Anynoymous Review Replies!
Kalex Chwell: Hah, sadly, more unfortunate events for Shadow ahead - but no crappy video game this time, so that's a bonus? (Mind you, I actually did enjoy the neutral missions in ShtH, just the combing and combing of endless levels for that last GUN soldier was a pain...-.-) Let's see whether any face punching in this chapter's gonna be necessary, then? Thanks for the review! :D
XxShadowxX: Ahahah, forced swimming lessons? I have a feeling Sonic would run away from those even quicker than from the classroom ;) Naw, it's something even simpler, but much more forceful. :3 And yuuup, trouble brewing there...unfortunately, not *only* there. Thank you for commenting, glad you like the fluff! :) (There will be more, I promise...)
EnerjakWho conga: (dancing now, are we?): How I choose which Sonic characters I use...hm, mostly it's the ones from the Games since that is the continuity I followed first and write most in, but I do love the Archie cast for its diversity. You'll likely see a few familiar faces pop up in this chapter as well ;) Any characters from AoStH - hah, what? Scratch and Grounder? I dunno, I'd enjoy seeing Archie or Games Robotnik deal with one of their latest screw-ups! XD
Katz4: Me, not keeping Sonic IC? The very thought! :p I like him way too much, no worries ;) Sonic as a guerilla fighter...hm, I think it might not be the perfect description, but perhaps the most accurate. Definitely during his time in the Southern Hemisphere, I'd think. I might have picked up that term from another fanfic, but I couldn't be too sure.^^° Thanks for the comment!
Selbrm: Thanks! Here you go!
DEV: Ejupp, Super Smash Bros. (Auch wenn's wahrscheinlich Melee war, ansonsten würd Shadow vll schneller schnackeln, was genau es mit seinem Klassenkameraden auf sich hat...XD) Gerald VS Ivo..uh-huh, dazu kommt auf jeden Fall noch einiges hier. Sagen wir mal, Shadow wurde nicht unbedingt von der einfachsten Familie adoptiert.^^° Die Schule hat zum Glück NICHT die Chili Dogs rausgenommen XD (siehe weiter unten :P) aber hat sich leider was anderes einfallen lassen. Ich muss zugeben, am meisten mag ich Antoine ja, wenn er anderen Charakteren, ohne dass er's merkt, den letzten Nerv raubt (die eine Sonic Universe Geschichte mit Tails, Bunny und Twan auf der Battle Cuckoo Insel war super...) ich hoffe mal das führen sie im Reboot weiter :) Und jetzt...ein Update plus ein erstes Meeting! :D Vielen Dank für den Kommentar!^^
Guest: Oooh, boy, will it EVER not go as planned.^^° Visit to the family coming up soon, btw :) Glad to hear what you liked, hope you'll enjoy the new chapter!
Seal Kitty: Yeeeah, saw that too, fixed now - argh. Thanks for pointing it out.^^° I absolutely adore badass!Robotnik, so yeah, he's never gonna be a threat to be underestimated! More on that soonish :)
briana: Ahahah, yeah, I make it kind of my sport to use horrible fanfic premises and make them work. XD Next fic in that line if probably gonna be a Sonic/Pokemon crossover :p As for He Is My Master it's basically the result of me seeing badly-written OOC Sonic in sonadow stories over and over, feeling like eating my keyboard, and then deciding to write my own instead :p Keeping Shadow in Character is not always easy either, but using 'Life...' as a background helps immensely - mostly it comes down to practice, I think. The more you write and the more differing experiences you put him through, the easier it gets. There's an explanation coming regarding Sonic's staying in school, too, no worries. Hope you enjoy the new chapter! (we need some entertainment now that SPN is on winter break, right...?:p)
Chapter 4: Be Careful What You Wish For
The next day, the blue hedgehog was back at school, Shadow noted. His quills looked messed up, there was a cut on his cheek, a shoddily-tied bandage around his upper arm, and he seemed to limp slightly, though he hid it well.
Gang violence? Shadow wondered. He certainly wouldn't be surprised at this school. Currently, the blue sapient was rifling around in what had to be his locker, which of course was also a total mess.
The next moment, however, Shadow's inspection of disapproval was interrupted with a bump!, as he had just collided with one of the human teenagers in his class. It was potentially his own fault, really – staring at someone while walking down the corridor probably hadn't been the wisest decision – but the boy who he had walked into in the black hedgehog's opinion definitely overreacted.
"Hey! Watch it!" Shadow's eyes widened as he received a rude shove that he hadn't been prepared for and it took him a second to regain his footing without activating his skates, which would have attracted attention. But he immediately snarled at the human when he had caught himself, glaring up at a boy with thinning brown hair and an overly large nose who was now staring dismissively at Shadow.
"Honestly, are you so short you can't see where you're going? Friggin animals."
"Sorry, what was that? Couldn't quite hear you there, Julian, care to repeat yourself?"
The voice was pleasant, and light, and so deceptively friendly Shadow would have expected the human to not even notice the threat laced within the words. But instead the teenager had suddenly assumed an interesting shade of pale as the blue hedgehog, who up until now had been buried in his locker, was suddenly standing beside him, arms crossed and foot tapping.
"Uh, nothing, I mean-!"
"Uh-huh." The sapient now looked less than impressed. "Now, if you're through with being an ass to the newbie, why don't you take your carrot nose and your sorry excuse for headfur and scram." The blue hedgehog jerked a thumb over his shoulder, still giving the scrawny teenager a cool look and Julian indeed made off as fast he could, though not without shooting a last, poisonous glare over his shoulder, hissing:
"Just you wait. He won't be around to protect you next time, crawler."
Shadow didn't react other than returning the glare with an irritated expression of his own – no matter the two feet the lanky teen had on him, regarding him as anything more than a minor annoyance would have been ridiculous – except then, the entire morning didn't show any signs of getting better any time soon because now, instead of Julian it was the blue show-off in his face.
"Hey, you okay? Did that guy hurt you?"
"I'm fine," Shadow said crisply, not appreciating looking like a helpless wimp on his second day already. What business to interfere did the guy have anyway, other than to make him look incompetent? Shadow fixed the other hedgehog with a cool expression. "And I don't need any help to deal with idiots."
"Woah, okay, gotcha," the other's eye ridges rose slightly, returning the cold stare with a faintly taken aback expression. "Just thought I should check in, in case something needed to be taken care of, s'all."
Shadow only raised one eye ridge, not-so-subtly looking up and down the other's ragged appearance. "You look like you need help taking care of yourself."
And to Shadow's utter surprise, the only response of the other was to laugh.
"Ya, no worries, dude, I can do that alright," the blue hedgehog gave him a bright grin as soon as he had recovered. "Shades, wasn't it?"
"Shadow," Shadow corrected, his tone by now chilly enough that the syllables had little icicles hanging from them.
"Oh. Uh. Right." The blue hedgehog sobered up a little at the drop in temperature, apparently finally catching on to Shadow's less than welcoming demeanour and that his 'help' had been not as appreciated as he had thought - but then in the end merely shrugged again and moved on with a little wave. "Well then, take care. See ya later!"
And then he was already gone faster than should have been possible. Shadow's head turned just in time to watch him ambling away at the end of the corridor, for a moment at a complete and utter loss on what this was supposed to have been – but then another voice already spoke up at his side, distracting him.
"Oh, don't pay attention to him. He's too good for us commoners."
The Ultimate Lifeform turned around. The one who had spoken to him was the red-furred vixen he recognized from his home room class. He supposed she looked quite pretty and well put-together; her dark red hair styled in a flowing shoulder-length cut, her slim figure accentuated by a tight-fitting, orange-white sleeveless bodysuit with short legs. (Shadow also noticed that she wore black make-up that accentuated her already feminine vulpine eyes in a rather skilled way – it had come to his attention because he knew this was something that Maria still struggled with. Shadow had caught her once trying to apply it, and then had laughed so long and so hard at her until he'd finally had to retreat from the bathroom before a pot with creme had actually connected with his head.)
"Uh..." Shadow began, still a bit uneasy to suddenly be approached by complete strangers and he also wasn't really sure how to reply to the fox' statement. She seemed to sense his unease and gave him an easy smile.
"Hey, easy. I'm Fiona - but you can call me Fi." She gave him a small wink that Shadow didn't know how to react to either, and then gestured at the (also very pretty, if definitely more in a wild way) purple female weasel next to her. "And this is my friend Nic. You're...Shattner, wasn't it?"
"Shadow," Shadow corrected slightly irritably, wondering why everyone in this school seemed to have a hearing problem.
"Right, yeah," Fiona nodded. "Anyway, we just wanted to introduce ourselves and say hi. You're probably still a bit in shock, huh? Dunno whether you noticed yet, but most people at this school are crazy."
"Yes," Shadow said dryly. "I noticed."
Fiona nodded again. "Exactly. But yeah...anyway, we thought you looked cool enough, so in case you ever want to hang out with the non-crazies..." She let the sentence trail off for a moment, "...you're welcome to hang out with us. It'd be better for you in the long run, too. Jet knows to leave my friends alone, for instance." She smirked.
"Yeah, y'all don't hafta rely on Sonic the Gloryhog for assistance," the purple weasel added, jerking a thumb into the direction the blue hedgehog had left. "Mind you, not that he can give that much any more, anyway, but..."
"So, yeah," Fiona cut Nic off easily, "Would love to see more from you..." she said, at the same time taking a step closer and briefly leaning in to let her lips brush against Shadow's ear. "Ciao..."
The next second, they had already turned away and stalked off as well, the crowd parting in front of them like an electron cloud with a negative ion coming through. Shadow looked after them, not sure why he was also feeling like he was suddenly the involuntary star in a movie called Mean Hedgehogs.
xxx
"Here you go, Shadow. The results from your placement test are in. You have two Advanced Placement classes and two Catch Up courses. First one is this afternoon, please report to the classroom on the sheet."
"Right," Shadow said, taking the sheet of paper Ms Ebony was handing him. Home Room class was in progress, which meant that people everywhere were talking loudly, frantically trying to finish homework assignments for later periods today, or, in one case, sleeping with their head on the desk and drooling on the wood.
Shadow was awarding no points for guessing which blue pain-in-the-quills that was.
Why was this guy even allowed to go to school?
He turned his attention to his sheet again. The Advanced Placement classes were in Theoretical Physics, Chemistry and Biology – no surprise there, those had been Gerald's favourite subjects which he had taught the most – but the Catch Up courses were in Home Economics and Social Studies, which Shadow freely admitted he knew almost nothing about.
He still tried not to show how it stung that he had been placed in them, though. Maria probably wouldn't have failed any tests, a niggling voice in his brain insisted.
Well, Maria didn't have to go to school that collectively rides the short bus.
Shadow sighed. Was he exaggerating? Or was this girl Fiona right? If even she insisted that most of this school's student body was off their rocker...there had to be some normal people here, right?
While he was still wondering, Amy at last leaned over and elbowed him lightly in the side.
"Hey," she said. "Cheer up, you look like someone bent your quills the wrong way this morning."
"I have to take Catch Up courses." It had slipped out in a resentful grumble without him meaning it to, but Amy only laughed.
"Oh, come on, they're not that bad. I had to take them once, too."
"Really?" Shadow asked. Amy had seemed a bit ditzy, yeah, but she had also been quite industrious yesterday after the teacher's remark and worked quietly and earnestly at her tasks. He wouldn't have picked her for the type to struggle in school. In fact, she had more or less made his 'sane people' list by the end of the last day.
"Yeah!" Amy declared. "I missed like an entire month of school when I went to the Miracle Planet and got abducted by that robot! It was all worth it, though, Sonic saved me in the end!"
Right. So much for the non-crazy-list, then.
Shadow sighed very deeply. Ms Ebony left and the first period (Literature, which was taught by a Mr. Stewart, who turned out to be a human) was about to begin, and Shadow correctly guessed that if that damned blue hedgehog kept snoring throughout the entire lesson, he would be sorely tempted to hit him with his very own copy of Aardvark Shrugged.
Noticing something else, then, he proceeded to lean slightly closer to his pink seat neighbour, taking care to keep his voice low.
"Uh...Amy?"
"Yeah?" she whispered back.
"Why does that boy in the second row keep staring at me like that?"
"Oh. Ah." Amy gave a slighty awkward smile. "That's, uh, that's Chris. He, um...has this...thing...for hedgehogs."
"This what?" Shadow stared at her, slightly disturbed.
"Oh, don't worry, he's really harmless!" Amy at once tried to calm him. "And mostly he's only stalking Sonic."
Shadow gave her a flat look. "This information somehow doesn't make me feel better."
Amy retorted with a light nudge and a grin. "Aw, c'mon. I think it's mostly just because you kinda look like Sonic, anyway."
Shadow was just about to reply that, if he spotted any resemblance on himself toward the blue freak from this morning, he'd probably shove his own face into a blender, but (perhaps fortunately) at this point there was a rather stern clearing of the throat by Mr. Stewart from the blackboard, and the conversation came to a premature end.
xxx
Lunch break. Finally.
Shadow turned away from the food counter, somewhat dubiously regarding today's "Charlie, insecti-carnivore, lactose-intolerant!" option lunch on his tray, which seemed to be a sort of hotdog, redundantly garnished with minced meat and milk-free cheese on top of it. Letting his eyes roam over the cafeteria for a moment, briefly wondering where he should sit today, he found his gaze locking on onto Amy's bright pink form almost out of habit. Today she sat at a table much with the same group of Mobians as she had yesterday, the only difference being that this time, they had been joined by three more – on one of the chairs, crouching on the seat like a feral monkey, sat the strange orange jungle badger, Stones, or Twigs, or something to that effect, Shadow recalled, and she was currently staring at the hotdog on her plate suspiciously, as if waiting for it to strike. Next to her sat another kid, presumably some sort of fox, also very young. The third new arrival, however, was none other than...Shadow growled.
That damn blue hedgehog again, of all places. After having slept through nearly both of the lessons this morning, and in the process wearing Shadow's patience thin by also being the noisiest sleeper Shadow had ever seen, he was now shoveling the hotdog lunch into his maw like a spiky vacuum cleaner. Shadow found his upper lip curling in distaste. Being treated like a lab animal by most GUN personel aboard the ARK, it had always felt somewhat important to him to eat, carry and groom himself like a civilized person, making a point of his sapience when no one else would. The blue hedgehog, it was obvious, cared for none of that – and judging by how everyone else at the table seemed absolutely enraptured by whatever tale he was telling in between messy bites of his fast food, neither did they.
Shadow for some reason almost felt disappointed.
No. What?
Realizing the feeling for what it was, the Ultimate Lifeform quickly tried to crush the notion as ruthlessly as he could, mentally berating himself for this childish emotion of juvenile attachment. He turned his back to the section of the hall Amy and the others were sitting in so in case they saw him, none of them could wave him over.
Amy had been pleasant enough (in a mildly exasperating way), and while Shadow hadn't much cared for either the loudmouth crocodile or the raccoon, he had taken a bit of a liking toward the mature attitude and the reserved nature of the armadillo and the purple chameleon, respectively – but now with not one, but three new people at the table, none of whom Shadow particularly cared to meet, he found himself less than enthused at the idea of sitting again with them. The black hedgehog had almost reached the decision of dumping his lunch in the bin, foregoing nutrition and instead running on Chaos energy for the rest of the day, when a voice at his side interrupted his thoughts.
"Hey there, Shadow. Looking a bit lonely, aren't you? Care to join us for lunch?"
The Ultimate Lifeform turned around. Fiona from home room was standing next to him, the scarlet-furred vixen giving him a lazy smile and beckoning at a table a few metres over. Nic and a few other sapients Shadow hadn't seen before were sitting at it and regarding him all with varying degrees of curiosity.
"Everyone would love to meet ya," Fiona said – right before leaning in a bit closer, lowering her voice and adding with a mocking smirk, "Well...unless you wanted to buy a ticket for the resident freak show again, that is..."
Shadow followed her glance toward the table of Amy and Co. Given that the badger girl now seemed to be tying her fork to a broom handle to create a sort of IKEA spear, the blue hedgehog had apparently challenged Vector as to who could fit more of the blasted sausages in their mouth and the little fox was cheering them on while even Amy and Mighty seemed to be torn in between exasperation and amusement...Shadow turned quickly around and nodded.
"Yes. I'd be delighted to join."
Fiona gave a laugh at his dry tone, and nodded. "Alright. Lemme introduce you to the normal people at this school..."
She turned to walk back to the table she had come from and Shadow followed. He recognized the weasel girl from this morning, but didn't think he had seen the other faces before. Just like Amy's table this one was populated entirely by sapients – next to Nic sat a chipmunk girl, a male, well-groomed skunk, a grey-haired pale yellow fox with a somewhat cold expression on his face, and finally, looming over everyone else, a hulking teenage gorilla who out of some misguided fashion sense was wearing camouflage combat pants and boots. Most of them regarded him just with calm or appraising interest instead of the hyper, overboarding enthusiasm of Amy's group, though, so Shadow thought that this at least might be a more relaxing lunch period.
"Hey, Fi. Managed to bag yourself a hedgehog yet, have you?" Nic greeted them when Shadow and Fiona approached and sat down. Fiona rolled her eyes.
"Shut up, Nic. I thought Shadow might fit in with us and that's it, okay?"
"Suuure," the weasel smirked. "Has jack to do with you trying to get with Sonic the Hedgehog last year and failing miserably, I'm convinced."
"I said shut up!" Fiona squeaked, and Shadow for a moment felt like letting his head sink onto the table in despair. By now he was halfway convinced that the moment he had set foot into Station Square he had somehow stepped into a universe where life itself seemed to revolve around that chaos-damned blue hedgehog by default.
"Hello," he instead tried to address the other occupants of the table, hoping that perhaps the male population of the planet might be marginally less obsessed. "I don't think Fiona gave me your names. You're...?"
"Myles the Fox. Pleasure." The grey-haired, somewhat short vulpine extended a hand, the cold not leaving his eyes but giving a polite nod nonetheless. "These here are Jeffrey and Simon – when he's not calling himself 'Sgt. Simian', that is." He gestured at the skunk who gave a wave and at the gorilla who turned away with a light blush and a scowl, eliciting a snort from the fox. "And what brings you to our humble table, mystery new guy?"
"I promise you, I'm not that mysterious," Shadow replied smoothly, hoping further attention to his past could possibly be deflected before it came up. Instead, he made a show of leaning back and giving a casual nudge with his head in the general direction of Amy's table. "Mostly I'm here to avoid another edition of the Sonic the Hedgehog show."
This earned a few twitching lips and knowing laughs around the table. Shadow relaxed marginally as it became at last apparent that he was not actually the only person in the universe who found the blue sapient's presence grating.
"A wise choice," the last member of the table, the chipmunk girl commented dryly. "Hi. I'm Alicia." She nodded at Shadow. "I never quite got why Fiona was hitting on the guy to begin with. Too much of a goody-two-shoes and poking his nose in everyone's business on top of that."
"He looked hot and fun, okay? It was a mistake. Stop grilling me about it," Fiona snapped. "I couldn't know he was basically the Mobian version of Dudley effing Do-Right..."
"True." Nic smirked. "If you ask me, he's probably watched one episode of Lassie too much."
That got another laugh from the table. Shadow could feel his lips twitch. The mental image of the blue hedgehog running around after everyone like the feral dog on the old TV show was amusing.
"Fucking speciesist that programme, anyway." Myles shrugged and bit into his own lunch.
"Yeah, best to avoid the whole of that table," Alicia added. "None of the others are any saner. Like, Amy?" she asked, casting a glance at Shadow. "Fi asked Sonic out once. But that pink hedgehog by now has probably built a shrine to him."
"Eyup," Nic agreed, poking at her food and giving Shadow a lazy smile. "Be careful she doesn't paint you blue one day and lock you up in her closest."
"Probably wouldn't even be her first victim," Jeffrey added, his face grave. "I think every weekend she holds a ceremonial quill burning. To summon Sonic."
"That's alright. My fur was designed fire retardant," Shadow replied automatically, and then could have slapped himself because why did you say that normal people don't say things like that, but to his relief, the others at the table merely blinked at him, and then gave a round of appreciative laughter, apparently thinking Shadow had made a casual joke.
The Ultimate Lifeform was oddly surprised how nice it felt.
"But yeah, enough of that show-hog already. What ya do for fun, Shadow?" Nic asked.
"I don't know. I haven't been in Station Square long."
"Huh, really?" Fiona asked. "Then how about we take you to see the city centre sometime this week? Could be fun."
You just got invited to something. Maybe you're not screwing up this fitting-in business as bad as you thought after all. Maybe all you needed was the right group.
"...yes," Shadow conceded. "I'd like that."
"Eugh, don't take him on a girly shopping trip!" Myles exclaimed, giving a face palm. "Look. Shadow, man, if you really want to see the town, how about you come by for a round of cruising this weekend? My father's got some choppers we can use. Or we could go to my family's gun range - it's Simon's second home anyway and it's definitely better than being dragged around by Fi," he smirked. "Don't look put out, girls, you're welcome to join us and learn something if you want."
"Learn something?" Nic countered. "Please. I could shoot off those ridiculous bangs of yours from a 100 metre distance and you know it."
"Your family...owns motorcycles and a gun range?" Shadow asked, trying to keep his tone very casual, (and not at all like Myles had basically described a trip to a theme park for him) True, he had never sat on a motorbike so far, but he had always wanted to. Also, he hadn't been allowed to fire a gun again ever since they had left the ARK, and while he loved Maria dearly, her basic aversion to weapons had often been a cause for rows between the two siblings. The thought of getting to fire something far away from her when she would likely never find out was...very appealing.
"Yeah," Myles grinned smugly. "And the best thing is that it has real life-like overlander targets!"
"Overlander...targets?" Shadow frowned
"Yeah. I mean, not real overlanders, obviously, but puppets shaped like them." Jeffrey shrugged. "You can pretend to shoot skinbags all day long."
"Skinbags," Shadow repeated the word, now somewhat more tonelessly.
"Yeah." Myles waved a hand. "Y'know, like mangies? Trolls? Stick-swingers? Overlanders, dude."
"Humans, you mean." Shadow said, and his expression by now had become as cold as his tone.
"Yeah, humans," Myles scoffed. "Don't look so surprised. Not like everyone wouldn't already have seen that they're a jumped-up, dead end of the evolution ladder." He leaned forward. "You know why so many Mobians have special abilities and none of the humans do? It's 'cause they're a lost cause. They're meant to go extinct. We're the next step of the future."
Alicia snorted. "Also, most of them are plain crazy. Like, that Robotnik freak? You never see any Mobian lunatic trying to take over the planet. And right now he's at it again."
Jeffrey shrugged. "Don't think you can even blame individuals of them for their actions any more. Their entire gene pool is corrupted." He absent-mindedly fixed his white head-fur a little. "They're too large, there's too many of them since they ironically breed like rabbits and they take up too many resources. They basically ruin any environment they touch. If we could simply flush them out from the system, it would probably make the entire planet's collective genome healthier. Less birth defects and all that."
Shadow noticed how his fist had clenched on his thigh even without his conscious thought.
"My sister was born with a genetic disease," he said, quietly, but with a face like stone. "It nearly killed her before her grandfather managed to cure her."
"Oh hey, that sucks, man." Myles replied, his voice only containing some casual sympathy at best. "But hey, at least be glad she wasn't born a human, right? 'cause I dunno what's up with their genes, because," and then he abruptly raised his voice, suddenly focusing on something behind Shadow, "like half of them are born freaks!"
Shadow only then glanced over his shoulder to see that just in this moment, the human girl in the wheelchair (Helen?) from his class had been rolling past.
"Yeah, it's like evolution couldn't make it plainer who was meant to be on top here," Fiona also piped up now, "– cause otherwise they wouldn't get born as meals on wheels!" She yelled, and, just like the first time, the lips of the blonde girl thinned as she ducked her head, showing that she had definitely heard the remark even if she tried not to show it. The two boys that had been walking with her, Chris and Danny, immediately whirled around at the sapient table with absolutely thunderous faces, but at the same time Simon the Gorilla stood up. He was easily towering over both the white and the black teenager by more than a foot, and then Helen had already softly grabbed for the hands of her friends, shaking her head and obviously calling them back.
As they reluctantly turned around again, the entire table nearly howled with laughter.
"Hah, oh man," Nic laughed, "that never fails to rile them up-!"
There was a bang! as Shadow abruptly put his glass down and stood up.
"Hey, what's-?" Fiona asked, her face drawing into a frown of confusion, but Shadow cut her off.
"I've suddenly lost my appetite."
"Hey! Hey, what's the matter with you?!" both Nic and the vixen called after him, but Shadow already wasn't looking back any more as he strode out.
On his way from the canteen, he also passed the table where Helen and her friends had sat down with another red-haired human girl, all four of them now shooting him dirty looks, but Shadow only gave them a flat stare back, not bothering to correct them in their mistaken assumption that he approved of what had just gone down at that table. It wasn't his job to apologize for the others and he felt like he had had enough of trying to fit in for one day.
Besides, he was too busy thinking. They said Ivo Robotnik was still trying to take over the world?!
To be continued...
Heh, wish I had a more light-hearted chapter for the holidays in the pipeline, guys (of course, everyone who hasn't read it yet is still welcome to have a look at 'All They Want For Christmas' for a more fun look at Sonic and Shadow during the festivities) but, well...Shadow's learning the hard way what makes for good people to hang around with and I hope all of you have their share of that for the next few days :) Merry Christmas, everyone!