I Am...All of Me

Black Shadow (Part 5)

Strained Relations

Sonic zoomed out of the workshop and opened the door, casually greeting his three friends. Amy tackled him in a bear hug, secretly grateful and surprised he hadn't been torn apart by an annoyed Shadow yet. Knuckles only smirked at the pink and blue hedgehogs and walked in without any further invitation, while Rouge hung back until Amy had gone inside as well. When the two were alone on the front porch, she finally addressed him.

"How is he, Sonic?" she asked slowly, images of her partner writhing in pain permanently scarred to her memory. The blue blur gave her a reassuring smile.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" he replied calmly and stepped aside so she could enter.

Rouge hesitantly walked inside to find Shadow exiting Tails' workshop. She noticed that he was moving slower than usual, and the fresh bandages wrapped around his waist caught her by surprise. They made eye contact, and she smiled, hiding all of her worry behind that one simple act. He nodded with an untraceable smile before it faded.

The group took their seats on the two couches facing each other on either side of the much worn coffee table between them, and after exchanging a few words of light conversation, Sonic decided to cut straight to the point of the meeting.

"A'ight, gang, so according to Shads, the war ain't over yet," he began and turned to the ebony hedgehog, "Got anything you can share?"

"First, I would greatly appreciate it if you dropped the nickname. It's annoying. And second, my knowledge is very limited. But I do know for certain that Black Doom is still alive, and that he has something else up his sleeves. What it is, I can't say for certain, so I would say be ready for anything, including another wave of an invasion."

"What if...," Amy spoke sheepishly, drawing all eyes to her, "What it we tried to take him down before he comes back?"

Knuckles liked where she was going with this, "Hit him while he's down and stop this whole second wave business before it starts. I say we find his new hiding spot and finish what we started!"

Shadow listened as the group began to brainstorm ideas of going to space to take on Black Doom, which somehow irked him. Though his knowledge wasn't complete, he knew enough to know that if his biological father was injured, then he would be heavily guarded, as well as wherever he was hiding. But he would have to be within a close range in order to use his hivemind, and that puzzled the hybrid. Black Doom had taunted him only yesterday, which meant that he, or his ever-present eye, was within range to do so, which meant...

Good work, Shadow.

"Oh sweet mother of Chaos," he breathed, and the room suddenly grew quiet as everyone gave him their full attention. None of them had ever heard him use such a phrase before, and he had never heard such an unnerving laughter in his head in his entire existence.

"What is it?" Rouge questioned with a manicured eyebrow raised.

"Doom isn't in space. He's still here."

"That piece of filth is still on this planet!?" Knuckles raged, "How?!"

Shadow looked away uneasily, "I..I don't know."

The red echidna wasn't satisfied, "What do you mean, you 'don't know'?"

"Exactly as I said it," the sable hedgehog glared, and for a brief second, his eyes flickered from red to yellow and back again, "All I know is that he is here, and within a reasonable distance."

"And just how do you this, hm?" Knuckles challenged and crossed his arms. Tails only grimaced at the impending brawl, and Rouge facepalmed.

"I just know, all right?" Shadow shot back.