CHAPTER 3

MR. INVISIBLE

Shadow and Espio were hiding behind the bushes while waiting for the others to get back to them after they checked around the museum.

"Can you believe it, Es? That hag's been on my ass since the day I met her and now she has the nerve to threaten me? She threatened to take Kayla away from me and send her to an orphanage. This is bad, Espio. Really bad."

"I don't know, Shadow. I see no problem with what you're talking about. If Kayla goes to an orphanage, there's a good chance that she'll find new parents that can look after her. But if you want her to stay with you so much, you should just..."

"No! I won't do that."

"But Shadow, why not? Adopting her would be a good thing. It would make you happy."

He looked down towards the ground, "Yeah, but would she be happy? I know she still misses her father and I don't want to jump into his place."

The chameleon sighed, "But, Shadow..." He was cut off when he heard Vector curse while he and the others were approaching him.

"Damn." Vector had said again.

"What is it, Vector?" Epsio asked.

"Two guys made it to the emerald before we could", he answered.

Shadow's eyes widened with disbelief, "What?"

Vector then led them to a black van with the two men wearing black talking.

Kayla spotted one of the men tossing a green Chaos Emerald up and down in his hand. She stared at the emerald like she was mesmerized by it. She then held her head and groaned in pain.

Shadow heard her groaning and faced her, "Kayla, what's wrong?"

The two men stopped talking and immediately faced the group.

One of the men grabbed a huge weird looking gun and pointed it at Kayla, "Don't move or we'll shoot the girl."

Kayla started to tremble in fear, "Don't hurt me", she begged.

The man smirked as his finger tightened on the trigger. It was clear he was going to shoot her anyway.

"Don't you dare!" Espio quickly pulled out a kunai and threw it at the gun, knocking it out of his hand.

The gun flew out of his hand and slid over to the other side of the street.

Before the man dressed in black could grab it, Shadow ran up to it and took it from the ground. He pointed the gun at the man and tried to shoot him with it but fortunate for him he moved before he had a chance to fire the gun. Shadow was then knocked to the ground by the other man while dropping the gun.

One of them picked the gun off the ground and pointed it at Shadow, "I don't know what this gun does, but it better be worth the steal." Once he pulled the trigger to the gun, an unseen gunfire appeared from the barrel and made a direct hit on Shadow.

Kayla let out a scream, "Detective Hedgehog!"

The next thing everyone knew, Shadow had disappeared instantly.

Charmy looked around in every direction but he didn't see Shadow anywhere. "Where did he go?"

Rouge glared over to the two men, "Where's Shadow?"

"We don't know where that hedgehog went", one of them shrugged. "This was our first time using the thing."

"But it doesn't matter", the other said as he held up the green emerald. "We got what we came for." He and his partner turned and began to run away from them.

Vector clenched his fists, "I don't think so." He ran after them and harshly tackled them both on the ground, making them drop the gun and emerald.

The two men flinched as Vector raised his two fists in the air.

"No!" One yelled. "Don't kill us! We won't steal again. We promise."

"You had better not", Vector growled. "Just get out of my sight. I don't ever want to see you two again."

They both nodded and quickly got off the ground, running away afterwards.

Tonya placed her hands on her hips, "What amateurs."

"Yeah well, those amateurs just got rid of Shadow. Who knows where he is." Vector did seem pretty worried about him for once.

"Yeah, he could be dead or something", Charmy added.

Kayla's eyes watered with sadness, "Detective Hedgehog is...dead", she wheezed.

Rouge kneeled down to her and held her close to her. "Oh no, Kayla. Shadow isn't dead. We promise."

Kayla smiled a bit, glad that she said he wasn't dead. "But...where did he go?" She asked.

Vector held the weird gun in his arms, "We don't know, but it's best if we took this gun back to the Chaotix and find out what it did to him."

Espio nodded with the green Chaos Emerald in his hands, "Yeah, I agree with Vector."

As Espio held the emerald closer to Kayla, the more she held her head like she was in pain. Though she had never said a word about it.

Later that next morning, a man and woman were walking down the street happily until they both fell to the ground. They had both tripped on something like a body, but there was no body. They didn't see anything.

As the man helped the woman off the ground, they heard groaning near them.

"Hey you idiots. Haven't you see an unconscious hedgehog laying in the middle of the street before?"

The man started to look around, "Who said that?"

"Uh...me."

"Where?"

"In front of you jackass."

The man looked ahead of him and saw nothing. He slowly took his finger and touched something warm and fuzzy. It felt like fur, but he couldn't see it.

"What the hell are you trying to do! Feel me?"

He quickly took his finger away from it and jumped back. "Ghost!" Then he and the woman ran away.

"What's their problem? Ghost? What are they talking about anyway?"

He walked towards a store window to see his reflection, but he saw nothing. He saw other people's reflection except for his. "What?" He said in a low voice. He gently touched the window with his hand and looked closer and still he didn't see himself. He took his hand away and looked at it. "What's wrong with me? My body...I can't see it." He then thought back about what happened last night. "That's right, those two thieves shot me with that weird gun and now I'm like invisible. Wait a minute, I'm invisible?" He smirked, "Kick ass."

N/A: Sorry about the wait. I am currently having an identity crisis. I don't know who I am lately. Am I goth? Am I emo? I don't know. Well, hopefully I'll figure that out soon. Oh and I'm getting into Naruto now. Going to Hottopic getting some Naruto crap I don't even need. Well anyway leave a nice little review.