Disclaimer: Though it's been a while, I still don't own either one.

Chapter 11

That's ONE Way to Introduce Yourself

Celestic Town

It took only a moment for the blue blur to make himself at home in the now wind-blown waiting room. In a flash he had already straightened the chairs, picked up all of Nurse Joy's papers, drew a (rather terrible) self portrait on the window with his finger, and settled himself by zipping to each stunned human to shake their hand vigorously and introduce himself as Sonic the "Amazing" Hedgehog.

Another moment found Nurse Joy snapping out of her own stupor to hurriedly care for the two new-comer Pokémon; one of whom she noted immediately as having been attacked by more than one Beedrill and apparently stumbled upon a Gloom, and the other who seemed to be suffering from far too much motion far too fast.

The Hoothoot and Mime Jr. flew to the counter and landed, sighing in unison. Rouge tackled a stiff, bloodshot eyed Knuckles and Shadow straightened himself and took a deep quiet breath to clear the cobwebs creeping back into his mind.

"Sonic." He tried to keep the relief out of his voice as he regained the attention of the hyper hedgehog.

Sonic turned to him with a slight smile, all signs of ridiculousness leaving his features and persona. "So you made it too."

Rouge and Knuckles' reunion became sombre as the two also turned towards Shadow, each Mobian feeling the hidden message behind those words.

You lived.

A moment of tense and relieved silence passed before Shadow spoke low and soft, "So it seems."

The silence then changed from tense to awkward and a slight forced cough could be heard from near the front desk. All eyes turned to an uncomfortable Professor Oak who stood with a hand rubbing the back of his head and an unnatural large smile.

"So, if you don't mind my asking, Sonic—er, the Amazing—what kind of Pokémon are you...exactly...?"

Rouge huffed and rolled her eyes. "For the last time, old man, we are not Pokémon!" Then, sniffing the air and noticing for the first time, turned to Sonic. "Phewy, you stink!" the bat observed, waving a hand in front of her nose.

Nurse Joy switched quickly from surprised to primary-care-giver and gasped at Sonic's appearance. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed, rushing over with Chansey at her side and dragging the blue hedgehog in the building. "You poor thing! What happened to you?"

"What, these?" Sonic asked, gesturing to the swelled pink dots all over his body. "Just stumbled into a hornet's nest, that's all."

"And the smell?" Rouge questioned.

Sonic's expression turned somewhat amused but a bit at a loss for words. "Uh…a drooling mushroom."

The bat stared at him for a moment, then decided not to ask. "Well, you need a bath."

Sonic looked around the interior of the small building critically, noting the five humans he had rushed through meeting and a fat yellow thing with red cheeks. He cocked his head to one side, a teasing smile playing at his lips.

"So I see you made some new friends, huh, Shads?" he asked. Hoothoot dropped onto his head. "I have, too."

"Hoothoot!"

"His name is Hoothoot," he added, as though they should all be proud of him for figuring it out.

Behind him, Knuckles and Rouge were fighting again over one aggravating insult or another from the white Mobian. The little pink clown thing was getting rather discombobulated, trying to copy every movement between the two.

"Incredible…" Professor Oak mused to himself, rubbing his chin. "They possess intelligence and personalities equal to any human. Where have they been hiding, and how many more…?"

The electric mouse Pokémon broke away from the concentrated group of humans, who now outnumbered the Mobians by only one. It ran up to Sonic's feet and waved a stubby hand, smiling.

"Pikachu!"

"Bless you," came the quick dismissive reply.

A puzzled look crossed the face of the yellow animal, but Sonic, moving past it and plopping himself comfortably in one of the chairs with feet resting on another and hands placed casually behind his head, remained oblivious to it.

"So Shads, you figure out where we are yet?"

Rouge noogied Knuckles, who then turned red with anger and leapt at the bat, only to be knocked away immediately by a large cream-coloured feline with a jewel in its forehead. The Persian pinned him to the floor, fangs bared angrily. Rouge just laughed.

"Shadow?"

The ebony lifeform turned his attention back to his blue counterpart, aware that the throbbing of his temples was increasing in intensity. "Hm?"

"Where are we?"

Shadow blinked. The noises in the room seemed to grow louder in his ears and he put a hand to his head. "Um, we're…We're in…I…Sorry, what?" The lights were bright—too bright. The blood pounded through his ears. He couldn't concentrate.

The man in the white lab coat cast a worried look to Shadow and answered in his place, "The Sinnoh region. Celestic Town, to be more precise."

"Cool," Sonic commented distractedly. His eyes were still on the black and red hedgehog, who, as it would seem, wasn't feeling too great.

For the first time, Sonic noticed Shadow's condition. His fur was dirty and matted, crimson eyes dark and dull, his posture was weak and tired, and he had yet to reprimand the fifty-years-younger hedgehog for calling him 'Shads' thrice since his arrival.

"Man Shads…You look like crap."

"I'm…fine," Shadow lied, blinking a few times to clear the fuzziness of his vision. His chest felt heavy.

Make that four times since his arrival.

Sonic looked sceptical. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing." The blood pounded through his head, resounding in his ears like a raging river. His wrists burned, his chest ached. "I'm just…a little tired."

Rouge finally called off her new-found friend and helped Knuckles to his feet, where he promptly began to grumble and brush himself off. Nurse Joy stopped fussing over Sonic and went to organizing the papers he had recklessly piled back together.

Sonic shrugged. "Well, if you say so."

"I…" a small voice sounded, turning all eyes to a very perplexed Dawn. "I still don't understand…" she began. "What is going on? Who or what are these creatures?"

"Oh!" Sonic exclaimed. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me. I forgot all about that pinhead over there, Knuckles the Echidna." He grinned, then pointed at the owl creature still on his head. "And this is—"

"Hoothoot. Yeah," everyone said in unison, rolling their eyes.

He looked on them in wonder, trying to figure out how they all knew its name, before knitting his eyebrows and asking, "Well, did you know it only has one foot?"

The humans exchanged glances; first confused, and then amused.

"Actually," Professor Oak said, stifling a chuckle, "Hoothoot have two legs."

Sonic stared at him. "Nuh-uh."

"Er…yes, it does."

"No it doesn't."

"Yes, it does."

"No it doesn't."

Professor Oak sighed, trying to be patient, and forced a tight smile. "Hoothoot only stands on one foot. Usually, its other is tucked in its feathers, and it switches feet so quickly that it's rarely observed. It has two feet."

Sonic blinked, unmoved, and after a moment replied with, "No it doesn't."

A collective groan sounded from most of the occupants of the room, with the only exceptions being Nurse Joy—who was busy bustling around and re-gathering the papers that Sonic's hasty arrival had strewn all over the place—and Shadow—who was having a hard enough time simply remaining upright, let alone actually listening to the conversation.

"This is all beside the point," Nurse Joy interjected.

"I agree," said the professor, giving up on the idea of explaining reason to Sonic. "The question of who you are and where you came from has yet to be answered."

A bitter scoff resounded from the corner of the room and all eyes turned to Ash, who had until now been seated quietly. "Why do we waste our time with such trivial matters?" he asked, his head hung low so that menacing shadows concealed his eyes. "It's not important what they are or where they came from. What matters is that now they are here, and we are the first to find them."

Sonic leaned over to Knuckle and in a whisper asked, "Geez, what's his problem?"

Shadow stood stalk still, fists clenched at his sides, jaw firmly set. The quills on his spine prickled as his stomach rolled over, making him feel nauseous. Something had entered the air around him, around the room, around the very building, that he couldn't quite place, but he recognized it from somewhere.

"Shut up Ash!" Dawn snapped irritated. "No one asked you!"

Ash laughed bitterly, eyes flashing. "Oh Dawn, naïve as always. No one has to ask me my opinion. I will state it as I please, and those in my presence must accept it as law. That is what happens when your leader speaks."

"Someone has issuuuues," Sonic sang.

The boy with the red cap abruptly rose from his seat with such force that his chair fell over backwards. His hand disappeared into his back pocket for only a second and emerged with a small red and white ball between his index and middle finger. "You will learn your place, infernal creature!"

"Ash don't—!" Brock cried, reaching for his bipolar friend too late. The Pokéball flew from Ash's hand and broke open of the floor, revealing the giant orange dragon with a flaming tail through a flash of red light.

This scene seemed all too familiar. The command was shouted, the finger was pointed, and with an earth-shattering roar, a deadly burst of fire blasted from the mouth of the beast.

The event processed in Shadow's hazy mind not a moment too soon. Sonic, Rouge, Knuckles…all of them were in the line of fire, and only he knew how dangerous that line really was. He hadn't the time to consider the consequences on his incomplete form, but sprang from his position towards his blue counterpart, calling upon what little power he had left to give him a chance. The world seemed to slow down around him as he reached Sonic, but he still didn't have enough time. Rouge and Knuckles were much slower than both hedgehogs—they would never move in time.

Shadow grit his teeth with frustration and agony as he dug deeper inside himself, searching his entire being, reaching into his very existence to supply himself with the power necessary to complete his task. This was his fault. He couldn't let them die because of his actions. This whole predicament was his responsibility, and his pride would not allow him to walk away from it.

Throwing Sonic across the room and out of danger, Shadow pushed off the ground with the echidna as his goal. Even with his desperate Chaos Control to manipulate time, the heat from the blaze was getting hotter. There would be no Dawn to help him this time. He reached Knuckles and used the same technique as he had with Sonic to get him to safety. Last was Rouge, whose slowed expression revealed every bit of awe and fear at the approaching inferno. It was almost on his tail now—he needed more time! He had one shot of one second, or both of them would be dead.

His head felt like it would explode. A fire roared viciously in his stomach. His lungs felt like lead. But with burning eyes squinted to focus through the black fog, he found the final strength he had and needed to grab his fellow Mobian and leap through the air, crashing through Sonic's window representation of himself. Time returned to its original speed and he was falling, shattered glass raining around him. He landed hard on his left shoulder and rolled, sending a repeating pain through his back and arm, but he barely noticed it among all the rest.

It was done. With all the willpower in the world, there remained nothing that Shadow could do. Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were safe.

The crowd inside shielded their faces from the heat, two of whom were just realizing how they had escaped. Rouge lay on her stomach next to Shadow outside of the window, her hands covering her head as the fire erupted out of the building only a few feet above her.

When the blast had subsided, the group stirred. Ash became once again aware of his despicable activities, others set to scolding the young trainer. Sonic and Knuckles picked themselves up from the floor and exchanged amazed glances, then assured the humans that they were fine before looking around for their ebony companion.

Shadow remained as he had landed, on his side and curled into himself. He hadn't the ability to move, or the strength remaining to reveal the agony he felt throughout his entire being. His breath came in shortening gasps, his body trembled with utter exhaustion. There was nothing left inside of him. Even as Rouge raised herself from the ground and rushed to him, followed suit by Sonic and Knuckles and then the humans, Shadow was nearly oblivious. He had pushed himself far past his limit with the knowledge that it would tap into his life force, but he had had to do it.

After all, this is what he had promised that he would do.

The pain was numbing as he drifted farther than ever before, the faces around him blending together and the jumbled voices of concern becoming one familiar sound. Blue eyes, blond hair, a perfect white smile. Maria shone with the light of an angel before his glazed eyes, dancing in circles and grinning at him.

"Come play with me, Shadow."

And for once, the world he slipped into was the farthest thing from black.

By the way, 247 reviews? You guys are awesome! Sorry, I don't know who #200 was and it was 12 in the morning. I was too tired to count to find out. :p