Audio Book Format with Voice Actors: https://youtu.be/YmA2KMQq37M

Shadow didn’t need to be in school. He knew this stuff like the back of his hand. The only reason he was attending was because it helped kill boredom in between waiting for missions from GUN or getting into fights. It was a strange concept but what else was he to do? Nothing sparked his interest outside of riding his bike but it wasn’t like he could just do that all day, every day. At least this way he was close to the gang should anything pop up.

As the teacher droned on about equations, Shadow was letting his mind drift. Why was he still here? Not here as in school but here as in…alive. The reason for his creation was gone decades ago and the Black Arms aliens were defeated. There didn’t seem to be any kind of real purpose to his existence anymore. Sure, there was GUN but that wasn’t really fulfilling. Working for the military? Ok but is that all he was to be? A special agent? On occasion he helped Sonic fight Eggman’s attempts to taking over the planet and other evildoers that popped up. Fighting was Shadow’s strongest talent but he still felt hollow. Something was missing.

Crossing his arms over his desk, Shadow sat his chin down and gazed onward. He had wondered if taking his own life would allow him to be with Maria once more. It could work. It certainly would eliminate his problem of what he should be doing with himself. However, what would Maria think if he did that? Would she be happy to see him, or would she be upset? She was a pacifist and loved life. Here he was living and he was contemplating ending it because he was rutterless and, well, lonely.

“(Maria…)” Shadow whispered to himself. It had become a ritual for self-comfort.

Hearing this, Sonic quirked an eye and turned to Shadow. It sounded like his rival said someone’s name but he didn’t quite catch it.

Noticing that Shadow didn’t appear to be engaged with the class, the teacher called out to him from the front of the classroom, “And what is the answer to the problem I have here on the blackboard, Shadow?”

Seated in the back row of the class, Shadow closed his eyes with annoyance and answered without missing a beat, “Twenty-five.”

There was a pause of silence from the teacher. Maybe he was paying attention, after all? Either that or a good guess. Then again, Shadow was a highly intelligent student. He never did homework but aced all the tests. His grades would be a lot higher if he gave half a crap. Every teacher who cared hated seeing a student with a lot of potential just waste it. She had tried motivating Shadow to try harder, but he wasn’t budging.

“That’s…correct,” she finally replied and turned back to the blackboard with a chalk stick in hand, “Ok, class, let’s go over how that answer was acquired.”

“Show off…” Knuckles mumbled. He was never one for book smarts and had a difficult time with certain classes. Yet there was Shadow, not doing anything but the bare minimum and knew all the answers. What gives? How did he know all this stuff?

When classes ended, Sonic and his friends picked up the younger members of their group from the elementary school. Altogether the group was over a dozen members. There were Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Shadow, Rouge, Cream, Silver, Blaze, Big, Mighty, Espio, Vector, Charmy, Omega and Fang. However, Charmy and Omega have been absent.

Sonic folded his hands behind his head and looked up at the clear blue sky between the tall buildings of Station Square. There were only a few white, puffy clouds in the sky. The weather was beautiful! That was the best part about autumn. Temperatures dropped from being crazy hot. This opened opportunity to do outdoor stuff.

Behind him, Sonic could hear everyone trying to figure out what activity they should do today. It was Friday so there was no school for a couple of days.

“We could go to the mall,” Amy suggested in a jovial tone as she walked slightly behind Sonic.

Shadow had one of his ear buds in, listening to a song. One ear remained open to listen to everyone but it just seemed like the usual mindless drivel to him. It didn’t matter where they went or what they did, Shadow would just spend the time brooding off to the side anyway. He kept his hands shoved in his jacket pockets as he walked at the front next to Sonic. His red eyes weren’t looking at anything in particular as he let his mind drift with the song he was listening to: “Some days, I pray, someone will blow me away. Make it quick, but let it burn…So I can feel my life fade…”

“What about a slumber party?” Cream asked with bright eyes, “We haven’t done one in a while.”

Tails beamed with a smile, “Oooo, I like that idea! And I got a new sleeping bag, too. It’s Hello Doggy.”

“I would love to see it!”

“Oh, you’ll love it! It’s got Hello Doggy running through the forest with his friends!”

Then the small girl tugged on Amy’s dress, “Can we have a slumber party at your house, Miss Amy?”

“Sorry, we can’t,” Amy replied, “My apartment’s pretty small and doesn’t have room for everyone.”

Mighty raised his hand and pointed to Vector from over top of Espio’s head, “If we do a slumber party, I suggest Vector’s house this time. It has the most space.”

The last time they held a slumber party, it was at Mighty’s house and it was a tight fit. Real tight. Especially with the young children running to and fro. Three rooms had to be used to accommodate everyone when it was time to sleep and it was still cramped. Vector’s living room was massive and could hold everyone with room to spare. They couldn’t use his home previously as there were renovations going on at the time. Which reminded a certain ninja…

“Vector, did you pay the rent for the office?” Espio asked.

“Ah, well, er… Not yet,” Vector rubbed the back of his head and avoided eye contact with his coworker.

“How can you afford to renovate your home when we couldn’t afford rent for the office?” Espio continued.

Vector shrugged, “Well I had to renovate. You saw what that busted pipe did to the first floor. It was kind of important to take care of that.”

Espio narrowed his eyes, “I know for a fact that renovation was more than just water damage repairs. Did you take advantage of the insurance company?”

Vector smiled and puffed his chest with pride, “When you’re a skilled businessman, you know how to work the system in your favour.”

“If you were such a good businessman, then why don’t you work on getting business for the detective agency?”

The smile dropped from Vector’s face, “You really know how to take the wind out of a guy’s sails, Espio…”

Mighty snickered. He wasn’t part of the detective business but still, The Chaotix remained the group he felt the closest with. “Let’s not fight, guys. The important thing is Vector’s home isn’t wrecked anymore.”

Feeling excited once more, a smile returned to Vector’s face, “I can’t wait to show you guys! It looks so nice now.”

“Got a new tv, right?”

“Yep! Sure did. Bigger one, too.”

“Niiiiiiiiiice. Looking forward to seeing it.”

Like Vector, Rouge was a little older than the majority of the gang so she didn’t attend classes. Most of her time was dedicated to doing missions for GUN or running her club. Walking next to Shadow, she wrapped her hand around his bicep with a smile, “So, how did your day go?”

Shadow frowned and shifted his eyes away from her, raising his arm to remove the woman’s hand from him. Why was everyone so intent on touching him?

He wasn’t answering her question, so Rouge tried another approach, “Have you heard from Omega?”

“No, I haven’t.”

It was a relief he was finally speaking but Rouge wasn’t liking the answer. “I wonder why he hasn’t contacted either one of us?”

Shadow shrugged a shoulder, “Who knows…”

“You guys didn’t have a fight, did you?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Hey Cream, how’s your mom?” Vector asked the small girl.

Blissfully unaware of what the detective was up to, Cream donned a polite smile and answered his question, “She’s just fine, Mr Vector. Thank you for asking.”

“Vector!” Espio shouted. He knew exactly what his coworker was trying to do, “Behave yourself!”

“What? I wasn’t doing anything bad,” Vector feigned innocence.

“Leave the kid alone,” Mighty jumped in to back up Espio on this one. It was one thing to feel attraction towards Vanilla but he didn’t feel it was right to try to use Cream.

“I want to hit the beach before it gets too cold,” Silver said. It had been a long time since he got to go to Emerald Coast. Eggman kept everyone busy during the summertime so there was no time for recreation. The would-be tyrant had been quiet for a little while so maybe now they could travel for fun.

Big smiled upon hearing the word beach. “I like fishing,” he remarked slowly, “So does Froggy.”

Maybe if enough people wanted to go to the beach, Silver could get his wish. Silver elbowed Big’s side gently, “You could fish at the beach. Emerald Coast is a great fishing spot, I bet.”

Big nodded his head, “Mmhmm…. The ocean has all kinds of good fish.”

Putting a finger to her bottom lip, Amy tilted her head back to look up at the sky in thought, “That’s not a bad idea. The beach would be nice.”

Blaze rubbed her chin in thought, “Hmmm… It’s still warm out so the breeze will feel nice.”

Silver’s eyes lit up. Were more people liking his idea of the beach? He turned to Blaze with a smile, “Yeah? You wanna go to the beach, too, Blaze?”

The blue-haired leader of the gang elbowed his black-haired rival, “How about you, Shads?”

Shadow scowled at Sonic for the silly nickname and the physical contact. There somebody went, touching him again. A quick glance to get the message across that the interaction was unwanted then Shadow turned away. Sonic sighed but shrugged it off. Of course. As always, Shadow was unwilling to interact with anyone. Sonic donned a smile anyway, not letting Shadow’s mood ruin his own, “Yeah, I could go for the beach. I could use some relaxation after that brutal science test.”

Reminded of the test, Knuckles’ shoulders drooped, “I hope I passed it. The periodic table has so much stuff in there… How do they expect anyone to be able to remember all that?”

“To be fair,” Amy began, “They did kind of just spring that on us with no time for preparation.”

“I heard they were trying to speed things up this year,“ Blaze added, “Like the superintendent is trying to impress some big shot or something.”

“They know we’re human, right? And not robots?” Knuckles asked.

“Makes you wonder…” Sonic said flatly with a frown, “Sometimes I feel like the curriculum was being written by Eggman.”

Amy crinkled her nose, “Ew! Can you imagine if he was the principal?”

“Got a failing grade on a test? Off to the roboticizer you go!” Sonic swung him arm forward, pointing ahead with an exaggerated displeased expression on his face.

Rouge called out, waving her hand to the rest of the gang, “Hey, guys! Hold on a second.”

Everyone came to a stop and turned their attention to Rouge who was pointing to some tvs in a store display window. On the screen was a red-haired newscaster with a smaller image of Dr Eggman in the top left corner. The name “Scarlet Garcia” displayed at the bottom. “What do you suppose Eggy’s up to now?” Rouge asked.

Sonic folded his hands behind his head as he shrugged his shoulders, “Nothing good as always. Same crud, different day.”

“Earlier today, it was discovered that Dr Eggman took a trip to the Space Colony Ark,” the newscaster could be heard saying. This piqued Shadow’s interest. He narrowed his eyes and pulled out the tiny speaker from his ear. Indeed… Why has the doctor travelled to my old home?

Sonic rolled his eyes at the news and scoffed, “Ugh… Again? Didn’t he learn last time that it won’t work? He needs to just give it up.”

“Reporter Johnson was on the scene earlier and managed to catch a short clip when Dr Eggman landed back on Earth. Can we roll that clip, please?”

The screen changed and showed an image of Dr Eggman supervising his two henchbots carrying what looked like a capsule of some sort. The robots were complaining about the weight of the item and seemed to be having trouble managing it. The tube wobbled side to side as Orbot and Cubot carried the object. Eggman hushed them and commanded them to continue while being careful to not drop the item. Then he looked over his shoulder and saw the cameraman. The clip went black after Dr Eggman put his hand over the lens and told the news crew to buzz off.

The tv screen changed back to Scarlet seated at her desk, “Johnson and his team said they saw a girl inside that tube.”

Amy’s eyes widened and she raised her hand to her mouth, “A girl?”

Blaze shook her head, “Why would a girl have been on that space station? I thought it was abandoned.”

Fang scratched his temple with the tip of his pop gun and raised a brow. None of this was making any sense. He knew little about the story with the old space station beyond what was on the news. But that was two years ago and he only half paid attention to it.

Scarlet went on, “Between the accounts of Johnson’s team and analysts, we were able to uncover more information. There was, indeed, a girl inside that thing and there was evidence of a gunshot wound on her back. We don’t know if Dr Eggman made the injury or someone else. One thing is for sure, that girl is critically injured and needs medical attention right away. If anyone has any information- “

At this point, Sonic had his arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face, “Oh man… That’s not good.”

Amy turned to Sonic, “That poor girl… What is Eggman thinking?? She could die!”

“We’re gonna do something about this, right?” Mighty asked with his right hand balled into a fist, eager to help anyone who was in trouble.

Knuckles turned to Sonic, “Didn’t the reporter say something about the Space Colony Ark?”

"Yeah, she did, actually. I wonder if Shadow-" Sonic was turning to where Shadow had stood to inquire if he knew anything about what was going on. The Space Colony Ark was his territory. Alas, the dark one was no longer there. He had already disappeared.

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