Shadow, Don't Make Me Upset (Shadow Saga Series #2)

Nothing Can Surprise Me

So. The first part of the Shadow manga has me thinking about how I want to do the Shadow rewrite in the future, even with my notes and outline I made. Have you guys read it yet? If not, look it up. There's a lot of good stuff in there, even without an official English translation. Anyway, time for more Adventure 2!
Sonic belongs to SEGA, enjoy!

Back on the ARK

Shadow hated sitting in the background while the "main" players did all the heavy lifting, but he had an act to keep up.

He stood in the observation deck again, looking down at the planet as usual. Eggman had went off to confront Sonic for the last Chaos Emerald, so Shadow was biding his time until then. Once the final pieces were in place, all he had to do was wait for the end to come.

Again, some part of him wished he could stay alive, like he and Maria wanted to on Earth. But the rest of him fought that wish back. He had a promise to fulfill, and he wasn't about to let some childish fear of death jeopardize everything he was created for.

He was Shadow the Hedgehog, the Ultimate Lifeform made to keep a cherished promise to the only one who ever loved him. He was the ultimate tool for vengeance against all of mankind... this was who he was.

Wasn't he...?

Abruptly, Shadow noticed something eject from the ARK—an escape pod, with that blue hedgehog inside it. The pod didn't get far from the ARK's boundary before it exploded, leaving its remains to float around to eventually get caught up in the Earth's atmosphere. The hedgehog that had been inside was nowhere to be found.

"...I guess he was just a regular hedgehog after all," Shadow mumbled to himself, sounding almost... disappointed? Unhappy? Unsatisfied? He couldn't really tell what he was feeling right now. Everything was sort of... blank. Empty. Like he felt nothing at all.

Shadow hummed at the thought, finding it rather strange, but then he teleported a short ways away from the Eclipse Cannon's control room. With careful, silent footsteps, he approached the computer... and found Rouge there.

Speaking on a radio to someone else.

"I've got it all, honey, and it looks like there's plenty of it," she was saying as she casually held a small disk in her hand. "Even that dope Eggman doesn't know the full story. And it's quite a story." She then hung up on whoever she was talking to and approached the Chaos Emeralds.

Shadow chose this moment to make his presence known. "I suggest you keep your hands off those Chaos Emeralds," he said venomously as Rouge jumped and spun around to face him, her eyes wide with shock. "We wouldn't want them to fall into the wrong hands... now would we, Agent Rouge?"

The bat merely blinked before returning to her usual sassy persona, eyeing him with a sly smirk on her face. "So, you did your homework and spied on me?" she asked with a soft click of her tongue, wagging her finger at him. "Aren't you the naughty little boy...?"

Shadow wasn't fazed by the comment. "Was this your plan from the beginning? Or was it a direct order from the president?"

"What do you think?" Rouge twirled the disk in her hand, that cunning grin never leaving her face. "Now that I've got my hands on this hot little disk here, I think I'll make my exit, if you don't mind."

Shadow held out an arm as if daring her to come any closer. "I do mind, you pathetic deceiver!"

Instead of being offended at the term, Rouge seemed... almost amused. "That's pretty funny coming from you."

Shadow blinked, not expecting that response. "What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, still not letting down his guard.

Rouge reached into her pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper, which she then practically shoved in Shadow's face. "According to this report on the Ultimate Lifeform development plan," she said in an antagonistic tone, "the body of the original creature was sealed off 50 years ago."

Shadow squinted at the paper and found an image of the results, with a caption that labeled it as the Ultimate Lifeform. But the creature in the picture looked nothing like him—a giant, untamed lizard monster as opposed to the diminutive hedgehog that he turned out to be. "That was the prototype," he explained as he glanced at Rouge from behind the paper. "I was the creature created after that one."

Rouge didn't buy it. "Ah, but this report doesn't mention a single thing about a hedgehog running around on the ARK. It only labels this creature as the Ultimate Lifeform." Her teal green eyes pierced his crimson ones. "So if this picture is of the real Ultimate Lifeform, named 'Shadow'..." Her sly smirk only grew wider the longer they kept eye contact. "Then exactly who or what is standing in front of me right now?"

Silence fell upon the room.

Internally, Shadow was processing what he had just heard, and he felt... puzzled. GUN had to have known about him, right? Because they had all the records from 50 years ago, right?

His... his time with Gerald and... and Maria... it... it c-couldn't have been fake... right?!

His radio came alive again as Eggman's voice snapped him out of his funk. "Shadow! I've gotten ahold of the Chaos Emerald!" he announced.

"And...?" Shadow inquired.

"It appears one of our enemies is headed straight for the Eclipse Cannon. We have no time to waste! Deal with it immediately!"

Shadow turned off his radio and glared at Rouge, who had not moved from her antagonistic questioning of him and still held the perplexing paper in her hand. "If you value your life, leave the Chaos Emeralds where they are," he said sharply, making it clear he would not ask a second time. "A fake is good enough for you."

As he turned to walk away, Rouge spoke up again. "Do you actually believe you're the real Shadow?" she asked, concern lacing her voice as opposed to the prior antagonism.

"No doubt," Shadow replied without a hint of hesitation.

"Even your memories might be fake, you know..."

Shadow turned back around to look at her again, holding a clenched fist to his chest. "Even if my memories are not my own, they mean everything to me, and they are still all that I have." He looked down at his hand, which slowly unclenched. "It's still me... Shadow..." He looked back up at Rouge, brow furrowed in determination. "And I will fulfill Maria's wish. That is the only thing that matters to me."

And without another word, Shadow ran off to confront the final complications to his master plan.

We're close to the final confrontation with Sonic and Shadow. How will that turn out, I wonder?
Peace out!