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The black hedgehog walked briskly along the edge of the jungle. Making sure to keep it on his right and the sounds of the sea on his left. His air shoes left interesting patterns in the sand. Shaz was going in what he assumed to be the northerly direction; his attention totally buried in the map he’d swiped from the natives he fled from the night before. His first goal of running across the water was to do just that, cut straight across... and now it was complete. He may have gone a little askew towards the north or the south, but at this point that small fact made no difference to him. It occurred to him, that maybe his communicator was capable of finding Nichol now that he was on the same side of the globe as the others. As he was fussing with the unit’s buttons, he heard a sound that seemed at first like a whining mosquito. Shadow snapped up his hand to snatch a dart right out of the air. He stopped and looked at the dart with an ear cocked back and his head tilted to one side. He twirled the dart around a few times in his fingertips to observe its craftsmanship. It was made of a reddish colored wood, and sported bright yellow feathers on one end, but other than that it held no other striking distinctions about it. His crimson-striped brow creased as he observed the object, and quickly brought up his hand to catch another one; dropping his map.

“Alright,” his deep voice called out. “Who is using me for target practice?”

Another two darts flew from the right, both of which Shadow caught just as easily as he did the first. He lined three of the darts up in the groves of his fingers and flung them back; nudging them with a touch of chaos energy for extra "oomph." He heard a startled yelp, and suddenly saw many pairs of eyes blinking back at him. At first he thought they were raccoons, or maybe even squirrels. But as they all stood up and aimed little straws in his direction, he realized they were neither.

“Oh bugger that! You have GOT to be kidding me…”

He bent to retrieve his dropped map, and a mass of darts flew off at once. None ever touched him. “Ha!” Shadow quipped, “You monkeys will have to do better’n that!” And suddenly, he was gone.

They looked around in genuine confusion until one fell— beaned in the head with a hefty clump of bananas. They all turned as one to look up. Shadow was perched calmly in a tree above them. With a grin he waved, and then with an unexpected burst of movement they all scrambled up after him a mass horde. Shadow’s eyes widened a little bit, and he scrambled to remove himself from his position. With a backflip, he flung himself down from the tree and whipped into a spin, hacking the tree off at the bottom. As his spines cut him clear of the fleshy wood; he pulled himself out of the spin, landed on one foot, used the remaining momentum to pivot on said foot, and kick with all his might at the loosened trunk. He thought he heard a dart whistle and lodge itself amongst his quills, but never felt it bite. The black hedgehog then cart-wheeled away as the tree came tumbling down, bringing chattering creatures down with it. Some screeched as they scrambled for cover, others shook their tiny fists in defiance, but most just plain screamed. Then for a moment it was suddenly silent again. Shadow smirked as he plucked a banana from the downed tree.

“Hmmph. Well, that was almost amusing…”

He strode away feeling rather proud of himself. And yet at the same time he scolded himself for not being more alert. He had to remember to thank Sonic for the lovely outing when he finally managed to find his, “brother.” Shadow peeled the banana and lifted it to his muzzle to take a bite only to find it sprouting feathers and darts on all sides. “Oh, come on!” he sighed tossing the fruit aside. Faces appeared on all sides of him, more than he cared to count. “Bloody hell!” He cursed; leaping into a spin. The black hedgehog took out a few more trees, and splintered something that felt larger than a simple dart. Was that a spear?! Great! Damn, it was!! When Shadow came out of his spin he didn’t even give his limbs time to contact the ground again. He was off! Swerving trees, jumping boulders, dodging falling or thrown objects. What the heck was with these critters?! They were everywhere! Every direction he took, more scurried out the jungle foliage.

At one point, Shadow’s escape route had him soaring across a river. Drawing his legs in tight, he allowed his body to plummet into the water as a spinning ball of quills. Given the nature of the situation; when he came up for air, the black hedgehog half-expected to be surrounded by long reptiles with lots of sharp teeth when he shook the water out of his eyes. What he got though was a shower of darts and other pointy objects. Igniting his shoes, Shadow leapt clear of the water before the missiles could hit, and hydro-planed his way along the river’s surface. Ears pricked forward in determination, he used its twisted path like a guideline; following it and trusting it to lead him away from the ocean and away from the strange squirrel-monkey things. Soon the noises around him became more forestly noises and Shadow slowed, thinking he’d finally lost them all miles behind. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw nothing behind him. But when he turned around again to see what was in front of him, he almost had to stuff his heart back down his throat. The river ended abruptly in a waterfall, and the hedgehog slammed his legs into a “locked” position as tried to brake himself into a stop. His feet skidded across some rocks and they went out from under him, causing him to land hard on his back and he slid right off the edge! He grasped for ledges, roots, rocks, vines… anything to halt his decent. Finally he caught a ropey vine, and it held for a moment. But his speed enhanced weight— combined with gravity, caused it to uproot most of itself along the rocks around the waterfall. He screamed as he continued to plummet, and then bit his own tongue as the vine suddenly pulled taunt, nearly jerking his arms right out of their sockets. Shadow swung there on the end of the vine; his grip slipping with the mist from the falling water. His pulse raced in his ears, and he nearly swooned when he dared to look down. When he looked back up, there were the monkey-things lining the top of the cliff, looking down.

Shadow rolled his eyes and rested his head against his vine, “Oh~ …this is just bloody peachy….”


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Artist’s Commentary ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This is a scene from an RP I have been playing on with that I’ve been wanting to put down on paper for a couple of years now. As you can see, it was almost as much, if not more, fun to write than it was to draw. I sketched it out before my Guatemala trip, worked on it some during the evening hours whilst I was there (a person can only stand writing in a journal for so many hours in a day,) and I of course finished it up when I got home. A good 90% of it is of course colored pencil, and the rest is acrylic paints…. Hmmm. I tried, but I don’t have much else to say about it. I can tell it’s getting to be 3am. Anywho… Enjoy.

Shadow the Hedgehog © SEGA (duh!)
Art and design tweaking is © (me)