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Chapter VI
A Serious Conversation

"Come with me, Shadow. Let us punish this foolish world of humanity.
It is only fair to give back what was intended for you. You have every right to want justice."
"That's absurd. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it alone."
"You forgive humanity this folly then?"
"I determine my own destiny."

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The bloodcurdling howl of the alarm siren jolted him rudely out of his slumber. His black-furred body, cultivated to perfection by science, reacted immediately by speeding up his heartbeat and starting to pump adrenaline into his circulation. He opened his eyes, noticing in bewilderment that his vision was bathed in red, and for a second he considered the adrenaline rush may have shot his blood straight into his head. But then he realized that the emergency lighting had been activated and was flooding the room with blood-red light.

Sitting on the bottom and leaning with his back against the glass pane of the stasis chamber in which he had spent the last couple of hours, a cannula in his carotid artery, he was able to see some of the numerous computer terminals on the other side of the room. A screen-filling warning message was flashing on each display he could make out. Obviously something was wrong, and his heart began to race even faster.

Suddenly the safety bulkhead, the only access to the room, opened with a hydraulic wail, and his love came rushing in as if the devil was on her heels. No sooner had the airlock closed behind her again than she slammed her fist against the switch for the emergency sealing. The display on the door control panel changed from green to red, reading the word 'locked'.

"Maria...?" Despite the adrenaline boost, he still felt a little dazed from his snooze and the energy-sapping blood draw as he watched her running to the control panel for his stasis tube and pulling the lever to initiate its shut-down procedure. Hot steam escaped hissing from some vents on the side of the device. However, it would take a few more minutes for the system to shut down completely, allowing the safety glass to retract into the ceiling and release him from his vitreous prison. From the other side of the bulkhead, which the girl just had sealed behind her, a commotion could suddenly be heard. Meanwhile alarmed to the highest degree, he finally got all his senses together. "Maria, talk to me! What's going on?"

She hurried to him and knelt on the floor in front of his stasis unit. "Shadow..." Her voice trembled.

He knew his partner almost better than himself by now, and was able to sense that she was scared and in despair. But there was something else. Pain? He wasn't sure. But she sounded as if she was speaking into the fast spinning blades of a fan. His concern grew by the second. "Is something wrong? Honey, what's happening?"

She threw a quick glance at the entrance, behind which the tumult was becoming louder. Apparently, several people were desperately trying to get into the room, but the mechanism was jammed now. When she met his gaze again, he was horrified to see her blue eyes swimming in tears. "Shadow... they're coming! They're coming for you. Grandpa made a big mistake... He..." The tears rolled down her cheeks. "He's dead, Shadow! They killed him!"

"What?!" All of a sudden he felt dizzy again.

"G.U.N. is storming the base," she continued. "They wanted to arrest him, but he initiated the ARK's self-destruct sequence. Then... then they shot him! They shot around..." A sob shook her body, and she almost collapsed, as if all strength was draining from her.

Her words hit him like a punch in the gut. He was speechless.

She straightened up again, but it was obvious that it took her a lot of effort. "The base is doomed, Shadow. The process cannot be stopped. The others... The clones... they're already dead. All research data has been deleted, from the mainframe and also from all hard drives. You are the last... the last one remaining!" Suddenly, a drop of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth and ran down her chin, drawing a bright red line on her pale face.

Now pure fear awoke in him. His heart was beating so violently as if it wanted to jump out of his chest. "Maria, you're hurt!" The anxiety for his mate made his quills stand up as if they had been put under electricity.

Absentmindedly, she brought her hand to her lips and looked at the blood on her fingers as if it were not her own.

Only then he noticed the two red dots in the stomach area of her sky-blue dress, which were growing rapidly, looking almost like opening rosebuds. But there was nothing beautiful about the sight of them. His eyes widened in shock and horror, and his heart felt like it was being pierced by an icicle. "They shot you too!"

She gave him a faint smile. "Tried to help grandpa. Got in the way..." The blood from her wounds began to soak the lower part of her dress, and now she started to shiver.

"Oh no! Please no! Maria, hang in there!" He was on the verge of panicking, and slammed his fists against the glass pane. But the special security material was unyielding, and did not move an inch. He wasn't able to even scratch it, let alone break it.

Someone on the other side of the airlock began pounding on it, yelling orders. "G.U.N. special forces! Open the door or we'll use force!"

"Shadow. Please listen to me. Shadow!" The girl placed both her hands on the glass pane to get his attention. "The chamber is about to open, and then you'll be free. You're the last of the clones, so I'm sure they won't hurt you. They will take you with them. If you're cooperative, of course. So please don't fight them. Please comply."

He thought he had to lose his sanity at any moment, if his heart would not explode first. "What?! No! I'm not going to do that! I'll kill them! Every single one of them!" Out of rage and agitation, he ripped the cannula from his carotid. Hot blood sprayed across his neck and ran down his back, but he didn't care. He pressed his hands against the pane and tried with all his strength to lift it, but it was useless. He might as well have tried to move a rock face. The physical exertion made the blood from his artery squirt against the glass in a high arc, and he roared with effort, despair, and pain.

"Darling, stop!" The increasingly pale woman now for her part started to bang her hand against the stasis tube. "Stop it!" Finally, she had his attention again. "Please, Shadow! You musn't! Please promise me that you won't kill anyone! Never!"

Slowly he began to realize what his mind was trying to deny the whole time. That she wanted to give him one last important message. That these would almost certainly be her last words to him. That he was going to lose her. And that there was nothing he could do about it. Something obscured his vision, and he became aware that his eyes were filling with tears. He shook his head, for his voice was failing him.

Again she pressed both her hands against the pane of his prison. Her voice was soft, but firm. "Shadow. With your abilities, you could move so much, do so much good. So promise me. Promise me that you will use your powers only for what is right. That you will help people."

The soldiers on the other side of the bulkhead began to open it by using a plasma cutter. The glow of fire from the welding in the background gave the blonde girl a halo.

"This world is not generally an evil place. And most people aren't evil, either. Please help them, Shadow. Join G.U.N.! They're usually some kind of peacekeeping force... Help them to make the world a better place! Promise me..."

"Maria...!" His voice broke. Now he, too, held his hands against the only millimeters thick and yet almost indestructible material that separated him from his dearest one, at the place where her hands were, as if they could touch each other through the glass.

But her arms already sank down powerlessly, and her next words were only a faint whisper. "Shadow... I love you. My little monster..." Her trembling subsided and eventually stopped.

"Maria?" He saw the shine of life fading in her eyes. Her head sank to her chest and her body slowly slumped.

"Maria!" He started pounding against the inside of the tube again. "Alright, darling! I promise! You hear me? I promise you!" He punched the security glass with all his might, and the bones in his hand broke with a terrible cracking sound. He didn't even notice. "Maria! I love you, too! MARIA!"

But it was over. He could see that she was no longer breathing. She was dead, and he didn't even know if she had heard his last words.

Again and again he smashed his broken knuckles against the meanwhile bloodstained walls of his prison, crying out his grief and despair at the top of his lungs.

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-===XXX===-

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The pain in his hand finally made him wake up, but the process was lengthy and arduous. Only reluctantly did his consciousness fight its way back to the surface of his mind and drive away the disturbing impressions from his memories that haunted him in his dreams almost every single night. He knew he had been asleep and was just waking up again, but strangely, his hand was still hurting.

He opened his eyes and became aware of his surroundings again. Sitting at the bar inside a smokey, run-down pub, he had once again dozed off with his head on the bar counter. The faint noise of badly arranged hard-rock music reached his ears, occasionally drowned out by the sound of billiard balls colliding. The smelly place was almost exclusively frequented by shady, light-shy riffraff, and the few hard-boiled types who strayed into this rat-hole preferred to keep to themselves and mind their own business. Even anthros didn't stand out too much here, and if anyone did notice him, they pretended he wasn't even there. Just the way Shadow liked it best.

Still struggling to shake off the effects of his ever-recurring nightmare, he looked at his aching hand and realized that he had crushed the whiskey glass between his fingers during his sleep, spilling his drink and cutting his hand. Some of the shards had dug deep into his palm, and he had integrated the pain into his agitating dream. Blood dripped from his once-white glove and, along with the remains of his drink, formed a small dark pool on the wooden counter. Great, he thought. Exactly what I needed. With a grim expression on his face, he began pulling the shards from his hand, noticing out of the corner of his eye that the bartender was approaching.

The thick cigarette smoke in the unventilated pub made it almost look as if the square built, bearded man was emerging out of some sort of fog as he built himself up on the other side of the counter in front of the black-furred Hedgehog. "Dude, that's the second one this week. My drinking glasses cost money too, did you know?" The aging rocker propped himself heavily on the bar and challengingly leaned down to his guest.

On anyone else, his posturing would probably have had an intimidating effect, but not on Shadow. Without changing his fierce expression, he returned the man's gaze, and his emotionless voice was just loud enough for the other to catch his words. "Your drinking glasses can't be that expensive if they're breaking all the time... dude. Now bring me one that won't burst into a thousand pieces as soon as I look at it the wrong way." The bartender frowned, and at first it appeared as if he was going to object, but the Mobian suddenly held a bundle of banknotes in his uninjured hand and tossed it on the counter. "And leave me the bottle this time."

The man snorted, but nodded and walked back into the mist to return moments later with a new glass and a full bottle of whiskey, placing both in front of his guest.

The Hedgehog waited until the guy had retreated again. Then he took off his bloodstained glove, squeezed it into a ball and clenched his wounded fist around it. A few more drops of blood fell into the increasing pool on the counter, but after a minute the bleeding stopped. In the meantime, Shadow opened the bottle with his other hand and poured a generous amount of the amber liquid into his glass before he drank up the burning liquor in deep, greedy gulps. Still haven't had enough to keep those damn dreams away... He hurried to refill his glass, and some of the liquid spilled over, joining the puddle on the counter.

While he tried to get drunk as fast and as hard as possible, like he had done almost every night for the last few years, he couldn't prevent his thoughts from drifting off again. His past ran like a motion picture in front of his inner eye, forever burned into the canvas of his mind. The painful memories consumed every tender feeling in him, until there was nothing left but the grief and the despair of having lost the most important person in his life. The person he had wanted to spend his future with.

Maria... God, how much I miss you...! Whether he wanted to or not, as long as the alcohol had not yet numbed enough of his synapses, all those scenes remained vivid in his head, flashing through his mind like lightning bolts, involuntarily and unintentionally. Forcing him to relive the moments of his loss over and over again, and leaving him neither fall asleep nor come to rest. And when he did manage to doze off eventually, then the dreams came. And the dreams were the worst. His nights in solitude had become dark enemies to him, whose attacks only drunkenness could ward off.

He remembered the moment when he had met her for the first time as if it had been yesterday. When Gerald had introduced the twelve-year-old girl to him back then. How she, taking cover behind her grandfather, had glanced at him fearfully with big blue eyes, as he sat in his vat, his stasis chamber, grimly staring back at the little golden-haired human. How she had looked up at the professor and said, "Grandpa, there's a monster in that tube!" How that designation, years later, had become her pet name for him. My little monster... That's what she called me when we were alone together. When we had grown closer over the years. When we had grown older, but no wiser... We should have known better! He filled another glass with whiskey and almost knocked over the bottle in his haste.

He remembered how Gerald had explained to him that he had brought his granddaughter to him because she was sick. That she was suffering from a serious disease, and that he wanted to create a cure for her from his blood. That this was the only reason why he, unlike all the other clones, had not been locked away and kept in comatose stasis in a dark hall somewhere deep within that labyrinthine space station. And he remembered how the gentle old man had asked him for his consent, not wanting to force or even abuse any 'specimen' against its will, no matter for what noble intentions. Of course, I agreed. Anything's better than being sedated and locked away in the dark. But the procedure he had to go through every time Gerald tried to splice something from his blood was incredibly painful, and he had to stay locked inside that stasis tube, with a thick cannula in his carotid artery. He downed his next drink so greedily that some of the liquid ran down the corners of his mouth.

He remembered how, after the staff and the guards had begun to trust him, and after he had become friends with the young girl, he had been released from his tube and, as long as none of those troublesome treatments were pending, had been allowed to freely explore parts of that space station everyone called the 'ARK'. And so she and I grew up there together... playing hide-and-seek in the tunnels and ventilation shafts... finding secret places that no one knew about but us. Places where we could be all by ourselves, and talk for hours, about anything and everything. And she told me about her home world, that blue planet we had been able to see through the panoramic windows. So close and yet so far away...

His heart skipped a beat, and for a second an expression of infinite sadness settled on his face. And then, at some point, we realized that we had developed tender feelings for each other. It was all so strange, so confusing... and at the same time so amazing and exciting! After he and Maria discovered that their friendship had become a relationship, that their mutual affection had grown into love, all the pain of the periodic treatments turned into a kind of pleasure for him, because he knew that everything he had to go through might one day save her life. How many times I fell asleep, tired and weakened by those unbearable procedures, but secure in her arms and soothed by her voice...

He remembered that one evening when Gerald had come to him during one of his treatments, heavily drunk and in complete despair because his research was not making progress and had once again reached a dead end. How the grief at the thought of perhaps not being able to cure his granddaughter had washed over the professor and threatened to suffocate the old man, who stood crying in front of Shadow's stasis tube, pouring out his heart to him in slurred speech. That night, Gerald had revealed to him that he and his team of scientists had created him and the other clones from a blood sample that was more than half a century old and of which no one remembered how it had ended up on the ARK in the first place. That Shadow and his copies, because of their extraordinary genetics, were considered some kind of 'ultimate life forms', whatever that meant. That the entire project had actually been intended to grow biological weapons. And that Gerald had secretly separated him from the other clones to use him and his blood for his private healing research behind the government's back.

Gerald had been the only person who had known about the relationship between his granddaughter and his 'specimen'. You couldn't keep anything secret from that clever old fox anyway! But the open-minded and warm-hearted man had had no objection to it. For him it had only been important that his granddaughter was happy, that she was able to laugh every day, despite the crushing worries about her maybe incurable disease. For a long time, no one else noticed how close to each other the Hedgehog and the woman had really become. Until that one fateful day...

Shadow was just about to empty the rest of his bottle into his glass when suddenly the front door of the bar flew open and a group of young people entered the pub. They laughed and talked loudly and rowdily, and it was obvious that they were already quite drunk. He examined the newcomers out of the corner of his eye. Because of the training he had received, but also due to the experiences he had made with the humans on Earth in recent years, the G.U.N. agent instinctively sensed that those guys would very likely cause trouble.

And it seemed that he should be right with his assessment. Immediately after the gang saw the Mobian sitting lonely in the darkest corner of the bar, they started discussing something and pointing their fingers at him. Although they then went to the pool table and ordered drinks, they did not take their eyes off him and kept whispering to each other. After some time, one of them, an athletically built guy with an arrogant expression and over-confident demeanor, stood up and came over to him. Shadow pretended not to notice him, even when he had finally built up right behind him.

"Hey, Mister Furry! You don't mind if I call you that, don't you?" the man mocked in a voice dripping with contempt.

Instead of responding, the Hedgehog just swirled the rest of his whiskey around in his glass pretending to be completely immersed in his drink.

"Hey, fleabag! I'm talking to you," the cocky brat tried again. "Me and my buddies have consulted. And we've come to a verdict. Walking and talking doesn't make you a person. You're an animal. A dog. And dogs have no business in here." He pointed to the door and briefly turned around to his companions, who watched the proceedings with amusement, occasionally laughing maliciously.

Seemingly unimpressed, Shadow took a sip of his drink, still not paying attention to the troublemaker. But inwardly, a part of him was already looking forward to what, according to his experience, would inevitably happen next. He had faced situations like this many times before. These guys were looking for a victim, for someone they could humiliate, and thought they had found a suitable prey in the lonely, isolated Mobian. As stupid as they seemed to be, they would probably even let it come down to a physical confrontation. They can't know, but they've come to exactly the right guy. The black Hedgehog suppressed a sardonic grin.

"Are you deaf, you fucking freak?!" The man crossed his arms in front of his chest and posed broad-legged. "Now listen carefully! My friends and I don't feel like catching us fleas, got it? So if you don't piss off right now, or buy us a round of drinks as compensation for the delousing we'll have to go through later, you and I are going to have a serious conversation!" Now his companions also came over and took position behind the loudmouth, lined up like bowling pins.

"I have no desire to fight," Shadow claimed in a low voice, staring into his drink. He spoke and acted as if he was already pretty drunk, though that wasn't even close to the truth. His body could handle a lot of alcohol, which was both a blessing and a curse to him. But nothing in the world makes assholes like these pounce on their victim faster than believing that it's drunk and doesn't want to fight. Again he had to stifle a smirk. Besides, this will give me a tactical advantage.

A young, unkempt-looking woman from the group turned to the man who had addressed Shadow and was apparently their leader. "C'mon Billy, let's leave him 'lone. I've a bad feelin' 'bout that guy."

But the thug only became even more aggressive and turned to her with his face contorted in rage. "Shut up, bitch!" he grunted and suddenly pushed her backwards rudely. The girl lost her balance and yelped in surprise and pain as she fell on her bottom. Billy didn't care. He turned back to Shadow. "This dog here will obey my command or regret it!"

Now I've had enough, Shadow thought, baring his teeth. Finally, he turned around on his barstool. "Better listen to your friends and get lost", he growled. "Or we're going to have that serious conversation you've asked for."

The man didn't seem to notice that the Mobian had dropped his masquerade of being drunk, nor the dangerous glint that made his red eyes glow like hot coals. Suddenly and without warning, he threw a fast and hard hard jab at Shadow's face, trying to sink his fist into one of the Hedgehog's large eyes in an attempt to destroy it. But instead of landing a hit, it looked as if the punch simply passed through Shadow, almost as if he were just an illusion. Only his outline had flickered for a second, like air above hot asphalt. Billy tried again, this time with a powerful haymaker, but the result remained the same. "What the...?!" A surprised and perplexed expression crossed the guy's hateful face, and for a moment he looked even dumber than before. He still didn't seem to realize that his opponent was dodging his blows so quickly that his movements were barely perceptible to the naked eye.

Shadow didn't wait for the thug to try a third time, and made short work of him. Too fast for anyone to react, he reached behind him, grabbed the empty whiskey bottle from the counter, and slammed it into his attacker's face. With a loud crash, the dark glass shattered in a shower of shards.

For some seconds, the man just stood there motionless. Then he slowly grabbed his head with both hands and began to scream at the top of his lungs. He turned around to his friends, who also started screaming in horror at the sight of him. Countless pieces of glass had dug into his face, which was now covered with blood, and one of his eyeballs had been threshed out of its socket, dangling down from the optic nerve like from a bloody string.

Most of Billy's companions seemed paralyzed and obviously didn't know what to do except to scream their throats out. But two muscle-bound guys from the group, twin brothers by all appearances, and trained fighters judging by the way they moved, clenched their fists. One of them turned to the rest of the gang. "Take Billy to a hospital." Then he looked at his likeness. "We deal with the... creature."

His brother nodded. "He's as good as dead!" He walked over to the pool table, picked up two cues, and tossed one of them to his brother, who skillfully caught it in midair. Then he smashed his own cue against the edge of the pool table, causing the tip to break off and the stick to turn into a pointed spear.

In the meantime, the rest of the group followed his orders and took Billy, who was still screaming his head off, outside.

Shadow calmly watched as the two fighters approached him from two sides, trying to corner him. Patiently, he waited until they were close enough. Then he slipped off his barstool and went on the offensive, again far too fast for his opponents to follow his movements, let alone react to them.

The man to his right suddenly folded up like a pocket knife, struck by a hook he hadn't even seen coming. Sitting on the floor, he threw up in convulsions, and the third gush he produced was mingled with a considerable amount of blood. After his stomach had gotten rid of everything it was no longer able to keep inside, he slumped to the side and lost consciousness.

The other guy had just enough time to raise his cue for a strike when suddenly his head was brutally jerked to the side and about a dozen of his teeth were hurled across half the room. An expression of absolute stupefaction settled on his face. With trembling fingers he felt for his jaw, as if to check if everything was still in place. Blood poured from between his lips and ran down his chin, which was apparently broken in several places. His eyes went blank, and the cue slipped from his hand and fell clattering to the floor. Then he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The fight was over as quickly as it had begun, and suddenly it was dead silent in the pub. Everyone in the room, including the bartender, gaped at the Mobian open-mouthed.

Shadow sauntered back to his place at the bar and jumped on his barstool as if nothing had happened. He pointed his finger at his glass to signal the bartender that he had nothing left to drink.

Finally, the man behind the counter overcame his state of shock. "Dude, you can't do that! You made a fuckin' mess of my pub! I'm gonna call the cops now!"

An amused smile played about Shadow's lips. "I can imagine those guys would also like to have a serious conversation with me." He placed a G.U.N. agent identification card on the bar. "But I don't think that's necessary. Dude."

The bartender turned white as a sheet. "I-I had no idea, sir! Then there's no problem, of course!" He bent down behind the counter and came back up with another bottle of whiskey. An expensive brand this time. "On the house!"

Shadow took his ID back and replaced it with another bundle of money. "Didn't ask for a favor. Just make sure I've always enough to drink." He briefly glanced over his shoulder. "And take out the trash, before it starts to stink." He was about to pour himself a glass from his new bottle when the entrance door swung open again. This time it was Sonic who walked in, immediately noticing the two unconscious men on the floor lying with their faces half in their own bodily fluids. His eyes narrowed, but then his gaze fell on his black-furred counterpart sitting in the farthest, most secluded corner of the bar.

What the hell is the faker doing here, Shadow wondered. Am I nowhere safe from that guy? Gritting his teeth, he watched the blue Hedgehog approach him, trying to stay away from the mess on the floor. My gosh, he's grinning like a moron! And look at that bounce in his step. Like he's walking on air. If I didn't know better, I'd think he's in love. It's been a long time since I've seen him so happy. Damn, he gets on my nerves even more when he's like this!

"Hi, Shads!" greeted Sonic after he made his way across the room. "I assume this seat here's still available?" he then asked, hopping onto the vacant barstool next to the other Hedgehog without waiting for his reaction. "And I also assume this... situation here is your doing?" He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb.

"I don't care about your assumptions, faker." Shadow spotted a knocked-out tooth that had landed on the counter nearby and carelessly flicked it away.

It send a shiver down Sonic's spine. "Can't you pull yourself together just once? Your behavior reflects badly on us Mobians, aren't you aware of that?"

The black Hedgehog did not look up. In his voice was a bitter undertone as he eventually answered. "Just helping to make the world a better place."

"By acting the same as those jerks you're always butting heads with? That helps a lot, of course."

"I didn't kill anyone, okay?" Shadow snapped. "Also, most of this human scum already has a ready-made opinion of us anyway. Nothing we do will ever change that."

Sonic frowned. "Then I think we've found something you have in common with them."

Now the artificially created Mobian directed his gaze at his conspecific, and in his eyes was a dangerous sparkle. "I already told you I don't give a shit what you think of me! Now tell me what you want from me, or get out of my sight!" He took a deep sip from his glass. "Or even better, get out of my life."

"Nah. You won't get rid of me that quickly. I've spent half the afternoon searching every bar in the area for you. And there's a reason I'm here." The Blue Blur withstood the glare of his counterpart. "I need to have a serious conversation with you."

Shadow laughed. A choppy, humorless sound. "So you wanna get beaten up, too?"

"Huh?" Sonic asked, confused.

"Forget it," the black-furred Hedgehog waved off. "Dammit! All right, faker, spit it out! And then get the fuck lost!"

"Okay. Well, let's see... It's because... uhm... hehe..." Sonic suddenly became visibly uncomfortable and slid back and forth on his seat. His stammering and behavior earned him another unnerved glance. He took heart. "I-I think I'm about to fall in love with a human girl!" he finally blurted out.

Shadow, who had just been about to empty his glass, choked violently and spat his drink halfway across the bar counter. "You've got to be kidding me!" But a look into Sonic's eyes showed him that the other Mobian was telling the truth. "What the fuck?! And you come to me with this shit? To me of all people?" But then he began to understand. "Wait! You came to me with this because... because of me and... Maria!? You bastard!"

Sonic raised his hands defensively, "Calm down..."

Something wild crept into Shadow's eyes. The expression of a hunted, wounded animal, half insane with pain and terror. Without warning, he tried to punch Sonic in the face.

The Blue Blur intercepted the other Hedgehog's fist in the air. "I said calm it, pal!"

"Fuck you! And then fuck you again!"

Suddenly, Sonic was overcome with remorse, and he felt a little ashamed for having followed his spontaneous impulse to talk to Shadow about this matter without giving it much thought. Perhaps it was a bit tactless of me to come to him with this after all. I should have known how much he was still suffering... His thoughts from earlier in the day came back to him. That he somehow couldn't do anything right at the moment, and that everything was only getting worse the more he tried. He sighed. "Shads... I guess... no, I'm absolutely sure I can't even remotely imagine what you're going through since... since what happened back then. And I know that's not much of a help, but please believe me when I say that I'm sorry, with all my heart." He swallowed dryly. "I... just felt like I needed to talk to someone about this. And you're the only one I know who's had... let's say, similar experiences." He paused for a moment to let his words sink in. "I just wanted to ask... I just need to know... Darn! This situation is really driving me nuts, ya know?"

Shadow fell back into pensive silence. He turned his empty glass back and forth in his fingers, as if he was admiring the reflections of the ceiling light in its cutting. Similar experiences... He has no bloody clue!

Sonic remained silent to give his comrade time to reflect on his request. He let his gaze wander across the grimy counter, where a stack of advertising flyers for vacations to Mobius caught his eye, displayed there for the taking. On them was written, 'Rimlight Vacation Travels - visit Mobius today! Free travel permit and safe escort through the rift included. Go for a hike in the legendary Green Hills! Take a helicopter tour around the incredible Angel Island! Get acquainted with a cute Mobian girl or boy! Experience a trip you'll never forget. This summer at half price - book today and get away! Rimlight Corporation - we give you the energy!' He knew about the problems that human tourism on Mobius was causing meanwhile, and so it left him with mixed feelings.

In the meantime, Shadow seemed to have regained his composure. The black Hedgehog refilled his glass. "Is it that red-haired princess?" he asked without looking up.

"How do ya know?" asked Sonic in amazement, but got no answer. "Listen, Shads. I know we're anything but best friends. But this isn't just about me. Elise – that's her name, by the way – she and I, we seem to have a strange connection... Like I know her from before! I know this sounds crazy. But it's true. And now... I have these feelings..." He kneaded the root of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and let out another deep sigh. "I really didn't mean to stir those things up in you, pal, at least not intentionally. I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe some kind of advice or something."

He's such a pain in the ass! Because of him, I'll dream again tonight. No matter how much I drink. 'Didn't mean to stir things up...' My ass! Shadow closed his eyes. "The time I had the privilege of spending with Maria was the best time in my life. Being with her, being in love with her, was what made me really feel alife in the first place. I would never deny that." He downed his drink in one gulp. "But we had to keep our relationship a secret, hide our feelings, from almost everyone. Always had to be careful, always be on guard." He poured himself another glass. Full to the brim. "And it will be the same for you, faker. You have to be aware of that if you are really serious about this. Most people have major issues with just the thought of what we're talking about here. They will not accept the two of you, a relationship like that. You will both be met with ridicule, rejection, and even hatred." He took another greedy sip, emptying half the glass in one go. Oh, Maria... I miss you so much! Your sweet smile... Your infectious laugh...

Sonic's voice was firm and determined. "I don't care about what people think. Besides, love isn't necessarily something you can influence much."

"Tell that to Amy!" Shadow drained his glass. The alcohol was clearly affecting him by now, and his voice began to slur. "Want me to be honest, faker? You've no idea what you're getting yourself into!" Your golden hair... Your blue eyes... Your soft, spotless skin...

"Shads..."

"You want some advice? I'll give you some advice. The advice of not getting involved with humans. And especially not in a way like that." Again he refilled his glass and immediately took another hearty pull. How I held you in my arms... How you wrapped your arms around me... as we both trembled with breathless excitement. "The advice to stay away from them. Far away!" The black Hedgehog paused only to finish his glass. "It'll keep you from gettin' disappointed. And hurt. And her, too, for that matter." How our lips touched... How you kissed me... as we clung to each other so tightly.

"Shads!"

Shadow finally emptied the second bottle into his glass. "The humans... They will never truly accept us. Even if they claim we're equal before their law. Even if they grant us 'rights', and allow marriage between our species." He snorted contemptuously. How the wet glint from the pain gave way to the sparkle of pleasure in your shining eyes... when we became one... for the very first time.

"Shadow!"

The drunk Hedgehog suddenly sobbed with grief. "Sooner or later they'll destroy you, faker! And everything you love!"

Sonic slid off his barstool. "I'm sorry, Shadow. It was a bad idea to come here. Please forgive me."

The black-furred Mobian was now slurring his words violently and looked like he was on the verge of passing out. All luster had disappeared from his crimson eyes. They looked like dried blood. "You wanna hear one more advice? Wanna know one more thing 'bout humans? What the future may hold for you and this... Elise?" He let out a manic laugh.

"We'll talk another time, Shads. Before you can say something you'll later regret." Sonic turned to leave.

But suddenly Shadow grabbed him by the arm and looked him straight in the eye. "Sonic..."

It didn't escape the Blue Blur's notice that the other Hedgehog had addressed him by his real name for the first time in what felt like an eternity. And even though Shadow's next words were only a faint whisper, they pierced Sonic's mind like a burning spear.

"Maria, she... She was pregnant when she died."

...