Me: Well! We're here! Are you excited DW. DW? *Looks around in confusion* Okay where is she?

Nicole: I don't know. Maybe she grabbed some popcorn?

Me: *shakes head* She better bring some apples.

Cosmo: *pokes head in room.* Um…Era? DW…isn't coming.

Me: *blinks* What…do…you…mean…she's…not…coming?

Cosmo: *shrinks back* She can't get here in time and said that you're on your own.

Me: Great! Just when I need her she doesn't show up! This is what I get when I allow her to put a character in! *begins to fumble with papers.* How does this guy act again?

Nicole: *sighs.* It can't be that difficult. Just have him read the lines.

Me: *stops and glares at Nikki.* It's not that simple…he's a-"

Nicole: Say what?

Me: Never mind. Now get to your places! We'll have to do our best!

*Nicole and Cosmo run onto the stage*

Nicole: Who is this guy?!

Me: I'll explain later. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Sorry, but I'm a bit panicky right now so I'm not going to make comments. Although, Dylan I loved the book review thing. Anyway… *deep breaths* ACTION!

Nicole's POV:

"Ow…" The gray hedgehog sat up. Slowly, he looked around the room and bit confused. "Um…"

I examined the strange hog. He was wearing a leather jacket, dark colored jeans, a dark red shirt, and had a golden belt around his waist. It sort of looked like something a mercenary would be found in…which made me think of Ethan.

I decided that I didn't like him.

Shadow was so startled that he didn't say anything.

As for the other youth, they were just as startled. Jr literally fell over on to the floor. Across the table, Miley stood up. Annie screamed right along with Topaz. Arnold was probably the most boring (he tilted his head). Meanwhile, I didn't flinch, which surprised everyone (including myself).

In a pretty arrogant voice, the stranger asked, "Where am I? Why did you bring me here? Who are you people?"

I frowned and looked at Shadow off to the side. "Can I hit him?"

The hedgehog crossed his arms and gave me a glare. "We'll exscuuuuse me! Who do you think you are?!"

A bit sassy I just crossed my arms and glared back. "Nicole. Nicole Ultimate. And you're sitting on my table so who's in charge here?"I decided I defiantly did not like this guy.

"Would you like to tell me why you decided to kidnap me, Miss High and Mighty Nicole? You know what, that name just doesn't fit you." The hedgehog didn't seem very scared of me, which was something I did not enjoy…which was sort of strange since I didn't like people thinking me to be scary.

"First of all, we didn't kidnap you. You just fell out of the sky! Second of all, if my name doesn't fit me, then what would you call me Mr…okay what's your name?"

The hedgehog sat up a little taller. "Manic. Manic Kingsley. Maybe Nikki. No…Nik. Just Nik."

I narrowed my eyes at Manic. Defiantly didn't like him. "If you call me that I will personally shoot you through the head."

The hedgehog smiled smugly. "Whatever you say…Nik."

I growled under my breath. "Can I hit him now?"

Finally getting over his shock, Shadow stepped forward. "Stop it. Both of you."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Manic sit up straight with his hair sticking out. He turned towards Shadow with wide eyes and a really tense look.

By this point Jr stood up and just stared at Manic. "Um…chili dogs…burning…wha-?"

Shadow rolled his eyes. "Everyone go to your dorms. We'll continue this meeting in the morning." He motioned at me to stay put with Gray boy.

After everyone slowly, but surely left the room, Shadow mumbled under his breath. "Kingsley…where have I heard that…?"

Manic just sat there wide eyed. "Sh-Shadow! What a surprise t-to see you here."

I raised an eyebrow. "Do you know him?"

Slowly, Shadow shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of…who are you kid?"

Manic mumbled something about…dimension travel? Okay then…

"I, uh, I'm, um."

"Oh spit it out already, you're wasting my time."

"Oh, like you're being any help, Princess. You try dimensionally traveling and landing on your head and see how you feel about it!"

Now let me point out. I was in a bad mood from the whole 'boyfriend' thing and now I'm dealing with an arrogant and bossy boy. I clenched my fists and scowled. "That's it!" Before Shadow could react I pounced at the kid.

Unfortunately…that kid has some fast reflexes. He easily dodged me and I went sliding off the table on the other side. Manic just rolled off the table and landed on his feet. As he started to make some comment (probably about how slow I was) I launched myself at him again. And…he dodged again. This went on for another ten seconds before I teleported directly behind him and pinned him to the table.

And of course that's when Shadow decided to step in. He pulled me off the dumb kid and yelled, "Enough you two!" Roughly, he pushed me off to the side and yanked the kid up. "Now let's figure out what we're going to do before you try to kill each other." Shadow faced the kid after glaring at me.

And…Manic was standing at attention.

"Where are you from? Who are you exactly? And don't just state your name, because that is not useful." Shadow crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes into an 'I'm serious' glare.

Manic nervously swallowed. "I'm Manic Kingsley, Prince of Acronoa. Son of Star and Will Kingsley."

Now that got my attention. "You're Mary's son? Wow…and I thought my life was weird. But that has to be weird. Although having Shawnee has an aunt has to be fun." Of course the idiot's a prince…

(("STOP!" "What Cosmo?" "Who the heck is Mary? And this Shawnee character?" "Okay, really really long story short: Star and Shawnee Kingsley are another dimension's version of Sonic and Shadow. Star (Mary) is Sonic and Shawnee is Shadow. The two of them married…a bit strangely. Star married another dimension's version of Knuckles (except he's a pacifist and a hedgehog) named Will and Shawnee married…well let's just say she married herself." "Meaning…?" "She married a Shadow. Any other questions?" "Yes. How does Nicole know them?" "The two sisters (yes they are sisters. Twins to be exact. Although neither of them know who's older at this point…don't ask) specialize in dimension jumping (Star) and time travel (Shawnee). They landed here during the whole Missy episode, but we didn't really mention it because it's so hard to understand (and DW is working on posting the story on here. We'll have a link when it is finally published.) Are we done for now?" "Yeah, I think we're good." "Great, now no more interrupting!"))

"Yeah, Aunt Shawnee is great. Her husband... Not so much."

I just shrugged. "I personally have never met that Shadow so I have no opinion."

Manic just nodded then seemed to do a double take. "Wait, how do you know them? Where am I?!"

I smiled a bit smug. "Welcome to Dimension Omega. I'm Nicole, you're personal tour guide. Over to your right, we have Shadow the Hedgehog. To your left, me. Are you done yet?"

Okay, I was a little mean, but once again, I was in a VERY bad mood.

Manic just stared, and then groaned. "Omega? That's so far from home..."

Once again, I shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never really dimension jumped…time traveled on the other hand…" I trailed off as an image of Maria before the gunshot entered my head. I shook myself awake. "Focus Nicole! First the gray boy, then Ari."

Shadow frowned. "Can you get home? Because I really don't need Star mad at me…" The very thought of that freaked me out (although I'd prefer Star's anger over Shawnee's any day.)

Manic just shook his head helplessly, "I wouldn't know where to go in the first place."

Annoyed I rolled my eyes, "Then how'd you get here?"

"Well, it's rather hard to control dimensional travel…Let's see I had gotten in an argument with my Mother and Aunt…then there was a flash of light which was probably me entering The Void. After that everything was sort of a blur until I fell out onto your table… Did any of you have any large energy spikes in the last ten minutes?"

Shadow frowned in my direction. "I think we may have…"

Slowly, I felt my face go red. "I really need to learn to control my anger. I don't know how many hedgehogs from the sky I can take…"

Manic didn't notice. "Well, I just want to go home! Can't you show me the way?"

Before he finished, I was already shaking my head. "Manny Boy, I would love to show you the way home, but unfortunately, your Mother is the only one who knows the Void like the back of her hand. So you're sort of stuck here…with me…in Omega…Oh Chaos, I hate my life sometimes…"

Manic didn't respond right away. "Manny Boy?"

I scrunched my face. "Never mind. How about Maniac? No that's dumb. Maybe I should call you Grayson…"

The boy just blinked. "Um…"

After that I decided that I'd figure out a nickname later. "Never mind."

"Well," Shadow cut in, "now that that's settled, we can go back to the matter at hand."

"That someone fell on their head?" Cosmo marched into the room right up to Manic. "Sit down and let me examine your head."

"Um…no I'm good. Hard heads run in the family, so a little conk won't do much."

"Sit down. Now." Cosmo gave her 'no arguing' glare. Manic sat down.

Shadow motioned for me to follow him out of the room. As we walked out of the room, I heard Cosmo order the gray hedgehog to follow her. Something told me that the hospital was about to have a new patient.

After a few moments of silence in the halls, Shadow finally spoke. "Alright, what's chewing at you?"

"First of all, never say that again." That sentence coming from him just sounded so wrong. "Second of all, I'm fine."

"No…you're not. And something tells me it wasn't just Maria…"

Okay…spending time with Arianna defiantly did some good things for Shadow. He said the blonde's name and nobody was about to die…

Around this point we were in the garden (yes, GUN as a courtyard garden…I'm pretty sure it was for Arianna…).

Shadow motioned for me to sit down on a bench. He took a seat in a wicker chair across from me. "Well, I don't think so…now what's wrong."

I sighed. "You're going to do therapy? Seriously? Don't you already do this with Arianna?" I began to stand up, but Shadow gently pushed me back down.

"Which is why I'm doing it with you. Now spill it."

Humbled and impressed in one day. I think I hate today. Slowly, I leaned back, "Shadow…when you were training us, you taught us a bunch of rules like; 'use your powers only for good,' and; 'earth first then yourself.' Right?"

Shadow nodded. "Yes…what about it?"

"There was one rule I never really understood… 'No making relationships of any sort.' So no making friends, allies, or anything of that sort, right?"

Again, the mentor nodded, but a bit slower this time.

"You said we could have the whole sister relationship, and of course friendships we have in Team Sonic…but nothing else." I looked up at him and then looked back at my hands. "Why do we have that guideline?"

Shadow didn't answer for quite some time. "Remember Maria?"

I nodded. "Of course…"

"Remember how I tried to destroy the world?"

"Who could forget that?" I asked smiling. "You were a jerk."

"True…but I saved it so I wasn't a complete jerk." Softly, he sighed. "I made that rule so you wouldn't become like me. If I almost destroyed humanity because of one human killing Maria, then I could only imagine the disaster that could happen if something happened to Arianna. Or vice versa, depending on whom it was. Originally, I didn't even want the two of you to even affiliate with Team Sonic, but GUN didn't really like that. Neither did the public voice…"

As I looked up, I saw a different hedgehog then the one I'd always known. This one was afraid of what his mistakes would lead too…and for the first time in my life I felt like I was looking at the real Shadow. He was tough, he was a bit scary, but he was more scared of himself then of anyone else. One bad move by him, then everyone would not only hate him…but hate Arianna and me (and in my case, hate me more.). No one really cared about him. The second the public saw him as a threat, the gun was pulled. In the long scheme of things, Shadow was standing alone against the world…

In the back of my head, I remembered an old song that I wrote in the Mistress Years.

Song: Me Against the World

Artist: Simple Plan

We're not gonna be just a part of their game
We're not gonna be just the victims
They're taking our dreams and they tear them apart
'Til everyone's the same

I've got no place to go
I've got nowhere to run
They'd love to watch me fall
They think they know it all

I'm a nightmare, a disaster
That's what they always said
I'm a lost cause, not a hero
But I'll make it on my own
I've gotta prove them wrong
Me against the world

It's me against the world

If anyone was alone, it was Shadow…

"Why do you ask?"

I snapped back to the present. "What?"

My mentor sighed in disapproval. "What have I said about focus? Why do you ask about that rule?" He raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Um…I was just wondering." I rubbed the back of my neck.

I don't think he believed me, but decided that he wouldn't get any more info. "Alright, Arianna wanted to see you before the end the day, so you'd better get going."

Cursing myself, I rushed off towards the medical wing. About five minutes later I burst into Arianna's room.

Startled, my elder sister looked up. "Well look who finally decided to show up." Ari gave a small smile.

"Sorry, Shadow wanted to talk to me…" I sat down at the foot of the bed. "How you doing?"

Ari shrugged then winced from the pain. "Been better…but have also been worse." Her face paled at that last thought.

Quickly, I changed the subject. "Well, we still haven't found the shooter, but I'm not losing hope. We'll find him. He can't hide forever."

Arianna gently squeezed my hand. "You're a great sister…thanks Nikki."

Over in the next room, we heard a muffled yell and several things crash around.

I frowned. "What the heck was that?"

"Not sure, but those noises have been going on for the past 15 minutes." Arianna smiled. "Maybe a cat got lose…again."

I raised an eyebrow at that.

"It's happened before…" My sister smiled at me. "When you do that…you look a lot like Shadow."

Not really surprised at that news, I looked at the floor. "That's what I'm afraid of…"

Before Ari could respond, Cosmo burst into the room. "Oh my Chaos! If that kid escapes one more time I swear I'm going to throw him in the jail and place him under three locks!"

We Ultimate's looked at each other. "Um…what?" I asked for both of us.

"Oh you're gray friend. He refuses to stay in the hospital bed and is very fidgety. I've literally had to strap him to the bed in order to keep him in this building!"

I just rolled my eyes. "Oh, that's what that noise was…"

"Um…who's this gray friend?" Poor Arianna looked so confused.

A bit reluctantly I told Ari about Manic Kingsley. She nodded and listened carefully until I was finished.

"Must be some kid…I'd love to see a fight between the two of you." True, Cosmo had given up the whole bot making thing, but I think part of her missed all of the action.

Arianna looked horrified at the thought. "Well I wouldn't!"

After that remark, we all laughed and chatted for another hour, until Cosmo insisted that Ari got some sleep. Sadly, we said our goodnights and I left my sister in Cosmo's capable hands.

As I walked back to my room, I couldn't help but wonder where Ethan was… Quickly, I snapped that thought of my head. "No Ethan. Ethan is a no-no. Now pull yourself together and let's track down this assassin after Arianna."

"Yes Nicole."

"Hey, it's for your own good. Remember Shadow."

"Well maybe I don't care about Shadow."

"You know that's not true."

Have I mentioned how much I hate arguing with myself?

Me: *sighs in relief* Not too bad if I do say so myself.

Nicole: Wait…didn't you say when you were asking for characters that there was no 'other dimension Sonic's' allowed?

Me: I also said that that was going to come back to haunt me. Now sit back and be happy that I didn't give you amnesia again.

Nicole: Oh, yeah, you just had my sister get shot and brought some crazy prince in the story. Why wouldn't I be mad?

Me: Um…okay. Review please. I'm going to go find DW and kill her for not showing up.

Cosmo: Once again, it's not her fault.

Me: I think I'll give you amnesia and boyfriend problems next…

Cosmo: I thought DW was getting charge over me.

Me:…Oh right. Dang it!

Nicole: Get over it. It's not the end of the world.