Love in its Winter (A Shadamy Story)

Chapter 4: When Shadows are saviors

After that morning, Shadow started... well, shadowing  Amy. He tries his best not to be noticed, but she does see him at times. While slightly disturbed at his behaviour, Amy is kind of touched that he actually does care for her. This is proven one day when a race is held in the Green Hill Zone, in Lost Valley. What with all of the dunes, sandfalls, and random terrain, it makes for quite an exciting racetrack. Amy decides to go, not as a competitor, but rather, just as a spectator. She wouldn't have chosen to go at all if she hadn't known that the rest of her friends were going as well. Interestingly, Shadow had applied to be a competitor, and had been accepted almost immediately. Amy had chosen to support Shadow in the race, rather than Sonic, seeing as Shadow was currently being a better friend to her than Sonic was.

Amy arrives in Lost Valley, and sees the competitors preparing to start. Of course, Sonic is being his usual cocky self, bragging about his speed and skills, and winking at just about every single woman he saw. What's worse is that Sonic knows that Amy is there, he actually saw her arrive. But still he acts like a complete ladies' man, which, unfortunately, he is. However, Sonic isn't the only one who is getting that kind of attention. Shadow stands off to the side, trying his best not to be noticed, but at least five girls are trying to get to him at the same time. When he notices this, he simply vanishes.

Amy looks around, and sees Tails, who is standing with Blaze, Silver, Knuckles and Rouge. When they notice Amy, Blaze, Silver and Tails all appear shocked, then happy. 
"Amy! It's good to see you! Are you feeling any better?" Silver is the first one to speak, and it warms Amy's heart to see them all caring about her so much.
"Hi, guys. Yeah, I'm feeling much better than before." Amy smiles as she says this, but she is still thinking about Shadow. Blaze notices that Amy's mind is elsewhere. 
"Amy, who helped you?" A look of puzzlement appears on Amy's face when blaze asks this.
"What do you mean? You guys helped me." Blaze shakes her head.
"We didn't do that much, Amy. There must have been someone else. Who was it?" Blaze presses.
Amy doesn't want to mention Shadow, and she has no idea what to say. Luckily for her, she is saved by the commentator announcing the start of the race.
"Alright, folks, let's get this thing started." The crowd falls mostly silent as he speaks. Blaze shoots Amy one more look before going to get a better view, with Silver following her. Tails follows soon after.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the 5th annual rep race!" The crowd starts to cheer loudly. Amy sees most of the racers standing to the side, waiting for the time when they will take their markers. curiously, Shadow is not there.
"I'm Flurry the Dog, and I'll be your commentator for this event. And now, its time to introduce the racers! First, we have Torque the Eagle!"
A cool-looking Eagle walks onto the track. He waves and grins, clearly happy to be here. He looks fast.
"Next, It's Arda the Cat!"
A black-furred cat girl walks onto the track, and blows a few kisses to the crowd. She looks even faster than Torque, who smiles warmly at Arda. She smiles back, clearly they are close.
"Next, Espio the Chameleon!" 
There is some murmuring as the well-known purple chameleon step calmly onto the track. Amy is surprised to see him; Espio is one of her friends, and a loyal member of Team Chaotix detective agency, alongside Charmy bee and Vector the crocodile, who Amy had noticed placing a bet on the race. Vector was a good guy, but he always wanted money, and had clearly forced Espio to take part in the race so that they could have a chance of winning some cash. Espio pays no attention to the crowd as he takes his place, instead calming himself to prepare. Amy had always envied and respected Espio's ability to keep himself together in any situation, and she wishes that she had that kind of calm inside her.
"Give a round of applause to Ferro the hedgehog!"
A blue-furred hedgehog girl walks onto the track with a mischievous smile on her face. She smiles at the crowd, waves and blows kisses. Then, she walks over to Arda and Torque, and takes her place in between them. The three of them are clearly close friends, and Amy feels slightly envious of Ferro having such good people to be around. Not that Amy's friends are bad, it's just that she wishes that she could have that kind of easy relationship. Ferro seems to have a permanently cheeky expression on her face as she smiles.
"Next, a warm welcome for Cable the fennec!" 
The cream-furred Fennec makes his way over to the track with a devious grin on his face. There isn't a lot of applause for him as he has a reputation for being a dirty player and a bad loser. He keeps glancing towards Ferro, then smirking to himself as if planning something. Ferro doesn't seem to notice this, as she is busy glancing at Espio.
"Alright, get ready for Sonic the hedgehog!"
The crowd explodes into applause and cheering as sonic saunters his way to the track. He takes his time presenting himself, winking, waving, smirking, and even bowing to the crowd. This goes on for such a long time that eventually, Flurry has to interrupt him.
"Ahem... Mister Sonic, could you please wrap it up and take your place?"
Sonic rolls his eyes and does as he is asked.
"And finally, we have... Shadow the hedgehog?"
The confusion is evident in his voice as Shadow slowly walks onto the track. There's quite a lot of murmuring from the crowd as he does so. However, Shadow ignores them all as he takes his place. Sonic, who is just next to Shadow, grins, and Amy is standing close enough to the track to hear him speak.
"Wassup, Edgy? Are you really sure you want to be here? Cos I'm not sure you can handle the shame of losing to me." Sonic smirks and chuckles. Even from where Amy is standing, the anger on Shadow's face is evident. Sonic turns away from Shadow and directs his attention to Ferro, who was pretending not to eavesdrop on them.
"Hey, what's going on?" He asks her, putting on his best flirting face.
"Your big ego, maybe." Sonic is surprised as her response, and Amy is glad to see someone who can completely ignore Sonic's ridiculous and inappropriate behaviour. Because he really shouldn't be picking up random girls like that.
"Hey, come on, don't be like that. You know, you're kinda hot." He winks at her.
"Then you'd better not touch me or I just might burn you." She says, smiling sweetly. Sonic has no idea how to respond to this, so he shuts up. At this moment, Flurry calls the competitors to get ready to begin.
"Alright, racers. Move to your markers and get ready to run."
All of the competitors take their spots and kneel on the ground, waiting for the signal.
"On your marks... Get set..."
All of the racers tense up as they wait for the final word.
"GO!"

 Almost all of them race off instantly, with Sonic and Shadow immediately ahead of everyone else. Curiously, Ferro did not run off at the same time. Instead, she waits for a few moments with her eyes closed, like she is concentrating. Then, her eyes snap open, electricity flickers over her entire body, and she literally explodes from the start line, running at at least twice the speed of the others. 

The race is a three-lap circuit, stretching through the Lost Valley. there are multiple different routes that the racers can take, such as through the parched palms, around the Sandy Slopes, and through cave systems that could crush you in sand.

The first lap is an exciting affair, as the screens around the crowd each display live footage of a single racer. Amy watches, transfixed, as Ferro blasts right past Cable, who curses as she does so. Ferro is then ambushed by Espio, who was running up ahead camouflaged. Sonic runs far, far ahead, until he makes a serious mistake; when the track splits into a fork, he opts for the left path, which turns out to be a trap leading directly into the quicksand sea. While Sonic struggles to get out of the trap, Shadow passes him, and is miles ahead by the time Sonic escapes. Sonic growls in frustration, before running off again. The second lap is a similar time, with sabotages and attacks and the whole works. But, at the very end of the race, something goes terribly wrong. Shadow is almost at the finish line, and Sonic is using his boosting power to catch up. Shadow speeds past Amy, followed by Sonic, who for some reason veers left, passing less than a metre away from Amy. A second later, the boom caused by Sonic breaking the sound barrier catches up, and it is so powerful, that Amy is flung off her feet. She screams as she flies through the air, and she starts to come back down again... she hits the ground hard, and slides and skids a long distance... Before finding herself in open air. Right over a huge chasm. She shuts her eyes as she falls, not wanting to see her death.

Shadow hears her scream about 5 seconds before he reaches the finish line, and it takes him less than 2 seconds to make the decision.
"Chaos Control!" Shadow shouts, vanishing in a flash of blue light.
Amy still falls with her eyes shut tight, the winds howling in her ears as she plummets to her doom. Then, there's a flash of light and someone almost crashes directly into her. Instead of colliding with her, though, she feels herself being gently taken into their arms. Opening her eyes, she is shocked to see Shadow holding her close. In that moment, Amy looks into his eyes, and for the first time ever, there's real warmth in them. Then there's a flash of blue light and the two of them are suddenly on the track, racing over the finish line. As soon as he can, not even acknowledging the fact that he just saved Amy and came last rather than winning, Shadow slows down and comes to a stop. Amy begins to feel sick, the world is starting to spin, she must have hit her head when she hit the ground hard.
"Sh... Shadow?" She asks, trying to focus on him, but she can't. the last thing she sees before she falls unconscious is Shadow looking into her eyes with concern and warmth.

Then everything goes dark.