Anonymous Review Replies!

Maddi: Thanks! Hope you like the sequel, too! :D

Rayyasha: hah, thanks! It's always a great feeling when others tell me some of my stories inspired some of theirs :) I agree that canon Sonic and Shadow quipping definitely would've been fun, but I suppose it might have changed the mood of the ending a little. Still, plenty of canon quipping in the other fics, no worries :p That said, really happy you liked, and I hope you'll enjoy the sequel!

XxShadowxX: Aw, thank you :) Mega reviews make my day, but I do enjoy all of them, no worries ;) And a sequel is coming! Here's the teaser for it. (And if Sonic and Shads really had run along Emerald Coast you can bet I would've included a whale there! XD) Thanks for commenting!

DEV: Hah, ja, ich denke, das ging einigen so! :p Aber was soll ich sagen, ich mag Happy Ends zu sehr. XD (Allerdings – ob Shadows Leben jetzt wirklich so „friedlich" verlaufen wird, weeeeeell...XD überzeug dich selbst! ;)) Geschichten fertig schreiben ist mir tatsächlich wichtig, ich hab in meinem Leserleben einfach irgendwann eine Fanfic zuviel abgebrochen gesehen, das ist immer so frustrierend, ich dachte, das muss nicht sein :P Mal schauen, wie lange das Sequel jetzt dauern wird! ;) Auf ein neues! :D

T-Man: Aw, thanks! Hope you like the new sequel, too!

Face Palm: Hah, German's my native tongue, so I do like putting German words that made it into English into my texts whenever I can. Let's see whether I can fit zeitgeist, shall we? XD

Clockwork: Here you go! A spin-off about to take off! Hope you like :)

espiofangirlftw: (An espio fan, huh? Interesting, not too many of those :P) Hah, thank you! I try my very best^^

Tabitha Alphess: Heh, thanks! :D I hope they'll like it! It was great fun coming up with Shadow's past, definitely, and I'm always happy to hear that something of mine inspired more stories. :3 Hope you like the sequel, too!

Sonic fan 74: Didn't it just? XD

PISS: (Nomen est Omen, huh?) And just you wait how long the sequel will take! :p

HI there, and I'm pleased as punch you're reading this, because it means there's people around for the sequel to 'Life Could Have Been So Different', for which I am bringing you the teaser in this update announcement! :D It picks up right where the end of Shadow's story left off in the second-to-last chapter, and I hope you like!

ooo

Prelude: 'Life...' Goes On

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with...S."

"...sky?"

"Nope."

"Sand?"

"Yup. Your turn."

"...fine. I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with S."

"Sand?"

"No."

"Sky?"

"Yeah. Maria, this game is boring as hell!"

"I knooooow..." Maria Robotnik, youngest member of the lineage of the most brilliant family of her time, collapsed against the large observational window with a groan, her forehead connecting with an audible bonk. Outside, the wide expanse of landscape that could be seen from the observation tower of Area 99, the desert base the two unlike siblings were currently residing in, consisted indeed mostly of a) sky and b) sand.

In theory, this should have been fascinating for Shadow. The Ultimate Lifeform, created and raised aboard the space colony ARK, had never seen either in his short life before, after all.

However, after seeing nothing but those two things for five weeks, Shadow had found that even deserts and their respective firmaments could rapidly lose their fascination. He rubbed the skin above his nose, trying to stave off the feeling his brain was actively shriveling from inactivity.

"Have you seen the professor yet today?"

"No. I think he's in another negotiation right now. He says he thinks he's making progress."

"Hnh." Shadow gave a wordless grunt. That didn't mean much. Gerald was usually 'making progress', you could just never be sure into which direction.

"Meanwhile..." Maria began, before then suddenly grabbing the shirt Shadow wore, yanking it up forcefully to expose the back of the hedgehog underneath, before he could react,

"Hey!"

"I think you can get rid of that ratty T-shirt, now."

"Maria!" Shadow twisted himself away, looking at his sister as if scandalized and pulling the oversized shirt back down again. "I told you not to do that! I don't go around lifting your skirt!"

"Shadow, no one cares about your shaved back but you." She rolled her eyes. "And I'm telling you it's grown back by now. So you can stop wearing your camo-dress."

"It's not a dress!" Shadow snapped back out of reflex, but then still reached back behind himself and tentatively brushed over the black fur beneath his quills.

"...has it really all grown back?"

"Yes, Shadow." Maria gave him a long-suffering stare. "I've told you. By now there's no difference as to how it was before."

"Hnh. Fine." The black hedgehog grunted before stripping the shirt off and laying it beside him. "Clothes are annoying anyway. And if now even that isn't an issue any more, I really want to leave."

"Yes. Me too."

The reply was quiet, and when Maria looked at him, he could see her eyes reflecting all the hopes and worries he felt himself. The world outside could potentially be so terrifying and strange. They hadn't yet been allowed to see much of it – after Maria had recovered enough to be moved after their emergency OP at the Prison Island GUN base, they had been relocated to another military base – this one more a research and observational facility than the storage site of Prison Island had been and therefore more habitable. Here was where they were supposed to stay until the veritable mess of Shadow's non-citizenship status, the responsibilities of the massacre aboard the ARK and the involvement of the Robotnik family was sorted out and their future decided – and since they were both considered minors, Shadow and Maria had soon found out that there was very little they could do to influence anything of these proceedings. The black hedgehog's fist tightened.

"But if they try to separate us or contain me anywhere, I swear I will have us out of here in a heart beat."

"Us against the world, huh?" Maria asked, leaning softly against him.

"If we have to," Shadow replied easily. In truth, there was far more worry he felt than he would admit to – the outside was Maria's domain, the world she had known as a small child and which he had never seen, and a part of the hedgehog was also worrying that once they would leave the base, his sister might not even be interested in him any more when Earth offered so many different, more exciting alternatives.

And how will you even function outside? A treacherous voice in his head also sometimes asked. You are like an animal that grew up in captivity. You will perish in the wild.

"Shut up," Shadow groaned under his breath, hoping that Maria didn't ask him about it. It was an embarrassing concern, even – he wasn't an animal, despite near everyone having treated him as such. If he gave in to them now by thinking of himself that way, it would mean they had won.

"...how about another round of 'I spy'? I think we haven't had cacti yet."

"Ugh. No, thanks." The black hedgehog slung his arms around his drawn-up knees and stared resentfully out of the large window again. "This game would be a lot more interesting if there was anything you could actually look a- hey, what's that?"

"What?" Sitting next to him, Maria leaned forward too, her gaze following her brother's. She squinted at the small object in the sky. "Erm...is it a bird...?"

"No. It looks more like a machine than an animal." Shadow's eyes narrowed as he rose, stepping closer to the glass. "But it's smaller than a plane or helicopter, it looks more like a...drone...?"

Which was the last thing he was able to say, right before the flying object was close enough to open fire.

"Shadow!"

Maria screamed his name, out of shock or as a warning, he didn't know, but it was the only thing he still heard clearly as bullets pierced the observation room's all-encompassing window, shattering the glass into a thousand lethal shooting stars.

Shadow threw himself forward without even thinking, trying to shield his sister with his body as much as he could. At fifteen years old, she had already grown taller than he ever would, but this wouldn't stop him from trying. The blonde girl instinctively curled up under him, trying to protect herself from the blast as much as she could while Shadow could feel the shards impacting on his back, either sliding off or getting stuck in his (thankfully hardened and dead) quills. He hissed as one of them shot past his leg and cut the back of his thigh still.

"Maria," he began, breathless, looking down at the wide-eyed girl underneath him, "Are you-?"

"It's still coming! Move!" Maria yelled, at the same time pulling Shadow down and to the side, the two of them rolling away just as bullets impacted the floor where they had just been. "There!" Maria raised a cut arm as soon as they had stilled, and Shadow was in a defensive crouch in front of her in an instant, eyes locking onto the drone thing he had turned his back on to protect Maria, but which his sister had thankfully kept in view. Red eyes narrowed.

"Chaos Spear!"

It had been weeks since he had wielded the power of Chaos but when he called it, it came instantly, like a bloodthirsty beast leaping delightedly at the order of its master. Lightning struck from Shadow's outstretched hand, for a moment letting the shards of glass all around them shine like pieces of a broken sun, just before the lance of energy impacted their attacker. Still hovering a good thirty feet from the window, it exploded across the desert in a ball of fire.

"Shadow, no! Why did you destroy it?"

"What?" Shadow turned around, bewildered. Maria was picking herself gingerly up from among the pieces of the broken window and the scattered bullets, and was now looking at him almost reproachfully.

"You all but immolated it!" The blonde girl now looked honestly put out. "It was an unknown enemy attacking a GUN base, it would have been important to capture it as undamaged as possible to examine where it came from."

Shadow now gave her a very flat stare.

"Of course. Forgive me for getting things mixed up and not delivering the robot safe and sound to the Professor and his granddaughter in friggin pieces, what was I thinking?"

"Oh come on, there's no need to get snappy-" Maria began, brushing herself off, but then both froze as the alarms started to blare. Both their heads instinctively snapped around to where the window had been, instantly serious again. Below the observation room, a part of the GUN base was visible...and now smoking in several places where more windows had been broken by something on its way inside. And there were more spots against the sky rapidly drawing closer.

"Shadow?" Maria swallowed. "I think we're under attack."

The black hedgehog grabbed her hand. "Then we need to get to a better defensible location. And we need to locate the professor."

"Yes – but what are they-?" Maria wondered, even as she turned with him, ducking back into the room and away from the empty window frame where they might as well have been waving a giant flag with a target painted on it and tried to attract the attention of the invaders by dressing up as pinatas.

"I dunno. Robots," Shadow said tersely, while glancing down the corridor that lay behind the exit door of the observation room, ears twitching as he tried to discern any sound indicating any battles closeby.

"Yes, but they didn't look like GUN's robots," Maria insisted as they both slipped out the door, hurrying down the corridor, "And anyway, them attacking a GUN base wouldn't make much sense, and who else but GUN would have the resources or the nerve-?"

Maria broke off as they rounded the corner and one of the drones was hovering right in front of them.

Shadow knew they were dead.

He had only fought against robots a couple of times, his sparring partners aboard the ARK far more often humans, or fighting machines controlled by humans, and the main thing that separated them was that the fighting style of humans was often a lot more creative in nasty ways – but the reflexes of a robot were faster by far.

And a bullet between your ribs had never needed any degree of imagination.

He could see it already play out during a split-second in his mind, how he would perhaps be able to dodge its shot, but not to pull Maria out of its way in time, and how she would die the way she almost had only two months ago aboard the ARK when they had been running for their lives in a situation that this chase seemed to be a humorless parody of. Shadow tensed...

And flinched a second later when he was suddenly blinded by a bright flash instead.

"Wha...?" He stared at the drone, wide-eyed and uncomprehending. It might have been best described as a bright orange sphere, with two triangular wings extending at its sides, kept in the air by two jet boosters at its back constantly firing to keep it aloft. On the underside, its weapon was mounted, a large, free-swivelling barrel of a cannon, a sharp, deadly serious contrast to its toy plane-like appearance, and the strange paint job on its face that let it seem like it were some horrible new version of a Halloween pumpkin gone aerial.

And now it had...photographed them both?

Shadow didn't question his luck for a single second before his spin-dash sliced the thing in half.

"Keep moving!" he yelled at Maria as soon as he'd landed again, grabbing her wrist to pull her forward through the wreckage. Not for the first time he wished he would be able to perform the technique called Chaos Control, a teleport that would have been able to transport them both to safety, but as he had found out, contrary to either Chaos Spear or Chaos Blast, the most powerful technique of them all could only be executed with the help of an Emerald – and he hadn't had one of those ever since the fake one Maria had made him had shattered during their mad flight through the stars.

"The conference room with grandfather is in the main living tract! We need to take a right here!" Maria called and Shadow nodded, grateful for his sister's good sense of direction – he had always had a tendency to get lost aboard the ARK – and now that they were drawing closer to the more inhabited parts of the base, he thought he could also hear gunfire in the distance, indicating that the soldiers were fighting back against the invasion.

I hope this time they'll be able to tell us apart from the friggin enemy.

Briefly, just for a flash of a moment as they were running for their lives, Shadow had a short, strange vision of what life might look like if this – bullets, sirens, explosions and fire – weren't it. Life like he had seen it looking in shows on TV. An existence with a rhythm, an existence where adrenaline was something you experienced on something called a roller coaster, or playing video games.

"WATCH OUT!"

And then Maria tackled him to the floor as GUN soldiers came around the corner in front of them and opened fire above their heads at the drones that had apparently been coming up behind. As his sister was pressing him against the metal plating and shouting at the soldiers that they needed to aim at the bellies of the drones because that would most likely ensure a critical hit and a chain reaction explosion from their fuel cells, honestly, wasn't that obvious with that build - Shadow couldn't help but wonder whether, in fact, either of them was completely suited to civilian life.

"Are you injured?"

"No, we're fine, thanks. We're looking for my grandfather," Maria replied to the soldier who had stayed behind while her squad had rushed past them, in search of the next invaders. The remnants of the exploded mini-planes were scattered as the soldiers rushed through, Maria obviously unhappy as she still wished to have captured a drone undamaged, but was once again left with exploded pieces.

"Last I heard, everyone in the living area was transferred to the safe room. You should head there, too," the soldier, a red-head with sharp features, told them curtly. She eyed Shadow carefully as the hedgehog picked himself up and helped his sister to his feet. "Will you be fine getting there?"

"We should be. Thank you," Maria said, nodding at the older woman. "Do you know who or what-?"

"No idea," the soldier cut her off. "Nothing like I've ever seen, that's for sure. But they blow up easy enough, so that's good. Probably terrorists," was all she said, before abruptly turning around and running after her squad. Maria looked after her, puzzled.

"But – that doesn't make sense...those drones work with Chaos drives installed in them, I got that when you destroyed the first one, that is why they explode so easily, but the only one who reliably knows how to use that technology is my grandfather. He used it when he was commissioned to design some models for GUN during our time aboard the ARK, but surely there's no one besides him who could possibly know enough about Chaos energy and weapons technology to-"

"Maria," Shadow interrupted his sister through gritted teeth. "Could we save the detective games until we're in a safe room, do you think?"

"...oh. Right."

xxx

"Maria! Shadow!" Gerald's voice nearly broke with relief as his creation and his granddaughter finally burst through the door of the room the soldiers had secured as a protected area, which now also held a scattering of domestic personal like cleaners and cooks, but also a few men and women in suits that had a distinct lawyer-like or government official appearance. Shadow wondered whether they were the ones that had just been having the meeting with his creator.

"Grandfather! Who on Earth is attacking the base, their technology is incredibly advanced, but their design looks utterly ridic-!" Maria began, but, once again, Shadow cut her off,

"Professor. We can't stay here. This base is obviously no longer safe."

"Yes. And we won't."

"...what?" Shadow blinked, somehow having expected a different answer. Maria also seemed surprised and fell silent. Gerald gestured to the black-suited people in the room, all of them looking badly rattled, very probably due to never having been closer to a combat situation than a battle for a mid-meeting lunch buffet.

"We had just concluded the last arrangements. As of today, you will be officially a free citizen of the United Nations, Shadow."

The Ultimate Lifeform stared at the old scientist. Somehow, even the explosions outside for a moment seemed slightly more distant than before.

"Does that mean...we can go and have a life now?" Maria asked, slightly breathlessly, apparently also forgetting the assault for a second.

"Yes," Gerald replied. "Except...you might consider staying, Shadow."

The black hedgehog raised an eye ridge. "What?"

Gerald sucked a breath through his teeth. "After reviewing your...abilities, GUN have seen fit to make you an offer for a position as an official agent. I understand the pay would be very generous." Gerald's tone was carefully neutral, but Shadow could tell his creator was struggling with the words, almost as if they were visibly giving him toothache. Outside, there was silence now, as if the last of the invaders had been vanquished. Shadow suspected that soon, there would be investigations of who had sent them, and, more interestingly, why one of them had chosen to only photograph him when they had opened fire onto everyone else, but right now, the professor's offer had completely sidetracked him. Shadow frowned.

"Me. Taking a job?"

"That is one of your rights as a citizen now, yes, Shadow," Gerald said, a mild smile on his face. "You're free to decide your own future."

"Is that so," Shadow replied casually. "Well. In that case...I choose coming with you."

"What? I mean, really?" Gerald asked, his expression definitely surprised, but also lit up with something that looked like joy he hadn't dared hope for. "I, I would have thought, despite my stance on pacifism, with your talents-"

"Professor," Shadow interrupted Gerald gently, "One: Me, taking a job from that semi-corrupt organization that tried to kill us all at least once? Hardly." A cold, humourless smile graced his muzzle, but when he spoke next, his expression had softened somewhat. "And two? My place is beside Maria, professor. And I'll follow her come hell or high water."

It was approximately two days later that Shadow found out the correct phrasing probably should have been 'come hell or High School,', but by then, it was, naturally, already too late.

To be continued...

IN:

Shadow the Hedgehog: First Class

ooo

Yes. I am totally going there. Taranea is going to write High School Sonic fanfic. Scared? XD

Naw, no worries, I do know (hopefully) about all the pitfalls of terrible, terrible high school AUs, so I'll try to make it a good one for once. I guess I should sort of clarify, though, that this is only going to be a SEMI-sequel to 'Life Could Have Been So Different' - meaning, it explores a universe where, just like in the story, Maria never died, Gerald never went insane, and Shadow was never frozen for fifty years, but instead follows their lives as they try to re-adapt to life on the planet Maria left nine years ago and Shadow never saw.

It's not *quite* a sequel to 'Life Could Have Been So Different' because it's going to ignore the frame story of a world where Tails died and Sonic had to deal with the grief until Shadow showed up, because that story had an end, and a good one. It was important to me that that fanfic would still be complete and fine on its own even if I decided to dabble in the universe of Shadow's slightly altered backstory some more.

...sooooo, instead you're going to get another semi-sequel/semi-standalone fic where Shadow, after the events of 'Life...' is just trying to pretend to be normal, while sharing a class room with everyone's favourite blue pain in the quills driving both Shadow (and everyone else who values sanity) up the walls as usual. :D Of course, this being still a Sonic fanfic, it'll feature plenty of Chaos shenanigans, sonic booms, explosions, fights to the death and eventually an adventure plot, because, hey, video game fan writing here. Plus, probably a lot of familiar faces at the school, as always (Maybe Tails. Alive. So I can kill him again.) ;) (Plus Fluff. So. Much. Fluff.) And we gotta find out who's responsible for the attack on the GUN base, right...? ;p

New story will go up on my profile in around a week, so hope to see you there! And as always, if you read, please review! Would love to hear your thoughts!