Anonymous Review Replies!
Guest: Did I hear a call for more Shadally? :D Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks for commenting!
Guest: Ahahah, yes, very accurate representation of that scene XD Please enjoy the update, too!
DEV: :DDD Aw, danke, die Szene in der Polizeistation hat auch echt Spaß gemacht zu schreiben - Sonic drückt da auch glaube ich die gesammelte Meinung aller Konsumenten dieses Fandoms aus, dass es nämlich IMMER Robotniks Schuld ist, GUN könnte da wirklich mal was dazugelernt haben. XD Und es freut mich, dass die Figuren-choreo gut läuft, es ist nämlich tatsächlich nicht so einfach, solche "Massenszenen" zu schreiben (aber wird zum Glück mit steigender Übung leichter). Shadows Verzweiflung über die generelle Sonic-zentriertheit dieses Universums ist auch immer wieder schön, aber halt leider auch wirklich WAHR, wenn man eben im Sonic the Hedgehog franchise lebt und es nicht weiß XD Die Familienszenen der Robotniks sind immer schön zu schreiben, weil die Familie halt wirklich zu 100% aus Exzentrikern besteht, die sich aber wunderbar ergänzen und sich für ein Familienleben Mühe geben, meine fav Kombination :3 Und no worries bei der Prom-Front, ich hab mit der Storyline viel zu viel Spaß (zeigt sich vermutlich in diesem Kapitel, ahahah). Und jo, die Reviews von dir sind meistens das Highlight der Sektion, so macht Schreiben echt wirklich doppelt Spaß, also mega danke! :D
Lone Garurumon: That you do! :p I love writing all these family dynamics, mainly because in canon, they are sadly missing - orphaning does run a bit rampant^^; Thanks for your review, as always! :D
Chapter 26: PROMinent Problems
"So, where are we actually going? Is there even a store all four of us can shop at?" Shadow asked, privately thinking he could at least have done with some pants or a coat to shove his hands into, just so he could walk with the proper resentment for this whole procedure. Amy had shown up as promised (threatened) ten o'clock sharp at their doorstep, hand closed with what looked like the force of a parking clamp around Sonic's forearm (who also looked about as resigned about this entire procedure as Shadow felt). Currently, their little group was led by Amy and Maria chattering excitedly in front of them, while he and Sonic trudgingly followed along.
"Yup!" Maria turned around to him, smiling, "It's a really big, slightly upscale clothing store and super inclusive - it's called Venus 'n Furs, catering to both female human fashion and sapient styles for all genders."
"It's called what?" Shadow asked, privately wondering whether this was better or worse than Abby's and Lin's hair salon.
"Yeah, and if we can't find anything there, we can also head over to Felts for Pelts, which currently has a Sales for Scales campaign going on, pretty sure Vector and Espio went shopping there," Amy continued cheerfully, ignoring Shadow's pain. "Although that one only caters to Mobians, so I'm really hoping we'll all get lucky at the first one."
"Yeah, well, if my sister doesn't, there's probably a shop called Sins for Skins or something," Shadow replied flatly. "I dare you to tell me there isn't."
"Well, uh, yeah," Amy said, now actually blushing slightly, "But that, er, actually mostly sells lingerie and, uh, sexy stuff. It's a co-op store with the Leathers for Feathers goth chain catering to birds-"
"Why."
xxx
"Have you...ever actually worn any more clothes than this?" Shadow ventured sometime later to Sonic as they were crossing the street to enter into the network of shopping arcades, long narrow foot traffic roads sheltered under a roof and lined with hundreds of shops and food stalls on both sides, benches, drinking fountains and garbage bins at varying heights arranged around little spots with fountains and potted trees for spaces to sit and rest in between rampant consumerism. The clientele, here, too, was rather mixed, though it tended to skew young across both humans and sapients.
"Um. I got a scarf for winter?" Sonic replied, looking a bit surprised at the question. "Oh, and Maddie got both me and Tails Christmas sweaters. But otherwise, no. Most clothes tend to rip at first exposure to lava, toxic waste or robots made completely from razor blades on fire, so."
"Yeah, I figured," Shadow replied with a frown. His own experiences weren't much more comprehensive - early on, aboard the ARK when he still had had to deal with military and scientists other than Gerald, who saw in him nothing more than an experiment, a feral animal and lab rat, wearing any clothes at all had always meant defiance, meant defending and demonstrating his personhood no matter what they did to him during experiments - even if the only things around the ARK remotely able to fit him had been gloves and socks.
Later on, the custom shoes and gloves Gerald had made for him had been his first presents, adding yet another layer of importance to wearing them - but, much like Sonic, anything more would have been mainly impractical during training.
"Clothes are overrated, anyhow - I mean, not for you guys, Chaos knows you'd manage to get frostbite on a spring day, Tails says you're so weird from an evolutionary standpoint," Sonic said, giving Maria a grin, "but I dunno. Always seemed super impractical to me."
"Sonic, rude!" Amy admonished, turning around with a scandalized expression, "And also, clothes are great for expressing yourself. You should apologize to Maria."
"Oh no, Amy, it's fine-" Maria tried, placatingly, but Amy immediately shook her head empathically.
"No, it's not! I mean, even when it is warm enough for you guys to not freeze without clothes, I know you immediately get sunburn without covering yourselves up or rubbing those weird-smelling lotions into your skin that makes you all sticky," Amy said, taking a hand of Maria's in hers and looking up at her with earnest compassion, "Evolution did cut you such a mean deal, it's super not okay for Sonic to rub it in!"
"Hmm. Yes. Tragic, I agree," Shadow said, actually quite pleased how completely serious he was able to sound, while Maria gave him the flattest of stares over Amy's head. "You should apologize, Sonic, immediately." He cleared his throat. "Weak human feelings and all."
"Actually," Maria finally managed to make herself heard before Amy could follow up on her demand, "thank you for your defence, Amy, but there's a very good reason why we humans evolved largely furless. You know why?" she asked cheerfully, also extracting her hand from Amy's and giving both male hedgehogs a bright smile.
"Uh, no?" Sonic asked, also interestingly sounding as worried as Shadow had ever seen him.
"Because," and here Maria bent forward, angelic smile abruptly having too many teeth as she addressed the two male members of their team, "we are persistance hunters, meaning we evolved in the best shape to track our prey down, for days, never ending, never letting it go, until it's so tired it Begs. For. Death. So," she abruptly straightened up again, voice back to cheerful, "Let's hope we all find an outfit soon, because we will not go home until we do! Let's go!"
Sonic gave Shadow a long look as Maria had already turned around again and was striding on.
"...you know, I wondered how she could be related to Eggman, but suddenly I see it."
xxx
As they entered the first store Maria had talked about, Shadow was glad that Sonic seemed about equally as challenged as himself, both of them staring at racks over racks of clothes in all shapes, sizes and colours, utterly at a loss where even to start or where to find evening wear for hedgehogs. Luckily, Amy managed to flag down a store assistant quite quickly, a young, tall male deer who introduced himself as Rui, clearly indicated as a sartorial counselor by the tailored suit he was wearing, as well as a measuring tape hanging down from his antlers.
"Ah! Here to find an outfit for Prom?" he asked, Shadow guessing they weren't the first group of teenagers that had come through here in the past few days and Rui was apparently experienced enough to recognize their type by now.
"Yes! All four of us. And we two need to be matching," Amy announced cheerfully, squeezing Sonic's hand in the process. The blue hedgehog looked a little like he was re-considering whether letting himself freed from a military prison about to be blown up had been worth his promise to show up to Prom, but wasn't actually protesting the notion.
"Of course," Rui nodded. "Well, I should be able to help you two gentlehogs, and you ladies can head up to the women's section where my colleague, Spring the Rabbit should be able to help you out," he gestured to the other side half of the sales area where another store assistant, a white-furred dwarf bunny was currently visible putting back some dresses on a rack. "We'll deal with styles and cuts first and then can match accessoires accordingly. Now, sirs, this way, please…"
xxx
As it turned out, buying clothes when you were a hedgehog was quite the affair, mostly because, as Shadow learned, Gerald had chosen a species for him that did not have a general agreement on where to grow their back spikes.
"Yeah, better make those holes wider rather than tighter, those things are sharp," Sonic was currently warning Rui, who was carefully measuring the placement of the blue hedgehog's quills, making markings on the prop jacket he kept putting on them and jotting notes down on a paper.
"I...didn't realize this was this complicated," Shadow said, glancing over to Sonic standing on the measuring platform next to his own, while a second, wolf assistant called Lego was taking his own measurements.
"Yeah. Honestly, it's a pain, everything needs to be fitted," Sonic rolled his eyes. "Amy's lucky because her quills are so fine and short she can basically get them mostly flat against her back if she doesn't intentionally raise them. And then it's girls who get all the backless clothes, never the guys," Sonic shot him an annoyed look. "Human fashion ideas, seriously. What's so offensive about a male back. Weirdo species."
"Maria thinks it's weird you're all so obsessed with gloves," Shadow pointed out, once again feeling uncomfortably defensive on behalf of a species he wasn't even part of, nevermind that he was currently wearing some himself. "Drives her nuts when she needs to wear them for experiments, says you can't properly grab fiddly bits at all."
"Uh," Sonic blinked, for a moment staring at his white-gloved hands as if seeing them for the first time. "But...I mean, not wearing gloves? So everybody could see your hands all the time? That would be weird. I mean, taking them off at the beach, fine, but-"
"Shadow! Shadow! What do you think?!"
Shadow turned his head as Maria's voice cut off Sonic's argument and he felt his eyes subtly widen. His sister had never not worn a sky blue dress as far as he could remember, but now she was wearing a white gown, strapless and decorated with white feathers along the de- decollier- dece- chest area, Shadow mentally labelled the place, the tight-fitting top half slightly glinting from silver stitching woven into the stiffer fabric, the skirt ankle-length and flaring out in a way indicating intricacies going on underneath. Maria was lifting it slightly to be able to hurry toward him, twirling once with raised bare arms and then smiled at him, absolutely radiant.
"Isn't it perfect?!"
It really is.
She looks like an angel from that Christmas movie.
Sweet Chaos when did she get *cleavage* I will potentially have to Kill. So. Many. People.
...were all thoughts shooting through Shadow's head, but since he wasn't actually suicidal and still well aware he was dealing with a Robotnik here, he mainly nodded and attempted a twitch of the edge of his mouth.
"It is. You look beautiful."
"Yeah, lookin' good there," Sonic gave Maria a thumbs-up, at which she grinned and mock-curtsied.
"Thank you! You two are looking pretty nice as well," Maria nodded at them approvingly, her gaze running up and down along Sonic's white and Shadow's dark-red-with-black-lapels mock-up suit jackets that Rui and Lego were still working on.
"Maria, we look like toppers for a wedding cake."
("Did someone say wedding?!" Amy's voice came at this point from one of the dressing stalls, immediately answered by Sonic's 'NO!' from his pedestal).
"No you don't, you look great," Maria insisted. She pulled a little bit at the fabric of her skirt, cheerful expression fading into a more nervous smile. "I really hope Dexter will like it, too…"
"Sure he will," Sonic commented good-naturedly, "Who's Dexter?"
"Her Prom date," Shadow grunted, also pronouncing the word much like one would talk about a termite infestation. "Also he's like 50 years old."
"18, Shadow, seriously!" Maria rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you could take a picture of me to send to my mom, because Shadow and I couldn't get cell phones yet…?" she gave a hopeful smile to Sonic who nodded.
"No prob." As Sonic pulled out a cellphone and proceeded to take a few shots of Maria, Lego and Rui were also finishing up the measurements where exactly the holes in the back of their suit jackets would have to go.
"Very well, these do seem like a very adequate cut and colour for each of you, sirs, very fetching," the deer assistant said, stepping back and slinging the measuring tape over one of his antlers again. "Now, will you also be requiring pants to go with it?"
"Eh, naw, too much bother," Sonic waved him off, "just the jacket will be f-"
"What?!" there was the noise of a dressing room curtain being indignatly yanked aside from the other end of the fitting area, revealing one half-dressed (and utterly uncaring) Amy Rose. "Of course you're going to - Rui, of course he's going to get a pair, please ignore everything he says on the subject," Amy said, giving the stag a bright smile.
"What?" Sonic looked at her in a bit of dismay. "But Amy, the school said they were optio-"
"Sonic Ogilvie Maurice the Hedgehog, as my date, you will wear pants!"
Sonic gave her a plaintive look. "Aw, no, c'mon - I mean, didn't you say you want kids at some point? The way these are cut they might have a hand in that not happenin- okay, okay!" Sonic raised his hands in a pacifying gesture as the hammer made an appearance again. "I'll wear them!"
"Good." Amy merely nodded, before letting her giant hammer disappear again, her bra- and underskirt-clad form vanishing behind a determinedly yanked curtain again.
"Though I really don't see the point if she's obviously wearing them for the night," Sonic muttered afterwards, rubbing the bridge of his snout with a sigh as Rui dutifully was getting out various pairs of pants that could go with the jacket of his suit.
xxx
"Okay, so," Shadow said sometime later when the four of them had ended up at the table of an outdoor café, all of them with incongruously large milkshakes in front of them, Amy and Maria already engrossed in a hair-feather-and-quillstyling magazine together and making faintly unsettling noises at the other end of the table. "I was thinking about the Emerald Tails has."
"Oh?" Sonic raised an eye ridge. "What about it?"
"We could use it. As bait, to draw the Doctor out."
"Hmm." Sonic's eyes narrowed. "You mean, try and set up a trap of some sort? Like what?"
"Uh," Shadow said. Truthfully, in his mind's eye the 'trap' had mainly consisted of waiting for Maria's cousin to show up and then placing a gun barrel between his beady eyes. "Maybe...a...big box with a stick and a string…?"
"You were totally considering killing him on sight, weren't you," Sonic gave him a flat stare, arms crossed.
"Yeah, well, maybe that is the smarter option," Shadow shot back, peeved, "because if we don't, and he gets his hands on the seventh Emerald, he would possess unlimited-"
"Or how about we make a fake Emerald? Hm? So we don't immediately have to murder if something goes wrong?"
"Er," Shadow said. Both he and Sonic were now staring at Maria, who had interrupted their conversation and was now looking at the two of them, slightly disbelieving. Amy also made a tsk'ing noise, shaking her head.
"Boys. Always so violent."
"Weren't you the one who straight up screamed and drove Eggman off a cliff when he challenged us to that World Grand Prix race thing last year?" Sonic asked with a frown, which of course immediately earned him a death glare.
"That was different. He had hurt you. And anyway, it's not like he died," Amy sniffed, running a hand through her quills, apparently slightly embarrassed.
"Fair enough," Sonic shrugged. "But eh, that fake Emerald plan doesn't sound half bad. Can you do that?" he asked Maria, who pursed her lips.
"Well, I did it before, but that took some time. But I think maybe with Tails' help I could get it done faster, since we have an original Emerald to metamorph the chaos wave functions and catalyze the crystallogenic precipitate- or I should probably talk about that to Tails directly, huh?" Maria asked with a lop-sided smile, apparently correctly interpreting the three blank stares of the hedgehogs at the table.
"Probably," Shadow admitted and Sonic nodded.
"Yeah. Might even distract him from getting any stupid ideas about asking Fiona out for Prom, hopefully. Oh man, kiddo..." he shook his head.
"He better not," Shadow agreed with a frown. Speciecism was bad enough on its own, but he wanted it nowhere near his sister at the dance. Clearing his throat, he turned back to Maria."What do you suppose...we tell the Professor?"
"Um," now Maria looked slightly awkward. "Well, uh, how about I talk to Tails first, see if it's even doable? No use worrying about unlaid eggs, right?" She gave a little nervous smile. "At least, I learned that expression in my Mobian Studies class, did I get it right?"
"Perfect," Sonic assured her with a grin. "Shads, stick with your sis for cultural coach, you'll do fine."
"Undoubtedly," Shadow sighed while rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead, once again wondering whether his creator hadn't gotten experiment-happy and straight-up injected Maria with some Mobian DNA at some point, considering how she seemed to be handling this cross-species assimilation a lot better than he.
But nevertheless and jealousy aside, he had made a promise. "And speaking of human family, would maybe any of you have two tickets to spare for Maria's parents…?"
xxx
It was a lot later that night when they were already back at their house, Prom Ticket problem solved - it turned out, while Sonic was already giving his three to Tails, Wachowski and his wife, Amy still had two to spare ("What? Yeah, sure! Always here to help with boyfriend stuff!") since she apparently only had one bird girlfriend coming. ("Oh, Tekno and me go way back, but she still lives in the Southern hemisphere - but she's gonna be visiting soon, and she won't believe I finally got Sonic to agree to a DATE!").
Maria was currently in her room, entirely disappeared into some sort of gobbledygook conversation with Tails via laptop, the two of them busy working out whether producing a fake Emerald for a possible trap would be feasible.
As for Shadow, he was currently walking through their back garden, trying to balance a garbage bag three times bigger than himself on his head without either slicing it open with his quills or spilling anything -
("What?" he'd said at dinner, "But Professor, I am the Ultimate Lifeform."
"Yes, and the Ultimate Lifeform is on garbage duty this week," Gerald had replied, utterly unmoved behind his newspaper, "I made a chores roster for you two.")
- and wondering why any other incredibly powerful experimental creations in movies never seemed to get sent to take the trash out.
And then he froze when he heard the rustling from the garbage container. Shadow very slowly, near soundlessly, set the trash bag down and reached into his quills for his gun. Whatever was moving in there sounded far too large for a feral animal.
No. But it sounds exactly as big as a certain doppelganger hiding and ready to attack.
Shadow's eyes narrowed as he aimed his weapon at the container.
"Come out now and maybe I won't take your life."
"Excuse me?! Is that any way to talk to a girl?"
"What the...Sticks?!" Shadow stared, once again, at the jungle badger whose head had just popped out of the garbage can to give him a peeved look. "What - why - what are you doing here?"
"Oh, I...I...kinda like going through the trash of people I like," Sticks informed him almost shyly, rubbing the back of her head awkwardly. "You have really nice containers, too. Not many people bother with proper waste separation, even if it really is so much better for the environment, you know." She looked at him approvingly.
"What have I done to deserve this," Shadow muttered, before raising his voice again. "Sticks. You can't-"
"I know, I knoooow," Sticks waved her arms, "But I'm really not! Stalking you. I mean, I understand what Amy said. About it being important not to force people into something when they don't want," she nodded sagely, one index finger raised.
"Right," Shadow said. "So, about you being in my family's trash on a Sunday night-"
"I mean," Sticks interrupted him again, as if she hadn't even heard him, now once again favoring him with a brilliant smile "I can always take your clone, right?"
"What?" Shadow croaked, also feeling like had abruptly lost the ground beneath his feet.
"Yeah!" Sticks agreed enthusiastically. "I mean, with you being a crazy illegal alien space experiment an' all, I figure there's gotta be clones of you, right? It's only logical," she said, nodding to herself. "So there's probably one at least I can take to prom. Boo-ya! See you in school tomorrow, byee!" she waved cheerfully, before already leaping onto the fence of the Robotnik property and taking off over the neighbouring rooftops.
Shadow briefly considered opening the garbage bag up and just staying in there for the foreseeable future.
But then of course, he couldn't.
Mainly because I need to ask Sally to Prom tomorrow. Argh.
xxx
On Monday, with the dance happening this week, of course the event was still the topic of the day. For Shadow, it felt almost surreal, considering what his weekend had actually consisted of, but there you were. Everywhere, girls were talking about which hairdressers to go to (Shadow, with a sigh, recommended Affurmative Hairstylists), where to get the best dresses, who to take and (in some cases) where emergency dance classes would be held oh gods we are so screwed.
Sonic, unsurprisingly, was late again, so during Homeroom Shadow found himself drumming his fingers on his desk, impatiently waiting to find out how the progress on a possible fake Emerald was going - when he had left this morning, Maria had been lying passed-out and clothed on her bed, laptop on her stomach still running, the late-night chat with Tails obviously having gone on for a while. Unwilling to wake her, Shadow had therefore mainly only removed the laptop, done the brotherly thing and stuck a post-it labelled 'This is how I totally meant to sleep, really' on her forehead, before pulling the covers over her and leaving for school.
Today, Ms Ebony seemed to be running somewhat late too, so most of the class was still talking, milling about or hanging on their cellphones in a general Monday-morning-8-am lethargy kind of way, which Shadow was fine with.
Then a heavy, scaly hand landed heavily on his shoulder.
"Heyyy, Shad-O, how's it hanging?" Vector greeted him with the sort of grin only crocodiles are capable of. "Say, with everybody speaking of Prom, I missed out on last Home Econ class while helping a buddy out, and I just wanted to ask, was - was Rogue there…?"
"Rogue?" Shadow started, immediately feeling his general annoyance turn into umbrage left over from the weekend with a vengeance, "Why? Please tell me you aren't-"
"Totally planning on asking her to Prom, yeah!" Vector agreed enthusiastically. "Why, did you already ask her?"
"Did I-?" Shadow started, struggling for a moment to keep his voice under control, "That b-" he took a breath, "that bat, Vector, is a lying, thieving double agent who stole three Chaos Emeralds this weekend and is likely in cahoots with Doctor Robotnik," he grated through closed teeth. "She is a spy and a criminal and Rogue isn't even her real name!"
"Really?" Vector asked, before his expression turned into a dreamy grin. "Wow."
"That isn't-!"
"What a WOMAN. When you see her again, definitely ask her whether she'd go to Prom with me, yeah? Cheers, mate," Vector said, once again clapping Shadow on the shoulder twice before ambling over to his seat at the front of the classroom, whistling beneath his breath.
"To-? But she helped a megalomania-! Oh forget it," Shadow dropped his head onto his desk. Next to him, Amy shook her head sympathetically.
"Yeah, don't take it to heart. Some people are just so blinded by love they go completely bonkers!" she laughed. "By the way, I was wondering, do you think I could ask Maria if she could design a sort of tracking chip I could implant into Sonic just in case he gets cold feet before Prom?" She smiled at him brightly, "Maybe even with some remote-control ability or something?"
It was at this point that Ms Ebony arrived and their conversation was cut short, while Shadow just briefly wondered, if Maria's cousin was indeed attempting to take over or destroy the world or whatever, whether it was really that necessary to stop him.
xxx
Shadow stopped himself short. It was about ten minutes until lunch period started, and he had once again excused himself from the lesson early - mainly because over the course of the morning, he had started to feel strangely anxious.
What if somebody had already asked Sally.
The thought had come to him sometime during mid-maths, unbidden - but his stomach had reacted with a little clench, and he had had to forcefully push the slight wave of shock at the idea down.
Prom isn't important. Taking care of Maria's cousin is. Making sure Maria is happy is.
It's not at all a problem if *everyone* has a chaosdamned partner except you and you'll have to take *Sticks* and Sally probably dances with *Myles* or that, that Thorndyke kid and you literally blew the chance to take the *one* person who even gets you a *little* bit in this place -
Shadow's brain had not been helpful in that department.
Which explained why he was now stalking through the corridors, hoping that maybe luck would finally be for once on his side and the Acorn princess today still had one last day of aptitude testing, which usually let out earlier than the standard school periods, so that maybe he had a chance of catching her -
Shadow rounded the corner toward the corridor lined with their lockers and froze.
"Sally."
"Hm?" The squirrel girl, still wearing nothing but a blue vest and boots, turned her head from her locker, looking at him, then gave a nod. "Oh. Hey."
"Hey," Shadow swallowed, willing his body to start walking again even while alarm bells were shrilling in his head. Sally wasn't smiling at him - at best, the expression was kind of neutral. Had she heard or read anything about him that made her wary? Had she found out what he'd gotten up to during the weekend and decided she wanted nothing to do with it? Had she-?
The weekend, Shadow realized with an abrupt lurch of his stomach. You have completely forgotten you wanted to take her to lunch on Friday.
"I - Sally," Shadow swallowed, then once again rallied. He was the Ultimate Lifeform. He could do this.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry I wasn't there for lunch during Friday, I...I was…" he trailed off, Sally still regarding him with her clear, blue-eyed gaze, expectant as he fumbled for an explanation that wouldn't sound like a cop-out but…
Shadow sighed.
"I was breaking into a high security government facility to bail somebody out who had been wrongfully imprisoned. Sorry."
"…oh" Sally only blinked once, twice, looking at Shadow with honest surprise for a moment - but then actually smiled. "Heh. You weren't kidding when you said your talents were more on the militaristic side, huh?"
"No." Now it was Shadow's turn to blink. "I wasn't." Feeling like he probably could add something here, he continued with "It was a very large fortress, too."
"I see," Sally said, edges of her mouth twitching. She closed her locker, holding two books to her chest as she took a couple steps closer to Shadow, cocking her head. "I guess in that case I should forgive you. I broke into more than one secret facility during my time as a rebel leader, I know it can be…time consuming." She stopped about a foot in front of Shadow (who now considered definitely talking to his creator about these random pulse spikes, that could not be normal).
"So," she said, squeezing his hand, "Let's swap stories over lunch?"
Xxx
The cafeteria was as crowded as ever as Shadow was walking toward their normal lunch table, Sally at his side. Despite the noise and amount of people that still felt too oppressive and draining, Shadow for the first time actually felt…curiously happy about the prospect of joining the others for lunch with Sally, not only because the princess was an interesting person to spend time with, but also because at this school and really on this entire planet she was the first person (who wasn't his family) NOT directly connected to Sonic (and also idolizing the guy), just a person who… had a relationship with Shadow first, without it being overshadowed by –
"…wait, no way, is that – " Sally stopped next to Shadow, a hand on his arm as her jaw dropped. "Sonic?!"
Ah. Well, no chance that the celebrity status hadn't extended to the Southern Hemisphere, Shadow thought slightly sourly as he turned his head to her to answer, when -
"…wait, what, SAL?" Sonic had turned around at the sound of her voice and now his eyes were lighting up and a grin spreading across his face, the blue hedgehog already getting up and hurrying over, "No way, what are you doing here?!"
"I won the war! I'm an exchange student now!" Sally had also rushed forwards and was now flinging her arms in an embrace around Sonic, the blue hedgehog hugging her back and swinging her around, laughing. "By the Source, I'm so glad to see you!"
"Now this is interesting," Vector remarked to the general table, "Have you noticed Shadow and Amy both seem to be wearing identical expressions of murder…?"
To be continued...
Lookit, an update that DIDN'T take three months, world must be ending :P That said, hope you liked, I'm having far too much fun with high school stuff and if you read, please review, your comments make my day! :D