And then I got addicted to Nightcore. They do some pretty awesome rock songs but my favorite is between barracuda's Where is the Love and Once upon a December cover by KatetheGreat19. Anyway, Making History's been a bit of a drag for me, if only because I didn't really know what to say about it. So I got to thinking about what "Making History" is. What about Amy and Shadow's story makes it historical? Just because it exists? Well, that just sounds like a shallow cop-out answer so I thought a little deeper. Then I thought with frustration, "When the hell did I get so attached to them?"

Then it clicked.

They made history for me because of one scene in particular. I still don't know why, but it moved me. And let's face it, we all know this scene and it was the scene that launched me into shipping what is now my own OTP. Once I got that down then I was able to just blow right through the chapter in a matter of an hour or so.

But then, how boring would it be if I just wrote out that scene? Everyone knows it, and let's be frank, that would just be an absolutely lazy bit of writing on my part. So, I've decided to take a more in-depth look at this scene and maybe a little something extra that I couldn't help but feel was missing before.

So, here it is!

Making History

"Ugh! I hate it when they leave me behind!"

Amy stomped through the corridors frustrated with every bit of the situation she was in. The big hunk of forgotten space metal was hurtling towards Mobius at an astounding rate and would crash in less than half an hour. Everyone had already thrown together a last ditch effort to stop the chaos emeralds.

Well...everyone except for her was helping out anyway.

Amy kicked an imaginary rock as she cursed her own uselessness. Hadn't she spent much of her time in the last couple of weeks training with Rob to be better? Faster? More agile? Why couldn't she help out? Why wouldn't they let her?

"Right...because even after everything I still got kidnapped by Eggman!" she cried as she turned to kick the wall, "It's not f..."

She stopped mid-kick as she realized the wall she had been about to kick was in fact a door that had 'whooshed' opened. Yet more surprising than the fact that the door opened was who was inside brooding in front of a window.

Amy had nearly forgotten she wasn't the only one who wasn't helping out at the moment. She put her foot down as she studied the dark hedgehog who was watching Mobius grow ever closer. He refused to look at her, although one ear was turned to face her, as though vaguely interested in what she had to say. One hand hung limp beside him while the other rested on the windowsill in front of him.

Amy's first reaction was to be angry with this great brooding lump who was able to help and simply refused to. More than that, it was his fault this series of events took place at all.

And yet...

"All of you ungrateful humans- who too everything away from me- will feel my loss...and despair."

"That gruesome message...was that how Shadow felt too?" Amy thought, gingerly placing her foot down and turning away.

She paced a bit outside the room, a very familiar mixture of feelings building up inside her; sympathy, the need to do something...

...the need to reach out to someone who needed help.

That was one that confused Amy more than anything. She'd only had that once, when she was trapped in Eggman's cell and she had spoken to Gamma...

And Gamma had listened...

Something clicked in Amy as she looked at her watch.

"Not even 20 minutes left..." she thought glumly, "They're going to need all the help they can get."

She regarded Shadow once more through the door, a feeling of apprehension building inside for the hedgehog that had willingly put together the destruction of the entire world. Would he be willing to listen once she started talking? Would it even work? The doubts started to pile up in her mind as she clutched her hands over her heart.

She shook her head, because she knew what her heart was screaming at her to do.

"I really gotta stop whining," she whispered, steeling herself for what was to come, "I'm going to be a Freedom Fighter! Everyone's doing their best to help out, and so must I!"

She nodded to herself as she walked over to Shadow, still unsure just how to give him a piece of her mind.

Eventually, ever the blunt Amy Rose just blurted it out, "Shadow we need your help!"

Now that surprised him.

His eyes turned to regard the pink hedgehog at the edge of his vision, a brow raised in confusion. Why would she think he would want to help her or her group of friends at all? Especially after he'd gone through all the trouble to find the chaos emeralds himself.

"Troublesome," he thought briefly as he examined Amy Rose, as he recalled the Doctor calling her earlier. Her emerald green eyes were filled with both a solid determination and a deep apprehension.

"Rightly so," he thought, "I could kill her if I wanted to..."

The thought was a little more than he could stomach, however. For some reason, the thought of scaring her, even more than he had about a day ago on Prison Island, bothered him more than anything at this point.

"It's too late," a voice whispered in he back of his mind. The same voice that had driven him since the moment the doctor woke him up. The same voice that sounded oddly like the Professor, "This is what Maria wanted. This is what that girl deserves. What the world deserves. It will not matter soon anyway."

His heart sank a little at that. The most he could do would be to comfort her, once the moment drew near. Especially since her friends had insisted on leaving her alone (again, he thought with annoyance) to deal with a problem they had no hope of solving.

Then again, what does one say to someone who is about to die?

"It's all going according to plan," he finally said. Shadow had never been one to sugar-coat anything, "There's nothing I could do to help them, even if I wanted to. Besides, there's no way to save anyone..."

His hand touched the window, as though reaching out towards the Earth, ignoring the pain in his heart at having to destroy something that Maria...

His thoughts stopped there, as they always had. The feeling of resolution filling him slowly where before it had been anger and determination. Whatever Maria's feelings towards the planet then were not the same now. They would receive her ultimate judgment.

"There has to be!"

Shadow suddenly turned fully to look at the girl beside him, his full attention on her. She was shaking, with a desperate look in her eyes and her hand clenched over her heart.

"I know people fight over the most trivial things," she started, "Some people are selfish and cruel, like the professor said. But there are people down there that are good. They try their best everyday and never give up on their wishes. That's why Sonic...that's why the Freedom Fighters work so hard, everyday, to try to help the people down there who do their best. So that, no matter what, those people always have a reason to be happy! That's why you should help them out."

This set something off in Shadow more than anything else. At first it was the same twinge of familiarity that spawned whenever he thought about what Maria would want. Amy's words oddly echoed something he had heard so long ago...

It was abruptly stopped, and replaced with different emotions. Resolution left and anger flared up. That ever familiar anger that had driven him for the past three days.

"Why do they deserve happiness?" Shadow whispered, his eyes narrowed in a glared that made Amy flinch.

Amy stepped back unnerved by this outburst. Shadow stepped forward matching every step back she took with one of his own. Each step made the deep, desperate look in his own ruby eyes match Amy's that much more.

"Why do they deserve mercy? After all the horrors they committed here?" he asked accusingly his voice gathering a dangerous edge as it rose, "Where was Maria's mercy? That they should condemn a small, innocent girl to death for my very existence? Where was her happiness when all she wanted was to be on that disgusting orb you call home and was instead killed for her trouble? Why should I make them happy, when they would rather I had fallen off the face of the earth? Why do they deserve anything but what I am about to give them now? How is that fair?!"

At first Amy was frightened when Shadow rounded on her. She backed away as he continued his tirade, his deep blood red eyes flashed with every word he threw at her. But after maybe the third (ok...maybe the fifth?) step, she stopped, suddenly understanding why he was doing this.

Sure she knew why he and the Professor had done what they did, but now she understood. Not many people really knew the difference between knowing and understanding. She gave a deep sigh once he was finished, allowing a look of great sympathy to spread across her face to combat his look of absolute anger and pain.

"Because the people down there now are not the same people that hurt her," Amy said sagely, "They're gone now. And all that's left are the people that Sonic and the Freedom fighters work everyday to protect. I know you're angry. I would probably do the same thing if Sonic asked me to..."

"Then you know why this must be done."

"I would if Sonic had asked me to destroy the world," she said, "But...I wouldn't love Sonic like I do if he asked me to do that. That wouldn't be Sonic, because he loves this world so much. And...I don't think Maria would want you to destroy the world that she loved so much."

A look of absolute grief flitted through Shadow's face before he shook his head, "She deserves..."

"No!" Amy suddenly burst out, "She doesn't deserve revenge. No one deserves to have something like that on their memory. Do you think she'd be happy to see you now? Destroying the world she loved so much?"

Shadow clutched his head as he hunched over and closed his eyes, as though in great pain, "Shut up...you don't know what you're talking about."

"I know Sonic would never forgive me if I did all this for him."

The moment she said it, she knew she'd pushed it too far. Shadow's eyes flashed open as she shoved Amy roughly away, raising his hands to prepare a chaos spear.

"I'll kill her," he thought, "She doesn't know! She can't possibly know!"

He was only vaguely aware that his thoughts were the same whispers in the back of his mind that had pushed him so far.

In his heart, he knew she was right. Maria would never...

"But she has!" the voice cried, "She begged us with her dying breath! She deserves their blood! Her blood!"

His heart was too wounded...to broken to fight with the voice in his mind. He held the chaos spear over his head, allowing the voice and his anger to fuel his actions.

He was about to bring the chaos spear crashing down when he heard her say it...

"Shadow...please..."

His eyes concentrated on her slumped form, tears forming in her eyes that refused to fall. Her voice was so small, and yet filled with so much conviction he could hear nothing else, "I beg you...do it for them. Just give them a chance..."

Suddenly his face fell, and the feeling of absolute grief and familiarity engulfed him, as he remembered his last words to Maria.

"Shadow...please do it for me, for a better future!" she had said over his cries to let him out of the capsule.

She had managed to lock the soldiers out of the escape room, but not before one of them had shot her on the left shoulder. Shadow had been about to send her down when she encapsulated him first. Blood poured out of her wound as she began inputing all the coordinates through her pain.

"For all the people who live on that planet," she continued on, as Shadow banged against the sides of the capsule, demanding that she be sent first, "Give them a chance...to be happy!"

"Maria, please!" he'd begged, "You're going to bleed out! You're going to..."

"Shadow..." she continued on, "Let them live out their dreams. Please...I know you can do this... that is why you were brought into this world."

Shadow's face fell, "Maria..."

She blew a little kiss to him, before she pressed the send button, "Sayonara...Shadow...the Hedgehog."

The chaos spear suddenly dissipated as the memory faded and the voice in his mind fell so suddenly silent.

"That was what I promised her," he thought, the grief (and...was that relief?) filling his mind, "And I must keep that promise..."

He felt a tear fall down his cheek. As he said quietly, "That was what she wished for."

"Shadow?"

He looked up. Amy was no longer slumped over but standing in front of him, her hands hovered around him, as though not sure how to help him.

Suddenly his thoughts were going a mile a minute. There was an old corridor that let straight to the core. He only had about fifteen minutes left...

"I have to go now," he said excitedly, "I have to fulfill my promise to Maria...and you..."

He sped out of the room, allowing this new, more noble sense of purpose fill him as he raced towards the core.

Amy stood there a few moments before a relieved smile spread across her face.

"Good luck, Shadow!" she murmured.

She waited a while longer before people started trickling in, letting her know what was going on. About ten minutes later, Eggman informed the two hedgehogs that the prototype was still alive. The hedgehogs went super and finished off the beast in less than five minutes.

With a great flash the colony was set to rights and all she had to do was wait for her hedgehogs to make their way back to the lab room...

Her heart fell when she saw that Sonic was the only one to make it through. Shadow had died to save the world that Maria had loved so much. She cried with both relief and grief as she stared out the window.

"I hope she's happy to see you," she whispered more to herself, "And...I hope to see you again someday...Shadow..."

One Year Later

"She really did that?" Amy laughed.

They were sitting in the same ice cream place where they had had their first...

Well, Amy was loathe to call it a 'date' per-say. Ever since her talk with Sally, any mention of Shadow as a...that, caused shivers to go up and down her spine and a big fat NO to blare through her whole mind.

But then...that didn't mean they couldn't just be friends! And that sure as hell didn't mean they couldn't get ice cream every once in a while when he was in town!

Shadow rolled his eyes, a small smirk playing on his face despite his bemused air, "She thought it was funny for some reason. It took me quite a while to get the dirt out of my quills."

Amy giggled, "All because she wanted you to know what Mobius felt like?"

Shadow took another spoonful of his ice cream as he nodded, "She was always rather thoughtful in a misguided way."

A look of longing passed over his eyes as Amy sat her spoon down and placed her hand over his.

"I think she's really happy for you now," she smiled, "I think she'd be really proud of you too."

Normally Shadow would have taken this as presumptuous. It certainly wasn't the first time he'd thought as much of the little pink upstart. Although now he felt comforted by the feel of her hand and the pure emotion in her eyes. The image of the presumptuous pink hedgehog was gone and the image of someone who was saying what they meant for a change was all he saw.

He wouldn't admit it, but it was a relief to know there would be no lies or games with Amy.

"Thank you," he finally said with a small smile.

As the night wore on, it finally came time for Shadow to leave and for Amy to go home. The said their good byes as she went one way and he another.

It wasn't long before Shadow realized he wasn't alone.

"Well, wasn't that sweet?" a sultry voice called out.

Shadow's gaze lifted up as Rouge the Bat came to land beside him. He regarded her with a curious look before replying, "You were watching."

It wasn't a question, "I was just passing by and I had to ask myself, 'Why is big strong silent Shadow the Hedgehog hanging around Sonic's number one loudest fan?'"

Shadow rolled his eyes as he continued on his path back to the outskirts of the city, "It's nothing you need to concern yourself with."

Rouge frowned inwardly. Shadow had never been an easy nut to crack.

"Really!" she tried again, "I'm your friend, Shadow, your team mate! You can't tell me what all that was about?"

Suddenly Shadow stopped, "Why are you here?"

"I could ask you the same thing!" Rouge inspected her nails as she stopped beside him, "Especially considering Ms. Pinky over there may have thought that was a bit more than a friendly chat you were having..."

Shadow glared, suddenly on guard, "What does that mean?"

"Oh, this is going to be fun..." she thought with a smirk.

"I'm just saying, she looked a bit oddly happy to see you earlier..."

"How long had you been watching?" Shadow suddenly asked, "Why were you watching to begin with?"

"I was on my usual recon mission," she shrugged, "You know we need that chaos emerald they have with them! I saw you two and I couldn't help but watch. I think you two look adorable together..."

She inwardly chuckled when she saw Shadow still looking at her with confusion. She was slightly disappointed when he finally sighed and said, "I'm not in the mood for games, Rouge, just tell me what you're thinking so we may call it a night."

She huffed, "Men, honestly..."

Then an idea struck her suddenly. A way to mess with Ms. Pinky and make it that much easier to take the chaos emerald. She could already see Shadow was getting way too attached to a certain hedgehog and if that compassion got in the way of the Chaos emerald like it had to Sol emerald?

Well... it simply wasn't acceptable.

"Forget it." Rouge said finally, "If you can't figure it out, then you're hopeless..."

Shadow snorted as a small smirk sported his face, "Fine. Good night."

He raced for the edge of town before he brought out his chaos emerald to Chaos control home. He wanted to hurry back to see when that one ice cream place he'd first tried was open and how much Amy would prefer that to the one in New Mobotropolis...

Quite a bit more dramatic than it was originally, but I couldn't help but feel the first time around that it was a bit easy on Amy's part to convert him in the end. Besides, Amy's known for pushing things a bit too far sometimes, I figured this would be no exception.

Anyway, next up is Rivalry. This one may be a bit harder, if only because I'm not too terribly practiced with Rouge's character and I can't think of any reason for Amy to be in the UF unless she's on Team Fighter business.

Until then, review, favorite or follow! Let me know what you think and I'll see what I can do! See ya next time!