Chapter 8- Somebody else's return
Shadow and Sonic ended up in the middle of the forest. As soon as they regained their composure, Sonic tried to tackle Shadow, but he stopped to see Shadow was standing in a relaxed position against a tree looking at him with his eyebrow raised.
"I know what you're thinking, but I was acting... sort of..." Shadow said, a little quietly.
"What...?" Sonic stared at him with disbelief. "No, your lying, aren't you?" he cried.
"No!... Here..." Shadow handed him the chaos emeralds.
Sonic looked at the emeralds and then to Shadow. Why is he doing this? What is he trying to pull? Shadow looked around.
"There's no reason to fight me, I'm trying to help you. That's the reason I led you away." Shadow said darkly. "Eggman is coming back."
"What? Of course he is, he always does. He's a villian, that's what he does, he comes back..." Sonic told him.
"No. Didn't you hear? He was killed in a freak lab accident!" Shadow exclaimed.
"So what?" Sonic cried. "Shadow, in case you haven't noticed, this is your fault!"
"Here we go..." Muttered the dark hedgehog.
"If it wasn't for you, none of this wouldn't have happened!" Sonic yelled at him.
"Ooooh... do tell..." Shadow said sarcastically.
"This is not a game!" Sonic snapped.
"Did I ever say it was?" quipped Shadow.
"You act like you don't care people got hurt because of you!"
"People get hurt and die everyday..." Shadow said with a shrug. "So what?"
Sonic lunged at Shadow. Shadow backed away and rolled his eyes. "Okay fine, if your going to fight me, you can at least do better than that." Shadow's voice was taunting.
Sonic charged at Shadow once again. Shadow blocked every move that Sonic made, and when he saw an opening, he drove his elbow right into his chest. The blue hedgehog flew backwards and into a tree. He got up instantly and disappeared into the trees.
Shadow held a fighting stance, his red eyes shooting around from side to side, waiting for any indication of motion. Something flickered and Shadow turned toward the sound. Suddenly Sonic jumped from behind and grabbed him in a chokehold.
Shadow clawed at Sonic's arms as he began to feel light headed. Sonic only tightened his grip around Shadow's neck.
"I want you to die Shadow! You have no place here!" Sonic hissed.
Shadow bit Sonic's arm and caused him to let go. He rolled away from Sonic and disappeared through the trees.
'Sonic's lost it!' Shadow thought as he fled through the thick tree branches. 'So maybe I was a bit harsh... gotta remember not to do that...'
Suddenly Sonic appeared in front of him Shadow came to a screeching halt, trying to turn around but he was grabbed and flung toward the lake that they had just reached.
"For God's Sake!" Shadow hissed, pulling himself up. "Well you stop? I'm not the enemy here!"
"Oh really?" Sonic sneered. "Then who is?"
"I am!" a mechanical voice growled.
Sonic looked up and saw a giant robotic figure falling to the ground. He moved out of the way and stared at the cyborg... Eggman!
"What the...?" Sonic faultered with disbelief.
"That's right, I'm back!" Eggman laughed.
"I told you!" Shadow scolded at the blue hedgehog.
"Shut up you! I'm not finished with you yet." Sonic snapped.
Shadow crossed his arms. "Fine, if we're enemies, you can fight him and come after me later. See ya!" Shadow glided away, annoyed with Sonic's behavior.
Sonic fell into a fight stance awaiting Eggman's attacks. Eggman just laughed in a evil manner.
"Just because you're a robot now, doesn't mean that I still can't beat you." said Sonic.
Eggman sneered, "You would think that wouldn't you?"
Two boxes opened that were set on Eggman's shoulders, and missles flew out, targeting Sonic. He doged them adn crossed his arms. Sonic laughed mockingly.
"You're gonna have to do better than that!"
"I did." was the reply.
The missles suddenly did a complete turn and headed his way again. Sonic jumped up and then took off running through the forest. He looked over his shoulder and suprisingly enough, jet powered Eggman was speeding after him behind the missles.
Sonic tried to give them the slip by grabbing a branch and swinging up onto it.
"Haha!" Sonic cried.
The missles flew upwards and came right towards him. He wasn't expecting this and was blown clear across the sky. He landed on the ground with a thud feeling pain throughout his whole body. He grabbed his torso and felt warm blood on his hand.
Not able to move, Sonic lay helpless. Eggman had bested him in record time. He struggled to breathe as he awaited his doom. He then heard a thud.
"Phantom, I told you to stop that!" a male voice barked angrily. A ghostly voice chuckled.
"But it's so much fun to see you panic." the voice chimed.
"Hey look, it's that blue thing..." the first voice muttered.
"It seems as someone has gotten to him first... Midnight will be so disappointed..."
A black fox appeared in Sonic's face. He frowned and furrowed his eyebrows.
"Hey, he's not dead after all!" the fox laughed.
It was (of course) Shadow Fox. He and Phantom had decided to come watch Midnight fight her "mortal enemy" to the finish, but they can't seem to find her so Phantom has been using portals in random places to search for her, and like always, it was in the sky.
Sonic groaned. This was just too much for him. Shadow Fox shrugged.
"Well he might as well be dead anyway..." he sighed. "How pathetic..."
Phantom then looked around and saw a robotic Eggman coming towards them. This suprised Phantom because he had seen Eggman before and he was... um... human? And well... this was new.
"Um... Shadow...?" Phantom faultered. "We have a slight problem..."
"What?" Shadow Fox asked looking at him.
"Uh... never mind, Bye!" Phantom disappeared in portal.
Shadow Fox then noticed the cyborg headed right toward him and Sonic. He blinked a few times and then got ready to fight.
"This should be fun..." he muttered to himself with a smirk.
Sonic was finally able to move and he lift his head to see Shadow Fox engage in a fight with his robotic nemesis. He had to get away from here, he couldn't fight now. Sonic struggled to pick himself up and he then ran in a sluggish pace back towards the village.
Meanwhile, Eggman had already begun fighting Shadow Fox. He let loose a machine gun/canon thing and fired rapidly. Shadow dodged the bullets and ran behind him. He then kicked jumped up and drop-kicked Eggman's glass dome that surrounded his head. Shadow fell to the ground holding his ankle, the glass not even cracking. "Ow... what is that, plexi-glass?" Shadow hissed.
"Acutally it's metal made to look like glass." Eggman sneered.
"Clever..." Shadow Fox then swept his foot underneath him. Eggman fell over and began griping.
Shadow Fox laughed. "That's what you get, you robotic freak!" He then laughed again and walked away.
Phantom appeared next to him as he walked. "I see you defeated the robot..."
"Yeah, no thanks to you." Shadow snapped.
Suddenly Midnight jumped down in front of them. She rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Well, how was it?" her brother inquired.
"I don't know, because I didn't see it... I couldn't find them..." Midnight mumbled. "Damn..."
"Aw, what a let down..." Shadow sighed and then turned his head. "Heyyyy... Well what do ya know, it's that black hedgehog."
"Where?" Midnight looked around.
"Over there!"
Shadow was trying ot catch his breath. He heard the explosion and he wasn't about to go back and investigate. He knew Sonic was in trouble, but ironically, they were just proclaimed enemies, so he couldn't do anything.
Shadow Fox smirked and said: "We should ambush him!"
"How?" Midnight exclaimed.
"Shh... here's what we're gonna do..." Shadow Fox began to divise a plan to ambush the dark hedgehog.
Meanwhile...
Haze sat on the ground sniffling. Shadow didn't seem like an angry person to her, so why would he suddenly flip out like that? Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed over the sudden shock she just expereinced.
"W-why w-w-would he do this?" she whimpered between sobs. "This i-is s-so wrong!"
Knuckles came over to comfort her. "I'm sorry you had to see that..." he muttered.
"But..." Haze sighed and sniffled again.
Knuckles hugged the girl. Haze cried in his arms as the others looked on with sympathy. All except Rouge, of course...
Rouge remembered what had happened earlier, and she actually thought he meant something by it. BUt she had to feign anger to keep her secret love for him a secret...
-Flashback-
Rouge was in her house, minding her own buisness when suddenly, Knuckles appeared. He smiled at her in a somewhat of a seductive way. The bat felt her heart jump as he walked towards her.
"I haven't seen you in awhile Rouge..." he said in a low voice.
Rouge felt herself blushing. "Well, I uh..."
"You aren't avoiding me, are you?" he asked stepping closer.
"Well no, of course not!" Rouge squeaked stepping away.
Knuckles had her backed into a corner, holding an unwavering gaze in her eyes. She felt like melting. Knuckles always had a way of doing that to her. He leaned closer towards her and whispered in her ear: "Scared ya, didn't I?"
Rouge gasped and grew very, very pissed. "HOW DARE YOU?" she screamed. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"
Knuckles ran away in a panic while Rouge chased after him in a blinding rage. she chased him all the way through the village, past Shadow and tackled him, pummling him to the ground. She then stomped away feeling horribly upset for what he just did.
"The nerve of that echidna!" she huffed.
-End of Flashback-
He had no right to mess with her feelings like that and then act all nice and huggy on this new girl. Rouge flatened her ears against her head and walked off. She wasn't about to stick around and watch this. Haze saw her go and she wiped her eyes.
"Are you okay Rouge?" she asked sniffling.
"Yeah I'm fine!" Rouge snapped as she stomped up the stairs.
Knuckles blinked a few times in confusion. He wasn't understanding, what was her problem? Haze sighed and looked at the others.
"Do you think Shadow is ever gonna come back?" she asked.
"Who cares..." Hope muttered, "He's a traitor anyway..."
Haze frowned. "I don't think so. I think he's just trying to help... in a weird sort of way..." she whispered.
"How can you trust him?" Hope screamed in frustration. "He's to wrapped up over the loss of his dear Maria that he deals with his hate by destroying oher people's lives! And you think he's trying to help us?"
"He's my brother!"
"He's a traitor that used to work for Eggman and nearly killed all of them!"
Haze froze. She stared at Hope. "What do you mean?"
"Shadow is the reason that the fox girl Tails or Midnight or whatever her name is went to the dark side. Sonic and all of the rest of this group that you see went after them. They tried to rescue Michelle, but it was too late. She saved the chaos emeralds and was caught in the blast of a detonating robot!" Hope explained in a sharp tone.
Everyone dropped their heads nodding. It was all true what Hope said, no matter how hard they tried to forget it,it happened. And it all started with Shadow... or did it?
"Wait a sec..." Amy began. "If Sonic hadn't read Michelle's diary, and hit her with how she was keeping the secret so hard, maybe she wouln't have left..."
"But that would mean it's all Sonic's fault, and we know it's not..." Espio stated.
"But what Amy says makes perfect sense." Vector replied.
"Hold it you guys!" Knuckles cried. "We can't blame all of this on just one person. The wasy I see it's both Shadow and Sonic's fault. If Sonic hadn't upset her, she wouldn't have ran away. And if Shadow would've kept his mouth shut, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in." he finished with a nod.
"How did this turn into a debate?" Charmy wondered aloud. Everyone ignored him.
"Hope, I know that your angry with Shadow because of what he did. But Michelle's not dead." Knuckles said, trying to reason with her.
"Yeah well..." Hope crossed her arms. "He's just so..."
"Shadow's not the enemy here. He's trying to help, I know he is." Haze added. "I haven't known him for a long time, but I know he's not a bad person. If he was such a bad person, he would've destroyed everyone when he had the chance."
"True..." Espio agreed.
"So... if Shadow's not the enemy... and Sonic's definantly not the enemy... then... who is?" Hope asked softly.
Suddenly they all heard an evil laughter. They looked around as the laughter grew louder and more evil. The wall near the door suddenly exploded and a shady figure was seen through the dust and the now burning inferno. Cream and Amy screamed adn held onto each other for dear life, while the others tensed and waited to see who or what the were about to face.
"I'm baaaack!"
-End of Chapter-
(A/N- Me: Ooooohh... Knuckles is bad... And uh...A tad serious there, aren't we Sonic?
Sonic: Oh shut up...
Me: You shut up before I have Shadow fans come attack you!
Sonic: Yeah right...
Crazed Shadow Fans: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! (tackle Sonic)
Me: (laughs hysterically) Now that's comedy! Okay, back to my point: I'm just gonna leave you right there and let you ponder on all this. Make any neccesary comments and NO FLAMES! I'm serious, this took me a long time to write and it would just break my heart... (sob) But anyways... REVIEW! And thanks for reading and I'll see yall soon!)