Diamond in the Sky

A Real Dirty Trick

From within the brush, Silver approaches Shadow and Rouge, with a menacing grin on his face.

"Morning Rouge, er, I mean, Mom. Eggman really walloped you yesterday. You should probably see a doctor about that gnarly broken wing. Let's head to the village, just you and me and find ya one."

Shadow finds Silver's tone to be quite odd but Rouge is ecstatic to get more one on one time with her baby boy.

"Sure sweetie, that's a great idea!"

"Do you even know how to get to the village, Silver?" Shadow asks.

"Sure sure, I asked that Sonic guy. He's in the other treehouse. Why don't you go make out with him? Come on, Mommy, dearest, let's go."

Rouge coos at being called Mommy, dearest but Shadow finds everything Silver just said to be very strange and frankly, completely out of character. Before he can process why Silver is acting so wonky, Silver and Rouge leave him. Shadow then zooms to Rouge's treehouse and opens the unlocked door. Annoyed, Sonic tosses and turns on the couch then throws a pillow at Shadow's face.

"What's with the early bird special?" he whines. "The sun just came up. Five more minutes!"

"Hmm," Shadow ponders, "hold that thought, Sonic."

Suspiciously Shadow hops over to his treehouse. There, Silver playfully sits on the counter, using his powers to entice Shadow's three cats to chase a leafy stick as it floats across the floor.

"Tah! Endless entertainment," he giggles.

"Silver, what are you doing here?" Shadow asks.

"Are you serious? Did you forget all about what happened last night? Really?!"

"No, it's not that. You and Rouge both just left for the village."

Perplexed Silver hops off the counter and informs Shadow...

"No we didn't, I've been in here, playing with your cats and eating your food."

Oh no! Shadow's eyes widen. He takes off!

Back with Rouge and the imposter. They venture into a secluded area of the jungle, where suddenly, a cage drops down and traps Rouge! Then, a very pompous Eggman floats above her on the Egg Mobile and laughs victoriously.

"Gotcha! What a sap! That was too easy! Though your Silver impression could have been better. Meh, oh well, you can fix it during phase two of my evil plan."

"Eggman?" gasps Rouge, "Silver's gonna cream you like he did Metal Sonic!"

To her bewilderment, Silver hops into the Egg Mobile beside Eggman and morphs into Steve, Eggman's shape-shifting robot double from another dimension.

"Suck it, Rouge! I'm Steve Eggman but you can call me Morpho and we played you like a fiddle! High five, my evil bro-reno!"

The two sly bat-nappers high five one another and chuckle condescendingly in her face!