A Beast Unleashed (Open)

It has been several hours of the first day that the grey cat Avery has been awake, many things have happened to him that he doesn't yet know. For one, he's met Shadow the Hedgehog, one of the famous heroes that the world knows. Though, Avery is still in a bit of hard times, as his past is a mystery to him and most everyone that he's met, and he needs a place to sleep. It's night time now, and his feet can carrying only so far before he needs to rest.

Through the now quiet streets of Station Square, this cat roams slowly as the cold air attacks him. He hugs himself to stay warm in this weather, as so the other people that roam around through the night. Though this night is also no stranger to gangs, as many of them loiter through the alleys, planning what to do when day comes around again.

Two men come out of the shadows to interrupt Avery's progress to find a place to stay, and point at the freezing feline.

"Yo, we know who you are. You're that brat that flattened Fire Rat's face to the ground!"

"And we know exactly what we're gonna do with you! You're not gonna be sleepin' in a bed tonight, but in the cold dirty ground!"

One of these men was someone that Avery has seen before, and tried to rough him up with somebody else. The other... he was new, saggy and has a massive odor about him, it was painful to look at. And Avery was not exactly liking the new sight and groaned, pushing his way passed the two saying.

"Yeah yeah... whatever you say ya weirdos."

After being pushed by a CAT and being called 'weirdos', the two had lit fires in their eyes, and went after Avery. Soon reaching him and kicking him down to his stomach. The sudden push from the two was unexpected, reaching out to grab the ground before it hit his face, only with it slamming his chest instead. One of men kicked the cat to it's back as the other one put his foot onto his chest and pressed down hard enough so that he couldn't breath right!

"'Weirdos'... Is that what you kids call the Flaming Rubber crew now? Is that what you want your grave to say?! HUH? You've got some nerve messing with us, I'd say that you want a death wish. Well, I guess teenagers like you are just BEGGING to get with people like us. Guess you're too STUPID to realize that, we're not letting children like you in, you're too WEAK! PATHETIC!"

Trying as hard as he could to get the man's foot off of him, Avery couldn't breath correctly with his chest being crushed like this. The words the other man was saying was just ticking him off. He hardly knows the guy and he's making assumptions from this?! What kind of psycho is this guy?!

"Well kid, you're gonna have a fiiiine trip down this HILL"

The man suddenly picks Avery up by the collar as the other man lets go with his foot, and tosses him down the hillside of the street, rolling through the grass until he hits a chain linked fence where he could stop and actually breathe. He got up, still taking breaths, glaring at the two men who were walking down the hill all casual like. This was just insulting, picking on someone who hasn't even seen the block of this city, let alone the world yet.

"Pah... Look at him Gonzo, can't even handle being thrown by little ol' me. You sure he flattened Fire Rat? He can't even walk straight, must be deaf AND blind!"

The man spat at the cat, sinckering in between as he looks from afar. The other person, by the name of Gonzo, just laughed when he heard what was said. Avery however, wasn't liking this at all. As he got angrier, slim white lines could be seen crawling up the back of his head and up from the base of his tail. He stepped forward and yelled as his tail snapped from side to side.

"And you must be a complete IDIOT for just goin up to me and being all 'I'm mr. great and you did something I didn't like!' because you're just a puppet who follows another idiot's orders all day long!"

At this, the man glared back at him and stepped forward as well. Gonzo... stepped back.

"And you're just a filthy little ball of fur that's been flushed down through the sewers that went up through even MORE filth! Seriously! When was the last time you had a BATH kid?!"

"OH! So being buried underground with no water when I just recently got up means that I've been forgetful?! You should see your stylist, since you're wearing something that was terrible in the eighties!"

"FISH BREATH"
"TYRANT"
"FILTHY TRASH"
"FASHION CRASHER"

"FRESH MEAT!"
The man pulled back his fist as he yelled, slamming it into the side of Avery's face and knocks him backwards. Avery held his face and arced his back to try and ignore the pain. Though at this point, the white lines had fulled in cased his head, making it look like it was a jumbled up cage of wires. Deep, almost possessed like growling was heard from him, as the man just spat at him and started to walk away.

"Pah, kid's weak, growling ain't gonna do you any good besides annoy me. You can just stay there in your weak state for all I care, you're nothing but a little pu-"

As soon as he turned back to mock even more, he was greeted with the cat suddenly charging at the man, flipping forward and kicking the man straight in the chest. He was sent flying backwards and into the hillside as dirt and dust flew from the crash. Avery was down on all fours, as if hunting for prey, his tail snapping back and forth as he continues to growl. His eyes aren't the same as they were before as his iris and pupils were gone!

He glared suddenly at Gonzo, who reacted by running away. But that wasn't enough for the poor man, as he was suddenly grabbed by the collar and thrown onto the ground back first. Avery looked at him with his blank eyes and suddenly stomped on Gonzo's chest extremely hard as he coughed up blood! Avery then grabbed Gonzo's arm and threw him at the man who tried to get up from the impact, making another cloud of dust funnel upwards.

Avery sudden gave a loud roar and ran on all fours backwards through the chain linked fence and into the park, anyone that got in his way was thrown to the side. The two that were left behind groaned in pain and attempted to leave their spot. Gonzo had a broken chest now. But what was the strangest thing was the lines on Avery's head and tail, they look so bizarre as there are so many of them. But, the bad news about this is, he wasn't exactly himself. Something was really off putting about this.

After several hours of searching and making virtually no progress, Shadow decided that the polluted water would have to wait until the next day. No doubt that diver that John was talking about was probably a sleep by now, and there was no use staying there all night anyway. Even the police, who had been guarding the base, had left and called it a night. Even though he didn't like the idea one bit, he had to admit that he couldn't do his best without a goodnight's rest. 

 So with that in mind, Shadow walked out of the base and into the beach once again. It seemed as though he made the right decision leaving Avery alone. He seemed like a really reasonable and laid back person, so maybe he wouldn't let things anger him too easily. Not only that, but maybe they have something in common and like to be alone. If Shadow kept following him like his... well shadow, no doubt that could get him angry, too. Yep. Shadow was convinced that he made the right decision.

 But then why did he get this weird feeling that something wasn't right? That something really horrible was about to happen and if he didn't act, then Station Square would be in real danger really fast? Not only that, he also felt weird about leaving Avery alone, and that all of these sixth sense feelings were somehow connected with that.  

 While he was considering this, a loud roar could be heard by anyone who may still be out and about Station Square, or the beach Shadow was at. The striped hedgehog just happened to be in an area in between the city and the beach, and was in such an angle that he thought that he was imagining the sound. However, he soon realized that it wasn't his imagination when he heard people screaming in the city. 'What's going on?' he thought, running to the directions of the screaming.

 Too bad, because if he had just moved a little more in that direction, he would have seen the injured forms of the thugs that were stupid enough to get Avery angry to begin with. 

 Anyway, Shadow found the source of the screaming, and saw to his horror, a strangely familiar cat was behind it. This must be what John was talking about. Maybe leaving him alone wasn't such a good idea after all. And what was with all of those stripes? There was no way this could be the same Avery he had met a few hours ago, could it? Well, Shadow of all people should know better than that. People are rarely what they seem, and yet he still felt like this could be fixed. At this stage, he probably couldn't reason with Avery, but maybe he could find another way to stop him. Or at least give the citizens enough time to get out of there.

 Shadow ran in front of Avery, getting ready to punch him if he tried anything. "Avery! It's me Shadow. Remember? I saw you come out of the base back at the beach. Professor Lo is dead. Her plan for revenge is over, so let's just calm down, and I'll get help for you. I know people who can help you, so please, just snap out of it." He figured that this wasn't gonna be enough to fix anything, so he stood there, getting ready to punch the cat in the face if Avery decided to attack.

Many people that walked park in the night saw the terrible beast that Avery had become, he wasn't as chill anymore than what he was, instead he was acting like a wild animal, set on course of just sheer rage. People that got in his was was tossed to the side as they screamed, but weren't that badly hurt as those thugs that actually hurt him. It was strange to see something like this, the wild lines across his fur crossing one another as if channeling his nervous system.

Though when Shadow came into the picture and saw this, Avery's turned sharply towards the black hedgehog and got back into his pouncing position as if ready to kill Shadow if he did anything. His growling was still a demonic low, as he stared at Shadow with his pupil-less eyes. Though as he came to the end of his trying to get Avery to stop, Avery covered his eyes as if they stung, and roared an even louder roar than before, throwing his arms back and then lunging at the black hedgehog as something started to manifest in his hand.

Though with Shadow's ready stance to punch him away, he was knocked backward, flipping back onto all fours and shook his head. Though, that didn't even seem to make him flinch more or less just knock him backwards, as he instantly charged again at Shadow, this time a glowing fireball appeared in his hand and aimed straight at the black hedgehog. But as soon as it was there, it exploded right in his hands, sending him even farther backwards with a low growl of pain.

But even that he shook off like it was nothing, growling even more, his eyes were dead set on Shadow now, as if looking at small helpless prey. Back onto all fours he jumped at a tree, then to another, then back at Shadow with something in his hands, it was pitch black against the dark night, to it was hard to see what it was. But it looked like he was about to swing something straight down onto Shadow's head to cause some massive damage.

If Shadow manages to dodge this attack, the impact from whatever was in Avery's hand makes a crater with broken ground rising up slightly as the object seemed to be a pitch black war hammer. Though as soon as Avery saw that he missed, he picked it up and started to spin around, then throwing it in the direction of Shadow. If he acted quickly, he could duck under it as it broke the tree behind him.

Avery growls as he stares at Shadow with blank eyes, as if he was uncaring, cruel, even showing that he doesn't care that he will kill. That black hedgehog hurt him, and he was going to hurt him back even more.

(Do you mind if I jump in?) Shalina had decided that she might find any leads on her past sense she was there, my what a one-track mind does she have, she was sleeping near where the chaos was, she was alarmed as two roars were heard, she climbed to the top of the tree to find a grey cat with white stripes fight Shadow near her napping place, she decided to get to the trunk and try to help see what was happening with Shadow and that grey-and-white cat, she walked to Shadow on twos, "What going on?!" she asked with concern in her voice

Shadow flinched at the sound of the deep growl coming from the cat. Something told him that punching Avery in the face didn't really help him calm down. However, it did do what he intended, and that was distract him from the citizens. The black hedgehog gritted his teeth, glaring in the angry gaze of the cat he was facing. He also noticed the lack of eyes which made Shadow remember a dark figure facing one of the Metarex leaders. However, instead of having a bunch of stripes, that figure was just dark blue. In fact, so dark that it almost looked black.

 Sonic had been talked out of his dark form by Dr. Eggman, but this didn't seem like something he could just be convinced out of. Shadow was a fairly reasonable and logical person, so if he couldn't get Avery to stop, who could? Certainly not the strange Doctor. The only reason why it worked on Sonic was because the blue hero had enough control of himself. Sonic allowed the darkness to take over on purpose to begin with. But when Shadow was looking at Avery, he knew the cat was trapped. And Shadow knew that if he didn't snap him out of it, he would have to kill Avery.

 Just when he was getting ready to dodge the next attack, to Shadow's horror, a familiar lioness made it to the scene. He didn't really care to remember her name, but he knew that she was making a mistake by running right in there. "What are you doing?!" Shadow yelled, keeping an eye on Avery. At that moment, the cat aimed his attack, and Shadow knew that if he dodged, it would probably hit the lioness. So the black hedgehog did what he could to shove the cat out of the way, and jumped out of the way of the attack. 

 However, before he could get his bearings back, he felt a painfully hard object slam on his head and knock him over. Shadow snarled, getting up on his feet, and picking up the strange object, claiming it as his weapon now. Shadow cringed and placed a hand on an injured part of his head. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, so it didn't bother him as much as it could have if he was a human. He had to get the cat away from the humans. "You!" Shadow said, pointing at Shalina. "You have to stay out of this! This is between me and him." 

 Shadow slammed the somewhat heavy weapon on his hand before swinging it at the cat, purposefully missing just so he could grab the attention of Avery. "Come on! Come at me!" he said, with a small smirk. "You little weakling!" With that, Shadow started backing away, trying to lead the rampaging cat away from the people.

"What is wrong with that grey cat?!" Shalina rhetorically asked and began to think, while getting out of the way of attacks 'What do I do?! I gotta get help, but who do I call for help?! I could get police... No, too weak... I feel so helpless...! I've got it, I can distract the grey cat so the black hedgehog a get a hit in on the grey cat, okay, it's settled, but... I know...' she thought, she snickered and climbed a tree a distance from the tree she was in front of, she put her hands on her hips, turned around and shook her bottom while laughing in a taunting manner, she turned around and rasberried with her tongue sticking out

Completely blinded by rage, there was almost nothing to stop this rampage that had happened so suddenly. He didn't have a care in the world, almost acting like absolutely nothing was wrong even though he doesn't know what's going on in the world around him. And now here he is, fighting the Ultimate Lifeform as if he was nothing but a morsel with legs.

Almost everything about him right now is animal like, his stance now usually on all fours getting ready to pounce, his tail snapping from side to side as the forked end sways with it, his very breathing was raspy and almost craving for something, attacking like nothing around him matters. It was all like an animal that was on a bloodlust, seeking to feast on its prey.

When the lioness came into play, Avery glared right at her, getting back into his pouncing position to lunge at her, thinking that she was working with Shadow. But then the black hedgehog swung the hammer that he threw at him, catching his attention as if he wants to hurt him more. The words that Shadow said echoed through his ears, making him growl fiercely, ignoring whatever the Lioness tried to accomplish in hoping to help, thinking that Shadow was working with the thugs that made him into this. Though, pushing his arm forward was the next reaction that Avery did, and at first nothing happened. Until noticing that the pitch black hammer faded away with a... Smoke smell.

Was that a part of the original project? Or was it just something he had before? It was unclear. But what was clear, was that he lunged at Shadow again chasing him like the prey that he saw he was. Trying again and again to attack him with his fists and legs, but most weren't coming close to how fast Shadow moved. But what was also noted was that he was incredibly fast for even a cat right now, not nearly as fast as some might think, but he could give the Olympic gold medal sprinter a run for their money.

Though, when they both were far enough away from anyone that could get hurt, Avery would attempt to attack Shadow off guard. His hand glew red with a fireball, though again, as soon as it was there, it exploded right on in hand and the blast itself sent him backwards. Clawing at the ground with another growl, he resumed trying to attack Shadow. Through a series of clawing, punching, kicking, and even using his tail to try and hit the Ultimate Lifeform.

All of these attacks had immense pressure with each, almost like a heavy weight boxer would dish out with their strongest hit. Though, right in the middle of attacking Shadow, he suddenly stops and grabs his head, shaking it violently as if he was hearing something extremely high pitched. He then threw back his arms and got into a batters stance, and in his hands formed the same hammer from before and swung at Shadow to attempt to send him flying.

But right after that, he grabbed his head again, like something was torturing him. Through in a matter of seconds afterwards, he threw back his arms again and gave a loud roar.

"Didn't work... I'll try again... But, why does he keep shaking his head... Maybe I could use that to my advantage sometime...?" Shalina thought to herself as she hopped to a new tree and looked straight at avery and pulled down the lower eyelid on her right eye and stuck out her tongue in a taunting manner and turned around, still looking at avery and still pulling her lower eyelid and spanked herself in a very taunting manner and laughed again in a taunting manner, "What's wrong, are you a big cat, or a big kitten, huh?!" she rhetorically asked avery and laughed again in a taunting manner while sitting at the edge of a stick at the edge of the tree she sat on

Shadow gave the lioness a look of bewilderment, a bead of sweat lingering on his left cheek. "Well, that's... not helping." Shadow said, with an unimpressed glare. After that, Shalina was put in the back burner of his mind. If she wanted to be crazy and get herself killed, that was fine, but then he would focus on saving other people that didn't make that choice. Shadow's eyes widened when the weapon seemed to disappear in a pillar of smoke. Or at least the smell of it. "What?!" he exclaimed, desperately looking for the weapon in confusion.

 Shadow growled, swiftly forgetting about the weapon, and focused on getting the cat out of the city. He ran fast enough to keep himself from getting mauled, but not too fast for the cat to lose him. The hedgehog was definitely impressed by the speed that Avery possessed, but he could still very well run away and be out of sight, leaving Avery without much hope of catching up. However, lucky for the grey Mobian, his intentions were quite different.  

 On the way there, Shadow heard another explosion that came from Avery's hand, and then stopped for a moment allowing the cat to gather his bearings and continue the chase. Unfortunately, the cat seemed to get more and more aggressive rather than reasonable with every past moment. 

 Once Shadow was satisfied with how far away they were, Shadow stopped moving forward and started running toward the cat, balling up a fist for another punch. However, it was blocked by a punch from Avery, and then the cat started punching so vigorously that Shadow had to focus on dodging rather than attacking. Toward the last bit of punches, Shadow started to get hit a lot, and the last punch knocked him down. However, the punches stopped when Avery started grabbing his head in pain, it seemed.

 Shadow was not very reactive until the hammer showed up, and then the black hedgehog flipped to his feet, and then the cat started grabbing his head again, letting out a roar. Shadow needed to stop this now. This could be his chance to do it. It was then that he heard Shalina, and it was clear by Shadow's expression that the lioness was really starting to get on his nerve. "Look, lady." he said, losing patience with her quickly. "I have this under control, and you aren't helping. You wanna help? Leave!" The black hedgehog pointed at the direction of the city, ignoring how the lioness may react to his harsh words.

 Shadow took the opportunity to keep Avery's attention on himself while getting him confused. He was hoping that the confusion would give him the opportunity to attack successfully. The black hedgehog ran around Avery, gradually building up speed until he was running at full speed hoping that Avery would ignore Shalina and continue to try and attack him.

Black hedgehog, brown lioness, black hedgehog, brown lioness. Both were as equally twisting the nerves of whatever Avery has become, and it was clear as Shadow began to run around and around him at full speed, almost causing a small tornado to start and carry him upwards. Though, being the one that's an animal, he did the first reaction to such a situation. Start to beat up the cause of it!

Though, with Shadow going as fast as he was, it was impossible to even touch the ultimate lifeform at this rate! Going around and around, making him dizzy and even more upset. Though, something else went through the speeding wind that Shadow was creating around him, the insults of the lioness. Having that be what caused him to become angry in the first place, it fed his anger even further as it would echo through his ears.

He's becoming sick of it all, everything that the Black Hedgehog was trying to do, harm it, insult it, make sure it will always fall back. And the lioness just adding insult to injury, making a fool of both herself and what monster Avery has become. It was all deafening to listen, to feel, to see. ...To break apart.

Sick of the wind that Shadow was making, putting his already burnt to a crisp hand down below him, igniting a fireball and then it exploding within the next few seconds with a loud boom, caused the ground below him to shatter and send him flying upwards. Then grabbing a piece of flying debris, used it to launch himself at the taunting Lioness, reaching out to grab her throat. Through, with the sudden push of wind that was still going on, was moved to the side and grabbed the tree branch she sat upon instead, snapping it from its socket of the tree.

Then once hitting the ground and tumbling back to his feet, the grey cat would charge at the now downed lioness and throw the branch he held in his claws towards her, with enough force to impale the ground she was on. Then moving onto Shadow, he grabbed a hold of the tree to spin around it, then launch himself again to the ultimate lifeform, yelling as he was about to attack him rapidly again. But... his yell was weak, as if in immense pain, but still holding the fieriness that was letting him go on.

Again and again, without hesitation, without remorse, the monster would attack Shadow. Though, with the expertize in fighting that Shadow had, it would lead to him being countered and sent flying back towards the nearest tree, slamming hard against it. Though, with a quick beat against it, he was back on all fours as if nothing phased him, growling ever so lowly towards the black hedgehog, studying what move he might make next. But with his current state, you clearly can see that he's in extreme pain, limping legs, shaking arms, slight blood coming from his nose and mouth, burnt gloves and shirt, he was in such pain, yet is brushing it off like it was yesterday's trash.

As Shalina was getting ready to hop from the branch, she was grumbling, "Just trying to help..." was what she grumbled before the cat jumped for her but just grabbed the branch she was sitting on, "Woah!" she shouted as she tumbled to the ground, she landed on her head and fell on her back, she was left extremely disorianted from the landing, in her mind, she flipped to her feet, ran up the trunk of the tree and hopped on to the grey cat's shoulders, but in reality, she quickly scrambled to her feet, and stumbled into a faceplant in the ground, she roared with pain as half her body got impaled into the ground she layed on by getting hit in the tail with the stick, she was close to rolling out the way when avery threw the stick at her but just barely missed her tailbone and hit the tail itself

Shadow's eyes widened, before he glared growling when the cat was able to escape his little vortex that he was creating. Not to mention that the lioness managed to get herself injured. That part was hardly his fault or his concern since she was the one who was foolish enough to get involved. If the lioness had just heeded his warning and walked away, she wouldn't have gotten hurt. Because of this fact, Shadow didn't really go out of his way to help her. Shalina was getting Avery distracted somewhat too, and if she wanted to get involved in such an idiotic way, then who was he to stop her from killing herself.

 His attention was still brought back to Avery when the cat's attention was brought back the the hedgehog. Shadow could tell that Avery was starting to lose his grip on the situation, which was only bound to happen when someone wasn't in control of their own actions, but the red eyed hedgehog could tell that it would take a lot more than this to take the grey cat down. Shadow had to admit that it had been a long time since he fought for this long, and though he was long from quitting, and not anywhere near the condition that Avery was in, he still found this a tiny bit tiring. He knew that if he had at least one Chaos Emerald with him, this battle would have been over by now, but as far as he could tell, there was no emerald in sight.

 For the current situation, though, Shadow thought that he was doing pretty well without one. Maybe he could use this experience to better himself for the next time he fights Sonic. However, for now, Shadow needed to focus on what was really important. Shadow dodged a good amount of the attacks, but was smacked in the face once or twice, which caused him to get mad and used homing attack, aiming for the cat's abdomen. He sent him flying backward somehow, and Avery's slamming into the tree gave Shadow an idea. In a flash, he used the tree he was closest to as a back boards, launching him him at Avery, then purposely going over the cat's head.

 He cloaked himself in the trees, jumping out and over Avery trying to keep him on edge. This went on for a few seconds until Shadow jumped, and used his jet shoes to propel himself toward the cat. The hedgehog balled up a fist, launching a punch at Avery's face, ending up being cloaked by more trees whether he hit the cat or not. He was hoping that the annoying lioness would be smart and stay out of the way, because she would end up answering to him if she didn't.

The hedgehog was thinking about something, and it suddenly came at him as Shadow launched off a tree towards the one that Avery stood under, then going around, jumping to one and another. Avery swiped at the hedgehog, growling with was little voice he had left. Then, with a sudden burst from the hover shoes heard, he turns around to counteract the punch with another, sending them both backwards.

However, that was a part of Shadow's plan as he kept being cloaked in the leaves, causing the monster turned cat to growl and frantically turn towards every tree. Then, having enough games of hide-and-seek, brought out another pitch black hammer and swung it towards the trees, shaking them to see which one held the hedgehog. But with every swing, the angrier he became, as every hit became harder and harder, almost snapping the last tree in half.

Though after that last hit, as he wound up for another swing, he suddenly stopped. The hammer he had faded away in his hands, as his eyes returned to his usual dark brown color. Though, his eyes soon were closed as he fell forward onto the ground, all beaten up. The lines that appeared on his fur disappeared from sight, and everything was calm again. The wind blew by as silence was overtaken at the intense fight, almost like it was waiting for the monster to return.

However, it was not, as Avery lays there, broken and bloody. All the pain that he had received through that fight was still on his body, but looking at it closer, it looked more serious than one would believe. Though, his body itself was extremely hot to the touch, almost burning even. The park was a mess, in dismay, with cracked trees and destroyed landscapes. It was almost a miracle that no one was killed with how he was reacting to the situation.

But was it him that was reacting? He acted more like an animal, than how a sensible person would. It was... terrifying to think about what he could do, if he were to reach his full potential. But, that would never happen... so long as he doesn't have this happen again.

Shalina simply shook it off, in fact, she hasn't felt more alive, she felt a big throb in her tail but other then that she was fine, she hid herself away in the cloak the trees, she decided to use the time to think of a game plan, she couldn't leave Shadow alone, that cat obviously had nearly as much strength to impale somebody into the ground with a stick, then an idea occured to her, that cat seemed to get shortly distracted once in a while, she dizzily went from tree to tree looking for something noisey to use, she quickly went back to the scene after her two minute search with just a pair of rocks to smack together, she hyped up all the energy in herself, she wanted to warn Shadow to cover his ears but didn't want the grey cat to hear her warning and throw off her plan, so she started gently started a tempo with the rocks and roared but not as loud as she could roar to give Shado a bit of a heads up, and after Shadow would hopefully get the message and after he'd cover his ears, she'd roar as loud as she could and bang the rocks as loud as she could in a attempt to disorient the grey cat but was quickly suprised and thrown off guard as Avery fell to the ground and his eyes returned to normal and his body was comepletely grey again, "What happened?" she pondered to herself, but she kept her guard up just in case

Shadow continued jumping from tree to tree, searching for an opportunity to strike again. However, that became really difficult when the grey monster cat started attacking his hiding spots, and before the opportunity was able to arose itself, Shadow found himself skidding to a halt on the heels of his feet. The black hedgehog avoided as many of the attacks that he could, noticing that with every swing, the attacks got stronger. 

 Unfortunately, one of the attacks managed to strike Shadow in the gut, causing him to slam spine first to the ground. The cat was rearing to strike Shadow again, which would have been devastating since the hedgehog wouldn't have been able to dodge what he didn't notice, and he was still too light headed to notice the attack coming. Fortunately for him, though, Avery was unable to use the last attack on Shadow since all of the hedgehog's efforts seemed to have taken it's tole on the cat. The lines all went away, and the cat's brown eyes returned, which was a great relief to the black hedgehog, causing him to give out a deep, relieved sigh.

 This relief was sadly short lived as Avery fell over on his face, causing Shadow to get up on his feet, grunting in pain, realizing fairly quickly how hard this battle had been on him. And this was with his inhibitor rings on. If this ever happened again, Shadow had to be sure to handle it, and make sure not to take the rings off no matter what. Now, though, the poor cat had injuries that needed tending to, and he needed to see that Avery got help. "Hey kid." Shadow said, painfully approaching the injured cat. "You okay? Get up." Shadow nudged him a little, but soon realized that the cat was unconscious. 

 At some point before that, the annoying lioness started roaring as loud as she possibly could, which hardly helped when the cat was already too weak to fight. The only thing it seemed to do in Shadow's perspective was cause an annoying ringing in his ears. "Gee thanks... That's just what I needed..." The already exhausted and irritated hedgehog growled sarcastically. "Look, I'm gonna take him to the hospital, and then I'm gonna come back and help clean up. Do whatever you want at your own risk, but if you get in my way, or mess anything else up, and I mean anything, I will not be easy on you, got that?" Shadow pointed a threatening finger at her before grabbing the grey cat and placed him over his shoulder, being careful of his own injuries, before running at the direction of the hospital. He wasn't running at full speed, but at a speed where his injuries wouldn't hurt that badly, and he would get to the hospital in a decent amount of time.

All the tensety that had built up in Shalina had simply vanished as she finnaly was able to relax, she felt it was adding insult to injury by the threatining finger point to her before Shadow left to take Avery to the hospital, she felt all alone, and stuck in her own little world and not able to be on a more regular level like other people, "Why am I so alone...? Like... Like I don't belong here? I always attract the wrong attention..." she pondered and sat on the branch, tears started running down her face, she sighed, "Why can't I be like normal kids?" she said to herself and looked at her tail, "My body hurts more then it bothers me, better start walking back to the city... Alone..." she said and hopped down from the tree and sadly walked toward the city, with a big frown and ears down, she never felt more alone in the world, 'Probably going to have to stay a few days in the hospital for my tail, throbing a bit. Barely feel it anyway.' she thought as she walked to town

...It was dark. Hardly a thing could be seen from the eyes of Avery, as he was carried away by Shadow after the fight of the unknown. He could feel the wind brush against his fur, it was about an hour since he last felt this wind, it felt gentle. Though, he could also feel that he was being slightly rushed towards something, the last thing he knew, he got punched in the face by a goon from an alley.

He groaned as he tried to awaken from his brief slumber, though as he did, his eyes shot open and his eyes shrunk. All the pain from before, every single scrape, cut, burn, bruise, and broken bones. They were all felt at one time, in an instant, and the pain was unbearable. He fell from Shadow's grasp as they were nearing the Hospital, landing on the cold hard concrete of the sidewalk.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! SON OF A-GAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

He grabbed a hold of his body, writhing in the pain that was suddenly brought to him like a flaming fire truck hitting him and carrying him away. He breathed in and out harshly, but the pain he felt wasn't letting him breath properly, his voice was raspy as he tries to get a grip on the pain and ignore it for as long as he could, but even that was hard as most of the injuries were caused by himself with exploding flames and his arm nearly shattering from that experience. Plus with all the force that it was forced to do, it was so badly damaged, that it would be years before he could even move it again.

Trying for him to even move wasn't even a good idea, as he lay on the ground in a fetal pose to try and comfort all the pain that was still lingering on. His eyes shut tightly to have a sense be not working so that his body can focus on the pain that was just suddenly there.

The hospital was close by, just a few more blocks away in fact, though with the screams of pain that the grey cat was having, it startled many of the residents around the area. Thinking that someone was being murdered or something, most of them ran outside, some even carrying a handgun to find what was happening. Even some of the counter workers over at the hospital looked outside their door to see what was going on.

The walk to the hospital was painful for the hedgehog, and it was clear that the night would still be long for him yet, but the faster he got Avery to the hospital, the faster he could get all the damages in the city taken care of. You know, if the city did turn out to need his assistance. It was clear that locating the hospital was easy. Hopefully there wasn't too much drama going on that day, because or else Shadow would need to sleep the next day out, or skip sleep all together. The latter wasn't the best idea, since he was already extremely tired from the previous fight, and if he had to fight again, it was easy to tell that he wouldn't cut it in his condition.

 However, things got harder when they were three blocks away from the hospital, and he heard Avery screaming again. This caused the hedgehog to flinch because he wasn't ready for another battle if the cat decided to get angry and try to attack him again. "Avery?" Shadow said turning around fast enough to cause him to regret that decision. "Ouch." he growled placing a hand on an injured rib from the last attack from the hammer. "Calm down. We're almost at the hospital." He panted, looking around at the people around him that started to gather. 

 "Excuse me." he said, panting tiredly, the injured ribs making it a little hard to breath. "This cat is Avery. He's hurt badly and he needs help. The hospital is only three blocks away. Can someone help me bring him over there?" Shadow was anticipating bringing the cat to the hospital himself, but it was only now that he noticed how much of a tole the battle against Avery had taken on him. 

 Shadow could tell that some people seemed to be concerned about his injuries too, but the hedgehog with stubbornness that rivaled Sonic's tried to force himself forward. "I just need to... sit for a few moments." He said, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, assuring the citizens that he was alright. The black hedgehog could see people running from the hospital, carefully placing the cat on a rolling bed, and ran away, with the majority of the people going after them. Shadow sighed in a small bit of relief, not noticing that his sight was starting to get blurry until every thing went black in a moment.

Shalina was about four blocks away as avery started screaming with pain, and as she walked closer and closer, her ears twitched more, she sheathed for a moment from her tail, she was tired, hurt, depressed, looked all ragged and slightly sore, she barely gave a passing glance at Shadow as she passed him on her way to the hospital, people did stare a bit as her tail was dragging along as fur made a  trail and she did have a bit of a limp in her legs in her step, she shortly entered the hospital and rung the bell on the desk

A flash of lights, many voices talking to one another, it was a panicked mess at the moment. Many people that had came out to see what the reason was for the screams of pain, then seeing the beat up cat with a beat up Shadow, they decided that something was going on and that they shouldn't interfere.

However, it was clear that both of them were in great pain, one man grabbed the cat as he kept trying to ignore the intense pain, and took him the rest of the way to the hospital where the nurse that was watching from afar took him the rest of the way, seeing the state that he was in.

Many of the people watched this in worry, wondering if they'll be alright. Those some were also concerned for Shadow, trying to get them to not worry about him. But then he blacked out, and fell over. Also concerned for him, a nearby woman picked up the passed out hedgehog and also took him to the nearby Hospital.

The place was extremely busy, now with two severally hurt mobians. They managed to have Avery stop trying to ignore the pain and have him sleep while the looked over his injuries. Though, with Shadow, he was simply resting on a bed in a nearby room. A few doctors knew him by how he could recover from most injuries fairly quick.

Though, at the entrance of the hospital, with Shalina ringing the bell that was there. One of the nurses that was at the desk looked up from their spot and then seeing Shalina, weak and slow.

"Oh, hello, what seems to be the problem? You look like you're in some pain, you alright? Anythingt hat needs to be treated?" the nurse would say as she looks over the desk and tries to see what the problem was with Shalina.

Shadow wasn't aware of anything that was going on after he blacked out. To tell the truth, he seemed to have awoken from it so quickly, in his perspective, that he didn't even know he blacked out. His red eyes flashed open after a quick scrunch of his face. They were halfway open at first, but as soon as he didn't recognize his surroundings, they widened for a few seconds until he remembered what happened. "Oh." he told himself, regaining his composure. "I must have blacked out." The black hedgehog looked around the room, shaking off his dizziness that he got from just waking up from a black out.

 That was a pretty big wound to his pride. Someone must have seen him faint and brought him to the hospital, a place that he'd entered many times when helping people, but he's never been a patient before himself. The grouchy hedgehog got up out of his bed, smirking when he noticed that the pain on his ribs along with all of his other injuries were gone. He thought about checking in on Avery, but then he considered the damage that had been done on the city.

 Well, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take a moment to check on Avery's progress. "What time is it anyway?" Shadow asked himself, looking at the digital clock on the desk next to his bed that he was previously resting on. 10:25 it said, but Shadow wasn't sure if it was am or pm. His room didn't exactly have a window. Must have been a low budget problem or something. Either way, it didn't really bother the hedgehog. The faster Shadow left, the more he could fix in the city.

 Shadow looked around to find a doctor that might know the condition of the grey cat, but things didn't seem that busy. There were people there, but things didn't seem busy in the hospital, or it was really late, and it was close to closing time. Again, not many windows, so Shadow couldn't really tell. "What are you doing out of bed?" One of the nurses asked in a scolding tone.

 Shadow rolled his eyes at her demanding appearance. "How's Avery doing?" Shadow asked instead of answering her question. The lady seemed confused, which caused Shadow to realize that the lady didn't know him by name. "That grey cat you brought in after screaming his head off from pain?" 

 Then the nurse nodded in understanding. "He still needs to stay here for quite a while yet. His injuries are so severe that he may never be able to use some of his limbs properly again. Or at least, it would be a miracle if he does." Shadow sighed, and it was hard to tell if it was because he felt sorry for Avery, or if he was relieved that he probably wouldn't be able to blow up like earlier for a long while at least. Probably a bit of both. 

 "You need more rest as well, sir." the nurse said out of nowhere. "There's no way that you're ready to leave. Did a doctor dismiss you yet?"

 Shadow rolled his eyes. "Look, obviously you have no idea who I am, so I'm not about to waste my time explaining myself to you. If you need me, I'll be cleaning up the city from the ruckus you obviously didn't notice." The nurse motioned to stop him, but before she had the chance,Shadow was shocked to see people screaming and running around the city in full chaos once again. What in the world? What was going on, and how did Shadow not notice it? Then the black hedgehog looked at the direction where the people were running away from, glaring at the center of the city. "Great. Like I needed another problem..." Shadow said, slapping his forehead.

Shalina quickly nodded at the nurses question, "Yeah, first off I think my tail might be fractured or broken, and it throbs a bit, and my legs hurt a bit, so yeah. Other then that, I'm fine." she said said as she tried to fix up some of her ragged fur, "And I will apoligize in advance for any mood swings or saying something mean, let's just say I haven't exactly had the best night in the world, and i'm tired." she said and yawned and streched her arms and rubbed her eye, which was now drooping, Shalina felt like she could just fall asleep right there right now, "And can I have something with caffine in it that isn't coffee, too, if you don't mind." she added in a tired tone