YAY: Yeeeeah, Shadow is kind of an abyssymal lier when he's not prepared. XD Some more Sonic-wondering coming up - now! :D
EnerjakWho lazy: (blushes) ahahah, wow, thanks! :D I'll try to deliver, hope you like! ;3
XxShadowxX: Yeah, new fic always means the first few chaps should be up quickly :p For this fanfic I've done...research I'm not proud of, but glad people like the results! XD City Escape makes for a great ringtone (though I'm currently stuck with the Doctor Who theme) The school cracking down on Sonic...weeell, let's just say they've managed to put pressure on one of the few points where it hurts him. You can guess ;) Thanks for the wonderful review, as always! :D
DEV: Seeehr wahrscheinlich. Ich hab hier ja ne ganze High School zu bevölkern. XD Und oh hey, ein Antoine-Fan? Ich muss sagen, ich finde seinen Akzent ganz fantastisch, aber nach seinem Redesign sieht er irgendwie so...nackt aus?^^° Und jupp, Jet ist natürlich mal wieder auf Ärger aus. Ob das jetzt so 'ne super Idee ist, den unbedingt bei *Shadow* zu suchen, weeeelll...XD 'ne mögliche Mischgesellschaft hier in der Story zu designen macht allerdings ziemlich Spaß. Shadow ist dafür natürlich 'n super Viewpoint Character (auch wenn er's irgendwo nicht zu schätzen scheint...) Die Schule hat Sonic hier schon an einem ziemlich empfindlichen Punkt erwischt, ja, aber das soll er später selber erzählen. ;) Vielen Dank für das wunderbare Review! :D
Selbrm: thanks! Will do :)
Katz4: Hah, I have a feeling pretty much *anything* will be better than the expectations one generally has for a High School AU. XD Definitely more Human-Mobian Society background to come (Shadow has a lot to learn...) and some more familiar characters about to pop up soon! ;) Thanks for your review!
Estrella85: Hah, yeah, one thing I definitely strive for is making every character as likeable as possible, and in Amy's case that definitely means giving her some interests outside of Sonic. She really does have a heart of gold and loves helping lost people out, so it's no surprise she's trying to take Shadow under her wing, here. Glad you like and thanks for your review!
Chapter 3: The Family Business
"You enrolled me in a school of crazy!"
"Oh hi, Shadow!" Maria greeted the black hedgehog cheerfully as the Ultimate Lifeform stomped inside. It was safe to say that most anybody who knew Shadow would have run for the hills at the sight of his raised quills, blazing eyes and twitching eye muscle, but Maria also knew that hurting her would be the absolute last thing on Earth Shadow would ever do, and so she wasn't that concerned.
"All of the people in my class are nuts!"
"Aw, c'mon, it can't be that bad, right?" Maria hurried over to the kitchen table where Shadow had plunked himself down, the bag with his things tossed carelessly into a corner. Maria sat down and pushed a glass of orange juice toward her grumpy brother in what was clearly a peace offering.
"I think...Mobian culture is just different, right?" she tried with a slightly forced smile. "But it's a mixed school, isn't it? There should be humans there, too. How about them?"
Shadow shot her a look.
"Maria, one of the humans thinks she's a genie."
"Ah." The blonde girl winced. "Uh, well...at that age...teenagers like to try out...identities? I think?" she tried with a small grimace.
Shadow heaved a very deep sigh. The way he downed his orange juice indicated that he obviously wished it were alcoholic.
"Where's the professor?" Shadow asked then, looking around, apparently recognizing a lost battle for what it was.
"Still at work, moving into his new lab and offices at the university. Today was just enrollment for me, classes won't start until Wednesday, so he stayed and I took the bus home."
"Hnh." Shadow briefly crinkled his snout. "I don't know whether I like the idea of you being out in this bizarro world on your own."
"Oh come on, Shadow, this isn't Gotham City!" Maria laughed. "I'll be perfectly fine using public transport on my own."
"...still," Shadow managed, in the dissatisfied tone of all brothers who didn't like losing an argument to their sisters, but didn't quite know what to do about it. "How was your day?"
"Oh, it was really fun!" Maria said, perhaps a bit too quickly, but it was only when she caught her sibling's knowing eyes that she sagged a bit and relented. "...and okay, yeah, it was also completely exhausting. How can there be so many people in the world?" she collapsed onto the table. "How can there even be so many people on one campus?!"
"Slightly more than the population of 400 aboard the ARK, huh?" Shadow asked quietly, at the same time reaching out a gloved hand to cover the one of his sister where she had flung out her arm on the table.
"Yeah," Maria agreed with a sigh. Slowly, she turned her hand on the table around until she could grasp her much stronger brother's gloved fingers in her own as well. There was a moment of silence, both new arrivals on the Earth simply sharing a moment of peace with each other, knowing that no matter how different they looked, they knew exactly what the other felt and shared that.
Maria, still lying with her head upon her arm, let her lips hitch upwards in a slight smile as she glanced at the hedgehog.
"...wanna be antisocial and spend the rest of the day playing video games in my room?"
Shadow looked at her with wide eyes. "Oh hell yes."
xxx
"Shadow! Maria! Are you home?" the voice of the oldest Robotnik reverberated through the house, shortly after the sounds of a door being unlocked. "Come on down, I brought dinner!"
"In a moment, grandfather, Shadow is almost dead!"
"Am not!"
"You totally are, you suck at playing Bowser-"
Gerald permitted himself a smile beneath his greying moustache as he listened to the two teenagers playing upstairs and began to set the table. It had been a good first day at work. Soon the door upstairs opened and he could hear both his creation and his grandchild descend the stairs.
"-not my fault Bowser is too damn slow-"
"Sorry, all I'm hearing is 'Wawawa, I'm the Ultimate Lifeform and I can't even hold a controller straight-"
"I promise you revenge," Shadow growled (in a, in Gerald's opinion, unnecessarily scary way), but then the black hedgehog immediately assumed a much more cordial expression as he beheld his creator and gave a nod.
"Good evening, professor."
"Good evening, you two." The old man smiled. "Did you have a good first day at school, Shadow? Made some friends?"
"Uhm. I think it's a bit early for that, isn't it?" the black hedgehog hedged, climbing a bit awkwardly into one of the larger human chairs, legs dangling off the seat as he examined the food on his plate.
"That school, professor..." he began, carefully. "It seems a bit...strange."
Gerald raised an eye brow. "It seems to me that could be said of our entire household, Shadow."
The black hedgehog snorted. "Even stranger. I'm only from outer space, I'm not claiming I'm from another dimension."
"Oh well, it takes all sorts to make a world," Gerald replied with a shrug, helping himself to some crab chips. Shadow pushed at his noodles with his chop sticks for one, two moments before he managed,
"Also, they thought it was really weird that I was living with humans." He looked up at the two of them with a slight frown. "Are mixed families that rare?"
"Ah," Gerald managed, wincing slightly. "I have to admit I have only looked into that a little. But I think, yes - the reason being mainly that different sapient sub-species can interbreed effortlessly, whereas the mating between, say, a hedgehog and a human-"
"Grandpa! We're not having this discussion at the dinner table!" Maria looked up from her stir fry like she had bitten on a lemon. "I'm eating here!"
"Your brother wanted to know," the older man shrugged with a scientist's detachment. "On that note, Shadow, if you go after any girls at your new school, if they're not human, you will have to use-"
"Professor!"
"Grandfather!"
" - some reference material to get better acquainted with sapient dating traditions. What on Earth is the matter with you?" Gerald asked with a frown, looking at the two teenagers at the table staring at him in utter panic/mortification.
"N...nothing," Shadow managed (after having succeeded in dislodging the bit of chicken almost stuck in his throat). "Just, er, not really looking at dating anyone quite yet," he mumbled, while keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his plate.
"Very well, very well." Gerald merely used his napkin to dab at the side of his moustache. "But yes. Very high biological incompatibility coupled with a reluctance of state agencies to allow even cross-subspecies adoptions is probably the reason for very, very few truly mixed families existing as of yet."
"What? Why would they forbid humans from adopting sapients? Or vice versa?" Maria asked, looking mildly put out. Her grandfather tried to reply in a more soothing voice.
"Mostly they're truly concerned with the well-being of the children, Maria. Imagine your adoptive parents being bats, for example, and you their wingless child, never able to accompany them. Earlier they also had to deal with humans labouring under the misconception that adopting a sapient child would be like having a fancy pet." Gerald shook his head. "Nowaways it's more about parents of different species being less likely to recognize something is wrong with their adoptive daughter's spines or feathers until it is too late. That's the reason why you'll hardly even find reptiles caring for mammals, or even vulpines for bovines, or similar. Luckily for us," Gerald gave a small smile at the last sentence, one hand of his briefly patting the black hedgehog on the shoulder, "Shadow getting sick has never and will never be a problem."
"Not now that they've stopped injecting me with a new lethal disease every two weeks, yeah," Shadow replied with a wry smile. "But no wonder that they thought we were weird..."
"Your classmates won't be the only ones." Gerald shrugged. "I contacted your parents that we have left the military base, Maria, and we're going to visit them this weekend. Telling them that we'll be bringing Shadow along with us came as...a bit of a surprise to them."
"If that's a problem I don't have to come-" the black hedgehog began immediately, frowning, but of course, Maria cut him off.
"Nonsense, Shadow, they'll just have to deal with it. They'll get used to it, anyway...I think." The girl shot both her brother and her grandfather at the table a slightly doubtful glance. "I mean...I haven't seen them for ten years, but they do know that you're my friend and important to me. They'll behave."
"Right." Shadow nodded (though his expression indicated he hadn't forgotten that those very same parents had thought cat food was a well-selected Christmas present for him only a couple of months ago). But then, in truth, the visit to Maria's parents was only a minor concern he would be able to deal with later. The more pressing matter was...
"But I also wanted to ask about something else. At school, they kept reacting somewhat...strangely to me when I introduced myself." He looked up. "As Shadow Robotnik."
He knew something was up the moment Gerald's fingers on his chopsticks turned white from the pressure of his grip.
"Two of them asked me about my surname, as if it was something really weird." Shadow tried to let his voice stay even. "And one of them asked me whether I was related to a certain Doctor Ivo Robotnik." He looked at his creator. "Are we?"
For a few moments, Gerald didn't say anything. When he spoke, his voice was brittle.
"...not from his point of view."
"What?" Shadow and Maria had uttered the question in unison, now exchanging glances.
Gerald was staring down at his plate, not meeting either of their eyes.
"He is my grandson. And your biological cousin, Maria. But he disowned our entire family decades ago."
Shadow frowned at this. "Okay, but...who is he?"
"He is a madman," Gerald said sadly.
When it became apparent, that his two charges were still staring at him intently and confused, the old man drew another breath "Dr. Ivo Robotnik," He sighed. "As brilliant as the rest of our family, but he never used his talents for the benefit of mankind." His tone became bitter. "I don't want to go into how it happened. It's not a pretty story from any perspective."
Shadow leaned forward, eyes intent. This explained the shocked glances of everyone at least. Maybe this cousin was a criminal. "Okay. Black sheep of the family. But why does everyone keep asking me about it?"
Gerald looked contrite. "He's responsible for a series of mass killings on Green Island and Westside Island in the southern hemisphere over five years ago. The victims were nearly 100 percent sapients." He winced. "In fact, that's the reason even more of them emigrated to the northern half of the planet." He swallowed. "I think he honestly wanted to conquer the entire Earth."
Shadow nodded. Five years ago. That was when he had just been awoken. In fact, he vaguely remembered Maria telling him something about this family backstory now, but he had only been two at the time and had difficulty remembering the details. What was happening on the world had just never seemed that important when you floated so high up in space...
Shadow drew a breath "Then what happened?"
"There was a sapient guerrilla fighter who stopped him pretty much single-handedly every time. Then Ivo simply...disappeared. For a while"
Shadow raised an appreciative eye ridge. That sure sounded impressive. He might have to look up the name of that individual sometime.
"And now he's gone?" Maria asked, throat dry. Like Shadow, she had known about having a cousin on Earth who was behaving less than stellar, but also like Shadow, the sheer magnitude of his wrongdoings was only hitting home now.
Gerald looked unhappy. "Sadly, I don't think so. Last year, Station Square was apparently severely damaged by a water creature called Perfect Chaos. The reports are disagreeing with each other how much my grandson was involved with that, but it seems he had least some sort of hand in it." Gerald ran a hand across his face. "It is clear he tried at least to blow up the city with a nuclear missile. He is still killing, stealing, and claiming remote areas as his sovereign territories. Even GUN seems only to be a minor inconvenience to him. I have a suspicion he might even have been the one to attack the base last week."
Maria gaped. "A nuke? Aimed at the city we moved to? They let someone like that run around loose?"
"Well, like I said, that sapient hero was the only one who so far seemed able to overcome him," Gerald said, brows creased. "Sometimes, the genius running in our family can be a curse."
"But...why don't you stop him, then, professor?" Shadow asked. "I saw you put together an economy version of the Eclipse Cannon in one afternoon. If this lunatic is your grandson, isn't that your responsibility?"
Gerald's lips became a thin line. "I have already been over this with GUN command many times, Shadow. I can't."
"Why?"
The old man was fisting his hands in the fabric of his trousers. "Because...so far, Ivo is holding back." He looked up. "You're right when you tell me I can put together a weapon of mass destruction in a few hours." He swallowed. "Now can you imagine what Ivo can do? What would happen if I went to war with a grandson of mine? It could make half of the planet uninhabitable!" Gerald shook his head. "The genius of that guerilla fighter was that he was able to strike with precision and without much collateral damage."
"But...you can't just do nothing!" Shadow accused him, incredulously. Beside the two, Maria was glancing unhappily back and forth, clearly not sure which side she should take. Gerald's face hardened.
"I am a pacifist, Shadow, and you know that. I will not condone answering violence with violence. Have I taught you nothing?"
"But...!"
Shadow could feel his fists clenching uselessly. He knew both his creator and Maria abhorred anything that endangered human or sapient lives – but Shadow, who had been taken by GUN when he was young and been brutally trained to become a killing machine until he had learned to embrace the sheer power he wielded, was far more fond of brute force as a way of solving problems.
It's useless. They're not going to approve of anything you will say.
Shadow gritted his teeth. "I don't think it's right. I think we need to try and stop him." He glanced at Maria's pained face and knew this wasn't fair. They had come here to earth to have a normal life, and already, everything was going wrong.
Gerald's brow furrowed, as if he was thinking about it.
Then:
"I could try to write him a letter, I suppose."
Shadow felt like sweat-dropping. "You said he was a mass murderer, professor. I'm not sure whether he is exactly looking for a pen-pal."
Gerald shrugged. "Maybe. But who knows what he might really be looking for."
Shadow took a breath, not amused by this. "If you won't, professor, I will do something about him."
And now, suddenly, Gerald's tone was as cold and as sharp as a knife. "You will do nothing of the sort, Shadow."
"What-?!" Shadow sputtered, rarely having been on the receiving end of a strict order from his creator. "But I could take him, I'm sure!" he protested. "I'm the Ultimate Lifeform. There's no one on Earth who is a match for me-"
"I never meant for you to become a weapon, Shadow, and you know that."
"But-!"
"Plus, we are trying to fit in," Gerald reminded him. The old man suddenly looked rather tired, and an almost pleading note had entered into his voice. "That's what you want, too, isn't it?"
Shadow looked down and didn't answer. There was Chaos energy uselessly crackling in the balled fist in his lap.
"...I think I'm not hungry any more."
"Shadow..." Gerald started, somewhere in between a warning tone and resigned frustration, but the black hedgehog had already pushed his chair back and stood up.
"Good night, professor," was the last thing he said before walking away from the table and into his room.
xxx
It was only a few hours later that the door opened, long after every other single light in the house had been extinguished.
"...Shadow?"
"Hmpf."
Taking the wordless grunt for the invitation it was, Maria slipped inside her brother's room quietly, moving like a shadow herself. Shadow was sprawled on his bed on his stomach, staring sideways at the wall. He didn't move much when the girl let herself sink onto the mattress beside him, but his quills flattened slightly in a show of slowly abating aggression.
They flattened slightly further when the next thing that happened was a slender human hand running through the fur on top of his head and scratching him behind a twitching black ear, letting fiercely glaring red eyes finally close and a sort of instinctive pleased noise emanate from his chest, that he had never quite been able to suppress at this treatment.
And Shadow couldn't see it now, but he could basically hear Maria's lips twitch up in a smile. She also knew she was the only one ever allowed to pet him like a feral dog, something Shadow would never have permitted any other human who had treated him as one for so long.
The girl drew a breath in the darkness, seemingly thinking of what she should say next.
"...I got weird looks because of my name, too, today," she said quietly.
Shadow didn't reply. The scratching of his friend's hand continued, though, the only noise in the dark until Maria spoke again.
"I had known a little about what our cousin did...mostly I had gathered it had to do with environmental damage, though." She paused, like she often did when she bit her lip. "I had never imagined it would be this bad. I'm kind of afraid to start researching where he is now or how active."
Again, Shadow didn't quite know what to say to that. He shifted slightly under Maria's hand, though, giving her more access to the back of his neck. It at least gained a small snort from the girl, who knew when the Ultimate Lifeform wanted to be indulged. She sighed.
"After the third shocked glance whenever I introduced myself, I kind of got it that there was something not quite right with our name," she said, tone becoming somewhat dry. "Now that I know why I'm thinking of introducing myself with a different one, when I don't absolutely have to use my real one." She glanced down at Shadow. "What do you think of 'Maria Kintobor'?"
At this, Shadow finally rolled onto his back and fixed his friend with a raised eye ridge.
"Reversing the surname? That has to be some kind of cartoony record."
"I know!" Maria groaned, dropping her head into her hands.
Shadow regarded her for a few moments, silently. When he spoke, his voice had lost the jocular tone.
"...it's not fair we should have to suffer for him. It's not fair that he basically ruined our family's name."
"I talked some more with grandfather after you were gone. I think grandpa may have done that by himself when he abandoned our cousin's mom and dad," Maria said quietly. "Maybe if he had taken some more interest in our cousin as a child, he might never have..."
She trailed off and Shadow could feel the Chaos roiling in his chest again, frustrated anger always letting it churn inside himself like a trapped and dangerous creature. The black hedgehog glared at the ceiling. So far, he had thought he had an identity. As an experiment and a soldier, yes, as a saviour and a survivor, sure, but foremost as a brother and maybe, just maybe as a...son.
Truthfully, he had never called his creator his father to his face, but sometimes...when he had lain alone in the dark after another harrowing experiment on him and Gerald had brushed over his quills when he had already thought Shadow asleep...
His eyes trailed over to his writing desk, on top of which his school ID card lay. On it, after his given name, Shadow, was nothing but a blank. As an officially adopted sapient, he knew he had the choice of assuming the name of his human family, when he came of age, or to choose a traditionally sapient name – Shadow the Hedgehog.
"I just thought..." Shadow caught his sister's eye as he spoke, and then hurriedly looked away, feeling stupid for even voicing the childish thought. "Y'know...what with me being an experiment 'n all..."
Immediately, predictably, he could feel Maria's grip in his fur tighten. "Shadow, you know that none of that matters, right?" she asked, voice of course full of concern. "None of that makes you anything less worth as a person. Anyone who thinks otherwise can go stick their head in a particle accelerator."
"Yeah, I know," Shadow replied with a huff, wishing his tone would sound convinced even to his own ears. "It's just...even without being related to anyone by blood, at least having a family name would've been nice," he grumbled into the sheets.
Like you're belonging somewhere.
Almost involuntarily, he could feel his hand shifting on the sheets, grasping for Maria's.
"And now, if we have to abandon our name just to fit in..." He trailed off and closed his eyes, shifting his whole body closer to his friend with a defeated groan.
"Maria...I sometimes don't even know who I am any more."
"We're teenagers. We're figuring that one out." Shadow could feel a soft brush against his fur as a familiar kiss landed on his forehead. "And as for you," his sister replied quietly with a smile, "You're my most favourite hedgehog in the whole world."
Shadow sighed.
Well, he thought as he squeezed her hand right back.
At least that was something.
To be continued...
Aaaand we're back on track! Chapter title curtesy of the new Supernatural season, which is off to a fantastic start :D Hope you all enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter, where Shadow finally comes face to face with this really weird blue guy, trouble is brewing during lunch, and a few more familiar faces say hello ;) Hope you liked and if you read, please review! :D