Ultra Sonic 12

Unsafe House

Shadow was the first to wake up. His eyes snapped wide open just before he quickly jumped up to scan his surroundings. Realizing that he was still in the safe house, along with both Rouge and Sonic, he relaxed and slowly stood up.

To his right he could hear Rouge give out a groan. "...Morning already?" She said. The noise of Shadow's speedy awakening roused her enough to be knocked out of dreamland. Slowly she pulled herself up and took a look around. "This isn't such a bad place, Shadow." She commented.

"Rouge, the disk." Shadow simply said in response. "I believe there's a computer in the other room. We need to read the disk's contents quickly."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, in order to help Sonic. Let's just hurry and get this over with."

The two walked over into the next room and quickly powered the PC that they found. Inserting the disk, Rouge quickly went to work opening its files. The first thing to pop out on screen was a picture of the stone tablet that Eggman had found followed by a second window that held translations for certain parts of it.

"Here we are, the main attraction." Rouge said, happy with her usefulness.

"Look at that." Shadow said, pointing at the tablet. It depicted a large white emerald with a tint of blue in it, and directly under it was an echidna that was all white, just like Ultra Sonic. Beneath the echidna were both hedgehogs and echidnas, all looking up towards the white echidna as if preparing for war. There also looked like there was a part cut off below the tablet.

"It says here that the echidna had found the emerald depicted and bonded with it to become a higher being. He called himself Ultra, and it was one of the few times that the constantly warring hedgehogs and echidnas actually stopped fighting each other to fight a greater threat."

"Is there anything mentioning how they stopped him?"

"Well, one of the hedgehogs, whoever may have created the Ultima Emerald, figured out a way to stop him. The hedgehog's name was Darkness and..."

"And what?"

"And then the tablet is cut off. There's more to it, but that's all that's here. Eggman even noted that there was more to the picture but it wasn't found." The two stopped a moment to think to themselves.

"Darkness..." Shadow finally said to break the silence.

"That's what he called you, right?" Rouge asked.

Shadow gave a nod but didn't look towards Rouge. His eyes instead wandered off to the side as he continued to think.

Rouge decided to spend the time looking through the other files on the computer. However, she soon realized that there wasn't much else there. At least nothing that could be of use to them.

"It looks like that picture and those translations were all that got tracked as important. So, while we still have the extra time, do you want to look at the other disk?" Rouge asked.

Shadow didn't respond. Instead he just sat down in a corner and looked out the window.

"Fine then. I'll take that as a yes." Rouge said. She quickly swapped disks out of the PC and went to work on the second one.

"Didn't Eggman mention that the disk was to be used at one of his bases?" Shadow asked.

"Maybe so, but the disk was once in his database. So, I can just use it as a way to search out for his database on the web, and then just transfer the files straight from there to here. And besides, I don't feel like walking."

A few minutes passed by in silence as Rouge continued working. The erratic patters of Rouge's keystrokes were the only things breaking the silence. Soon enough, though, Rouge stopped for a while before motioning to Shadow.

"I'm in. And it looks like the disk doesn't come from his base. It came from G.U.N."

The mention of G.U.N. perked up Shadow's ears and it only took a second for him to cross the room and reach the PC next to Rouge.

"It looks like we're too late, all the files that were here about you were just recently deleted." Rouge said. She looked up to Shadow and could see the dismayed look on his face. "I'm sorry Shadow. It looks like we're going to have to start over again looking for clues."

Instead of responding to Rouge, Shadow took another look at the screen. He noticed that a new folder had been put in place of his own previous folder.

"Project M.A.N.I.C." Shadow said, reading the name of the folder. Reaching over, he clicked to open it and then clicked open one of the files. "It's top secret though. G.U.N. is developing whatever it is in response to me."

"Wait, if they're building that thing because of you, how do they know if you're alive or not?"

"I don't know."

"Well, it looks like there's more data here entailing the project. It even says here that it will be done by the end of the month..."

Suddenly, both of them froze. They heard footsteps approaching from behind them. Turning around slowly, they soon saw Sonic enter the room.

"Shadow...?" Sonic said, puzzled that he was running into the black hedgehog once again.

The three ended up not moving, each staring at each other in what was becoming an awkward moment. The first to move, surprisingly, was Rouge, who stood up and walked over to Sonic before she slapped him.

"First you go all white, then you go psycho on us all and try to kill all your friends, and to top it all off you level an entire city. Then you just get up after it all and walk over saying 'Shadow...?'? You're supposed to be the world's greatest hero! But what kind of hero are you!" Rouge yelled in anger.

Everyone froze once again. All were surprised by Rouge's sudden outburst, including Rouge herself. Nobody moved for the next few minutes, as no one really knew what to do next.

However, the decision of what to do next was easily made for them once an explosion occurred from the other side of the house. All three hit the ground as everything around them shook, and as soon as the house stopped moving, they all ran into the next room.

All three were stunned to see the duo of Metal Sonic and Silica facing them in front of a newly blown out wall.

"How'd they find us...?" Rouge muttered under her breath as she got into a fighting stance. Sonic and Shadow followed suit as the trio then faced off against the two robots.

"You can avoid a fight if you give us Sonic." Metal Sonic said in his usual cold voice.

"We're not giving him up without a fight." Shadow said. He then grabbed Rouge and Sonic by their hands and ran out of the room and back into the computer room. Once there Shadow quickly picked up the disk with the data from Eggman's research and handed it to Rouge.

"Rouge, you need to give this disk to Sonic's friends, especially that echidna."

"But, Shadow..."

"I know you want to help, but it's more important to inform them right now."

Sonic caught on to what Shadow was planning and joined in. "Just listen to Shadow. Tails will probably be in his workshop right now, and it's around the Mystic Ruin jungle. Just take the train from Station Square and you should be able to find it. If they're not there, then head to Angel Island."

"Right now we need you to stay low," Shadow said, "We'll distract those two and you can escape afterward."

Before Rouge could respond with another protest the two robots busted through the wall

"Give us Sonic, now." Silica said with her own equally cold voice.

"If you want me, come and get me!" Sonic yelled, running past the two robots and then going straight up what was left of the wall they had gone through. Shadow quickly ran to the opposite side of the room and up that wall and then both hedgehogs simultaneously Spin Dashed through the roof of the safe house, causing enough carnage for the house to soon collapse upon those inside.

Once outside, Sonic and Shadow looked upon their handiwork.

"Not too bad, eh?" Sonic said with a grin.

"Don't speak so soon just yet." Shadow said as the rubble soon started to shake before Metal Sonic and Silica flew up and away.

"So, you want to see who can out run these two first?" Sonic said as the two robots flew up into the air and before turning to search out the two hedgehogs.

"I won't lose." Shadow said as the robots spotted him and Sonic and started flying full speed at them.

"Then let's do this." Sonic said. The two hedgehogs turned and started running an instant before they were attacked by Metal Sonic and Silica. The two robots took only a moment to make sure they didn't hit the ground before speeding after the two hedgehogs in hot pursuit.

A few minutes later the building's rubble once again shook, except this time Rouge came up from under it.

"Those two could warn a bat before they bring down a house, you know. It's only common courtesy." Rouge said, slightly annoyed as she brushed off dirt from her clothes.

Still, the two of them had given her just the diversion she needed, and now it was up to her to go and find the others and get them up to date to what she and Shadow had found out.