Rusted Silhouette -3-

Chapter 3 – Twisted Logic

It was near 7:45pm. The sun began to disappear 5 minutes later. Ten more minutes, and I was going to meet Vincent.
You may ask yourself: “What did you do to kill time so fast?” Well, I started skating around, as usual, until I found Silver, sitting serenely on the grass.

“Oh, hi Shadow! Long time no see.”

“Hi.”

I couldn’t show my true self: I was too shy and it would ruin my reputation.

“What have you been up to lately?” he asked. I stared at him for a while. “I bumped into Rouge earlier. She has this… friend that’s creating a device to analyze life on other planets; and now I’m going to meet him. I don’t trust him, though.” Silver looked at the ground. “Mind if I come? You never know what could happen. Like when Mephiles struck Sonic, and he didn’t even see it coming.”

“You’re right. But what can we do now? We’re not supposed to meet Rouge. Not until it’s 8:00pm sharp.” He stared at me sarcastically with his striking yellow eyes. “I’m a time traveler, remember?” The white hedgehog stood up and opened up a portal, using chaos control with a blue chaos emerald he had.

“Let’s jump in,” he said. “Hey, are you sure this isn’t going to lead us to another day in the future or past?” I was a bit worried. “No; it’ll lead us to a later time in this same day. In order to travel from one day to another, you need two or more chaos emeralds; depending on how far in the future or past you’re going.”

I jumped in along with him. On the other side of the portal, the time was 7:45pm, almost 8:00pm. We both hit the ground with a thud. “Whoa, it’s nearly 8:00pm. Wish I could time travel like I used to…” I remarked. “Yeah, time traveling is really cool,” said Silver, standing up and dusting himself with his hands. I stood up as well.

And there you found me, along with Silver, just waiting for it to be 8:00pm. Time just passed by, and time finally had come.

I looked around. There was no sign of Rouge, nor the sound of flapping wings. I just saw some big frog statues nearby, sitting peacefully on the ground. They almost looked alive. Legend has it that those statues wake up at night, after people go to sleep. They change to another place, and when you come to this same place the day after, you can see they’ve changed.

I don’t know if that’s true, but many people here in Guanajuato seem to believe it since this city was originally named Quanaxhuato, and its meaning is and was “place of frogs.”

“Hey Shadow, look!” pointed Silver at a nearby statue. The frog started to move towards us, walking very slowly. Maybe the legend is true after all, I thought.
Silver was terrified. He hid behind me in fear. I just stood there, with crossed arms. The frog, although, looked a bit… different from the others. It seemed less solid. Now the frog was in front of us. It sat on its hind legs, and…

“Surprise!” Rouge was the frog. She looked silly in that outfit. “Rouge, why did you hide? You could’ve just told us where Vincent is.” I said, expressing myself with my hands. “I need to be discreet. Otherwise, someone could see me a bit suspicious; so it’s better to just be safe and hide. Besides, you would’ve had a hard time finding his house.”

Silver collapsed to the floor. He was so scared of believing that that frog was real. Poor kid. “Is that Silver?” asked Rouge; inquisitive. “Yep.” “What’s he doing here?” “No apparent reason: it’s a long story.” “How are we going to get him with us while he’s unconscious?”

I stared at her; disturbed. “You WANT to take him with us?” “Yeah, why not?” I couldn’t risk to take Silver along with us. You never know what could happen, like he said, and ESPECIALLY when you don’t trust a stranger like Vincent.

“What’s wrong Shadow?”

Silence.

“Nothing, it’s just that…”

“What?”

I stared at her worriedly.

“Oh, you mean how are we going to carry him? It’s no big deal; I’ll just carry him in my arms while I fly.”
Rouge took off her frog costume immediately and ran to grab Silver, that was behind me. She held him like a little baby. She then flapped her wings and started to gain altitude. “We’d better get going if we want to get there soon,” said Rouge, as she flew out of my sight.

“Hey, that’s not what I –“ Too late. She was already too far away for her to hear me. “Great. Might as well follow her.”
I started to skate, and I caught up with her eventually. We passed tons of houses. Little Mexican houses, filled with blazing sparkling light and blazing color. Suddenly, we came to a stop.

“Shadow, I’m afraid you’ll have to jump over here. It’s a dead end,” warned Rouge.
I squinted a bit; to see what I had to jump over. Nothing else than a mere house. “All right, no problem.” I jumped over it, and then I did a homing attack on a nearby tree, just to land safely. The tree collapsed to the ground, landing with a noisy “thump”.

“Shadow!! We’re trying to be careful, but you just don’t get it, right?!” We might get in big trouble if we’re discovered!” scolded Rouge, whispering in anger. I rolled my eyes, gave a big smirk and shrugged. We kept on going.

My heart started to beat wildly: it was starting to get dark as we traveled on. The city started to lose its glow and life, little by little. It was obvious that Vincent’s house was located on the outskirts of the city. It felt really dismal: I could almost feel as if someone had been assassinated around here. I turned my head to the right as I skated. I saw a large river, which was far, far away from us.

It was just… so sad. It seemed like if the river ran dry. It ran melancholy, with no fish whatsoever in it. These… humans just didn’t care about nature at all. And even today they don’t care. I really hoped Vincent would build that machine correctly. Who knows; there might be life on other planets. After some years, Earth will be completely abandoned. And I will be there, watching how Earth starts to disintegrate.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never really thought about staying alone; totally alone in the world… with nobody by my side. Not even Sonic and his friends. I will be the only living being. Even the littlest organism on Earth will be dead.

Death. Hmm… the word “death” doesn’t exist in my vocabulary, considering that I’m the world’s Ultimate Lifeform, built to be extremely powerful, invincible and immortal. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t immortal. Living forever just seems… creepy. Then I turn to Maria’s and Molly’s death. Absolutely shocking. But then again… everything that has a beginning has an end.

There I was, pondering about my future in the dusk; skating.

Something broke my trance. “Shadow, we’re here,” announced Rouge. We stopped in our tracks. The house was just some mere stair steps away. I stared at the tiny house atop. To tell the truth, I was a bit scared. Afraid that something might happen.

“Let’s use chaos control. I’m too lazy to walk up those stairs,” I said.
Rouge laughed. “Aww, come on, we’re almost there.” She grabbed my right hand and flew up to the house. Then she let me go.
“Thanks. I guess,” I said, landing on the ground, doing the same thing as her. “No problem.” Rouge rang the bell besides the house’s door.

The house didn’t look suspicious at all. It was extremely tiny, and really rusty. It looked like if it was a century old.

“Yeah, who is it?” a kind voice responded from far inside the house. “It’s me, Vincent. Open up.” Said Rouge, demanding to get in.

The three of us got inside the house. We went down some stairs in front of us. That explained why it looked so little from the outside. Once down, we saw a giant laboratory, filled with robots, prototypes and capsules.This guy was even more intelligent than the two tailed yellow fox! Rouge went to a nearby bedroom and set Silver on a bed.

Finally, I saw Vincent. His fur was brown chocolate colored, and covered with yellow streaks all over his body, one passing across his eye. He had a little insignificant gold earring on his right ear, a black leather jacket on, unclosed, and some baggy jeans. He had some interesting, orange eyes and his quills were in disorder. It looked like if he had just got up from bed. He also wore black leather gloves. They seemed comfortable. Wish I had a pair.

The guy didn’t seem that bad. It was like a combination between the yellow fox and the blue hedgehog. But then again: NEVER judge a book by its cover, as I always say.

“Hi Vince. You still working on that device of yours, right?” asked Rouge. “Sure. I’m gonna be a millionaire once I finish this baby,” said Vincent, pausing his job to lean back on the chair he was sitting on and he put his hands behind his neck. “Speaking of which, I really need you to do me a favor. Could you please get me these things to eat? I’m starving, and I’ve been here all locked up since 6:00am. Haven’t eaten in hours,” said Vincent, talking to Rouge and handing her a list.

“Ok, sure. Whatever you say. I’ll be right back.” Rouge started to go, but I followed her. She then noticed I was following her, and we stopped at the middle of the staircase that leads to the exit. “Please, don’t go. I don’t trust him. Seriously!” I said, really annoyed. I may act all tough at sometimes, but we all feel scared once in our lives, don’t we??

“Will this help?” Asked Rouge, pulling me towards her and kissing me on the cheek lightly: it felt nice and comforting. I felt my blood rush up to my cheeks, making me blush as hell. “Rouge… you didn’t have to do that…” I said, really happy that she had done that, as I touched my cheek. Now I was blushing even more. I was going to explode if she didn’t leave. “Come on Shadow, it was just a little kiss. No biggy,” she said, in a really seductive tone. We stared at each other for a bit and then we looked away. “Ok, guess I might as well leave.” She exhaled a great amount of air. “Oh, and promise me not to tell Knucky, ok? It’s our little secret, right?” she said, running upstairs. “Yeah… I won’t… tell him.”

I was still touching my cheek. It started to lose its reddish glow of embarrassment; I could feel the blood go down.

Anyways, I turned back on the exit. I went downstairs to watch Vincent. I was about to enter the laboratory, when all of a sudden I felt a horrible gust of air pass by me. I knew that feeling before… it was none other than Mephiles. The one who stole my shadow and reincarnated in it, thanks to me. I thought he was already gone. He came back.


I knew I had to stop him, but first, I was suspicious of two things: either Vincent was Mephiles’s ally, or Mephiles wanted to do something with him. I just squat and observed through the lab’s keyhole.

Vincent was still leaning on his chair, and I saw a purple misty thing fly across him. Amazingly, it still had my shadow, and he adopted that form. Vincent was completely ignorant of what was happening.

“Greetings, Vincent The Hedgehog,” said Mephiles, with a booming voice. Vincent turned around in his chair to see who it was. He yelped a bit and jumped in his chair. “Holy shit, you scared the crap outta me!” Said Vincent, observing Mephiles carefully. “Hmm… nice costume by the way. Where did you get it? It’s freaking awesome.” “I have not come here for your opinion on my look. I have come here to ask for your help. I need your life device.” “What for? It’s not even finished yet. Look, dude, you don’t even have any money. You need to get it soon; otherwise, I’ll have to give this to the government soon. And it’s not a life device. It’s a life analyzer.”

“I see…” Mephiles cocked his head to one side. “Can you lend it to me, then? I kindly ask you for permission. If you do not accept right now, you will suffer dire consequences.” “The answer is still no. Besides, I already told you it’s not-“Too late. Mephiles had lost his temper and he had shot the same killing light at Vincent that he had shot through Sonic’s stomach. The brown hedgehog cried in agony and pain. The blood splattered everywhere, and Mephiles ripped the machine out of place and disappeared.

I ran to help Vincent. Maybe his soul was still floating around. Maybe we could collect the chaos emeralds and… That’s not possible. We just have 3 chaos emeralds. They’re not enough to revive a person. I held the bleeding hedgehog in my hands. His blood slipped through my fingers. It was still warm. I frantically looked for a bandage or something similar. I found something and I rolled it across Vincent’s giant wound, and hoped it would work.

But it wouldn’t. I’m no doctor, but I knew that when a person’s blood stopped bleeding, coming out, that person would die instantly. And Vincent had stopped bleeding, and he had left rivers of blood on the floor. I had seen another one of these horrible things that life makes us see. Vincent had died.