Dropping by to say there is no way I'm getting a new chapter out today. I've got 5000 words written so far, so work is happening, the wheels are in motion. I'm just having a busy time, and next week is going to be even busier so I doubt I'll get it done next week either. But maybe. No matter what it's not going to be years, we're not entering a second long hiatus.
DeviantArt on Ice! [Sonic Boom SI]
- Thread starter AtriumCarceris
- Start date
Hedgehogs Hate Her! Destroy Your Enemies With This One Weird Trick!
A/N:
Managed to get some time to finish up the chapter. I like to put these notes at the top of the post, but this time I'm going to put most of what I write here in spoilers, and you can read them after you've read the chapter proper. That is my recommendation, however you are free to ignore that if you wish. Something that isn't a spoiler is that this is now the first chapter written that had no parts written before the hiatus. It is a 100% post-hiatus production.
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"Thanks for helping me build my house," I said, looking over at my friends. They all wore cold weather clothes, jackets and scarves and the like, as we were on the snowy peak of Tails' mountain. Only some of them looked exhausted, but for some reason they were all glaring at me. I grinned, and moved my white hard hat slightly to scratch my ear before looking at my blueprints "Once you guys get the roof finished, I think you've all earned yourselves a nice five minute break!"
"Vanilla," said Amy, moving towards me. I'd given her a green hat and told her to make sure nobody died on site. So far so good. "I really think everyone needs a break right now."
There were general nods of agreement, even from Tails, who I'd given the blue hat to. He hadn't even done anything yet!
"Why not let your stupid robot goons finish up the roof?" asked Sticks, one of the yellow hat drones along with Knuckles and Sonic. She gestured above to my two remaining Bubbles, rebuilt once more from the scraps left over from the game show fiasco. As soon as she gestured, the two Bubbles turned to look at each other, then promptly exploded, leaving behind only clouds of thick dark smoke.
"I'm with them," said Sonic.
My communicator beeped. "Hold that thought," I said, hoping it was some of my other friends, calling to say they changed their minds about helping me build my house. Instead, it was Doctor Eggman, who I didn't trust to help. Though he offered to lend me some of his construction robots, I was sure that was just a pretext for some scheme where they'd all turn on me, or claim the house for in the name of their master or something.
"Yeah, Doctor Eggman," I said, answering it. I glanced up to see everyone else disperse as if I'd authorised a break. I sighed inwardly. They could take a break right now, it's not like anything serious was going on.
"Hey there, I was just wondering if you were going to be making it to my get together today?" he asked.
"That was today?" I asked.
"A get together?" asked Sonic, walking to me. I held up my hand and shushed him.
"Yes, almost everybody else is already here. I prepared quite the charcuterie board and the guests are getting restless. I just wanted to know if we should hold up for you."
"Fine," I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I was. I'd forgotten I'd agreed to go to that stupid meeting. "I'll be right over." I hung up and turned to the others, taking off my hat.
"Bad news everyone," I said, waiving my friends over. They all looked concerned, especially Sonic. "I've got to go to this thing with Doctor Eggman, so Amy's in charge now."
They erupted into cheers, including Amy, and I growled under my breath as I handed her my hat and she exchanged it with her green one. It was really insulting to be less preferred over Amy for leading a project.
"I'll try to hurry back though," I said, to a mass of groans.
"What's this about Vanilla?" asked Sonic. "You're not walking into a trap are you?"
"It's still a trap even if you know about it," offered Sticks.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"No idea," I said. "Doctor Eggman said he was having a party of some kind. Or event? A meeting? He was a bit unclear. Bit he planned this a while back and I said yes and forgot all about it until now."
"Sounds suspicious," said Amy, putting on her new hat. "Maybe one of us should go with you just in case?"
"As the strongest among us, I volunteer to stop working on this house, and to instead make sure our friend Vanilla doesn't get hurt at a relaxing party," said Knuckles, taking off his hat.
"You're not invited, Knuckles," I said. "He did say I could bring Tails, but I said Tails wasn't likely to want to go," I looked at Tails. "Do you want to go?"
Tails gave me a worried look. "Not really, but I do think that if you don't know what you're walking in to, one of us should go with you." He took off his hat and I held up a hand.
"No, if too many people leave then we'll have to stop construction for the day," I said reasonably. Tails wilted a little, but so did everyone else. "Relax, I'll just make a quick show and get out as fast as I can. Keep working on the house, if I'm not back by sundown, assume I've been captured, or that an even greater threat has trapped both Doctor Eggman and the other guests somehow."
"Alright, I'm here," I said, walking into Doctor Eggman's lair. I saw Doctor Eggman turn around, flanked by Orbot and Cubot, and sure enough, he was at the head of a table with numerous other guests.
"Doctor Eggman," said W. T. Barker, at the opposite end of the oval table, "Now that the last guest has arrived, can you finally explain why we're here?"
"Ah, Vanilla the Fox," said Doctor Eggman, unusually cordial. I narrowed my eyes, suspicious of the situation. I looked at the other guests and saw in addition to W. T. Barker and his stunt bears, there were several members of the Lightning Bolt society, including my arch nemesis, Dave the Intern, as well as Charlie, who was my friend Belinda's husband. "Please, have a seat." He gestured to the right of the Chameleon, so named not because he was a chameleon, but because he was a wolf dressed up as a tree.
"Uh, alright," I said, pretty sure I knew where this was going. Instead of sitting where indicated though, I grabbed the floating chair from the right of the Chameleon and moved it to his left, which was to the right of Charlie. If I was going to be here, I might as well sit next to somebody I knew.
"Can we start now, I have a noon shift at Meh Burger, and if I'm late, I'll never get that raise to minimum wage," said Dave, clinging to himself.
There were general notes of agreement, as once again my eyes narrowed. On one hand, this all seemed very familiar, and very worrying. On the other hand, I wanted Dave to be late to whatever would get him ahead in life.
"Fine, fine, we'll get started," said Doctor Eggman. "In this room I have gathered a rogues gallery of the most vile-"
I cut him off. "I'm not vile, I'll have you know I'm very cute," I said.
That seemed to throw Doctor Eggman off. "If you'd let me finish, I was going to elaborate with nefarious, and repugnalevolent-"
This time is was Charlie who cut him off. "Repugnalevolent?" he asked. "Is that a word?"
"I'm definitely not repugnant," I said. "I am nice and fluffy and have lots of friends who enjoy my company."
"Fine!" said Doctor Eggman, losing his temper. His voice changed from dramatic, to fast, as if he was trying to rush through a prepared speech that had gone off the rails. "In this room I have gathered a rogues gallery of the most cute, nice and fluffylevolent-"
"I don't think fluffylevolent is a word either," said Charlie.
"I don't think I'm very fluffy," said Wiley Walrus.
"I was promised an assortment of fine cheeses if I showed up," said W. T. Barker.
There was another wave of agreement, which I joined in on, and Doctor Eggman sighed.
"We all share a mutual enemy," continued Doctor Eggman, ignoring the digressions and speaking even faster and less enthusiastically. "Sonic the Hedgehog and his rodent friends, we must stop them before they destroy us all."
I got several glances looking my way.
"The only one of you I want to destroy is Dave," I said, pointedly looking across the table at him.
He stood up and leaned forward, glaring at me. "And yet all your plans have failed! Proving that I'm the superior villain!"
"Now now," said Doctor Eggman, having recovered from all the previous interruptions. "I know that we don't all see eye to eye in everything, but I think with my superior leadership and your blind loyalty, we'll finally be rid of those meddling muskrats."
"Pass," I said, getting a few looks. "Now, where are those cheeses?"
Doctor Eggman grumbled to himself, but promptly signalled to Orbot and Cubot to bring out the cheeses, meats, and stemware. I piled up on the salami and cheddar cubes, considering whether or not I should scarf them down and leave, or stick around and see how far this would go. Once everybody got their cheeses and meats, Orbot returned the board of cheeses to Doctor Eggman. I still felt like I was forgetting something important, but this all seemed typical.
"So, why isn't Belinda here?" I asked Charlie, deciding to just stick around for now and eat my cheese. He sat next to me struggling to eat a piece of Brie with his giant robot claws. "Did Doctor Eggman not invite her?"
"He did, but she didn't want to come," he said, dropping the slice.
"Same with Tails," I said. "I almost didn't come, but I'd already RSVP'd. Didn't want to back out after already agreeing to come, even if I'm kind of busy today."
"Mm-mm, these are some fine cheese!" said Willy Walrus.
"But where are the crackers?" asked W.T. Barker.
"Are we going to get something to drink or are these glasses just for decoration?" I asked, tilting one of said glasses a bit on the edge of it's base.
"I wanted everything to be perfect!" said Doctor Eggman, sounding distressed. "Quick, Cubot, go down to the basement and grab the good drinks, and Orbot, go to the store and pick up some crackers! Keep calm everyone!"
Both robots saluted before whirring off.
My communicator flashed red, and a figure blinked into the room, behind Doctor Eggman. That wasn't good. I quickly looked down at my communicator and looked at my Shutterbug feeds. They were buzzing around randomly, and I looked up and saw their charge, in the same room I was in.
"So this is why you called me here?" asked the figure behind Doctor Eggman.
I bolted up from my chair, dropping my remaining cheese cubes. My mind was screaming.
Code red, Code red, CODE RED!
Doctor Eggman gasped and dropped the board of cheeses he was holding.
"Shadow the Hedgehog!" he said breathlessly. "Hey everybody look!" he continued, turning his body to look at us. "Shadow's here!" He turned back to Shadow. "I knew springing for those embossed invitations would impress!"
I needed to get out of this, right now. Not knowing what else to do, I just started walking towards the exit, which unfortunately meant I'd have to pass Doctor Eggman and Shadow.
"Who's he?" asked one of the Weasel Bandits.
Doctor Eggman turned and saw me leaving.
"There Shadow, that white one is offering her chair to you!"
I couldn't help but scoff, but inwardly grimaced as Shadow narrowed his eyes at me.
"You're one of Sonic's new friends, aren't you?" said Shadow, uncrossing his arms. There was a slight change in his posture, and if my mind was screaming before, it was dying now. Doctor Eggman's lair was pretty much the only place in the entire village where I couldn't do anything against Shadow.
My brain rebooted and tried to decide whether to make a run for it, or try to stall long enough to get out of the situation. Shadow was too fast for me, so I had no choice but to answer.
"Friend, is a strong word," I said, trying to hedge. Sonic was absolutely one of my friends, but I'd say he was in last place as far as Team Sonic went. If I included other friends like Rabbit Girl or Zoey, he was lower than them too. He was still above Wild Cat or Ice Cream Cat though, so he had that going for him. Still, I wasn't above flat out lying so I could get out of this situation. "I was invited to this thing after all." Shadow just stared at me, the same scowl on his face. I glanced at Doctor Eggman, who also looked confused on what to do. "Doctor Eggman, this isn't going to work out and I got a thing, so I better get going."
"What, why now, when Shadow just got here?!" replied Doctor Eggman in a high pitched voice.
Somehow, Shadow's scowl deepened.
This is what I get for not being more paranoid, I thought to myself. I had contingencies for dealing with Shadow, even ones I could keep on my person to augment my abilities. But they were meant for Shadow specifically, not Doctor Eggman.
I was still thinking of what to say when Doctor Eggman saved me.
"Tell you what, since everyone's here, I'll give my speech and if you want to leave afterwards, you can go ahead?" It was insane how consolatory he was being just because Shadow was here. He was a huge fan of Shadow and wanted to impress him. Me leaving probably sent a bad signal.
But I hated Shadow. The only reason I wasn't insulting Shadow to his face right now was because Doctor Eggman's Lair was the only place I was completely vulnerable to him… then again… Sonic would save me if I called him. Still, I'd be hurt in the process.
"Fine," I said, my voice a little strained even though I tried to sound normal.
"Great!" said Doctor Eggman. He gestured to my empty seat. "Shadow, would you like a chair?"
"Hmph," said Shadow, finally turning his gaze away from me. "I prefer to stand."
"Great idea!" said Doctor Eggman. "I like to stand too!"
I rolled my eyes as Doctor Eggman then told everyone to stand, briefly meeting Shadow's eyes again as he gave a similar reaction. For that split second I almost forgot he was Shadow the Hedgehog, the most dangerous "neutral" character in this world. I just hoped I could get out of here as soon as possible, preferably in one piece.
I waited nervously as Doctor Eggman gave his real pitch, which was actually pretty short, and ended once again with saying that with his leadership and our blind loyalty, blah blah whatever. I kept glancing at Shadow through the corner of my eye through the pitch, and he'd given no reaction at any point, neither to what Doctor Eggman said or to me. When Doctor Eggman finished, he turned around and looked expectantly at Shadow, who continued to give no reaction.
"Okay Doctor Eggman," I butted in, causing both Shadow and Doctor Eggman to look at me. I kept a casual voice as I said, "Can I go now?"
"Yes," said Shadow, and my eyes widened, confused on if he was addressing me directly or not. I breathed a mental sigh of relief when he turned back to look at Doctor Eggman. "If even that pathetic fox knows you're a fool, I see no reason to suffer your presence any longer."
I wasn't even indignant. I just wanted to get out of here. If Shadow came at me when I wasn't in this lair, then he'd see how "pathetic" I really was.
Doctor Eggman chuckled nervously, his voice pack to it's odd higher pitch. "Don't listen to her, she just moonlights as a villain, what does she know?"
"More than you fools, apparently," said Shadow. It was extremely awkward to have Shadow agree with me in any capacity.
"But you haven't really given us a chance, I'd planned for us to bond over trust exercises before working together!"
"Work together?" asked Shadow. "If you're so weak that you need others helping you, you would only get in my way."
And with that, he finally teleported away. I glanced at Doctor Eggman, then at the other assembled villains.
"So, who was that again?" asked the same Weasel Bandit who asked the first time.
I ignored Doctor Eggman's anguish as I called Tails on my communicator.
"Hey Vanilla," said Tails sounding nervous and uncertain. "Your house is going… great… without you. There's nothing to worry about at all, so you should stay where you are and leave it to us." Well, that meant something was wrong. And I really didn't care.
"Nevermind that," I said. "Tails, I need you to do something really important for me."
Tails' voice changed, now sounding concerned. "What is it?"
"First, tell everybody to head to Amy's, there's an emergency I need to tell them about. Before they leave, take Sticks aside and tell her to activate Contingency Plan Number Two-Zero-Zero-One: Local Alien Sighting, Attack Eminent. If she needs more gumtree berry pies, there's a large stockpile in abandoned missile silo number four, she knows where that one is. When she's done, she can meet up with the others."
"Uh, what?" asked Tails.
"Then I need you to go to your workshop. Sorry, but I built a small secret lab underneath yours. You can access it by stomping on the north-western corner. My Chaos Crystals are there, and I need you to flip the switch next to the Shock Crystal when you get in. Take the Heart Crystal and then meet up with everyone at my and Amy's place."
I hung up on him and then swiped my screen a few times to locate the current Shutterbug footage. They'd located Shadow again, on top of a tall pine tree. I told one of the Shutterbugs to turn a bit to show me what he was looking at, and saw my friends talking concernedly with each other in the distance. I directed one of the Shutterbugs to keep track of my friends, and prioritise Sonic.
"Did you say Shock Crystal and Heart Crystal?" asked Doctor Eggman. I ignored him.
Shadow was observing my friends. Which meant he was planning an attack, or waiting for Doctor Eggman to attack. Or both.
"Doctor Eggman," said W. T. Barker. "Since you can't seem to keep everyone focused, I suggest we elect myself as the new leader of this little group. After all, I have vast experience in leading circuses of fools and stunt bears, and I am well versed in parliamentary procedure."
Charlie started to argue he was most qualified to lead due to his obviously superior strength, while one of the Weasel Bandits suggested himself, because Charlie couldn't even defeat that "dimwitted red one."
"Well, good luck with your friends Doctor Eggman," I said, as the room devolved into arguing. I ran towards the exit. I stopped as the door opened to say one last thing. "But I suggest you postpone this plan of yours. I'm not interested in playing games today."
As soon as I stepped foot on the island proper, I sent out a test pulse to the local Teleportation Guard. It took me a while to set that up, but Shadow's basic abilities were pretty easy to figure out once I managed to find and study the blue Chaos Crystal. The test came back positive. I'd need to hold out for it until Shadow decided to fight.
Double checking where Shadow and my friends were, I confirmed everyone was waiting at Amy's, and Shadow had followed them. I rushed over as fast as I could, getting increasingly tired, hot, and out of breath as I flew. Luckily I could fly pretty fast if I pushed myself, and I was there in less than a minute, deliberately bursting through a window so Shadow wouldn't see me enter the house.
"Vanilla!" Amy shouted as she stared, horrified at the broken window. "Why do you always do this!?"
"Sorry," I said, a bit absent-mindedly as I brushed myself off while I stood up. I looked around and saw Tails holding the red Chaos Crystal, looking concerned. Even Sonic and Knuckles looked a bit more worried than usual, while Sticks had already found time to paint herself with camo colours, and put a colander on her head with a few sticks and leaves on it. At least she knew what was up.
"Just so you know, we left your house kind of a mess," said Sonic.
"Not important right now," I said, and everybody just stared at me with surprised looks.
"Why don't you tell us what's going on?" suggested Amy. "What happened that's got you so serious?"
"It's aliens," said Sticks, totally serious. "Or at least one alien. Vanilla's really scared of him, so we've been helping each other out. I help her with her alien problem, she helps me with the mind reading rats trying to break into my treasure vault."
"So it's one of these?" said Sonic, in exasperation and relief. "Well, at least it's not something serious. You had us all worried!"
"Not serious!?" I asked, my voice going high pitched even to my ears. My body was tense, and I tried to calm myself down, but it didn't seem to work. "Shadow is the most dangerous person on this island! Maybe the whole world!"
"Wait, Shadow?" asked Sonic. The others gave me strange looks. "Since when is Shadow an alien?"
I looked at him, baffled.
"Well, he's only technically an alien," said Sticks, nodding to herself. Everyone turned to look at her for a change. "What?"
"You know what, that's not important," I said, and all heads turned back to me. "What's important is Shadow is dangerous, he's standing right outside this house, and I've been making multiple plans to deal with him for ages now."
"He's outside?" asked Amy.
"Plans?" asked Sonic.
"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?" asked Tails.
"Has anyone seen my glasses, I can't read without my glasses," said Knuckles, patting himself down as if he had pockets.
"Yes, yes, I did, and over there next to the TV remote," I said, answering the questions in order.
"You did?" asked Tails while Knuckles went to pick up his glasses.
"Yeah, I alluded to it several times," I said, and then I recounted some of the times I mentioned it to him.
I was in Tails' workshop, and held up a glass cylinder which glowed blue with an etherial light. He looked at it in fascination.
"This is a Chaos Drive, part of what I've trying to make with my research into Chaos Energy. They're artificial Ancient Crystals that can be used as powerful energy sources that mimic the energy given off by the Chaos Crystals! I've also worked on a Teleportation Guard, and advanced personal devices that can use them! Now that I have these, I can use the Chaos Crystals I do have to power my main defences in case of emergency!"
"I've been building more Shutterbugs lately," I said in reply to Tails' question. "There's someone who hangs out in a cave who's very dangerous and I want to keep tabs on him."
"Knuckles?" asked Tails.
"No not Knuckles," I said, shaking my head.
"Eeeeeggmaaaaaan?" Tails guessed, his voice drawn out and hesitant. I gave him an unimpressed look.
"No."
"The reason I made all those exploding gumtree berry pies is because I want Sticks to help me set up traps and safeguards all around the village and surrounding area, so that if Shadow the Hedgehog shows up to attack any of us, we'll have a chance to beat him," I explained to Tails, holding up one of the pies I made after the previous disaster with them. "I've gotten Sticks to help me with this, setting them up in places she thinks Shadow will trigger them."
"Ahuh," said Tails, working on his Aeroplane.
"Oh," said Tails, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess you did talk about it."
"I think we're getting a bit off track," said Amy, moving into the centre of the group. She turned to look at me. "So what if Shadow's here? I know he's… well, him, but that's not reason to be scared of him."
"Yeah, you're not scared of me are you?" asked Knuckles. "I'm stronger than everyone else here and I live in a cave!"
Sonic glanced at Knuckles and rolled his eyes, before joining Amy in the centre. "Look Vanilla, I get that Shadow's edgy, and he can be aggressive. But the one he doesn't like is me."
"He has contempt for you," I said, crossing my arms. "The rest of us are beneath even that."
Sonic smiled nervously.
"Just go out there and talk to him," said Amy, as if that would solve anything. "I'm sure despite any flaws he might have, he'll still listen to reason."
I sighed.
"Fine," I said pushing down the pool of fear that was building back up. I was out of Doctor Eggman's lair. I was almost confident Shadow couldn't beat me now.
"And if that doesn't work, the traps are activated!" said Sticks, giving me a thumbs up. I smiled at her and returned the gesture. At least one of them was taking this with the seriousness Shadow required!
I didn't need to double check Shadow's location once I left Amy's house. I knew the general direction to look, and I could see him. I did activate a few things on my communicator though.
Once I crossed the bridge off Amy's main property, my communicator vibrated in warning, and Shadow teleported behind me.
"It's nothing personal, kid," he said as I turned around, trying to exude an air of unconcern. Inside I was still screaming. Even though I knew I was as safe from him as I could be in such a situation, even though almost everything was already active, I was scared. But somewhere else there was a deep dislike, and I focused on that as Shadow continued, his arms crossed. "I don't know exactly who you are, but I know you're one of Sonic's pathetic friends. And now I know you've been spying on me." He gestured vaguely over my shoulder, where a Shutterbug likely was. He then returned his arms to their default position, folded over his chest. "And such aggression can not stand."
I ignored that. "I'm here to talk to you," I said. "First, my name is -,"
"Spare me your pointless drivel," he said, cutting me off. He uncrossed his arms, and held his fists up. "Prepare to meet your fate."
I sighed. So much for talking. "Alright," I said, hoping at all costs my fail safes would work. Tails was still uselessly holding my second Chaos Crystal in the middle of Amy's house, instead of putting it where it needed to go.
He teleported away again and my communicator vibrated in warning. I turned around only for convenience, as he then teleported in front of me and seemed to fuzz when he reappeared, stumbling back. He tried again, and again I turned around to face him, and again he fuzzed back in and stumbled, this time falling to the ground. He was standing back up in a flash, a menacing scowl on his face.
"What is this?" he asked.
It was a personal Offensive Teleportation Guard. But I didn't tell him that. He was trying to teleport immediately behind me so he could land a sucker punch, but if he tried to teleport too close, the Guard would push him out of its field before he fully reappeared. I was pretty sure it was painful.
"Want a pie?" I asked.
"What?" he practically snarled. And yet, he still seemed composed.
"Pie," I said, and took a step back before landing my fist on one of the fence posts to the bridge across Amy's pond. It was secretly a button, and I stepped to the side and took cover as a pie flew past me, splatting Shadow in the face with an instant explosion.
As the dust cleared, I saw Shadow quickly stand back up, scowling even harder. I didn't think that was possible.
Behind me, the door to Amy's house opened, and my friends came out, including Tails, still holding the red Chaos Crystal.
"Get back inside!" I shouted, panic rising. I pointedly looked at Tails and then the Chaos Crystal he was holding. "That goes in my room, it'll be obvious where, even if it's not all finished yet! And I also have new communicators for everyone. That includes you Sticks!"
"I hate technology!" she screamed at me.
"It's just for fighting Shadow!" I yelled back, jumping to the side as Shadow teleported behind me again, just outside the Offensive Teleportation Guard. With advanced warning from my communicator, I could just react in time. I rolled, already starting to overhead but trying to keep myself from panting.
Sonic rushed in to help but both me and Shadow reacted.
"Do what I said and get back inside!" I yelled.
At the same time, Shadow said to Sonic, "Stay out of this, fool, I'll deal with you later."
Immediately after Shadow jumped into a spin attack, and my personal force field activated, a hollow cylinder of crystallised chaos energy.
"Tails, I really need you to do what I said!" I said, desperately trying not to lose myself in panic as the others rushed in, ignoring both of us.
I had a limited number of uses that my communicator could use before it ran out of energy. Basically, three of anything active and taxing. Three shields, or three Chaos Controls. In total. That was one down. Unlike Shadow, I couldn't just do whatever I wanted.
"Meddlesome fools," said Shadow, ignoring me and spindashing towards Amy, who held her hammer high. He was just about to hit her when Sonic hit him from the side with his own spindash, knocking him away. Knuckles rushed forward but Shadow recovered instantly and was able to dodge his heavy punch, his fist crashing into the ground causing the earth to shake around us. One of the pie traps sprung from that, and Sticks dodged it in time, letting it hit Shadow. Unfortunately, only me and Sticks knew it was coming and were able to get to cover, causing not just Shadow, but Amy, Knuckles, and Sonic to be blown away. Tails stood at the door to Amy's house, having not engaged, his mouth hanging open like he was entirely confused. Then he shook his head rapidly, and finally went back inside with the Chaos Crystal.
"I have had it with these damn pies!" yelled Shadow, finally losing his temper. To my complete surprise, he suddenly started to glow red, floating a little off the ground. The red grew into an aura of energy, and my eyes widened as he thrust his hands up and launched seven bolts of red energy.
"Watch out everyone, that's Chaos Spear!" said Sonic, running over to help Amy up from the explosion.
Chaos Spear? Since when could this Shadow use that? My contingencies didn't plan for that. This was unfair! I watched, dumbly as one of the red energy bolts arched through the air and bent directly towards me. They were fast, but not so fast I didn't have time to think for a second and react. I had to decide, roll out of the way and overheat myself more, or Chaos Control and waste one of my charges.
I rolled, only to realise another bolt was coming from the other side. In desperation I activated Chaos Control, an ability I built into my communicator, and teleported further out, thinking to draw Shadow away from my friends. They'd all dodged the Chaos Spears, some with the help of Sonic, but clearly I'd underestimated Shadow, even with all my contingencies. I hadn't seen everything he could do, and he could still beat me because of it. And my friends were even more defenceless.
That was, until Shadow teleported just outside of my Offensive Teleport Guard again, ignoring my friends, while at the same time my communicator gave a chirp that told me it was fully charged again. That could only mean one thing.
"Guys, you won't believe what Vanilla made!" said Tails, running out of Amy's house and holding up five communicators. My communicators. That had my upgrades installed.
I teleported away, further into the forest, away from my friends and the village.
Originally I didn't have so many new communicators. But when I'd gotten the second Chaos Crystal, I had access to so much more power than before, and didn't have to rely on Chaos Drives that would eventually wear out. My communicators were meant specifically to deal with Shadow, or what I knew of him at least. And that meant both copying, and defending against, his Chaos Control and his aggressive, serious attacks. It all drew a lot of power, but with a second Chaos Crystal… both the contingencies, and the communicators could be powered indefinitely.
"You absolute faker!" shouted Shadow, angrier now than he had been when my friends had jumped in. "You dare steal my abilities!?" I just kept teleporting, luring him deeper into the nest of traps Sticks had helped me set up. Once far enough in, and far enough away from Shadow, I selected one of the broad contingencies I'd set up and activated it. Shadow fell over, as his Chaos Control failed. He stood up, and probably tried again but there was no visible sign.
"What is this?" he asked, looking at his hands as if they'd failed him somehow. Then he picked his head up and glared at me. "I am going to-", he began, but was cut off when he stepped forward and his foot stepped on a buried Gumtree Berry Pie. He exploded again, thrown upwards into a vine trap that wrapped him in thorny vines. I stood where I was, watching as he immediately broke himself out, but not in time for the two large wooden mallets to come crashing together, with him in between.
The mallets cracked, revealing Shadow who seemed unharmed, but plopped down on the ground in a clear daze. He then exploded again.
Eventually he landed in a deep pit trap. Hesitant, I teleported to it and peered inside, seeing Shadow wobbling on his feet for a moment, before falling on his back. He saw me looking at him, and he slowly reached his hand out to me.
"You…," he said, his voice faint. "I'm going to… end you…." He closed his eyes, and his arm flopped onto his chest as he fell unconscious.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Despite whatever unknown and shocking abilities Shadow could pull out of his hat, I'd beat him. I was safe. Now I just had to find a way to get rid of him. Then I'd be safe for good.
Before I could fly down and grab his unconscious body, my communicator beeped. An actual call was coming in from Tails, I wasn't being attacked!
"We're being attacked!" said Tails as soon as I answered.
"What?" I asked, glancing at Shadow's unconscious form. He twitched, and I flinched, worrying that he wouldn't stay down for long. "Shadows unconscious."
"Not Shadow!" replied Tails. "Eggman attacked my workshop, and he's working with every other villain in the village!"
That didn't make sense. The defensive contingencies should stop Doctor Eggman just as much as Shadow. And why would Doctor Eggman attack Tails' Workshop of all places? Why wasn't he attacking Sonic?
Oh I thought, realising. That was not good. I teleported away, leaving Shadow in the pit.
When I finally appeared at Tails' Workshop, it was still surrounded by the energy dome I'd set up to prevent Shadow from getting anywhere near it, should he have discovered the Chaos Crystal.
My friends were huddled together in front of the dome, backs to each other, surrounded by Doctor Eggman's robots. Doctor Eggman himself was gloating, flanked by W.T. Barker's stunt bears, who were balancing on top of Ball Bots instead of their usual balls. Glancing further afield, the Chamelian was perched on the path towards my house under construction, signalling with flags to the combatants on the ground. Charlie was doing something with the dome, and Dave and the rest of the Lightningbolt Society were nowhere to be found. I grit my teeth, realising that there was a large hole to be found, which meant they were trying to dig under the dome, at the same time as Charlie was weakening it.
"Eggman!" I shouted. Only then did the others notice I had arrived. Eggman himself turned around, still hovering in his Eggmobile. He continued to laugh.
"Why, if it isn't Vanilla!" he said, just as the energy dome fizzled for a moment. I didn't take my eyes off Eggman. "A shame you didn't join us, then we wouldn't have had to go through this whole rigmarole! Plus, we would have had an even number of participants for the trust fall exercise!"
"Eggman," I repeated, less loud but still forceful. I stepped closer, the stunt bears and robots still focused on my friends. "You've interrupted me when I was doing something important. I told you I didn't want to play today."
"Who's playing?" asked Eggman, just as the dome fell. Damn. That wasn't great. "Even with just one Chaos Crystal, I could power my machines to untold efficiency, and finally defeat you mangy meddling muskrats!"
"Good alliteration, Eggman," said Amy still not attacking. "But don't think you've won yet!"
"I cannot believe you've let yourself get into this position against these pathetic losers!" I said, turning my gaze towards Sonic. "You have my communicators, this should have been a cakewalk!"
"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" asked Eggman just as Willy Walrus ran out of Tails' Workshop, followed by Dave and the Weasel Bandits. Before reaching Sonic and the others, Dave threw some hamburgers ahead towards Eggman, while Willy threw the Shock Crystal over Sonic and the others. They jumped, trying to grab it, but were stopped as they all hit Dave's burgers instead, getting knocked down to the ground. Eggman caught the crystal, grinning. "After all, these losers just won!"
I looked back at Sonic. "Well?" I repeated.
"Aren't these just for Shadow?" asked Tails.
I growled to myself, then turned back to Eggman. "Put the crystal back, and I won't grind you all into dust."
Eggman's grin faltered for a moment, and he chuckled nervously. His little minions, sans the Chameleon, started to gather around him, ignoring my friends.
"Uh, Vanilla?" Amy said, her voice sounding a bit shaky. "You're kind of worrying me. There's no need to be so -"
"I wasn't talking to you," I said, and Amy winced. I continued to look at Eggman, who hovered a few inches back when I took a step forward.
After a few moments, he re-composed himself, shaking his head and plastering a stupid grin back on his face. "There's what, thirteen of us, and one of you? That's not counting my robot minions!"
Eggman had taken the Shock Crystal, the one powering the anti-Shadow contingencies placed in and around the village. The Heart Crystal should still be in my room, powering the new communicators. So this wouldn't even be hard. Even if they'd already taken the other crystal, I could still take the Chaos Drives in the others' communicators for extra power. It's not like they were using them.
I pulled out my staff and extended it without a word. I began a heavy thrust, then teleported in front of Charlie, high enough that my bo staff was now aiming for his face. I hit him in the eye just as he tried to fire a beam from his suit's claws. He yelled out in pain, and his misfired beam hit Wiley, knocking him down. I teleported in between the two stunt bears, knelt down, and then thrust each end of my staff into the Ball Bots they were riding before teleporting to Dave. My teleportation took the Ball Bots with me, and the stunt bears fell flat on their faces as I crashed both Ball Bots into Dave's head. I took an instant to glance at my communicator's charge, confirming that the Heart Crystal was where Tails had left it, and then teleported back to Charlie, who was still stumbling in pain. I touched his suit's leg, teleported him in front of the group of Weasel Bandits, then tripped him so he would fall on top of them. I quickly jumped on his suit and slammed my bo into his head, breaking his glasses and knocking him out.
A quick survey saw only W.T. Barker and the Chameleon left, not counting Eggman. I started to fly with my tails, teleporting behind the Chameleon, wrapping my arms around him, and taking him up in the air with me. He started to yell in panic, trying to break my grip. I teleported back, appearing high above Barker, letting go of the Chameleon just as he realised he was much higher than he had been before. He landed directly on top of Barker, upside down, his stupid tree costume the only thing breaking his fall.
I didn't teleport after that, instead choosing to land normally in between Eggman and my friends, still surrounded by his robots. At any time, my friends could have joined in and beaten the robots while I dealt with the mooks. I was kind of annoyed they hadn't. It was all just so easy when you could teleport. I didn't even feel too hot.
Eggman just hovered in his Eggmobile, an uncharacteristic look of worry on his face.
"Not playing," I repeated, holding out my left hand as I held my staff with my right. "The crystal, Eggman."
"Okay," he replied, an odd strain on his voice I couldn't quite place. "Just… please don't hurt me." He dropped the crystal and it landed on the ground in front of him. I let down my hand as his robots moved away from my friends, practically fleeing back behind Eggman.
"Tails, take the -"
"That was not cool," I heard Sonic say behind me.
Bewildered, I turned around. I frowned, noticing everyone's faces. They all looked at me with mixtures of anger and disappointment. Except for Tails, who was looking away with his eyes closed.
"What?" I asked.
Before any of them could answer, my communicator flashed red, and I had to whip around back to Eggman, who was in the process of slowly hovering away. Shadow appeared just next to him, and my heartrate sped up in fear as I saw him carrying the red Chaos Crystal.
"Shadow!" said Eggman, sounding relieved. "Glad to see you, think you could help a buddy out and save me from her?" He pointed at me. "I see you already got the other Chaos Crystal she had, you can keep them both if -"
"Cease your panicked prattle," said Shadow, dropping the Heart Crystal next to the Shock Crystal. "I do not need these cheap toys, and you and your idiotic group are even more pathetic than I'd thought to have lost to this single fox, even if she was stealing my power."
"Right," said Eggman. "Whatever you say Shadow, so if you don't mind, I'll just be leaving." He started to hover backwards, and once he saw nobody was doing anything to stop him, he turned around and flew away, his robots trailing behind.
"It seems I've underestimated you… whatever your name is," said Shadow. "Even if you are a faker and a thief, hiding behind tricks, you dispatched these morons with ruthless efficiency. I approve."
My eyes widened. Aside from the fear, I suddenly felt a dull pain wrap itself around my chest. I almost dropped my staff as I stumbled back slightly. More than the way Doctor Eggman had reacted to me, more than my friends obvious disappointment, Shadow's approval tore through my recent actions so thoroughly that I couldn't avoid hating myself in that moment.
"Still," said Shadow, taking a step forward. "You will pay for what you've done." Panic, true panic, gripped me then. Both my Chaos Crystals were on the ground, useless. My contingencies were off. My communicators only had their Chaos Drives for power, limiting their use. Most importantly, I'd disappointed my friends. I'd disappointed myself. I couldn't expect them to have my back, not after how I'd just acted. I'd be lucky if I still had them at all after this. Even Tails… he couldn't even look at me.
"Guys," I said, taking a step back. I heard my voice crack. "I know I… let everyone down. But this last time, could you all please help -"
I stopped talking as I bumped into someone. I turned my head, seeing it was Amy. Beside her, beside me, were the others. I blinked, genuinely surprised to see them, and only then realised I was crying.
"We understand," said Amy, gently pushing me back forward. "You're scared of Shadow. And we didn't take that seriously."
Shadow gave a sound that was almost a chuckle. "She should be."
"No," said Sonic. "She shouldn't. Because if you're threatening her, we have her back."
"More sentimental friendship," said Shadow. He looked at me. "And here I thought you had more spine than these others. But, for once, I was wrong. I can admit that. You're just as weak as the rest of them. Maybe even weaker. After all, I've never seen any of them cry."
I was afraid of Shadow. But there was always something else that partnered with that fear, something else that made me act the way I had. And even if Shadow wasn't going to care, I needed my friends to really understand. If they didn't understand, they couldn't really forgive me.
"I'm not just afraid of you," I said, wiping my eyes with my free hand. Shadow stopped walking a few feet from us, surprisingly listening. "I hate you. I think your very presence offends the sensibilities of this world."
"I suppose it does," said Shadow, as if I'd complimented him. "This world is, after all, weak and pathetic. It is inhabited by clowns who can't protect themselves, weak fools who stand as easy prey to weak jesters with a few tricks."
"Are jesters stronger than clowns?" asked Knuckles. I almost laughed.
"Then why are you here?" I asked instead. The question seemed to puzzle Shadow, and I pressed on. "I've been watching you for ages now. You spend most of your time alone, brooding in a cave. The one time I see you come out, it's to fight Sonic. But why do you even care?"
"Because he is weak," said Shadow, raising a fist. "Pathetic. An insult to all hedgehog kind!"
"Amy's a hedgehog," I pointed out. "Why don't you vow her destruction? We're all weaker than Sonic, after all."
"Uh, can you not bring me into this?" asked Amy. "Or insult me?"
"She is beneath notice," said Shadow. "More importantly, she is only Sonic's friend. A symbol of Sonic's weakness."
"Friends are a strength, not a weakness," I said.
"He doesn't get that," said Sonic. "Don't waste your breath telling him."
"Only weak people need friends!" said Shadow, his voice rising.
"Then I ask again, why do you care? Fine, we all agree, you're the strongest one here and you don't need friends. Why do you need to bother us about it?"
"Because your weakness corrupts!" said Shadow. "The world is weak enough as it is, this complete lack of concern for strength only puts everything at risk!"
"But why care?" I repeated. "You don't have any friends. There s nothing in this world that concerns you because you're so above it all. What does it matter to you, how weak the world is, so long as you are strong?"
"I do not need friends! Because I am strong!"
This conversation was going nowhere, I could tell. At least… not from this angle. I'd never really thought about it before, but why did he care? Honestly when I thought about it, his motivations didn't make any sense. It was part of why I hated him, I realised.
"Are you… jealous?" I asked.
"Jealous?" he replied, scowling. "Why would I be jealous of you fools."
"Us fools, huh? Not that fool, Sonic?"
Shadow clenched his fists, but didn't say anything, nor did he attack. I decided to press on.
"I think you're actually… bored. It makes sense, most of the time you don't do anything. Maybe in the past you found you couldn't connect with anybody, so now you don't even try. It's safer that way."
"You know nothing!" he shouted, taking a step forward. I fought the urge to step back, relying on my friends to protect me if things really fell apart here.
"Careful," whispered Tails in my ear, so low even I could barely hear it. My ear involuntary flicked from his breath "I know you think you understand everyone, but you've made mistakes before."
"I don't know everything about your past," I said, speaking slower, more carefully, trying not to sound accusing. "But I know some things. I can infer others. 'The Ultimate Lifeform'. That's a lot to live up to. Must have been hard."
I waited for a reaction, but only got a deep scowl and barely restrained hostility. So I continued with a gamble.
"Was Maria not there for you?"
That got a reaction. Shadow took a few steps forward, fists raised, looking absolutely livid, and I could hear everybody behind me settle into a fighting stance. But I could tell even then that Shadow wasn't going to attack us.
And sure enough, he stopped approaching, only arms width away.
"This conversation is over," he said. "Stay out of my way."
All of our communicators flashed red, pointing in the direction Shadow was already at, as he teleported away and out of sight. Behind me, I heard a collective sigh of relief.
"That was real gutsy," said Sticks as I turned around to face my friends. "Pulling out the Maria card."
I didn't understand how Sticks even knew who Maria was. I was kinda surprised Shadow knew who Maria was.
"I'm just glad things didn't break out into a fight," said Amy. "See, I knew you could just talk to him."
There was a loud groan coming from the distance, and I turned, confused, until I saw the Chameleon roll off of W. T. Barker, before going still again.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Maybe we should uh, do something about these guys."
"We?" asked Amy, putting her hands on her hips. "You went way too far with them, you should apologise! You know, once they get out of the hospital which they clearly need."
"Yeah I guess I should," I said, looking down at the ground, feeling ashamed. I hated Shadow so much, I ended up becoming just like him. Maybe even worse.
"We should probably do something about those though," said Tails, pointing at the two Chaos Crystals still lying on the ground.
"Uh, yeah," I said, picking my head back up. "I still want to keep them. If nothing else, I wouldn't have to worry about my house's electric bill with one."
Everybody suddenly looked extremely awkward.
"What's wrong?" I asked, before remembering. "Oh yeah, you said something was wrong with my house, but I was too focused on Shadow to care. What's wrong?"
"Well, maybe it's not so bad?" said Amy, as Tails went to grab the Chaos Crystals.
"We might as well show her," said Sonic. "Let's go."
We'd made a path up from Tails' House and Workshop, to where the mountain got snowy and my house was being built. Once we got far enough along and my house came into view, I immediately saw the problem. I stopped walking, and frowned.
"How is this possible?" I asked, turning to Amy, who had the decency to look sheepish. What was supposed to be a normal island-style house, wooden, round, with the only difference being a metal roof and window frames, looked more like a bad modern art sculpture than anything else. Which was insane, as I'd left it looking like a regular house! "I wasn't gone for more than an hour."
"I thought your house could use a bit of flair, and I might have gotten carried away," explained Amy.
"I should have left the white hat with Tails!" I said. "He can read blueprints!"
"Well, I did follow Amy's updated blueprints to the best of my ability," said Tails, halfway between proud and ashamed.
I heard a loud creak coming from the "house", and as I turned back to look, it suddenly collapsed into a pile of splintered wood and dust. All eyes turned back to him.
"Hey, Amy's the one who drew up the blueprints, I just followed them!" he said defensively.
"Your job was wiring and electrical!" I said. The rubble suddenly sparked and burst into flames.
"This isn't the first time you've started a house fire, buddy," said Sonic.
Tails chuckled nervously and looked over to me, before scratching the back of his head.
I felt a sudden burst of affection for him at that moment, I couldn't help but grab him, kiss him on the cheek, and squeeze him in a big hug.
"Can't breath," he said, but he didn't sound too worried about it.
"I was such a jerk today, I'm just glad you guys are still my friends," I said, before letting Tails go.
"It'll take more than that to ruin our friendship," said Knuckles. "It's not like you did anything really bad. You were just a jerk. A horrible, terrible, almost irredeemably evil jerk." I winced at every descriptor.
"Is anybody out there!" called a familiar voice, echoing over the mountain. It was faint, coming from far away. "I can't get up!" I realised it was W. T. Barker.
"Let's uh," I began, nervous again. "Let's go take those guys to the hospital. I'm sure they'll be fine after a nice rest"
"I've got to ask," said Sonic, as we set off back down the path to Tails' house. "Ignoring Chaos Control, you still took those guys out way too easily. Have you been sandbagging this whole time?"
"Teleporting is a real force multiplier," I said, deliberately dodging the question. "It's seriously unfair, and I'd have gotten tired and overheated myself without Chaos Control. I think even Shadow wouldn't be that strong without it."
"I think my legs are broken!" called out Barker, and we all quickened our pace. "Please, I'm in so much pain!"
Managed to get some time to finish up the chapter. I like to put these notes at the top of the post, but this time I'm going to put most of what I write here in spoilers, and you can read them after you've read the chapter proper. That is my recommendation, however you are free to ignore that if you wish. Something that isn't a spoiler is that this is now the first chapter written that had no parts written before the hiatus. It is a 100% post-hiatus production.
I knew pretty early on in this fic's conception I'd have to write Shadow at some point. And even before the years long hiatus, people were already talking about him and saying they expected/wanted him.
I've made it no secret in this thread that I hate Shadow in Sonic Boom. I'm fine with Shadow in every other continuity, but this one is just completely out of place. His characterisation revolves around writer guidelines that prevented the Sonic Boom writing team from trying to make him too funny (I'm pretty sure, but could be mis-remembering, that there was also a rule that said Shadow can't be shown losing). They had these guidlines in the comedy setting. It limits what you can do with him, and in the season two finale, he had some funny lines but they mostly revolved around Shadow being extremely edgy and hostile.
I keep up with the erutcarF thread over on SpaceBattles even if I don't post there, and by pure coincidence people were discussing Boom!Shadow at around the same time I was working on how I was going to approach this chapter. Some people commented that Shadow is like a straight man in a world of comics, and that this itself is funny. He's not actually, because straight men are funny in themselves, not merely in opposition to the comic. Straight men are also reasonable. They are meant to be relatable. Shadow in Sonic Boom is not most of these things. He claims Sonic should die for building a bad bookshelf. Theoretically funny because it's over-the-top aggressive, but that's not something a straight man would say.
The original vision for this chapter was to force Shadow to be funny. I'd been building up to the original concept for ages, all the things I mentioned in this chapter about exploding pies and Shutterbugs and aliens and Sticks, were all written in the past, intending to lead up to this chapter. My idea was to force a Wile E. Coyote vs Roadrunner premise. Vanilla is the Roadrunner, Shadow is Wile E. Coyote. This would break both writing rules, but Vanilla is technically an outside-context problem, and I was thinking of playing with that. Shadow forced to be funny by constantly failing to so much as touch Vanilla in a fight, until he just gives up and goes back to his cave.
Actually writing it, it didn't work out that way. The first deviation was that remembering Shadow in the season 2 finale, I started to think Vanilla wouldn't just hate Shadow, she'd be scared of him. The second deviation, and the one that really knocked the premise off the rails, was that when I was writing I ended up writing Vanilla as mentioning she had two Chaos Crystals right in front of Eggman. Thinking it over, I realised this was completely plausible given the situation. But it means that, instead of ignoring Eggman like I planned to, he had to come in at the end and this would ruin the scenario. I briefly considered rewriting the scene to remove that, but decided no. I'd continue with the new direction.
The new direction being what we have here. Instead of Vanilla forcing Shadow to be funny, Shadow forces Vanilla to be serious. Which Vanilla loathes.
Still, both the initial plan and the diverted plan required me to really air out my greviences with Shadow, both in and out of universe. I think overall, the way this chapter ended up worked much better for that. Shadow did get beaten, but not in the end. But I still got to have Vanilla explain exactly what is wrong with Shadow in this setting, and why by rights he shouldn't be around at all. I also got to imply some speculation on my part about some possibilites on how Shadow's backstory differs in Sonic Boom compared to the other continuities. This Shadow is very different, but what little we do know implies at least some of it's the same. We'll probably never know what was intended, but my assumption is that Project Shadow was a much harsher project than in other continuities.
I've made it no secret in this thread that I hate Shadow in Sonic Boom. I'm fine with Shadow in every other continuity, but this one is just completely out of place. His characterisation revolves around writer guidelines that prevented the Sonic Boom writing team from trying to make him too funny (I'm pretty sure, but could be mis-remembering, that there was also a rule that said Shadow can't be shown losing). They had these guidlines in the comedy setting. It limits what you can do with him, and in the season two finale, he had some funny lines but they mostly revolved around Shadow being extremely edgy and hostile.
I keep up with the erutcarF thread over on SpaceBattles even if I don't post there, and by pure coincidence people were discussing Boom!Shadow at around the same time I was working on how I was going to approach this chapter. Some people commented that Shadow is like a straight man in a world of comics, and that this itself is funny. He's not actually, because straight men are funny in themselves, not merely in opposition to the comic. Straight men are also reasonable. They are meant to be relatable. Shadow in Sonic Boom is not most of these things. He claims Sonic should die for building a bad bookshelf. Theoretically funny because it's over-the-top aggressive, but that's not something a straight man would say.
The original vision for this chapter was to force Shadow to be funny. I'd been building up to the original concept for ages, all the things I mentioned in this chapter about exploding pies and Shutterbugs and aliens and Sticks, were all written in the past, intending to lead up to this chapter. My idea was to force a Wile E. Coyote vs Roadrunner premise. Vanilla is the Roadrunner, Shadow is Wile E. Coyote. This would break both writing rules, but Vanilla is technically an outside-context problem, and I was thinking of playing with that. Shadow forced to be funny by constantly failing to so much as touch Vanilla in a fight, until he just gives up and goes back to his cave.
Actually writing it, it didn't work out that way. The first deviation was that remembering Shadow in the season 2 finale, I started to think Vanilla wouldn't just hate Shadow, she'd be scared of him. The second deviation, and the one that really knocked the premise off the rails, was that when I was writing I ended up writing Vanilla as mentioning she had two Chaos Crystals right in front of Eggman. Thinking it over, I realised this was completely plausible given the situation. But it means that, instead of ignoring Eggman like I planned to, he had to come in at the end and this would ruin the scenario. I briefly considered rewriting the scene to remove that, but decided no. I'd continue with the new direction.
The new direction being what we have here. Instead of Vanilla forcing Shadow to be funny, Shadow forces Vanilla to be serious. Which Vanilla loathes.
Still, both the initial plan and the diverted plan required me to really air out my greviences with Shadow, both in and out of universe. I think overall, the way this chapter ended up worked much better for that. Shadow did get beaten, but not in the end. But I still got to have Vanilla explain exactly what is wrong with Shadow in this setting, and why by rights he shouldn't be around at all. I also got to imply some speculation on my part about some possibilites on how Shadow's backstory differs in Sonic Boom compared to the other continuities. This Shadow is very different, but what little we do know implies at least some of it's the same. We'll probably never know what was intended, but my assumption is that Project Shadow was a much harsher project than in other continuities.
_____________________________
"Thanks for helping me build my house," I said, looking over at my friends. They all wore cold weather clothes, jackets and scarves and the like, as we were on the snowy peak of Tails' mountain. Only some of them looked exhausted, but for some reason they were all glaring at me. I grinned, and moved my white hard hat slightly to scratch my ear before looking at my blueprints "Once you guys get the roof finished, I think you've all earned yourselves a nice five minute break!"
"Vanilla," said Amy, moving towards me. I'd given her a green hat and told her to make sure nobody died on site. So far so good. "I really think everyone needs a break right now."
There were general nods of agreement, even from Tails, who I'd given the blue hat to. He hadn't even done anything yet!
"Why not let your stupid robot goons finish up the roof?" asked Sticks, one of the yellow hat drones along with Knuckles and Sonic. She gestured above to my two remaining Bubbles, rebuilt once more from the scraps left over from the game show fiasco. As soon as she gestured, the two Bubbles turned to look at each other, then promptly exploded, leaving behind only clouds of thick dark smoke.
"I'm with them," said Sonic.
My communicator beeped. "Hold that thought," I said, hoping it was some of my other friends, calling to say they changed their minds about helping me build my house. Instead, it was Doctor Eggman, who I didn't trust to help. Though he offered to lend me some of his construction robots, I was sure that was just a pretext for some scheme where they'd all turn on me, or claim the house for in the name of their master or something.
"Yeah, Doctor Eggman," I said, answering it. I glanced up to see everyone else disperse as if I'd authorised a break. I sighed inwardly. They could take a break right now, it's not like anything serious was going on.
"Hey there, I was just wondering if you were going to be making it to my get together today?" he asked.
"That was today?" I asked.
"A get together?" asked Sonic, walking to me. I held up my hand and shushed him.
"Yes, almost everybody else is already here. I prepared quite the charcuterie board and the guests are getting restless. I just wanted to know if we should hold up for you."
"Fine," I said, trying not to sound as annoyed as I was. I'd forgotten I'd agreed to go to that stupid meeting. "I'll be right over." I hung up and turned to the others, taking off my hat.
"Bad news everyone," I said, waiving my friends over. They all looked concerned, especially Sonic. "I've got to go to this thing with Doctor Eggman, so Amy's in charge now."
They erupted into cheers, including Amy, and I growled under my breath as I handed her my hat and she exchanged it with her green one. It was really insulting to be less preferred over Amy for leading a project.
"I'll try to hurry back though," I said, to a mass of groans.
"What's this about Vanilla?" asked Sonic. "You're not walking into a trap are you?"
"It's still a trap even if you know about it," offered Sticks.
I shrugged my shoulders.
"No idea," I said. "Doctor Eggman said he was having a party of some kind. Or event? A meeting? He was a bit unclear. Bit he planned this a while back and I said yes and forgot all about it until now."
"Sounds suspicious," said Amy, putting on her new hat. "Maybe one of us should go with you just in case?"
"As the strongest among us, I volunteer to stop working on this house, and to instead make sure our friend Vanilla doesn't get hurt at a relaxing party," said Knuckles, taking off his hat.
"You're not invited, Knuckles," I said. "He did say I could bring Tails, but I said Tails wasn't likely to want to go," I looked at Tails. "Do you want to go?"
Tails gave me a worried look. "Not really, but I do think that if you don't know what you're walking in to, one of us should go with you." He took off his hat and I held up a hand.
"No, if too many people leave then we'll have to stop construction for the day," I said reasonably. Tails wilted a little, but so did everyone else. "Relax, I'll just make a quick show and get out as fast as I can. Keep working on the house, if I'm not back by sundown, assume I've been captured, or that an even greater threat has trapped both Doctor Eggman and the other guests somehow."
"Alright, I'm here," I said, walking into Doctor Eggman's lair. I saw Doctor Eggman turn around, flanked by Orbot and Cubot, and sure enough, he was at the head of a table with numerous other guests.
"Doctor Eggman," said W. T. Barker, at the opposite end of the oval table, "Now that the last guest has arrived, can you finally explain why we're here?"
"Ah, Vanilla the Fox," said Doctor Eggman, unusually cordial. I narrowed my eyes, suspicious of the situation. I looked at the other guests and saw in addition to W. T. Barker and his stunt bears, there were several members of the Lightning Bolt society, including my arch nemesis, Dave the Intern, as well as Charlie, who was my friend Belinda's husband. "Please, have a seat." He gestured to the right of the Chameleon, so named not because he was a chameleon, but because he was a wolf dressed up as a tree.
"Uh, alright," I said, pretty sure I knew where this was going. Instead of sitting where indicated though, I grabbed the floating chair from the right of the Chameleon and moved it to his left, which was to the right of Charlie. If I was going to be here, I might as well sit next to somebody I knew.
"Can we start now, I have a noon shift at Meh Burger, and if I'm late, I'll never get that raise to minimum wage," said Dave, clinging to himself.
There were general notes of agreement, as once again my eyes narrowed. On one hand, this all seemed very familiar, and very worrying. On the other hand, I wanted Dave to be late to whatever would get him ahead in life.
"Fine, fine, we'll get started," said Doctor Eggman. "In this room I have gathered a rogues gallery of the most vile-"
I cut him off. "I'm not vile, I'll have you know I'm very cute," I said.
That seemed to throw Doctor Eggman off. "If you'd let me finish, I was going to elaborate with nefarious, and repugnalevolent-"
This time is was Charlie who cut him off. "Repugnalevolent?" he asked. "Is that a word?"
"I'm definitely not repugnant," I said. "I am nice and fluffy and have lots of friends who enjoy my company."
"Fine!" said Doctor Eggman, losing his temper. His voice changed from dramatic, to fast, as if he was trying to rush through a prepared speech that had gone off the rails. "In this room I have gathered a rogues gallery of the most cute, nice and fluffylevolent-"
"I don't think fluffylevolent is a word either," said Charlie.
"I don't think I'm very fluffy," said Wiley Walrus.
"I was promised an assortment of fine cheeses if I showed up," said W. T. Barker.
There was another wave of agreement, which I joined in on, and Doctor Eggman sighed.
"We all share a mutual enemy," continued Doctor Eggman, ignoring the digressions and speaking even faster and less enthusiastically. "Sonic the Hedgehog and his rodent friends, we must stop them before they destroy us all."
I got several glances looking my way.
"The only one of you I want to destroy is Dave," I said, pointedly looking across the table at him.
He stood up and leaned forward, glaring at me. "And yet all your plans have failed! Proving that I'm the superior villain!"
"Now now," said Doctor Eggman, having recovered from all the previous interruptions. "I know that we don't all see eye to eye in everything, but I think with my superior leadership and your blind loyalty, we'll finally be rid of those meddling muskrats."
"Pass," I said, getting a few looks. "Now, where are those cheeses?"
Doctor Eggman grumbled to himself, but promptly signalled to Orbot and Cubot to bring out the cheeses, meats, and stemware. I piled up on the salami and cheddar cubes, considering whether or not I should scarf them down and leave, or stick around and see how far this would go. Once everybody got their cheeses and meats, Orbot returned the board of cheeses to Doctor Eggman. I still felt like I was forgetting something important, but this all seemed typical.
"So, why isn't Belinda here?" I asked Charlie, deciding to just stick around for now and eat my cheese. He sat next to me struggling to eat a piece of Brie with his giant robot claws. "Did Doctor Eggman not invite her?"
"He did, but she didn't want to come," he said, dropping the slice.
"Same with Tails," I said. "I almost didn't come, but I'd already RSVP'd. Didn't want to back out after already agreeing to come, even if I'm kind of busy today."
"Mm-mm, these are some fine cheese!" said Willy Walrus.
"But where are the crackers?" asked W.T. Barker.
"Are we going to get something to drink or are these glasses just for decoration?" I asked, tilting one of said glasses a bit on the edge of it's base.
"I wanted everything to be perfect!" said Doctor Eggman, sounding distressed. "Quick, Cubot, go down to the basement and grab the good drinks, and Orbot, go to the store and pick up some crackers! Keep calm everyone!"
Both robots saluted before whirring off.
My communicator flashed red, and a figure blinked into the room, behind Doctor Eggman. That wasn't good. I quickly looked down at my communicator and looked at my Shutterbug feeds. They were buzzing around randomly, and I looked up and saw their charge, in the same room I was in.
"So this is why you called me here?" asked the figure behind Doctor Eggman.
I bolted up from my chair, dropping my remaining cheese cubes. My mind was screaming.
Code red, Code red, CODE RED!
Doctor Eggman gasped and dropped the board of cheeses he was holding.
"Shadow the Hedgehog!" he said breathlessly. "Hey everybody look!" he continued, turning his body to look at us. "Shadow's here!" He turned back to Shadow. "I knew springing for those embossed invitations would impress!"
I needed to get out of this, right now. Not knowing what else to do, I just started walking towards the exit, which unfortunately meant I'd have to pass Doctor Eggman and Shadow.
"Who's he?" asked one of the Weasel Bandits.
Doctor Eggman turned and saw me leaving.
"There Shadow, that white one is offering her chair to you!"
I couldn't help but scoff, but inwardly grimaced as Shadow narrowed his eyes at me.
"You're one of Sonic's new friends, aren't you?" said Shadow, uncrossing his arms. There was a slight change in his posture, and if my mind was screaming before, it was dying now. Doctor Eggman's lair was pretty much the only place in the entire village where I couldn't do anything against Shadow.
My brain rebooted and tried to decide whether to make a run for it, or try to stall long enough to get out of the situation. Shadow was too fast for me, so I had no choice but to answer.
"Friend, is a strong word," I said, trying to hedge. Sonic was absolutely one of my friends, but I'd say he was in last place as far as Team Sonic went. If I included other friends like Rabbit Girl or Zoey, he was lower than them too. He was still above Wild Cat or Ice Cream Cat though, so he had that going for him. Still, I wasn't above flat out lying so I could get out of this situation. "I was invited to this thing after all." Shadow just stared at me, the same scowl on his face. I glanced at Doctor Eggman, who also looked confused on what to do. "Doctor Eggman, this isn't going to work out and I got a thing, so I better get going."
"What, why now, when Shadow just got here?!" replied Doctor Eggman in a high pitched voice.
Somehow, Shadow's scowl deepened.
This is what I get for not being more paranoid, I thought to myself. I had contingencies for dealing with Shadow, even ones I could keep on my person to augment my abilities. But they were meant for Shadow specifically, not Doctor Eggman.
I was still thinking of what to say when Doctor Eggman saved me.
"Tell you what, since everyone's here, I'll give my speech and if you want to leave afterwards, you can go ahead?" It was insane how consolatory he was being just because Shadow was here. He was a huge fan of Shadow and wanted to impress him. Me leaving probably sent a bad signal.
But I hated Shadow. The only reason I wasn't insulting Shadow to his face right now was because Doctor Eggman's Lair was the only place I was completely vulnerable to him… then again… Sonic would save me if I called him. Still, I'd be hurt in the process.
"Fine," I said, my voice a little strained even though I tried to sound normal.
"Great!" said Doctor Eggman. He gestured to my empty seat. "Shadow, would you like a chair?"
"Hmph," said Shadow, finally turning his gaze away from me. "I prefer to stand."
"Great idea!" said Doctor Eggman. "I like to stand too!"
I rolled my eyes as Doctor Eggman then told everyone to stand, briefly meeting Shadow's eyes again as he gave a similar reaction. For that split second I almost forgot he was Shadow the Hedgehog, the most dangerous "neutral" character in this world. I just hoped I could get out of here as soon as possible, preferably in one piece.
I waited nervously as Doctor Eggman gave his real pitch, which was actually pretty short, and ended once again with saying that with his leadership and our blind loyalty, blah blah whatever. I kept glancing at Shadow through the corner of my eye through the pitch, and he'd given no reaction at any point, neither to what Doctor Eggman said or to me. When Doctor Eggman finished, he turned around and looked expectantly at Shadow, who continued to give no reaction.
"Okay Doctor Eggman," I butted in, causing both Shadow and Doctor Eggman to look at me. I kept a casual voice as I said, "Can I go now?"
"Yes," said Shadow, and my eyes widened, confused on if he was addressing me directly or not. I breathed a mental sigh of relief when he turned back to look at Doctor Eggman. "If even that pathetic fox knows you're a fool, I see no reason to suffer your presence any longer."
I wasn't even indignant. I just wanted to get out of here. If Shadow came at me when I wasn't in this lair, then he'd see how "pathetic" I really was.
Doctor Eggman chuckled nervously, his voice pack to it's odd higher pitch. "Don't listen to her, she just moonlights as a villain, what does she know?"
"More than you fools, apparently," said Shadow. It was extremely awkward to have Shadow agree with me in any capacity.
"But you haven't really given us a chance, I'd planned for us to bond over trust exercises before working together!"
"Work together?" asked Shadow. "If you're so weak that you need others helping you, you would only get in my way."
And with that, he finally teleported away. I glanced at Doctor Eggman, then at the other assembled villains.
"So, who was that again?" asked the same Weasel Bandit who asked the first time.
I ignored Doctor Eggman's anguish as I called Tails on my communicator.
"Hey Vanilla," said Tails sounding nervous and uncertain. "Your house is going… great… without you. There's nothing to worry about at all, so you should stay where you are and leave it to us." Well, that meant something was wrong. And I really didn't care.
"Nevermind that," I said. "Tails, I need you to do something really important for me."
Tails' voice changed, now sounding concerned. "What is it?"
"First, tell everybody to head to Amy's, there's an emergency I need to tell them about. Before they leave, take Sticks aside and tell her to activate Contingency Plan Number Two-Zero-Zero-One: Local Alien Sighting, Attack Eminent. If she needs more gumtree berry pies, there's a large stockpile in abandoned missile silo number four, she knows where that one is. When she's done, she can meet up with the others."
"Uh, what?" asked Tails.
"Then I need you to go to your workshop. Sorry, but I built a small secret lab underneath yours. You can access it by stomping on the north-western corner. My Chaos Crystals are there, and I need you to flip the switch next to the Shock Crystal when you get in. Take the Heart Crystal and then meet up with everyone at my and Amy's place."
I hung up on him and then swiped my screen a few times to locate the current Shutterbug footage. They'd located Shadow again, on top of a tall pine tree. I told one of the Shutterbugs to turn a bit to show me what he was looking at, and saw my friends talking concernedly with each other in the distance. I directed one of the Shutterbugs to keep track of my friends, and prioritise Sonic.
"Did you say Shock Crystal and Heart Crystal?" asked Doctor Eggman. I ignored him.
Shadow was observing my friends. Which meant he was planning an attack, or waiting for Doctor Eggman to attack. Or both.
"Doctor Eggman," said W. T. Barker. "Since you can't seem to keep everyone focused, I suggest we elect myself as the new leader of this little group. After all, I have vast experience in leading circuses of fools and stunt bears, and I am well versed in parliamentary procedure."
Charlie started to argue he was most qualified to lead due to his obviously superior strength, while one of the Weasel Bandits suggested himself, because Charlie couldn't even defeat that "dimwitted red one."
"Well, good luck with your friends Doctor Eggman," I said, as the room devolved into arguing. I ran towards the exit. I stopped as the door opened to say one last thing. "But I suggest you postpone this plan of yours. I'm not interested in playing games today."
As soon as I stepped foot on the island proper, I sent out a test pulse to the local Teleportation Guard. It took me a while to set that up, but Shadow's basic abilities were pretty easy to figure out once I managed to find and study the blue Chaos Crystal. The test came back positive. I'd need to hold out for it until Shadow decided to fight.
Double checking where Shadow and my friends were, I confirmed everyone was waiting at Amy's, and Shadow had followed them. I rushed over as fast as I could, getting increasingly tired, hot, and out of breath as I flew. Luckily I could fly pretty fast if I pushed myself, and I was there in less than a minute, deliberately bursting through a window so Shadow wouldn't see me enter the house.
"Vanilla!" Amy shouted as she stared, horrified at the broken window. "Why do you always do this!?"
"Sorry," I said, a bit absent-mindedly as I brushed myself off while I stood up. I looked around and saw Tails holding the red Chaos Crystal, looking concerned. Even Sonic and Knuckles looked a bit more worried than usual, while Sticks had already found time to paint herself with camo colours, and put a colander on her head with a few sticks and leaves on it. At least she knew what was up.
"Just so you know, we left your house kind of a mess," said Sonic.
"Not important right now," I said, and everybody just stared at me with surprised looks.
"Why don't you tell us what's going on?" suggested Amy. "What happened that's got you so serious?"
"It's aliens," said Sticks, totally serious. "Or at least one alien. Vanilla's really scared of him, so we've been helping each other out. I help her with her alien problem, she helps me with the mind reading rats trying to break into my treasure vault."
"So it's one of these?" said Sonic, in exasperation and relief. "Well, at least it's not something serious. You had us all worried!"
"Not serious!?" I asked, my voice going high pitched even to my ears. My body was tense, and I tried to calm myself down, but it didn't seem to work. "Shadow is the most dangerous person on this island! Maybe the whole world!"
"Wait, Shadow?" asked Sonic. The others gave me strange looks. "Since when is Shadow an alien?"
I looked at him, baffled.
"Well, he's only technically an alien," said Sticks, nodding to herself. Everyone turned to look at her for a change. "What?"
"You know what, that's not important," I said, and all heads turned back to me. "What's important is Shadow is dangerous, he's standing right outside this house, and I've been making multiple plans to deal with him for ages now."
"He's outside?" asked Amy.
"Plans?" asked Sonic.
"Why didn't you tell me about any of this?" asked Tails.
"Has anyone seen my glasses, I can't read without my glasses," said Knuckles, patting himself down as if he had pockets.
"Yes, yes, I did, and over there next to the TV remote," I said, answering the questions in order.
"You did?" asked Tails while Knuckles went to pick up his glasses.
"Yeah, I alluded to it several times," I said, and then I recounted some of the times I mentioned it to him.
I was in Tails' workshop, and held up a glass cylinder which glowed blue with an etherial light. He looked at it in fascination.
"This is a Chaos Drive, part of what I've trying to make with my research into Chaos Energy. They're artificial Ancient Crystals that can be used as powerful energy sources that mimic the energy given off by the Chaos Crystals! I've also worked on a Teleportation Guard, and advanced personal devices that can use them! Now that I have these, I can use the Chaos Crystals I do have to power my main defences in case of emergency!"
"I've been building more Shutterbugs lately," I said in reply to Tails' question. "There's someone who hangs out in a cave who's very dangerous and I want to keep tabs on him."
"Knuckles?" asked Tails.
"No not Knuckles," I said, shaking my head.
"Eeeeeggmaaaaaan?" Tails guessed, his voice drawn out and hesitant. I gave him an unimpressed look.
"No."
"The reason I made all those exploding gumtree berry pies is because I want Sticks to help me set up traps and safeguards all around the village and surrounding area, so that if Shadow the Hedgehog shows up to attack any of us, we'll have a chance to beat him," I explained to Tails, holding up one of the pies I made after the previous disaster with them. "I've gotten Sticks to help me with this, setting them up in places she thinks Shadow will trigger them."
"Ahuh," said Tails, working on his Aeroplane.
"Oh," said Tails, rubbing the back of his head with his right hand, embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess you did talk about it."
"I think we're getting a bit off track," said Amy, moving into the centre of the group. She turned to look at me. "So what if Shadow's here? I know he's… well, him, but that's not reason to be scared of him."
"Yeah, you're not scared of me are you?" asked Knuckles. "I'm stronger than everyone else here and I live in a cave!"
Sonic glanced at Knuckles and rolled his eyes, before joining Amy in the centre. "Look Vanilla, I get that Shadow's edgy, and he can be aggressive. But the one he doesn't like is me."
"He has contempt for you," I said, crossing my arms. "The rest of us are beneath even that."
Sonic smiled nervously.
"Just go out there and talk to him," said Amy, as if that would solve anything. "I'm sure despite any flaws he might have, he'll still listen to reason."
I sighed.
"Fine," I said pushing down the pool of fear that was building back up. I was out of Doctor Eggman's lair. I was almost confident Shadow couldn't beat me now.
"And if that doesn't work, the traps are activated!" said Sticks, giving me a thumbs up. I smiled at her and returned the gesture. At least one of them was taking this with the seriousness Shadow required!
I didn't need to double check Shadow's location once I left Amy's house. I knew the general direction to look, and I could see him. I did activate a few things on my communicator though.
Once I crossed the bridge off Amy's main property, my communicator vibrated in warning, and Shadow teleported behind me.
"It's nothing personal, kid," he said as I turned around, trying to exude an air of unconcern. Inside I was still screaming. Even though I knew I was as safe from him as I could be in such a situation, even though almost everything was already active, I was scared. But somewhere else there was a deep dislike, and I focused on that as Shadow continued, his arms crossed. "I don't know exactly who you are, but I know you're one of Sonic's pathetic friends. And now I know you've been spying on me." He gestured vaguely over my shoulder, where a Shutterbug likely was. He then returned his arms to their default position, folded over his chest. "And such aggression can not stand."
I ignored that. "I'm here to talk to you," I said. "First, my name is -,"
"Spare me your pointless drivel," he said, cutting me off. He uncrossed his arms, and held his fists up. "Prepare to meet your fate."
I sighed. So much for talking. "Alright," I said, hoping at all costs my fail safes would work. Tails was still uselessly holding my second Chaos Crystal in the middle of Amy's house, instead of putting it where it needed to go.
He teleported away again and my communicator vibrated in warning. I turned around only for convenience, as he then teleported in front of me and seemed to fuzz when he reappeared, stumbling back. He tried again, and again I turned around to face him, and again he fuzzed back in and stumbled, this time falling to the ground. He was standing back up in a flash, a menacing scowl on his face.
"What is this?" he asked.
It was a personal Offensive Teleportation Guard. But I didn't tell him that. He was trying to teleport immediately behind me so he could land a sucker punch, but if he tried to teleport too close, the Guard would push him out of its field before he fully reappeared. I was pretty sure it was painful.
"Want a pie?" I asked.
"What?" he practically snarled. And yet, he still seemed composed.
"Pie," I said, and took a step back before landing my fist on one of the fence posts to the bridge across Amy's pond. It was secretly a button, and I stepped to the side and took cover as a pie flew past me, splatting Shadow in the face with an instant explosion.
As the dust cleared, I saw Shadow quickly stand back up, scowling even harder. I didn't think that was possible.
Behind me, the door to Amy's house opened, and my friends came out, including Tails, still holding the red Chaos Crystal.
"Get back inside!" I shouted, panic rising. I pointedly looked at Tails and then the Chaos Crystal he was holding. "That goes in my room, it'll be obvious where, even if it's not all finished yet! And I also have new communicators for everyone. That includes you Sticks!"
"I hate technology!" she screamed at me.
"It's just for fighting Shadow!" I yelled back, jumping to the side as Shadow teleported behind me again, just outside the Offensive Teleportation Guard. With advanced warning from my communicator, I could just react in time. I rolled, already starting to overhead but trying to keep myself from panting.
Sonic rushed in to help but both me and Shadow reacted.
"Do what I said and get back inside!" I yelled.
At the same time, Shadow said to Sonic, "Stay out of this, fool, I'll deal with you later."
Immediately after Shadow jumped into a spin attack, and my personal force field activated, a hollow cylinder of crystallised chaos energy.
"Tails, I really need you to do what I said!" I said, desperately trying not to lose myself in panic as the others rushed in, ignoring both of us.
I had a limited number of uses that my communicator could use before it ran out of energy. Basically, three of anything active and taxing. Three shields, or three Chaos Controls. In total. That was one down. Unlike Shadow, I couldn't just do whatever I wanted.
"Meddlesome fools," said Shadow, ignoring me and spindashing towards Amy, who held her hammer high. He was just about to hit her when Sonic hit him from the side with his own spindash, knocking him away. Knuckles rushed forward but Shadow recovered instantly and was able to dodge his heavy punch, his fist crashing into the ground causing the earth to shake around us. One of the pie traps sprung from that, and Sticks dodged it in time, letting it hit Shadow. Unfortunately, only me and Sticks knew it was coming and were able to get to cover, causing not just Shadow, but Amy, Knuckles, and Sonic to be blown away. Tails stood at the door to Amy's house, having not engaged, his mouth hanging open like he was entirely confused. Then he shook his head rapidly, and finally went back inside with the Chaos Crystal.
"I have had it with these damn pies!" yelled Shadow, finally losing his temper. To my complete surprise, he suddenly started to glow red, floating a little off the ground. The red grew into an aura of energy, and my eyes widened as he thrust his hands up and launched seven bolts of red energy.
"Watch out everyone, that's Chaos Spear!" said Sonic, running over to help Amy up from the explosion.
Chaos Spear? Since when could this Shadow use that? My contingencies didn't plan for that. This was unfair! I watched, dumbly as one of the red energy bolts arched through the air and bent directly towards me. They were fast, but not so fast I didn't have time to think for a second and react. I had to decide, roll out of the way and overheat myself more, or Chaos Control and waste one of my charges.
I rolled, only to realise another bolt was coming from the other side. In desperation I activated Chaos Control, an ability I built into my communicator, and teleported further out, thinking to draw Shadow away from my friends. They'd all dodged the Chaos Spears, some with the help of Sonic, but clearly I'd underestimated Shadow, even with all my contingencies. I hadn't seen everything he could do, and he could still beat me because of it. And my friends were even more defenceless.
That was, until Shadow teleported just outside of my Offensive Teleport Guard again, ignoring my friends, while at the same time my communicator gave a chirp that told me it was fully charged again. That could only mean one thing.
"Guys, you won't believe what Vanilla made!" said Tails, running out of Amy's house and holding up five communicators. My communicators. That had my upgrades installed.
I teleported away, further into the forest, away from my friends and the village.
Originally I didn't have so many new communicators. But when I'd gotten the second Chaos Crystal, I had access to so much more power than before, and didn't have to rely on Chaos Drives that would eventually wear out. My communicators were meant specifically to deal with Shadow, or what I knew of him at least. And that meant both copying, and defending against, his Chaos Control and his aggressive, serious attacks. It all drew a lot of power, but with a second Chaos Crystal… both the contingencies, and the communicators could be powered indefinitely.
"You absolute faker!" shouted Shadow, angrier now than he had been when my friends had jumped in. "You dare steal my abilities!?" I just kept teleporting, luring him deeper into the nest of traps Sticks had helped me set up. Once far enough in, and far enough away from Shadow, I selected one of the broad contingencies I'd set up and activated it. Shadow fell over, as his Chaos Control failed. He stood up, and probably tried again but there was no visible sign.
"What is this?" he asked, looking at his hands as if they'd failed him somehow. Then he picked his head up and glared at me. "I am going to-", he began, but was cut off when he stepped forward and his foot stepped on a buried Gumtree Berry Pie. He exploded again, thrown upwards into a vine trap that wrapped him in thorny vines. I stood where I was, watching as he immediately broke himself out, but not in time for the two large wooden mallets to come crashing together, with him in between.
The mallets cracked, revealing Shadow who seemed unharmed, but plopped down on the ground in a clear daze. He then exploded again.
Eventually he landed in a deep pit trap. Hesitant, I teleported to it and peered inside, seeing Shadow wobbling on his feet for a moment, before falling on his back. He saw me looking at him, and he slowly reached his hand out to me.
"You…," he said, his voice faint. "I'm going to… end you…." He closed his eyes, and his arm flopped onto his chest as he fell unconscious.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Despite whatever unknown and shocking abilities Shadow could pull out of his hat, I'd beat him. I was safe. Now I just had to find a way to get rid of him. Then I'd be safe for good.
Before I could fly down and grab his unconscious body, my communicator beeped. An actual call was coming in from Tails, I wasn't being attacked!
"We're being attacked!" said Tails as soon as I answered.
"What?" I asked, glancing at Shadow's unconscious form. He twitched, and I flinched, worrying that he wouldn't stay down for long. "Shadows unconscious."
"Not Shadow!" replied Tails. "Eggman attacked my workshop, and he's working with every other villain in the village!"
That didn't make sense. The defensive contingencies should stop Doctor Eggman just as much as Shadow. And why would Doctor Eggman attack Tails' Workshop of all places? Why wasn't he attacking Sonic?
Oh I thought, realising. That was not good. I teleported away, leaving Shadow in the pit.
When I finally appeared at Tails' Workshop, it was still surrounded by the energy dome I'd set up to prevent Shadow from getting anywhere near it, should he have discovered the Chaos Crystal.
My friends were huddled together in front of the dome, backs to each other, surrounded by Doctor Eggman's robots. Doctor Eggman himself was gloating, flanked by W.T. Barker's stunt bears, who were balancing on top of Ball Bots instead of their usual balls. Glancing further afield, the Chamelian was perched on the path towards my house under construction, signalling with flags to the combatants on the ground. Charlie was doing something with the dome, and Dave and the rest of the Lightningbolt Society were nowhere to be found. I grit my teeth, realising that there was a large hole to be found, which meant they were trying to dig under the dome, at the same time as Charlie was weakening it.
"Eggman!" I shouted. Only then did the others notice I had arrived. Eggman himself turned around, still hovering in his Eggmobile. He continued to laugh.
"Why, if it isn't Vanilla!" he said, just as the energy dome fizzled for a moment. I didn't take my eyes off Eggman. "A shame you didn't join us, then we wouldn't have had to go through this whole rigmarole! Plus, we would have had an even number of participants for the trust fall exercise!"
"Eggman," I repeated, less loud but still forceful. I stepped closer, the stunt bears and robots still focused on my friends. "You've interrupted me when I was doing something important. I told you I didn't want to play today."
"Who's playing?" asked Eggman, just as the dome fell. Damn. That wasn't great. "Even with just one Chaos Crystal, I could power my machines to untold efficiency, and finally defeat you mangy meddling muskrats!"
"Good alliteration, Eggman," said Amy still not attacking. "But don't think you've won yet!"
"I cannot believe you've let yourself get into this position against these pathetic losers!" I said, turning my gaze towards Sonic. "You have my communicators, this should have been a cakewalk!"
"That's a bit harsh, isn't it?" asked Eggman just as Willy Walrus ran out of Tails' Workshop, followed by Dave and the Weasel Bandits. Before reaching Sonic and the others, Dave threw some hamburgers ahead towards Eggman, while Willy threw the Shock Crystal over Sonic and the others. They jumped, trying to grab it, but were stopped as they all hit Dave's burgers instead, getting knocked down to the ground. Eggman caught the crystal, grinning. "After all, these losers just won!"
I looked back at Sonic. "Well?" I repeated.
"Aren't these just for Shadow?" asked Tails.
I growled to myself, then turned back to Eggman. "Put the crystal back, and I won't grind you all into dust."
Eggman's grin faltered for a moment, and he chuckled nervously. His little minions, sans the Chameleon, started to gather around him, ignoring my friends.
"Uh, Vanilla?" Amy said, her voice sounding a bit shaky. "You're kind of worrying me. There's no need to be so -"
"I wasn't talking to you," I said, and Amy winced. I continued to look at Eggman, who hovered a few inches back when I took a step forward.
After a few moments, he re-composed himself, shaking his head and plastering a stupid grin back on his face. "There's what, thirteen of us, and one of you? That's not counting my robot minions!"
Eggman had taken the Shock Crystal, the one powering the anti-Shadow contingencies placed in and around the village. The Heart Crystal should still be in my room, powering the new communicators. So this wouldn't even be hard. Even if they'd already taken the other crystal, I could still take the Chaos Drives in the others' communicators for extra power. It's not like they were using them.
I pulled out my staff and extended it without a word. I began a heavy thrust, then teleported in front of Charlie, high enough that my bo staff was now aiming for his face. I hit him in the eye just as he tried to fire a beam from his suit's claws. He yelled out in pain, and his misfired beam hit Wiley, knocking him down. I teleported in between the two stunt bears, knelt down, and then thrust each end of my staff into the Ball Bots they were riding before teleporting to Dave. My teleportation took the Ball Bots with me, and the stunt bears fell flat on their faces as I crashed both Ball Bots into Dave's head. I took an instant to glance at my communicator's charge, confirming that the Heart Crystal was where Tails had left it, and then teleported back to Charlie, who was still stumbling in pain. I touched his suit's leg, teleported him in front of the group of Weasel Bandits, then tripped him so he would fall on top of them. I quickly jumped on his suit and slammed my bo into his head, breaking his glasses and knocking him out.
A quick survey saw only W.T. Barker and the Chameleon left, not counting Eggman. I started to fly with my tails, teleporting behind the Chameleon, wrapping my arms around him, and taking him up in the air with me. He started to yell in panic, trying to break my grip. I teleported back, appearing high above Barker, letting go of the Chameleon just as he realised he was much higher than he had been before. He landed directly on top of Barker, upside down, his stupid tree costume the only thing breaking his fall.
I didn't teleport after that, instead choosing to land normally in between Eggman and my friends, still surrounded by his robots. At any time, my friends could have joined in and beaten the robots while I dealt with the mooks. I was kind of annoyed they hadn't. It was all just so easy when you could teleport. I didn't even feel too hot.
Eggman just hovered in his Eggmobile, an uncharacteristic look of worry on his face.
"Not playing," I repeated, holding out my left hand as I held my staff with my right. "The crystal, Eggman."
"Okay," he replied, an odd strain on his voice I couldn't quite place. "Just… please don't hurt me." He dropped the crystal and it landed on the ground in front of him. I let down my hand as his robots moved away from my friends, practically fleeing back behind Eggman.
"Tails, take the -"
"That was not cool," I heard Sonic say behind me.
Bewildered, I turned around. I frowned, noticing everyone's faces. They all looked at me with mixtures of anger and disappointment. Except for Tails, who was looking away with his eyes closed.
"What?" I asked.
Before any of them could answer, my communicator flashed red, and I had to whip around back to Eggman, who was in the process of slowly hovering away. Shadow appeared just next to him, and my heartrate sped up in fear as I saw him carrying the red Chaos Crystal.
"Shadow!" said Eggman, sounding relieved. "Glad to see you, think you could help a buddy out and save me from her?" He pointed at me. "I see you already got the other Chaos Crystal she had, you can keep them both if -"
"Cease your panicked prattle," said Shadow, dropping the Heart Crystal next to the Shock Crystal. "I do not need these cheap toys, and you and your idiotic group are even more pathetic than I'd thought to have lost to this single fox, even if she was stealing my power."
"Right," said Eggman. "Whatever you say Shadow, so if you don't mind, I'll just be leaving." He started to hover backwards, and once he saw nobody was doing anything to stop him, he turned around and flew away, his robots trailing behind.
"It seems I've underestimated you… whatever your name is," said Shadow. "Even if you are a faker and a thief, hiding behind tricks, you dispatched these morons with ruthless efficiency. I approve."
My eyes widened. Aside from the fear, I suddenly felt a dull pain wrap itself around my chest. I almost dropped my staff as I stumbled back slightly. More than the way Doctor Eggman had reacted to me, more than my friends obvious disappointment, Shadow's approval tore through my recent actions so thoroughly that I couldn't avoid hating myself in that moment.
"Still," said Shadow, taking a step forward. "You will pay for what you've done." Panic, true panic, gripped me then. Both my Chaos Crystals were on the ground, useless. My contingencies were off. My communicators only had their Chaos Drives for power, limiting their use. Most importantly, I'd disappointed my friends. I'd disappointed myself. I couldn't expect them to have my back, not after how I'd just acted. I'd be lucky if I still had them at all after this. Even Tails… he couldn't even look at me.
"Guys," I said, taking a step back. I heard my voice crack. "I know I… let everyone down. But this last time, could you all please help -"
I stopped talking as I bumped into someone. I turned my head, seeing it was Amy. Beside her, beside me, were the others. I blinked, genuinely surprised to see them, and only then realised I was crying.
"We understand," said Amy, gently pushing me back forward. "You're scared of Shadow. And we didn't take that seriously."
Shadow gave a sound that was almost a chuckle. "She should be."
"No," said Sonic. "She shouldn't. Because if you're threatening her, we have her back."
"More sentimental friendship," said Shadow. He looked at me. "And here I thought you had more spine than these others. But, for once, I was wrong. I can admit that. You're just as weak as the rest of them. Maybe even weaker. After all, I've never seen any of them cry."
I was afraid of Shadow. But there was always something else that partnered with that fear, something else that made me act the way I had. And even if Shadow wasn't going to care, I needed my friends to really understand. If they didn't understand, they couldn't really forgive me.
"I'm not just afraid of you," I said, wiping my eyes with my free hand. Shadow stopped walking a few feet from us, surprisingly listening. "I hate you. I think your very presence offends the sensibilities of this world."
"I suppose it does," said Shadow, as if I'd complimented him. "This world is, after all, weak and pathetic. It is inhabited by clowns who can't protect themselves, weak fools who stand as easy prey to weak jesters with a few tricks."
"Are jesters stronger than clowns?" asked Knuckles. I almost laughed.
"Then why are you here?" I asked instead. The question seemed to puzzle Shadow, and I pressed on. "I've been watching you for ages now. You spend most of your time alone, brooding in a cave. The one time I see you come out, it's to fight Sonic. But why do you even care?"
"Because he is weak," said Shadow, raising a fist. "Pathetic. An insult to all hedgehog kind!"
"Amy's a hedgehog," I pointed out. "Why don't you vow her destruction? We're all weaker than Sonic, after all."
"Uh, can you not bring me into this?" asked Amy. "Or insult me?"
"She is beneath notice," said Shadow. "More importantly, she is only Sonic's friend. A symbol of Sonic's weakness."
"Friends are a strength, not a weakness," I said.
"He doesn't get that," said Sonic. "Don't waste your breath telling him."
"Only weak people need friends!" said Shadow, his voice rising.
"Then I ask again, why do you care? Fine, we all agree, you're the strongest one here and you don't need friends. Why do you need to bother us about it?"
"Because your weakness corrupts!" said Shadow. "The world is weak enough as it is, this complete lack of concern for strength only puts everything at risk!"
"But why care?" I repeated. "You don't have any friends. There s nothing in this world that concerns you because you're so above it all. What does it matter to you, how weak the world is, so long as you are strong?"
"I do not need friends! Because I am strong!"
This conversation was going nowhere, I could tell. At least… not from this angle. I'd never really thought about it before, but why did he care? Honestly when I thought about it, his motivations didn't make any sense. It was part of why I hated him, I realised.
"Are you… jealous?" I asked.
"Jealous?" he replied, scowling. "Why would I be jealous of you fools."
"Us fools, huh? Not that fool, Sonic?"
Shadow clenched his fists, but didn't say anything, nor did he attack. I decided to press on.
"I think you're actually… bored. It makes sense, most of the time you don't do anything. Maybe in the past you found you couldn't connect with anybody, so now you don't even try. It's safer that way."
"You know nothing!" he shouted, taking a step forward. I fought the urge to step back, relying on my friends to protect me if things really fell apart here.
"Careful," whispered Tails in my ear, so low even I could barely hear it. My ear involuntary flicked from his breath "I know you think you understand everyone, but you've made mistakes before."
"I don't know everything about your past," I said, speaking slower, more carefully, trying not to sound accusing. "But I know some things. I can infer others. 'The Ultimate Lifeform'. That's a lot to live up to. Must have been hard."
I waited for a reaction, but only got a deep scowl and barely restrained hostility. So I continued with a gamble.
"Was Maria not there for you?"
That got a reaction. Shadow took a few steps forward, fists raised, looking absolutely livid, and I could hear everybody behind me settle into a fighting stance. But I could tell even then that Shadow wasn't going to attack us.
And sure enough, he stopped approaching, only arms width away.
"This conversation is over," he said. "Stay out of my way."
All of our communicators flashed red, pointing in the direction Shadow was already at, as he teleported away and out of sight. Behind me, I heard a collective sigh of relief.
"That was real gutsy," said Sticks as I turned around to face my friends. "Pulling out the Maria card."
I didn't understand how Sticks even knew who Maria was. I was kinda surprised Shadow knew who Maria was.
"I'm just glad things didn't break out into a fight," said Amy. "See, I knew you could just talk to him."
There was a loud groan coming from the distance, and I turned, confused, until I saw the Chameleon roll off of W. T. Barker, before going still again.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "Maybe we should uh, do something about these guys."
"We?" asked Amy, putting her hands on her hips. "You went way too far with them, you should apologise! You know, once they get out of the hospital which they clearly need."
"Yeah I guess I should," I said, looking down at the ground, feeling ashamed. I hated Shadow so much, I ended up becoming just like him. Maybe even worse.
"We should probably do something about those though," said Tails, pointing at the two Chaos Crystals still lying on the ground.
"Uh, yeah," I said, picking my head back up. "I still want to keep them. If nothing else, I wouldn't have to worry about my house's electric bill with one."
Everybody suddenly looked extremely awkward.
"What's wrong?" I asked, before remembering. "Oh yeah, you said something was wrong with my house, but I was too focused on Shadow to care. What's wrong?"
"Well, maybe it's not so bad?" said Amy, as Tails went to grab the Chaos Crystals.
"We might as well show her," said Sonic. "Let's go."
We'd made a path up from Tails' House and Workshop, to where the mountain got snowy and my house was being built. Once we got far enough along and my house came into view, I immediately saw the problem. I stopped walking, and frowned.
"How is this possible?" I asked, turning to Amy, who had the decency to look sheepish. What was supposed to be a normal island-style house, wooden, round, with the only difference being a metal roof and window frames, looked more like a bad modern art sculpture than anything else. Which was insane, as I'd left it looking like a regular house! "I wasn't gone for more than an hour."
"I thought your house could use a bit of flair, and I might have gotten carried away," explained Amy.
"I should have left the white hat with Tails!" I said. "He can read blueprints!"
"Well, I did follow Amy's updated blueprints to the best of my ability," said Tails, halfway between proud and ashamed.
I heard a loud creak coming from the "house", and as I turned back to look, it suddenly collapsed into a pile of splintered wood and dust. All eyes turned back to him.
"Hey, Amy's the one who drew up the blueprints, I just followed them!" he said defensively.
"Your job was wiring and electrical!" I said. The rubble suddenly sparked and burst into flames.
"This isn't the first time you've started a house fire, buddy," said Sonic.
Tails chuckled nervously and looked over to me, before scratching the back of his head.
I felt a sudden burst of affection for him at that moment, I couldn't help but grab him, kiss him on the cheek, and squeeze him in a big hug.
"Can't breath," he said, but he didn't sound too worried about it.
"I was such a jerk today, I'm just glad you guys are still my friends," I said, before letting Tails go.
"It'll take more than that to ruin our friendship," said Knuckles. "It's not like you did anything really bad. You were just a jerk. A horrible, terrible, almost irredeemably evil jerk." I winced at every descriptor.
"Is anybody out there!" called a familiar voice, echoing over the mountain. It was faint, coming from far away. "I can't get up!" I realised it was W. T. Barker.
"Let's uh," I began, nervous again. "Let's go take those guys to the hospital. I'm sure they'll be fine after a nice rest"
"I've got to ask," said Sonic, as we set off back down the path to Tails' house. "Ignoring Chaos Control, you still took those guys out way too easily. Have you been sandbagging this whole time?"
"Teleporting is a real force multiplier," I said, deliberately dodging the question. "It's seriously unfair, and I'd have gotten tired and overheated myself without Chaos Control. I think even Shadow wouldn't be that strong without it."
"I think my legs are broken!" called out Barker, and we all quickened our pace. "Please, I'm in so much pain!"
- Location
- Argentina
Well she is right to be scared, Boom! Shadow is both evil and powerful and the most dangerous person in the planet.
Damn, Vanilla is effective as a villain
Ozymandias
I HATE
I dunno, I kind of think her friends are overreacting.
Though it's totally inline with the nature of Boom for them to feel that way about it.
Shadow really is a serious anomaly in that world.
(Also, thank you again for deciding to continue this story. I missed it.)
Though it's totally inline with the nature of Boom for them to feel that way about it.
Shadow really is a serious anomaly in that world.
(Also, thank you again for deciding to continue this story. I missed it.)
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- Location
- Argentina
Yeah a "villain" that just defeated bad guys.
Sure she may have gone too far on them but allowing any version of Doctor Eggman to get the Chaos Emeralds tends to be a bad idea.