wish you could stay a bit longer, you're one of the few people I could sit down and talk with." Sandy hesitated a bit, unable to build up enough nerve to say anything else.

"I'm leaving in a few hours, but I'm sure I'll come back this way before I go home."

"Oh yeah, that'd be nice. I have to go."

Sandy walked away rather briskly, leaving Shadow to wonder if his decision yesterday was an even bigger mistake than he thought.

* * *

Shadow sat down with some of the older men he met yesterday who were playing cards after everyone else had left the hall. Like yesterday, the only other people in the hall aside from the staff was Sandy and her class.

The hedgehog sat in for a few hands before he headed out, but his real reason was just to see Sandy for as long as possible. Even though the older gentlemen could see it in Shadow's eyes, they said nothing about it.

After a while Sandy concluded her first class with the children and gave them a five-minute break before the next class started. As the cat was rearranging her papers and cleaned the black board, Shadow decided to take one last opportunity to say goodbye.

Slowly Shadow walked over towards the class, going a little wide to go around the kids and come up behind Sandy instead of going right through the children. Just as he got close, Sandy looked over to see him approach.

Shadow opened his mouth, but before any words could dribble out, the quiet was cut off by the ringing of a bell outside.

"Dragons!"

* * *

Shadow heard the call and ran outside. Up in the sky, Shadow could make out the fiends that were approaching in the distance; and as they got closer, Shadow could easily make out one difference between these dragons and the ones in Lalberdean.

There were dozens of them.

To be continued