CHAPTER 6

HEARTBROKEN

The next day Rouge noticed that Shadow wasn't looking too good when he was lying on the couch. His face looked mighty pale and he looked very tired.

Rouge was getting worried, "Shadow, are you okay? You don't look too well."

Shadow looked at her slowly she was wondering if he was all right, he would've said no, but he lied to her instead, "Yes, I am fine. What about you? You seemed very depressed last night."

"It was my father. I just couldn't believe he tried to kill me last night. I thought he loved me. I guess he doesn't after all. All he wants is to take you back to the military even if it means killing me. How could he?"

Shadow sat up from the couch, "I'm sorry you feel that way, bat."

Rouge sighed and crossed her arms, "Me too."

Shadow all of a sudden was feeling lightheaded and passed out on the couch.

Rouge gasped, "Shadow!"

Later she took Shadow upstairs into her room and laid him in her bed so he could rest. She knew something was wrong with Shadow ever since they came back from last night.

Shadow then slowly opened his eyes and he saw Rouge looking at him with a worried look.

Rouge was sitting in her desk chair beside him, "Shadow, are you all right?"

Shadow tried to sit up, but Rouge kept him down.

"Don't move, rest your body for a while."

Shadow put his hand on his head still feeling sick, "I feel kinda lightheaded and my body is very weak. I need blood bad. I used up too much energy from the battle from last night."

"You need blood? Why didn't you say so from last night?"

"I guess it slipped my mind." Shadow wouldn't tell her the real reason why for some reason.

Rouge grabbed a mug from the table beside her bed and lured it near Shadow. It had blood in it. "Here drink the blood."

Shadow asked what type of blood it was before he drunk it. "What type of blood is this?"

"It's animal blood."

"I told you before I hate animal blood. I won't drink it."

"You must or you'll die."

"I will not die, I'll just get weaker and weaker, until I can barely move anymore."

"But Shadow you have to." She forced the mug up to Shadow's mouth, but Shadow took his hand and slapped the mug away from her hand, the cup and the blood met the floor.

"Shadow please..."

Shadow realized how much Rouge cared for him, he had no idea why. "I need mortal's blood not animal's blood."

"...Then take mine instead."

Shadow couldn't believe what he just heard from Rouge. "What did you say?"

"I said take my blood." Tears were forming in her eyes.

"Why do you even care?"

"...Because you're the only thing I have with me. If I didn't give you what you needed, I'd be a bad friend and I'd feel bad for the rest of my life. Because I care about you, Shadow."

Shadow was in complete silence for a moment thinking of something to say. "Rouge, I will not drink your blood. I need more than just a little of blood I need every inch of blood a mortal has and that means I have to kill them."

"But you can drink from me then take some out of another without killing them."

"You don't understand! I...I can't control my hunger for blood. If I drink from you I would probably drink all of the blood that you have. You see I just can't. I must kill someone or else I'll kill you instead."

Rouge looked down to the floor, she didn't want to look at Shadow for the time being.

Shadow ignored what Rouge said earlier and got out of bed and went downstairs heading outside searching for blood.

Rouge followed slowly.

When Shadow was about to go outside he turned back to Rouge, looking at how sad she was. "I'm sorry...Rouge." Before he went outside there was a knock on the door. Shadow quickly hid somewhere and let Rouge answer the door.

When Rouge opened the door she saw a red echidna with a huge gun in his hand it looked very advanced. "Knuckles!"

"Save the suspense, where's 301?"

"None of your business, leave!" Rouge already wasn't in the mood.

Shadow came out of his hiding place and faced Knuckles front and center. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like? To challenge you in another fight. Of course your strength hasn't reached it's full potential yet has it?"

Shadow gritted his teeth and growled. He hated him so much he wished that he would just leave him alone.

"Let's settle this, monster here and now."

When they reached Rouge's backyard they were ready to fight.

Rouge didn't like this, she definitely knew that Shadow knew that he wouldn't be able to defeat him easy because of his strength loss.

Knuckles tried not to waste any time, he lured the gun up and pointed it at Shadow. He pulled the trigger and a huge white beam came from the barrel and almost hit Shadow, but he missed. Knuckles smirked, "I'd keep dodging this beam if I were you. This gun can suck any amount of energy in you, so I'd stay away from it."

Rouge gasped, "Oh no." She said softly. She hoped Shadow could survive the shots.

While Knuckles kept shooting Shadow kept dodging, but he didn't know how long he could keep it up. He stood in a stance and did his Chaos Blast. "Chaos Blast!"

Once he did Knuckles was severely hurt, but he still didn't give up.

Shadow fell to the ground in exhaustion. The attack took up too much of his energy.

"Shadow, don't do that. You're energy is failing by the minute." Rouge said studying his actions.

"Shut up, Rouge! 301 doesn't need your help in this, so stay out!" Knuckles once again fired at Shadow, but Shadow was already down on the ground he couldn't get up quick enough. The shot hit him hard and once it did Shadow fell to the ground without moving.

"I...can't...move..." He said trying to get up.

"Dear god, Shadow." Rouge looked around her to see if she could do something, then she spotted a brick. She picked it up about to throw it at Knuckles. 'Hang on, Shadow.' She forcefully threw the brick at Knuckles' jaw.

It hurt him badly enough to break his jaw, but for his sake it didn't. He looked at Rouge angrily holding his hurt jaw. "What the hell's your problem!"

"Leave him alone!"

"Why? It's not that you care or anything!"

Rouge stared angry at Knuckles.

Knuckles could tell she was angry, especially when she was looking into his eyes filled with rage.

Then Rouge quickly ran up to Knuckles and kicked him in the stomach causing him to drop the gun.

Knuckles fell to the ground holding his stomach, "You son of a..."

Rouge picked up the gun from the ground and tried to figure out how to reverse the effects.

"Push the...red button then pull the...trigger." Shadow was trying to speak clearly for her.

Rouge nodded letting him know she understood every word. She pushed the red button on the side and shot the gun at Shadow.

Afterwards Shadow stood from the ground having the energy he had earlier. He was still weak, but it would be enough to kill Knuckles at least. Shadow held his hand out to Rouge letting her know he wanted the gun.

She gave the gun to him.

Once the gun was held in his hands, he broke the barrel off of it. The gun was no longer operational. He threw the gun down on the ground.

Shadow growled at Knuckles while he was making his way over to him.

Knuckles thought this was going to be his final day.

Shadow quickly picked Knuckles up and shoved him against the house ready to bite into him without question.

Rouge watched as Shadow bit into him.

Shadow shoved his fangs into Knuckles's neck so deep, he could hardly feel it. Shadow moaned because he hadn't had this sensation in a while.

Rouge saw blood dripping from Shadow's mouth. She couldn't take it anymore. "Shadow stop!" She yelled, but Shadow didn't pay attention to her. He carried on with his business. Rouge tried again, but this time she shook him, "Shadow, I said stop! That's enough! You're killing him!"

Shadow didn't like the way Rouge was shaking him, so he took his free hand and punched her in the cheek on her face.

Rouge fell to the ground holding her cheek in pain. Her eyes were flowing with sadness. 'What have you become?'

Once Shadow was done with him, he dropped Knuckles to the ground bleeding to death. He then walked over to Rouge.

She was afraid of him now, she didn't know how to protect herself against the dangerous weapon. "Shadow...don't kill me..." Rouge was hoping she'd make it out alive. She shut her eyes tightly then for a second she opened them. She realized no harm came to her. She saw Shadow kneeling on the ground looking at her with sadness. "Stay away." She had warned.

"I'm sorry I hit you. I became uncontrollable. I just needed the blood badly. Please don't take what I did as a threat of me killing you."

Rouge did nothing, but embrace on Shadow and cried into his fuzzy chest.

Shadow held her close and wished he could do something to make her feel better.

Later that night Rouge and Shadow were upstairs in Rouge's bedroom looking at the full moon once more.

"Do you forgive me?" Rouge asked,

"For what?"

"For trying to prevent you from killing, I know it's not right, but it's something you have to do. I'll just have to get use to it."

"I'm the one who's suppose to be sorry, I hit you because I couldn't control myself."

Rouge looked away from the moon and looked at him instead. "I'm such an idiot, I'll get use to your killing I promise."

Shadow looked at her back and nodded. "You know bat, I'm still a bit hungry."

Rouge's eyes widened, "What? You just took a serious amount of blood away from Knuckles. How could you still be hungry?"

Shadow wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her on her lips passionately.

Rouge now knew what he meant. She then started returning the kiss.

They broke apart.

Shadow whispered in her ear, "I've never felt this way before."

Rouge whispered back, "It's called love. A huge emotion in your heart that means you care about someone very deeply."

"But, I am a weapon. I have no heart."

"You do, and you just shared your most treasured feeling with me."

"I love you."

Rouge's eyes watered and she made a slight smile. "I love you too."

They continued to kiss again.