Chaos Needs a Leash

Ch.1

Shadow was racing through a field. At random intervals, the lush green grass was spotted with flowers of every color, and even Shadow could say that he enjoyed the colorful flowers, or the wind blowing through his quills, despite his usual apathy towards almost everything. After all, it was one of the wonders of Mobius Shadow had wanted to experience up aboard the ARK. Shadow had learned to live with confinement, but he could say that he did not enjoy it. Even if admitting these facts just made him all the closer to his rival, Sonic the hedgehog (though Sonic can't stand confinement at all).

His train of thought was interrupted almost immediately, and for just a second, Shadow had felt that something was off. Not a moment later, his hover skates sputtered and subsequently died. He was glad that not another living soul was anywhere near him, for if anyone had seen what had happened next, he would never live it down. That was just another reason why he hated socializing with other lifeforms. Either way, what had happened had been completely embarrassing, after his skates stopped, he managed to face plant straight into the dirt, and unfortunately, smashed a blue flower in the process.

He tried to activate his skates once more, but they just weren't working, and that angered him to quite a degree. Shadow took a deep breath and reminded himself that he always brought a chaos emerald with him. By now it was not just a habit, but pure instinct. He reached into his quills and pulled out a chaos emerald, shining like a ruby, just like his own eyes. Something was wrong though. His breath was shaking, his inner chaos energy was in turmoil, and he could feel it. Without a proper grasp on his body's unique life force, he could feel himself getting slightly weak.

With a hoarse tone, Shadow shouted "Chaos control!" Grasping on to the emerald tightly as he did so. He waited, for anything to happen. He intended to teleport himself to Rouge's place, where he was currently staying, but nothing happened. Instead, his chaos energy was just put into a state of further turmoil. Like a collared dog with no leash. Contained, but with no proper handle.

At this point though, Shadow was beyond frustrated. The reality of the situation having set in by then. He couldn't teleport back, but, in addition, he couldn't even skate back at sonic speeds. All he could do was walk. He was far from where he was staying. Really far. He had a tendency, despite being very antisocial, to just wander around, not ever really noticing where was, yet he knew he could trust himself to be able to get back without losing direction. And, unfortunately, he realized, he was not even close to where he needed to go.

And so he set off walking. His face was still covered in dirt, and he had to walk miles, without the aid of his skates. He hated this situation. This was abysmal to him. He was the ultimate life form, and yet here he was, going his equivalent of a snail's pace. All while he could barely keep hold of his chaos energy. He knew he had to calm down, to put his emotionless mask back on, or else he would have to deal with, along with sheer absurdity of this situation, trying to contain his chaos energy fueled by how furious he felt.

His walk home took hours. A little over three to be exact. And by this point, the sun was hanging just a bit above the horizon. He reached up and turned the knob to the front door at Rouge's house. He had been staying here for quite awhile, for he had no other option for shelter, and the bat didn't seem to mind much. Maybe she wanted company, but he wouldn't really ever know. He could identify when someone was lying in a moments time, but understanding other's emotions was never really a talent of his.

He dropped on the couch and relaxed his muscles. He had been out since late morning, and actually felt tired. Of course, most of that was probably caused by his chaos energy being rather off for the past few hours. He could still feel the chaos in his body, and yet, he couldn't control it properly. He was still frustrated about it, but he could tell this only fueled the fire burning viciously within him. If he didn't find the cause of this and fix it soon, he himself would most likely be consumed by it. As the now uncontrolled chaos settled down, he couldn't help but notice something. Something was missing, and had been for awhile, he just couldn't tell what it was. It was like his chaos was missing order, or something to balance it out.