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Rifted

Session 1-An Old Friend

Outside Night Babylon city

In a midnight sky, stars hid behind outstretching clouds, rivaling the moonlight. There was stillness in the atmosphere that seemed unbreakable; the serenity of the untouched landscape lay apart from the city miles away. Scattered trees refracted light on the forest floor, making slivers of shadows along the grassy earth. An autumn breeze gently whooshed at the long, sturdy branches, which created a near silent whistle among the otherwise absolute silence. Clouds parting, the moon and stars became clearly visible and dominant of the universal canvas.

Walking upon the plains was a lone ebony hedgehog, a silhouette of black against night. Even the blood red streaks in his quills blended in. Shadow let the breeze whip at him gently, raising his eyes to the night skies admiringly. The galaxy he grew up surrounded by seemed so untouchable on this planet, just as his purpose was so out of reach on the ARK. Barely visible, miles away, and forgotten by the people of this world was the revolutionary space colony. He smiled, knowing it would all be nothing more than a distant memory now. He stood there in the swaying grass, recalling the transpired events from months ago in his mind.

Before him was the gruesome, demonic beast. A gargoyle-like creature, with two separate heads. Its body, painted black and red, was rooted to a massive boulder it had upheaved from the earth below. Bat-like wings shadowed his face, acting as shields. The creature's deadly talons equated the elongated horns sprouting from its heads. Levitating in the air around him were destroyed buildings, cars, and masses of Earth, summoned by the creature's power. Shadow's fur blazed gold as he antagonized the being before him. His body had suffered slight bruising, blood trickling from the gashes. The battle had lasted well over two hours now, and both were unwilling to surrender. He was raring with hate, and the demon was likewise.

"I gave you life, and yet you defy me? So be it. You shall pay for your ingratitude with relentless pain!" the demon's voice had howled.

The hedgehog tightened his fists. Faster than sound, he sped towards the beast, dodging uprooted debris. Chaos lightning sparked in his hands, holding his menacing stare.

This monster...my bloodline? My...my father?

"CHAOS SPEAR!"

He sent the raw lightning flying into the monster's weak point-his eye. The demon roared in pain, lashing his massive claws out at him but to no avail, temporarily blinded. Shadow gritted his teeth in disgust that this hellish killer could be his relative, even to such the small point of it simply being shared DNA.

No. I refuse to believe it.

"Die along with these foolish humans!"

The beast's single eye glowed, and sent a damaged skyscraper hurling towards him. Caught off guard, his face slammed into the steel building, his body struggling to resist the chunks of concrete crushing him. He grunted in pain, using what stamina he had to raise himself against the inertia of the superstructure. All around him, pieces of glass and steel manufactures rained down. The building had undergone so much pressure from the atmosphere and violent thrusting that it was beginning to crumble apart. The golden hedgehog willed all his strength to slow the natural speed of the mass, his fingers painfully digging into shards of glass and metal. Shadow was holding the skyscraper inches away from his body, every drop of exertion he could muster preventing the mass from catapulting him to his compressed death. Black Doom's evil laughter rang endlessly in the aerial battleground.

"My son, defeated so easily? Pity, pity that you were so ignorant in your ways, so much that I had to destroy you."

A massive crack began to sever the building in half, and Shadow regarded the phenomenon as his chance for a comeback.

"You...!"

He shot up straight through the foundation of the building, empowered by hatred, completely disintegrating it of its former anatomy. He barely glanced at his achievement, now an agglomeration of concrete and steel colliding with the Earth below. He nonchalantly brushed the rubble off his glowing fur, smugly gleaming at his genetic father. Black Doom angrily growled, summoning another large mass of human architecture. However, the hedgehog was now solidly aware, rocketing full speed to close the distance he had just lost between the demon and he. Shadow could feel the energy tugging at him, the energy from the ancient gems flowing inside him like his blood-where in fact it was his blood. If Black Doom wished to play this way, he would do the same. A deathly red aura encompassed him as he called upon the mystic energy of the Chaos Emeralds.

"CHAOS BLAST!"

Hate inside him boiled in his veins, catalyzing the attack's immensity. His emotions directed his power, currently lusting for revenge. The incoming building disintegrated into nothing from the monumental blast. Nearby debris suffered the same fate. The devil was blown back from the gust of energy and fragments of metal piercing into his skin. Heat scorching like magma seemed to melt him from his skeleton. A sickened yell echoed in the deafening, dusty wind.

He's almost finished, Shadow thought to himself.

Anxious to finish the battle, he infuriatedly clicked his inhibitor rings off his wrists, letting them plummet to meet the debris below. He would retrieve them later.

"I will feel no sympathy for someone as evil as you."

With that, he torpedoed towards Black Doom, the inhibitor rings no longer containing his power. The hell demon was swiping his talons into the air, unable to fully focus with his blinded sight. Approaching the beast was no longer difficult, his connection with the Emeralds slipping by the second from Shadow's intense energy intake. The hell demon's form seemed to shimmer like a dying candle light, his energy waning every instant. Shadow unlashed the final blow with quick precision. The screams of pain rang like sirens. Shadow scoffed at the desperation in Black Doom's weak, final attacks to revive the dignity he would soon lose in death. He smirked, realizing he had bested the gruesome demon. The beast let out a last horrid yell of agony, thrashing around blindly, the floating debris stopping its levitation and hurtling to the ground. The sky rumbled as the ghastly devil fell to his demise.

Panting heavily and relaxing his muscles from the enduring onslaught, the black hedgehog smirked as his father died before him. The war of the Black Arms was finally over. A great barrier had just been broken, one that had lasted for fifty years, keeping him distant from the ones that cared, away from the purpose he was made for. Although exhausted and on the verge of unconsciousness, he still had one more thing to do. The Black Comet still sojourned in the midst of the ruined human habitat.

"This is the end to you, and the end to my cursed past." He solemnly declared to his dead procreator.

And with that he advanced at supersonic speed to the awaiting city below.

He had come out to the wilderness to escape everything after running from the annoying human media that now worshipped him. After he destroyed the massive Black Comet with the legendary Eclipse Cannon, the humans immortalized him in their history books, despite that he wanted to eliminate them murderously not too long ago. The behavior was a perfect example of their narrow-minded thought processes, and a reminder at how pointless it would be to waste his time with them. Their persistent complimenting and overawe agitated the midnight colored hedgehog to his limit, as to where he decided to abandon them completely. Lately, things had settled down from the Black Arms invasion. The humans no longer showed interest in capturing him for military purposes. It appeared that they thought better of the chance of another planet catastrophe and alternatively began to devise more lethal weapons, or, attempted to, for that matter.

He had been under the radar for quite some time, enough time he hoped for the humans to forget him. Day after day he had simply wandered the wilderness, fearing to exert too much energy without the stability of his lost inhibitor rings. In all the emotions stirring since the invasion, most important to him, he had found closure. It had seemed definite to him that the world was against him, that everyone wanted to manipulate him or destroy evidence of his existence. According to a certain someone, however, none of that would ever matter as long as she was by his side.

He was a loner with no future to aspire to,and no past to seek. In a cold world that the ebony hedgehog did not favor, there was one person he had subconsciously sought out after every episode of decadence, the one person that could ease the pain and loneliness he felt every day of his ageless life. In the back of his mind, he knew what everyone saw it as. He assured them, rather assertively, that the alliance was completely platonic, strictly for business. He would always hear their unconvinced laughter. But maybe it was just his conscious, the doubt in his own mind, telling him different. Clearly, he had no interest in such an effortful thing! But perhaps it was only clear to him as he pounded that belief in his own heart. Nonetheless, he had to come to a decision…

Come to a decision? Since when had he ever pondered the thought of visiting her? Normally he would just invite himself, leaving just as insolently. She never seemed to care after all. Even if he disregarded that problem, things had changed, and instead of an anti-social loner no one minded, or even a fugitive running from the law, he was now a welcomed hero. He had absolutely no interest in their paltry idolizations, nor would he feel obliged to encourage them by revealing himself after months of hiding. Then again, how could he allow himself to be indirectly controlled by their foolish behaviors? Eventually, this thought lodged in his ego, and his pride got the best of him. He looked away from the night sky, a shimmer of gold in the corner of his peripheral vision. There, suspended on the dead branches of an oak tree he vaguely remembered from months ago, were two rings.

"Ironic that I should find them here."

He gingerly took them from their landing site, setting them back onto his wrists in their rightful place. The inhibitor rings shone brighter, rejuvenating their owner with familiar strength. With one last look at his past home in the stars, Shadow took off in a blur of black.

Night Babylon, Club Rouge

Over the years, he had finally accustomed to Earth, and discovered how easy it was becoming to maneuver on its various terrains. From the window of the ARK, sided by his dearest friend Maria, Earth had appeared so vastly complicated, but Shadow maneuvered through the twilight forest with ease, the trees diminishing until he neared suburban territory. He picked up speed and found his way into the city of Night Babylon, a few minute commute with his acceleration, where few were out on the streets at an hour. The air smelled fresh of rain. The wet streets reflected colorful arrays of light from the city. The chill autumn breeze he had experienced in the forest was captured by the buildings. The air became still, and accompanied with Shadow's natural quietness, the world seemed to be silenced. Normally, this part of town was awake with partying and blaring music at night, and Shadow thought it strange for the city to be so uneventful.

He breezed down the sidewalk, glancing at the city's bright advertising signs. He had never truly understood why his friend could live in such a place, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how opposite they were from each other. Shadow preferred solitude and a quiet place to think, while she thrived on public attention, especially from men. True, their friendship was strange. From the beginning, things were never simple between them. Once two lone individuals working for their own ambition were now close comrades, rivals at times, but despite it always there for each other. The city's silence kept him alert, and he couldn't help but feel someone was following him.

This was unwise. he thought to himself.

The military wasn't exactly fond of him, and had occasionally attacked him simply out of their insecurity of his power. He knew there were GUN informers positioned in most big cities where crime was most likely to occur. Night Babylon, with its prominent gambling, was no exception. Tapping into his memory of the place, it did not take him long, and before he knew it he was standing in front of Club Rouge, the residence of his companion. It was late at night, but he knew her well enough to know she most likely would be awake. He thought of simply breaking in silently as he normally did, but something compelled him to knock.

Another strange action. He scolded to himself.

Time began to tick away, with Shadow growing impatient, being his normal indignant self. Without any elaboration, he positioned himself onto her roof, a place he usually went with thoughts on his mind, or an urge to be alone. The nocturnal view of Night Babylon was still the same as always-just the way he preferred it to be. He remembered how calm his life was when he resided here, then realized what always made him leave. His conflicting emotion would have to be put to the side for now; he had already traveled this far into human society. Below on ground level, he heard an unsure voice muffled on the other side of the door, finally responding.

"Who is it...I'm closed for the night..."

"Just an old friend is all." he called down from the roof.

The ebony hedgehog couldn't help but smile at hearing her voice again. Upon finishing his sentence the door swung open. Shadow unceremoniously jumped off the roof, landing right before the ivory bat. If she was scared out of her mind that a stranger had just landed out of nowhere in front of her, he wouldn't have known. He hardly had the chance to look upon her, for he was nearly knocked off his feet from her welcoming hug.

The fluttering motion in her heart ceased when sudden anger began to surface. She had heard so much from the media since the destruction of the Black Comet: Shadow possibly having a renowned hatred for mankind, him being so distant due another scandalous alliance with Eggman, scurrilous beliefs of him being responsible for unintellectual crimes. Seeing Shadow, her first instinct was that he had run into trouble, and needed her assistance. For the most part, after all, he was all business, and wasn't like him to show up for visits for the heck of it. Whatever the reason, he felt he had to do things on his own. Rarely did he ask for assistance, and even rarer that he thanked someone for it. Seldom, she wondered why he acquainted himself with her. The possibility of being used stung at the back of her thoughts, although there was always a stronger emotion to suppress that. Here he was now, after months of communicational lacking, at her doorstep.

Rouge the bat's brief anger subsided. The rarest smile of sentimentality came upon her face. It was like a recap of their past of singularity, an odd friendship molded straight from each other's trickery. Shadow, sheltered from conventionality and culture of this world, terrified of social interaction, had somehow befriended the seductive government agent, who loved to tease and provoke him, secretly wanting nothing more than a person to trust her. She tightened her grasp on the hedgehog and wandered off.

"Shadow you dumb ass..." she said in a relieved, inconsistent tone to her insult.

"Enough of this." He said to his comrade, trying to sound serious, but a smirk accompanied the response.