The padding is becoming more and more noticeable each chapter…'n stuff. And also, the song 'Welcome to the Black Parade' seems to have lyrics which kinda match up with Shadow's character (a majority of it, anyway), just thought I'd point that out.


Haunted House Saga: Chapter 24 – Vanquishing the Nightmare Fuel

Shadow and Virus were once again stood in the same spots in complete silence. After a few seconds, Virus then said, "Now, witness the power of darkness!" Which at this point he began to mutate into another grotesque being as he laughed maniacally and Shadow watching intently at his transformation. When Virus was finished there stood a large blob of a fleshing purple substance, combined with a large deformed purple head of Maria, with teeth sharp enough to rip metal in half, and had tears of blood slowly pouring out of her eyes. From within the blob were four tentacles which cried out to Shadow as they imitated Maria's voice. "This would be quite disturbing if described in greater detail, wouldn't it?"

"Scum like you make me sick." Shadow replied as he got ready to attack.

Back in the living room, after a few events such as Blaze turning up out of nowhere, Sonny and Shade passing by unexpectedly, and Big the Cat wondering around looking for Froggy, Tails was currently hiding in a closet nearby with Sonic persuading him to come out. "Tails, would you come out of there already?"

"I don't wanna." Tails whined.

"There's nothing left to startle you anymore."

While the others watched or talked to each other out of boredom, Cream turned to Blaze and said, "Hi Blaze, I thought you were trying to find the Sol emeralds?"

"I was. Eggman Nega seemed to also know where they were so I ran into him quite a few times. I almost have all of them, and one appears to be here."

"Well that's good news."

Tails was still stood in the closet when he heard Sonic say, "Hey Tails, check this out." Tails poked his head out to see Sonic attach red triangular pieces of paper to parts of his forehead, put on some boxing gloves and growl at Tails. "GRRR, Imma punch you!"

Tails burst out laughing at his imitation of Knuckles while Sonic ran off as Knuckles chased him yelling, "Get back here!"

Meanwhile in the cellar, Shadow had been avoiding the large tentacles which repeatedly attacked him, while looking for any openings which wasn't going so well. As Virus attempted to squash Shadow with one of his tentacles, Shadow jumped up and ran along it before using chaos control before he reached the head. He reappeared behind Virus and was immediately hit by one tentacle and hit the ground hard. "I hope you're not done yet, Shadow."

Shadow quickly got up and replied with, "Of course not." Shadow then fired several chaos spears which blew up parts of two tentacles and as he leapt up to grab one, a third tentacle which appeared to have a solid surface began firing icicles at him, which he barely dodged by using his air shoes. He then slid along one tentacle and flipped over Virus's head as he tried to attack. Shadow then spun round and hit Virus with multiple chaos spears which did moderate damage.

A little later, Team Chaotix were taking a rest in one room, after capturing around thirty ghosts throughout the house. Knuckles passed by the door and came to a halt when he saw a path to the left. Down the path ahead were a dozen ghosts wondering about. "A dozen ghosts in my way, I MUST PUNCH THEM!" within seconds, he charged forward and punched through the dozen ghosts blocking his path as he followed his instinct towards the last Master Emerald pieces.

Blaze was currently exploring a hall of mirrors, looking for one of the last Sol emeralds. As she passed by the mirrors on the right side, they reflected different movements, and then she stopped at one which looked surprisingly normal. She crossed her arms as she stared at it, while her reflection also did so. She then uncrossed her arms and placed her left hand on her waist. Blaze's reflection suddenly put on a pair of shades, crossed her arms and raised her head to the right as she said, "I'm so kewl!" Blaze moved on shortly afterwards.

Meanwhile, two ghosts were briefly having a conversation in the middle of a hallway. "Hey, let's go scare that fox kid." The first ghost said.

"Sure, why not." The second replied. Just then, a third ghost sped by them as he yelled, "Get outta here! That fox has a ghostbusters style vacuum cleaner!"

"Vacuum cleaner?" The first ghost replied. "What the fu-" before he could finish, he was sucked into the vacuum cleaner as Tails came round the corner.

The second ghost took one look at Tails before speeding off in the other direction, yelling, "Run awaaaaay!" while Tails gave chase as he yelled, "Yeah, you better run!"

Back in the cellar once again, Virus continued to mess around and eventually began throwing the pillars nearby as Shadow dodged them. As one of the pillars aimed for the girl unconscious in the corner, Shadow teleported to the area, picked her up and flipped over the pillar.

"Are you having any fun yet, Shadow?" Virus said as continued laughing then proceeded to try and squash them. Shadow dodged the attacks just as they shot out half a dozen icicles which Shadow protected the girl from by being hit by them in his back. A thin layer of tomato ketchup oozed out of his back like a preschooler who had wet himself in fear, for some reason. "Some annoyances tend to cause back pain, just so you know."

"Whatever you're trying to do, it's not working." He said as he shrugged off the pain of the six icicles in his back.

"Then maybe this will." Virus replied before keeping Shadow and the unconscious girl stuck in one spot by freezing Shadow's shoes to the ground. Two of his tentacles then produced dozens of sharp spikes along them. "We'll end this game here."

As Virus moved in for the kill, Shadow began to remove his arm bracelets. "I guess I'll show you my true power then." A moment later there was a bright flash of yellow energy, followed by Shadow charging through the two spiked tentacles, vaporizing them before stopping just above Virus. He then curled up into a ball and blasted right through Virus' deformed head, resulting in an explosion similar to an array of fireworks.

Several moments later, Virus reverted to a purple Maria clone with a demonic expression on his face. Before he could react, Shadow punched him across his face, kicked him in the face twice, kneed him in the chest, and then tossed him to the ground ten feet away. As he lay on his back, he laughed once again. "Very impressive. I may have said this once before but know this; no matter how much you try, as long as there is hatred and sin, I will always exist…" he continued laughing as he dissolved into a puddle which slowly disappeared.

As the Boss Stage Clear theme from Sonic Unleashed began playing, Shadow quickly put on his arm bracelets one at a time, flipped forward, and spun 360 degrees on the spot as he landed, then crossed his arms and turned his face to the right as he had his back to the camera. Shadow looked around to make sure no-one saw that before picking up the unconscious girl and then leaving the cellar as he carried her.

On the second floor, Omega had just finished blasting all of the ghosts in his sight, moments before Rouge showed up and approached him. "Hey, seems I didn't find much, have you seen Shadow?"

"My scanners haven't detected him recently." Omega replied, looking around.

Shadow showed up moments later and stopped by them before saying, "I took care of the problem, let's get out of here."

"Why does that girl look like…" Rouge trailed off.

"It's a long story." He replied before walking off, followed by Rouge and Omega shortly afterwards.

A bit later, Knuckles entered a room packed with a dozen ghosts, one of them wearing shades who also held a Sol emerald and a master emerald shard in his possession. "I suggest you hand over that shard you have there." Knuckles said as he entered the room.

The ghosts wearing shades turned to him. "No way, I've got orders."

As they were distracted, Blaze dropped down from the right side and hit the regular ghosts with a flaming tornado attack which the ghost wearing shades saw moments later. "If that's the way you wanna play, then so be it. First I'll take care of the mole." He said before sinking into the floorboards. The ghost quickly flew all over the room, going through walls around Knuckles who stood firm, waiting for his attack. As the ghost grinned and came up from behind him, Knuckles spun round and punched him into the ground before grabbing the Master Emerald shard and the Sol emerald. "The name is Knuckles the Echidna, remember it." Knuckles then handed Blaze the Sol emerald as she approached him.

Meanwhile, Team Chaotix had finished taking care of the ghosts within the area and were sitting in a small room, watching television where Mads was on the screen. "Welcome back to this show which isn't news, continuing his steps to lulz is our guest, SA2. Take it away, man."

The camera then cut to SA2 who nodded. "Thanks Mads. So I'll continue a little, but without the boldness. I'll also be brief to save time. Be sure to poke fun at almost everything, because it gives you more material to work with."

"Even other people?" One man asked.

"Especially other people, and inform them that it's a light-hearted joke when you're actually being serious, since it's funnier. You'll also want to try and make a few little jokes in your description, as that tends to work occasionally, unless you actually are going for horror, then don't bother. And be sure to use stupid things like dream sequences, since it gives you a good excuse to have people act wildly out of character, though out of character moments tend to happen sometimes anyway. So yeah, I'm done."

"Thanks man."

"Anytime, now **** off."

The camera cut back to Mads who then said, "So that's all we have time for, you'll be Mads not to come back…I'm getting tired of saying that…"

A short while afterwards, Crystal and Amber had left with Sonny and Shade, while Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Cream, Espio, Vector and Charmy met up near the entrance to the house, and were discussing some of the things which happened earlier that night. As Shadow, Rouge and Omega met up with the rest of them, a ghostly little girl with green eyes and long hair flew out of a wall and looked around before approaching them and gasping. "Wow, did you guys get rid of all the other ghosts?"

"We did our best." Vector replied.

"We helped too." Amy said.

"I took care of the main problem." Shadow added.

"You guys are the best!" The ghost said enthusiastically. "I'm Cherry, and I live here. These ghosts just started turning up out of nowhere, and they were really mean! So I had to get help because I couldn't take care of them myself."

"I know!" Tails agreed. "With the sharp teeth and such."

"Right!" Cherry nodded. "And them trying to get cheap scares by appearing out of nowhere!"

"I totally agree."

"Well as promised, I have 2,000 rings for helping me. I'll have to split it in between you guys though."

After a short discussion period, it was decided that Team Chaotix would get half, and Sonic and the others would get the other half, due to Shadow not wanting any of it and Rouge being happy with a gem she happened to find.

"So, where did you find the problem, Shadow?" Sonic asked.

"The basement. So I guess I'll take my leave, see you around, Sonic." He said before walking off with Omega as 'All Hail Shadow' suddenly played in the background.

Rouge turned to Knuckles and said, "I'll be back to steal your Master Emerald sometime later."

"Don't count on it."

As she flew off to catch up with the other two, Tails whispered something in Sonic's ear shortly before he nodded. Sonic leaned in beside Knuckles and whispered something else in his ear shortly before he shook his head. "No way, I'm not doing that."

"Come on, Knuckles, just this once." Sonic replied.

Knuckles sighed before taking out a pair of shades and putting them on. "Alright, let's hurry it up."

Sonic smiled before saying, "Let's get it going!" Sonic, Tails and Knuckles then proceeded to the exit as Tails said, "Mama packed a sack lunch!" Followed by Knuckles saying, "Papa gave a juice box!" Shortly behind them were Amy and Cream who waved back to the ghost before shutting the door.

Meanwhile at Eggman's base, in a brightly lit red and white room control room were Eggman, Eggman Nega and Rose. Virus arrived shortly after through a dark puddle. Eggman turned to him before saying, "So Virus, how did it go?"

"A little unexpected to be honest, I used up more energy than I thought I would. I'm currently down to zero again, but it won't take very long to gather energy again, and your help was most appreciated, Rose." He said, giving her a brief nod while she did the same. "I did this to collect necessary data, because there's a part of me which can do that." He continued, pointing at his head.

"It's called the brain." Eggman Nega responded.

"Very funny. This information can be stored within my body for a number of purposes, but I may go into detail sometime in the future…"


SA2 walked onto the right side of a set with some notes. In the middle of the set was a red curtain which opened to reveal a carnival, just a basic carnival. "SA2 began to read out the notes. "Now to the next one is Amy's short story saga, so you know what that means…more lulz, of course. So stay tuned for the Crazy Carnival Saga." SA2 looked up. "Umm…uhh…so yeah…"