W00T, another long overdue update! Thanks for the reviews, even IF about half of this story's suscribers didn't review...cough
Just as a memory refresher: At the end of the last chapter, Shadow just got tricked by Tails and Tails put him into a mysterious machine, along with Sonic (who decided to voluntarily come). I think a lot of you still think that Tails has turned "evil"; it might be because of this "Master" guy that Tails seems to obey. We'll see what happens in this chapter, shall we?
"Sonic, I'm really, REALLY sorry about this…"
"That's ok, Tails! You know that I always trust you!" Sonic said cheerfully, trying to hold still as Tails stuck various small metallic objects on his head. "This guy sounds pretty interesting, really! You said that you met him through this machine, right?"
"Yes," Tails replied, still feeling sorry for not telling his best friend why he had to go along with Shadow. "but he told me not to tell you anything about him; he said he wanted it to be a 'surprise'."
"A surprised, eh? Do I know this guy or something?"
Tails' mouth twitched in a little smirk,
"oh, I'm sure you do…"
Sonic couldn't feel anything. It was as simple as that. All he saw was darkness. Noises; many noises; unrecognizable noises whizzed back and forth, swirling around like a whirlpool.
" 'Master'…why do you want me to bring Sonic?" Tails asked.
"I miss him, that's all. It's good to have some nostalgic company; I'm running out of new things to do to keep my entertained and amused, as you might expect. And it'll be amusing to see his reaction when he sees how I have turned out! Ha!"
Thud.
Ground. After a certain time of feeling nothing (Sonic couldn't tell if it was a few seconds of few hours), the hedgehog had finally reached the ground. Opening his eyes, Sonic realized that he was faced downwards, starring at wild, green grass. He got up and looked around, realizing that he was standing in a small clearing of in a forest. The forest felt familiar to the hedgehog; however he barely had the time to register where exactly he was, when a golden mass tackled him from nowhere…
"-SONIC! FINALLY!"
The said hedgehog's first instinctive thought was that he was being hugged by his number-one fangirl, Amy Rose. He quickly dismissed the idea however, for Amy did not have such a deep voice; not to mention an extremely powerful bone-crushing hug. And she was not golden, either…
"Sh-Shadow? What the- get off me!"
The golden hedgehog, whom Sonic now realized was Shadow in his Super form, released him, but proceeded to grip Sonic's hands and starting to spin him around in a way that a dad might do to his child when playing with him or her. Shadow was laughing joyfully while doing this, which, to say the least, absolutely freaked Sonic out. After a few moments of spinning, Shadow finally put Sonic down on the solid ground. The golden hedgehog stood face-to-face with Sonic, looked at him from head to toe, and clapped his hands onto the terrified blue hedgehog's shoulders gleefully.
"Excellent, excellent! It's great to see you again, old friend! Come, come! You must go meet everyone…yes, they will enjoy this", Shadow said enthusiastically. Before Sonic had any time to react, he felt the familiar sensation of a Chaos Control, and both hedgehogs disappeared from the forest.
When Sonic opened his eyes, he was instantly greeted by an absolutely thunderous applause. This kind of enthusiasm might have been mistaken for a Super Bowl game; there was cheering, clapping, and lots of screaming.
And there seemed to be millions of people.
Looking around at his surroundings, Sonic realized that he was standing on top of the Master Emerald shrine; the green emerald lay behind him, as grand and shiny as ever. Next to him, the strange, enthusiastic Super Shadow was beaming down upon the humongous crowd of the overwhelming number of hedgehogs; Sonic was able to see a minority of certain other species in the crowd. People held up various signs and banners. Sonic saw that one of the nearest ones had the words 'WE LOVE YOU SONIC!!!' written in pink, glittery markers, and were held up by four screaming girls. The blue hedgehog, who was still in a state of shock over such bizarre events happening over such a short amount of time, slowly began to register the fact that every single member of the crowd was cheering…for him.
Suddenly, the cheering and clapping noise abruptly stopped almost instantaneously. Looking around for the source of the silencer, Sonic saw that Super Shadow had raised a single hand to signal silence. Every eye was now focused on Shadow, and the golden hedgehog began to speak in a language that Sonic did not understand, yet sounded strangely familiar. The volume of his voice suddenly became incredibly loud, and it also seemed to be coming from all directions.
"Asi hav promyou, legendary Sonic the Hedgehog, friendm pastwen I'young, hav cometis pres time. Thislif treat. H'weekfew stay, an' I'aredy talkyou abowat you cando. Keepind hespek only Old English. So from now on, we shall all speak Old English in his presence so that he will understand us all."
This abrupt change in language did absolutely nothing to make Sonic less confused. The incredibly large volume of Shadow's voice had also, for the first time since Sonic's appeared here, make him afraid; he was afraid of its loudness, afraid of the magnificent power that it seemed to carry, afraid of its tone of authority, and afraid of the fact that millions of hedgehogs seemed to listen attentively to this one voice.
His mind was so petrified by this voice that he did not notice when the majority of the crowd started to depart, leaving only about twenty people in the crowd below, who were all still staring at Super Shadow as if waiting for instructions.
Still too confused and frightened (though he did not want to admit it), Sonic turned cautiously to the mysterious golden hedgehog, whom he was sure was Shadow in his Super form, although he was beginning to feel doubtful.
"Who are you?"
"Him", Shadow read aloud, staring at the description below an enormous statue of himself, "known through history as Project Shadow, Shadow, Leader, Wanderer, Mystery-Hedgehog, Super Hedgehog, Golden One, Hedgehog Lord, Our Lord, The Wise One, The One, God, Prime Hedgehog, Him, and finally, Master."
Shadow's crimson eyes narrowed in confusion as he backed away to get a better view of the magnificent looking statue. There was no denying it; it was a statue of Shadow the Hedgehog, made out of what seemed to be stone, and fully colored. Behind the statue stood a grand, white building with a pseudo-Greek look to it; the words "Museum of Him" printed in an elegant font at the top of the entrance of the museum. After standing there unmoving for a few seconds, Shadow decided to take his chances and enter the building. Before doing so, he took a quick look around his surroundings to make sure that no one was spying on him. It had seemed strange to Shadow when he first woke up to find himself sprawled right inside the ground of the museum's entrance hall, and that not a single living being seemed to be around. Indeed, the museum's grand entrance hall was completely deserted, as was the interior of the museum itself.
Perhaps it was foolish of Shadow to wander into the strange building after finding himself unconscious in front of it, but the absurd idea that he was going into a museum that seemed to be dedicated to him had strongly gripped his curiosity. Walking into a new room, the dark hedgehog found himself in an ancient-looking domed room, with various hallways attached to it that undoubtedly let to other halls and rooms; Shadow realized that he was in the main, central room of the museum. Again, Shadow saw a statue of himself, this time standing magnificently in the middle of the large, domed room; but this time, the statue had company.
Looking to the statue's left, Shadow saw smaller, but no-less impressive statues of Maria, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. To the statue's right, stood Gerald Robotnik, Eggman, Amy, and Rouge. This time, none of the statues had any descriptions written down below them; they simply stood, all with similar expressions on their faces.
Shadow stood still for a long time, looking at each of the statues, and muttered aloud the words that should have been said the moment he arrived to this strange place,
"Where am I?"
Oh come on, did you seriously NOT expect to see another cliffhanger coming? Sorry that I STILL haven't fully revealed the who-what-why-when-how's of "Master", but you'll know everything in the next chapter...I promise!
If you've already reached all the way down here, why not take the extra mile and review:-)