Heroes vs Villains - Ponderosa

Chapter 1 - Juror 1

Well, here is the side fic.

Even though things can get repetitive with the Ponderosa side-series of these Survivor eras, almost no one does these side fics, first of all. And second,... it's kind of a great way to just chill out with one character at a time as they reflect on themselves and the way they've played the game. Nice little break from all the action that is happening on the main island. And it's a great way of knowing the characters even more.

Sure, the main story is not being updated at the moment. But you know what? This could be a smart business move. Since this Ponderosa chapter is the only thing going to be posted today, all the attention will be on this lol.

And since Shadow had a lot of fans once again, hopefully this'll be worth it, especially given his reaction to his blindside... It's gonna be one for the books. No one has ever been that salty before, literally calling them dumbasses... WOW.

~KF

"I am Shadow. Shadow the Hedgehog. And this is my Ponderosa... Here we go again."

Night 21

If there was one thing Shadow accomplished that night, it was simply about how he truly felt about him going home like that. He really let his fellow competitors have it. They were going to remember every last word that was spoken their way, and he was going to return to Tribal Council as the first and only juror as a reminder to all of them of the decisions they put in place on night twenty-one.

And so far, at least half of them were going to feel rather regretful. He was still talking trash about the other survivors as he stamped his feet along staring at the ground.

"This is embarrassing. How can you call yourself an All Star by making dumbass decisions like this? I shouldn't be the one going to Ponderosa right now. Somebody else should. Maybe DK or Golden, or since Ridley played the idol on Ryu, Bowser should probably be here instead. But, no. It just so happened to be me and I'm not happy about it one bit. They all should have known better."

With another thunder, the first few raindrops were felt on his black and red fur. Great... Just one more thing to further sour his mood. It was best for him to make his way to Crazy Hand quickly before he got soaked.

"I was infuriated and I made sure everyone knew it. No way in hell in a perfect world, I would have been the one going home. I'm still in shock right now. I feel like this is absolutely ludicrous, with the fact that all it took was an ounce of common sense, and I would have been safe. And you know what? Let's talk about my past season. I never really forgot about that #JusticeforShadow trend."

#JusticeforShadow

Ah. Nice little callback from Survivor - Emperors vs Knights.

"Part of me is wanting the minority alliance to go as far as possible in this, but then another part of me is wondering why in the name of Mobius did they target me? I haven't done anything to 'em." Hurry up, Shadow. It was sprinkling, but now it was starting to actually rain. "I've only known Golden and DK for three days, Ryu didn't give a damn about me, Bowser didn't give a damn about me, Ridley talked to me a little bit. But he cared more about his own damn allies. The only two or three people that really paid any attention to me were Shovel and Zelda from the Heroes tribe, and... Plague Knight of all people. Plague Knight. If that doesn't paint a picture, I don't know what will."

BOOM!

"And the most funny thing to me is that-..." He heaved a heavy sigh, beginning to pick up his pace. "-those same people. The same people that criticized me for 'not being sociable enough' or 'not talking to anybody'... Some of those same people are hypocrites. Almost no one came my way this season. Conversations aren't a one way street. They can approach me as well, but they didn't. But, I'm the bad guy. _ assholes..."

Hmm... It seemed that he was once again being revealing about his real issues that were going on with him at the time.

"Now I know what Rouge means when she complains to me that she's always the one texting somebody but they're never texting her. And half the time I question myself if I should take her seriously."

...Did he automatically have the assumption that she was not going to be watching this? Not only they were both season two competitors. They literally both came from Mobius and they were both friends with Knuckles (even though he and Rouge feuded early on in that season).

But anyway, he successfully made it to Crazy Hand... soaking wet.

"Hi, Shadow! ...?" Crazy eyed him from head to toe. "Uh... You okay?"

That one question only furthered his anger even more. "No, I'm on cloud nine because I've just won the million dollars. What does it look like to you!?"

"Okay, well whatever you do, don't shake now! You'll get water everywhere and your fur will get off puffy!"

Hahaha!

Well to be fair, that would have been a hilarious viral photo of Shadow the Hedgehog on social media. There would have been memes and everything.

"Let's get this stupid thing over with. I don't need to add you to the list of people that I have a problem with."

"Okay, well let me get a towel so that I can put it on this chair over here. I don't need you getting my seat wet." The host's brother told him, Sonic's canon arch-rival groaning under his breath dripping from where he stood at.

"The majority alliance consisted of myself and Plague, the Hero Four (Zelda, Vector, Shovel, and Yoshi), and then Wolf and Springtrap officially joined our side, but it was all for naught because of Ridley's idol. Though it was about how avoidable this all was. If someone grew a brain, everyone should have known better. I bet the moment they made it back to camp, they were busy re-evaluating their entire lives by saying, 'Oh, Shadow should be here.' or 'I feel bad for Shadow' or 'Shadow's gone. That's not fair.' I'm the one that should be complaining. I'm the one that's not part of the game anymore. They are. They're not at the Ponderosa. I am. That is the second chance that I will never get back, and they all should feel ashamed of themselves."

...So did he want them to feel sorry for him or not!? Which one was it!?

"I can't even say that I miss any of 'em. I had to fight for my life since day one. Day one. Nobody wanted to align with me. No deals or anything. Not until Specter Knight realized he was in danger, and he knew I had a target on my back as well, so we both stuck with Plague and made an alliance of three. But then Specter got blindsided right before the merge and I'm voted off right after him. And the thing that is the most irritating to me was that everyone in that entire alliance all made decent runs in their seasons. I didn't make it to single digits. Didn't even make top ten! So I had every right to call them out at tribal. Their fans can hate my guts for all I care. I'm going to make one tweet explaining myself on social media, and that'll be it. Not even going to read the comments because they act like they're the ones playing the game anyway."

"..." He was staring at the number on the scale.

"Alright, so it says 72.3. That means you've lost 5.4 pounds, Shadow."

Not that surprising. He had a slightly shorter run on his second go, and he never weighed much to begin with. Since he threw shade at Vector during his extended final words, the crocodile should have literally picked up with both hands and threw him into the ocean.

Yet unlike Shadow, Vector's heart was a bit warmer, meaning that he was not likely to do that.

"Alright, I'm out of here. Let's go."

"Um, excuse me." Now Crazy Hand decided to let Shadow know something. "Sir, that's not how this works in here. The bell doesn't dismiss you, I dismiss you."

...

No, he did not...

-/-

So after Crazy Hand decided to act as if he was some teacher at a high school, Shadow was glancing at the menu. He was hungry, yet at least half of him was still not in the best of moods. He even questioned himself if he was too upset to eat, but judging by how empty his stomach felt, perhaps eating for the time being was going to be used as some sort of coping mechanism.

Besides, aside from rice, he really had not eaten since the merge feast. Now he had all the food he ever wanted.

"At least at the Ponderosa, with me being the only one here, you have a little peace of mind. All those extroverted personalities out there, people not knowing when to shut up and stop talking, and they act as if they're scared of being silent for one damn minute. And then there are other folks that act as if everybody's a good person..." That last statement made him think about himself even further. "Ugh... I'm probably talking about myself again, because I don't even know if I'm a good person..."

Become a better one. That was what Shovel Knight was talking to him about right before he left.

When Shadow got off the boat, he had to hurry inside the cafe. It was still raining rather heavy, and the sooner he made it in, the better.

Following his arrival, a couple members of the Ponderosa staff offered him a towel to which he accepted. He knew there was mirror nearby, just like every other season of the show. He never expected much though. Still the same hedgehog on the outside upon seeing his reflection...

But,... was he still the same hedgehog on the inside? Or was he actually learning a few more things about himself?

Perhaps there were a couple benefits for Shadow being the only one at the Ponderosa at the time. Self-reflection was one of the main things to gain from the experience.

Anyhow, now it was time for him to eat himself to death. He never ordered too much due to his current situation, but he knew something had to get into his stomach immediately.

He ordered burgers, fries, and pizza. The man should have been thankful that this was not an average fast food joint and that the Ponderosa folks made the food themselves. Just because he was so damn hungry does not mean he needed to clog his arteries.

But there was no need to worry. Shadow was smarter than that, in spite him coming off as a major smartass at points.

...

Usually at this point, conversations about the game between the castaways were the focus. But since nobody was sitting at the table aside from Shadow, there was nothing to discuss.

So he simply kept his thoughts of how he played in the confessionals. "I am disappointed. Don't get me wrong. I knew I was going to enter the game with a big target on my back, but... there were rarely positive moments that I can recall throughout the twenty-one days I was out here. My team dominated in challenges, but I felt like I never really had a chance to do anything. My team was eventually forced to go to tribal, but the second time I went to tribal, Specter got blindsided. And then I went home at the merge tribal. But the thing is, I felt like I really didn't do anything because I never really had a chance to. I have a feeling that I got voted off solely because of my reputation from Emperors vs Knights... But,... that was three whole seasons ago. Though I knew that was how they were thinking, which was why I thought the best thing was to go after the safest target in the opposing alliance. Unfortunately, my words fell on deaf ears, so I am sitting here right now."

Well he was spot on. His reputation put a giant target on his back and it cost him the game at the end. "Can't say from a game perspective that it was a bad thing to get rid of me, but hey, I did what I did in my season. I flipped here, I manipulated there, I backstabbed, that's part of the game. You can't just come into Survivor and just not do anything. That's not how it works. When you sign up for a school sport such as basketball or tennis, you don't just sit there and let the balls hit you. You have to actually play the game."

Was he lowkey shading Luigi again? Perhaps that was something to ask the fans. Was Shadow justified of him shading Luigi's game by literally doing nothing for a whole thirty-nine days, or... was he obsessed and jealous that Luigi made it to the end and not him?

Perhaps it was a combination of both. Luigi was rightfully judged at final tribal, but Shadow was likely pressed at him for making it to the end while not making any moves, while the hedgehog himself made a couple flashy plays leading to his downfall.

He was now in his bathroom in one of the several small homes at the Ponderosa, the GUN agent glancing at himself in the bathroom mirror. Slightly stroking his fingers through the spikes on his hand, he felt rather gross a little.

"Ugh... Now I gotta wash my quills..."

Day 22

The sleep turned out to not be that bad... But it could have been even better had it not been for Shadow's nightmare. He could have sworn that it was real until he quickly realized after he woke up that he was not even in the game anymore. The hedgehog was just chilling at the Ponderosa.

And now he was being seen entering the cafe.

"As if things could not have gone any worse, I had a whole nightmare about Survivor. I dreamed of myself literally being eaten alive by the Survivor devil himself for failing and not playing hard enough."

...

"The thing was so enormous it rivaled the Tribal Council set this season. It literally felt as if I was being punished for not only not making a decent run this season, but performing worse than my old season. ...But,... I really do not think I've made too many wrong decisions this time. You can only do so much when your fate is in the hands of other folks. But it isn't my fault that other people don't think the same as I do. I've tried my best to convince them, but I wasn't able to do it. That's not my fault."

Believe it or not, Shadow was right. It was not his fault, nor the fault of anyone's that no two people thought the same. No one had the exact same thought process as one another, and everyone had different personalities.

...However, it was without a doubt a concept Shadow himself failed to understand at the time. Everybody was not like him. The Survivor Gods did not make no two people alike. It was always common knowledge that if everybody was the exact same, everything would have been rather dull and boring.

That was why it was always important to learn from different types of people in an attempt to see things from a different perspective. It was how the world worked.

Shadow the Hedgehog definitely needed to get the message through his thick skull while he had his mug of coffee in his hand, placing it down to eat his eggs and bacon in between.

He then turned sideways to take a glance at the outside. Hmm... Rather cloudy.

"The others are probably stressing themselves out fearing another possible rainstorm." The Mobian assumed. "Rainstorms never bothered me, though. ...Unlike a certain blue blur who's not here anymore. ...I wonder what he's up to right now..."

Vacationing somewhere else in the Caribbean along with Isabelle, Mario, Meta Knight, Sheik, Foxy, and Specter Knight.

"Specter..." He came across his mind again. "He's gonna be disappointed realizing that I've been voted out right after him and Plague is now the very last of the alliance that we established... Plague Knight's probably having another one of those hissing fits at the producers about how alone he is. ...You know,... part of me is starting to get rather... concerned for him. Is it pity or just curiosity? I don't even know. The poor thing could not go one day without complaining or lecturing somebody."

It was one thing to note. The same way Shadow was feeling some sort of concern towards Plague was the same feeling people such as Shovel or Zelda had towards him. ...A cycle perhaps? Because both Shadow and Plague were two notorious social pariahs.

Ridley was another major social pariah in season four and it was neat to look at how far he came.

But it was all up to Shadow to realize his faults and his flaws. He had to realize that.

And it was definitely something he was beginning to think about.

"The fact that I had almost no allies... This 'social game' that people always talk of. Ken Masters had his social game as his strong suit, and he evolved into a physical dominator, and surprisingly cutthroat kinda player. He formed into a total package that ended up being one challenge away from winning Survivor - Caribbean. Funky Kong's social charm was something people were rather fond of in Mexico and he had a strong chance of winning, but he blew by foolishly taking Isabelle to the end over Chica. The Survivor community is never going to let him live that down."

"Ugh... And even Luigi. I'm bringing him up again, but I'm really thinking here. He might have been a terrible excuse of player and a direct insult to the game of Survivor... But at the same time,... he was at least 'likable' in peoples' eyes. Shovel liked him, his core alliance liked him, he never made any enemies. Neither did Shovel, but he played a slightly stronger game than Luigi. I made enemies all over the places... I can't change who I am, but... if I had more of a social ability out here,... sometimes I wonder how far I would have gotten if I did just that."

See? He had to realize that for himself.

What if he never flipped on Shulk alienating the rest of the emperors resulting in Marth and Zelda not trusting him? No,... the problem started earlier than that.

What if he never betrayed Mega Man by sending him home just so that he kept Knuckles by his side? Decent argument there. But at the same time, Shadow was already being a red flag to some people long before that.

What if he... what if he was just a little more open to others? Not to say he had to tell everything, because some things were his business and his business only. Nobody had the right to pull information out of him, since they were only certain things he felt comfortable discussing with his tribe members.

But at the same time, for the sake of people understanding him inside the game and out, it all boiled down to what Zelda told him. She and their fellow competitors had a really tough time just... getting to know him.

And it all boiled down to him not knowing morally on what way was up.

Whether it was an identity crisis or an inner conflict he had within himself for the longest time,... it was starting to make some sort of sense to him.

He slowly groaned, even stopping himself from eating just so he had a moment to really think to himself and reflect.

"...I... suddenly have a feeling that there were some things I could have done differently. From the very beginning... I suppose I have brought this all on myself..."

He began tapping his fingers on the table.

"I was pissed as hell last night. I still am. Sometimes I feel like I'm literally the only one playing this game and everybody else was an idiot except for me." What a narcissist. "I still think some of the players in this game are rather foolish to the point that I wonder what is the reason for them being out here. However,... you can't say that my actions didn't have their consequences. I can finally admit to saying that I'm not the best socially. And that is probably because of, umm... How do I put this? ...I am... I am my own... worst enemy."

Boom. And there it was.

"I'm constantly fighting myself when it comes to everything. If I go left, that doesn't work. If I go right, that doesn't work. If I go straight ahead, that doesn't work. So I try to go in all directions at once, nothing works. That's the most frustrating part when it comes to dealing with life, I suppose. it's some sort of side topic, but... it all boils down to my inner thoughts and emotions. Or at least,... the few emotions that I have... I just..."

He heaved a sigh and facepalm. "I just don't really know what to do sometimes, but I guess I gotta figure some stuff out."

With a long sip of his coffee, he simply stared at the rest of his breakfast.

"I have a lot to learn about myself..."

This is one of the best Ponderosa chapters I feel like I've ever written. And this is only the first juror. The whole thing from start to finish.

Shadow the Hedgehog, you will forever be a notable figure in the Sonic fandom, and probably in this series as a whole. The man had fans from the very beginning.

So if you all love Shadow so much and if you have yet to vote on my poll, it's still open.

Next chapter of the main series, next week.