Hey, guys and girls! How're you all doing? Me? I'm just fine—no, wait…(chomps on chocolate bar) Now I'm fine. (lol) Sorry, people. I can't resist my sense of comic relief! It's a curse.

Shadow: Yeah, and it's annoying.

S. Kat: That's 'cause you don't have any sense of humor…bl—

Shadow: DON'T YOU DARE SAY IT! (death glare)

S. Kat:(shiver) Uh… Tails… w-would you like to say the disclaimer this time…?

Tails: Sure! Ahem. SaphireKat does not own Sonic & Co. She owns Ruby and Leo. Please enjoy Chapter 5!

Shadowed Photo Ch. 5- ARK Field Trip

"Hrrrm…?" I woke up on a slightly comfy mattress. I thought it was my bed at first, but when I stretched out my hand to feel for my teddy bear (I know you all sleep with stuffed animals, too, so back off! XP) I realized that this wasn't my bed, or my room, or even my house! I immediately snapped my eyes open and sat strait up.

"Wh…huh…? Where am…?" I looked around the room. It had white walls and hospital rolling beds all around the room. "Did something happen to me?" I was expecting to get an answer from somewhere, but no one spoke. I was completely alone. 'This…' I thought, 'This can't be a hospital, there's no one here!'

I have been to a hospital before, and there is NEVER a large room that is completely empty. And it was way to quiet. Too quiet. I didn't trust the silent ness.

"Okay," I announced to myself. "I've got to get out of here!" I took the covers off and ran to the door. Actually, it looked like some sort of automatic sliding door. But when I stepped in front of it, it didn't open. I tried jumping up and down and prying it open with my hands, too. Nope, didn't work. 'It must be locked…'

Then I noticed a pad with numbers on it, on the wall, next to the door. 'Oh, now I get it. You need a number combination to open this door.' I wasn't sure what combination to type in, so I randomly typed in combos that popped into my head.

"312… password incorrect."

"369…password incorrect."

"555… password incorrect."

"278… password…"

"ARGH! All right! I get!'Incorrect!' Stupid…!" I shouted in frustration.

"…Accepted."

"…Eh? Oh. That wasn't too hard."

I ran out of the room as quickly as I could, but once again, I failed to pay attention to who was in font of me and I bumped into the person who was holding some papers and a clipboard and accidentally dropping them.

"Oof! Oh… I'm so sorry!" I went down on my knees to pick up the papers for the man. I could have sworn that one of the paper said 'The Eclipse Cannon'. When I saw it I stopped picking up papers and stared at it for a second. "What's this? 'The Eclipse…' " I began to read. The paper was ripped out of my hand before I could finish.

"Well," an elderly voice sneered. "It looks like our 'stole-away' has woken up. Heh, heh…"

'That sinister voice! I've heard that voice before! On TV I think…oh, no…'

I had a pretty good idea who it was. I slowly, painfully lifted up my head to come face to face with the notorious Dr. Eggman! I immediately stood up and backed away from him.

"NO WAY! Y-you were behind all of this!" I shouted.

"Ho ho ho ho ho! Aren't you quite the 'Honors Student?' Unfortunately, since you stuck your nose into other people's business, you are now my prisoner for the remainder of…wha?"

Before he could finish ranting, I was already down the hall and turning the corner.

"St-stop you little brat! Hey!"

As much as I wanted to turn around and kick him in the shin, I kept going until the old geezer ran out of gas.

"(Gasp)…(gasp)…wait… you… little…oi." He collapsed and fell on the floor. 'Looks like someone needs to work out more.' I snickered in my mind. "That does it. I'm getting too old for this…" Weezed the doctor.

One of the robots named Bocoe, which was the taller, yellow-ish robot rushed over to the doctor and said, "Why don't you just retire Dr. Eggman?"

"Because, you worthless hunk of… oh, good grief. Do I really have to repeat my self?"

Down the hall...

I ran for a couple of minutes before I reached another door that lead to yet another hallway. That's when I was officially exhausted. I slowed down and bent over, trying to catch my breath. I put one hand on the wall to support myself. This was getting very, very frustrating. Why did I even bother running? I didn't know where the heck I was and I wasn't making the situation any better by running and getting myself lost. I lifted up my head and was about to run again until I looked out the window for the first time. "Wh…what…?"

I blinked. I blinked again. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself. "Ouch!" Nope. I wasn't hallucinating I was staring into OUTER SPACE! Literally! I couldn't help myself but say, "Wow." It was seriously cool. For a second, I completely forgot that I was trying to find a way out of here. I was sort of calming, in a way, staring into the blackness of space that's filled with millions of twinkling little stars.

I also saw two other things as well. The first one was the Earth. I had always seen photos of the planet that had been taken from outer space, never thinking that I would be lucky enough to see the whole entire planet from space in person. "The Earth looks so…" I whispered.

Out of nowhere, I saw Shadow's reflection was next to my own.

"That used to be my favorite spot to stand when I was confused or deep in thought. It had a pretty good view of the Earth, too."

"Whoa!" I jumped a least a foot into the air and turned around. My heart was pounding due to Shadow's 'amazing' ability to pop out of nowhere.

"O-oh… um… hi?" That was the only thing I could force myself to say. I gulped and I smiled nervously. He walked up to me slowly, not trying to scare me again.

"You know," he began, "you don't have to force yourself to acknowledge me if you don't want to."

Um, okay, why was he being nice all of a sudden? Once I knew he didn't mean any harm I felt more relaxed. "I know. I just don't want seem… rude, I guess."

He turned towards the window and crossed his arms. "Heh. Even though I kidnapped you?" I fell silent. That was a good question. If he was the one who 'kidnapped' me, why was I trying to be nice to him? Or… was he trying to be nice to me? Ha! Yeah, right!

I thought it felt safe enough to ask a question. "So, um…"

"My name is Shadow the Hedgehog."

I smiled a little. "Okay. So, Shadow the Hedgehog, where exactly am I?"

"You are on the lounging deck in the space colony, ARK." He answered, pretty strait forward.

"S…sp… space colony ARK! S-so all of this… is part of some space colony?"

"You got it… Ruby, was it?"

"Yep. Ruby Gemmon. That's my name," I tried to say nicely.

"Mm. Professor Gerald Robotnic built this colony over fifty years ago. And was possibly one of the greatest minds the world has ever… huh? What do you think you're doing?"

"Hm? Oh! Er… nothing! Nothing at all!" While he was going on about the colony, I was jotting down notes in my notepad. It was a habit I picked up from my uncle during his reporter days. I probably didn't sound so convincing…

Next thing I knew, he was on the other side of me, reading my notes. "HEEEEEEY! Don't you know how to say 'please'!" I made an attempt to lunge at him, but he 'teleported' behind me. (He actually ran behing me, but he was so fast it seemed like he was teleporting.)

"Hm… what do we have here…? 'March 18- Sonic the hedgehog is the suspect of the Chaos Emerald robbery last night and midnight… black hedgehog frames Sonic… tricks GUN into capturing Sonic…'" He cocked an eyebrow as if he was surprised that I knew all of this. "How did you figure out all of this?"

Okay, he was definitely surprised.

'Shoot…' I started to panic.'What do I do, what do I do, WHAT DO I DO?'

"Shadow, are you bugging this girl?" Saved by the bell! The white bat from before, named 'Rouge', I think, came through the door.

"Rouge." He acknowledged, with the same hint of annoyance as he had before. (Big surprise there, huh, folks?) I saw this as a perfect opportunity to take back my notepad. I quickly ripped it out of his hand while he was distracted and gave him a triumphant "HA!"

He turned around to leave and gave me a 'hmph'. "Fine, you can have it back. Frankly, I couldn't care less."

'Tch. So much for having a slightly good side…Man, WHAT was I thinking?'

"Gee, thanks so much…"

"I'm sorry. What was that?" He looked up at me and gave me the scariest death look I have ever seen! It was like he was staring daggers into me! I completely froze into place with my 'white ghost face' expression. By the time I regained my senses, he had already left.

"See' ya around," Rouge called out. "…blacky."

Shadow stopped for a second without turning around. His left ear twitched a bit and mumbled something about how he was going to murder Rouge and then kept walking. I let out a sigh of relief.

Rouge turned to me winked. "You owe me for that, kiddo."

I blushed a bit and giggled. "Thanks."

She waved her hand as if saying 'no big deal.' "Any time. And you can call me 'Rouge the Bat.' Or just 'Rouge' for short."

"Nice meeting you. You can call me Ruby Gemmon. But I prefer just 'Ruby'."

"Ruby…?" Her ears perked up a bit and her eyes sparkled with slight interest. "Isn't that the nameof a gem? That's a nice name. I actually have a friend who's—"

"Rouge!" Eggman's voice echoed through the halls on the speakers. "Get down here to the main computer immediately. And bring our prisoner—oh, I mean our 'guest' with you. I'm sure she'll like the demonstration I've set up!"

"All right, all right! We're on our way! Sheesh… that old coot needs to cool his jets…" Mumbled Rouge. Rouge headed for the door and I followed.

'Demonstration…? What does he mean by that?'

I wasn't too sure at the moment, but I knew it meant something bad. Really, really, bad!

Whew! Okay, that's chappy five, people! Oh, and don't forget... REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW! (pant, pant) One more thing: Like I said, I'm excepting anonymous reviews, meaning you can review even though you're not a member of fanfic. Okay, later peoples! ;)