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 Kirai-Ninja* Thanks for the Review: I'm glad your enjoying the story.

To the rest: Come on! I know you can review!

Chapter 15

Alone in the night

He passed through the porthole and to his dismay found out that the old woman could tell the weather from within the chao garden. Thunder and lightning crashed down from above, and rain poured from the sky in sheets.

"Just perfect," he said sitting down on an outcropping of cold damp concrete.

"You could come back inside, and tell grandmother you changed your mind," Shadow heard behind him. He spun around to see Pie leaning against the porthole to the chao garden, with Peaches on her shoulder.

"I could think of many places I'd rather spend the night, than in a chao garden." He said. Pie looked at him without comprehending.

"Well if you want to spend the night out here, I have some blankets here." She says. She moved over to metal storage box. Inside lay a wooden chest filled with blankets and other supplies. "I keep stuff like this around for emergencies," she explains.

"Thank you," Shadow said. Pie looked at him still puzzled.

"I still don't get why you don't want to spend the night in the garden," she said frowning at him.

Shadow decided to go for honestly. "Your friends are very cute, but I don't like the effect they have on me. You know they are very powerful if they chose to be."

"It's how they communicate. It bothers you?" She asks.

"You heard your grandmother. There are things within my mind that I need to be in control of." Shadow explained.

"The Demons?" Pie asked. When Shadow nodded she said, "I didn't understand a lot of that. Why are there demons in your blood and in your mind?"

"I've been through a lot," he said with a sigh.

"Like what?" She asks.

He didn't even realize he was curling up tighter with stress until she put a blanket around his shoulders. He felt his stomach churning, but for some reason the usual "I don't want to talk about it," refused to come out of his mouth. "It's not a good story," he chose instead.

"Then maybe it's a story you need to tell," she answers.

"It's long," he countered.

"It's a long night."

"I don't know if I can," he said putting his head down on his knees.

"I can feel you a little, again," she tells me. She reached out to take his hand, and leaned up against his body "You're afraid."

Shadow found it harder and harder to come up with excuses. "You may not like me very much after this story," he said.

"Everyone has ghosts they have to face." She says. "Close your eyes. Start at the beginning."

A small part of Shadow's mind knew that Pie was manipulating him. For a brief second the memory of Black Doom trying to control him flared, but within his mind Pie argued that she would never harm him like that. The strange easy restful emotions Pie placed into him pulled back a little. He now felt his thoughts floating between his control and the emotional swaths of bandages that she tried to implant.

I can feel within you the deep hurts you have experienced; Pie spoke directly into his mind. Grandmother said you have to heal them on your own, but before anything can heal you have to cut the infected parts away. It's painful, but Peaches and I can help you bare the pain. We can help you, but you have to want us to.

Shadow knew that if he said no, she'd pull back and drop the subject, but maybe the year of isolation affected him, because he realized that for the first time in a long time he felt like leaning on someone else's strength. He didn't have many friends who he felt he could rely on, and he abandoned most of them; Sonic of course, and Rouge, Cream, and Cosmo made the overtures but he pushed them away. Cosmo being the last straw that made him run. She could look into his mind, and knew what he held there.

Pie couldn't help but look into his mind. Like Cosmo she didn't flinch from what she saw there. Instead she offered to help him begin to heal the pain that he felt within. He opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't think to form any words either positive or negative. Pie reached over and lightly began scratching the back of his neck behind the quills. Just relax, her mind told his, begin at the beginning.

Maybe it was the fact that he could have said no, or maybe the gentle methodical scratching touched a pressure point the way Rouge could turn his brain off when she wanted to, or maybe because that while the others all knew parts of his story Pie didn't know anything, but at that moment something inside of Shadow broke free, and the flood gates opened.

He told her everything. His creation in another dimension, Why Professor Gerald used Black Doom's DNA to make him indestructible, Maria, GUN infiltrating the ARK, How he knew he woke up once and did horrible things, but could not remember what, only that his friends said he saved the planet. His second awakening, with amnesia, in deep space in this dimension, the Metarex, how he woke up again back on earth just in time for Black Doom's return, and how he saved the world yet again.

While he spoke he forced himself to be brutally honest with himself, and Pie. How he mercilessly hunted down Cosmo, just like GUN hunted him and Maria, and how close he came to falling under Black Doom's control. When he finally couldn't think of anything else to say he opened his eyes and fond Pie holding him in a fierce embrace, and Peaches in his own arms his hands still absently scratching the back of the little chao's head. He never even recalled picking the creature up.

He felt completely spent. He didn't know why, but he closed his eyes again, almost dozing off before Pie spoke out loud. "I have never met anyone as emotionally strong as you Shadow. I…I can't believe you've been through so many things that would have driven other beings mad within minutes."

He never dealt well with sympathy or pity. "The professor designed me to be indestructible," he said with a shrug, but that only made her laugh.

"It wasn't the professor who made your soul so strong, Shadow," Pie said smiling. "It was the girl."

That puzzled him. "Maria? I don't understand."

"She taught you about love, compassion, and caring about others. If she hadn't you would not have been strong enough to fight Black Doom's mind control.

It was odd that she picked that particular incident to show him how much Maria affected him. "I didn't really remember much about her when I fought Black Doom," He says, realizing for the first time how much he did remember now once he started talking.

She shook her head and smiled. "Don't you see, remembering her had nothing to do with it. Her love affected you to such a deep level that even when you couldn't remember her you acted with compassion towards others."

Pie was right. Shadow never realized it before, but deep within his mind every time Black Doom tried to influence him, Maria's voice reminded him that her grandfather designed him to protect and help humans. It didn't feel like a memory. Somehow it felt deeper than that, it felt etched in his very self so that nothing could remove it.

Suddenly he felt himself leaning into Pie, and his head nodding again. "I've never felt so tired before," he confessed to her.

Pie handed him a few more blankets to cushion the rock underneath him. "Confessing all that does require energy. It's no wonder you're exhausted."

He nodded trying to fight off sleep for a few more moments. "Pie, I need you and Peaches to go back to the chao garden, and don't come back until I'm awake. I tend to have nightmares and they are not for the faint of heart."

"I'm not afraid of your nightmares," she said. "I'd think you'd want someone with you if you dream."

"People who tend to stay with me when I dream tend to end up with bruises. " He tells her. "Pie I'm not afraid of what you'll see in my mind, I'm afraid I'll hurt you. It's happened before, and I don't want it to happen to you."

Pie nodded understanding. "I see. All right Shadow, I'll go, but I hope your dreams are more peaceful tonight."

He yawned already half asleep. "Good night Pie." He heard her footsteps recede, and pillowed his head with his arms. He pulled the blankets over his head, and fell asleep instantly.

His limbs were heavy in sleep, but he could hear clearly in the darkness. He couldn't understand how he could hear them, when logically he knew he slept far from their home in the Green Hill Valley.

"No," Sonic's voice was flat and nonnegotiable.

Somehow he knew the next voice he would hear would be Amy's. "Sonic we know where Shadow is now. It's less than a two day run for you, why won't you go talk to him!"

"If Shadow wanted to talk to me, he would be here. I told you when he left that I wasn't going to go chasing him. That hasn't changed just because he's nearby."

"But why Sonic?" Amy asked forcefully. "I don't understand why you invited him to live here, I don't understand why you told Egg-Man to stay away from him, and I don't understand why you switched from protecting him, to letting him run around the entire planet all by himself for over a year."

"I can't exactly explain it, Amy," Sonic said, "I basically use my instincts when it comes to him. I don't want Egg-Man messing with him again, until Shadow figures himself out. Rouge told me about some of the stuff he tried to pull when Shadow woke up with no memory. Shadow wants us to think that he's this indestructible ultimate life form, and he really isn't."

"He's not?" Shadow didn't expect to hear Tails' voice.

"We'll he is and he isn't. As far as I can figure out he is indestructible, and I don't think he can grow old, but he's not so different from us. Rouge says she feels like she was always dealing with two Shadows; one is the big tough Ultimate Life form that doesn't need anyone that we all see, but every now and then she'd get a glimpse of a scared little hedgehog that misses the only person who ever loved him."

For a long time Shadow heard nothing. He began to wonder if the dream faded, when he heard Amy say. "You've seen glimpses of that scared little hedgehog too, haven't you Sonic. That's why you're so protective of him."

"Less than Rouge, but yeah. Half the time I think he's afraid of himself. He knows what he's capable of, and he's had too many close calls not to be afraid of what could have happened. That's why he has nightmares." Then Sonic chuckled and said, "Besides he's in Cobbler's territory now. There not a creature alive that can meet her and come out unchanged."

Tails' voice betrayed a shock. "Shadow's with Cobbler? And you're leaving him there?"

"You know her Tails?" Amy asked puzzled.

"She's a kitsune sorcerous. She's really powerful. She has seven tails, and some say she can see into the future, and speak to the dead."

"She sounds kind of spooky," Amy said.

"Nah," Sonic said chuckling. She only gets spooky if you want something from her. She can sure shock you though. She told me once that running after Egg-Man was gonna have me running right out of this world. I thought she meant he was gonna kill me, but technically he did have us running out of this world, right into Chris' "

"You think that's what she meant?" Tails asked.

"I'm sure of it," Sonic added. "You'll see if Shadow is still having problems after a year she'll straighten him out."

"Do you think he's still having problems?" Amy asked worriedly.

Sonic sighed. "If he wasn't having problems he would have come home by now," Sonic said.

"You do worry about him," Amy said.

Sonic's tone sounded casual, but Shadow knew better. "I just wish I knew what he was looking for out there, that he couldn't find here."

"Isn't that a little hypocritical," Amy asked. "You run around, and are away for weeks at a time."

"Ahhh but there's a difference, Amy," Tails said sounding smug. "Sonic always runs to something to see a friend, or simply to get a change of scenery. Sonic runs to adventure. I get the feeling Shadow is trying to run away from something."

"I tried that once when I was little," Sonic said with a sigh. "I learned the hard way, you can't run from a problem. If you've got a problem you have to run forward, and face it head on."

Coming Soon:

Shadow's Challenge

"Aye, I know," Cobbler said. "Ye won't be doing that this time, lad. I'll see to it. Yer dreams may not be good afterwards, but I can hold ye down and keeps ye from hurting others." She held out her hand to him, and he could see a pale glowing yellow light sparkling in her hands. "You'll barely feel the chains on ye once they're there, but if I needs to I can tighten them and keep ye to my will. I can't force these chains on you though lad. Ye needs to take them on by your will."

For the first time in his existence Shadow felt a twinge of fear for something other than his own destructive nature. This old woman just basically told him that she can work a spell to control him.