FOR YOUR HEART-BOOM

Ch☆53

"Who are you? How do you know my name?" Shadow asked before slowly turning around to face the one, who dared to speak up behind him and his eyes widened in utter shock, whilst he dropped his jaw and stared at the weird lifeform in front of him. The lifeform happened to be a six-limbed floating starfish with a single eye in the center of it staring back at him, its pupil being slit and thus making the starfish look a little scary and demonic.
"Hmm... so, you do not remember me, I see," the starfish replied while rubbing its center with one of the long limbs while effortlessly floating in the air and even moving slightly around.
"Remember you? How could I? I have never seen you around," Shadow tilted his head to a side and crossed his arms, the shock leaving his body as quickly as it came to him.
"I was present in the laboratory, where you were created, Shadow. I remember you awakening and looking at Gerald and me," the alien starfish explained, bringing another wave of surprise to the hybrid.
"Wait- you know Gerald?" Shadow raised an eyebrow before frowning a little, as he tried to recall the memory. Once he remembered, his eyes widened.
"You're... the alien I caught a glimpse of?" he asked in astonishment.
"That's right," the starfish confirmed, but Shadow shook his head.
"I thought you were bigger," the hybrid stated in confusion.
"This is my little servant Eye, I completely control it through the hivemind, which you yourself should possess as well," the starfish continued and Shadow felt a little ridiculous at the moment. He is talking to a one-eyed floating starfish. What confused him further were the lifeform's words about his own person.
"What? What do you know about me?" he got slightly defensive and now it made sense to him, when he recalled the fact, that he has mind-link with Sonic.
"I know everything about you, Shadow. Why don't you come with me and discover the full truth about who you are?" the alien replied and pointed towards a certain area with one of the limbs. Shadow, still frustrated from the last night events, had to admit, that he indeed needs such research about himself and if this alien confirms to know everything about him, then he tended to trust him.
"Lead the way then," he nodded and let the starfish lead him through the jungle area towards the outskirts, where the biome was changing to a desert. And there he saw it, a round-shaped spaceship, which could fit maximally two people, the frame of it carrying the same color combination like both Shadow and the alien starfish. Shadow grinned a little, as he liked to see such sight and slowly approached it.
"Do you like it? I myself designed it to match who we are in our hearts," the starfish spoke up after noticing the expression on Shadow's face.
"We? What do you mean by that?" Shadow glanced at the starfish, who gently nudged him with his limbs, signalling to him to enter the spaceship.
"You will find out very soon, Shadow. Now hurry, before someone else sees us," the alien replied and himself entered the spaceship, followed by the confused hybrid, who sat in the cockpit of the spaceship and quickly learned how to use it, since he was naturally a fast-learner. Or he had some sort of hidden knowledge from his creation, who knows. Either way, he brought the vehicle to life and soon lifted it up to the air.
"Wow, this... this is amazing!" a wide smile grew across the hybrid's muzzle, for he got joyful and excited about pilotting a whole spaceship, despite how small it was.
"Don't lose focus, Shadow. Now, follow my lead, alright? Once you fly us to the space, you shall take a turn to the right and fly straight towards our home planet, Black Comet," the starfish tried to keep Shadow down to the ground, so he wouldn't go too wild with the happiness about pilotting a spaceship for the first time in his life. The hedgehog couldn't help himself but feel overjoyed about the fact, yet did his best to focus.
"Alright, sorry," he retorted shortly, forming a serious expression on his face he stepped onto a pedal and moved the spaceship towards the atmosphere in high velocity.
"SHEESH, SHADOW!" the starfish gripped the seat with all its six limbs tightly, trying its best to not lose the grip. Shadow slowed it down a bit and laughed in response.
"Well, for an alien you are surely a little scaredy-starfish," he teased his strange companion, making the starfish cross two of its limbs afterwards, whilst the single eye frowned.
"This isn't funny," the alien retorted and soon they both could see the blackness of the space, millions of stars flying or floating all around and planets slowly circling their respective suns. Shadow slowed the spaceship down even more, so he could take in the breathtaking view.
"Whoa...I.. I am in space," he whispered in a complete awe, his eyes sparkled and reflected all the beautiful space objects in their pupils, which dilated at the mesmerizing sight.
"Yeah, there are many worlds out there. You see the blue-green planet in the distance? That one is called Earth and apparently, there seem to be some sort of humanoid lifeforms, similar to what Gerald, Maria and the other humanoids were," the alien explained, whilst Shadow gladly listened to him, as he took in the sight of so many worlds existing out there. He had no idea, how big and wide the constantly expanding space actually was. And when he saw it, he was utterly mesmerized.
"Have you visited any of those worlds?" he asked curiously and looked at his companion.
"Some of them, yes. Most of them are pretty hostile, must I admit. Their atmospheres are uninhabitable," the alien replied, then snickered.
"However, this does not need to concern us at all, Shadow. Now come on, I want to properly see you and welcome you to your new home," he added, which confused and scared the hybrid to some extent, yet Shadow went along with it, as he wanted to know the full truth about himself and his creation. He followed the alien's lead and soon arrived to the Black Comet, which seemed to have a poisonous atmosphere.
"Don't worry, Shadow. Nothing bad will happen to you here, the planet will accept you, once you step your feet on its surface," the alien assured him, whilst Shadow carefully landed the spaceship to the instructed area, where there was the big alien leader himself, the one from Shadow's faint memory. The hybrid gasped in shock and opening the spaceship door he stepped out of it. As soon as his feet touched the ground, a black vines came out of it and swirled around Shadow's body, keeping him in spot for a moment. Shadow panicked and got defensive, wanting to cut the vines in half and free himself from their grip, but to no avail, he found himself nearly paralyzed!
"Hey! Did you lie to me?!" he yelled at the alien in front of him.
"Stay still, Shadow, the vines are not supposed to trap you, the planet is gathering informations about your DNA, so it could accept you as its new inhabitant," the big alien elaborated, trying to calm the hybrid down.
"If you say so," Shadow sighed in resignation and waited for the vines to do their job, before they indeed let go of him and retracted back to the ground.
"And if I weren't the right inhabitant for it?" he then raised a brow while fixing the sea-shell bracelet Sonic gave to him. He kept wearing it all the time.
"The atmosphere itself would already start suffocating you. And if you were still alive while getting to the surface, the vines would poison you with the gas they release to your body," the alien explained and Shadow just nodded in understanding manner, not wanting to talk about this deadly planet any longer. He was lucky to somehow be the worthy inhabitant of it.
"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Black Doom, I am leader of our kind, Black Arms and also partially your father," Black Doom said in calm tone, but Shadow still widened his eyes in shock upon such discovery.
"My f-father?" the hedgehog stared at Black Doom in disbelief.
"Yes. Gerald wasn't the only single creator of you, for he needed an assistance. Once you were created, someone from the facility happened to be an impostor and spoiled the secret to the public society and they then banished me from the world, forbidding me to ever return," Black Doom explained the backstory to Shadow, so he could understand him better.
"I fell desparate and during my banishment I let our kind reproduce and thus inhabit this planet in an abundant number. Lastly, I never gave up on you, my son, I kept an eye on you for a while, but over time I lost the sight of you, so I started searching for you and finally, I found you again," Black Doom elaborated, taking Shadow's silence as a cue to keep talking.
"Those humans... they were scared of me, they.. called me terrible names and... wanted to hurt me and my family. But I never let them touch any of us, especially Maria," Shadow replied, getting bitter over the memories still fresh in his mind, despite it now being over 10 years, since that happened.
"They surely happen to be a very ungrateful lifeforms, since they had the cure for all deseases right in front of their noses. And they still dared to deem you as a monster and a threat to them," Doom scoffed in response while crossing his arms. His body consisted of a half upper torso and thus happened to have non-existent lower body, as he floated in the air like some sort of spirit or even a God.
"Because they didn't know me and didn't even try to understand me," Shadow gritted his teeth while clenching his fists.
"Precisely. If they want to, they would at least try to learn more about you in order to understand you better," Doom confirmed with a nod while looking down at Shadow with his three devillish eyes. Shadow now wondered, if he himself is going to have a third eye and only hoped, that this won't be the case for him, since he was still half mobian. He wasn't fully Black Arms, but not fully Mobian either.
"Tell me, f-father..? Is there more about my creation I should know of?" the hybrid asked curiously, finding it a bit odd to call this alien 'father' after just meeting him, but again, Black Doom was in contact with Gerald back then, so Shadow had a feeling, like he can trust him and have him as his sort of parent. The only remaining one, when Gerald was now long gone.
"There, in my base I have files about you. Gerald and I had a deal, that he will provide me every single information about you during my banishment, so I would still have part of you with me. After all, you have been created partially from my DNA, so I have all rights to know everything," Doom replied while pointing towards the building, which looked like a mixture of a cave and modern facility. Shadow also noticed, that the sky here was constantly crimson and to him it felt like some kind of hell dimension. He will probably take some time to get used to it, if he even plans to live here, that is. Black Doom took him here for some reason and Shadow understood that, yet he has his boyfriend back in Seaside Island to take care of and he would hate to leave him by permanently living here in the Black Comet.
"Let me see, I am ready," he spoke up after a while and followed Black Doom inside the said base, which looked much more technology-advanced and modern than Eggman's base for sure.