Guys! I'm so sorry I rook so long! I got back from camping, and then I just procrastinated for a while... Sorry!
On that note, if I don't update for, like, a week, please check my profile to see if it says I'm on vacation or something. It should be in the 'Update Schedule' section. If it doesn't say anything like that, please send me a review or PM telling me to get a move on.
Chapter 5: Families, Lost
"My home!" Stacey gasped.
She fell to her knees, staring at the burnt remains.
"My home," she repeated, voice wavering.
"Were there people inside?" I asked, getting down onto my knees so that we were the same height.
Stacey nodded, tears forming at her eyes.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sure they got out in time."
"I guess," Stacey sniffed.
But soon she was crying as hard as a waterfall anyway.
"There, there," I said, patting her back awkwardly.
Hey, you think I know how to calm someone down? I literally lived in a lab my entire life until then!
Suddenly, some of the house rubble shifted. A black hedgehog came out, panting and holding his arm.
"You!" Stacey roared. "You must have done this!"
"Burned the house?" the black hedgehog, Shadow, I realized, said. "No."
"What are you talking about?" Stacey yelled. "You did it, I know! When you were at the party, you were just scouting out the house! This is why nobody ever talks about you!"
"Stacey, I don't know what you're talking about, but please listen!" I shouted. "Shadow couldn't have done it."
"How would you know?" Stacey asked, glaring at me. "How do you even know who he is?"
"Er," I stammered, not ready to give away that piece of information just yet.
"We don't have time," Shadow interrupted. "You two are the only ones left. Grab on."
He said 'grab on', but he didn't actually let us. Instead he grabbed us, holding our arms.
"Chaos control!" he shouted.
The world flashed, and we were standing in the grass.
"Help!" Stacey called, struggling.
"Stacey, it's fine," I said.
Shadow walked over to where several other girls were standing.
"Stacey!" a plant-like girl squealed, running over to the blue hedgehog.
"Nebula, what's going on?" Stacey asked.
"Oh, it's horrible!" the plant girl, Nebula, cried. "But Mr. Shadow saved us."
"Him?" Stacey asked, looking at the black hedgehog.
"Of course." Nebula blinked. "Why wouldn't he?"
"Er, he didn't burn down the house?" Stacey asked.
All the other girls, (a fox, a bunny, an echidna, and a bat,) laughed.
"Huh? Prism?" I asked, realizing who the bat was.
"Hiya, Nocny," she said brightly.
"It wasn't him who burned the house," the echidna told Stacey.
"Then who was it?" Stacey asked.
"We don't know," Prism cut in. "Nobody saw him."
"Ahem," Shadow said.
Everyone stopped and looked at him.
"Something very serious is going on," Shadow began. "Something that should be too advanced for you, but I have no other options."
"What about our parents?" Nebula asked. "Where are they?"
Shadow looked at her silently for a long time.
"Where are they?" Nebula repeated, though her voice wavered.
"The one who burned the house has them," Shadow finally answered.
In about two seconds, everything was in chaos.
"Mom and Dad are kidnapped?"
"Even my Mom?"
"Daddy? Gone?"
"Who will take care of the chao?"
"How?"
"What about Aunt Tikal?"
"All the adults were taken," Shadow said.
Nebula started crying.
The fox girl looked at her. Then she looked at Shadow. She looked like she was about to cry.
Then she did start crying, of course.
"Wait, what about all my siblings?" the echidna asked with a hint of desperation.
"Taken," Shadow said simply.
I was taken aback at his insensitiveness. I mean, he doesn't really show his emotions, but we're talking about broken families!
Tears started to form at the echidna's eyes.
"Are you crying?" Stacey asked.
"Of course not," the echidna lied.
The tears were now streaking down her face, after all.
Stacey tried to look proud, but she only succeeded for a couple of seconds before she broke down.
"Mom and Dad are gone?" she asked, as if it was hard to believe.
Which it probably was, to her. I still had my family, so I couldn't quite understand, though.
"A fire," the bunny whispered.
I wouldn't have heard her, except, Ultimate LifeForm hearing!
When I looked at her, I saw that the bunny's eyes were glazed over.
"Just like last time," the bunny girl continued. "Just like last time," she repeated.
She put her head in her hands and started crying softly.
"Well, my mom couldn't have been captured," Prism said. "She's all the way in Centr-"
"She was there," Shadow interrupted.
Prism blinked. "What?"
"She was taken along with the others," Shadow said. "I couldn't save her…"
"Oh." Prism seemed shocked.
Not five seconds later, she was wailing louder than all the others. It's my belief that the only emotions she feels are bubbliness and despair. And she only feels one or the other all the time, so the emotions are magnified by, like, twenty.
"If you wish to save your families, you must get stronger," Shadow said, looking a bit disgusted at the weeping, mucus-covered girls. "Your training will start tomorrow at dawn."
Shadow turned around and started to walk away through the trees. I moved to follow him since I didn't know what else to do.
A few minutes later, the black hedgehog stopped.
"How was your mission?" He asked.
Oh yeah, that.
"I'm sorry, but I…" why is this so hard to say? "I failed."
I was looking at my feet so I couldn't see him, but I heard Shadow take in a breath to start speaking.
"It wasn't that I didn't try," I added quickly, starting to look up. "I even found it, but it got away!"
"Nocny," Shadow said sternly. "You have failed the mission. That should prove you are not ready for the dangers of life outside the lab yet."
"B-but, it was an accident! Let me try again, I can do it!" I protested.
"Should prove," Shadow said, stopping me. "But I'm about to train six other girls here on Angel Island."
I tilted my head, wondering where he was going with this. Also, where's Angel Island?
"Since I will have no free time to continue your training at the lab, you shall train here with the others," Shadow finished.
"Really?" I asked. "You're letting me have social interaction? What is this, christmas?"
"You've had social interaction," Shadow said.
"With who? A crazy kid who shouldn't even be there even if his family works there? The scientists who don't have time for me outside of testing?" I asked. "The nurses who only talk to me to be nice, and only if I talk to them first?"
My voice had been steadily rising throughout that entire rant.
"I do this to protect you!" Shadow said. "The world is not safe!"
"There are billions of people who live outside stupid labs, and they're fine!" I shouted back. "What's so different about me?"
"What's so different about me?!" I screamed. "Why do you care?!"
"I care because you're my daughter!" Shadow roared back. "I was told one day that they had cloned me, and next thing I know a baby girl is being placed in my arms!"
"If others know about you, they will destroy you!" he continued. "I cannot protect you from thousands of angry people!"
"What happened to being all powerful, hm?" I asked angrily. "Just chaos spear them to oblivion!"
"It doesn't work like that!" Shadow shouted. "If you knew the least bit about chaos energy, you would know!"
"Chaos energy is all you ever talk about!" I shouted back.
"Well, obviously you didn't learn anything from it!" he shouted.
"Ugh!" I yelled. "You think you know everything! Well, guess what?"
"I HATE YOU!" I screamed.
I turned and ran away, hurling recklessly past trees.
"I hate you," I repeated, even though I knew he couldn't hear me.
After what felt like hours of running, almost all of my emotion had been blown away in the wind. I skidded to halt and found myself in front of some sort of shrine.
I could feel the chaos energy radiation around the shrine, so I decided to get a closer look. I climbed up the shrine's stairs. There before me was a massive green gem, and I could tell it was the source of the chaos energy.
If Prism was there, she would've loved it. The gem, anyway. She doesn't really care about chaos.
The gentle energy made me feel calm and relaxed, and I sat down to lean against a pillar.
Some minutes later, I wasn't sure how many, a voice interrupted the peace.
"What are you doing here?" it asked.
"Resting," I said. "Is this your gem? It pours chaos energy, you know."
"I do know, and it belongs to the guardian, which is Knuckles," the voice answered.
The voice was coming from the echidna girl. She was no longer crying, and looked as though she was trying to ignore that she ever was.
"Who are you?" The echidna asked.
"Nocny," I answered. "You?"
"Star," the girl answered.
I nodded, spotting the white star on her forehead.
"Please stay away from the Master Emerald," Star said in a tone that sounded very much like ordering. "C'mon. The others are at the huts."
I got up and followed Star.
A minute into the walk, Star started talking to me.
"So, who are you really?" she asked. "Why are you here?"
"I… I'm nobody much, honestly," I answered. "I was just in the area when Shadow came for Stacey."
Star gave me a funny look.
My ears twitched in discomfort.
"We're here," Star said.
I looked down the path and spotted a clearing with huts on the outskirts.
Once we were actually in the clearing, Prism jumped me.
"Hiya!" she said. "Sorry I'm not sharing a hut with you, but, ya know, a girl needs her privacy!"
"Um," I said.
"Hi, new roomie!" Stacey called, waving.
"What?" I asked.
"I'm sharing with Star," Nebula told me.
"What's happening?" I asked.
"We're choosing huts, obviously," Prism answered.
"Cinnamon and Pepper are sharing," Stacey told me, pointing to the bunny and fox respectively.
"The bunny's Cinnamon, and the fox is Pepper?" I asked, making sure I had got it right.
"Yep," Stacey answered.
Then Stacey walked over to a hut and went inside. I followed her.
"Dibs on top bunk!" Stacey shouted.
"Huh? Hey, I didn't even know you called dibs on top bunks!" I protested.
Stacey stuck out her tongue at me.
I squinted. The setting sun was getting into my eyes.
"Ack," Stacey said suddenly. "I'm transforming!"
"Does this happen every night?" I asked.
Stacey waited until she was fully transformed to answer me.
"Yep," she said. "Well, I only half transform on new moons."
Then she stuck out her tongue again.
"It's the worst," she said. "It's like, either transform, or not. Don't do something in the middle!"
I sat down on my bed.
"How many people know that you're a werehog?" I asked.
"Just Mom and Dad and…" Stacey trailed off. "They're all gone…"
Stacey started crying again.
"They're gone!" she wailed.
"It's not like you'll never see them again," I said. "Shadow will train us, and then we'll save them!"
Stacey sniffled.
"Maybe," she said.
Special Announcment!
I assume ya'll have all been wonderin' 'bout U9-b, that character that turned up in the prologue. Well, I don't know for sure since I haven't been getting many reviews. (Hint hint)
Anyway, I'm going to start another story that explains U9-b. She's, like, the second (third?) main character. Shadow's the first main character :)
Where was I? Oh, yeah. The story will be titled 'You're Just a Shadow', and It will be rated T as it is much darker than OverShadowed. (The other main character is a crazy phsyco.)
Also, since OverShadowed is main story, You're Just a Shadow will update slower. Sorry about it having to be rated T, too. :/
