(Shadow: so Rouge likes me, I hate Sonic, Amy loves Sonic, Knuckles likes Rouge, I like Amy, wait, did I just say that I like Amy? Oh, whatever. I've got to get in that frame of mind sooner or later. (Sonic: Hey pal! How'd you enjoy your monologue? (Shadow: Why are you being so angry? Normally you're nice and disgustingly friendly. (Sonic: I'm just returning the favor pal! (Shadow: Oh god! Here it comes. (Sonic: Ya know, all I've ever been is a friend to you. I'm nice, I smile, I visit you all alone in that little apartment of yours. The least you could do would be think of me as a friend instead of an adversa— (Shadow: Listen up shoes for brains. I do think of you as a friend. I just have a different way of showing it. I was playing to the moment back there to freak you out. OK? (Sonic: Oooooh! I get it! You were practicing acting in every day life! Alright I'll see ya later pal. Sorry 'bout that. (Turns a corner and is now out of sight) (Shadow: Humph! Idiot!

A/N- now it starts to have some substance. He walks, he talks, he even makes julienne fries! Read on, and if you detect any Douglas Adams-isms, you are sane. That's part of the comedy reel. It's a Romance/Humor, so eventually I have to introduce the two concepts.

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Fallen Angel: Chapter 2: The long cold winter

Shadow blipped back into existence and dropped onto what felt like moist malt-o-meal, which was another food source on the ARK. It had been dark where he had waked, but here it was sunset, and his eyes took a similar effect as to when a light is turned on in a dark room. His pupils finally returned to their normal size and allowed him to visually discern his location. He stood on a beach, at the edge of a familiar part of Westopolis known as Station Square. The lights of stores were just beginning to shut off. Now that he was on earth, he had an agenda to complete before he could go around searching for answers. The first on the list was finding a place to stay, and the closest place was the Station Square Seaside Resort, being only a few hundred feet from where he appeared. He crossed the road, paying no mind to the angered drivers that had just screeched to a halt, entered and approached the check in counter. At first, he stood close, and merely tapped his foot, but he then realized his height was a visual impairment to the already ignorant check in man. He ended up having to stand a few feet back to alert his presence. "Damn genetics," he whispered to himself.

Finally the man noticed him and brightly asked, "Hello sir, may I help you?"

"Yes you can. Do you have any rooms available?"

"We certainly do, do you have any preferences?"

"No, just whatever you have."

"Okay, the cheapest room we have is 20 rings a night."

The check in man's cheerful attitude was starting to bother Shadow, but he continued. He produced a small plastic card, debit, from his bag. He was legally, although somewhat strangely, the legal son of Gerald, thus he was able to inherit the sum of rings left after his death without problems from his genetic grandson. He placed the card on the desk and in an effort to escape any further random cheer, walked away as he spoke, "There's my account. Do your thing and then I'll sign." He walked over to a magazine rack. "Time, In Style, 17, what is this garbage?"

The man fiddled around with the computer, then called out to the darkness, "Uh, sir? There's a slight problem. It seems that your account has been suspended due to a lack of use."

The man cringed a bit, expecting the ever angering hedgehog to throttle him, but Shadow calmed down and began to walk away. "Damn. Figures." Was all he said.

But before he could walk out the door, a bell boy ran up to him, and questioned, "Excuse me, but aren't you the hedgehog that stopped those black aliens from destroying the world a few years ago?"

"And if I am?

"Well, if you were, then I would call up the owner and see if I could work something out to let you out of the cold. I mean, they say it's supposed to snow and all, and I, I don—

"Please do," Shadow commanded.

The bell boy ran over to the phone and auto dialed so0meone, "Hello sir. Yes. Well, a celebrity of a sort. Shadow. Yes, that's the one. A room. His account's frozen. The suite? Okay sir. Thank you. Goodbye sir." He walked back over to Shadow and in typical waiter fashion, asked, "May I show you to your room complimentary of the Seaside Resort?" Shadow nodded, and then followed the steward to his room. Once they arrived, he said, "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

He rummaged around in his bag, grabbed one of his spare bangles and tossed it at the young man. "Here, keep it as a souvenir, and a thank you." Said the hedgehog. The man bowed, then closed the door and descended through the elevator. Mean while, Shadow bean #2 on his list, and feasted on the complimentary feast he had noticed in the next room. A turkey, asparagus, cornbread, fresh salmon, a platter of fried rices, he was thoroughly pleased now, and would be even more in about three seconds, for that was how long it took for him to run to the table and shove fistfuls of food down his throat. Having had his first real food in who cares how long, he gave a shout of stuffed mouth speech, "Ogh, iss sogud. Yith ith Rewei Kasking." (Translation- Oh, it's so good. This is really tasty). He proceeded to eat the entire feast left for him, saving the wishbone and dumping the string beans. Now could be seen a very rounded, almost pregnant looking Shadow. His gloves were now filled with grease, so he wobbled over to the bathroom and threw them in a sink which he filled with soapy water. He grabbed a spare pair out of his brown backpack and proceeded to think about Part three of his 'settling in plan–getting in contact with the only friend he currently had.

It was now dark, and Shadow began to think to himself, "What would be the most appropriate way to contact her? Lets see, Rouge is nocturnal, so she should be done eating lunch about now. Now what's her number again?" He looked around the room and in its various drawers until he found the phonebook. He looked through it and found Rouge's number, while making an observation, "why does every number in here start with 555? They could save ink, time, and paper if they eliminated that from every num-, anyways, 555-1947."

He pushed the buttons on the phone, then waited. One ring, two rings, three rings, four rings, then, "Hi, this is Rouge. I'm not here right now, so leave a short message at the tone."

Shadow, however, was unfamiliar with message machines, and proceeded to converse with it, "Hello Rouge, long time n-, what's wrong with you, you're here talk-. Is this some kind of joke? What the hell is going on around here?

Then the other line picked up, "Shadow, Shadow, calm down. That was just a recording of me to prevent looser fans from calling me! It's me now, get it?" she paused, and heard a humph through the receptor, "That's good, anyway, good to hear from you again. (short pause) so, what's new?"

Shadow spoke, slightly embarrassed about the recorder incident, "Well, maybe that I'm not calling you from the ARK."

"That's great! Are you in town?

"Yeah, I'm in Station Square."

Rouge responded with a little regret in her voice, "Well as glad as I am to hear from you, I'm kinda busy right now. I have a meeting with the G.U.N. chief in about thirty minutes and I'm scrambling up the walls trying to get everything together. Do ya think we could pick up tomorrow, in person?"

Shadow shrugged, then replied, "Sure, if you're there to tell him off."

"Oh shadow," she replied, taking his dark tone as a joke, even though he was mildly serious. She continued, "I'm no good at giving directions from the ground, so I'll just give you my address and you can look it up on the internet." She told him her address, then gave explicit instructions on how to access and use Mapquest dot com.

"I'll be fine, Rouge! I've lived onboard a computer for six years of my life! Thank you." They both hung up, then Shadow hit the lights and plopped himself down on the bed, which was very large for a hedgehog. He slept well knowing that his to do list for his arrival was mostly knocked out in one fell swoop. He still had to manage his account tomorrow, but that was something unexpected and added at the last minute.

The ebon creature awoke from a dreamless sleep. He had no inspiration to dream, just as he hadn't aboard the Ark, nor in the fifty years held in the stasis pod, nor any night that he had been alive.

He rose to see no sun, and a clock reading 11:20 a.m. He understood why he slept so late. The portion of his DNA that was neither black armian, nor human wanted him to be in a state of hibernation "Damn genetics," he whispered as he rose from his bed. He thought about breakfast, but then he became depressed, remembering his frozen account. So before he ate, he would have to visit the bank...

...and do paperwork- a LOT of paperwork. He groaned as he slipped all of his things into his bag, then left the 'borrowed' room.

Upon reaching the front counter, he said quite sourly (partially because he had just waked up, but mostly because he was hungry), "Keep the room for me. I'll come to purchase it in an hour or so." The man at the counter acknowledged this with a nod, and then Shadow walked out to find the bank.

It was an overcast day, and to Shadow's surprise, it had snowed a solid foot the night before. He had forgotten the bell boy's concerns from last night. He had trouble making his way through the thigh-high (at least to a hedgehog) snow. Finally, after a twenty minutes trudge, he arrived at the National bank of Southern Westopolis-Station Square.

It is at this time in which a certain matter of relevance will be discussed, and although it doesn't have a major effect on the story, it is significant enough to be required to know. Upon the destruction of the Black Comet, a congressional hearing was called. There it was decided that the identity of the aliens' slayer should be shifted to the G.U.N. They did not believe that the general public was able to accept something as radical as the idea that Shadow, the one that blew up the moon with the eclipse cannon, had saved them all. People of wealth, however, were able to buy this information from a few corrupt attendees of the aforementioned conference, which was quickly distributed throughout the general public. However, as the congressional hearing had predicted, the world didn't accept it, and G.U.N. became the star of the show. And it just so happens that A: the hotel owner was one of those who bought out a congressman for the truth, and B: the man that helped shadow at the Resort was one of the few that believed the leak. Such is mere coincidence and should be treated as such.

As Shadow stood in line, many of the people were irritated by his presence. Some left to come back at a 'more convenient time.' Others merely excused themselves for rather long trips to the restroom. He really didn't much care. "Hey, just a shorter line," he thought. After what seemed like an eternity of standing in line, (ten minutes of people glaring at him) he finally approached the desk.

"How can I help you?" asked the woman behind the counter in a rather dreary 'unsatisfied with my life' sort of way

"I need to reactivate a frozen account."

"Which account would that be?"

Shadow told her the many digited number, then she the handed him a large stack of papers to be filled out. He sat at a desk and proceeded in filling out the papers. Once again, an eternity passed (thirty minutes) as he filled out form after form after form, rewriting number, name, and physical descriptors for dozens of different security paperwork purposes. Finally, Shadow reentered the line for the third eternity in one day. He was now starting to feel like the woman behind the counter and understood why she was so, well, boring. After reaching the woman at the desk, he handed her the stack of papers. She quietly flipped through them, then gave a short presentation.

"Here is your new ring data transfer card. It works just like debit, but in a much more convenient form. Currently, you have a balance of 527,499, 011 rings. Enjoy the rest of your day." Shadow was surprised at this, seeing as his balance was much higher than it was when he left, apparently due to a large and anonymous transaction with the comment of: for global heroism: written in the cause box.

Does Sonic always get paid like this for whenever he saves the earth?

And just like that, he was off... to the all you can eat lunch buffet. It was now two o' clock, and breakfast was out of the question, but he didn't care. He returned to the Resort a round and happy being. He was lucky enough as to find the sidewalks and streets cleared of snow upon his departure, otherwise he'd have not made it one step out the door. He slapped his new card on the table and said coolly, "I believe this will be enough for the roof suite." The man worked silently, officially checking him in. Shadow visited the gift shop and picked up a scarf, conveniently red and black, then made the ascent to his new room.

The dark embodiment lay on the bed, digesting the meals of the night before, and today. In the two hours nap, his stomach had returned to normal size, and it was time to go. He put the scarf around his neck, then plopped his things back into the bag, and departed for his meeting with Rouge.

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Hi there. I know what you're thinking. This isn't what you said it would be. On the contrary, it is. His interests lie elsewhere. Rouge merely plays the friend/sister role. But anyway, reviews are good, so please do review. Last time I only got one. (thanks Stephanie Speed!)