Fooled To Love

Ancient Ruins

The sound of pots banging together awoke Shadow, making him quickly stand up straight, in a soldier's salute. In front of him was Sonic, who stopped banging pots together. Tails was lazily rubbing his eyes beside him. Shadow felt his cheeks heat up a bit, knowing that he accidentally slipped into his old ways.

"You okay there, Shads?" Sonic asked.

Shadow lowered his hand and looked away. "Yeah... I'm fine... Wait... Shads?"

"Uh, yeah. I thought I could give you a nickname... Since we're friends and all..."

Shadow held back a flinch at the word friend before awkwardly replying, "Uh, yeah... That's fine I guess..."

Tails looked back and forth between the two awkward hedgehogs before asking, "Hey, Sonic? What do you have planned for today?"

Sonic smiled to his friend. "Well, we are going to explore the one part of the forest that we've never been to."

Tails's eyes lit up at the idea of exploring a new area of the island. Shadow looked at him questionably.

"There's a part of this island you haven't explored?"

"Yeah, we never got around to it. But now it's the perfect time." Sonic smiled before packing up their stuff and walking north, Shadow and Tails following him.

They followed him to the edge of a clearing. Sonic smiled like a fangirl at hot topic before running in, the two others following, Shadow much faster than Tails.

Shadow glanced around, the canopy covering most of the area in shade. The further they went, the more piles of burnt stone they came across. Shadow wondered if these use to be the homes of people who lived before the villagers now.

Finally, they stopped at a large temple, all in ruins. It still seemed very much in tact though, the old stone covered in moss.

"What is this place?" Tails looked amazed at the sight, eyes filling with interest.

"It seems like some sort of old temple..." Shadow said as he walked towards it. "This must've been here for hundreds of years..."

Ignoring anything else they had to say, Sonic made his way up the large, unnecessary amount of stairs. Shadow and Tails looked at each other before following him up. At the top was a large clearing with something in the center that seems to be able to hold something.

"Wow!" Tails looked in amazement at the area. The two hedgehogs beside him looked equally interested. "Who could've built these? They aren't in the history books of the island...."

"So they must've been built before the island was founded." Sonic nodded. "But that would mean that there was some kind of ancient civilization beforehand."

Shadow walked around the small temple, finding a chest. "What's this...?"

The other two looked at him as he opened the chest, dust flying everywhere. After he finished coughing, he looked at the few things in there. The first was a scroll that had strange writing that he couldn't make out. Which was strange because he was programmed to know every existing language in the world.

"Maybe I could take it back to my workshop and analyze it." Tails suggested as the scroll was handed to him.

The second object in the chest was a small, green emerald. It glowed brighter when Shadow held it, and he felt a rush of energy and power go through his body. "What the...?"

The three stared in shock at the glowing bright emerald. Shadow set it back down; it still glowed, but nowhere near as bright. Shadow's gaze lingered on the emerald, but Sonic impatiently urged him on. "Is there anything else in there?"