In Cosmo's Shadow
By Kellie Fay
Disclaimer: Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Cosmo, and the others all belong to SEGA, Team Sonic, 4 Kids and other people not me.
*waves again to Kiari-Ninja* Warning I tend to tourture my favorite characters and Shadow is in for interesting times. :)
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Chapter 10
Espio
Early that morning Shadow ran to office of the Chaotix Detective Agency. Before he got within ten yards of the office their littlest member came to greet him.
"Hey Shadow! Where ya been!"
Shadow glared at the little bee, and continued into the office. There he saw Vector listening to music. The chameleon couldn't be seen anywhere.
Vector looked up and smiled broadly. Well hey Shadow! What brings you around?
Shadow never felt the need for small talk. "Where is Espio. I need to talk to him."
Vector frowned at Shadow's apparent rudeness, but Espio suddenly appeared sitting up on a cabinet. "I am here, what is on your mind Shadow?"
Shadow gave Espio a significant look, and nodded towards the door. Espio nodded and the two left the office.
For the first few moments the two walked in silence. Once Shadow felt that no one could over hear them, he began. "I've heard that you taught Sonic how to read the thoughts of others."
Espio gave Shadow a look and raised an eyebrow ridge. "Sonic is extremely sensitive to any energies, including energies produced by living things. I merely showed him how to recognize and interpret those energies as he does with every other form of energy he utilizes."
This was news to Shadow. "I don't understand," he said, "Sonic does what?"
Espio smiled. "The reason that Sonic can run so fast is that he absorbs energy from other sources. If I understand your history correctly, you produce chaos energy, but you can also use the chaos energy from the emeralds."
"Yes," Shadow said cautiously.
"As far as I understand it, Sonic absorbs energy from everything, chaos, power rings, sunlight, even our thoughts and emotions. Just before you arrived he began to develop the abilities to separate and identify these energies. I just helped him refine his abilities so they would not be distracting to him."
Shadow filed the information for later study. "So what does it mean to you if Sonic said I project like a rock concert?"
Espio smiled. "If you are putting emotions into your thoughts, there might be enough of both life and chaos energy within you for him to sense your thoughts, if he wasn't putting up barriers against thoughts."
Shadow considered. "He told me he was tired. In fact he was half asleep and responded to my thoughts even though I had said nothing."
Espio blinked surprised. "For him to have heard you without trying, your projections must be very strong indeed." The chameleon looked around. "Would you consider an experiment?" Espio sat down on the grass, and indicated that Shadow should do the same.
Curious, Shadow did so. Espio looked Shadow up and down and then said, "Close your eyes, and try to think of something that makes you feel uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable?" Shadow echoed.
"If we are to ascertain your ability we need to emulate the conditions that caused you to project your thoughts. Perhaps you should think of the item Sonic seemed to hear while he was sleeping."
Shadow thought he understood what Espio was asking for at that point, but knew that the odd thought that woke Sonic wouldn't be unsettling enough. Instead Shadow began to think about how out of control he felt of both his dreams and of his sleepwalking. Within a few seconds Espio's head snapped up and he gave Shadow the oddest of looks.
"I suppose you heard that," Shadow said with a sigh.
"I believe Sonic's analogy of a rock concert understated the problem," Espio said simply. "Now try to think of the same thing, but try to separate your emotions from the thoughts."
Shadow thought he had been doing that, so now he tried something else. Instead of trying to suppress the emotions he let it flow he allowed himself to feel frustrated. His face turned down into a deep frown. He thought about what Espio said that thoughts were energy. He drove those thoughts into the ground, hoping that if he directed the emotions away from Espio they wouldn't be heard.
"Better," Espio said, "but I have an alternative idea. You dislike showing emotion try to imagine a color that will make your thoughts more opaque. It's best if you use a color that feels cool to you."
Shadow couldn't help himself, even though it was Sonic's color it was also Maria's favorite color, and the color of her beautiful eyes that still haunted him. He filled his mind with the blue of a tropical sea. Oddly enough it calmed him. Espio nodded, a slight smile showed his approval.
"Good," he said. "I would suggest keeping that image in your mind in groups. You never know who is sensitive to such energies. You will eventually get used to doing so."
Shadow nodded. At least he had this problem solved. Now he had to deal with the fact that Rouge was staying his neighbor.
Coming Soon Chapter 11
"Let's get this over with shall we?" Shadow reached out and grabbed the girl by the throat, and squeezed. He felt her wind pipe collapse under his grasp, and because he didn't want her to suffer he made sure to crush her spine as well. He let go and watched her crumble to a heap on the floor. Finished he turned away from her to leave, but stopped when he hears a voice.
"Why Shadow? Why?" She shouldn't be able to breath much less speak she should be dead already. Shadow looked down, but the hair is gold instead of green. The flowered dress is sky blue, and the face that looks up at him is human.
It is Maria.