"I feel silly." Shadow said as he scratched at his new collar.

"Oh, but you're so cute." Maria smiled. Shadow was freshly cleaned and groomed. She even put a little red bow on his neck, like an oversized bowtie.

"Can I take it off now?" he asked, still scratching at it. Maria gently pulled his paw away.

"Just let it sit and you'll get used to it," she looked at her watch, "Oh, we need to be going." she picked him up and grabbed her keys. Just as she reached for the door, she saw a screen pop from the wall next to the door as she heard a ring. "Answer." she said.

"Maria?" she saw her father's face.

"Hi Dad!" she waved as she stepped in front of it.

"Hello dear, how're you doing?"

"I'm fine. I was about to take Shadow to a pet show I found out about."

"A pet show? Are you sure he's ready? He's still pretty young."

"I'm not young! I'm a month old!" Shadow snarled at the screen. The doctor chuckled.

"Well, we should be going now if we're going to get there before it starts." she said.

"Alright, just making sure everything's okay." Robotnik said.

"We're fine here Daddy. How's work?"

"I'm doing fine here, just a few more tests to run and I should be able to come home next month."

"Next month?" Maria pouted.

"Oh it'll fly by with little Shadow there." he giggled as the hedgehog growled. Maria shrugged. "Alright, I'll let you go. Bye sweetie."

"Bye Daddy." she said. As she opened the door, she saw the wall turn back to normal. She locked the door, and activated the security alarm before leaving.

On the walk over, she let Shadow ride in the hood of her sweatshirt again. Shadow saw more new things as he peered out from his makeshift pouch. He saw a strange thing that walked on all its limbs use the bathroom on this red thing. He saw this one sweaty looking man fall from the top of his house and hang from his pants leg as it caught something. And he even saw an angry looking woman throwing clothes and shiny things from a window and onto a man as he tried to talk to her. He wasn't sure why she was mad, but it must've had something to with a sleep over he had. He wasn't sure because Maria didn't get mad when she had a sleep over with her friends.

When they got into this place Maria called 'the city', he saw even more new things. This one man was riding a two wheeled thing between those things called 'cars'. This one man dropped a bucket of blue paint onto another man from a ladder. These two girls were even smashing a blue box thing with clubs. He didn't know what it had done to them, but it must've been bad, because they kept shouting that bad word he promised Maria he wouldn't say.

Shadow smiled and waved at one woman in a blue uniform as she pulled a piece of paper from a little machine on her belt and placed it on a car. She smiled and waved back just as Maria turned a corner.

"Alright, here it is." Maria said, reaching back and pulling him out. They could see several cars already parked in front of it as she entered.

"What we do here?" Shadow asked, looking up at her.

"You're going to make some new friends." she told him as she pushed through the door. Inside, was a wide open area with shelf after shelf beyond it. In the open area, a fenced in area had several other small animals playing with both each other and various toys. She recognized Mr. Prower, and Emerald sitting next to each other next to the fence. As she approached, she made sure Shadow was neat.

"Ew!" Shadow said as she licked her thumb and wiped a smudge from his cheek. "I'm okay, Maria." he said as she then petted his quills to make sure they were straight. "Really." he insisted. She smiled as she finally set him inside the small fence.

"Go play," she told him before approaching the old man and other girl.

Shadow watched her step away. He was preparing to rip the bow off, but knew he couldn't when she sat down next to the two people from yesterday, and was watching him. He looked around.

Across the way, he saw the little fox named Miles, playing with a little airplane. He saw Knuckles playing with a little green ball with a white bat. He then saw one that really caught his attention. It was a hedgehog, like him, but this one was pearl white, and was floating just off the floor. His quills looked like a fan on the front of his head, and his legs were folded like he was sitting on the floor, and his arms were resting on his legs, his palms pointing out.

He slowly approached the hedgehog, leaning left and right, trying to find out what was making him float. He waved his hand under him, then he noticed one of his eyes was open, and looking at him.

"How you do that?" he asked without hesitation. The silver hedgehog closed his eye and ignored him. Shadow walked around him once, and scratched his head.

"Tag! You're it!" Shadow felt someone touch his shoulder. He looked around and saw a little rabbit in a adorable red dress, looking up at him.

"What's it?" he asked curiously.

"You're it, silly. You need to tag someone else now." she said.

"Oh, like this?" Shadow reached over and tapped the white hedgehog on his knee.

"Yep, now he's it!" she said. The hedgehog suddenly landed on both feet, his eyes open.

"I will certainly not be it!" he reached up and tagged Shadow, who then tagged the little rabbit. She quickly tagged him back and ran. Shadowed looked around and saw the white hedgehog running away. He ran and caught up to him.

"You're it!" he turned and began to run away. The hedgehog looked around, and tagged Knuckles. Who then tagged the bat. Who then tagged Miles. Who…just sat there…playing with his airplane.

"What do we do now?" Shadow asked the white hedgehog.

"I don't know. Normally Miles is the last one to get tagged. He doesn't understand. Does he not understand the burden it is to be it? To be forever cursed to the shame that it comes with? Oh how I pity him for his naivety."

Shadow stared at him. "What?"

"He's too young to understand what's going on, but the only way to keep going is for him to tag someone."

"Here Miles, tag me." a sweet voice said. Shadow looked and was stunned by what he saw. A beautiful pink hedgehog had approached the little fox, and held out her hand. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He felt his heart throb just looking at her.

Miles looked up at her, and then her hand. He giggled and slapped her hand with both his. "Now I'm it!" she proclaimed, smiling at him. Miles smiled and picked up his toy again. Amy then ran at the first thing she saw, Shadow.

He felt like his feet were cinder blocks when he tried to move. She reached up and tagged him. When she ran, he watched her. He could feel butterflies in his stomach. And when he finally moved, he quickly tagged Silver so he could try and talk to her.

He spun as fast as he could to get a good distance from him, and looked around. Amy was hiding behind a large, fat cat with a frog plushy.

"Okay Big, here he comes." he heard her say as he approached. He knew she was referring to the white hedgehog who was still trying to catch someone to tag.

"Hello." Shadow said, once he was on the other side of the cat. She looked at him.

"Oh, hi." she replied. Shadow froze. He had no idea what to say. He felt like the butterflies in his stomach were multiplying ten times over. He felt his face burn as he blushed. "I'm Amy, what's your name?" she finally asked.

"Sh…sha…Shad."

"Shad? That's a funny name." She giggled.

"Shadow." he finally forced himself to speak.

"Oh, Shadow. That's funny too." she smiled.

"Tag!" Shadow felt the white hedgehog touch his back.

The conversation completely forgotten, Shadow quickly tagged Amy and ran.

"Did you have fun?" Maria asked as she stepped onto the street from the closing pet shop.

"Yeah! We played tag, and hide and seek, and I met Amy." Shadow said excitedly from her hood.

"Amy? Who's that?" she asked.

"She's the prettiest girl I've ever met." Shadow interlaced his fingers as he looked up to the sky, picturing her sweet smile.

"She sounds nice. What does she look like?"

"She's a hedgehog, like me." he said, looking over her shoulder. "But she has a yellow dress, and pretty eyes."

"You should talk to her again next week."

"Next week? But we can't come back tomorrow?"

"It'll fly by, don't worry."

"Oh! But I wanna see her again!"

"Tell you what, we'll have a fruit rollup when we get home, and come back tomorrow to see if she's still here."

"Really?"

"Sure. You never know. Maybe I'll even see that cute boy…anyway, we should get home before it gets dark."

"I could've sworn I bought a whole new pack yesterday," Maria scratched her head as she closed the last cabinet, "Where did I put them?" she asked herself. Shadow stood innocently in the middle of the kitchen, holding his hands behind his back. He forgot he'd eaten the last one last night. He didn't want to tell her because he didn't want to get in trouble.

"Well, I guess we could see about another fruit smoothie." she then said. Shadow felt a ray of hope and happiness when he heard that. She opened the fridge, but then her shoulders sagged. "But we're out of fruit. Okay, let's see here…"

"This tastes nasty!" Shadow gagged.

"I know but I'll have to go shopping tomorrow." she said as she took a bite from her own broccoli. Shadow slowly took another nibble and spit it back out.

"No smoothies?"

"I told you we're out of fruits. This is all we have." she said, "Now come on, it's really good when you get used to it. Just take quick bites and you won't even notice." In truth, she was actually punishing him. She didn't have the heart to scorn him, or punish him for eating all the fruit rollups, so she hid the fruit and other foods she knew he liked and was going to make him eat broccoli for a few days.

"Can I go to bed?" Shadow asked suddenly. She looked at him.

"But you hardly ate any." she pointed out.

"But I'm not really hungry. I'll finish the rest tomorrow." he smiled innocently at her. She looked back down at him for a moment.

"Alright, just leave it, I'll wrap it up." she told him. Shadow quietly jumped off the table onto his chair, and then to the floor. He walked all the way to Maria's room, and checked to make sure she wasn't near enough to hear him.

He smiled wickedly as he rubbed his hands together. He crawled under the bed, and came to a small shoebox he'd found. He opened it, and inside was a small stash of candy. He only grabbed a rollup, quickly at it, and closed the box. He checked to make sure Maria was still away before crawling out from under and then climbed to the top, and under the blanket.

Doctor Robotnik slowly sighed as he leaned back in his chair. He felt so sick from having only been able to see his daughter through a screen, but it was what he'd signed up for. He looked at his watch, and noticed it was lunch time.

He got up and stepped from his office. When he entered the mess hall, he saw many other faces of his coworkers, but didn't feel like talking to anyone. He grabbed his tray and found a seat by himself.

"Will Doctor Robotnik please come to my office." he suddenly heard the voice of Mr. X. He sighed, and left his half eaten meal on the table. He made his way down the long hallways again, and into the office of his superior.

The room seemed to give off an aura of supremacy. It was a dark, wide room, with a massive desk in the middle, with a tall backed chair behind it. Several bookshelves lined the walls, except for a massive painting of its resident in the back. A long dresser to the left had several strange nicknacks resting on it the doctor could never recognize. On the right were several animal heads and a long barreled rifle hanging under then. The tall chair slowly turned and he saw the face of Mr. X.

"Have a seat." he said, pressing a button on his desk. A chair instantly shot from the floor, and rested directly in front of him. When he sat down, he realized it was placed so he had no choice but to face the executive. "Now it has come to my attention that your week off is coming up, is that correct?"

"Yes sir, at the end of this month." he replied.

"Cancel it." he said suddenly.

"What?"

"Doctor, is it? I've been over the numbers time and time again, and you have still yet to fill your complete quota. And until you do you will not be leaving this facility."

"But my contract clearly states that…"

"Your 'contract', states that you get your time off provided you meet our standards, which you have failed to do. So, you have one month to triple your progress, or say goodbye to your off time."

"But sir, I've done everything I can with what I've been given, if you really want me to do better, give me better resources."

"You will do what we pay you to do, and nothing more. Now, you've already been given your only warning, so by all means I should be telling you not to come back when you leave, but instead I'm telling you to work harder. Now unless you have anymore insightful comments, I will bid you good day."

Mr. X waited for the doctor to leave before pulling out his PDA. When he turned it on, a face of one of his security guards was looking at him.

"Have you planted the bug?" he asked.

"Yes sir, we just finished wiring his office. All we have to do is wait for him to make another call."

"Good, make sure you don't threaten anyone around him. I read his journal, and he may have programmed it to specifically act in defense, so you have to work fast." Mr. X said.

"Yes, sir. Security out." and his PDA shut off. Mr. X put it away, and leaned back in his chair. In truth, Robotnik had been exceeding expectation. But when he removed the experiment without permission, he broke his contract, and triggered an alarm. It wasn't up until this morning he knew what he'd truly done with it, which was why he had scorned him. He hoped his new situation would provoke him to call his daughter and tell her. At which point, they could trace the call, and get her location.

"We will have it back, Doctor." he snarled more to himself. "And you will be terminated along with it."