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windstorm-5~ She isn't one of my favorite characters either, but I still have a bit of pity for what I did to her. But I'm glad you love it, and yea, that part was fun to write! XD

Hope you all enjoy this chapter! ^^

A Sonadow Story:

Hero's Heart Corrupted

Chapter 9: Mistaken Signs

Loud, rapid knocking woke up the black hedgehog in his slumber. Shadow grumbled and tossed on his other side on his bed, hoping that whoever was knocking would go away, but the knocking continued to become louder and faster by the second. It was sunrise and soon enough, the knocking was going as fast as the sound of Sonic's feet hitting the ground as he runs his fastest. The Ultimate Lifeform yelled for them to stop and go away with some extra choice words, but the knocking only got even faster. Finally, the antihero grabbed his pillow and threw it at the wall with a muffled poof, getting up out of his bed and exiting his room to answer the door.

Shadow had successfully taken Tails to Vanilla's house last night, having to tell the rabbit and bunny what had happened. They were delighted to take Tails in and the black hedgehog had Chaos Controlled to home. There have been no word of the others, but they most likely had made it home safe too.

Shadow stepped down the stairs quickly of his two-story house, the knocking still sounding. The irritated black hedgehog approached and flung open the door, getting hit on his forehead by a quick gloved fist. Rubbing his head and growling a bit, he turned to see who his visitor was. Of course, it was The Blue Blur himself, looking quite rushed.

"Oh, sorry Shads, didn't mean it! But quickly, we gotta go!" The flustered blue hedgehog spoke faster than usual. The antihero had to reenact the scene that just happened in those short few seconds in his head to in order to catch what Sonic had said, both due to his recent awakening and the blow to the head. He shook his head and gave his blue counterpart his trademark stoic face.

"What do you mean 'gotta go'? To where?"

"There was another murder down in the city and we gotta go check it out! C'mon, let's get going!" Sonic grabbed his dark rival's arm and started to pull him out of the house, dragging him outside of the house, wanting to get there as fast as possible unlike the first time they went to check out a murder scene. Shadow yanked his arm out of the blue hero's grip, scowling.

"What do you think we are, Mystery Inc.? I'm not going to be coming along with you every time a murder occurs. I have better things to do than to tag along on your stupid little hero calls," the Ultimate Lifeform darkly spoke to him, quite unnatural according to yesterday. Sonic actually flinched from the darkness in his tone. The blue speedster sighed.

"Look, this one is personal," he said softly, the rush now drained from him.

Shadow was taken aback by the sudden change, but didn't show it. He continued to glare at his blue rival as he spoke.

"Tails is actually there now, waiting for me. He told me this morning about the murder when he came over and that it was someone I know that had been.. taken from us. He won't tell me who though. I just told him to go ahead without me while I got ready," Sonic said in all seriousness. This was something that hardly anyone ever saw from the blue hero, and it seemed uncharacteristic of him. Shadow never said anything for a few moments as he tried to process all of this.

"And I think Amy must have gone too. She wasn't anywhere in her house this morning."

Like Shadow cared though. He hoped that she was the one that had gotten murdered out of the group of friends Sonic had, but he didn't know why. They weren't friends, but he hasn't hated her this much until recently. The antihero caught sight of his blue doppelganger turning his back to him, getting into a racing stance.

"But you're right though. It was worth a shot." The blue speedster turned his head away, but whipped it back a second later.

"Oh, and one more thing." There is a small silence between the two supersonic hedgehogs, both staring at each other. "I guess we're even, in a way."

A cobalt blue streak zoomed off before Shadow could ask him what he meant. The dark rival of the blue hedgehog lived in a forest-like area, so it wasn't long before the blue streak went behind a tree and vanished. The Ultimate Lifeform crossed his arms over his chest and went deep into thought for a couple of moments, staring at the tree that Sonic had disappeared behind. Sighing, he turned around and entered back into his dwelling, closing the door behind him.

~With Sonic~

The sound of the wind blowing in his ears as he ran and the sound of his feet hitting the grassy ground below him calmed him, being two of the sounds he would always love. Dodging trees wasn't much of a hassle for the speedy daredevil. Well, that was a fail, Sonic thought, thinking back to his short visit with Shadow. He had thought that after their last trip, the black and red-streaked hedgehog would have accepted to go with him, but yet he declined. Sonic guessed that his black counterpart was just trying to get things back to the way they used to be, with them just as rivals, although he didn't know why he would want that. At that thought, he didn't even know why he wanted Shadow to come with him.

Ugh, must be the headache I woke up with this morning.

The blue hero had entered the moorland that they have tread over so many times. Sonic felt at home here, just a free open space to run, with the exception of the few apple trees here. The city looked small in the distance than what it did when you were actually there. Crossing the hills, Sonic ran directly in the direction of the city, not excited to see who had been exactly killed.

~In The City~

Sonic didn't know where the site was as he ran all around the city. He had to dodge cars as they went by and avoid bumping into civilians. Whipping out the communicator earpiece that Shadow had tossed to him yesterday from his cobalt blue spines, he rerouted it to contact Tails, knowing that the twin-tailed fox always had some kind of communicator on him.

"Man, I really need to get a cell phone," the blue hedgehog chuckled to himself and put the communicator on his ear, holding down a button on it to speak.

"Tails buddy, can you hear me?" Sonic spoke as he ran, turning down a block.

It was only a matter of seconds before the speedy blue hedgehog heard something like the other end trying to put the communicator on. The voice on the other end instantly made Sonic grin, something that he hasn't done at all this morning.

"Hiya Sonic! When did you get another communicator?" The voice of Tails spoke on the other line.

"Just a little somethin' Shadow let me use yesterday, hehheh. He never told me I needed to return it." He unconsciously grinned even more at the mention of the antihero's name.

There was a long silence on the other line, so Sonic decided to get to the reason why he even contacted Tails in the first place.

"Anyway, where are ya at? I've been looking all over the city for this site!" The Blue Blur ran across a street and had to dodge a car as he said that.

"Do you remember when I had that cinnamon roll and I threw up from it, and you slipped and fell in it?" Tails couldn't hold back his laughter and cracked up laughing.

"Ugh, don't remind me." The now embarrassed blue hedgehog rolled his eyes. His kitsune brother laughed continuously and Sonic put on an irritated expression with his ears flattened back. After a few moments, Tails finally had enough air to speak again.

"W-well, we're around that area," he said in between breaths, just knowing that Sonic wasn't very happy with him for bringing up that embarrassing moment.

"Yea, thanks so much for explaining where you are in that way. It's not like you could have said what road you're on or anything!" The blue-furred hedgehog teased and made Tails chuckle a little bit more, even when they're meeting up where a murder was committed.

"Alrighty, I'll see you there in a sonic second!" The Fastest Thing Alive said his farewell and removed his finger off the button on the side of the communicator, taking the device off of his ear and putting it back in his cobalt blue spines. Tails took off the device as well and smiled at it before putting it back on his ear, just in case Sonic called back.

It wasn't very long before Sonic turned around a corner to see yellow caution tape, the flashing red and blue lights of police cars, and police officers everywhere, something very common to him now. He spotted Tails flying above the scene with his two helicopter-like tails, looking for clues.

"Yo, Tails!" The blue hedgehog called up to his little brother.

Tails spun around to face the direction of the call and smiled at him. Descending to the ground, the twin-tailed fox greeted the supersonic hedgehog with a small, little bro hug.

"You're finally here! What took you so long?" The kitsune asked.

"Eh, just had to do a quick stop. Nothing important." Sonic simply shrugged like he didn't care. Tails did the same, then frowned.

"You ready to see?" Tails gestured his hand at a police car, probably the murdered victim behind it, Sonic guessed. The blue hero only nodded as a nervous look masked his face, Tails leading him close. The police officers moved out of the way of the two Mobians, Sonic finally seeing the person who was killed, him putting on a face of agony and falling on his knees.

Surrounded in a huge pool of her own blood was Amy the Hedgehog, motionless with eyes closed, laying on her back to face the cloudy sky. She looked so peaceful in death, looking like she was just sleeping. Several scratches were scattered on her body, some tearing through her dress to show her blood-covered skin underneath. Sonic crawled closer to her and looked at her more closely to see what else this killer can do. From his angle, he could only see the left side of her, which was mainly covered with deep claw marks and rubble from the road. The blue hedgehog looked at her other side, only to retract in disgust. Circular bite marks were bore deep into her skin and more deep scratches covered her, and that wasn't even the worst part. Her eye wasn't just closed, it was stitched shut, along with her mouth too. All the skin on the right side of her face was torn off to show her muscular system underneath and her right eye was missing from its socket, also her right ear gone. Sonic quickly moved back, hyperventilating. Tails walked up behind the panicking blue hedgehog, crouching and patting his back reassuringly, causing Sonic to flinch and whip his head around to face Tails, who gave him a sad look. The kitsune looked back up at Amy again.

"It looks like she was attacked by some kind of animal," he said and his blue brother nodded.

"That's what it looks like to me too." A deep, familiar voice said.

Both the kitsune and hedgehog turned to the direction where they heard the voice come from, which was a dark, shady alleyway nearby. Walking from the darkness into the light of day was Shadow, wearing his usual disinterested expression. Uncharacteristically, Tails gave the bionic hedgehog a glare, while Sonic greeted him with a small wave of his gloved hand as he took deep breaths from his hyperventilation attack.

"S-Shads, what are you.. doing here?" Sonic breathed out as he stood up from the rough floor with his twin-tailed buddy following along. Shadow shrugged.

"Just another day of being Mystery Inc., of course, and because it's my job as a G.U.N agent. What's up with Foxboy?" The antihero turned to look at Tails by Faker's side, Sonic doing the same with his breathing even again.

Tails was still glaring at Shadow. The black hedgehog even took a step to the right and then to the left, the twin-tailed fox's glare following him.

"So smooth, Shadow. You think you can get away with this," Tails finally spoke with his tone dark and his usually cheerful attitude nonexistent. Sonic and Shadow looked at the kitsune, confused.

"Don't act so clueless." The twin-tailed fox spun his helicopter-like tails and rose up in the air, flying up to Shadow to become face-to-face with him.

"I don't get what you're going at. Can you guys ever be clear for once?" Shadow folded his arms over his chest, referring back to what Sonic had said before he dashed off, which is actually the real reason why the black hedgehog followed Sonic to the site.

"Fine, I will clarify myself since you keep pretending to not know what I'm talking about." Tails descended back to the ground again. "I accuse Shadow the Hedgehog of being the killer!"

That surprises both the supersonic hedgehogs at such an accusation, catching the police officers' attention in the area.

"Are you sure this isn't some defected robot clone from Eggman like Metal Sonic?" Shadow whispered to his blue counterpart, but Tails heard very clearly.

"I'm sure that I'm not, killer. You've killed people before in the past, and you can easily do it again for your ridiculous reasons. I also saw you back there at Sonic's front yard when we were discussing our sleeping arrangements," the twin-tailed fox recalled as he paced back and forth a few feet.

"You looked like you wanted to kill her then and there, but you didn't. You waited until it was night where you could slaughter her in the darkness where nobody could see or hear her! And why so badly!?" The kitsune stopped his pacing to face the antihero again, pointing at Amy's corpse. Shadow never said anything as Tails spoke, making the blue hero by him wonder if Tails was actually right.

Had Shadow really killed Amy and is just using me so I will back him up instead of Tails?

Sonic was pulled from his thoughts when he heard his name come from his twin-tailed brother's mouth. "Come on Sonic, you can't be fooled by his uhh.. 'fondness'. He's just toying with you. He's a killer and we know it." Tails looked at The Blue Blur, expecting that Sonic would move to his side instead of staying by Shadow's.

Honestly, the blue hedgehog didn't know. He glanced to his side to look at Shadow and his black counterpart looked back, but not with what he expected. His dark rival looked like he didn't even care about what choice he made, having his trademark stoic expression.

Why can't he just accept the fact that we could try to be friends instead of having to live as rivals for the rest of our lives? We don't have to go back to our old ways! Fine, if he wants it that way, I'll let him, Sonic scowled at Shadow and turned away from him. He bounded away next to Tails, mimicking Shadow's "crossed arms" look and glaring at said hedgehog.

The bionic hedgehog still looked like he didn't care, but deeply, he felt an unknown feeling of betrayal. He really believes that I would kill one of his friends? A little harsh, even for me.

"That doesn't prove that I killed Amy. Those are just simple coincidences that seemed to happen. And to add onto that, my tee-" Shadow was cut off mid-sentence by a loud scream.

The producer of the scream happened to be Sonic, who crumbled to the road floor and began to spasm uncontrollably. Extreme amounts of pain bolted through his entire body as he wreathed on the ground, trying to hold back his screams. To describe the pain, it felt like his bones were breaking inside of him and rearranging themselves around his body, yet they weren't. He let out another cry of agony and Tails frantically tried to stop him from moving, the pain rising the more Sonic moved.

"Shadow is trying to kill Sonic now! GET HIM!" The twin-tailed fox shouted at the officers around the area and they aimed their guns at the black hedgehog. He could only quickly let out a "oh shit" before taking off in the other direction of the officers, dodging their bullets and civilians' cars with lightning speed. Car horns blared in his sensitive ears and several sounds of sirens echoed behind the bionic hedgehog as he skated. Roadblocks were set on major roads so civilians couldn't get in the way of the pursuit. Shadow would sometimes lose the cops for a few moments, but more reinforcements would try to intercept him by going down another road and chase him from behind again.

"I can't shake them off! Well, just have to keep trying so I can get out of this insane city," the antihero spoke to himself then groaned when another police car tried to stop him by coming out of an alleyway, only for him to speed up and the police car joining the other police cars behind him. He then felt a force pull him to the left into a different alleyway with him falling on the ground. The police cars didn't notice and zoomed past Shadow, the sound of the sirens fading off into the distance. The black hedgehog 'hmph'ed and stood up from the dirty ground, dusting off his dark fur and turning around. There stood Sonic, who looked well and fine unlike before.

"Faker? What happened back there? How did you get-?" Sonic lashed out his arm and covered his black counterpart's mouth with his gloved hand.

"I'll explain later but now, we need to get you out of here. I'm gonna help you get out of this first. Do you still have that green Chaos Emerald with you?" The blue hero recalled the neon green jewel that he had stolen from Shadow before when heading to the first murder site, all seriousness in his tone and facial expression.

Without a word, his dark rival reached into his upturned head spines and whipped out the shiny emerald from them. "Perfect! Now think of a place and-"

"Shadow the Hedgehog, we now have you surrounded! Drop the emerald and hold your hands up!"

A bullhorn yowled and the only exit from the alleyway was blocked by police and police cars, the other end, unfortunately, being a dead end. Tails was among them, being the holder of the bullhorn and glaring bitterly at said hedgehog he mentioned. Shadow glared just as bitterly back with a scowl and gently put the green superjewel on the ground, but then he was soon on the ground as well, the back of his head throbbing in pain. The stunned black hedgehog looked back and saw his attacker was actually Sonic, his blue counterpart looking fumed with rage.

"What the hell has gotten into you!?" Shadow yelled at the, apparently bipolar, blue copy of him as he stood up again.

"You know what you did! You killed Amy and I will not allow this!" Sonic says loudly and cracks his knuckles.

"But you said that you were going to-" Shadow tries to speak, but Sonic growls and rams roughly into the antihero, shutting him up by knocking all the air out of him and pinning him against the alleyway wall. Shadow grunts in discomfort as his blue counterpart moves his head close to his ear.

"Would you keep it down!? I am going to help you, but we can't let them know that I am! They'll either lock us both up on Prison Island or chase us out of the city and we'll never find out who's causing these murders! Now struggle to make this more convincing!" Sonic whispered intensely and his dark rival finally understood what was happening, struggling just enough to keep him in Sonic's grip still.

Something Shadow noticed was that it seemed like the blue hero had gotten stronger with his upper body, something that the bionic hedgehog had always overruled Sonic in, yet he kept the surprise of his discovery to himself.

"Oh, so it's fine if they lock me up instead," he whispered back with a sneer. Meanwhile during all of this, Tails watched the two supersonic hedgehogs intently with a smirk of triumph in what he thought was Shadow trying his hardest to get Sonic off of him and failing.

"I'm not gonna let that happen. Now, this is what we're gonna do..."

Tails watched as the battle gained more action when Shadow kicked his blue doppelganger off of him to stumble a few feet away. Sonic regained his balance and ducked his head just in time to dodge Shadow's high kick. The Blue Blur smirked and tossed some quick punches at his dark rival, making Shadow hop back to dodge them. Tails cheered for his blue brother, throwing both his hands into the air while chanting his name and dropping the bullhorn in the process, one of the officers being quick and catching it like a boss. Taking this as his advantage, as Shadow was hopping back, Sonic did a low kick and tripped his black doppelganger, knocking him to the ground.

"Sweet dreams, Shads, because you're about to see the darkness of unconsciousness!" The blue hedgehog taunted and grabbed both of Shadow's ankles, spinning him around in a circle and lifting him into the air due to the momentum.

Tails was enjoying every second of this victorious fight, until he caught something in the corner of his eye. As Sonic was spinning Shadow around to throw him into the wall, a quick black and red-streaked arm lashed out towards the ground and grabbed the neon green Chaos Emerald that was set there before. Tails tried to call out to the blue hero, but it was already too late. Sonic released the bionic hedgehog towards the dead end of the alleyway, smirking in satisfaction from everything going to plan. A loud "Chaos Control!" was heard and a white light filled the whole area, The Ultimate Lifeform gone a second later.

Wiping the smirk off his face, The Fastest Thing Alive turned to his droopy-tailed fox bro, Tails upset that Shadow got away.

"Sorry Tails. I should have thought that through. Should've expected that from him." Sonic had to force the sentence out without choking on his own words, hating that he had to lie to him.

"It's fine, Sonic. Now we need to find out why he's even killing all these people and how to stop him." The boy genius put on a thoughtful look.

"But first," Sonic interrupted.

"We need to find out where he Chaos Controlled to."

~End of Chapter 9~

Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, my fabulous readers! c;