As the night wears on and it gets really late, everyone begins to leave Sonic`s home to return to their own. A couple of the teens volunteer to walk Cream and Charmy home. Even if the Babylonians are temporarily out of commission, it still is unsafe for the young children to wander the city alone at night.

Each person parts off in their respective direction to their home, with the exception of those who are walking the children home and Shadow who is walking Amy home.

As usual, Shadow retains his haughty posture and keeps his eyes forward but is fully aware of all things around him. Amy`s posture is in great contrast to his. She has her hands folded behind her back.

She is thinking about Tails and his condition though she knows he will recover fine. He actually isn`t all that bad off. The Babylonians were much kinder to him this time. But she knows that they will want revenge. She had seen the look Jet gave Shadow as Shadow passed him by at the competition. Will they be planning to go after Shadow now? If they do, what are they going to do to him? Jet is particularly known for being a hot-head and getting angry over little things. Wave will back him up right away and Storm certainly won`t miss out on a fight.

Amy sighs and looks up at the visible stars. Her sigh catches Shadow`s attention and his turns his head to the side to look at her. It is a nice night out. The air definitely hints at how winter is quickly approaching. Soon, Amy will have to begin wearing her coat. Actually, she has to buy a new coat. The one she once had was torn to shreds when she, Sonic and the others had a run-in with Eggman last winter.

Amy drops her head to look at the ground. Somehow, she doubts that Sonic will go with her to buy a new coat...Just like how he rejected her asking him to the Halloween dance. Don`t get her wrong. If the Halloween dance were the day before or such, she would definitely be accompanying Sonic to walking Tails for trick or treating. She loves how cute he looks in his little costumes, how excited he gets when he sees how much candy he collected from the night, then he would be sick the next day because he tried eating all of the candy in one night despite Sonic`s warning. But really...The dance wouldn`t last all night long. The school staff knows that everyone would like to have fun outdoors for Halloween. The dance is only for about two hours anyways. It would end about 7pm so that everyone could go out trick or treating. Couldn`t Sonic have gone to the dance with her and walk Tails around afterwards? Or they could even leave before the dance ends.

She is so engrossed with her internal ranting that she nearly misses it. Amy lifts her head up and looks at Shadow,"What?"

Shadow`s voice answers in a dark tone,"I said what are you thinking about?"

She stops walking and so does he. They look back to one another. Amy is surprised to hear such a question from Shadow. Even with her, he never prodded into anyone`s personal business. Amy`s mouth drops open to speak but nothing actually comes out. She is about to tell him how Sonic rejected her proposal on the Halloween dance but then she remembers that such things don`t interest Shadow and he probably wouldn`t care anyway. Besides, it was not in Amy`s personality to whine to Sonic about her problems. Usually, when she had a problem with Sonic, she`d yell at him and then act happy to everyone else. But as of late, it`s like maturity has hit her like a runaway train. Even Sonic seems to have noticed it as he seems to be more relaxed in her presence and tolerates her glomping him better than he usually does.

Shadow crosses his arms and looks down at Amy,"The Halloween dance?"

Has he heard what transpired between her and Sonic when she asked him to go to the dance with her? Amy closes her mouth, nods her head and her face droops into sadness as she remembers how she felt when Sonic rejected her.

She turns away from Shadow and continues walking to her home. Shadow watches her for a moment before he resumes walking and catches up to her.

The weekend activities for the Sonic crew carry on as usual; the group would get together for some activity and Shadow would be absent. When the others question Amy about Shadow`s whereabouts, she would not have an answer for them. He really doesn`t like being in groups or being socialable. Everyone assumes that this was Shadow`s alone time. Sonic is thankful for Shadow`s absence as his dark presence still unnerves him.

As Monday rolls around, school starts up for the week. But Shadow is absent from school. Perhaps he is sick that day? Tuesday comes and goes and still no Shadow. He couldn`t still be ill could he? Everyone really begins to wonder about what is happening with Shadow by the time Wednesday comes. No one has seen or heard from him in four days. If he misses out on too many school days, they will automatically fail him and he would have to repeat the school year in which he would be behind everyone else.

Being the last person of the group as usual to arrive at the high school, Amy is walking down the sidewalk towards the school. She has headphones on with her music blasting. Obviously a trait she picked up from being around Vector. She is currently listening to "My Sweet Passion." (Yes, that`s right, her theme song from the Adventure games.) She is humming along happily to the song as she walks along. It never crosses her mind at all that perhaps she should leave her house earlier in the morning so that she may have a little extra time with her friends before classes start. Sure she would like to have that extra time but she just never really thought about it.

With the Halloween dance in two days, Amy finds herself getting more and more into the mood for dancing. It`s to the point where she begins to dance a little, like she is doing now with the song she is listening to. Of course, she is still making her way to the high school so it becomes more of a "dancey" walk. She pays no mind to anyone who gives her odd looks for dancing. She is not bad at it but it seems out of place for a teen to dance their way to school, especially at such early hours of the morning.

As she enters the school and travels down the hallway to go to the cafeteria, Amy begins to unconsciously sing out along with the music.

"Sweet, sweet, you`re so sweet. So many things I want...Sweet, sweet, you`re so sweet.
I wanna be a wonderful girl-"

Just as she turns to enter the opening in the wall that will permit her entry to the cafeteria, her singing is cut off as she bumps into a person that is much larger than her. She steps back and looks up to the person though she can barely hear herself over her blaring music,"Oh, I`m sorry-Shadow?!"

Shadow lifts his hand to his head and points to his ear with his index finger as he looks down at Amy. Amy looks blankly up at him for a moment before she realizes the translation of his gesture,"Oh!"

She turns to her music player and shuts it off. Then she removes the headphones and sets them around her neck.

The Sonic gang are gathered at their usual table and are having their usual conversation. They expect Amy to join them any minute now. No one has noticed that she`s already in the school. They have not even noticed Shadow. They are all too wrapped up in their activities to notice anything outside their imaginary bubble. Currently, Rouge is trying to convince Knuckles to let her see his family treasure, the Master Emerald,"Awww, come on..."

Knuckles is beginning to get irritated with her persistence,"No!"

Rouge leans into Knuckles with her chest pressing into his shoulder,"Come on, Knuckie-Puckie-Poo...Just one peek?"

Knuckles becomes very uncomfortable with Rouge`s close contact on him and gives her a push hard enough to get her off of him,"Gyah! I said no!"

Rouge stands upright and folds her arms,"All right then. I guess I`ll just have to find it myself."

Knuckles puts both of his hands over his head and groans with great annoyance. This girl is so obsessed with jewelry that gems of any kind attract her attention and she develops great desire to own them. Ever since she heard of Knuckles receiving his family inheritance, she has been pestering him to see it. The Master Emerald is very important and Knuckles isn`t going to chance it getting lost or stolen. It will remain in his family as it always has since the beginning.

Silver begins to laugh and suggests to Knuckles that he should date Rouge since her asking to see his Master Emerald is an obvious flirtatious move. This earns him a swift punch in the arm from Knuckles and a kick to his backside from Rouge, though neither one do any serious damage to him. Everyone at the table, even Espio, begin laughing at the comical display between the three of them.

As Sonic laughs at the display, he looks away from the group and looks to the entranceway of the cafeteria. He hopes to see Amy coming through and joining the group before she misses out on the fun. A smile comes on his face when he sees that Amy is at the entranceway but his smile quickly disappears when he notices that she is just standing there...with Shadow.

All the noises from the cafeteria of all the students present talking and his friends continuing their noises from their comical scene continuing on are blocking Sonic`s ears from hearing what is being said between Amy and Shadow. He now wishes he could read lips. Amy is very expressive facially and with body language so Sonic is able to see that and get at least a small idea of what is going on. At first, she looks confused. Then, she begins to smile sweetly up at Shadow and she speaks something to him. Sonic`s curiosity peaks at Amy`s change of mood at that point. It`s a shame Shadow`s back is turned to Sonic`s direction, Sonic would love to be able to see what Shadow`s expressions are. Then again, he may not be missing much since Shadow generally has a "poker face." Whatever it is that`s going on, it has Amy feeling happy.

After a few more moments of Amy speaking to Shadow with a smile, the two of them begin to walk over towards the rest of the Sonic crew. Sonic quickly puts on his usual smile as they do so. As Amy and Shadow reach the table, Sonic informs them on how they have missed a humourous situation with Knuckles, Rouge and Silver. Shadow has no verbal or even any facial reaction to the news. Amy feels small guilt about missing out on it but she isn`t too sad over it. She makes up for it by teasing Rouge about flirting with every guy she sees. Rouge, of course, denies doing such a thing.

As the laughter finally dies down, Sonic turns to Amy,"So what were you and Mr. Unsmiley discussing over there earlier?"

Shadow shoots a look to Sonic for his comment but it goes unnoticed by Sonic. Amy answers Sonic`s question,"Shadow was asking me if I would go to the Halloween dance with him."

Sonic`s smile drops,"A date?"

Amy giggles,"Oh no, we`re going just as friends."

Rouge puts her hands on her hip and smirks,"Wow, I`m impressed."

Amy trots up next to Shadow and turns around so that she faces everyone at the table. Her happy smile remains on her face,"He knew I was bummed out about having to go to the dance by myself so he decided to go with me."

Sonic shifts his eyes to the side and guilt washes over him. Perhaps he should have said "yes" to Amy when she asked him to the dance. Rouge waves her index finger,"Honey, you wouldn`t be alone. I`m going to the dance, too. In fact, several of us are going."

Amy continues,"Yeah but...It would be weird for me to dance with you. And I don`t exactly feel comfortable dancing with Vector-"

Vector suddenly rises to his feet, feeling insulted,"Whaddya mean by that?!"

Amy laughs nervously,"Eh heh...Well, you...sort of...get really into the music and forget about the people around you."

There`s a moment of silence among everyone. Finally, Vector sits back down at the table and says,"I guess you`re right. I`m sorry I knocked you over on the floor the last time we were dancing."

Amy waves her hand at Vector,"It`s ok, I`ve forgiven you since then."

She`s so kind...

Comments

To leave a comment, you must be logged in.