Shadow had stormed out of Rouge's party and headed out to his car. Rouge quit following him as she saw him throw open the driver side door and then slam it shut after he got in. She sighed as she watched him drive off in the rain and she turned around, flying back inside to her party. Shadow pulled out of the parking lot and turn out onto the street. It was silent in the car as he just listened to the heavy ran falling against the window. After a few more minutes of unbearable silence he turned on the radio. The station was on one of Tails favorite radio talk shows. They were always talking about love and life advice.

"I swear, Tails is 27 years old. Why is he listening to this girly crap all the time..." He muttered. He had gone to switch the radio off when the host said,

"How can love push a person to work hard enough to make money?"

Shadow froze, hesitated, then pulled his hand away. His eyes focused on the road, but his ears focused on the voice.

"Most of the time, it's not money we want, it's to be able to love and feel loved by the person we admire most. But because the love of your life is beautiful and deserves the best thing you can offer her, people will normally work hard to give her what she deserves. Now, don't get me wrong, money isn't always a 100 percent sure way to make someone love you. However, a penniless person will fail in love. And so, people make money to make sure they can provide and give their woman what she needs."

Shadow tightened his grip on the steering wheel. The session ended on the radio and he turned it off. He thought to himself a bit more, then shook it off. He didn't want to relive the past and the hurt that was in his heart, it was too sensitive to remember everything that had happened. Sure, he was mean and cold, but he didn't have a choice. In life, you adapt to your surroundings.


For Shadow, he had not meant to be a part of this world. Sonic's family was a noble and rich family of the capital. They were always successful as long as they had someone to marry an heir off to. Sonic's mother, Aleena, and father, Jules, were forced into an arranged marriage, there was no love behind it at all and it was pitiful and miserable. However, Sonic's father was in love with an actress, Shadow's mother. Sonic's father had been greedy and under the influence of alcohol when they had slept together.

Two months later Shadow's mother discovered that she was pregnant and had kept it a secret. It turns out, Sonic's mother had also found out she was pregnant. Many many months later both of them went into labor at the same hospital, but in different rooms. Shadow, who was born first, was born in the crummiest hospital room to offer. Sonic, who was born second, was born in the three star hospital room. Already the two were born with completely different lives. Sometimes Shadow had just wished that his mother would have just aborted him, to save herself from all this misery, but he knew her heart and knew she would never be the type of person to do that. She kept it a secret from Sonic's family and just worked harder in the entertainment industry to provide for Shadow. Life was great, until the time when Shadow was three. He had fallen ill and was hospitalized, and the only way for him to get better was to get him a bone marrow transplant. His mother had tried desperately to do it herself, but it was no use. Her HLA wasn't a match to the child's. In the end, she had no other choice but to go to Sonic's mother and father for help.

Even though the marriage didn't revolve around love, the next few years Sonic's mom and dad were the happiest couple. So when the celebrity came asking for help, you can imagine how badly this affected their marriage afterwards. Sonic's mother though, with a heart of gold, said she would do everything she could to help, and gave him no choice but to give Shadow his bone marrow. It was at that moment that he would hate the child Shadow, for he was proof of their being a stain in his life. A stain he would never be able to get rid of. So he gave the red celebrity female hedgehog a compromise.

"We will help in whatever way we can. However, there will be a few conditions. Shadow will not live here with us. Shadow will be excluded from the family tree. He will never be a legitimate heir to the family estate. Sonic will be the family successor."

After that night, the operation had been successful. After that, Ruby the hedgehog took Shadow and never looked back, cutting off all ties with the Xu family. But after that, Sonic's father had made sure that she didn't succeed in the entertainment industry. She was forced to pick up jobs as a waitress, stripper, cashier, et cetera. But she always made sure she could provide for her child.

So Shadow spent most of his nights home alone. Whenever he did see his mother, she had always passed out after giving him a kiss and rubbing his quills. And when he got back from school she was always leaving to go to work. He never saw his mother, but understood she was doing all she could. And he was too, as he was going to school trying to fit in, but was getting constantly teased and bullied by other kids. He had grown so used to it all that he ended up ignoring them all, staying by himself and being alone. Because of that, his cold and hateful demeanor grew even more. He started doing things on his own over time, and that became a habit. The reason he acted so defensively when people talked to him is because in his own way he was trying to stand up for himself.

After that, Shadow had been invited by Sonic's grandfather to attend a family dinner every year on new years. Shadow's mother told him if he wanted to go, he could go. She was not going to go though, she had to work. So every year on new years, Shadow went to visit the family for dinner. Jules didn't even make eye contact with the ebony hedgehog, and Aleena smiled at him, trying to make him feel welcome as much as she could. Yes she didn't like the woman's son being in her home, however she tried to tolerate it. But when she heard Shadow call Jules dad (only because he had seen Sonic do it and had assumed that was his name), she yelled at him and corrected him instantly, and after that Shadow never called Jules his dad again.

Now, Sonic was a rebel. Sonic actually cared for and got along with Shadow, and seeing how he had no siblings, Sonic had called Shadow his brother. Both his parents became enraged and told him that Shadow wasn't his brother, but Shadow didn't care, and kept calling him by that for the rest of the time. The bond between the brothers was strong and difficult to break.

After that, Sonic's grandfather died, and Shadow was never invited over to see his brother again. But he still got to see Sonic after that. They ended up going to the same school and Shadow couldn't help but feel happy. He walked up to Sonic one day, and that was when he met Amy. Her quills were shorter and she wore a red headband in her hair. After that time, Sonic, Blaze, and Shadow were all in the same grade, Amy was two years younger. However after her parents died, Amy's aunt and uncle convinced the school to let Amy skip two grades so she was in class with them. Sonic didn't live too far from them, so they walked home together most of the time after school, usually having to go an opposite direction from Shadow. Sometimes, after school, Sonic and Shadow would play football together in the field with the girls cheering them on.

And even though they were only in junior high, Amy and Blaze were popular with the boys. Blaze was fiery and outspoken, while Amy was quiet and graceful. The two sisters were beautiful. Amy however was naturally more pretty, but Blaze's personality drew peoples attention. They were the perfect due. When people complimented them Amy always blushed while Blaze just smirked. Amy always tried to hide her blush, but when Shadow started to notice it, his heart began to pound and he chuckled inside his head. Perhaps he had always noticed her back then. When she was around, he felt relaxed, and when she wasn't, he felt like a part of him was missing.

On that day under the rain when they were both waiting for the rain to stop, he had been too nervous to actually look at her. When he left and had turned to glance and had seen that she was looking at him the entire time, his heart almost burst. After that he saw her again in high school. The schooling was a little expensive and he didn't want to go originally, but his mother pushed him to do it so he would have a job and a good career later on in his future. So he did and always stuck by Sonic's side whenever he could. When she came up and Sonic had introduced Shadow to her, she had said, "Hi, I'm Amy." And he was too nervous to respond, so he kept up his cold exterior while Sonic had explained, "Shadow, his name is Shadow."

From then on, he would always nod at her direction or say her name as a greeting when he passed by her in the halls. But his favorite time to see her was when he played football and he would see her and her friends running in the field. At that time all the guys talked about which girl was the prettiest girl of them all, and it had always been Amy. This discouraged Shadow a bit, every guy in the school had eyes for the girl he had eyes on.

Later on, when he had purposely failed his math test to be in grade class C with her, he had hopes they would get closer. However, after hearing that she got good grades and put into class A, he became even more distressed. Especially with the fact that he was getting hounded by every female in class C now when he just wanted to be with Amy. And then there was one time when he was walking out of the bathroom and caught her leaning against the wall in pain. He had helped her to the nurses office and spent the entire afternoon there with her, and he swore that was the best afternoon of his entire life. When she had asked about the girl that had come in, he quickly diffused what she had been thinking. No, the student council president wasn't his girlfriend. And after that, he made sure he didn't have to speak to the female unless he had to. And when the nurse came back in and he had paid for her medicine with what little he had left over from mowing the grass for his neighbors, she had pulled out her wallet to reveal a pile of hundreds. His eyes almost widened, because that was how much he would have made mowing lawns in a year if not more.

He had applied at the same university as her, and then found out she was actually going somewhere else. He felt defeated. From then on, they lived in different places and he never got to see her much anymore. After she started coming to visit him more and more with train rides, he started to realize how much money she had from her inheritance. And yet everytime she went to visit him, he always paid for her meals, even though they cost him more than he was making.

And then there was the time she had lost her wallet when she came to see him and she had been crying on the phone frantically. That was the first night they had spent together and it was the best night of his life. After she had fallen asleep, she didn't know it, but he had actually stolen a kiss from her. He had looked at her and stroked her hair, promising to become a man worthy enough to love her.


Rouge had asked him what Amy was to him. As he pulled his car into a complete stop at where he was going, he decided that Amy was his deep and forbidden love. If he were to go back in time, he would say that Amy Rose was his deepest love. However at some point that love become forbidden. When he finally entered the entertainment industry at 18, and gotten some major roles, that was when people started respecting him and he started making money. The four and a half years after that were the most difficult times of his life but also the most blessed. After he had been able to send Amy home, he had gone back to his drama where he was the most favored character. Shortly after that he became popular and actually was able to take over the industry.

But now he had another chance to seek Amy's love and he was going to take it.