A/N- Hey everybody, long time no see. As you all know, I haven't updated anything in forever, but today is special. Today, I update my story with a slightly larger than average chapter that ends dramatically (yah, for my style of writing anyway.) it also gives a little tidbit for all you yaoi fans out there. (don't worry Stephanie, I'm not making any of the characters gay... lol)

A/N-version 2.0 remember to review y'all, because it is fun for me to receive them, and also, the more you nag at me, the more likely I am to update again soon. and finally, BBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAHHHRRRRRRGGGGGG!1!1!1!11!1

thank you, and enjoy the show, erm, chapter...

Chapter 6: Ice break (a.k.a. THE REALLY F-ING LONG CHAPTER!)

Shadow awoke from a rather un-shadowy dream of sunshine and puppies to the sound of his alarm buzzing. He waited for it to stop on its own, but it only grew louder, and the beeps quickened. His dreary state could stand little more. He flung an arm over to the side to try and strike it, but to no avail. He inched over to continue to reach for the off switch, but he overcompensated, and fell off of the bed altogether. He finally decided it wasn't worth being civil, and placed his hand on the small box. He then proceeded to rip it away, and pull the cord out of the wall with it.

After this little stunt, he rose drearily, and threw the sheets and quilt back on top of the bed. He didn't take the time to re insert the clock into the wall, he just wanted simplicity. He threw off his synth skin (still toying with names for the clothing that covers the, eherm, reproductive and evacuatory organs.), then dragged himself into the shower, and turned on the water. After the initial shock of the cold water, he was awake. His eyes widened, and he shivered vigorously. By instinct, he dodged the path of flying water and stood in a gap between it and the wall where he would remain slightly dry. He stayed there until it warmed in temperature, then slid into the soothing wet stream. He scrubbed the loofa over his fur, and searched his quills for any that were loose. He was clean, and thus he left the wet, and dried himself.

Since he was up earlier than usual, he decided to make good use of the "continental breakfast" that was in the lobby. But he though better of it. Instead he decided to answer the phone that was now ringing incessantly. He picked up the receiver and answered, "Hello?"

A recorded voice came on and said, "Hello, you have a call from one 'Just hurry up and get him on the phone okay?' will you accept the call? Press one to accept."

Shadow complied, having recognized the voice, and pressed one. Instantly he heard a slightly worried Amy mumbling to herself... "Oooh, I hope he's here. These guys are being such a pain..."

Shadow became slightly startled, and spoke, "Umm, hello? Amy?"

Amy snapped out of her babbling and responded, "oh, hey shadow, how ya doin?"

"Fine, thank you. What's the matter?"

"Oh, just a little stressed, hehe..."

"Well what did you call me for?"

"Oh that," she began, "well last night, after you left, I called sonic and—oof, stop that you guys! Sorry, boy trouble. Anyway, I asked him to go-"

"Skating with you?" he asked, completing her sentence for her. "I know, he told me when he invited me to come along."

"Ahhh, you too? He invited Knuckles and Tails on our date, and now they are acting like small children!"

"Soo, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Well, I called to see if you would come down and, ya know, keep me sane. Maybe keep sonic in line..."

"Oh, well I guess I could come if it involves beating a little on Sonic." He smirked at the glass as he thought about stepping on and crushing a collapsed Sonic.

"No, you cant beat up my darling Sonic!"

"Well..."

"Oh please come Shadow! There's no one else available. Cream is snowed in, Big doesn't have a phone, Rouge is nocturnal, I didn't know who else I could find!"

"Calm down Amy, I'll come, its no big deal..." he spoke "And I wont beat up Sonic" he added.

Much!

"Oh thanks Shadow! Come down to the pier as quickly as you can, okay?"

"Got it." Shadow grabbed the bag that he had prepared last night, and placed it over his back. He glanced out the window to judge the distance to the pier, which was clearly visible from his high window, then (omfg, mutiny!) disappeared in a huff of green light. (so unexpected!)

The black hedgehog appeared a few feet above the surface of a wooden structure. He felt gravity take hold of him, and pull him down to the salted wood surface. He rose from a kneeling position, and scanned the area to look for a trace of the one who had beckoned him to come. All the while, people crowded around the being. They were intrigued by both the flash of light, and by the creature that emerged from it.

Shadow jumped from the dock and away from the crowd, then landed on the hard ice. He began walking toward what would be the shore where he had seen a small dot of pink near other primarily colored dots. As he walked across the slick ice, the crowd reformed behind him. Small murmurs could be heard as well as some mumbling about the ebon "demon." finally, someone in the entourage snapped, and cried out in profanity at our hero. " you! We don't want you on our ice, or in our city! Because of you my cousin is dead!" Other members of the crowd gained courage from this remark, and began cursing the dark entity as well.

As this continued, Shadow thought about the effects this might have on Amy's already ruined day.

These idiots need to know when they are being ignored...I hope they take a hint sometime soon. They can't be putting me in a positive light with all of their unimportant complaints. It especially wouldn't be good to have these nuisances follow me around all day. I have to get rid of them before I find Sonic and co., otherwise they'll ruin the already mediocre day.

Finally, he could bear no more of their "stupidity." He stopped walking, and slid to a halt a few feet away. He turned around and glared menacingly foreward. "Are you all quite done?" he asked, and was met with another round of shouts, accusations, and tears. He raised his voice, as well as the amount of anger he chose to express, and continued in an "annoyed" voice, "If you all persist in obliterating the tranquility of the day, I'll allow you to continue BENEATH THE ICE ON WHICH YOU STAND!" The mob silenced instantly, and Shadow continued, "If you are angry with me, that's fine, but find me in private to curse me out instead of making a giant commotion about it. Now if you don't mind, I have places to be."

With that, Shadow turned around, scanned for the red yellow, blue and pink dots, and continued towards them.

It took ten minutes to be in shouting distance. After ten minutes of walking, he was greeted by yells from Sonic and Knuckles. They were faint at first, but easily recognized as their voices. "Here comes the peanut gallery" Shadow whispered to himself.

"Hey, Shadow, ya made it!" Sonic yelled.

"Shadow, glad to see you in person today!" Knuckles cheered. Rouge had banned him from coming in the room when he was there the other day.

As he approached, they continued their cheerful banter, and finally, as he passed them, spoke in his usual smug, focused voice, "Although I'm flattered that you are all glad to see me, I didn't show up here to provide enthusiasm to your foolish behavior. I came to stop it."

Sonic and the others were confused a bit, but let him pass and continued their rough housing. Shadow continued to a bench, where the familiar pink dot had taken on the form of a young pink hedgehog. Amy sulked away on the bench, making drawings in the snow with her feet. Shadow noticed they were mostly of Chao and fruit... Shadow sat down next to her and asked, "so how long has this been going on? They don't seem like they are even breathing hard or anyting."

Amy replied sounding slightly depressed, "About an hour. They've just been throwing snowballs and wrestling and doing guy stuff. It's like I'm not even here."

"Well, what did you expect sonic to do when you ask him to go someplace? I'm surprised that ignorant fool would even have accepted when you asked him out."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Amy asked, raising a brow.

Crap. "Well, uh, I didn't mean it like that. I mean , you are an attra- um, sonic just doesn't seem too interested in you-, erm, dating right now, that's all." Damn. I haven't bumbled through a sentence like that in, well, ever. I wonder... What? What just happened to me?

"Hmmm, okay, I can believe that." she smirked a little and went back to drawing in the snow with here shoes.

Shadow continued, after he regained his form, "But that still doesn't explain why he agreed to go on a date with you."

"Oh, yeah." she said. She began to twiddle her thumbs a bit. "Well about that..."

"You didn't tell him it was meant to be a date, did you?"

"Well... I- oof! Hey cut that out guys!"

Shadow looked up and saw Amy's right cheek covered in snow. He was about to start laughing, but then a similar ball of white powder came slamming into his left cheek. "ahhhhh! What the hell was that?"

Amy knelt down in the snow and began to gather it up in her hands. "That, my friend, was a snowball. And it appears that those three have just declared war."

"War?" questioned shadow, "You mean I actually do get to beat sonic into submission?"

"No." Amy responded. "You get to freeze him into submission with balls of snow."

"Good enough." He said. Just as he finished speaking he was met by a storm of snow hurled in his direction. He dropped to the ground to avoid its icy chill.

Off in the distance, he could hear his cocky voice... "Come on Shad! Don't tell me you're giving up already?" (lol, kingdom hearts quote...)

He rose to his feet and swept the snow off of his shoulders, "Not even close." He dashed forward and tried to dodge the flurry of cold hard snow, but was knocked back once again. He ran back to a small mound Amy had made while the others were distracted.

"You can't just take them head on like that," Amy lectured, "You have to hit them from afar. Otherwise you end up buried under a pile of snow..."

Shadow thought about this for a moment, and then it hit him. "Amy, can you cover me for about 30 seconds? I need to get something from my bag."

"Sure, what are you get-AUGGH!"

"Just a little surprise for our rowdy bunch." With that, Shadow bolted upright and ran for the bag under the bench. He was hit by a snowball near his left kidney, and he cringed and dove for the cover of the bench. Chunks of snow flew past him as he hid under the bench, watching for a clear moment. Then he realized that he held a time altering crystal in his hand, and vanished, only to reappear 10 feet from where he disappeared. Amy jumped a little from the sudden change in air pressure from the solid mass replacing the gaseous one.

"Ahh! Hurry up with whatever you're doing shadow, I'm getting pounded on here."

"I just need a little more time. Keep up the cover fire." Shadow dug his back into the cold mixture of sand and snow and shot his legs out strait. He held the green gem tightly and ran a few calculations through his head as he concentrated hard on it. He felt the energy flow through his body and channeled it back down his red striped legs into is feet.

In only a moment, a sharp change in pressure swept through the surrounding air. Amy was knocked back into the snow, and her entire field of view became infested with the eerie green blizzard emanating from Shadow's shoes. Her face quickly became covered in snow. Under the white blanket, she saw the green aura fade, and the blue of the sky return. She bent up and wiped off her face, then looked around for signs of one of the four males. Shadow lay in a small trench a few feet long with a wide cone extending from his lower body. He was shivering a bit, but other than that he looked just fine.

She turned to look for the other three, but reacted in an unexpected way. There, in place of the three assaulters, were three snowmen. Of course the eyes and noses and such weren't carrots or coal, but never the less, sonic, tails and knuckles were all slightly fatter snow versions of themselves. Amy burst out in laughter, snorts and all. She fell over on her back and pointed as Sonic's head burst from the snow. He shivered, and a small bead of fluid hung from his nose in a semi-solid state. Tails fell out the back of his snow self and shivered on the ground, and knuckles, well... being a relative to the canine genus, he had fallen asleep in his little snow burrow...

Shadow released a small moan. His head was rammed into the bench that was previously 10 yards behind him. With a little effort, he managed to think, and then speak, "Did it work?"

Amy took a break from her laughter to respond, "Yeah, hahahahha, I think it did. hummphhh, take a look, pphhh aaahhaahha."

He did as he was told, and coolly gave an amused smirk, then a typical shrug, while maintaining the smirk. He got up and walked over to the three frozen animals, who were now huddled together to keep in the warmth, and bent down over them. "So, have you learned your lesson?" he asked. "Never attack a lady, it's rude... and never attack me, or you will face utter annihilation."

--------------------------------------------Fast forward in time a few minutes... dun dun dunnnnnnn-----------------------------------

"Ok, now that you boys are all warmed up and lively again, I think we should all go ice skating together." Amy proposed

Shadow had to sit around and watch Amy hug sonic back to his normal body temperature. The cuteness of it almost made him vomit. Meanwhile, tales had used some gadget to get warm again, and knuckles dug a hole in the snow, realizing that the snowman cocoon was actually slightly warm.

Sonic was the first to respond, "Sure Amy that sounds fun, but I don't know what that is."

"Oh sonic" she said, "Sometimes I don't know what to do with you. You honestly don't know what ice skating is?"

"Nope" he said as he scratched his head. (Hey that rhymes! Yay!)

"Tails, what about you?"

"Yeah sure Amy, I can skate..." he twiddled his thumbs around and in as hopeful of a voice as possible, continued, "Well, in theory I can..."

"So you haven't actually done it?" she said, placing her hand on her head. "Can anyone here actually ice skate?" The four males, all lined up side by side all lowered their heads and sighed in unison. Amy responded in the customary anime style of falling over backwards.

"Well," she began with a sudden change of mood, "I guess there is no time to learn like the present. Lets all go to sports authority and see if we can get some skates..."

-------------------------Fast forward in time a few minutes... ...again, muwwhahahahhhhahaah-----------------------------------------

A/N- I hve only gone skating once, and that was when I was 8. 9 year gap there, so don't criticize if im B.S.ing here please. -end A/N

On their way back from the "authority," Amy took the time to explain the basics of ice skating. "It's kinda like leaning from side to side while moving forward or maybe like little diagonal lunges. No..." she looked back and saw shadow walking behind the others with his cold stare in full throttle. Then she addressed the rest of the boys, "Im sure shadow will get the hang of it pretty quickly..." she turned back to look at shadow, who had pretended not to notice she was talking about him, "...wontcha Shadow?"

"What me?" he replied, "Well I don't know, recreational activities don't really lie within my talents..."

"Well," she added, "if I'm not mistaken, ice skating should be very similar to running in air shoes, so you should do fine."

Shadow closed his eyes as if to ponder, then began speaking again, "well if anyone will take to it quickly, I think it will be fox boy over here. He has a knack for learning."

Tails, now being 14 and in his 'I'm the center of the universe' days, responded with an unscientific, yet totally serious, "oh yeah, I'll be the best skater in a matter of minutes!"

Then shadow stopped to drag attention to himself. They all looked back at him to see what he was doing. "However, you two, I'm not so sure about" he said as he pointes at sonic and knuckles.

Tails went over to shadow and faced the others. "hmmm," he mumbled, as he thought of his idol's past. "Yup, you two just won't quite cut it..."

Amy joined the two, and added, "Well My sonic can do anything he wants to, but knuckles, well, I have to side with these two on that one."

Sonic slyly stepped with the other three, "yup, you just come up a bit short, knucklehead"

Then Shadow grabbed sonic by the back of the neck, lifted him, and carried him back to Knuckles, "a good effort, but you'll have to be much better than that to trick me... back to the failure section." then everyone laughed, except sonic...

-----------------------------Fast forward in time a few minutes... ...for the last time! I promise!----------------------------------------

As was expected, Tails and Shadow took to skating rather easily. Shadow was particularly good at stopping sideways and throwing ice shavings at whomever was in his path, and showed proficient skill in most other aspects as well. Tails managed to get really technical at the start, and was working on figure 8s, spins, flips, and all kinds of other fancy tricks. Surprisingly, Knuckles did find a way that was comfortable for him to learn to skate. As Amy had tried to describe it before as a series of lunges, his strategy was more like a series of power punches of in diagonals from his intended path. It took him a while to get the hang of skating without lunging, and even longer to turn without completely stopping and rotating. However, he held his head high as he showed dominance over his azure rival, who was too impatient to keep his legs still.

Unwilling to wait, he powered his legs in circles as he would on land, and basically didn't move. On one of these occasions, he continued 'running' so long he actually carves a hole in the ice and fell in till his skates reached the sand below, leaving his head just inches above the water level. After this, Amy once again cuddled her darling back to full warmth. After viewing this event for the second time in one day, Shadow nearly threw up just a bit in his mouth, but was saved the embarrassment by Tails' decision to brag at his mastery of a triple axel. Conveniently, he was too distracted to throw up, and too sickened to want to throttle the newly pubescent fox.

By 4:00, they had all learned a decent amount of skating. Even Sonic did learn, although he decided it didn't have enough body movement to be favorable for him. All was going well, but of course, it couldn't remain that way for long, not in this universe.

Suddenly, from out of the city, came a low wail, as a familiar slightly retarded voice known to bring trouble to the group. The oversized friendly feline cam wallowing along at breakneck speed onto the ice. "Amy, AAaaaammmyyyyyy! Its froggy, Its FFrrroooOooGgGgYyyY!" He continued down the ice, but when it came time to stop, he merely slid on like a bowling ball toward the pins.

Sonic, the least skilled of the skaters, was caught directly in his path, and was knocked spinning back as the cats momentum transferred to him. In a chain reaction, Sonic managed to add both tails and knuckles to the flying mass, which proceeded to slam into Amy, who toppled face to face onto Shadow.

Before anyone could recover, Big made his way over to Amy and began to cry to her, "A - Amy, th they took fu fu froggy! They took Froggy!"

Amy pushed herself up away from Shadow's chest and looked at the cat. She looked up at the furry friend, and calmed him, "there there, big fella, its okay, its okay, we can help you find him. After all we're your friends too!" Big, kind hearted and big hearted as he was, stopped panicking and bent down to give the pink friend a hug.

"Th thanks A Amy," he said with some trouble still in his voice.

"So, who is this 'they' that stole him?"

"It was a b-birdy. A rrrreeeeaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllyyyyy b-big birdy. And it went 'clink clunk' like that." he paused for a moment, then inspiration hit him as he remembered another key detail. "ooh, oooohh, the birdi also said something about the lights going out too. Then I got hit on the head and fell asleep."

"Hmmmmm, a talking giant metal bird? this has Eggman written all over it." Tails said as he came back from his pile.

Meanwhile, Shadow was lying on the ice. No one except him seemed to realize that there was a lovely rosy woman straddling him like a horse. His face portrayed fear and bewilderment, but just a hint of lust could be seen if one stared deep into his red wine eyes. he was almost completely cut off from speech, but he managed to force out a sentence, "uuuumm, Amy? you can get off of me now..." he tried to maintain the sense of dominance he normally emited, and for the most part succeeded.

"Oh, sorry Shadow, I forgot you were down there." She saw his face. Everyone did. And theyall understood too. all of them would have been freaked if they recovered from a fall to find Amy laying on, then later sitting on in a sexual position. Luckily for Shadow, almost nobody saw that last little shred of emotion. he himself wouldn't notice it for some time.

Ironically, the only one that caught anything was the huggable, lovable, oh so special big. The massive cat saw that lust in the eyes of darkness for a split second, and something clicked into place inside his mind.

(shadow's thoughts) What the hell is this? So strange... this feeling,.. this warmth. It's intoxicating, yet it brings such happiness... And I know sometimes my emotions will ravage my mind and trigger positive feelings, but, is it really meant to emanate in my leg? Wait, that isn't what I was feeling before, that is something different. Ahhhh, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

As Amy rose from her black seat, shadow's eyes shot wider than they were before, and his mouth changed quickly to a fanged frown filled with anger and pain. He growled under his breath a bit, and Amy fell back as he bolted upright and grasped his calf. When everyone looked at what he was holding, they only saw his gloved hand covered in liquid blood that shone deep like his eyes.

Amy looked at the blade of her skate, and saw the same blood shining brightly on the smooth metal. She let out a small cry of shock. Everyone let out a series of 'oh my god's and 'shadow are you okay's. Shadow just shrugged them off.

He shoved them all back, then rose slowly to his feet. He took a step, but again, he cringed and fell to the floor. Everyone finaly got agood look at the wound. right accross the red stripe on his left leg, was a gash about6 inches (15 cm)long. It covered the rest of his leg with warm red blood.

"We have to get him to a hospital!" Tails burst out, "that kind of wound could be fatal!"

Sonic steped forth and 'bravely' announced, "I'll take him. I can get him there faster than any ambulence or anyone else here." he forced shadow into submission and placed his arms under his back and legs. He stood up, then tossed shadow a bit to get a better grip, while accidentally smacking Shadow'sbut and causing his leg great pain in the process.

Shadow cringed as Sonic started running. "If you touch my ass again, Sonic, I'll put every ounce of strength into killing you!"

Sonic smirked at him, then tosssed him a bit more ot smack his ass, this time on purpose. Shadow cringed again, then growled deeply and visciously. sonic butted in, "Just think of it this way, Shad... I could be doing a lot worse things right now..."

They passed a subway station. halve way there Sonic thought.

Shadow glared at the blur with both fear and resentment, "You shut up. now!"

"oh calm down Shad, I'm only joking besides, your in no position to make threats now, heck you cant even walk. So just sit back, calm down, and enjoy the ride. Besides," he smirked once more, "you've lost so much blood you'll probably pass out any second now... he he!"

Sure enough, Shadow's griping stopped. Sonic looked down to see the black animal unconcious in his arms...

End chapter. long eh?

sorry for taking so long to update steph. i'm lazy.

i'll be gone at high advernture camp for the next week, I expect lots of reviews from all of you when i get back. 2 weeks till the next chapter. yay for hospital visits.