Konichiwa (Hi)! Sorry I kept you guys waiting. I've been busy, but also feeling unmotivated to write. Why I've been unmotivated? …I don't know the answer to that myself…

Thanks for the reviews guys! In other, somewhat related news, "Family" now has over 2000 hits!

*Crush 40's "Almost Dead" plays in background* Whoops, wrong one. *switches it to "Caramelldansen"* There we go. *pause* Wait… *switches it back to "Almost Dead"*

(Excuse the above randomness; I'm not sure where the hell it came from…)

Anyway, time for review responses. If I've replied to your review in any way, shape, or form, then I will not put it up here, because I don't want to type it again. If I've already replied to your review, and I put it up here too, even if it's different, my mistake.

anime2videogames: Wow, thanks! I'm glad I was able to make the emotions well enough. I'm usually not very good with that. Glad you love the story!

IluvSilverShadow: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy it. "I am Sonic, hear me rawr!"? That's…odd, but amusing, lol!

GenesisBlazingShadow: You think so? The transformations were a spur-of-the-moment thing. I'm keeping it up, as you can see.

KeizerGodzilla: Good suggestion. It does seem to fit.

Kitty Seville: It would be, wouldn't it? "Oh my Shads"? That's an interesting statement. Sounds like something I'd say. Glad you like it so far.

Both this story, and my other one, Weresan and Oninii are tied for reviews! :D

Disclaimer: How many times do I have to say it? I DON'T OWN THEM! SEGA DOES!

Chapter 11

After he'd finished with the guitar, Sonic hid it under his bed. He had to admit, singing those songs made him feel a little better, but he still felt some of the emotional pain.

Sighing, Sonic left his bedroom, only to find Shadow in the hallway. His shock was quickly replaced with uncertainty and slight embarrassment. "You heard me playing, didn't you?"

Shadow nodded. "I did. You play very well."

When he realized that his dad was trying to prevent him from dwelling on what happened earlier, Sonic felt grateful and relived, but he still sounded bitter when he said, "Yeah, considering I haven't played in 3 years…"

Shadow wouldn't give up so easily. "Where did you learn to play?"

Sonic actually looked pleased with himself when he answered, "I taught myself. I would listen to various songs, and how the notes sounded, and when I finally got my own guitar, I figured out which notes matched the songs' notes, and progressed from there."

"Playing by ear. Impressive."

Sonic blinked. "Really?"

"Yes. It takes a lot of time and patience to learn any instrument just by using hearing and memory."

'It was damn annoying too. It took me forever just to get the first few notes,' was the thought going through Sonic's mind, but aloud he said, "I didn't realize that."

"Speaking of guitars, where did you get that one? More importantly, how did you get it?" Shadow asked, crossing his arms.

Eyes widening slightly, Sonic had enough grace to look embarrassed again and shifted his weight from one foot from the other.

Seeing his son start to fidget nervously, Shadow instantly suspected just how Sonic obtained it. All he needed was an actual confession to fully know.

Not wanting to reveal anything, Sonic tried to get out of it by changing the subject. "How long do I have to 'rest' until I can go back?" 'Not that I want to go back…' he added silently.

Shadow raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in topic, but he didn't want to leave the question unanswered. "Until you feel ready to go back, you'll stay here at home. Back to the matter at hand, how did you get the guitar?"

'So much for that plan…guess I don't have much of a choice.' Succumbing to his apparent doom, he sighed and hung his head. "Alright, fine, I'll say it. I used my little ability to get the guitar. Happy now?" Now he was glaring slightly at his dad.

"You do know that you technically stole it, right?" Shadow pointed out.

Sonic just gave a half shrug. "Yeah, but what do I care?" He knew that since he had no idea where he even got the guitar from, he couldn't give it back. 'Who says I'm going to give it back?'

Shadow had known that even after several months, his son would still revert to his old habits of thievery. He hadn't thought of Sonic becoming so used to stealing it would no longer bother him. He was about to respond, when suddenly a loud 'BOOM', as though something exploded, came from downstairs.

At the sound of it, both hedgehogs raced downstairs to find the source.

However, when they did, Sonic froze and paled, his eyes glazing over and his breath becoming short, quick gasps. He was also trembling.

The explosion had created a fire.

Shadow had noticed his son's reaction to the sight of the fire. It only took a nanosecond to realize why, and he mentally kicked himself. 'After the fire, he's probably had pyrophobia ever since…'

Now Shadow had a dilemma to face. He had to make sure the fire didn't spread, but he also needed to get his son away from there and calm him down.

He could tell he only had seconds before Sonic went into a full-blown panic attack, as well as the fire going out of control.

Sonic, meanwhile…

…was still trapped in the memory of the fire. The fact that he had had the nightmare about it not too long ago didn't help the situation.

The only word repeating in his head was, 'No…'

Vaguely, he could still see what was happening in the present, but the sound of the fire crackling and the smell of smoke kept him trapped in the memory.

He could still feel the fear, desperation, and helplessness he had felt then. It was also getting harder for him to breathe normally as the seconds passed.

Luckily for them, the smoke wasn't thick yet, so Shadow, remembering the fire extinguisher that was under the sink, braved the slowly spreading flames, but he only managed to take a few steps before he was grabbed from behind.

"No!"

Sonic had seen Shadow's silhouette going towards the fire, and not being able to stand the thought of losing someone else to, in his opinion, the frightening flames from Hell, he grabbed his dad's wrist to keep him from, again in his opinion, willingly jumping into the fire. "No!"

Turning his head, Shadow saw just how afraid his son was. "Listen to me, son. I know you're afraid, but I need to get something from one of the cabinets, and I can't get it if you're keeping me back."

"Please…" Sonic's whispered voice had sounded so frightened, almost to the point of being broken, Shadow felt his own heart breaking.

Still, he had to keep calm, even as the fire raged. "Sonic, I need to get the fire extinguisher."

Perking up slightly, Sonic raised his free hand and concentrated. A second later, said fire extinguisher appeared.

Mentally kicking himself again, Shadow thought to himself, 'I should've remembered. How could I forget about that ability?'

Sonic was hesitant to hand over the fire extinguisher. He wasn't looking directly at the flames anymore, but since they were spreading, they slowly coming back into his line of vision, therefore increasing his hesitation.

Seeing his son's increasing hesitation and fear, Shadow gently took the took the fire extinguisher from the navy colored, pyrophobic teen, all the while trying to reassure him.

Sonic, however, seeing that his dad was still going to go towards the fire, went into a panic, and, though mostly due to the rising smoke, started having trouble breathing. He could practically hear his heart pounding in his ears.

Shadow, meanwhile, was having a little trouble putting out the flames. He knew that when it came to fires, the best way to put them out, aim for the base of the fire.

Finally, 10 minutes later, the fire was completely out. Tossing the fire extinguisher aside, Shadow turned back to his still panicking, but slowly calming down once the fire was gone, son, calmly walked to him, and started rubbing circles on his back.

"It's over, son. The danger's passed. You're safe now," Shadow murmured, doing everything he could think of to soothe his son.

It seemed to work, because Sonic calmed down within several minutes.

Once Sonic was fully calm, and more aware of his surroundings, he noticed tears running down his face, which he furiously wiped away, feeling rather embarrassed about it.

"Feeling better?"

Sonic hadn't forgotten that his dad was there, but it didn't make him feel better. "Define 'better'."

Shadow glared, but it went unnoticed, since Sonic was still rubbing his eyes. "Has your panic attack fully subsided?"

"It wasn't a panic attack!" Sonic yelled defensively, lowering his arm and glaring right back at Shadow. 'He can't know…he should never know…'

"If it wasn't a panic attack, then what was it?"

Sonic was trying to come up with an excuse, and fast. "It…It was…" but he couldn't come up with a good excuse, so he sighed in defeat. "Alright, fine, it was a fucking panic attack. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"It would've been better without the language."

Glowering at him, Sonic just stayed silent as he turned his gaze to the floor.

"Why didn't you want me to know?" Shadow asked, not understanding why his son would keep something as serious as this a secret.

"I thought you would've started treating me differently if you knew…" was the soft reply.

"Having an attack like that, or a phobia, doesn't make you any different."

"…It gave them another advantage to torment me…"

The ebony hedgehog didn't need to ask about "them". He clenched his fists at the thought of how hard things had been for his son.

When Sonic heard the sound of cracking knuckles, he grew worried and turned his head slightly to look at Shadow, who at the moment looked angry enough to kill.

'It's because of me he's like this. Why did I tell him? I should've just kept it to myself…' Sonic thought as he looked at the floor again.

As soon as Shadow saw his son's sullen expression, he had to force himself to calm down.

"How did they find out about your phobia?" Shadow asked in a semi-monotone voice.

Sonic closed his eyes as more memories bombarded him. He opened them halfway, and Shadow saw that they were glazed over again. His son's voice was completely emotionless as he explained.

"There was a small riot that broke out. It happened a few months after I escaped the orphanage, but I don't really know what caused it. I was just watching from one of the alleyways, when they started setting a building on fire. When I saw the fire I just…Well, one of the more drunken guys saw, and told the rest of the mob.

"Once they got wind of that piece of information, they all their attention towards me, they all started taunting me. 'What's the matter, ya weird-eyed freak? Afraid of a little fire?'" Obviously, Sonic's voice had had to switch to sarcastic mocking for the last sentence before it went back to emotionless. Still, he shuddered as he concluded with, "The several that had torches…you can guess what they did…"

As soon as he heard that last statement, Shadow really felt like killing someone. It took every bit of self-restraint he had not to run off and do so, though.

Once he had forced himself to calm down again, Shadow sighed and put an arm around his son's shoulders. The action snapped Sonic out of his reverie, making him look at the obsidian hedgehog and blink slowly, as though just now realizing he was there.

A few seconds of silence passed before Sonic looked at the floor again, stood up, and started to walk away.

"Where are you going?" Shadow asked, unsure if he should really let his son be alone at the moment.

"…To the balcony. I won't do anything stupid, so don't worry about me," Sonic responded, his voice so low, even Shadows keen ears strained to hear it.

'I should follow him…' Shadow thought as he watched his son's retreating form.

3 minutes later, at the balcony…

Sonic was sitting on the railing of the balcony. He knew it was a bad idea to do so, since it could easily break, or he could lose his balance and fall, but at the moment, he didn't really care.

Looking at the nighttime sky, Sonic tried hard not to think about his past. Why did he have to mention anything? Living the memories once was bad enough, but talking about it made him relive them.

'At least most of the blows I had blocked with my hands…' he thought, taking off his gloves. It was hard to see with the peach fur, but there was a lot of scar tissue from the burns he'd received when he had blocked blows from flaming torches.

Luckily, none of the scar tissue stiffened up and caused problems. He couldn't have afforded it if he wouldn't have been able to keep stealing food. He would've starved to death if he couldn't get food, no matter how little.

After scrambling to put his gloves back on, in case his dad decided to make sure he hadn't attempted suicide, he continued to look at the stars.

Frowning, Sonic looked down at his hands again, slowly taking the gloves off once more.

In the darkness, it was barely noticeable that he had been burned at all. One just needed to know where the scars were. During the day, they were slightly noticeable, if someone looked closely.

'I'm a bit surprised he hasn't noticed them yet,' he thought. 'Then again, I doubt he'd been looking close enough to actually notice them.'

At that moment, thunder could be heard in the distance.

"Well, that's just great…just my luck. At least things can't get any worse."

Right when that statement left his mouth, a bone-chilling laugh could be heard.

"What the hell? Who's there?"

Eerie sounding music sounded to play, and Sonic couldn't help thinking that he'd heard it before.

"Your soul is very interesting. I have not seen one like yours in over a century."

'This is getting weird. What's he talking about my soul for?' Sonic thought as he flipped backwards off the railing and back onto the balcony.

It was then that he saw something he knew hadn't been there before.

The more he stared, the louder the music got.

It was a doll, but that wasn't the only reason why he was staring.

It looked like a creepy version of a two-tailed fox, and there was something that looked like a red jewel sticking out of its head.

It was covered in blood.

And it was hovering above the ground.

"What the hell are you?" he managed to ask in his shock.

It laughed again, and it sounded so frightening that it made Sonic's quills harden and sharpen out of pure instinct. Still, he hid his fear.

"Foolish mortal. I can see you are afraid."

"Who are you? What do you want?" Sonic tried very hard to keep the fear out of his voice.

"What I want is…your soul."

The jewel on it's head glowed, and as the first lightning bolt lit up the sky, and thunder rumbled even louder, Sonic felt an immense pain in his chest. It was so sudden he couldn't help but scream from the intensity of it.

The last thing he felt before darkness entered his vision was something being pulled from his body.

Downstairs…

Shadow had still been contemplating on whether or not to follow Sonic to the balcony. The thunder was worrying, but not too much.

It was when the music started playing did Shadow realize something was wrong. He had heard the legends; he just hoped they weren't true.

Then came the scream.

The bloodcurdling scream made his insides freeze.

Trying not to fear the worst, Shadow ran up to the balcony.

He wasn't prepared for the sight in front of him.

"The Tails Doll…" he whispered.

Then he caught sight of Sonic, and what was in Tails Doll's hands. He could've sworn he felt his heart stop; memories of that day in the hospital over 15 and a half years earlier made their way to the surface. Shadow fell to his knees.

'Not again…Damn it, not again!'

In response to his overwhelming emotions, Shadow's Chaos Energy started to swirl around him. This caused Tails Doll to turn towards him.

"Ah, another soul I can feast on. Yours and the boy's souls will be enough to fuel my power for the next century."

'That bastard will pay for what he did to my son!'

Shadow's ebony fur slowly became red to match his streaks. His eyes lost their pupils and irises.

In a flash, Shadow had the Tails Doll by the throat and was currently a few hundred feet above the ground.

"Fool. Do you honestly think you can kill me?"

Powering up a Chaos Spear, Shadow aimed at Tails Doll's chest, only emitting one word:

"Die!"

Then, he fired the powerful Chaos Spear at the psychotic doll, leaving nothing but ash, before reverting back to normal and, using his hover skates to float back to his son.

Unfortunately, Shadow had momentarily forgotten that Tails Doll had been holding Sonic's soul when he was disintegrated, a fact he realized too late.

Before his emotions could overwhelm him again, a pulse of Chaos Energy was emitted from Sonic's body, shocking the hell out of Shadow.

"Sonic?"

What shocked him even more was when his son responded by opening his eyes…

Only…

Sonic's eyes were dull, containing no emotion whatsoever.

Without a soul, he had nothing. He felt nothing.

But…

'If he's still managing to respond even with his soul gone…did…did he somehow create an artificial soul for himself?'

During one of his missions he had heard about artificial souls. How those who received one in order to save their lives would act positively, negatively, or indifferent depending on the type of people they were around.

Now Shadow had a new dilemma. How much would his son remember? Would Sonic still have all of his memories? Or would he have complete amnesia?

'Only one way to find out,' he thought as he walked towards his son, uncertainty flooding through his body.

"Sonic?"

A faint spark of recognition flashed in the dual-colored eyes, though Shadow was unsure if it was recognition of his name or hearing his voice, but other than that, there was nothing.

"Do you know who I am?"

Sonic turned his head towards the voice. It sounded familiar…but who was it? He couldn't remember…

There was one memory of pain…and a few small ones of…someone holding him, soothing his fears. But who was it? Looking at the figure next to him, he saw that he looked like the person in his memories. Was it the same one?

Shadow was growing worried. He knew that there was a good chance Sonic had amnesia, but the thought of it made him even more worried.

After a few more seconds of silence, Shadow was regrettably starting to lose hope.

There was another thunderclap, reminding Shadow of the approaching storm. It wouldn't do either of them any good to get caught in the rain, so he carefully picked up his son and carried him inside.

If Sonic had had the strength to, he would've gasped in pain when he felt himself being moved. He hadn't been aware of it before.

Being carted like this, though…felt familiar…

An image found its way into his mind…an image of a picture…it showed…a young hedgehog, who he faintly recognized as himself, an older female hedgehog, and…the male who was carrying him.

It didn't make any sense. What did that picture mean?

Why did it only show him and the other two?

Who were they?

T.B.C.

Okay, not the best chapter out there, but I wasn't sure how else to end it…and I wanted to finish this chapter by the end of the day, as the Tails Doll being there was for Halloween. Speaking of which, Happy Halloween, everyone! Oh shit, I didn't finish before midnight...I lost track of time. Oops...

I hope I didn't mess up on anything; I had a hard time deciding whether or not Sonic should have had his memories.

The artificial soul thing is from Sonic Battle, I think, where it was discovered that Shadow was created with an artificial soul. The part about the personality of whoever is has one changing depending on the type of people they're around…that's just my theory on how they work, but I'm not sure if it's true.

Yes, I made Sonic pyrophobic. I thought it would help with his and Shadow's still repairing relationship. I personally don't know anyone who has pyrophobia. I, on the other hand, have the complete opposite, pyromania!

Anyway, sorry if this chapter didn't meet expectations. And for the wait.

Now… *as the creepy version of "Can You Feel The Sunshine?" plays in the background, and the Tails Doll appears* review, please…

Tails Doll: Or I shall steal your souls.

ShidesuHejjihoggu (and guest star, the Tails Doll)