SECOND CHAPTER, GOOOOO!

P.S. Started writing Omega's speech differently. It looked too plain the way it was. Also, parody references.

Shadow Gets Sick

Shadow gets sick. Hilarity ensues. WARNING: May contain stuffy noses, coughing, pedestrian high speed chases, and Shadouge.

A hedgehog (male, 100 cm, likes guns, scream rock theme songs, and long walks on the- oh wait, sorry, wrong document) staggered into an alley, coughing from the chest in a mildly geriatric way. He snarled. What was wrong with him? It was so hard to breathe. Did everyone feel like this when they were sick? He grimaced, something close to almost sort of kind of halfway happy that he'd escaped this for so long. But now, it looked like he'd have to ante up.

Well, sick or not, there was no way in hell he was going to any doctor, psychotic bat on his tail or not. Speaking of which….

Shadow slammed himself against the wall with a little more force than necessary as someone approached, scuffing to a halt.

"…don't get why he's being such a baby about this. Honestly." Shadow's eyes flicked to the side. Just as he'd expected(1). Rouge. And she had company….

"Hey, no one ever said phobias had to make any sense." Sonic responded with a shrug.

"AFFIRMATIVE."

….

Traitors.

"It's just a doctor. A doctor. I mean, come on. He's faced much worse."

They were close enough to reach out and touch. Shadow held his breath, praying (although it was not something he was in the habit of doing) that none of them would happen to glance his way. So far his coloring had kept him safe, but he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his creators in giving him red highlights.

…And eyeshadow. He'd never really understood that one.

"Well, I guess we'd better keep looking. Shadow's going to that doctor if it kills him."

Shadow almost whimpered. Almost. In a not kind of almost barely sort of maybe kinda way.

…I mean, not at all. Who'd ever heard of Shadow whimpering? Puh-lease.

Ugh. That bat was going to be the death of him. There were no words for the relief he felt as she turned away, sighing, "Well, I guess we'd better keep looking. Come on."

"ROUGE. SENSORS INDICATE THAT-"

Shadow considered briefly exactly what kind of force it would take to damage the robot's armor, contriving to find out later. Possibly with the use of high powered explosives and, perhaps, a machine gun. …And possibly a street sign or two, just for kicks.

"SONIIIIIIIIIC!"

…Was there a small animal dying somewhere? The sound seemed to be coming from his right. Shadow turned just in time to be tackled to the ground out in the open by an exuberant mass of pink.

"…SHADOW IS APPROXIMATELY 4.23 FEET FROM THIS LOCATION." Omega finished pleasantly.

"Eurggggghh…." Shadow stared blearily up at the sky, his head having recently become acquainted with the cement. Vaguely he recognized the fact that his breathing seemed to be heavily impaired due to extreme force being exerted upon his chest by what appeared to be a blob of whatever the result of several bottles of hot pink dye being added to cookie dough was. Either that, or someone needed to be sued(2) for producing anything organic that color.

"Uh, Amy…." said Sonic's disembodied voice somewhere off to the left.

"Huh?" The pressure on his chest lessened and he took several gulps of desperately needed air. "…Oh, not again! Why do I always make that mistake?!" Securely attached to Sonic's arm, Amy at last took the time to look around. "Hey…. What's going on?"

Because it would be entirely too boring to reread/rewrite, please assume that this paragraph contained a recap of what happened so far. You may now spend the extra seconds saved in the deletion of the aforementioned explanation to dance and/or play the Shadow the Hedgehog game and therein beat things with street signs.

"Oh, so Shadow's sick? That's not good! He needs to go to a doctor. He might need a shot or someth- …Hey, where'd Shadow go?"

Sonic shaded his eyes, looking into the distance. "He's over there!" He whistled appreciatively. "Wow, he's bookin'."

(1) Feared

(2) Or shot(3). He wasn't picky.

(3) And quickly.

That bat was crazy. Her and that… that pink thing. Everyone was against him, everyone! But he'd show them. He'd show them all. One of his eyes twitched. He'd have his revenge. REVEEEEEEEEEEEEENGE!

…Or not. That was a little insane, even for him.

If he hadn't been so totally mistrustful and paranoid, he might have actually cared enough to be hurt.

Shadow stopped for a breather (wow, actually stopping to rest – this being sick thing really sucked) in the middle of a park somewhere. For some reason, the instant he became immobile, a newspaper hit him in the face and stuck there. Mildly annoyed, he plucked it off and let it fly away.

2.35 seconds later, another one slapped itself over his eyes. This one, too, he tore off and let go. Before it even left his hand, yet another edition of that day's newspaper wrapped itself around his leg. "What the…? Where are all these- " A millisecond later, another mass of ink and paper became very familiar with his esophagus. This very quickly expelled and disposed of, Shadow finally noticed the giant sign right in front of his face upon which was printed in large, friendly letters,

WARNING

Visitors may be assaulted by airborne paper goods due to a recent meteorological impossibility.

Have a nice day and please remember not to litter!

Next Week's Forecast:

Giant, swirling red clouds of the apocalypse and possible showers of alien life forms midway through the day.

"…Oh. Go figure." Shadow picked the remains of yet another newspaper out of his quills, watching the sun set dramatically on the horizon.

Yet another chapter down. C'ya next time.