Return of Gerlad's Legacy

Chapter 34: Epilogue

Snow. No matter what had happened before, this time of year always brought peace to the people experiencing it. Christmas time flowed through the air and everyone was in a cheery mood despite the horrors of the past months.

Shadow had used an experimental Chaos move to remove everyone out of the Black Comet. They had landed in a Moscow ballet performance. President Putin had been attending and immediately demanded an explanation. Sharon got right in his face and shedemanded that he shut his mouth and get the stick out of his ass. Shadow and rest of them laughed and they eventually were able to 'procure' a transport back home.

Now it was 7:00 A.M., December 25th. Umbra hadn't ruined everything. They were now at the Plaza hotel in New York. It really wasn't that hard to get considering that they were all war heroes and the fact that Shadow had waved a blank check under the front desk attendant's nose that read President of the United States. Very convincing.

Damn sun! Shadow thought as he turned over next to his wife. Interesting thing about Shadow the Hedgehog, Brigadier General of GUN; he hated mornings. Especially mornings that were supposed to be restful and relaxing. Like Saturdays and today. He knew what today was. Duh! Shade and Crystal were determined to make this the best Christmas in the history of . . . uh . . . Christmas's!

They had been singing carols for an entire week. This was to be their first Christmas with a father, alive, well, and no insane monsters from space. The remaining Black Arms on Earth had been rounded up and either killed or dissected. Shadow had been called in to help study them but he told them that he wouldn't do anything until he had four months off. No one complained about it. The fact that he had all but threatened them also helped their decision.

Shadow looked at the peaceful form of Sonia beside him. A smile one her face. He had to admit that he had been enjoying these last few days. Especially the nights.

Shade and Crystal had taken to making sure that when anything even remotely Christmassy was going on, Shadow would get involved. Unfortunately for the locals, they had gotten him on an ice skating race. He won the first round so easily that the judges had to keep him from doing the rest because it would be unfair.

Sonia had them put up a tree. The best or worst experience of the whole bloody thing. They had gotten the thing up of course. Problem was that when they called for a ladder to put the star on, they had gotten a rickety one, and when Shadow went to put the star on, it snapped. Course the tree had fallen over, but thankfully, none of the ornaments had broken. They had all had a good laugh at the fact that the thistle had fallen on Shadow so much that when he got up, it looked like he was wearing a dress. The rest of his family couldn't contain their laughter. He had even joined in by playing pranks on them for the rest of the day. Mostly using ornaments from the tree. By the end of the day, Shade was wearing the star on his head, Crystal was wearing ornaments in her hair (she actually liked them), and Sonia got it easier. She got a dress made out of Christmas lights.

Shadow didn't really have time to laugh about it now, as right at that moment came two pajama clad hedgehogs, bright with the words "IT'S CHRISTMAS! WAKE UP!" on their lips.

They proceeded to jump on the bed, jarring the sleeping form of Sonia to emerge as a female Einstein with her front hair going in every direction. This brought laughs from the whole room.

She smiled and sprang from the bed, and in a mass of pink, black, and red, there came a tickle fight. Shadow watched his wife and children proceed to laugh, toss and turn all over the floor. He smiled and escaped quickly and quietly into the living room.