Sonic Series Fan Fiction ❯ Shadow the Hedgehog Parody ❯ Digital Circuit ( Chapter 2 )

A/N: This chapter was done while playing through the level, just like the first one was. But it turned out to be longer than I expected.

 

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to Sega/Sonic Team.

 

Shadow the Hedgehog Parody

 

Chapter 2:

Digital Circuit

 

For no apparent reason, upon taking the left path he suddenly found himself whizzing through multiple and colorful beams of light while tucked into a ball.

“What the…where am I?!” he exclaimed, then paused in thought, upon realizing his odd surroundings somehow. “What is this sensation…? I feel weightless atop this light…”

After going around in a circle, he found out that he could maneuver left and right.

“…Why didn't I figure this out sooner?” he scolded himself.

Soon the trails of festive lights ejected him onto a platform.

Still not realizing where he actually was, Shadow took in his surroundings, and stopped short when he saw the floating-starfish-with-the-huge-eye-in-the-middle.

Ignoring it, he leapt onto a platform close to it to ram into a GUN machine and frowned when the only weapon it dropped was a machine gun. Scowling, he nonchalantly picked it up, mumbling something about `no street signs'.

Taking out the other GUN machine in the area, he collected that weapon too, while half tuning out the eye as it spoke to him.

“Shadow…” it said lowly, floating around him as it did so, “This is the high speed information highway that the humans call `cyberspace'—“

“Move it!” Shadow shouted, firing wildly at the eye as he sped past it—sending it into a spinning fit yet again.

“Shad—you—I—will-when—I—ge t—my—hands—on--!” it sputtered incoherently as it spun.

Once it regained itself, the eye shook with annoyance, then proceeded to follow Shadow. “Shadow, you disobeyed me again!” he grumbled.

Not realizing and certainly not caring, Shadow continued moving through cyberspace, attacking any GUN related machines he could find.

Soon he came to a ledge that had a really steep jump. Thinking of how he was going to get around it, a booming voice echoed in the corridor around them.

“YOU DISOBEYDED MY ORDAUUUHS!”

“What?!” Shadow questioned, turning to face the eye, but got hit with a flying bullet from an enemy.

“Dammit!” he growled, losing some of his rings. Starting to flicker Shadow ran around trying to pick up the remainder of his rings.

“IT DOES NOT MATTUH. YOU ONLY LOSE TEN AT A TIME ANYWAY.”

Glaring at the eye, he had to admit that he had a point.

After crossing a chasm on moving platforms, Shadow's speed picked up.

“She's here…” he muttered to himself. “Rouge!” he called and just as she heard her name, she elegantly turned around.

“Ohh Shadow, what a coincidence running into you here! You've got perfect timing…!” she cooed, sauntering upto him with her hands on her hips.

Shadow had stopped cold, watching her. It didn't occur to him that he was staring until she smiled sly at him. Shaking his head, he returned to being serious.

“What were you doing here, standing in the middle of nowhere?”

She winked at him. “Waiting for you.”

He blushed. “Huh?”

She laughed, then turned away from him. “Actually I'm here on a top secret mission to find a Chaos Emerald…but...” she trailed off, turning in a sensual pose to face him. “…since you're already here, why don't the two of us look for it together?”

Shadow's heart began to race and he smirked. “Glad to be of help to you…”

Obliviously ditching Black Doom, Shadow eagerly went with Rouge.

Soon they reached a searchlight.

“In this place, your body is completely electronic, so you're weight is very light” Rouge informed. But Shadow was already way ahead of her, constantly jumping to reach the center of the searchlight's range. Seeing him attempt this several times and fail, Rouge sighed and shook her head. “Do you need any help?” she called.

“No, I'll get it!” Shadow replied, still jumping and missing the light.

Tired of seeing him struggle, Rouge walked over to him and once he landed, she grabbed his shoulders and gave him a little push. “Get closer to the edge!”

“What?? Whoa!” he exclaimed, balancing himself on one foot. “Hey be careful! You almost knocked me off!”

“Now jump!”

Half-frowning, Shadow did so, but missed again. “See it didn't—ahh!” he cried, missing his step and plummeting into the dark depths below.

“DAMN!! NOT HERE!!” he yelled, flailing his arms and legs.

“Oops!” Rouge said, placing her fingers to her lips, feeling a tad guiltily. Nonchalantly, she watched as his extra life counter dropped a number.

“I hope he hit a save point before he found me.” She whispered, then proceeded to backtrack to look for one.

 

Appearing back at the save point, Shadow jumped into the air twice—the shock of falling still with him.

“Rouge!” he shouted “Where are—“

“I'm right here. Sheesh. Do you have to yell? Anyway, let's keep going! We've got an emerald to catch!” she reminded, already running ahead of him.

Sighing, Shadow watched her get a head start, then followed after her at her speed. “Just don't get me killed in here.”

“Relax. You've got 6 extra lives. Blame your fall on the camera.”

“Hmph” Shadow half-smiled.

Soon, after finally getting through the searchlight, they reached a really steep platform. Peering down, Shadow was relieved when he saw something down there, but there was a problem.

“Rouge, can you help me get down there?”

“Why?”

“…The camera…I can tell something's down there for me to land on, but---I'd rather not take another `leap of faith' “

She laughed. “Yeah yeah. Don't worry. Sonic has had his problems with leaps of faiths for the last 5 or 6 years. It's ALWAYS going to be there, Shadow!!”

He shook his head. “Please don't say that…”

Laughing, Rouge took hold of his hands and took flight. Softly, they landed on another brightly lit platform.

“SAAVE POOOINT!” Shadow exclaimed, running over it, feeling so relieved when he heard the little sound it made. “Finally, a better location to come back to if anything---unexpected happens...” he stated with a dry smile, looking to Rouge.

Innocently, she looked away with her hands folded behind her. “I don't know what you mean… Look Shadow! A pole!” she said, pointing to one of the neon green poles around them,

Examining them from afar, Shadow raised an eyebrow and gazed over at Rouge, who was not doing her best to hold back snickers and chuckles.

He half-smiled. “You want to see me ride that pole don't you?”

She gasped and walked ahead of him. “Watch your language! Just go down instead.”

His eyebrows perked up even more. “Do you mean that…?”

Catching onto what he meant, Rouge blushed, but laughed it off. “Hurry up and go, before I make you!”

Not knowing which sounded better, Shadow shrugged and jumped onto one of the poles. Grasping it tautly with his right hand and holding his gun in his left, he glanced up at Rouge, and motioned for her to come over.

“What?” she asked, suspiciously eyeing the big grin on his face.

“Payback!” Shadow shouted and snatched her up by the waist using his arm and slid down the pole amazingly fast.

“Kyyaaaaaahhhhh!!!!!” Rouge cried, but soon loved the thrill of it. “Yeah!! Do it again!” she mused, giving him an alluring look.

Blinking twice, he forced himself to tear away from her gaze and set her down. “Let's just keep going.”

“You got it!”

Passing through the firewalls, Shadow and Rouge soon came to another platform where a zigzag line of GUN Beetles hovered. Not sure to attack them around her or not, Shadow walked over to the colorful “?” to the right of them and listened as Rouge informed: “Use your homing attack to get across here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you see any other way?”

Still feeling a bit unsure, Shadow peered down and saw a pack of aliens down below. Facing the GUN machines again, he grinned mischievously and began to use his homing attack on them to get to the other side. “Sorry Rouge!” he called, having a ball destroying them.

“Hey! Stop attacking our allies!!” Rouge shouted.

“What?! Make up your mind woman! First you tell me its okay, then you yell at me for doing something wrong!”

“Sorry. It's a bug. That can be fixed. Anyway, let's continue. We're almost there.”

“Hmph.”

“Be careful, there's another drop here Shadow, so watch out!” she warned playfully, snickering from the incident with the searchlight.

“Very funny. Maybe I should make you fall down there.”

Smirking, she twitched her folded wings. “I can FLY remember. Besides. I won't be the one losing a life!” she replied with a beaming smile.

Shadow couldn't argue with that and simply shook his head. “Whatever, let's get this over with.”

Later on, they came upon another searchlight.

“GUN's not gonna like it…but if we smash that mech, the light will shine over here and help us move on!”

“Got it” Shadow replied with a grin. Eagerly destroying the GUN beetle, he allowed the light to carry him into the next location, yet Rouge appeared upset.

“STOP ATTACKING OUR ALLIES! She shouted to him through the light.

“What?! But you told me to attack it!”

“Oops, did it happen again? Sorry. It's that bug again!”

“Yeah sure, blame it on that. You know you told me to do that!”

Upon reaching another area with a ton of searchlights piled up and another circling GUN beetle, Rouge just shrugged and pointed to the beetle. “Trash it”

Confused, Shadow looked at her, looked at the mech, then up above. Nothing but a dark void looked back at him and he sighed.

“This area could have looked a bit more creative… Anyway, I am progressing through this place. Maybe at some point we can get out of this `game'. “

Rouge looked to him thoughtfully, but didn't say anything.

So after smashing a mech, a searchlight scooped him up and took him to another bland and uncreative looking area where the same pattern was repeated.

“STOP ATTACKING OUR ALLIES! They're on our side!!”

Tired of hearing that, Shadow tuned it out and kept going. This time when they were transported to a similar area, Shadow shot at the beetle, but misstepped his footing on a platform and fell into the depths of the uncreative-part-of-the-level.

“DAMN! Not here!!!” he exclaimed flailing his arms and legs and leaving his weapon behind.

“Shadow!!” Rouge called as she watched him fall and saw the extra life counter drop another number. Groaning, she flew back to the last save point he marked. “Don't make a habit of this Shadow…”

FINALLY they reached the platform with the emerald and Rouge confirmed it eagerly.

“Look! There's the chaos emerald owned by the government!” she stated cheerfully as she generously went ahead of Shadow and collected a few rings for him.

Watching her, Shadow couldn't help but laugh and shake his head. “You're really something Rouge.”

“I know!” she replied, with a wink. Shadow watched her with a small smile as he watched her run upto the platform and snag the emerald. “Come on!” she gestured, motioning for him to follow her.

When he did, she handed the chaos emerald to him. “Here. Great job back there. You deserved it.”

Eyeing the emerald, he carefully took in into his hands and nodded to her. “Thank you. Sorry about this, but I'm taking this emerald. …I really hate to have to take this from you, though…”

“It's fine. You need it more than I do. Do your best Shadow…” then she playfully frowned, remembering all the GUN beetles he attacked. “…or your worst…whichever you want to call it.”

He nodded and smirked, knowing what she meant. “You got it. Don't worry about me.”

With a `hmph' and a smile, she nodded and waved to him, flying off into another level. “See ya!”

Watching her go, the 4 signs dropped down in front of him again.

Go this way if you want to be BAD (and not see Rouge until much much later)

Go this way if you still just don't care—just don't be shocked when you do

Go this way if you want to quit. (pick this one!)

Go this way if you want to be GOOD (and still not see Rouge for a while >=3 )

“Such decisions.” Shadow muttered. Then nonchalantly, he chose a path and proceeded to follow it.

 

-

To sum up:

 

*Rouge's comment to Shadow about the `leaps of faith' going on for 5 or 6 years now with Sonic referred to his past few 3-d games starting with Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. How many times have YOU jumped for a ledge that turned out to not actually be there or slip off of it at the last second?! Lol

 

*The mentions about blaming things on the camera, is, well just that. The game's camera is a bit tricky at times.

 

*Shadow's comment to Rouge about possibly getting out of the game was as direct as it sounded. Is there a way for them to get out of the game? @_@

 

Catch ya on da flip siiide!

 

-Mel