John: Sure! Here ya go :)
MiharuStar: Tails as the hero and Sonic the sidekick, huh? I can imagine an (older) Tails as a tactical leader, I think, yeah (though I do prefer him as the excitable little kid bro genius) One real chapter coming up now!
Guest: Oooh, Marvel references you bet! I love the MCU! :D
Anonymous: That obvious, huh? XD (We did go to see the first screening in my city...:P) As for using the idea for my fanfic, sure, as long there's credit given, I'm always happy when bits and pieces of my fics show up somewhere else, use away! Glad you like it! :D
Guest: *takes a bow*
Mr angry answers: aw, but he enjoys it ;p
XxShadowxX: Real chapters FINALLY here! Glad you liked both of them (I did have fun coming up with them^^) and yup, it's one of my fav holidays - even though it's been a while since I got pranked for that date, though I think I would enjoy it. ;p
DEV: Hah, leider, leider noch nicht ganz - es wäre etwas früh für den guten Doktor, seine Hand zu zeigen. Ich hoffe, dass das Kapitel trotzdem was zu bieten hat! :p Tails und das Bauen einer Iron-Fox-Rüstung - hmm, ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass es für den Tails aus meiner He Is My Master Story weniger ein Problem wäre, aber der Tails hier ist noch etwas jünger (die haben ja gerade erst SA1 hinter sich und der kleine beginnt gerade erst, aus Sonics Schatten herauszutreten), er müsste vermutlich noch etwas üben. Verraten kann ich allerdings denke ich schon mal, dass wenn es dann hier in dieser Story zu krachen beginnt, er auf keinen Fall an der Seitenlinie verharren wird. Hoffe, dir gefällt das neue Update! :D
Katz4: Always happy to entertain^^
Guest: Hm, I have a feeling that while both Shadow and Sticks might very well be outsiders, she could be a tad bit too high-strung for him to get along with her on a permanent basis. But it never hurts to try :p
Lanydx: Thanks!
Author's Note: Well here we go again! I apologise for the wait, but you know how it is, I have entirely too many Sonic fics going on...that said, hope you have fun with the new update! As always with my April Fool's jokes, nothing from the last chapter actually happened, so this one continues straight from chapter five :)
Chapter Six: Everything's Better With Cake
Ugh. School starts too damn early in the morning. I want to be back on a space station where there isn't a friggin sun rising at 6 am, uncontrolled lighting change just isn't *natural*...
Shadow was massaging his temples and groaning as he trudged toward the school entrance. Sleep hadn't come easy to him after last evening's strange not-encounter (and afterwards having had the weirdest dreams throughout the night hadn't helped). Now he was just hoping he might at least be able to make it through this day without much trouble...
"Oh Sooooooonic!"
"Gangway! Sorry, dude!"
"AGH!" Shadow squawked as, the second he had entered the school building, the familiar blue hedgehog wearing a panicked expression came barreling down the corridor and then actually proceeded to leapfrog over the Ultimate Lifeform's head. Shadow immediately whirled around, red eyes blazing in instinctive anger at the (still accelerating) blue back.
"What the HELL! If you value your face intact, you blue maniac-!"
His angry shout was then abruptly interrupted by 55 pounds of girl hedgehog crashing into his back at full tilt and flooring them both.
"Ooooph! Wha...?" Amy managed, uprighting herself a bit confusedly, before all at once noticing what exactly the black spiky pillow she was sitting on was.
" - oh no! Shadow! I'm so sorry, I was chasing Sonic-!"
I hate this school. So much.
xxx
Today's first lesson was supposed to be history, according to the time table he had been given, and it was taught by another sapient. Apparently, he did not seem to be a very respected teacher, though, because not only was half the class (of course including the blue maniac) late, most of them were even talking while the teacher was attempting to conduct the lesson.
"So, um," the (actually fairly young) Mobian was stammering a little, "Today we will be covering the events of Mobius' first contact with aliens. As you all know, the hostile extraterrestrial race called the Black Arms announced their presence first by attacking the City of Westopolis-"
"Uhh, Mr. Silver?" Amy had put a hand up and was now staring at the teacher, who immediately seemed to become a little more nervous. "I don't think that happened."
"Er. What?"
"Yeah, I don't think Westopolis was ever attacked, never mind from aliens," Vector piped up from the front row, before fixing the silver hedgehog with a lazy grin. "Didja stay up too late watching Independence Day last night, Mr. S?"
"It...what? Oh! Yeah, no, of course not, that didn't happen...yet." Mr. Silver stammered, then stared for some reason at Shadow. "Or maybe...any more. Shit. Uh. Anyway, so, let's skip ahead to the time the planet broke apart for the second time in 2122 -!"
"Mr. Silver?" Now it was the female rabbit looking at the teacher (who appeared by now to be sweating bullets), seemingly confused.
"Yes, Bunnie?"
"It's...2015," the rabbit pointed out. "Isn't history supposed to be-?"
"Right! You know what?" the silver-hued Mobian asked with fake cheer, "We should watch a movie. Yeah. Do they come in 5D yet? Oh, never mind...!"
There was a bang! from the classroom door as the hedgehog teacher had rushed from the room, Shadow's sensitive ears also hearing him muttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'Oh sweet chaos, how could I ever get stuck here, fuck' and the Ultimate Lifeform stared after him. It said something that by now this didn't merit more than a raised eye ridge at Amy.
When she noticed his expression, the pink hedgehog only shrugged and gave a small, lop-sided smile. "Uh, that's Mr. Silver. He's only an intern and really young, and he mostly seems somewhat confused," she managed, her tone a little bit apologetic before she then perked up, giving Shadow a little wink. "I think he's cute, though. Er, I mean, well," she instantly amended, "not as cute as Sonic of course, but..."
Shadow sighed. If there was anything he had learned about girls at Amy's and Maria's age, it was that they saw the world through a sort of binary filter where 'cute' was the defining distinction greater than any other truth in the universe. He supposed it was at least a way to make sense of the cosmos, which was actually better than anything he had ever managed to come up with.
"By the way, do you want to sit with us at lunch again, today? I would really like you to meet the others," Amy piped up at his side again, leaning forward with a slight smile.
"Hm? Oh, no. No offence, but I'd rather be alone," Shadow shot her a slightly distracted sideways glance, his mind more occupied why the freak hedgehog teacher had stared at him like that at the mention of aliens. Next to him, Amy had fallen uncharacteristically silent, but as soon as the movie was put on, Shadow found he hardly noticed.
Xxx
When the lunch period approached (after the godawful movie the silver hedgehog had put them through), Shadow had once again managed to intentionally skip out of the class room a few minutes early, (this had actually been fairly easy, too – when, during the movie, he had walked up to the teacher's desk and asked if he could leave for the bathroom, the silver hedgehog had mostly only sat with his face in his hands, muttered something along the lines of 'oh gods, the last time I met you for the first time you kicked me in the face, none of you are even supposed to be in high school, please go' and waved Shadow off – and the Ultimate Lifeform, while slightly freaked out - even the teachers were mad - hadn't questioned his good luck.)
Arriving early in the canteen, he had been able to secure himself an empty seat far away from the two tables he had sat at the previous two days. Truthfully, he really wasn't in the mood for company – he was tired, still feeling like an alien among the other sapients and the memories of last night's encounter didn't want to go away either. So yeah, he didn't want to sit with Amy's posse of high-strung oddballs, he didn't want to sit with Fiona's little camp of racists (well, speciesists), and he also didn't want to sit with the humans of his class who were now shooting him dirty looks from their table. Shadow could feel his shoulders sag slightly. This fitting in was so not going well.
Well, what did you expect? You aren't a high school student. You are a weapon of mass destruction and a half-alien freak.
Sighing, Shadow pushed the plate with his bland food away, having lost even what little appetite he had and got to his feet. There was no point in sitting around here. Maybe a walk around school grounds would be a better way to spend the lunch break...
He got as far as the locker hall before a fist crashing into the metal door right in front of him let his head snap up.
"Hey," a somewhat tall, broad-shouldered human with ginger hair, a dark blue rugby jersey and (in Shadow's opinion) a face not even a mother could love, was now looming in front of him.
"What?" Shadow snapped. He could already feel the mother of all migraines coming on, and if this guy didn't step out of his way pronto, he would be tempted to rip out his spine and beat him to death with it.
"Julian says you're a crawler not knowing how to respect his superiors," a smaller, black-haired female stepped out from behind the taller male, a black and red dress more looking appropriate for Halloween than an urban high-school flowing down her form. "That's him, isn't it?" she asked, pointing at Shadow with a strange staff while turning toward the big-nosed kid Shadow recognized as having been the idiot that had run into him yesterday.
"Yeah," the third human now blocking the doorway nodded, before coming up to grasp the hand of the female. "That's the o-"
"Hey! Didn't I tell you to leave him alone yesterday?"
And, as what was probably the last voice Shadow had wanted to hear that day cut through the corridor, the Ultimate Lifeform quietly wondered whether, if he unleashed a Chaos Blast right here and now, Gerald would maybe let him change schools.
For now, though, the black hedgehog merely whirled around, red eyes blazing as he (completely ignoring the three humans in his back) jabbed a finger at a very surprised blue hedgehog's face.
"You! Will you keep your nose out of my business?! I don't need any jokers to fight my battles for me."
The other's eyes widened slightly, and he immediately raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Chaos, calm down, dude. I was only tryin' to help!"
"Uh..." at this point, the three humans in the background looked slightly put out and the largest of them had raised a finger, but Shadow was ignoring them in favour of still glowering at the blue hedgehog.
"Like I said, you don't look like you can even take care of yourself," he said, red eyes demonstratively giving the still battered form of the other a dismissive once-over. "Looking like that, who do you even think you are to assume you could help others?"
This for some reason made the other hedgehog give him a very slow blink.
"...um. You do know who I am, right?"
Shadow crossed his arms, scowling. "You're the guy who jumps on top of people and keeps disrupting class, yeah."
"...dude. I'm Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog," the blue-furred sapient said, now also sounding slightly incredulous. Shadow waved his hand dismissively.
"...so?!"
"Oookay," the hedgehog calling himself Sonic (and apparently expecting people to be impressed by that) took another step backwards, staring. "When they said you had been living 'further away' for the past couple years, what they really meant was 'under a rock', right...?"
"I don't have time for this," Shadow grated out through gritted teeth, abruptly turning around to stalk away, "And you!" he then also barked at the three humans still standing more or less forgotten in the corridor, all three of them flinching at his sudden address, "You're embarrassing yourselves! Go away!"
And as the Ultimate Lifeform stalked off without bothering to wait for a reply, (privately knowing that that last remark of his probably could have been a lot snappier if he hadn't already developed a full-on headache by now...) he pretended he couldn't even hear what sounded like the other sapient for some inane reason now having a gigantic giggle fit.
If he had to see the blue hedgehog the next day that was still too early.
xxx
Shadow's mood had not improved ten minutes later, when he was now on his way to his first 'catch-up' course in Social Studies that had been scheduled for this afternoon.
It was then definitely not improved when he saw the other student with him in the class.
"Oh hey there, buddy! Didn't know you would be in this class, too!" The blue hedgehog, currently the only other occupant in the class room (how had he even gotten here before Shadow?!), was giving Shadow a wide grin.
"The dropout class. Figures you would be in it. Wonderful." Shadow let himself and his school bag drop onto the chair furthest from the other sapient with a hollow thud.
"Hey!" the blue hedgehog's expression changed all at once, the grin for the first time vanishing. "I am NOT a dropout!"
Shadow returned the offended expression with a deadpan stare. "Says the guy skipping classes and getting up in other people's business instead of minding his own. No wonder you have to take catch-up classes."
"Okay, just what is wrong with you?"
"What? Wrong with me?" Shadow asked. The blue hedgehog had abruptly stood up, placing both his palms on Shadow's desk and staring down at him in irritation. There weren't actually any threatening vibes coming off him yet, but the Ultimate Lifeform could sense that he had apparently finally succeeded in ticking the other off.
"Yeah, wrong with you," Sonic said, jabbing a finger into Shadow's face, red eyes flashing in warning not seeming to faze him in the slightest.
"Amy's been telling me she's been trying her hardest to be friendly to you and you still avoid her, Tails says you wouldn't speak a word with him either, and finally Chris says he saw you spending lunch with Fiona's gang, who, I might add, are not the coolest crowd to hang with when you've got a human family." Sonic's tone was cutting, the hedgehog not reacting to Shadow's light flinch. "I can't actually think of any newbie who ever got into so many near-scraps on their first two days, either with the Babylon rogues or Julian and his creepy-ass girlfriend, but judging by this stick up your ass giving off more 'bite me' vibes than a gingerbread man, I guess it's not surprising. And hey, yeah, I don't expect anything for what I do here, but at least not getting it thrown back into my face would be pretty damn nice."
So saying, the blue hedgehog abruptly whirled around again, striding off into the first row of the (otherwise empty) class room and flinging himself into the chair there, arms crossed, feet on the table, and very much not looking at Shadow. The teacher entering only a few moments later – a rather cranky-looking, elderly white cat introducing herself as Ms Hathor to Shadow – also did not seem to be in the mood to deal with whatever had created the beyond frosty atmosphere in the room, and so the period passed in relative silence, right until the bell rang and Sonic picked up his bag and walked out of the room without so much as another word or glance back. Shadow frowned after him.
Somehow, being finally left alone did not feel as satisfying as anticipated.
Xxx
"Oh hey Shadow, welcome home!" Maria was immediately perking up and raising her head to smile as the door of her house opened, the familiar silhouette of her hedgehog sibling visible through the glass panes. But when she actually set eyes on Shadow, her face fell a little as the drooping ears and downward gaze of her brother trudging through the entrance room and positively collapsing into one of the kitchen chairs became obvious.
"Hey..."
"Uh, Shadow...did something happen? Is something wrong?" Maria cautiously leaned forward on the table, looking at her brother bonelessly slumped on the chair with a worried frown.
"Maria..." Shadow's red eyes flickered up at her for a moment, and this time, the Ultimate Lifeform almost seemed so defeated, Maria had to rein back her surprise at seeing her usually indomitable brother this...hopeless. Shadow flopped onto the table.
"I don't...I don't think I fit in very well."
"Oh, Shadow..." Maria rose and then stepped up behind the hedgehog, wrapping her arms around his torso from behind and resting her head on top of his. "Maybe – maybe you just need some more time?"
"I don't know whether that'll help," Shadow huffed. "You probably already have a bunch of friends, don't you?"
"Uhm...actually..."
"Huh?" At her hesitant tone, Shadow looked up, for once genuinely surprised. He couldn't have imagined any one not loving Maria immediately, so he hadn't expected the somewhat strained smile his sister gave him at the question.
"To tell you the truth..." She bit her lip. "It's a bit difficult. I mean, I'm younger than most of them and most of our life experiences...don't exactly match," Maria gave him a curious mixture between a grimace and a lop-sided small grin.
"Oh," Shadow managed.
"Also, I'm almost the only human in my Mobian Studies classes. Actually, I think they think I'm kind of...weird," Maria said, now curiously even blushing a little.
"But my professors like me," she continued quickly, "And there's a guy who's really nice. I've been to lunch with him today, actually. There's hope for all of us, Shadow."
"Hnh," the Ultimate Lifeform managed, still spilled gracelessly across the table, still very obviously moping. Maria, who knew of the sheer destructive power Shadow wielded, briefly thought the image could have been funny if she hadn't been concerned.
"Hey," she finally said, clapping a hand on Shadow's shoulder. "You know what could cheer us up? Baking a cake!"
Shadow quirked an eye ridge.
"...you're having one of those days where you remember you're a female, right?"
This was of course the point where the apron was flung at Shadow's head, but, fortunately, Gerald didn't come home until the food fight was mostly over, and they had actually started baking the cake.
xxx
"Why are we doing this, exactly?"
The Ultimate Lifeform, currently attempting to separate egg whites from the yolks (and looking disgusted at the process) had asked the question with only a hint of dryness. The reply of his sister, of course, was infinitely patient.
"Everyone needs to know how to cook for themselves. We aren't little kids any more, Shadow."
"Speak for yourself. I am five years old."
"Yeah, right. In that case, do what your older sister says."
"My 'older sister' is basically certifiable. She does math homework for fun."
"Oh, hush." Maria shushed him, and then bent over the table to look at the cook book again. It was titled 'Go ahead – bake my day' (which had tempted Shadow to abandon the entire enterprise on the spot).
"Neither of us know the first thing about baking. It's gonna be a disaster!" Shadow, his hands at least clean again, crossed his arms in an attempt to bring his point across in a somewhat sterner manner.
This was a bit ruined by the fact that a humming Maria was also currently lifting him up to place him on the counter, utterly ignoring his protests at the treatment. (Of course it was fairly obvious that had this been anyone else but Maria manhandling him like an overactive toddler they would likely have paid with their lives, but the blonde girl was in the very unique position to know that against her, the Ultimate Lifeform was essentially powerless).
"It's not going to be a disaster. Cooking is simply a science, Shadow, and we will treat it as such."
"A science, huh? With you, all that means is that something will eventually explode."
"Quiet, you. We are going to learn how to make healthy living."
"That is why we..." - here Shadow finally picked up the recipe book next to him on the counter and perused the open page - "...make a black forest tart, a cake that seems to consist mostly of cream, chocolate and alcohol?" He raised an eye ridge.
Blue eyes narrowed. "Shadow..."
"Right! Cake!"
xxx
It was a fair while later that both siblings were looking at their creation, the sun now definitely setting. The past two hours had been...adventurous.
Shadow had managed to put an egg whisk spinning at full power into a bowl filled to the brim with cream. The result had been very wet, very spread, and it had left the Ultimate Lifeform vaguely resembling some sort of a bastard lovechild of Frosty the Snowman and Patrick the Starfish.
Maria snapping a picture of this did not help.
Shadow had also asked how much more starch was needed to be added to the cherry filling. Maria had looked at the mass, which at this point had been roughly resembling a pink brick.
("...maybe if we cut it in slices?")
More care had been taken with the cream and the chocolate dough, which therefore in turn then had only a microscopic amount of stabilizer added – this was also the reason why both master chefs were now looking at their tart, which appeared to be slowly oozing its way across the counter like a particularly calorie-rich aggressive alien lifeform.
"...Maria?"
"...yes?"
"If we can ditch this venture now and just order goddamn takeout I promise I will never mention this again."
"...fine."
On the upside, both of them at least had 'tasted' enough during the baking process that the takeout bill was not in danger of running too high.
xxx
"Evening, you two! Maria, you said you wanted to bake a cake for dessert tonight?"
"Um, yeah. Turns out the cake was a lie – or at least, my claiming to be actually able to bake one was. Sorry, grandpa." Maria rubbed the back of her head sheepishly as the head of their family entered the kitchen, barely out of his coat.
"But we have very adequate chicken Chow Mein," Shadow pointed out.
"Oh. I see. Well, part of any scientist's life must be failed experiments, I suppose..." Gerald scratched his bald head somewhat bemusedly, but then at last settled down with his two charges to eat. Dinner passed for the first few minutes in companionable silence, until...
"Say, professor, have you written to your grandson yet?"
To Gerald's credit, this time his small catching of breath was almost unnoticeable. Eyes covered by dark glasses turned slightly toward Shadow.
"...yes, actually. I sent him an email."
The black hedgehog frowned. "He does have a public email account?"
Gerald poked at his chicken. "Sort of, yes. He actually has a whole website where he is listing reasons why the world should become his 'Eggman Empire'. There is also a little browser game where you can launch angry, mechanical birds at thieving hedgehogs." This was said with slight despair in Gerald's voice, as if the old scientist at this point also wasn't quite sure anymore if his grandson was the kind of person you could presumably reasonably talk to.
Shadow slowly let his head sink onto the table.
"Is everyone on this planet insane, professor? I mean, just the people in my school are weird enough, but..."
"We can but hope, Shadow." The old man said, also sighing. "I'm not giving up hope that Ivo might reply to me yet. As should you for finding friends at your school."
"Yes, but..." Shadow scowled at his food. "It's...almost like they have this contest going who can be the most grating individual during a school day. I mean, in my class alone there's a guy who must be the laziest student in the universe." The Ultimate Lifeform stabbed at his takeout a bit more forcefully than necessary. "He said his name was Sonic. He also says he's a hedgehog, but I think he's a bastard lovechild between a circus clown and a steam ro-"
"Oh. my. GODS. Shadow?!"
"What?" the black hedgehog looked up, for a moment irritated because his sister had interrupted him, but then acually also became slightly concerned, because said sister currently seemed to look like she had just seen Shadow sprout angel wings. "Err...Mari-?"
"Did you just say Sonic? As in, Sonic the Hedgehog? In your school? THE Sonic the Hedgehog?!"
Gerald wasn't certain, but he thought he could almost sense the temperature in the room drop by five degrees. Shadow's gaze had noticeably become even more irritated.
"I wasn't aware there were so many of them you needed to make the distinction."
"Oh gods, Shadow, this is amazing! He is like a national hero!"
"What?! He snores in CLASS!"
"Nonono, remember when I told you about that sapient hero, who so far kept my cousin in check? Single-handedly and everything? That's HIM! That's Sonic! You can buy stuff with his face on it everywhere!" Maria exclaimed, eyes still wide and excited. "He is beyond powerful, and he goes to your school! This is incredible!"
Shadow at this point suddenly had a sinking feeling worse than a certain ocean liner having just hit an ice berg.
"You...you mean...he is the national..."
He paused.
Then:
"Please excuse me. I wanna go hang myself."
To be continued...
There you go, hope you liked! The cat (or rather the hedgehog...) is out of the bag, so let's see how Shadow handles that one without spontaneously combusting :p As always, would love to hear your thoughts and if you read, please review! (And for anyone who liked Tails' little excursion as the hero...why not check out my fics 'Tales of Shadows', 'Five Things That Never Happened' or 'Where The Wild Things Are'? ;)